 Welcome back to Think Tech. This is Jay Fidel and we're talking about global connections here with our old friend Seymour Kazimerski. Welcome to the show Seymour. Thank you, Jay. It's been a while since I've been able to shake your hand or give you a hug. The same here. And that's the world we live in and it's still that way, I must say. Anyway, one of the complications of this world that we live in with all of the issues in this country, and of course it's related, is what's going on in Israel. And it's very troublesome. There are some people believe the media is not accurately reporting what is going on, but it's very unfair to the Israelis. What are your thoughts about that? Well, I obviously agree with you because I've studied Israel over the last 20, 30 years, but I have to say it is a very complicated issue. You and I in 30 minutes cannot solve all of the issues that are there if countries around the world who have tried to negotiate with Israel and Palestine and Hamas and Gaza and all of the different other parties in this, it's become almost an impossibility, Jay. What it is, is we have a boiling pot. And a boiling pot of water, as you know, if you leave it on Seymour, can stay there for a while. But if something starts to make that water got hotter and hotter, the pot explodes and the water goes all over the place. That's what has happened in the last two weeks in Israel. And it's not something that just happened in the last two weeks. It's this boiling pot of water that's been there for years and years and years. So historically, we have to understand what has gone on from the time that Israel became a state in 1948 to today. But relative, if you understand Israel and people look at a map of Israel and see it surrounded by millions and millions of countries who may not like them that much and may actually feel that they belong more in the Palestinian side and the Hamas side by saying they want to annihilate Israel, that is the biggest issue that we have. If we don't get over that first, we don't have a starting point in any type of negotiation. So really, the first thing we have to say is if people believe that Israel should be annihilated and all Jews should be killed, how do you get to start? Where do you go from there? Yeah. We can be, quote, balanced about it, but it's hard to start there because where can you negotiate from, I want you all in the Mediterranean killed. I want your state of Israel to go away, disappear, blow up. And those threats have existed for a long time, increasingly so. I was going to ask you, you know, we've seen, you and I have seen the Gaza experience now. This would be the third time, maybe more, that we've had conflagration in Gaza. And it's like a bad movie that plays again and again. And the same elements are happening. But you know what? I'd like to ask you, Seymour, is this different than the last two or three times that Israel has had a, call it a war with Gaza and Hamas? It is different. It is different because it actually started in a part of Israel at the Temple Mount, as you probably know. It started years ago when Israel decided that settlements were going to be in place. Am I in favor of settlements? I'm only in favor of settlements if they're in the the the ire of protecting Israel. So if settlements are a big issue, I would love to see Israel give up a little bit on the settlements if they knew that peace was truly in the offing. The problem is, it's not. We have Hamas absolutely terrorizing their own people in Palestine. And those those people in in in the Gaza haven't had an elections for years and years and years and years. Why? Because Hamas provides them with money. It provides them with whatever they need to live. But at the same time, they have to swear allegiance to Hamas. And if they swear allegiance to Hamas, they will allow Hamas to build tunnels under their houses to use them as human shields. And of course, this is not the way to negotiate. Again, I'm a business consultant by trade. So I'm used to negotiating. I'm used to negotiating with people who sometimes don't agree with each other. And that's okay. And in this case, we have disagreements, true disagreements between the Palestinians and the Jewish people of Israel. But they can be negotiated if we get to a point where everybody agrees both sides should should be able to survive. If one side does not agree to that, where are we going with this? President Biden said in the last few days, he said unequivocally, Israel has the right to defend itself. This morning, his vice president Kamala Harris had a big, big speech about absolutely being 100% behind Israel and their right to survive, and their right to do whatever it takes to survive. So those in the media who are saying Israel needs to show restraint, strength from what? From 3,000 rockets that have been fired upon them? 3,000 rockets. Does anybody say, Hamas, you should have restraint. You should stop throwing those rockets. They won't stop throwing those rockets. Why? Because PR is going on their side, not on the Israeli side. It's a replay. It's deja vu