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Danny Jones Podcast
#387 - “Trump Will Nuke Iran Over This” Melania Epstein Scandal Is Only Beginning | Shaiel Ben-Ephraim
02:30:36
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- [00:07]
A
Seems like you have a really interesting take on everything that's going on in the world right now.
- [00:11]
B
Glad you think that.
- [00:14]
A
So why don't you just like lay out some of your backstory for folks who haven't heard of you?
- [00:19]
B
Yeah, well, I'm born and bred Israeli. Went to high school there. The army there was an intelligence, BA, MA there, worked for the Israeli government Foreign ministry. Did a PhD in Canada, postdoc at UCLA, worked for Microsoft, and now I do geopolitical analysis professionally.
- [00:41]
A
You, you, you got a PhD in intelligence?
- [00:45]
B
No, PhD in military studies in Canada. I did intelligence when I was in the army.
- [00:50]
A
Oh, you were in intelligence? That's right. In, in Israel.
- [00:53]
B
Yep.
- [00:54]
A
How did that, how did that happen? How does that, how does one get, how does one get into intelligence?
- [00:59]
B
You go to the draft building and they give you tests there, they give you aptitude tests and then they, you know, they give you a psychological test as well, and then they decide.
- [01:14]
A
So you were in the Mossad?
- [01:16]
B
No, the Mossad's not military. The Mossad is like the CIA. And then you also have military intelligence. Oh, yeah, no, the Mossad is. The Mossad is. You need a certain kind of mental profile that I definitely don't have. I'm a nerd. You know, I'm soft. What is that?
- [01:36]
A
What is the mental, Is the mental profile screening similar to the CIA? I wonder.
- [01:42]
B
The CIA has a lot more analysts than the Mossad does. Mossad has a lot more people who work in the field, manage teams. The CIA has that too. But most of that work in Israel is done through military intelligence, through Amman. It's called. Not to be mistaken with you, Aman. Yeah. Not the Jordanian capital, but Amman. So that's where most the analysts are. And that's what, that's what I was doing. I was an analyst. I wasn't a field, I was no James Bond.
- [02:11]
A
Did you want to be in the Mossad?
- [02:13]
B
Absolutely not.
- [02:13]
A
No.
- [02:14]
B
No.
- [02:14]
A
Why not?
- [02:16]
B
Because I'm not like a killer type, you know, I'm not a covert mission type. And no, no, I'm, I'm more of a nerd who analyzes things and I, I, I, that's what I did in, in the military and that's what I've done my whole life.
- [02:30]
A
Did you ever rub, rub shoulders with people in the Mossad?
- [02:32]
B
Yes, yes. I, I've met people from the Mossad.
- [02:35]
A
They really interesting people. What are they like? Everyone thinks I'm on the Mossad, which is cool. I just never met one. Not that I, not that I Know of.
- [02:45]
B
I don't see any the reasons you're inviting me if you're not mout. I just assumed. They're not very emotional people. They're very rational, calculated types.
- [02:57]
A
Lack of empathy. Right. Sociopathic.
- [03:00]
B
No, no, not, not. Not. I. I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say.
- [03:04]
A
I've had CIA, former CIA officers on the show, and they say the screening is you have to have very high sociopathic tendencies to get in the CIA.
- [03:12]
B
Well, I don't know the screening policies for the Mossad, so I can't tell you. But they faked at least being normal people, as far as I could tell. You know, like, I didn't notice was a. I didn't notice they were sociopaths, but they were very calm and collected for Israelis. You know, Israelis are very emotional people. Were very expressive. And they're relatively not. They tend to be more reserved. And that was notable. Interesting.
- [03:38]
A
So what were you doing in army intelligence or military intelligence?
- [03:43]
B
We were tracking. Tracking what was going on in the occupied territories, you know, where. Where there were terrorists, where there were infrastructure. I specialized in tracking infrastructure and a lot. Infrastructure? Yeah, infrastructure. And in those days, a lot of what we did, which I don't think the IDF is doing a lot of anymore, was trying to avoid hitting civilian infrastructure. So we would map out where things were, map out how things work, and. And hopefully avoid hitting it. But also, when you gather that kind of intelligence, when you have the moment when you actually need it, then you might actually use it.
- [04:18]
A
And what years. What. What. What years are we talking that you were doing that.
- [04:22]
B
We're talking about during the second intifada. So this is a long time ago. 2000, 2002.
- [04:29]
A
Oh. Oh, interesting. Oh, wow.
- [04:33]
B
So I'm very out of the loop with what they're doing. I mean, I talk to people who are involved, but. But I think they do things very differently now.
- [04:40]
A
So what was. What was the second Antifada for People who don't know.
- [04:46]
B
So there were two major Palestinian uprisings in the past. One was in the late 1980s, and the other one was started in 1999. And the second one was what occurred after the Oslo process, which was the most serious peace process the Israelis ever had with the Palestinians failed. When that failed, all hell broke loose. It was the most violent moment in the conflict until now. And there were massive terrorist attacks in Israel, and there were massive Israeli operations in the. In the west bank and in Gaza at that time. It ended up with an Israeli victory that put out. Put the terrorist organizations in the west bank and in Gaza, out of commission for several years, or at least they were. They weren't operating as much as they. They were the past now. Not now, but before October 7, they had come back to a lot of the infrastructure that they lost in the second intifada.
- [05:46]
A
So when, during. During the operation in the. Early in 2002, your job was to identify and distinguish between terrorist and civilian infrastructure. So you guys wouldn't target innocent people?
- [06:00]
B
Not exactly. I would map out where the infrastructure was rather than distinguishing between terrorist and civilian, because at that time, the Israeli assumption was that the government in the territories, the Palestinian Authority, was more or less friendly and that there were splinter groups within that organization that were the enemy and of Hamas and Islamic Jihad were the main enemy. So the idea was to map out infrastructure to see what you would avoid targeting, but also in the future to map out in case you want to put pressure points on Palestinian organizations.
- [06:41]
A
Oh, okay. So what made you leave?
- [06:45]
B
After three years, you leave the army? Unless you want to sign on to. To remain as a. As an officer permanently, which I did not want to do. I wanted to go to university. I was pursuing a career in journalism as well, at that time was doing sports journalism. I had no interest in staying.
- [07:04]
A
So do most people join the army in Israel?
- [07:07]
B
You have to join the army in Israel unless you have a good reason to opt out. And especially people from my sector, secular Israelis, the vast majority. Serve.
- [07:21]
A
The vast majority of secular Israelis, yes, secular Israelis.
- [07:25]
B
So. So Israel has several sectors socially, right? I'm secular. I don't have, you know, a kipa in my head and all that. Secular Jews, national religious Jews, those two groups serve in. In large numbers and proportion. Then you have ultra Orthodox Jews. They generally don't serve. Instead, they study the Torah or whatever. And then you have Arabs of various kinds. And Druze. Druze do serve. Arabs don't. So it's. It's complicated.
- [07:53]
A
Yeah, yeah, it's very complicated. It is definitely not a monolith. And even in the United States, there's definitely many different factions and as well as across many different political spectrums too, which is fascinating. Okay, so after you left there, you went to Canada.
- [08:09]
B
You said no. Then I did my masters in Israel.
- [08:13]
A
Okay.
- [08:14]
B
I worked for Israeli newspapers, doing sports, mostly news as well. Then I worked for the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Then I did my PhD.
- [08:23]
A
And what did you do for the Israeli Foreign Ministry?
- [08:25]
B
I worked in South Africa there. Relatively low job.
- [08:31]
A
And.
- [08:32]
B
And then I, I left to do my PhD.
- [08:35]
A
And now you're doing all this. Reporting on everything that's going on in the world with these, with this Iran war. And I know you were covering what was happening in Gaza quite extensively right following October 7th, and it seems like you have a lot of sources inside the IDF and the Israeli army. How did this all come about? How did you get into reporting on all this stuff and paying attention on all this stuff and.
- [09:03]
B
Well, you know, I used to tweet just for fun on geopolitics. And when October 7th happened, I saw there was a very big calling for, especially among the Jewish Zionist community for reporting from Israeli sources. And I had some friends in the army, had some friends in the Foreign Ministry, and I started talking to them, asking them what was happening, and they were answering me. And I also. Now it's really easy to translate everything, but it was a little harder then. So I also used Israeli media sources and I built up not a huge following, but I built up a pretty big following. And, and my niche was sort of. I was Zionist, but I was relatively critical. So if the IDF was doing something wrong, morally or strategically, I would call it out, but I was pro Israel and that put me in, in a very specific niche. And so I attracted some, some following that way then over time.
- [10:05]
A
And by the way, sorry to interrupt you. What is. I. I've. I've noticed there's many different definitions of Zionist. What. What do you consider a Zionist?
- [10:12]
B
Well, that's. That's a very good question. So is considered to be a Zionist is someone who believes that the state of Israel should exist with a Jewish majority. Technically, anyone who thinks that there should be some kind of Jewish homeland in the land of Israel is a Zionist. I no longer consider myself one today. I think the most important part is that we have equality in Israel or Israel, Palestine. So I'm not really concerned about whether the Jews have a majority or not, but that's something that evolved over time over the last two, three years.
- [10:45]
A
Oh, only for the last two or three years?
- [10:47]
B
Yeah. I wrote a substack article about moving away from Zionism a year and a half ago or so. And then I started getting more, more followers, more growth, because that was a big story, because I'm sort of an Israeli insider and I turned against. Against our ideology. And that came because I, As I started talking to people and seeing what was happening in the war, I. I started to realize how many crimes Israel was committing, and I started to realize how systematic those crimes have been throughout Israeli history. And I've come to the realization that the entire Israeli military Political structure is based on the oppression of Arabs or non Jews and it's really hard to separate Israel from that oppression in any meaningful way.
- [11:37]
A
That's fascinating. So I think you said on Scotch trip you're an anti Zionist now.
- [11:42]
B
Well, I don't like the term anti Zionist because it sounds like you're just coming out against something. So I, I prefer to think of myself as pro equality. I think that Jews and, and Arabs in Israel should be equal.
- [11:54]
A
That's a pretty radical shift in two or three years.
- [11:57]
B
Yes. Well, I always, to be fair to myself and to some liberal Zionists, I always wanted Palestinians to have equal rights, but I thought the best way to do that would be through them having their own state. You'd have a Jewish state and you'd have a Palestinian state. The developments have made that seem almost impossible. You know, just the spatial separation with all the settlements that have been built, it doesn't seem like something that's going to happen. So you already have one state and I think the more realistic thing to do would be to make that one state equal for everyone involved.
- [12:29]
A
Out of all the people that you're in touch with in the Israeli army, what, what would you say the overall sentiment is with those folks?
- [12:37]
B
Well, I talked to a certain subset in Israeli military, so I should clarify. Right. I, I used to talk to sort of run of the mill IDF people who I knew or were in, I was introduced to by people that I knew. Since my opinions have changed, a lot of those people don't talk to me anymore. Some of them do, most of them don't. Instead, I now have more communication with whistleblowers, dissident elements in the army, people who are very disappointed in what Israel's doing. So they're not necessarily typical. The people that I talk to, some of them even agree with me that there should be no Jewish state. That doesn't reflect the average person in the Israeli military. The average person in the Israeli military doesn't believe in a two state solution. They believe that there shouldn't be a Palestinian state and they believe that the Jews, Israel should continue to rule over Gaza and the west bank for the foreseeable future. And in some cases they also believe there should be ethnic cleansing and all the Palestinians should be run out of the west bank and Gaza.
- [13:38]
A
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- [15:32]
B
This is a very, very difficult question to, to answer. I haven't seen any evidence that really shows that there's some kind of conspiracy. There have been two people who talked about having some sort of stand down order. I've seen one talk on tv, I've seen one talk on social media about it. But it appears that that was.
- [15:55]
A
Is that a legitimate question to ask?
- [15:57]
B
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. You know, we too often are cowed from talking about the most important issues because people accuse you of anti Semitism or accuse you of Islamophobia, if you ask questions, and that's not an accident, that's intentional. This is intended to chill the debate and make you scared to ask questions. Like you, you just sort of alluded to. And we shouldn't, we shouldn't surrender to that. Anytime there's a major intelligence failure, you have to ask serious questions, whether it's Pearl harbor, whether it's 1973, or whether it's October 7, or whether it's, whether it's 9 11. Usually these things aren't vast conspiracies, but they're the way, the way I interpret it is more, I don't think necessarily the top priority for Netanyahu and the army was, was preventing this kind of attack is the way I would put it. So before I talk about what I'm about to say, I want to make it clear that Israeli soldiers, intelligence Netanyahu, they had no idea that Hamas could cause the amount of damage that Hamas did. From what I've heard, Hamas was surprised at the amount of damage that they managed to cause. So there was perhaps some incentive for Netanyahu to allow a limited attack or not to take a limited attack that seriously, to have some sort of excuse to start something in Gaza. So there were warnings of an attack and there's. When you're in intelligence, you get a lot of warnings of attacks. And then how you prioritize what is, what is a real threat and what isn't a real threat comes down to a lot of things that comes down to how dangerous do you think the enemy is? Or what do you think is the worst case scenario if they manage to, to attack you, or are there other threats that seem as bad or worse at the time? It's very easy to go back in time and look at that one piece of information and say, that was the warning. But you have to keep it in context of all the threats that you have at that time. Like, for example, 911 is a good, good example. Now, we know there were pilots who were. Yeah, but at the time, there's so many threats that doesn't necessarily stand out to you as the biggest threat. It's only in retrospect. And Israel traditionally looked at Hamas as sort of a Mickey Mouse adversary. Hezbollah, they saw as much more dangerous. Iran is the number one threat. And the border in the west bank is much more porous and you have all the settlements there, so it's much harder to defend. Gaza, meanwhile, seems contained. So at the time it looked like the easiest border to defend. And the scenario that seemed the least threatening. And therefore, in retrospect, the amount of troops you had there and the seriousness with which some of these alarms were taken were pathetic. But it's easy to say that in. In retrospect. So there's two elements here. There's the fact that there were other threats, but there's also the fact that Netanyahu had used Hamas to achieve a lot of his political goals. They were. They're a useful tool for him. His goal is to avoid having a two state solution, to avoid having negotiations for peace. And his best partner in that is Hamas, or was Hamas. Right. So having them remain strong and a threat, but not too strong was his professed strategy. And up to that point. And I think what happened is he ended up getting burned by a threat that he tried to keep on a relatively low flame. They turned out to be much stronger.
- [19:40]
A
Control the height of the flame, right?
- [19:42]
B
Exactly. Yeah. So I don't think that he wanted the flame to get as high as it did, but I think he wanted the flame to burn there. He was allowing money to go in for Hamas from Qatar. This is a documented fact. In order to keep them at a certain amount of strength, that allowed sort of control over other factions.
- [20:02]
A
The cash was coming from Qatar.
- [20:03]
B
From Qatar, that's right. And Israel was facilitating its arrival. And now we also know that Qatar was paying off people in his office at the same time. So there's also an element of corruption involved there. Yeah. The Qatari government had penetrated the Netanyahu's inner sanctum. His staff and several of them are being investigated for their ties to Qatar. Accepting cash before October 7th and after October 7th.
- [20:33]
A
For what?
- [20:34]
B
Well, what we know is that they were accepting it in order to do PR for Qatar. So some of the members of the Prime Minister's Office were doing PR for Qatar after October 7, trying to show how they're part of the peace process and they're helpful to Israel. And even they were even helping before October 7th, they were helping advertise Qatar in advance for the World Cup. If you remember, the last World cup, not the one coming up now, was in Qatar. So members of his staff were helping hype up Qatar for the World Cup. Now, is. Is that really why money was given or are there other reasons?
