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

here in the United States, have for some time now made the case that all criticism of

“their government is anti-Semitism, and it is because their government somehow speaks”

for all Jews globally. Every Jewish person is represented by the Netanyahu government, therefore the actions of the Netanyahu government represent every Jew on this planet, and any criticisms of that government are by definition, an attack on every Jew. They are anti-Semitism. It's a position that doesn't make any sense, but it's kind of hardened into a consensus in the United States, at least for right now. And if you think about it for a moment, it's

not only incorrect, it's a kind of slander against Jews. It is itself a kind of anti-Semitism, because no, not all Jews are represented by Benjamin Netanyahu, and there are many who don't want to be. And that's true even within Israel. Yes, polling consistently shows that most Israelis were in favor of the war, but in Israel as in all countries, most people don't really know that it tales of what is happening or why. And that's by design. Israel is a particularly

censored place, it's also particularly small place, fewer than 10 million people. And so it's

citizens by and large live the same way we do at an information vacuum, where what they know

“is determined by somebody else for a political reasons. All of which makes it very important”

to do our best to break the spell of this, to hear from people who disagree and hear them explain why. People who have some credibility and knowledge, not just wackos with weird opinions, but thoughtful people who have a dissenting view. And one of those people is a man called A from Berg. Berg is in his early 70s, he was born in Israel, he's from a prominent Zionist family, and he himself was a prominent political figure for many years. He was remember the Kinesiate,

he was speaker of the Kinesiate, the Israeli parliament. It's a law-making body, it's Congress. He was even interim president of Israel at one point. So his opinions may represent the minority of Israeli opinion, but he himself is not a fringe figure. He was at the very center of Israeli politics. Once again, he was the interim president of the country. And in the hours after this current war broke out, he wrote a very strong op-ed in the Israeli press explaining why it was a terrible

idea, why it didn't serve Israel's interests and while the people doing it had no idea why they were doing it. It's pretty brave thing to say in the middle of a country of war, but he said it because he's a pretty brave guy. I agree, or disagree. So we thought it would be worthwhile to hear directly from him. Averan Berg from Israel. Here it is. Averan Berg, thank you very much for doing this. I want to ask you about something that's happening right now apparently. So the president of the United

States issued a statement this morning saying that because of ongoing negotiations between the US and Iran, the US would not actually commence with hitting civilian infrastructure as he promised and that we're going to try and work something out diplomatically this week. Almost immediately after issuing that statement, there were reports that the Israeli military was hitting civilian infrastructure in Iran. What assuming that's true? What do you make of that? What strategy does that

suggest? The same strategy that Israel has for years, no strategy. In Israel in many, many cases, the compilation of many tactics sometimes assemble into a de facto strategy, but otherwise nothing. I mean, just look at the last two hours when was the announcement of the president, the surprising

one two hours ago, and you have a bundle of messages coming from all directions. The first and the

“most important one, hallelujah, they're going to renew the flights. So we can go for Passover vacation.”

That's the immediate reaction of many Israelis, my daughter included. The second is on a Netanyahu new all together. I mean, Netanyahu is behind the move. As if framing it as his own move. And then, oh, Trump, oh, he is so softy. He is so weak. He doesn't have any resilience. The Iranians, they trick him, etc., etc., etc., bottom line is nobody has a clue. And in this chaos, the military

the one we're seeing today, and the ones we've seen for the last month, don't add up to a strategy.

“There's no strategic goal in mind. I listen to you very carefully in the last couple of weeks,”

and the way you try to conceive the Israeli strategy from Netanyahu's 40 years life mission, to the greater land of Israel, biblically speaking, or Messianicus, katological one. And I envy you that you really believe that we have something like that. It doesn't work that way. I mean, in a way that let's start somewhere else. I mean, somebody wants to told me that what's the difference between an Israeli and an American among many differences is that we

Israelis, we see an aim, so we aim, and we shoot. You're Americans, you see an aim, so you take an aim, an aim, an aim, an aim, an aim, and aim. You are a lot about process. And we are a lot about Yala, let's shoot it. And there is a difference here. I have no idea what's the American strategy. I don't know what was the end game. I have no idea what is the final design, the architects of the White House or the Washington really had in mind. I can tell you one thing for sure. Israel wants to

remove the Iranian monster because part of it is a real threat and part of it because we pump it to the size of a monster. So we are fighting in a way a real demon and a demon which is our own creation. So what we want to do is we don't like the war, we want it to end, we don't like the messas, we hate the sirens, we skip nights after nights of sleeping, but once we are into it, let's make sure that it's over. So the real will of many Israelis is let's get over with the Iranians.

The problem is the relative size. Israel is a small country, Iran is a large country.

“How exactly, do Israelis expect that's going to happen?”

Size wise, a number wise, we are let's say 10 million in a good day and there are 100 billion in an average day. In a way, many Israelis do not really measure it this way. Many Israelis believe that we are a kind of a superpower. A couple of weeks ago I was in a high school somewhere and I promoted my good old, no good-nick piece agenda. Okay? And one of the students stood up and said, "Otheram, can I ask you a question?" I said, "Yes, please do." And he said, "Why won't we do

to them what we did to them in Afghanistan?" And I said, "I know Gaza, I know Lebanon, I know Syria, I know Egypt, what did we do to them in Afghanistan?" We haven't been there yet. And I asked him, "Where are you from originally?" And he said, "I was born in Moscow." And I said to myself, "Ha ha!" He thinks like a Russian. And I asked him, "Tell me, how many Jews are there in the world?" Now, Tucker, with no hesitation, he said, "Ah, 54.3." Okay? And how many Israelis are we? He said,

something like 20 million. In the eyes of many Israelis, we're not just super-power technologically

and super-power economically. And a regional hegemon, politically, we have the numbers. The numbers in economy, the numbers in support, the numbers in the geography, without really

“calculating what are the real numbers. So, when you ask the Israelis, how simply do it?”

