Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E61: Understanding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict with Robert Nicholson

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E61: Understanding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict with Robert Nicholson · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  6:30 in the morning on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath day of rest,
• 0:03
  Hamas launches a an attack, the biggest trauma that's ever
• 0:09
  happened to the state of Israel in 50.
• 0:10
  Years there, there is every temptation when you see all
• 0:14
  these news items, NPR, The New York Times and, and this one and
• 0:17
  that one and this Hollywood celebrity to start to think to
• 0:20
  yourself, you know, I don't know, maybe maybe they're right.
• 0:23
  Maybe maybe Israel is somehow, you know, really the, the, the
• 0:26
  aggressor here. And it takes real wisdom and and
• 0:29
  discernment to to hold that line.
• 0:33
  Hey guys, welcome back to the Lila Rose podcast.
• 0:36
  All right, over the weekend I was, and this past week you
• 0:40
  probably have seen the reports about the attacks on Israelis,
• 0:44
  innocent Israeli civilians, men, women and children by Hamas
• 0:48
  terrorists. And it's just been gut
• 0:50
  wrenching. My timeline has been filled with
• 0:52
  these stories about the atrocities committed.
• 0:55
  I think the death toll is now 900 people who are been killed
• 0:59
  in Israel by militants who crossed the border in a surprise
• 1:03
  attack. Those listening, I know this is
• 1:05
  a very controversial issue for some people.
• 1:07
  Some people very clearly see this as Israel has been attacked
• 1:11
  and they must fight back to defend their very existence.
• 1:14
  But then there are other strong narratives in American media
• 1:17
  today and even among some people on the right, some Christians
• 1:21
  who say that well, Israel isn't just an innocent party here.
• 1:24
  Israel has also, is it also at fault for a decade's strong
• 1:28
  conflict? And so we're going to actually
• 1:30
  explore that. We're going to get into what are
• 1:32
  the prevailing narratives right now about the Israeli
• 1:35
  Palestinian conflict. We're going to have a great
• 1:36
  expert on the show today. We're going to have Robert
• 1:39
  Nicholson on the show today who's the founder and the
• 1:42
  president of the Filos Project to walk us through some of the
• 1:44
  history, answer some of the tough questions about the
• 1:47
  Israeli Palestinian conflict. It's extremely eye opening and
• 1:50
  end with ultimately a call for seeing that this is more than a
• 1:54
  geopolitical battle playing out, more than a battle between
• 1:57
  warring factions for the state of Israel and the Palestinian
• 2:00
  people, but that this is also a spiritual battle.
• 2:03
  I learned a lot in this conversation with Robert.
• 2:06
  I think you will too. And I think it's important for
• 2:09
  all of us to learn about the conflict unfolding in the Middle
• 2:13
  East, about the state of Israel and the persecution of Jewish
• 2:19
  people, which is an ongoing persecution that is real,
• 2:24
  especially in the last century. And we should be as educated as
• 2:27
  possible as we pray for those innocents who are under attack
• 2:31
  and those that have been wounded and those that have lost loved
• 2:34
  ones. But before we get into this
• 2:36
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  goodranchers.com. Well, on the podcast today we
• 4:57
  have Robert Nicholson, the founder and head of the Filos
• 5:00
  Project here to weigh in with his expertise about what is
• 5:04
  unfolding right now in Israel and in Gaza.
• 5:07
  Robert, thank you so much for joining the joining the podcast.
• 5:10
  Thank you. It's great to be here.
• 5:12
  So first of all, for those that don't know your work, I've heard
• 5:15
  great things about it. We have a mutual friend I wanted
• 5:17
  to understand. Let's start with your expertise
• 5:20
  and your background and your work with the Filos project.
• 5:23
  Sure. Well, I am the founder and
• 5:26
  president of this organization based in New York City, the
• 5:28
  Filos Project. Our mission is to promote
• 5:31
  positive Christian engagement in the Near East.
• 5:34
  We could talk more about that. We started in 2014.
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  It was the product of my own spiritual journey, you could say
• 5:42
  none of it planned. And this was a journey that
• 5:46
  started with me questioning religion.
• 5:49
  I was not a religious person, very anti Christian, having kind
• 5:54
  of rejected, rebelled against some of the things I was taught
• 5:59
  as a child. And then after 911, realizing
• 6:02
  that while religion, even if I think it's stupid, is really
• 6:07
  important for billions of people and I should probably know
• 6:10
  something about it. And that led me to reading the
• 6:14
  Quran, the the book of Osama bin Laden and the boat and the
• 6:18
  Bible, the book of President Bush.
• 6:21
  And that really was the, the start of a journey that led me
• 6:24
  to realize there's much more of a connection between my faith,
• 6:30
  Christianity and the Middle East that I had thought, right.
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  Actually, this was not an American religion or European
• 6:37
  religion. This is a, this is a Middle
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  Eastern religion that went on to change the world.
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  And I've been on a journey ever since then to try to figure out
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  what that means. What does it mean?
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  Not just in terms of my own spiritual sense of self, but my
• 6:51
  responsibilities, my, my connection to the people that
• 6:56
  we're going to talk about here on this show.
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  People who live in this part of the world today for, for sure,
• 7:02
  the Jewish people as the originators of, of Christianity,
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  you could say Jesus, of course, being, being very Jewish, but
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  also other people that live in this part of the world,
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  Christians, Muslims, Arabs and otherwise.
• 7:16
  And so that's really how everything got started.
• 7:19
  I, I learned Hebrew when I got degrees and all the things I
• 7:22
  could get degrees in. And lo and behold, in the end
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  I'm I'm starting this organization.
• 7:27
  Amazing. And you have, like you said, you
• 7:30
  have degrees in Middle Eastern area of your that's kind of an
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  area that you've studied at length.
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  You just said you studied Hebrew.
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  Tell us a little bit about your educational background.
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  And I think you also have taught on Middle Eastern issues.
• 7:45
  That's correct. I I well, I started in Community
• 7:47
  College. Once Upon a time got a
• 7:49
  humanities degree and associates degree I'm very proud of.
• 7:52
  That was actually the hardest degree to get.
• 7:53
  You know, go for. Going from zero to 1 is much
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  harder than one to 10. Good, good Community College, it
• 7:59
  sounds like. It was great.
• 8:01
  Some of my best professors were at this Community College.
• 8:03
  I'm a huge Community College proponent.
• 8:07
  Went on to SUNY Binghamton. SUNY is the the state school
• 8:12
  system in New York State. I'm from, I'm from Syracuse, by
• 8:15
  the way. I didn't mention that originally
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  and went there, got a degree, double degree in Hebrew studies
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  and in history, and then went and got a law degree from
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  Syracuse University as well as a master's from there in Middle
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  Eastern history. Well, tell us.
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  Start, I mean the weekend just unfolded.
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  We're doing this interview will probably be released at the end
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  of this week. We're doing this interview on
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  Monday, October 9th. So we're just coming out of the
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  events of the weekend where just unprecedented attacks I think in
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  Israel's history, it's the single largest day of civilian
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  deaths in Israel's history to my understanding unfolded over the
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  weekend after terrorists that are Hamas LED entered border
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  towns killed. I think it's the death toll is 7
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  or 800 people now, many of them families, children, you know,
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  not these are civilians, non combatants and then also took
• 9:11
  hostage, I think 150 Israelis. It's unprecedented.
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  Give us a little background here for people who maybe have heard
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  about the conflict on going in Gaza and Israel.
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  But the events, I know it's a, it's a long history, but help
• 9:25
  people understand the context here of the events that unfolded
• 9:28
  over the weekend. Sure.
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  I'll start with what happened in brief.
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  You said a lot of it there, 6:30 in the morning on Saturday, the
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  Jewish Sabbath day of rest. Hamas, this terrorist
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  organization that controls the Gaza Strip where 2 million
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  Palestinians live next door to Israel, launches a an attack.
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  First rockets and then fighters coming in by foot, coming over
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  the fence, through the fence by sea and boats, and believe it or
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  not, by hang glider, landing inside Israel, penetrating up to
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  15 miles inside the country, infiltrating over 20 towns,
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  villages, cities, just towns and villages like yours and mine.
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  And going house to house, door to door.
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  Doing some of the most unspeakable things that really
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  anyone could ever imagine. Killing parents in front of the
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  kids kids in front of the parents raping people there in
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  front of their loved ones Taking people back as hostages to the
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  Gaza Strip. There are now as as you said
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  it's more than actually 700. This is now on on Monday we're
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  at 900. No doubt those numbers will go
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  up thousands maimed hundreds in critical condition and these 100
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  and I've heard thirty I've heard 50 who are being held hostage
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  are really the big concern because where are they they're
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  taken back into residential areas in the Gaza Strip.
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  There's no like prisoner of war camp.
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  This, they, they purposely hide these hostages among civilians
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  knowing that the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces are going
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  to have a very hard time finding them and then getting them out.
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  Just the biggest trauma that's ever happened to the state of
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  Israel in 50 years. Like people said, this is
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  Israel's 911. It's that, but it's actually
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  more than that because per capita, if you do the math,
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  we're talking about 8910119 elevens, right?
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  This is the level of shock now as far as how we got here.
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  It is a it is a very long story. I'll try to be somewhat succinct
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  about it. The idea that Jews would go back
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  to their homeland and, you know, be free, be safe, came about as
• 11:50
  a result of the experience they had in Europe from Christians,
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  from post Christians, people who for whatever reason, theology or
• 11:58
  blood or jealousy said you don't belong here, we don't want you
• 12:03
  here. And finally Jews, a small number
• 12:06
  of them at first in the 1870s, eighteen 80s said, you know
• 12:09
  what, maybe we should take them at their word.
• 12:11
  Maybe we don't belong here. Maybe we should go back to where
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  we're from. And they started to and in the
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  beginning this was controlled by the Ottoman Empire.
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  They just moved back and bought property, bought houses, you
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  know, planted orchards to regular things one does when one
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  moves to a new town. Everything changed when the
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  British took over, defeated the Ottomans in World War One, took
• 12:32
  over this land and for reasons maybe we can go into, if you
• 12:36
  like, decided to support as a matter of policy the return of
• 12:41
  Jews to their homeland. And this of course, created a a
• 12:46
  source of deep bitterness in the Arab world, the, the, the Muslim
• 12:50
  world, which believes that whether for Arab national
• 12:55
  reasons or Islamic religious reasons, that there can be no
• 13:00
  such thing as a Jewish state and certainly not in the land of
• 13:05
  Palestine. Now, although there was never a
• 13:08
  state of Palestine, it just never existed.
• 13:10
  It was like a, it's kind of like saying New England, it was a
• 13:13
  region wasn't really, you know, organized in any way.
• 13:18
  These the Arab states from the very beginning were determined
• 13:22
  to destroy the state of Israel and re establish an Arab estate
• 13:28
  on top of it. There were several offers in the
• 13:31
  30s and 40s to create 2 states for two peoples, one Arab, one
• 13:35
  Jewish. The Arab state by the way was
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  was much bigger and the United Nations voted on this plan in
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  1947 and said this is a good idea, we support it.
