Unraveling the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle: A Soldier-Turned-Peace Advocate's Perspective with Adar Weinreb

Let's unravel the complex and deeply-rooted Israeli-Palestinian conflict with our guest, Adar Weinreb, a former Israeli Defense Forces soldier turned peace advocate. As someone who's been on the front lines, Adar brings a unique perspective to the conversation, revealing his transformative journey from soldier to advocate, and the importance of humanizing 'the other' when navigating such deep-rooted conflict. His experiences and insights offer a rich understanding of how to facilitate dialogue in divisive cultural landscapes.

We step back to explore the historical roots of Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the importance of focusing on the present and future, rather than dwelling on the past. Through this lens, we delve into the power dynamics between Israel and Palestine, as well as the broader Arab region's influence on this ongoing conflict. We also examine the potential implications of attempting to defeat Hamas, and contemplate alternative solutions that could change the status quo, reduce civilian casualties, and pave the way towards lasting peace.

As we navigate these intricate waters, we also ponder the potential for broader escalation involving Iran and Hezbollah in the Israeli-Hamas conflict. We discuss the complex history of U.S. support for Islamist governments in the Middle East, the challenges of nation-building, and the potential consequences of ground invasions and long-range missile attacks. Despite the current context of conflict and tension, we remain hopeful for a brighter future, a resolution to these long-standing issues, and a path towards peace. Join us for this enlightening exploration of a deeply-rooted conflict from someone who's been in the thick of it.

Adar's social media:
https://www.instagram.com/adarweinreb/
https://twitter.com/AdarWeinreb
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvPm-OhjEtMRB1Oiq04t3hQ

12:37 Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Historical Roots

26:26 The Implications of Defeating Hamas

32:09 Potential Escalation in Israeli-Hezbollah Conflict

Music: Coma-Media (intro)
                 WinkingFoxMusic (outro)
Recorded: 10/25/23

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello everyone, thank you for tuning in today. Today's episode brings a unique perspective to a generational issue and conflict. Prepare to hear a discussion that may challenge one's own point of view, contest the norm, but always promote sincerity and hope. This episode features Adar Weinreb. Weinreb is a former Israeli Defense Forces soldier, idf, who's been involved in various peace-building efforts between Israelis and Palestinians since 2014. In 2019, he launched the Soha YouTube, which is dedicated to facilitating these conversations between people of opposing sides, primarily Israelis and Palestinians.

Speaker 1: 0:47

This conversation is one that is most certainly going to spark controversy and, even if one may find themselves frustrated with what's being said, I can assure you and promise you that it's coming from a place of good intent, sincerity, but also challenging the status quo, different point of views, but, once again, comes from the right place. If you find yourself frustrated during this conversation, I would simply ask you to hit that pause button, because it's not worth ruining your day over. But if you enjoy this conversation, have any takeaway from it, I just ask you to rate, share with a friend and subscribe. Thanks, Can you provide a little more background into that origin story and what got you from A to B? Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2: 2:05

So, interestingly, it was my time in the IDF where I had the first realization, which eventually got me to where I am now. I was guarding on base and something that's important to understand about Israeli soldiers is most of them are between the ages of 18 to 20. So we're kids really. So I was bored just looking at past the time and there was a poster on the wall showing different Hamas training techniques and there was a photo of Hamas soldiers crawling through sand and I looked at one of them and I'd been crawling through sand that same day. It's something quite common to do in the military to do these crawls. And I looked at this Hamas soldier and I actually I saw myself in him and I started to ask myself is the difference between us depend on the side of a border we were born on? Does his family view him as a hero and me as a terrorist? Is that possible? So I really, you know I started just having these questions you know about what is the difference between us dependent? Is it really just where we were born?

Speaker 2: 3:14

Now, this didn't change my views overnight because, you know, these are the views I had on the Israel-Palestine conflict are very much deep rooted and a lot of them are fear-based. I was never taught to hate Palestinians, but I was taught that we need to fear them and protect ourselves against them, and if we don't protect ourselves against them, then you know we won't be able to survive in Israel. That's what I was taught. So these deep rooted teachings didn't change overnight, but that moment there on the military base definitely planted a seed in my mind that over time really got me to understand, and it took years after I left the IDF for me to understand this.

Speaker 2: 3:56

It's very hard to have this realization when you're in the army, when you're in the thick of it, but in the years prior to being released I started understanding that it really all comes down to the humanization of the other. We're all, at the end of the day, more like than we are different, and if we could see the humanity in one another, then that is really a very important first step towards peace and reconciliation. So that really got me to embark on my journey of activism. Let's work to humanize one another. Let's work to get to know one another.

