The radical fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Book Show. Hey everybody, welcome to Iran Book Show and this Wednesday evening. A little unusual time for the Iran Book Show. Usually we choose a Thursday, but tapped to changing situations and tomorrow is busy, so we shift to today, so thanks for joining me. Really appreciate it. Hope your week is going fantastically well. We've got Catherine. Catherine hasn't been around for a long time. I don't know where she's been, but Catherine is here and Catherine will primarily help with the Super Chat and try to get you guys interested in asking questions and using the Super Chat to get us there. Today's show is a sponsored show. It was sponsored by Arnon Rosenthal and Reenad Goen, both Israeli names from the Bay Area. They basically sent me a bunch of questions about Israel that I think constitute a nice framework for a show. We're going to cover some of the history, moral legitimacy, political legitimacy. We'll talk about the state of Israel today, the state of Israel vis-à-vis things like the West Bank. We'll also look at the trajectory for the future and maybe even try to come up with a good constitution for the state of Israel, which is not an easy task. Israel you might not know does not have a constitution, has struggled with trying to come up with a constitution since really the beginning of Israel since its birth and too many conflicting interests in order to establish that kind of constitution. A lot to cover and of course taking your questions, any questions you have but make sure they're in the Super Chat. I'll be covering questions on anything of course related to Israel and I'll do those first. Of course it's a regular Iran book show so you can ask questions about anything. Use the Super Chat feature below and ask away. We'll see how popular or interesting this topic is to my typical Iran book show listeners. One of the questions that always comes up in the context of a discussion of Israel in the historical context is why? Why have a state of Israel? Why was Israel created? Why was Israel established as a state? And was it legitimate? That is, was there a legitimate reason to found a state called Israel? And then we can talk about the terms under which it was founded and if those are legitimate. But is there a legitimacy to founding a state, a moral justification for establishing states and then specifically moral justification or any kind of other justification, founding a Jewish state and what that actually means. So I think here it's important to really look at history and look at the circumstances around the founding of the state of Israel and the circumstances around the advocacy of the founding of it and then its actual founding. So, you know, it's impossible to talk about Israel without talking about the Jewish people, whatever that means. But the Jewish people are people who self-identify or really who have in more modern times, not modern times, who come from a lineage through the mother which is Jewish and it practice certain traditions and practice certain religious ceremonies as religion or as tradition. They are Jews all over the world. They are Jews from Northern Africa. They are Jews from the Middle East. They are Jews from Asia. Eastern Asia even. They are Jews from Europe and these again people who associate with particular beliefs with a particular religious tradition and even when secular, these are people who've held that tradition and then people who, even if they don't hold the tradition, even if they've rejected every aspect of this, these are people who the external world views as Jews whether they want to be viewed as Jews or not. That is, you know, we'll get to this but certainly the original Zionists do not consider themselves Jewish when they have nothing to do with kind of a Jewish quote identity. But we're labeled as such by the external world. That is, the external world labeled them as Jews whether they wanted it or not. So Jews are those people in all those categories and they come in a variety of different skin colors. They come in a variety of different so-called ethnic groups. They come in a variety of different political and ideological frameworks. You know, they're religiously either Jewish or secular. I don't think you can be, I don't think anybody categorizes themselves as Christian and Jewish. Judaism fundamentally comes from a religious association. But secular people associate with the, again, with the history, tradition, and culture that that particular, you know, that particular group has established. So as you know, millions of Jews were living in Europe in the 19th century. I don't know how much you know about Jewish history but Jews were, Jews as a group of people who identified as Jews were persecuted throughout the Middle Ages, throughout the Dark Ages and all the way up until today. They, groups of them moved across Europe to places that were safer and away from places they were being killed. There was a period in which Poland was very friendly towards Jews. Not so much later in the 20th century but certainly hundreds of years earlier. That's why many Jews moved to Poland and into western parts of Russia and into Ukraine, Belarus. All those places were populated by really hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of Jews up into the Baltics, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. Almost 75% of my grandparents were born in Lithuania, Latvia, that kind of that area in small villages in that part of the world. Anyway, Jews had been, you know, systematically persecuted throughout the ages. They'd been killed, slaughtered, butchered. They'd been kicked out of countries. So for 200 years there were no Jews in England. There was a law in England that prohibited Jews from being in. So whether you think they're such a thing as a Jew or not, English certainly did under Queen Elizabeth I. There were no Jews when Shakespeare, when Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice and his famous character of Shylock, there were no Jews in England. Shakespeare had never met a Jew.  All right, so within the 19th century there's a lot of anti-Semitism. But what's unique about the 19th century is the first time really in history Jews are trying to assimilate and Jews are being led to assimilate. Jews are becoming part of Western culture. They abandon the designation of Jewish. They dress like everybody else. They speak like everybody else. They want to multitude of professions as Europe is liberalizing and is getting away from kind of a religious or ethnic, whatever you want to call it, basis for assigning jobs and assigning locations to live. The ghettos, some of the ghettos at least, are falling apart. Jews are allowed for the first time to live among Gentiles, among non-Jews. Again, I don't know how much you know about this, but for much of that history Jews live separately. Jews live separately now because they want to, but Jews live separately because they're forced to live separately. They're identified by the authorities as Jews. Again, whether they want to or not, whether they like it or not, they would literally have to convert to Christianity to escape that identification. And they usually assigned a particular area in the city, often a ghetto, which was surrounded by walls and locked at night so they couldn't get out at night. And that's where they had to live separate from everybody else so that they do not contaminate the lives of the non-Jews. But this is falling apart. Enlightenment values, the liberalism of the 19th century, the classical liberalism of the 19th century really all over Europe is slowly making that fall apart and many Jews assimilate and they become just like their Christian neighbors and they get jobs, normal jobs, and they serve in the military, they become journalists, they become doctors, lawyers, politicians, really in every field. They become a part of the world around them. And yet, there is still anti-Semitism deep down but many of these Jews try to reject that and deny that and hope that by rejecting it, deny it, by living life among the non-Jews as regular citizens, the whole thing will just go away. The whole issue of anti-Semitism, the whole issue will just disappear. And then, you know, in the late 19th century there is a very famous trial in France. France is one of the more liberal places, one of the more places where Jews feel like they assimilate and they will not be persecuted and they are going to be part of society. And there is a senior commander in the French army by the name of Dreyfus. And the senior commander in the French army is Jewish and, you know, he serves the French states and he is loyal to the French state and he cares nothing about being Jewish, his Jewish ness or whatever you want to call it.  And during the trial it becomes very evident that he is accused of treason and is being tried for treason, not because he is guilty, but it's clear that he's not, but because he is a Jew and he as a Jew is the scapegoat of the authorities, of the authorities. Many European Jews observe this. He is found guilty. They observe this in horror. Because basically this serves as evidence proof that as much as they want to assimilate, they will not be allowed to do so. They will always be viewed as the other. They will always be viewed as a foreign element within these societies. And as such, they will always be persecuted. So the French, whatever the hell that means to be French, what does it mean to be French? Well, to happen to be bored within the borders of what's defined as France, to be French is to be French that's fine unless you're also Jewish. And if you're also Jewish, you're likely to be persecuted for being Jewish. And again, it doesn't matter how you call yourself. It doesn't matter how you consider yourself. It's what the French, your neighbors, think of you. And this is the context in which the Zionist movement is really not so much founded because Zionism, the idea of establishing a state for the Jewish people, in particular in what was ancient Israel, was always around. But this is where the Zionist movement gets energy, really gets energy. Theodor Herzl, who is the founder of this new Zionist movement, is a journalist from Vienna who is a completely assimilated Jew, is not religious, is completely secular, quite a liberal in a positive sense, a classical liberal, a fan of markets, of individual rights, of relative individual freedom, and just considers himself an Austrian. He works for a main Austrian newspaper, but he is sent to Paris to cover the Dreyfus Trial, and during the Dreyfus Trial he has an epiphany, and that epiphany is, Jews will never be safe in Europe. The more Europe becomes nationalist, and remember, nation states in Europe is a 19th century phenomena, the more Europe becomes nationalist, he believes, the more Europeans will reject Jews. And he writes a famous pamphlet in which... Whoops, what did I do? One second, sorry. Oh, there it is, okay. He writes a famous pamphlet in which he basically sets. The pamphlet is called The Jewish State, in which he says, look, if we stay in Europe, Jews, stay in Europe, we will be slaughtered.  