Ben Shapiro at TPUSA Conference: Series on Zionism With Raphi Ganshtar (Episode 1)

We present our series on Zionism with American born Israeli citizen Raphi Ganshtar. On Episode 1 we attempted to build a coalition as a member of the political left (myself) and a Trump/Netanyahu supporter who leans right (him) both Jewish both religious. We examine Ben Shapiro's speech at the TPUSA Conference AmericaFest.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to our new show, The Coalition, a new project meant to inspire, educate, and enlighten you. We will be discussing topics which are both relevant and controversial while taking a deep dive on each issue without pulling punches. I'm one of your hosts, David. Here's Rafi. Rafi, tell us your vision for our program as we get going.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Yeah, welcome to the coalition. So excited to be here with you, David. Excuse me. This is uh, I think the beginning of something that will be um really fantastic. Um the coalition, I believe, is a wonderful opportunity for us to connect with those around the world who are like-minded people, who see a comprehensive vision for the West and for those who believe in, who share our values. We share the values of of goodness, of love, of as we say in Hebrew, tikkunolam, right? Our the our incumbent responsibility to help fix up this world and repair it and create a better world for the generation that comes after us. And there's there's a lot of talk now among the American right about their coalition, right? About this coalition of bringing everybody on that, on with that political ideology together at all costs. And what they do then is through doing so, um, they leave out people who either don't share that ideology or people who are demonized by some of those who have that ideology. And although this is not going to be about right versus left, um I personally have voted for right-wing politicians myself. Uh, in fact, I voted for them overwhelmingly above the left-wing politicians. However, what I can tell you is that there is a need for us to put together, it's becoming clear that there is a need for those who who love, who hate bigotry, who love life, who love all that that us in the West have always held dear, that there is a greater need for us to stand up and speak out and not be complacent with with what we're seeing coming out of all sorts of political camps at the moment, both the left and the right. And so, you know, you and I as as Jews, as proud Jews, um as people who believe that our nation and our ideology is worth preserving, um, this is a time for us to speak out and to come together and to see what it is that we can do to help preserve this world and make it great for tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Definitely. Uh, I would just like to give people a little background about Rafi and I. Um, we met online and we have built a friendship as both Americans, Jews, and both being involved in social service. Uh, I've been hosting a group called Jewish Christian Coalition Combating Anti-Semitism since 2020. And there we post some of the outrageous statements made by bigots and provocateurs. We have also been documenting the rise of political anti-Semitism, which now has become normalized to the point of creating a hostile environment for Jews and Israelis worldwide. Uh, the goal of the show is to address these the latest issues one by one. And if we don't get to every topic, we will pick it up in the next installment. Uh so on today's uh show, we are gonna be discussing the debate that pretty much took place at the Amphest, you know, Turning Point USA's latest conference. And I feel that it was a debate between um absolute free speech and cancel culture. And the problem is that it's been framed like that. We're gonna go into uh the speech from Ben Shapiro, which was actually giving a solution on how to handle uh controversial topics, but uh now they're saying that uh there's only two options. You either can say anything you want and people have to handle it, or you're gonna be uh hunting down people and canceling them because they're we're too sensitive to some topics and we can't fight back because uh you know we're emotionally fragile. It's a lot of it has it's like the pendulum between the the light and the the right and the left and and the way that they go about doing things. Uh, there's also issues with uh Joe Rogan uh paving the way for Nick Fuentes to run for presidency. We can get to that as well. But um what I really think that is important to highlight is uh Ben, Ben Shapiro. I have been critical of his tactics, which to me are very similar to what the late Charlie Kirk used to do, was to uh you know pick a uh a debate with a kid or someone who is not that knowledgeable, and then you start this argument uh, you know, with this whole facts don't care about your feelings, and then there's no room for nuance, there's no way to uh address it from different perspectives, it's just right and wrong, it's like owning the lips kind of thing, and it doesn't really move the conversation forward, it's the equivalent of clickbait uh in a debate format. But however, at Amphis, uh he was very eloquent and he stood up for truth, just as an American way. Like Superman, he swept in and saved the day, taking a strong moral stand. Um, Rafi, we were talking offline that uh you got to listen to his whole speech. Was that your impression as well?

