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>> Good to see you, sir.
>> Oh, so good to see you.
>> What's happening? How you been?
>> Doing great. Uh, got big news. I'll talk
big, very big before I start with it.
>> Okay.
>> Drops
>> the book suicidal empathy.
quote that we use all the time.
>> That's right.
>> Yeah, it is a it is a good quote and it
is a very accurate quote for the times.
I like this where they're carrying a
sign. Free the wolves. The lamb is
[snorts] carrying
>> Well, I wanted the the cover to be as
evocative as the the concept, right?
>> Dying to be kind.
>> There you go. And there are just in the
last two days, there have been so many
new cases of suicidal empathy that I
regret that I couldn't include them in
the book. But
>> like which ones? So, did you hear about
the one where the the guy who tried to
assassinate President Trump?
>> Oh, yeah.
>> The judge then went and said, "I am so
sorry that, you know, you're not being
treated nicely. You have a a a room
without a window. This is just it's
mean."
>> Oh, see, I don't think that that's
suicidal empathy at all. I think that's
signaling. I I think that's signaling
that he wishes that that man was
successful and that he supports his
endeavor.
>> Fair enough. The second example, uh,
actually today, uh, Dave Rubin shared it
with me. Uh, it was the one where a
felon of color who had just been
released ended up pushing
>> right. And and the the previous person
that he had been entangled with didn't
want to whatever press charges because
she didn't want another black man to be
in prison.
>> Oh boy.
>> So, uh,
>> boy, boy, boy. So we can so I hope to
get into the book in a second. But the
other big news
is that this past year I've been a
visiting scholar at Old Miss uh
University of Mississippi. I had taken a
two-year leave from my school at in
Montreal. Starting this uh summer, we
are moving permanently to Oxford. So the
Lebanese, Jews, Canadians are going down
to Oxford, Mississippi, and we're very
excited.
>> Wow.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Um, so you're going to be there for 2
years. So, how does that work? Do you
get a green three years to get a green
card or a visa?
>> Yeah. So, the the previous two years
that I did, it was a leave of absence.
So, I I I only have to get a TN visa.
But now that we're moving, uh, we I
applied for an EB1A visa, which gets you
a green card. It's one they're called
extraordinary visas.
>> You have to pass certain criteria to
demonstrate.
>> You are extraordinary, aren't you?
>> And rather easy on the eyes. Uh
[laughter]
and so uh and so that went through uh
thank God. And so yeah, so we're very
congratulations.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So and hopefully this will
be a fast track to my inner spirit is
American, but maybe we can legalize it
and turn turn the sads into Americans.
>> Wow. You joined you're going to join the
team.
>> If if you'll have me.
>> I will have you. Come on. Welcome
aboard.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> We need more people that are thinking
straight.
>> So that's the big news. That's awesome,
man. Congratulations. That's a fantastic
thing. That's beautiful.
>> Do you want to get into the book and
then we talk about other stuff?
>> Sure. Whatever.
>> So, I I thought maybe I'd give you
because I know that you know the
parasitic mind really well and so I
wanted to kind of contextualize this
book in relation to that book.
>> Mhm.
>> So, we are a thinking and a feeling
animal, right? Both our cognitive system
is important and our affective system is
important. For example, uh advertisers
recognize that if I'm trying to sell you
a mutual fund, I need to engage your
cognitive system. Here are the seven
reasons why you should buy my mutual
fund. If I'm trying to sell you perfume,
I don't tell you this is what Harvard
physiologists think about the science of
alaction, right? I need to engage your
affective system. So in that case I will
show you a pretty girl on a horse with
beautiful hair and the the brand name
will be Mist right I'm just engaging
your emotional system
>> well the parasitic mind was the story of
what I need to do to hijack your
cognitive system your your your ability
to think rationally and hence there were
all these parasitic ideas that destroyed
your capacity to think
>> but for me to completely zombify you and
hijack you I also need to zombify your
affective system. That's where suicidal
empathy comes in. So, if I can hijack
both your cognitive and emotional
systems, you become a wood cricket,
which we could talk about what that
references if you want.
>> What's a wood cricket?
>> So, the wood cricket is a an an insect
that abhores water. It wants nothing to
do with water. But when it is
paracetized by a neuroparasite called
the brain hairworm.
>> Oh, I've seen this.
>> Right. The hairworm needs the wood
cricket to happily and merrily commit
suicide by jumping into the water
because that's the only way that the
hairworm can complete its reproductive
cycle. So once the hairworm hijacks the
the wood cricket's ability to think and
to invoke its survival instinct, it
erases its survival instinct. then it is
owned by the hairworm. And so I use that
principle to explain suicidal empathy.
>> Yeah. We've actually shown videos of
that. It's very strange. The cricket
really commits suicide. It jumps in the
water, drowns, and the worm wiggles out
of its body.
>> Exactly.
>> And that's how it's born.
>> Exactly. And and
>> so many there's so many cases of that in
nature.
>> Indeed. Yeah. And so the way that I
originally had the epiphany to use the
parasettological framework.
So parasettology is just it's just a
study of host parasite interactions. So
a tapeworm is a parasite but that
parasetizes my intestinal tract. But a
sub field of parasytology is
neuroparacettology. Those are the
parasites that need to go into your
brain altering your circuitry to suit
their interests
>> including ideas
>> including and that's how I came up with
the parasitic ideas of the parasitic
mind but in order to fully tell the
story I then had to say but but a lot of
the the the mechanisms by which people
seem to be completely hijacked in terms
of their ability to think critically is
really coming from an affective place.
And so how can I explain that? And so
what I argue in the book and then we we
can drill down to endless examples if
you want. I'm not saying that empathy is
a bad thing because even though the book
is just dropping, there's already been
maybe 10 articles that have been hit
pieces against the book, which of course
people it means people haven't read it
yet where they say, you know, here comes
the the dark Jew who's trying to
promulgate the idea that empathy is a
bad thing. He's a neocon right-wing guy,
an Elon guy, a Donald Trump Trump Donald
Trump guy. I'm I'm not saying that
empathy is bad. Empathy is actually a
very important virtue to have. In order
for you and I to have a meaningful
conversation, I need to put myself in
your mind and vice versa. That's called
cognitive empathy, right? Uh theory of
mind is something that typically
autistic children fail on very early in
life. That's how you diagnose them as
being uh autistic. So there's nothing
wrong with well modulated empathy. The
problem with empathy like most things in
life is if there's too little or too
much of it. Aristotle explained this to
us thousands of years ago via his golden
mean. If if a soldier is not courageous
enough, if he's cowardly, it's not good.
If he's too courageous, he becomes a
reckless martyr. That's not good.
There's a sweet spot in the middle. I
argue empathy follows exactly that rule.
Too little of it, you're a psychopath.
too much of it. If it's hyperactive, if
it is invoked in the wrong situations
toward the wrong targets, you end up
with suicidal empathy.
>> Yeah. I don't even necessarily know if
it's empathy at that point. It it
completely becomes illogical and
ideological.
You just subscribe to whatever the
ideology says and you ignore the
reality. Like this man that pushed that
guy in front of the train, right? like
this is a violent criminal and he had
been arrested numerous times. I think
more than a dozen,
>> right?
>> And it was very clear that there's
something very wrong with this person.
He probably shouldn't be just running
free victimizing people.
>> There was another one where um someone
pushed this old guy down a flight of
stairs into the subway and killed him.
>> Yeah.
>> Same situation, same kind of person,
person that had been in and out of jail.
>> You know, every one of these people
starts off as a child. Every one of
these people starts off as a baby and I
can only imagine what kind of household
they developed in. I can only imagine
what kind of abuse they suffered. I can
only imagine what happened to them. And
that's horrible. But once they reach
adulthood and they start victimizing
other people, we've got to do something
as a society.
>> Exactly.
>> Now, I don't know what the tools are to
rehabilitate a person like that, but I
know that they're not being employed. uh
there's not a whole lot of evidence of
there's any successful program where
they're taking a person like that and
doing something with them that
completely changes their personality and
the way they interact with humans and
releases them out in the world and they
become a much better person than they
used to be. So I call them in the book I
call them blank slate felons because if
you remember the term blank slate
>> it so in the parasitic mind I talk about
social constructivism. Everything is a
social construction. It's the tabular
raza premise. We're born with empty
minds with with no individual
differences in our potentiality. And
it's only our unique life trajectories
and our unique patterns of social
socialization that end up making us who
we become. Which in a small sense that's
true. My life experience and yours is an
indelible part of who we are as
individuals. But there are individual
differences that people are born with
different proclivities eventually of
committing crimes or of being NBA
players or of being the next Einstein.
It's a very hopeful message though to
start with the blank slate premise.
>> Yeah. It's just not accurate.
>> Exactly. Because it if you you and I are
both parents, I would love to subscribe
to the idea that if only I knew the
exact schedule of reinforcement of my
how to ensure that my child becomes the
next Lionel Messi or the next Albert
Einstein, he too can become that.
>> That's a lot more hopeful than thinking,
you know what, I don't think my son has
the morphological features that are ever
going to make make him to be the next
NBA star. He's too short. he doesn't
have the right athletic tools. And so
it's it's easy to understand why people
can be paracetized by these ideas. This
this person of color was born into a
white supremacist society. So he's
already been victimized by society. And
for you to now punish him by having him,
you know, in the penal system, you're
doubly punishing him. So shouldn't you
give him a second chance? And by second
chance, we mean 186 chance. That's part
of suicidal empathy. But suicidal
empathy doesn't even apply to only that.
The victims of rape are themselves are
suicidally empathetic towards their
rapist. Can I share some of those
incredible stories?
>> Sure.
>> Uh so I start off in the book with an
example from a Norwegian man who had
been sodomized by a Somali migrant.
uh because the Norwegians are very kind
and empathetic who they don't believe in
long sentences. He served maybe I don't
know three years or four like a pretty
short sentence for a rape of another
man. When he was being released, he was
going to be deported. the victim of that
rape had this huge existential angst and
guilt because now that you know Ahmed
was going to be released back to
Moadishu he wouldn't end up being able
to maximally flourish that like he
should be well our emotional system did
not evolve to be empathetic toward our
rapist that would be an example of
someone who's being suicidally
empathetic another great example uh
>> what happened in that case
>> uh what in terms of whether he was
deported or not. I think I don't want to
misspe but I think he was deported to
the screams and lamentations of the of
the victim. Uh there is a woman who was
raped in Germany and when the
authorities were trying to find out more
about who the perpetrators were, she
lied to them and said that they were uh
speaking in German even though they were
speaking in Arabic and Farsy because if
she had truly said what their language
was then those communities would have
been marginalized. So, and so you know
there's just an endless number of like a
litany of these examples and therefore
suicidal empathy is is really pervasive
once you [snorts] recognize the
mechanism
>> what when you look at the root of that
how do how is it so common like what
what happens
>> so I think that that's a great question
I think again it goes back to the
one-two punch of parasitic mind and
suicidal empathy in order for the
fertile grounds to be available for
suicidal empathy to barge in I first
have to have certain ideas that are
implanted in your brain. So let me give
that sounds very abstract. So let me
give you a concrete example. Cultural
relativism is a parasitic idea that I
discuss in the parasitic mind. It
basically says who are you to judge the
beliefs and the practices of another
culture. Shut up racist. Right? So there
are honor killings. Shut up. There are
child brides. Shut up. There are female
genital mutilations. Shut up. Don't
judge other cultures. Well, if you
internalize that parasitic idea that it
is not appropriate to ever judge the
cultural practices of another culture,
then that renders you impotent when
you're making judgments about who should
be let into your country about whether
you want an increase of people who hold
those views or not. that therefore that
leads to the suicidally empathetic
position that all immigrants are equally
likely to assimilate within the American
ethos or the western ethos. So we
started off with internalizing a
parasitic idea called cultural
relativism and that lays the foundation
for then the suicidal empathy of open
borders.
>> Well, there's no pressure at all to
assimilate. You're more than welcome.
That's one of the weird things. Yeah.
more than welcome to establish a Somali
community in Minnesota where no one
speaks English.
>> Exactly.
>> You know, it's it's very odd. It's very
odd that people want to come here, but
when they come here, they want to
essentially turn it into a smaller
version, at least their neighborhood of
where they came from,
>> right? And a lot I mean, if it were only
that you don't speak English, I mean, to
me, that's bad enough and that you're
not going to be part of the fabric of
the greater society. But fair enough,
that's not an existential threat. But if
you're then going to be advocating for
many of the cultural beliefs that are
perfectly antithetical to the whole
society, then we have a problem.
>> Yeah. And a lot of the cultural beliefs
that are illogical, they have to be
based on something else. And generally
that's religion.
>> Indeed.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh and you and I have talked, you know,
very often about, you know, Islam and so
on. Some people I think I mean I wonder
what you think about this. Do do you
think more Americans are willing to have
a honest and open conversation about
this issue or are most still sort of the
proverbial ostrich and they think it's
goch to talk about religion?
>> Well, I I think it's really divided in
party lines. You know, people on the
right are more than willing to talk
about it. There's very few people on the
right who are empathetic about some of
the
differences that these religions have
and hold and some of the rules that they
would like to apply like Sharia law.
Whereas there's a lot of people on the
left that are terrified of being called
racist, terrified of being called
Islamophobic or, you know, fill in
whatever phobia, transphobic, whatever
it is.
>> They're just terrified. They're
terrified of being labeled. And it's
interesting because that side of the
political spectrum, the the people on
the left are the quickest to pull the
trigger and accuse someone of being
something, being racist, sexist,
homophobic, whatever it is.
>> They're they're the quickest and the
most vicious when it comes to attacking
people based on them not
not going along with whatever narrative
that's been established. which is
interesting because they're the ones
that also like to call people fascists,
but that is a form of fascism. It's not
like if you look at fascism, it's it's
essentially most people think of it as
right-wing authoritarianism,
but it is also, if you look at the
definition of it, it's also a complete
adherence to whatever narrative
is being promoted.
>> Yeah. And you don't think about that
when it's a left-wing like left-wing
progressive like left-wing progressive
fascism sounds like an oxymoron, but
it's it's a mindset and [snorts] it's
the the problem is you're hiding this
mindset in an ideology that you think is
righteous and this is you could say the
same thing about religion because this
is also what people do with religion
because it is the right thing. It's the
right thing to do. So throw the gay off
the roof. Like it's like it's it's
really kind of fascinating like when you
when you see like queers for Palestine,
you're like hold on like [laughter] like
it is a wonderful thing to empathize for
the Palestinian people and to think that
they shouldn't be bombed into oblivion
and I'm with you 100%. But when you
start supporting Hamas and saying, you
know, we're queers for Hamas, like and
I've seen that. I've seen trans people
for Hamas and it's like, good lord, what
are you saying? So, I've got I've got a
a whole verbatim transcript between a
street interviewer, you know, these guys
that just take someone off the street
and they tape it.
>> Yes. I
>> think his name is
>> Yeah.
