Nov. 2, 2018 - America First - Nicholas J. Fuentes
01:22:30
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unidentified
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Welcome to the podcast. | |
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| I love you. | ||
| . . . | ||
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| . | ||
| Bye. | ||
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| Give me your love. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
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| Thank you. | ||
| It's going to be only America first. | ||
| America first. | ||
| The American people will come first once again. | ||
| With respect, the respect that we deserve. | ||
| From this day forward, it's going to be only America. | ||
| America first. | ||
| Good evening, everybody. | ||
| You are watching America First. | ||
| My name is Nicholas J. Fuentes, and we have a very special episode for you tonight. | ||
| The long-awaited hashtag-based Israel debate is live tonight, and we have with us here Will Chamberlain. | ||
| And just a moment here, I've got to turn up your volume, actually. | ||
| Okay, you're ready. | ||
| Will, how are you doing? | ||
|
unidentified
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Excellent, excellent. | |
| Now, folks, it's been a pretty contentious build-up to this debate. | ||
| There's been a lot of hype, there's been a lot of animosity, but me and Will have been talking for the past half hour and we have agreed, we have come to a mutual understanding. | ||
| A mutual respect that this will be a substantive debate about the issue. | ||
| So we will try our best to refrain from personal attacks, from ad hominem, all the Floyd Mayweather, Conor McGregor stuff is over, and we finally commence our debate over the question, should the United States end all United States foreign aid to the state of Israel? | ||
| Military aid, right. | ||
| Now, I will be arguing in the affirmative that we should end all military aid to Israel, and we'll be arguing in the negative. | ||
| So, Will, do you want to remind us what the time limits are for tonight? | ||
| Oh, wait, wait, hold up, hold up, Will. | ||
| Your audio's not coming through here. | ||
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unidentified
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Oh boy, it's always something. | |
| Right? | ||
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unidentified
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Hang on just a moment. | |
| All right, give us one sec. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Says my speaker's on. | ||
| Okay, there it is. | ||
| Okay, so your audio is live now, so say something. | ||
| Okay, so time limits. | ||
| Okay, you're gonna speak first for four minutes in your constructive speech. | ||
| Then I'll speak for five minutes in my constructive speech. | ||
| Then you'll get a five minute rebuttal. | ||
| And then I'll finish it off with a three minute rebuttal and then we'll go into a back and forth. | ||
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unidentified
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Okay. | |
| Sounds good to me. | ||
| And you'll be the timekeeper. | ||
| I understand. | ||
| Are you ready with the time? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Whenever you, whenever you start. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Let me just check real quick in the live chat to make sure our sound is good. | ||
| Finally, make sure our streaming is good. | ||
| Everybody on the Periscope too? | ||
| Good. | ||
| Okay, so it looks like we're okay. | ||
| Only 14 dropped frames and I'm seeing both audio. | ||
| So with that, we'll jump into it. | ||
| Are you ready with the timer? | ||
| I'm ready with the timer. | ||
| Alright, let me know when you've started the timer. | ||
| Alright, time starts. | ||
| Alright. | ||
| Now my central thesis, what I'm arguing tonight, the thesis that I am arguing is that the United States should end all military aid to the State of Israel, and the central reason why is that we must return to putting America first. | ||
| Now when we ask ourselves why the United States should end all military assistance to Israel, It's important that we establish a standard for how we're supposed to judge whether or not military aid is a good thing or a bad thing, whether or not we should keep it going or we should refuse it. | ||
| And so I will begin with the late, great Constitution of the United States of America that we will consult for. | ||
| All enumerated powers by the federal government, which includes dispersing tax dollars to foreign nations. | ||
| Now, the only clause which permits in the U.S. | ||
| Constitution the disbursement of foreign aid, U.S. | ||
| tax money, to foreign nations is Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which deals with the powers of the Congress. | ||
| Article 1, Section 8 reads, the Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises. | ||
| To pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. | ||
| Now that is the only reason why that is the only constitutional power that is enumerated that is reserved for the federal government for how they are able to collect federal tax money through the 17th amendment through the income tax and disperse it to foreign nations which among these are Israel. | ||
| Now, when we evaluate whether or not we should continue United States military aid to Israel, we have to evaluate, does Israel sufficiently provide for the common defense to warrant U.S. | ||
| tax money being appropriated by the House of Representatives to be spent on Israel? | ||
| The answer is a resounding no. | ||
| And I say this for two primary reasons. | ||
| The first is that Israel does not serve America's geopolitical interests. | ||
| Now, we'll get more into that During the back and forth, but the primary reasons is that Israel is almost solely and exclusively responsible for the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. | ||
| We talk about Iran, we talk about Syria, we talk about Libya, and most famously Iraq acquiring nuclear weapons. | ||
| We forget that Israel was the first nation to acquire nuclear weapons almost 50 years ago. | ||
| The second reason is that Israel's behavior as an ally of the United States, the vaunted closest ally, is not consistent with the claim that there is any friendship, there is any trust, there is any advantage gained by dealing with such a rogue state that is Israel. | ||
| We can look at events such as the Levon Affair. | ||
| We can look at the Apollo Affair. | ||
| We can look at the gross and disgusting record of Israeli espionage against the United States. | ||
| They are, depending on who you ask, The second, third, or fourth most aggressive espionage operation on American soil behind only America's worst enemies. | ||
| Now, in conclusion, I don't know where I'm at for my time, but that is my introduction. | ||
| In conclusion, I will say this. | ||
| You will not agree with my position if you are content with things as they are. | ||
| Will will argue for the status quo. | ||
| Will will argue along the same vein as those that sold us Iraq, along the same vein as those that sold us Afghanistan, the same vein that sold us the TPP and the disastrous NAFTA trade deals of putting America second or last to foreign interests. | ||
| It's time to put America first again. | ||
| It's time to end all military assistance to the State of Israel. | ||
| Are you good? | ||
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unidentified
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I'm good. | |
| You had 40 seconds left, so nicely done. | ||
| Very efficient in your use of time. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| I'm gonna reset my own timer. | ||
| Excellent. | ||
| And... Are you ready, Nick? | ||
| I'm ready to go. | ||
|
unidentified
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All right. | |
| Is everybody else ready? | ||
| I'm sure everybody else is ready. | ||
| Somebody told me to be nice. | ||
| Cutting military aid to Israel risks a major Middle Eastern war with no commensurate gain. | ||
| First, in the status quo, military aid to Israel is key to preserving the regional balance of power for three reasons. | ||
| First, military aid to Israel provides Israel a qualitative military edge over its neighboring countries. | ||
| Because of U.S. | ||
| statutes, U.S. | ||
| aid is required to be of the highest technology available and higher technology than its neighboring countries. | ||
| This means that it has the strongest military in the region as long as USAID flows. | ||
| Second, USAID symbolizes the U.S. backing of Israel, which means its neighbors who hate Israel will not invade it. | ||
| Third, USAID restrains Israel from engaging in provocative actions like expanding West Bank settlements because they are afraid of losing that aid. | ||
| Thus, cutting all military into Israel will destabilize the region for three reasons. | ||
| First, because it reduces the military strength of Israel, especially in comparison to its neighbors, by taking away that qualitative military edge. | ||
| Secondly, because it creates the perception that the United States no longer backs Israel, and as a result, it would lead to a situation where other countries would feel free to invade Israel, thinking that the United States might not come to their defense. | ||
