Latest / The Lila Rose Show / Trump, Iran, and Israel: Who's In The Wrong? w/Josh Hammer | Lila Rose Show

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Trump, Iran, and Israel: Who's In The Wrong? w/Josh Hammer | Lila Rose Show · The Lila Rose Show

0:00
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Lila Roe show.
0:02
Aggression is heating up between Iran and Israel.
0:05
President Trump just said on Truth Social in the last few
0:08
days that there was a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.
0:12
And this was after American jets had gone into Iran and bombed
0:16
with bunker bombs the sites of different nuclear facilities.
0:20
Hours later, President Trump announced there was a ceasefire
0:22
between Israel and Iran. And then hours after that, Iran
0:26
bombs went off at Israelis and Israelis responded with their
0:29
own and strikes and now the war seems to be on again.
0:33
We're going to have on an foreign policy expert and
0:35
attorney and editor over at Newsweek and the host of the
0:38
Josh Hammer podcast, Josh Hammer.
0:39
He's a friend of mine, great pro-life guy.
0:42
He himself is very pro Israel and pro American Israeli
0:45
relations. He'll share his perspective.
0:48
I'll ask some questions of Josh that represent you could say the
0:51
Tucker Carlson perspective more on these things.
0:54
Obviously, I've been following his perspective, people like
0:56
Jeffrey Sachs, others, you'll hear what Josh has to say.
0:59
We may be hosting a debate on this topic in the future with
1:03
two opposing views on the question of American
1:05
relationship with Israel and these other countries, including
1:09
Iran. I'm always eager to hear your
1:10
guys's thoughts. My personal take, ultimately, is
1:13
that war is hell. We don't want war, but we also
1:16
want to ensure that the innocents are protected and that
1:19
we can do what we can to posture ourselves in a just way to
1:22
protect American and American interests.
1:25
What that looks like in real time, of course, is up for
1:28
debate. I hope you enjoy this episode
1:30
with Josh Hammer. Also, don't forget to subscribe
1:32
to the show so that you never miss another episode If you're
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1:37
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Leave us a review that helps the show reach more people.
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1:51
Josh Hammer, welcome to the podcast.
1:53
It's a pleasure. Thanks for having.
1:54
Me great to see you again. Always nice to chat with you.
1:57
I know you help a lot on the pro-life side of things, so
2:01
thank you all ready for all of that work you have been
2:04
following closely. I know the Israel Gaza war,
2:08
what's happening with Iran. You wrote a book recently called
2:10
Israel and Civilization, the Fate of the Jewish Nation and
2:14
the Destiny of the West. I know you have lots of thoughts
2:16
of what is unfolding right now in the Middle East.
2:18
So thanks for coming on. Before we dive right in, tell
2:22
folks just a little bit more of your background, Josh.
2:26
Sure. Yeah.
2:27
So, Lila, I've been involved in in conservative activism,
2:30
conservative politics, punditry, commentary, writing, speaking,
2:33
all the above for for some years now.
2:35
My background is actually that of a lawyer.
2:38
So I went to university, Chicago Law School.
2:40
I worked at a major law firm, Kirkland Ellis, like clerks on
2:43
the US Court appeals for the 5th Circuit for the judge that for
2:47
what my money is worth, he's the single greatest judge and all
2:49
the lower courts. Judge James C Ho down in Dallas,
2:52
TX. Hopefully our next SCOTUS
2:54
justice, but I, I made the transition after after my
2:57
clerkship, Lila, to being something of, of a commentator
3:00
with a, with a legal side presence.
3:02
So I'm still senior counsel at the Article 3 project, my friend
3:05
Mike Davis's operation when it comes to judicial nominations
3:08
there. But I primarily work now as a
3:10
senior editor at large for Newsweek.
3:12
I write a weekly syndicate opinion column, host my own
3:14
show, The Josh Hammer Show, and on personal notes.
3:18
I'm Jewish as my book subtitle would probably indicate there
3:23
I've become a religious Jew in recent years there.
3:25
I was raised very secular. My personal journey is actually
3:27
very much part of the book. It's kind of woven throughout
3:29
the narrative there. I I got married a couple years
3:32
ago. We have our our our first child.
3:35
She was born this past December and she was actually just with
3:38
us over in Israel, which made for some interesting times as
3:41
you can probably imagine there. But I, I try to do whatever I
3:44
can, Lyle, to try and just help out the good guys in, in this
3:47
broader conflict between civilization and barbarism.
3:49
That is, that is like that's how I think of it when it comes to
3:53
the most barbaric issue of all, the abortion issue, or when it
3:55
comes to various other forms of civilizational barbarism clash
3:58
as well, such as what we see currently in the Middle East.
4:01
Thank you, Josh. Well, thanks for that background
4:03
there. And we're going to have on the
4:05
show different perspectives on this.
4:07
So your perspective I think is very important because you're
4:10
looking at this like you just said, you framed it between
4:12
barbarism and civilization. So I know you're going to be
4:16
explaining that more throughout this interview.
4:18
You did miss mention that you were in Israel and you had to
4:21
leave early as my understanding, because of the bombing that
4:27
Israel experienced just in the last few days from Iran.
4:30
Tell us briefly about what happened with that for you.
4:33
Yeah, it was quite an ordeal. So we were there primarily Lila,
4:35
for personal reasons. My, my wife was born in Israel,
4:38
raised here in Florida where we live, but a lot of her family is
4:41
still back there. So we went over for a wedding, a
4:43
birthday party, a couple of other reasons.
4:44
I was, I was going to do a book event in Jerusalem for, for my
4:47
book Israel and Civilization. So, so we had a bunch of reasons
4:49
to fly over there. And it was I think the fifth
4:51
night that we were there in night 5, if I'm not mistaken,
4:54
that we woke up at 3:00 AM local time to the sirens.
4:57
And we we learned that the idea of operations inside Iran had
5:00
taken place and it was only a matter of hours before the rest
5:04
of our trip was essentially completely upended.
5:07
So this group trip that I was essentially a fixing onto the
5:09
front end was cancelled. My book event in Jerusalem was
5:12
cancelled. It essentially all went down the
5:14
tubes and we tried to ride out the first few days of the trip,
5:17
Lila, and by ride out, I think I'll paint just a picture for
5:20
you, if I may, which is, you know, the phones over there.
5:23
This you'll get a big loud buzzing noise saying be near a
5:27
bomb shelter in case you know what hits the fan.
5:31
But it's not until the actual sirens start blaring in your
5:33
local vicinity that you know that it's time to stop whatever
5:36
you're doing and get to a bomb shelter ASAP.
5:38
You have roughly 90 seconds, maybe 2 minutes to drop whatever
5:42
you do and get to a bomb shelter.
5:43
So that was essentially what we were doing for three or four
5:45
days. I, I mentioned that I'd become a
5:48
religious Jew in recent years was actually literally during
5:50
Friday evening Shabbat's prayers for the Jewish Sabbath that when
5:54
we first had to run to the bomb shelter, I was, I was in the
5:56
middle of a very well known Jewish prayer called Bakado Di.
5:59
I had to abruptly stop and just take our 6 middle and just run
6:02
to the bomb shelter. Not exactly fun.
6:04
So after a few days of this and after seeing that the Israeli
6:07
air defence was, was doing well, to be clear, but nonetheless
6:10
letting far too many projectiles, if I might say
6:13
through, I decided that we had to get out.
6:15
So I found out, I, I mentioned I live in Florida.
