March 13, 2024 • 22 mins
RABBI KEN SPIRO JOINS ME Rabbi Spiro is flying in from his home in Jerusalem to discuss the latest on what's happening there. Rabbi Spiro is a well-known historian and author, and a senior lecturer at Aish HaTorah in Jerusalem.He has appeared on numerous radio and television programs such as B.B.C. Radio and TV., The National Geographic Channel, The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, Channel 4 England and Arutz Sheva-Israel National Radio. He is the author of WorldPerfect – The Jewish Impact on Civilization published by HCI books, Crash Course in Jewish History published by Targum Press and Destiny – Why a tiny nation plays such a huge role in history published by Geffen Publishing House.He is a father of five and served in a combat unit of the Israeli Defense Force.
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(00:00):
Rabbi Ken Spiro. I used tobe a flight attendant, and I did
not fly in one week as muchas you have flown in this last week
that you've been in the United States. You live in Jerusalem, correct,
And what brought you over to dothis? I'm guessing massive pr tour right
now because you've been everywhere. Yeah, basically, I mean, I'm originally
from the States, but I livedin Israel for forty two years and I
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do many different things. I'm aspeaker, a teacher, a writer,
a tour guide in Israel, andsince October seventh, there's really not a
lot of work in that department.So a at a financial necessity, but
b because of what's going on,especially in the Jewish communities around the world,
with the explosion of anti Semitism linkto the October seventh events. People
are very open and interested in tryingto understand what's going on and what they
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can do. They feel kind ofhopeless. So I because I always tell
people I wear the two hats.I wear the rabbi hat and the historian
hat. I like to transynthesize andunderstand what's going on in the world from
a perspective of they don't call it. I always say his story for nothing.
There that history is a control processleading to a destination. There's a
plot that the entire human race.We're in a story here, and the
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Jewish people have a unique role toplay in that story. So I like
to give people some clarities to whatthey can do so they don't feel like
they're in a rudderless ship tossed inthe storm. I think most people struggle
to understand why the state of Israelis so hell bent on the level of
defense that we are seeing now,if that makes sense, And I think
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what they're missing is when the formationof Israel occurred, it occurred after a
time period when the Jewish people werehung out to drive by the entire world.
I mean, is that a fairway to put that? I mean,
basically, but the state of Israelcomes at a period of time of
literally thousands of years of exile andpersecution of the Jewish people in a completely
political, secular worldview, nothing todo with God giving the land to the
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Jewish people, who was viewed thatthe reason why we're being persecuted is we
don't have a board of refuge.If we're a state of rised people at
the mercy of other people. Andone thing that history has shown the Jewish
people is whether it's definitely righteous nonJews in this world who have stood up
to protect the Jewish people. Theyare few and far between, and we
have to be able to defend ourselves. So that was a lot of the
thinking behind the Jewish State. Andwe're less than eighty years from the Holocaust,
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and we have people literally living onour border who are genocidally dedicated,
who have been raised from births tobasically want to end us. And there's
no way, given our past historyand how they're in. They're not thousands
of miles away right there, rightthere, that we can allow such people.
No one in their right mind wouldallow a neighbor who's sitting across,
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you know, in his house witha shotgun. I'm going to blow your
head off as soon as I geta chance. You know, you've got
to be crazy to wait for thatto happen. So let me ask you
to give a little bit of historyon the two state solution, because this
is very frustrating for me. Wheneverybody runs around and says, oh,
we need a two state solution.We got to have a two state solution.
Well, Israel has been amenable tothat in the past. Talk to
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me about how that process went forpeople who may not be familiar with the
history of the Tuesday solution. Yeah, so that's a great question. And
since the original partition plan we're talkingabout nineteen forty seven, when the UN
votes to partition, what's left ofthe land that was, by the way,
supposed to be an entirely Jewish state, that's a whole other topic.
Since that time, the Arab worldhas been as objected to the notion of
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a Jewish state of any size.In nineteen forty eight, Israel declared independence
and called for peace with its neighbors. Five Arab armies declared war and invaded
Jordan, and Egypt then seized thatterritory which everyone likes to call the West
Bank and Gaza was occupied by Egyptfor nineteen years. No one was condemning
those countries for their illegal occupation ofthat territory. Had the Arab world accepted
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that partition born along with Israel,would have been an Arab state, but
they rejected it. In nineteen sixtyseven, when Israel wasn't occupying any of
that territory again. This time,three Arab states Egypt, Syria and Jordan
tried to destroy Israel a second timeand again, and we won a miraculous
really six days, Israel triples itsterritory and trashes three attacking armies. The
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Prime Minister of Israel, lev Ashkohl, immediately says, look, we'll make
peace. We'll give you back toterritory. We will give you back,
even though Israel's only nine miles widein the center at that point, giving
back that territory toward Jordan, whichisn't even their territory. The Arab League
gets together in Khartum the Sixth DayWars in June of sixty seven. August
of sixty seven, the Arab Leaguegets together in Khartum and issues the famous
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three no's, no negotiation, norecognition, and no peace with Israel.
What we've seen starting in seventy nineand ninety four, any Arab state willing
to make peace with Israel, Israelmakes peace with it, even though it
means that we just get a pieceof paper that says we have peace and
we give back territory. For that. Israel the only country that fights wars
for its survival and it doesn't startis treated as if it started the wars
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and lost them and has to givestuff back and on a peace with neighbors.
It's the weirdest arrangement, and justfast forwarding to the end. In
two thousand, Ahood Olmert's Ahood Barakasexcuse me offered to basically withdraw to the
sixty seven sees fire lines before theSixth Day War. That was rejected.
