927: Miko Peled | Journey of an Israeli in Palestine

22:56Right. Right. I studied martial arts. I started when I was in high school, then I had to stop while I was in the military and then I couldn't wait to get back. That was my dream to end this thing and then get back to training. And yes, of course, martial arts, you know, people sometimes like to compare military, the military experience to a martial arts experience. But like you say, martial arts are all about a deeper understanding and how not to use your abilities, how to prevent fighting. And it is basically a pacifist. Martial arts are basically truly a pacifist philosophy. The metaphor is you're supposed to, you know, sharpen and shine and sharpen and shine the sword.

23:29But if you use it, you defile it. And that's basically the martial arts are. So there are no similarities. There's no comparisons. There's no place to compare the two at all. Are you considered left wing in terms of Israeli politics? Where do you fall on this spectrum? I'll tell you a funny story, OK? OK, I'm ready for it. So this is when my older kids were very young and there were elections. and we're sitting around the dinner table and my younger son asks my older son if we are right-wing, left-wing or Democrats, Republicans, something like that. And my older son says, well, Republicans are here, Democrats are here, and dad is over there.

24:10So yes, of course it's left-wing, Paul. I mean, you know, I think on this issue, on the issue of Palestine, I think the right-wing, left-wing thing is not accurate because, you know, right-wing, left-wing, There's a lot more that's involved. My politics are clearly left-wing politics, but some people say radical, but not because of this particular issue. I think this particular issue transcends right-left politics. It's a question of values. If you believe in human rights, if you believe in democracy, if you believe in humanity, if you believe in equality, if you believe in justice, which has nothing to do with right-left or Republican Democrat, then it's very clear which side you should be on in this particular conversation.

24:50You cannot support Israel if you believe in justice, freedom, and human rights, because there's a 75-year history that shows that Israel stands against all of that. You cannot oppose the Palestinians' call for justice and humanity and equality, and it doesn't matter if you're right or left. If you believe in those values, then it makes perfect sense to support the Palestinian call for justice, equality, and freedom. So this goes beyond right-left politics, I think. Yeah, no, I completely understand that it's a values issue. I think it's well stated. You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Miko Pellid.

25:26We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by 1-800-CONTACTS. You know that last pair of contacts panic? My wife, Jen, knows it way too well. She's had these mornings where she's out of contacts and stuck wearing these old glasses she's got to keep wiping clean with her sleeve. But now, she makes sure to load up ahead of time because her next set is always on the way from 1-800-CONTACTS. They're the only major retailer that lets you renew your prescription online. so Jen gets her same doctor prescribed contacts fast with free shipping without leaving the house 1-800-CONTACTS has been doing this for over 30 years they've got millions of lenses in stock award-winning customer service and perks like free returns free exchanges, even free torn lens replacement Jen loves their Express exam which lets you renew your prescription online in under 10 minutes it's a vision exam, not a full eye exam but it gives you a doctor issued prescription if you're seeing clearly with your current lenses no waiting rooms, no dilation drops, remember those things and with their best price guarantee if you find your contacts cheaper somewhere else, they'll beat it.

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27:02If you're wondering how I managed to book all these authors, thinkers, creators every week, it is because of the circle of people that I know, like, and trust, otherwise known as a network. I know that word is dirty now. I'm teaching you how to create that same circle for yourself for free over at jordanharbinger.com slash course. The course is about improving your relationship building skills, inspiring other people to want to develop a relationship with you. The course is, it's not cringy. It's very easy to do. It's not going to make you look like a jerk or the people that you are reaching out to look or feel like jerks.

27:30It's going to make you a better friend, a better peer, a better colleague. And it just takes a few minutes a day. Many of the guests on the show subscribe and contribute to the course. Come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the course at jordanharbinger.com slash course. Now, back to Miko Pellet. Do you feel alienated by Israelis for your opinions on this, or Americans and Israelis for that matter? You know, I was looking for people who were counterpoints to other people I've had on the show, and your name came up multiple times, and usually there's just huge lists of people on each side, and it was like more than one person mentioned your name, and I thought, oh, okay, this guy must be really getting out there.

28:08but also while a ton of people support the things that you do and say, it seems like in your very hometown, there might be a lot of people who are like, there goes Miko the traitor. Look at this guy. Do you feel alone or isolated at all by this? I'm not alone. I'm not isolated. But again, those people, Israelis who are loyal to this state, to this apartheid and racism are not my people anyway. It's not my community. I was supposed to go and visit. I don't call a country Israel. I call Palestine. I was supposed I was supposed to go visit. I was going to Jordan for a few days and I was gonna cross the river and go to the other side.

28:41And it was made very clear to me that if I crossed to the other side, I would be arrested. And who knows how long I'd have to deal with that. So I didn't go. And that was the first, because I traveled there extensively. Just you couldn't go at that time because they were like, you particularly couldn't go or nobody can go? No, me particularly. This is post October 7th. I see. And so I opted not to go and not to deal with that. So yes, of course, Israelis see somebody like me. I mean, all kinds of, we're traitors or whatever. I mean, I think it's ridiculous to call somebody like me a traitor because to me, my loyalty is to the values of my spouse.

29:17The fact that there happens to be a state that claims that I am part of it or it's part of my identity has got nothing to do with my values. If they don't share my values, then there's no loyalty. There's no call for loyalty. But again, I always tell people I won many more friends than I ever lost. You know, the community that I work within, the Palestinian community, the pro-justice community, you know, the pro-peace community is far larger. And the experiences I've had with people, both personally and, you know, at work, are profound. Can I ask about your niece and her passing? Yeah. Tell me about that.

