My Chat with Michal Cotler-Wunsh, Israel’s Envoy for Combatting Antisemitism (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_596)
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Summary
Michal Cutler-Wunsch is the Israeli Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism. She is also a lawyer by training, did an LLM, a Master s in Law at one of my alma maters at McGill, and is now pursuing a PhD in issues that I ve talked about often: freedom of speech and anti-Semitism.
Transcript
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Hi everybody, this is Gatsad for the Sad Truth. Today I have Michal Cutler-Wunsch. I had to
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practice that one or two times to get it right, but apparently my pronunciation is not too bad.
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She is the Israeli Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism. That strikes me as a very,
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very large job, and if she's able to actually succeed at that, then she should be booking
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her trip to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. But short of that, bon courage,
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as we say in French. She's also a lawyer by training, did an LLM, a master's in law at one
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of my alma maters at McGill, and is now pursuing a PhD in issues that I've talked about often,
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you know, freedom of speech and so on. Anything else you want to add quickly, Michal, before we
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delve into some difficult subjects? Yeah, no, and just, you know, my hometown of Montreal,
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my second home that I love so dearly, first home, second home, and I miss this season probably
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most than any others, and there are days that, in this crazy reality, I miss them even more.
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Yeah, I always scoff at someone who says they miss the seasons from the comfort of a warm place.
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I understand that Israel is going through a very difficult period right now,
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but, you know, someone who lives in Southern California should not utter such comments. Someone
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who lives in Ra'anana, Israel should not, because winter is coming and it's going to befall me soon.
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I know, I know. I remember it well. It's just the leaves, the foliage that I miss.
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Very true. You're right. Okay, so maybe we could start with just an overview of
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where we are in the current unfolding tragedy. Anything that you could tell us? You're currently in Israel,
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correct? I am in Israel, Gad. Three of four of my children are currently enlisted
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into the army, and it's very important for me that your listeners understand
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there is not one home that is not enlisted, one family, one neighborhood, one city that has not
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been impacted by what has befallen the State of Israel as the singular most tragic few days that
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we've experienced, I think, in the history of the State of Israel, in this really existential war,
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and, you know, it's really hard for Israelis to make that accessible because we have to continue.
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It is our children on the front lines that we send to battle to protect our borders and our homes,
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and so we have to remain resilient, and it is our younger children that are watching us,
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and then we become that civil society, each one in whatever it is that they do, in the hospitals,
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and in schools, and on the streets, and grocery stores, that enables the front lines, and what's more
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important, I think, in this particular state of war that Israel is in, is that there is no differentiation
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between the front line and what we would call, you know, home front. Everything has become the front line.
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I'll share that at 6.30 in the morning on Shabbat morning, which was also Simchat Torah, 6.30 in the
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morning, we were awakened by blaring sirens, and in sort of that Israeli resiliency, we said, well,
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terror is not gonna, you know, stop us from going to celebrate Simchat Torah, and I remind us all that,
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you know, in thousands of years of Jewish history, we didn't have a state to call our own. We didn't have
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independence. We certainly didn't have an army that could defend our boundaries, our borders, and our
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citizens, and so we went to synagogue to celebrate, and it was a very, very eerie feeling, 50 years after
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the Yom Kippur War, when one by one, kids, husbands, wives, came to say goodbye to their families because
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they'd been called up, and some people brought a phone, and some people didn't, and, you know, sort of
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news creeps in, and by the time we were done our prayers, it was clear that something was unfolding
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of a magnitude that we will not be able to even comprehend, and I just turned off the news in order
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to speak to you, and only now the first real images are coming to Israelis who regard human life and
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cherish human life at such value that the pictures are not shown in order to protect the dignity of the
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dead, but what we were shown tonight is what happened in yeshuvim, in kibbutzim, that entire
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families were burned in their own homes by Hamas genocidal terrorists that entered, that infiltrated
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by air, by sea, by land, and it was hours before the army could get to them fighting these Hamas
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terrorists. There are scenes that are too terrible to imagine, but not too terrible to have happened,
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that occurred in the last few days, and more Israeli Jews were murdered in one single day than
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in the entire history of the state of Israel, 75 years. So including all the previous wars, 48, 56,
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67, 73, that was the the bloodiest day? The bloodiest day. Wow. The bloodiest day in Israel's history, God.
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Hundreds murdered, butchered, maimed, raped, in ways that are awful. Babies ripped out of their parents' arms,
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mother's arms, parents hiding 10-month-old twins in the electric cupboard, butchered to death, and the
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babies found, maybe 48 hours later, crying, orphaned from their parents. A grandmother on her Facebook feed,
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so that that's how her daughter and granddaughter saw her murdered terrorists, with no regard for
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anything that we cherish and value in terms of life and liberty. The scenes are really awful, and the
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idea that this happened in what is the Jewish nation state, sovereign Jewish nation state, whose borders
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were infiltrated in this way, whose sovereignty was undermined in this way, war crimes and crimes
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against humanity. I haven't even spoken about the hundreds that were abducted. We don't know if
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they're dead or alive. We don't know where they are. There are citizens of foreign countries, Canada
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included, the United States, Canada, Argentina, Germany. Some we know already are dead. Some we know
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nothing about. A tragedy of a magnitude that it's important to me that I impress upon you. As I drove
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my daughter back to her base tonight, there are checkpoints in the entrance of every city for
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concern of infiltration of terrorists that are walking around the country, possibly in army uniforms that
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they took off the soldiers that they butchered. And the entire country is at war.
