Jabra Ghneim is a Palestinian-born American who wants to set the record straight on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ISRAEL IS ACTING IN DEFENSE.
Contrary to Ta-Nehisi Coates' book, The Message, Israelis and Palestinians are not the same as Whites and Blacks in America.
Arab identity is fragmenting.
Yahya Sinwar killed by IDF.
So Yesterday Yaya sinir the head of Hamas who orchestrated the October 7th attacks on Israel was killed by the
Israeli IDF where will the war go from here just recently a book by tanishi
coats the message has a very controversial chapter in it on Israel
and Palestinians very biased a Jewish CBS anchor interviewing tanishi coats
was reprimanded for calling him an extremist in this episode we bring on Jabra ganim a Palestinian born American
who tries to clear the air a little bit on the Israeli Palestinian War the tensions between the two sides and offer
a little Clarity and context to the conflict itself now this episode is brought to you by going do travel I am
the official spokesman for going do travel excited to talk about the momentum cruises momentum West happening
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there all right welcome to Quick show my name is Greg Matson and I am your host in this episode we bring back Jabra
ganai a Palestinian born American we're going to talk about uh tanesi coats and
his interviews and his book the message and the Israeli Palestinian conflict ja
Jabra welcome back to the show thank you thank you for having me Greg well let's get into this right let's go
right into tanahi coach here uh you and I have both read him in the past he's
got some controversy going on right now because of what he wrote about the Israeli Palestinian conflict flict in
his book the message uh what did you get out of that when you read that chapter well what I got out was so on
one hand you get what you're expecting from someone with you know his
background lots of what I get is lots of projection of Concepts such as like he
involves slavery he talks about colonialism and imperialism and he
projects it on wrongly he projects it in Israel but what's what's amazing is for
someone who's as celebrated as quotes I counted and I actually wrote
them down I have 10 pages is next to me of logical fallacies and cognitive
biases in that one chapter lots of appeal to emotion lots of uh I don't
know ad hominum lots of overgeneralization so I wasn't expecting
that I was expecting from someone like him a more
balanced approach to the whole situation because we cannot ignore that Israeli
point of view here and he deliberately acknowledged that in several interviews he acknowledged that he's deliberately
ignoring the Israeli point of view which deprives his reader of context that is
necessary to understand this you can't come to a balanced opinion about this
unless you have the Israeli point of view on it and he does not do that yeah he opens up Jabra in the chapter he kind
of he goes in he says okay he he goes to uh the I'm trying to think of the name of you know
something it's it's where they keep all the names of all the me Yash yadvashem that's right he goes
through the monument he he talks about that and how it it did mean something to him he the atrocities there were more
than he could bear emotionally but then he turns it quickly and talks about the
soldiers that are there with the guns and and and it's like okay well I understand why they would be there
because there are people that would be wanting to blow that place up exactly right and and but he turns it into
that's his his little turn into the oppressors right it's like now I
understand he says something and I'm paraphrasing of course here but he says something to the effect of um now I
could understand what was going on in Israel right they they the state that they were given they've now got power
they have an army they've got a state and a flag to Rally around and here's these Soldiers with their guns and so he
he quickly turns the holoc cost uhhuh into the oppressors yeah exactly and and
that's that's the thing so that's what's what's striking about this is that he
pays lip service to you know why Israel actually
exists but then he W without addressing the NOS because Israel exists not just
because of the Holocaust Israel exists because and I don't know if we talked about this before but Israel exists
because all of a sudden between 1947 and 19 you know mid1 1950s more
than a million Jews from living in Arab countries were expelled from countries where they are
more more worthy of being there than the residents themselves because they've been there for such a long time yeah
thousands of years thousands and thousands of years M almost a million of these people get expelled and where else
will they go go to they go to Israel Israel and and that is so if you look at
it from that point of view the existence of Israel is because
Arab countries emptied their Jewish population ethnically cleanse their Jewish population and basically sent
them packing and where will they go they they go to Israel that was the only place where they are safe so the problem
I have with quotes and and many many many people who talk about the whole Palestine
Israel issue is they talk about it without knowledge real knowledge of the
history and I'm not even going to say real knowledge I'm going to say knowledge of History language culture
