← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Israel’s Land Grab, US Involvement, and the Coming Middle East Shockwave | Impact Theory w. Dave Smith
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Interviewer
and other limits in terms apply. Welcome back to part two of this incredible conversation. Without further ado, here we go. Now, moving to the next related topic. When I try to think my way through, okay, how do we get out of this? It's been this intractable problem I come back to. Well, I think the thing that we really are puppets to is the economy. So what is it that we could leverage from an economic standpoint to make progress? And for me, the oversimplified version I've always given people is the Israel, Palestine problem is never going to resolve itself until everyone on board is thinking about kids having the ability to progress in their lives and here on earth, by the way. And so until we're able to get to that, I think we're always going to struggle. And so one, I'd be curious, do you agree that this has that element of people have to feel like they're making progress? Economics basically is the way in which we measure progress so that there it will only ever be an economic solution. And then when you think about if you agree with that, then how do we get to an economic solution? And are the Abraham Accords a first step or a total misfire?
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Dave Smith
Oh, I'm. Well, okay. So I think the Abraham Accords were a disaster and I really think they set the stage for, for October 7th. And you know, Donald Trump and Jared Kushner and all them would brag about the how it was, this historic peace deal. But as you may have noticed, you know, none of the countries were at war before they signed the Abraham Accords. It's not as if there was like a conflict. They treated this like it was like Camp David between Egypt and Israel or something like that. Like they just keep going to war with each other. But then we finally made this deal, and now they're going to stop going to war. It was basically, essentially a bunch of us sock puppets got bribed with US Military hardware to officially normalize relations with Israel. But what was the whole beef about there, right? Like, what was the whole reason why those Arab countries wouldn't normalize relations with Israel officially, even though they really had normal relations with them for decades before that? But the reason was because all of their people are opposed to what Israel's doing to the Palestinians. And so they at least had to publicly say, like, no, no, no, we're not going to normalize relations until they give the Palestinians their own state, until they end the occupation and the blockade of Gaza. And this had been, you know, from the very beginning of the creation of the State of Israel. And forget even, like, who you want to blame for all of this, like who you hold responsible for the 47 civil war or the 48 war or anything like that. But the reality of the situation is, is that the, the Palestinians got, in effect, ethnically cleansed out of historic Palestine in 1948. A bunch of surrounding Arab countries invaded and were defeated by the new Zionist entity that then declared itself the State of Israel at the end of that war. And then, of course, there were wars with other Arab states in the 50s, in the 67 war and the Yom Kippur War. And from the Palestinian perspective, they've always been. Their desperate hope was always that, oh, some of these other states are going to have our back, that at some point that'll put enough pressure on them. And then you got to remember, right, that this, this is essentially the entire Netanyahu doctrine for his entire political career. If people don't believe me, go read his book Fighting Terrorism that he put out in 1995 or 96. And it's a very easy read, it's very short book. You can read it in one sitting. And it's, listen, you look at the Clean Break Strategy, Coping with Crumbling States, Every document put out, the Project for a New American Century. I mean, in their own words, the Netanyahu doctrine was always so Yitzhak Rabin was the Prime Minister of Israel in the early 90s, and he is a little more complicated than this, but at least publicly, the Rabin doctrine, which is what led to the Oslo Accords and the beginning of the peace process, supposedly intended on finding A two state solution was essentially Yitzhak Rabin was saying, look, we're never going to be able to normalize relations with the Arab, the broader Arab world unless we solve the Palestinian conflict. Because that's what the whole thing's over. It's over the fact that after again, whoever you want to blame for all of this, and there's blame on all sides. So I'm not like saying it's as black and white as Israel was always wrong and they did a lot of wrong stuff. But regardless, at the end of the 67 war, at the end of the Six Day War, Israel took control of Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West bank, and they've had it ever since. And this became starting to be a real big problem. Like, hey, what are you going to do here? Look, it is one thing just again, removing morality and just talking about like the logistics of history. It is one thing to ethnically cleanse a group, it's another thing to claim