The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad

00:00:00.880 Hi everybody, this is Gatsad for the Sad Truth. Today I have Michal Cutler-Wunsch. I had to

00:00:06.800 practice that one or two times to get it right, but apparently my pronunciation is not too bad.

00:00:11.360 She is the Israeli Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism. That strikes me as a very,

00:00:18.700 very large job, and if she's able to actually succeed at that, then she should be booking 0.98

00:00:23.440 her trip to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. But short of that, bon courage,

00:00:28.060 as we say in French. She's also a lawyer by training, did an LLM, a master's in law at one

00:00:35.100 of my alma maters at McGill, and is now pursuing a PhD in issues that I've talked about often,

00:00:42.740 you know, freedom of speech and so on. Anything else you want to add quickly, Michal, before we

00:00:49.220 delve into some difficult subjects? Yeah, no, and just, you know, my hometown of Montreal,

00:00:55.860 my second home that I love so dearly, first home, second home, and I miss this season probably

00:01:01.600 most than any others, and there are days that, in this crazy reality, I miss them even more.

00:01:07.260 Yeah, I always scoff at someone who says they miss the seasons from the comfort of a warm place.

00:01:14.660 I understand that Israel is going through a very difficult period right now,

00:01:17.720 but, you know, someone who lives in Southern California should not utter such comments. Someone

00:01:24.040 who lives in Ra'anana, Israel should not, because winter is coming and it's going to befall me soon.

00:01:30.140 I know, I know. I remember it well. It's just the leaves, the foliage that I miss.

00:01:35.140 Very true. You're right. Okay, so maybe we could start with just an overview of

00:01:40.240 where we are in the current unfolding tragedy. Anything that you could tell us? You're currently in Israel,

00:01:45.880 correct? I am in Israel, Gad. Three of four of my children are currently enlisted

00:01:50.880 into the army, and it's very important for me that your listeners understand

00:01:56.240 there is not one home that is not enlisted, one family, one neighborhood, one city that has not

00:02:02.460 been impacted by what has befallen the State of Israel as the singular most tragic few days that

00:02:08.860 we've experienced, I think, in the history of the State of Israel, in this really existential war,

00:02:14.900 and, you know, it's really hard for Israelis to make that accessible because we have to continue.

00:02:20.220 It is our children on the front lines that we send to battle to protect our borders and our homes,

00:02:26.460 and so we have to remain resilient, and it is our younger children that are watching us,

00:02:33.240 and then we become that civil society, each one in whatever it is that they do, in the hospitals,

00:02:37.820 and in schools, and on the streets, and grocery stores, that enables the front lines, and what's more

00:02:44.520 important, I think, in this particular state of war that Israel is in, is that there is no differentiation

00:02:50.540 between the front line and what we would call, you know, home front. Everything has become the front line.

00:02:57.400 I'll share that at 6.30 in the morning on Shabbat morning, which was also Simchat Torah, 6.30 in the

00:03:02.940 morning, we were awakened by blaring sirens, and in sort of that Israeli resiliency, we said, well,

00:03:09.980 terror is not gonna, you know, stop us from going to celebrate Simchat Torah, and I remind us all that,

00:03:16.300 you know, in thousands of years of Jewish history, we didn't have a state to call our own. We didn't have

00:03:22.460 independence. We certainly didn't have an army that could defend our boundaries, our borders, and our

00:03:26.780 citizens, and so we went to synagogue to celebrate, and it was a very, very eerie feeling, 50 years after

00:03:35.380 the Yom Kippur War, when one by one, kids, husbands, wives, came to say goodbye to their families because

00:03:44.800 they'd been called up, and some people brought a phone, and some people didn't, and, you know, sort of

00:03:49.940 news creeps in, and by the time we were done our prayers, it was clear that something was unfolding

00:03:56.100 of a magnitude that we will not be able to even comprehend, and I just turned off the news in order

00:04:03.600 to speak to you, and only now the first real images are coming to Israelis who regard human life and

00:04:12.280 cherish human life at such value that the pictures are not shown in order to protect the dignity of the

00:04:19.700 dead, but what we were shown tonight is what happened in yeshuvim, in kibbutzim, that entire

00:04:27.140 families were burned in their own homes by Hamas genocidal terrorists that entered, that infiltrated

00:04:33.580 by air, by sea, by land, and it was hours before the army could get to them fighting these Hamas 0.77

00:04:39.860 terrorists. There are scenes that are too terrible to imagine, but not too terrible to have happened,

00:04:47.520 that occurred in the last few days, and more Israeli Jews were murdered in one single day than

00:04:56.880 in the entire history of the state of Israel, 75 years. So including all the previous wars, 48, 56,

00:05:04.320 67, 73, that was the the bloodiest day? The bloodiest day. Wow. The bloodiest day in Israel's history, God. 1.00

00:05:12.560 Hundreds murdered, butchered, maimed, raped, in ways that are awful. Babies ripped out of their parents' arms,

00:05:21.920 mother's arms, parents hiding 10-month-old twins in the electric cupboard, butchered to death, and the

00:05:29.900 babies found, maybe 48 hours later, crying, orphaned from their parents. A grandmother on her Facebook feed,

00:05:39.560 so that that's how her daughter and granddaughter saw her murdered terrorists, with no regard for 0.95

00:05:47.580 anything that we cherish and value in terms of life and liberty. The scenes are really awful, and the

00:05:56.380 idea that this happened in what is the Jewish nation state, sovereign Jewish nation state, whose borders

00:06:04.340 were infiltrated in this way, whose sovereignty was undermined in this way, war crimes and crimes

00:06:09.680 against humanity. I haven't even spoken about the hundreds that were abducted. We don't know if

00:06:14.100 they're dead or alive. We don't know where they are. There are citizens of foreign countries, Canada

00:06:19.840 included, the United States, Canada, Argentina, Germany. Some we know already are dead. Some we know

00:06:26.200 nothing about. A tragedy of a magnitude that it's important to me that I impress upon you. As I drove

00:06:33.820 my daughter back to her base tonight, there are checkpoints in the entrance of every city for

00:06:41.060 concern of infiltration of terrorists that are walking around the country, possibly in army uniforms that

00:06:46.040 they took off the soldiers that they butchered. And the entire country is at war.

00:06:55.500 Well, a couple of questions, a couple of threads I want to pursue. In Israel, there are, I think you'll

00:07:01.500 correct me if I'm wrong, roughly 20% non-Jews that are Israeli citizens. What from the very, I mean, 0.94

00:07:08.520 this just happened a few days ago, so everything is still very raw. But can you tell us about what's the

00:07:13.620 dynamic between fellow Israeli citizens, equal citizens, but who some might be Jewish, others who

00:07:21.220 may not? Do you get the sense that they are as angry and as revolted by this? Or do the typical

00:07:29.220 tribal lines manifest themselves as we might expect? So we have to remember that some of those

00:07:37.900 communities, for example, Druze, serve in Israel's army at a higher percentage rate than any other

00:07:43.000 community in this country. They are standing side by side with Jews fighting on the front lines and on

00:07:48.840 the home front command. There is no difference. And that's very important to remember. There are

00:07:53.780 Christian Arabs and there are Muslim Arabs that are enlisted into the military, volunteering,

00:07:59.380 fighting side by side. And we have to remember that. And we have to know that there are opportunities

00:08:05.880 for individuals to really stand together and band together, by the way, in grocery stores,

00:08:12.660 in hospitals, in pharmacies, in all of the emergency care that we receive. And there are

00:08:20.140 thousands in all of Israel's hospitals, where Jewish and Arab nurses and doctors and radiologists work

00:08:27.540 side by side by side. This is something that is not accessible to most people in the world and

00:08:33.500 probably incomprehensible to most. And it is something of a dissonance to Israel's own citizens.

00:08:41.760 I'd say that there is internal Arab leadership that is calling for clear rebuke, condemnation of what is

00:08:54.240 genocidal, barbaric, savage, murderous, anti-Semitic, unacceptable acts. And there are some clear

00:09:05.380 voices. There are some much less clear voices, including in Israel's Knesset, that are using this

00:09:12.300 opportunity to pounce on legitimating or finding reasons for, you know, accusing Israel of accusations

00:09:19.720 that not only fueled by, are fueled by, but fuel anti-Semitic hate, including outside of Israel,

00:09:28.120 for example, accusing Israel of apartheid and so on, falsely, obviously. But I would say that the

00:09:35.420 majority of citizens, when we look left and right, are standing side by side, united by the understanding.

