January 30, 2026 • 48 mins
Noa Tishby, Israel’s former Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism, discusses the global rise in hatred and violence against Jews and explains why she believes anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitic.
The actress and best-selling author reflects on the recovery of the body of the last October 7th hostage, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the state of the peace process in Gaza, and the U.S. response to protests in Iran.
Tishby talks about how antisemitism has evolved since the establishment of Israel and where the line is between valid criticism of the Israeli government and antisemitic vitriol that questions the country’s existence.
She assesses the threat of antisemitism in the U.S., comments on the controversy on the right over Tucker Carlson’s interview with antisemite Nick Fuentes, and voices concerns about the left’s embrace of anti-Zionism exemplified by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Support for Firing Line with Margaret Hoover is provided by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, The Tepper Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, Pritzker Military Foundation, Cliff and Laurel Asness, Katharine J. Rayner, Charles R. Schwab, Lindsay and George Billingsley, The Meadowlark Foundation, Jared Stone, and Al and Kathy Hubbard.
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(00:01):
Anti-Semitism. The rise in anti-Semitism is not
about the Jewish people, and it's not about Israel as a
disease, as a cancer in society.anti-Semitism starts with the
Jews, but it never ends with theJews.
You can look back at every society that had allowed
anti-Semitism to take hold and you see that it crumbles.
That's former anti-Semitism envoy Noah Tishby laying out the
(00:23):
stakes of the battle against anti-Semitism.
I'm Margaret Hoover. This is THE Firing Line podcast.
Actress, producer and best selling author Noah Tishbi has
been fighting anti-Semitism for years around the world and
online, including a stint as Israel's first special envoy for
(00:43):
combating anti-Semitism. This demonization of Israel is
not progressive, it's not peaceful, and it's sure as heck
not going to free Palestine. Amid a global surge in violence
against Jews, she believes centuries old hatred has morphed
into open hostility toward Israel.
The Jew was always used in orderto describe whatever is like the
(01:03):
most loathsome in a society at any given time.
Tishbi is alarmed by what she's seeing on the American right.
I don't believe that the rights reaction to woke ISM should be
oh if they don't let us say anything then we can say
everything. And on the left.
There are a lot of people in that are like looking at Israel
as the last bastion of colonialism that needs to be
removed from the world. But she maintains Israel's
(01:27):
government should not be immune to criticism.
I don't think there's anybody who's defending every single
action of everything that happened.
So where exactly does she draw the line?
You can criticize Israel as longas you want, but if you say that
Israel does not have the right to exist as a Jewish state, why
only Israel? Noah Tishbi, welcome to Firing
(01:50):
Line. Thank you so much for having me.
This week, Israel welcomed home the remains of Ron Vili, the
final hostage from October 7th, on the same week that the world
marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day for Israelis.
What is the significance of thisnews?
(02:13):
Huge, huge significance because of the connection for Israelis
between October 7th and the Holocaust.
So I'm getting goosebumps party,my God.
So first of all, I want to mention that his mom, Ron
Vilay's mom said that he's he was the first one in.
He volunteered, he jumped in. He was not supposed he was at
home. He and wounded.
(02:33):
He was not supposed to go get drafted.
He was not supposed to go save people and he did.
He jumped on his uniform and went straight in and his mom
said he is the first one in and he's going to be the last one
out. Joking way.
Yes, you did. Like ironically, she said.
I just know he's going to be thelast one out, right When they
knew that he is first a hostage and they realized that he was
(02:54):
deceased and it ended up being the case.
He was the first one in and the last one out and was horrible.
And the thing that is so powerful for every Israeli is
because of the connection between October 7th and the
Holocaust. And let me explain why.
When October 7th happened, within 2 seconds of this attack
(03:14):
occurring, every Jew understood what is happening.
Every Jew around the world felt in their bones that we knew
exactly what was going on. We knew that this is a targeted
attack that is anti-Semitic in its nation in its essence and
that is vicious and violent and animalistic in the most barbaric
of ways. The same stories that we heard
(03:34):
in the Holocaust happened on October 7th.
So the Jewish community in epigenetic way was thrown back
to a time in which children werehiding in closets and we
suddenly started hearing the same story.
Oh my God, this family was that the seven-year old was hiding in
the closet and two babies were underneath their parents.
And you know, all these stories and there was a rage that's
(03:55):
coming out from the Jewish community and a profound
knowledge of what this was. I'll tell you a personal story
that happened to me that was such a such a powerful and
depressing incident that connected the 2 events.
So throughout the process after October 7th, I went to Israel
pretty much right away after a month or so and started
interviewing survivors and hostage families and became very
(04:19):
vocal in in educating the world about what this is and helping
to return the hostages back home.
I met at a rehabilitation centera girl named Nam Bin Navid.
Nam Bin Navid was a 26 year old girl when she went to the Nova
party with her boyfriend David and she.
They escaped at 6:30 AM when theattack happened and they were
(04:41):
hiding in a trash bin along with16 other people.
She was hiding underneath in underneath garbage in the trash
bin. At some point, Hamas terrorists
basically walked into the trash bin and sprayed everybody.
That was Insight killing her boyfriend and 13 other people in
(05:04):
that trash bin. And Noam spent hours lying
underneath dead bodies waiting to be rescued.
She was hit in the hip, bleedingunder trash and under dead
bodies cover, like using people's bodies to cover herself
up so she can hide from the terrorists.
And she's sitting there and she's telling me that story.
And that is the exact story thatmy grandmother's sister had in
(05:28):
the Holocaust. That is the same story that I
heard growing up of Gita, who was in a village in Poland and
was taken away outside with the entire village and her husband
and their children. And they were shot.
And she had to hide underneath the bodies of her dead children
and husband until she can escapewhen night fell and find her way
(05:51):
to Israel. And that, that connection
between these two events, the symmetry of the, of the, of the
history of the Jewish people repeating itself again was
shocking. And it culminated when this week
when Ron was returned on International Holocaust
Remembrance Day. President Trump credited Hamas
actually for working quote very hard to get the body back of Ron
(06:15):
Vili and and you have. I think that's the definition of
gaslighting, not President Trump.
Hamas. So Hamas is causing the problem
and then helping to solve it. So excuse me if I don't.
Well, for Hamas, well, for what?I mean, President Trump did
credit Hamas for working very hard to return the body of Ron
(06:36):
Feely. And you've praised President
Trump from time to time, particularly his his plan last
fall. Are you still confident that his
peace plan can lead to a new Middle East?
I would love that. I would love.
That, but are you confident because there's this phase one
(06:56):
and there's phase two and and, and so of course you're
optimistic and you want it to happen but.
And that's what we need to hold.Are we holding in front of our
in front of our faces? I'll tell you the problem that
has been from the beginning. The problem is that this peace
plan was absolutely brilliant. The problem is that Hamas never
agreed to it. Well, so I've I've never I to me
right. It was it was like a peace plan
(07:18):
needs to enemies to agree to truce or peace plan or.
Commit to some kind of agree. Something So for me, the fact
that President Trump was able tobring in Qatar and Turkey and
Saudi Arabia and the Emiratis and everybody together,
countries that don't usually agree about much anything and
and Israel of course and the United States was extraordinary.
(07:39):
I'm just waiting for Hamas to actually agree to do something
and be pushed properly by the Arab countries in the region to
be removed from power and to basically not be who they are,
which is that that's that's the tricky part.
Hamas is a resistance movement. Hamas is a a jihadi terrorist
organization that is priding itself and resisting to the
(08:01):
state of Israel, resisting to Jewish the sovereignty in the
Middle East, resisting to Western values, resisting to the
United States. That's who they are.
So they need to be dismantled completely, entirely remove
their arms and, and, and be removed from power completely.
So am I optimistic? Absolutely, because I do believe
(08:23):
that we always have to just we always have to hold peace as the
ultimate goal and whatever needsto happen in the process, we'll
get through this. But hold that.
But I'm very optimistic. But I don't trust Hamas at all,
not even a little bit. In recent weeks, you have posted
several videos voicing support for the protesters in Iran.
(08:45):
You've called on the US to intervene.
And you said, quote, if you careabout human rights, talk about
Iran. How does Iran fit into the
broader fight against anti-Semitism?
It's a great question. It's not just the broader fight
against anti-Semitism, it's the broader fight for a safer world.
So when you think of every conflict that's happening in the
(09:06):
world right now, almost all of them, when you track back to
where they start and where they come and where they're funded
from and who's behind them, you will find the Islamic Republic
of Iran, whether it's Hezbollah or Hamas or the Houthis that are
bugging and attacking not just Israel and the United States,
but also the Saudis and the Emiratis, right?
They're destabilizing force in the Middle East and therefore a
destabilizing force in the West.And here's what people need to
(09:28):
understand that. I'm sure a lot of your viewers
know this, but in a profound kind of way, it's harder for
liberal to accept religious radicalism of any sort.
It's easier for people who are. Do you?
Mean an American liberal. American liberal or European
liberal or any kind of liberal, if you're a secular person, you
(09:49):
don't believe that people can bethat fundamentalistly religious,
right? If you're a religious person in
America or anywhere else you go,Oh, well, they just, they're
wrong and they're faith, but they have faith.
Does that make sense? That's what the Islamic Republic
of Iran is representing. So in 1979 when the revolution
happened, it was the first time that the Muslim world saw a
country that was run by Muslim law, by Islamic Islamists and
(10:13):
and fully by a caliphate, A Sharia law taking the ideas of
Islam, which were I guess fantastic in the times when
Muhammad was around for some people, but really don't qualify
for anything that we can stand up for right now.
Meaning educating girls should be off the table.
As Sam Harris says, you know, ifa woman gets raped, she needs to
(10:36):
produce 3 witnesses in order to corroborate her rape.
And if not, she's considered theadulterer and she can be
punished by death and stoning, but she can actually redeem
herself if she marries her rapist.
That's a culture that we cannot stand behind, that we have to
stand against no matter what. So in 1979, when the Islamic
Republic of Iran took power, they brought forth this optimism
(11:00):
for Islamist world, for the Islamist world, for the radical
political Islamic world, that, hey, that's possible and that
should not be possible anymore. We need to be very clear that
Islamic fundamentalism should not be accepted in normal
society. So to me, the people of Iran
have been trying to tell us for years that they don't want this.
(11:21):
They're occupied under their ownregime.
Literally there's a full on gender apartheid happening in
Iran right now. Gender apartheid.