6:18
I found out the governor Ron DeSantis and Florida were
6:21
partnering with a rescue organization called Gray Bull
6:24
Rescue to evacuate Americans out of Israel.
6:26
I got in touch with a wonderful state senator named Jay Collins
6:29
here in Florida who was literally physically on the
6:31
ground there in Israel. And thus began the long 3 1/2
6:34
day journey. So we went to the Jordanian
6:36
border, across the border, went to Amman, the capital of Jordan,
6:40
spent the night in Amman, flew to Cyprus, which became
6:43
something of a focal point for Israelis evacuating.
6:45
So we were then a night in Cyprus, then flew to Tampa, FL
6:49
on a DeSantis charter flight. DeSantis himself was actually
6:52
meeting us there at Tampa International Airport.
6:55
That was a bit of a surprise. It was doubly a surprise when he
6:57
personally asked me to join him at the press conference after
6:59
this 13 hour flight where I got no sleep.
7:01
So I did my best to not sound like a groggy, sleep deprived
7:04
idiot during that press conference there and then.
7:07
We eventually found our way back home to South Florida.
7:09
The whole thing again, took about 3 1/2 days.
7:11
But the most important part, Lila, is that we are all safe,
7:14
praise be to God. And we're going to have a lot of
7:16
very funny stories, probably to tell our daughter one day when
7:18
she's old enough to comprehend it all.
7:20
Thank God, yes, I'm so glad you're safe.
7:22
Can you give folks those that have been living under a rock
7:24
and also those that are reading the news?
7:26
But every day there's a new headline and it's changing that,
7:29
you know, what's happening with Iran, Israel, the Gaza war.
7:33
Can you give us some context about the events of the last
7:36
week? And then also give us your view
7:39
on the Iran, Iranian, Israeli relations and how they have
7:44
evolved over the last few decades?
7:46
I know that's a huge question right there.
7:48
So, you know, start with the last week and then, you know,
7:51
give us a few thoughts about how you see the relationship and the
7:53
context for that relationship over the last several years.
7:57
Sure. So the first thing to note is
7:59
that this is not a war that started a week and a half ago.
8:03
You know, a lot of people are saying this is Israel's war of
8:05
aggression, that Israel dropped these bombs inside Iran.
8:08
That's frankly just a very foolish thing to say.
8:11
I mean, I, I, I at a bare minimum, this war, at a bare
8:14
minimum, this war started on October 7th, 2023, where Hamas,
8:18
which is funded by Iran, committed the largest pogrom and
8:22
mass murder of the Jewish people since Adolf Hitler and the Nazis
8:25
were alive. The Wall Street Journal in
8:26
reporting on October 8th, 2023, had a report that has still not
8:30
been disputed, that Hamas was in and out of Iran receiving
8:33
training and support for that horrific operation there.
8:36
So at a bare minimum, this conflict started about a year
8:38
and a half ago on October 7th. Not just Hamas.
8:41
Then ultimately a different Iranian proxy, Hezbollah and
8:43
Lebanon got in. The Houthis and Yemenis are all
8:46
the Iranian regime's various terror proxies throughout the
8:48
region. I think an even longer view,
8:51
though, Lila, is probably appropriate here as well, which
8:53
is that the revolutionary Iranian regime, since the
8:55
overthrew the Shah and took over in 1979, they've been at war
9:00
with the West more broadly, but especially with what regime
9:04
ideology refers to as the little Satan of Israel and the big
9:07
Satan of the United States. They've been at war with both of
9:10
us for 4 1/2 decades now. I mean, talk about the hostage
9:13
crisis that ended the Jimmy Carter presidency and spawned
9:16
this regime. Talk about the Beirut barracks
9:18
bombings in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983 from the Iranian proxy
9:21
Hezbollah there, 241 Marine slain there.
9:24
So this war, frankly, I dated as a starting point going back a
9:27
very, very long time. Now, having said that, for for
9:30
XYZ reasons, the IDF working in some degree of coordination with
9:36
the United States, it's not entirely exactly clear exactly
9:38
what that extent of that coordination was.
9:40
Did decide that on June 12th, June 13th, that the time had
9:44
come? It happens to be that this was
9:45
day 61 after Donald Trump gave the Iranian 60 days to
9:48
negotiate. Probably not a coincidence
9:50
there. So that was the beginning of of
9:53
the current stage of what I would refer to as this decades
9:56
long war from the revolutionary Iranian regime against the West
9:59
there. And again, the United States
10:02
stayed out initially. Secretary of State Marco Rubio
10:04
had this initial statement trying to put some distance
10:06
between the Israeli operations inside Iran and the United
10:10
States position there. But things changed.
10:13
And we can kind of, you know, openly speculate as to why
10:15
exactly things change. My own two cents on that is that
10:17
Donald Trump is known for a number of things, but he's known
10:19
for watching a lot of Fox News, watching a lot of media there.
10:22
And he probably saw constant media reports of how much.
10:26
But frankly, the IDF of Mossad we're we're doing inside Iran.
10:30
And it really was a spectacular demonstration of intelligence
10:33
prowess from in in those early hours from the IDF and Mossad
10:37
there. And I think that that probably
10:39
above all is what galvanized Donald Trump to get off of the
10:42
finish line there and then go with this bunker Buster
10:44
operation inside of Ron so-called Operation Midnight
10:47
Hammer there. And that kind of then takes us
10:49
to today. But the.
10:51
Quick interjection there. Quick interjection there, Josh.
10:54
So is your read on it because Mossad did that operation to
10:58
target those, correct me on the language here.
11:01
There were particular Iranian military leaders and just do
11:04
these very careful strikes to basically assassinate them.
11:08
You're saying President Trump is watching that thinking that's
11:10
really cool that they were able to do that with no other
11:13
casualties. It was so precise.
11:15
And they'll let let's do the US version of being really cool.
11:18
Let's just eliminate their nuclear, not that they have
11:20
nuclear capabilities, but you know, nuclear weapon
11:22
capabilities. But let's just eliminate any
11:24
potential for that by just doing these bunker bombs.
11:27
Is that am I? Am I understanding it correctly?
11:29
Yeah, I think that's part of it. I I think that it's, it's
11:32
multifast to it. I think that's definitely part
11:34
of it. Is that Donald Trump essentially
11:35
being shocked and awed by the dramatic and frankly this very
11:39
kind of Hollywood film as cool nature of those early stages of
11:43
the Mossad IDF campaign to to to map out this country on an
11:48
intelligence grid and take out the top nuclear scientist, the
11:51
IRGC commanders there. I think that he he was probably
11:53
genuinely impressed by it to an extent as well as large swaths
11:57
of the MAGA commentary on on social media seems to be as
11:59
well. But it but it definitely is more
12:02
than that. I mean, let's not forget that
12:03
that Iran has been confirmed from our own intelligence
12:06
community to be trying to assassinate Donald Trump for
12:08
years now. Donald Trump took out Qasem
12:10
Soleimani, the head of the IRGC cuts force back in 2020.
12:14
He withdrew from Barack Obama's flawed nuclear deal.
12:17
So he's been very tough on Iran for a very long time.
12:20
So it definitely is more complicated than that there.
12:22
But I think that he was ultimately then trying to see
12:25
whether or not Israel would take care of it on its own.
