Today's news talk radio TNT Welcome back, folks. Welcome back. We're in the second hour of this live broadcast. Great to have you all with us. Really appreciate it. And again, big thank you to our last guest. Got great reactions in the chat room about Freddy Ponton and his take on European affairs. Now, we're going to pivot somewhat to another theater of concern. That is the Middle East. But also, this is connected very much to US foreign policy to European foreign policy as well. We're going to welcome on to the line, a political commentator who we're following on X Twitter as well. His commentary is very pertinent and really right on the pulse of the issue right now. Alan Misrahi is joining us on the live link right now. Alan, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Alan. A few things I want to really talk to you and get your take on. But before we do that, if you'd like to introduce yourself for those people who aren't familiar with who you are and the types of ideas you are contributing to the conversation right now. But if you'd like to, go ahead. Basically, I'm a Misrahi Jew, which means a Jew originating from Arab countries. So there's us, mostly in the US and in Europe, you used to seeing as a Jew, it's mainly white Jews, but there are other Jews, brown Jews and Arab Jews from Muslim and Arab countries in the Middle East. So we have a little bit different political perspective and historical perspective and so on. So I'm kind of a radical, I wrote for some Israeli newspapers I wrote for. I read some other outlets and local, local, local call. If some of you know it, you can call me here radical Misrahi left wing soft anarchist in a way. But it's been a journey for me. I wasn't always like this. I started as a good Zionist kid in Israel from a working class family. Everybody talks about deep programming now. So I did my own deep programming and unlearning really. Every, the whole structure that's an is a man, like, pulls into our heads about the story of reality who came from what we had to do, what's our mission, what the people we live with or we live up against and so on. And so I had to reconstruct a whole new story, which helped me to liberate myself. And I helped me to liberate others from their stories, from their perspectives. And for me misconceptions about Zionism in Israel. And tell it. So I would assume you also served. You would have served in the IDF, like everybody. Just tell us so when was that and what was what was that experience like? And how is that informed you about what's happening right now with Gaza, for instance? But if you'd like to share that with us, we'd love to talk about it. I served in the early 90s in the Gaza street as a soldier of occupation, basically, with very little political awareness or understanding what the situation was. Because no one ever talked about it. It's like an open secret. What we do with the Palestinians, what we do to Palestinians, no one talks about it. And so when I met it myself, I had to, it's a whole new experience. You don't know what to make of it. Because you finally find a limit to people. You always told you are the human enemies, your, you know, your devout enemies want to kill you and who are bad people, that human animals, and so on. But when you're there, you see just people. You just see people. They may not be in love with you, but why would they be in love with you, you know? You are a soldier telling grown enough people. I was like 18, 19, telling people twice my age where to go, how to talk, how to stand, what if they can't pass, what time they can live their house. So at this young age, I didn't know what to make of it. It took me a really long time to conceptualize, conceptualize the words for it and understand the meaning of it. It took me a really long time, but it made very stark the dissonance between the propaganda and reality. So I needed to feel this here and to make it close, to close this here. But I was, I became like aware conscious of its existence as a soldier. And there's a strip and a little bit in her board. So yeah, I saw it with my own eyes. And tell me, tell me this, Alan, when you were deployed back in the early 90s, under very different conditions, then those who are being called up now as conscripts or reservists, they're going into a very different situation here. What's that like? And I know you probably spoke to enough people to get an idea of what is the mood? What is the just on that deployment level to the idea of a young soldier or a reservist? How eager are they to fight this war? I'm sure it's different conditions maybe than in the early 90s, especially the last eight months. How would you, what have you heard? How are things, have things changed in attitudes? In your opinion? Israeli is the tattoo underwent the transformation and in the past generation in the past 15 years or so. I mean, the occupation has been with almost 60 years. And then it is problematic in the way it treats Palestinians