them and occupy them indefinitely. And that's especially very hard to do in the modern world when like everyone on this side of the Enlightenment, the standard is like, well, I mean, you can't just keep a bunch of people that don't have citizenship and voting rights and you know, natural rights at all. Like, that doesn't. And so eventually by the 90s now we're like almost 30 years, 25 years into the occupation, Yitzhak Rabino's like, yeah, we gotta do something about this man. Like, we gotta come to some solution or the rest of the world is looking at us as occupiers and we're not gonna be able to normalize relations with the Arab world. Now Benjamin Netanyahu, who Yitzhak Rabin's wife, I believe still to this day, if she's still alive, blames him for her debt for, for his death. Benjamin Netanyahu was railing against this and how this is a betrayal to the, the Jewish people. And they had like, he had like all these like rallies where they would hold coffins with Yitzhak Rabin's name on it. This before he was killed. And then a Netanyahu fan murdered Yitzhak Rabin. So then Netanyahu comes in a few years later in 1996, and the whole Netanyahu doctrine, the clean break to the Oslo Accords, to all of this was always that. He goes, no, no, no, no. Yitzhak Rabin had it all wrong. He said, you got to normalize relations with. He said, you got to give the Palestinians a two state solution. So you can normalize relations with the broader Arab world. But what we're just going to do, right, is use the US to topple the regimes we don't like in the broader world. Like, oh, we can't normalize relations with Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al Assad, well, guess what? None of them exist anymore. I mean, Bashar Al Assad does, but not in power. And the other two are not on this earth anymore. So hey, problem solved, right? And so like the, the, the, excuse me, the Abraham Accords were in many ways like the culmination of that strategy. It was letting the Palestinians know, listen, there is no Oslo. There's no, we're not even saying like, hey, maybe in five to 10 years you can have your own state. Maybe in 20 years you can have your own state. Maybe your grandkids, they're going, no, it's over, you lose, we win. The solution here is that you will be subjugated in perpetuity forever. And then we got October 7th. And you know, in the same way that if you, if you chart this thing out and there's always been a big terrorism problem in the Middle east since, since, you know, wherever you want to start it, but from the Zionist settlers or from the resistance to the Zionist settlers, there's been a terrorism problem there. But listen, the second Intifada kicked off after the peace process fell apart. That's when things get their most violent. That's when, you know, if you could look at Hamas's popularity in Gaza and during the peace process, it was way down. After the peace process fell apart, it shoots way up. You know, this is the way these things work. You can't. Listen, you can be for a one state solution where everybody gets, you know, citizenship and voting rights. You can be for a two state solution where the Palestinians get to have their own country and they can do with it what they want, but the Israelis get to keep Israel as a Jewish state, like 67 borders or whatever you want to talk. But if you, if you're saying no, I'm not for either of those, which is kind of the status quo, essentially saying no, it's all Israel. Israel controls all of it. And those Palestinians just don't get citizenship or representation in their government or do process rights or property rights or travel rights or any of the basic human rights that we would all consider to be natural, God given rights. If you are saying no, they get none of that. I don't see how you can really even argue against October 7th type events as horrific as they are. You can't just say to a group of people, you have to live in subjugation forever. And so to me, listen, as bad as the history is, and maybe this is just me wanting to be like a naive optimist, but I do think there's historical precedent for this. Like, as bad as you may think it is, like, yo, what are you telling me that there could ever be a time where the Palestinians in Gaza live side by side with the Jews in Israel and everything's just fine? I mean, Ireland and England are right next to each other. France and Germany are right next to each other. You know, Poland and Russia are pretty darn close to each other. These are countries that had the bloodiest feuds for. For centuries and, and had some fought some of the bloodiest wars in the history of the world. And once again, even take the example of Egypt. And okay, you know, it's also true that Americans bribed them off and that was part of the deal. But Egypt and Israel went to war four times in like, 25 years. They were mortal enemies. And then they made a land for peace deal, and they've been at peace ever since. And you know, like, it's not. It's not that they don't have a radical Islam problem in Egypt. You know, like, that's not the factor here isn't Islam. The factor here is that human beings can actually really swallow a really bloody, really tragic past. You know, I'm. I'm Jewish.
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Commercial Narrator
Jewish.