- [21:06]
A
Whose cash was that that was flowing from Qatar to Hamas from the Qatari government? That was Qatar's cash.
- [21:14]
B
Yep. Qatar have used Hamas as a sort of proxy for their influence in the, in the Middle East. A lot of these actors in the Gulf, Iran, for example, Qatar the uae, they find proxies in the region, they give them a lot of money, and then that gives them a foot in the door to influence some of these developments. And this was Qatar's way of doing that.
- [21:41]
A
Now, where do Ben GVIR and Smotrich fall into? And what category would you put them in Netanyahu's cabinet or the Israeli government, if you will. Are they. Is from what I've heard is that Netanyahu is not a very religious guy. He's mainly. His motivations are to stay out of prison. Although he has been lobbying for the Iran war for like 40 years. I think every president since Reagan, he's tried to get them to bomb Iran and no one's done it until now. So that can't be his only motivation to stay out of prison. But as far as, like Ben Gavir and Smotrich, what are their ultimate goals, in your view?
- [22:26]
B
They're, they're different.
- [22:27]
A
And maybe explain to, you know, normies out there, folks who aren't initiated yet, what, who those guys are.
- [22:32]
B
These guys are. Okay, so Itamar Ben GVIR was, when I was a kid, he was a known sort of Jewish terrorist, borderline juvenile delinquent who used to go around trying to beat up Arabs. He threatened the prime minister at the time, Robin, who was assassinated. He was going to assassinate him. He was arrested several times for inciting for terrorism, racism. So he was like a known racist nutjob in Israel. And he was so bad that among extreme right wing circles there was always a rumor that he worked for the Israeli version of the FBI, that he was like an insider, you know, and I don't know if that was true. And then you have Smotrich, who was more of a settler ideologue, less of a sort of delinquent, but he also was involved in terrorism to try to prevent Israeli withdrawals from occupied territory. And. Yeah, and, and also he was arrested and the Israeli version of the FBI told people to leave him alone because it was involved in too many things that were national security secrets. So they both were involved in all sorts of things and they ended up forming a party together that was based on the principles of Rabbi Mayor Kahana, who's sort of like a, for lack of a better term, Judeo Nazi. Judeo Nazi. And they, they follow his, his path. And they both believe in greater Israel, they both believe in ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and they have very important roles in the Israeli government. Today Smotrich runs the Israeli police and Ben GVIR not only is Minister of Finance, but Also is sort of the civilian minister of defense, which doesn't sound like it makes much sense, but the Israeli Defense Ministry runs the occupied territories and they run. Who gets to build houses, who gets to destroy houses, who gets to run infrastructure, who gets to do all those things? He runs that. He doesn't run the army, he runs that. That means he allows settlements to be built, he destroys Palestinian villages, he does all this stuff that prepares the ethnic cleansing. And he says very clearly that Israel should take over the occupied territories and the Palestinians should be gone from there and they have a decisive vote in the government and they're not afraid to use it to blackmail Netanyahu. And he's.
- [24:59]
A
To blackmail Netanyahu.
- [25:01]
B
Well, blackmail in terms of politically, personally, I'm not aware, like, I'm not talking about Epstein style stuff here, but blackmail him politically, say, if you don't do this and don't do that, we'll leave the government. Like right now. It's happening right now. Israel's bombing Lebanon. Trump wants Israel to stop bombing Lebanon. They are saying if you stop, we're going to leave the government. They do this all the time.
- [25:24]
A
They say if you stop what?
- [25:25]
B
Bombing Lebanon, if you do a ceasefire. They're telling him that right now. It's typical. Every time there was a ceasefire that could have been made in Gaza, Lebanon, wherever, they say if you do that, we'll leave the government. Either they're bluffing or they're not. But every time it's this entire drama.
- [25:42]
A
There was this guy, I was just watching this morning, this guy named Steve Sweeney, who was like reporting in Lebanon, I believe, or. And he was in Beirut and an IDF missile landed like 10ft from him. What. Do you know the story behind that?
- [25:59]
B
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I saw it happen. I don't know if they were targeting.
- [26:02]
A
Were they trying to assassinate him?
- [26:04]
B
My guess is no. I think the IDF find the video
- [26:08]
A
of Steve Sweeney with the rocket almost hitting him. It's crazy.
- [26:12]
B
I feel like if they were trying to kill him, he'd be dead, first of all. And second of all, I think Israel likes to assassinate journalists who are Arab and then they can say that they're terrorists.
- [26:24]
A
This guy's British, right?
- [26:25]
B
Exactly, He's British. I think he works for rt.
- [26:28]
A
Oh, wow.
- [26:28]
B
Which is another reason not to kill him, because Israel's relations with Russia are complicated. Complicated, but necessary for. For Israeli geostrategy. So if I was Israel, I wouldn't kill an RT British journalist. That doesn't mean they didn't. But my guess Is. Is not.
- [26:44]
A
Yeah. This is nuts. Yeah.
- [26:47]
B
Further rocket attacks were reported against Nahariya and admitted.
- [26:54]
A
How crazy is that, dude? So this is in Beirut. This is the place where they just like, torched, what, yesterday?
- [27:02]
B
Yeah, I think this is south of Beirut. I'm not sure. I'm not mistaken. And so Israel usually would use. If they're assassinating you, they'll use a heavier missile than that. And also they'll sometimes do something called a double tap to make sure that you're dead, which they didn't do here.
- [27:17]
A
Right.
- [27:19]
B
And they're very effective at killing journalists, but they usually don't kill Western journalists.
- [27:24]
A
They probably have a better way than wasting a rocket.
- [27:27]
B
Right. I mean, they've certainly used a lot of rockets to. To kill terrorists.
- [27:30]
A
Kill one guy.
- [27:31]
B
Yeah.
- [27:32]
A
Even a journalist.
- [27:33]
B
Even a journalist.
- [27:33]
A
Really? How many journalists do you think the Israeli military or the Mossad has actually like, assassinated?
- [27:40]
B
I can't tell you the number.
- [27:41]
A
Do you know of any like that off the top of your head, though?
- [27:43]
B
Well, yeah, there's 200 and something journalists that Israel has assassinated since. Since October 7th. More than in any conflict in history from where they're mostly Al Jazeera or Gazans or whatever. And then they can say they're a member of this terrorist organization, they're a
- [28:01]
A
member of that terrorist organization, they're pretending to be journalists. They're really terrorists.
- [28:05]
B
Exactly. And in some cases that's probably true. But. Yeah.
- [28:08]
A
As of 2026, over 250 journalists and media workers have been killed since October 7, 2023, with the vast majority being Palestinian journalists in Gaza killed by Israeli airstrikes. According to and media watchdogs and observers state this is the deadliest period for journalists in history.
- [28:23]
B
Wow.
- [28:24]
A
That's nuts.
- [28:25]
B
Yeah.
- [28:26]
A
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- [30:05]
B
Yes. So traditionally in Israel there is death penalty, but only in very specific cases, mostly for Nazis. Eichmann, who was a Nazi that Israel kidnapped from Argentina in the 1960s was put to death. But you couldn't do it for anyone else.
- [30:25]
A
Just not when's the last Nazi. That's the last Nazi they executed was in the 60s.
- [30:28]
B
Yes. The only, the only they had another one on trial and he ended up being fed. It was a mistrial. So the new law is that if you're a terrorist and you're not a Jewish, not an Israeli citizen, then you can be executed. There's a question of whe how it's interpreted over whether it would apply also to Arab citizens of Israel. And that's not clear, but it definitely wouldn't apply to Jewish citizens, thousands of Israel. And of course there are Jewish terrorists who deserve the death penalty. If you're going to give death penalty for terrorism, like the terrorists who torched an entire Palestinian family and they burned to death, for example. But they're, they're not going to give it to them. And what about those guys who, that prisoner they were found to, they were, they were not even indicted.
- [31:21]
A
Netanyahu posted a tweet like we should not be condemning our heroes, celebrating our heroes. This is a tremendous like historic day or something like that.
- [31:29]
B
Yeah. And they intentionally made sure that they weren't indicted. What they did is they had a, they had the victim and they had witnesses. And they, the witnesses either died or disappeared in prison or were released to Gaza. And then the military prosecution could say, oh, we don't have a witness, we don't have a victim. We can't prosecute them.
- [31:48]
A
So that person, that video where all those guys are lining up with their shields, the only reason they would have the shields is if they knew they were being videotaped, right?
- [31:57]
B
Absolutely.
- [31:58]
A
So they, they. I don't understand. Why would they do that knowing it's going to be on camera?
- [32:04]
B
Because they were not concerned about paying any price for it. Listen, there's, that's one of the more happened in America.
- [32:13]
A
Those guys would be in prison.
- [32:14]
B
Are you. I'm not sure anymore. You know, with Pete Hegseth running the. Because this is military, right? With Pete Hegseth running the military and Trump, I'm not even sure that that's correct anymore. You know, like, things have, things have started to change.
- [32:27]
A
But he, Hagset doesn't seem like a real person to me. He seems like a, he seems like a, like a, he seems totally phony. He doesn't seem like he really has any power.
- [32:36]
B
But it's, it's often people who are very ridiculous who are the most dangerous because we don't take them that seriously. And sort of was considered to be a joke and Mussolini was considered to be a joke.
- [32:45]
A
Yeah.
- [32:46]
B
And, and, and we saw, we saw what they did. Hexit was selected because he was war crimes enthusiast. He was on Fox News talking about how all these soldiers who had killed civilians in Afghanistan should not be in jail. And Trump loved that. And that's why you appointed him. He appointed him in order for war crimes to be part of the American system, to be legal. So the process that we're seeing in Israel is a process we're seeing all around the world. You know, like the Russians are doing it, the Americans are now doing it, the Israelis are doing it. War crimes are cool. Again, you know, that's, that. This is, this isn't just an Israeli thing. I think it's very important to say that I criticize Israel a lot because I'm Israeli, but I see these things happening all around the world. Yeah. And by the way, regarding that incident, the only thing that makes it special in terms of the fact that you're talking about it now is that it was caught on tape.
- [33:35]
A
Right.
- [33:35]
B
From what I've talked to guards at that prison camp, and they said that's nothing compared to what they've seen.
- [33:40]
A
Like, absolutely.
- [33:42]
B
People were beaten to death and to death on more than one occasion.
- [33:45]
A
Men and women.
- [33:46]
B
No, there's only men in that camp.
- [33:48]
A
They're doing this to men.
- [33:49]
B
They're Only doing this to men.
- [33:50]
A
Oh, my God.
- [33:52]
B
There are women elsewhere. But the worst things are happening to men, and they also. They would leave bodies out there to decompose next to the prisoner so that they would learn a lesson not to do these things again. You know, basically the assumption was just to give some background why this is. This is happening or why it was happening. I think it's a little bit better now. Not much.
- [34:13]
A
So in that video with all the shields, that was a man they were molesting.
- [34:16]
B
That was a man. And they inserted a baton into his. No. Broom handle into his anus. And there's a doctor. Doctor's report confirming that. That, that that happened. And yeah, there's. There's much worse cases. The reason we have that is A, there's video and B, the prosecutor who feel strongly. Former prosecutor. That war crimes are bad, leaked it to the press and then she was fired and. And she almost committed suicide. And there's rumors that there was attempts at foul play. There's a lot of things we don't know about what happened there.
- [34:53]
A
I'm shocked it was a man. I mean, it's not. I'm not saying it's like, worse that it's a. That it's a man. I mean, obviously it's. It's terrible if it's a man or a woman. But, like, why are these. I mean, so. So they're just like, sodomizing this guy with foreign objects. They're not actually like.
- [35:10]
B
No, no. There have been cases of Palestinian prisoners testifying that they were raped, you know, sexually, directly with a penis and all that. Right there. There are not documented cases because we don't have the pathology.
- [35:25]
A
Right.
- [35:25]
B
There's a lot of testimony to that effect. But in this. And. And dogs as well, there's testimony regarding dogs. Prisoners.
- [35:34]
A
Dogs.
- [35:35]
B
Yeah, dogs.
- [35:38]
A
Wow.
- [35:38]
B
Testimony. Claims, again, not verified. But several cases, dogs were trained to sexually assault.
- [35:46]
A
Trained to do it.
- [35:47]
B
Those are the. Those are the claims. I've. I've. I've heard enough of it that I believe it, but I can't confirm that.
- [35:54]
A
Yeah. And.
- [35:55]
B
And I just want to explain why this is why this happened. This camp is where they put the Nua Hamas terrorists. These are the people who are suspected of. Committed the worst crimes on October 7th. The trouble is, first of all, that doesn't justify any of this. The trouble is also, Israel doesn't always. Isn't always able to identify who was in these organizations, who wasn't. And sometimes they just rounded everyone up who was in a certain area where there were people who were suspicious. So there have been almost no prosecutions of these people. Israel hasn't been able to prove that these people were actually involved in October 7th. And according to estimates from Israeli prosecutors, about 60% of them are innocent. So some of the people who were worst abused are people that Israel knew were involved in October 7th but couldn't really prove it. But in some cases, it was just random anger at people who were there who they suspect of being parts of October 7th. And also the worst of the worst in the Israeli military are put as guards in these camps, which is partially just how it is, because it's not a very high skilled job, but also because the worst, most violent psychopaths want to have that job as well, because you can do whatever you want to these people. So a combination of all those circumstances created some of the worst torture camps imaginable. And that's really what turned me against my country, was talking to people who were stationed there and realizing that not only were these things happening, but really no one, no one cared. In some cases, they were encouraged.
- [37:32]
A
What would happen if one of these people that were working at one of those camps sort of like blew the whistle to whatever extent you can do that in Israel?
- [37:38]
B
They did. They blew the whistle all over the place. Yeah. Israelis who are patriotic Zionists, love Israel, hate Hamas, blew the whistle all over the place. They went to cnn, they went to the New York Times, they went to me, they went to everyone they could.
- [37:51]
A
And what did CNN and the New York Times do?
- [37:53]
B
They publish stories.
- [37:54]
A
They did.
- [37:54]
B
There's very good stories. The first one, I believe in the West, Al Jazeera probably covered it first. They usually do. There's a very good story in CNN on it from, you know, months before that video came out. And there's a story in the New York Times from about a month before the video came out. Like, people were aware of this. No one really cared. The problem is people say, oh, these are terrorists, you know, and all the worst details, you know. Well, they're just saying that we don't necessarily believe it. That video really helped cement. But even before that video came out, those of us who had talked to people who were there knew that this was happening and worse things were happening
- [38:32]
A
other than the sort of mainstream things that are happening right now, the big things like the war, things that everyone's aware of, which we'll talk about. What, what else is happening that you're paying attention to that may be flying under the radar for most Americans.
