Latest / Yaron Brook Show / Fauda -- Review of the Netflix's Israeli TV Show | Yaron & Nikos Dialogues

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Fauda -- Review of the Netflix's Israeli TV Show | Yaron & Nikos Dialogues · Yaron Brook Show

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: This is the Yaron Brook Show. All right, everybody.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to You Want to Know Some Dialogues, episode, we've
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: lost count. But here we are.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: And today should be fun.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: It should be interesting. And I think fun. Hopefully, you
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: guys have actually gone out and watched Fauda. And in particular,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: season five, but hopefully you've watched the whole thing. So
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about the show. its implications,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: and what it represents. Remember, Super Chat is open, so
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  Speaker 1: you can ask questions. You can ask questions about anything.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, maybe start out with any questions you might
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  Speaker 1: have about Fauda or about the Israeli-Palestinian issue, which is
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: going to come up a lot in this context, but
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: you can ask about anything. So feel free to ask
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  Speaker 1: about anything. We are ambitious in terms of raising money
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  Speaker 1: for this. I mean, Nikos had to get a Netflix subscription,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: had to watch all five seasons again to brush up.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, there's time expenses. But, of course,
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  Speaker 1: our time, that's the thing that's most valuable. And here
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  Speaker 1: we are. Couldn't do this. Neither Nikos nor I could
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: do this without your support, right? So it's people who
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: listen to the show who are supporting us financially. that
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  Speaker 1: make the continuity of this show and other shows we
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: do possible.
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  Speaker 2: And Avihai and Eli and Boaz, they didn't die for nothing,
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  Speaker 2: so be generous today.
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  Speaker 1: There you go. There you go. All right.
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  Speaker 2: And obviously there's going to be spoilers. There was already one.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Jennifer says she hasn't watched. She thinks it would
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  Speaker 1: upset her too much.
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  Speaker 2: It's intense. We're going to talk about that.
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  Speaker 1: It's intense, but I don't know if it should upset you.
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  Speaker 1: All right. Let's start with basically giving the setup, right?
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  Speaker 1: What is fundamentally Faure about? Who are the main characters
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  Speaker 1: and what kind of do they represent?
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  Speaker 2: We are dealing here with... A special team from the
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  Speaker 2: special corps from the Sin Bet, if I'm not mistaken,
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  Speaker 2: and their characteristic is that they're all Arab looking to
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  Speaker 2: put it this way they're fluent in Arab and they
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  Speaker 2: penetrate the. occupied territories but as you'll see also Gaza
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  Speaker 2: and they are taking very risky missions within the Palestinian
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  Speaker 2: society they can move within the Palestinians they can look
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  Speaker 2: like Palestinians even the cigarettes they smoke are Palestinian cigarettes
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  Speaker 2: and these all this is true by the way All
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  Speaker 2: this is true that you could read from already the
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  Speaker 2: 40s that the Israelis would live and operate within the Palestinians.
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  Speaker 2: They had to be, even in how they smelled, they
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  Speaker 2: had to smell like Arabs. That's why the British officer
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  Speaker 2: who was training insisted you're only going to smoke Arab
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  Speaker 2: cigarettes because they can smell you from afar in the dark.
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  Speaker 2: And yeah, this is.
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  Speaker 1: Spies operate and so on, and these are typically Israelis
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  Speaker 1: who come from families whose origin is the Middle East,
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  Speaker 1: whether it's northern Africa or the Middle East itself or
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  Speaker 1: Iraq or down through the Arabian Peninsula. So the families
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  Speaker 1: where the parents probably spoke Arabic as their first language
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  Speaker 1: and where the children still speak with their parents Arabic
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  Speaker 1: at home. Of course, each Arab country has its own
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  Speaker 1: dialect and has its own accent, so they would have
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  Speaker 1: to train on a particular Palestinian dialect and a particular
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  Speaker 1: Palestinian accent, which is fairly easy because if they talk
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  Speaker 1: to Arabs in Israel, they would pick that up, right?
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  Speaker 1: So it's the Arabic that is around them and being spoken.
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  Speaker 1: Israeli television, you know, when I was growing up, Israeli
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  Speaker 1: television had one channel, and it would have regular... programming
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  Speaker 1: in Arabic. You know, primetime was typically Hebrew, except Friday nights,
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  Speaker 1: they'd have an Arab movie. We'd all sit down and
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  Speaker 1: watch a movie from Egypt, usually, and we'd see an
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  Speaker 1: Arab movie. But so, you know, Arabic is everywhere in Israel.
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  Speaker 1: There's a lot of street signs. I mean, this is
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  Speaker 1: the apartheid state of Israel. The signs in Arabic and
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  Speaker 1: Your doctor is probably an Arab and, you know, Arabic
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  Speaker 1: is everywhere. So it's fairly easy for them to train.
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  Speaker 1: They look the part because, again, their families are many, many, many,
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  Speaker 1: many generations, you know, in Arab countries. And as a consequence,
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  Speaker 1: they have the features of the people they live amongst.
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  Speaker 2: Yes. And the name Fauda means something like is the
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  Speaker 2: signal you give when it is chaos. It means... Sid
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  Speaker 2: has hit the fan. Things are dangerous. Let's get out
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  Speaker 2: of here. It's chaotic.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is very much a theme throughout the show.
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  Speaker 1: The show is chaotic. I mean, I think this is
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  Speaker 1: one of the virtues of the show. It really gives
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  Speaker 1: you a sense of the intensity of what they're doing,
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  Speaker 1: the intensity of the fighting. And unexpected stuff is constantly happening,
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  Speaker 1: as it is in reality, I think, when these kind
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  Speaker 1: of special ops go in. And so chaos is everywhere.
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  Speaker 1: Chaos is a great name. And Fauda is chaos in Arabic.
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  Speaker 1: It's an Arabic word, not a Hebrew word. And the
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  Speaker 1: show itself is in Arabic and in Hebrew, alternating. When
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  Speaker 1: they're outside, like in Europe, often it's in French. and
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  Speaker 1: sometimes in English, depending on who they're talking to. But
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  Speaker 1: you've got multiple languages going on, so yes, if you
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  Speaker 1: watch it, you're going to have to read subtitles for
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  Speaker 1: all of this. I have to read about a third
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  Speaker 1: of the subtitles because all the Hebrew I can understand,
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  Speaker 1: but the rest I have to follow the subtitles.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, and the protagonist in every season is the bald
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  Speaker 2: guy you've seen perhaps in the poster, Doron. But some
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  Speaker 2: of the figures, we grow with them throughout the series.
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  Speaker 2: And when we get to Season 5, to the October
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  Speaker 2: 7 events, we view the events through the eyes of
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  Speaker 2: these people. And the producers explained that this was intentional
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  Speaker 2: because you have already accustomed yourself to these people. So
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  Speaker 2: viewing this... dramatic key event in israeli history through their
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  Speaker 2: eyes makes it easier to tell a story a story
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  Speaker 2: which is otherwise not easy to tell.
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  Speaker 1: At all yes uh yes and and dolan is a
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  Speaker 1: is a is a is you know the protagonist the
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  Speaker 1: hero of the show he's he's at the center of
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  Speaker 1: pretty much all the action he is often the person
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  Speaker 1: who moves the action along um and um he's both
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  Speaker 1: brilliant Ruthless. Competent. But he's also impulsive. He's insubordinate. He
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  Speaker 1: doesn't like to follow orders. And sometimes when he should
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  Speaker 1: walk away, he can't. And he's very, as we'll see
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  Speaker 1: if we talk about season one or two, he really,
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  Speaker 1: you know, like often I think happens with spies, he
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  Speaker 1: very much buys into the characters he's playing. and he
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  Speaker 1: lives it out, and that affects his love life, it
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  Speaker 1: affects his, you know, kind of the decisions he makes.
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  Speaker 2: In anthropology, they call it he goes native. Yep. He
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  Speaker 2: mixes with the natives, and it's difficult for him to
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  Speaker 2: distinguish this is the mission and the fake character that
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  Speaker 2: I pretend to be, and this is real life. This
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  Speaker 2: is why, if you notice... Whenever Doron is in action,
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  Speaker 2: because initially we meet him, he has left the field.
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  Speaker 2: And there are various times throughout the series where he says, OK,
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  Speaker 2: I've had enough. When he leaves the field, he can
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: return to something like a family life because his family
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: is broken, mostly because of his career. But whenever he's
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: in action, he cannot maintain his marriage because he becomes
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: the person who is in the mission.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting. And the show is not, right,
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't have a James Bond attitude to the spy.
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  Speaker 1: This is not glamorous work. It is not thrilling. There
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: are no martinis. There's no playing baccarat at the casino.
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  Speaker 1: This is gritty comedy. And the show is very gritty.
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  Speaker 1: There's a naturalism to the show, but a realism, a
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  Speaker 1: real realism to the show. I think the characters are
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  Speaker 1: ultimately romantic in the sense that they make choices, and
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  Speaker 1: they drive the plot. But there is definitely a kind
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  Speaker 1: of a realism element. And look, here's the reality, which
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  Speaker 1: I think is the reality of being in special ops,
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  Speaker 1: certainly a reality in particular of being, what do you
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  Speaker 1: call it, undercover? Undercover cops or spies or whatever. You know,
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  Speaker 1: as objective as we know, our minds are kind of
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  Speaker 1: integrating machines. And what is required of you as a
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  Speaker 1: spy or as an undercover agent of any kind is
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  Speaker 1: to live two lives and not integrate them and compartmentalize
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  Speaker 1: them completely and consciously do so. And that is exhausting.
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  Speaker 1: And it is ultimately, you know, undermining of happiness and success.
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  Speaker 1: There's a great show. Did you ever see the show
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  Speaker 1: on the Israeli spy Eli Cohen?
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  Speaker 2: Yes. I think that was even harder to watch than Fauda.
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  Speaker 2: It's a more tragic story. But, yeah, I've watched it
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  Speaker 2: with Shasa Baron Cohen.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's brilliant in it. And it's a true story.
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  Speaker 1: I forget the name of it, but it's about the
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  Speaker 1: Israeli spy in Syria, Eli Cohen. I grew up on
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  Speaker 1: the story of Eli Cohen, right? This was a heroic story.
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  Speaker 1: and it was a phenomenal success story in terms of intelligence.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, it takes a toll. There's just no way
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  Speaker 1: around it. To be a spy, to compartmentalize yourself that
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  Speaker 1: way is very, very difficult and, as I said, is dangerous,
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  Speaker 1: but more than that, psychologically, it grinds you. And I
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  Speaker 1: think what you see in Fauda is that they really
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  Speaker 1: show you that. They show you the toll in life,
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  Speaker 1: in the lives lost, because a number of the characters
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  Speaker 1: that we meet in season one don't make it through
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  Speaker 1: season five, and in the relationships, in family life, and
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  Speaker 1: in their own psychology, in their ability to be happy,
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  Speaker 1: which is dramatically compromised.
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  Speaker 2: You know, it's very fashionable these days to show heroes
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  Speaker 2: with their vulnerabilities And this becomes a cliché. But in Fauda,
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  Speaker 2: it is 100% organic. So we see every single character
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  Speaker 2: at some point gets psychologically broken. We see very tough
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  Speaker 2: men who have seen violence and are familiar with violence.
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  Speaker 2: We see them having panic attacks. In season five, the
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  Speaker 2: season starts with Doron undergoing serious trauma therapy. And because
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  Speaker 2: you have the context of what these people are doing,
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  Speaker 2: it is not cliche or cringe at all. It is
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  Speaker 2: perfectly organic and, oh, yeah, obviously, this is what happened.
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  Speaker 1: And it's not meant to undercut the hero. So here's
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  Speaker 1: the other thing. What you get in most, you know,
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  Speaker 1: modern movies is this is a way to undercut heroism. Yeah, but,
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  Speaker 1: you know, they suffer all this damage. Here, it's completely organic.
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  Speaker 1: And part of it is, and this is, I think, again,
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  Speaker 1: what Fauda shows here, and we'll talk more about this.
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  Speaker 1: It really shows you the cost of war. War is
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  Speaker 1: not romantic. It's not dramatic. It's not Achilles, you know, dying,
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  Speaker 1: so my name will be there for, you know, even
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  Speaker 1: Achilles later on realizes that's bullshit. War is brutal.
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  Speaker 2: It is horrific.
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  Speaker 1: Um, you know, the, the, the, uh, they are innocent people,
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  Speaker 1: even among the bad guys and they suffer. Uh, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the good guys, uh, even if they win, there is
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  Speaker 1: suffering involved in winning, uh, because their casualties taken. And
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: of course the, again, the psychological toll of killing people of,
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  Speaker 1: you know, even, even when you know somebody's evil, it's
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  Speaker 1: still not easy to kill. Although Dolan sometimes makes it
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  Speaker 1: look easy. Um, You know, there is a cost, and
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  Speaker 1: you see that cost in them. And again, I think
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  Speaker 1: the series really, really makes a great illustration of the
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  Speaker 1: cost of war, the horrors of war. And....
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  Speaker 2: There are two things that are captivating in the series
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  Speaker 2: behind the fact that the theme, the story is captivating.
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  Speaker 2: The heroes, but also the villains. The villains also carry
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  Speaker 2: the show. So in almost every season, there is a
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  Speaker 2: key antagonist from the Palestinian side, the Arab side, and
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  Speaker 2: also these villains, we see different archetypes. The bureaucrat, the sincere,
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  Speaker 2: the true believer, the nihilist for whom death is nothing,
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  Speaker 2: the person who starts as a mistaken idealist but then
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: turns out to be a murderer and a nihilist, the
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  Speaker 2: villains are also very, very captivating. This is why at
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  Speaker 2: the end of our analysis you will get a list,
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: a countdown, our favorite heroes from least favorite to most favorite,
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  Speaker 2: and the most captivating villains from the less convincing to
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  Speaker 2: the most convincing. Or at least I hope you will
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  Speaker 2: get it. I have my list. I don't know if
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: you are on Peter's list.
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  Speaker 1: I definitely think you'll get a list from Nikos, which
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: is good. I can comment on his list rather than...
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I have not recently seen episode one through four. I
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: only saw season five. So I haven't recently seen season
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: one through four, so it's hard for me to I
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: don't have the memory anymore. I actually don't think I
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: ever had the memory to be able to actually remember
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: the details to be able to make these kind of lists.
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  Speaker 1: But I had to remind myself what happens in each season.
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  Speaker 1: So I had to ask Google or whatever to give
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: me a encapsulation of each season so I could remember
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: it because I don't remember the details.
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  Speaker 2: It's okay. It will still be fun.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely. All right, so let's talk about kind of
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: the progressions of the seasons and what happens. You know,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: we also want to talk about kind of the politics
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: of the show, what kind of stance it takes. I
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: think that's interesting. And, yeah, and I think we should
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: spend a little bit more time on season five. But
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: let's start with season one. So this is the first season.
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  Speaker 1: It's definitely a lower budget filmed season. So you can
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: tell that it's a little rough at the edges in
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: terms of production value. But it's also probably the most
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  Speaker 1: intense season. It's probably the most, partially because it's new,
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  Speaker 1: it's captivating. And the fact that the production value is
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: low adds to the grittiness a little bit of the
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: whole phenomenon. So maybe you want us to kind of
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: just broadly who the protagonist is and who the villain
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  Speaker 1: is here, and then kind of what happens.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, there is an important terrorist in the West Bank
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: who is presumed dead, but Doron the hero has killed him, presumably.
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  Speaker 2: But turns out he's still alive. So through a series
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: of events, Doron returns to the team. The team infiltrates
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: a wedding hoping to find him. They realize that he's alive,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: but then we have the first founder, the first event
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  Speaker 2: of Chaos. and innocents die. And the first season is
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: a vendetta, let's say, is a chase of this villain,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: the panther, who is, again, a very captivating figure. He's
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: too radical even for Hamas. He's this kind of one-man
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: show with his little protege, and they are after him.
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  Speaker 2: And also, you get in season one, you get a
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: lot of the insides of the Palestinian society. how the shahid,
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: how the martyr is seen from within the society, how
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: difficult are the dynamics within the Palestinian society, and what
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: is the toll that it would take from someone to say, look,
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: I don't want, I don't like the terrorism, It's time
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: to have peace. This is something which is very, very difficult,
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: and it would take a very strong independent character to
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: do that because there are very harsh repercussions within the
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Palestinian society, from within the Palestinians, if someone doesn't follow
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: the line and if someone shows any sign of weakness
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: or cooperation with Israel. So the first season is the
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: Panther versus the team. There's also a woman that gets involved.