and sees Palestinians. It was always this. I've heard that horror stories about military service from my father, from people from previous generations. So I'm not trying to make the reality what it was not. But we went through something very bad and at least a kind of half acknowledged to something completely bad and completely denied. And now these two things can go together. It's hard to say, but this is the reality. I mean, with the dissonance I was talking about earlier, now is a lot more. I don't know how to understand how to make sense of because on the one hand, we are the most moral army. We are the best people. And we, on the other hand, we can do to those people whatever we want. But we don't do it. And you just say that we do it. But we can do it if we want to. And they deserve it. But we don't do it. It's so crazy that this. So I think it's very hard for Israelis, especially youngness. Listen Netanyahu has been prime minister for an eternity. They don't know with different reality. They don't know what different Israel. So then they've never been in Israeli politics, but it's legitimate to talk about the occupation. It's not legitimate to talk about the occupation anymore. It used to be when I grew up, when I was younger. But now it's just completely an off topic. You're not allowed even to bring it up. Even Israeli left wing, the liberal Zionists, don't talk about it anymore. So you can only imagine what happened to people who were already right wing, who were already accustomed to demonizing Palestinians. What happens to them when even the very imagined Palestinian humanity in any context is totally forbidden. It's at the room. You can't do it. So a whole society goes crazy. This is what happened to Israel and I think this is what the whole world can see now. It's very clear. Don't need a very sharp political analyst to tell you this. And I think that many people are, I don't know, dumbfounded, amazed at what they've seen. It's the kind of open evil that people don't know what to make of. What to make of it? What does it mean? Because we are used to, we used to imagine people hiding the evil actions, right? Israel is not fighting. It's flaunting it. Everything is on cameras, soldiers, they wear women's dresses in Gaza. I mean, how fucked up is that? Another thing is out there. I think at least for everyone who is a little bit political and involved and interested, this is an experience, like a life-changing experience. This, I think, changes what people, I would say, almost understand about human nature. Because we've never seen, I mean, everybody had their own share of atrocities. The Americans in Vietnam, in New York, and other places, we've seen it. I mean, we're not naive. But it was always at least partially hidden. And when it was found out, there was some debate and there was shame about it. It wasn't comfortable. But Israelis seem to be totally fine with it. They're not trying to hide. They're not a shame. So this, I think, comes as a shock to many people, from this international community. No, certainly. It seems, Alon, I don't know how best to describe this, but it seems like the objective, the strategy, isn't a military victory. It's total annihilation, total annihilation. And that seems to be the people calling for a continuation of this. They want nothing else, but total annihilation. They say of Hamas, but what about in Israeli society? Do a lot of people just see the Palestinian presence as a problem that somehow the solution would be for them to pack up and leave? What does the average Israeli think about this? After October 7, I've heard from Israelis who were very left-winged. I don't have right-wing friends anymore for a long time. Israelis who were very right-winged, very left-wing solid. They said things like, "I don't care if they kill all of Gaza. I don't care any." "I don't kill all of Gaza. I don't kill everybody." So this demon, there's like a collective demon that became that went free. After October 7, the things that were not so nice to say, now you can say without a problem. And I think that there's a deeper layer to this. Of course, there's this layer of annihilation destroying killing, ethnically cleansing the Palestinians. There's that, and it's huge. But I think from a Jewish point of view, I see it as almost a death wish. It's almost something suicidal. This is people working to create the worst image of Jews possible. And they are doing it in my understanding. They are doing it in order to guarantee control over the Jewish narrative and over the Jewish political body. This is how you isolate Jews from the world. You make them hated. You make them afraid because now everybody hates you. So you need to come together. You need to defend yourself and so on. But I see a process of creating this almost intentionally, not truly consciously, but there's intent behind this. This is because you see a country doing unbelievable, terrible stuff and not engaging with anyone while