Does Israel have the right to exist? | PM-Elect Benjamin Netanyahu | EP 311

[Music] I was very much struck by how the translation of the biblical writings jump started the development of literacy across the entire world illiteracy was the norm the pastor's home was the first school and every morning it would begin with singing the Christian faith is a singing religion probably 80 percent of Scripps memorization today exists only because of what is sung this is amazing here we have a Gutenberg Bible printed on the Press of Johann goonberg science and religion are opposing forces in the world but historically that has not been the case now the book is available to everyone from Shakespeare to modern education and medicine and science to to civilization itself it is the most influential book in all history and hopefully people can walk away with at least a sense of that if you own territory uh vast swath of landed you're doing nothing to it and someone comes and squats on it and spends a lot of time improving it at some point they actually develop a valid legal claim to the property itself and so it there seems to be something intrinsic to our notion of valid ownership that if you're going to occupy a territory you actually have to do something with it that's productive and so that's that's at least part of the claim you're making at the moment to buttress the notion that the Jewish people have a valid claim to the present territory there were a lot of movement back and forth but but the Jews have actually taken the land and made something of it well I'm saying something else though I'm saying that they held the land for two thousand years were kicked out the Arabs came and conquered it and immediately lost it to others and did nothing with it the others did nothing with it so it was basically they took over my apartment okay a long time ago the the guys who took over who basically kicked me out were kicked out themselves the apartment was left Barren and many decades in this case centuries later I come back to this mess okay this ruin and I built it up back and I not only improve it I not only make my ownership based on Improvement but then nobody else did anything with it there was there was no someone else there practically were no tenants there that's my argument [Music] thank you hello everybody watching and listening um I have I'm always excited to talk to the guests that I'm talking to which is why I bring them on the podcast to begin with but today we have something that I think is unique I'm going to be speaking with Ben Yemen Netanyahu who was recently elected as prime minister of Israel this is a very interesting development as far as I'm concerned it's the first time I've had the opportunity to speak with someone who is a sitting head of state or soon will be and I think the reason that that's relevant and worthy of note is because it it it's one of the markers for the development of a new kind of political dialogue we're in a situation now where it's possible to sit with a political leader and have a genuine conversation for a long period of time we'll go at least 90 minutes unscripted so that there's no sound bite quality or editing to it you just get the unvarnished the the unvarnished words of someone who's in a position to make decisions that affect all of us and so I'm very excited about this I'll read the bio and then we'll go on to the interview Benjamin Netanyahu as I said was recently re-elected as prime minister of Israel having previously served in the office from 1996 to 1999 and 2009 to 2021. from 1967 to 1972 he served as a soldier and Commander in Sayer at matkal an elite Special Forces Unit of the Israel Defense Forces a graduate of MIT he served as Israel's ambassador to the U.N from 84 to 88 before being elected to the Israeli Parliament as a member of the likud party in 1988 he has published five previous books on terrorism and Israel's Quest for Peace and security he lives in Jerusalem with his wife Sarah in his newest book Bibi my story the newly re-elected prime minister tells the story of his family his people his path to leadership and his unceasing commitment to defending his country and securing its future hello prime minister Netanyahu thank you very much for agreeing to talk to me tonight I've been reading your book your new book Bibi my story and uh it weaves an interesting personal tale familial tale and political cultural tale altogether and there was one particular element of it I wanted to begin discussing with you that's I think of broad interest one of the things I realized when I was reading was just how ignorant I am in some fundamental sense about the history of the development of the Jewish state of Israel and I know that there's tremendous constant noise about issues as fundamental as Israel's right to exist even and you start by talking about in in your book you embark on explaining that at least in some part by talking about herzl and his Terror that anti-Semitism that the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe was going to cause a catastrophe which was obviously a Justified Terror would you be kind enough to walk me and my viewers and listeners through your rationale for the moral justification for Israel or the political justification as well and I'm going to do what I can to my limited ability let's say to push back I've heard the arguments of ten young people who are more prone to give Credence and sympathy to say to the Palestinian Viewpoint and I'd like to rectify my ignorance and maybe help my viewers and listeners do the same thing so would it be useful to start with herzl well I'd actually I'd start uh herzl was what I call our modern Moses but I'd actually start with the original Moses the Jewish people uh have lived in the land of Israel what is now the state of Israel have lived here and have been attached to this place for about 3 500 years three and a half Millennia now for the first two Millennia roughly of that time uh we were living in what is described in a text commonly known is the Bible so the Bible describes how the Jewish people lived on this land were attached to this land fought off conquerors sometimes were conquered but stayed on their land and that continued for a very long time until roughly the sixth seventh century actually after the birth of Christ okay for for roughly for two thousand years uh we were conquered by the Romans we were conquered by the byzantines they did a lot of bad things to us but they didn't really Exile us contrary to what people think okay the ones the the loss of our land actually occurred when the Arab Conquest took place in the 7th Century the Arabs burst out from Arabia and they did something that no other conqueror not the Romans not the byzantines not the Greeks before them not Alexander the Great nobody did before they actually started taking over the land of the Jewish Farmer they brought in military colonies that took over the land and gradually over the next two centuries the Jews became a minority in our land so it is under the Arab Conquest that the Jews lost their Homeland the Arabs were the Colonials the Jews were the natives dispossessed well that happens in history the Jews were dispossessed we were flung to the Far Corners of the earth uh suffered unimagined terrible suffering because we had no Homeland but we didn't disappear and we never gave up the dream of coming back to our ancestral Homeland so generation after generation Jews could be in Warsaw they could be in Yemen they could be in uh they could be in China and they said next year in Jerusalem we'll come back next year in Jerusalem well that was made possible because the Arabs who had conquered the land best basically left it Barren they never made it their own it was a Barren land it really had practically it was an empty land and in the 19th century the idea of coming back next year in Jerusalem became a reality by the way in part because of Christian Zionist support for the idea of the great return the Jews came back in the 19th century to the land of Israel the result of this return was that we started building Farms factories places of employment Arabs for nearby countries started immigrating and they now became they call themselves Palestinians they reconstructed history and said we've been here for centuries no they haven't they weren't there at all and they didn't have a national Consciousness we came back made it our land and we said okay we now will live together we decided to establish a state in 1948 that's 75 years ago and we we said everybody can live here the Arab said there can't be a Jewish State you have no right to be here it's our land it's not your land it's been our land for 3 500 years if you took over your uh somebody's apartment knock them out dispossessed them and they never gave up the claim and they said it's our claim and you left this Barren dump okay and this the the the families the progeny of the people you you kicked out came back rebuilt the house you cannot come back and tell them you don't belong here we're going to kick you out especially since your late companies who've come to live in you know in part of the house which is what the so-called Palestinians are okay we say to them you can live here we can live here but it's our land it's our state and the reason this conflict continues is because the Palestinians who are represent the the colonial Powers the Arab Conquest uh of the Middle East and Beyond they're saying you have no right for a Jewish State well we do if any people has any right to a state if any people never gave up their dreams of returning to their ancestral home if any people rebuilt their home from nothing from Barren wasted land it's the Jewish people to tell them you'll have suffered more than anyone else you have never lost your dream of coming back and rebuilding your National Life in your ancestral Homeland you have no right to be there but the Arabs who are trying to destroy you they have that that right that is a complete perversion of history and also a complete perversion of Justice