you know all the nuances like does tenot know Hebrew does he know Arabic like
he's he's looking at it through the lenss of an interpreter and for all I know this interpreter is Hamas he's
probably not telling him how or more of the things that are going on right so he's he goes there for 10 days
and all of a sudden he writes this this thing that is again huge emotional
appeal but he doesn't address the history he doesn't address address it
from a proper proper perspective and the thing and I don't know if that's
something you want to address later or not but then there is the whole question of aparted and that is that is
the problem first of all there is no aparted in Israel there is no aparted in
Israel the real that's not the way he frames it though exactly that's not the way he frames it but let me share this
with you the real aparted if if he really if he really wanted to do
research exists in the West Bank in Gaza exists in Jordan exists in Egypt exists
in Iraq exists in every Islamic country of the Middle East it exists in Lebanon
if you want to talk about ethnic cleansing talk about the nature of society there so you want to talk
aparted okay let's talk about how the Middle East how PL how places like the
West Bank and Gaza when they were especially the West Bank they were they
had significant Christian populations there I mean in my lifetime growing up I
would go to my hometown I'd go to you know my ancestral Hometown to be Jala
and that was a Christian town and now it's a completely Islamic Town how did
that happened Lebanon was the same way it was very large Christian population
and what was it at least the 70s it was at least at least onethird Christian at
least onethird Christian I mean Lebanon was the Christian look at Egypt millions
of Christians there but the way the ethnic cleansing happens in there it's under the guise of religion so you have
an Islamic religion that says it's okay for us to marry your women but you know
meaning Muslims it's okay for Muslims to marry Christian women but if a Christian
man wants to marry a Muslim woman that's a big taboo and the Christian Man most likely would be killed it's okay for
Muslims to convert Christians to Islam which happened with my own brother but
it's not okay for Christians to go preaching the the gospel and teaching
Muslims and converting Muslims and there are many Muslims converting Christianity but they end up leaving the region
because they know first they are out they are shunned by their family but then an outcast but then they can be
killed I mean it's a license to Kill for any convert and they I know I know some of these individuals they've had to run
to another country somewhere exactly exactly so that's how ethnic cleansing happens that that's how
apartate happens when you're a Christian in Jordan for example or Iraq or Egypt
you know that if you apply for a government job you're not gonna most likely get that government job you know
you're separated you know that you can't live in certain neighborhoods you know you can't do certain things I mean that
is where real aparted is OT what had to do was cross the borders to Lebanon and
go to Palestinian refugee camps and by the way these are not refugees they are Lebanese citizens they should be but
Lebanon denies them citizenship he should go there and see how descendants of Palestinians of you
know live in there there is over a hundred professions that they can't get into in Lebanon they can't even be
garbage collectors and so you go to Israel you go to what we call 48 Israel
Israel proper you know which you know is the whole land except for Judean Samaria
or West Bank in Gaza and you go there and you see that Arab citizens that's
the only place where Christians are actually growing in the region that's where Arab citizens can elect they can
express themselves they have the right they have every single right a citizen
of a democracy has but he doesn't talk about any of this stuff he doesn't
acknowledge it and it's not good enough to say hey man there is enough pro-israel stuff
out there that I didn't feel the need to talk about it you have to because
contrast that contrast is important in this case you need to know what's on the
other side what the other side is saying so it's it's really it's it's sad it's
sad to see even Publishers publishing books like this yeah you know it's interesting too because he he talks
about he he does this in his book he's done this in his interviews also but he talks about how look this isn't a
complex issue this is really simple but you can make something really simple when you ignore all of the complexities
and all of the histories here and and and narrow it down to just one thing and he talks
about it's really you know this is something else I've studied quite a bit which is you know critical race Theory
and critical theory and he's very much a what they call a crit right he's a critical race Theory guy absolutely and
and he talks about how this is a parallel to whites in America and blacks
in America it's the same thing and that you know he sees the Jews as the whites
and the Palestinians as the blacks even calls it whiteness he calls the Israelis
there he calls it whiteness in the book and and makes this parallel but but
again it's like wait a minute here these the the the Palestinians were never brought in from their countries to
