0:34

So this morning I am pleased to be joined once again

0:36

by one of my favorite guests , Hank

0:38

Koppel , the author of the War on

0:40

Hate , available in the links below

0:42

, and we're going to talk about an update on Israel

0:45

and global military tensions

0:47

region . Hank , how are you ?

0:49

Hi thanks , and always good to be here . Lucas , Thank

0:52

you .

0:52

Thanks for coming back . America tends to move

0:54

too quickly past news and

0:56

view it as yesterday's issues , and

0:59

I fear that's what's happening with the war

1:01

in Gaza . Now timely

1:03

it is that we're recording you just went to Yale

1:05

to present on the issue of

1:07

the Gaza-Israel war . Can you tell us about

1:09

this ?

1:10

Sure and

1:16

given the news we often hear from campuses , it went very well and smoothly , I

1:18

think in part because the hosting groups tended to invite folks off membership email

1:20

lists rather than public posting on campus

1:22

, whereas we know Yale has had

1:24

a lot of these problematic scenes

1:26

of students cheering for Hamas on the

1:28

open grounds and quadrangles . It was a

1:30

good talk . There were professors , students

1:33

, some recent reservists

1:35

from the IDF who had served in Gaza and shared

1:37

some interesting information . But it was a very

1:40

receptive audience and the Q&A just

1:42

took an hour . There was so much discussion

1:44

. It's what we want liberal democracy

1:46

to be and thankfully we had that . It was

1:48

great .

1:49

What can you tell us about what the IDF reservists

1:52

had to say ?

2:24

no-transcript

2:32

. Yes , and that's consistent with one

2:34

of the things I talked about in my Yale talk and in my book

2:36

, is that one of the least known facts

2:39

about 20th century Middle East history is

2:41

that during World War II , the leader

2:43

of the Palestinian Arab people at that time

2:46

, a fellow by the name of Haj Amin al-Husseini

2:48

, often called the Grand Mufti because

2:51

he was the lead Muslim cleric in the

2:53

Palestinian territories at the time . At the

2:56

time he in 1941 , flew to Berlin

2:58

, had a two-hour meeting with Hitler , and

3:00

they actually at

3:06

that point formed and sealed the Nazi-Arab alliance against the Western

3:09

powers in World War II . And it wasn't just something for show . Husseini himself

3:11

went to Eastern Europe and rallied a lot of Muslim

3:13

legions for Hitler's armies in Eastern Europe

3:15

. He also led co-led

3:18

a massive propaganda deluge across

3:20

the Middle East during World War II , based from

3:22

a town outside Berlin called Zisen

3:24

, where they had Arabic language

3:27

speakers broadcasting 15

3:29

hours a day , seven hours a week

3:31

, to the Middle East . Kill the Jews , they

3:33

will assault your children , take your wives

3:35

, burn them down . Get rid of this dirty race

3:38

. This flooded the Middle East , so

3:40

much so that by 1942

3:43

, the US Office of Strategic Services

3:45

, the predecessor to the CIA , were

3:47

writing dispatches from the Middle East to the State

3:49

Department saying three quarters of

3:52

the Muslims of the Middle East are now supporting

3:54

the Nazis , in significant part because

3:57

of the Arabic language broadcasts coming

3:59

out of Germany against the West and

4:01

the Jews and the Allied powers

4:03

. So that what's in Gaza

4:05

today reflects the fact

4:08

that this Nazification effort

4:10

, which was massive and then was followed

4:12

through and embraced by many of the Palestinian

4:14

Arab leaders , sadly for the Rome people , as well

4:16

still persists . They never denazified

4:19

Germany

4:24

. Europe was denazified after World War II . The Middle East , which few folks know had

4:26

been nazified , was never denazified .

4:27

So question for you , hank is

4:29

Dearborn , michigan , nazified ?

4:32

I think that the

4:34

current discourse , as we know

4:37

, is loaded with minefields

4:39

and understandable sensitivities and concerns

4:41

as to how we talk about our fellow citizens and

4:44

, as I'm sure you're referring to , a controversy

4:46

has erupted about that very question , from

4:48

a Wall Street Journal editorial a few weeks ago

4:50

, talking about the outpouring

4:53

of support for Hamas in several

4:55

street protests and demonstrations in

4:57

Dearborn , which has a large Middle Eastern population

5:00

.

5:00

Yes , with a chant recently at Rashida Tlaib's

5:03

rally Death to America .

5:06

Yes , and I think what that reflects

5:08

is sadly and

5:10

this can be true of any group . I

5:13

think it's important and this is one of the great points

5:15

Ayaan Hirsi Ali , the Somalia

5:18

exile , who lives in America now

5:20

after being exiled also from the Netherlands

5:22

for her speaking some inconvenient truths

5:24

. As Ayaan Hirsi Ali has said , it's

5:27

really important in immigration

5:29

to vet people at a baseline

5:31

level , to make sure that they are on board

5:33

with the liberal democracy bargain

5:35

, namely that women

5:38

, men , jews , christians , muslim

5:40

, atheists , whoever we all

5:42

have equal standing before

5:44

the law and equal respect within our

5:46

communities as human beings . And

5:49

when we bring the more

5:51

pre-liberal

5:54

tribal rivalries into the liberal

5:56

democracies and this could be true of any group

5:58

I'm not talking about Muslims , I'm talking about any group

6:00

. We know there are radicals on both sides , in

6:02

every group at some point . But if we

6:04

don't screen for that and say this

6:06

is part of the ticket to admission to a liberal democracy

6:09

, you get things like what's happening

6:11

in Dearborn and hey , people

6:13

have every right to raise points about the Palestinian

6:16

situation and their problem , but

6:23

when they're cheering for terrorism , under the First Amendment they have a right to raise points about the Palestinian

6:25

situation and their problem .

6:26

But when they're cheering for terrorism under the First Amendment they have a right to do that We've also

6:28

got a big civic problem , a big one . So one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is that you are aware of the facts on the

6:30

ground more than anybody I know

6:32

over in the war situation

6:34

. So let's get into the facts . Where does

6:36

the war stand after six months

6:39

?

6:39

Thank you , and I'll caveat , I'm

6:41

here in America . I've not served

6:44

or done time with the IDF , so

6:46

my facts are in a sense derivative . But it's from a lot

6:48

of open source material , following a

6:50

lot of folks talking to folks , etc . And

6:56

there are some sources that I particularly recommend to your

6:58

audience Foundation for Defense of Democracies under

7:01

Cliff May fantastic institution if you want to understand what's going on in the Middle

7:03

East , what Iran , et cetera . And there are others like that , hudson Institute

7:05

. There are some great people , michael Duran

7:07

over at Tablet and Mosaic Magazine

7:09

. I don't think anyone in the English-speaking

7:12

world understands the Iranian threat like Duran

7:14

. In any event , that being said , Israel

7:18

, the IDF , has made very clear that

7:20

it has now essentially

7:22

demobilized 20 out

7:24

of the 24 Hamas battalions

7:26

with which Hamas started the war . The

7:28

estimates are that Hamas had about

7:31

30,000 , give or take a

7:33

few thousands , but about 30,000

7:35

trained soldier terrorists

7:38

divided up into , I

7:40

believe , 24 battalions . So that leaves

7:42

you with a bit over 1,000 terror

7:44

soldiers per battalion . They've now taken

7:47

out 20 . The last four are

7:49

believed to be holed up on Rafah , which is

7:51

on the southwest corner of Gaza , on the Egyptian

7:53

border . It's also believed that if

7:56

the leadership of Hamas

7:58

in Gaza has not escaped and we don't know whether

8:00

that's happened or not , yahya Sinwa

8:02

, the head of Hamas in Gaza , etc

8:05

. It's believed they may still be

8:07

holed up in Rafah . One

8:09

of the reasons I think that's likely is I

8:11

don't know if you or your listeners have seen , but there are

8:13

some amazing photos of the Egyptian-Gaza

8:16

border and folks who complain

8:19

a lot about Israel and its

8:21

border with Gaza . They should take

8:23

a look at the Egyptian Gaza border . There

8:25

are massive walls and barbed

8:27

wire and like 20 , 30 foot

8:29

high fences . There's about four or five of them

8:31

. It's like you're going to traverse a couple of football

8:34

fields and go to each 20

8:36

, 30 foot wall .

8:37

No , it's a serious border . Do you have any idea

8:40

why Egypt does not want

8:42

the Gazans ?

8:43

Here's my strong guess from

8:45

recent 20th and 21st century history

8:48

. The Egyptian government is interesting

8:50

because , on the one hand , there's still

8:52

a lot of anti-Semitic , Jew-hating

8:54

propaganda in their public media

8:57

. On the other hand , they

8:59

recognized under Ian Wasadat , after the

9:01

1973 Arab-Israeli

9:04

War which followed 67 and 48

9:06

, that was now three strikes , you're out , three

9:08

losses to the Israelis when you tried to destroy

9:10

them . Egypt , meanwhile , is a country

9:13

with high population , a

9:15

low-functioning economy , not a lot of

9:17

economic growth . Issues of is

9:19

there enough food ? Are the food prices enough to not

9:21

provoke massive riots and government overthrow

9:23

, etc .

9:24

So they're a bit of a precarious government .

