From the River to the Sea: Ibaitik Itsasora (75) eta Norman Finkelstein

Gaza BEFORE Israel showed up

Israel is a criminal state

2 h

Norman Finkelstein: Trump, Israel, Gaza, and the Criminalization of Dissent

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Norman Finkelstein: Trump, Israel, Gaza, and the Criminalization of…

Norman Finkelstein received his PhD from the Princeton University Politics Department, and is best known for his research on Israel and Palestine. Norman al…

OUTLINE

00:01:11 Norman’s Predictions for the War

00:10:12 Trump and the End of the Ceasefire

00:14:29 Why Didn’t The Democrats Strike a Ceasefire in Israel?

00:25:50 A Jeremy Corbin Witch Hunt?

00:29:52 On Wokeness and DEI

00:57:16 Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, and Anti-Semitism

01:04:17 Is Trump a Slave to Money, Power, and Putin?

01:11:02 Is Chuck Schumer’s Definition of Anti-Semitism Terrible?

01:19:52 Free Speech and Academia

01:27:45 On Noam Chomsky’s Deceptiveness

01:34:13 How Should We Define Anti-Semitism?

01:43:45 What Should We Do With Holocaust Deniers?

01:47:14 On W.E.B Du Bois

01:58:31 On Race and IQ

02:09:02 How to Prevent Another Holocaust

02:18:18 Chuck Schumer is Wrong About Media Echo Chambers

02:22:01 How to Fight Violent Hate

02:35:58 On Chuck Schumer’s Backstory and the Holocaust

02:40:05 Cleaning the Augean Stables of Gaza Scholarship

02:46:21 What Changed on October 7th

02:48:59 Gaza Is Already Rubble: What’s Next?

Transkripzioa:

0:00

israel just spent 15 months raising Gaza to the ground And you think after

0:05

spending 15 months raising Gaza to the ground they’re suddenly going to hold hands sing Kumbaya and rebuild Gaza

0:13

these Jewish billionaire supremacists demand the right to commit

0:20

genocide That’s at heart what’s going on I know Trump doesn’t like wokeness Mr

0:26

Vance doesn’t like wokeness Do you think they care about Middle East studies departments no They don’t know what the

0:32

Middle East is They look for it in the map of the United States There’s no war in Gaza There’s an extermination in Gaza

0:39

I think Israel just announced the 400th casualty And that’s what Israel is doing now Turn it into that hell hole and

0:46

communicating the torture is not over We’ll keep turning the screws and

0:53

turning the screws until you’re scream and you’re ready to go

1:06

[Music] On October 7th 2024 we released an episode where we

1:15

revisited the first year of the war which was still ongoing When we last

1:21

spoke in February it had ended but as of

1:27

now as we’re sitting down it’s begun again and going full force So I’ve got

1:35

two questions one just as a bit of a recap what happened in the immediate

1:44

past that brought us from ceasefire to where we are now and second when we last

1:51

spoke you said that Gaza was no more And if Gaza is no more then how is this war

1:58

still ongoing the

2:04

um obviously the break came when President Trump was elected into office

2:11

and there was a ceasefire declared Now that ceasefire was supposed

2:16

to have three components Component number one was the exchange of the hostages for the

2:24

detainees the Israeli hostages for the Palestinian detainees

2:29

number two uh an infusion of humanitarian

2:34

aid and number three reconstruction I said at the time

2:42

that I believe number one will happen namely the exchange of hostages

2:49

for detainees I didn’t believe number two would happen and I didn’t believe number

2:57

three would happen based on the historical record and based on Israel’s

3:03

avowed policies since October 7th or a vowed objective objectives and policies since

3:10

October 7th Uh so nothing that happened has

3:16

particularly surprised me President Trump wanted to claim

3:23

uh victory or claim his uh he decisively affected the

3:31

hostage question because he had said it a month before he got into office He

3:36

said unless the hostages are released it will be all hell to pay in

3:42

Gaza Now all hell had already been paid in Gaza there really wasn’t very much

3:48

left for hell to pay So he only had one other real option

3:55

if he didn’t want to sound like a blowhard And the blow and the option was

4:01

to instruct Netanyahu you’re going to have to go through the hostage for

4:06

detainee exchange which had been on the uh on the drawing board for a very long

4:13

time I guess since July of 2024 but which Israel had

4:18

rejected So that way Trump can claim he got the hostages released He wouldn’t

4:25

sound like a blowhard Um but he didn’t care about the rest the humanitarian aid and the

4:34

reconstruction of Gaza which was never going to happen So um what happened was there was a

4:43

partial hostage detainee exchange a very partial one Uh and Trump basically then

4:51

turned the other way and Israel does what it always does So it has two components First of

5:00

all your listeners might recall or the audience might recall that Israel’s initial order was

5:07

no food fuel water or electricity would be admitted to Gaza And we’re right back there now No

5:14

food fuel water electricity is being admitted to Gaza So we’re right back to

5:20

where we were October 15th when uh at that time Defense Minister Galant

5:28

gave that order So we’re right back there Uh and the second thing is the

5:34

Israelis are very sensitive to American headlines They’re very sensitive to

5:40

publicity in the United States Uh Gaza was for quite a while above the

5:47

fold as we used to say in our generation Meaning you have the newspaper in order

5:53

to read it you had to fold it Uh and above the fold meant above when you

6:01

folded here’s the newspaper When you folded it above the fold meant basically where the headlines on the front page

6:08

were And Gaza was above the fold for quite a long time much longer than I ever expected it to be mostly because in

6:16

the spring of the student encampments which began to spread with an a

6:22

considerable rapidity So Gaza has been replaced in the headlines

6:29

And what’s been replaced by it’s Trump Trump Trump Trump We’re back to

6:34

the era of Nancy Pelosi and the resistance where every headline is Trump

6:40

Every single headline is Trump There’s nothing else And so Israel now is off

6:46

the hook right it doesn’t have to worry about headlines So it’s able to resume its genocide in Gaza

6:53

So the two main factors just to summarize were Trump was only committed

6:59

to the hostage exchange of hostages for detainees I don’t like the word detainees It was hostages for hostages

7:07

but I’m just saying it cuz that’s the you know the language it’s described and I don’t want to confuse the listener the

7:15

audience Uh so um he was never committed

7:20

to phase two or three He had made a commitment about the hostages That was

7:25

all he was commit interested in And Israel is always it exploits the opportunity Israel is very good at

7:32

exploiting the opportunities In particular uh Prime Minister Netanyahu

7:37

he knows the he knows the American scene He knows the American landscape very well because he lived

7:44

here and he seems to be a reasonably intelligent person I can’t

7:50

judge So they’re just resuming where they left off And it never had anything

7:56

in my opinion Okay I don’t want to be hyperbolic about it The Hamas part

8:01

defeating Hamas was always a trivial part I won’t say it was no part but it

8:06

was always a trivial part The Isra of what Israel has been doing since October 7th The main goal is to so to speak

8:15

liquidate the Gaza question to solve the Gaza problem that’s been its main goal

8:22

And you could say it’s getting quite close now Uh the demonstrations I don’t

8:27

know how large they are I don’t follow it closely but they’re an indication

8:33

uh that the people are fed up And um the estimates now the last

8:41

estimate I read is that one quarter of the population is ready to leave

8:47

according to public opinion posts So they’re getting close to achieving their goal Uh they need a little more time Uh

8:56

their goal being to liquidate the Gaza question and that basically as I’ve said

9:01

in the past had three components One was outright extermination two was ethnic cleansing

9:09

and three was making Gaza unlivable And uh it’s almost there One of the most

9:16

fascinating aspects of that response was you mentioned that Trump is the title of

9:22

every headline right now And in asking this question I wasn’t by the way That’s

9:29

that was the New York Times in 2016 And also every headline was Trump There’s

9:35

nothing else in the front page anymore But what I found particularly interesting was that’s also how you

9:42

began your response about why the war resumed So it’s it’s

9:49

no mistake There’s no war in Gaza I I don’t want to I don’t want to trip you up on every linguistic phrase but

9:57

there’s no war in Gaza There’s an extermination in Gaza There’s been less than one casualty I think Israel just

10:04

announced the 400th casualty There’s been less than one casualty a day There’s no fighting in

10:10

Gaza There’s an extermination going on But Israel and the United States and

10:16

Trump are for you one entity in a certain way Um the United States

10:23

obviously we know that from the day Trump got into office He imposed a

10:28

ceasefire He just uh as I said for him he didn’t want to come across as a

10:34

blowhard He said it was going to be all hell to pay So he but on the other hand he had

10:42

made a commitment the hostages would be released So he just we it’s

10:50

now commonly accepted that they g the US this fellow Whitov gave Trump gave

10:59

um Prime Minister Netanyahu the marching orders There’s going to be a ceasefire

11:05

and it was over That’s why I’m amused You know this is a side note and I I

11:10

recognize we’ll get to it later Uh so I was reading Chuck Schumer’s new book

11:16

Anti-semitism in America and he says that he was working hard for

11:23

humanitarian aid to get in and he was working hard to um soften uh soften the

11:32

Israeli uh assault on Gaza He didn’t have power

11:41

He that the entire book this little book of his the entire book we’ll get to it

11:47

later but the the entire book is him boasting that he’s the most powerful Jew

11:54

in American history It’s like every five pages he keeps reminding the reader I am

12:01

so to speak uh the king of the Jews I’m the most powerful Jew in American

12:06

history and you had no power to affect what was going on in

12:13

Gaza Mr Biden who also claimed he was working hard for

12:20

humanitarian uh assistance Ms uh Camela Harris who was

12:27

working day and night for a ceasefire Mr Blinken they had no

12:34

power And Trump in one hour just tells sends his envoy Mr Whitov who has no

12:41

diplomatic training at all It’s just a gal friend not a golf friend uh of Mr

12:48

Trump’s Uh he just tells him ceasefire Of course they had the

12:55

power They chose not to exercise it And Trump exercised it But remember

13:03

for very idiosyncratic personalized uh reasons he had staked his reputation

13:11

I’m bringing back the hostages all held to pay and he had to

13:16

uh he had to uh get results but once he got he didn’t care about the

13:23

humanitarian aid and Gaza reconstruction That was just I just for me it’s I guess

13:30

people just don’t know the history It was just so ludicrous Israel just spent

13:36

15 months leveling Gaza raising Gaza to the ground And you think after spending

13:43

15 months raising Gaza to the ground they’re suddenly going to hold hands sing Kumbaya Kumbaya and rebuild Gaza

13:54

It’s just nutty that anybody could possibly believe these things

14:01

Now this raises a very curious question which is why if people like Schumer

14:10

Harris Biden prominent members of the Democratic party which ostensibly wants

14:16

to represent itself as the representative of the oppressed and the

14:23

people and I think in in the global space that is precisely what the

14:28

Palestinians represent Why if they had this power that Trump was able to

14:33

execute you said immediately did they not execute their own power to enforce a

14:39

ceasefire when they had plenty of time before Trump came into office

14:47

because largely not entirely but largely there was an overlap of US and Israeli

14:56

interests because Israel is a uh plays a critical role in defending US interests

15:02

in the region and in October 7th it’s what they called the Israeli expression

15:10

their deterrence capability was significantly undermined this rag tag army

15:17

Army ragtag guerilla army in this tiny

15:22

patch of land had uh car executed a military

15:29

operation which seemed to reveal that Israel wasn’t the

15:37

invincible power this high techch cuttingedge military power with this

15:44

fantastical surveillance capacity and technological capacity

15:49

uh that it wasn’t quite what it had been believed and so the US was completely

15:58

committed to using again the language of the Israelis to restore Israel’s

16:06

deterrence capability which basically basically means restoring the Arab

16:11

world’s fear of Israel Uh so there was a significant

16:17

overlap there Of course the overlap didn’t include

16:23

necessarily the com uh the genocidal uh destruction of Gaza It included an

16:30

element of that because the way Israel restores its deterrence capacity in the

16:37

past the restored cap deterrence capacity by being uh impressive on the battlefield So

16:47

1948 1967 they seemed like significant what

16:54

you would call conventional military victories on the battlefield Okay but

17:00

then Israel ceased to be a fighting army It became very westernized And becoming very westernized means uh you rather be

17:07

in a disco than to Diana uh in a uh dirt

17:13

heap or dirt ditch So it became a remote control

17:19

killing machine Uh and a remote control killing machine

17:27

meant basically you restore your deterrence capability by inflicting a massive

17:34

amount of death and destruction on the civilian population It was no longer

17:41

about defeating an enemy army it was fundamentally about

17:48

uh wreaking uh death and destruction on the civilian population So the US

17:56

accepted that part of restoring Israel’s deterrence

18:03

capability the Arab world’s fear of it would have to include massive death and

18:12

destruction in Gaza But it didn’t necessarily

18:17

mean an outright genocide The Israelis

18:23

decided that they had enough with quote unquote mowing the lawn in

18:29

Gaza that this time they would extrapate pull out by the root every blade of

18:37

glass excuse me of grass in Gaza that they would as I’ve said sol the Gaza

18:44

question So there was a large overlap of

18:50

interest Um in the case of pre former President Biden there seemed to be some

18:57

emotional component to it His three he has three daughters All of them are

19:05

married to Jews And I suspect there was

19:10

a osmosis effect you would say uh by that fact uh and then there’s always

19:18

there’s the question of uh money you know campaign contributions

19:26

and so forth that factor I would say in the case of Gaza was

19:36

secondary however I would say in the current

19:41

assault assault fullcale full-blown assault on

19:47

academic freedom and the independence of the universities I would say the money

19:53

factor has been the critical factor if you follow

20:00

currently the attacks on Trump for the

20:07

encroachments on academic freedom and so forth It’s a very funny thing to behold I have