the Jews belong to this land this land belongs to the Jews the Palestinians are free to live here next to us among us but they're not free to demand the dissolution of the Jewish state that is not Justice that is Injustice that's the shortest lecture I can give you about Jewish history in today's world we sometimes lose sight of the judeo-christian beliefs that built our society this is why it is so important to study scripture and develop a dedicated prayer life there's no better way to do that than with hallow hallow is the number one Christian Prayer app in the U.S and the number one Catholic app in the world it's filled with studies meditations and Reflections including the number one Christian podcast the Bible in a year download Hollow today and try their Advent pray 25 challenge a 25-day journey through Bible stories from both the Old and New Testament leading up to the birth of Jesus these meditations are led by cast members from the largest Christian streaming Series in history The Chosen Advent pray 25 will help grow your understanding of mankind and develop a disciplined prayer habit during a season when our discipline is put to the test download Halo for three months completely free and experience a personal development that can come from regular prayer meditation and reflection on who the Bible calls us to be get Hollow for free at hallow.com Jordan it's hallow.com Jordan give yourself the gift of Peace calm and discipline this Christmas go to hollow.com slash Jordan today so you so why do you think the claim that the Palestinians were somehow there in Israel first and have been displaced in a colonial occupation let's say by the Jews why do you think that idea has gained such cachet not least in the west because of ignorance I mean what do you mean they were here first well you know you're familiar with the story of Jesus right Jesus was a Jewish rabbi living in 2000 years ago he was a rabbi from the Galilee okay he came to Jerusalem he turned the money tables of the uh the the the tables of the money changers on the Temple Mount where did that happen did it happen in Tibet it happened here Jerusalem was our capital King David made it our Capital three thousand years ago so the Jews are here to try to uh to say that they weren't here and that the Palestinians were here thousands of years ago is ridiculous anybody you know anybody who can you can actually Google this and and find out how absurd this thing is so as far as Reinventing ancient history that is that is unpardonable because anybody can find out and understand that the Jews were here for thousands of years the Palestinians weren't here as far as modern times are concerned what did Palestinians have said is oh and I I write this in my book and I showed because it's so comical what what they say is we were here uh Palestine was a verdant land in the 19th century teaming with the you know with the Palestinians until the Jews came in and took it over and threw it out okay well that's what Arafat effectively said in his uh Infamous speech in the United Nations blaming Zionism equating Zionism with racism well there's only one problem with that he said that the Jewish invasion of this verdant Palestinian Homeland uh happened in 1881 okay the problem with that is that uh 12 years before a famous visitor among hundreds of visitors named Mark Twain visited the holy land and he describes a totally different picture he describes Palestine I'm quoting him is a vast Wasteland he said only imagination can Grace this Barren land with the pomp of circumstance in life it's just he said we travel for a whole day we didn't see in the Galilee we didn't see a human being one single human being he said Jerusalem sits in sackcloth and Ashes and as he was saying that it's the Jewish return that began the Jewish return that began building the land well perhaps one could argue it's obvious that Mark Twain was not in the service of the Jewish State because it didn't exist he wasn't in the service of the Jewish Lobby because it was an Eddie Jewish Lobby he was just reporting what was there could there possibly have been a tremendous influx of Palestinians between 1869 and 1881 the year that that Arafat says the Jewish Invasion began and destroyed the Palestinian Paradise well alas no because in the year 1881 another famous visitor visits Israel and he writes visits this land and he writes also his Memoirs okay his name was Arthur penrin Stanley he was a very famous very famous courtier of uh Queen Victoria's Court okay and he came here on a special visit and he says I looked South and I looked North he says I'm in Judea and I see nothing he says a Barren expanse and they both Express both Twain and Arthur penrith Stanley say the same thing when when or when will the Jews come back and bring this land to life and the answer is right then we came back brought it back to life there were Arabs living here but it was as I said a Barren Wasteland but ours began to immigrate naturally because we created a rise in the standard of living that attracted Arabs from neighboring states those Arabs are now those the descendants of those Arabs who migrated as a result of the Jewish return many of them now are considered Palestinians so what I'm saying and I'm saying this to you uh Jordan and to your audience there has been a complete fabrication of History it's the biggest lie of the big lies that have permeated the 20 20th century in the 21st century is to say that the ABS were here before that is the Palestinians who are here before the Jews when we were here for thousands of years that we are the Colonials when in fact it was the Arabs who were the Colonials who dispossessed the original Natives and that is the Jews that we came back to this land that was laid Barren by the Arab Conquest brought it back to life and allowed Arab immigration what we call now Palestinian immigration to come back in and now they say to us in unimaginable hutzpah you know they say you don't belong here they recreate ancient history they recreate modern history and this is a lot of how come it's ridiculous it's absurd so some of it also seems to be I would say technically speaking something like a time frame problem right I mean you said the Arabs came in in the 7th century and that's a long time ago and so from the 7th Century to now you might think about you might think of that as being a time frame long enough to allow for a valid claim of sovereignty ownership but the Jews rejoinder is well we have a much older claim than that one that spans 3 500 years and the problem I have with that conceptually and then I'll get to some other issues that are relevant to this is that it's not exactly obvious what time frame of analysis should should be primary you have a very and I don't really know how to solve that I do I do and I'll answer your question it's a valid question if the Arabs having conquered the land in the 7th century and dispossessed the Jews over the next two centuries the Jewish Farmers kicked them out and so on if they established a viable State a viable national identity there and so on you're right you know these things happen in history you're supplanted by another people fine but that's not what happened the Arab conquerors themselves were replaced by other first of all they did nothing with the land and just Barren they actually built one town one town it's called ramley that's it you know hundreds and hundreds of Jewish biblical sites and hundreds and thousands of uh hundreds of news sites that we built the Arabs built one place one town called Romney that's it so they did nothing with the land then they were replaced by other conquerors other conquerors came in the mom hooks the Ottomans ultimately the British a series of conquerors in other words they they took over the land lost the land and did nothing with the land so if they had done what you say if they had created if that house that we were expelled from was taken over by another and other people another family they built a family there they had children grandchildren they extended the porch they they built a parking garage and so it's gone what can you do you still have the ability to demand uh reclamations uh compensation and so on but you know tough luck that happens in history but that's not what happened once the Jews were conquered by the Arabs the Arabs did nothing with it lost the land to others now we come back and bring it back to life 13 centuries later and performed this miracle and they fabricate a history where we were there all the time it was a verdant Homeland it was built up it was nothing of the kind it was Desert it was nothing now it's not merely Mark Twain and Arthur penrin Stanley who say that hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of travelogues over the centuries of of uh famous uh French Poets of the Swiss Travelers of German uh theologians everybody poets writers uh Travelers who describe exactly the same thing there was nothing there there was no Palestinian State there were no Palestinians they didn't even the Arabs even didn't call themselves that they were calling themselves parts of Southern Syria or whatever there was no National Consciousness there was nothing to form the Consciousness about in the 20th century tree the Arab world and the Palestinians and their supporters in the west among the intellectual Elites basically erased history and we created a fake history a fake history that deracinates the Jewish roots that are unparalleled there is no other story in the history of Nations where people fought for so long for their land for thousands of two thousand years were dispossessed woman came back to it did not kick out an existing population with a national Consciousness rebuilt the land and now are being told you have no connections to it you were you know you're you're the Colonials no we're not we're not we're not just to just to just to give this yeah just to give us a fine point because this is so crucial what we're discussing and I discuss it in at considerable length in my book because people