And what will the end victory look like from an Israeli perspective? How will Israelis know they've won? I don't have a good answer for this question. At a sense that, in many cases, the American or the Western way of thinking is usually a kind of a win-win. I mean, we end the war and we make sure that we left the other side somebody to talk with. I mean, yes, it is ridiculous that American President is saying, "I would like to talk with

somebody, but there is nobody there because I killed him." Okay? This is your own oxymoron.

But from the Israeli point of view, in many, many cases, philosophically, no, psychologically,

“we do not live in a win-win situation. We live in a zero-sum game. If there is a competition,”

if there is a race, if there is a war, if there is a battle, if there is a conflict that ends up, that packer and a room profits, something is wrong with me. I want to win alone. I want you to be dead. I want to humiliate you. I want you. I want to cancel you. Whoever you are, my enemy. And when you look at this philosophy, you understand where comes the

political rhetoric that every adversary, never mind who is he minor or major, but the end of the day,

he is a Hitler. And every decade we have a new adult Hitler. And since everybody is the arch enemy, there is only one solution to this one enemy. Removal. And therefore, when you ask me, what is the Israeli political echelon? Forget about the people in the street. The political echelon approach toward any kind of resolution, whatever it is, it's not a dialogueist one. Now, it is not just about Netanyahu, which is a case by himself. When you look at what is

allegedly called opposition in Israel, the simply compete with the government who is more aggressive, who is more as if resilient, who has more so-called creative solution to the enemy we have to demolish and obliterate. And this is why you don't, you hardly find in Israel any reconcilia Tory politics. So we're still in the middle of Lent, inching closer and closer to Holy Week, the day's leading up to Easter. When we are called to walk alongside Jesus through his suffering,

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“We sincerely, passionately recommend it. Where does this attitude come from?”

When I was in school, in high school, every other week, the Rabbi, I was in a religious high school, and religious academy, Ishiva. The Rabbi used to call my mom. My father was busy, so he used to call my mom and said, "You have a very, very talented boy child. He's like an egg. The more I boil him, the harder he becomes." Now, in a way, I will life experience as Jews in the last couple of thousands of years, and Israel is in the last couple of decades,

boiled us into a very, very hard, stiff egg. On one hand, we never trusted hands offered to us,

and on the other hand, we never experienced to extend our own hands. I'll give you two examples. The rhetoric of Israel since 48 is a rhetoric of survival, of existential threats, of permanent imminent war. Out of nowhere came President Sardat to Israel.

“I remember myself as a young soldier at 73 war, and the other side of the Swiss canal in a”

foxhole in the desert. In the middle of the night, Parker frightened 18 years old boy, and I was listening to the Dan iPhone transistor. Do you remember the transistor with the Rusty boy?

and a half Egyptian soldiers in order to redeem the silent peninsula. And I said, "Holy,

“holy God, million and a half Egyptian soldiers against me, Afra Hamburger,”

Juboi from Jerusalem." I was frightened to death. And then four years later, he came to Jerusalem, and I'm running. Now, I'm a really smart group of officers, young one, running after his convoy and chained, normal war, normal bloodshed. It was redemption. It was a scatological. It was Messianic. It was the first time Israel was offered a different syntax.

From a syntax of war to a grammar of peace, we never grew up into the challenge of Sadat. Never.

We never walked all the way with Egyptians, with the Palestinians as was part of the original

“camp they did framework. And we rejected it. Even when couple of years later, Oslo,”

there was a smartina out of nowhere Oslo came to the world. As problematic as now we know the fact that Oslo was at the time, when it was launched. It was an eruption of hope. It was again an offer for a different language. We didn't grow into it. So Israel does not have a vocabulary or state of mind to talk peace. I've now, there is a different layer that I'm not at all sure we are. It's too early in the conversation between us, but this is the transformation from eternal

Judaism that was the religion of powerlessness. And if I would like to use what's left of terminology, we had the power of powerlessness. And we transformed into Israelis with the power of the old mighty, and we feel much more threatened. Well, there's a paradox. So as Israel has become

more objectively powerful, it has felt more threatened, more endangered. Yeah. Yeah. It does seem like

if you were to just as an outsider, it does seem like Israel is more threatened. And it does seem like if it had continued on the trajectory from the Sadat talks or from Oslo in the way that you suggest

“it would be less threatened. I think objectively, that's probably true. Oh, maybe both.”

Maybe at the same time we have opportunities. And the threats are better threats, so to say. Let's look at numbers just for a second when I was a student at the elementary school, a pupil. We were told that in 48 the year in which the state of Israel was born, seven Arab armies invaded the just born state of Israel. So 48 it was seven versus one. In 67, 19 years later, it was only three out of the seven Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Six years later in 73,

it was only two out of the three, only Syria and Egypt. Ever since, as broken as it is, and as chilly as it is, with Egypt, we have a peace agreement. And Syria in a very good day is a dysfunctioning threat. So you can, and the Palestinian issue that was not there in 48 the way it is today was born along the road. So you can say, listen, in eight decades, 48 to 26, from seven armies to half a problem, which is the Palestinian one, this is an evolution. This is a

positive progress. And in a way, it is. And this is, before we count in, the potential of Saudi Arabia, the potential of the Emirates, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. On the other hand, two elements

emerged as well. The first is Israel that at least in two, three stages in its life,

was fully accepted in the, among the family of nations, 48, and it's euphoria, 67, and the eruption of redemptive feelings all over the world, maybe, and atrocities of October 7, 23.

positive peace agreements, but in a conflict situation that Israel was well received and well

“accepted in the world. And then we, we must ask ourselves, how was it wasted? How comes that”

two years ago, three years ago, Israel, three years ago in 23? Israel was so well sympathized with all over the world, and now so despised. So the threat of being rejected, of being a world pariah, maybe it's not a military one, but it's a deeper one, it's an existential one. And the other is assuming that the Iranians would have had a nuclear capability, that very soon will lead to a chain reaction, chain of reactions, that others will have nuclear

weapons in the Middle East, without using the weapons, but a Middle East with mass destruction weapons

is a difference came over threat for many, but for Israel especially. So I will say yes, we have better relationship with many, and the situation is not 48, is not 67, is not even 23, but the threats are not gone. There were transformed and different and required different strategy and philosophy and value system to address. Inflation makes credit card statements particularly scary. You work 40, 50 hours a week just to buy groceries and gas, things you

should be able to afford without thinking that much about it. Then the bank's charge you 20%

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Whether or not the United States was pursuing its own interest, defending itself from Iran,

“or whether President Trump followed the lead of Prime Minister Netanyahu. What's your view?”