20:14

to say it amuses me because it whites

20:21

out everything that came before The encroachments didn’t start

20:29

now They started under the Biden administration Why did they begin it was

20:36

straightforward the Jewish supremacist billionaire class

20:42

People like Bill Aman Barry Stern Robert Craft Cheryl

20:50

Sandberg the Jewish supremacist billionaire class wanted to crush the

20:58

encampments and they made it very clear that was their

21:05

objective By the way Chuck Schumer went along with all of that He still does He

21:11

has no reservations qualms

21:16

caveats There are quite a few passages in his book on not just Colombia but

21:22

Colombia And Colombia in his telling is a hotbed of anti-semitism

21:29

There are all of these uh ghastly incidents of uh anti-semitism on

21:36

Colombia campus 95% of it probably confected 5% may be true but that still

21:44

is 5% Um so the whole assault on academic

21:51

freedom didn’t begin with Trump It began with the Jewish supremacist

21:58

billionaire class It was then acquiesced in by the Biden

22:06

administration When the president of Harvard was ousted the president of Harvard

22:13

University was ousted The president of University of Pennsylvania was

22:20

ousted The president of Colombia was effectively

22:26

ousted Did you hear any denunciations of academic about violations of academic

22:33

freedom by the Biden administration was there any i don’t recall one word It’s

22:41

not Trump Now it’s true It’s

22:46

intensified under Trump And now they’re going after the

22:56

uh Middle East studies discipline They’re going after

23:05

individuals Uh that’s true But there’s another element that’s completely

23:12

absent from all the discussion Let’s take the case of uh

23:21

Mahmil and there are like five others now something like five I may have

23:26

number wrong maybe more maybe less The most recent case I saw they went after

23:31

somebody at University of Alabama Okay

23:36

Do you think the people in the Trump administration know about students in the University of Alabama who are quote

23:44

unquote pro- Hamas do you think they know do you think they care who’s supplying the

23:52

names who is supplying the names who’s telling the Trump administration “Go after that person Go

24:00

after that person Go after that person.” Who’s supplying the names i know who’s

24:05

supplying the names The Canary Mission all of these Israeli these

24:12

foreign agents of a genocidal state these foreign agents of a

24:21

genocidal state they’re supplying all the names Do you really think Trump Now I

24:27

know Trump doesn’t like wokeness and Mr Vance doesn’t like wokeness and a lot of

24:34

others Do you think they care about Middle East studies departments

24:41

no They don’t know what the Middle East is They look for it in the map of the

24:47

United States You know Midwest Middle East No really

24:54

So why are they going after why is Colombia’s department or um it’s Middle

25:01

East studies South Asian studies and Africana studies why are they trying why

25:06

did they put it under re or why did Colombia agree to put it under receiverhip yesterday they went after

25:12

Harvard Yes they the lead the um Harvard Middle

25:18

Eastern Studies Department they just got rid of the the leadership was just Yes They were knocked out

25:24

yesterday Yeah Who’s behind that now if you ask me if Trump in the

25:31

DEI that’s Trump I know that Um

25:37

but that’s the money That’s the money the

25:42

universities Uh let me just be clear

25:48

um if you allow me just a a parallel in the case of the UK United

25:55

Kingdom when Jeremy Corbin was running for uh

26:01

office The original attack came from the board of Jewish deputies in the UK and

26:08

it was clearly you know because of his stance in Israel No question about that

26:13

But then when his candidacy began to look serious the whole British ruling elite

26:21

you know you look at the media from the BBC to Sky News from the Guardian

26:29

newspaper to the tabloids the Daily Tabloids they all went after Corbin on

26:35

the allegation of anti-semitism That was originally the claim of the

26:41

Jewish board of deputies that he was an anti-semite or his uh or all these new

26:47

recruits in the Labour Party expanded hugely under Corbin I think it was like something like I don’t want to get it

26:53

wrong but my memory tells me it was something like 600,000 new recruits into

26:58

the party when Corbin took over So they said it’s filled with

27:04

anti-semmites and so forth And then the whole ruling elite they saw hey this is a way to discredit the guy So they all

27:12

latched on to the anti-semitism charge The worst were places like the Guardian newspaper just horrible Uh the editor of

27:20

the Guardian is a woman named Kath Viner And Kath Viner had written this

27:26

play about a young woman named Rachel Corey who was murdered in Gaza an

27:33

American woman who was murdered in Gaza uh and it became it kind of caused celebra for a short period of time So

27:41

she’s perpetually trying to prove she loves Israel you know now because she wrote the play in honor and memory of

27:48

Rachel Corey So it was the whole British ruling establishment that latched on to

27:55

grasped the anti-semitism issue because they thought it was a wonderful way to

28:00

discredit um Corbin So it began with the board of

28:05

Jewish deputies and then the whole ruling elite the screaming headlines every day about Corbin’s and anti-semite

28:13

anti what happened in the US is the Trump

28:19

people they latched onto the anti-semitism at the

28:25

universities and then began to expand it and go after DEI And you know eventually

28:35

you don’t know where it’ll go It could I kind of doubt it but it could go to

28:40

attacking departments and climate science or climate change climate

28:45

science I I kind of doubt it because uh what the Trump administration does

28:53

and I have to say it I won’t call it effective because it’s not particularly

28:59

clever I predicted it I said the moment they went after

29:05

uh the anti-semitism obvious what’s going to be next they’re going to go after the whole

29:13

liberal um agenda on the co college college

29:20

campuses Now uh I agree with Rosa Luxembourg the

29:26

great uh Marxist revolutionary and she said every

29:31

movement if you call it a leftist movement one of its most

29:37

important characteristics has to be the capacity for

29:42

selfcriticism to look at your errors And when you commit an error there has to be

29:48

a course correction I say this because Trump was

29:56

able to go after DEI He was able to go after a lot of and

30:04

it’s continuing We don’t know yet where it will end Uh it is interesting that he

30:10

went after Middle East studies South Asian and Africana Now I recognize

30:17

they’re all part of one department because but he could have separated them out It’s growing you know slowly but

30:26

surely The problem is and this is not going to be a popular

30:32

thing to say it was an easy target because they alienated so many

30:39

people with the idiocy that was being taught in those departments by

30:46

halfbaked morons It alienated so many people I I

30:52

talked to students What went on in these classes there was

30:58

no room for dissent There was a party line People were

31:04

terrorized to say anything critical of the woke

31:10

agenda And so there was a ready constituency when they went after it Now

31:18

I will not I will

31:24

not give a approbation to how it’s being

31:30

done It should have been done democratically by people who had the

31:37

moral wherewithal to say this is

31:43

nonsense what’s being taught This is not even being taught in

31:49

any meaningful sense of the word taught because to teach is supposed to

31:56

invigorate and enliven your mind not deaden

32:02

it with slogans So

32:08

uh slogans hollow hollow content

32:15

intellectually contentless slogans So it was an easy

32:22

target There’s very little support except among the woke

32:29

apparachics There’s very little support on the college campus for those programs

32:35

I talked to the students and you know there was something else so

32:43

hypocritical about it If you go

32:48

to I have to be careful here cuz I have a job right now and I don’t want

32:56

to jeopardize the job So I’m going to speak in more generic terms because I’ve

33:02

taught at several places I’m an itinerant Uh the beggar can’t be chooser

33:08

category Uh and I don’t do it for the salary because I don’t get paid next I get paid next to

33:14

nothing Uh literally next to nothing

33:19

Um but if you look at the course offerings in the English

33:27

departments if you look at the course offerings in the philosophy

33:33

department this is not English You know that you you have to

33:39

look very hard I’m being literal because I am a mentor to several

33:47

students who I want to see succeed and I want them to take substantive

33:53

courses You have to look very hard to find a course on Shakespeare

33:59

in English department It’s no longer required anywhere

34:05

Forget about I’m talking even as a non requirement You have to look very hard

34:12

You have to look very hard for anything in many philosophy departments except

34:19

Haidiger Fuko and Nietze You know their entire departments

34:26

are just Haidiger Fugol and NZ And some of them will throw in Carl Schmidt This is not

34:34

philosophy So why do I say it’s hypocritical because where the liberal

34:40

elites send their children beginning in grade

34:49

school they’re reading the classics They’re reading the classics

34:56

And then what happens by some miracle a person from City University gets into a

35:02

top law school And then they walk into class and students start making

35:08

references to Shakespeare and Dustyki and all year and that was in Dickens and then they start talking about you know

35:15

uh Kant you know Khan’s critique of pure and then the students are totally the

35:21

ones from City College their egos are totally shuttered and so they’re just being

35:28

groomed to fail So it’s totally it’s so

35:33

hypocritical They are all woke for everybody else but they’re not woke for themselves

35:41

By the way I know this is complete tangent but if you look at the recent

35:47

affirmative uh uh action decision the students uh for uh fair admission uh

35:57

students for fair admissions the one where the court overthrew affirmative

36:03

action I found it really interesting that Gorsuch in his

36:09

um opinion concurring opinion he mentioned the fact that you

36:15

know all these woke people these woke liberals they’re all for affirm they’re all for uh affirmative action on the

36:23

principle of merit on the principle of giving um minorities a chance Uh so they say

36:32

this levels the playing field Affirmative action levels the playing field But they have next to nothing to

36:38

say for affirmative action for rich white people in terms of

36:44

legacies If you were consistent you would also call for the abolition of the legacies If there’s

36:52

very little on that in the this recent decision the only descent so toor she

37:00

mentioned in passing the legacy issue you know everybody getting in because their parents get the way Jared Kushner

37:07

that Dunderhead got into Harvard because that year uh Jared Kushner his father

37:14

gave Harvard $2.5 million That’s the only reason he got in He’s a complete

37:19

Um so the hypocrisy they’re always protecting

37:27

themselves So for their students of course they’re going to read Shakespeare You know when I went to

37:34

public uh middle school we were reading Julius Caesar in

37:39

seventh grade That was just a standard for the curriculum We were reading

37:47

uh Edgar Helen Pole in seventh I remember the teacher Miss Silverstein I

37:52

remember her and I remember we read it in uh seventh and eighth grade already We were reading it I’ll give you an

37:59

example The other day walking in the street there’s a young man We got to talking African-American or

38:06

Caribbean-American I can’t remember right now I said “What’s your best subject in school?” He was a high school

38:12

sophomore Okay What’s your best subject in school he or junior He said

38:17

“English.” I said “Great.” Uh he said “I’m an AP English.” I said “Oh AP

38:23

English Um what do you read what books have you

38:28

read?” Remember we’re talking about February The semester the school year begins in September He said “We haven’t

38:35

read any books We haven’t read any books That’s

38:42

our public high schools.” Is that going to happen to the the

38:47

liberal elite the woke what were they doing instead of reading books i have no He mentioned they read a few poems Do

38:55

you know what AP is i’m not sure of uh advanced placement It means you’re

39:01

supposed to be going at a very rapid pace in reading

39:07

So it was not just that the wokeness was such an easy

39:12

target because so many people were alienated from the woke

39:18

apparachics who were uh not very

39:26

bright or ventured into fields where they knew nothing I

39:34

listened to one of your interviews with another person who

39:40

started to ref I won’t say okay

39:45

somebody will have to go through all your interviews to find a person who started to speak about huser’s

39:52

contributions to mathematics and I’m thinking to myself

39:58

what does this person know about mathematics you

40:04

a little humility

40:09

Um so it wasn’t just the

40:16

incompetence it was the hypocrisy because the actual students

40:23

okay there are a handful of people who love these classes It gives them a chance to vent

40:30

But a large number found it really

40:35

oppressive This we used to call it you know it was a a phrase co coined by the

40:41

left uh in self critic selfm mockery what we used to call political

40:48

correctness It was a sledgehammer to the brain They didn’t like

40:54

it Uh so it was an easy target for Trump And one person wrote to me “One good

40:59

thing from Trump it’s bye-bye DEI.” Uh I think that was it’s

41:07

regrettable and as I said I wish it came from within that it it should have come

41:13

democratically from within the university because I think the principle

41:18

of academic freedom there is a certain hortiness and snootiness to it because

41:28

the basic principle of academic freedom is only We are competent to judge

41:37

whether a pro prospective

41:42

faculty or a current faculty has the competence to

41:49

uh belong in in academia Well that makes perfect sense for physics

41:56

Why should why should some legislature from Baton Rouge Louisiana decide who is

42:05

going to be in the physics department that doesn’t make any sense Why should

42:10

any cleric decide who is going to be in the

42:17

biology department and that was the initial impetus behind academic freedom the

42:24

notion that only the members of the

42:31

profession are competent to judge who should and shouldn’t

42:38

uh teach and speak Uh and as I said there’s an undercurrent of snootiness

42:46

there but basically it makes sense At least in the natural sciences it makes

42:53

sense So uh I I do believe that principle should be

42:59

upheld It should be preserved and it shouldn’t be Mr Trump or Mr Vance

43:07

because of personal vendettas or because it’s popular You know the egghehead what

43:14

we used to call the eggheheads or the pointy heads it’s very easy to go after them It it resonates

43:22

one not necessarily an objection but a clarification that I would like to make is that ideally people within a

43:31

department should be making the decisions about who to hire But the problem is

43:36

that from my perspective one major problem even within the hard sciences

43:43

you see ideological convictions that have nothing to do with the subject matter

43:50

pervading these decisions at every level and not just within the department but also the administration which is uh

43:57

putting their thumbs on the scales too So you no longer have hires promotions

44:03

etc being made based on merit on achievement

44:09

within the field but whether there’s political and ideological conformity and

44:15

whether you signal that you’ll play by the rules I’ll tell you I wish you were that elevated You

44:21

know 90% of it is okay I don’t want to say 90% unfair A large percentage of it is just

44:29

ego pettiness protecting your thief not wanting somebody who might be more

44:36

talented than you into your department It’s just so You remember the famous line by Henry Kissinger it’s probably

44:43

the only thing only true thing he ever said in his life and he probably didn’t even say he probably stole it from one

44:48

of his graduate students Uh the line was in uh academia the battles are so brutal

44:55

because the stakes are so puny and so much of this pettiness and

45:01

puniness But on the other hand we’re dealing with these flawed creatures

45:09

called human beings And as a as

45:18

a as the best of all as maybe it’s not the best but

45:23

the the there’s they’re very you know what they say about democracy

45:29

uh lots of things Um it’s a terrible system except when you consider the

45:36

alternatives and there aren’t many alternatives to the notion of peer review and peer decision making

