＂We’re Not Insulated From This＂ ｜ Cory Morgan interviews Larry Maher of the Exigent Foundation
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Summary
In this episode, I sit down with Larry Maher, the founder of the Exigen Foundation, to talk about his recent trip to Israel and why he decided to take a nutcase like me on a tour of the Middle East.
Transcript
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All right. So let's get on with other things. As I said earlier, yes, I vanished for a bit. I don't
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tend to, I had gone to Israel. I was posting a lot of things from there. Some people were wondering
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what the heck is Corey doing over there? What's going on? What's this about? And well, it was an
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opportunity that came about thanks to the Exigen Foundation and Larry Maher. And you know, I can't
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think of a better way to explain it and then bring Larry on and talk about what those guys do and why
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they would sponsor to bring a nutcase like me over to Israel to tour around and look at a few things
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and learn some stuff. So let's bring Larry in and have a conversation there. Hey, Larry, thanks very
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much for joining me today. Hey, Corey. How are you? Thank you for having me. Oh, very good. Thanks.
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I've just recovered from the jet lag, so I'm almost awake now. It's been much better.
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Great. So, I mean, I guess just to begin with, I'll start with the why. You and Vivian were the
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founders of the Exigen Foundation. Why did you feel compelled to begin this organization?
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Well, shortly after, as you know, October 7th, I was seeing what was going on in Ontario and Toronto
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specifically with a lot of the protests happening. And I was speaking to friends and family and I
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realized that this was going to get a lot worse and some people didn't believe me. They didn't
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really understand why. So I decided that I would take a small group of journalists to Israel to
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basically give them a little bit of an education as to the extremism that surrounds Israel in the
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Middle East and how it's been here for decades in Canada, in North America, and was going to show
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its ugly face through our institutions, which we're now seeing through universities, through schools,
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unions, you name it. And that was the purpose of why we started these missions to Israel.
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Well, and personally, I mean, I thought it was very effective. I already had my views and opinions,
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but still there's only so much I could know. And as I said to Dave just before that with the check-in,
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you can't beat having your feet on the ground, talking to other people and just seeing for
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yourself. And I mean, I want to clarify that with some people. I mean, you guys weren't there to
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indoctrinate us. I wasn't sitting there being grilled with lectures or told what to do. You just
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kind of brought us around and gave us a wide variety of things to see over there.
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Yeah. I mean, we went, as you know, we went down South, we went to the Gaza border,
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we went up North to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan. I mean, that was all done within four or five days.
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You see how small the country is. And you had an opportunity to speak to Israelis as well as I
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believe you spoke to a couple of Palestinians, one that used to live in Gaza, one now in Ramallah,
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and one actually a Palestinian Christian that converted from Muslim to Christianity. I know
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a couple in the group had an opportunity to speak to. So yeah, it's quite the experience,
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it's an eye opener. And like you just mentioned earlier with Dave, you can read a book and books
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for days and months, but the experience of traveling, at least for me, nothing beats that.
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No. And part of what you list on the site and what you kind of alluded to earlier too,
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I mean, a lot of what I've heard from other people is, well, what does it matter to me?
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What does it mean to me? I'm not worried about that. That's over there. That's their problem.
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And this extremism is spilling over, as you pointed out, into our universities, into our media
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over here, onto our streets. We got to see the worst possible outcome of it when it's actually
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spilled out in a massive horrific terrorist attack. But we have to be able to point out to people that
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we aren't insulated from this. That same ideology is over here, even if it's not as immediately vicious.
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Exactly. I mean, I brought, I mean, now it's about 50 members from Canadian media across Canada,
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all different, you know, from BC to Quebec, Ontario, yourself from Alberta, a number of people from
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Alberta, different walks of life. And they're able to apply the extremism, these situations that
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happen in their own communities. And they see how it's coming from the Middle East, this extremist
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ideology. You can call it, it doesn't matter if it's the far left or the far right. They both have
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these extreme ideologies. Neither one of them is good. And, you know, the issue that me personally,
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now on a personal level, is we don't see very much happening in the center and being able to have a
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dialogue with people on both sides of the aisle. It's either, it's either one extreme, or if you're not
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on that side, you're an extremist on the other side. But, you know, radical Islamists have been
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for years. And we can look at this, as you see through the Muslim Brotherhood, they have been
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infiltrating our institutions. And people need to start waking up and understand what's going on.
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As I said before, in the Middle East, the violence is very different than the indoctrination that they're
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using here in the West. They do it in a different way. They've learned how to latch on to our liberal
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ideas and our democracies and use those against us, unfortunately.
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Yeah. And bringing us over there, I think at least helped for some who might not know necessarily,
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like just it is a liberal democracy over there. I mean, it's got challenges, but it's a welcoming
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place, meeting the people. I mean, Tel Aviv was something else. And something I noticed while
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walking down the street was a, well, a couple of, well, everybody's beautiful out there, it seems,
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but a couple of nice looking young men, quite enamored with each other, sitting on a bench,
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having a good time. That's fine. But that couldn't happen anywhere else in the Middle East. Like this
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bastion of freedom for some people of oppressed minorities. I mean, if Israel disappeared,
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the Middle East is going to be a much worse place.
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Yeah. I mean, look, they don't, you can go back in history. The Arabs don't necessarily all love
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each other. I mean, if Israel were to disappear tomorrow, there would still be war in the Middle
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East. As you saw in Syria, there's a, there's a, it's unstable there. You have Sunnis and Shiites
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fighting each other. You have ISIS and Al-Qaeda that are, that are fighting each other. You have
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factions, you have about 12 different factions, 15 different factions in Gaza that are, that are fighting
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with each other and with Hamas. I mean, Lebanon is trying to stabilize itself by, by attempting to
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disarm Hezbollah. It's just, it's a very, very unstable situation. And, um, you know, Israel is,
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as, as, as I mentioned to you before, this is not a mission to, uh, talk about politics where,
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you know, every country's got its, got its, uh, its own issues. Uh, you can agree with a government
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just like our government here or disagree with it. And it's the same for Israel there. It's about
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the experience of what Israelis are facing as a democracy in the Middle East. And, um,
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uh, and, and those challenges that they have all have, are coming over here and they've
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already come here and hopefully it's not too late to deal with them.
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Hmm. And, and being able to meet, uh, different people and, and talk with them and get perspectives.
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Uh, God, I'm so terrible with names. I should have written in my notes that the gentleman who
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took us on the tour of the, the kibbutz and that got hit so hard, we met at Vivian's place as well.
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Yeah. Uh, there we go. And so candid with us though. I mean, it was a gentleman that clearly
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would still hurt, uh, you know, such a vicious, horrible experience yet quite blatant, just saying
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it's got to end. Like he's, he's, he doesn't want more war. He's saying we've got to find a way
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out of this. Like that, that, that picture, some people are pointing that, that Israelis are vengeful
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or want this battle to go on. I mean, I imagine there's a handful that are that way, but I didn't
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meet that. I saw people who were wounded and just wanted resolution though. Nobody can quite see
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exactly how to get there yet. No, exactly. I mean, look, Ilan, you, you know, staying in Kfaraza, he,
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that particular kibbutz, they used to have Palestinians that from Gaza that would work every
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day on the kibbutz in a variety of different roles. They were, they were getting paid to do it.
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And, um, they, you know, to an extent they were, they were friends. This was going on
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for years. And when you stand there at that gate and you're behind you is the horrors of October
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7th and you look straight ahead and you see Gaza. I mean, Corey, that was your, that was your house
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where he's still not living there. He hasn't been living there for two years. And you look across,
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I mean, there's, there's a whole thought. I mean, even when I look across is how secure is the border
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right now, if I were to move back into my home, into this kibbutz. So I don't know how you felt
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when you're, when you, when you see the horror around you and you look across and you see Gaza,
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you know, that there's, there's a lot of uncertainty.
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Well, that's it. I mean, we, we've never had to experience that in Canada, not that sort of
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fear. I, I mean, uh, I guess some people would feel there was a sense of complacency that allowed
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things to build up as badly as they did in Gaza until it spilled over in that worst, worst possible
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way with the, the, the horrific activities of October 7th. So you can see why there's support to
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somehow eliminate the threat, somehow eliminate Hamas. And, and yeah, it's easy to say that,
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but when you've got, it's not like a conventional war that people you're fighting against are
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intermixed among some innocent civilians. How do you pick them out of the bunch, but you can't just
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leave it. How do people move back? How do people relax again until they feel it's been resolved?
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It's just such a mire. It is. I mean, look, a great example of what you're just saying right now
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is when we spoke to, uh, he's on the Palestinian that now there's a Ramallah. And I believe you
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asked the question, you said, uh, if, can you name asking him, can you name any leadership either in
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Gaza or in the West bank, if there was complete peace right now that he could name to, uh,
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govern the Palestinians in either Gaza or the West bank or both?
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And what was his answer? He didn't have an answer. There's, there's nobody. And so there's a lot of,
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there's not only infrastructure problems, there's governing problems, there's corruption. It's been
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going on, it's going to be going on for decades and decades and decades. Uh, so, so there's a lot of,
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you know, issues other than rebuilding Gaza and, and, uh, and ending this war, but the Palestinians
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themselves don't have any clear leadership. I mean, the, their Mahmoud Abbas is, is, uh,
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he's a terrorist. Uh, he's a pay for sleigh. His, his, uh, PhD that he wrote was, um, it was the denial
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of the Holocaust. And, uh, he hasn't called elections in, in decades. And, uh, the second,
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uh, person that the Palestinians are insisting, even Hamas that could possibly run would be
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Marwan Barghouti, who's serving, I think five or six life sentences in, in, in Israeli jail right now.
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So there's a, there's an issue. Um, so I don't know what, I don't know what the answer is. And,
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um, you know, I don't know, maybe you have, maybe you have some suggestions.
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No, the, the term I've been using to other people when they ask about is, is, is I'm like an old,
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you know, 486 computer. I've got all this input and now it's spinning and processing and processing
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and processing. I, I haven't figured out how to, I, I mean, a, uh, I'd be making far more money or in a
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better position if I was smart enough to find a solution for that, but I'm closer to it. I've
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learned a lot. Uh, something I saw, thought might show a, a glimmer on where we should start looking
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maybe when we drove up through Haifa and Jeff pointed aside that here's the town I live in and
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right next door, there's another town with minarets and it's, it's an Arab town. I mean,
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people again, forget it's not a exclusively Jewish country. 18% of the country is, is, is Arab.
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Uh, those towns, I mean, they're not integrated. They, but they're not, or weren't at each other's
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throats either. Like there's gotta be room for the communities to live next to each other without
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trying to kill each other. I imagine attitudes between those two towns are different than those
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between Gaza and Israel itself, but maybe it's, it's some of those relationships we can start
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looking at and trying to figure out how we can try and make some of these things work.
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Yeah. I mean, like, look, I mean, I don't know, I know a little bit what's going on in Alberta,
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but I can tell you in Ontario on any given day here, we have protests in the, not in the hundreds
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anymore, I mean, in the thousands, um, pro Hamas rallies, pull terrorist rallies, whatever you want
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to call them. And I don't, I believe if someone can correct me, if I'm wrong, there has not been
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one protest in Israel by any pro Hamas crowd in any Arab village since 10 October, October 7th.
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So this is a problem that's happening here in the West because that's not happening in Israel. Um,
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you know, Arabs and, and, and Israelis and Christians are able and Jews are able to live, uh, side by side.
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Um, you know, they, they get along and, and I'll also point out not only there are no protests in
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Israel, uh, on two different occasions where I've been in Israel, on one occasion, Hezbollah had fired,
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I think it was around 20 rockets while we were heading up North. One of the rockets, a couple of
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them actually landed in the village next to where we were going, an Arab village killed, uh, I believe he
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was 21 years old. Um, one of the journalists had said to myself and another person, what would Hezbollah
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say, uh, knowing that they killed, uh, an Israeli Arab? And the answer was, they don't care. They
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don't care if you're Arab. They don't care if you're Christian and they don't care if you're Jewish or what
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you are, straight, gay, doesn't matter. And the same thing as when we went up, uh, North and Magdal Shams,
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Hezbollah fired rockets, landed in a school yard, in the, in a soccer yard that killed, uh, you know,
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10 or 12, uh, Druze children while they were playing soccer. These are not Jews. They are
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targeting anything and anybody in Israel, period. The existence of Israel is not in their vocabulary.
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No. And I mean, something that, that, that really drove me nuts prior to the trip and even more so now
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is the people even trying to soft sell or deny or, or undercut the atrocities of what happened on
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October 7th. Uh, you know, you could differ with Israeli policy or even, you know, the, the, the
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existence of Israel, even which, you know, I don't, but I mean, so people could, but to try and even
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slightly justify what happened that day. And I mean, boy, you guys didn't sugarcoat it for us, but we
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needed to see that, uh, for anybody who's seen, you know, that, that, that horrific video and see the
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sites, uh, the, the, the music festival, the kibbutz and I, it, it should change anybody's
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perspective if they're human. And, uh, I think just, we need more outreach to people to understand
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whatever the solution is to this actions like that can, can never be accepted. And it's never
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be a course of action for changing a state. I agree with you a hundred percent. I mean, Israel is a,
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is a sovereign, sovereign state. It's a nation. It's, it's, it's been around since 1948 and it, it had,
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it was invaded by a government, a government of Hamas. They sent thousands of people in, uh,
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and invaded a sovereign state. They didn't hold them hostage in Israel. They brought them back
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across their border and they've held them hostage even until today, dead or alive. Um, you know,
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any other country in, in the world that's ever, I don't even, that's had an invasion like this and
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people been taken back across the border as a hostage, any other country go back and get their
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citizen. They would do it immediately. I mean, I don't want to discuss, you know, the timing of
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going into Gaza and all that sort of thing. But the fact that is, I mean, if Canada went into Buffalo
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and in October 7th happened in Buffalo, you can be sure that the United States within seconds would
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be back over here and collect every last U S citizen, no matter what happens. And the same for
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most countries around the world. Um, so this whole narrative that that's going on right now to me is
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absolutely ridiculous. And I don't even entertain it. No. And it's maddening. Thankfully, at least the
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living hostages are back as, as horrible with what they had to endure and hopefully the last of the
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remains come in. Uh, just a lot of people might not realize just how sacred the remains are for,
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for Jewish people as well. I mean, it's sacred for everybody with their family members, but even more so in
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that case. Uh, but I, either way I've run out the segment, I appreciate you taking the time. I really
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appreciate you bringing myself and Dave out there. It was enlightening. I feel I'm better. I don't have
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the answers, but I'm a little bit closer to it than I had been prior to going. Um, before I let you go,
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where can people find information on the foundation to find out more about it or support it or anything
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of that sort? They can go to exigentfoundation.org and they will, uh, find the information on there and, um,
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um, they can send us, uh, emails, donations, uh, whatever they like.
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All right. Well, excellent. Thank you very much again, Larry. Uh, hope we get to talk again
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sometime soon and, and please keep up that good work.