If we go back to your initial introduction or your immediate question, you won't bother me with without any introduction. We've no clue what's going on. We don't yet have information. Neither about the launching of the campaign, neither nor about the continuation of it. So in a world with no information, a realm of no information between me and you, we can look at the Gestalt. We can look at the frameworks of what happened to details that risk-like will fall in.

And I would say the immediate trigger was an awful one. How we had an opportunity? Since when you declare war? Because there is an opportunity. I mean, that's the worst opportunistic reason I've ever heard in my life. My father was a very wise man used to say about one of his colleagues. That's a man of principles. Printed principle number one, opportunism. And I say, what kind of a principle is this

one to the class such a world war in a volatile reality that China is out there waiting for something

“and Russian Ukraine is unbushing us. And now you have to have another front.”

So the immediate trigger that we had an opportunity, I would say, whatever was the opportunity, using it was an unjust immoral trigger. The larger frame is Netanyahu life mission.

me or five hours or as long as we can tolerate each other in order to understand this figure. He's a very, very interesting individual and a very, very significant leader of a state in this time. Significant, I hope it's natural enough because I don't have much of, much of sympathy to his

“leadership. However, he's there, he's significant. Where his life mission is coming from?”

And I will say that it has two drivers. One is very Jewish and one is very conservative. The very Jewish is in a way like my mom. My mom believed that the world is divided 50, 50% Jews

and 50% to hate the Jews. Which means she believes we are something like 3.5 billion people

with the Jews. And the rest of you, whatever you are, they're not like us. So this notion that the entire world is against us and you cannot trust nobody but ourselves is embedded in the Jewish

“conscience ever since. Maybe even since the Bible, since biblical time, but for sure later on”

and the exiled period instilled it into our psyche. So we do not trust and therefore we're not being trusted in a way. There is a dialogue of not trusting here. So Netanyahu is part of this classic Jewish paranoia. The entire world is against us. At the same time, he's a very kind of a 1970s, 80s, 90s, conservative and your hobby, neocon. To say, we are the children of light and all of those offsprings of darkness and our life mission is to push them back. Our life

mission is to fight them. It's never compromised, never realized if there is somebody out there

that we can communicate with. Maybe they are not a monolithic group of people. Maybe like us that divided, that dissected, that there is a diversion, there is a richness of expressions in ideologies and values and religious manifestation. No, no, no. They are all all of them. And when you listen to Netanyahu, hunting them through Netanyahu, he's the leader of our civilization of light versus whom ever is the civilization of darkness. So he's built in classic

Jewish paranoia that many Jews have. Some of it rightly sell some of it, molded, molded into it. And part of it is part of a world view that you know better than I do because you explore it almost a couple of times a week. And this is the mistrusting Christian West who does not trust anybody but itself. And when you look at some of the attitude towards Europe itself, does not even trust itself. So where this war started, it started with an opportunity and a frame of mind.

“How do you think Prime Minister Netanyahu sees President Trump?”

He's afraid of him because he's unexpected. I don't know if the term whimsical is a right one, but he's unexpected. I believe the more I monitor the actions of the President that the

reason kind of a world view behind it. Not always articulated the jury, but the fact that I can

realize I can realize some things there. So first Netanyahu is fearful of the unexpected. The second Netanyahu is so talented that he took the disadvantage and made it his prime advantage how to puppeteer the president. So I will say he has a dual feeling, a fear and know how to use this

Minister is there as their elder brothers? Like Clinton and Robin, George W. Bush and Edward

Omar, maybe not elder brother, but an experienced one, golden mayor and Nixon. So there is a kind of older younger brother relationship between Israeli prime ministers and American presidents that Netanyahu with his vast experience and malicious intentions knows how to use also this

“leverage point in order to promote his agenda with this American president. How do you think he did it?”

What were the leverage points? I heard you with Leeds, how you calling the prophet, the Canadian,

the Canadian prophet this week? Yes, it's interesting. I'll tell you something very funny in a secondy for me. He came with four theories, how it happened. I'll tell you something very, very simple. It's a chemistry between two traumas. Listen, I cannot stand you. But you are a nice person, so I talk with you. I'll take that as a hand.

“Yes, of course. I mean, it's one and a half. And you know my position and the spite or”

inspired my positions, we're talking. Yes. So there is something there at the very personal chemistry.

The simply worked. And Netanyahu is brilliant, container. Listen, when you walk out of the room with Netanyahu, check your sleeves, whether you have your hands into them still. Maybe he told your hands out of your sleeves. This is how talented it is. He is. He picked his pocket and so did Trump to him. They use each other. I don't understand, I mean, I understand half of that explanation, but I, I don't

understand what President Trump or the United States could conceivably gain from this. It seems like a hundred percent loss to me. It's more a question to you as an American than a question to me as far away a subject of American empire or American influence zone. Okay? Yes.

“I'm sure that there is a profit here. Now, is the profit, for example, a place in history?”

As much as many authoritarian leaders, since they do not trust the people to commemorate them after the past away, so they commemorate themselves while still alive. Make sure that our libraries and them and cultural centers and bridges and airports and new names, okay? Still history plays a role. And when you think of Trump coming from Manhattan, with so many Jewish associations around him, he's familiar to the Jewish talk of New York.