| And third, it would take away the United States' ability to prevent provocative actions from the Israeli, which is a real problem because the Israeli hard right is constantly pushing for the expansions of settlements. | ||
| Thus, as a result, ending all military aid to Israel will lead to a major risk of a huge Middle Eastern war. | ||
| There's a number of possible flashpoints. | ||
| First, in Gaza. | ||
| Hamas still can't stop people from shooting rockets into southern Israel. | ||
| That's a problem. | ||
| And Austin has led to wars in the past. | ||
| Secondly, in the West Bank, there's been continued suicide attacks coming from the West Bank with trucks and knives. | ||
| Additionally, if Israel could become more provocative and start spreading things there, that would lead to another flashpoint. | ||
| Third, in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah has been rearming for years and could potentially launch strikes across the border. | ||
| And fourth, Iran has been waiting, still runs death to Israel days, so it could easily lead to an attack. | ||
| Also, if a Middle Eastern war starts, historically, It's pulled in a number of its Arab neighbors. | ||
| In 48, 67, and 73, there have been multiple Arab countries that invaded. | ||
| Additionally, there's a risk of nuclear Pakistan joining now as well as another Muslim country that has nuclear weapons. | ||
| Thus, hundreds of thousands to millions of people could die in a war in the Middle East. | ||
| Millions could die if there was a nuclear exchange between Israel and Pakistan, and that's incredibly harmful. | ||
| So even under an America first perspective, it's not in America's interest for hundreds of thousands or millions of people to die just in general, because even if America first doesn't mean America only, that you completely are indifferent to millions of people dying around the world. | ||
| Second, it would lead to a massive refugee inflow into Europe, which would create problems for an America first agenda. | ||
| Third, it would create a massive economic disruption Oil prices would skyrocket, shipping in the Suez Canal and the Persian Gulf would be compromised. | ||
| And that would be extraordinarily expensive to the United States, far more expensive than the $4 billion a year that would cost to maintain military aid. | ||
| Four, if there was a major Middle Eastern war, there's a high chance that the United States would intervene in that war, in which case that would cost hundreds of billions of dollars and potentially thousands of lives of U.S. | ||
| service people. | ||
| That is avoidable if you do not spend the money on that, if you just maintain the current level of $4 billion of military aid. | ||
| This means the conclusion, even under America First Decision Rule, the one you have promulgated, and the idea of the Constitution's general welfare, it is a good idea to spend $4 billion a year to prevent a major Middle Eastern war and to simply maintain the balance of power in the Middle East. | ||
| Additionally, other disadvantages. | ||
| Israel serves as a forward operating base for a United States opposition. | ||
| operations in the Middle East. | ||
| Without Israel, we would either have to send carriers in order to maintain operations, or simply not conduct operations at all, in which case jihadists would be able to conduct planned attacks without harassment. | ||
| That would mean to dead American lives. | ||
| That's against American interests. | ||
| Additionally, there are lost American jobs. | ||
| Under the American aid package, Israel is required to spend all of the $4 billion it accrues On, uh, you know, on in America, because it has to buy American military equipment. | ||
| That means if you end military in Israel, you're losing United States jobs and losing United States manufacturing, but no commensurate gain. | ||
| Third, you lose intelligence cooperation. | ||
| Not many U.S. | ||
| citizens can actually operate in the human intelligence level within the Middle East. | ||
| On the other hand, Israel has the Druze minority and a variety of other people who can go into the various difficult Middle East places and provide incredibly crucial human intelligence. | ||
| For example, there's been a lot of rumors that Israel was able to place a source within Um, ISIS, and that's one of the reasons we- only reasons we had human intelligence. | ||
| Human intelligence saves American lives. | ||
| On your arguments. | ||
| Your first argument is not an argument. | ||
| It's merely a decision rule. | ||
| You say that it should come America first. | ||
| Every argument I've made so far operates under a thesis that says even if you prioritize America over other reasons, it's still a reason to maintain that $4 billion in aid. | ||
| Additionally, you list the Constitution's spending power. | ||
| General welfare has been construed extraordinarily broadly by the Supreme Court, which means that the general welfare clause is met by everything. | ||
| Indeed, again, if a major war occurs that the United States participates in, It's easy to see that spending four billion dollars serves the general welfare in this instance. | ||
| You next say that Israel is not a particularly good ally. | ||
| We'll get into more detail on this later because you didn't provide it. | ||
| You say first that Israel is solely responsible for proliferation in the region. | ||
| Maybe they wouldn't have to proliferate if all the neighboring countries didn't try and invade them and wipe them off the face of the earth every so often. | ||
| Second, you say their behavior is inconsistent with being friends. | ||
| You cite Le Bon Affair and various histories of espionage. | ||
| You could cite incidents All right, that's all? | ||
| That was a lot. | ||
| Interesting. | ||
| Welcome to debate. | ||
| What's that? | ||
| actually have a persuasive point here but you don't in general like a wide variety of countries have done horrible things including vietnam which killed tens of thousands of our people when we currently trade and have friendship with vietnam ancient behavior is not a reason to not look out for the geopolitical interests of the united states which are best served by maintaining israel that's all i got for you all right that's all that was a lot um yeah interesting welcome to debate what's that welcome to debate no it was good i uh I liked that. | ||
| That kept me busy. | ||
| Normally when I have on a guest or a debate opponent, I'm left bored. | ||
| You know, like if you have a Will Nardi, blah, blah, blah, it gets a little old. | ||
| But if you are ready to go with the timer, I'm ready to go with my response. | ||
| Alright, you've got five minutes. | ||
| All right, so now the majority of this counter-argument is built upon the assumption that withdrawing four billion dollars a year, and probably a lot more depending on how you look at what constitutes military aid, would result in an all-out war in the Middle East. | ||
| Now that is obviously Not the case. | ||
| He lists three reasons for why this might precipitate a Middle Eastern war of all against all in a very Hobbesian fashion. | ||
| His first argument is that this would affect the regional balance of power. | ||
| Now it's true that we give four billion dollars a year to Israel, but that number... | ||
| That number is, of course, very small. | ||
| Israel has appropriated more than five times that for their military budget, and their military budget is only 15% of their entire budget. | ||
| So if they're spending 15% of their entire budget, and our assistance for their military is only a fifth of that 15%, of course, they could supplant that. | ||
| Additionally, there's $2 billion given every year in private contributions from the United States, which could, of course, be increased. | ||
| If we were to revoke foreign direct assistance from the United States government. | ||
| There's $2 billion in private aid given that could easily be bumped up to $4 billion if we reduced our $3.8 billion commitment or all foreign military assistance altogether. | ||
| The second reason he gives for the war of all against all is that we restrain Israel. | ||
| We restrain Israel's provocative actions. | ||
| If you recall in the first press conference, the first joint press conference between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump, President Trump explicitly told Netanyahu Stop building settlements in the West Bank. | ||
| Will said the West Bank could be a possible flashpoint to initiate a war. | ||
| President Trump explicitly told Netanyahu not to build settlements, and in March, the Knesset in Israel approved, for the first time in two decades, an expansion of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank. | ||
| There is nothing about American military aid that is restraining Israel in any capacity. | ||
| Furthermore, Israel could not launch any kind of war against Syria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, or Egypt, because they do not have the manpower, they do not have the money. | ||
| I don't know who he thinks would be invading Israel in this circumstance. | ||
| States cannot administer over Afghanistan and Iraq concurrently. | ||
| What makes anybody think that Israel could administer over Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt, all its neighbors combined at the same time? | ||