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Dave Smith
And I, you know, I've met Germans and stuff, and we're just cool now. It's really not that long ago that we really, really weren't, you know, but things like that can happen. And this is just like one or two generations later I could grab a beer with a German guy, and it's not even kind of a weird thing, you know. Now, I know it's complicated and there's a lot more to that, but I guess what I am saying is that at the heart of this is the occupation. That's really the major problem. And the only reason why the occupation could exist at all, let alone persist for nearly 60 years, is longer than the Soviet Union occupied Eastern Europe, Israel has occupied Gaza and the west bank and the Golan Heights in East Jerusalem. And that only happens because the most powerful country in the history of the world gives it its blessing. There's no question, there's no way they could sustain this without us. And without us. I mean, things have gotten very messy over the last few years. But Israel has the most powerful military in the region. Israel, although they won't admit it, has a whole lot of nuclear weapons, Israel is more than capable of defending itself, of continuing, continuing to exist, as they always insist they have the right to. They're not capable of toppling regimes in the region without us. They're not capable of making the Greater Israel Project happen without us. But I do think that in the same way, right, if you wanted to look at it in, like, economic terms or something like that, if you think about, like, moral hazard, right? Like, what's really the problem with, say, the government guaranteeing big banks, you know, risky investments. It's like, well, they get a lot riskier then if you're going to give them this artificial insurance. And in the same way, I think both with Ukraine and with Israel, there's this tremendous, like, moral hazard that comes along with unconditional US Support. All of a sudden you're going to fight a lot of fights that you wouldn't have otherwise fought. It's like Mike Tyson goes out to the bar with you and says, anyone messes with you, I'm beating the crap out of them. Well, you're, you're now taking a lot less lip than you otherwise would have at that night out. And so to me, that's at the center of it. And people try to make it about a lot of different things, about a religious war, about a clash of civilization. You know, I've argued this with people before, but, you know, it's a very human thing to. Not very much like being subjugated. And there's, you know, the Irish violently resisted the British and the Algerians violently resisted the French and the Native Americans violently resisted. Resisted the early American settlers. And this is fairly normal thing about human history. And I'm not saying, like, maybe it is true that if you occupied a group of Buddhists for 60 years, like, they wouldn't jihad fight back in exactly the same way that a group of Muslims will? I just, I think that's, you know, you think about it like this. Like, we've never given that a chance. In all of this time, since 1967, you've never said, like, well, maybe the thing here is, like, if you don't want slave rebellions, you should abolish slavery. Maybe the thing here is that if you don't want this violent terrorism, you should abolish the occupation and give that a shot. And now, of course, the, the Israelis will fall back to, like, you know, the old, Was it the old Thomas Jefferson quote about slavery where you say, we've got the wolf by the ear and we can neither afford to let it go nor safely hang on to it. They are concerned like, yo, if we gave them their own state, then they would attack us. And you know, I always say to that, I'm like, well, if things were different, we'd be having a different conversation. But they're not different. They're like this. And so, you know, it's like you just much like with Thomas Jefferson, as we now look back on that now, like, hey, that was a very eloquent quote. Great point. Abolish slavery. Sorry. Like, like, very nice quote. But that's not an argument for slavery. You can enslave other human beings. You don't get to do that. You don't have the moral right to do that, no matter what you think the outcome of this will be. I feel the same way about the occupation. They have to end it and I do. I'm somewhat cautiously optimistic that that could make the situation a lot better.
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Interviewer
We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere.
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Interviewer
Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action. Okay, so let me start building my understanding of exactly what you're saying. So you talked about Egypt doing a land swap for peace and that that worked. So you say that like you've made the whole point, but I'm actually not sure what the implication is. Are you saying that if Israel were to give back Golan Heights, Palestine, East Jerusalem, and just say, hey, listen, this is a trade for peace, you've got it now, no more blockade. Do what you're going to do. Is that what you mean by hey, it worked with Egypt, it could work here?