doing so. It's not like someone said, listen, there was a massacre and we found a mass grave. What about this footage? And you would see some kind of a normal reaction that you would expect from any other place saying, this is either really embarrassing, shameful. This is not what we do. We would you don't see this. You see a kind of disdain, kind of fuck you. Yeah, kind of this is what you do. Go fuck yourself. People don't know. We've never seen this. You've never seen a Russian general being asked, what about the 200 civilians in a school in Ukraine, for instance? And the general said, what can I do? The mistake here. Next question. We never seen this. This is the first time we witnessed in such such behavior. And I think that because Israeli society and because Jewish, especially this wing of Jews, who have this weird understanding of history and what it means and what it says about them. So they always have this in mind. So they always work fully aware of their self image and the kind of image they want to have for themselves and the kind of image they would blame you for having about them. But they actually want because it makes them stronger politically. This kind of isolation and hatred actually makes some, I don't know how to call it facts, groups of Jewish politicians and Jewish, you know, lobbyists or whatever you call it, they feel that it makes them stronger. I think this is a terrible mistake. I think this is a delusion because this doesn't make you strong being hated. Even if you're supported by America, I mean, America is not eternal. America is not going to be an empire for all eternity. This is this is the nature of life and history and politics in exchange and evolve. The world is changing. You cannot bank on one country being able to, you know, rescue, do everything for you and get you out of any situation and actually helping you when you're doing the most self-destructive stuff. I mean, this is a very bad strategy to have, but this is what Israel is doing. This is what I'm going to extend. APOC and ADL are doing in the US. This is the same kind of mentality. I'm not going to listen to what you have to say and try to answer it in the way that recognizes you, respects you. I don't have to agree with you, but I can recognize that there's validity to what you say. But this is not their style. They will call you an anti-Semite. They will insult you. They will try to silence you. What kind of a way is that to conduct yourself in a very dynamic, very changing environment. So this is part of the reason I'm speaking out as loudly as I do. I'm trying to introduce some measure of sanity to the Jewish conversation. I mean, we have to do it because it's going to be a tomorrow. I mean, this seems like it's going to go on forever, but it's not. It's going to end this way, that way, and people are going to ask questions. And I'm thinking about that day. I'm thinking about tomorrow. What happens next? Yeah, it seems like at least the Netanyahu leadership is only thinking about right now and how to get from one day to the next. It seems to be short-term motivations that are governed in their decisions, survival decisions they're making. But what do you say? I think, Elon, you also put that in your tweet recently, where you were basically criticizing Netanyahu, the statement he put out. You didn't want to post a video so as not to traumatize people because it was so toxic. I think we agree with you there. But you basically said that this idea of creating a catastrophe or being hated by the world is actually a central part of the narrative of Zionism that tell you as children, the world hates you. There's only one safe place for you in the world, and that's Israel. And so anything that reinforces that, and this seems to be what unconsciously, I agree with you, unconsciously, this is what's happening. I'll quote you, the narrative will play out wonderfully with Netanyahu's right-wing base, you say, who just love the paranoia and are simply eager and pulsating to feel abandoned by America that finally revealed its true "anti-Semitic" face. They crave this more than anything else, except maybe the total catastrophe rivaling the Holocaust, which will prove once and for all that they are God's chosen people. I mean, there's a powerful words on your part, Alan, but you have captured a real truth there that there's a type of insanity in the thinking, in the method that we're seeing, especially from this leadership. But go ahead. Yeah, I think this quote that you just read sums up perfectly what I think about this. I mean, Netanyahu only thinks about indicators to a certain segment of society, and also a very small part of the Jewish brain, or the Jewish and of consciousness, which is this part of your being persecuted, your being haunted, your being everybody, and this has been doing this for all throughout his career. It's been this since the 80s. You know, I remember Netanyahu during the 90s when there was an attempt to