Former Interim President of Israel Avraham Burg Speaks Out on Netanyahu’s Killing Spree

34:46He came with four theories how it happened. I'll tell you something very, very simple. It's a chemistry between two charmers.

34:59listen I cannot stand you but you're a nice person so I talk with you I mean you know my ideology yes of course it's a one and a half and you know my position and despite or in spite my positions we're talking yes so there is something there at the very personal chemistry that simply worked. And Netanyahu is a brilliant campaigner. Listen, when you walk out of the room with Netanyahu, check your sleeves whether you have your hands into them still. Maybe he stole your hands out of your sleeves. This is how talented he is. He picked his pocket And so did Trump to him. They use each other. I don't understand.

36:01I mean, I understand half of that explanation, but I don't understand what President Trump or the United States could conceivably gain from this. It seems like 100 % loss to me. it's more a question to you as an American than a question to me as a far away subject of the American empire or the American influence zone okay I'm sure that there is a profit here now is the profit for example a place in history as much as many authoritarian leaders, since they do not trust the people to commemorate them after they pass away, so they commemorate themselves while still alive, make sure that there are libraries on them and cultural centers and bridges and airports and you name it, okay?

37:07Still, history plays a role. And when you think of Trump, coming from Manhattan with so many Jewish associations around him. He's familiar to the Jewish talk of New York. He's familiar to the rhetorics of Jews and their association and affiliation with Israel. He understands that many of them seize Israel under a permanent threat of extinction. Saving Israel before the base, before the Christian Zanis. Saving Israel is, historically speaking, is almost prophetic. Listen to his rhetorics after Gaza. I put an end to 3 ,000 years of a conflict. I don't know when the counting began. And it's still counting.

38:03Okay. Nonetheless, it's a state of mind. It's politics and history mixed. And Netanyahu as a child, as a son of an historian, understands this, how to play this card.

38:27So you believe it's likely Netanyahu said to Trump, you will be recorded by history as the man who saved the Jews. this is on the positive side and on the negative side is you do not want to be recorded as the one that in under his god and in his shift something so awful like the second holocaust happened to the jews there are two sides to this moon yes the dark one and the one a bit more illuminated publicly you speak about the leading side of the of the moon i mean in dark rooms you speak about the dark side. Yes. We are under permanent threat. Save us. You said a minute ago that what the Israeli government has done in Gaza has permanently, or at least for the moment, made Israel into a pariah state internationally.

39:21How is Gaza seen within Israel?

39:28In order to touch such a volatile issue, I need a very brief introduction to offer you my own framing of this last couple of years. Whatever Israel did to the Palestinians since day one, 100 years ago, all the wrongdoings, the transfer, the expel, the demolition of 400, 500 communities, the Nakba, the tragedy, the catastrophe of the Palestinians, whatever we've done to them. All wrongdoings does not justify the first step and the first step towards atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th. I agree. None. Right. And whatever Hamas did on October 7th to the Israelis, brutal, awful crimes against humanity in the bodies of my friends and my colleagues and my fellow citizens, whatever the Hamas did to us does not justify the moral crimes and maybe even crimes against humanity that Israel exercises in Gaza ever since.

40:44You have two crime scenes. Do not annihilate each other. Do not balance each other. Do not justify each other. You have to deal with Hamas crimes and with the Israeli crimes. Simultaneously, as difficult as it is, and sometimes as paradoxically as it is. Now, this is how I see it. Most of Israelis are not in my place. most of Israelis,

41:17regardless of October 7th, I mean, even much before October 7th, do not really know where Gaza is. Yes, it might be five minutes away from a doorstep, might be 40 minutes drive from Tel Aviv, but it's beyond the mountains of darkness. I don't know where is it. I haven't been there ever. When you look at the Israeli media up until October 7th and 10 times more after October 7th, you never see Gazian people. You see tunnels. You see cement. You see rockets. You see demolitions. You see Hamas troops running here and there. You never see the individual Gazian people as if there are no people there.

