 All right everybody, welcome to Iran Book Show on this May 3rd. I am in Haifa, Israel, in my hotel room, so of course we all know Hotel Internet. We've had some bad experiences together with it. Let's hope it holds this time. What happened there? Something is not muted. Some things not muted. There we go, we muted it. We're good now. All right, so here we are. I am in Israel. I apologize. Yes, I need to put on the video. I'm a little slow today. Okay, so I'm a little sick. I'm recovering from a cold. The reason why I haven't done other shows, time difference, I'm seven hours ahead, so it's 10 p.m. at night here. I have been sick with this cold for now for almost a week and I've been busy. So family and events and all kind of other stuff. So hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, your sound is good now, video is good now, everything is working. So just let me know that everything is working. The echo I think should have gone. So you guys are just behind me by a while, so I'm seeing the chat from like five minutes ago. So, okay, now sound is okay. All right, so anyway, I'm here in Israel. I'm here for another couple of days and then I'll be in Spain. I'll try to do a show tomorrow as well. I'll try to do some shows from Spain. I'll try to do some shows from Italy. Maybe from Amsterdam when I'm there, but when I travel, it's difficult. It's difficult to predict the Wi-Fi. It's difficult to predict my time and it's difficult to predict my health, obviously, because I get sick when I travel, unfortunately, so there you go. Now, some of you have been acute enough to observe that I am not 75 years old. Thank you for those of you who realize that. It depresses me a little bit to think that some of you thought maybe that today was my, that this indeed was my 75th birthday, but do I look 75? Really? I mean, I know that here's white, but come on, people. Anyway, it is Israel's 75th birthday and I know that's considered an anniversary or whatever, but last week I landed, indeed, in Israel on Independence Day, which is 75th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, and I thought given that I'm here and given that it was Independence Day and given that I just did a very, very political event with a very, very high-profile politicians in Israel, actually, I would say I did an event on Sunday with the most hated politicians in Israel today. So I thought this would be a good opportunity to talk about Israel, to talk about my impressions of Israel. You know, I come here about once a year and I sometimes update you on my impressions of Israel, but give you my impressions of Israel and then give you up to speed on what's happening here politically. And I think as you're here, I think, I think a lot of what's happening here politically is a reflection of what's happening all over the West politically, and I think we can learn a lot from what's happening in Israel right now. So I think that, hopefully, is of interest, and so we will talk about Israeli politics. Also about, you know, part of this Israeli politics issue is yesterday, I don't know if you heard about this, I don't know if you saw the news, but yesterday a prisoner, Hamas, a terrorist who had been on hunger strike in Israeli prison died. And as a response, Hamas launched 104, I think, missiles into Israel. And there is a really interesting commentary in the Israeli news and in the Israeli political world about Israel's response to that, which again, I think, lines up with kind of the challenges, the real challenges that I think the political world, if you will, the political world faces of how to deal and how to deal with the different points of view and the different views of related to how to deal with security issues. But this is broader because it has to do with right versus left. And anyway, we will talk about that. Keyframe, please use the keyframe frequency of four seconds or less. I have no idea what that means. But we're not going to worry about that. Okay, so let's basically start, and let me just start with the fact, and I think I mentioned this often when I am here in Israel, the fact that, you know, that Israel is, you know, you come here and it is a truly stunning place. There are, you know, the fact that there are skyscrapers everywhere, the fact that there are, sorry, cranes everywhere, building everywhere. You see this all across the country, cranes, building, buildings. And particularly if you drive through Tel Aviv and the areas around Tel Aviv and the north and to the east and even to the south, you see cranes everywhere and you see high-rises going up everywhere, high-rises that are, many of them are apartments and condominiums. But many of the high-rises are also office buildings. I saw a number of signs. It's a little suspicious, but I saw a number of signs saying, here is going to be the largest industrial thing in Israel, or here is going to be the largest, you know, high-tech concentration in Israel. Everybody's vying for to be the largest office park for high-tech. But it is, you know, high-tech is spent all over Israel from here in Haifa. Actually, I have to admit, I have to say, I was, as a civil engineer built, or was part of the team that built the first clean room in Israel, built the first building in which Intel operated, so the first Intel building in Israel I built. It's still there, although it's been renovated and made prettier. But today, you know, almost every US high-tech company, has offices here, there are a lot of Israeli companies. And the country, in many respects, economically is booming. It's booming in a way that is just, it truly is stunning. Every year you come here and you see it, and it's hard to believe how much progress has been made. I think I told you on of the shows that today the most