And why aren't liberals talking about that beyond I just.
It defies logic to be honest. President Trump called for Iran
to either negotiate with the United States or face a
potential to attack. He cited the expeditiousness
(11:46):
with which Nicolas Maduro had been removed from his post.
Of which it all happened. You blinked it up.
And and warships have been sent to the region, led by an
American aircraft carrier. What should the US?
Do I believe that it's time for the Islamic Republic of Iran to
fold and go away? The Islamic Republic of Iran
(12:08):
should not be controlling the the Iranian people.
Is it the Americans job to make that happen?
I don't know who else's job it is because if you think of 80 +
1,000,000 people, they are not armed and they are against
fighting against an Islamic regime that has the
Revolutionary Guard and has the besieged and has the military
(12:28):
and its armed to the tee and itsentire apparatus is in order to
control their people. The is is, it's it's designed to
maintain this Islamist rule overthe people.
I don't know that they can do iton their own.
So I really hope that the US that Israel, that the MI 6
whoever is there building an opposition that can actually
(12:53):
take do over the regime. Have have you seen evidence that
there is an opposition movement that is ready to govern?
Yes, but it does. Democratic Iran.
But that is, yes, there's an opposition that is ready to
govern. They're all calling for Reza
Palavi to be back. As a sort of transitional
transition, is the phone the Shah's son?
(13:13):
Yeah, the Shah's son. I'll tell you what I am more
concerned about and what I'm where I'm hoping intelligence
operations around the world, they're working and that is
defecting, finding defectors from the besiege and from the
Revolutionary Guard and from thea military that would actually
help and stand by their people. Because this is the only way
(13:33):
that it, because it's really themilitary that runs Iran.
I mean, the mullahs run Iran, the mullahs and the
revolutionary. Guard it's the Supreme leader
and and the and the Revolutionary Guard.
But we need to see defectors from the military apparatus in
Iran, the move to the other side.
And I'm really hoping that our intelligence and other countries
(13:55):
around the world are working towards it and, and have
identified them. That's what needs to happen
along with an attack, a strategic attack on on
Revolutionary Guard targets and so on and so forth.
Obviously, nobody wants to attack the Iranian people.
They're actually extraordinary. With respect to anti-Semitism
(14:15):
and the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, horrific acts
of anti-Semitism have been committed in the last year.
Last December at Bondi Beach, 15Jews were slaughtered while
celebrating Hanukkah in Australia.
In Manchester, an attacker drovea car into pedestrians before
stabbing worshippers at a synagogue on Yom Kippur. 2
(14:39):
employees of the Israeli embassyin Washington, DC were shot
outside the Jewish Museum last May.
Why do you think vile acts of anti-Semitism and violent acts
of anti-Semitism are happening now?
Taylor's oldest time, so there's.
An uptick. There is a categorical uptick of
(15:02):
of violent acts of anti-Semitismaround the world.
Definitely. Why now?
So let's go back for a second and explain what anti-Semitism
is and what it isn't. So anti-Semitism is not racism
and anti-Semitism is not equatedto a so-called Islamophobia.
anti-Semitism is not looking down at somebody because you
(15:24):
feel like you're more than them and they're less than you.
It's not as simple as that. So when you're racist toward a
certain type of, you know, personality, race, ethnicity,
sexual orientation, you think that you're better than them and
you're like, oh, that low thing,whatever that person is,
anti-Semitism is not that. So anti-Semitism is a shape
shifting conspiracy theory, meaning you attribute to the
(15:47):
Jews mythological powers, essence of control,
conspiratorial attitudes, desireof dual loyalty, suspicious kind
of attributes so and so on and so forth.
So and it's and it's shape shifting every few generations.
So every time it looks like something totally different.
(16:08):
So you there's a tiny group of people and you kind of look at
them and I go, they're so different and there's got to be
something SUS there, right? Something is suspicious about
that little group of people thathave been doing a lot of things
differently and have been stuck around for so many years.
We don't like them, right? So every few generations
anti-Semitism shifts into something different.
So the first accounts of anti-Semitism we're about 300 BC
(16:31):
in Alexandria. They were talking about these
weird people that have these like weird kind of habits and
and rituals and whatever. That was the first time.
Then it changed into something different with the death of
Christ. It turned into religious based
anti-Semitism. The Jews killed Christ.
Obviously they didn't, the Romans did.
And even if they did, what does that have to do with later on
(16:53):
the years? The Jews get Christ, therefore
they're bloodthirsty and they'reindiscriminatorily murdering
babies and children, you know, to use their blood and and so on
and so forth. Then it became not cool to be
anti-Semitic, to hate people based on their religion and also
out of religion, anti-Semitism. You can convert out.
So you're like, oh, I'm not a, I'm not a Jew anymore and
(17:15):
therefore I'm fine. So a lot of people would convert
into another, another religion that wasn't enough as well.
So anti-Semitism shape shifted again and shape shifted into
political and racial anti-Semitism, which is what the
Nazis used, right? So the Jews are actually a
different race and the different, you know, they're,
they're in politically, we're going to use that in order to
get power. Then after World War 2, that
(17:35):
became not cool again, right? You can't discriminate against
somebody based on their religionor their ethnicity or any of
that. So it shifted into something new
and that is Israel. That is anti Zionism.
So now you discriminate against the Jews, you hate the Jews.
You think that they're suspicious, you think that
they're bloodthirsty based on their peoplehood, based on the
(17:57):
country of their origin, their their ancestral homeland.
You kind of go, yeah, I'm not a Semitic.
I'm just an anti Zionist. It's not about the Jews, it's
about the Zionists. That's what a change into and
I'm going to I'm going to offer something here, right?
I'm sure that you have viewers right now on PBS that are
convinced that Israel committed and commits A genocide,
(18:21):
convinced they're looking at me going, but Israel's committing a
genocide on the Palestinian people, not understanding that
this is today's blood libel, notunderstanding that this is what
it is. No matter how much you hate the
Israeli government, no matter how much you hate war, which we
all do, right? Facts are different to what the
perception is that is the uptickthat we're seeing right now with
anti-Semitism. OK, let's define terms.
(18:44):
Yeah, I have always operated under the the definition that
Zionism is the right of Jews to have a country.
Yeah. For themselves, somewhere.
Yes, in their ancestral home. Exactly.
That's it in parts of their ancestral home.
And in some part of their home. So you have it.
Not Oliver. You published an op-ed with in
(19:05):
the New York Post with Deborah Lebstadt, the Biden
administration's anti-Semitism envoy, who was also a guest on
this program program in the New York Post this week.
And it said, quote, if you claimto oppose anti-Semitism but fail
to recognize that so much of it is now carried out under the
guise of anti Israel activism, then you are not protecting Jews
(19:28):
and fighting bigotry. You're endangering Jews and
protecting bigots. That's exactly it.
Explain how anti Zionism has become anti-Semitic.
This is great. It's not clear for people.
The thing about anti-Semitism isthat it's very it's, it's
insidious and it you don't see it, it's the kind of glasses
(19:50):
that you, it's a water you swim in, right?
You heard so much about the genocide of of Palestinians by
the Israelis. You're convinced that it's true
in the same way that they were convinced that the Jews are
using blood of babies for to create their matzahs.
It's exactly this you you thought that Jews were
indiscriminatorily killing Christian babies and now you're
(20:10):
convinced that the IDF is indiscriminatorily killing
Palestinian babies, which is just that's why we keep saying
this is the blood libel of today.
So let's define anti Zionism is exactly what you said.
Zionism is Israel's right to exist.
Or it's the right for the Jews to have a a country somewhere in
their ancestral homeland. Exactly that's that's all it is
(20:30):
okay when you're an anti Zionist, you not.
It doesn't mean that you can't criticize the state of Israel,
the government of Israel, policies of Israel, politicians
in Israel. In fact, I was fired by the
Israeli government. You were fired by VB Netanyahu's
government as the special envoy for anti-Semitism because you
were critical of the Netanyahu government's judicial reform
(20:52):
policy. And I was speaking up and I was
like, this policy is not good and shouldn't pass and will not
pass I. Think what people are interested
in is the extent to which one can criticize the government of
Israel. Yeah and not be seen as anti
Zionist. That's exactly what you said.
It's literally that criticized the government of Israel all you
(21:12):
like, But if you're denying Israel's right to exist, that's
where it moved to the other side.
OK, Do you? Because a lot of people, and
when a lot of people are like, if you don't know that this
conversation exists and people are surprised that people are,
they don't understand the conversation about whether
Israel should exist or not is even in the zeitgeist.
But it is. So if you are criticizing
(21:35):
Israel, criticizing Israeli policies, totally fine.
You can criticize Israel as longas you want, whatever.
This is what democracy is about.In fact, I do it.
A lot of Israelis people do it. That's that's what we do, right?
But if you say that Israel does not have the right to exist as a
Jewish state, why only Israel? Yeah.
Which other countries are up fordebate?
(21:56):
Which other countries their existence is is questioned.
Yeah, it's the only country in the world that people are like
should it should it exist though?
There are a lot of of people in the specifically in the far left
on this conversation, right thatare like looking at Israel as
the last colonial kind of last bastion of colonialism that
(22:16):
needs to be removed from the world just for the for
everything to be OK, for the world to be safe again.
Which is again an anti-Semitic trope because in the olden days
around Nazi Germany, people's concept was we'll just remove
the Jews and the world would be a better place.
Now people are actually saying let's just dismantle Israel and
(22:38):
the world would be a better place.
It's the same. They're just like there's a
source of Eve on the world and it's Israel, so let's just get
rid of Israel and everything is going to be fine.
That's the uptick in anti-Semitism that we're seeing
right now because people taking it upon themselves to get rid of
the world jewelry, right, and attack Jews because of the
(22:59):
perceived actions that Israel's took in Gaza.
OK, so is it possible that thereare those who are critical of
the IDF and this Israeli government's actions in Gaza?
Is it possible that those criticisms are genuinely related
(23:19):
to this government's prosecutionof the war in Gaza, rather than
those criticisms being caused orfuelled by Jew hatred?
Yes, absolutely. In fact, the war in Gaza was
horrific. Absolutely horrific.
Heartbreaking. And the sad part about it is
that as a liberal Israeli who also understands radical Islam,
(23:42):
I knew within 5 minutes of the October 7th attack, while it was
still happening, that Gaza is going to turn to rubble we were
sitting and talking about. This How do you feel about?