He's familiar to the rhetoric of Jews and their association and affiliation with Israel. He understands the many of them sees Israel under a permanent threat of extinction. Saving Israel before the base, before the Christian Zionists, saving Israel is historically speaking, is almost prophetic. Listen to his rhetoric of the Gaza. I put an end to three thousand years of a conflict, I don't know when the counting began. And still counting, okay? Nonetheless,

it's a state of mind. It's politics and history. Mixed. And Netanyahu, as a child, as a son of an historian, understands this, how to play this card.

saved the Jews. This is on the positive side and on the negative side is you do not want to be

“recorded as the one that in under his guard and in his shift. Something so awful like the second”

holocaust happened to the Jews. Now two sides of this moon, yes, the dark one and one a bit more illuminated. Publicly, you speak about the litan side of the moon. I mean, in dark rooms, you speak about the dark side, yes. We are under permanent threats, save us. You said a minute ago that what the Israeli government is done in Gaza has permanently or at least for the moment made Israel into a prior state internationally.

How is Gaza's scene within Israel?

“In order to touch such a volatile issue, I need a very, a very brief introduction to offer you”

my framing of this last couple of years. Yes, whatever Israel did to the Palestinians since day one hundred years ago, all the wrongdoings that transfer the expelled demolition of four five hundred communities, the knock by the tragedy, the catastrophe of the Palestinians, whatever we

done to them, all wrongdoings does not justify the first step in the first step towards atrocities

committed by Hamas on October 7th. I agree. None. Right. And whatever Hamas did on October 7th to the Israelis brutal awful crimes against humanity in the bodies of my friends and my colleagues and my fellow citizens, whatever the Hamas did to us does not justify the moral crimes and maybe even crimes against humanity that Israel exercises in Gaza ever since. You have two crime scenes, do not nihilate each other, do not balance each other, do not justify each other.

“You have to deal with Hamas crimes and with the Israeli crimes, simultaneously it's difficult”

as it is and sometimes as paradoxically as it is. Now, this is how I see it. Most of Israelis are not in my place. Most of Israelis regardless of October 7th, I mean even much before October 7th, to not really know where Gaza is, yes it might be five minutes away from a dust doorstep might be 40 minutes drive from Tel Aviv, but it's beyond the mountains of darkness. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know where is it?

I haven't been there ever. When you look at the Israeli media,

up until October 7th and ten times more after October 7th, you never see Gaza and people,

you see tunnels, you see cement, you see rockets, you see demolitions, you see Hamas troops running here and there. You never see the individual Gaza and people as if they are no people there. And the report is never about the humanitarian side of it. The report is always about insurgents, terrorists, etc. Gaza is the hopefully expressed by my President Herzog said in Gaza that I know innocent people. God forbid to live in such a situation that you do not

believe that I know innocent people, the other side, even Abraham, the Patrick believe that in Solomon, Galara, the innocent people and God negotiated with him. But we are better than God and we are worse than Abraham, we simply write off any innocent in Gaza and ever since he did not improve. So in a way Gaza, it's not a blind spot, blind spot is it's too technical. Gaza is the moral abyss in which Israel collapsed into. I find it so striking what you just said

was born somewhere else and you know people are always in and out of Israel. I mean it's hardly

and it's not central Africa. It's right in the Mediterranean. It's very international as I said. So it's interesting that many Israelis don't have a sense of what's happening just right at their southern border. What do they think when they read about it? There's so much international controversy about it. When you pull up the internet, someone's getting mad about Gaza. How it was really respond to that. You put here two topics. The first is media report. Yes.

“And the second one is, where is the existential reality of Israel is? Who are we?”

When she asked you the economist editor, the right to exist and you exploded, what is the right to exist? Okay? And I said to myself, Tucker, don't, don't, don't, don't. Don't get mad at her. The question is a different one. The right to exist from the point of view of being a Jew not from being part of the international community is Israel justified according to the norms. It tells itself it is. The only democracy in the Middle East, the most moral army in the world,

etc, etc. There it implodes. Now let me try to answer your question. First about the international

reports. Most of us listen to Hebrew media only and read Hebrew media only. And the Hebrew media filters most of the non-hebrew expressions. We do not speak English. I mean, even listen to me with my Arnold Schwarzenegger accent. Okay? I mean, we don't speak English. On Papa Fonsei. Okay? We don't speak German. And if we read something about it, that all anti-Semites. And the weaponizing of anti-Semitism into a kind of a thick filter that enables us to reject

any kind of legitimate criticism is part of the system here. So, media wise, we hardly hear

“the international situation, hardly hear it. The question of, what does that mean to us?”

I will say as follows, up until the second world war. 90% of the Jews in the world were Christian born Jews, what we call Ashkenazi. Yes. And 10% were born in the Muslim sphere, what we call Faradim. So, it was 90% Christian world Jews and 10% Muslim world Jews. Today in Israel, it is 50/50, which means the old perception that Israel is an offspring of the West, of the Christian Dom, demographically doesn't work. Because at least half of the Israeli Jewish

Israelis, not to talk about the 20% of Palestinians with Israeli idea. But from the 80% Jews, 50% were born or offspring of Muslim world Jewry, which do not share the same legacy and the same heritage and the same tradition that Jews should with you, which is the evolution of the West. I will take it as step further. Yes, many of us were born in so many other places, our parents, our grandparents, but most of us were born here. And here is a very strange place

on one hand where not Europe anymore, because we got disconnected. And on the other hand, we never

got connected to the region. So, we are kind of a stand-alone island, totally disconnected from the region, refusing to get connected. When normalization was offered to us only two, three years ago,

“it was a threat. We never dwelt into the strategy, what should be our relationship with the region?”

So much so that, in a way, we resemble a lot, the kingdom of Jerusalem of the Crusades. Foreigners, coming from the outside, circling ourselves with the kind of a self-seged wars.

Muslims at the time and the Christians at the time. But nonetheless, the kingdom is a political

entity never wanted to be part of the region after 200 years, it expired.

The state of Israel, born out of the ashes of the Holocaust for sure, but earlier on was born out of the nation-state idea of getting secular Europe with its solutions to its national groupings, came to the Middle East, which is not part of the nation-state thinking, didn't go through the processes of secularization and revolutions, the industrial revolution, the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the British Revolution, never went through them

in order to get where we are today. And therefore, didn't find any hoops to get connected.