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Dave Smith
Yeah, essentially that it's, you know, they, they for, for 25 years, the Israeli propaganda was that the reason that Egypt kept attacking them was because they were crazy radical Muslims and they just hated Jews and wanted to drive all the Jews into the river and so they would never stop. But then America forced them to make a deal and the, you know, the lobby was not as powerful in those days and they made one and it led to peace. And I'm not saying it's a guarantee that any of that could happen, but it is like, it's not beyond belief that, like, yeah, if you just ended the occupation. You know, human beings are interesting creatures. You know, like, we have our economic incentives, we have kind of a universal desire for, for comfort and shelter and prosperity, but we also have our pride and some irrational, you know, tendencies and then some rational irrational tendencies. And what I mean by that is like, so at the, and this is still true to this day, but less so than it used to be. But you know, when there were Palestinians who were getting, who were, who got ethnically cleansed out of Israel before Israel was even a state, for decades slowly, and then much more at once in 1947, 1948. So in many cases there, right, it would be the house that the Israeli was living in was the Palestinians house. Like, it's not like they just tore down their villages and then built up high rises. That did happen years later in many parts of Israel, not everywhere. But in many cases it would be like your house that your grandfather built and you had the locks changed on you and were kicked out and a soldier pointed a gun at you and said, march that way. But now you're living that way, like 10 miles that way, not flown halfway across the world. You're in Gaza, you know what I mean? You're looking at the house that your grandfather built and then you're in some makeshift refugee, you know, camp and you're watch. And so you, this is how Daryl Cooper put it, which I always thought was very, very articulate. He goes, now you, if you were some Palestinian 17 year old at that time, you had no, no way of giving your grandmother back her house, right? But you could burn that house to the ground while the new family was inside it. Now that may seem irrational, but actually I think it's kind of rational on a human level. Most human beings, most human beings are like that. We will not tolerate that level of humiliation without doing something violent. Like, there is a point where, like, I will cut off my nose to spite my face. Like, I would. You know what I'm saying? Like, people are like that. And I think that once you at least give a little bit of like, listen, we're not humiliating you here. We're not saying that, you know, if you just look at the, the indignities that Palestinians face on a daily basis, a daily. And I'm not even saying like, the worst things that even make the news, like, oh, you know, these IDF soldiers went into the west bank and shot guys as they were surrendering. And it's on video and we can all just watch it. Just one story from this last year, but how many different stories there are of them just pointing a gun at an old lady's face and pushing her over while her family watches. And like, again, maybe it's because I'm immature enough and angry enough and I'm in my own, you know, I never got a job or just do stand up comedy and podcasts, so I'm in my own state of arrested development or whatever. But man, it's very easy for me to get in the mindset of like, if you point a gun at my grandmother and push her over, like, okay, I'm taking out as many of you as I can before you kill me, and I don't really care that you're going to. And yeah, I think if you were to publicly admit that this was wrong, it shouldn't have happened this way. We're returning your land. There's no more military occupation on your land. Then yes, you give a much better chance for those positive human incentives to flourish and go, okay, we actually would like our kids to not be slaughtered. So I'm hopeful that you could do that and things could get a lot better. And I think really it's the only thing we can choose. It's like that or genocide are our options at this point.
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Interviewer
Well, I'll put one more option on the table and I'm going to be talking right now about what is, not what ought to be. I. We can certainly touch on what ought to be in a second. But in terms of what is, you can ethnically cleanse, which seems to be the actual path that they're taking going in. And I'll define ethnically cleansing really fast, driving out people of a given ethnicity from the place. You don't necessarily have to kill them though, is often kill a few of them and then the rest scatter. And I would put that in the same camp. So obviously Israel's killed tons post October 7th. And so that gives you plenty of impetus to flee the area if they add some place to go. So that's what. When I hear the Riviera idea that there'll be the Riviera of the Middle East, I'm just like, okay, that's the ethnic cleansing option. It'll be done under the guise we're going to build something that's better for you. You're going to love it. It's going to be amazing. I would just have to displace you for four or five years. And so that's that Strat. The other strategy is what I think the Egypt strategy that you laid out is, which would be, okay, there's those three parcels of land back. I don't know if that's what people mean when they say the 67 borders or whatever, but cool, here we go. You guys rejected it at one point when.
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Commercial Narrator
When.