45:44

There aren’t uh I I can’t really see Look I’m not defend I was I did not make

45:51

it in the system so I shouldn’t be defending it Okay i I never got a

45:59

job Uh I never even came close to getting a job And you would

46:07

think that I uh would

46:13

qualify I would be competent for a community college in

46:20

rural Alabama But I

46:25

applied even for a semester And you want to know

46:31

what i even offer to teach for

46:37

free So I understand pol politics distorting the

46:45

process I get that the door is open You don’t have to bang it down The door is

46:51

wide open But I don’t see an alternative I can’t rationally

46:57

uh you read the chapters of my book in burn that bridge uh an academic freedom

47:04

and I recognize there are just a whole lot of complications when you try to

47:13

um practice the principles of academic freedom I recognize that

47:20

uh but I don’t see an alternative to it I should add so there’s

47:27

no misconrue not so much in misconstrule but halftruth the first the primary

47:33

principles of there are three main principles of academic freedom number one the peers are the best judge of uh

47:42

your competence so that the purpose of it is to keep political forces economic

47:49

forces and religious forces out of academia originally it was religion because uh

47:58

originally universities were what was called the wards of religion and they wanted to get religion uh this was

48:04

beginning with the German universities in the middle of the 19th century which basically invented the idea of the

48:10

modern research university It started in Germany and the first force they have to

48:15

contend with if you want to pursue science which is what the German universities were about at the beginning

48:21

in the early mid-9th century you have to get science excuse me you have to get religion out of the university not that

48:29

you had to be an atheist but that couldn’t be the ultimate orbiter of uh

48:35

truth uh and then in our country the next major battles

48:41

were fought over uh the interference of economic

48:48

uh actors extra uh uh extra mural actors

48:54

because it’s the beginning of the 20th century and a reaction a

49:02

response to the robber barons Uh the the robber barons are like the billionaire

49:08

class now The robber barons at the turn of the century They were very carefully

49:13

monitoring the universities for any dissent on the unchecked pursuit of

49:21

wealth And there were a few professors really just a handful just a handful who

49:28

sided with the the emergence of the workers movement in the United States

49:34

the the union movement and also people of the left communist socialists and so forth anarchists

49:40

Uh so the next big battles were fought to keep these ex these the robber barons

49:49

out of the university and that’s where academic freedom was born in our country I people don’t know it it was in

49:55

response to the robber baron assault a few professors one Edward Ross at

50:00

Stanford where you are studying he was one of the famous cases uh of a person

50:06

who was sympathetic to the plight of the working class Uh and there were a couple

50:12

of others Scott Naring uh who was a well-known leftist Uh and that’s where the AUP the

50:19

American Association of University Professors that’s when it was founded Uh

50:25

to that’s where the whole principle of academic freedom in our country was

50:32

established Uh and then the third major battle and they actually you know their

50:38

statements were very

50:44

pr they are very proper and used all of

50:49

a lot of it was written by people like John Dwey who wrote a lot on academic freedom and it’s so prissy and proper

50:58

but the basic principles I think were right I I I agree with him I’m a person of the radical left I was and and will

51:06

be till I go to my grave I unless I have some very strange epiphany uh which I

51:13

don’t expect to be happening Um but I I thought as basic principles they’re

51:18

probably correct And then the third great assault came with the political

51:24

forces namely the state with the McCarthy era Uh and that

51:31

battle was fought when the the anti-communist

51:37

uh it had succeeded It had crushed all descent and so they didn’t need the

51:44

hammer blows anymore And so the McCarthy thing died out Um mostly not because he

51:50

went after leftists but at some point McCarthy got what the Stalin once called

51:55

dizziness with success uh he then started to go after the army

52:01

and McCarthy McCarthyism ended with what were called the army McCarthy hearings

52:06

when he started to seek communists and well no you don’t do that you know you can do that with people in the liberal

52:13

left and so forth but that was a bridge too far uh so that’s when the McCarthy

52:19

effectively died what we’re seeing now is a

52:25

resumption of but uh a a a narrow tier

52:32

of the billionaire class the Jewish supremacist billionaire class Uh but

52:38

mostly I think it’s it’s a it’s right-wing for

52:45

sure Uh and it has nivist aspects to it for sure It also

52:55

has and I don’t like to say it but we have to be fair with the facts It has

53:01

that element of resimon you know what Nietze called resanton the resentment of the lower

53:10

classes at the success of uh the acade the the professional

53:20

managerial class So there’s a lot of resentment at the pointy heads in the in

53:28

academia the eggheheads in academia It’s an element of result you know but that

53:36

too that too we have to acknowledge that

53:44

too is a result of the snootiness of the liberal

53:52

elites always looking down on the white working class or what remains of the white

54:00

working class Uh you know um Bernie Sanders uh at one point I

54:09

quote him in the Burn That Bridge book he said at one point “We do have a

54:15

problem with liberal elitism in our party He was frank about it.” And you

54:22

know what i have many many criticisms of Mr

54:28

Sanders or Bernie but I did get from him a basic

54:36

respect for working people A basic respect for working people If you

54:42

remember when he was on Fox News He treated the hosts with

54:48

complete respect not deference but respect And you could see they responded

54:56

to it They it was very hard for them to summon up any indignation against him

55:03

The indignation against him was not on Fox It was in MSNBC You know they they knew that at

55:10

some he was coming from the right place They didn’t agree with the politics but

55:16

he was coming from the right place So the

55:22

the thrust now it has a clear nivist

55:28

streak It has a clear

55:33

uh reactionary streak I don’t want to call it racist but it has a clear reactionary streak for

55:41

sure Um and it has a clear

55:47

anti-intellectual streak the result of the po folks who never got to

55:53

college and who feel it’s not just that they didn’t get to college It’s the fear

56:00

the feeling that they’re always being talked down to They’re always being

56:07

disrespected It’s their the yahoos the rednecks the back you know the um the

56:15

crackers you know Uh so it has all those elements and they have to be fought and

56:22

and there is you know the xenophobic element They’re going after the foreign students because there’s a xenophobic

56:29

you know uh a form of the great replacement theory You know these

56:34

students are taking our positions um or our resources our resources at our

56:43

universities So there is the uh the nivist

56:49

xenophobic anti-intellectual There are all those components which are popular

56:55

But there was a way in my opinion there was a way to get around that

57:02

The way to get around that was to have presented a political program that spoke

57:10

to the real heartfelt needs of these people

57:16

[Music] Um you’ll forgive me for again bringing

57:22

in the Schumer book but one of the things that struck me reading it is the

57:28

things that are not there And two things that were not there

57:33

were he talks about this explosion of anti-semitism in the United States You

57:38

know the usual thing every few years they start with a new anti-semitism

57:46

But amidst this alleged explosion of

57:52

anti-semitism there was a very good chance were it not for the Democratic Party that a septtogenarian

57:59

Jew from Brooklyn would have been president of the United

58:06

States How do you explain that if you claim there’s this explosion of

58:12

anti-semitism bernie Sanders was on route to winning the Democratic Party primary until South

58:18

Carolina Everybody thought until South Carolina that he was going to sweep

58:24

Super Tuesday Every he won Bernie Sanders won

58:31

every single uh cohort under 30 blacks Latinos

58:41

uh every single breakdown they use You know you won every single one under 30

58:48

If you looked at the polls for the Democratic party there was no doubt in my mind I’m not saying I’m the last word

58:55

in the subject but I did follow things pretty closely He would have gotten a slice of Trump’s space Maybe 10% maybe

59:03

more It’s all he needed to win So there’s this But why because

59:10

people didn’t give a darn that he was Jewish from Brooklyn He spoke to them

59:17

He not only spoke to their needs he spoke to their needs with

59:23

sympathy Real sympathy That’s

59:29

why he had the chance So there was a possibility I recognize there’s a

59:36

problem here I say it every day I look at the news There’s a problem here I know that the assaults on the

59:44

university the and believe me I am the last

59:50

person to have this or and deference to the university

59:58

system I recognize real achievement I have no problem with that I recognize

1:00:03

I’m not first rank I’m not second rank I doubt I’m even third or fourth rank I

1:00:09

doubt it And you know what that’s life It’s the throw of the God’s throw

1:00:15

of the dice I know I work hard but as Edison

1:00:20

famously said you know genius is 1’s% inspiration and 99%

1:00:28

perspiration I do the n I I I’m at least 97% under perspiration until my brain

1:00:35

just dies out on me That’s not my lack of will but my brain says no The wheel

1:00:42

stopped turning I didn’t get the 1% of inspiration Very few people do you know

1:00:48

Um so uh

1:00:55

I I do recognize there’s a problem with the univer what’s going on at the

1:01:01

universities now the terror that’s being

1:01:07

wreaked on the foreign students and soon it will not just be foreign students

1:01:12

that’s just a matter of time Uh I recognize all that and I’m I’m cons very

1:01:20

concerned about that On the other

1:01:26

hand it didn’t start under Trump Let’s stop that

1:01:35

pretense They don’t even care the ruling elites in the Democratic

1:01:40

Party about certain of the assaults If

1:01:46

it’s going after people who don’t like genocide they don’t care If it’s going

1:01:52

after the Middle East studies department they don’t care What was Chuck Schumer’s reaction

1:01:59

to Khalil uh Mahmud Khalil’s arrest Did you read his reaction

1:02:04

he tweeted uh Mahmud Khalil was

1:02:10

arrested Trump should present the evidence If there’s no evidence he

1:02:15

should be freed That’s it It’s not about a wholesale assault on

1:02:23

academia It’s not about students being terrorized It’s not about a reign of terror having

1:02:31

settled on academia right now It’s just one person He was arrested The evidence

1:02:38

should be presented and there’s no evidence The charges should be dropped That’s all he saw That’s all he saw You

1:02:46

know why that’s all he saw because his donors are behind

1:02:54

it His class is behind the whole thing So how

1:03:01

could he criticize it behind beyond

1:03:06

uh a mistaken arrest that’s all it is Maybe there was a mistake in the arrest

1:03:14

Um so yes I am concerned about it uh for

1:03:21

sure but as I said with the caveats it didn’t start under Trump

1:03:27

That’s just a flatout lie And for most of the targets thus far the

1:03:36

ruling elites support it because the Jewish supremacist billionaire class supports

1:03:45

it There was as usual a lot there in your response

1:03:52

but I think one phrase sums it up and

1:03:57

that’s Jewish supremacist billionaire class No I don’t think it sums it up It’s an aspect No what I was going to

1:04:04

say though is I think that maybe is the key term that you use but what really

1:04:11

sums it up what lies behind that is money and follow the money That’s what I

1:04:16

pulled out of it I I wouldn’t say that because I do believe Trump is appealing Uh I don’t know why he really cares

1:04:23

because he this is going to be his second term of office unless something serious happens goes ary and we’re going

1:04:30

to have a dynasty why he really cares but it is his constituency you know and

1:04:36

the constituency for various reasons primarily economic for sure primarily

1:04:43

economic for sure uh but also um

1:04:51

uh reactionary tendencies they resonate to these issues but I think it’s

1:04:58

primarily economic They resonate to uh Trump’s

1:05:04

agenda So that to me is the primary aspect It has a

1:05:10

constituency And you have to be honest You see I’m not a

1:05:15

liberal I’m not I’m a radical We hated liberals in my day You know Phil Oaks

1:05:22

the folk singer had a famous song Love Me Love Me I’m a liberal and it was mocking liberals I’m not a liberal But

1:05:29

on the other hand I have to be intellectually honest I try you know So

1:05:35

you take the case of Trump’s tariffs in particular the automobile

1:05:41

tariff Uh I was struck The head of the United Auto

1:05:47

Workers praised it to high heaven The head of the

1:05:54

UAW praised Trump for that to high heaven It means there are elements of

1:06:02

Trumpism It’s not really an ism because he’s so scatterbrained You couldn’t really call it an ism a coherent

1:06:10

ideology It’s this random It’s like a random wrecking ball which is right like

1:06:15

a broken clock It’s right twice a day The wrecking ball actually hits the pillar once or twice a day It has

1:06:23

popular resonances for reasons which I think are

1:06:29

understandable And when I say understandable I mean there’s an element of truth to them Not just like they’re

1:06:37

crazy but I understand where the craziness comes from No there’s an element of truth The resentments

1:06:45

of the white working class at the snoodiness and hoiness of the liberal

1:06:50

elites You know Bernie Sanders said the same thing as me I get that And it’s

1:06:57

coming from a truthful place Um so there are

1:07:06

aspects there are as I said reactionary nivist xenophobic racist I’m not going

1:07:13

to dispute it Okay facts are stubborn things And my cred life is don’t quarrel

1:07:19

with facts But it’s a more complicated phenomenon and you have to have a

1:07:25

differentiated analysis of it Um you I I never watch television I

1:07:33

haven’t watched it since 1970 to tell you the truth I got rid of the TV set then and never looked back Um but

1:07:40

occasionally on YouTube I watch at night when my mind is just gone

1:07:47

So I saw this MSNBC interview with Susan Rice who was the national security

1:07:55

adviser to Trump excuse me to uh

1:08:00

Obama Barack Obama And this was the day after that

1:08:05

famous meeting between Trump and Zalinski and she says

1:08:13

“Well this is all part of the plot by Trump to weaken the United

1:08:22

States and strengthen Russia and China that he’s in

1:08:30

cahoots with President with Vladimir Putin and

1:08:36

she President Xi uh to weaken the United

1:08:43

States And she said and the proof

1:08:50

is he wants to cut the military budget by

1:08:56

8% I’m thinking to myself that used to be a left

1:09:04

issue It was even a middle of the road Democratic Party issue Everybody knew

1:09:11

that the military budget was fantastically inflated I mean it was the famous statement by Dwight D Eisenhower

1:09:19

commit a a conservative Republican about this militaryindustrial

1:09:26

uh complex So you can’t work with people like that

1:09:37

There are aspects about what Trump is saying that are true These people are completely insane