12:27
But because Netanyahu and the Israelis kind of set the United
12:30
States up so well to kind of come in with this one fell final
12:33
swoop and kind of just have the slam dunk of sorts at the end
12:36
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12:38
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13:38
The I think response by some right now in terms of this
13:42
escalation. I mean, whether it's Israel
13:45
attacking the, you know, military leaders in Iran and
13:50
those targeted strikes or it's the United States's bunker bombs
13:53
against the nuclear sites, there has been the response by many
13:59
saying this is escalation. You know, Iran does have a lot
14:02
of bad actors running around. There's certainly terrorists
14:04
that find their homes in Iran. But largely speaking, the
14:08
Iranian regime is not waging war on the US or Israel directly the
14:12
way that maybe these other terrorist cells are.
14:16
So us going in and doing these targeted strikes, you know,
14:20
there's an argument what why, what's the, you know, maybe you
14:23
can argue the case for Israel doing that.
14:25
Let Israel do what Israel wants it to do.
14:27
But the United States taking this on and doing this really
14:30
escalate of these bunker bombs is a act of war, an act of war
14:34
with a new country President Trump ran on.
14:38
No more endless wars, no regime change.
14:41
So why are we risking American lives and basically putting our
14:47
finger into the viper's nest here?
14:49
And also why are is Iran truly our enemy?
14:52
Like this idea that they, I mean, you know, you could say
14:54
North Korea is our enemy, but we're not bombing North Korea,
14:57
right? So what's your?
14:59
What is your response to that? OK, a lot to unpack there.
15:04
We're not buying North Korea for the for the for the very simple
15:06
reason that North Korea is a nuclear power.
15:08
Now we can debate whether or not that was a good idea to let them
15:10
become nuclear there, but we're not just going to go in and and
15:13
start just dropping carpet bombs on Pyongyang because North Korea
15:16
is a nuclear power. The entire point of this
15:18
operation was to prevent one of the foremost fanatical regimes,
15:22
probably the one of the top 2 most radical regimes on the face
15:25
of the earth, along with North Korea, to prevent them from
15:28
getting a nuclear weapon in the 1st place.
15:29
As to as to the notion as to whether or not Iran is an enemy
15:32
of the United States, yeah, they unequivocally are.
15:35
How we know that? Because they literally say it.
15:37
Lila, I was getting a speech last summer in Washington, DC
15:40
for Yafi and America's Foundation.
15:42
I was talking about all these issues there and I saw someone
15:44
in the back of the room who was dressed a little quirkily.
15:46
He looked like he was from a different culture, just
15:49
vigorously nodding along in the back.
15:51
And I kind of made a mental note and I said, you know what?
15:53
I'm going to find this guy after talk and find out why he is
15:56
nodding along so vigorously. Sure enough, he comes up to me.
15:58
This guy was born and raised in Tehran.
16:00
He was born and raised there until the age of 16.
16:01
He literally told me that in their state schools in Tehran,
16:05
in Iran, their version of the Pledge of Allegiance.
16:08
So in the United States, you know, K through 12, hand over
16:11
the heart, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
16:14
in Iran. Their version is I solemnly
16:16
vowed to do all that I can to destroy the little Satan of
16:20
Israel and the big Satan of the United States.
16:21
They literally actually believe this and they don't just believe
16:25
it, they act on it. Again, I mentioned the Beirut
16:26
barracks bombings, 1983, the Khibar Towers bombing in Saudi
16:30
Arabia in the 1990's, the Qasem Soleimani supplied IEDs on the
16:34
roadside of Fallujah and Al Anbar province during the David
16:36
Petraeus counterinsurgency in the 20 tens.
16:38
They've been acting on this for decades and decades and decades
16:41
there. Why in the world would we just
16:43
simply permit a regime that chants death to America on a
16:47
daily basis and acts on that whenever they can to then go
16:50
ahead and just give them the most dangerous weapons known to
16:53
man? The history of mankind there,
16:55
you know, it's a pre emptive strike to prevent the worst
16:59
situation from manifesting it. But this is not a declaration of
17:02
war for the very simple reason that Iran has already been at
17:06
war. They literally declare it on a
17:08
daily basis there. So this war has actually been
17:10
going on, whether or not Americans are are are attuned to
17:14
that. In fact, now it's not a hot war.
17:16
There's no possibility of boots on the ground.
17:18
Not even the most interventionist neoconservatives
17:20
of a Bush era strife. Not even Lindsey Graham is
17:23
calling for that. It's a total straw man, frankly,
17:25
from the Tucker Carlson types to suggest that that that that
17:29
boots on the grounds on the table.
17:30
It's not. I literally have not encountered
17:32
a single serious person speculating that there.
17:35
Donald Trump furthermore, has completely disavowed the goal of
17:38
forcible western imposed regime change.
17:40
By the way, I oppose that as well.
17:42
I oppose hubristic, arrogant Western elite imposed top down
17:45
regime change. Now the best solution to the
17:47
Iranian crisis for 4 1/2 decades now has indeed been some form of
17:52
regime change. But it has to happen from the
17:54
grassroots as it has. It has to happen from, from,
17:56
from the wellspring of sentiment from the Persian people, a very
17:59
proud people going back 2 1/2, three millennia to reclaim their
18:02
country from this fanatical Islamist theocracy that is
18:05
wildly out of step with the sentiments of the median Persian
18:08
individual there. So that's how I would try to
18:10
respond. I might have missed a couple
18:11
points there. That's how I respond.
18:12
I appreciate that. Yeah, I I think the this is the
18:15
whole conversation right now. You know, your response just now
18:17
and kind of the justification for, you know, you could call it
18:22
rustling the hornet's nest, whatever, versus OK, do you let
18:26
this country that has yes, as opposed, you could say, to
18:30
American interests in terms of of threats that might originate
18:33
from, you know, academia? You mentioned they recite death
18:36
to, you know, death to the big Satan and the little Satan.
18:39
But it's not like Iran has said we are going to go to war with
18:43
the United States. It's not like a public
18:45
declaration from the country. We are at war with you and now
18:47
we're going to try to just kill any American we can get her
18:50
hands on. It's more that there are these
18:53
questions about Iran's involvement with terrorists.
18:57
You know, we have those same questions justifying the Iraq
18:59
war. You know, is Iraq or is
19:02
Afghanistan a safe harbor for al Qaeda?
19:05
Right. So this is sort of a narrative
19:07
that we explore, you know, as a justification for invading or
19:11
acts of aggression against these different Middle Eastern
19:12
countries. But, you know, you, you
19:14
mentioned North Korea and their nuclear capabilities.
19:16
I, I think about like Otto Rambreyer, I'm sure you're
19:19
familiar with the story about this young American College kid
19:22
who, you know, travels through North Korea several years back,
19:25
I think it's been over a decade now.
19:27
And he ends up just, you know, taking a flag off the wall.
19:30
I think it was a North Korea piece of propaganda.
19:35
And North Korea snatches him up, imprisons him, refuses to let
19:39
him go, basically virtually tortures him to death.
19:42
Finally, his release is negotiated.
19:44
Then they send back his comatose body to the United States.
19:46
But you could say very much, this is this is a terrorist
19:48
regime. North Korea, they're horrific.
19:51
But we and, and you just said, well, we're not bombing North
19:54
Korea because they have a nuclear weapon.
19:56
You could also say, well, we're not bombing North Korea because
19:58
we don't just go out and bomb countries that disagree with us,
20:01
even if they do acts of aggression occasionally against
20:04
us that we don't like, such as kidnapping Otto Ron Breyer, an
20:08
American kid, and basically torturing him to death.