are so ignorant of History we are not the belgians in the Congo we're not the Dutch in Indonesia okay we're not the the British in South Africa we had been there all the time we had been in the Congo we had been if you will the equivalent in Indonesia we were kicked out of the Congo and nothing happened in the Congo nothing no other people there no development nothing okay now we come come back to our land Build It Up enable immigration from of Arabs or Now call Palestinians from neighboring lands and they tell us oh you don't belong here you dispossessed us this is essentially what our propaganda and Palestinian propaganda has done and what I labored not only in the present book my own history maybe my story but in a previous book a place among the Nations to debunk and you know what the interesting thing is this you know so far it's quite quite amazing no fact that I put forward in any of these books has ever been challenged not not one not one usually you know when people uh you know Place among the Nations my previous book answering much of the questions that you ask uh usually polemical books are challenged you know the critics and in my case critics from the left they'd find a you know some stragglers some factoid that is wrong some formulation that is unfortunate and so on okay nothing nobody ever challenged it it got in those days rave reviews from The New York Times from great writers like Connor Cruz O'Brien and Paul Johnson and others uh these are great writers and and it wasn't challenged okay my current book has not been challenged on the historical facts nothing people can argue about my opinions but they don't argue about my facts I'm very try to be very rigorous about the facts this whole uh attack on the the Jewish people's right to live in their in the Jewish homeland the attempt to erase the Bible and to erase the history after the Bible and to create recreate create create a modern fantasy that doesn't exist based on the Palestinians who want to destroy us who support terrorism who are anti-democratic or anti uh or basically neocolonials because that they're the really the Colonials that is uh that is something that I think has uh uh it's not really Folly it has something fundamentally wrong morally because it is both untrue and unjust Shopify is the all-in-one Commerce platform trusted by millions of entrepreneurs to create their online store and so much more Shopify makes it simple to sell to anyone from anywhere whether you're selling succulents or stilettos start selling with Shopify and join the platform simplifying Commerce for millions of businesses worldwide with Shopify you'll customize your online store to your brand discover new customers and build the relationships that will keep them coming back Shopify covers all the sales channels to successfully grow your business from an in-person POS system to an all-in-one e-commerce platform even across social media platforms like Tick Tock Facebook and Instagram thanks to 24 7 support and free on-demand business courses Shopify is here to help you succeed every step of the way it's how every minute new sellers around the world make their first sale with Shopify and you can too sign up for a free trial at shopify.com jbp go to shopify.com jbp to start selling online today that's shopify.com jbp okay so your the claim so far if if I'm going to say lean in the direction of your argument without leaning too far and too obviously I would say is something like this and tell me if I've I've got it right um there's a host of competing claims to the territory that now constitutes Israel and you could have some debate about perhaps technically about which of those claims should reign supreme the additional case that you make however is that the the Israelis the Jews have done a tremendous amount of work in improving this territory and I know there's a principle of ownership in Western common law and English common law and I'm not a lawyer so I may muck this up to some degree but I understand the principle if you own territory uh vast swath of landed you're doing nothing to it and someone comes and squats on it and spends a lot of time improving it at some point they actually develop a valid legal claim to the property itself and so it there seems to be something intrinsic to our notion of valid ownership that if you're going to occupy a territory you actually have to do something with it that's productive and so that's that's at least part of the claim you're making at the moment to buttress the notion that the Jewish people have a valid claim to the present territory well and there were a lot of movement back and forth yes but but the Jews have actually taken the land and made something of it well I'm saying something else though I'm saying that they held the land for two thousand years were kicked out the Arabs came and conquered it and immediately lost it to others and did nothing with it the others did nothing with it so it was basically they took over my apartment okay a long time ago the the guys who took over who basically kicked me out were kicked out themselves the apartment was left Barren and many decades in this case centuries later I come back to this mess okay this ruin and I built it up back and I not only improve it I not only make my ownership based on Improvement but that nobody else did anything with it there was there was no someone else there practically were no tenants right that's my argument ready you're well and you're also making you're also making the case that when the Jews came to Israel they were doing what they could to coexist with the people who were there the sparse number of people who were there but also to set up a state that would invite other people who weren't Jewish to live there as well so it wasn't an oppressive regime in any no well we know what happened we know what happened we we know that when when uh 75 years ago when the state of Israel was declared uh you didn't have a single Arab Refugee I mean the Arabs say now that they're enmity to Israel and the reason they went to war with Israel was because of the Arab Refugee but there wasn't a single Arab refugees or Palestinian refugee when Israel was established in fact the refugees are the result of Arab aggression and not its cause and in fact the the Arab Onslaught five Arab armies that attacked the uh the uh the tiny Jewish state in its Inception uh the tiny these five Arab armies created two Refugee problems one the Palestinian refugees who fled before the advancing armies being promised that they could come back in a few days because the Jews would be annihilated driven to the sea that didn't work out thank God but in those five Arab states there lived many Jews those Jews were summarily kicked out after our war of independence so the araban slaughter on Israel and Israel's Inception produced two Refugee problems one Palestinian refugees Arab refugees we call them Palestinians and the second is Jewish refugees now Israel with less than one percent of the total land mass of the Arab states takes in the same number of refugees Jewish refugees as you had Palestinian refugees you don't see them here they're integrated into our society into our government to do business into everything we solved without the corticopia of Arab oil we solved our Refugee problem caused by the araban slaughter in Israel the Palestinian refugee problems kept Alive by the Arabs that have a hundred times more land infinite oil resources they keep it alive as a battering ram to produce exactly the propaganda you say so basically what the technique of our propaganda has been and I describe it to some extent in my present in my biography too because you have to understand it you have to see it to believe it is to turn the results of Arab aggression against Israel into its cause they first did that with the refugees when Israel was established they then didn't they didn't accept Israel's right to exist even though we're a tiny country they tried to attack us again 19 years later and destroy us that's called The Six Day Wars in six days we pushed back the Arab countries and took over our ancestral lands of Judea Samaria and again what the exit is exactly the same thing they said that our occupation our so-called occupation of the heartland of the Jewish people Judean Samara that produced the the war no that didn't produce the war it was the result of their attempt their second attempt to annihilate us so this technique of reversing causality that is accusing Israel basically turning the results of Arab aggression into its cause is again one one of these ways of creating the delegitimization of Israel the reason we have not had peace with the Palestinians is not because of the Arab refugees there weren't any when they attacked us the reason is not the territories we didn't control Arab these territories they were in Arab hands before The Six Day War all of these things are a result of the Arab aggression and what is the cause of the Arab aggression it's the persistent Arab refusal to accept a Jewish state in any boundary in our ancestral Homeland and if you move that you get peace now how do we know that we get peace because this persistent Arab refusal has dissipated it's dissipated over time as the strength of Israel as I described in my book as Israel becomes not merely a fact but a fact a permanent fact at the Middle East so they know they can't get rid of it so Arab countries begin to make peace with us and I had the privilege which I described again in in my book of forging four Arab peace agreements four peace agreements with Arab states because that barrier that Obstacle of refusing to accept a Jewish State and any boundary has disappeared where does it persist in the Palestinians or one to two percent of the entire world wagging the you know it's the tail wagging the dog or they tried until recently they were quite successful in wagging the dog they Palestinians cling on to the fantasy of eliminating Israel denying us our historical and present rights to live anywhere in this land refusing to any kind