← The Bitcoin Standard Podcast
The Bitcoin Standard Podcast
331. Palestine, Israel & Property Rights - Interview with Mario Nawfal
00:35:35
Loading summary
Transcript46 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Principles of Economics My complete guide to Understanding Economics is now available in hardcover, audiobook and ebook from seifeddin.com, amazon, and many more booksellers worldwide. And now I am also teaching a course based on this book on my website, seyfeddin.com Principles of Economics will run the whole academic year from September to June and will have a new lecture every two weeks, as well as weekly live online discussion seminars open to learners from all over the world and from all walks of life. Whether you're a student, a professional, or a retiree, you are making economic decisions every day and this course will arm you with the wisdom of centuries of economists to improve your economic decision making. You'll also get a free book of Principles of Economics. If you sign up for the course, go to safedin.com and sign up now.
- [00:59]
B
So I'm excited for this conversation because there is I was talking to the CEO of FDD and Mark Dubowitz just about an hour ago, and I said to him, I did a post about it a few days ago. I said, now he's talking about Iran's foreign policy and how that's leading to a lot of instability in the region. I said to him, I didn't disagree. And I said, also, Israeli policy and its approach to foreign policy is also leading to a lot of instability. And the same way he asked me the question, he said, mario, if Iran stops supporting these proxies and stops trying to export their ideology and stops threatening the destruction of the state of Israel, do you think the Gulf and the US Would be against Iran? I said no. I knew it's a aha question, but I said no because that's my honest belief. But then I asked him, I'm like, if Israel resolves the Palestine issue, do you think countries like Iran would be talking about the eradication of the state of Israel? And I think the answer would be no either. So that is the core, I'd say one of, if not the core issue that's leading to a lot of instability in the region, that's leading to a lot of animosity around Israel by neighboring countries, and that leads to that cycle of violence. You know, they want to destroy Israel, Israel wants to defend itself and, and fight this existential crisis. And then we get into that cycle that we were in right now. So my question to you, because you did an incredible post that got a lot of traction on why there is an issue when it comes to Palestine. And then I'll ask you the really tough question is how to solve it but maybe break down what teach me and other people listening. How did we get here?
- [02:45]
A
Well, first of all, thanks for having me. My view in this article is that the issue is an issue of property rights. The reason there's a conflict in Palestine, in the historic land of Palestine, is because Palestinians, or goyim in general, people who are not Jewish, are denied the right to own property. And this is not something that has just happened overnight. It's been happening for 80 years. It's a continuous process and it continues to get worse. The rest of the world is moving towards more security of property rights and there is resolution of political conflicts towards granting people more and more rights. Whereas in Israel it's always been about undermining the rights of the goyim in Palestine who are the original landowners. And so the key point that I raise in this article is that if you look at the land ownership in Palestine and how it has changed over the past 80 years, you understand why there is conflict. Because if you did the same thing anywhere else in the world, you would generate the same kind of conflict. And the simple math shows that in the year 1945, the British did a thorough survey of all the land of Palestine under the British Mandate. And they found that essentially the Jewish population had owned something like 5.6% of the land. They were mostly concentrated in the cities and they did have agricultural land, but it was only 5.6% of the entire country. And so how would you set up a national homeland for one group of people that owns only 5.6% of the land? There's only one obvious answer. You need to kick people out of the rest of the land and you need to devise legal ways of making sure that they cannot acquire that land. And this is what Israel did starting in 1947. Of course, this started before the war. It's always, while the Arabs started a war against Israel, they lost it. So they lost the land? Well, no. Israel had already expelled about 250 to 300,000 Palestinians before the war started. And it would have expelled more had the Arabs not intervened. They would have likely expelled all of the Palestinians because the Palestinians were already disarmed by the British and by the Zionists. So it was then, you know, not only did they take the property, they expelled about half of the population of Palestine. They took their property. And even the ones that stayed and that were allowed to remain in Palestine, they became refugees internally within the state of Israel and became citizens of Israel, are denied the right to return to their property. They can't own their property. So there was an absentee law that would take away all the property of all the people who were expelled at gunpoint. And then the there was a present absentee law, or not was still is a present absentee law. The most Orwellian name you could find, a present absentee is somebody who is a non Jew in Israel who has had their property seized by the state of Israel. And now they're not allowed to take that property just simply because they're not Jewish, but the property is then given to people who are Jewish.
