Transcript [00:00] So why do you think the claim that the [00:03] Palestinians were there in Israel first? [00:07] >> What do you mean they were here first? [00:08] You're familiar with the story of Jesus, [00:10] right? Jesus was a Jewish rabbi living [00:13] here 2,000 years ago. Where did that [00:16] happen? That it happened in Tibet. It [00:18] happened here. Jerusalem was our [00:19] capital. King David made it our capital [00:21] 3,000 years ago. So, the Jews are here [00:24] to try to uh to say that they weren't [00:27] here and that the Palestinians were here [00:29] thousands of years ago is ridiculous. [00:31] >> You've probably heard the claim that the [00:33] original indigenous native people of [00:36] Israel are the Palestinians and that the [00:38] Jews who founded the state of Israel are [00:40] colonizers who came from other parts of [00:42] the world and they dispossessed the [00:44] native Palestinian people from their [00:46] land. In a recent interview with Jordan [00:49] Peterson, Prime Minister Netanyahu did a [00:52] masterful job pushing back against these [00:54] lies and telling the truth about Israel, [00:57] Jews, Palestinians, and the land of [00:59] Israel. Have a look. [01:00] >> Tremendous constant noise about issues [01:04] as fundamental as Israel's right to [01:06] exist even. And you start by talking [01:09] about in in in your book you embark on [01:13] explaining that at least in some part by [01:16] talking about Herszel and his terror [01:21] that anti-semitism that the rise of [01:23] anti-semitism in Europe was going to [01:24] cause a catastrophe which was obviously [01:26] a justified terror. Would you be kind [01:28] enough to walk me and my viewers and [01:32] listeners through your rationale for the [01:35] moral justification for Israel? the [01:38] political justification as well. And I'm [01:39] going to do what I can to to my limited [01:43] ability, let's say, to push back. I've [01:45] heard the arguments of often young [01:49] people who are more prone to give [01:53] credence and sympathy to say to the [01:55] Palestinian viewpoint. And I'd like to [01:58] rectify my ignorance and maybe help my [02:00] viewers and listeners do the same thing. [02:02] So, would it be useful to start with [02:03] Herszel? Well, I I'd actually I'd start [02:07] Herzel was what I call our modern Moses, [02:10] but I'd actually start with the original [02:12] Moses. The Jewish people uh have lived [02:15] in the land of Israel, what is now the [02:17] the state of Israel. Uh have lived here [02:20] and have been attached to this place for [02:22] about 3,500 [02:24] years, [02:26] 3 and a2 millennia. Now for the first [02:29] two millennia roughly of that time uh we [02:32] were living in what is described in a [02:35] text commonly known as the Bible. So the [02:37] Bible describes how the Jewish people [02:39] lived on this land were attached to this [02:41] land fought off conquerors sometimes [02:44] were conquered but stayed on their land [02:46] and that uh continued uh for a very long [02:49] time until roughly the sixth 7th century [02:52] actually uh after the birth of Christ. [02:55] Okay. For for roughly for 2,000 years, [02:59] uh we were conquered by the Romans. We [03:01] were conquered by the Byzantines. They [03:02] did a lot of bad things to us, but they [03:05] didn't really exile us, contrary to what [03:08] people think. Okay. The ones the the [03:11] loss of our land actually occurred when [03:13] the Arab conquest took place in the 7th [03:16] century. The Arabs burst out from Arabia [03:19] and they did something that no other [03:21] conqueror. Not the Romans, not the [03:22] Byzantines, not the Greeks before them, [03:24] not Alexander the Great, nobody did [03:26] before. They actually started taking [03:29] over the land of the Jewish farmer. They [03:32] brought in military colonies that took [03:34] over the land. And gradually over the [03:36] next two century, the Jews became a [03:39] minority in our land. So it is under the [03:42] Arab conquest that the Jews lost their [03:45] homeland. The Arabs were the colonials. [03:47] The Jews were the natives dispossessed. [03:50] Well, that happens in history. The Jews [03:52] were dispossessed. We were f flung to [03:55] the far corners of the earth. Uh [03:57] suffered unimaginable suffering because [04:00] we had no homeland. But we didn't [04:02] disappear. And we never gave up the [04:04] dream of coming back to our ancestral [04:07] homeland. So generation after [04:08] generation, Jews could be in Warsaw, [04:11] they could be in Yemen, they could be in [04:13] uh they could be in China, and they [04:16] said, "Next year in