of practical compromise refusing to accept the the Declaration of Israel in the U.N the partition resolution we did they refused refusing any kind of realistic negotiation for peace what has happened and what here's what happened Jordan for the last quarter of a century after the initial peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan for 25 years we had no peace treaties with any Arab country because the elites uh the foreign policy Elites and the experts and the intellectuals explained you cannot make peace with the rest of the Arab world unless you make peace first with the Palestinians there's a problem there right right well you can't because the Palestinians are not interested in peace with Israel they're interested in the peace without Israel they're not interested in a state next to Israel they're interested in a state instead of Israel so if you wait for the Palestinians you'll wait another quarter of a century another half century another Century you're not going to get anywhere I had to break that log Gem and describe how I did that in my book I had to get go around the Palestinians go to the uh to uh the United Arab Emirates go Bahrain Morocco Sudan and make peace with them why did they change their attitude towards Israel they changed it because of the result the growth of Israeli power as Israel became more powerful technologically we made a free market Revolution that released the genius in Our People Israel became the Innovation Nation you can't do that if you're paying 75 marginal tax rate right so we got tax rates put in basically a capitalist economy and Israel exploded but it also became very powerful militarily because we could now afford to fund I think the the combination of economic power through free markets and Military and intelligence power that combined to give us diplomatic power and with that Arab leaders in the area began to see it not see Israel not as their enemy but as their indispensable Ally against the force that was threatening both Israel and them and that's Iran Iran's aggression and secondly they saw the Innovation nation that is Israel is a font of tremendous technology that could better the lives of their people and therefore we start we made these historic peace agreements in record time because now we were no longer bound by the Palestinian straitjacket that you're familiar with in Toronto and New Zealand and so on the Arab world is not there some of it is but a lot of it is changing and we are so my my idea is how do you solve the Palestinian problem anytime they want to truly sit down and negotiate be my guest I'll be happy to do that and I've tried that in the past but in reality I'm taking I took a different track instead of saying first we'll solve the problem with the Palestinians then we'll solve the problem with the Arab world I actually reversed it I said let's go to the Arab world and let's get peace with the Arab world and then Circle back to the Palestinians if they're ready to come before fine but if not let's get peace with 99 and then try to make peace with the one percent as opposed to let's try the implacable one percent and wait until we get to the other uh 99 that's a complete reversal of concept it's still being challenged you'll see some of the old guards still say no no we have to uh you know we have to go to the Palestinians before we go to the Arab world and we'll never get peace do you have a coffee lover on your holiday shopping list Black Rifle has all the best Brewing gear thermoses mugs and apparel designed for folks who love country and coffee Black Rifle sources the most exotic roasts from around the globe all coffee is roasted here in the U.S by veteran-led teams of coffee experts stuff your Christmas stockings with the latest roast from America's coffee for 10 off with the code Jordan better yet sign your Secret Santa up for a coffee Club subscription imagine the joy of a pre-scheduled coffee delivery your favorite roast when you need the most it's the gift that keeps on giving Black Rifle coffee company is veteran founded and operated they take pride in serving coffee and culture to people who love America every purchase you make with Black Rifle helps support veteran and first responder causes go to blackriflecoffee.com and use promo code Jordan for 10 off coffee Coffee Gear apparel or when you sign up for a new coffee Club subscription that's black riflecoffee.com with promo code Jordan for 10 off Black Rifle coffee supporting veteran and America's coffee so I want to I want to divide this into two tracks now I wanna I wanna first of all investigate uh some of the history behind the willingness of other states to support the Jewish claim to a Homeland in the Middle East because I think that's quite interesting and then I want to speak more about the Abraham Accords which you discussed so one of the things that fascinated me well historically but also in your book is your discussion of the of the bowl for declaration and so that's obviously before the utter catastrophe of the Holocaust and the catastrophes the Jewish people ran into in the mid middle of the 20th century by already by the time of the Balfour Declaration there was some sense at least in Great Britain that the the claim that herzl had put forward for example that the Jews and the world would benefit from a Jewish homeland in the Middle East had some validity so why why do you think that developed and and then how do you think it extended because you got bipartisan support for the notion of a Jewish homeland from the Americans by 1944 and then of course there was the U.N 1947 declaration so it's not as if the Jews imposed this Vision on the Middle East by themselves there was support all over the world and so I'm I'm could you walk us through how that how that support developed why you think it developed yeah it developed because uh because in the uh certainly in the 19th century in the early 20th century there was a the propaganda that I've described rewriting the history had not taken root and most educated people knew the history of the Bible the history of the Jewish people their dispossession what they thought were the horrors and the Jews suffered in their Exile and dispersion which was nothing compared to what was uh going to come later in the Holocaust but that was enough for them and they they basically knew that the land was practically empty and that I mean there were people there but it was practically empty and it made sense that both for uh from a Biblical prognostication for those who had a religious orientation and also a humanist view that this evil of History this Injustice of History would be corrected that this long-suffering people the Jews who contributed so much to to civilization and and to history and to morality the idea of morality it's the Ten Commandments you know that became the code the moral code of the world and so many other things the the birth of Christianity many of the ideas the moral ideas that we have originated on these Hills where I'm sitting in right now this tiny you know Dusty edge of Asia where this tribe strange tribe lived here and talked about you know man's the fact that people should not remain slaves that there should be a law that applies to all of them that kings are not Divine that is subject to moral Authority and censure and all sorts of other crazy ideas like that it's all originated here and so the educated leaders that met in World War one after uh the collapse of the Ottoman Empire they had to decide you know who gets what and they came upon the idea of self-determination that is that people should have you know the the ability to govern their Nations obviously with Civic rights for other people's living in their midst and they concluded knowing the history that I just described that is so unknown today on college campuses in a among so-called intellectuals or anything but that uh that uh that the Jews deserved this right to rebuild their National Life and their ancestral Homeland uh and uh uh and that's how it developed but the first one to actually Bring It Forward you mentioned in the beginning of your comments was Theodore herzl Theodore hertzel uh was a giant of History he he was a journalist he was a Jewish journalist and uh the late 19th century he was born in uh in Hungary but uh worked for a very prestigious paper in Vienna uh when he was dispatched to Paris as a correspondent he saw the the infamous Dreyfus trial where a Jewish officer in the French army was falsely accused as it later turned out of the Espionage and betrayal and was sentenced to Devil's Island and other horrible things and he said this if this can happen if this can happen to the Jews in the Apex of Western Civilization then it could happen anywhere and he predicted that within a few decades the fires of anti-Semitism would consume the Jews of Europe that they would be slaughtered he actually saw that he wrote these things in 1900 roughly and before and of course the Holocaust came less than half a century later and he said there's only one solution for this the solution is to have the Jews the solution is not going to be to integrate the Jews and uh in societies uh because that's not going to work the the solution would not be to eliminate nationalism uh through communism and other Cosmopolitan uh internationalism right that's not going to work either and in fact he was right because so much of anti-Semitism came from stalinism and so on okay it's not merely Nazism it's stalinism too so either thing it's not going to work he said there's only one solution the Jews should have a nation of their own that is a country of their own and he sought to persuade first the German Kaiser and after that the uh Ottomans uh Sultan in Istanbul to give the Jews a state of their own and he didn't succeed he died after eight years that's it eight years but in these eight years he launched this movement that turned the dream of Ages you know Century after Century next year in Jerusalem he turned it from a prayer from a dream into a practical plan my grandfather Nathan