1:09:44

with their conspiracy theories They actually make Trump look rational

1:09:52

Does anybody with any lucidity of

1:09:58

mind possibly believe that Trump is a manurion candidate working for Russia

1:10:05

and China can any sane person believe that

1:10:13

so I believe there has to be a differentiated analysis of Trump

1:10:22

uh aspects of maybe by virtue of the broken clock or the wrecking wrecking

1:10:28

ball hitting its uh target every once in a while uh but there are aspects which

1:10:33

are correct and we should not fall into the

1:10:41

trap of a blanket embrace of the Democratic party There

1:10:48

has to be an independent path carved out and as I said part of the independent

1:10:54

path is to acknowledge DEI was a disaster

1:11:00

the I’ll just give you one other example which was very striking to me So Mr Sh Sch

1:11:08

Schumer writes this book anti-semitism in America

1:11:14

and of course he’s a trained scholar extremely smart

1:11:19

guy extremely smart guy If you’re writing a book entitled

1:11:24

Anti-semitism in America you have to first begin by defining what do you mean by anti-semitism basic definition of

1:11:33

terms And at the end of the first chapter he writes “At anti-semitism

1:11:39

means hating the Jewish people and all things

1:11:44

Jewish.” Anti-semitism just is he puts is in italics a portentious is Anti-semitism

1:11:53

just is has been period will always be

1:11:59

period Well you know the first thing that strikes you as very stupid

1:12:06

definition You know it’s like a kid a teenager saying anti-semitism is what it is You know

1:12:16

very rhetorically inflated Well the second part he says

1:12:23

anti-semitism means hating Jewish people and all things Jewish So in order to be

1:12:28

an anti-semite you have to hate matzah You have to hate

1:12:35

kala You have to hate Nathan’s French fries You have to hate um macaroons

1:12:43

because you have to hate all things Jewish in order to be an anti-semite You have to hate the Marx Brothers You have

1:12:49

to hate Seinfeld You have to hate the Three Stooges You have to hate Barbara

1:12:55

Stryand Well I do hate J I acknowledge she’s a very gifted uh performer In any

1:13:01

event why do I bring it up so it begins with a very stupid definition Okay but

1:13:09

by the end when he’s talking about calling Israel a genocidal state calling

1:13:16

Israel a settler colonial state calling Isra or calling Zionism is racism it’s

1:13:23

very interesting what happens because the whole of his argument

1:13:29

becomes it’s anti-semitism because Jews

1:13:35

feel it’s anti-semitism It’s how we

1:13:41

feel and where the language come from Suddenly you get to

1:13:49

uh crush speech on the grounds that it makes you

1:13:57

feel uncomfortable Where did that come from i’m sorry That came from the woke

1:14:04

culture That’s our country They’re allowed to You know for many

1:14:11

Americans the flag is sacred It’s the flag of our

1:14:17

country Our Supreme Court ruled you have the right to burn the

1:14:22

flag It’s called expressive speech You’re making a statement by burning the

1:14:28

flag and therefore it’s constitutionally protected You have the right A fellow walks into a judge He was

1:14:37

a I can’t remember what his was He wears a t-shirt the

1:14:43

draft Went to court Was protected speech I was a young man I was a mauist

1:14:51

follower of chairman Ma Maong Live like him Dare to struggle Dare to win Okay

1:14:58

I’m 20 21 years old fresh out of college I’m in

1:15:03

a a Maui sect We have a newspaper It’s called the

1:15:10

Guardian right every week we’re calling for the

1:15:15

armed overthrow of the government That’s what we were calling for Not peaceful transition to socialism

1:15:22

Forget that That was milk toast for us We want armed revolt overthrow the

1:15:29

government So when I sat in the office in our editorial

1:15:34

meetings of course we all were concerned about Asian provocators FBI agents who

1:15:41

have infiltrated our midst to try to get us to do something crazy

1:15:47

But none of us ever feared that advocating the overthrow of

1:15:53

the government in and of itself was going to get us

1:15:58

arrested That was never even a thought We understood in America maybe the

1:16:06

ruling elites are crazy but they decide we have the right to do it And if you read through the juristp prudence that

1:16:12

was a very big issue beginning at the beginning of the 20th century whether uh

1:16:18

anarchist communists have the right to advocate the overthrow of the government the violent overthrow of the government

1:16:23

and our supreme court said yes I mean it took a long time took a long time but

1:16:28

eventually that’s the position that won out so uh we

1:16:35

uh in our country the klux clan is legal the Nazi party was legal You know in my

1:16:43

day uh a famous assassination was the assassination of the head of the uh Nazi

1:16:49

party His name was George Lincoln Rockwell We all remember it You know it’s one of those things you remember from your kids Um the Nazi party one of

1:16:58

the big cases was whether the Nazi party had the right to march through a community of Holocaust survivors in Skoi

1:17:05

Illinois Where are you from i forgot Chicago Yeah So you know the Skoi case and the courts ruled in Illinois

1:17:14

they had that right Now you can imagine that did not make the Holocaust

1:17:20

survivors in Skoi Illinois feel good They would not feel happy about

1:17:28

that My mother was not happy about that I was not happy about it that time I did not take the ch side of the

1:17:35

ACLU I was very angry Um but that’s our jurist prudence

1:17:44

That’s our country And then suddenly when this woke culture set

1:17:52

in the criterion was no longer freedom of speech It was feeling unsafe

1:18:00

uncomfortable and unwant unsafe uncomfortable and unwanted Those became

1:18:06

the criteria How it made you

1:18:11

feel Well guess what i don’t think Germans feel very good being reminded about the Nazi

1:18:18

Holocaust So maybe it should be banned in Germany because it makes Germans feel

1:18:23

very bad You don’t like to be told that you shove children into ovens that makes you

1:18:30

feel really unhappy unwanted

1:18:35

uncomfortable uncomfortable So maybe we should ban

1:18:41

teaching that And I’ll tell you another thing there are many Catholics in our

1:18:48

country they don’t feel comfortable hearing about terminating fetuses

1:18:56

They feel very uncomfortable So should we ban any

1:19:03

discussion of abortion and that’s the the

1:19:11

standard the corrupting standard that’s set in

1:19:18

uh so much so that in the spring and I may have

1:19:24

even had said it in pre previous interviews with you when the assaults in

1:19:29

the college campus began under the Trump with with a Jewish supremacist

1:19:35

billionaire class demanding it either you crushed the encampments or we’re not giving you uh alumni

1:19:42

contributions It was a it was a very straight uh blackmail very

1:19:49

uh in your face and they were proud of it They were boasting about it Uh when it started

1:19:57

uh I kept saying every opportunity I had this is the most brazen outrageous

1:20:03

assault on academic freedom in our country’s history There’s never been anything like it

1:20:09

toppling Ivy League presidents It’s unbelievable That never happened during

1:20:15

the McCarthy era That did not happen You know um people didn’t People oh I’m such

1:20:23

a liberal Who cares about academic freedom and all those things because

1:20:29

they had lost the language They had lost the language of free speech

1:20:36

The language was replaced by unwelcome uncomfortable and

1:20:42

unsafe Unwelcome uncomfortable and unsafe That became the language And it

1:20:47

was used with a certain amount of bravado by the woke culture And then the

1:20:56

whole thing completely backfired Total disaster Because the other side didn’t

1:21:01

just have their mouths and their bodies they had the money

1:21:06

And so what did they what happened the hil’s the campus Jewish organizations they tell their

1:21:14

constituency say you feel unsafe Say you feel unwelcome say you feel uncomfortable

1:21:22

So the student the the constituents of the hills start saying it and making up

1:21:30

stories confecting incidents of anti-semitism And then the Jewish

1:21:36

billionaire class came into play and said our students the Jewish students

1:21:41

feel unsafe unwanted uncomfortable and unless you crush the incumbent you’re

1:21:46

not getting our money Total disaster when it was a

1:21:51

disaster waiting to happen I said it on page 37 of my book Burn That Bridge And

1:21:58

I explicitly said it with Palestinian students I said “If you claim that you

1:22:07

feel unsafe uncomfortable and unwanted when an Israeli speaker comes to

1:22:12

campus,” I said “It’s only a matter of time before it’s going to backfire.” And I said that before anything

1:22:20

happened long before the encampment you know it was obvious what was going to happen There’s a former head of the ACLU

1:22:27

her name is Naen Straen I don’t think we agree on much but she’s an honest liberal You know

1:22:35

she’ll hear me out She read some of the things I wrote She was generous in acknowledging me in a book that she

1:22:42

wrote on free speech uh which nobody will ever do Nobody will ever acknowledge me in anything and or a

1:22:48

footnote forget impossible Impossible like uncomfortable

1:22:54

in an academic publication Absolutely Uh I don’t think there’s been if you were to search my book on Gaza is the only

1:23:02

book on political history of Gaza out there There’s one mine Period Full stop There’s an economic history by Sarah Roy

1:23:09

and there’s a political history by me uh there has not been a single mention of it in any mainstream or even non-

1:23:16

mainstream London review of books uh new left review any not no mention none zero

1:23:23

zero zero zero I know this isn’t why you’re bringing it up yeah but I want to just complete the thought so Naen Straen

1:23:30

wrote a book on free speech on the issue of free speech and she mentioned and

1:23:36

Europe they passed all these anti-hate speech laws all the anti-hate speech

1:23:42

laws and then she comments they all backfired because guess what they were all used against the vulnerable

1:23:49

minorities They were all used against the people that you thought they would protect But power is not going to

1:23:55

protect you It’ll protect themselves And she was exactly right

1:24:01

because that’s what happened now All of the hate speech

1:24:08

legislation was leveraged to attack the po opponents of the genocide in Gaza

1:24:15

Complete disaster And I knew it was going to happen I said it Page 37 Don’t go down

1:24:23

this route It’s going to be a catastrophe And it happened

1:24:30

What I was going to say is that I know this wasn’t your point but I can only

1:24:36

imagine how I mean maybe you’re numb to it at this point but how painful it must be to

1:24:44

have your life’s work something you care so much about go unsighted and

1:24:49

unrecognized despite knowing the value that it holds for the scholarship

1:24:55

Um you know now I now I’m beused as professor Chsky used to call

1:25:03

it the discipline of these

1:25:09

apparachics on the right in the center and on the left because there are many authors on

1:25:17

the left you know in places like the you know the radical chic London review of

1:25:23

books uh which also

1:25:31

uh can I use the expression cancelled me So now at this point in my life oh I

1:25:39

won’t I will not deny the bitterness I will not deny the

1:25:45

bitterness uh at a point in my life But now I’m

1:25:51

beused And part of the beusement comes from the fact that through this miracle

1:25:58

called the social media all the efforts

1:26:04

to wipe me out uh haven’t succeeded

1:26:11

uh in the way they once did And even with all the algorithmic

1:26:20

adjustments to wipe me out in the current social media it hasn’t succeeded

1:26:26

And I have I’ I’ve been able to have an

1:26:33

impact you know and I’ll tell you the truth the impact for me is a

1:26:40

burden On the one hand I want it I believe that what I’m saying is true and

1:26:46

I believe what I’m saying is important at the current moment You know there’s a

1:26:52

genocide unfolding in Gaza So it’s important On the other hand it

1:26:57

means I can’t be quite what can you say a little bit

1:27:04

cavalier as I was in the past because my

1:27:09

words have consequences I have an audience So it’s not like I’m

1:27:15

afraid to say certain things because it will quote unquote get me in trouble or

1:27:22

it will lessen my access to some places if

1:27:28

I say something too quote unquote outrageous No I don’t fear that at all

1:27:34

Absolutely not I don’t never even think about it But I think you know norm you

1:27:39

you have to weigh your words a little more closely now because they can actually have consequences They’re

1:27:46

consequential People listen to me They don’t only you know with Professor Chsky was a

1:27:53

very not in a I’m not saying it in a negative way He was a very dis deceptive

1:28:01

uh public intellectual Uh you have to hear me out There’s nobody in this in

1:28:08

God’s earth who has a higher regard for Professor Chsky than I do The reason I

1:28:14

say deceptive is because he made it seem as

1:28:19

if all of his political conclusions flowed logically from the

1:28:26

factual data He was just processing like a computer just processing the raw data

1:28:34

and this is the conclusion Uh but that was not true at all Every all the raw data was filtered

1:28:42

through his moral judgment Right and so that mor

1:28:51

filter was that moral filter was critical to the conclusions that he

1:28:59

reached You didn’t see it AB I never saw it I absolutely did not see it All I saw

1:29:08

was on the printed page he presented the facts with 10,000

1:29:14

footnotes to document the facts and then

1:29:19

quote unquote he must be right It was like an arithmetic

1:29:27

uh example not even an equation just an arithmetic example 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus

1:29:33

1 plus 1 You add up all the foot notes This must be the truth the conclusion

1:29:38

But no the end product is always filtered

1:29:43

through the moral judgment And so now when I say have to

1:29:49

weigh my words much more carefully it’s because I

1:29:56

know that my accumulation of factual

1:30:01

knowledge in and of itself doesn’t yield the political

1:30:07

conclusions It does not I then have to figure out what do you do with all this

1:30:12

factual knowledge where the what political or moral conclusions do you

1:30:18

draw from it and that’s for me a very heavy burden I wasn’t trained in it I

1:30:23

wasn’t trained in it And suddenly my

1:30:28

judgment is being uh is being attended

1:30:36

to And so it’s become a a in a

1:30:41

way in an aspect it was easier before I could

1:30:47

pretty much you know sometimes they say wild things everybody does say says wild things in private you know uh and as I

1:30:54

say it’s not the fear I’m too old to care you know I have

1:30:59

no career ahead of me I have no I’m

1:31:05

not a job in acting is long past all my friends are retired from my age

1:31:13

cohort So it’s not like I fear and I still have no access I have

1:31:20

none I have not been except for Piers Morgan who noticeably hasn’t called on

1:31:26

me in recent months I was on no mainstream program at all

1:31:32

You know you take everyone from a Joe Rogan to a Mechi Hassan That whole range

1:31:41

That whole range from Joe Rogan to me Hassan No access at all None Z E R O

1:31:51

None Um but if I’m in a program with

1:31:56

you not in that tier as of now but if I’m in a program with you I’ll get by

1:32:03

the end of the day I’ll get a half million people who will have heard it you know So I’m not really access I