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Completely. Uh I've been I've been very critical of uh of Ben in the past. Um to be fair, I don't, I didn't didn't necessarily share your assessment. I think one of the beautiful things about about this coalition um that we want to put together is yes, there are there's room for nuance and and difference between our views, and and you and I definitely do not see eye to eye on a lot of things, and that's part of the of the beauty of it. Um Ben Shapiro, I I first I was first exposed to him. Um I'm 30 years old now. I was first exposed to him around the time when I was when I was uh 20 years old. Uh I was young, and I was seeing him on YouTube, and Ben Shapiro seemed to be this rising star. Um he began to express views of of those on the political right, um, views that that my parents had held, uh views that to me seemed seemed like common sense. Uh, not all of them, mind you. Of course, there were definitely things I disagreed with, but there were things there that he was expressing very eloquently. The way that he would debate, the way that he would he would say things, um left left the last impression on me and made me inspired me. Um inspired me to to want to strengthen my own rhetoric and and polish it and make it something that that that can be used in a debate if necessary. And I I found him a very inspirational figure. Um what happened over the next 10 years was I there were two things that I felt I very much faulted Ben with. And again, I'm I'm putting the views on the side for a minute, what his specific ideologies were. But in terms of the way he went about things, he began to become a little more, a little more petty in the way he did his show, um and the way he would the way he would treat his political opponents uh through his show. The second thing that happened was he began to very much embrace Christianity. And I know um I know that this is something that many uh will disagree with. To me, I always felt I'm if you're a Jew, stand up for what you believe in, stand up for Judaism, leave Christianity to the Christians. Um but you know, those are two points that he always you know always rubbed me the wrong way. Um and the way he embraced the right wholesale. And what I became once again, I became impressed with him in the last last month or so. Uh it began uh after Tucker hosted Nick Fuentes and Ben Shapir spoke out against it on on um uh uh uh with Megan Kelly, when Megan Kelly interviewed him. And then he once again he took the stage at Amfest and really, I felt stood up for his people, stood up for what he believes in in a way that he hadn't done as ferociously, as fiercely, as passionately until that point. He he spoke about the importance of if we're gonna come together as a coalition, it doesn't mean any values can just get in. It means we set our limits, we set our borders, and we determine what it is that we believe in, and based on that we determine who it is we let in. He said, you know, he felt Tucker Carlson wasn't didn't belong to their category. And he felt that people like Megan Kelly, whom he named, I was shocked. He named Megan Kelly, and he said, he said that what her position was one of cowardice to not call him out. Now, Megan Kelly since then came in and and and and said that she's no longer friends with Ben Shapiro and she's cutting off ties with him, and she was she was very upset by the whole thing. You know, people he didn't call out by name but by ideology were Matt Walsh, who works for him, and Brett Cooper, who used to. Matt Walsh and Brett Cooper were saying the whole time that they're not going to infringe on their friendships and harm their friendships by by calling out people. And Ben Shapiro explicitly addressed this in his address, where he said he said that he will not that personal relationships are not a reason, are not at all a reason to um to uh change your public opinion. When we're when we have a public opinion, David, right? As somebody who speaks, um you you have a you you've had a radio show for a long time, not this one, but a different one. And I think you know, you and I as as people who speak to the public, we know that if we're going to say things to the public, we have to put aside sometimes our own personal sentiments and say things that you know that that will be meaningful for the people. Um things that will that will perhaps uh provide light and and uh I'd say really ideologically push ahead the right path forward. And if you're gonna put personal relationships, uh if you're gonna use that as a way to identify what your path forward is, then that you can end up in a very bad place if you have personal relationships with the wrong people.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

I know there's a lot to unpack, but I wanted to get your opinion on this uh document that uh I've been familiar with for a few years. Um one of my professors would not sign it because uh he didn't agree with it, but there was uh a group of uh Jewish intellectuals who came up with this document, and it's going back to what you said about um embracing Christianity. Uh I don't know if you're familiar with Michael Medbed. Uh, I used to listen to him on the radio. He was the precursor of Ben Shapiro, and he was the kind of guy that uh he would go watch a Christian movie and give it a great review. And a lot of times I thought he was doing it like tactically, like he he wanted to have good relationships with Christians, and he had a big Christian audience. So, what I hate about these pundits and uh influencers, even before influencers were a thing, is that they're pandering to uh a large population. So you're gonna try to uh appease, um, please, or win them over. And Ben Shapiro has enemies in the Christian community. One of them was Michael Heiser, who was on my other show, and they would um try to hunt him down as not believing the same thing as them. Uh, I think Shapiro is is doing the smart thing that working with the majority population and having Christians on his crew. You know what happened with Candace Owens. You know, she she turned um against him, but people like Walsh and and the other uh Catholics and Protestants in his um network.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Yeah, Michael Nels, Andrew Clavin.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

They give him the the opportunity to build uh what I want to build, and we can debate about it, is um all the people of goodwill, Muslim, Christians, or whatever that have similar uh desire for the well-being of society. And I think that's what we're talking about in the coalition is that um if you make it the litmus test, is do you love the Jews? Um we're gonna not find too many people who who feel that strongly, but you will find people who are like, I respect the Jews or I tolerate them, or I uh I'm willing to work with them. And things are getting so bad that I'll I'll take anybody who says I'm willing to work with you. Uh, similar to what Malcolm X said at one time when he became a real Muslim, he's like, by any means necessary was the original one, which was violent, and then he went into by anyone of goodwill or who wants to make things better, I'm willing to see them as a brother. So uh Dabru Ahmed was a document uh written like in the early 2000s, and they said things that I'm sure you're gonna have uh problems with. They said uh Jews and Christians worship the same God. That was the first point. Second point was Jews and Christians seek authority from the same book, the Bible, what Jews call the Tanakh, and Christians call the Old Testament. The third one was Christians can respect the claim of the Jewish people upon the land of Israel. Notice it said respect, it didn't say validate or or support. Then it says Jews and Christians accept the moral principles of Torah. Uh, Nazism was not a Christian phenomenon. I would have a lot of problems with that. And and I've gotten chewed out by Jews and Christians for ever trying to make a connection. Uh, and then the humanly irreconcilable difference between Jews and Christians will not be settled until God redeems the entire world as promised in Scripture. And then a new relationship between Jews and Christians will not uh weaken Jewish practice. Jews and Christians must work together for justice and peace. I think the last three give enough room for people who who feel uneasy around Christian circles, uh to say, okay, well, fine, we believe something different, but we we have the same foundation. And it's harder to say that with the Muslim community because they think that the scriptures have been corrupted. Now, the main conflict that my professor had was that we have different interpretations. So if you say that Jews and Christians share the same uh Hebrew scriptures, the problem is how they modify it or mitigate it through their tradition. So when it comes to that, can we really say we believe in the same God since our vision of God is different? Would that be the first contention that you would have based on what I read?

