Dave Smith critiques Gad Saad's JRE interview, rejecting his dismissal of AIPAC influence and "suicidal empathy" while correcting historical errors regarding the 1953 Mosaddegh coup. Smith argues that attributing ISIS to Barry White music ignores direct agency, contrasting trivial causes with Obama's arming of extremists. He refutes claims of Gaza's prior peace by citing continuous Israeli operations like Cast Lead and Protective Edge, concluding that Saad's predetermined conclusions ignore ongoing occupation realities and the asymmetry of platforming genocide defenders over critics. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Empathy in a Suicidal Debate00:09:41
What's up?
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I am Dave Smith, riding solo for this episode.
Before we get started, a couple of quick plugs.
I should let you guys know because I'm on the road for the rest of the year.
The next stop is June 5th, one night only.
I'll be at the Parkdale Hall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which I've not been to Toronto in many years, but I always love doing comedy there.
So, really looking forward to getting back there.
And then Denver, Colorado, Houston, Texas, Huntsville, Alabama, Nashville, Tennessee, Cincinnati, Ohio, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Appleton, Wisconsin, Austin, Texas, back at the mothership, Louisville, Kentucky, Fort Worth, Texas, Dallas, Texas, Salt Lake City, San Diego, California.
Bunch of stops, comicdavesmith.com for all the tickets to come see me and Robbie the Fire do some stand up comedy.
All right.
So for today's show, I wanted to give my thoughts on.
Podcast that came out yesterday.
Of course, talking about the greatest podcast in the world, the Joe Rogan Experience.
And Joe had on Gad Sad.
And I just want to start.
I thought this was a fascinating episode.
Really, really interesting.
And it's kind of lit the internet on fire.
But that's typical.
Almost every Joe Rogan Experience episode does that.
But so we're going to play some clips from this.
I'll kind of give you my thoughts on it.
There's too much here for me to do an episode on.
I don't even know if we'll get through the clips that I had.
I'd sent Natalie a bunch of timestamps.
It's just, you know, it's a two and a half hour episode.
And it, I don't know, it takes a lot of time to respond to all this stuff, but I'll go through what I can.
I just wanted to kind of say this.
First of all, I try my best here to like, I don't know, to be as generous as I can be.
So I will start by saying now, me and Gad have had some, you know, not friendly back and forths.
He's just kind of does this thing.
He mockingly posts about me a lot.
And it's always the same thing.
It's always just like, oh, let's hear what Professor Dave Smith, geopolitical expert, has to say on the subject.
So it's always kind of this like, just kind of mocking me.
Like, who the hell is this guy to even be credentialized to be in the conversation?
Which, as I've always said, fair point.
You know, like, all right, fair enough.
But there's something interesting when he does that.
And of course, I've taken shots back at him.
I believe on the last time I was on Joe Rogan, I did.
You know, I said, that was being a little tongue in cheek, but I said, he doesn't like me because I'm a critic of Israel and he's a Mossad agent.
And, you know, I was kind of joking around, but he did used to work for Mossad.
He's been open about that.
So, anyway, I tried, I really did try this.
Okay.
In this episode, so Gad had posted on Twitter, it was great being back on the Joe Rogan experience.
It got a little contentious, but I'm glad that we did it.
And so I was immediately like, oh, that's really interesting.
And he had posted this before it came out.
So I was very excited.
So, Watched the show.
I watched the entire thing.
And I really tried, you know, take me at my word, but I swear to God, I really went, I'm going to do, I'm going to work as hard as I can to just keep an open mind.
Let me listen to what this guy has to say.
You know, like when he does that thing where he goes, Oh, where's Professor Geopolitical Expert Comic Dave Smith?
What are his thoughts on this?
Obviously, it's a technique.
What he's doing is trying to get people to dismiss me rather than listening to the arguments.
And it's also a technique to kind of like try to get in my head.
Um, and look, I'll be completely honest with it about it.
It works a little.
And, like, on some level, I do sit there and I go, All right.
I mean, look, dude, no question.
Gad said he's a really, really smart guy.
He's very well educated.
He's written several books.
He's, you know what I mean?
Like, okay, so let me try my best here.
Like, teach me something, Gad.
Let me listen.
And I'll try my best here to be as kind as I can be.
I give Gad said a lot of credit for coming on Rogan.
I think this is the type of thing we kind of need.
We need people from different perspectives to be able to have.
Conversations and I give Gad said a lot of credit.
I really mean this a lot of credit for the tone of the interview.
He was friendly, he wasn't bad faith, he wasn't trying to like smear Joe.
He wasn't like he was having the conversation with him, and I give him a lot of credit for that.
Um, obviously, he's selling a book, and the Joe Rogan experience is the biggest show in the world, so of course, everyone wants to go on the show, but still, whatever.
I give him credit for that.
Also.
Just for no reason, I'll just say this part out loud.
I think the term suicidal empathy is a great term.
I think it's very useful.
It's very useful in describing a particular thing.
And I think Gad applies it to something else that doesn't make sense at all.
But, like, I mean, I've over the years talked about this dynamic on the show many times.
There was one example, I can't remember the details of this, but it was right around the time.
If you remember, there was that guy on the New York City subway, there was like a crazy homeless guy.
Who was threatening people, and then he tackled him and chokes him out.
The guy ends up dying, and then the guy's charged with murder.
And this kind of kicked off the whole conversation.
And there was this one woman, I can't remember who, but she told this story.
It's like a reporter lady.
And she told this story about when she was assaulted on a New York City bus, but that she didn't call the cops because she just had so much empathy for what this guy must be going through and this crazy person.
I'm like, okay, what a better term than suicidal empathy for something like that?
Biden border policy and the kind of left wing idea of just like, oh, but like, think about all these migrants and how hard their life is.
It's like, yeah, but if they're going to overwhelm your country, you can't have empathy to the point that you kill yourself.
I talked about this a lot last time I was in San Diego.
As I just mentioned, I'll be back there later in the year.
It's this beautiful city.
It's just gorgeous and great restaurants and great culture.
The American Comedy Club is a great club, one of my favorite clubs in the country.
And then there's just like entire blocks taken over by homeless people.
I also think suicidal empathy is a good term, a very useful term for things like that.
It's like, what do you do?