Oh my God, Gaza is going to likeI it was devastating because we
knew that what yes and Mar did was he basically put Gaza on the
as a. Who was the mastermind behind
(24:04):
the 10/7? He all in, he sacrificed Gaza
and he sacrificed his people. We knew that what they knew
exactly what they were doing. You don't hold back your
criticisms of this Israeli government's prosecution of the
war in Gaza. No, I think the war was
horrible, but what else could wehave done?
Yeah, that's that's the terriblepart about it.
It's it's like this is. Well, so I mean, there there is
(24:26):
an American general, David Petraeus, A4 star general who
gave, you know, notes to the IDFat one point saying that, you
know, perhaps a counterinsurgency strategy.
Of course, this wasn't really a counterinsurgency.
No, but, but, you know, so therehave been critiques of the IDs
prosecution of the war by peoplewho I think we wouldn't call
anti-Semitic. Literally, it's just.
(24:46):
AI don't think there's a single American who would look at how
the United States, how we have conducted wars here in the
United States and wouldn't find ways to improve on them.
Yeah, war is a dirty business. Yeah, war is horrible.
I will never look at any single war on like the the the side
that was attacked, whether it's the United States or Israel and
say everything was perfect. It makes no sense.
(25:06):
Obviously it's never perfect andwe never wanted to happen, but
we knew it was coming because they knew it was coming.
When you, you know it, the conversation, as we've discussed
the conversations that Americansand American Jews have about the
war in Gaza and Israeli politics, it is very different,
I think, than the nature of the conversations Israelis have
(25:28):
amongst themselves. When you make the argument about
the prosecution of the war in Gaza to your Israeli friends to
the right who believe it has been conducted properly.
Yeah, what is that conversation?I don't think there's anybody
right now. The war in Gaza was 2 1/2 years
of our daughters and sons going into a dirty situation.
(25:51):
I don't think there's anybody inthe country who would say
everything was perfect. It was always perfect.
There's no such thing. Obviously leftists in Israel or
Middle or whatever would criticize the government more.
More than you can imagine here in America.
Like what is the dynamic? Of anybody who's defending every
single action, of everything that happened, this was.
(26:12):
There are people to your right, but there are people to your
right who are less willing to tobe critical.
Like what are the what is the like for Americans who don't,
who aren't Privy to like the dynamics of those conversations?
What? What is?
What is the rebuttal? Well, depends on I guess the
right wing in Israel would say everything was perfect.
We went in all, you know, we went all in.
(26:34):
We had to go hard. And the left would say did we
have to go all the way? Did we have to go, You know, we
could have done less, you know, here and less there.
But again, this is not somethingthat can be litigated,
definitely not with while the fog of wars so.
It's still going on, and again. It's it's very hard for
Americans to understand the mentality of jihadism.
(26:56):
It's very hard for Americans to understand that some people
don't want to just have a great life, that some people prefer to
sacrifice their children. Because you said even the most
progressive is rallies. Yes, yes.
Understand jihadism in a way that even the most right wing
Americans don't? Exactly.
Tell me more. Well, I am AI was born and
(27:18):
raised a liberal Israeli, right?So I was very clear about what
Israel has done wrong and every,you know, it was very, very
clear. It's a democracy.
It's a flourishing democracy. But even me and my friends and
everybody that I know, when you're four generation Middle
Eastern, right, you know that we're dealing with a culture
that is not the same as us. It just isn't.
(27:39):
And I'm not talking about the entirety of Islam and I'm not
talking about all I'm talking about the culture of jihadism is
a culture that does not look at life in the same way that we do.
Life here does not matter. It's the afterlife.
And if I kill you or I kill myself in the name of God,
right? It's a better choice.
It's a better life. So it's very hard for us to
(28:01):
understand that the concept of human shield, the concept of
martyrdom, the concept of a mother who is happy that her
child went and became a suicide bomber, like it's, it's hard for
Americans to fathom this. And as an Israeli, a liberal,
progressive Israeli, I moved here and I'm like, Oh my God,
you have no idea what you're dealing with.
(28:22):
So people don't understand what they're dealing with.
They don't know the culture, they don't know the history, yet
they feel the need to criticize Israel and to voice their
opinion. And it's just, you know, if it
wouldn't have been so dangerous and sad, it would have been a
little funny. After William F Buckley
published his book on anti-Semitism in 1992, he hosted
(28:43):
an episode on the original program with a Jewish
conservative writer by the name of Norman Fedoretz.
Here is Fedoretz talking about the evolution of anti-Semitism.
It seems that anti-Semitic passions, for reasons that
nobody quite understands, are inextinguishable and if they
don't have one outlet, they willfind another.
(29:04):
And, and, and most of the anti-Semitic ideas and attitudes
that were directed against individual Jews or Jewish
communities in the Diaspora in the past have now been
translated into the terms of into the language of
international affairs and, and been been attached to Israel, to
the Jewish state as the state, Jewish state among the the
(29:25):
nations, just as the Jews among the people.
Has the Jewish state among the nations just as the Jews among
the people? Yes, and I I say often that
Israel turned into the Jew of the world.
Israel has become the world. 'S Jew, yeah.
What do you mean by that? So.
So here's the thing for throughout history, the Jew.
(29:47):
The Jew, right, The Jew. Meaning a pejorative term, a
derisive term, a derisive term. Like, yeah, I'm a Jew, it's
great, but. The Jew was always used in order
to describe whatever is like themost loathsome in a society at
any given time. So I'm going to borrow what my
friend Yosik Leina Levy actuallysaid and how he described it
because I found it to be profound and very eloquent and
(30:10):
accurate, Right? So throughout history, they use
the Jew to describe whatever it is that is wrong with society in
any given moment. So whatever it is, is loadsome
and low and whatever. In the days of Christianity, the
Jew was the the killer, the bloodthirsty, and the days of
Hitler, the Jew was a racial inferior was the vermin in
(30:32):
communism or or socialist or theJew is the communist or the Jew
is the socialist. Whatever it is that's
fashionable to hate, you plug onthe Jew, right?
So today, what are the worst things to be in a polite
society? Racist, colonialist, and white
supremacist. Those are the things that
(30:54):
society today that like, that kind of like polite society
frowns upon. And lo and behold, what?
What do they pin it on? It's on the Jewish state.
So they literally take the Jewish state now and pin
everything that the. Israel is guilty of Israel is.
A white colonialist country, which is ridiculous because
Israel is literally a refugee state that was decolonized from
Great Britain, right? And Israel is a racist country,
(31:17):
which is crazy because it's not even a white country to begin
with. And Israel's, you know, a white
supremacist, colonialist, racistcountry, which none of it is
true. But for people, this is what
sticks because it's old. It's it's almost like epigenetic
old memory that for people that they have this, there's a
suspicious, the built in suspicious around Jews.
And when they have this kind of unidentified suspicion towards
(31:40):
Jews, kind of like, yeah, there's something off with that
group of people, right? They hear something bad about
Israel and it just fits, just fits.
I want to say one more thing to anti-Semitism and why honestly,
should other people care? Because anti-Semitism and the
rise in anti-Semitism is not about the Jewish people and it's
(32:01):
not about Israel. And I need people to understand
that there's a lot at stakes here.
OK, so what's at stake is the West as we know it.
What we know about anti-Semitismis that as a disease, as a
cancer in society, anti-Semitismstarts with the Jews, but it
never ends with the Jews. So when people start believing
(32:24):
anti-Semitism, when people startbuying into that conspiracy
theory about Jewish power and control and bloodthirsty and
whatnot, it erodes society as weknow it.
Meaning they start believing conspiracy theories, they start
distrusting institutions, right?They start the society starts to
fall apart. At the scene you can look back
(32:45):
at every society that had allowed anti-Semitism to take
hold and you see that it crumbles and it's not because
the Jews are doing anything, it's because it takes down the
fund foundation of a society. Look at Germany before World War
2 how the Jews were a part of the fabric of society.
So many German Jews. My family is my grandfather, my
(33:06):
grandparents came from Germany. And that's what that's what we
should care about it because what starts with the Jews never
ends with the Jews. And it indicates a disease in in
a society. It's, you know, that's why they
call it the Canary in the coal mine.
Like it shows that something is off to.
Society to that end then I want to ask you about anti-Semitism
where it has reared its ugly head here in the United States
(33:28):
recently. Yeah, it it, it is not isolated
to either the left or the right,but we are seeing it on the left
and the right first. Is it worse on the left or the
right from your perspective? No, it's not.
It's both. I I first of all, so
anti-Semitism comes from the farleft and the far right and
(33:51):
Islamism, so radical Islam, far left, far right.
And it's the horseshoe theory, what we call that if you're
going to go to the host tree, what unites the far left and far
right as their hatred, hatred ofthe Jewish people, which is,
which is, you know, ironic, but I guess they can agree on
something, which is, which is a good thing for them.
I don't think it's worse in one side or the other.
(34:12):
In the past 20 something years, I have identified anti-Semitism
on the left as being worse and more dangerous because I saw
that people don't see it at all.So I was in a liberal Israeli
moving to the United States and I was able to see how people are
so suspicious about Israel and so weird when that conversation
comes up, they're like have a very bizarre reaction to Israel
(34:33):
and was able to identify that asbias towards Israel that's based
on kind of subconscious anti-Semitism to some extent.
But in recent years, and whereasanti-Semitism from the right was
disrespected by a lot of polite society, meaning it always
existed. It was always the Jews are more.
It was more like the Nazi kind of old school, good old flavor
(34:55):
of Jews are dirty and Jews are greedy and Jews are it wasn't
money with polite language. It wasn't.
Now it is. Now it actually is.
Jews are greedy. Jews are money grabbers.
Jews are controlling America through Israel, so that's where
it came. And we see the uptick both on
the left and on the right in America.
(35:16):
And by now, in this race to the bottom of horribleness, I don't
think one of them is worse than the other.
I think they're both terrible and both dangerous.
In November, Tucker Carlson hosted the anti semite Nick
Fuentes Yep on his podcast train, which he criticized.
Quote organized jewelry in America.
Yep, he described himself as a fan of Joseph Stalin.
(35:36):
Of Hitler as well. And over the last few months,
there have been, there's, there's been a major fallout
around this, this inflection point on the right.
Even JD Vance refused to denounce Tucker Carlson.