SPEAKER_01 15:17

When talking about Christianity, it gets complicated because you know you have the Unitarians and you have the Trinitarians, and and I can I can totally hear an argument. By the way, the Trinitarians are, as far as I know, the vast majority of Christians. Um, and as far as I can tell, there is an argument to make that Unitarians worship the same God that we do. Um, but again, they're a small minority of Christians. Um, I I don't even think though that that's my chief point of contention. Um listen, I'll step out, I'll step out of this for a second in order to step back in. Uh, I think that our relationship with Christianity is really to an extent the crux of the matter here. Because Christianity um is represented in the world in many, many different ways. Um, some loving, some hateful, some kind, some some cruel, some good, some evil. Uh it's a very, very mixed bag. I think though that this is um a flaw, a design flaw in something in Christianity, which one of the you know, you you said that those last few statements were uh were sufficient to justify a cooperation uh between Jews and Christians. And while I agree with you, and I I I there are many good Christians out there whom I would love to cooperate with, I think with Christianity itself, there's a problem cooperating with. Um not necessarily a problem cooperating with, but a problem using that as our guideline for the cooperation. Because of those last three statements are predicated on the earlier statements. And you said that they accept the biblical values. I would push back and argue that they don't accept the same biblical biblical values as we do. Um I listened to enough Christians talking to know that they believe that when that when Jesus came, he he really, in a sense, did away with the values taught in in the five books of Moses, in the in the old testament in general, right? So that they you don't see them donning phylacteries, right? You don't see them um resting on on the seventh day, uh the on this on the holy sabbath, you don't see them celebrating Passover and and Sukkot and Rosh Hashanah. You don't see them keeping kosher because they believe that Jesus came to bring about a new covenant and to do away with a lot of the values that were present in the Old Testament. In fact, when it comes to the topic of homosexuality, which as we know Christians are ferociously opposed to, at least most of them, um, at least stereotypically so, right? Um what they'll say, what they'll quote is not only is it is it discussed in Leviticus, but uh but then Jesus reaffirms his opposition to it in the New Testament. And that's on on that basis, they oppose it. Um my values, in fact, I'll I'll just say Dinesh de Souza, um who is who is a right-wing commentator. I saw him uh debating a philosopher and an atheist by the name of Alex O'Connor, and they were debating the topic of religion. And Alex was bringing up things from from the Torah, from the Old Testament, um uh in order to show that God is is not is not uh you know, is cruel or whatever, these these crazy things that people come up with. And and Dinesh was saying, oh, but that's the old testament, right? And and and since then Jesus came and gave us a new way, and and an old testament is not really uh there's there is a there is an I think a big difference. There's a world of difference between the way uh that that Christians receive their values, where Christians get their values from, and where Jews get their values from. Now, that being said, again, there are many, many good people who are Christians. Uh there the question is, the question is, does Buddhist inherently come from Christianity? And I'm not sold on that idea, because I think Christianity leaves a lot of room for interpretation. I think even you know, people joke about how Judaism, you know, two Jews, three opinions. And yes, there is a degree of interpretation in Judaism. As you can see, you and I look very different and and and believe very different things. Um, but that being said, I think Christianity is more open for interpretation than Judaism is. We've seen over the last couple thousand years uh where you've had both living side by side. We've seen uh we've we've we've seen Christians do all sorts of things. There were there were padromes and there were inquisitions, and and you know, during the I I've heard Ravtovius Sr. famously say that during the Holocaust, there was only a single Nazi who was excommunicated from the Christian movement, and that was Goebbels. Why? What was his big sin that for which they excommunicated him from the Catholic Church? It was that he married a Protestant. And so I I'm I I'm trying to think of the right way to say this. I love the good Christians, I know many of them. Just you're gonna have to, you're you're gonna you're gonna have to go away to convince me that this is a feature and not a feature of Christianity, and not and not just um these are just genuinely good people who who wherever they are, they just want to do good for people.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