- [38:51]
B
One thing that I think is Very important to pay attention to was that the IDF is collapsing under the stress of all these wars. And that's something that's coming out more and more. The chief of staff of the Milit went to Netanyahu and told him, I, I'm gonna give you 10 red flags on how overstressed, overworked and traumatized the the IDF is. You have to understand we're talking about a country with 10 million people army that at best has 400, 000 soldiers. That's including all the reserves. And right now, or at least until a few days ago, they were fighting in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Iran. And meanwhile, as we alluded to earlier in this conversation, there's a lot of sectors in Israeli society that don't serve. So the amount of pressure that's on the people who do serve is extremely high. And a lot of them are doing so much reserve duty that their marriages are collapsing, their businesses are collapsing, their mental health is collapsing. I'm not saying this so anyone can feel sorry for them. I always get that on social media, who cares? But shows you that Israel can't keep up this kind of empire that it's striving to, to create. It's not sustainable at all. And Israel's going into a deeper and deeper deficit. It doesn't have enough soldiers, this strategy. And also the Israeli people are losing faith in what's become an eternal war. There's real signs of collapse in the Israeli structure and the, the security leadership is calling attention to this. This isn't just what critics of Israel think and that's something to really pay attention to. Israel's bitten off a lot more than it can chew and now it's losing American support, which Americans are very, are very aware of losing.
- [40:47]
A
Yeah, I think it's long gone, at least on the Internet. I mean, I don't know. I mean I'm sure there's, I mean there's are bad, there's obviously a, of, of, of folks who, you know, are still very supportive. But it's been crazy to watch this go down in just the last three years. It really has. I've never seen anything like it. But what is the, the overall temperature on, on young Israelis when it comes to all this stuff? And, and like the overall Israeli population by and large, if you could sort of like lump them all together, what is the overall kind of view on, on Netanyahu and the wars? And is it similar to what you see here in America, like especially with the young people on, on X and Paying attention to, like, alternative independent journalism?
- [41:35]
B
No, no, it's very, very different.
- [41:37]
A
Interesting.
- [41:38]
B
It's. It's basically the opposite. In Israel, the young demographic is the most nationalistic and the most right wing. Whoa. Yeah. And there's a reason for that. So take me. I'm. I'm 45. And that means that I grew up during the peace process. I was a teenager when Robin was assassinated. I was taught in school that the Arabs are just like us and we should make peace with them someday. And maybe you won't have to serve in the army and. And all that. Kids today, their entire life has been in the shadow of war and hatred with the Palestinians. When I was a kid, Palestinians would work in our schools and in all the stores and. And now there's separation. They're behind the fence. So there's a much more hardened view of the world and of Palestinians as an enemy in the entire Arab world. And the lack of support that Israel now has abroad also makes Israelis increasingly view the entire world as anti Semitic and hostile to them. So that's the kind of atmosphere they're growing up in. The older people are, the more they remember other times when Israel was more popular, when there was a peace process. So there's a big difference there. Also, alternative media in Israel is. Is not well developed. Israeli entered the era of Fox News about two, three years ago when they created Channel 14. Channel 14 is Israeli Fox News. Up until then there was only like your NBC, ABC type type.
- [42:59]
A
How legit is the Times of Israel? Because I see some crazy stories on that website.
- [43:03]
B
Times of Israel is a. Is a good way to gauge the Zeitgeist in Israel, to gauge what's. What's happening there. They're kind of mainstream Israeli. You might be thinking of the Jerusalem Post.
- [43:13]
A
Jerusalem Post. That's what I meant.
- [43:15]
B
The Jerusalem Post.
- [43:15]
A
A story in there, just. Sorry to interrupt. Yeah, but it was so crazy. Yeah, it was saying how Monica Lewinsky was a Mossad agent.
- [43:23]
B
I didn't see that.
- [43:24]
A
I'm like, why is Israel posting this?
- [43:26]
B
I don't know about that. Their op ed section is a. Is insane. They. Every week they publish, Lebanon should be part of Israel, Syria should be part of Israel. It's. It's really kind of crazy. I actually worked for the Jerusalem Post many years ago in sports, and they were not like this. But yeah, basically, Times of Israel has marked itself as sort of the English language center, Jerusalem Post as the right and Haaretz as the left. So that's why you're seeing some. Some Crazy stuff in the, in the Jerusalem Post. They're trying to appeal to sort of that MAGA Jewish base in the United States. And they're taking a once proud organization. They're the first English language newspaper. They were the Palestine Post before 1948, and now they're. They're a joke.
- [44:12]
A
Yeah, this, there's this new. There's this acronym that's escaping me right now that I was talking about with Glenn Greenwald in here the other day, because I guess there's. There's all these new laws that have gone into place specifically in Australia after that mass shooting at that beach where now there's certain laws that, like, don't allow you to criticize Israel. And I think they, they implemented those after that mass shooting. Are you familiar with what I'm talking about?
- [44:44]
B
Yeah, yeah. Bandai beach in Australia.
- [44:46]
A
Bondi Beach. Yeah. Do you, Are you familiar with the law, though, that was implemented there? Yeah.
- [44:50]
B
I mean, in vague terms, I don't really follow Australian politics very closely, but yeah, basically, if you criticize Israel, it's considered anti Semitic. That's. If you generalize about Israel, that it's committing war crimes, that it's. That it's genocide. That's. That's considered anti Semitism.
- [45:10]
A
Yeah. And the governor of Florida tried to do the same thing here.
- [45:13]
B
Yes.
- [45:13]
A
And he actually signed the law in Israel.
- [45:17]
B
Yeah, that's.
- [45:18]
A
Well, I mean, this is kind of like Jerusalem 2.0 here. There's a lot of Jewish folks down here in Florida.
- [45:23]
B
I know.
- [45:24]
A
So maybe he gets a pass. I don't know.
- [45:27]
B
There's going to be more and more of this as the position of pro Israel advocates gets weaker and weaker. They're going to use the fact that right now they're in a weird position. They have all this institutional power, like Laura Loomer almost runs the country. And on the other hand, they have no support. So what they're feeling right now is that the clock is ticking. They need to get as much done while they can get it done. So you're going to see absolute hysteria getting things done. They're going to be able to, because they have the numbers and they have the institutional power until they lose it.
- [45:58]
A
What do you think they're going to
- [45:59]
B
try to get done? They're going to try to make it absolutely illegal to sanction Israel, to criticize Israel, to use the word genocide, to use the word apartheid, to so speech laws. Speechless.
- [46:09]
A
Yes, I'm gonna be able to implement those here.
- [46:11]
B
You think they'll try? It really depends on.
- [46:13]
A
Because it seems like everything they're doing is having a Streisand effect right now with, I mean, with the rise of like all these folks recently, like, like all the people that Trump just attacked that supported him during this recent election. I think Tucker Carlson was the main event at the Republican National Convention and now he's calling him low IQ and Tucker Carlson selling low IQ hats already. But like all these people, all these like the biggest Trump supporters during this election are now, now he's, you know, casting them out of the camp. And these are, these are the people that have been like the most critical of all the corruption and all of the foreign influence and all like the donor money from the Adelsons and all this stuff. And now she's like funding the opponent to Thomas Massie, trying to get him primaried and all this stuff. But like the world doesn't work like that anymore. You can't just do that and hide in the shadows. Everyone sees what's happening and you're creating this complete opposite effect of what you intend. So is there any long term strategy here with the people, with the, with the Israeli government and the. Because their PR is atrocious.
- [47:31]
B
Yeah, you really hit onto something. Back when I, I was supporting Israel, I kept saying what you're doing is insane. It's not going to work. You can't, you can't keep committing war crimes and accusing everyone of anti Semitism. It's only going to increase the antagonism towards Israel, which is exactly what happened. You need to be able to present some kind of good face to what you're doing. You need to, you can't force people into supporting you. But we're not in the age of, of strategy and reason anymore. We're in the age of pandering to the base. And that's all that Israelis are doing. That's all that Netanyahu is doing, is pandering to his base, trying to keep his extreme right wing coalition together. And that's done by making extreme statements, by making everyone seem like accusing everyone of being anti Semites, calling everyone terrorists, fighting constant wars. And we're also seeing that here in the United States, you know, the supporters of Israel, instead of trying to reach out to other people, are just trying to demonize anyone who comes out and, and criticizes them. And they've lost person after person, sector after sector, and they, they don't learn, they just get worse and worse.
- [48:48]
A
Yeah, totally. It's insane. It's insane to see like some of the interviews that Tucker Carlson has done with the US senators talk. Like, listening to them speak uninterrupted for 10 minutes is like, how the hell is this person in the government? Like, what do you think? Do you think it's possible that the US could turn on Israel eventually? Like in the next, maybe two election cycles, maybe even the next election cycle? I can't imagine this won't be a huge issue for the next president of the United States.
- [49:20]
B
Yeah, because they keep talking about it and because Israel just dragged the United States into a war. There's. Yes, that will definitely happen. Let me tell you something. You know when I used to study Israeli strategy and doctrine, and one of the main basic tenets of Israeli strategy was you never want another country to fight your wars for you. A, it's bad in terms of relying on other people, but also then you're going to poison your support in those countries. If they're fighting wars for you, then you're going to be seen as someone who gets them in trouble rather than someone who helps them. The Israeli doctrine was, we're going to help the US in the Cold War, we're going to help the US Fighting radical Islam. We're going to be useful to the US that was Israeli doctrine. It worked really well. That's. So people talk a lot about the Israel lobby and there's a lot of truth to everything that everyone says, but that's not the full story. It's not even the main story. Israel made itself useful against the Soviet Union, made itself useful against various enemies. Terrorism provided us with technology that needed. It was always like, we're going to help you achieve your goals. What's changed now is Israel is using the United States to achieve Israeli goals, using them and abusing them and spitting on them, which goes completely against what Israelis have done. And what got Israel to the point where it is now, Israel was always seen as a more loyal ally, and that was Israeli doctrine. And now that Israel is getting the US Involved in a war, bringing the US To a recession, that's going to be the end of the special relationship. I mean, it's already.
- [50:57]
A
It has to be, right?
- [50:58]
B
Has to be. Yeah. I mean, they've made it so that no American can ignore Israeli influence anymore. You used to be able to just live your life and ignore Israel if you wanted to.
- [51:09]
A
Right.
- [51:09]
B
Most Americans did. You can't do that anymore. Israel is going to get you involved in all these wars. Israel's going to make your gas incredibly expensive. Israel's going to tell you you can't have freedom of speech once the Average American's life is impacted so heavily by Israel becomes a central issue. Israel has made itself a central issue in the worst possible way for the average American. And there's no way back from that.
- [51:29]
A
And I'm sure there's tons of other countries that are got to have their hooks in America policy as well. But like, and all of them, honestly, it's just like the, the fact that, the fact that this has just been so blatant and over the top and then like you throw in the Epstein files on top of all of it, in the middle of everything, it's like you get, you drop this Epstein file shit on our heads and then you go do the Iran war right after that. It's like you couldn't, it's, it's just the worst case scenario.
- [52:02]
B
And after a genocide and after, and
- [52:04]
A
after all that stuff in Gaza and it's like again, you know, Netanyahu is clearly a lot more intelligent than Donald Trump. He's not dumb, but he's on camera saying shit like, class, what do we do now? We buy. We have to control TikTok. When there's a camera in his face, he knows there's a camera in his face. Why would he be acting, being so over the top saying things like this when he knows what the reaction is going to be? Is he, is he, does he know that he's creating like all of this, like at the low end of the IQ scale, it's probably anti Semitism and at the high end, you know, in best case scenario, it's actually like legitimate outrage over foreign influence.
- [52:57]
B
Yeah. Netanyahu is aware of everything that he's doing. He is doing it intentionally and he's trying to constantly create a sense among his supporters that he's doing something, that he's doing something. And they are delighted to see him shutting up. The enemies, fighting against, you know, Qatari influence, as far as they, they see it, Muslim Brotherhood influence, the, you know, Ilhan Omars of the world. And so far they mark out enemies. And Netanyahu is like the valiant knight fighting against those enemies. That's how he presents himself now. He's long ago given up on promoting the Israeli national interest. He's only trying to get himself out of prison and he's only trying to solidify his role as the savior of Israel for these people. But he's also trying to be on Trump's side so that Trump sees him as an ally in the culture wars. And that's increasingly turning out to be a failed bet because we see how everyone's abandoning Trump. But it worked for a few years. It worked so well that he got Trump to fight the war they'd always been fantasizing about. So there were interests behind it, but it was vast overreach and it's backfiring.
- [54:11]
A
Yeah. This is like a weird point in history, I feel like, where just it's. It. Everyone can see that it's a house of cards. Everyone. It's never been so obvious, it's never been so easy to pick apart people's lives and just see through all the, the fakery and the deception. Like, we can literally go on, on, on the Internet and listen to everything Trump is saying about the Iran war. And you can also, at the same exact time, open up a new tab and find all these other videos of Trump talking about how stupid it would be to get involved with the Middle East. And, you know, even in the, the 2016 election, there's videos of him saying, like, oh, you know, I would be Israel's best friend, but I refuse to take foreign money. All you were paid off by foreign influence. Like the fact that, that we can live in this, you know, in this world and, and see these people talking at both sides of their mouths, clearly not believing in anything they're saying, I, I think is a bad sign.
- [55:14]
B
Yeah, I. One of the weirdest things about this war is that they never bothered to sell it to us. They never bothered to convince us, and by us, I mean the American public, that this war was needed. So you're already going into the war with absolutely no support. And it shows sort of a complete lack of respect for the Israeli, for the American electorate, for the American citizenry. We're going to do things that affect your day to day lives without even bothering to lie to you properly. It's the ultimate insult. And that's the kind of hubris and arrogance that comes before a revolution. And when you couple that with, with the Epstein files and the whole sense that there's a class that is evil, that's doing whatever they want, and the growing inequality, to me, all these things smack of a coming revolution and they're not even trying to prevent it. And what's happening now is going to be very important. There's a populist movement in America that wants to change things. It's not very coherent, but it exists. And then there's establishment that's trying to squash them, and that's the most important element in American politics right now. Everything else is noise. And if they manage to squash this populist movement, it will probably lead to violent revolution in the long term.
- [56:38]
A
Yeah.
- [56:39]
B
The best thing that the elites can do from their perspective is allow these populists to take over and then try to co opt them very slowly. Right. But if they squash them the way it looks like they're trying to squash them, that could lead to violent.
- [56:51]
A
Well, I mean, if we keep having more people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and like Joe Kent, like these types of folks just literally, you know, leaving government and, and speaking out the way they're doing it. Yeah, I think you're right about that. It's gonna, the, the establishment is gonna have no option.
- [57:13]
B
But like you said, you talked about Ninthanya with Tick Tock. That's sort of an example of how the establishment is fighting this like morons.
- [57:20]
A
Yeah, we all thought it was about China.
- [57:22]
B
Yeah.
- [57:23]
A
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- [59:04]
B
China's. China's doesn't even have to stop the United States from disintegrating. They're just watching this and, and enjoying, you know. Yeah. I was talking to a friend in, in China, they love the, the war in Iran. They love seeing Trump lose all his supporters. This is. They're seeing the American empire shoot itself in the head.
- [59:22]
A
It's insane.
- [59:23]
B
Yeah.
- [59:24]
A
The American. I'm sorry the Chinese populace feels this way.
- [59:29]
B
I was talking to a professor.
- [59:31]
A
Professor.
- [59:31]
B
A professor in Beijing who knows geopolitics very well. But the average Chinese sees that America is weak. You don't have to have a PhD to understand. Look at what.
- [59:40]
A
Well, they have a very.
- [59:41]
B
In Iran, right?
- [59:42]
A
Yeah. They're clearly playing the long game here.
- [59:45]
B
Yeah.
- [59:45]
A
And they're not getting involved in any of this. I think they actually said, they said that they want this thing to wind down. They're trying to encourage a ceasefire. Right. With this Iran war.