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Well, a couple of questions, a couple of threads I want to pursue. In Israel, there are, I think you'll
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correct me if I'm wrong, roughly 20% non-Jews that are Israeli citizens. What from the very, I mean,
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this just happened a few days ago, so everything is still very raw. But can you tell us about what's the
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dynamic between fellow Israeli citizens, equal citizens, but who some might be Jewish, others who
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may not? Do you get the sense that they are as angry and as revolted by this? Or do the typical
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tribal lines manifest themselves as we might expect? So we have to remember that some of those
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communities, for example, Druze, serve in Israel's army at a higher percentage rate than any other
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community in this country. They are standing side by side with Jews fighting on the front lines and on
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the home front command. There is no difference. And that's very important to remember. There are
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Christian Arabs and there are Muslim Arabs that are enlisted into the military, volunteering,
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fighting side by side. And we have to remember that. And we have to know that there are opportunities
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for individuals to really stand together and band together, by the way, in grocery stores,
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in hospitals, in pharmacies, in all of the emergency care that we receive. And there are
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thousands in all of Israel's hospitals, where Jewish and Arab nurses and doctors and radiologists work
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side by side by side. This is something that is not accessible to most people in the world and
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probably incomprehensible to most. And it is something of a dissonance to Israel's own citizens.
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I'd say that there is internal Arab leadership that is calling for clear rebuke, condemnation of what is
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genocidal, barbaric, savage, murderous, anti-Semitic, unacceptable acts. And there are some clear
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voices. There are some much less clear voices, including in Israel's Knesset, that are using this
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opportunity to pounce on legitimating or finding reasons for, you know, accusing Israel of accusations
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that not only fueled by, are fueled by, but fuel anti-Semitic hate, including outside of Israel,
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for example, accusing Israel of apartheid and so on, falsely, obviously. But I would say that the
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majority of citizens, when we look left and right, are standing side by side, united by the understanding.
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And by the way, these genocidal terrorists, they didn't differentiate between who was standing in
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their way. We know foreign citizens were taken, abducted, murdered, Thai citizens that were working
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down south in agriculture. We know that they have no regard for any life. We know that they use their
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own civilians as human shields as they hide beneath hospitals, beneath mosques, beneath schools. In fact,
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the state of Israel has issued pleas for civilians to leave the areas in Gaza through a humanitarian
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corridor and take shelter. And Hamas has actually issued statements barring them from doing so,
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encouraging them not to do so, if you will, in much what we remember, although not many of our
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listeners may know, but that's precisely what happened in what the Palestinians referred to as
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the Nakba. So those that could leave, did not leave. Those that could choose sides between what we
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now know, the entire world knows, is savagery, the likes of which, you know, 9-11 showed the United
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States what ISIS was, and is sponsored by a genocidal terror regime in Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, many other
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proxies. We realize now that, or I would hope we realize now, that that paradigm, that if we just
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appease terror, maybe they'll play nice, we have to remember that terror does not play nice. And there
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are no two sides to this equation, where when things turn around, and that very same genocidal terror
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organization, without regard for human life, will use the pictures that will emerge from Gaza, because
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they're preventing civilians from leaving. We have to remember that there is no moral equivalency
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between a democratic country that not only has the right to, as everybody has given us the right to,
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but has the duty and responsibility to defend her citizens and her borders as a sovereign country.
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We're going to have to remember that in the coming days, that that paradigm is irrelevant. And the lines
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in the quicksand are now between civilization, humanity, and a depraved, savage genocide.
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Terror, terror, multi-organizations, of which Hamas is but one.
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So two quick questions of perhaps, I mean, it's difficult to say failure, because you don't want
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to put blame, but I've often heard in the last few days, for people asking me, well, what do you
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think are the reasons why, you know, the, you know, the legendary, you know, information services
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of Israel weren't able to pick that up? So let's quickly talk about that. Then I want to talk about
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actually a more, a larger existential failure, if I can put it that way. What are you, are you able
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to speak as to why this happened? Or is it the old story of, they just have to be on point once,
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whereas we have to be correct 100% of the time. And so at some point, there's going to be a failure.