And for those who think that we've gone off topic, this is actually the the most important uh component of the whole turning point USA. A friend of mine was um listening to one of their speakers, they have a speaker's bureau, and it was a sermon. And the majority of the turning point USA um representatives are uh nationalist Christians in a good way, if there's such a thing, or they're um what you would call dominion Christians, which feel that Christianity has to um seep into all areas of influence. And in my perspective, you know, thinking about it in a charitable way is that if you have a Christian uh nation, um, I don't know what's a good example, maybe Ireland or the Vatican or something like that, you know what to expect. Ireland has actually Actually, they become very anti-Israel for because they feel connected to the Palestinians because the Irish fought against the British or something like that. So, uh, but if we have good relations with the Vatican or with Finland or something like that, a place that considers themselves a Christian nation, then we have a way to navigate it because we know what to expect. Now, if we have a secular nation, like during the different administrations, when you have more secular or less religiously prone um you know presidencies, it gets really muddy because um Jews would go talk to the Pope, they'll go talk to uh you know Orthodox Christians or whomever, and have like a you know, we all believe in some type of God, we all have some uh love for fellow humans. So we have like a common language, religious, you know, anthropology that we can talk about. But the moment that you bring in more Marxists, communists, or the new uh what people call the woke-left type of mentality where every perspective is fantastic as long as it doesn't agree disagree with theirs, then Jews are the enemy, like immediately. So, with Christianity, if you look through history, Jews are the enemy regarding Jesus, but regarding the covenants and other things, they're kind of like our um you know uh stepbrothers. They're the people that we don't really want around, but if they're around, uh we might be able to uh do some um you know trading with or something like that. Like that's that's how it's pretty much been throughout history. So turning point USA, some people will criticize it as they have a token Jew, with which is Ben, and then Ben is seen as this master manipulator who has token Christians under his leadership, and then he gets invited as to be in the first speaker after Erica Kirk. And Erica has led the charge that the group is Christian and that it's uh it's about bringing Christian values into government. And what I've been told by some of the guests on the show uh is that the reason the Christians are so cosy with the Trump administration is because he is willing to give them a place on the table. Uh, with Biden and the other um candidates, Christians were out because Christians are seen as too strict or counterculture and they want nothing to nationalistic, yeah, or or just be seen as intolerant of what they're trying to push, which is a more European-style society, which anything goes, and people can uh you know do whatever they want in in only some uh aspects but not others. So when Ben takes on the floor, he decided not to speak about support of Israel, uh protection of Jews, um the the war of particular viewpoints, he decided to talk about truth, he decided to talk about uh freedom, free markets, and limited government, not America, which are all American values, but for me it was refreshing because that's not how conservativism is usually sold to us. Uh, as a progressive, uh politically progressive person, the way that conservatism is is sold is that it's about um making sure that that people are not doing bad things or something. It's like it's like this moral like policing. So the first thing they come after is abortion, then LGBTQI uh rights or freedoms, and then they come after um like little things like um they're not allowing us to celebrate Christmas, they're not allowing us to say uh Merry Christmas. Like they go into this like really silly uh social mores kind of thing that just turns everybody off. Because for me, the more freedom, the more spiritual ability for Jews to to be good servants of God. Um, so when he when he makes it freedom, free markets, and limit to government, they're like, okay, I can handle that. I I actually don't want the government surveilling me. I don't want the government uh all up in my business. Um, I want to be able to, if I want to start a business to for that, for to do that and being overly regulated, especially with the economy, might not be that good. And then when we talk about freedom, everybody loves freedom. So he made a really good pitch for conservatism that you don't hear much, and then he went down the line come coming after the people who have been uh persecuting Jews and coming up with conspiracies. Is that what you the sense that you got from the speech, or or what was the most important thing for you?

SPEAKER_01 26:56

He spoke nothing about Jews or Judaism or Israel. I mean, you know, if for for people to for Meghan Kelly to afterwards say that he's Israel first was ridiculous. He spoke only about America because he loves America. Ben Shapiro genuinely loves America. Um and I because of something you said, I I I do want to backtrack a little bit, um, you know, backpedal and be a little bit more charitable towards Christianity and say that yes, you're right. Christianity, in a sense, built the West. And I am Christianity is definitely um you know, Winston Churchill said about democracy that it's the the best system of uh that it's the worst system of government other than all the other systems that have been tried. Um in a sense, Christianity uh is is sort of the same thing, right? It's it's really the worst religion other than all the other religions. Um we'll we'll keep Judaism out of this for a second. But you know, Islam is no better, right? Um these these these far eastern religions that are, you know, uh uh I don't even know enough about them, but but they haven't built the same thing that Christianity has built. Yeah, and so we do have to give Christianity its due um in terms of really crediting it with a lot of the free society we have today. The only question that I have is if if you know Judaism would be there instead of Christianity, perhaps we would have a better society. And you know, we don't really have we don't really have any evidence for that, um, at least on a national level, because the the project of the state of Israel is only is only 80 years old. And so, you know, time time will tell where it goes. Um, but listen, there's a reason I'm a Jew, there's a reason I wear this on my head, and not, you know, I'm I'm not I'm not in church praying to Jesus, uh, because I I do believe that my beliefs are are superior to the Christian ones, and I'm sure Christian will will tell me the same thing that he's he's in church because and not in synagogue because he believes his beliefs are superior. Um and so, you know, it's it ultimately it's gonna be a battle of ideas, um, which is which is the absolute best way to battle when we battle with ideas and not with not with guns, not with swords, not with uh, you know, not not with missiles, um, as my people are being forced to do right now. Um so so it it is important for me to point that out that that I do have some sort of appreciation for Christianity, that it's you know, that it really has done what some of the others haven't. Um but but when it comes to when it comes to what Christianity is now doing to Ben Shapiro and is now doing to people, you know, to Jews in America, this is where I begin to grow concerned. And and and to connect back with what you were saying, the the the comments against Ben Shapiro were terribly anti-Semitic. Megan Kelly said that Ben Shapiro is creating anti-Semites. Um I've seen comments about how that speech was promised him 3,000 years ago, or you know, oh Ben Shapiro just got his $7,000 from the Israeli government. Stuff like this typical anti-Semitic, really anti-Semitic talking points uh that are being used now to discredit him. Uh, even though what he did was he stood up for America. He didn't stand up for Israel. He didn't stand up for Judaism. Even though I I wish he I wish he would stand up for Judaism a little more, but he didn't. He stood up for America. And the fact that he's being greeted with this type of anti-Semitism as he leaves the stage is I think uh I think really, really not okay. But to me, it comes down to the fact that Christians and Jews ultimately do have different values. And I want to point this out. And I'm not gonna spend this, you know, this show bashing Christians. I think, again, there's a lot of good there to appreciate among Christianity. But from the outset, I want us to be clear about what our ideals are. I don't want to beat around a bush in terms of our relationship with Christianity. It's a very complicated one. It's a very, very complicated one. There are many good things there, and there are many things that we can appreciate, and we can appreciate the Christians in our lives. We can appreciate what they do and how they love they love some of the same values that we do, some of the same values. And at the same time, we have to be able to be nuanced and and and say, but there's a limit to it. There are points where their values will not be our values. Michael now supported Israel's uh Israel's war with Gaza until we accidentally hit a church in Gaza with one of our missiles. And then he got really upset at us. Which means that really we're he you support us until until your people get hurt. Doesn't matter about the other people, it's about your people. Right? Um Tucker Carlson has has interviewed people on his show who, on a Christian basis, justify opposing Israel. People who claim that that Jews are spitting at Christians in Israel, which which is absolutely ridiculous. If you spit at a Christian in Israel, you get you get arrested and tried. Okay. Um it happens, and those people are dealt with by the law. And that's why you're gonna find videos of people doing it, uh, because it happens. Um the same way in any free democratic society, all sorts of things happen, all sorts of terrible things. And so again, I think I think we have to we have to say that we have to moving forward, once we see that what a wave of Christian nationalism is doing to the United States, once we see what happened at MFES, and what's happening now with J.D. Vance sort of solidifying his coalition and refusing to condemn people like Candace Owens, who by the way is is explicitly anti-Semitic, she doesn't talk about Israel much anymore, she talks a lot about the Jews, about how the Jews were the reason for slavery, about how the Jews that also how the Jews had had these terrible cults where we would do terrible things to Christians. I mean, this is this is the stuff coming out of Candace Owens' mouth. And I'd say if you are not able to get on stage and condemn Candace Owens and condemn um Nick Fuentes, if you're not able to do that, rather you insist on the coalition at all costs, then that's a flaw. That's a flaw in your wave of Christian nationalism that you hope to bring to the United States now. So again, I I to sum it up, to summarize what I'm saying, Christianity it's a mixed bag, just like anything is. I think that there are very good things there. But I think what we're about to see happen on the American right, in the name of Christianity, is something that is that that to me is is is is quite concerning.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

