In an exclusive sit-down, Michael Knowles welcomes the fierce Israeli MMA Fighter, Natan Levy, to discuss not just punches but politics. Diving deep into the ongoing conflict with Hamas, Natan offers a unique perspective, blending his experiences inside the ring with those outside of it in Israel. This is more than just an interview; it's an enlightening conversation that sheds light on resilience, commitment, and the complexities of one of the world's most enduring conflicts.
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Since he was a teenager, Israeli-American Natan Levy has trained to fight, first in Kung Fu, then Karate.
Now he's a rising star in the UFC, and his most important fight yet might still await him in his home country of Israel.
I sat down with Natan to get his thoughts on the emerging conflict.
Natan, thank you for coming on the show.
Thank you very much for having me.
So, Natan, you are in Israel right now.
You were not all that far from the Hamas attack when it first started, and you've been there for the last week or more.
What are you seeing on the ground?
Over here, you know, I'm lucky enough to be far enough, which is about 20 miles away from where the real atrocities happened.
Where I'm staying, it's sirens, rockets, the usual Israeli stuff.
But what happened pretty close to here was pretty scary.
It's amazing for you to say, you know, luckily I'm far away, relatively far away from where all the atrocities happened.
You know, I'm 20 miles out.
It just drives home for people how small this country really is.
Yeah, it's tiny.
I live in Vegas and it's the same thing.
20 miles can be a ride to the gym and out here it's the difference between life and death.
So, people I know, friends of mine who live in Israel are being called up for military service, especially as the war expands.
You know, now it's expanded from southern Lebanon.
Israel struck the Syrian airport.
I mean, this, who knows?
This war could expand to Iran.
How much of the population is being called up for military service?
We have 3,000, 300,000 military reserve that's been called up.
And it actually got to 120% who came in.
So more people than got called showed up for the reserve.
People who did not get called showed up to defend their country because they really understand Right now, this is our, you know, a new era independence war.
If we don't win this one big time, there will be no Israel.
What are you predicting?
I mean, in terms of the next week, two weeks, month, how long are people in Israel expecting this war to go on?
Ultimately, what is the objective going to be?
Do you think the objective is going to be just obliterate Hamas?
Is the objective going to be obliterate Gaza?
Is the objective going to be regime change in Iran?
What are people talking about?
You know, I can't tell you what the military strategy is, but I can tell you the people's sentiment.
For us, we want a total destruction of Hamas.
You know, we won't stop.
We don't want to stop this war until we have at least anybody that's held captive and still alive.
We want them back.
You know, I see people tweeting about de-escalation.
There is no de-escalation.
The gloves are off.
Do you want us to send them a gift card as well?
There is going to be no de-escalation.
You killed, confirmed, 1,300 people, injured 3,000 people, kidnapped more than 200 people.
There is no de-escalation.
We're going to obliterate Hamas and see from there.
Of course, it's all coming from Iran.
They're the enemies Of the modern world.
Of Israel and of the U.S.
And, you know, any free nation on the planet, they want us gone, they want us dead.
They want something completely different in the world and they're not scared of saying it.
You know, people are walking around it, walking around it.
They're not scared of saying it and we shouldn't be scared to defend our country and to defend our values.
Our modern values, you know, freedom, it's basic and human rights.
What about Hezbollah?
So, you know, obviously the attack from the south comes from Hamas, but Hezbollah then starts attacking from the north.
Will the war expand to obliterate Hezbollah as well, or is it really just focused on Hamas?
Look, what happened with Hamas For years, again, because Israel is a modern country, we don't want a war.
We don't want people to die.
So Hamas would launch rockets.
We would fire back.
We would defend ourselves.
Of course, the world and everybody on Twitter would criticize Israel.
And from there, you know, not because of that, but just because Israel wants to preserve life.
The moment they would offer a truce, we would say, yeah, sure, truce.
If you guys don't want to kill us, then we don't want to kill you.
It's pretty simple.
But what happened is the whole time, every time they asked for truce, they rearmed themselves.
They trained themselves.
They'd been training for this attack for two years while we were letting them, you know, live peacefully.
And so Hezbollah now, I don't want us to do the same mistake.
Right now they're throwing rockets at us, but it's like they're throwing little rocks.
And if we don't attack, if we don't do anything, They're going to go to bigger stones and until they find a way to kill us.
So I don't want us to do the same mistake we did with Hamas by saying, oh, it's not big rockets.
They're just it's a cry for help.
They're like a kid that's throwing a tantrum.
Right.
But actually, if you show weakness, you know, in the Middle East, it's kill or be killed.
If you show weakness, the shark smells the blood in the water and they're going to come to kill us.
So we made this mistake with Hamas.
Let's not make this mistake with Hezbollah.
And if they keep coming at us, we got to strike hard.
I'm not saying open war with the whole planet, but when somebody is testing us, we need to show them, you know, we need to cut it at the butt.
How long do you plan to stay in Israel?
You mentioned you live in Vegas.
If it were me, I'd probably take the first flight out if I could.
But, you know, do you intend to stay for the foreseeable future?
Honestly, I'm not sure if I can be of help.
I want to stay here.
When it started, you know, I was already supposed to be back.
I was supposed to be for this week for our cousin's wedding and it got cancelled.
But right now I'm staying.
I want to see if they need the citizens to fight.
I'm not a soldier.
I'm an MMA fighter, as you know.
But if they need us to defend our country, if they need the citizens to actively do it, then I'm here to do it.
And if I'm not needed, we'll see.
I can imagine it would be pretty scary if you were a Hamas terrorist to see not just an ordinary soldier but also a fairly famous UFC fighter coming at you.
There is, you know, kind of an irony about that because As you say, you're not a soldier.
You are a professional fighter.
What do you think the likelihood is that the citizenry and the civilians would be called up?
Right now, I feel it's not likely with the days going by.
You know, citizens have to fight.
Don't get this wrong.
Citizens fought for their, you know, for their homes.
When the terrorist attack on Saturday, October 7th, it took the military hours to get together.
Yeah, that's a big fail.
No doubt about it.
We got caught not ready, but the citizens were fighting.
And thank God, you know, in America, you have the Second Amendment.
And in Israel, we don't have the same amendment, but we can carry arms with a license.
And people who live around Gaza, many of them have a gun, and they fought off thousands of terrorists.
And still we had many dead.
But, and you know, those terrorists, They're not, I don't call them fighters, because if they would aim for soldiers, to kill soldiers, then you can say that's an act of war.
People kill people in war, but they were going after civilians, they were going after teenagers that are raped, they were going after babies in their cribs.
So absolutely zero respect to this enemy.
And I'm very happy that some civilians had weapons and shot them down.