9:27

They're also the seat of

9:29

Sunni Islam's prime

9:31

theological center , al-azhar University

9:33

in Cairo . It is also the place

9:35

where the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928

9:38

, which is a radical Sunni Islamic

9:40

group whose explicit materials

9:42

this is no secret is to create a global

9:44

caliphate and everybody must

9:47

either be a Muslim or be killed

9:49

or possibly rendered into

9:51

that status called the Dhimmi D-H-I-M-I

9:54

, where you're , like African Americans

9:56

and the American South , before the civil rights movement

9:58

at best . This is where

10:01

Egypt , the government , has to balance all these things . They

10:03

don't want to go to war with Israel . They want to try to

10:05

get their economy going . This has been Anwar Sadat's

10:07

program since the 1970s , which

10:09

led to the Begin Sadat piece of 1979

10:12

.

10:14

I have people who I know sorry to interrupt you , hank I have people

10:16

who I know on the liberal left who believe

10:18

that the Muslim Brotherhood is just

10:20

a myth created by right-wing media .

10:23

Yeah , they should listen to the

10:25

many people who have been there

10:27

and know it , like , for instance , cynthia

10:29

Farahat , a Coptic Christian

10:31

from Egypt whose brother was murdered

10:34

by the Muslim Brotherhood . Cynthia is

10:36

a very brave woman . She now lives in the sort of Washington DC area and has published a monumental

10:38

study of the Muslim Brotherhood . Cynthia is a very brave woman . She now lives in the sort of Washington DC area

10:40

and has published a monumental

10:42

study of the Muslim Brotherhood . They

10:44

are clever at playing politics

10:46

, but they are brutal in their aims

10:48

and , by way of example , I'll

10:51

tell you two branches of the Muslim Brotherhood internationally

10:53

. One was the Sudanese

10:55

regime that committed the Darfur genocide

10:58

. That was the Muslim Brotherhood , and

11:00

another one is , you know it , hamas

11:02

. Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood

11:04

, and anyone who thinks those

11:07

1,200 murders , the

11:09

many rapes and tortures were

11:11

a benign group , they're really

11:13

not dealing with reality . But your question was

11:15

Egypt . Egypt has been

11:47

at war with the Muslim Brotherhood , even though they're an Islamic

11:49

government and even though they have tended to side

11:51

with the somewhat militant axis

11:53

to some degree . The Muslim Brotherhood

11:56

is more radical than the Egyptian government wants to

11:58

go and they have actually suppressed

12:00

them time and time again . And

12:02

, as we recall from the Arab Spring , a Muslim

12:04

Brotherhood government took over

12:06

and there was a counter

12:09

coup because they were wrecking the economy

12:11

, taking the country in a bad direction . So

12:13

the Egyptian leadership , they're

12:15

not liberals , they're not Democrats

12:18

, but they're not the Muslim Brotherhood and they don't

12:20

want the Muslim Brotherhood .

12:21

So , by extension , they don't want Hamas coming

12:23

over the border .

12:24

Exactly , exactly .

12:26

Correct , I see . So that's why they have an iron border

12:28

. Now , in terms of the status

12:30

of the war , there's been a number of things

12:32

that have transpired recently , and

12:43

can you tell us where the US-Israel alliance is ? Let's talk , let's bring Iran into the mix , because

12:45

they're threatening today and yesterday to soon maybe today or tomorrow

12:47

strike Israel and

12:49

bring us down to where we

12:51

are right now .

12:53

Exactly , and I'll try to do this concisely , as

12:55

I'm sure you would know as well , this is multi-layered

12:57

, geopolitically Right and we talked about

12:59

this on a prior podcast that there's

13:01

the Israel-Hamas battle

13:03

war , but then , when you draw

13:06

back to 20,000 feet

13:08

up , it's really an Iranian war

13:10

for hegemony across the Middle East . And

13:13

that's still the middle level globally . Because

13:15

it's well believed now and

13:18

I think quite correctly by many , that

13:20

we're in a new Cold War

13:22

led by Russia , china

13:24

and Iran , who all have made very

13:26

explicitly clear they seek to undermine

13:28

the so-called liberal international order

13:31

of free and democratic states , trading

13:33

freely and trading information freely

13:35

, et cetera . And the

13:37

Middle East component of this new global

13:39

Cold War , which has many hotspots

13:41

, especially Gaza and

13:43

Ukraine , is ground zero . That

13:45

is the Hamas war . Put it this way it

13:48

is estimated I was reading this recently that

13:51

the total annual

13:53

budget for Hamas I'm

13:55

sorry , no for Hezbollah , which is an even more

13:57

powerful terrorist group on Israel's northern border

13:59

in Lebanon they are Shia Muslims

14:01

, it was founded and is financed by Iran

14:04

, right Hezbollah on Israel's northern

14:06

border , which has 150,000 precision

14:08

missiles targeting Israel and southern Lebanon

14:10

. Their annual budget is $700

14:13

million . Just last October

14:15

, the US granted

14:17

a release of $10 billion

14:20

in frozen Iranian funds in the

14:22

West $10 billion Through

14:24

Qatar right . Yeah , and we can talk

14:26

about that in a bit . And when

14:29

you think of that , if the annual budget for Hezbollah

14:31

, which Iran finances , is $700 million

14:33

, the United States has just freed

14:35

up to Iran funds to keep

14:37

Hezbollah going at full operational

14:39

status for at least 13 years .

14:42

Why .

14:42

America is doing . That is a big and very

14:44

concerning question .

14:46

Relations , I think , as to why they're doing that , why America

14:49

is doing that .

14:49

Yes , and I would direct folks to an outstanding

14:52

essay that just came out this week in Commentary

14:55

Magazine by Seth Cropsey , and I think

14:57

he's affiliated with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies

14:59

, might be Hudson . Cropsey

15:01

and his co-authors make clear that what's been

15:03

happening across the world

15:06

from America's foreign policy

15:08

framework is we have an

15:10

administration that's very unpopular and

15:12

we have an administration that , like all , is

15:14

seeking to get reelected , and

15:17

right now they just want to keep

15:19

the kettle from boiling over . They

15:21

want to keep America from having to

15:23

get involved in a military escalation

15:25

which would hurt their electoral prospects

15:27

, in

15:30

a military escalation which would hurt their electoral prospects . Therefore , you

15:32

have America in their analysis paying protection money to Iran

15:34

. Don't get going , Don't overdo it now

15:36

. We don't want a war right now

15:38

, Not until November , after November , if

15:40

it's going to happen . We've been releasing funds

15:42

to Iran , which is one of our leading geopolitical

15:44

foes , which is literally attacking

15:46

American soldiers in Iraq , which

15:49

is through the Houthis are attacking

15:51

America's allies , the Saudis , the

15:53

Israelis . They are on the march in the Red

15:55

Sea . They're literally trying to

15:58

diminish critical world

16:00

trade in the Straits of Hormuz through the Houthis

16:02

, which is another Iranian proxy . This is

16:04

a war on the West and the liberal international

16:07

system .

16:07

Hank , let me get this straight . You think

16:09

that there is a cold political

16:12

calculation that is literally funding

16:15

the enemies of American troops

16:17

.

16:19

I think it is not .

16:21

I'm inclined to agree . I just want to make it vivid .

16:23

Yes , and I think the difficulty in putting

16:25

words to this is I

16:28

would find it hard to believe . That's how

16:30

this administration and its advisors are

16:32

perceiving it , and this is why I referenced

16:35

Mike Duran , who's written some great analyses

16:37

of the US-Iran rivalry

16:39

over the past several decades , and one of his

16:41

essays is just fantastic . It's called

16:44

I'll read the name in a minute , I'm doing a

16:46

senior moment there the Realignment . It's called

16:48

the Realignment by Michael Dioram

16:50

and I think he's spot

16:52

on when he says this . When President

16:54

Obama came in and he had

16:57

said during his campaign I will negotiate

16:59

no conditions with Iran , that'd be fine

17:01

. And a lot of folks said look , they're one of our number one

17:03

enemies . You just walk into a room with a blank

17:05

slate . You got to make sure that this thing's going

17:07

to work and not hurt us and not embolden

17:10

them . All right , Deterrence has to be kept

17:12

up . Biden

17:17

administrations believe

17:20

to get America disentangled

17:22

from the Middle East . They one see

17:29

that as a goal and a possibility and they see it as being done by kind of turning hegemony

17:31

in the Middle East over to Iran , in this mistaken belief that we can contain Iran

17:34

, we can deal with Iran . Remember

17:36

, President Obama said remember , they're rational

17:38

actors . Well , their

17:40

rationality is in service

17:42

to a totalitarian

17:44

ideology instead of goals .

17:46

You can be rational and evil at the same

17:48

time , I don't understand the

17:50

idea that they're rational actors

17:53

. I don't think that the Obama

17:55

administration had any idea of

17:57

what it means to believe in paradise .