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So I think it's a combination of things, God, actually, thank you for that question. I'll say,
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and this is really important, at the moment, most of us are not even going there in our minds. We are
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fighting for our lives. We have children fighting for their lives, for our lives, protecting us. We
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have reservists, as I said, in every home, and every home has received a knock at the door
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to announce to the family that someone dear to them has been killed, murdered, bludgeoned to death,
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abducted. So nobody at the moment in survival mode is really, at least those of us that are not in
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political spheres, are allowing ourselves to even go there. And it's a very important piece. So we
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first have to win this war. And then there will be many commissions of inquiry, the likes of which
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post-Yom Kippur and we're 50 years after Yom Kippur, I think, you know, I don't like comparisons
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because I think we make the mistake and, you know, sort of look at the future and look at the past
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and think that that's what's happening in the present and prepare for the future based on the
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past. Irrelevant, whole new set of facts. But the likes of which may very well prove to be a kind of
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failure that we saw in the Yom Kippur war in the understanding and in the assessment of the
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situation around us, perhaps even because of what I just said, because we look at the past rather
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than learn from the past and identify the challenges of the present in order to, you know, that never
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again prospect of commitment looks to the future. It doesn't look to the past. It learns from the past
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but has to diagnose the challenges in the present. I will add one piece and that's from my many years,
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not only as an MK, but before entering Knesset, actually of, I'd say, pleading the case of two
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deceased soldiers and two civilians that have been held in Gaza for over nine years in standing
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violation of international law and morality. We have two deceased soldiers, Hadar Golden and
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Oron Shaul, and two civilians, actually, Avera Mengisto and Hashama Syed. And most people don't know
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those names. And the reason is that they've been held in a nine plus year standing violation of
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international law of resolution 2474 of any kind of laws of war that we know of, except that
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they've been left there for over nine years. And what I mean by that is, you know, sometimes there
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are paradigms in which we are trapped. And when I say that the paradigm collapsed, it's the paradigm
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that I think that in many ways guided Israel's decision making. By the way, we're also 30 years
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after Oslo in signing Oslo, right? That maybe we can just make peace. And after we just make peace,
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we'll see what the terms or negotiate the terms of that peace agreement. And at the end of that,
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we'll check if they actually recognize our right to exist. Well, that paradigm has collapsed. And that
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paradigm has collapsed in such a way that I don't think that we can ever go back to it. And in many
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ways, it's tragic that this is the cost of the paradigm in which I think decision makers and
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perhaps military officials were in many ways trapped. Because imagine when you send people
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to die, and you do so based on certain assumptions, and those assumptions prove to be so colossally wrong,
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you are the last person that can let go of those faulty assumptions. Because the implication is that
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you have sent people to die based on a false assumption. This false assumption, this paradigm
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can no longer return. There are more people in Israel that understand it than ever before.
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We've had moments where, you know, post Oslo, I think the Israeli sort of general public had a big
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aha moment. This is a bigger aha moment. The understanding that anti-Semitism, that virulent,
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toxic virus ever mutating from barring the individual Jew from an equal place in society to
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barring the Jewish nation state to an equal from an equal place among the nations, the understanding
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that that toxic anti-Semitism is the first sign, I'd say, that enables us to understand if whoever
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it is that we're talking to negotiating peace recognizes our very right to exist as what we were
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found it to be. The Jewish nation state of an indigenous people returned after millennia of
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exile and persecution committed to equality. We can't skip over that part when we negotiate peace.
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And the understanding that that virulent anti-Semitism rings those bells very loudly,
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not just for the genocidal terrorist terrorist organization, savages that launched this war,
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but actually across the board with anybody that the state of Israel ever seeks to negotiate the
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terms of peace with. And actually, the Abraham Accords lent us an incredible lens on that. And I was,
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you know, I'd say, honored enough to be a member of Knesset when we signed those Abraham Accords.
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And what is historic about the Abraham Accords is that they have the potential, only the potential,
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we have to realize the potential for it to actually be. They have the potential of flipping the paradigm
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from the three no's of Khartoum that said, stipulated very quickly, very clearly, excuse me,
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war after war after war were lost. And then in another war that was waged on the state of Israel's
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very existence, this unconventional war for public opinion, the three no's of Khartoum said no to
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recognition of Israel, no to negotiation with Israel, no to peace with Israel. Well, the Abraham Accords
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and the pivot from rejectionism, annihilationism, rejection, denial of Jewish connection to this
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land, the pivot from that rejectionism to normalization is anchored in this inherent
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paradigmal shift to the three yeses. In that order, yes to recognition of Israel is what it was founded
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to be, the nation state of the Jewish people. Yes to negotiation with that nation state and
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ultimately paving the path to yes to peace. That paves the path for peace with all peoples,
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including theoretically the Palestinians, but it can't possibly pave the path to whoever denies
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any possibility of Jewish existence and, you know, the right to Jewish self-determination in the state
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of Israel, to which, according to the current leadership of the Palestinians, Abu Mazen, not only is
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he a Holocaust denier, but he denies any connection of Jews to the state of Israel. UNESCO just supported him
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by declaring Jericho a Palestinian heritage site and the severance of any connection to this land
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ultimately disenables any possibility of any kind of coexistence with any of the peoples in our
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region. So a second issue that I was going to raise, which I guess you kind of touched upon when you
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mentioned antisemitism, the informational war, I feel. So when you think about Israel, you think of the
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courageous commandos, the fighters, you think about Mossad, you think about the things that the air
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force pilots can do. But you never imagine that in the war of information, Israel is doing a good job.
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And that's certainly been my estimation of things. As a professor of 30 years who navigates in the
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ecosystem of the universities, I can assure you that the pro-Israel versus pro-Arab positions is very
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lopsided. And so that the average person who would otherwise know nothing about the story
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is very much going to be influenced positively towards the Palestinian cons and much less so
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towards Israel. So, okay, so that's one issue. Secondly, on the issue of antisemitism, while it
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might be true that the current crisis deals with the recognition of Israel and the ancestral rights of
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the Jews to be in that land and so on, I think that the ultimate root of antisemitism, well, not I think,
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I know. I come from Lebanon. Arabic is my mother tongue. So I could perhaps teach the Israelis one or
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two things. The Jew hatred, Jew haters, in a sense, view Israel as a God-given thing because it now allows me
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to channel my hate as a story of territory battle. Oh, I love the Jews. I just hate Zionists. But the reality
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is that from everything that I've experienced in my life and everything that I know about all of the
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ideologies at play, Israel could cease to exist tomorrow and the fundamental identifying hatred of
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the Jews would remain with equal alacrity, with equal strength. So it's not a battle just as to whether
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Jericho, there is a link of the Jews to Jericho. It's that the Jew is an existential problem and that
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reality is rooted very deeply in theological doctrines. So now having said all this, you as the special
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envoy of Israel to combat antisemitism, can you talk a bit about that?