make the Oslo courts, and there was, Israel was doing some terrible stuff, and Israel is doing some terrible stuff like the terrible terrorist attacks committed by Jews, and then by Palestinians, and it was it was a period of like, we didn't know what things are going, like make or break and a period. And I remember Netanyahu going to places like, there would be a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, or in Haifa, and some other place, and he would chase those incidents and go there and give interviews from the scene to say to people, look what they are doing to us, look how terrible this is, look at our situation, they are killing us, and we are not doing anything, and they are watching us, and this felt so wild, and so out of, out of line with, like, traditional politics and Israel, because people didn't use to do this. I mean, there was always cynicism, there was always, we had this really bizarre habit of making death, like glorifying death. You know, I remember Trump, like three or four days after he became president, I think, there was an operation, I don't know where it was in Somalia, and some soldier dies, so they brought his wife to a conference, and he made a speech, and everybody was, was applauding because she was the wife of an American hero, and I was thinking, this is nuts. Why are we creating this glorification of force? I mean, it's not good to die, period. This is not the kind of culture that we want to, we want to create. So there was always that, but Netanyahu took it like a notch further, and actually went to the scene where people just died, like a half hour ago, and he would give this incendiary speeches about it, and he had more and more of control over the Israeli psyche. It became stronger and stronger to cover media, to cover newspapers, to cover news channels, and it was focused on death and shaping the narrative. This was his biggest concern always, always. So if the Israeli society was like half sane, half insane, or something close to it, depending on the day, he just drove it over the cliff into the abyss, and there's no sanity in him to speak of. And I think this stems from Netanyahu's own very extremely damaged psychology, because he's a deeply damaged human being. He's not normal in any way, he's not normal. If you put his pitches on mute and just look at it, you'll be rewarded. Your body will react to this in a very negative way. There's something very disturbed and sick, but ironically or about doxically, I don't know how to call it. He got in such a position of power, both in Israel, but as regards Jewish organizations in the U.S. and the American Congress. Yes, I think he's the single most powerful person in the West right now, and he may be the craziest. So I don't think that this puts us in such a, I don't know, if we survived this, I'm serious, we're going to look back and we find it hard to believe that this was actually going now. But someone like Netanyahu was given so much power to do so much damage over such an extended period of time, with the whole world watching and seeing. And the same shit, I'm sorry if it's okay, I say shit, I'm not there. Yes, it's okay. What's happening with Biden? I mean, we're supposed to believe this is the person leading the U.S. Would this person be able to lead a company of 50 people? A classroom to drive a car or a bicycle? I don't know. On the one hand, this gap between how historic and potentially catastrophic this time is, and the kind of leadership we have, and that's like an all over the place. I mean, who is she, Sonak? Who the hell? What is this? They were the British Prime Minister. It's like a kid. You don't believe he has any charisma, or he makes decisions, or he can pass through his vision, and it's the same way almost every way you look. I mean, you don't know who the Australian Prime Minister or the McCorn, you know, but it's a kind of a clown, like it's not Jack Sheerack or people of Omitaran. People who could agree or not agree with, but they had to wait to their persona. I mean, you took them seriously. We can't take those people seriously. It's hard for us to believe they actually navigate this. So, basically, Netanyahu's insanity and derangement, like taking this the West down. And this is on top of this crazy policy of the Democrats and Biden of going to war with Russia and Ukraine, this internal war that they're never going to stop, they're going to keep on funding. What's wrong with you? I spent a few months in the US at the beginning of this, and I was shocked. I mean, the levels of homelessness, I'm not saying this like a put down, but there's so much, I mean, in the world, all the stuff that needs correcting and fixing and addressing it in America. And they're sending all these hundreds of billions to accomplish what maybe start a nuclear war while also fighting with China over the one. I mean, what are those people trying to achieve? Yeah, it's it. No, they're busy waving. They're waving Ukrainian flags