1:32:12

laugh at it I laugh at the fact I really do Amusement I mean it’s not like a

1:32:17

hearty It’s beusement the only person who wrote a book on

1:32:22

Gaza and it’s been the news for 17 months and nobody will go near me Nobody

1:32:28

will de debate me You know at Oxford I was supposed to debate Benny Morris He dropped out at

1:32:35

the last minute He said he won’t debate me unless Emart the former prime minister is on So the organizers of the

1:32:44

debate at Oxford went to Elder Omar Elder Omar said “I won’t go on with

1:32:49

Norman Finkelstein.” Was this after the Lex Friedman debate oh long after long

1:32:56

after It was like a year later The Oxford thing was supposed to It was two months

1:33:01

ago Lex Friedman was about about a year a year later A year before excuse me

1:33:09

Um so uh I’ve had no access Nobody’s in obeying me So and and it’s funny the

1:33:16

only book and you could say “Oh yeah he wrote a book on Gaza.” But well it was

1:33:22

University of California Press that published it so you can’t use the grounds of obscure publisher put out

1:33:30

or Vanity Press No that’s not what happened That’s not what happened

1:33:36

So um so I’m at this point you know I

1:33:42

keep reminding myself like I’m so harried right now by so many obligations

1:33:50

responsibilities and sometimes I’m just I don’t

1:33:57

know Uh I’m running like from pillar to post and I I said “Norm you’re going to

1:34:02

be dead in 20 years calm [Laughter] down Calm down You know so I’m at that

1:34:11

point in life where at most there’s no longer bitterness There’s just amusement

1:34:20

Speaking of being quite careful with one’s words I think now since it’s come up a

1:34:27

number of times it’s worth getting into Chuck Schumer’s book a little bit more

1:34:32

Something that strikes me that you paid close attention to was his definition of

1:34:38

anti-semitism And I noticed that it’s not only words

1:34:43

like anti-semite but racist sexist homophobe They are thrown about with

1:34:52

utter abandon these days And fascist Yeah And

1:34:57

they’re rarely defined They’re they’re used as catch-all terms and they’re

1:35:02

extremely damaging because once you hurl that term at someone they’re on the defensive and it’s very hard to defend

1:35:10

yourself against a claim like that uh that’s so all-encompassing So what I’d

1:35:16

like to ask then so relevant to what we’re talking about right now is how

1:35:21

ought we to define anti-semitism I don’t think we should use the term I don’t use

1:35:26

it First of all and I’m not being koi here For several thousand years a

1:35:34

there’s been a debate among Jews about what’s a Jew So if you don’t know what a Jew is

1:35:39

how could you know what an anti-Semite is if you anti-Semite means somebody who hates Jews if you don’t know what a Jew

1:35:46

is uh why use the term how can you know

1:35:51

what an anti-Semit is is it this is an ongoing debate among like rebbitical scholars or No it’s ongoing debate among

1:35:59

Jews whether you know if you don’t believe in the religion are you Jewish if you’re conservative is the reform uh

1:36:05

wing of Judaism Jewish and and if you’re Orthodox is the conservative and the

1:36:11

reform and if you’re an atheist and you’re Jewish are you a Jew and so on and so forth There’s no agreement on

1:36:17

what’s a Jew So you know by the way Hitler had a a lot of problems with that

1:36:22

He did because he claimed Jews were a race Well how do you prove Jewish the Jewish race he had no other way except

1:36:30

to prove it by descent from a Jewish uh uh a self-identified Jew a religious

1:36:37

Jew uh a descent uh uh but he couldn’t prove a Jewish race

1:36:44

So there was all these uh it was a very complex system of if you had three

1:36:52

grandparents who were Jewish and if one was married to a non-Jew and they were called the the mixture were called the

1:36:58

mishinga the mixture of not Jew and non-Jew uh he had a problem well

1:37:05

obviously it was a faithful problem for those who were being defined as Jewish but um he couldn’t define what a Jew was

1:37:13

in his terms as a racial group because how do you prove a racial group

1:37:20

uh so Jews haven’t been able to define I don’t personally I don’t see any need

1:37:30

uh for terminology like that Um if you agree if you commit a physical

1:37:38

crime against somebody then we’re covered for it You know assault murder

1:37:44

uh even harassment So if it’s a physical act we have laws that already cover it

1:37:50

if it’s a verbal act are called hate crimes but not just a hate crime which

1:37:58

is you target somebody because they’re Jewish you target someone because they’re black It’s a a physical

1:38:03

targeting So as I said it’s that aspect of

1:38:08

uh of uh assaults on Jews is already covered

1:38:14

by the law We don’t need hate

1:38:20

uh we don’t need hate crime as a specific delineation or subdivision We

1:38:28

just call it an assault a mugging a murder Um it’s already covered So we

1:38:35

don’t need it Now there is the question of verbal hate

1:38:40

crimes in general I don’t think we need it I kind of think the US I’m not a flag

1:38:48

waiver as you know but I kind of think the way the US works is probably the

1:38:54

best way you want to say it say it you know it’s the

1:38:59

old sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me now I

1:39:06

recognize I’m not I’ve taught it for 40 years the issue of free speech so I

1:39:13

recognize the problems with that formulation because names sometimes do

1:39:18

harm you It’s called psychological and emotional damage Uh that was you know John Stewart

1:39:26

Mill the great exponent of liberty of speech He’s totally oblivious to

1:39:33

that He will not accept that words can

1:39:39

harm Now could you say it’s because he had a naive understanding of human

1:39:47

psychology it was the 19th century before Facebook

1:39:52

uh or a naive understanding of one’s emotional

1:40:00

uh constitution I don’t think so

1:40:06

I think he understood that once you start going down that route it’s the end of free

1:40:12

speech If you start going down the route of hurt feelings as grounds for curbing

1:40:18

speech then free speech is over It’s dead Cuz every every form of speech hurts

1:40:26

somebody’s feelings you know for whatever reason If you’re a sibling and your

1:40:35

mother says to your brother or sister “Oh you look so beautiful

1:40:40

today Your feeling could be hurt Your ego is damaged.” You know so I

1:40:50

think he understood that once you allow for the

1:40:56

category of emotional hurt psychological

1:41:01

hurt it ends up with no uh free free

1:41:08

speeches is over So uh I kind

1:41:14

of agree that we don’t need terms like

1:41:23

anti-semitism or racism First of all because I think they’re

1:41:29

gratuitous Secondly because they end up stifling

1:41:35

speech Uh and third of all because they’re just not intellectually

1:41:42

illuminating Uh it it’s a speech

1:41:50

killer It’s a it’s a mind number It doesn’t allow for any genuine

1:41:59

intellectual exploration Um and there I I I have to say I kind of

1:42:05

agreed with the Supreme Court You know when the Supreme Court had to ask this very simple

1:42:11

question How can you support the right of communists and anarchists to overthrow the government this is a democ

1:42:17

they believed it was a democratically elected government Um and so their

1:42:22

answer I was puzzled by that How could in my my parliament uh how could a

1:42:30

bourgeoa institution allow for speech advocating its overthrow and that was a

1:42:37

kind of a it was a a conundrum for me How could that be that doesn’t make any

1:42:42

sense They’re allowing they’re allowing for speech which uh encourages the overthrow of the government in my view

1:42:49

capitalist monopoly capitalist government How would that be and then when you read through the reasoning the

1:42:54

reasoning was quite interesting The reasoning was because even if we

1:43:02

disagree with overthrowing our government there are critiques there of

1:43:10

the c of the capitalist system of policy and so forth which might be valuable

1:43:18

There might be something valuable buried in

1:43:23

their rhetorical uh not flourishes but their hateful

1:43:30

rhetoric You know there might be something valuable buried there which they said

1:43:38

speech truth would miss out on if they were uh silenced

1:43:46

And by the way the by far by by by by far far far far the greatest uh scholar

1:43:54

of the Nazi Holocaust was Raul Hillberg And he was once asked the

1:44:01

question of Holocaust deniers What should you do with them and his answer was very

1:44:07

interesting Hberg was old-fashioned He understand he understood knowledge He

1:44:13

said quote let them speak because we have built this intellectual

1:44:23

edifice on the assumption the premise not just

1:44:29

premise not just premise on the foundation the solid scholarly

1:44:35

foundation that the Nazi Holocaust happened He actually built the

1:44:41

foundation himself he was the first and everything pretty much came off of him

1:44:47

was built off of him Um but he

1:44:52

said now that we’re at the third fourth and fifth sixth and seventh story of our

1:44:58

edifice he said there may be some errors in our foundation It doesn’t mean everything is

1:45:05

wrong As Rahulberg famously said the Nazi

1:45:10

Holocaust happened but proving it happened it’s

1:45:17

not so easy Proving it happened it’s not so easy And he said we may have some errors

1:45:24

in our foundational premises Not that the the whole foundation is wrong and

1:45:30

not as if the foundation is about to crack and the whole edifice will come

1:45:36

tumbling down But there may be an error here There may be an error there So let

1:45:42

them speak And I feel the same way All right Maybe the person is an anti-semite And

1:45:49

I’ll tell you the truth I get a lot of emails from anti-semmites I don’t like

1:45:55

them And I’ll be admit I’ll admit sometimes I betray my principles and I just

1:46:01

delete But then they sometimes make points I’m not saying I necessarily

1:46:08

agree with them but I have to they do do cause me

1:46:14

to think and how to answer them and it’s a mentally arduous task

1:46:27

So I don’t see how attaching the label racist

1:46:33

misogynist transphobe attaching the label it

1:46:39

doesn’t facilitate it doesn’t abet the thinking

1:46:44

process It stops it dead in its tracks

1:46:51

And if you believe in intellectual mental

1:46:57

labor then you cannot pursue it

1:47:05

You cannot pursue it with by if people hurl these epithets

1:47:13

at you designed to kill the

1:47:20

conversation That was one of the things I very much liked about web the boys

1:47:25

when I read him the great African-American scholar I have I wrote a lot about him in the book the burn

1:47:32

that bridge book because he very he was living in a very racist era Okay He was

1:47:39

born the end of the 19th century into the mid uh and he’s doing his major work

1:47:46

from the beginning to the middle of the 19th 20th century the be beginning to the middle and he was in a

1:47:55

very un uncomfortable climate and it was very interesting to

1:48:01

watch him I mean that it touched me He

1:48:06

patiently parses every argument

1:48:12

against against the equality of African-Americans and so forth He

1:48:18

conceds a lot of ground He’ll say a lot of the criticism of a negro life as it

1:48:23

was called back then A lot of criticism is valid He will concede that He will

1:48:29

still say the main issue is economic opportunity they’re not being African-Americans aren’t giving the

1:48:36

opportunity But he patiently parses and the other thing which struck

1:48:43

me you know these are personal observations which is what why a book is rich It stimulates different personal

1:48:50

observations and different people So the universities to study when he was

1:48:56

a student in the late 19th century the places to go were Germany the great research universities

1:49:03

uh and he goes to study in Germany he studied at Harvard but Harvard’s kind of a backwater doesn’t produce anyone of

1:49:10

great stature at that era in that era he goes to study in Germany and he studies

1:49:17

under the great German uh historian

1:49:22

vantra And he’s sitting in Vanitka’s class and

1:49:27

Chitska the fiery you know German uh intellectual and at one point he blurts

1:49:36

out in German I can uh I’ll say in English the Negroes are in the Negroes

1:49:44

are inferior The Negroes are inferior they know they are inferior and the boys

1:49:53

uh calmly writes he says I don’t think he was directing that at me personally

1:50:01

he probably didn’t even notice me it was a huge lecture hall you know and then he

1:50:08

says Trichka was my best professor the most interesting of my professors

1:50:17

When I was in college I had a professor Mara Swatnik the most

1:50:26

uh misanthropic right-winger you can ever

1:50:32

imagine He just had contempt and

1:50:37

disgust at ordinary mortals Brilliant guy Brilliant guy But I’ll tell you so

1:50:45

I’m this Mauist completely crazed I I’ll admit I think my sentiments were

1:50:50

positive I don’t think I was all wrong by the way

1:50:55

Um I would go to his class hang on to every

1:51:01

word Hang on to every word He talked very slow Lapidary fra phrasiology like the

1:51:11

facets of a diamond lapidary phase here so you could take it in You had time to

1:51:18

process it And I knew he was smart And

1:51:24

then I would walk out meet with my friends in the cafeteria Watnik said

1:51:30

this about Marxism Watnik said that about Marx What’s the answer how do you answer that we had to read this book

1:51:36

called I still remember it I even remember the author John Plaminaut’s Marxism and the Russian Revolution I

1:51:44

still remember it Still remember it My point I could

1:51:50

have called him a bourgeoa

1:51:55

intellectual I could have just dismissed it

1:52:00

all in another era He’s a racist He’s an uh she he’s a racist He’s a male

1:52:08

chauvinist or a misogynist misog we don’t say MCP anymore in my day was MCP

1:52:14

male chauvinist pig but now it’s misogynist he’s a trans phobe I could

1:52:19

have done that and you know what if I did I would have been an

1:52:26

idiot my biggest regret to this day I didn’t take more courses with him

1:52:33

you don’t know how much I regret that he was a very hard grader So I was a little afraid it would damage my GPA but uh

1:52:42

which I’m not proud to admit that was a consideration Uh I regret not taking

1:52:48

more courses from him So you you fling these

1:52:55

labels and the labels are fundamentally fundamentally they’re

1:53:02

anti-thought They’re anti-thought So I don’t see the need for

1:53:08

them you know the practical you know mills distinction chapters one and two

1:53:15

liberty of speech chapters 3 to five uh liberty of conduct and there are much

1:53:21

many big restrictions on liberty and conduct uh you know you can advocate

1:53:27

nudity but you you can hand out leaflets saying

1:53:34

uh nudity is great but you can’t come to class nude There’s a distinction

1:53:40

between speech and conduct And uh when it comes to the

1:53:45

speech I see no need for it And even if you wanted even if you wanted a category

1:53:53

for hate crimes verbal hate crimes

1:53:58

um even if you wanted a category then you just use categories for hate speech

1:54:04

against any group of people So you have hate you don’t need a separate category for anti-semitic hate speech just if