I understand having empathy, but empathy to the point that you destroy your own civilization, that seems problematic because if you die, you won't be around to have empathy anymore.
So even if you value empathy, you don't want to have suicidal empathy.
So anyway, I agree with him on that.
And I agreed with him when he said empathy is a good thing to have, just, you know, not a suicidal amount of it.
Okay.
That's as nice as I could be.
Okay.
So now I'm just, there's no other way to get to it.
I sit here.
It reminded me very much of when I debated Dennis Prager.
When I debated Dennis Prager, it was, you know, it wasn't the first debate on Israel I had done.
No, I debated Laura Loomer.
I think I had some other ones before then.
But there was something about debating Dennis Prager where, you know, look, if I'm a political junkie, I'm obsessed with this stuff.
I've literally been, Dennis Prager has been on TV since I was born.
I was watching Dennis Prager on Bill Maher's show when I was like 15 or something like that.
Maybe a little older, maybe 16, 17.
And there was a feeling when I went into that debate, and it was a high profile debate.
And I was like, yo, I'm debating a guy.
Like, I'm everything Gad says about me.
That's what I'm saying about myself.
I'm some comedian who reads books.
I have no credentials to even be in this conversation.
And I'm going up against a guy on his number one issue who's been doing this my entire life, has decades on me, has written books on this, has been a radio show host, a TV show host, like all these things.
And I was like, yo, I better really be on point.
And so, you know, like I was saying, I was like nervous, but I went in definitely being like, all right, I got to really have my stuff down.
And I very, you know, obsessively prepared for that debate.
And then we go and we sit down, and he gives his opening statement first.
So I'm there with that energy, nerves, or whatever.
He gives his opening statement.
And the second he gave his opening statement, the second it started, like a sentence into it, I just had this unbelievable sigh of relief because it just dawned.
I was like, oh, he has nothing.
He has absolutely nothing.
That was this episode.
I really sat there.
I went, let me approach this with an open mind.
Let me listen.
Like, teach me something, Gad.
What do you got here?
And I just couldn't believe it.
You're sitting there watching.
I couldn't believe he's making some of the arguments he's making.
He has nothing, nothing.
And I mean, listen, I thought Joe did a great job, you know, being also being fair and being kind, but really kind of carving up his arguments.
And I don't know.
I mean, I left it.
I texted Joe about this.
I go, dude, can I get together?
I want to have dinner with Gat.
Forget a debate.
Forget a discussion.
Doesn't even have to be public.
Like, can we talk?
Because he seems like a good enough dude.
Like, I'm like that guy.
I can fix her.
You know, I can change him.
Defending Nuclear War Choices00:15:46
Anyway, the internet is just eviscerating him.
I go, I was very curious to look.
I looked through the comments section on Spotify and YouTube.
Holy hell, is he just getting torn up?
And I think rightfully so.
Anyway, Let's get into it.
I got a few clips here.
Let's start playing some.
Let's get into the first clip here, Natalie.
PAC famously promotes and supports a tremendous amount of politicians in the United States.
That's the big fear, is that there's an inordinate amount of influence that Israel has over foreign policy, our decisions, and even our political structure in the country.
Right.
Several ways to tackle this.
Say the Iran war, take Israel out of it.
Do you think that there are multiple countries that would share in the recognition that probably an Iranian regime that has an eschatology that basically says the end of times requires that there is sort of death to everybody before the final Imam comes back?
Would it be a good idea for the Brits?
Or the Romanians, or the French, or some of the other Gulf countries, would they be happy if Iran had a nuclear weapon?
So, to frame the issue of the US is attacking or is involved in the attack on the Iranians as, you know, the United States doesn't have personal agency.
They're all wood crickets that are being puppeteered by this incredibly powerful lobby called Israel.
That simply doesn't pass the smell test.
Of course, Just pause it.
Pause it right there.
Shared interests with the United States.
Okay, so this doesn't pass the smell test.
Like, they all have to do the same.
First off, no one is denying the U.S. has agency.
For every Israel supporter who makes this argument, and I'm not saying no one, I guess, literally, because every stupid argument has been made on Twitter.
I'm telling you, me, Dave Smith, someone who lives in this world, I've never once ever heard anyone make the argument.
I don't know who they're talking about.
Every time they respond, oh, you're denying the US has agency?
No.
I mean, this will come up again later.
Nobody's saying that.
Obviously, all people have agency.
Okay.
Or all people with like an IQ above 80 or something like that, all adults who aren't mentally impaired have agency.
Okay, so Gad says here Joe Rogan brings up AIPAC, brings up the fact that the Israel lobby has a lot of influence over our politicians.
And Gad says, oh, that framing doesn't pass the smell test.
And instead, his framing is wouldn't a lot of people, wouldn't a lot of nations like it if Iran didn't have a nuclear weapon?
Well, yeah.
But what kind of standard is that?
Hey, Gad, a whole lot of nations in the world would like it if the US didn't have nuclear weapons.
A whole lot of nations would like it if Israel didn't have nuclear weapons, their secret nuclear weapon program.
That has nothing to do with whether we should launch a war of aggression against Israel or someone should launch a war of aggression against the United States of America.
This is just an absurd, like, distraction, essentially.
Yeah, we launched a war of aggression against Iran, a joint military effort with Israel.
The Israeli lobby has been pushing for this war for decades.
The longest serving prime minister in Israeli history, the current prime minister, said after the launch of the war that this is a culmination of my life's work.
So, yeah, we're going to talk about that.
And then he goes, No, no, no, leave Israel at it, leaving Israel aside for the better.
It's like, No, I don't think we're going to do that, actually.
Leaving Israel aside, but don't all these other countries not want Iran to have nukes?
That is just completely irrelevant.
Hey, guess what?
I don't want Iran to have nukes.
What does that have to do with anything?
Okay, let's keep playing.
Where they both agree that probably an Iranian regime that has nuclear weapons would not be a good thing for world peace.
And so, because these two countries have maybe greater testicular fortitude.
Than the NATO countries, it seems as though the Israelis are puppeteering the Americans.
But do you really think that Donald Trump is sitting and saying, you know, had I not been such a weak guy with no personal agency, I wouldn't have fallen sway to the incredibly influential Zionist lobby?
Well, it's not just incredible.