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  The nations of the world come together.
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  Jews were were thrilled. A recognition from the world
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  almost 2000 years after being expelled by the world's greatest
• 13:54
  empire. Now a recognition that this is
• 13:57
  this is approved. This is something that the world
• 13:59
  wants to see. The day after the Arabs, both
• 14:02
  local and in the region, waged war.
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  And that was the way it was war after war.
• 14:08
  And it wasn't until the 1970s that the first Arab state,
• 14:12
  Egypt, made peace with Israel. In the 1990s, Palestinians
• 14:17
  finally agreed to recognize that there was such a thing called
• 14:20
  Israel and decided, OK, we won't destroy it.
• 14:23
  That won't be our doctrine anymore.
• 14:24
  We'll try to negotiate with it. And there were, there were,
• 14:30
  there was a real exciting moment in the 1990s, Nineteen, 931994.
• 14:35
  It really felt, and I remember these days, I was young, but I
• 14:38
  remember there was a feeling that this big thing, this
• 14:42
  Israeli Palestinian conflict, it's about to get sorted out,
• 14:45
  right? Palestinians and Jews and
• 14:46
  Israelis are meeting, they're shaking hands.
• 14:48
  It was unthinkable, unprecedented.
• 14:51
  And and then this group called the Hamas came into the picture.
• 14:57
  Hamas was formed in the late 80s, early 90s.
• 15:01
  And they were committed as a matter of doctrine, right,
• 15:04
  dogma, to the destruction of the state of Israel and the
• 15:09
  expulsion of of Jews, which also is a point of doctrine they
• 15:12
  believe are descendants of apes and pigs.
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  And this is them talking, not me.
• 15:17
  And they derailed a lot of things and eventually began
• 15:21
  committing bombings, suicide attacks.
• 15:25
  And finally, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip completely,
• 15:30
  pulled up its Jewish settlers who had been living there
• 15:33
  forcibly, you know, put Israeli police in uniforms pulling out
• 15:38
  Jews from the Gaza Strip and basically handed the keys over
• 15:41
  to the the newly created Palestinian Authority and said,
• 15:45
  like, you know, let's consider this a sign of good faith.
• 15:50
  This, this is now yours and let's do more of this.
• 15:52
  Unfortunately, Hamas won the Palestinian elections, took over
• 15:56
  the Gaza Strip, and from that day to this has done whatever it
• 16:00
  could with the help of the Islamic Republic of Iran to act
• 16:05
  out its agenda and to destroy the state of Israel.
• 16:09
  That's a very abbreviated version of the history.
• 16:12
  Well done. I know it's a very lengthy
• 16:14
  history. What are the origins of Hamas?
• 16:16
  You said it originated only a few decades ago.
• 16:19
  What are the origins of Hamas and how did they come to rule
• 16:22
  over 2 million Palestinians, including some Palestinian
• 16:26
  Christians, in the Gaza Strip? That's a great question.
• 16:29
  So Hamas is actually a franchise, believe it or not.
• 16:32
  It is an extension and iteration of the Muslim Brotherhood.
• 16:37
  I'm sure people have heard the term the Muslim Brotherhood.
• 16:39
  This was an organization started in Egypt and then later spread
• 16:44
  around the Islamic world, which was dedicated to, let's say,
• 16:49
  Islamic reform, of revival, even Islamic revival, but revival
• 16:55
  nonetheless. And it started very small.
• 16:58
  It was local community centers and after school programs and
• 17:04
  you know, quote UN quote, Bible studies, Quran studies for for
• 17:08
  men. And the strategy was to change
• 17:12
  Islamic Society from the ground up, to get everybody revived so
• 17:17
  that they could topple these corrupt Arab leaders and install
• 17:23
  what the Quran and their tradition called them to do,
• 17:27
  which is to install an Islamic state of some kind.
• 17:31
  Right. There's a feeling in the Arab
• 17:33
  world that the reason we're losing to the West, the reason
• 17:36
  these Zionists, these Jews were able to defeat us in the war of
• 17:40
  1948 is because it's, it's actually similar to what a lot
• 17:43
  of Christians do in moments of crisis.
• 17:45
  It's like we got to get our, we got to get our hearts right.
• 17:48
  We got to get our lives right before Allah, and only then will
• 17:51
  he bless us. And that was the Muslim
• 17:53
  Brotherhood. Some aspects of it were
• 17:58
  extremely violent. There are different factions
• 18:01
  that emerged. And all of it, however, is
• 18:03
  dedicated to, I would say, Islamic supremacy, right?
• 18:06
  There can be no Christian sovereignty, no Jewish
• 18:10
  sovereignty. All peoples need to be ruled by
• 18:13
  Muslims. Now, Hamas was an offshoot of
• 18:17
  that. The same ideology, by the way,
• 18:20
  the same ideology that inspired Osama bin Laden in the beginning
• 18:24
  and they localized it. This was Hamas started as the
• 18:27
  Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood.
• 18:31
  And if anyone has any interest in, in understanding this group
• 18:36
  on its own terms, I'd urge them just go online, Google Hamas
• 18:41
  charter and you'll see the founding document of this
• 18:44
  organization. And I can promise you, spoiler
• 18:48
  alert, that you will be shocked and and horrified by the by the
• 18:53
  things that this organization believes.
• 18:56
  In the beginning, there were nobody, nobody took them
• 18:58
  seriously. But as the the secular leaders
• 19:02
  of the Palestinian people continued to make mistake after
• 19:05
  mistake and failed to deliver on the national dreams, this
• 19:11
  Islamic Movement. Told the people we can do
• 19:14
  better. And over time, together with the
• 19:17
  acts of terrorism that they that they committed, showing that
• 19:21
  they can be bold, that they can actually strike fear in the
• 19:24
  hearts of Jews, they gained more and more market share until they
• 19:28
  won that election in 2006. Unfortunately, their numbers are
• 19:33
  even higher today. What kind of approval ratings or
• 19:39
  how many votes, you know, what kind of majority vote did they
• 19:43
  win in the in Gaza? Well, they won.
• 19:47
  It wasn't only in Gaza. They won the the plurality of
• 19:50
  the vote that stretched between Palestinians of Gaza and the
• 19:54
  West Bank and the number I do not have on me at the moment.
• 20:00
  But they won, which was, which was a big slap in the face for
• 20:07
  not only the. The mainstream Palestinian
• 20:10
  leadership then ruled by, well, the current ruler, this guy
• 20:14
  named Mahmoud Abbas, but also the US President George Bush,
• 20:17
  who had pushed, pushed really hard for elections.
• 20:21
  If you remember that time, Lila, that was, you know, democracy
• 20:25
  and we're going to get everybody free.
• 20:27
  And there was this feeling that the Palestinians wanted to be as
• 20:31
  free as anyone. And if you give them the
• 20:32
  opportunity to vote, they'll vote for for freedom.
• 20:37
  We didn't recognize because of the cultural gap between the
• 20:40
  Near East and the West, that religion actually matters for
• 20:45
  people in this part of the world, right?
• 20:47
  There's not always an inner Thomas Jefferson just kind of
• 20:50
  waiting to come out in these moments.
• 20:53
  And the people actually do vote according to conscience,
• 20:55
  according to their beliefs, their traditions, things have
• 20:57
  been raised with. And that's why Hamas one and
• 21:01
  like I said, there's a there's a great organization called the
• 21:04
  Palestinian Center for Survey and Policy Research.
• 21:08
  PCPSRI believe you can find them online, the preeminent
• 21:11
  Palestinian polling firm based in Ramallah.
• 21:14
  And every month, sometimes every few weeks, they track public
• 21:18
  opinion numbers like today. Do you support Hamas acts
• 21:23
  against, you know, Jews in Israel, civilians in Israel?
• 21:26
  They ask all of these questions that you can get actual numbers
• 21:30
  from all of those documents. They published them online.
• 21:33
  What is Palestinian sentiment right now about the attacks
• 21:36
  against Israel by Hamas over the weekend?
• 21:38
  Well, it's it's hard to say because I'm not there.
• 21:43
  I could tell you what I've seen. Naturally, we've seen many
• 21:49
  images disturbing if they were not so common of Palestinians
• 21:55
  celebrating not just in Gaza but also in the West Bank.
• 21:59
  This is this is usually what you see after these kinds of
• 22:02
  attacks, passing out candies and dancing in the streets and all
• 22:06
  these sorts of things. There are no doubt Palestinians
• 22:10
  who are horrified and and repulsed by what they've seen.
• 22:16
  Unfortunately, they will not be able to be to be speaking out
• 22:19
  right. If there's one thing you
• 22:21
  understand in the in the Arab world that would say in the
• 22:24
  greater the Islamic world is that, you know, dissent has no
• 22:28
  place, right? Whoever's in charge makes the
• 22:31
  rules and your best bet is just to keep your head down and be
• 22:35
  quiet. We know from polling data that
• 22:37
  same polling daddy, I was referring to that.
• 22:41
  And it goes up and down. When you ask Palestinians, you
• 22:45
  know, do you support armed struggle or diplomacy,
• 22:49
  negotiations, questions like that, you usually get, it
• 22:53
  depends on the time it goes. It goes up and down.
• 22:55
  But anywhere from 10:15 to 30% or more of Palestinians saying,
• 23:02
  giving the kinds of answers that maybe you and I would give,
• 23:04
  right? There are good guys in there.
• 23:08
  But they are, they are terrified, right?
• 23:13
  And, and they are frustrated. They're frustrated with their
• 23:17
  leadership. There has not been an election,
• 23:19
  by the way, since that one that happened now almost 20 years
• 23:23
  ago. The same guys are in power, the
• 23:26
  same corrupt establishments and empower.
• 23:27
  If you look at the the the approval ratings of their own
• 23:31
  president, that's really all you need to know.
• 23:33
  I'm talking about upwards of 80% disapproval.
• 23:36
  Like please. So no election there was.
• 23:39
  There was 1 election a couple decades ago that elected Hamas,
• 23:44
  basically terrorists. I mean, many of them ultimately
• 23:46
  now committing acts of terror. And since then, surprise,
• 23:50
  surprise, no. No other election has been held
• 23:52
  with the opportunity to even root them out of power.
• 23:55
  That's right. Well, it even it's even worse
• 23:57
  than that because these two territories, the West Bank and
• 24:01
  the Gaza Strip, for those people who've seen the map right,
• 24:04
  there's Israel, West Bank, Gaza, the latter 2 being Palestinian
• 24:08
  territories. Those two territories are now
• 24:10
  controlled by two rival Palestinian factions.
• 24:14
  There was a an actual battle, a small war in 2007 in which Hamas
• 24:19
  forced out the mainstream Fatah party.
• 24:23
  It's, I don't want to get in the weeds, but the other, the other
• 24:26
  faction forced them out of Gaza, set up shop.
• 24:28
  Now they rule that. So you have two Palestinian
• 24:31
  states, essentially. You have the Palestinian
• 24:34
  Authority that controls the West Bank or most of it.
• 24:37
  And you have Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.