20:10
So anyways, we could get into all these different countries.
20:13
There's complicated US relationships with most
20:16
countries across the world to varying degrees.
20:18
We have different kinds of alliances and different kinds of
20:21
aggressions, right? Even China, right?
20:23
How we interact with China and we trade with China, obviously.
20:27
But then there's a lot of disagreements we have with
20:30
China. Culturally.
20:31
There's a lot of frustrations that we have with China, but
20:34
we're not going to go and bomb military sites in China.
20:38
That would be seen as an act of war and then China would go to
20:40
war with us. So I think the framework for
20:43
decision making here is what Americans are talking about
20:45
right now. Like what is the justification
20:48
for bombing Iran? And there's this narrative that
20:51
people are concerned about that we are just doing Benjamin
20:54
Netanyahu's bidding. And this is not an America's
20:56
interest and it's not just, and this is just an Israel's
20:59
interest. How do you see it differently?
21:02
I know your book explores the concept of Israel being a key
21:04
ally to the United States, but how would you respond to that
21:07
viewpoint? Yeah, I'm just astounded that
21:10
this is presented as kind of like a 5050 jump ball
21:12
proposition. I mean, the polling on this is
21:14
extraordinarily clear. 79% of Democrats, 85% of Republicans
21:19
say that they support preemptive strikes if necessary to deprive
21:21
Iran of a nuclear weapon. I mean, presidents of both
21:24
parties have at least given rhetorical lip service to the
21:26
notion that the world's most fanatical state sponsor of jihad
21:29
cannot attain the world's most dangerous weapons for decades.
21:32
Even Barack Obama, who deep down in his very callous black heart,
21:36
I, I sincerely believe desired Barack Obama or desired Iran to
21:40
get a nuclear weapon. Even he felt the need for
21:42
political optics and nothing else to to try to bamboozle the
21:46
American people and and pretend like his JCPOA nuclear deal was
21:50
actually a way to prevent the moles from getting from getting
21:52
a nuclear. Because Americans in totally
21:54
understand that they have a long enough memory those of us, those
21:57
of them who were alive. I wasn't and I don't think you
21:59
were either. But many of the older folks
22:01
remember the hostage crisis that lasted for 450 plus days made
22:06
them remember of the Beirut barracks bombings.
22:08
Many of them remember the Khyber Towers in Saudi Arabia.
22:11
The Sulemani supplied IEDs there and we know for a fact that so
22:16
many of these various US State Department recognize foreign
22:19
terrorist organizations, Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian
22:22
Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, Katayev, Hezbollah in Iraq.
22:25
We know that they are directly funded by by Iran because it's
22:29
really not that hard to figure out.
22:30
Most of these people are stupid enough to take really flashy
22:33
snazzy photos of them when they're dining and whining in
22:36
places like like Tehran or in Doha, Qatar, as the case may be
22:39
there. So there's really no doubt as to
22:41
whether as to whether or not Iran has formed this sprawling
22:45
mass, mass, mass array of terrorist proxies.
22:48
By the way, there are terrorist proxies are not merely limited
22:52
to the Middle East. There, Hezbollah in particular,
22:54
has been notorious for being deeply active in Central and
22:56
South America for decades. Iran is very cozy with
22:59
Venezuela. They're very cozy with Cuba.
23:01
They're they're they're cozy frankly with all the world's
23:04
worst actors there. So if you have a bang for your
23:08
buck proposition where you can get in and out to deprive this
23:12
regime that is calling for America's death has been at war
23:15
with us, whether or not we want to admit it for 4 1/2 decades
23:17
there to deprive them of of the worst weapons known to mankind.
23:21
If you have a, a semblance of geopolitical sobriety about you
23:25
and you're not kind of a shrieking World War 3
23:28
catastrophizing dolt who is predicting thousands of American
23:32
casualties and incorrectly predicting that Russia, which is
23:35
a paper tiger as we see in Ukraine and predicting that
23:37
China, which has a million of its own problems.
23:39
If if you're not so gullible as to think that that that these
23:42
that these other countries would, would step in and defend
23:45
Iran, which has no assets whatsoever other than other than
23:48
the subjugated Persian people and a bunch of oil and natural
23:50
gas. If you're willing to then
23:52
recognize that they're not going to step in there and and bail
23:55
Iran out there. Why would you not do this?
23:58
Why would you not do this there with 0 American casualties?
24:01
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Use the code Lila. The one bright side is that in
25:04
addition to what you're speaking to, which is this could
25:07
neutralize potential future nuclear capabilities of Iran.
25:10
My understanding is there weren't even Iranian casualties
25:13
of the bunker bomb strikes. I could be wrong on that, but my
25:16
understanding is the Iranian state media was saying that they
25:18
had been evacuated before the bombs hit.
25:20
So there were no Iranian or American casualties, which is
25:23
sort of remarkable when you're talking about a massive bunker
25:25
bomb going off. But I'm, I appreciate you
25:29
letting me do devil's advocate here because I think these are
25:32
the questions, especially I've noticed a lot of Gen.
25:33
Zers are asking who are very allergic to war, understandably
25:38
so, because war is hell. You know, war is terrible.
25:42
You know, I, I know someone who's been making the rounds
25:44
and, and weighing in on this is Jeffrey Sachs.
25:47
I'm sure you're familiar with his work.
25:49
He has, you know, is renowned, you could say, for his advising
25:53
of governments throughout Latin America, Europe and parts of the
25:57
former Soviet Union. And he has his whole take on the
26:01
afflict. And his argument is, I'm curious
26:04
your response to this. He says, well, Iran doesn't even
26:06
want nuclear weapons. You know, there has been U.S.
26:10
intelligence that says that Iran is not trying to get a nuclear
26:13
weapon. They don't have what it what it
26:16
takes now, obviously, and they're not also trying to do
26:18
it. And it's because they don't want
26:19
it and their neighbors don't want them to have it.
26:21
So this is basically a concoction, you know, by the
26:26
wars, you know, the war Hawks from the US and Israel who just
26:29
want to, you know, take another swipe at Iran, but they're
26:32
really not trying to go for nuclear weapons anyways.
26:35
What are your thoughts? I mean, this is, it's just so,
26:40
so stupid that I, I, I, I, I struggled to know even where to
26:43
begin. Honestly.
26:44
I I mean, Jeffrey Sachs, this tool, you think he's just.
26:47
You think he's just. What do you think is motivating
26:50
that I think? Jeffrey Sachs is a mouthpiece
26:52
for Russia and Iran in places like that there he is a Russian
26:54
Chinese proto mouthpiece there. Why he's getting all?
26:57
Would that be your allegation? I have, I have no evidence to
27:01
suggest that, but he seems to be a frequent guest on on, on the
27:04
on the Tucker Carlson show, which they show.
27:06
That certainly seems to be getting paid from what I can
27:08
tell, or at least close to being paid by certain foreign outlets
27:10
there. I have no direct evidence for
27:12
that either, but kind of trace the money and it seems like it
27:15
like like it adds up. But I have no evidence to
27:17
suggest that Jeffrey Sachs specifically is getting paid
27:19
there. But look, I mean, Sachs is very
27:22
close to to the UN, the World Economic Forum, various other
27:25
globalist transnational institutions there.