- [05:38]
B
Can you explain that again? Present absentee. Can you explain that again?
- [05:42]
A
Yes, Present absentee. It's an oxymoron. It's like saying hot ice or cold fire. You can't be present and absent at the same time. But in Israeli law you can. Because if you're a Palestinian whose property got stolen by the state of Israel or its various militias in 1947 and 1948, but you still stayed in the land, you moved, let's say, from the north of Palestine to Yaffa or Haifa or some other city, and then you became a citizen. Well, you might want to get into a car and go back to your property and say, hey, this is my property. I used to live here. No, you cannot do that. It's taken over by the state. The villages were destroyed. They made the people watch some of those villages. And you know, many of these villages had. Or the majority of them had never even fired a bullet. There was nothing violent about it. They just had to be removed because they needed to move the population. So then you've got 80 years since then of more and more of these laws, and then that gets implemented in the West Bank. But the net result is that today the Israeli government owns something like 80% of the entirety of the land of Palestine, 93% of the land of Israel, which, you know, Israel continues to be the only state that doesn't define its own borders, incidentally, because it's. It's a work in progress, is constantly working on expanding them, but within the sort of most broadly agreed upon borders. Israel owns, the government owns about 93% of the land. And that land is basically only leased to people who are Jewish. It's very difficult to get it if you're not Jewish. Almost impossible. Yeah, go ahead.
- [07:08]
B
Okay, so that's. So. I'm trying not to interrupt, but that's. So if you're Palestinian in Israel, you can own land there. No, legally you can.
- [07:18]
A
If you were still in your land, you may have kept it. So some People got to keep their land and then that some of that land is still privately owned and privately sold. And then some of the Jewish land that was privately owned before the state was established is still privately owned. And so there is a private market on something like 7% of the land. But the majority of the land is in the hands of the government and they're constantly acquiring more.
- [07:44]
B
So the government. Is there other countries where the government owns such a big proportion of the land in that country?
- [07:52]
A
Well, I mean, it depends because in most countries, you know, you'll get empty areas like national parks or deserts where the government ends up owning them or jungles or inaccessible areas. So maybe you might find that. But the issue is not so much the government ownership. The issue is the fact that the government ownership controls a majority of the land, doesn't sell, it only leases it. And most importantly, it only leases it to people from one group. And the laws don't explicitly say only to Jews, but it says to people who are legible eligible under the return law. And of course, being eligible under the return law means that you're Jewish. So basically all of the institutions are set up to favor ownership of land
- [08:35]
B
expense of Palestinians palest Palestinian Jews right now. So Palestinian, or there's Arab Israelis or Palestinian Israelis, the non Jewish Israelis living in Israel proper, I'm just going to use that term in Israel proper. Putting the west bank in Gaza aside, legally they can lease land, can't they?