be slaves to the Jews yeah right this is the the history here is is so
unbelievably different it's not even close but but it's it's framed to be the exact same thing and what is really
interesting is those that follow that kind of what I would call a a kind of a
radical critical race theorist which is a a self uh uh he calls himself this
right yeah a radical black activist and and he says that lineage that DNA has always
been the same way right it's it's you've got those activists that have aligned with the Palestinians in this conflict
for a couple of generations now and and it's it's interesting because black
lives matter which I would see is very radical right when they first started back in
2014 2015 they made a trip to Gaza yeah
and they aligned themselves with Hamas I know I and made connections there and
when so when you see these protests today in the United States these are
co-organized from across the ocean and from here in these connections and these
networks that have already been built you know so you've got the Palestinians that are there and you've got the
support from the organizers of what still is there of black lives matter
making these you know putting these uh these protests together on our campuses
I know I know and those so I wanted so much to address the protests on campuses
because I just I've had a position in this and you know it got me blackballed
about you know about what the what these kids are doing because they they just have no clue to be honest they have no
clue but let's get back a little bit to that that whole whiteness argument when
I look at Israelis when I look at Jews I see more in them that is Middle Eastern
close to Palestinians the music the culture even the color of the skin I mean yes there is a significant portion
of ashkanazi Jews who are from Eastern Europe and who wield power but the
majority of Israeli Society over 60% I'd say are what's called M Jews Mah is a
Hebrew word that means from the East which includes all the Jews who lived in Arab lands for generations and these
people in culture every aspect of culture deep and surface culture are
exactly the same as Arabs they are exactly the same as Arabs even the way they read the Torah the way they chant
the Torah if you didn't know the two languages Arabic and Hebrew you would think someone is when a chanter is
reading the Torah is reading the Quran and when you hear a Quran being GRE You' think he's chanting the Torah it's they
use ex even the same kind of tone in music so the that you can't say this is
a whiteness argument you can't say this is a colonizer argument ridiculous it is
ridiculous I mean and and here is the thing again as I said most of these Jews came back like
the M Jews came from Arab lands they were this ethnically cleansed from Iraq
Egypt Libya Tunisia Yemen by the tens of thousands by the hundreds of thousands
and they they sent back to their indigenous land now the whole
colonization argument again it doesn't it doesn't apply Israel isn't a
colonizing power in any sense of the word these are people coming back to a
land that they lived in for Generations actually and and I'll tell you this as as someone who studied immigration
studied the Ottoman Empire lived it seen the history knows the languages of the
region the Jews are the only I would say indigenous people in the area if you
want to use the term indigenous because there has been since time began
continuous Jewish presence in the region even after the Roman sacking of the first temple significant portions of
Jews remained you know not in the millions not in the hundreds of thousands but Jews remain ago yeah
thousands of years ago and the Arab population including my own
ancestors so as as you will know for a thousand years or more the whole region
was under the whole trans Jordan Levant you know what we call Israel and Jordan
they have been they were under the Byzantine rule for a thousand years and the Muslims came and they controlled
they controlled it until 197 17 which is a significant portion of time but we need to keep in mind that it changed
hands so many times during that period and by the end of it by 1517 when the
ottoman Turks came in and we have Travelers who traveled through the region who wrote about it with no
ideological you know purpose or anything who basically say talk about the region
in that during that period and they say it was almost uninhabited there was no
one there and most of the people the Ottomans realized that and when they
came in I'm talking about my own ancestors here they in the Ottomans
because they wanted to somehow grow you know the land and economically make it more prosperous they started what's
called population transfers so they started transferring people from the
Balkans from Italy from whatever regions were under their po their control and
where the populations were poor they started transferring them to the trans
Jordan Palestine and so you look at my own DNA for example it tells the whole story I
have Greek I'm fascinated in this yeah significant portions Greek DNA Italian
DNA ER Jewish DNA I mean I have more Jewish DNA than many Jews I've met so
Jewish DNA and then Mediterranean DNA and so it tells you the story it tells
you the story of that population transfer so when those when those demonstrators on campuses say their