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Yeah. So I'll just share with you that in theory, I would love to be out of a job. And in practice,
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we know that I'm in a growth industry. It makes me very sad. And I said to somebody not long ago,
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I'm devastated to be appointed to this role. And I'm even more devastated to be joining a coalition
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of special envoys for combating antisemitism, because they're necessary, because we see the
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rise in antisemitism. And to touch upon some of the important points that you raised, God,
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you know, 850,000 Jews from Arab lands in Iran.
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I know where you're going with this. Yes, go ahead.
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We understand very well that we're ethnically cleansed from those Arab lands and Iran,
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for that very same reason that you're absolutely hitting upon and touching upon now. We know the
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intersection between the Mufti and Nazism and Hitler. We understand very well that that historic
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piece has not really gone away. In fact, it's part of the mutation. And here is the craziest part for me.
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It's part of the mutation of antisemitism that intersects directly with what's regarded as
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progress in the most liberal, self-defining, shouldn't call them liberal, because I believe
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that they've actually co-opted and weaponized liberal values, which I'm a firm believer in. But in fact,
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intersects with the same language and the same words in protests we see right now, responding to
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this massacre and these genocidal murderers, supporting, legitimizing, justifying. And they
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intersect at the craziest place, protests in New York and in Australia that are holding up the same
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banners and the same signs and the same hashtags and the same memes, if we talk about social media,
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because we haven't even talked about what happens in the social media age, but holding up the same
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signs as those that we see in Ivy League universities. That's unbelievable. That intersection,
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that moment in time, this historic junction and intersection, in many ways, I believe, actually
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showcases where this is not just about Jews, and it's not just about Israel. This is about the
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foundational principles of all those societies that cherish those foundational principles of life
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and of liberty, all of those liberal values that they are, you know, entrusted and committed to
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uphold, promote and protect. And so that intersection of what you've described as what we see from
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systematic and systemic, if you will, radicalized Islam and the way that it has manifested in this
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deep anti-Semitism, which I am sure was there in, you know, including in the Farhoud in Iraq, where my
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grandfather is from. And what we see in New York City, and what we see at Harvard University, with the same
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messaging, and here is the greatest irony, or maybe not, peddling the same message exactly as Soviet
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propaganda of Zionism as racism, in 1975 UN resolution, of the 2001 Durban Conference Against
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Racism turned an anti-Semitic hate fest that basically was, let's say, the first sort of grand
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entry of Israel as an apartheid state that then led to Israel apartheid weeks on every single campus.
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And it's that intersection that, to me, also doesn't only pose a challenge, but an opportunity
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much like I spoke about in terms of the Abraham Accords. Look, I'm getting messages from Abraham
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Accord from people in the Abraham Accords countries, and people that haven't joined the Abraham Accord
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countries. Individuals that are leaning in and showing up and taking a stand. And by the way,
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some of them are also exposing themselves on social media, which to me is an incredible show of
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courage and of moral clarity, calling out very clearly this genocidal terrorism, and absolutely
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denouncing the, I'd say, Islamic or jihadist anti-Semitic propellant of these massacres that
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we've experienced in the last few days. In much the same way, I would argue that we have not only the
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ability, but the responsibility to understand that what's happening on universities across North
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America and the rest of the world, but across North America, because we're speaking and you're
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sitting in Canada, actually undermines precisely what universities were meant to not only enable
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students to reflect about, and through all kinds of processes, which we can get into a little bit of
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my own doctoral dissertation on free speech on university campuses, and the idea of regulating speech
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on university campuses and where that has taken us, the intersecting issues are so deep, that in many
00:26:59.560
ways, I think that this is a moment of reckoning for the entire free world, and for all societies,
00:27:08.900
even if they're not democratic, because I said, I've had, you know, messages and, you know, leaders from
00:27:15.740
countries of the Abraham Accords that may not be democracies, but are very much committed or trying
00:27:22.680
to commit themselves to principles of life and liberty and create a better future for their
00:27:30.240
children and grandchildren and see that as a priority. So we're not only in a moment of challenge,
00:27:36.800
You know, I don't, I mean, I've talked about this many, many times, but I truly don't think
00:27:42.840
that the average Westerner, unless they are, you know, a virulent anti-Semite, appreciates the extent
00:27:49.120
to which the DNA fabric of the Middle East is built on Jew hatred. So in my two books ago,
00:27:58.040
in The Parasitic Mind, in chapter one, where I talk about my background in Lebanon, I explained that
00:28:03.200
even in quote, progressive tolerant Lebanon, it's tolerant until it isn't, right? That's how it
00:28:08.920
always happens. You're healthy until you drop dead from a heart attack. So in progressive tolerant
00:28:14.860
Lebanon, everything was viewed through the prism of it's the fault of the Jews. It rained today,
00:28:22.580
damn Jews. It's too hot today, damn Jews. My wife cheated on me. Who put that idea in her head? It's
00:28:29.100
the Jew, right? Everything is related to the Jew. Now, when you live within that society,
00:28:35.900
often people don't monitor what they say, because first of all, they may not necessarily know that
00:28:41.800
you are Jewish. And so it's mainstream. It's so mainstream. It is so banal. It is, if you want
00:28:49.240
to insult someone, you say, well, what are you a Jew, right? So it's pervasive in the definition
00:28:56.420
of one's identity. For me to be X, I have to hate the Jew. It's part of the foundation of who I am.