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  Speaker 2: The Panther is absolutely ruthless, not in a very convincing way.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: He's ready to sacrifice literally his child. He would rather
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: sacrifice his child for an operation to succeed and to
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: inflict significant damage. to the Zionist entity rather than to
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: have a although we see that he loves his family
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: he would still rather sacrifice his kid if this means
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: that he will he will inflict a blow to the
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: to the Israelis and.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: This is the first season where Doron goes undercover and
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: we see him acting as a Palestinian within the Palestinian community.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: And not to give too much away, but he does
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: fall for a doctor, a woman, Dr. Shirin, And he
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: becomes involved with her. And this of course creates all
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: kinds of interesting dynamics that I think play out. We
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: get this really fanatical terrorist, the Panther, but There's a
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: sense in which we get a pretty somewhat sympathetic view
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: of the Palestinians. I remember at the end of that
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: season thinking, yeah, this show is purposefully not taking a stand.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: It's not taking a stand on the big geopolitical question.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: It's taking a stand, this guy's evil and needs to die.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: But it's not taking a stand on Israel versus the Palestinians.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: There's only something in the second or third season, I
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: can't remember, where you get a little bit of when
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: the father is talking to the son and telling him
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: what characterizes Israel, that you get that. But in the
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: first season, you don't have really any of that. Obviously,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: it's the good guys of the Israeli, this unit among Israelis,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: but they're basically good people among the Palestinians, and they
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: you kind of sympathize with in the show, you sympathize
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: with the confusion and the, and, and the, the nature
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: of kind of the, the, the fact that they're living
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: under what military rule to some extent, right. There's, you know,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: you get, you get the checkpoints, you get the kind
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: of things that people criticize Israel for, you get them
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: illustrated in, uh, in, in it. And, you know, the, the,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: the creators of the show very much wanted to create
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: a show that, uh, to some extent, was apolitical, that is,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: at least originally, and it wouldn't be associated with the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Israeli right or the Israeli left. And, you know, a
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: measure of that is that both the Israeli right and
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: the Israeli left like the show, and from their political perspective,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: for different reasons, right, because they humanized the left, because
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: they humanized the Palestinians. from the weight because, hey, the
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: good guys win.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: And the show should be like that because the show
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: shows you the reality from every possible angle. It gives
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: you an integrated view of the conflict. And actually, there
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: are two very difficult moments in season one. One moment
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: where you see the team torturing an elderly person because
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: one of their own is captured. And it shows also
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: how difficult it is for the team itself to view
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: the torturing of the cleric, of the Hamas leader. So
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: it's what we said, I think, last week when we
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: were talking about public executions, that if you have to
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: get to torture, it should be... very disturbing also for
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: you if you enjoy there's something very very weird for
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: you and we see what is the toll that torturing
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: a bad guy takes also on the team and at
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: some point they also have to kidnap a kid and
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: to use it in order to in order to get
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: back to the get back at the at the panther.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah i mean there's a little i mean this is
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: my criticism right of of season one and and and
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: to some extent the show um although it's mild as
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: compared to its virtues, if you don't know much about
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, if you don't know that much about
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: what's going on, there is a little bit of perspective of,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: you know, it's... What do you call it? Both sides?
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, both.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Well, it's also.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: You know, everything is revenge, right?
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: So it's all just a series of tit for tat.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: It's all tit for tat. And you can't, unless you
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: have an overreaching historical perspective, you can't see the big picture.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: So the show purposefully does not get into the big picture.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Even in season five, which is much more from the
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: perspective of the Israelis, doesn't get into the big picture.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: It doesn't ask the question why. It doesn't ask the
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: kind of big questions. It's just, this is what happened.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: This is the response. And you can evaluate the response.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: But it's, and it says, this is what happened, you know,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't question why it happened. So it's, you
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: don't get any kind of geopolitical perspective. Except for, again,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: there were a few lines here and there through the seasons,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: where you get the sense of, yeah, but there's something
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: fundamentally healthy about Israeli society and there's something fundamentally sick
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: about Palestinian society.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: I think it shows, but it doesn't tell. Yes.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: And it shows mildly. It doesn't, you know, again, there's
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: that one line from the Palestinian, that one conversation with
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: the Palestinian, is about as explicit as it ever gets
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: during any of these shows.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: To mention what this conversation is, I tweeted about it some...
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: If you go to my Twitter and look for videos,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: I think it was one of the last two videos
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: I posted. There is a Fatah guy. So we have
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: to say Fatah is portrayed as practically collaborators these days.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: They are ruling the West Bank and they are good
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: buddies with the Israelis. Of course, they are corrupt, but
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: their corruption is mostly... We like to enjoy money, women,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: but who cares anymore about the cause and things like that.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: So there is this Palestinian who is sensing that his kid,
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: his boy, is radicalized. So he takes his boy to
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Tel Aviv. He has obviously links with the Israelis. And
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: he shows the boy the skyscrapers and says, look, do
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: you really think you can destroy all this? There's a
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: big difference. Here's why you can't destroy them. Because they
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: want to live and we just want to die. And
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: the side that wants to live wins. And this is
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: for me the most important moment in all the five
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: seasons in terms of this is the essence of the conflict.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: If you want to take a clip, a one-minute clip,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: and show it to the world and say this is
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: the essence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is this clip.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: This side wants to win and this is why we
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: will never be able to beat them.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, I mean, I was so happy. I think that
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: was in season two, and it was in season one,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: and I was so happy to see that because that
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: was the closest they got to kind of a broad
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: statement about the conflict and about its nature and its
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: fundamental kind of character and its fundamental, you know, yeah,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: fundamental character and nature.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, go ahead. So shall we proceed in season two?
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Yep, yep.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Season two shows what we could describe as the radical
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: flank effect, that whenever you think that we have done
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: with these radicals, someone will out-radical them and appear as
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: now we are the most radical force. So in season two,
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: you got a villain called Nidal al-Makdesi. He's someone who
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: trained in Syria, and he literally brings the flag of ISIS...
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: in the West Bank. Hamas is very angry with him. Obviously,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: not to mention Fatah is very angry with him. The
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: most interesting thing in the first two seasons, let's say
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: from a bird's-eye point of view, is that Hamas is
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: viewed as Fatah in the making. Hamas is viewed as, yeah,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: these people are very dangerous and lethal, but they are tamed.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Power is taming them. They drive the nice cars... They
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: have the mistresses. Yeah.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: And this is, right, this is what we talked about
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: last time. This is the conception, right?
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: The concept.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: The concept. This is the new concept. You know, this
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: is what Israeli political leaders held, or at least Netanyahu
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: certainly held, and many others. I mean, there's even, there's actually,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I found this article about Fauda, and it's called, you know, it's...
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: It has two aspects to it. It's called Israel's Fauda fallacy,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: which is the idea that, in a sense, Fauda lulled
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Israel to sleep. Fauda did it in two ways. One,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: what we just said, Hamas is. But second, it shows
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the Israelis so competent, always stopping the attack. that israelis
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: go yeah i mean we got photo we you know
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: we don't have to worry until october 7th happens so
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: it's an interesting article um and a sub stack called
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: first rough draft of history called israel's father fallacy i
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: don't buy completely what he writes there but it was
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: an interesting twist on uh on this.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: So the season two is a runs around the El Magdesi,
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: there's also this figure, this annoying kid that was the
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: protege of the panther, who now wants to become a
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: Hamas leader. Hamas is... to be very eager. Anyone who
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: has the tendency to become a martyr or who looks
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: like he did something in terms of killing Jews, we
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: recruit you. You can now become the face of the movement.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: And we still have the doctor from season one, who
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: is somewhere caught in the middle of all this. So
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: this is season two, the ruthless Syrian, the ruthless ISIS guy,
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: who is perhaps one of the most captivating villains in
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: the film. He has these intense eyes. He's absolutely convincing.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: He will be very high in my list of villains.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: And a lot of this season is, again, the story
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: of tit for tat. fathers and sons, fathers getting killed,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: sons avenging their fathers is a big part of this.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: And again, that risks leading us down this road of, yeah,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: the whole Palestinian-Israeli conflict is just tit for tat and
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: we just need to stop it and everything would resolve.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: It doesn't work like that. But it also does illustrate
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: something that's true of the Middle Eastern culture, which is
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: a culture of revenge. It is a culture of honor
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: in the kind of barbarian sense, barbaric sense. You know,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: you did something to my family, I do something to
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: your family, and there's a never-ending feud that's associated. And
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: there's no question, part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: It's the fact that from the Arab side, it's very
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: difficult to disengage with that because it's so much a
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: part of their culture.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, and the first and the second unit, we have
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: to say, is one thematic. The first and the second
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: season is one thematic unit. That's why I don't even think,
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: I don't remember, maybe the torture scene is in season two,
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: but season one and season two is practically one long season.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: It's a continuation of the theme, which is not the
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: case with season three. In season three, we find ourselves
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: in a different timescale. Doron has gone again native undercover
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: in West Bank. infiltrating the family of Jihad. Jihad is
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: an iconic Palestinian prisoner now in his probably 50s. He
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: spent decades in prison. He's called the father of prisoners.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: He looks a very kind paternal figure and he's released
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: and there is this worry what will happen now that
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: he will be released. And he has a son. Doron
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: is training his son. Doron has become friends with his son.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: And this creates the most painful personal conflict for Doron
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: in the whole series when it comes to a boy
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: he truly loved now becomes a villain. The highlight in
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: terms of geopolitics of season three is that at some
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: point they have to go to Gaza because we have
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: a hostage situation. And it is... absolutely prophetic, I don't
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: know how to put it, the horror of everyone in
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: the team in the prospect of having to go to Gaza.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: And this was before October 7th.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: And they have to go to Gaza to save two hostages.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: That's all. And Eli, who had been before to Gaza,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: gives this little monologue.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: Eli is the commander of the unit at this point.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Eli is commander of the unit at this point.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: And he plays a big role in season five, yeah.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: And his line is something like, But Gaza is the
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: place where bad things happen. And he actually gets a
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: panic attack while in Gaza, which almost ruins the mission.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: This is for the idiots who thought that Israel was
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: just looking for an excuse to enter Gaza. But because
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: this show captures the Israeli psyche, it does a very
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: good job in capturing how the last place in the
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: world where Israelis, even the toughest of the Israelis, want
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: to be is Gaza.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: And it does a really good job of giving you
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the sense of claustrophobia that is Gaza. The narrow streets,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: the busy streets, the tunnels, the buildings, the way they kidnap,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: the way they take the hostages is a Hamas unit
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: comes through a tunnel and kidnaps the people. Again, they
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: don't use tunnels in October 7th because Israel shut them down.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: but it's the same general idea. And remember, this is post...
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Kidnappings were a big deal for Israel during this period, right?
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Season three was in 2020. This is post-Shalit, but it's...
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Israelis are really afraid of this. The Hamas is very good.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: And at that point, they're mainly worried about tunnels that
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: are being dug from Gaza into Israel. Uh, it turns
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: out post October 7th, what they should have been worried
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: about are the tunnels they dug inside Gaza because they, they, they,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: they've made taking Gaza so horrifically difficult. And of course
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: that's where most of the hostages were ultimately. Uh, but yes,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, this idea of Israel doesn't leave people behind.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: It always goes after them. It always tries to capture them. Um, again,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: get them back. Uh, and, uh, the danger of if
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: they do become permanent hostages then because of Shalit we
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: know thousands of Israel will release thousands of terrorists so
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: there's an urgency to what they're doing they're trying to
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: release them before they get you know hidden so inside
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Gaza to the point where they can be found yeah
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: I found that season again super intense particularly because the
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: whole Gaza scenes were were, were, were, were very powerful. And, uh,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: and you got that claustrophobic, really the claustrophobic. And again,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: we saw it before, before October 7th. I, I, I'm
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: not sure my wife would have watched it post October 7th, but, um, uh, yeah,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Israel knew how, how difficult Gaza was. And, and look,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: and this is people, people don't know this, but, um,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: We talked about this on the Yom Kippur War part.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Al-Sharon suppressed an uprising in Gaza in the early, very
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: early 1970s, before the Yom Kippur War. Gaza was pretty peaceful,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: fairly peaceful, from then until the first Intifada, which was
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: in 1987, and still didn't really become super violent until
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: the second Intifada, which is when it became so violent
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: that Sharon ultimately got Israel to retreat, you know, to
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: basically vacate Gaza. In the 70s and in the 80s,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: in the early 80s, you could drive into Gaza. You
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: could go shopping in Gaza. You know, you could go
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: to Gaza. Starting in 87, it very quickly became a
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: no-go place for a long time. And again, there were
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Israeli settlements all over Gaza, so there were Jews living there.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: So Israelis know Gaza. They've been to Gaza. They've spent
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: time in Gaza. And then, of course, second Intifada, it
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: was just such a nightmare that to the extent that
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: Israel is really supported just leaving the place. Also remember,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Israel's offered Egypt Gaza several times in history. Please take it.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: We don't want it. And Egypt doesn't want it. Egypt
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: has refused. Um, Egypt ruled Gaza from 1948, 49, 48,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: 49 until, uh, until, uh, 1967. Uh, but it, it
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: was not interested in ever gaining it back. When Israel
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: gave back the Sinai, it was like, you know, they
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: should have made it a condition that if they want
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Shah Mashiach and Nueva and Dahab, they should also take Gaza. Uh,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: but unfortunately they never did. I, I think that was a,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: That was a strategic mistake. I wonder if they'd really
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: pressed if Sadat would have agreed in the end to
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: take Gaza. History would have been a little different. But yes,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Israel stuck with it, and it doesn't really want it.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: It has no interest in it, and it's known as
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: a disaster zone.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: And I assume people at this point, we are beyond spoilers.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: But spoiler alert, the Gaza operation ultimately fails. The hostages,
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: one hostage returns, but at the end doesn't make it.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: So even in the show, it's almost like this is
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: mission impossible. Yeah. Yeah.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: And it shows you the cost, right? There is no, again,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: the price of war. There are no good outcomes. People
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: are going to die. People are going to die. And
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: throughout the seasons.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Some of the team die. So this is not a
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: team that stays together throughout all the seasons. This is
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: a team that, you know, members of it die, family
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: members die, as we'll see in season five.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: And in previous seasons.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: And in previous seasons, yes. You know, fathers, you know.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: And it's also a team that has, at least in
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: the early seasons, as women involved so the women is
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: part of this and it's not for the faint of heart.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: Because you need them it's not just a gender thing
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: and you need them to better infiltrate a region and
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: to look like you are.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Made but imagine you know it takes toughness incredible toughness So, yes,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: season three. What's the season where they're kind of all
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: almost dead at the end?
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: Now we're getting at season four. It's the season that
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: Yaron told you it's no big deal if you don't
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: watch it. I disagree with this. I find season four
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: very illuminating. It has some of the most powerful scenes
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: in the.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I didn't like about season four.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: And this is completely my subjective bias. Most of the
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: season happens in Lebanon. or a big chunk of the
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: season happens in Lebanon, you know, where they're trying to
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: save somebody who's been kidnapped in Europe and is now
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: in Lebanon, and they're going, they have to smuggle, they
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: have to get themselves into Lebanon. They go through Syria
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: to get into Lebanon and the whole thing. And this
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: is the thing. I know Lebanon. So they keep, like,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: going on these little road trips to different places, and
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: it's like, They're going places, and it's easy, and it's like,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: or they enter Syria to go to Lebanon, but they're
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: not going the right path. It's like, no, I mean,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: that's not the way you would go. Most of the
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: stuff that bugged me was unrealistic geography, and they should
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: know better because they all know Lebanon really well in Israel,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: so I'm not sure what. Anyway, so a lot of
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: it was that.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: And then it was Gabi's weakness. But it was a combination, yes.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: Here's how working with Yaron influences your watching experience. So
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: I watched the scene where they go to these different
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: places and then they end up to the borders. And
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: I realized that when they leave, when it's over, they
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: point that the sun is out. So this whole road
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: trip lasted something like eight to ten hours. So I
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: think someone heard you and the producer could say, look,
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: now it's daylight. Even if it's far, we saw that
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: it was far.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: But anyway.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there was too much jumping around that didn't make
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: any sense.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: No, that's right. Season four at some point dragged just
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: a little bit. Yeah. But the thesis here is, First
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: of all, season four is the first time where the
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: battle is transferred in Europe. And where exactly? In Molenbeek.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: This neighborhood in Brussels where even an Israeli special forces
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: team would have trouble going there. Funny enough, the production
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: team had trouble going there. So they actually did not
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: shoot in Molenbeek. As in the last season, they did
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: not shoot in Marseille. I think in both cases they
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: shot in Budapest.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, really?