There's no reason to believe this will ever end. If France, the most liberal of all European societies, is willing to do to Dreyfus what they did, there is no end to what other countries will do. Some countries are much worse, some countries are much less liberal. This is also a period in which there are pogroms, pogroms are massacres, going on in Eastern Europe, primarily in Russia, Ukraine, Ukrainians, part of it, Russians are part of it in the Baltic states. And he says, look, there is no alternative. If we want to defend ourselves as individuals, then we have no choice but to group together in that defense. We cannot survive as individuals in these European states. And as a consequence, as a consequence, he says the only solution is to establish the state of their own, just like ultimately the Czechs have a Czech state, the Slovaks have a Slovak state, the Slovenians have a Slovenian state, the Montenegroans have a Montenegroan state, every tribe has its own state. The Jewish tribe, if you want to call it a tribe, needs its own state, not because it cannot assimilate, not because it wouldn't be great to assimilate, not because, you know, tribalism, statism is some kind of ideal, but because if they don't establish their own state, they will be eliminated. And of course, he is predicting the Holocaust 50 years before it happens, which is pretty amazing. I mean, he published this in 1896, you know, 40 years later, 1936, when he started the beginning of what would become the Holocaust. So 40 years early, he's predicting it. For this purpose, he establishes a Congress, they come together in order to, and they are now dedicated to trying to convince their powers, because the world in that point is still run by powers, empires, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire. They try to convince the powers to be, to allow for the creation of a Jewish state with the emphasis on trying to establish it in Israel. They attempt to go to the Ottoman Empire. Remember Israel at the time, the land that is Israel today, at the time was occupied by the Ottomans. They had occupied it since the beginning of the Ottoman Empire, which is, I don't know, 900 A.D.? Well, maybe later than that. Maybe 1100 A.D.? Anyway, they've occupied it before it was occupied by the Ottomans. It was occupied by various Arab powers in the area, where the Arab Empire established out of Iraq, or whether it was the Byzantines. It's always been occupied territory since really, since Roman times. So they go to the Ottomans and they say, hey, there's this land, very few people live there, which is true, very few people lived in what is today Israel. And it was swamp land. It was deserted. There was Jerusalem. There was no Tel Aviv at that point. There were out of villages all over the place. There was some agriculture. There'd always been Jews there. So Jews always lived there in one way or another. And they had started a migration of Jews from Europe and from Asia, for example, Uzbekistan into different areas outside of Jerusalem and other areas of Israel. All through the 19th century, there had been immigration. They went to Ottomans and said, look, would you be willing to carve out this piece of land? Nobody really wants it. It's kind of swampy and horrible. Would you be willing to carve it out and give it to us so we can establish our own country, just like any one of these other tribes has their own country? And the Ottomans basically said no. So then they went to the British and they said, hey, if you ever conquered this piece of land, would you be willing one day after you've conquered it to carve out a little piece of it and give it to us as a state? And the British said, come back to us later. And basically once they did conquer it, they conquered the Middle East, the British conquered the Middle East in 1917 during World War I when the Ottoman Empire joined in with the Germans. And so when the British took it, there was something called the Balfour Declaration. The Balfour Declaration basically said, look, we are carving out this area, what was called Palestine at the time. This area, we're carving out this area of Palestine and we are going to secure it as a state for the Jews. And the Jews can migrate there and they can establish a state. Now from the beginning, from day one. Now, was it a legitimate request? Let's ask ourselves, is this a legitimate request? And then on this basis, just on this, is it a legitimate request for a group of people to, in an effort to defend themselves against massacre and holocaust and destruction, to come together and establish a state, particularly in an area that is not very occupied and we'll get to what the Jews actually did there. And the answer is yes. The world is not an objective utopia.  He doesn't know what he's talking about. He has no clue what Iron Man said he didn't say. He just, he is, you know, based on comments in the past, not favorably disposed to Jews. So just ignore him. I think he is clueless. I generally suggest just ignoring him. I think that is the best policy. So don't engage is my point. I'm not going to block him, because I only block people who are really out there. But I, you know, and, you know, you guys are free to listen to his gibberish and free to engage with him. If you want, I just recommend based on his appearance on other shows that it is a massive waste of time. Anyway, once again, so I think it is wrong. It is legitimate to group together and to defend oneself. And we'll get to modern Israel in a minute. All right, so Jews start emigrating to what is Palestine. They start doing it during the reign of the Ottoman Empire after the 1905 Russian Revolution failed. A lot of Russian Jews moved to what was then Palestine. Jews throughout this period are moving in. The British, when they occupied initially are very favorably inclined towards Jewish migration into Palestine, and they do indeed move in by the thousands. We're not talking about millions, but most Jews, most European Jews, some of them try to get to the United States, which is I think the best destination they could have chosen. And many of them do. But starting in 1922, the United States has basically blocked. It blocks immigration in completely. It blocks Jewish immigration, and there is no path to enter the United States. Many of them go other places. They go, some go to Australia. It turns out a lot of Jews went to South Africa. My ancestors all went to South Africa. Many of the... Almost all South African Jews come from Lithuania a lot via that area. So many of them go to South Africa. They basically leave Europe. Many of them come to Britain. Britain becomes a place that is far friendlier to Jews than is mainland Europe. But most Jews, the reality is most Jews, millions and millions and millions of Jews, I think something like 10 to 12 million Jews, stay in Europe. And they stay in Europe, and now there's this migration into Palestine. During this migration, what do the Jews do? They're bringing Western values with them when they come to Palestine. So what is that? They're hardworking. They dry the swamps. They create massive agricultural institutions and businesses. They build industry. They build a power supply. Some of it is done by the British, but much of it is done by these new immigrants in Palestine. They create a country as part of this while this is happening. They're creating jobs. They're creating opportunities. They're creating fertile land. And as a consequence of that, Arabs from other countries around what it is today as well start migrating in because of opportunities and jobs. And indeed, the Arab population skyrockets. They do more than that. They build hospitals. And because they build hospitals and they're being inductors and nurses life expectancy goes up. Life expectancy goes up not just among the Jewish population, but it goes up among the Arab population. So generally what the Jews do, and this is, I think, really the moral basis for their settlement in Israel is that they create a thriving place. They build something. They bring civilization. As Ayn Rand said, they bring civilization to Godforsaken primitive barbaric place. And this becomes also a magnet for more Jews to come. A lot of this is being subsidized by a lot of this migration is being subsidized by wealthy Jews in Europe, the Rothschilds and others who invest heavily in buying land. They go to the Arab owners of land and they buy it. They buy it during the Ottoman Empire. They buy it during the British rule. But what is interesting and what is really important for later modern Israel is the fact that during this entire period the Arabs, they object to this. In spite of the improvements, in spite of the civilizing fact that is involved, the Arabs object and they use violence in order to try to kick the Jews out, to try to kill them and slaughter them, and there's constant violence. It erupts in particular times. I mean, one of my grandfathers was there and injured before he went to South Africa. He was injured in one of the uprisings. And during this period from 1917 till 1945 the British also split. On the one hand, they promised to establish this Jewish state. On the other hand, they have this opportunity. They have this opportunity to establish relations with the Arabs. They're ruling vast Arab populations because, again, this is what they inherited from World War I and their victory over the Ottomans. They have huge amount of... They're basically occupying Egypt. They're occupying Saudi Arabia. They're occupying Jordan. They're occupying what today's Jordan, Iraq, Syria. And, yes, they split it up and they create all these countries, but they want good relationships there. And then, of course, oil is discovered in these places and they certainly want relationships. Lines of Arabia is very friendly towards the Arab population and the British have good relationships there. So they're torn between trying to manage good relations with the Arabs who are much more numerous and much more important, ultimately, for the British. And their promise to establish this Jewish state and as part of that promise, as part of this conflict that they have, their promise to establish a Jewish state shrinks. That is the size of the state they promise, shrinks and shrinks and shrinks and shrinks. In 1947, the United Nations, basically the British state, look, we've got this piece of land in the Middle East. We've got a mandate to take care of it that was given to us by the League of Nations. We don't know what to do with it. We promised it to these guys, but these guys also wanted, basically a war going on there. Both sides wanted, the Arabs wanted, the Jews wanted, what do we do with this? So they take it to the United Nations and the United Nations basically votes to establish two states on this little piece of land. To establish a Jewish state and to establish a Palestinian state an Arab state, side by side. Much, much smaller than modern Israel but maybe not half the size but maybe two thirds the size of modern Israel. Jerusalem is going to be an international city not represented by either side and but there will be a Jewish state and it's going to be tiny and there will be this Arab state and Jerusalem is an international city not the capital of Israel. The next day or that night Jews go out and celebrate. I mean there are parties everywhere. In Israel. Now remember this is post holocaust six million Jews six million Jews slaughtered in Europe in the Holocaust and it doesn't matter the Jews who were killed it didn't matter if they considered themselves Jews it didn't matter if they were religious it didn't matter if you know if where they lived it didn't matter if they had friends in high places it didn't matter none of these things matters.  