29:51So September 1997, on the 4th of September, this was a time, you know, that summer of 1997, this two years, 96, 97, I did, there was a lot of violence going on. On that particular day, on September the 4th, there was a massive attack by Palestinians where three young Palestinians blew themselves up and killed a bunch of Israelis in Ben Yehuda Street. And my sister's little girl, 13-year-old girl, was one of the victims. She was killed. I think the only reason that people ever change dramatically in terms of their thinking, in terms of their ideology, in terms of their beliefs is, sadly, it's usually the result of something terrible.

30:27Yeah. which shocks us to the core and forces us to look at things we never thought we needed to look at. And this is precisely that kind of a thing. So I was there. I went back home, you know, for a week or so. And then you come home and it was just lost. I mean, you need to talk to people and there's nobody. You know, number one, the whole issue of Palestine is not something people are keen to talk about. And now particularly you have a story like this that people just don't know how to respond to. But what I did, what happened as a result of this, my search to find somebody to talk to is that I came across the Palestinian community.

30:59I was living in San Diego at the time. And this was a very generous and very active community of Palestinians who I began to get involved with and kind of adopted me in a way, in many ways, and mentored me. And so that was the experience. And I always say the first time I met Palestinians was actually in the United States, in San Diego. You know, I was 40 years old. Having grown up in Jerusalem, which is supposedly a mixed city, I never met Palestinians because Israelis live in a bubble. Palestinians live outside of that bubble. And that's the end of it, as you saw when you were there. I lived and met with tons of Palestinians, but I was in university.

31:35That's a different bubble, right? You're on campus. You're on campus. Yeah. So anyway, so that was my experience. And then through that encounter with these Palestinians, the conversation was flowing immediately, the memories of where we're from and so on and so forth. And while other Jewish people and Israelis would come and go, because we had these little dialogue groups, they'd go, how can you sit with these people, they're anti-Semites, they're liars. I thought, first of all, they're not anti-Semitic, they're very nice people, and they couldn't all be liars. I mean, they couldn't have all sat together and made up the story, right?

32:04That was what catapulted me to meeting the Palestinians and learning about the Palestinian story, which then forced me into a life of activism and to really reevaluate everything I believed was true. I heard you speaking Arabic in one of the videos. Do you speak fluent Arabic or pretty fluent? Pretty fluent, yeah. Did you just learn that through conversation with Palestinians or did you? No, no, no, no, no, no. I studied for many years, yeah. It seems like the only way to really learn something like Arabic. Well, you need to do both. You need a combination of both. You need to study and you also need to converse.

32:35You need to know how to talk, which is not always exactly the same as what you learn in a textbook, but yeah. And especially the reading, you hear about Arabic, like there's different letters for the beginning of the word, the end of the word, the middle of the word. And I'm like, oh man. And that used to be so intimidating until I started learning Chinese. Now I would kill for any kind of alphabet at all, right? I don't care how many letters it is. Right, right, right. Yeah. There's a lot of similarities to Hebrew. So coming from Hebrew, it's Arabic or Arabic to Hebrew, a lot of similarities.

33:00Yeah, that's an advantage I hadn't thought of. I've heard you say, and don't let me put words in your mouth. So I'm just asking you to clarify your position here. I heard you say Hamas isn't a terrorist group or more specifically that October 7th wasn't a terror attack. And again, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth. Am I accurate with that or did I misunderstand you? No, you didn't misunderstand me. That's exactly what I said. I don't believe the Palestinians are terrorists. I don't believe that Palestinian resistance is terrorism. I think it's wrong to categorize it as terrorism. It's simplistic, it's superficial, and it's not true.

33:29And as a result of that, I don't think what Palestinians do when they resist are acts of terrorism. I think that the state of Israel has been engaged in terrorism since before it was even established. The Zionist movement in Palestine had brought terrorism to Palestine. There was no such thing as terrorism before the Zionists came and started killing people. And so when people are governed by this ruthless regime, apartheid state, which, by the way, if anybody has a problem with the word apartheid, Amnesty International came out with a report last year that explains very well why the state of Israel was being accused of apartheid.

34:06And so when you have this very ruthless, I would say even savage, apartheid regime that is treating Palestinians in this particular way, and the Palestinians stand up, a nation that's never had a military force, they've never had a tank or war plane, and they stand up and resist, that's resistance, that's not terrorism. Terrorism is what the state of Israel is doing. In the book, there's a part where you say, hey, harming civilians makes no sense. If you harm the military, then you're harming the state. Harming civilians, I think you said something like, what's the point of harming civilians? I think this is in that, actually not the book, the Vimeo trailer that you sent me.

34:41So then when we talk about the Hamas attack on October 7th, it seems like you have a different opinion. So has your opinion shifted since that was filmed? Or do you consider all Israelis combatants? Or is there something else going on there? The passage you're referring to is in the book, but it wasn't me saying it. It was Abu Ali Shaheen, who was a leader in the Palestinian resistance for many, many years. And he was captured and spent almost 20 years in solitary. And he was a very important and very charismatic leader. And I met him. The book was already done, but then I met him and I added the chapter about him because he was such an important figure.