famous phrase to Jews go back to Poland I would say okay we can tell you the
same go back to the Balkans go back to Greece go back to Italy because that's
where more of our more of our people come from I'm sure you've seen pictures from Gaza you have gins have white Fair
skins blue eyes where did that come from my own grandfather was a blonde man you
know he had Fair skinn blonde you know white person so the whole idea of whiteness colonization go back to Poland
you came and colonized us doesn't doesn't work and then you look at the
actual geopolitical history of the area when the Ottomans were defeated in World
War I that whole region fell under the British Sy speak Etc that whole region
fell under the British when the British left and the Arabs rejected the 1948 un
mandate what happened was the Jordanian you know when the jordanians were defeated and retreated they retreated to
East Jerusalem and what we call now the West Bank and the Egyptians retreated back to Gaza but they didn't Annex those
areas officially they didn't say the West Bank is a part of georia Jord or
Gaza as a part of Egypt those were kind of buffer areas buffer zones between
them and the new state of Israel I mean my my own uncles you know my my mom my
dad they grew up during that year they were in their teens and Jordan Jordan
wasn't really their country of citizenship they could have gotten a Jordanian passport which thankfully my
dad did he got a Jordanian passport but many many people opted not to because
that area many PE people in that area didn't consider themselves Jordanian ottoman British or whatever so for even
to say that the West Bank is occupied territory is is not true there is and
for anyone to say there is something called Palestine is not true now we can
say you know people who are living there have declared it so fine let's talk about it but historically there is no
such thing as there is Jordan there is for the people in the West Bank or
Judean Samaria there is Gaza for the Egyptians or Egypt for the gazin but
that area's situation was never resolved and that's why the Israelis say well
it's okay for us to go and build settlements there and you know they've
tried and this is again one of the things that is shocking to me that quotes doesn't mention in the book he
does not talk about the timeline that even any Palestinian would acknowledge that Palestinians have been offered
Arabs have been offered so many peace deals from the Israelis and when I look at it now I mean I used to be you know
it took me years to overcome my Indo young indoctrination you took me being here and reading and being opening to
Point open opening up to points of view that are different but I look at it and
I'm like man we got offered so many chances to set the situation straight
and have peace and every time rejected it and I used to say like if you talk to
me 10 years ago I would have said no it's the israeli's fault but when you look at the data with new eyes and you
look at it with eyes of logic and honesty you say wow I mean it's not
perfect they they can't give us everything yeah and they I feel even in
2000 you know they offered a very good deal which included most of Jerusalem
and we rejected it and the response to it in every case was intifadas and
violence by Hamas yeah they do not want peace I I I will say that I mean at least the
leaders Hamas who are the self-imposed tyrants of of Gaza yeah uh coming in in
2006 and then throwing all of their predecessors off the roofs exactly they did it to the people and
unfortunate I mean we're talking a good day today senoir is dead he's been confirmed yes I saw that yes another
another Tyrant goes goes down the way of all the other tyrants you know so
hopefully it makes me hopeful that people will see the light and you know people of Gaza if they really wanted
freedom I think this is the time to you know turn against what do you think about that because you know what the the
the the I think the the right thing to do is to try and separate Hamas from
example from the Palestinian people yeah I look there's leadership here they are
tyrants they are they are bloodthirsty uh they hate Israel but has
that culture also trickled down you know to all the people that is is it what
what what what are your thoughts on that is there in other words if there's a
cultural if there's a level of hatred yeah to Jews and the in Israel
throughout the population I don't see how you ever get anything done because
that becomes the most important thing that becomes more important than Prosperity that becomes more important
than Freedom that becomes more important than opportunities for your children uh it's a cultural issue yeah absolutely
and you know what's been the saddest thing for me in this last 12 months the
saddest thing has been so I I was kind of a social media recluse for two years
before that I didn't go much on social media and then I started going social media because I want to see what's
happening and what's been shocking to me is including people I've known for years
people who are intellectuals people who are I considered smart people who are considered
moderate and I look at their discourse on social media I look at the Arab
discourse on social media in general and it is disgusting it disgusts me when I
look at these demon ations on campuses and I even hear like I I see hisbah and