• 24:40
  And they hate each other and, and efforts over the years by
• 24:44
  Arab states, by the by others to to broker some kind of
• 24:48
  relationship have have all failed.
• 24:51
  So you have this extra layer where if any effort to make
• 24:56
  peace runs into the buzz saw of Palestinian political realities,
• 25:01
  right? Like who are you making peace
• 25:02
  with? Obviously Hamas is dedicated in
• 25:04
  principle to your destruction and the other side, if you make
• 25:08
  peace with it, that peace is not a real peace because the other
• 25:12
  side is not going to respect it. It's super complex.
• 25:15
  Give us a little, give us a little understanding here.
• 25:19
  So the population of Israel versus the population of the
• 25:22
  Gaza Strip and the West Bank. So how many individuals are we
• 25:26
  dealing with? And then you also said that
• 25:28
  it's, you know, maybe 10 to up to 30% of Palestinians don't
• 25:32
  like the leadership, are sympathetic maybe to the crimes
• 25:36
  against the Jewish people, wish for more freedom.
• 25:39
  And so I'm, I'm looking to kind of understand the demographics
• 25:41
  here and for folks in the United States to understand who really
• 25:44
  are in agreement with the leadership versus not.
• 25:48
  Yes, those are all very tricky questions.
• 25:52
  I would. So in terms of the numbers, so
• 25:53
  you have 2 million people in Gaza, Palestinians, the
• 25:57
  Christians have all but fled by now.
• 25:59
  There's a couple, 100, very, very small community, as you can
• 26:03
  imagine, pretty, pretty tough place to live if you're a
• 26:07
  Christian. It's an Islamic state.
• 26:09
  It's just what it is. Palestinians in general are 1%
• 26:15
  of as you were. Christians are 1% of the
• 26:17
  Palestinian people. Just to give you a sense.
• 26:21
  The West Bank has more. The West Bank, I believe the
• 26:24
  numbers are, you hear different things, 4,000,000 something like
• 26:28
  that, maybe a little bit less Israel.
• 26:34
  The, the, I think the last numbers I saw, it's over
• 26:37
  8,000,020% of which is Arab. So a lot of people don't realize
• 26:43
  there are Arab Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza,
• 26:46
  but they're also 20% of Israel's citizens are, are Arabs
• 26:51
  essentially Palestinians who are, you know, just citizens,
• 26:54
  they vote, they have political parties, they're just part of
• 26:57
  part of Israel. So that that blurs the lines a
• 27:02
  little bit. Public Square is the Yelp for
• 27:04
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  So download Public Square today for free at the link in the bio
• 27:41
  and browse America's freedom loving, family loving companies.
• 27:45
  31 Harvard groups. This came out over the weekend.
• 27:48
  I think it was amazing how quickly they responded to the
• 27:53
  attacks on Israel. And so 31 student groups,
• 27:55
  student organizations from Harvard all made this
• 27:59
  announcement. And I want to get your response
• 28:00
  to this, Robert. They said today's events did not
• 28:02
  occur in a vacuum. For the last two decades,
• 28:05
  millions of Palestinians in Gaza specifically have been forced to
• 28:08
  live in an open air prison. Israeli officials promised to
• 28:12
  open the gates of hell, and the massacres in Gaza have already
• 28:16
  commenced. And then they go on to say that
• 28:19
  what's happening in Israel is fully the responsibility of
• 28:24
  Israel, meaning the attacks by Hamas terrorists on innocent
• 28:28
  men, women and children in Israel.
• 28:29
  The butchery is Israel's fault. And these are American, you
• 28:33
  know, many of them American students in, in, out of, you
• 28:37
  know, one of our most prestigious universities in
• 28:39
  America. What's your response to that?
• 28:42
  Par for the course, this problem inside the American Academy of
• 28:50
  radical ideologies running rampant and not only allowed to
• 28:54
  continue, but even in some strange way encouraged, is
• 28:58
  something that unfortunately has gotten worse in the last couple
• 29:01
  of years and is going to continue to get worse if left
• 29:05
  unchecked. These are people for whom the
• 29:10
  state of Israel, the only Jewish state in the world and a tiny
• 29:13
  little thing. Israel's small.
• 29:15
  It's the size of New Jersey. You'd think the way people talk
• 29:17
  about it, it's, you know, the size of China.
• 29:20
  It's very tiny. If you go there, you'll realize,
• 29:22
  wow, this is a little bitty bitty country for these people.
• 29:26
  That country is in some sense the embodiment of everything
• 29:32
  that they hate about Western civilization, right?
• 29:36
  Palestinians even like the good ones.
• 29:40
  This is an important point. I don't think a lot of people
• 29:42
  know. Repeat a narrative then their
• 29:46
  media and their schools that the Jews of Israel are not actually
• 29:50
  Jews. They are pretend Jews, maybe
• 29:53
  people who converted some kind of Turkish tribe in the Middle
• 29:57
  Ages that converted and came under the auspices of the US and
• 30:02
  Britain and France and the West to colonize the Arab world and
• 30:07
  drive a wedge between Muslims, you know, East and West.
• 30:11
  There is, I've been told to my face by very senior members of
• 30:16
  not only the Palestinian political establishment, but the
• 30:19
  religious establishment that there is no such thing as a
• 30:22
  Jewish temple. There was never a temple in
• 30:25
  Jerusalem. It doesn't exist.
• 30:26
  It's a big lie used by the West to create this forward operating
• 30:32
  base in the middle of the the Arab and Islamic world.
• 30:37
  Now, people at Harvard may not go that far, but in defending
• 30:44
  this group, Hamas, they are buying in to the wholesale
• 30:50
  dehumanization of not just the Jews in Israel, but the Jewish
• 30:54
  people overall. And they are, I mean, I'll state
• 30:59
  the obvious, they are defending the most repugnant kind of human
• 31:04
  behavior that exists on this planet.
• 31:07
  These are educated people, but they are people who are, I would
• 31:11
  say, sworn, whether they can articulate it in these terms or
• 31:15
  not, to the destruction of the judeo-christian heritage.
• 31:19
  For them, Israel, the United States, the West represents all
• 31:23
  that is bad in the world. That all, it's all part of a
• 31:25
  peace needs to be dismantled and needs to be replaced.
• 31:29
  When I read the things that come out of a place like Harvard,
• 31:32
  these kinds of statements, that's where I think it all
• 31:36
  comes from. It's deeper.
• 31:37
  It's not the Jews. Nobody really, they don't care
• 31:40
  about Palestinians. They, what have they done?
• 31:42
  When's the last time they went to Gaza and volunteered, right?
• 31:45
  The people who claim who meet me and came to claim to care about
• 31:48
  Palestinians for the most part. I'm speaking anecdotally now.
• 31:53
  They could care less. They're not going to go online
• 31:55
  and Google any Palestinian opinion surveys.
• 31:58
  They're not interested. What they're interested in is
• 32:01
  using the Palestinians as pawns, as pretexts for this larger
• 32:06
  struggle against the establishment, right, The West
• 32:10
  and all of what comes with that. That's my view so.
• 32:14
  You're. So you're saying you're saying
• 32:16
  it's not just anti-Semitism, it's actually anti anything
• 32:20
  that's a Western ideal of, you know, a Judeo and ultimately
• 32:24
  Christian value a principle. So it's a, you know, it's a
• 32:28
  reaction against our basic values and ideals about humans
• 32:33
  having human rights and humans having religious liberty.
• 32:37
  And there's a God who's a creator.
• 32:39
  That that's what's at the deepest level going on here when
• 32:42
  Harvard students come out and protest right against Israel at
• 32:47
  a moment when they're being absolutely savaged.
• 32:51
  Yes it's it's I'm sure for some people quite a reach.
• 32:57
  Wow really man, you go from, you know, the Harvard letter to, you
• 33:00
  know, sworn enemy of judeo-christian civilization.
• 33:05
  Yes, I do. I think as, as people of faith,
• 33:07
  we always need to be operating at 2 levels at the same time.
• 33:10
  There's the material world. We need to take it seriously.
• 33:13
  People do in fact need jobs, care about their families, want
• 33:16
  to go to good hospitals. But we also can't forget there
• 33:20
  is a spiritual dimension, right? People believe things and these
• 33:23
  things are extremely important to them, to their sense of
• 33:26
  identity, both as individuals and as societies.
• 33:29
  And they do things, they act on those beliefs, often to their
• 33:33
  own detriment. They'll give their lives for
• 33:36
  these beliefs and they will kill.
• 33:39
  They will kill people for these beliefs.
• 33:41
  And I don't think we've sufficiently zoomed out when we
• 33:47
  talk about the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
• 33:50
  We see it through a straw. We think it's about borders.
• 33:54
  We think it's about you know, lines on a map and OK what's the
• 33:59
  right you know, amount of refugees that could I could I if
• 34:04
  I had enough time, I could recount for you all the many
• 34:07
  opportunities in the timeline when this conflict could have
• 34:11
  been ended when the Jews a small people who has no interest in
• 34:16
  having more war extended olive branch after olive branch.
• 34:20
  Hey what about this can we compromise on that and were
• 34:23
  rejected time after time leaving them with especially in these
• 34:27
  last few days, the feeling that they're never going to accept
• 34:31
  this if they you know, we agree to that.
• 34:34
  We disengage from Gaza. We say here's the keys.
• 34:37
  It's yours. We're not going to be there
• 34:38
  anymore. You're still going to come after
• 34:40
  us for some other reason. And if we leave Judea and
• 34:44
  Samaria, the West Bank, you're going to then come at us in Tel
• 34:47
  Aviv like it's never going to be enough.
• 34:49
  That's the feeling on the street in Israel.
• 34:54
  Where do they want them to go? I mean, if Hamas had their way,
• 34:57
  I mean, they want to destroy the Jewish people.
• 35:00
  I think it's part of, like you said, their charter.
• 35:02
  But let's say if a more moderate Palestinian state advocate had
• 35:06
  their way, where are the Jewish people to go?
• 35:10
  So there are different tracks. So there is one group, let's say
• 35:13
  the topmost group, the most formally, the most rational,
• 35:20
  right that the group that that leads the the Palestinian
• 35:23
  Authority right now from Ramallah.
• 35:25
  The answer would be that we are going to create a 2 state
• 35:29
  solution. Jews can stay in Israel.
• 35:32
  Any Jews, these settlers, you know, the boogeyman of these
• 35:36
  settlers, any of those need to be expelled from Judea and
• 35:41
  Samaria, the West Bank. They can go back to Israel, but
• 35:44
  we'll live side by side somehow. That's the basic paradigm for,
• 35:48
  for that group. The the other extreme is Hamas,
• 35:55
  which is the total eradication of the Jewish state.
• 35:58
  And there's 2 two ways you can go with that.
• 36:00
  One is that you Jews can stay so long as we're in charge.
• 36:04
  We rule you and you obey the new law of the land.
• 36:09
  You know, you're more than welcome.
• 36:10
  And then there are others who say they all have to go.
• 36:13
  This, this place needs to be free of all Jews because it is.
• 36:19
  It is an Islamic walk. It's like religious property.
• 36:22
  The same way the Arabian Peninsula is not allowed to have
• 36:25
  churches, right? It needs to be clean of these
• 36:28
  kind of UN Islamic influences. That's another another track
• 36:32
  that some of them go. I want to get back to in a
• 36:35
  minute, the allegations, all the narratives against Israel that
• 36:39
  are all over American media. I mean, you see it in mainstream
• 36:43
  media, and we're going to get to that.
• 36:44
  But before that, I want to go back to what happened over the
• 36:46
  weekend. You gave a very high level
• 36:48
  synopsis at the beginning of explaining the context of what's
• 36:52
  happening in the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
• 36:54
  But there are a couple things that I think are so heart
• 36:57
  wrenching that many people are keeping keeping people up at
• 37:00
  night who care about what's happening, happening to Israeli
• 37:03
  victims. So I want to go to that.
• 37:05
  So first of all, I think you said the death tolls now 900.
• 37:09
  It sounds like they're still finding bodies in these village
• 37:13
  areas. I just saw a news article that
• 37:16
  there's an entire rural village that they just discovered that's
• 37:18
  been completely wiped out. They're going home to home and
• 37:21
  men, women and children slaughtered.
• 37:24
  Can you share more about the tactic that Hamas took in
• 37:28
  entering these settlements and these village border towns and
• 37:31
  why they were able to be as successful as they were?
• 37:35
  My understanding of Israel's foreign defense and their
• 37:39
  defense system is that it's very strong.
• 37:42
  You know, they have the Iron Dome.
• 37:44
  They've been their intelligence forces are some of the best in
• 37:47
  the world. How did it happen that they were
• 37:50
  able, Hamas was able to scale the the walls, so to speak, and
• 37:55
  kill so many innocent people? Sure.
• 37:59
  That's a big question and one that will be debated quite a bit
• 38:02
  in the, in the days and weeks to come.
• 38:04
  To go back to the, you know, the, the, what they, their
• 38:11
  tactics in crossing over. I mentioned the, the ARC and
• 38:15
  land method of incursion. I didn't mention that before
• 38:19
  that happened, they in a very coordinated and careful way
• 38:25
  through rockets, through drones, took out some of Israel's, let's
• 38:31
  say security equipment along the border, cameras and sensors and
• 38:35
  things like that, which suggests or confirms that this was no, no
• 38:42
  act of, you know, random malice. This was coordinated, planned
• 38:47
  for months. And importantly, and this is a
• 38:50
  piece a lot of people are are leaving out because they are
• 38:53
  looking at it through a straw. This was all directed from from
• 38:59
  Tehran, right? Hamas is funded, equipped,
• 39:03
  trained, directed in large part by the Iranian regime, which of
• 39:08
  course is sworn to Israel's destruction and and that regime
• 39:12
  has an A massive intelligence capability and technical
• 39:16
  capability that allowed them to get the jump essentially on on
• 39:22
  the IDF. They they crossed the border,
• 39:25
  however, and had no real plan, at least that I've been able to
• 39:32
  see. No doubt they broke up into
• 39:34
  different groups and they all kind of went in different
• 39:36
  directions, but they were seizing targets of opportunity.
• 39:40
  The biggest and and maybe the most horrific example of that
• 39:45
  was when a bunch of fighters stumbled upon a giant rave that
• 39:49
  was taking place in the desert, hundreds of people there at a
• 39:54
  big music festival. It was it was actually a peace
• 39:57
  festival, believe it or not, and target of opportunity.
• 40:03
  They went into the crowd and began, you know, killing and and
• 40:08
  even more disturbingly, raping many of the people in this in
• 40:14
  this concert before moving on to the next target.
• 40:18
  They and in some places they were roaming Lila, roaming
• 40:21
  around the countryside for hours.
• 40:23
  Now, how did that happen? This is the big question.
• 40:26
  How in the world did the IDF, as you said, one of the best
• 40:30
  militaries in the world, not know that this was going to
• 40:34
  happen? There's already a lot of
• 40:36
  commentary on this. I'm going to try to avoid
• 40:38
  getting into the weeds. And who knows by the time
• 40:40
  listeners hear this episode what's transpired.
• 40:43
  But it's very clear that this was a massive intelligence
• 40:47
  failure, one of the biggest in Israel's history, reminiscent of
• 40:51
  a war that took place between Egypt and Syria and Israel in
• 40:55
  1973, the the Yom Kippur War. There's a great movie out about
• 41:00
  that right now, Golda. I think it's out streaming.
• 41:05
  And there's no doubt going to be many political ramifications for
• 41:10
  the Prime Minister, for his government as people ask this
• 41:14
  question, what the heck? How did this, how did this
• 41:17
  happen? How did intelligence not pick it
• 41:18
  up? Of course, this did take place
• 41:21
  on a Jewish holy day on the Sabbath in the midst of at the
• 41:24
  very end of the Jewish High Holidays.
• 41:28
  You know, you can almost think of it as like Christmas season
• 41:30
  for Christians, right? There's just we're a lot going
• 41:32
  on. We're all busy.
• 41:33
  We're in holiday mode. And then it's like just about
• 41:36
  the time when we're like coming back online at the beginning of
• 41:38
  January. That was the moment that that
• 41:41
  they struck. So it was it was a sleepy time.
• 41:43
  It was a quiet time. I do think that there was a lot
• 41:48
  of, I'm sure some some listeners were following a little bit of
• 41:53
  the political debate in Israel over the last nine months.
• 41:56
  There's been a lot of internal debate over the legal system and
• 42:02
  the political system. Israelis were frankly a little
• 42:05
  bit distracted. And I think in the aftermath of
• 42:08
  a few other peace deals that Israel's made in the last couple
• 42:12
  of years with a few Arab states, the these Abraham Accords, as
• 42:15
  they call them, there was a feeling that, you know, we're
• 42:18
  actually in a good spot right now.
• 42:20
  Palestinians more or less quiet, at least in Gaza.
• 42:24
  There was a lot of violence over the summer in the West Bank.
• 42:26
  And that was kind of where their attention, the IDF's attention
• 42:29
  was focused, but more or less under control, not a strategic
• 42:33
  threat. We're worried about Iran.
• 42:35
  But, you know, like we, we, we're working on it.
• 42:40
  And the idea that out of Gaza, of all places, they would be
• 42:43
  this kind of incursion at that scale was clearly not something
• 42:49
  that anyone was prepared for. So do you think that the hostage
• 42:54
  is taken? So as an example that you
• 42:57
  mentioned the music festival for Peace and there's hundreds of
• 42:59
  these young people dancing early in the morning and all of a
• 43:02
  sudden they're being massacred unexpectedly, like out of a
• 43:06
  complete nightmare. Some of those festival attendees
• 43:09
  were kidnapped are now hostages. As you said earlier, there's
• 43:13
  130, maybe 150 hostages, including little babies.
• 43:16
  I mean, there's a viral treat going around of two little ones,
• 43:20
  their mother, an image of her being shoved through the street
• 43:23
  by Hamas terrorists and she's holding her two sons, a three
• 43:28
  month old and a three-year old and they're all, you know,
• 43:31
  hostages now. Do you think that these roving
• 43:33
  Hamas groups that are committing these heinous acts, once they
• 43:37
  scaled the border, were they taking random hostages?
• 43:40
  What you think there was a plan, a strategy?
• 43:42
  We need at least 100 hostages because this is going to help us
• 43:45
  with our demands against Israel. Why were some people taking
• 43:49
  hostage and others not? It's a very good question.
• 43:53
  I don't know that I have a good answer.
• 43:54
  I'll hazard a guess. I don't think there was a great
• 43:58
  plan apart from we need as many hostages as possible.
• 44:03
  You have to remember, if you're thinking historically,
• 44:06
  Palestinians know that Israelis will do anything, almost
• 44:10
  anything anyway, to get not only A1 hostage back, but the body of
• 44:16
  a hostage back, right. Israel, because of Judaism and
• 44:21
  the biblical heritage, takes life very seriously.
• 44:26
  One life is, is, is as if it's the whole world and Palestinians
• 44:31
  know that if you can get hostages, you can trade them for
• 44:36
  things, right? Get get Palestinian buddies
• 44:40
  released from Israeli prisons. You know, these are terrorists
• 44:43
  convicted of of murder and and other things and also political
• 44:47
  demands, right? If you have a lot of Israelis,
• 44:49
  you can do a lot. That's a that's a real
• 44:51
  bargaining chip and the Palestinians know that.
• 44:55
  And so the order was get as many as possible.
• 44:58
  I do think that if you look at some of the photos that I've and
• 45:04
  I've seen now, quite a few of the missing people there is, it
• 45:09
  seems to be heavily women. I can only speculate.
• 45:15
  And children. I mean, I've seen images of of
• 45:18
  children too. Lots of children, very young as
• 45:21
  you mentioned, like little kids, some men.
• 45:25
  But it does seem that there was a real concerted effort to to
• 45:29
  find the weak, the people who of course will stir the
• 45:33
  heartstrings of his Israel and make it, you know, do things
• 45:38
  that are in the Palestinians interest.
• 45:40
  There was a New York Times headline just an hour ago that
• 45:43
  says Israel ordered siege of Gaza.
• 45:45
  Hamas threatens to kill hostages.
• 45:48
  It sounds like Hamas is threatening that they will kill
• 45:51
  1 hostage for every attacked, as they say and on A and anytime
• 45:56
  there's an Israeli air strike that hits Gazans in their homes.
• 45:59
  What's going on here? I, I mean, well, whether they
• 46:03
  will follow through on that threat is uncertain because of
• 46:06
  course, if, if you believe what I just said, this is their most
• 46:09
  important bargaining chip. Do you really want to execute
• 46:12
  them? You know, God forbid I'd be an
• 46:15
  advisor to Hamas. I would say don't do that.
• 46:17
  That's not a smart play, but they're certainly capable of it.
• 46:21
  They've done much worse already. They have no respect for human
• 46:26
  life, or let's just say when human life comes up against
• 46:30
  their their dogma, human life becomes secondary.
• 46:36
  And so I have every reason to believe that they will act on
• 46:38
  that, which of course, puts Israel in extremely difficult
• 46:42
  position. How do you how do you respond
• 46:44
  when they have your people spread out through densely
• 46:48
  populated residential areas and do so while minimizing the
• 46:54
  collateral damage also for Palestinian civilians?
• 46:57
  It's extremely this is this is a challenge that Israel in the
• 47:02
  many confrontations it's had, I don't think has ever faced.
• 47:05
  This is at a whole different level.
• 47:07
  And I pity the person who's making decisions right now.
• 47:11
  There's accusations, I mean, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty
• 47:14
  International, so you have these big kind of lefty groups that
• 47:17
  claim to be for human rights, many of which are pro abortion
• 47:20
  as well as pro trans and young children and and other
• 47:24
  atrocities. But some of these groups write
• 47:26
  up these reports on how Israel is a human rights abuser.
• 47:29
  Israel is committing apartheid against apartheid against
• 47:32
  innocent Palestinians. And really, I mean, they have a
• 47:36
  whole litany of sins that they say Israel has committed.