>> So, we were we just had a little
technical glitch. So, you were talking
about one of those guys that interviews
people in the streets.
>> So, he he goes and intercepts this uh
woman who's at a I guess like a you
know, free free Palestine uh you know
rally
>> and he says, "Oh, you're you're for
Palestine." She goes, "Yes." She goes,
"Well, what do you think about their
positions on uh you know, queer people?"
She goes, "Well, I'm queer." He goes,
"Oh, you're queer? So, what what do you
think about what they would do to you?"
She goes, "Well, they would kill me."
She goes, "But then you still support
them." She goes, "Yes." He goes, "But it
doesn't bother you that you're
supporting a group that would kill you
for the way that you are." She goes,
"No, the fact that they would kill me
doesn't mean that they don't deserve my
support." Well, that's the wood cricket,
right? I mean there is no evolutionary
mechanism that says I'm going to build
an affiliation with a group that I know
would kill me. But she is so kind. She's
so empathetic. She so transcends the
earthly survival instincts that she has
ascended to a higher plane of suicidal
empathy. So it literally is straight out
of what you said.
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Right. But in that situation, what
they're doing is they're being motivated
by what they see as a complete
destruction of Gaza.
>> Right? So it's it's a different
situation because if if that if like
there was no attacks on Gaza and Gaza
was its own you know autonomous or
completely separate state and it wasn't
controlled by Israel and there was no
conflict. I doubt they would have the
same mindset like the mindset is coming
out of watching the destruction of Gaza.
And so then instead of saying, "Hey, we
shouldn't just be bombing this city into
oblivion and supporting this,
instead they go all the way and support
the ideology of the authoritarian rulers
of this area, which is kind of kooky."
>> Yeah.
>> But it's like it's but it's much like a
religion. And it's so you can abandon
all logic.
>> Yeah.
>> As long as you adhere to and you you you
have to in fact if you want to be
accepted.
>> And this one of the the things about the
left is like there's never someone left
enough. And when you think you're left
enough, they move the border. They move
the boundary lines. The goalposts are
like a mile further to the left. You're
like, "Oh god, I got to support drag
queens teaching kids now by themselves.
no parental supervision, twerking.
>> It's like
>> it just keeps getting nuttier and
nuttier to where any protest of it is
heresy.
>> Yeah.
>> And that's where it gets very strange
and it behaves completely like a
religion.
>> Yeah. Other examples of suicidal
empathy. Uh so I tell I talk in the book
about something I introduce as cultural
theory of mind. Right. So theory of mind
is as I discussed earlier it's at the
individual level for you and I to have a
meaningful conversation I need to be in
your mind and vice versa.
>> Cultural theory of mind is the same
principle but it operates at the
cultural level. So if culture a has a
set of values that it adheres to and if
it presumes that those values are
processed in exactly the same way by the
other culture and that's that's a wrong
presumption. I argue that that culture
then lacks cultural theory of mind
because it is assuming that its values
transcend in exactly the same way to
other cultures. Now why is that related
to suicidal empathy? So if you take for
example the values that we hold dear in
the west magnanimity,
generosity, kindness,
empathy,
they're interpreted in other societies
as weakness, weakness, weakness and
weakness. And this is why I I don't
remember if I mentioned this to you
before on the show or not. In Arabic
when people would speak to me, I mean
many years ago before I mean now they
recognize me so they're they're not
going to be as forthright in their
positions. But 25 years ago they would
all tell me the West as a woman to be
mounted. Well, the reason why they're
saying that
>> they would all tell you that.
>> I mean not all but it was very but it
was a it was a saying that is often uh
you know uh intimated.
>> Was this when you were living in
Lebanon?
>> No, no, no. in in Montreal.
>> Montreal. In Montreal.
>> We should tell people just background.
Yeah. Because it's it's you know it's
it's very pertinent.
>> Sure. Uh so I was born in 1964 in
Lebanon. My family were part of the last
remaining
minuscule community of Lebanese Jews.
Historically there was always a a small
but you know uh pretty vibrant Jewish
community. Most of the Jews had left
prior to the start of the civil war
which happened in 75. I was 11. Uh
because they had already read the
writing on the wall. So most of my
extended family, my aunts, my uncles, my
grandparents had left to various places,
most of them to Israel, but some of them
to Montreal, Canada. That's why we ended
up going to Montreal ourselves. But my
parents had refused to leave because
they were very well entrenched within
Lebanese society. They had nice business
and so on. My older siblings, I have
three other siblings. One is 14 years
older, one is 12 years older, and one is
10 years older. The one who's 10 years
older is the Olympian Judoka that that
played in the that competed in the
Montreal Olympics in 1976. Uh so they
already had left Lebanon prior to the
start of the civil war because they had
started facing some Jew hatred
difficulties and even in tolerant
progressive Lebanon.
Unfortunately for me being the last 10
years younger than everybody else, I was
still a kid. We got caught up once the
civil war broke out. Some really bad
things happened during that first year.
But then we were able, thank God, to
escape to Montreal. But then my parents
kept returning to Lebanon uh because
they still had business interests. So
they would go back to Lebanon from 1975
to 1980. On one of their return trips to
Lebanon, they were kidnapped by
Abunidal's group Fad. And some really,
you know, bad things happened during
their captivity. very much like the
stuff that you hear about on October
7th. But luckily, they weren't killed.
They were able to, you know, be freed.
Uh I mean, they weren't freed through a
commando operation. They were freed
through the connections that my parents
had. Uh my mother's u best friend was a
Syrian woman, Syrian Muslim woman who
was the personal dresser of Hazel Assad,
the the the father of Bashir, the one
who was recently deposed. And so through
him uh my my siblings reached out to
this woman. Her name was Hassan. I think
she's passed away now. Uh she got uh the
father involved. He reached out to Yaser
Arafat who was the head of the PLO back
then. Uh, as I understand the story,
Yasa Arafat said, "Well, I don't even
know whether they're with one of our
groups. Let me do, you know, make some
calls." But at the time, there was sort
of a battle between Yas Arafat and
Abunidal. And he said, "If if he if it's
the Abunidal gang that took him, you
know, good luck." And it was the
Abunidal group. But I'm guessing there
was some money that was exchanged. My
parents were freed. When my father
returned, he had a a temporary facial
paralysis akin to when you have a really
severe stroke and your face is
completely disfigured and asymmetric.
>> Gilbar,
>> is that what it's called? Uh, but it was
it it got resolved. And so for about I
don't know how long it was, maybe a
month or two, his face was completely
>> asymmetric. probably due to
>> stress
>> the things that happened to him.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh and actually I I mean some of the
stuff I may have briefly mentioned on
this show, but here's a part that I I'm
almost certain I didn't mention. At one
point, the the militia group was trying
to get my parents to um sign a
confession letter that they are Israeli
spies, which if you met my parents, you
would know that that's not a very likely
reality because it turns out that if
they signed that, then they could
legally execute them. And the guy who
had started this whole thing was the
owner of the building where my dad owned
the store. and if they could now get rid
of them, the store would. So, it wasn't
even like a religious thing. It was for
one of the seven deadly sins of greed,
at least as I understand it.
>> And anyways, and so at one point, they
had separated my parents and they were
trying to put a lot of pressure on each
of them to sign this thing. And they go
to my mother and say, you know, you
know, admit that, you know, you're a
spy, whatever, Israeli agent. And she's
like, are you are you crazy? I mean,
just go ask my husband, you know, and
they they kind of mockingly say, "Oh,
well, your husband has gone to join his
god, meaning that they've already killed
him." So then my mother is in her little
cell and, you know, they're doing bad
things to them. And she hears my dad
late at night in some other part of
wherever they were keeping him. He had a
very whooping kind of cough, like a like
a cough as if like actually I have a
similar cough. I used to be asthmatic,
so I have this very deep and loud cough.
And so she was hearing that cough, but
she wasn't sure if she's just
hallucinating this in her thoughts or
whether it was real. Well, it turned out
that it w they hadn't killed them, but
they were just trying to lean in on her.
And so that's the background that I come
from.
>> Yeah. So you are very tuned in to what
could possibly go wrong,
>> unfortunately. Yes. And and this is why
I mean many times when I've come on the
show you know I've talked about some of
those difficulties that you know all
religions
are not indistinguishable from each
other. All relig I mean religions have
certain features that might be
transferable from one religion to the
other
>> right
>> but there are many elements that are
very specific to a given religion.
>> Sure. If you're in extremist chain, then
you really take your uh using this uh
the uh sweeping thing when you you know
when they walk they use a broom so that
they inadvertently don't step on an ant
and kill it. So an extremist extremist
in quotes Jane someone who really takes
his religion seriously is someone who's
going to be extremist in his pacifism.
right now that religion has very very
different edicts about how to conduct
yourself even when you're walking on a
sidewalk than maybe will an Abrahamic
faith whether it be Judaism or
Christianity or Islam. So the idea that
ultimately all religions are simply
preaching the same indistinguishable
thing in slightly different ways is
simply not true. But it feels good to
think that, right? It's empathetic for
us to think that. We should never speak
amongst mixed company about politics and
religion. So therefore, if I start
saying something that might be porative
of another religion, that feels icky,
that feels go icky,
>> right? And that's why, by the way,
earlier you mentioned that when we were
talking about this, uh, when I asked
you, are Americans more likely now to
talk openly about Islam? You said, well,
the Democrats are more terrified to do
so than the Republicans. But even the
Republicans are to some extent
suicidally empathetic. Because if you
watch even the ones who very forcefully
criticize Islam as being in congruent
with, you know, American values, they'll
always use linguistic coverage to
protect Islam. So it's Islamism.
>> Yes.
>> It's radical Islam. It's radical.
>> Would you agree with that?
>> No.
>> No,
>> not at all. So a political Islam and
Islamism is a indelible inherent feature
of Islam. Much of Islam is Islamism. So
if you do a content analysis of all of
the canonical texts of Islam, which are
the Quran, the Hadith, the the deeds and
the sayings of Muhammad and the S, which
is the biography of Muhammad, you could
do a quantitative analysis of how often
is it preaching brotherly love, how
often is it really concerned about the
infidels, how and so Islam in its nature
is political. Why? There are many
reasons why but let me just give you one
and then if you want to drill down we
can do so. Islam is a fully
procilitizing language um religion
meaning that it is incumbent
in an ideal world to turn the entire
world into the one true faith. It is a
peaceful religion if by peaceful it
means the following. Eventually the
entire globe, every millimeter of the
globe will be united under the unifying
flag of Allah. Now let's take for
example Judaism. And it's not because
I'm Jewish, but it's just to compare.
Judaism is precisely the opposite is it
is it is an anti-procilitizing
language. You're not allowed to
procilitize. As a matter of fact, if you
procilitize,
let's say I try to convince you, Joe,
you know, why don't you join the tribe
and you say, you know what, I think I'd
like to.
>> It's a grind.
>> It's a grind. Exactly.
>> Long haul. My uncle did it.
>> Well, there you go. Thank you. So the it
is literally in the cannons of Judaism
to try to dissuade the prospective
convert to coming into the fold because
the the idea is to have a costly signal
of your commitment your your your
religious piety to want to join the
group. So it is a grind. It's very hard
in Islam. You just have to say the one
proclamation the shahada one sentence
and you're in. Now try to get out. There
are apostasy laws against you getting
out. So the the the circuitry of Islam
is one that is expansionist. That's why
you have two billion Muslims. One out of
every four human beings is Muslim. And
it only took 1400 years for that. So
from a marketing perspective, as someone
who studies consumer behavior, Islam is
a brilliant marketing religion. It has
found a way to get a lot of customers
and adherence. Judaism sucks at
marketing because the entire circuitry
of Judaism is meant to keep it very very
small. And so which one is likely to
lead to greater problems? the one that
is meant to ensure that all of us become
Muslim or the one that says even if your
uncle wants to become Jewish, we're
going to put the barrier so so high that
nobody will ever become Jewish. So we
still have only 15 million Jews roughly
in the world. Almost the same as we had
before the Holocaust. So Judaism sucks
as a marketing religion. Islam
incredibly successful
>> in this country. The concern with
Judaism is the support of the Israeli
military.
>> Right?
>> That's the concern. The the concern is
the amount of influence that it has on
the United States government. How we got
into the Iran war, why we give them so
much influence over our military, over
our decision making, over our
politicians. I mean, Apac famously
promotes and supports a tremendous
amount of politicians in the United
States. That's that's the big fear is
that there's there's an inordinate
amount of influence that Israel has over
foreign policy, our our decisions, and
even our political structure in the
country,
>> right? Several ways to tackle this. Say
the Iran war, take Israel out of it. Do
you think that the do you think there
are multiple countries that would share
in the recognition that probably a
Iranian regime that has an esquetology
that basically says the end of times
requires that there is sort of death to
everybody before the final uh you know
uh imam comes back. Would it be a good
idea for the Brits or the Romanians or
the French or some of the other the the
Gulf countries? Would they be happy if
Iran had a nuclear weapon? So to to to
frame the issue of the US is attacking
or is involved in the attack on the
Iranians as you know the United States
doesn't have personal agency. They're
all wood crickets that are being
puppeteered by this incredibly powerful
lobby called Israel. That simply doesn't
pass the smell test. Of course, Israel
has shared interests with the United
States, as most allies would, where they
both agree that probably an Iranian
regime that has nuclear weapons should
would not be a good thing for word world
peace. And so because these two
countries have maybe greater testicular
fortitude than the NATO countries, it
seems as though the the Israelis are
puppeteering the the the the Americans.
But do you really think that Donald
Trump is sitting and saying, you know,
had I not been such a weak guy with no
personal agency, I wouldn't have fallen
sway to the incredibly influential
Zionist lobby?
>> Well, it's not just incredibly
influential. It's the amount of
financial support they gave his
candidacy and again all the different
politicians that are beholden to Israel.
That's the concern that a lot of people
on the right and on the left have here
in America.
>> So
>> we most people in America do not support
this war. It's the the the large
percentage of people think it was a bad
idea.
>> What are what are your thoughts?
>> I don't think it's a good idea. Why? But
I Well, because first of all, it doesn't
seem to have a clear resolution, right?
It's like we went over there because we
were told that they were very close to
developing a nuclear weapon. But if
you've paid attention to what Netanyahu
has said over the last few decades, it's
always been they're a year away, they're
two months away, they're whatever it is.
I mean, he's been doing this forever.
Ever since he spoke at the UN and had
that giant cartoon bomb, remember the
like Looney Tunes bomb? Yeah.
When he spoke with the percentage of
>> I remember that enrichment of uranium.
He's wanted this for a long time.
There's also a deep concern that he is
only in office because of the war and he
has corruption charges in Israel and
that in order for him to stay in power
and for him to avoid going to trial, he
has to continue war.
>> Can I comment on that?
>> Sure.
>> Yeah.
Let's suppose you go to see your
physician and your physician says, "Hey
Joe, god forbid it looks like your blood
sugar is very high and I'm going to
classify you as now, never mind
pre-diabetic. I think you're diabetic.