In two thousand and seven, awho'd Omert offered the same thing, and
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that was rejected. The bottom lineis is it's never been about creating a
Palestinian state. It's always been aboutthe Arab world's inability to except the Jewish
state of any size. But thescariest part of all of this, and
this is what drives me nuts,is you have a lot of people in
the West who are not living inthe Middle East talking about the two state
solution. It's like trying to convincea person that what they believe is not
really what they believe. You reallywant this, but they say openly the
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Palestinian authority and Hamas especially overwhelmingly rejectsthe notion of a two state solution.
When they're calling for the river tothe sea, which it drives me nuts.
You have these you know, universitystudents in America. I don't even
know which river and whitcy they're talkingabout. This is talking about the obliteration
of the state of Israel because theJordan River to the Mediterranean, which is
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the sea, is everything in themiddle. So these are people who are
basically being raised on birth to hateJews, to want to be martyrs,
and to destroy the Jewish state.They want the one state solution, right,
And if the world would just say, look, that's this is what
the other side wants. Let's recognizethat this is not There's no room for
compromiser because the other side is notwilling to compromise. They're willing to bide
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their time till they can destroy Israel. This has been a big part of
my frustration in young people saying,well, we need a ceasefire, We
need a ceasefire so we can negotiate. You cannot negotiate with Hamas. They
don't want to negotiate. They're veryinvested in making sure as many Palestinian civilians
get killed as possible so they canuse it as a pr stunt, which
is disgusting, And I think partof the problem, Rabbi, is that
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is such a foreign concept to mostAmerican citizens who cannot imagine sacrificing huge swots
of people for a pr win.Is that accurate? And how do how
do we sort of spread that wordthat you're putting our value system on people
who do not share it exactly.I always say America's history's most provincial superpower.
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Americans have a very narrow view ofthe world. They think everyone kind
of thinks like them, right,Americans are not. We live in an
area that were not really have neighbors. We have Canada in Mexico, but
it's not like Europe. We havea lot of countries and a lot of
history. So people really tend tonot understand or to deliberately ignore aspects of
the conflict. First of all,the Islamic side of the concept, which
is a huge part of it.You can't touch that word. But the
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reality is is Islam as a worldview, views itself as an ideology that is
destined to take over the whole world, not just spiritually but physically. And
people who are not Muslims, whoare Monotheists, who are Jews and Christians
are dimmi. Dhimm I who arepeople are supposed to are allowed to live
in theory, but as second classcitizens under an Islamic empire, and a
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piece of real estate that becomes Islamic. In their worldview, this is mainstream
Islam. This is not radical Islam. I'm not saying all Muslims are radical,
but this is their essential theology,which you can talk about, says
that a piece of real estate thatbecame Islamic is never allowed to go back
to being non Islamic. And that'swhat Israel is today. It was a
Jewish state for overall millennia that wewent into exile on the Muslim shop up
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in the seventh century. Ironically,they're the foreign occupiers of the Middle East.
Arabs are not from are not fromthe coast of the coast of the
Mediterranean. They're from the Arabian Peninsula. They took over that land and for
thirteen hundred years they've controlled that territoryuntil the British got it and then it
came to Israel. So on anideological level, they're not interested in any
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kind of compromise. It goes againsttheir worldview. But until you can start
educating like the American public about whowe're talking about here. What they believe.
Not that they're all horrible, evilpeople, I'm not saying that,
but that their ideology is they takevery seriously what they believe, and when
it's radicalized, it's not only athreat to Israel, which is the tip
of the defensive shield of Western civilization, it's very threatening to the entire world.
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But when you're dealing with people whoare getting the information on twenty second
little videos on TikTok and Instagram andhave no depth and don't know anything anymore,
because that's the sad state of affairsand education. Your phone knows everything
and you know nothing. We're basicallya situation where they fall victim to simplistic
and incorrect understandings of the situations thatlead them to push agendas that have nothing
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to do with what's really going onor are ever going to really solve the
problem. I had a conversation witha very dear friend who said, you
know, Israel should just give upand they should just pack it in.
I said, okay, so great, So you want them to continue to
go because to your point about Israelbeing the tip of the shield, they
wouldn't stop. It's not just aboutIsrael. It's about taking the whole world
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over and spreading the ideology throughout theentire world exactly. And by the way,
another thing that Americas don't get ishow you negotiate. I always talk
about this when I'm explaining the peaceprocess in Israel. In Western negotiations,
you offer something as a sign ofgood faith. In the Middle East,
if you pay the asking price,you are weak. You have to deman.
You have to This is how itworks. You have to go.
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I always telp people. Go tothe shook in the Old City, thea
market in the Old City of Jerusalemand try and buy a backgammon set.
You'll learn more about Middle East negotiationsthan four years at Woodrow Wilson School of
Foreign Policy. I had that exactexperience, and I'm not kidding you.
It was not pleasant. I gotI got blocked in a in a stall
and the guy would let me leave, and my husband, who's a big
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man, didn't come in the storewith me because it was so tiny.
People can't imagine how some of thosestalls are tiny. And my if had
my husband not been there, Iprobably would have an extremely overpriced backham in
set exactly. So when you haveto put in the time and the effort
to understand how cultures work, it'sArab Islamic Middle East, and Islam is
a byproduct of the Arab Middle Easternmind. It's not about better or worse.
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This is how they think. Youmust always be thinking in the same
way as the person you're dealing with, whether it's in business or in warfare.