Speaker 2: 4:28

The majority of Israelis don't know Palestinians, aside from the ones they hear about on the news or the ones that have maybe killed their friends and family members. Most Palestinians don't know Israelis besides the soldiers they meet or settlers they come across, neither of whom treat them with respect. So we could get to know one another and break down these walls of fear and ignorance and separation these are metaphysical walls I'm talking about, but that can be done through this process of humanization, and the best way to do it is to engage in conversation with other sides. That's really been the primary focus of my activism.

Speaker 1: 5:09

I mean, you may have heard that tensions here in the United States are pretty high between liberals, conservatives. How do you go about facilitating conversations when the tensions are just hellable, where they have been just deep root, as you said, in the culture, in families, in your life, ever since you could remember? What is your thought process, what was your thought process, and how do you go about and execute these conversations when either side, or both sides, really seem to only have maybe what have you said? Fear and hate towards one another, or at least fear?

Speaker 2: 5:49

Yeah, that's a great question, and if you think that the divide in the United States is big boy, do I have something to tell you about the divide between Israelis and Palestinians? I mean, liberals and conservatives are both American, right, they're still of the same nation, they speak the same language, and I feel like the primary hate between one another, between liberals and conservatives, only exists in the online sphere, like on Twitter. But generally speaking, liberals and conservatives are intermingling day to day and getting along quite well. But Israelis and Palestinians is really a whole other level, because A most Israelis don't speak Arabic, most Palestinians don't speak Hebrew, so we can't even communicate that well. The most spoken common language between us is English, so that's what I do all the conversations in English. In addition to that, we're culturally quite different. We have a different religion, we have a different ethnic background, different living conditions, so we're very, very, very different people who are fighting for national aspirations over the same piece of land. So it's certainly quite a challenge. And just to add to that, there's an anti-normalization movement amongst Palestinian society, and essentially what that means is you don't normalize with the enemy.

Speaker 2: 7:09

Now there's a spectrum as to what you would consider normalization to be, so on one extreme I would say no contact with Israelis whatsoever. The others would say, no, you could well. The other extreme of the spectrum would be no, we need to be their friends. We should be working with them, just unifying with them. That's the way forward. Somewhere in the middle would be we could communicate with Israelis, we could engage in conversation, but we shouldn't pretend like everything's okay and we shouldn't be their friends until we have justice.

Speaker 2: 7:40

Now most Palestinians are somewhere between the middle of the spectrum all the way to the extreme side, saying you shouldn't have any communication with Israelis. So it's much harder to get Palestinians on the YouTube channel, whether they're living on the land of Israel and Palestine or whether they're living abroad. We've had Palestinians who were living in the US or in England come on the show and then a few weeks later they asked if we could remove the episode because they were getting backlash from their community. So finding Palestinians has been a bit of a challenge. For every like 10 Israelis or 10 Jews that are going to volunteer to be on the show, you probably have one Palestinian. But that being said, you know it's a big world. There's millions of people on each side. So we do find people willing to engage and, generally speaking, if you're willing to engage and you're willing to do so with an open mind and respectfully, then we'd be happy to have you on the show for a conversation.

Speaker 1: 8:35

Understood, understood, and in those conversations that I've, deeper, what is discussed Like, what is the premise of it and what was the goal really, too.

Speaker 2: 8:48

Yeah, so there's many different topics we could touch on right.

Speaker 2: 8:51

So, sometimes we just talk about our own different narratives, right, and our narratives are vastly different. Just to get into, you know, palestinians the way they see it, it's like these colonizers showed up one day, decided they want to build a Jewish state on our land. We resisted and they took our resistance, you know, took advantage of our resistance and then displaced us from even more land and took more land and have been continuing to take our land and oppress us for the past 100 or so years. And of course, we have a right to resist. This is our land and their colonizers and they have no right to subject us to the oppression, to the humiliation, to the brutality we face. And we're never going to surrender, we're never going to give up until we could free the land. That's the Palestinian narrative. The Jewish narrative is.

Speaker 2: 9:39

After 2000 years in exile, we finally got the opportunity to return to the land. We did so legally, by buying the land from Ottoman landowners. We were violently attacked. Obviously, we took advantage of this attack to secure our borders, which included expanding it. And we've given Palestinians many opportunities for peace and they keep rejecting it because they don't want peace. They want all the land. That's their only condition for peace. So obviously we're not going to give that up, because the whole point of us living here is to ensure our survival. So if we need to fight, we'll fight, and thank God we're stronger, because if they were stronger then we'd all be dead.