• 47:39
  And you have, you know, these people that say, well, you know,
• 47:43
  Israel is now threatening to launch attacks against Hamas.
• 47:48
  And now they're saying you should leave if you are a
• 47:51
  Palestinian, if you can get out, get out now if you're an
• 47:53
  innocent woman, an innocent child.
• 47:56
  But that this is insincere from Israel, that this is virtue
• 47:59
  signalling because there's no way to leave the Gaza Strip.
• 48:03
  There's no way for those innocent people to get out.
• 48:05
  What's what's really going on here?
• 48:08
  Israel is far and away the army. Its army is is the one that I've
• 48:17
  encountered that's the most interested in ethics.
• 48:20
  Every soldier, the lowliest private, gets a robust training
• 48:26
  in the spirit of the IDF and its commitment to minimizing any
• 48:33
  civilian casualties to the point of this is kind of a famous
• 48:38
  example. Israel, before it bombs a
• 48:41
  building, will send text messages to the people who live
• 48:45
  in the building to to please, please get out.
• 48:48
  We're about to do something. They have a certain, and I'm not
• 48:51
  even sure how this works technically they have a certain
• 48:54
  bomb before the bomb. It's basically like a giant rock
• 48:58
  that will hit the roof of a building to let people know you
• 49:01
  got 5 minutes get out because we're about to do something.
• 49:04
  I don't know of the American military of which I was a part,
• 49:10
  or any other military that takes that kind of precautionary
• 49:14
  measures. Israel goes way, way, way out of
• 49:17
  its way to to be as careful as possible.
• 49:21
  There are ways for civilians. The Gaza Strip isn't just one
• 49:25
  city there. It's a it's a strip.
• 49:26
  There's a whole area. There are ways to get out of
• 49:30
  heavily populated urban areas into rural areas outside the
• 49:35
  cities. So the idea that nobody can go
• 49:38
  anywhere, that everyone is just stuck and and must die is, I
• 49:42
  think, an exaggeration. Having said that, has has the
• 49:45
  Israeli military ever made a mistake?
• 49:48
  Well, yeah. Do soldiers do things that are
• 49:52
  repugnant, that are atrocities themselves?
• 49:56
  There have been instances of them.
• 49:58
  And those soldiers have been properly tried and and put in
• 50:02
  jail. That's the difference between
• 50:04
  Israel and, and some of these other countries.
• 50:07
  So while I am perfectly, you know, happy conceding that there
• 50:12
  are some bad apples and that things have happened, I, I
• 50:18
  really don't understand how anyone could look at what
• 50:21
  Israel's done in Gaza, in the West Bank and say that they've
• 50:26
  done anything but try to be careful.
• 50:30
  I mean, imagine Lila, imagine there is an enclave of of people
• 50:37
  committed to your destruction next door to you.
• 50:40
  Like actually next door. These towns are not that far
• 50:43
  apart in America. Let's just say there was a
• 50:46
  little enclave of of people sworn to the destruction of
• 50:48
  America and doing their hardest to to act out that wish.
• 50:53
  What would we do? We would we would decimate it,
• 50:56
  we would eradicate it. It wouldn't exist.
• 50:58
  It would be a parking lot. The fact that Israel, almost 20
• 51:02
  years after Hamas took power in the Gaza Strip, still basically
• 51:08
  let's Hamas live and conduct business and receive diplomats
• 51:12
  from around the world, even helps those diplomats go through
• 51:15
  the checkpoints. And there's so many stories that
• 51:21
  show that Israel is, I think, far better than the US in this
• 51:25
  regard and is just looking for an opportunity to reach some
• 51:31
  sort of final resolution right there.
• 51:34
  There's Israel has no interest in occupying and colonize.
• 51:37
  Like there is nothing in the Israeli interest that says, you
• 51:41
  know, I want to take over Gaza and 2 million Palestinians who
• 51:44
  hate me. Like, why would they want to do
• 51:47
  that? It's, it's just absurd.
• 51:50
  But I think it usually comes from people who just don't know
• 51:52
  Israelis. There's this perception of who
• 51:56
  Israelis are and what they want and, and, and then there's the
• 51:59
  actual people. And I know enough actual people
• 52:02
  to know that it's just a very different story.
• 52:06
  It sounds like it's rampant anti-Semitism.
• 52:09
  I mean you look at what happened to the Jewish people in the last
• 52:13
  century. I mean unprecedented horrors,
• 52:17
  the Holocaust and the the ways that they were destroyed and,
• 52:22
  and, and living in Europe and that anti-Semitism was not not
• 52:27
  long ago, you know, the consequence of it.
• 52:29
  So I think there's a we're so quick, I feel to forget our
• 52:33
  history and to forget our weakness, you know, in the in
• 52:37
  the Western world. This was the Western world
• 52:39
  committing the Holocaust. This was Germany.
• 52:41
  This wasn't, you know, this wasn't an Islamic nation even.
• 52:45
  This was, you know, Germany. And so yes, of course you're
• 52:47
  going to see anti-Semitism among Hamas and the hatred of the
• 52:50
  Jews, calling them, you know, subhuman.
• 52:52
  But that subhuman hatred is has existed among nations that
• 52:56
  possessed many Christians, not just people of Islamic
• 53:00
  tradition. That's a very powerful point,
• 53:03
  and I'm glad you mentioned that. It's very easy for us to sit in
• 53:08
  judgment over Arabs, Muslims. But we forget, as you said, that
• 53:14
  we are the reason I think I would go this far.
• 53:17
  We are the reason that Jews are in Israel, right?
• 53:21
  They were not trying to go back to their homeland.
• 53:25
  That was something that the Messiah will come someday and
• 53:28
  he'll, he'll figure it out and he'll bring us all back and
• 53:31
  that'll be amazing. But day-to-day were Jews trying
• 53:34
  to go back and colonize whatever they had no interest for the
• 53:38
  most part until events reached a fever pitch in Europe, right?
• 53:43
  By the way, there were Jews in both Europe, the Christian
• 53:46
  world, and in the Middle East in the in the Islamic world, which
• 53:51
  Jews felt so persecuted that they needed to go establish a
• 53:55
  homeland. It was from Europe, right?
• 53:57
  Jews from the Muslim world were affected kind of secondarily and
• 54:02
  ended up being pushed out of those countries and they had to
• 54:04
  find refuge in Israel. But the real, I mean, where does
• 54:07
  Zionism come from? It comes from the Western
• 54:11
  rejection of the Jewish people as equal members of our
• 54:14
  societies. That's where it comes from.
• 54:16
  Now we, we, we put that we put that problem now on the Islamic
• 54:21
  world and Muslims of different kinds are, are reacting and,
• 54:26
  and, you know, building their plans in different ways.
• 54:32
  But the problems, the problem started with us, which is why I
• 54:34
  think we as as Westerners and specifically as Christians have
• 54:39
  an outsized responsibility not to by the way, let me just be
• 54:43
  clear, not to say Israel was let down from heaven on a on a
• 54:48
  sheet. And like the Israeli, you know,
• 54:50
  political system or all of its laws or somehow from, you know,
• 54:54
  from God. This is not, this is not what
• 54:56
  we're saying, but recognizing that they're there for a reason.
• 55:00
  They are a people and as a people, they deserve to be in
• 55:03
  their homeland. And most of all, they deserve to
• 55:05
  be safe. They just want to be left alone.
• 55:07
  And I think that we really have the obligation to be the the
• 55:14
  preeminent advocates for that position.
• 55:17
  And that's that's something I do a lot in the work of the fee
• 55:20
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  That's Seven Weeks, coffee.com. A American commentator, Guy
• 56:17
  Benson, said recently over the weekend on Twitter when
• 56:19
  Palestinian children are wounded or killed, it's despite Israel's
• 56:23
  efforts to avoid civilian casualties while fighting
• 56:27
  terrorists who intentionally operate among innocents.
• 56:29
  When Israeli children are wounded or killed, they are
• 56:32
  explicitly targeted by the terrorists, and many
• 56:35
  Palestinians openly celebrate. 0 Moral equivalency.
• 56:39
  Well said. You mentioned Iran and I want to
• 56:41
  just cover this for a minute because it's very connected to
• 56:44
  our political leadership. I recently our president, his
• 56:48
  administration unfroze I think 6 billion in Iranian assets and
• 56:54
  there are, I think Trump came out recently, you know, he's
• 56:58
  obviously running for president, but he came out saying that this
• 57:02
  is a direct result of that action, action by President
• 57:05
  Biden. What?
• 57:05
  What do you think about that? I think it is at at the very
• 57:10
  least an indirect result. This is a unfortunately long
• 57:15
  standing policy of the US government, certainly under the
• 57:20
  last two Democratic administrations.
• 57:24
  A policy of appeasement, a policy based on a desire on the
• 57:30
  part of many Americans to get out of the Near East, the Middle
• 57:34
  East, and to strike a deal with the baddest guys in the room.
• 57:41
  Right, the Iranians. The Iranians are not some kind
• 57:43
  of ragtag force. They are a proper state, a big
• 57:47
  state, 10s of millions of people, a real sense of history,
• 57:52
  a real sense of theology and ideology, and a very explicit
• 57:58
  commitment to the destruction of both Israel and the United
• 58:02
  States. Like this is talked about every
• 58:03
  day, all day long in schools, on TVI mean, this is we don't have
• 58:07
  to like find evidence that this is what they want.
• 58:10
  This is what they want. And the US government has, I
• 58:18
  think, made many mistakes in backing down, in caving in,
• 58:24
  appeasing this, this bully. Like what it what does a bully
• 58:27
  do when you give in? He he gets worse and the
• 58:33
  Iranians have gotten worse. And unfortunately, this
• 58:37
  administration seems intent on deflecting and trying to point
• 58:47
  out the the value to better, better relations, better
• 58:51
  diplomacy with Iran, not, not not admitting that it's, it's
• 58:56
  Iranian funding, it's Iranian strategy that is causing so many
• 59:03
  of the problems that we're seeing in the region, right?
• 59:06
  What about Christians in northern Iraq?
• 59:08
  Who do you think is squeezing them out?
• 59:10
  What about the Christians in northeastern Syria or other
• 59:14
  parts of Syria? What about in Lebanon, right?
• 59:17
  What about the people of Yemen, right?
• 59:19
  This is all part of, of one giant strategy.
• 59:23
  And again, it's is this is, this is official.
• 59:26
  This is something you could you could find online.
• 59:29
  And the United States government has been weak, has been willing
• 59:36
  to not only appease, but to apologize for the Iranians.
• 59:43
  And we found out just a few weeks ago that this
• 59:47
  administration has allowed high level Iranian agents, influence
• 59:54
  agents to infiltrate. Are you ready?
• 59:58
  The White House now this is reporting that is out there.
• 1:00:02
  I would urge people to look it up.
• 1:00:04
  There's caused quite a bit of a storm the last few weeks as
• 1:00:09
  these as people found out just how deep the Iranian influence
• 1:00:16
  inside the US government. Ago so when I look at Hamas,
• 1:00:19
  when I look at Iraq, when I look at the poor Christians of
• 1:00:22
  Lebanon being squeezed out by Hezbollah, I don't see isolated
• 1:00:26
  situations that need these isolated treatments.