27:27
He should look at what the EU NS own so-called nuclear watchdog,
27:31
the IAEA has been saying about Iran's program for 2530 years
27:35
there. They, they, they've been,
27:36
they've been calling this out for literally my entire adult
27:39
lifetime saying that, that, that Iran is not being honest with
27:42
nuclear inspectors. They are, yes, they're getting
27:44
to 60% of rich uranium, the end to this.
27:45
They're getting to that there. And you know, Iran does a
27:48
really, really lousy job of, of trying to pretend like they're
27:52
not doing that there. That's the entire reason they
27:54
sat down for negotiations with Barack Obama in the 1st place
27:57
there. If you were so adamant that you
27:59
are not developing a nuclear weapon, why would you kind of
28:01
dignify this grand negotiation in the 1st place there?
28:04
Why would you dignify these most recent Steve Witkoff
28:06
negotiations there? Anyone and everyone who knows
28:09
anything knows that Iran has been racing towards a nuclear
28:12
weapon there. You don't put these facilities
28:14
buried deep, you know, 300 feet underground in these triple
28:18
extra fortified mountains there. You don't, you don't stick to
28:20
middle fingers to international watchdog inspectors unless
28:24
you're trying to hide something there.
28:25
So I, I mean, it's, it's crazy to me.
28:29
I, I mean, I, I, I don't know what else to say, but it's, it's
28:31
just, it really just defies anything remotely resembling
28:34
common sense or logic to say. And, and having said that, look,
28:37
I understand why people are skeptical.
28:39
I understand why people are, are, are very skeptical.
28:41
There notwithstanding all the things that we pointed out about
28:44
how this is a, a simple tactical strike in line with Donald
28:48
Trump's Jacksonian approach to foreign policy, very different
28:50
than the moralistic Bush era neoconservative boondogs there.
28:54
I understand the skepticism. I understand the hesitancy.
28:57
I too have a lot of questions about the intelligence community
29:00
for sure. But if there is one thing that
29:02
we can say with a very, very high degree of confidence there,
29:05
because they're not even particularly trying to hide the
29:07
ball themselves, is that Iran has every interest in acquiring
29:11
a nuclear weapon. And your argument for that would
29:14
be they have every interest in acquiring a nuclear weapon
29:16
because they want to deploy it, even if it's a suicidal mission
29:20
against the United States and Israel?
29:22
Because the raison d'etre of this regime is to destroy the
29:24
little sand. The big sand.
29:25
That's literally why they exist. So you think that Iran wants
29:30
that nuclear weapon so that they can, even though it would be a
29:32
self immolation like if, because if they launch a nuke at us,
29:35
it's, you know, mutual assured destruction, right?
29:38
So you think that they want this nuclear weapon so they can just
29:41
get blown up and we'll get blown up?
29:44
Well, it's not mutually shared discussion because that premise
29:47
I, I, I think necessarily is reliant on dealing with cold,
29:50
rational actors. But these are these, these are
29:53
jihadists. These are literally.
29:54
Suicide. Islamist jihadism effective.
29:56
Yeah. I mean, you're dealing here with
29:58
a regime that actually believes in the whole 72 versions in
30:01
heaven thing there. So I mean, you're not dealing
30:03
here with a cold calculating gang theory analysis.
30:06
There's there's no such thing as Soviet, you know, Gorbachev,
30:10
Reagan style mutually assured destruction with a regime like
30:12
this there. So yes, they are trying to get a
30:14
nuclear weapon so they can actually use it.
30:16
So, and it's, it's interesting because if you've talked to most
30:19
people in Israel, right, they would, my understanding is say,
30:23
agree with what you're saying. Like you have, have you lived in
30:25
Israel before? They are like, these countries
30:27
are not our friends, like they're not these countries like
30:30
every country. But you know, we have neighbors
30:32
very close to us that are literally deploying terrorist
30:35
attacks against us. You have Iran, like you said,
30:38
who has this very hostile posture towards us.
30:41
So Israel's kind of always holding, literally, they have,
30:44
you know, throughout, throughout the country of Israel, there are
30:48
armed military personnel everywhere.
30:51
You grow up in Israel, you spend I think it's two years in the
30:53
military, right? De facto, if you're a man or a
30:55
woman, they're always on guard because they're always under
30:59
threat. So I understand, you know, that
31:01
certainly that perspective, I think for the American, that's a
31:05
very difficult thing to comprehend because we don't have
31:07
that experience of constantly feeling that our safety is at
31:11
risk. Do you think that plays into
31:13
this very, this chasm really, really psychologically between
31:18
the American mindset on these affairs and saying, wait, why
31:21
are we doing this? Should we really be meddling in
31:23
the Middle East versus this is an existential threat that's
31:26
felt daily by the people of Israel?
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That's We Heart nutrition.com. All right, so one is I reject
32:27
the premise that there is some sort of monumental chasm here
32:30
going on. Again, the polling is very
32:31
clear. The polling is that the American
32:33
people support essentially anything to prevent Iran from
32:36
from from getting a nuclear weapon.
32:38
Now the American people also support a another prolonged
32:41
military operation in the Middle East.
32:42
Guess what? So do I, so does virtually
32:45
everyone I talked to there. But again, the polling is, this
32:48
is an 8020 issue at worst, arguably even better depending
32:51
on the polling there for again, for decades, definitely
32:54
Republican presidents, but even Democrat presidents have have
32:56
felt the need to give, to give lip service that the world's
32:59
most fanatical Islamist regime simply cannot acquire a nuclear
33:02
weapon there. So I, I, I mean, to me it's
33:05
pretty clear that that that this is a winning issue politically
33:08
for President Trump. There, there are a lot of loud,
33:10
outspoken voices within his own purported coalition, people who
33:13
are trying to impute their own radical Charles Lindbergh
33:17
Fortress America type views and trying to make that out to be
33:20
Mag or America first. Now, notwithstanding the fact
33:22
that Donald Trump's foreign policy has never been that, that
33:24
he has always been a Jacksonian, always, always been someone who
33:27
will actually use prudential force to defend American
33:30
interests if need be. See, for example, the Qasem
33:33
Soleimani assassination, the AL Baghdadi assassination and ISIS
33:36
in Syria back in the early stages of the first term there.
33:39
So there's that. The other thing that's, that's
33:41
relevant here is this, this notion that there is kind of
33:44
this, this sharp chasm between the American and, and, and
33:48
Israeli mentality there, which I, which again, I, I, I
33:51
categorically reject that for, for the reason that I just said
33:53
there. It's also not just the Israeli
33:55
perspective, Lila, all the other Arab countries in the region,
33:58
with the possible exception of Qatar and maybe rest of type
34:01
Erdogan's Turkey, they are thrilled.
34:03
They are literally thrilled with what has just happened there.
34:06
The Saudis are a bunch of cowards.
34:07
They're not going to publicly praise what just happened there
34:10
for reasons of essentially being afraid of their own people
34:13
there. I guarantee you that Mohammed
34:15
bin Salman was smiling ear to ear when he heard about this
34:19
there. They are all terrified of the
34:20
Iranian nuclear program, whether it's the Saudis, the Emiratis,
34:23
the Bahrainis, the Egyptians, the the Jordanians, you name it.
34:26
The the entire non Islamist axis of Arab countries there again,
34:30
Qatar a little different, Turkey a little different as well.
34:33
But virtually all these other countries, even Syria, Syria
34:37
under their under their new leadership now that Assad has
34:39
fled to to Moscow under this guy Al Al Jilani.
34:42
But well, I have a lot of questions about him.