Speaker 2: 10:17

So two very distinct narratives. They seem irreconcilable, but the more we talk, the more we could find ways to unify these narratives. So that's one way to look at it. Another conversation could be about solutions like what are practical next steps we could take, what could the people on each side do, what could our governments on each side do, and how these conversations normally go.

Speaker 2: 10:42

I generally try to bring people I know are going to engage respectfully and we really see progress being made, not only for the people speaking but for those viewing. So I get emails all the time from people saying that their views change just by seeing these conversations. People that said they have been de-radicalized through viewing these conversations. They've never heard a Zionist perspective or they never heard a Palestinian perspective before, because most people are dependent on the news or these extreme activists on Twitter to learn about the conflict rather than hearing from everyday people just engaging with one another. So it's really a unique approach to doing it and I say this a lot on stream that I hope one day what we're doing on these streams is actually irrelevant because so many other people are doing it. Right now it seems like we might be the only channel that's actually bringing Israelis and Palestinians together for respectful conversation, and that's why we're interesting. But I hope one day we're not interesting because everyone's doing it.

Speaker 1: 11:43

That's commendable, to say the least, and you mentioned that At this moment, you believe you're the only channel kind of putting this message forward, facilitating these conversations. Yeah, I've yet to find another one.

Speaker 2: 11:57

But you know, there's a lot of channels that focus on discussion and debate, a lot of streamers, so sure they're doing similar things, but we've. They focus on a lot of topics. We focus primarily on Israel, palestine. Another similar format would be Twitter spaces, but I entered these spaces and they're normally facilitated by people who are on one side of the ideological spectrum and they bring on stage those who are generally going to agree with them. So it's really these Twitter spaces are echo chambers, more than anything.

Speaker 1: 12:28

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. That's a quote from Georgia Santiana. He was a Spanish American philosopher. The point being with that is how important do you believe and how necessary do you believe it may be to understand the historical roots to what's going on here? No, everyone and their mothers seems to have an opinion on what's going on in Israel and Palestine and Gaza at this moment. But I question how many people actually have a deeper understanding of how Hamas came to be and what the battle for declaration is, what the Yom Kippur war is. How important do you think those topics are to understand?

Speaker 2: 13:16

Yeah, so you know, I'll start at the end by saying it's true that everyone has an opinion on Israel, palestine. It's because it's such a popular topic. So it doesn't matter if you're a thought leader on anything. If you're an influencer on anything, this is your opportunity to stay relevant with this current news cycle. So people are trying to come up with some opinion on the topic, regardless of how how much they actually know, just to generate clicks, lights and shares, and so I think that's why the vast majority of content on Israel Palestine is quite shallow and and uninformed.

Speaker 2: 13:53

In terms of the importance of understanding the history, I think it's quite important, but I think it sometimes we get bogged down in history rather than talking about the present and the future, which is far more important. So we should spend some amount of time If I could put it in a number, maybe 25 to a third, 25% to a third of the time should be understanding history, but the majority of what we're talking about needs to be the present, in the future. We often find people getting caught up in historical discussions of who started it, who, who's been here longer, all that stuff, and that's not good. That's, for the most part, not going to help us, you know, get to the practical next steps, because it doesn't matter who started it. That doesn't give you much insight as to what the solution is, because whoever started it is dead. We're now the grandchildren of those who started this conflict Questions. What can the grandchildren do to move forward towards a shared future? So, yeah, I'd say an extent learn history, but don't get bogged down in it.

Speaker 1: 14:55

I think it's a different take I think I was expecting. Personally, being a history buff, I just love diving into it. But I see exactly where you're coming from, because almost something you're alluding to is you know, if you, if I can prove that Israel or Palestine started it, I can now justify the current behavior of one side or the other to the other side started it. That's why my side is doing X and it could obviously derail conversation and derail on the larger scale, any hope for an actual solution.

Speaker 2: 15:29

Yeah, it just takes our folks away from really what's what's more important. So, for example, you know, I think there's a strong case to be made that Israel started it by trying to build a Jewish homeland on a piece of land that was inhabited by other people, and while they did so legally by buying land from Ottoman landowners, I think it's fair to bring in the question of the ethics of such a decision. So legal doesn't mean ethical, and to displace thousands of natives right before there's any violence from Palestinians towards Jews, palestinians were displaced by by Jews who moved here because they wanted it to be Jewish land. So you could very well make the case that that Jews started it Cool. The situation is you now have six million Jews living on the land.