• 1:00:29
  I see, I see a grand chess board that right now the Iranians are,
• 1:00:35
  you know, are holding and winning.
• 1:00:37
  And I think any response to what's happening in Israel and
• 1:00:41
  Gaza must include a much more comprehensive response to the,
• 1:00:46
  to the Iranian threat. I'm not calling for an invasion
• 1:00:48
  of Iran or anything like that. That's not what I'm saying.
• 1:00:51
  But there needs to be real smart foreign policy that addresses
• 1:00:55
  the problem where it originates, which is in Tehran.
• 1:00:58
  What does that mean, Robert, when you say that there's
• 1:01:00
  reports that high-ranking Iranian officials have
• 1:01:02
  infiltrated our government, what does that mean?
• 1:01:05
  Well, it means that an organization that does research
• 1:01:09
  on these things was able to obtain a large number of emails
• 1:01:14
  of various, let's call them experts and, and, and sort of
• 1:01:20
  policy people who the Biden administration has been using as
• 1:01:26
  its advisors, right? Not and not in some, you know,
• 1:01:31
  ancillary way, but but direct advisors, people very much
• 1:01:35
  involved in formulating U.S. policy on Iran.
• 1:01:39
  These emails revealed that not only are these people pro Iran,
• 1:01:46
  but they in in some cases very explicitly have pledged their
• 1:01:50
  their fealty to Ayatollah Khamenei, right.
• 1:01:54
  These are these are people who are being directed from the
• 1:01:59
  capital of one of our greatest enemies who are meeting in the
• 1:02:04
  White House repeatedly over and over.
• 1:02:08
  And I have, I did not do this research.
• 1:02:10
  This research is out there. If you, if you look up, you
• 1:02:14
  know, Iranian influence agents, U.S. government, you know, all
• 1:02:18
  of it will come up a lot of commentary back and forth about
• 1:02:21
  what it means, how deep it goes. But it's pretty clear at this
• 1:02:24
  point that Iran's influence has extended all the way up to the
• 1:02:30
  Oval Office. Shocking in its scope, honestly.
• 1:02:35
  There have been reports that an unprecedented number of
• 1:02:40
  undocumented immigrants are entering the United States right
• 1:02:42
  now, the southern border. We've basically stopped stopping
• 1:02:46
  people at the border and we are now just letting in literally
• 1:02:50
  millions of people at the southern border.
• 1:02:52
  There's a lot of concerns that some of the people coming in
• 1:02:55
  certainly are, you know, real asylees seeking help, but that
• 1:02:58
  there are many bad actors coming in, including potential
• 1:03:01
  terrorists. Do you think that that's the
• 1:03:03
  case? And if so, do you think that the
• 1:03:07
  the terrorism that we just saw over the weekend in Israel, we
• 1:03:12
  can possibly expect to see more terrorist attacks here at home?
• 1:03:18
  The answer is yes. The southern border, an issue, I
• 1:03:23
  should say, Full disclosure, I am no expert in seems, let's
• 1:03:28
  just say very porous. There are people coming through.
• 1:03:32
  We don't know who they are, where they're coming from.
• 1:03:35
  It's been made very clear as far as I can tell that most of these
• 1:03:39
  people are not from Mexico, which is I think what most
• 1:03:42
  people think. They're coming from other
• 1:03:43
  countries in Central and South America and other countries
• 1:03:47
  around the world. Yes, for sure there are people
• 1:03:51
  coming through that would be sympathetic at the very least
• 1:03:56
  with these kinds of acts of terrorism.
• 1:03:58
  But I would, I'd go even further than that.
• 1:04:02
  While I was yesterday, now this was Sunday, the day after these
• 1:04:07
  horrible attacks in Israel, I was here in New York City at,
• 1:04:11
  you know, a friendship solidarity event for the people
• 1:04:15
  of Israel and came face to face with what you know, has popped
• 1:04:20
  up in, in Western cities, both in in the US and in Europe,
• 1:04:24
  which are not people who snuck in, people who live here now,
• 1:04:28
  right? Maybe some of the same people
• 1:04:29
  that signed these statements from Harvard who are also
• 1:04:35
  sympathetic to what these terrorist organizations want to
• 1:04:41
  do. And I think under certain
• 1:04:43
  circumstances would probably feel that they, you know, should
• 1:04:48
  do something to, you know, cripple the great Satan from
• 1:04:52
  within. I actually don't think you have
• 1:04:53
  to go all the way down to the southern border to feel that
• 1:04:56
  there are people in this country who are deeply invested in the
• 1:05:02
  idea that this this country is a is a cancer and needs to be,
• 1:05:07
  needs to be changed. And that's a scary thought.
• 1:05:10
  You know, when you see these people and they're in, they're
• 1:05:12
  all over cities all over the country marching.
• 1:05:14
  I mean, Can you imagine going out the day after these events,
• 1:05:19
  which are are visible to the whole world, right?
• 1:05:22
  It's not like, you know, 100 years ago, no one really knows
• 1:05:24
  what's happening. These are images that everyone
• 1:05:28
  can see, and you get your sign and your flag and you go stand
• 1:05:33
  in a city square to defend these acts, I mean.
• 1:05:39
  Hamas, the brutal terrorists of Hamas listen, I I find it
• 1:05:44
  unconscionable. I've seen the pro Palestine,
• 1:05:46
  it's not just pro Palestinian. You know, that's one thing to
• 1:05:49
  say we have sympathy for innocence in Gaza or in the West
• 1:05:53
  Bank who may be caught up in war.
• 1:05:55
  I mean, that's I think we can universally agree on that.
• 1:05:58
  But the hatred of Israel, you know, coming from, you know,
• 1:06:02
  Harvard student LED groups, the hatred of Israel playing out on
• 1:06:05
  these protests that are happening in New York, happening
• 1:06:08
  in cities across the country. It's it is unfathomable when
• 1:06:12
  there are little babies, Jewish babies, who are taken hostage
• 1:06:17
  right now with knives to their throat, their captors using them
• 1:06:22
  as pawns after they've murdered friends and family in these, in
• 1:06:26
  these Israeli villages. It's unconscionable and I
• 1:06:30
  appreciate you acknowledging that.
• 1:06:32
  It's, it's crazy that we have to say that, right?
• 1:06:34
  We have to state the obvious. But these days more moral
• 1:06:38
  clarity is, is at a premium. And I think it's on all people
• 1:06:41
  of conscience, Christians no doubt, to be saying that and
• 1:06:44
  maybe having to repeat that because already even in a few
• 1:06:47
  days since these attacks have come and gone, that that
• 1:06:50
  narrative is shifting right. Somehow now it's it's Israel's
• 1:06:53
  fault. It's it's, it's insane, but this
• 1:06:57
  is what we're dealing with. There's so many news reports
• 1:06:59
  right now. I just have a couple more
• 1:07:01
  questions that this is so, I mean, been so awesome, Robert,
• 1:07:03
  thank you that your expertise is really valuable here in your
• 1:07:06
  knowledge of of the history and and of the, you know, of the
• 1:07:10
  dynamic the media reports that I've noticed, I mean, some of
• 1:07:13
  them I find incredible. You have CBS News reporting on
• 1:07:17
  the Israeli Palestinian conflict, you know, 1300 dead.
• 1:07:21
  No, note that this has been started necessarily by Hamas and
• 1:07:25
  that, you know, Hamas were the aggressors in this case and that
• 1:07:30
  of the dead. It's because largely Hamas has
• 1:07:33
  murdered Israeli citizens. So, you know, now this news on
• 1:07:37
  Instagram, they have a carousel. So there's a number of photos
• 1:07:40
  with the report. Their first, This was their
• 1:07:42
  first reporting I think yesterday.
• 1:07:44
  And millennials, many millennials and Gen.
• 1:07:46
  Z ers get their news through social media from now.
• 1:07:48
  This news as an example, their post first time reporting on
• 1:07:51
  what happened in Israel over 24 hours later.
• 1:07:54
  Mind you, the first 3 images are of buildings or of damage to
• 1:08:00
  structures done in Israel by Hamas.
• 1:08:03
  And then the next few images are of human beings, Palestinians
• 1:08:06
  that may be harmed or are harmed by Israel.
• 1:08:11
  And the reporting says that there's this conflict that's now
• 1:08:15
  ensuing. No word of the 250 young people
• 1:08:19
  slaughtered in cold blood in the desert by Hamas.
• 1:08:21
  No word of the children kidnapped, nothing about
• 1:08:24
  hostages, nothing. Nothing about rape, nothing
• 1:08:26
  about those murdered in their beds, in their homes.
• 1:08:29
  What do you make of that? This this incredible media bias
• 1:08:34
  from our own institutions? NPR is another one that I saw
• 1:08:37
  similarly misleading reporting. I I think about this a lot.
• 1:08:43
  It comes up unfortunately quite a bit in my work there.
• 1:08:47
  You have to go pretty far to find a dislike of a people so
• 1:08:56
  consistent over so many years, in so many different places and
• 1:09:00
  under so many different circumstances.
• 1:09:01
  But whatever it is, there has been an inordinate amount of
• 1:09:08
  concern, dislike, hatred of of with the Jewish people.
• 1:09:15
  I mean, it's just a fact of history.
• 1:09:16
  We talked about it in the Western world.
• 1:09:18
  We talked about in the Islamic world.
• 1:09:20
  It's both and it's not gone. It continues today.
• 1:09:23
  One of the things we do with the Filos project is called the
• 1:09:25
  Filos Action League. And we respond in the flesh
• 1:09:30
  incarnationally to acts of anti-Semitism in the United
• 1:09:34
  States. And I mentioned that because it
• 1:09:36
  was only when we launched that project about I guess, say two
• 1:09:39
  years ago now that I realized when we began tracking it, just
• 1:09:45
  how much of this stuff is going on.
• 1:09:47
  It's happening on the left, it's happening on the right.
• 1:09:49
  And we have people who monitor these channels.
• 1:09:54
  And even as that stuff happens out there across the country and
• 1:09:57
  of course around the world, you'd see exactly what you said.
• 1:10:01
  You see the the you see that that that trickle up effect in
• 1:10:06
  the media so that for whatever reason, we can't explain it,
• 1:10:10
  people are not interested in. The truth.
• 1:10:16
  Let's say living Jews, right, people, There's a great book
• 1:10:19
  that came out recently by a friend of mine called People
• 1:10:22
  Love Dead Jews, which is very provocative title.
• 1:10:26
  But if you read the book, she makes the case that for whatever
• 1:10:29
  reason, people they like to talk about the Holocaust and, and,
• 1:10:32
  you know, the synagogue massacre, this and that and, you
• 1:10:36
  know, something that happened in Israel.
• 1:10:38
  But the idea that the response would be, well, then we need to
• 1:10:40
  protect the living Jews. We need to make sure that this
• 1:10:43
  that the people of Israel are safe today and that maybe
• 1:10:46
  they're not always in the wrong. Maybe they're actually just
• 1:10:49
  trying to survive is just not, you know, that's not a step that
• 1:10:53
  a lot of people are willing to go.