There's also several media reports recently, the Trump
administration social media messaging has echoed white
nationalist propaganda. There's adhs and White House
(35:57):
posts that have appeared to reference the book Which Way
Western man? Which was this white supremacist
text that argued that Hitler wasright the Department of Labor
post used the phrase one homeland, one people 1 heritage,
which. Nazi.
Was is similar to World War 2 slogan Ekbone and Reich and
Fuhrer? Does this concern you?
(36:19):
Yes, of course it does, because I don't believe that the rights
reaction to woke ISM should be oh, if they don't let us say
anything, then we can say everything.
That should not be the reaction,because there is some, there
should be some limit on hate speech.
There really shouldn't. I know it's not a popular
opinion, but there should be something.
(36:40):
And I don't even know that it should be legality.
Or is it just that there's not an appropriate average?
Sense, common sense, is what we have as a society drifted away
from and through social media. And this is something that's a
little bit more deep, so maybe we can get into that through
(37:02):
social media, our addiction to amygdala.
Sort of the addiction to that. Rage, the addiction to the drug,
the the hormones that are getting released by fear and
outrage are dominating our political discourse completely
and entirely. So the reason I would assume
that JD Vance doesn't want to denounce Tucker Carlson is
(37:23):
because he doesn't want to get the the the media, the social
media heat and literally doesn'twant to get people on Twitter
being like angry at him. And there I don't see another
reason to that because I would, I would eventually say.
Actually represent a real political base of the Republican
Party. I do think it.
I mean, it strikes me that again, there's been a massive
political thought over this. I mean, half of the Heritage
(37:44):
Foundation's board of trustees resigned and joined Mike Pence's
yeah portioning think tank. I mean, and so I think it's I
mean. Probably.
More than just social media outrage, it's that it actually
represents real cohesion of political support in the
Republican Party. Now that is something new.
And it's helped by social media.The reason that it was created
is because this, this the reasonthat this rift was created is
(38:07):
because of forces that are literally fighting against us to
divide us, actually coming against us to divide us.
That they're, they're tearing a part of this fabric of American
Society through Black Lives Matter, through the Jews,
through, you know, people are actually getting radicalized
entirely and completely. So JD Vance doesn't want to
(38:27):
stand up against them. Yeah, but some somebody has to
pull this back in. Some sort of reign on speech
should happen as as a discourse,as a social discord.
And it's not happening right now.
They think it's politically advantageous for them and it's
very sad because as always, again, tail is all this time,
anti-Semitism is politically advantageous right now on the
(38:50):
left and on the right, and we need to fight against that.
An avowed anti Zionist, Zoran Mandani is now the mayor of New
York. Since taking office, he has.
His heart, as we say in the South.
His heart bless his since takingoffice he's repealed executive
orders that adopted the International Holocaust
Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism and another one
(39:11):
that prohibited city employees from participating in BDS, the
Boycott, Divest and sanction movement, which pushes the myth
at Israel is an apartheid state.He has also spoken out at times
against anti-Semitism and recently against pro Hamas
protests. Thank you.
After being there was a degree, there is a degree of criticism
(39:33):
about how long it took him to speak outlook before he took
office. You said that New York Jews were
very, very concerned. Yeah.
About him. How are they feeling now?
Kind of very concerned, very concerned.
And when he came into office andimmediately revoked IRO, which
is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition
of anti-Semitism, which is basically a tool to help people
understand what anti-Semitism is, there's no reason to revoke
(39:54):
that. When he did that immediately and
all of the hirings that he has and people that he put in place,
they're all anti Zionist, even if they're Jewish.
And by that you have to understand that he is
gaslighting the Jewish community.
So for him to say, yes, I support Jews, see I'm hiring
Jews, and all the Jews that he'shiring are tokenized because of
(40:16):
their fringe opinions. You can equate it to if you have
a black outreach and you use themost fringe voices, which I
don't even want to name, which we all know who they are on the
black community and say that's my representative of the black
community, which clearly. Says he's tokenizing Jews in his
administration. Yes, he is.
He's tokenizing Jews at his administration and all the Jews
(40:38):
that he has around him and everybody has around him are
people that do not support the existence of Israel, which is
against the majority of literally almost there.
It's like 95% of American jewelry once Israel exist, if
not more. I'm not sure where the number is
right now, but Israel has to exist and feel connected,
connection and affinity with thestate of Israel.
So that's what he's doing. We are.
(40:59):
We're not convinced at all. One of the reasons he was
elected and one of the reasons he has been so successful is
because he has demonstrated himself to be a very good
listener. He has met with the Jewish
leaders. He has met with rabbis.
Many of them stood up and said that they were comfortable with
his election. If you could meet with him,
would you? And what would you say to?
(41:20):
Him, I would first say reinstateIRA first and foremost because
the reason he's upset about IRA is because of this one line that
talks about. IRA is the International
Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism.
So the first thing to indicate to the Jewish community that
you're actually standing with usis to reinstate IRA and to just
all it is. It's not even a legal
(41:41):
definition. It's not a bindingly definition.
It's a tool for people to understand what anti-Semitism.
Exactly, which is a tricky thingto understand, as we talked
about at the beginning of the show, right?
So first and foremost, reinstateIra and have a conversation with
people that do think Israel has the right to exist as the
homeland of the Jewish people. Because he say it said very
clearly that he does not believethat Israel has the right to
(42:02):
exist on the debate stage as a Jewish state.
Because he doesn't believe that any country should Orient itself
around ethnicity or race. And to that I would ask him,
what about Japan? What about the rest of the
country, did he say? It doesn't have a right to
exist, he say. It doesn't have a right to exist
as a Jewish state. Yes, he said.
It doesn't. Religious state as a religious
state. He does.
He qualified the state. That's the thing.
(42:22):
He always has this word salad, right?
He always, he knows how to play around with words, but we see
through it, right? So when asked flat out, do you
think Israel has the right to exist, he goes, yes, absolutely,
sure. But then when asked as a Jewish
state, he doesn't answer, doesn't answer, doesn't answer.
And then he says, I don't believe that any country has the
right to exist. And when it's organized around
(42:43):
ethnicity or religion. And what I say to that is what
about the 22 other countries that are Muslim countries?
What about countries that are ethnically kind of cohesive like
China and Japan, Japan. What about what do you have?
Do you have anything against Japan?
What I'm saying is this. We live in the greatest country
in the world in which America isthe exception to the rule.
It's organized around a set of ideas.
(43:05):
The majority of countries aroundthe world are organized around
some sort of an ethnicity. And it's okay.
It's not perfect. It's not America, but that's
what it is. If you are against Israel, why
aren't you against Japan? But he's not.
He's only against Israel. And to him it's a feature, it's
not a bug. A huge part of who he is is his
anti Zionism, anti Israel activism.
(43:26):
It's a huge part of his political identity.
I would fear and would say that a huge part of his political
career and a huge part of who heis and the reason they got into
politics is the the desire to dismantle Israel as a Jewish
state. And we all need to keep a very
close eye on what he does in thefuture.
What does that mean for the population of New York's Jews?
(43:47):
Which has the largest populationof Jews outside of Israel?
I don't believe in recoiling, soI love the Jews that are
actually saying I'm sticking around, I'm fighting it out.
I think it's important. But I do have a lot of friends
who packed up and left, a lot ofJews that are like.
New York City, Yeah, since the. Election yeah, yeah.
And, and, and the other thing again that I want to explain to
(44:08):
people in terms of the Jewish experience, right, is that the
Jewish experience around the world for thousands of years has
always been, where do we go next?
Every few generations, every fewyears, there's a conversation at
a dinner table, at a kitchen table somewhere of a Jewish
family sitting around being like, OK.
(44:29):
I mean, if you can't be in New York, if you can't be in New
York, where can you go? Final question, in your book
Israel, A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood country in On
Earth, you describe A2 state solution as quote, arguably the
only solution we can think of today that will create stability
in the region. Yes, unless you can give me
something else. You have dismissed the idea of
(44:49):
recognizing A Palestinian state since October 7th because you
have called it magical thinking because, quote, there is a lot
of work that needs to be done toeven have that conversation.
Yes. What is that work that needs to
be done? Well, first of all, I believe
that October 7th took the Palestinian cause years
backwards and it took the Palestinian cause years
backwards because for Israelis, Israelis are mortified by the
(45:13):
concept and the thought of a Palestinian state side by side
with Israel. Because we saw what happens when
we left Gaza and we got October 7th.
So every Israeli is very concerned and you would totally
agree and understand why. That's number one.
Number two, there has to be an education and a region of the
population there because they were left to jihadi ideology and
(45:34):
became a radicalized group of people.
And they deserve better. They deserve a Palestinian
leadership that can actually move them forward to the next
century and beyond, and a Palestinian leadership that
doesn't believe in jihadism and doesn't believe in Mid Ages,
Middle Ages sense of, of living under Sharia law.
That's what needs to happen. I also think that around October
(45:56):
7th, what happened, which is theresult that we're seeing in Gaza
right now, is the world understood that they can't do it
alone? Yeah, and that's a bad thing for
them. The world understood that they
can't. Left to their own devices, they
come up with October 7th, which is why the US and the Board of
Peace and everybody's taken overGaza, because the world
understood that if they are at it alone, Hamas is the one that
(46:18):
takes. Charge radical Islamism.
Takes charge. My sense is that's not a good
thing for the Palestinian peopleat all.
So a lot of work that needs to be done, a lot of work in
rebuilding a civil society. Or rebuilding a civilization,
The trust of Israelis first and foremost.
There's not a single Israeli right now would hand over land.
The most radical of left would be like, wait a second, can you
(46:41):
guarantee my safety? Right.
That's number one. And #2 yeah.
De radicalization of the population there in order to
bring them into this century andnot the 1500s.
During Hanukkah, you recorded daily videos of candle lights
with celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Amy Schumer.
Does that help the PR battle? I that's such a beautiful
(47:04):
campaign that we that we do. This is the second year, so I
guess we can call it annual Hanukkah candle lighting.
So Hanukkah is a holiday which you mandated to be proud Jewish.
And a huge part of what I do in my life is inspired Jewish pride
for the younger generation. And it's very powerful that I'm
able to do this with people thatare such role models for so many
(47:26):
people. So last year we had Gwyneth
Paltrow and Gaga dot and Cindy Crawford and Tiffany Haddish and
this year and a lot of other amazing, amazing people.
And this year we had Pink and Amy Schumer and Mila Kunitz and
Ashton Kutcher and and Andy Owen.
And it's not about PR. It's about pride and knowledge.