Speaker 2: 16:23

So what if our ancestors started it? Do we deserve to be punished? Do we deserve to be killed and displaced? No, it actually doesn't really make much of a difference. The reality is, if you look at the demographics people living from the river to see it's around 50% Jewish, 50% Palestinian. That's reality we need to come to terms with. So, regardless of what you say about the history, both people are here. Both people are here to stay. Let's really find a way to make it work.

Speaker 1: 16:48

When discussing these conversations and you know, discussing mainly, I'm assuming with Palestinians and Israelis and you're talking about quaying a solution that can work for everyone, even if it's just in rhetoric and then thought, in those discussions Does it get brought up about the broader Arab region and those powers and their, say, influence on the matter, or how does that really ever?

Speaker 2: 17:15

Yeah, that's actually a good point because, interestingly, both Palestinians and Israelis view themselves as the underdog Right.

Speaker 2: 17:22

And it's not hard to see why Palestinians would view themselves as the underdog.

Speaker 2: 17:25

They definitely have much less power than Israel, but Israelis view themselves as, like this tiny Jewish nation surrounded by a sea of enemies, and Palestinians being an enemy that is very much within its own borders.

Speaker 2: 17:40

But, you know, you go north, you go east, you go south, you have other potential enemies, and you go west, you have the ocean Right. So that's a that's a scary idea for for Jews, who have a history of being persecuted, oppressed and and genocide it. So we very much view ourselves as the underdog, protecting ourselves, you know, against the sea of enemies. So that's generally how the rest of the Middle East comes up in conversation and there's generally an acknowledgement that most other Arab nations don't actually care for Palestinians. They've just used Palestinians as a, as a pawn to fight against Israel, and I think there might be a legitimate case to be made and, just to be clear, I think the citizens of these other countries definitely stand in solidarity with Palestinians, but I think the the governments of these countries don't really care for Palestinians. It's more so for whatever geopolitical game they can achieve.

Speaker 1: 18:39

Yeah, I think that's an interesting point, because the Lavod's game brought up now, especially at the Rafa crossing, which leads from the Gaza Strip into Egypt, is well, egypt isn't opening the border either and laying these refugees in, and the sad part is that Egypt, the Egyptian government, doesn't want to deal with all these refugees either. You know Jordan, the Jordanian government. We've over half, possibly three quarters of their population is actually Palestinians and they believe this is an issue as well as it's maybe quote unquote, they're agreeing their culture.

Speaker 1: 19:13

And yeah, it's I. It's looked as much more cynical through the, through the lens of the government rather than maybe the people. Have you ever spoke To any of these people from different nations and maybe had that contrast? Or it has just been from from your conversations with different Palestinians?

Speaker 2: 19:36

No.

Speaker 1: 19:37

I've you know.

Speaker 2: 19:38

I've had a few Middle Eastern frames throughout the years, but I don't know if we really got deep into a sentiment of their countries amongst Palestinians. I mean, I do know that there's generally speaking solidarity, but I don't really think their, their governments, care. You know, generally speaking, across the board, governments don't act in the best interest of the people, specifically people of foreign nations. It's more so like what? What political gain can, can we achieve here? And that's not just Arab nations, that's true about Israel, it's true about the United States and countries all over the world. So I think that's probably the more accurate way to look at it.

Speaker 2: 20:13

Jordanians, I mean no country wants to take in a lot of refugees. Jordan has Jordan. The majority of Jordanian population are Palestinian there. You could call them East Bank Palestinians, right, palestinians east of the Jordan River, who they are not in conflict with because they accepted Jordan. As you know, they've accepted the government of Jordan. There was a Palestinian resistance movement in the 80s, but you know the Jordanian, the Jordanian military brutalized them, killed I believe it was 3000 Palestinians in a few months and kind of quashed their their resistance movement and since then it's been relatively quiet.

Speaker 2: 20:58

It's essentially Palestinians living in Jordan or Jordanian.