So we lost our Western hinterland and we never seated enough in order to grow to be part of the

“local fauna. So we are isolated. I think many, I don't know what they think now, but for most”

of my life in the US, many Americans regarded Israel as a kind of European-ish country. I was always my opinion. Some of them felt that Israel was almost part of the United States, not in a sinister way, but we don't have got so much in common. 51st state, gold in the mayor, I think was from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She grew up in Milwaukee, right? Okay. As they used to say, the time the woman who made me walk

in famous smoke, Chesterfield, cigarettes, American cigarettes, I mean, it felt very American. What is the view, would you say, of most Israelis now toward the United States? We love it. We admire it. We want to be to move there. And we think you are so childish, and naive. Why? Because this is what you are. Okay. I mean, I'm not sure I would disagree

“with you at all, but what about Americans' strikes as Israelis as childish and naive?”

Israel is, let's begin with a smile, because it's a heavy stuff. Okay. You know why we Israelis do not make love in the street, because then everybody will come and give you advises. Here, everybody is a prime minister. Everybody is a diplomat. Everybody is a strategist. Everybody is Tucker Carlson. Everybody is everything. Everybody is Napoleon. We know better. And when we think about first begin with the West in general, okay?

How don't you understand that immigration brings you down? That you compromise your own very existence. How don't you understand that the Muslim title wave of immigration is going to compromise your very entity. Leave aside, I don't think that many Israelis understand the exchange theology. Okay? I'm not at all sure that they're exchange theory, but speaking generally speaking, you ask Israelis, how many Muslim you think

they are in Europe? Something between 30 to 50 percent, which is far away from the numbers.

So what do you think about America? What do you think in America? Oh, wow, wow. What do you

“know, Michigan in the last elections? Just show us how big is the Muslim minority? Obama?”

Hussein Obama. So you don't understand your own reality, so to say. This is the kind of the experience everybody gives advises is really reality. Either daily. The second is, it's very, very difficult for us, very difficult for us to understand the fairness of the game. If you ask me, what does that mean to be an American? I can give you five different answers. One of them is, since you have a constitution

and everybody's equal in front of the constitution or supposed to be, equal in front of the constitution, there is a fairness in the game.

it's on the other hand. We don't understand it. We Israelis will live in a reality that

“constitution is a threat, equality to all citizens, not just Jews and Arabs.”

But for the sake of it, Orthodox and unorthodox is a threat to the very existence of the state. So on one hand, as if we have shared value foundations. But when you try to translate these values into practical reality here, the gap grows, we cannot accept, we cannot accept the American wall of separation between church and state. Impossible for us, as much as the definition of Jewish and democratic is hollow in a good day

and deceiving in an average day. It's a stupid definition, but we believe it's possible.

And we cannot accept it that you are not Christian and democratic, you're democratic first.

Only democracy to weak, not for us.

“And then I'll take it to maybe to the last stage, okay?”

We don't care, we hardly care, unfortunately, and it pains me about American Jewry. When Netanyahu said a couple of years ago, that democracy did not support my position anyway. Let's go with the Christian Zionist. That's our political backbone, that the best friends we have. And giving up on American Jewry, beside many other things that we don't respect them when it comes to the low return when it comes to accepting their reform and conservative movement,

religious expression, which is totally rejected by the religious establishment in Israel, etc., etc. When we look at America, we see two things and we don't accept both. On one hand, we see as if this is the total diviner, the absolute diviner of the democratic movement, the wokes. All democrats are wokes. And on the other hand, all the right wingers are hating Jews like Tucker Carlson. That's it. So in between, what's in it for us? Okay Silicon Valley.

Technology, economy, profit, but not the values, not anymore.

“Is this a religious war from the Israeli perspective or from the orthodox Israeli perspective?”

This one in with Iran now, never defined it this way, officially,

I will say it's the second me personally who observe the situation, try to intellectualize it in order to comprehend. I will say it's the second stage of religious war. It works since. Up until October 7th, the conflict between us and Palestinians, which is bloody and malicious and and awful, especially awful because it could have been resolved so many times before. Was a political conflict between two national communities? So political conflicts,

a national conflict as difficult as it is, we know what to do with that.

October 7th was the first round of the 4th scale religious war.

Jewish fundamentalism at the Israeli government and Muslim fundamentalism at the Hamas government. And the philosophy of Hamas and the ideology of the Israeli government and some of its leading ministers was out in the open with rabbis and chaplains in the army and ministers and members of Knesset expressing it loud and clear. So October 7th was first chapter of the deterioration

which historically speaking is maybe the same period. It is so fast. I mean, what is it?

“Three years in a new history. It's nothing. It's not even a coma. Yes.”

Yet when you live it, they end and they are out. It's difficult. It's heavy. Syrians. It's keeps not slipping. It's sleepless nights and fear. But it's a different one. The war in Iran now,

for my point of view is the first religious fundamentalist world war. Jewish fundamentalism,

Christian fundamentalism, and Jewish fundamentalism at the Battle of the Field. It feels that way. It feels that way to me watching this. That's exactly what it feels like.

“And the problem of you and me as much as I take it and feel many other things we are,”

other sides of the other side of the street. On something like that, which is such an existential

problem to our ideologies and our identities and our values. Never mind where are you in the

other contexts, these agreements between us, we are watching. We are just watching. We didn't yet come forward and offered an alternative, a comprehensive, attractive, spiritual and political ideological and maybe even a scatological alternative that fights them. I ask myself with the shame, I cannot tell you how much we didn't, we didn't, we didn't

yet open the chapter of what Jewish settlers are doing in the occupied territories in the West Bank.

Daily crimes against innocent Palestinians conducted by wild, savage settlers ignored by the army and by police and supported by members of the Cabinet. Daily, I'm full of shame,

“but the utmost one is, where the heck are the rabbis?”