in Congress. And next week or the week after they'll be waving Israeli flags because Benjamin Netanyahu is doing this glorious trip to Washington, which you can be sure, Alan, that Congressman Senators, they're all going to be standing and sitting, standing and plapping, standing and sitting, 40 standing ovations. And at the same time, this actual person is in the dock in the International Criminal Court for war crimes. I mean, it is the most extraordinary point in history, and it speaks to a collective madness. And I mean, that's one issue, but you followed the career of Netanyahu for many years. You understand the mentality. You've heard that you've seen the political evolution. What is his ultimate motivation? Does he see himself as the next, you know, a Ben Gurion figure, the man who solved the Palestinian problem in one Gaza? Is he is he motivated by his legacy in the Israeli pantheon Hall of Fame? How do you see it? I think it's it's this, but it's also much more ambitious than this. He wants to be a Messiah for the West and even the globe. So he wants to read humanity of Iran. He wants to read humanity of any Arab independence in the Middle East. This goes a lot via much over the borders of Palestine with an Israel. This is much becoming he encouraged the US. Do you remember this? He was sitting in a hearing in Congress telling, I promise you that if you take off Saddam, it's going to have huge positive reparations throughout the Middle East, this is exact words. I mean, he was pushing America to go to all these wars. So this is the kind of like super colonial white colonial insanity of trying to engineer really humanity, engineer whole continents. I'm going to have this regime here and this regime there and those people here actually play like it's a just more. And I think that I think that in his mind is this Jewish hero for history will save Jews from the greatest danger. And this has to be like the biggest cinematic effect. He needs to save them from the biggest danger. So he always has to always has to flirt with more and more danger and you know, have this brinkmanship that gets like why the why the Elijah always deteriorates the situation. And of course, he counts on the US to always come to his rescue. I mean, if Israel and Hezbollah go to war tomorrow, I think this is the end of Israel. This is my opinion. But of course, the US is going to be involved. And then what if Iran gets involved? Then you have Iran on your hands. And what happens to Saudi Arabia and all those regimes that you kind of stabilized? The old Middle East is we don't know what's going to happen with it. It's going to be completely different. And maybe America will be kicked out of it for good. Because I don't think that if the US goes to war with Iran and Hezbollah in the Middle East, it's it's anywhere near or short of victory. I can see America sacrificing half a million American men to accomplish this goal. I mean, I don't see it. I just don't see it. In this day and age, was the president president that's going to be able to, you know, to create this kind of patriotic mobilization and sentiment. People are not there. People have moved on. This is not the world we live in. And this is not the America of today. So they are playing a very dangerous game very stupidly. And Netanyahu has this complex that he has to have this central historic role as a savior of Jews, but at the same time, the savior of the West, and called them Western values, which we all see what they are really every day with children, skulls, blown, blown up. We can see it with our eyes. And I think that I think that this is what happens to people who lose contact with reality. I mean, like 25, 30 years ago, Netanyahu had some like residual sanity. He could, if he didn't experience reality, he could at least remember reality, what people think, what they are going to do. But now there's only his imagination. He has no contact with the real people with, I mean, he's been behind protection and like, you know, all these apparatus for 40 years, almost. He doesn't know where he lives. He doesn't know Israel. He didn't, he doesn't know what the Israeli star looks like, what the Israeli workplace or street look like. He has no idea. I mean, he talks to only his kind of people in Israel and all the crazy Bible people from the US like the John Aiki. So he gets crazy and crazy. This is like, it's spiraling, gets worse and worse. And you can see that. You can see that like a decade ago, Netanyahu wouldn't have been in this kind of situation. He would have stopped like a few months ago. He would have said, find kind of some kind of negotiation and maybe Hamas leadership would make this like ritualistic departure from Gaza and going to Algeria. I don't know. But now it's a, and I don't think he has a real strategy. I think it's the only thing, the only he thinks one step ahead and step this step ahead is the US getting involved in a bigger world because as far as this, the