00:29:04.260
Now, that doesn't mean that every member of those societies feels that. All of my friends were either
00:29:09.620
Christian or Muslim. I mean, of course, they were also Jewish friends, but most of them, given that
00:29:13.620
I grew up in Lebanon, were not Jewish and they were lovely. But the idea is, what's the zeitgeist?
00:29:20.080
What's going around in the air? What's permeating through every conversation? The damn Jew. It's
00:29:26.880
not the Israelis. It's the Jew, right? In Sydney right now, they didn't say gas the Israelis. They
00:29:33.860
said gas the Jews. So it's definitional. It's visceral. It defines my identity. The Jew does have
00:29:41.800
horns if you just scratch. He's so diabolical that he could even hide those horns. So how could someone
00:29:49.020
like you come in and say, all right, let's combat anti-Semitism, since it seems to be the most
00:29:56.220
eternal hate that exists in the history of mankind?
00:30:01.780
So, you know, Gad, the way I think about it is, how could someone like me not?
00:30:07.640
Because, you know, I mentioned before that as those sirens blared when we were celebrating
00:30:15.720
Simchat Torah. All Jews had for thousands of years was a book. By the time Simchat Torah made its way
00:30:26.220
around the world, all we had to celebrate was a book. We had no country, no independence,
00:30:35.500
no sovereignty, no ability to defend ourselves. I'm sitting here in the miracle that is the 75-year
00:30:44.540
young state of Israel. And you're sitting there in Canada. And I am sitting in a place that is at
00:30:51.780
the moment war-torn. And you're sitting in a place where we had the illusion of relative safety.
00:31:00.300
And maybe even in Canada, there could be a turning point where there won't be safety for Jews.
00:31:07.980
Well, before you go on, sorry to interrupt you. Please forgive me, because I'm going to support what
00:31:11.420
you just said. When my son now wants to go play at the soccer field. Hey, son, are you sure you want
00:31:19.200
to be wearing that Star of David? Number one. Number two, as this Israel-Hamas war was ramping up,
00:31:26.880
and, you know, I wasn't going to keep quiet, although I've received many threats in the past.
00:31:30.940
My wife said, are you sure, given where you work at university, you want to put that extra
00:31:36.600
safety stress on yourself? So, 21st century Canadian professor at a Canadian university
00:31:44.820
has to at least think about modulating what he says or thinks, lest they will come for me. Go on.
00:31:52.640
So, how could we not, God? How can we not, when we know what our people has endured for millennia,
00:32:01.140
when we understand, you know, I often speak of the IRA definition of anti-Semitism, the International
00:32:06.880
Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition, and why it is so critical if you're going to be able to
00:32:12.200
identify and combat anti-Semitism anywhere, at university, in cities, in countries, on social
00:32:17.160
media. Why is it critical? And why, as a result of a long democratic process, have 40 countries adopted
00:32:24.280
it, 40-plus countries, 1,000-plus entities adopted it? Now we can talk about implementation,
00:32:29.000
but an adoption is a first step. If you don't define that ever-mutating ancient hate that we
00:32:37.320
have just discussed, if you don't define it comprehensively, and you know, now everybody
00:32:41.720
knows how viruses mutate because we're post-COVID, you know that new strains develop. And you know
00:32:48.100
that actually, if you create some sort of a vaccine for the old strain, that's not going to work for the
00:32:54.460
new strain. The new strain will go viral, and it will take over, and it will, if you allow it to
00:33:00.860
fester and permeate your society, it will kill. And we have this new strain of anti-Semitism,
00:33:07.420
and it is identified in the IRA working definition of anti-Semitism as the demonization and the
00:33:12.740
delegitimization and double standards towards the state of Israel. Now, what does that say to us?
00:33:17.240
Exactly what you just shared with me about your experience as a young boy in Lebanon, the
00:33:22.620
dehumanization of the individual Jew, the delegitimization of the individual Jew, and the
00:33:29.120
double standard applied to the individual Jew. That is what has fueled, that is the mechanism that has
00:33:34.840
fueled and enabled anti-Semitism right through the ages, whether it was that we were targeted for our
00:33:39.820
religion, for our, when science was the guiding principle for our race, so to speak, according to
00:33:46.960
the Nazis, when nationality was the, you know, guiding principle, guiding nations for our nation-state
00:33:54.680
Israel. And I'll add one more piece, which is from my area sort of expertise and research. When human
00:34:01.500
rights became the secular religion, if you will, of our times, the guiding principle around which we
00:34:08.600
organize our conversations, when human rights became that religion of our times, then human
00:34:14.700
rights were co-opted and weaponized. And, you know, Robert Bernstein, who founded Human Rights Watch, he
00:34:19.640
couldn't believe his eyes after coming back and, you know, realizing that human rights with his
00:34:27.500
foundational principles were the only way to ensure the prospective commitment of never again.
00:34:33.740
never again, never again, not looking to the past, because you can't prevent the Holocaust, but never
00:34:39.840
again looking to the future. And when those human rights principles, institutions, organizations, including
00:34:46.060
his own, by the way, Human Rights Watch, were co-opted and weaponized to demonize, delegitimize, and apply
00:34:53.220
double standards, not to the individual Jew, to the Jewish nation-state. How convenient.