Nathan milikovsky Netanyahu he was enthralled by herzl he became a tremendous speaker at the age of 20. thousands of people crowded to hear him throughout Europe history of Poland there were records press records of check if how people fought each other they broke Windows they fought physically to hear this young man speak about the Jewish about herzl's Vision coming back to the to the Jewish homeland well herzl died he died too early and his followers continued the dream even though he was dead my father my grandfather was one of them my father was one of them but they didn't succeed so now we fast forward in 1917 they succeed partly because uh because the British Empire which now after the defeat of the Ottomans controlled what is now the land of Israel decided to give the Jews a Homeland they didn't say it state yet but they said a Homeland it was clear it was a corridor to a state this was met by fervent Arab opposition by many of the Arabs who had immigrated to Israel uh to the what is now the land of Israel they said now stop can't come anymore okay they decided we're just going to oppose any Jewish law and the British back down they backed down from the so-called promise they gave it's called the Balfour Declaration where they promised the Jewish online they backed off okay uh and now uh the Jews are stuck they're in Europe they can't migrate because Jewish immigration was effectively blocked by the British who uh betrayed their Promises to the Jewish people uh and um and now hitlerism Rises 1933 it arises to power my father who later became a great historian of the Jewish people he's all of 23 years old and here's what he writes with the rise of Hitler he says hitlerism will annihilate all the Jews of Europe and it's racial anti-Semitism that would consume every last Jew and the only way we can fight it is to persuade the Civilized world that it is not only the Jews who will be annihilated or threatened it's their civilization too this young bencio Netanyahu 33 year 23 years old writes in 1933 if more people had heeded what he wrote then perhaps we would avoid it a tremendous catastrophe that occurred to my people but also to the 60 million who lost their lives in World War II well they didn't now my father saw this coming and a few years later he went to the United States in World War II and he sought to recruit American public opinions a young man in his early 30s he's trying to recruit American public opinion to recognize that it's not merely our for for the sake of Justice doing Justice with the Jews who are being incinerated in Europe it's for American interest and Western interest to have a strong Jewish state a strong Jewish state and finally you know he makes his way up up the ladder because one official hears him brings him to another because he argued something that no Jew had argued before no Zionist leader argued before they all argued the moral case which we've been discussing at some length in this problem but my father he didn't he didn't abandon the moral case he argued it with great passion but he turned when he when he talked to Statesmen as he taught me when you talk to public opinion you talk about Justice and you have to argue the justice of your cause that those who are unjust do the same so you may as well do it to protect yourself against the the people who lie the people who cheat or present themselves as more or less while they blow up babies deliberately okay speak of Human Rights while they're trample human rights you have to argue Justice and speak the truth but when you speak to Statesmen as my father told me you have to tell them you just have to speak of interest that is what my father did and at the end of World War II well that seems to be what you did with the Abraham accordion exactly right also by allowing or by facilitating Israel's development into an economic Powerhouse exactly you also made the country you helped build the country into something that could be practically allied with as well as let's say making them simultaneously well exactly and that that's really you hit exactly on on the vision because my purpose in life inherited from my grandfather and from my father and my Fallen brother my brother who fell while leading the uh the most celebrated Rescue Mission in modern times the historic Rescue of entebbe where he died I described that moment when I learned about it in some detail and also what happened there which is not fully known uh but I inherited from them a life of purpose and the purpose was to assure the prosperity security and permanence of the Jewish State insofar as you can offer anything permanent in our world and to do that I realized that Israel had to be not only to fend off the false claims that try to deny its uh its legitimacy as a state and our historic rights and our ancient Homeland but quite separate or complement complementing that is to make Israel very powerful because history is very unkind and productive and productive not just powerful right because the the other the other Advantage you had with the Abraham Accords was that you could present Israel as a compelling partner in Economic Development to Arab states that were actually hungry for a pathway forward out of their uni-dimensional dependence on oil wealth exactly right when I say powerful I don't mean militarily powerful and that's exactly what I I point out in the book and I said no normally if you ask Israelis before that what is powerful well powerful means having a strong Army I concluded very early on having served in the Army I served in a special unit an elite unit and I described my brushes with death and clandestine missions and far into an enemy Beyond the Lines of Enemy Lines and many firefights that I was in and one I nearly drowned in the sewage canal and one I was shot while rescuing uh or taking a part in a rescue of ostriches and a hijacked plane and so on so I I had intimacy with the military obviously because I was also I also served for five years in the special unit as a soldier and officer and it's quite a big adventure story as you you must have read but uh but I I understood early on that to have military power you have to pay for all these things you have to pay for F-35 aircraft you have to pay for submarines for tanks for drones for cyber for intelligence it's all very expensive how are you going to pay for it oh well in Israel semi-socialist Israel that I grew up in it's very obvious you tax the rich well the problem with that is you don't have enough rich people and they're all going to leave to other places with lower taxes so I figure that the way you can actually enable Israel to be strong militarily is you have to make it strong economically but to make it strong economically you have to completely overhaul Israel's economic system from semi socialism to free market capitalism and I entered public life essentially with that view and I became first prime minister then Finance Minister and again prime minister and I I uh led a free market Revolution that turned Israel from basically a supplicant to one of the most advanced economies on Earth uh just to give you an example when I became when I was uh when I was a first elected prime minister Israel was well behind all the Western European economies and certainly the United States and Canada in terms of per capita income well as a result of the changes that I put forward and I described in the book Israel became in per capita income uh wealthier than Japan France Britain Germany it's actually outstripped them all and the power my vision was that the fusion of free markets uh and technology which we invest in all the time in our military that produces this tremendous efflorescence economic and fluorescence and that gives you the power combination the power combination is not merely the military which you can now afford it's the civilian technology which you now develop and so Arab states could see well Israel is a strong country and with enough Resolute leadership it will oppose Iran that threatens both of us but Israel also produces uh fantastic desalinization Israel produces tremendous developments in energy tremendous digital developments tremendous developments in health and so on we were the first to leave covert because of our databases that we developed for the population and so on uh we were the first to exit covert and rebuild our economy very quickly so the combination of Civilian technology and Military and intelligence capability produced this desire on the part of the Arabs to make peace with us and you know the attitudes those ingrained attitudes anti-israeli attitudes that are still Rife in the Arab world begin to change because here's what happened because I could make these peace treaties with the Gulf States hundreds of thousands of Israelis now fly over the Skies of Saudi Arabia land in Dubai or Abu Dhabi or Bahrain and Arabs there embrace the Israelis who are coming there and Arabs and Jews are dancing in the streets now they're making joint ventures together you know they have uh economic interests but also the views the the the cartoonish absurdities of Arab propaganda are dissipated with this human contact so the new kind of peace that we have a piece based on on Power and interest is actually changing the previous assumptions about Israel in many parts of the Arab world my goal uh and I say this openly my goal uh if as I hope I'll form a government very soon is to continue the expansion of the circle of peace to the rest of the Arab world but I don't think it's it's going to be actually a Quantum Leap again a Quantum Leap again because there is a country there that is a close neighbor uh that is extraordinarily important and that's Saudi Arabia and if I can if I can achieve a Saudi Israeli Peace we will be well on the root of ending the Arab Israeli conflict and we'll be left with the palestinian-israeli conflict but it will be a lot more manageable and we will have changed history the idea is peace through strength it's an old idea I didn't invent it but the strength that I'm talking about is the