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Interviewer
Oh, God, Clinton was in office. But, hey, the past is the past. Like, there it is. New lines for you to do what you will with that one. Of course, the argument is going to be that, well, hold on. There's something different about the Palestinians, which is they have not only the. You just took my grandfather's house that he built with his bare hands, pointed a gun at my grandmother, but there are plenty of other places. My wife is Cypriot. And so I'm very close to people that literally had a gun pointed at them, and they were told to march in that direction. The island got split in half between the Turks and the Greeks. And so I know intimately what that looks like. And they have let go of trying to. They still want to pursue political means, but nobody's talking about invading. They're not bombing. Like, there's a cold, you know, standoff there. And so you look at other places in the world where this kind of bad thing, because to me, I've talked so endlessly about this to my audience. But the strategy that now who we would call Israelis ran to take over the area is it's a brilliant strategy. It's been used by others before. It's being used. And I don't know, this may be an area of conflict for us, but for me, this is the exact strategy that's being run in Europe by Muslims. And you go in, you become politically important, you become economically important, and then you get things your way. And that's exactly the strategy that Israel ran. So if somebody was like, I hate that Israel did it, and I don't like that Muslims are doing it to Europe, I'M like, that's consistent. But anyway, in this instance, there seems to be a kicker, which is a religious element of it is an embarrassment that I'm not willing to tolerate that specifically Jews have taken land from us. Now, maybe we're right, maybe we're not. But if you end the argument there, which is what most people do, and they bicker about whether that's going to be true or not, it's your guessing about the future, which I think is less useful than playing out what are the different scenarios. So a scenario that you painted is it looks like Egypt, we have peace. It will clearly have been the right answer if they do that. And that's the result that they get the other option that seems more likely to me, which is that they do that and then instead of building up civilian infrastructure and making life great and just looking forward and trying to make things economically better for their kids, I think they do versions of building Military Tunnels 2.0, whatever, that actually ends up looking like. And then from a position of power, they launch an attack on Israel. And so given that I may be wrong about that, but that certainly is a plausible scenario, the question becomes, okay, how do we let things play out at that moment? Like, what would Dave Smith, Tom Billye would say if you guys do that and you attack Israel, I would expect Israel to go in and defeat you to the point where you just have no fight left in you, period. End of story. It is what it is. You're broken. We take all the territory. Fudge you, you had your chance, you blew it. And now I'm pushing all the way to every border. This is all mine now. And I would be like, yeah, like, at some point, like if, if Canada kept invading us, I would do exactly that. And I'd be like, nope, sorry. So I don't expect that to be a popular opinion, but nonetheless, it is an opinion. So what I'd love to hear is in your thinking, obviously you're hoping for, and I love the optimism. Lord knows I hope that's what would happen as well. Egypt, stale conflict, we just get along. But if Palestinians were to take the next five or 10 years to build up real strength and then attack Israel, what would you consider a reasonable reaction on behalf of Israel?
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Dave Smith
Well, I think that, like, even when you say, like, you know, hey, if Canada kept attacking us over and over again, then. But again, like, it's just, that's not the apples to apples comparison.
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Interviewer
Okay, really fast. And let me put it in your language so, you know, I do understand it was Just oversimplifying.
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Dave Smith
No, no, no, no, I understand. I just say, I'll just say real fast. It's the Native Americans on a Native American reservation, except we don't let them leave the reservation. They're. They're trapped in the reservation. And also we never gave them citizenship or we never gave them anything. And so there's still. And then also every now and then when they attack, we go in there and just mow the lawn and kill a whole bunch of them. Right. And so like, like this is more the dynamic now. If you're saying if they were to give them their own state and if they were to end the military occupation and then it was more a situation of Canada attacking America over the fact that, look, we had done that to them forever, like, let's say they just don't let that go. In the same way that, like if there were Black people in 1890 who were still just attacking random white people and going, hey, you enslaved us all this time. Well, okay, in the context of that, like, it depends, are we talking in a one state solution? Are we talking in a two state solution? If it's a one state solution, well, then the answer is that that's a police matter. And you arrest those people and you prosecute them. Yes. Sorry, you're still, you're not allowed to be violence just because there was violence done in the past to you. And otherwise there's no way to move forward from this. But if you ask me what. No, I wouldn't say that. Then Israel should go annex all of the land or ethnically cleanse all of the people. No, I would say you'd still have to operate under some type of just war of Christianity or some type of constitutional process or something where it would be like, hey, if you were attacked, you kind of have the right to defend yourself. You have the right to a proportional response. You have to try to take out the people who were the aggressors in that situation. But no, I wouldn't say you get to just go on some like, medieval type conquest or something like that. But again, if you want to talk about the situation as it is, I mean, the situation as it is is evidently, according to Katz, the defense minister in Israel, he just announced a few days ago that they're doing a massive ethnic cleansing campaign in southern Lebanon and there's been something like 600,000 people have fled southern Lebanon to the north because Israel's been attacking the area pretty viciously for, for, well, intensely for weeks now, but for months and years and they just announced none of them can come back. So like, what's actually going on here is that Israel is an expansionist state that is looking to take over these territories. And you know, there is this dynamic where like even the thing is that we live in a liberal world order. And there it even. I don't mean liberal just in the way that people think of liberal