18:00

Yes , because someone pointed out

18:02

a discussion I once had , because I've

18:04

been saying for years that , and that's the text

18:07

of my book that when you see

18:09

radical , millenarian , world-conquering

18:12

ideologies that do the

18:14

us versus them dualistic dynamic

18:16

which was Hitler , which was communism

18:19

, which is Iran and

18:21

the radical strands of Islam , when you see these things

18:23

, you need to confront

18:25

them and try to reduce their impact

18:28

because they are the sources of mass

18:30

killings , genocides and mass

18:32

terrorism . And someone

18:34

pointed out the Nazis were horrific

18:37

but they weren't linked to a theology

18:39

. They were a secular thing

18:41

. When you combine theology

18:43

a theology in which there may be

18:46

many adherents with one of these us

18:48

versus them millenarian ideologies

18:50

, you've got an even more powerful power to take , and

18:52

you're right . That's Iran and we

18:54

, as largely secularized

18:57

Americans there's been some good writing about this

18:59

we tend not to be able to get

19:01

ourselves in the minds of militant

19:03

radical religious extremists

19:06

. We just don't get it Now

19:08

.

19:08

there's an interesting sociological tributary

19:11

that we could follow here and we won't go too far

19:13

because I want to get back to what's happening with

19:15

the status of the war but how profound

19:18

it is that America could watch

19:20

what happened on October 7th and

19:22

know the gory details and still

19:25

not be able to come to terms with the fact

19:27

that we're not dealing with rational

19:29

actors . We're dealing with people who thought that

19:31

cutting women's breasts off as

19:33

they were raping them lands

19:35

them in paradise with Muhammad

19:37

.

19:38

Yeah , I agree , and some folks phrase

19:40

that as it's a failure of imagination . One of the irony

19:42

is that some of the folks whose

19:45

spoken expressions

19:47

of how they wish to do public have

19:49

a hard time getting in the

19:51

mindset of very different cultures

19:54

that are

20:06

very opposed to liberal , democratic , free

20:08

cultures . They treat them as if they're

20:10

just like us , with a small difference over

20:12

territory . But that's not the nature

20:14

of the difference .

20:17

Isn't that the same ideology that possessed

20:19

the Bush administration ? That they will

20:21

simply absorb our democracy

20:24

?

20:26

I think it depends on who in the administration

20:28

one might talk with , because I actually have

20:30

a subchapter in my book that talks about

20:32

the claim . There's a claim strongly

20:34

out there . Michael Mandelbaum at Johns Hopkins

20:36

University has written extensively on this

20:38

. One of his books is titled Mission Failure the

20:41

Mission of Trying to Democratize Places when

20:43

Democracy Isn't Very Thin Soil , and

20:46

I actually addressed it and

20:49

I actually challenged Mandelbaum's thesis

20:51

a bit , because when you go into what

20:53

really happened in Iraq by

20:55

2010 , when America was

20:57

in its last years there , after

20:59

the war and Obama was getting ready to pull

21:01

our troops out in 2010, . They had an election

21:04

between two lead parties One of

21:06

them was the incumbent , nouriel Maliki

21:08

, who was a pretty militant Shiite

21:10

Muslim very tied in with the Iranian regime

21:12

, and the opposition party was called

21:15

Iraqiyah , led by a secular

21:17

Shiite named Ayatollah , who put

21:19

together a coalition of Sunnis , shias

21:22

, kurds , various

21:24

minorities in Iraq , and they won the parliamentary

21:26

vote by two seats , and

21:28

that was actually a

21:30

hugely significant thing . Here in Iraq

21:32

, maybe less than 10 years after Saddam

21:35

Hussein's horrific regime had been removed

21:37

, you have a multi-ethnic coalition

21:39

winning the parliamentary election , kind

21:41

of Iraqi saying we're done . A lot

21:43

of Iraqis , perhaps a majority , saying we're

21:45

done with this internecine fighting . We want

21:47

to carry on with our lives , take care of our families

21:50

. Little known in Iraq , a

21:52

great number of Sunni Islam families have

21:54

a member married in from a Shia Islam

21:56

family . That folks on the ground might not

21:58

be as militant as the folks at the top

22:00

striving and struggling for power . The

22:11

point is , when Iraqia won this multi-ethnic party in Iraq , the Shia strongman who lost the

22:13

election refused to step down . This is what happened . All the American

22:15

people on the ground , general Raymond O'Giano , his

22:17

lead advisor , emma Skye from the UK

22:19

, who's now teaching at Yale and a bunch of these

22:21

folks said to the Obama administration you've

22:23

got to support . The party that won Pluralistic

22:26

politics has actually won an Iraqi election

22:28

. This is amazing and we need to support

22:30

this , and if you don't , it's going to be a hell zone

22:32

because the Shiite steward

22:36

of Iran , maliki , is going to turn on the Sunnis

22:38

and blow the country up . We can tell you that they

22:40

ignored it . They said no , maliki's our guy

22:42

, you're just going to have to live with the results , not

22:45

live with the results . And we pulled our troops

22:47

out and let an Iranian stooge steal

22:50

the Iraqi election in 2010 . You

22:52

all know what happened the Sunnis

22:54

clamped down on the , the Shias clamped

22:57

down on the Sunnis and provoked things like

22:59

the rise of ISIS , the caliphate mass

23:01

murder again , and America had to send troops back

23:04

a couple years later to stop the civil war in Iraq

23:06

, which they could have avoided . I

23:13

go into this digression to say pluralistic politics actually could possibly emerge in these

23:15

godforsaken places . Given time and a chance , would it have succeeded ? I

23:17

don't know , but it was starting to happen

23:19

and we cut it off , but it was starting to happen and we cut

23:21

it off In terms of the status

23:23

of the Israel-Gaza war

23:26

.

23:26

where are we now ?

23:28

in that . So Israel has demolished , as I

23:30

said , 20 out of 24 Hamas battalions

23:32

. The last holdouts , the four , are

23:34

in Rafah , in the southwest corner . There

23:36

has been tremendous pressure brought to bear

23:38

by the Biden administration not to go into

23:40

.

23:40

Rafah , why the reason we're articulating

23:43

this ?

23:49

Yeah , because a lot of the civilian population that Israel did take and I can cite you the statistics

23:51

on what they did to protect the civilians . They're astounding . Most

23:53

of the civilians who evacuated the north are down

23:55

in Rafah now . So Israel actually

23:58

now has to and plans

24:00

to get an evacuation of the non-Hamas

24:02

civilians , the non-Hamas soldier , the non-Hamas soldier civilians

24:04

out of Rafah . I heard one person

24:06

yesterday saying it could take as much as a month to

24:08

get it done an Israeli military expert

24:11

. And it happens to coincide

24:13

with Ramadan , which is coming to an end

24:15

. The administration was very concerned that if Israel

24:17

continues the war during Ramadan , that's

24:19

going to be really bad optics , etc

24:22

. Now leave aside the fact that Hamas

24:24

uses mosques all the time as armed depots

24:26

and places for us to shoot soldiers , that

24:29

when it comes time for fighting war , these groups don't

24:31

give a darn about the sanctity of their religious places

24:33

. They're at war , they're in jihad . Nonetheless

24:35

, there is a desire to respect each

24:38

group's sacred places , which I think

24:40

is important . Between the fact that

24:42

the civilians will need to be evacuated from Rafah

24:44

to avoid a civilian bloodbath and the fact that

24:47

this timeframe now is nearing the end of

24:49

Ramadan , israel has

24:51

held off Rafah , going into Rafah militarily

24:53

. It seems to be the case that

24:56

the Israeli government is clearly telling the

24:58

Biden administration you're telling us , we

25:00

can't go in . We're telling you . Netanyahu

25:02

apparently said this to Biden , I think it was last Thursday

25:04

. I have one principle , and that's

25:06

never again . Never again will

25:08

any group do what they did on October 7th

25:11

to Israelis ? And the only way we can get

25:13

to that goal is by completely eradicating

25:15

Hamas's military capacity and its

25:17

capacity to regroup and reform , because

25:20

if Sinoir and his leading troops

25:23

and a battalion or two of Hamas survives , they

25:25

will play that as , and it will be read

25:27

across the Middle East as , a victory for Hamas

25:30

. Israel couldn't take them down and

25:32

they will recover and they will rebuild

25:34

. So Israel is going to go

25:36

into Rafah . Here's the scary part . President

25:39

Biden said himself when

25:41

he walked out of his State of the Union

25:43

address some days ago . There

25:46

was a hot mic next to Biden

25:48

. When he turned to Anthony Blinken as he's

25:50

stopping and being greeted by everybody and the

25:52

high fives over a nice address and all

25:54

that he turns to Blinken next to

25:56

a hot mic and says I told

25:59

Bibi Netanyahu we're going to have a

26:01

talk and it's going to be a come to Jesus

26:03

moment . In other words , I'll shut down

26:05

his efforts to continue the war and

26:07

go into Rafah . It is reported

26:10

that President Bush knew there was a Mike and that this

26:12

was deliberate to send a message around the world

26:14

that the US is going to put the handcuffs on

26:16

Israel . This is where I

26:18

find this very problematic . I

26:20

think this administration lacks an understanding

26:22

of deterrence . This isn't just about

26:24

shutting down Hamas , which is not

26:27

just for Israel but for the whole free

26:29

world to say mass murdering

26:31

, mass raping , torturing terrorist groups

26:33

have no place in this world , on

26:35

this planet . Right , and we

26:37

know they promised an over and over . They're going to do it again

26:39

if they can . It's also

26:42

about confronting Iran , because

26:44

Hamas is the leading edge of Iran in the Middle

26:46

East right now , along with Hezbollah . Iran

26:49

is watching this closely . They're looking to see

26:51

if America will back its ally or if

26:53

America will , in their eyes , chicken out and

26:56

give Iran the chance to keep terrorizing the Middle

26:58

East . That's also helping Iran decide

27:00

whether they should tell Hezbollah . Now

27:02

it's your turn , Go for it . Hezbollah

27:04

has a force , the Radwan force , on the Lebanese

27:06

border . They are just like the

27:09

Hamas folks who ran in for the mass rapes

27:11

and pillage and murders . Iran is watching

27:13

this and we all know who else is watching this . Xi

27:15

Jinping in China is watching this . Does

27:17

America have the guts and

27:20

the perseverance to stand by its allies

27:22

, or does America back down when the going gets

27:24

hot ? Because he's looking there at Taiwan

27:26

very eagerly and his decision whether to

27:28

invade Taiwan depends in part on

27:30

his perception of whether America will back

27:33

its critical allies .