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Wow, it looked like Marseille. No, no, no.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Marseille is only the drones and the actual in the
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: street things take place in Budapest.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: That makes sense. And then, of course, you have to
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: remember they don't shoot in Gaza and they don't shoot
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: in the West Bank. So, you know, they have to
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: simulate that. And they do a pretty good job of, again,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: giving you that sense of Gaza without actually being in
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Gaza at all.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: They have obviously drone footage of Gaza, so it integrates
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: quite well. So yeah, season four we see Islamist cells
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: in Europe and then we also see Hezbollah and it
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: is the season where the passion of Gabi, who is
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: one of the key intelligence officers of Israel, he falls
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: to the hands of the of a terrorist, which is
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: a disaster because he knows all the secrets. He has
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: to reveal the secrets. He breaks from torture. And this
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: is one theme throughout the series, that these are... Real people.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: People with real limits, real breaking points. If someone would
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: tell you in season two that after two seasons, Gabi,
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Captain Ayub, will break and will reveal all his secrets
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: to the Arabs. You'd say there's not once in a million.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the short thing about Gabi is particularly he
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: is their best interrogator. He interrogates the enemy without using
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: physical force. He's a psychological master at manipulating the prisoners.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: to reveal their secrets to him. And for him to break,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: you know, it very much shows the limits. And, you know,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: it's an interesting point, right? I remember after 9-11, you
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: could say I was kind of pro-torture, right? So I
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: was the one guy out there saying, sometimes torture is
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: the only way you're going to get information, and it's
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: not immoral to do under torture. emergency circumstances. And I
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: had a huge backlash against me from all kinds, including objectivists.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: And one of the arguments they always made was it's
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: been proved that torture is not effective. And they are.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: There's a bunch of psychological studies that show that torture
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: is not effective because the tortured person tells you what
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: you want to hear and they do all this stuff.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: And I said then and I say now, bullshit. Torture
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: is effective. People break and people tell you what they know.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Maybe they try to fool you for a while, but
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: after a while, they will tell you what they know.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: And almost everybody breaks. You know, they knew this when
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: the Nazis tortured. I mean, they told Americans, don't try
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: to fight it. You know, don't try to don't try
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: to withstand the torture. You won't be able to, you know.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: Give them what you know. And so torture actually does work.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: It's ugly, and it's not pleasant to say that, but
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: it does work. And one of the things I like
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: about FAUDA is that it doesn't try to pretend it doesn't.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: It doesn't try to pretend that it can't work.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Here's another aspect on this. During the great terror in
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: Soviet Union, 800,000 people lost their lives because they gave false... false...
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: how it's called when you add... false admissions to imaginary crimes.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: So torture not only works, it works in a way
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: that at some point you tell whatever the other... So
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: that's maybe what they mean, quote, it doesn't work. It
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: means you will say anything the other side wants. 800,000 people.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: Incriminated themselves and their beloved ones because they broke on
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: imaginary charges.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: But partially because they didn't have anything real to say, right?
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: So the thing is, if you have something real to say,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: you'll say that first, and then you'll say anything. But
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: the point is, you will pretty much say anything. And again,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: American military doctrine has always been, to its pilot when
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: they were captured in North Korea and stuff, was decriminalized.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Don't try to, you know, you're only going to suffer
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: if you fight it. And yes, there are heroic stories
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: of people who never broke, and that's unusual and rare,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: but it happens. But almost everybody does break. And look,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: Israeli Special Forces and American Special Forces, CIA, and the Nazis,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: not to compare them morally, were not a waste of
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: their time with torture if it didn't work.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Now, having said that, every special force in the world
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: goes through something like a POW simulation training. So the
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: expectation is that at least you withhold for the critical
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: period a couple of days so that... But anyway, that's
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: not the point.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, to withhold information for as long as you can
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: when it's relevant to operations that people are involved in.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: But everybody also recognizes... And in the show... they recognize
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Gabi's going to break. Nobody expects him not to break.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: They all expect him to break. They all expect him
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: to reveal, and they're really, really worried because he knows
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: so much. He's like one of the heads of the
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: primary intelligence-gathering agencies in Israel.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: And people I know, for many people, torture is unwatchable.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: I'm one of these people. I consider it one of
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: the biggest stains in the history of humanity, this institution,
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: although I agree... But this shouldn't stop you from watching
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: season four because you don't see... I mean, it's implied,
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: but you don't see the actual... It's not.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: None of the show is... I mean, this is, again,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: to its credit. It's powerful and shocking and difficult emotionally.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: It's not gruesome. You don't see... organs spilling out like
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: you do in, I don't know, what do you call it,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: Saving Private Ryan, where on the beach scenes you see
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: people's legs fly off and blood everywhere and guts pouring out.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: It doesn't really play to that. You see people dying
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: and you see people injured and you see people almost die,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: but it's not trying to gross you out. It's trying
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: to shock you emotionally, and I think it's very effective
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: at doing that. Yeah.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: If you've seen the interrogation scenes in Homeland by the
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: bad guys, it's not even as bad as that. Here
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: you don't see any actual horrible stuff. Actually, interesting, you see...
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: the couple of strikes in the torture by the good
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: guys of, I mean, unofficial, because it's not sanctioned institutionally
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: in season two, but you don't see any actual footage
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: of the torture of Gabby. Anyway.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: So I just say the other flaw I thought this
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: season had was in the scenes in Europe, I mean, okay,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: so Gabi's this really, really important guy. He knows a
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff. And it all seemed like it was
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: too easy to kidnap him. It was too easy to
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: take him. These people should know better. You know, what
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: exactly is he doing there? He's not particularly a fit guy.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: He's not going to fight anybody off. So why is he...
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: So there's a little bit of too much of a.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a big jump this arc. There's some jump
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: this arc seems overlooked. And having said that, for the
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: love of God, in season five, the successor of Gabi
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: goes alone to Marseilles. I was shouting to the screen,
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: what are you doing? Didn't you get any lesson?
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: Anyway, but at the end, because Gabi is one of
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: my favorite characters, we'll see how high he ranks on
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: the list. Anyway, at the end, everything is okay. And
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: now we get to season five. Season 5 is post-October 7.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: And you don't see what happens in October 7 till
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: episodes 7 and 8. And the season begins. Each and
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: every person has been traumatized in some way or another.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: Doron is completely broken. He's in therapy. He has memory lapse.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: So they do this... it's, it's called the EMDR. I something,
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: something training so that he, his memory comes back. Ellie
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: has lost family members.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: So he's lost memory about what happened on October 7th.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: So he doesn't remember the October 7th sequence. You know,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: the other guys remember, and one of them's really mad
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: because of a decision Dawn made on October 7th, but
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: Dawn doesn't remember that decision. So he doesn't know why
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: exactly he's mad at him. Um, and, uh, So he's,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: and then Ellie, we know Ellie's lost his wife and kids,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: but we don't know exactly what happened. We learned- Foster.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: Kids and second wife, because she used to be the
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: wife of Avi Hyde, but that's okay. And yes, so
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: in season five, we focus on the aftermath of October 7th.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Ellie goes- I found just the opening scene really interesting.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: And ambiguous. I thought the opening scene was an Arab
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: about to.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: Engage in October 7th. It's an Arab at the gravesite
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: of his son swearing to avenge his life. And I'm going, okay.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: And then he goes, he's going to Elie. And I'm
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: thinking he's going to kill Elie. What's going on here?
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: And this is the first scene. So we don't know
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: about Elie's family. We don't know anything. We don't know
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: any of the background. All we know is here's an Arab.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: a Bedouin, Arab from the south of Israel. And he
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: has just sworn at his kid's grave to avenge him,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: and he's driving to Elie's house. And then when they
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: see each other, well, I mean, I'm giving it away, but,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: you know, it's a spoiler. They hug, and it's like,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: is he going to stab him in the back now?
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: You know, what's going on? And then it turns out,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: and I think an interesting and important element here is that, no,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: his son was one of the victims on October 7th.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: his son was living with Ellie's family and was killed
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: together with Ellie's family. And so he wants to avenge
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: his son's death by going after the, he's identified, he
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: thinks he's identified, who killed him. And he is going
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: to Ellie to try to convince him to join him
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: in a trip to Marseille to avenge to avenge their family.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: Marseille, which these days is one of the epicenters of
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: riots in France, no one saw that coming.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Marseille is, as a huge Muslim population, it's,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: of course, you know, on the Mediterranean, facing North Africa,
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: so it's easy for North Africans to come. It has
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: a history with Islam going back a long, long time,
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: so it's very much, it has a, It has strong
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Muslim foundations there, both ancient and very modern in terms
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: of Muslim immigration.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: So they go then to Marseille.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: This is two years after October 7th.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: After October 7th, they go to take revenge to the
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: guy who killed the son of the Bedouin and maybe
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: also killed the family of Elie. Through killing him, they
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: find who is the real Bedouin. perpetrator of the crimes
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: and including sexual violence in Ellie's house. They go after him.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: But this guy by now has persuaded polite society that
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: he's an innocent refugee from Gaza. And he has won
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: the heart of a bleeding heart leftist French woman who
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: is not anyone who She is Melanne Lorraine, who is
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: Sosanna from Inglourious Basterds, who delivers one of the most
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: top ten iconic lines in the history of cinema. My
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: name is Sosanna Dreyfus, and this is the face of
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: Jewish vengeance. When I saw her, I said, there is
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: no chance. Susanna is not going to have an impressive
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: redemption arc in Fauda, which is exactly what.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so he's married to her. In season five, he's
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: married to her.
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: The October 7th perpetrator is married to the bleeding-heart German leftist.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: French leftist.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: And I don't know how much to give away here
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: or not, but But I think it's important because I
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: think it's such a reflection of pragmatism and the problem
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: with the way Israelis often deal with this kind of stuff.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: The Israeli Mossad has flipped this guy. So here is
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: a guy who is a brutal, it turns out, a
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: brutal murderer. And the Israelis know he's a brutal murderer,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: and they know that he has murdered the family of
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: one of their own, right? Eli's family. They know he
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: murdered Eli's family, and yet they seen up his.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: And violated his wife.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: And raped his wife. Raped his wife, killed his kids.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: And in spite of all.
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: That, they....
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: They basically turn him into a double agent, and they
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: have him providing information about Hamas's next attack originating in Europe.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: And that is just so.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, in and of itself, that is one of
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: the most upsetting parts of all season five. And they know,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: you know, the Israelis know this, right? And they're struggling
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: within themselves about it.
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: Our team doesn't know it.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: Our team doesn't know it until there's a moment where
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: the Israeli agent, again, I'm giving spoilers, but, you know,
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: the Israeli agent is coming to get her double agent
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: because he's really valuable. He's about to give them information
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: about this big project, big, you know, attack that's coming
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: on Israel. And she's coming to save him from the
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: team and take him back. And, you know, this guy
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: thinks he's safe because he's with her. And he basically
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: tells Doron not only what he did, but he does
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: it with gleeful, he tells him with kind of gleeful joy. And,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is how Doron drives the action in
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: all these shows. Doron just pulls a gun out and
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: shoots him right between the eyes, right there, drops him dead.
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: That's my biggest complaint with Doron. These bullets will have
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: gone to the stomach, not to the eyes.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: And I'm not saying this lightheartedly. No, I get it.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: But if you think about what exactly is going on there,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: He doesn't know if the guy could live because the
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: Israelis might evacuate him and save his life. I mean,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: at this point, this guy just needs to be dead.
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: And it's a pretty shocking scene, and it's a powerful scene,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: but it's very reflective of Doron. No bullshit. Bad guys
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: are bad guys. You admit to killing my best friend's
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: wife and raping her? And he says at some point
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: in the movie, it wasn't just that he said it.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: It's the look in his eye. And so he just
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: puts him down. And, yeah, it's a good scene in
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: spite of the fact that he doesn't. He kills him quickly.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: It's still a good scene. But that, of course, creates
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: this problem now of they've lost their double agent. And
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: how are they going to figure out? So Doron and
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: Eli have to go undercover and join this Hamas unit
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: which is going to attack Israel and again all of
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: those sequences in Syria crossing the Israeli border and I
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: don't buy any of them. That's where it doesn't really
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: live up to the realism of the rest of the show.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: When they get into the cities, when they get into...
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: The way they cross the border, where they cross the border,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: how they travel doesn't make sense to me.
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: But anyway, it's... And then some point in between all this,
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: we get a flashback that does two things.
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: The least important thing, it makes us understand everything that
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: we've seen up to this point in that season. Why
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: Dana has headaches, why Doron has this memory lapse, why
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: Steve is angry with Doron, and why Ellie is grieving.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: So we have these two episodes, the famous episodes on
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: October 7. They are so good, they could be a
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: movie by themselves. So you can show them to your friends,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: even if they haven't watched the series. So I will
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: let you comment on these two episodes.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they're really, really well done. And I
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: think everybody should watch them. I really do think everybody
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: should watch them because they do a good job of
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: depicting what happened on October 7th without again, while dialing
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: down the horror, right? While dialing down some of the horror, right?
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: So you don't actually see the rape. You just know
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: it happens. you don't actually see the kids getting shot.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: You just see the guy shooting in the background and
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: the kid, you know, he's shooting the kids. Uh, you
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: don't actually see the torture and you don't see that
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: you see the consequences. You see the bodies laying around.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, it's as if you've seen it. Yes.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: Yes. And so it's very powerful, but it doesn't have that.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: I can't watch this kind of feel to it. It, it,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: it actually is watchable because of that. Um, It also
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: shows the heroism of the few Israelis at the border,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: the people trying to deal with it. It shows the
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: heroism of Doron and Steve, who are basically just at home,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: and they hear about this, and they get in their
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: cars and start driving, not knowing what's going on and
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: not believing, not imagining what's going on, and then having
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: to confront it. You get confronted with the kind of
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: choices they have to make And the important thing here
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: to note is, yeah, this is fiction, but not really.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: There were a lot of Israelis, primarily former Special Forces people,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: people like that, she'd met people, who literally got in
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: their cars, took a handgun, and drove down to confront
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: Hamas in southern Israel. These are all based on real
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: stories of real people that actually did it. There's a
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: guy who actually went back and forth to try to
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: get people out of the music festival in his pickup truck,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: just like Dawn does in the show. There's somebody who
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: did that and, you know, and there were others who
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: did it and died trying to do, you know, doing
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: it more than once. And so all of it is,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: is very much based on the reality, the heroism, the, the,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: the horror, the drama of what was actually going on
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: on the ground. It's, it's very real. you get to
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: follow Ellie's family who are in a safe room as,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: as the, as you know, as the, uh, uh, attackers
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: try to break the walls down to try to break
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: the door down, try to get them to kill them. Um, uh,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: you know, you, you, you, you meet the, the son
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: of the Arab who started off the series, who is
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: trying to protect this Jewish family. He's living with them
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: and he's trying to protect them. And, and, you know,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: deludes himself of short period of time and thinking because
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: he's a Muslim, he might not, he might survive. No way.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: So you, but you really, you really get a sense
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: of it. And the thing is that series doesn't hold back.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: So many Hollywood shows would, would have, would have, you know,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: the heroes save the family. And because the whole thing
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: is about, we're going to save Ellie's family and they
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: don't because that's not what happened. You know, families were saved,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: but you want to give the real sense of what
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: was lost. And it's very, very effective. I mean, I'm
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: emotional just speaking about it. It's very, very effective in
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: really grounding that. I mean, I watched those two episodes with,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: and I know everything that happened on October 7th. I've
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: seen the videos, and it's still, you know, your tears
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: in your eyes, and it's very, very emotional, emotionally riveting.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: So you get all aspects of it. And you also
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: get some interesting dilemmas, you know, kind of emergency dilemmas.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: You get Eli, who is on the front line fighting
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: against the Hamas as they're crossing the border, taking care
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: of a wounded soldier when you, you know, his alternative
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: could be to abandon the wounded soldier and run and
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: save his family. He doesn't know the attack, but he
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: can imagine, right? You get the reason Steve is mad
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: at Doron is because at some point they reach the
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: Nova Festival and they've got all these kids running away.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: And one of the kids convinces Doron to go back
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: into the festival to try to save his girlfriend. He's
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: talking to the girlfriend on the phone. And Steve says, no,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: we have to go to Ellie's family. And Doron says, no, no,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: we'll just do this quickly. And what happens to Doron?
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: And what he sees in the festival when he goes
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: into that area to try to save the girlfriend, which
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: he can't, and the kid who went back to save
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: his girlfriend is killed as well. That is what traumatizes him,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: and that's what causes him all the trauma afterwards. But
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: you never know if they'd driven directly to Ellie's house,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: they would have saved her. We don't know that?
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: Just to make it very clear to people, there's a
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: whole Hamas battalion to the kibbutz. It's not that if
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: these two... So it's very vague. So the moral dilemma
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: is there, but it's not like this, oh, see the altruism,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: because they didn't go there, the family died. It's all
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: very vague.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: And they don't know exactly what's going on. Nobody knows
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: what's going on. So when they arrive in the settlement,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: the police won't even let them go through. They have
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: to break through their own Israeli police in order to
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: get to... So there's no sense in which you can
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: rationally sit down and figure out, okay, what should I do?
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: Without broader knowledge that we have, because we're watching what's
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: going on in Ali's house. We don't know if it's
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: real time. And at the end, Steve forgives Doron, and
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: I think justifiably, right? I mean, they make up because...
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: There's no good decisions. And this is the thing. There
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: are no good decisions in these kind of circumstances. And
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: I think the show very much illustrates that. I don't
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: think this is driven by altruism. It's very much driven
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: by wanting to save human life. And you're trained to
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: save human life. This is what you do. And it's
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: not like Dorne was going to bring people out thinking, oh,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: I'm going to die. No, he's competent. He's really, really
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: good at what he does. And he was thinking, I
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: can do this. And the trade-offs are not obvious. They're
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: not clear. You can't sit back. I think if Dorne
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: had known, I don't think there would be any question
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: what he would have done. So here are people dying
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: over there. Maybe somebody's dying. Make the choice.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: It's God.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: Hopefully none of us ever have to face that kind
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: of dilemma.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: And having been to the Killing Fields of October 7,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: I'm forever grateful to Boaz, not the Boaz the guy
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: in the show, the real Boaz of Anon Sender Israel.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: He took me there last year, the most memorable day
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: of my career with no comparison. You understand that there's
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: also documentary element. You see, for example, the yellow, how
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: it's called, the box, the bin where the kids are
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: inside dead after the festival. You see the bunker where
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: they threw the grenade and they killed the kids that
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: they were dying. You see this old man who was
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: snipering with his old gun and keeping Hamas at bay
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: from one particular thing. It's the road somewhere there. So
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: in the details, there's a lot of stuff which almost
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: every story has some reference to what actually happened on
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: that day. And I would encourage people not to make
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: it like morbid tourism, but if you get the chance,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: go there and see what happened. Because we often try
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: to rationalize evil. So before I went there, I was thinking, well,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: you know, I hope some of these things were exaggerations.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: And it doesn't make sense if you want to make
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: a surprise operation to stop, torture, kill, sexually violate people.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: hopefully all this was a misunderstanding till you go there
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: you see the the remnants you hear the stories and
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: you realize no evil turns out it's very very real
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: and don't tell stories to yourself evil is real it
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: happened actually here you can you.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: Can steal the remains and look sinwa gave them an
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: instruction manual before they crossed the border and part of
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: that instruction manual was stop and torture and rape and
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: do this. And he said, film it all. Film it
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: all and upload it all. So he wanted the horror
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: of it. He wanted the worst of the evil. He
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: wanted that because he thought two things potentially could happen.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: It would break the Israelis. And it would inspire Arabs
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: all over the world. It would inspire the Palestinians in
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: the West Bank. It would inspire the Israeli Arabs. And
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: we actually skipped in season four an important element. Maybe
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: we'll go back to it in a minute. So it
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: would inspire all these people to rise up and support
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: the cause. So, you know, this is very, very consciously planned,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: October 7th. None of this, none of these, it wasn't
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: just the emotion of the moment, the rapes. And they
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: were encouraged to do it. They were encouraged to, you know,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: to engage in the barbarism. There was a purpose to it.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: Speaking on talking about concierge, In season one, we see
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: Panther explaining to the protégé what's the point of this.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: He's planning a very impressive attack. And the boy tells
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: him something like, yes, but then the Jews are going
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: to bomb us. And Panther says, that's exactly the point.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: So even the creators of FAUDA understood that this is what...
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: The Palestinians want. The Palestinians are welcoming the destruction of
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: their communities from the Israelis because then it will give them,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know, a story or something. And we also
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: see this in season four, that the conscious plan is
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: we want to drag Israel in a war that we
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: perfectly well know that we will lose. Yep.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: Because of the international community and what they'll say.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: You wanted to say something about season four. Yeah.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: One of the interesting aspects of season four is that
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: one of the reluctant heroine of season four is an
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: Israeli Arab. She is an Arab who lives in Israel.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: She is a police officer in the Israeli police.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: Yara.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: Yara. And she, because her brother might be involved with
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: the terrorists, she is dragged into this mission and lands
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: up having to go to Lebanon. And again, I think
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: what the show is trying to show is the messiness,
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: the difficulty of an Israeli Arab to both be Israeli
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: and have these family relations which are very anti, and
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: how do you deal with that? And to show that
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: Israel exploits that sometimes, and the Israelis don't. always treat
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: them with the most respect and in the best ways.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: So it shows, again, the complexity of the reality that
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: actually exists. It doesn't show her as so patriotic she's
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: willing to go fight for Israel. She's not. She's very reluctant.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't show the Israelis treating her with the
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: greatest respect.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: What's that? She's treated very unfairly by the Israeli authorities.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, she is.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: Before she does something bad.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely. So it's, and that is true. Israel does,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: you know, and partially it's the emergency situation. It's partially
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: a reflection of what really happens. So, I mean, a
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: few things worth also saying about season five. I mean,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: there is this, I see this commentary about Elie going
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: to kill the guy, you know, kind of this vigilantism.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: you know, as, as a kind of vigilante.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: I had a question about you on this. If you,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: how are we to deal with, with his vigilantes?
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, what happens when the state not only is
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: failing to prosecute justice, but when the state is actually,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: you know, actually, um, what do you call it? Uh,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: protecting evil. Um, you know, what do you do with that? And,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: and given, given where he is and given that his
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: life is over in, in any kind of real sense
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: of the word, he's suicidal. He's, he's, he's not interested
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: in living. He's gone to religion.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: My life is over.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: He says that. And, and at some point he's at
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the show, he's super religious, which he
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: hasn't been in previous seasons. Cause he trying to find
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: meaning after his wife is raped and murdered and his
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: kids are murdered. And, uh, and, uh, Then... Then it...
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: You know, he doesn't actually discover this, but when the
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: state has so failed you, they know where this guy is,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: and it turns out he's working for them. I don't...
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: I don't view... I mean, what would I do? I would...
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: If I could, if I had his abilities, I would
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: kill the bastard. You know, and so... You know, you
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: go to the Israeli authorities and say, look, here he is,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: he's in Marseille, and he killed my family. And you
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: try to go through the normal channels, but then if
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: that fails, then the state is failing you, and you
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: can't just sit back and ignore that fact. That's my view.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: One of the themes of Season 5 is that the
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: system has let us down, and we can only trust
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: each other.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: And it keeps letting us down.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: Having said that... Till today, Israel is killing people who
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: participated on October 7th. Yes. So the thing that Golda
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: did after Munich, which was we're going to find the
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: last of the perpetrators and kill them, they're still doing it,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: and they're still doing it publicly.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: They are showing us the pictures from October 7th, and
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: they say, eliminated, and our friend Adam Ossoff quotes, tweets
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: it every time with one word, justice. Yep.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely. Israel, this is the new doctrine, you know,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: this is the new doctrine the Israelis have taken, which
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: is much more preemptive, and it's a return to a
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: more Munich, you know, post-Munich revenge. Revenge is good. I'm pro-revenge,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: not anti. And it's very much also kind of the
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: Ben-Gurion strategy of that manifests itself in 67. We're not
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: going to sit around and just wait for you to
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: attack us. We are going to take the initiative. You
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: saw that in Assyria. We're taking the land. You saw
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: that in Lebanon. And you saw that with Iran in
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: June last year and somewhat earlier this year. So Israel's
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: changed its defense or returned to its old defense paradigm.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: Which is good. I think this is the right approach,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: and I think justice is super important, and Israel standing
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: up for justice is super important.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: And that was also the spirit of Unit 101, which
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: was created by Ben Gurion, which is what created the
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: original legend of Ariel Sharon.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was the leader of Unit 101 when it
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: was first created. It was a unit that would... Anytime
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: terrorists would come across the Egyptian or the Jordanian border,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: attack Israel, they would go into Egypt, into Jordan, and
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: destroy their camps and destroy their facilities. You know, these
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: terrorist organizations, falunjas we used to call them, they were there.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: They were the tourists.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: Do you want to also say something about the last scene?
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: There is a very... Also, we have to say one
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: of the protagonists of Fauda actually fought in the war.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: The guy who is playing a Sagit, I think it's... Yes, Sagiv.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: Sagiv.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, he was actually in the war. He was actually injured.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: He doesn't appear in season five. Supposedly, he's with his
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: wife in Australia. His fictional wife, but in real life
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: he fought the war he got injured and he appears
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: in the last scene which is very Weird and beautiful. Yeah,
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: they have a religious ceremony, which if you're not Jewish,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: it didn't make much sense But you understand the atmosphere
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: that they remember everyone their fallen friends and in one
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: of the most Emotional moments he appears out of nowhere
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: and he participates in the prayer.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he was one of those people that who
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: volunteered immediately and headed south. And his unit was in Gaza,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: and as you said, he was injured. But not only
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: was he injured, as soon as he recovered, he went back.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: That is, you know, he went back to fight. So
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: he was definitely one of the heroes. I'm not sure
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: if he's the only one of the units that did that.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: By the way, Doron, who is also, I think, the
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: executive producer of the show, the creator of the show,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: Doron was a member of the real-life unit. That is,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: all of this is based on a real-life unit that exists.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: It's a unit of the Shinbet. And Doron was a member,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: when he was younger, of exactly this unit. So, you know,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: some of the stories are based at least on his
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: experiences as real-life experiences.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: And when we say he got injured, Sagib, It's not
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: like he got scratched from a bullet. He went through
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: months of very grueling rehab. It wasn't even clear where
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: he would be able to stand up on his feet.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: And these stories that people... went to fight i i
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: don't remember who i was saying i had a martial
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: arts trainer who was in his 50s he was in
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: a yama what was the anti-terrorist he was there For
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: many months, I had lost him. I couldn't see him
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 2: on social media. I wanted to reach out to see
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: if he's okay. Turns out, in his 50s, he enlisted
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: and he went to fight. Luckily, he's okay. Yeah.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in Israel, you... I mean, he used to be,
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: I think, that you were in reserve until the age
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: of 55. I think they've lowered.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: This guy, even if he's 68, he's going to fake
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: his ID and he's going to go. Yeah, he's... Anyway,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: so these things that we see.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: And it is worth saying, two of the crew who
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: were responsible for filming the show were both killed in Gaza.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: Matan Meir, who was part of the production crew, was killed,
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: and a senior editor, Leo Waltzman, was killed in the
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: initial Hamas attack on October 7th. So she died in
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: the initial. Leo might be male, maybe female. I'm not sure. But, uh, anyway,
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: killed in the initial October 7th, Matan in November, 2023
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: in Gaza fighting as part of his reserve unit. Um, uh, and, uh,
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: there was a number of other cast members who, uh,
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: in addition to, uh, Sagi or we done a Medi,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: his name is, uh, who, uh, who fought there, who fought, uh,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: as part of the reserve duties. So, uh, So, yes,
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: this is, you know, there's a big sense in which
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: this is not just fiction. This is real.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: This is real, yes. Anyway, this has become too somber
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: for now to do my countdown list of favorite villains
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 2: and heroes. Maybe we do it after the first questions
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: by the audience on the show.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: If people want it.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: Yep. So, yeah, put a super chat together asking... Nikos
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: of what is favorite I have a ranking with the
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: heroes and.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: With the villains and we could also do the wives
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: and girlfriends because some of them are better than others
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: put it this way not appearance wise character wise.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: Yep okay let's see I'm looking for questions related to
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: the topic.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 4: Um alright so Lucinda says 50 euro thank you.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: Lucinda she says I was 18 when October 7th happened
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: and I didn't pay much attention to international politics before
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: the following months had recurring moods of anxiety trying to
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: figure out everything out because the importance was so clear
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: First watch Fauda in that context.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean... Yeah, go ahead.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: If you watch an interview with Lior, the guy who
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: plays Doron, they ask him, which of the scenes in
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: season five was the most difficult to shoot? And you
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: expect he will say something, the Nova or whatever. He says, no,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: the most difficult scene to shoot was the opening scene
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 2: when I'm undertaking trauma therapy. Because, he says, I felt
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: that I was every single Israeli on that scene. Every
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: single Israeli, this left a deep trauma.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: And I think you're right, Lucinda. I think this is,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, October 7th is not just a horrible thing
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: that happened. It's not just horrific. It has major geopolitical consequences.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: It has, you know, this is, if people can't get
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: the essence of the struggle that the West is facing
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: and has been facing, I think, since at least 1979
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: and maybe even before that, since the Iranian mullahs came
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: to power, then what is going to wake people up?
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: Nothing.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: And the fact that what happened in the West was
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: the opposite, is that Israel, or in other words, the West,
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: became the villain. And somehow the barbarians became the heroes.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: That is going to resonate in our societies and our
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: cultures in our world for decades. I mean, it's playing today.
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: You can see it in the Palestinian flags being waved
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: by the people burning down historical monuments in France. It's
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: playing out in American politics. Look at both the left
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: and the right and how they've how they've shifted since
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: October 7th in their attitude to Israel, but as a
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: reflection of a wider attitude towards what Western civilization actually
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: means and who represents it. It's everywhere around us. So
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: this is going to be one of those big turning points.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: Not that things turned because in a sense– What happened
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: on October 7th is all was revealed, or the rot,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: the rot at our universities, the rot at the heart
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: of the right wing, the rot at the heart of
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: the left wing. All of that was revealed on October 7th.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: But it's going to be one of those revelation points where, yes,
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: you know, the way people responded to this will shape
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: the future of the West. And given how they responded
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: so far, I mean, think about countries like the U.K.,
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, toast. And it's interesting. It's not just the
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: demands of Israel, but they've also collapsed. They've got economic problems.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: They've got all kinds of other problems. And it goes together.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: All that goes together.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: The line that comes to mind when I view the
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 2: scenes in France is this line by Ayn Rand in
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: Atlas Rag. The brothers, you asked for it. Oh, yeah.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: Suddenly the French have asked for it, yes. And... It
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: wasn't that long ago that France was a relatively innovative
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: economy that was building things and creating stuff. And since
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: the 1980s, since basically they voted in a socialist, Mitterrand,
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: it's very much been downhill since then. Even though Mitterrand
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: became less of a socialist, the longer he stayed in
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: the Champs-Élysées. But, yeah, so, Lucinda, I think you realizing
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: at 18 that this was an important thing and it
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: was worth figuring out, yeah, you were absolutely right, absolutely right.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: And Fauda, in that context, I think is an important show. Again,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: Fauda doesn't give you the geopolitics. It gives you a
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: hint at it, but it gives you that line that
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: Nikos mentioned about life and death. But yes, to really
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: understand the Middle East, there's a lot of work that
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: needs to be done. But anybody should be able to
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: just look and see a culture of death, culture of life,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: and make at least a preliminary call about who to
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: support and who to be against.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: And if you compare it to other TV series like Homeland,
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: which is great as a TV series, but the moral
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 2: compass of Homeland is completely broken compared to Fauda. So
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: Fauda is still... Much, much better than anything out there.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 2: And if you hear Lior, the real-life Doron, because he's
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: also the producer, if you hear him speak about the conflict,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: he has a moral clarity. He's not Onkar, but as
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 2: far as a mainstream person goes, his moral compass is good.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: All right. Remo says, it was amazing to see Dan
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: Ameddi Returned in the last episode after being injured in
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: real life in Gaza. Yes, it was. Remo says, favorite
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: Fowler character? Minus Steve.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's do the countdown. Least favorite is Nourit. Sorry,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: I can't stand her. She's very bad news for any
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: boyfriend she has. She cucks her boyfriend like there's no tomorrow.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure Sagittu is going to be happy with her.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: So she goes at the bottom of my list. What
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: do you think?
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: I can't remember Nourit. Okay.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: Seriously?
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: She's the first woman in the unit?
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. The tall girl who's in the unit.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. She's pretty badass. You have to give her
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: badass credits. She's good. In the action, she's good. Under pressure,
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: she's good. Maybe not as a romantic partner. Maybe you
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: don't want her as a romantic partner.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 2: Okay. Points for that. Then I have Boaz. He only
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 2: appears for a couple of episodes. Okay. Sagi, he's a
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 2: bit always quiet. You don't get a lot of him.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: But.
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, in real life, he's so cool, we cut him
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: a lot of slack. Then I have Dana. I will
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: never forgive that she recruited the rapist of the wife
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: of Ellie. I liked Dana, but after that, I put
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: her low in my list. yep then i have avihai
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: avihai is a nice he's the sniper the cool guy
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: and perhaps the most the saddest death in the series
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: then i have steve i like him a lot he's
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: not the biggest brains in the world but my favorite
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 2: scene in season five is when he's when he's completely
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 2: playing with his interrogator, the French interrogator, and he pretends
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: he's a broker and he's crying, like, oh, please don't
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: send me to prison with the Arabs. I'll give you
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 2: the names of everyone. And the French police gives him
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: a paper and he writes, you Arabs whore. And then
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 2: he starts laughing. So Steve is great. I like Naor,
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: who appears in the first seasons. I like Moreno. But
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: my top three, obviously, Ellie. Ellie is the boss everyone
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: would want to have. He's harsh, he has expectations from you,
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: but he believes in you, he's inspiring you, and he's
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 2: not going to let you down. My second favorite character
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 2: is Gabi. I want this guy to be my boss, my,
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 2: I don't know, father. He's the paternal figure everyone needs.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: And he's also hilarious. And he's the guy that, you know,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: whenever you're in trouble, Gabi is going to bail you out. Yep.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 2: And number one, okay, obviously, Doron, he has moral compass,
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: sense of justice, good friend. He'll tell us as it is.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 2: You're going to have a fist fight with him. And
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: then after five minutes or five months, you're going to
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: be friends again. So top three, Ellie, Gabby, and Doron.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. Doron is a
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: mixed character. A lot of the problems the unit has... Oh,
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: and he does something impulsive. But, of course, also some
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: of the, you know, most courageous things that they do
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: is when Doron does something impulsive. So, you know, I
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: think that Gabi is the rational, cool-headed guy who figures
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: it out rationally, figures stuff out. And Doron is the
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: action hero. You know, he's going to shoot the guy
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: between the eyes without thinking twice, the bad guy. But
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: he doesn't think about the consequence of all that, which
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: turned out to be pretty significant. That scene, he's completely justified.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: Other scenes, not so much. But yeah, you've got to
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: just love his tenaciousness and his courage and commitment to
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: whatever it is that he's fighting for.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: And he's so brilliant in playing... Everyone is brilliant in
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: playing the Arab who just hangs out. This reminds me
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: of Greek villages where they're just sitting around smoking. And
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: I don't know, there's something very Mediterranean in this hanging
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 2: out posture.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: I remember the first time I was in China in,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: I think it was 2005, with my wife. And we're
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: driving through Dongguan, you know. And... I said to my wife,
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: I said, you know, here's the difference between China and
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: the Middle East. You know, in the Middle East, young
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: men are sitting in coffee shops and hanging out, right?
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: They're playing badgammon. They're watching football on the television. They're
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: hanging out. Here in China, nobody sits. Nobody is sitting.
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: Everybody's on the move. Everybody's doing something. Everybody's productive. Everybody's creating, building,
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: making stuff. It was so stunning. I've never been to
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: a place like that in my life. I've never seen
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: anything like it. It's like New York, but at the
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: height of rush hour and at the height of Wall Street, whatever.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: We're 24-7 in these places in China. Constant hustle, not
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: a moment's rest. And, you know, I found that just amazing.
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 2: The funny thing is I've heard that story from Yaron
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 2: while we were in Athens at, like, noon. Everyone was
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: hanging out. Yeah. That's where he remembered that story.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: That's right. All right.
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: Let's see.
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Josh says, Nikos, please say a few words about
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: why you think the character of Walid is I was
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: poorly cast. I thought he was well cast because I
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: concretized the indoctrination of youth to the Palestinian cause. Your thoughts?
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Josh. This gives me an opportunity to do
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: also the countdown of the villain. So I have Valid
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: in the last place. First of all, he's so disgusting,
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: both the character, but I mean, the actor does a
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 2: great job. the actor in impersonating this figure. I just
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: don't find it convincing that this kid, who hasn't even
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 2: got a mustache yet, is going to be a military
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 2: leader of Hamas in the West Bank. But he's so
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 2: good in being this disgusting guy. Whenever he goes to
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 2: touch the doctor, everyone in the audience, I think, says
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: this disgust, like, oh, leave here alone. You're a kid.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 2: You're disgusting. It just doesn't convince me that this guy
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 2: can be I can understand why his brain was, as
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: you said, I can understand why he's the sidekick of
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 2: the Panther to bring him the chocolates and to protect him,
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: to bring him food and water. I'm not convinced that
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 2: this guy is going to be the most dangerous guy
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 2: of Hamas in the West Bank as he tries to
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 2: be in the second season. Now, let's also go quickly
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 2: through the villains. Least favorite after Valid is Maher, the
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: October 7 perpetrator. Did you get the idea that this
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: guy had it in him to do these monstrosities as
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 2: he appears with his suit?
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: No, but I think that's on purpose. That's, I think,
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: quite effective in doing that in, you know, what is it,
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: the banality of evil? You know, evil is sometimes... comes
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: in the form of an accountant with a suit and tie.
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: And I think it's purposeful because a lot of the
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: evil committed on October 7th was done by just Palestinians
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: who walked across the border and came across to take
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: advantage of the horrors that Hamas was committing.
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but he was a commander.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: He was a commander, yes.
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 2: He was a great actor because by acting, it was
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 2: through his acting that you could experience. I just didn't
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 2: find it very convincing. Then I've got Basar the boxer
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 2: and Omar the guy who looks like Luis Figo. Yeah,
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: they are okay. Jihad I really like, the father of prisoners.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 2: He had this angelic face. Omar the guy who looks
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 2: like he could do horrible things to the people who
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 2: were collaborators. I really liked the guy who played the
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 2: Hamas guy, Abu Samara. Although he would be even better
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 2: as a Fatah guy. He was fat. He had mistresses.
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 2: He's the perfect archetype of the corrupt bureaucrat who uses
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: the cause just to find girlfriends. I wish every Hamas
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 2: commander was like that. October 7 would never have happened.
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 2: Then I like Adel Tavalbe, the guy who is the
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 2: mastermind in Season 4. But my top three are Nidala Al-Magdesi,
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: the guy from Season 2, the ISIS leader. Again, he
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: has these crazy eyes, but also these magnetism. When he
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 2: speaks to his troops, he looks them in the eyes,
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 2: and it's impossible to say no to this guy. And
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 2: my top two are... The Sheikh from season five, because
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 2: you can see again, he's the mind and also the
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 2: muscles though. He can guide his troops to battle. And
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 2: number one for me is the Panther from season one.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 2: He's very convincing as this humanized face of evil who
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: can do the most horrible things. But also it's the
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 2: chocolate so you can at some level connect with any
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 2: remnant of humanity.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, I basically agree with that. I think that's good.
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: Let's see. Lucinda says, I can't eat chocolate anymore without
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: thinking about Fauda because of the panther.
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 2: I was eating chocolate before the show thinking of the panther.
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: Let's see. Ali says, and changed her mind after she
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: saw what a monster her husband was. Would the West, too,
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: change their mind if they saw the horror of October 7th?
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: They've seen it.
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 2: Just to give context for the scene, so the wife
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 2: of the October 7th perpetrator literally decides to become a terrorist.
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 2: She's actually practicing by having to shoot... how to put it,
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 2: things that look like women and babies when they train.
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 2: They shoot at targets with women and babies, and they
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 2: tell her, we kill the women because they give birth
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 2: to soldiers, we kill the elderly because they used to
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 2: be soldiers, and we kill the kids because they will
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: be soldiers. So she can stomach that, But then at
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 2: some point she gets arrested, and Gabi, who else, the genius,
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 2: shows her the video with the interrogation of her husband,
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 2: where he admits to the killing of the children and
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 2: the rape. And this is when she breaks and she realizes,
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: I was married to a monster, and she collaborates with
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: Israeli authorities.
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: And you asked the West to change their mind. They've seen.
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: There's nothing hidden. Everybody wants, who's willing to face the facts.
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: The facts are right there. They're available. I mean, I
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: think Israel made a mistake in not just unleashing all
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: the videos, not just releasing everything. And, you know, having
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: special video screenings of just for some people, they should
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: have given it to everybody. But the reality is, I mean,
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: I debate all these people saying there were no rapes.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: There was no this. There was no that. The Israeli
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: soldiers killed most of the people on October 7th. I mean,
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: you have to be really delusional. And you have to
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: be evading that. in order to believe any of that.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: There's no moral way you can hold those ideas.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, having said that, I don't know who are the
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 2: most powerful Jews in the world. I don't know, the Rothschilds, whatever.
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 2: Mossad should hack the systems. I don't know. The hardcore
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 2: Sims should play in Leicester Square and in Madison Square Garden,
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 2: and they should play in giant screens every year, at
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 2: least every October 7th. The uncensored stuff. People should have
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 2: zero justification that, oh, I haven't seen it.
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 2: Having said that, I haven't watched the 45 minutes of
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: the hardcore stuff. Have you watched it?
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: I've watched parts of it. I can't watch the whole thing.
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I haven't watched it, yeah.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: Lucinda says... You know, but there's so much other stuff
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: available out there. I mean, there's no shortage of material
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: and photographs and videos and stories and personal accounts. All right, listen,
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: this is my communist dad is very anti-Israel. And the
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: Antifa house he lives in in Berlin is very divided
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: on Israel. Surprisingly, a decent amount of German Antifa is
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: very pro-Israel. Still crazy people, though. Yeah, I think that
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: captures it. Crazy people say who knows what they're going
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: to be for and against.
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 2: This was such a nice opening. My communist father in
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 2: his Antifa house. Look, some of the worst anti-Semites since
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 2: World War II were German leftists. And at some point,
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 2: maybe we'll speak about the Bader-Meinhof group. some of the
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 2: most famous terrorist attacks by the Popular Front for the
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 2: Liberation of Palestine was either in cooperation with West German
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 2: communists or in solidarity with West German communists. So the
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 2: West German communists have some very dark pages in their
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 2: history of hatred against Israel. And this is weird because
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 2: this was the generation that revolted against their fathers who
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 2: did the Holocaust. Go figure.
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: All right, let's see. We'll get to those in a minute.
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: All right, Ali says, the villains in Fauda and even
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: real life all portray dead stairs as if they have
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: no soul. Is this callousness a consequence of their evil
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: ideas or just their nature? Well, I mean, it's the
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: evil ideas that create their nature in a sense. They're
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: not born that way. You're not born with a dead stare.
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: It is an empty soul. A soul needs cultivating. A
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: soul is something you build and create and cultivate. And
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: these people have emptiness and darkness. It's a void. It's
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: filled with hate and fear, right? And that leads to
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: these kind of empty stares, which I think the actors
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: do a really good job of reflecting.
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But good point, particularly El-Makdesi in season two, his
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 2: eyes are absolutely captivating. Yep. And creepy.
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: Paul asks, what strategy is Israel currently using to prevent
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: soldiers from being captured by terrorists? Well, I mean, they've
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: gone through a whole series of strategies from I mean,
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: when I was in the army, we hitchhiked everywhere. Like every,
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: there were hitchhiking stations all over Israel. There were soldiers
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: who would go and line up and hitch rides. And
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: some soldiers were kidnapped by terrorists while hitchhiking. And now,
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: you know, sometime in the late 90s or early 2000s,
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: they banned hitchhiking. they banned hitchhiking for soldiers. So it's illegal, supposedly,
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: for soldiers to hitchhike. You still see them once in
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: a while, hitchhiking. What else? You can't travel in certain
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: places in the West Bank unless you've got people with you.
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: So you can't travel alone in certain parts of the
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: West Bank. Right now, I mean, Gaza's not a threat.
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: Lebanon's not a threat because Israel has basically neutralized them. But,
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: you know, but even then, I mean, if you're on
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: the front line in Gaza, they're very alert to the
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: possibility of a Hamas unit coming and trying to kidnapping somebody.
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: So it's more alertness than anything else.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 2: And in a previous show, you spoke about this, how
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 2: it's all this order, which supposedly Israel was killing its
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 2: people so that they wouldn't get captured, which is completely
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 2: misunderstood there.
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: It's the Hannibal doctrine.
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 2: Hannibal doctrine.
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so the cannibal, Hannibal the cannibal. So it's completely misunderstood. Again,
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: it was repealed to the extent that it was practiced
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: during October 7th. Some of it was by accident in
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: a sense that Israelis were killed because they were in
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: the same car as some of the kidnappers and the
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: people firing at them didn't realize that. But there is
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: an attempt, or there was an attempt to prevent kidnappings
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: and to fight. So if a kidnapping is happening, the
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: instructions to the military was, continue fighting even if you
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: put the soldiers, the person being kidnapped's life at risk.
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: You can see that in Fowler Season 3, where they
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: go after the guy, where they go after them, and
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: indeed they put them in danger and they don't survive.
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: So that is part of the doctrine, which Israel learned
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: because the power... of having hostages is so great. But look, 252,
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: was it? Hostages were taken on October 7th. So, I mean,
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: the whole thing, people are finding the anti-Semites out there
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: will look for any excuse to blame Israel for the
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: casualties and for the horror and for the bad stuff.
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: And they'll say stuff like, yeah, yeah, what Hamas did
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: was horrible, but, and as soon as you hear the but,
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: it's over. I mean, you've wiped yourself out. There is
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: no but. What they did was horrible. Israel was defending itself.
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: And indeed, you know, as I've said many, many times,
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: and we'll say probably for another few decades, as long
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: as I'm alive, they didn't do enough. They don't do enough.
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: They're not doing enough now. They didn't do enough before
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: October 7th. They didn't do enough during and in the
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: war in Gaza. You know, people show me pictures of
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: all the buildings that don't exist in Gaza anymore and
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: I go yeah justice and there's too many buildings that
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: are still standing in Gaza so you know there is
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: no there is no limit to justice the limit is
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: when the people responsible for what happened and who are
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: planning the next one are wiped out and they still
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: exist they still run Gaza they're still in positions of
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: power the war's not over people pretend it is, but
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: at their own risk of their own lives.
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 2: And let me give you also my hot take on
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 2: something that I don't like people when they refer to
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 2: October 7th. There is this stupid discussion, do you condemn
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 2: Hamas as terrorist? Or do you recognize that October 7th
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 2: was a terrorist attack? October 7th was not a terrorist
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 2: attack by Hamas. Terrorist attack is when a small fractional
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 2: group It blows up something. Hamas was the closest thing
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 2: that Gaza has to a governing body. And it was
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 2: an invasion. It was not a terrorist attack. It was
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 2: an invasion. And it was not just Hamas. It was Hamas.
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 2: It was the Islamic Jihad. But also the more secular, supposedly,
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 2: the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine with their badges.
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 2: So it wasn't a terrorist attack by Hamas.
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: And the civilian population of Gaza.
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 2: It's like saying, do you condemn the terrorist group of
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 2: the SS? No, it wasn't the terrorist group of the SS.
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 2: It was the entity, that was Germany, that attacked Europe.
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: And it was something, not exactly that, but very close
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 2: to that.
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, people want to evade the fact that Hamas was
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: the government of Gaza. It represents Gaza. And you're right,
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: every single militant faction in Gaza participated. including, again, civilians.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: So this was Gaza attacking Israel and doing it in
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: a brutal, brutal fashion. So there's a sense in which
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: they're terrorizing, but it's not terrorism in the sense of
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: a limited... Movement, a limited organization, you know, engaged in
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: one isolated attack. This is all a war.
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 2: And when I say this, people say, oh, so you
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 2: say this to justify a genocide against everyone. I say, no, no, no.
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 2: First of all, let's recognize what happened. Forget what should
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 2: be the reaction to this. Let's first agree on the
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 2: facts of what happened. And what happened was not a
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 2: Hamas terrorist attack. No, it wasn't that.
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: Yep, agreed. All right, let's see.
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 4: Let's see.
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: Molten Splendor, $ 50. Thank you, Molten Splendor.
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 2: Thanks, guys.
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: I enjoy your reviews and comments about Fauda. Love this show. Yvonne,
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: has your wife watched season five yet? No, and I
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: don't think she ever will. I mean, it's too emotional
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: for her. It would be too upsetting. I mean, she's
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: seen enough of October 7th. I don't think she's the audience.
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, I view the audience as people who have
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: not immersed themselves into the horrors of that day. You know,
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: we all have family members, you know, not direct, luckily,
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: who were killed or injured, but people, you know, my nephew,
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: my sister's son, was almost at the festival. Last minute,
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: he didn't go. His best friends went. I think two
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: of them were killed. One of them was taken hostage.
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: He literally, you know, he was traumatized for the years.
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: His best friend was a hostage. You know, and this
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: is my sister's son. This is right there. And, you know, my...
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: My wife's niece's friend, you know, again, hostage. So we've
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: lived it, you know, and we haven't really lived it.
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, the families in Israel really lived it. But
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: we've lived it enough. We've lived it enough, you know,
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: not to necessarily have to experience it in drama. I
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: think it's the people who don't exactly, you know, maybe
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: don't take it quite that seriously. get that it's bad,
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: but don't know how exactly bad it was. They're the
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: ones who season five is so valuable for, particularly those
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: two episodes, seven and eight, because it's not real to them.
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: But if you sat by Israeli television every day, if
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: you watched all the news coverage, if you worried about
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: the hostages on a regular basis, and you followed the
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: war on a day-to-day basis, I don't think it's essential
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: to watch and So my wife will never watch it.
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: Just like I don't go to Holocaust museums anymore, right?
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: I haven't gone since I was a kid, basically, since
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: I was a teenager. I won't go to a Holocaust museum.
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: You know, somebody tried to get me to go to
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: Berlin to the Holocaust Memorial, and I was like– and
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: I told him. He was like a guide who was
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: doing this. I said, no, I don't want to go.
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: And I'm sure he thought I was some anti-Semite or something.
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: And it's like– No, I mean, my whole childhood was
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: living under the shadow of the Holocaust. Like, you know,
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: we watched documentary after documentary after documentary. We went to
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: the Holocaust museums then. I knew, you know, friends of
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: mine's parents were survivors. My grandfather was a soldier among
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: the troops who liberated some of the concentration camps. You know,
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: you live it. It's part of what you are and
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: who you are. I don't need to be reminded. It'll
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: just cause me to be super emotional, but what's the upside?
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, when you're ignorant, there's upside. Or when you're
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: not completely, you don't really know the stuff, then I
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: recommend everybody go to Holocaust museums. But when you really
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: know it and know it viscerally because you've lived with
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: the people who experienced it, I don't think you need it, right?
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: There's no virtue in it. in experiencing it over and
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: over and over again. I got it. I got the Holocaust.
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: I got October 7th. I don't have to re-experience it.
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: And I will probably never do what Nikos did. I
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: will probably never go and do the tour of the... Oh,
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: I thought you had been there already. I've been to Sderot.
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: I was in Sderot while the war was going on.
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 2: And you did a show, I think, where you said,
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 2: if I turn right from my car, I'm going to
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 2: get him to Gaza, no?
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's when I was in Sderot, right?
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: Sderot is right there. But no, I've never been there,
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: and I never will. I don't need it. I don't.
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: I feel it. I know the horrors. There's no upside
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: to me. But I get why for Nikos it would
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: be unbelievably impactful. You know, it created a personal link.
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: I have the personal link already, and I think it's, yeah, it's...
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: All right, let's see. What do we have? That's more
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: of that. Wait a second. All right. Christian, I was
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: crying when Shirin died. You too? Absolutely. I like the
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: Shirin character. I thought she was a real, she was,
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: she's the tragic, you know, she is the tragic heart
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: of the story. Not just her, but Doron and his relationship.
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, she's just, she's just, so much pivots around her,
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: and she represents the innocent, in a sense, the innocent
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: Palestinians who just get dragged down into the horrors of
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: what's going on.
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 2: And she would be a good, I think, she and
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 2: Doron would be a good couple. Yeah.
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: Yep. Marilyn says, Waleed marrying Shirin is so creepy. Poor Sheeran, yes.
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, oh my God, it was disgusting, disgusting.
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: Lucinda says.
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 2: The most enjoyable... There are some... The most not enjoyable...
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 2: The most at least he's out people who die. Valid
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 2: is very high on the list. Enough with this guy.
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's so creepy. Lucinda, what struck out for me
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: with Valid on my first viewing... was that, wow, this
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: guy is around my age. Very disturbing thought for me. Yeah,
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: she was 18, and he's a teenager in the thing. So, yeah,
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: I get that.
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 2: He doesn't even have proper beard. He cannot grow a beard. Yeah.
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: Marylene says, it looked like the panther ate cheap, overly sweet,
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: crappy chocolate.
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 2: Not quality dark chocolate.
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: I don't think of him when I eat my chocolate.
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 2: I also like chocolate which is above 85% dark, but again,
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 2: don't watch this show if you want to quit smoking
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 2: or if you want to quit chocolate, don't watch it.
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: I have not stopped eating chocolate because of the show,
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: but I, like Mary Aline, eat high-quality, 95-plus chocolate. chocolate
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: so I don't think the Panther was eating that chocolate
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: so 85 is too sweet for me and too mild.
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 2: You should see the disdain in the face of Yaron
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 2: when I didn't know him that well in one of
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 2: our first common tours I give him I try to
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 2: be good and helpful and I give him a protein
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 2: bar Obviously, he had some very expensive bio-protein bars, so
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 2: I gave him one from the supermarket. You should see
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 2: that this day, and I give it to him, and
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 2: he gives it back.
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, once in a while, I'll eat a
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: just over-the-counter protein bar, but I have very high standards
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: when it comes to protein bars. I don't know exactly why,
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: because I eat a lot of junk, but I do.
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: It's supposed to be healthy, so I want it to
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: be healthy. So I have to strain my eyes to
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: see the ingredients, which are usually so tiny that it's
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: almost impossible to read at the back of these things.
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 2: And if there are four lines of ingredients, it's not
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 2: good for you.
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: And one of the key lines for me is how
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: much sugar does it have? So I try to minimize
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: my sugar intake mostly. And then the next thing is
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: Does it have something like stevia or some disgusting sweetener,
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: which I hate. I hate stevia. I hate all the sweeteners.
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: It's okay to have sugar, but it has to be
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: in very small quantities. But sugar substitutes, I can't stand.
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: I'm picky when it comes to my food, particularly protein bars.
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: Episode 5.02. I have to admit that I really fell
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: for the lie that that he wasn't the guy having
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: killed Ellie's family, right?
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 2: I fell for it as well, yes.
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: But only an accountant. Shocking twist at the end.
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, 100%.
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, did you also believe him first? I wasn't sure,
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: but it still was shocking when he said it and
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: the way he said it. And for a moment there,
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: I wasn't sure I believed him or was he just
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: pushing Dolan's buttons or did he really do it? But then,
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: you know, you realize, yes, because, and the thing for
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: me was, how could he be a double agent? If
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: this is the guy who really did this, How could
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: Israeli intelligence, you know, hire him in a sense? That
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: to me was unthinkable and I think should be unthinkable.
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: And I don't care what your utilitarian calculation is. He'll
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: save more lives by being a double agent. No, I mean,
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: there's just no way back from what he did. And again,
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: particularly given that what he did, he did to a
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: family member of the unit, right, of the same people
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: that were hiring him. So that is why I was
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: tempted to believe him, is because it turned out he
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: was a double agent.
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 2: Also, fun fact, this character makes a very small cameo
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 2: appearance in season two. He's fixing something in Doron's house,
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 2: but the producers assume that everyone has forgotten him, and
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 2: that's why he's having a major role as someone else
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 2: in season five.
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: So it's not the character, it's the actor.
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 2: The actor, yes, the actor. I mean, imagine if it
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 2: was the character and it was such an inside joke,
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 2: but it's someone who is fixing their own, say, TV.
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: All right, let's now for some, I think we've covered
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: all the Fauda questions, so let's do some general questions.
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 2: Two hours Fauda content. Where else are you going to
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 2: find these people?
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: Nowhere, nowhere. Alright, Michael asks, this is somewhat related, are
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: the formerly dogmatically pro-Israel evangelicals morphing into anti-Semitic conspiracy theories rapidly?
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: Are people becoming too mindless for objectivism to reverse anytime soon?
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: We can't penetrate the zombies. Okay, so you've got two
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: questions here. Let's take the first one, which is the
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: pro-Israel evangelicals. First, I remember years ago, decades ago maybe,
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: telling Israelis, don't trust these people. They're evangelicals. They only
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: support Israel because they think that supporting Israel will speed
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: up the return of Jesus, who will then present all
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: the Jews in Israel with an alternative. Either convert to
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: Christianity or you go to hell. And that's the reason
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: they support Israel, that Israel's existence is required and success
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: is required for the return of Jesus so they convert
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: all the Jews into Christians. So you know that that's
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: amateur theology, and all they need is some powerful theologian
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: to come around and say, no, no, no, you misunderstand it.
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: It's the destruction of Israel that will lead Jesus to
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: come back, and we should be anti-Israel. It's all based
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: on faith. And therefore, faith, faith is, you can't count
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: on faith, so don't count on these people. Now, how
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: many of them have converted to anti-Israel, right-wing? I don't know.
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen the numbers. Certainly some of them have.
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: Certainly young evangelicals are now overwhelmingly anti-Israel. I mean, the
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: young right-wing people are unbelievably anti-Israel. I mean, this is
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: a really, really scary part of what's happening in America.
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: is among young people, Israel is very, very, very unpopular,
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: both right and left. But it shouldn't surprise anybody that
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 1: the evangelicals would shift. I don't know if you want
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: to say anything more about that.
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 2: No, no, you covered.
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: All right, then. Are people becoming too mindless for objectivists
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: to reverse the cultural trend anytime soon? We can't penetrate
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: the zombies. I mean, people have always been mindless. That's
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: why we haven't won yet. So, look, this takes a
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: long time. I keep telling you guys, it's going to
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: take a long time. There are no shortcuts. There's no quick,
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: even if we all start advocating for capitalism the way
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: Nikos would like us to. You know, there's too much
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: of the missing link out there. There's too little conceptual
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 1: engagement by people. And, you know, imagine if we all
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: were the best that we can be in terms of
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: convincing people, right? Then maybe we could get to a
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: significant number of young people. But it's only young people,
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: you know, it would take 20 years for them to
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: be influential. And it's only going to be a certain
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: percentage of them, let's say it's 20%, which would be huge.
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: It I mean, changing a culture takes a long time.
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 1: And every example in history, a real fundamental change, not
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: just changing the orientation of altruism, but really changing, flipping,
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: takes decades, if not centuries. And we're still decades, if
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 1: not centuries, away from reversing the culture.
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 2: I was doing some maths for something for my Patreon
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 2: community yesterday. There are 130,000 professors of humanities in the
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 2: United States, 130,000. We can easily assume that 129,000 of
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 2: these are, how will you go, socialists, Kantians. It's, I
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 2: don't know if this is the proper field to file
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 2: the battle because it's, you lose your mind with the odds.
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: Well, but then switch from professors to public intellectuals or to,
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 1: online intellectuals, or any of these things. Yeah, so they're
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: more right-wing people. But the right, you know, and this is,
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 1: we should do a show on this, there's some good
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 1: articles about what has populism become. Populism, you know, the
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: right is no longer about liberty, no longer about freedom,
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: no longer about economic freedom. They're about nationalism, which is
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: the most polite thing I have to say about them.
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: you know, and mostly the right and left. And so
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: there is no mainstream view out there that even resembles
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 1: what we stand for.
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 2: You want me to make it even worse? Even the
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 2: libertarians these days are taking the populist route, not in
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 2: terms of in terms of just if you're anti-establishment, anti-empire,
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 2: and anti-Israel, of course, then you are one of the
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 2: good guys. Go and check who are the guests in
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 2: some of the most prominent Austro-libertarian podcasts. Tom Woods. See
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 2: who are their guests and ask yourself, has any of
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 2: these people anything to do with advocating for liberty or
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 2: for markets or for whatever? Yeah, and.
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely true. I mean, the closest
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: we have as an intellectual ally is somebody maybe like
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: Steven Pinker because he values reason and individual. And he's
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: so far removed from us on so many other things.
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: And even his explanation of reason is not quite right.
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: So there's nothing. There's a desert out there intellectually. So
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: it's not just 130,000 academics. It's another 200,000 public intellectuals
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: and writers at newspapers and people like that. And we
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 1: have to replace them. Oh, and so you might say, okay,
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: say 200,000 of them. So let's say, well, we're not
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: going to replace all of them. If we had 10%,
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: I think we win. 10% is 20,000. How many do
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: we have today? Five? You know, so, you know, those
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 1: are the numbers. Let's just take 20,000. Only want 20,000.
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: That's all. And we have today, by my most generous count,
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 1: maybe 100, right?
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 2: Maybe.
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 1: Maybe. intellectuals at universities and doing different work. Intellectuals. Objectivist intellectuals.
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 2: 100. We need 20,000. Someone who is good in maths. Please,
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 2: I don't want to go to sleep with this black field.
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 2: Do the maths if our odds are worse than the
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 2: Spartans in Thermopylae. The real balance of power in Thermopylae
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 2: was 1,000 on our side and something like, let's say, 300,000
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 2: in the Persian side. Someone do the maths.
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: I thought it was only 300. Wasn't it just 300?
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 2: No, no, that's a... But why let reality get in the...
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 2: It's a nice story. It's a good story. Someone do
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 2: the maths and tell me if our odds are better
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 2: than the odds of the Spartans. And the Spartans still lost.
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 2: That's the annoying thing.
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. What did they do? They delayed. They won
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 1: it for the Athenians, I guess.
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 2: Still, still. What if we are the Leonidas who will
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 2: delay and then our comrades will defeat.
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 2: We'll win in a plateau.
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 1: I think that's what we hope for. The hope is
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: that we delay, that we keep alive the good ideas,
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: and we delay the dark ages or delay the horrors,
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: and that's what wins it. But, you know, the alternative is,
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: you know, here's my optimistic view, which is crazy.
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 2: So for years I said....
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: The only way we win is if we become really,
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 1: really good at using technology for our site. So we
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 1: find a way around it, right? And that means using
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 1: the Internet. That used to mean using the Internet to
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 1: get out. And it turns out we weren't that good
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: at using the Internet. And, you know, we've done okay, but, yeah,
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: we're way lagging. Other people are much better at using
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: the Internet than we are. So here's our second chance.
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 1: We've got a second chance. And the second chance is AI.
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 1: AI is going to revolutionize everything. It's going to change everything,
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 1: including how people do education and how people get ideas
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: and where they get ideas from. We have a second
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 1: chance to try to influence the world through technology by
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: getting our ideas into the technology and get it out there. Again,
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 1: the odds are very small because the big people who
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 1: are using AI are and social, all kinds of people
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: who are developing this stuff are really, really bad people.
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: But it's a, you know, it's a tool that anybody
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 1: can use and any can have. You know, I am
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 1: on the, you know, I'm on the cusp of announcing
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: the attempt to build capitalism AI, which, you know, I
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: think was going to be a massively powerful tool for
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: our ideas to try to get them out there and
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: try to influence people and AI itself. But I'm going
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 1: to need a lot of money from you guys to
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: do it. So I've got a fundraising campaign that I'm
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 1: about to launch. But yes, we have a plan for
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 1: Yaron Pro AI, which is going to be pretty amazing.
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 1: And then Capitalism AI, which is going to combine my AI,
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 1: Alex AI, Amish AI. Amish has an AI. And Combine
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: it with imagine if we teach the AI all the
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 1: free market economics. We teach AI objectivism, and it integrates
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 1: all of that and can generate content on a regular
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 1: basis in quantities that we can't even imagine to combat
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 1: what's going on right now from a capitalist perspective. So
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: that's my dream. of trying to have an impact sooner
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: rather than later. But who knows? AI is also a
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 1: very powerful tool for the surveillance state. So it goes
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 1: both ways. Nikos has to... We have to have a
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: Nikos AI. So, yeah, I mean, we're, you know, all.
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 2: I'm not very bullish on that, but.
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 1: Well, you won't have to do anything. That's the beauty
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: of this.
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 2: That's the thing that I don't... I still have the
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 2: Marxist thing that... I have to do stuff.
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: No, you won't have to do anything to make it happen.
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 1: You'll still have to produce content because somebody has to
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 1: feed the AI content. Somebody has to keep doing it, right?
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 1: So you'll still have to work, but this will leverage
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: the work that you do and you've done on a
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 1: massive scale, potentially. That's the idea. All right, Michael. Does
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: the saying the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference,
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 1: make any sense? It's like saying the opposite of.
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 2: Romantically, yes, but only romantically, I think.
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 1: It's like saying the opposite of focusing isn't evasion, it's drifting.
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: Indifference is clearly in the middle between love and hate.
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: So you want to talk about.
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think this has... relates to romantic,
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 2: where at least when someone has, oh, I hate this guy,
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 2: at least they pay some attention, they're somehow emotionally invested.
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 2: So romantically, yes, indifference is the worst gray zone you
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 2: can find yourself. But more epistemologically, I'll leave it to you.
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think hate is the opposite of love.
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: I don't think they're two opposite emotions. They're clearly opposite.
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: Indifference is not in between. It's just indifference. It's neither
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 1: one of those.
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 2: And.
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: But there's a sense in which, and this is particularly
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: true in romantic love, as you said, there's a sense
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 1: in which indifference is more hurtful, indifference is more meaningful
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: in some sense than hate. Indifference is, I can't even
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 1: bring myself to have any emotion with regard to you.
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 1: And that is, so it's not the opposite in terms
• 2:12:28
  Speaker 1: of a concept, but it is, it can be the
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: more devastating. You know, so when Rourke says to, to Tui,
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 1: you know, what do you think of me? And he says,
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 1: I don't think of you. That's much more devastating to
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 1: Tui than if Rourke said, I think you're evil, bastard, whatever,
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 1: because that elevates Tui to at least he has something,
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 1: you know, he thinks of me. So there's a sense
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: in which it's more demeaning and more devastating.
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 2: Having said that, hate is not a good starting point
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 2: for romance. So maybe even that is a stupid saying.
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's sometimes the ending point of romance. All right,
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: let's see. Jennifer, do you think your ability to handle sad,
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 1: upsetting odds goes down as you get older for some people?
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: Maybe some people can handle it better Maybe it depends
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: on your life experience. I know upsetting art can be
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: of value. Yeah, I mean, I do think age probably matters.
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 1: There's a sense in which you have experience that I
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 1: don't need to live through it again or live through
• 2:13:52
  Speaker 1: something like that. So the more experience you gain, maybe
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 1: there's less of it. But, yeah, I mean, there is very,
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 1: very powerful sad art. Every time you go to the opera,
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 1: you experience it. And there's real value in experiencing it,
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: you know, if it's great art and if it's a
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: value to you. That is, it's not a value qua
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: being sad. It's a value in spite of being sad.
• 2:14:28
  Speaker 2: Let me throw an idea on the table. 14th of February,
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 2: Valentine's Day, is a Sunday. Do you want to do
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 2: an episode on our favorite romantic movies?
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 1: Sure, that would be fun.
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 2: And I'm mentioning this because I was thinking of them
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 2: the other day. I had like five and two honorable mentions.
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 2: All of them have not a happy end. Casablanca type,
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 2: not happy end. So this question reminded me I.
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: Think some of mine will have happy endings.
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 2: Not a single one of mine will have happy endings.
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, I need to make a list of mine,
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 1: but I think some of mine will have a happy ending.
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 1: Because some of mine will be comedy. At least one
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 1: of them will be a comedy. A romantic comedy.
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 2: But people will find out on 14th of February if
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 2: there is popular demand for this show, which I consider
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 2: it obvious there should be.
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. All right. Thank you, Jennifer. Lucinda,
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 1: thoughts on Batman. Only superhero I care about. Don't care
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 1: for the superhero movie craze. Couple good movies came out
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: of it, but outside of Batman, I cannot get seriously
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 1: invested into anything superhero related.
