Latest / UK Column Radio / A former IDF soldier's views on what's happening in Gaza

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A former IDF soldier's views on what's happening in Gaza · UK Column Radio

0:39
Adore wine rib. Thank you for joining me in the
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trenches. I apologize.
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As I said earlier, for my makeshift setup.
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My studio is still being built. I have moved house and I'm also
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using my backup mic and camera. So OK.
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What is your background? So my background is quite
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varied. At age 18, I moved from New
1:01
Jersey to Israel, officially making aliyah, which is our word
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for aliyah means to go up, which is what it's called when Jews
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immigrate to Israel. And I did so for out of
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ideological reasons. I was raised with deep Zionist
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teachings, my father being 9th generation Israeli, meaning my
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family immigrated to Ottoman Palestine in 1812.
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And from a young age it was put in my head that when I turn 18,
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I'll make aliyah and join the IDF.
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Like my grandfather, like my father, like my uncles, it's,
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it's what you're meant to do if you're a proud Zionist.
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I was also a big troublemaker growing up, so I figured the IDF
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would straighten me up a little bit.
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So at age 18, that's exactly what I did.
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I joined the IDF. I served there three years.
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And interestingly, my time in the IDF is when I started to
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have a, a minor shift in my perspective.
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I was guarding on base and the soldiers, you know, we're all a
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primarily ages 18 to 21. Most of us don't really want to
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be there. We're bored out of her mind.
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We, we, we don't like being in that system where we don't have
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freedom. It's physically hard.
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It's emotionally hard. But anyways, I'm guarding and
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I'm just bored out of my mind. And there's a poster on the wall
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of a different Hamas training techniques saying I'm reading
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the poster, looking at these. There was just reading the
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poster and there's a, a photo of Hamas crawling through sand.
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And I looked at one of these Hamas militants and I'd I'd been
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crawling through sand that very same day.
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So I looked at him and I kind of saw myself in him.
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He's crawling through sand. I was calling crawling through
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sand. And I started asking myself, is
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the biggest difference between us depending on what side of
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this imaginary line we were born on?
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Does his family view him as a hero and me as a terrorist?
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Can that be now? This didn't.
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Change my views overnight you know deep rooted fear based
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teachings don't change overnight and sometimes they don't change
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in a lifetime. But this certainly planted a
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seed in my mind. And then in the years after
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getting released from the IDFI started to my my mind opened up.
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I wasn't in this institution of the military where you're kind
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of forced to see things a certain way.
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And I started that seed that was planted grew into the ideology I
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hold today, which is the difference between us is really
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dependent on where we were born. And had I been in the shoes of a
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Hamas militant, I would see the world as they see it.
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And so that the path to peace comes through recognizing this
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and comes through the humanization of the other.
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So I started this was in around 2014 during the Gaza the Gaza
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operation and I saw two distinct narratives online, Gaza under
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attack, Israel under attack. No one was saying Israel and
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Gaza under attack. No one was focusing on the
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humanity of both sides and how civilians of both sides are
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suffering and the whole both sides conversation is triggering
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too many. We could get deeper into that.
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When is an appropriate use of both sides and when it's not?
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Because most people don't have a nuanced take on it.
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They just reflexively, they hear both sides and they get
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triggered. So we could get into that, but I
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started just writing Facebook posts about how we're all
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suffering, how just talking about the commonality between
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US. And obviously this triggered
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people. You know, I, I learned very
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quickly, when you humanize someone's an enemy, you become
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the enemy. But a lot of people were
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appreciative of, of it and then I just stuck with it.
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So since 2014, on and off, I've been involved in different peace
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building initiatives, helping NGOs with their promotion,
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marketing and, and during COVID, I launched a YouTube channel
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that I still run today where I do live stream conversations
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bringing Israelis and Palestinians together.
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This has always been just a passion of mine.
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I am an entrepreneur. That's my, that's been my main
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focus since I guess 20, 15 or so.
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So after the IDFI actually became a club promoter in Tel
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Aviv, I explained the activism track.
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But what I've been doing alongside that, after the IDFI
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became one of Tel Aviv's top club promoters, believe it or
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not, started building and managing my own teams.
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I then, once I'd had connections at the clubs, I started managing
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DJs and then I launched through that.
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I met one of Israel's top music producer producers.
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We launched a record label and a music tech startup.
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And then I actually a few weeks ago finally sold this music
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startup, but I'm in in the subsequent years since 2018
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until 2022, I've launched two other sorry, between 2018 and
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2025, I've launched two other startups, one called Grateful
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Giraffes, which is a global community primarily based out of
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LA. And then more recently, head on
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dot AI, which is my newest company, which is a platform
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we're building designed to connect people for productive
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conversations. So the idea is to scale civil
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discourse using AI. So essentially what I'm trying
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to do on YouTube, we're trying to build technology that can do
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that without a facilitator per SE.
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So my background is part entrepreneurship, part activism.
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And now for the first time in my adult life, I'm able to connect
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my activism and my entrepreneurship because head on
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is directly connected to conversations.
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So as of the past few months, I've been much more active on
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Twitter, I've been much more active on YouTube because I'm
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able to justify it also from a business perspective.
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So it's still a passion of mine, but it's also part of my I've
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been able to connect it to my work and I'm immensely grateful
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that I can now be doing this, something I'm very passionate
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about, for work. Do you think it's a bottomless
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pit though? I don't think it's a bottomless
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pit. I I think there's two ways to
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look at peace building, or probably more than two ways, but
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one is just grassroots. It's humans finding ways to
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better communicate ideas and find common ground.