So the better you know yourself and your identity and where you
(47:49):
come from and the better youngergeneration and people know what
being Jewish is about and be proud of it.
That's the only thing that's going to actually end
anti-Semitism at the end. It's going to take a long time.
It's not happening anytime soon.But I believe this is the one
thing that can actually strengthen the Jewish community
and therefore the world is to beproud of who we are and know our
history and know our heritage and be loud and proud in our
(48:12):
Jewish identity. Know it's history.
Thank you for joining me on fire.
Anti-Semitism. The rise in anti-Semitism is not
about the Jewish people, and it's not about Israel as a
disease, as a cancer in society.anti-Semitism starts with the
Jews, but it never ends with theJews.
You can look back at every society that had allowed
anti-Semitism to take hold and you see that it crumbles.
That's former anti-Semitism envoy Noah Tishby laying out the
(00:23):
stakes of the battle against anti-Semitism.
I'm Margaret Hoover. This is THE Firing Line podcast.
Actress, producer and best selling author Noah Tishbi has
been fighting anti-Semitism for years around the world and
online, including a stint as Israel's first special envoy for
(00:43):
combating anti-Semitism. This demonization of Israel is
not progressive, it's not peaceful, and it's sure as heck
not going to free Palestine. Amid a global surge in violence
against Jews, she believes centuries old hatred has morphed
into open hostility toward Israel.
The Jew was always used in orderto describe whatever is like the
(01:03):
most loathsome in a society at any given time.
Tishbi is alarmed by what she's seeing on the American right.
I don't believe that the rights reaction to woke ISM should be
oh if they don't let us say anything then we can say
everything. And on the left.
There are a lot of people in that are like looking at Israel
as the last bastion of colonialism that needs to be
removed from the world. But she maintains Israel's
(01:27):
government should not be immune to criticism.
I don't think there's anybody who's defending every single
action of everything that happened.
So where exactly does she draw the line?
You can criticize Israel as longas you want, but if you say that
Israel does not have the right to exist as a Jewish state, why
only Israel? Noah Tishbi, welcome to Firing
(01:50):
Line. Thank you so much for having me.
This week, Israel welcomed home the remains of Ron Vili, the
final hostage from October 7th, on the same week that the world
marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day for Israelis.
What is the significance of thisnews?
(02:13):
Huge, huge significance because of the connection for Israelis
between October 7th and the Holocaust.
So I'm getting goosebumps party,my God.
So first of all, I want to mention that his mom, Ron
Vilay's mom said that he's he was the first one in.
He volunteered, he jumped in. He was not supposed he was at
home. He and wounded.
(02:33):
He was not supposed to go get drafted.
He was not supposed to go save people and he did.
He jumped on his uniform and went straight in and his mom
said he is the first one in and he's going to be the last one
out. Joking way.
Yes, you did. Like ironically, she said.
I just know he's going to be thelast one out, right When they
knew that he is first a hostage and they realized that he was
(02:54):
deceased and it ended up being the case.
He was the first one in and the last one out and was horrible.
And the thing that is so powerful for every Israeli is
because of the connection between October 7th and the
Holocaust. And let me explain why.
When October 7th happened, within 2 seconds of this attack
(03:14):
occurring, every Jew understood what is happening.
Every Jew around the world felt in their bones that we knew
exactly what was going on. We knew that this is a targeted
attack that is anti-Semitic in its nation in its essence and
that is vicious and violent and animalistic in the most barbaric
of ways. The same stories that we heard
(03:34):
in the Holocaust happened on October 7th.
So the Jewish community in epigenetic way was thrown back
to a time in which children werehiding in closets and we
suddenly started hearing the same story.
Oh my God, this family was that the seven-year old was hiding in
the closet and two babies were underneath their parents.
And you know, all these stories and there was a rage that's
(03:55):
coming out from the Jewish community and a profound
knowledge of what this was. I'll tell you a personal story
that happened to me that was such a such a powerful and
depressing incident that connected the 2 events.
So throughout the process after October 7th, I went to Israel
pretty much right away after a month or so and started
interviewing survivors and hostage families and became very
(04:19):
vocal in in educating the world about what this is and helping
to return the hostages back home.
I met at a rehabilitation centera girl named Nam Bin Navid.
Nam Bin Navid was a 26 year old girl when she went to the Nova
party with her boyfriend David and she.
They escaped at 6:30 AM when theattack happened and they were
(04:41):
hiding in a trash bin along with16 other people.
She was hiding underneath in underneath garbage in the trash
bin. At some point, Hamas terrorists
basically walked into the trash bin and sprayed everybody.
That was Insight killing her boyfriend and 13 other people in
(05:04):
that trash bin. And Noam spent hours lying
underneath dead bodies waiting to be rescued.
She was hit in the hip, bleedingunder trash and under dead
bodies cover, like using people's bodies to cover herself
up so she can hide from the terrorists.
And she's sitting there and she's telling me that story.
And that is the exact story thatmy grandmother's sister had in
(05:28):
the Holocaust. That is the same story that I
heard growing up of Gita, who was in a village in Poland and
was taken away outside with the entire village and her husband
and their children. And they were shot.
And she had to hide underneath the bodies of her dead children
and husband until she can escapewhen night fell and find her way
(05:51):
to Israel. And that, that connection
between these two events, the symmetry of the, of the, of the
history of the Jewish people repeating itself again was
shocking. And it culminated when this week
when Ron was returned on International Holocaust
Remembrance Day. President Trump credited Hamas
actually for working quote very hard to get the body back of Ron
(06:15):
Vili and and you have. I think that's the definition of
gaslighting, not President Trump.
Hamas. So Hamas is causing the problem
and then helping to solve it. So excuse me if I don't.
Well, for Hamas, well, for what?I mean, President Trump did
credit Hamas for working very hard to return the body of Ron
(06:36):
Feely. And you've praised President
Trump from time to time, particularly his his plan last
fall. Are you still confident that his
peace plan can lead to a new Middle East?
I would love that. I would love.
That, but are you confident because there's this phase one
(06:56):
and there's phase two and and, and so of course you're
optimistic and you want it to happen but.
And that's what we need to hold.Are we holding in front of our
in front of our faces? I'll tell you the problem that
has been from the beginning. The problem is that this peace
plan was absolutely brilliant. The problem is that Hamas never
agreed to it. Well, so I've I've never I to me
right. It was it was like a peace plan
(07:18):
needs to enemies to agree to truce or peace plan or.
Commit to some kind of agree. Something So for me, the fact
that President Trump was able tobring in Qatar and Turkey and
Saudi Arabia and the Emiratis and everybody together,
countries that don't usually agree about much anything and
and Israel of course and the United States was extraordinary.
(07:39):
I'm just waiting for Hamas to actually agree to do something
and be pushed properly by the Arab countries in the region to
be removed from power and to basically not be who they are,
which is that that's that's the tricky part.
Hamas is a resistance movement. Hamas is a a jihadi terrorist
organization that is priding itself and resisting to the
(08:01):
state of Israel, resisting to Jewish the sovereignty in the
Middle East, resisting to Western values, resisting to the
United States. That's who they are.
So they need to be dismantled completely, entirely remove
their arms and, and, and be removed from power completely.
So am I optimistic? Absolutely, because I do believe
(08:23):
that we always have to just we always have to hold peace as the
ultimate goal and whatever needsto happen in the process, we'll
get through this. But hold that.
But I'm very optimistic. But I don't trust Hamas at all,
not even a little bit. In recent weeks, you have posted
several videos voicing support for the protesters in Iran.
(08:45):
You've called on the US to intervene.
And you said, quote, if you careabout human rights, talk about
Iran. How does Iran fit into the
broader fight against anti-Semitism?
It's a great question. It's not just the broader fight
against anti-Semitism, it's the broader fight for a safer world.
So when you think of every conflict that's happening in the
(09:06):
world right now, almost all of them, when you track back to
where they start and where they come and where they're funded
from and who's behind them, you will find the Islamic Republic
of Iran, whether it's Hezbollah or Hamas or the Houthis that are
bugging and attacking not just Israel and the United States,
but also the Saudis and the Emiratis, right?
They're destabilizing force in the Middle East and therefore a
destabilizing force in the West.And here's what people need to
(09:28):
understand that. I'm sure a lot of your viewers
know this, but in a profound kind of way, it's harder for
liberal to accept religious radicalism of any sort.
It's easier for people who are. Do you?
Mean an American liberal. American liberal or European
liberal or any kind of liberal, if you're a secular person, you
(09:49):
don't believe that people can bethat fundamentalistly religious,
right? If you're a religious person in
America or anywhere else you go,Oh, well, they just, they're
wrong and they're faith, but they have faith.
Does that make sense? That's what the Islamic Republic
of Iran is representing. So in 1979 when the revolution
happened, it was the first time that the Muslim world saw a
country that was run by Muslim law, by Islamic Islamists and
(10:13):
and fully by a caliphate, A Sharia law taking the ideas of
Islam, which were I guess fantastic in the times when
Muhammad was around for some people, but really don't qualify
for anything that we can stand up for right now.
Meaning educating girls should be off the table.
As Sam Harris says, you know, ifa woman gets raped, she needs to
(10:36):
produce 3 witnesses in order to corroborate her rape.
And if not, she's considered theadulterer and she can be
punished by death and stoning, but she can actually redeem
herself if she marries her rapist.
That's a culture that we cannot stand behind, that we have to
stand against no matter what. So in 1979, when the Islamic
Republic of Iran took power, they brought forth this optimism
(11:00):
for Islamist world, for the Islamist world, for the radical
political Islamic world, that, hey, that's possible and that
should not be possible anymore. We need to be very clear that
Islamic fundamentalism should not be accepted in normal
society. So to me, the people of Iran
have been trying to tell us for years that they don't want this.
(11:21):
They're occupied under their ownregime.
Literally there's a full on gender apartheid happening in
Iran right now. Gender apartheid.
And why aren't liberals talking about that beyond I just.
It defies logic to be honest. President Trump called for Iran
to either negotiate with the United States or face a
potential to attack. He cited the expeditiousness
(11:46):
with which Nicolas Maduro had been removed from his post.
Of which it all happened. You blinked it up.
And and warships have been sent to the region, led by an
American aircraft carrier. What should the US?
Do I believe that it's time for the Islamic Republic of Iran to
fold and go away? The Islamic Republic of Iran
(12:08):
should not be controlling the the Iranian people.