For Israel to anything that what.There's a sociologist by name of Raphaele
Patai. He died many years ago. I wrote a book called the Arab
Mind, and he said what ultimatelydrives the Irab mind, which also shapes
Islam, is honor, power andthe sexual fidelity of their women. This
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is a very interesting discussion which we'renot gonna be able to go into now,
but it's very much a part ofthe culture. Honor and power.
Like with the Japanese, honor isthe driving force behind how they do things,
not about right and wrong, evenit's about this honoring is the worst
thing. Honor is huge in thisculture, and power the perception of who
is stronger. So when you offeranything up, you're like a cease fire
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I'll give you something. Oh he'sweak. If he was stronger, he'd
be demanding something. So this isthe paradigm. So it's the West projecting
onto Israel how to interact with anotherpeople who is thinking in the opposite way,
as opposed to saying to Israel,look, you guys live there.
This is your struggle, and weassume you understand how to deal with these
people better than we do. Sowe're not going to force you to use
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our European Western you know, paradigmsand negotiating skills or rules of the game
in a totally different game, becausethis is not the same game. So
that is is that why Israel currentlyat this moment is incredibly focused not on
defeating Hamas, but absolutely destroying Hamas, because if they gave up, if
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they let them live, if theylet them go into exile, it's just
seen as a sign of weakness throughoutthe air world. You're so right,
and by the way, in thiskind of combat, even if you completely
trash your enemy, you destroy theirinfrastructure and kill most of their fighters,
if they're standing at the end,they have won Egypt, even though they
started the Suez Canal seventy three theybreached the bar Lev line, and they
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actually were successful initially. Israel counterattackedand won a huge victory against Egypt.
Egypt still celebrates home Kiper Wars avictory for them. Okay, so this
is how it works, absolutely so. But you cannot let someone who's bent
on killing you remain in existence tokill try and again, because they said
they will do what they say openlyand also ill if they're in power in
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any way, they'll be partying inthe streets and the three buildings left standing
in Gaza at the end that wewon. Yeah, yeah, And that's
what's I think that's what's difficult forpeople to understand. You know, we're
we're we see the devastation in Gazabecause we know that Hamas was hiding weapons
and fighters under every building and underevery structure. And I think people who
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are compassionate, who've never had todeal with this kind of thing, You've
never had to worry about rockets cominginto your neighborhood, I think they say,
you know what, enough is enough, You've made your point, But
ultimately you haven't made your point atall until it's over exactly exactly this is
like, this is a zero sumconflict here, Israel cannot and the two
state solution, which somehow in thePalestinian authority, which is horribly unpopular amongst
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the Palestinian people, cannot be there. Completely corrupt. It's a kleptocracy.
It's corrupt, and it's by theway, it's justice and it hates Israel
just as much. It's just alittle more diplomatic about what it says publicly.
Israel can't allow these people to movein and try when they can't even
govern jude and Samaria also known asthe West Bank. They can't allow them.
You're going to take over Gaza.It's not going to work. So
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we have to figure out something elseto do there. I have. You
know, there's definitely alternative circus situationsthat could be worked out that we'll be
more in keeping with the culture andhow things run in the Middle East as
opposed to trying to look The MiddleEast is largely a mess because Europeans got
involved, primarily the British and theFrench after World War One and tried to
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create artificial borders and boundaries without recognizingthe clan and tribal nature of the Middle
East. Yeah, when they createdcountries like the UAE, they recognize we've
got to preserve the more indigenous structureof that society, and those are countries
that function much better. Iraq,Syria, all these countries are disaster because
there's no natural cohesion amongst them.The Palestin authorities the same way. Gaza
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is the same way. So theonly people who stay in power in these
places are totalitarian dictators who use aniron fist against their own people and perpetuate
a conflict because that's how they distractfrom their failures internally by blaming the outside
people. I'm talking with Rabbi kenSpirerou, and I wish that I had
had you on at the beginning ofthe show, even though you didn't land
soon enough to cause we're almost outof time, and that's super, super
frustrating for me. What does thismean in terms of the baby steps that
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had been made with the Abraham Accordsin bringing some measure of recognition with other
Arab states. What has all ofthis conflict done in terms of any of
that. Well, that's another fantasticquestion, which is a whole discussion.
But we have to pull out andrealize the Arab Middle East is not cohesive
the Islamic world is not. There'sShiite and Sunni. They do not like
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each other, that's an understatement.And there's a big power struggle going on
between Primarily the shi had superpower isIran, and then there's a bunch of
Sunni powers. There's Turkey, there'sEgypt, and there's Saudi Arabia. And
by the way, the Saudis aremuch more scared of Iran than they are
of Israel. As a matter offact, the Middle East, we always
say, my enemy's enemy is myfriend. And what was driving the Abraham
Accords was not so much Saudi Arabianlove for the Jewish state, but a
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practical reality that, especially if Americais starting to pull out of its role
as a super power in the MiddleEast, Israel is the mini superpower that
can defend us, and it's inour best interest, in Israel's best interest,
to keep Iran from infesting the MiddleEast with all these radically crazy groups
that are bent on exporting jihad andoverthrowing other Arab states. So what people
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need to do in the world theused to do is stop microtizing the conflict
of its mighty Israel, the sizeof New Jersey picking on the Palestinian authority
or Gaza and recognize that we're dealingwith the geopolitical and religious theological realities that
are far larger, and think ofthe big game. You got to look
at the It's like playing risk andlooking only at one continent, right,
you have to be looking at thewhole picture, not just in terms of
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what is really going on with theArab Middle East and Israel and the Arab
countries in each other, but theimplications of that for the entire world.
