Former Interim President of Israel Avraham Burg Speaks Out on Netanyahu’s Killing Spree

Summary

The Tucker Carlson Show

Episode: Former Interim President of Israel Avraham Burg Speaks Out on Netanyahu’s Killing Spree
Air Date: March 23, 2026
Host: Tucker Carlson
Guest: Avraham ("Avrum") Burg, former Speaker of the Knesset and Interim President of Israel

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Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation between Tucker Carlson and Avraham Burg, a senior Israeli statesman and prominent critic of the current Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu. As Israel finds itself entrenched in a volatile new war with Iran, Burg shares his critical insights on Israel’s political and military strategies, the roots of its existential mindset, its changing place in the region, and the dangers of a religiously fueled, zero-sum approach to conflict. The conversation is frank, bleakly humorous at times, and rich with historical context and personal reflection.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Israel’s "Strategy": Tactics Without a Strategic Goal

• No Real Strategy (04:28–07:47)

  • Burg argues Israel lacks a unified strategic vision, instead relying on a "compilation of many tactics" that do not add up to a coherent plan.
  • "The military does what it does best, simply hammer the nail." (Avram Burg, 04:28)
  • Israelis, says Burg, want the war to end but are caught in a reactive cycle, driven by fear and opportunistic decisions.

• Israeli vs. American Mindset

  • "You Americans, you see an aim, so you take an aim and aim and aim... We are a lot about yala, let’s shoot it." (Avram Burg, 05:53)
  • Burg describes a cultural difference: Americans are preoccupied with process; Israelis, with immediate action.

2. The Myth of Israeli Superpower Status

• Distorted Self-Image (08:02–10:03)

  • Many Israelis, especially young people, grossly overestimate their country’s size, influence, and military might.
  • Anecdote from a high schooler: “Why won’t we do to them what we did to them in Afghanistan?” (08:02) — reflecting confusion and inflated self-perceptions.

• Zero-Sum Mentality (10:03–12:49)

  • Israeli political culture, especially among leadership, is about absolute victory and humiliation of adversaries.
  • “We live in a zero sum game... I want to win alone. I want you to be dead, I want to humiliate you, I want to cancel you, whomever you are my enemy.” (Avram Burg, 10:03)
  • This view, he says, has crowded out reconciliatory politics in Israel and fostered a perpetual, existentially framed conflict.

3. The Roots of the Israeli Outlook

• A Culture Boiled Hard by History (14:52–19:14)

  • Burg reflects on the psychological impact of Jewish and Israeli historical trauma, comparing himself to an egg hardened by boiling.
  • Israel’s political rhetoric is stuck in a grammar of survival and existential threat, rarely able to shift toward real reconciliation, even when peace is on the table (e.g., Sadat’s peace offer; Oslo Accords).
  • “We never grew up into the challenge of Sadat, never… We never walked all the way with the Egyptians, with the Palestinians…” (Avram Burg, 16:39)

• Paradox of Power (19:03–23:29)

  • “As Israel has become more objectively powerful, it has felt more threatened, more endangered.” (Tucker Carlson, 19:03; Burg affirms)
  • Israel is less under military threat than in earlier decades, but faces existential threats of international pariah status and potential nuclear escalation.

4. Opportunism and Netanyahu’s Mission

• How Did This War Start? (25:55–32:02)
  • Burg claims the current war with Iran began largely from opportunism, not a fundamental threat.
  • “The immediate trigger was an awful one. Ah, we had an opportunity. Since when you declare a war because there is an opportunity? That’s the worst opportunistic reason I’ve ever heard in my life.” (Avram Burg, 26:16)
  • Netanyahu’s worldview is formed by deep-seated Jewish distrust of the world (“classic Jewish paranoia”) combined with a neoconservative, Huntington-style clash-of-civilizations outlook.

5. U.S.–Israel Dynamics & Historical Narratives

• Netanyahu and Trump (32:02–39:05)

  • Burg sees Netanyahu as both fearful of Trump’s unpredictability and skillful at manipulating him (“puppeteering the president”).
  • The U.S.-Israel relationship, Burg suggests, is increasingly driven by appeals to Christian Zionism and historical legacy, not shared liberal values.

• Perceived Strategic Interests

  • Burg speculates that Trump is motivated by a desire for historic legacy (“saved the Jews”) and avoidance of being remembered as the president who allowed another Holocaust.

6. Israel’s Relationship with Gaza and Self-Image

• Gaza: The “Moral Abyss” (39:05–44:03)

  • Burg sharply criticizes the conduct of the war in Gaza, insisting atrocities on both sides “do not justify each other.”
  • "You have two crime scenes do not nihilate each other, do not balance each other, do not justify each other." (Avram Burg, 40:13)
  • Most Israelis, he says, remain profoundly uninformed (or uninterested) about Gaza—its people erased from Israeli media narratives.

• Media and Isolation (44:03–49:51)

  • Israeli society consumes overwhelmingly Hebrew-language media, which filters out international criticism and dissent. “The weaponizing of antisemitism... enables us to reject any kind of legitimate criticism.” (44:03)
  • Israeli Jews are demographically split between “Christian world Jews” (Ashkenazi) and “Muslim world Jews” (Sephardim), but feel disconnected from both Europe and the Middle East, leaving the country isolated, “like the Kingdom of Jerusalem of the Crusades.”

7. Israeli Views of the U.S. and Internal Contradictions

• Love/Hate for America (50:37–54:53)

  • Israelis admire America, desire its lifestyle, but regard Americans as “childish and naive.”
  • Frustration with American approaches to immigration and the idea of equality before the law—contrasts with Israel’s lack of constitution and sharp divisions over the role of religion, democracy, and identity.

• Indifference to American Jewry

  • Within Israel, American Jews are politically sidelined in favor of evangelical support; religious pluralism is not accepted.

8. The Religious Turn in Israeli Politics and War

• Religious War & Messianism (56:45–61:52)

  • The conflict is shifting from national/political to religious: “October 7th was the first round of the full-scale religious war. Jewish fundamentalism at the Israeli government and Muslim fundamentalism at the Hamas government.” (Avram Burg, 56:52)
  • The war with Iran is framed as the first “religious fundamentalist world war”—with Jewish, Christian, and Islamic fundamentalists clashing.

• Dangers of Escalation: The Temple Mount

  • Burg warns of the real and repeated attempts by messianic groups to destroy the Al Aqsa complex and rebuild the Temple—the dedication of a radical minority can overwhelm the apathy or opposition of the majority, with civilization-altering consequences.
  • “If this [the destruction of Al Aqsa] God forbid will happen, I’m afraid it will trigger the masses all over the Muslim world that this might topple down a few regimes... It is much more volatile and explosive than a nuke.” (Avram Burg, 66:03)

9. The Radicalization of Israeli Society & State

• From Secular Socialism to Religious Nationalism (72:44–75:22)

  • Israel has rapidly shifted, in Burg’s view, toward a “democracy in deficit... very religious, very harsh capitalist, libertarian almost.”
  • The struggle is not just over policy, but over Israel’s soul: “Jewish and democratic” is a hollow, contested term; the future may be religious and nationalist or could swing back to secular-liberal values.

• Greater Israel and Settlements (75:22–80:08)

  • Though “Greater Israel” rhetoric is real among radicals, Burg believes broad annexation or permanent expansion of borders is unlikely; he predicts most settlements will be removed in time.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "The military does what it does best, simply hammer the nail."
  — Avram Burg (04:28)
• "We live in a zero sum game. If there is a competition... I want to win alone. I want you to be dead, I want to humiliate you, I want to cancel you, whomever you are my enemy."
  — Avram Burg (10:03)
• "[October 7th] was the first round of the full-scale religious war... The war in Iran now, from my point of view, is the first religious fundamentalist war. World war, Jewish fundamentalism, Christian fundamentalism and Jewish fundamentalism at the battlefield."
  — Avram Burg (56:52)
• "Gaza is the moral abyss in which Israel collapsed into."
  — Avram Burg (43:24)
• "If this [the destruction of the Al Aqsa mosque] God forbid will happen, I’m afraid it will trigger the masses all over the Muslim world ... It is much more volatile and explosive than a nuke."
  — Avram Burg (66:03)
• "Being in a minority and a Jew, it’s not a problem. So were the prophets, so were the rabbis, so were the intellectuals. So what? It’s a responsibility."
  — Avram Burg (94:38)

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Timestamps for Significant Segments

| Timestamp | Topic/Question | |-----------|---------------| | 00:50–04:28 | Tucker sets up the issue: Israel, antisemitism charges, need for dissenting voices | | 04:28–05:53 | Burg: Israel has no real strategy, only tactics | | 08:02–10:03 | Israeli superpower self-image; disconnect from reality | | 10:03–12:49 | Zero-sum mentality in Israeli political culture | | 14:52–19:14 | Historical trauma and the "hardened egg" psychology | | 25:55–32:02 | War with Iran: Opportunism, not existential necessity | | 32:09–39:05 | Netanyahu’s manipulation of Trump; U.S.-Israel relations | | 39:05–44:03 | How Gaza is erased from Israeli consciousness | | 44:03–49:51 | Isolation—caught between Europe and the Middle East | | 56:45–61:52 | Shift to religious violence and messianism in Israel’s conflicts | | 65:36–66:03 | Dangers of attempts to destroy the Al Aqsa complex | | 72:44–75:22 | Transformation of Israeli society and the religious/secular divide | | 75:22–80:13 | Fate of the settlements, 'Greater Israel' aspirations | | 81:23–86:04 | The risk of nuclear escalation and a call for a WMD-free Middle East | | 86:04–92:50 | What if U.S. loses global leadership? The prospects for Europe | | 92:50–98:28 | On being a public dissenter in Israel; the value of minority views |

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Closing Thoughts

Avraham Burg’s testimony is a rare, candid, and often uncomfortable inside view of Israel’s recent trajectory, particularly under Netanyahu. He sharply critiques the lack of vision, the deepening radicalization, and the erasure of both peace and Palestinian humanity from the Israeli discourse. Throughout, Burg calls for moral clarity, the importance of alternative voices, and the urgent need for dialogue—within Israel, and between peoples—supported by history, but not beholden to cycles of trauma. The episode is striking in its blend of historical sweep, practical urgency, and personal experience.

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For listeners seeking clarity on Israel’s internal debates, the escalation with Iran, and what’s at stake in the region—morally, politically, and existentially—this is an unmissable, thought-provoking conversation.

Transcript

[Tucker Carlson]

The Global Gaming League is presented by Atlas Earth, the fun cashback app. Hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my How We do it gaming team take on Gilly the king and wallow. 2, 6, $7 million gaming in an epic global Gaming League video game showdown. Plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match right [e-mail] that's globalgamingleague.com in partnership with Level Up Expo. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and its many organized cheerleaders here in the United States have for some time now made the case that all criticism of their government is antisemitism. And it is because their government somehow speaks for all Jews globally. Every Jewish person is represented by the Netanyahu government. Therefore, the actions of the Netanyahu government represent every Jew on this planet. And any criticisms of that government are by definition an attack on every Jew. They are anti Semitism. It's a position that doesn't make any sense, but it's kind of hardened into a consensus in the United States, at least for right now.

[Avram Berg]

And.

[Tucker Carlson]

And if you think about it for a moment, it's not only incorrect, it's a kind of slander against Jews. It is itself a kind of antisemitism. Because, no, not all Jews are represented by Benjamin Netanyahu, and there are many who don't want to be. And that's true even within Israel. Yes, polling consistently shows that most Israelis were in favor of the war. But in Israel, as in all countries, most people don't really know the details of what is happening or why. And that's by design. Israel is a particularly censored place. It's also a particularly small place, fewer than 10 million people. And so its citizens, by and large, live the same way we do, in an information vacuum where what they know is determined by somebody else for political reasons. All of which makes it very important to do our best to break the spell of this, to hear from people who disagree and hear them explain why people who have some credibility and knowledge, not just wackos with weird opinions, but thoughtful people who have a dissenting view. And one of those people is a man called Avram Berg. Berg is in his early 70s. He was born in Israel. He's from a prominent Zionist family, and he himself was a prominent political figure for many years. He was a member of the Knesset. He was speaker of the Knesset. The Israeli Parliament, its lawmaking body, its Congress. He was even interim president of Israel at one point. So his opinions may represent the minority of Israeli opinion, but he himself is not a fringe figure. He was at the very center of Israeli politics. Once again, he was the interim president of the country. And in the hours after this current war broke out, he wrote a very strong op ed in the Israeli press explaining why it was a terrible idea, why it didn't serve Israel's interests, and while the people doing it had no idea why they were doing it. It's a pretty brave thing to say in the middle of a country at war, but he said it because he's a pretty brave guy, agree or disagree. So we thought it would be worthwhile to hear directly from him. Avren Berg from Israel, Here it is. Avrum Berg, thank you very much for doing this. I want to ask you about something that's happening right now. Apparently so. The President of the United States issued a statement this morning saying that because of ongoing negotiations between the US And Iran, the US Would not actually commence with hitting civilian infrastructure as he'd promised, and that we're going to try and work something out diplomatically this week, almost immediately after issuing that statement, there were reports that the Israeli military was hitting civilian infrastructure in Iran. Assuming that's true, what do you make of that? What strategy does that suggest?

[Avram Berg]

The same strategy that Israel has for years. No strategy in Israel. In many, many cases, the compilation of many tactics sometimes assemble into a de facto strategy, but otherwise nothing. I mean, just look at the last two hours. When was the announcement of the president? The surprising one? Two hours ago. And you have a bundle of messages coming from all directions. The first and the most important one, Hallelujah. They're going to renew the flights so we can go for Passover vacation. That's the immediate reaction of many Israelis, my daughter included. The second is, oh, Netanyahu knew altogether. I mean, Netanyahu is behind the move, as if framing it as his own move. And then, oh, Trump, oh, he is so softy, he's so weak, he doesn't have any resilience. The Iranians, they trick him, etc. Etc. Etc. Bottom line is nobody has a clue. And in this chaos, the military does what it does the best, simply hammer the nail.

[Tucker Carlson]

But you're suggesting that those tactics, the one we're seeing today and the ones we've seen for the last month, don't add up to a strategy. There's no strategic goal in mind.

[Avram Berg]

I listened to you very carefully in the last couple of weeks. And the way you try to conceive the Israeli strategy from Netanyahu's 40 years life mission to the greater land of Israel, biblically speaking, or messianic, eschatological one. And I envy you that you really believe that we have something like that. Okay, it doesn't work that way. I mean, in a way, then let's start somewhere else. I mean, somebody once told me that what's the difference between an Israeli and an American? Among many differences, is that we Israelis, we see an aim, so we aim and we shoot. You Americans, you see an aim, so you take an aim and aim and aim and aim and aim. You are a lot about process and we are a lot about yala, let's shoot it. And there is a difference here. I have no idea what's the American strategy. I do not know what was the end game. I have no idea what is the final design the architects of the White House or the Washington really had in mind. I can tell you one thing for sure. Israel wants to remove the Iranian monster because part of it is a real threat and part of it because we pumped it to the size of a monster. So we are fighting, in a way, a real demon and a demon which is our own creation. So what we want to do is we don't like the war, we want it to end. We don't like the missiles, we hate the sirens, we skip nights after nights of sleeping. But once we are into it, we are, let's make sure that it's over. So the real will of many Israelis is let's get over with the Iranians.

[Tucker Carlson]

The problem is the relative size. Israel is a small country, Iran is a large country. How exactly do Israelis expect that's going to happen?

[Avram Berg]

Size wise and number wise, we are, let's say 10 million in a good day and they are 100 million in an average day. In a way, many Israelis do not really measure it this way. Many Israelis believe that we are a kind of a superpower. A couple of weeks ago, I was in a high school somewhere and I promoted my good old no goodnik peace agenda, okay? And one of the students stood up and said, avram, can I ask you a question? I said, yes, please do. And he said, why won't we do to them what we did to them in Afghanistan? And I said, I know Gaza, I know Lebanon, I know Syria, I know Egypt. What did we do to whom in Afghanistan? I mean, we haven't been there yet. And I asked him, where are you from originally? And he said, I Was born in Moscow. And I said to myself, haha, he thinks like a Russian. And I asked him, tell me, how many Jews are there in the world now, Tucker? With no hesitation he said ah, 54.3. Okay, and how many Israelis are we? He said something like 20 million. In the eyes of many Israelis, we're not just superpower technologically and superpower economically and a regional hegemon politically. We have the numbers, the numbers in economy, the numbers in support, the numbers in demography, without really calculating what are the real numbers. So when you ask the Israelis how simply do it

[Tucker Carlson]

and what will the end victory look like from an Israeli perspective? How will Israelis know they've won?

[Avram Berg]

I don't have a good answer for this question. At a sense that in many cases the American or the Western way of thinking is usually a kind of a win win. I mean, we end the war and we make sure that we left at the other side somebody to talk with. I mean, yes, it is ridiculous that American president is saying I would like to talk with somebody, but there is nobody there because I killed him. Okay, this is your own oxymoron. This is a paradox that I take it you intellectually, you know how to square this circle. Okay, but from the Israeli point of view, in many, many cases, philosophically, no, psychologically, we do not live in a win win situation. We live in a zero sum game. If there is a competition, if there is a race, if there is a war, if there is a battle, if there is a conflict that ends up that Tucker, enough room, profits. Something is wrong with me. I want to win alone. I want you to be dead, I want to humiliate you, I want to cancel you, whomever you are my enemy. And when you look at this philosophy, you understand where comes the political rhetoric that every adversary, never mind who is he, minor or major, but the end of the day he is a Hitler. And every decade we have a new Adolf Hitler. And since everybody is the arch enemy, there is only one solution to this, one enemy, removal. And therefore, when you ask me what is the Israeli political echelon, forget about the people in the street, the political echelon approach toward any kind of resolution, whatever it is, it's not a dialogist one. Now it is not just about Netanyahu, which is a case by himself. When you look at what is allegedly called opposition in Israel, they simply compete with the government, who is more aggressive, who is more as if resilient, who has more so called creative solution to the enemy. We have to demolish and obliterate and this is why you hardly find in Israel any reconciliatory politics.

[Tucker Carlson]

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[Avram Berg]

When I was in school in high school, every other week the rabbi I was in a in a religious high school in a religious academy, yeshiva. So the rabbi used to call my mom. My father was busy so he used to call my mom and said, you have a very, very talented boy child. He's like an egg. The more I boil him, the harder he becomes. Now in A way our life experience as Jews in the last couple of thousands of years and Israelis in the last couple of decades boiled us into a very, very hard, stiff neck egg. On one hand we never trusted hands offered to us and on the other hand we never experience to extend our own hands. I'll give you two examples. The rhetorics of Israel since 48 is a rhetoric of survival, of existential threats, of permanent imminent war. Out of nowhere came President Saadat to Israel. I remember myself as a young soldier at 73 war at the other side of the Suez Canal, in a foxhole in the desert in the middle of the night, pack a frightened 18 years old boy. And I was listening to the then iPhone transistor, do you remember the transistor with the rusty voice?

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh yeah.

[Avram Berg]

And I heard President Sadat in the middle of the night say, I'm ready to sacrifice a million and a half Egyptian soldiers in order to redeem the Sinai Peninsula. And I said, holy, holy God. Million and a half Egyptian soldiers against me. Abraham Bug, a jubo from Jerusalem. I was frightened to death. And then four years later he came to Jerusalem and I'm running now. I'm a released paratrooper officer young one running after his convoy and chant, no more war, no more bloodshed. It was redemption, it was eschatological, it was messianic. It was the first time Israel was offered a different syntax, from a syntax of war to a grammar of peace. We never grew up into the challenge of Saadat, never. We never walked all the way with the Egyptians, with the Palestinians, as was part of the original Camp David framework. And we rejected it. Even when, couple of years later, Oslo deus ex machina. Out of nowhere, Oslo came to the world as problematic as now. We know de facto that Oslo was at the time when it was launched, it was an eruption of hope. It was again an offer for a different language. We didn't grow into it. So Israel does not have a vocabulary or state of mind to talk peace now. There is a different layer that I'm not at all sure we are. It's too early in the conversation between us. But this is the transformation from eternal Judaism that was a religion of powerlessness. And if I would like to use Vaclav Havel terminology, we had the power of powerlessness and we transformed into Israelis with the power of the Almighty and we feel much more threatened.

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, there's a paradox. So as Israel has become more objectively powerful, it has felt more threatened, more endangered.

[Avram Berg]

Yep, yep, yep.

[Tucker Carlson]

It does seem like if you were to, just as an outsider, it does seem like Israel is more threatened. And it does seem like if it had continued on the trajectory from the Sadat talks or from Oslo in the way that you suggest, it would be less threatened. I think objectively that's probably true.

[Avram Berg]

Or maybe both. Maybe at the same time, we have opportunities and the threats are better threats, so to say. Let's look at numbers just for a second. When I was a student, I mean, at elementary school, a pupil, we were told that in 48, the year in which the state of Israel was born, seven Arab armies invaded the just born state of Israel. So 48 it was seven verses, one in 67, 19 years later, it was only three out of the seven. Jordan, Egypt and Syria. Six years later, in 73, it was only two out of the three, only Syria and Egypt. Ever since, as broken as it is and as chilly as it is with Egypt, we have a peace agreement and Syria, in a very good day, is a dysfunctioning threat. And the Palestinian issue that was not there in 48, the way it is today, was born along the road. So you can say, listen, in eight decades, 48 to 26, from seven armies to half a problem, which is the Palestinian one. This is an evolution, this is a positive progress. And in a way it is. And this is before we count in the potential of Saudi Arabia, the potential of the Emirates, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. On the other hand, two elements emerged as well. The first is Israel, that at least in 2, 3 stages in its life, was fully accepted among the family of nations, 48 and its euphoria 67 and the eruption of redemptive feelings all over the world, maybe. And the atrocities of 10-7-23, three times that Israel in conflict time. This is beside Camp David, beside Oslo, beside other positive peace agreements, but in a conflict situation that Israel was well received and well accepted in the world. And then we must ask ourselves, how was it wasted? How comes that two years ago, three years ago, Israel, three years ago, in 23, Israel was so well sympathized with all over the world, and now so despised. So the threat of being rejected, of being a world pariah, maybe it's not a military one, but it's a deeper one, it's an existential one. And the other is assuming that the Iranians would have had a nuclear capability that very soon will lead to a chain of reactions, that others will have nuclear weapons in the Middle east without using the weapons. But a Middle east with mass destruction weapons is a different scale of a threat for many, but for Israel especially so I will say yes, we have better relationship with many and the situation is not 48 is not 67, is not even 23. But the threats are not gone. They were transformed and different and require different strategy and philosophy and value system

[Tucker Carlson]

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[Avram Berg]

How did, sorry, this, this current war,

[Tucker Carlson]

this month old war against Iran. There's debate in the United States about how it started, whether or not the United States was pursuing its own interest, defending itself from Iran, or whether President Trump followed the lead of Prime Minister Netanyahu. What's your view?

