TRIGGERnometry - August 14, 2024


Konstantin Kisin Exposes Pro-Palestine YouTuber in Heated Debate


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 13 minutes

Words per Minute

198.73468

Word Count

14,565

Sentence Count

978

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

119


Summary

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

Konstantin Konstantin Kissen is a comedian, podcaster, commentator, and all-around internet muckraker who hosts the Triggernometry Podcast. A few years ago, he hosted me on his podcast to discuss my work on Bitcoin, and a few weeks ago he and I got into a cordial conversation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and I asked him to host him to discuss this in more detail on my podcast, and he graciously agreed.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 I recently agreed to go on a podcast hosted by a former Trigonometry guest, Safety and Amos.
00:00:05.120 We agreed to do it because we were having a discussion on Twitter about the Israel-Palestine
00:00:09.680 situation, and he said, given that we disagree and given that I've been on your show,
00:00:14.640 why don't you come on mine so we can have a good discussion about this?
00:00:17.900 What you're about to see is the conversation that we had, and it was anything but a good
00:00:22.660 faith conversation. I went into it with that spirit, but what I quickly discovered is Safety
00:00:26.860 and had very little interest in talking to me, and like some other people who we've debated
00:00:31.400 about this issue on the show in the past, what he was interested in was pretending that he's
00:00:35.780 arguing with me when he was actually arguing with points that other people made. You will
00:00:39.880 also see, I think, some of the things that are always interesting about these discussions,
00:00:44.240 one of them being that there never seems to be an understanding from the people on the
00:00:48.700 other side of this argument that there's a big difference between deliberately capturing
00:00:54.460 civilians and killing civilians and murdering civilians and collateral damage in the course
00:00:58.840 of a war, and you'll see that happen. I found it very shocking, particularly given that this was
00:01:03.820 billed as a good faith conversation. Check this out.
00:01:07.500 How many people do you think were raped on October 7?
00:01:13.000 Approximately zero. A lot of the dead civilians were dead because they were targeted by the Israeli
00:01:19.040 army. Why don't you actually ask me my opinions about things instead of putting words in my mouth
00:01:24.540 or arguing with people you imagine in your head? Are you saying that I believe that because I,
00:01:31.100 my grandfather was Jewish? Is that what you're trying to say? And the reason for that is just
00:01:36.160 identity bias. It's just, this is what... Which identity? In the West. Which identity?
00:01:41.720 I don't know and I don't care. It's just... No, no, no, no. You can't say it's identity bias and then say I don't know.
00:01:49.160 How is that anything to do with identity? Unless you're suggesting that my identity means that I have a
00:01:55.400 particular view of this conflict. Yeah, your identity gives you a bias towards this conflict and that
00:02:00.360 makes you... What is the identity element that gives me a bias? I don't know what your identity is,
00:02:05.880 I didn't even know you. Really? Now this is fascinating. Hello and welcome to the Bitcoin
00:02:13.560 Standard Podcast. Our guest today is Konstantin Kissen. Konstantin is a comedian, podcaster,
00:02:19.000 commentator, and all-around internet muckraker who hosts the Triggernometry Podcast. A few years ago,
00:02:25.640 he hosted me on his podcast to discuss my work on Bitcoin. A few weeks ago, him and I got into a
00:02:30.680 cordial conversation on Twitter on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Believe it or not, such a thing is
00:02:35.160 possible. And I've asked him to host him to discuss this in more detail on my podcast and he
00:02:40.440 graciously agreed. So Konstantin, thanks so much for joining. My pleasure. Good to be with you.
00:02:47.080 All right. So in general, I wanted to discuss the tweet that you mentioned, but in general,
00:02:53.480 I think there is an interesting conversation to be had about the discourse around the Palestinian-Israeli
00:02:58.680 conflict. And I think you offer a good perspective of how a lot of people in the West look at this
00:03:07.080 conflict and how they view it. And I thought it might be good to give you the perspective of
00:03:12.840 somebody who's actually from there. I grew up in Ramallah. I grew up under Israeli occupation.
00:03:17.880 And so I have a slightly different perspective from the one that you're probably more familiar with.
00:03:22.760 So I'd say, let me just begin with a general question. From looking at your tweets and your
00:03:29.560 discussions of this topic, it's pretty clear that you are a Zionist. You would identify as a Zionist.
00:03:35.320 So I guess my first question would be, why are you a Zionist?
00:03:39.080 Well, I don't know how you reached that conclusion. I suppose it depends on what you mean by Zionist.
00:03:43.480 Yeah. Well, for me, a Zionist is somebody who believes that there should be a Jewish state in Palestine.
00:03:53.960 Okay. So I don't know if you maybe want to bring our audience up to speed in terms of the conversation
00:04:00.440 we had on Twitter. I think one of the things I've always been very keen to emphasize is that
00:04:06.280 anything I think or say about it, and I really haven't said very much about this issue in public
00:04:11.160 at all, is coming from a place of not really being an expert and not really knowing about the history
00:04:20.680 of it. That's not to say I don't know about the history of it. But when I speak about it in public,
00:04:26.440 I'm really talking from a trying to think through from first principles, what people are saying about
00:04:32.680 it now. Right. So in terms of me being or not being a Zionist, I actually don't know that that is my
00:04:40.600 position. This gets me into hot water with a lot of people. I don't know that I believe there should
00:04:45.960 be a Jewish state in Palestine. Should is an interesting word. I mean, I think that even people,
00:04:55.080 I've yet to hear an argument about the creation of the state of Israel that makes me 100% convinced that
00:05:04.200 it was all clean and white and pure in every way. And there was no, there's nothing wrong there. Right.
00:05:10.680 So I then again, there'll be people who don't like me saying that, but that is the perspectives I've been exposed to.
00:05:16.920 So it's messy. However, there is a state of Israel now. It is home to about 10 million people. And so
00:05:26.520 unless we are prepared to see those people be deported or killed, then currently, I believe that
00:05:33.240 that state should continue to exist. Because just like in any other situation anywhere else in the
00:05:38.840 world, we don't go back 70, 80 years and go, actually, let's redraw this map. When Vladimir Putin
00:05:45.400 tries to do it, we're all against it. Right. Even though he has, and but it was what Adolf Hitler
00:05:51.080 was doing too. So the claim that we should go back 70 years and redo the borders of a country
00:05:55.560 because the way it was created wasn't quite right. I don't find particularly persuasive. But
00:06:01.000 in terms of the conversation you and I were having, it was much more about, I think it was about October
00:06:06.200 7th and what, who should have done what and how people should have responded. And that's really
00:06:11.080 where, for me at least, the focus is. So no, I have never described myself as a Zionist,
00:06:17.400 and I don't know that I would fit your definition of what a scientist is either.
00:06:21.800 Okay. Well, let me just say that I think this is, this is a good, this is a good place to
00:06:29.080 point out one important misunderstanding, which is that if you say that you're not a Zionist,
00:06:35.080 so that you oppose Zionist, it doesn't mean that you want the Jews who are in Palestine to leave
00:06:40.520 or to die. There are, yes, there are 10 million citizens of the state of Israel, but there are
00:06:45.000 about 15 million people who live in historic Palestine between the river and the sea. And on
00:06:50.520 that land, about seven and a half million are Jewish and seven and a half are not. So they're
00:06:54.600 all under Israeli sovereignty. They're all under Israeli control, whether it's in Gaza or the West
00:06:58.680 Bank or Israeli citizens. And so within Israel citizens, there's two and a half million that are
00:07:05.320 not Jewish. And so there's seven and a half million who are Jewish and seven and a half who are not.
00:07:09.640 So it's half the population that is Jewish. And so it's, I think, far more accurate to say that
00:07:15.880 being a Zionist means you want to kill and deport the seven and a half million people who are not Jewish
00:07:20.920 than it is to say that being an anti-Zionist means that you want to deport and kill the Jews.
00:07:25.480 Okay. Well, by that definition, I'm sorry to interrupt. I would really quibble even much more than I
00:07:31.240 already have with your description of me as a Zionist. I certainly don't want to deport or kill
00:07:36.520 people who are not Jews in that area. Why would you say that about me?
00:07:41.160 No, I'm not saying that about you, but I would say this is what the Zionist project
00:07:44.760 has been. And this has been the case from the 1920s. It was very clear to Zionist leaders that,
00:07:51.400 um, you know, initially the understanding in Europe for people who had never been to Palestine was that
00:07:56.200 this is a land for a land with no people, which we should take because we are a people with no land.
00:08:02.120 And then once people started moving, then they realized, well, that's not accurate. Uh, uh, famously
00:08:07.960 one, um, one, um, the one member, I think it was of the Zionist organization to travel to Palestine.
00:08:14.280 And he wrote back saying, the bride is already married. There are people already here that our
00:08:20.440 plan doesn't make sense. And then by the 1920s, it became very clear to a lot of these leaders that
00:08:25.320 there needs to be something done about these people. And either we're going to have to fight
00:08:29.000 them or we're going to have to kick them out, or we're going to have to convince their neighbors to take
00:08:31.880 them. And that's been essentially the driver of the conflict from day one. The driver of the
00:08:36.520 conflict is the fact that when the Zionist project really got off the ground, and that's thanks to you
00:08:40.920 British people, 1917, Lord Balfour gave the, um, uh, Balfour Declaration to Lord Rothschild because
00:08:48.840 Britain was broke in World War I and they needed money and they wanted the Americans to come in. And so
00:08:54.120 they wanted to, uh, in order to entice the Americans to come in, they thought they could entice the
00:09:00.200 Zionists in America by offering Palestine. And so at that point, about three to 5% of the population
00:09:07.640 of Palestine was actually Jewish. And you know, that there'd always been a pop, a Jewish population
00:09:11.960 in Palestine since the Muslim conquest of Palestine in 19, in 637. So when the Romans took over, they
00:09:20.520 expelled the Jews. When the Muslims kicked out the Roman leadership, they did not kick out the native
00:09:25.400 population. This is a common misconception. It's not like Arabs came from Arabia and kicked out the
00:09:30.360 people who were in Palestine. They, the people who were in Palestine stayed there. They were mostly
00:09:35.160 Christian at that time. The Muslims let the Jews come back and they were able to live in Palestine
00:09:40.840 from 637 up until 1947 and 1948. And during that time, they could own property and they could live
00:09:47.720 there. So there was never an issue of, we need to get rid of the Jews or we need to get rid of other
00:09:53.240 people. It was always understood that Muslims, Christians, and Jews had lived in that land and
00:09:57.240 they all had their property rights. And under the Turkish system, there was something called
00:10:00.840 the millet system where every, um, every group had its own civil law determined by its own religion
00:10:07.320 and their, its own religious authorities. So you can see why that would be a problem,
00:10:10.760 why people like me might not be too excited about the idea that a 5% minority in your country,
00:10:14.920 which is, I guess, probably around the same. I, I'm not sure about the numbers,
00:10:18.680 but I guess this is about the percentage of Muslims in Britain at this point,
00:10:21.400 maybe 5% of Britain is Muslim. So imagine how it would feel like if somebody said, you know,
00:10:25.720 let's make Britain into a national homeland for Muslims. And now we're going to start encouraging
00:10:29.320 Muslim migration into Britain. And also, we're going to take over land from people who are not
00:10:34.120 Muslim and build institutions of the state that are, uh, geared toward making all this land owned
00:10:41.000 by Muslims. And then we're going to get rid of all the rest of the population. So what I'm saying
00:10:46.440 is that, uh, the, the problem with the support for Israel as the default position, and that this
00:10:52.920 will get us into your tweet and our discussion is that it just, uh, ignores all of that stuff and ignores
00:10:58.360 the role that the Western powers have had in enforcing this and in making this reality come about.