Because if you let these regimes likeIran, they are hell bent on exporting
their jihadi site worldview to weigh outsidethe Middle East. They view this as
a religious moral imperative from their perspective, and to tell them, well,
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that's not really what you want,no, you really want today is to
be condescending and foolish. But theproblem is because of people are so pc
and sensitive, you can never talkabout the deeper issues that are the Islamic
issues et cets that are driving allthis, and it has to be we
have to be better educated and morebroad minded. We got time for one
more question, and unfortunately I mightjust blow off KAO sports today to keep
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Rabbi ken in here and Ryan's like, okay, this question. The answer,
if there is one, Palestinians mustremove Hamas and Hamas types and elect
free istray governors. Is that evena possibility because Hamas isn't just government,
it is all consuming. Well,it's Hamas is a manifestation of an ideology
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which is the radicalized happened. Whathas happened to Islam, especially is the
Iranian Revolution has been the extra taking. What is a faith that can be
expressed itself very moderately. There areperiods of time in Spain of a thousand
years ago or is the most progressivepart of the world was was oh Maya
in Spain was a lot more progressivethan Europe was in the Middle Ages.
What needs to change is the itneeds to The Islamic world needs to go
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through reformation, really become and becomenormal and tolerant Christian. The Christian European
world did that, which opened themup to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and
the liberal democratic world we have today. I wish they were a little more
particularistic. By the way, Iwish Christian Europe was a little more Christian,
because you have not crazy fanatic,But when you have a very particular
as people like Muslims who believe intheir world, you believe in exporting it,
then you have people who are whetherEurope or American, and American college
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campus says, oh, we haveto be open to everything and way that
is suicidal. That is suicidal,and what has to happen from the grassroots
up is a change in the attitude. You cannot raise people. Children are
not raised to hate and want tokill other people. These people are indoctrinated
from birth to be suicide bombers andmartyr themselves and go to heaven and get
seventy two virgins. This is themost destructive. It creates a society that's
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only about death. And a societylike that is never going to produce anything.
It'll be worth anything. And that'sand that the real work. What
Europe should be doing is saying wehave to rebuild these people from the ground
up, beginning with the educational system, and not allow anyone to be in
power who's going to propagate or pusha radicalized Jie hottist like the ideology racist
ideology regarding other people. When youdo it from the bottom up, then
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there's a hope for creating a MiddleEast that is stable and actually peaceful.
What a fascinating conversation. And I'mhappy to hear you say that that Islam
needs a reformation. I've been sayingthat for fifteen years on my show because
until you, until you develop thatsort of open tolerance, it's never there's
never going to be peace in theworld. And now, Robert, are
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you speaking? Is there anywhere anybodyelse can go see him? Wendy?
What I'm speaking for ash of theRockies tonight. Ashatara is the organization I
work for in Jerusalem, So I'mtalking there tonight. Are there any tickets
left, Wendy? Are they soldout? Like? Nah? I think
they're so. Guys, this isyour only chance to hear from rab Why
Ken Spiraut. We literally have twominutes and I'm gonna ask you the hardest
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question. And people ask me thisall the time all the time. Why
are the Jews hated by so manypeople? Wow? Okay, tutes bottom
line, Okay, the short version. We've been accused of a lot of
things in human history. We kidnappedChristian babies, use their blood to big
mons of poison worlds, we're inleague with the devil, control of the
world's economy, size and activities,solar flares, we have a space laser
we've stolen around RAN's cloud cover.If anyone believed any of those things,
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no one would mess with the Jewishpeople. Bottom line is. Bottom line
is we just understand that since thetime of Abraham honored, we have a
unique historic mission. We are theGod Squad, as I call it.
We introduced the idea of one Godand one absolute standard of morality to the
world. We have been dragging theworld, kicking and screaming for over three
thousand years towards a vision of valuesand morality and spirituality based on one God.
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In anti Semitism, regardless of whateverexcuse, as ridiculous as sounds,
it's on the side, is alwayson the deepest level, even though it's
often even unconscious to the people whobuy into all the nonsensical things they believe
about us. But on the deepestlevel, what's truly driving antisemitism. It's
this rebellion against the nationalist oric missionof the Jewish people to bring a God
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based standard of absolute morality to theworld. There's no question about that.
That is the clearest thing that wealways have understood, and that is always
as a famous rabbi from two hundredyears ago, he said, when Jews
don't make kids, the gentiles makekavdala. When we don't elevate the world
spiritually, the world's going to goin the opposite direction. The opposite direction
is going to be like basically amoral valueless system that will allow evil to
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creep into the world, that willalways target the Jews first. And the
reason why non jew should be concernedwith israel bashing and antisemitism, because really
Israel bashing is just another version ofantisemitism, is that it will start with
us, but then it will spreadto everyone else. And that's why I
said Israel is a tip of thespear. Not just physically is a defensive
for us against radical Islam, butIsrael is the tip of the spear and
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torm in terms of an absolute moralsystem which has been the basis of Western
liberal democracy and created the world wehave today. When that disappears, the
world is in really big trouble.Rabbi ken Spira, what a delight having
you on the show today. Man. We covered a lot of ground today
in a very short amount of time. I think this is probably one of
those productive half hours I've had ina very long time. I thank you
for coming in today, thank youfor coming to the Rocky Mountains, continuing
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to spread the word. You've givenme more ammunition to share that is going
to be incredibly valuable as Israel continuesto fight for its very survival and you
know hashtag team Israel.