Speaker 2: 21:01

I have heard that they're not treated with all, they don't have all the same rights, but I'm I'm not. Maybe someone fact-checked that, but I wouldn't say they're second-class citizens but they don't have quite the same status as, yeah, people are from the same family of the of the king. So it's interesting how much silence there is on that topic. And and you know to, to further explain why East Bank Palestinians have accepted Jordan whereas West Bank Palestinians haven't accepted Israel. You know, I think it's much easier to accept, to live Under a nation that is also Arab and also Muslim, one that follows the logic of the Middle East, rather than what they see as like a foreign entity that just happens to be Jewish, and there's also a fair bit of anti-Semitism in the Muslim world. So you know, there's obviously going to be a larger rejection to living under a Jewish state and living under another Muslim state. So you know, it's not hard to understand why there's a difference in in East Bank Palestinians acceptance of Jordan compared to West Bank Palestinians acceptance of Israel.

Speaker 1: 22:10

Yeah, that's. I'm really glad you touched on that point Towards them because I think incorrect me if I'm wrong, but for my interpretation, my learning of this issue. It's more so Overall land dispute that has multi factors exacerbating it, religion being one of them, and that is kind of what's often conflated is be like oh, this is a religious dispute, this is a religious issue between two religions that just don't get along and that's what's fueling this conflict. But if you look at kind of what has occurred, it's and what's people are talking about mainly over the land rather than the religion, but the religion nonetheless. Having different religions obviously Doesn't help, like a difference in any kind probably wouldn't help, regardless of what that difference was.

Speaker 2: 23:00

Right, yeah, it's definitely more of a national conflict than it is a religious one.

Speaker 2: 23:07

There are religious components, you know, like a lot of the reason why settlements have continuously been built in the West Bank is because there's a large segment of Israeli Jews who are religious and think that that's they have God-given right to that land, and that's certainly certainly complicates the conflict.

Speaker 2: 23:26

But, um, if we look at the secular, the more secular reasons why you know why the conflict exists, these are things that both secular and Israeli and Religious Jews agree on. It's more so. Being able to control our own destiny ensure safety, behaving for Jews Really ensure survival, and this, whether you're an atheist Jew or religious Jew, you're likely to agree with this premise, and same with Palestinians. You could be a secular Palestinian or religious Palestinian, but regardless you'll have a sense of wanting justice and equality and freedom, right, regardless of what your religion is. That said, if everybody on the land was the same religion, it would be probably much easier to Reach a solution. So there's definitely the difference in religion is certainly making this more challenging, but I think it's over simplifying it to view this as a religious conflict, more so that of a Of a national one for sure like you have the Turks and the Kurds, both Sunni, they do not like each other whatsoever.

Speaker 2: 24:31

So right, yeah, that's probably what it would be more similar to Having military experience.

Speaker 1: 24:37

Having military experience and being in the Israeli defense forces, how do you view the current strategy ongoing and unfolding in Gaza and the preparation for a ground invasion?

Speaker 2: 24:50

I Wouldn't say. I'm hopeful that it's going to be successful. I think that, generally speaking, israel's policies are reactionary and are such that are Try to appease the population. So there's an expectation of any population not just Israelis, but any population if they were to get attacked by a foreign entity, that population would expect there to be a response. This whole Respond to violence with with violence seems to be hardwired into our DNA. And just to give you an example of how easy it is to convince a population to Engage in violence, I mean you had 70% of Americans support the invasion of Iraq based on false pretenses, a country that was not involved in 9-11, yet 70% agreed. So think about how easy. So not at how easy it is to convince, but how much the will of Israelis is to strike back to rocket fire or this horrific massacre on October 7th. Israelis want to see that our government's protecting us and there's this idea that if you strike back harder, that's a form of Defense.

Speaker 2: 26:06

But I think if we look historically at what Israel's policy in Gaza has achieved, I think it's been entirely counterproductive. So Hamas will shoot rockets on Israelis, we respond with aerial bombardments. Let's talk about those bombardments actually achieve. We know civilians die, and Hamas operatives die as well, without a doubt, but generally more civilians die, many of them children. We know that in addition to the the cost of life, there's an unseen cost of war, which is trauma and radicalization. So with each wave of violence you have a more radicalized Palestinian population, a population that's not open or ready for peace with Israel. You see that Israel, negative sentiment against Israel and Jews increases with every wave of violence, and Palestinian and Hamas sentiment increases In addition to that. Hamas then gets billions of dollars from the international community to rebuild Gaza, but a lot of that goes to line their own pockets or to just Build and buy more weapons. So and and so is that this actually keeping Israel safe? It doesn't seem so, because every few years we have the same Escalation and Hamas has comes back stronger than they were the prior escalation. So all we have to show for most of it is negative, with the major cost of life. But the population expects that us to do that. So it would almost be political suicide to do anything but strike back.

