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Jan. 17, 2024 - Epoch Times
50:55
[FULL EPISODE] Natan Sharansky on Today’s ‘Evil Empires,’ Soviet Communism & the New Antisemitism
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And when there is nothing to die for, there is nothing to live for.
And that's why nationalism is a very good word when it goes together with freedom and human rights.
The moment you separate them, you are getting awful dictatorship or empty, shallow, decadent life.
Today I sit down with former Soviet political prisoner Natan Shransky.
He is what they call a refusenik, a Jew who was once forbidden from emigrating to Israel from the Soviet Union.
This connection between Sharansky now lives in Israel, where he advocates on behalf of the Jewish people And continues to speak out against the threat of communist and totalitarian regimes, both existing and emergent.
Through about many dissidents, including myself, we were infuriated by the readiness of the free world to buy the lies of the communist leaders.
This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek.
Natan Sharansky, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.
Thank you for inviting me.
Many people watching this show will be aware of who you are.
Of course, you were brought up in the Soviet Union and you became a dissident and had many adventures.
I just want to get you to tell us a little bit about what it was like growing up in the Soviet Union.
Well, I was born in the Soviet Union in the city of Donetsk, which then was called Stalin and which today is the center of the war or barbaric aggression of Putin against Ukraine.
But in those days that I grew there, Nobody could imagine that one day there'll be a war between Russia and Ukraine.
Russia and Ukraine were like the base of this global friendship of people, of this Soviet empire, the leader of the communist world.
A very powerful country, which controlled one third of the world.
And we grew without freedom, because from the very childhood we knew that we can't say publicly what we really think.
And without identity.
Being a Jew, I had nothing Jewish in my life.
I knew nothing Jewish, except from anti-Semitism.
And their life was full of anti-Semitism.
And then after 1967, when Israel's victory was big frustration, failure for Soviet Union, Israel ended our life in a very powerful way because all the world is looking at us and says, how you Jews did it?
And you understand that whether you want or not for the world, you're connected to Israel and you don't know why.
You start reading in the underground and discover that there is a history, there are people, there is culture, there is faith, that you want to be part of it.
And that's how I became Jewish activist, in fact Zionist.
And this discovering of identity gave me strength to fight also for my rights, for the rights of the other people, for the freedom.
That's how I became spokesman of two movements, Jewish movements and human rights movement in the Soviet Union.
And then I was accused of being an agent of American imperialism and spent nine years in prison.
And then, because of the pressure of all the free world, and President Reagan specifically, I was the first political prisoner who was released by Gorbachev.
And then spent nine years in Israeli government, and then nine years at the head of Jewish Agency.
It's the organization dealing with the connection between Israel and diaspora Jewry.
And I have two daughters, eight grandchildren.
That are the great achievements of my life.
There's so many things I want to touch on here from what you just said, but let's start here.
You said that you started looking at some underground literature.
What is it that you saw?
Do you remember a specific moment where you had this sort of sudden moment of realization that changed your thinking?
In fact, the realization that I have to hide my thoughts came very early.
I was five years old when Stalin died, and my father explains to me, a five-year-old boy, You have to remember all your life that miracles happened.
Just as when we Jews were in big danger, Stalin died.
It's good for us, for Jews.
But he said, of course, don't say it to anybody.
Do and say what everybody does.
I go back to kindergarten.
And I cry together with all the children about the death of Stalin.
And I sing the songs about the great son of all the people, Stalin.
And I remember that a miracle happened.
Stalin died.
I should be happy.
And I have no idea how many children are really crying or how many are crying like me.
That was the beginning of my life of loyal Soviet citizen.
And that's when I learned that you're not supposed to say what you really think.
And it was very uncomfortable feeling that you have to live with this self-censorship.
But that's how loyal Soviet citizens live.
And so I had no freedom and I had no identity.
As I said, there was no value.
Being a Jew, it means that there are restrictions, discriminations, nothing positive.
But I discovered my identity with other people.
When the victory of Israel happened and they treat you as if it is your victory, and you understand there is connection.
And then you start reading the books, and you remember the books like Exodus of Leon Uris, or the history of Jewish people of Dubnov.
Suddenly you understand that there is a whole great history which doesn't start from communist revolution.
It starts from Exodus from Egypt, thousands of years ago.