versus conservative, but there is a inherently left wing idea about the global world order, the idea of international law and democracy and equality and all of these things. And Israel plays on that. They go, we're the only democracy in the Middle East. You know, like they say, hey look, we're just like you, we're one of the Western nations here. But the thing is, if you want to be a democracy, then you can't have control of like 7 million people who don't have citizenship or voting rights. Because that's not what any of us consider democracy to be. If you wanted to be a decent liberal country, then you'd have to either have a one state solution where everyone was given citizenship, or you could have a two state solution. They don't want to do either of those things. But I will say, because I'm not a left winger, there's also a way that Israel could be like kind of an honorable right wing country. If they wanted to do that. That to me would look something like. Because essentially what Israel argues is like, we can't give them their own state because then they could build up their own military and then they could use that to attack us. And we can't have a one state democratic solution because then we don't have the votes to keep this as a Jewish state. We essentially lose the state because there's, there's as many non Jews as there are Jews here and they're outbreeding us. So pretty soon we're not going to be. But there is a right wing solution that would offend the entire global liberal sensibilities. But that would just be like, okay, it's all one state. It's Israel, it's staying a Jewish state. You guys don't have voting rights. You are citizens though, and that means you do have property rights and you do have the right to a fair trial with a jury of your peers, not these military tribunals which the Palestinians are lucky to get. It's like a 98% conviction rate or something like that. They just were pouring champagne about introducing the death penalty for those people who don't even get fair trials. But like, yeah, you have property rights and the right to travel and the right to a fair trial and the right like you have every bit equal rights, but this is a Jewish state that you live under and there's one government here and you guys can't build your own military. I think that would also be like a reason. But again, if you're saying like, let's not have the conversation about what could be, let's have the conversation about what is. What is, is none of those things. And I think you are certainly right that you know, they've been floating out ethnic cleansing plans of Gaza since the war started. Really since, since right after October 7th. You heard talk of this backed by the President of the United States, who in fact announced that we're doing it. Never has, but announced you are taking control of it. And now they're taking over southern Lebanon. They've expanded their territory in Syria in the last few years. And they recently, very intentionally, while J.D. vance was in Israel, they had a vote in the Knesset to formally annex the West Bank. And so it seems to me that Israel, the highest levels of Israeli leadership have made a calculation. And it's not that irrational of a calculation. It's certainly immoral, but I don't think it's that irrational from their perspective. And it's basically this, they have. Global opinion has been turned against Israel in a profound way in, in the last few years. But American opinions about Israel have drastically changed. And there's all types of polls you can, you can look at on this. But it is unbelievable. I mean like, it is like 50 and under do not support Israel in this country anymore. And the Israelis are not stupid. We talked about that Ashkenazi IQ before. They see that too. And so you've got a dynamic where Benjamin Netanyahu has just done the biggest thing he's ever done that Israel's ever done. Really. There was not in the whole Israel Palestine conflict. There was never a terrorist attack as big as October 7th and there was never an Israeli attack as big as the destruction of Gaza. This is the biggest thing ever. And he's got, got this country that is totally dependent on America having their back. He's got the most pro Israel administration in American history in there right now, but it's over for the future. And so if you're them, you go, we got to do it right now. Right now is obviously the time to strike. And so this is what we're doing right now. And in this context we have, by the way, I mean, we'll see. Donald Trump is a madman and also a buffoon. So who knows if he's going to fucking. But he just posted today that we're about to end Iranian civilization and said the deadline is 8pm tonight. And the Iranian foreign Minister just said he's canceled all talks. Like they're not agreeing to a deal unless some magical rabbit comes out of a hat in the next few hours Here. The President has promised like they're calling his bluff and we'll see what happens. But this to me seems to be the perspective of the Israelis. Forget any of that. We're not going to be an honorable right wing society and we're certainly not going to be a liberal or a left win society. We are going to conquer this region and we will see what the reaction to that is, man. But I do, I mean, I just think there's nothing but disaster behind that door. So there might be people who, who want to say, oh, Dave's being naive to think that it could be like Germany and France just living right next to each other and being fine. Or that could be like Ireland and England. By the way, those same people would have called me naive if I had suggested back then that it, it, you know, that it could have been like this with those countries. But you want, you know, you want to see what's behind door number two. I mean it is quite possible that the Iranian respect. Donald Trump really says he's going to take out every bridge and every power plant in the country. I don't see why they wouldn't take out some of those desalination plants. I'm sure you've read some of those numbers there, which, you know, turns out desalination is really important in the desert. And there's like, there's like in a bunch of these different countries, like 98% of the drinking water in the UAE, in Oman is like, come from desalinization. And there's all types of major energy targets that Iran has not hit yet. So I'm just saying like already in this thing you can see where this is going. And what do you think? Like, you know, you think that the, the in southern Lebanon now you just ethnically cleanse 600,000 more people. Is that going to help Hezbollah's recruitment efforts or hurt Hezbollah's recruitment efforts? And this, this door is forever war. And that's what we've been pursuing this whole time. And so it's like, you know, the reality of the situation is it seems to be that the argument amongst the American people has been won by the critics of Israel and this neoconservative Foreign policy. And yet the policy is going to
- [36:35]
Interviewer
be,
- [36:37]
Dave Smith
I mean, pushing the accelerator down to the floor and seeing how much Netanyahu can take.