expensive city in the world to live is Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv has, is constantly you're seeing a new building of condominiums, and yet as fast as they try to build those condos, there is a shortage, and they completely, you know, the government does not free up enough land, familiar to San Franciscoans and familiar to other parts of America where real estate prices are high. Israel is not freeing up enough land to facilitate enough building to keep up with the base population. So one reason why so many cranes, so much building, so much expansion, so much growth is the fact that Israel has a growing population. It has among the Western nations, among the developed nations, it has the largest population growth, the largest number of children per couple or per, how do they measure it? Children per, I think, yeah, per couple, something like that. Anyway, highest in the Western world, the highest in the developed world, by quite a bit. Israel is a country of immigrants. It's constantly, you constantly see new people here. There's a constant, consistent pattern of immigration into the country. And it's massive, and the immigration part is interesting because people call Israel racist and so on because Jews get preference for citizenship. So for a Jew to become a citizen is very, very easy. But what is interesting in Israel is that much of immigration to Israel is not immigration for citizenship. Much of the immigration for Israel to Israel is immigration for work. You might remember that I'm a huge advocate for immigration for work, like everybody who can get a job, get a visa for the United States, for example, for Europe. Israel is, in a sense, that's your country. There are massive numbers of foreigners, non-Jewish foreigners working in Israel. There are hundreds of thousands of them. I know, for example, my parents have a woman living with them who helps them, cooks to them, takes care of them, and everything. She's from the Philippines. And many elderly in Israel, the way in which the state, in a sense, deals with elderly is the Social Security in Israel pays for somebody to live with the elderly. Now, they're not enough Israelis to be able to fill those positions. So people come in from the Philippines, from Thailand, from India, from all over Asia to fill those positions. I haven't asked anybody, but my suspicion is that all those queens and all those construction jobs in all those construction sites, those are not Israeli-born who are manning those. It's not the Jews, it's not the Arabs who were born in Israel. In my day in the 1980s, all the construction workers, I mean literally almost all the construction workers were Palestinians who came in from the West Bank and Gaza. Well, that's been closed, that's been shut down so they don't come in. So where does Israel get its construction workers? Well, I would bet anything, I don't have, I need to ask. But I would bet anything that those construction workers are immigrants here for the work. They're not immigrants in the sense that they will become citizens, but they're immigrants here to work. They live here, they enjoy living here, and they send money home. And maybe they go home one day, maybe they don't, maybe they stay for the rest of their life working. But as long as they're working, Israel won't kick them out. So there's a massive, massive immigration into Israel. And on top of that, if you look at, and this is to the effect of racism, if you look at Jews who emigrate to Israel, I mean the Jews come from everywhere. I mean they are black Jews, they are brown Jews, they are yellow Jews, they are white Jews. I don't know how you define different races, I guess, by skin color these days. But there is no one, Jews are not a race and there's no one race of Jews. And it's certainly when it comes to skin color and features and hair and eye color and things like that. God, there's so many variations and this country is a mesh mash of people. And indeed, if there's racism in Israel, it's between white Israelis, what are called Ashkenazi Israeli, European Israelis, and Svaldi Israelis who are the darker skinned and who come from North Africa and parts of Asia and parts of the Arab world. Ashkenazi and Svaldi, there's always been racial, if you will, ethnic, maybe racial is not the right word, ethnic tension between those two. And we'll talk about that because it exists now as well and you can see it very much in the political landscape in Israel right now. Sadly, very sadly, it exists today. So I think the first thing to mention is how impressed I am every time I come to visit. The number of nice restaurants, of nice malls, of the streets, the high-end shopping, you know, as good as anywhere in the world and for a country constantly under threat for a country in a position that Israel is, I think it's a massive achievement. The relatively normalcy that Israeli society holds on to and it's just the wealth that has been created here. You know, when I was growing up in Israel, Israel was very much a socialist country and Israel was indeed, it was a poor country and you could sense it, you could sense it in the buildings and the streets. I mean, to this day, if you drive around and you see some of the older buildings in Israel, they look really crummy. One of the things that's interesting here that I haven't seen in America and I haven't seen elsewhere. So they take these old, they're all apartment buildings, they take these old apartment buildings. And what will happen is a contractor will come in and they'll basically cut a deal with the owners of the existing apartments. They'll say, look, we'll take your building, we're completely renovated, we'll upgrade everything, we'll upgrade the apartments, we'll upgrade the outdoor space, we'll make it