| Not going to happen. | ||
| He says Arab invasions are a great risk. | ||
| I don't know who he thinks would be invading Israel in this circumstance. | ||
| We know that Syria is on the ropes. | ||
| Bashar al-Assad fighting several different coalitions, including some backed by the State of Israel. | ||
| Iraq is on the ropes fighting ISIS. | ||
| They have no military. | ||
| They were destroyed by an army 20,000 strong just three years ago. | ||
| Iran would have to cross over Iraq into Israel to invade. | ||
| And Egypt just had a very traumatic two different transitions of power in four years since the Arab Spring. | ||
| So I don't see where they would come from. | ||
| He says that there is no evidence that Israel is not a good ally. | ||
| I would point him to the Levant Affair. | ||
| I would point him to a 1993 when it was found out that Israel had been selling American military tech to China for decades. | ||
| And more recent disclosures found that Israel had been selling China U.S. | ||
| military tech as recently as 2013. | ||
| Additionally, we see with the Netanyahu example, he builds settlements, even when expressly told not to. | ||
| That is not a good ally. | ||
| You have an espionage operation that is the worst out of all allies. | ||
| More than all of our enemies put together, save Russia and China. | ||
| That is not a good alliance. | ||
| Now, I don't know how much more time I have here, but I guess we could jump... A minute fifty. | ||
| Oh, we have a minute? | ||
| A minute fifty. | ||
| Oh, okay. | ||
| So I could slow down, actually. | ||
| So he says that there are lost jobs if we stop providing Israel with aid to buy things from our defense contractors. | ||
| Here's a solution. | ||
| Invest all the money in our defense contractors. | ||
| We know that 25% of the military aid that we give to Israel can be spent on their defense department. | ||
| Imagine if 100% were spent on our Defense Department. | ||
| So the lost jobs argument is just silly. | ||
| They say that, or Will says, that we could be a forward operating base. | ||
| The Middle Eastern Affairs. | ||
| That is actually not true. | ||
| In 1991, during the Gulf War, we were not able to use Israeli troops because the presence of Israeli troops would force the 400,000-troop-strong coalition of Arab partners to disband. | ||
| They do not like to work alongside Israeli troops. | ||
| There are reports by the CIA, or, let me, I'll find the exact source once we're into free-flowing debate, But there was a report from the intelligence community which said that in 95% of contingencies in the Persian Gulf, which is where a conflict would inevitably happen, Israel would be useless militarily. | ||
| Now we can look at... He said that, well, most of these things are just stemming from the war. | ||
| Most of these are just stemming from the cataclysmic world. | ||
| Refugee crisis, oil crisis, U.S. | ||
| intervention would all be a contingency if there was a war, but I just took out all three reasons why there wouldn't be a war. | ||
| I suppose I could talk about the Strait of Hormuz. | ||
| He says that in some event, if we stop supplying Israel with foreign assistance, that there would be oil prices spiking because of a war. | ||
| When Iran actually blocked the Strait of Hormuz in 1982, Israel could not assist in any way, shape, or form and didn't. | ||
| And if you look in the 1973 war, the oil weapon leveled against the United States by the Arab countries was actually states that Israel is a liability to our strategic interests, not an asset. | ||
| And I guess I'll resign my time. | ||
| I want to hear if you have a response to any of that. | ||
|
unidentified
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Sure. | |
| Not bad, Nick. | ||
|
unidentified
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If you were in my college debate, you know, if I was coaching you, there's a good amount of raw material here to work with. | |
| Got some talent if you haven't done it before. | ||
| Anyway, so what I'm going to do, it's going to be an overview and then we're going to talk about, uh, the disadvantage and then, then your argument. | ||
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unidentified
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Sure. | |
| Okay. | ||
| I'm setting my three minute timer. | ||
|
unidentified
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All right. | |
| In debate world, we would call that an all defense speech. | ||
| Nick has failed to articulate a single positive change to the world that would occur as a result of ending aid to Israel. | ||
| Meanwhile, you're basically hoping that a war doesn't happen. | ||
| So essentially, if you're weighing this out, sitting at home thinking like, what do I want to decide? | ||
| On the one hand, you have a $4 billion savings in the deficit. | ||
| There's no explanation of how that meaningfully changes any American lives for the better. | ||
| And on the other hand, you have a risk of a major Middle Eastern war, you have a loss of the intelligence cooperation in the Middle East, you have a loss of Israel's support operating base, and you do have lost American jobs, right? | ||
| If there's nothing to outweigh any of these possibilities, there's no rational policymaker that would ever agree to the policy that Nick has proposed. | ||
| Let's look at again, what has he provided? | ||
| He said, America first. | ||
| Okay, that's a decision rule, not an argument for why a positive change would happen as a result of cutting aid. | ||
| He makes arguments that Israel is a bad ally. | ||
| That's just like vague value proposition. | ||
| That's not an actual argument for how America's lives would change as a result of the plan. | ||
| He talks about the Levon Affair and 60-year-old emergency stuff. | ||
| That's just pettiness when it comes to actually making sure that Americans' lives are better, which you haven't done at all. | ||
| And then, on the disadvantage. | ||
| Here, you just have all defense. | ||
| You're like, oh, it won't really happen, right? | ||
| Because Israel will still have a lot of money. | ||
| Well, here's the problem. | ||
| You're conceding, one, that it's the qualitative military edge that United States actually is making with the technology that means that the money is particularly valuable coming from the United States. | ||
| Additionally, you're conceding the fact that it no longer looks like the United States will be backing Israel. | ||
| That means that neighbors won't think that there's a risk that there's a risk that the United States will intervene. | ||
| That overwhelms whatever military it is, because if all the neighboring countries gang up on them, maybe even Saudi Arabia, like that could that could overwhelm Israel's military force unless the United States is there to backstop. | ||
| Additionally, you're making argument that Israel sometimes behaves expansively, even though there is this U.S. situation. | ||
| attempt at restraint. | ||
| That's not actually a good argument for you. | ||
| It means that in the absence of any U.S. | ||
| aid, Israel would be far more aggressive, because if they're willing to do that to contradict Trump now, what would they be willing to do in a world where they didn't even have to worry about military aid? | ||
| That means Israel would be even more provocative and more bad, right? | ||
| What else did you say? | ||
| You said, oh, there's no possibility that any of these neighboring countries were because they're in provocative situations, but you're conceding Hezbollah, you're conceding Hamas, and Hezbollah is funded by Iran. | ||
| A major invasion by Hezbollah, and one that continued, and one that Iran was supporting, could easily draw in all these other countries, even if they're in somewhat weakened positions. | ||
| Additionally, it's not just right now you're doing this, you're cutting off aid over a 10-year period, so you can't just be like, oh, there won't be a war tomorrow. | ||
| You need to win that there won't be a war over the next 10 years, and your policy certainly risks that. | ||
| What else? | ||
| You make arguments about how, like, the lost American jobs. | ||
| Indeed, that is my weakest argument, but it still actually is a major mitigating factor as to why, like, it's not that bad to have this policy. | ||
| We're spending jobs, spending money ultimately on American goods. | ||
| It's like, it's just like any, particularly not, you know, it's just like an infrastructure project except that it preserves the regional order of the Middle East. | ||
| Additionally, you would say that we couldn't, in 1991, you couldn't use it as a forward operating base. | ||
| I'm talking about drones that are currently flying out of Israel right now. | ||
| And you completely concede the human intelligence point. | ||
| You don't touch that at all. | ||
|
unidentified
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You lose. | |
| Okay. | ||
| So now we can engage in the back and forth. | ||
| The back and forth. | ||
| Let's talk. | ||
| And we could take this issue by issue. | ||
| I have a lot of material to work through here. | ||
| We'll start with the intelligence. | ||
| Is that good? | ||
