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Citizen Defenders: A U.S. Army Ranger's Plan to Protect Israel ep 44 with Yoni Zagdanski · Boots on the Ground

0:00
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to another episode of Boots on the Ground, where we discuss Israel's wars, politics, and identity.
0:06
SPEAKER_02: For this episode, I'm joined here with Colonel Jonathan from Citizen Defenders.
0:11
SPEAKER_02: Before we start talking about Citizen Defenders and the amazing work that Jonathan is doing, I want to say thank you to our partners at the Jerusalem Media Group and our sponsors, BeTheirIsrael.com.
0:21
SPEAKER_02: For all your events in Israel, BeTheirIsrael.com provides live streaming services so all your families and friends around the world can join you virtually virtually.
0:29
SPEAKER_02: And remember to like, share, and subscribe so we can keep bringing you some of this great content.
0:35
SPEAKER_02: Colonel Yonatan, welcome to the show.
0:37
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
0:39
SPEAKER_02: All right.
0:39
SPEAKER_02: So before we talk about citizen defenders and the great work that you're doing here in Israel, we have to understand who's Jonathan.
0:47
SPEAKER_02: Title Colonel, not most of us have that, definitely not most native English speakers.
0:51
SPEAKER_02: And not only that, a colonel in the American Reserves, former Army Ranger, or is that Army Rangers?
0:57
SPEAKER_02: Are you ever a former Ranger?
0:58
SPEAKER_02: You're always a Ranger.
0:59
SPEAKER_02: You're always a Ranger.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: It's like the Marines.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: Once a Marine, always a Marine.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: Once a Ranger, always a Ranger.
1:03
SPEAKER_02: So I'm honored to be sitting with you here.
1:05
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
1:05
SPEAKER_02: Warrior to warrior.
1:07
SPEAKER_02: So tell us a little bit.
1:08
SPEAKER_02: How did Jonathan end up from his childhood in Belgium to Ranger school to being an Orthodox Jew living in the Golan, teaching Israel citizens how to defend themselves?
1:20
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll tell you.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: I grew up in Belgium, as you said, Brussels.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to give you my whole life story, but I want to tell you that as a kid, I suffered a lot of anti-Semitism.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: And nothing has really changed today.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: Okay, there's a lot of anti-Semitism going on in Belgium, especially from North Africans that have immigrated to Brussels, Belgium.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: But overall, you know, regular kid going to Bonna Kiva from a modern Orthodox family.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: I did suffer some bullying in high school.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: And the reason I'm saying that is because there's a reason why all this led me to becoming a US Army soldier.
2:04
SPEAKER_01: Even though I lived in Belgium, my mom always told me, Don't forget you're an American.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: Okay, my mom is red, white, and blue.
2:11
SPEAKER_01: She's very rah-rah American.
2:13
SPEAKER_01: And she always said, Don't forget you're an American.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: And as a kid, I remember looking at books and everything about the U.S.
2:20
SPEAKER_01: Army, and I always said to myself, Wow, these guys, you know, especially I'm a big World War II buff.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: Always studying.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: My mom even gave me books about World War II.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: And I remember looking at those guys, being like, Wow, these are really my heroes.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: These paratroopers who jumped into Normandy and later on.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: The Rangers actually scaled, that's right.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: Pont de Hach is what they scaled.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: Um, so they jumped in, but not only they they they liberated Europe, they actually liberated a lot of the concentration camps.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: So, in many ways, they saved Jews all over Europe from the Holocaust.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: And so to me, it was like I remember being, I think I was 10 or 12 years old, and I said to myself, one day I'm gonna be a U.S.
3:10
SPEAKER_01: Army soldier.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: And sure enough, you know, just fast-forwarding, you know, uh, it's true that I was I was modern Orthodox, but at some point I decided I kind of gave everything up.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: I became, as they say here in Israel, Khiloni, non-religious.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: And um, but I never lost my Jewish identity.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: That was always very, very important to me.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, and and you know, so fast forward a little bit, I kind of floundered in high school, kind of floundered in college.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: I didn't really know what I wanted to do and everything.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, one thing led to another.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: And at some point I said to myself, all right, I need to leave Belgium.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: I need to leave my family, my friends, I need to figure out what I want to do in life because I did not have a direction in life, a purpose, and I didn't have motivation either.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: So I knew something was wrong in my life.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: I left everything, went to Mexico for a year, went to the jungles.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I literally wanted to cut everything, cut all ties to everyone and everything.
4:17
SPEAKER_01: I just wanted to be Jonathan by himself, to think clearly, what do I want to do in life?
4:23
SPEAKER_01: Where am I going?
4:24
SPEAKER_01: Okay, what is my purpose?
4:26
SPEAKER_01: And um, and I had to go deep in Mexico, all the way to the south of Mexico in the jungles.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: And at some point I said to myself, all right, and of course I was running out of money at some point, and I said to myself, all right, when I'm done with all this, I'm going back to New York.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: I got family in New York, and I'm gonna enlist in the U.S.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: military.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what I did.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: After a year, I went back to New York, walked straight into a recruiting station.
4:51
SPEAKER_02: Was it the one in Times Square?
4:52
SPEAKER_01: No, not the one in Times Square.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: I walked in there.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, it's interesting because they have army recruiting next to Navy recruiting, next to Air Force recruiting, you know, and they're actually competing with each other.
5:04
SPEAKER_02: I walked in there and let them all compete for me.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: In the end, I didn't join after my army service here.
5:08
SPEAKER_02: I did not join the American military.
5:10
SPEAKER_02: Right.
5:10
SPEAKER_02: I seriously considered it though for a while.
5:12
SPEAKER_02: And they were they're all trying to get you.
5:14
SPEAKER_02: It was kind of interesting.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: So here I am in Brooklyn, sitting at a recruiting station, and he shows me a video of the Rangers.
5:21
unknown: There you go.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: And you know, you see those guys jumping out of planes and doing crazy stuff, and I was hooked.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: I was like, sign me up, that's where I'm going.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: And sure enough, within a few weeks, I was uh I was in basic training, Fort Benning, Georgia.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm not gonna lie to you, it was very difficult.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: I had a very, very difficult time in basic.
5:43
SPEAKER_01: Uh I was not a good soldier right off the bat.
5:46
SPEAKER_02: When you see what it was all difficult, I mean, we're we and I I've been through basic training.
5:51
SPEAKER_02: Most of a lot of my viewers have been through Israeli basic training.
5:54
SPEAKER_02: There's there's a level of physical difficulty, which is on purpose.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: You're you're being turned from a civilian into a soldier and into a warrior.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: But there's also the mental difficulty, the discipline, the regimentedness of life, the not being not even being able to think for yourself, having to follow that strict discipline of every moment of the that you're awake, and even when you're asleep, you're told how and what to do.
6:17
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
6:18
SPEAKER_02: Which was the more difficult part, the physical side or the mental side?
6:22
SPEAKER_01: Actually, the physical side, I was okay.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: I was one of the best in the platoon.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: It was the mental aspect that destroyed me because um this was not 1996.
6:35
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so before all the politically correct stuff was going on, drill sergeants.
6:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you didn't tow the line, they made ground meat out of you.
6:45
SPEAKER_01: They they literally destroyed you, um, and uh they dragged you to the ground.
6:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay, literally, I'm talking about literally, okay.
6:53
SPEAKER_01: You're dragging on the ground.
6:55
SPEAKER_01: Um I I had a very tough time with authority when I was a teenager, so I had to adapt to a new reality where you cannot do anything without permission.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: You don't go to the bathroom, you don't talk, you don't walk, you don't go and you don't do anything without asking permission to the drill sergeant.
7:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
7:17
SPEAKER_02: I remember those days.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: And and they actually called it total control.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: They said, Welcome to the US Army, basic training.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: You are now in a total control environment.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: So I got in trouble for sweating without permission.
7:30
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
7:30
SPEAKER_02: In August.
7:31
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
7:32
SPEAKER_02: In the desert.
7:33
SPEAKER_02: So so you I can relate to that concept.
7:36
SPEAKER_01: Um very difficult.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: Um anyways, I'm not gonna tell you everything that happened, but there was a breaking point where at one point I I just said I I wanted to quit.
7:47
SPEAKER_01: I said I'm done.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: I I can't do this anymore.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: I was getting punished so much.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: Not only I was getting punished, but I was getting everybody in my platoon in trouble.
7:55
SPEAKER_01: Because when you mess up, they're paying.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: That's how I don't know if how it works in the in the Israeli army.
8:02
SPEAKER_02: I also, again, the the the the progressive approach came to Israel much later.
8:07
SPEAKER_02: So in 2004, when I was in basic training, that was a very similar, if not the same, experience that you were having.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell you at one point, when when you see that you're causing punishment to the entire platoon, and they're actually looking at you with eyes that they just want to kill you.
8:26
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I actually started fearing that I was gonna get a blanket party.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm sure you know what a blanket party is.
8:31
SPEAKER_02: We don't do that here, but right for for our listeners, it's a uh basically where the whole platoon disciplines you on their own.
8:37
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: As we say, to to to fix your to fix yourself through violence.
8:43
SPEAKER_01: Fix your malfunctions.
8:45
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, so I thank God I didn't have to go through that.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: But that that was my turning point.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: I I basically said to myself, I need to do everything and anything and everything to complete disappear, not to hear my name being called out ten times a day.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: And sure enough, slowly, day by day, I was able to square myself away, as they say.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: And after I remember after a week or two, um, you know, they woke us up middle of the night.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: This everybody down, you got four minutes to get, you know, full combat gear and everything.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: And I was the first one in my platoon to get down there.
9:20
SPEAKER_01: And I remember my Jewel Saran looking at me as saying, Zadansky, if you keep this up, I'm gonna have to make you a squad leader.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: And that to me was a game changer.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: When he said that, I said to myself, you know, I think I could do this.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: I think I could do this this army thing, you know, and that's that's what motivated me to volunteer for airborne school, okay, which is parachuting training.
9:43
SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what I did right after basic, went to airborne school, which is also Fort Benning, Georgia.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: And in airborne school, we had an NCO from Ranger Regiment come down with his black beret.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: I remember, I mean, this guy looked sharp, you know, tough guy, black beret, and he said, I'm gonna give you a brief on Ranger Regiment.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: And sure enough, you know, it shows us the videos and everything.
10:08
SPEAKER_01: If you're interested, sign up.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I was right there.
10:13
SPEAKER_01: I signed up for what they call RIP, which is Ranger Indoctrination Program.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: But they really rip you apart.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: That's that's really what it says.
10:22
SPEAKER_02: I want I want to share for a minute for our listeners that don't that don't have an appreciation for what a U.S.
10:27
SPEAKER_02: Army Ranger is.
10:28
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
10:29
SPEAKER_02: And so you'll correct me if I'm wrong.
10:31
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've tr I've had the I've had the privilege of training alongside them many years ago.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: And there's um a number of them used to be stationed here working in the consulate for protection, so I was and I befriended them in those years.
10:43
SPEAKER_02: So I gained an appreciation.
10:44
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
10:45
SPEAKER_02: But the for our listeners who don't know, the U.S.
10:47
SPEAKER_02: Army Rangers are probably the most professional, general purpose soldiers that exist in the U.S.
10:56
SPEAKER_02: Army, right?
10:56
SPEAKER_02: You can we think of Navy SEALs, they're they're very hyper-specialized, or we think of force recon marines, they have very specific missions.