all over again where the press is concerned about, for example, that building that the Israeli Air Force IDF blew up. They had good reasons to blow it up. And they gave warning, as they always do in these arguments. They told everybody, you got to get out of the building because we're going to blow it up. And people, they don't want to get out of the building. They want to be blown up like a suicide bomber. They want to be blown up so they stay. But what I find interesting is that the press has become the news, which is always the wrong way. I think it was the BBC or CNN was in there. Oh, it was AP. It was the Associated Press was in there. And I think CNN was in there, I'm not sure. They both have offices in that building. Correct. But guess who else? Guess who else had an office in that building? Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Everybody has listed them, including the UN, has listed them as a terrorist organization. And they had multi-level offices in that building. Now how could CNN not say that they knew that Hamas was there? How could AP not say that they knew that Hamas was there? That's ridiculous. The news is driving the negativity. I agree. And you can watch the news, even out of the corner of your eye, and see all the channels that we take our news from, hammering on the IDF because they blew up this building. Well, they had the good reasons for it. This is where Hamas was, this was the command control center for the war. And it amazes me that, as you say, that the Associated Press and CNN would stay there and would be surprised that the Israelis blew up the building. Of course, this is a war. And finally, as I said, there was a warning, as there always is in this case, you better get out of the building. So it's remarkable that the press doesn't really emphasize that. And it keeps on drilling away with those photos of the building going down. I mean, it's raw meat, but it's not good news. It's not good journalism. I'm sorry. The press makes it, these guys are making themselves the news story, not good. And then, of course, you have the rockets, as you mentioned, see more thousands of rockets. This is also, you know, deja vu all over again. I find it remarkable that the Israelis get blamed for responding to the rockets, but the news doesn't cover the rockets themselves. So what are you supposed to do? Hang around and get blown up with the rockets? It's really extraordinary how it's so one-sided. I mean, if they were doing good journalism, they would say, well, it starts with the rockets. And then, you know, if you don't want to have the rockets, rather, it starts with the rockets, the Israelis respond, and then you say, stop with the rockets, and there won't be any war. Well, they don't stop. They don't stop with the rockets. They keep firing the rockets. And my guess is the rockets come from Iran anyway. The rockets are terrorist rockets. You're 100% correct, Jay, but you're speaking to the choir here. How do we change this? What do we do to make sure that the media becomes more fair? As you know, we have seen in the last 10 years, media is not telling us the news. They're telling us their interpretation of the news. And if they want to sell blood and they want to sell gore, and that's what sells their newspapers, and that's what sells their TV stations, they're not going to be unbiased. They're going to be unfair. And I really believe that the answer to all this is Israel must continue to do what it's doing. It must continue to try to bring Hamas to its knees and try to negotiate peace with the Palestinians themselves, not through Hamas, Jay. It's very, very clear that these people are under the thumb of Hamas. And as long as they're under the thumb of Hamas, they have to do what they have to do with their toll. And it's almost, I mean, to talk about the issue of the Temple Mount and the settlements being the catalyst that made this pot of water boil that I was telling you about, it's true. That's how it started. But it just took a little turn on that burner and boom, the whole thing goes. So we need to have true peace settlements and true peace negotiations. And I think if we don't have both sides agree, one thing, Jay, one thing, Israel is allowed to exist. We don't have that. We don't have that. But I'm saying that is the key to any settlement. You have to have something that everybody agrees upon. When we do negotiations and we have two parties and two different pieces of the puzzle here, we always try to bring one line that brings them together, just one. Once we have that one line that says Israel has the right to exist, and then we're able to go forward, and then we can negotiate, and then we can make settlements. And then, I mean, do you think the Palestinian people want to be in the position that they're in after all these 20, 30, 40 years? Of course not. They don't want to be there, but they have to be there because nobody is really helping them, except for Hamas. And Hamas is not doing them anything. Hamas is making them hate, is inviting hatred involved here. But I want to visit your