1:54:10

it’s hate speech and you want to put curb hate speech because of the emotional and psychological damage

1:54:17

potentially it can cause I don’t agree with that but I can I can acknowledge

1:54:24

people’s uh differences of opinion on that but I don’t think you need a category I don’t think they help They’re

1:54:31

they’re not useful in trying to understand a phenomenon Now

1:54:38

um if somebody systematically targets a group

1:54:44

uh be it Africanameans be it uh

1:54:50

Jews be it uh immigrants Yeah So then you want to say

1:54:57

that person is systematically targeting that group Of course we’re not going to

1:55:03

pretend it’s some generic category of people who are being targeted This is very group Uh but as a as

1:55:14

a as a political category I don’t see the UT I

1:55:20

never you I know I I watched your face and I referred to the boys in a race a

1:55:25

very racist climate and I think to myself oh but he just used the word racist Um yeah sometimes I might slip

1:55:34

I’ll I’ll acknowledge that Um but in general I just don’t use the term

1:55:40

because I I think it just stifles thought It doesn’t it doesn’t get us

1:55:47

anywhere when we are trying to trying to understand a phenomena That’s why I kind

1:55:55

of really warmed I was very surprised but I really warmed to the

1:56:00

boys Uh the boys made only one exception to free freedom of speech and he was

1:56:07

very he was very upfront about it because he recognized it was a violation

1:56:13

of his principles There was a famous film in our country called Birth of a Nation

1:56:20

It was the first cinematic spectacle They used

1:56:26

music It was the first time I think music was used in a cinematic

1:56:31

uh undertaking and it was hugely

1:56:37

popular and it was hugely

1:56:42

antilack and it was the one time in the

1:56:48

boys’s career he called for censorship His reasoning

1:56:54

was there was an uptick in lynchings every time that film was

1:57:01

shown And his second reasoning was we just didn’t have the resources to combat

1:57:08

it at a cinematic level You know black people cannot mount a cinematic

1:57:16

spectacle to counter birth of a nation I mention it I’ve actually you

1:57:22

know used it in class assignments I would say when we do free speech or when we do

1:57:28

the issue of free do you agree with the boys’s reasoning i was surprised most did

1:57:34

not Most students did not accept it that these are grounds for censorship But be

1:57:40

that as it may it was the one exception He recognized it’s an exception to my

1:57:47

rule You know there were at that point all the eugenicists when when

1:57:52

um the boys is writing there all the eugenicists the race science people

1:57:59

black people are intellectually inferior on this ground that ground that round that ground and he just sat down and he

1:58:06

just very patiently parsed the evidence he reached a conclusion I don’t

1:58:13

think it’s correct some of his observations really struck me I have to say he said “There’s no clear-cut

1:58:20

categories of what is black.” He says “Each category just shades off into

1:58:25

another category.” So how do you know when you’re making these

1:58:32

uh arguments if the person is black and then I began to ask myself the question

1:58:38

how do you know when a person takes an IQ test how do you know if the person is black or white how do you know it and

1:58:45

it’s all self-identification as far as I’ve understood from talking to people about it I’ve not researched it on my

1:58:51

own So it’s a person saying I’m black or white that’s being measured Whether a

1:58:57

person actually is you know there was um

1:59:03

a there was a radical in the 60s his name was Stokeley Carmichael Eventually

1:59:08

came by the name ofWami Tory It was either Stokeley I think it was Stokeley Carmichael who’s a smart guy but I

1:59:14

didn’t like his politics at all at the end off the wall Um he was one of the heads of snicks

1:59:21

doing nonviolent coord coordinating committee and he eventually I you know I don’t agree with his politics I’m not

1:59:26

going to make a big deal about it And he says he said well maybe black people who’s black people are

1:59:33

uh genetically inferior because of all those crackers who raped us Maybe it’s

1:59:38

their jeans that have caused our IQ to drop That was that was

1:59:44

an interesting argument In any case I don’t know the science of it obviously I don’t there was a very good article in

1:59:51

um um by a top his name I can’t remember a top um neuroscientist It was in the

1:59:59

magazine called cognitions Do you know it no It’s a a

2:00:06

you know top tier in neuroscience and it was when the um bell

2:00:13

curve came out by Hearnstein and Charles Murray Murray Murray and he wrote a very

2:00:18

interesting article and he said in the article that if

2:00:24

you if you there there is like 80% I’m

2:00:29

I’m using the numbers I don’t know 85% of

2:00:34

um 85% of IQ is genetic 15% is uh um

2:00:43

environmental environmental And he said well if you if that’s correct then it

2:00:52

may be because the differential between black and non and what black and white

2:00:58

whatever those categories mean I don’t know I’m not saying they have no content I’m just saying I don’t know Uh the

2:01:05

differential is less than 15% He said it may be the black people more than white

2:01:11

people If the environmental factor is 15% it’s possible it’s just the reverse

2:01:17

of what’s normally Anyhow it was you know it was for me an interesting argument Um I don’t know the answer I

2:01:24

know he was the professor Chsky recommended I read that article It was very very

2:01:30

smart Uh for those of you who are listening just Google cognitions

2:01:35

uh B uh the bell curve review and you should be able to find it Um in any

2:01:44

event the point is they weren’t

2:01:50

afraid You see most of this labeling most of the

2:01:56

labeling is fear You don’t understand that they’re

2:02:03

afraid that the other side might be right So they don’t want it to be

2:02:11

discussed It’s at core at heart it’s

2:02:16

fear That’s why Mr Schumer says settler

2:02:23

colonialism anti-semitic saying what Israel is doing in Gaza

2:02:30

anti-semitic Saying Zionism is racism anti-semitic Why does he do that because

2:02:37

he doesn’t want there to be any discussion of it He’s

2:02:44

afraid of what a open full what Mills

2:02:49

called full fearless and frequent discussion might

2:02:56

reveal those who are confident of their

2:03:01

beliefs A Ral Hillberg let Holocaust deniers speak

2:03:09

Ral Hilberg had lodged in his brain the whole 500

2:03:16

volumes of the Nuremberg trials People were

2:03:22

terrified of his accumulation of knowledge My close friend at the time

2:03:29

Ruth Betina Burn she’s a first rate Holocaust historian first rate She said

2:03:35

to me “The first time I was going to meet him I was so afraid cuz I thought his

2:03:44

skull must be massive The amount of information he had

2:03:49

stored away.” So he wasn’t afraid of a Holocaust denier

2:03:55

He knew he was confident that he

2:04:01

could withstand any assault on his

2:04:06

beliefs The boys was very confident of his beliefs in the equality

2:04:15

of Africanameans So he just patiently parsed the evidence

2:04:22

and always said at the end maybe new information will come along and I might be wrong you know

2:04:29

always open to the possibility that the future may reveal new evidence and I might be wrong you

2:04:36

know and um so at

2:04:41

heart this labeling is not because they say they

2:04:49

shouldn’t be allowed to lie Okay If it really were just an outright

2:04:56

lie that would be very simple You just what do you do you expose the lie So

2:05:03

people say there were no gas chambers at Avitz and that’s Holocaust denial

2:05:10

Okay Well there’s a very easy way to answer that Present your evidence that there

2:05:17

were gas chambers Why do you have to uh stifle that person from saying it just present the

2:05:23

evidence So they say if you say uh Jews 6 million

2:05:31

Jews didn’t die during the Nazi Holocaust or you say they died of dtheria and various diseases Okay then

2:05:40

just present the evidence Why do you have to take this

2:05:45

sledgehammer because people are afraid They’re afraid they can’t

2:05:51

answer And now Israel has a real problem You

2:05:56

know a holocaust a genocide unfolding in real time on the social media Real

2:06:04

problem Big problem So we have to suppress

2:06:09

it We have to suppress it That’s the real goal And that’s in my

2:06:16

opinion what’s behind all those labels It’s the fear of an open

2:06:24

debate where you know what as the great Raul Hillberg put it

2:06:31

the Nazi Holocaust happened Not so easy to prove it And you know what that’s

2:06:37

true of a lot of things Not so easy to prove

2:06:44

Not so easy to prove This takes work You know I This book gave me a

2:06:51

royal headache If you look it’s just filled

2:06:57

with scribbles every single page You just go crazy Every single page The lies

2:07:03

the lies the lies the lies the lies the lies And I keep thinking am I going to sit down and answer

2:07:11

this am I going to answer everything in this book and I

2:07:17

think I’m so tired I’m so so

2:07:24

exhausted But I feel I have to answer And you know

2:07:30

what it’s not so easy So there is the fear

2:07:38

element and there’s the fact that people don’t want to do the work It’s so much

2:07:43

easier to just hurl an epithet and end the discussion I called

2:07:50

I told him he’s I I I really put him in this place I called him a racist No you didn’t put them in

2:07:57

place You didn’t put anyone in their place by calling them I called him an anti-semite You like they think they’ll

2:08:04

silence me by calling me an anti-semite or a self-hating Jew No you didn’t do

2:08:11

anything You did nothing It’s a zero Intellectually

2:08:17

mentally it’s a zero So uh I don’t think we need the

2:08:24

epithets I don’t think we need them and I think they’re positively

2:08:30

harmful because the moment you suppress speech people are wondering why are they trying to suppress that speech maybe

2:08:37

there’s something there The biggest um boon to Holocaust deniers is to turn

2:08:46

them into martyrs because then everyone assumes there must be something there That’s why

2:08:51

they’re being silenced

2:08:57

Let me play devil’s advocate for a position that I don’t think is entirely

2:09:04

l is ludicrous and it can be read out of Chuck Schumer’s book And you said

2:09:11

that labels are anti-thought Yeah um

2:09:16

these labels like anti-semite but thought it started as thought then

2:09:22

it turned into speech and then it turned into the Holocaust in Germany and you I

2:09:27

don’t need to tell you you know better than anybody who did not survive the Holocaust themselves the cost of the

2:09:34

Holocaust so for this reason it seems even if one does not want to stifle the

2:09:41

speech even though you might find the labels inherently stifling there should be some way to take the temperature of

2:09:48

speech or sentiment in order to be aware and perhaps be vigilant against

2:09:54

something like that happening again Well the question is how you how how to be vigilant Neil already pointed out in on

2:10:02

liberty He said unwelcome ideas given mass communication they always find a

2:10:07

way of making their way through You can’t suppress them And then he says the problem

2:10:14

is that once they make their way through if you haven’t addressed

2:10:21

them you have no intellectual defense against them They just start spreading with such ease

2:10:29

So as I said he’s writing in the 19th century in the 20th century or 21st

2:10:37

century Uh with the advent of the internet you can’t suppress these

2:10:43

ideas There’s no way there’s no possibility that you could suppress them

2:10:49

So then what’s the only thing you can do try to answer them Try to convincingly

2:10:55

answer them Now there are some people who won’t be persuaded I know that But you know uh it’s a wager of

2:11:05

people who believe in rational thought that large numbers of people will be

2:11:11

responsive to a reasoned argument if you can demonstrate

2:11:17

uh your point of view And for the rest it makes no difference if you suppress it or not because they’re going to find

2:11:23

it they’re gonna hear it anyway and they’ll uh run with it So I

2:11:30

don’t if you were if you if you were mill you know if you were of a million

2:11:37

disposition by the way he was anything but a radical very stayed Victorian No he had this eccentric sorry

2:11:45

Um so you know in Germany I think I don’t know what’s the law right now but

2:11:51

for the longest time it was illegal to read them uh to uh publish

2:11:56

minecomf Okay If you’re a million if you’re really concerned about the

2:12:02

resurgence of Nazism then you should be studying line comp in grade school going through it

2:12:08

line by line and trying to show why what it’s saying is wrong

2:12:13

That’s how you prevent it happening Again at least one level of preventing

2:12:19

it happening obviously has to be organization and there also has to be uh an answer to problems which are plaguing

2:12:27

a society If you know if you look at the history of Nazism in Germany and we have

2:12:32

it exactly because we have the polling results uh uh the election results

2:12:39

uh the Nazis were polling 2 3% of the uh

2:12:46

population and you know where it took off we know exactly you could see

2:12:52

1929 it wasn’t anti-semitism it was the collapse of the economy Okay Then it went right into 18%

2:13:01

It left from like 2 or 3 to 18% So you don’t want to create the

2:13:08

conditions in which these sorts of uh uh

2:13:13

ugly phenomena can gain traction So that’s the first thing you have to do

2:13:20

There is a lot of ugliness in our society now I I don’t doubt that Well

2:13:27

because there’s a lot of anger and discontent out there right now people

2:13:32

are really hurting And in the in that kind of climate scapegoats

2:13:40

uh it’s the immigrants they’re taking all our jobs you know So in my

2:13:46

opinion if you’re really concerned and I you know at this point I kind of agree

2:13:51

with Schumer I uh I thought some of the things he said some you know broken

2:13:57

clock is right twice a day Uh is there a danger of a resurgence here of

2:14:02

anti-semitism here yes there is It is a historical

2:14:07

scapegoat Uh and Jews have a lot of power They have a lot of money and

2:14:14

they’re a tiny minority and that’s a target I recognize that I’m not going to

2:14:23

deny those facts

2:14:29

but for the moment for the moment the

2:14:34

main targets we know they’re uh immigrants I mean it’s it’s they’re very outfront about who are the scapegoats

2:14:42

right now They’re they are immigrants Um they are sexual minorities

2:14:50

uh those are the current scapegoats at some point Yes it’s possible And then

2:14:56

how do you address it i think that the way you address that problem is first of all I think Bernie Sanders was right The