34:44
Even Syria allegedly or apparently was it was allowing
34:47
Israel and the United States to use their airspace to intercept
34:50
Iranian missiles there. No one wants this.
34:52
No one wants that this this, this fanatical regime to be
34:55
armed with the worst weapons on the face of the earth there.
34:58
That was the entire premise of of the Abraham, of course, that
35:01
Trump and Netanyahu orchestrated was to get this Iran containment
35:03
alliance there. And frankly, there's really no
35:07
one other than Israel itself who's happier about what Donald
35:11
Trump did in Midnight Hammer than Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and so
35:15
forth. I want to go to in a minute a
35:18
clip from Trump that's circulating the Internet right
35:20
now about latest developments and the Israeli Iran conflict
35:25
front. But first, you know, to your
35:27
point about you don't buy this sort of narrative that Americans
35:32
and there's this chasm between the American view on these on
35:35
the war and Israel. I agree with you.
35:39
Certainly with older generations.
35:41
I think that's true with many millennials and certainly Gen.
35:45
X boomers, you know, people who have kind of been around the
35:47
block, have lived through some of the things you keep
35:49
referencing in this interview about the Iranian aggressions
35:54
and the tumult in the Middle East.
35:56
But you look at Gen. Z or Americans and it's very
35:59
interesting. And I'm sure you've seen this,
36:01
especially at the college campus crazy, you know, pro Palestine,
36:04
you know, from the river to the sea protests and, you know,
36:08
tearing down pictures of hostages.
36:09
I mean, some really aggressive, anti Israel, anti-Semitic,
36:13
virulent sentiment coming up among some younger generations.
36:16
And then in addition, you see some of this polling that's
36:19
being done. This is Pew Research.
36:21
Younger Americans have a more favorable opinion of the
36:24
Palestinian people than the Israeli people, 6 and 10.
36:27
Adults underage 30 have a positive view of the Palestinian
36:29
people compared with 46% who see the Israeli people positively.
36:33
And then there's a majority of Americans who are younger under
36:37
30. Again, this is a different
36:38
cohort who see the Israel Hamas war as unjust, Israel, those
36:43
aggression against Hamas unjust, even though again, Hamas started
36:46
it October 7th as you just, you know, talked about earlier.
36:50
Are you seeing this in your personal experience, including
36:53
on the right? Are you concerned about it?
36:55
What do you think it means? I'd love your your take on that.
36:58
Yeah, look, it's all very concerning.
37:00
And I mean, it's essentially why I wrote my book Israel and
37:03
Civilization was these exact concerns, the concerns among the
37:07
Gen. Z, the concerns among some folks
37:09
within the broader MAGA America First Coalition in general.
37:13
And frankly, just the the deeply cynical, I would say borderline
37:16
evil attempts by some provocateurs online to try to
37:20
distance not merely the United States from Israel, but trying
37:22
to distance Jews and Christians. That really I think is, is the
37:25
ultimate deeply insidious and pernicious end goal of some of
37:28
the absolute worst actors there on the online, right.
37:31
So trying to combat all of that was was very much deliberately
37:35
and intentionally what I was trying to do with my, with my
37:37
book Israel and Civilization, the Fate of the Jewish nation
37:39
and the Destiny of the West. I don't pretend to have all the
37:42
answers, Lila, but what I can tell you is this my basic
37:44
premise in the book is that Western civilization is largely
37:47
synonymous with the biblical inheritance there.
37:50
That the two biblical religions, Judaism and Christianity are the
37:53
religions that built what we today refer to as Western
37:56
civilization there. And when you consider the three
37:59
forces that I identify as trying to subjugate the biblical
38:03
inheritance, Western civilization and trying to
38:06
ultimately, in a very hegemonic fashion, extirpate us, I can
38:10
identify at least three woke ISM, Islamism and global
38:13
neoliberalism. I think one of the key points to
38:15
recognize is that it's not just the, the the Jewish state of
38:19
Israel, but it's also the Jewish people that tend to often times
38:21
be the Canary in the coal mine for all these various types of
38:24
subjugation there. And the same way that that that
38:27
Western civilization, that Christians built Western
38:29
civilization off of the off of the, the biblical offshoot
38:33
there. I think the famous line was that
38:34
the Jews are the original people of the book and then then the
38:37
Christians for the great Gentile offshoot there.
38:39
The same way that that that that original tree trunk helped
38:43
solidify the West, something that the American founders
38:45
understood extremely well. People like Benjamin Franklin
38:48
and Thomas Jefferson wanted the national seal of the United
38:50
States to be Benjamin Frank. Excuse me to be Moses part in
38:53
the Red Sea with the Israelites there.
38:55
The same way that none of this ends up happening without the
38:58
original people of the book. So too, I think will Western
39:01
civilization ultimately suffer by trying to suffocate and
39:04
extricate the the original people of the book as well.
39:06
And there's all sorts of other kind of arguments off of that.
39:08
Lila there another argument that I make in the book is that if
39:11
you are a nationalist, which I think a lot of people on the
39:13
right would call themselves today, I am a nationalist
39:16
personally. If you are a nationalist and you
39:18
care about the nation state opposed to, to to globalism, to
39:21
to transnational institutions there, I think that there is an
39:24
idiosyncratic reason also to care about the specific fates of
39:27
the state of Israel, which is that Israel going back literally
39:31
to King Davidde unification of the tribes in Jerusalem in the
39:34
Bible is by my estimation, really the the world's ancient
39:38
predecessor to what we might call the nation states.
39:40
In fact, the biblical model of geopolitical affairs is very
39:44
much kind of a nationalist nation state endeavor.
39:46
We might contrast that actually with the imperial model of the
39:50
Roman Empire there. So if you care about modern
39:52
nationalism and the modern nation state there, I think a
39:55
lot of people on the rights care about borders and sovereignty
39:58
and the nation state, all that there.
39:59
I think that there is kind of a very specific, idiosyncratic
40:02
reason to care about Israel's fate as well.
40:03
In just the last couple days, there has been yesterday, I
40:07
think it was actually President Trump announced on Truth Social
40:11
that he had brokered. Well, he didn't say he had
40:13
brokered it, excuse me, but he has said that where there was a
40:15
ceasefire agreement between Iran and Israel.
40:17
I know you saw that. I'm sure you saw that just a few
40:20
hours ago, Trump was interviewed by media.
40:25
I'm going to play this clip. Let me see if you can hear this.
40:27
I'm sure you've seen this clip. So this woman is asking him if
40:30
Israel has violated the ceasefire agreement.
40:32
Do you think that Iran is, I think, committed to peace?
40:35
She's asking. Yeah, I do.
40:36
They violated, but Israel violated it too.
40:41
Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they
40:44
dropped the load of bombs the likes of which I've never seen
40:46
before, the biggest load that we've seen.
40:49
I'm not happy with Israel. You know when, when I say, okay,
40:52
now you have 12 hours, You don't go out in the first hour, just
40:56
drop everything you have on them.
40:57
So I'm not happy with them. I'm not happy with Iran either.
41:01
But I'm really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning
41:04
because the one rocket that didn't land, that was shot
41:07
perhaps by mistake, that didn't land, I'm not happy about that.
41:13
You know what we have? We basically have two countries
41:16
that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know
41:20
what the fuck they're doing. Do you understand that?
41:23
And then he marches off to his helicopter.
41:25
I know you. I'm sure you saw that clip.
41:26
What? What do you why?
41:28
Why do you think Trump is saying this?