statement about how that Hamas and Hezbollah and what have you, they're committed to the destruction of Israel. That's their principal mission. That's where they get the hatred from. That's how they get people to get behind them. That's their mission. And what's troubling about this is that is this. It's that if you sit down and you make an agreement, say a peace agreement, and you never back off on the point that Israel should be destroyed. That's committed to the destruction of the state of Israel. That's where they are. The problem is that that peace agreement cannot possibly hold, because it means that when they entered into that agreement, they said, sure, we'll have an agreement. But it's only for show, because at the end of the day, remember, our mission is the destruction of Israel. So it's all a wink and a blink. It's not a serious peace agreement. Nobody on their side of it believes that. What they believe is we have to destroy the state of Israel. And the Israelis are not stupid about it. They know this. They know that any peace agreement, whoever brokers it, whatever American administration comes in and tries to make peace here can never get by that problem. Whatever the thing is, it's skin deep because the commitment is to destroy the state of Israel. I don't think people realize that. I don't think they realize that. Well, if more people, well, again, back to the negotiating line between two parties, that line has to be agreed upon. Without it, it's exactly what you say. We will never have peace in that region. Jay, you and I are, you know, educated people. We've seen a lot of things happen in this world. But what has happened there over 30, 40, I mean, since 1948, you know, where Israel was always under attack and they decided, okay, we'll give them the West Bank and we'll give them the Gaza. That'll be the Palestinian areas. Let them live in peace. We'll give them jobs. We'll let Arabs work in Israel. We'll do everything that we can to help them. And what do they do? They keep getting attacked. So in that case, Israel has to spend a huge percentage of their GDP, huge percentage on military. And thank heaven the United States is willing to back them. And Kamala Harris said this morning, if I'm not mistaken, $38 billion of aid will continue to go to Israel because they realize that that democracy is key to the Middle East, is key to making sure that the world is a safer place. Israel is not just about Israel. Israel is about peace throughout that region. And if we allow Iran to have nuclear weapons, because they have a lot of friends, don't forget, they may have signed peace treaties with Israel, but that boiling pot is still simmering. There's still a lot of hatred over hundreds of years that these people have towards Jewish people. And no matter what genocide, no matter what holocaust that we talk about, it still is there. I mean, I see it when I lecture on the holocaust. I still see neo-Nazis coming to my lectures. I have letters, death threats that come to me after I do lectures about the holocaust. It's not going to disappear unless the two parties believe that Israel has the right to exist. I can't make it much simpler than that. If they would agree to that, if they agree to that, then we have a way to move forward. It has to be a sincere effort to make peace. There's so many ploys going on. For example, you guys bombed our tunnels. How could you do that? Well, the tunnels are weapons. The tunnels allow Hamas to come across under the fence, which should put around for mutual security, put around Gaza, and come and attack the Kibbutzim that are nearby. This has been going on in every one of those iterations. And now they're mad, and the press is on Israel for bombing the tunnels. Well, the tunnels just didn't get there by accident. They were built as weapons. I don't understand why this isn't brought up. I don't understand that. But what you have is going back to this thing about how do you make an agreement that really works? If you don't send rockets, this is good, but you've got to promise not to do that. If you don't build tunnels to attack the Kibbutzim, you've got to promise not to do that. I think you need some third-party, other state actor to come in like the US and really be effective in terms of making people make agreements and abide by the agreements. You and I talk about you and I how we go back. The fact is that we have seen the US try this so many times, and it has never worked. But Jay, that's in itself. Jay, excuse me for interrupting. What you're saying it's never worked. You don't keep making the same mistake over and over again and expect it to work, right? You need another third party. You're correct. But the third party has to be an Arab party. It has to be somebody that really has enough out in that region to tell Hamas you have got to back down from your desire to annihilate Israel, to drive all the Jews into the Mediterranean. That can't be the US. We're so far away from them. We've tried it for so many years. So many administrations have tried it. It hasn't worked. The peace treaty