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The world today is more connected than ever before
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digitally, but ideologically we're we're likely more divided
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than than we've ever been. And it's interesting social
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media is playing a role in this division that we're seeing.
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So while Internet has been great for humanity in many ways and in
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a sense connected us, it is also contributed to our division.
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So the, so we're looking to build technology that can take
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the, the beauty of social media and Internet that creates global
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connectivity, but but build it in a way that doesn't bring out
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the worst in people. If you spend time on Twitter,
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you, you're, you're seeing the worst in people, myself
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included. You know, I'm very rarely an
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asshole in real life, but on Twitter I, I'm an asshole often.
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So something about that medium is just not bringing out the
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best in us. So there's a technological
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solution to change that. And this is way well beyond
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Israel, Palestine. Every country in the world has
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their own internal conflict. There's many international
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conflicts. It could be India, Pakistan,
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Russia, Ukraine, could be Democrats and Republicans in the
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US. There's no end for division.
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And we currently don't have a great way to communicate and
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find common ground. So we're trying to solve that
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using technology and AI and AI. But beyond just humans
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communicating, I do think that the best ways to create global
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shifts is to transform our institutions.
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And this we can part of doing this is through US communicating
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around ideas, building consensus.
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But the, the solution to Israel, Palestine is not just Israelis
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and Palestinians, you know, talking.
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It's what, how do we transform the institutions that govern the
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land to be institutions that can protect the rights of all people
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living between the river and the sea?
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And these institutions can be shared, which would look like a
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one state paradigm, or we could have separate institutions that
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could would be more like a 2 state paradigm.
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But they need to be transformed in such a way that our rights
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are protected. And currently the institutions
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that govern the land protect the rights of half the population
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and not the other half. So that's the transform we need
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to work to to create. So part of this happens from
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grassroots activism, us getting to know each other.
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But we can't just focus on finding common ground.
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We also need to work to change the the system that governs the
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land. People don't really know what's
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going on. That's the issue.
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Yeah, yeah. And it's, it's been getting
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worse. You know, you would think the,
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the, the age of the Internet, I mean, before the Internet, we
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really just relied on our institutions primarily to tell
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us what's true, like media. And I imagine they've never been
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fully transparent as and as honest as we'd hope they should
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be or as honest and transparent as we deserve.
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But right now we're overwhelmed with with information and
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misinformation that it's very hard to know it's true.
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I'm hoping there will be some kind of an AI solution to truth
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telling, but this is not something we are personally
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working on. A good friend of mine, SAR Wilf,
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is working on a he has a company called Root Claim.
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They do probabilistic analysis on contested issues and they're
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working to build AI to solve this problem.
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He tells me that they're making progress, but yeah, it's a major
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issue. So some of my the work I've been
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doing since October 7th, I divide my work into a few
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things. One is humanizing both sides.
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The other is criticizing institutions that need to
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change. So as of late, it's been
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primarily criticizing the IDF in Israel because this these are
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the institutions that are harming the most people by far,
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at least in my in the sphere I'm interested in.
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And third, I've been doing is research and analysis.
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So I've done a lot of work trying to provide clarity on the
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real death toll in Gaza, on the extent to war crimes being
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committed. I've put out some stuff, a
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little bit about some lies I believe Israel has told, and
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also some trying to set the record straight on what happened
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on October 7th and what didn't. All these issues, there's
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massive misinformation. It's hard to know it's true.
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So this is something I've been actively working and doing.
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My small part, I feel like I've made a little bit of a
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difference. I do see a lot of people use my
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analysis as references. They're constantly sharing them.
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So it seems to have shifted the narrative a little bit.
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But I feel like, I feel like I still could have done more.
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You know, the fact that there's still so much misinformation.
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Maybe I'm being hard on myself, but whenever I see these
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prevalent false claims I'm like damn I wasn't as successful as I
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wish I could have been. Well, you got detained recently,
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didn't you? Yeah, yeah, I was detained 3-4
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weeks ago. Me and a group of 20 others did
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a March to the Gaza border in an attempt to break the siege.
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It's we, we, we go knowing they're not going to let us go
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close. But it's a symbolic act, right?
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It's to show the world a group of Israelis are meeting to defy
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the authorities walking towards Gaza.
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And they didn't let us get too far.
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The second we left the train station, they already started
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blocking the sidewalk. We started pushing through them.
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And then those who were kind of front and center, they detained
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us all. It wasn't an arrest.
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It was a detention. So we were just in a cell for
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six hours. They did.
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We did get mug shots and fingerprints and all that.
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We did get an interrogation. And then we had to sign that we
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won't return to the Gaza border for two weeks or else we'd be
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arrested and charged on the spot.
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But yeah, that was a that was a that was a cool experience.
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What's it like since October 7? Being a Jew.
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Yeah, I mean, I am not, I am not the average Jew experiencing
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things right now, but I certainly sympathize with what
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what Jews are experiencing. You could only imagine what it
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feels like to see the the world turning on you, not only on you
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as a people, but the a country that you have deep love for
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being viewed as the the worst villain of this century.
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It's definitely not easy. It comes with a lot of pain.