Let's pause it right there.
It's the amount of financial support.
No, I don't think Donald Trump is saying that.
I think he's doing that.
I don't think he's saying that.
In the same way, I don't think Gad Sad is saying, I'm going on Joe Rogan's podcast right now to defend genocide.
I don't think he's saying that, but that's exactly what he's doing.
Right?
So, like, what is the question?
He's saying that all the European countries didn't have the testicular fortitude.
Translation, they thought this war would be the catastrophe that it is, and they didn't want to launch it.
The Israel did want us to launch it because they can't do it on their own.
So that's that.
This is a ridiculous defense of a war.
Like, to even approach it this way.
I'm sorry, man.
Like, Gad can sit here and say about me, like, well, Dave is just a comedian and I have all of these degrees.
Be that as it may, this argument is ridiculous, dude.
It's not even an argument.
This non argument is ridiculous.
So, because, like, we know for a fact that Donald Trump openly says that the Adelsons who gave me hundreds of millions of dollars love Israel more than they love America and they want me to do all these things for Israel and I do every one of them.
The New York Times reported.
On how Benjamin Netanyahu was the factor that pushed Donald Trump over the edge into this war.
This is no secret.
And the fact that all of the European countries warned against it and would not participate in it is a point in our column, not yours.
All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Outskill.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
There's this.
I actually kind of meant to say this at the beginning of the show, but I also would just point out as we go through this, there's something to kind of keep in mind here there's a real asymmetry between the two sides here.
And one of the things that you might notice when I say the two sides, I know that that's a little bit of a clunky term because there's different factions and different individuals, but broadly speaking, the people kind of on the like pro Israel side versus the critical of Israel side, you might notice that you will not hear a single one of us.
Angry that Joe Rogan platformed Gad Sad.
Just think about that for a second.
No article will be written.
No one will complain.
The next time I go on Rogan's show, or the next time Daryl, or the next time Tucker goes on, assuming any of us go back on the show, which I'm sure we will.
But the next time we go on, you notice it won't start with 45 minutes of us, you know, woke scolding, trying to take him through a struggle session about how he's had too many pro Israel people on or this.
Just notice this because we're not a bunch of woke leftists.
So none of us do that.
None of us do that.
Even though, think about the asymmetry here.
Even though when we go on Joe Rogan's show, we're essentially saying, hey, let's not launch another disastrous war.
And Gad is quite literally, as he's doing in this episode, defending, excusing away, and supporting a genocide.
That's actually what they're doing.
Like the way they pretend, they have to pretend.
That Daryl was doing that on Rogan's show, even though he never said that at all or anything like that.
But, like, no one on our side is going on and going, dude, the Nazis really weren't that bad.
They really didn't kill that many people.
Now, I know there was this horrible thing where millions of people died, but like, whatever, what are you going to do?
We're not doing that.
They are, and yet they complain about us being platformed and not the reverse.
Anyway, I just thought that's worth pointing out.
Let's go to this next clip.
This war is very, very staunchly steeped in sort of a libertarian slash deontological isolationist perspective.
Now, in many cases, I would completely agree with that position in that it's not the Americans'.
Position to have to go and be the policeman of everywhere in the world.
But let's contrast it, say, with when World War II was about to happen, the appeasement strategy of Chamberlain, right?
This guy with the little mustache says, Don't worry about it.
I absolutely have no design to do anything bad.
You swear, Adolf, it's all good.
Yeah, yeah, don't worry.
Promise you really don't.
Even though you're moving all of your stuff, you're a good guy, right?
I can trust you.
Yeah, of course you can.
So appeasement only works if the other person is someone that can be fully trustworthy.
It is almost impossible that it is Jesus.
Oh my God.
All right.
So, yeah, I wouldn't characterize the opposition to Israel as libertarian in nature.
I wish.
There are some of us, but I don't think that's for the most part true.
I don't think that all of the democratic socialists who want universal health care and free buses and free housing and free education and free.
All of a sudden, become like libertarian on foreign policy.
I don't think that's true at all.
But anyway, leaving that aside, going back to the world, it is just so lazy.
It's all these guys who, like, they talk such a big game about what intellectuals they are.
And all they have is like bumper stickers.
Like, even the way he characterizes Neville Chamberlain, it's all like ahistorical nonsense.
Like, look, say what you will about Neville Chamberlain.
He gets absolutely destroyed because he made an agreement with Adolf Hitler.
Now, it's not that he was like, oh, I trust Adolf Hitler.
I think he's such a good guy.
We're coming off a World War I.
He was trying to avoid another catastrophe, the likes of which are impossible for us to even wrap our head around.
People dying by the tens of millions.
He was trying to avoid that.
Okay.
And then Adolf Hitler humiliated him in front of the world to his own demise.
You know, like humiliated the most powerful guy who was trying to avoid another world war and it got his entire nation and himself destroyed.
Anyway, that being said, to extrapolate from that that you can only have appeasement if someone else is 100% trustworthy, like that is just a recipe for forever permanent war.
But like, what?
This is the lesson.
Look at World War II, and therefore, we know from that that you can only have appeasement if somebody's trustworthy.
And then, of course, what does appeasement even mean?
Not launching a war, not launching a war of aggression on them.
By that definition, we are appeasing everyone we're not at war with right now, right?
We're not going to war with them.
Is everyone trustworthy?
Are you telling me that the Chinese and the Russians and the North Koreans and the insert country there are they all 100% trustworthy?
I mean, we're appeasing them.
We're not going to war with them.
And that can't work because of World War II.
So, tell me right now, are you advocating we go to war with Russia?
Right now.
Okay.
Russia's done a lot of really bad things.
In fact, they have nuclear weapons, they got a whole lot of them.
And yeah, it risks the end of humanity.
I mean, if we go to war, probably we destroy the whole world.
But what's the alternative?
Gad Sad?
Appeasement?
Are you suggesting that Vladimir Putin is trustworthy?
Just think about the logic of this.
It's ridiculous.
No, you don't launch wars of aggression.
And you don't.
And now, have you gotten to the point where the standard for launching a war is not even has the country attacked you?
It's not whether this is a war of aggression or a war of necessity, whether it's a war of choice or a war of necessity.
It's not a constitutional process where the people through their electorate.