00:09:43.760 And by the way, these genocidal terrorists, they didn't differentiate between who was standing in

00:09:50.340 their way. We know foreign citizens were taken, abducted, murdered, Thai citizens that were working 0.99

00:09:55.520 down south in agriculture. We know that they have no regard for any life. We know that they use their

00:10:02.380 own civilians as human shields as they hide beneath hospitals, beneath mosques, beneath schools. In fact, 0.75

00:10:08.860 the state of Israel has issued pleas for civilians to leave the areas in Gaza through a humanitarian

00:10:16.000 corridor and take shelter. And Hamas has actually issued statements barring them from doing so,

00:10:22.500 encouraging them not to do so, if you will, in much what we remember, although not many of our

00:10:28.640 listeners may know, but that's precisely what happened in what the Palestinians referred to as

00:10:32.640 the Nakba. So those that could leave, did not leave. Those that could choose sides between what we 0.89

00:10:39.480 now know, the entire world knows, is savagery, the likes of which, you know, 9-11 showed the United

00:10:46.740 States what ISIS was, and is sponsored by a genocidal terror regime in Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, many other

00:10:54.020 proxies. We realize now that, or I would hope we realize now, that that paradigm, that if we just

00:11:02.120 appease terror, maybe they'll play nice, we have to remember that terror does not play nice. And there

00:11:08.900 are no two sides to this equation, where when things turn around, and that very same genocidal terror

00:11:15.520 organization, without regard for human life, will use the pictures that will emerge from Gaza, because

00:11:21.220 they're preventing civilians from leaving. We have to remember that there is no moral equivalency

00:11:26.800 between a democratic country that not only has the right to, as everybody has given us the right to,

00:11:32.480 but has the duty and responsibility to defend her citizens and her borders as a sovereign country.

00:11:38.520 We're going to have to remember that in the coming days, that that paradigm is irrelevant. And the lines

00:11:43.200 in the quicksand are now between civilization, humanity, and a depraved, savage genocide.

00:11:51.220 Terror, terror, multi-organizations, of which Hamas is but one. 0.88

00:11:56.980 So two quick questions of perhaps, I mean, it's difficult to say failure, because you don't want

00:12:03.760 to put blame, but I've often heard in the last few days, for people asking me, well, what do you

00:12:09.520 think are the reasons why, you know, the, you know, the legendary, you know, information services

00:12:15.800 of Israel weren't able to pick that up? So let's quickly talk about that. Then I want to talk about

00:12:19.880 actually a more, a larger existential failure, if I can put it that way. What are you, are you able

00:12:26.860 to speak as to why this happened? Or is it the old story of, they just have to be on point once,

00:12:34.080 whereas we have to be correct 100% of the time. And so at some point, there's going to be a failure.

00:12:38.780 That's just the statistical reality of life.

00:12:41.420 So I think it's a combination of things, God, actually, thank you for that question. I'll say,

00:12:46.040 and this is really important, at the moment, most of us are not even going there in our minds. We are

00:12:53.100 fighting for our lives. We have children fighting for their lives, for our lives, protecting us. We

00:12:58.840 have reservists, as I said, in every home, and every home has received a knock at the door

00:13:04.020 to announce to the family that someone dear to them has been killed, murdered, bludgeoned to death,

00:13:11.520 abducted. So nobody at the moment in survival mode is really, at least those of us that are not in

00:13:19.160 political spheres, are allowing ourselves to even go there. And it's a very important piece. So we

00:13:24.540 first have to win this war. And then there will be many commissions of inquiry, the likes of which

00:13:31.200 post-Yom Kippur and we're 50 years after Yom Kippur, I think, you know, I don't like comparisons

00:13:37.240 because I think we make the mistake and, you know, sort of look at the future and look at the past

00:13:41.720 and think that that's what's happening in the present and prepare for the future based on the

00:13:44.960 past. Irrelevant, whole new set of facts. But the likes of which may very well prove to be a kind of

00:13:52.480 failure that we saw in the Yom Kippur war in the understanding and in the assessment of the

00:13:57.720 situation around us, perhaps even because of what I just said, because we look at the past rather

00:14:02.720 than learn from the past and identify the challenges of the present in order to, you know, that never

00:14:08.200 again prospect of commitment looks to the future. It doesn't look to the past. It learns from the past

00:14:12.660 but has to diagnose the challenges in the present. I will add one piece and that's from my many years,

00:14:20.460 not only as an MK, but before entering Knesset, actually of, I'd say, pleading the case of two

00:14:27.680 deceased soldiers and two civilians that have been held in Gaza for over nine years in standing