You went to the concentration camps you were slaughtered so Hurtzel's prediction about what would happen to the Jews if they stayed in Europe came true and as a consequence there was more urgency to establish the state of Israel because they'd just seen it actually happening in 1947 as we said United Nations splits the two into two countries Jews celebrate again I don't believe there's any kind of characteristic of a Jew although genetically you can identify you know strong lineages to particular people historically but even there Jews from different parts of Europe have very different lineages Jews from Northern Africa Jews from Jews from Asia Jews from Yemen or Jews from Ethiopia all have all have different lineages there is no one genetic makeup there's no way to identify a Jew other than self-identification or the fact that the authorities stamp it in your passport anyway in 1947 the Jews celebrate Arabs launch attacks the next day they start fighting they do not agree to the separation to establish two states this is a pattern that will repeat itself throughout history and they fight and that fight continues until May of 1948 the British have announced that they are leaving no matter what they are walking away May 14th 1948 a group a group of Israeli Jewish politicians establish declare the establishment of the state of Israel on that day armies of seven Arab countries invade to support the local Palestinians they try to wipe out the Jewish population there and try to wipe out any hope of a Jewish state in that area you know the Jews there fight back and they win and they establish a state and I guess the rest is history so as a model for them to establish a state yes it's an act of self defense America was closed very few places around the world where you thought where you could secure your liberty or your freedom even in the United States in the early part of the 20th century anti-Semitism was rampant but anti-Semitism in Europe was deadly we saw it manifest we saw it manifest itself in in the holocaust and in the pogroms that preceded the holocaust Jews stayed in Europe were killed we know exactly what happened to them they needed to find a way to defend themselves and one way to defend ourselves is to say okay all the people persecuted right now let's get together and defend ourselves together because we are being persecuted whether you agree or disagree if the categorization of a Jewish people whether you think it's a tribe whether you think it's an ethnic group whether you think it's a religion it doesn't matter they're coming to kill us we are going to defend ourselves and that fundamentally is the model justification established the state but that's not enough then the question is what kind of state are you establishing if the Jews has established a theocracy then it would have not been legitimate dictatorship then what would have not been legitimate and not being legitimate because they would be violating their own people just like the Europeans were violating their people's rights they would be violating their own people's rights and dictatorship period do not have legitimacy the Russian government is not a legitimate government the Saudi government is not a legitimate government the government of China is not a legitimate government you gain legitimacy from the protection of your own people's rights but Israel is unique in that is the one country that I know of that was established in order to protect people who are being killed elsewhere people are being discriminated against people who are who are being murdered in mass so that is the model justification of Israel it's a model justification of establishing a quote Jewish state it's a state where Jews can go and defend themselves it's a state where Jews can go and always escape anti-Semitism that is prevalent in the world and at least certainly in the 1940s was was deadly and again self defense self defense you know is the justification here and I think self defense is a legitimate legitimate justification now is Israel in that sense an ideal state no in an ideal world would Israel exist no in a world in which there was no anti-Semitism should Israel exist as a Jewish state no now Israel is obviously not a lesbic capitalist free state so what makes it legitimate given that it's not it's what makes any state that's not laissez-fait perfect state legitimate it's a some basic fundamental respect for the rights of its citizens what does that entail? respect for free speech which Israel for the most part has at the same level as any European country respect for property which Israel again has at about the same level as every European American government respect for elections that is the ability to replace your government to change your government to choose your government a respect for you know not having political prisoners allowing for political disagreement Israel qualifies I think by those standards Israel is a free legitimate state so the first question and this has been a long answer was was there a more justification of the creation of Jewish state or is the concept fundamentally more there was a more justification absolutely is there a justification to keep Israel as a Jewish state now given a widespread anti-semitism if so how should it look like if not will Jewish people be protected so yes I think there is a justification to keep a Jewish as long as there is anti-semitism in the world and as long as that anti-semitism is endorsed by significant people around the world and as long as there is a real objective legitimate threat then Israel I think should and could maintain itself as a state that is a refuge for those people now that undermines its ability to be an ideal place and it cannot be an ideal place as long as the world continues to have anti-semitism now what does that mean what does that mean practically Israel is a Jewish state I think it means only one thing that is Israel is an ideal would be a state with equal rights for all the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for everybody whether you're Jewish whether you're Christian whether you're Muslim as long as you're a law-abiding equality before the law rights should be protected it should be a completely 100% secular state there should be no role for any religion in the state the only only aspect in which the state should be quote Jewish in its immigration policies in no other area that is in its immigration policies it should give preference to people from Jewish descent and many of them are going to be self-declared Jews that don't come from Jewish descent and that's fine I mean many of the Russians who emigrated to Israel in the 1990s are not Jewish by any kind of any kind of classification other than they declared themselves to be Jewish and they may be forged some papers they will let in it's fine particularly as long as Israel is in a state of war which I think it is it needs to make sure that anybody who emigrates into the state of Israel is not going to be on the other side is not dedicated or is not interested in or doesn't have an motive to destroy the state of Israel so again the only sense I think Christians and most of them should be allowed to serve in the military they should be treated 100% as Israeli citizens I don't think there should be conscription in Israel it should be a volunteer army that should accept all volunteers based on the standards of a professional army but there should be 100% equal rights there should be no sense in which the state is Jewish except as a escape valve in a place where Jews can escape too and not be persecuted but that doesn't apply to the U.S because the U.S is an escape valve for persecuted people all over the world no matter what color skin they have no matter what ethnic groups they are that is the beauty and that is what's unique about America what's unique about America is it's not ethnocentric what's unique about America and why America is a much better country and much closer to the ideal than Israel is that it is not ethnocentric it is not centered around a tribe it is the place where anybody from any tribe can escape to in order to in order to escape persecution so this category doesn't apply to the United States it's a completely mixture of categories the United States is not at war with Mexico the United States is not at war with Guatemala the United States is not a war with Cuba so if they emigrate here it's not a national security threat but if Arabs immigrate into Israel in large numbers it is explicitly a national security threat so the comparisons between Israel and the United States are ignorant and they lack a basic understanding of what the United States is and a basic understanding of the situation Israel is in and the function that Israel serves so is it possible to have a Jewish state an equal rights and separation state in religion yes again the only sense in which it is Jewish is in the sense of migration that's it but in every other sense it has equal rights a complete separation state from religion and a free country it just has limitations in immigration by the way every country in the world today has an immigration every country in the world what I'm advocating for is that almost all countries in the world shouldn't have limitations in immigration and that Israel is one of the countries that should continue to have them as long as there was anti-Semitism in the world now let me say this in a world of open immigration in a world in which we have achieved open immigration in America so many immigration on large scale anti-Semitism would not exist and Israel should have open immigration in a world in which there's peace in the Middle East Israel has defeated its enemies and there's open immigration everywhere else Israel should have it as well the whole thing is ridiculous because we know exactly when people coming into America not anti-American people coming into America not trying to kill Americans and if they are from an enemy country they shouldn't be allowed in it's always been the case we should have limited Islamic immigration after 9-11 until we defeated the enemy and then as long as there's no threat to the United States and American citizens it's not a problem so you can you can create mythical hypothetical mystical garbage type analogies between the situation where America is in and Israel is but you are you are clearly being disingenuous being many of you on the chat are being dishonest about it all right let's see what else is it possible to give Jews immigration preference but then have a state that treats all citizens the same do you view the approach as morally viable and walkable yes I don't see any reason it's not it is absolutely walkable it is absolutely viable it basically sets certain standards for every law under the books except one except the issue of immigration now again over time in a free place in a free country in a rational society even that goes away even that goes away five is what would you do with the West Bank would you give the Arab population full Israeli citizenship or get out of it I don't think you can legitimately get out of there I think that the long-term solution has to be a solution in which everybody in the West Bank gets Israeli citizenship I think though in order to get there one first has to set the terms the population of the West Bank today is hostile to Israel it's hostile to to the laws it's hostile to the freedoms it's hostile to the civilizing force that is Israel and therefore the population of the West Bank must be civilized and that comes from defeating them from making it unequivocally clear to them that they will never be able to through the use of force defeat Israel and then it means in a sense influencing their culture and influencing their educational system in a systematic way to westernize them to encourage move them towards individualism to break the tribal ties to break the status ties and to try to elevate that population to the point where they can become productive free citizens of the state of Israel but I think given the size of the land given the proximity I don't think there's any possibility of really having two states in what is today Israel so I think that that population in the West Bank needs to become part of Israel or leave and you can imagine certain terms in which you need to become part of a civilized place of civilized free country or if they reject that the thrown out what do you see in the future of