combination of economic military and diplomatic strength I call it the the three pillars of peace we'll be right back with prime minister elect Benjamin Netanyahu first we wanted to give you a sneak peek at Jordan's new series Exodus so the Hebrews created history as we know it you don't get away with anything and so you might think you can bend the fabric of reality and that you can treat people instrumentally and that you can bow to the Tyrant and violate your conscience without cost you will pay the piper it's going to call you out of that slavery into Freedom even if that pulls you into the desert and we're going to see that there's something else going on here that is far more Cosmic and deeper than what you can imagine the highest oh Spirit to which we're beholden is presented precisely as that spirit that allies itself with the cause of Freedom against tyranny I want villains to get punished but do you want the villains to learn before they have to pay the ultimate price that's such a Christian question could you walk us through what you did on the economic front I have two questions there what did you do on the economic front to move Israel from uh relatively far left leading socialist state to a free market economy so that's I'd like to know the details and second why do you think that given the radical success of your free market Maneuvers that the more socialist Vision was so attractive to Israelis for such a long period of time so let's start with the first one said tell us what you did on the economic front to to allow for the emergence of this Silicon Valley like miracle in Israel that's unfolded over the last what about 15 years something like that 20 years yes exactly 20 years 20 years what did I well the first thing I did was if I could borrow a phrase from the clintonites never let a good crisis go to waste we had a tremendous economic crisis in uh when I took over uh as Finance Minister in 2003 uh horrible things and uh the country was still a long semi-socialist lines and I decided and most people thought it was because of the collapse of the.com Marcus if you remember that which it was but it was a tiny factor of it it wasn't a really important one uh or they thought it was because we had terrorist uh attacks which was also part of it but I thought it was a structural problem why were we before the.com collapse before this or that explosion of terrorism why were we a gifted people a people with a pretty good educational system how come we were trailing uh all the countries of Western Europe and the idea was well education is enough if we have good education we'll get well that's hogwash I mean the Soviet Union had tremendous education and they had tremendous mathematicians tremendous physicists tremendous metallurgists they were dirt poor and yet when any one of these people was put on a plane and someone would manage to smuggle himself to uh Palo Alto they were producing wealth within days because you had a free market there so technology by itself doesn't produce wealth free markets and Technology free markets do produce wealth but free markets with technology produce unbelievable unbelievable spirits of growth and wealth and that was my vision for Israel I had this crisis now and I said in a crisis I could do impoundable things I could do things which were never accepted so what I did was you know I spent uh first of all I was told by I was told by my advisors having bid prime minister before and now being a prime minister in Sharon's government they said who's in his 70s they said look if you want to be prime minister again whatever you do don't take on the finance ministry because you'll have to cut budgets you'll have to do horrible things and you'll never be prime minister again and I said well what do I want to be prime minister for it's to put off push back the Iranian threat including their quest for nuclear weapons and to liberate the Israeli Marketplace so the Israeli economy so if I achieve at least one of those goals that's pretty good thing they said okay but remember you'll never be prime minister again this is 20 years ago okay I became Prime Finance Minister used the crisis after three weeks of working 20-hour days I put forward my vision to Israel which answers your question I said uh I fell back on a vision because people were living exactly as you say in semi-socialist Israel they were Awash with false economics basically saying it divide the pie divide the pie don't increase the pie okay that was basically what they all grew up with and and unless you get mugged by reality it's very hard to change it but we were being mugged by real economic reality again and again and again and we didn't change now comes my opportunity three weeks into by being taking up the finance ministry I give a press conference and I felt fell back on my first day in the military in basic training it's a long line uh the company's put in a long line on a big square and the commander points to me and he says you Netanyahu look to your right put the man on your right on your shoulder I did he then looks at the the next guy puts the guy on his right on his shoulder and so on well I had a pretty big guy on my shoulders because the commander Blows the Whistle barely took a few steps together this is a race it's called The Elephant race the guy at the bottom is the elephant the guy at the top rides the elephant the next guy was the smallest guy in the in the in the platoon in the company and he had the biggest guy in his shoulder he collapsed on the spot the third guy was a big guy and he had a relatively small guy and he shot off like a rocket and took the race and I said to the Israeli public all national economies are pairs of a private sector of a public sector sitting on the shoulders of a private sector the private sector is the one that produces the wealth or most of it okay the added value in the economy and in our case the public sector became too big and we were about to collapse we were about to collapse like the guy next to me so here's what we're going to do we're going to put the fat man this became known as the fat man Thin Man uh example and taxicab drivers and Comics spoke about it it actually went into the Israeli cycle if you ask people now in Israel fat man Tin Man they know what I'm talking about the fat man at the top okay we're gonna put on a strict diet very hard to do politically you'll get to cut government budgets okay and the Thin Man at the bottom we're going to put a lot of lungs a lot of oxygen in his lungs and what is oxygen well many things but number one number two and number three is low taxes low taxes low taxes because that's why people risk you know that's why they work that's why because they don't want to pay to the fat man at the top they want to have it themselves and once we have that we have to the guy can race forward right run forward and take the race compared to other economies well not true because as he begins to run he hits a ditch and then he hits a wall and then he hits a fence and these are called barriers to competition we have to deregulate the excessive regulation that semi-socialist Israel had and still has to some extent but we've we've done a lot there so it's three things compress the fat man uh lower taxes and do other things to make business very attractive and easy and remove barriers to competition and frankly that's what I did I described I don't describe the 80 or so major reforms that we did but I did them in a crisis and the reason I could get away with it in a crisis is because you know things are so bad they were so bad that they let you do it but I paid heavily and I almost disappeared from politics when I when I later ran for uh you know as a leader of likud my party compressed to 10 of the knesser that's it right now we're the biggest party but I I was merely destroyed so my advisors who told me don't take the finance ministry why aren't that wrong I was declared dead having survived several uh brushes with death as a as a Commando Soldier I now uh survived the brush with death politically so I was eulogized people said Netanyahu great did great things in the economy but he's dead he's good he's down to 12 seats out of 120 in our Parliament it's finished thank you for what you did go away okay I recovered from that and I was re-elected why did you pay why did you pay the price like what oh why what was it about your reforms that that made that price inevitable because part first of all the most important part is that uh in order to put the fat man the public sector on a diet uh I had to uh I had to cut back Israel's lavish welfare system which encouraged people to live on the Dole and not to go out and work okay so when I cut uh child allowances which in Israel were extraordinary they'd go up with each successive child so you know by the time you got to the sixth child uh you know and you had like the Bedouins in the negative they had 60 children from multiple wives they could drive the BMW Jeep as their second car in the Sands of the negative I mean and this was leading to demographic and economic uh collapse okay and the same thing was happening in other sectors uh ultra-orthodox community and so on they didn't work they just had a lot of children which the others you know the public the private sector had to pay for and when you cut that well Jordan you I can tell you you don't become very popular okay it's not cutting government well there's a lot of short-term pain there eh that's there's short-term immediate pain that's concrete for a lot of people when you cut and if the benefits only kick in in the medium to long term then you have a well then you have obviously a problem of emotion well I'd I'd like to do up front in the benefits later you're absolutely right and and uh and you have to be prepared for that that's what leaders do if you want to lead you have to have a purpose and your purpose has to be Beyond yourself and you have to be ready to shed political blood your own you have to be ready otherwise you can't lead otherwise it's meaningless