Transcript [00:00] Israel has an absolute and unequivocal [00:03] right and responsibility [00:05] to defend itself to the fullest, [00:08] applying the only language that its [00:10] adversaries understand, the language of [00:13] force. So what would [00:17] David Bengurion say today? [00:20] He would say, "Don't depend on anybody [00:23] else's fleeting sympathies or permission [00:26] to do it." If Israel wants to destroy [00:30] Hamas, Israel should go ahead and [00:33] destroy Hamas. [00:34] >> So it's 2026. It's an election year. And [00:38] Vivic Ramaswami, remember him? He ran [00:40] for president back in 2024. Vivic [00:42] Ramaswami is running for governor of [00:45] Ohio. In fact, he's the lead Republican [00:48] candidate. He's received by far the most [00:50] endorsements from everyone from [00:52] President Trump to Elon Musk to Charlie [00:54] Kirk to trade unions. He's really the [00:57] lead dog. And if he wins the Republican [00:59] nomination, he will very likely be the [01:02] governor of Ohio because over the course [01:04] of the last few election cycles, Ohio [01:06] has turned pretty ruby red. It's a [01:09] Republican state. And thinking about [01:12] Vivic Ramaswami got me thinking about a [01:14] speech that he gave uh about Israel [01:17] while he was running for president. And [01:20] there's some stuff in that speech. I [01:22] went back and listened to it. That is [01:24] really, you know, you know, looking at [01:25] it now, a year, a year and a half later [01:28] after he gave it, it is it it's pretty [01:31] relevant to today, maybe even more than [01:33] when he said it at the time. So, let's [01:35] take a look at Vivic on Israel from [01:38] 2024. Have a look. [01:39] >> For Israel to return to its founding [01:43] premise, [01:44] the Jewish state has an absolute right [01:48] to exist. [01:51] a divine gifted [01:54] to a divine nation charged with a divine [01:57] purpose. Israel has an absolute and [02:00] unequivocal right and responsibility [02:03] to defend itself to the fullest, [02:06] applying the only language that its [02:08] adversaries understand, the language of [02:11] force. So what would [02:15] David Bengurion say today? [02:18] He would say, "Don't depend on anybody [02:21] else's fleeting sympathies or permission [02:24] to do it. If Israel wants to destroy [02:28] Hamas, Israel should go ahead and [02:31] destroy Hamas. [02:35] I'm just getting started. If Israel [02:37] wants to destroy Hezbollah, Israel [02:40] should go ahead and destroy Hezbollah. [02:44] If Israel and Mossad want to pull off [02:46] Munich 2.0 and take out every last [02:49] leader of Hamas, wherever they may be [02:51] hiding, from Doha to Dresden, host a red [02:54] wedding at the Four Seasons in Qatar, [02:56] the next time Hane and Mashal show up, [02:59] they should go ahead and do it. If [03:01] Israel wants to at long last abandon the [03:05] myth of a two-state solution, Israel [03:07] should go ahead and abandon a two-state [03:09] solution. [03:12] The rest of the Arab world can absorb [03:15] Palestinians just as the Jews absorbed [03:18] their people out of 22 countries they [03:20] were kicked out of since 1948. The [03:23] Islamic world cannot continue to condone [03:27] the slaughtering of Jews while [03:28] continuing to disown the Palestinians. [03:31] That is the hard truth that neither [03:34] member of either political party is [03:36] willing to speak out loud to the Arab [03:38] world. I will. [03:40] But these are decisions for Israel to [03:45] make [03:47] America. [03:48] I am not running for president of [03:50] Israel. I am running for president of [03:53] the United States. [03:55] And just as it is time for Israel to [03:58] return to its founding premise, it is [04:01] time for us here in the US to return to [04:04] ours. [04:06] >> Israel's founding premise. really a [04:09] beautiful phrase and it was so it was so [04:12] on point to invoke Bengurian when [04:15] talking about Israel's founding premise [04:17] because Israel's founding premise the [04:19] founding premise of modern Zionism and [04:21] I'm not talking about religious Zionism [04:23] based in biblical faith but the founding [04:26] premise of modern political Zionism is [04:28] simply that the Jewish people were not [04:31] safe in other countries in the world [04:35] living uh by the goodwill of host [04:39] nations. And that's what Theodore [04:40] Herzel, the founder of the Zionist [04:42] movement realized [04:44] when he saw what was happening in the [04:45] Drifus trial in Europe. And that's what [04:48] David McGorian realized. And that's what [04:49] the founders of the state of Israel all [04:51] realized that Jews