the state of Israel given the current trajectory and how would you change that I mean I think the current trajectory is a mess the state of Israel is not a state devoted to the protection of individual rights it is because it is a mixed economy in many dimensions it basically is a group of pressure different pressure groups fighting among each other for what they perceive as limited resources there is there is nothing the Israeli state as it exists today is an abomination it is free yes so it's better than authoritarian states but it is an abuser of the rights of its own citizens it gets involved in massive central planning regulations redistribution of wealth all the ills of the modern state inflict Israel and then it has a political system that is inherently fragmented and that is very difficult to get one's reins on in order to change so the trajectory I think is overall I think Israel is moving towards more authoritarian government not complete dictatorship not totalitarianism but certainly more authoritarian government I think you are seeing that in the current proposals for judicial reform in Israel which are going to get politicians a lot more power over people's lives and the judiciary a lot less power I think that Israel is done phenomenally well economically but unless it continues it really sustains liberal reforms and expands those liberal reforms and frees up the economy and frees up the state it will not economic growth is going to be limited in Israel and I think ultimately to the extent that many people in Israel today do not want to apply equal rights to the entire population for instance why there is an attempt to reform the judiciary in Israel is an attempt to bolster certain elements within Israeli society that would like to systematically and legally discriminate against the Arab population and that is wrong and that would lead to more violence and to more destructive so I don't know it's very hard for me to make predictions about the future but Israel is not heading towards a good place it is I see slower economic growth I see greater conflict within the population internally a lot of the Arabs who were born in Israel not in the Palestinian territory who has been in Israel resent Israel there is growing resentment within the Arab population it's not clear how Israel is going to deal with the West Bank there is no accepted solution among Israelis there is the vast disagreements politically and culturally among Israelis about how to move forward so I would definitely I would definitely not be optimistic and excited about the trajectory that Israel is moving how would you change that you would change that by a number of things you would have to do one you would internally establish an Israeli constitution the constitution should be mimicking the American constitution as much as possible that is it should have a separation of powers it should have an independent judiciary it should have a wall for the judiciary vis-a-vis the constitution it should have a separation of religion and state ideally if you really wanted a great constitution it had a separation of state from economics state from education state from science although that's way too much to expect but it should have a real protection for individual rights separation again from state from religion is a very crucial one in Israel where the state is typically not separated from religion where there are lots of religious laws and the influence of religion is strong on Israel so you need a new a new constitution and then you need to defeat the Palestinians and you need to establish a certain timeframe and a certain program on how to reintegrate them or fully integrate them into Israeli society and that might take a generation I don't know that might take less time than that but you would have to have a real plan on how to deal with the West Bank in particular and maybe ultimately Gaza ultimately how to integrate them not just integrate them but integrate them vis-a-vis culture and that is not going to be easy not going to be easy at all alright let's see what would I write in Israeli constitution it would be the same constitution as any other country he has there would just be a explicit commitment to accept immigrants who were Jewish in one way or another and everything else would be basically a constitution of freedom constitution of liberty same constitution in any other country I would recommend and then finally there's a question it seems that the political system in Israel enables small power brokers to exhibit disproportionate influence how would you change the political system in Israel I mean again I would fundamentally change it I would make it more representational maybe a mixture of representational and party politics maybe one house representational one house dedicated to political parties so you have that separation of a two house a house of representative and a senate and then an executive and a judiciary I think again the founding fathers were very smart they structured the American government the way every government should be to some extent to another structure that is I would change all of that to the kind of ridiculous parliamentary system that Israel has where you know every day they are re-juggling and re-aligning but part of the problem is when you've got a lot of goodies to give away and you know the Israeli government has a lot of goodies to give away when you've got a lot of goodies to give away and most governments do lots of pressure groups are going to be created in order to try to get at the goodies and in Israel the political system is structured in a way that people can create little groups that can grab at some of the goodies that are being offered and what you need to do is reduce the power of government reduce limit the scope of government so that the number of goodies that can be given away is limited and shrunk and then you need to change the dynamics of the political system it's easy for political parties to form and break apart and I think a parliamentary system that has a stronger executive but has also a strong judiciary and has two houses I think make sense even for a small country like Israel they can be small houses right now they have 120 people in parliament split them into two make 61 house 60 another house with a representation on one party system I mean there's a lot of different options when you have but the basis the principle is separation of powers and creating a distinct executive branch with very very limited powers and a distinct legislature whose power is the legislate not to execute and then a distinct judiciary that oversees both from the perspective of a constitution alright I think that covers it I think that covers the questions that are known since so I hope I don't know if I'll know it's here I don't see it on the chat anyway but hope that it's that covers everything I do have a bunch of super chats so we'll go to the super chats we are short quite a bit in terms of our goal to raise $650 on the evening shows so Catherine is still there Catherine seems to have disappeared I don't know you guys offended Catherine what did you say to Catherine that made her go away but Catherine needs to up her game so that we can make our numbers and there's Catherine alright so we have 421 to go and we have about 100 people watching so 5 bucks from each person watching would get us there but of course the best way to do this is like Dave is done and Mike is done you could ask $50 questions Michael and Fred Harper have asked $20 questions let's make all the questions from now on at least $20 questions because it is fairly late and I do have a lot of questions here particularly $5 questions let's try to get the questions that come in let's make them $20 or above thank you Linda really appreciate the support and let's see if we can get people Gale thank you I'm looking for people who did not ask questions Fred Harper, Catherine, theme master, Bonnie thank you all you guys for contributing without asking a question so let's now get to the $50 questions let's start with Dave and I'm going to try I'm going to try to focus in on the questions about Israel but I will answer questions about anything but I will start with the questions on Israel so we'll start with Dave Dave says Israel has some of the most amazing energy you will ever experience absolutely true possibly the most pro-like pro-human connection anti-risk aversion culture on the planet it is unequivocally a legitimate state its neighbors should be trying to copy it yes there's no question Israel's neighbors should be trying to copy it it is an exciting productive place it is a place that stands on its own I mean the United States should not be providing economic support to Israel should not be giving Israel a dime of economic help that's just welfare and it's welfare in this case to the rich because Israel's already a relatively rich place military support is a different question because Israel pays for that it pays for it with intelligence it pays for it with expertise it pays for it with trying out systems it pays with it with sharing military technology to consider selling Israel military equipment as any kind of sacrifice on behalf of the United States but in terms of just writing checks dollars the United States should not be supporting Israel it just doesn't make any sense it shouldn't do any foreign aid you know it's better to support Israel than to support Egypt which gets about as much money as Israel does Egypt is not a friend of the United States Israel is at least giving it to a friend is better than giving it to somebody but none of these countries should be getting foreign aid foreign aid should be restricted to national security reasons only but yes Israel has a vibrant exciting culture I find it too tribal I find it too restrained too small by the way if you want to ask questions Edward I see you eager to ask questions the super chat is available for you as well anybody can ask a question on the super chat but I'm going to try and try not to not to answer questions in the super chat somebody else can ask the question for Edward if he doesn't have the money to ask a $5 question but let's see so yes I agree Dave it's an amazing country it's one of the more interesting and fun countries you'll ever visit if you go visit there as a tourist I couldn't live there but a lot of good people do and a lot of people love it and as the rest of the world deteriorates and as the rest of the world becomes worse Israel looks pretty good in comparison pretty good in comparison Michael asks people always ask will Israel survive will America survive I think they always will both will go through rough patches possibly approaching authoritarianism but will ultimately last forever reason and freedom are strong even in small doses I basically agree with that Michael I do think reason and freedom are strong I do think even in small doses they go a long way people are particularly Americans Israelis and you see it in the demonstrations right now in the streets of Israel people are not willing to give up to hand over to politicians this huge amount of power and as a consequence there is real opposition in Israeli society to the power grab that the Netanyahu government is engaged in right now this grab of the judiciary is of course a large a large extent a way for Netanyahu for self preservation more than anything else but it's really public it's interesting that there are lots of demonstrations against this there are almost no demonstrations for it I don't think of any demonstrations for it this is not popular legislation it's very anti freedom liberty in the long run and people are rebelling against it there is this sense and Israel amazingly does not have a real left there is no woke left DEI left