with Manachem Begin. I mean, none of that really meant anything because we know that Hamas is still there. And as long as they're controlling the area, there's nothing we can do. What Netanyahu is doing right now, what he's trying to do is to bring them to their needs so that they will negotiate and somebody will come in. Somebody who they respect, maybe somebody who finances them other than Iran, because they're a bad player in this, but we need a third party to come in. I'm sorry. I don't think it's the US. I think the US just can't do it. I don't think any European nation- So who is it? I don't know, Cenk. I mean, if we knew the answer, I would tell you. I think it's got to be an Arab country. It's got to be somebody who's going to come in and say enough is enough. You can't- There's millions of people like that. Nobody comes to mind. So that strategy is not likely to work simply for the lack of a fair witness player. And what that suggests is this will keep on going on. Well, we've got Egypt. We've got Jordan. We've got Saudi Arabia. We've got Kuwait. I'm sorry. We've got Qatar. These are all friends of Israel that are Arab countries. If they do a coalition that comes into the Gaza and to the West Bank and tells them, look, we're not going to fund you anymore, or we will fund you millions of dollars to improve your society. We'll give you schools. We'll give you buildings. We'll give you infrastructure. We'll do whatever it takes to get you to stand up on your own two feet. Israel will be a part of that play. Jay, I was there in 2012 with my wife when we were investigating the marijuana business, believe it or not. And we went to the Gaza, my wife and I, and we went and we saw the Iron Dome being built. And we saw the difference between the Arab side and the Israeli side. And I feel for those Arabs. I feel for those Palestinians. They're living in squalor. They really have very, very little to hope for. And if you don't give people hope, Jay, if you don't allow them to have a dream, a dream of where they can be, what they can achieve, how their children can grow up into, you know, not radicals, but to grow up in a good society, if you can't give them that, then they're going to continue to be the way they are. Yeah, built on hate. But you know, the reality is that Israel, a population of some 9 million, I think probably nearly a third of Israel is Arabs. And they live among, and they're the doctors and lawyers. And, you know, they go to school, they have success they have, they've achieved some wealth. I don't think people realize that. And sure, there are, you know, fringe elements that continue to hate on both sides. But the reality is Israel is a diversified state. And it's, yes, it's a Jewish state, but it's, there's plenty of room for people to make some money and have businesses and so forth. And I find that, you know, an answer really to the question, if you start throwing rockets at me out, I'll let you enjoy all the benefits of citizenship and of, you know, wealth growth. But, you know, that's not what's happening because the hate is there. Now, what concerns me is the BDS movement. And it has concerned me for a long time. Boycott, you know, and sanction and what's the other one, BDS. And BDS is actually supported by either Hezbollah or Hamas, ultimately, I think by Iran. And there's been a lot written about it, but they are all over the place. They are all over this country. And they, and you mentioned how Israel, you know, has not done well in the PR war. And it's not doing well in the PR war now. But over the years, it has not done well. I for some reason, the Israeli mentality, the Netanyahu mentality is they should read up on us. They should understand. We are not going to help them understand. They have to find out themselves. I mean, the world. And, you know, this is kind of a mistake, I think. Israel should be more concerned about, you know, presenting its viewpoint, presenting its position, and, you know, making, making PR. Jay, you have to go back historically and to understand why, even with a lot of PR, Israel has a hard time. I mean, how many, how many times have Jewish people been at the bottom of PR? I mean, you could go back for hundreds of years and there's been scourges and holocaust and all of the things that have happened to Israel. When you take a small group of people and they become very, very independent, they become wealthy, they're very smart and you're living right next to them and you're not doing as well. What do you do? You blame those people. Jews have always been the scapegoat and they've made it so difficult for themselves because they're so successful. Now, to be successful, I'm all for it. And I like what the Jewish people have done. I like all their biotech. I like their medical. I like everything that is coming out of Israel to the point where if you go into certain areas in Israel, you will see Google. You will see Microsoft. You'll see, you know, huge centers of where they are using Jewish people to help them move their companies forward. But at the same time, you have to suffer