| Yeah, let's start with intelligence. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So now I often hear, and I've heard this pretty often, that we need to support Israel. | ||
| We need to be allies with Israel because they supply us with crucial intelligence in the war against terror, against rogue states. | ||
| Now, my question, well, my contention is two parts. | ||
| The first part, and then I'll be brief. | ||
| I'll let you respond to this. | ||
| Number one with the intelligence is I would challenge you to point to me a single example in the past ten years in which Israeli intelligence has benefited America. | ||
| Like a single major example. | ||
| That's my number one challenge because I've done a lot of research. | ||
| The only two things I could find was 1956 Khrushchev's secret speech And in the 1960s they allowed America to inspect Soviet military equipment that they recovered in the 67 war. | ||
| So that's number one is I challenge you to come up with a single instance in the past 10 years where Israeli intelligence has actually assisted us. | ||
| Number two, my number two contention here is Israeli aid has actually been false. | ||
| And I think the best example of this is the Iraq war. | ||
| And I'll pull up some sources here so I'm not just Talking out of my butt. | ||
|
unidentified
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The proverbial talking out of the butt. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| One of the hard things about doing a debate with evidence, unless you're, like, actually spending a whole year doing a debate with evidence, is that it's hard to bring it in, so... Yeah. | ||
| Um... I don't know if this is going direct, but... Anything? | ||
| Okay, I'm hearing that we're getting, oh, here it is. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So, we have Philip Zelikow, a member of the President's... Oh, no, I'm sorry. | ||
| That's not important. | ||
| This is the important part. | ||
|
unidentified
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Okay. | |
| So, Bibi Netanyahu came to Washington to meet with U.S. | ||
| Senators in mid-April, 2002, and he warned them that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons that could be delivered in a suitcase. | ||
| Ariel Sharon's spokesperson said, the Cleveland Reporter, And if Iraq wasn't stopped, we would have to deal with a nuclear-armed Iraq. | ||
| Haaretz said that Hussein gave an order to Iraq's Atomic Energy Commission to speed up its work. | ||
| Israel sent alarming reports to Iraq about Iraq's WMD program at a time when Sharon said that strategic coordination between U.S. | ||
| and Israeli intelligence had reached unprecedented dimensions. | ||
| excuse me, following the invasion of Iraq, of course, both the Knesset and the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee released independently, separately, that all that Israeli intelligence is false. | ||
| So my two challenges are, number one, when has it helped us? | ||
| Number two, it has actually hurt us. | ||
| You can go ahead and respond. | ||
| Okay, so I'll respond to those in turn. | ||
|
unidentified
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First, I find your challenge under most circumstances to be a little bit absurd because these things are catch-classified, right? | |
| Like the idea that I would be able to point to an Israeli intelligence piece that would actually prove a benefit to the United States is a pretty remarkable challenge. | ||
| Hold up, Will. | ||
| We're having a... I would access that information. | ||
| Hold up. | ||
|
unidentified
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We're having trouble with our audio, Will. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| I don't know what the hell is going on. | ||
| It's telling me that the audio is coming through, but I don't know, it might be a lag issue. | ||
| Can you say something real quick? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm saying something. | |
| Hello, hello, hello. | ||
| Because it's telling me it's coming through, but... Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| How about now? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are we good now, folks? | |
| Hey. | ||
| Hello, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, hello. | |
| Can you see on your periscope? | ||
| Yeah, I can see on my periscope. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Everybody on my periscope's hearing. | |
| Okay. | ||
| Everything went static on hearing. | ||
| That's what they're saying. | ||
| Oh, really? | ||
| That's what it sounds like. | ||
| Am I right, guys? | ||
| Is that right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, we have no problem hearing, but the periscope is good. | |
| Test, test, one, two. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, fortunately we got the time clock out of the way here. | |
| I'm going up on my phone because my computer is lagging very badly. | ||
| We're lagging a little bit. | ||
| Okay, is it working now? | ||
| Okay, sounds like I'm getting a lot of static, so let me check. | ||
| Let me check. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That shouldn't be happening. | |
| How about now? | ||
| Hang on, James is calling me. | ||
| Maybe he can give me a touch here. | ||
| Hold up. | ||
| So that didn't touch it. | ||
| People are telling me to unplug the mic. | ||
| That's what I did! | ||
| Now we're trying to get mics working. | ||
| There we go. | ||
| There's something off the output. | ||
| Oh well. | ||
| I did that. | ||
| Yeah, I'm the side hit your phone, dude. | ||
| I'm the side hit your live stream. | ||
| That's what happened. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Yeah, they're saying they're using Stuxnet on you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| We're using Stuxnet. | ||
| Yeah, right. | ||
| Oh, it's Will. | ||
| Huh. | ||
| Okay, so... Okay. | ||
| Alright, let me turn this off. | ||
| Alright, thanks. | ||
| Okay, apparently the static's coming from you, Will. | ||
| Oh. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, I don't know what's going on with your mic setup. | |
| You have, uh... Okay. | ||
| I mean, uh... Weird. | ||
| Alright. | ||
| Um... I'm sorry, it's just my phone. | ||
| Uh, I can't get this out. | ||
| Let me, let me check the screen here. | ||
| So I can get some updates. | ||
| We're in sort of a weird spot where I have to... | ||
| I don't know what changed. | ||
| You were doing fine up until now. | ||
| It's fine, but then maybe there's static from our feedback or something. | ||
| You know, because I got you on your outputs in my headphones. | ||
| I don't know what changed. | ||
| We were doing fine up until now. | ||
| Unless something changed on your end. | ||
| I mean, I've literally been pretty still. | ||
| Yeah, I don't think so and everything. | ||
| Okay, looks like it's good now. | ||
| Okay, all right. | ||
| Just like that. | ||
| Sorry for the interruption, but we were talking about intelligence. | ||
| And you said it was classified, so you couldn't really give me an example. | ||
| But, and then the corollary is we actually are lucky in this game. | ||
| It's because, if you remember that big... What was it? | ||
| There's a big tip over the fact that Trump... Wait, actually it's not working, actually. | ||
| Hang on. | ||
| - Oh, hang on. - What's going on? - Not the star. | ||
| It's always something, isn't it? | ||
| You know what, here, I know. | ||
| Oh, Nicky is gonna save the day. | ||
|
unidentified
|
good day here. | |
| Okay. | ||
| Here's how we're going to do this. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Alright, so my mic is back now. | ||
| Now let me get rid of this and let me boost my speaker. | ||
| You'll have to just come through on the mic here. | ||
| I think that's gonna be the only way. | ||
| I'll turn up the gain. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, say something now. | |
| AM, AM, AM. | ||
| Can you hear him a little bit? | ||
| Is it a little bit quiet, but can you hear them? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I can hear the static on your thing. | |
| That's just like the... | ||
| That's just my speaker now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, okay. | |
| Because now I'm just having it go from the speaker to the mic. | ||
| We were doing good with Skype, but I don't know what happened. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it's this... It's fixed! | |
| All right! | ||
|
unidentified
|
Excellent! | |
| God damn! | ||
| I'll keep this close, actually, in case something happens, but... | ||
| All right. | ||
| At long last, at long last, we can get your response on intelligence. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I have to remember, I left math to remember the second part because it's been a while. | ||
| But the point I was going to make was there was this discussion about the intelligence that Trump had leaked to foreign leaders. | ||
| I don't know if you remember this. | ||
| This was like a few months ago. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| And basically the reports seem to suggest that it was the intelligence about ISIS being able to put a bomb in a laptop, which is why there was the whole glue about you can't bring laptops in from the EU. | ||
| And apparently the source of that was like a human intelligence source from Israel embedded in ISIS. | ||