really there is no socialist political party in Israel everybody is kind of center center left center right there's not a lot of differences and then there's a right and then there's religious right and then the Arabs way over there but it might be the most leftist of all the groups in terms of even economic policy but generally Israel right now is a center right country that sometimes goes center left because the center right because they hate Netanyahu so much but it's it has a big religious component and that's the real danger is that they won't separate themselves from religion and the religious element in Israel is only growing because they have a lot of kids if you talk about demographics that's the real danger for Israel demographically is the number of kids that the ultra orthodox have and therefore they will embed religion deeper and deeper into Israeli society and into Israeli culture again let me remind everybody we're still about $400 short $390 to be accurate we usually make $650 again everybody if everybody listening right now put in $5 we'd easily make it and I'm sure there's some of you who could ask a $50 question or $100 question or jump in with a couple of $100 and get us over the hump alright Dolan says very happy you're talking about this it's sad that this is still relevant what do you think about anti-Semitism still creeping into American education of politics I mean look as societies broadly speaking become more tribal they always look for the other to exclude part of how they define themselves is through exclusion and as America becomes a more tribal society and defines itself in terms of those tribes the more they will view the Jews as the other the Jew has been the other for 2,000 years now and that's not going to go away and I think you're going to see a significant rise in anti-Semitism in the United States both on the left and on the right on the left you can see it on the hatred that the left has for Israel the hatred that the left has you know for anything with the semblance of Israel and there's no basis for this other than you know hatred of because other countries do horrible things to their own people look at what's going on in Iran why isn't the left up in arms about how the Iranian regime is treating their Iranian Iranian goals they don't care but Israel does something in the west bank the left is apoplectic you see on the left and what you've seen over the last you know really since the rise of the alt-rights I'd say a year or two before before Trump was elected you're seeing a real rise in anti-Semitism on the right it's all over the right it was a big display in Charlottesville but it's on display everywhere you see it you see it subtly in a lot of people you saw it with Kanye and you see it with the popularity of what's that clown's name I've even forgotten his name the clown that was with Kanye at Trump's house the fact that Trump could host these people for dinner and there were no consequences people don't care about anti-Semitism anymore it's definitely on the rise and it's going to get worse not better because again anti-Semitism as tribalism rises America is becoming more tribal as America becomes more tribal anti-Semitism will become a bigger feature of American society and you saw the more you're seeing a rise in anti-Semitism in Europe partially because of the Islamic population in Europe a very anti-Semitic very much hateful of Jews but also among the left in Europe and the right in Europe who again becoming more tribal the left wanting to appease the Muslims amongst them by turning against the Jews and the right as part of their tribal nationalism turning against the other which is the Jew and often lumping them in with the Muslims and anti-Semitism as civilization declines as tribalism is on the ascent you will see more anti-Semitism so I'm not optimistic I think anti-Semitism will become a bigger force out there Michael H.S. during World War I the Arabs were promised their own state by the British due to the Sykes-Picot agreement the deal was voided the state would have included Israel do you think the original deal with the Arabs has any validity but that's not what happened during World War I during World War I Arabs were promised a state, they got a state, they got Jordan they got Syria they got Lebanon, they got Iraq they got Saudi Arabia they got lots of states they were not promised a state indeed at the same time supposedly they were promised that state a Balfour promised the Jews a state that covered what is Israel today and Jordan that entire area was promised by Balfour so the British made numerous promises for example the British promised let me see if I get this right they promised Saudi Arabia to two different families the Saud family Saudi Arabia which is named after and the Hussein family and when they realized they screwed up they ended up giving the Saud family Saudi Arabia and then taking the Hussein family and giving them Jordan and Syria but the Syrians didn't like this king I forget his name right so they said wait a minute we don't want this king you Brits you put him here what the hell we reject him so they literally had to move him they plucked him out of Syria and put him in Iraq and he became the king of Iraq and there was a coup to get rid of him and ultimately led to Saddam Hussein so the British were moving people around promising stuff to everybody but clearly in the Balfour Declaration they promised what Israel today and Jordan to forward the establishment set it aside for the establishment of the Jewish state and look this is the issue with all due respect Arabs didn't do anything to deserve a state they didn't build one they didn't create one they didn't civilize a wilderness nothing changed between 1850 and 1910 and 1930 nothing changed the area which was identified as Palestine the area of Israel was civilized was turned into a free country was turned into a real nation it was a free country it had all the infrastructure and people built it people created it and there's a reason why Israel's the richest place put aside natural resources in the Middle East it's because of that productive energy that went into changing what was there the land the area and in that sense Israel deserves the state where's the rest of the Middle East what has it done none of that was because of American money that's complete garbage America indeed wouldn't even sell Israel weapons until 1967 wouldn't give them a dime until 1967 and indeed in the early days didn't give Israel any money even after 1967 Israel only started getting significant American money after the the peace accords that the Americans negotiated and as part of that they give X amount of money to Egypt and X amount of money to Israel as part of a peace negotiated by the Americans in in the late 1970s only 1980s with Egypt but Israel got zero weapons from the United States until 1967 it got zero dollars from the United States certainly until 1967 and probably until the 1980s zero so Israel established itself without any support from America indeed in the contrary the Truman administration and many of the following administration certainly Eisenhower had no interest in Israel they were much more likely to support the Arab states than they were to support Israel when Israel fought the war in 1967 well 1948 and then 1956 and then 1967 three wars they didn't use a single US weapon they used British tanks French airplanes guns from Czechoslovakia and all kinds of other places so this idea that Israel was built with US dollars is completely factually bogus and nonsense and again driven by certain elements in the American white who hate Israel and who hate Jews it's just not true now Israel gets a lot of money today it's a drop in the bucket from the perspective of the amount of wealth Israel has created for itself but it gets a lot of money it shouldn't get that money but at least Israel is a friend the rest of the people who get American money are enemies or neutral and yet the US hands our money to everybody left and right friend Hopper do you know if Malcolm X was inspired by the founding of Israel and the principle of Zionism there seems to be similarities in what it was advocated for and I'm often sympathetic with Malcolm X you know if your rights if you're being persecuted systematically because of let's say the color of your skin or your religion or your so-called ethnic origins or anything like that and it doesn't seem like that's ever going to go away then the solution is to separate yourself from the people discriminating against so I am you know if you were black in the 1950s and 60s is the idea of black separatism that crazy? I don't think so now it's not original in the 19th century freed slaves from the US went back to Africa and established the state of Liberia unfortunately they established a pretty corrupt state and it didn't really survive as a able legitimate moral state into the future because of corruption and because of crime so the idea of separating oneself is not new the United States was super reluctant to recognize Israel at its founding Truman did not want it the United States was one of the last people at the United Nations Security Council to vote for the establishment of the state of Israel and the only reason it voted to establish the state of Israel and to recognize Israel was fear fear that Israel would ally itself with the Soviet Union so what drove American policy back then was the fear the Jews the Israelis who were many of whom and certainly almost all the founders of Israel were Russians by origin would align themselves with the Soviet Union is what drove them but the United States did nothing to support Israel during the war of 1948-49 the war of independence it did nothing to support Israel in 1956 indeed the United States under Eisenhower forced the Israelis to retreat from the Sinai desert and give it back to the Egyptians in spite of the fact that that turned out to be a bad move for the Israelis and the United States did not support Israel in 1967 war I'm not saying they should I'm just saying factually they didn't now why should they today? you can ask it in the super chat Shazbad is the push for closed border policy favored by conservatives philosophically similar to the left's push for gun control I mean think so only in the sense that both want to control us both left and right want to control want a bigger state want the state to have more power I think the fundamental reason why conservatives as an ideal not just today but as an ideal want to have closed borders is out of fear fear of change that conservatives after all fear that their ideas won't stand up against an influence of immigrants so that the melting pot will not survive because the bad stuff will melt with the good and the bad will win out instead of the good winning out fear associated with xenophobia of people who look differently than you again I think most closed border conservatives are quite tribal so I think what motivates you could argue that fear motivates gun control as well I think that's right so both are united by the fact that they're motivated by fear that is true and both are united by the fact that they're motivated by control by wanting to control but they want to control different things and they fear different things but yes, in a sense that it's emotionalistic that way absolutely Tim says, Dr. Burkineport is American evangelical support for Israel both in Israel itself and in the United States obviously the support rates on a mystical and deeply strange I can't pronounce that word yeah, I mean, I find it bizarre the support that evangelicals provide Israel and I constantly tell the Israelis not to count on it not to take it seriously and to be very, very weary of any support they get from evangelicals it