42:09And the report is never about the humanitarian side of it. The report is always about insurgences, terrorists, etc. Gaza, as they hopefully expressed by my president Herzog said, in Gaza there are no innocent people. God forbid to live in such a situation that you do not believe there are no innocent people on the other side. Even Abraham the patriarch believed that in Sodom and Gomorrah, the innocent people and God negotiated with him. But we are better than God and we are worse than Abraham. We simply write off any innocence in Gaza. And ever since, it did not improve. So in a way, Gaza, it's not a blind spot.

43:09Blind spot is too technical. Gaza is the moral abyss in which Israel collapsed into.

43:25I find it so striking what you just said, because Israel is such an international country. I mean, I don't know what percentage of the population was born somewhere else. And, you know, people are always in and out of Israel. I mean, it's hardly, it's not Central Africa. It's right in the Mediterranean. It's very international, as I said. So it's interesting that many Israelis don't have a sense of what's happening just right at their southern border. What do they think when they read about it? There's so much international controversy about it. When you pull up the internet, someone's getting mad about Gaza.

43:55How do Israelis respond to that?

44:01You put here two topics. The first is media report. Yes. And the second one is, where is the existential reality of Israelis? Whom are we? when she asked you, the economist editor, the right to exist. And you exploded. What is that right to exist, okay? And I said to myself, Tucker, don't get mad at her. The question is a different one. The right to exist from the point of view of being a Jew, not from being part of the international community. Is Israel justified according to the norms it tells itself it is? The only democracy in the Middle East, the most moral army in the world, etc., etc. There, it implodes.

44:57Now, let me try to answer your question. First, about the international reports. Most of us listen to Hebrew media only and read Hebrew media only. And the Hebrew media filters most of the non-Hebrew expressions. We do not speak English. I mean, even listen to me with my Arnold Schwarzenegger accent, okay? I mean, we don't speak English. On parle pas français. Okay, we don't speak German. And if we read something about it, they're all anti-Semites. And the weaponizing of anti-Semitism into a kind of a thick filter that enables us to reject any kind of legitimate criticism is part of the system here.

45:57So media-wise, we hardly hear the international situation. Hardly hear it. the question of what does that mean to us i will say as follows up until the second world war 90 of the jews in the world were christian-born jews what we call ashkenazi yes and 10 were born in the muslim sphere what we call sfaradim so it was 90 christian world jews and 10 muslim world Jews. Today in Israel, it is 50-50, which means the old perception that Israel is an offspring of the West, of the Christendom, demographically doesn't work. Because at least half of the Jewish Israelis, not to talk about the 20 % of Palestinians with Israeli idea, but from the 80 % Jews, 50 % were born or offsprings of Muslim world Jewry, which do not share the same legacy and the same heritage and the same tradition that Jews shared with you, which is the evolution of the West.

47:22I'll take it a step further. Yes, many of us were born in so many other places, our parents or grandparents, but most of us were born here and here is a very strange place on one hand we're not Europe anymore because we got disconnected and on the other hand we never got connected to the region so we are kind of a stand-alone island totally disconnected from the region refusing to get connected when normalization was offered to us only two, three years ago, it was a threat. We never dwelled into the strategy, what should be our relationship with the region? So much so that in a way, we resemble a lot the kingdom of Jerusalem of the Crusades, foreigners coming from the outside

48:32circling ourselves with a kind of a self-siege wars and never integrate. It is not right because there were interaction between the regional Muslims at the time and the Christians at the time. But nonetheless, the kingdom as a political entity never wanted to be part of the region. After 200 years, it expired. The state of Israel born out of the ashes of the Holocaust, for sure, but earlier on was born out of the nation-state idea of getting secular Europe with its solutions to its national groupings, came to the Middle East, which is not part of the nation-state thinking, didn't go through the processes of secularization and revolutions, the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the British Revolution, never went through them in order to get where we are today and therefore didn't find any hooks to get connected.

49:38So we lost our Western hinterland and we never seeded enough in order to grow to be part of the local fauna. so we are isolated I think many I don't know what they think now but for most of my life in the US many Americans regarded Israel as a kind of European-ish country that was always my opinion some of them felt that Israel was almost part of the United States not in a sinister way but we've got so much in common 51st state Golda Meir I think was from Milwaukee, Wisconsin She grew up in Milwaukee. Milwaukee, right. Okay. As they used to say at the time, the woman who made Milwaukee famous.