hamas's flags raised you know on campuses I feel
disgusted and I feel like that whole indoctrination I mean I would understand
people you know kids in the Middle East who would demonstrate race Hamas flags and all of that but then you look at
American Kids Arab American kids born here went to school here and I see them
do that it troubles me deeply troubles me deeply because I do not want that
here I do not want that culture here but I fear that's what's happening is that
first they are indoctrinated in their family because you still have unfortunately the Islamic tie the
religion itself has enshrined in it there is like these lines in it that
don't get activated all the time but in times like this they get activated which is hatred of the Jews hatred of the
Christians hatred of whoever you know hatred of dogs they hate everyone and it
gets triggered in these people's families and then they go to school and they are reading Howard Z they are
reading all of that lifti history they're leading about oppressor and oppressed they go to college and there's
more of that and you know of course they don't know the language well they don't
know the culture well they're going off totally of emotional arguments you know
who doesn't get moved when they see a kid in the rubble or a kid being injured or a baby shaking after a bombing you
you have to be a subhuman to not feel anything so they go off of that but they
make it so dominant it it shuts down their logical you know logical intake
somehow and they stop thinking and they stop evaluating and the result is you
get you know someone walking on campus and basically as a Hamas fighter which
to be honest I think if I was a university president if if you're raising a terrorist flag I wouldn't just
suspend you I will basically kick you out of the University because that's
incitement to violence and I can't believe that University administrators don't see this like how can you if
you're a Jewish student or if you're an American student I mean I've seen them burn American flags I've seen them tear
down American Flags how can you do this you well well it's it's a fact that the
administrators at universities are further left than the faculty exactly
it's that that makes a little bit of sense there and it's just so odd isn't it that you get this anti-semitic
Viewpoint that comes from the hard left and the hard right and they both kind of
meet together and and then there it's just pointed at the Jews I it's just the
oest thing you know it's yeah from the from both ends of the of the of The Fringe of of uh of the political
Spectrum so I didn't know if you knew this but uh coats right tanahi coats
visited BYU just a few years ago yeah that's really interesting I wouldn't be surprised yeah yeah so I watched it I
watched this talk and it was on um you know basically Liberation through Arts
the what the talk was on and it's it's just again it's just OD it seeps into everywhere this type of mentality of the
victim and oppressor and it has to be a part of everything and and and so to
twist something like the Israeli Palestinian conflict I mean look there are valid points I would say even on
both sides that you could look at to talk about but to twist it into what they're twisting it into it's deranged
it it is deranged and and here is the thing it's a framework that doesn't work in the in the context of the Middle East
you can't take that critical race Theory oppressor oppressed you know slavery you
know reparations or whatever and implement it in the Middle East it does it does not work like that what what
cootes fails to do also in in in the book is I don't think he has any clue
about the the struggle there is a there's been a struggle about Arab
identity for since since I could read you know there is a struggle so when we
were going to school as kids they would tell us okay you're an Arab because you
speak Arabic because you believe in Islam because you and then they talk
about other cultural aspects but there those were the two main ones the language and the religion and then you
would say but how about me being a Christian and Christians were always like Arab
Christians you're not uh you're an Arab you speak Arabic but you don't belong to
this religion and now so in the in 1990 when Saddam invaded Kuwait the first
Gulf War and I remember this clear I mean I was a new University graduate I
lived that intellectually in a very deep way it affected me personally affected my
family everything and at that point you saw the people in the Gulf
immediately doubt their Arab identity so the kuwaitis for example ref you to identify refus to identify as Arabs
after the first Gulf War because hey we thought we were all Brothers how can you invade me and take away my sovereignty
the Saudis felt the same way the emiratis felt the same way there there has been this disintegration all of a
sudden and then you started hearing of the Lebanese saying you know we're not
really ARS we're Phoenicians the Lebanese Shiites in the South were like ah we're Shiites we
identify more with the Iranians the Egyptians all of a sudden were the descendants of the Pharaoh so
people in North Africa are all of a sudden saying we're Tam we're we are not
you know Arabs really so there was this disintegration in Arab identity and then
that's when the whole radical Islamic movement started coming in because after the first Gulf War I feel like Arabs all