And it's so easy for you, it's a little more natural, to feel yourself part of that history, and not the history of hiding your So that was one thing.
On the other hand, when you are not afraid and you start speaking openly your mind, you can finally Read the books, which are describing the real Soviet life.
You read Solzhenitsyn, about Galak, and you knew about it, you were whispering about it.
It was like non-existent world somewhere behind, like ghosts of this world.
Suddenly, yeah, it is your world.
It becomes real through these books.
Well, with the time later, I became like an unofficial spokesperson, meaning that I was connecting the world of dissidents and the outer world.
So, using some diplomatic channels, some tourists and so on, I was getting different books, which we were then distributing all over the Soviet Union.
And once I sent a note to my friend in New York that sent us 100 books of Exodus and we will make here Zionist Revolution.
The book about Jewish history was making such a big influence on people.
They were suddenly discovering their own identity that they felt that it can change all the reality.
And the same was about the books of So, you know, you were kind of playing this dual role, right?
On the one hand, you're working to kind of, I guess, kindle this sense of Jewish identity among Jews in the Soviet Union, of which, of course, there are a significant number.
But on the other hand, you were also acting just as a general dissident, anti-communist dissident.
Yeah, well, I have to say that when I became active in both movements, in the movement of the National Revival of Jews, and at the same time in the movement fighting for human rights, there were pressure, Warnings from both sides that you have to choose.
Are you a nationalist or universalist?
Are you concerned only about your own tribe or are you concerned about everybody?
You have to choose.
And I felt from the beginning that it's absolutely wrong.
You don't have to choose.
In fact, if I have strength now to fight for freedom, for human rights, for everyone, it's only because I discovered my own identity.
And that is the source of strength.
When I was nobody, when I had no identity, The only value in my life was survival.
I learned from the very childhood that because you're a Jew, you must be the best in physics, mathematics, chess, whatever, because that's the way of survival.
There are no other values but survival, but career.
But when you do get your identity, suddenly you want to belong to something bigger than yourself.
And then this desire to belong, to be with your people in your history, with your identity, that's something bigger than your own career.
And then you feel yourself strong enough to fight for world values.
So I always felt and feel until this day that this attempt To separate, divide between the world of identity and the world of freedom is absolutely wrong.
The really full, enjoyable life is when people satisfy both desires to belong and to be free.
It's absolutely fascinating.
Before I forget, I want to talk about this doublethink that you mentioned earlier, because you've actually written about this recently in Tablet magazine.
What you describe, this idea that you don't say what you think, is actually something that's becoming quite prevalent in our society here.
I would say it's very alarming that things that I hoped will disappear with the failure of communism, we defeated communism, that in one or another way this phenomena of Leninism, Marxism will be coming back.
And the way how it's coming back, free society, I see in this series that all the world is divided between oppressors and oppressed.
And the oppressed are always right.
And the oppressors are always wrong.
And that human rights is a relative value.
It's not absolute value because every culture has its own values.
It happens so that your culture, human rights are value and some others it's not.
So everything becomes relative.
Suddenly there are no absolute values.
And then maybe the most alarming is the so-called philosophy of political correct It means, in fact, that you are not supposed to say things which contradict to official dogma of this moment.
And as a result, you see, not in Soviet Union under the Because of the fear of KGB. But in free America, there are more and more people who prefer not to speak publicly about their own views.
I remember the first time, it was already long ago, 15 years ago, When I was traveling over American universities as a minister in Israel government, dealing with the questions of anti-Semitism and so on, I'm speaking to many Jewish students on the campuses.
One of them is explaining to me that she wanted very much to sign the letter in support of Israel, but she knew that her professors would not like it.
And it can damage her career.
So she decided she will be silent for a couple of years and then she will start speaking when her career is behind her.
And it was not in Moscow University.
It was in Harvard Business School postgraduate.
So the center of the free world And that people are afraid to say what they're really thinking.
And it was 15 years ago.
Today it's even bigger.
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You just reminded me of something.
So, you know, it was at Harvard in...
I think in the late 70s that Solzhenitsyn gave his address, you know, to Harvard and everyone was sort of expecting he would, you know, celebrate the West, talk about how terrible the Soviet Union was and so forth, but he actually did something different.
Well, I remember the address because, well, it was like 75, I think.