50:25She smoked Chesterfield cigarettes, American cigarettes. I mean, it felt very American. What is the view, would you say, of most Israelis now toward the United States? We love it. We admire it. We want to move there. and we think you are so childish and naive. Why? Because this is what you are. Okay, can you? I mean, I'm not sure I would disagree with you at all, but what about American strikes Israelis as childish and naive?

51:12Israelis let's begin with a smile because it's a heavy stuff okay you know why we Israelis do not make love in the street because then everybody will come and give you advisors here everybody is a prime minister everybody is a diplomat everybody is a strategist everybody is Tucker Carlson everybody is everything everybody is Napoleon We know better. And when we think about first begin with the West in general, okay, how don't you understand that immigration brings you down? That you compromise your own very existence. How don't you understand that the Muslim tidal wave of immigration is going to compromise your very entity?

52:08Leave aside, I don't think that many Israelis understand the exchange theology. Okay? I'm not at all sure that they're exchange theory. But speaking, generally speaking, you ask Israelis, how many Muslims do you think there are in Europe? Hmm, something between 30 to 50 percent. which is far away from the number. So what do you think about America? What do you think in America? Oh, wow, wow, wow. What do you know? Michigan in the last elections just show us how big is the Muslim minority. Obama? Hussein Obama. So you don't understand your own reality, so to say. This is the kind of experience everybody gives advices is really reality at a daily.

53:02The second is, it's very, very difficult for us, very difficult for us to understand the fairness of the game.

53:15If you ask me, what does that mean to be an American? I can give you five different answers. One of them is, since you have a constitution and everybody is equal in front of the constitution, or supposed to be equal in front of the constitution, there is a fairness in the game. You cannot trick me. You cannot look down at me. You cannot abuse me. I cannot abuse you, on the other hand. we don't understand it we Israelis we live in a reality that constitution is a threat equality to all citizens not just Jews and Arabs but for the sake of it orthodox and non-orthodox is a threat to the very existence of the state so on one hand as if we have shared value foundations.

54:18But when you try to translate these values into practical reality, here the gap grows. We cannot accept the American wall of separation between church and state. impossible for us as much as the definition of Jewish and democratic is hollow in a good day and deceiving in an average day it's a stupid definition but we believe it's possible and we cannot accept it that you are not Christian and democratic you're democratic first ah only democracy too weak not for us and then I'll take it to maybe to the last stage, okay? We don't care. We hardly care, unfortunately, and it pains me about American Jewry.

55:27When Netanyahu said a couple of years ago, they're Democrats. They don't support my position anyway. Let's go with the Christian Zionists. That's our political backbone. They're the best friends we have. And giving up on American Jewry, beside many other things that we don't respect when it comes to the law of return, when it comes to accepting the reform and conservative movement, religious expression, which is totally rejected by the religious establishment in Israel, etc., etc. When we look at America, we see two things and we don't accept both. On one hand, we see as if this is the total definer, the absolute definer of the democratic movement, the wokes.

56:21All Democrats are wokes. And on the other hand, all the right-wingers are hating Jews like Tucker Carlson. That's it. So in between, what's in it for us? Okay, Silicon Valley. Technology, economy, profit. But not the values. Not anymore. Is this a religious war from the Israeli perspective or from the Orthodox Israeli perspective? This one in Iran now? Never defined this way, officially.

57:09I would say it's the second me personally who observed the situation and tried to intellectualize it in order to comprehend I would say it's the second stage of religious war. At what sense? Up until October 7th the conflict between us and Palestinians which is bloody and malicious and awful especially especially awful because it could have been resolved so many times before, was a political conflict between two national communities. So political conflicts and national conflicts, as difficult as it is, we know what to do with that. October 7th was the first round of the full-scale religious war.

58:01Jewish fundamentalism at the Israeli government and Muslim fundamentalism at the Hamas government. And the philosophy of Hamas and the ideology of the Israeli government and some of its leading ministers was out in the open. With rabbis and chaplains in the army and ministers and members of Knesset expressing it loud and clear. so October 7th was first chapter of the deterioration of the political conflict into a religious one this one in Iran which is three years later which historically speaking is maybe the same period it is so fast I mean what is it three years in human history it's nothing it's not even a comma yes yet when you live it day in and day out it's it's it's difficult it's heavy it's sirens it's kids not sleeping it's sleepless nights and fear but it's a different one the war in iran now from my point of view is the first religious fundamentalist war world war jewish fundamentalism Christian fundamentalism, and Jewish fundamentalism at the battlefield.

59:33It feels that way to me. Unfortunately, I'm sorry? It feels that way to me, watching this. That's exactly what it feels like. And the problem of you and me, as much as I take it on many other things, we are the other side of the street. on something like that, which is such an existential problem to our ideologies and our identities and our values, never mind where are you in the other disagreements between us, we are watching. We are just watching. We didn't yet come forward and offered an alternative, a comprehensive, attractive, spiritual and political, ideological and maybe even a scatological alternative that fights them.

1:00:38I ask myself with shame, I cannot tell you how much. We didn't yet open the chapter of what Jewish settlers are doing in the occupied territories in the West Bank. daily crimes against innocent Palestinians conducted by wild, savage settlers ignored by the army and by police and supported by members of Knesset and members of the cabinet daily I'm full of shame but the utmost one is where the heck are the rabbis where are the spiritual leaders maybe they're not coming because they are the inciters because they're behind it because they support it because they promote it because it promotes their messianic ends of the day eschatological philosophy and this is as I said earlier where classical Judaism implodes into Israeliness.

1:01:57How important is the rebuilding of the temple to the people you're describing, to the cabinet ministers, to the rabbis who are not speaking up against what's happening in the occupied territories? Is there actually an effort to do that, do you believe?

1:02:17For the people in the street, not the rabbis, not the people engaged, not those you ask questions about, to the masses, it's a non-issue. Yeah, I figured that. It is as if a kind of a, I mean, Disney World in Orlando. Right. Okay. Yeah. I mean, do there whatever you like. I mean, just give us a break, okay? So for the masses, they are not there.

1:02:45On the other hand, And since 1967, at least five, I'm not at all sure that not more, at least five attempts to remove the mosques from the Temple Mount were done by these groupings since 1967.

1:03:10which means that when you come to address this question it is not so much about the numbers who support the removal of the temples and the removal of the mosques and the rebuilt of the temples it is about the dedication and the readiness and the fanaticism of those who are ready to act I'm I'm let me just say I'm embarrassed I I did not know there had been five attempts to get rid of the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa so these were plots to blow them up is that what happened yeah yeah huh yeah what happened to the perpetrators to the plotters the most famous one is the 80s what is called the Jewish Underground a group of settlers from the same educational system that I grew up with, that I was brought up on.

1:04:17Some of them are friends and friends of families and people from the same school I went, et cetera. I mean, really like me people. Yes. Who were caught, sentenced, sent to jail, and got a political deal a couple of months or two years later. And few of them, if not many of them, became prominent, prominent Israeli figures. One of the most important newspaper editor in Israel, Makori Shon, advisors to ministers, members of Knesset, you name it. Well received back into society, not excommunicated and not excluded, not secluded, not excluded. So much so that today sits in jail for life. Igor Amir, who assassinated the prime minister.

1:05:14And there are constant voices, even within the Knesset, even within the government and the Netanyahu's coalition, calling for his release.

1:05:29So as for your question, what is the support? the support in the public is very small. The dedication of the few is very intensive. What would happen if the Al-Aqsa complex were destroyed?

1:05:53Tucker, let's move on. That's how I feel, but I mean, I don't live there. You do. So you see that as a profound change in world history if that were to happen.

1:06:07I'm not at all sure that we are not already into this profound change. Yes. Like this war with Iran combined with October 7th, combined with other things, we're in the middle of a transformation of world order. to what next order or this order, neither you nor me know, and maybe we don't share the same vision of what should it be. But we're in the middle of a transformation here. Now, this issue of the temple, the issue of the mosques, will be, morally speaking, a coin with two sides, on the Israeli side, if and when this will happen, God forbid, that will be the end of justification of the existence of the state of Israel.