You've got, they're not trustworthy.
That's the standard.
That's the standard to launch a war now.
Okay.
Every single government is not trustworthy.
Our government is not trustworthy.
Donald Trump lies every single day about this war.
Donald Trump attacked Iran in the middle of negotiations twice.
But they are not trustworthy and they may have nukes someday, and lots of people don't think they should.
That's what we get.
Let's continue playing from where we were here.
Iranian regime in its current form could ever cause great damage to everybody, not only Israel, right?
I mean, the Gulf countries are not exactly putting up barriers against this war because they are also the enemies of the Iranians.
So it's undoubtedly.
Hold on, put a pause for a second.
Does Gad not read the news?
The Gulf countries haven't put up any barriers against this war.
Saudi Arabia just put a stop to Operation Freedom.
Okay, Project Freedom, whatever they were calling it.
They just put a stop to it.
Also, these countries have been hammered by this war.
Iranian Regime Responsibility00:14:41
So, whether how many of them were on board or not on board is a little bit unclear.
There's been some contradictory reporting on that, but it's been a disaster for them, whether they thought it would be or not.
And yes, of course, Iran has regional rivals who wouldn't mind seeing that country taken out.
This is also true for every single nation on earth, but that isn't really what matters.
Yeah, let's keep playing.
The Israelis in their ear pushing for their self interest.
But that's also called the reality of every nation on earth.
Every entity fights for its own interests.
But that doesn't mean that the Americans are so lacking in personal agency, are so gullible, are so easy to puppeteer that there must be this Zionist lobby that otherwise is pushing us into an unnecessary war.
Maybe another three years, maybe another five years, maybe another 10 years.
It would have resulted in a disaster.
So, if you are a universalist and you want the Iranian people to maximally flourish, forget about Israel.
Don't even mention the word Israel.
Do you not want these 90 million people called Iranians who have a deeply rich historical heritage to flourish?
I've had many graduate students who are Iranians in my classes and so on.
They're some of the most modern, secular, outward looking Westerners that have been choked for 47 years.
By a really nasty regime, so maybe we could celebrate that if all this goes well, 90 million people are going to be freed.
And I could say that statement without ever invoking Israel.
What do you think?
Okay, just pause it right there.
I mean, dude, what is that?
Like, are you listening to this, guys?
Like, what is this?
Is this what they've got, you know?
I do, um, because I have my own, you know, imposter syndrome or whatever, and I do sometimes like, you know, I'm out on so many public shows saying, hey, this is the way it is, and I do wonder sometimes, like, man, I better be getting this.
Right.
Cause yeah.
And then I sit down with an open mind, like, give me something, Gad.
What do you got?
Teach me something.
Give me something that's going to be like, ooh, man, he did poke a chink in the armor there.
Man, I got to go back and think about that.
But then I hear it, and like, this is what they have.
Iran maybe would have done something someday to somebody, and then it could have been bad.
Pretend there isn't an Israel lobby, but there is.
And they've openly been pushing toward this war.
Like, Israel exists, the Israeli lobby exists.
Now you can say, hey, Lots of entities exist and lots of entities have their self interest and lots of entities want to get things done.
Like, okay, but this one is.
And if there was a Chinese lobby that had gotten us to go attack South Korea, then that's what we'd be talking about.
But it didn't.
And so we're doing it this way.
But there are these things.
It's like the thing that's shocking here to me the most one is how vapid this is, like just how void of substance this is.
But then also just how philosophically confused GAD is.
Like, It does not imply that Donald Trump doesn't have agency to say that Israel also has agency and this is how they're using it.
Like, just for example, like philosophical theoreticals here, okay?
If there is a crazy guy and he's telling me, he goes, I'm going to go murder these five people over here, I'm going to fucking kill these guys.
And I go, okay, here is a loaded gun.
And I hand it to him and he takes it and he goes and kills all those people.
Holding me responsible for my actions in no way implies that that guy didn't also have agency.
He had agency.
I also had agency.
I also played a role in this by giving a loaded firearm to someone who had openly stated they were going to use it to kill people.
What are we talking about here?
Nobody is suggesting Donald Trump doesn't have agency.
That's not a thing.
Secondly, there is absolutely no contradiction between having universal goals, wanting The Iranian people to be free and flourish, and also not wanting to launch a war.
These things are not contradictory.
I wish all 92 million people in Iran freedom, liberty, prosperity, all of that stuff.
That's also true for all of the world, right?
We'd all like that.
We don't want kids to die and starve to death and suffer.
We want them to live well.
It doesn't then follow that, therefore, we should launch a war of aggression against the entire world, which, by the way, is not free or prosperous or thriving.
That is going on all over the place.
Entire continents are not doing great.
You know, like Africa isn't doing great.
It doesn't mean we launch a war against the entire continent of Africa.
And there's no contradiction between that and wishing that, like, it also would be really awesome if Africa turned around and everybody was rich and free.
That'd be great.
But then also, you've, I mean, literally, like, you've built a case for war that is, if you really take it down, someday, somewhere, somehow, Maybe five years from now, maybe 10 years from now, maybe 15 years from now, Iran could do something really bad.
And so we got to launch a war because also at some point, if this all works out, the Iranian people could be doing really good.
I mean, come on, dude.
What are these kindergartners launching wars?
Like, who even publicly would speak this way?
I mean, it totally also ignores the fact that every single estimate says this regime is not going to fall.
There is no Iranian liberty on the horizon as a result of this war.
And all there has been so far is death and destruction for those people who you claim to care about.
Like, I don't, yeah, the Iranians are cool.
Great.
I'm glad you observed that.
I'm glad you noticed.
Oh, yeah, there are cool Iranians.
I had some students who were Iranian.
They're cool.
Those 168 little girls, maybe all could have grown up to be cool people.
Now they can't.
Like, I don't know.
I mean, it's like this stuff just gets me angry because it's like, dude, you're talking about murdering real human beings and you're going off this abstract bullshit that's like contradictory.
It doesn't even make sense.
What are we talking about here, dude?
Every war ever is justified by Gad's.
Theory.
They could have done something bad one day and it could have maybe worked out good for the people.
And so, therefore, you got to do it.
Let's just not talk about Israel.
All right, here, let's keep playing on this section for a little bit more.