and need to have [04:54] their own state. They need to be able to [04:56] defend themselves and again not be [04:59] beholden to the goodwill of others. But [05:00] what happened over the decades is that [05:02] the state of Israel itself as a state [05:05] became beholden to the goodwill of [05:07] others. Most notably over the course of [05:10] the last 45 years or so, Israel, a [05:13] little more than that, Israel has become [05:16] uh increasingly dependent on the United [05:18] States. the foreign aid from the United [05:20] States to Israel has gotten ramped up [05:23] numerous times uh always as an incentive [05:26] uh or as a or as a uh or as a concess or [05:30] as a concession when Israel has had has [05:34] made their own security concessions. [05:36] when Israel gave up the Sinai Desert uh [05:38] in the 1979 Camp David Accords, that was [05:41] when they got uh the first large amounts [05:44] of military aid from the United States, [05:47] the first amount of foreign aid. And [05:48] that was as a concession to basically [05:50] say, "Okay, you've you've surrendered [05:52] vital security assets. We're going to [05:54] give you some aid." But what happened [05:55] over the decades is that Israel became [05:57] increasingly dependent on the United [05:58] States. And the reality that most of us [06:01] have grown up with and gotten used to is [06:03] that Israel has to kind of tether its [06:05] decisions to American policy and ask [06:07] permission. But it wasn't always like [06:09] that. Before the 1970s, from Israel's [06:12] founding, Israel wasn't really a close [06:14] ally of the United States at all. I [06:16] mean, it dealt with America. It dealt [06:18] with other countries as well. It didn't [06:19] get foreign aid. The US behaved kind of [06:22] like a neutral party in the Middle East. [06:25] Other than the fact that President [06:26] Truman was the first head of state to [06:28] recognize the state of Israel when it [06:30] was founded [06:32] um for a few decades after that, America [06:35] wasn't really that close a friend of [06:36] Israel and Israel made its own [06:38] decisions. It was much more independent. [06:40] It was also being governed by a [06:42] generation of people who lived through [06:44] the generations of the Holocaust and the [06:46] pilgrims in Europe. And there was a a [06:48] sense that people like Bengorian, there [06:50] was a sense, a much stronger sense that [06:52] we cannot rely on anybody and we need to [06:55] look out for ourselves. And Israel kind [06:56] of got away from that. And after October [07:00] 7th, the Israeli public and the Jewish [07:02] people around the world really have [07:04] rediscovered that ethos that we need to [07:07] be more independent. Of course, having [07:09] all this foreign aid and being tethered [07:11] to American uh American policy is [07:14] something that needs to be unwound. And [07:15] thank God, recently, Prime Minister [07:18] Netanyahu has started openly saying that [07:20] it is a goal of Israel to draw down the [07:22] aid to end US aid to Israel. And that's [07:25] not only because we don't need it [07:27] anymore economically. Israel's economy [07:29] is booming, [07:30] but it also has to do with the fact that [07:33] the the uh the aid to Israel has been [07:36] used as leverage over Israel's [07:38] decision-making. Early in this war after [07:40] October 7th, the Biden administration [07:42] that was still in power was tying [07:44] Israel's hands in all kinds of ways and [07:46] withholding certain equipment and that [07:48] was all leverage that is not healthy for [07:50] Israel to have hanging over it. So this [07:54] this approach of Vivic Ramaswami [07:56] basically saying look Israel needs to [07:58] make decisions the way any nation makes [08:01] decisions in its own self-interest and [08:03] that's really the essence of nationalism [08:06] and you know people often think of [08:08] America first as something that is not [08:11] consistent with being pro-Israel. uh the [08:14] America first term has been disparaged [08:17] and most notably by the ADL saying that [08:19] it's a problematic term because it's [08:21] been used by people who are anti-Israel [08:23] and super isolationist in the past. But [08:26] what Vivic Ramos Swami is saying is look [08:29] it's not America's place to be telling [08:32] Israel what its decision-m should be. [08:35] Israel needs to be independent and make [08:37] its own choices and the heck with the [08:39] Arab world. If the Muslim world doesn't [08:41] like it, the Arab world doesn't like it. [08:43] That's their problem. They could deal [08:45] with that. And this might also be coming [08:46] from the