of a sudden throughout the region felt we're kind of worthless people really to
be brutally honest that's the general feeling if if you sit in an Arab conversation there is a lot of you know
sarcasm and and U what do you call it
self-deprecation and amongst Arabs like what do we produce for human we produce nothing we don't even produce we don't
even produce as many books as Finland produces so there is all of that so
Islamic identity comes back into the scene the Islamic brotherhood and they are everywhere I mean Hamas is Islamic
brotherhood they they have branches everywhere and it's saying you are first
and first and last you are Muslims you yeah that identity gets pushed up to the
top because that is the movement right that can that can bind everybody together exactly and so what
you see in Europe when the ISIS crisis was happening is that all of these kids in
Europe all of a sudden feel and you know there is a criticism to be said about
European society and how it deals with immigration it's totally different than the United States the United States is a
Melting Pot it's sink or swim that's true but America is is wonderful in the
sense that there is freedom of speech freedom of meeting freedom of warship so
you can be really all you you can and you want to be in the United States in America in Europe it's kind of different
it's a more of a socialist society I'd say Proto socialist society government
controls a lot they do not treat their immigrants they Nanny their immigrants a
lot trying to help them but they also don't give them a lot of Rights in society it's it's really hard to explain
but the ISIS crisis you know you had all of these kids who are seeking a
community and they say okay we want to be Arab how can we be Arabs we will be Muslims and so now here in the United
States the what's happening and this is a puzzle I haven't really solved yet or I haven't come to a conclusion about yet
so I was at you know interpreting for conference the other day and right in front of conference building there was
you know an lgbtq person dressed as a woman you know had a beard and
everything and he he was basically advocating for
Hamas and I was I was like I thought we were safe here from like I couldn't
imagine this happening in Utah but it was this person and cronies and I was
like oh my gosh do you know what will happen to you in an Islamic soci do you know what
Hamas would do to you do you know what hisbah would thrown off a roof oh thrown that's that is the merciful way to deal
with it there are other things that are too horrible to mention here
but but this is this is this is this person from an Arab background he wants
to be Arab but his way of doing it showing solidarity with these you know
organizations that in his mind represent resistance Islamic resistance but and that to him or her is
the value that is is above everything else and that's what's been happening that's the story and I think I think I'm
not sure but that's what's happening to Arab American kids but you even have Jewish kids Jewish American Kids you
know the red shirts if you've seen them in demonstrations who who like to say as a Jew but they are not really like they
are maybe cult Bagel Jews but they are not you know practicing Jews they go in
and have solidarity with these people it's because not because they have problem with their identity I think they
consider themselves American but it's because they have been sucked in into this oppressor oppressed narrative they
feel guilty they're they're made to feel guilty yes they feel guilty and there is
Jewish guilt is real they talk about it a lot they feel guilty and they feel that their intentions are good but they
do not understand the the the real background of this they don't understand
the because I think people like Howard Zin all of these Rashid KH all of these
historians have been the dominant discourse and they don't tell the truth
about what's happening they don't tell honest truth and you'd Hope from someone like t coot who's educated prolific
brilliant writer you would have and that's why I'm angry at him You' think he would offer like a balanced approach
a balanced opinion hey I looked at this and here's the arguments for and against
here's what's going wrong right here's what's going wrong but then he goes and like an adolescent child he takes on
like all of a sudden he's suspended his own thinking and he writes this emotional book talking about home
demolitions okay yes I've I've watched many of these home demolitions happen it
is devastating especially for someone like me knowing that the person whose
house has been demolished probably worked all of his life to build it right it is devastating and the Israelis know
that but the Israelis also are reacting to you know hey your kid went in and
killed stabbed five people and killed them you know and we can't punish him
but we're going to punish you because most likely you've been collaborating with them this is how the logic goes it
doesn't follow American you know criminal justice procedure right it so
to us it might seem okay barbaric unfair all of that but the Israelis I have to
say what are they going to do they built a wall they tried to separate they left
Gaza they told the Palestinian Authority hey we're gonna give you the West Bank