Where are the spiritual leaders? Maybe they're not coming because they are the insiders because they're behind it, because they support it, because they promote it, because it promotes the messianic ends of the day eschatological philosophy. And this is, as I said earlier, where classical Judaism implodes into Israeliness. How important is the rebuilding of the temple to the people you're describing to the Cabinet ministers, to the rabbis who are not speaking up

against what's happening in the occupied territories? Is there actually an effort to do that, do you believe? For the people in the streets, not the rabbis, not the people engaged, not those you ask question about to the masses, it's an uneasy issue. Yeah, I figured that. It is a different kind of, I mean, Disney World in Orlando, okay, yeah, I mean, do whatever you like, I mean, just just give us a break, okay? So for the masses, they're not there. On the other hand, since 67, at least five,

I'm not at all sure that not more, at least five attempts to remove the mosques from the temple mount were done by these groupings, since 67, which means that when you come to address this question, it is not so much about the numbers who support the removal of the temples and the removal of the mosques and the rebuild of the temples. It is about the dedication and the readiness and the fanaticism of those who are ready to act. I mean, I mean, I'm embarrassed, I did not know there

them up, is that what happened? Yeah. Yeah. What happened to the perpetrators, to the plotters?

The most famous one is the 80s, what is called the Jewish underground. The group of settlers from the same educational system that I grew up, that I was, I was, I was brought up on. Some of them are friends and friends of families and people from the same school I went and said, I mean, pretty like me, people, yes, who were called sentenced sent to jail and got a political deal a couple of months or two years later and few of them, if not many of them, became prominent,

“prominent is really figures. One of the most important newspaper editor in Israel Makovi Shon”

advises to ministers, members of Knesset, you name it. Well received back into society,

not excommunicated and not excluded, not excluded, not excluded, not excluded. So, that they sit in jail for life, you gotta meet what assassinate as the prime minister, and they're constant voices, even within the Knesset, even within the government and the Netanyahu's coalition, calling for his release. So, as for your question, what is the support? The supporting the public is very small, the dedication of the few is very intensive.

What would happen if the Alexa Complex were destroyed?

“I don't know, Dr, let's move on. That's how I feel, but I mean, I don't live there, you do.”

So, you see that as a profound change in world history, if that were to happen. I'm not at all sure that we are not already into this profound changes. Like this war with Iran, combined with October 7, combined with other things, we're in the middle of a transformation of world order. To what next order or disorder, neither you know me now, and maybe we don't share the same vision or what should it be.

But we're in the middle of a transformation here. Now, this issue of the temple, the issue of the mosques will be morally speaking, a coin with two sides. On the Israeli side, even when this will happen, God forbid, that will be the end of justification of the existence of the state of Israel. And if this God forbid will happen, I'm afraid it will trigger the masses all over the Muslim world.

That this might topple down few regimes and bring to power, different powers and different regimes, the entire world order, the way we knew it would not be recognized by us anymore. It is much more dangerous volatile and explosive than a new. Yes. That is certainly my read on it. I don't think you're overstating it. Of course, no one can predict the future, but that that seems very likely. Do you think, my other sense, again, I'm

allow you to have the more definitive word on it, but is that if there was ever a time it could happen, it's right now in the middle of this war?

“The only thing I will say is that I hope that the attention of the Prime Minister is given to”

that also. Yes. That's only hope I have. I trust in my trust is very minimal. And this is in a very good day. I hope that he understands if something like that happens in

I feel the same way about him, but I agree with you. I don't see why he would want this.

“Here we go to something else. Nenanyahu is a well-read person. He's not in, he's not in an”

alphabet. He reads books, he understands and knows he has a vision. You can agree with him. You can disagree with him, but at least he's an interesting interesting partner. He knows what he's talking about, okay? What happens to him in the last

couple of years is that he does not behave politically according to his wisdom.

He behaves according to his political survival instinct rather than according to his ideology

“and philosophy. So between political survival or conservative, right-wing, decent, right-wing”

conservativeism, if he was the right-wing conservative, I would say, I will oppose you, but I respect you. Yes. The minute it's the personal survival instinct only, I don't accept it and I don't respect it and I suspect it. And the fact that in his cabinet, there are so many influential ministers who promote this agenda and create data provocation around the mosques, troubles me. I take you a step further. How many times did you in your analysis say, "Listen, there are so many

fanatics in politics, et cetera, et cetera, but the Israeli army is a, is a, is a moderate one?" Yes. The, you, the, the, the, the sound of reason. Okay, this is, this is the perception we have. But pay attention. Most of the generals and the high, high-up officers of today, are people who were brought up, educated, shaped and molded at the previous times of Israel. And there are being underpairers, and the menachenbegin, even under Ariel Sharon, in a much more

responsible country. The people who climb up now, the leather, the military leather, a different kind of people who were brought up under the chaotic problematic value system of Netanyahu in the settlements, educated with this kind of messianic mission to use the army as a tool to accelerate redemption. And they will come that you will see a chief of stuff with this kind of agenda. You already have the head of the shinbet of our secret service coming from these circles.

So to trust the Israeli army, to be the moderator for good, is it might be a mistake. Pay attention. Things have changed so fast there. I mean, from an outsider's perspective, it's just a very

“different country from what it was even 15 years ago, that that's how it feels to me.”

It is right, and in order to understand the shift, our says follows, when was your first time

hearing in the region 25 years ago? Making it a 2000. Yeah, exactly. Okay, 2000 was the end of the tale of secular Israel. Israel of 48 was as Bernie Sanders called it socialist, but let's call it European-wise, social and democratic. A very young democracy, but with the prospect to move on for a better mode, develop the democracy and very secular. Israel of today is the democracy in deficit in a good day,

harsh capitalist to the level of libertarian Anaki almost sometimes, and very religious.

The French society differently, the ship, different, different rhetoric, different ethos and patos.

“And the real struggle today between the political forces, yes, it's very personal.”

My personality, your personality, my leader, your leader, okay, that's granted. We have it in every political system. Imagine politics, we didn't know ego. So boring. Okay, God forbid. So thank God, we have some ego left. But the, the anti-current is the warming called the war between religion and politics. Between the Jewish and the democratic, that's the real deep struggle. Will Israel by the

end of the road, will be Jewish religious that their religion is defined by this kind of people,

or will it be back a kind of liberal democracy? And let's not argue now, what is the definition of this liberal democracy, but much more secular in thinking, and therefore speaks with the language of reason. And this is the real political struggle in Israel today. I'm hopeful, by the way, as difficult as it is, the pendulum will come back. But we have to understand what the fight is all about. Do you think, given Israel's moves since this were in the last month, right, both in West Bank

“and in Lebanon? Do you think that Israel will have different borders by the end of it?”

