The Michael Knowles Show - Israeli UFC Fighter Explains HAMAS | Natan Levy
Aired: 2023-10-22
Duration: 08:34


=== Citizens In Combat (08:33) ===

[00:00:00]  Since he was a teenager, Israeli-American Natan Levy has trained to fight, first in Kung Fu, then Karate.
[00:00:07]  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.
[00:00:14]  I sat down with Natan to get his thoughts on the emerging conflict.
[00:00:19]  Natan, thank you for coming on the show.
[00:00:21]  Thank you very much for having me.
[00:00:23]  So, Natan, you are in Israel right now.
[00:00:27]  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.
[00:00:35]  What are you seeing on the ground?
[00:00:36]  Over here, you know, I'm lucky enough to be far enough, which is about 20 miles away from where the real atrocities happened.
[00:00:48]  Where I'm staying, it's sirens, rockets, the usual Israeli stuff.
[00:00:54]  But what happened pretty close to here was pretty scary.
[00:01:00]  It's amazing for you to say, you know, luckily I'm far away, relatively far away from where all the atrocities happened.
[00:01:07]  You know, I'm 20 miles out.
[00:01:09]  It just drives home for people how small this country really is.
[00:01:15]  Yeah, it's tiny.
[00:01:15]  I live in Vegas and it's the same thing.
[00:01:17]  20 miles can be a ride to the gym and out here it's the difference between life and death.
[00:01:23]  So, people I know, friends of mine who live in Israel are being called up for military service, especially as the war expands.
[00:01:32]  You know, now it's expanded from southern Lebanon.
[00:01:35]  Israel struck the Syrian airport.
[00:01:37]  I mean, this, who knows?
[00:01:40]  This war could expand to Iran.
[00:01:42]  How much of the population is being called up for military service?
[00:01:45]  We have 3,000, 300,000 military reserve that's been called up.
[00:01:51]  And it actually got to 120% who came in.
[00:01:58]  So more people than got called showed up for the reserve.
[00:02:01]  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.
[00:02:11]  If we don't win this one big time, there will be no Israel.
[00:02:15]  What are you predicting?
[00:02:16]  I mean, in terms of the next week, two weeks, month, how long are people in Israel expecting this war to go on?
[00:02:26]  Ultimately, what is the objective going to be?
[00:02:28]  Do you think the objective is going to be just obliterate Hamas?
[00:02:31]  Is the objective going to be obliterate Gaza?
[00:02:34]  Is the objective going to be regime change in Iran?
[00:02:37]  What are people talking about?
[00:02:38]  You know, I can't tell you what the military strategy is, but I can tell you the people's sentiment.
[00:02:44]  For us, we want a total destruction of Hamas.
[00:02:49]  You know, we won't stop.
[00:02:51]  We don't want to stop this war until we have at least anybody that's held captive and still alive.
[00:02:56]  We want them back.
[00:02:58]  You know, I see people tweeting about de-escalation.
[00:03:01]  There is no de-escalation.
[00:03:03]  The gloves are off.
[00:03:05]  Do you want us to send them a gift card as well?
[00:03:07]  There is going to be no de-escalation.
[00:03:09]  You killed, confirmed, 1,300 people, injured 3,000 people, kidnapped more than 200 people.
[00:03:19]  There is no de-escalation.
[00:03:21]  We're going to obliterate Hamas and see from there.
[00:03:25]  Of course, it's all coming from Iran.
[00:03:27]  They're the enemies Of the modern world.
[00:03:30]  Of Israel and of the U.S.
[00:03:33]  And, you know, any free nation on the planet, they want us gone, they want us dead.
[00:03:40]  They want something completely different in the world and they're not scared of saying it.
[00:03:44]  You know, people are walking around it, walking around it.
[00:03:48]  They're not scared of saying it and we shouldn't be scared to defend our country and to defend our values.
[00:03:54]  Our modern values, you know, freedom, it's basic and human rights.
[00:04:01]  What about Hezbollah?
[00:04:02]  So, you know, obviously the attack from the south comes from Hamas, but Hezbollah then starts attacking from the north.