Rabbi Ken Spiro. I used tobe a flight attendant, and I did
not fly in one week as muchas you have flown in this last week
that you've been in the United States. You live in Jerusalem, correct,
And what brought you over to dothis? I'm guessing massive pr tour right
now because you've been everywhere. Yeah, basically, I mean, I'm originally
from the States, but I livedin Israel for forty two years and I
(00:21):
do many different things. I'm aspeaker, a teacher, a writer,
a tour guide in Israel, andsince October seventh, there's really not a
lot of work in that department.So a at a financial necessity, but
b because of what's going on,especially in the Jewish communities around the world,
with the explosion of anti Semitism linkto the October seventh events. People
are very open and interested in tryingto understand what's going on and what they
(00:44):
can do. They feel kind ofhopeless. So I because I always tell
people I wear the two hats.I wear the rabbi hat and the historian
hat. I like to transynthesize andunderstand what's going on in the world from
a perspective of they don't call it. I always say his story for nothing.
There that history is a control processleading to a destination. There's a
plot that the entire human race.We're in a story here, and the
(01:07):
Jewish people have a unique role toplay in that story. So I like
to give people some clarities to whatthey can do so they don't feel like
they're in a rudderless ship tossed inthe storm. I think most people struggle
to understand why the state of Israelis so hell bent on the level of
defense that we are seeing now,if that makes sense, And I think
(01:29):
what they're missing is when the formationof Israel occurred, it occurred after a
time period when the Jewish people werehung out to drive by the entire world.
I mean, is that a fairway to put that? I mean,
basically, but the state of Israelcomes at a period of time of
literally thousands of years of exile andpersecution of the Jewish people in a completely
political, secular worldview, nothing todo with God giving the land to the
(01:52):
Jewish people, who was viewed thatthe reason why we're being persecuted is we
don't have a board of refuge.If we're a state of rised people at
the mercy of other people. Andone thing that history has shown the Jewish
people is whether it's definitely righteous nonJews in this world who have stood up
to protect the Jewish people. Theyare few and far between, and we
have to be able to defend ourselves. So that was a lot of the
thinking behind the Jewish State. Andwe're less than eighty years from the Holocaust,
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and we have people literally living onour border who are genocidally dedicated,
who have been raised from births tobasically want to end us. And there's
no way, given our past historyand how they're in. They're not thousands
of miles away right there, rightthere, that we can allow such people.
No one in their right mind wouldallow a neighbor who's sitting across,
(02:37):
you know, in his house witha shotgun. I'm going to blow your
head off as soon as I geta chance. You know, you've got
to be crazy to wait for thatto happen. So let me ask you
to give a little bit of historyon the two state solution, because this
is very frustrating for me. Wheneverybody runs around and says, oh,
we need a two state solution.We got to have a two state solution.
Well, Israel has been amenable tothat in the past. Talk to
(02:59):
me about how that process went forpeople who may not be familiar with the
history of the Tuesday solution. Yeah, so that's a great question. And
since the original partition plan we're talkingabout nineteen forty seven, when the UN
votes to partition, what's left ofthe land that was, by the way,
supposed to be an entirely Jewish state, that's a whole other topic.
Since that time, the Arab worldhas been as objected to the notion of
(03:23):
a Jewish state of any size.In nineteen forty eight, Israel declared independence
and called for peace with its neighbors. Five Arab armies declared war and invaded
Jordan, and Egypt then seized thatterritory which everyone likes to call the West
Bank and Gaza was occupied by Egyptfor nineteen years. No one was condemning
those countries for their illegal occupation ofthat territory. Had the Arab world accepted
(03:44):
that partition born along with Israel,would have been an Arab state, but
they rejected it. In nineteen sixtyseven, when Israel wasn't occupying any of
that territory again. This time,three Arab states Egypt, Syria and Jordan
tried to destroy Israel a second timeand again, and we won a miraculous
really six days, Israel triples itsterritory and trashes three attacking armies. The
(04:05):
Prime Minister of Israel, lev Ashkohl, immediately says, look, we'll make
peace. We'll give you back toterritory. We will give you back,
even though Israel's only nine miles widein the center at that point, giving
back that territory toward Jordan, whichisn't even their territory. The Arab League
gets together in Khartum the Sixth DayWars in June of sixty seven. August
of sixty seven, the Arab Leaguegets together in Khartum and issues the famous
(04:26):
three no's, no negotiation, norecognition, and no peace with Israel.
What we've seen starting in seventy nineand ninety four, any Arab state willing
to make peace with Israel, Israelmakes peace with it, even though it
means that we just get a pieceof paper that says we have peace and
we give back territory. For that. Israel the only country that fights wars
for its survival and it doesn't startis treated as if it started the wars
(04:48):
and lost them and has to givestuff back and on a peace with neighbors.
It's the weirdest arrangement, and justfast forwarding to the end. In
two thousand, Ahood Olmert's Ahood Barakasexcuse me offered to basically withdraw to the
sixty seven sees fire lines before theSixth Day War. That was rejected.
In two thousand and seven, awho'd Omert offered the same thing, and
(05:10):
that was rejected. The bottom lineis is it's never been about creating a
Palestinian state. It's always been aboutthe Arab world's inability to except the Jewish
state of any size. But thescariest part of all of this, and
this is what drives me nuts,is you have a lot of people in
the West who are not living inthe Middle East talking about the two state
solution. It's like trying to convincea person that what they believe is not
really what they believe. You reallywant this, but they say openly the
(05:34):
Palestinian authority and Hamas especially overwhelmingly rejectsthe notion of a two state solution.
When they're calling for the river tothe sea, which it drives me nuts.
You have these you know, universitystudents in America. I don't even
know which river and whitcy they're talkingabout. This is talking about the obliteration
of the state of Israel because theJordan River to the Mediterranean, which is
(05:55):
the sea, is everything in themiddle. So these are people who are
basically being raised on birth to hateJews, to want to be martyrs,
and to destroy the Jewish state.They want the one state solution, right,
And if the world would just say, look, that's this is what
the other side wants. Let's recognizethat this is not There's no room for
compromiser because the other side is notwilling to compromise. They're willing to bide
(06:16):
their time till they can destroy Israel. This has been a big part of
my frustration in young people saying,well, we need a ceasefire, We
need a ceasefire so we can negotiate. You cannot negotiate with Hamas. They
don't want to negotiate. They're veryinvested in making sure as many Palestinian civilians
get killed as possible so they canuse it as a pr stunt, which
is disgusting, And I think partof the problem, Rabbi, is that
(06:40):
is such a foreign concept to mostAmerican citizens who cannot imagine sacrificing huge swots
of people for a pr win.Is that accurate? And how do how
do we sort of spread that wordthat you're putting our value system on people
who do not share it exactly.I always say America's history's most provincial superpower.
(07:03):
Americans have a very narrow view ofthe world. They think everyone kind
of thinks like them, right,Americans are not. We live in an
area that were not really have neighbors. We have Canada in Mexico, but
it's not like Europe. We havea lot of countries and a lot of
history. So people really tend tonot understand or to deliberately ignore aspects of
the conflict. First of all,the Islamic side of the concept, which
is a huge part of it.You can't touch that word. But the
(07:26):
reality is is Islam as a worldview, views itself as an ideology that is
destined to take over the whole world, not just spiritually but physically. And
people who are not Muslims, whoare Monotheists, who are Jews and Christians
are dimmi. Dhimm I who arepeople are supposed to are allowed to live
in theory, but as second classcitizens under an Islamic empire, and a
(07:47):
piece of real estate that becomes Islamic. In their worldview, this is mainstream
Islam. This is not radical Islam. I'm not saying all Muslims are radical,
but this is their essential theology,which you can talk about, says
that a piece of real estate thatbecame Islamic is never allowed to go back
to being non Islamic. And that'swhat Israel is today. It was a
Jewish state for overall millennia that wewent into exile on the Muslim shop up
(08:09):
in the seventh century. Ironically,they're the foreign occupiers of the Middle East.
Arabs are not from are not fromthe coast of the coast of the
Mediterranean. They're from the Arabian Peninsula. They took over that land and for
thirteen hundred years they've controlled that territoryuntil the British got it and then it
came to Israel. So on anideological level, they're not interested in any
(08:31):
kind of compromise. It goes againsttheir worldview. But until you can start
educating like the American public about whowe're talking about here. What they believe.
Not that they're all horrible, evilpeople, I'm not saying that,
but that their ideology is they takevery seriously what they believe, and when
it's radicalized, it's not only athreat to Israel, which is the tip
of the defensive shield of Western civilization, it's very threatening to the entire world.
(08:54):
But when you're dealing with people whoare getting the information on twenty second
little videos on TikTok and Instagram andhave no depth and don't know anything anymore,
because that's the sad state of affairsand education. Your phone knows everything
and you know nothing. We're basicallya situation where they fall victim to simplistic
and incorrect understandings of the situations thatlead them to push agendas that have nothing
(09:15):
to do with what's really going onor are ever going to really solve the
problem. I had a conversation witha very dear friend who said, you
know, Israel should just give upand they should just pack it in.
I said, okay, so great, So you want them to continue to
go because to your point about Israelbeing the tip of the shield, they
wouldn't stop. It's not just aboutIsrael. It's about taking the whole world
(09:35):
over and spreading the ideology throughout theentire world exactly. And by the way,
another thing that Americas don't get ishow you negotiate. I always talk
about this when I'm explaining the peaceprocess in Israel. In Western negotiations,
you offer something as a sign ofgood faith. In the Middle East,
if you pay the asking price,you are weak. You have to deman.
You have to This is how itworks. You have to go.
(09:56):
I always telp people. Go tothe shook in the Old City, thea
market in the Old City of Jerusalemand try and buy a backgammon set.
You'll learn more about Middle East negotiationsthan four years at Woodrow Wilson School of
Foreign Policy. I had that exactexperience, and I'm not kidding you.
It was not pleasant. I gotI got blocked in a in a stall
and the guy would let me leave, and my husband, who's a big
(10:18):
man, didn't come in the storewith me because it was so tiny.
People can't imagine how some of thosestalls are tiny. And my if had
my husband not been there, Iprobably would have an extremely overpriced backham in
set exactly. So when you haveto put in the time and the effort
to understand how cultures work, it'sArab Islamic Middle East, and Islam is
a byproduct of the Arab Middle Easternmind. It's not about better or worse.
(10:41):
This is how they think. Youmust always be thinking in the same
way as the person you're dealing with, whether it's in business or in warfare.
For Israel to anything that what.There's a sociologist by name of Raphaele
Patai. He died many years ago. I wrote a book called the Arab
Mind, and he said what ultimatelydrives the Irab mind, which also shapes
Islam, is honor, power andthe sexual fidelity of their women. This
(11:05):
is a very interesting discussion which we'renot gonna be able to go into now,
but it's very much a part ofthe culture. Honor and power.
Like with the Japanese, honor isthe driving force behind how they do things,
not about right and wrong, evenit's about this honoring is the worst
thing. Honor is huge in thisculture, and power the perception of who
is stronger. So when you offeranything up, you're like a cease fire
(11:28):
I'll give you something. Oh he'sweak. If he was stronger, he'd
be demanding something. So this isthe paradigm. So it's the West projecting
onto Israel how to interact with anotherpeople who is thinking in the opposite way,
as opposed to saying to Israel,look, you guys live there.
This is your struggle, and weassume you understand how to deal with these
people better than we do. Sowe're not going to force you to use
(11:48):
our European Western you know, paradigmsand negotiating skills or rules of the game
in a totally different game, becausethis is not the same game. So
that is is that why Israel currentlyat this moment is incredibly focused not on
defeating Hamas, but absolutely destroying Hamas, because if they gave up, if
(12:11):
they let them live, if theylet them go into exile, it's just
seen as a sign of weakness throughoutthe air world. You're so right,
and by the way, in thiskind of combat, even if you completely
trash your enemy, you destroy theirinfrastructure and kill most of their fighters,
if they're standing at the end,they have won Egypt, even though they
started the Suez Canal seventy three theybreached the bar Lev line, and they
(12:31):
actually were successful initially. Israel counterattackedand won a huge victory against Egypt.
Egypt still celebrates home Kiper Wars avictory for them. Okay, so this
is how it works, absolutely so. But you cannot let someone who's bent
on killing you remain in existence tokill try and again, because they said
they will do what they say openlyand also ill if they're in power in
(12:52):
any way, they'll be partying inthe streets and the three buildings left standing
in Gaza at the end that wewon. Yeah, yeah, And that's
what's I think that's what's difficult forpeople to understand. You know, we're
we're we see the devastation in Gazabecause we know that Hamas was hiding weapons
and fighters under every building and underevery structure. And I think people who
(13:13):
are compassionate, who've never had todeal with this kind of thing, You've
never had to worry about rockets cominginto your neighborhood, I think they say,
you know what, enough is enough, You've made your point, But
ultimately you haven't made your point atall until it's over exactly exactly this is
like, this is a zero sumconflict here, Israel cannot and the two
state solution, which somehow in thePalestinian authority, which is horribly unpopular amongst
(13:37):
the Palestinian people, cannot be there. Completely corrupt. It's a kleptocracy.
It's corrupt, and it's by theway, it's justice and it hates Israel
just as much. It's just alittle more diplomatic about what it says publicly.
Israel can't allow these people to movein and try when they can't even
govern jude and Samaria also known asthe West Bank. They can't allow them.
You're going to take over Gaza.It's not going to work. So
(13:58):
we have to figure out something elseto do there. I have. You
know, there's definitely alternative circus situationsthat could be worked out that we'll be
more in keeping with the culture andhow things run in the Middle East as
opposed to trying to look The MiddleEast is largely a mess because Europeans got
involved, primarily the British and theFrench after World War One and tried to
(14:18):
create artificial borders and boundaries without recognizingthe clan and tribal nature of the Middle
East. Yeah, when they createdcountries like the UAE, they recognize we've
got to preserve the more indigenous structureof that society, and those are countries
that function much better. Iraq,Syria, all these countries are disaster because
there's no natural cohesion amongst them.The Palestin authorities the same way. Gaza
(14:41):
is the same way. So theonly people who stay in power in these
places are totalitarian dictators who use aniron fist against their own people and perpetuate
a conflict because that's how they distractfrom their failures internally by blaming the outside
people. I'm talking with Rabbi kenSpirerou, and I wish that I had
had you on at the beginning ofthe show, even though you didn't land
soon enough to cause we're almost outof time, and that's super, super
frustrating for me. What does thismean in terms of the baby steps that
(15:09):
had been made with the Abraham Accordsin bringing some measure of recognition with other
Arab states. What has all ofthis conflict done in terms of any of
that. Well, that's another fantasticquestion, which is a whole discussion.
But we have to pull out andrealize the Arab Middle East is not cohesive
the Islamic world is not. There'sShiite and Sunni. They do not like
(15:31):
each other, that's an understatement.And there's a big power struggle going on
between Primarily the shi had superpower isIran, and then there's a bunch of
Sunni powers. There's Turkey, there'sEgypt, and there's Saudi Arabia. And
by the way, the Saudis aremuch more scared of Iran than they are
of Israel. As a matter offact, the Middle East, we always
say, my enemy's enemy is myfriend. And what was driving the Abraham
Accords was not so much Saudi Arabianlove for the Jewish state, but a
(15:54):
practical reality that, especially if Americais starting to pull out of its role
as a super power in the MiddleEast, Israel is the mini superpower that
can defend us, and it's inour best interest, in Israel's best interest,
to keep Iran from infesting the MiddleEast with all these radically crazy groups
that are bent on exporting jihad andoverthrowing other Arab states. So what people
(16:15):
need to do in the world theused to do is stop microtizing the conflict
of its mighty Israel, the sizeof New Jersey picking on the Palestinian authority
or Gaza and recognize that we're dealingwith the geopolitical and religious theological realities that
are far larger, and think ofthe big game. You got to look
at the It's like playing risk andlooking only at one continent, right,
you have to be looking at thewhole picture, not just in terms of
(16:37):
what is really going on with theArab Middle East and Israel and the Arab
countries in each other, but theimplications of that for the entire world.
Because if you let these regimes likeIran, they are hell bent on exporting
their jihadi site worldview to weigh outsidethe Middle East. They view this as
a religious moral imperative from their perspective, and to tell them, well,
(17:00):
that's not really what you want,no, you really want today is to
be condescending and foolish. But theproblem is because of people are so pc
and sensitive, you can never talkabout the deeper issues that are the Islamic
issues et cets that are driving allthis, and it has to be we
have to be better educated and morebroad minded. We got time for one
more question, and unfortunately I mightjust blow off KAO sports today to keep
(17:23):
Rabbi ken in here and Ryan's like, okay, this question. The answer,
if there is one, Palestinians mustremove Hamas and Hamas types and elect
free istray governors. Is that evena possibility because Hamas isn't just government,
it is all consuming. Well,it's Hamas is a manifestation of an ideology
(17:44):
which is the radicalized happened. Whathas happened to Islam, especially is the
Iranian Revolution has been the extra taking. What is a faith that can be
expressed itself very moderately. There areperiods of time in Spain of a thousand
years ago or is the most progressivepart of the world was was oh Maya
in Spain was a lot more progressivethan Europe was in the Middle Ages.
What needs to change is the itneeds to The Islamic world needs to go
(18:07):
through reformation, really become and becomenormal and tolerant Christian. The Christian European
world did that, which opened themup to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and
the liberal democratic world we have today. I wish they were a little more
particularistic. By the way, Iwish Christian Europe was a little more Christian,
because you have not crazy fanatic,But when you have a very particular
as people like Muslims who believe intheir world, you believe in exporting it,
then you have people who are whetherEurope or American, and American college
(18:30):
campus says, oh, we haveto be open to everything and way that
is suicidal. That is suicidal,and what has to happen from the grassroots
up is a change in the attitude. You cannot raise people. Children are
not raised to hate and want tokill other people. These people are indoctrinated
from birth to be suicide bombers andmartyr themselves and go to heaven and get
seventy two virgins. This is themost destructive. It creates a society that's
(18:55):
only about death. And a societylike that is never going to produce anything.
It'll be worth anything. And that'sand that the real work. What
Europe should be doing is saying wehave to rebuild these people from the ground
up, beginning with the educational system, and not allow anyone to be in
power who's going to propagate or pusha radicalized Jie hottist like the ideology racist
ideology regarding other people. When youdo it from the bottom up, then
(19:18):
there's a hope for creating a MiddleEast that is stable and actually peaceful.
What a fascinating conversation. And I'mhappy to hear you say that that Islam
needs a reformation. I've been sayingthat for fifteen years on my show because
until you, until you develop thatsort of open tolerance, it's never there's
never going to be peace in theworld. And now, Robert, are
(19:41):
you speaking? Is there anywhere anybodyelse can go see him? Wendy?
What I'm speaking for ash of theRockies tonight. Ashatara is the organization I
work for in Jerusalem, So I'mtalking there tonight. Are there any tickets
left, Wendy? Are they soldout? Like? Nah? I think
they're so. Guys, this isyour only chance to hear from rab Why
Ken Spiraut. We literally have twominutes and I'm gonna ask you the hardest
(20:03):
question. And people ask me thisall the time all the time. Why
are the Jews hated by so manypeople? Wow? Okay, tutes bottom
line, Okay, the short version. We've been accused of a lot of
things in human history. We kidnappedChristian babies, use their blood to big
mons of poison worlds, we're inleague with the devil, control of the
world's economy, size and activities,solar flares, we have a space laser
we've stolen around RAN's cloud cover.If anyone believed any of those things,
(20:26):
no one would mess with the Jewishpeople. Bottom line is. Bottom line
is we just understand that since thetime of Abraham honored, we have a
unique historic mission. We are theGod Squad, as I call it.
We introduced the idea of one Godand one absolute standard of morality to the
world. We have been dragging theworld, kicking and screaming for over three
thousand years towards a vision of valuesand morality and spirituality based on one God.
(20:49):
In anti Semitism, regardless of whateverexcuse, as ridiculous as sounds,
it's on the side, is alwayson the deepest level, even though it's
often even unconscious to the people whobuy into all the nonsensical things they believe
about us. But on the deepestlevel, what's truly driving antisemitism. It's
this rebellion against the nationalist oric missionof the Jewish people to bring a God
(21:11):
based standard of absolute morality to theworld. There's no question about that.
That is the clearest thing that wealways have understood, and that is always
as a famous rabbi from two hundredyears ago, he said, when Jews
don't make kids, the gentiles makekavdala. When we don't elevate the world
spiritually, the world's going to goin the opposite direction. The opposite direction
is going to be like basically amoral valueless system that will allow evil to
(21:37):
creep into the world, that willalways target the Jews first. And the
reason why non jew should be concernedwith israel bashing and antisemitism, because really
Israel bashing is just another version ofantisemitism, is that it will start with
us, but then it will spreadto everyone else. And that's why I
said Israel is a tip of thespear. Not just physically is a defensive
for us against radical Islam, butIsrael is the tip of the spear and
(21:59):
torm in terms of an absolute moralsystem which has been the basis of Western
liberal democracy and created the world wehave today. When that disappears, the
world is in really big trouble.Rabbi ken Spira, what a delight having
you on the show today. Man. We covered a lot of ground today
in a very short amount of time. I think this is probably one of
those productive half hours I've had ina very long time. I thank you
for coming in today, thank youfor coming to the Rocky Mountains, continuing
(22:22):
to spread the word. You've givenme more ammunition to share that is going
to be incredibly valuable as Israel continuesto fight for its very survival and you
know hashtag team Israel.
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