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It comes with a lot of fear. So yeah, it's, you know,
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anti-Semitism is skyrocketing, not only because of Israel's
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actions, you know, Twitter is also, or I guess since it's been
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X is also contributing greatly to anti-Semitism with just
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allowing conspiracies and false claims and hateful people to
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propagate ideas. And I'm, I'm not a bit, I'm not,
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I don't support censorship. But in this free marketplace of
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ideas, it's not that the best ideas win.
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It's at the most sensationalized ideas and simplistic ideas win.
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So while I don't support censorship, I do support
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building platforms that have a way to give more reach to better
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ideas and less reach to worse ideas.
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But between, you know, the proliferation of conspiracies
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and hateful rhetoric online and then the atrocities being
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committed by the Jewish state in the name of protected,
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protecting Jews while the majority of the world's Jews are
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supporting these actions, there's no world in which that
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doesn't fuel anti-Semitism. And this is very controversial.
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Jews get very upset when I say this.
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But people responded to stuff like this where none of us are
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born hateful. We are.
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We become hateful based on our experience.
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And if people are seeing videos of dead children, dismembered
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children in Gaza and they see the majority of Jews they're
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interacting with online are somehow trying to justify this,
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that that impacts how you view Jews.
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It it just does. So I, this isn't about blaming.
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I'm not, I'm not into blame. I'm just into recognizing
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reality for what it is and seeing if we could find ways to
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solve it. But it's definitely a scary time
16:38
for Jews. It's a challenging time for
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Jews. And I think in general of the
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way it's being approached is not only not productive, it's
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counterproductive. So if you look at the mainstream
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voices fighting anti-Semitism, not only have they not made any
16:57
difference in reducing anti-Semitism, I think they've
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likely, they're more likely to have increased it.
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They're, they're entirely counterproductive in their
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approach to fighting anti-Semitism.
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Yeah, it's, it's unfortunate. I, I think once the dust settles
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in Gaza and the bloodshed ends, I'm going to focus more on doing
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commentary on anti-Semitism and building bridges with anti
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semites. I think that's the approach, not
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cancelling them, not deplatforming them, not assuming
17:27
the worst about their intentions, but seeing them as
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humans that are maybe misguided and misinformed and trying to
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build bridges. That's, that's the approach I
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would like to take. I'm just too busy with Israel
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Palestine stuff now, so I'm not touching it, but I do plan plan
17:39
on doing it at some point. And again, this might be a
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problem with their social media, that the extreme voices are what
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we hear and see, the moderate sensible voices.
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They're not going as viral. They're not getting as much
17:52
reach. So we're seeing the extremes.
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It's perceived as if these are the mainstream ideas and because
18:01
and that helps make them mainstream.
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So you know whether one side is is calling for the ethnic
18:08
cleansing of right here, here's 2 popular positions, depending
18:11
on what side you're on, ethnically cleansing
18:14
Palestinians or ethnically cleansing Jews.
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Neither of these are fringe positions.
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These are two positions that we should by default say is
18:22
unacceptable. Ethnic cleansing is just
18:25
removing people in mass from their homes and getting rid of
18:27
them is not a legitimate position.
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We should just be able to agree on that.
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But these are two I don't want to say I don't even, I don't
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know if mainstream is correct because I'd need to see polling.
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But at least if you're existing online, there they seem to be
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mainstream positions, and they're certainly not fringe
18:43
ideas anymore. There's also what appears to be
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a confusion between being Jewish, being a Zionist and
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being an Israeli. Yes for sure.
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I don't like the term Zionism. I don't think it serves any
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purpose. It's it's a term that causes
19:11
more confusion than it provides clarity.
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Jews say it just means our right to self determination on our
19:17
ancestral homeland. Anti Zionists say it's akin to
19:22
Jewish supremacy. And again neither is wrong
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because true Zionism is a right to self determination but the
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the the way we've self determined has been a system of
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supremacy. So both are correct but one uses
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it as inherently positive term for the other.
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It's a pejorative. And if it simply means the right
19:44
to Jew self determination, why does that require a term?
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I support Jewish self determination and I support
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Palestinian self determination. You're supporting Palestinian
19:54
self determination doesn't have a special term.
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If I support Kurdish self determination, that doesn't have
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a term. The term does not need to exist.
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It's just, and now it's, it's used as a slur, right?
20:04
That's a Zionist and it's often used interchangeably with Jew.
20:09
So I, I want to get rid of the term Zionism.
20:11
It's it's just meaningless, causes confusion, doesn't
20:15
provides no utility in conversation.
20:19
Jew and Israeli, Yeah, those are two separate things.
20:21
Jew is ethno religious group and Israeli is 80% of Israelis are
20:29
Jewish, but the other 20% are Muslim and then some amount are
20:33
are Christian. Yeah and even.
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And because we're not Judaism is not just a religion it's in,
20:39
it's a people as well. A significant portion of, of
20:46
Jews do not believe in the Jewish religion.
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Like, I don't believe in the Jewish religion.
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I'm Jewish, but I'm an agnostic, right?
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I, I, I, I believe that the Torah is not the word of God.
20:56
I believe it's written by humans.
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But I'm still Jewish. So that's a little clarity on,
21:03
on how to look at it. Yeah, but if we want to use the
21:06
term Zionism, overwhelmingly Jews are Zionists.
21:09
Most Jews believe that Jews deserve the right to self
21:12
determine on their ancestral homeland.
21:14
But now there is a growing number of Jews primarily in the
21:18
United States, but I think in populations around the world
21:21
that are starting to say that Israel is not a necessity.