you're always looking at the polls you always look do you have a vision of what to do I had a Clear Vision and I wanted to make Israel a power among the Nations and the the things and I paid for it and I nearly died politically in fact I was eulogized twice because you got to realize that uh I checked you know somebody showed me the statistics the other day so I'm the longest serving prime minister of uh of Israel 15 years and in a year if I as I anticipated will form a government in a few days in a year's time I will be the longest serving leader of a democratic country in the last half century but I'm already beating the odds in a different way because a lot of people came back once from political death that's happened um Winston Churchill as an example of Israel the lady was another example and you can find them in other places not that often but you can find them but the last time somebody came back twice to do a comeback twice uh was 75 years ago three quarters of a century ago and the reason that's happened is because you're quite right if you're able to survive political death then people appreciate what it is you did for the country and for them uh even though you know you could be swept by tremendous hostile presses in the case in Israel but you can overcome that uh and in Israel's case in my case in the story of my life as I describe it it was to uh bring into effect this vision of Israel of a powerful state that uh has this tremendously creative economy along with a powerful military uh opening its uh opening the door to peace with its neighbors and also fighting what is a global threat uh Iran with nuclear weapons and interballistics intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach Canada and the United States and anywhere is a threat to all of humanity and by protecting Israel by fending them off I of course protect Israel but I think we protect the larger International Community people appreciate that that's why I'm sitting with you a few days before I expect to go back into office because we can have this free-ranging conversation now I can talk about my book which I unabashedly am trying to plug in this conversation and I urge you to read it for two reasons one as you say to understand the uh better the history of the Jewish State the national the Jewish national movement Zionism that led it the reality of the Middle East and how it's changing by the way for the better the threat of Iran all of these things and my contacts with the successive American presidents who are very different from one another and I've had to deal with quite a few of them and they're it's an interesting story but I think beyond that I think it's to live a life of purpose okay well you had to be guided by and have faith in principles that were outside of short-term advantage in order to do what you did and and that's the story that you lay out in your book and that seems to be in accordance with the facts on the ground when you in your political experience no doubt you've dealt with political leaders who have a vision and who are abiding by principles and then you have dealt with political leaders who don't and one of the questions I have for you as a consequence is what is it that you think that the leaders who don't have who aren't Guided by principle and vision what is it that they're pursuing and in your experience is that more common on the political front than guidance by vision and principle uh in general yes it's more common uh and that's why people don't have high respect for politicians they speak of principle but they're usually interested in personal power for me power by itself uh is is meaningless powerful what I mean I can make a living a Better Living outside well that's what I'm asking well that's that's exactly what I'm asking I don't really understand I don't understand the drive for power so to speak or authority or influence outside of the realm of guiding principle because it it like if it's just a shallow Hedonism let's say or a desire for a claim I would think also there's there's easier and more productive ways of pursuing that I I certainly agree with you you're right because Israeli politics isn't exactly a walk in the woods I mean uh or a Rose Garden it's very cruel and my family and myself was subjected to incredible uh uh calumny and Slanders and Liza it's horrible so unless you have an overriding purpose uh there's no point to come back twice from political death to have been eulogized usually unfavorably doesn't you don't come back uh for the perks of power which are absurd anyway I mean anybody who could learn a living will will do better than what heads of state get in the western world uh you know they're they're forced into Draco and it's nothing I mean believe me you get you get better accommodations when you're in the private sector so that's not the reason for me uh right as I said I've lived a life of purpose to revamp uh to assure Israel's permanence my father and my grandfather worked very hard labored very hard to assure that the Jewish people would come back would have a state and I worked very hard to assure that they'd keep a state and that that state would become a Power among the Nations by the way the University of Pennsylvania has this annual poll in which they asked 17 000 opinion leaders in I think 20 countries to rank the powers of the world and in the decade that I led Israel in between 2000 10 to 2020 Israel was consistently ranked consistently ranked as the eighth power in the world now you've got to understand we're one tenth of one percent of the population of the world you know we're going to reach 10 million soon ahead of us our country is with billion people hundreds of millions of people tens of millions of people and below is the same but we stand out this tiny tiny country and the reason that's so is because I put this Vision that is my purpose in life into being but it's the the jury is still out it's not that you can sit on your laurels I can't say oh well and I'm coming back in I've done it I wrote my biography or my autobiography that's it no you have to constantly work at it you have to constantly increase increase the economic power increase the Innovation increase the circle of Peace expanded and block those who would who trample us and who'd uh you know it's not automatic it's not obvious that history will be kind to the good it's not true history has been kind to the bad history has been kind to the worst people I mean the Genghis Khan ruled ruled a good chunk of the world for over a century and created horrible you know terrible Horrors the Roman Empire you could judge it this way or that way but they ruled through the force of arms and subjugation for hundreds centuries okay the history you know Martin Luther King said the Arc of History bends towards Justice maybe so but that Ark is very brittle and it could be broken by the most the darkness there's lots of variability lots of variabilities and right now the darkest force in our immediate vicinity is this horrible regime in Tehran in Iran that everybody can see it's Horrors what it's doing to those incredibly brave men incredibly Brave women were dying on the streets there and that if I say that the Ark of History will bend towards catastrophe if these ayatollahs these thugs these uh theological thugs would have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to every part of the earth so I've made it my life's Mission so far successful to prevent them from having that but it's an ongoing thing the jury is still out there are many things it's it's not guaranteed right right well part of the reason you were able to offer something attractive to the Arab countries with whom you signed a peace Accord was because you had something to offer as you mentioned before in relationship to Iran and so let's talk about the Abraham Accords a bit more now you're going to be moving back into office in the upcoming weeks in all likelihood and you indicated you're you're continuing interest for obvious reasons in expanding the Abraham Accords and you mentioned Saudi Arabia if what can you can you can you explain a little bit about your vision of the most likely pathway forward on the Abraham Accord front are the Saudis in are the Saudis next to sign so to speak is does that beckoning on the horizon I can't speak for them but and the Saudis are tremendously important I I think it should be understood it's not just another country that would be added to the roster of Peace this is uh this is by far the most uh significant uh and influential Arab country although there are some uh remarkable examples of achievement in in the United Arab Emirates and other places in the Arab world but the Saudis undoubtedly are in a category of their own and yes I would like to have peace with them certainly begin with normalization but you have to the answer is will they be there first of all where are they this is an interesting question there's no way that we would have been able to achieve the Peace Accords the normalization Accords with the Emirates and Bahrain without tacit Saudi approval there's also no way no way that we could fly above the Skies of Saudi Arabia without Saudi approval uh the there's no way that I could speak the other day as I did when the elections results were known with my Saudi friend um Muhammad Saud he's the I call it the likud branch manager he speaks on Saudi internet okay and he congratulates me and he says Bibi we're for you speak zebra by the way we're for you he visited Israel there's no way that this is done without uh approval uh why did this change take place and that could be an indication of where we go from here the Quantum Leap in our relations with uh the Gulf States took place in 2015. when President Obama uh when when the United or rather with a joint session of Congress invited me to speak before it on the impending nuclear deal that President Obama was going to sign with Iran even though I knew that I couldn't reverse it I couldn't get two-thirds majority in the in the Congress to be resist it I thought