I feel like there was something else good in here.
The reason why they're in the situation they're in in the first place is because the United States.
It's because the United States and the British Petroleum Company were trying to nationalize oil.
That's what happened in the first place.
I mean, the Islamic Revolution.
Yes.
This is how it started in the first place.
They realized that the British Petroleum Company was making a ton of money and they wanted to nationalize oil, and we got rid of them and they installed this Islamic regime.
And look, there's a lot of consequences for that down the road.
Obviously, the worst side of it was what happened to the Iranian people.
When you look at the photos and the videos of Tehran from like the 1950s and 1960s, I mean, my God, it looks like a Western society.
Women wearing skirts and Everyone looks very modern and Western.
And then it became this fundamentalist religious country that it is right now, this Islamic country that it is right now.
They're under a regime that murders protesters.
They famously murdered some high level wrestlers.
There was an Olympic gold medalist in the United States.
The UFC tried to get involved and try to keep him from getting murdered.
Yeah, they do horrible things.
There's no doubt about it.
It's a terrible regime.
But there's a really good argument that that terrible regime is in place because of the CIA and because the United States government, because the British Petroleum Company, because we intervened.
And we've done that in the past.
We did that with Libya, right?
This is the reason why Muammar Gaddafi was out.
You know, we had Russell Crowe, who's a brilliant guy on the podcast, was explaining the history of Libya and how great it was for Libyan people when Muammar Gaddafi was in power.
That if anybody wanted to get an education anywhere, they had.
Some certain skills or talent in some certain area, they would fully pay for their education overseas.
They gave everyone a house.
Everyone who lived there had a home.
I mean, people were educated.
And he was trying to set up something akin to the United States, but the United States of Africa.
And they were like, we can't have any of that.
And so they got rid of him, and Libya became a failed state.
Like we have monkeyed in other countries for our own interest for a long time, with horrible consequences for the people in those countries.
And I think Iran is an excellent example of that.
So, how much of the Islamic regime coming into power in 1975, if you have 100 points to allocate to either it's the US that causes it versus there's an Islamic regime with its theology that is really nasty?
All right, here, pause it here for a second.
I don't mean to pick on Gad for, you know, I'm sure I misspeak and, you know, I know I say things wrong sometimes, but like, It was in 1979, dude.
Like, you're the professor who's coming here to talk about this.
Is that?
I don't know, man.
It's like when we've, when Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1742.
Like, I don't know.
It's a pretty good, big date to miss.
Anyway, regardless, listen, dude, you're asking the question here.
How much responsibility do you put on the US for the Islamic regime coming into power?
A lot.
Like, I don't know.
Yes, if the CIA hadn't overthrown Mosaddegh, he would have still been in charge of that country.
You know, like you put a dictator in, years later, they revolt at the same location and take our people.
If I'm remembering this correctly, it's where they held the hostages, it was the same place where the coup was launched from.
It was clearly a counter to the installation of the Shah.
Yeah, a ton of responsibility of that goes for you.
Like, what do you want to say?
It's like, look, obviously, the people who rule Iran and have since 1979.
They're responsible for the actions that they take.
But what are we talking about here?
Dude, you got to think in 1953, okay?
The United States of America, the most powerful government that's ever existed, coming off, we are the global superpower who just won two world wars.
And we go and we decide to overthrow the government of puny little Iran.
Yeah, that's a huge deal, dude.
Like you have enormous power.
When you're the world empire.
And so, yeah, obviously, that's huge.
Short of that happening, probably none of the rest of it happens.
So, you know, that's a pretty big deal.
And then here, let's play as big, but this, like, let's assign a number to it.
Here, let's keep playing.
You know, the cause of that rehab.
That's a good question.
That's a question that would be answered by historians rather than me.
But I think there's no doubt that we played a major factor in that.
Don't you agree with that?
I mean, yes and no.
So let me explain why I say yes and no.
Okay.
When you have a complicated geopolitical system, you can always look.
You remember the old butterfly effect, right?
There's a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon, and then how that reverberates into a cyclone somewhere else, right?
It's kind of bullshit, though.
No, but I mean, the principle of.
It's great if you don't understand how the weather works.
Fair enough.
But the idea that there are causal networks is such that.
In this complicated web of causal networks, you can always find a particular entity that you can try to link back all of the causes to that entity.
But the overthrow of a foreign government and supporting an Ayatollah to take their place, it's a pretty big factor.
Yeah.
But so that's why I asked you to allocate the 100 points.
So I wouldn't be the guy to answer that.
I'm going to answer off the top of my head, please.
And it's completely speculative.
So the numbers I'm going to say are not.
Let's ascribe.
10 out of the 100 points to whatever power the U.S. wields in that region to have allowed that regime to come in.
But that regime carries the other 90 points of the 100 because they are the ones who, for the next 47 years, implement the reality that the common narration is going to be.
Pause it for a second.
Just pause it for a second.
This is, oh my God.
Oh my God.
If you notice at the beginning, he said, How much responsibility for this regime coming into power?
Now he's going to say, he goes, give it a number.
And Joe goes, yeah, I don't know.
That's for historians.
I mean, truthfully, I don't think any historians, no one can ever give you an exact number, but regardless of that, then at the end, so first it's who's most responsible for them coming into power.
Then his answer is that it's got to be 90 for them.
He pulls this number, admits, I'm just pulling a number out of my ass.
Let's just make it a low number, okay?
And then, but then he says it's got to be more on them because of all that they did after that point.
So, those are two different questions.
Okay.
The, the, um, The mullahs and the ayatollahs, the three that have ruled Iran, they're completely responsible, 100% responsible for what they do to their own people and the manner in which they rule, obviously.
Blaming Oxygen for Power00:02:33
And the U.S. is 100% responsible for overthrowing a democratically elected government in 1953.
The U.S. is 100% responsible for facilitating the sale of chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein and then funding and backing and arming him when he invaded the country of Iran and killed.
Hundreds of thousands of people and used chemical weapons against civilians.
We are 100% responsible for that.
Like Saddam Hussein is also 100% responsible for it.
What is this dividing numbers?
Everybody's got agency.
Everyone is 100% responsible for what they do.
But yes, it makes a huge difference when the global superpower puts their finger on the scale.
What are we talking about here?
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All right, let's get back into the show.
All right, let's let's let Gad continue to dig a hole.
Everything in the world can ultimately be linked back to oxygen, to the United States, to the military complex, to the Zionist lobby.
Pause it for a second here.
I want you guys to really wrap your head around the fact that he's actually making this argument.
He's actually making this argument.
Everything could be linked back to oxygen.
Everything could be linked back to your mother for having you.
So, you know, we should really give up on laws.
And I mean, like, what's the point of having a murder trial, man?
Because, like, I don't know, we could just link this back to your mom or oxygen.
Debating Iraq and ISIS Origins00:04:46
So, why hold human beings responsible for their criminal activity?
You know, the scenario I gave you a second ago?
I give a guy who just told me he's going to murder a bunch of people a loaded weapon and say, you go on your way and you do that.
Well, who's to say?
I mean, are we going to hold me responsible for giving him a loaded weapon or maybe blame the weather?
Is this really the argument we're going with here?
Need I even address this?
Like, what are we talking about here, man?
Yeah, there's a lot of factors going on in the world.
That doesn't mean we can't point to certain ones and go, this was a huge one.
This is criminal.
This is aggression.
This is murder.
All right, let's keep playing.
All of those entities are connected in a meaningful way in this causal network.
But is using Occam's razor, does it really make sense to blame, for example, people say ISIS is really due to whatever, Israel?
I mean, in some facile way, you could draw the causal link of how there was a vacuum that was created by the U.S. When they debathized Iraq, that allowed an extreme.
So, do we blame ISIS on American policy or the Zionist lobby?
Or does ISIS itself have any personal agency in terms of what it then does for the next 10 years that it's in power?
Do you see what I'm saying?
I do.
So, this is the old story.
I'm going to butcher it, but I quote it.
Okay, here, let's pause it for a second.
Again, again.
It doesn't imply that ISIS doesn't have agency and that they're not responsible for what they do when they're in power.
Just to be clear here, what he's talking about is like you could make an argument when we debathified Iraq.
So here's what we did Iraq, we launched a war in Iraq based off complete lies at the behest of the Israel lobby.
And we go into the country, right?
So the Iraq is like something like 20% Sunni and like 60% Shiite.
But Saddam Hussein is a Sunni Baathist.
So ruled over.
The super majorities of the population.
So we overthrow that government and we disband the military.
Okay.
Now it's important to keep in mind there was zero Al Qaeda presence in Iraq before George W. Bush's 2003 invasion.
Okay.
This is well known, well documented.
Saddam Hussein hated the Al Qaeda guys.
He was terrified of them.
He did not let them in the country.
They had no relationship whatsoever.
What happened was then we go into the country.
We overthrow the regime.
We disband the military.
So now you got, you know, tens of thousands of military aged Sunnis who have been trained in nothing other than to be trained killers, right?
Also, at the time, because if you remember this 2003, Osama bin Laden was still alive.
Osama bin Laden declares for all Al Qaeda to go to Iraq to, because this is, you know, he'd already declared a jihad against America.
And this is where all the American soldiers are.
So you go get you some, Al Qaeda, go kill Americans in Iraq, which they did.
A bunch of thousands.
So then Al Qaeda, so essentially non Iraqi Al Qaeda members flood into the country.
They join the insurgency and a mix of also the disbanded military.
And this all forms up to be the insurgency and what became known as AQI, Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Now, okay, then there's kind of like a split amongst different Al Qaeda members and a chunk of them break off and form ISIS.
Then Barack Obama in 2011 and in 2012, his genius play, also at the behest of the Israel lobby, also from the original goal in the clean break memo, right?
One of the countries on Wesley Clark, seven countries in five years.
Syria's up next.
So, what we're going to do is we are going to fund and arm any rebels who are anti Assad.
Who were the rebels who were against Assad?
The Sunni radicals from Iraq, the insurgency in Iraq.
He then armed.
And fund it.
This is why those videos of ISIS, they're driving around in Toyota trucks.
They're holding American weapons.
And he funded them for years in the attempt to overthrow Bashar al Assad, which ultimately happened years later.
Yeah, we got a lot of responsibility for that, man.
Like, that's just, oh, you're just picking things out of the air.
Barry White and Ego Defense00:04:41
We could all draw a causal thing.
Also, there was oxygen.
Yeah, okay.
All right.
Well, oxygen is also responsible.
Yes, it's true.
That guy wouldn't have murdered that guy if he couldn't breathe.
But to accept Gad's framework here is to just give up on the idea of morality and crime and responsibility.
Like, what is this?
This is philosophical nonsense.
Like, yes, ISIS is also responsible for the stuff they did.
Every single head that they chopped off a person, they're responsible for that too.
Barack Obama and John Brennan and John Kerry are also responsible for arming that head chopping psychopath.
What is complicated about that?
Where's the contradiction?
All right, let's keep playing.
The hammer, he only sees the world as being made up of the nails, right?
So, this is when you're.
You're presuming that there is greater explanatory power to a particular cause than there really is.
Look, I'll give you an example.
Okay.
Let's suppose that the night before an eventual dictator that was going to become a dictator, his parents felt particularly amorous that night.
And what made them amorous to then eventually conceive that guy who became a dictator who killed 3 million people is that they played Barry White music.
Because Barry White's music is baby making music.
So it is, in a very silly way, absolutely true that had Barry White not been such a great singer with a deep voice that makes the ladies drop the panties, then those two parents of the eventual dictator would not have had sex that night.
I will stop you right there because I don't think there's sex that's ever been had because only of Barry White.
I think people have been having sex since the beginning of time.
I don't believe it.
It's wonderful music.
I don't think it causes sex.
Do not criticize Barry White.
I'm not criticizing.
I just say it's great music.
I don't believe it.
I think people have been getting it on from the beginning of time, and they probably would have done the exact same thing that night if it was Barry White or Barry Manilow.
I don't think it matters.
So let's not put Barry White.
There was some facilitating mechanism that rendered them amorous on that particular night.
Whatever that mechanism is, it is absolutely true.
That we can lay the blame, some blame.
All right, let's just follow the dictator eventually killing three million.
We can pause it and uh move to the next clip here, but like, I mean, I don't know, it's just this is painful because it's just so obvious that Gad he's starting from his conclusion, right?