27:34

So , Hank , what do you think is going to happen in the

27:36

next week ?

28:03

I obviously don't know . Wish I had that crystal ball , as we all do . The fear , as you alluded , against their

28:05

other parts of the Middle East . Iran is furious

28:07

and they don't want to be perceived as weak either

28:10

, and they understand deterrence

28:12

in a way that our current administration seems

28:14

not as well to understand it . So Iran

28:16

, it is believed , and they've also , I think , just

28:18

outfitted a gunship near

28:21

the Straits of Hormuz . I might be mistaking its

28:23

actual location , but Iran is making

28:25

all signals that it's going to up the ante

28:27

. I should add to that , by the way , hezbollah

28:30

, on the day of October 7th

28:33

, in support of what Hamas was doing in southwestern

28:35

Israel and then north of Israel , hezbollah

28:37

started launching RPGs and

28:39

drones and missiles into Israel that

28:42

same day , and almost every

28:44

day since October 7th for half a year . Iran

28:46

, through Hezbollah , has been lobbying missiles into

28:48

northern Israel . They're not going in all out

28:50

. They're keeping it to a level at which they

28:52

hopefully will not provoke an all-out Israeli

28:55

reaction .

28:56

But all we see every night on the

28:58

news and if you've tuned into PBS

29:01

NewsHour at any time

29:03

, you will just see wreckage

29:05

in Gaza . That's it , with the presentation

29:07

that the IDF is some kind of roving

29:10

force themselves and incurring

29:13

injustice upon the Gazans

29:15

. Who are these ? The presentation seems to be they

29:17

are simply these casualties

29:20

innocent of any wrongdoing and so forth

29:22

, and that the United States

29:24

and Israel are these Goliath

29:27

forces raining down

29:29

unjust terror on

29:31

people who would just like to live their lives . What

29:34

do you say to my characterization ?

29:36

I appreciate you putting that out there because that

29:38

is the standard line in much of

29:40

the news and many of our campuses , and

29:42

so I do have some things to say about that .

29:44

Feel free .

29:45

What is ? If you look at just Israel and

29:47

Gaza , given that Israel has made itself

29:49

a military power , you might think , yeah

29:51

, Israel's Goliath , Gaza's little

29:53

David . Leaving aside the

29:55

tremendous moral inversion in that

29:57

statement from what we've seen on October 7th

30:00

, right , but then step back a little

30:02

bit . The Middle East , with

30:04

almost

30:06

the entire Middle East , are , I

30:08

think , 20 or so . Islamic countries

30:11

, many of them with

30:13

media and militaries that

30:15

are trained in the goal of destroying Israel

30:17

, and you got tiny little Israel

30:20

, which is , I don't know , one X hundredth

30:22

of the land area and the population of

30:24

the Middle East . Who's Goliath ?

30:26

Who's David there ?

30:27

right , you got Iran building its nuclear

30:29

arsenal , et cetera . But

30:31

getting into more prosaic details

30:34

of the response to that kind of presentation

30:37

we see in the news , I would advert to

30:39

John Spencer is head of urban

30:41

warfare at West Point . He's one of the world's

30:43

real experts in what an urban warfare campaign

30:45

involves and what the parameters ? are and

30:48

he had a great piece in Newsweek about

30:51

on April 12th and he

30:53

pointed out these are the things Israel

30:55

has done to avoid civilian casualties

30:57

. But before we even get into that , gaza

31:00

is the number

31:02

one most embedded

31:04

military in a civilian

31:06

population . In all human history We've

31:09

never seen anything like this . The

31:11

IDF has seen time again almost

31:13

every school , many homes

31:16

. They're all connected to the terror tunnel network

31:18

. They have weapons in them . We've

31:21

seen that many of the Israeli hostages

31:23

who were released have said they were held in private homes

31:25

. You know they were held in homes of United

31:27

Nations paid UNRWA aid

31:29

teachers . Yeah , I just did a major

31:32

report for an NGO why we have to dismantle

31:34

UNRWA and get rid of it . Unrwa is embedded

31:36

with Hamas . It is a terror-promoting agency

31:39

. They educate the Gaza children

31:41

in jihad . It's horrific . And

31:43

we pay . I think we paid about half

31:45

a billion dollars over the last few years to UNRU with our

31:47

taxpayers' money . So what

31:50

Israel is facing is a civilian

31:52

military , embedded battlefield like none other

31:54

in human history . Despite

31:56

this , they have done everything they can

31:59

. Here's a few of the things they've done to avoid civilian

32:01

casualties . This is Spencer's figures . From

32:03

a close look at Israel's effort , they've

32:05

dropped over 7 million flyers to

32:08

civilians telling them when their operations

32:10

are coming before they go in , so

32:12

those civilians can flee . Now what

32:15

army that doesn't want to see its own soldiers

32:17

killed tells the whole enemy this

32:20

is when and where we're coming . You

32:22

can get ready , set up your gun posts and sites

32:24

and artillery so you can get us when

32:26

we come in , as we're telling you when and where

32:29

. That is a very self-suffer-ficial

32:31

act on the part of the Israeli army . I'm

32:34

not aware of any other army in history that's done

32:36

that , but Israel's doing it . Because of their commitment to

32:38

life . They dropped 7 million

32:40

flyers . They've made 70,000

32:42

direct phone calls to civilians in Gaza

32:44

. They've sent over 13 million

32:46

text messages to Gaza's civilians

32:48

, left over 15 million pre-recorded

32:51

voice mails . But , as if that

32:53

wasn't enough , no army's ever done this in

32:55

world history . They actually deploy drones

32:57

with loudspeakers and

33:00

they actually dropped giant speakers

33:02

by parachute down to the ground in

33:04

heavily civilian areas of Gaza , saying

33:07

we are coming in this location

33:09

, arabic speaking , making sure the local population

33:11

can understand . You should evacuate

33:13

now , go in this direction . And as if that

33:16

wasn't enough , they've started giving out

33:18

, dropping and delivering its own

33:20

military maps to the civilians to

33:22

exquisitely tell them exactly where

33:24

and how to get out through civilian corridors

33:26

.

33:26

All right , we don't see any of this

33:28

on the American nightly news . None of

33:30

it .

33:31

No , no we don't Every day . They've

33:33

conducted brief pauses and operations to

33:35

get the civilian flow going . I don't

33:37

know if you've seen this or not . I think it's important your audience

33:39

know . When Israel was evacuating

33:41

the northern Gaza cities and telling the population

33:43

get out before we come in , hamas

33:46

set up blockades in the major

33:48

roadways and arteries of the evacuation corridors

33:50

and when the civilians said we got to get out

33:52

, we got to get out , hamas started

33:55

shooting at their own civilians . Stay

33:57

in place , go back . Stay in

33:59

place . It's like Stalingrad .

34:00

My God it is Stalingrad .

34:01

It is exactly like Stalingrad , except with Stalingrad

34:04

. They did it to the soldiers In Hamas

34:06

. They do it to their innocent civilians

34:08

, women and children and babies . I'm

34:11

told stay in place , because

34:13

the more civilian casualties that happen

34:15

, the more world opinion turns against Israel

34:18

and the media falls for

34:20

it .

34:20

Why is the legacy media falling

34:23

into this ? Anyways , but

34:25

let's return to that , but go on with your next

34:27

act .

34:28

And so just to complete the circle of this account

34:30

and I appreciate your indulging by laying out some

34:32

of these figures , it's really appreciated

34:34

. The United Nations itself

34:36

has stated that the typical

34:39

combatant to civilian like

34:41

how many combatants in any one population

34:43

get killed versus how many civilians

34:45

get killed at the same time in this uncomfortable

34:48

phrase , collateral damage Typically around

34:50

the world in urban warfare it's as much as

34:52

one to nine One combatant

34:55

for nine civilians getting killed in urban

34:57

warfare . The United

34:59

States did a lot better than that in Iraq . In Mosul

35:01

, iraq , one of our heavily fought urban battles

35:04

, the ratio was one combatant

35:06

to 2.5 civilians . Here's

35:09

what Israel is doing in Gaza , in

35:11

the most civilian-embedded military site

35:13

in world history . It's about 1 to

35:15

1.5 . And

35:18

all deaths , and all Gaza deaths

35:20

, are a tragedy .

35:33

And all deaths and all gods and deaths are a tragedy . But in the annals of

35:36

human history no army has come as close as Israel to protect civilians while

35:38

fighting an urban battle against a genocidal enemy . That's the

35:40

reality . As you say , centuries as to how profound that

35:42

is , Just

35:50

as a frame of reference , America absolutely made a furnace out of German cities in

35:52

World War II , literally a furnace out of some cities , and now we're

35:55

down to 1 to 1.2 . And

35:58

this is not covered . No

36:00

, no , it's not .

36:01

There have been some good Wall Street Journal

36:03

op-eds and a few good

36:05

Newsweek op-eds , particularly by Professor

36:08

Spencer from West Point , but it's

36:10

very little known out there . So

36:12

God bless your podcast . We're giving a forum

36:15

so people can maybe hear some of these

36:17

important facts .

36:18

And I hope everyone will share this . It's

36:32

so important , and I hope everyone

36:34

will share this . It's so important . Now , hank , one thing

36:36

you messaged me in our correspondence

36:38

leading up to this recording

36:40

was the incident IDF strategically bombed

36:43

his aid workers and I knew

36:45

right away that something

36:47

was amok here , and you've learned

36:49

what it is . Can you tell us ?

36:56

I can , yeah , and I rely on Caroline Glick . She is a formerly American

36:58

who emigrated to Israel many decades ago . Very bright woman

37:00

Just by her background and credentials . She was part

37:02

of the Israeli government's negotiating

37:05

team in the 1990s

37:07

with Yosia Arafat's Palestinian Authority

37:10

when they were trying to set up a two-state

37:12

, make progress toward a two-state deal and

37:14

a peaceful government among the Palestinians

37:17

to live in peace alongside Israel . She was

37:19

part of that whole negotiating team for years . She

37:21

comes from a very deeply

37:23

involved space in Israel-Palestinian

37:26

affairs . She's very clued in , so

37:29

she broadcast this and wrote

37:31

this . A few days ago she got

37:33

information through the IDF that

37:35

what actually happened on the ground was there

37:38

was this World Kitchen , I

37:40

think . World Chef Kitchen , wck

37:43

I think it was the honorable nonprofit

37:45

organization trying to get food aid into Gaza

37:47

and we should talk about that after this , because the

37:49

food aid false facts out there are

37:52

rather , very concerning . There's actually

37:54

been tremendous aid put in Anyways . So

37:56

World Kitchen , with this nice NGO bringing

37:58

food to Gazans in the war zone . There

38:01

was a convoy of World Kitchen

38:03

trucks but the Israeli soldiers

38:05

spotted a Hamas convoy of military

38:08

trucks , hamas trucks which

38:10

came and intercepted the World Convoy

38:12

trucks and what's been

38:14

determined is that one , omar

38:16

Hamasniks , actually hijacked

38:19

the World Food . They got onto the lead world

38:21

food kitchen truck , the aid groups truck

38:24

, and they started shooting in all directions

38:26

. Now why would a terrorist group hijack

38:28

an in vitro aid truck and start

38:31

shooting in all directions ? One thing that's

38:33

going to do is going to draw the attention of the opposing

38:35

side . Israel . We got a Hamas

38:37

guy shooting off this truck . What

38:39

are we going to do ? So ? Israel

38:41

, instead of shooting right then , when

38:43

Hamas had captured control

38:46

of the World Food NGO's truck , they

38:48

waited and watched and they

38:50

tried to phone call the World Food Kitchen

38:52

agency . They had numbers

38:55

, or got hold of numbers . They got cell

38:57

phones , apparently , of even the driver or the leader

38:59

of the World Food nonprofit's convoy

39:01

. There was no answer . Nobody

39:09

was picking up . Why would that happen in a war zone ? The belief is by then they were under the

39:11

Hamas guard , taken over the truck , the trucks , the Hamas trucks

39:13

and the World Food trucks then go into a hangar

39:15

somewhere in Gaza . This is all that Israeli

39:17

IDF folks spotted and saw . They go inside

39:19

a hangar . They're inside for a while and

39:22

then Israel's frantically trying to

39:24

call the nonprofit , and

39:26

they called their headquarters too . They couldn't reach

39:29

anyone in the headquarters say what's going on ? We

39:31

got Hamas , we got your trucks . We don't want to

39:33

hurt your guys , but we can't let Hamas do

39:35

this . A truck comes out of the

39:37

hangar . It looks like a Hamas

39:40

truck . Apparently it was one of the World

39:42

Food Kitchen trucks . That's the point at

39:44

which Israel fired because it's starting to come back

39:46

in that direction .

39:48

And they didn't know what was in that truck at

39:50

that time and who was in it .

39:52

Exactly because it had been in the hangar , it had been hijacked

39:54

by . Hamas , and so I

39:56

think the logical inference from

39:58

what I would call the circumstantial , with powerful evidences

40:01

Hamas set this up to

40:03

get Israel to fire on a

40:05

civilian truck , to do

40:07

public relations damage for Israel which

40:09

is exactly what happened . Once again , America fell

40:12

for the trap . The Biden administration publicly

40:15

displayed its fury about this . That probably explains

40:17

why he went to the open mic and

40:20

said I'm going to put the cuffs on Bibi

40:22

Netanyahu , and no uncertain terms . And

40:24

I think what's sad is this

40:26

is not new . This is not new

40:28

. There have been public relations falsehoods

40:31

distributed by these terrorist groups year

40:33

after year and a year out . Just so I'd

40:35

ask your listeners to Google the Mohammed

40:38

al-Dura A-L-D-U-R-A

40:40

affair , one of these claimed

40:42

Israeli firings on a Palestinian

40:44

boy , which is all set up , play , acted

40:46

and pre-scripted by the Palestinian leaders

40:49

to make Israel look like they kill babies , when in fact

40:51

it was all a lie . Bad things

40:53

happen in war and it's horrible , but the

40:55

public relations battle of which our leaders

40:58

remain unaware is a scandal

41:00

.

41:00

It is profound . The damage has already been done

41:03

with this story . Immediately following

41:05

the death of the food aid workers , it was

41:07

all over the mainstream news and

41:10

everyone thinks now that the IDF bombed

41:12

innocent food helpers . And

41:15

that's the story and this will never

41:17

make its way into the minds of Americans . Another

41:20

thing that I observed with

41:22

the food aid worker story as I was watching

41:25

it unfolding , I thought these

41:27

people I'm so sorry that they passed

41:29

away . It's horrible . But when

41:31

I watched the footage , they

41:33

were there like they were catering

41:36

some sort of football booster club

41:38

. If you look at the footage , they're

41:40

taking selfies . This

41:48

is imbecilic . This

41:50

doesn't happen in war zones . You can't

41:53

just take an Uber and deliver a

41:55

pizza in Gaza .

41:57

Yeah , that's very dangerous . That's why so many

41:59

journalists and aid workers have

42:01

lost their lives , and I

42:03

greatly respect anyone who wishes

42:06

knowing those facts to try to help , but

42:09

it's not clear always that

42:11

perhaps some folks don't fully understand what they're getting

42:13

into .

42:14

I just I don't think so . The broader psychosis

42:16

of the American and Western public has

42:18

to contextualize all of these things

42:21

that we're dialoguing about . Can you imagine if

42:23

, during the raid of Berlin

42:25

, the closing in of Berlin , if American

42:27

food workers were to say we're going to deliver

42:29

pizzas to the , to the Berliners

42:32

while you're bombing ? This is nuts .

42:34

That raises a really good question too

42:36

, which the great Hoover Institution

42:39

fellow , victor Davis Hanson , the great military

42:41

historian , has spoken to , and I'm sure you're familiar with this

42:43

too . Hanson has spoken . He said if

42:45

we had the mindset and media coverage

42:48

during World War II that folks

42:50

like America and Israel face today

42:52

, america would have had to

42:54

stop and let Hitler and

42:56

Imperial Japan take over . There's no

42:59

way that what was done in Dresden , as you

43:01

point out , in World War II , could have

43:03

happened without that kind of consequence

43:05

In today's media expectations

43:07

, environment , right .

43:09

The pure carnage of war was understood

43:11

. For people who are not aware of dresden

43:14

, it was a very upper class city

43:16

in germany that was the home

43:18

to many upper ranks and business people

43:20

and so forth . It was almost like the zurich of germany

43:23

thought to be immune from the tragedies

43:25

of war . The americans will never bomb dresden

43:27

, they don't have the gall for that

43:29

. And we incinerated it . Literally

43:32

nothing left , turned it to ash and

43:35

in one night people the few

43:37

survivors chronicled that people

43:40

were literally evaporated just

43:42

by standing in the city center . And

43:45

that's the war that we came from in World

43:47

War II . That's the wartime modality

43:50

. And now we somehow

43:52

expect that there is

43:54

this pure surgical

43:56

humanitarianism that unfolds

43:58

simultaneous to war . This is

44:00

not reasonable , this is irrational

44:02

, don't you think , hank ? I ?