because of that. Because the world doesn't always like somebody that is more successful than themselves. And the Jews have a terrible PR problem in explaining why do we do as well as we do? It's not something that can be done very easily. You're going to have to take the lumps. You're going to have to be tough. And you're going to have to make sure that you protect yourself as they are. Because Iran, one nuclear bomb, one bomb, that's all it takes. And Israel would be wiped off the earth. And yet we're willing, the US is willing to negotiate with Iran. Do you think that these people have told the truth ever? And I think it's crazy. I honestly think it's crazy. But so the negotiating strategy, one negotiating strategy is to lie about everything and never mean it. Never be sincere at all. But you know, one thing that troubles me, and this is another show sometime, we should look at the US and how it is divided on this issue. You mentioned that Kamala Harris made some remarks. And Joe Biden, we're going to support Israel and all that, as the United States has for many, many years since 1948 anyway. But the question is, what's going to happen in Congress? It's so interesting how this is flipped on its side here. Because Trump moved the American embassy to Jerusalem. Trump tried through his son-in-law to do stuff without any real success. And he provoked a lot of people. And his relationship with Netanyahu was very provocative and called from Netanyahu to be provocative. And he is. And then you have people and Republicans in Congress who are actively supporting Israel when that's really not their inclination to support Israel, somehow got to be politicized for them. Maybe it's the evangelicals, part of the base. I don't know what it is. They don't really understand what goes on in Israel. Jay, I have news for you. They really don't understand, because a lot of them really just read news reports. So they have no clue as to what Israel does for the world. What Israel has committed itself to make sure, I mean, if you knew what they do in agriculture, in medicine, and all of the things that Israel does, everybody would be saying, how is that possible? This tiny little country can do so much for the world. The biggest issue we have in politics today is who is going to support Israel. It's a big, big issue for me. And I am thrilled to say that Biden so far and Kamala Harris today have given their 100% support to Israel. And you know with Obama, that wasn't always there, right? So I'm thrilled that we have that from them. And I think the Democrats and the Republicans are going to do it. Forget the squad and the AOC and those idiots on, you know, the far right and the far left. Yes, they get a lot of press, but I don't believe that they're really anywhere near getting a majority, in my opinion. So I think Israel is okay that way. I just want this thing to end peacefully. If Hamas stops the rockets, Israel will stop bombing. Simple. It's not a big deal, but Hamas has to stop the rocket. If they do that, Israel will stop the bombing. Well, it goes back to something that's fundamental for you, Seymour, because you had family in the camps and you know the Holocaust, your family knows the Holocaust firsthand. And Israel is in many ways a product of the Holocaust. Remember, you know, from 1945 to 1948, it knitted together as a result of the Holocaust and all of this place, the Jewish people that came from Europe at that time, very tragic. And there was this great success in putting the state of Israel together. We should never, ever forget that. And we should never, ever forget the fact that Israel is a product of that, the war and the Holocaust and people who really cared to make a better world, who really invested and put their life on the line to make a better world. It wasn't so easy to fight everybody and create the state of Israel, but they did. And they did it for so many good reasons. And maybe that's part of why they're successful in technology and medicine and entrepreneurship today. And for that matter, in reaching around the world and dealing with so many countries and helping them, even without expectation, you know, they do it out of a kind of an international altruism in my observation. So I would love to discuss that with you, you know, at a later date, because I know we don't have a lot of time. But if people were just to understand war is a product of people's belief that they need to be better than somebody else, that is not Israel. Hamas has a belief that they have to destroy Israel. That has to change. Well, and the important thing at which is where we started this discussion, is that Israel must survive. It must survive. And this country has a responsibility and obligation and interest in making sure it survives. And it is not a guarantee that Israel will survive. It takes work. It takes commitment. It takes loyalty. It takes good politics and good foreign policy. And that's the bottom line. We cannot, for a moment, take steps in any other direction. Correct. Thank you, Jay. Thank you, Seymour. We'll talk again soon. Aloha.