You're listening to The Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Buck Brief. On this episode, we have our friend David Harsanyi joining. David is a senior editor at The Federalist. David, thanks for being here.
Yeah, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Just I want to do your your thoughts on what we've seen so far from the American media as it relates to the Israel Hamas war. I mean, the New York Times obviously ran with that Hamas propaganda story about five hundred killed that was totally false. Have they started to pull back a little bit on the you know, pro Palestinian pro Hamas stuff. What do you see happening?
I think they've pulled back in a sense, in the sense of not being so obvious about it, but I think subtly, you know, it's worse right God, Gaza Ministry of Health is constantly being quoted. Their numbers are constantly being you know, given, and they'll say, you know, they'll they'll they'll preface it by saying that they're you know that this is the Gaza side of things. But they don't explain that this is the Hamas side of things.
You know that they that they Thatjmasque couldn't possibly know how many people died, you know, within a few you know, minutes of a bomb exploding. But more than that, it's just the usual editorial paid stuff that I think is the worst. I mean, you know, just pro Hamas people on these staffs. It's very clear justifying murder, justifying and hiding basically, and this happens in news stories as well,
hiding what these protesters are really about. How they have genocidal slogans, you know, how they are anti Semitic, not anti Israel, not critics of Israel and not critics of Palestine, pro Hamas, and uh, you know, it's pretty much radicalized me to to where I just hope they all go out of business. I mean, I don't think there's any saving this industry. They side with the most you know, evil people. They you know, set them on the same
moral plane as people who defend their citizens. I don't think there's any anything worth saving when you have people doing that.
And in terms of the demands for cease fire, how do you assess, like what one thing that I'm always curious about is how long would that cease fire, even if it were agreed to? How long would that last? And what's the difference between demanding an indefinite ceasefire after a massive terror sneak attack and saying they don't actually have a right to defend themselves like this. This is where I start to wonder if people are being honest at all in what they're even saying they want.
Now, I think that's right.
Ceasefire means Hamas will get off, get away with it again, and exist after this. I don't think any normal country any moral any country and country that had an attack like this would have a moral imperative to destroy the people who did it. You know, you know the Twin Towers fell. I know that we did a lot of things wrong after that, But the American people would never have stood for a government that said, now we're not going to go after al Qaeda, Let's have a ceasefire now.
I mean that is insane. And the Israeli government is an elected government. It now has a unity government left and right, and they want to dismantle this terror state that's right on their border, and every civilian who dies there. It's a tragedy, but that tragedy is caused by Hamas, initially because they were put into power by these people, but be more importantly because they put these people in the way of danger. And Israel does the best it
can not to punish civilians. But proportionality doesn't mean that no civilian can die. People don't know what proportionality means. If we had a proportional fight here, Israel would go rape and kill children and women.
But they don't.
They're trying to dismantle the people who attack them, completely legitimate under international law and under the moral law that any normal civilized nation lives under.
What do you think the end state should be here of this fight? I you know, what is victory in this conflict against Hamas? What does that look like in terms of what's left in Gaza, what's left of Hamas, et cetera.
Honestly, I don't think there's any really good victory here.
It's an intractable problem caused by mistakes of the past. I think that the Israelis have made and obviously that the Palestinians continue to make. I don't think that removing Hamas will all of a sudden make the Palestinian people, you know, open to having a Switzerland there or open to like, you know, being part of a peaceful pact with Israel. So I don't know where it leads, and I don't think there's going to be any good victory. Obviously,
the Jordanians and the Egyptians don't want to help. They, you know, they don't want Palestinians in their country as refugees either. They have their own problems. And Gaza Hamasa's is basically the Muslim Brotherhood. And in Jordan there's a Palestinian majority because there's already a Palestinian state there ruled by a minority. So it's a really bad problem for Israel,
and I'm not sure it can be fixed. I think it could be managed to some extent, but I don't know that there's a victory in the sense that you know you're going to have peace there.
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fifty percent in savings. That's my pillow dot com. Click on the radio Listener special Square. Use promo code buck. That's promo code b U c K for the special and many more. There seems to be a little problem the Democrat Party. H David the kind of old line or old guard Democrats like Joe Biden and you know Pelosi and Schumer. They're in general supportive of Israel, right, I mean, they still say, like, don't do war crimes, and we're worried about Islamophobia, like they they hedge a
little bit, but in general their supportive of Israel. But then you have you know, the Rashida Talib wing and the squad and some of the far left of the Democrat Party or straight up anti Semites and are rooting for Hamas and all this. How does that How does that play out? Now? I mean, You've got a Democrat Party that it seems like is going to have to figure out what it really stands for on this or there could be some people that get primary.