35:14And he says that as a commander of the Palestinian resistance, that was his perspective. Now, the problem is that Israel has been inflicting so much violence against Palestinian citizens because really all Palestinians are citizens. They've never had a military force. They've had the resistance cells, they've had guerrilla groups, they've never had a military. So, Palestinians are all civilians. And when Israel goes into Gaza and kills thousands, as they've been doing for many years, this is not the first time, then they're killing civilians, which is a terrible thing either way. Now, the thing is this, if the power that initiates the violence wants to end the violence, it has the power to do so.

35:56You can't come to the people who on the receiving end and say, well, you don't have a right to do what we do. You don't have a right to kill civilians. We have a right to kill civilians, but you don't. And as a matter of fact, and in my other book, In Injustice, I mentioned this, when the founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, who was a paraplegic, an old paraplegic, he was in Israeli jail right around the 90s, right around the period of violence that I was describing. And at one point, the Israelis came to him and said, would you tell your people to stop targeting civilians? because, you know, buses were being blown up and all this.

36:29And he said, I'm willing to sign an agreement right now where both sides promise to refrain from targeting civilians. They never came back. Israelis never came back. Because if they're going to kill Palestinians, they have to kill civilians because there's no military. The reasoning behind Israel's, you know, massive attack against civilians is revenge, is punitive, is to try to teach them a lesson not to raise their heads, which, of course, all three have failed. And so it's not that I changed my mind about killing civility. Killing anyone is terrible. Everybody has a mother and a father or a child.

37:03Can you imagine that? It's a horrifying thing. But we can't come and demand one thing from the victim and demand a different thing from the side that perpetrates all this enormous amounts of violence. I mean, and think about it. For the last 75 years, the state of Israel was established after a massive, a massive assault against Palestinian civilians where almost a million people were were forced out of their homes. We don't even know how many were massacred because the massacres are still being unraveled today and being revealed today of things that we didn't know. And there were countless massacres.

37:32And so to then say, yeah, well, we're gonna not talk about that, but why are they killing civilians? That doesn't fly, that doesn't work. We should stop killing all civilians. We should, by all means, allow the refugees to return. We need to dismantle the apartheid state and we need to let Israelis and Palestinians live together in peace. Absolutely, so nobody gets killed anymore. That should be the goal. I think you covered this a little bit, but I'm gonna ask it anyway, because I'm trying to stave off the 10 ,000 emails I'm gonna get from people saying, you let them say this without pushing back.

38:03So what happened on October 7th, in your view? Because it seems like in some ways, and I'm not sure about this, because again, I think you covered it. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding, but it seems like some people are gonna say, hey, he's dehumanizing or shrugging off Israeli casualties in the exact same way that he's accusing a lot of people of shrugging off Palestinian casualties. And I'm not sure that's what I'm hearing, but I think a lot of people are going to hear that. I'm sure you hear that all the time. So what we do know on October the 7th is we know that Palestinian fighters came out of the Gaza Strip, one of the poorest and most oppressed places on Earth.

38:35They came by air, they came by sea, they came by land, and they managed to basically occupy half of historic Palestine. The entire southern half of the country was taken by them, including a massively important large military base, which is the base of the Gaza Brigade. And I believe they captured the general in charge. So this is a massive humiliation for the Israeli military, which once again proved itself that when it's being challenged and surprised, it's useless. Now, there are many casualties as a result of that. Immediately, Israeli casualties. We don't know for sure what happened. We do know this.

39:10And this is according to Israeli sources. According to witnesses, we know that Israeli tanks were shelling homes where hostages were held. So we know that many Israelis were killed by the military right there and then. We know that the very first hours, the very first response was from helicopters, military helicopters that came. And we know now, because there have been several articles in the Israeli papers about this, that they could not differentiate between the Palestinians and the Israeli civilians. And so they killed both. So nobody knows who killed how many Israelis. We know that there's a large number of Israelis that were killed.

39:43We don't know what happened that has not yet been investigated. So we don't know. The only thing we do know is that many were killed by Israeli fire. How many were killed by Palestinians, if at all? We don't know. That's not yet been revealed. That's not been told. We also know for sure that for a very long time, Israel has been massacring civilians, not before, long before October the 7th, in the Gaza Strip, in the West Bank, in other parts of Palestine, in Lebanon, and so on, on a regular basis. We're talking about thousands of civilians being massacred or being killed. We do know, I did this debate yesterday with some former British minister.

40:20and they talk, you know, all these rumors about babies being burned and that sort of thing. Now, that's been refuted, so we know that's not true immediately. But although nobody wants to get to the gory details, when a one-ton bomb or a half-ton bomb falls on a city block full of civilians with children, do we really want to get into the gory details of what happens to these little bodies of the children? Today, we know that there are thousands of children missing, which in there under the rubble, which means we don't know if they're alive or dead, which is even worse than thinking that they're dead.

40:53You know what I mean? It's a safe assumption that they died horribly, I think, at this point. Exactly. So if we want to get into the nitty gritty of the horrors of war, by all means. But I think the Israelis are going to lose this conversation, which takes me back to what I said earlier. Let's end it. This is an opportunity to end it. October 7th was a major watershed moment or it can be a watershed moment to end this for good, to demand a political solution that will end this for good. the state of Israel is still paralyzed. It was paralyzed for a very long time. People, you know, nothing was working.