fact that that Vivic is a Hindu [08:49] and the Hindus have been slaughtered, [08:50] massacred for centuries [08:53] by Muslims. Uh you know, the Hindus have [08:56] suffered at the hand of the Muslims and [08:58] they have no love for them. And he's [08:59] basically saying, look, this is [09:01] historical reality. Jews were exiled [09:02] from the Arab world when the state of [09:04] Israel was founded. The state of Israel [09:06] took all those people in. They left [09:07] their possessions behind. Hundreds of [09:10] thousands of Jews. They left their [09:11] possessions behind in the Arab world [09:12] where they were they were kicked out. No [09:15] one ever cried about that for send you [09:17] know you know for decade after decade [09:19] calling themselves refugees. And [09:21] [snorts] [09:21] right now in order for there to be peace [09:24] and security in Israel in the Middle [09:26] East we need to end this whole prospect [09:28] of a two-state solution. What's also [09:30] amazing in this speech you see there he [09:32] mentioned that if Israel wants to go [09:35] ahead and carry out strikes in Doha in [09:37] Qatar in a hotel there next time the [09:40] kamas leadership is there they should go [09:41] ahead and do it. That's pretty amazing [09:42] that he said that back during the 2024 [09:44] campaign where you know we all remember [09:48] over the course of last year where [09:49] Israel actually did carry out air [09:51] strikes in Qatar trying to kill Hamas [09:55] leadership. But it's also very relevant, [09:58] you know, everything he said in this [09:59] speech to the way Israel's been behaving [10:02] recently because Israel has rediscovered [10:05] this sense of independence. And you see [10:07] it, you see it in policy. You see a [10:10] couple notable examples are, you know, [10:12] Syria where Israel took some territory [10:15] that's vital to its own security. It [10:17] also took action to defend and protect [10:20] the Drews and Christian minorities in in [10:24] Syria, carried out air strikes when the [10:26] Syrians were trying to rebuild their air [10:29] defenses. And they didn't ask the US [10:32] permission. And the US wasn't even [10:33] necessarily happy with these actions, [10:35] but Israel went ahead and and took [10:36] action. or in the Gaza Strip where the [10:40] United States has uh had been has been [10:43] pressuring Israel to accept Turkish [10:45] forces to come in as part of the [10:46] international stabilization force and [10:48] Israel has said no. They vetoed that. [10:50] Israel is much more bold now about [10:53] asserting itself diplomatically. Israel [10:56] recognized Somali land. The United [10:58] States hasn't recognized them yet. [10:59] Israel's asserting itself in the region, [11:01] being much more independent, looking out [11:03] for its own interests. So again, America [11:07] first and pro-Israel can go together [11:09] very nicely as you see here in Vivik [11:12] Ramaswami's uh approach that America [11:16] should not be telling other nations what [11:18] to do. That's part of what America first [11:19] means. You have strong allies who can [11:21] who can work with you. But you know this [11:24] speech is so relevant uh to everything [11:27] that we're seeing now today. It also [11:28] brings to mind the fact that Prime [11:29] Minister Netanyahu uh his name for this [11:33] war uh you know the war since October [11:36] 7th was called Swords of Iron which is [11:39] kind of a a name that doesn't really [11:40] mean anything but Prime Minister [11:41] Netanyahu midway through the war said [11:43] that he wanted to change the name of the [11:45] war and some people use it most people [11:47] don't but the name that he wanted to [11:49] give it is in Hebrew milkuma [11:52] tkuma means means a rising meaning a [11:54] rebirth [11:56] uh um a renaissance like the war of [11:59] Israel's [12:00] rebirth or I'll put it in my own terms. [12:03] I consider this war to be Israel's [12:06] second war of independence. There was a [12:08] war of independence in 1947 and 48 that [12:10] Israel fought for its independence. But [12:13] then Israel became very dependent became [12:15] very dependent on the US and on other [12:17] powers. And through the course of the [12:19] last two, you know, two plus years since [12:21] October 7th, what we have seen is Israel [12:24] asserting itself, being more [12:26] independent. So I consider this again [12:28] Israel's second war of independence. So, [12:31] Viva Ramaswami probably going to be the [12:33] next governor of Ohio. [12:36] um and obviously a great friend of [12:39] Israel based on these remarks that he [12:41] gave all the way back in 2024.