| And if you understand, Israel really does have a particular niche in terms of being able to plant human intelligence sources because they've been doing this for years in the West Bank, right? | ||
| Like that's how they do intelligence in the West Bank. | ||
| They have to get their Jewish populations and their Israeli-era populations to be conducting intelligence. | ||
| And so like they have human intelligence assets that we just don't have. | ||
| And so like if you give that up, I mean, you can be like, well, we don't know. | ||
| We don't know for sure that it's helpful, but we keep hearing from every meaningful military person that it's really helpful. | ||
| And to the extent that, oh, you thought, so I would assume it is. | ||
| And then you make this argument about mutual weapons. | ||
| I mean, obviously that intelligence was wrong, but I don't understand how it makes sense for Israel to want to, like, intentionally mess with the United States, right? | ||
| Israel's primary fear is when other countries acquire nuclear weapons, and the intelligence that they had on Iraq was they thought they had nuclear weapons. | ||
| If they actually, if they knew the opposite, then they wouldn't provide, then they would feel no fear of Iraq, so they wouldn't, they wouldn't see any need to dupe us into attacking them. | ||
| Right, like, so that's why that argument doesn't really make sense. | ||
| And, again, one has to suspect that, like, the British and American intelligence services came to the exact same conclusion. | ||
| Like, I don't think you can pin all the blame on Israel. | ||
| So that's the argument I have there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| And for the first part, I would say, you know, again, if this is like intelligence sharing, we could still do intelligence sharing with Israel. | ||
| Like, we do intelligence sharing with European Union countries, and we don't give them the most foreign aid out of any other country in the world. | ||
| And so, I mean, number one, intelligence sharing would probably resume. | ||
| We would probably remain a strategic ally of Israel's, even without the foreign aid. | ||
| In 97, Bibi Netanyahu promised that they would start phasing out foreign aid to Israel. | ||
| And then number two, with the intelligence, with the Iraq war, it's fair. | ||
| It's fair to say that they would tell us if it was wrong, and I'm going to turn the game, I'm probably really loud because you were quiet, and now I'm going, so I'm probably bursting. | ||
| Or no, actually I'm okay. | ||
| You say that Israeli aid is like especially useful. | ||
| They have people on the ground. | ||
| They have people that can infiltrate because they have Druze and everything else. | ||
| But we saw that with the Iraq war, that was not the case. | ||
| It was actually still just as false as everybody else. | ||
| And if I could bring in some actual evidence here. | ||
| Let me pull up my little section. | ||
| This is from the Israel Lobby by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. | ||
| So this is on Israeli military intelligence. | ||
| One former CIA official reported, quote, I saw this political intelligence, this is Israeli military intelligence, and it was lousy, laughably bad, gossip stuff mostly. | ||
| This is from Stephen Waltz. | ||
| Quote, Israel also provided the United States with faulty or misleading intelligence on several occasions in order to encourage the U.S. | ||
| to take actions that Israel wanted. | ||
| So, with the intelligence, it's kind of a wash. | ||
| Number one, we could remain sharing without foreign aid. | ||
| Number two, the Iraq War demonstrates it obviously wasn't particularly helpful. | ||
| And then number three, when it concerns any of their interests, which by the way is the whole Middle East, they tend to lie about it. | ||
| This is according to the CIA and according to several other sources close to President Nixon, President Johnson, and others. | ||
| All right, well, so first on your point that Israel would remain a strategic ally even after we cut off aid, I disagree. | ||
| I think this is a really dramatic change of policy from the United States, especially after signing a deal about a year ago for a 10-year deal to go from the most aid of anybody to zero, especially unilaterally without consultation with Israel. | ||
| That has to be seen as a very different thing. | ||
| So even if they're going to cooperate with us on some things, I think the kind of widespread cooperation would go away. | ||
| Next, on Iraq, I mean, you say it was as false as everybody else. | ||
| Again, one instance, it means a 15-year-old roar at this point. | ||
| Intelligence agencies make mistakes. | ||
| The idea that because intelligence agencies made a mistake 15 years ago is a good argument for why cooperation isn't really worth anything. | ||
| I just don't think it's particularly persuasive. | ||
| I, you know, we are not in a position to really have a good handle on what sort of intelligence Israel's providing because it's classified. | ||
| But the fact that we keep using it and the fact that we keep hearing stories like, oh, yes, they had a site, a source inside ISIS. | ||
| And I mean, if you do some reading on that, on not just, there's really interesting books that, I haven't actually read the whole thing, but there's a really interesting book on sort of what Israel did to infiltrate Hamas, Hezbollah, and various other groups. | ||
| And it's fascinating the sort of work that they were doing. | ||
| Somebody asked if I have an Israeli passport. | ||
| I do not. | ||
| I actually have a German passport, oddly enough. | ||
| I'm a, you know, you've got my dual loyalty wrong. | ||
| I'm a U.S. | ||
| German citizen. | ||
| The reason being that my grandmother had to leave in 36. | ||
| So, but finally, I want to say one last thing on your Stephen Weld point. | ||
| So, you're like, Weld's, and you have this evidence about, kind of like, they thought some of the Israel was garbage and chicken feet. | ||
| Look, there's clearly competing opinions on this, because we hear all the time about how the military is good. | ||
| I don't know how we're going to resolve that here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But, anyway. | |
| Yeah, I just, you know, it's just kind of hard for me to, I mean, out of the few, like, positive things that Israel offers us, it is the forward base and the intelligence. | ||
| The intelligence, I guess people can make up their minds whether or not they think the U.S. | ||
| and Israel would remain allies if there was only a security guarantee and only, like, uncontested diplomatic support in the United Nations and economic aid. | ||
| As we do with all of the nations. | ||
| And then, you know, to the second point, there is the idea that if there was this dramatic cut in aid, if we shut down the Memorandum of Understanding, which is the 10-year, $3.8 billion-a-year agreement that was struck in 2016, I think there would be precedent for that because you got President Trump, America first. | ||
| And Bibi Netanyahu himself has said he wanted to phase out aid to Israel. | ||
| Certainly there are other ways we cooperate. | ||
| We sell them our best technology. | ||
| Certainly the qualitative military alliance would remain. | ||
| alliance would remain. | ||
| I mean, we would still sell each other technology as we do with France, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and others. | ||
| I mean, we would still sell each other technology as we do with France, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and others. | ||
| It's just the question of there's no the positive, you know, maybe we give it to and we say, okay, sometimes it's false, but it's still somewhat good, and we need money to be there. | ||
| It's just the question of there's no the positive, you know, maybe we give it to and we say, okay, sometimes it's false, but it's still somewhat good and we need money to be there. | ||
| You know, people can make up their minds on which point that is. | ||
| But the second part is that's really all I'm hearing is the intelligence and then the forward base. | ||
| But if you look at the, if you look at Israel as a forward base for operations in the Middle East, it's almost useless. | ||
| It's almost useless because we saw with the coalition in 91, How do you answer for that? | ||
| That in a country that borders Iraq, we couldn't use their troops, we couldn't use them as a base because the Arab partners wouldn't want that. | ||
| I mean, maybe drones, but couldn't our base in Qatar or in an Arab Gulf country or in Egypt or Turkey suffice? | ||
| Why is it worth $4 billion a year to Israel? | ||
| So, like, first, you're sort of challenging me on, like, oh, there's only a couple of these benefits. | ||
| There's the forward operating base, and there's the intelligence cooperation. | ||
| It's like, well, one, I still think that you haven't beaten the Iraq war the war has had. | ||
| But second, I guess my fundamental point, and why I think it's really clear that, you know, in this world I've been in this debate, is you haven't articulated, throughout your entire time, a single actual positive change in American lives that results from the plan, that results from cutting military aid to Israel. | ||
| Like, and I challenge you to say, like, I mean, I'll let you back into it, I guess, in the sense that I would say, what is the positive change in American lives that results from cutting military aid to Israel? | ||
| Well, it's funny the way you frame it, because it's actually, while the position of our debate is, or rather the resolution of the debate, is the U.S. | ||
| should cut foreign aid to Israel, giving foreign aid to Israel is a positive action. | ||
| Right? | ||
| And I suppose in a way it's a positive action to get rid of the aid, but I mean really we're talking about the absence of something. | ||
| So I think really the burden of does this benefit Americans is more on you because you're telling us you want to direct money in a certain place. | ||
| If you want to direct the money in a certain place, don't you have to justify how that benefits Americans as opposed to me saying, well we can spend as much money as we want. | ||
| I have to demonstrate, you know, if Cutting money to places is a benefit? | ||
| Do you see what I'm saying here? | ||
| Yeah, two reasons you're wrong. | ||
| First is, you're proposing a change to the status quo. | ||
| You know, the status quo is we give it. | ||
| And in debate world, if there are, if you think about things in terms of legalistic burdens, the burden is always on the affirmative to prove why we should change the way that things are. | ||
| And the negative gets presumption. | ||
| But second, even if you were right about that, as long as you concede I've articulated some benefits, the burden's now on you to explain why I've articulated some disadvantages. | ||
| The burden's on you to articulate why the advantages of cutting aid outweigh. | ||
| Even if you mitigated the impact, you need to have something on the other side that says, here's this really good outcome that happened as a result of cutting military aid to Israel. | ||
| You know, when I told about you, like, you have some talent, in the sense that, like, I were, like, pushing you, I'd be like, we can work with this, right? | ||
| You're efficient in the way you speak and a lot of things, but you made it very, like, if a debater were listening, like, if you were in a real formal debate round, the judge would look at you and be like, where's the impact, dude? | ||
| Like, you didn't read and impact a positive change in the world that would happen as a result of cutting aid, which is sort of, like, the first thing you probably want to read. | ||
| All right, well, I mean, I suppose maybe it wouldn't pass in a collegiate academic setting, but I think when the American people are told that we have to give money and cutting frivolous, wasteful spending is not helping them in their interest, I think, you know, it kind of belies the central point in favor of some academic standard. | ||
| But if you want me to demonstrate what actual benefit would accrue to stopping all foreign aid, I mean, I have it right here. | ||
| I just don't think I just think that it's more of a negative. | ||
| But if you insist on making me demonstrate why it's not good to waste $4 billion a year because it's not actually a lot of money, number one, I would say it's actually not $3.8 billion, it's $38 billion over the next 10 years. | ||
| And actually, we're looking at $150 billion since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. | ||
| And that's not including the The aid to Egypt and the aid to Jordan, which was given to them to support peace agreements with Israel. | ||
| That's not including, arguably, the outsized influence Israel has had on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. | ||
| Don't want to go that rabbit hole, but some might contend that. | ||
| One of the purest, most tangible benefits we would accrue is that we would have less terrorism. | ||
| And this is provable. | ||
| This is from the Israel lobby. | ||
| Ramzi Youssef, who you may remember, he was the one who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. | ||
| He mailed many letters to the New York Times before his bombing saying, I have a problem with the U.S.' 's support of Israel, their foreign aid to Israel. | ||
| In Osama Bin Laden's fatwa in 1996, when he declared war on the United States of America, According to Benjamin and Simon, these are two prominent scholars on terrorism, said that, in fact, the most prominent grievance in Osama Bin Laden's fatwa when he declared war on the United States was our support for Israel. | ||
| In fact, the 9-11 Commission reported That Bin Laden and other key Al Qaeda figures wanted to accelerate the timeline for 9-11 to coincide with a visit by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount. | ||
| So I don't want to say that Israel's support is exclusively responsible for terrorism, but it is a major factor. | ||
| It is a major factor that many scholars have said that contributes to anti-Americanism in the Arab world and terrorism on U.S. | ||
| soil. | ||
| So I mean there's So, I never thought I'd call you soft on Islam, Nick, but I think you're being pretty soft on Islam right now. | ||
| The nature of Baha'i Islam is not dependent on the United States or Israel or anybody else. | ||
| If you know radical Salafist Baha'i Islam, which is where terrorism comes from, they want global caliphate. | ||
| We know that. | ||
| If you saw, I mean, if you've been following ISIS and you've been following their literature and the stuff they put out in their inspired magazine, they're talking about how, like, there are all these reasons we don't like you, but you know what? | ||
| We would still hate you no matter what because you're not Muslim and you're not paying the jizm, right? | ||
| And that's sufficient. | ||
| So given that outcome, I think, you know, it's sort of, to me, this feels like appeasement, right? | ||
| This sort of logic of like, well, if we just stop backing Israel and we just stop trying to anger people in the Middle East, they'll leave us alone. | ||
| No, they won't. | ||
| Right? | ||
| And not that people like Osama bin Laden, people who are actually conducting terrorism, they weren't. | ||
| They're not going anywhere. | ||
| And so the question is, how do we best stop that? | ||
| And I think Israel is an asset in stopping that and not a liability. | ||
| Like I said, it's not a question of whether or not terrorists wake up every day and the primary reason, but if even a little bit, our unquestionable $4 billion to Israel and our support of their occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip contributes to terrorism, and it's $4 billion and there's not a major justification for it otherwise, again, I don't see that as appeasement. | ||
| You would still have terrorism. | ||
| You would still have Wahhabism that wants to destroy us. | ||
| You would still have ISIS. | ||
| But if we could prevent A single terror attack, because we stopped our foreign aid of Israel, I would say that $4 billion is worth it. | ||
| I would say that, again, if we look at the Constitution of the United States, which is provide for the common defense, if you have Ramzi Youssef, if you have Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, And additionally, you say that, and I guess I'll confront you on the central point, which is Israel helps us fight terrorism more than they contribute to terrorists not liking us. | ||
| That's actually demonstrably not true. | ||
| The Israeli defense minister said that they would prefer ISIS to Iran any day. | ||
| The chief intelligence officer of Israel said that they have no interest, they have no interest in defeating ISIS in Syria. | ||
| They said, in fact, they would prefer ISIS in control of Syria rather than Iran. | ||
| Now, we know Iran has sponsored no terror attacks against the United States since the Islamic Revolution. | ||
| ISIS, however, has sponsored the San Bernardino attack, the Orlando attack, and various other attacks against Western countries. | ||
| So they are not helping us fight the principal actor of terrorism against us. | ||
| They are actively aiding and abetting the al-Nusra front. | ||
| Right? | ||
| Like, why is Israel such a thorn in their sides? | ||
| And various terrorists in the 90s and the 2000s said that the reason, one of the primary grievances they have with the United States is our support for Israel. | ||
| So I think, you know, it's just kind of a losing argument to say that they help. | ||
| Well, so, I mean, there's another point here, which is that you say, like, why do these countries want us to stop giving military aid to Israel? | ||
| Right? | ||
| Like, why is Israel such a thorn in their sides? | ||
| Because they want to invade, right? | ||
| They want Israel wiped off the map. | ||
| The existence of Israel as a Jewish state and the heart of Arab lands is a problem. | ||
| And what that means is you made a point, you're trying to make a point about how there won't be a war. | ||
| And if you're making the argument that this is, you can't suddenly win the argument that this is the prime motivation for terrorism and that withdrawal will be good because it produced terrorism and then not lose this war dissad where the only arguments you really had were about how there's no way there's going to be a war. | ||
| Right? | ||