00:34:58.580
And we, as Jews, ourselves didn't recognize that mutation of anti-Semitism and allowed to sever
00:35:06.620
that understanding that as a people, it doesn't matter if it's the individual Jew or the Jewish
00:35:12.940
nation-state that's targeted, that's barred from an equal place, whether in society or in the family
00:35:17.860
of nations. Then this is a wake-up call for us as a people as well. But how can we not? And how can we
00:35:24.860
not? I have to quote the late Rabbi Sachs, who differentiated between hope and optimism in the
00:35:32.560
following way. He said, optimism is a very passive virtue, whereas hope is a very active one. It takes
00:35:40.020
no courage at all to be an optimist, but a great deal of courage to have hope. So active courage is
00:35:47.840
the only way that we can have hope, which is what has kept our people alive for thousands of years.
00:35:54.740
And I remind us, it's also the national anthem of our nation-state of Israel, Hatikvah. And so how can
00:36:00.800
we not? How can we, after our grandparents and great-grandparents, could have only dreamed that
00:36:07.740
we'd be sitting, having this conversation, me and Ranana Israel, under fire, and you in Canada and
00:36:13.740
Concordia, under a different kind of fire, in that war for public opinion? How can we not but fight
00:36:20.460
for the continuity and continued existence of our people? 15 million in the entire world. How can we
00:36:27.960
not? Do you feel that, so continuing with the, you know, the virus mutating analogy, do you feel that
00:36:34.400
in the same way that, you know, you could come up with a vaccine that eradicates a virus, you know,
00:36:40.960
say polio, do you feel, oh, I think, I believe by a Jewish scientist, right? So do you feel that
00:36:50.500
there could be, and again, notwithstanding the distinction between hope and optimism, so activate
00:36:57.220
whichever mechanism you need to activate, could we ever have a vaccine that removes antisemitism
00:37:06.280
from the ecosystem? Now, notwithstanding the fact that the human heart can be dark, and so there will
00:37:13.800
always be tribal strife, there will always be suspicion of the other, we are, we have evolved
00:37:21.540
the coalitional psychology where we view the world as red team versus blue team, so notwithstanding all
00:37:27.220
those caveats, is there a way that we can develop, of course, metaphorically, a vaccine where we take
00:37:35.320
antisemitism, where it's here, to in a hundred years, we'll look back and say, my god, we really,
00:37:40.880
we really resolved that malady of the soul, is this possible?
00:37:47.040
So, you ask me that, and then I think to myself, if I say no, then what am I doing?
00:37:56.680
And in many ways, I think it connects directly to your question to me, and my response in how
00:38:09.820
can I not. The understanding that we have a purpose, we have a role to play, and when Jews
00:38:17.780
understand that they have a role to play in humanity, and when we do it together, united,
00:38:24.340
then we, at the very least, have the possibility of diminishing, of identifying, of combating
00:38:35.980
that virulent, toxic, ever-mutating hatred of Jews.
00:38:43.020
Actually, if I had to tell you what concerns me most, it's when I have a speaking tour on,
00:38:49.220
you know, American campuses and law schools, and when I come to speak about antisemitism,
00:38:54.340
I met with Zionists not welcome by Jewish students who tell me, I wish Israel would
00:39:02.080
What concerns me the most, actually, is that when we don't understand our own identity,
00:39:08.440
by the way, in an age where everybody gets to self-define as what they choose, everybody
00:39:14.340
gets to self-define except for the Jew, or the Zionist.
00:39:18.460
So if you could just maybe, you could be a Jew, just like what you said before about
00:39:22.460
your own upbringing, you could be a Jew, but maybe you could just shed that Zionist pound
00:39:26.200
of flesh. Except that Zionism, apart from the fact that it's 140 plus year national, progressive
00:39:33.420
national liberation movement that enabled the return of this indigenous people to our ancestral
00:39:38.300
homeland, and so on and so on. Apart from that, it's also integral to the identity of every
00:39:43.700
Jew, whether you like it or not, because our ancestors prayed to return to Zion for thousands
00:39:48.980
of years, whether they were in Ethiopia or Lebanon, Iraq or Paris. That's what they prayed
00:39:54.820
to do to return to Zion. And I think that that is our DNA in many ways. And this makes me actually
00:40:03.200
so sad. And I mentioned the late Rabbi Sachs. This was probably the hardest conversations that
00:40:08.520
we would have were about this. It was about the idea of the differentiation of Rabbi Soloveitchik
00:40:15.760
between a covenant of destiny and a covenant of fate. And by that, I mean, can we as a people
00:40:23.620
only be defined by the outside virulent hate and reminded that we are united only by the enemies
00:40:33.000
of the Jew, whether it's the individual Jew or the Jewish nation state, or can we find a way in this
00:40:40.360
incredible historic moment in time, in which we have, I mean, it's a funny time to be saying this,
00:40:47.020
but a sovereign state of Israel, and relative safety and security, half of us here and half of us are in
00:40:53.980
the rest of the world. Can we find a way to opt in to our shared identity, to choose that identity?
00:41:02.240
We've never been at this intersection. So if you ask me, is there a possibility, then I have to look
00:41:09.140
at statistics and say, well, we've never been here before, here at this very moment in time,
00:41:15.180
in a 75-year young miracle that is a sovereign state of Israel, and with half of us in the rest
00:41:20.560
of the world in relative safety. Here we've never been before. Can we create that network? Because it
00:41:27.260
takes a network to beat one, and we sure have a network working against us. If we can connect that
00:41:32.200
network, maybe we stand a chance. Maybe we can, but we can't do it separately. And I have to say
00:41:41.180
that that mutation of anti-Semitism that has severed or enabled the severing of the connection
00:41:48.020
of Jews to that Zionist pound of flesh, if you will, which you can maybe shed and then not be regarded as
00:41:54.600
the other on your university campus or book club, which you can't join if you're a Zionist,
00:41:59.380
or march in the women's march, if you're a Zionist, even though all other women are welcome, or actually
00:42:06.420
be protected by diversity. Well, we can talk about this for hours, but I'd like to say equality and
00:42:11.580
not equity, because I think the two are very different. And I don't know how we moved from
00:42:15.060
equality to equity without noticing diversity, equality, and inclusion for everybody else,
00:42:21.000
except for the Jew slash Zionist slash supporter of the state of Israel.
00:42:26.560
So finish your point. I'm sorry, just to say that I have to have that hope, knowing that it takes
00:42:33.820
action and courage. So there are many ways by which one can try to implement small steps to try to
00:42:41.440
make the virus less virulent. So one of the ways I think, and it's not as though I'm teaching you
00:42:47.560
anything, I'm sure you're well aware of this, is that when you demystify the other through meaningful
00:42:53.120
interactions, suddenly you realize that the other doesn't actually have horns, they have the same
00:42:58.280
desires as you, and they have the same humor as you do. Now, in my case, I have seen it in on many,
00:43:04.380
many occasions, before I became someone, you know, in the public eye, because I was afforded the
00:43:11.080
fortune of being, having Arabic as my mother tongue. Therefore, I wasn't like those other Jews.
00:43:19.700
And therefore, that allowed me entry into people's hearts that otherwise might hate the Jew. And so
00:43:25.240
let me give you just a couple of stories that speak to this. So in 1990, when I first went to pursue my
00:43:32.380
PhD at Cornell, I became friends with a bunch of Arab students, because I'm Lebanese, and I had an
00:43:38.580
entry point to that social system, we would always hang out together, we'd play soccer together.
00:43:44.060
One of the gentlemen, about two, three weeks after I had gone to Cornell, asks me to meet for coffee,
00:43:51.480
a Muslim student from Lebanon. And okay, so we go for coffee. And then at one point, he looks at me,
00:43:59.560
sort of very pensive, and he goes, you know, God, I really, I really like you. And so I looked at him,
00:44:06.060
I said, why I'm not going to out of respect for him, although I'm not sure he's worthy of that
00:44:10.380
respect. I won't even mention his name, because someone might be watching and know who I'm talking
00:44:13.920
about. And I looked at him. And I said, Why do you say that as though you're surprised? Is it? Oh,
00:44:21.760
is it because I'm Jewish? He so he kind of paused, he goes, No, but come on, but God, you're not a Jew,
00:44:27.540
Jew. I said, No, no, I'm a Jew, Jew, Jew, Jew. He goes, No, no, come on, you know what I mean.
00:44:32.640
So the only way he could reconcile the hatred that he was exposed to straight out of the womb,
00:44:40.320
and the fact that here stood someone who really played soccer super well, was really fun, was
00:44:45.780
really warm, and really worthy of your respect and love, is to remove my real Jewish identity. So
00:44:53.860
this became known within the lore of my family as the Jew, Jew story, right? Because I wasn't a Jew,
00:44:59.580
Jew. So that allowed him at least to somewhat be inoculated against the virus. Second quick story,
00:45:08.200
and then I'll cede the floor to you. In my engagement in the public eye, I've met many
00:45:13.620
Muslims, some of whom are now critics of Islam. One of whom is Hamid Abd al-Samad. I don't know if
00:45:21.300
you know him. His dad is an Egyptian cleric, and then he left Islam, moved to Germany, became a
00:45:28.500
best-selling author. He's come on my show a few times, and then he came to Montreal to visit me,
00:45:34.020
and he said, Can we do, can we do, could you come on my show in Arabic? The show is called Sandu al-Islam,
00:45:40.920
which basically means the box of Islam. I said, Okay, let's do it in Arabic. So, so two quick points
00:45:46.980
there. First, as I went into the hotel's place where they were, there were tons of Muslim guys
00:45:52.800
there, who you could have thought could have all been there to decapitate me, because here's the
00:45:57.000
Yemeni, and here's the Saudi. They were all taking selfies with me, because we were now united in our
00:46:03.880
shared love of humanistic values and universal values. Plus, I was an Arabic speaker, plus the
00:46:10.180
conversation is in Arabic. So somehow that removed my Jew-Jew-ness. So is this moving forward something
00:46:17.940
that can help? You know, the guys in Gaza don't know that Michal is actually a really lovely person,
00:46:24.860
and she's got four kids. And I suspect that there are some Israelis, in all fairness,
00:46:30.580
that think that every Arab is a monster who has a suicide vest. Is this the way forward? Could it be
00:46:37.740
as simple as that? So, first of all, thank you for sharing those stories. I love them, because nothing
00:46:42.900
tells it like, like those anecdotal stories. And I'll just share one. After we signed the Abraham
00:46:49.320
Accords in 2020, I got to host the first delegation of influencers in Israel's Knesset, and it was the
00:46:55.700
third night of Hanukkah. And I walked around, I can send you a picture after, with fully garbed
00:47:02.800
influencers from the UAE and Bahrain and Egypt. Some there officially, some there unofficially,
00:47:09.400
some from countries that we still didn't sign the Abraham Accords with, but we're sort of feeling it
00:47:14.580
out. And I told them, as we lit candles for Hanukkah, that they were my Hanukkah miracle.