make something off of it and instead they did nothing they enriched
themselves because they're corrupt and did nothing for the people and the
Israelis going back to your earlier Point how can the Israelis trust that
these neighbors of theirs will ever be peaceful towards them right now they
can't well it's hard to know I mean even going back to your your your your thought about uh you know they don't
want peace essentially that seems to be the case certainly at least with Hamas um it was it was you know the timing for
October 7th last year is very interesting because Saudi Arabia was reportedly about to sign the
Abraham Accords yes right then there and if that you had Saudi Arabia one of the major players in
the Middle East all of a sudden sign on to this thing then then and they're
they're they're very much rivaled with Iran right and so exactly it's like you
know no we do not want this we're not going to allow this and Iran has no influence over that whatsoever as a
rival to them and so you know hey let's have this happen now we've been planning it for a while let's do it now so that
we can't have this uh these Abraham Accord signed the Iranians were planning this at a much larger scale and that's
something I learned last week so Hezbollah in the north was planning a synchronous attack with Hamas that same
day on the Northern settlements which would have been a major disaster for the Israelis right so but Hamas and hisbah
were made for that moment and by a miracle from God only can be a miracle
hisbah decided not to to go with Hamas on October 7th probably because Hamas uh
held it tight held the operational deadlines so tight because they didn't want want it to leak in that so hisbah
couldn't synchronize with them but you're right and Hamas is an expert so I
remember you know back in 1995 I was in Jordan and it was right after Jordan signed a peace treaty with
the Israelis and I would say it was I was in Jordan During the period and
Israelis were coming to Jordan jordanians were going to Israel there was this cordal relationship you'd see
Kipas and stuff downtown Aman everything is happening well and then Hamas goes in
and they start their suicide bombings inside Israel the buses and you know the
Israel is surprisingly I mean even with Rin assassinated by settlers because
they thought to was too much Shon they did nothing until the big Massacre on
pesak on the you know the uh PES you
know the spring festival and they went and massacred the whole family but Hamas
bombed like they are experts in bombing peace treaties experts in bombing peace
because they do not they genu all these Islamic groups do not want peace with
the Israelis they want the Israelis gun somehow or Israel is under Islamic thumb
well it's in their Charter right to desro it's part of their Charter and so it's like okay well when you build
something on that instead of saying we're going to build upon the idea of of well-being for all those in Gaza we're
going to build up the economy we're going to build up family we're gonna build up trade we're going to do
everything we need to do here instead if it's put over here that their primary purpose is to be against Israel yes and
they're going to do everything they can to keep it that way exact that's their purpose for existence at
that point exactly I mean I was I was you know looking at the Sis's body
video you know an hour ago and I was like you know there was a sense of sadness not for him but I was like what
if this person wasn't infected with this with this hate with this ideology of his
he you know you look at his organizational capability he you know
built this organization you know and it's obviously
has all of these skills why wouldn't he put it towards managing and running Gaza
to be you know a prosperous Place good for Palestinians to live and maybe then
maybe the Israelis would look at that and say wow these people you know are ready for peace you know they've built
an economy they're prosperous they don't want to kill us if if his energies were directed towards something like that I
think the Israelis would be would be very open for peace one thing one other thing that has been a surprise for me
this last year is I started immersing myself in everything Israeli podcasts
news you know listening to what their intellectuals generals politicians
say I'd say and this is my personal opinion that there is more willing
Israelis want peace genuinely they want peace they want to peace they want but they want to feel
safe and if the neighbors you know Egypt
the jordanians the Lebanese you know the Palestinians make them feel safe and
genuinely make them feel safe and they're genuine about this I think the Israelis would welcome that I think the
Israelis would actually give the Palestinians more than they think they can get but the problem now they I've
listened to people on the extreme right I've listened to people who follow mayor Kahana who who are kahanists okay I've
listened to people on the extreme left of of Israeli thinking and across the
Spectrum I believe they want peace they generally want peace but they want safety they want to know for sure that
their neighbors do not want to kill them because I mean you've been to the region
you know you can stand them Bethlehem and shout and on a on a silent night
probably someone would hear you in Jerusalem if you scream that's how close these people are and if I'm living so