Speaker 2: 27:44

So, looking at the history, we've Continuously failed in doing anything to deter Hamas, to weaken them and to bring the Palestinians closer to peaceful resolution. We've done the exact opposite. Now things seem to be different, because Israel's saying this time we're not going to deter them, we're going to defeat them. This is what they're saying. Benjamin and Tenya is saying it. Yov Galant, the general of the military, is saying this, and the majority of the population this is what they want, whether the right, left or center. They want Hamas gone. So this is the first time in history where Israel is coming in saying Hamas is done.

Speaker 2: 28:23

But here's a quest, the question of can they actually achieve that? What would it require? So it would take many months to overtake Gaza and it would be extremely bloody. I don't see Israel doing it without Easily. A thousand dead soldiers, israeli soldiers, and probably tens of thousands of dead Palestinians, so Palestinian civilians. It would require a form of guerrilla warfare that we've saw from the war in Iraq, like we saw in Vietnam. It's extremely hard to fight, it's extremely hard to defeat, and to defeat it it requires a massive toll to civilian lives.

Speaker 2: 29:08

So is it possible? Yes, is it likely? I'm not so sure. And then let's say we do succeed there, then what? Who will replace Hamas? Will Israel just govern Gaza? I don't know. That doesn't seem like a long-term strategy. Can we replace Hamas with the Palestinian Authority? Potentially, is it possible? We could actually give Gaza to Egypt and have Gaza become the Palestine province of Egypt, and Egypt doesn't wanna do that, but maybe the international community can pay them enough money to get them to agree. There's a lot of questions. We need to be creative.

Speaker 2: 29:46

But the chance of Israel successfully defeating Hamas and replacing Hamas with someone better that changes the status quo and improves the lives of Palestinians and Israelis I wouldn't put that as likely, like I don't think there's a likely chance that that happens. I'd like for that to happen. I'd like for whatever we do next, for it to not just calm things down but to actually change the status quo, because when we keep kicking the can down the road, it doesn't actually make things better, it just pushes off the next wave of violence. So I don't want us to go back to business as usual. I want the status quo to change by any means necessary, and I hope we could do that with minimizing civilian death toll. But I wouldn't say that I have a high level of confidence, especially because of our government, our Israel's current government. I don't think they have what it takes or the will to actually do that effectively. So that's my thoughts.

Speaker 1: 30:47

Playing the humanitarian crisis. That was a lot, thank you, and a lot of things were going on my mind there. And playing the humanitarian crisis aside obviously because that would be a huge issue like humanity is just losing tens of thousands of civilians. Looking at from a solely strategic point of view military strategic point of view, Seeing tens of thousands of civilians Palestinian civilians die or injured, this has already sparked outrage from the Arab world. Across the board. We have seen, like with the bombing of a hospital, which blame is still up in the air of who was responsible for it and the exact death account and the exact casualty account. But following that, literally at like 3 am, across the Arab world, there were protests for these governments to do something. Governments such as Iran said and warned that they won't kind of like stand by and let this happen and they act through proxies or they might do something themselves, but they also act through proxies, such as Hamas, but also Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon. This is what would personally concern me.

Speaker 1: 32:09

Playing the humanitarian crisis aside, just looking from a strategic point of view, is, if Israeli forces went in, the casualty count continues to skyrocket. Hezbollah launches into Israel. There's a war there. Last time Israeli forces entered Lebanon, it did not go too well. Israeli forces encountered large, heavy amounts of casualties, and that is where I see the potential for a broader escalation that would get the United States and get everyone involved and put Israel at real risk for how they would survive. So, as I couldn't be in more agreement of trying to decapitate Hezbollah's military wing and Hezbollah not Hezbollah excuse me, Hamas Hamas's military capacities, or severely degrade them is determined to keep hearing too, I am deeply concerned that broader powers would also interject, mainly Iran through the proxy Hezbollah based in Lebanon or Iran themselves, and that is something that could have severe consequences. So I'm curious just your thoughts on that and that's not exactly pushback, but just things I've been hearing and listening to I'm like that's very like a very real possibility.