21:26
If this is what Israel looks like, if this is what Jewish
21:28
self determined nation looks like, then I don't support it.
21:31
I think there's a growing number of people who feel that way.
21:35
What do you think? So I again, the way I look at it
21:42
is how can we protect the rights of the people?
21:44
So right now you have a situation where you have around
21:48
56 million Jews living in the land between the river and the
21:51
sea. You have around that same number
21:54
of Palestinians. They all deserve to have their
21:57
rights protected. I see ways to do that while
22:02
keeping the Jewish state alongside A Palestinian state,
22:06
but I also see ways to do that without a Jewish state
22:11
transforming it into a federation, the Federation of
22:14
Israel and Palestine. So I consider myself solution
22:18
agnostic. I don't think a Jewish state
22:21
needs to exist, but I'm not, I am not in complete opposition to
22:25
it because again, I, I don't think of it in those terms.
22:29
For me, it's how do we protect the rights to the people?
22:31
If you could do that with a Jewish state next to a
22:33
Palestinian state, great. If you could do that without a
22:37
Jewish state, great. That's how I tend to look at it.
22:40
So I don't identify as a Zionist, but I also don't
22:42
identify as an anti Zionist. Yes, but you're an Israeli and
22:48
you're very close to the action. I mean, what's happening in Gaza
22:52
is right next door, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, a few hours away.
22:57
I'm, I'm here in the north, in the, in the western Galilee, but
22:59
it's, yeah, just a few hours away.
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Like if I were to get in, if I were to get in a car, I could be
23:06
at the Gaza border in probably 3 hours.
23:10
The term that gets thrown around is genocide.
23:12
That was the term used by by South Africa when they took
23:14
Israel to the ICJ. Yeah.
23:19
So the term genocide is another term that I think there's a lot
23:25
of confusion around for Jews. Our frame of reference for
23:28
genocide is the Holocaust. So we find it to be deeply
23:33
triggering when people use that term, especially when it's like
23:36
when it's used about our actions.
23:39
And what's happening in Gaza is not like the Holocaust.
23:41
So there's there is a strong reaction and rejection of that
23:48
term by most Jews. They say, what do you mean?
23:51
It's not a genocide? And then their understanding of
23:55
a genocide is trying to kill the entire population or as much of
23:58
the population as quickly as possible.
24:01
When you look at the definition of genocide, it's not that
24:04
simple. It's it's killing a population
24:06
in whole or in part. And then there's other criteria
24:09
that need to be met. It's.
24:11
Very fuzzy. It is fuzzy and it's up for
24:14
interpretation. It's also hard to prove in
24:16
court. That's why the ICJ could not
24:19
prove. Proving intent is very hard.
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Now, when you do look at Israel's actions, I don't think
24:26
using the term genocide is a stretch.
24:28
I do think it's a reasonable description of what's happening
24:32
in Gaza. But I also recognize that it
24:36
could be. It's something that we could
24:38
debate. It's not like it's 100% of
24:41
genocide. There's no room for debate.
24:42
No, I do think there's room for debate, but I have no objection
24:45
to people describing it as a genocide.
24:47
I sometimes refer to it as a genocide.
24:49
I often don't though. And the reason for is what I
24:53
described is it's, it's deeply triggering and my a lot of my
24:56
viewers are Jews and it shuts down otherwise meaningful
25:00
conversation. Yeah, it's also very denoted.
25:03
Yeah, yeah. And I don't care for the debate
25:05
on terminology. I I try to get rid of these
25:07
words that that will get us caught up in debates on
25:13
terminology. I call it an atrocity.
25:15
I call it as morally indefensible.
25:17
I call it as the mass killing of civilians.
25:21
These are much you know, if you, if you think it is defensible,
25:25
let's discuss why you think it's defensible.
25:27
Why I don't, but I don't care about the why it's genocide, why
25:30
it's not to me, it's just not. It's a distraction.
25:33
So I certainly understand why Israelis and why Jews object to
25:37
the term. But I I also very much
25:40
understand why it's widely called a genocide.
25:44
And while intent is hard to prove in court, you know,
25:48
there's a grown consensus amongst academics and scholars
25:51
of genocide that this is a genocide based on their
25:54
interpretation of events. And they don't need to prove
25:57
intent in court. This is them looking at this is
26:00
them looking at the situation and reaching A conclusion.
26:04
And just to give like an analogy, a quick analogy,
26:07
sometimes there's somebody who who is innocent because they're
26:12
like in court, they're innocent because the evidence just there
26:15
is we just couldn't compile the right evidence, whatever, but
26:18
people still know that they're guilty.
26:20
So there's the court, there's the court of law and the court
26:24
of public opinion. And the court of public opinion
26:27
overwhelmingly is seeing this as a genocide.
26:29
And even though you don't want to use the term, are seeing this
26:31
as something that is morally indefensible.
26:34
And I do agree with them that it's morally indefensible.
26:36
Yeah. And so that's what I was going
26:38
to ask you. That was my question.
26:39
What is going on there? So first let's just talk about
26:45
what a challenging fighting conditions Gaza is, right?
26:51
So let's let's be very, very charitable towards Israel for a
26:56
moment and say their goal is to destroy Hamas and not to get rid
27:01
of the Gazan people. I think their motivation is, is
27:04
both and they're, they're, they're not shy in, in this
27:08
goal, right? Israel has been been saying
27:11
since day one, they're going to, they want to destroy Hamas.