look shiny and beautiful and new. We'll build another level on top of the levels you have right now, we'll maybe even put an elevator in. And the two apartments that we put on top, let's say it's a condo with two apartments and four apartments, the apartments on top we own and we'll sell. So we'll do all the renovations in exchange for these two top apartments. And you guys, you have to vacate, you have to leave it for a year, a year and a half for us to do this. And I'd say a significant percentage of the apartment buildings in Haifa where I grew up have been renovated. And it's beautiful because they're still there, it's the same place. They were a little bigger, they were a little taller, but they're shiny and new. So I drove by my old house, which was an apartment, and we had a massive apartment, a huge apartment in Israel. It was 1200 square feet, at the time we thought it was massive, four bedrooms, I think. Beautiful view of the Mediterranean, a beautiful apartment, but 1200 was considered huge back then, maybe still is. Anyway, I drove by the building where I grew up and I couldn't recognize it. I knew where it was, I know the number, I know the location, but it couldn't recognize it because beautiful new facade. They built up balconies, we never had balconies, and they've added a fall and it looks gorgeous and amazing. And I'm sure inside it was completely renovated and modernized and brought up to speed, so yes. So those of you wondering who are still joining, it's not my 75th birthday. It is the state of Israel's 75th birthday. Also you will hear me coughing like that because I am overcoming a cold. I'm not going to do a very long show today because of that. Let me just see how we're doing on the super chat. We've got a lot of $5, $10 super chats, which is going to make it difficult to get to our goal. So please keep that in mind and if you can't afford and if you can do it, I'd appreciate. Michael, $20 questions rather than the $5 questions, just because it's not going to be a very long show. I can already feel my throat and I have a feeling I'm going to be limited on the amount of speaking I can do. So please consider, this is not going to be good. Please consider doing $20 so we don't have to go forever. Plus I have a meeting later today that I have to take. Sorry guys, sorry for all the coughing. Bree, everybody else, please consider doing $20 questions rather than $10 and $5, just because we want to try to get to our target and I can't have a million questions. Alright, so as I said, amazing, in many respects, an amazing place. Economic growth, economic prosperity, wealth, all of that is just really astounding when you come to Israel and you see it and you observe it and every time I come I'm blown away. The politics though are so bizarre in Israel and so unfortunate. Basically Israel has no, if you will, political left or economic left. Israel as a culture is generally socially left as you would call it, socially liberal. Tel Aviv is very much a capital of LGBTQ, a capital of nightlife and a great place. People generally are pretty laid back about what you call social issues. On the other hand, Israel is a very religious place, a place in which the very religionists, if you will, the extreme religionists, are significant percentage of the population, not 50% or we're near, but a significant percentage and they're for a place like Jerusalem. Buses stop running on Saturday, art stores and cinemas are closed on Friday night and Saturday and it's almost in a narrow scope of the authority of the local government, it's almost theocratic. So you've got Tel Aviv which is this amazingly secular place, anything goes, everything goes and you've got Jerusalem which is this... One second. Now the difficulty of speaking when you've got a cold is that it affects your throat. Honey and lamb, yeah I just put a thing of Manuka honey in my mouth to ease the throat, to hopefully reduce the amount of coughing we will see. So we'll see if this works. See Israel is split. It has economically a very centrist approach. You have a center-right, center-left, the left-wing parties in Israel, the parties that would want to compromise with the Palestinians, the parties that would want to bring socialism to Israeli markets. Those political parties are nonexistent anymore. The Labour Party, a political party by the name of Meritz, those political parties didn't make it into the last parliament. These are parties that dominated Israeli politics from its founding through the 1970s and were still present in significant ways through the 1990s. Nonexistent today, they're gone. Which is pretty amazing for a country that was dominated by leftists and founded by leftists. Israel's politics is dominant by center-left and center-right parties with a lot of fragmentation in the center, a lot of little parties that differentiate themselves based on who they like and who they don't like in terms of personalities and based on their approach to religion, how antagonistic they are to dealing with the ultra-orthodox, the super-religious political parties. So you've got all these parties in the center from the accord to the main opposition party who are all centrist, and that is the dominant part of Israeli parliament. And then you've got some far-right political parties. Most of them didn't make it into the Knesset, so you've got one big far-right political party that's a member of the current government. And then you've got two ultra-orthodox, super-religious political parties who basically don't care about anything except preserving a theocratic-like reign on their neighborhoods and their areas where they live, and they all live in the same neighborhoods, and care about things like welfare to their own people, particularly welfare for men who are