Is it the Americans job to make that happen?
I don't know who else's job it is because if you think of 80 +
1,000,000 people, they are not armed and they are against
fighting against an Islamic regime that has the
Revolutionary Guard and has the besieged and has the military
(12:28):
and its armed to the tee and itsentire apparatus is in order to
control their people. The is is, it's it's designed to
maintain this Islamist rule overthe people.
I don't know that they can do iton their own.
So I really hope that the US that Israel, that the MI 6
whoever is there building an opposition that can actually
(12:53):
take do over the regime. Have have you seen evidence that
there is an opposition movement that is ready to govern?
Yes, but it does. Democratic Iran.
But that is, yes, there's an opposition that is ready to
govern. They're all calling for Reza
Palavi to be back. As a sort of transitional
transition, is the phone the Shah's son?
(13:13):
Yeah, the Shah's son. I'll tell you what I am more
concerned about and what I'm where I'm hoping intelligence
operations around the world, they're working and that is
defecting, finding defectors from the besiege and from the
Revolutionary Guard and from thea military that would actually
help and stand by their people. Because this is the only way
(13:33):
that it, because it's really themilitary that runs Iran.
I mean, the mullahs run Iran, the mullahs and the
revolutionary. Guard it's the Supreme leader
and and the and the Revolutionary Guard.
But we need to see defectors from the military apparatus in
Iran, the move to the other side.
And I'm really hoping that our intelligence and other countries
(13:55):
around the world are working towards it and, and have
identified them. That's what needs to happen
along with an attack, a strategic attack on on
Revolutionary Guard targets and so on and so forth.
Obviously, nobody wants to attack the Iranian people.
They're actually extraordinary. With respect to anti-Semitism
(14:15):
and the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, horrific acts
of anti-Semitism have been committed in the last year.
Last December at Bondi Beach, 15Jews were slaughtered while
celebrating Hanukkah in Australia.
In Manchester, an attacker drovea car into pedestrians before
stabbing worshippers at a synagogue on Yom Kippur. 2
(14:39):
employees of the Israeli embassyin Washington, DC were shot
outside the Jewish Museum last May.
Why do you think vile acts of anti-Semitism and violent acts
of anti-Semitism are happening now?
Taylor's oldest time, so there's.
An uptick. There is a categorical uptick of
(15:02):
of violent acts of anti-Semitismaround the world.
Definitely. Why now?
So let's go back for a second and explain what anti-Semitism
is and what it isn't. So anti-Semitism is not racism
and anti-Semitism is not equatedto a so-called Islamophobia.
anti-Semitism is not looking down at somebody because you
(15:24):
feel like you're more than them and they're less than you.
It's not as simple as that. So when you're racist toward a
certain type of, you know, personality, race, ethnicity,
sexual orientation, you think that you're better than them and
you're like, oh, that low thing,whatever that person is,
anti-Semitism is not that. So anti-Semitism is a shape
shifting conspiracy theory, meaning you attribute to the
(15:47):
Jews mythological powers, essence of control,
conspiratorial attitudes, desireof dual loyalty, suspicious kind
of attributes so and so on and so forth.
So and it's and it's shape shifting every few generations.
So every time it looks like something totally different.
(16:08):
So you there's a tiny group of people and you kind of look at
them and I go, they're so different and there's got to be
something SUS there, right? Something is suspicious about
that little group of people thathave been doing a lot of things
differently and have been stuck around for so many years.
We don't like them, right? So every few generations
anti-Semitism shifts into something different.
So the first accounts of anti-Semitism we're about 300 BC
(16:31):
in Alexandria. They were talking about these
weird people that have these like weird kind of habits and
and rituals and whatever. That was the first time.
Then it changed into something different with the death of
Christ. It turned into religious based
anti-Semitism. The Jews killed Christ.
Obviously they didn't, the Romans did.
And even if they did, what does that have to do with later on
(16:53):
the years? The Jews get Christ, therefore
they're bloodthirsty and they'reindiscriminatorily murdering
babies and children, you know, to use their blood and and so on
and so forth. Then it became not cool to be
anti-Semitic, to hate people based on their religion and also
out of religion, anti-Semitism. You can convert out.
So you're like, oh, I'm not a, I'm not a Jew anymore and
(17:15):
therefore I'm fine. So a lot of people would convert
into another, another religion that wasn't enough as well.
So anti-Semitism shape shifted again and shape shifted into
political and racial anti-Semitism, which is what the
Nazis used, right? So the Jews are actually a
different race and the different, you know, they're,
they're in politically, we're going to use that in order to
get power. Then after World War 2, that
(17:35):
became not cool again, right? You can't discriminate against
somebody based on their religionor their ethnicity or any of
that. So it shifted into something new
and that is Israel. That is anti Zionism.
So now you discriminate against the Jews, you hate the Jews.
You think that they're suspicious, you think that
they're bloodthirsty based on their peoplehood, based on the
(17:57):
country of their origin, their their ancestral homeland.
You kind of go, yeah, I'm not a Semitic.
I'm just an anti Zionist. It's not about the Jews, it's
about the Zionists. That's what a change into and
I'm going to I'm going to offer something here, right?
I'm sure that you have viewers right now on PBS that are
convinced that Israel committed and commits A genocide,
(18:21):
convinced they're looking at me going, but Israel's committing a
genocide on the Palestinian people, not understanding that
this is today's blood libel, notunderstanding that this is what
it is. No matter how much you hate the
Israeli government, no matter how much you hate war, which we
all do, right? Facts are different to what the
perception is that is the uptickthat we're seeing right now with
anti-Semitism. OK, let's define terms.
(18:44):
Yeah, I have always operated under the the definition that
Zionism is the right of Jews to have a country.
Yeah. For themselves, somewhere.
Yes, in their ancestral home. Exactly.
That's it in parts of their ancestral home.
And in some part of their home. So you have it.
Not Oliver. You published an op-ed with in
(19:05):
the New York Post with Deborah Lebstadt, the Biden
administration's anti-Semitism envoy, who was also a guest on
this program program in the New York Post this week.
And it said, quote, if you claimto oppose anti-Semitism but fail
to recognize that so much of it is now carried out under the
guise of anti Israel activism, then you are not protecting Jews
(19:28):
and fighting bigotry. You're endangering Jews and
protecting bigots. That's exactly it.
Explain how anti Zionism has become anti-Semitic.
This is great. It's not clear for people.
The thing about anti-Semitism isthat it's very it's, it's
insidious and it you don't see it, it's the kind of glasses
(19:50):
that you, it's a water you swim in, right?
You heard so much about the genocide of of Palestinians by
the Israelis. You're convinced that it's true
in the same way that they were convinced that the Jews are
using blood of babies for to create their matzahs.
It's exactly this you you thought that Jews were
indiscriminatorily killing Christian babies and now you're
(20:10):
convinced that the IDF is indiscriminatorily killing
Palestinian babies, which is just that's why we keep saying
this is the blood libel of today.
So let's define anti Zionism is exactly what you said.
Zionism is Israel's right to exist.
Or it's the right for the Jews to have a a country somewhere in
their ancestral homeland. Exactly that's that's all it is
(20:30):
okay when you're an anti Zionist, you not.
It doesn't mean that you can't criticize the state of Israel,
the government of Israel, policies of Israel, politicians
in Israel. In fact, I was fired by the
Israeli government. You were fired by VB Netanyahu's
government as the special envoy for anti-Semitism because you
were critical of the Netanyahu government's judicial reform
(20:52):
policy. And I was speaking up and I was
like, this policy is not good and shouldn't pass and will not
pass I. Think what people are interested
in is the extent to which one can criticize the government of
Israel. Yeah and not be seen as anti
Zionist. That's exactly what you said.
It's literally that criticized the government of Israel all you
(21:12):
like, But if you're denying Israel's right to exist, that's
where it moved to the other side.
OK, Do you? Because a lot of people, and
when a lot of people are like, if you don't know that this
conversation exists and people are surprised that people are,
they don't understand the conversation about whether
Israel should exist or not is even in the zeitgeist.
But it is. So if you are criticizing
(21:35):
Israel, criticizing Israeli policies, totally fine.
You can criticize Israel as longas you want, whatever.
This is what democracy is about.In fact, I do it.
A lot of Israelis people do it. That's that's what we do, right?
But if you say that Israel does not have the right to exist as a
Jewish state, why only Israel? Yeah.
Which other countries are up fordebate?
(21:56):
Which other countries their existence is is questioned.
Yeah, it's the only country in the world that people are like
should it should it exist though?
There are a lot of of people in the specifically in the far left
on this conversation, right thatare like looking at Israel as
the last colonial kind of last bastion of colonialism that
(22:16):
needs to be removed from the world just for the for
everything to be OK, for the world to be safe again.
Which is again an anti-Semitic trope because in the olden days
around Nazi Germany, people's concept was we'll just remove
the Jews and the world would be a better place.
Now people are actually saying let's just dismantle Israel and
(22:38):
the world would be a better place.
It's the same. They're just like there's a
source of Eve on the world and it's Israel, so let's just get
rid of Israel and everything is going to be fine.
That's the uptick in anti-Semitism that we're seeing
right now because people taking it upon themselves to get rid of
the world jewelry, right, and attack Jews because of the
(22:59):
perceived actions that Israel's took in Gaza.
OK, so is it possible that thereare those who are critical of
the IDF and this Israeli government's actions in Gaza?
Is it possible that those criticisms are genuinely related
(23:19):
to this government's prosecutionof the war in Gaza, rather than
those criticisms being caused orfuelled by Jew hatred?
Yes, absolutely. In fact, the war in Gaza was
horrific. Absolutely horrific.
Heartbreaking. And the sad part about it is
that as a liberal Israeli who also understands radical Islam,
(23:42):
I knew within 5 minutes of the October 7th attack, while it was
still happening, that Gaza is going to turn to rubble we were
sitting and talking about. This How do you feel about?
Oh my God, Gaza is going to likeI it was devastating because we
knew that what yes and Mar did was he basically put Gaza on the
as a. Who was the mastermind behind
(24:04):
the 10/7? He all in, he sacrificed Gaza
and he sacrificed his people. We knew that what they knew
exactly what they were doing. You don't hold back your
criticisms of this Israeli government's prosecution of the
war in Gaza. No, I think the war was
horrible, but what else could wehave done?
Yeah, that's that's the terriblepart about it.