00:14:32.140 violation of international law and morality. We have two deceased soldiers, Hadar Golden and

00:14:36.900 Oron Shaul, and two civilians, actually, Avera Mengisto and Hashama Syed. And most people don't know

00:14:42.220 those names. And the reason is that they've been held in a nine plus year standing violation of

00:14:47.680 international law of resolution 2474 of any kind of laws of war that we know of, except that

00:14:55.040 they've been left there for over nine years. And what I mean by that is, you know, sometimes there

00:15:02.280 are paradigms in which we are trapped. And when I say that the paradigm collapsed, it's the paradigm

00:15:07.440 that I think that in many ways guided Israel's decision making. By the way, we're also 30 years

00:15:15.060 after Oslo in signing Oslo, right? That maybe we can just make peace. And after we just make peace,

00:15:21.860 we'll see what the terms or negotiate the terms of that peace agreement. And at the end of that,

00:15:27.360 we'll check if they actually recognize our right to exist. Well, that paradigm has collapsed. And that

00:15:34.200 paradigm has collapsed in such a way that I don't think that we can ever go back to it. And in many

00:15:40.040 ways, it's tragic that this is the cost of the paradigm in which I think decision makers and

00:15:46.100 perhaps military officials were in many ways trapped. Because imagine when you send people

00:15:52.640 to die, and you do so based on certain assumptions, and those assumptions prove to be so colossally wrong,

00:16:00.360 you are the last person that can let go of those faulty assumptions. Because the implication is that

00:16:06.000 you have sent people to die based on a false assumption. This false assumption, this paradigm

00:16:10.920 can no longer return. There are more people in Israel that understand it than ever before. 0.94

00:16:17.180 We've had moments where, you know, post Oslo, I think the Israeli sort of general public had a big

00:16:24.380 aha moment. This is a bigger aha moment. The understanding that anti-Semitism, that virulent,

00:16:31.640 toxic virus ever mutating from barring the individual Jew from an equal place in society to

00:16:38.500 barring the Jewish nation state to an equal from an equal place among the nations, the understanding 0.77

00:16:43.100 that that toxic anti-Semitism is the first sign, I'd say, that enables us to understand if whoever 0.88

00:16:50.960 it is that we're talking to negotiating peace recognizes our very right to exist as what we were

00:16:56.700 found it to be. The Jewish nation state of an indigenous people returned after millennia of

00:17:01.720 exile and persecution committed to equality. We can't skip over that part when we negotiate peace.

00:17:07.800 And the understanding that that virulent anti-Semitism rings those bells very loudly,

00:17:13.940 not just for the genocidal terrorist terrorist organization, savages that launched this war, 0.95

00:17:20.160 but actually across the board with anybody that the state of Israel ever seeks to negotiate the

00:17:27.580 terms of peace with. And actually, the Abraham Accords lent us an incredible lens on that. And I was,

00:17:33.240 you know, I'd say, honored enough to be a member of Knesset when we signed those Abraham Accords. 0.51

00:17:39.700 And what is historic about the Abraham Accords is that they have the potential, only the potential, 0.99

00:17:44.700 we have to realize the potential for it to actually be. They have the potential of flipping the paradigm

00:17:51.420 from the three no's of Khartoum that said, stipulated very quickly, very clearly, excuse me,

00:17:57.620 war after war after war were lost. And then in another war that was waged on the state of Israel's

00:18:03.000 very existence, this unconventional war for public opinion, the three no's of Khartoum said no to

00:18:08.700 recognition of Israel, no to negotiation with Israel, no to peace with Israel. Well, the Abraham Accords 0.96

00:18:13.840 and the pivot from rejectionism, annihilationism, rejection, denial of Jewish connection to this

00:18:21.700 land, the pivot from that rejectionism to normalization is anchored in this inherent

00:18:27.920 paradigmal shift to the three yeses. In that order, yes to recognition of Israel is what it was founded

00:18:34.460 to be, the nation state of the Jewish people. Yes to negotiation with that nation state and

00:18:40.320 ultimately paving the path to yes to peace. That paves the path for peace with all peoples,

00:18:44.700 including theoretically the Palestinians, but it can't possibly pave the path to whoever denies

00:18:49.500 any possibility of Jewish existence and, you know, the right to Jewish self-determination in the state

00:18:55.900 of Israel, to which, according to the current leadership of the Palestinians, Abu Mazen, not only is