Israeli story goes, Netanyahu has no place to go. He can reverse back into normalcy. Israeli is not going back to normalcy. You can't do that. Actually, everybody says we want to kill millions of people and fight with the whole world and fuck everybody and everybody is in it. And the same item, what you're going to sit and watch Netflix and do your taxes and walk your dog. And it's not our life works. And you have all those people, the radical right in Israel, the religious right, all the settlers, it's a big and powerful political group. They are not going back to normalcy. They see the slaughter in Gaza has like an end of this promise. It's like, you see we can do this, you see what can do this. They didn't think they could do it like a generation ago, but now they have this, oh, we can actually do it. We can actually kill a million Palestinians or two million, maybe five million. It's going to stop us, not by them. Maybe not Trump. I mean, we can pull it off. I don't think they can. They're going to hit the wall in the shape of Hezbollah or Iran or both or something we were not seeing now because there's always some unknown factor. Maybe the Turkey, you know, flips or Egypt and to go some kind of goes back to the ends of the Muslim Brotherhood, some new party we haven't even heard of. So it's not something you can plan to this degree, this kind of crazy. But they are so guided by the messianic apocalyptic vision. They can see reality. They can't think like normal people. They just can't. We just have a two minutes left, Alan. I appreciate you joining us today. Of course, you know, you mentioned the clash with Hezbollah along South Lebanon. A lot of residents have left the settlements, the kibbutzes in the northern territory of Israel. And it doesn't look like many of them are coming back. We're talking about, you know, well over a hundred thousand, correct me if I'm wrong. So that whole idea of securing people from around the world can come and be safe in Israel and that they'll be protected by the IDF and everything is fine and it's going to be secure and come live the dream. That's a central part of the entire Israeli story. And it looks like it might not be able to hold right now and it could get worse. Won't that just kind of destabilize the entire Israeli internal narrative? We just got two minutes left. I'll give you the floor. Go ahead, Alan. Yeah, I think it's already destabilizing Israeli society. And there are so many Israelis. Almost in every Israeli family has someone who lives abroad already or plans to live abroad. This is, I hear this conversation in Tel Aviv or friends from Tel Aviv or from other places all the time. This is like the hardest conversation today because finding it harder and harder to see a future, to imagine a future. I mean, when you can't imagine a future someplace, this is like a big red flag, right? And you can see that plan five years into the future. This is so what are you doing? And if when this war breaks, because I think it's breaking 100%, when this war breaks, it's going to build like the last storm for many Israelis, like the stronger Israelis. The more successful ahead is what's successful, but the richer is. People with more resources and more access to resources, people who have the company as the connections, the physicians, the engineers, the active people, they're going to be the first to go because it's going to be easiest for them. And then what kind of, what are you left with? So we are, I think the picture is green for Israel. That's the truth of it. No, certainly there's a lot of reflection that needs to happen and quick, because as we both know, Alan, things could actually get a lot worse even than they are now. And they're pretty bad right now, but they can get worse. I think this is the stretch we're in right now is going to look like heaven in a few months, because I have a feeling one of these days, Netanyahu is going to give an order to assassinate Masal, because they're going to know where he is, they can do that, they would drop a bomb of, I don't know, a ton and maybe kidding. They would do something like this or, you know, just this. And then all hell breaks loose, because the war with Hezbollah is not going to look anything like the war with Hamas. It's going to be something on a whole different scale. And Israel is not even remotely prepared for this, not militarily and not in terms of society. Yeah, no, that's wise words. This is going on for eight months, it's a long time. This is going on. Alan Musrahi, thank you very much, political commentator. Listen, follow Alan on X Twitter. We've tagged him on a show post. We really appreciate you talking to us today here at TNT, Alan. Thank you. There he goes, ladies and gentlemen, great segment, Freddie Ponton as well. That's all we got time for today. Patrick Kennedy's in here, host, signing out. Take care, you guys. We'll see you same time, same place tomorrow. All the best. Stay on TNT. Stay the nation.