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 2: I'm at 200% with you, 300,000% with you. The only.
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 2: The only superhero I care about. I can't think of
• 2:15:56
  Speaker 2: a single Batman movie except the stupid George Clooney one
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 2: that I haven't watched and re-watched and re-watched. And there's
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 2: something very appealing in Batman. How he fights his demons,
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 2: how his demons become his source of power. Yaron will
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 2: probably say he's an altruistic figure. Yeah, sure. But also
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 2: there's something very captivating in Batman.
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I agree with both of you mostly.
• 2:16:23
  Speaker 1: I haven't watched all the Batman movies, and most of
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 1: them I don't particularly like.
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 2: Wait, wait, you haven't watched, for example, the Tim Burton
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 2: ones and the three Nolan ones?
• 2:16:32
  Speaker 1: I watched the original Tim Burton one. I don't know
• 2:16:36
  Speaker 1: how many of them I watched. I definitely watched all of,
• 2:16:39
  Speaker 1: what's his name? Nolan. All of Nolan's, Batman's. I didn't
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: watch Batman v Superman or whatever it was called. There's
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 1: a bunch of others I haven't watched. Look, first of all,
• 2:16:51
  Speaker 1: he's not a superhero. He's just a hero who uses technology.
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 1: So that's a huge difference, right? So in that sense,
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 1: he's more like, what do you call it? Zorro?
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 2: What's that? Zorro?
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: No, I'm thinking of superhero movies. God. The guy with
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: the tech. who is a businessman, who is.
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 2: A... Iron Man. Iron Man.
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 1: So he's more like Iron Man in that sense, without
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 1: the cynicism. So Iron Man is cynical, which I don't like, right?
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 1: Iron Man is a cynic throughout, and it pisses me off.
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 1: Batman is not cynical, and he uses technology, and he
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 1: fights evil, and he's not cynical about fighting evil. Evil
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 1: is evil. He's the good guy. it's very negative about society.
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 1: So the world we live in sucks in the Batman universe, right? The, the, people,
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 1: the people are much more enamored with with what's his name?
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 1: The clown Joker, the Joker. Then, you know, they're enamored
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 1: with the Joker. So I've seen the Joker movie. as well. So,
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 1: you know, that universe is a very, very dark universe,
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 1: so you have to accept that. But given that, and
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: that just highlights the altruism, right? Because Batman does all
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 1: this stuff, saves the world, never appreciated, always, you know,
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 1: such a very, very malevolent view of the human race,
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 1: of humanity, right? That's why I like the Nolan movies,
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 1: partially because he finds... a satisfying ending to it. I'm
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 1: not sure I'm convinced by the ending. I'm not sure
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: he's built up to that well, but it's a satisfying ending.
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 1: You know, Batman walks away, so he shrugs. But yeah,
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 1: of all the movies, it's the best. I mean, somebody
• 2:18:51
  Speaker 1: says he's a capitalist. I don't know if he's a capitalist.
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 1: His father was a capitalist. He is basically using the
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: toys produced by the business his father ran. I don't
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: think he functions as CEO of the business.
• 2:19:03
  Speaker 2: He's more like a philanthropist.
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. But he also has this dual life, a
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 1: little bit like Francisco, right? He's got that element going
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 1: to it. So yeah, and he's interesting. And then you've
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 1: got the detective, who's a good guy. So there are
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 1: people who are good, in the society. Of course, with
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 1: all these movies, evil is too efficacious. But that's okay.
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: So yeah, in comparison to any other superhero movie, Batman
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: is by far superior. But to me, Nolan's Batman is
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: up here and everything else is down here. So I'm
• 2:19:40
  Speaker 1: not a huge fan of the other Batmans. I also
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: remember I grew up with Batman, so I remember Batman
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 1: and Robin, the TV series, with the really... yes you
• 2:19:53
  Speaker 1: could do that I can feel it you know the
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 1: music really gets me so I grew up on it
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 1: I like it because I grew up on the Doki
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 1: TV series with really bad special effects that were really
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 1: cool at the time so yeah whereas I find Superman
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 1: the inability to kill and his random set of superpowers
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 1: and certainly the Once you get all of them in
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 1: together and they're all... It drives me nuts. A universe
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 1: with superheroes is not... It's not something I can really
• 2:20:31
  Speaker 1: get my hands around.
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 2: The aesthetics of the first two Batmans, the Tim Burton Batmans,
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 2: are peak late 80s, early 90s. It's peak civilization. Everything
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 2: went downhill after that. The costume, the Batmobile... Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
• 2:20:53
  Speaker 1: All right. Lucinda, you can see the anarchy symbol on
• 2:20:57
  Speaker 1: the top of the house. This is a father's house.
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 1: On top of the house my dad lives in on
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 1: Google Maps. I have a lot of funny stories about
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: my dad.
• 2:21:08
  Speaker 2: I want to meet you now. This is so fascinating.
• 2:21:11
  Speaker 2: First of all, how old is your father when he
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 2: lives in a communist commune?
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 1: She keeps going on. Don't get him started on demons.
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 1: or how he can see people's souls when he concentrates enough.
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 2: My favorite communist dictator story ever. You know Enver Hoxha,
• 2:21:32
  Speaker 2: the Stalinist leader of Albania. So one morning there is
• 2:21:36
  Speaker 2: a Politburo meeting. Hoxha enters in the meeting and he says,
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 2: you are out. Out probably meant also you are exiled, killed, whatever.
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 2: And he goes on with the day. And then very timidly,
• 2:21:48
  Speaker 2: someone asks, but Comrade Hoxha, what happened? And he says,
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 2: I could see the revisionism in his eyes.
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 1: That's perfect. That is a great story.
• 2:22:02
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: Lucinda said, started reading Shane a couple hours ago. Just
• 2:22:08
  Speaker 1: finished reading Shane in one sitting. Wow. What a book.
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: It's... You know, it's an amazing experience to read that book.
• 2:22:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, reading novels is an experience
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 1: you don't get from any other art form, even movies
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 1: or TV shows or anything. And when a novel like that,
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 1: it's short, but it just drags you into that universe
• 2:22:33
  Speaker 1: and you love, you fall in love there with three characters,
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 1: the three really good characters. And it's so beautifully told. Yeah,
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 1: I love that book.
• 2:22:46
  Speaker 2: Wait, the third is the wife or the kid?
• 2:22:48
  Speaker 1: Well, you're right, the four. I didn't even think of
• 2:22:50
  Speaker 1: the fourth character because there's the kid. So there are
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 1: two men who each express virtue in a particular way. Efficaciousness.
• 2:23:02
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 2: Efficaciousness.
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're both efficacious in different ways and both strong
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: and both honorable and proud men. And the woman they
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 1: both fall in love with, there's obviously real value there.
• 2:23:16
  Speaker 1: And the kid is just amazing, right? The kid is
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 1: telling the story, so it's through his eyes we see
• 2:23:22
  Speaker 1: it all. It's just fabulous. Four great characters. You know,
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 1: and the villains, who cares at that point, right? It's
• 2:23:32
  Speaker 1: such a... He creates such a benevolent universe within that world.
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 1: All right. Oh, by the way, Lucinda says.
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 1: Let's find this. My dad is like 60 or 70.
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 1: She doesn't know how old her dad is. So he's
• 2:23:48
  Speaker 1: my age. Her dad is my age. He grew up
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 1: in the DDR.
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 2: Oh! That's so surprising. From the DDR, and you become
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 2: an anarcho-communist? This is such a life arc. Okay, there
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 2: should be a movie. A movie like Goodbye Lenin, La
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 2: La La La. Comedy, yeah. Yeah, this post-communist German, not
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 2: even comedy, but this nostalgia, they used to tell, nostalgia
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 2: for East Germany. Your father should feature in such a movie.
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 2: Or Die Vaterjagern sind vorbei. There were very good such movies.
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 1: So he had you when he was quite old. All right.
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 1: All right. Lucinda also. Lucinda dominates the chat. My cat
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: Josie is watching with me right now. Her brother Sammy
• 2:24:44
  Speaker 1: is sleeping somewhere else. I don't think he cares much
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 1: for politics. Josie is more so watching Nikos than Yaron, though.
• 2:24:59
  Speaker 1: This is because he senses my hostility to cats.
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 2: The cat understands who is a cat person and who
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 2: is not.
• 2:25:08
  Speaker 1: All right, all right. So Lucinda is turning her cats
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 1: against me. All right, Matt, what are your thoughts on
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 1: the commonly held belief that food produced in Europe is
• 2:25:20
  Speaker 1: healthier than food in America, specifically crops and livestock?
• 2:25:26
  Speaker 2: First of all, let me tell you about the struggle
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 2: that we have in Europe that probably you are not
• 2:25:30
  Speaker 2: even familiar. You know that because of some stupid regulations,
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 2: you cannot find, for example, in Europe... something with the
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 2: label raw honey you're not allowed to put it you
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 2: cannot find anything with the label grass fed you can
• 2:25:47
  Speaker 2: find organic you can discuss it with your butcher and
• 2:25:50
  Speaker 2: maybe they will tell you but you can find these
• 2:25:53
  Speaker 2: things in england you can not find it in in
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 2: eu because of stupid because of stupid regulations or at
• 2:26:00
  Speaker 2: least you cannot find them in greece.
• 2:26:04
  Speaker 1: So there's definitely something to this, right? So I think
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 1: because a lot of the fruit and vegetables are grown
• 2:26:16
  Speaker 1: locally in Europe, there's very little importation of fruits and vegetables.
• 2:26:19
  Speaker 1: Whereas in the U.S., when you get a kiwi, you
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 1: get a mango, they're not American, right? They've been shipped
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 1: from somewhere. There's potentially a freshness to them. I mean... Although,
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 1: funnily enough, some of the best mangoes I had in
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 1: Italy were imported from Israel, which I'm glad to see
• 2:26:43
  Speaker 1: they still import stuff from Israel. I'm wondering if the
• 2:26:45
  Speaker 1: people buying the mangoes are being made in Israel or
• 2:26:48
  Speaker 1: boycotting it.
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, there are campaigns in Greece against Israeli avocados. Avocados, yeah.
• 2:26:55
  Speaker 1: But it was the same in Israel. Everything fruit and
• 2:26:58
  Speaker 1: vegetable is very fresh. because it's basically coming from the
• 2:27:01
  Speaker 1: farm to, to, to the supermarket and you're buying it. Um,
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 1: I live in Puerto Rico where the fruit and vegetables
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: are awful because there's a very small farming. There's very
• 2:27:12
  Speaker 1: little farming that goes on an Island and that goes
• 2:27:14
  Speaker 1: to the restaurants. And, uh, when you go to the supermarket,
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 1: you get stuff that's been carried on non, uh, non, uh,
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: Jones act chips to the, and it's just not fresh.
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 1: And it's just, it's just mediocre. It's never good. Um, So, yeah,
• 2:27:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, my experience is particularly in Spain and Portugal
• 2:27:34
  Speaker 1: and Italy. And look, the produce is better. The produce
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 1: is fresher. It's more tasty. It's not as good looking
• 2:27:44
  Speaker 1: as like California produce. California produce is good looking, like
• 2:27:48
  Speaker 1: the beautiful peaches. But the peaches in Europe taste better.
• 2:27:52
  Speaker 1: So a lot more emphasis is put in the U.S.
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 1: on looks and taste secondary. In Europe, it's more focused
• 2:27:59
  Speaker 1: on taste. But, you know, fruit in Spain generally is
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 1: better than fruit anywhere else. So, you know, that's tomatoes.
• 2:28:08
  Speaker 1: And you can buy these really, really expensive tomatoes in Spain. And, wow,
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 1: you know, they blow your weight. And they're really expensive,
• 2:28:18
  Speaker 1: so I don't buy many of them. But once in
• 2:28:20
  Speaker 1: a while. So there is differences in quality. And, look,
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 1: you can get that quality in the U.S.
• 2:28:29
  Speaker 2: As well.
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 1: I think by going to what do you call it
• 2:28:32
  Speaker 1: to Whole Foods or whatever you paid for it but
• 2:28:38
  Speaker 1: you know I'm not against GMO I'm not against all
• 2:28:40
  Speaker 1: this stuff but a lot of times GMO is used
• 2:28:47
  Speaker 1: in order to make stuff look pretty rather than taste
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 1: better and so and I think that's unfortunate I remember
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: seeing this beautiful these beautiful peaches in California and you
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 1: bite into them And they have no flavor, right? All
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: the sweetness is gone. And so that is a bad
• 2:29:06
  Speaker 1: use of GMO.
• 2:29:07
  Speaker 2: But don't expect, people, that you get out of the
• 2:29:09
  Speaker 2: plane in Europe and everything is brilliant. When I go
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 2: to Crete and I have tomatoes in Crete, I realize
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 2: that every other tomato has no taste. In Greece, every
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 2: other tomato has no taste. So even within a Mediterranean country...
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 2: The difference between something which is an island, local produce,
• 2:29:28
  Speaker 2: and what you get here, even in expensive supermarkets, is
• 2:29:30
  Speaker 2: night and day.
• 2:29:31
  Speaker 1: And not to be insulting, because I don't think this
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 1: is insulting, it's just a fact of reality. Once you
• 2:29:37
  Speaker 1: get north of the Mediterranean, food sucks. I mean, there
• 2:29:42
  Speaker 1: are good restaurants, there's good food, but the average food,
• 2:29:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, I know Lucinda is in Germany, but you
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 1: go into an average restaurant in Germany, the food does
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: not taste good. You know, it's the same in England,
• 2:29:57
  Speaker 1: unless you're in London and you, you know, unless you're
• 2:29:59
  Speaker 1: in London, although food is much better in England than
• 2:30:01
  Speaker 1: it used to be, but generally Northern Europe, with exception
• 2:30:06
  Speaker 1: of really good restaurants, the food is not, and the
• 2:30:08
  Speaker 1: vegetables and fruit, they don't grow them there. Again, you
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 1: get the same issue. If you want really great food,
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 1: it's on the Mediterranean. It's Southern Spain, you know, it's Spain. It's, it's, uh,
• 2:30:20
  Speaker 1: parts of Italy. It's a Southern part of France. It's, it's, uh, Portugal,
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 1: which is not in the Mediterranean, but it has similar climate.
• 2:30:28
  Speaker 1: It's places like that. Christian says, Germany is far better
• 2:30:32
  Speaker 1: than Great Britain. No, it isn't. I consider London probably
• 2:30:36
  Speaker 1: the best food city in the world. And Germany has
• 2:30:41
  Speaker 1: nothing like London. There's no city in Germany that comes
• 2:30:44
  Speaker 1: even close.
• 2:30:45
  Speaker 2: I mean... Depends where... Look, if you are a normal person,
• 2:30:50
  Speaker 2: if you are not very wealthy... you can eat very
• 2:30:55
  Speaker 2: well also. The average place in Berlin is better than
• 2:31:00
  Speaker 2: the average place in the UK. So always remember, people,
• 2:31:04
  Speaker 2: that what Yaron tells you is the upper echelon of
• 2:31:07
  Speaker 2: the food. So your experience might not be relatable to
• 2:31:10
  Speaker 2: most of the people.
• 2:31:11
  Speaker 1: And the UK is not London. So I agree that
• 2:31:13
  Speaker 1: once you leave London, it's not the same. But the
• 2:31:16
  Speaker 1: average place in London is better than the average place
• 2:31:19
  Speaker 1: in Berlin by far. Really?
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 2: Have you had... Average Bergen in London.
• 2:31:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not talking about an average British food. I'm
• 2:31:27
  Speaker 1: talking about average food. The beauty of London is average
• 2:31:30
  Speaker 1: food is Indian or Thai or Sri Lankan. I can
• 2:31:35
  Speaker 1: take you to a really good meal in London that
• 2:31:38
  Speaker 1: costs very little, but you're eating Sri Lankan food that
• 2:31:41
  Speaker 1: is just filled with flavor and amazing food. I mean,
• 2:31:47
  Speaker 1: there's more variety in London than any city in the
• 2:31:50
  Speaker 1: world in terms of food. And so the average has
• 2:31:52
  Speaker 1: to take that into account.
• 2:31:55
  Speaker 2: That Indian restaurant we ate at the last night of
• 2:31:58
  Speaker 2: the documentary, I was surprised by the quality.
• 2:32:01
  Speaker 1: That was really good. And that was out in the
• 2:32:03
  Speaker 1: middle of nowhere in London, in the south of London,
• 2:32:06
  Speaker 1: not in the center. And it wasn't super expensive and
• 2:32:12
  Speaker 1: it was really good Indian food. So I think the
• 2:32:17
  Speaker 1: average in London is different than the U.K., And look,
• 2:32:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've been to good restaurants in Frankfurt, but
• 2:32:29
  Speaker 1: typical German food, just like typical British food. Okay, I'll
• 2:32:33
  Speaker 1: give you this. Typical German food is better than typical
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 1: British food. But typical German food sucks. That tells you
• 2:32:41
  Speaker 1: something about what I think about typical British food. And,
• 2:32:45
  Speaker 1: you know, when you compare it to Greece, to Italy...