Well, let's let's look your conservative friends listen to this and they're gonna come after me and they're gonna say, Why are you hanging out with that guy? And then some of my progressive friends are gonna say, Why are you hanging out with an Israeli uh conservative guy?

SPEAKER_01 34:09

But we'll baby if if you want to if you want to push back on any of what I'm saying, feel free. I my views are mine alone.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

And and the political game is interesting because you and I have very clear um understanding and and desire for certain things to happen and certain um amount of respect to be out there. So if you and I were running for office, we get we would get booted out real quick because we wouldn't be able to build a coalition. So if I went to all the progressive people that I know and I said, look, if you are constantly criticizing Israel, uh portraying Jews as the bad guys, saying that we're all in it because we have some type of uh love for the Holy Land, you are alienating a huge number of Jews who are liberal who you could get votes from. And you got Bernie Sanders and all these people that that uh we might support. So why uh target the the Jewish understanding of the world or something like that? Let's let's work on things that we have in common, such as uh love for humanity and desire to do good uh deeds and stuff like that. Uh, if you went to the conservative uh community and you said, um, although there's a lot of problems with the with uh Christian nationalism, we have a chunk, maybe a third of Christian nationalists who are pro-Israel. Uh let's let's um let's focus on them and give them as much as as much uh support and stuff like that. You might have people who say, don't waste your time, uh, they're just like everybody else. So no matter what you do, you're gonna be the bad guy if you're trying to be uh an honest broker. So what Candace Owens, Tucker, Nick are doing, they're not honest, they are inciting hatred, and it gets them a lot of clicks and it makes them more famous and more popular, and they want to be on top. It's almost like an MM or a type of Britney Spears that the more controversial and wild thing they do, the more uh tickets they sell and more uh albums uh get bought. So that's what they're doing, and we're falling into their trap. The problem is, is someone like Donald Trump and someone like JD Vance. And this is the controversial thing that I'm saying. Donald Trump had a chance to differentiate himself from Ron Paul and Rand Paul, who were always hanging out with white supremacists. Those guys, from the beginning of the libertarian movement, they would go to conferences filled with Nazis, white supremacists, and Christian nationalists. And nationalism is good, but extreme nationalism is what everybody has problems with. So extreme nationalist people were saying, we don't need to support any other country, let them all die if they want to. Whatever war is going on, we shouldn't get involved. And then they would start with like conspiracies, you know, there's a cabal of people who are trying to manipulate us and stuff like that. And now that got into the forefront around 2016, and Trump decided not to condemn it because he wanted their votes. J.D. Vance is doing the same thing. J.D. Vance is saying if I go against the Gruipers and the Candace-owned uh groupies, I'm gonna lose a huge number of people that already don't like me. Uh Nick Fuentes uh has pretty much made a career lately at uh describing him in the worst sense possible, and that's what uh Shapiro was mentioning, and then um they're burned out with Trump for whatever policies or stuff going on. So he's trying to say, just like Netanyahu, how do we I build the biggest coalition of people? And the more radical they are, the more they're gonna get the vote. So the Democrats do the same thing. The Democrats go to the most extreme Marxists and they say, if you help us canvas, we're gonna back you up. Whatever crazy stuff you want to do, we'll be there for you. And then the moment they get in office, they don't do any of the stuff they promised because they were just using them to get in office. So I pray that JD Vance, being a businessman, because he seems to be sold out to uh the corporations, that he's only doing this tactically to not alienate any of the conservatives who are extreme conservatives and even to the point of uh you know supremacist. And that's why he's playing that you know, we're all friends, we all believe the same things, you know, basic values. And then you got Shapira saying, no, no, no, no, no. Truth is important, and of course, conservative values, but if we have conservative values with conspiracies, then we are fighting a losing battle. I don't know if uh that political strategy actually works. If you tell people we need to be truthful, we need to be fair, we need to treat Jews and uh pro-Zionists or whoever uh in a way that is not um antagonizing, that might not get all the votes. That's that's being uh, and then they can flip it on him. They say, Well, when were you like that towards other groups? So the biggest challenge that we're having right now is that Jews are seen as being provided favoritism by the Trump administration, and then every other group gets um, you know, not even bones. And now the groupers are saying, we want privileges, we don't want you to give any privilege to the Jews. We want to be seen as the they've been using the word like it's a nativist thing, they've been saying that they're the the real Americans, almost like disposing the Native Americans. They're saying that they're the indigenous people of the US. Like I've heard white folks tell me that, and I'm like, you're as indigenous as like I don't know what, like like saying that uh potatoes are from Europe, uh, which are actually from the Americas. So, what do you think about what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 40:24