And if we don't manage your sugar
levels, there will come a day where I
can tell you exactly what's going to
happen. We're going to have to amputate
your extremities. You're probably going
to lose your eyesight. You're probably
going to have sexual dysfunction. and
you're probably going to have some
cardiovascular incident. That doesn't
happen on day two of you having been
diagnosed with diabetes. Like there is a
trajectory and at some point there'll be
a tipping point where until then none of
the diabetes complications happened. And
why am I saying all this? Because I I
can't comment as to whether he's been
lying all the times when he said it's
there's two more years left or one more
year or six more months. But surely we
can grant the American uh government
enough leeway to presume that if they
thought that at this point it's the
right time and it is now intolerable for
them to go another day with the current
reality that they probably had some
intelligence that suggests that they are
close. So, I can't comment whether uh
Netanyahu was pulling our eyes, but
surely it can't be that the Israelis are
so manipulative in their puppeteering
that they've pulled the wool over the
American eyes and really there's no
danger that the Iranians were posing and
we've convinced the Americans to go to
war. Do you think that it it is that? Do
you
>> Well, I wouldn't say there's no danger,
right? So, here's here's one thing that
we do know. They had [clears throat]
said that their missiles could only
reach a certain distance. That proved to
not be true, right?
>> Because of the Diego Garcia missile
launch, right? So they they have
missiles that are capable of reaching
Europe
>> and that was not something they had said
before.
>> Um we know that they have enriched their
uranium beyond what they need for
nuclear power,
>> right? and that they're within striking
distance of developing a nuclear weapon,
>> right? But wasn't it true that they had
put See this is it's hard to know as me
as a person sitting on a podcast studio
in Texas exactly what their ruling had
been but that they had only done this in
order to avoid the possibility of them
being attacked that they would get close
to a nuclear weapon so at least it would
it would deter some some potential
attacks on them and that they were doing
this out of self-interest. Um,
there's a a large group of American
politicians that did not want this war,
that did not think it was warranted to
attack Iran at this point.
>> Can I Yeah. Okay.
So I think I've mentioned on the show
before these this uh distinction between
deontological ethics absolute
statements. It is never okay to lie
versus consequentialist ethics. It's
okay to lie if it is meant to spare
someone's hurt feelings. Right? So if
your wife says do I look fat in those
jeans? You put on your consequentialist
hat and you say you've never looked more
beautiful because maybe she's put on a
bit of weight but you don't want to hurt
her feelings. So you lie to and and for
most of us we go through life in most
instances putting on a consequentialist
hat. Okay?
>> And I'm going to link it now to to our
discussion
>> to have for example a deontological
principle that says that I am always an
isolationist. Do you understand what I
mean by here? Deontological meaning that
it doesn't matter what the environment
is out there. I as America will never
interfere in wars over there. That can't
be an optimal strategy, right? Because
so for example, if you were a
deontological pacifist, you say under no
circumstances do I believe that violence
is the solution. Well, what would
usually happen to a society if it
adhered to theological pacifism?
>> They'd be attacked.
>> They'd be eradicated. Right? So it can't
be that for some of these geopolitical
issues there is a rule that in its
nature is deontological. So many of the
Americans that are anti- this war are
very very staunchly steeped in sort of a
libertarian/deentological
isolationist perspective. Now, in many
cases, I would completely agree with
that position in that it's not the
Americans uh position to have to go and
be the policeman of everywhere in the
world. But let's contrast it, say, with
with when World War II was about to
happen, the appeasement strategy of
Chamberlain, right? This guy with the
little mustache has, don't worry about
it. I absolutely have no design to do
anything bad. You You swear, Adolf, it's
all good. Yeah. Yeah. Don't worry.
Promise you really don't. Even though
you're moving all of your stuff, you're
a good guy, right? I can trust you.
Yeah. Yeah. Of course you can. So
appeasement only works if the other
person is someone that can be fully
trustworthy. It is almost incontestable
that if the Iranian regime in its
current form could ever cause great
damage to everybody, not only Israel,
right? I mean, the Gulf countries are
not exactly putting up barriers against
this war because they also are the
enemies of the Iranians. So the it's
undoubtable that of course the Americans
have the Israelis in their ear pushing
for their self-interest. But that's also
called the reality of every nation on
earth. Every every entity fights for its
own interests. But that doesn't mean
that the Americans are so lacking in
personal agency, are so gullible, are so
easy to puppeteer that it there must be
this Zionist lobby that otherwise is
pushing us into an unnecessary war,
maybe another 3 years, maybe another 5
years, maybe another 10 years, it would
have resulted in a disaster. So if you
are a universalist and you want the
Iranian people to maximally flourish,
forget about Israel. Don't even mention
the word Israel. Do you not want these
90 million people called Iranians who
have a deeply rich historical,
you know, heritage to flourish? I've had
many graduate students who are Iranians
in my classes and so on. There are some
of the most modern, secular,
outwardlooking Westerners that have been
choked for 47 years by a really nasty
regime. So maybe we could celebrate that
if all if all this goes well, 90 million
people are going to be freed. And I
could say that statement without ever
invoking Israel. What do you think of
that?
>> Well, I think the reason why they're in
the situation they're in in the first
place is because of the United States.
It's because the United States and the
British Petroleum Company. It's because
they were trying to nationalize oil.
That's that's what happened in the first
place.
>> The Islamic Revolution.
>> Yes. This is how it started in the first
place. They realized that the British
Petroleum Company was making a ton of
money and they wanted to nationalize oil
and we got rid of them and they
installed this Islamic regime and look
it there's a lot of consequences for
that down the road. Obviously the worst
side of it was what happened to the
Iranian people. When you look at the
photos and the videos of Tan from like
the the 1950s, the 1960s, I mean, my
god, it looks like a western society.
Women wearing skirts and everyone looks
it looks very modern and western. And
then it became this
fundamentalist religious country that it
is right now, this Islamic country that
it is right now. They're they're under a
regime that
murders protesters. Um they famously
murdered um some highlevel wrestlers.
There was an Olympic gold medalist at
the United States. The UFC tried to get
involved and try to keep him from
getting murdered.
>> Um yeah, they they do horrible things.
There's no doubt about it. It's a
terrible regime. But there's a really
good argument that that terrible regime
is in place because of the CIA and
because of the United States government,
because the British Petroleum Company,
because we intervened and we've done
that in the past. We did that with
Libya, right? There's a reason why Moar
Gaddafi was out. You know, we had uh
Russell Crowe, who's a brilliant guy on
the podcast, was like explaining the
history of Libya and how great it was
for Libyan people when Mar Gaddafi was
in power that if anybody wanted to get
an education anywhere they had some
certain skills or talent in some certain
area, they would fully pay for their
education overseas. They gave everyone a
house. Everyone who lived there had a
home. I mean, people were educated. and
he was trying to set up something akin
to the United States, but the United
States of Africa and you know and they
were like we can't have any of that
>> and so they got rid of him and Libya
became a failed state like we have
monkeyied in other countries for our own
interest for a long time and with
horrible consequences for the people in
those countries and I think Iran is an
excellent example of that. So how much
of
the Islamic regime coming into power in
1975
if you have a 100 points that you want
to allocate to either it's the US that
causes it versus there's an Islamic
regime with its theology that is really
nasty. How would you allocate the points
in terms of uh
you know the the cause of of that
reality?
>> That's a good question. And that's a
question that would be answered by
historians rather than me. But I think
there's no doubt that we played a major
factor in that.
>> Don't you agree with that?
>> So I mean yes and no. So let me explain
why I say yes and no. When you have a
complicated geopolitical system,
you can always look, you remember the
old butterfly effect, right? There's a
butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon
and then how that reverberates into a
cyclone somewhere else, right?
>> It's kind of though.
>> No, but but I mean the principle of
>> it's great if you don't understand how
the weather works.
>> Fair enough. But the idea that there are
causal networks is such that in this
complicated web of causal networks, you
can always find a particular entity that
you can try to link back all of the
causes to that entity.
>> But the overthrow of a foreign
government and supporting
uh an Ayatollah to take their place,
it's it's a pretty big factor.
>> But so that's why I asked you the to
allocate the the 100 points.
>> I wouldn't be the guy to answer that.
I'm gonna answer off the top of my head
and it's completely speculative. So, so
the numbers I'm gonna say are not.
>> Uh, let's ascribe 10 out of the hundred
points to whatever
power the US wields in that region to
have allowed that regime to come in. But
that regime carries the other 90 points
of the 100 because they are the ones who
for the next 47 years implement the
reality that the common Persian is going
to experience. Everything [snorts] in
the world can ultimately be be linked
back to oxygen to the United States to
the military complex to the Zionist
lobby because in some very fasile way
all of those entities are connected in a
meaningful way in this causal network
but is using Okam's razor is does it
really make sense to blame for example
people say ISIS is really due to
whatever Israel. I mean in some fasile
way you could draw the causal link of
how there was a vacuum that was created
by the US when they debathized you know
Iraq that allowed an extreme. So, do we
blame ISIS on American policy or the
Zionist lobby or or does ISIS itself
have any personal agency in terms of
what it then does for the next 10 years
that it's in power? Do you see what I'm
saying?
>> I do.
>> So, so this is the old story. I I'm I'm
going to butcher it, but I quoted in the
parasitic mind. For the man who has a
hammer, he only sees the world as being
made up of the nails. Right? So, this is
when you're
you're presuming that there is greater
explanatory power to a particular cause
than there really is. Every look, I'll
give you an example.
>> Okay?
>> Let's suppose that the night before
uh an eventual dictator
that was going to become a dictator, his
parents felt particularly amorous that
night. And what made them amorous to
then eventually conceive that guy who
became a dictator who killed 3 million
people is that they played Barry White
music because Barry White music is
babymaking music. So it is in a very
silly way absolutely true that had Barry
White not been such a great singer with
a deep voice that makes the ladies drop
the panties then those two parents of
the eventual dictator would not have had
sex that night.
>> I will stop you right there because I
don't think there's sex that's ever been
had because only of Barry White. I think
people have been having sex since the
beginning of time. I don't believe it.
It's wonderful music. I don't think it
causes sex.
>> Do not criticize Barry White.
>> I'm not criticizing. I just say it's
great music.
>> I don't believe it. I think people
getting it on from the beginning of time
and they probably would have done the
exact same thing that night if it was
Barry White or Barry Manalo. I don't
think it matters.
>> So, let's not put Barry White. There was
some facilitating mechanism that
rendered them amorous on that particular
night. Whatever that mechanism is, it is
absolutely true that we can lay the
blame, some blame of that dictator
eventually killing 3 million people. He
would have never been born had they not
had sex exactly at that moment.
>> I think that's a bit of a stretch.
>> I think it's a bit of a stretch when you
actively work to overthrow a
democratically elected government. I
mean, so this now we're talking about
what when they
>> Well, well, and not not even
democratically elected government
because Libya wasn't a democratically
elected government, right? Like not
really like let's be honest, right? Like
Putin's not really a democratically
elected
>> president of Russia,
>> but you know what I mean? But we 100%
funded the rebels 100% to kill Gaddafi.
We that's it's our responsibility why
Libya fell.
>> Okay. But if okay true
>> in that [clears throat] position
>> 100%
>> Gaddafi the way you made him out to be
was I mean he was Robin Hood right
Kaddafi was a pretty nasty guy
>> no no no good for the people in many
ways pretty nasty guy in other ways
there is no
>> ealitarian
beautiful leader out there they've never
existed because the cold hard reality of
running enormous groups of people that
are in conflict with other groups of
people is you're going to have to crack
some eggs to do terrible things
>> especially in those regions of the world
where if you don't have an incredibly
strong armed guy then religion comes in
and it becomes the strong guy. So you've
you have it in Egypt, you have it with
Saddam Hussein. So in with
Assad and then his son. So, so those
guys are if you're a universalist who
wishes for individual liberties and
freedoms to flourish for everybody
around the world, then you're probably
not supporting these guys,
>> right? Well, okay, we can use Saddam
Hussein as an example.
>> Sure. Look at look at what happened
there. I mean, it became a complete and
total disaster resulting in the death of
at least a million innocent people.
>> Yes. and didn't do anything positive in
terms of turning that into a beautiful
western style democracy.
>> Yeah. But by the way, that last sentence
I would argue that that's because of the
Americans lack of cultural theory of
mind because they presume that the
desire to have democracy around the
world is exactly what everybody wants
and therefore they're culturally blind
to the fact that other places around the
world may not share our own affinity for
democracy.
>> Well, not just that, but culturally
ignorant to the fact that they're Sunni
and Shia Muslims and they're going to
fight with each other,
>> right? Yeah.
>> Yeah. Now, but you Okay. So, so the
Americans come in, they create a bad set
of ecosystems that permits for ISIS to
flourish. At what point would you in
your causal link of explanations shift
from the catalyst of the Americans
having done something that allowed ISIS
to flourish to then saying starting at
time t my causal weaponry is going to be
targeting ISIS moving forward?
>> Well, it's a good question because like
why did ISIS flourish in the first
place? Was it because of the removal of
Saddam Hussein? Was it because of the
overthrowing of the country? I mean,
wasn't that
>> It was.
>> Yeah. So, if that didn't take place,
what would Iran and Iraq look like right
now?
>> Right. But so, think about all of the
people that have suffered horrifyingly
as a result of ISIS. If you are a
individual that's walking around who is
the recipient of that brutality,
>> what would make more sense if you're
engaging in statistical inferencing?
Would it be to say, you know, the guy
that's about to
string me up because I looked at a girl
wrong and he's going to cut off my penis
and my arms because I touched a girl, I
really can't blame ISIS because really
it's American foreign policy that
intervene in Iraq. That's not how people
navigate through their
>> How did you get to that? I mean, the guy
get his penis chopped off and his arms
chopped off. Where did How did you get
there?
>> But you know how under Sharia law there
are very strict uh rules about that
govern the dynamics between men and
women, right? So I was just being
hyperbolic, but let's say whatever the
punishment, you you stole a loaf of
bread under Sharia Allah, we cut off
your hand, right? Mhm.
>> So, let's say you're a 12year-old kid
who just stole a loaf of bread from the
souk and the ISIS commanders have caught
you and they're about to institute
Sharia Allah by cutting off your hand
because you're a thief. Would would
would it be natural for you or your
parents, the parents of the 12-year-old
who are crying because they're about to
see their hand the hand of their child
cut off, would they say, "I really can't
be upset at ISIS and their brutality
because I ultimately ISIS only came in
because of the geopolitical intervention
of the United States." Do do you think
that that would be a reasonable
>> the whole idea sucks like the
>> and that's
>> complete imprisonment of any group of
people under a totalitarian regime is
terrible
>> but that's it full stop
>> the question is how were they funded how
did they get into the position that they
got into in the first place how did they
rise to power
>> but nothing can happen
>> but how much of it is because of our
meddling that they rose to power in the
first place
>> so let's suppose we hadn't meddled we so
we meddle we meaning the United States,
let's say, we and I'm glad that I'm now
including myself with we almost you're
close getting there.