It's it's like this is. Well, so I mean, there there is
(24:26):
an American general, David Petraeus, A4 star general who
gave, you know, notes to the IDFat one point saying that, you
know, perhaps a counterinsurgency strategy.
Of course, this wasn't really a counterinsurgency.
No, but, but, you know, so therehave been critiques of the IDs
prosecution of the war by peoplewho I think we wouldn't call
anti-Semitic. Literally, it's just.
(24:46):
AI don't think there's a single American who would look at how
the United States, how we have conducted wars here in the
United States and wouldn't find ways to improve on them.
Yeah, war is a dirty business. Yeah, war is horrible.
I will never look at any single war on like the the the side
that was attacked, whether it's the United States or Israel and
say everything was perfect. It makes no sense.
(25:06):
Obviously it's never perfect andwe never wanted to happen, but
we knew it was coming because they knew it was coming.
When you, you know it, the conversation, as we've discussed
the conversations that Americansand American Jews have about the
war in Gaza and Israeli politics, it is very different,
I think, than the nature of the conversations Israelis have
(25:28):
amongst themselves. When you make the argument about
the prosecution of the war in Gaza to your Israeli friends to
the right who believe it has been conducted properly.
Yeah, what is that conversation?I don't think there's anybody
right now. The war in Gaza was 2 1/2 years
of our daughters and sons going into a dirty situation.
(25:51):
I don't think there's anybody inthe country who would say
everything was perfect. It was always perfect.
There's no such thing. Obviously leftists in Israel or
Middle or whatever would criticize the government more.
More than you can imagine here in America.
Like what is the dynamic? Of anybody who's defending every
single action, of everything that happened, this was.
(26:12):
There are people to your right, but there are people to your
right who are less willing to tobe critical.
Like what are the what is the like for Americans who don't,
who aren't Privy to like the dynamics of those conversations?
What? What is?
What is the rebuttal? Well, depends on I guess the
right wing in Israel would say everything was perfect.
We went in all, you know, we went all in.
(26:34):
We had to go hard. And the left would say did we
have to go all the way? Did we have to go, You know, we
could have done less, you know, here and less there.
But again, this is not somethingthat can be litigated,
definitely not with while the fog of wars so.
It's still going on, and again. It's it's very hard for
Americans to understand the mentality of jihadism.
(26:56):
It's very hard for Americans to understand that some people
don't want to just have a great life, that some people prefer to
sacrifice their children. Because you said even the most
progressive is rallies. Yes, yes.
Understand jihadism in a way that even the most right wing
Americans don't? Exactly.
Tell me more. Well, I am AI was born and
(27:18):
raised a liberal Israeli, right?So I was very clear about what
Israel has done wrong and every,you know, it was very, very
clear. It's a democracy.
It's a flourishing democracy. But even me and my friends and
everybody that I know, when you're four generation Middle
Eastern, right, you know that we're dealing with a culture
that is not the same as us. It just isn't.
(27:39):
And I'm not talking about the entirety of Islam and I'm not
talking about all I'm talking about the culture of jihadism is
a culture that does not look at life in the same way that we do.
Life here does not matter. It's the afterlife.
And if I kill you or I kill myself in the name of God,
right? It's a better choice.
It's a better life. So it's very hard for us to
(28:01):
understand that the concept of human shield, the concept of
martyrdom, the concept of a mother who is happy that her
child went and became a suicide bomber, like it's, it's hard for
Americans to fathom this. And as an Israeli, a liberal,
progressive Israeli, I moved here and I'm like, Oh my God,
you have no idea what you're dealing with.
(28:22):
So people don't understand what they're dealing with.
They don't know the culture, they don't know the history, yet
they feel the need to criticize Israel and to voice their
opinion. And it's just, you know, if it
wouldn't have been so dangerous and sad, it would have been a
little funny. After William F Buckley
published his book on anti-Semitism in 1992, he hosted
(28:43):
an episode on the original program with a Jewish
conservative writer by the name of Norman Fedoretz.
Here is Fedoretz talking about the evolution of anti-Semitism.
It seems that anti-Semitic passions, for reasons that
nobody quite understands, are inextinguishable and if they
don't have one outlet, they willfind another.
(29:04):
And, and, and most of the anti-Semitic ideas and attitudes
that were directed against individual Jews or Jewish
communities in the Diaspora in the past have now been
translated into the terms of into the language of
international affairs and, and been been attached to Israel, to
the Jewish state as the state, Jewish state among the the
(29:25):
nations, just as the Jews among the people.
Has the Jewish state among the nations just as the Jews among
the people? Yes, and I I say often that
Israel turned into the Jew of the world.
Israel has become the world. 'S Jew, yeah.
What do you mean by that? So.
So here's the thing for throughout history, the Jew.
(29:47):
The Jew, right, The Jew. Meaning a pejorative term, a
derisive term, a derisive term. Like, yeah, I'm a Jew, it's
great, but. The Jew was always used in order
to describe whatever is like themost loathsome in a society at
any given time. So I'm going to borrow what my
friend Yosik Leina Levy actuallysaid and how he described it
because I found it to be profound and very eloquent and
(30:10):
accurate, Right? So throughout history, they use
the Jew to describe whatever it is that is wrong with society in
any given moment. So whatever it is, is loadsome
and low and whatever. In the days of Christianity, the
Jew was the the killer, the bloodthirsty, and the days of
Hitler, the Jew was a racial inferior was the vermin in
(30:32):
communism or or socialist or theJew is the communist or the Jew
is the socialist. Whatever it is that's
fashionable to hate, you plug onthe Jew, right?
So today, what are the worst things to be in a polite
society? Racist, colonialist, and white
supremacist. Those are the things that
(30:54):
society today that like, that kind of like polite society
frowns upon. And lo and behold, what?
What do they pin it on? It's on the Jewish state.
So they literally take the Jewish state now and pin
everything that the. Israel is guilty of Israel is.
A white colonialist country, which is ridiculous because
Israel is literally a refugee state that was decolonized from
Great Britain, right? And Israel is a racist country,
(31:17):
which is crazy because it's not even a white country to begin
with. And Israel's, you know, a white
supremacist, colonialist, racistcountry, which none of it is
true. But for people, this is what
sticks because it's old. It's it's almost like epigenetic
old memory that for people that they have this, there's a
suspicious, the built in suspicious around Jews.
And when they have this kind of unidentified suspicion towards
(31:40):
Jews, kind of like, yeah, there's something off with that
group of people, right? They hear something bad about
Israel and it just fits, just fits.
I want to say one more thing to anti-Semitism and why honestly,
should other people care? Because anti-Semitism and the
rise in anti-Semitism is not about the Jewish people and it's
(32:01):
not about Israel. And I need people to understand
that there's a lot at stakes here.
OK, so what's at stake is the West as we know it.
What we know about anti-Semitismis that as a disease, as a
cancer in society, anti-Semitismstarts with the Jews, but it
never ends with the Jews. So when people start believing
(32:24):
anti-Semitism, when people startbuying into that conspiracy
theory about Jewish power and control and bloodthirsty and
whatnot, it erodes society as weknow it.
Meaning they start believing conspiracy theories, they start
distrusting institutions, right?They start the society starts to
fall apart. At the scene you can look back
(32:45):
at every society that had allowed anti-Semitism to take
hold and you see that it crumbles and it's not because
the Jews are doing anything, it's because it takes down the
fund foundation of a society. Look at Germany before World War
2 how the Jews were a part of the fabric of society.
So many German Jews. My family is my grandfather, my
(33:06):
grandparents came from Germany. And that's what that's what we
should care about it because what starts with the Jews never
ends with the Jews. And it indicates a disease in in
a society. It's, you know, that's why they
call it the Canary in the coal mine.
Like it shows that something is off to.
Society to that end then I want to ask you about anti-Semitism
where it has reared its ugly head here in the United States
(33:28):
recently. Yeah, it it, it is not isolated
to either the left or the right,but we are seeing it on the left
and the right first. Is it worse on the left or the
right from your perspective? No, it's not.
It's both. I I first of all, so
anti-Semitism comes from the farleft and the far right and
(33:51):
Islamism, so radical Islam, far left, far right.
And it's the horseshoe theory, what we call that if you're
going to go to the host tree, what unites the far left and far
right as their hatred, hatred ofthe Jewish people, which is,
which is, you know, ironic, but I guess they can agree on
something, which is, which is a good thing for them.
I don't think it's worse in one side or the other.
(34:12):
In the past 20 something years, I have identified anti-Semitism
on the left as being worse and more dangerous because I saw
that people don't see it at all.So I was in a liberal Israeli
moving to the United States and I was able to see how people are
so suspicious about Israel and so weird when that conversation
comes up, they're like have a very bizarre reaction to Israel
(34:33):
and was able to identify that asbias towards Israel that's based
on kind of subconscious anti-Semitism to some extent.
But in recent years, and whereasanti-Semitism from the right was
disrespected by a lot of polite society, meaning it always
existed. It was always the Jews are more.
It was more like the Nazi kind of old school, good old flavor
(34:55):
of Jews are dirty and Jews are greedy and Jews are it wasn't
money with polite language. It wasn't.
Now it is. Now it actually is.
Jews are greedy. Jews are money grabbers.
Jews are controlling America through Israel, so that's where
it came. And we see the uptick both on
the left and on the right in America.
(35:16):
And by now, in this race to the bottom of horribleness, I don't
think one of them is worse than the other.
I think they're both terrible and both dangerous.
In November, Tucker Carlson hosted the anti semite Nick
Fuentes Yep on his podcast train, which he criticized.
Quote organized jewelry in America.
Yep, he described himself as a fan of Joseph Stalin.
(35:36):
Of Hitler as well. And over the last few months,
there have been, there's, there's been a major fallout
around this, this inflection point on the right.
Even JD Vance refused to denounce Tucker Carlson.
There's also several media reports recently, the Trump
administration social media messaging has echoed white
nationalist propaganda. There's adhs and White House
(35:57):
posts that have appeared to reference the book Which Way
Western man? Which was this white supremacist
text that argued that Hitler wasright the Department of Labor
post used the phrase one homeland, one people 1 heritage,
which. Nazi.
Was is similar to World War 2 slogan Ekbone and Reich and
Fuhrer? Does this concern you?
(36:19):
Yes, of course it does, because I don't believe that the rights
reaction to woke ISM should be oh, if they don't let us say
anything, then we can say everything.
That should not be the reaction,because there is some, there
should be some limit on hate speech.
