Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 5/27/26: We Asked A Top Liberal Zionist How They Can Be Pro-Israel

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5/27/26: We Asked A Top Liberal Zionist How They Can Be Pro-Israel · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:03
Speaker 1: What I like about this show is that we have
0:05
Speaker 1: an audience of kind of Washington insiders that watches it
0:08
Speaker 1: pretty religiously, but we also have a ton of people
0:11
Speaker 1: outside of Washington who just kind of want the news
0:13
Speaker 1: and but are interested in politics. And so I think
0:16
Speaker 1: the guest that we have today is somebody who everybody
0:19
Speaker 1: in Washington is very familiar with, Jeremy Benamey, who was
0:21
Speaker 1: the executive director of j Street, but for people outside
0:25
Speaker 1: of Washington probably not that familiar. So we wanted to
0:31
Speaker 1: have him on to talk about Jay Street's kind of
0:34
Speaker 1: place in the political firmament now. Because this was an
0:37
Speaker 1: organization that was founded in two thousand and eight as
0:41
Speaker 1: both pro Israel and pro peace, and right after it
0:44
Speaker 1: was launched Ntyah who invades Gaza Again. They came out
0:49
Speaker 1: hard against that invasion and there was a massive amount
0:53
Speaker 1: of pushback, But it also its mission at the time
0:56
Speaker 1: was to create space for Democrats to say, I don't
1:00
Speaker 1: think that net Nyahu should be It actually wasn't net
1:02
Speaker 1: Nyah who actually in two thousand and eight was it
1:04
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, I don't think Israel should be attacking Gaza
1:07
Speaker 1: at this moment without being called, you know, Israel haters
1:11
Speaker 1: or anti submittic It created this space for them, and
1:14
Speaker 1: Jeremy was kind of a perfect person to be able
1:16
Speaker 1: to do that because of a lot of different things.
1:20
Speaker 1: With one of his crazy family story, maybe we can
1:22
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that with him. But his
1:25
Speaker 1: great grandfather, a great great grandfather left Russia under persecution
1:30
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty two, Wow comes to what was then
1:33
Speaker 1: Palestine mandatory Palestine there.
1:37
Speaker 2: And we can put up ex one.
1:38
Speaker 1: I think it is his family's part of this, like
1:41
Speaker 1: iconic nineteen oh nine picture of an auction. They're auctioning
1:46
Speaker 1: off the land that becomes tel Aviv. His father, according
1:50
Speaker 1: to family law, born in nineteen eleven, then becomes the
1:54
Speaker 1: first baby born in tel Aviv. His father then goes
1:58
Speaker 1: on to join Urgon, which is this paramilitary terror organization
2:04
Speaker 1: that helps to found Israel. Afterwards they moved to back
2:09
Speaker 1: to the United States, or moved to the United States.
2:11
Speaker 1: Jeremy is born in the United States, so that's the
2:14
Speaker 1: family legacy that he's got. And despite all of that,
2:19
Speaker 1: last week or maybe the week before, the Israeli ambassador
2:24
Speaker 1: to Washington called Jay Street a cancer on the Jewish community.
2:29
Speaker 3: And basically called Jeremy and Bernie Sanders fake juice, fake.
2:32
Speaker 1: Juice, Yes, yes, And so Jeremy Benamy, executive director of
2:37
Speaker 1: Jay Street, is joining us today. Jeremy, thanks so much
2:41
Speaker 1: for being here. Did I get any of the family
2:42
Speaker 1: law wrong?
2:44
Speaker 4: That's That's the best masure that I've ever had on
2:46
Speaker 4: that show. The funny thing, though, I.
2:50
Speaker 5: Will tell you background.
2:51
Speaker 4: I'll tell you a really funny story, which is that
2:53
Speaker 4: picture that you showed right. It's about sixty families standing
2:57
Speaker 4: on the beach wearing their Eastern European finest clothing in
3:01
Speaker 4: the heat, right, And there's a reunion a hundred years
3:05
Speaker 4: later in Tel Aviv of the descendants of those families,
3:08
Speaker 4: and it's really sort of neat. There were two thousand
3:11
Speaker 4: people and under every flag for the name of a family,
3:14
Speaker 4: the families gathered. We had a big reunion, and I
3:17
Speaker 4: make the rounds to the different families, and it turns
3:19
Speaker 4: out that every single family thinks that their grandparent was
3:24
Speaker 4: the first kid born in Tel Aviv, you know, so
3:26
Speaker 4: like every family has this lore that turns out and
3:29
Speaker 4: you know it couldn't possibly be true, but he was
3:32
Speaker 4: among the first kids born.
3:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think the Jewish population in nineteen eleven
3:37
Speaker 1: of Paliston at the time was between five and ten percent,
3:41
Speaker 1: so there's not that many families there at the time.
3:44
Speaker 1: So this is this is like the heart of the
3:46
Speaker 1: birth of Israel. So what was it like to be
3:50
Speaker 1: called by the Israeli ambassador and a cancer just recently?
3:55
Speaker 1: And what's like, why do you think they said that,
3:58
Speaker 1: and what's your response to it?
4:00
Speaker 4: Well, look, I mean we're dealing with this ambassador, We're
4:04
Speaker 4: dealing with a prime minister. We're dealing with the government
4:06
Speaker 4: in Israel that is made up of the most loathsome
4:10
Speaker 4: people who have perverted the idea of what it should
4:16
Speaker 4: be to have a national homeland of the Jewish people.
4:18
Speaker 4: They have perverted they deals of the country, they have
4:22
Speaker 4: perverted Jewish identity. As you said, they you know, attack
4:26
Speaker 4: reform and conservative Jews as dogs. I mean literally that
4:29
Speaker 4: happened in the Kannesset last week, you know. So this
4:33
Speaker 4: is so much more about these people than it is
4:36
Speaker 4: about me, that it is about j Street. You know,
4:39
Speaker 4: the type of person that I represent in this country
4:42
Speaker 4: is really the mainstream of American Judaism, right, not orthodox,
4:46
Speaker 4: not highly religious, connected to Israel, but really critical of
4:50
Speaker 4: Netanyau doesn't think this government is representing at all what
4:54
Speaker 4: it means to put Jewish ideals into practice. So the
4:56
Speaker 4: problem isn't j Street. The problem is a governm that
5:00
Speaker 4: would send a man as a diplomat to Washington, d C.
5:03
Speaker 4: Who calls the Jewish critics of the State of Israel. Answer,
5:06
Speaker 4: that's that's the problem.
5:07
Speaker 5: Cancer.
5:07
Speaker 3: And as I said before, effectively accused you and Bernie
5:10
Speaker 3: Sanders of being fake Jews for.
5:12
Speaker 1: Disagreeing sponsor is not a Jews with some of the
5:15
Speaker 1: acually investador.
5:16
Speaker 5: The Israeli government. They did make a point though, that
5:18
Speaker 5: I wanted.
5:19
Speaker 3: To ask you about, which is you know, they said,
5:21
Speaker 3: you're actually not respecting the democratic will of the Israeli people.
5:25
Speaker 3: And you know, Nat Yahoo, he's not a one off.
5:27
Speaker 5: He's been prime.
5:28
Speaker 3: Minister there for how many or what like eighteen out
5:31
Speaker 3: of the last nineteen years or something like that, or
5:33
Speaker 3: sixteen out of the last seventeen. If you look at
5:36
Speaker 3: pulling of Israelis on Gaza, on Ira, and you have
5:40
Speaker 3: a you know, large majority of Israeli Jews who say, yes,
5:44
Speaker 3: we're down with complete ethnic cleansing. You have a majority
5:47
Speaker 3: who say that we should actually We're good with killing
5:51
Speaker 3: every single man, woman and child within Gaza. You have
5:54
Speaker 3: a majority that's in favor of expelling even the Palestinians
5:58
Speaker 3: who are living within Israel. So it doesn't seem to
6:01
Speaker 3: me like Netanyaho is an outliar in Israel at this point.
6:05
Speaker 3: It seems like he is reflective of the population there,
6:09
Speaker 3: and you know what they want to see.
6:11
Speaker 4: Well, there's huge problems with where Israeli public opinion is today,
6:15
Speaker 4: without question, and j Street organizationally and I personally obviously disagree,
6:22
Speaker 4: you know, vehemently with some of the things that the
6:25
Speaker 4: majority of Israeli Jews at this moment would say to
6:28
Speaker 4: a Polster they believe in. But the idea that somehow
6:32
Speaker 4: you don't have the legitimacy and you're not allowed to
6:37
Speaker 4: argue with majority opinion, I mean, that is a very
6:42
Speaker 4: quick road to hell, right. I mean, if if the
6:44
Speaker 4: only thing that you're allowed to do is whatever it
6:47
Speaker 4: is the dear leader in the majority.
6:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I'm just pushing back on the idea
6:51
Speaker 3: that it's like Netanyahu in this government. That's solely the problem,
6:55
Speaker 3: given where public opinion is and how mainstream that sentiment.
6:58
Speaker 4: Is at this point, Oh, it's much more nuanced than that.
7:01
Speaker 4: I mean, I do believe that there will be a
7:04
Speaker 4: different government of Israel after the elections that are coming
7:07
Speaker 4: up this fall. Seventy five percent of Israeli's disapproved of
7:11
Speaker 4: bb Netanyau as Prime minister, so you know you're going
7:14
Speaker 4: to see him unable to form a next government. The
7:19
Speaker 4: question is will the opposition be able to come together
7:21
Speaker 4: because they are left right and center Arab Jewish, I mean,
7:23
Speaker 4: they're all over the map, and will they be able
7:25
Speaker 4: to form an alternative government because it's a crazy parliamentary system.
7:29
Speaker 4: But I believe there will be a different government. I
7:31
Speaker 4: believe that government will reverse some of the really worst
7:36
Speaker 4: things that this government is doing. But this new government,
7:39
Speaker 4: even if it is led by somebody from the center
7:41
Speaker 4: right instead of the extreme right, is going to be
7:44
Speaker 4: nowhere near a j Street position. And we're still going
7:46
Speaker 4: to have arguments with the Israeli government over occupation, over settlements,
7:50
Speaker 4: over treatment of Palestinians, over human rights, all of these
7:54
Speaker 4: things that are core to the center of American Jewish
7:57
Speaker 4: opinion will not be central to Israeli Jewish opinion until
8:02
Speaker 4: there's really a change in leadership that takes us way
8:05
Speaker 4: to the other end of the spectrum.
8:06
Speaker 1: Last month, you guys came out in favor of ending
8:11
Speaker 1: American subsidies for weapons to Israel, both quote unquote offensive
8:16
Speaker 1: and quote nquote defensive.
8:19
Speaker 2: For many, many.
8:20
Speaker 1: Years of Jay Street's history, even conditioning AID was kind
8:25
Speaker 1: of there was a big internal fight. And I don't
8:29
Speaker 1: know when you first came around to the position of
8:33
Speaker 1: AID ought to be conditioning You tell me when that was.
8:37
Speaker 1: What happened internally or what happened like personally or politically
8:41
Speaker 1: that got you from that point where you were pushing
8:46
Speaker 1: back hard against even conditioning AID to a place where
8:49
Speaker 1: now we shouldn't have any subsidies from weapons for Israel.
8:53
Speaker 4: So Jay Street is inherently a political organization, right We
8:58
Speaker 4: are going to try to move the center of the
9:01
Speaker 4: political debate. We're not going to be the folks pulling
9:04
Speaker 4: at the edge of the Overton window. That's not our role.
9:07
Speaker 4: And I think you know, we can talk about how
9:09
Speaker 4: change works on a whole variety of issues, but there's
9:12
Speaker 4: always people who play a little bit more of an
9:13
Speaker 4: inside game and a little bit more of an outside game.
9:15
Speaker 4: And we're definitely we are a DC lobby right, and
9:18
Speaker 4: we're going to try to build support for the things
9:22
Speaker 4: that we stand for in the late twenty tens. Already
9:26
Speaker 4: at in our twenty nineteen presidential candidate forum at our
9:31
Speaker 4: national convention was the fall of twenty nineteen, we had
9:34
Speaker 4: the pod Save the World guys on our stage questioning
9:38
Speaker 4: the Democratic candidates for president about their willingness to start
9:42
Speaker 4: imposing restrictions on aid to Israel. So we have made
9:46
Speaker 4: it our point, over the course of our entire existence,
9:49
Speaker 4: to try to push the envelope on these debates and
9:53
Speaker 4: the discussion of restrictions on arms in the twenty nineteen
9:57
Speaker 4: twenty twenty window. That was a first within the Democratic
10:01
Speaker 4: Party were you know, we were pushing the envelope there,
10:04
Speaker 4: and then over time we got to start to have,
10:08
Speaker 4: let's say, you know, in the course of the Gaza
10:11
Speaker 4: War discussions that began to be not about restrictions but
10:14
Speaker 4: about conditioning aid and backing for the Joint Resolutions of disapproval,
10:19
Speaker 4: which really get the ire of the Israeli ambassador against
10:23
Speaker 4: Senator Sanders, supporting Senator Van Holland as he tried to
10:29
Speaker 4: insist that critical elements of the Foreign Assistance Act and
10:34
Speaker 4: the Arms Export Control Act and the Lay Act. They
10:36
Speaker 4: need to be enforced against Israel because we have provided
10:40
Speaker 4: a blank check to Israel throughout the entirety of the
10:44
Speaker 4: US Israel relationship, and to no one else in the
10:47
Speaker 4: world did we provide a blank check. The other thing
10:49
Speaker 4: that we do is we provide diplomatic community. We say
10:52
Speaker 4: to Israel, no matter what you do, even if you're
10:54
Speaker 4: violating international law and some international body wants to then
10:58
Speaker 4: censor you based on the international law, we will, you know,
11:02
Speaker 4: veto it at the UN Security Council, or we will
11:05
Speaker 4: defund UNESCO, you know, or we will do anything we
11:08
Speaker 4: can to provide diplomatic immunity. So for you know, the
11:11
Speaker 4: entirety of Jay Street's existence, pretty much we have said
11:14
Speaker 4: there shouldn't be a blank check and there shouldn't be
11:16
Speaker 4: diplomatic immunity. The specifics have changed as the debate has
11:21
Speaker 4: evolved over these last twenty years, and we got to
11:23
Speaker 4: the point now where we can, you know, firmly say
11:26
Speaker 4: Israel should just be treated like every other country. It's
11:29
Speaker 4: a wealthy, first world country. It doesn't need our taxpayer subsidies.
11:32
Speaker 4: It's time to end that, and it's time to enforce
11:34
Speaker 4: our laws. That's that's the position that we take, and
11:37
Speaker 4: it's a natural evolution of everything we've stood for.
11:40
Speaker 3: Jeremy, one of the reasons I really wanted to meet
11:43
Speaker 3: you and get your thoughts is because it seems to
11:45
Speaker 3: me from the outside that actually j Street's sort of
11:48
Speaker 3: position in the political for a moment has shifted post
11:50
Speaker 3: October something. I'll tell you what I mean by that.
11:53
Speaker 3: To your point, I do think Jay Street has kind
11:55
Speaker 3: of pushed the envelope and created a lot of space
11:58
Speaker 3: for Democrats to have some critique of the Israeli government.
12:02
Speaker 3: And I say this is someone I ran for Congress
12:04
Speaker 3: unsuccessfully back in twenty ten, but Jay Street was important
12:07
Speaker 3: for me as someone who was coming relatively fresh to
12:10
Speaker 3: understanding Israel and Palestine, looking at.
12:13
Speaker 5: Those positions and saying, oh, okay, this.
12:15
Speaker 3: Is a more moral lens that I can use to
12:17
Speaker 3: view this conflict as I'm figuring out who I am
12:20
Speaker 3: and where I am politically on this issue. Ryan of course,
12:24
Speaker 3: has written a profile of you a number of years
12:26
Speaker 3: back where he got a great quote from Ben Rhodes
12:29
Speaker 3: about the impact of j Street and helping to get
12:31
Speaker 3: the Iran Deal pass, which I do not think would
12:34
Speaker 3: have passed successfully under the Obama administration. With out J
12:37
Speaker 3: Street's eight and assistance, we can put this is ex
12:40
Speaker 3: two up on the screen.
12:41
Speaker 5: Ben Rhodes said that.
12:42
Speaker 3: J Street was one of the most effective organizations that
12:45
Speaker 3: supported the Iran deal because they had a large grassroots
12:47
Speaker 3: network growing clout on the Hill. In addition to their advocacy,
12:51
Speaker 3: their membership also stepped up to help several members of
12:53
Speaker 3: Congress who lost APAX support because of the deal. So
12:56
Speaker 3: I think politically very important there and as you said,
12:59
Speaker 3: have been sort of pushing the envelope in what is
13:02
Speaker 3: acceptable in the Overton window with regard to critique of Israeli. Also,
13:06
Speaker 3: I know defended Ryan from charges of baseless charges of
13:09
Speaker 3: anti Semtism at one point. But now we're at a
13:12
Speaker 3: point where the Democratic base has really shifted, and you know,
13:16
Speaker 3: sort of across the board, whether you're a Centrist, whether
13:19
Speaker 3: you're a moderate, whether you're due, whether you're a Christian,
13:21
Speaker 3: you have an overwhelming majority.
13:23
Speaker 5: That say this is a genocide.
13:24
Speaker 3: You have an overwhelming majority that say, not only should
13:28
Speaker 3: we not be providing aid, we shouldn't be selling these
13:32
Speaker 3: weapons at all. In fact, we think we should be
13:34
Speaker 3: sanctioning Israel. So now it seems that J Street's position
13:39
Speaker 3: visa via the Democratic base has become more aligned with
13:43
Speaker 3: the status quo on Israel than with pushing the vanguard,
13:46
Speaker 3: and I wonder, you know, first of all, feel free
13:49
Speaker 3: to dispute any characterization of that, but I am curious
13:52
Speaker 3: how you're viewing that shift in the democratic base and
13:55
Speaker 3: what it means in terms of J streets positioning in
13:58
Speaker 3: the political firmament.
14:00
Speaker 4: Well, I do think you're laying out exactly the dynamics
14:05
Speaker 4: that have evolved over these last three years, with the
14:07
Speaker 4: war in Gaza in particular, and I think the level
14:10
Speaker 4: of anger at the Israeli government, at the IDF over
14:14
Speaker 4: what was done in Gaza, the anger at what is
14:19
Speaker 4: being allowed, if not encouraged, on the West Bank, the
14:24
Speaker 4: push by Netsan Yao to get us into this awful war,
14:28
Speaker 4: and then what's happening in Lebanon. I mean, the anger
14:30
Speaker 4: is understandable, and it is going to be, as with
14:34
Speaker 4: most anger, focused mainly on how do we demonstrate our
14:40
Speaker 4: anger and how do we punish those who are doing
14:42
Speaker 4: things we don't like done. I think where J Street
14:46
Speaker 4: is going to probably just take a different path is
14:48
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, our interest in all
14:52
Speaker 4: of this is in building a better future, right, We
14:55
Speaker 4: want to focus on solutions, not on sort of how
14:57
Speaker 4: do we demonstrate our anger and the only way out
15:02
Speaker 4: of this war, this ongoing hundred year conflict between Palestinians
15:06
Speaker 4: and Jews is a political resolution of their underlying conflict,
15:10
Speaker 4: and so j Street's always going to center that we're
15:13
Speaker 4: going to center. How do we get these two peoples
15:15
Speaker 4: to stop killing each other? What is the way out
15:18
Speaker 4: of this? Because the seven million Palestinians who live between
15:23
Speaker 4: the river and the sea aren't going anywhere in the
15:24
Speaker 4: seven million plus Jews who live between the river and
15:27
Speaker 4: the sea aren't going anywhere. They're going to have to
15:29
Speaker 4: figure out a way to live together. We can discuss
15:31
Speaker 4: whether or not there's any hope of their ever being
15:33
Speaker 4: sort of one democratic state with equal rights for all.
15:36
Speaker 4: I don't see that as a realistic possibility. Others like
15:40
Speaker 4: you know, Peter Beinard and others in my world, think
15:43
Speaker 4: that that's the way out. But I still believe that
15:45
Speaker 4: there's going to have to be a border drawn between
15:47
Speaker 4: a state that is a state for the Palestinian people,
15:51
Speaker 4: a state of Palestine and a state that is the
15:54
Speaker 4: state of Israel that provides a national home for the
15:57
Speaker 4: Jewish people. So we will be focused, I think j
16:00
Speaker 4: Street a little less on the sanctions and boycotts and
16:03
Speaker 4: divest and punishing to build the pressure on Israel and
16:07
Speaker 4: more on how can we lay out a pathway to
16:10
Speaker 4: actually resolve this underlying conflict so that both people can
16:13
Speaker 4: start to have a future their kids can live for
16:16
Speaker 4: rather than die for. And that's the tragedy of this conflict.
16:19
Speaker 3: But isn't that pressure exactly what's needed to come to
16:23
Speaker 3: some sort of an actual resolution. I mean, we have
16:26
Speaker 3: the model of South Africa. South Africa was also an
16:29
Speaker 3: ally It's very uncomfortable. Reagan resisted for a long time
16:32
Speaker 3: applying sanctions because of their apartheid regime. But ultimately the
16:37
Speaker 3: sanctions and the boycotts are part of what helped to
16:39
Speaker 3: create that international pressure that forced South Africa to change.
16:44
Speaker 3: And Israel is also an apartheid state. But you know,
16:47
Speaker 3: further than South Africa committing genocide, committing ethnic cleansing. So
16:51
Speaker 3: shouldn't we apply international law and also use that pressure
16:56
Speaker 3: to help force a resolution, you know, so that both
17:00
Speaker 3: peoples can live peaceably in the region can be a
17:02
Speaker 3: lot more settled.
17:03
Speaker 4: Well, I do think, you know, part of bringing about
17:05
Speaker 4: change I said this a little bit earlier, is there
17:08
Speaker 4: are going to be an array of different actors working
17:11
Speaker 4: in sync to try to bring about a better future.
17:14
Speaker 4: And J Street doesn't necessarily have to do the exact
17:17
Speaker 4: same things that other people working in this space do.
17:21
Speaker 4: And you know, we because we have family and friends
17:25
Speaker 4: and a deep tie to the state and the people
17:28
Speaker 4: of Israel. For J Street types, it's going to be
17:32
Speaker 4: a little bit harder to get on board with allies
17:36
Speaker 4: and engage in all the same tactics with people who
17:39
Speaker 4: don't have that level of connection. You know, we just
17:41
Speaker 4: are going to come at this differently. It doesn't We will,
17:44
Speaker 4: for instance, defend in court and in legislators, in legislatures
17:49
Speaker 4: the right of people to boycott right. We do not
17:52
Speaker 4: want to see laws passed that inhibit people's First Amendment
17:56
Speaker 4: right to engage in economic boycotts against Israel. But we're
18:01
Speaker 4: not going to necessarily support those boycotts. So we'll be
18:04
Speaker 4: in a lane next to these folks and we will
18:06
Speaker 4: be applying pressure, and we will be a lot of
18:09
Speaker 4: it's going to be from within the Jewish community, and
18:11
Speaker 4: some of it is sort of moral pressure and the
18:13
Speaker 4: pressure of our leaders of our community. But it doesn't
18:16
Speaker 4: mean that we all have to do the exact same tactics.
18:18
Speaker 4: And I don't have any you know, disregard for the
18:21
Speaker 4: people who are pursuing other things, and I want to
18:23
Speaker 4: make sure that their First Amendment rights to do those
18:26
Speaker 4: things are protected. But jastree may not do all of
18:28
Speaker 4: those things.
18:29
Speaker 1: And a lot of people who follow this issue closely
18:32
Speaker 1: will argue now that because of the settlement activity that
18:35
Speaker 1: has taken place, a two state solution here is just
18:39
Speaker 1: simply impractical anymore. And what has to then be the
18:43
Speaker 1: focus is, you know, civil rights and dignity and voting
18:46
Speaker 1: rights and democracy for everybody who's there. Soorn Mom Donnie
18:49
Speaker 1: famously had this debate exchange. I'm curious how you reacted
18:54
Speaker 1: it like when you saw that, and what your thoughts
18:56
Speaker 1: are on this. Let's roll ex five for people who
18:59
Speaker 1: forget this debate moment, mister mum Donnie, can I just
19:01
Speaker 1: jump in, would you visit Israel?
19:05
Speaker 5: Mayor?
19:05
Speaker 6: I will be doing as the mayor. I'll be standing
19:07
Speaker 6: up for Jewish New Yorkers, and I'll be meeting them
19:09
Speaker 6: wherever they are across the five boroughs, whether that's in
19:11
Speaker 6: their synagogues and temples, or at their homes or at
19:14
Speaker 6: the subway platform, because ultimately we need to focus on
19:18
Speaker 6: delivering on their concerns.
19:19
Speaker 5: Just we YESO, no, Do you believe in a Jewish
19:21
Speaker 5: state of Israel?
19:22
Speaker 6: I believe Israel has the right to exist as a
19:25
Speaker 6: Jewish state, as a state with equal rights.
19:30
Speaker 2: As a Jewish state.
19:31
Speaker 4: And his answer was no, he won't visit Israel.
19:33
Speaker 6: Said, that's what he was trying to say.
19:35
Speaker 4: No, no, no, unlike unlike you.
19:38
Speaker 6: Directly, I believe every state should be a state of
19:41
Speaker 6: equal rights.
19:42
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you.
19:43
Speaker 1: So what's your reaction to the position that Israel should
19:46
Speaker 1: exist as a state with equal rights for all.
19:49
Speaker 4: Well, I definitely think Israel should exist as a state
19:51
Speaker 4: with equal rights for all. I just also think there
19:54
Speaker 4: needs to be a state of Palestine next to it.
19:57
Speaker 4: You know, right now, the state of Isral within the
19:58
Speaker 4: green line has about ten million people who are citizens
20:04
Speaker 4: of Israel. There are five million Palestinians who live in
20:06
Speaker 4: the area that have no rights as citizens. And that's
20:09
Speaker 4: the occupation. This is the problem, and that needs to
20:13
Speaker 4: be resolved. But within Israel proper, there are twenty one
20:16
Speaker 4: percent of Israeli citizens who are Arabs. They do have
20:21
Speaker 4: the right to vote, they do have equal rights under
20:25
Speaker 4: the law. In most cases, there is a lot wrong
20:29
Speaker 4: with Israeli democracy, much as there was a lot wrong
20:31
Speaker 4: with American democracy over our two hundred and fifty years.
20:34
Speaker 4: That means that certain minority populations here have been fighting
20:38
Speaker 4: for their rights for the entirety of the existence of
20:41
Speaker 4: our country, and that fight will continue in Israel. But
20:45
Speaker 4: the State of Israel should treat all of its citizens,
20:48
Speaker 4: including the Palestinian citizens of Israel one hundred percent, equally
20:52
Speaker 4: under the law. I would argue that the state of
20:55
Speaker 4: Israel should never use the word Jewish as the adjective
20:59
Speaker 4: to finding the word state. Jewish for me is a peoplehood.
21:05
Speaker 4: There are twenty five percent of Jews who practice no religion.
21:08
Speaker 4: They are culturally and ethnically Jewish and have traditional families
21:13
Speaker 4: that they draw on with Jewish background, but they're not
21:16
Speaker 4: religiously Jewish. When Israel is called a Jewish state, it
21:20
Speaker 4: implies no separation between religion and state, and that's one
21:23
Speaker 4: of the biggest problems that Jewish Israelis feel about their
21:27
Speaker 4: own state. They want a constitution. One of the things
21:30
Speaker 4: a new government may really try to do for the
21:32
Speaker 4: first time in seventy eight years is actually right a
21:34
Speaker 4: constitution that would cement that everybody who is a citizen
21:39
Speaker 4: of Israel would have equal rights, regardless of their religion, race, gender, etc.
21:44
Speaker 4: But there needs to be a state of Palestine where
21:46
Speaker 4: the Palestinian people are the exact same right to create
21:48
Speaker 4: a state that is the national homeland of the Palestinian people.
21:52
Speaker 4: And we're all Palestinians all over the world. Millions and
21:54
Speaker 4: millions can return home to the State of Palestine as
21:58
Speaker 4: of right, just as Jews all around the world can
22:01
Speaker 4: return to the State of Israel as of right. And
22:04
Speaker 4: the only way that this gets resolved is if each
22:07
Speaker 4: of the two peoples have the exact same set of rights.
22:10
Speaker 4: But I would say they need to be nationally handled
22:13
Speaker 4: in states next to each other, not in the same state.
22:18
Speaker 3: Jeremy, let me let's dig into that a little bit
22:20
Speaker 3: more and what you mean when you say that you
22:23
Speaker 3: support a Jewish homeland, because this really gets to the
22:26
Speaker 3: rub of why, in my view, it's very dissonant to
22:30
Speaker 3: hear the term liberal Zionists, because liberal would indicate you
22:35
Speaker 3: support equal rights for all, you support you know, civil rights, equality,
22:39
Speaker 3: human rights, etc. And the expression of you know, a
22:44
Speaker 3: Jewish homeland or a Jewish state is in a sort
22:48
Speaker 3: of ethno supremacist expression where the moment that there are
22:51
Speaker 3: too many Palestinians, you have a demographic problem because we
22:55
Speaker 3: can't possibly have you know, a Palestinian or a Muslim
22:58
Speaker 3: or an Erab majority here because will destroy our whole state.
23:01
Speaker 3: And so what I'm wondering how you square the circle
23:05
Speaker 3: of being you know, a progressive who does support equality
23:09
Speaker 3: on you know, matters here domestically, but also supports this
23:14
Speaker 3: ethno supremacist state of Israel.
23:17
Speaker 4: So the word that I try to push back on
23:20
Speaker 4: would be ethno supremacist. You know, the concept of Israel
23:24
Speaker 4: when it was founded was to be a place where
23:27
Speaker 4: Jews around the world who had been living stateless for
23:31
Speaker 4: eighteen hundred years and had suffered through you know, whether
23:35
Speaker 4: it was the pogroms in Russia or the Inquisition in Spain,
23:37
Speaker 4: or the Holocaust in Germany. I mean just a litany
23:40
Speaker 4: of a history the idea that there should be one
23:43
Speaker 4: place on the planet where the Jewish people can claim
23:46
Speaker 4: citizenship because of who they are. That is what the
23:50
Speaker 4: State of Israel was founded on. The people who founded
23:52
Speaker 4: the State of Israel, of course, were by and large
23:54
Speaker 4: socialist right. I mean, it was a very left of
23:57
Speaker 4: center place, and the ideals of socialism and the ideals
24:03
Speaker 4: of creating a Jewish home co existed in the state,
24:07
Speaker 4: and it was, you know, really the dominant ideology. It
24:11
Speaker 4: is not per se that right wing ethno nationalists like
24:16
Speaker 4: lebing Netao, It'samar Ben Vir Betzalis Mochrich, the ambassador here
24:20
Speaker 4: in the US, hil Lighter. It is not a given
24:25
Speaker 4: that that is the kind of people that will govern
24:28
Speaker 4: the State of Israel.
24:29
Speaker 3: And so I do know, but doesn't that become a
24:32
Speaker 3: sort of inevitability once the core of your project is
24:36
Speaker 3: we must maintain a Jewish majority, you know, I mean
24:40
Speaker 3: Israel de facto has control of for you know, from
24:43
Speaker 3: the river to the sea, as you.
24:44
Speaker 5: Would say, over the West Bank.
24:46
Speaker 3: I mean, if you live, if you're palacinating living in
24:47
Speaker 3: the West Bank, your day to day life is structured
24:50
Speaker 3: by what Israel, the Israeli government is going to allow
24:52
Speaker 3: you to do and what it's not. Israel has taken
24:54
Speaker 3: over sixty percent of the Gaza Strip and Netnahu is
24:57
Speaker 3: threatening to take over the rest of it. And once again,
25:00
Speaker 3: if you live in the Gaza Strip, even in that
25:01
Speaker 3: part that hasn't been taken over, your data day life
25:04
Speaker 3: is structured by what the Israeli government says you can
25:07
Speaker 3: do and where you can go and how you can live.
25:10
Speaker 3: So there is de facto control from the river to
25:13
Speaker 3: the sea. But the suppression and the apartheid and the
25:17
Speaker 3: you know, demographic engineering that occurs through mass murder and
25:20
Speaker 3: ethnic cleansing is necessitated by the idea that we must
25:24
Speaker 3: have a Jewish majority, And so doesn't it end up
25:28
Speaker 3: being inevitable that you have this sort of you know, genocidal,
25:32
Speaker 3: right wing ethnic supremacist government, if that's the core ideal
25:38
Speaker 3: at the center of the.
25:39
Speaker 4: State, I don't I don't agree. You know, we probably
25:42
Speaker 4: just won't see eye to eye on that. The problem
25:45
Speaker 4: for Israel is that if it insists on keeping all
25:49
Speaker 4: of the land, which the right wing is insisting right
25:51
Speaker 4: to be from the river to the sea, and to
25:54
Speaker 4: annex and take over all of the land, then you
25:57
Speaker 4: have fifteen million people that live in that land and
26:01
Speaker 4: a little bit less than half of them are Jewish,
26:03
Speaker 4: so you actually cause a bigger problem for those who
26:07
Speaker 4: want to have a national homeland of the Jewish people
26:10
Speaker 4: if you keep all the land. The only way actually
26:13
Speaker 4: for there to be a state that is Jewish and
26:16
Speaker 4: nature and democratic and provides rights to all of its
26:19
Speaker 4: citizens and to have Palestinian people have their rights, is
26:25
Speaker 4: for there to be a division of the land, for
26:27
Speaker 4: there to be some of that land. And you know,
26:30
Speaker 4: the numbers are seventy eight twenty two is the split
26:33
Speaker 4: between Israel and Palistine that's been you know, on the
26:36
Speaker 4: table since nineteen sixty seven. That's the only way for
26:40
Speaker 4: Israel to be both Jewish and democratic, because if the
26:43
Speaker 4: state of Palestine provides the self determination and the national
26:48
Speaker 4: rights and the individual rights and the future and the
26:50
Speaker 4: hope for the five million Palestinians who live in Gaza
26:54
Speaker 4: in the West Bank and two million Palestinians who are
26:57
Speaker 4: citizens of Israel out of a population of ten million,
27:00
Speaker 4: and are given full and equal rights like any minority
27:02
Speaker 4: in a democracy. This actually is a resolvable problem. It
27:07
Speaker 4: is not by definition that having a national homeland of
27:10
Speaker 4: the Jewish people. You know, there are so many countries
27:13
Speaker 4: around the world that have a national identity, a people
27:16
Speaker 4: who feel strongly as a people that gives their country
27:19
Speaker 4: a national identity, doesn't make them all ethno national nationalist states.
27:25
Speaker 3: But like, what in your view would happen. Let's say,
27:27
Speaker 3: let's say we get the two state solution right, and
27:30
Speaker 3: there's a division of the land, as you know, as
27:32
Speaker 3: laid out by the UN. What happens if the Palestinian
27:38
Speaker 3: citizens of Israel start having too many kids and now
27:42
Speaker 3: they're threatening to become a demographic majority within Israel.
27:46
Speaker 5: You know what happened?
27:48
Speaker 4: Well, I mean the biggest problem, ironically, the biggest problem
27:51
Speaker 4: that Israel has demographically is that the ultra Orthodox are
27:54
Speaker 4: having too many kids.
27:55
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's true, that is an issue.
27:57
Speaker 3: But I mean here because I suspect we have a
28:01
Speaker 3: big Christian nationalist movement in this country led by Pete
28:05
Speaker 3: Haig Seth and others who are in government right now,
28:07
Speaker 3: and I suspect you don't support that. So how do
28:10
Speaker 3: you support a Jewish nationalist ideology when you would oppose
28:16
Speaker 3: that here? You know, domestically, because you understand the way
28:20
Speaker 3: that that would infringe on the rights of others who
28:23
Speaker 3: didn't meet the definition here in the US.
28:26
Speaker 4: Well, if that is the way that it's going to
28:28
Speaker 4: be implemented, I'd oppose it. But what I'm arguing, and
28:32
Speaker 4: we may not agree, but I believe you know that
28:35
Speaker 4: the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel and
28:39
Speaker 4: the values on which it was found in the basic
28:40
Speaker 4: laws that were established, the idea of it was that
28:44
Speaker 4: all ten million Israeli citizens, whether they are Christian, Muslim, Jerus, Jewish,
28:51
Speaker 4: Russian immigrants, Circassian, whoever they are, that they all have
28:55
Speaker 4: equal rights. It is the demographic fact that seventy five
29:01
Speaker 4: seventy six percent of the citizens of the State of
29:03
Speaker 4: Israel right now are Jewish and the other twenty five percent,
29:06
Speaker 4: twenty one percent are Arab, four percent or various other
29:10
Speaker 4: ethnic groups. This is the way other countries work too.
29:13
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, you can run through a list
29:15
Speaker 4: of the one hundred and ninety three countries that are
29:17
Speaker 4: member states of the UN, and many of them have
29:20
Speaker 4: a population that has an ethnic identity that is seventy
29:24
Speaker 4: five eighty percent, and at the same time have twenty
29:27
Speaker 4: twenty five thirty percent of other peoples who live within
29:31
Speaker 4: their land. And some states do better than others at
29:35
Speaker 4: providing those people with rights, and I would fight and
29:39
Speaker 4: be at the front line to ensure that the Arab
29:41
Speaker 4: citizens of Israel, the Palestinian citizens of Israel, have the
29:45
Speaker 4: exact same rights and the same opportunities as the Jewish citizens.
29:48
Speaker 4: And so I don't agree that having a state that
29:52
Speaker 4: hasn't ethnic identity as its identity is by per se
29:59
Speaker 4: going to lead you to it. Tomur Benvi and bet
30:02
Speaker 4: Zalos Mochrich. In fact, you know, ninety percent of Israeli
30:05
Speaker 4: Jews vehemently oppose that Zalus Mochrich and Ittamur Benvi, and
30:10
Speaker 4: as I said, seventy five percent oppose Netanyau. And when
30:14
Speaker 4: they tried to take apart Israel's democracy and the rule
30:17
Speaker 4: of law and the independence of the jiujitiary, millions and
30:20
Speaker 4: millions of Israelis took to the streets in order to
30:22
Speaker 4: ensure that the functioning liberal democracy that they were brought
30:27
Speaker 4: up in would be maintained. So you know, I'm willing
30:31
Speaker 4: to fight for that. I'm willing to continue to be
30:33
Speaker 4: out there making the case that is a possibility. And
30:35
Speaker 4: I hope that the state of Palestine that's created next
30:38
Speaker 4: to Israel will also set up a structure that provides
30:42
Speaker 4: opportunity for all of its people to have equal rights
30:45
Speaker 4: and protect those rights, and has the rule of law,
30:47
Speaker 4: independent judiciary, et cetera.
30:48
Speaker 1: And so to pick up on a point that Chrystal
30:50
Speaker 1: was making about putting pressure on Israel on, I would
30:55
Speaker 1: make two points here.
30:56
Speaker 2: One on a moral level. You know, you have said
30:59
Speaker 2: that you think that.
31:02
Speaker 1: Legal analysts will will in the future conclude or have
31:05
Speaker 1: already reasonably concluded that Israel is carrying out a genocide
31:10
Speaker 1: in Gaza. So to me, on a moral level, a
31:13
Speaker 1: country that is doing that needs to be sanctioned by
31:15
Speaker 1: a country if it has a moral if it has any.
31:18
Speaker 2: Moral compass left. But just practically speaking.
31:23
Speaker 1: Pragmatically, over the last several decades, if you had an
31:27
Speaker 1: Israeli politician going to the public in an election year saying,
31:31
Speaker 1: we need to pursue coexistence with Palestinians, and we need
31:35
Speaker 1: to make compromises to reach a deal.
31:37
Speaker 2: We need to respect the dignity of all.
31:39
Speaker 1: The people who live here, and you had a different
31:41
Speaker 1: politician who was saying, no, we don't because the United
31:45
Speaker 1: States is going to back us to the hilt militarily
31:48
Speaker 1: and diplomatically, and what we need to do is smash them.
31:52
Speaker 1: We need to do ethnic cleansing, we need to pursue
31:55
Speaker 1: a project that expands the territory under our control. Each
32:00
Speaker 1: time the person arguing no, we don't have to make
32:04
Speaker 1: compromises is validated by the United States unwillingness to create
32:10
Speaker 1: any consequences for any Israeli action, even if it's killing
32:15
Speaker 1: you know, Christian Palestinian American citizen journalists, for instance, And
32:21
Speaker 1: so each time the country lurches further to the right.
32:25
Speaker 1: So just pragmatically, it feels like if there were any
32:28
Speaker 1: politicians left saying we need to make some compromises for
32:31
Speaker 1: coexistence because oh, look they've figured out these drones and like,
32:35
Speaker 1: maybe we can't just occupy and destroy Lebanon forever, those
32:38
Speaker 1: politicians are undercut by America's you know, endless willingness to
32:45
Speaker 1: tolerate that activity and actually just to support it. So
32:48
Speaker 1: just from a pragmatic perspective, why not sanction Israel?
32:53
Speaker 4: Well, I do think that we agree one hundred percent
32:56
Speaker 4: on this. Actually, it is absolutely true that one of
33:00
Speaker 4: the reasons why Israel has done what it's done and
33:03
Speaker 4: being able to do what it's done is because of
33:06
Speaker 4: the broken American policy and the broken American political system,
33:10
Speaker 4: and it does bring us back to American politics. And
33:14
Speaker 4: one of the reasons why these laws are in effect
33:18
Speaker 4: the way they are, and one of the reasons they
33:19
Speaker 4: are not enforced, has been because of the political pressures
33:23
Speaker 4: that groups like APAK and others from within not only
33:27
Speaker 4: the Jewish community, but I would also argue the Christians
33:29
Speaker 4: United for Israel, the Evangelical community, the political pressures that
33:33
Speaker 4: are put on federal legislators and ultimately on presidents to
33:38
Speaker 4: adopt an Israel right or wrong policy. And so the
33:40
Speaker 4: politics have been broken, the policy has been broken, and
33:43
Speaker 4: it's led to the horrors that we see on the ground,
33:48
Speaker 4: not only in Gaza in the West Bank, but Lebanon
33:50
Speaker 4: and beyond.
33:51
Speaker 1: So, just to be clear, so you do support at
33:54
Speaker 1: this point in arms and bargo on Israel.
33:57
Speaker 4: We support ending financial assistance, phasing out the billions of
34:02
Speaker 4: dollars a year rapidly right to end that we shouldn't
34:06
Speaker 4: our taxpayer dollars shouldn't be subsidized.
34:09
Speaker 1: You also said we shouldn't even be selling them weapons
34:11
Speaker 1: if they're breaking American law.
34:13
Speaker 2: Right exactly, so they are breaking American.
34:15
Speaker 4: Law right, but that is selling them weapons under the
34:19
Speaker 4: exact same rules that you sell them to everybody else. Right,
34:22
Speaker 4: if another country is buying the weapons and they're violating
34:26
Speaker 4: our laws, we shouldn't sell those weapons. And it's the
34:28
Speaker 4: same for Israel. Israel should have no exception. There should
34:30
Speaker 4: be no longer exceptional treatment of the State of Israel
34:35
Speaker 4: under American law. But that's not a complete arms embargo.
34:38
Speaker 4: I mean, I will say that that's a Those are
34:40
Speaker 4: two different things. And if there is behavior Israel.
34:44
Speaker 5: Engauge, how are they different things.
34:46
Speaker 3: So if you were just just to be totally clear,
34:48
Speaker 3: if you were in government right now today, given that
34:52
Speaker 3: Israel been deemed to be committing genocide, given the ethnic
34:55
Speaker 3: cleansing that's happening now in Lebanon, given the policies in
34:59
Speaker 3: the West, you would not sell, you would not green
35:02
Speaker 3: light selling any weapons offensive or defensive to Israel today.
35:07
Speaker 4: The distinction that I would draw is I would draw
35:11
Speaker 4: a distinction for defensive systems. And that's based on the
35:17
Speaker 4: argument that obviously, you know, well that's you know, surging
35:20
Speaker 4: all around us. I believe that fewer people will die
35:26
Speaker 4: if Israel has the missile defense systems to prevent Hesbola
35:33
Speaker 4: or Hamas or other Huti rockets, Iranian rockets from hitting
35:38
Speaker 4: Israeli civilians. I think that everybody will face an even
35:42
Speaker 4: deeper cycle of violence if those kinds of rockets get through,
35:45
Speaker 4: So I personally and I would urge for government policy
35:49
Speaker 4: to be to continue to sell missile defense systems, iron
35:54
Speaker 4: Dome being one of several systems, but offensive weapons as
35:58
Speaker 4: long as Israel is violating the ceasefire, as long as
36:03
Speaker 4: it is violating our laws, as long as it's violating
36:05
Speaker 4: international laws, or now and until such time as it's
36:09
Speaker 4: not violating all of those things, the United States should withhold.
36:14
Speaker 4: And that's why we supported the Joint Resolutions of disapproval,
36:17
Speaker 4: should withhold offensive weapons from Israel while it is violating
36:22
Speaker 4: American law in international law.
36:24
Speaker 3: So I would view it quite the contrary in terms
36:27
Speaker 3: of you said that the defensive weapons, if they didn't
36:30
Speaker 3: we didn't sell those, that would deepen the cycle of violence.
36:32
Speaker 3: First of all, it's hard to imagine a deeper cycle
36:34
Speaker 3: of violence than what we're in right now. But currently
36:36
Speaker 3: we're in the Iran war, which Israel certainly wanted. Trump's
36:40
Speaker 3: a big boy, he made his own decisions here, but
36:42
Speaker 3: Israel obviously was influential and making the case that we
36:45
Speaker 3: should get ourselves into this disastrous war. There have been
36:49
Speaker 3: talks going on some level of negotiations that are occurring
36:53
Speaker 3: that appear to be bearing some fruit. How close they
36:56
Speaker 3: are not, it's anybody's guess. But it's very clear that
36:59
Speaker 3: Israel right now is trying to undercut any even theoretical
37:03
Speaker 3: possibility of a resolution by escalating their bombing in Lebanon.
37:09
Speaker 3: And I would submit to you that the reason that
37:12
Speaker 3: they're able to not only bomb Lebanon, not only get
37:15
Speaker 3: genocide in Gaza, they've bombed seven of their neighbors over
37:19
Speaker 3: the past several years, is because they feel that they
37:23
Speaker 3: are immune. And part of that immunity from any sort
37:27
Speaker 3: of real repercussions is the iron don is that defensive capability,
37:33
Speaker 3: and also our government's you know, complicity and willingness to
37:35
Speaker 3: carry water for them all the time. So, in my view,
37:39
Speaker 3: those defensive weapons quote unquote defensive weapons have been instrumental
37:44
Speaker 3: in allowing Israel to operate in this you know, in
37:48
Speaker 3: this rogue manner, and to you know, which has grave
37:51
Speaker 3: implications for the globe. It certainly has grave implications for
37:53
Speaker 3: our own foreign policy.
37:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you and I probably just won't agree
37:58
Speaker 4: on this, but that's fine. I mean, I think you
37:59
Speaker 4: know that it's important that there be you know, gradation
38:03
Speaker 4: of different opinions on this. We're sort of aligned behind
38:06
Speaker 4: the notion that there has to be a change in
38:09
Speaker 4: the US Israel relationship and that the blank chack has
38:11
Speaker 4: to end and there has to be pressure placed and
38:13
Speaker 4: we need to change Israeli policy and the US can't
38:16
Speaker 4: be complicit in what's going on anymore. So we agree
38:18
Speaker 4: on you know, a lot of it. What we don't
38:20
Speaker 4: agree on, and you know, I just will maintain this
38:23
Speaker 4: to the end. You know, I believe that it is
38:26
Speaker 4: a very high purpose to ensure that randomly fired Huti
38:35
Speaker 4: hesbla hamas you know, militia rockets coming out of Syria
38:41
Speaker 4: or Iraq, in even Iranian missiles, to prevent them from
38:46
Speaker 4: hitting civilians and killing more people is something of value.
38:52
Speaker 4: And if some of these rockets got through, you say
38:55
Speaker 4: it couldn't get worse. I think it could get worse.
38:57
Speaker 4: And I hate to say that, but you know, the
39:00
Speaker 4: the level of destruction is you know here, but I
39:05
Speaker 4: tell you they could go here. And I think it
39:09
Speaker 4: has at least somewhat held back the cycle of violence
39:14
Speaker 4: from going to the absolute seventh circle of hell.
39:17
Speaker 1: What if we grant that protecting civilians is actually, you know,
39:22
Speaker 1: should actually be a priority for the United States. Far
39:24
Speaker 1: more civilians have been killed in Lebanon, Yemen and in
39:28
Speaker 1: the occupied Palastadian territories.
39:31
Speaker 2: Should we sell defensive weapons there?
39:34
Speaker 4: Well. I also think one thing to bear in mind
39:36
Speaker 4: when it comes something gets lost in the Iron Dome
39:38
Speaker 4: debate is that Israel developed Iron Dome, and then the
39:41
Speaker 4: United States entered into a contract with Israel and they said,
39:45
Speaker 4: you know, if you produce the systems, then we'll produce
39:49
Speaker 4: the interceptors here on American soil, and Israel agreed to that.
39:52
Speaker 4: So it's a slightly different situation. I just want to
39:54
Speaker 4: you know, this gets into the weeds of all of this,
39:57
Speaker 4: but we are not developing weapons systems Alcata or with
40:00
Speaker 4: Isis or with you know, the Hamas or the Hutis.
40:04
Speaker 1: Huthis have some pretty good rocket scientists, clearly, right, clearly
40:07
Speaker 1: as many of these maybe we should be, but uh,
40:11
Speaker 1: you know.
40:12
Speaker 4: The the uh. I I do think that these are
40:14
Speaker 4: two apples and oranges, and I do think the United
40:18
Speaker 4: States should be working with the Lebanese government UH and
40:23
Speaker 4: providing it with capacity UH to take on Hesbalah. And
40:27
Speaker 4: I think that the United States should be with its
40:29
Speaker 4: allies working to develop the International Stabilization Force that ultimately
40:35
Speaker 4: will bring a little bit more security into Gaza and
40:39
Speaker 4: and transition over to a Palestinian led force UH. And
40:43
Speaker 4: the United States should be supporting Palestine and Palestinians and
40:46
Speaker 4: Palestinian authority security forces. You know, we trained the Palestinian
40:50
Speaker 4: Authority security forces the United States, and so I do
40:54
Speaker 4: think there's an American role if we really want to
40:56
Speaker 4: bring security and stability to the region, to help the
41:00
Speaker 4: new government of Syria, to help the new government in Lebanon,
41:03
Speaker 4: to help the government of Palestine so that it can
41:06
Speaker 4: establish some stability and security for its people and for
41:09
Speaker 4: the region.
41:12
Speaker 5: Just to drill down.
41:13
Speaker 3: And this really gets to kind of like the rub
41:17
Speaker 3: of things. Israel gets treated differently because Israel is an ally, right,
41:22
Speaker 3: That's the reason we won't sell defensive weapons or really
41:26
Speaker 3: do anything to protect Palestinians or Iranian civilians as we're
41:29
Speaker 3: bombing their little girls' schools or Lebanese civilians. You know,
41:34
Speaker 3: Israel is this key ally which, as you pointed out
41:37
Speaker 3: through a back and also through your own group, has
41:40
Speaker 3: you know, influence within the United States government, quite a
41:44
Speaker 3: lot of influence, it seems at times. And I guess
41:47
Speaker 3: one of the questions that I think the American people
41:49
Speaker 3: are asking I'm asking, is what are we getting out
41:52
Speaker 3: of this relationship?
41:53
Speaker 5: You know?
41:53
Speaker 3: I view this more through a moral lens. I think
41:57
Speaker 3: Israel's committing a genocide. I think Israel is you know,
42:00
Speaker 3: and apartheid state. I think it should be sanctioned the
42:02
Speaker 3: way South Africa was. I think that level of pressure
42:04
Speaker 3: should be applied to compel moral behavior. I think we
42:07
Speaker 3: should have international law. I think our willingness to observe
42:10
Speaker 3: the you know, and support the barbarism of Israel and
42:13
Speaker 3: Gaza has effectively destroyed international law globally and has created
42:18
Speaker 3: a law of the jungle. So I view it through
42:19
Speaker 3: a more moral lens. But from my sort of realist
42:23
Speaker 3: friends out there, who look at this just from a
42:26
Speaker 3: cost benefit perspective, what do we get out of Israel
42:29
Speaker 3: being this key Ally? Why should we have packs like
42:33
Speaker 3: j Street in the US that describe themselves as being
42:36
Speaker 3: quote unquote pro Israel Given the fact that you know,
42:40
Speaker 3: Israel has helped persuade the President to enter into this
42:45
Speaker 3: disastrous war, given the fact that Israel has helped to
42:48
Speaker 3: destroy international law, which is something that I think we
42:50
Speaker 3: should all care about if we want to live in
42:52
Speaker 3: a stable globe. Given the fact Israel is routinely considered
42:56
Speaker 3: by our own intel agencies to be one of the
42:58
Speaker 3: greatest surveillance against American citizens. So why are we holding
43:04
Speaker 3: so tight to this alliance with an actor that is
43:07
Speaker 3: not only immral, but has, you know, helped to foment
43:11
Speaker 3: a massive strategic disaster for the United States of America
43:15
Speaker 3: and the globe.
43:17
Speaker 4: Well, I think that what you're hearing me say is
43:20
Speaker 4: that the US shouldn't be having that kind of a
43:24
Speaker 4: relationship with an Israel that is doing the things that
43:26
Speaker 4: you're outlining. You know that this Israel under Benjamin Netaniau,
43:30
Speaker 4: the things that it has done over these last twenty years,
43:35
Speaker 4: by and large, they have hurt American national interests. So
43:39
Speaker 4: that you won't get an argument that under this government
43:43
Speaker 4: and in the direction that Israel has traveled over these
43:45
Speaker 4: recent decades, that this is a positive. But it can
43:50
Speaker 4: and it should be. You know, what we want to
43:53
Speaker 4: see is a middle East, that ends these conflicts right,
43:58
Speaker 4: that provide aides Palestinians with an actual route to self determination,
44:04
Speaker 4: that begins to tap into the incredible opportunity that Israel
44:11
Speaker 4: provides to the region to be a technological and economic
44:16
Speaker 4: engine of growth. And that vision we call it a
44:20
Speaker 4: twenty three state solution, because when you say two state
44:23
Speaker 4: solution at this point people's eyes glaze over. But the
44:26
Speaker 4: issue is can Israel become a functioning member of the
44:29
Speaker 4: region and work with all of its neighbors. There are
44:32
Speaker 4: twenty two Arab states in the Arab League, and one
44:35
Speaker 4: of them is Palestine. So let's actually form a twenty
44:39
Speaker 4: three state peace agreement, a comprehensive regional agreement that agrees
44:44
Speaker 4: on borders, that agrees on rights, that agrees on things
44:49
Speaker 4: like how to resolve the refugee issue, how to deal
44:53
Speaker 4: with religious freedom for all religions. These are the things
44:57
Speaker 4: that Israel can and should be a part of. That's
45:00
Speaker 4: the type of Israel that it can be an asset.
45:02
Speaker 4: The type of Israel under Netanyau ben vern Smotrich that
45:06
Speaker 4: does what it is in Gaza, that is burning down
45:09
Speaker 4: the West Bank, that is fomenting religious warfare, whether it's
45:13
Speaker 4: on the temple mound or other religious sites. That's you know,
45:16
Speaker 4: convincing Donald Trump to go to war. That is not
45:20
Speaker 4: an asset to the United States, but it can be.
45:23
Speaker 4: And when I'm pro Israel, and I say j Street
45:26
Speaker 4: is pro Israel, we're advocating for a different future. You know.
45:31
Speaker 4: We are doing this because what is happening today is
45:34
Speaker 4: so negative, but it doesn't have to be. And we
45:37
Speaker 4: want to return to some of the original concept of
45:39
Speaker 4: what the country was. You showed the you know, picture
45:41
Speaker 4: of my grandparents, and we talked about my dad, and
45:44
Speaker 4: we talked about the founding of the country. This is
45:46
Speaker 4: not the Israel that those people had in mind, you know,
45:49
Speaker 4: And by fighting for it to try to change the direction,
45:54
Speaker 4: that's what we mean by pro Israel. We have nothing
45:57
Speaker 4: to do with being in favor of what this government
45:59
Speaker 4: is doing, and nothing thing to say positive about what
46:01
Speaker 4: it has done over the past twenty years the Jay
46:03
Speaker 4: Street's been around.
46:04
Speaker 3: It just seems to me to require a sort of
46:07
Speaker 3: suspension of reality to imagine the Israel that you're talking about.
46:11
Speaker 3: For example, you've said, you know, you expect there'll be
46:14
Speaker 3: a new government in place that isn't as extreme as
46:17
Speaker 3: this government. But you know, Noftali Benett I mean the
46:21
Speaker 3: critique he's had of Netanyaho with regard to the Iron.
46:23
Speaker 5: Wars that he wasn't brutal enough.
46:25
Speaker 3: He's made plenty of his own racist, incendiary comments, whether
46:29
Speaker 3: it's with regard to Gaza or regard to Arabs more broadly. So,
46:33
Speaker 3: if that's the moderate in Israel, it's just very hard
46:39
Speaker 3: to imagine without applying the kind of pressure like we
46:42
Speaker 3: applied and the Globe applied to South Africa, and without
46:46
Speaker 3: using international sanctions and compelling.
46:48
Speaker 5: Different different behavior. If you're relying on.
46:53
Speaker 3: The democratic vote of Israeli Jews eighty two percent of
46:57
Speaker 3: whom support the expulsion of residence of the Gaza strip entirely,
47:03
Speaker 3: we're never close to the universe that you would like
47:06
Speaker 3: to see.
47:08
Speaker 4: I you know, don't necessarily agree. It is also a
47:13
Speaker 4: fact that, for instance, in nineteen seventy seven, Manacha Begen
47:17
Speaker 4: came to power in Israel. He was the leader of
47:21
Speaker 4: the terrorist group that my father was a part of,
47:24
Speaker 4: called the Iragoon Right, and he was about as far
47:26
Speaker 4: right as anybody had ever been in Israeli politics. And
47:29
Speaker 4: he came to power four years after the Omptipoor War
47:32
Speaker 4: and Israel in nineteen sixty seven had seized the Sinai
47:37
Speaker 4: and then they fought another war in seventy three over it.
47:39
Speaker 4: And so he comes war to power in seventy seven
47:42
Speaker 4: and everybody says, oh my god, you know, this is
47:44
Speaker 4: not the person who can make peace with Egypt. And
47:48
Speaker 4: he specifically said I will never, under any circumstances give
47:51
Speaker 4: back the Sinai, and eighty percent of Israeli Jews agreed
47:54
Speaker 4: with him. Don't give back the Sinai because we've just
47:56
Speaker 4: fought four wars in thirty years against Egypt that keeps
47:59
Speaker 4: invade us through the Sinai. And then you know, two
48:02
Speaker 4: years later, he's sitting on the south on of the
48:05
Speaker 4: wait A signing the peace deal with Egypt. And you know,
48:09
Speaker 4: sometimes this sort of Nixon to China moment happens in history.
48:14
Speaker 4: I don't think history is pre ordained and pre written.
48:18
Speaker 4: It is in Israel's long term interests. And this is
48:20
Speaker 4: the case that Jason will continue to make. You know,
48:23
Speaker 4: as long as we are around, we will make the
48:25
Speaker 4: case that Israel can only have a future that is
48:30
Speaker 4: worth it for the Jewish people if it compromises and
48:35
Speaker 4: allows there to be a palest Indian state. And what
48:37
Speaker 4: it gets out of that is normalization of its relations
48:40
Speaker 4: with Saudi Arabia and the whole Gulf and the extension
48:43
Speaker 4: of the normalization of Israel as a country in the region.
48:48
Speaker 4: That's what Israelis can get for this, and that can
48:51
Speaker 4: shift that eighty two percent opposition quickly, and it needs
48:56
Speaker 4: political leadership and I will fight for it. I believe
48:59
Speaker 4: it's possible. I know there are examples in history of
49:02
Speaker 4: this happening, and that's that's why we do the work
49:05
Speaker 4: that we do.
49:06
Speaker 2: We could put up ex.
49:08
Speaker 1: Seven I wanted to ask you about this was one
49:10
Speaker 1: passage from the profile I did back in back in
49:13
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen for the intercept. The group officially Loungeszation in
49:16
Speaker 1: April twentsand and eight, Ben and me told early staffers
49:18
Speaker 1: that he wanted to make quick work of the conflict,
49:20
Speaker 1: as there were other big issues that needed attention.
49:22
Speaker 2: Quote.
49:23
Speaker 1: I want to try this theory of change, he would say,
49:25
Speaker 1: according to multiple people who heard his refrain at the time.
49:28
Speaker 1: And if it doesn't work, I'll close down the shop
49:30
Speaker 1: and we'll work on climate change. First of all, I
49:33
Speaker 1: wanted to get like, do you remember do you remember
49:35
Speaker 1: saying that? And what would you think of people who
49:40
Speaker 1: you know, used to work at J Street and are
49:42
Speaker 1: now saying it had a reasonable theory of change for
49:45
Speaker 1: its moment, it no longer does and it's time.
49:49
Speaker 4: Yeah. No, definitely a classic J Street moment. Definitely said
49:53
Speaker 4: it when I actually, you know, my real line was
49:57
Speaker 4: much more frequently that I hope we'd succeed and then
50:00
Speaker 4: we shut down and go work on climate change. That
50:02
Speaker 4: was that, you know, I hope we would succeed. Now
50:03
Speaker 4: that we wouldn't succeed, Yeah, you.
50:05
Speaker 3: Need help on AI to Jerry, No.
50:08
Speaker 4: I didn't know that in two thousand and eight, but
50:10
Speaker 4: you know, I'd much rather see us working on a
50:12
Speaker 4: lot of other things. I do think that the theory
50:15
Speaker 4: of change of J Street, which is that the politics
50:20
Speaker 4: of this issue are the root problem, that the policy
50:25
Speaker 4: is constrained and almost dictated by the politics, and so
50:29
Speaker 4: you needed a political intervention in order to shift American
50:32
Speaker 4: politics so that our policy could change. I really still
50:35
Speaker 4: believe that that theory of change is correct, and I think,
50:38
Speaker 4: as Crystal was saying at the beginning, we're seeing a
50:40
Speaker 4: very rapid shift part of that shift is people way
50:44
Speaker 4: to the left of j Street. You know, that's that's
50:47
Speaker 4: a natural development as a result of what Israel has done.
50:50
Speaker 4: And again, the things that Crystal's describing, you know, it
50:53
Speaker 4: leads you, Crystal, and it leads other people to take
50:56
Speaker 4: the positions you're taking, which are way to the left
50:58
Speaker 4: of Jay Street. And I don't dispant to that at all.
51:00
Speaker 4: I understand it. You have to understand where many of
51:04
Speaker 4: us in the Jewish community come from, who have a
51:07
Speaker 4: deep relationship with Israel. We still want to try to
51:09
Speaker 4: change Israel, you know, we still want to change the trajectory.
51:12
Speaker 4: We don't want to see it become a pariah state.
51:15
Speaker 4: We don't want to see it become an outcast state
51:17
Speaker 4: among the nations, which is where it's headed if it
51:19
Speaker 4: continues down the path and it's on. And so our
51:23
Speaker 4: theory of change, which is change American politics, so American
51:27
Speaker 4: policy can be more balanced and more rational and help
51:31
Speaker 4: push for a resolution of this conflict. You know, solve
51:34
Speaker 4: this problem, not just punish, not just call out the
51:37
Speaker 4: bad guys, but actually solve this problem. And the solution
51:40
Speaker 4: to this problem ends in a border. There has to
51:43
Speaker 4: be a border for the State of Palestine, the State
51:45
Speaker 4: of Israel, an integration of both of those states into
51:48
Speaker 4: a successful and stable region.
51:51
Speaker 3: I first of all, very much appreciate that the dialogue
51:54
Speaker 3: and your willingness to engage, and I know these are
51:56
Speaker 3: very difficult conversations and this will be a difficult question
52:00
Speaker 3: as well. You know, you say you have this personal
52:03
Speaker 3: family connection to Israel, and I get that. Like I'm
52:06
Speaker 3: an American, I think America does horrible things in the world,
52:08
Speaker 3: but I'm still committed to trying to change it right,
52:10
Speaker 3: even when that seems to be long odds. But the
52:13
Speaker 3: question is, why do that through an American organization?
52:18
Speaker 5: The way to.
52:18
Speaker 3: Change Israel be through Israel. And what do you say
52:21
Speaker 3: to people who say, to have a quote unquote pro
52:23
Speaker 3: Israel pack in America today is the moral equivalent of
52:27
Speaker 3: having a pro South Africa pack.
52:29
Speaker 5: You know, at the height of apartheid.
52:32
Speaker 4: Right, I mean, you would hope that the pro South Africa,
52:35
Speaker 4: the people from South Africa who lived here, who hated
52:38
Speaker 4: apartheid and wanted different South Africa, would be pretty happy
52:42
Speaker 4: when Nelson Mandela came to power, and their view of
52:44
Speaker 4: pro South African would have been Mandela's victory right, And
52:48
Speaker 4: so for me, I am pro Israel, but I'm anti occupation.
52:54
Speaker 4: I am anti the moral abomination of what happened in Gaza.
52:58
Speaker 4: I am anti the Butler terrorism that is happening on
53:02
Speaker 4: the West Bank. Because I'm anti those things, That's how
53:05
Speaker 4: I define my pro Israel right. I am standing up
53:08
Speaker 4: for the idea that the state that represents the Jewish
53:11
Speaker 4: people should not behave this way. This is not what
53:14
Speaker 4: it means to be Jewish, this is not our values.
53:16
Speaker 4: And so why do I do it here? I'm an American, right,
53:20
Speaker 4: I am not a citizen of the State of Israel.
53:22
Speaker 4: I'm an American. My family is here, my kids are here,
53:25
Speaker 4: this is where my life is. And we in this
53:29
Speaker 4: country are responsible for our foreign policy, We're responsible for
53:33
Speaker 4: our politics, and as American Jews, we're responsible for the
53:36
Speaker 4: American Jewish community. And I think in all three of
53:39
Speaker 4: those arenas, in policy, politics, and the Jewish community, we
53:43
Speaker 4: are miss represented by the mainstream organizations of the American
53:49
Speaker 4: Jewish community that lobby for things that are not in
53:52
Speaker 4: the long run, good for Israel, that are interfering in
53:55
Speaker 4: American politics in ways that are bad for American democracy,
53:58
Speaker 4: and that are blowing up the American Jewish commit and
54:00
Speaker 4: driving young people away from their communities rather than bringing
54:04
Speaker 4: them in. So all the work that we do is here.
54:06
Speaker 3: Well, here's I guess what I'm trying to get at
54:09
Speaker 3: is and what the quote Ryan read really sort of
54:12
Speaker 3: points to is You're a very talented person.
54:15
Speaker 5: You're a very smart person.
54:16
Speaker 3: I think you, you know, have really done your best
54:19
Speaker 3: to act ethically. And I'm sure this has been a
54:22
Speaker 3: very difficult period for you, getting pulled in all sorts
54:25
Speaker 3: of directions, being called a cancer and a fake two
54:27
Speaker 3: and all of the rest. But there are a lot
54:30
Speaker 3: of things to work on in the world, and it's
54:33
Speaker 3: hard for me to understand why we as Americans should
54:37
Speaker 3: prioritize the needs of Israel over for example, you know,
54:42
Speaker 3: as left as lefties, as humanitarians here, over prevention of genocide,
54:46
Speaker 3: over you know, many other issues that we could be
54:49
Speaker 3: working on. It's hard for me to understand how that
54:52
Speaker 3: would be the priority. And to be honest with you,
54:55
Speaker 3: at a time when you've had tens of thousands, maybe
54:57
Speaker 3: hundreds of thousands, we don't really know of Palace Tonian
55:00
Speaker 3: civilians who have been killed, it's almost offensive to me
55:04
Speaker 3: to center the safety of a Jewish homeland when it's
55:09
Speaker 3: that state that has been committing those horrific acts in
55:12
Speaker 3: the world.
55:13
Speaker 4: So I think all things must be balanced. I'm one
55:16
Speaker 4: hundred percent agree with you. It's offensive to me too,
55:20
Speaker 4: and what has happened, it's morally offensive to me as
55:25
Speaker 4: a Jew. It is morally offensive to me as an
55:28
Speaker 4: American who enabled what happened and put aside the morals.
55:33
Speaker 4: I also think this is an unbelievably self defeating and
55:36
Speaker 4: self destructive path the state of Israel is on, and
55:39
Speaker 4: I think it's ultimately going to hurt Jewish people around
55:41
Speaker 4: the world. So I have a stake in it, even
55:42
Speaker 4: if I don't live there, because the things that are
55:44
Speaker 4: happening there are coming back to my community in biting
55:47
Speaker 4: people that I know and hurting people that I know.
55:50
Speaker 4: So I think it is absolutely important. I deeply, deeply
55:54
Speaker 4: respect the pro Palestinian movement. I think that the Palestinian Americans,
55:59
Speaker 4: Arab Beicans, Muslim Americans who are working for Palestine. It's
56:03
Speaker 4: a very important part of the discourse. And similarly, a
56:08
Speaker 4: pro Israel Jewish organization is an important part of the
56:11
Speaker 4: discourse because we represent you know, several million American citizens,
56:15
Speaker 4: and we have a say in how these policies are conducted,
56:19
Speaker 4: and the way we act in American politics is going
56:23
Speaker 4: to have an impact on how whether or not we
56:26
Speaker 4: can defeat MAGA and whether or not we can save
56:28
Speaker 4: our own democracy. These issues interject themselves into the center
56:32
Speaker 4: of American politics, and they may be doing that to
56:35
Speaker 4: the detriment of our future as Americans. And so for
56:40
Speaker 4: all of those reasons, I think it's really important for
56:43
Speaker 4: me and for j Street with our identity front and center,
56:46
Speaker 4: you know, right next to those who are pro Palestinian,
56:50
Speaker 4: and you know, next to the Lebanese American community who's devastated,
56:54
Speaker 4: in the Iranian American community that's devastated. I mean, there's
56:56
Speaker 4: just a lot of people that are citizens of this
56:59
Speaker 4: country who have a deep connection to and care for
57:03
Speaker 4: what happens there and understand how it happens there also
57:06
Speaker 4: comes back and impacts us here.
57:08
Speaker 1: And last question for me, because I know, I know
57:10
Speaker 1: you've got to run in a second. I think some
57:14
Speaker 1: of the remaining support that Israel has here in the
57:18
Speaker 1: United States from liberal Zionists comes from this this idealistic
57:25
Speaker 1: notion that you presented about what Israel could be, similar
57:30
Speaker 1: to how a lot of Communists will say, well, true
57:32
Speaker 1: communism has never been tried.
57:35
Speaker 2: But at this.
57:36
Speaker 1: Point, when the reality of what Israel is doing on
57:39
Speaker 1: the ground is so different from what the liberal kind
57:44
Speaker 1: of vision for it is, is propping up that liberal
57:49
Speaker 1: vision of it actively harmful and kind of fueling a
57:54
Speaker 1: delusional level of support for the reality on the ground.
57:58
Speaker 4: Only if one is not calling out that delusion. You know,
58:02
Speaker 4: I do not spare any words right in terms of
58:06
Speaker 4: describing just how awful these people are and what they're doing,
58:10
Speaker 4: how it violates every shred of my you know, Jewish
58:14
Speaker 4: moral identity, everything that I've taught my kids about what
58:17
Speaker 4: it means to be a good person and follow the
58:20
Speaker 4: ethics and the morals of our people. I write about
58:22
Speaker 4: this every week. I have a substack called Word on
58:25
Speaker 4: the Street, and I almost every single week I'm writing
58:28
Speaker 4: about the you know, the horror and the pain that
58:30
Speaker 4: this causes to believe very deeply in your tradition, in
58:35
Speaker 4: the ethics that we're handed down from generation to generation,
58:38
Speaker 4: and watch the state that's purporting to act in the
58:40
Speaker 4: name of your people violate every single one of those things.
58:43
Speaker 4: I mean that this is very, very painful, but I
58:45
Speaker 4: think it's very important that over the course of two
58:48
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty years in this country, you know, as
58:51
Speaker 4: we fought for slavery, as we fought for suffrage, as
58:54
Speaker 4: we fought for civil rights and voting rights, and we know,
58:56
Speaker 4: you know, these things go back and forth, and we
58:58
Speaker 4: take steps forward, and we've seen, you know, the steps
59:00
Speaker 4: backwards that we're going. No one's giving up on the
59:03
Speaker 4: vision of what an America can and should be. You know,
59:08
Speaker 4: the idea that underlies America that started two hundred and
59:12
Speaker 4: fifty years ago. These are still some very powerful ideas
59:15
Speaker 4: that have been terribly executed for two hundred and fifty years,
59:18
Speaker 4: and we're still really working on them. I won't give
59:21
Speaker 4: up on the idea that a state that is the
59:24
Speaker 4: national homeland of the Jewish people can also treat the
59:27
Speaker 4: other people who live there well and can live at
59:29
Speaker 4: peace with its neighbors, including a state for the Palestinian people,
59:32
Speaker 4: that I think is not out of the question. And
59:38
Speaker 4: the horrors of this last few years is actually a
59:41
Speaker 4: moment for Israelies to take a look and say, well,
59:43
Speaker 4: maybe it actually is time to try a non net
59:47
Speaker 4: to Niao path, rather than living by the sword, rather
59:50
Speaker 4: than by creating a super Sparta you know that only
59:54
Speaker 4: knows how to bomb things and kill things. You know,
59:56
Speaker 4: maybe it is time for us to try a different path.
59:59
Speaker 4: And I believe that this is a really important argument
1:00:02
Speaker 4: to make to people both in this country and that country.
1:00:05
Speaker 3: Well, Jeremy, once again, thank you so much for your engagement.
1:00:08
Speaker 3: I really genuinely appreciate you fielding some difficult and challenging
1:00:13
Speaker 3: questions and it's great to meet you and get to
1:00:14
Speaker 3: speak with you today.
1:00:15
Speaker 4: Absolutely, thank you so much of both of you, and
1:00:17
Speaker 4: I really appreciate the respectful dialogue. It's a real model
1:00:20
Speaker 4: of how to talk through these things.
1:00:22
Speaker 1: And now you'll get trashed even for coming on the program.
1:00:26
Speaker 3: Coming on the program, all right, Thank you, Jeremy. We'll
1:00:30
Speaker 3: see you soon.
1:00:31
Speaker 4: Thanks guys,