>> So, we meddled because whatever
calculus, some of it was incorrect.
Maybe there was no weapons of mass
destruction. I mean, Saddam Hussein was
a horrifying guy. I think if if you ask
me to rank all of them, maybe in terms
of pure evil, he might have been the
biggest of all the thugs, right? Uh and
and
>> the sons are the sons are even worse,
maybe. Right. You've heard of all the
stories that they do. It's just really
it defies
>> complete serial killers.
>> Exactly.
>> Okay. So now if I am a typical Iraqi
who's going about my business, I really
would like to not live under Saddam
Hussein's thumb and I probably don't
want to live under, you know, ISIS
thumb. In an ideal world, I could live
with complete dignity and and, you know,
liberty and so on. The Americans with
all of their miscalculations maybe
naively thought that we'll come in and
then kumbaya we will create a new
democracy in Iraq. They completely
miscalculated.
But the root cause of the daily evil
that the Iraqis go through cannot be put
on the broad shoulders of the Americans
because then that removes the personal
agency of the actors in their daily
lives that are causing them all the
pain. But there is a reflex, and dare I
say, forgive me, a suicidally empathetic
reflex that renders you somehow
progressively sophisticated if you
always turn all of the world's ills on
your own society.
>> I agree with you in what you're saying,
but the reason why we were there was not
because we wanted to help people. The
whole reason why they came up with this
fake weapons of mass destruction
narrative is because they wanted to
control the oil. I I I really can't
speak to that. You pro you you could be
right.
>> Oh, 100% I'm right. Yeah, there's we're
not doing that for to help people. We
didn't go to Iraq to help people. It
didn't even make sense that we're in
there. They weren't involved in 9/11.
The whole idea was nuts.
>> Okay. So, let me
>> I think the whole weapons of mass
destruction narrative was complete
that was cooked up to give an
excuse to go over there and take
>> willfully so. It's not they made an
error. They knew it was
>> Yes. I mean, I think there's a lot of
evidence to that. There's there's no
evidence that they had weapons of mass
destruction as described by everybody to
give the motivation for us to support
the war.
>> Okay. So, let me maybe as the
distinguished professor of the
Declaration of Independence Center for
the Study of American Freedom, I hope
University of Mississippi will be happy
that I'm defending the United States uh
as a Canadian, not yet American, but
inshallah soon. Uh [laughter]
is it not true that the default reality
of every unit whether it be an
individual, a grouping, a country will
typically all other things equal try to
pursue policies that are in its best
interest. Right. So when when when Trump
says America first, MAGA and all this,
that's what he's appealing to. Yes.
So, does the US ever do things that
might be uh less than savory because
they're pursuing their selfish
interests? 100%. And we can come up,
right? But that makes them a country
made up of these things called human
beings. In other words, no society has
ever been created that is made up of
these utopian machines that as they
navigate the world, they look to the
other for their unless they are
suicidally empathetic. So the US is made
up of real human beings endowed with
real brains whereby they might say hey
maybe if we take their oil and concoct a
strategy may now is that good or bad? We
can debate it. But in the grand buffet
of societies that have ever held power,
does the U and never mind the the power
asymmetry that the US has visa v
everybody else. Is it the most
restrained society ever? If the United
States today said we need more beaches,
all the Caribbeans are becoming the 51st
state. Could anybody do anything about
that? No. Yet they don't. So I think it
would be good certainly for Americans
and me as a honorary American to say
does does America do sometimes things
that are less than perfect in a utopian
world? 100% yes. You're right. I can see
that. Does it wield its power in the
most gentle ways compared to what it
could do and compared to what other
societies if they had that power would
do? I think the America does pretty
well. No. Am I too am I too rosy about
my views of America? Well, that's a an
interesting question because China
doesn't meddle in other countries the
way we do and they have a similar
military might.
>> Not quite commensurate.
>> Yeah.
>> But pretty similar like you don't see
them invading other countries and doing
the type of things that we do. And I
know they threaten to Taiwan,
>> but they believe that Taiwan is a part.
They call it Chinese Taipei, right? So
I'm going to use here some Arabic words
which I'll try to explain in English but
maybe to your Arabic listeners they'll
appreciate it. The Chinese have greater
and they are duplicitous in the way they
do that stuff. Right? They caress they
caress you this way while they take
right. So yes, they are using a
different modality to wield their power
compared to the brash rah Americans, but
let's not sort of romanticize what the
Chinese could do, right? Well, they're
taking advantage of the openness of
American society. They're they've
infiltrated universities. They've
infiltrated a lot of tech sectors.
>> They've sold uh American military a
bunch of cell phone towers that are
surrounding military bases that may or
may not be transmitting data. We've had
to kick Huawei out of the country
because it turns out that a lot of their
equipment could be used for spying.
Yeah. Like they buy farmland all around
military bases. They're doing a lot of
things to take advantage of our
silliness, but that's because we should
have better laws to prevent, you know,
what's essentially not our friends from
doing that.
>> Yeah.
>> I mean, you can call them an enemy
nation or whatever you want to call
them, but we shouldn't be allowing uh a
foreign nation that we are in conflict
with to control land around military
bases. That's just stupid. But that's
because of our capitalist society. I
mean, you can't even
>> you can't own a business in China. You
can't go over there and buy stuff. Like,
you can't do it. You can be in business
with them. And then, you know what they
do? They just kick you out and take over
it,
>> right?
>> Change the name of it and take over all
the IP and you're gone. Bye-bye. And
there's not a thing you could do
about it because they don't have an open
society like we do. Well, and think
about I mean if if we're doing the
ledger of sort of cruelty and evil, we
could talk about how the US versus China
wields power around the world. But how
about internally domestically? We had a
guy called Mount Seong that was kind of
pretty brutal that if we do the history
of China in terms of how many millions
of people were killed by that regime
versus anything that's happened in the
US, has the US been perfect in the past
250 years? Absolutely not.
>> No, there's never been a perfect regime.
Exactly. There's no perfect regimes and
you know look at what they did just with
their one child policy.
>> There you go.
>> I mean there's a lot wrong with the way
China does things, you know, but
>> so to me once I and maybe that's why
University of Mississippi was keen on
having me come. I look at the United
States as someone who Thank you for your
earlier question about sort of where do
you come from? God g tell us your story.
Some of the biggest defenders of the
United States are typically, it might
sound paradoxical, but if you think
about it, it's not, are usually
immigrants who have sampled from the
wide variety of buffets of societies out
there. Therefore, we know that the
anomaly called the United States is
truly an anomaly. Whereas the American
wakes up in his life and he thinks that
the liberties and freedoms that you have
in the United States are just the
default value. That's just the way it
is. It isn't. That's what makes the
United States great. So for me,
>> by the way, that that also explains why
people think, for example, that I defend
Israel because I'm Jewish. There is an
element of that. I mean, most of my
family is in Israel, but it's really I
defend Israel because many of its values
are congruent with those that we hold
dear in the United States. So given the
region of the Middle East, if I'm going
to send my daughter or yours to some
university to study, I would much rather
for her to be in a society in Tel Aviv
or Hifa than I would in many of the
other places. So it's in that sense that
I'm pro- Israel. So if you ask me to
allocate a 100 points to how much of my
support of Israel is due to the fact
that many of its foundational values are
similar to those of the United States
versus the fact that I'm Jewish and
Israel is a Isra is a Jewish state. I
would say 8020 in former for the latter.
meaning that I am defending the
civilizational values of Israel in a
very very difficult and belligerent
neighborhood. Does Israel always do
things perfectly? No. Do they have
politicians that are corrupt? Yes. Uh
have have pedophiles who did bad things
here tried to go there and have aliyah
meaning get residency there uh and run
away from the thing. Yes. But it could
also be the case that a bank robber or
pedophile goes back to Thailand if there
are no extradition uh you know
mechanisms to bring them back to the to
the United States. So my position of
defending the United States or Israel or
whomever else really stems from some
foundational values of liberty and
freedom. There is no conceivable place
in the world where given the
neighborhood that Israel exists in, one
would conceivably defend any of those
other societies instead of Israel if the
metrics that you care about are personal
liberties and freedoms. We could then
debate specific policies and you'd be
completely in your right to say I don't
like when the Israeli government does
this. But well, let me ask you and
forgive me for asking you a personal
question. If let's say your daughter
today said, "Dad, I'd like to go and
study one year abroad
and it's going to be somewhere in the
Middle East." You, Joe Rogan, how likely
would you be to support her going in the
Middle East to a university other than
in Israel?
>> That's interesting. Um, when you say the
Middle East, you mean like Saudi Arabia
or the United Arab Emirates? Cuz I think
it's pretty safe there.
>> Okay. So, I'll get You're right. That's
true. And and I'm by the way I'm loving
the openness that many of these
countries are exhibiting. And I'll tell
you I'll tell you a quick personal story
and then I' I'd love to then hear your
your
>> I was approached by Al Arabia. Al Arabia
is the premier news network from they're
Saudi but they were actually uh located
in Dubai.
and RZ Khan who was the anchor that was
flying from Dubai to interview me in
Montreal for Alarabia. He used to be the
uh main anchor I think at BBC Global or
CNN Global. I said to RZ, "Are are we
going to be talking about things like
Islam and these kind?" He goes, "Yeah,
yeah, feel free to talk about whatever
you want." I said, "Well, I'm I'm not
worried so much about me, but you're
going to have to go back to that region.
Are you comfortable? like can I I mean
I'll be very professorial and proper but
I will say some difficult truths. He
goes say whatever you want that aired.
It was a two-hour conversation where we
you know we talked about all sorts of
things but we talked about Islam and
then he said they loved you about a
month or two later another state another
show contacted me and I went also on and
then they even wanted to offer me a
show. Now, the Saudi group is offering
the Lebanese Jew who's often been
critical of some of the tenets of Islam.
So, I'm very optimistic about that. So,
I agree with you that if your daughter
wanted to perhaps go to some places in
the Gulf countries, you'd probably
condone it and support it. But that
would make it too easy. So, let me
choose which country.
>> That would be too easy. But that is the
Middle East and the they are Islamic
countries.
>> Well, because those countries are having
a revival of modernity. So,
>> right. Well, maybe that's what we should
talk about because is that possible with
Islam that they could have a revival of
modernity across the entire country?
Like imagine if Iraq, Iran, all these
countries were run like Saudi Arabia or
run like the United Arab Emirates.
>> You would have a a much more peaceful
environment, wouldn't you?
>> Yeah. So, I'm going to be now very
optimistic. There is a package of
cultural richness in the Middle East
like no other. And I come from the
region, Arabic is my mother tongue. The
the spirit of generosity, the spirit of
loyalty when you're in the group, the
hospitality is like no other. Actually,
I recently was telling some folks in
Mississippi that the the Mississippians
remind me as though they were honorary
Lebanese because they're so it's that
southern hospitality really like
overthe-top wanting to make you feel
good. So there are elements of the
Middle East that have such a fabric of
richness that if we can mine that and
and quell all of the tribalism
associated with religions,
>> I think it could be one of the most
fertile and rich and places in the
world. Now it depends what we do with
Islam. If Islam is something that you
practice privately as part of a long
historical narrative, so for example,
I'm Jewish. I'm very wedded to my Jewish
identity, but I don't take many of the
edicts of Judaism seriously in the
practice. I I don't light the candle at
4:21 for Shabbat because if 4:22, God
would be upset at me. But if I went to
the rabbi, he'd say, "It has to be at
4:21." So, I pick and choose cafeteria
Jew. I pick and choose the parts that I
wish to
>> cafeteria Jew like that. Uh, I don't
practice some soft version of Judaism
that allows for the eating of pork and
uh, shrimps. I simply say I'm a glutton
that likes to eat well and shrimps and
some pork tastes really good. So, I'm
just going to ignore those parts. I
think I think if Islam could allow for
that cafeteria, which by the way, many
Muslims do now, right? Like not I have
friends that are Muslims that do that.
>> Exactly. Hundreds of millions of Muslims
want to cause zero harm to Jews.
>> Right. So the problem is radical
Islamism like we were talking about
before. So you
>> kind radical. It's just Islam and I
choose to ignore the parts that I don't
like. You're putting an appellation on
Islam that is unnecessary. Islam is made
up of many tenants.
>> It's not radical Islam. There is no book
called radical Islam. There's only
Islam. I mean Erdogan said there is no
moderate Islam. There's just Islam. So
is he an Islamophobe? Right? So there is
a bunch of tenants.
>> There's the one that says kill kill kill
kill. Take a break. Continue killing.
that. I'm going to ignore it
because I'm a good person. Right?
Because there are mean Jews and nice
Jews. Mean Muslims nice Muslims. So many
>> westernization of it.
>> Right? So if there is a way to maintain
the Islamic heritage, there's Islamic
architecture, there's Islamic poetry,
there's Islamic philosophy, there was a
period under Islamic rule where many of
the ancient texts from, you know, Greek
uh philosophy were safeguarded by Islam,
right? So it's not as though the that
entire civilization is void of
incredibly rich things, but there are
unfortunately elements of the religion
that are not congruent with Western
values. If there is a way for us from
this side of our mouth to honor Islamic
architecture and poetry and from this
side of our mouth forget the parts that
says kill, kill everyone, then I think
you could have wonderful flourishing.
>> Right. For it to evolve then.
>> Exactly.
>> Yeah. I see what you're saying. You
know, there's a really good argument
that the reason why um ISIS and these
various radical organizations exist is
because of the United States meddling in
all these countries for decades and
decades. you know, um I don't know if
you ever saw it, but Glenn Greenwald was
on Bill Maher show
>> and Glenn, he's a very brilliant guy and
he had a very balanced take on it and he
was arguing with Bill Maher versus why
they behave the way they do and making
the argument that a lot of it was
because of the United States intervening
in their countries that we've been over
there and meddling in their countries
and being meddling in their policies and
their government for so long that this
is the reason why these things happen in
the first place. And I don't know if
you've ever seen it. It we might it
might do a good thing to to play it
because it was kind of interesting to
watch Bill Maher kind of push back
against it, but
>> Glenn Greenwald is very well read and
really understands the the history of
this region.
>> I'm not a huge Glen Grimoff fan. Uh many
of the positions he's taken I've really
liked. He does seem to have a bit of the
self flagagillation reflex when it comes
to it all comes down to something that
the US has done that's evil or something
that Israel has done is evil. So to our
earlier conversation,
>> there are features that ISIS believes in
that they believe in independently of
anything that the US could have ever
done or will ever do. But if they were
flourishing and we hadn't intervened in
their country, do do you think it's
possible that the rest of the Middle
East could be in a a similar and not to
say that Saudi Arabia is perfect, right?
The Jamaal Kosogible thing is horrific.