11:03
SPEAKER_02: Whereas a ranger is like the the all-purpose tool within the toolbox of the U.S.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: Army.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
11:11
SPEAKER_02: They're trained in mountain warfare and desert warfare and jungle warfare, you know, air assault, which is helicopters, airborne, which is which is you know parachuting.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: Right.
11:21
SPEAKER_02: The weapons platforms are probably the most the largest spectrum of weapon platforms available to any one army unit is probably within the Ranger School.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: But they're also, at least our farm reputation that we know of them is they are extraordinarily professional, extraordinarily disciplined, but at the same time still flexible in the sense that just because a mission was planned a certain way, you're coming in owing that it's planned this way.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: But the reality is it's probably going to be done completely differently once we hit the ground.
11:50
SPEAKER_02: Right.
11:51
SPEAKER_02: And it's it demands a level of professionalism and proficiency that you know the general army doesn't necessarily demand of you.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: Right.
12:00
SPEAKER_02: But it demands more importantly, per personal discipline.
12:03
SPEAKER_02: Right?
12:03
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot, if I'm correctly wrong, it's not a ladder of your officer and your sergeants are on top of you, it's more they demand that discipline to come from with inside you.
12:11
SPEAKER_02: So to go from being someone who had an issue with authority and couldn't do anything right in basic training to not just applying for and getting accepted into, but graduating from RIP from Ranger School, that's a huge accomplishment and a huge difference.
12:25
SPEAKER_02: And that clearly will have affected what you've done later in your life.
12:28
SPEAKER_02: So did I get it right, what a ranger is?
12:30
SPEAKER_01: Yes, but keep in mind ranger school and ranger regiment are two separate things.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so ranger regiment is the actual ranger unit of the United States Army.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: And ranger regiment belongs to Special Operations Command.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: So Special Operations Command actually has the Navy SEALs, like you said, okay, Special Forces, SFOD, which is Special Forces Operational Delta, which is also known as Delta Force, Marine Recon.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: And uh, oh, and then Air Force Combat Control.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so their job is basically to be the first one in the drop zone and to establish communications with the aircrafts.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: So that's Air Force CCT.
13:13
SPEAKER_01: So those five units make up Special Operations Command.
13:18
SPEAKER_01: So the I'm not gonna say the Rangers are the very, very top, top, okay, because the Navy SEALs and Delta are at the very top.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: A lot of Rangers, by the way, end up eventually becoming Delta or Special Forces or Navy SEALs, and they start off their special operations career in the Rangers.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: They're the cavalry.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: Yep, that's that's the natural path.
13:43
SPEAKER_01: Okay, they become NCOs, non-commissioned officers, and then once they become NCOs, they go and they do the SFAS, which is special forces assessment selection, and so on and so forth in their special operations career.
13:57
SPEAKER_01: So uh a lot of these Delta guys, okay, you mentioned Black Hawk Down, right?
14:02
SPEAKER_01: The movie.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of these Delta guys were ex-rangers.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: Right.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: And they just wanted to go on and proceed uh to a even higher level of professionalism.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: But that being said, when you get to ranger regiments, you are you're you don't have a ranger tab on your shoulder.
14:18
SPEAKER_01: You have a unit patch of the 75th, but you don't have a ranger tab.
14:22
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and and this is important, I'll tell you why, because since you don't have a ranger tab, you're treated like dirt.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: Okay, absolutely.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: You get to ranger regiment, your name is now cherry.
14:35
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: And not not in the Dove de Vant sense.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you shit, like you're a cherry, like you're you're the lowest form of life in Ranger Regiment.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: You're cleaning latrines, you're um you're picking up the trash, you're taking out the trash.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I mean, you do stuff that and it lasts about a year until your squad leader thinks that you're good enough to go to ranger school.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: Because remember, going to ranger school means that Ranger Regiment has to pay a slot in Ranger School for you.
15:05
SPEAKER_01: It's a very expensive school.
15:07
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I think now it's about 85 grand.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: Every soldier that goes to Ranger School, their unit has to pay 85 grand to Ranger School Departments, okay?
15:15
SPEAKER_01: Known as RTB, Ranger Training Brigade.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: So they're not gonna send any just regular Joe Schmo.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: They're gonna be like, okay, you're not going yet, you're not ready yet, you're not ready, you're not.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: And it took me about a year.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: And during that year, you're suffering because again, you're a cherry, you're the lowest form of life, and you're doing all, you know.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: And they can't, I remember them saying, if you don't have a ranger tab, hit the slab.
15:41
SPEAKER_01: You're just doing push-ups all the time.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: Everywhere, you're you're you're you're nothing.
15:47
SPEAKER_01: So uh it's not a fun year.
15:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but thank God I was picked eventually.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not gonna say that Ranger School was smooth, you know.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: It's 62 days of hell, pure hell.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I don't know if there's an equivalent in in uh in the Israeli army, but it's 62 days where the average sleep is roughly two hours a night.
16:06
SPEAKER_02: So we don't have 62 days of that, but there are there are courses within the Special Forces pipeline that you have that for a week or two straight.
16:15
SPEAKER_02: Right.
16:15
SPEAKER_02: We also hear though, but here we have the beauty of Shabbat.
16:17
SPEAKER_02: So nothing's ever more than six and a quarter days long because you have no matter what a guaranteed break on Shabbat, but sometimes that break starts half an hour before candlelighting and ends 30 seconds after Abdullah.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: So but I think you know what kind of training uh that could be.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: It breaks you down.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: You literally you feel your body start it's breaking down.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: You uh you start seeing all kinds of weird things happening to your body.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm not gonna describe even uh for your listeners, but I think you know what I'm talking about.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: Um but psychologically it's it's very, very difficult in many ways.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: You start hallucinating, you don't even make sense sometimes.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean the lack of sleep is really the worst.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, anyways, but but I want to go back to rain to before I went to ranger school, and I think I'm gonna tell you a quick story because this really shaped my worldview as a Jew, and in fact brought me back towards Judaism, okay, becoming more religious because it reinforced my identity.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: But as soon as I got to Ranger Regiment, um, since I was, quote, the lowest form of life in my squad, a fellow squad member started calling me kike.
17:35
SPEAKER_01: I didn't even know what it meant.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: I was like, but I knew it wasn't good.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: And you know, I asked around, what does that even mean?
17:43
SPEAKER_01: And I figured I figured it means dirty Jew, right?
17:46
SPEAKER_00: Right.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: Um and and it it really hit me very hard.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: And I and then he kept on doing it day after day, calling me kike.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: And you could tell that for him it was no big deal.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the guy was, you know, average guy from Washington State, by the way, built like, you know, a linebacker, you know, at six foot two and 250 pounds, and an all-star athlete.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: Um and then at some point I said, you know, I said, you know, I'm not gonna say his name, but um, I said, listen, we're gonna have a problem if you keep calling me Kike.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: And he totally didn't take me seriously.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: And and um, and what really disappointed me was that the chain of command, in other words, the the other NCOs, they were around and nobody put a stop to it.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: So I realized I was really on my own.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: And now in the US Army, when you're a victim of racism or anti-Semitism, you can initiate what they call the equal opportunity process.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: It's basically the comp it's a complaint process.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: And there's an external unit that's gonna come and they stop all training and they investigate the units for you know to see if in fact.
18:59
SPEAKER_01: Right.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I said to myself, you know, if I do that and and I literally stop the entire unit from training, and they start interviewing the whole chain of command, I don't think anybody's gonna respect me.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I think they're gonna curse me out, you know?
19:15
SPEAKER_01: They're gonna they're gonna really hate my guts.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: So I opted for option two, which means I went up to the soldier and I said, Listen, next time you call, or actually, next time you call me that, I'm gonna knock on your door when we're released from training and we're going outside.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: And he still didn't take me seriously, called me again, this and that.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: I knocked on his door at 5 p.m.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
19:39
SPEAKER_01: And uh he was listening to heavy metal.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, the door was shaking.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: He opens the door, says, What the do you want?
19:48
SPEAKER_01: with a beer bottle in his hand, big tattoo on his heart, okay?
19:53
SPEAKER_01: And I looked up and I had to swallow hard.
19:56
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Remember, we're going outside.
19:59
SPEAKER_01: And I remember he kind of had a smile on his face, said, Are you sure you want to do that?
20:03
SPEAKER_01: Meaning, I'm gonna rip your head off.
20:06
SPEAKER_01: You know, and I looked at him and I said, Yeah, I'm sure.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: Let's go.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: And sure enough, we went outside.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: It was already dark outside.
20:14
SPEAKER_01: We went to an empty field, the PT field, finished training, and uh, no lights, no one, complete darkness.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and he's walking behind me.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: And at some point he says, So, what do you want to talk about?
20:29
SPEAKER_01: And when he said that, I somehow felt fear in his voice, and I didn't answer.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: I kept on walking.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: And then I turned around, hit him straight in the jaw, which is the biggest mistake you can ever do, okay?
20:43
SPEAKER_01: Because my hand went completely numb.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: That must have hurt.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: And um, was that must have hurt?
20:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it went numb.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: I, you know, and by the way, he didn't move.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's not like in the movies where the guy goes flying, he didn't even move.
20:56
SPEAKER_01: But I think it was such a shock.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: And I think he he probably thought Jews never fight, and Jews are always scared.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: Um, so it kind of shook his worldview, and he said he kept saying, I don't want to fight, I don't want to fight.
21:08
SPEAKER_01: But at that point, I was I was literally, you know, uh, I was exploding in anger and rage.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: And and anyways, long story short, um, that never happened again.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: We ended up being friends, okay?
21:22
SPEAKER_01: But it taught me something about, you know, being a Jew and standing up for yourself, you know, and I realized what I went through is what we go through as a nation.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: We get bullied, whether it's Iran, whether it's Hamas, you know, or even our friends sometimes bully us.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: And I realized that you don't talk to bullies, you don't discuss, you don't negotiate.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: You gotta hit hard.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: You know, and the more we stand up for ourselves and the more we hit hard, the more respect we get.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: And it's it's a lesson that I internalized.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: That's that's a message, by the way.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: That is probably the most important message for Amen.
22:04
SPEAKER_02: That's probably the most important message for for anyone to learn as a Jew.
22:09
SPEAKER_02: Or as just a person in the world, that respect doesn't come from negotiations and respect doesn't come from weakness.
22:16
SPEAKER_01: Right.
22:16
SPEAKER_02: Respect is earned through strength.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
22:19
SPEAKER_02: And it's maintained through strength.
22:20
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
22:21
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean you have to always be right.
22:24
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean you can't talk.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: But it if if anything you're doing isn't backed up by your ability to be strong and your ability to put your your hands where your mouth is, there's no respect.
22:35
SPEAKER_02: It's all just lip service.
22:37
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
22:37
SPEAKER_02: That's probably the most important message that you learned early on.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:41
SPEAKER_02: That unfortunately some of us it's taken much longer.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean 100%.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: Um like I said, that was the only incident I ever had of anti-Semitism in the US military.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: Uh everything else was positive.
22:54
SPEAKER_02: Sound like fast forward a little bit.
22:56
SPEAKER_02: You trained as a as a ranger, you served as a ranger, you served later on as a chaplain.
23:01
SPEAKER_02: You in the reserves, you've you've risen the ranks to become a colonel in the Army Reserves as a chaplain, guiding spiritually other soldiers.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: But it seems like that journey led you, it brought you to Israel at some point.
23:13
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
23:14
SPEAKER_02: You've made this place your home.
23:15
SPEAKER_02: And not just, you know, another Jew living in Baca in Jerusalem.
23:18
SPEAKER_02: You're living in in the Golan, man.
23:20
SPEAKER_02: And like it's the end of not the end of the world, but for for Israelis, that's like really far out.
23:26
SPEAKER_02: And I want to know what what brought you home.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you, um, when I saw those planes hitting those towers on 9-11, which by the way was five days before I got married.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
23:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: When I saw those planes hitting the towers, I realized, you know, but because if you remember, this was the middle of Intifada here in Israel.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: Yep, I was so we we had restaurants and buses exploding in Israel.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we did.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: And then suddenly now we have buildings collapsing in New York.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: And I remember I it was almost a divine experience where I almost heard God saying, You think you're safe here in America?
24:08
SPEAKER_01: You're not safe here.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: Okay, this is gonna happen here too, in America.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: And that started the process of me thinking, maybe it's time.
24:19
SPEAKER_01: You know, if anyway this is happening in the States, might as well go back home to Israel, you know, where I as a Jew belong.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: Right?
24:30
SPEAKER_01: Um now I'm not saying I made Aliyah right, you know, right after that.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: It took about four years after, you know, to prepare, to plan, this and that.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, my initial plan was to retire active duty in the US Army, to retire at age 44 with a full pension, and then just come to Israel with a full pension and just you know chill out.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: But it didn't work that way.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: So I left, I left, you know, active duty, went into the reserves, and so I lost my active duty pension.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: Because as soon as you step out of active duty into reserves, now you're going for a reserve pension.
25:11
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but yeah, that that set in motion the whole process of us making Aliyah in 2005.
25:18
SPEAKER_01: We got here, uh, it was also a very difficult time here for Israel, right after the expulsion from Guskatif.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: Uh 2006.
25:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, literally, we were here only a few months.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: Boom, there's a war in Lebanon, followed by, you know, Gilat Shalit and the whole thing, followed by another war 2008, and then 2012, and then 2014.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, wow, it's like war after war.
25:45
SPEAKER_02: Was that it's every two and a half years until now.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: It's been it's been constant, but you know, um, and to be truthful, there were times when I'd look at my wife and say, could we survive here?
25:59
SPEAKER_01: And it was mostly financial.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: The financially was very difficult for us.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: Because again, I wasn't getting a pension.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: Um, and and just trying to make ends meet was crazy, crazy difficult.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: And so there were there were times when I was like, I don't, you know, I think I need to go back active duty.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: This is not, you know, but thank God we hung on very strong and we toughed it out.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: We just stayed in Israel, and um literally by the skin of our teeth, and we we we stayed this whole entire time.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: I've been I've been in Israel almost um 21 years now, you know, and sir, so you know, and this is where I belong, you know, and it's not easy, it's not easy living.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: And and I know you're gonna talk about October 7th, um but but it's you have to hang on.
26:52
SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, I'll tell you what, we belong here.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: And it's just a matter of time, I want to tell you something, and I want to tell you all our listeners, by the way, it's just a matter of time before every Jew ends up right here.
27:04
SPEAKER_01: Because this is where we belong, okay?
27:06
SPEAKER_01: And if any Jew feels comfortable in New York, okay, um, or Michigan, or California, or Florida, it's just a matter of time.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: You know, uh I I feel like there's a change in America, you know.
27:21
SPEAKER_01: And you know about this, but the latest poll says 60% or 70% of Americans have a negative view of Israel.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: Uh so you know the the winds are changing in America.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: Um, all I'm saying is we belong to time to come home, guys.
27:35
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
27:35
SPEAKER_02: You hear that everybody, it's time to come home.
27:37
SPEAKER_02: I think on this show I've said it many times that my my unstated but stated ultimate goal in life is to help bring all of American jewelry home to Israel eventually.
27:49
SPEAKER_02: And if this little podcast and talking to you is one little piece that will help convince even just one person, then I consider it a success at the beginning.
27:56
SPEAKER_02: That's it.
27:56
SPEAKER_02: But um without talking about internal Israeli politics, I think that we have a lot of work to do here so that it shouldn't be a challenge financially because we have an incredible ability here.
28:09
SPEAKER_02: It shouldn't be as difficult as it is to come home.
28:12
SPEAKER_02: We have a great country, we have a great economy, we have we have for all of its flaws, we actually have an outstanding education system, even with all its problems and with all the inefficiencies, our healthcare system is extraordinary.
28:24
SPEAKER_02: Our military, for all the complaints and all the problems, it's outstanding.
28:29
SPEAKER_02: It holds its own on a global level.
28:32
SPEAKER_02: Our tech economy is booming, our manufacturing economy is picking back up now.
28:36
SPEAKER_02: Like we have all the pieces we need.
28:38
SPEAKER_02: We should it really shouldn't be as difficult as it is financially here.
28:42
SPEAKER_02: But we're we have work to do to make it real easier for everyone to come home.
28:48
SPEAKER_02: So that when you're leaving New York and you have to decide, well, do I go down to Florida?
28:52
SPEAKER_02: Do I go to you know Charleston?
28:54
SPEAKER_02: Do I go out to Dallas?
28:55
SPEAKER_02: At least Israel should be in the running on that list, as giving it a good competition.
29:00
SPEAKER_02: But like you said, let's talk about October 7th for a minute.
29:02
SPEAKER_02: I know where I was, and my listeners have heard that I ended up, you know, right back in the reserves, very, very active to say the least.
29:10
SPEAKER_02: Where does October 7th find you?
29:12
SPEAKER_02: Again, once once a warrior, always a warrior, you're a ranger.
29:15
SPEAKER_02: That's not something that, you know, you can be as much in the reserves as you want, living overseas, married with children.
29:22
SPEAKER_02: You don't seem like the kind of guy that sat on your back, got fat and lazy.
29:26
SPEAKER_02: So, where does October 7th catch you and how does that affect you?