- [36:43]
Interviewer
Right now, when you say how much he can take, what do you mean? Oh, oh, how much land he can take?
- [36:49]
Dave Smith
Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, look, look, it's right in front of it. Look, he said himself that the Greater Israel Project is near and dear to his heart. When he was asked about this, like, six months ago, he's. When Bashar Al Assad immediately fell, they went and took a bunch of territory in Syria.
- [37:04]
Interviewer
Does the Greater Israel Project have specific borders that they're trying to achieve?
- [37:08]
Dave Smith
Well, you know, I think it's essentially what Mike Huckabee said, right? It's for. It's. They're all of this land. So it would include big chunks of Saudi Arabia, chunks of Lebanon, chunks of Iraq, obviously all of the west bank, all of Gaza, big chunks of Syria. And, and, and look, I mean, again, this isn't like, I'm not like, putting together dots on a chalkboard of like a conspiracy. I'm just saying, like, literally they're talking about nuclei cleansing Gaza and taking it over. They're expanding settlements in the west bank and at least formally in the Knesset, saying that they're going to annex the thing. They just took a bunch of territory in Syria. They just took a bunch of territory in Lebanon. This is an expansionist regime. Like, there's no, you know, like, they may call it. They don't call it Lebanon's realm. They call it a security buffer. But, okay, would that have been okay if Hitler had just called it something else? This is what they're doing. They're taking more territory and they're openly acknowledging it.
- [38:05]
Interviewer
We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere.
- [38:10]
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- [38:41]
Interviewer
Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action. Okay, so we're certainly going to get to see how it plays out, but if I just try to map your mental model of how this is going to. Israel is using the destabilized nature of the region right now precisely because they have the most pro Israeli US Government in a long time. They are gobbling up territory right now in Lebanon and Syria, calling it a security buffer, but obviously territorial acquisition by any other name is still territory acquisition. Do. When I think about them having to prosecute those regions, Lebanon would have to have a reason not to attack. And that could just be that they think they'll lose. It could be that they think that the Americans will get involved, same with Syria. Do you have a sense of what the calculation is coming out of Lebanon or Syria around this issue?
- [39:48]
Dave Smith
No, I, you know, I don't know. I mean, I think that Hezbollah really was greatly set back by, by the Mossad pager attack and a bunch of different bombing campaigns in Lebanon over the last two years. And they really, they, Israel had dealt with less trouble from Hezbollah than they have in decades over the last year and a half or so. But then Hezbollah, they were taking some rockets when the, after the war in Iran kicked off. Now, I don't know. Will America get involved there? I know Lindsey Graham was urging Donald Trump to get in on the fighting in Lebanon. I don't know. You know, I mean, like, I, I would have said even a year ago that I think Donald Trump's pretty hesitant to get more bogged down in conflicts like that. But I really am just not sure where his mentality is at this point,
- [40:41]
Interviewer
but so really fast, because this, I think, is bringing into sharp contrast maybe the different worldviews that you and I have. And so we can both make a prediction, because I think the way you see things makes one prediction, the way I see things makes another. You've been very clear that you know that this is complicated and so there's many forces pulling. So you may effectively hedge at this moment. I'm not going to hedge, partly because I just want to test my own thesis. So because I believe that Donald Trump is. I'm trying to get on Mount Rushmore. I know that I do it by growing. This is an economic question purely. I'm thinking about China and financial growth for America, period. Full stop.
- [41:22]
Dave Smith
That.