[00:04:12]  Will the war expand to obliterate Hezbollah as well, or is it really just focused on Hamas?
[00:04:17]  Look, what happened with Hamas For years, again, because Israel is a modern country, we don't want a war.
[00:04:23]  We don't want people to die.
[00:04:24]  So Hamas would launch rockets.
[00:04:26]  We would fire back.
[00:04:27]  We would defend ourselves.
[00:04:29]  Of course, the world and everybody on Twitter would criticize Israel.
[00:04:33]  And from there, you know, not because of that, but just because Israel wants to preserve life.
[00:04:39]  The moment they would offer a truce, we would say, yeah, sure, truce.
[00:04:42]  If you guys don't want to kill us, then we don't want to kill you.
[00:04:45]  It's pretty simple.
[00:04:46]  But what happened is the whole time, every time they asked for truce, they rearmed themselves.
[00:04:51]  They trained themselves.
[00:04:52]  They'd been training for this attack for two years while we were letting them, you know, live peacefully.
[00:04:58]  And so Hezbollah now, I don't want us to do the same mistake.
[00:05:02]  Right now they're throwing rockets at us, but it's like they're throwing little rocks.
[00:05:06]  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.
[00:05:14]  So I don't want us to do the same mistake we did with Hamas by saying, oh, it's not big rockets.
[00:05:20]  They're just it's a cry for help.
[00:05:22]  They're like a kid that's throwing a tantrum.
[00:05:25]  Right.
[00:05:26]  But actually, if you show weakness, you know, in the Middle East, it's kill or be killed.
[00:05:32]  If you show weakness, the shark smells the blood in the water and they're going to come to kill us.
[00:05:39]  So we made this mistake with Hamas.
[00:05:42]  Let's not make this mistake with Hezbollah.
[00:05:44]  And if they keep coming at us, we got to strike hard.
[00:05:48]  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.
[00:06:01]  How long do you plan to stay in Israel?
[00:06:03]  You mentioned you live in Vegas.
[00:06:06]  If it were me, I'd probably take the first flight out if I could.
[00:06:09]  But, you know, do you intend to stay for the foreseeable future?
[00:06:15]  Honestly, I'm not sure if I can be of help.
[00:06:18]  I want to stay here.
[00:06:20]  When it started, you know, I was already supposed to be back.
[00:06:24]  I was supposed to be for this week for our cousin's wedding and it got cancelled.
[00:06:29]  But right now I'm staying.
[00:06:31]  I want to see if they need the citizens to fight.
[00:06:33]  I'm not a soldier.
[00:06:34]  I'm an MMA fighter, as you know.
[00:06:37]  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.
[00:06:45]  And if I'm not needed, we'll see.
[00:06:48]  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.
[00:07:02]  There is, you know, kind of an irony about that because As you say, you're not a soldier.
[00:07:07]  You are a professional fighter.
[00:07:10]  What do you think the likelihood is that the citizenry and the civilians would be called up?
[00:07:14]  Right now, I feel it's not likely with the days going by.
[00:07:17]  You know, citizens have to fight.
[00:07:19]  Don't get this wrong.
[00:07:20]  Citizens fought for their, you know, for their homes.
[00:07:24]  When the terrorist attack on Saturday, October 7th, it took the military hours to get together.
[00:07:31]  Yeah, that's a big fail.
[00:07:32]  No doubt about it.
[00:07:34]  We got caught not ready, but the citizens were fighting.
[00:07:39]  And thank God, you know, in America, you have the Second Amendment.
[00:07:43]  And in Israel, we don't have the same amendment, but we can carry arms with a license.
[00:07:50]  And people who live around Gaza, many of them have a gun, and they fought off thousands of terrorists.
[00:07:56]  And still we had many dead.
[00:07:59]  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.
[00:08:11]  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.
[00:08:19]  So absolutely zero respect to this enemy.
[00:08:23]  And I'm very happy that some civilians had weapons and shot them down.
[00:08:30]  Absolutely.
[00:08:31]  Natan, thank you so much for joining.
[00:08:33]  Stay safe out there.