- [59:55]
B
Well, so there's a bunch of things going on here. It's very good for them that the United States is not able to win in Iran. So they didn't want the United States to win. That, that should be sailed. And it's not going to win in Iran now. They want the oil to, to flow again. They don't want the price to be too high for. Already accomplished what they wanted to accomplish. A ceasefire now on terms that are comfortable for Iran is very good for them. They. I don't know if the American populace is as aware of this as they should be, but Iran has. China has deeply increased its ties with Iran during this war. They supported them all. All those missiles that were hitting American bases. They were using Chinese chips that they didn't have before.
- [60:36]
A
Oh, really?
- [60:37]
B
Yes, they were using Russian satellite images and Chinese chips. That's why it was doing so much damage to an extent that, that the, the American intelligence didn't expect. And China, meanwhile, got all the oil from, from Iran at discount prices.
- [60:53]
A
And then they pay for it in yen.
- [60:54]
B
They paid. They paid for it in cryptocurrency. Yeah, that's the, that's another important thing. There's not going to be able to. You're not going to be able to sanction countries anymore because of cryptocurrency. That's already happening. And in a year or two, sanctions are going to be completely irrelevant. Even Scott Besant at the treasury was saying that we're not going to be able to sanction countries in the future.
- [61:18]
A
When did he say that?
- [61:21]
B
I read that in the Economist just this week, I think.
- [61:22]
A
Really? Because of crypto.
- [61:24]
B
Yeah, crypto is you can't track it. And also there's another thing going on. Countries are moving away from dollars, so that also gives the US less control. But even without that, crypto would make sanctions imposs. America's leverage on the world economy is being lost every day. Yeah. So China is going to turn Iran into a much closer ally because Iran has proved itself as able to stand up to the United States. And also now it's more of a military dictatorship rather than a religious dictatorship because the cleric, the main cleric, was killed. Khamenei, his son is either seriously injured or dead, or either way, he doesn't have that much power. Now the irgc, the Revolutionary Guard, the military is in charge. They're more pragmatic. They have a much easier time talking to the Chinese. So Iran is going to be able to grip the population a lot more.
- [62:19]
A
And now they're probably going to get a nuke.
- [62:21]
B
If I was them, I would. Lord knows I would get a nuke. I. Their strategy was the dumbest strategy I've ever seen. Right. You. You sit on the threshold of a nuke, so you get all that attention, but you don't develop a nuke.
- [62:32]
A
Right.
- [62:33]
B
Either you don't develop a nuke at all and you are under the radar, or you have a nuke and you're like North Korea, but that in between. Worst strategy I've ever seen. Seen. Totally. Yeah. We're used to criticizing American strategy, but the Iranian. I don't know what that was. So, yeah, they'll probably get a nuke. I. I know I would. And the people who had that threshold strategy, they're dead. So we could see a new strategy and they wouldn't even have to develop nuclear weapons. They just would have to get it from Russia or from China, which I don't think is impossible right now.
- [63:06]
A
There's been tons of footage online of, like, all kinds of military strikes and stuff in, like, Israel. And I know a lot of it's fake. How much destruction has Iran been able to put on Israel?
- [63:17]
B
Well, yeah, everyone's full of it with that. You know, you have the people who are saying, Israel's collapsing, Israel's being destroyed, and you have the people saying it's just a flesh wound. Iran has been able to do quite a bit of damage, but not to a strategic level where it threatens Israel's existence or anything like that. The most important thing that Iran managed to do, which Israel kind of managed to avoid a lot of discussion of, was shut down the airport. The airport is the main artery for Israeli existence. And most, most companies, including the Israeli companies, canceled all their flights. American companies like Delta and United, they're not flying until September. They said there's a major damage for the Israeli economy and people are stuck in, in Israel. They can't leave. You know, schools were shut down for the whole time. Some cities on the border with Lebanon are uninhabitable, like Kiryatchmona for example. People were evacuated from there during the previous war. Now they came back, now they want to leave again. Could be those cities will never really, they might turn into ghost towns those, those few, few places. Iran managed to hit some of the radar stations, which is one of the reasons they, the interceptors didn't work as well as they were supposed to. It hit some petrochemical factories in Haifa, causing a lot of pollution and causing serious losses for the, for the Israeli economy. So it did quite a bit of damage. But you know, just like you can't defeat Iran from the air, you can't defeat Israel with missiles. But Israel learned that it's much more vulnerable to attacks than it thought that it was. And it learned that their enemies are able to restock their missiles a lot better than they thought that they could and that they have much better guidance systems and intelligence than Israel thought that they had. And it turns out, and this also was kind of hushed, they had spies inside all of the anti missile batteries and all these sorts of things. They had a very sort of wide strategy, the Iranians, of hiring intelligence. They'll just sort of offer people on social media money, which means they often get caught. But they do so much of it, some of it gets through. So they had spies all over the place who were providing them with information.
- [65:19]
A
How much do you think, how much of a, an intelligence threat do you think Iran is? Like when we all, I mean we all hear stories about like bot farms, hackers, influence campaigns and all that stuff with, with, you know, Israel and China and Russia are the main influence. How much of, how adept is Iran at that stuff that as far as
- [65:46]
B
you're aware, Iran's surprisingly good at that stuff. So first of all, anyone who's ever studied in a university, if you go to any computer science program, half of the advanced students are Iranian. They have, they have a gift for that. Some of it's not a coincidence. They send them to train. In a lot of these places, the numbers they have aren't as big, but when they focus on specific targets, they've had some great success. Just today, they hacked into the Israeli Chief of staff's phone.
- [66:15]
A
Really?
- [66:16]
B
Yeah. I don't know what information they got.
- [66:19]
A
Yeah, they didn't sit and post anything.
- [66:21]
B
They posted some personal pictures of his. Nothing like, very embarrassing.
- [66:24]
A
It's crazy. Like, they, who, who. Who hacked Cash Patel? Was that the Iranians?
- [66:29]
B
That was also the Iranians. Oh, my God, dude, now. Yeah, they have supposed groups that are. There you go.
- [66:35]
A
Iran linked hackers leak photos of ex IDF chief Hell Halevi's work and family life. Well, there you go. Now we can look at it.
- [66:45]
B
Yep. Right. And I know they at least attempted to get into the current Chief of staff's phone as well, so. Yeah. And if they have good stuff, they'll keep it for themselves for the right moment.
- [66:58]
A
Right?
- [66:59]
B
Yeah. So. So when you see these things and you're like, oh, there's nothing harmful there. No, if they have something good, they're going to sit on it.
- [67:04]
A
Right. That's the whole thing about the Epstein files.
- [67:09]
B
Exactly.
- [67:10]
A
Like, is that they're not going to release anything because they, if, if we are still bending to everything that they're asking us to do, that means they still have some sort of power. Once you use that, you no longer have the power.
- [67:28]
B
Leverage is gone.
- [67:28]
A
The leverage is gone.
- [67:30]
B
Yeah.
- [67:30]
A
That's the craziest thing about all this stuff. And that's like. It's like, how is this country able to get the United States for the first time ever in history, to do all this crazy? I mean, we've been. There's things you can argue that have been done in the past with previous presidential administrations, but this 1 is like 1 and 2 doesn't add up to 3 here. Like, this is. There's some invisible sort of leverage that no rational thinker can come up with. Unless you like. It's. It's so much.
- [68:03]
B
It's.
- [68:04]
A
It's. It's got to be the Epstein files. Right. There's no other. There's no other reasonable explanation that it's available to the public. Right. Unless they're hiding something that we don't know about.
- [68:15]
B
Yeah.
- [68:17]
A
That's not a. That's not a conspiracy theory.
- [68:19]
B
I firmly believe that Donald Trump was selected to be president by various intelligence services because he's the most compromised human being imaginable. There's so much leverage. I know how these organizations work. There's so much leverage. You could have on this person that he's a great, He's a great foil you to use him to control. And that's not just the Israelis. That would be a lot of other organizations. They have this entire argument you see online over is there compromat on Trump from the Israelis or from the Russians? And I say, why do you have to choose? And they also work together on a lot of things. Israelis and the Russians, they often work together. So they might be sharing some of this. Like, I'll give you something to use as leverage against him, and you give me something to use as leverage against him. He's leaving NATO. Why is he. Why is he leaving NATO? NATO. Why does he want to leave NATO? That's what Russia wants. Why is he starting a war in Iran? That's what Israel wants. Yeah, there's a, there's things he's doing that make absolutely no sense.
- [69:17]
A
The difference between those two, though, are that, you know, Russia has been our, our Iran. Our Iran or our Hamas. We've been using Russia as an excuse to do everything. Our whole, like that's, that's the boogeyman for America that we've, we've used and like, you know, to the defense of, of what it looked like to be during the first administration was like, Trump was like, we don't need to be, you know, he's not that bad of a guy. He's doing his thing or whatever. Like, we need to have. We need to be diplomatic or whatever with Russia. And that was kind of like a breath of fresh air. Like, yeah, you know, that would be great. You know, he's even going and meeting. First president to ever meet in person with Kim Jong Un. You know, maybe we can have some diplomacy there. Even though he's this crazy dictator, you know, at least you know, we're being nice and not provoking them to nuke us or to send nukes at us. So, so that's the big. That's the biggest thing there. But like, as far as the Epstein evidence go, at least that's been released to the public. You know, fuck, dude, it's not like. It's not like he was meeting with an ex prime minister of Russia and every single week in New York and, you know, telling him these companies to invest in. I mean, the stuff with the hood, Barack is just, just. Is just undeniable. It's. It's. It's insane. And it almost looks like. It almost looks like he was even above. If you want to like, look at like the layer of, of politicians and Presidents and nation states and like bankers, people that pull the strings with the politicians and all that stuff. It almost seems like Epstein was even above that intelligence layer, you know, like pulling strings within that maybe, maybe between like the elite banker Rothschild layer and that intelligence layer, both of them, which are above the nation state layer or like the political layer.
- [71:08]
B
Yeah, that's where we came up with this term, the Epstein class. Right, right. That, that, that may not be the best term for it. And a lot of people think it's anti Semitic because he was Jewish or whatever, but that's a, that's unfortunate. But there's no question that there's a group that, of ultra rich people who are actually controlling the world and nation states intelligence. They do their bidding to a great extent. So they tell states what to do and they don't do it usually by coercion or blackmail. They just buy influence. You see someone with all this money, you're a leader of, of, of a country, you want to get reelected, so you suck up to people who have all this money and these things kind of happen naturally. That's just how human nature works. Epstein was probably not even close to the top of that, but he wasn't careful. And he was involved in things that were particularly notable in the most horrible way. And most of these people are probably hopefully not doing these things with little children. Right. They're focusing on making money or corruption or wars and so on so forth. So because it got so much notoriety, we got a little glimpse into that world, but it's just a little glimpse. And that's where these decisions are actually being made. And that's why it seems that every decision that's being made by states serves the elites and not the regular people. Because it does. It is, it's by design, it's not a coincidence. And they pit us against each other by making us support different states, different governments, different parties, when ultimately there's. There isn't a real difference. You're serving the same elites.
- [72:53]
A
What do you make of this Melania press conference she did yesterday talking about how, oh, I never knew Jeffrey. I mean, I met him once, but I forget what she said. She's like, she's like, I never had a relationship with him and I did not meet Trump through him. Well, very like out of nowhere, I,
- [73:08]
B
I saw today there's a Brazilian model who was friends with her who was going to spill the beans about, about Melania.
- [73:15]
A
Oh, really?
- [73:16]
B
Yeah, she, she was on Twitter talking about how I'm gonna talk about everything that I know I forget her name's Ampalo, something like that. And clearly it's a reaction to, to that. And she is well aware of the dynamic, which apparently is that Melania had a relationship with Epstein about a year before she was introduced to Trump.
- [73:39]
A
Yeah, that was in a book, right? Yeah, there was a book. What book was that? Was that a Michael Wolf book?
- [73:43]
B
No, I don't think it was Wolf. I don't remember which book it was. Something came out in 2025. I saw that yesterday. And she's about to confirm everything that's. That's in there and add more details to it. Which also makes you wonder if Epstein introduced Melania to Trump in order to control him in various ways and if she was actually an instrument of all this. That's just speculation, but it does make you wonder about this. And Melania doesn't want to be at the center of all the speculation. Yeah, getting ahead of it like that is not going to.
- [74:11]
A
Michael Wolf was saying this. Like this the first time they banged was on his plane or something like that, and that he was banging her way before he introduced her to Trump because I guess, like it was his girl and then once she was too old, they introduced him. Did you find anything on that? On that? British or the. Not British, but Brazilian model?
- [74:29]
B
Brazilian model, yeah, the ones we were just talking about.
- [74:32]
A
A Brazilian model who posted a tweet about Melania. Oh, I'm looking for the book. Oh, no, no, find. Find the tweet from the Brazilian model that said she was going to spill the beans on Melania.
- [74:43]
B
Yeah, yeah, something like that.
- [74:48]
A
And it seemed like some people think that Trump may not even have known that she was going to do that.
- [74:53]
B
Well, it raises questions over whether Epstein planted her in Trump's life for. As a spy, as leverage or whatever. Right. It raises a lot of questions. Cuz Epstein is the. He didn't seem to trust Trump. He didn't even seem to like Trump, but he found Trump to be very useful and so he wanted to have his hooks in him as much as possible. Melania could have been a way to do that. Of course, this is all just speculation.
- [75:18]
A
Well, that's. Whatever. That's what people are saying about Charlie Kirk's wife now. You know that.
- [75:22]
B
I've seen that too.
- [75:23]
A
They're saying that she was his handler.
- [75:25]
B
She's a very canny operator, that's for sure.
- [75:27]
A
There's. It's weird she was working for. I don't know. She is very odd.
- [75:32]
B
Yeah.
- [75:33]
A
Some of the behavior is, is bizarre, you know, like all the, all the accusations aside, like, just observing her in a bubble, in a vacuum, like, it's. It seems very, very strange to me, this whole. Everything, all this stuff that's been happening. And you know, also, why isn't Trump saying why. Why aren't they. That investigation seemed to, like, disappear. Right. The whole, that whole thing with Charlie Kirk and then, like the Trump assassination thing, he never talks about it, never says a single thing about it anymore. You know, all these things that have happened in the past couple years, how we seem to just like the next news cycle makes us, like, washes our memory of it.
- [76:14]
B
I think what we're seeing is a lot of malign actors manipulating our politics, and they're no longer doing it as cleverly or in such a subtle way as they used to in the past because, like, in this run up to the Iran war, they don't respect us anymore. So we're seeing a lot of signs of it. And I think. I think a lot of these conspiracies are, Are real.
- [76:38]
A
What do you make about the Charlie Kirk one?
- [76:41]
B
Well, at best, she was. Are you talking about regarding Israel? You talking about regarding his wife?
- [76:46]
A
All of it.
- [76:47]
B
Well, I'm no expert on, on. On any of that. At best, his wife was using him. And for my perspective, to, to reach a certain status, the way she's acting, like you said, is very, very suspicious to me. As far as Israel is concerned, I would say. I doubt Israel killed Charlie Kirk. I don't think Israel considered him to be that important or that influential, really. I've talked to people in Israel about Charlie Kirk, and I don't get the sense that he was on their radar in that way.
- [77:22]
A
You don't think he was. They don't think he was influential in the.
- [77:25]
B
Not enough. Not enough to kill, you know.
- [77:27]
A
Right.
- [77:29]
B
Usually Israel traditionally ignores podcasters, media influencers, people like that. Well, that's comforting. Yes. Yeah. You're. You're not on the list, I don't think.