close to someone I want to know that they're not gonna sneak at me in the middle of the night and start stabbing
my babies so we need I so I haveen been to the region
but it's it's interesting that you talk about this Arab identity also because uh
I uh I you know just this last time that I was there in September there were two
individuals one one was a woman that was uh uh served as a tour guide for us and it's someone that we've known for a very
very long time and and so she's very familiar with the gospel right yeah and
even teaches it a little bit at at the at the archaeological sites we need to send her to the branch there yeah we
need to absolutely but anyway she's Muslim but very very open-minded she believes in a true gospel and that that
latterday Saints have a have a a good portion of this true gospel right yeah
and uh but anyway she was saying she she was in a bus with all of us and and she's talking and she says now you
should know exactly what you were saying you should know we are not Arabs in Egypt we are Egyptians exactly and we
have a Heritage that goes all the way back here to those that built these sites and and everything else and so her
identity as a race is not Arabic exactly in that sense
or or if it is it's kind of secondary it's secondary yeah it's this has been
happening as long as I've been alive and but you have to keep in mind and and this is something probably your Arab
American listeners will find offensive but it is the truth before you know
until 1917 there was no sense of Arab identity
because everyone was a part of the otoman Empire everyone considered themselves ottoman Turk including the
people who lived in places like Egypt Egypt was a part you know of the Ottoman
Empire it was a satellite Ally but it was under ottoman rule in many ways you
know they the Egyptian the Egyptian king you know was under bab Ali the high door
they call it in in Turkey in Istanbul so he was he would answer to the Turkish
khif okay and the same thing in Iraq and those were the two countries where you can say okay this is Iraq this is Egypt
but the rest of it there was very little national identity people did not
identify as Iraqi or Jordan there was no Jordan most of the major tribes that are
in Jordan today were transplants from the Arabian Peninsula they came in with Lawrence of Arabia and they settled in
the trans Jordan so that whole place there is no I like you'd ask someone
from Lebanon or Syria nowadays in those days they would say oh I'm from I'm from
Asam you know I'm from the Levant but there was no national identity everyone
was a part of the Ottoman Empire and you were Muslim you were Jewish you were
Christian and that's how people identified and so the whole idea of Arab
nationalism came in after the Turks left you had the Arab national movement you
it was the age of nationalisms and that's when people started saying hey um
we're we're gonna have and to be honest it's the fault of the British and the French they divided the area in sapico
and tried to create that okay you're a different country you know they they had the divide and conquer policy so they
are not without blame but the whole for you to say that there is a country
called you know Palestine or even Jordan or Lebanon or Syria these are all new
inventions so that's why and when I was going to school by the time I you know was born and started going to school in
the 70s that whole idea okay we're going to tell you why you're an Arab and I
always felt through school like it was being shoved down my throat because it was in every curriculum right you you're
an Arab and it was Undeclared but you hate zionists you know the Jews are the
enemy the Israelis are the enemy and there was no distinction you nowadays the trick is okay we're not
anti-semites because we're not going to call you Jewish we're going to call you Zionist but I I know that's that's not
true because when we were growing up the way we were indoctrinated no you you
know you hate Jews you hate Zionist you hate anything that has to do with Israel
period and that's how that's and they didn't tell us that explicitly but was implicit that's how you Arab it's a part
of the program yeah so now again as I said after the first Gulf War that came
to a huge unraveling everyone is trying to say we're not we're not Egyptian
we're not Lebanese we're yeah we're going back to well DVA this is a fascinating
discussion we're gonna have to have you back on and go over some other things I want to actually go over the war a little bit next time and talk about
what's going on and hopefully it's over by then but I don't know
I will pray really hard tonight and this weekend for that the death of senoir
means you know the war is in in Gaza is because again I'm just sick of seeing
children die for for those monsters and I I want peace and I want kids to go to
sleep even in their tents I want them to go to sleep and I want those Innocents
you know to just not suffer anymore it's horrible yeah well appreciate that I'm
looking behind you and I realized I'm going to have to get you a few books to fill up the space behind you here I
still you don't have any you don't there's no books there so this is half of my
library all right job really appreciate it thanks so much for uh sharing everything with us yeah thank you Greg
