The Great Debate: Israel v Palestine | Candace Ep 10

This is going to be a really great discussion

between Ami Kozak and Dave Smith.

I'm excited just to have two Jewish comedians on

because I will tell you one thing that has been lost

in this Israel versus Palestine issue, Jewish humor.

People used to be so funny.

Jewish people used to be so funny, they could take a joke.

That was the one thing we had in common,

the blacks and the Jews, but now all that's gone

because people are way too serious.

Well, I'm very glad that these two guests

will be able to have what I hope

to be a meaningful discussion.

And if anything, what I want you to take away

is that speech matters.

More speech, not less.

That's what we have coming up on Candace.

such a great discussion today.

I'm very much looking forward to it

because I've already had a discussion

with these two individuals

and they were actually productive on this topic.

And there has been a lot of nonsense and a lot of emotion,

but I think that these two individuals

are going to have a good discussion.

I think it's also important to say,

because you hear people say,

oh, I'm moderating the discussion.

I don't have an opinion.

You guys already know my opinion.

You guys know that I've had Dave Smith on

and that I agree with him on foreign policy.

So to keep this discussion productive,

I'm just going to be as quiet as possible.

Not an easy task for me.

Not an easy task at all.

But I want to make sure that we're not

accidentally tipping the scales.

And occasionally I'm just going to say

bad and mean stuff to Dave Smith,

just to make it easy.

All right guys, thank you so much for joining me.

of the new show.

It's awesome to say.

So Ami, I do want to start with you

because you and I had an offline discussion

about really how not productive my discussion was

with other people that I had on the show

that I was not intending to.

People were upset with me thinking

that I had sort of intentionally had on

like a rabid pro-Israel voice.

I'm going after Rabbi Shmuley

and most people agree left and right

that he's an interesting person, so to speak.

And the truth was I was really only having

Rabbi Barclay on because he had personally

written an article about me,

not because I think that he's the most logical

pro-Israel voice or that he gets it right all the time.

I don't think he does.

So I do want to offer you an opportunity

right here at the beginning.

We're seeing right now the media sort of saying

that any critique of Israel as a foreign nation

kind of registers as a critique of all Jews

across the world, which makes it easy

to call people anti-Semitic if they disagree

with Bibi Netanyahu.

So I just want to hear your take on that.

I think that there's always a better way I maintain

when there's disagreements to lend themselves

to conversations and coming in good faith

and understanding your opponent's positions actually

and actually what they've said before

coming into any conversation.

So there's conversations you've had since our conversation

that I want to clear up, but also with regard to criticism,

the idea that it's not that any criticism of Israel

is being labeled as anti-Semitic,

but the point is that there's a lot of disproportionate

criticism, the singling out the double standard

that Israel's being subjected to.

That is grounds for that, I do believe.

And I think that there is a catch-22 that happens

in the anti-Semitism game where someone can make

an incendiary comment, an anti-Semitic remark,

and then the Jewish community calls it out

and they say, well, you see, Jews are trying to control me.

You see, they're trying to control the speech.

And so it almost becomes an impossible task

to combat effectively.

And I said this in our last conversation

that to call things that are not anti-Semitic anti-Semitic

is incredibly unproductive and wrong.

And it's almost like a cry wolf scenario.

But when we do see things that are anti-Semitic

and we call it out or problematic comments

that embolden anti-Semitism, a catch-22 forms

where I've seen it all over Twitter too,

where people say disgusting things about Jews,

they couch it sometimes in criticism of Israel.

And no one can deny that there's a lot of anti-Semites

that disguise themselves in anti-Zionist rhetoric.

And they say these things.

And then when the Jewish community calls it out,

because they say these Jews are trying to control

our narrative, control our speech, then we call it out.

They say, you see, you see, you see,

and then proceed to double down.

And it just continues to spiral.

So it leaves the voices who wanna speak out productively

and constructively about this fairly stuck.