- [77:41]
A
Right. I can't imagine that. I can't imagine Tucker exactly gets that same exemption.
- [77:46]
B
That. That's. The. Tucker is the one that they're most concerned about. So if they. There's.
- [77:52]
A
Who's. Tried to interview bb.
- [77:54]
B
Yes. They're. They're very aware of Tucker Carlson. They take Tucker Carlson more seriously because, you know, he used to be on Fox News and he was close to Trump and he has certain advantages these other people don't.
- [78:07]
A
He's very connected to.
- [78:09]
B
Yeah.
- [78:09]
A
American politicians.
- [78:11]
B
Yeah. He's. He's on a different Level, as far as they're concerned, they don't take Candace Owens as seriously. Right. I don't think they took Charlie Kirk as seriously.
- [78:19]
A
Really.
- [78:19]
B
I mean, now that, now that he
- [78:21]
A
was assassinated, he was invited the personal letter to go. Bibi invited him to, to Israel to come meet with them personally.
- [78:27]
B
Yeah, but he meets a lot of influencers. Doesn't mean he's going to kill them. Okay. Yeah. I mean, he had a meeting with. With 40 Zionist influencers in New York regarding that TikTok.
- [78:36]
A
That was, that wasn't Bibi. That was the other guy. That billionaire dude.
- [78:39]
B
No, no, I'm talking about. I'm talking about Antonio. He was there in New York with a whole bunch of influencers.
- [78:43]
A
The one in the Hamptons.
- [78:44]
B
No, no, no, no, no.
- [78:46]
A
This was because there wasn't Charlie invited to something in the Hamptons.
- [78:48]
B
Right before you talk about two completely different. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was some session a few months before he was. He was assassinated. Yeah. I, My, my sense is that Israel wouldn't assassinate Charlie Kirk. I. I just didn't get the sense that he was on their radar.
- [79:04]
A
Well, if it was, if it was because Joe Kent came out and said that he was like, waved off that investigation like he was trying to investigate any kind of foreign ties into the Charlie Kirk thing. And they, they, they basically said get the out of here to him.
- [79:15]
B
Yeah.
- [79:17]
A
Which was odd. So it, like, if there was any kind of foreign influence, who would it be and why? You know, that's a question.
- [79:27]
B
I don't know. I don't know. I'm not, I'm not gonna anything wild because.
- [79:31]
A
Because the story that we're getting is clearly not the. Not correct.
- [79:34]
B
Right.
- [79:35]
A
They're obviously the FBI. If one thing is absolutely true, they're not telling us the whole story. No question.
- [79:42]
B
And about the Trump.
- [79:43]
A
And that's what just leads to the public going off the rails with speculations. Right. We give us no other. You're not going to tell us the truth. Okay. You're going to give us this story doesn't add up. Like, this is what you get. Conspiracy theories.
- [79:54]
B
Yeah. And look, we still don't know exactly what happened with Kennedy. These things are well covered up.
- [80:00]
A
And although the narrative there's like the problem with Kennedy is there's too many different flavors of the Kennedy assassination. There's too many. It's UFOs, it's Russians, it's the Russia, it's the CIA now it's Israel killed him. It's like people. And that's the problem is People try to, like. Like, they try to have their cake and eat it too. You know, there's a certain factual people that want to blame Israel for it raining on their birthdays.
- [80:25]
B
And I think Charlie Kirk is. Is one of those cases. We didn't see Charlie Kirk, like, wildly turn on Israel. I know there were signs that he was going to, so I'm not convinced, but I. I don't know. I don't like to. To wildly speculate.
- [80:37]
A
Yeah, yeah. No, it's, it's. It is certainly. It seems like he was kind of changing his position on it, according to people that were close to him and some of his more recent podcasts that he had done before that and see
- [80:54]
B
how everyone else has turned.
- [80:55]
A
Lots of science especially. So if he was saying that stuff publicly and at the same time had all these crazy Zionist donors, you know, who weren't happy with him about it, then there's a conflict of interest.
- [81:07]
B
We've seen so many people turn against Israel without getting assassinated.
- [81:11]
A
Kill him over that. Like, you're really gonna. Like, like. And again, again, if you're that billionaire Zionist and you want to shut him up, there's many other ways to do that other than publicly executing him. Right. Even if you do come to the decision to execute the guy, do you do it publicly like that? I think whoever was behind it, they wanted it to be a public display. Exactly.
- [81:40]
B
And that doesn't sound like Israel at all. And Israel also, if they want to kill someone, they know how to do it without even looking. Like a murder. Israel knows how to do that. It's not that hard. You know, the Russians, the Israelis, they know how to do these things. CIA. You don't have to do it in front of people. It's exactly like you're saying. You're sending a message. You're sending a political message. And I don't know exactly what message that is from the perspective of Israel or any of these intelligence organizations. So I'm really not sure what's behind it. It could be something, you know, more internal. It could be something related to politics inside the American right, even. I mean, who's to say it's right? That's true.
- [82:15]
A
Steve, any luck? Yes.
- [82:17]
B
Zampayo Vampire.
- [82:23]
A
We have this one. We don't have it. The TV ain't on. Wrong button. Jeffrey Epstein didn't introduce Melania to Trump. I did. Paulo Zam. Can you zoom in a little bit?
- [82:36]
B
That's the husband. And he was. He had a. Not husband. Sorry, boyfriends. His girlfriend was a Brazilian model.
- [82:42]
A
Oh, so this is the boyfriend of the Brazilian model. She.
- [82:46]
B
He was close to. To Trump.
- [82:48]
A
Oh, this was just published this morning.
- [82:50]
B
That's right. I just saw it before the 10th.
- [82:51]
A
What day this is today. How is it? 5:50pm on the. Oh, BST, whatever that is. Brazilian time. Is that.
- [82:59]
B
I don't know, probably gmt.
- [83:02]
A
A Trump. Yeah. A Trump administration official and former model scout has offered to testify in Congress before Congress. That it. That it was he, not Epstein, who introduced Melania to Trump.
- [83:17]
B
This is already the damage control. Oh, okay. This is the damage control. What you should look for is what the model said. The model said that she's going to spill the beans and that they were introduced earlier and all that.
- [83:28]
A
They probably didn't even mention the model in this article.
- [83:30]
B
So Zampoli and her, they're estranged. In fact, they're in the middle of a very bitter custody battle. And he. Yeah, yeah, he. He. This. He went to ICE to get her deported. So she is mad as hell. She's living in Brazil now.
- [83:48]
A
No way. And this dude was buddies with Epstein.
- [83:52]
B
Yeah, Epstein. And Trump. And Trump, he's like a hanger on, you know, he takes selfies with them and stuff.
- [83:58]
A
Like Italian American businessman, former modeling agent and current United Nations. Ultimately, of course, he's a United nations diplomat. I should have known that. Was in a long term relationship with Brazilian model Amanda.
- [84:09]
B
Okay, I got it mixed up. Amanda Unaro. That's what you're looking for.
- [84:12]
A
Amanda Unaro. All these guys have like some sort of weird diplomatic thing. Like what's his name? What is Kushner's dad. He's like the ambassador to France now or something crazy like that.
- [84:24]
B
Yep.
- [84:24]
A
Even though he's a known criminal, his story is crazy. How he set up his sister in the. In the honey trap with. These people are. So that's a sociopath. That's what a sociopath is. You set your sister up in. Your sister's husband up in a honey trap in a hotel room with a whole prostitute so you can get it. Get out of a lawsuit or to like. It's just like this whole world, these
- [84:51]
B
people think the whole world, this whole
- [84:53]
A
world of an layer of just elite people that will do whatever they can possibly do or ruin. Ruin anyone's lives just to get ahead is insane.
- [85:06]
B
Yeah, you exactly hit on the point. Everyone's a pawn. And you only reach that point if you're a sociopath. If you're willing to destroy anyone in your.
- [85:15]
A
And unfortunately, those are the people that get ahead.
- [85:17]
B
Yeah, well, that's what Machiavelli said. Machiavelli said most people are good, but the powerful are awful because, because to get into that position you have to be an awful person.
- [85:24]
A
Right. You know, that's how I had a former CIA officer in here who knew John Brennan. He was like huge enemies with John Brennan, hated him. And he was explaining, he's like in this, in the CIA and in most agencies in the American government, he's like the people at the top, they're not there because they're talented. They're there because they're ass kissing, sociopathic liar, ladder climbers that just want to get ahead and they will cut any throat they possibly can to get ahead or to get in front of their competition. And that's explains why where, where we're at today. Yeah, you know where we're at in the state of the world.
- [86:01]
B
Yeah, I, I think hard work is less and less rewarded and that is more and more rewarded. It's always been like that. But I think, I think things are getting worse.
- [86:08]
A
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- [87:33]
B
No, no. I don't know.
- [87:34]
A
So he's this whole theory that he comes at that, that he did on his YouTube where he, he claims that the, a certain faction of the Israeli government is trying to like, bring back Jesus or something. And first what they have to do is sow chaos on earth to bring the Antichrist, which is going to. And then they're going to destroy the, the Al Aqsa Mosque and build the Third Temple, and then Jesus is going to have to return or something like that, and there's going to be some sort of like, rapture, some sort of holy rapture.
- [88:08]
B
And like, this sounds very Christian for the Israeli government. Yeah, we usually don't do Jesus over there.
- [88:13]
A
Right.
- [88:14]
B
But. But the temple part.
- [88:15]
A
But it's something like, to bring back like a messianic age. For some, for some reason, you might
- [88:19]
B
be thinking of the, the Jewish Messiah. Because the Messiah will come.
- [88:23]
A
That's what I meant. Who is the Jewish Messiah?
- [88:26]
B
Well, yeah, so, so there, in, in Judaism, there's a Messiah that will come at the, at the end times. Very similar to in Christianity. Christianity is based on Judaism to a great extent. So when Jesus became, you know, Lord and Savior to Christians, they went back and read the Old Testament, and in the Old Testament, they found there was a Messiah figure. So they tried to make the Messiah figure in the Old Testament the same as Jesus. So they kind of united them into one, but from the perspective of Jews, they're not one. They're different. They see Jesus as a human being and they see the Messiah as the Messiah. And there's no connection between the two too. Right? Yeah. So in, in Jewish theology, there is going to be a return of the Messiah and all the dead will rise and, you know, everyone will be happy and so on and so forth. And what a lot of Jews believe is that in order for that to happen, you have to rebuild the temple. And the temple is where the Al Aqsa Mosque currently is. So that would require destroying the Al Aqsa Mosque and building the temple people on that same spot. And until then, we can't have our end times, can't have all of that. Yeah, I remember moving into an apartment in Jerusalem and there was this big poster of the temple on where the Alakta Mosque is, and they said, you know, this will happen soon. In. In Hebrew. Yeah. At that time was a fringe movement, but I think it's it's gaining ground. And in the 1980s there was a group of terrorists called the Jewish Underground, informal name, and they plan to blow up the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem as a first step towards doing this. So there's always been people like this and some of Ben GVIR and Smotrich's voters and followers are like that. So there's definitely a stream like that. There's no official policy towards it that I'm aware of, but there's certainly people who want to do that. And I wouldn't be surprised considering how rapidly Israel is moving to the right and becoming more, more religious, that people will start talking about that openly soon. So there's probably people who want to do that already, but it's not like an official policy.
- [90:35]
A
What would happen if the Dome of the Rock was destroyed or the Al Aqsa Mosque was destroyed?
- [90:39]
B
Well, it's considered to be the most holy site to Muslims aside from Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. So theoretically it could lead to complete civilizational war. All the Muslim countries fighting against Israel all at once. It would at the very least sever all Israeli ties with all Muslim and Arab countries in the world and lead to riots in Muslim countries around the world. There'd be pressure on countries like Pakistan or Iran, if Iran had nuclear weapons, to use nuclear weapons in that case. It could be very far reaching.
- [91:17]
A
Part of that conspiracy theory was that they would try to create chaos around the world and foment like insane worldwide anti Semitism which would intend force Jewish people to go back to Israel to get the Diaspora to return. And it's crazy because I mean it seems like not that, not that like people feel like really that threatened. It's not like real anti Semitism. It's like obviously there is in some cases like at a low level, but I feel like most of it is like general criticism of the government. But like if, if it went off the rails, I mean, I got lots of Jewish friends, I can go ask 10 out of 10 of them right now, like, hey, would you be down to move to Israel? And they would probably be like, fuck no, I'm not moving to Israel. Maybe one of them would be cool with it, right? But most of them wouldn't. But if this stuff, if, if, if some of this sentiment that you're seeing right now in America got out of hand, I'm sure that that could happen. And you know, if their idea was to bring them all back to the homeland in time for the Messiah to return so they all can get raptured I mean, it seems like some crazy biblical religious, you know, insanity. But you know, at the same time all these people in politics are talking about the Bible and talking about religion and talking about like we need to justify, you know, this is justified in the Bible, so where we're allowed to kill these people and take this land and greater Israel and, and all of that because it's the same as Babylon. You know, I don't know what to make of some of this stuff. It's just crazy.
- [92:59]
B
The whole thing with the, with the temple right now is not important. There's people like that, but they're not important. But you hit on something interesting with the diaspora that I think there's a lot of truth to. Israelis on a very deep level, don't care about out the Jewish Diaspora or in some cases want the Jewish Diaspora to feel insecure so that people will, will come to, to Israel. There's definitely a lot of truth to that.
- [93:24]
A
Really?
- [93:25]
B
Yeah, the, there's some distaste for the Jewish Diaspora in Israel. They're seen as sort of weak and in many cases, especially in the United States is too left wing and not supportive enough of Israel. And if they experience anti Semitism, it's seen as natural because the whole world is anti Semitic, but also in some ways beneficial to the idea that only Israel is a, is a home for the Jews. I mean, the basis of Zionism is the idea that Jews aren't really safe anywhere else otherwise. You know, sure, people talk about the Bible, but this thing that spurred Zionism to begin with was anti Semitism. First in Russia, the pogroms and also the Dreyfus triumph in France and then later on the Holocaust. Those were the things that made Jews actually go to Israel. Your friends are very representative. Jews in Europe didn't want to go to Israel. Israel was a hellhole at the time. But the worse anti Semitism got, the more reason you had to go to there. And then at some point people stopped coming to Israel. The last major, major immigration to Israel was when the Soviet Union opened up because those people were not doing well. But now Jews tend to be in places where they're comfortable. So to get them to come to Israel as well, encouraging anti Semitism could actually be beneficial. Now that's not to say they're intentionally encouraging anti Semitism for that reason, but there are two, two benefits to Israel for, for anti Semitism. You know, you can do whatever you want to the rest of the world if you think that everyone's anti Semitic and you're Also encouraging Jews to come immigrate to Israel. So anti Semitism serves a instrumental purpose in the state of Israel.
- [95:15]
A
And Netanyahu is not an idiot. And it seems like some of the decisions that the Israeli government and Netanyahu are making is not to quell anti Semitism, but to encourage it.
- [95:28]
B
Absolutely, that's, that's true.
- [95:29]
A
That's a fact.
- [95:30]
B
Right, Absolutely. I, I, I couldn't agree more. And yeah, and then, you know, the more anti Semitism you have, the more you have to shut people up, the more Jews become Zionist and the more they come to Israel. Yeah, the anti Semitism serves, serves a purpose. Netanyahu can come and say to the people of Israel, the whole world is anti Semitic. The whole world is out to get you. Only I can protect you. That's his entire shtick. That's his entire thing. And, and Putin, Putin does the same thing in Russia. Right. Putin says the west is your enemy. The west is trying to destroy you, and only I can protect you. And that's a very good way to stay in power to. You create a massive implacable enemy and then you protect the people from it.
