The Tucker Carlson Show - Former Interim President of Israel Avraham Burg Speaks Out on Netanyahu’s Killing Spree

00:00:00.000 The government of Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and its many organized cheerleaders here in the

00:00:10.200 United States have for some time now made the case that all criticism of their government

00:00:17.400 is anti-Semitism. And it is because their government somehow speaks for all Jews globally.

00:00:26.220 Every Jewish person is represented by the Netanyahu government, therefore the actions

00:00:32.440 of the Netanyahu government represent every Jew on this planet, and any criticisms of

00:00:39.780 that government are by definition an attack on every Jew.

00:00:43.180 They are anti-Semitism.

00:00:45.640 It's a position that doesn't make any sense, but it's kind of hardened into a consensus

00:00:51.580 in the United States, at least for right now.

00:00:54.400 And if you think about it for a moment, it's not only incorrect, it's a kind of slander

00:00:57.760 against Jews.

00:00:58.900 It is itself a kind of anti-Semitism because, no, not all Jews are represented by Benjamin

00:01:06.060 Netanyahu, and there are many who don't want to be.

00:01:09.380 And that's true even within Israel.

00:01:11.020 Yes, polling consistently shows that most Israelis were in favor of the war, but in

00:01:17.020 Israel, as in all countries, most people don't really know the details of what is happening

00:01:22.980 or why, and that's by design. Israel is a particularly censored place. It's also a

00:01:29.000 particularly small place, fewer than 10 million people. And so its citizens, by and large, live

00:01:36.000 the same way we do, in an information vacuum, where what they know is determined by somebody

00:01:40.280 else for political reasons. All of which makes it very important to do our best to break the spell

00:01:49.260 of this, to hear from people who disagree and hear them explain why, people who have some

00:01:55.940 credibility and knowledge, not just wackos with weird opinions, but thoughtful people who have a

00:02:02.320 dissenting view. And one of those people is a man called Avram Berg. Berg is in his early 70s.

00:02:09.660 He was born in Israel. He's from a prominent Zionist family, and he himself was a prominent

00:02:15.760 political figure for many years. He was a member of the Knesset. He was speaker of the Knesset,

00:02:20.380 the Israeli parliament. It's a lawmaking body. It's Congress. He was even interim president

00:02:26.660 of Israel at one point. So his opinions may represent the minority of Israeli opinion,

00:02:34.900 but he himself is not a fringe figure. He was at the very center of Israeli politics. Once again,

00:02:40.080 he was the interim president of the country. And in the hours after this current war broke out,

00:02:47.260 he wrote a very strong op-ed in the Israeli press explaining why it was a terrible idea,

00:02:53.520 why it didn't serve Israel's interests, and while the people doing it had no idea

00:02:59.840 why they were doing it. It's a pretty brave thing to say in the middle of a country of war,

00:03:05.000 but he said it because he's a pretty brave guy, agree or disagree.

00:03:07.700 Great. So we thought it would be worthwhile to hear directly from him, Avron Berg from Israel.

00:03:15.140 Here it is. Avron Berg, thank you very much for doing this. I want to ask you about something

00:03:20.080 that's happening right now, apparently. So the president of the United States issued a statement

00:03:25.080 this morning saying that because of ongoing negotiations between the U.S. and Iran,

00:03:30.980 the U.S. would not actually commence with hitting civilian infrastructure, as he promised.

00:03:37.700 And that we're going to try and work something out diplomatically this week.

00:03:41.980 Almost immediately after issuing that statement, there were reports that the Israeli military was hitting civilian infrastructure in Iran.

00:03:51.840 Assuming that's true, what do you make of that?

00:03:54.260 What strategy does that suggest?

00:03:58.060 The same strategy that Israel has for years.

00:04:02.360 No strategy.

00:04:03.920 In Israel, in many, many cases, the compilation of many tactics sometimes assemble into a de facto strategy, but otherwise nothing.

00:04:13.520 I mean, just look at the last two hours.

00:04:16.040 When was the announcement of the president, the surprising one two hours ago?

00:04:20.620 And you have a bundle of messages coming from all directions.

00:04:24.800 The first and the most important one, hallelujah, they're going to renew the flights so we can go for Passover vacation.

00:04:32.120 That's the immediate reaction of many Israelis, my daughter included.

00:04:37.360 The second is, oh, Netanyahu knew all together.

00:04:40.700 I mean, Netanyahu is behind the move, as if framing it as his own move.

00:04:46.880 And then, oh, Trump, oh, he is so softy.

00:04:50.760 He is so weak.

00:04:53.160 He doesn't have any resilience.

00:04:55.500 The Iranians, they trick him, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:04:59.020 Bottom line is nobody has a clue.

00:05:01.260 And in this chaos, the military does what it does the best, simply hammer the nail.

00:05:09.040 But you're suggesting that those tactics, the one we're seeing today and the ones we've seen for the last month, don't add up to a strategy?

00:05:18.620 There's no strategic goal in mind?

00:05:20.640 i listened to you very carefully in the last couple of weeks and the way you try to conceive

00:05:29.120 the israeli strategy from netanyahu's 40 years life mission to the greater land of israel

00:05:37.180 biblically speaking or messianic eschatological one and i envy you that you really believe that

00:05:43.360 we have something like that okay uh it doesn't work that way i mean in a way that let's start

00:05:53.980 somewhere else i mean somebody once told me that what's the difference between an israeli and an

00:05:58.620 american among many differences is that we israelis we see an aim so we aim and we should

00:06:04.280 you americans you see an aim so you take an aim and aim and aim and aim and aim you are a lot

00:06:11.360 about process and we are a lot about yalla let's shoot it and there is a difference here i have no

00:06:19.040 idea what's the american strategy i do not know what was the end game i have no idea what is the

00:06:25.000 the final uh design the architects of the white house or the washington really had in mind i can

00:06:32.600 tell you one thing for sure. Israel wants to remove the Iranian monster because part of it

00:06:43.100 is a real threat and part of it because we pumped it to the size of a monster. So we are fighting

00:06:49.460 in a way a real demon and a demon which is our own creation. So what we want to do is we don't

00:06:56.520 like the war. We want it to end. We don't like the missiles. We hate the sirens. We skip nights

00:07:02.280 after nights of sleeping, but once we are into it, let's make sure that it's over.

00:07:08.040 So the real will of many Israelis is, let's get over with the Iranians.

00:07:16.280 The problem is the relative size. Israel is a small country. Iran is a large country.

00:07:23.520 How exactly do Israelis expect that's going to happen?

00:07:27.500 Size-wise and number-wise, we are, let's say, 10 million in a good day, and there are 100 million in an average day.

00:07:43.440 In a way, many Israelis do not really measure it this way.

00:07:50.420 Many Israelis believe that we are a kind of a superpower.

00:07:55.080 a couple of weeks ago, I was in a high school somewhere and I promoted my good, old, no good

00:08:02.040 Nick peace agenda. Okay. And one of the students stood up and said, Avram, can I ask you a question?

00:08:09.460 I said, yes, please do. And he said, why won't we do to them what we did to them in Afghanistan?

00:08:16.660 And I said, I know Gaza, I know Lebanon, I know Syria, I know Egypt. What did we do to whom in

00:08:22.100 Afghanistan. I mean, we haven't been there yet. And I asked him, where are you from originally?

00:08:30.780 And he said, I was born in Moscow. And I said to myself, ha ha, he thinks like a Russian.

00:08:37.060 And I asked him, tell me, how many Jews are there in the world? Now, Tucker, with no hesitation,

00:08:43.460 He said, ah, 54.3.

00:08:48.220 Okay, and how many Israelis are we?

00:08:50.960 He said something like 20 million.

00:08:53.400 In the eyes of many Israelis, we're not just superpower technologically

00:08:58.400 and superpower economically and a regional hegemon politically.

00:09:04.180 We have the numbers, the numbers in economy, the numbers in support,

00:09:08.260 the numbers in demography without really calculating what are the real numbers.

00:09:14.640 So when you ask the Israelis how, simply do it.

00:09:21.080 And what will the end victory look like from an Israeli perspective?

00:09:27.160 How will Israelis know they've won?

00:09:33.300 I don't have a good answer for this question.

00:09:35.800 at a sense that in many cases, the American or the Western way of thinking is usually a kind of a win-win.

00:09:48.100 I mean, we end the war and we make sure that we left at the other side somebody to talk with.

00:09:56.300 I mean, yes, it is ridiculous that the American president is saying,

00:10:00.260 I would like to talk with somebody, but there is nobody there because I killed him.

00:10:03.800 Okay, this is your own oxymoron. This is a paradox that I take it you intellectually, you know how to square this circle, okay? But from the Israeli point of view, in many, many cases, philosophically, no, psychologically, we do not live in a win-win situation.

00:10:25.200 We live in a zero-sum game.

00:10:27.760 If there is a competition, if there is a race, if there is a war, if there is a battle, if there is a conflict that ends up, that Packer and Avrum profits, something is wrong with me.

00:10:40.800 I want to win alone.

00:10:43.820 I want you to be dead.

00:10:46.080 I want to humiliate you.

00:10:47.680 I want to cancel you, whomever you are my enemy.

00:10:51.460 And when you look at this philosophy, you understand where comes the political rhetoric that every adversary, never mind who is he, minor or major, by the end of the day, he is a Hitler.