And in a world post October 7th,

when we see a rise of anti-Semitic incidences,

simply because Israel is in a war,

and then you see thousands of people,

mobs of crowds in the street,

cheering into Fatah revolution,

Al-Qassam, here are your next targets,

protesting at the Nova exhibit

where Jews were slaughtered on October 7th.

I was there two hours before that

with a cohort of comedians visiting.

When you're seeing these things,

and then you see a rise of anti-Semitism,

I think rhetoric that contributes to that,

we need to be able to, you know,

open our ears and eyes to like,

understand that being aware of these things

and calling it out is not trying to control or censor.

And it is a real thing, even though in the past,

it may have been an exaggeration.

I mean, I think that there's certainly,

like I see a lot of Jew hating stuff on Twitter,

and I do think that when you're Jewish,

you kind of can't, you can't win.

Like you make a fair point there.

It's like, you know, I've heard,

there was one thing that I got tagged in

where it was like, you know,

like a whole list of like political commentators

with the star of David, you know, behind it.

And it was like, first off, they just got a bunch wrong.

Like a bunch of people who just aren't Jewish

were put on there.

But then they had like me and Glenn Greenwald

and Max Blumenthal and like a bunch of other people.

And you're like, yeah,

but we're all like the sharpest critics of Israel.

And they're like, yeah, but you see,

that's the Jewish game.

It's like, you control both sides of the,

so it just becomes this thing where it's like,

oh, okay, so if I was pro-Israel,

that's proof that there's a Jewish conspiracy.

If I'm critical of Israel,

that's also proof that there's a Jewish conspiracy.

So my feeling on that is just kind of,

it's a losing game and I find it stupid.

And I just, yeah, I mean,

I totally don't like seeing that stuff.

I do think that the difference is that

these are kind of for the most part,

random Twitter comments,

and it's hard to know what's really going on there.

Is this somebody trolling?

Is this a 15 year old?

I mean, like I have no idea what it really is behind that.

Whereas when it comes to actual people who are known,

who are making these arguments,

I don't, I just don't see almost anybody.

I mean, I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong,

maybe there's someone I'm not thinking of,

but I see people like Candace,

who from everything I've seen,

bends over backward to be like,

hey, I am not talking about Jews here.

I have nothing but love for Jewish people.

I've grown up around Jewish people.

I see, that's what I see for the most part,

that people that then still just get called anti-Semitic.

And so, you know, I do,

where I would probably disagree a little bit,

is that I think the idea that if you are critical,

I mean, look, Douglas Murray just had a debate

at the Monk debate the other day.

His argument is that being anti-Zionist

is being anti-Semitic.

And it's remarkable to watch people like Douglas Murray

just become woke leftists when they talk,

well, anti-Semitism is a shape-shifting virus.

And if you say anything critical of Israel now,

you now own the entire history of hating Jewish people

or something like that.

The truth is that there definitely is more criticism

of Israel than there are of other governments,

other countries.

there's also a lot of reasons why that's the case

other than the fact that it's a Jewish state.

And we could get into what all of those are,

but you could talk about worst governments.

There is something very unique about the relationship

between the United States of America and Israel

as it pertains to our foreign policy,

particularly over the last 20 years,

which has been catastrophic for not just our nation,

but every nation involved.

There's also something different about a war,

which I hesitate to even use the word at times,

because I'm not sure that's the correct word

for what we've seen over the last eight months.

There's, I don't know if I can think of another example

around the world, again, correct me if I'm wrong,

where a captive, permanently stateless refugee group

of people are just being just mass slaughtered.

A group of people who do not have a military of their own,

do not have a government of their own,

are completely captive and have been ruled by Israel

since 1967, that's also unique.

And so I think there's a lot at work here.

I'm not gonna argue that people hating Jews

is not an element at all amongst anyone,

but at the same time, it's like,

if you are for border restrictions,

you might attract some people who don't much like Mexicans.

And if you're for DEI,

you're gonna attract some people

who don't much like white people.

And if you're critical of Israel,

you also probably will attract some people

who don't like Jews.