1:07:15And if this, God forbid, will happen, I'm afraid it will trigger the masses all over the Muslim world that this might topple down few regimes and bring to power different powers and different regimes that the entire world order, the way we knew it, will not be recognized by us anymore. Yes. It is much more volatile and explosive than a nuke. Yes. that is certainly my read on it i don't think you're overstating it of course no one can predict the future but that that seems very likely do you think my other sense again i'm i'll allow you to to have the more definitive word on it but is that if there was ever a time it could happen it's right now in the middle of this war the only thing i will say is that i hope that the attention of the prime minister is given to that also yes that's that's the only hope i have i trust him my trust is very minimal and this isn't a very good day I hope that he understands if something like that happens in his shift, it's bigger than him.

1:08:48Yes. And I hope he pays attention to it. I feel the same way about him, but I agree with you. I don't see why he would want this.

1:09:01Here we go to something else. Nenanyahu is a well-read person. He is not an alphabet. He reads books. He understands. He knows. He has a vision. You can agree with him. You can disagree with him, but at least he's an interesting partner. He knows what he's talking about. What happens to him in the last couple of years is that he does not behave politically according to his wisdom. He behaves according to his political survival instinct rather than according to his ideology and philosophy. So between political survival or conservative right-wing, decent right-wing conservatism if he was the right-wing conservative, I would say, I will oppose you, but I respect you.

1:10:09The minute it's the personal survival instinct only, I don't accept it and I don't respect it and I suspect it. And the fact that in his cabinet, there are so many influential ministers who promote this agenda and create daily provocation around the mosques troubles me. I take you a step further. How many times did you in your analysis say, listen, there are so many fanatics in politics, etc., etc., but the Israeli army is a moderate one. They're usually the sound of reason. Okay, this is the perception we have. But pay attention. Most of the generals and the high-up officers of today are people who were brought up, educated, shaped, and molded at the previous times of Israel, under Rabin, under Perez, under Menachem Begin, even under Ariel Sharon, in a much more responsible country.

1:11:20The people who climb up now the ladder, the military ladder, are different kind of people who were brought up under the chaotic, problematic value system of Netanyahu in the settlements, educated with this kind of messianic mission. to use the army as a tool to accelerate redemption, and a day will come that you will see a chief of staff with this kind of agenda. You already have the head of the Shin Bet, of our secret service, coming from these circles. So to trust the Israeli army to be the moderator for good, might be a mistake. Pay attention. Things have changed so fast there. I mean, from an outsider's perspective, it's just a very different country from what it was even 15 years ago.

1:12:34That's how it feels to me. It is right. And in order to understand the shift, our says follows. When was your first time here in the region? 25 years ago. Make me the 2000. Yeah, exactly. Okay. 2000 was the end of the tale of secular Israel. Israel of 48 was, as Bernie Saunders called it, socialist. But let's call it European-wise, social and democratic. a very young democracy, but with a prospect to move on for a better, more developed democracy, and very secular. Israel of today is democracy in deficit in a good day. Harsh capitalist to the level of libertarian anarchy almost sometimes. And very religious.

1:13:44So Israel of 2026 is not Israel of 48, not Israel of 67, and not Israel of 2000s. Different society, different leadership, different rhetorics, different ethos and pathos. And the real struggle today between the political forces, yes, it's very personal. My personality, your personality, my leader, your leader. Okay, that's granted. We have it in every political system. Imagine politics with no ego. So boring. Okay, God forbid. So thank God we have some ego left. But the undercurrent is the warming cold war between religion and politics, between the Jewish and the democratic. That's the real deep struggle.

1:14:41will Israel by the end of the road will be Jewish religious, that their religion is defined by this kind of people? Or will it be back a kind of a liberal democracy? And let's not argue now what is the definition of this liberal democracy, but much more secular in thinking and therefore speaks with the language of reason. And this is the real political struggle in Israel today. I'm hopeful, by the way. As difficult as it is, the pendulum will come back.

1:15:20But we have to understand what the fight is all about. Do you think, given Israel's moves since this war, in the last month, right, both in West Bank and in Lebanon. Do you think that Israel will have different borders by the end of it? Will control more territory by the end of this? As much as there are enough people who buy into your suspicion that we want Israel from the Euphrates to the Nile. This is actually your question, right? How real is the Greater Israel Project? It's just hard to know. It looks real, but I don't know. No, I just wanted to show you that I listened to you. You see? Okay, this was just a show off.

1:16:15I'm just quoting the Torah. That's it. Yeah, okay. So as much as there are these elements, which are the same elements that were behind the killing of Yitzhak Rabin, and the underground to remove the mosques, and those who harass the Palestinians now, etc., etc., etc. I do not believe that in any future that both of us will be part of it, Israel will have any legal and legitimate borders but the 48, 49, 67 borders. There will be so many attempts. There will be so many provocations. There will be so many manipulations by all of these people. It will never work. So much so that I also allheartedly believe that somewhere by the end of the process, most of the settlements and the settlers from the West Bank will be removed as well.

1:17:27Yeah. that's not the trend that we see from this vantage why why would you predict that most of israelis want to have good life as much as netanyahu came with his prophetic vision of super Sparta. We still prefer Athens. I mean, because of the Souvlaki, because of the Halloumi, because of whatever. Of course. We prefer Athens. Everyone prefers Athens to Sparta. Of course. You see, so as much as the democracy in Athens was a little bit, how shall we put it? not updated. Yes. Okay. The original version was a little bit limited, but yet the vision of Athens as the place of aesthetics and philosophy and wisdom and reason and democracy, the seas of Western democracy, most Israelis would like to have good life.

1:18:38We want to live. We want our children to live. I cannot tell you how much I cried when my kids went to the army I was standing there when the bus took them and I remembered my mom telling me kiddo when you grow up there will be peace and you will not have to serve in the army and I did have to serve in the army and then I said the same thing to my kids and between my wife and myself and my kids, we have more than 30 years of service in the family. Now we have grandchildren. And one day soon, they will have to serve because we are citizens of the place. We are partners to the responsibility. and I know that the day in which my grandchildren generation will stand up and say we are ready to defend the legitimate Israel but we're not ready to sacrifice our life or to sacrifice the life of others on the altar of this craziness this day is closed that's very reassuring I'm sorry?

1:20:13that's a very reassuring thing to hear I'll give you a moment that you were there with me in that moment when October 7 erupted like a volcano covered the entire city of Naples so to say the Israeli Naples we were all under the dust what was the first thing that came back to the table? Two-state solution. As much as Trump said, I made it, I mean, I solved it. And Netanyahu, like Houdini, made it disappear. It came back to the table and it is still there. And you cannot ignore it. And you should not ignore it. And therefore, the pressure from within and from the outside and the reality and the options I hope will be offered to all of us after this round with Iran will be over.

1:21:12There will be new options, some of them awful, some of them promising. Eventually, Israelis will say, we are ready to serve the needed, but not the fantasies. Are you concerned that Israel, if this continues at the current pace, will be hit hard enough by Iran that it responds with nuclear weapons?

1:21:44The first time I thought about it was when you started to raise the issue in your programs. And I had a feeling that you are really troubled by it. Very. And I had a feeling that not your trouble that Israel will be nuked or will nuke them because the effect. On so many other fronts, and the nuclear race that will start right afterwards will put all of us in a real threat. So I fully, I started to think about it. I'm not so much troubled by Israel nuking them because Israel has two strategies. Since we, as Jews, we could never compromise with one opinion. So we said, yeah, let's have two opinions.

1:22:33So we have one conventional army that is ordered to win, never mind what. And then we have the non-conventional capability, which is ordered to win no matter what. And I believe that every threat yet in the region, we can address with conventional power and setting. Yet, if there should be a way out of it, you promote in the last couple of weeks, you promote the issue of all the sides who sit together around the same table, talk respectfully to each other with no patronizing and with no arrogance. Just talk to each other. I say something as well. Yes, of course, I'm a dialogist. I talk with you.

1:23:24Okay, we're talking. I want the outcome of this war to be a Middle East clean of weapons of mass destruction to all. Israel denied bombs included.

1:23:43Now it is clear that Iran must have North Korean strategy in order to protect itself. It didn't start with us. It started with the Iraqis. Then they said, listen, the only way we can protect ourselves is to have this kind of supra capability. So in order for Iran not to have it, and therefore Saudi not to run after them, and then Egypt to say, what about us? And then the Emiratis or the Qataris buying something from Pakistan. And then we should make sure that by the end of this negotiation, whatever we give to whom, because this negotiation you give, you take, you negotiate, the outcome should be a process, a Middle East clean of weapons of mass destruction, which will be imposed on Israel as well.

1:24:44Who could impose that? President Trump. overnight. It's hard for me, I mean, again, as someone who would love to see, would be grateful to see what you just described, I want that. It's hard to see Netanyahu ever accepting that under any circumstances. That's right. That's right. It's difficult. It's not easy. But as my wise father that was mentioned once already in this program used to say, he doesn't believe in sticks and carrots. He believes in carrots and carrots. And then he said, even a carrot can cause some pain sometimes. I mean, there are ways to do it. There are ways to secure it. There are ways to guarantee it.

1:25:34It opens a whole new window, so to say, about can you trust America today? What the Gulf states that both of us are curious about them. Yes. Okay, something is happening there. What will they say if America will walk away from this conflict and leave them alone at the mouth of the Iranian lion or the Israeli lion? That's right. Not good. Not good. What Japan will say. That's right. What South Korea will say. What India will say. End, end, end, end, end. Taiwan, Singapore, all of these important places. If you cannot trust America, so it's self-reliance. Self-reliance means an immediate ornament race, which is bad.

1:26:35So in order to prevent the world to go into a new race like that, and this is the entire world, and we know who will be the profeters of it, All of those who export death and weapons of hatred to all over the world, in order not to make these industries, industries of hatred and industries of suspicion and industries of death, in order not to make them profitable, the only way to come positively out of this conflict is to begin here at home. Here is the first region which is clean, and we move on, and these are the guarantees we Americans are giving you that nothing bad will happen to you if a threat like this one day will stand in front of you.

1:27:33So America, in order to do anything, is not just about the oil prices, which is important by itself. I mean, if you live in the suburbs for so many years and you want to drive to your pharmacy or to your supermarket, the price is crucial.

1:27:51I consider it very seriously as a daily existential issue for the American citizen. But if you want the world to be pacified and calmer, you need to restore not the trust in the markets, but the trust in America.

1:28:13Again, we strongly agree on that. What would happen if no American leader was able to restore that trust or the United States couldn't afford to remain a stabilizing force globally because it's expensive? What would happen to the world?

1:28:40the simple answer is i have no clue the little bit more augmented one is somebody else will walk somebody else will grow into this responsibility will it be china that with all the problems that chinese are having they're about two things. They're very much about continuous stability at home and abroad and they hardly ever initiate a war. They play games but they don't declare wars the way we declare wars every now and then. So maybe China will grow into it. Maybe there will be a different world coalition of interested parties who would like to see something like that. And this is a very, very ambitious end.

1:29:38What about Europe? I saw your vice president there. And then I saw your secretary of state there. One with a little bit more abrasive style, the other one a little bit more subtle one, saying the same thing. Europe, you're done. And I say, I'm not at all sure. The good old continent was done so many times and rediscovered itself. And re... Can you say re-burst itself? Re... Yes. How do you... Reproduce itself. Okay. Yes. I'm out of it. Okay. Reproduce itself. So many times in history. And I have a feeling that this mechanism of renewal, which is the cradle of the Western civilization, Western civilization is European first, and only then the rest of the Christian Anglo-Saxon, etc., etc.

1:30:48And I have the feeling that Europe has the power to renew itself and to grow up into it. And remember that Israel and Turkey and Iran and Saudi Arabia are the next door neighbors. It's not a far away from Florida place. No, it's not. And I take Mark Twain wisdom who said that every now and then America declares a war in order for Americans to study geography. I understand. Okay. Did he really say that? That's pretty good. This is what I read. Okay. And if he did not, let's give it to him. He deserves it. you know in the world you say either Bernard Cho or Gaucho Marx or Oscar Wilde or Mark Twain we have a limited palette one of them did it and I say for Europe it is much more natural at what sense When you look at the Middle East, the Middle East of today, with all of its fragility and all of its volatile forces, is the leftover of two poisonous European fruits, the Holocaust and colonialism.

1:32:20And I'm not at all sure that Europe went yet through the process to internalize it, to grow up to the challenge, what do we do about it? Do we have any kind of historic responsibility? And with America walking away, this America walking away from NATO and walking away from so many things, maybe it's time for Europe to recalculate its position in history. So I have to end, and I should have done this at the beginning, but I just want to make sure that you get credit for this. I want to read a line that you wrote immediately after the beginning of this war and you wrote it in the Israeli press because it's just so prescient.

1:33:13And you're describing your prime minister, Netanyahu, and our president, Trump, you said, neither he nor Trump has the faintest idea why they want, what they want to happen here after day one. You saw that at the very beginning, that this was a war without a strategic goal. And I think that's proven true. How were you, here's my question, how were you treated when you said that? What was the response to that? And what has your life been like in Israel over the last month? Because I don't think you're in the majority in your opinions.

1:33:55I left the Knesset voluntarily some 20 years ago. And ever since, I dedicated most of my life to think, to write, to read, to lecture, to teach, to offer alternative narrative to Israel. Is it, is not. And with each and every book of mine and each and every article of mine, in a way, I'm pushed further away from the mainstream. This is not just about the death wishes and the threats and the pushbacks in the streets. It's not about that. It's about the loneliness of having an opinion.

1:34:49Yet, I'm a Jew. What does that mean? Being a Jew is many things. One of them is to be dedicated to the culture of disagreement. When you look at the Talmud, that's the most important Jewish writing, a creation. That's the oral Torah. This is the development of the written scripture. It's thousands of pages. So boring, Tucker, you cannot imagine. My goat ate your tomato. Your cucumber hit my wife. I mean, what kind of... but it's not about goats, it's not about cucumbers, it's not about this. Jews for centuries, so did I, so did my father, so did my grandfather, studied the Talmud because the Talmud documents obsessively not just the decision and the verdict of the majority, but the position of the minority.

1:35:56with the assumption that a day will come, that the majority will wake up and realize how wrong they were, we have already ready-made the strategy prepared by the minority to become the new majority philosophy. So being in a minority and a Jew, it's not a problem. So were the prophets. So were the rabbis. So we're the intellectuals. So what? It's a responsibility. And I see my role in life, and it's not alone. You never do things like this alone, is to offer first thinking, which is different than the parameters of the public discourse, and to be courageous enough and expressive enough for people to know there is an address out there.

1:36:55there is somebody out there who thought about it and is not afraid. So shouldn't we be afraid? Look at my t-shirt. Okay. I went abroad a couple of months ago. I'm going with that. I said, listen, every ultra-orthodox has his outfit that you recognize like an Amish. Okay. Yes. Every settler has his or her outfit, which is an M16 rifle and something else. Okay. I have my uniform. So I'm in the airport, comes to me, a guy says, Borg, don't you think it's about time to change your shirt? I said, why, it's stinking? He said, no, no, no, no, peace is stinking. Okay. And of course, for me, it was an opening for a deliberation, for a discussion.

1:37:46So, yes, many times I'm alone, and yes, many times I'm even lonely, but I'm full of hope and I offer hope for others. And when my daughter asked me, Daddy, how do you feel? She asked me the Tucker's question. How do you feel? I said, what's the problem, dear? I'm in a majority. I agree with myself. At home, we all think the same. So it's a majority. All my friends think like me. It's a majority. Politically, I support people like me. So we are the majority. The fact that they have more numbers, that's marginal.

1:38:24Bottom line is, sometimes, Tucker, being a Jew means being an alternative. Well, I like your alternative. And this conversation has really been a blessing for me. So thank you very much for taking the time to do it. And I hope a lot of people see this. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. And giving me the opportunity. Thank you very much, Tucker. Thank you.

1:38:51Thank you.