00:11:11.460 And every decade we have a new Adolf Hitler.

00:11:15.280 And since everybody is the archenemy, there is only one solution to this one enemy, removal.

00:11:27.440 And therefore, when you ask me what is the Israeli political echelon, forget about the people in the street,

00:11:34.980 the political echelon approach toward any kind of resolution, whatever it is, it's not a dialogist one.

00:11:45.140 Now, it is not just about Netanyahu, which is a case by himself.

00:11:49.380 When you look at what is allegedly called opposition in Israel,

00:11:54.620 they simply compete with the government who is more aggressive,

00:12:01.140 who is more as if resilient, who has more so-called creative solution

00:12:08.060 to the enemy we have to demolish and obliterate.

00:12:11.660 and this is why you don't you hardly find in israel any reconciliatory politics

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00:15:01.380 Where does this attitude come from?

00:15:07.400 When I was in school, in high school, every other week, the rabbi, I was in a religious high school, in a religious academy, yeshiva.

00:15:19.520 So the rabbi used to call my mom.

00:15:21.820 My father was busy, so he used to call my mom and said, you have a very, very talented boy, child.

00:15:28.520 He is like an egg.

00:15:30.060 The more I boil him, the harder he becomes.

00:15:34.320 Now, in a way, our life experience as Jews in the last couple of thousands of years and Israelis in the last couple of decades boiled us into a very, very hard, stiff neck egg.

00:15:51.100 On the one hand, we never trusted hands offered to us, and on the other hand, we never experienced to extend our own hands.

00:16:05.960 I'll give you two examples.

00:16:08.960 The rhetorics of Israel since 1948 is a rhetorics of survival, of existential threats, of permanent imminent war.

00:16:21.100 Out of nowhere came President Saadat to Israel.

00:16:27.520 I remember myself as a young soldier at 73 Wall at the other side of the Suez Canal in a foxhole in the desert.

00:16:37.940 in the middle of the night,

00:16:41.560 like a frightened 18 years old boy.

00:16:45.180 And I was listening to the then iPhone transistor.

00:16:52.060 Do you remember the transistor with the rusty voice?

00:16:54.520 Oh yeah.

00:16:54.940 And I heard President Sadat in the middle of the night say,

00:16:58.640 I'm ready to sacrifice a million and a half Egyptian soldiers

00:17:02.820 in order to redeem the Sinan Peninsula.

00:17:05.420 And I said, holy, holy God, a million and a half Egyptian soldiers against me, Avraham Boog, a Jew boy from Jerusalem?

00:17:16.640 I was frightened to death.

00:17:20.060 And then four years later, he came to Jerusalem, and I'm running.

00:17:23.580 Now I'm a released bar trooper officer, young one, running after his convoy and chant, no more war, no more bloodshed.

00:17:33.360 It was redemption.

00:17:34.800 It was eschatological.

00:17:36.620 It was messianic.

00:17:40.480 It was the first time Israel was offered a different syntax.

00:17:46.180 From a syntax of war to a grammar of peace.

00:17:51.620 We never grew up into the challenge of Sadat.

00:17:55.760 Never.

00:17:57.740 We never walked all the way with the Egyptians, with the Palestinians,

00:18:02.540 as was part of the original Camp David framework.

00:18:07.740 And we rejected it.

00:18:09.980 Even when a couple of years later, Oslo, Deus Ex Machina,

00:18:13.820 out of nowhere, Oslo came to the world.

00:18:17.000 As problematic as now we know de facto that Oslo was at the time,

00:18:21.880 when it was launched, it was an eruption of hope.

00:18:27.260 It was again an offer for a different language.

00:18:30.400 We didn't grow into it.

00:18:33.200 So Israel does not have a vocabulary or state of mind to talk peace.

00:18:42.960 Now, there is a different layer that I'm not at all sure we are.

00:18:47.160 It's too early in the conversation between us.

00:18:49.860 But this is the transformation from eternal Judaism that was a religion of powerlessness.

00:18:56.980 And if I would like to use Watzlaw Havel terminology, we had the power of powerlessness, and we transformed into Israelis with the power of the Almighty, and we feel much more threatened.

00:19:18.800 Well, there's a paradox.

00:19:20.380 so as israel has become more objectively powerful it has felt more threatened more endangered

00:19:29.420 yeah yeah yeah it does seem like if you were to just as an outsider it does seem like israel is

00:19:39.200 more threatened and it does seem like if it had continued on the trajectory from the sadat talks

00:19:46.140 from Oslo in the way that you suggest it would be less threatened.

00:19:49.440 I think objectively, that's probably true.

00:19:53.580 Or maybe both.

00:19:56.020 Maybe at the same time, we have opportunities and the threats are better threats, so to

00:20:02.100 say.

00:20:03.100 Let's look at numbers just for a second.

00:20:05.560 When I was a student, I mean, at elementary school, a pupil, we were told that in 1948,

00:20:12.340 the year in which the state of Israel was born, seven Arab armies invaded the just-born state of

00:20:19.460 Israel. So 48, it was seven versus one. In 67, 19 years later, it was only three out of the seven,

00:20:29.080 Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Six years later, in 73, it was only two out of the three, only Syria and

00:20:38.180 Egypt. Ever since, as broken as it is

00:20:42.120 and as chilly as it is, with Egypt we have a peace agreement

00:20:45.960 and Syria in a very good day is a dysfunctioning

00:20:50.200 threat. So you can, and the Palestinian

00:20:53.660 issue that was not there in

00:20:57.900 1948 the way it is today, was born along the road.

00:21:01.900 So you can say, listen, in eight decades, 48 to 26,

00:21:06.320 From seven armies to half a problem, which is the Palestinian one, this is an evolution. This is a positive progress. And in a way, it is. And this is before we count in the potential of Saudi Arabia, the potential of the Emirates, etc., etc., etc.

00:21:27.900 On the other hand, two elements emerged as well.

00:21:33.760 The first is Israel, that at least in two, three stages in its life, was fully accepted among the family of nations.

00:21:45.100 48 and its euphoria, 67 and the eruption of redemptive feelings all over the world, maybe, and the atrocities of October 7th, 23.

00:21:58.260 Three times that Israel in conflict time, this is beside Camp David, beside Oslo, beside other positive peace agreements, but in a conflict situation, that Israel was well received and well accepted in the world.

00:22:17.220 And then we must ask ourselves, how was it wasted?

00:22:22.000 How comes that two years ago, three years ago, Israel, three years ago in 23, Israel was so well sympathized with all over the world and now so despised?

00:22:38.440 So the threat of being rejected, of being a world pariah, maybe it's not a military one, but it's a deeper one.

00:22:48.420 It's an existential one.

00:22:52.000 And the other is assuming that the Iranians would have had a nuclear capability that very soon will lead to a chain of reactions that others will have nuclear weapons in the Middle East without using the weapons.

00:23:13.280 but a Middle East with mass destruction weapons is a different scale of a threat for many, but for Israel especially.

00:23:24.860 So I will say, yes, we have better relationship with many.

00:23:29.680 And the situation is not 48, is not 67, is not even 23.

00:23:36.360 But the threats are not gone.

00:23:38.100 They were transformed and different and require different strategy and philosophy and value system to address.

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00:25:20.520 How did this war start?

00:25:25.020 How did?

00:25:26.220 Sorry?

00:25:26.460 This current war, this month old war against Iran, there's debate in the United States about how it started, whether or not the United States was pursuing its own interest, defending itself from Iran, or whether President Trump followed the lead of Prime Minister Netanyahu.

00:25:44.600 What's your view?

00:25:45.240 If we go back to your initial introduction or your immediate question you bombarded me with without any introduction, okay, you said, we have no clue what's going on.

00:25:59.080 So we do not know, we don't yet have information, neither about the launching of the campaign, neither nor about the continuation of it.

00:26:10.280 So in a world with no information, in a realm of no information between me and you, we can look at the gestalt, we can look at the frameworks of what happened, the details Tetris-like will fall in.

00:26:27.940 And I will say the immediate trigger was an awful one.

00:26:33.500 Ah, we had an opportunity.

00:26:36.720 Since when you declare a war because there is an opportunity?

00:26:40.280 i mean that's the worst opportunistic reason i've ever heard in my life

00:26:48.020 my father was a very wise man used to say about one of his colleagues that's a man of principles

00:26:54.580 principle number one opportunism and i say what kind of a principle is this one to declare such

00:27:03.640 a world war in a volatile reality that China is out there waiting for something and Russia and

00:27:11.380 Ukraine is ambushing us, and now you have to have another front. So the immediate trigger that we

00:27:20.500 had an opportunity, I will say, whatever was the opportunity, using it was an unjust, immoral

00:27:28.780 trigger. The larger frame is Netanyahu life mission. I take it that it requires more than

00:27:41.740 one Tucker Carlson and more than two hours between you and me or five hours or as long

00:27:47.300 as we can tolerate each other in order to understand this figure.

00:27:52.320 He's a very, very interesting individual and a very, very significant leader of a state in this time. Significant, I hope it's natural enough because I don't have much of sympathy to his leadership.

00:28:11.000 However, he's there.

00:28:12.540 He's significant.

00:28:14.620 Where his life mission is coming from.

00:28:18.160 And I will say that it has two drivers.

00:28:23.880 One is very Jewish and one is very conservative.

00:28:29.080 The very Jewish is, in a way, like my mom.

00:28:34.540 My mom believed that the world is divided 50-50.

00:28:38.520 50% Jews and 50% who hate the Jews.

00:28:43.240 Which means she believes we are something like 3.5 billion people.

00:28:47.840 We're the Jews, okay?

00:28:49.340 And the rest of you, whomever you are, do not like us.

00:28:53.600 So this notion that the entire world is against us

00:28:57.060 and you cannot trust nobody but ourselves

00:28:59.460 is embedded in the Jewish conscience ever since.

00:29:03.980 maybe even since the bible since biblical time but for sure later on and the exilic period

00:29:13.120 instilled it into our psyche so we do not trust and therefore we're not being trusted in a way

00:29:21.220 there is a dialogue of not trusting here so netanyahu is part of this classic jewish paranoia

00:29:28.680 The entire world is against us.

00:29:31.700 At the same time, he is a very kind of a 70s, 80s, 90s conservative and your hobby neocon.

00:29:46.160 To say we are the children of light and that all of those offsprings of darkness and our life mission is to push them back.

00:29:57.800 Our life mission is to fight them, is never compromise,

00:30:01.680 never realize if there is somebody out there that we can communicate with.

00:30:06.140 Maybe they are not a monolithic group of people.

00:30:11.060 Maybe like us, they are divided, they are dissected, there is a diversion,

00:30:16.040 there is a richness of expressions in ideologies and values and religious manifestation.

00:30:22.140 No, no, no, no.

00:30:22.800 They are all of them.

00:30:24.700 And when you listen to Netanyahu, Huntington through Netanyahu, he is the leader of our civilization of light versus whomever is the civilization of darkness.

00:30:39.620 So he's built in classic Jewish paranoia that many Jews have.

00:30:46.300 Some of it rightly so, some of it molded into it.

00:30:52.340 And part of it is part of a worldview that you know better than I do because you explore it almost a couple of times a week.

00:31:04.120 And this is the mistrusting Christian West who does not trust anybody but itself.

00:31:12.900 And when you look at some of their attitude towards Europe itself, does not even trust itself.

00:31:18.900 So where this war started, it started with an opportunity and a frame of mind.

00:31:30.860 How do you think Prime Minister Netanyahu seized President Trump?

00:31:38.740 He's afraid of him because he's unexpected.

00:31:48.900 I don't know if the term whimsical is a right one, but it's unexpected.

00:31:54.960 I believe the more I monitor the actions of the president, that there is a kind of a worldview behind it.

00:32:06.300 Not always articulated de jure, but de facto I can realize some things there.

00:32:15.360 So first, Netanyahu is fearful of the unexpected.

00:32:21.760 The second, Netanyahu is so talented that he took the disadvantage and made it his prime advantage how to puppeteer the president.

00:32:37.800 So I would say he has a dual feeling, a fear, and a know-how, how to use this fear for his advantage.

00:32:51.160 Now, look at the pattern.

00:32:54.480 How many American presidents saw Israeli prime ministers as their elder brothers?

00:33:00.540 like Clinton and Rabin, George W. Bush and Ehud Olmert,

00:33:09.220 maybe not elder brother, but an experienced one,

00:33:12.840 Golda Mayer and Nixon.

00:33:15.340 So there is there a kind of older, younger brother relationship

00:33:21.900 between Israeli prime ministers and American presidents

00:33:26.680 that Netanyahu, with his vast experience

00:33:30.580 and malicious intentions,

00:33:35.320 knows how to use also this leverage point

00:33:39.720 in order to promote his agenda

00:33:43.100 with this American president.

00:33:47.320 How do you think he did it?

00:33:49.580 What were the leverage points?

00:33:53.620 I heard you with this,

00:33:55.820 how you call him, the prophet?

00:33:59.400 The Canadian prophet this weekend?

00:34:03.060 Yes.

00:34:03.840 Okay.

00:34:04.580 It's interesting.

00:34:06.620 I'll tell you something very funny in a second, if I may.

00:34:11.700 He came with four theories how it happened.

00:34:15.800 I'll tell you something very, very simple.

00:34:19.180 It's a chemistry between two charmers.

00:34:21.680 listen

00:34:26.000 I cannot stand you

00:34:27.420 but you're a nice person

00:34:29.640 so I talk with you

00:34:30.720 I mean

00:34:33.180 you know my ideology

00:34:36.040 yes

00:34:36.740 of course

00:34:37.920 I mean it's a one and a half

00:34:40.140 and you know my position

00:34:41.980 and despite or in spite of my positions

00:34:44.840 we're talking

00:34:46.420 yes

00:34:46.740 so there is something there

00:34:50.300 at the very personal chemistry

00:34:52.220 that simply worked.

00:34:56.460 And Netanyahu is a brilliant campaigner.

00:35:01.700 Listen, when you walk out of the room with Netanyahu,

00:35:05.240 check your sleeves,

00:35:06.480 whether you have your hands into them still.

00:35:10.580 Maybe he stole your hands out of your sleeves.

00:35:14.500 This is how talented he is.

00:35:17.480 He picked his pocket

00:35:18.820 And so did Trump to him. They use each other.

00:35:24.740 I don't understand. I mean, I understand half of that explanation, but I don't understand what President Trump or the United States could conceivably gain from this. It seems like a hundred percent loss to me.

00:35:39.760 it's more question to you as an american than a question to me as a far away a subject of the

00:35:50.840 american empire or the american influence zone okay yes i'm sure that there is a profit here

00:36:00.360 Now, is the prophet, for example, a place in history?

00:36:07.000 As much as many authoritarian leaders, since they do not trust the people to commemorate them after they pass away, so they commemorate themselves while still alive,

00:36:25.240 make sure that there are libraries on them and cultural centers and bridges and airports and you name it, okay?

00:36:33.120 Still, history plays a role.

00:36:36.100 And when you think of Trump coming from Manhattan with so many Jewish associations around him,

00:36:45.740 he's familiar to the Jewish talk of New York.

00:36:49.780 He is familiar to the rhetorics of Jews and their association and affiliation with Israel.

00:36:58.100 He understands that many of them seize Israel under a permanent threat of extinction.

00:37:06.780 Saving Israel before the base, before the Christian Zionists,

00:37:11.480 saving Israel is, historically speaking, is almost prophetic.

00:37:15.880 listen to his

00:37:18.280 rhetorics after Gaza

00:37:19.960 I put an end to

00:37:22.220 3,000 years of a conflict

00:37:24.080 I don't know when the counting began

00:37:26.100 and still counting

00:37:28.680 okay

00:37:29.740 nonetheless

00:37:30.740 it's a state of mind

00:37:32.920 it's politics and history

00:37:35.440 mixed

00:37:37.000 and Netanyahu

00:37:39.740 as a child, as a son

00:37:42.020 of an historian

00:37:44.000 understands this, how to play this card.

00:37:53.060 So you believe it's likely Netanyahu said to Trump,

00:37:56.700 you will be recorded by history as the man who saved the Jews.

00:38:01.580 This is on the positive side.

00:38:03.540 And on the negative side is you do not want to be recorded as the one

00:38:08.620 that under his God and in his shift,

00:38:11.120 something so awful

00:38:12.940 like the second Holocaust

00:38:14.000 happened to the Jews.

00:38:16.500 There are two sides

00:38:17.220 to this moon.

00:38:17.920 Yes.

00:38:18.240 The dark one

00:38:19.020 and the one

00:38:20.080 a bit more illuminated.

00:38:22.080 Publicly,

00:38:22.740 you speak about

00:38:23.600 the hidden side

00:38:24.380 of the moon.

00:38:26.320 I mean,

00:38:26.780 in dark rooms,

00:38:27.900 you speak about

00:38:28.420 the dark side.

00:38:29.200 Yes.

00:38:30.080 We are under

00:38:31.220 permanent threat.

00:38:32.400 Save us.

00:38:34.900 You said a minute ago

00:38:36.420 that what

00:38:37.000 the Israeli government

00:38:38.260 has done in Gaza

00:38:39.160 has

00:38:39.940 permanently, or at least for the moment,

00:38:44.060 made Israel into a pariah state internationally.

00:38:47.520 How is Gaza seen within Israel?

00:38:54.040 In order to touch such a volatile issue,

00:38:59.700 I need a very brief introduction

00:39:04.200 to offer you my frame, my own framing of this last couple of years.

00:39:11.580 Whatever Israel did to the Palestinians since day one, 100 years ago,

00:39:16.820 all the wrongdoings, the transfer, the expel, the demolition of four, 500 communities,

00:39:23.220 the Nakba, the tragedy, the catastrophe of the Palestinians, whatever we've done to them,

00:39:28.080 All wrongdoings does not justify the first step and the first step towards atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th.

00:39:43.000 I agree.

00:39:43.680 None.

00:39:44.660 Right.

00:39:44.940 And whatever Hamas did on October 7th to the Israelis, brutal, awful crimes against humanity in the bodies of my friends and my colleagues and my fellow citizens, whatever the Hamas did to us does not justify the moral crimes and maybe even crimes against humanity that Israel exercises in Gaza ever since.

00:40:09.520 You have two crime scenes.

00:40:11.720 Do not annihilate each other.

00:40:13.380 Do not balance each other.

00:40:14.620 Do not justify each other.

00:40:17.380 You have to deal with Hamas crimes and with the Israeli crimes.

00:40:22.340 Simultaneously, as difficult as it is, and sometimes as paradoxically as it is.

00:40:29.520 Now, this is how I see it.

00:40:33.700 Most of Israelis are not in my place.

00:40:36.380 Most of Israelis, regardless of October 7th, I mean, even much before October 7th, do not really know where Gaza is.

00:40:53.220 Yes, it might be five minutes away from a doorstep, might be 40 minutes drive from Tel Aviv, but it's beyond the mountains of darkness.

00:41:04.560 I don't know.

00:41:05.520 I don't know.

00:41:06.060 I don't know where is it.

00:41:08.060 I haven't been there ever.

00:41:10.940 When you look at the Israeli media up until October 7th and 10 times more after October 7th, you never see Gazian people.

00:41:20.940 You see tunnels.

00:41:22.340 You see cement.

00:41:23.280 You see rockets.

00:41:24.120 You see demolitions.

00:41:25.040 You see Hamas troops running here and there.

00:41:29.700 You never see the individual Gazian people as if there are no people there.

00:41:33.580 And the report is never about the humanitarian side of it.

00:41:40.600 The report is always about insurgences, terrorists, etc.

00:41:46.600 Gaza, as they hopefully expressed by my president Herzog said,

00:41:51.980 in Gaza there are no innocent people.

00:41:55.300 God forbid to live in such a situation that you do not believe

00:42:01.180 there are no innocent people on the other side.

00:42:03.580 even Abraham the patriarch believed

00:42:05.640 that in Sodom and Gomorrah

00:42:07.260 there are

00:42:09.460 innocent people and God negotiated with

00:42:11.600 him

00:42:11.840 but we are better than God and we

00:42:15.520 are worse than Abraham

00:42:16.540 which simply write off

00:42:19.480 any

00:42:21.360 innocence in Gaza

00:42:22.480 and ever since it did

00:42:25.480 not improve

00:42:26.440 so in a way Gaza

00:42:31.400 is

00:42:33.580 It's not a blind spot. Blind spot is, it's too technical.

00:42:39.980 Gaza is the moral abyss in which Israel collapsed into.

00:42:50.960 I find it so striking what you just said, because Israel is such an international country.

00:42:56.300 I mean, I don't know what percentage of the population was born somewhere else.

00:42:59.180 And, you know, people are always in and out of Israel.

00:43:01.580 I mean, it's hardly, it's not Central Africa, it's right in the Mediterranean, it's very international, as I said.

00:43:07.980 So it's interesting that many Israelis don't have a sense of what's happening just right at their southern border.

00:43:14.840 What do they think when they read about it?

00:43:16.680 There's so much international controversy about it.

00:43:18.760 When you pull up the internet, someone's getting mad about Gaza.

00:43:21.180 How do Israelis respond to that?

00:43:26.760 You put here two topics.

00:43:29.320 The first is media report.

00:43:31.220 And the second one is, where is the existential reality of Israelis?

00:43:39.360 Whom are we?

00:43:41.200 When she asked you, the economist editor, the right to exist, and you exploded.

00:43:48.800 What is that right to exist?

00:43:51.220 And I said to myself, Tucker, don't get mad at her.

00:43:57.760 The question is a different one.

00:44:01.220 The right to exist from the point of view of being a Jew, not from being part of the international community.

00:44:08.220 Is Israel justified according to the norms it tells itself it is?

00:44:13.980 The only democracy in the Middle East, the most moral army in the world, etc., etc.

00:44:19.740 There, it implodes.

00:44:23.100 Now, let me try to answer your question.

00:44:25.940 First, about the international reports.

00:44:29.040 Most of us listen to Hebrew media only and read Hebrew media only.

00:44:36.940 And the Hebrew media filters most of the non-Hebrew expressions.

00:44:46.000 We do not speak English.

00:44:48.580 I mean, even listen to me with my Arnold Schwarzenegger accent, okay?

00:44:54.660 I mean, we don't speak English.

00:44:57.080 On parle pas français.

00:44:59.040 Okay, we don't speak German.

00:45:03.180 And if we read something about it, they're all anti-Semites.

00:45:07.920 And the weaponizing of anti-Semitism into a kind of a thick filter

00:45:14.760 that enables us to reject any kind of legitimate criticism

00:45:20.040 is part of the system here.

00:45:22.340 So media-wise, we hardly hear the international situation.

00:45:27.340 situation. Hardly hear it. The question of what does that mean to us, I will say as follows. Up

00:45:37.900 until the Second World War, 90% of the Jews in the world were Christian-born Jews, what we call

00:45:46.700 Ashkenazi. Yes. And 10% were born in the Muslim sphere, what we call Sfaradim. So it was 90%

00:45:56.120 Christian world Jews and 10% Muslim world Jews.

00:46:00.200 Today in Israel, it is 50-50, which means the old perception that Israel is an offspring

00:46:08.680 of the West, of the Christendom, demographically doesn't work because at least half of the

00:46:19.680 Jewish Israelis, not to talk about the 20% of Palestinians with Israeli idea,

00:46:26.120 But from the 80% Jews, 50% were born or offsprings of Muslim world Jewry,

00:46:33.440 which do not share the same legacy and the same heritage and the same tradition that Jews shared with you,

00:46:42.740 which is the evolution of the West.

00:46:47.520 I'll take it a step further.

00:46:50.660 Yes, many of us were born in so many other places, our parents or grandparents.

00:46:56.120 but most of us were born here

00:46:59.960 and here is a very strange place

00:47:03.240 on one hand we're not Europe anymore

00:47:05.560 because we got disconnected

00:47:08.120 and on the other hand we never got connected to the region

00:47:12.180 so we are kind of a stand-alone island

00:47:16.820 totally disconnected from the region

00:47:20.920 refusing to get connected

00:47:24.720 When normalization was offered to us only two, three years ago, it was a threat.

00:47:32.440 We never dwelled into the strategy, what should be our relationship with the region?

00:47:41.420 So much so, that in a way, we resemble a lot the kingdom of Jerusalem of the Crusades.

00:47:50.860 foreigners coming from the outside

00:47:54.400 circling ourselves with a kind of a self-siege wars

00:48:00.880 and never integrate it is not right because there were interaction between

00:48:06.040 the regional muslims at the time and the christians at the time

00:48:09.600 but nonetheless the kingdom as a political entity never wanted to be part

00:48:14.580 of the region after 200 years it expired

00:48:17.380 The state of Israel, born out of the ashes of the Holocaust, for sure, but earlier on was born out of the nation-state idea of getting secular Europe with its solutions to its national groupings, came to the Middle East, which is not part of the nation-state thinking,

00:48:42.700 didn't go through the processes of secularization and revolutions,

00:48:47.740 the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution,

00:48:49.840 the American Revolution, the British Revolution,

00:48:51.900 never went through them in order to get where we are today

00:48:55.760 and therefore didn't find any hooks to get connected.

00:49:03.720 So we lost our Western hinterland

00:49:08.540 and we never seeded enough in order to grow to be part of the local fauna.

00:49:17.940 So we are isolated.

00:49:21.200 I think many, I don't know what they think now,

00:49:23.960 but for most of my life in the U.S.,

00:49:26.500 many Americans regarded Israel as a kind of European-ish country.

00:49:32.080 That was always my opinion.

00:49:33.180 Some of them felt that Israel was almost part of the United States,

00:49:36.920 not in a sinister way, but we've got

00:49:39.100 so much in common. 51st state

00:49:41.200 Golda Meir, I think, was from

00:49:42.740 Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

00:49:44.800 She grew up in Milwaukee.

00:49:47.160 As they used to say at the time,

00:49:49.300 the woman who made Milwaukee famous.

00:49:51.620 Smoked Chesterfield cigarettes,

00:49:53.400 American cigarettes. I mean,

00:49:54.740 it felt very American.

00:49:57.840 What is the view, would

00:49:59.160 you say, of

00:50:00.340 most Israelis now

00:50:03.060 toward the United States?

00:50:04.500 Yeah.

00:50:06.920 We love it.

00:50:08.080 We admire it.

00:50:09.860 We want to be, to move there.

00:50:13.260 And we think you are so childish and naive.

00:50:18.800 Why?

00:50:21.320 Because this is what you are.

00:50:24.960 Okay.

00:50:25.920 I mean, I'm not sure I would disagree with you at all.

00:50:29.720 But what about American strikes Israelis as childish and naive?

00:50:34.180 israelis

00:50:38.600 let's begin with a smile because it's a heavy stuff okay

00:50:43.920 you know why we israelis do not make love in the street

00:50:48.280 because then everybody will come and give you advisors

00:50:52.200 here everybody is a prime minister everybody's a diplomat everybody's a

00:50:58.160 strategist everybody is tucker karlson everybody is everything everybody is

00:51:02.680 Napoleon. We know better. And when we think about, first begin with the West in general, okay,

00:51:14.060 how don't you understand that immigration brings you down, that you compromise your own

00:51:22.680 very existence? How don't you understand that the Muslim tidal wave of immigration is going to

00:51:32.420 compromise your very entity.

00:51:34.340 Leave aside, I don't think that many Israelis

00:51:36.220 understand the exchange theology.

00:51:38.680 Okay? I'm not at all

00:51:40.320 sure that they're exchange theory.

00:51:42.640 But speaking, generally

00:51:44.320 speaking, you ask Israelis, how many

00:51:46.460 Muslims do you think there are in Europe?

00:51:49.040 Hmm. Something

00:51:50.440 between 30 to 50 percent.

00:51:53.160 Which is far

00:51:54.660 away from the number.

00:51:56.740 So, what do you think

00:51:58.340 about America? What do you think in America?

00:52:00.940 Oh, wow, wow, wow.

00:52:02.420 What do you know? Michigan in the last elections just show us how big is the Muslim minority. Obama? Hussein Obama. So you don't understand your own reality, so to say. This is the kind of experience everybody gives advises Israeli reality at a daily.

00:52:27.180 The second is, it's very, very difficult for us, very difficult for us to understand the fairness of the game.

00:52:40.380 If you ask me, what does that mean to be an American?

00:52:45.500 I can give you five different answers.

00:52:48.180 answers. One of them is, since you have a constitution and everybody is equal in front

00:52:55.380 of the constitution or supposed to be equal in front of the constitution, there is a furnace

00:53:01.660 in the game. You cannot trick me. You cannot look down at me. You cannot abuse me. I cannot

00:53:08.860 abuse you, on the other hand. We don't understand it. We Israelis will live in a reality that

00:53:17.980 constitution is a threat equality to all citizens not just jews and arabs but for the sake of it

00:53:28.080 orthodox and non-orthodox is a very is a threat to the very existence of the state

00:53:35.020 so on one hand as if we have shared value foundations

00:53:40.840 But when you try to translate these values into practical reality, here the gap grows.

00:53:57.000 We cannot accept the American wall of separation between church and state.

00:54:04.040 Impossible for us.

00:54:05.680 as much as the definition of Jewish and democratic

00:54:11.600 is hollow in a good day and deceiving in an average day.

00:54:17.280 It's a stupid definition, but we believe it's possible.

00:54:22.160 And we cannot accept that you are not Christian and democratic.

00:54:26.300 You're democratic first.

00:54:29.240 Ah, only democracy? Too weak, not for us.

00:54:32.140 And then I'll take it to maybe to the last stage, okay?

00:54:42.060 We don't care, we hardly care, unfortunately, and it pains me, about American Jewry.

00:54:52.860 When Netanyahu said a couple of years ago,

00:54:56.900 they're Democrats, they don't support my position anyway,

00:54:59.860 Let's go with the Christian Zionists. That's our political backbone. They're the best friends we have. And giving up on American Jewry, beside many other things that we don't respect when it comes to the law of return, when it comes to accepting the reform and conservative movement, religious expression, which is totally rejected by the religious establishment in Israel, etc., etc.

00:55:22.440 When we look at America, we see two things and we don't accept both.

00:55:33.640 On one hand, we see as if this is the total definer, the absolute definer of the democratic movement, the wokes.

00:55:46.280 All Democrats are wokes.

00:55:48.320 and on the other hand

00:55:51.980 all the right wingers

00:55:53.740 are hating Jews like

00:55:56.080 Tucker Carlson

00:55:56.900 that's it

00:55:59.180 so in between what's in it for us

00:56:02.060 okay Silicon

00:56:04.120 Valley

00:56:04.480 technology, economy

00:56:08.000 profit

00:56:08.760 but not the values

00:56:11.460 not anymore

00:56:12.580 is this a

00:56:16.140 religious war from the Israeli

00:56:18.060 perspective or from the orthodox is really perspective this one in in with iran iran now

00:56:25.060 never defined this way officially

00:56:32.040 i will say it's the second me personally who observe the situation try to intellectualize

00:56:42.220 it in order to comprehend, I will say it's the second stage of religious war.

00:56:48.720 It worked since.

00:56:50.580 Up until October 7th, the conflict between us and Palestinians, which is bloody and

00:56:57.660 malicious and awful, especially awful because it could have been resolved so many times

00:57:04.580 before, was a political conflict between two national communities.

00:57:10.340 So political conflicts and national conflicts, as difficult as it is, we know what to do with that.

00:57:18.880 October 7th was the first round of the full-scale religious war.

00:57:26.500 Jewish fundamentalism at the Israeli government and Muslim fundamentalism at the Hamas government.

00:57:33.660 And the philosophy of Hamas and the ideology of the Israeli government and some of its leading ministers was out in the open, with rabbis and chaplains in the army and ministers and members of Knesset expressing it loud and clear.

00:57:55.320 so october 7th was first chapter of the deterioration of the political conflict into

00:58:04.820 a religious one this one in iran which is three years later which historically speaking is maybe

00:58:13.020 the same period it is so fast i mean what is what is it three years in in human history it's nothing

00:58:20.620 It's not even a coma.

00:58:24.080 Yet when you live it day in and day out, it's difficult, it's heavy, it's sirens, it keeps not sleeping, it's sleepless nights and fear.

00:58:34.780 But it's a different one.

00:58:37.500 The war in Iran now, from my point of view, is the first religious fundamentalist war, world war.

00:58:48.160 jewish fundamentalism christian fundamentalism and jewish fundamentalism at the battle at the

00:58:55.000 battle at the battlefield it feels that way to me unfortunately i'm sorry it feels that way to me

00:59:04.060 watching this that's exactly what it feels like and the problem of you and me as much as i take

00:59:11.740 that on many other things

00:59:13.600 we are other sides of the

00:59:15.960 other side of the street

00:59:17.400 on something like

00:59:19.900 that which is such an

00:59:21.680 existential problem

00:59:23.320 to our ideologies

00:59:26.020 and our identities and our

00:59:27.840 values never mind where

00:59:29.800 are you in the other

00:59:31.340 disagreements between us

00:59:33.980 we are watching

00:59:35.760 we are just watching

00:59:39.860 We didn't yet come forward and offered an alternative, a comprehensive, attractive, spiritual and political, ideological, and maybe even a scatological alternative that fights them.

00:59:58.300 i ask myself with with the shame i cannot tell you how much we didn't we didn't we didn't yet

01:00:09.840 open the the chapter of what jewish settlers are doing in the occupied territories in the west

01:00:15.780 Bank. Daily crimes against innocent Palestinians conducted by wild, savage settlers, ignored by

01:00:29.320 the army and by police and supported by members of Knesset and members of the cabinet. Daily.

01:00:35.360 I'm full of shame

01:00:39.300 but the

01:00:41.040 utmost one is

01:00:42.500 where the heck are the rabbis

01:00:45.220 where are the

01:00:49.080 spiritual leaders

01:00:50.340 maybe they're not

01:00:53.100 coming because they are the insiders

01:00:55.000 because they are

01:00:56.880 behind it

01:00:57.980 because they support it

01:01:00.840 because they promote it

01:01:02.000 because it promotes the messianic

01:01:04.600 ends-of-the-day eschatological philosophy.

01:01:09.340 And this is, as I said earlier,

01:01:12.040 where classical Judaism implodes

01:01:14.880 into Israeliness.

01:01:21.820 How important is the rebuilding of the temple

01:01:26.020 to the people you're describing,

01:01:28.800 to the cabinet ministers,

01:01:29.980 to the rabbis who are not speaking up against

01:01:31.860 what's happening in the occupied territories?

01:01:34.600 Is there actually an effort to do that, do you believe?

01:01:42.820 For the people in the street, not the rabbis, not the people engaged, not those you ask questions about, to the masses, it's a non-issue.

01:01:51.640 Yeah, I figured that.

01:01:52.920 It is as if a kind of a, I mean, Disney World in Orlando.

01:01:58.520 Yeah.

01:01:59.960 I mean, do whatever you like.

01:02:01.460 I mean, just give us a break, okay?

01:02:04.600 So for the masses, they are not there.

01:02:10.160 On the other hand, since 67, at least five, I'm not at all sure that not more,

01:02:20.820 at least five attempts to remove the mosques from the Temple Mount were done by these groupings since 67.

01:02:32.000 Which means that when you come to address this question, it is not so much about the numbers who support the removal of the musks and the rebuild of the temples.

01:02:50.680 It is about the dedication and the readiness and the fanaticism of those who are ready to act.

01:03:02.000 let me just say

01:03:05.680 I'm embarrassed

01:03:06.420 I did not know

01:03:08.040 there had been

01:03:08.560 five attempts

01:03:09.320 to get rid of

01:03:10.120 the Dome of the Rock

01:03:10.960 and Al-Aqsa

01:03:11.960 so these were plots

01:03:14.240 to blow them up

01:03:15.040 is that

01:03:15.580 what happened

01:03:16.600 yeah

01:03:16.920 yeah

01:03:18.580 huh

01:03:20.380 yeah

01:03:20.800 what happened

01:03:22.580 to the perpetrators

01:03:23.440 to the plotters

01:03:24.440 the most famous one

01:03:27.800 is the 80s

01:03:29.100 what is called

01:03:29.960 the Jewish Underground

01:03:30.900 A group of settlers from the same educational system that I grew up with, that I was brought up on.

01:03:42.640 Some of them are friends and friends of families and people from the same school I went, etc.

01:03:47.540 I mean, really, like me, people who were caught, sentenced, sent to jail, and got a political deal a couple of months or two years later.

01:04:03.040 And few of them, if not many of them, became prominent, prominent Israeli figures.

01:04:09.260 One of the most important newspaper editor in Israel, Makori Shon, advisors to ministers, members of Knesset, you name it, well received back into society, not excommunicated and not excluded, not secluded, not excluded.

01:04:32.200 So much so that today sits in jail for life.

01:04:36.560 Igor Amir, who assassinated the prime minister.

01:04:39.920 And there are constant voices, even within the Knesset,

01:04:44.760 even within the government and the Netanyahu's coalition,

01:04:48.060 calling for his release.

01:04:54.700 So as for your question, what is the support?

01:04:58.680 The support in the public is very small.

01:05:01.120 the dedication of the few

01:05:02.860 is very intensive.

01:05:06.680 What would happen

01:05:07.960 if the Al-Aqsa complex

01:05:11.680 were destroyed?

01:05:18.040 I don't know.

01:05:18.860 Tucker, let's move on.

01:05:20.760 That's how I feel.

01:05:21.820 But I mean, I don't live there.

01:05:23.100 You do.

01:05:23.840 So you see that as a profound change

01:05:26.700 in world history

01:05:27.420 if that were to happen.

01:05:31.020 I'm not at all sure that we are not already into this profound change.

01:05:39.620 Yes.

01:05:41.000 Like this war with Iran combined with October 7th, combined with other things, we're in the middle of a transformation of world order.

01:05:53.000 To what next order or this order, neither you nor me know, and maybe we don't share the same vision of what should it be.

01:06:00.840 But we're in the middle of a transformation here.

01:06:05.400 Now, this issue of the temple, the issue of the mosques, will be, morally speaking, a coin with two sides.

01:06:24.740 on the Israeli side

01:06:27.600 if and when this will happen

01:06:29.440 God forbid

01:06:30.340 that will be the end

01:06:35.280 of justification of the existence

01:06:37.620 of the state of Israel

01:06:38.780 and if this God forbid

01:06:43.200 will happen I'm afraid

01:06:45.620 it will trigger

01:06:47.360 the masses

01:06:48.620 all over the Muslim

01:06:51.540 world that this

01:06:53.680 might topple down few regimes

01:06:56.080 and bring to power different powers

01:07:00.460 and different regimes

01:07:01.700 that the entire world order,

01:07:04.460 the way we knew it,

01:07:06.620 will not be recognized by us anymore.

01:07:09.660 It is much more volatile and explosive

01:07:13.880 than a nuke.

01:07:15.340 Yes.

01:07:17.700 That is certainly my read on it.

01:07:19.940 I don't think you're overstating it.

01:07:21.320 Of course, no one can predict the future, but that seems very likely.

01:07:26.080 Do you think, my other sense, again, I'll allow you to have the more definitive word on it,

01:07:33.140 but is that if there was ever a time it could happen, it's right now in the middle of this war.

01:07:40.980 The only thing I will say is that I hope that the attention of the prime minister is given to that also.

01:07:50.700 Yes.

01:07:52.320 That's the only hope I have.

01:07:55.280 I trust him.

01:07:57.860 My trust is very minimal.

01:08:00.480 And this isn't a very good day.

01:08:04.400 I hope that he understands if something like that happens in his shift, it's bigger than him.

01:08:13.500 Yes.

01:08:14.080 And I hope he pays attention to it.

01:08:17.440 I feel the same way about him, but I agree with you.

01:08:20.600 I don't see why he would want this.

01:08:26.480 Here we go to something else.

01:08:29.120 Netanyahu is a well-read person.

01:08:33.980 He is not an alphabet.

01:08:40.060 He reads books.

01:08:41.340 He understands.

01:08:42.100 He knows.

01:08:42.740 He has a vision.

01:08:43.820 You can agree with him.

01:08:44.940 You can disagree with him.

01:08:46.060 But at least he's an interesting partner.

01:08:49.700 Yes.

01:08:50.600 He knows what he's talking about, okay?

01:08:54.760 What happens to him in the last couple of years is that he does not behave politically according to his wisdom.

01:09:07.160 He behaves according to his political survival instinct rather than according to his ideology and philosophy.

01:09:13.780 So between political survival or conservative right-wing, decent right-wing conservatism, if he was the right-wing conservative, I would say, I will oppose you, but I respect you.

01:09:33.180 The minute it's the personal survival instinct only, I don't accept it and I don't respect it and I suspect it.

01:09:43.520 And the fact that in his cabinet, there are so many influential ministers who promote this agenda and create daily provocation around the mosques troubles me.

01:09:56.900 I take you a step further.

01:09:58.880 How many times did you in your analysis say, listen, there are so many fanatics in politics, et cetera, et cetera, but the Israeli army is a moderate one.

01:10:11.440 They're usually the sound of reason.

01:10:16.820 Okay, this is the perception we have.

01:10:20.300 But pay attention.

01:10:21.760 Most of the generals and the high-up officers of today are people who were brought up, educated, shaped, and molded at the previous times of Israel, under Rabin, under Perez, under Menachem Begin, even under Ariel Sharon, in a much more responsible country.

01:10:44.420 The people who climb up now the ladder, the military ladder, are different kind of people who were brought up under the chaotic, problematic value system of Netanyahu in the settlements, educated with this kind of messianic mission.

01:11:14.420 to use the army as a tool to accelerate redemption,

01:11:19.660 and a day will come that you will see a chief of staff

01:11:24.760 with this kind of agenda.

01:11:27.740 You already have the head of the shin bet

01:11:30.880 of our secret service coming from these circles.

01:11:37.960 So to trust the Israeli army to be the moderator for good

01:11:43.220 might be a mistake.

01:11:47.760 Pay attention.

01:11:50.220 Things have changed so fast there.

01:11:52.840 I mean, from an outsider's perspective,

01:11:54.680 it's just a very different country

01:11:56.500 from what it was even 15 years ago.

01:11:59.600 That's how it feels to me.

01:12:02.860 It is right.

01:12:04.220 And in order to understand the shift,

01:12:06.740 our says follows.

01:12:08.020 When was your first time here in the region?

01:12:10.920 25 years ago.

01:12:13.220 Make me the... 2000?

01:12:16.320 Yeah, exactly.

01:12:18.300 Okay. 2000 was the end of the tale of secular Israel.

01:12:25.720 Israel of 48 was, as Bernie Saunders called it, socialist, but let's call it European-wise social and democratic.

01:12:36.860 A very young democracy, but with a prospect to move on for a better, more developed democracy, and very secular.

01:12:49.300 Israel of today is democracy in deficit in a good day.

01:12:56.800 Harsh capitalist to the level of libertarian anarchy almost sometimes.

01:13:03.960 and very religious.

01:13:10.680 So Israel of 2026 is not Israel of 48,

01:13:15.560 not Israel of 67, and not Israel of 2000s.

01:13:19.180 Different society, different leadership,

01:13:22.220 different rhetorics, different ethos and pathos.

01:13:28.660 And the real struggle today

01:13:31.600 between the political forces, yes, it's very personal.

01:13:36.300 My personality, your personality, my leader, your leader.

01:13:39.560 Okay, that's granted.

01:13:41.340 We have it in every political system.

01:13:43.320 Imagine politics with no ego.

01:13:45.080 So boring.

01:13:46.540 Okay, God forbid.

01:13:47.700 So thank God we have some ego left.

01:13:50.420 But the undercurrent is the warming cold war

01:13:56.620 between religion and politics,

01:13:58.340 between the Jewish and the

01:14:01.520 democratic. That's

01:14:03.680 the real deep struggle.

01:14:07.360 Will

01:14:07.620 Israel, by the end of the road,

01:14:10.520 will be Jewish

01:14:11.600 religious, that their religion

01:14:13.840 is defined

01:14:14.780 by this kind of people?

01:14:17.800 Or will it be back

01:14:19.640 a kind of a liberal democracy?

01:14:22.380 And let's not argue now

01:14:23.740 what is the definition

01:14:25.840 of this liberal democracy,

01:14:27.140 but much more secular in its thinking

01:14:29.720 and therefore speaks with the language of reason.

01:14:34.920 And this is the real political struggle in Israel today.

01:14:37.960 I'm hopeful, by the way.

01:14:40.400 As difficult as it is, the pendulum will come back.

01:14:45.800 But we have to understand what the fight is all about.

01:14:49.720 do you think given israel's moves since this war in the last month right both in west bank

01:15:01.800 and in lebanon do you think that israel will have different borders by the end of it

01:15:08.900 will control more territory by the end of this

01:15:12.320 As much as there are enough people who buy into your suspicion that we want Israel from the Euphrates to the Nine, this is actually your question, right?

01:15:29.520 How real is the Greater Israel Project?

01:15:31.800 It's just hard to know.

01:15:32.840 It looks real, but I don't know.

01:15:35.040 No, I just wanted to show you that I listened to you.

01:15:37.860 Okay, this was just a show off.

01:15:40.360 I'm just quoting the Torah.

01:15:43.020 That's it.

01:15:45.360 Yeah.

01:15:45.720 Okay.

01:15:46.000 So as much as there are these elements, which are the same elements that were behind the killing of Yitzhak Rabin and the underground to remove the mosques and those who harass the Palestinians now, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

01:16:04.220 I do not believe that in any future that both of us will be part of it, Israel will have any legal and legitimate borders but the 48, 49, 67 borders.

01:16:23.660 There will be so many attempts.

01:16:26.300 There will be so many provocations.

01:16:28.540 There will be so many manipulations by all of these people.

01:16:32.960 It will never work.

01:16:34.220 So much so that I also allheartedly believe that somewhere by the end of the process,

01:16:44.640 most of the settlements and the settlers from the West Bank will be removed as well.

01:16:52.680 Yeah.

01:16:55.300 That's not the trend that we see from this vantage.

01:16:59.740 Why would you predict that?

01:17:01.240 No.

01:17:04.220 most of Israelis want to have good life.

01:17:10.360 As much as Netanyahu came with his prophetic vision

01:17:15.120 of super Sparta,

01:17:17.640 we still prefer Athens.

01:17:21.420 I mean, because of the suflaki,

01:17:25.640 because of the halloumi,

01:17:26.780 because of whatever.

01:17:28.000 Of course.

01:17:28.160 We prefer Athens.

01:17:28.840 Everyone prefers Athens to Sparta, of course.

01:17:31.740 You see?

01:17:32.100 So as much as the democracy in Athens was a little bit, how shall we put it, not updated, okay, the original version was a little bit limited, but yet the vision of Athens as the place of aesthetics and philosophy and wisdom and reason and democracy, the seas of Western democracy,

01:18:00.480 See, most Israelis would like to have a good life.

01:18:04.380 We want to live.

01:18:06.040 We want our children to live.

01:18:09.280 Tucker, I cannot tell you how much I cried

01:18:13.180 when my kids went to the army.

01:18:18.760 I was standing there when the bus took them.

01:18:23.240 And I remembered my mom telling me,

01:18:26.220 kiddo, when you grow up, there will be peace

01:18:29.700 and you will not have to serve in the army.

01:18:32.760 And I did have to serve in the army.

01:18:35.360 And then I said the same thing to my kids.

01:18:38.560 And between my wife and myself and my kids,

01:18:42.560 we have more than 30 years of service in the family.

01:18:48.520 Now we have grandchildren.

01:18:52.240 And one day soon, they will have to serve

01:18:54.980 because we are citizens of the place.

01:18:58.420 We are partners to the responsibility.

01:19:04.200 And I know that the day in which my grandchildren generation will stand up and say,

01:19:12.700 we are ready to defend the legitimate Israel, but we're not ready to sacrifice our life

01:19:21.300 or to sacrifice the life of others

01:19:24.980 on the altar of this craziness.

01:19:30.020 This day is closed.

01:19:34.040 That's very reassuring.

01:19:37.340 I'm sorry?

01:19:38.620 That's a very reassuring thing to hear.

01:19:42.260 I'll give you a moment that you were there with me

01:19:46.300 in that moment when October 7 erupted.

01:19:51.300 like a volcano, covered the entire city of Naples, so to say,

01:19:56.720 the Israeli Naples.

01:19:57.840 We were all under the dust.

01:20:00.760 What was the first thing that came back to the table?

01:20:05.120 Two-state solution.

01:20:07.900 As much as Trump said, I've made it, I mean, I solved it.

01:20:13.680 And Netanyahu, like Houdini, made it disappear.

01:20:17.560 It came back to the table, and it is still there.

01:20:20.640 And you cannot ignore it.

01:20:22.200 And you should not ignore it.

01:20:25.140 And therefore, the pressure from within and from the outside and the reality and the options, I hope, will be offered to all of us after this round with Iran will be over.

01:20:38.340 There will be new options.

01:20:40.100 Some of them awful.

01:20:41.140 Some of them promising.

01:20:42.100 Eventually, Israelis will say, we are ready to serve the needed, but not the fantasies.

01:20:52.820 Are you concerned that Israel, if this continues at the current pace, will be hit hard enough by Iran that it responds with nuclear weapons?

01:21:05.360 the first time i thought about it was when you started to raise the issue in your programs

01:21:15.640 and i had a feeling that you are really troubled by it very and i had a feeling that now you're

01:21:22.000 troubled that israel will be nuked or will nuke them because the effect on so many other fronts

01:21:30.860 and the nuclear race that will start right afterwards

01:21:36.140 will put all of us in a real threat.

01:21:39.480 So I fully, I started to think about it.

01:21:45.300 I'm not so much troubled by Israel nuking them

01:21:49.360 because Israel has two strategies.

01:21:52.440 Since we, as Jews, we could never compromise

01:21:55.720 with one opinion.

01:21:56.820 So we said, yeah, let's have two opinions.

01:21:58.920 So we have one conventional army

01:22:00.800 that is in order to win, never mind what.

01:22:03.580 And then we have the non-conventional capability,

01:22:06.300 which is in order to win no matter what.

01:22:09.900 And I believe that every threat yet in the region

01:22:13.520 we can address with conventional power and setting.

01:22:20.600 Yet, if there should be a way out of it,

01:22:26.420 you promote in the last couple of weeks,

01:22:28.620 you promote the issue of all the sides who sit together around the same table, talk respectfully

01:22:34.780 to each other with no patronizing and with no arrogance. Just talk to each other.

01:22:42.460 I say something as well. Yes, of course, I'm a dialogist. I talk with you. Okay, we're talking.

01:22:51.440 I want the outcome of this war to be a Middle East clean of weapons of mass destruction to all.

01:23:03.160 Israel denied bombs included.

01:23:08.740 Now it is clear that Iran must have North Korean strategy in order to protect itself.

01:23:18.060 it didn't start with us

01:23:21.220 it started with the Iraqis

01:23:23.220 then they said listen

01:23:26.660 the only way we can protect ourselves

01:23:28.720 is to have this kind of

01:23:30.340 supra capability

01:23:31.720 so in order for Iran not to have it

01:23:36.880 and therefore Saudi not to run

01:23:39.040 after them and then Egypt to say

01:23:40.920 what about us and then the

01:23:42.940 Emiratis or the Qataris buying something

01:23:45.100 from Pakistan and then

01:23:46.740 And we should make sure that by the end of this negotiation, whatever we give to whom, because this negotiation you give, you take, you negotiate, the outcome should be a process, a Middle East clean of weapons of mass destruction, which will be imposed on Israel as well.

01:24:10.000 Who could impose that?

01:24:13.780 President Trump.

01:24:14.700 overnight.

01:24:17.960 It's hard for me, I mean, again,

01:24:20.120 as someone who would love to see,

01:24:23.300 would be grateful to see what you just described,

01:24:25.480 I want that.

01:24:26.840 It's hard to see Netanyahu ever accepting that

01:24:30.680 under any circumstances.

01:24:33.640 That's right.

01:24:35.000 That's right.

01:24:35.640 It's difficult.

01:24:36.820 It's not easy.

01:24:38.720 But as my wise father that was mentioned

01:24:41.220 once already in this program used to say,

01:24:43.420 he doesn't believe in sticks and carrots.

01:24:46.160 He believes in carrots and carrots.

01:24:48.200 And then he said,

01:24:49.180 even a carrot can cause some pain sometimes.

01:24:53.540 I mean, there are ways to do it.

01:24:56.340 There are ways to secure it.

01:24:57.920 There are ways to guarantee it.

01:25:00.220 It opens a whole new window,

01:25:04.360 so to say,

01:25:05.680 about can you trust America today?

01:25:10.240 What the Gulf states

01:25:12.480 that both of us are curious about them.

01:25:16.760 Yes.

01:25:18.480 Okay, something is happening there.

01:25:22.960 What will they say if America will walk away from this conflict

01:25:26.900 and leave them alone at the mouth of the Iranian lion or the Israeli lion?

01:25:31.880 That's right.

01:25:33.000 Not good.

01:25:33.560 Not good.

01:25:34.100 What Japan will say.

01:25:35.280 That's right.

01:25:35.660 What South Korea will say.

01:25:37.540 What India will say.

01:25:40.520 End, end, end, end, end.

01:25:41.900 Taiwan?

01:25:42.480 Singapore

01:25:44.020 all of these important places

01:25:46.320 if you cannot trust America

01:25:49.160 so it's self-reliance

01:25:52.040 self-reliance means

01:25:53.720 an immediate

01:25:54.900 ornament race

01:25:56.760 which is bad

01:25:59.400 so in order to prevent the world

01:26:03.560 to go into a new race like that

01:26:06.220 and this is the entire world

01:26:07.700 and we know who will be the profeters of it

01:26:10.340 All of those who export death and weapons of hatred to all over the world, in order not to make these industries, industries of hatred and industries of suspicion and industries of death,

01:26:28.440 In order not to make them profitable, the only way to come positively out of this conflict is to begin here at home.

01:26:39.920 Here is the first region which is clean and we move on.

01:26:44.980 And these are the guarantees we Americans are giving you that nothing bad will happen to you if a threat like this one day will stand in front of you.

01:26:58.440 So America, in order to do anything, is not just about the oil prices, which is important by itself.

01:27:05.800 I mean, if you live in the suburbs for so many years and you want to drive to your pharmacy or to your supermarket, the price is crucial.

01:27:15.240 I consider it very seriously as a daily existential issue for the American citizen.

01:27:24.000 But if you want the world to be pacified and calmer, you need to restore not the trust in the markets, but the trust in America.

01:27:39.080 Again, we strongly agree on that.

01:27:41.080 What would happen if no American leader was able to restore that trust or the United States couldn't afford to remain a stabilizing force globally because it's expensive?

01:27:58.480 What would happen to the world?

01:28:05.820 The simple answer is I have no clue.

01:28:08.200 the little bit more

01:28:11.280 augmented one is

01:28:13.260 somebody else will walk

01:28:15.260 somebody else will grow into

01:28:17.320 this responsibility

01:28:18.340 will it be

01:28:20.620 China

01:28:21.740 that with all the problems

01:28:25.600 that Chinese are having

01:28:27.280 they're about two things

01:28:29.120 they're very much about

01:28:30.840 continuous stability

01:28:33.340 at home and abroad

01:28:35.480 and they're

01:28:37.380 hardly ever initiate a war. They play games, but they don't declare wars the way we declare wars

01:28:45.380 every now and then. So maybe China will grow into it. Maybe there will be a different world

01:28:51.380 coalition of interested parties who would like to see something like that end. And this is

01:28:58.580 a very, very ambitious

01:29:02.340 end. What about

01:29:04.600 Europe? I

01:29:06.500 saw

01:29:07.080 your vice president there

01:29:10.020 and then I saw your secretary

01:29:12.360 of state there.

01:29:14.020 One with a little bit more

01:29:16.300 abrasive style, the other one a little

01:29:18.500 bit more subtle one, saying

01:29:20.600 the same thing. Europe,

01:29:22.800 you're done.

01:29:25.700 And I

01:29:26.500 say, I'm not at all sure.

01:29:28.580 The good old continent was done so many times and rediscovered itself and re, can you say

01:29:40.220 re-burst itself?

01:29:41.600 Re?

01:29:42.140 Yes.

01:29:42.860 How do you, how do you re, re, reproduced itself?

01:29:47.520 Okay.

01:29:47.700 Yes.

01:29:48.220 I'm out of it.

01:29:49.620 Okay.

01:29:49.940 Reproduced itself so many times in history.

01:29:52.820 And I have a feeling that this mechanism of renewal, which is the cradle of the Western civilization, Western civilization is European first, and only then the rest of the Christian Anglo-Saxon, etc., etc.

01:30:12.620 And I have the feeling that Europe has the power to renew itself and to grow up into it.

01:30:20.740 And remember that Israel and Turkey and Iran and Saudi Arabia are the next door neighbors.

01:30:27.300 It's not a far away from Florida place.

01:30:35.140 No, it's not.

01:30:36.020 And I take Mark Twain wisdom who said that every now and then America declares a war in order for Americans to study geography.

01:30:44.800 I understand.

01:30:46.160 Okay.

01:30:47.520 Did he really say that?

01:30:49.160 That's pretty good.

01:30:50.420 This is what I read.

01:30:52.020 Okay.

01:30:52.780 And if he did not, let's give it to him.

01:30:54.440 He deserves it.

01:30:55.540 Um, you know, in the world, you either, you say either Bernard Cho or, or, uh, um, Gaucho Marx or Oscar Wilde or Mark Twain, right?

01:31:08.460 We have a limited palate.

01:31:09.920 Yes.

01:31:10.600 Great.

01:31:11.420 One of them, one of them did it.

01:31:13.200 Okay, so, and I say for Europe, it is much more natural at what sense when you look at the Middle East, the Middle East of today, with all of its fragility and all of its volatile forces,

01:31:37.140 is the leftover of two poisonous European fruits,

01:31:43.140 the Holocaust and colonialism.

01:31:45.980 And I'm not at all sure that Europe went yet through the process

01:31:51.180 to internalize it,

01:31:54.520 to grow up to the challenge,

01:31:58.960 what do we do about it?

01:32:01.400 Do we have any kind of historic responsibility?

01:32:04.080 And with America walking away, this America walking away from NATO and walking away from so many things, maybe it's time for Europe to recalculate its position in history.

01:32:20.680 So I have to end, and I should have done this at the beginning, but I just want to make sure that you get credit for this.

01:32:26.880 I want to read a line that you wrote immediately after the beginning of this war and you wrote it in the Israeli press because it's just so prescient.

01:32:39.480 And you're describing your prime minister, Netanyahu, and our president Trump.

01:32:43.400 You said, neither he nor Trump has the faintest idea why they want what they want to happen here after day one.

01:32:50.680 you saw that at the very beginning that this was a war without a strategic goal

01:32:58.780 and i think that's proven true how were you here's my question how were you treated when you said

01:33:06.180 that what was the response to that and what has your life been like in israel over the last month

01:33:11.260 because i don't think you're in the majority in your opinions

01:33:14.860 and i left the knesset voluntarily some 20 years ago and ever since i dedicated most of my life to

01:33:28.580 think to write to read to lecture to teach to offer alternative narrative to israel

01:33:37.220 easy it is not and with each and every book of mine and each and every article of mine

01:33:44.860 In a way, I'm pushed further away from the mainstream.

01:33:51.420 This is not just about the death wishes and the threats and the pushbacks in the streets.

01:34:01.880 It's not about that.

01:34:04.360 It's about the loneliness of having an opinion.

01:34:10.300 yet

01:34:13.400 I'm a Jew

01:34:17.120 what does that mean

01:34:20.080 being a Jew is many things

01:34:23.620 one of them is

01:34:25.040 to be dedicated

01:34:27.720 to the culture of disagreement

01:34:29.680 when you look at the Talmud

01:34:33.940 that's the most important

01:34:35.960 Jewish

01:34:37.180 writing

01:34:38.800 a creation

01:34:40.440 That's the oral Torah.

01:34:42.360 This is the development of the written scripture.

01:34:47.300 It's thousands of pages.

01:34:49.680 So boring, Tucker, you cannot imagine.

01:34:51.960 My goat ate your tomato.

01:34:53.760 Your cucumber heated my wife.

01:34:55.720 I mean, what kind of...

01:34:58.640 But it's not about goats.

01:35:00.220 It's not about cucumbers.

01:35:01.940 It's not about this.

01:35:04.160 Jews for centuries, so did I, so did my father, so did my grandfather.

01:35:08.880 studied the Talmud because the Talmud documents obsessively

01:35:14.140 not just the decision and the verdict of the majority,

01:35:17.940 but the position of the minority.

01:35:21.760 With the assumption that a day will come,

01:35:25.540 that the majority will wake up and realize how wrong they were,

01:35:31.260 we have already ready-made the strategy prepared by the minority

01:35:37.940 to become the new majority philosophy.

01:35:41.540 So being in a minority and a Jew,

01:35:44.880 it's not a problem.

01:35:46.640 So were the prophets.

01:35:48.360 So were the rabbis.

01:35:50.140 So were the intellectuals.

01:35:52.020 So what?

01:35:52.820 It's a responsibility.

01:35:54.820 And I see my role in life,

01:35:57.320 and it's not alone.

01:35:58.640 You never do things like this alone,

01:36:00.920 is to offer first thinking,

01:36:04.000 which is different than the parameters

01:36:07.420 parameters of the

01:36:09.940 public discourse and

01:36:11.900 to be courageous enough and

01:36:13.800 expressive enough

01:36:15.900 for people to know there is

01:36:17.900 an address out there

01:36:19.120 there is somebody out

01:36:22.000 there who thought about

01:36:24.100 it and is not

01:36:26.080 afraid so shouldn't we be afraid

01:36:28.100 look at my t-shirt

01:36:29.280 okay

01:36:31.480 I went abroad a couple of months ago

01:36:34.240 I'm going with that I said listen

01:36:36.080 And every ultra-Orthodox has his outfit that you recognize, like an Amish, okay?

01:36:42.260 Yes.

01:36:43.040 Every settler has his or her outfit, which is an M16 rifle and something else, okay?

01:36:49.120 I have my uniform.

01:36:51.020 So I'm in the airport, comes to me, a guy and says,

01:36:53.520 Borg, don't you think it's about time to change your shirt?

01:36:56.600 I said, why, it's stinking?

01:36:58.700 He said, no, no, no, no, no, peace is stinking.

01:37:01.380 Okay?

01:37:01.820 And of course, for me, it was an opening for a deliberation, for a discussion.

01:37:11.020 So, yes, many times I'm alone.

01:37:14.460 And yes, many times I'm even lonely.

01:37:18.340 But I'm full of hope.

01:37:20.740 And I offer hope for others.

01:37:23.700 And when my daughter asked me, Daddy, how do you feel?

01:37:26.420 She asked me the Tucker's question.

01:37:28.440 How do you feel?

01:37:29.040 I said, what's the problem, dear?

01:37:31.080 I'm in a majority.

01:37:32.540 I agree with myself.

01:37:34.700 At home, we all think the same.

01:37:36.380 So it's a majority.

01:37:37.420 All my friends think like me.

01:37:39.140 It's a majority.

01:37:40.360 Politically, I support people like me.

01:37:42.020 So we are the majority.

01:37:43.420 The fact that they have more numbers, that's marginal.

01:37:49.280 Bottom line is, sometimes, Tucker, being a Jew means being an alternative.

01:37:58.160 Well, I like your alternative.

01:37:59.580 and this conversation

01:38:00.740 has really been a blessing for me

01:38:02.040 so thank you very much

01:38:03.840 for taking the time to do it

01:38:05.020 and I hope a lot of people see this

01:38:06.280 thank you very much for your time

01:38:07.560 thank you

01:38:08.080 and giving me the opportunity

01:38:10.040 thank you very much Sarkar

01:38:11.400 thank you

The Tucker Carlson Show - March 23, 2026

Former Interim President of Israel Avraham Burg Speaks Out on Netanyahu’s Killing Spree

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