young, who are completely able to work, but who would rather pray rather than work, rather go to school to pray, a yeshiva, rather than work, and they demand as part of their political cooperation massive subsidies for these people. And the third element is they demand that those young men be the only young men other than the Arabs who are not required to serve in the Israeli army. So the draft does not apply to them. It applies to everybody else in Israeli society, although the Jews in Israeli society, but it does not apply to the ultra-orthodox. And those are the political things. They don't care much about the economy. They don't care much about the Palestinians. They don't care much about foreign policy. The only thing they really, really care about is to hold a monopoly over decisions that relate to religion, to control their own communities, and to protect their young men from the military, and protect their young men from actually having to work so the government subsidizes them and pays them welfare so they don't have to work. And basically that has been the state, in the state of Israel, that has been, for many, many years, that has kind of been the status quo, because these two very, very religious political parties almost always land up being the kingmaker in terms of who gets to create the government. Netanyahu has done that almost dominantly over the last 15 years. And they then demand these concessions and they get them all the time. So that's a big issue. How to treat the religionists, how much to give in to them, how much to subsidize them, whether to allow them to stay out of the army or not, that is a big issue. Again, in economics, there's not very much disagreement. Everybody is a central, you know, is a mixed economy centrist, a little bit more liberalization, a little bit less liberalization. There are those lesbicapolis people here, just like they aren't any in the U.S., no voices in that direction at all in Israel. There are very, very few, even among economists. It's just not a big voice for economic liberty. So, you know, so the big issue is how to treat the religionists. And then what's happened, what happened in Israel over the last 20 or 30 years, and I think many of you will understand this, is that Israel has no constitution. It has a court system and it has a Supreme Court. But the role of the Supreme Court and the role of the judiciary is somewhat ambiguous because there is no constitution. Anyway, over the last 20 years, the courts have taken on a bigger and bigger role in politics in Israel. And these courts have come to challenge the government and challenge legislation. And, you know, not so much legislation on the bench, but it will, certain legislation is so abhorrent, is so wrong as to be against kind of the basic law of Israel and therefore to overturn it. And the judges for the courts, including the Supreme Court, are basically nominated by a committee that is controlled by judges and lawyers. So basically judges and lawyers appoint judges to the various courts. And judges and lawyers in Israel, you know, have been primarily leftists. So they have appointed leftists to the Supreme Court consistently. And the Supreme Court is probably the most leftist institution in Israel. And it regularly passes rules in a way that promotes and advocates for leftist causes. So there is a lot of angst in Israel about this and those of the right. And in particular, there is one political party, this far-right political party. Now, it is a religious political party. One of the things about the far-right in Israel is it is religious. It's religious. It's somewhat free markets. It's maybe more free markets than any other political party right now. And it's religious. It's somewhat free markets. And it is very tough on foreign policy, very tough on the Palestinian, very tough on foreign policy. So here you've got this combination where we'll get to the courts very left. And now this current government is a government composed of the Likud, which is Netanyahu's political party, which is center-right. And then because nobody else in the center is willing to actually work with Netanyahu, is willing to actually form a coalition with Netanyahu, so you cannot get 60 votes from the Israeli parliament, 120, you need to get 61 in order to form a government. You cannot get 61 because a lot of these political parties won't deal with it, don't want to have anything to do with it, just on the basis of personality, not on the basis of issues, not on the basis of opinions, just on the basis of personality. The only way to form a government was for Netanyahu to go to his extreme right and to go to the ultra-orthodox religious parties. So today the coalition running the government is Likud, the Bibi Netanyahu's party, an extreme right wing party. Think of the extreme right wing party as a national conservatism in America, on steroids, national conservatism on steroids. And then ultra-orthodox political parties where there's nobody in America that's even close to them, you couldn't have the ultra-orthodox in any other country. Again, there's no sustain in this kind of ultra-orthodox Catholic political parties or Protestant political parties, just it doesn't exist. It's a unique phenomenon, I think, to Israeli and the Jews. Anyway, that is the coalition. So the ultra-orthodox are getting everything they want for Netanyahu. And now come what's called the extreme right. And what they have demanded is they have demanded what they call legal reform. And I agree that legal reform is necessary. I've talked about this on the show before. The leftist domination of the court system, the perpetuation of the leftist control of the court system because they're the ones who appoint the judges to appoint the successors. Not a good