Jerusalem, we'll [04:17] come back next year in Jerusalem." Well, [04:20] that was made possible because the Arabs [04:23] who had conquered the land best [04:25] basically left it barren. They never [04:27] made it their own. It was a barren land. [04:29] It really had practically it was an [04:31] empty land. And in the 19th century, the [04:34] idea of coming back next year in [04:36] Jerusalem became a reality. By the way, [04:38] in part because of Christian Zionist [04:40] support for the idea of the great [04:42] return. The Jews came back in the 19th [04:45] century to the land of Israel. The [04:48] result of this return was that we [04:50] started building farms, factories, [04:52] places of employment. Arabs from nearby [04:55] countries started immigrating and they [04:57] now became they call themselves [04:59] Palestinians. They reconstructed history [05:01] and said, "We've been here for [05:02] centuries." No, they haven't. They [05:04] weren't there at all. And they didn't [05:05] have a national consciousness. We came [05:07] back, made it our land, and we said, [05:09] "Okay, we now will live together." We [05:12] decided to establish a state in 1948. [05:15] That's 75 years ago. And we we said [05:19] everybody can live here. The Arabs said [05:20] there can't be a Jewish state. You have [05:22] no right to be here. It's our land. It's [05:24] not your land. It's been our land for [05:26] 3,500 years. If you took over your uh [05:30] somebody's apartment, knocked them out, [05:33] dispossessed them, and they never gave [05:35] up the claim, and they said, "It's our [05:36] claim." And you left this barren dump. [05:39] Okay? And this the the the uh families, [05:42] the progeny of the people you you kicked [05:45] out, came back, rebuilt the house. [05:48] You cannot come back and tell them you [05:50] don't belong here. We're going to kick [05:52] you out. Especially since you're late [05:54] comers who've come to live in, you know, [05:56] in part of the house, which is what the [05:58] so-called Palestinians are. Okay? We say [06:00] to them, you can live here, we can live [06:02] here, but it's our land. It's our state. [06:05] And the reason this conflict continues [06:07] is because the Palestinians who are [06:09] represent the the the colonial powers, [06:12] the Arab conquest uh of the Middle East [06:15] and beyond, they are saying, "You have [06:18] no right for a Jewish state." Well, we [06:20] do. If any people has any right to [06:22] estate, if any people never gave up [06:25] their dreams of returning to their [06:26] ancestral home, if any people rebuilt [06:29] their home from nothing, from barren, [06:31] wasted land, it's the Jewish people to [06:34] tell them, you have suffered more than [06:36] anyone else. You have never lost your [06:39] dream of coming back and rebuilding your [06:42] national life in your ancestral [06:43] homeland. You have no right to be there. [06:45] But the Arabs who are trying to destroy [06:47] you, they have that right. That is a [06:50] complete perversion of history and also [06:52] a complete perversion of justice. The [06:54] Jews belong to this land. This land [06:56] belongs to the Jews. The Palestinians [06:58] are free to live here next to us, among [07:01] us, but they're not free to demand the [07:03] dissolution of the Jewish state. That is [07:05] not justice. That is injustice. [07:07] [clears throat] That's the shortest [07:09] lecture I can give you about Jewish [07:10] history. [07:12] So you so why do you think the claim [07:16] that the Palestinians were somehow there [07:21] in Israel first and have been displaced [07:25] in a colonial occupation let's say by [07:28] the Jews? Why do you think that idea has [07:31] gained such cache [07:34] not least in the west [07:35] >> because of ignorance? I mean what do you [07:37] mean they were here first? You you know [07:40] you're familiar with the story of Jesus, [07:42] right? Jesus was a Jewish rabbi living [07:45] 2,000 years ago. He was a rabbi from the [07:48] Galilee. Okay? He came to Jerusalem. He [07:50] turned the money tables of the uh the [07:52] the the tables of the money changers on [07:54] the Temple Mount. Where did that happen? [07:56] That it happened in Tibet. It happened [07:58] here. Jerusalem was our capital. King [08:00] David made it our capital 3,000 years [08:02] ago. So the Jews are here to try to uh [08:06] uh to say that they weren't here and [08:07] that the Palestinians were here [08:09] thousands of years ago is ridiculous. [08:11] Anybody, you know, anybody who can you [08:13] can actually Google this and and find [08:15] out how absurd this thing is. So as far [08:18] as