41:31
Do you agree with him? Disagree.
41:33
What are your thoughts? Well, he's understandably upset
41:36
that this ceasefire is not holding.
41:40
I, I don't really understand why he's blaming both sides equally
41:43
here. I mean, Iran was the one who
41:45
apparently violated 3 1/2 hours after the ceasefire went to
41:48
place. By the way, just a few hours
41:50
before the ceasefire went to place, they got one final
41:52
missile that landed tragically in Berisheva, murdered 4 to 5
41:55
Israelis. So that was before the ceasefire
41:57
and then immediately after it, they're firing more missiles
42:00
there. So it's not, it's not obvious to
42:02
me as to why you're blaming both sides.
42:03
It kind of strikes me as to, you know, after Fort Sumter in, in
42:07
April of 1861, are you going to blame the Confederacy and the
42:10
Union equally there? I mean, it's a very crass
42:12
analogy, but it kind of it kind of holds water here.
42:14
So I don't know why is. Israel retaliating after you're
42:17
saying Iran is the first party to break the ceasefire is not
42:20
Israel, in your view, is not Israel breaking the ceasefire
42:22
because they're just responding in kind to the aggression?
42:26
Yeah, On the contrary, it's the only way to enforce a ceasefire
42:29
is to actually demonstrate that there are repercussions for
42:31
breaking it. There again, I'm not surprised,
42:33
unfortunately, that Iran is is violating A ceasefire so soon
42:36
after signing. And again, you're dealing here
42:38
with the most deceitful, sniveling, lying, you know,
42:41
people in any regime on the face of of the earth.
42:44
That's just who they are. They've been, they've been lying
42:46
to anyone, everyone for decades and decades and decades now.
42:48
So I'm hardly surprised about that.
42:50
It's a very interesting moment for President Trump to be in
42:52
there. He clearly wants the ceasefire
42:54
stick. I clearly want the ceasefire
42:55
stick. I don't really know a single
42:57
person who does not want the ceasefire stick.
42:59
The problem again is that you're dealing with a horrific,
43:02
horrific bunch of liars who are going to say and do anything,
43:06
everything. Which by the way, apparently
43:07
Donald Trump finally realized that on day sixty of his strung
43:11
out negotiations, which is why he apparently gave some sort of
43:13
implicit green light to Israel to launch their pre emptive
43:16
operations inside of Iran there. So on the one hand, Donald Trump
43:20
has realized that the Iranians are stringing along.
43:22
On the other hand, maybe he has not realized that.
43:24
I think he's kind of lashing out here just in very viscerally
43:27
frustrated fashion, you know, hence that F bomb that he
43:30
dropped on the way to the helicopter there.
43:32
I don't blame him. He's probably been working his
43:33
tail off, working the phones trying to reach a ceasefire
43:35
there. So I don't blame him for being
43:37
upset there. I just wish that he would blame
43:39
the side that is clearly to blame there.
43:41
There's no one in Israel, Lila, who was at least I'm aware of.
43:43
There's really no one who is hoping for a prolonged mission
43:46
there. Israel has accomplished its
43:48
operational goals here. the United States has accomplished
43:50
its operational goals here. Everyone should be happy.
43:53
Let's get the ceasefire there. Easier said than done though,
43:55
because that's the that's just the nature of the regime,
43:57
unfortunately, in Iran. I've got to ask you one more
44:00
question. Thank you so much for your time,
44:02
Josh, and also for letting me be devil's advocate here because I,
44:05
I'm, I'm asking questions that I'm seeing raised constantly,
44:08
especially by the younger generations.
44:11
And I think it's really key to engage the questions.
44:14
I know that there's also anti-Semitism is real.
44:17
I've seen it in its face. It's very ugly.
44:19
So that's another thing that, you know, you can't really
44:21
answer anti-Semitism except to say that's horrific.
44:23
Stop being that way. But there's this it's a it's a
44:26
whole, you know, it's a mixed pot of all kinds of different
44:29
motivations and actors and and everything else moving over to
44:34
and and I do think one of the reasons for so much anti Israel
44:38
sentiment right now is this, you know, onslaught online of
44:42
content coming from Gaza and people looking at the plight of
44:47
Gazans, you know, not combatant Gazans, Hamas, but children,
44:51
families that are caught in the crossfire ultimately, and you
44:55
know, their lives are at risk or they're dying.
44:57
And so you see enough pictures, I think it radicalizes people.
44:59
They think this is so horrific. We know we can't, you know, we,
45:02
we hate, we just want this to stop.
45:03
We want this to stop. So I do want to ask you about
45:05
Gaza too, because I know that's just obviously part of all of
45:07
this. And, you know, after October
45:10
7th, horrific, heinous acts, there was a ceasefire.
45:12
Hamas broke it. You know, Hamas did the most
45:14
unspeakable things to scores and scores of Israelis, just
45:19
unspeakably horrific and heinous.
45:22
And then Israel launches a counter attack to try to
45:26
eradicate Hamas. Of course, her mosque goes
45:28
underground, you know, in their bunkers under our the schools of
45:32
their own people and the, you know, the homes of their own
45:34
people. So there's all at war now in the
45:36
Gaza Strip. Do you think that the end is
45:39
insight in terms of beating Hamas, actually winning victory
45:45
over Hamas? Are you concerned about the
45:47
casualties? How do you see a solution?
45:50
Is there a solution to limiting the casualties of the civilians
45:54
who are caught in the crossfire? Any thoughts on the Gaza Hamas
45:58
war? That's the Gaza Israel war
45:59
that's unfolding at the same time.
46:02
Sure. Well, let's not forget that
46:04
October 7th on its own terms was also a tragedy.
46:07
For I mean to be clear, Israel suffered by far the biggest
46:09
wound, but there were literally people of between 40 and 50, if
46:14
I recall different nationalities, who are murdered.
46:16
Yeah, Thai people, Americans. Yeah, that's true.
46:19
Yeah, tons of Europeans because a lot of them are there for the
46:22
for this music festival there. And there were there were
46:25
roughly three dozen Americans who were either killed or taken
46:29
hostage there. In fact, in fact, October 7th
46:30
taken on its own terms is amounted to the single largest
46:34
American hostage crisis since 1979, since the Iranian, which
46:39
which is really crazy, right? But a lot of these people, you
46:41
know, kind of, you know, who are saying like America first, I, I,
46:44
I, I want nothing to do with there.
46:46
They're not necessarily kind of responding to the fact that many
46:49
Americans, many American citizens were, were, were were
46:52
killed or wounded as well. Look, I understand that people
46:55
are are, are deeply upset about about images and a lot of these
46:59
images are nonetheless terrible there.
47:01
But nonetheless, we actually have statistics, Lila, we have
47:03
statistics there. And John Spencer, who is the
47:05
head of urban warfare studies at West Point, he's probably the
47:08
Western world single leading experts on urban warfare.
47:11
He was there in in Iraq during the Donald Trump LED insurgency
47:16
against ISIS there in 2016. There he he's crunched numbers
47:19
literally since the war started and the the militant to
47:22
civilian, the combatant to civilian death ratio here,
47:26
according to John Spencer, is 1 to 1.5, which is at least twice
47:30
as good as the United States achieved in 20/16/2017 against
47:34
ISIS. In fact, according to Professor
47:36
Spencer, it is the most humanistic, the most humane, you
47:39
might say ratio in the entire history of recorded urban
47:42
warfare. So this notion that Israel is
47:44
indiscriminately killing civilians is it's a modern day
47:48
blood libel. There's really no other way to
47:50
say it there. Bear in mind as well that Hamas,
47:52
as we well know, operates from civilian centers.