• 1:10:54
  Personally, I'll go this far and I'll I'll just lay my cards out.
• 1:10:59
  And I think I'm in good company with people who think in terms
• 1:11:03
  of the spirit. You know, we're always, we're
• 1:11:07
  always having to, you know, think of the physical world and
• 1:11:12
  the spiritual world at the same time.
• 1:11:14
  And I do think there is something about the Jewish
• 1:11:17
  people that is deeply offensive to people who resent the
• 1:11:25
  tradition, the values, the Scripture, the God that these
• 1:11:29
  people brought into the world, right?
• 1:11:31
  It's the one people we talked about in the Old Testament, we
• 1:11:34
  talked about in the New Testament.
• 1:11:35
  They're chosen to play a unique role in history.
• 1:11:37
  Doesn't mean they're better than everybody, but God chose to use
• 1:11:41
  them for his own reasons. And to that extent, they have
• 1:11:45
  been a kind of lightning rod for people who oppose God's
• 1:11:49
  revelation, who oppose the Bible, who oppose the church.
• 1:11:54
  And so that you find a situation where people who are enemies of
• 1:11:59
  the Jews are almost always enemies of, of Christians,
• 1:12:04
  certainly in our days, right. Hitler for sure.
• 1:12:08
  You think about bin Laden, I mentioned him.
• 1:12:11
  You think about Hamas, these things in, in the in, in the
• 1:12:14
  other's mind, they go together, Jews and Christians.
• 1:12:18
  And So what starts with the Jews always ends up coming to us.
• 1:12:21
  So why, why do you find Harvard students mad about, you know,
• 1:12:25
  the Western, you know, world and, you know, Christianity and
• 1:12:31
  Christian values and also, you know, mad at Israel?
• 1:12:34
  Well, because they go together. There's something about it, and
• 1:12:36
  I can't fully explain it. And I can't see the world as God
• 1:12:39
  sees it, not yet. But there is something about
• 1:12:42
  this that is just hard to understand any other way.
• 1:12:47
  I don't. I don't know that I can say much
• 1:12:51
  more about that, but I've come to believe it more and more and
• 1:12:53
  doing this work all these years. I think it makes a lot of sense
• 1:12:57
  what you were saying, and it's a important, I think, challenge
• 1:13:01
  especially to Christians to be allies of our Jewish brothers
• 1:13:06
  and sisters who are and have been for so long under
• 1:13:11
  persecution. It was NPR actually, I saw
• 1:13:15
  earlier said now this is news. They were also biased in their
• 1:13:17
  reporting, but specifically NPR, their very first post about
• 1:13:21
  what's happening in Israel, the atrocities was this.
• 1:13:25
  At least 700 people have been killed in Israel and more than
• 1:13:27
  2000 wounded have been killed. Nothing about Hamas, nothing
• 1:13:31
  about terrorism, nothing about how they were even killed.
• 1:13:34
  The Gaza, the Gaza Health Ministry said more than 400
• 1:13:37
  people have been killed in Gaza. So, you know, it's less.
• 1:13:39
  But still, Israel looks like they're killing just, you know,
• 1:13:42
  almost as many people in Gaza and 2300 wounded.
• 1:13:45
  Then it has a video and it says in the first part of this video,
• 1:13:48
  Palestinians run for cover after an Israeli strike hits a
• 1:13:53
  building in Gaza City. In the second part, Israelis in
• 1:13:57
  Tel Aviv inspect the damage to a building and cars after the
• 1:14:01
  Palestinian group Hamas fired a rocket.
• 1:14:04
  Nothing about kidnappings, nothing about murders in
• 1:14:08
  people's homes, nothing about the festival, the music festival
• 1:14:12
  of slaughtered young adults. This is their idea of reporting
• 1:14:15
  who's a publicly funded, you know, claimingly claim to be
• 1:14:19
  moderate newsgroup NPR. So it it really is remarkable.
• 1:14:23
  Their next post says Israelis military is striking targets in
• 1:14:26
  Gaza. You know, it's about Israel
• 1:14:29
  attacking Gaza. Nothing, again about attacks on
• 1:14:32
  Israel. There was a very famous
• 1:14:36
  Palestinian poet named Mahmoud Darwish, and he once said in an
• 1:14:42
  interview, I believe it was the late 80s or early 90s, that
• 1:14:45
  thank God we as Palestinians have you as Jews for an enemy.
• 1:14:49
  Because if any other people were our enemy, no one would pay any
• 1:14:53
  attention to us. I'm paraphrasing, but he got it
• 1:14:56
  right. There's something about being an
• 1:15:00
  enemy of the Jewish people that that draws fellow travelers out
• 1:15:05
  of the woodwork. And they're a weird mix, right?
• 1:15:07
  You'll find the LGBT, you know, queers for Palestine, together
• 1:15:12
  with Hamas, who would kill any queers if they ever found them
• 1:15:16
  in Palestine. But because they're united
• 1:15:19
  against this thing, this Western Zionist, something Judeo.
• 1:15:24
  Christian tradition. They they make common cause and
• 1:15:28
  they work together. It's bizarre when you see it
• 1:15:30
  happen, when you see them even marching in the street together.
• 1:15:32
  You're thinking under no conditions should these two
• 1:15:34
  people go together, but it's the thing that they hate that unites
• 1:15:39
  them. The only thing that unites them
• 1:15:41
  is their hate. Yeah.
• 1:15:42
  What a thing to be united by. Robert.
• 1:15:45
  What's the future like, do you think?
• 1:15:46
  What are we going to see? I know you have no crystal ball.
• 1:15:50
  You know, you're not God, but what do you see after the spark
• 1:15:54
  of this unprecedented war now waged by Hamas?
• 1:15:57
  All at war? There's hostages sitting right
• 1:16:00
  now. Let's pray for the hostages
• 1:16:02
  sitting in UN, you know, unnamed locations.
• 1:16:05
  We don't know. But as you said, they may be in
• 1:16:06
  different civilian pockets in Gaza, You know, little children,
• 1:16:11
  mothers, women. And meanwhile, Israel needs to
• 1:16:16
  respond. What do you think we're going to
• 1:16:18
  see in the coming weeks and days?
• 1:16:20
  We will see a response. We're already seeing it.
• 1:16:23
  It will ramp up. There is no question that Israel
• 1:16:27
  is determined to put down this threat with whatever means
• 1:16:32
  necessary and to bring back those people who have
• 1:16:36
  disappeared. It will get, it will get worse
• 1:16:38
  before it gets better. I think maybe the most important
• 1:16:42
  thing for those of us watching the images that will come out
• 1:16:45
  over the coming days and, and weeks, God forbid, who knows,
• 1:16:50
  maybe more is, is maintaining moral clarity right there.
• 1:16:54
  There is every temptation when you see all these news items,
• 1:16:58
  NPR, The New York Times and, and this one and that one and this
• 1:17:01
  Hollywood celebrity to start to think to yourself, you know, I
• 1:17:05
  don't know, maybe maybe they're right.
• 1:17:06
  Maybe maybe Israel is somehow, you know, really the, the, the
• 1:17:10
  aggressor here. And it takes real wisdom and,
• 1:17:14
  and discernment to, to hold that line, right?
• 1:17:18
  And, and, and saying, no, this is, we know how this started.
• 1:17:21
  We saw how this started. And of course, you know, we have
• 1:17:25
  certain boundaries of, of reason and humanitarianism.
• 1:17:30
  But Israel needs to do what it has to do.
• 1:17:32
  It needs the time and the space to be able to protect its
• 1:17:36
  people. I mean, do we care about the
• 1:17:38
  people who live there? By the way, I said 20% of the
• 1:17:41
  people who live in Israel are Arabs, right?
• 1:17:44
  These, the Rockets that Hamas shot, one hit a mosque in Abu
• 1:17:48
  Ghosh, an Arab town in Israel. One went all the way clear into
• 1:17:51
  the West Bank and hit a house in Bethlehem.
• 1:17:53
  Like these people don't care. Israel needs the support of the
• 1:17:58
  world to do what it needs to do for its people.
• 1:18:01
  And by the way, they are also doing something for the rest of
• 1:18:04
  us, right? And confronting this threat, a
• 1:18:06
  threat that wants to get us over here as much as people over
• 1:18:09
  there, they're they're doing a real service.
• 1:18:12
  Now, I do want to say one thing, thinking about the future, I am
• 1:18:16
  not indifferent toward Palestinians.
• 1:18:18
  I've been me, my organization, we spent a lot of time working
• 1:18:21
  on Palestinian issues. We employ Palestinians, We've
• 1:18:24
  LED, I don't know how many thousands and thousands of
• 1:18:27
  people. We've led on, on Filo's project
• 1:18:30
  trips to to the West Bank to meet leaders in the Palestinian
• 1:18:35
  government. And we've sat with all kinds of
• 1:18:36
  people, let's just say all kinds.
• 1:18:39
  I won't go into details and we care.
• 1:18:42
  I care. I think they've been LED
• 1:18:44
  horribly. I think Palestinian leadership
• 1:18:46
  has been awful. They haven't prepared their
• 1:18:48
  people for peace. On the contrary, they they
• 1:18:50
  incite what every chance they get, usually to deflect from
• 1:18:53
  their own corruption and ineptitude.
• 1:18:56
  I want better for the Palestinian people.
• 1:18:59
  We all should want better for the Palestinian people.
• 1:19:02
  There is a path there. There is a way for this conflict
• 1:19:05
  to end. It's not a mystery.
• 1:19:07
  We've these things have been out there for years, but they were
• 1:19:10
  out there since the 30's. The idea of A2 state solution,
• 1:19:13
  but it requires movement on the Palestinian side.
• 1:19:17
  Israel is ready to make peace. They've been ready to make peace
• 1:19:20
  since before there was Israel. Palestinian leaders need to get
• 1:19:24
  their people on board. They need to be ready to make
• 1:19:27
  compromises and concessions and do what every other leaders and
• 1:19:30
  every other state have to do in moments of conflict.
• 1:19:33
  I think it's possible. I do think it's possible.
• 1:19:35
  Unfortunately, that can't happen while Hamas has the power that
• 1:19:40
  it does, which is why we need to be with the people of Israel as
• 1:19:46
  as they stand up and they take care of this problem.
• 1:19:48
  So is the. Hope that if Hamas can be
• 1:19:51
  conquered and ultimately rooted out, there can be a more
• 1:19:55
  moderate government that could take over the Palestinian
• 1:19:59
  leadership of the Palestinian people, and that there can be
• 1:20:02
  peace between the Palestinian people and Israel.
• 1:20:06
  That is the theory. And I have been working in this
• 1:20:10
  part of the world too long to be a, you know, an unbridled
• 1:20:14
  optimist. I am optimistic, but I couldn't
• 1:20:16
  do this work if I was not optimistic.
• 1:20:18
  But a lot of things will need to happen for that to happen,
• 1:20:22
  right? It's it's, it's unfortunately
• 1:20:25
  the case that the other side, the non Hamas Palestinian
• 1:20:29
  leadership is actually not that much better.