All of this to me is kind of irrelevant

to the real question, which is what Israel is doing to Gaza

over the last eight months

and whether or not this is acceptable,

whether or not we should be funding

and arming this conflict.

And I would love to hear Ami's response to it.

You know, when you and I first spoke,

Ami, it was only a few weeks, I think, after October 7th.

And I think that we had a really great discussion.

Somehow I was still called anti-Semitic after it.

And I was going,

I thought that was such a productive discussion.

I learned so much and I thought it was good

and healthy for people to hear.

but fair enough.

They just sort of like,

I thought it did both of us a disservice.

I was very proud of the discussion

because I was coming from it in very good faith

and I know that you were as well.

And so I think that much has changed, I think.

People were floating around.

Was it genocide?

I don't think that matters.

You don't need to get hung up on the verbiage.

Do you believe that the response

to the October 7th attacks has been equal,

overboard, and also,

what would you say is an equal or an overboard response?

I know you wanted to debate Douglas Murray,

but here you have him.

It's the next best thing, okay?

Everything Dave said is utter nonsense.

From the get go, people of your ilk.

But anyway,

you know, this is what happens

when you get two comedians out to talk serious as well.

Yeah, for you, maybe.

Anyway, I'm a huge Douglas Murray fan

and I think he did an awesome job.

But for the record, I'll just say this.

A couple of things just to what Dave said

and then I'll address your question, Candace,

because I think, Dave, would you concede that this,

you know, you don't like the word war.

I don't like the word conflict

because I think there's a fundamental flaw

in presuming that Israel and its enemies are,

and I'm using this word carefully,

moral equals in the sense,

in terms of the values that Israel tries to uphold,

the state it tries to create,

which confuses me about your position

in the sense that you're someone

who's always fighting for individual rights

and sovereignty and that these governments,

the whole purpose of government in and of itself

is to protect those rights to the best of its ability.

That's what its primary function is

and to the extent to the degree to which Israel does that

better than any other area in the region,

I would think that at least morally, sympathetically,

your solidarity or whatever you want to call it,

your advocacy, your opinion on this

would lie more so with what Israel has to go through

because it's fighting regimes

that do not share any of those values at all.

Any of our values that are here today

in terms of tolerance, individual rights,

these kinds of things that Israel,

although it's imperfect, is a Western democracy.

So it always shocks me when I see people

who are principled in your position

not see that or side with that.

And I know you haven't fully condemned Israel fully,

but like, and I've seen other interviews

where you do defend what Israel's,

well, you know, the virtues of Israel,

but at the same time, I always find that very surprising

because the values that you uphold

and say are fighting for on behalf of the Palestinians,

it doesn't seem to me that they're regimes

that represent them and a lot of people

in those populations don't uphold those values themselves

or those desires themselves.

So seeing it through a Western American lens,

you know, there's a hierarchy of values here

and it seems that the real motivating factor in this war

is it's not a geographical or political dispute

or a conflict that presumes two sides

are fighting as moral equals,

but rather an ideological one

in which Israel is fighting regimes that are genocidal

that wish to see its destruction

because it's a Jewish state,

because of not just it as a Jewish state,

but Jews worldwide,

and they've been very explicit about that.

So it confuses me that we impose this idea

that everybody just wants the same thing

and we have to just work this out,

you know, as a geographical dispute

with all that messy history.

What's always seemed to me been animating this

before any occupation of any territory even existed

was a deep seated hatred for Jews,

the Jewish people and the Jewish state.

So even if people critical of Israel aren't anti-Jewish,

the people Israel's directly fighting certainly are.

So I only wanna say that because I did have,

and I'm interjecting here,

I did have a conversation with someone

whose parents were forced out in, I wanna say 1945,

is that the correct year?

48, yeah.

And it definitely,

I don't think every person that has an issue with Israel

is being guided necessarily by this idea

that it's just Jewish people.

I mean, some of these people were actually living there

and had accepted Jewish refugees into their home.

One Palestinian is coming to mind, Mohammed Hadid,

who they were allowing these refugees

to live there for two years.