It was just before I went to prison.
It's true about many dissidents, including myself.
We admired America, we admired the free world, but we were very often upset and even infuriated by the readiness of the free world to buy the lives of the communist leaders.
The big relief for us when I was in prison then was President Reagan's speech about the evil empire.
The focus of evil in the modern world.
It was C.S. Lewis, who in his unforgettable screw-tape letters wrote, The greatest evil is not done now in those sordid dens of crime that Dickens loved to paint.
It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps.
In those, we see its final result.
But it is conceived and ordered, moved, seconded, carried, and minuted, In clear, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.
Because finally, finally, the leader of the free world shows that he understands fully the nature of this Egypt.
Just before this speech, and I also, I was in prison, and I remember we were shocked, some leading pastor of the United States of America comes to the Soviet Union.
The authorities permit him to preach in front of big crowds.
And he gives an interview to the leading Soviet newspaper.
And he says, I mean, the president can read it.
And he says, You have your problems with human rights.
We have our own problems with human rights.
We have to accept that all of us, we are different, but we have problems and we have to be tolerant to these problems.
And you understand?
We are trying to explain all the time that it's principle different realities.
That totalitarian regime and the free world, it's absolutely different realities.
And people of the free world are ready to buy this propaganda.
Leading intellectuals, thinkers, priests are ready to buy this propaganda that everything relative, let's live in peace together.
Years ago there was a film that came out called The Lives of Others.
I love this film because I felt it was one of the few things that I'd come across that can help someone in the free world, get a little bit of a sense of what it's really like to live in a totalitarian society.
Because it's very hard to imagine.
I think a lot of these intellectuals that you've been describing just now, they had the romance, they wanted to believe that the system was good.
Of course, maybe some of them were bought off, some of them were agents, yes.
But I think some of them just really wanted to believe it.
And they couldn't imagine what it would be like to really live in a society where you really can't say what you think, where you have to hide your identity, where you have to...
Yeah, I remember this film.
And I watched it in some cinema in Jerusalem.
And when the light went up and we were leaving, a group of young people saw me and rushed to me and said, is it true?
Is it true?
I said to them, no.
The reality was much worse.
Because that's happening in Eastern Germany.
And Soviet Union was much tougher and KGB was much tougher with this.
But it's good that they really showed this.
They showed what it is.
Permanent double-think, permanent self-censorship.
Knowledge that they hear you, they watch you.
So you mentioned this Harvard student who was afraid to write something, you know, in support of Israel.
I'm just reminded that you actually have, you've devised a method of assessing whether something is A criticism of Israel, which is, of course, perfectly fine to do, versus something that's actually anti-Semitic.
I'm wondering if you could just kind of explain that.
Well, when I start dealing with so-called new anti-Semitism, seeing how often criticism of Israel turns into another form of anti-Semitism, and I start speaking about it as a minister of Israel government,
There were many partners, political partners, all over the world who told me that we are not anti-Semites.
You're simply using this awful word to stop criticism of Israel.
And, of course, it was nonsense.
Israel is full of self-criticism.
Israel is a very free society.
Nobody can stop any Israeli politician from criticizing.
In fact, the moment you stop criticizing Israel, you have no future, political future in Israel.
And the same about the world.
The world, of course, has full right to criticize Israel.
So I proposed the so-called 3D criteria.
I said, you know, what is typical for the anti-Semites all the thousands of years is demonization of Jews, delegitimization of Jews, and applying of double standards to the Jews.
I can give a whole number of examples in thousands of years.
So, if today we can see that people are not simply criticizing Israel, but demonizing Israel, turning into, as Sartre said, that for anti-Semitic Jews, the most close devil.
So, comparing Israel, in fact, with some satanic force.
Or delegitimizing Israel, saying that Israel is not a legitimate state.
Or applying standards, which is not applied to any other country, the most free country, the most dictatorial country.
It's not applied.
That's anti-Semitism.
And why I chose 3D because if you go to 3D film and don't put 3D spectacles, you will not understand what's happening.
But the moment you put the spectacles, you see that is a horse, that's a person, that's ocean and so on.
So what I was saying, you see some criticism of Israel, apply this principle.
If there is no demonization, if somebody says some very not nice things about Israel, but is not comparing it to something diabolic, you are Nazis, like you are.