00:11:03.640 And then likes to pretend that history starts always at the point when any Palestinian fights
00:11:09.240 back. And then that's portrayed as just a completely crazy, insane, violent, uh, unjustified,
00:11:16.040 monstrous, barbaric act that, uh, justifies any kind of response. And I think this is really what
00:11:22.040 it comes down to. So, and if you look at your tweet, which started this discussion, you're saying,
00:11:27.000 the thing very few people will openly say is that once you become a parent, if someone kidnaps your
00:11:32.280 child and holds them for months on end in captivity and give a, you give exactly zero Fs about how
00:11:39.080 exactly they're returned and the more of her captors are killed, the happier you'd be. That is
00:11:45.880 a pretty brave defense of Hamas, I would say on October 7th. No, that's a funny point, except that's not
00:11:51.560 what Hamas did. Uh, and this is, I think the crucial distinction that never gets picked up.
00:11:56.840 Uh, in any of these conversations. So first of all, uh, the history, I come back to my point
00:12:01.240 originally, which is, uh, you are undoubtedly more knowledgeable about the history of, of that
00:12:06.520 region. Um, and I, I'm not really interested in, in going over that because as I say, right up front,
00:12:13.640 it's not something that I know about. So I'm talking about conversations from first principles.
00:12:18.360 Now, if we're talking from first principles, I still want to come back to this idea that you,
00:12:23.720 you introduced me as someone from whose public discussions, it is clear that I'm a Zionist.
00:12:28.920 And then you define Zionism as being willing to deport and murder people, which I'm not offended,
00:12:34.440 but I don't think that's an accurate representation of my beliefs. Um, so I think that's an important
00:12:41.560 thing for me to maybe just point out, but in terms of your quip that it's a great defense
00:12:47.080 of Hamas, uh, I actually have said repeatedly that I thought that if October 7th was a Hamas attack on
00:12:55.800 Israeli military installations and border patrols and an attempt to, uh, attack the Israeli, the IDF,
00:13:04.760 for example, I don't think the world would have responded the way that the world has. And I don't
00:13:09.160 think the Israelis would have responded the way they have. And I certainly wouldn't see what happened
00:13:14.680 on October 7th, uh, as what it was, which is a horrific terrorist attack. I would see it as you
00:13:20.520 described it perhaps as an act of resistance, but slaughtering a thousand civilians, at least, uh,
00:13:27.240 raping women. Uh, and, um, if you compare, I mean, I don't know, uh, how many, how many thousand
00:13:35.480 people died on nine 11. I think it was about 2000, right? What happened to Israel, uh, and we should
00:13:42.120 probably look it up to get the exact, um, per capita comparison, right. But it was, it was like having a
00:13:48.520 9 11 happen in a large number of American cities all at once. Um, right. Innocent people being
00:13:55.960 targeted and murdered by terrorists. Uh, I think it's perfectly understandable that, and taking
00:14:01.960 hostages, by the way, I think it's perfectly understandable that people who are the victims
00:14:06.040 of that kind of atrocity targeted specifically at civilians, uh, as we saw in the United States case,
00:14:11.480 which reacted in ways that I didn't necessarily approve of on some occasions, like the war in Iraq.
00:14:16.040 Nonetheless, you would expect a country that was attacked in its way, in this way, you would
00:14:21.560 expect people, uh, who are civilians who were attacked in this way, uh, to respond in ways that,
00:14:27.080 uh, are going to be very harsh. And that I think is why what's happening is happening. Uh, I didn't see
00:14:33.720 the, uh, the tax on October 7th as an attempt to get back Palestinian hostages from Israeli jails.
00:14:40.920 That didn't seem to me to be what was happening. And so, uh, I don't think the comparison works.
00:14:47.880 Well, um, so a few problems, first of all, just in general, and I, and this is something that many
00:14:52.680 Palestinians and Israelis do, which is the, the, the suffering per capita ratio, which I think is,
00:14:58.120 I find it abhorrent because I think, uh, you don't become less of a human being because you're
00:15:03.240 American and there's 300 million Americans. Whereas if you're Palestinian and there's only 10 million
00:15:07.240 Palestinians, then one dead Palestinian is worth 30 dead, uh, uh, yeah, but it's a, it's a pretty
00:15:14.520 reasonable point that I'm making. I mean, if you think about, let's say you have a, um, let's say,
00:15:19.640 I don't know if you have kids, I have one son, right? If my son was to die in a tragic accident,
00:15:24.040 that, that at the level of my family, that is a disaster and a horrific thing to happen. Uh, at the
00:15:29.880 level of Britain, no one gives a shit, right? So the, the comparative point is, is not that one
00:15:37.080 person's life doesn't matter or matters more or whatever. The comparative point is if you want
00:15:41.800 to understand the psychological impact of a terrorist atrocity, you have to understand the
00:15:47.720 scale of that atrocity relative to the population of the country. If a hundred people were killed in
00:15:53.560 a terrorist attack in London, as has happened, that is not the same as a hundred people being killed
00:15:59.480 in my town, right? At the level of my town, that analysis would be, it would be a huge overwhelming
00:16:05.640 event. Whereas if it happened in London, it would be awful, very sad, but it's not nearly the same
00:16:10.600 thing. So I think, I think that's a fair point saved in. Yeah. Well, I mean, uh, I'm saying that
00:16:16.440 because, uh, not because I'm trying to minimize any kind of targeting of civilians. I think, oh,
00:16:20.680 they're all tragedies and any civilian death is, um, something that I do not accept and I do not
00:16:25.560 think is a legitimate. However, I'll say the, um, I think the, uh, the, the, the, the, the,
00:16:33.800 well, I don't think this is a fact. The first thing that Hamas did after, um, the October seven is
00:16:39.160 say that we are offering those hostages in exchange for releasing Palestinian prisoners. And in fact,
00:16:44.440 one of their, uh, one of their military squadrons had actually attempted to get into Ashkelon to free
00:16:50.280 prisoners from a prison, but they couldn't get there. So this was exactly about freeing, uh,
00:16:56.200 prisoners. No, no, no, no. Sorry. Again, to say, I'm sorry to interrupt, but this is again,
00:17:00.120 a false equivalence, right? If you kidnap my wife and you hold her in your house and I come
00:17:06.280 and rescue her from your house, and I happened to kill you in the process, I've got no problem with
00:17:11.000 that, right? If, if you kid, if, if you kidnap my wife in order to get something from me, that,
00:17:19.960 that's completely, that's a completely different situation, right? So, uh, the, the idea that they
00:17:25.720 took completely innocent people hostage, having murdered a thousand people and raped people on
00:17:30.600 the way in order to free, free the Palestinian prisoners is, is not an appropriate equivalence at
00:17:36.920 all. Uh, October 7th was a terrorist attack whose purpose first and foremost was to massacre civilians
00:17:43.320 and to terrorize the Israelis. It wasn't about rescuing people. And even if it was, it was done
00:17:48.760 in a way that I considered to be completely illegitimate. Yeah. Well, this is, um, so first of
00:17:54.520 all, let me just clarify, obviously disagree with any targeting of civilians, but I think, uh, this,
00:17:59.080 this is one of those things where, uh, the, the, the initial hysteria, and this is very similar to
00:18:03.560 COVID, you know, when COVID first happened, people just completely freaked out. And then people have
00:18:07.400 just been conditioned by that fear that, um, media puts into you when, you know, you see people falling
00:18:13.560 in China and then everybody got freaked out for years from COVID because they saw that video of that
00:18:18.440 guy falling in China and they saw that, uh, world health organization muppet saying that the R0 is
00:18:24.840 seven or whatever at that point. And so then the, that fear gets in and then the rational brain shuts
00:18:30.440 off. And then the animal brain is just thinking about flight or what, in, in terms of what I've
00:18:35.320 said, where would you identify my rational brain shutting off? First of all, there's, uh, all of the
00:18:41.320 evidence that has been presented for the idea that there has been any kind of rape has all been shown
00:18:46.040 to be presented by people who are complete liars. Like the UN. Yes. The UN has complete liars about the
00:18:53.080 rape. No, the UN published a report in which they looked at a bunch of people and a bunch of sources
00:18:58.280 and these sources and the people who were behind it, they've gone behind them and they've seen that
00:19:02.600 it's all garbage. Every single person who's behind this. So there's this organization called Zakat,
00:19:07.400 which is, uh, first, which is a bunch of first responders. They're responsible for a lot of the
00:19:12.120 horror stories and all of these horror stories turned out to be false. And the people behind
00:19:16.360 them turned out to be complete liars. And it was all about exaggerating this. So first of all,
00:19:20.840 just for clarity, how many, how many people do you think were raped on October 7th?
00:19:27.560 Approximately zero. Approximately.
00:19:29.960 Nobody was raped.