Speaker 2: 33:34

Yeah, yeah, I would say that's a large concern and I actually saw an analysis that that was Hamas's strategy. Actually, they knew that in doing this there would be a ground invasion and the idea is to get Israel caught up in a ground invasion so that Hezbollah could attack and Israel won't be prepared. Now I don't know if this is true, but it's not a bad analysis in my opinion, and Iran being both large supporters of Hezbollah and Hamas, they aren't likely to just sit around and accept Hamas being defeated because, a they're an important ally to them and, b it just shows that Iran is willing to to not support an ally in time of need and it's just not a good look for them. Will they get engaged in direct military conflict with Israel? It's unclear In our countries are pretty far distance away. Like I don't see Iran sending troops to invade Israel. I think that's going to be very hard for them to do. Even just getting the troops over. Their convoys are going to get bombed before they even get here.

Speaker 2: 34:45

But they do have long-range missile capabilities and they haven't shot one at Israel yet. But that's a question. Will they start shooting long-range missile capabilities? And I'm not sure we even know the extent of those capabilities. But it very well may be one of these long-range missile wars, because the distance between Israel and Iran is such that Israel can't fly a jet there and back now without refueling midway and we don't have the jets that allow us to refuel our American, and America intentionally didn't sell them to us so we wouldn't bomb Iran.

Speaker 2: 35:22

But it seems like it could very well be a conflict where there's long-range missiles going from Iran to Israel and vice versa, and Iran really increases their presence, tries to increase their presence in Lebanon and Syria, and it seems like that's America's concern as well. That's why they're sending these aircraft carriers and really preparing for a larger escalation in the Middle East, and we know Russia and China is getting involved as well. So I definitely don't want to be a pessimist, but is this what the beginning of World War III looks like? I don't know. We'll know in hindsight. I certainly hope that's not the case, but it seems like the worst is yet to come. Things are still escalating and it's unclear how it's going to play out.

Speaker 1: 36:14

All we could hope that, when all is said and done, we can rebuild and we're living in a brighter world than we were prior 100%, and something that you mentioned in the beginning which I thought was interesting and I may have heard this, but May not which is that this is but this was Hamas's exact intention to do something so egregious, so important that it would, it would demand the man's a ground invasion, almost, and such a dramatic response from Israel that it would result in these high number of palestinian casualties, which would then put pressure on other Entities such as Iran Iran, excuse me and Hezbollah to do something, and that would obviously draw the United States and that would draw on, no, a number of other actors. And, yeah, that is very similar to actually 9-11, like if you look at what happens with how we respond to the United States. Speaking specifically to Iraq, we went to Iraq and completely destabilized the government. Then a radical Sunni Organization terrorist group came to power, you know ISIS, and destabilized the region.

Speaker 2: 37:29

I mean, they were eventually defeated, but a lot of awful things happened in between, then, between, um, yeah, yeah it's interesting and I'm no expert on this topic, but you know, the United States has a very interesting history of supporting the toppling of secular nationalist governments in the Middle East and and then supporting the rise of more Islamist governments. So we did this in Iran and was it was at the late 70s. We did this with Saddam Hussein. We tried to do this in Syria. I say we because I'm American, israeli, so when I say we, I come about Israel or America. We did this in in Libya.

Speaker 2: 38:06

So I'm not sure why America constantly works the top of secular nationalist and then replaces them with Islamists. It's unclear that that's a good strategy, but what we see is, you know, regime change and nation building is very challenging and power vacuums are generally filled with not those who are most responsible, but those who are most powerful. So, yeah, yeah, we. Uh, if we defeat Hamas in Gaza, we need to carefully replace it and not just let Things unfold as they want, because we very well may be led with the Islamic jihad, which is even more extreme than Hamas, in power. So that would be good.

Speaker 1: 38:46

Yeah, I think the Invasion to pretty much the great Iraqi and decapitating Iraqis military capabilities and forces was a few weeks to like a couple months, but it didn't take very long. However, we didn't have any strategy on what happens next. How do you govern the civilian population that we're largely unfamiliar with? We didn't foresee that installing largely Shia government would actually know, push them closer to Iran, who is largely she as well. So these are these are all questions that I don't know are being asked because I'm Personally very skeptical. Based off, and it's easy to look back at history and judge. You know the people and the actors and the leaders back then, but just doing that, there's little minimal faith in how we can. The United States kind of play things out, like I said, hindsight's 20, 20, but it's not something that you know, you look back on. But that was during move no, there's fewer of those. Then there are of. Wow, that was a massive mistake on our end.

Speaker 2: 39:52

Yeah, yeah it's, you know it's. It's sometimes hard to stay hopeful, but you know, what I constantly remind myself is that, while it's unclear what the solution is and what the best path moving forward is, if we don't believe that there is a path, then we're very Unlikely to achieve any any positive path. So, as hard it is to remain hopeful, we should keep our eyes on, like, a more positive future, because that's our only way of really achieving it. So that's kind of what what keeps me going, because the alternative to hope is just so much worse.