2:15:04

first way you address it is by trying to address the real

2:15:10

hurt and pain that people are feeling right now in our society

2:15:16

Uh and secondly I think we have to be truthful to the

2:15:22

facts We have to be honest and hopefully you can persuade I think Bernie Sanders

2:15:29

was able to persuade during his electoral campaign Uh I don’t believe

2:15:35

the answer is censorship Now there are all these claims about well

2:15:41

uh the web has accelerated the dissemination of

2:15:47

knowledge to such a uh it’s not like instantaneous that

2:15:53

people are getting this knowledge and so the crimes the likelihood of the crimes

2:15:59

well obviously I’m not a tech person you know that uh but I recognize some

2:16:05

aspects are room But you know what the radio was able to spend send messages

2:16:11

very quickly Also the radio was not exactly slow in

2:16:17

communicating a message to kill It wasn’t exactly slow moving either I detest the current obsession

2:16:26

with the iPhone It fills me with nausea Nausea Really i had it out with one

2:16:32

student the other day No I did I feel bad for him

2:16:38

I I prohibit that stuff in my class but the students are so addicted they cannot

2:16:45

let go Cannot let go In any event but I have to be honest to the facts You know

2:16:53

in my day an average American you’ll find this hard to believe Go back and

2:16:59

look at the numbers You should when we get off An average American was in front of the television for about six hours a

2:17:05

day That was the average Six hours Now you you’re how could that be yeah it’s

2:17:10

very strange I used to figure there were 24 hours in the day You sleep for eight hours You’re at work for eight hours

2:17:17

That’s 16 hours That’s only eight hours left and 6 hours watching

2:17:22

television So the fixation on the

2:17:27

media now it’s the social media Um and there wasn’t exactly elevated

2:17:36

intellectual fair f a r e on the um television set we called it back in my

2:17:42

day was called the boob tube So obviously things have changed but the

2:17:50

job of the historian is always to look at continuity and change it’s not

2:17:57

something totally new uh so I don’t personally

2:18:04

believe that the rapidity of the dissemination of knowledge or

2:18:11

dissemination of uh words I don’t believe it’s of such a qualitatively

2:18:18

different level or degree that it requires new laws you know it’s very

2:18:27

funny to read Schumer’s book he says one of the reasons that there’s anti-semitism is because of um people

2:18:36

are siloed in their own universes You know everybody has found

2:18:41

their little niche on the universe uh uh in the in the web Okay

2:18:48

And he says you know in our day things were so much

2:18:54

better People weren’t siloed Now his answer was it was very

2:19:00

revealing He said and it’s absolutely true Absolutely true He said everybody

2:19:07

got their news from ABC NBC or CBS ABC NBC CBS Channel 2 CBS channel 4

2:19:19

NBC channel 7 ABC I know it like

2:19:24

yesterday We all got our news We even knew everybody knew the name of the news an what they were called news anchors

2:19:31

Channel two was uh Walter Kronhite CBS Channel 4 was Hutley and Brink Huntley

2:19:39

and Brinkley NBC 7day varied It varied over time And he said we all got the

2:19:46

news from those three stations The same stories the same news stories

2:19:55

were on all three stations And you know what if you flip the dial cuz I remember

2:20:01

very well if you flip the dial the second not the first the second news

2:20:07

story on CBS was the second news story on NBC the same the second news story in

2:20:16

CB on ABC all three not just the top story the top news the second story the

2:20:23

third story And he said and then at the water cooler he would say at work each

2:20:30

morning after the news he said we would all be discussing the same news And why

2:20:35

did that make me laugh because that was a completely totalitarian

2:20:41

society We were watching exact exactly the same news We were told we had

2:20:48

choices You can watch Walter Kankite or Huntley and Brrigley or ABC But we

2:20:54

weren’t choosing in any meaningful sense It was

2:21:00

all the same news Same thing with the newspapers The

2:21:05

New York Times was the pace setter And then the other the second tier

2:21:11

newspapers they couldn’t afford the foreign reporting foreign

2:21:17

reporters of the times or the investigative journalism of the times So

2:21:22

they took all their stories from the times So I’m not saying the siloing is

2:21:30

great No there’s a problem there You know the echo chamber of your own little silo

2:21:35

But I don’t think the totalitarian model model was particularly great either And

2:21:41

that’s how he describes it He thinks that’s the preferable model where we all get the same

2:21:49

news under this pretense of choice ABC NBC or CBS

2:21:58

So you know to return after a long digression uh to your question yes of

2:22:04

course you have to be seriously concerned about the resurgence of lethal forms of hate Of

2:22:12

course you have to be concerned about the that resurgence The question

2:22:17

is how do you fight it and I think fundamentally the first way to fight it is make a society in which some 80% of

2:22:25

our society is not hurting 80% of our society doesn’t see any

2:22:32

future 80% of our society is

2:22:38

susceptible to scapegoating because of that anger and

2:22:44

bitterness And the second thing is to deal honestly with the facts If you believe that you know if

2:22:52

you’re a person of the left you believe that truth and justice go hand in hand

2:22:58

that you can believe in the just world and believe that truth is not contrary

2:23:03

to it So I I am of that belief I’m not afraid of

2:23:09

truth Uh I’m not claiming I have a monopoly on it but I am claiming I’m not

2:23:15

going to run from it I will work I will work very hard to find flaws in your

2:23:20

reasoning if something you say I find detestable But I have to find the

2:23:27

flaws I have to do the hard work I am long long long long long past

2:23:35

that period in my life when I dismiss everything I don’t like as being bourgeoa

2:23:41

propaganda That’s not a satisfactory response So

2:23:47

uh I believe that truth is on the side of

2:23:52

justice So I’m not afraid of the truth And if I if

2:23:58

something turns up not to be on the side of justice as I

2:24:04

understand it I have to contend with it I have to contend with it

2:24:11

Uh but in my opinion what you describe

2:24:16

correctly as people claiming that they’re just suppressing

2:24:22

this speech because of its future repercussions possible future

2:24:27

repercussions I think 90% of it is

2:24:32

fear that what’s being said is true and trying to suppress it to nip it in the

2:24:41

bud They weren’t attacking the encampments because they were

2:24:47

anti-semitic That is so ridiculous I went to the encampments I

2:24:53

saw the young people I was in constant communication with them

2:24:59

There was wasn’t they weren’t suppressing it Mr

2:25:05

Schumer wasn’t in cahoots to crush them because he was

2:25:12

afraid of a resurgence of anti-semitism that might climax in a

2:25:20

holocaust That’s not what was going on It’s because his holy state was being

2:25:29

exposed as a genocidal regime That’s what was

2:25:36

irking them because these Jewish billionaire

2:25:43

supremacists demand the right the right to commit genocide

2:25:55

That’s at heart what’s going on If you believe if you

2:26:02

believe that the charge of genocide is

2:26:09

anti-semitic that would make Amnesty International

2:26:15

anti-semitic because it published a 250

2:26:20

page research document saying Israel was committing genocide

2:26:27

That would mean Human Rights Watch is

2:26:33

anti-Semitic because it published a report saying that Israel was committing genocidal

2:26:39

acts in Gaza That would mean that virtually every

2:26:46

judge on the International Court of Justice including the American judge

2:26:53

Joan Dunnu must be anti-Semitic because they said Israel was plausibly committing

2:26:59

genocide in Gaza That would mean a large number of

2:27:05

Jewish Holocaust historians are

2:27:12

anti-semitic because they’re claim they say that Israel is plaus is committing

2:27:17

genocide in Gaza Is that believable is that

2:27:24

believable that these are all closet anti-semites

2:27:31

is that plausible that’s not why he’s trying to suppress

2:27:38

it The use of the term or the encampments It’s because he doesn’t like

2:27:45

what it reveals about his quote unquote his quote

2:27:52

unquote people quote unquote That’s it It’s just pure Jewish supremacy I I never use the

2:27:59

word Zionism Zionism is an utterly useless term No two people agree on what

2:28:05

it means I’m agree with with the Israeli human rights organization betum It’s a

2:28:11

decent organization It didn’t rise to the challenge of October 7th but I’ll give them a pass on that It was very

2:28:17

hard to be in Israel and rise to the challenge of how to handle what happened October 7th and

2:28:24

thereafter But they said now already maybe five or seven years ago they said

2:28:30

there’s one state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea There’s no occupied West Bank anymore There’s no

2:28:36

occupied Gaza It’s just one state And they said the state is built on the principle the foundation of the state is

2:28:43

Jewish supremacy I think that’s an accurate description No stupid terminology like

2:28:49

Zionism You know you know calling somebody a Zionist is just flinging another epithet Totally I’m called by

2:28:57

parts of the solidarity movement a liberal Zionist You know it’s just stupid you know to dismiss me because I

2:29:04

have my own criticism some aspects of the Palestine Solidarity

2:29:11

Movement It’s a totally useless term but Jewish supremacy is not bad

2:29:17

It accurately captures a reality like South Africa was a white supremacist

2:29:22

state I think it captures a reality a concrete a palpable

2:29:27

reality Uh more values attached to a white life than the non-white life If

2:29:34

you described the American South as white supremacist before the civil rights movement it captures a reality

2:29:41

white pe uh white life was more value was attached to a white life than a

2:29:46

non-white life And um in the current moment these are Jewish

2:29:52

supremacists They demand the right to commit genocide That’s that’s their ultimate

2:29:59

demand And anybody who denies them that right to commit genocide in Gaza they

2:30:05

have to be crushed They know the facts These are literate

2:30:11

people If you’re using starvation as a method of war everybody agrees on that Israel even

2:30:19

Chuck Schumer will acknowledge that more or less No he will acknowledge

2:30:24

that the far right advocates using starvation as a method of war He won’t acknowledge that whole

2:30:32

of Israeli society If you deprive people of

2:30:38

water that’s what the Human Rights Watch report was on Israel is

2:30:44

systematically denying water to Gaza A very comprehensive report Boring to

2:30:52

tears Boring to tears Because Human Rights Watch recognizes if you’re going

2:30:57

to make the charge of genocide against Israel in the United States and Human Rights Watch is very mainstream you know

2:31:03

Democratic Party adjunct basically you better be able to back it

2:31:08

up Better be able to back it up So a very long tedious boring report What

2:31:15

they could include Israel is systematically denying border to Gaza Okay you deny food you deny water you

2:31:24

deny fuel there go the hospitals and you deny

2:31:30

electricity There goes everything else It’s a formula for

2:31:35

genocide That’s not complicated No I

2:31:41

agree It’s easy easy enough to say but then to prove it But guess what they

2:31:47

prove it They do the leg

2:31:52

work you know they prove it And that’s what has to be

2:31:58

silenced you know not the anti-semitism Completely

2:32:03

ridiculous I was listening to an interview the other night with Bruce Robbins who teaches English literature

2:32:10

and he’s Jewish at Colombian University and he said on Columbia that’s

2:32:17

ridiculous So uh I agree these are things we have

2:32:24

to be concerned about and I’m not oblivious Uh you know he makes the point

2:32:31

humor which is true I’ve thought about it There’s not an original thought in this book It’s thoughtless You know it’s like uh what

2:32:39

um Hannah Aaron described as the benality of evil She said evil is not

2:32:46

like a satanic concept You discover that evil is

2:32:52

thoughtless It’s lacks thought That’s his little book It’s completely thoughtless Uh but some things he says

2:33:00

he said look Jew Jews were very comfortable in Germany before the rise of Hitler and it was considered Jews

2:33:07

Germany was a haven for Jews and that can snap overnight That can you know flip overnight Yeah I agree with that

2:33:14

I’ve thought about that I’ve thought about that I’m not going to deny

2:33:19

that Uh so uh we have to be sensitive

2:33:24

especially I think Jews in the US because they’re a tiny minority but they’re very rich and very powerful and

2:33:31

that makes a lot of enemies and makes you an easy target That’s a fact So far

2:33:37

no so far because Jews are very well entrenched in the ruling elite You

2:33:44

know Bill Clinton his wife uh Bill Clinton Hillary

2:33:51

Clinton the apple of their eye Chelsea their daughter she marries a

2:33:57

Jew Mary Tyler Moore in my era America’s sweetheart She had a TV program The Mary

2:34:02

Tyler Moore Show A very sweet glamorous character

2:34:08

She marries Jewish doctor Joe Biden three

2:34:14

children All three girls marry Jews Who is the apple of Trumpsai his

2:34:23

daughter Who does she marry a Jew Okay So Jews are very well entrenched in the

2:34:29

ruling elite And so and I can give you 10,000 other examples you know

2:34:35

uh Seinfeld you know all of these national icons all Jewish Okay So uh

2:34:43

because they’re so entrenched it’s an unlikely target Now right now the targets are easy targets you know

2:34:50

immigrants utterly defenseless people very hardworking

2:34:57

uh defense no political power at all So

2:35:03

uh and even the Hispanics large number of Hispanics vote for Trump even though

2:35:08

he’s targeting immigrants from Latin America You know not much solidarity

2:35:16

there I might note Um so right now they’re not on the on

2:35:21

the firing line but it could happen I recognize that And I’m not uh when I I

2:35:28

there are places there where I wrote in the margin agreed I’m not afraid to say that

2:35:34

agreed He says when you uh you know the use of the word Zionist now so they say

2:35:42

uh that’s a Zionist store They mean true and I don’t like it and I say I don’t

2:35:49

like it And I don’t like that use that usage that Zionist has replaced Jew you know

2:35:58

Uh yeah that part those parts I agree with I have no problem saying that Uh

2:36:03

but the general pictures are just complete fraud I mean the whole book is mythical except about himself Um on

2:36:09

every other page he says how great he is And you know what he went to my high school He had a reputation He was

2:36:15

several years ahead of me Smart guy Achievements impressive

2:36:20

I never ever ever uh belittle

2:36:27

uh achievement He was the son of an exterminator That’s a fact He’ll tell it to you on every other page in the book A

2:36:35

literal exterminator Yes Yes That’s one reason why exterminating the people in Gaza doesn’t