| Like, that's a big tension in your argument. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| and I think the the and I guess in here's the other thing like I so you know I could concede this and then be like the small risk of increased terrorism is actually outweighed by potential of a major power war in the Middle East in terms of the consequences so I don't think I don't think this argument gets you nearly as far as you Well, let me resolve the tension for you. | ||
| If we can address the Great War, the reason I skimmed over it is because if you've read Kenneth Pollack, if you've read Mearsheimer, I mean, this is an absolutely ridiculous proposition. | ||
| Again, I don't say that to, like, assault you. | ||
| I don't say that to be rude. | ||
| But, I mean, the idea that Syria would be able to defeat the most powerful conventional military in the Middle East. | ||
| And Israel, by the way, is the most powerful conventional military in the Middle East by a long shot. | ||
| They are one of the wealthiest countries in the Middle East per capita. | ||
| $39,000 per capita. | ||
| That's more than any other Middle Eastern country. | ||
| They have the most advanced, qualitative, and quantitative conventional military. | ||
| And on top of all that, they're the only country with a nuclear deterrent. | ||
| They call this the Samson Option. | ||
| They're the only country that says, we will nuke the entire region if we're going to lose a war. | ||
| And, you know, they would have invoked that in 73 if they didn't repel the very war you're talking about. | ||
| But Bashar al-Assad was not able to defeat ISIS. | ||
| Iraq was not able to defeat ISIS. | ||
| The Egyptian government was not able to stave off mass protests. | ||
| The only country that poses a significant threat to the state of Israel is Iran. | ||
| And if Iran wanted to invade Israel, it would have to go through Iraq. | ||
| And number two, Iran would never be able to ally with the only other countries that could matter, which would be Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which all hate Iran or are rivals with Iran because of the division in Shia and Sunni Islam and also the Persian and Arab ethnicity. | ||
| So, you know, this this war of all against all, I mean, you'd have to construct for me how this is going to happen. | ||
| It's just kind of ridiculous to me. | ||
| So a few responses. | ||
| First, you say there's no way that they would defeat Israel. | ||
| That's not my argument. | ||
| My argument is merely that there would be a war. | ||
| I think Israel would ultimately prevail in a war against a variety of the countries in the region. | ||
| But that doesn't mean that there still wouldn't be a war. | ||
| And you might say, well, if they're rational actors, they'll realize they're going to lose, and they wouldn't start a war. | ||
| That's not how it works in the Middle East, because these leaders are very much in the thrall of their streets. | ||
| And that's historically, right? | ||
| It made no sense, really, for Egypt to want to start a war in 73. | ||
| They had to thread a needle so thin it was ridiculous. | ||
| They had just gotten rolled in 67 by Israel and lost the entirety of the Sinai Peninsula, along with everybody else, along with Syria losing Golan and Jordan losing the West Bank, right? | ||
| Like, Israel was already seen as superior, and yet they all went to war again six years later because it turns out people really, really, really hate Israel in the Middle East, right? | ||
| And so, you know, you have to think about the fact that I think you're really, really underselling the probability of war in a region that's seen a ton of wars like this historically, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
A ton of them. | |
| 48, 67, 73. | ||
| What's the difference in 73? | ||
| Unconditionally United States backing of Israel combined with no other meaningful, like, I mean, I guess Russia was still around, but like it was clear after 73 Egypt realigned with the United States, and so, and then it was, okay, well the United States backs Israel, we can't meaningfully attack it, and now Russia's gone, so there's no other superpower. | ||
| So you basically, the whole point of Why is the status quo at work? | ||
| Why is military aid a good idea? | ||
| Because the big reason is both the qualitative military aids, but the symbolism, the fact that we are the ones, we are the big world superpower. | ||
| We have the ability to say, look, Israel is going to be the most powerful country, and if y'all invade it, we're going to screw with you. | ||
| But we're going to restrain Israel through diplomatic measures. | ||
| And that creates, at least in terms of Westphalian nation-state warfare, creates a stable balance of power in the region. | ||
| That's worth $4 billion a year. | ||
| Right? | ||
| That just is. | ||
| Like, it's not in the United States' interest to have a major Middle Eastern war. | ||
| And I think that you're, I mean, you're just underselling, you know, I'm not saying like, if we do this, it will happen. | ||
| It's not 100% probability. | ||
| But say you increase the probability of a major Middle Eastern war by 5%, 10%. | ||
| That's a catastrophic event, right? | ||
| This is like, I do have it. | ||
| I mean, it's very simple. | ||
| I do have it. | ||
| I mean, it's it's very simple. | ||
| I mean, if anybody you bring up sort of these analogies, you bring up like we're talking about military aid. | ||
| We're talking about foreign direct assistance. | ||
| We're not talking about weapons sales. | ||
| Sales does not count as aid. | ||
| We're not talking about intelligence sharing. | ||
| We're not talking about the security guarantee. | ||
| Security guarantee means if Israel is attacked, we go to war. | ||
| That is not a part of military aid. | ||
| Uncontested diplomatic support in the United Nations. | ||
| More than half of all combined vetoes in the United Nations during the Cold War were the United States vetoing anti-Israel resolutions. | ||
| And you look at, you know, if you take for example another country like Ukraine. | ||
| Ukraine does not even come close to the military aid we give to Israel, and yet it's the security guarantee. | ||
| It's basically the understated assumption that if Russia were to attack or invade in a significant way, and people can argue that there are the Little green men in Crimea in eastern Ukraine the reason that Russia has not invaded the Baltics the reason that Russia is not invaded Scandinavia or Ukraine or the Balkans. | ||
| It's got nothing to do with aid. | ||
| It's got nothing to do with the symbolism that aid provides or the supposed qualitative military advantage that comes with giving people weapons. | ||
| It's the security guarantee. | ||
| It's that if they attacked Estonia, NATO would go to war with Russia. | ||
| And so when you look at Israel, this war of all against all, it's a hard sell, and I think it'd be a hard sell to any reasonable, rational person that a security guarantee alone plus a nuclear deterrent plus the strongest conventional military in the world is not enough of a deterrence, rational person that a security guarantee alone plus a nuclear deterrent plus the strongest conventional military in the world is not enough of a deterrence, but It's not a sell. | ||
| It's not a strategically correct argument. | ||
| I mean, again, look no further. | ||
| You say, well, we've got to look five or ten years out. | ||
| Assad does not have control of his country. | ||
| The Prime Minister of Iraq does not have control of their country. | ||
| Egypt just recently gained control of their country, and they have peace agreements. | ||
| You are talking about a contingency in which Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan go back on 50 years of, or rather 40. | ||
| No, yeah, it'd be about 40 years of precedent and peace agreements. | ||
| So three separate sovereign nations go against their peace agreements. | ||
| Syria somehow becomes a hegemonic power or some kind of a regional threat. | ||
| Lebanon is like destroyed. | ||
| I mean, they were crushed in 2006 and in the 1980s. | ||
| And you would also have to argue on top of all of that, the only way they could stand a chance is if Iran intervened. | ||
| And you'd have to Contest that not only do three countries go against their word and also Syria and and all these other countries Develop some kind of conventional advantage and overcome the nuclear deterrent, but then on top of that Iran Overcomes their status as a pariah state overcome the Persian Arab differences the Shia Sunni differences their current antagonisms with the Gulf States and with Saudi Arabia and like oh and then Pakistan I mean this is just | ||
| Like, sure, the United States and China are likely to go to war in the next 50 years. | ||
| But that doesn't mean it's going to happen. | ||
| There's no reasonable way you can point to me that the Middle East thing is more likely than a great power conflict with China or with Russia. | ||
| I mean, and especially not that it would happen over the destruction, or not the destruction, the revocation of $4 billion in aid. | ||
| It's just silly. | ||
| You're making a lot out of $4 billion that is important in the grand scheme of things, but not for this war of all against all. | ||
| So, three points, just to respond to the fact quickly, because we're getting close to an hour. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| I think so. | ||
| So, first, on the security guarantee, security guarantees are in the eye of the beholder regardless of whether or not the United States officially has a continued security guarantee. | ||