And if there is no denial of the right of Israel to exist, And if the criteria which are applied to Israel are the same as to the other countries, then it's criticism.
But if there is demonization, double standard, and legitimization, then you are anti-Semite.
That's what I proposed.
Just thinking about this demonization, it's become a kind of almost a norm here in America and in Canada, in my home country, to Describe people that you don't agree with politically as, for example, Hitler, or Nazi, or far-right, or any other number of, or racist, frankly, is another common term.
People are less and less ready to go into deep debates and to argue against the arguments of the other side with your own argument.
And the simplest thing is simply to accuse your opponent in something awful, like, Israel, for 20 years already, is accused of apartheid, because everybody hates apartheid.
We all defeated apartheid.
We all are very happy that it disappeared.
And then suddenly, Israel is today's apartheid.
And it came from South Africa, from the International Conference of the United Nations Against Racism in Durban.
And suddenly, it's all about Israel as apartheid.
And we try to appeal to the logic of the people.
I made it many times on the campuses where there is special Apartheid Week.
And I remember how I came to one young girl demonstrating with the slogan, either Apartheid, I said, you know, you are too young to know.
I was a friend of Nelson Mandela.
I was an international observer in South Africa during the first elections.
Let me speak to you for a few minutes and to describe your reality of apartheid, and then you will tell me what you see as similarity.
And she and all her friends start shouting, we didn't come to talk to you.
We came to demand to boycott Israel.
So that desire not to argue, not to compare, not to think.
But then professors start speaking.
And then human rights organizations publish reports about apartheid.
Then they cannot avoid discussion.
So at the moment, they have to deal with the reality of Israel.
What about it?
Arabs are sitting in the Supreme Court.
In fact, an Arab judge sent an Israeli president to prison for sexual harassment, and 25% of all the doctors are Arabs.
There is nothing to discuss about.
But what do they say?
But the very idea of creation in 1948, of Jewish state where Jews will have the right to come, that's apartheid.
Well, that's, of course, that's double standard.
There are so many national states.
Nobody asks why Germany permits Germans from the Soviet Union to come and 200 other nations not to come.
Meaning to get citizenship.
These absolutely arrogant, illiterate, extreme accusations are used in order not to debate.
Then they are covered by intellectual bodies, think tanks.
That's really dangerous.
You've made this very interesting parallel to this, what's called critical social justice or woke ideology, with the ideology that you had to live in and escaped from.
I had to study Marxist-Leninism as the only true ideology.
All the other ideologies were declared to be false, bourgeois.
You have to study Marxist-Leninist ideology and pass exams.
So it was like permanent brainwashing which you have to impose on yourself in order to continue your career.
And it was all about struggle of classes, that there are oppresses, oppressing classes and oppressed.
And in order to see the full picture, you have to listen to the oppressed because they know the truth.
And oppresses are always wrong.
And that inevitably there is revolution of the oppressed against oppressors and that's what then brings this absolute happiness of communism.
And then in the modern world where you think that all is already dead, that communism was defeated, Cold War was won by the free world and so on.
And you see this, suddenly, in the name of fight against racism, which of course is very noble human rights, or in the name of the fighting for the rights of women, and of course it's a very noble cause, you suddenly hear the same rhetoric.
You take so-called critical race theory.
And instead of this, put the word class, critical class theory.
And you look on the text, the same text that you studied in school and the institute as Marxist-Leninist theory about dictatorship of the proletariat.
Instead of the classes, it's race.
There is race of oppressed and the race of oppressors.
And we have to listen to the oppressed.
We should not permit to the oppressors even to speak.
And that's how the world is becoming better.
This is a view that's become common here in the US. It's certainly common in Canada.
What about in Israel and other countries that you visit?
The academia in America, sooner or later it will also be discussed in the academia in Israel.
And Israel is part of the free world and the ideas and dogmas are moving freely.
But Israel is unique with the fact that it's in constant effort to connect This identity and freedom.
Israel is a Jewish democratic state.
And we are part of the Middle East.
Middle East is the most dense place of the dictatorships.
Look at the picture of the map of the Freedom House.
It is the biggest concentration of black spots, dictatorships in the Middle East.
And there is a small, small, white spot.
And that's Israel.