27:13
But Israel, whether it's Netanyahu or people in his
27:16
cabinet on multiple occasions have made their aspiration to
27:21
relocate Gaza. It's very clear.
27:23
So I think it's, it's very fair to assume that their goal is
27:27
both. But even if their goal is to
27:30
just defeat Hamas, that's a nearly impossible task.
27:34
This is something I've been saying since days after October
27:36
7th, that our chance of success in Gaza, of defeating Hamas is
27:41
very low, but the cost in trying is going to be very high.
27:45
It's for this reason I did not support the aerial bombardments
27:50
and Israel's operation from day one.
27:52
Even as horrific as October 7th was, I was able.
27:56
I assessed that the chance of success is low.
28:00
The cost will be very high. Now when we look at And so why,
28:05
why is it tough conditions? Hamas has had decades to build a
28:09
tunnel city under Gaza while civilians are on top, you know,
28:16
living on top of Gaza. Tunnel warfare is very dangerous
28:20
and very difficult. Israel does not like, we don't
28:23
like losing our own soldiers. No one, no one does.
28:26
So we're risk averse. We're not going to go tunnel to
28:28
tunnel. The only solution is massive
28:30
aerial bombardments. But at massive aerial
28:33
bombardments when civil in a densely populated city, while
28:37
civilians have not had proper evacuations and while Hamas has
28:42
where to hide is a particularly preposterous and barbaric
28:47
strategy. Like we, we just accept and I, I
28:51
want part of my activisms. I want it to be as hard as
28:57
possible to kill innocent people.
29:00
This is something we widely agree upon in society.
29:03
Humans have an inalienable right to life.
29:07
We even debate if we should take this right away from criminals,
29:10
right? Capital punishment is something
29:12
that's widely debated in society.
29:14
But when it comes to war, suddenly we have a category
29:16
called collateral damage, which are humans that got their right
29:19
to life taken from them. But we see it as just whatever
29:22
it happens, it's war. We can kill them.
29:26
I think part of us making moral progress and being able to
29:30
protect the rights of all people, including the rights of
29:34
Jews and Israelis, is building systems and institutions and a
29:38
moral and a moral understanding that killing civilians is wrong
29:43
and should always be done as a last resort.
29:46
But when? So Israel's approach has been
29:49
massive aerial bombardments on a densely populated city that's
29:53
not properly evacuated in literally incinerating full
29:58
families, killing massive amounts of children.
30:01
While Hamas is not being defeated by this, that is not
30:05
something that we should accept as legitimate or OK.
30:08
That is the mass killing of civilians with not all too much
30:11
to show from a, from a perspective of military gain.
30:15
So yes, we need to say you cannot do this to a civilian
30:19
population. This is unacceptable.
30:21
It's illegal and it's immoral. That's that's my position in
30:25
Gaza. And in addition to just the
30:28
aerial campaigns that have not taken nearly enough
30:32
consideration for civilian life, there's been a systematic
30:35
disruption of their water system, dismantle of their
30:38
healthcare system, very low degree of care for civilians.
30:43
Despite what some of the pro Israel propagandists are
30:45
claiming. Large swaths of Gaza are turned
30:48
into what they call no go zones, where some units get a command
30:52
to just shoot anyone on site, even if it's a woman and a
30:55
child. We know units are doing this.
30:57
The less extreme units are not shooting anyone on site.
30:59
They're just shooting any man on site.
31:01
But even if they're unarmed. So yeah, this is not, this is
31:07
perhaps sometimes war is inevitable and we need it.
31:10
But we need to understand that it's war is horrific and we need
31:14
to do everything in our power to protect civilians in war.
31:18
And that's not happening. It's not even close to
31:20
happening. But Adar Israel is just
31:24
defending itself. Israel is just defending itself
31:30
the same way as Hamas was just resisting on October 7th.
31:35
There's there's resistance that's legitimate and then
31:40
resistance that's not. There's self-defense that's
31:43
legitimate and self-defense that's not.
31:46
Palestinians have the right to resist.
31:48
October 7th was not legitimate. Israel has right to
31:51
self-defense. Our response to October 7th is
31:54
not legitimate. It's it's, it's easy to hide
31:59
behind those terms, right? But we need to just because
32:02
Israel has right to self-defense doesn't mean everything we do in
32:05
the name of self-defense should be seen as OK.
32:08
You can take that to any any extent.
32:10
Let's just new Gaza. We're just defending ourselves,
32:12
right? And that's what many, many
32:14
supporters of October 7th uses similar logic.
32:16
It's not for me to tell oppressed people how to resist.
32:19
They should do everything in their power to to liberate
32:22
themselves. I think these are both incorrect
32:25
positions. You know, as I mentioned, I
32:27
split up the work I do. So part of part of what I'm
32:30
doing is engaging in the humanization process.
32:33
So for example, a few weeks ago I was involved in a 200 person
32:36
Palestinian Israeli camping trip in the West Bank.
32:41
So that's very much. Camping in the West Bank.
32:46
Yeah, yeah, yeah. West Bank, you know, I call it
32:49
West Bank, Judea, Samaria, Palestine.
32:53
I like to even that I consider like Judean Samaras, it's that's
32:58
the ancestral name for it. But often people who use that
33:01
term today are doing so in an attempt to erase Palestinian
33:07
claim to land. So I call it Judean Samaria,
33:09
Palestine. It triggers people on both sides
33:17
and it receives appreciation from people on both sides.