>> I mean that just that alone, this is a
big criticism for a lot of the American
comedians that went over there and
participated in the Riad Comedy
Festival. Yes. It's like do you not know
what this regime did to an American
journalist?
Um but is it possible that these
countries could have evolved in a very
similar way and
>> if it for us?
>> Yes.
>> No.
>> No. You don't think so?
>> No. So, so Islam has existed for 1400
years right
>> in those.
>> So, but why did these countries why does
the United Arab Emirates why do they
have a much more open society
>> now? I mean there are all sorts of
reasons. Maybe the uh their rulers I I
can't speak.
>> It is a lot of the rulers. They're much
more progressive.
>> Exactly. So they so they they've they've
taken a pill of pragmatism that says
that we can still maintain our unique
identity while turning an open uh arms
to the west, right?
>> And and and it takes courageous leaders
to say this is how we can have these two
things coexist. I could still be fully
steeped in my Muslim identity, but I'm
not going to look as at the other as a
dirty kufur, right? the the dirty
non-Muslim, right? And so good for them.
That's great. But over the 1400 years,
so
>> so we're going to we US is going to
celebrate the 250 years soon, right?
>> Mhm.
>> Islam has existed for 1400 years. So we
could very easily temporarily just go
back 250 years prior and remove anything
that could be due to the US. Is that
true? I mean empirically.
>> Sure.
>> Okay. And if we want to remove Israel
from the story, we just have to go to
1948. And so that's 70 something years.
And then anything that Islam would have
done prior to 1948 could not be blamed
on the Zionist entity.
>> For sure. Well, we could go back to the
beginning of the United States where the
United States was being attacked
>> by by the by the the Muslim. Uh is that
what he's talking about? Thomas Exactly.
>> Yes. Thomas Jefferson. Exactly. Yes.
>> So, so my point is,
>> tell everybody that story.
>> I don't know it too well, but uh Thomas
Jefferson, I think, was being uh
belligerent to some incursions of Muslim
piracy or something like that. Right.
>> Where they said that it was their right
to do so because we were
>> infidels. Exactly. Right. I mean,
Winston Churchill has some really savory
quotes about what he thought about his
interactions with Islam that and now
he's British. He's got nothing to do
with the United States. This was well
before the existence of the Zionist
entity. It is part of the playbook to
try to always blame some other agent
other than our cannons for why we're
doing what we're doing. Right.
>> I think that's why this is a good
conversation, right? This is very
nuanced. We're kind of laying out both
sides of it.
>> That's why I love coming on the show
whenever you have me on. Um so if you
crack a I don't mean you but anybody
who's listening to this crack a book to
say okay let me look at the number of
military conquests where Islam was the
offensive party right not we were the
for example people say oh the crusades
well the crusades were a retaliation to
hundreds of years of Islamic aggression
it's Not it didn't come out of nowhere
but there's always what's what I call
the amnesia of causality. People always
forget what was the original starting
point
>> under Islam. As I said the primary
canonical requirement of Islam is to
render the entire world Islamic. Now
again that doesn't mean that every
Muslim believes this. That doesn't mean
that every Muslim leader believes this.
But we're talking about what's in the
cannons of the religion,
>> right? It is a violently expansionist
ideology. I mean, nothing could be
clearer. I've explained this previously
on the show, but if you allow me, I'll
explain it again. Islam is has dual
logic. Everything in Islam is broken
down into two camps. There is har and
dar Islam. The house of Islam and the
house of war. Any country that is not
yet under Islamic dominion is classified
as under the house of war. That's
literally the words. Now any country
that has ever become under Islamic
dominion ever. And then Islam loses
canonically it must revert back to
Islam. So El and Lucia, right, and Lucia
in the in in current Spain was at one
point controlled by the Moors, right,
Muslims. Therefore, when now you hear a
lot of these Islam, Islamic extremist
guys saying, "Inshallah, we will get
back als
it it must always belong to us." The
same argument applies for Israel. Even
though Israel has thousands of years of
lineage of the Jews to that land as the
indigenous ruler, you know, owners of
that land, the fact that then Islam took
over that region, that means it belongs
to Muslims. Now, we may tolerate the
Jews to live there, but there can't be a
Jewish state there canonically in the
religion. Okay? So, those are those are
just facts. You could study the history
of Islam to count. Okay, there are
currently 57, well, if you include the
Palestinian territories in the
Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the
OIC, there are 56 or 57 countries that
are part of that block that are Islamic.
Each of those countries once upon a time
started with 0% Islam, right? I mean, it
wasn't magical. So, Indonesia was not
Islamic once, right? Libya was not
right. The many of those countries were
Christians by the way, right? Uh Egypt
was Coptic Christian. Syria was tons of
Christians. Lebanon within my lifetime I
was born in a Christian majority
country. Today within my lifetime and
yours, it has completely flipped to
Muslim majority. So wherever Islam goes,
sometimes it might take five years to
flip it, sometimes it might take 500
years. But as the uh Taliban explained
to us, the American soldiers have the
watches, we have all the time in the
world. So it's a long project. So when
Islam comes into the United States, it's
not as though suddenly the United States
of America is going to become under
Sharia law tomorrow morning. But if you
have the imagination to extrapolate in
two 300 years, if you were to repeat uh
Dearbornne and Patterson, New Jersey and
Minneapolis into 20 more cities, 50 more
cities, 100 more cities, would you be
living in the same United States? Right?
And if not, is that a good thing or a
bad thing?
>> Well, that's what people are the some
people are very fearful of. What's going
on in New York City with Mum Donnie?
think it's a Trojan horse
>> and that under the guise of
progressivism and, you know, democratic
socialism that you're going to open up
the door and eventually you're going to
have called to prayer in the middle of
Time Square every day.
>> Exactly. Well, listen, I I'm wearing
right now a Star of David.
>> Be careful.
>> Exactly. uh as soon as I'm in New York
and I go to one of those uh I mean I
don't as much anymore because my stomach
is a bit more sensitive as I get older
but let's say one of those street
vendors
>> I right away put away my Star of David
because I'd love to have my shawarma
without spit in it. The fact that I now
even think of that and that that's a
reflex that I have today. That's not a
reflex I had 15 years ago. What changed?
Well, what changed are the demographic
realities that causes that there's a
greater number of people that are
triggered by the Star of David.
Demography is indeed destiny. So, you
and I could fully agree that most
Muslims are perfectly lovely. And I
mean, I'm the first one to say this
because I come from that culture. No
Muslim has ever killed me. No Muslim has
ever raped me. But I do know that I've
spoken to many Muslims be before I was
known and they knew who I was who say
things about the Jews that would make
Hitler and Himmler go look guys we also
hate the Jews but I think this is too
much Jew hatred even by our standards.
So there is an endemic feature of
Islamic societies that renders the Jew
as the ultimate shaitan, the ultimate
devil. He's demonic, right? It's
everywhere. It it it dictates every
interaction. I'll just give you a couple
of examples
in Charm Sheek, which is a um Red Sea
resort area in uh Egypt. And Jamie is
welcome to fact check me if he wants.
And I think in 2010, there was a spat of
uh shark attacks on tourists and
Shermash. Do you remember after the
investigation by the Egyptian
authorities what they concluded?
>> No.
You want to take a guess?
>> No. [laughter]
>> It was that there is very very clear
evidence that those sharks were Zionist
trained because the what?
>> Yes sir. Because because the way that
you can harm the Egyptian economy,
certainly in that region, is to render
the tourism activity lesser if you have
a, you know, many attacks. And so I'm
I'm not saying every Egyptian thought
this, but this was coming from the
author authorities saying that there's
really very clear evidence that those
sharks were Jewish Okay.
>> Well, hold on a second. Weren't Wasn't
there some evidence that [snorts]
there was d like illegal dumping of
carcasses of animal carcasses offshore
>> as specific to that incident?
>> I think that had something to do with
the shark activity. Israeli conspiracy
theory. The attack sparked conspiracy
theories, possible Israeli involvement.
Egyptian television broadcast claims
from Salanai government Muhammad Abdul
Fadil Shosha that Israeli divers
captured a shark with a GPS unit planted
on its back allegedly by MSAD.
Describing the theory as sad, Professor
Muhammad Hanafi of Suiz Canal University
pointed out that GPS devices are used by
marine biologists to track sharks, not
control them remotely.
Okay. But wasn't there something to do
>> Yeah, that's what the last sentence
speaks to what you said.
>> Yeah. Ultimately thought the dumping of
sheep carcasses. There it is. During the
Islamic festival of How do you say that?
>> How do you say the festival name?
>> Oh. uh uh uh adha
>> on 16th November was most likely
explanation that makes sense that that's
why there was so much shark activity.
>> But the fact is somebody somewhere said
I think this got Jewish signature all
over it,
>> right? But there's people in the United
States that think the world's flat,
>> you know? I mean there's not that
doesn't make mean it makes sense.
>> The capacity to be parasitized is hardly
restricted to Muslim minds. Everybody
has the capacity to believe. So I
>> there is a unique feature of the Muslim
mind that tends to find causality in all
maladies in the Jew.
>> So
>> right
>> and and and by the way I have a theory
if I can share it with you here.
>> Okay.
>> Uh as to this is not just Islamic Jew
hatred. Why is it that so many societies
end up turning their you know animous
towards the Jew? Can I share it with
you?
>> Yeah. Why do you think that is?
>> So here I'm going to use some of the my
psychological background. So in in in
psychology there's something called the
selfserving bias. The self-serving bias
is how we attribute causality to the
wins and losses in our lives. So most of
us will attribute successes internally.
I did well on the exam because I'm smart
and I studied hard and excuse me we will
attri attribute
failures externally. I did poorly on the
exam because professor sad is an
Right? And you can understand
why we would have evolved that rosy
prism. Life is tough. It's an ego
defensive strategy. I do well because of
me. I do poorly because of the cruel
world out there. Now, imagine if we
could find a culprit, and I'll explain
why it is specifically the Jew. Imagine
if we could find a culprit, a universal
culprit for all of our individual and
collective failures
>> and and it's the Jew, but why is it the
Jew? Why isn't it the Armenian? Why
isn't it the whatever?
>> Here, I'm going to use a term from Amy
Chua. Do Do you know Amy Chua?
>> No.
>> Okay. I I I thought that you she might
have been on your show. Amy Chua is
actually the mentor of JD Vance. She was
his um professor of law at Yale. She's
written several popular books including
the book on how to raise children as a
tiger mom. Have you have you heard the
tiger mom book?
>> Sure.
>> You know this kind of tough parental
Asian excellence and so on. So Amy Chua
introduced the term I mean the concept
is not hers but the term is hers market
dominant minorities meaning when you
have a small minuscule group of people
in any cultural ecosystem that are
boxing well above their weight class.
Now in many cases you'll have for
example you have Lebanese non-Jews
Lebanese who are the business owners all
over West Africa. So they are fitting
that market dominant minority. They're a
small minority but they carry all the
business. Okay. So it's not as though
it's only the Jew that's the only market
dominant minority. Wherever you have
market dominant minorities you have
animus towards that group because the
greater group many of whom are not being
successful look at that group with
animist with envy. The Jews wherever
they are are always by definition short
of Israel are always a minuscule group
that is always boxing well above their
weight.
>> Why is that?
>> There are several reasons. I think
predominantly it's really a punishing
cultural of excellence. And if you want
I can share a story from my own personal
background and I don't I don't know if
I've ever shared it on this show
>> when I so I did my undergraduate in
mathematics computer science pretty
serious stuff then I did an MBA both at
top universities then I was going on to
pursue my MS masters of science and PhD
one of the places that I had been
accepted for my PhD at UC Irvine I ended
up going to Cornell
at the time my brother the judo player
was living in Newport Beach and he was
keen to try to convince me after my MBA
to work with him and you know put on
hold going on for my PhD. When my mother
found out of his design to try to
convince me not to pursue my PhD when I
returned to Montreal to their house she
says can I speak to you in this room and
I'm thinking oh am I in trouble? She
goes I want to talk to you. What's up
mom? She goes I'm hearing that you're
thinking of maybe putting your studies
on hold. I said well no. She goes,
"Well, I just before you say anything,
do you want people to know you as
somebody who dropped out of school?" So
from now, that's a very powerful story
because in my mother's eyes, having an
MBA and then taking a break before I
pursue a PhD was something that would
bring shame to the family as someone who
had dropped out of school. Now, do you
think that if a group of people have
internalized that level of excellence,
are they likely to be successful or not?
If another group of people thinks that
getting good grades is acting white, is
that a recipe for success or not? Right?
So, cultural values matter. For whatever
reason, whatever is in the water of the
Jewish home, they tend to excel. So, now
wherever they are, they're doing really
well. Well, I wanted to be an actor and
play in the Avengers and I didn't get
the part. Who controls Hollywood? The
Jews. I wanted to get a small business
loan and I didn't get it because my
numbers weren't quite correct. Who
controls the banks? It's the Jews. So,
it becomes very easy to attribute or
ascribe all of my individual and
collective failures on this minuscule
group of people
uh for all of my failings. Thomas Soul,
whom I know you you appreciate. Yes.
>> Gave arguably the greatest one-word
answer that I've ever heard. At one
point, he was appearing on some show.
This is not too long ago, maybe 20 years
ago. He's now 95. And I think it's a
travesty that he hasn't won the
Presidential Freedom Medal. And I I pray
that President Trump gives it to him
before he passes away because he's
deserving of it. He was asked once,
"Professor uh Soul, what do you think it
will take for people to stop hating the
Jews?" And he gave a one-word answer. Do
you want to take a guess what it is?
>> No.
>> Fail.
How did Thomas Soil get this? Because
he's brilliant. If the Jews were
suddenly no longer succeeding in ways
that are that are anomalous to their per
capita numbers, then maybe they wouldn't
be as hateful.
>> Okay, let me give you an argument
against that, please. Asians,
Asians in this culture, in this society
also box way above their weight.
Extremely disciplined family
environment, pushed incredibly hard to
succeed.
um but don't get nearly the kind of hate
that Jewish people do.
>> Uh so you're right in the United States
that's the case, but in some of the
ecosystems in the Far East where they
are a minority I I think it's the I
don't know if it's the Malays I can't
remember the exact groupings. You have
the almost the exact same animous for
that group that succeeds a lot and
actually Thomas soil has done those
analyses. So in other words, the point
is it is what I'm describing is not
singularly relevant for the Jew, but it
is universally relevant for the Jew
because there is no other grouping of
people that is as successful in as many
places and yet minuscule in all those
places. So the Armenians also get that
treatment in some ecosystems. The
Lebanese get that treatment. Indians get
that treatments in some ecosystems. So
it is not a unique feature of only
animist towards the Jews. But the fact
that in so many societies you turn to
the Jew to to to blame your problems, I
think stems from that.
>> Don't you think you could also make that
exact same argument that those same
people that are small in number but
hyper motivated and hyper successful
would also be much better at influencing
policy in the country that they live in.
Uh hence meaning that they're more
likely to get the ears the lobby
>> not just the ears but donate money you
know fund campaigns get the ear of the
president donate money towards his
campaign fund him
>> I suspect that the answer is you're
right yes
>> most people would say that that is
absolutely the case
>> but also we could say that if we look at
the philanthropy Jewish philanthropy
compared to all other philanthropy we'd
probably score very highly if not.
>> What kind of philanthropy were we
talking about?
>> Art philanthropy, uh, hospital
philanthropy, literary philanthropy for
the art, right? So, in other words,
look, my So, my family, uh, we moved to
Montreal from Lebanon. We moved to
Montreal for two reasons. Well, three
reasons. Number one, Montreal is also
French. In Lebanon,
France, uh, Lebanon used to be a French
protectorate. So, you already spoke
French in Lebanon. in in in addition to
Arabic. So that was one. Number two, the
immigration policy for war refugees was
maybe easier to navigate. Canada was a
more welcoming country than say maybe U
United States. But number three is that
my mother's sister had already
immigrated to Montreal with her husband
and that husband became the director
general of the Jewish general hospital
in Montreal which is the biggest
hospital in Montreal. It's the Jewish
general. Right? So in other words, it is
undoubtedly true probably I don't have
the empirical evidence that probably the
the Jewish lobby
does its job really well and effectively
but let's look at all of the other
things that they also do well. They
contribute and so for example
>> well that's wonderful but but that
doesn't take away from the influence
that it has on our policies.
>> Yes. on our political candidates on like
for instance, one of the reasons why Mum
Donnie won in New York City is because
when they had the mayoral debate, he was
the only one that said he's not
immediately going to go to Israel,
>> right?
>> And a lot of people were shocked by
that. They were like, why is everyone
saying they're going to go to Israel
when they win as the mayor in New York
City? It didn't make any sense. And
people were kind of just confused by it.
New York City is a mess. It's got a lot
of problems. And this one guy said,"I
think I can serve Jewish Americans
better by staying here in New York City
and I'm not going to go to Israel." And
everybody was like, "Thank God someone
said that, right?"
>> Because all the other candidates, it
seemed, at least to me as an outsider,
were being heavily influenced by the
Jewish lobby.
>> Maybe I So I don't I really don't.
>> Why else would they do that? They're not
saying I'm going to go to England.
They're not saying I'm going to go to
France.
>> They're saying I'm going to go to
Israel. Right. I mean, is it is it
surprising that if you have a group of
people who have been historically
persecuted the way that they have, by
the way, I I don't think
>> but it's running for mayor of New York
City and they're saying, "I'm going to
go to Israel."
>> I think it's totally wrong. If if there
is a
conflict between the best interests of
the country that you reside in versus
Israel, you should always side with the
former. Understandably, I I agree. But I
think that the reason why they were
saying that is they were being
influenced by the people that were
funding their campaigns. And I think the
the people in New York City recognized
that and said, "Hey, there's something
where they're not looking out for our
best interest. They're looking out for
the best interests of the people that
are funding them. And those people have
the best interests of Israel in mind
above the interests of the United
States." So, and this is the same
sentiment that people have for why we
invaded Iran and why we funded Israel,
why they're bombing Gaza, the same the
same sort of thing. And I would I would
say from October 7th on, you know, first
of all, immediately afterwards,
tremendous support for Israel. I mean,
it was a horrific attack, but the
response, I think, has created a lot of
anti-Israel sentiment in the United
States.
>> Yes. Do do you think that other lobby
groups that very feverishly lobby for
their self-interest
would receive the same animous as the
pro-Israel lobby? So, for example,
>> they're not connected to a specific
country. That's the problem. This one
group is connected to a specific
country.
>> Okay? So, let's do specific country.
>> Okay?
>> Uh I'm I've been a professor for 32
years. So I care about the ideas, the
bad ideas that flourish within
university's ecosystem. Hence parasitic
mind, suicidal empathy. Right.
>> If you do a uh histogram of all of the
nations that contribute to try to alter
the types of ideas that are promulgated
on American campuses, which lobby or
which country scores way higher than
anything you could ever hope for from
Israel? That's a very good question and
I think that's a different thing because
I think what you're talking about is
influencing American education systems
and that you could say China and Russia
they both
>> like the Qataris.
>> Sure.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. They well they they all there's a
lot of people that from other countries
specifically influencing our education
system and doing it within their best
interest by donating a lot of money by
funding programs by having a lot of
foreign exchange students. So that's
>> there's a big impact by other countries
for sure, but they're not representing
another country. Like no one's saying I
want to win New York City and then go to
Beijing,
>> right? Anybody who does that in the way
you just said it in my view is is
violating its most
>> The crazy thing is they all did it. They
all did it except mom Donnie. Quuomo did
it. They all did it,
>> right?
>> They all said I'm going to Israel.
>> So I can't speak to that. I really
can't. But do you understand why people
>> people
especially post October 7th this
negative sentiment because of the
destruction of Gaza?
>> Uh be
any lobby group
viferously fights for its self-interest.
The tobacco lobby spends all their time
convincing doctors. This I'm talking 40
years ago that there is no evidence that
smoking is bad for your health.
pharmaceutical drug companies,
Oxycontton and Oxycodone.
>> Exactly. So the reflex for a group that
has its own interests to promulgate are
going to do exactly that. That's why
they're called a lobby group.
>> Right? So if from this side of our mouth
we care about the fact that there is a
Zionist lobby, it cannot be that from
this side of our mouth we don't care
about the fact that there are Islamic
based funding to all of the American
universities that have paracetized
your daughters and mine in ways that
should be problematic because it's your
job.
>> Please explain how they've done that. So
any near east studies program also known
as political science program also known
as government program. So at Harvard you
call it the the department of government
in this right. So all those schools will
then produce kids. All those kids are
called John Smith and Jethro Rosco. But
yet they are on the front line after
October 7th wearing their kafia stopping
Jews from going to class. And that
happened at UCLA and at Welssley and at
everywhere and at Concordia University,
my my university. What caused that to
happen? It's because there is one
particular viewpoint that becomes the
norm on university campuses when it
comes to these geopolitical realities.
So, by the same way that I can be
frustrated if Mario Cuomo is concerned
about going to Israel when he is running
for mayor of New York, I should also be
very concerned that all of these Islamic
countries are having a free fall
free-for-all with all of our children's
things. But yet, I don't see many people
concerned about that. It is that double
standard that then makes you go. Why are
you who lives in Iowa so concerned about
it? Maybe there are really valid reasons
for you to be concerned about the
pro-Israel lobby and let's have a
conversation about that. But then are
you honest enough to have a similar
discussion about other ways by which we
tilt our policies and our children's
brains? Probably not.
>> Could you explain how this is done? like
what do you think is happening in the
universities where they're tilting
people towards a a pro Palestinian
perspective?
>> Uh well, I mean several ways. One, I
mean, if it's directly through funding,
you fund a $30 million whatever, uh
you're probably not going to have
faculty members who are going to be
incredibly viferous in their, you know,
anti-Islamic rhetoric if you have that.
I'll give you an example. When I was
potentially going to come, maybe they
don't want me to hear this, but so be
it. When I was, one of the places that I
was being recruited at was potentially
University of Austin, right? And I came,
I mean, they were going to make me an
offer. The University of Austin doesn't
have a tenure system. They have a
constitution. It's a different kind of
system. Of course, what allowed me to
not be cancelled, I would have been
cancelled 30 years ago for all the
things that I say and all the things
that I write is that I was protected by
tenure. And so I was very concerned
about whether the fact that they don't
have tenure, what happens if tomorrow,
right?
>> Okay. And I remember having a
conversation, I won't mention his name
to but you can probably guess who it
could be where I said, "What happens
under your constitution if tomorrow you
get a $30 million donation from Muhammad
Belali Tilal and he says, you know that
little uh Jewish professor who's going
on Joe Rogan and talking about bad
things about Islam, that has to stop."
His answer was, the gentleman that I was
my interlocator was, "Well, we're on the
same team. I I full fully support what
you're saying." Well, you support what
I'm saying until money talks, right? I
can pick you a number, a donation number
where you'll no longer support with
equal elacrity my criticism of Islam.
Maybe it's 100 million. Maybe it's 200
million. Well, just given the people
that I know that are the founders of the
University of Austin, I don't know if
that's likely.
>> You mean there is no reservation price?
>> It doesn't seem like they would be
willing to go against the idea of
Israel.
>> I Well, maybe.
>> Does that make sense to you, though?
>> I mean, it does, but it wasn't it wasn't
sufficiently
uh
>> reassuring.
>> Reassuring.
>> Yeah. Well, I could understand. I mean,
if I was offered tenure or no tenure,
tenure is the way to go. It's it's the
only way you could have real
intellectual freedom.
>> Well, and by the way, to to that point,
so when I now got this beautiful
position at University of Mississippi, I
don't have tenure there. I don't really
care that much. But they put a clause in
the contract that says that my rights to
say, speak, and write whatever I want
will be protected with with the same
staunchness that the first amendment
offers me and that tenure would offer
me. So even though I'm not officially
there a tenure professor at this stage
of my career, I don't care. But they
they they enshrined it. So what so to
our earlier point I think there is a way
whereby I could put a load of money in
front of you and say so how much do you
now support freedom of speech for Gatsad
and I'm saying maybe you're right that
the University of Austin guys would
never buckle to that but Harvard
government department did buckle
Columbia University under Edward Edward
say do you know who that is Edward say
Edward say was a kind of very pro
Palestinian guy who was kind of a big
shot in their political science
department all of his teaching
at Colombia University were
rather skewed in terms of being
anti-Israel. And so the students that
come out are going to be a product of
what we taught them. It's not surprising
that they're all wearing kafia.
>> And you think that this is directly
because of funding and not because of
what they've seen of the horrors of
what's happened in Gaza.
>> Right. Well,
>> because I think that's what's turned
most people that have no affiliation
with any university because it's not all
university students that are reacting
the way they're reacting. They're
reacting because of what you could see
when you see Gaza, right?
>> I mean, it's obliterated.
>> You It's true. But we can go back to a
time before October 7th and I can point
you I the difficulties that I faced at
Concordia at not being able to walk
around on campus freely also held true
before October 7th. So we know that we
could eliminate the retal in that case.
>> Right? So so that goes to our earlier
point. We can blame ISIS for the US, but
then I could take you to a time where
the US didn't exist, which is called
1776. Who are you going to blame now?
You can blame things in the Middle East
on Israel, but I could take you to 1948
when it's not that. So the it's a very
fasile reflex to always find that
culprit. The reality is that any lobby
group is by definition of the word lobby
is going to espouse positions that are
in their self-interest.
>> I understand that
>> it doesn't surprise me that the
pro-Israel lobby does that as do the
Qataris, as do the Romanians, as do the
Haitians. Everybody does it for various
dynamical reasons. Yes, the Israelis are
probably more in the ears of the things.
Is that because they're demonic? No,
because they have more power. Is that
weird?
>> Well, let me ask you this.
>> Sure.
>> Do you agree that anti-Israel sentiment
has ramped up since the response to
October 7th?
>> Absolutely.
You may not like what I'm about to say.
I think most of the anti-Israel
sentiments
ultimately, if you scratch enough the
onion and peel enough the stuff is
rooted in Jew hatred.
>> Really? I do.
>> Really? So, but you don't think that
it's a direct response to people seeing
what happened in Gaza? No, because you
don't think that has an impact on
>> I've lived in the world before October
7th and the world that I lived in and
the Jew hatred that I face, right? I
don't have Joe Rogan's platform size,
but certainly by the standards of most
people, I have a huge platform. The
massive, the orastic,
the Himmler level Jew hatred that I have
faced
certainly precedes by countless years
the October 7th. So then how would we
explain why I'm called a parasite, a
pedophile, a child killer, a rat, a
vermin? Why am I called those things? I
have nothing to do with the Israeli.
>> Okay, but this is anecdotal, right? I
mean, we're what we're talking about is
the general sentiment. in the United
States has changed pretty radically
since the response of October 7th. I've
experienced it. I've experienced it with
people that I know, experienced it
online, people that never talked about
Israel, never had anything bad to say
about Jewish people and now are just
furious when they see what's happening
in Gaza and now they see what's
happening in southern Lebanon where
their Christian villages are being
bombed.
>> Are were those people also mad at what
happened to the 600,000 Syrians who were
killed?
>> Which which
in the Lebanese in the Syrian civil war
about 600,000 Syrians were killed.
>> I don't know if they knew about that,
but I think this is kind of a case of
what aboutism, right? And I just we
could go to that and we could talk about
that and maybe that should be publicized
more. But what I'm talking about is the
people that I've encountered in the
United States that really generally
didn't have an opinion about Israel at
all have had a very negative opinion
about Israel because of the response to
October 7th and because of what they've
done to Gaza.
>> So let let me address the what aboutism.
Okay. By the way, I'm loving today's
conversation has a different timber to
it, but it's it's keeping us sharp. I
like it. Uh so, thank you for keeping me
uh on my toes. Uh let's suppose that I
had a rule in my head that says I only
get incredibly irate and animated if an
MMA fighter commits a crime. But when I
see the exact same crime committed by
anybody other than an MMA fighter, I
don't have the reflex to be upset. Would
it be whataboutism for you to say, "How
come you got upset when the MMA fighter
did this, but when the non MMA?" That
wouldn't be whataboutism. Because what
you would be saying is, "I want
cognitive consistency from you, Gad."
that if you're upset that an MMA fighter
commits a crime, you'll be as upset when
a non MMA fighter commits the exact same
crime.
>> Will you could you illuminate me on this
Syrian thing?
>> Yeah. So, when this when the uh but I
>> I'm only vaguely aware of what happened.
So uh there was a civil war that was
started in Syria I think in 2011
uh that where the various Islamist
groups were trying to overthrow uh Assad
and as a result of that dynamic
innumerable people Muslim on Muslim were
completely ravaged to the tune of about
600,000.
>> Okay so
>> let's let's let's put that [snorts]
here. So, so let's not call that
whataboutism because you could easily
say I am angry whenever
>> but it is what aboutism because we were
specifically talking about Jew hatred
Jew hatred in this country being ramped
up post October 11 or October 7th.
>> I mean it is what aboutism because we we
could address that.
>> Yes. But this is one particular thing,
one particular moment in history that
has caused this extreme reaction, this
anti-Israel sentiment. the guy in Iowa
who has never heard of the Middle East
but got rightly upset at what he saw in
Gaza. Why wasn't that guy if if he is a
honest purveyor in his moral calculus of
any innocents being killed? I'm asking
you, I pose that question to you. when
he sees the thousands and thousands of
Yemenes that were killed, the children
that were eradicated, much more than the
tune of whatever happened in Gaza, every
single individual. Let me go on record.
Every
>> This is you talking about the drone
bombing in Yemen? What are you talking
about?
>> There are many, many, there are many,
many different ways by which Yemenes
have died as a result of the conflicts
in Yemen. There are huge number of
people that were killed in the fight
between Sudan and the South Sudin.
>> I mean really in the in the many
hundreds of thousands, right? So if I am
just an Iowa guy who my my moral
calculus operates according to the
following rule. Whenever I see innocent
people being killed, it it drives me
crazy. I am outraged. Therefore, if
that's the rule by which I navigate
through the world, I will look at the
October 7th victims and say, "Those Jews
didn't deserve this. I'm pissed." I will
look at the gazins that were killed who
were innocent and I'd say, "Those gazins
did not deserve this." So far so good.
We agree? Okay.
>> I will look at the Syrians and say that
is not right. I will look at the
Ukrainians that were being butchered
endlessly by Putin and say that's
pissing me off. and on and on,
>> right? But if it would appear that my
calculus is abiding by the no Jews, no
news mechanism, then I have a right to
say how come you're focused only on when
it seems that the mean Israelis are
killing the beautifully peaceful
Palestinians and your moral outrage
never gets invoked [snorts]
across all of the panel plea of much
greater disasters around the world. Why
is that? Well, I think initially in
October 7th, people were very outraged
at the attack on the Israelis that they
were horrified at what happened. The the
whole the videos that we saw were
terrible. Videos of people cheering in
the streets when they were bringing the
Israeli captives.
But then the difference between the
capability of the Palestinians in Gaza
versus the Israeli army, which is one of
the most ferocious and capable armies in
the world, and the devastation that they
did to Gaza, the city, just the city
alone, where you see apartment
buildings, hospital, everything just
blown to smitherines. There's there's a
complete difference in power. the what
you're talking about in Syria. I'm
assuming this is a civil war between
civil war similarly armed people killing
each other.
>> Well, this the government versus
militia, but true,
>> right? But similarly armed people,
you're not seeing that with Gaza in
Israel. With Israel, you're seeing
United Statesf funded Israeli military,
which is insanely capable destroying an
entire city.
>> Fair enough. I I I
tough. I there's no question.
>> But the reality of the numbers is very
tough, too, because we don't even know
how many people are dead.
>> We could talk about the numbers if you
want in a second, but let me ask you
this.
If October 7th hadn't happened, I I'm
not I'm not being flippant. I'm not
playing games. I'm really honestly
asking you. If October 7th had not
happened, how many of the innocent
Palestinians that
tragically perished would have perished?
That's a good question. Probably it
would have never happened. There
probably would have been a bombing of
Gaza.
>> You know that we could get really dark
here because there's a lot of people
that believe that this it was allowed to
happen so that they could have an excuse
to attack Gaza.
>> But that goes to our earlier point about
how
>> it gets it gets goofy and I'm not the
person to comment on that cuz I don't
really know. But there was standown
orders. We know that. We know that
>> some of at least some of the army was
told to stand down. Well, I actually had
the former director of the Mossad on my
show
>> and his name is Yosi Cohen. And I was
like, Yosi, what the f how how does
>> Right. How did it happen?
>> And the best of my understanding in
terms of what I've told is that,
>> you know, happens and someone falls
asleep metaphorically speaking, right?
And so it was a gigantic but anyways we
there if if you not you but if someone
is of the conspiratorial mind
mindset there's nothing that I could
share but speaking literally to the
former Mossad of uh the former director
of Mossad he said it was a catastrophic
you know failure of where everybody is
kind of asleep but my point is this
>> right but let me stop you there because
if I was the former head of MSAD the
last thing I would tell you is that well
we allowed it to happen because we've
been wanting to blow up Gaza for a long
time and take it over and turn it into a
big resort.
>> You would never say that. Right. Right.
>> And we also know that on record
Netanyahu has said that they fund Hamas
so they can control the size of the
flame because they don't want the
democrat democratically elected people
to take over and turn Palestine into a
state.
>> So you don't you don't think there's
something
>> Isn't that true? Well, uh, Israel left,
if if I'm getting my history right, they
left Gaza in 2005, right? Is that is
that the right number? Do I am I getting
that right? So, from 2005
till 2023 or maybe 2007. So, someone
will correct me in the comment section.
For many, many years, Israel left and
there was no problem in the region,
right?
>> Is that true?
>> I don't know. You would know better than
me.
>> Well, there was no problem. I mean,
there Okay.
Then there was a catalyst. An event
happened. Now we can debate whether it
was proportionate, whether it could have
been, you know, adjudicated differently.
We can discuss all that and all that.
You can discuss it without ever worrying
about being called anti-Semitic. It's
totally within the fair bounds of having
those conversations.
But what is true is that if Israel
wanted to eradicate
Palestinians,
it would take them a lot less time than
when you and I have been talking on the
show by orders of magnitude. It would
take 15 seconds. But they didn't do
that, right? They don't do that. As a
matter of fact, John,
>> but they kind of have in Gaza. Gaza is
done. There's almost nothing left of it.
>> So the numbers that I'm
>> You've seen videos of it, right? You've
seen what it looks like when they fly
overhead. We We could show some videos.
>> The most recent videos, they show the
drone videos of flying over Gaza.
>> It looks like a nuclear bomb hit it. It
just they did it slowly. They did it
over years. Just consistent constant
bombing and there's almost nothing left
of it,
>> right?
>> And then there's also been this crazy
talk of putting resorts there, you know.
And Trump said yeah he was saying we're
going to turn it into what did he say
something of the some you know
>> like Monte Carlo Monaco
>> something crazy
>> right uh again it's totally fair to
discuss what constitutes proportional
thing and so on
>> but I take a broader view which is
>> Israel exists [snorts] and you have two
choices you can keep creating
generations of your people whose whose
entire daily animation of terms of their
objectives is to eradicate that place.
Or you could recognize that every single
millimeter on Earth has at some point
been owned by someone else. Is that is
that not true? I mean, is is is the
definition of history not the accounting
ledgering of who owned what when?
>> Yeah. Now, in every other conflict that
has ever existed throughout all of human
history, there is a winner of that
conflict and a loser. And people move
on. Okay? Just just hear me out.
>> Okay?
>> I lived in Lebanon. I grew up in
Lebanon. We had to leave under imminent
threat of execution. It's very
unfortunate. We lost everything. We
moved on. We made a life for ourselves.
Our home was stolen by Palestinian
people. I never held any animous towards
Palestinians. I moved on with my life.
One day I was interesting enough to have
the privilege of appearing on Joe
Rogan's show. My daily animation is not
to go and kill people for things that
were done to us. And very few people
have had things happen to them as what
happened to us. Right? Jews were
exterminated in the Holocaust. It didn't
create an endless litany of Jewish
terrorists throughout the world trying
to get back. So in every part of the
world, we are now in Texas, that land
was owned by someone else before the
United States came along. We are sitting
quote on stolen land. In Canada, we are
sitting on stolen land. It's called
history. Most people are able to move on
and say, "Hey, the dice went this way or
that way. Let's hold hands and let's
build a better future. You can't do that
if canonically
the Jewish state should not exist.
Right? Doesn't Hamas say in their
charter every Jew that is anywhere we
will find him and get him? So did that
make sense that they would be the
leaders of that region? Wouldn't it have
been much better for them to train their
kids to becoming neuroscientists and
podcasters and classicists and
physicians? But that's not what they
chose to do repeatedly for nearly 80
years. The minute that that clicks and
they say, you know what, you have this
part, we have this part, let's shake
hand and let's be one family, the
problem will go away. So I agree with
you. The images are very jarring, right?
I'm I'm also a very empathetic,
loving guy, but I also know the reality,
which is I've never heard Jews saying,
"Let's kill all Muslims." I always hear
the opposite. Jews are an existential
affront to Islam. Muhammad on his
deathbed said, "Promise me that you will
rid Arabia of Christians, but really the
Jews." So, how could you have a
coexistence between two people when one
people wants to eradicate the other? So,
did Israel overreact? I'll leave future
historians to decide that.
>> What do you think?
>> I think that given what they were trying
to achieve, they did the best that could
possibly be. So, as you know,
>> the best they could possibly be would be
eliminate the entire city. No.
>> And turn it into rubble.
>> There's been about 70,000 dead. Is that
the right number? We don't even know.
>> I mean, that's the number that I've
seen.
>> What's the accounting? Who's who's to
know? How many?
>> Well, many of those numbers are coming
from the Hamas. That's true, too. Okay.
>> But if you just look at the destruction,
the the buildings that have been
leveled, the the sheer volume of
destruction.
>> There were two cities called Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.
>> They were fully nice. What about
>> and then
we didn't have to do that either. And we
could you could say that that was a
horrific thing because Japan was about
to surrender.
>> Well,
>> and we were like the American let's
practice. Let's see how these things
work.
>> Again, that's the least
>> Let's show you that we have nuclear
bombs.
>> That's the least generous interpretation
of that.
>> I think it's a pretty accurate
demonstration. I
What have you heard? I've heard that
they did the calculus of if we and by
the way it could be a very cold calcis
calculus but what I've heard is that
there is a very clear procon
thing where if we do this this many
people would die if we go on in the war
and it takes that much more before they
surrender there'll be this many dead
drop those bombs.
>> It's possible.
>> Yeah,
>> it's possible. So, do you think that if
Israel didn't kill 70,000 people and
completely destroy Gaza that more than
70,000 people would have died during the
same time period?
>> No, I'm not applying that same calculus
of Japan. What I'm saying is images of
destruction are very vivid to our brain,
right?
>> They should be, don't you think?
>> But that doesn't mean that that's the
information that I use to establish the
what is morally righteous. What else can
we use other than information?
>> We can use what is the existential
calculus that animates each society. One
society says, "We'll even help you build
a better society. Just please don't
spend all your time screaming about
eradicating every last one of us." The
other society says, "Yeah, I don't think
so. if we're ever strong enough to kill
all of Unfortunately, we were only
strong enough to kill 1,200 of you. And
boy, that was orastically pleasing. But
if tomorrow, God willing, hey, maybe the
Iranians have nuclear bombs. We can
eradicate all you My god, the
world will be.
>> So, this is Hamas saying that, right?
And the people that live in Palestine
that were killed, these 70,000 plus
people, how many of them do you think
were Hamas? Well, the numbers that I
hear is that it was one:1 ratio, which
apparently is a pretty good ratio. I
>> And where are those numbers coming from?
>> I mean, like, you want me to give you
the reference? I don't know.
>> No, no, no. I mean, is it coming from
Israel? Is it coming from Hamas? Is it
coming from Palestine?
>> So, there's been So, the the the one I'm
going to use is from John Spencer. Do
you know who that is?
>> No.
>> John Spencer is a war uh urban war
researcher. I think he's at um what's
the military uh where where they train
the military? West Point. He's a
professor of urban warfare. He's come on
my show.
>> Uh and based on whatever analyses that
he's done, he's not he's not Jewish.
He's not uniquely pro- Zionist is that
he's he's saying and again I see to
whomever knows better about this than I
do. I I don't know all the details. He
said that the ratio of civilian to uh to
you know fighters killed in uh the Gaza
war is better than you know most other
comparable situations.
>> So Hamas had 35,000
>> I think it's 1:1
>> So Hamas had 35,000 militants in Gaza
>> if if that if the one to one number is
right and 70 that's what it would be.
And so all those buildings needed to be
destroyed because at least one out of
one
>> was.
>> So let me ask you this. Let's suppose I
think it's totally reasonable that you'd
be upset that all these people died
innocently.
>> I think most people that see it would be
upset, right?
>> Fair enough. What? Give me the specific
details of how you would go about
getting your hostages back given the
reality. So, give me a week.
>> How many hostages they get back
>> in terms of alive or dead?
>> Yeah.
>> I don't know the exact numbers, but is
it something in the order of like 30, 40
alive and all the other ones were dead?
Does that sound like the right number?
>> I don't know.
>> Whatever it is, it could be 50, it could
be 100, could be 200. So, I am
representative of Israel. I need to get
those people out. Let's suppose that
Hamas had said, "Here are all the people
that we have kidnapped and we are
returning them to you and putting down
our arms." Would Israel have caused the
destruction that they would have caused
that they did cause?
>> I don't know.
>> But what do you think?
>> Probably not, right? If they did that,
>> so so nothing happens in a vacuum,
right? It's not There isn't something,
>> right? But does that just because they
wouldn't have done that, does it justify
what they did? What does it say here?
Final release. Total returns. 168
hostages were returned alive, including
eight rescued by the IDF. The bodies of
85 hostages were repatriated after they
were killed during their captivity.
Um, US deal broker that landed a
ceasefire of and a swap for nearly 2,000
Palestinian prisoners. So, they swapped
some of them.
>> Well, let me actually speak about the
swap issue. I discussed this in suicidal
empathy. Sinoir, who was the architect
of October 7th. Do you know his his
background, his story?
>> Sinoir was a ardent militant whose
entire life has been animated with
eradicating Jews, not Israel, all Jews
from the world. Because there's a hadith
that says in Islam, the world will not
stop until every Jew that is hiding
behind the tree is found and and killed.
And they they refer to that hadith from
Islam, not radical Islam, Islam,
>> right?
>> He was taken in one of those sweeps of
Palestinian militants to prison. He was
diagnosed with a brain tumor, a deadly
terminal brain tumor. the Israelis, you
know, the mean Israelis who are killing
everybody because the hypocratic oath in
their view supersedes any other
calculus. The the the Israeli
neurosurgeon doesn't say, "F this guy.
He's killed, you know, tons of of my
fellow co-religionists. Screw him. Let
him die." They operate on him and they
save his life. Right? So, let me ask you
this, Joe. If you and I let's put
ourselves in the mind of right I was
saved by the hands of the Jewish Israeli
neurosurgeon otherwise I would have died
then he was let go in one of those swaps
would that have not bought you
sufficient existential empathy to say
probably I shouldn't then spend the rest
of my life being the architect and repay
the less of the Israeli neurosurgeon by
doing October 7th and yet it didn't b
him that empathy. Right.
>> So he was swapped in an earlier deal.
>> He was swapped in an earlier deal. Just
you could Jamie could look it up. You
could do Sinoir. S I N W A R. He was one
of the guys who you saw him in one of
those rubbles and a drone comes in and
he's covered in rubble and then they
take him out. Right. Well, if you and I
if if I could put myself in your mind,
if if we had been ardent haters of a
group and then that group had shown us
tremendous compassion and generosity by
literally saving our lives, that might
have shut off my hatred to that group.
For example, Bridget Gabriel, the
Lebanese Christian woman who grew up in
the Lebanese civil war like I did,
>> had always been taught as a Lebanese
Christian that the Israelis are terrible
and evil and they're the problem for the
whole region. But then she escaped to
Israel, was welcomed in Israel, she
completely flipped because she saw that
they were nice human beings that treated
her well and and then her brainwashing
was no longer there. Well, if I've
literally taken a brain tumor out of
your brain, in that brain of yours,
could I have not bought a bit of
existential empathy for the Jews? It
didn't. What do you think of that?
>> Well, I think that person was probably
deeply radicalized to whatever their
ideology was. And that wasn't enough.
Like saving them wasn't enough. It gave
them It was probably Allah giving them
another opportunity to kill more Jews.
>> Exactly. So don't you think that
>> but that's just you know that's one
person and one person saved them. I
don't think it necessarily changes the
relationship between Israel and
Palestine particularly because Palestine
was denied statehood. It's not it's not
a country on its own. It can't do things
that other countries can do.
>> Do you know what Bill Clinton who's not
a Republican said regarding Palestinian
statethood? What
>> he said? I I'm paraphrasing him. I
killed myself, bent myself backwards to
give them almost everything that they
wanted. This is sort of the Oslo accord.
And Yasafat was not interested in a
two-state solution.
>> Well, let me ask you this. If you were
the head of Israel, how would you handle
it?
>> Uh, you mean moving forward?
>> Yeah.
In my in my utopia, it would be to try
to catch the brainwashing that happens
straight out of the womb where the type
of animus that is shared regarding the
Jews is so outland outlandish that it
would make Hitler and Himmler squirm in
unease. If you can get rid of that
brainwashing, you will learn to see the
other as an equal human being.
>> Could I interject there, please?
>> Do you think that the bombing of Gaza
and the destruction that's so clearly
visible to everyone would actually
stop that? Do you think that the bombing
of Gaza would maybe make more people
radicalized? that would make more people
want to attack Israel that would give
them
>> 100% you're right that you are creating
a new generation of terrorists but again
it's you're choosing to decide where to
place the causal point
Gaza existed fully peacefully for 20
plus years without anybody dying. The
day that they decided to do what they
did resulted in a retaliation which we
can discuss whether it's good or not
enough or too much. That is true. At the
root of the problem is an open society
that allows for the expression of all
religions. When I was in Israel two
months ago, I was in uh well all over
Israel. I gave a talk in Tel Aviv and I
gave a talk in Jerusalem. I spoke more
Arabic in Jerusalem than I did English
or Hebrew or anything else.
>> To your point, I think Israel is only
73% Jewish.
>> Exactly.
>> Look, look at look that up, please.
>> I thought it was maybe maybe 80%, but
your number would even prove my point
even better.
>> Uh I think I might be wrong, but it's
not 100%. That's for sure. Um and um
there are Arabic Muslim communities in
Israel that are tolerated versus
>> having a Jewish community in
>> Palestated fully embraced. So So I can
show you the validictorians.
>> Let's see.
Jewish population the largest in the
world.
>> 78. See I said 80 [snorts]
>> 73.
>> What?
>> 73% of the population.
>> So what's the 73
>> is Jewish including look right there.
>> Israel Bureau of Statistics. So I was
right. 73% of the population,
>> okay,
>> is Jewish. 503,000 people living in the
West Bank beyond Israel's self-defined
borders. Recent updates of December 2025
show total population at 10,148,000
with Jews and others at 7,758,000.
>> Right? So let let's do a few analyses.
Many many validictorians of universities
graduate. They're Muslim. Some of them
are in hijab. That's happening in
Israel. You go to medical school, the
validictorian that's chosen is a woman
in hijab. Does that seem like it's
animous? In the in the in the parliament
of Israel, there are tons of Muslims
that serve. Right. As I was walking
around all over Jerusalem, everybody
that I was interacting with was in
Arabic. They were fully Israelis who
were Muslim. Right? I have tons of
pictures with all of them. Some of them
recognize me. There was no animist. Why?
Because they've internalized the reality
that I am part of a country that is made
up of it's a Jewish majority country,
but it's a place where everybody has
equal rights, right? There are people
who serve in the highest judiciary that
are Muslim. Is there an Islamic country
where the opposite could be said?
>> I don't think of course not. Um, it's
also interesting when you look at the
statistics of the polling statistics of
people that support the war with Iran uh
in in Israel versus the United States.
And it's way more people support the
war. And uh, you know, obviously I live
in America and I'm immune to the effects
of being surrounded by people that hate
me and want to blow me up. Um, I could
only imagine what that's like for the
national psyche of living in a place
like Israel being surrounded by
paradoxically though, forgive me for
interrupting you, Israelis score as one
of the hap one of the highest on the
happiness scales.
>> So, in a sense, it goes against what
you're saying. And I think I've got an
explanation and you know, tell me what
you think of it. When I am spending my
entire existence, to your point,
possibly being eradicated tomorrow, I
don't have the luxury to debate what
constitutes male or female. It creates a
laser focus about what's important in my
life. my uh kickboxing coach, my old
kickboxing coach, Shuki, he's from
Israel. And uh I went over his house
once for dinner. And it was crazy. Like
they're dancing and playing bongo drums.
And I and I was, you know, obviously I'm
American. I was saying to him, I go,
"Why?" I go, "Why are you guys so
happy?" I was like trying to figure it
out. I go, "Is this just uniquely you?"
He goes, "It's in Israel. Everybody's
happy because
>> you know you could die any day. So just
party, party, party, have a good time."
>> And so you go there It's his mentality
and I I never forgot that cuz I I
remember thinking that like a m and he
went back to Israel. He's there right
now.
>> Have you been to Israel?
>> No.
>> You know what I suggest you
>> doesn't seem like a good time to go.
>> Seems like it's a little dangerous.
>> I mean, in that sense, yes, but but go
there and live live out the vibe. Look,
it's an incredibly gay tolerant place,
right? Tel Aviv, short of San Francisco,
New York, Montreal. It's one of the most
queer friendly places. It's very
bohemian. It's, you know, reggae music
playing. Israelis are in French you say
bonv good livers.
>> But it's also Israel Israeli society
doesn't universally support the war
either.
>> Exactly. But that speaks to the fact
that there is a multiplicity of
realities. It's an open society. Right
there. I mean there are go there are
Muslim guys who will go in front of this
Knesset and will say things that would
never be tolerated in other in any other
society. So is Israeli society perfect?
No. But is it the beast and the monster
and the demon that you see as a
caricature? I mean nothing could be
further from the truth. But do you think
that perhaps the more right-wing
authoritarian aspect of the Israeli
government is a problem in how Israel is
perceived in the rest of the world and
this over response in Gaza? The way
they're bombing southern Lebanon that
this is feeding into this.
>> Uh look, there's been there there have
been governments in Israel covering the
whole gamut of political orientations.
And while to your point I think there is
greater animous towards Israel today
than maybe in the past I I've always
known there to be Israeli animus in many
places. For example at my own university
well which I'm will be leaving shortly.
Concordia
has been colloially referred to as Gaza
University for 25 plus years. Benjamin
Netanyahu in 2002 was not able to speak
there. They shut him down and they
cancelled him. And this is when he was
then a private citizen. Now this is in
2002. So
>> why did they say they were shutting him
down?
>> Well, because it's the Zionist entity
and the same talking points, right? You
just change what is the culprit. So now
we say it's the devastating images of
Gaza, but 20 years ago, it would have
been an other story. So the reality,
>> but that's that university. I I don't
necessarily think that was universally
thought of in terms of like if you went
to all the other different schools.
>> No, you're absolutely right. But now
that I think comes from two sources. The
first source was when I told you earlier
that the brainwashing that's going on
American campuses where where Jethro is
now also wearing the kafia. But also the
but the demographic realities of the
west in general including the United
States are such that we've let in people
from those societies at a much greater
number than in the past right so I mean
>> you know the Pew survey do you know pew
pew right so they're they're there
they're a nonpartisan uh survey company
that if anything tends to lean more
towards progressive they did a survey a
global survey of animus towards Jews,
not Israel, Jews. This was, I think,
2010. And they had a whole bunch of
Islamic countries that were pulled. Now,
let's suppose I told you that we pulled
people in Indonesia or in Libya or in
Jordan and 10% expressed, you know, very
serious Jew hatred. That would be an
arresting number. You'd be, "Wow, one
out of 10 hates the Jews. That's a lot.
Do you know what the average numbers
were? Just pick a number.
>> In which countries?
>> Uh, so in many, but I'm talking now
mainly the Middle Eastern countries. So
not not Indonesia or Malaysia, which
also were not loving the Jews, but were
not nearly as hostile towards the Jews.
I'm talking Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt,
Syria, you know, those kinds of
countries. What was the average number?
And Jamie can pull it up.
>> And when when the question was asked,
how was it phrased? I I don't remember
the exact words,
>> but it was like do you hate Jews?
>> Not do you hate Jews, but do do you hold
favorable or disfavorable? It it it's
enough that there's animus, but not I
don't think the word hate was used.
>> And is it Israel or is it Jews? Just
Jews in general.
>> Guess what the percentage was like? Just
give me like
>> I would
70%.
>> It's 95 and up.
>> Whoa.
>> Right. So if we sampled a thousand
people from Syria
>> and it's hate, they hate Jews,
>> have a I don't remember because it's
negative opinion, disfavorable, dislike,
whatever the whatever it is, it's it's a
it's a measure of your either
proclivity, affinity, or disdain for the
Jew. whatever the wording is.
>> If you get 95 97 98%
of
pled people saying that they don't like
the Jews and now you let into your
country, your host country, hundreds of
thousands if not millions of those
people, do you think that Jew hatred is
going to go up or go down? So in Quebec
for example, as I may have mentioned
previously on this show, Quebec had a
very open policy towards Islamic
immigration. And the reason that in
Quebec it was so is because the most
important sense of personhood in Quebec
is that you maintain your linguistic
identity. We are French. We don't want
to be subsumed by the mean English
language. Yes. Mhm.
>> So therefore, since many of the
immigrants coming from Islamic countries
were also franophhone, in their infinite
wisdom, the Quebec government said,
"Hey, you know, here's a great idea.
There was a 1997 civil war between the
Algerian government and hardcore
extremist Muslims." The latter lost. So
they were fleeing from getting killed by
the Algerian government. Why don't you
open the borders for them to Quebec? The
decapitations will happen only when they
say bonjour to you. So given that they
will address you in French before they
behead you, don't worry about it. Let
them all in. I'm obviously being
facicious, but the point is that
hundreds of thousands of Islamic
immigrants came to Quebec. I started
seeing the changes. A lot more women in
hijabs. A lot more dangerous to go to
campus. A lot more requirements for
accommodations, prayer rooms, public
prayer.
>> When you say dangerous, in what way?
>> Specifically to me,
>> dangerous going to campus. In what way?
>> Well, I'm somewhat of a known entity who
doesn't mince words. And so I started
getting a lot of death threats. The
first set of death threats I got were in
2017 where for that semester I had to
follow a protocol to walk on campus with
security. They would lock the door so
that the students could leave but not
come back in. So I had to check in with
the security. That lasted for about a
semester. And I mean literally I would
lecture and then I would be ushered out.
my wife would be waiting for me and I
would sort of let out a deep breathe
like sigh that thank God I survived
another week.
>> Did you ever experience like people
trying to get at you?
>> So the only So all of those threats were
online that necessitate but then we had
to file with Concordia a Montreal police
report so on in 2022 I had in-person
threat so a guy came up to me. I was
walking with my then so 2022 so four
years ago he would must have been nine I
was walking with my 9year-old
10-year-old son and this guy looks at me
he goes are you god sad I said yes then
he kind of composes himself to kind of
deal with the hatred he feels and he
goes I'm not going to do anything to you
out of respect for your son today and so
then the detectives got the footage of
that you know because it was outside
Yeah, I remember you telling me about
that.
>> And then and then by the way, he I
couldn't they didn't want to show me a
lineup of things of possible things
because it would be racist to do so. So
the process of a police lineup, which is
the most fundamental mechanism of
identifying a perpetrator, was viewed as
racist because the guy who levied the
death threat to me was black. I think he
was maybe Somali. He looked Somali. So,
so I took a two-year leave from
Concordia University and I'm now leaving
in large part because it became
difficult for me, if not impossible, to
be a high-profile Jewish professor who
supports the right of Israel to exist.
>> What do you think happens in
[clears throat] the future to Concordia
and just to Montreal in general with
this influx
of people?
>> It's a slow death. It'll take you have
to have the imagination to extrapolate
into a distant future. So if you today
go to your friend who's got that steak
house on that street, I I don't know if
you want to mention it in Montreal,
right?
>> Would you walk around and think that
it's all Islamic? Of course not. But
it's a drip drip drip. It changes,
right? So for example,
until very recently, the Quebec
government was fully tolerating the
public prayers, Islamic public prayers
all over the place like recently.
>> And now they passed a law banning it.
Well, why did you need to wait till
then? Why didn't you listen to me when I
was standing on top of the mountain
screaming into the void saying this is
what's going to transpire? But do you
understand that you have more of a an
understanding of these things, more
knowledge about these things, and to
these people that are trying to get
elected and that are dealing with their
constituents that this is a politically
dangerous thing to bring up?
>> I get it. But then you're engaging in
suicidal empathy because
>> well, it's also they're just they have
their own personal interest.
>> They're pragmatic. I get it. But, you
know, the the the reason why I love I
mean, and I'm going to get threats for
this. The reason why I appreciate Trump
is precisely because he implements
things that most politicians wouldn't
have the testicular fortitude to do. But
that's what you want in a great leader,
right? Most people come in, do their
time, paracetize the system, and then
leave having accomplished nothing. The
reason why Donald Trump has had not one,
not two, but three assassination
attempts, that is a testament to the
fact that he is a danger to the status
quo. Why? Because he does things whether
you agree with him or not. He's bold.
He's fearless. He doesn't give a
To your point, most politicians would
rather go la. I don't want to hear it
until it's too late. The the playbook is
very clear. Depending on the number of
Muslims in a society, you can exactly
predict the level of conflict. And that
statement that I just said holds true,
not withstanding the fact that most
Muslims are perfectly lovely. Both those
statements are both vertical. So when
you are 0 to 2%, you're just a quiet
exotic minority. When you're 3 to 5%,
you become a lot more engaged
politically. when you become 6 to 10%
you start creating Sharia nogo zones we
don't want your dogs here this is not
tolerated in our zone look at Britain
look at France so in the same way that I
can predict the trajectory of diabetes
and no I'm not saying that Muslims are
I'm drawing an analogy okay I am
explaining a trajectory so if you wish
to protect the liberties that make the
United States so uniquely wonderful in
the full range of societies that have
ever existed. Recognize that all
religions are not equally likely to be
congruent with the American experience.
If you do, you'll survive. If you won't,
your future descendants will ru the day
you were born.
>> All right. Should we end on that?
>> Love being with you.
>> Love being with you, too.
>> It was a great conversation.
>> Very lively.
>> Thank you, sir. Uh, Suicide Empathy. It
is available now. Did you read the audio
book?
>> I did. Yes.
>> And I constantly said that Joe Rogan
would beat the out of me if I
didn't do it.
>> I would not do that, but I would bate
you slightly. But, uh, I'm happy. I'm
happy that you did that. Thank you.
Always good to see you, brother. You,
too. All right. Bye, everybody.
>> [music]