reinventing ancient history, that is [08:22] that is unpardonable because anybody can [08:24] find out and understand that the Jews [08:26] were here for thousands of years. The [08:27] Palestinians weren't here. As far as [08:29] modern times are concerned, what the [08:32] Palestinians have said is ah and I I [08:35] write [clears throat] this in my book [08:37] and I show it because it's so comical. [08:39] What what they say is we were here uh [08:42] Palestine was a verdant land in the 19th [08:45] century teaming with the you know with [08:47] the Palestinians until the Jews came in [08:50] took it over and threw it out. Okay. [08:52] Well, that's what Arafod effectively [08:55] said in his uh uh infamous speech in the [08:59] United Nations blaming Zionism, equating [09:01] Zionism with racism. Well, there's only [09:04] one problem with that. He said that the [09:05] Jewish invasion of this verdant [09:07] Palestinian homeland uh happened in [09:10] 1881. [09:12] Okay. The problem with that is that uh [09:15] 12 years before a famous visitor among [09:18] hundreds of visitors named Mark Twain [09:20] visited the Holy Land and he describes a [09:24] totally different picture. He describes [09:26] Palestine, I'm quoting him, is a vast [09:29] wasteland. He said only imagination can [09:32] grace this barren land with the pomp of [09:35] circumstance and life. It's just he said [09:38] we traveled for a whole day. We didn't [09:40] see in the Galilee. We didn't see a [09:42] human being, one single human being. He [09:45] said, "Jerusalem sits in sackcloth and [09:47] ashes." And as he was saying that, it's [09:50] the Jewish return that began. The Jewish [09:52] return that began building the land. [09:54] Well, perhaps one could argue it's [09:57] obvious that Mark Twain was not in the [09:59] service of uh the Jewish state because [10:01] it didn't exist. He wasn't in the [10:03] service of the Jewish lobby because [10:04] there wasn't any Jewish lobby. He was [10:06] just reporting what was there. Could [10:08] there possibly have been a tremendous [10:11] influx of Palestinians between 1869 and [10:14] 1881, the year that uh that Arafat says [10:18] the Jewish invasion began uh and [10:22] destroyed the Palestinian paradise. [10:24] Well, alas, no. Because in the year [10:26] 1881, another famous visitor visits [10:30] Israel and he writes visits this land [10:32] and he writes also his memoirs. Okay? [10:35] His name was Arthur Penin Stanley. He [10:37] was a very famous very famous uh [10:40] courtier of uh Queen Victoria's court. [10:43] Okay. And he came here on a special [10:45] visit. And he says, "I looked south and [10:48] I look north." He says, "I'm in Judea [10:50] and I see nothing." He says, "A barren [10:52] expanse." And they both express both [10:55] Twain and Arthur Pen Stanley say the [10:57] same thing. When when oh when will the [11:00] Jews come back and bring this land to [11:03] life? And the answer is right then. We [11:05] came back, brought it back to life. [11:08] There were Arabs living here, but it [11:09] was, as I say, a barren wasteland. But [11:12] Arabs began to immigrate naturally [11:15] because we created a rise in the [11:17] standard of living that attracted Arabs [11:19] from neighboring states. Those Arabs are [11:21] now those the descendants of those Arabs [11:24] who migrated as a result of the Jewish [11:27] return. Many of them now are considered [11:29] Palestinians. So what I'm saying and I'm [11:32] saying this to you uh Jordan and to your [11:34] audience. There has been a complete [11:36] fabrication of history. It's the biggest [11:39] lie of the big lies that have permeated [11:41] the 20 20th century and the 21st century [11:44] is to say that the Arabs were here [11:46] before that is the Palestinians were [11:48] here before the Jews when we were here [11:50] for thousands of years that we are the [11:52] colonials when in fact it was the Arabs [11:54] who were the colonials who dispossessed [11:56] the original natives and that is the [11:58] Jews. that we came back to this land [12:00] that was laid barren by the Arab [12:03] conquest, brought it back to life and [12:05] allowed Arab immigration, what we call [12:07] now Palestinian immigration to come back [12:09] in. And now they say to us in [12:12] unimaginable, [12:13] you know, they say you don't belong [12:16] here. They recreate ancient history. [12:18] They recreate modern history. And this [12:20] is a lot of hookum. It's ridiculous. [12:23] >> Prime Minister Nathano laid it all out [12:25] there. I just want to focus in on a few [12:27] key points. First of all, the fact that [12:29] the Arabs came up from Arabia and [12:32] conquered not only the land of Israel or [12:35] was called southern Syria or later was [12:39] was termed Palestine. That whole area, [12:42] Lebanon, Syria, the whole Levant was [12:46] conquered by Arabs in the 7th century. [12:49] They came up here. They're not [12:51] indigenous to this land. And so there's [12:52] this perception that people have that [12:54] when they look at Arabs who who are [12:56] Middle Eastern that that's the way [12:58] Middle Eastern people are supposed to [13:00] look. Look, the Bible even says outright [13:01] that King David was a redhead. I mean [13:04] that we our picture of what a Middle [13:06] Eastern person looks like is really [13:08] based on the Arab conquests who are the [13:11] real colonizers. And Prime Minister Neta [13:14] also pointed out there that most [13:15] Palestinians, most Arabs who call [13:17] themselves Palestinians were actually [13:19] recent arrivals who started flooding [13:21] into the land of Israel in the towards [13:23] the end of the 1800s. In 1864, the [13:27] British consulate reported that [13:30] Jerusalem's population was only 15,000 [13:33] people. [13:35] More than half of those 15,000, [13:38] according to the British consulate [13:40] census, more than half were Jewish and [13:42] the rest were split evenly between [13:46] Muslims and Christians. [13:48] So, you know, it's it's obvious that, [13:51] you know, from the historical record [13:53] that this claim that there was like this [13:54] whole Palestinian society here was [13:56] false. You know, one one great way to [13:58] test someone who claims that there was [14:00] this nation called Palestine is ask them [14:03] to name a single person from history who [14:06] was famous for being the leader of the [14:08] Palestinian people before the middle of [14:11] the 20th century. Just name one. Name [14:13] like king or shake or emir or whatever [14:16] whatever term you want to use. Some [14:17] famous figure from history who was the [14:20] leader of the quote unquote Palestinian [14:21] people. Now, don't wait around for an [14:23] answer. there isn't going to be one. But [14:26] I want to focus in just for a couple [14:29] minutes here on one other point that was [14:32] made. Jordan Peterson asked BB, he asked [14:35] Prime Minister Netanyahu why he thinks [14:37] that the lie about Palestinians being [14:41] the native people and Jew and the [14:42] Israelis being colonizers, the Jews [14:44] being colonizers, why has that taken so [14:47] much root? Why does it have such cache [14:49] was the word he used? And Prime Minister [14:50] NAO just said, "Well, it's ignorance." [14:52] But I want to drill down on that because [14:54] it's not only ignorance. I think there's [14:56] another uh issue here at play which is [14:58] that the vast majority of people in the [15:01] world today do not identify with any [15:05] ancient people from thousands of years [15:07] ago unless they live in the very same [15:10] land. Like let's say Chinese people who [15:11] lived in China and never went into [15:13] exile, they probably do. But if you stop [15:16] your average person, let's say an [15:17] American who's from Italian descent, and [15:20] ask them if when they're studying the [15:21] history of ancient Rome, they feel like [15:23] they're studying their own personal [15:24] history, they'll probably say no. Same [15:26] thing with someone who's of Greek [15:28] descent if they're studying the history [15:30] of ancient Greece. Most people in the [15:32] world today don't feel any association [15:34] with any ancient people. And the vast [15:36] majority of small nations from the [15:38] ancient world who were conquered and [15:40] exiled and scattered throughout the [15:42] world have lost their identities. So [15:45] when Jews say, "Hey, wait a second. [15:47] We've never lost our identity. We know [15:48] exactly who we are. We we know exactly [15:50] where we've been." We have books written [15:53] by rabbis and community leaders in the [15:55] Jewish community from pretty much every [15:58] generation, let alone every century for [16:00] sure, going all the way back to temple [16:02] times. It's an unbroken chain of [16:04] tradition. And therefore there's, you [16:07] know, this idea that you hear out there [16:09] now that the Jews today are not the same [16:10] as the Jews of the Bible or that, you [16:12] know, we're not indigenous to the land [16:13] of Israel. This is all easily, [16:16] demonstrabably false. It's easy to show [16:19] the history. It's actually a very easy [16:20] claim to refute. You just got to lay it [16:22] out. and Prime Minister Netanyahu did an [16:24] amazing job in this