33:21
So. And look, I, I like to do that.
33:24
I like to try to think how we could frame these things in ways
33:26
that are just a little bit more accurate and that speak to both
33:29
sides. So I consider Zionism is an
33:32
Indigenous rights movement, but it's also a form of settler
33:35
colonialism. Both are true.
33:38
But the picnic was great. You know, it's all just seeing
33:41
us come together, getting to know one another.
33:43
It really those moments give us hope.
33:46
So yeah, I'm going to continue doing that work.
33:48
But I also, I think that our populations are now so
33:52
radicalized that I don't have high hope that a solution will
33:57
come purely from within. I think one of the best ways for
34:01
us to solve the conflict is for the US to stop being an enabler
34:06
for Israel's human rights abuses.
34:09
And that's the US. Yeah.
34:12
So the US is certainly acts as an enabler and the trajectory of
34:17
the US population is becoming more and more anti Israel.
34:19
And this is concerning to many Israelis and understandably so.
34:23
But this is a positive trajectory I because it's not
34:27
going to go to the point where the US goes from Zionist to anti
34:31
Zionist overnight. You're going to have this
34:33
generational grace period where and then this is an assumption,
34:39
but this is what I perceive will happen, where politicians will
34:42
understand that they just can't be blindly supportive of Israel.
34:46
They need to be more nuanced. They will need to in order for
34:49
them to be relevant. They will need to say either
34:54
Israel has the right to exist or I won't support any solution
34:57
that puts Jews in dangers. Right, that's appealing to to
34:59
one side, but on the other, Israel needs to do XYZ to solve
35:03
the conflict. They can't keep expanding
35:04
territories. They can't keep the system of
35:06
oppression. They can't be violating these
35:09
human rights. That is what I want the US
35:12
political establishment to how I want them to view it and to put
35:18
necessary pressure on Israel to make the concessions needed for
35:22
for a long term and just solution to the conflict.
35:25
So I'm, I'm focusing, yes, on peace building from within, but
35:28
I'm also focusing on trying to convince Americans that we're
35:31
not the most moral army in the world and what we're doing in
35:33
the West Bank is wrong. So that that is very much an
35:36
active part of my activism. Would you argue that it is
35:42
understandable why there is a strong support for Hamas within
35:49
Gaza? So recent polling doesn't show
35:55
the support to be strong. It's the past few polls have
36:01
showed like high single digit, low single digit support for
36:06
Hamas. And the reason for this is they
36:10
see what Hamas has brought upon them with October 7th.
36:14
But historically, I can understand why Hamas has been
36:19
popular. They represented an idea.
36:26
Yeah, and they've been shown to be effective.
36:29
So one of the biggest mistakes Israel made was not rewarding
36:33
moderation. The the Palestinian Authority,
36:37
who used to be more extreme than Hamas when they were the PLO,
36:41
through negotiation. Yeah.
36:44
And through negotiation, moderated their stance and in
36:47
1993 recognized Israel's right to exist.
36:50
And for over 2 decades now, we have had security cooperation
36:54
with the PA. The PA helps Israel stop terror
36:58
attacks in the West Bank. What?
37:02
What was the reward for this moderated stance?
37:05
Settlement expansion, more theft of land, more checkpoints, a
37:12
more serious system of oppression.
37:14
Palestinians see that compromise and moderation does not work.
37:21
And when Hamas used violence against Israel and Gaza, we
37:25
withdrew from Gaza. So Israelis or Palestinians see
37:32
moderation as not being effective, but violence being
37:35
effective. We, we've Israel very much
37:38
reinforced this with their actions, with not rewarding.
37:42
We what we should have done is spent the past two decades
37:46
showing the Palestinians that if you work with us, that is the
37:48
path to statehood, that is the path to sovereignty.
37:51
But we did the exact opposite. So, yeah, I understand why Hamas
37:55
is popular. They've in the in the eyes of
37:58
Palestinians, they're seen as the more effective they're,
38:02
they're seen as the more effective government or the the
38:05
more effective government using a more effective form of
38:08
resistance. You mentioned earlier that
38:10
you're you're agnostic. And what's interesting is the
38:17
biggest blind supporters of Israel's actions are not
38:23
actually the Jews. It's the evangelical Christian
38:26
West. Very much so, yeah.
38:29
Most Zionists are not Jewish, right, Because there's not.
38:34
Yeah, because there's not many of us.
38:35
We're only 15,000,000 globally, I'd say probably 12 million of
38:40
that 15,000,000, these are rough estimates are Zionists, but I
38:44
mean, how many evangelicals are in the US?
38:47
More than. That 7080 million, yeah.
38:49
Yeah, exactly. So just in the US alone, in the
38:52
US alone, you have more non Jewish Zionists than all the
38:55
Jews Zionists in the in the world, which is interesting.
39:01
I don't know what to make of it. You know, I respect people's
39:03
right to to be religious as long as their religious beliefs are
39:08
not infringing on the rights of others, you know?
39:12
What is the sentiment in Israel like on the ground?
39:16
Well, the IDF is by far the most revered institution in Israeli
39:20
society. So the IDF is still very much
39:25
supported by the majority of the Israeli population.
39:30
Netanyahu is not supported by the majority.