There really shouldn't. I know it's not a popular
opinion, but there should be something.
(36:40):
And I don't even know that it should be legality.
Or is it just that there's not an appropriate average?
Sense, common sense, is what we have as a society drifted away
from and through social media. And this is something that's a
little bit more deep, so maybe we can get into that through
(37:02):
social media, our addiction to amygdala.
Sort of the addiction to that. Rage, the addiction to the drug,
the the hormones that are getting released by fear and
outrage are dominating our political discourse completely
and entirely. So the reason I would assume
that JD Vance doesn't want to denounce Tucker Carlson is
(37:23):
because he doesn't want to get the the the media, the social
media heat and literally doesn'twant to get people on Twitter
being like angry at him. And there I don't see another
reason to that because I would, I would eventually say.
Actually represent a real political base of the Republican
Party. I do think it.
I mean, it strikes me that again, there's been a massive
political thought over this. I mean, half of the Heritage
(37:44):
Foundation's board of trustees resigned and joined Mike Pence's
yeah portioning think tank. I mean, and so I think it's I
mean. Probably.
More than just social media outrage, it's that it actually
represents real cohesion of political support in the
Republican Party. Now that is something new.
And it's helped by social media.The reason that it was created
is because this, this the reasonthat this rift was created is
(38:07):
because of forces that are literally fighting against us to
divide us, actually coming against us to divide us.
That they're, they're tearing a part of this fabric of American
Society through Black Lives Matter, through the Jews,
through, you know, people are actually getting radicalized
entirely and completely. So JD Vance doesn't want to
(38:27):
stand up against them. Yeah, but some somebody has to
pull this back in. Some sort of reign on speech
should happen as as a discourse,as a social discord.
And it's not happening right now.
They think it's politically advantageous for them and it's
very sad because as always, again, tail is all this time,
anti-Semitism is politically advantageous right now on the
(38:50):
left and on the right, and we need to fight against that.
An avowed anti Zionist, Zoran Mandani is now the mayor of New
York. Since taking office, he has.
His heart, as we say in the South.
His heart bless his since takingoffice he's repealed executive
orders that adopted the International Holocaust
Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism and another one
(39:11):
that prohibited city employees from participating in BDS, the
Boycott, Divest and sanction movement, which pushes the myth
at Israel is an apartheid state.He has also spoken out at times
against anti-Semitism and recently against pro Hamas
protests. Thank you.
After being there was a degree, there is a degree of criticism
(39:33):
about how long it took him to speak outlook before he took
office. You said that New York Jews were
very, very concerned. Yeah.
About him. How are they feeling now?
Kind of very concerned, very concerned.
And when he came into office andimmediately revoked IRO, which
is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition
of anti-Semitism, which is basically a tool to help people
understand what anti-Semitism is, there's no reason to revoke
(39:54):
that. When he did that immediately and
all of the hirings that he has and people that he put in place,
they're all anti Zionist, even if they're Jewish.
And by that you have to understand that he is
gaslighting the Jewish community.
So for him to say, yes, I support Jews, see I'm hiring
Jews, and all the Jews that he'shiring are tokenized because of
(40:16):
their fringe opinions. You can equate it to if you have
a black outreach and you use themost fringe voices, which I
don't even want to name, which we all know who they are on the
black community and say that's my representative of the black
community, which clearly. Says he's tokenizing Jews in his
administration. Yes, he is.
He's tokenizing Jews at his administration and all the Jews
(40:38):
that he has around him and everybody has around him are
people that do not support the existence of Israel, which is
against the majority of literally almost there.
It's like 95% of American jewelry once Israel exist, if
not more. I'm not sure where the number is
right now, but Israel has to exist and feel connected,
connection and affinity with thestate of Israel.
So that's what he's doing. We are.
(40:59):
We're not convinced at all. One of the reasons he was
elected and one of the reasons he has been so successful is
because he has demonstrated himself to be a very good
listener. He has met with the Jewish
leaders. He has met with rabbis.
Many of them stood up and said that they were comfortable with
his election. If you could meet with him,
would you? And what would you say to?
(41:20):
Him, I would first say reinstateIRA first and foremost because
the reason he's upset about IRA is because of this one line that
talks about. IRA is the International
Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism.
So the first thing to indicate to the Jewish community that
you're actually standing with usis to reinstate IRA and to just
all it is. It's not even a legal
(41:41):
definition. It's not a bindingly definition.
It's a tool for people to understand what anti-Semitism.
Exactly, which is a tricky thingto understand, as we talked
about at the beginning of the show, right?
So first and foremost, reinstateIra and have a conversation with
people that do think Israel has the right to exist as the
homeland of the Jewish people. Because he say it said very
clearly that he does not believethat Israel has the right to
(42:02):
exist on the debate stage as a Jewish state.
Because he doesn't believe that any country should Orient itself
around ethnicity or race. And to that I would ask him,
what about Japan? What about the rest of the
country, did he say? It doesn't have a right to
exist, he say. It doesn't have a right to exist
as a Jewish state. Yes, he said.
It doesn't. Religious state as a religious
state. He does.
He qualified the state. That's the thing.
(42:22):
He always has this word salad, right?
He always, he knows how to play around with words, but we see
through it, right? So when asked flat out, do you
think Israel has the right to exist, he goes, yes, absolutely,
sure. But then when asked as a Jewish
state, he doesn't answer, doesn't answer, doesn't answer.
And then he says, I don't believe that any country has the
right to exist. And when it's organized around
(42:43):
ethnicity or religion. And what I say to that is what
about the 22 other countries that are Muslim countries?
What about countries that are ethnically kind of cohesive like
China and Japan, Japan. What about what do you have?
Do you have anything against Japan?
What I'm saying is this. We live in the greatest country
in the world in which America isthe exception to the rule.
It's organized around a set of ideas.
(43:05):
The majority of countries aroundthe world are organized around
some sort of an ethnicity. And it's okay.
It's not perfect. It's not America, but that's
what it is. If you are against Israel, why
aren't you against Japan? But he's not.
He's only against Israel. And to him it's a feature, it's
not a bug. A huge part of who he is is his
anti Zionism, anti Israel activism.
(43:26):
It's a huge part of his political identity.
I would fear and would say that a huge part of his political
career and a huge part of who heis and the reason they got into
politics is the the desire to dismantle Israel as a Jewish
state. And we all need to keep a very
close eye on what he does in thefuture.
What does that mean for the population of New York's Jews?
(43:47):
Which has the largest populationof Jews outside of Israel?
I don't believe in recoiling, soI love the Jews that are
actually saying I'm sticking around, I'm fighting it out.
I think it's important. But I do have a lot of friends
who packed up and left, a lot ofJews that are like.
New York City, Yeah, since the. Election yeah, yeah.
And, and, and the other thing again that I want to explain to
(44:08):
people in terms of the Jewish experience, right, is that the
Jewish experience around the world for thousands of years has
always been, where do we go next?
Every few generations, every fewyears, there's a conversation at
a dinner table, at a kitchen table somewhere of a Jewish
family sitting around being like, OK.
(44:29):
I mean, if you can't be in New York, if you can't be in New
York, where can you go? Final question, in your book
Israel, A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood country in On
Earth, you describe A2 state solution as quote, arguably the
only solution we can think of today that will create stability
in the region. Yes, unless you can give me
something else. You have dismissed the idea of
(44:49):
recognizing A Palestinian state since October 7th because you
have called it magical thinking because, quote, there is a lot
of work that needs to be done toeven have that conversation.
Yes. What is that work that needs to
be done? Well, first of all, I believe
that October 7th took the Palestinian cause years
backwards and it took the Palestinian cause years
backwards because for Israelis, Israelis are mortified by the
(45:13):
concept and the thought of a Palestinian state side by side
with Israel. Because we saw what happens when
we left Gaza and we got October 7th.
So every Israeli is very concerned and you would totally
agree and understand why. That's number one.
Number two, there has to be an education and a region of the
population there because they were left to jihadi ideology and
(45:34):
became a radicalized group of people.
And they deserve better. They deserve a Palestinian
leadership that can actually move them forward to the next
century and beyond, and a Palestinian leadership that
doesn't believe in jihadism and doesn't believe in Mid Ages,
Middle Ages sense of, of living under Sharia law.
That's what needs to happen. I also think that around October
(45:56):
7th, what happened, which is theresult that we're seeing in Gaza
right now, is the world understood that they can't do it
alone? Yeah, and that's a bad thing for
them. The world understood that they
can't. Left to their own devices, they
come up with October 7th, which is why the US and the Board of
Peace and everybody's taken overGaza, because the world
understood that if they are at it alone, Hamas is the one that
(46:18):
takes. Charge radical Islamism.
Takes charge. My sense is that's not a good
thing for the Palestinian peopleat all.
So a lot of work that needs to be done, a lot of work in
rebuilding a civil society. Or rebuilding a civilization,
The trust of Israelis first and foremost.
There's not a single Israeli right now would hand over land.
The most radical of left would be like, wait a second, can you
(46:41):
guarantee my safety? Right.
That's number one. And #2 yeah.
De radicalization of the population there in order to
bring them into this century andnot the 1500s.
During Hanukkah, you recorded daily videos of candle lights
with celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Amy Schumer.
Does that help the PR battle? I that's such a beautiful
(47:04):
campaign that we that we do. This is the second year, so I
guess we can call it annual Hanukkah candle lighting.
So Hanukkah is a holiday which you mandated to be proud Jewish.
And a huge part of what I do in my life is inspired Jewish pride
for the younger generation. And it's very powerful that I'm
able to do this with people thatare such role models for so many
(47:26):
people. So last year we had Gwyneth
Paltrow and Gaga dot and Cindy Crawford and Tiffany Haddish and
this year and a lot of other amazing, amazing people.
And this year we had Pink and Amy Schumer and Mila Kunitz and
Ashton Kutcher and and Andy Owen.
And it's not about PR. It's about pride and knowledge.
So the better you know yourself and your identity and where you
(47:49):
come from and the better youngergeneration and people know what
being Jewish is about and be proud of it.
That's the only thing that's going to actually end
anti-Semitism at the end. It's going to take a long time.
It's not happening anytime soon.But I believe this is the one
thing that can actually strengthen the Jewish community
and therefore the world is to beproud of who we are and know our
history and know our heritage and be loud and proud in our
(48:12):
Jewish identity. Know it's history.
Thank you for joining me on fire.
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