[Avram Berg]

If we go back to your initial introduction or your immediate question you bombarded me with without any introduction. Okay. You said we have no clue what's going on. So we do not know. We don't yet have information neither about the launching of the campaign, neither nor about the continuation of it. So in a world with no information on a realm of no information between me and you, we can look at the gestalt, we can look at the frameworks of what happened, the details, Tetris like will fall in. And I will say the immediate trigger was an awful one. Ah, we had an opportunity. Since when you declare a war because there is an opportunity? I mean, that's the worst opportunistic reason I've ever heard in my life. My father was a very wise man, used to say about one of his colleagues, that's a man of principles, principle number one, opportunism. And I say, what kind of a principle is this one to declare such a world war in a volatile reality that China is out there waiting for something and Russia and Ukraine is ambushing us and now you have to have another front. So the immediate trigger that we had an opportunity, I would say whatever was the opportunity, using it was an unjust, immoral trigger. The larger frame is Netanyahu life mission. I take it that it requires more than one Taka Khalson and more than two hours between you and me, or five hours or as long as we can tolerate each other in order to understand this figure. He's a very, very interesting individual and a very, very significant leader of a state in this time. Significant. I hope it's natural enough because I don't have much of much of sympathy to his leadership. However he's there, he's significant where his life mission is coming from. And I will say that it has two drivers. One is very Jewish and one is very conservative. The very Jewish is in a way like my mom, my mom believed that the world is divided. 50, 50, 50% Jews and 50% who hate the Jews, which means she believes we are something like 3.5 billion people. We the Jews, okay? And the rest of you, whomever you are, do not like us. So this notion that the entire world is against us and you cannot trust nobody but ourselves is embedded in the Jewish conscience ever since, maybe even since the Bible, since biblical time. But for sure later on and the exilic period instilled it into our psyche. So we do not trust and therefore we are not being trusted. In a way, there is a dialogue of not trusting here. So Netanyahu is part of this classic Jewish paranoia. The entire world is against us. At the same time, he is a very kind of a 70s, 80s, 90s conservative and your hobby neocon. To say we are the children of light and are all of those offsprings of darkness and our life mission is to push them back, our life mission is to fight them. Is never compromise, never realize if there is somebody out there that we can communicate with, maybe they are not a monolithic, monolithic group of people, maybe like us, that divided, that dissected. There is the diversion. There is a richness of expressions in ideologies and values and religious manifestation. No, no, no, no. They are all, all of them. And when you listen to Netanyahu, Huntington, through Netanyahu, he is the leader of our civilization of light versus whomever is the civilization of darkness. So his built in classic Jewish paranoia that many Jews have, some of it, rightly so, some of it molded into it, and part of it is part of a world view that you know better than I do because you explore it almost a couple of times a week. And this is the mistrusting Christian west who does not trust anybody but itself. And when you look at some of their attitude towards Europe itself does not even trust itself. So where this war started, it started with an opportunity in a frame of mind.

[Tucker Carlson]

How do you think Prime Minister Netanyahu sees President Trump?

[Avram Berg]

He's afraid of him because he's unexpected. I don't know if the term whimsical is a right one, but he's unexpected. I believe the more I monitor the actions of the President, that there is a kind of a worldview behind it. Not always articulated the jury, but de facto I can realize some things there. So first, Netanyahu is fearful of the unexpected. The second, Netanyahu is so talented that he took the disadvantage and made it his prime advantage how to puppeteer the president. So I will Say he has a dual feeling, a fear and a know how, how to use this fear for his advantage. Now look at the patron. How many American presidents saw Israeli prime ministers as their elder brothers, like Clinton and Rabin, George W. Bush and Ehud Olmert. Maybe not elder brother, but an experienced one. Golda Meyer and Nixon. So there is there a kind of older, younger brother relationship between Israeli prime ministers and American presidents that Netanyahu, with his vast experience and malicious intentions, knows how to use also this leverage point in order to promote his agenda with this American president.

[Tucker Carlson]

How do you think he did it? What were the leverage points?

[Avram Berg]

I heard you with this, how you call him the prophet, the Canadian prophet, this weekend.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yes. It's interesting.

[Avram Berg]

I'll tell you something very funny in a second, if I may. He came with four theories, how it happened. I'll tell you something very, very simple. It's a chemistry between two charmers. Listen, Taka, I cannot stand you, but you're a nice person, so I talk with you, okay? I mean, you know, I'll take that

[Tucker Carlson]

as a half compliment.

[Avram Berg]

Yes, of course, I know. I mean, it's a one and a half. And you know my position. And despite or in spite my positions, we're talking. Yes, so, so, so there is something there at a very personal chemistry that simply worked. And Netanyahu is, is, is a brilliant campaigner. Listen, when you walk out of the room with Netanyahu, check your sleeves, whether you have your hands into them still. Maybe he stole your hands out of your sleeves. This is how talented he is. He picked his pocket and so did Trump. To him, they use each other.

[Tucker Carlson]

I don't understand. I mean, I understand half of that explanation, but I don't understand what President Trump or the United States could conceivably gain from this. It seems like 100% loss to me.

[Avram Berg]

It's more a question to you as an American than a question to me as far away a subject of the American empire or the American influence zone. Okay, yes, I'm sure that there is a prophet here. Now, is the prophet, for example, a place in history as much as many authoritarian leaders, since they do not trust their people to commemorate them after they pass away, so they commemorate themselves while still alive, make sure that our libraries on them and cultural centers and bridges and airports, and you name it, okay? Still, history plays a role. And when you think of Trump coming from Manhattan with so many Jewish associations around him, he's familiar to the Jewish talk of New York, is familiar to the rhetorics of Jews and their association and affiliation with Israel. He understands that many of them sees Israel under a permanent threat of extinction. Saving Israel before the base, before the Christian Zionists. Saving Israel is, historically speaking, is almost prophetic. Listen to his rhetorics. After Gaza, I put an end to 3,000 years of a conflict. I don't know when the counting began, and still counting. Okay. Nonetheless, it's a state of mind. It's politics and history mixed. And Netanyahu, as a child, as a son of an historian, understands how to play this card.

[Tucker Carlson]

So you believe it's likely Netanyahu said to Trump, you will be recorded by history as the man who saved the Jews.

[Avram Berg]

This is on the positive side. And on the negative side is you do not want to be recorded as the one that under his God and in his shift, something so awful like the second holocaust happened to the Jews. There are two sides to this moon, the dark one and the one a bit more illuminated. Publicly you speak about the litten side of the moon. I mean, in dark rooms you speak about the dark side. We are under permanent threat. Save us.

[Tucker Carlson]

You said a minute ago that what the Israeli government has done in Gaza has permanently, or at least for the moment, made Israel into a pariah state internationally. How is Gaza seen within Israel?

[Avram Berg]

In order to touch such a volatile issue, I need a very brief introduction to offer you my own framing of this last couple of years. Whatever Israel did to the Palestinians since day 100 years ago, all the wrongdoings, the transfer, the expel, the demolition of 4, 500 communities, the Nakba, the tragedy, the catastrophe of the Palestinians, whatever we've done to them, all wrongdoings does not justify the first step and the first step towards atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th.

[Tucker Carlson]

I agree.

[Avram Berg]

None. Right. And whatever Hamas did on October 7th to the Israelis, brutal, awful crimes against humanities in the bodies of my friends and my colleagues and my fellow citizens, whatever the Hamas did to us does not justify the moral crimes and maybe even crimes against humanity that Israel exercises in Gaza ever since. You have two crime scenes do not nihilate each other, do not balance each other, do not justify each other. You have to deal with Hamas crimes and with the Israeli crimes simultaneously. As difficult as it is, and sometimes as paradoxically as it is now, this is how I see it. Most of Israelis are not in my place. Most of Israelis, Regardless of October 7th, I mean even much before October 7th, do not really know where Gaza is. Yes, it might be five minutes away from a doorstep, might be 40 minutes drive from Tel Aviv, but it's beyond the mountains of darkness. I don't know. I do not know. I don't know where is it. I haven't been there ever. When you look at the Israeli media up until October 7 and 10 times more after October 7, you never see Gazian people. You see tunnels, you see cement, you see rockets, you see demolitions, you see Hamas troops running here and there. You never see the individual Gazan people, as if there are no people there. And the report is never about the humanitarian side of it. The report is always about insurgencies, terrorists, etc. Gaza, as the awfully expressed by my President Herzog said, in Gaza there are no innocent people. God forbid to live in such a situation that you do not believe there are no innocent people. The other side, even Abraham the patriarch, believed that in Sodom and Gomorrah there are innocent people and God negotiated with him. But we are better than God and we are worse than Abraham. We simply write off any innocence in Gaza. And ever since, it did not improve. So in a way, Gaza, it's not a blind spot. Blind spot is too technical. Gaza is the moral abyss in which Israel collapsed into.

[Tucker Carlson]

I find it so striking what you just said, because Israel is such an international country. I mean, I don't know what percentage of the population was born somewhere else. And, you know, people are always in and out of Israel. I mean, it's hardly in. It's not Central Africa, it's right in the Mediterranean. It's very international, as I said. So it's interesting that many Israelis don't have a sense of what's happening just right at their southern border. What do they think when they read about it? There's so much international controversy about it. When you pull up the Internet, someone's getting mad about Gaza. How do Israelis respond to that?

[Avram Berg]

You put here two topics. The first is media report.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yes.

[Avram Berg]

And the second one is where is the existential reality of Israelis? Whom are we? When she asked you, the Economist editor, the right to exist, and you exploded, what is that? Right to exist? Okay? And I said to myself, tucker, don't get mad at her. The question is a different one. The right to exist from the point of view of being a Jewish, not for being part of the international community. Is Israel justified according to the norms it tells itself? It is the only democracy in the Middle east, the most moral army in the world, et cetera, et cetera. There it implodes. Now, let me try to answer your question first about the international reports. Most of us listen to Hebrew media only and read Hebrew media only. And the Hebrew media filters most of the non Hebrew expressions. We do not speak English, I mean, even listen to me with my Arnold Schwarzenegger accent, okay? I mean, we don't speak English, okay? We don't speak German. And if we read something about it, they're all anti Semites. And the weaponizing of antisemitism into a kind of a thick filter that enables us to reject any kind of legitimate criticism is part of the system here. So. So media wise, we hardly hear the international situation, hardly hear it. The question of what does that mean to us? I will say as follows. Up until the Second World War, 90% of the Jews in the world were Christian born Jews, what we call Ashkenazi and 10% were born in the Muslim sphere, what we call Sephardim. So it was 90% Christian world Jews and 10% Muslim world Jews. Today in Israel it is 50 50, which means the old perception that Israel is an offspring of the west of the Christendom demographically doesn't work because at least half of the Jewish Israelis, not to talk about the 20% of Palestinians with Israeli idea, but from the 80% Jews, 50% were born or offsprings of Muslim world Jewry which do not share the same legacy and the same heritage and the same tradition that Jews shared with you, which is the evolution of the West. I'll take it a step further. Yes, many of us were born in so many other places, our parents or grandparents, but most of us were born here. And here is a very strange place. On one hand we're not Europe anymore because we got disconnected. And on the other hand we never got connected to the region. So we are kind of a standalone island, totally disconnected from the region, refusing to get connected. When normalization was offered to us only two, three years ago, it was a threat. We never dwelled into the strategy what should be our relationship with the region. So much so that in a way we resemble a lot the Kingdom of Jerusalem of the Crusades, foreigners coming from the outside, circling ourselves with a kind of a self siege wars and never integrate. It is not right because there were interaction between the regional Muslims at the time and the Christians at the time. But nonetheless, the Kingdom as a political entity never wanted to be part of the region. After 200 years it expired. The State of Israel, born out of the ashes of the Holocaust for sure, but earlier on was born out of the nation state idea of getting secular. Europe, with its solutions to its national groupings, came to the Middle east, which is not part of the nation state. Thinking didn't go through the processes of secularization and revolutions. The Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the British Revolution never went through them in order to get where we are today and therefore didn't find any hooks to get connected. So we lost our western hinterland and we never ceded enough in order to grow to be part of the local fauna. So we are isolated.

[Tucker Carlson]

I think many, I don't know what they think now, but for most of my life in the U.S. many Americans regarded Israel as a kind of European ish country. That was always my opinion. Some of them felt that Israel was almost part of the United States. Not in a sinister way, but we've got so much in common. 51st state. Golda Mayer, I think was from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

[Avram Berg]

She grew up in Milwaukee.

[Tucker Carlson]

Milwaukee, right, okay.

[Avram Berg]

As they used to say at the time, the woman who made Milwaukee famous,

[Tucker Carlson]

she smoked Chesterfield cigarettes, American cigarettes. I mean, it felt very American. What is the view, would you say of most Israelis now toward the United States?

[Avram Berg]

We love it, we admire it, we want to move there. And we think you are so childish and naive.

[Tucker Carlson]

Why?

[Avram Berg]

Because this is what you are. Okay?

[Tucker Carlson]

I mean, I'm not sure I would disagree with you at all. But what about American strikes Israelis as childish and naive

[Avram Berg]

Israelis? Let's begin with a smile because it's a heavy stuff, okay? You know why we Israelis do not make love in the street? Because then everybody will come and give you advisors here. Everybody is a prime minister, everybody's a diplomat, everybody is a strategist. Everybody is Tucker Carlson. Everybody is everything. Everybody is Napoleon. We know better. And when we think about. First, begin with the west in general, okay? How don't you understand that immigration brings you down, that you compromise your own very existence? How don't you understand that the Muslim tidal wave of immigration is going to compromise your very entity? Leave aside, I don't think that many Israelis understand the exchange theology, okay? I'm not at all sure that they are exchange theory. But speaking, generally speaking, you ask Israelis how many Muslim you think there are in Europe. Something between 30 to 50%, which is far away from the number. So what do you think about America? What do you think in America? Oh, wow, wow, wow. What do you know? Michigan, in the last elections. Just show us how big is the. The Muslim minority? Obama, Hussein Obama. So you don't understand your own reality, so to say this is the kind of the experience everybody gives, advises Israeli reality at a daily. The second is it's very, very difficult for us. Very difficult for us to understand the fairness of the game. If you ask me, what does that mean to be an American, I can give you five different answers. One of them is, since you have a constitution and everybody is equal in front of the constitution or supposed to be equal in front of the constitution. There is a furnace in the game. You cannot trick me. You cannot look down at me. You cannot abuse me. I cannot abuse you. On the other hand, we don't understand it. We Israelis, we live in a reality. That constitution is a threat equality to all citizens, not just Jews and Arabs. But for the sake of it, orthodox and unorthodox, is a threat to the very existence of the state. So on one hand, as if we have shared value foundations, but when you try to translate these values into practical reality here, the gap grows. We cannot accept the American wall of separation between church and state. Impossible for us. As much as the definition of Jewish and democratic is hollow in a good day and deceiving in an average day. It's a stupid definition. But we believe it's possible

[Tucker Carlson]

and we

[Avram Berg]

cannot accept it that you are not Christian and democratic. You're democratic first. Ah, only democracy. Too weak. Not for us. And then I'll take it maybe to the last stage. Okay, we don't care. We hardly care. Unfortunately, and it pains me about American Jewry, when Netanyahu said a couple of years ago, they're Democrats, they don't support my position anyway. Let's go with the Christian Zionist, that's our political backbone. They're the best friends we have. And giving up on American Jewry beside many other things, that we don't respect them. When it comes to the law of return, when it comes to accepting the Reform and Conservative movement, religious expression, which is totally rejected by the religious establishment in Israel, et cetera, et cetera. When we look at America, we see two things and we don't accept both. On one hand, we see as if this is the total definer, the absolute definer of the democratic movement, the wokes. All Democrats are woke. And on the other hand, all the right wingers are hating Jews like Tucker Carlson. That's it. In between. What's in it for us? Okay, Silicon Valley, technology, economy, profit. But not the values. Not anymore.

[Tucker Carlson]

Is this a religious war from the Israeli perspective or from the orthodox Israeli perspective?

[Avram Berg]

This one in Iran now, never defined this way officially. I would say it's the second, me personally, who observe the situation and try to intellectualize it in order to comprehend. I will say it's the second stage of religious war. At what sense? Up until October 7, the conflict between us and Palestinians, which is bloody and malicious and awful, especially awful because it could have been resolved so many times before, was a political conflict between two national communities. So political conflicts and national conflicts, as difficult as it is, we know what to do with that. October 7th was the first round of the full scale religious war. Jewish fundamentalism at the Israeli government in Muslim fundamentalism at the Hamas government. And the philosophy of Hamas and the ideology of the Israeli government and some of its leading ministers was out in the open with rabbis and chaplains in the army and ministers and members of Knesset expressing it loud and clear. So October 7th was first chapter of the deterioration of the political conflict into a religious one. This one in Iran, which is three years later, which historically speaking is maybe the same period. It is so fast. I mean, what is it, three years in human history? It's nothing. It's not even a coma. Yes. Yet when you live it day in and day out, it's difficult, it's heavy, it's sirens, it's kids not sleeping, it's sleepless nights in fear. But it's a different one. The war in Iran now, from my point of view, is the first religious fundamentalist war. World war, Jewish fundamentalism, Christian fundamentalism and Jewish fundamentalism at the battlefield.

[Tucker Carlson]

It feels that way to me, unfortunately. I'm sorry, it feels that way to me watching this. That's exactly what it feels like.

[Avram Berg]

And the problem of you and me, as much as I take it on few many other things, we are other sides of the. Of the other side of the street on something like that, which is such an existential problem to our ideologies and our identities and our values. Never mind where are you in the other disagreements between us? We are watching. We are just watching. We didn't yet come forward and offered an alternative, a comprehensive, attractive, spiritual and political, ideological and maybe even eschatological alternative that fights them. I ask myself with shame. I cannot tell you how much. We didn't yet open the chapter of what Jewish settlers are doing in the occupied territories in the West Bank. Daily crimes against innocent Palestinians conducted by wild, savage settlers, ignored by the army and by police and supported by members of Knesset and members of the cabinet. Daily I'm full of shame. But the utmost one is where the heck are the rabbis? Where are the spiritual leaders? Maybe they're not coming because they are the insiders, because they are beyond, because they support it, because they promote it, because it promotes their messianic ends of the day eschatological philosophy and this is, as I said earlier, where classical Judaism implodes into. Into Israeli ness.

[Tucker Carlson]

How important is the rebuilding of the Temple to the people you're describing, to the cabinet ministers, to the rabbis who are not speaking up against what's happening in the occupied territories. Is there actually an effort to do that? Do you believe?

[Avram Berg]

For the people in the streets? Not the rabbis, not the people engaged, not those you ask question about to the masses. It's a non issue. I figured that it is as if a kind of. I mean, yeah, Disney World in Orlando. Okay, Yeah. I mean, do there whatever you like. I mean, just. Just give us a break. Okay. So for the masses, they are not there. On the other hand, since 67, at least 5, I'm not at all sure that not more, at least five attempts to remove the mosques from the Temple Mount were done by these groupings since 67. Which means that when you come to address this question, it is not so much about the numbers who support the removal of the temples and the removal of the mosques and the rebuilt of the temples. It is about the dedication and the readiness and the fanaticism of those who are ready to act.

[Tucker Carlson]

Let me just say I'm embarrassed. I did not know there had been five attempts to get rid of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa. So these were plots to blow them up. Is that what happened?

[Avram Berg]

Yep. Yep, huh? Yep.

[Tucker Carlson]

What happened to the perpetrators, to the plotters?

[Avram Berg]

The most famous One is the 80s, what is called the Jewish Underground. A group of settlers from the same educational system that I grew up, that I was brought up on. Some of them are friends and friends of families and people from the same school I went, et cetera. I mean, pretty like me, people who were caught, sentenced, sent to jail and got a political deal a couple of months or two years later. And few of them, if not many of them became prominent, prominent Israeli figures. One of the most important newspaper editor in Israel, Makorishon, advisors to ministers, members of Knesset, you name it, well received back into society, not excommunicated and not excluded, not secluded, not excluded. So much so that today sits in jail for life Igal Amir, who assassinated the prime minister. And there are constant voices even within the Knesset, even within the government and the Netanyahu's coalition calling for his release. So as for your question, what is the support? The support in the public is very small. The dedication of the few is very intensive.

[Tucker Carlson]

What would happen if the Al Aqsa complex were destroyed?

[Avram Berg]

Tucker, let's move on.

[Tucker Carlson]

That's how I Feel. But I don't live there. You do. So you see that as a. A profound change in world history. If that were to happen,

[Avram Berg]

I'm not at all sure that we are not already into this profound change. Yes, like this war with Iran combined with October 7, combined with other things. We're in the middle of a transformation of world order to what next Order or this order? Neither you nor me know. And maybe we don't share the same vision or what should it be, but we're in the middle of a transformation here. Now, this issue of the temple, the temple, the issue of the mosques will be, morally speaking, a coin with two sides on the Israeli side. If and when this will happen, God forbid, that will be the end of justification of the existence of the State of Israel. And if this God forbid will happen, I'm afraid it will trigger the masses all over the Muslim world that this might topple down few regimes and bring to power different powers and different regimes that the entire world order the way we knew it, will not be recognized by us anymore. Yes, it is much more volatile and explosive than a nuke.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yes, that is certainly my read on it. I don't think you're overstating it. Of course, no one can predict the future, but that seems very likely. Do you think my other sense, again, I'll allow you to have the more definitive word on it, but is that if there was ever a time it could happen, it's right now, in the middle of this war.

[Avram Berg]

The only thing I will say is that I hope that the attention of the Prime Minister is given to that also.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yes,

[Avram Berg]

that's the only hope I have. I trust him. My trust is very minimal. And this is in a very good day. I hope that he understands if something like that happens in his shift, it's bigger than him. Yes, and I hope he pays attention to it.

[Tucker Carlson]

I feel the same way about him, but I agree with you. I don't see why he would want this.

[Avram Berg]

Here we go to something else. Netanyahu is a well read person. He's not in an Alphabet, he reads books, he understands, he knows he has a vision. You can agree with him, you can disagree with him, but at least he's an interesting partner. He knows what he's talking about. Okay. What happens to him in the last couple of years is that he does not behave politically according to his wisdom. He behaves according to his political survival instinct rather than according to his ideology and philosophy. So between political survival or conservative right wing, decent right wing conservativism, if he was the right wing conservative, I would say I will oppose you, but I respect you the minute. It's the personal survival instinct only I don't accept it and I don't respect it and I suspect it. And the fact that in his cabinet there are so many influential ministers who promote this agenda and create daily provocation around the mosques troubles me. I take you a step further. How many times did you in your analysis say, listen, there are so many fanatics in politics, etc. Etc. But the Israeli army is a moderate one. They're usually the sound of reason. Okay, this is the perception we have, but pay attention. Most of the generals and the high up officers of today are people who were brought up, educated, shaped and molded at the previous times of Israel under Rabin, under Peres, under Menachem Begin, even under Ariel Sharon, in a much more responsible country. The people who climb up now, the ladder, the military ladder, are different kind of people who were brought up under the chaotic, problematic value system of Netanyahu in the settlements, educated with this kind of messianic mission to use the army as a tool to accelerate redemption. And a day will come that you will see a chief of staff with this kind of agenda. You already have the head of the Shin Bet of our secret service coming from these circles. So to trust the Israeli army to be the moderator for good might be a mistake. Pay attention.

[Tucker Carlson]

Things have changed so fast there. I mean, from an outsider's perspective, it's just a very different country from what it was even 15 years ago. That's how it feels. To me

[Avram Berg]

it is. Right. And in order to understand the shift, I will say as follows. When was your first time here in the region?

[Tucker Carlson]

25 years ago.

[Avram Berg]

Make me the 2000.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah, exactly.

[Avram Berg]

Okay, 2000 was the end of the tale of secular Israel. Israel of 48 was, as Bernie Sanders call it, socialist, but let's call it European wise, social and democratic. A very young democracy, but with a prospect to move on for a better, more developed democracy and very secular. Israel of today is democracy in deficit in a good day, harsh capitalist to the level of libertarian anarchy almost sometimes. And very religious. So Israel of 2026 is not Israel of 48, not Israel of 67 and not Israel of 2000s. Different society, different leadership, different. Different rhetorics, different ethos and pathos. And the real struggle today between the political forces. Yes, it's very personal. My personality. Your personality? My leader. Your leader. Okay, that's granted. We have it in every political system. Imagine politics with no ego. So boring. Okay, God forbid. So thank God we have some ego left. But the undercurrent is the warming cold war between religion and politics, between the Jewish and the democratic. That's the real deep struggle. Will Israel by the end of the road will be Jewish, religious, that their religion is defined by this kind of people, or will it be back a kind of a liberal democracy? And let's not argue now, what is the definition of this liberal democracy, but much more secular in its thinking and therefore speaks with the language of reason. And this is the real political struggle in Israel today. I'm hopeful, by the way, as difficult as it is, the pendulum will come back. But we have to understand what the fight is all about.

[Tucker Carlson]

Do you think, given Israel's moves since this war in the last month, right, Both in West bank and in Lebanon, do you think that Israel will have different borders by the end of. It will control more territory by the end of this?

[Avram Berg]

As much as there are enough people who buy into your suspicion that we want Israel from the Euphrates to the Nile. This is actually your question, right?

[Tucker Carlson]

How real is the Greater Israel Project? It's just hard to know. It looks real, but I don't know.

[Avram Berg]

No, I just wanted to show you that I listened to you, you see. Okay. This was just.

[Tucker Carlson]

I'm just. I'm just quoting the Torah. That's it.

[Avram Berg]

Yeah. Okay. So as much as there are these elements, which are the same elements that were behind the killing of Yitzhak Rabin and the underground to remove the mosques and those who harass the Palestinians now, etc. Etc. Etc. I do not believe that in any future that both of us will be part of it. Israel will have any legal and legitimate borders, but the 48, 49, 67 borders. There will be so many attempts, there will be so many provocations, there will be so many manipulations by all of these people, it will never work. So much so that I also wholeheartedly believe that some were. By the end of the process, most of the settlements and the settlers from the west bank will be removed as well. Yeah. Hmm.

[Tucker Carlson]

That's not the trend that we see from this vantage. Why? Why would you predict that?

[Avram Berg]

Well, Most of Israelis want to have good life as much as Netanyahu came with his prophetic vision of super Sparta. We still prefer Athens, okay? I mean, because of the souvlaki, because of the halloumi, because of whatever.

[Tucker Carlson]

Of course we prefer. Everyone prefers Athens to Sparta. Of course.

[Avram Berg]

You see, so as much as the democracy in Athens was a little bit. How shall we put it not updated?

[Tucker Carlson]

Yes.

[Avram Berg]

Okay. The original version was a little bit limited, but yet the vision of Athens as the place of aesthetic ethics and philosophy and wisdom and reason and democracy, the seeds of Western democracy. Most Israelis would like to have good life. We want to live. We want our children to live. Tucker, I cannot tell you how much I cried when my kids went to the army. I was standing there when the bus took them, and I remembered my mom telling me, kido, when you grow up, there will be peace and you will not have to serve in the army. And I did have to serve in the army. And then I said the same thing to my kids. And between my wife and myself and my kids, we have more than 30 years of service in the family now. We have grandchildren. And one day soon they will have to serve because we are citizens of the place. We are partners to their responsibility. And I know that the day in which my grandchildren generation will stand up and say, we are ready to defend the legitimate Israel, but we're not ready to sacrifice our life or to sacrifice the life of others on the altar of this craziness. This day is close. That's very reassuring. I'm sorry.

[Tucker Carlson]

That's a very reassuring thing to hear.

[Avram Berg]

I'll give you a moment that you were there with me in that moment when October 7th erupted like a volcano, covered the entire city of Naples, so to say the Israeli Naples. We were all under the dust. What was the first thing that came back to the table? Two state solution. As much as Trump said, I made it. I mean, I solved it. And Netanyahu, like Houdini, made it disappear. It came back to the table and it is still there. And you cannot ignore it, and you should not ignore it. And therefore, the pressure from within and from the outside and the reality and the options, a hope will be offered to all of us after this round with Iran will be over. There will be new options, some of them awful, some of them promising. Eventually Israelis will say, we are ready to serve the needed, but not the fantasies.

[Tucker Carlson]

Are you concerned that Israel, if this continues at the current pace, will be hit hard enough by Iran that it responds with nuclear weapons?

[Avram Berg]

The first time I thought about it was when you started to raise the issue in your programs. And I had a feeling that you are really troubled by it.

[Tucker Carlson]

Very.

[Avram Berg]

And I had a feeling that not your trouble, that Israel will be nuked or will nuke them, because the effect on so many other fronts and the nuclear race that will start right afterwards will put all of us in a real threat. So I started to think about it. I'm not so much troubled by Israel nuking them, because Israel has two strategies, since we as Jews, we could never compromise with one opinion. So we said, yeah, let's have two opinions. So we have one conventional army that is ordered to win, never mind what. And then we have the non conventional capability, which is order to win, no matter what. And I believe that every threat yet in the region we can address with conventional power and setting yet if there should be a way out of it. You promote. In the last couple of weeks, you promote the issue of all the sides who sit together around the same table. Talk respectfully to each other with no patronizing and with no arrogance. Just talk to each other. I say something as well? Yes, of course. I'm a dialogist. I talk with you. Okay, we're talking. I want the outcome of this war to be a Middle east clean of weapons of mass destruction to all Israel denied, bombs included. Now, it is clear that Iran must have North Korean strategy in order to protect itself. It didn't start with us. It started with the, with the Iraqis. Then they said, listen, the only way we can protect ourselves is to have this kind of supra capability. So in order for Iran not to have it, and therefore Saudi not to run after them, and then Egypt to say, what about us? And then the Emiratis or the Qataris buying something from Pakistan. And we should make sure that by the end of this negotiation, whatever we give to whom, because this negotiation, you give, you take, you negotiate. The outcome should be a process, a Middle east clean of weapons of mass destruction, which will be imposed on Israel as well.

[Tucker Carlson]

Who could impose that?

[Avram Berg]

President Trump, overnight.

[Tucker Carlson]

It's hard for me. I mean, again, as someone who would love to see, would be grateful to see what you just described. I want that. It's hard to see Netanyahu ever accepting that under any circumstances.

[Avram Berg]

That's right. That's right. It's difficult. It's not easy. But as my wise father, that was mentioned once already in this program, used to say, he doesn't believe in sticks and carrots. He believes in carrots and carrots. And then he said, even a carrot can cause some pain sometime. I mean, there are ways to do it. There are ways to secure it. There are ways to guarantee. Opens a whole new window, so to say, about. Can you trust America today? What the Gulf states that both of us are curious about them?

[Tucker Carlson]

Yes.

[Avram Berg]

Okay. Something is happening there. What will they say if America will walk away from this conflict and Leave them alone at the mouth of Iranian lion or the Israeli lion. Not good.

[Tucker Carlson]

Not good.

[Avram Berg]

What Japan will say, what South Korea will say, what India will say, and Taiwan, Singapore, all of these important places. If you cannot trust America, so it's self reliance. Self reliance means an immediate aramament race which is bad. So in order to prevent the world to go into a new race like that, and this is the entire world, and we know who will be the profiters of it. All of those who export death and weapons of hatred to all over the world in order not to make these industries industries of hatred and industries of suspicion and industries of death in order not to make them profitable. The only way to come positively out of this conflict is to begin here at home. Here is the first region which is clean, and we move on. And these are the guarantees we Americans are giving you that nothing bad will happen to you if a threat like this one day will stand in front of you. So America, in order to do anything, is not just about the oil prices, which is important by itself. I mean, if you live in the suburbs for so many years and you want to drive to your pharmacy or to your supermarket, the price is crucial. I consider it very seriously as a daily existential issue for the American citizen. But if you want the world to be pacified and calmer, you need to restore not the trust in the markets, but the trust in America.

[Tucker Carlson]

Again. We strongly agree on that. What would happen? What would happen if no American leader was able to restore that trust? Or the United States couldn't afford to remain a stabilizing force globally because it's expensive? What would happen to the world?

[Avram Berg]

The simple answer is I have no clue. The little bit more augmented one is somebody else will walk, somebody else will grow into this responsibility. Will it be China? That with all the problems that Chinese are having, they're about two things. They're very much about continuous stability at home and abroad. And they hardly ever initiate a war. They play games, but they don't declare wars the way we declare wars every now and then. So maybe China will grow into it. Maybe there will be a different world coalition of interested parties who would like to see something like that end. And this is a very, very ambitious end. What about Europe? I saw your vice president there, and then I saw your Secretary of State there. One with a little bit more abrasive style, the other one a little bit more subtle, one saying the same thing. Europe, you are done. And I say I'm not at all sure. The good old continent was done so many Times and rediscovered itself and re. Can you say rebirthed itself? Re.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yes.

[Avram Berg]

How do you. How do you re. Reproduce itself? Okay, I'm out of it. Okay. Reproduced itself so many times in history. And I have a feeling that this mechanism of renewal, which is the cradle of the Western civilization. Western civilization is European first and only, then the rest of the Christian, Anglo, Saxon, et cetera, et cetera. And I have the feeling that Europe has the power to renew itself and to grow up into it. And remember that Israel and Turkey and Iran and Saudi Arabia are the next door neighbors. It's not far away from Florida place.

[Tucker Carlson]

No, it's not.

[Avram Berg]

And I take Mark Twain wisdom who said that every now and then America declares a war in order for Americans to study geography. I understand. Okay.

[Tucker Carlson]

Did he really say that? That's pretty good.

[Avram Berg]

This. Is this what I read? Okay. And if he did not, let's give it to him. He deserves it. You know, in the world, you either you say either Bernard show or. Or Goucho Marx or Oscar Wilde or Mark Twain. Right.

[Tucker Carlson]

We have a limited palette.

[Avram Berg]

Yes.

[Tucker Carlson]

Great.

[Avram Berg]

One of them did it. Okay. And I say for Europe, it is much more natural. At what sense? When you look at the Middle east, the Middle east of today, with all of its fragility and all of its volatile forces, is the leftover of two poisonous European fruits, the Holocaust and colonialism. And I'm not at all sure that Europe went yet through the process to internalize it, to grow up to the challenge. What do we do about it? Do we have any kind of historic responsibility? And with America walking away this. America walking away from NATO and walking away from so many things, maybe it's time for Europe to recalculate its position in history.

[Tucker Carlson]

So I have to end, and I should have done this at the beginning, but I just want to make sure that you get credit for this. I want to read a line that you wrote immediately after the beginning of this war, and you wrote it in the Israeli press because it's just so prescient. And you're describing your Prime Minister Netanyahu and our President Trump. You said neither he nor Trump has the faintest idea why they want, what they want to happen here after day one. You saw that at the very beginning that this was a war without a strategic goal. And I think that's proven true. How were you. Here's my question. How were you treated when you said that? What was the response to that? And what has your life been like in Israel over the last month? Because I don't Think you're in the majority in your opinions.

[Avram Berg]

I left the KKNESSET Voluntarily some 20 years ago. And ever since, I dedicated most of my life to think, to write, to read, to lecture, to teach, to offer alternative narrative to Israel. Easy. It is not. And with each and every book of mine and each and every article of mine, in a way, I'm pushed further away from the mainstream. This is not just about the death wishes and the threats and the pushbacks in the streets. It's not about that. It's about the loneliness of having an opinion. Yet I'm a Jew. What does that mean? Being a Jew is many things. One of them is to be dedicated to the culture of disagreement. When you look at the Talmud, that's the most important Jewish writing creation. That's the Oral Torah. This is the development of the written scripture. It's thousands of pages. So boring, Tucker, you cannot imagine. My goat ate your tomato. Your cucumber heated my wife. I mean, what kind of. But it's not about goats. It's not about cucumbers. It's not about this. Jews for centuries. So did I, so did my father, so did my grandfather study the Talmud? Because the Talmud documents obsessively not just the decision and the verdict of the majority, but the position of the minority. With the assumption that a day will come that the majority will wake up and realize how wrong they were. We have already ready made the strategy prepared by the minority to become the new majority philosophy. So being in a minority and a Jew, it's not a problem. So were the prophets, so were the rabbis, so were the intellectuals. So what? It's a responsibility. And I see my role in life. And it's not alone. You never do things like this. Alone is to offer first thinking, which is different than the parameters of the public discourse, and to be courageous enough and expressive enough for people to know there is an address out there. There is somebody out there who thought about it, and he's not afraid. So shouldn't we be afraid? Look at my T shirt, okay? I went abroad, couple of months ago. I'm going with that. I said, listen, every ultra Orthodox has his outfit that you recognize, like an Amish, okay? Yes. Every settler has his or her outfit, which is an M16 rifle and something else, okay? I have my uniform. So I'm in the airport, comes to me, a guy and says, borg, don't you think it's about time to change your shirt? Said, why? It's thinking. He said, no, no, no, no, no. Peace is thinking, okay? And of course, for me. It was an opening for a deliberation, for a discussion. So, yes, many times I'm alone, and yes, many times I'm even lonely. But I'm full of hope, and I offer hope for others. And when my daughter asked me, daddy, how do you feel? She asked me the Tucker's question, how do you feel? I said, what's the problem, dear? I'm in a majority. I agree with myself. At home, we all think the same, so it's a majority. All my friends think like me. It's a majority. Politically, I support people like me, so we are the majority. The fact that they have more numbers, that's marginal. Bottom line is sometimes, Tucker, being a Jew means being an alternative.

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, I like your alternative, and this conversation has really been a blessing for me. So thank you very much for taking the time to do it, and I hope a lot of people see this.

[Avram Berg]

Thank you very much for your time.

[Tucker Carlson]

Thank you.

[Avram Berg]

And giving me the opportunity. Thank you very much, Zakur.

[Tucker Carlson]

Thank you.