The desire of people to belong, the desire of people to be free in Israel is much more full, much more deep than in any other parts of the world.
The world is divided between the free world, which believes that freedom should be absolute, there should be no national prejudices, and between the world of dictatorships.
It's not accidental that Israeli families It brings to the world much more babies than any family in any free society.
It's not habit.
It's simply a kind of optimism, a kind of stability.
And I think that this deep, meaningful life So nationalism isn't a bad thing, basically.
That's what you're telling me here, right?
Nationalism and freedom, when they go together, they are giving real meaning to your life.
And the life without identity, only with freedom, is a life of decadence.
You know, John Lennon wrote the great song, Imagine, and he dreams about the world where there is no nation, No governments, no borders, no God.
They go to, as he says, where there is nothing to die for.
And when there is nothing to die for, there is nothing to live for.
It becomes so decadent, so not deep.
And that's why, yeah, I think that nationalism is a very good word when it goes together with freedom and human rights.
The moment you separate them, you are getting awful dictatorship or empty, shallow, decadent life.
Well, so this is very interesting because, you know, I know that you are an unabashed supporter of Ukraine and the Russia-Ukraine war.
And at the same time, some people in America are suspicious of supporting Ukraine because of the strong backing of it by these, you know, non-nationalist or say very globalist elements, the people that believe in the freedom nationalism vision that you just described.
First of all, I'm not against Russia.
I'm absolutely against barbaric aggression of Putin's regime against Ukraine.
And I'm glad that the free world, finally, they understand more and more that it's not about peace or land between Ukraine and Russia.
It's attempt of Putin, who wants to rebuild Russian Empire, To change the rules, to go back to the times when your strength is the source of your national pride.
But nationalism means colonialism.
National pride means that you have to occupy those who are around you and to bring them back.
That's what Russian Tsars were doing all the time.
You know, in order to explain the difference between nationals of Russia and nationals of Ukraine, I put it in a different way.
Let's see what is What is the difference between Russia and Ukraine in terms of how they developed after they became independent?
In fact, there is a lot of similarities.
Both countries didn't have any strong, even weak civil society institutions, and they had to develop.
And both societies start privatization, dramatic privatization.
As a result, there was a new class of oligarchs who were all closely connected with politicians and a lot of corruption.
Where is the difference?
In the last 22 years, there were five presidents in Ukraine.
Each one won this right to be the president in very tough competition.
They were accusing the previous one of corruption.
Then the people were also condemning them for the corruption.
Then you had to win the elections.
A year after this, you're accused of corruption, and people go to the demonstrations, and there is confrontation, and in the end there are again free elections.
At the same time, in the same 22 years, there was only one president in Russia who from the very beginning started working on one thing, how to stay president forever.
And so he took control of the press, and then he took control of the finances of the parties, and then he took control that Those who enjoy corruption are all those who are loyal to him and the courts and so on.
And as a result, now we have two classic examples of nationalism.
There is Russian nationalism, Putin's nationalism, which means that he has appealing to the pride of the Russian people and says that, look, these neo-Nazis, they are threat to Russian people.
They are not nation.
We have to bring them here.
I'm sorry.
of Ukraine.
Do not allow neo-nazists and benderians to use your children, your wives and old men in form of a living shield.
Take the power in your hands.
It seems that it will be easier to deal with you than with this "shake" of the neo-nazists and the neo-nazists, which was in Kyiv and took all the Ukrainian people into the ground.
On the other hand, there is Ukrainian nationals, which is that we want to live in freedom.
We want to live a free nation in our own history, in our own tradition.
And this nationalism is something, the feeling of belonging, which gives you strength to fight for your freedom.
Corruption?
Is that not transparency in Ukraine?
Yes.
But there are ways to deal with this because it is a free country.
And today when I hear that, well, maybe we should not support Ukraine because there is not enough transparency.
Who knows what they are doing with their money?
You know what?
Because it's a free country, and you can work to make sure that there is enough ways of controlling what they're doing with your money.
You have to thank every day the providence, the gods, that there are people who are ready to sacrifice their life, not to fight, to protect, to defend, free will.
They're not asking you to fight for them.
They're asking you to give them weapons.
Otherwise, if Putin will defeat Ukraine, you will have to fight for your freedom.
And you will have not only to give more and more weapons to this fight, you will have to give more and more lives of your own people.