There's a long talk to be had about the term indigenous, like how far back you want to go to trace indigenous roots. You know, you can argue that the indigenous peoples of the Americas are also not truly indigenous. They a lot of them started somewhere else in the Americas and then they worked their way to that place. They also waged wars, they also killed people, they also settled certain lands that were not originally theirs. It really, it really becomes a question of how far back you want to go to trace, um, you know, to trace a nation's roots. And we we're surrounded by that discussion when it comes to Israel-Palestine, you know, where they argue that the Arabs were there first, but then we say that we were there first. And it's it's always this question of, well, what's first mean? How far back do you want to go? Um and even we will freely admit that our presence in the land 3,000 years ago was through conquest. So it's it's it's a tough subject. Um I'll say this. There is, in my mind, in my opinion, no, there's a world of differences between the approaches of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. Donald Trump was a significant figure, a significant personality. And you can argue significant for good, significant for evil, um, certainly a mixed bag by all accounts. Um but he was very significant, very charismatic. Uh he had a large center of gravity, if you will, and that pulled people in. And so the coalition sort of built itself around him. He wasn't a coalition builder, he was a coalition maker. He was there, and the coalition built itself around him. JD Vance actively seeks to uh whitewash and normalize um members of that coalition. So while Trump, you know, while Trump had people, extremists who supported him, he wasn't actively working to bring them into the fold. J.D. Vance um is. And that's and that's that's a significant difference. That's a big problem. I I was uh I was proud to support Donald Trump when he was running. Um I don't I don't know that I'm gonna support J.D. Vance. If there's a normal Democrat against him, um, you know, such as Josh Shapiro or or Fetterman or Stephen A. Smith or somebody like that, I'll I'll proudly vote Democrat this time. Um but I think there's a world difference there, um, coming coming from the perspective of somebody who's historically voted uh Republican. Uh that being said, I uh I do want to I do want to uh you know call out I I do I do want to use this opportunity to call to the Christians and say, um I'm I'm not the type of person who is one in my heart, as we say in Hebrew, chabbal, right? I have one thing in my heart and another thing in my mouth. I speak my mind. And so I've I've laid out my my struggles with with Christianity. Now that I have done so, and now that you understand who I am and where I'm coming from, I would love to work together with Christians. Yes, those whom I disagree with. I'm Judy, I'm Jewish, I will be proud of being Jewish, and I will never and I will never. Talk down my Judaism in order to find favor in the eyes of Christians. But Christians who are willing to accept me as somebody who disagrees with them on the core fundamentals of religion, but who who seeks a similar mission to what they seek, who seeks good and light and good things for the West and Western values, then I'd say, let's do it. Let's build a coalition together. I don't want our coalition to be based on talking down of who I am, as Ben Shapiro did for many years. I want it to be based on me being, me and my views being a partner to you and your views. If you as a Christian are willing to partner with somebody who thinks differently than you, who who sees Christianity sometimes as not the most positive force, but loves Christians and loves and would love to collaborate, then that's something I'm happy to do. Okay, that's in that regard. Um I'll just say that you had brought up something else that was very important. You brought up the Grupers. My take on the Grupers is very simple, is that they, you know, Ben Shapiro likes to famously say about Andrew Tate, right? He likes to say that Andrew Tate has a correct diagnosis of the situation, has a terrible prognosis for the situation, right? Andrew Tate, he says, correctly identifies that young men have a grievance and are struggling, struggling to find meaning, struggling to find mating opportunities, struggling to find economic opportunities. He's correctly identifying that issue. I usually don't use this term, but in the context of Andrew Tate, I will, toxic masculinity. He's trying to solve this with a version of masculinity that is that is evil, that is wrong. Um and so I would say sort of something similar to Nick Fuentes and his people. Nick Fuentes comes about with he's identified a problem among young men in America, uh, which which he's won, by the way. He's referred to himself as an incel. And this problem is they're left with very little opportunity. And it's very sad. It really is very sad. The economic situation in the United States right now causes young men to feel that you know, young men of Gen Z, but also some of Gen of Gen Y, millennials, right? My generation. These people feel that our parents took everything. Our parents grabbed up all the assets. It was the golden time. They were able to, they were able to grab up assets so that they could retire well, so that they could feel good, they could, they could have the economic wealth to themselves, and they left nothing for their kids. That's the feeling among many members of my generation and members of Nick's generation. And we can have a long discussion about whether or not that feeling is correct. But David, as a student of history, I I've seen this, I've seen this happen before in history. When I've studied history, when a country that is economically stable, economically doing well, when it comes to a point where the younger generation feels that there's not opportunity left for them, that it was taken from them, then they begin to rise up in ways that can be quite scary. And we're seeing this on both the left and the right. We're seeing this in the form of Mamdani in New York, Zoran Mamdani, and we're seeing this in the form of Nick Fuentes on the right. These are people who are coming to the people, and they're saying, We hear you, we hear your grievances, we hear that you feel that nobody's there for you, nobody's talking for you, nobody is there to make sure that you will have the opportunity that your parents had. And we want to help you do that. We want to take it back, we want to take the resources back from those who took them from you. In Zoran Mamdani's eyes, that's anybody with money, anybody who's rich. In Mamdani's eyes, anybody who's rich is the one who took the money from you. In Nick Fuentes' eyes, it's people who are not like you. People who are not white Christian nationalists. He speaks against Jews, he speaks against blacks. He rails against those that he feels took things from him and from his generation. And to that I say we cannot simply condemn Nick Fuentes and repudiate his abhorrent rhetoric. What we must do is we must address this problem at its root. We must counter this. We must go to people and say, we hear you. We understand that there's very little left for you. And we want to help you solve that problem. And David, we need to come to them with solutions. We need to come to them with a path forward. Because they're not, they don't have, they don't have the time of day, they don't have the headspace right now to sit down and try to come up with that path forward with you. We need to come to them with a way out of this mess. I can tell you that for me, you know, my income, I believe, is well, it's my income is above the average in Israel. But because I'm young, I have to try and buy a house. I feel I can can barely make it. I can barely make ends meet. Because just saving up to buy uh a three-bedroom apartment to the city where I live is is is not simple. And so I would say the generation has has a lot to be, has a lot of valid grievances, and we have to figure out a way to have that discussion and to come up with a solution.