47:55
They literally operate from hospitals, from mosques, from
47:57
schools, from this, from that there.
48:00
And under at least the, the, the rules of war that I am familiar
48:04
with, there are the laws of war there in a situation like that
48:07
when there are civilian casualties in a situation like
48:09
that, when there's a legitimate military target.
48:11
And yeah, there's such thing as a doctrine of proportionality
48:14
there. But the but the moral onus does
48:16
go to Hamas in a situation like that there.
48:18
So for all the above reasons there, I, I think that the
48:21
shrieks of hysteria from a lot of emotionally manipulated
48:25
people, they're looking at various kind of one off images
48:27
and concluding there is a genocide or something like that.
48:30
Not there. I, I, I think it's just a load
48:32
of rubbish. Now, will Israel be able to
48:34
actually eradicate Hamas as Netanyahu has repeatedly said?
48:38
I don't know the answer to that. I mean, this is it.
48:39
It's been going on for a long time.
48:41
Joe Biden had extremely stringent strict rules of
48:45
engagement trying to hamstring the Israelis from actually doing
48:47
that. I'm not entirely sure what the
48:50
next few months will look like from a Trump perspective there.
48:52
Trump would definitely like for this war to end sooner rather
48:54
than later there, if I had to guess.
48:56
Lila, just a pure speculation the war will finish in some
49:00
capacity with Hamas being out of power, but probably not fully
49:05
unlimited. That's that's probably my best
49:07
guess as to how this ends there, but it really is just a guess.
49:10
I think the reason for so much chagrin upon seeing the
49:15
devastation unfolding in Gaza is because we hold Israel to a
49:20
standard at least as high as our own ally.
49:23
I mean, they are our ally. They're not Iran, they're not
49:26
Syria. You know, there's brutal things
49:28
that those regimes have done and, you know, children that
49:31
have been, you know, butchered in those countries.
49:33
You know, certainly I think about the Syria and what's
49:35
happened in the last decade in Syria.
49:38
But in Israel, you know, we, we, they're our ally, right?
49:41
So we know that we want to be able to count on each other.
49:45
And so this idea that Israel's onslaught against Hamas is as a
49:50
casualty, you're seeing children dying and a lot of children
49:53
potentially dying. It's devastating.
49:55
It's hard for, I think American minds to be OK with that.
49:59
And certainly younger generations are acting up
50:01
against it, especially saying this is not OK.
50:03
This is not OK. I know you mentioned the the
50:06
stat about urban warfare, which is, you know, very interesting.
50:08
It's very hard to wage war in, in Gaza.
50:11
It's not designed for war, all right?
50:13
It's a densely compact population.
50:16
It's not like Israel is going in there purposely trying to bomb
50:18
children. If they wanted to, there would
50:19
be a lot more children dead. That's what I I say to people
50:21
when I have conversations about this.
50:23
But that being said, there are children who are dying and
50:25
that's a horrific tragedy. It is a horrific tragedy any way
50:28
you look at it. Is there anything that you think
50:31
Israel could be doing differently at this point?
50:34
Or do you, in your view, is that they have done maximum restraint
50:37
well, at the same time pursuing their important objective of
50:41
toppling Hamas? Yeah, on On the contrary, I
50:43
think they've been overly restrained.
50:44
Actually, I think that they, I think that they've been way too
50:47
restrained and that if they were to actually be less restrained
50:50
and, and be a little more hands, hands off and actually just try
50:53
to finish a job there, then this war would have actually ended
50:56
probably a year ago, maybe even more than a year ago there.
50:58
In fact, the only reason that we're still here having this
51:01
conversation is because the rules of engagement have been
51:03
overly restrictive from from the get go.
51:06
Look, by the way, everyone hates innocent people dying, OK?
51:11
Everyone, everyone hates there. Look, you're also dealing with a
51:14
situation of I mean, this, this, this kind of gets to the, to the
51:18
Western mentality and how the West has actually really
51:20
forgotten how to actually wage war.
51:23
The West has not fought A genuine war probably since World
51:26
War 2, which is an actual war against an enemy that wants to
51:29
kill you and you try to kill them first.
51:32
That's that, that, that that is what's happening here.
51:34
By the way, that was not always Israel's mentality to Gaza.
51:37
On the contrary, after Hamas took over in O 7, Israel tried
51:41
to essentially do backdoor payments via Qatar to keep Hamas
51:45
in power, try to economically bribe them on the on on the
51:48
operating assumption that whatever might follow Hamas
51:50
would actually be even worse there that that dream died on
51:53
October 7th there. So their their MO has not always
51:56
been to actually get rid of Hamas.
51:57
The The thing is that after October 7th, I think I think
52:00
their mentality changes said no, literally nothing can actually
52:03
be worse than this there. So this is war.
52:05
I mean this is war after what happened October 7th.
52:07
War is ugly, war is ugly war is hell, which is why wars should
52:10
should be avoided at all costs. But sometimes wars are necessary
52:14
there and civilians tragically are going to die in every single
52:17
war here. Just it just happens happens to
52:19
be the case that the civilian to combat in death ratio in Gaza is
52:22
literally the lowest in the entire history of urban warfare.
52:24
No matter how many images come out to make, all of our hearts
52:28
kind of just sink. I just find it so devastating
52:32
and pray daily that Hamas does. I mean, not that they can really
52:35
come to their senses and that they are on their own suicidal
52:38
mission, many of them. I mean, that's like the tactic.
52:41
Suicide missions is a tactic of Hamas, of course, but that there
52:44
will be peace because there's the death toll of both Israelis
52:49
already and then certainly of Gazans who are, yeah,
52:53
casualties, innocent casualties. It's it's devastating.
52:55
It's devastating to anyone. It's why, like you say, war as
52:57
hell. Josh, I really appreciate you
53:00
running through your views on all of this and engaging these
53:04
other viewpoints. I on the show, we try to really
53:08
speak to where people are AT. And I think most of our show is
53:11
very, you know, on the same page with what you're saying, But
53:14
there's a lot of young people, especially today, who are really
53:17
concerned about doing justice and in getting this right.
53:21
And I think overall, that motivation is a good one.
53:23
And so informing it with these different viewpoints is so key.
53:26
So I appreciate that. Where can people find your work
53:28
and also get your book? Lila, my pleasure.
53:31
Thanks to you. Thank you for having me.
53:32
So I'm I'm on X Josh under score Hammer.
53:35
My Instagram is Josh B Hammer. My syndicated column goes up at
53:39
Newsweek, RealClearPolitics, LA Times, other places as well.
53:42
My show, The Josh Hammer Show, wherever podcasts are available.
53:46
And the book again is Israel and Civilization, the Fate of the
53:48
Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.
53:50
Awesome. Thank you so much, Josh.
53:51
Glad you're safe and glad you're back.
53:54
God bless you, Lila. Thank you.
53:55
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Lila Roche
53:57
Show with Josh Hammer. Let me know your thoughts.
53:59
I know that this is again, very controversial.
54:01
I love hearing your input. And let me know your
54:04
recommendations for guests who could have a good faith debate
54:07
about these issues because I'm looking at hosting one of those
54:10
debates on the show and I'd love to hear your input.
54:13
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54:15
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54:18
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