• 1:20:31
  Like, it's not these guys are bad and those guys are good.
• 1:20:34
  If you saw some of the stuff. I mean, the president of of the
• 1:20:38
  Palestinian Authority was on camera just a few weeks ago
• 1:20:42
  denying the Holocaust and saying and even if it happened, Hitler,
• 1:20:45
  you know, he made some good points.
• 1:20:47
  I'm paraphrasing, but not by much.
• 1:20:50
  He was roundly condemned around the world, by the way, by some
• 1:20:52
  Palestinians as well. But that's the other side.
• 1:20:55
  So is there just peace in the offing on the other side of a
• 1:20:59
  Hamas defeat? I hope so.
• 1:21:00
  It is possible. This is not impossible, but it's
• 1:21:04
  going to take really hard choices on the part of
• 1:21:07
  Palestinian leadership and I would add serious involvement by
• 1:21:11
  the the Arab states. Unfortunately, even Arab states
• 1:21:15
  that are at peace with Israel did not release great statements
• 1:21:18
  after the events on Saturday. I think there's a lot more that
• 1:21:23
  they could do to bring the Palestinian leadership along,
• 1:21:27
  you know, carrot sticks, whatever it may take to to get
• 1:21:30
  them to make the hard decisions that they need, that they need
• 1:21:34
  to make. But even then, I want to say one
• 1:21:36
  last thing. Even then, we're going to have
• 1:21:39
  to live with the reality that there are still millions of
• 1:21:42
  people in this part of the world for reasons of theology who are
• 1:21:47
  not going to give up the desire to destroy both Israel and as
• 1:21:52
  many as much of as much of the West as they can.
• 1:21:56
  That's important, that just to set our expectations and make
• 1:21:59
  sure that we're not, you know, overshooting.
• 1:22:02
  I think that's something that is so out of the mainstream
• 1:22:05
  understanding in the United States that there is a, I mean,
• 1:22:09
  radical Islam, you could call it.
• 1:22:11
  I think some people say, well, that is Islam.
• 1:22:13
  You know, there's obviously very peaceful Muslims, so you know
• 1:22:16
  that they would stand in contradiction to that.
• 1:22:18
  But there that idea that this is a, there is an ideology here, a
• 1:22:24
  religion here that wants to destroy the West.
• 1:22:27
  I think it's hard for Americans to really grasp, especially when
• 1:22:31
  like you said earlier, Robert, so many Americans are kind of
• 1:22:34
  self loathing about our own ideals.
• 1:22:37
  And so there's a temptation to. Go March alongside.
• 1:22:40
  You know, terrorists really, you know, who would want to destroy
• 1:22:44
  you who are marching because you're maybe, you know, part of
• 1:22:47
  the LGBTQ community or whatever it is because.
• 1:22:50
  But you still, you know, in a hatred of your own ideals, of
• 1:22:53
  your own country, you're willing to do that, that, you know,
• 1:22:56
  create that kind of an alliance. I think the biggest thing that
• 1:23:00
  we need to take from this as Americans and Americans,
• 1:23:04
  Christian Americans, is that we need to, we need our own
• 1:23:08
  revival, right? We, we are often working at the
• 1:23:12
  level of politics and law as we should be, but our society, our
• 1:23:18
  culture is dissolving from within that self loathing that
• 1:23:23
  comes from a sense of it comes from an identity crisis, from a
• 1:23:28
  loss of of meaning and of purpose.
• 1:23:30
  What is America, What are we all about?
• 1:23:32
  What do we stand on? What are the principles?
• 1:23:34
  It's not just freedom and some abstract sense.
• 1:23:37
  Our our values come from somewhere.
• 1:23:39
  They come from our tradition. And I think until Americans have
• 1:23:43
  that encounter, the one that I'm trying to do or to stimulate at
• 1:23:47
  the Filos Project by by remembering our origins, going
• 1:23:51
  back to our roots, rediscovering this heritage that came out of
• 1:23:57
  Jerusalem and changed the world. Until we understand that and
• 1:24:01
  kind of look in the mirror and then take that step of action to
• 1:24:06
  reconnect with our Jewish brothers and sisters to the
• 1:24:10
  Eastern Christian communities as so many of us have forgotten
• 1:24:13
  about and begin to link arms between the Near East and the
• 1:24:16
  West. Until that happens, I don't know
• 1:24:18
  that we really have the tools that we need to stand up against
• 1:24:21
  this, this threat. I mean, that's the real subtext
• 1:24:24
  here is that we don't, we're not ready for this, right?
• 1:24:29
  We're not ready to confront people in the town square.
• 1:24:32
  What do we say to them? What's what do we that we know
• 1:24:34
  what they stand for, but what do we stand for?
• 1:24:36
  And I think it has to start with people of faith.
• 1:24:39
  And I think it starts small. I think it starts local.
• 1:24:41
  I think it starts individual, but not to be trite, right?
• 1:24:45
  This is one of those cliche comments.
• 1:24:47
  But for the sake of our civilization, we need revival.
• 1:24:52
  And that revival has a has a root, right?
• 1:24:55
  It comes from somewhere. It starts with this tradition,
• 1:24:59
  which originally was was born in the land of Israel.
• 1:25:03
  So there's something really big and cosmic about all of this.
• 1:25:06
  Even as you're talking about, you know what, you know, the the
• 1:25:09
  latest events and the political implications.
• 1:25:12
  There's, there's something spiritual about it that cannot
• 1:25:15
  be missed. And I think it has as much to do
• 1:25:17
  with us as it does with Israelis and Palestinians over there.
• 1:25:22
  Robert, how can people find your work at Filo's project?
• 1:25:25
  And then also, is there anything that we can do besides pray
• 1:25:28
  right now? And also your call to, you know,
• 1:25:31
  these spiritualities being a paying attention to those, but
• 1:25:34
  is there anything practical that we can do to help those that are
• 1:25:37
  suffering right now in this conflict?
• 1:25:40
  Thank you for that question. First of all, you can go to our
• 1:25:42
  website, felixproject.org and you'll see a pop up there.
• 1:25:45
  You can sign up and get updates. We are doing a lot of things and
• 1:25:49
  it's going to develop as as the situation does.
• 1:25:53
  I think in addition to maintaining moral clarity and
• 1:25:56
  doing your best to preserve it in your sphere, your family,
• 1:25:59
  your friends, your church community, the other thing
• 1:26:03
  that's really important is, is acts of solidarity, friendship.
• 1:26:08
  The word filos means friend. That's like the basis of all
• 1:26:11
  this work. It's about shared values and
• 1:26:12
  linking people together. You would be shocked, Lila, at
• 1:26:18
  the immense power that one phone call, one text message to a
• 1:26:24
  Jewish friend. If you have an Israeli Jewish
• 1:26:27
  friend, even more saying, hey, I'm seeing what's happening.
• 1:26:31
  You know, I don't know really all the details.
• 1:26:34
  It seems really horrible, though.
• 1:26:36
  I just want you to know that I, as a Christian, as a Catholic,
• 1:26:40
  I'm with you. You have friends.
• 1:26:42
  You're not alone. That seems really small and
• 1:26:45
  petty. And how's that going to change
• 1:26:46
  the world? I'm telling you, it's so unusual
• 1:26:49
  in Jewish history to get that text message, to get that phone
• 1:26:51
  call, that the effect will be deep and immediate.
• 1:26:57
  And I would say anything people can do to go beyond thoughts and
• 1:27:02
  prayers and actually do action, right?
• 1:27:04
  And what is, is really the name of the game right now.
• 1:27:07
  And by the way, talk to your priest, talk to your pastor.
• 1:27:11
  Let him or her, well, not her, but let him know that that you
• 1:27:17
  are aware of the situation, that you care about this.
• 1:27:19
  Reach out to people in your community.
• 1:27:21
  Enterprising people will find ways to show rather than tell
• 1:27:26
  the kind of solidarity I'm talking about elected officials.
• 1:27:28
  Obviously, the more you can make your voice heard in real life,
• 1:27:33
  in the flesh and on social media, the better.
• 1:27:35
  That's the thing, it's easy. We all do it anyway.
• 1:27:38
  Just make sure that it's properly calibrated for the
• 1:27:41
  moment that we're in. Thank you, Robert, this has been
• 1:27:43
  awesome. Thank you for coming on the
• 1:27:45
  podcast and breaking down so much of this for people
• 1:27:48
  listening. I'd love to have you in studio
• 1:27:49
  sometime next time you're out in California, but I hope that
• 1:27:52
  people can follow your work and support Filos and such good
• 1:27:56
  advice for us, you know, not just pray, but express that
• 1:27:59
  support, you know, vocally and whatever actions we can to those
• 1:28:02
  that are, you know, this community, it is a community,
• 1:28:06
  the Jewish. People that are.
• 1:28:07
  Hurting so badly right now and and deserve our solidarity and
• 1:28:11
  our support. Thank you so much.
• 1:28:13
  That really just the fact that you are highlighting this
• 1:28:17
  situation and asking me to be on the show, I think already that's
• 1:28:21
  an act that means a lot. So thank you.
• 1:28:23
  Thank you, Robert. Thanks again for listening to
• 1:28:25
  this episode of the Lila Rose Podcast.
• 1:28:28
  It's heavy. It's heavy to think about what's
• 1:28:30
  happening. I was just up late even thinking
• 1:28:34
  about the plight of those hostages.
• 1:28:37
  And I'm still thinking about it, you know, of course, because
• 1:28:39
  they're still taken into captivity.
• 1:28:44
  You know, the one image of, I think I mentioned talk
• 1:28:46
  conversation with Robert, but a family who was kidnapped by
• 1:28:49
  Hamas terrorists and the mother clutching her two little boys.
• 1:28:53
  They had hair like my son. They looked like my sons.
• 1:28:56
  And I imagined waking up 1 morning with my little ones
• 1:29:01
  after celebrating a holiday like many of the Israelis did, and
• 1:29:05
  having militants at your door, murdering your neighbors and
• 1:29:08
  taking you hostage and knowing that your life at any moment
• 1:29:11
  could be taken. I think about the conditions
• 1:29:13
  they're in. I think about the fear that they
• 1:29:16
  are in and that their loved ones must feel for them back at home
• 1:29:19
  in Israel. Let's.
• 1:29:20
  Pray for their safety. And let's pray for all innocents
• 1:29:24
  caught up in this conflict, all innocents in Palestine, the
• 1:29:28
  children there in Gaza or the West Bank, the children of
• 1:29:31
  Israel, those that are truly innocent and that justice be
• 1:29:35
  done as Israel fights to protect and defend itself.
• 1:29:40
  Don't, don't forget if you're listening on the podcast app
• 1:29:42
  that you can watch this episode on, on the Lila Rose Podcast
• 1:29:46
  YouTube channel. And if you're watching on the
• 1:29:48
  YouTube channel and you're having to be driving in your car
• 1:29:50
  or you listen to podcasts, don't forget to subscribe to the Lila
• 1:29:53
  Rose podcast on your favorite podcast app.
• 1:29:56
  Thanks so much guys and have a great rest of your day.