SPEAKER_00 50:21

Okay, so in the last 10 minutes, I'm gonna give um a little bit of a solution, even though um there's nothing we can do. Like that's the problem, is like uh I was um a student in college in the early 2000s, and I ran into um uh representative of the Green Party. And up until that point, I had uh voted Democrat because my dad was a Democrat and he didn't like war, uh, even though at one point he wanted to go to the Vietnam War when he was 16. So um even though I was very um spiritually conservative, I was looking for alternatives because I had come from a third world country where the politicians were super corrupt. So this young man told me that the biggest issue that is happening is corporations, and the way that is described by the left is that is um corporate socialism. So the inverted socialism. So instead of the classical socialism, which is the means of production are taken over by the government, the government has been taken over by corporations, and that's what JD Bance is selling, and it's very similar to what um Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were selling. That people are worried about the Israeli lobby. What they should really be worried is about uh Halley Burton and um Raytheon and all these corporations which give huge um donations to candidates, and they're the ones that make or break the democratic process in America. So, because of that is happening, they usually find uh political um representatives who dissuade the people from looking into that and they start scapegoating people. So it's easy for conservatives to scapegoat Americans, uh I mean immigrants, and then it's easy for uh liberals to scapegoat conservatives. So one tactic that I saw uh was that Joe Biden and and his party would would say, well, look at what the conservatives are doing, they're standing against immigrants, not just undocumented immigrants, they're standing against all immigrants and all people who are different than them. So you should give us money so we can fight against them. And then the Republicans were saying, if you give us money, we will keep the immigrants out and we will make sure that white American values are being uh kept because we don't want the society to change and the population to grow or something like that. So so just like in the Middle East, where all the corrupt uh dictators point to Israel as the reason why they oppress the women, the the gay members of their society, and their societies are collapsing, instead of looking at themselves and their poor management and their religious extremism, and and like the guy from Turkey who uses terrorists to break out protests, they want to blame the Jews for everything going on. The the American society has become uh a hatred-based political um mobilization campaign where if you can get enough people angry, especially elderly people, then you can get all the votes. And then you keep people away from the real problem, which is the corporate takeover of the political system. So until people see what really is happening, they're always gonna come after the people who are not protected. They can say that we as Jews are lawyered up and it's harder to um persecute us, uh, just like the black community and the LGBTQI community. But since our numbers are so uh small, it has become sexy to come after the people that are not fully organized. We used to be organized when everybody supported the ADL and everybody supported um you know big Jewish uh federations and stuff like that. Now the people are becoming more secular, the Jewish community is uh in shambles, and I think a lot of it had to do with the war. Uh so now we're easy prey to people pointing at us instead of really fixing the problems with society and with the political system. Um, so so the Green Party opened up my eyes regarding that. I I don't think I'm wrong because um I've seen both conservatives, left, and and moderates point to uh money in campaigns being very problematic, and then the politicians uh only vote for things that benefit the corporations. So instead of being the for the people by the people and all that, it becomes for the wealthy and the influential. So I'm sure you have some of that happening in Israel with bribes and things like that, but now it's become institutionalized bribes, so they're really running the country to the ground in my eyes, and the groupers are too dumb to see the big picture. They want to blame blacks, uh, Hispanics, Jews, and women when they should be um rising up in a very uh and professional way and get candidates that's um you know living wage and you know more um just um abilities to buy houses and things like that instead of um coming after vulnerable groups, uh and the left does that too um by coming after Christians and and other conservatives and trying to demonize them as uh being backwards and caveman-like. What do you think, Rafi?

