When two people come into an interaction, judging one another as individuals, judging them by the totality of their merits and flaws, that's where you have the most enriching experiences. And yet, the sense of universal brotherhood and friendship was such that he did an outlandishly kind and generous act.
00:01:17.640I did want to mention very quickly, cause it's, it'll be relevant to today's discussion, something that happened, uh, during my, uh, trip to Alaska.
00:01:28.780Uh, we stopped at, uh, Sitka, which is a town that at one point was, uh, owned by Russia.
00:01:37.640Uh, and then the U S government bought her over and we started walking around.
00:01:41.920We ended up at this, uh, store that, you know, part art, part jewelry, started chatting to the folks in there.
00:01:51.720Uh, and then it turns out that the owner of the place is a, uh, fourth generation Alaskan, but originally of Palestinian descent.
00:02:00.800When he found out that, uh, we were from, uh, the Middle East, uh, we started speaking in Arabic and so on.
00:02:08.940And then he found out that, uh, my wife was, had her eyes on a, uh, ring, a, a pretty expensive ring.
00:02:38.980And yet the sense of generosity of hospitality was such the sense of universal brotherhood and friendship was such that he did an outlandishly kind and generous act.
00:02:52.780I kept saying that, sorry, I, we can't accept this as too much, so on.
00:02:57.200And as often happens in the Middle East, he, you know, refused to accept our nose.
00:03:03.200And then at one point I said, well, I will not rest until I find a way to reciprocate your incredible gesture of generosity and kindness.
00:03:14.580And he looks at me and says, well, the only thing that you need to reciprocate is for me to have your friendship.
00:03:21.760Now, I want to, I tell that story, which I'm probably going to release, uh, on my, um, YouTube channel and podcast as a separate piece.
00:03:33.200I tell that story because maybe he would have reacted differently if he knew that I was Jewish, but I didn't get that sense from him.
00:03:41.980I, you know, by the way, I thought that he was maybe Palestinian Christian.
00:03:45.300Uh, but my sense is that when two people come into an interaction, judging one another as individuals, judging them by the totality of their merits and flaws,
00:03:57.640that's where you have the most enriching experiences.
00:04:00.300At that point, I'm just a guy who seemed like a nice guy with a nice wife.
00:05:13.360It was Fatah that kidnapped and tortured my parents.
00:05:17.600And yet I don't hold ill will to Palestinians in general, because that gentleman who is of Palestinian descent, who's been for four generations in Alaska, has nothing to do with the realities that I and my family faced in Lebanon, right?
00:05:36.000And so we were able to connect in this truly magical way.
00:05:41.600And I still am in awe at such generosity and kindness on his part.
00:05:47.740And my wife wears the ring very proudly.
00:05:51.620And that happened because there was no Jew.
00:06:11.600So now I would like to, having given that story, that, by the way, that's the only way that you're going to have future peace in the world.
00:06:19.120And unfortunately, I don't think that that will happen.
00:06:21.900Because tribalism and coalitional psychology is an inherent part of the architecture of the human mind.
00:06:29.680And certainly the Abrahamic religions play up on that in terms of coalitional psychology.
00:06:35.580And certainly no one plays that up with greater division than Islam.
00:06:40.860And so you're not going to get peace when a religion preaches that it must, as its most fundamental canonical goal, imperialize, colonize, and convert every single individual on earth.
00:07:03.780If that's a fact, there are 73,000 things I can share with you that supports that.
00:07:10.880But I don't have to share 73,000 facts.
00:07:15.620We have the canons of the religion that repeatedly stated.
00:07:20.200So having said that, I want to come to a tweet that I posted yesterday, and then the reaction to that tweet, and then that will send us off on a discussion of why the West, in my view, will probably not recover from what's happening.
00:07:39.860So here's the tweet that I posted yesterday.
00:07:44.040It's close to 1 million views in just a few hours.
00:07:48.080So this is, I'm going to, I'm going to read my exact post.
00:07:51.840It was so, and I'm going to spell the various spellings of Muhammad, because that's part of my infinite satire.
00:08:03.800It was so enriching, returning to Montreal today.
00:08:07.600Our border security officer, Muhammad, M-O-H-H-A-M-M-A-D, was sweet and polite.
00:08:16.420Our taxi queue manager, Muhammad, M-O-H-A-M-M-E-D, was lovely.
00:08:24.140Our taxi driver, Muhammad, M-U-H-A-M-M-A-D, was upbeat and professional.
00:08:31.960I found the kiosk owner, Muhammad, only 1M, a bit rude, but his co-owner, Mahmoud, was affable.
00:08:42.960Quebec is going to make it, bright future ahead.
00:08:46.740Thank you, François Legault, for protecting our French heritage.
00:08:50.700François Legault is the current premier of Quebec, who is very, very keen on protecting French identity.
00:08:57.940So, as you can see, diversity is indeed our strength.
00:09:02.780The diversity applies to the multiplicity of ways by which you could spell Muhammad.
00:09:09.000That's really the kind of diversity that we're going for in our immigration policy.