44:04

do no war . In a sense

44:07

, it's when one goes to war . There's an aspect

44:09

of it where you peel back the

44:12

millennia-long layers of civilization

44:14

and do the most barbaric

44:17

things , and this is why I salute Israel

44:19

against those on the campuses who think

44:21

they're committing a genocide . Israel

44:23

is doing more than any country

44:26

in human history has done to avoid civilian

44:28

casualties in the most impossible

44:30

battlefield in which to do it . They're doing better than America

44:33

did in Iraq , better than America , britain , the

44:35

leading democracies and I would

44:37

ask those folks , supposing

44:39

the positions are reversed , supposing Hamas

44:42

had the F-35s , the

44:44

large caliber bombs and

44:46

so forth that Israel has , what

44:48

do you think they would do to Israel

44:50

? Like , maybe incinerate

44:53

it in a day and leave it a smoking

44:55

house for the next 10 millennia ? That's what

44:57

would happen . Iran has pledged this . You

44:59

know I'm going to diverge here just for a moment

45:01

if I may , because

45:04

I think people say what was the lesson of the Holocaust

45:06

? That's a popular question when

45:08

folks talk about these things . I

45:11

think one of the lead questions , the lead lessons

45:13

of the Holocaust , was when a leader

45:15

with the capacity to

45:18

possibly do this promises

45:20

and promises over again that

45:23

they're going to massacre and wipe out an

45:25

entire people . You have to

45:27

take them at their word . You can't just say it's

45:29

bluffing and it's positioning . You have to take

45:31

them at their word and assume that's

45:33

true and act accordingly

45:35

. The fact that Iran needs to

45:37

be disarmed yesterday because

45:39

Iran has been saying for well , for basically

45:41

since 1979 , we

45:44

are going to eradicate the cancer of the Middle

45:46

East called Israel . We will eliminate

45:48

the Jewish people there . We will finish

45:50

the job that Hitler started and didn't finish

45:52

. This is daily Iranian propaganda . This

45:54

is what they teach in their schools this horrific

45:56

regime . And now they're on the verge

45:58

of nuclear weapons . And , as we know

46:01

, this administration has refused to

46:03

enforce the sanctions that are still at law

46:05

in effect about Iran sanctions on their export

46:08

of oil , et cetera

46:10

, sanctions on their ability to

46:12

trade and participate in the dollar system

46:14

. Tens of billions of dollars

46:17

have been reopened to Iran since

46:19

2021 . As I

46:21

said , the last $10 billion spigot

46:23

opening is enough to pay Hezbollah's budget

46:25

for the next 13 years . If

46:29

you really believe in never again , you've

46:31

got to deal with Iran and we're not .

46:34

Hank , there's 4,000 trained Hamas

46:36

terror fighters remaining in Rafah

46:39

. There are some four remaining

46:41

battalions , as you've informed me

46:43

. Is Israel going to

46:45

be able to eradicate them ?

46:47

I believe there's no question . And it's interesting

46:49

because Israel was not

46:51

expected in many quarters to have

46:53

the success it's already had , taking out 20

46:56

out of 24 Hamas battalions . It's

46:58

too hard , it's urban warfare , they're embedded . And look

47:00

at that tunnel system . It is remarkable

47:03

what Israel has accomplished to get rid of a

47:05

massive terrorist army . I

47:07

think there's no question they can get rid of these 4,000

47:09

because Egypt's not going to let them flee into Egypt

47:12

. We know that , we've talked about that . The

47:14

question is and this goes

47:16

back to US diplomacy Israel

47:19

, in part thanks to US

47:21

pressure under the Obama administration , has

47:24

diminished its home-based

47:26

armaments industries , because

47:29

one of the conditions the Obama administration placed

47:31

on Israel for military

47:33

aid was you have to spend it in America

47:36

, not purchase it from Israeli armaments

47:38

companies . As a result , as

47:41

a lot of some Israeli armaments companies shut

47:43

down , in practical terms now Israel

47:45

does not have the capacity on its own to manufacture

47:48

howitzers , tank shells

47:50

, a lot of their bullets , a lot of their ammunition

47:53

. They have to get it from America . As

47:55

President Biden is threatening to cut off , the

47:57

flow he has up to now in

47:59

terms of supply has been very good . I

48:01

want to give him clear credit for that up till

48:03

now , but he's threatening to cut it off . You

48:06

probably saw that Nancy Pelosi and several

48:08

congresspeople are asking for an arms

48:10

embargo on American arms to Israel

48:12

. Now Canada has imposed it . The

48:14

Trudeau government has gone ahead and said we will not ship any more

48:16

to Israel . France is thinking

48:19

about it . They had a deputy prime minister who

48:21

lit into the government and said you can't do this . But

48:23

the Western world is on the precipice of turning

48:26

and shutting off Israel's access to arms at

48:28

a critical moment . This is probably

48:30

the thing of the balance . Netanyahu has said we

48:32

will go into Rafah because this is a never

48:35

again moment for Israel , and I think he's

48:37

right . But

48:43

what America does in the coming couple of months is critical , not only because of Rafah , which

48:45

I think Israel has enough to take care of that , but Hezbollah in the north 80,000

48:50

Israelis who live within a few miles

48:52

of the northern border of Lebanon . They're

48:54

now living in hotels . The government's paying

48:56

for this . Their lives are completely upended

48:58

. Where do the children go to school ?

49:00

How do they work ? We don't see any of this on the news .

49:02

No , the whole Israeli

49:04

northern population is now in exile within

49:06

Israel because of Hezbollah , which has a

49:08

force just like Hamas's right on the border

49:10

, ready to go . We know in

49:12

2006 , when the world pressured Israel

49:15

not to completely finish off Hezbollah during

49:17

that war that Hezbollah started , they

49:19

had about 16,000 missiles at the end of the war

49:21

. No , we're going to put UNIFIL , the

49:23

UN peacekeepers are going to go and send a limit

49:25

on . They will disarm Hezbollah and prevent

49:27

it from rearming . Back

49:31

in 2006 , they had 16,000 missiles . They now have 150,000

49:33

. Precision missiles , not like Hamas's inaccurate

49:36

missiles . These are precision missiles provided by

49:38

Iran . Part of that $700 million a year spending

49:40

in Hezbollah . It has become apparent

49:43

to many Israelis that they have to fully take out

49:45

Hezbollah , otherwise the northern part of the country

49:47

doesn't exist anymore . It doesn't exist

49:49

. You can't live there . So will

49:52

the West turn on Israel when

49:54

it finishes off Hamas against the West's

49:56

wishes and then turns to Hezbollah

49:58

? I think that is the big question in the next

50:00

few months . And once again , what breaks

50:02

my heart defeating Hezbollah

50:05

and Hamas is a great gift

50:07

to the Western free nations . They are the

50:09

leading edge of Iran's terror

50:11

dictatorship , which is in league with Russia and China

50:13

trying to undermine Western freedom . If

50:16

Israel has the wherewithal and capacity

50:18

and willingness to put their lives on the line en masse

50:20

to cut Hezbollah , why aren't we saying

50:23

bless you and thank you instead of cut off your arms

50:25

?

50:26

Why do American Jews vote for Democrats

50:29

?

50:30

The question my many non-Jewish

50:33

friends , dear folks ask me this question

50:35

and I wrestle with it . I'll try

50:37

to be not too long on this answer

50:39

. Time is running . I know Norman Podhoretz

50:42

, the former editor of Commentary , wrote a great book

50:44

why Are Jews Liberals , and

50:46

he does a lot of good work with the history . Jewish

50:49

culture , which in America

50:52

Jews are mostly from Europe , the Ashkenazi

50:54

Jews , not from the Middle East , the Sephardi Jews

50:56

, but mostly an Ashkenazi Jewish community in America

50:58

. We grew up under Europe

51:01

, european rulers , where it tended

51:03

to be people identified now

51:05

in today's parlance in the political right

51:07

the kings , the monarchies

51:10

, the Christian elites in

51:12

the European countries who shut the door

51:14

on Jews doing certain things joining

51:16

the professions owning land etc

51:19

. So Jews grew up with a

51:21

kind of European distrust

51:23

of old , old , blood and

51:25

soil monarchistic Christian

51:27

regimes and when they came to America

51:29

I think they took that mistrust with them and

51:32

I've actually written a couple of articles

51:34

and some publications about this . The

51:36

Holocaust , among its many other things

51:38

, reinforced that

51:40

kind of traumatic , almost PTSD

51:43

in the collective Jewish community

51:46

. People

51:48

forget it was the National .

51:50

Socialist .

51:51

Workers' Party . Nazi

51:53

was for socialista right . He

51:56

was a kind of blood and soil

51:58

socialist , basically , which gets pinned

52:00

on the right rather than the left Interesting right

52:02

. But the Holocaust

52:04

just reinforced what I call the collective

52:07

Jewish threat radar on the far right

52:09

and what it has done in my opinion

52:11

. I could be wrong , but I've published on this

52:14

. It's somewhat disabled , the

52:16

Jewish collective threat radar for

52:18

the far left , because Jews have a very communal

52:21

view of service to others , take care of

52:23

the poor , like the Christian view , the meek shall

52:25

inherit the earth . That's deep in Jewish theology

52:27

and culture as well , and

52:29

Jews tend to see the left because the left are the people

52:31

fighting against the exclusive overlords in Europe

52:33

. The left are saying let these people in , let

52:35

those people in . And in that sense they had a point , a

52:37

good point . Many Jews who

52:39

came to America were just naturally oriented

52:42

to that side . We have stayed in that

52:44

position and we haven't learned . We

52:46

haven't learned that right now , the main threat

52:48

to groups like the Jews and other groups and the

52:50

main threat to democracy , it

52:53

really comes from the illiberal left

52:55

. But we haven't yet reached that point . October

52:58

7th is beginning to be a turning point , but

53:00

we're slow to catch up .