- [08:57]
A
Yes, but, but of course the land is, first of all, they can't own the land that was taken from them. Secondly, even the lands that they lease, the institutions are set up. Most of them only lease to Jews. And then even though formally now they may have changed the laws to say that they don't discriminate in the leasing, but the majority of the land is discriminating. And there's so much documentation of just how difficult it is for Palestinian or Arab communities to get land among Israeli citizens. We're talking about that. And it's obviously a lot easier to expand land for Jewish settlers. And similarly in the west bank you see this, you know, in the west bank it's more visible because it's the same thing. But it's just the government acquires a plot of land, it steals it from a Palestinian and then it says this is a military area, we're closing off, Palestinians can't enter it. And then, well, after they close it off, they say, well, it's an empty land, we're going to move Jewish communities onto it. The Jewish communities move in the Palestinians can't move in. You can't buy that land back. You can't rent it. You can't even enter it. One of the worst things about the modern medical system is that at the exact moment a family needs clarity and help, they often get bureaucracy, confusion, and enormous bills. When payment is routed through giant third parties, the patient stops being the customer, prices become opaque, incentives get distorted, and families are left trying to navigate a system that was not built around them. CrowdHealth offers a different approach. CrowdHealth is a crowdfunding membership where people help each other manage healthcare costs directly. Members get access to personal care advocates, prescription discounts, and a team that can help negotiate medical bills. You choose the doctor you want, and each month, members crowdfund eligible medical bills for one another. Members have a 99.9% funding success rate, and funding takes an average of just seven days. So far, CrowdHealth members have saved over $56 million in health care expenses because they refuse to overpay for health care. Be part of a community focused on advocating for your family's health. Join Crowd Health to get started today for $99 a month for your first three months, using code safe@joincrowdhealth.com that's joincrowdhealth.com code safe. CrowdHealth is not insurance. Opt out. Take your power back. This is how we win. Join CrowdHealth.com
- [11:24]
B
these are the settlements that are happening in the West Bank. That's what you're referring to, correct?
- [11:28]
A
Yes, but I'm saying that the settlement model is just a continuation of what
- [11:31]
B
has happened in what's been happening for the last few decades. Yeah. How is that settlement? These settlements that are happening right now? I keep seeing those stories. I report on them, but I've never had the time to do a deep dive. How does it work? So there's Palestinians living on a piece of land. Isn't that how it was? How does that get settled? What's the process like?
- [11:54]
A
Well, it's an enormous bounty of different options that they use to take it. And they've been using these for decades. So the first one was, if you were out when there was a war in 1967 and 1948, then you lose your property. Right. And you can't come back, even if you're just out for a vacation. So they've acquired a lot of that land and they've.
- [12:18]
B
Even if you're out for a vacation. So if someone leaves Palestine, west bank for a vacation.
- [12:22]
A
Oh, yes, absolutely. In 1967, when the war happened. People who were just out on a visit lost their property, lost their right to return, and they couldn't go back. But then, you know, day to day, the way it happens is sometimes they'll use the pretext of security. We need this land for security, so we want to build a military base on it. But usually this is just a flimsy pretext for acquiring it, fencing it off, keeping the Palestinians out, and then saying, well, it's an empty land. Let's use it for settlements. Or, you know, they'll build a. Some kind of security checkpoint or something or the other. And then they'll build some infrastructure for it. Then they'll start building more and more. And then, you know, because they've placed infrastructure there, they've built a building. Now that building needs to be protected. So in order to protect it, you can't allow Palestinian civilians to be living around it. So now you've created a security zone, so you need to kick out everybody surrounding it. And then people, you know, the soldiers just show up one day and say, this is not your land anymore. That's it. And it's been happening for 80 years in 1948, 1947, 1967. It's continuous to happen every day. I mean, there's videos of this now because of cell phones, you're beginning to see it. There's that famous video of this guy from the U.S. yakov, saying, you know, if I don't steal it, somebody else is going to steal it, because that's what happens. So security is one way they do it. The other major one they do is they'll do some archaeological thing. Well, this is important archaeologically. And then they'll pretend that there's importance for it, but then they seize it and then build settlements. And, you know, there's always new ways of doing it. And of course, another one is they don't allow you to have. They don't issue residence. They don't issue building permits for people who live in Palestine. So if you're not Jewish, it's very difficult to obtain a building permit. Permit. And so without a building permit, if you build, which, you know, people need to build, they have kids, kids grow up, they need more space. So then you build. Then they'll demolish your houses. And this is just massively