00:19:01.600 he a Holocaust denier, but he denies any connection of Jews to the state of Israel. UNESCO just supported him 0.85

00:19:07.180 by declaring Jericho a Palestinian heritage site and the severance of any connection to this land

00:19:14.000 ultimately disenables any possibility of any kind of coexistence with any of the peoples in our

00:19:21.820 region. So a second issue that I was going to raise, which I guess you kind of touched upon when you

00:19:28.580 mentioned antisemitism, the informational war, I feel. So when you think about Israel, you think of the

00:19:35.560 courageous commandos, the fighters, you think about Mossad, you think about the things that the air

00:19:40.540 force pilots can do. But you never imagine that in the war of information, Israel is doing a good job. 0.63

00:19:48.900 And that's certainly been my estimation of things. As a professor of 30 years who navigates in the

00:19:54.720 ecosystem of the universities, I can assure you that the pro-Israel versus pro-Arab positions is very 0.59

00:20:04.280 lopsided. And so that the average person who would otherwise know nothing about the story

00:20:08.220 is very much going to be influenced positively towards the Palestinian cons and much less so

00:20:14.740 towards Israel. So, okay, so that's one issue. Secondly, on the issue of antisemitism, while it

00:20:20.680 might be true that the current crisis deals with the recognition of Israel and the ancestral rights of

00:20:28.200 the Jews to be in that land and so on, I think that the ultimate root of antisemitism, well, not I think,

00:20:33.900 I know. I come from Lebanon. Arabic is my mother tongue. So I could perhaps teach the Israelis one or

00:20:40.660 two things. The Jew hatred, Jew haters, in a sense, view Israel as a God-given thing because it now allows me 0.82

00:20:51.580 to channel my hate as a story of territory battle. Oh, I love the Jews. I just hate Zionists. But the reality 1.00

00:21:01.400 is that from everything that I've experienced in my life and everything that I know about all of the

00:21:07.780 ideologies at play, Israel could cease to exist tomorrow and the fundamental identifying hatred of

00:21:17.680 the Jews would remain with equal alacrity, with equal strength. So it's not a battle just as to whether

00:21:25.980 Jericho, there is a link of the Jews to Jericho. It's that the Jew is an existential problem and that 1.00

00:21:35.900 reality is rooted very deeply in theological doctrines. So now having said all this, you as the special

00:21:44.980 envoy of Israel to combat antisemitism, can you talk a bit about that?

00:21:52.540 Yeah. So I'll just share with you that in theory, I would love to be out of a job. And in practice,

00:21:58.840 we know that I'm in a growth industry. It makes me very sad. And I said to somebody not long ago,

00:22:06.620 I'm devastated to be appointed to this role. And I'm even more devastated to be joining a coalition

00:22:11.320 of special envoys for combating antisemitism, because they're necessary, because we see the

00:22:16.600 rise in antisemitism. And to touch upon some of the important points that you raised, God,

00:22:21.280 you know, 850,000 Jews from Arab lands in Iran.

00:22:27.080 I know where you're going with this. Yes, go ahead.

00:22:28.620 We understand very well that we're ethnically cleansed from those Arab lands and Iran, 1.00

00:22:34.180 for that very same reason that you're absolutely hitting upon and touching upon now. We know the

00:22:40.740 intersection between the Mufti and Nazism and Hitler. We understand very well that that historic 0.93

00:22:47.680 piece has not really gone away. In fact, it's part of the mutation. And here is the craziest part for me.

00:22:55.600 It's part of the mutation of antisemitism that intersects directly with what's regarded as

00:23:02.020 progress in the most liberal, self-defining, shouldn't call them liberal, because I believe

00:23:09.260 that they've actually co-opted and weaponized liberal values, which I'm a firm believer in. But in fact,

00:23:15.280 intersects with the same language and the same words in protests we see right now, responding to

00:23:22.480 this massacre and these genocidal murderers, supporting, legitimizing, justifying. And they

00:23:30.400 intersect at the craziest place, protests in New York and in Australia that are holding up the same

00:23:37.880 banners and the same signs and the same hashtags and the same memes, if we talk about social media,

00:23:42.980 because we haven't even talked about what happens in the social media age, but holding up the same

00:23:47.920 signs as those that we see in Ivy League universities. That's unbelievable. That intersection,

00:23:54.920 that moment in time, this historic junction and intersection, in many ways, I believe, actually

00:24:00.900 showcases where this is not just about Jews, and it's not just about Israel. This is about the

00:24:07.740 foundational principles of all those societies that cherish those foundational principles of life

00:24:13.280 and of liberty, all of those liberal values that they are, you know, entrusted and committed to

00:24:20.620 uphold, promote and protect. And so that intersection of what you've described as what we see from

00:24:26.980 systematic and systemic, if you will, radicalized Islam and the way that it has manifested in this

00:24:35.500 deep anti-Semitism, which I am sure was there in, you know, including in the Farhoud in Iraq, where my

00:24:43.620 grandfather is from. And what we see in New York City, and what we see at Harvard University, with the same

00:24:54.400 messaging, and here is the greatest irony, or maybe not, peddling the same message exactly as Soviet

00:25:03.400 propaganda of Zionism as racism, in 1975 UN resolution, of the 2001 Durban Conference Against

00:25:13.140 Racism turned an anti-Semitic hate fest that basically was, let's say, the first sort of grand

00:25:20.460 entry of Israel as an apartheid state that then led to Israel apartheid weeks on every single campus.

00:25:27.140 And it's that intersection that, to me, also doesn't only pose a challenge, but an opportunity

00:25:33.220 much like I spoke about in terms of the Abraham Accords. Look, I'm getting messages from Abraham 0.98

00:25:38.140 Accord from people in the Abraham Accords countries, and people that haven't joined the Abraham Accord

00:25:42.780 countries. Individuals that are leaning in and showing up and taking a stand. And by the way,

00:25:50.840 some of them are also exposing themselves on social media, which to me is an incredible show of

00:25:57.060 courage and of moral clarity, calling out very clearly this genocidal terrorism, and absolutely

00:26:05.820 denouncing the, I'd say, Islamic or jihadist anti-Semitic propellant of these massacres that

00:26:16.560 we've experienced in the last few days. In much the same way, I would argue that we have not only the

00:26:21.540 ability, but the responsibility to understand that what's happening on universities across North

00:26:27.660 America and the rest of the world, but across North America, because we're speaking and you're

00:26:31.400 sitting in Canada, actually undermines precisely what universities were meant to not only enable

00:26:40.240 students to reflect about, and through all kinds of processes, which we can get into a little bit of

00:26:44.760 my own doctoral dissertation on free speech on university campuses, and the idea of regulating speech

00:26:50.840 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,

00:27:35.500 but in a moment of opportunity.

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 0.84

00:27:49.120 to which the DNA fabric of the Middle East is built on Jew hatred. So in my two books ago, 0.84

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 1.00

00:28:29.100 the Jew, right? Everything is related to the Jew. Now, when you live within that society, 0.90

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 0.99

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. 1.00

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 0.98

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 1.00

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 1.00

00:29:41.800 horns if you just scratch. He's so diabolical that he could even hide those horns. So how could someone 0.99

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 0.96

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 0.98

00:33:29.120 double standard applied to the individual Jew. That is what has fueled, that is the mechanism that has 0.83

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 0.62

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 0.96

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. 0.98

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 0.91

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?

00:37:52.960 Exactly.

00:37:54.200 And if I say yes, then who do I think I am?

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 1.00

00:39:01.100 disappear.

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 1.00

00:39:26.200 of flesh. Except that Zionism, apart from the fact that it's 140 plus year national, progressive 0.92

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 0.56

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. 1.00

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 0.76

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, 0.87

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 0.89

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 0.55

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 0.93

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 0.71

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 0.92

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 1.00

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, 0.86

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. 1.00

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.

00:52:55.700 Thank you.

00:53:10.940 Bye.

00:53:15.260 Bye.

00:53:16.140 Bye.

00:53:16.480 Bye.

00:53:17.180 Bye.

00:53:17.240 Bye.

00:53:18.320 Bye.

00:53:19.280 Bye.

00:53:19.320 Bye.

00:53:19.500 Bye.

00:53:20.220 Bye.

00:53:20.480 Bye.

00:53:21.500 Bye.

00:53:22.080 Bye.

00:53:22.620 Bye.

00:53:22.780 Bye.

00:53:22.980 Bye.

00:53:23.540 Bye.

00:53:24.100 Bye.

00:53:24.140 Bye.

00:53:24.560 Bye.

00:53:24.640 Bye.

My Chat with Michal Cotler-Wunsh, Israel’s Envoy for Combatting Antisemitism (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_596)

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