Yeah, I mean, I think they're in a tough spot. Biden, you know, he says all the right things, and he supports Israel to some extent I would call it Obama level support basically. You know, So he sends Jack lou as ambassador, who is an Iran deal booster who made It's not a fault for what happened, but it's part of the problem. Right at least he bear some responsibility people who pass the Iran Deal push the Iran Deal.
And then on the other hand, so that makes like the AOC faction really angry, and Progressive is really angry. I mean, his rhetoric makes them angry, but his actions are probably making pro Israel people angry in the Democratic Party as well. So I think he's going to I think this is a disaster for him. I think the party, when you look at it and divide it by age groups and generationally, it's heading in one direction.
It's very clear what the trajectory is. To me.
I see it on college campuses. I see, you know at Harvard where you have the head of the you know, what is it the law of you out there basically physically trying to intimidate Jewish kids. I see where that's all headed. I'm not you know, you don't have to be a genius to see it. And that's the future of the Democratic Party, not not the old line people. It's obviously an age thing, so that's another thing. It's
headed in a really bad direction. And obviously maybe I'm being a little bit dramatic about it, but I see like these are the steps.
That head towards some kind of violence.
To me, Like, you know, I feel there's a threatening air about all these protests.
If you're Jewish, I think you feel it.
But if even if you're not, you should there's a threatening air to it, and sooner or later it gets to a point where you know, you've got to start worrying about violence, and in that you know, I know that's not exactly what you asked me, but you know, in general, I think things are headed in a bad direction for Democrats. Yeah, and so I think it's a problem for them.
Now, how much of Israel Palestine or Israel Hamas you know that this conflict we're seeing right now in the US left wing version of the discourse, I mean, the people refer to it as anti colonial lot but it seems to me that this is viewed on American college campuses in particular as a race war effectively, and that you have white Israel versus brown Palestine. Do you see that as well? I mean, is that more so than
even a religious conflict? From what I can see, that they view this in racial terms first and foremost.
Now you nailed it, that's how they see it, which is so idiotic. I can't even explain to anyone who's been to Israel knows the Sephardic Jews and many Jews who came from Arab places look just like Arabs. It's not there's a color like half the country. There are people there are Jews from Africa who are Israeli citizens. It's you know, it's not about color, but it is about to them and how they view race. It is, so I think you're right. So when we see people
like queer Surpalasin, everyone's like, that's a joke. Go to Gaza. See what happens. They don't get it. It's they're an ally. They have the same enemies Western civilization, America, Israel, the constant to shin freedom, how we see freedom. Those are their enemies, their allies, the same way we had to ally with the Soviet Union to fight Nazis. You know what I'm saying, Like they don't want to live together. They just hate the same people, so their allies and
they see it. You know, the whole intersectionality, the identitarian stuff, the decolonization stuff, it's all going to lead to anti Semitic posture. The whole anti Zionism thing, which is just an you know, an euphemism for Jew started in the Soviet Union. It was a Soviet way of being anti Semitic, and these people have just picked it up Angela Davis used to do this in the seventies and now she's you know, she was a fringe figure then and now she's a hero of the left.
She was one of the you.
Know, she marched with the Women's March and BLM and all that. They love her, and they're all all those groups I just mentioned have the same outlook on Jews.
So yeah, it's it's.
Definitely how they see it as a racial war and they see Jews as on the wrong side of that divide.
For sure.
Come back in a second and get into David. Some of you know, I wonder if this is going to change any political alignments. I'm kind of curious if you think that will actually happen. We'll get to that in a second. Those in the note call the Secret Royalty Program. It's an IRS loophole that allows for Americans to collect thousands of dollars or more in payouts every year. The publication Business Insider writes that this opportunity could provide and I quote enough money to live off of each year
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dot com before that upcoming deadline. Secret Royalty Program dot Com paid for by wide Mote Research. So a conversation that we've been having on the radio show I've been having David is he's wondering aloud whether there will be there, whether there's been a red pilling of the American Jewish community over this in terms of the right is with them pretty just consistently uniformly Israel's right defend itself, Israel
should go after hamas Democrats are a little split. Do you think that will affect voting at all in twenty twenty four or is this just Is it still likely that Democrats will get about sixty to sixty five percent of the Jewish vote in the next election.
Not sure.
I'm very skeptical that that's going to happen. Maybe on the margins. I actually think the Arab vote and the progressive anti Israel vote is probably more important for them in that conversation. Actually though, and this sounds horrible, and I don't mean it to sound horrible, but you know, Jews are still a big part of the philith you know, the fundraising aspect of this and stuff like that. Jews are important in the Democratic Party. So there's this, you know,
fight between those two. But I mean, I'm skeptical it's going to change anything. I saw the dean or the dean of the Berkeley Law School said, oh my god. You know, I can't believe this is happening. You know, there's anti Semitism within the left. You know Berkeley last year they had a Jew free zone students some students set up they won't invite Zionists you know, you know, wink wink to appear at their events. I think eleven
groups have banned them. So the idea that this is new to them or that they didn't see it coming, I'm pretty skeptical of that as well. So I think as soon as Donald Trump's back on the stage and says something.