could flip like that it could change like that because it's based on faith it's based on religion, it's based on revelation and revelation could turn very, very, very quickly evangelicals weren't always Republicans they became Republicans after Jimmy Carter's presidency they felt betrayed by Carter and Reagan courted them dramatically, significantly and that's when they flipped how important is it I don't think it's very important I think for Republicans I think right now many Republicans are tempted to be anti-Israel I think there's definitely a temptation within the Republican party to turn its back on Israel for a variety of reasons and I think the evangelicals are keeping the Republicans supportive of Israel and here I mean supportive, not just financially but militarily in the sense of providing being willing to sell Israel weapons cooperating with Israel in terms of intelligence and weapon design and development which I think benefits both Israel and the United States and in terms of politically giving Israel cover in places stupid places like the United Nations and other international forums the United States gives them cover so evangelicals are very important domestically for maintaining Republican support on the flip side of that the more Republican support for Israel relies on evangelicals the weaker that support is going to be from the perspective of Republicans but because it relies on this wacky group over here but suddenly among Democrats the support for Israel will weaken significantly because they will associate support for Israel with crazy religionists so it's never good to be on the side of the religionists or rely on religionists for support one way or the other it always has negative consequences Richard said I bet you've heard Israel accused of practicing apartheid against Palestinians how did you respond to that well it's ridiculous somebody who witnessed apartheid who was in South Africa during apartheid it just doesn't exist now and it's hard to the Palestinians in the West Bank they are segregated they are separated because of the second interfaith because of what happened because of the amount of violence that they inflicted on Israel now I don't think that's a good situation I don't think that's a situation that should persist but it will persist as long as Israel refuses to defeat the Palestinians and refuses to directly as long as it insists on giving them this partial sense of autonomy the only way Israel can survive without a massive spike in violence is by segregating them but in Israel proper Arabs you know are not treated differently now is there discrimination is there racism sure just like there is everywhere absolutely but are there fountains where it says whites only are allowed now there are some racist policies in Israel and there might be more because of this crazy right wing government that is in Israel right now where land will not be sold to Arabs unwelcome in certain neighborhoods and so on that's all bad and Israel should modify those and should not allow it to be a part of the law but for example you know my father was at the major hospital in Haifa the third largest city in Israel I'd say I'd have to ask him but I think right now 50% of all the doctors all the doctors at this hospital are Arabs they're doctors and this is a hospital that's mainly Jews go to so it's absolutely the case that within Israel there is no separation there's no apartheid which is absurd there is no overt discrimination there is elements of racism just like there are in other cultures with regard to the Palestinians they are separated and to some extent they are fenced in with a wall or fence with the idea of protecting Israel from the spikes of violence when I lived in Israel when I worked in Israel in the 1980s Palestinians were free to roam around Israel most of my workers I was a construction manager most of my workers were Palestinians we had good relations they slept in Israel most nights they went back home on the weekend there was no separation at all and the separation really only occurred after Yasser Al-Fat returned to the West Bank after their stupid suicidal insane Oslo Accords which the Israelis signed with Yasser Al-Fat under the guidance of Bill Clinton no it wasn't an American deal it was Oslo right it was a European negotiated deal anyway they signed this deal with Yasser Al-Fat and since then violence accelerated and then you got in the early 2000s late 1900s early 2000s second Intifada which was brutal in its violence Israel couldn't completely suppress it couldn't completely win in the way one needs to win wars so it basically partially and then separated the Palestinians out and fenced them in not a great solution alright let's see my guest next week my guest next week is going to be a fascinating young man he's somebody I met in Austin, Texas who was at a seminar that I did in Austin with a bunch of objectivists and intellectuals under the auspices of Greg Selmieri's program at the University of Texas we did a program on racism and this is a young man who is was quite a celebrity on TikTok I think and became an objectivist and is still young and is still learning objectivism but is very interested in objectivism and he is he is specializing in the civil rights and in particular the civil rights movement of the 19th century and many of the civil rights movements before the civil war and some of the characters there and some of the history there so I'm going to be talking about the history of civil rights in the United States including the history of racism in the US the history of the fight against racism in the US what happened after the civil war I don't think Americans understand how horrible reconstruction was after the civil war you know how much the North backtracked from its commitment to equal rights and so we're going to be talking about that I'm sure we'll talk about the modern civil rights movement as well but we'll primarily talk about the old 19th century civil rights movement and he's a very articulate, passionate, interesting young guy and I think you're going to enjoy listening to him I don't think he's known outside of particular circles but pretty cool dude so and I forget his name that's why I'm not mentioning it but you'll find out next week I definitely encourage you to listen to it it'll be Thursday next week alright let's see what else do we have in terms of topics yeah Frank says what happened at the King David Hotel it was shown in the Exodus movie and that Palestinian man mentioned it in your famous talk at the Hyatt Hotel well the King David Hotel so when the British were occupying Israel in the 19 this is particularly in the 1930s and 1940s there rose a movement that was of Jews who were living in Israel they had rid of the British occupation and established a Jewish state in Israel and that fought the British and that resented the fact that the British were sticking around that they had promised the state to be a Jewish state and yet they wouldn't go of it and there was a holocaust in Europe and the British were still not letting go of it so they fought them and it was split the group was split there were three different elements fighting there was something called the Haganah which was associated with the I'd say center left in Israel and it was a group that tried to do things as peacefully as possible only didn't engage in what you would call terrorism only engaged in military activities against the British often didn't fight the British like during the World War II it sided with the British and didn't fight the British left them alone and but generally was fighting for a free Israeli state both the Arabs and the British then there was Haganah there was two other groups both on the right both much more inclined towards what you'd call today terrorist activities bombing facilities bombing infrastructure one much more dedicated to bombing with less consideration to human life other more consideration anyway without all the technicalities King David was a hotel that was a part of this campaign to try to get the British out of Palestine and to leave it for the Jews to establish a state in it they planted bombs in the King David hotel but they didn't want to kill anybody they just want to use this as a threat and if you will to terrorize the population so they phoned into the hotel telling them that there were bombs and telling them to evacuate I guess some people evacuated but others were not the hotel didn't take the call seriously the bombs exploded people died and it's gone down famously as this Jewish terrorist attack on the British in the 1940s in the mid 40s to try to get the British out of Palestine so that there could be a state there so that is the context but it was it's in the context of a struggle of a struggle the bomb was on a timer it exploded even though they had warned people to evacuate they didn't evacuate as a consequence when people died it's still used it's still used as the symbol of whatever let's see Shai asked what do you think about the Uganda scheme having a safe place not surrounded by religious motivated enemies and no holy land involved seems like a plus one of the things that happened when the Zionist movement was established was that the British said look Palestine is contentious it's problematic the Ottomans have it how about we the British are establishing colonies all over the world and the empire we've got some space in Africa what if we give you basically Uganda you can have Uganda and this was a serious proposal this was not a joke and basically went to the Zionist congress and they voted on it and Herzl who is the founder of the Zionist movement and the big mucky muck within the Zionist program voted for Uganda voted for Uganda as the location about the holy land he didn't care about the religious stuff he just wanted a place to escape he wanted a place where people could escape and establish their own country and the problem was that a majority of the people the majority of the people who were Zionist refused to vote for it they wanted the Jewish state to be in Israel and they would not compromise and they would not have it anywhere else but if Israel had been in Uganda Uganda is not a great location it doesn't have a port it doesn't have a way out it's surrounded it is also while it doesn't have religious fanatics you would have had Idi Amin but yes I think if I was in the congress I would have supported a state in Uganda over states in the Middle East if that was the best possibility for a state Michael H asked can you explain what the Jewish settlements are and why the Arabs are so against them does Israel have the right to these settlements well they have a right to some and they don't have a right to others so the Jewish settlements are basically settlements the towns, villages and towns the Jews are built in the West Bank in areas that are viewed as still as occupied and are part of Israel proper they haven't been annexed by Israel they're viewed as, this is what used to be Jordan and what the Palestinians claim as their Palestinian state of course they claim the whole of Israel as a Palestinian state so these are areas that were viewed as Palestinian areas in other words areas that Israel occupied after the Six-Day War some of these settlements are on land that Jews bought from Arabs they settled the problem there is that once the Arabs realized that the Jews were buying land they started killing the Arabs that were selling the land they started making it impossible for any Arab to sell land to a Jew making that a capital punishment so a lot of land sales were stopped second part is settlements, villages, towns being built on land because Jordanian government and therefore is not owned by anybody I think that's completely legitimate for people to