I could get a majority to oppose it and I did consisting not only of Republicans but quite a few Democrats but I knew I couldn't get two-thirds I can't get two-thirds in our can I see in our Parliament I certainly could get it in the American Congress but I went to speak there and I spoke by the way Jordan I described the speech I never prepared for a speech like this in my life and I I prepare my speeches right up to the podium I changed them on the podium you know I'm so stickler for for the precise word so uh while I came into just as an aside I came to Washington and you'll read this in the second part of the book but I came to Washington um to challenge a sitting president it's a very very difficult thing to do and even though you know Obama was the quintessential example of uh of a leader who had was there not for power itself but for for a purpose he had an ideology it's just that his ideology clashed with mine he believed that uh you know peace will produce power and I believe that power produces peace and if you ask me to do a peace treaty that will uh basically leave me shorn of my power it won't last for five minutes so we had a difference of views but it clashed it literally clashed with with the question of the Iran Accords which I thought merely paved the way for Iran to become a military nuclear power which will threaten all of us so I not uh light-headedly but after considerable uh deliberation went to Washington arrived in Washington the evening before I'm going to go over the speech and I try try to practice a speech and my sinuses are clogged I have that condition and I put more and more nose spray and they're getting clogged they're both clogged and I try to practice the speech and I'm stopped in mid-sentence every mid-sentence and I say to my wife this is the worst thing that could happen the most important speech of my life and I'm stuck because of these horrible nose drops and I fling them in the air and they try to give me bowls of steam they bring a medic nothing happens she says well sleep it over it'll pass by morning well it didn't and I didn't sleep a wink I get up in the morning we make our way towards the capital building and I say what what in God's name am I going to do I mean I can't deliver a line of the speech and as we see the steps of the capital lo and behold like a Biblical Miracle the sinus is cleared the water is recede okay and I go in and I give I give the speech which was very well received very well received uh and here's what happened and this is the relationship to Abraham Accords as I'm giving the speech in a joint session of Congress my delegation receives calls in real time from Arab these Arab states some of them and they say we can't believe what your prime minister is doing he's challenging a sitting American president the most powerful man in the world that led to clandestine meetings between me and these Arab leaders and I won't itemize the where they were in the Gulf they were in the Red Sea they were on a yacht I landed in a helicopter on a yacht you can believe it my security people said that's too dangerous I said skip it we're doing it and this led to the Abraham Accords that were later culminated with the help of President Trump and he had an important role here and I value and appreciate that I'll never never stop appreciating this because I think it was very important but it took me a while to persuade him he got very little credit for that too by the way well he got all the credit for me but it took me three years to persuade him because he was going down the Palestinian uh the Palestinian Rabbit Hole uh Ron dermer my ambassador to Washington tried to say the difference between he said look he said getting a peace treaty with uh I'm not a golf player so he said getting a peace treaty with the United Arab Emirates is a 15-foot putt getting peace treaty with Saudi Arabia is a 30-foot putt getting a peace treaty with the Palestinians is 150 foot putt through a brick wall so it took me about three three years to persuade the president what I said to him and I also described this in my book I say in the very first meeting I had with Trump in the white house as president I said to him Donald there are four peace treaties waiting to be plucked ripe you know plums ready to be plucked off the tree and I itemized the country and I suggested that he bring an aircraft carrier to the Red Sea and invite me and these Arab leaders there to discuss Iran's security I said that will produce peace treaties right right off the bat uh and he didn't buy it he thought I was trying to evade the Palestinian track and I said okay we'll try the Palestinian track and we worked on that and of course we produced a template which I think I think is very productive but the Palestinians wouldn't come uh just as Arafat couldn't make peace any more than he could fly to the moon the present leadership can't do it because they'd have to give up what is really guiding the Palestinian national movement which is not to build a state but to destroy one the Jewish state so they didn't go that didn't go anywhere and so we tried the other track the track of peace through strength the the path of peaceful peace the peace for economy peace for other things and boom it exploded now will Saudi Arabia be next it's up to them of course but I think that uh this will be a worthwhile goal for me I believe for for the entire world and I believe for the leaders of the Saudi Arabia it could be a tremendous tremendous change so why do you why do you think why do you think the Biden Administration hasn't jumped on the Saudi Arabia opportunity especially given that they buy the administration and the Americans in general would have benefited from closer relations with the Saudis given the current state of energy what would you say uncertainty that plagues the United States and the rest of the world I mean it just seemed to me that that again that was low-hanging fruit that was just ready ready to be plucked because I knew that the Saudis for example were on board at least tacitly behind the scenes in relation to the Abraham Accords and it seems it seems obvious beyond belief that assadi Israel peace Accord would be of benefit obviously not only to the Saudis and the Israelis but to everyone in the world especially given the threat of Iran so I don't understand why this process has been stalled and so what do you what are your feelings about that well probably for two reasons uh of course I'll have an opportunity to speak to President Biden who's been a longtime friend 40 years we've known each other since we were both young men I came to Washington as a diplomat a young Diplomat and he came as a young Senator so I definitely intend to take it up with him uh I think there are two schools of thought that push back this obvious uh this obvious opportunity that you uh you describe the first is the Palestinian straitjacket that says and it still lingers among the foreign policy Elites I mean they've been added for decades they can't let it go they said well I know you have to peace means peace with the Palestinians peace in the Middle East it's not in the Middle East it's peace in the tiny part of the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians but peace with the entire world that's not peace uh or you can't get to it before you you know you get through the 150-foot putt through the Iron Wall which means you'll never get to it right so that's the lingering thing among the foreign policy and it's maybe changing because the Abraham Accords sort of started shaking people up to see that there are other opportunities broader opportunities right for peace than uh than they ever imagined the second reason is that uh for Saudi Arabia I think making that transition requires continually habituating uh Saudi public opinion but also uh conforming to the broader uh Saudi interests there are two interests that Saudi Arabia has it wants to modernize Saudi Arabia there's no question that the current leader Muhammad bin Salman wants to modernize Saudi Arabia Propel it to uh uh to be an advanced country doesn't mean Democratic country not in the way that we think but look at the United Arab Emirates or look at Singapore for that matter they're not exactly European style Luxembourg style democracies okay but they have degrees of freedom in the economy and the life of the people that is obviously very different from what you have in Iraq or Syria it's a different thing altogether okay um so I'm sure that they want to go there but to that he would want to go there but for the Saudi leadership to go there they would have to uh I think be assured that their national interests and especially their National Security interest uh are protected and that requires a certain flexibility on the part of those who want them to take this move I'm talking about the United States so it may be that uh it may be that there's there's a lot more to discuss on both to be more specific I obviously have given this some thought uh and and I'd like to I'd like to have a go at it obviously very soon I hope hello everyone I would encourage you to continue listening to my conversation with my guest on dailywireplus.com

Channel: Jordan B Peterson

Views: 1,353,368

Keywords: Jordan Peterson, Jordan B Peterson, psychology, psychoanalysis, existentialism, maps of meaning, free speech, freedom of speech, personality lectures, personality and transformations, Jordan perterson, Dr Peterson, Netanyahu, Israel

Id: 4OcaMRLTyGI

Length: 88min 10sec (5290 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 05 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Excellent-Duty4290]

Relevance to lockdowns?

[u/vuorilotta]

Ew I'm mostly pissed that they're using Bach as the soundtrack. Bach is rolling in his grave.

[u/VaNisLANCAP]

Jordan Peterson is an expert level grifter

[u/TheRoadKing101]

Satanyahoo?

[u/BornAgainSpecial]

Is Jordan Peterson Jewish like John McCain? He's the media's stand in for right wing extremist but he seems to be getting along with the tribe just fine.