| The radical change of perception that results from launching the biggest military aid program last year and then cutting it in the eyes of the Arab countries is very different. | ||
| Second, where the fuck was my second article? | ||
|
unidentified
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I learned my language. | |
| I stopped floating. | ||
| You were making the point, oh, China, the Great Power War, and the War of All Against All in the sense that a variety of countries would have to participate. | ||
| My scenario does not rely on every single country in the Middle East joining in, right? | ||
| So you probably have a deep-sea scenario about one or two of those countries. | ||
| But that doesn't mean there's not going to be a serious war. | ||
| That doesn't mean there aren't countries where thousands are going to die. | ||
| And that's still something that's not in American interest, regardless of whether specific countries stay out of it because of their particular situations. | ||
| It doesn't change anything. | ||
| And again, it's not just tomorrow. | ||
| It's over the next 10 years, right? | ||
| This is changing. | ||
| You say it's less likely that a great power war between the United States and China. | ||
| I think that's preposterous. | ||
| I think that mutually assured destruction and, like, the lack of actual conflict between the United States and China historically, and sophisticated diplomats without the intense ethnic hatred that exists within the Middle East. | ||
| I think a Middle Eastern conflict is far more likely, especially given the history of these conflicts. | ||
| So I think, on all three of them, I just, again, I think you're underselling it. | ||
| And, again, to the point, like, You don't have a positive articulated benefit to people that results from cutting aid. | ||
| You just don't. | ||
| And if you're looking at a risk like this of starting some sort of Middle Eastern war, even if you're like, well, this country wouldn't participate, it's just not worth it. | ||
| Like it's five, $4 billion is 0.1% of the federal budget. | ||
| It's trivial. | ||
| Our deficits, what, $700 billion a year, $800 billion a year? | ||
| It's trivial. | ||
| It's well worth it to maintain Or the regional border. | ||
| And especially when there are these other things. | ||
| The forward operating base, the intelligence cooperation, and the fact that money has to be spent here in America. | ||
| It's worth it. | ||
| It's just worth it to spend that money. | ||
| Okay, well, we are coming up on the hour mark, so we can move towards closing statements. | ||
| Pretty informal, doesn't have to be rigorous here, but if you want to go last, that probably makes sense, because I started, right? | ||
| I think you should go last. | ||
| I think you are affirmative, so normally affirmative gets to go last. | ||
| I'll let you have the last word. | ||
| Alright. | ||
|
unidentified
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Although, kind of, I'm going to stick to pay pass. | |
| I haven't really been saying that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| Well, then by all means, go ahead. | ||
| You can do your closing, and we'll call it a night after me. | ||
| I mean, again, the core thesis here is that risking a major Middle Eastern war and jeopardizing all of these benefits that Israel provides us is worth $4 billion a year. | ||
| And throughout an hour, Nick has been challenged to provide a positive benefit that would result from cutting aid, that would, a tangible change in the lives of American citizens that would result in he's been unable to do so. | ||
| And the failure to do so indicates why this is not, this is actually a very easy decision, why it's an easy victory for me. | ||
| Like, there's a serious risk of war if you change the regional power structure There's a risk of losing, and then there's other risks that are involved in losing intelligence cooperation and losing the ability to easily conduct operations with drones in Israel. | ||
| So even in a world where you had no love for Israel, even in a world where you adhere to kind of the sort of like right ideology about Israel, you would still come to the conclusion that it's good for American citizens to give $4 billion in aid to Israel just because of the nature of the regional balance of power. | ||
| So that's what I got for you. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, that was a good closing statement. | ||
| I will follow up with mine. | ||
| You know, Will has tried to demonstrate, I think because of the weakness of his argument throughout, that I've been losing, that there's no justifiable case. | ||
| And he can say that, but for everybody that's been listening and paying attention, I've made clear the case for revoking Israeli aid. | ||
| Israel has proved to be a rogue state, whether it was the Levant Affair in 1954, When Israeli operatives in Cairo conspired to blow up American civilian hotspots to trigger a war between the United States and Egypt, whether it was them stealing our nuclear secrets throughout the 1960s, evading our nuclear inspectors under both Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, not signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty, | ||
| Whether it was their sale of American military technology to China throughout the 80s in 1993 and in this decade. | ||
| Whether it's the fact that they conduct the most aggressive spying operation on American soil behind only Russia and China, the most aggressive. | ||
| You can look into the Pollard case where they steal thousands and thousands and thousands of documents of our secrets. | ||
| Where they convinced us to go to war in Iraq. | ||
| And in Afghanistan, and where they're currently trying to convince us to go to war in Syria and Iran and other places for their interests and not ours. | ||
| I would say that we have been rewarding a bad state. | ||
| We have been rewarding a country that thwarts our interests at every turn. | ||
| And I would encourage everybody to look into, of course, the late, great USS Liberty to see truly what is going on here. | ||
| Thank you, Will. | ||
| Thank you for coming on. | ||
| You were a good sport. | ||
| It stayed to the issues. | ||
| It stayed substantive. | ||
| So I appreciate you coming on. | ||
| Thanks for taking the time. | ||
|
unidentified
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You're welcome. | |
| Thanks for having me on. | ||
| All right, man. | ||
| Well, I'm going to hang up on you and then I'll do my usual spiel for the show. | ||
| But we'll talk later, I guess. | ||
| Or maybe not. | ||
| But thanks for coming on. | ||
| Yeah, see ya. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, there you have it. | ||
| It was fun. | ||
| It was a fun debate. | ||
| Let me get rid of that so he doesn't look. | ||
| Let me get rid of that there. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| It was fun. | ||
| I thought it was a fun debate. | ||
| Fun, informative, substantive. | ||
| And hopefully we can do more things like this in the future. | ||
| Thanks to everybody for promoting it. | ||
| Thanks to Lauren Southern. | ||
| She was the only one who I saw retweeted it. | ||
| There were probably much more, but Will just told me she RT'd it, so thanks to her. | ||
| Thanks to everyone else that RT'd. | ||
| Thanks to Cernovich for broadcasting it on his Facebook. | ||
| Thanks to Will for coming on, being a good sport. | ||
| It was fun, right? | ||
| It was fun, informative, and most importantly, thank you, the audience, for tuning in, for giving us patronage, With your eyeballs and for those in the super chat who donated, thank you guys for supporting the good fight. | ||
| You know, at the end of the day, I think it's important on the right wing that so long as we have been fighting, it might as well be productive. | ||
| It might as well be constructive. | ||
| So I'm glad we were able to come together and hash it out, citing facts and data and everything else. | ||
| So it was a fun night. | ||
| But that's our show. | ||
| If you have any questions, comments, concerns, remember for tomorrow, I think we'll take these, um, hmm, maybe we'll do a special hashtag. | ||
| I don't know, but remember if you hashtag AmericaFQ on Twitter, you can ask questions about this debate that will be answered tomorrow on the program, on the show. | ||
| Remember you can follow me on Twitter at NickJFuentes, you can follow me on Facebook.com slash NickJFuentes, follow me on Periscope at NickJFuentes, and you'll find all my content at NicholasJFuentes.com. | ||
| We're on the air Monday through Friday at 8 p.m. | ||
| Eastern, 7 p.m. | ||
| Central Time, and of course, as always, you can catch James Alsup's America First Overdrive Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9 p.m. | ||
| Eastern, 8 p.m. | ||
| Central Standard Time on this channel. | ||
| My name is Nicholas J. Fuentes. | ||
| This was America First. | ||
| Thank you everybody for watching, and we will see you tomorrow. | ||
| Have a great rest of your evening. | ||
| Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo! | ||
|
unidentified
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It's going to be only America first. | |
| America first. |
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