- [96:14]
A
Did you see what Putin said about this whole war the other day?
- [96:17]
B
What did he say?
- [96:18]
A
See, he, there was a, Try to find Putin. There was a, I saw this might have been fake. I don't know. Let's, we should find out. I saw a statement from Putin like two days ago on X where he was talking about how the west has been basically taken over by these elites that are just using, they're just trying to extract as much wealth out of the economy as possible and not doing anything constructive for the country. And that's why you see all these wars. He was like, he was basically, you know, he was criticizing America the same way Donald Trump used to criticize America. America, you know, can you find that
- [97:01]
B
what's very, very useful for him to, to be in line with, with all that criticism from people like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, that that's a good way to sort of weaken Trump and align with rising forces in, in American politics. What he's saying is also true.
- [97:17]
A
Sure. Right. There's a reason he's also a convenient truth.
- [97:20]
B
It's very convenient. It's also, he would know he does the exact same thing to his own country. Country.
- [97:24]
A
Is it a post or a video? I found a video. I saw, I saw a written post. This might be in, in Russian. We might not be able, let's see, let's hear the audio.
- [97:37]
B
The country. But the gist of it is different. The gist of it is that the silco golden billion. For centuries, for 500 years, they have practically lived off other peoples. They were ripping apart these poor peoples, poor nations of Africa. They exploited Latin America, they exploited the countries of Asia. And of course, no one forgets this. And I have a feeling that it's not even about the leaders, even though it is a very important thing. But the common people of these countries, in their heart, they can feel what's happening. They can see our struggle for our independence, for our true sovereignty. And they see this connection with their aspirations to be truly independent, which is exacerbated by the fact that in the Western elites.
- [98:48]
A
Yeah, in the Western elites,
- [98:51]
B
there is a strong desire to freeze the current unfair state of things. In international affairs for a century.
- [99:10]
A
It's kind of hard to listen to.
- [99:12]
B
Where's the restroom? I can use it.
- [99:14]
A
Oh, yeah. We'll take a quick break. There you go. Here, this, this gives you a good context here. This guy says, I can confirm with 99% that the reason Melania Trump came out yesterday with her Epstein statement is because information possessed by former friend and Epstein survivor, Brazilian model Amanda Unaro. Unaro was also the partner of Trump admin official Paulo Sampoli, who she alleged had her deported. They had a Sunday together. Zampoli also claimed to have introduced Trump to Melania. Amanda is a victim of Epstein and was brought to the US from Paris by Jean Luc Bernell. Conveniently killed himself in a prison cell on a Saturday morning. Same as Epstein when she was 17. She had a 20 year friendship with Melania. Remember her name. You'll be hearing so much about her in the coming weeks that Trump will likely nuke Iran over it.
- [100:08]
B
Oh, my God.
- [100:09]
A
Dude.
- [100:09]
B
Dude. Yep. So that's what I was talking about. Yeah, I happened to see that before I came here.
- [100:14]
A
This is like all over X today.
- [100:16]
B
Yeah, this is the story. And I, I've seen her story about him trying to get her deported through ICE in all the legitimate news. So that's real and it tracks. It all tracks.
- [100:28]
A
Even though, even though they had a kid together, she still deported.
- [100:32]
B
That's why it was. It's a custody battle. And he. And he ended up winning it too. The kid moved with her to Brazil, but then moved back to the us now he lives with him. So he won the custody battle after ratting her out to ice. Now it said in the. I don't remember what. I think it might have been CBS or something. It was like a legit news. They said that Maybe she would have been deported anyway because there was already some kind of procedure, but he made sure that it happened 100%. Yeah.
- [100:57]
A
It's insanity, dude. It totally is. And did you see the Trumps, like the truth post that he did yesterday calling out Tucker and Candace and Alex Jones and all these people? That was the longest. Longest thing I've. I've ever seen. It's amazing that he can sit there and type all that out on his phone. Yeah, well, if his truth social post.
- [101:18]
B
Yeah.
- [101:19]
A
I mean, it'll fill up the whole entire tv. That's how much text is on it. It's insane.
- [101:24]
B
He. He lost his base.
- [101:26]
A
He's losing his marbles, man. You can tell he's really stressed out.
- [101:30]
B
Who's left? Who does he have left? Even Pool was coming out against him yesterday.
- [101:34]
A
Who?
- [101:34]
B
Tim Pool.
- [101:35]
A
Oh, really?
- [101:36]
B
Yeah. All he has left is like Mark Levin.
- [101:39]
A
Right?
- [101:39]
B
That Mark Levin. Yeah. Who else does he have? He's only got like the. The. The Zionists. Shapiro. Right.
- [101:47]
A
Mark Levin is the brain. Is the brains of the. The Trump administration. It's crazy.
- [101:52]
B
Charitably. But yeah. And Laura Loomer and. And those people. I mean, he's. He's lost most of his base. Imagine how painful that is for him. And. And now his wife is looking like she's ready to throw him under the bus. Right.
- [102:03]
A
Could you imagine?
- [102:04]
B
Bro, I did doubt this is coordinated.
- [102:06]
A
You really.
- [102:07]
B
I heard she might have warned him, but this doesn't. Doesn't seem like something Trump would want her to do. Calls attention back to. To Epstein. Right.
- [102:18]
A
It is so much like, who's going to read that? But un. The United States is the hottest country anywhere. I mean, he's. He's literally, you know, throwing under the bus the. The three people. People that campaign for him harder than anyone.
- [102:34]
B
Yeah, well, they start distance themselves first. Do you see the dashes? I wouldn't be surprised if he put into AI write this in my style, you know?
- [102:43]
A
Really?
- [102:44]
B
Yeah. Right. It has a little. Some of those.
- [102:46]
A
Yeah, those are EM dashes.
- [102:47]
B
Yeah. That's not his style. That's AI.
- [102:49]
A
You can't do that on a phone. You'd have. I don't know how you make EM
- [102:52]
B
dashes on the phone.
- [102:53]
A
That's a great point.
- [102:53]
B
You put it through AI. That's. That's how you.
- [102:55]
A
Does he not typically do dashes like that?
- [102:57]
B
I don't know know. But it looks very AI to me. Yeah. It would be interesting to see.
- [103:02]
A
Wow.
- [103:03]
B
He was like, give a rant against these people in my style and Then AI would be able to do it really well.
- [103:09]
A
It's so funny, man. It's like he goes. I mean, low IQs. They're stupid people. What. Where's the. What did he say about Tucker in his podcast? That was the most hilarious thing of all. Ball. Where does he talk about Tucker? There we go, right there. Not handing flailing fools like Tucker Carlson who couldn't even finish college. He was a broken man after he was fired from Fox News, and he has never been the same. Perhaps he should see a good psychiatrist. Meanwhile, Tucker is like 10 times bigger than he ever was, and he gets more views on any of his podcasts than, like, everyone on Fox News combined right now. It's insane. You know, it's like, it's funny how, how like, now Fox News pundits will, like, shame podcasters because podcasters are, like, kind of like, thrown in the same camp as Candace and Tucker, and they're like, crazy people. But, like, the podcasters are kind of what's responsible for the whole Maga movement to win again this time anyways is because, like, everyone was so sick of the crazy woke on the left and all the censorship under the Biden Cala thing. And, like, it just seemed like this was a much better option. And they loved podcasters before that. Now they hate podcasters.
- [104:29]
B
Well, the great thing about podcasters, as irresponsible as they can be, is that they're independent, you know, and they're. They're not being. They're not being told what to say by the same corporate elements. They. They're pandering to their audience directly. And that's better and worse in some ways.
- [104:46]
A
Some of them are. A lot of. Most of them are independent pendant. But if I'm. If I'm Netanyahu, I'm going to try to figure out how to pay some podcasters.
- [104:59]
B
The really big ones will make more money by going against Israel than. Than Israel can. Can give them.
- [105:05]
A
That's true.
- [105:06]
B
Yeah. I just. I don't think you can buy, you know, the really big ones. One of the.
- [105:10]
A
One of the strange things I've noticed is that if it is that you can talk so much about this stuff on social media so freely and it gets so much attention and reach when previously stuff like this would be throttled to beyond belief. It would be throttled, you know, on. On websites like YouTube or Twitter. And now it seems like, like, the limiters are off. There's no breaks on any speech online. It's. It's pretty crazy. And if. If Israel does have that much influence in the United States and over like tech companies. You wouldn't imagine they would be letting this go off the rails like this unless they did want it, unless they, this was what they intended. Right. And, and also fun fact or Elon Musk is as quiet as a church mouse about all this stuff.
- [106:10]
B
Yeah. Elon's waiting to see which, which side he wants to come out on. He's, he's very, very careful on this. Yeah. But I, I, I think this, this shows that Israel, Israel's influence in general is, is somewhat overrated. Israel really managed to get its, its hooks into Trump through a long operation that was quite complicated, that is backfiring on it. But generally the discourse is not working well for Israel. And the discourse is about to sever what is the most strategic artery for Israel altogether, which is its relationship with the United States. And if it controlled the discourse, sure, we talked about anti Semitism and all that and having benefits, but ultimately, if the United States doesn't provide Israel with weapons and doesn't provide Israel with the interceptors, the ammunition, it can't continue to fight.
- [107:00]
A
Really, really.
- [107:01]
B
There's, there's no way it can do.
- [107:03]
A
How do they not foresee this coming?
- [107:05]
B
It's not so much that you can't foresee it as much as that modern warfare requires so much expensive hardware that it's even difficult for the United States to keep up. Right. They, the United States was running out of interceptors within weeks.
- [107:19]
A
Right.
- [107:19]
B
Israel, much smaller country. How is it supposed to keep up? Israel ran out of ammunition in the Gaza war after a few weeks. The United States supplied, supplied it, Germany supplied it. A lot of countries helped them do this. They couldn't do this on their own. And no other country is going to help Israel if the United States isn't on its side. That's the only reason that other countries help because, because of that. And they're not going to have veto power in the United, in the United nations. So people are going to be able to sanction them and pass all these resolutions against them. Losing American support is a strategic threat to Israel's existence. There's no way around. Found it. All of Israeli doctrine has been based on the fact that, that they need American support and they're losing that. So they don't have full control over the discourse. Not even remotely. Right.
- [108:05]
A
And you think Elon is just, you think the reason he's being so quiet about this is because he's trying to, he's waiting it out to see what's going to happen.
- [108:12]
B
Yeah. I mean, think of it from his perspective. He wants to remain close to Trump and Trump is doing Israel's bidding. He also has business ties with Israel and Netanyahu and all that. But on the other hand, his sort of tribe, I mean, he came out,
- [108:28]
A
what, a year ago saying, here's the big bomb. Trump's in the Epstein files.
- [108:33]
B
And then he, and he backtracked.
- [108:34]
A
He deleted it.
- [108:35]
B
Yeah. He doesn't know which side to take between Trump and, and all these people are turning against him. He'll eventually also turn against him because everyone is. But he's already missed the boat to be one of the earlier people to, to do it. So, you know, the MAGA tribe is sort of splitting and they're pro Israel and they're anti Israel. And Elon doesn't want to alienate either side, it seems to me.
- [108:57]
A
Yeah.
- [108:58]
B
But when he chooses a side, it will probably be against Israel.
- [109:02]
A
And also to your point, I think if he jumped on the bandwagon right now, he, he'd kind of look like a poser.
- [109:09]
B
Yes.
- [109:09]
A
You know, be like, oh, now you're going to start talking about it when you were quiet this whole time. So if I'm him, you're right. If I haven't said anything up to now and I'm Elon, I'm probably just going to shut the out.
- [109:19]
B
Yeah.
- [109:21]
A
Keep posting about immigration.
- [109:23]
B
Exactly. He has his niche as the white supremacy guy. He, he can stay there when it's absolutely safe. He might say some things about Israel, but he's missed the boat. He's missed the boat on that one. Yeah.
- [109:34]
A
What, what did you make about that? About the whole reporting that came out of all the US Military people saying that their commanders were telling them that Trump was anointed by Jesus to, to for this war or something like that. And it was all biblical prophecy. You pay attention to any of that?
- [109:51]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [109:51]
A
I mean, this whole evangelical hijacking of
- [109:55]
B
the military, we're, we're seeing, we're seeing more and more of that. We're seeing more and more nut jobs. You talked about the people with the, with the temple. You know, instead of freeing Iran from, from theocracy, we're also turning into a theocracy. Christian nationalism was an important element in the whole rise of, of MAGA to, to begin with. But there's, there's also something else going on. A lot of evangelicals are turning against Trump. A lot of evangelicals are turning against Israel. So it's also, yeah, 50% of, of young evangelicals don't support Israel anymore. I just saw when they would, you know, you saw, they were doing all those polls showing Israel lost support in the United States. So evangelicals, young ones under 40, are undergoing the same trends as everyone else. So what you're seeing is also a bit of a civil war within evangelical circles. Yeah, the, the generational thing, it hasn't, there's not a single demographic that hasn't been affected by this turn against Israel and that includes Jews. You know, young Jews think that Israel's committing genocide. Young Jews think that are turning against, against Zionism. If it's like I talked about how, you know, Israeli young Israelis are now more right wing. So younger Americans, all they see is this horrible, horrible face of Israel, this very public, horrible face of Israel. So within evangelicals, it's the same thing. Your older evangelicals still want to support Trump, still want to support Israel, still want to fight wars against Iran, but the younger, younger ones don't, the younger ones don't see this as the teachings of Jesus, which it isn't.
- [111:27]
A
Yeah, right. And I think it's terrible that they, that the Israeli government wants to make it a law that criticizing the Israeli government is the same thing as criticizing the Jewish religion, which is so stupid. That would be like me saying criticizing George Bush invading Afghanistan is like criticizing Christians. Right. Like it's so stupid.
- [111:51]
B
Well, it's, it's a rhetorical move that they make. You can't really defend what Israel's doing logically.
- [112:00]
A
Right.
- [112:01]
B
They're, they're failing to, if you ever debate some of these Zionists, like had the misfortune of doing it, like on Pierce Morgan or whatever.
- [112:07]
A
Did you really debate a Zionist on Pierce Morgan?
- [112:09]
B
Yeah. What's her name? Emily Schrader. Yeah, I, I, I, I debated her on Piers Morgan and they're very much on the defensive when it comes to facts and they, they, it's hard for them to accuse me of anti Semitism, but with other people they can accuse them of anti Semitism and silence.
- [112:24]
A
You could be a self hating Jew.
- [112:26]
B
That I get a lot. She didn't call me that, but a lot. I get that a lot. And I go to get called capo and udenrat and various, various things like that. But that's, that's a lot less effective as far as non Jews are concerned. They always look at that like, what's going on? Yeah. So they do a rhetorical move. It's like two steps. Right. First, you associate Israel and Judaism completely say most Jews are Zionists. This is the Jewish state. And then if you, if you associate Jews with, with Israel, then you're an anti Semite. If you attack Israel, then you're an anti Semite. So they associate them all day long.
- [113:01]
A
Long.
- [113:01]
B
And then if a non Jew associates them, they consider that to be anti Semitism. It's a completely intentional strategy that they do. If you go to the ADL website, it says that conflating Jews and Israel is anti Semitism. So if you say the Jews are, are killing Palestinians, you're an anti Semite. But those same people, including the adl, will say Israel represents the Jews.
- [113:24]
A
Right.