00:47:23.380
That they were my Hanukkah miracle that I will never forget. And I shared with them what I said before
00:47:29.720
about the flipped equation or the flipped paradigm from the three no's to the three yes's. And when I
00:47:36.260
said yes to recognition, yes to negotiation, yes to peace, one of them screamed out. And he reached out
00:47:42.640
to me today to share how devastated he is by the news. One of them said, we don't just recognize you,
00:47:50.620
we love you. Now, I'm a practicing Jew. They know who I am. They know that I observe Shabbat.
00:47:59.540
They know that I keep holidays. And I think that if we own our identity, and we're Juju's,
00:48:07.540
if we're Juju's, and you can like the Juju, then that is one incredible step forward. And then I'll add
00:48:14.860
to that, including my disappointment, because I didn't manage to make this work, that Israel has a
00:48:20.940
lot to still learn. And it's only 75 years young. It's why I insist on saying 75 years young. And
00:48:27.700
democracy is messy business, as we know. But for example, every single child in this country has
00:48:34.300
to know Arabic. We live in a region that speaks Arabic. It can't be that all of my children have
00:48:40.360
graduated high school, and don't speak Arabic. So one of the first things actually legislative
00:48:45.940
proposals that I tabled while I was in Parliament, was actually a compulsory Arabic study in every
00:48:52.420
single year. That's fantastic. I didn't know that. That's beautiful. And it has to happen. Now coming
00:48:56.880
from Quebec, we understand the importance. It's beyond language. We understand the importance. To see the
00:49:02.320
other, you actually have to be really, you have to be able to relate to them. It's about cultural
00:49:06.240
understanding. And it's about way beyond more than just being able to order a coffee. We both
00:49:10.760
understand that. And so I think that those are the things that we too still have to do. There is a lot
00:49:17.040
more of learning curve. And finally, that last sort of, through the anecdotes, ability to sort of touch
00:49:24.720
upon the important point you've made. My daughter, just a little over a year ago, was very badly burned.
00:49:30.180
She's a soldier now. She's enlisted to the army. She was very badly burned on a hike with friends.
00:49:34.380
And we ended up in the hospital for 10 days. And who was treating her was an Arab doctor. That's who
00:49:42.460
received her into Hadassah. Who was treating her were Arab nurses, right through, and ultra-Orthodox
00:49:50.220
Jewish nurses. And in many ways, when I tell people, you know, if you really want to know what's
00:49:56.220
happening in Israel, go to the ER. Just go to the emergency room. Do me a favor. Go to the emergency
00:50:02.620
room. And what ended up making my daughter cry after 10 days in the hospital was not the severe
00:50:08.260
pain that she was in, and not the terrible bandages that they had to keep taking off and apply.
00:50:13.720
But the thought that in the hospital, at our most vulnerable, everybody was treating everybody
00:50:21.320
in the same way. Doctors, nurses, orderlies. It didn't matter if you were a Jewish patient,
00:50:29.040
an Orthodox patient, a Muslim patient, a Christian patient. And that is the potential of the incredible,
00:50:37.360
and I really, I insist on it, miraculous everyday reality of Israel that you can only know when you
00:50:44.160
walk around. You walk around Jerusalem, you walk around malls, you walk around hospitals, just because
00:50:48.360
that's when we're at our most vulnerable. And only then you understand exactly what you've just
00:50:53.340
touched upon, of the imperative to know the other, to insist to know the other. And we're making
00:50:59.820
headways. It hasn't been easy, but there's consistent existential threatening moments of war that really
00:51:05.520
confuse things for regular people walking around the street, just trying to coexist. But we're making
00:51:12.160
headways, God. Well, first, let me say, I'm so sorry to hear about what happened to your daughter.
00:51:18.240
Is she out of the woods? Is she all good? He's okay. Thank you. Thank God. She's, this is over a year
00:51:22.660
ago, and she's fine functioning, has a big scar, which somebody told her men are going to find very
00:51:27.380
attractive. She shouldn't worry. Exactly. It shows that she's lived a life of richness. So that's good.
00:51:32.280
That's sexy. I just wanted to say that the person who connected us said that you are incredible,
00:51:38.520
and I need to speak to you. Boy, did she undersell you because you are truly a remarkable woman.
00:51:44.820
Of course, I could keep you here for another seven hours, but you probably have another 25,000 things
00:51:49.120
to do rather than sit and speak to some professor in Canada. But thank you so much for making time.
00:51:55.240
Please stay in touch. Bon courage, as we say in French, may hopefully one day it be the case that
00:52:02.420
you and I don't need to have this conversation because people recognize their shared humanity,
00:52:07.840
recognize that the Middle East has such a culture of richness, of hospitality, of all sorts of values
00:52:16.000
that if we can get rid of some of this tribal stuff, it would flourish in ways that are unimaginable.
00:52:21.440
And if you want to add anything else, otherwise, thank you so much for coming.
00:52:24.980
Just thank you. Really thank you for having this conversation. And just to ask that you keep us in
00:52:30.000
your thoughts and prayers in the coming days and weeks as things really challenge us beyond the pale.
00:52:35.900
And remember that, you know, we may seem like a tough bunch and very resilient because we have
00:52:41.400
to be. But we need you and all of you, whoever it is that's listening, to know that our shared
00:52:48.260
humanity is indeed what binds us together. Thank you, Michal. Stay on the line so we could say
00:52:52.740
goodbye officially offline. Cheers. Take care. Thank you.