They went out one day, came back

and the locks were changed.

And they said, this is, again,

I'm telling you what Mohammed Hadid told me,

you're not allowed to come back here.

Your home is being taken over.

If you come back, they will shoot you and kill you.

So I think some people are being motivated

by what they perceive to be the historical injustice.

Do you think that that's a fair assessment

to say that some people aren't just looking at this

as these are the Jews,

they're looking at this as these are people

who took our homeland and it's not fair?

Or do you think it has changed over the years?

not like there are marginal issues

and there are fundamental issues.

And I'm not denying that innocent Palestinians

suffered as a result of all this.

And I think you could play a suffering Olympics all day long

and keep going back and keep playing this game all day over

who atrocities that have been committed

across the board throughout history.

That's not unique to the foundations

and formings of any state.

But I think that as far as what's fundamental here

is not that there's this thirst and desire

to create a Palestinian state,

but rather to destroy the Jewish one.

So I think, look, when you say,

okay, so like I'm a libertarian and I believe in freedom

and government should, if it exists at all,

only be there to protect property and natural rights.

So look, if you were to say,

like let's compare the United States of America

to Saddam Hussein's Iraq,

which society would I rather live in?

Which society do I think is more moral?

Which government was less oppressive?

Okay, obviously the answer is the United States of America.

But, or at least to its own people.

We're probably a lot more oppressive to other countries.

But that's totally irrelevant

to whether I'd have solidarity

with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

The question is, who's right in this conflict?

Were you justified in invading and destroying

and killing a million people there?

And the answer is no.

And so it doesn't matter.

Like it's just totally irrelevant to the conflict.

Now, it's not irrelevant to how you feel

about the country as a whole.

But if you're talking about the war in Iraq,

I'm not gonna go like, well, you know,

George W. Bush is not as brutal as Saddam Hussein,

therefore I have some solidarity with him.

It's like, no, he's destroying a nation of people.

He has no right to do this.

And by the way, he's also greatly degrading my country.

Now, as far as the rest of your characterization of Israel,

I just, I think it's totally unfair

and not in line with the history.

And it's kind of circular reasoning.

Like, you're like, well, but don't you,

Israel's the good guy,

so how come you don't support the good guy?

Wouldn't you be more sympathetic to them

because they're the good guy?

It's like, well, no, but that's,

look, Israel is not a Western democracy.

They're just not.

And they don't get to play this card anymore.

Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967.

They haven't occupied them for a few months after a war

or even a few years after the war.

They've occupied them for nearly 60 years

for longer than the Soviet Union

occupied all of Eastern Europe.

And none of the people in those territories

have any voting rights whatsoever.

So how can you call yourself a democracy?

By the way, I don't even, I'm not that into democracy.

I understand.

I don't really care about voting rights.

My beef is that they have no natural rights whatsoever,

but you don't get to just hold 5 million people captive

for nearly 60 years with no voting rights

and claim to be a democracy.

That's an apartheid regime.

And so I don't, listen, the fact is,

and many, just to your other point,

because there were a few there,

many Israelis at the highest level of government

have admitted this for many, many years,

from Moshe Dayan to Barak, all up and down,

bunch of former prime ministers admitted.

It was Ehud Barak who said,

if I was a young Palestinian, I'd be a terrorist too.

And it's not because they are just all possessed by evil

and Jew hatred.

The truth is that the creation of Israel,

however you feel about it,

involved three quarters of a million Palestinians

being kicked off of their land.

And then after 1967,

they've been occupied by a foreign military ever since.

It is the most human thing in the world

that you would develop hatred

for the people who did that to you.

There is no group of people anywhere,

including the three of us,

who would not develop a burning hatred

for the foreign military that is policing your streets,

kidnapping your people whenever they feel like it,

killing your people with zero consequences.

I mean, imagine this government,

look, the Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu's party,

which is, he is the longest serving prime minister

in the history of Israel, was founded by who?

Menachem Begin, a literal terrorist.

That's what Israel did with their terrorists.

They elected them prime minister.

Who wouldn't?