system, not a good system at all. And the lack of a constitution, which is a weapon point, for this to be called to rule, not good. So what do you think would be proposed is let's sit down and maybe think about a constitution. That would be a good step. Constitution. This is a loud echo. You guys hearing an echo? Who is it? Just a gale. Anybody else hearing an echo? Bass. Alright, let me know guys. One, two, three. Is there an echo or isn't there an echo? I can't go on. Please. Yes. Yes echo. The voice of God. Yes. Loud. Loud echo. I'm not sure. What is driving that? Let's try this. Let me know if anything changed. Echo, echo, echo. Boom. It's still going on. Fixed. Cool. Okay. So where was I? Yes, so they want legal reform. So you think the first thing they would do is a constitution. The problem is that they don't really want a constitution and the reason they don't want a constitution is because a constitution will have to decide on state versus religion. And it's not clear how that would be resolved and it's not clear how you could resolve that issue. It's a given the split in the Israeli population. You're not going to do it democratically. You're not going to do it by vote. The constitution shouldn't be done by vote anyway. So it's not clear what would come of a constitution if there was a constitution convention to establish one. So nobody really wants a constitution and certainly the religious parties and the far right doesn't want a constitution and also a constitution limits the power of politicians. And when you're a politician without a constitution and you have all this power, you don't want to give it up. In particular, I think the far right now believes that they are going to be the dominant political force in Israeli politics going into the future. Why would they want a constitution to hamper their ability now to dominate Israel and to shape Israel according to their image? So no constitution. So what they want to do is there's a bunch of aspects of their form but basically two major ones. Others are too technical, I think, and less interest to general audience. But one is they want the Israeli parliament to be able to overrule any Supreme Court decision by a 51% vote, which makes a Supreme Court moot. What's the point of having a court that can review laws and determine their constitutionality or their applicability to some kind of basic law or whether the law itself is consistent or makes sense if you can then overrule it? They want parliament to be able to overrule the law, which gives parliament massive power and eliminates the independence of the judiciary and really eliminates the need for judiciary and places all the power in parliament. Israel. The executive branch is in a sense part of parliament because the executive branch, the prime minister, is chosen by the parliament. He serves in parliament. He is a parliamentarian. It's a coalition. Ministers in the government are typically members of parliament. It's the government. The executive branch has a dominant position in the legislature. Now the legislature controls the judiciary. You could say that the government then controls the legislature, controls the judiciary. You're giving absolute power with no checks and balances to the government. Now on top of this, they want to change the way judges are nominated. Instead of judges nominating judges, which is a bad idea, they want the government, not even the parliament, the government to nominate judges. Now this is a massive power grab. It is basically a mechanism by which to institute the government control, the executive branch control of every aspect of governance. Separation of powers is gone. Any kind of corrective action is gone. Basically you have a system that is dominated by the government and if the right believes that they are always going to be in control of government, they get to dominate every aspect of Israeli politics forever. Now I'm dubious about the extreme right's view that they will dominate, although they might, we'll see. But this is wrong. Anyway, this League of Reform has brought out the biggest demonstrations maybe Israel has ever seen. There have been demonstrations now for weeks. The government ultimately, there was moving this legislation through the parliament and was getting ready to get it all down and sign it and they were really doing this fast. Because of these demonstrations, millions of people out in the streets in every place in Israel, really massive demonstrations and with a significant impact. The consequence of these demonstrations is being that the government put on hold the newer forms. They changed it, they put it on hold and now they're sitting on it supposedly they're negotiating with the opposition with the idea of coming to some kind of deal that the opposition can also accept. But that doesn't seem to be really going anywhere. Anyway, I've never seen Israel so anxious, so stressed. High-tech companies have said they're going to leave Israel if this legislation passes. It's the end of democracy. This is the beginning of fascism in Israel. It's all over, I mean, the hyperbole and the panic and the hysteria are unbelievable. It's bad legislation. But God, I mean, the amount of panic, these have lowered Israel's bond rating because business will be hurt because of this legislation and the economy is going to crash. Everything is a disaster. So what you're seeing is, people are really upset, really panicked. And anyway, the guy who is spearheading this legislation, of course his name is now going to escape my mind right now when I need it. Anyway, this guy is leading this legislation. He is part of the far right. He's a Yomica-wearing religious Jew who is part of this far-right wing of the government. And he is spearheading this legislation. And