destructive because families can't grow. They can't use their land. They can't. And so then many of them are forced to sell because they can't use their land. And of course, the government is out there subsidizing people to move into that same land. So they buy it or they acquire it, or they one way or the other, and then they subsidize Jews to come from all over the world to use it, to live in it, but they make it illegal for the original owners to buy it back or enter it or rent it. Doesn't get mentioned often, huh? And the key thing is this. If you did this anywhere else in the world, you know, if you go. And you know, in 1917, when this Zionist idea really was put to application by the British, at that point, the Jewish population of Palestine was around 10%, which is roughly, I think, around the same population percentage of Jewish population in New York today. So if today you issued the Balfour Declaration for New York and you said, we want to turn New York into a Jewish homeland, and then you went and did what the Zionist movement did in 1947, you know, it's not going to go down well with the rest of the New Yorkers. And if you're going to impose a system that makes it impossible for people who are not Jewish in New York to own property and is continuously robbing their land, expelling them from their land, denying them the right to build on their land, treating them as visitors in their own land, it's going to create a conflict. It doesn't matter where it is, it doesn't matter what the ethnic group is. Anywhere you do this is going to create a conflict. And of course, the really ridiculous thing that Israel defenders will say is that, well, this region, people have been killing each other for thousands of years. It's always been like that. And actually it's never been like that. Well, not never, but it's rarely ever been like that because over the last 1300 years, there has been a Jewish minority that has lived in Palestine, and there were no attempts at exterminating them. You know, it's really, really insane to say that after 1300 years in which Jews were this tiny minority of Palestine, maybe not for the first few hundred, they weren't a tiny minority, but for the majority of the 1300 years, they were a small minority. And then suddenly everybody just became overcome with a genocidal hatred of the Jews. Just when they, when their population grew and they became powerful, it's obviously completely nonsensical. That's not what's driving it. The issue is that they're denying the property rights of the people who live on that land.
- [16:49]
B
So that started after the 1940s, the clashes between the Palestinians and the Jews. And then in those clashes The Jews militarily won and started annexing Palestinian land. And every time there was war, their land expanded. Is that the right way of oversimplifying it?
- [17:09]
A
I guess so, yeah. I mean, I guess the key thing to keep in mind is that in 1947, something different changed in that. Before then, there was individual violent acts taking place between individual groups and individual people. But in 1947, we moved to something different where there was a systematic attempt by what was to become the military. And at that time, it was three terrorist organizations, the Haganah on the Stern and Irgun. I think this is the same one. Anyways. Leahy.
- [17:40]
B
Yeah, what?
- [17:40]
A
Anyways, it was three terrorist organizations that then became the military. But they had a set plan for expelling the Palestinians. And it was not a military plan of, you know, we need to secure this area because it's a threat to us. It was about territorial continuity of the Jewish colonies. They were tiny fractions of the land. And so the only way that you could make them united, the only way that you could join them together, was you had to get rid of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who stood in the way. And so the murder of these villages was predestined, predetermined, and it was conceived with a very clear agenda in mind. You needed to create the territorial contiguity that allowed Israel function as a state at its creation. And so that's why these villages had to go. So it was nothing about whether these villages did something or they didn't. You know, a lot of these villages never fought, never fired a bullet. There's a Christian village on the Lebanese border called Iit, and that was perfectly peaceful. Never got involved in any of the fights. And then after the war ended in December 1948, the Zionists came, told the owners they had to leave, and they expelled them all. And then they got the priest of the Christian village. It's a Christian village. They got the priest to sit on the hill next door on Christmas Day, destroyed the entire village in front of him while he watched. And until this day, the descendants and the people who lived in that village cannot go back to it. Some of them are probably still alive. Only 78 years. They can't go back to that village and they can't buy it back. But Jewish settlements can be built on the land of that village.
- [19:21]
B
What's the village called again?
- [19:23]
A
I Q R I T ikrit.
- [19:32]
B
So it was in. In Lebanon.
- [19:35]
A
It's on the border with Lebanon. It's on the Palestinian.
- [19:41]
B
The village. Palestinian Arab inhabitants were expelled by Zionist forces during the 1948 Palestinian War and the territory later became part of the new state of all of its Palestinian Christian inhabitants were forced to flee to Lebanon or the Israeli village of Rameh. And despite the promise that they would be returned in two weeks time, the villagers were not allowed to return and the Israeli army destroyed the village. They were promised they could return in two weeks.
- [20:09]
A
Yeah.