go and settle as long as that is allowed for both Arabs and Jews and then third some of these settlements are land confiscated by the Israeli government from Palestinian private citizens and I think in those cases they're illegitimate the land should be returned to its original owner at least at this point they should be paid compensation for having the land taken away from them but there's actually no justification for confiscating private land from people so that's the settlements of all three types and Jews live there they live in areas that used to be occupied by Arabs that are part of the what's called the West Bank part of what used to be Jordan that Israel occupied during the Six-Day War a war of self-defense I might add and what else can I say about them they typically they typically housed nationalist, Jewish nationalists to make sure that the Jews occupy every last piece of land within Israel and they generally or many of them occupied by people who you could argue are racist who are Jewish supernatural super nationalist or whatever you want to call it you know racist Jews who think Jews are special and Jews are superior and that they they want to kick out Arabs and non-Jews from these lands and kick out them out from Israel completely so there's a lot of bad people in Israel who want to do horrible things luckily it's still a minority a small minority within Israel so it does the right I think if you buy the land or if it's public land called public land then it's fine alright Michael says is anti-Jewish racism worse than anti-black racism in the United States no probably not, probably anti-black racism is worse yeah I mean so I think that's likely today at least to be the case and certainly has been the case in American history anti-black racism was much worse than anti-Jewish racism Ali has just a note by the way we're $250 short on this show I'm a little surprised that we can't get we do have people watching throughout and it is a little surprising that we can't get to a 650 goal which we usually do get on the evening shows and I've been on for an hour and 40 minutes usually in a two hour show we easily make 650 so I encourage you guys if you want to see these shows continuing and value what I'm trying to do I encourage you to step in and help get us to our goal of $650 we're about 250 short just a note Ali says while Palestinians cry about Israel they camp in Jordan Indian land until now they build and live there unlawfully nobody can bring this topic inside Jordan yes I mean Palestinians are in Jordan they're in Lebanon they've created a mess in Lebanon they've created a mess in Jordan they violate people's property rights they have no respect for rights they are violent they were kicked out of Jordan in 1970 black September 1970 they were kicked out of Jordan that's when they went to Lebanon it's been horrible in Lebanon since then massive refugee camps in Lebanon so yeah I mean absolutely they cry about Israel but their behavior in the rest of the Arab world is horrific and as a consequence become less and less favorable towards the Palestinians alright Michael asked is it a good sign Ukraine elected a Jewish Prime Minister would America ever elect a Jewish President would Germany elect a Jewish Prime Minister I think so I think it's a good sign that Ukraine did particularly given its history of anti-Semitism it has a very deep history of anti-Semitism I think it's a good sign that that was not an issue that wasn't a consideration I didn't even realize it was Jewish until the claims about him being a Nazi came up I do think the United States can elect a Jewish President maybe not Ben Shapiro maybe a Yamiko wearing one but a secular one I think it's likely hopefully it's on Bernie Sanders would Germany yeah I think today yes I think it's possible it doesn't mean there's no anti-Semitism any more than electing a black President in the United States means there's no racism it just means that a significant proportion of the population doesn't make a big deal out of it Michael says is the Arab hostility towards Israel purely anti-Semitic are there more complex reasons for their hostility well it's not purely anti-Semitic well I mean a lot of it's anti-Semitic they don't want Jews there it's also geopolitical they don't want more importantly than Jews what they really don't want is a western country in their midst they don't want a westernized civilization in their midst they view it as a front to their own countries their religion, their culture to the extent that you want to call it a culture they view view Israel with hostility because of its virtues Ayn Rand said this in the Donahue interview in 1970s Israel is hated for its virtues for its civilization for the fact that it is a civilization amongst this so that's what they hate they hate even if Israel wasn't Jewish if it was Christian or if it was anything else but it was fundamentally western in its culture and civilization the Arabs would be hostile to it we not thank you really appreciate the support thank you for the sponsorship plus now $50 really really thank you and hopefully you like the show I guess the $50 suggest that you did so I appreciate that alright let's see Michael asks what do you think what do Israelis think about Jews in America and the DASPA in general another $50 from we not thank you we not I don't know what Israelis think I mean generally they consider them cousins I mean it's a tribe it's one big tribe Israel is a very tribal culture and it's one of the reasons I left I left because of the tribalism and so Jews Jews in Israel view Jews in America as part of the tribe they resent them a little bit because they haven't moved to Israel why in Israel and indeed Israelis who leave Israel and move to America are looked down upon so I'm definitely looked down upon by certain people in Israel because you've left you've abandoned the cause you're borderline treasonous not quite and it's better today than it was 30 40 years ago but there's definitely this negative attitude towards Israelis who live abroad Jews who live abroad a little bit negative why aren't you here we're fighting for the Jewish people again very tribal very collectivistic Doan says thank you as always Iran have you seen or read the new book by my friend Owen Kessler called Palestine 1936 I'm about third and so far so good I have not interesting you know if I didn't have such a big big big long list of books that I need to read I'd be really interested in reading it 1936 was one of the years a Palestinian uprising Arab uprising against the Jews and against the British it was a brutal uprising it was one of the things that really solidified the Jewish resistance to the British and Jewish arming themselves to defend themselves against the Arabs because of the veracity of that uprising at least that's my understanding this would be fascinating Mr. Muffin asks if Israel can hold its own do you think Georgia could stand versus Russia if implemented capitalism well I mean it's very difficult to stand against a nuclear power it's very difficult to stand against a country that has 100 million people and a nuclear arsenal Georgia would struggle now of course if it was capitalist it would become much richer it could invest in technology there are things that would be immensely there would be increases odds against Russia but it's very difficult to see a small country like that versus a Bahamut like Russia survive long term if Russia is really committed to taking them out and if the West will not support them I think Georgia could have massive casualties in the Russians I mean right now the Russians won't do anything because they've been decimated by the Ukrainians which is good for Georgia but Georgia is even smaller than Israel today Georgia is 3.5 million people Israel today is closer to 10 Georgia faces one country with over 100 million people Israel faces a whole Arab world surrounding it with 100 million but not coordinated, not integrated and certainly not industrialized like Russia is and don't have nuclear weapons not yet anyway Wonderfemons says how did Jordan get to run the West Bank basically what happened is 1948 I told you Israel declared independence the Arab countries invaded and what happened was that Egypt had the Sinai Sinai was always Egypt but they also got the Gaza Strip and they occupied the Gaza Strip and when Israel fought back they pushed them back but they didn't push them out of Gaza there was no reason to and they pushed them out of the Negev which is southern Israel and they pushed them to the border of the Sinai but they left it there in Jordan they invaded the territory that was Palestine and they basically occupied the West Bank and Jerusalem which was supposed to be an international city got split in half I was born in West Jerusalem at a time when snipers used to sit on the walls of East Jerusalem and fire at Israelis in the West so Jerusalem was split in half half of it was Jordanian because Jordan had occupied it there was no Palestinian nationality there was no Jordan never considered oh we should establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank there was no Palestinian political entity the Jordanians occupied it because it was during the war it was occupied by the English the English left there was a war between Israel the Jews and the Jordanians Jordan captured the West Bank they kept it the Jews captured the rest of Israel they kept it that's what happened until 1967 where Jordan stupidly joined even after being warned by Israel not to do so joined the war lost the West Bank in a war that's what happens in wars alright let's see Michael says was Iron Man rational in calling Arab Native American savages did those offhanded remarks set the objectives moving back 50 years no I don't think so I don't think anybody seriously rejects objectivism as a philosophy as a movement because of those comments yes I mean technically I mean there's a technical definition of savages that I think one could certainly say that a significant portion of the Arab population outside of Israel I think the most civilized in Israel and certainly Native Americans qualify so if you actually look at what a savage means primitive culture both qualify and I think she was right Michael says is Netanyahu afraid to deregulate taxes because Israeli society doesn't want it I know I think he's afraid because it reduces power I think the bigger the state the more involved the state the more goodies they are to hand out the more favors they are I mean he was protecting his political base there's a lot of corruption in Israeli politics a lot of the businesses are protected by government again a lot of the regulations give favors to different groups and different business different interests and all of those have influence on politics and Netanyahu is brilliant at preserving power and part of the preserved power is divide and conquer but control control you lose control with liberty liberty is a way for politicians to lose control that's why politicians don't like it Michael asks why did Israel lose the sign of peninsula wasn't justified for them to give it up they gave it up in exchange for peace with Egypt yeah I think the tradeoff was a good tradeoff I would have loved for them to have kept the the Red Sea coast just because it had some of the most amazing beaches in the world and now I will never go to them again but I think in exchange for real peace and peace has been partially real but it has benefited Israel enormously I think it was worth it now 20-30 years from now if Egypt turns against Israel it would have been hard to tell but I think at the time no question I think almost any Israeli prime minister would have signed it would have given away the sign again I wish they kept the beaches and I think