He's starting from Israel's right and it's not their fault, and then he's just trying to work back from there, but he's just grasping at anything.
I mean, so the scenario that I just laid out about.
ISIS in Syria, right?
Invading Iraq and then disbanding the military and then Osama calling his people in and then we arm them in Syria and then it creates this civil war in Syria where like 500,000 people died.
That clearly would not have happened if George W. Bush hadn't invaded the country and then Barack Obama hadn't funded and armed ISIS.
There's just no way you get to that state of things short of that.
But I guess it's also true that Whatever music that Barack Obama's mom and dad had sex to, if they hadn't had sex and made him, he wouldn't have been in power to arm ISIS.
Okay.
One of those things is criminal.
The other one is not.
Like, yes, it is true that there's all types of causal things that happen, but we've pretty clearly delineated as human beings with a modicum of common sense, which the ones that are criminal and the ones that aren't.
Like, the ones that are aggression in nature are a little bit different than random things that you couldn't possibly hold someone responsible for, right?
So, in other words, you couldn't possibly hold Barry White responsible.
Responsible for making music that people like to have sex to, and then a murderer being produced from that sex.
But you can hold Barack Obama responsible for knowingly arming terrorists.
Like, what are we talking about here, man?
I mean, I know I'm just some dumb comedian and you're this brilliant guy, gad sad, but like, really, dude?
Market Dominance and Minorities00:07:56
Really?
This is the argument we're going with.
Yeah, let's skip to whatever the next timestamp is.
I literally like, and it's unfair that I've had to watch this twice now.
And we'll go through a little bit more of this, and I'm just going to have to call it an episode at a certain point.
But like, it's unbelievable watching because I listened to the whole podcast and now I'm listening back to this clip.
And it's like, even as I'm hearing, I'm like, I can't believe he actually said this on the biggest show in the world.
Okay, let's go to the next clip.
And losses in our lives.
So most of us will attribute successes internally.
I did well on the exam because I'm smart and I studied hard.
And excuse me, we will attribute.
Failures externally.
I did poorly on the exam because Professor Saad is an asshole.
Right.
And you can understand why we would have evolved that rosy prism.
Life is tough.
It's an ego defensive strategy.
I do well because of me.
I do poorly because of the cruel world out there.
Now, imagine if we could find a culprit, and I'll explain why it is specifically the Jew.
Imagine if we could find a culprit, a universal culprit for all of our individual and collective failures.
And it's the Jew.
But why is it the Jew?
Why isn't it the Armenian?
Why isn't it the whatever?
Here, I'm going to use a term from Amy Chua.
Do you know Amy Chua?
No.
Okay, I thought that she might have been on your show.
Amy Chua is actually the mentor of JD Vance.
She was his professor of law at Yale.
She's written several popular books, including the book on how to raise children as a tiger mom.
Have you heard the Tiger Mom book?
Sure.
You know, this kind of tough parental Asian.
Excellence and so on.
So, Amy Chua introduced the term.
I mean, the concept is not hers, but the term is hers market dominant minorities, meaning when you have a small, minuscule group of people in any cultural ecosystem that are boxing well above their weight class.
Now, in many cases, you'll have, for example, you have Lebanese, non Jews, Lebanese who are the business owners all over West Africa.
So, they are fitting that market dominant minority.
They're a small minority, but they carry all the business.
Okay.
So, it's not as though it's only the Jew that's the only market dominant minority.
Wherever you have market dominant minorities, you have animus towards that group because the greater group, many of whom are not being successful, look at that group with animus, with envy.
The Jews, wherever they are, are always, by definition, short of Israel, are always a minuscule group that is.
Always boxing well above their wings.
Why is that?
There are several reasons.
Let's just pause it here.
So, again, this is the, by the way, I did not, so this is one thing I'll give Gad Sad.
I learned one thing from this podcast.
I did not know that Amy Chua was a mentor to JD Vance.
That is news to me.
And I never read the Tiger Mom book, but I did read World on Fire and another one she had.
I think it was called Warring Tribes, something like that.
I got it over here on the shelf.
Let me see.
I can't spot it.
Anyway, they're both really great books.
So I probably don't agree with her on everything, but really, really good books.
His answer here is complete nonsense.
That the reason why.
Anti Semitism exists or persists is because of jealousy, right?
This is Benjamin Netanyahu.
We're a market dominant minority.
We're just out here winning in the market, and then everybody else hates us.
And he goes on later, and you know what?
Let's jump to the last clip that I had sent to you, or just for when I come to it next, Natalie.
Thank you.
But so essentially, he's saying, hey, at another point in the episode, he argues that Muslim immigration.
Is the reason why Jew hatred is rising in this country?
It's like we're just bringing in the Muslims and they already hate the Jews.
And so that's why.
But this is like demonstrably not true.
It's demonstrably not true.
Dude, look at the polls.
Israel was at plus 48 in 2023.
They're at negative two now.
They've fallen 50 points in approval ratings since they launched the genocide in Gaza.
Did we take in 200 million Muslims since that?
The numbers that you would need to explain it from that are ridiculous.
And also, this thing, like, it's just, I don't know, man, it's just not the case.
Like, so Jews have been a market dominant minority in America my entire life, my entire life.
And well, before my life, but just for example, the last 43 years, Jews have been a market dominant minority.
Why the spike since they started the genocide?
Explain that.
Oh, you know what really has some pretty good explanatory power there is that it's a reaction to what they did to Gaza.
I mean, what are we even talking about here?
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All right, let's get back into the show.
All right, here, let's go to this next clip and we'll wrap up in a few.
70%.
It's 95% and up.
Whoa.
Right?
So if we sampled a thousand people from Syria.
And it's hate?
They hate Jews?
Have a.
I don't remember because it's a thousand.
Negative opinion, this favorable, this like.
Oh, you know what?
Actually, can you go to the timestamp?
I apologize, Natalie.
Can you go to the one I gave you before this one?
Because I kind of just mentioned this already.
He's saying that's the reason why Jew hatred's going up because Muslims hate Jews so much.
And we bring too many Muslims into this country.
Problem is, the polls literally prove him wrong.
The numbers, the timing, it just is not explained by Muslim immigration to the United States.
Anyway, let's go to the other clip and then we'll wrap up.
Where the type of animus that is shared regarding the Jews is so outlandish that it would make Hitler and Himmler squirm in unease.
Choosing Causal Areas for Hate00:07:03
If you can get rid of that brainwashing, you will learn to see the other as an equal human being.
Could I interject there?
Please.
Do you think that the bombing of Gaza and the destruction that's so clearly visible to everyone would actually stop that?
Do you think that the bombing of Gaza would maybe make more people radicalized, that would make more people want to attack Israel?
That would give them.
100%.
You're right that you are creating a new generation of terrorists.
But again, it's.
You're choosing to decide where to place the causal point.
Gaza existed fully peacefully for 20 plus years without anybody dying.
The day that they decided to do what they did resulted in a retaliation.
I forgot about that claim.
We can discuss whether it's good or not enough or too much.
That is true.
At the root of the problem is an open Gaza.
Dude, so here's the thing.
He goes, he goes, He goes, Well, you're choosing where to place the causal link.
And yeah, but so are you.
You're just choosing a different causal area.
And yeah, it does seem like, dude, this is, by the way, everyone, General McChrystal talked about insurgent math, right?
The more people you kill, the more people that are on your list.
Because that person that you just killed, when you get an innocent person or someone like that, they had a cousin and a brother and a father and a nephew, and they all join up to fight afterward.
So yeah, I'm like General McChrystal, the libertarian dove.
Who's must be poisoned by leftist campus ideology or something like that?
The guy conducting the war in Afghanistan.
It's just a reality.
Yeah, he placed the causal link there too, because killing his little sister is the thing that got him to join up with the cause.
Muhammad Atta joined the hijacker who hit the North Tower, joined Al Qaeda after an attack in Lebanon.
Like, this is what makes them do this stuff, obviously.
And so Gad can sit here and say, oh, well, you're choosing.
To make that the cause of all of this.
But for Gad said, I mean, I'm sorry, dude.
I'm sorry.
This is just, I mean, to blatantly lie, maybe, I don't know.
I guess if I'm being charitable here, to not know anything, to know so little about this, that he said for 20 years, Gaza was in a state of peace where no one died.
I literally just Googled on here, right?
Because I go, hey, I'm.
Israeli military operations in Gaza in the last 20 years.
Okay.
Operation Cast Lead, of course, a 22 day military offensive launched in 2008, late 2008 into early 2009.
Operation Pillar of Defense, an eight day campaign.
Operation Protective Edge, a seven week war.
Operation Guardian of the Walls, an 11 day conflict.
Operation Breaking Dawn, a brief escalation.
Operation Shield and Arrow, a five day war.
Israel's been at war with them the entire time.
Every last one of these operations killed a ton of people.
Now, they didn't destroy the entire thing and genocide the people until 23.
But Gaza was under full blockade for the entire 20 years he's talking about with multiple different mowing of the lawns, as they like to call it in Israel.
And of course, as Joe rightfully brings up on the show, during that period, Netanyahu was intentionally keeping Hamas in power.
Oh, what was Gad's response?
Absolutely nothing.
He had absolutely nothing to say.
But so you're just, I don't know what to say.
Like, you're either lying.
Or you're so ignorant on this subject that you should not be talking about it in public and sit here all day and say, I'm just a comedian.
Oh, mock my level of expertise.
I know more about it than you do, bro.
I didn't think no one died in Gaza for 20 years, that there was no war and it was in a state of peace.
And by the way, the entire time they were denied statehood.
You know, Gad goes off, and I got to wrap on this.
I apologize because I've just got a film in Piers Morgan coming up, which is why I moved the podcast earlier today.
But.
You know, Gad had this thing later where he talks about, he goes, Yeah, you know, like bad things happened in the past, but like at a certain point, you got to move on from that.
And he talks about how he and his family had to flee Lebanon, but like he doesn't walk around hating people for that.
And let's, you know, and like, okay, fair enough.
This is kind of why I always focus on 1967 rather than 1948.
That it would be, I guess, reasonable enough if you were talking about the Nakba and like, like he's kind of, he's like, I'm not going to say nothing bad happened and you didn't get kicked out of your home, but like eventually you got to move on from that.
Like, okay, the major issue there is that Israel ethnically cleansed them in 47 and 48.
A little bit less than a million to like 700,000 to 800,000 people got forced out of Israel and not allowed to return.
Okay.
But then, less than 20 years later, they fought, they launched a preemptive war, preemptive, launched a war against Egypt.
Okay.
Jordan got into the fighting.
This is the Six Day War in 1967 now, right?
Jordan gets into the fighting.
So it's a war between Israel, Egypt, and Jordan.
And at the end of the war, Israel won and they took control of Gaza and the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
And they've had it ever since.
It's been 60 fucking years of brutal military occupation.
So this isn't just like, oh, the Palestinians are still angry about this thing that happened back in 1948.
They're angry about the thing that's been happening every single day this entire time since, at least in 67.
Probably since 48, because there were all types of operations in the meantime there too, in that 20 year period.
So, you know, if you got it in your head for some reason that Gaza was free and independent and nobody was dying for 20 years and they still, oh, okay, well then, yeah, that's really leading you to get this wrong.
Because actually, that's not what happened at all.
And why wasn't Gaza a country?
Why weren't they a nation state during all this time?
If they were free and peaceful and there was no war, how could Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, because Israel doesn't let them have a government.
They don't allow them to have a government.
For that entire 20 year period, Israel controls the sea space, the airspace, the trade that flows into the country, the taxing power, the electricity, like everything.
Israel completely ran the place.
And here's the thing, man people don't much like being dominated by another group.
Israel's Occupation of Gaza00:00:40
So if you're going to pretend that's not happening, then yeah, okay, it doesn't make sense to blame that.
But you have to lie in order to do that.
Say no one died, there was peace for 20 years.
Absolute bullshit.
Still, I'd love to get dinner with Gad someday.
Dude, open invite, Gad.
Come on the podcast anytime.
Obviously, he's not going to take me up on this, and that's fine.
But I promise I would conduct it in complete good faith.
But this stuff is just, you know, he can talk all this stuff about, you know, oh, I'm just a comedian or something like that.
But all right, this, I mean, this is laughable, just laughable.