39:33
He's he's actively supported by 20 to 30% of the Israeli
39:37
population. So even when there's failures in
39:40
Gaza, IDF war crimes, that's for the most part blamed on
39:46
Netanyahu and his cabinet and not on the IDF, Although there's
39:51
not much discussion on the war crimes being committed in, in
39:55
Gaza. That's the the Overton window in
39:57
Israeli media and Israeli society is very narrow.
40:01
You don't have a, you don't really have a left, not, not in
40:04
the mainstream media. You have a far right all the way
40:07
to the center, you know, maybe slightly left of center, but
40:14
very little discussion. And it's changed a little bit in
40:17
recent months, but there's very little discussion on war crimes
40:20
being committed. The self critique is not of how
40:27
we're treating Palestinians. It's more so domestic issues.
40:30
We're big on self critique, just not how we treat Palestinians.
40:33
The self critique is judicial reform, corruption, stuff like
40:37
that. Now if you if you want to go a
40:40
little bit deeper because you start your question with
40:43
anti-Semitism. So that's, so that's sentiment
40:49
in the Israeli public overwhelmingly not supportive of
40:52
Netanyahu, overwhelmingly no longer support supporting the
40:55
war in Gaza, right. The majority of Israelis want a
40:58
ceasefire deal. They want to end it.
40:59
Netanyahu and it's and the, the IDF is no longer in support of
41:03
it. The the military brass is not in
41:05
support of it. Netanyahu and his cabinet are
41:08
right. So that's, you have a huge
41:10
division now and it's the first time in Israel history where the
41:14
IDF is carrying out a mission that they do not support.
41:19
So it's that's, that's pretty interesting On the question of
41:22
anti-Semitism, you know, I, I mentioned earlier, there's no
41:26
world in which Israel's actions and the why did you support for
41:31
these actions don't fuel anti-Semitism.
41:33
But anti-Semitism has existed for thousands of years, long
41:36
before Israel. One of the reasons why Israel
41:38
exists is because anti because of anti-Semitism, right?
41:41
So I don't describe the reason for anti-Semitism being Israel.
41:46
anti-Semitism is a fire that's raged for thousands of years.
41:51
Israel, Israel's actions is fuel to that fire.
41:54
I think that's a suitable analogy.
41:57
But a lot of anti-Semitism is just rooted in conspiracy and
42:02
belief that we're trying to dominate and, and, you know,
42:06
enslave the Gentiles. Control the world.
42:10
Yeah, and control the world and and this we just need a better
42:14
education, better conversations. I don't think just assuming the
42:19
worst about these people is the solution.
42:21
I think we actually need to engage them and and try to
42:23
change their minds. I think that's probably more
42:25
effective. But then there's another part,
42:27
another thing that fuels anti-Semitism that I don't I
42:31
don't have a good solution for. We Jews are disproportionately
42:36
powerful, right? We don't control the world, but
42:39
we control a larger share of the world than we represent.
42:44
Yes, but So what? Right, well, right.
42:47
So I, it's, this isn't a coordinated effort.
42:51
This is just us doing well, right?
42:53
We don't sit around. Hang on, hang on.
42:54
Let me, sorry. Let me interrupt you and jump in
42:56
and give you a, a parallel. Here in South Africa, white
43:00
people are the minority, right? And white people are in a lot of
43:04
positions of power. Right.
43:07
And that creates animosity. Yes.
43:11
It it, it shouldn't, but it does, right.
43:13
So that's my whole point. If we're all psychologically
43:16
healthy, you're like, OK, yeah, I'm not going to blame all Jews
43:20
because they're doing well. That's, you know, they're doing
43:22
well. But but innately people have a
43:29
response of some kind of disdain when they see that.
43:32
So when, you know, we're .2% of the global population, but our
43:37
global influences beyond farce greater than .2.
43:42
So. And now let's zoom into the
43:44
United States because here I think it's, it's relevant.
43:46
You know, the Jews in, in the United States are very over
43:52
represented in, in media positions in Hollywood, in
43:57
finance, in, in high tech. Yeah, and even porn in the porn
44:03
industry as well. Not porn.
44:06
Yeah. I don't know how you know that.
44:09
I didn't know that a rabbi bought Pornhub.
44:13
Yeah, that's actually one of the things that there's the the fund
44:18
that bought Pornhub, a rabbi is part of that fund, but he's not
44:22
the largest shareholder. But yeah, that's that's one
44:24
thing that the anti Semites like to like to bring up.
44:27
Now, these are all industries of consequence, right?
44:31
There are other industries where Jews are over represented, but
44:34
they're not industries of consequence.
44:36
So in America, Jews are over represented in owning
44:39
construction companies. These are primarily Israeli
44:42
Jews. We're also over represented in
44:44
charity donations. We're over represented in Nobel
44:48
Peace Prizes. So we're over represented in
44:50
many things. But the industries that I, I
44:52
mentioned are all industries that shape culture.
44:56
So if you're an American prime, and I think this is probably
45:00
more relevant to right wing anti-Semitism.
45:02
But if you're an American and you don't like the direction of
45:04
the country, you don't like what the financial system is doing,
45:07
you don't like how the mainstream media's is acting.
45:10
You don't like the degeneracy that comes from porn.
45:12
Like, OK, well, Jews are in all those industries.
45:15
Clearly Jews are pulling the, the, the, the country in the
45:20
wrong direction. Right?