the Egyptians were open to it that was a possibility I don't know why they didn't negotiate that Michael says why did Israel not guard its athletes in 1972 Munich Olympics did the anti-Semitic German authorities want it to happen they guarded them but they're not especially they didn't think there was real risk you know there was some Israeli security there but they were taken out by the terrorists and the Germans did have I don't think the Germans were encouraging this I don't think the Germans wanted this the real failure there was that the German authorities didn't know how to deal with terrorists they didn't let Israeli special forces onto German you know allow these really special forces to take care of the situation because because of German sovereignty I think more than anything not because I think anti-Semitism I think it was more sovereignty that they didn't want Israeli forces working on German territory and it was an issue of pride they thought their special forces could take out the terrorists they took out the terrorists and all the athletes with them so the German special forces were not very good at what they did massive fiascos and the Germans screwed it up from beginning to end it was just a screw up and they really didn't want help from Israel I don't think it's anti-Semitism although maybe I think it's primarily incompetence and false pride alright final two questions we do have a $130 short of our goal Catherine what are you going to do about this Catherine save us hopefully hopefully in the next five minutes we can close that because I don't think this is going to go more than five minutes okay we got two questions off topic Liam says off topic but why is Boston such a well-round blue city almost no homeless or infrastructure poverty very clean and efficient public transportation a lot of old money keeping things afloat well not just old money I mean Boston is a city in the United States Massachusetts is by far on a GDP per capita adjusted for cost of living the richest state in the union both because of old money but also because of new money I mean Boston is a hub for innovation it was technology innovation primarily though it's a biotech center it's the number one biotech center in the country what do they call the loop around 180 I can't remember the name of the loop around Boston where all the biotech companies are Boston has MIT it has Harvard it has more universities if I remember right per capita than any city in the United States it is a blue city very much a blue city but you know so Silicon Valley but it's very productive it emphasizes education route 128 thank you Richard route 28 128 it is productive it's not just there is more old money there than maybe anywhere else other than maybe New York but it is but it there's a lot of new money a lot of new money control data there's a lot of there's some of the original technology companies are there but also a lot of biotech lots of biotech and you know and it's a great city it's got a lot of culture it's got it's a great place to live cost of housing never went through the roof like it did in other places it has poverty in the south of Boston but and Boston was not a pleasant place to live in the 1970s when I lived there it had a lot more poverty it had it was not anyone he has clean and as nice and well run as it is today but I'd say in the 80s with the increase in wealth from technology and from biotech 80s 90s 2000s Boston cleaned itself up invested money I guess in the right places it freed up massive amounts of land in south Boston which used to be places nobody wanted to go and created that whole area off of downtown which is beautiful and and amazing with condos and buildings you know it's and I think they build more housing than other places so the cost of housing I mean you know I don't know the Boston doesn't have a homeless problem my understanding is it does have some homeless problem but it's relatively well run city again just because somebody's blue and by the way Massachusetts has had several Republican governors over the years I mean they're not Republican governors in the same in the same you know kind of Republican governors as maybe the deepest out this had some is that have run the state fairly efficiently and fairly effectively and in Boston is an exciting place to live I mean again it has MIT and Harvard and that makes a big difference it's what makes the Bay Area the Bay Area Stanford and and Berkeley and other universities in the area and Boston has even a bigger concentration of universities than the Bay Area has so I know there's this idea blue, red, blue, red everything is colored by that I don't see it that way you know cities that are great to live in cities that are not you know blue or red is a secondary issue there and you have to ask how safe they are the level of crime you have to ask about the level of wealth about the education education institutions culture there's a lot of parameters that go into whether you want to live in a city or not all right I think you've all devastated Catherine she's been gone for a long time and she finally came back and she didn't make her goal I don't think she's going to sleep tonight I'm just you know and Bonnie just chipped in two dollars for to help to help Catherine out but yeah we're not living up to it Justin says what did you think about the final episode of The Last of Us God you know this is the thing about me and my memory in getting older I don't remember what happened in the last episode of The Last of Us I don't remember how it ended I mean they basically killed those religious nuts right oh that religious nut who wasn't really religious nut he just wanted molester or whatever and they escaped and it ends with them escaping right and look I thought I'll do a more detailed review of The Last of Us although I don't remember anything so it's a problem but I thought it was I thought it was very good generally I thought the last episode was excellent I it was you know the challenge is I'd say I'd say they are real strength on one big flaw to The Last of Us the strength is that I'll try not to spoil anything the strength is that it's character driven it's very very good in portraying characters and delving into their motivations and delving into their character in painting as a picture and giving us their past it's beautifully done beautifully done in the sense of orientation towards characters it's not just a horror movie it's not just an action movie you learn about the characters most of them die but you learn about the characters you care about the characters you certainly care about the heroes you learn more and more about the heroes as you go along you get invested in the heroes and I really really like it in that sense the flaw of it is it's not enough good guys right so far in one good American community like in Wyoming or something of good people and they're communists and they're proud to be communists and that's presented in the show as yeah we're communists and that's the only good Americans we've had so far everybody else is either terrible or mixed or stupid or doing stupid things to get some killed or out for stupid vendettas the only like community there was you said wow this is a cool community this is nice what they're doing here they're really achieving something they're building something they've created something then they call themselves communists that's the only flaw so far in the series I mean they're all kind of stupid stuff that you get whenever you have science fiction like the zombies what are they how are they evolving how do they even function how do they survive all of that what kills them what doesn't kill them it doesn't make any sense that whole thing doesn't make any sense but you just accept that they're zombies after all so you just accept it zombies some of the zombies have evolved into super zombies I mean it's just it's complete unscientific nonsense but if you control for that you know yeah it's very warm good story Michael says most Americans today ignorant of the Holocaust is there a Holocaust education fatigue like there is slavery education fatigue does this open up the door to anti-Semitism way didn't in the past I do think there's probably a Holocaust fatigue I think most people know it happened although Americans are always shockingly and surprisingly and amazingly ignorant so I shouldn't say that I know for sure but you know they are but there is I think fatigue and yeah it does open it up and I think you get people like Nick Forentus kind of semi Holocaust deniers or really Holocaust deniers who play with it make fun of it joke at it and that makes and he gets a huge following and that huge following legitimizes these views and makes these views kind of legitimate it makes anti-Semitism legitimate I mean Nick Forentus is an out and out anti-Semitism old style anti-Semite who knows he can't literally spout Nazi stuff he does it with a smile and a wink and so on but it's all out there and that's increasing in the U.S. and that's super tragic alright thank you we've gone two hours over two hours right now if everybody who's watching just contributed one dollar in the super chat we'd make our goal and Catherine would be happy but I don't know if you have enough time you should try you can actually do it after the show even ends you can still do it so 88 dollars short unless somebody steps in right now and does 88 dollars we're going to miss our goal today which is too bad I unfortunately too many people who were watching were part of the problem weren't here to actually out of interest but here the Christian complain about Israel and the Jews so that reduced the number of potential supporters of the show anyway thank you to all the superchats you guys were great thank you for all the questions I hope you enjoyed the show this is one of those shows since it's a single theme which is great to share and get out there and try to use it to educate people about the sole question of Israel people who are ignorant about Israel this is a good show to kind of connect them with and and and to show them I think it serves a good educational purpose all right Martin thank you Mr. Muffin thank you they're taking my my request for $2 contribution seriously thank you really appreciate that all right I will see you all tomorrow tomorrow is going to be a little difficult because I've got doctor's appointment all morning so the show the news roundup will actually be in the afternoon I'm not exactly what time depends when I'm done with my doctors but maybe one two three o'clock sometime around there between one and three east coast time but there will be a news roundup it just will be in the afternoon instead of the morning and then hopefully and then there'll only be that one show Friday there'll be a show in the morning and then and then Saturday we'll have the usual show at 3 p.m. Eastern time all right everybody I will thank you friend Harper says do you think this episode has a good number of deferring names donating no I think it's the same Michaels so die Michaels Justin Bonnie Liam same names you friend Harper Bonnie I'm just scanning through the super chats to the two Michaels Ali who comes in and out sometimes he's here sometimes he isn't but when he is he usually does a super chat so thank you Shay maybe haven't seen Shay Frank usually ask something Justin used he asked Richard asked Tim I haven't seen that often Shahzad asked and Harper Dawn maybe is different but you know Dave Dave drops a bunch of money here periodically and so no I think maybe a few new people are particularly interested in the topic but most of the people I'd say who contributed tonight were the same people who contributes most nights thank you guys really appreciate it and I will see you all tomorrow