2:36:42

particularly uh uh shock him Um but yes he was a exterminator like like roaches

2:36:49

rats and so forth Uh he was a son of an exterminator I remember his uh sister

2:36:56

brilliant brilliant girl brilliant and her she stayed with me in

2:37:02

my mind’s eye you know uh dressed very simply drably you might say very

2:37:10

impressive So I I don’t uh gain say that but the book is

2:37:17

thoughtless It’s thought it’s just one cliche after another One cliche after

2:37:23

and so poorly written Surprised me I I was surprised at

2:37:30

the the flatness the flatness of the

2:37:36

pros Um but I say there are parts where I say

2:37:44

“Yeah that’s that’s true.” I’m not going to deny it I didn’t

2:37:50

as I said the fact that we’re not so far from Germany in the in the pre in the

2:37:58

Vimar era There some I mean Jews not so far Jews

2:38:04

were 1% of German population There were 60

2:38:09

million Jews in Germany and six mill excuse me 60 million Germans and 1% were Jewish So the tiny

2:38:19

minority you could uh you read in Hitler’s mine conf there was a lot of

2:38:25

anger at the Jewish critics you know in the publishing and in the artistic world

2:38:32

because he said they played favorites with other Jews which is probably true probably true

2:38:40

um so those things yeah I I can’t say they made me think because I thought

2:38:45

about that since like age So we’re not talking about something new but uh but it’s interspersed with things

2:38:52

I nodded my head Some of it’s I would say about oh about 50% is pure mythology

2:38:59

pure mythical I said we used to sit around the table talking about the Holocaust What are you talking about

2:39:05

that’s just complete nonsense Um so you know it it did strike me the

2:39:12

book was thoughtless and so flat

2:39:18

Uh but there are there are challenges ahead I I recognize that and I as I said

2:39:28

I and we’ll leave it at that I think there’s a has to be a a a as Rosa

2:39:35

Luxembourg said there has to be ruthless self-criticism A lot of it

2:39:42

uh the woke lumacy and the retreat from the

2:39:48

principles of free speech the snoody hoy looking down on

2:39:55

the white working class all of those things and I can make a much longer list Pave the way to the

2:40:03

mess we’re in right now So I’d like to turn away from Chuck Schumer’s book and

2:40:10

to your book Gaza’s Gravediggers an Inquiry into

2:40:15

corruption in high places And as I was reading through it I mean the first thing naturally because of his location

2:40:23

what jumped out at me was the epigraph for the fifth labor labor Uristtheus

2:40:29

ordered Hercules to clean up King Agus’s stables Why did you choose that as the

2:40:36

epigraph well there’s an expression in English we took from that about clearing the organ

2:40:44

stables where there’s a very large accumulation of

2:40:50

uh manure Uh

2:40:55

and I would say the book is narrowly focused and maybe focused in the wrong

2:41:04

place because I’m looking at various

2:41:10

international political and legal bodies which in my opinion have been corrupted

2:41:20

by either bribery or blackmail or

2:41:25

careerism Uh various fi kinds of corruption Um and you might say

2:41:33

“Well Norman why are you looking at that you should be looking at Biden and you should be looking at Blinken and you

2:41:41

should look at be looking at Netanyahu and his cohorts Why are you focusing on these legal bodies?” uh in my view I

2:41:49

agree they’re secondary but first of all it takes a certain

2:41:57

amount of mental let’s just call it uh I don’t want to call it discipline

2:42:04

mental exertion to go through all of these documents and try to prove that there is

2:42:13

significant corruption at play and I have that kind

2:42:20

of discipline and willingness to expel expend the mental energy to going

2:42:27

through the record It also makes me very angry It makes me very angry at the the

2:42:34

lies You know blinking lies are that’s not exactly

2:42:40

uh earthshattering revelation Biden Well he Biden wasn’t lying because he just didn’t possess the

2:42:47

mental competence uh to know truth versus an un uh a truth

2:42:53

versus an untruth He was in a period of serious cility Uh but the younger folks

2:42:58

they knew you know Jake Sullivan the national security advisor

2:43:04

But that’s not really states lie We know that Okay But when you have

2:43:10

international bodies including UN bodies where I think

2:43:18

significant corruption and

2:43:23

careerism and we have another C corruption careerism and

2:43:31

cowardice are at play Uh it’s a more of a

2:43:36

challenge Uh so I decide to take the challenge It’s also kind of

2:43:43

if you I know it’s going to sound strange to you It’s kind of like a puzzle How did these bodies reach

2:43:51

conclusions which are clearly not true if you I don’t think I doubt you got to

2:43:59

the fourth chapter on Joan Dunnhu but I quote the epigraph of that chapter

2:44:08

um was a quote by Montescu and he says I like peasants and

2:44:15

farmers much more than intellectual something like intellectual he said

2:44:20

because they’re not capable of sophisticated ice And there’s some truth to that You

2:44:28

know you meet ordinary people they’re not they don’t have the the wherewithal

2:44:36

to um conjure these very complex sophisticated

2:44:43

lies When you read Joan Dunnw she said oh she was the American president of the

2:44:49

ICJ of the International Court of Justice during the genocide case And she said we never concluded that Israel was

2:44:56

plausibly committing genocide And then she gives this very convoluted

2:45:02

explanation It’s Greek or compounded by Chinese And I go what are you talking

2:45:08

about but to sit down and prove she’s

2:45:14

lying it required 25 pages of dense

2:45:20

pros When Judge Sebatendi said that Israel was not

2:45:27

committing genocide she’s the vice president of the court She currently is vice president She’s from

2:45:36

uh Uganda It took me 60 pages to prove it It’s a

2:45:42

lot of work But for me it’s a kind of it’s an intellectual enigma How did they prove that what

2:45:51

argument did they make there and then trying to take it all apart So that’s what I decided to do I was a little

2:45:58

reluctant with that uh epigraph to the book because I said

2:46:04

“Is that making me out to be Hercules and maybe there’s an element of um self

2:46:11

of self agrandisment and grandeur in making that claim Um but I went with it

2:46:21

anyway The book begins with a sentence

2:46:27

or one of the first few sentences pairs of sentences The 7th of October 2023

2:46:33

didn’t change everything but it did change a lot Did what are the big things

2:46:40

that that changed in our big I’ve said it before and you’ll forgive me for

2:46:45

repeating myself Up until uh October 7th

2:46:50

Israel was uh it was accepting of periodically

2:46:57

mowing the lawn in Gaza So you have these periodic killing sprees high-tech killing sprees That’s

2:47:04

what they were They were high-tech killing sprees Uh

2:47:09

in Operation Castled 20089 they killed

2:47:16

uh 350 children destroyed six 6,000 homes

2:47:25

operation uh protective edge They killed 550 children destroyed 18,000 homes And

2:47:33

Israel was content with that way of containing the

2:47:39

Gaza problem After October 7th it was time for something

2:47:45

else Uh it was to liquidate the Gaza problem

2:47:51

But there was not as if for example this is the first time Israel targeted children

2:47:59

No First time it targeted hospitals No Anybody who’s familiar with the

2:48:06

history will know is you know the expression nothing new under the sun It

2:48:12

was carried to a new level for sure It’s

2:48:20

not 6,000 homes It’s not 18,000 homes

2:48:26

It’s 300,000 homes It’s not 350 children It’s not 550

2:48:34

children It’s about at this point about 15 or more thousand

2:48:41

children It’s on a totally different level At some point point quantity turns

2:48:47

into quality It becomes something qualitatively new But it’s not as if there weren’t

2:48:57

precedents for what Israel has done to Gaza but at a new level

2:49:05

Then going forward now Gaza was already reduced to rebel What do you expect to

2:49:13

happen i think they’re going to break the will of the people of Gaza and by hook or by crooked they’ll

2:49:20

leave I could be wrong I always say that because people call me you know the

2:49:27

bearer of bad news and I don’t like to be a bearer of bad news On the other hand I like to treat adults like

2:49:34

adults You’re all you If these are the facts if they’re

2:49:40

the facts then I am not more capable than you of living with the truth Of

2:49:48

living assuming it’s true I’m not more capable than you living with the truth So I’m refused to condescend I’m not

2:49:55

going to patronize like we meaning the elite we can handle the truth but they

2:50:02

can’t I’m not doing that That’s how I see the picture I could be wrong and

2:50:07

that God only knows I wish I were wrong but I don’t believe in this kind

2:50:16

of elevation of the people of Gaza They have the superhuman strength and

2:50:23

superhuman will and they’re somehow a species apart from everybody else No at

2:50:30

the end of the day they’re human beings Now it’s true the Vietnamese did hold out They did hold out against the

2:50:41

US near genocidal war in Vietnam And it was always I once asked Professor Chsky

2:50:48

that question So how do you think they were able to hold out because they began with the French you know 19 in the uh

2:50:55

early 50s right after World War II when they began the the bulk of the struggle

2:51:02

and then the French were immediately taken over by the Americans the Americans replaced them And it didn’t

2:51:07

end really until 1975 So we’re talking about 25 years And there was a point by

2:51:14

1969 when the US was dropping the equivalent of two atomic bombs in Vietnam a

2:51:20

month So it was a source of perplexity how they managed to hold out

2:51:27

I once asked a Vietnamese hire a person in what was

2:51:32

called the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam I asked that question I was curious and he said it was the party

2:51:40

the political party They were so tough Um and maybe that’s the

2:51:48

explanation I don’t know But I don’t think it exists in in Gaza that kind No

2:51:53

there is a determination born of having been 70% of

2:51:59

Gaza’s refugees from when Israel expelled them in 1948 By the way just as

2:52:05

a footnote the word Palestinians does not appear in Professor in Char Schumer

2:52:14

Senator Schumer’s book until page 206 The book ends at page 220

2:52:24

The fact the Palestinians were expelled in 48 1948 it doesn’t come up until page

2:52:34

206 You know it’s like the play Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark just

2:52:41

completely a faced So to return to the point yes there is a real will among the

2:52:49

people of Gaza They’ve withstood so

2:52:54

much They’ve withstood expulsion from their homes living in a concentration camp

2:53:02

from the early 50s as it was described back then when it was under Egyptian control before it came under Israeli

2:53:08

control living in this concentration camp Then on top of the concentration

2:53:14

camp began in 2006 the siege of Gaza This medieval siege blocking anyone and

2:53:21

anything from going in and out keeping people in a starvation d starvation plus

2:53:26

diet Then the periodic killing spree the Israeli mowings of the lawn So they have

2:53:34

built the inner where wherewithal and it’s been a problem for Israel That’s why I said at the very

2:53:41

beginning they think that at a far interview they believe the Israelis

2:53:47

believe they can eventually break the will and I think they can because people

2:53:52

in Gaza yes they have a lot of wherewithal moral wherewithal but at the

2:53:57

end of the day they’re human beings They’ve come out from so to speak the

2:54:05

tunnels even though there were no tunnels but they were so confined and you know when you’re in a war you’re

2:54:11

running you’re running you’re running you’re running you’re running you’re running and

2:54:17

uh I I once asked professor Hillberg how

2:54:22

did you survive how does one how did one survive from that he said of course 95 98% is

2:54:29

luck you know there was a famous Holocaust survivor He was good He was he

2:54:35

wrote well Uh his name was Primo Levy and he wrote the book came came to be

2:54:41

called uh something like life in Ashitz I can’t remember the exact title and survival at

2:54:48

Bel survival that’s that wasn’t the original title but was reissued survival ashitz and he was a chemist in

2:54:57

Ashvitz and when they were having this selection who to send to the gas chambers they

2:55:05

would have the people run from point A to point B the Nazis would have the

2:55:11

people run from point A to point B and those who seem physically disabled at that point They were

2:55:18

selected and each of them were a number on them So they would choose 14 12 goes

2:55:25

to the gas check and Levy he was physically

2:55:31

uh feeble but the guy read the wrong number The one who was taking notes and

2:55:38

so somebody else went and I understood what he was trying to say there was

2:55:43

trying to say 99% it was pure luck if you

2:55:49

survived and um so when I

2:55:54

asked Professor Hillberg how did people survive he said you know 98% luck but

2:56:02

2% the mind works very fast should I go to the left should I go

2:56:09

to the right should I go back should I go forward making these instantaneous

2:56:15

decisions smart decisions smart decisions Uh and that was my mother In

2:56:24

moments of crisis she could be in une uh

2:56:30

emotionally erratic She was shattered by the war but in moments of crisis the mind

2:56:38

focused She was a mathematician by training She was studying at Warso

2:56:44

University mathematics when the war happened and had mental laser beam

2:56:51

focused So why do I mention this seemingly absurd or irrelevant

2:56:57

digression because when she was interviewed by the newscaster Amy

2:57:05

Goodman who at the time was a friend of mine when she was interviewed

2:57:10

um at one point Amy wanted to shift the subject from something that was so

2:57:18

somber that it was clearly affecting my mother emotionally She wanted to shift

2:57:26

the subject change the subject And she said to my mother “So tell me about

2:57:33

Liberation Day It must have been the happiest day of your life.” And my mother looked at her in

2:57:41

complete bewilderment constination

2:57:47

and she said “Happiest day of my life.”

2:57:53

It was the most terrible day of my life And Amy got this completely

2:58:01

perplexed look on her face

2:58:06

Terrible And my mother said “Of course.” Because it was at that moment I

2:58:15

realized I’m all alone in the world Her mind for years had just been

2:58:22

focused on survival Running running left right

2:58:28

forward back the bombs dropping in the ghetto running

2:58:34

running And so with the people of Gaza if you see the

2:58:40

scenes run here run there run there go there go to this safe zone Israel drops

2:58:48

the 2,000 pound bombs on the safe zone Run to that safe zone Israel doesn’t let

2:58:54

any food or water Running Survival Survival Survival So when that

2:59:02

phase ended and then you saw the scenes

2:59:08

of people in Gaza walking to the north from the south

2:59:15

to return to their homes and they suddenly

2:59:21

realized there’s nothing there And I think pure

2:59:30

speculation but I believe they will be shattered and they will want to leave

2:59:35

And that’s what Israel is doing now Turn it into that hell hole and communicating

2:59:41

it’s not over The torture is not over We’ll keep

2:59:46

turning the screws and turning the screws and turning the screws until your

2:59:56

scream and you’re ready to go On that note Norman I I know you need to

3:00:03

go too So thank you as always for coming and having this conversation with me

3:00:11

[Music]

oooooo