53:01

I see this today and there are forces

53:03

acting against that transformation the

53:06

media forces , college campuses

53:08

and so forth . One would think that this

53:10

would be a turning point were it

53:12

not for those prophylactic measures

53:15

that forbear that kind of progress

53:17

. I wonder if there will

53:19

be any kind of shift measurable

53:22

in these upcoming election

53:24

cycles because this is a profound

53:27

event I imagine all

53:29

American Jews are thinking about this

53:31

have been impacted at least ideologically

53:34

and inside themselves , if not

53:36

directly , through loss of family members

53:38

in Israel . Do you think that this is

53:40

going to sway in some way the

53:42

Jewish vote in America . Dennis Prager says no

53:44

.

53:45

And I

53:48

think the question , as you say , is

53:50

will it swing open or will it

53:52

just slam shut again ? I can tell you a few anecdotal

53:54

things , and they're just anecdotal . I

53:57

have had conversations with a number of Jewish

53:59

friends and relatives and

54:01

for the first time in my life , a topic

54:04

of a conversation you never would have heard in

54:06

blue state America

54:08

Jewish communities is I think

54:10

I'm going to start taking firearms lessons . I

54:13

think I'm going to start taking firearms lessons . I think I'm going to get my gun license

54:15

. There are Jews out there talking that

54:17

kind of talk that they never used to talk before

54:19

, and that's because of the anti-Semitism

54:22

domestically that's happening . I

54:24

would submit this to , I think , one

54:26

of the what we call firewalls

54:29

that is blocking a

54:31

collective realization in the American

54:33

Jewish community that the

54:35

illiberal left is just more

54:37

than a dead end and they need to re-examine

54:40

those on the other side of that

54:42

aisle is Donald Trump and the Trump

54:44

phenomenon , and I say

54:46

this not wishing to get overly partisan

54:49

about this , but to say I

54:51

think if there was someone like a Mitt Romney

54:53

or a Nikki Haley sort of as

54:55

the front of the Republican

54:58

Party . I know many Jews who have

55:00

said I would vote for Nikki Haley , I would vote for

55:02

Mitt Romney and I've never voted for a Republican

55:04

before . But a lot of Jews are still

55:06

stuck on the Trump thing and I respect

55:09

that . Because of his rhetoric there

55:11

are some powerful and very

55:13

emotive reasons why one would not want to

55:15

vote for him , even though

55:17

I think a cool-headed policy

55:20

analysis would say that

55:22

he basically governs in

55:24

policy like a moderate Republican , like

55:26

Mitt Romney or Nikki Haley . You see him now

55:28

on abortion saying no , we're not

55:30

going to ban this . That's not the direction

55:32

we want to go the European compromise 15

55:35

, 16 , 20 weeks . That's where it's at . I

55:37

noticed what Nikki Haley was saying , and

55:39

I'm not defending or opposing . I'm

55:41

not going into that debate right now unless you wish to

55:43

, but I think that the Trump

55:45

phenomenon has been a

55:47

lock on Jews moving

55:50

away from the left .

55:51

Right , just one of the many reasons why his personality

55:53

is not some sort of superficial

55:55

, superfluous topic that is peripheral

55:59

. I should say that's the word , as many people

56:01

would say . It actually for better or for worse

56:03

in this case , for worse is turning

56:05

people away from embracing an

56:07

ideological standpoint that is in their interest

56:10

. Yes , you know you can call that stupid

56:12

on the part of the voters , but it is what

56:14

it is . It is happening

56:16

. I happen to agree with you . At the same time

56:18

, you're quite right . He , in terms of policy

56:20

, was a very moderate president and we

56:23

had the Abraham Accords in the Middle East and

56:25

one of the most substantial peace

56:27

measures in our lifetimes in the Middle East . And

56:30

now look at what we have .

56:35

All-out war , destabilizing the world itself . So if I could just say one point

56:38

on that and it's a learning process

56:40

I've been going through , I've been thinking about it for a

56:42

number of years from my work as a prosecutor but

56:45

and I wonder what you think of this too is that as

56:47

societies become wealthy

56:49

and secure , I think

56:51

one of the things that people easily

56:53

forget in policy discourse is

56:55

the permanent need for deterrence

56:58

against bad actors , whether

57:00

it's you see a parallel almost with defund the

57:02

police and paying

57:04

Israel and Gaza Step back . This

57:07

is too harsh . But there's

57:09

a great saying from the Jewish Talmud

57:11

. I've not done deep Talmud study , but

57:13

occasionally I see sayings that's

57:15

just their pearls of wisdom , and this one is to

57:18

be kind to the cruel is

57:20

to be cruel to the kind .

57:22

You know that you asked me what I think and

57:25

where I go with what you've brought up just now

57:27

is that , on the level of the individual

57:29

, what I often see as a clinical psychologist

57:32

is that when people achieve a position

57:34

of affluence to the extent that they

57:36

have no real material worries anymore

57:39

, they become in a sense passively

57:41

suicidal . Yes , they

57:44

will start drinking themselves to death . They

57:46

will actually exercise less

57:48

. People often think if I just didn't

57:50

have to work anymore , then I'd be in tip-top

57:53

shape and I would be super healthy , and so forth

57:55

. Yes , some people , but a trend that I tend to

57:57

see is that people become very self-indulgent

57:59

and actually passively suicidal . There's

58:02

something about achieving material

58:04

comfort that leads the

58:06

self and the psyche to then

58:08

focus on the banality of existence

58:11

and on the inherent conflicts

58:13

of what it means to be here

58:15

on earth . Otherwise , we're preoccupied

58:17

with the goings-on of everyday life

58:19

and the procurement of material

58:22

means to live and so forth . Once

58:24

those things are off the table , individuals

58:26

often become oddly

58:28

self-destructive . And it's

58:30

not too far of a leap to expand that

58:33

to the level of society and

58:35

say that the theme that you

58:38

brought up is we've achieved such

58:40

affluence and how is that affecting

58:42

our ability to attend to pragmatic

58:44

issues in the world ? I think very directly

58:46

. We are more ethereally

58:49

oriented now and

58:51

lack for the ability to take

58:53

things in our own hands . I think you're quite

58:56

right about that , hank .

58:57

What you just said is utterly fascinating

58:59

to me because you've basically stated

59:01

the introduction to my next book that I'm working

59:04

on . The title of it is the Great

59:06

Forgetting . How Prosperity

59:08

Corrodes Wisdom and Breeds Intellectual

59:10

Folly . And I'm reminded of something my

59:12

late father used to say my parents were both psychiatric

59:14

social workers and , yeah , good

59:16

people . And my dad used

59:19

to say , because he did a lot of

59:21

clinical counseling of people , he said at

59:24

some point . He said I've realized that some

59:26

level of anxiety is helpful

59:28

to make sure we remember

59:30

things and we're motivated . He said too little anxiety

59:32

can breed problems as much as too

59:35

much anxiety .

59:35

Sure , you don't study for an exam if you're not at least

59:37

partially worried that you're going to fail it . And

59:40

you would prepare for war if you thought

59:42

there was a chance of annihilation .

59:44

That's right , and that's what we

59:46

in the wealthy West have been at risk of

59:48

losing , just at a time

59:50

when we've achieved so much that we could do great good

59:52

things in the world .

59:54

No question about it . You know , an interesting observation

59:58

of warring societies is that

1:00:00

when people start to venture toward

1:00:02

war , men's haircuts get

1:00:04

shorter . And it's

1:00:07

true . This has been observed , actually , the studies

1:00:09

have come out of Israel . When they're in peacetime

1:00:11

, people become looser

1:00:13

, they become more relaxed , they have

1:00:15

odd haircuts , they engage

1:00:18

in social experimental ideas

1:00:20

, but when the going gets tough , everyone

1:00:23

reverts to their traditional roles

1:00:25

. Fascinating , I

1:00:27

think it is . I think it represents

1:00:29

the preservation of

1:00:31

unconscious wisdom that we

1:00:33

do have pillars of knowledge upon

1:00:36

which to fall back and

1:00:38

we don't actually , as humans , believe

1:00:41

the newfangled social theories

1:00:43

that were always sprouting these

1:00:46

days , it seems from the liberal left , as you

1:00:48

put it , we don't actually believe

1:00:50

that . As you put it , we don't actually believe that , ensconced in our

1:00:52

genes , our genetic wisdom , is

1:00:59

the preservation of what we really know , which is , when the going gets tough , you

1:01:01

have to be tough and you have to revert back to what really works . We see that

1:01:03

in actual empirical studies . One would have

1:01:05

thought that 9-11 would have done

1:01:08

away with our illusions of imperviousness

1:01:11

, but it doesn't seem to have

1:01:13

, which is quite a statement .