Speaker 1: 40:30

Yeah, that's a great point. So, exactly, easily. It's one thing I always do like this the cynical point of view, different from the the pessimistic point of view. I'm not very pessimistic, I don't like just looking everything through this negative lens, but I will kind of look at why someone did or mine someone, but Entities such as the government why, or even a large corporation, why they did that compared to um, you know maybe what the Republic of Persona is, but, agreed, it's something that this issue Requires conversation. It requires people being open to honest dialogue and that's why I'm so appreciative for you to come on the show and talk about this and what you do, because you don't hear that I have, I felt, you know, come out people on Instagram, as other people too as well, and it's like the people who are neither most of them, not all of them, but most of them are not from Israel.

Speaker 1: 41:27

I'm not Palestinian, they may be Jewish, but point being is, there's a people just talk past each other. It's like you would look at two different realities, both it's. You know, genocide is being thrown around on both sides. I'm not like speaking to the validity of that, I'm just saying like it's almost as if Just I'm talking at you and I have you on mute, like I still see you, I still like know you're there but you're muted, like I don't really care what you say, but I still know that you're right, right there. And that's how I'm just doing social media, like people know that they're gonna see their post, but they have. It doesn't seem to have any kind of Understanding or willingness to see the other person's post or the other person's point of view.

Speaker 2: 42:11

Yeah, yeah, that's. That's really the intention of what we're doing. You know, stop yelling at each other, stop Speaking to your echo chamber, come have a conversation, as challenging as that may be. You know it's comfortable to just stay within your bubble and just talk to people who who agree with you, while sharing amongst those who agree with you the most extreme positions of the other side, regardless of it If that's the majority position. You know there's this culture of outrage and you know the most outrageous takes is what gets shared the most, but is that the most commonly believed take, right? So, yeah, that's one of the challenges we're facing with social media. So that's why, you know, I very much respect what you're doing in your mission to have this conversations and you know, I think we we should hope for a world where there's just a lot more of this.

Speaker 1: 43:00

What is one thing you will want people to leave this conversation with, whether it's a piece of advice or kind of a recommendation to go on and do something. Yeah, so maybe a few points I'll touch on.

Speaker 2: 43:08

First of all, there's so much misinformation out there, it's so hard to know what's true. Don't be quick to jump to conclusions. It's okay to not know everything, and one one way to help you sort through Misinformation or at least reach better conclusions is if Israel reports something or if Hamas reports something, there's no reason to believe that's true. These countries are at war with one another, and when you're at war, you're not just fighting a war of uh, you know, with with arms, whether it's rockets, guns and Aerial bombardments. You're also fighting a war of information and of narratives, and both sides have incentive and a history of being dishonest in times of war. So if you want to be accurate, don't don't take what Hamas or Israel said at face value. Be very skeptical of the information they're putting out. That's one. Two, be open to getting your mind changed. Get be open to meeting somebody on the other side.

Speaker 2: 44:18

If you think it Israelis are horrible or their narrative is is bad, talk to more Israelis. Get to know them. Don't try to convince them at first. Listen to them, hear them, and then they'll open up to hearing you. And if you think Palestinians are horrible or that Muslims are all terrorists, get to know more Muslims. Um, this is really the the best suggestion I can make how to build this a more beautiful world. It's really Working on getting to know people we know the least about or fear the most, and I feel like this is how we could build a more cohesive and unified society. Um so, yeah, I'll leave it with that. Well, lastly, I also want to give you the opportunity where?

Speaker 1: 44:57

how could people support you? Where people find you with channels, where they called.

Speaker 2: 45:03

Yeah, sure. So my youtube channel is called soha, which is s u l h? A that stands for reconciliation in Arabic, um. And then, you know, on instagram and twitter you could find me by my full name, which is a a dar wine rib. Uh, maybe you drop. You could drop that in the description, so sure, because Not everyone's gonna know how to spell a dar wine and I'm always open to talk. Feel free to reach out to me. Uh, if you have a question, a thought, comment or feedback, you know I'm very happy to hear from you. Awesome, thank you for your time at dar. It was an absolute pleasure.

Speaker 1: 45:37

Thank you, daniel. This this was great. I very much appreciate you inviting me on.

Speaker 2: 45:42

Of course.

Speaker 1: 45:44

All right, see you guys.