45:21
That that is a very natural interpretation of what's going
45:25
on. I don't think it's the right
45:27
interpretation because all these industries, even though Jews are
45:30
over represented, we're not the majority in any of them.
45:33
These are not entirely Jewish industries.
45:35
And again, this just points to a small fraction of the Jewish
45:39
population who occupy these positions in these industries.
45:44
So what what I think the solution is, and this is the
45:48
solution to all forms of group hate.
45:50
Treat people as individuals. Even if you have prejudice
45:54
towards Jews and prejudice towards blacks or prejudice
45:57
towards Muslims. Prejudice is natural.
45:59
I don't think it's even reasonable to try to get rid of
46:02
all prejudice. So that's not the goal.
46:05
The goal is accepting prejudice as as innate, but not acting on
46:10
that prejudice. So you can have a bias, but if
46:13
you meet an individual, treat them with dignity and respect.
46:16
And if we all treat people with dignity and respect, I think we,
46:19
we would live in a much more beautiful world.
46:21
So that's what I really think the, the solution to this is.
46:25
And Jews are going to continue to be disproportionately
46:27
powerful for many generations. And this is something that, you
46:31
know, I, I think will always fuel anti-Semitism.
46:34
And I think the solution is not to deplatform or cancel people
46:38
who are troubled by this. It's not for Jews to just give
46:42
up their power, it's for us to just treat people with dignity
46:45
and respect. Someone said to me a few days
46:49
ago after I shared before and after visual of a part of Gaza
46:56
where it looked like a normal city and and now it looks just
47:00
like rubble and the comment was well sorry, but that's what
47:05
happens in a war. Yeah, I think it's a war against
47:09
Hamas, but I, I, I'm very OK with the framing.
47:12
It's a war against Hamas and a genocide against the Palestinian
47:16
people. The, the, and again, I already
47:21
spoke about how I use the terminology, but I, I don't
47:24
accept saying this is just a war because that is just a way to
47:27
excuse human rights abuses and war crimes, right?
47:33
It's not just a war, right? You can't hide behind that.
47:36
No, there's the mass killing of civilians.
47:38
There's the destruction of the way of life of of civilians, of
47:42
vital civilian infrastructure. There's a low degree of care for
47:46
civilian life we can't just hide behind.
47:50
It's just a war. I'm guessing you're optimistic.
47:59
Yeah, it can't. It can't hurt to be optimistic,
48:02
you know. And even if I'm not feeling
48:05
internally optimistic, I present as optimistic because I realize
48:08
it's good for the world to be optimistic.
48:13
But it it when I speak realistically, no, I mean, we
48:15
might be headed towards like AI might kill us all like that's
48:19
possible. So I can't tell you that if that
48:22
will happen or not, But I do think living a life of optimism
48:26
and trying to fight the good fight just increases the chance
48:28
that we survive as a species. So that's how I decide to live.
48:33
Like I, I, I think the good way, the the healthiest form of
48:38
activism is a combination between idealism and pragmatism.
48:44
Idealism being the vision you would like to create for the
48:47
world. Pragmatism being how can we
48:51
actually get there, right. So call it idealism is the
48:56
compass. Pragmatism is the steering
49:01
wheel. I see a huge amount of of
49:05
critique to against the Jews, the Jews, quote UN quote, but I
49:11
never actually know where they're going with this.
49:14
Like, OK, fine, you've made that point.
49:18
Now what? You know, that's, that's a great
49:20
point that and and I think it's, it's much easier to talk about
49:27
what we perceive to be a problem and not a solution, right?
49:31
Solutions are much harder than identifying problems.
49:34
So people reflexively are seeing something they don't like or are
49:38
troubled with and they're talking about it.
49:41
But it's not like they're talking about, I mean, the
49:44
extremists do have a solution, get Jews out of society, you
49:47
know, like Hitler had a solution.
49:49
There's people who occasionally come with a solution.
49:51
They're often pretty horrific solutions.
49:55
But I yeah, I'm seeing very little conversation about what
49:59
what is like a, a just solution. OK.
50:02
If you have concern that there's this insular ethnic group that
50:05
is disproportionately powerful and they're bringing the country
50:08
in a direction you don't like, well, hating an entire people
50:12
and harming that people is not a legitimate solution.
50:15
So let's actually talk about what you think the solution.
50:17
How can we build better ties? How can we create a, a system
50:20
where Jews are more integrated in society and where they're not
50:24
seen as a separate part of society?
50:26
Right. Because the more we're hated,
50:27
the more we stick together. The more we stick together, the
50:29
more we're hated. We're kind of yeah, yeah, yeah.
50:34
There's a cycle. So as I mentioned, I do want to
50:37
get into more of this type of of work interacting with the anti
50:40
Semites. And this is going to be part of
50:43
what I talked to them about. It's like, what do you actually
50:45
think should be done? And and just having a very real
50:48
conversation about how we could heal the relationship between
50:52
Jews and and the gentiles that currently don't like us.
50:58
All right, well, let's come in for a landing.
51:01
How can my audience follow you? Sure, so I am most active.
51:09
My most in depth and nuanced commentary is going to be on
51:13
YouTube, but I do live streams once to twice a week anyway.
51:17
Anywhere for me? Moderating a debate, being in a
51:19
debate discussion or just doing commentary.
51:23
And then in addition to that, I'm quite active on X as well as
51:26
on Instagram. Doll One, RIP.
51:28
Thank you for joining me in the trenches.