We'll control more territory by the end of this. As much as there are enough people who buy into your suspicion that we want Israel from the eupharatist to the nine. This is actually your question, right? How real is the greater Israel project? It's just hard to know. It looks real, but I don't know. No, I just wanted to show you that I listened to you. Okay, this was just, I'm just, well, I'm just, both in the Torah. That's it. Yeah, okay. So as much as there are these elements,

which are the same elements that were behind the killing of its hakubi and the underground to remove the mosques and those who harass the Palestinians now, etc, etc, etc. I do not believe that in any future that both of us will be part of it, Israel will have any legal and legitimate borders, but the 48, 49, 67 borders. There will be so many attempts. There will be so many provocations.

There will be so many manipulations, but all of these people, it will never work. So much so

that are also all heartedly believed that some were by the end of the process, most of the settlements and the settlers from the West Bank would be removed as well.

“Yeah. Hmm, that's not the trend that we see from this vantage. Why, why would you predict that?”

Most of Israel is one to have good life. As much as Netanyahu came with his prophetic vision of Supersparta, which Superfer Athens. Okay. That's, I mean, because of this, because of the Suvlaki, because of the Hadumi, because of whatever. Or, please, for for at-frame one, prefers Athens, this part of course. So as much as the democracy in Athens was a little bit, hmm, how shall we put it? Not updated, yes. Okay. The original version was a little bit limited,

but yet the vision of Athens as the place of aesthetics and philosophy and wisdom and reason, and the democracy, the season of Western democracy, most Israelis would like to have good life. We want to leave. We want our children to live. Tucker, I cannot tell you how much I cried when my kids went to the army.

when you grow up, there will be peace and you will not have to serve in the army."

“And I did have to serve in the army. And then I said the same thing to my kids.”

And between my wife and my shop and my kids, we have more than 30 years of service in the family. Now we have grandchildren. And one day soon, they will have to serve. Because we are citizens of the place, we are partners to the responsibility. And I know that the day in which my grandchildren generation will stand up and say, "We are ready to defend the legitimate Israel." But we're not ready to sacrifice our life

or to sacrifice the life of others on the author of this craziness. This day is closed. That's very rude. I'm so very reassuring thing to hear. I give you a moment that you were there with me in that moment. When October 7th, erupted, like a volcano, covered the entire city of Naples, so to say. The Israeli Naples,

we were all under the dust. What was the first thing that came back to the table to stay solution?

As much as Trump said, "I saw this." And Netanyahu, like Houdini, made it disappear.

“It came back to the table and it is still there. And you should not ignore it.”

And therefore, the pressure from within and from the outside and the reality. And the options, I hope will be offered to all of us after this round with Iran will be over. There will be new options. Some of them are hopeful. Some of them promising. Eventually, Israelis will say, "We are ready to serve the needed, but not the fantasies." Are you concerned that Israel, if this continues at the current pace,

will be hit hard enough by Iran that it responds with nuclear weapons? The first time I thought about it was when you started to raise the issue in your programs. And I had a feeling that you are really troubled by it. Very. And I had a feeling that not your trouble that Israel will be new to will look them because they affect. And so many other fronts and nuclear race that will start right afterwards will put all of us in a retreat.

So I fully started to think about it. I'm not so much troubled by Israel

newking them because Israel has two strategies. Since we, as Jews, we could never compromise

with one opinion. So we said, "Yeah, let's have two opinions." So we have one conventional army that is order to win, never mind what. And then we have the non-conventional capability,

“which is order to win, no matter what. And I believe that every threat yet in the region,”

we can address with conventional power and setting. Yet, if there should be a way out of it, you promote in the last couple of weeks, you promote the issue of all the sides to sit together around the same table, talk respectfully to each other with no patronizing and with no irrogance, just talk to each other. I say something as well. Yes, of course I'm dialogist, I talk with you. Okay, we're talking. I want the outcome of this war to be a middle-east

clean of weapons of mass destruction to all. Israel denied bombs included. Now it is clear that Iran must have North Korean strategy in order to protect itself. It didn't start with us. It started with the Iraqis.

subtract capability." So in order for Iran not to have it, and therefore,

Saudi not to run after them, and then Egypt to say what about us. And then the Emirati is all the Qataris buying something from Pakistan. And then, then, then, and we should make sure that by the end of this negotiation, whatever we give to whom, because this negotiation you give, you take, you negotiate, the outcome should be a process, a middle-east clean of weapons of mass destruction, which will be imposed on Israel as well.

Who could impose that? President Trump, overnight. It's hard for me, I mean, again, as someone who

would love to see, would be grateful to see what you just described. I want that. It's hard to see Netanyahu ever accepting that under any circumstances. That's right. That's right. It's difficult. It's not easy. But as my wise father that was mentioned once already in this program used to say, he doesn't believe in sticks and carrots. He believes in carrots and carrots. And then he said,

even a carrot can cause some pain sometime. I mean, that way is to do it. That way is to secure it.

“That way is to guarantee it. It opens a whole new window, so to say, about can you trust America today?”

What the golf states that both of us are curious about them? Yes. Okay. Something is happening there. What will they say if America will walk away from this conflict and leave them alone at the mouth of the Iranian lion or the Israeli lion? Not good. What Japan will see? What South Korea will see? What India will see? And then then then then Taiwan, Singapore, all of this important places. If you cannot trust America, so it's self-reliance. Self-reliance means an immediate

Ottoman race, which is bad. So in order to prevent the world to go into a new race like that, and this is the entire world. And we know who will be the profiters of it. All of those who export death and weapons of hatred to all over the world. In order not to make these industries industries of hatred and industries of suspicion and industries of death, in order not to make them

“profitable, the only way to come positively out of this conflict is to begin here at home.”

Here is the first region which is clean and we move on and these are the guarantees we Americans are giving you that nothing bad will happen to you. If a threat like this, one they will stand in front of you. So America in order to do anything is not just about the old prices, which is important by itself. I mean if you live at a suburb for so many years and you want to drive

to your father's seat at your supermarket, the price is crucial. I don't consider it very seriously.

As a daily existential issue for the American citizen, but if you want the world to be

“pacified and calmer, you need to restore not the trust in the markets, but the trust in America.”

Again, we strongly agree on that. What would happen if no American leader was able to restore that trust or the United States couldn't afford to remain a stabilizing force globally because it's expensive? What would happen to the world? The simple answer is I've no clue. The little bit more augmented one is, somebody else will walk, somebody else will grow into this responsibility. Will it be China

that with all the problems that Chinese are having, they're about to think, they're very much about

The play games, but don't declare wars the way we declare wars every now and then.

So maybe China will grow into it. Maybe there will be a different world coalition of interested parties who would like to see something like that. And this is a very, very ambitious and what about Europe? I saw your vice president there and then I saw your secretary of state there. One with a little bit more abrasive style, the other one a little bit more subtle one saying the same thing. Europe, you're done. And I say, I'm not at all sure. The good old continent

was done so many times and rediscovered this job. And can you say reverse itself? Yes, how do you re reproduced this job? Okay, yes, I'm out of it. Okay, reproduced this job. So many times in history. And I have a feeling that this mechanism of renewal, which is the

cradle of the Western civilization, Western civilization is European first.

And only then the rest of the Christian Anglo-Saxon, et cetera, et cetera. And I have a

“feeling that you repas the power to renew itself and to grow up into it and remember that Israel and”

Turkey and Iran and Saudi Arabia are all the next little neighbors. It's not a far away from Florida. Please. No, it's not. And I take marked way. I take marked way in the wisdom who said that every now and then America declares a war in order for Americans to study geography. I understand.

Did he really say that? But it's pretty good. This is this for a red. Okay, and if it did not

let's give it to us. Yes, he deserves it. You know, in the world, you say in a burnout show. Oh, a go to Marx. Oh, oh, why? Oh, mocked Wayne. Right. We have a limited palette. Yes, great. Now, one of them did it. Okay. So, and I say for Europe, it is much more natural at what sense when you look at the Middle East, the Middle East of today with all of its fragility and all of its volatile forces is the leftover of two poisonous

European fruits, the Holocaust and colonialism. And I'm not at all sure that Europe went

“yet through the process to internalize it to grow up to the challenge, what do we do about it?”

Do we have any kind of historic responsibility? And with America walking away, this America walking away from NATO and walking away from so many things. Maybe it's time for Europe to recalculate its position in history. So, I have to end and I and I should do this at the beginning, but I just want to make sure that you get credit for this. I want to read a line that you wrote immediately after the beginning of this war and you wrote it in the Israeli press

because it's just so precious and you're describing your Prime Minister Netanyahu and our President Trump. You said neither he nor Trump has the faintest idea why they want what they want to happen here after day one. You saw that at the very beginning that this was a war without a strategic goal

“and I think that's proven true. How are you, here's my question, how are you treated when you said”

that what was the response to that and what is your life been like in Israel over the last month because I don't think you're in the majority in your opinions? In I left the Knesset voluntarily some 20 years ago and ever since I dedicated most of my life to think to write, to read, to lecture, to teach, to offer alternative narrative to Israel.

in a way I'm pushed further away from the mainstream.

This is not just about the death wishes and the threats and the pushpacks in the streets. It's not about that. It's about the loneliness of having an opinion. Yet, I'm a Jew. What does that mean? Being a Jew is many things. One of them is to be dedicated to the culture of disagreement

“when you look at the Talmud that's the most important Jewish writing, a creation.”

That's the oral Torah. This is the development of the written scripture.

It's thousands of pages. So boring, Tucker, you cannot imagine my gold, 8-year-to-mato, York, you've converted my wife. I mean, what kind of... But it's not about gold. It's not about cucumber. It's not about this. Jews for centuries, so did I, so did my father, so did my grandfather, studied the Talmud because the Talmud documents obsessively,

“not just the decision and the verdict of the majority, but the position of the minority.”

With the assumption that they will come, the majority will wake up and realize how wrong they were. We have already made the strategy prepared by the minority to become the new majority philosophy. So being a minority and a Jew, it's not a problem. So where the prophets, so where the rapise, so where the intellectuals, so what? It's a responsibility. And I see my role in life,

and it's not alone. You never do things like this alone.

Is to offer, first thinking, which is different than the parameters, parameters of the public discourse, and to be courageous enough and expressive enough for people to know there is an address out there. There is somebody out there who thought about it and he's not afraid, so shouldn't we be afraid? Look at my t-shirt. Okay, I went abroad couple of months ago. I'm going with that. I said,

listen, every ultra-autodox has his outfit that you recognize, like an English, okay? Yes.

“Every settler has his or her outfit, which is an M16 rifle and something else, okay?”

I have my uniform. So I'm in the airport, comes to me a guy and says, "Borg, don't you think it's about time to change your shirt?" He said, "Why it's thinking?" He said, "No, no, no, no, no. Peace is thinking." Okay. And of course for me, it was an opening for a deliberation for a discussion. So yes, many times I'm alone and yes, many times I'm even lonely, but I'm full of hope and I offer hopes, hope for other. And when my daughter asked me,

"Daddy, how do you feel?" She asked me the Tucker's question. "How do you feel?" I said, "What's the problem, dear?" I'm in a majority. I agree with myself. At home, we all think the same. So it's a majority. All my friends think like me. It's a majority. Political, they support people like me. So we have the majority. The fact that they have more numbers, that's marginal. But in line is sometimes Tucker being a Jew means being an alternative.

Well, I like your alternative. And this conversation has really been a blessing for me. So thank you very much for taking the time to do it. And I hope a lot of people see that. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. And you're going to meet the opportunity. Thank you very much, Tucker.