They don't like.
You know, religious Jews are different, I think, you know, or like even modern Orthodox Jews, I think might be a little bit different. And they were already split and vote Republican in some decent numbers, But when it comes to the reform jew or or or even farther to the left, they've created a fate. I don't want to say that they've created a religious disposition that is basically completely in tune with socialistic ideas.
They're not going to change just because of this. To them, abortion, you know.
Redistribution of wealth is much more important, more religiously important to them than the state of Israel.
So to me, I don't see a huge change there. Frankly, do you.
Think that this conflict is going to broaden beyond Israel and Jimas or you think it's likely to stay pretty much within that sphere. And people are talking about Iran, and you know, the Houthis and Yemen fire and off some missiles to make some noise, US personnel being attacked in Syria and Iraq by she and militia's proxies of Iran. What's your take on where you see it going.
I think there's some scare mongering here that there's gonna be World War three. It's like Russia is going to get into a fight, you know, with Israel and Hamas, or even Iran, I don't think, or Syria. But I mean there's a danger because if you're a country like Israel, Hamas did this, they killed a bunch of your citizens. They had logistical and financial assistance from another country. That is an act of war. That would be an act of war. If someone did that to us, that would
be an act of war. And I don't know how Israel can just keep sitting around and letting Iran and its proxies. I mean, you have hez Ball on the northern border. They have real scary missiles, not you know, homemade missiles. They can do some extreme damage, and they're constantly threatening and talking about eliminating the country. I don't know how long they can allow that to happen. And obviously Iran wants nuclear weapons. Imagine if they had a
nuke right now, how this looks like. It's a completely different and dangerous situation. So I don't know, I don't know what's going to happen. But you know, Iran has also killed thirty America helped kill thirty Americans. Iran has also killed I don't know if you remember this, but they killed like six hundred soldiers in Iraq.
You know, I was in Iraq when Iran was killing those soldiers by putting the EFPs on the side of the road to punch through our vehicles. They were just killing Americans. That's Iran. They just viewed that as some strategic imperative to killing name as many American soldiers as they can. So I'm yeah, no, no, I was gonna say. It was why I was so supported of when Trump. When Trump decided to turn the head of the i ERGYC you know, solemoney head of the irgc coods force
into a into a dust cloud. I thought that was an excellent move actually, And.
So I'm not saying America should be in a war with Iran or anything like that. However, I don't know that America should want to sit by and allow this sort of thing to go on with its citizens either. And you know, you know everyone's work. It's not like we want to drop boots on me. It's not like we're on a nation building expedition to Iran.
We're not going to do that.
We are a true people underestimate how how powerful we are. And I'm not saying that we should be bullying people, but people attack us should have to pay some kind of price. And I'm not a warminder, I'm not a neocon, but I mean I don't know how long that can go on either, And uh so we'll see. So my answer to that question is, I'm not sure, but I doubt you know, we're on the cusp of World War three or and.
I kind of see the same way you do. I've been telling people this notion that Iran, like Iran, is just going to escalate, and then I mean, we can do so much moredamage to Iran in this escalation that they can do to us that it's they have to take that into account as well.
So I mean, I mean Israel has nukes, right.
You know, and Israel has submarines in the Indian Ocean that can fire at Iran, like you know, I don't know if people realize that Israel has a conventional army.
That's pretty scary, you know, if it really wants it to be. And anyway, yeah, no, I agree.
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dot com. Use my name Buck, get thirty five percent off any Chalk subscription for life. When you do, that's chalk with a Q as in c choq dot com Chalk dot com. David, what are you writing about next?
Over at the.
Federalist, I just wrote a piece on jacklu who is the ambassador named the Ambassador to Israel. He's a corrupt dude. He's kind of an Obamas leftover stooge, and he is a terrible person to send over there for us.
Why they pick him.
He said it.
I mean he's and CNN I saw had a piece saying it. I mean, he's there to inhibit Israel from doing what it needs to do in Gaza, you know, you know, using this it's a blood liabel, by the way, to keep telling Israel that they're you know, he's making sure Israel is not going to commit, you know, acts against civilians and so on. Israel doesn't do that already any more than any other Western country. And so I think they sent him there because they want Israel not to go into Gaza.
Basically, I think it's too late for that.
David Arsan everybody look for his latest at the Federalist dot com. David, my friend. I always appreciate you joining.
Thanks for being here anytime. Thanks for having me