- [20:10]
B
In 1951, in response to a plea from the Ikrit villagers, three years later, the Israeli Supreme Court had ruled that the former residents of Ikrit were allowed to return to their homes. However, before they could, the idf, despite awareness of the Supreme Court decision, destroyed Ikrit on Christmas Day 1951. Descendants of the villagers maintain an outpost in the village church and bury their dead in a cemetery. All attempts to cultivate its land are uprooted by the Israel Lands Administration.
- [20:44]
A
Greatest ally.
- [20:48]
B
What's what, how's what's in Ikrit now?
- [20:52]
A
The village itself has been destroyed, so it's just rubble. But you know this Israeli method of making the. They call it desert bloom, but it's really making the heavens into rubble. But the surrounding lands, the agricultural land that surround the villages, some of them have been turned into Jewish communities and settlements. Now for a quick word from our sponsors. With fiat money constantly debasing, preserving your wealth isn't an option or luxury. It's a financial and moral imperative. If you're familiar with my work, you know the only financial advice I ever give is to buy and hold Bitcoin for the long term. This has never failed anyone. If you want to buy Bitcoin, I strongly recommend using Swann, a group of hardcore bitcoiners and laser focused on making Bitcoin easily accessible. While most scramble to react to each new crisis, Swan Private clients are already positioned in the only monetary asset with absolute scarcity, Bitcoin. Swan Private partners with families and institutions who share a principled conviction in Bitcoin as the foundation for multi generational wealth. With concierge service, deep expertise and uncompromising security, the Swan team helps clients exit the crumbling fiat system and secure their future in sound money. Today, Swan Private serves more than 5,000 high net worth clients who have purchased more than $4.5 billion of Bitcoin and put it into cold storage. If you're ready to move beyond the false promises of fiat, start your long term bitcoin strategy@swan.com safe but now finally Daylight have been delivered. A fantastic full function tablet with a paper like screen that's easy on your eyes and great for outdoor use. I've been using the Daylight computer to write my next book and it is absolutely fantastic and it has led me to invest in this company myself. Check out my interview with Anjan khatta in episode 249. The Bitcoin standard podcast is brought to you by Coinkite. Coinkite are my favorite makers of Bitcoin hardware. They produced the legendary Open Dime, the first Bitcoin bearer asset, as well as the reliable cold card hardware wallet, the excellent stainless steel seed plates for storing your seed phrases, and the block.
- [23:13]
B
That's. That's sad. I don't like. One thing I don't like is a lot of people criticizing Israel. I just remembered it now because you mentioned it. They love to mention how Israelis target Christians to make it relatable to the West. Look, why does it matter if the people they're targeting are Christian or Muslim, Palestinian or Lebanese? I think leveling villages is leveling villages. Whether it's a Christian village or a Muslim village. Calling it a Christian village. I know the intention is not negative. The intention is to make it relatable to the West. But calling it a Christian village, I think is just.
- [23:47]
A
No. I think it's also because there's been so much anti Islamic propaganda promoted by Zionists that people just automatically assume, well, they destroyed the Muslim vil. Muslims and terrorists and criminals who were doing nasty things. So the Israelis had no choice but to retaliate. But it really was a Christian, fully Christian, peaceful village that didn't fire a single bullet by the admission of the Zionists themselves. But still it had to be destroyed. And there's about 400 to 500 of these villages that were destroyed in 1947 to 1948.
- [24:18]
B
So we have this issue what's we are where we are. And there comes a point where past has to become past. I know it's difficult to say that. And I, I learned that when I, when I interviewed President Kagame of Rwanda and he went through the Rwandan genocide and how he was able to turn a new page after one of the most horrific, if not the most horrific genocide since the Holocaust. You know, the Rwanda genocide is, is, you know, words cannot explain how, how disgusting it was. It was just insane. Neighbors killing teachers killing students, students killing teachers, neighbors killing one another, husbands and wives killing one another. It was insane. And he said, mario, we had. The only way for us to move forward was to turn a new page and, you know, past the spots. Bygones. The bygones, and no seeking revenge whatsoever. The Tutsis can't seek revenge on the Hutus, if I have the names correctly. So. And I feel like the only solution to the Palestine Israeli issue is turning a new page and it's easier said than done. That's my belief. But that's coming from someone that hasn't done a deep study of it as you and others have. So I'd love to get your thoughts on that, what you think of what I said, but more importantly, what you think is the solution to that issue.
- [25:33]
A
No, I agree with you entirely. And I think, you know, there will have to come a point at which a new page is going to be turned. This is going to happen then this isn't an eternal conflict. People like to pretend that it's been thousands of years that's going on. It's nonsense. It's all, it's really, really eight decades or a century or so. And you know, there have been much bloodier conflicts. Germany and France killed far more people between themselves in longer period of, well, maybe shorter, no longer period of time. And now today, you know, they travel freely among each other and their biggest fight is over football games. So yeah, I, I, I believe that you can turn the page. The issue however, is that the page has to be turned onto a new page where everybody has the right to own property. If you don't have the right to own property, you are a slave. And so I can't take your right to own property, turn you into a slave and then tell you, hey, you know, what happened has happened. Let's let bygones be bygones, let's shake hands, be friends, establish peace on a new footing where you don't get to own property and I can get to take your property whenever I want. This is ultimately the problem. As I see it. The problem is that Zionism and the Israeli project is just completely incapable of understanding the concept of Palestinians having any right. It's just completely incapable of thinking of it. It's just in a sense so narcissistic and self centered what it's all about. Well, we need our Jewish state. We need our Jewish state. We need our state. We need our state. We need our state. That it is completely inconceivable, the idea that this can carry costs to other that are unacceptable to the other, that are violation of the rights of the others and that this is then a problem, it's a moral problem and then it becomes a problem because it blows back because people don't appreciate this happening to them just like you wouldn't. So this inability to understand this point is why all this stuff about let's turn a new page is missing the point. Yes, we can turn a new page when we get rid of this system that makes it so that a Palestinian who's born in Palestine, like I was, is denied the right to own land, is to have. Has his land taken from him at all times simply because they're not Jewish. So if you want to start a new page, it needs to be a page in which people have the same right. And it's not a page where somebody is just born into a system where they can't have the right to own things. And this isn't some kind of, you know, leftist idea of we need justice, we need reparations, we need. No, no, no. It's simply about the basic right to property. And as an economist, as an Austrian economist, I'm somebody who comes from the Austrian economic tradition, I've really come to appreciate and understand this. And it's really what's given me the clarity to understand the Palestinian, Israeli conflict. Because understanding economics, understanding the view of how economics is so essential for the building of civilization shows us that really, property rights are the f. Foundation of society. They're the foundation of civilization. They're the foundation of capitalism. This is what my favorite economists, Mises and Rothbard are always talking on, talking about. You have to have property rights if you want to have a society. If you don't have property rights, the alternative is not that we have a system that is, you know, a utopian one or the other. The alternative is that we are monkeys slinging our feces at each other in the jungle. Without property rights, we can't build anything. We can't produce anything more sophisticated than our own feces. Because if you don't have property rights, anytime I try to produce something, somebody can take it away from me. So I'm never going to invest. So we can only live as civilized human beings if we have the security of property rights for the long term. And the problem with Israel is that it denies that to the people it rules over, because they consider these people to be subhuman, essentially, and they don't think that it is an issue to deny them. You know, they can just leave. And of course, the, the tragedy comes from the fact that the world has accepted this. You know, the world doesn't accept this generally. You can't go, you know, the Spanish government can't just go and kick out the Catalan people from Catalonia and say, we're going to just take this into Spain. We're going to deny Catalans the right to own property. We're going to start confiscating the land and giving it to Spaniards and kicking out all the Catalans. If Spain was going to do this, Spain would be in a lot of trouble. It would be kicked out of all kinds of international treaties. People would stop trading with it. The reason Israel gets away with it is because it has this special exception that Israel is a special exception. It can get away with it. And there's this kind of the liberal fantasy of the Zionism is this idea that we can just get this one exception. We get this one get out of jail free card in 1947, 1948, where we had to do some nasty things. But then, you know, we're going to go back to being normal. And it doesn't work that way. Because if you give somebody an exemption to law and to natural law, the idea that somebody just gets to kill and steal with impunity, they're not just going to use that once. They're not just going to. All right, thank you. I got that. I got a country out of it. I stole a whole country out of it. Okay, I'm gonna put that card back and I'm not going to use it again. Thank you very much. They're going to use it everywhere. It's just the founding ethos of the country is that other people's stuff is ours. So whether it's the land of Palestine in 1947 or 1948 or 1967, in the west bank in Gaza or in Lebanon today or in Syria today, or if it's American money or if it's American weapons, or if it's American military, it's all for the taking. Because the entire state was built on the idea that we get the exception where we can do whatever we want and take whatever we want, and therefore, why stop now? And this is, you know, the more open and honest Israeli politicians are the ones who say this, what we are asking for in the west bank is no different than what we did in 1947 and 1948. They're very open about it, they want to do it and they're on track to doing it, and the world is funding it.
- [31:45]
B
So what would it take for that to change?
- [31:50]
A
I think the answer really lies in Zionism. I think the, you know, the, the brutal reality is either Zionism is changed in a way that allows it to accept Palestinians and non Jews living in Israel with equal rights, or it's going to continue to be a terrible, bloody conflict. And, you know, until total extermination of one side or both. And it's, it's, it's, it's horrific. And there's, there's, there's no easy way to see any other kind of alternative. And I think, you know, the, the, the Zionist fantasy maybe came closest to its realization over the last couple of years. And what was missing was the final knockout blow of the Iranian regime. If they managed to do that, I think it would have been, it would have been probably likely that they would have continued expanding territorially into the west bank and Gaza, south Lebanon, southwest Syria, expelled millions of people from their home. Over the coming decade or two, they may still do it, but I think maybe the failure to defeat Iran might be.
- [33:02]
B
Shift the balance of power. Shift the balance of power and move away from the impunity they've had being the superpower in the region. And maybe that led to also the sentiment shift in the US that also we need that impunity removed. Once that impunity removed, then they have to deal with reality and find more pragmatic solutions. Then that impunity will be removed by having another power of the region, but more importantly, removing that carte blanche that was given to them by the US for so many years and decades. And I think we're seeing the beginning of that. So that's why maybe finally it's a good time to be mildly and cautiously hopeful and optimistic.
- [33:38]
A
Yes, there's an element to it. I think it's probably too early to, to, to, to. To announce the death of the special relationship, as they call it, America and the U.S. i think, you know, this deal in Iran is, I mean, everybody wants it to happen, but the fact that they're not releasing the Memorandum of understanding so far, the fact that it's all heading up is just obviously.
- [34:02]
B
I saw a report there. I saw a report they're signing a new MOU in two days. Not sure if you saw that. I saw it briefly. I'm going to do a deep dive into it after this interview. So it's like two days. They're gonna do another, Another MOU signed electronically. I'm not talking about the Friday one in Switzerland.
- [34:19]
A
Yeah, yeah. So it doesn't look like this is really going to be resolved anytime soon. And I think it's, I think the US is not done extirpating the parasites. I think it's going to continue to, you know, I mean, the Israeli still control the political side of the US and not just the political, you know, not just the Congress, but all kinds of institutions, the presidency of the Congress, judges everywhere. There are so many tentacles of power that they, you know, they're using this now to try and get in on the intelligence in the military because then,
- [34:57]
B
oh, I saw section 224 in the NDAA.
- [35:00]
A
Yeah.
- [35:01]
B
That's why it's a very, very cautiously optimistic no, I love your explanation Cypher Dean. I'll put it when we post this on X. I'll put the tweet where you explain it in much more in depth of the root cause of the issue but also how you recommend to address it. But I enjoyed the conversation. I appreciate you jumping on and going through it with me and kind of explaining it to me. So I'd love to have you again to continue the conversation. Hopefully we'll see more developments heading in the right direction.
- [35:31]
A
I hope so too. Thank you so much for having me. Mario. Pleasure talking to you.
- [35:34]
B
Pleasure is mine.