- [41:22]
Interviewer
That is my mental map. So he will not get involved in Lebanon. He's not going to get involved in Syria. He would sell weapons because that's good economically. So he'll support, with all weapons, all the time, anything that rings the cash register from that point. So would he do air campaigns? Probably not. I, I would say I'd give that less than a 10 chance, even though that gives him a way to feed the military industrial complex back home. I think if that money, at a minimum, isn't coming back to us as vouchers that we gave to the Israelis, I don't. My prediction, just to keep myself accountable, is that he will not get involved in that. Sell weapons? Yes. Actively targeting. No. Iran. Go ahead.
- [42:10]
Dave Smith
So. No, no, no, I'm sorry, No, I don't think necessarily, you know, I have a tough time with these predictions, but making predictions like this because there are just so many factors and variables to them. But I don't necessarily disagree with that. I mean, I think that it seems pretty clear to me, and there's a lot of reporting to back this up, that Donald Trump got convinced. He was. He was convinced, and particularly after the Venezuela strike and with these huge protests in Iran, that he could decapitate the regime with an air campaign and that he would go in day one where they kill Soleimani. They clearly had some good intelligence on where he was gonna be, although there's reports that he knew that and just was not gonna go into hiding. Who knows if that's true or not. But they decap. I mean, Donald Trump announces on the first day for the Iranian people. Stay inside tonight. But then you're gonna take over this government. You know, like, this was kind of the plan, and then clearly it didn't go that way. And I do think that Donald Trump's been looking for an off ramp, much like he was in the 12 day war. I think the problem is that there is this escalation trap at this point that he may not be able to get himself out of. And the escalation trap part of it is that Donald Trump goes like, okay, I'm going to talk crazy. Tough to bring you guys to the negotiating table. And if that doesn't work, the only speed he has is I've got to go even tougher to bring you to the negotiating table. And that's a very difficult game. So I think it's quite possible that you're right. I'm praying that somehow Donald Trump is able to just call it quits and declare victory, and then we'll see what happens from there. But I think you're right that I think when Donald Trump. It may not. Maybe where I would differ with you is I don't think it's just economic. I think that Donald Trump, Trump, he feels like, you know, Rubio's got this whole bank shot strategy that he loves, which is Venezuela, and then you get a regime change in Cuba. I think Donald Trump saw that, like, hey, if he was the guy who, like, liberated or. And maybe that meant business for America also, you know, but if he. This was a Mount Rushmore type accomplishment to be like, I freed Venezuela, Cuba and Iran. These were all the places that were given America problems all these years. None of these presidents could figure it out. But I came in here because I was so smart and figured it all out. So I do think there's. There's, you know, that's a big part of the motivation. I think it's pretty reasonable to conclude that Donald Trump's sense of himself is his main motivator in life. Always. Him winning and being tremendous is always the most important thing. And he makes that very clear at every turn, that that's the lesson you have to take away from this. So I don't know, that might, like, that might be the case. However, what I worry about, and I wouldn't make a prediction here, but what I worry about is like, whatever the next Iranian response is to this might put him in a situation where he feel, you know, like Donald Trump, I think, is very capable of feeling that he has to show everybody that he's got the biggest junk in the land. And if you, if you slap him in the face, that's a dangerous game. And I will say again, it's Donald Trump. I try not to take anything, but you try to take everything with a grain of salt because he speaks at a different way than normal people do. But we've simply never had a sitting US Commander in Chief talking about doing to a country what he's talking about doing to them right now. Even in World War II. The. The. They may have done it, but they didn't, like, have this type of bravado where they were saying. And even, you know what, what we saw Tucker Carlson flip out on Trump 4 last night, which I think was totally. He was totally right to do. But it's like, dude, the, like mocking Allah on Easter as you announce that you're sending. As you announce, like, total war against the civilian population. Like, geez, man, what are you trying. You're just. You're just really kicking this Hornets nests and then talking shit to the Hornets. Hornets while you do it. It seems like a dangerous game to me.
- [46:19]
Interviewer
Yeah, that. That is the perfect conclusion. Dave, always really enjoy talking to you, really enjoy listening to your takes, even when we are not actually engaging with each other. So thank you for being out there. Hopefully we'll get to do this again sometime. Where can people connect with you?
- [46:34]
Dave Smith
You. Oh, I'm all on comic Dave Smith on Twitter. Part of the problem is my show, and then I'm a traveling comedian. So if you go to comicdavesmith.com I'm traveling all around the country for the rest of the year doing shows. But, dude, always really enjoy our conversations. Thanks for having me on again.
- [46:49]
Interviewer
Same man. Appreciate it. All right, take care. All right, everybody, if you have not already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace.