5/27/26: We Asked A Top Liberal Zionist How They Can Be Pro-Israel

25:47Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. Here's another mouthwatering recipe idea from Maricon, the world's finest rice vinegar. Try a Maricon hot chicken sandwich with pickled cucumbers made with chilies, garlic, and the vibrant zesty flavor of Maricon Genuine Brewed Rice Vinegar. Or go sweet and savory with Maricon Seasoned Gourmet, a flavor bomb for veggies and grilled proteins. Get the green label for Genuine Brood or the orange label for Seasoned Gourmet. Then check out racevinegar.com for more delicious recipes.

26:22Because the food you love is better with Marikon. When it comes to advancing your education, you have more options than you think. At Rasmussen University, we find ways to remove barriers, not build them. Like a new laptop if you're eligible and enroll in select online or on-campus programs. That means flexible and engaging online courses and resources, tuition savings options if you qualify, exceptional student support, and much more. Online nationally or check out their 20 campuses across six states. Start when you're ready and get the support you need. Visit rasmussen.edu. Jeremy, let's dig into that a little bit more and what you mean when you say that you support a Jewish homeland.

27:04because this really gets to the rub of why, in my view, it's very dissonant to hear the term liberal Zionist, because liberal would indicate you support equal rights for all. You support, you know, civil rights, equality, human rights, et cetera. And the expression of, you know, a Jewish homeland or a Jewish state is a sort of ethno-supremacist expression, where the moment that there are too many Palestinians, you have a demographic problem because we can't possibly have, you know, a Palestinian or a Muslim or an Arab majority here because that will destroy our whole state. And so what I, I'm wondering how you square the circle of being, you know, a progressive who does support equality on, you know, matters here domestically, but also supports this ethno-supremacist state of Israel?

27:56So the word that I try to push back on would be ethnosupremacist. You know, the concept of Israel when it was founded was to be a place where Jews around the world who had been living stateless for 1800 years and had suffered through, you know, whether it was the pogroms in Russia or the Inquisition in Spain or the Holocaust in Germany, I mean, just a litany of the history, the idea that there should be one place on the planet where the Jewish people can claim citizenship because of who they are. That is what the state of Israel was founded on. The people who founded the state of Israel, of course, were by and large socialist, right?

28:35I mean, it was a very left of center place and the ideals of socialism and the ideals of creating a Jewish home coexisted in the state. And it was, you know, really the dominant ideology. It is not per se that right wing ethno-nationalists like Bibi Netanyahu, Itamar Benvir, Betzalus Motrich, the ambassador here in the U.S., Yehiel Leiter. It is not a given that that is the kind of people that will govern the state of Israel. And so I do believe - But doesn't that become a sort of inevitability once the core of your project is we must maintain a Jewish majority? You know, I mean, Israel de facto has control of, you know, from the river to the sea, as you would say, over the West Bank.

29:25I mean, if you live, if you're Palestinian living in the West Bank, your day-to-day life is structured by what Israel, the Israeli government is going to allow you to do and what it's not. Israel has taken over 60 percent of the Gaza Strip and Netanyahu is threatening to take over the rest of it. And once again, if you live in the Gaza Strip, even in that part that hasn't been taken over, your day-to-day life is structured by what the Israeli government says you can do and where you can go and how you can live. So there is de facto control from the river to the sea. But the suppression and the apartheid and the demographic engineering that occurs through mass murder and ethnic cleansing is necessitated by the idea that we must have a Jewish majority.

30:05And so doesn't it end up being inevitable that you have this sort of, you know, genocidal right wing ethnic supremacist government if that's the core ideal at the center of the state? I don't I don't agree. You know, we probably just won't see eye to eye on that. The problem for Israel is that if it insists on keeping all the land, which the right wing is insisting, right, to be from the river to the sea and to annex and take over all of the land, then you have 15 million people that live in that land and a little bit less than half of them are Jewish. So you actually cause a bigger problem for those who want to have a national homeland of the Jewish people, if you keep all the land, the only way actually for there to be a state that is Jewish in nature and democratic and provides rights to all of its citizens and to have Palestinian people have their rights is for there to be a division of the land, for there to be some of that land.

31:08And, you know, the numbers are 78-22 as the split between Israel and Palestine that's been on the table since 1967, that's the only way for Israel to be both Jewish and democratic because if the state of Palestine provides the self-determination and the national rights and the individual rights and the future and the hope for the 5 million Palestinians who live in Gaza and the West Bank and 2 million Palestinians who are citizens of Israel out of a population of 10 million are given full and equal rights like any minority in a democracy, this actually is a resolvable problem. It is not by definition that having a national homeland of the Jewish people, you know, there are so many countries around the world that have a national identity, a people who feel strongly as a people that gives their country a national identity.

31:59It doesn't make them all ethno-nationalist states. Sure. But like what in your view would happen? Let's say we get the two-state solution, right? And there's a division of the land as, you know, as laid out by the UN. What happens if the Palestinian citizens of Israel start having too many kids and now they're threatening to become a demographic majority within Israel? You know, what happens then? Ironically, the biggest problem that Israel has demographically is that the ultra-Orthodox are having too many kids. Yeah, that's true. No, that is an issue. But I mean, you see what I'm getting at here, because I suspect we have a big Christian nationalist movement in this country led by Pete Hegseth and others who are in government right now.

32:47And I suspect you don't support that. So how do you support a Jewish nationalist ideology when you would oppose that here domestically because you understand the way that that would infringe on the rights of others who didn't meet the definition here in the U.S.? Well, if that is the way that it's going to be implemented, I'd oppose it. But what I'm arguing, and we may not agree, but I believe that the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel and the values on which it was found and the basic laws that were established, the idea of it was that all 10 million Israeli citizens, whether they are Christian, Muslim, Druze, Jewish, Russian immigrants, Circassian, whoever they are, that they all have equal rights.

33:35It is the demographic fact that 75, 76 percent of the citizens of the state of Israel right now are Jewish, and the other 25 percent, 21 percent are Arab, 4 percent are various other ethnic groups. This is the way other countries work too. I mean, you can run through a list of the 193 countries that are member states of the UN, and many of them have a population that has an ethnic identity that is 75%, 80%, and at the same time have 20%, 25%, 30 % of other peoples who live within their land. And some states do better than others at providing those people with rights. And I would fight and be at the front line to ensure that the Arab citizens of Israel, the Palestinian citizens of Israel, have the exact same rights and the same opportunities as the Jewish citizens.

34:27And so I don't agree that having a state that has an ethnic identity as its identity is by per se going to lead you to Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalus Motrich. In fact, 90 percent of Israeli Jews vehemently oppose B'Tzalos Motrich and Itamar Benvir. And as I said, 75 percent oppose Netanyahu. And when they tried to take apart Israel's democracy and the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, millions and millions of Israelis took to the streets in order to ensure that the functioning liberal democracy that they were brought up in would be maintained. So I'm willing to fight for that. I'm willing to continue to be out there making the case that is a possibility.

35:15And I hope that the state of Palestine that's created next to Israel will also set up a structure that provides opportunity for all of its people to have equal rights and protect those rights and has the rule of law, independent judiciary, et cetera. And so to pick up on a point that Chris was making about putting pressure on Israel, I would make two points here. One, on a moral level, you have said that you think that legal analysts will in the future conclude or have already reasonably concluded that Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. So to me, on a moral level, a country that is doing that needs to be sanctioned by a country if it has a moral, if it has any moral compass left.

35:59But just practically speaking, pragmatically, over the last several decades, if you had an Israeli politician going to the public in an election year saying, we need to pursue coexistence with Palestinians and we need to make compromises to reach a deal, we need to respect the dignity of all the people who live here. And you had a different politician who was saying, no, we don't, because the United States is going to back us to the hilt militarily and diplomatically. And what we need to do is smash them. We need to do ethnic cleansing. We need to pursue a project that expands the territory under our control.

36:39Each time the person arguing, no, we don't have to make compromises, is validated by the United States' unwillingness to create any consequences for any Israeli action, even if it's killing Christian, Palestinian, American citizen journalists, for instance. and so each time the country lurches further to the right so just pragmatically it feels like if there were any politicians left saying we need to make some compromises for coexistence because oh look they've figured out these drones and like maybe we can't just occupy and destroy Lebanon forever those politicians are undercut by America's you know endless willingness to tolerate that that activity and actually just to support it so just from a pragmatic perspective, why not sanction Israel?

37:32Well, I do think that we agree 100 % on this, actually. It is absolutely true that one of the reasons why Israel has done what it's done and been able to do what it's done is because of the broken American policy and the broken American political system. And it does bring us back to American politics. And one of the reasons why these laws are in effect the way they are. And one of the reasons they are not enforced has been because of the political pressures that groups like AIPAC and others from within not only the Jewish community, but I would also argue the Christians United for Israel, the evangelical community, the political pressures that are put on federal legislators and ultimately on presidents to adopt an Israel right or wrong policy.

38:19And so the politics have been broken, The policy has been broken, and it's led to the horrors that we see on the ground, not only in Gaza and the West Bank, but Lebanon and beyond. So just to be clear, so you do support at this point an arms embargo on Israel? We support ending financial assistance, phasing out the billions of dollars a year rapidly, right, to end that. Our taxpayer dollars shouldn't be subsidizing this. You also said we shouldn't even be selling them weapons if they're breaking American law. Right, exactly. They are breaking American law. Right, but that is selling them weapons under the exact same rules that you sell them to everybody else, right?

39:02If another country is buying the weapons and they're violating our laws, we shouldn't sell those weapons. And it's the same for Israel. Israel should have no exception. There should be no longer exceptional treatment of the state of Israel under American law. But that's not a complete arms embargo. I mean, I will say that those are two different things. And if there is behavior that Israel is engaged in. How are they different things? So if you were, just to be totally clear, if you were in government right now today, given that Israel has been deemed to be committing genocide, given the ethnic cleansing that's happening now in Lebanon, given the policies in the West Bank, you would not sell, you would not greenlight selling any weapons, offensive or defensive, to Israel today.

39:47The distinction that I would draw is I would draw a distinction for defensive systems. And that's based on the argument that obviously you know well that's surging all around us. I believe that fewer people will die if Israel has the missile defense systems to prevent Hezbollah or Hamas or other Houthi rockets, Iranian rockets, from hitting Israeli civilians. I think that everybody will face an even deeper cycle of violence if those kinds of rockets get through. So I personally, and I would urge for government policy to be, to continue to sell missile defense systems, Iron Dome being one of several systems.

40:35But offensive weapons, as long as Israel is violating the ceasefire, as long as it is violating our laws, as long as it's violating international laws, or now and until such time as it's not violating all of those things, the United States should withhold. And that's why we supported the joint resolutions of disapproval, should withhold offensive weapons from Israel while it is violating American law and international law. So I would view it quite the contrary in terms of you said that the defensive weapons, if they didn't, we didn't sell those that would deepen the cycle of violence. First of all, it's hard to imagine a deeper cycle of violence than what we're in right now.

41:15But currently we're in, you know, the Iran war, which Israel certainly wanted. Trump's a big boy. He made his own decisions here. But Israel obviously was influential in making the case that we should get ourselves into this disastrous war. There have been talks going on, some level of negotiations that are occurring that appear to be bearing some fruit. How close they are or not is anybody's guess. But it's very clear that Israel right now is trying to undercut any even theoretical possibility of a resolution by escalating their bombing in Lebanon. And I would submit to you that the reason that they're able to not only bomb Lebanon, not only commit genocide in Gaza, they've bombed seven of their neighbors over the past several years is because they feel that they are immune.

42:03And part of that immunity from any sort of real repercussions is the Iron Dome, is that defensive capability and also our government's, you know, complicity and willingness to carry water for them all the time. So in my view, those defensive weapons, quote unquote defensive weapons, have been instrumental in allowing Israel to operate in this rogue manner, which has grave implications for the globe. It certainly has grave implications for our own foreign policy. Yeah, I mean, you and I probably just won't agree on this, but that's fine. I mean, I think, you know, that it's important that there be, you know, gradation of different opinions on this.

42:44We're sort of aligned behind the notion that there has to be a change in the U.S.-Israel relationship and that the blank check has to end and there has to be pressure placed and we need to change Israeli policy and the U.S. can't be complicit in what's going on anymore. So we agree on a lot of it. What we don't agree on, and I just will maintain this to the end, I believe that it is a very high purpose to ensure that randomly fired Houthi, Hezbollah, Hamas, militia rockets coming out of Syria or Iraq, and even Iranian missiles, to prevent them from hitting civilians and killing more people is something of value.

43:31And if some of these rockets got through, you say it couldn't get worse. I think it could get worse. And I hate to say that, but the level of destruction is here. But I tell you, they could go here. and I think it has at least somewhat held back the cycle of violence from going to the absolute seventh circle of hell. What if we grant that protecting civilians is actually, you know, should actually be a priority for the United States? Far more civilians have been killed in Lebanon, Yemen, and in the occupied Palestinian territories. Should we sell defensive weapons there. Well, I also think one thing to bear in mind when it comes, if something gets lost in the Iron Dome debate, is that Israel developed Iron Dome, and then the United States entered into a contract with Israel.

44:24And they said, you know, if you produce the systems, then we'll produce the interceptors here on American soil. And Israel agreed to that. So it's a slightly different situation. I just want, you know, this gets into the weeds of all of this, but we are not developing weapon systems with Al-Qaeda or with ISIS or with, you know, the Hamas or the Houthis. Houthis have some pretty good rocket scientists, clearly. Right, clearly, as do many of these. Maybe we should be. But, you know, I do think that these are two apples and oranges. And I do think the United States should be working with the Lebanese government and providing it with capacity to take on Hezbollah.

45:06And I think that the United States should be, with its allies, working to develop the international stabilization force that ultimately will bring a little bit more security into Gaza and transition over to a Palestinian-led force. And the United States should be supporting Palestine and Palestinians and Palestinian Authority security forces. You know, we trained the Palestinian Authority security forces, the United States. And so I do think there's an American role if we really want to bring security and stability to the region to help the new government of Syria, to help the new government in Lebanon, to help the government of Palestine so that it can establish some stability and security for its people and for the region.

46:30We'll be right back. Uncapped 1 % bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA, and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. And now, another mouth-watering recipe from Marikon, the world's finest rice vinegar. How about a Marikon hot chicken sandwich with tangy slaw and pickled cucumbers?

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47:41Then check out ricevinegar.com for more delicious recipes because the food you love is better with Marikon, the world's finest rice vinegar. When it comes to advancing your education, you have more options than you think. At Rasmussen University, we find ways to remove barriers, not build them, like a new laptop if you're eligible, and enroll in select online or on-campus programs. That means flexible and engaging online courses and resources, tuition savings options if you qualify, exceptional student support, and much more. Online nationally or check out their 20 campuses across six states. Start when you're ready and get the support you need.

48:18Visit rasmussen.edu. Just to drill down, and this really gets to kind of like the rub of things, Israel gets treated differently because Israel is an ally, right? That's the reason we won't sell defensive weapons or really do anything to protect Palestinians or Iranian civilians as we're bombing their little girls' schools or Lebanese civilians. You know, Israel is this key ally, which, as you pointed out through AIPAC and also through your own group, has influence within the United States government, quite a lot of influence, it seems, at times. And I guess one of the questions that I think the American people are asking, I'm asking, is what are we getting out of this relationship?

49:03I view this more through a moral lens. I think Israel is committing a genocide. I think Israel is an apartheid state. I think it should be sanctioned the way South Africa was. I think that level of pressure should be applied to compel moral behavior. I think we should have international law. I think our willingness to observe and support the barbarism of Israel and Gaza has effectively destroyed international law globally and has created a law of the jungle. So I view it through a more moral lens. But for my sort of realist friends out there who look at this just from a cost-benefit perspective, what do we get out of Israel being this key ally?

49:41Why should we have PACs like J Street in the U.S. that describe themselves as being, quote unquote, pro-Israel, given the fact that Israel has helped persuade the president to enter into this disastrous war, given the fact that Israel has helped to destroy international law, which is something that I think we should all care about if we want to live in a stable globe, given the fact Israel is routinely considered by our own intel agencies to be one of the greatest some surveillance threats against American citizens. So why are we holding so tight to this alliance with an actor that is not only immoral, but has helped to foment a massive strategic disaster for the United States of America and the globe?

50:26Well, I think that what you're hearing me say is that the U.S. shouldn't be having that kind of a relationship with an Israel that is doing the things that you're outlining. You know, this Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu, the things that it has done over these last 20 years, by and large, they have hurt American national interests. So you won't get an argument that under this government and in the direction that Israel has traveled over these recent decades, that this is a positive. But it can and it should be. What we want to see is a Middle East that ends these conflicts, that provides Palestinians with an actual route to self-determination that begins to tap into the incredible opportunity that Israel provides to the region to be a technological and economic engine of growth.

51:28And that vision, we call it a 23-state solution because when you say two-state solution at this point, people's eyes glaze over. But the issue is can Israel become a functioning member of the region and work with all of its neighbors? There are 22 Arab states in the Arab League, and one of them is Palestine. So let's actually form a 23-state peace agreement, a comprehensive regional agreement that agrees on borders, that agrees on rights, that agrees on things like how to resolve the refugee issue, how to deal with religious freedom for all religions. These are the things that Israel can and should be a part of.

52:10That's the type of Israel that can be an asset. The type of Israel under Netanyahu, Ben Gver, and Smotrich that does what it did in Gaza, that is burning down the West Bank, that is fomenting religious warfare, whether it's on the Temple Mount or other religious sites that's convincing Donald Trump to go to war, that is not an asset to the United States. But it can be. And when I'm pro-Israel, when I say J Street is pro-Israel, we are advocating for a different future. We are doing this because what is happening today is so negative, but it doesn't have to be. And we want to return to some of the original concept of what the country was.

52:51You showed the picture of my grandparents, and we talked about my dad, and we talked about the founding of the country. This is not the Israel that those people had in mind. And by fighting for it to try to change the direction, that's what we mean by pro-Israel. We have nothing to do with being in favor of what this government is doing and nothing to say positive about what it has done over the past 20 years that J Street's been around. It just seems to me to require a sort of suspension of reality to imagine that the Israel that you're talking about, for example, you've said, you know, you expect there'll be a new government in place that isn't as extreme as this government.

53:28But, you know, Naftali Bennett, I mean, the critique he's had of Netanyahu with regard to the Iran war is that he wasn't brutal enough. He's made plenty of his own racist incendiary comments, whether it's with regard to Gaza or with regard to Arabs more broadly. So if that's the moderate in Israel, it's just very hard to imagine without applying the kind of pressure like we applied and the globe applied to South Africa and without using international sanctions and compelling different behavior. If you're relying on the Democratic vote of Israeli Jews, 82 percent of whom support the expulsion of residents of the Gaza Strip entirely, we're nowhere close to the universe that you would like to see.

54:17I don't necessarily agree. It is also a fact that, for instance, in 1977, Menachem Begin came to power in Israel. He was the leader of the terrorist group that my father was a part of called the Irgun, right? And he was about as far right as anybody had ever been in Israeli politics. And he came to power four years after the Yom Kippur War. And Israel, in 1967, had seized the Sinai. And then they fought another war in 73 over it. And so he comes to power in 77, and everybody says, oh my God, this is not the person who can make peace with Egypt. And he specifically said, I will never under any circumstances give back the Sinai.

55:02And 80 % of Israeli Jews agreed with him, don't give back the Sinai because we've just fought four wars in 30 years against Egypt that keeps invading us through the Sinai. And then two years later, he's sitting on the south lawn of the White House signing the peace deal with Egypt. And, you know, sometimes this sort of Nixon to China moment happens in history. I don't think history is preordained and prewritten. It is in Israel's long term interest. And this is the case that JASER will continue to make, you know, as long as we are around, we will make the case that Israel can only have a future that is worth it for the Jewish people if it compromises and allows there to be a Palestinian state.

55:47And what it gets out of that is normalization of its relations with Saudi Arabia and the whole Gulf and the extension of the normalization of Israel as a country in the region. That's what Israelis can get for this, and that can shift that 82 percent opposition quickly. And it needs political leadership, and I will fight for it. I believe it's possible. I know there are examples in history of this happening, and that's why we do the work that we do. If we could put up EX7, I wanted to ask you about this. It was one passage from the profile I did back in 2019 for The Intercept. The group officially launched its station in April 2008.

56:27Ben and me told early staffers that he wanted to make quick work of the conflict as there were other big issues that needed attention. Quote, I want to try this theory of change, he would say, according to multiple people who heard his refrain at the time. And if it doesn't work, I'll close down the shop and we'll work on climate change. First of all, I wanted to get like, do you remember saying that? And what would you think of people who used to work at J Street and are now saying it had a reasonable theory of change for its moment? It no longer does. And it's time to work on climate change.

57:00Yeah, no, it's definitely a classic J Street moment. Definitely said it. When I actually, you know, my real line was much more frequently that I hope we'd succeed and then we'd shut down and go work on climate change. That was, you know, I hope we would succeed now that we wouldn't succeed. Yeah. We need help on AI too, Jerry. We could use it there as well. I didn't know that in 2008. But I'd much rather see us working on a lot of other things. I do think that the theory of change of J Street, which is that the politics of this issue are the root problem, that the policy is constrained and almost dictated by the politics.

57:39And so you needed a political intervention in order to shift American politics so that our policy could change. I really still believe that that theory of change is correct. And I think, as Crystal was saying at the beginning, we're seeing a very rapid shift. Part of that shift is people way to the left of J Street. That's a natural development as a result of what Israel has done. And again, the things that Crystal's describing, you know, it leads you, Crystal, and it leads other people to take the positions you're taking, which are way to the left of Jaystreet. And I don't disparage that at all.

58:11I understand it. You have to understand where many of us in the Jewish community come from who have a deep relationship with Israel. We still want to try to change Israel. You know, we still want to change the trajectory. We don't want to see it become a pariah state. We don't want to see it become an outcast state among the nations, which is where it's headed if it continues down the path that it's on. And so our theory of change, which is change American politics so American policy can be more balanced and more rational and help push for a resolution of this conflict, solve this problem. Not just punish, not just call out the bad guys, but actually solve this problem.

58:50And the solution to this problem ends in a border. There has to be a border for the state of Palestine, the state of Israel, an integration of both of those states into a successful and stable region. I, first of all, very much appreciate the dialogue and your willingness to engage. And I know these are very difficult conversations, and this will be a difficult question as well. You know, you say you have this personal family connection to Israel, and I get that. Like, I'm an American. I think America does horrible things in the world, but I'm so committed to trying to change it, right? Even when that seems to be long odds.

59:23But the question is, why do that through an American organization? Wouldn't the way to change Israel be through Israel? And what do you say to people who say to have a quote-unquote pro-Israel PAC in America today is the moral equivalent of having a pro-South Africa PAC at the height of apartheid? Right. I mean, you would hope that the pro-South Africa, the people from South Africa who lived here, who hated apartheid and wanted a different South Africa would be pretty happy when Nelson Mandela came to power. And their view of pro-South African would have been Mandela's victory, right? And so for me, I am pro-Israel, but I'm anti-occupation.

1:00:05I am anti the moral abomination of what happened in Gaza. I am anti the settler terrorism that is happening on the West Bank. Because I'm anti those things, that's how I define my pro-Israel, right? I am standing up for the idea that the state that represents the Jewish people should not behave this way. This is not what it means to be Jewish. This is not our values. And so why do I do it here? I'm an American, right? I am not a citizen of the state of Israel. I'm an American. My family is here. My kids are here. This is where my life is. And we in this country are responsible for our foreign policy.

1:00:41Right. We're responsible for our politics. And as American Jews, we're responsible for the American Jewish community. And I think in all three of those arenas, in policy, politics, and the Jewish community, we are misrepresented by the mainstream organizations of the American Jewish community. Yeah. that lobby for things that are not in the long run good for Israel, that are interfering in American politics in ways that are bad for American democracy, and that are blowing up the American Jewish community and driving young people away from their communities rather than bringing them in. So all the work that we do is here.

1:01:16Well, here's, I guess what I'm trying to get at is, and what the quote Ryan read really sort of points to is, you're a very talented person. You're a very smart person. I think you, you know, have really done your best to act ethically. And I am sure this has been a very difficult period for you getting pulled in all sorts of directions, being called a cancer and a fake Jew and all of the rest. But there are a lot of things to work on in the world. And it's hard for me to understand why we as Americans should prioritize the needs of Israel over, for example, you know, as lefties, as humanitarians here, over prevention of genocide, over many other issues that we could be working on.

1:02:00It's hard for me to understand how that would be the priority. And to be honest with you, at a time when you've had tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, we don't really know, of Palestinian civilians who have been killed, it's almost offensive to me to center the safety of a Jewish homeland when it's that state that has been committing those horrific acts in the world. So I think all things must be balanced. I 100 % agree with you. It's offensive to me too. And what has happened, it's morally offensive to me as a Jew. It is morally offensive to me as an American who enabled what happened.

1:02:42and put aside the morals. I also think this is an unbelievably self-defeating and self-destructive path that the state of Israel is on. And I think it's ultimately gonna hurt Jewish people around the world. So I have a stake in it, even if I don't live there, because the things that are happening there are coming back to my community and biting people that I know and hurting people that I know. So I think it is absolutely important. I deeply, deeply respect the pro-Palestinian movement. I think that the Palestinian-Americans, Arab Americans, Muslim Americans who are working for Palestine. It's a very important part of the discourse.

1:03:16And similarly, a pro-Israel Jewish organization is an important part of the discourse because we represent several million American citizens, and we have a say in how these policies are conducted. And the way we act in American politics is going to have an impact on how, whether or not we can defeat MAGA and whether or not we can save our own democracy. These issues interject themselves into the center of American politics, and they may be doing that to the detriment of our future as Americans. And so for all of those reasons, I think it's really important for me and for J Street with our identity front and center, you know, right next to those who are pro-Palestinian and, you know, next to the Lebanese-American community who's devastated and the Iranian -American community that's devastated.

1:04:06I mean, there's just a lot of people that are citizens of this country who have a deep connection to and care for what happens there and understand how what happens there also comes back and impacts us here. And last question for me, because I know you've got to run in a second. I think some of the remaining support that Israel has here in the United States from liberal Zionists comes from this idealistic notion that you presented about what Israel could be. And, you know, similar to how a lot of communists will say, well, true communism has never been tried. But at this point, when the reality of what Israel is doing on the ground is so different from what the liberal kind of vision for it is, is propping up that liberal vision of it actively harmful and kind of fueling a delusional level of support for the reality on the ground?

1:05:08Only if one is not calling out that delusion. You know, I do not spare any words, right, in terms of describing just how awful these people are and what they're doing, how it violates every shred of my, you know, Jewish moral identity, everything that I've taught my kids about what it means to be a good person and follow the ethics and the morals of our people. I write about this every week. I have a substack called Word on the Street. Almost every single week, I'm writing about the horror and the pain that this causes to believe very deeply in your tradition and the ethics that were handed down from generation to generation and watch the state that's purporting to act in the name of your people violate every single one of those things.

1:05:53I mean, this is very, very painful. But I think it's very important that over the course of 250 years in this country, you know, as we fought for slavery, as we fought for suffrage, as we fought for civil rights and voting rights, and we know, you know, these things go back and forth and we take steps forward and we've seen, you know, the steps backwards that we're going. No one's giving up on the vision of what an America can and should be. You know, the idea that underlies America that started 250 years ago, these are still some very powerful ideas that have been terribly executed for 250 years and we're still really working on them.

1:06:31I won't give up on the idea that a state that is the national homeland of the Jewish people can also treat the other people who live there well and can live at peace with its neighbors, including a state for the Palestinian people. That, I think, is not out of the question. And the horrors of this last few years is actually a moment for Israelis to take a look and say, well, maybe it actually is time to try a non-Netanyahu path rather than living by the sword, rather than by creating a super Sparta, you know, that only knows how to bomb things and kill things. You know, maybe it is time for us to try a different path.

1:07:09And I believe that this is a really important argument to make to people both in this country and that country. Well, Jeremy, once again, thank you so much for your engagement. I really genuinely appreciate you fielding some difficult and challenging questions. And it's great to meet you and get to speak with you today. Absolutely. Thank you so much to both of you. And I really appreciate the respectful dialogue. It's a real model of how to talk through these things. And now you'll get trashed even for coming on the program. Coming on the program. Coming from every side. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Jeremy.

1:07:40We'll see you soon. Thanks, guys.

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