• 2:32:49
  Speaker 1: to Spain, to Portugal. And one of the reasons is
• 2:32:53
  Speaker 1: they got the spices first, right? You know, European food
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 1: without Asia, God only knows how bad it tasted. And
• 2:33:03
  Speaker 1: this is why they were willing to sail around the
• 2:33:07
  Speaker 1: world and to hike across deserts in order to get
• 2:33:10
  Speaker 1: those spices from the Asians. It's the only thing that
• 2:33:13
  Speaker 1: made their food edible. The history of trade is the
• 2:33:18
  Speaker 1: history of food. The history of European trade is to
• 2:33:21
  Speaker 1: get spices. That was the most valuable thing they brought
• 2:33:24
  Speaker 1: from Asia.
• 2:33:26
  Speaker 2: Also, let me express my disappointment to the audience. The
• 2:33:29
  Speaker 2: NBA season begins in 48 hours and no questions yet
• 2:33:34
  Speaker 2: about the NBA.
• 2:33:35
  Speaker 1: No, we've got one football question somewhere down here. All right, Lucinda.
• 2:33:40
  Speaker 1: People I know that are my age often don't really
• 2:33:44
  Speaker 1: distinguish conceptually between pro-Israel and evangelicals. Both mean the same
• 2:33:49
  Speaker 1: thing in their head. That's weird. Does Germany have the
• 2:33:55
  Speaker 1: phenomena of evangelicals who kind of support Israel the way
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 1: the American evangelicals? I thought it was a purely American phenomena.
• 2:34:05
  Speaker 2: The average leftist in Europe thinks that the average pro-Israel
• 2:34:09
  Speaker 2: supporter is a religious fundamentalist.
• 2:34:11
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 2:34:12
  Speaker 2: Also in Greece, yes.
• 2:34:13
  Speaker 1: It never used to be that way. I mean, the
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 1: left in Europe used to be very supportive of Israel.
• 2:34:18
  Speaker 2: Wait, wait, wait. When you say used to, you mean
• 2:34:22
  Speaker 2: when you were five. Pre-67.
• 2:34:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, pre-67, yeah.
• 2:34:27
  Speaker 2: Even that, though, it's questionable, but that's okay.
• 2:34:32
  Speaker 1: Well, they felt sorry for those poor pathetic Jews who
• 2:34:35
  Speaker 1: just survived the Holocaust.
• 2:34:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but for example, the Communist Party is already from
• 2:34:38
  Speaker 2: the early 50s.
• 2:34:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 2: They are very significantly anti-Israel.
• 2:34:42
  Speaker 1: That's true. All right, Lucinda, watching Nikos' facial expressions while
• 2:34:47
  Speaker 1: Yaron is talking is one of my favorite parts of
• 2:34:50
  Speaker 1: these shows. Luckily, I'm reading your questions and not watching
• 2:34:57
  Speaker 1: his facial expressions. I don't know what he's talking about.
• 2:34:59
  Speaker 2: Well, there might be facial expressions of affection and of agreement.
• 2:35:03
  Speaker 2: It doesn't have to be negative.
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 1: Well, Lucinda can elaborate in a later Super Chat.
• 2:35:09
  Speaker 2: Ali.
• 2:35:11
  Speaker 1: When will we hear the story of Israel interrogating you
• 2:35:15
  Speaker 1: on objectivism? Uh, some time.
• 2:35:19
  Speaker 2: How do people know that we kept this outside out
• 2:35:22
  Speaker 2: of the documentary?
• 2:35:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. People know. Cause I've told the story over poker and, uh,
• 2:35:27
  Speaker 1: I've told all kinds of stories. I don't remember who
• 2:35:30
  Speaker 1: I've told the story to and when, but I have
• 2:35:32
  Speaker 1: told the story. We kept it out of the documentary
• 2:35:34
  Speaker 1: because I'm not sure why there's no reason to actually
• 2:35:37
  Speaker 1: keep it out of the documentary. Um, The things I
• 2:35:42
  Speaker 1: was doing as part of, you know, anyway, it doesn't matter.
• 2:35:47
  Speaker 1: We'll leave it.
• 2:35:49
  Speaker 2: One day.
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 1: One day. I'm not committing to a date and a time.
• 2:35:54
  Speaker 1: All right. Lucinda, what's your favorite Batman movie? Mine is
• 2:35:58
  Speaker 1: Batman Returns. I like the Nolan ones, but I love
• 2:36:01
  Speaker 1: the atmosphere of Tim Burton movies. Started getting into some
• 2:36:05
  Speaker 1: of the comics. Yeah, so we've already talked about that.
• 2:36:09
  Speaker 2: And let's make something clear. The best Christmas movie, people debate,
• 2:36:14
  Speaker 2: is Die Hard the Christmas movie. The best Christmas movie
• 2:36:16
  Speaker 2: is Batman Returns. And literally the last lines in the
• 2:36:20
  Speaker 2: movie is, Merry Christmas, Alfred. So it's 100% a Christmas movie.
• 2:36:26
  Speaker 1: Okay. I've done my favorite Christmas movies already, so I
• 2:36:30
  Speaker 1: do it every Christmas. But there's overlap between it and
• 2:36:34
  Speaker 1: my favorite... Romance movies, so I'm not going to say.
• 2:36:37
  Speaker 1: All right. Save it. Nikos, to keep our football discussions alive,
• 2:36:45
  Speaker 1: I am very sad today as my favorite German club,
• 2:36:48
  Speaker 1: 1860 Munich, lost 2-4 against the second team of Bayern Munich. Still,
• 2:36:56
  Speaker 1: I believe in winning first place.
• 2:36:59
  Speaker 2: And to make it even worse, the Bayern Munich team
• 2:37:02
  Speaker 2: won something like 6-7-0, whoever they were playing at. So
• 2:37:06
  Speaker 2: supporting Munich 80-60, you're very committed. You are committed to
• 2:37:12
  Speaker 2: a life where you're never going to find football happiness
• 2:37:16
  Speaker 2: or football triumph. It's one of these things that shows commitment,
• 2:37:20
  Speaker 2: which is, I feel for you, but also I have
• 2:37:24
  Speaker 2: respect for you. Okay.
• 2:37:28
  Speaker 1: Lucinda says, my dad worked in construction in the DDR.
• 2:37:34
  Speaker 1: Fell from a building he was working on because of
• 2:37:37
  Speaker 1: lack of safety.
• 2:37:38
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 2:37:39
  Speaker 1: And he passed out because of the heat. Wow. He
• 2:37:42
  Speaker 1: also sat on the couch of some DDR leader. I
• 2:37:47
  Speaker 1: forgot which one.
• 2:37:49
  Speaker 2: My mother has met Eric Honecker, so my mother should
• 2:37:54
  Speaker 2: meet your father. That would make a nice event.
• 2:38:01
  Speaker 1: Lucinda continues. They were so prudish in the DDR that
• 2:38:05
  Speaker 1: my dad found out what sex was when he was
• 2:38:09
  Speaker 1: a teenager, when his girlfriend asked him to do it.
• 2:38:14
  Speaker 1: And she had to explain it to him. YouTube won't
• 2:38:21
  Speaker 1: let me use the S word, so the sex word.
• 2:38:24
  Speaker 1: I understand.
• 2:38:26
  Speaker 2: Look, actually, every communist society was prudish. DDR, though, because
• 2:38:32
  Speaker 2: also of proximity with West Germany, it had some of
• 2:38:36
  Speaker 2: the elements of the counterculture. So, for example, in the
• 2:38:39
  Speaker 2: 70s and the 80s, you have nudism. in DDR, in
• 2:38:43
  Speaker 2: Dead Air. And if you go to the Dead Air
• 2:38:45
  Speaker 2: Museum in East Berlin, they have kept some elements of
• 2:38:50
  Speaker 2: this counter-cultural stuff.
• 2:38:54
  Speaker 1: That would be interesting, a show on prudishness under communism
• 2:39:01
  Speaker 1: and understanding why they were prudes and what drove that.
• 2:39:07
  Speaker 2: It would be interesting for you and me. I don't
• 2:39:08
  Speaker 2: know for the audience, but yeah, I'd be happy to. Also,
• 2:39:12
  Speaker 2: Dead Air had an interesting rock scene. Don't do it now.
• 2:39:17
  Speaker 2: Don't leave the show. But after the show, go listen
• 2:39:21
  Speaker 2: to a piece called Am Fenster. Am Fenster. It means
• 2:39:25
  Speaker 2: at the window. It has a very unique... It's a
• 2:39:29
  Speaker 2: very sad song, but it has a very unique music.
• 2:39:32
  Speaker 2: It's all the grayness of East Germany... In one song,
• 2:39:37
  Speaker 2: but it's very nice music. I'm Fenster. I think they...
• 2:39:40
  Speaker 2: I don't remember the name of the... Anyway, go to
• 2:39:45
  Speaker 2: the next question and I'll find it.
• 2:39:49
  Speaker 1: Somebody says, it's better to compare Sri Lankan food in
• 2:39:52
  Speaker 1: London with Sri Lankan food in Berlin. No, that's not
• 2:39:55
  Speaker 1: the point. The point is that in London, Sri Lankan
• 2:39:58
  Speaker 1: food is average. In Berlin, Sri Lankan food would be
• 2:40:01
  Speaker 1: an exception. That is, lots of it in London... Very
• 2:40:05
  Speaker 1: little in Berlin. And Berlin is probably the most cosmopolitan
• 2:40:09
  Speaker 1: city in Germany, would be my guess, when it comes
• 2:40:13
  Speaker 1: to food.
• 2:40:14
  Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm Fenster, and the group is City. City, like
• 2:40:18
  Speaker 2: New York is a city.
• 2:40:19
  Speaker 1: C-I-T-Y.
• 2:40:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Fenster by City, yeah.
• 2:40:21
  Speaker 1: By City. Okay, do it. All right, last question, I think.
• 2:40:25
  Speaker 1: This is from Lucinda, appropriately. Most people I talk to
• 2:40:30
  Speaker 1: in the United States, most people I talk to are
• 2:40:33
  Speaker 1: in the United States. I live in the middle of
• 2:40:35
  Speaker 1: nowhere Bavaria. Closest thing to people my age around me
• 2:40:40
  Speaker 1: are farm animals. A very small village. Aren't you going
• 2:40:46
  Speaker 1: to university? I thought you were studying at university.
• 2:40:48
  Speaker 2: By the way, I'm happy to trade lives if you want.
• 2:40:53
  Speaker 2: Come to the civilization and I'll go to the middle
• 2:40:56
  Speaker 2: of nowhere. It would be a good trade for me.
• 2:40:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, Nikos keeps surprising people. You know, I thought
• 2:41:04
  Speaker 1: Nikos was like, and finally back in Greece, right? I mean,
• 2:41:08
  Speaker 1: his whole thing was, I want to live in Greece,
• 2:41:10
  Speaker 1: and he's this big Greek patriot. And the last few months,
• 2:41:14
  Speaker 1: it's all about, I want to get out of here.
• 2:41:17
  Speaker 1: I want to go somewhere else.
• 2:41:18
  Speaker 2: Okay, I want to be in the middle of nowhere
• 2:41:21
  Speaker 2: in Greece. How about this?
• 2:41:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, there you go. Okay. You can't arrange that?
• 2:41:28
  Speaker 2: Sorry?
• 2:41:28
  Speaker 1: You can't arrange that?
• 2:41:30
  Speaker 2: Well, I can't, but.
• 2:41:32
  Speaker 1: You don't really want to be in the middle of
• 2:41:34
  Speaker 1: nowhere in Greece.
• 2:41:35
  Speaker 2: Maybe. Or be rich enough, I can be here and
• 2:41:39
  Speaker 2: in the middle of nowhere and in Bavaria in the
• 2:41:41
  Speaker 2: middle of nowhere.
• 2:41:41
  Speaker 1: That's what you need. And you need to make sure
• 2:41:43
  Speaker 1: that in the middle of nowhere in Greece, you have
• 2:41:45
  Speaker 1: an internet connection that allows you to keep doing these shows.
• 2:41:48
  Speaker 2: Elon Musk has taken care of this.
• 2:41:51
  Speaker 1: Good.
• 2:41:51
  Speaker 2: Good.
• 2:41:52
  Speaker 1: Excellent. All right, guys. I do not want to be
• 2:41:58
  Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere, although there's a sense in
• 2:42:00
  Speaker 1: which I am. but not really somewhat. I'm in the
• 2:42:04
  Speaker 1: middle of somewhere, but most people don't want to be
• 2:42:07
  Speaker 1: where I am. And I wouldn't want to be poorer
• 2:42:11
  Speaker 1: than I am in where I am. So you have
• 2:42:14
  Speaker 1: to have a certain level of wealth to be able
• 2:42:16
  Speaker 1: to enjoy the place that you're in, this particular place.
• 2:42:20
  Speaker 1: All right, everybody.
• 2:42:21
  Speaker 2: Let's remind people, next week, apparently, there is no show.
• 2:42:25
  Speaker 1: No show next week. That's right.
• 2:42:27
  Speaker 2: And then we reconvene with the Suez Crisis.
• 2:42:32
  Speaker 1: And the Suez Crisis is the nationalization of the Suez
• 2:42:36
  Speaker 1: Canal by Egypt and the response by primarily the British
• 2:42:40
  Speaker 1: and the French and Israel and the U.S. response to that.
• 2:42:42
  Speaker 2: It's practically the end of the British Empire, and it
• 2:42:45
  Speaker 2: is the Soviets bullying the West and the West caving
• 2:42:49
  Speaker 2: like a scared child.
• 2:42:51
  Speaker 1: Yes, and very indicative of what will come in the
• 2:42:55
  Speaker 1: Middle East in terms of the West's attitude toward the
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 1: Middle East. So we'll do that. That's in two weeks.
• 2:43:01
  Speaker 1: And then, I mean, the next month is going to
• 2:43:03
  Speaker 1: be difficult because I'm traveling all over the place. I mean,
• 2:43:08
  Speaker 1: what did I do? Six different countries, four different states
• 2:43:12
  Speaker 1: in this period. But somewhere during that period, I'm meeting
• 2:43:15
  Speaker 1: up with Nikos in San Francisco to do this debate.
• 2:43:18
  Speaker 1: I know some of you have asked about information about
• 2:43:21
  Speaker 1: the debate, so you can come. As soon as I
• 2:43:23
  Speaker 1: have it, I will let you know. The people organizing
• 2:43:27
  Speaker 1: it are not being very responsive right now. I'm sure
• 2:43:29
  Speaker 1: it's going to happen. But they're not being very responsive.
• 2:43:32
  Speaker 1: So I'm not sure yet who exactly we're debating. I
• 2:43:35
  Speaker 1: think that might be in flux. And I'm not sure
• 2:43:37
  Speaker 1: when and what time and where and all of the details.
• 2:43:41
  Speaker 2: We don't know when, where, with whom, and what the
• 2:43:44
  Speaker 2: topic is, but everything else.
• 2:43:46
  Speaker 1: Everything else. You know, we have flights. We have tickets.
• 2:43:49
  Speaker 1: We have hotels. Everything is scheduled.
• 2:43:51
  Speaker 2: Worst case, we're going to have a dinner, me and you.
• 2:43:56
  Speaker 2: Maybe that's not the worst case. That would be fun.
• 2:43:58
  Speaker 1: All right, Lucinda says, and we'll end on this note,
• 2:44:02
  Speaker 1: we still need to force Nikos to watch Firefly. All right.
• 2:44:09
  Speaker 2: I've had messages, people in the comments telling me, watch Firefly,
• 2:44:13
  Speaker 2: watch Firefly. Yeah, but someone has to sponsor it, people.
• 2:44:17
  Speaker 2: It can't happen just like that.
• 2:44:18
  Speaker 1: That's right. You guys, somebody can.
• 2:44:20
  Speaker 2: Where is Shazbot when you need him?
• 2:44:21
  Speaker 1: Where is Shazbot when you need him? Somebody needs to
• 2:44:26
  Speaker 1: either be Shazbot or imitate Shazbot And sponsor Nikos watching Firefly.
• 2:44:32
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't mind watching Firefly again. And my wife would
• 2:44:35
  Speaker 1: love to watch it with me. So Firefly is one
• 2:44:37
  Speaker 1: of those shows my wife loves. So it would be
• 2:44:39
  Speaker 1: great to watch them all again. So, yeah, we're waiting
• 2:44:43
  Speaker 1: for the sponsorship. And Nikos will not admit to watching
• 2:44:47
  Speaker 1: it until we get sponsored. Yep.
• 2:44:50
  Speaker 2: All right, guys.
• 2:44:52
  Speaker 1: Have a great week in front of you. You too, Nikos.
• 2:44:56
  Speaker 1: Get some sleep. I know it's late right now in Greece.
• 2:45:00
  Speaker 1: And we'll see you guys in two weeks. You will
• 2:45:03
  Speaker 1: see me tomorrow. It might be maybe two shows tomorrow.
• 2:45:07
  Speaker 1: We'll see. But I'll see you tomorrow. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody.