Episode 95: The idea that broke the Middle East, with Dr. Micah Goodman

>> Hi, everybody. Welcome to a new episode of Aschabevanything. Dr. Michal Goodman is here. A good friend, one of Israel's pre-eminent public intellectuals, the author of seven best-selling books on politics, on religion,

and a host himself of a podcast, an amazing podcast.

I mean, if I get them, I should vote. I haven't just listened to many of the episodes. I've actually starred them in pocketcast so that I can keep them with me. Okay, so I have to refer to them again. Put out by Beta Vihai in Jerusalem.

Michal is a teacher of a great many Israelis, including myself.

“I don't know if you remember this, Michal, but you or my Ramban professor,”

my professor, my monadies at Hebrew University. And so it's exciting and thrilling to have you. We're in the middle of a great war. We've actually recorded most of the late a little bit, because Miss Syrians went off very excited to get into the conversation

about what this moment means, and because this is Michal's great expertise, which he does better than just about any Israeli I've ever met, we're going to talk about the big ideas behind the events that are happening here right now. I want to tell you first this episode was sponsored by Glenn Bergenfield. Thank you so much Glenn for this sponsorship.

He asked to dedicate the episode in his words to "My quirky and loving wife Sarah, who has studied our past, has considered the present, met my family, and is converting anyway." Welcome, Sarah. Mazel Tov and welcome home.

And Glenn also asked me to read, "And I'm grateful to you, Havi, for your clarity,

“your relentless curiosity, and your generosity of spirit in these hard times."”

Glenn, thank you. It is an honor to have a dedication like that. I also want to invite you all to join our Patreon. It's how we keep the lights on.

You get involved in our community, it's become this incredible community of discussions.

The questions asked there guide the topics we talk about on the podcast, and you'll get to join our monthly livestreams where I answer your questions. Live for as long as it takes, the last one was three and a half hours. And we had a great time. That's at www.patreon.com/aschaviv, anything the link is in the show notes.

Michal, how are you? I'm very excited, very interested, very very rich. This is a very strange time. We have family members who came in from Tel Aviv to live with us for a little bit, because they don't have a proper bomb shelter.

And in Bichemish, yesterday, a missile penetrated the bomb shelter, ballistic missile sent from Iran, detonated. We don't quite yet know who died, how they died some inside some outside, but at least nine dead, many wounded, everybody is scared. But also, everybody is together. There is the same togetherness, the same that we felt

for two and a half years now, the last year on war, it's a strange time to be Israeli. We're here at the war.

“How do you say it's different than the togetherness we had in October 8th?”

We were very much together in October 8th, but it was together that came from understanding how much the great failure and that we got hit. And now there is a sentiment in Israel that we're together, but not because of our failure because of our success, not because we're got hit, it's because we are now we are truly hitting back, we're hitting back the source of October 7th, it's a different sense of

togetherness. When you say it's a transformed Israel. On October 8th, we learned how much we misunderstood, our environment, our enemy, the nature of the enemy. I remember thinking that, I remember thinking on top of all the other thoughts and all the

other feelings, and we knew people who were taken hostage on October 7th, but I remember thinking what the hell is wrong with them? As a civilization, as a society, what why are they doing this? And then beginning to sort of really try to map out, you know, Hamas is willing to have Gaza destroyed.

It's willing to have, and his beloved, we have to assume, is willing to have Lebanon destroyed. That makes them vastly dangerous because that makes them untiturable. This war is driven by the realization, not the Hamas we kill all of us, we already knew that, but that Hamas would kill all of its own. And that makes them untiturable and therefore massively more dangerous.

We didn't know any of that. Today, I completely agree with you, we're two and a half years in, now we know our strength, or maybe it's more accurate to say we know just how pathetically we can incompetent.

The mukawama, the great resistance front, really is, it can never really build anything.

So I want to just get into this launch by asking, I guess what I would like is to know why, there's something deeper here, and I want to say it as bluntly and crudely and rudely as possible so that we get to the, we get to the core of it. What the hell is going on in the Muslim world? I don't mean Indonesia, the Muslim world is a big place, it's a word that describes vastly

radically different societies. The Muslim world that we interact with and know and recognize, some of it is an absolute jewel of a society, the Emirates are no longer merely an extraction economy, they're massively

no other Middle Eastern country can do except Israel. There are differences, there are vast differences, but so much of it is broken, so much of it is failed, what is going on, why do we face enemies, put it this way, who collapsed, who have so little to their names who can show no accomplishment, this regime has done nothing for Iran except to polish them within, and it can't even, and all of that in order

to one day destroy the great of front to Islam called Zionism. Well, it can't hold a candle to Zionism, their Air Force didn't even take off against our Air Force, their pathetic, their losers, they're the most just demolished weak thing

that we've ever encountered, and all it took was first to touch them, this is something

in the struggle we said about us, we are the spiders web, you just touch it and it collapses. Well, now we touch them, and they fell apart completely, there's no there there, how did these societies, Iran is a deeply competent society for centuries, how did these societies fall so far?

“We remember that days where we used to learn my monodies in Hebrew and diversity, you refer”

to that. It's definitely remember, I remember specific lessons, other people don't know, but you are also very fun, exciting, charismatic teacher, I also learned about teaching from you. Thank you.

So we were learning Rambam back then, you must have heard me mentioning Rambam's teachers.

Or Muslim? There were almost the Arab-speaking Muslims, you know why they were Arab-speaking Muslims? Because Islam was most advanced civilization in the Middle Ages, Abu Nazareth Farabi, Ibn Sina, these great titans of the were interpreters of Greek philosophy and they were innovators in philosophy, and you had Ibn Baja, and these were all Rambam, when he

writes the guy for the peplexed in Arabic, you know why I write it in Arabic? It was intended for a Jewish crowd, but he thought there isn't any real serious Jew that

“can understand his book that doesn't understand Arabic, because that's the language of”

the best intellectuals, when we're in the 12th century, that was Muslim Arabs back then, we were the best in philosophy, in poetry, in science, and math, they were the great civilization. When we were looking at Europe, at the barbarians, to Christians and Europe, they thought nothing is going to happen from what later we'll be called Western civilization,

nothing will happen from there. And then something happened. The Muslim world starts going down, the Western world starts going up, and this reaches its peak, obviously, in World War I. World War I was the moment where Western forces, the French, the British, put an end to

the Ottoman Empire, and made it clear, history has dramatically changed, and this advanced civilization went into a process of deterioration and decline, and many asked what happened

“what went wrong, and now heavy was interesting, so if you ask this incompetent Islam that”

we're fighting with today, where was this born? It was born out of an attempt to give an answer what went wrong.

So after World War I, there were actually two powerful answers to this question, so it was

given by Mustafa Kamal, by Atatul, by the founding father of modern Turkey. And he said, you know what went wrong, you know what put us down, you know why we're weak, you know why we're not modern and powerful, why we were defeated, we were weak because of Islam. Islam is the problem, now when he said Islam is the problem, it doesn't mean that we're

shripping Allah as a problem. He means making Islam political makes us a society weak. And by the way, he's right, the Ottoman Empire was very weakens because of the power of some of Muslim practices, like they shot themselves down from the Gutenberg Revolution for a while.

They stayed behind and Europeans that were advanced, bought them down. But there was another answer given in the 1920s, and that was the answer of Hassan Al-Bana, the founding father of the Muslim brotherhood of the Ikhuan, and Hassan Al-Bana, his answer is, you know why we lost? You know why we weak?

It's not because that we are so politically Muslim is because we are not Muslim. It's because we're two Western, we got weak ever since we disconnected ourselves from Islam. That made us weak, so you have two answers to the question what went wrong. Mustafa Kamal, we have to become modern Western and secular and Hassan Al-Bana. We have to reject the West and go back to our origins.

Now Hassan Al-Bana laid on side of Kutobendis, founding thinkers of the Muslim brotherhood,

And here's their theory and not shell.

What made Muslim countries weak were the same, they weren't Muslim enough. They were thought as like this. Real Islam, original Islam, is political Islam. Meaning Islam is not a religion that regulates your relationship with God. You pray five times a day, you fast one month a year, you go to God, you know, to your pilgrimage

once a lifetime, it's not just about it's not an individual relationship between a person and God, it's not the Protestant religion, that's not what it is. Islam, if it's not political, it's not Islam at all. It's the system that you govern society with. That is pshat kuhan, that is the most basic understanding of the kuhan.

So Hassan Al-Bana says, "What happened to us?" And side Kutobedan, that Islam was distorted and it became an individualistic religion. Well, we know whose religion is the religion of the West. That's the big idea that the best, the West, but the world, individualism. And the West infected our minds with this gene of individualism and distorted Islam from

a collective understanding of Islam to a private understanding of Islam, leading us to separate synicnotchers from state, that are mass from states. And Islam being shrunk to the size of the mask when it comes to legislation, Islam has nothing to say.

“So in very, very broad strokes, I think this is what Islamism is.”

It's trying to say that Islam is the answer. Islam is not the problem. Islam is the solution. Just like you have communism, fascism, capitalism, liberalism, you have Islamism. This is how we can solve societies' problems.

And then they have to ask, "Hey, if Islam is a collective religion, why is it that we're experiencing it as an individual religion?" Because the West distorted Islam. Why did the West distort Islam? Because the West understands the power of Islam.

And it knows that when Islam, like in Muhammad's times, is a collective religion, it could conquer the world, like a data actually in the past. So here's, so it's kind of a conspiracy theory. The West distorted Islam, and wrote the protected self in Islam. What today is the main vehicle of the West to contaminate Islam and to weaken Islam?

A state of history, America, America leads the West, and the tool they use in the Middle East to push a distorted understanding of reality, to push individualism, to push all these ideas or distorting Islam, it's Israel, or in by the way. Can they make that case? I'm sorry, how did they make the case that it's Israel?

We talked on this podcast about some thinkers who said Israel is Zionism is the weakest thing that pushed Islam back the most urgent and immediate demonstration of Islamic weakness,

and therefore the first signal of Islam returning to itself is the defeat of Israel, and

“that's what places Israel front and center.”

But this thing about America being the great Satan, because its culture is dominant, because of globalization, because it threatens Islamic morality, because America's culture is so freaking loud, nobody can ignore it, every culture on earth responds to American culture. What are you going to do? And Americans, by the way, are totally unaware of this, like they don't know their producing

all of this. They invent the internet, the airplane, the car, and they don't realize that the whole world is being shaped in their image without anybody really having to say, because it's all happening by Mark. How is Israel?

And then I mean, and the Muslim by the talk of Israel constantly is the little Satan of the Iran, specifically talks of Israel's little Satan. We didn't do that, most of the Jews who came to Israel, 95% of the Jews who found that Israel live in Israel are specifically not the Jews who made it into America in the 20th century.

There are the Jews who couldn't make it in. There are the desperate refugees. How is Yemening Jews and Polish Jews responsible for America's cultural infiltration that brought Islam low as a cultural force? Well, for three reasons.

One, in the Muslim brotherhood rhetoric, there's a lot of anti-Semitism. Actually, the full narrative actually is that the West distorted Islam, but the Jews are hypnotizing the West. So the Jews control the West that uses Israel to contaminate Islam. So there's the anti-Semitism.

There's a very powerful, especially inside the Kutup.

By the way, Ali Hamin, transland, inside the Kutup into Persian, like this is all one ecosystem.

“So I think that that makes Israel a little bit more.”

It makes the argument that the Israel is that there's a name for a like a small knife and Arabic. It's the knife that the West uses in order to destroy, in order to destroy this version

But also, Israel in the Middle East, it blocks the ability of creating one halif, one

caliphate, just by its very existence. It's the fact that the Jews are controlling waqf, sacred Muslim lands, and haram-e-sharif in aqta, sacred Muslim sites, Temple Naut. Just the fact that the Jews are in control of that, which is itself, like you mentioned before, a historic humiliation that the humiliating, humiliated people, like that how they're

described, are now in control of sacred Muslim land, all that is turning, all that is the vehicle that the West is using in order to inject, it to contaminate the Middle East with this, with these ideas and the end to store Islam. Now, this is cyclical, which means we have to be powerful again, to be powerful again, we have to see Islam as something political.

We have to collect a visa Islam, and when we do that, we'll be powerful, we'll make a destroy the Wekka, destroy Israel, destroy the West. But until we don't destroy Israel, destroy the West, we'll always be under their influence and won't be able to collect a visa Islam.

So, it's like the cyclical, so there always moving between what happens first, do we restore

original Islam in order to fight the West, or we destroy the West, and Israel in order

“to restore original Islam, I think this is a tension, we have within the ecosystem of the”

Iran, of the Muslim Brotherhood. So, yeah, two options, two answers to this question, what happened to us? Answer one, in Muslim Brotherhood, we have to return to the purity of Islam to the original Islam, the Islam of the conquering generations after Muhammad, when we were all unified as this collective, the Umma, the great nation of Islam.

Answer two, and that's fundamentally a political Islam. Answer two, secular, modern, democratic, Turkey. Answer two, seems to have failed, and answer one, seems to be on the war path taking over everything in the Middle East, and I should just say, not demonstrating the capacity to build coherent competent societies, witness Iran, witness Egypt, witness every place

the Muslim Brotherhood ever touches, or these ideas even in their Xi'a version, what has been realized done to Lebanon, et cetera. So, the, the one, the culture war of the last century, and the one also destroyed the Middle East? Well, let's say, let's say history still has a story to tell, let's see, let's see where

“there's taking us, because the one, where did the one take us?”

The one is, and it's, it's a very specific political instinct, and it sounds like this. All our problems are because of someone else. All our problems are because of the West and the Israel, and the 1979, when I thought a human it takes over Iran, that is narrative, all our problems are because of the great taken and the small Satan, and all, and their, all our problems are internal division,

because of American Israel, our economic problems, American Israel, people are frustrated in Iran, it's because of American Israel, which this is, this is as Ruth Rice puts, this version, this is the politics of blame, it's a very specific version of politics. Now, this helped them out very much at the beginning, if we see how this way of thinking, play it out in the, in the foundational years of the Islamic Republic in Iran, this was,

it actually, it actually gave them something very powerful, and that is, the narrative

of the revolution, it wasn't that we're against the Shah. The Shah is just the representation of America, this is the war against the Satan against America, which means that even after we overthrew the Shah, the revolution is not over, because the Shah's one representative of America contaminating the region is real the second one, so as long as Israel is alive and kicking, the revolution isn't over, which means

that the destruction of Israel is not the policy of an identity, it's not what they do, it's who they are, it's the core of the revolution, now this narrative gives him a lot of energy, because you know what the greatest problem for any revolution is, revive success, there were a scene that could happen to revolution, it's successful, and then you lose all

“the energy of the revolution, now you have to start, you know, taking out the garbage,”

they have to start running the country, boring, and for many revolutionaries, it's a movement, it's very hard, that transition is very hard, thank God we had the Vibben Guryon, that managed to manage that transition from being the revolution to start managing the country and blonsry, you know, and taking out the gut and dealing with the routine, but the Iranians

it's success, we still didn't succeed, there's still Israel, so Israel is guarding

“by its very existence, the spirit of the revolution, so it gave, so Israel's giving a lot”

of energy to the Islamic Republic, so so, and when every time you have a problem, it's not an internal problem, it's an external problem, it's Israel and America, and therefore

the solution is marg baram rikon, marg baram rikon, that's the solution, how do you solve

that too, death too, that's a policy, that's a policy, that's a solution, if they're there, or some of all your problems, it's a solution to not having to then adopt domestic policies that are functioning, that's what's happening now, so what's the, now, what when we see, but you ask how is that we touch it, and it collapses, because what we're seeing in front of our eyes is the product of the politics of blame, because when you

blame everyone else figure problems, you look like Iran today, but they don't have enough energy, water, I don't know, how many ways of inflation do they have, so you ask okay, what happened to Iran, and I think this is a very important lesson, because the politics of blame is seductive today in the West also, which is blame each other for our problems, but the seduction, there was this great book that everybody used to read once from good

“to great by something Collins, remember that book?”

I heard about it, yeah, it's a business book, it's a business book, it's a business

book, so a good friend of mine, Rabbi Westy Gordon Schwartz always was teaching me like,

this is a very good book, and it's a book about different companies that manage to go from good to great, I think they became like one of the five unsolved most terrible companies, and then stayed there for ten years, it's one thing to make it up, and then go down, it's about the thing to make it up to the top, 500, whatever, and stay there for ten years, so the book examines where the qualities of the leadership of people that

manage to carry companies up there and stay there, and where the qualities is that they own their problems, now this is very deep, because it's very hard for us to be honest enough to own our own problems, because if I have any problem and emotional problem,

I probably might family and my society and my country, our immediate instincts is to deny

them, or to downplay them, or to delay, you know, to procrastinate, that's the best technique, to delay, dealing with them, but the worst form of not dealing with your problems is blaming someone else for your problems, and every time, and the greatest, what happens, no, when happens when you own your problems, then you start winning, because then you start developing problem solving mentality, that's when you become creative, that's when the best comes out of people,

when you don't own your problems, that's time brings out the worst, but blaming someone else for your problems, that's a guarantee, that you're in decline, Ruth Weiss observed once, Ruth Weiss from this we write a lot of the anti-centitism, that every time a society becomes anti-Semitic, you know that society is going down, you know why, because the politics of blame, it's a society that's losing its winners instinct, it's not owning its problems anymore, now in the

middle, now we know that historically, that societies that became anti-Semitic, stopped owning their problems, and they started deteriorating, and in the Middle East we see that societies that are not owning their problems, because they're blaming Israel for all their problems, become very, very weak societies. By the way, I know MBS is a thing, and it's an enigma, and you probably understand, I don't know where he's going, and you probably have a lot of theories about this, but there's

one good thing I want to say about this guy, he's owning Saudi Arabia's problems, he wants to make Saudi Arabia great, he has a plan, will it work, or not work, and how do you know that he's owning Saudi Arabia's problems? He's a leader that doesn't blame Israel for Saudi's problems,

“they have their own problems, he's not in that narrative, and that's why he has at least the”

potential to succeed, the Emirati's are not playing that game, and that's why they have the actually are succeeding, who with obsessive playing the politics of blame around, and this is where Iran today, it's a testimony, this is a lesson, because by the way, I just want to make a very short footnote, the mind virus of political polarization, where people in Argentina and Brazil and in Israel and America, and in different countries in Europe, believe that their country is divided into

two camps, and every camp has a narrative that all our problems are because of the upside, this is how the mind virus of politics of blame is infecting our societies, not by blaming people

looking at Iran, we should see this is how this ends, this is how thinking that when you blame someone

“for your problems, you're understanding your problems, and believing that your solution to your”

problems is weakening, that people in the other side, this is how it ends, it doesn't look good, politics of blame, weakens society, and this is an unintended consequence of an attempt to give an answer to what went wrong, why did we lose world war one, why was Islam that was on the top, is now on the bottom, oh I know it right wrong, it's not any cultural problems within Islam

within our Arab culture, no, no, we're not going to even investigate, or no, the problem is the

West, the West is stored at Islam, and that is why Islam is weak, if we'll defeat the West, Islam will be strong, it became, and so this whole Muslim brotherhood narrative, adopting a theologian version of the politics of blame, had made Islam, and made these societies

“very weak, what happens now, we've shown the weakness, you can't avoid the weakness,”

and the devastation in Gaza, what is the Hamas do, what was Hamas willing to tolerate, Hamas sat in in 600 kilometers of underground tunnels, and was comprehensive bond shelter system in the history of war, and didn't let a single dozen child into it for two and a half years, what, what do these groups reap on their own societies, Hamas are not fixable, Hamas are not fixable, it's not fixable, it's not, but the thing is, it's not fixable, it's not fixable,

aired one is part of a party day, KMP party, that is Muslim brotherhood in its origins, and it's ideological origins at the very least, and you follow the theologians who literally go from the Arab world to belong to the Muslim brotherhood world to Turkey, and begin to have these conversations with Turkish Islamist organizations, it's a big complicated history,

but it's basically ideologically Muslim brotherhood is Turkey on its way down,

I don't know, I don't know, Turkey is, I don't know if Turkey is completely all bought

“into, to most in brotherhood, I think they're, but my table is interesting about Turkey because”

Turkey came from Mustafa Kamal, it came from the Kamalists, it came from the alternative ancestry came from, what were it wrong was political Islam, after make Islam individual, personal, every personal individually could worship God, but as a collective, we're going secular in Western and here's the interesting thing, the history of Iran is a display of both answers, this is how the history of Iran plays out, in 1920's, Rizah Khan, Rizah Shah takes over Iran,

in 1925 he places the Khajari dynasty and he found the Palhavi dynasty, and Rizah Shah, and then his son Muhammad Rizah Shah, they're together reforming Iran in the exact same way that Atatul was reforming Turkey, not as radical, but he was their inspiration and the industrialization, the Westernization, the taking the hijab off women, all this, what all this was, Turkey was imitated by Iran, and when Iran was going through that process,

of separation, of mosques, from states, in different levels, Iran was really becoming a

powerful country, Iran under the white revolution led by Muhammad Rizah Shah, was attempt to

westernize and industrialize Iran, it was a very successful revolution, they were at their economically, they were at their peak by 1977, and he is very interesting thing, in the narrative of Muhammad Rizah Shah, by making Iran Western, they're not turning their backs to their roots, they have this territory, the opposite, the opposite, the opposite, and the, they have this narrative that their past of the Persian Empire, that the Persian Empire is the source of all

everything that is great in Western civilization, human rights comes from coalish, from Cyrus, from cool, different ideas we have in Christianity come from the Zoroastrian religion, they have this idea to all the, they were the original Aryans, and now in Europe, everybody thinks in the 1930s people were excited, they are Aryans, they have this idea that they are the source of civilization, they are the source of Western civilization, which means when they become Western, they are turning

themselves, the pre-eslamic version of Iran, the Persian Empire, so that was a powerful narrative

“that they had going for them, and then how many comes around and he breaks that down and replaces”

it, with Islam is not the problem, Islam is the solution, the West is not the solution, the West is the problem, he reverses it and brings Iran down, so we have here Iran is actually a laboratory of two ideas, they must have a command, idea, and the Hassan al-Bana idea, both played out in Iran, between 1925 and 2026 exactly a century of this experiment roughly 50-50

to experience in two ideas, the tragedy of Iran, by the way, is that they have never learned

how to make something hybrid, they always play the either or game, either your secular or your religious, either you are connected to the pre-Muslim civilization, yes, or anything that's before Muhammad

“is Jahalea, is arrogance, is ignorance, is rejecting it, and our life begins from Muhammad,”

they couldn't combine these two foundational ideas. I want to get into the combination question, the hybrid question, it's absolutely fascinating, but just looking at the map of the Middle East, I'm, and taking your framing of it, which makes a lot a lot of sense to me, the most of a command answer is the only path to prosperity, strength, competence as a society, happiness, but the Muslim Brotherhood will win every battle, every culture war, because they have going

for them a call for authenticity, a rejection of Westernism, a romanticized past, whatever it is, they have the power in the culture war, but they will only destroy, because they're revolutionaries

and all times permanently and forever, are we doomed to never ending cycles of self-destruction

through the adoption of this radicalized political Islam, or, or is there a, you know, Bernard Lewis once had one spoke to exactly this, where he said Iran and Turkey are going in opposite directions. He said this 20 years ago, he was unbelievable, but he saw even more, Turkey is Islamizing, Iran is secularizing, liberalizing, opening up, and it's going to take a long time, but you will see them pass each other. Is that the story? Is the, is the, I don't know,

“I don't know, I think the showing itself to be destructive, and therefore, nobody's to choose”

the Middle East had one powerful charismatic organizing idea, it was pan-era-bism-blood by Jamalab

did not sell, and that was an exciting idea, it's could unite the Middle East, and it was idea that was supposed to eradicate Israel, it's blocking the Middle East from uniting under, and what will unite the Middle East is not a shared religion, but a shared language culture, Arabism, and that idea gave a lot of charisma to the Arab countries and led in the end to the 60-war. The, the, because the, is the, is the teacher that teaches the theology of Islamism to the

Israeli, uh, uh, secret forces. Um, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a very interesting, he's a very interesting, think, think her on, on these issues. And he said that in the 60-war, Israel didn't only defeat three armies, that's the kinetic victory, or we destroy the Egyptian armies air force in two with three hours, that's the kinetic victory. And also defeated an idea, the idea of pan-era-bism lost its charisma after the 60-war. This idea was defeated. And then the Arab world had two options.

Either we go on the idea that, okay, every Arab nation state needs to succeed and prosper on its own no more pan-era-bism, and that is the root of Egypt. Because 1979 wasn't just that we're going with America, with Israel, it's also doing it on our own, a separate peace treaty with Israel, that was the end of pan-era-bism. But 79 is not only the end of pan-era-bism, from once, 70-on is also the Islamic revolution in Iran, saying there is another alternative to pan-era-bism,

and then as pan-muslimism, it pan-istlamism. Now here's a big big question in the history of ideas. This is a great question to ask. We don't know what we're going to answer it, whether I know or not. Okay. Well, we don't know, while recording this, we don't have this war ends.

what the six-day war did to pan-era-bism? That is an open question. Meaning is this war not only

“a story in the history of armies and power, but also in event in the history of ideas?”

Will it pay room and will that pay the way for the type of Islam promoting by the Emirates? By this, by MBS? Well, I have to think that yes, this particular idea that we're more with is an idea with very specific political predictions and consequences. And if it crashes and burns, if it does the opposite of what it claims that it will do, which is lead the great Muslim Vanguard in return into history of a great and conquering Islam. If it literally can't defeat the Jews,

never mind the great Satan that's three orders are magnitude more powerful than the Jews. Then it's wrong.

Doesn't it contain within itself its own disproof? Are the politics of blame capable? Is the human capacity for excuse-making? Capable of weathering? The unbelievable failure of the Iranian regime? Not in war with Israel, but not just in war with Israel. I mean, even to deliver

“water to Iranians. I mean, can they weather this? How could this not be the fall of this idea?”

Now, the leadership of this idea made a prediction. In the Shiite, in the Shiite world, there's this idea, by the way, also in the Jewish tradition, is that every sacred text has the external meaning and the internal sacred meaning? We have that also, right? There is the shot and then there is the deeper hidden layers of the text. Also, the Shiites do that. There is the Zahil, the Zahil is like the external meaning of things, and there is the

batheen, the internal, the secretive, and never let the illusion of externalities

seduce your mind. So, when Hassan Asala in May 2000 gave its famous speech in Benjamin. And he said that with the intelligence of Lebanon. And this was after the army, are the idea of left-self Lebanon, and he offers a theological interpretation of the rich role of the idea of himself Lebanon. And he says that Israel is a straw has a strongest army in the Middle East, but it's weaker than cobwebs. What does he mean? He means that on the level of Zahil,

on the external explicit level, we have the air force, and we have nuclear bombs, Brazil, but in the batheen, but Israeli society is weak, the culture is weak. Western individualism makes societies weak and vice versa. It seems like militarily, kinetically, they're not that strong, but their spirit is strong, so that double layer theory is what enabled them to make the prediction that Israel is going up and Israel is going down. October 7th, put this whole theory

to test. And you're, and you're asked, okay, we understand that they thought that their religion is making them strong. They're religion that narrative, that blames the West and Israel for their problems actually what makes them weak. But I think it's fair to ask Kavi, if I don't know if we have time for this, it's to ask, okay, they misunderstood their own power. They thought Islam is their solution, thinking of Islam politically and blaming others for their problems, is their problem,

is what made them, what they thought will make them strong is making them weak. But I think there's room, maybe, to ask the old friend, what did they get wrong about? They thought Israel is so weak. They thought that this society is going to break down once we had you say, look, they'll touch it and it will collapse. That's right. And all their allies in the West keep saying,

“that's it. Israel is done. That's what happens around and you're like, Israel is less”

done than he used to be. I'm not sure you, it doesn't shot and the secret meanings of things

is a wonderful way to attack attacks because the text is never going to attack you back. I'm not

sure if it's a great way to deal with history because in the grand strategic map, I mean, what Israel is so much more powerful. I want to say a reason I think Israel is so much more powerful, and precisely the way that Israel thought it wasn't. And then send the ball back to your court, why have they failed? Never mind to misunderstand themselves, never mind to create an Islam that can only disversion of Islam, undermine themselves and weaken themselves and turn them into what

Iran has become. Israel's democracy, okay, individualism will call it. Is the great source of

theologian. The fact that an Israeli brigadier general must sit down with the mothers of the soldiers who died under his command means that he arms those soldiers better, trains those soldiers better, and cares more. The fact that I will send my kids to a military where they will probably have to fight a war. This is not the Belgian military. Why am I willing to send my kids to a military

that's going into a war? And the answer is because everyone else's kids are now in that military

“protecting like it. It's a circle of solidarity. Well, you know what you need to have a circle of solidarity”

in which everyone's kids protect everyone and therefore that's the only legitimate reason to actually send your kids into harm's way because you don't send your kids to defend the state. The state exists to defend the kids. The only way it's legitimate for everyone to be rowing in the same direction is sending kids into harm's way is if every single person in the country is rowing in. And the only way you get that solidarity is democracy. The fact that we know

that the country is together. The fact that we know that this war is real. The fact that we know that it isn't a dictator's whim and Israelis know it. And you can see every opposition leader in Israel today is talking about how there's only one Israel at this moment. There'll be 15 Israel's 10 minutes for now. But right now there's only one. That is democracy. All the liberal stuff that they think is our weakness. Oh, look at them. They care so much for let we love death. They love life.

So they're going to follow the first sign of trouble. That is our power. Lebanon hates

us well today. And Israelis love their armed forces. And that's the difference of democracy.

“So I think they might have miscalculated on this one. Why don't they understand?”

I still want to understand the miscalculation because they're not dumb. These are very serious people. Gossam Swini Mani was very serious. Gossam Aslan. It was Ali Hamini. They were they had an understanding of reality that was based on something. A philosopher of history named Ibn Haldun from the 14th century, where he thought that history moved, there's a few forces that are pushing history forward. And one is, or is it what gives societies, armies, countries,

power? So first you have their military capabilities. They're their technologies, their weapons. And the second thing is the will of the fighters. Now what happens if you're now, but what's more important? The strength of your capabilities, of your capabilities, or of your of your will power? What's more important? So Ibn Haldun says will all these defeats capability. If you have a battle between one society, that's asymmetry is or high in will and low in capability.

First, another society, that's high in capability, but low in will, who will win? Because aside,

that's high in will and low in capability. You always speak a lot about the the battle

against the French and Algeria. Who had the capabilities? The French won every battle and lost the war. Exactly. Why? Because will defeats capability. Because the French killed like an 1,000 million Algerians, you know, the number? They 500,000 at least. At least fighting. The FLN killed how many French? 20,000? And the same thing, American Vietnam, the same thing, Soviet Union, Algeria. And this is even Hadoon, the 14th century, says Ahsabiya. However,

has Ahsabiya. Unity will strengthen will defeat the people that their advantages capability. And Hadoon, that is what Ali Hamine's thought. In 2015, when he said that Zionism is 25 more years maximum, that is what Hassan Ahsabi said that we have the strongest army. But we could

“have been cobwebs strong, meaning we're strong in capability. Cobwebs being weak in will. Why?”

Because liberalism, democracy, materialism, weakens your will to fight. So why aren't we weak? Why do we go to fight? Okay, so actually Israel is a very unique country. Because in some sense, Nassalai and Hamine were right with true societies, which are individualistic societies. Individualism creates abundance and wealth. And innovation, all this creates high tech armies. But the same individualism that makes you high on capabilities. Usually,

individuals in means, we're all in this for ourselves. So you'll low one will. You're not willing to sacrifice. You're low on tolerance for soldiers dying, you're low on tolerance, for damage to people. We're economy in this war. We're seeing in this war. So you would think that there's like a law of history, but there's a zero-sum-day industry in will and capability. Because if you're high on will, it means your materialistic capitalistic and the, sorry,

high on capability. It means you have an individualistic society that that, you know, there's careers in an ambition and innovation. It creates the best weapons. But no one's willing to fight.

that very low on capability. You know what Israel's sort of this war? That we broke that historic

“zero-sum game. That we were very, I mean, to say that we were high on will. We know all are close,”

friends, a sacrifice, everything in this war. Fun day one until today, the heroic fighting of Israelis, the altruism of the Israelis civilians, we saw a society very high in will. And when it comes to capabilities, we see mind-blowing capabilities. Israel broke the zero-sum game. We shouldn't be in capability. Do you know why? Why? Because this would be the secret

to everything. This is what Europe is suffering from. Never mind your ability. It comes from

individualism. Individual needs to, ambition and innovation, and that leads to abundance and the high capabilities. That comes from individualism. Will, willing, is to sacrifice, comes from collectivism. The sense that you belong to something greater than yourself. Usually countries which are very collectivists, like in the Middle East, are not, do not promote individualism. And in the West where you promote individualism, people don't have that same sense of belonging

“to a collective. Israel manages to do both. And that's why Israel has was so successful throughout”

this war. We have the sacrifice of our soldiers and the high tech of our weapons. And it was

and this is what happens when you combine collectivism and individuals. And if this end the way

we needed and wanted to end, we will ask what won this war? It was the Israeli formula that won this war. If we get to those moments. It's that hybrid idea that you're a Jewish democracy. Jewish means you belong to a grand story that gives you meaning. And democracy means that every individual has its rights and with everything that comes and the culture that comes with democracy. Israel at its best is hybrid. Israel at its best is a Western country, but with the will of the Middle

Eastern clan. It's because we're not really Western and we're not Middle Eastern, we're hybrid, we're not, we are, and most Israelis are highly patriotic and highly liberal simultaneously. This hybridity, let's assume that it isn't absolutely totally unique to Israeli cultural DNA or to Jewish cultural DNA. What is it? Where does it come from? How do you turn this

“unbelievable superpower that seems to solve a great many of the problems of the West?”

Israeli sir, happy, according to all kinds of weird international polling on happiness around the world. Way beyond their GDP per capita, way beyond their right. They have more kids than anybody else in the developed world. They're deeply tribal, deeply collectivist and yet also deeply liberal and can have all this high-tech innovation and can incentivize all that stuff. What is that secret sauce and how do you turn it into a best practice that frankly I would like to export to the

Arab world real quick? Because the Arab world doesn't want to give up its collectivism. I don't want it to. If it turns from in the Arab world into the social and psychological and emotional and identityarian wasteland, frankly, of so much of the West, I'm sorry for saying it's so mean. I apologize to Westerners, but you can handle it. This is a discussion between Middle Easterners. You can handle the insults. How do they adopt the other side? How does each side take on

this weird syncretism that Israel has found? Let's take a rian as a test case. They tried both. They tried communism under the Palavid dynasty and they tried the politics of blame under Khumanian Khaminay. And I can mislemise her. And what they couldn't do is combine the two. And by the way, there were thoughts of how you combined the two. The idea of the Islamic Republic is trying to be hybrid. The Islamic means a fiatrycy. Republic is a Western idea

and relates with democracy. But it never worked. They never managed to become like that.

Because one of those was a lie. Republic is always a lie. The Republic was a mask. Now, here's a theory I have. For 1,300 years, Persians were Xorostrian. Now, as next, Max Weber taught us religion has a tendency to shape the way you think, even after you stopped believing in it. Right, Max Weber has a theory that capital of the spirit of capitalism comes from a certain branch of Protestantism. If you understand religion, you understand society.

Iranians were 1,300 years Zorostrian before they became Muslim. The Zorostrian religion is a religion that tells you a story that the world is a battlefield between two gods. Ahur Hamazda, the god of light, the god of goodness, the god of harmony. And Angraman, you, or another,

And they created this world as a battlefield between these two gods and guess what our role is,

“Havif, the joy and the good god, and the battle against the bad god. And redemption is when the”

bad god evaporates, and Ahur Hamazda governs the world, what does it do to you to live in such a binary religion for 1,300 years? It's a good verse evil right for us wrong. It's a religion that trains our minds to the habit of binary thinking. So that there's a prophecy within the book of Isaiah, that addresses this theology. Now, this is a prophet within the book of Isaiah that was living in a time of Cyrus, and he admire Cyrus. He calls Cyrus Mishyah. Quamar Hashem.

Quamar Adunayli Mishihole Kurish is a Messiah, the founding father of the Aquamanian dynasty

of the Persian kingdom is a Messiah and difficult terms, because he was the one that enabled

“the people of Israel to return to Zion and to build the second temple. And in the prophets,”

it's a term of kingship, but he is leaking rather than that. He is leaking and he's admired. But the Bible has the ability to admire a person while rejecting his theology, something many of us lost, to like the person even though you don't like his ideology. And so the Bible admires Cyrus while it's rejecting his dualism, and this is how it rejects his dualism.

Ania Dunayli, the one who is one god, not referring to the name of the Lord of the New Year.

God is the creator of evil. Ania Dunayli will say, "At a god made all of that." So the prophet is standing in front of Cyrus and saying, "You believe in a good god that is fighting the bad god. We believe in one god that is the god of the good and the god of the bad." You become what you admire, right? To be with the admire athletes, there's high chances that they go jogging at night. Behold that admire intellectuals, they probably be

books. People that grudden that mire in the wrong people. Yes. People that admire people, just for the sake of their famous, they might become narcissistic, right? You know, when you admire the god that's fighting evil, you become binary. You become as either good or bad. But if you admire the god that's the god of good and evil, maybe that trains your mind to be more holistic. The monotheistic religion and its best is supposed to train your mind to see not

not to play the either or game. And this is the the Charles that Israel somehow, somehow managed, it doesn't mean we'll continue to manage, not to play the either or game. Yes, are you collectivists or individuals? Well, we're trying to be both. Is it easy? No.

“Are you a Jewish country or a democratic party? Well, we're trying to be both. Is it easy?”

God knows that so many people say it's so hard. Let's say only democracy or only a Jewish country. But because we see that combining, combining opposite elements is so challenging they want to give up. But when we look at the benefits of this combination, the game changing, they're game changing, maybe it's worthwhile managing this impossible tension. Because of course, yes. Because individualism and collectivism is, this combination is what's missing in the Middle East, not enough individualism

is what's missing in the West, not enough collectivism, not enough community family and meaning. Let me suggest one way that could be part of our path to this strange syncretism that gives us this strange superpower. We Jews are not quite of religion. We're not quite an idea. We don't have an ism. It's called Judaism just because that's English. That's not because of Jews. We are invented. That word was invented in the 19th century. Right. The word

Judaism. Yeah. Rambam wasn't been believed in Judaism. Right. We are a people. And if I came to Rambam and I said to him, I don't believe in God. He would say to me, oh my God, a Jew doesn't believe in God. How could you not believe in God? You're a Jew. I don't know why he would speak

bad that you don't believe in God. Because you're not believing in God, doesn't remove your

Jewishness, because Jewishness is not the religion. According to the halacha itself, according to the religion, you are not a religion. According to the religion, you are a people. The content of being part of this thing called Jew is a people who are nation-ethnicities or very recent words. Even if nation is a very old recent word, it's much more recent than whatever the heck a Jew is. And so because we are also another kind of syncretism, which is this religion and this and this tribe,

because we combine both of those, we don't, we're not trapped in either. So you can join Jewishness and you can convert. But then you're your blood. And so begin to look at Judaism and you begin to notice it in Christian terms or in Muslim terms and you begin to realize it's pretty short on dogmas. It's pretty short on dogmas. And you know, I say this a lot because this is a real

“difference between Judaism and the other monotheistic religions. What happens after you die in Judaism?”

Not some very vague metaphor. Nobody ever wants to get into. What actually happens after you die? You'd think that's a big deal. And it turns out it's not a big deal. There's at least 13

different options in the Talmud. They never really seal the deal. They never actually tell us.

And there's six kinds of mystical reincarnation ideas. Still in the traditional bookshelf, not modern-day California. Justin, like Zohar Kabbalah, there's all these things. There's all this stuff all over the place. And in the end, the answer is the Talmud doesn't decide. The Talmud doesn't care. It deeply cares how you lay your to fill in. It deeply cares how you give to the poor. It tells you answers to the great debates on those questions. It doesn't give us answers on the

great diplomatic debates about God, about afterlife, about stuff like that. That's just not what

“Judaism is about. It doesn't think it's about that. There are no socialists in Israel. There were”

60 years ago. They very quickly stopped being anything ideological and just started running the place. Maybe Jews don't have ideologies. They go off to communism. They go off to whatever they had Judas Butler thinks she is today. They go off to these places. But they don't bring them in. What is the ideology underlying Haredi Judaism? So it's a logical argument. So what you're saying Kaviv is that the ability of Israelis, the elasticity of Israelis, to be very individualistic

and a start of nation and the ambition and innovation and very collectivists. And we're all fighters and and willing to sacrifice, I mean, and all that that ability comes from the fact that

they never turned into digitalism into a rigid identity you're trapped in or collectivism was

ever turned into communism fascism. It was never turned into something rigid. The fact that we we are weak in ideologies enables us not to become what we think. Not for humble and therefore we could do these kinds of combinations. Is it fair to say Judaism tells us teaches us? It is not for you to know what happens after you write. That's not your place. It's interesting thing is in the Tanah. There is no life after death. It's not like that. It says that there's no life after death.

But that Tanah is uninterested in it. Beside one verse in the Nied which could be in one story with Sha'ul, that Tanah, I mean as opposed like Egyptian text a described exactly what happens after death. And the voyage after death. That Tanah is like, we want to tell a story. What happens after death is beyond the curiosity of this book. Episodes of all the singularity. Okay. So and the Talmud preserves the losing argument in every debate across dozens and dozens of directates. 60,000 pages

it preserves the losing side of every debate. You know what that is? Intellectual humility. And Rambam saying, I'm down on our right, the Mishnatorah, this codex of the answers to all the great questions of Jewish law was was was castigated was criticized massively for doing that. Those don't speak that way about the Rambam. Okay. No, I'm speaking because you're here. I'm saying something.

“You're meant to correct me. I'm so good. But you're being, you're being, where do you come off?”

Now, this is the Nishalaga, the great eagle, the Rambam. The greatest rabbi from Moses to Moses. There were rows, no rabbi like Moses. Yes, Moses my monadies. The great thinker and scholar and philosopher of the Jewish books of the great. Everybody responds to him and has to live in the world that he created. This man, Jews at the time said, "Where do you come off thinking you can seal the gates of interpretation of Jewish law and tell us what the answers are?"

That is a culture that is only about epistemological humility. We don't know God's mind. We don't know God's story. I think what you're doing here, Haviv,

And they're in capability of being trapped and binary thinking. If you're an ism, I'm a social

“list. I'm a individual list. I have answers. I have, and then my mind is trapped in one identity.”

And then I'm forced, okay, if I'm a individual list, so collectivism is bad. If I collectivist and visualism is bad. Israelis do not turn ideas into identities because we're skeptical about ideas to begin with. And that you're saying comes from our Jewish tradition training or mind,

never to take any idea away to see because no ism is sacred. No, it is not because God is one,

so not is my idea is sacred. It's God, we can't know. And if there's no absolute truth, but that's not what we don't fall into binary at our own conclusion. Or Israel is a laboratory. We see what happens when people don't fall into binary thinking. They could be collective this like a clan in the Middle East and hyper-individualist start a nation like a Silicon Valley, but in Silicon Valley, people don't do meowing. No. And in Middle Eastern clans, they don't

do startups. Every campus professor in the Western knows exactly what history is. It's perfect total teleological arc is an idea to is doing anti-Judy. That's very interesting. So, and therefore we don't have humble if it's the knowledge. And it enables you not to fall into binary thinking. And that, and that could lead to the environment that creates that wear messy combination of individualism and collectiveism is it? Which is exactly what humminess and astrala

quantum does down. They thought, oh, they're Western, which means they're individualistic, which means that they're weak on will, which means we'll hit them and they'll collapse, they'll realize that we're more collectivist than they are, that they're willing to fight. And the fact that we're so individualist doesn't mean that we're weak on collectivism, we manage to, is railiness managed to put this thing together. Where a deeply religious,

more religious according to Paul's then Iranians, deeply religious, deeply westernized, deeply collectivist, profoundly liberal, the conservative, right-wingly-coord former security officer in the defense services, Speaker of the Knesset is a married gay man. I don't know what the hell that is. But that is Israeli. By the way, no Israeli thinks that's weird. I mean, that's just what I'm saying. I don't know what you're talking to me. Talk to him. I'm not

governed by isms. And I can walk into your ism look at it and say, maybe, maybe not. Maybe not. And by the way, if not, you're saying yourself up for disappointment. I can say to every ism in Christ of God and in Islam and in Communism and in secularism, Jews don't have isms. They have problems solving because this world is made by a God and we put us in here to figure it

out and fix it and defend it. Judaism was never in ism and a Jewish polity and a Jewish society,

a Jewish political community is humble intellectually just because, you know, where the Persians have that dichotomy vision of the universe built into their cultural DNA, we have the,

“I have no idea what the truth is. I can't know what the truth is. That's what God means,”

therefore problem solving is all that's left. Maybe that's the answer. That's the best practice. Every time somebody says in ism, shut the door on them. Don't let that is him into your house. It'll break your house because no ism can encapsulate the complexity of reality. Or within that ism, there's a spark of truth. Don't be trapped in the ism, but take from the evidence spark of truth. Collectivism when you're trapped in it, it brings the worst out of you. But if you take from

collectivism that the sense of belonging to a story greater than it, individualism when you're and individualism leads to egoism, leads to loneliness, leads to breakdown of families, but the fact that individualism leads, leads to where the West is today, doesn't mean we can't be hyper individualists. We don't, we're not trapped in ideas, we take fun ideas. We take my

“ideas and I think that's, that's the idea of not being trapped. Now Iranian thinking is binary thinking.”

I like this, when I, in this war, when I had the opportunity to speak to a reserveist and everything, I said, that we will win Iran if we won't become, if we won't become Iran. Thinking like Iran is being either your Islamyat or Iran, either you were, you were the Turkish model or the, or the Iran model, either or playing the either or game. And they have a hard time putting things together. Is there anything to put this together? And this is why Israel's now on top of Iran,

and not the other way around. Mikha, in your classes, you would always tell a student who is

brave enough to answer a question or ask a question. Keep going, keep going. I think it's also what just happened here. Mikha, one of my great teachers, thank you so much for joining me. I, we reached

maybe, tiny is little bit. The whole point there is intellectual humility. We have a little bit of

“advice from this unbelievable success story for anybody interested in hearing it. Avivat's so much”

time. This, what we did here together was fun and interesting. And, um, let's do this more.

Yeah, thank you for joining me. Thank you.