You're the perfect person for me to ask about this because I've had so many different variations, but there are these so-called, you know, the Azov battalion, the Nazi battalions in Ukraine.
Russia uses this as a pretext.
You've mentioned it earlier as we were talking.
So what's the reality of that?
Had you ever an opportunity to speak to somebody from the Azov battalion?
I recommend you very much to speak to them.
Some of them are alive, some of them went out of the Russian prison, and some of them continued to fight.
It is true that in 2014, when suddenly there was need to fight against Russia, and so there was not enough regular army, and there were some regiments which were on the private base were created.
There were some anarchists and other elements who joined it.
So in 2014, you could find some with neo-Nazi slogans.
In 2016, they already didn't exist because the officers and the government, of course, put its own order.
If you're speaking about neo-Nazi, all over Europe, there are many parties which are competing and sometimes they're getting some influence in their parliaments.
Practically in every European country.
In Ukraine, neo-Nazis tried to compete.
They didn't get one percent of the vote.
They didn't get one-tenth percent of the vote.
Ukraine is, I think at this moment, the only country in Europe Where proud, open, Jewish, Zionist person was elected in very free and tough elections in competition with at least two other very good candidates, Ukrainians.
And it shows that it simply was not even an issue.
So, of course, it's absolute nonsense.
But why Putin is using it?
Hoping that people in America will believe it.
He uses it for his own people because he wants to give the people this feeling that we have a historic mission.
We Russians, those who saved the world from Nazis, and that's official statement that Americans, British, they are only pretending that they are fighting.
The real fight was our Russian people who saved the world from Nazis, and now we have to do it again.
One of the things that actually that the president of Ukraine, Zelensky, has been accused of was actually kind of attacking Israel, right?
Demanding that the Iron Dome be given, Pegasus, cyber warfare, technology, many things.
In fact, he's sort of often agitating Israel.
What do you think about that?
Well, you know, I met Zelensky.
I went to Kiev and met Zelensky and we had a very good conversation.
And when he was telling to me that he, as a Jew and as a Ukrainian leader, as one who's speaking all the time about how much we, Ukraine, have to learn from Israel, he cannot understand why Israel is One of two countries in the free world, Hungary and Israel, who refused to give the weapons.
And I have to say that I had all the arguments which I hear from Israel, but I felt really very uncomfortable because, in fact, I do agree with him.
On the other hand, when I'm speaking with all our military experts, with all those people who are responsible for defending Israel, It's very difficult for me to argue with them because what they're saying, support of public opinion in Israel of Ukraine is absolutely unanimous.
Humanitarian assistance which Israeli government and Israeli people are giving is constant permanent every day.
But Israel refuses to give the weapons.
And what they're saying to me?
Look, first of all, we have to guarantee the existence of the state of Israel.
And we have the enemy who openly says and does everything to destroy us, and that's Iran.
And that's why we have almost every night our airplanes are attacking Iranian bases in Syria, and the columns of trucks from Iran Weapons to Hezbollah, and in the last, even targets in Iran.
And what to do?
It was weakness of the West.
It was appeasement of the West, which gave Putin control over the skies in Syria, which permitted Putin to bring his troops to build this base.
And as a result, we, when we are taking Iranian bases.
We need this silence of Putin.
We don't need his assistance, but we need that he will not fight against it.
And it is understood between us.
The moment we start giving weapons to Ukraine, it will be much more difficult for us.
Putin will make sure that it will be much more difficult for us to attack Iranian bases.
And then, Come politicians, and I speak with all the top politicians, and they say, Look, the West, United States of America and Europe made this terrible agreement with Iran in 2015, which gave Iran immediately billions and billions of dollars, half a billion in the suitcase, in cash.
And it went directly to Hezbollah and turned Hezbollah to the big army.
It made our challenge of defending Israel much more difficult.
And now they're going to do it again.
Europe definitely, and American people, those who are responsible for negotiations with Iran, are looking for ways to have this agreement.
So you understand that while they correctly are uniting their efforts to fight Russia, they are again ready to leave us alone with Iran.
So we have to be ready to fight Iran by all means.
And again, I disagree.
I have my own argument.
I believe that this struggle, that is the crucial struggle for the future free world.
And Israel as a part of the free world has to do more.