- [113:24]
B
So by their own standards, they're total anti Semite.
- [113:28]
A
Right.
- [113:29]
B
So they're trying to get you to the point where you're associating Israel Jews. And then when you notice that you're an anti Semite and that's completely intentional.
- [113:38]
A
It's insane.
- [113:39]
B
Yeah. So it's, it's a, it's a strategy, but it's a strategy that comes out of desperation. It's not convincing. It encourages anti Semitism. And what ultimately happens is that people are called anti Semites and they're like,
- [113:52]
A
okay, what if ever, what does the world look like? Or what is, what does the Middle east look like? If Israel completely say, say 2028, the next president runs on no foreign influence, especially from Israel, and he wins. What is that? What is the, how does that change Israel? How does that change the Middle east in your view?
- [114:17]
B
Well, well, we have some historical precedents of this. Probably the best example is Rhodesia. Rhodesia was a white supremacist country in Africa that was protected by the British Empire. And then in 1965, the British, because they were very racist, the British washed their hands of, of Rhodesia. Rhodesia went on fighting for 15 years against guerrilla groups and against its neighbors. And without any support from the outside world, they, they managed, they had sanctions against them. They managed to avoid sanctions by buying things expensively from other countries. They tried to innovate their way out of this, but ultimately they were defeated. And now the country's called Zimbabwe and it's run by the black people that used to oppress. And it's probably going to be something like that. Israel has the ability and the wherewithal to exist not in the same imperialist ambitions that it has now, now, but to exist and defend itself without American support for a while, but not in the long term.
- [115:16]
A
In the long term, if they didn't have the US support, would they be able to coexist with Palestinians?
- [115:23]
B
No, I think we're way past that really, I think that the Palestinians, because of all the oppression they've been through and because of all these wars, are just waiting for Israel to show weakness. And their supporters are just waiting for Israel to show weakness is. And they're going to go in for the kill the only way.
- [115:38]
A
There's just too much. There's too much trauma. There's too much hatred.
- [115:44]
B
Yeah. If Israel today.
- [115:45]
A
I can't. Yeah. That's another thing like. Sorry to interrupt your train of thought, but continue it when I finish interrupting you. If I wasn't as Palestinian or a Jew who had my entire family killed by the other side, I would feel the same way.
- [116:00]
B
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I didn't have any family killed in terror attacks, but I had a lot of friends killed in terror attacks. And it makes you feel absolute hatred. I can only imagine if it's your family. Yeah. So if Israel today came out and really tried to make peace with the Palestinians and showed it very sincerely, maybe it could. But one of the reasons for that is because Israel today is strong. If Israel, after treating Palestinians this badly when they were strong, started to be. Be to go down in strength, then it would be stupid on the Palestinians part almost to save them. That's how it works. You want to make a deal with someone when the deal is better than the alternative. And if Israel is fading, the alternative from the Palestinian perspective is better than the deal that Israel can offer. That's the tragedy that often happens with conflicts.
- [116:55]
A
Right. And the scary thing, though, is Israel has nukes.
- [116:58]
B
Israel has nukes. Yeah. Although that's more useful when you're fighting a foreign country than when you're fighting people inside your own territory. Like. Like, that's also one of the reasons I think that Israel wants to. So you have another question here. Is Israel going to be able to ethnically cleanse all the Palestinians from its territory? It might. And. And also if it gets desperate and the US can't support it, it might commit horrific crimes that it's not committing now because there's nothing to lose. So that's another thing that I probably should have mentioned before or thought of before. If Israel loses the support of the United States, it will become more racist and more aggressive as it does that tailspin. Right. Maybe not so much invading other countries, but maybe committing even worse atrocities against the Palestinians in its own backyard. In its own backyard. Even worse atrocities against its Arab citizens, which will probably. Maybe their citizenship will be taken or will be more of a complete apartheid even within the borders of Israel, because What, what happens is, and this happened in Rhodesia, happened in South Africa. The liberals, the people want to compromise, they leave. The more educated people, the elites, they leave. And the people who are left are more and more militant and society turns more and more violent and there's no tempering influence from the outside. So whatever we're seeing now will get significantly worse and that, that will continue the spiral that leads to the eventual dissolution. Right. Because then there's less investment, there's less trade, there's less technology as the atrocities go, go up. So it'll be a very, very ugly cycle that will end in horrific bloodshed on both sides. It would be much better if, if there was a now a managed move towards conflict resolution, but that's not going to happen.
- [118:42]
A
What do you think Netanyahu's end goal is with Iran? Do you think he wants to actually end it? Do you think he wants to, like, wipe out civilization, as Trump said, or do you think he wants to just sort of cripple them and make all these, these Muslim Gulf states around him weak to where they're. They're not a strong, functioning democracy and they're all just sort of like, fractured?
- [119:06]
B
Yeah, the fracturing is really the point here. So this isn't just Netanyahu. This is Israeli doctrine in general. General has become make sure that Israel isn't facing any real threats, any large threats. How do you do that? You make sure that none of its neighbors and increasingly anyone in the region has the power to threaten. It has a coherent state. The Yanon plan from the 1980s is an Israeli plan that came out at that time. He wanted to reduce the Middle east to sort of clans and tribes instead of states, so that no one could threaten Israel militarily. And that's sort of the idea behind what we saw in Iran. Israel wanted to turn Iran into a failed state. Israel got pretty close to turning Iran into a failed state, but they're not going to stop at Iran. They already have talked about Turkey as the next enemy. They talked about Pakistan as the next enemy. Me, that serves two things, really. Yeah. Yeah. Also, the guy who's running against Netanyahu in the elections, Naftali Bennett, said the same thing. He said Turkey is the next big enemy. So this isn't Netanyahu. This goes far beyond him because you have a mentality of constant warfare and you have a, a conception of security that involves destroying any potential threat before it arrives.
- [120:30]
A
Yeah, that's another question I meant to ask you earlier. What are the people that. So the elections are Coming up in Israel in October. Right. What are his opponents saying about all this stuff? Like, what are their views on all of this crazy stuff like the Greater Israel, the war in Iran, and we haven't even talked about what's happening in Lebanon. Really?
- [120:51]
B
Yeah. So there is no real opposition in Israel to Netanyahu's security outlook, at least not among the Jews. There's a lot of criticism of how Netanyahu is managing security affairs, but it's from inside the camp. It's from, from what you're doing against our enemies isn't effective. Some people are saying he should be beating them up more than he is. Some people are saying you should be beating them up and then reaching some kind of agreement that cements the fact that you beat them up. But there's an agreement that military force is the main solution and there's disagreement on exactly how to use it. It's a little bit like what we have here. You know, when Trump goes to war against Iran, the democrats can't really say they're against the war. They just say, oh, you should have approved it with Congress or whatever.
- [121:37]
A
Right.
- [121:37]
B
It's, it's all, it's all sort of inside the camp.
- [121:41]
A
Yeah. Same thing with the Epstein files.
- [121:43]
B
Exactly. Yeah.
- [121:44]
A
They're just using it. It's politically now convenient for them to criticize the. When they never fucking did shit about the Epstein files.
- [121:50]
B
Yeah. And within certain parameters, you know, and then they say, oh, it's not as big a deal as that because it threatens the whole elite thing. So in Israel, you know, you have to be on the side of the idf. You have to be on the side of the, of the security concerns, otherwise you're a trust traitor. And the most left wing leader among the Jews is Yair Golan, who is a general. He was a former general and he thinks that there should be peace agreements at the end of wars. That's what makes him a big moderate. Meanwhile, the right doesn't think, he thinks you should just annex everything. That's the difference. So there's really not that much criticism. The only real criticism comes from the Arab parties who think that there should be equal rights. So in the next election, I plan to go to Israel and vote for the Arab party because they're the only party party that presents any kind of alternative to the militaristic consensus that is running the state of Israel right now. So there is no real opposition there. There's opposition about a lot of internal things. I mentioned how ultra orthodox don't serve in the idf. That's a big flashpoint. A little bit like abortion here. You know, that's like the thing that everyone argues about.
- [122:52]
A
Right.
- [122:52]
B
The left says they should be serving and. But that shows you the militarism. Again, it's the left that thinks there should be more people in the military. Military. And it's the right that think that's why. Military. Yeah, yeah, because the, the right is more religious and the left is more secular, but they're even more militaristic than the right.
- [123:12]
A
So this recent thing that happened, probably, it's like there's so much happening right now, it's hard to know like, how recent things. This was like actually like three days ago, I think it was when Trump announced the ceasefire with Iran and it was through Pakistan. The mediaries were in Pakistan trying to deal. Do this ceasefire with Iran and there was actually a report that came out where the Mossad tried to kill the, the Pakistanis that were, that were doing the negotiating. You can't make this up. And I guess Trump got pissed and he told, he told, he told him. He's like, don't kill him. We're trying to actually do a ceasefire here. And then, and then what happened after that. So I guess part of the agreement was that Israel wasn't allowed to keep bombing Lebanon. But also, is it true that after the ceasefire Iran sent a bunch of missiles to Israel?
- [124:10]
B
Yeah. So there was an agreement on a ceasefire. Israel was not included in the talks. That's where a lot of this comes from.
- [124:16]
A
From.
- [124:17]
B
The reason Israel wasn't included in the talks is because the United States knows if Israel is included in any way, they'll veto it. They'll stop it from happening. Okay, so the agreement included, one of the first clauses was Israel has to stop in Lebanon. The Israelis heard that and they were like, absolutely not. We're going to continue in Lebanon.
- [124:32]
A
Israel's not included in the talks. But they are included. They're part of the negotiation. So America has to tell Israel to stop bombing Lebanon.
- [124:39]
B
Right. There's obligations to Israel without them being part of it. That's an important part of the story. Israel is kind of being forced to do things they don't want to. To do. Israel said, no, we're absolutely not doing that. Israel has a plan to continue a war in Lebanon for a very long time. So that's why Van started saying, oh, it doesn't include Lebanon, doesn't include Israel. Israel is going to restrain itself somewhat. The Iranians said, absolutely not. If Israel continues fighting in Lebanon, we're Not going to negotiate. We're not going to open Straits of Hormuz. Nothing's going to happen. And they also fired. Not at Israel. They fired at some of the Gulf states in order to prove that their serious. Hezbollah was firing at Israel. Israel in. In the meantime, then, today, Trump said Israel has to stop, and Netanyahu said, we're going to stop and we're going to negotiate with Lebanon. That seems to have come under a lot of pressure from Israel today.
- [125:27]
A
Trump said what?
- [125:28]
B
That. That Israel has to stop. And Netanyahu said he's going to start negotiations with the Lebanese government.
- [125:34]
A
Wow.
- [125:35]
B
Yeah. Which shows you that when Trump really wants to stop Israel, he can.
- [125:38]
A
Did he say this on. On this truth thing, or did he say this like.
- [125:40]
B
No, I think he said it, like, offhand comment to a reporter. One of those.
- [125:44]
A
I see.
- [125:44]
B
Yeah. Now, Israel is going to do everything it can to sabotage this. Like, have absolutely no doubt about that. The only way that this. Israel doesn't sabotage this is if Trump sits on Netanyahu every single day and makes sure that he doesn't. And I don't know if he has the wherewithal to. To do that. You know, Iran's going to be very difficult to negotiate with. You know, these. They're really tough negotiators. They cheat on everything, just like everyone else. Everyone else involved in these things. Israel, the United States. And so there's going to be a lot of problems, and Trump will be tempted to just say to Israel, do what you want. And my guess is it'll. It'll blow up over Trump having disagreements with Iran over something and Netanyahu sabotaging it. Like, I don't think the prognosis is very good, but Trump does seem to be taking this more seriously than. Than most, because the economy and all that stuff. Yeah, he's over a barrel now.
- [126:35]
A
Now, what is the. What is Israel's goal in Lebanon? What is going on in Lebanon?
- [126:40]
B
Well, depends who you ask. If you ask the. The government, they'll tell you that their goal is to defend the people who are living in the north from missiles from Hezbollah. But of course, if you just accepted the ceasefire, then, at least in theory, people would stop shooting missiles at the north of Israel. Right now, all these missiles are being shot at the north of Israel, ostensibly in the name of protecting them. It makes very little sense. And Israel was talking about taking a protective zone in southern Lebanon in order to defend the people in the north, which is what it did in the 1980s and the 1990s. But in those days, Hezbollah was trying to infiltrate and had short range missiles that they were shooting at Israel. Now they have drones and they have longer range missiles. So what everyone, the IDF is telling me is this war makes absolutely no sense because even if Israel occupies a protective zone, they can just overshoot, they can overshoot the IDF easily. And all that's gained is that Israelis have a few more seconds to get into their shelters. And not only that, but the soldiers will be sitting ducks in southern Lebanon in an area where there's a lot of tunnels that Hezbollah has built and traps, kind of like the Viet Cong did in Vietnam. And a lot of Israeli soldiers are going to die there. Israeli soldiers are dying there all the time. Yesterday a soldier died, today one was, was seriously injured. My friends who served in, in Lebanon in the 90s and 2000s remember it as hell on earth. And it'll, it'll be happening again. So the IDF thinks this is a terrible war and really including people who are real hawks because they don't see the strategic need for it. It's political. It's part of a forever war to keep Netanyahu in power. At this point, the polls are so bad for him because this Iran thing
- [128:24]
A
was such a debacle for Netanyahu.
- [128:26]
B
For Netanyahu, he, he's going to lose these elections, it appears, to another, you know, right winger, Naftali Bennett, and he needs a, a crisis in order to prevent the elections or at least to throw the elections in in one way or another. And that's why this war is so important to him. It doesn't really have any security goal that makes any sense.
- [128:54]
A
So how do you see this all playing out in the next, next weeks and months up to like even, I would say like long term, somewhat long term between now and like the midterms. Like what do you, if you were to make a bet, what would you say happens with this whole Iran war
- [129:10]
B
and it'll peter out both. At the end of the day, both Iran and the United States have interest in de escalating. And even if they can't agree on the exact terms, which seems very like they're probably going to reach some sort of tacit agreement on what things are going to look like. Iran is going to open the straits enough so that the US Is comfortable with it, the United States will back off enough so that Iran is comfortable with it and they'll continue that way. The US Is not going to be able to restrain Israel. Israel is going to. One of the reasons is Netanyahu is Not going to be choosy. He's going to start a war wherever he can. So maybe he starts Gaza. There's been a lot of talk about that. Maybe he escalates matters in Syria. There's been a lot of talk about that. Or he'll continue in Lebanon or whatever something is, is going to, is going to happen there. He's going to try to postpone elections. He's going to try to get himself a pardon for his, for his crimes. Trump is going to increasingly be a lame duck and American politics is going to turn against Israel. So all those scenarios that we talked about before about Israel becoming increasingly desperate and isolated will. Will begin to occur. The Israel lobby and its supporters will fight back very strenuously. So it's not going to be a linear move towards that. There's going to be ups and downs. There's going to still be support for Israel, but over time, that's clearly the trend. All of that will. And, and this loss of the war in Iran will allow China to grow massively in its influence in the Middle east as well. And then they're going to use the fact that Trump is a lame duck most likely to launch some sort of attack on Taiwan towards the end of his term.
- [131:09]
A
There was something that came out just the other day I saw about the Taiwanese. Some, some, some person high, high up in Taiwan was meeting with China.
- [131:16]
B
Yeah. Their opposition, the opposition in Taiwan is pro. Moving towards a peaceful reunion.
- [131:25]
A
And the, because the t. The government in Taiwan, there's a, there's a, a pro China faction and a anti China faction. Right.