41:22Now they're gaining a little bit, but I was talking to a friend today. The state of Israel is paralyzed. And this is, again, from a small group of fighters that came out of one of the poorest, most oppressed places on earth. And so this big democracy with this massive military force that's supposed to be so capable, we're completely, you know, this is a moment in history that can be used in order to bring about something positive out of this terrible sacrifice of all the suffering. The question is, is anybody sitting there at the table that has got that kind of vision? And I don't see that, unfortunately, not yet, at least.

41:53I have questions about that if we have time later in the show, because I agree. I'm like, who's doing this? It's not Netanyahu, who most likely has diverted so many resources from protecting Israel to push into settlements that this was allowed to happen in the first place. And then there's the conspiracy theory part of the spectrum where it's like they knew and they let it happen so that it was an excuse to invade. I don't really know. I mean, nobody really can tell you whether or not that's accurate, but it's just such a mess. Like the fact that that's even being floated. It's not accurate. The only reason it's being floated is like those rumors about killing babies and raping women.

42:27The only reason it's being floated is to discredit the capabilities of the Palestinians. So if Palestinians do something, then it's a crazy mob that burns babies and rapes women. And if they succeeded in something, it's because Israel was pulling the strings. Because Palestinians are Arabs and Arabs are incapable of being successful in anything. Oh, I see. Unless there's somebody like Israel who's pulling the string because they control everything. It's like bigotry of low expectations or whatever that's called. Exactly. Yeah. So this is a loaded question, but I'm going to do it anyway. Would you consider yourself pro-Hamas or more pro-Palestine?

43:01And is there a meaningful difference here? I don't think there's a meaningful difference. I don't care if these guys are Hamas or some other group. I don't think it matters. These are Palestinians who came out to fight for their people, to fight for their nation, to fight for their freedom. You think if there was no Hamas, there wouldn't be somebody else, there'd be somebody else. That's not the issue. I don't care who they're affiliated with. I don't think it matters to any Palestinians who they're affiliated with. These are Palestinian fighters who came and are fighting for the liberation and the freedom of their people.

43:27That's the bottom line. And again, I think framing it as pro-Palestinian or not pro-Palestinian is a little misleading or very misleading because once again, supporting the cause, the Palestinian call for justice and freedom ultimately will lead to the possibility of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Because at the end of the sentence is a free Palestine from the river to the sea with equal rights, free democratic state on all historic Palestine with equal rights, where Israelis and Palestinians can live together. Supporting the other side, supporting Israel means supporting what we're seeing now, this state that has been accused by Amnesty International of the crime of apartheid, which is a crime against humanity, and the kind of vicious violence that we're seeing now against civilian in Gaza, we've been seeing really Palestinians have been living a life of terror for 75 years, every single day for 75 years since Israel was established.

44:22So this is the choice. It's not pro-Palestine, pro-Israel. It's pro-freedom, pro-equality, pro-justice, or pro-violence and racism. These are the choices.

44:35This is the Jordan Harbinger Show. with our guest, Miko Pellet. We'll be right back. Hey, if you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our sponsors. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Thank you for supporting those who support the show, even when you disagree with the guest. Now, for the rest of my conversation with Miko Pellet. So tell us what From the River to the Sea actually means, because some people are like, oh, it just means everyone should live together, democratically and live happily ever after.

45:09And other people are like, no, it means get rid of all the Jews. And I'm like, eh, so much bad faith online. It's like, you don't even, what do you think? What does it mean? When you say it, what does it mean? Well, I know what it means when I say it. I know what it means when Palestinians say it. Then when people that I work with say it, then I know what it means. It's very simple. From the earth to the sea refers to all the historic Palestine. So on the east, it's the River Jordan. On the west, it's the Mediterranean. In the north, it's the borders with Lebanon and Syria. and the south, it's the Gulf of Aqaba and the border was with Egypt.

45:38It's very clearly defined. Every single map you look at before 1948, that region is called Palestine going back thousands of years. And so from the rivers to the sea means freedom over all of historic Palestine, freedom from apartheid, freedom from checkpoints, freedom from violence, freedom from racism, where, like I said earlier, the possibility of Israelis and Palestinians living together in peace becomes a reality. That's how you make it a reality. It's the only way that you can make it a reality. It's like white South Africans and black South Africans couldn't possibly live in peace under apartheid.

46:13Israelis and Palestinians can't possibly live in peace under a regime where I have privilege over my Palestinians' friends. It's never going to happen. There's no possibility of it ever happening. I think people are afraid that Israel might start to look like South Africa after the fact, because it's not, the country is not in good shape right now. Now, the reasons for that are different than, oh, they integrated. Yeah, it's very different. Like, I want to be very clear. Well, I mean, South Africa had, what, 40, 50 million Africans who had ever had the opportunity to go to school. Right. Who were impoverished, you know, a vast majority.

46:45Israeli and Palestinian societies are highly educated societies. Israeli and Palestinian societies can go to work. If tomorrow morning, the apartheid regime fell, you had elections, and you had a free democratic state with equal rights, it would be a flourishing, functioning democracy immediately. You've got people waiting, you know, in Gaza. It's not why I talk about Gaza now. I think of all the people I know that have been killed and their families. But, you know, Gaza has, I think, one of the largest PhD per capita in the world. You know, we're talking about very highly educated, very productive societies that can go to work the next day.

47:17We're not talking about just beginning to educate millions and millions of people. Right. Some people might say, hey, though, democracy in the Middle East, that's a fairy tale. No other state in the area has a democracy. Even Hamas and Fatah haven't had elections in a decade or more. What do you say to that? I say it's nonsense. It's racism and it's nonsense. The state of Israel is certainly not a democracy. It's never been a democracy. It's been an apartheid state from the very beginning. It was a democracy for people like myself, but we are now less than half of the population, so that's not considered a democracy.

47:48But the reason is that so many other countries in the region don't have democracies is because there are greater powers that are preventing them. There's more interest in arming dictators and keeping them in power so that their foreign policy would be aligned with the U.S. and the Europeans and so on. But, you know, Palestinians and Israelis actually have had traditions of democracy going back a very long time. Ever since their political lives were these political entities existed, there were democracies and there's no reason to expect there wouldn't be a democracy. And again, we're not talking about a country where you place a king and you say, okay, he's the ruler.

48:23We're going to arm him. We're going to send him a lot of money and we're going to make sure there's no democracy, which is what happened in a lot of countries in the region. You know, Palestine is not like that. It's a completely different reality. It's a completely different character of the people, a character of the country. It always has been. What do you say to the Israelis who say, well, if we let them do this, they're just going to wipe out all the Jews and take our stuff, which is what, you know, happened to them earlier. A lot of people are afraid of that, right? They feel like even if they agree with you, they're like, I still don't want to get exterminated by the Palestinians coming back to Jerusalem where I live now.

48:57I don't know what in the world makes them say that. I mean, there's no history to that. There's no reason to expect that. Why would anybody say? I don't know why anybody would think that. The history of Jews in Arab countries is the history of coexistence, even in Palestine. Well, and being expelled in pogroms. I mean, come on, we got to be fair. Not in the Arab world. Not in the Arab world. Really? In the Arab world, not in the Arab world. This is the experience of Jews in Europe. This has never been the experience that I would, I highly recommend you read a book. Where is it? I have it here.

49:25I will. By Israeli historian Avi Shlaib. It's called Three Identities, the memoir of an Arab Jew. He is from Iraq and he talks about the Iraqi community and what it was like for them, for Jews in Baghdad. This is not the experience of Jews in the Arab world. And if you listen to, you know, there were Jewish communities in Jerusalem, in Hebron, in the north, in the Bariya and Safad and so on. And they lived in harmony. They've always lived in harmony. They always lived well together. They shared the same values. They babysat each other's children. I mean, the relations between Jews and Arabs, even in Palestine, was very, very good until the Zionists came.

49:58And the same thing happened in Iraq. The same thing happened in Syria. The same thing happened in all of North Africa. Jews lived very well in the Arab world. The Arab world welcomed Jews. And when Jews were escaping from Europe, the Arab world is where they came to find protection. But that was not the experience. And what the Zionists are doing now, what Israel is doing now, they're perpetuating this revisionist history that says that the Jews in the Arab world, there were pogroms and they were kicked out. None of this is true. This is absolutely not true. This is absolutely not true. That's what I've been reading, right?

50:26It's like, oh, well, all the Arabic Jews from Iraq and Morocco, et cetera, had to leave because of - They didn't want to leave. They didn't want to leave. Well, right. None of them wanted to leave. And there are particular stories. We don't have time to get chitin out. But the particular stories of each and every country and what happened and why they end up leaving, there are tragic stories. And the people regret leaving because they were there for generations. And the culture of Arab Jews was a very rich and distinct culture and it was respected by the countries in which they lived. Again, including Palestine.

50:58Yeah, that's interesting. Okay, that's definitely contrary to some of the things that I've been learning and reading about. I need you to send me that book title at some point because I just tried to Google it and I got a bunch of math books, Three Identities is not specific enough, I guess. Memoir of an Arab Jew. His name is Avi Schlein, A-V-I-S-H-L-A-I-M. Three Worlds Memoirs of an Arab... That's why, yeah, I was like... Sorry, yeah. He was trying to show me order of operations and calculus, and I got PTSD flashbacks. It's not only a very important story, and he was written a lot about the Middle East, but his own family story as having left Iraq and what it was like for them in Baghdad and the entire Jewish community, of the story of Arab Jews in general, and what happened when they came to Israel, how they were treated by the community of Israelis that already existed by the Zionists.

51:42It's a very important lesson. So in the time that we have left, I'd love to talk about how we find a solution here, one that works not only for Palestinians, but not just for Israelis, but for Palestinians as well. I guess you can say both in either order, but one seems more apropos to this conversation. What is the compromise, though? And what do you see as the role of the U.S. slash the West in general in this conflict? because I am seeing a lot of parallels between how the U.S. acted post 9-11 from Israel. I think many would agree that we overreacted and that did not work well for us in the long term.

52:13And it seems like Israel's falling into the same trap. Even Joe Biden is warning Israel against falling into this exact trap that it seems like they have fallen into. As he sends them more money and weapons. Well. So there are no secrets in how this ends. There are only two options. One is a short-sighted, short-lived option, which is the continuation of the apartheid state, the continuation of the oppression and the killing of Palestinians. That is short-lived and short-sighted. There are about 12 million, 12 and a half million people living between the river and the sea, between the historic Palestine.

52:46Seven million of them, or seven and a half million are Palestinians. And they're going to be a bigger majority because traditionally they have more children anyway. So they're going to be a larger majority. This minority of racist society that is governing through an apartheid regime can only last so long. I think it's inevitable it's going to collapse. It's short-sighted, it's racist, it's violent, and it's going to be short-lived. The other option is, I believe, the preferred option and the option that anybody who has a conscience and a heart and values needs to espouse is the possibility of a free Palestine post-apartheid, the dismantling of the apartheid state, just like was done in South Africa, through a lot of pressure, through severe sanctions, through boycotts, through severe divestment.

53:31But South Africa, people forget, controlled all of Southern Africa, all the way up to Angola. It had gold and uranium and a great deal of resources. It was a very rich country and people in America did not want to end it. People in banks and corporations, the people who were doing business with apartheid in the American administrations also did not want to fight it, but it fell. And so I believe that through, again, sanctions and boycotts and whatever it takes, the apartheid regime in Palestine needs to be brought down to its knees. It needs to be dismantled and replaced with a real democracy, a free democratic Palestine from over to the sea with equal rights.

54:09Now, that's base camp. Now we're starting to work. Now we're starting to figure out how we do this. Now you got to figure out how Israelis and Palestinians can function together in a single political entity, in a single new state that has never existed before. There's never been a state where Israelis and Palestinians. There's never been a situation, even a moment, where Israelis and Palestinians live as equals or function as equals in Palestine. And so now we're starting to build this thing. And I don't think it's impossible to build because I think at the end of the day, even with all the animosity and the violence, the history of violence and so on, people want to move on.

54:45People want to get on with their life. They want to raise their kids. They want to go to work. And like I said earlier, this democracy with equal rights, and again, these two highly educated communities, these highly educated societies that are ready to go to work the next day, will be able to function as an excellent, very productive democracy the next day. Now, will there be people who will try to stop it? Will there be people who pick up a gun and try to fight it? Of course, a minority. There will be a minority who will die trying. Well, that's the way it is. If they choose to pick up a gun and kill somebody, they'll have to pay the consequences.

55:19But hopefully, the rule of law will prevail, as it usually does in the end. And we've seen dictatorships in Latin America fall and be turned into democracies. We saw - Can you give an example of Latin America? I'm drawing a blank. All of Latin America. All of Latin America. Chile, Argentina, Pinochet, all of these. I mean, eventually they fell and turned into democracies. And again, South Africa and others. There are other examples. So the possibility of replacing a totalitarian racist regime into a democracy exists. Now, the role of the U.S. in this is extremely important because obviously the U.S.

55:52provides a lot of funding and a lot of weapons and diplomatic cover, which is maybe even more important. This is our problem as taxpayers, that our money is going to support violence and racism as opposed to using our money to build schools and provide clean water and provide all the things that people need here in this country. Why is our tax money going there without us even being asked? And the responsibility that we have is to demand of our elected officials. And it starts at the level of people running for school board and city council and state legislatures because it starts there. And we need to demand that they stop sending money, that they stop going on junkets, that they stop supporting and promoting themselves as Zionists.

56:36If we believe in zero tolerance to racism, Zionism should not have a room anywhere because it's a racist ideology. So we need to be consistent about that as voters and as consumers of the media. Because when Bill Maher or Jordan Peterson interview Netanyahu and give him a platform to spew these absurd lies, these absurd lies that justify his violence and his racism and don't challenge him at all, we as consumers of this media need to challenge him and say, what are you doing giving him a platform like that? They don't even ask him about his being indicted. I mean, yeah, we need to step up because we are complicit because it's our money.

57:14It's funny you mentioned the Netanyahu interviews, because I think I saw a headline. I want to say it was like in Haaretz or something, an Israeli newspaper, where the headline was, if Netanyahu gives you an interview, it's because he thinks you're an idiot. And it's because it's like he'll only go on a show where he can just unchecked say whatever he wants, which is unfortunately true for a lot of politicians. But look, Israel's moved quite far to the right compared to where it was when I was there. At the time, I think it was Ehud Barak who was in charge of things. and it seems like there's no credible path to peace with somebody like Netanyahu and the Likud party, so the Israeli right-wing party in power over there.

57:48That seems like that has to change before we see any progress at all. No, I don't think so. You don't think so? No, because the entire Zionist project is a racist project. It doesn't matter who his prime minister is. Ehud Barak was no less responsible for what we're seeing today than Netanyahu is. It is one building on the other, building on the other. It was the same policies that led to this. I don't think it matters who the prime minister is. I mean, the clerk who was the president of South Africa when apartheid collapsed was not a particularly tolerant person. He just happened to be the guy at the moment that it collapsed.

58:18And it could be Netanyahu when apartheid collapses. It doesn't really matter. It's not going to happen because Israeli society and Israeli politics go right or left. It's going to happen because they are forced onto their knees. A racist society and a racist state will only cede power when they're absolutely forced to. South Africa had nowhere to go. The boycotts, the sanctions were killing them. The divestment was killing them. They could not travel. They could not play sports. They could not participate in any sporting, academic, cultural, diplomatic, political events. You would be penalized if you invited a South African team to a sporting event as an international body.

58:54It was that severe. That is what's going to bring about the change. It's not going to be a particularly Israeli prime minister. It's going to be a fever of pressure from the outside. And sadly, even the Palestinians within Palestine who are spitting blood and spilling blood and doing everything they can, they are like prisoners in a maximum security prison. Their ability to bring about change is very limited. We are the ones that can bring about a bright future to Israelis and Palestinians if we pull our support from this idea of Israel to the idea of peace and justice and so forth. Well, it seems like big strides between Israel and Palestinians in terms of the peace process have actually always happened after big violent clashes.

59:36So maybe there's room for optimism here. And I know Obama used to say, we can't want peace more than they do, which sounds catchy, but I think is kind of wrong. I think once great powers are drawn into the conflict because it flares up like this, this is actually the type of attention and dedication of resources that are gonna be required to get anywhere. Because we do need Turkey, Egypt, the US, Jordan, China, the EU and other powers, regional and global, to actually focus on this. So we're just gonna keep watching this movie over and over again for 200 more years. Do you agree with that assessment at all?

1:00:07Well, I think all of the parties that you mentioned need to join, need to kick out the Israeli ambassadors like some of them already have. They need to, the South Africans have, some of the Latin American countries have, they need to pull back their ambassadors from Tel Aviv. They need to end all ties with the state of Israel, all trade, all diplomatic ties, all trade ties, any ties in the state of Israel has to become a pariah. Without that happening, I agree, nothing's gonna change. So the kind of intervention that we need to see, both from the U.S., the Europeans, Turkey, the Arab world, and so on, is a total disconnect with the state of Israel so that it is forced to agree to have peace, to the peace and justice that we're talking about.

1:00:47You know, I was in Turkey, and Turkey is very, you know, many times, but I was there on a speaking tour, and my book came out in Turkish. And so they say, what do you think about, you know, Erdogan? He speaks about Palestine. He's from Palestine. I said, yes, that's excellent. but Turkey is still doing business with Israel, trade with Israel, billions of dollars worth. It doesn't matter what the president says or doesn't say. What matters is what actually takes place in terms of trade, in terms of commerce, in terms of the diplomatic relations. When that ends, that's where we're gonna see change.

1:01:18Thank you for humoring this somewhat contentious bit of the conversation. I mean, look, there's stuff I don't agree with you on, but it is so nice to talk to somebody who I don't necessarily agree with, who also argues in good faith. Man, it's so rare. So I want to take just a second and express my appreciation for that, because it seems like you can't have these conversations without somebody just making some ish up and pulling it out of thin air and then getting mad at you. It's just nice to not deal with that. So thank you very much. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Here's a glimpse of my interview with the son of a Hamas co-founder before a change of heart had him working undercover for Israeli intelligence against his former friends and family to thwart terrorist plots and save lives.

1:02:02Check it out. Hamas is an Islamic movement. My father is one of the founding members of Hamas. Hamas for us was everything to the point where it became an army. It's a monster. I agreed to work with Israel with a hidden agenda to be a double agent. The level of pressure that they had to go through, my heart stopped for approximately 30 seconds. Most human beings cannot make it back. I was tortured mentally and physically. Everybody in the city knew that I'm a dead man. For more, including what it was like growing up in one of the first families, of which many consider a terrorist group, and why Mossab considers it the greatest school of his life, check out episode 407 on The Jordan Harbinger Show.

1:02:55Okay, so there's a lot here that I've got to address. First things first, great conversation. Really enjoyed Miko coming in here. I think there was a lot of stuff that really opened my eyes. A lot of points that I had to Google and be like, that's not right. A lot of rabbit holes I went down that turned out to be really shocking and surprising that moved my opinion a little bit. I will also say that regarding the IDF killing a bunch of people on October 7th, that's sort of this Hamas apologist argument. Look, let's assume that the IDF did kill a bunch of Israeli civilians in the crossfire. Let's assume that that's true.

1:03:30We actually don't know yet whether that's true. We might never know. Let's assume, though, that it's true for the sake of steel manning this argument. That is extremely tragic and it is awful. Usually, though, let's say somebody attacks something here in the United States. Let's say a shooter goes into a school. If the cops accidentally kill some of the school kids when rescuing them, we are very angry at the police. but in the end, it is the person who went in and shot up and took hostages at a school that is to blame. What I'm saying here is what I'm getting at is if we're arguing that Hamas only wanted to take hostages, that's what people are saying.

1:04:03Oh, they just wanted to take hostages. They didn't want to kill anyone. It was the IDF and the crossfire that ended up killing people. If they wanted to take hostages, but they ended up killing a bunch of people and the IDF then ended up killing a bunch of other people in the process, that is still on Hamas. That is not on the people defending Israel, defending Israelis from being kidnapped by Hamas. You have to agree with me on that, folks. Come on. His greater point also stands, which is that there are way too many civilian deaths on both sides and especially on the Palestinian side. So his point stands there about civilian deaths.

1:04:34But I really think it's a stretch to say, well, it's the IDF's fault that all those people died. Not really. Not when you have armed groups. Plus, they filmed it. They live streamed themselves doing this. We can't be like, oh, they didn't do that. They didn't. This is they filmed themselves doing it. This was live streamed, for God's sake. Hamas is a jihadist, almost fascist seeming entity, which rules by force. It crushes all political dissenters in Gaza by killing, maiming or torturing them or by threatening their families to do the same thing to their families. Their rampage in Israel was only an extension of what they do to Palestinians every day.

1:05:10And I know this from talking to Hamas supporters inside Gaza and in the United States as well, and talking to people who know about this conflict on both sides. I spoke with people who were in Hamas about this in years past. And I went to the Gaza Strip and spoke to people who worked with the Palestinian Authority and with Hamas. And they told me this. This is what they told me in casual conversation. Okay. Hamas is in no way equivalent to Israel's extreme right government, which is also gross. And that government has also totally discredited itself with the electorate. Netanyahu has lost his majority coalition when the next elections are called.

1:05:46He is toast. He is politically dead. He will probably face trial for corruption. He will probably hopefully go to jail. He's a dog chasing a car, pretending that he has scared that car away. That's Netanyahu right now. But my point is he will be held accountable. So, okay, when does Hamas get held accountable? Again, not just for what they did to Israel, for what they're doing to Palestinians as well. I am waiting for somebody to tell me when Hamas will be held accountable. My guess is they can't be held accountable by anybody in Palestine, right? Israel, unfortunately, is in the position of having to do that.

1:06:23Why won't they be held accountable by Palestinians? Well, I have a couple of thoughts on that. By the way, Hamas could stop the war right now immediately. Why don't Palestinian civilians insist they do so? Jordan, that's unfair. How can you say that? I'm with you. Hold on. It's because they're afraid of Hamas. Why are Palestinians afraid of Hamas? Because Hamas is a terrorist organization. They rule by force and they torture and kill people that disagree with them. Okay. I don't understand why I have to argue this point with people. It really is shocking to me that I'm forced to make this argument.

1:06:56I know people are going to go, oh, you're just saying that everyone who's pro-Palestine is pro-Hamas. I'm not saying that. There are actually a ton of pro-Hamas people. They're in my inbox. They're in my Instagram DMs. These are not robots. These are not people from the Middle East. These are people from the United States who run some crappy fitness studio in Minnesota or whatever. People, please realize these comments are not anti-Palestinian. They're anti-Hamas. There is a huge difference between those two things. I, for the record, 100 % agree that Palestinians deserve equal rights, but that cannot happen as long as a criminal slash terrorist slash fascist, whatever entity remains in power in Gaza.

1:07:36They have to be disemboweled. Their infrastructure has to be destroyed. Their weapons have to be taken away and their ability to harm civilians on either side of the fence has to be removed. Of course, I wish there was a way to do this without any collateral damage, But I think we've all seen enough war to know that this simply isn't within the realm of possibility. It's one of the greatest injustices and tragedies of our time. That much is certain. Note that any time that there's been any advancement towards peace, Hamas has intervened against it. I know there was some anecdote like, well, they asked this guy if he would sign an agreement right now.

1:08:12No, Hamas has intervened against peace multiple times. It's not like Hamas actually wants peace. They don't want peace. That's why they did the October 7th thing in the first place. they knew Israel would respond and probably swing for the fences like they're doing now. Okay, I need to calm down. Now, another point, when I said that there was mistreatment of Jews in the Middle East and Muslim countries, Miko then said, not in Arab states, and I think he said it like four times, which means he really meant it, right? That just turns out to not be the case. Now, maybe I misunderstood what he was trying to tell me.

1:08:44I did reach out for clarification on that. Many, many, many Jews that lived in other Middle Eastern countries were pushed out of those countries. It was about a million, maybe more, depending on how you and where you get your numbers. Wikipedia says 900 ,000. Some might say they were pushed out because the state of Israel was established. But that sort of proves my point, I think, and not his, that Jews were mistreated in the Middle East by majority Muslim nations. If a Muslim country pops up in South America or whatever, and other countries in the area or in other parts of the world respond by kicking all the Muslims out of the places where they live, that is not a justifiable response to Paraguay deciding that they were suddenly a Muslim country or whatever.

1:09:27You would never tolerate this excuse if the tables were turned. And that's why it doesn't sit right with me. Now, again, maybe I've missed a point. Maybe I've just misunderstood him somehow here. I do plan on picking up the book that he recommended for me because I think that stuff is interesting. And there's a lot to be said for there's these Baghdad attacks where the Mossad actually planted bombs to scare Iraqi Jews and to go into Israel, supposedly, allegedly. There's evidence of that. But OK, let's assume that that's true and we don't have proof. Let's assume that that's true. What about all the other countries where Jews were pushed out and fled?

1:09:59I mean, you just can't sort of cherry pick the evidence that supports your stuff here. And I don't think he's doing that. I think a lot of other people are doing that. Again, I think Miko argued and had a great conversation. Most slash all of it was in good faith. And I think the part that might even seem like it isn't, it might have just been because I've misunderstood something. And obviously we don't agree on everything, but I think that's a kind of a cool quality of the show is that we can still have those conversations. And, you know, I think Miko is a really smart guy, even if I think some of his perspectives might be a little off, but that's the beauty of conversations like this anyway, right?

1:10:35All things Miko Pellett will be in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com or just ask the AI chatbot on the website. Transcripts, of course, are on the show notes. Advertisers, deals, discount codes, ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show, even if you disagree with the guest. We've also got a newsletter. Every week, the team and I dig into an older episode of the show. We dissect the lessons from it. So if you're a fan of the show and you want a recap of important highlights and takeaways, or you just want to know what to listen to next, the newsletter is a great place to do that.

1:11:04Jordan Harbinger dot com slash news is where you can find it. I'm going to be doing some giveaways on there. I know I sound like a broken record, but that's the truth. Don't forget six minute networking over at Jordan Harbinger dot com slash course. I would love to connect with you on Twitter. Well, I don't really use it, but I'm over there. Jordan Harbinger on Twitter, Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. That's an actual connection, by the way. This show is created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Millie Ocampo, Ian Baird and Gabriel Mizrahi.

1:11:31Remember, We rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. So if you know somebody who's interested in this conflict, wants a counterpoint to the Masab episode because they hated it and they told you never to share the show with them again, or they just love conversations like this that open up your mind, definitely share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn.

1:11:55And we'll see you next time.