1:01:16

That's going to be . I've been

1:01:18

debating whether to put the 9-11 concept

1:01:20

into the book , but I do believe

1:01:23

a major contributor to this is

1:01:25

something that never existed

1:01:27

before advanced industrial society , which

1:01:30

is a very large quantity of

1:01:32

influential people who engage purely

1:01:34

in what we would call intellectual work as opposed

1:01:36

to more practical work . I mean

1:01:38

, one of the points on the book I'm going to make is these

1:01:41

things that you're describing have

1:01:43

more to do with the sociology and

1:01:45

functioning of intellectuals who tend

1:01:47

to be separated from the

1:01:49

day-to-day . Nicholas Nassim Taleb

1:01:51

, the writer , points out cobblers , bakers

1:01:54

, taxi drivers , dentists

1:01:57

they make a mistake , they're

1:01:59

going to know it , they're going to hear about

1:02:01

it right away and they're going to pay the cost

1:02:03

of it . But intellectuals

1:02:05

who tend to function in the world of idea

1:02:07

promotion , that their product is ideas journalists

1:02:10

, lawyers , to some extent think tankers

1:02:13

they very rarely pay

1:02:15

an adverse consequence for promoting horrifically

1:02:17

destructive ideas . Other people bear the

1:02:19

price Defund the police , for instance

1:02:21

. Who pays the price ? Low-income , minority neighborhoods

1:02:24

. And so it's that lack of skin

1:02:26

in the game which takes us away from

1:02:28

the anxiety about producing and doing

1:02:30

right . That's a major part

1:02:32

of what I'll be writing about .

1:02:34

I can't wait to read your book . I hope you include

1:02:36

some sort of analysis on the fact that we

1:02:38

are now psychotically leaving

1:02:41

our southern border open with terrorists

1:02:43

coming across , and we've forgotten about 9-11

1:02:45

, apparently we lost 3,000 Americans

1:02:47

on one day and we're now letting terrorists

1:02:49

walk across our border . People

1:02:52

think I'm making that up . Just dig around a little

1:02:54

bit . It's not hard to find these figures .

1:02:55

No , you're right . In fact I have summed this up

1:02:57

in family and friend conversations

1:03:00

is the irony is just comes

1:03:02

to mind when you think the United States

1:03:04

would not let the world's greatest professional

1:03:06

tennis player into our borders , djokovic

1:03:09

, because he refused to get a vaccination

1:03:11

for COVID . As if , 30

1:03:14

feet away from the line official , 100

1:03:16

feet away from the audience , he's likely to sneeze

1:03:18

and infect them with COVID while he's playing

1:03:20

tennis right at the US Open or whatever . We

1:03:23

did this because we can't let unvaccinated

1:03:25

, unvetted people across our border . There

1:03:28

are millions streaming across

1:03:30

the southern border with no vaccinations

1:03:33

, no vetting . We're reading about tuberculosis

1:03:35

outbreaks in Chicago now because

1:03:38

of this , and I won't mention

1:03:40

names . But someone I know in the Yale health

1:03:42

system revised me a which

1:03:44

said these certain diseases tuberculosis and

1:03:46

other

1:03:53

diseases which we haven't seen in outbreaks

1:03:55

in America in decades , please

1:03:57

be on the watch and please make sure to report them . Now

1:04:00

. There's only one possible reason for that caution

1:04:02

, which is unfettered people and vaccinated

1:04:04

people coming across the border in vast numbers

1:04:06

bringing , sadly , these pathogens

1:04:09

with them , but nobody wants to talk about that

1:04:11

.

1:04:12

Well , no , you can't do that , because that would be somehow

1:04:14

anti-diversity and

1:04:16

so on . One could make the claim

1:04:18

that we become so insane that

1:04:20

it's just a matter of time until this

1:04:22

American experiment disintegrates . But

1:04:24

that's a much broader issue . I hope it doesn't

1:04:26

happen . But look at how we're coming

1:04:29

apart . We have one of my recent

1:04:31

episodes had to do with 50%

1:04:34

female cadet forces in the police , whereas

1:04:37

they are absolutely physically unable

1:04:39

to do the job on a physical beat

1:04:41

. I'm not saying they can't be part of the police force

1:04:43

, but absolutely there's no ethical

1:04:46

argument for putting a weak

1:04:48

cop who cannot defend herself with

1:04:50

another male officer as her partner

1:04:53

. That's unethical , immoral toward the

1:04:55

male officer and toward the general public

1:04:57

.

1:04:57

That's not controversial to say if you're observing reality

1:05:00

, no , and toward herself , and

1:05:02

I've worked with some fantastic female

1:05:04

FBI agents , police officers

1:05:06

, in fact one of them , she was

1:05:08

testifying in a firearms possession trial

1:05:10

in Washington DC and

1:05:12

she and her partner , her male partner and

1:05:14

the defense lawyer said to the male partner what

1:05:17

happened after the defendant fled . He said my partner

1:05:19

Officer Norma .

1:05:20

Horan went after him .

1:05:21

He said why didn't you go after Officer Frederick

1:05:24

? Because Officer Horan's a better runner than me

1:05:26

. That's why .

1:05:27

Look , we have to be fit on

1:05:29

either side of the sex divide

1:05:31

there . But the idea that that's a good

1:05:33

idea to make , say , in San Diego , half

1:05:36

of the police department active beat

1:05:38

cops women by

1:05:41

decree is insane . I'm just using

1:05:43

this as a point of insanity . And then we

1:05:45

have the border issue . That's completely insane

1:05:47

. We have our chairman of the Joint

1:05:50

Chiefs , mark Milley , who has said

1:05:52

that the greatest threat to the American military

1:05:54

is white rage . Right , it's

1:05:56

not China , it's not Russia , it's

1:05:58

not the fact that we have a 60% reduction

1:06:01

in the core group of people who die at twice

1:06:03

their rates in the population . Right , that's called

1:06:05

white men . By the way , nobody talks

1:06:07

about the fact that they die at twice their rates

1:06:09

of the population . Correct , they are the

1:06:11

highest dyers in the military

1:06:14

and they are no longer enlisting

1:06:16

. No one's talking about that . No

1:06:18

, he says that white rage is the biggest

1:06:21

problem facing the United States military . We

1:06:23

have if on the police movement sorry to keep

1:06:25

on a roll here , but where we are basically

1:06:27

unpoliced in America now 60%

1:06:30

reduction . We've only recovered a fraction

1:06:32

of that going across the nation . Why

1:06:34

would we think that a country who believes that these

1:06:37

things are profitable would

1:06:39

be able to cohesively and

1:06:41

non-psychotically assist

1:06:43

a neighboring or allying nation in

1:06:45

the prosecution of a war ?

1:06:47

Yeah , and I think the real root cause

1:06:49

of this is stemming

1:06:52

from the phenomena we've just been discussing

1:06:54

of how one loses the thread in

1:06:56

very secure , comfortable circumstances

1:06:59

. But the core , I think

1:07:01

it's emanating from our universities and education

1:07:03

sector , because they're most prone

1:07:05

to those very forgettings of

1:07:07

sort of conventional and important

1:07:10

wisdom that doesn't go away , much as people

1:07:12

might wish it away . And our

1:07:14

universities now , as

1:07:16

some distinguished people have since retired from

1:07:18

the teaching profession , have said they no longer teach military

1:07:21

history . They rarely teach geo strategy

1:07:23

. The police are

1:07:25

far too often stereotyped for what

1:07:27

they are not . I saw this

1:07:29

as a student at University of Pennsylvania

1:07:31

Law School , even in the 1980s , when

1:07:34

the idea of going into prosecution

1:07:36

was viewed as something rather suspect and

1:07:38

not right , and whereas

1:07:40

it seems to me that the people

1:07:43

most in need of things like good

1:07:45

ethical prosecutors and police officers are

1:07:47

people in lower income communities where

1:07:50

the crime rates tend to be higher and

1:07:52

where people are more at risk . If you really

1:07:55

can care about so-called equity , you want

1:07:57

good law enforcement , ethical , good and firm

1:07:59

law enforcement .

1:08:00

But that gets lost , and the survey data in

1:08:02

those neighborhoods show that they want what you just stated

1:08:04

. Actually , it's 80% . They

1:08:07

want more cops in those areas , as

1:08:10

anybody would if they were at risk

1:08:12

. It's only the do-gooding people

1:08:14

in academia who think that it's a good idea

1:08:16

to pull law enforcement out of high crime

1:08:18

areas . That's correct .

1:08:20

Oh , we could go all day .

1:08:21

Hank , so good to have you on

1:08:23

. Thanks for talking to us about the war

1:08:25

in Israel and Gaza , and we hope

1:08:27

you'll come back .

1:08:33

Always happy to do so . I hope there's not a need for me to come back and that we see a piece

1:08:35

emerge , but my own take is to see the piece emerge . Some hard things

1:08:37

have to be done . And the question is are our

1:08:39

leaders up to those hard things ? I hope

1:08:42

so , but I worry .

1:08:44

Thank you , hank , take care Bye

1:08:46

for now . Thanks .