- [131:33]
B
Yeah, it's. It, yeah, it, it's more like, yeah,
- [131:37]
A
China g. Talks peace with Taiwan's opposition leader even as Beijing raises military pressure.
- [131:44]
B
Yeah, they're going to try to do something along the lines of what Russia does. Try to install a kind of puppet government and, and do subterfuge there the way that Russia tried to do in Ukraine before they invaded. That didn't work in Ukraine. We'll see if it works better in Taiwan. The Chinese are gambling that the United States will not defend Taiwan because of all this isolation in. Because of everything that happened in Iran. I'm guessing they're correct.
- [132:12]
A
Yes.
- [132:12]
B
Yeah. I don't think the United States is going to fight for Taiwan. I don't think it should fight for Taiwan, honestly.
- [132:16]
A
Yeah, that's been, that's the. One of the things I couldn't stop. I can't stop thinking about Reese lately is what the hell is. Is China getting away with right now behind the scenes that no one's paying attention to with all of this crazy happening.
- [132:28]
B
Yeah, they're, they're not trying to get any attention on them right now. Smart. Yeah. If you followed Xi Jinping fired his top generals because they were thinking that an invasion on Taiwan is not practical and they didn't like his timeline for an invasion. So he's trying to move that up. And clearly, you know, as you saw with him talking to the opposition, he's looking at the political situation that will facilitate the, the military invasion, that he can get the United States to back off, that he can get Taiwan to reluctantly accept more control. Maybe at first, something like in Hong Kong, where, you know, they have some partial influence there and over time they'll build it up. It worked very well for him in Hong Kong. We'll see if Taiwan feels that the United States is not going to back them up, they might be forced into that sort of arrangement. Arrangement.
- [133:26]
A
And how real is this Greater Israel project to like, take all that extra land to create. Create this bigger Israel that's like the size of Babylon. Ancient Babylon.
- [133:37]
B
Well, I mean, those maps are fantasy. Israel can't reach, you know, Iraq.
- [133:42]
A
Right.
- [133:42]
B
Having said that, and I think that,
- [133:44]
A
I think ancient Babylon was like a huge percentage of Turkey too. Modern day Turkey.
- [133:48]
B
Well, yeah, the maps include.
- [133:52]
A
But it's on the IDF patch. Right, Right.
- [133:54]
B
It's not in the official IDF patch. There are people in the IDF who put that on their uniform.
- [133:59]
A
Oh, that's not the official patch.
- [134:01]
B
No. And the army at least officially came out and said that they should remove that patch because it's political.
- [134:07]
A
Interesting.
- [134:08]
B
And you're not supposed to have anything political on your uniform. Like back in my day, no one would dare show up with that. Now things have changed, but it's still officially not allowed.
- [134:18]
A
So it's like the hardcore religious people probably doing it.
- [134:20]
B
It's hardcore religious people. Yeah, yeah. Most Israelis aren't like that still. But there's. There's a lot of overlap between the people who believe in security first and the people who believe in, in religious. Yeah, there you go. It says, Israel, the land of Israel is promised or as promised. Wow. Yeah. And you can see that it also includes a good part of Egypt up to the Nile. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that, that's a religious thing.
- [134:52]
A
So, so, so. But this is not a real, like, public thing they're talking about doing in the government there.
- [135:00]
B
No, no, no.
- [135:01]
A
Okay.
- [135:02]
B
No one is talking about that in the government. Even the people who believe in it believe it's. It's an eventual goal. But having said that, there's a movement towards expanding Israel. The west bank is already annexed. You know, it's part of Israel. It's. The whole thing of whether it's officially annexed or not is irrelevant. Gaza, more than 50% of it, is under Israeli control right now. If it moves to ethnically cleansed, 100% will be in Lebanon. They're planning to have a security zone all the way up to the rivers up there, the Litany and Hatzbani rivers in Syria. 20% of Syria. Syria is under either Israeli occupation or Israeli indirect influence. Wow. So this is already happening to some extent. And.
- [135:51]
A
And it's run by a dude that was from isis, right?
- [135:55]
B
Syria.
- [135:55]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [135:57]
B
Yes. Who, by the way, Israel is considering cooperating with on dividing Lebanon. Because he has interest in Lebanon. They have interest in Lebanon, and he's close to Trump, so they're considering working with.
- [136:09]
A
That's crazy. Yeah.
- [136:11]
B
He's a very canny operator. He's not ISIS anymore. Well, he wasn't isis. He was Al Qaeda.
- [136:16]
A
Al Qaeda. I'm sorry. Yes.
- [136:18]
B
Big difference.
- [136:19]
A
Yes.
- [136:19]
B
Right, right. Are the moderates now? I'm kidding.
- [136:21]
A
Former head of Al Qaeda.
- [136:22]
B
Yeah. Former head of the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda. He's cut ties with them or supposedly cut ties with them. He's a pragmatist. He's, you know, willing to work with anyone, including Israel. He's. He's given a lot of overtures to Israel to work with him. And there's a significant amount of people in the IDF who want to work with him.
- [136:45]
A
Wow.
- [136:45]
B
Yeah. And Netanyahu doesn't want to work with him. Netanyahu wants to tear Syria apart, but some. Now that he's focuses on Lebanon, there's an increasing amount of people who say, if we want to take Lebanon apart, our best partners are Syria. Syria was basically the colonial master of Lebanon until the early 2000s. Thousands. And if you look at the way it's shaped, you know, Lebanon sticks out of Syria. It's just a natural zone of influence for the Syrians. And then they say, if we can have Syria cut off the passages into Lebanon and control the. The area around Beirut, we control the south. Then they take out Hezbollah, and, you know, Al Qaeda and isis, they hate Hezbollah because Hezbollah, Shia, and they're Sunni, and these are religious fanatics to whom these things matter a lot. Right. And. And so someone like Al Jalani, this president of Syria, he has good ties with Turkey and good ties with Saudi Arabia. Hezbollah has ties with Iran. They're his enemies. So they're natural allies for Israel if Israel stops trying to tear Syria apart, which is a big Right. Yeah.
- [137:59]
A
One of the things that was really shocking to me when I learned it was that some of these Gulf states that were getting hit by Iran were, like, telling, like, trying to encourage the White House and Trump to, like, go harder on Iran. You would think that they would kind of like, I, I thought that that would kind of like push them closer, you know, or, or push them farther away from Trump. Like, I thought that they would kind of be pissed off by that, but they weren't. They were just like, go finish them off.
- [138:27]
B
The Gulf state. So one of the mistakes we make about the Gulf states is, first of all, treating them all as one. Every Gulf state has a completely different foreign policy. So sometimes people say, oh, the Gulf states are doing this. Like the uae, for example, is violently sort of pro Israel and anti Iranian. And other, some of the other states, like Bahrain and Oman are much more moderate when it comes to Iran and Saudi Arabia, the most pragmatic. So it changes all the time. But if we were going to look at the Gulf states as like, one, and, and the, the policy was they were against the war when it started. But once it started and Iran started getting the upper hand, they became really concerned that the United States is going to sort of leave and leave Iran in charge because it looked like Iran was going to win. Right. I mean, Iran basically has won. That's the worst case scenario from their perspective. That leaves them at the mercy of Iran. Their biggest nightmare is that Iran win, the United States become more isolationist, leave the bases there, and leave them at the mercy of Iran. So what they wanted was for the war to end not with a massive Iranian victory, but with the United States showing them that if they try to attack Gulf states, they'll pay a heavy price for it. That's not really what happens happened. They ended up with the worst of all possible worlds, the Gulf states. Yeah. Which again brings us to China. China is trying to move in and take over. They want to show the Gulf states that if they have strong ties with China, they'll benefit from it economically and they'll also be protected because China will tell Iran, don't attack them and without starting wars from their territory, because that's not how. How China does things, especially not in the Middle East.
- [140:09]
A
East.
- [140:10]
B
So every, every Gulf state is being pushed in different directions. Do we want to be more anti Iranian, more pro American, more pro Chinese? It's a moment of inflection for them. That whole region is, is going to change.
- [140:24]
A
Yeah, I saw some, some story, I didn't know if it was fake or not, that Ben Salman went to Ukraine or something to do a deal with Ukraine.
- [140:34]
B
The other way Zelensky went there.
- [140:35]
A
Oh, Zelensky went to Binson Common.
- [140:37]
B
Yeah.
- [140:38]
A
And allegedly like he didn't get Trump's blessing on it or something. And that was kind of a slap in the face to Trump.
- [140:47]
B
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot going on there. So you know, again, we talked about influence that Russia might have on Trump. Trump has it in for the Ukrainians for reasons that don't really make sense from an American national interest point of view. One of the big winners in this war war is, is Ukraine. Because Ukraine's approach to war is very modern because they're currently fighting a war using the same tools that proved to be so important in the war in Iran. Drones, shorter term missiles, anti missile systems.
- [141:22]
A
They took on and they bought, they buy all their stuff from Iran. Right.
- [141:26]
B
The Russians.
- [141:27]
A
The Russians do.
- [141:29]
B
The Russians buy a lot of their missiles and a lot of their drones from Iran.
- [141:34]
A
Right.
- [141:34]
B
Okay. And, and the Russians also help. It's a mutual, it's a mutual operation.
- [141:39]
A
Okay.
- [141:40]
B
So that's why the war that was fought in Iran was very similar to the war that's being fought in Ukraine in terms of drones and missiles, not in other ways.
- [141:48]
A
Okay, I see.
- [141:49]
B
Because the same players, the same actors are using the same tools. The only country in the world that really understands how to, how to counter this on a defensive level is Ukraine. Right. Israel now has proven that it's Israel's whole strategy on containing this has failed. Israel's being pummeled and they're going to have to adopt some of these Ukrainian measures. The Ukrainians have anti drone and missile measures that cost almost nothing. Really cheap, really effective.
- [142:20]
A
And they developed this on their own without the US's help.
- [142:23]
B
On their own without the US's help. That's right. Because otherwise, even though we were sending
- [142:27]
A
them billions of dollars like they did this without us.
- [142:30]
B
Well, a lot of this happened when the US stopped sending them money and they had to, had to adopt.
- [142:35]
A
Are we still sending them money?
- [142:36]
B
Zero.
- [142:36]
A
We're sending them zero right now.
- [142:38]
B
Zero. Yeah. They're still getting a lot of help from the, from the Europeans, otherwise they wouldn't be able to do this.
- [142:43]
A
There's one thing Trump did that he said he was going to do. Stop funding the Ukraine war.
- [142:47]
B
Yes. And again, I'm not sure he did it for the right Reasons, you know, I think this might be because of Russia. Again, I'm one of the, one of the last people who believes in the Russia thing and the, I believe in the Israel thing too. So the Ukrainians know how to fight modern wars and now all these countries are looking to them to say, teach us how to do this Almighty Ukrainians. And that's giving them all this cachet and all these ties and it's going to give them a lot of money, it's going to give them a lot of influence. It really reminds me of Israel back in the day when Israel proved that it was able to stand up to all these threats, like in 67, you know, Ukraine is very, is very similar. They're a scrappy up and coming nation, understands how to, how to fight modern war warfare and they might actually end up taking over a lot of Israel's place in the international community as, as someone you can learn from militarily. While the Israeli military is increasingly failing.
- [143:40]
A
That's bonkers, dude.
- [143:41]
B
Yeah. So military is becoming more and more like the American military, top heavy, over reliant on technology. Just dumb.
- [143:52]
A
It doesn't, I don't see any winning scenario for the United States in, in all of this. It just seems like all these other countries are getting stronger and the, in Israel and the US Are just getting perpetually weaker.
- [144:02]
B
Yes. Yeah, they've really peaked.
- [144:06]
A
It's a fourth turning.
- [144:09]
B
I mean, the United States has, has the resources to pivot to being a more modern smart.
- [144:17]
A
I mean, we have the best geography.
- [144:18]
B
Geography that, that's why we're so rich.
- [144:21]
A
Yeah, right.
- [144:21]
B
Yeah. It's not because we're so great. We, we have the, the two oceans and we have the inner rivers here and we have all the best immigrants coming from other countries or used to, and the combination. And no enemies, no strong enemies on, on our hemisphere. So all those things led to the US Being what it is and all those things are still true or most of them are still true. The US Just needs to stop relying so much on, on money and power and start thinking more smart, you know, like the, like the Ukrainians do or like the Chinese do.
- [144:56]
A
Right? Yeah. And, and you know, this whole thing, how Trump's trying to invade countries in our own hemisphere now and focus on countries in our own hemispheres is bonkers. You know, doing the thing that, that quick military operation in Venezuela, which was interesting, it wasn't like a real military operation, it was just more like a quick extraction. But he's also, at the same time he's threatening to take Cuba, quote, take Cuba, whatever the. That means. And like all these threats with Mexico and, and, and Canada and Greenland. Very bizarre strategy that I didn't see coming. Coming.
- [145:38]
B
Well, it's a return to the 19th century. It's returned to gunboat diplomacy. It's a return to the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine, it actually makes perfect sense from. If you're really living in the past, it doesn't go very well with an internationalist policy. So if you're still fighting wars in Iran or going to defend Taiwan, it really makes very little sense. If you're planning to sort of retreat behind those oceans and want to completely dominate your hemisphere. Hemisphere, it does make sense. But if you're not morally, but strategically, but if you're trying to do both, you're just going to be incredibly overstretched. And your enemies. So. So why does it not work together? Not only because of all the military expense, but because your enemies in the other hemisphere are going to go into the Western hemisphere to distract you and cause you problems. If you're fighting them over there, if you leave them alone in your isolation, they'll be like, okay, that's their backyard. I respect their backyard. They respect my backyard. But otherwise, a country like China is going to try to gain as much influence in your hemisphere to try to distract you from getting Taiwan. And then they're investing all these resources in your neighbors and you're playing whack a mole with. With all these different threats. So you really have to pick a strategy. If you're in the United States, do you want to focus on Asia? Do you want to focus on Europe, you want to focus in the Middle east, or do you want to focus on your own ham hemisphere? If you try and do everything, you'll succeed in nothing, right?
- [147:06]
A
Yeah. It's a complicated world out there, brother.
- [147:09]
B
Sure is.
- [147:09]
A
It's hard to keep track of it, but you're doing a fantastic job.
- [147:12]
B
Thank you.
- [147:13]
A
Thanks for doing this, dude. I really learned a lot.
- [147:15]
B
It was a pleasure. You're a great interviewer.
- [147:17]
A
Where can people find your work? And your podcast, you have a podcast on your YouTube channel, right?
- [147:22]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [147:23]
A
Where. Where can people find it all?
- [147:25]
B
Well, the main thing I do is. Is Twitter. Twitter. Okay, so find me at Academic under slash la. There. I have a podcast called Histories of the Holy Land where I talk about the history of. Of Israel going back to the. To the Bible. I have a podcast on YouTube called Dispatches from Hell, and I have a substack called the Grand Scheme. So check Dispatches from hell.
- [147:49]
A
How'd you come up with that name? I don't know.
- [147:51]
B
Just came to me, man. Kind of feels like like. Like that's all we're talking about, right?
- [147:56]
A
We're living in sort of war as hell.
- [147:58]
B
Hellish landscape. Yeah.
- [148:00]
A
Yeah. It's a great name. Well, cool, bro. We'll link it all below. Thanks again for your time. This has been really fun.
- [148:04]
B
Thank you so much. Always a pleasure.
- [148:05]
A
All right, good night, folks.