But it is also clear to me that the situation in which There are two evil and pious who more and more coordinate their efforts.
And the West, America, are ready to help Ukraine to fight against Putin and at the same time are looking for the ways to peaceify Iran.
And Israel has to fight Iran and at the same time is trying to peaceify Putin is absolutely impossible.
And what is needed is that The free world will take a very clear moral position, will make its evil empire speech of Reagan, to make it that we are not going, we hear the voices of Iranian, we hear the voices of Iranian neighbors, we understand that there should be no appeasement of this regime.
We are not going to have any agreement of this regime.
And then, if they make this statement, of course, they can expect, and I also expect, from Israel to make our position morally clear.
We are not going to appease neither this dictator nor that dictator.
We are going to fight against them.
That's the ideal situation.
In the meantime, I keep insisting that we have to start giving directly weapons to Iran.
Our experts explaining what they're explaining, but I think that the fact that In the last months, Iran and Russia are becoming so close, it will help all of us to make our positions much more clear.
Well, Iran and Russia are also getting very close to another dictatorship, which is actually much bigger.
Of course, Communist China is what I'm talking about.
I understand that Prior to him going to jail, Jimmy Lai was actually in communication with you, and I guess trying to figure out how to deal with the predicament when the Hong Kong national security law was coming into effect.
First of all, I agree with you that potentially China is the biggest threat to the free world.
And I think that the free world has to make much stronger linkage in all the relations with China and the question of human rights.
And Hong Kong is the last example.
And there was a clear understanding between Britain and the free world and China that Hong Kong will remain to be part of the free world, even belonging to China.
It's violated in the most brutal way, and the world more or less accepts it.
And Jimmy Laya, a friend of ours, connected between us, at some moment said that he feels that my experience can be useful to Jimmy.
We had three long Zoom conversations.
It was already Corona.
And it happened like a month and a half before he was arrested.
We didn't know, but he was actively preparing himself for being arrested.
He was 73, 74 years old and then the lead, the big publisher of the biggest internet newspaper and one of the leaders of this democratic movement in China.
And this person had to prepare himself for maybe spending all the rest of his life in prison.
And he read my books about prison.
He definitely wanted to know more, to understand more how you are coping with the time, how you're making sure that you're strong enough to resist.
And it was fascinating.
It was absolutely fascinating when I really fell in such a deep sympathy and new love to this person.
We really felt like kindred spirits.
At some moment I told him, Jimmy, You have a British citizenship.
You can have an airplane or ticket to the airplane.
Hong Kong is still not under such an iron curtain as all the Chinese.
And you know that you'll be arrested.
Can't you simply run away to Britain?
And he says, absolutely not, I cannot, because that's...
I was explaining to my people importance of resisting to this.
And now I'll run away.
What my people will feel about me, what I will feel about myself.
And that was immediately, it gives you such a powerful connection with all my experience of my being in prison and seeing all the time that What is your place in history at this moment?
And then you remain, you prefer to be a free person in prison than to be a deserter, physically free.
So I'm thinking about him very often.
Of course, he's in prison.
The very first day that he was arrested, I wrote an article in the Washington Post explaining why I believe that it must be the cause of the free world to fight that all these leaders of Hong Kong democratic movement will be taken out of prison.
I'm sure that it's enough in the center of the attention of the architects of the policy of the free world.
I'd like them to have that moral clarity which President Reagan had in dealing with the Soviet Union.
And, well, it's very painful to think that Jimmy can be to the end of his life in prison.
So, you know, for the pro-democracy activists or the Uyghurs or the Tibetans or Falun Gong practitioners in China, what is your message to all these people, house Christians, many, many different groups actually persecuted in China, some at a genocidal level even, What is your message to that?
Well, look, those who live in accordance with their deep religious or national or cultural beliefs, well, what I can say, keep enjoying being free people in the most dark dictatorial place.
I really, I'd say that maybe the most meaningful and deep The first experience of a free person which I had was in prison.
To the free world, I will say that these people are your main allies.
They're a big threat to the free world from all these dictatorships.
And the only real allies that you have is these people who insist on being free inside these dictatorships.
And so every day you have to think how to help them and how to fight for them.
Well, Natan Sharansky, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show.
Thank you.
Thank you all for joining Natan Sharansky and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders.
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