SPEAKER_01 56:19

I think we're gonna be able to end on a fantastic point of agreement here. Um except for one thing you said, you know, you said that it's a lot of it's based on hatred, and I I would push back a little bit and say it's it's grievance. It's not necessarily hatred, but it's it's grievance over the fact that they feel that things something's been taken from them. The the American dream, they've been robbed of the American dream. And because of that, they're lashing out. And I'm not quiet about the fact that I'm proud to be a Jew. I'm not quiet about that. As Jews, we have faced tragedies generation after generation. Very rarely have we been paid reparations for what we've gone through. Very rarely have other people come to our aid to save us and lift us up. We've done so. We and we didn't have a state to give us welfare. We've survived this law on two principles the community and the individual. The community, again, like I said, there are points that I will very much, I believe Christianity very much got it right. Christianity in America has been good at establishing communities, uh, establishing um systems where if somebody within the community is struggling, then the community comes to support them. I think that's that's a beautiful thing that we that we have here in Judaism. Um here in Israel, every city has a has a charity fund that is managed by well-meaning individuals from within the city. And if somebody within the city is struggling, uh then that person is taken care of. That's why we have among the religious neighborhoods, we have you know, we have crime, but but almost just about no violence crime. Violence crime is almost non-existent among religious neighborhoods in in Israel. Um but to me, what's more important is the individual. As individuals, we have to look at the world around us. And we have to say, you know, I spoke before about creating a better world for the next generation. And I truly believe that if we're not focused on creating a better world, we are making the world worse. If we're only focused on on ourselves and our pleasure and our enjoyment, and even if we're not being mean or cruel or nasty to others while pursuing our enjoyment, I think in a sense, what we're doing is we're eating up a part of the world that we could have it, it that could have been a piece of fertile soil that we could have planted a seed in to grow for future generations. I think it was it was I heard Constantin, uh, Constantine, I'm sorry, I can't pronounce his name, Constantine Kisson uh from Tudornometry. He said something that I found very important. He said that once he discovered his wife was pregnant with his son, he began posting on X differently. He changed the way that he would go at people, and he's still very outspoken. But he changed the way that he was outspoken because the question he asked himself is what will my child see when he gets older? What do I want my child to know of me? And I think even to those of us who don't have children and plan to never have children, should still ask themselves, what will future generations think of me? What will future generations think of America as a society, right? Bill Maher pointed out. He said that that we don't see the Roman Empire based on this political faction and that political faction. We find, as historians, we find out what was wrong, what went wrong with the Roman Empire as a whole. And Bill Maher said that future historians will not see the United States as left and right, as conservatives and liberals. They will see them merely as the United States of America. And they will struggle to find out, not struggle, they will, they will strive to learn what happened to the United States of America as a whole. And so I take to this as individuals, we need to take responsibility. We need to take individual responsibility and not necessarily as a pull yourself up by the bootstraps type of type of approach, but at the same time, an approach of how do I leave a better impression on the world? How do I leave it better than how I found it? How do we create light? How do I spread light? Because if you're always waiting for the other people to meet you halfway, what good is that if you're measured with a faulty yardstick? And if you're and what good is it if some of the people that you're gonna deal with are not gonna provide you grace, are not going to provide you goodness? Are you gonna bring yourself down along with them? And so while I concur that it's not always possible to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, sometimes there's illness, both physical and mental. Um, there are there are all sorts of things that get in the way. But what you do have control over is if I've always said, you know, there there was a time when I barely ate, you know, I didn't really couldn't really afford to eat much. Uh this was a long time ago. But my attitude then was if I'm gonna die of hunger, I'm gonna do so. Um I'm gonna do so in a way that dignifies me. I'm gonna do so in a way that that that I can be proud of, and that future generations will be able to be proud of me. We always have control over what's within our domain. We always have control over the mark, the imprint that we leave on society, no matter what our circumstances are. And I think if we can learn to take personal responsibility, that can be the true turning point for not just the USA but for the world. If we can learn to control our our footprint, not our carbon footprint, not our digital footprint, but our ethical footprint. If we can learn to take control of that, take control of our destinies, then I think one by one, we will inspire another person to do the same, and they will inspire another person to do the same, and ultimately we can help this world become a better place. David, you're muted.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:14

Thank you, Rafi. We're gonna have to leave it at that. Um, we hope that everybody um enjoyed our first edition of the coalition. Uh, we'll be back next time with other topics of interest. Uh, and again, um, this is a great opportunity for us to come together and and pinpoint what really is happening and and give some clarity to solutions, alternatives, and possible ways to work together through it all. Uh, thank you for listening. And you, David.