29:29
SPEAKER_02: Where you're you're you're a soldier without an army, you're a warrior.
29:34
SPEAKER_02: What what happens to you on that day?
29:36
SPEAKER_01: Right.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: So, first of all, I was not in Israel.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: I was on a US installation, Fort Bliss, Texas, when the whole thing happened.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, it happened on Sukkot, so I only heard about it at Motsey, you know, Simchatora.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: Um, but as soon as I my phone exploded with messages, and I knew that something crazy had happened in Israel.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but you know, it took me a few hours to piece things together.
30:05
SPEAKER_01: It it was very difficult for me because as a ranger, um, and like you said, once a ranger, always a ranger.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: So I'm always thinking along the ranger lines.
30:16
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and it's always been drilled into me that the principles and the keys to success on the battlefield are there's only three keys speed, surprise, and violence of action.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I'll say this again.
30:34
SPEAKER_01: Actually, it's surprise, speed, violence of action.
30:37
SPEAKER_01: Okay, meaning you hit the enemy, you hit hard, you hit where he doesn't expect you to hit.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and you're constantly hitting until it's complete victory.
30:47
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and that's the ranger mindset.
30:49
SPEAKER_01: But in many ways, it's also the US Army mindset.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: Defense defense is not a strategy, by the way.
30:54
SPEAKER_02: Right, it's it's okay.
30:55
SPEAKER_02: It's the the rule of unproportionality.
30:57
SPEAKER_02: It's where we will be so unproportionally more powerful than our enemies that they will they'll they will they will be subdued into submission before they even realize they made the mistake of attacking us.
31:09
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: So the very first few days after October 7th, you know, I it were very tough days for me because I was expecting, you know, I was expecting shock and awe.
31:22
unknown: Right.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's that's the US expression for you just unleash, okay, shock and awe on the enemy.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: And I'm waiting and I'm waiting and I'm waiting, and I'm seeing how world opinion is turning against us.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: Right.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: The more we wait, the worse it gets, right?
31:37
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: And um and then finally when it got started, look, I'm I'm not here again, I'm not here to criticize the IDF.
31:44
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I do it all the time.
31:45
SPEAKER_02: It's okay.
31:46
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's not the point of this conversation.
31:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not at all, not at all.
31:51
SPEAKER_01: But um, I realized something that um that that you know the paradigm had shifted.
32:00
SPEAKER_01: In other words, where citizens always believed that the IDF was gonna show up just in a heartbeat, okay.
32:09
SPEAKER_01: I think that paradigm shifted on October 7th, where it's like, and again, it I'm not saying it's the IDF's fault, but keep in mind the IDF is fighting a seven-front war.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: I think it's the only military that's doing that.
32:23
SPEAKER_01: Seven fronts, including the Houthis, the Iranians, and all that stuff.
32:26
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you talk about a military that's overstretched.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, okay, any military in the world, whether it's the IDF or the US Army, is trained or actually by design, okay, to fight foreign wars, not to fight wars within its own borders.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: You will never have the 82nd Airborne Division parachuting over North Carolina to put some order.
32:52
SPEAKER_01: It's never gonna happen.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: You have the National Guard, that's their job.
32:56
unknown: Okay?
32:57
SPEAKER_02: And even the National Guard takes 24 to 72 hours to respond.
33:01
SPEAKER_02: It's not right, it's not an immediate response force.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: So, but what does that mean?
33:06
SPEAKER_01: That means that the citizens have to step up.
33:09
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
33:09
SPEAKER_01: Now, fast forward, you know, uh Jonathan Lahav, who's my initiative partner, by the way, um, and we we we got together through a mutual friend, but he called me, I think it was a few weeks, and he's like, Jonathan, listen, you're in America, I'm here, you need to help me.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: We need to bring scopes, you know, for for his Kitakonenut.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: You need to bring me scopes.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna order 30 scopes and everything.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: And that's how we got in contact.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, once I figured out what he was working on, he was working on a civilian defense infrastructure, okay?
33:43
SPEAKER_01: And he was building that already.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: I was still in Florida, I was slowly going towards retirement, and I said to myself, okay, as soon as I get out of here, by the way, the U.S.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: Army did not let me go back to Israel for a year and a half.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: As a U.S.
33:58
SPEAKER_01: Army soldier or officer, I was not allowed to go to Israel.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: Why?
34:02
SPEAKER_01: Because Israel is considered a combat zone.
34:05
SPEAKER_01: And unless you have orders to go to a combat zone, you're not authorized to go to a combat zone.
34:11
unknown: Right.
34:11
SPEAKER_01: So I was literally stuck in America.
34:13
SPEAKER_01: I had to fly my family back and forth from Israel to America.
34:17
SPEAKER_01: Um, but as soon as I figured out what he was doing and building this infrastructure, I was like, that's exactly what I gotta do.
34:25
SPEAKER_01: As soon as I hit the ground in Israel and I'm retired, I'm going into this project, this initiative, and we need to build this up big time and as fast as possible.
34:36
SPEAKER_01: So that's what brought me, you know, to this whole thing.
34:40
SPEAKER_02: I want to talk about the strategic reality for a minute.
34:43
SPEAKER_02: You touched on it, but I think that it's something that's not discussed enough in open, at least not in regular conversation, maybe on military podcasts.
34:50
SPEAKER_02: It is, is that, you know, the American military is designed to fight overseas, or even if it ever had to fight on the Mexican or Canadian border, it has what's called strategic depth.
35:01
SPEAKER_02: It can give territory for time, right?
35:04
SPEAKER_02: The way it works that you retreat in order to be able to collect more time and or resources, and then you can take the territory back when you're in stronger positions, right?
35:14
SPEAKER_02: Correct.
35:14
SPEAKER_02: There's there's territory, there's space.
35:16
SPEAKER_02: Correct.
35:17
SPEAKER_02: Whereas in Israel, first of all, there's no territory.
35:20
SPEAKER_02: There is no space.
35:21
SPEAKER_02: There's no strategic depth that we have anywhere.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: And the distance from where the battles are happening to our homes, it's it's again, I was fighting in Gaza and I was allowed, you know, a 72-hour leave.
35:33
SPEAKER_02: It took me one hour to get from Gaza to my house in Jerusalem.
35:37
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
35:37
SPEAKER_02: Like I have friends, we just we just now finished, you know, we're recording this right after I finished the round of reserve duty in Lebanon.
35:43
SPEAKER_02: I have friends that live up north in the Galil.
35:45
SPEAKER_02: We'd finish, you know, we'd be out for a short break of 48, 72 hours again from Lebanon.
35:51
SPEAKER_02: From when we crossed the, you know, in Rosha Nikra back into Israel proper, they'd be home 15 minutes later.
35:58
SPEAKER_02: The the we live our borders, there's no strategic depth.
36:02
SPEAKER_02: So the army doesn't have the ability to retreat at any point.
36:05
SPEAKER_02: And in theory, to maintain an army that would be massive enough on the fence itself, you have no strategic reserve then.
36:13
SPEAKER_02: So the army doesn't the communities that are on the borders themselves, while they're civilian communities, they're part of the defense plan, right?
36:22
SPEAKER_02: They're they are armed, they have first response teams.
36:25
SPEAKER_02: Again, up until and up to October 7th, there was this idea that we're at peace with our neighbors and we can we can be more lax in our training and lax in our equipment, but all of that has changed since October 7th, right?
36:38
SPEAKER_02: So one the initiative, one of one of them initiatives in Israel is the the Citizen Defender, which is what you and your partner started.
36:46
SPEAKER_02: This initiative to not just provide from you'll you'll you'll talk about it more, but my understanding is it's not just to give arms and weapons training to the individual, but to create and not just to create a first response team in every location, but to make it as a a military-level response team.
37:04
SPEAKER_02: They have their own personal equipment, they live in their communities, and instead of them trying to respond as Moshe, as David, as Shloma, as one guy just responding to a threat, they can respond as a coherent, trained group that knows how to communicate, that knows how to, you know, one person and then another person goes around the site and be able to communicate and really strategize and provide a level of defense for their own communities, like a mini military unit, to be able to, again, time and territory to give time for the reserve forces to actually show up to protect them.
37:38
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
37:39
SPEAKER_01: How am I doing?
37:40
SPEAKER_01: I it it's it sounds spot on.
37:43
SPEAKER_02: So I should be doing your advertising.
37:44
SPEAKER_01: Well, and you are uh but I'll I'll tell you, you know, and sometimes people get confused.
37:49
SPEAKER_01: Well, first of all, you have a military background, so I think you know, but for those who don't, it's actually very simple concept.
37:56
SPEAKER_01: Okay, here in Israel we have the Hatzala, which is the Israeli EMS.
38:01
SPEAKER_01: Right.
38:01
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so they are trained to respond to medical emergencies, okay, and we do the same thing.
38:10
SPEAKER_01: We are trained to respond to security emergencies or to terrorist attacks.
38:14
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so the idea is to be just like them and to be first responders at the neighborhood level.
38:21
SPEAKER_01: Now you mentioned Kitakon Enut, you mentioned which is the quick reaction teams, um, and and it's a great concept, but remember that when they designed the quick reaction teams, kitakonenut, okay, in Hebrew, it was for minor terrorist infiltrations.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: Okay, how do I know that?
38:39
SPEAKER_01: I was a member of both a QRT in a Fratz and a quick reaction team in a chashmonaim.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: So we were trained, if there was a notification, we were trained to show up to a house that was taken over by two, three terrorists to surround the house, take down if needed to be taken down, you know, take care of the terrorists and rescue, you know, the people.
39:03
SPEAKER_01: But October 7th basically opened a whole new entire scenario.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about large-scale terror attacks, okay?
39:13
SPEAKER_01: Not two, three.
39:14
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about hundreds, maybe even thousands, okay.
39:17
SPEAKER_01: As a reminder to all our listeners, 6,000 terrorists took part in October 7th.
39:24
SPEAKER_01: 6,000.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: So there were Kitokunenut quick reaction teams, completely overwhelmed.
39:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
39:32
SPEAKER_01: So what I'm saying is the quick reaction teams are an essential part of the security infrastructure, but it's simply not enough.
39:42
SPEAKER_01: We need to add a whole new layer of security, and that's where we come in.
39:48
SPEAKER_01: Okay, because we're basically and and you know, back to the cities, the cities even more uh than the small towns, because you'll have like a small Yeshuv, which is a small town of a thousand or twelve hundred residents, and one quick reaction team of thirty guys, which is fine.
40:05
SPEAKER_01: But then you'll have a city like Afula with 70,000 residents and one team of 40, 50 guys to defend the entire city, okay?
40:17
SPEAKER_01: So it's clearly not enough.
40:18
SPEAKER_01: And so our solution is basically at the neighborhood level.
40:22
SPEAKER_01: What we're trying to do be force multipliers for the existing response teams.
40:27
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
40:27
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: We want to be immediate response, okay, at the neighborhood level against terror attacks, okay?
40:36
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we're doing until security forces arrive.
40:40
SPEAKER_01: Once they arrive and they take control of the situation, okay, we pull back.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: If they want us to pull back, we can easily pull back.
40:48
SPEAKER_01: Because every team has a coordinator, he's in touch with the Rothschild, which is the security officer.
40:54
SPEAKER_01: Right.
40:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay, army liaison, police liaison.
40:57
SPEAKER_01: All he has to do is communicate with us.
40:59
SPEAKER_01: Hey, bring all you guys back home, no problem.
41:01
SPEAKER_01: They have full command and control at all times.
41:05
SPEAKER_01: And that's what's important to remember.
41:07
SPEAKER_01: So we're a force multiplier, like you said.
41:10
SPEAKER_01: We're immediate response because our teams have their stuff hanging by the door, okay?
41:17
SPEAKER_01: And within 60 seconds, they're out of the door and they know their neighbors.
41:21
SPEAKER_01: They know Moshe is on the team and Ari's on the team, and so on and so forth.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: So they they've trained with them, they know who's gonna be there on the spot.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: And they show up within the next, you know, in the few first critical minutes, and they stop the attack.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: That's the whole idea.
41:37
SPEAKER_02: And it's not just that they're they're local and they're they they not just know their neighbors, they know their neighborhood.
41:41
SPEAKER_02: So they'll be able to notice when there's a car that doesn't belong.
41:45
SPEAKER_02: And it's not even it's like consciously, they subconsciously will notice the things that are out of place.
41:50
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
41:50
SPEAKER_02: Which means their response, that they're already processing their response as they're arriving on whatever scene it is, and they're able to communicate that up the chain of command to like the larger forces that arrive as they come.
42:03
SPEAKER_02: It's incredible what you're doing.
42:04
SPEAKER_02: Again, as we can, my anyone who thinks what anyone who wants to support your efforts and follow through, there's um there's a registered 501c3 in the US that supports your initiative.
42:16
SPEAKER_02: Correct.
42:16
SPEAKER_02: And here in Israel, of course, the link to that page will be in the show notes, and I highly recommend and support anyone who wants to support his important work here in Israel and keeping Israel safe, is more than welcome to, of course.
42:29
SPEAKER_02: Um I'm gonna ask you one last question before we go.
42:31
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
42:32
SPEAKER_02: You seem like you're full of optimism.
42:34
SPEAKER_02: You haven't stopped smiling this entire time.
42:36
SPEAKER_02: We've talked about the hells of ranger training and the horrible weeks of basic training, your travels around the world, being stuck in America after October 7th, you know, the threats facing us today, but there's still a smile on your face.
42:48
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
42:49
SPEAKER_02: So I want to know where your optimism comes from.
42:52
SPEAKER_02: Where you're you clearly you're an optimistic person.
42:55
SPEAKER_02: Where does that optimism come from?
42:57
SPEAKER_02: And in days where you maybe aren't smiling, what what do you fall back on to bring that smile back to your face?
43:03
SPEAKER_02: But quickly, while you think of an answer, I want to say thank you to our partners here at Jerusalem Media Group and our sponsors, beTheRISrael.com.
43:11
SPEAKER_02: For all your events in Israel, BeTheIsrael.com provides live streaming services so all your families and friends around the world can join you virtually.
43:18
SPEAKER_02: And remember to like, share, and subscribe to see more of this great content.
43:21
SPEAKER_02: And a link to support Yonatan, Colonel John Yonatan's important work will be in the show notes.
43:28
SPEAKER_02: Where does your optimism come from?
43:30
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
43:31
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll tell you first off, I'm very connected to the God above.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: Okay, to my creator.
43:39
SPEAKER_01: And um, and I try to talk to him a lot about what's going on here in Israel, about the realities of what's happening here in Israel.
43:48
SPEAKER_01: And you're right, 100% right.
43:50
SPEAKER_01: There are times when it's very difficult and it seems like we're going downhill.
43:57
SPEAKER_01: But you gotta remember, you know, Ami Srael, the nation of Israel is strong.
44:03
SPEAKER_01: And I constantly meet, in fact, I just took a taxi here.
44:07
SPEAKER_01: You meet people, taxi drivers, bus drivers, the nation is strong.
44:13
SPEAKER_01: Okay, the people are strong.
44:15
SPEAKER_01: You know, I want to tell you something.
44:18
SPEAKER_01: You know, the average Jew on the street is optimistic.
44:23
SPEAKER_01: He may, you know, he may complain about this and that and the other, but there is a strength inside.
44:29
SPEAKER_01: And I feel like I'm part of a people that is very resilient, very strong.
44:35
SPEAKER_01: It gives me a lot of energy, a lot of optimism, okay.
44:39
SPEAKER_01: Um and then back to what we're doing, I've seen overwhelming response.
44:45
SPEAKER_01: Every time we put an ad, okay, whether it's a fula, whether it's derot, whatever it is, okay, the response is overwhelming.
44:53
SPEAKER_01: And keep in mind, we're not paying these people to be part of these teams.
44:57
SPEAKER_01: These are volunteers, first responders.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: They're ready to put their you know, career and and their marriage and being parents, all that to the side to train, okay, and to possibly put their lives on the line.
45:14
SPEAKER_01: And they're doing it without asking questions.
45:16
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, not only that, they're like, where were you?
45:20
SPEAKER_01: We're waiting for this, okay?
45:22
SPEAKER_01: We want to be part of this.
45:24
SPEAKER_01: So bottom line is there's a we have a lot of enemies.
45:29
SPEAKER_01: We're surrounded.
45:30
SPEAKER_01: I want you to know, Ari, and this is very important.
45:33
SPEAKER_01: We're surrounded by enemies outside of Israel, but within Israel.
45:38
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we have a lot of enemies.
45:41
SPEAKER_01: And they mean business.
45:43
SPEAKER_01: Okay, they want to kill every single one of us.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: And that's 100% clear to me.
45:49
SPEAKER_01: But if we stay strong, not just physically, but also spiritually, and we all get along and we learn to defend ourselves and to stand up for ourselves, they have no chance.
46:02
SPEAKER_01: They have no chance because Hashem is with us, okay, and he's not gonna let his nation down.
46:08
SPEAKER_01: Bottom line.
46:10
SPEAKER_01: So thank you for having me.
46:13
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being here.
46:14
SPEAKER_02: And as always, I'm Israel Chai.