00:19:31.560 Pretty much. Yeah. There was pretty much the first time ever in the history of war
00:19:36.920 that thousands of men invaded a different territory, slaughtering civilians, taking female
00:19:43.160 hostages and none of them. That's literally never happened in human history. These Hamas fighters,
00:19:48.360 they were so moral and pure, they didn't touch any women.
00:19:51.160 Well, two reasons, two things to keep in mind. First of all, you'd have any kind of evidence
00:19:55.320 of it that you'd have some kind of substantive evidence for it, other than all of these proven
00:19:59.720 liars who are just repeating stories that are clearly lying. You know, the story about somebody
00:20:04.040 cutting off a tit and throwing it and playing with the tit.
00:20:07.080 But that isn't what I said. I didn't say anything about tit.
00:20:09.400 Hang on, hang on, hang on. You've been interrupting me. Let me finish.
00:20:12.440 Then there was the story of...
00:20:13.240 We're getting stuck on points where I think it's important to zoom in.
00:20:16.040 We're getting stuck because you won't let me finish and get to the point that you're making.
00:20:18.600 So you're moving on to another one. So first of all, the key thing to keep in mind is that the
00:20:23.720 point for Hamas and the win there was not to go and rape and murder. The point was to get as many
00:20:29.000 hostages as they could possibly get. And yes, I agree with you that it's not okay to take
00:20:35.000 civilians as hostages. However, I don't see you objecting to the 9,000 Palestinian civilians that are
00:20:41.240 in Israeli jays. And I don't see you...
00:20:43.080 I object to anyone who is innocent of crimes, which many of those people you're talking about
00:20:49.000 are not. Many of them stabbed people, killed people.
00:20:52.280 And yet thousands of them haven't been put on trial. They're on administrative detention.
00:20:55.800 Hold on. I'm sorry. This time I wasn't finished. However, I am in favor of the rule of law and due
00:21:01.080 process. And those people should be given due process. And to the extent that they're innocent of any
00:21:06.680 crimes, they, of course, should be immediately released. So you don't hear me object to it
00:21:11.320 because you haven't asked me if I object to it. I object to people being deprived of
00:21:16.040 No, but I... Yes, but I've seen your Twitter and you obviously never get outraged about
00:21:20.600 anything Israel does. You only get outraged about the things that you're told the Palestinians are
00:21:24.440 doing. Now, you get back to the point. Hang on, let me finish. So there was the whole 40 burned babies,
00:21:30.760 which is another one of these... Is that something I've tweeted about?
00:21:33.720 I don't know. You've tweeted about a lot of things. No, it isn't.
00:21:36.760 The point is, there was a whole bunch of atrocity propaganda that was being
00:21:44.040 given out to media that formed this crazy reaction where people's minds... Hamas is just this
00:21:49.640 incredible, indescribable evil and Israel's government and its military are just these...
00:21:54.040 No, no. Hold on. Let's talk about the... No, no. Let's talk about the point that I'm trying to get to.
00:21:59.320 No, no. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Okay.
00:22:01.480 If you want me on your podcast to debunk the things that you believe the mainstream media
00:22:07.000 have got wrong about this conflict, you don't need me here for that, right? You can just do that
00:22:11.640 yourself. But if you want to talk to me, let's talk only about the things that you and I have said.
00:22:17.320 I've never said anything about burned babies. I disagree with you about the idea that there
00:22:21.880 was zero rapes on October 7th. And I also disagree with the insinuation that you appear to be making,
00:22:27.960 that Hamas are not evil and barbaric. They clearly are. They're murdering terrorists who slaughtered
00:22:33.880 a thousand people plus, who wounded up to about 7,000 people, who deliberately targeted civilians,
00:22:40.440 who deliberately took civilians hostage. So let's talk about... If you want to talk with me, I'm
00:22:45.800 delighted that we're having this conversation, but let's talk about the things that I'm saying and the
00:22:50.280 things that you're saying instead of the things that other people have said, okay? Yes. And I'm
00:22:54.520 letting you finish every single time you're interrupting me, but I'd like to be able to
00:22:58.120 finish once. Well, the reason is I keep addressing your point and you keep bringing things in from
00:23:02.360 the outside that I haven't said. That's the difference. No. And the point is, again, going back to your
00:23:07.240 slaughter and rape, the other thing other than the rape is the idea that they went around murdering
00:23:12.920 civilians. But the vast majority of these civilians that were murdered, they were burned. Now,
00:23:17.720 a bunch of fighters who were carrying a bunch of guns and are trying to get as many hostages as
00:23:23.560 they can and get back, don't have the time to sit and tie people up and burn them down. It's not easy
00:23:28.920 to burn people in a house if you've got a gun on you. You tie people up, you start burning them,
00:23:34.440 they find that as soon as the fire comes near them, they can break free and they can get out. Why were
00:23:39.560 all those people burned at the festival? A lot of the dead civilians were dead because they were
00:23:45.240 targeted by the Israeli army because the Israeli army has the Hannibal directive, which is that
00:23:50.040 we'd rather kill our own people than let our enemies take them as hostages because we don't
00:23:54.920 want to be put in a position where we need to negotiate with terrorists. And that's what drove
00:23:59.960 this. So then you could say that you could see very clearly all the people that were dead were,
00:24:05.960 maybe not all, but a lot of the civilians that were dead were dead because they were burned,
00:24:09.640 because they were attacked by weapons that clearly Hamas doesn't have. So you have that
00:24:13.960 picture from the NOVA festival where you had all these cars that were burned. There was no way that
00:24:18.840 Hamas can go around burning cars in there. And again, the point that I'm trying to get to is I'm
00:24:24.040 not defending Hamas. I think it was completely, completely inexcusable what they did. And I don't
00:24:28.760 believe in the targeting of civilians. But I think the key point that I'm trying to get to is that
00:24:34.520 whatever atrocity propaganda you've swallowed about what Hamas did on that day is still not one percent
00:24:41.800 of what the IDF does regularly to Palestinians, what settlers do to Palestinians in the West Bank.
00:24:48.040 And that's the thing that you ignore. That's the thing that's been going on for 80 years. And of
00:24:51.800 course, when I bring up the past, when we talk about what the Israelis did in 1947 and 1948,
00:24:57.400 you'll say, well, this is too old and this is too far away. But it's something that goes on until
00:25:04.120 today. It's something that continues to go on. And yet we see this over and over and over again
00:25:09.480 with the kind of modal Zionist NPC, which is that these things don't register. Or if they do register,
00:25:15.560 if confronted with it, you just say, well, I condemn that. And then that's as if that makes them
00:25:20.840 completely irrelevant to the real world. So you just condemn it and then you move on and then you just
00:25:26.200 completely miss the idea of how this thing actually affects the real world.
00:25:32.120 Okay. What would you like me to address in terms of that?
00:25:36.280 Well, why is it that then you think, well, go back to your original tweet. You said that you think
00:25:41.480 that it is justifiable for people to do whatever it takes in order to free their hostages.
00:25:46.360 No, that isn't what I said. No, no, that's not what I said.
00:25:49.480 What is it that you said? Let's bring up the tweet again.
00:25:51.560 I didn't say it's justifiable for people to do whatever it takes. That's not what I said.
00:25:54.760 I give zero fucks about how exactly they're returned.
00:25:58.440 Yes.
00:25:59.320 And that only applies if it's the Israeli hostages. It doesn't apply if it's Hamas.
00:26:03.800 No, that's not what I said. I just said to you in the course of this conversation,
00:26:08.520 safety, and this is a problem. We had exactly the same conversation with Bassem Youssef, who
00:26:12.520 actually, like with you, I actually really like, right? We had a great conversation when you were
00:26:17.480 on trigonometry. I'm happy to have this discussion with you. But like you, he was arguing with things that I'd
00:26:24.440 never said because he spent his entire time reacting to things on the internet that other
00:26:29.640 people were saying. I said to you several things in the course of this conversation, which I think
00:26:34.600 preclude me from being described as a Zionist NPC or whatever it is that you just suggested.
00:26:39.720 Number one, I said to you that my reading of the history of this conflict is that the creation of
00:26:45.560 the state of Israel wasn't exactly purer than pure, right? So at no point have I suggested that
00:26:52.840 there isn't a problem there and that this conflict is entirely spurious because the evil barbaric
00:26:58.440 Palestinians are just by virtue of their evilness and barbarism are doing this, right? I also said to
00:27:04.200 you that had the October 7th attack been an attack by Hamas troops on Israeli troops or on Israeli military
00:27:12.440 installations or on Israeli prisons in order to free their people from there. While some people,
00:27:19.000 of course, many people in Israel would nonetheless treat this as an attack on their country quite
00:27:23.160 understandably, I think both the world and Israel and I would have reacted very differently, right?
00:27:29.480 So the issue is that you say, of course, targeting civilians is wrong. And that's something we,
00:27:37.560 of course, agree on. And the problem is that October 7th was not in any way an attempt to redress
00:27:45.160 the wrongs committed by the IDF. It doesn't compensate for them. It doesn't fix them. It doesn't
00:27:52.200 solve them. It's simply an act of terror designed to brutalize and murder and enslave the civilian
00:27:58.440 population of those areas. So if you are asking me about that, you have to start by acknowledging that
00:28:05.480 that that is a terrorist attack. Now, how would any country, this is what I'm asking you,
00:28:11.000 respond to a terrorist attack in exactly the way that Israel has done? So you can tell me about the
00:28:17.720 plight of the Palestinian people and I can agree with you. I can say to you, look, for the sake of
00:28:22.600 argument, the, you know, the Palestinians are under occupation and Israel and the IDF are terrible and
00:28:28.280 they go in there and mow the lawn and all of these other things that I've heard from many,
00:28:31.640 many people. And I can agree with you on all of that. That does not justify a terrorist attack
00:28:36.600 on Israeli civilians and it never will. And that's the difficulty that we're having because
00:28:41.800 people who are arguing from your position, including you in this conversation, are trying
00:28:46.600 to present October 7th as some attempt to offset the evils done by the IDF as you perceive them.
00:28:54.040 And I'm saying to you, there is no connection between the two. No amount of Israeli brutality
00:28:59.000 justifies the massacre of civilians. If Jews during World War II had risen up in the Warsaw
00:29:04.920 ghetto and just went around raping German women and slaughtering German civilians,
00:29:08.680 that would have been wrong too. When the Soviets, the people who were my ancestors,
00:29:14.760 raped their way through Eastern Germany on the way to Berlin, that was wrong. I am one of the people
00:29:20.360 who's actually been quite prominent in raising Soviet war atrocities, even though I think that war
00:29:25.400 needed to be won. And that isn't, by the way, the same as the aerial bombardment of Germany or dropping
00:29:32.920 the bombs on Japan, which was absolutely right and necessary for military reasons. So this difference
00:29:38.840 between targeting civilians gratuitously for violence and military necessity, and this is where I think
00:29:46.760 we're getting stuck. Yeah, we're getting stuck because you're unable to see the very transparent
00:29:53.320 the hypocrisy in your position. Explain it to me. I'll try to understand. Explain it to me.
00:29:58.440 That tweet said, I give exactly zero Fs about how they return. Now, that was in the context of the
00:30:03.720 fact when they freed, I think, three or four hostages. This was June 9th. They freed four hostages,
00:30:08.680 and in order to free those four hostages, about 300 Palestinian civilians were killed. 200 to 300
00:30:13.960 Palestinian civilians were killed. Aerial bombardment and special unit military forces came in,
00:30:19.480 and they knew that they were going to have to massacre a lot of civilians in order to get out,
00:30:23.320 and they did it. How is that in any way different from what Hamas did on October 7th? Just because
00:30:29.160 you refused to accept... May I ask another question?
00:30:31.800 Yeah, but let me finish. Hang on. Just because you refused to accept the distinction that no, no, no,
00:30:36.280 Hamas can't possibly be justified. I'm trying to tell you this is just the atrocity propaganda kicking in,
00:30:41.640 because in your mind it's just, oh, it's rape, it's murder, it's unjustifiable,
00:30:45.240 nothing that Israel does could possibly justify this. Well, no. Hamas also wanted to free thousands
00:30:50.280 of Palestinian prisoners. Israel wanted to free hundreds of Israeli prisoners, and Israel killed
00:30:55.960 hundreds of civilians. Hamas killed hundreds of civilians. Probably most of them were killed by
00:31:00.600 Israel, but even assuming, accepting the idea that they killed civilians, why is it that in your mind
00:31:05.480 this murder of civilians is justified because you're freeing hostages, but that murder of civilians is not
00:31:09.640 justified. For the reason that I've already explained to you repeatedly, which is if you take my wife
00:31:13.960 hostage and I come to your house and you try to prevent me from rescuing her, I'm going to shoot
00:31:19.000 you in the head and I'm going to feel great about it. If you come to my house and kill my family because
00:31:24.600 of something I've done, that's a completely different thing. Do you understand the difference?
00:31:29.080 No, it's exactly the same thing. So you feel there's no difference between
00:31:33.640 Constantine said something rude to me or did something bad to me. I'm going to come to his house
00:31:39.080 and I'm going to murder his family. No, no, no, no, no. You are losing the point that it's the same thing.
00:31:43.960 They've taken hostages. It's not the same thing.
00:31:45.960 Yes, they've both taken hostages. It's absolutely not the same thing.
00:31:49.560 Why are the Palestinians not worthy of being rescued?
00:31:53.960 Hold on. The civilians who were murdered by Hamas on October 7th had nothing to do with the
00:32:00.360 atrocities that you say are being committed against Palestinians, right?
00:32:03.960 And the civilians murdered by Israel had nothing to do with the atrocities that were murdered by
00:32:08.360 Hamas. Except they were killed in an attempt to rescue hostages, right?
00:32:12.360 How is that different? It's the same thing that Hamas says.
00:32:15.320 Because Hamas killed civilians in order to kill civilians. The Israeli troops killed civilians in order to
00:32:23.400 rescue hostages. That's the difference. No.
00:32:25.800 No, the difference is Hamas took civilians hostages and most likely the Israelis killed
00:32:29.960 their own civilians. But even accepting the fact that Hamas killed civilians...
00:32:33.240 Okay, so let's clarify that one point.
00:32:35.320 ...at least 50,000 civilians over the last nine months.
00:32:37.640 Let's clarify that one point. How many civilians do you think Hamas killed on October 7th? Because
00:32:43.080 you keep saying you're against targeting civilians, but it also sounds like you don't think they killed
00:32:47.240 any civilians. I haven't seen convincing evidence that they have. I think the majority of the
00:32:52.600 civilian deaths were from friendly fire. How many would you say that they did kill Hamas?
00:32:58.840 I would love to see an official investigation into this, but it's very telling that Israel won't
00:33:02.760 have an investigation into this. But how many would you say that they've killed? I mean,
00:33:05.880 it's a simple question. I don't know. I don't know. I haven't done an investigation into it,
00:33:09.640 but I'd like to see one. And I think it's very telling that they won't do one.
00:33:12.920 No, no, no. But that's not answering my question, right? That girl whose dead body we saw being driven
00:33:17.880 off in the back of a truck, was she killed by Israeli forces? No.
00:33:22.840 No, no. So that's one that we can say was definitely killed by Hamas. Okay.
00:33:27.960 Yeah. Right. How many more do you think were probably killed by Hamas?
00:33:32.680 I'm telling you, I don't know. I could make up a number.
00:33:35.160 Is it 10? Is it a hundred? Is it a thousand? How many?
00:33:37.800 I don't know. I'd like to see an investigation into this, but you know what I do know?
00:33:41.560 But you're absolutely certain about Hamas figures, about how many Palestinians have been killed,
00:33:46.920 right? Yeah, absolutely. I'm not certain about their figures. I know what is going on in Gaza,
00:33:51.480 and I know that there is no way that you could destroy an entire city of two million people and
00:33:56.200 not kill at least tens of thousands of people. Okay.
00:33:58.920 There's been tens of thousands of deaths. And I know because I know people in Gaza,
00:34:03.000 I know people who know people in Gaza, and I know just how many of the people they know have been dead.
00:34:08.360 I think what's been reported- I'm not disputing that lots of people have been killed in Gaza.
00:34:11.960 Yeah, and I'm also- But I am disputing that Hamas didn't kill civilians. Hamas killed a lot of
00:34:17.080 civilians on October 7th. Yes, but Israel has killed a lot more civilians, and this is what you-
00:34:22.040 No, but the comparative game there is irrelevant to me. We killed a lot more German civilians than
00:34:27.400 Germans killed our civilians in World War II. I think that's perfectly justified.
00:34:30.920 This is what I mean when I say Zionist NPC. We can kill as many of them as we can,
00:34:36.360 as we want, because that's justified, because we are reacting, because we are just- because
00:34:40.600 we are trying to get our hostages back. Nothing they do is justified. It's not. It only works in
00:34:46.840 your opinion. No, no, hold on.
00:34:48.360 Safedin, are you even listening to what I'm saying? You keep saying the phrase,
00:34:52.280 nothing they do is justified. I just said to you three times now, three times, if Hamas had attacked
00:34:59.400 Israeli military installations and IDF troops and killed IDF troops and Israeli military
00:35:05.640 installations were destroyed, that to me would be a completely different thing. So it's not that
00:35:10.920 nothing they do is justified. Okay, not nothing, but any crime by Hamas justifies any kind of reaction
00:35:16.680 by Israel. No, no, no, no. Which is why you never see any kind of criticism coming from people like you
00:35:23.800 towards anything that Israel does. You have to actually listen to what I'm saying,
00:35:28.040 otherwise it's impossible to have a comment. I am listening. I'm just pointing out the
00:35:31.240 hypocrisy of saying that it's okay for Israel to kill 50,000 people to rescue their hostages.
00:35:35.720 It's not okay for Hamas to kill anybody. I'm trying to tell you it's wrong for both.
00:35:40.040 I'm trying to tell you it's wrong for both. No, but you see, you keep missing deliberately,
00:35:44.200 I think, at this point, because you're a smart guy. You keep missing the point that I'm making,
00:35:48.360 which is that there's a big difference between attempting to rescue hostages or attempting to
00:35:55.160 kill terrorists and simply targeting civilians for the purpose of targeting civilians, right?
00:36:03.160 There's a big difference between those two principles. One of those things is called war.
00:36:07.640 The other of those things is called terrorism. And there's a big difference between the two.
00:36:12.200 Strapping a bomb to your chest and getting on a bus is very different to going to war and attempting
00:36:18.120 to rescue hostages in the process of which civilians get killed. They're different activities
00:36:23.320 entirely. There's a different moral calculus and it works entirely differently. That's the difference.
00:36:29.560 I see. So you're not a fan of terrorism and you think terrorism is not justifiable.
00:36:34.440 You don't think targeting civilians is justifiable. Correct.
00:36:38.120 And does that include Palestinian civilians? It includes any civilians anywhere, including,
00:36:44.440 by the way, I, for example, right? I'm Russian. My wife is Ukrainian and I have lots of family in
00:36:49.240 both countries. I have been very outspokenly pro-Ukrainian throughout the entire conflict.
00:36:54.920 I do not support killing Russian civilians in retaliation to what Russia is doing in Ukraine,
00:37:02.200 nor do I support obviously Russia killing Ukrainian civilians, right? So it's not difficult to support
00:37:08.360 people being able to wage war in situations where they have to wage war without also then condemning
00:37:15.080 the massacring of civilians that is deliberate and purposeful targeting for the sake of killing
00:37:19.720 civilians. That is not the same as collateral damage in conflict. They're different things.
00:37:25.880 No, but here's the thing. The problem is that you think any kind of death meted out by Israel is
00:37:32.200 collateral damage because in your mind... No, I don't. I don't think that.
00:37:36.520 Yes, which is why you don't see when Israel goes and murders Palestinians, when an Israeli terrorist
00:37:42.680 goes into a Palestinian village and shoots people, as happens every day these days in the West Bank,
00:37:47.960 every single day, pogroms of settlers surrounded by soldiers protecting them, going into Palestinian
00:37:53.880 villages, burning people's homes, burning their cars, shooting people. This happens every day.
00:37:58.440 You don't say anything about it. You don't condemn it. You don't think it's a problem. You don't talk
00:38:03.880 about it. If you want me to condemn it, I will happen... Look, I don't want you to condemn it.
00:38:08.680 I don't want you to condemn it. You've got to let me respond.
00:38:10.600 No, no, no. You've got to let me respond. Right? You made the point. You've got to let me respond. So
00:38:15.720 as I said to you, I don't talk about this issue publicly because it's not an area of expertise of mine.
00:38:20.680 If anyone asks me about the West Bank, I can tell you what my understanding of the West Bank is.
00:38:25.400 I don't like a lot of the things that are being done in the West Bank. I don't like a lot of the
00:38:30.200 things that the settlers are doing. And I do not support burning people's homes and massacring people
00:38:35.800 and killing people and pushing them out of wherever they live. So when you say you don't condemn it,
00:38:41.640 if you ask my opinion, I will give it to you. I don't support some of the things that are being done there.
00:38:47.160 Yes. This is a great answer for me because it's exactly my problem with this entire idiotic fetish
00:38:54.840 that pro-Israel people have about condemn, condemn, condemn, which I find idiotic because
00:38:59.080 it's meaningless. Because I'm not asking you to condemn things. And I hate it when people ask me
00:39:04.840 to condemn things because I don't condemn anybody. I don't condemn Israel. I don't condemn any authority
00:39:09.800 because who am I? I'm in no position. I'm not their mom to condemn them. I'm not their benefactor.
00:39:14.760 And so it's meaningless to say who's condemning things. You just said to me, you don't condemn
00:39:22.840 it. And that's what I responded to. Yes. But I do condemn it if I'm asked to.
00:39:28.040 Yes, exactly. But what I'm trying to illustrate is that if you look at your tweets, if you look
00:39:31.720 at your position on this and whenever it's brought up, you bring up the death of Israeli civilians
00:39:36.920 and then use it as justification for anything Israel does. So you look at all of your discussions.
00:39:40.680 I don't. I don't use it as justification for anything Israel.
00:39:43.960 I give you no effort on how they return. So Israel can do whatever it wants.
00:39:46.920 And then you don't care about all the targeting of Palestinian civilians that takes place. And you
00:39:51.480 never bring up the fact that anything that the Palestinians do in return is justifiable.
00:39:55.960 Notice I'm not saying that it is. Let me be clear here. I'm perfectly consistent. Let me be clear.
00:40:01.400 I'm perfectly consistent. I think everybody's wrong to target civilians. And I think targeting
00:40:06.040 civilians does not justify any kind of reaction. So I'm not OK to go and target Israeli civilians
00:40:11.400 because they targeted Palestinian civilians. You are the one who's swallowed the Zionist NPC
00:40:17.560 propaganda hook, line and sinker. And don't even see the distinction here, wherein no matter what
00:40:22.920 Israel does, it doesn't matter. You're not going out there posting videos of the horrific things that
00:40:27.240 take that are taking place in the West Bank, of the horrific things that Israel has been doing to
00:40:31.160 Palestinians for eight years, of the land theft, of the mass murder, of the terrorist attacks,
00:40:35.960 the enormous number of terrorist attacks. I mean, Menachem Begin, the Israeli prime minister,
00:40:39.800 boasted about the fact that he invented modern terrorism because the first civilian bomb,
00:40:45.080 the first bomb to target civilians, the first people to think about the idea of let's put bombs in
00:40:50.520 civilians was by the Zionists in Palestine against Palestinian civilians. So you, in your mind,
00:40:58.200 you don't see anything wrong with that ever. And that's why, for me, it's not about asking you to
00:41:02.360 condemn it. It's about looking at where your energy goes. And your energy is constantly going,
00:41:07.560 Hamas are evil, they're targeting civilians and therefore everything that Israel does is justified.
00:41:11.960 And therefore, anybody who's critical of Israel is an awful person and we're going to go after them
00:41:15.880 or we're going to criticize them. On the other hand, whereas if Israel is going to do a lot of stuff,
00:41:22.360 I wasn't even aware I was doing safety. You've really quite painted quite a picture there,
00:41:27.240 going after people, posting videos. I've never posted any videos from the Israeli-Palestinian
00:41:33.320 conflict ever. So why are you criticizing me for not posting videos from the West Bank?
00:41:38.360 You're not talking about what the Israelis do to target civilians. You only talk about what the
00:41:41.160 Palestinians do to target civilians. I don't. I really don't comment on this issue very much at all.
00:41:46.360 I'm sorry? I don't comment on this issue very much at all. I've never gone after people,
00:41:51.400 as you suggest, for their opinions. I've always said that.
00:41:54.120 Yeah, you have. What's that lady's name? You call her DEI Barbie?
00:41:58.440 Yeah, I called her DEI Barbie for accusing me of things that I took very personally,
00:42:03.160 which is accusing me of being unfair and non-impartial when I was fair and impartial,
00:42:08.920 as anyone who watches that debate can see. I don't give a shit about her opinion about Israel
00:42:13.320 and Palestine. There was another guy on that panel with whom I had absolutely no issue who was arguing
00:42:18.120 for the same thing. I know lots and lots of people who have your particular view on this issue.
00:42:22.840 I respect them and get on with them just as I do with people who are pro-Israel.
00:42:26.760 I have never targeted anybody for having a different opinion to me on this issue and I never would
00:42:32.040 because I see it as very complicated and I think people are right to think whatever they think about
00:42:36.440 it if that's what they think. So again, I think you're arguing with these sort of miraculous ghosts
00:42:43.000 in your head and not with me. Can we talk about what I believe or what you believe or what you'd
00:42:48.840 like to discuss with me? Because I think that would be a lot more productive.
00:42:52.440 Yeah. Well, I mean, just to wrap this up, I think the point that I'm making-
00:42:56.760 Okay, so we can't. Fair enough.
00:42:57.960 No, we can. We're going to move into that. It's just, again, the point is, it's very clear,
00:43:03.480 your energy is always going there. And I think the point that I'm trying to get-
00:43:07.000 How is that clear?
00:43:08.600 Because I've looked at your tweets for months and I've seen your discussions.
00:43:12.200 Okay. Other than that particular one, what have I said about the conflict that you feel justifies
00:43:17.720 your position? Denouncing the criminality of Hamas and justifying the actions of Israel and denouncing
00:43:23.560 people who are critical of Israel for not understanding the fact that Israel needs to
00:43:28.360 defend- Whom specifically have I denounced for their position on Israel?
00:43:31.960 And never pointing out that Palestinians have a right to defend themselves.
00:43:35.160 You make quite a lot of points there. So let's just pause. Whom specifically have I denounced for
00:43:40.040 their position on Israel? I don't remember at this point, but you have to look at-
00:43:45.000 Okay, so no evidence for that claim. What about your other claims? What is your evidence for the other claims?
00:43:50.120 Well, there I just shared with you one tweet, the one that we were discussing.
00:43:53.240 You were saying that it's okay for Israel to do whatever it wants.
00:43:56.840 That tweet applies to Israel, it applies to Palestine, it applies to everyone. I am sure the
00:44:01.480 people of Gaza, if their sons are in an Israeli prison, agree with what I said, right? The problem
00:44:07.160 that I explained to you is what happened on October 7th was not an attempt to get their children back.
00:44:12.280 It was an attempt to kill civilians, as we discussed. Why?
00:44:14.520 Now, we seem to disagree. You seem to think Hamas didn't kill any civilians, except that one woman we saw,
00:44:21.080 obviously, and they treated everyone with kindness and respect, I'm sure.
00:44:24.520 I'm not saying that.
00:44:25.640 But you keep throwing out lots of claims about me that aren't factually based. And so it seems to me
00:44:30.600 that you've brought me on to argue with people in your head instead of with me, right?
00:44:35.560 No. I've brought you on because you specifically said that anything that Israel does to try and get
00:44:41.000 their hostages is something that you don't care about.
00:44:44.360 I said that a parent can't.
00:44:46.040 And the other most important issue that we need to move on to is the idea that if you think about
00:44:52.920 targeting civilians, it's very clear, I think for anybody who's been paying attention over the
00:44:56.520 last nine months, Israel's goal is not to get Hamas or even to get the hostages. Israel's goal is to
00:45:02.680 make Gaza uninhabitable. And this is something that is completely unable to register in the mind of
00:45:08.760 the Zionist NPC, because you have the Israeli finance minister, not some nobody, the Israeli finance
00:45:15.000 minister who's saying, if we're talking about the plans for post-war Gaza, we need to talk about a
00:45:20.200 Gaza, we need to plan for a Gaza that has 100 to 200,000 people. This is a place that has 2.3
00:45:25.240 million people. What does it mean to say we need to bring the population down to 0.1 or 0.2 million?
00:45:30.760 That's 10% or 5%. So he's saying we need to get rid of 90 to 95% of the people. This is the finance
00:45:36.760 minister. He's the most influential politician in Israel at this point. Him and Smotrich and Ben Gbeir
00:45:42.360 might be the most important because they hold the Netanyahu coalition together. They're out there
00:45:47.640 saying it doesn't matter what happens with the hostages and it doesn't matter what happens with
00:45:52.200 Hamas. What matters is we need to get rid of the Palestinian people from Gaza. So you have to
00:45:58.040 understand this is what they're saying. And it doesn't register because Western media doesn't like
00:46:02.520 to emphasize this. And of course, you are conditioned to just turn a blind eye to it and just say,
00:46:06.920 well, I can damn it. What do you think of that? We literally just released on Trigonometry
00:46:14.360 a week ago, an interview with Piers Morgan in which he made the exact point that you just made.
00:46:22.200 So when you say you don't cover this or you don't know about this or whatever,
00:46:26.520 that's garbage, right? So again, you're talking to people in your head.
00:46:31.080 No, I'm talking to you. I know who I'm talking to. And I'm saying to you that on my show,
00:46:37.720 which has a million subscribers on YouTube, we just broadcast an interview in which the point that
00:46:43.400 you just made was made by a prominent guest on our show. Not you.
00:46:49.960 We brought him on to make the fucking point.
00:46:52.200 Yeah. So the point is you're out there. It doesn't register in your analysis.
00:46:57.320 All right. It's fine. Listen, in your mind, there's nothing that Israel does
00:47:01.880 that is unjustified. As many civilians they kill, as many terrorists.
00:47:06.680 What is your evidence for that statement?
00:47:09.000 What's your evidence for the statement?
00:47:11.800 What's your evidence for the idea that I think anything Israel does is justified?
00:47:16.680 I just pointed out.
00:47:17.880 I just told you, I don't support many of the things that are happening in the West Bank.
00:47:22.440 That would be one example.
00:47:23.560 And yet, you're constantly, you're able to see that the actions of Hamas justify any reactions of Israel.
00:47:29.400 And you're not able to...
00:47:30.360 I haven't said that they justify any of the reactions of Israel.
00:47:33.640 That's what you said in that statement?
00:47:34.920 No, no.
00:47:35.640 Look, you can't deny that.
00:47:36.840 Okay, let me explain to you the tweet.
00:47:39.960 Look, I know it's difficult for you to just break out of this kind of conditioning where you don't see the
00:47:44.120 asymmetry here. The asymmetry here is that we have a government that has
00:47:48.600 trillions of billions of dollars being handed to it by the US, by all over the world, by
00:47:53.240 weapons from all over the world.
00:47:55.240 And it is actively out there saying, we want to get rid of these millions of Palestinians we have.
00:48:00.600 Smartrich's plan says, he's been very clear about this.
00:48:03.240 He released this plan in 2017.
00:48:04.760 He says, we need to have one state from the river to the sea, a Jewish state.
00:48:09.400 And everybody who's not Jewish needs to understand they have three options.
00:48:12.680 They can either fight and they can either die or they can leave or they can accept that they will
00:48:19.480 need to live under Israeli, subjugated to Israelis. This is what he says. This is very clearly what he
00:48:25.160 says. Now, you are completely incapable of internalizing what this means for the human
00:48:31.560 beings who live there. And that's why you-
00:48:33.960 What's your evidence for the idea that I am incapable of internalizing that?
00:48:37.560 Because you keep talking about the travesties of October 7, as if they are just this
00:48:43.160 incomparable evil that has never existed before when Palestinians have been experiencing this.
00:48:49.880 I didn't say incomparable evil that's never existed before.
00:48:53.160 Okay, fine.
00:48:54.360 You didn't say that, but you only talk about that because you don't talk about anything else
00:49:00.120 going on in the West Bank. You don't go on and saying, well, you know what?
00:49:03.560 I explained to you that I barely ever talk about this conflict. Yes.
00:49:07.240 Yeah. So you only talk about it when the Zionist NPCs are activated to go out and spread the talking
00:49:12.840 points of, hey, it's okay for us to kill half a million Gazans in the next few months because they
00:49:19.400 targeted a bunch of our civilians. So there is nothing that we can do that is not okay.
00:49:24.280 I never said that either.
00:49:27.640 You did say it. You said that anything that can be done to get the hostages back is justified,
00:49:32.360 but you don't apply the same standards for California. That's not what I said either.
00:49:35.000 I think the key point is that-
00:49:37.000 Justin, can I just repeat to you? You seem to have some trouble with both listening and
00:49:41.160 reading comprehension. Let me repeat to you what my tweet said. My tweet said, when you become a parent,
00:49:48.600 you think like this, right? My point was that it's very difficult to expect people whose children
00:49:56.520 have been kidnapped to think about this issue in anything other than the way that I described.
00:50:01.720 I did not say that killing as many people in Gaza as possible should be Israeli state policy,
00:50:08.360 nor do I think that. Why don't you actually ask me my opinions about things instead of putting words
00:50:13.560 in my mouth or arguing with people you imagine in your head?
00:50:18.520 Because this is what Israel is doing, which you are defending under the pretext of they are doing
00:50:23.640 this to rescue the- No, I'm not defending it.
00:50:25.880 Yes, you are. You're not out there saying, oh wow, Israel is committing a genocide. They want
00:50:30.440 to get rid of too many- I don't believe Israel is committing a genocide. That's for sure.
00:50:33.320 Of course you don't. Exactly. No, I don't.
00:50:35.560 That's because I have a brain and I know what words mean. No, it's because you don't have a brain,
00:50:40.040 it's because you're an NPC. You have the actual finance minister saying we're going to get rid of
00:50:44.120 two million people. Okay, Safedin, what's the definition? What is the definition of genocide?
00:50:49.240 What's the definition of genocide? You don't know. I know, I'm asking you,
00:50:55.160 what is the definition of genocide? The extermination of a people or a group of it and
00:51:00.920 or their elimination from a piece of land. This is exactly what- So, removing people from a piece
00:51:06.440 of land is genocide? Murdering them and kicking them out of their land and clearing- No, murdering
00:51:11.880 and kicking them out are separate things because once you've murdered them, there's not much point
00:51:14.760 kicking them out. So, what's your definition of genocide? Well, you murder some and you kick out
00:51:18.600 the rest and then you've left with a piece of land that doesn't have the original population.
00:51:22.120 Right. That's how it works. The definition of genocide is the deliberate targeting of an
00:51:26.760 ethnic group on its ethnic basis and murdering them in order to destroy that ethnic group and
00:51:31.960 nationhood. I don't believe that's what's happening in Gaza. That's my opinion. If that was what's
00:51:37.400 happening in Gaza, in my opinion, I wouldn't defend it and I wouldn't support it. Why is it not? You
00:51:43.560 have the actual finance minister saying we want to get rid of the- If we want to get rid of two million
00:51:48.200 people out of this, if we end the war, if we can kill and expel two million people, then we will have
00:51:55.400 the Gaza that we want after this. I'm aware that some of the people in the cabinet are saying
00:52:02.600 things of that nature. Some of their language has been genocidal. It's not the same as Israel
00:52:07.080 committing genocide because- How is it not? These are the people that are in power. They
00:52:11.000 have the more money and the weapons. The way you would assess whether something was happening would
00:52:15.560 be by looking on the ground at what's happening, not what people are saying. And when we look at what's
00:52:20.120 happening on the ground, Israel has available to, as you well know, weaponry of a much greater scale
00:52:26.040 that could commit genocide in Gaza. And it's not using it precisely because they're attempting to
00:52:31.480 limit civilian casualties as much as they can. Not least because safety, not because necessarily they
00:52:37.160 love Palestinians and care about their lives so much, but because of course, every Palestinian
00:52:41.480 casualties being used in the international media against Israel. And the one thing we've yet to talk
00:52:46.360 about, and I think this behooves you to bring up to your audience that perhaps they are not aware
00:52:50.520 of thanks to your analysis, is why so many people are being killed in Gaza. Why is that? Because in
00:52:58.040 Ukraine, where my family are hiding from Russian bombs, you know where they do it? They hide in tunnels
00:53:02.760 and metro stations and underground and tubes. It's not happening in Gaza for some reason, despite the fact
00:53:08.680 that they have the most sophisticated tunnel infrastructure in the world. Interesting. And what's also
00:53:13.560 interesting is, unlike in Ukraine, where President Zelensky was offered an opportunity to escape the
00:53:18.280 moment the war started and decided to stay and lead his people, the people who caused this conflict or
00:53:24.360 this flare-up of the conflict on October 7th, the people who are in charge of Hamas, seem to be living in
00:53:30.360 five-star hotels in Qatar. Fascinating. Is it possible? Because if you Google, is Hamas using human shields, you
00:53:39.480 can immediately find its Channel 4 fact check. It will be one of the first search results you'll find,
00:53:43.880 in which one of the leaders of Hamas says in 2014 that this is a brave tactic that we use to stop
00:53:50.200 Israeli missiles with our chests. The reason so many people are dying in Gaza is that it benefits Hamas to
00:53:58.280 see them be killed, and that's why they're putting them in harm's way deliberately. And that is something
00:54:02.680 perhaps we should add to this conversation. Yeah, but you bring that up, of course. Let me say,
00:54:08.040 of course, I think that's completely indefensible, what Hamas does, and I'm no way going to defend it.
00:54:13.480 Okay. But then stop using Palestinian casualty numbers as if it's the fault of Israel. It's the fault
00:54:20.360 of the people who put them in harm's way. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's the fault of the people
00:54:24.120 who have been ethnically cleansing them for 80 years, which is again something that your brain cannot
00:54:29.560 process because you're conditioned not to think about this. Look, this is something that Israelis
00:54:34.360 have been doing since the 1940s, and they've done it in the 60s, and they've done it recently,
00:54:39.240 and this is something that has become mainstream. And you said, well, Israel could have more bombs.
00:54:44.200 No, actually, they can't. You know, the reality of the matter is-
00:54:47.160 Israel has nuclear weapons.
00:54:49.080 Yeah, they can't use nuclear weapons on Gaza.
00:54:51.720 Why not? They can't. It would kill Israelis.
00:54:54.120 It would kill a lot of Israelis. They just cannot do that.
00:54:56.040 They could use small tactical nuclear weapons if they wanted to.
00:54:58.840 They could carpet bomb the entire place, which they haven't done.
00:55:01.960 No, they have. That's exactly what they've been doing. They have carpet bombed the entire place.
00:55:05.880 They've dropped more bombs on it than anything else. But I think the key thing to keep in mind here is
00:55:11.160 this. Within a couple of weeks of the beginning of the war, Israeli generals were very clear about
00:55:16.440 the fact that, look, if the US stops giving us weapons, we are done. We can't shoot anymore.
00:55:21.400 The amount of artillery and the amount of air power that has been deployed by Israel over this
00:55:27.240 conflict is just beyond what a country of 10 million people can sustain. It's an enormous
00:55:34.760 amount of weapons. I mean, they're dropping millions of dollars worth of bombs on houses that are just
00:55:39.960 shanties, basically. And they're out there to try and get and destroy every single shanty,
00:55:46.440 every single building. Not only that, but... So the reason they do this, the reason they can't just
00:55:53.800 use more power is because if they do use more power, if they do use any kind of chemical weapons
00:55:59.880 or something like that that just results in mass casualties at once, it's not going to play well
00:56:05.160 with foreign people who want to believe the idea that, no, Israel is out there trying to minimize
00:56:10.200 casualties. So the real limitation here is how can... It's not a question of how do we get Hamas without
00:56:15.880 killing as many civilians. The question is how do we kill as many civilians as possible while making
00:56:22.040 it look like we're not out there to kill civilians. This is the mentality that drives the Israeli
00:56:27.080 leadership, which of course you choose to ignore. This is what they're saying. This is...
00:56:30.680 Hang on, hang on, hang on. You choose to ignore it. No, no, no. They're clearly saying...
00:56:35.960 No, no. I don't choose to ignore it. I disagree with you.
00:56:38.360 Israel said there are no innocents in Gaza. Nothing. Not even a baby is innocent.
00:56:43.480 I disagree with that.
00:56:44.760 Yeah, of course you disagree, but you still support everything that he does. That's the point. You're an NPC.
00:56:48.840 I don't support everything. I don't have given you any evidence to suggest that I support everything
00:56:53.400 Israel is doing. All I said is I don't believe that what is happening in Gaza meets the definition of
00:56:59.000 genocide. That's all I've said. Of course. Because, again, that's the propaganda line that
00:57:03.320 everybody took. No, it's because it's not, in my view, based on what I believe to be happening in
00:57:08.360 Gaza. Because, in my view, what's happening in Gaza does not match that definition.
00:57:14.600 If I said there are no innocents in Israel, do you think that that would be genocide, the language?
00:57:20.840 It would be. It would be. I haven't... I just said to you a few seconds ago that some Israeli
00:57:26.680 ministers have used language that I would consider genocidal. So, I agree with that.
00:57:31.080 These are not people on the street. They are the people in charge of the weapon.
00:57:33.880 I appreciate that. They're the people that are loading the weapon.
00:57:35.400 They're the people who are in the coalition government. I know.
00:57:38.040 Yeah. And they are the ones that are out there who are in power to act on this.
00:57:41.720 Yes. They're not random.
00:57:42.600 What I'm saying to you is I judge whether a genocide is happening not on what some people
00:57:47.400 have said, but on what's actually happening. And my view, based on the things I read and the
00:57:52.360 things that I know, is that what's happening in Gaza is not genocide. That's not the same as
00:57:57.480 ignoring things that you keep claiming I'm ignoring. I just happen to disagree with you.
00:58:01.960 Do you understand the difference between those two things?
00:58:04.200 No. I think you don't understand the difference between the fact that when a person is in a
00:58:08.440 position of authority and is actually acting out a genocide in front of our eyes.
00:58:12.520 The finance minister is not in charge of the military. You know that, right?
00:58:15.880 The finance minister is part of the wartime cabinet.
00:58:18.040 Yes. But he's not in charge of the military. You know that, right?
00:58:20.920 Yes. But the people in charge of the military have...
00:58:23.000 So, the fact that the finance minister said something doesn't mean that that's what is
00:58:25.880 happening.
00:58:26.200 Yeah. But the defense minister and all the military people have also said equally horrible things.
00:58:30.840 They've all said similar things.
00:58:32.360 No, they haven't.
00:58:33.400 We are the animals.
00:58:34.440 Unless you have a specific quote that I'm not aware of, please produce it.
00:58:37.480 Well, go read the ICJ report, which collects all of these reports.
00:58:40.760 No, no. What is the quote?
00:58:41.880 The president of Israel said there are no innocent civilians. The
00:58:44.360 minister of defense said, we are fighting human animals. We're not going to give them water.
00:58:49.080 We're not going to give them...
00:58:49.560 Well, I think Hamas are human animals. Yeah.
00:58:52.120 No, but he was referring to the civilians that are not going to get water. They're not going to
00:58:55.880 get food. They're not going to get medicine. They're not going to get anything. That was what he did.
00:58:59.240 He didn't cut off the electricity from... He cut it off from everybody. The point is this...
00:59:05.480 Well, how could he cut it off from Hamas? It doesn't make sense. This is what every army does.
00:59:09.560 What do you think the Americans did in Fallujah? You think they just let the terrorists have light
00:59:14.280 and food and water as they attack them? What do you think... How do you think war is wage safety?
00:59:21.160 Can you name what every military in the world does when they go into a city to try and take
00:59:26.040 out the threat? One American leader who said, we need to reduce the population of Fallujah by 90%.
00:59:31.320 No. That only happens in Israel. It's the only openly genocidal regime in the world. There are other
00:59:36.360 genocides, but there are no other genocides in which people can brazenly say that we're being
00:59:40.840 genocidal and then have Zionist NPCs like you all over the world do PR for them to help continue.
00:59:47.160 And I think the point you're missing is that it is Americans who keep this thing going because it is
00:59:51.560 their funding that keeps this going. And in order for that funding to continue, people like you are
00:59:57.160 essential for continuing to whitewash all of this stuff and say...
01:00:00.840 I don't live in America. I'm not an American citizen, so I'm incredibly not essential.
01:00:05.320 You know, the British are also providing weapons and they're also providing all kinds of intelligence
01:00:09.400 services and they're also...
01:00:10.840 We've had a good hour. I'm glad we had this conversation. I'm getting a little bit tired
01:00:15.320 of you calling me a Zionist NPC with no evidence whatsoever. So why don't we wrap up here?
01:00:19.400 I provided a lot of evidence. Okay. Well, yeah. I mean, I think I've... The point that I'm trying to make,
01:00:26.760 the point I was trying to get to, the conclusion of this is that if you really try to look at this
01:00:30.520 objectively, which I know you're incapable of, but ultimately you've made your name...
01:00:34.680 Why did you bring me on? I'm curious. Why did you bring me on your show if you think I'm incapable of...
01:00:37.960 Because you've made your name talking about the absurdity of identity politics and the absurdity
01:00:44.920 of people that are just going on about racism and accusing people of all of those things. And what
01:00:49.480 I'm trying to tell you is that if you look at when it comes to Israel, you're just another social
01:00:54.040 justice warrior, identity politics. How so? Because here we are. When Israel does anything,
01:01:00.440 it's, well, they're trying to rescue the hostages, even if the government is saying...
01:01:04.360 How is there anything to do... Are you saying that I believe that because I,
01:01:07.720 my grandfather was Jewish? Is that what you're trying to say? I'm saying that it's a matter of
01:01:12.120 identity. Is that what you're saying? I'm just... How is this identity politics? I didn't...
01:01:15.480 Assessing a conflict in the Middle East based on the evidence... One group can get away with murder in
01:01:21.800 your book and the other group cannot. Because in your book...
01:01:24.200 So if I support Ukrainians... They don't do anything.
01:01:26.520 If I support Ukrainians in their fight against the Russians, that's identity politics?
01:01:33.160 No.
01:01:33.480 Okay. So why is this conflict different? What is your evidence that this has anything to
01:01:39.000 do with identity for me and not to do with the facts as I perceive them? I may be wrong about the
01:01:44.120 facts. That's very possible. But what is your evidence that it's based on identity and not my incorrect
01:01:51.240 opinions based on the things that I'm reading?
01:01:53.640 Because A, what we're seeing in Palestine is not a war like in Russia and in Ukraine.
01:01:58.040 It's a genocide where a military is trying to get rid of the population.
01:02:00.920 No. It was a terrorist group that attacked Israel and Israel was retaliating and attempting to destroy
01:02:06.120 the terrorist group.
01:02:06.760 It's a genocide where the government has been trying to get rid of a population for 80 years
01:02:09.560 and now they finally have to...
01:02:10.520 No, but what does this have to do with identity politics and me?
01:02:13.160 It has to do with it because you look at the way that you discussed this and it's very clear.
01:02:17.160 It's just one group can get away with what they want. They can kill to rescue their hostages. They
01:02:24.440 can kill hundreds of civilians to rescue their hostages and they can kill tens of thousands of
01:02:28.600 civilians on their attempt to...
01:02:31.000 But how is that identity politics?
01:02:33.400 Because one identity can do it and one identity cannot. That's why.
01:02:37.080 So if I support Ukrainians in a way that I don't support Russians, that's also identity politics?
01:02:41.960 No, because that's a war. That's not a genocide. It's not the bunch of people...
01:02:45.160 I see this as a war too.
01:02:48.600 Exactly. Because you want to keep seeing it as a war because it's all about
01:02:51.960 continuing with your bias, which is that everything Israel does is defense.
01:02:56.040 Everything Israel does is understandable. Everything Palestinians do...
01:02:59.800 Even if that was so, that doesn't explain the identity point of view.
01:03:02.920 I'm very curious about this safety and this is very interesting.
01:03:05.960 Tell me more about how this is identity politics.
01:03:08.120 Well, I'm glad you're curious about it because think about it. It is going to make a lot more
01:03:12.600 sense when you start thinking about it.
01:03:14.120 Okay. So how is this identity politics?
01:03:17.080 It's identity politics. I'll just explain to you why.
01:03:19.880 Explain.
01:03:20.280 One group is carrying out a genocide where they're killing out tens of thousands of civilians
01:03:24.760 and you think everything that they do is justified and nothing that the other group does is...
01:03:32.600 I don't think that either. I just told you repeatedly four times now,
01:03:36.120 if Hamas had attacked Israeli military installations, I would have a lot less of a
01:03:39.800 problem with it. I just said that. So it's not that I think one side is always right and the
01:03:43.960 other side is always wrong. It's that my assessment of what I see based on first principles thinking
01:03:50.280 is that one side is doing one thing and the other side is doing something completely different.
01:03:54.840 I don't... I'm not happy about the fact that there's a conflict, but I don't think this has
01:03:59.720 anything to do in my thinking, for me, anything to do with identity. And yet you bring that up and
01:04:06.280 that's what makes me very curious. And I'm really still not entirely sure what you meant by that.
01:04:11.480 I'd like you to clarify it. That'd be great.
01:04:13.800 Yeah. I'd tell you, think about what we talked about today. Think about the fact that Israel's
01:04:21.480 destroyed every single piece of critical infrastructure in Gaza, every single water
01:04:25.720 pump, every single electricity plant, every single university, every school, every hospital.
01:04:31.000 And most of these buildings, they didn't destroy them. Well, not most, but a lot of these buildings,
01:04:36.680 they didn't destroy them with aerial bombardment. They had already occupied the territory. They'd go
01:04:41.400 in, they'd put in bombs and they'd bring the... and they'd destroy them because there's a lot of...
01:04:45.720 Most buildings are booby-trapped by Hamas. Yeah.
01:04:47.800 Yeah. No. After they'd go into the building and they'd conquer it,
01:04:51.160 and there's no Hamas there, then they'd booby-trap it.
01:04:53.320 They're booby... Do you know what booby traps are? No.
01:04:56.600 This is what Russia does in Ukraine. They go into hospitals and blow them up because Ukrainians
01:05:00.840 leave booby traps sometimes. This is what happens in war. No.
01:05:05.000 How is this anything to do with identity? I'm trying to get to it. The point is this. To go back
01:05:10.760 to the point of genocide, we have a systematic attempt to destroy every single thing that makes
01:05:17.240 Gaza livable. They've destroyed the sewage. They've destroyed all of the infrastructure. They've
01:05:21.240 destroyed all the hospitals, all the water treatment plants, all the power plants. And they
01:05:26.840 didn't destroy them. Okay. Well, some of them, they claimed, well, we destroyed this because
01:05:30.680 there were Hamas there. But for the majority of them, it was destruction for the sake of destruction.
01:05:35.240 Why? Because they want to make Gaza unlivable. They've salted the earth. They've destroyed the
01:05:40.840 farming capability. Gaza is not going to be inhabitable for another God knows how many years. And that is a
01:05:48.360 plan. That is something that has been actively done. Let's accept that everything you said is true.
01:05:53.960 Exactly. How is me assessing what's happening in this particular conflict based on the facts and
01:06:03.240 information and my beliefs and my understanding of history, et cetera? How is that anything to do with
01:06:10.360 identity? Unless you're suggesting that my identity means that I have a particular view of this conflict.
01:06:15.960 Right. Yeah. Your identity gives you a bias towards this conflict. And that makes you-
01:06:20.120 What is the identity element that gives me a bias?
01:06:22.600 I don't know what your identity is. I didn't even know you.
01:06:25.800 Oh, really? Now, this is fascinating.
01:06:30.440 This is with people versus other people.
01:06:31.720 Which aspect of my identity gives me a bias about this conflict? Please tell me.
01:06:36.440 It doesn't matter. The point is you're biased about it.
01:06:38.520 No, no. It does matter. You are suggesting, you said yourself that because I have made a name
01:06:44.280 for challenging the stupidity of identity politics, that's where I'm a hypocrite on this issue.
01:06:50.600 And I'm saying to you, can you please explain to me, as you've said, my identity makes me biased,
01:06:55.960 which aspect of my identity makes me biased on this issue?
01:06:58.680 The aspect that makes you look at the destruction of the homes and lives-
01:07:03.000 So what aspect is that? Which part of my identity makes me biased?
01:07:05.960 I don't care. I look at the output.
01:07:08.120 I care. No, no, no. You said it, you said it, and I'm going to make sure I get out of you what you meant.
01:07:13.480 So, which aspect of my identity makes me biased about this issue?
01:07:17.960 The aspect that makes you look at Palestinians suffering-
01:07:21.320 Which aspect does that say, Eugene?
01:07:22.280 And not care about them.
01:07:23.240 Which aspect does that say, Eugene?
01:07:24.280 And not care about them.
01:07:25.320 Listen, I hope you just say it, because it'll be a lot easier, because I'm going to keep asking you.
01:07:29.720 Yeah, what is it?
01:07:30.920 Which aspect of my identity? Is it the fact that I'm Russian?
01:07:36.280 I don't know. I don't even know where you are.
01:07:37.800 Is it the fact that I was raised in Britain?
01:07:40.280 Probably.
01:07:40.760 Is it the fact that my dad was half Greek? Is that what it is? Which aspect of my identity?
01:07:46.280 The fact that looks at Israel as being the good guy.
01:07:49.400 So where's that related to my identity?
01:07:52.040 How do you draw a line from my wrong opinions about this conflict and my identity?
01:07:57.160 I'll tell you why. Here's why.
01:07:59.000 I'm Palestinian, so I definitely have an identity issue with this politics, with this conflict.
01:08:05.000 But I am able to, having seen the absurdity of identity politics for many years, and having
01:08:10.280 seen this incredibly destructive idea that my team is always right because we are good,
01:08:16.360 and other teams are always bad because they are bad, I'm able to step back and say,
01:08:20.760 it's wrong for anybody to target a civilian, and it's wrong when these guys do it, and it's
01:08:25.560 wrong when the other team does it.
01:08:26.680 You don't think I'm as targeted as civilians, so that's a separation, but carry on.
01:08:29.720 No, I did say they did target civilians when they took them hostages, and I don't think
01:08:34.120 that is acceptable. I said that at the beginning.
01:08:35.800 You did say that, yeah.
01:08:36.840 Yeah.
01:08:38.040 You, on the other hand, are unable to see this equivalency, and the reason for that
01:08:42.760 is just identity bias.
01:08:44.920 It's just, this is what-
01:08:46.440 Which identity?
01:08:47.080 In the West.
01:08:47.720 In the West.
01:08:48.280 Which identity?
01:08:49.480 I don't know, and I don't care.
01:08:50.600 It's just identity.
01:08:51.320 Well, no, no, no.
01:08:51.800 You can't say it's identity bias, and then say, I don't know.
01:08:57.320 You tell me.
01:08:58.200 What is it about you that makes you think that killing two and a half million people,
01:09:01.800 killing them out of their homes, and the finance minister saying we need to kick those
01:09:05.560 people out, and we need to destroy them, in your mind, is not an issue, but Hamas's attack on
01:09:11.400 October 7 is an issue.
01:09:12.120 I never said it's not an issue.
01:09:13.320 I never said it's not an issue.
01:09:14.120 Why is it that Hamas's attack on October 7 justifies the Israeli response, and which you
01:09:19.720 think is not genocidal, because any country in the world would want to kill the people who did
01:09:24.600 October 7.
01:09:25.800 Whereas Israel's attacks on Palestinians are never justification for Palestinians targeting civilians.
01:09:31.000 So, what I can tell you since you asked that clearly, I think it's fair to say you and I
01:09:37.800 disagree about this conflict, and we see it differently.
01:09:41.320 And I've attempted over the course of the last hour and eight minutes to explain to you why I
01:09:47.240 view it as I view it, why I believe what I believe.
01:09:50.600 None of that has anything to do with my identity, in my opinion.
01:09:54.040 I am not predisposed towards Israel or Palestine because of my identity.
01:09:59.320 I am looking at this issue as much as any human being can, from a perspective of first principles,
01:10:05.240 my understanding of history, the reading I've done about the subject, the people I've spoken
01:10:09.480 to about this, et cetera, both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel.
01:10:12.920 We have had Norman Finkelstein on our show.
01:10:15.240 We've had Bassem Youssef on our show.
01:10:16.840 I'm very happy to have had this conversation with you, although it started to get a little
01:10:21.400 bit boring towards the end.
01:10:23.000 However, none of this has anything to do with identity politics.
01:10:27.240 And yet you seem adamant that this somehow is something to do with my identity.
01:10:32.920 And that's the bit that makes me very curious.
01:10:35.400 I'm not saying it's necessarily about your identity.
01:10:37.480 You did say that.
01:10:38.600 You did say that.
01:10:39.640 Yeah, you did.
01:10:40.520 You can go back and watch it.
01:10:41.960 You said that.
01:10:43.320 But the point is, it's something about the identities of the people that are in the conflict.
01:10:46.840 I don't give a shit about the identities of the people in the conflict.
01:10:50.680 I think you do.
01:10:51.560 I think it's very obvious that you do.
01:10:53.240 Some people are justified in killing civilians to free their hostages.
01:10:57.080 And other people are not justified in killing civilians to free their hostages.
01:11:00.680 Some people can say, hey, we want to kill two million people to kick them out of their homes.
01:11:04.280 And you'll say, well, that's not genocidal.
01:11:06.200 But Hamas is genocidal.
01:11:08.600 They want to get rid of this because 30 years ago.
01:11:10.680 I'm glad you raised that point at the end, because now everybody can see why this conversation
01:11:17.640 has gone the way it's gone from the beginning, because you seem to think that some aspect
01:11:23.080 of my identity means that I think the way I think.
01:11:27.160 And that's a very prejudicial way of looking at it.
01:11:29.800 It's sad that you think this, but it is what it is.
01:11:33.320 From my perspective, I'm someone who's against identity politics.
01:11:36.680 I try to judge all the issues on the merits as much as I can.
01:11:39.320 Now, I'm, of course, not perfect.
01:11:41.000 And I sometimes am not able to see things objectively.
01:11:45.000 None of us are.
01:11:46.440 But I really do my very best not to allow my identity to influence things.
01:11:51.720 You clearly don't agree with me and don't believe me.
01:11:53.880 That's absolutely fine.
01:11:54.840 But I think that's a very ignorant and prejudicial way of looking at it.
01:11:58.680 And it's a pity that that's how you think about it.
01:12:02.200 Well, I just leave you to think more about it and think about the things that I said about
01:12:06.120 what Israel is doing to the population of Palestine.
01:12:08.680 That has nothing to do with my identity.
01:12:10.760 No, no, no.
01:12:11.320 It does.
01:12:11.640 It does.
01:12:12.520 Maybe not necessarily your identity, but the identity of the people involved in the conflict.
01:12:15.480 So I'd urge you to think about what would you be saying if the shoe was on the other foot?
01:12:21.880 If it was Hamas out there saying,
01:12:23.400 we need to get rid of the population of Israel and kill as many of them as possible.
01:12:27.880 I'm sure Hamas are dead against killing the population of Israel.
01:12:31.000 They're big peace lovers, Hamas.
01:12:32.920 So then why don't you treat the Israelis when they say those things seriously, whereas with Hamas,
01:12:39.080 because their charter that they had 30 years ago, which they've gotten rid of,
01:12:41.960 they used to say those things and you're still holding on to it.
01:12:44.520 But if you actually listen to what they're saying.
01:12:46.200 How am I holding on?
01:12:46.680 Have I raised, have I said anything about their charter safety?
01:12:50.360 You just said they want to be murdering.
01:12:53.560 They want to be.
01:12:54.680 I know.
01:12:55.080 I said that they're very peaceful people who want nothing.
01:12:57.720 But yeah, obviously, you meant it's sarcastic.
01:12:59.240 Peacefully, peacefully in hand in hand with the Israelis, as we all know.
01:13:05.160 All right.
01:13:05.560 Well, listen, it's been it's been interesting.
01:13:08.760 Let's wrap up here because I've got stuff.
01:13:10.280 All right.
01:13:10.760 We budgeted an hour.
01:13:12.280 All right.
01:13:12.600 Cheers.
01:13:12.920 Take care.
01:13:13.960 Thanks, man.
01:13:15.160 Bye.
01:13:15.320 Bye.