as a consequence, he has really become the most hated man in Israel. I mean, my family despise him. Now, he's behaved in horrible ways. He won't let people speak. He's obnoxious. He's done a lot of terrible things just as a personality and in the way he presents himself, the way he's presented himself throughout. And, you know, so he is, he's despised. I mean, people truly, my family, my wife's family, Rotman, thank you. This is a guy named Rotman. Safir, I think, Rotman. Anyway, this Rotman guy is hated and despised. Probably right now I think the most hated and despised guy in Israel. And he agreed to debate me on the legal reform. So, Boaz, I do, organizes the Freedom Conference in Israel, which was held last Sunday, this last Sunday, got Rotman to come and debate me on legal reform. So, we did the debates. There were leftist demonstrators who paid to come into the conference just so they could try and stop him from speaking. I don't think they knew who I was, okay? Who were yelling and screaming and tried to silence us, him. But we did get the debate off. It is online. It is in Hebrew, so you guys don't get to see it. You know, this would be, in America, it would be the equivalent of me debating, let's say, Josh Hawley, the National Conservative Republican Senator. So, it was interesting. It was kind of a funny debate because it was a debate interview style. So, there was a moderator who literally asked us questions as if he was interviewing us. So, it wasn't a point, rebuttal, rebuttal, rebuttal. It wasn't that kind of debate. It was more an interviewer interviewing us and us expressing opposing points of view. He never really addressed the points that I disagreed with him on. He never really addressed the points of principle about separation of powers and about the government grab of power. And he never really addressed. When I talked about appointment of judges and I said, the body that should appoint judges is Parliament. Just like in the Senate in the United States, you should have the judges should come. They should testify. They should be questioned. And you should have a supermajority electing them. I think judges should be elected by two-thirds majority or four-fifths or something. He said he agreed with me. So, on many of the issues he said he agreed with me, which was weird, right? Because I know he doesn't disagree with me and the real core fundamental issues, he clearly doesn't agree with me. One of the reasons he doesn't want a constitution, he was clear he did not want a constitution, I think is because he doesn't want a separation of state and church. And one of the reasons he doesn't like the American constitution is because he doesn't want a separation of state and church. But anyway, the whole thing was fun and interesting. It made the newspapers primarily as... because of the fact that they were demonstrators. Unfortunately, I didn't make the newspapers. Primarily demonstrators made the newspapers and Rotman. There is video of it. Those of you who understand Hebrew can probably find it. It's on Facebook. It'll be uploaded to YouTube at some point. There's a video showing the debate, and you can watch it if you're interested. So that's what I did on Sunday. So, Israelis right now are completely, utterly obsessed by this. This is the only issue that matters. This is what's on the news. This is what people are thinking about. This is what people are arguing about. This is what people are debating about. This is the only issue at the forefront in people's minds. By the way, we raised about $260. We've got about $380 to go, $390 to go. We haven't had a show in a long time, so I hope there's some of you out there who might be able to put down $50, $100 to get us quickly to the goal. I'm going to go at about 45 minutes. I want to do one other issue about Israel, and then I'll take your question and I'll try to be quick about them. And that is, there was one issue that came up yesterday because of the rocket attacks. See, one of the things about the extreme right that they are right on is that they believe Israel has been far too weak in its response to terrorism, far too weak in its response to Hamas and missile attacks on it. And indeed, one of the ministers in the current government, a guy named Big Veal who is a racist and just a horrible human being broadly, has said he is not going to parliament and will not vote with the coalition until Israel responds more forcefully to what happened in the Gaza Strip the other day. And he's right on this issue. He's right on this narrow issue. Now, even he doesn't have the answer. It seems like only I have the answer to what actually has to be done because the answer is very bloody and very difficult. But he's right about the fact. Israel supplies the Gaza Strip with electricity. Israel supplies the Gaza Strip with water. Israel supplies them with food. But electricity and water. You're selling electricity to people who are launching missiles on you. Why do we continue doing that? Ultrism, fear of international condemnation, if they were cut off from electricity. Why does Israel not respond? Because it didn't respond. A few missiles into Gaza, not serious, not serious response. One of the things that they're demanding is Israel used to have the policy. Every time Hamas attacks Israel, Israel kills a certain number of Hamas leaders. They want to re-institute the policy of killing the leadership. I think that's a stupid policy. I don't think it ever works. I don't think it ever achieves anything. You need to go in there and clean house. So this is the problem. You have people who are horrible on pretty much everything, who would destroy this country internally, who would destroy it inside, who don't believe in the separation of state and church and want to basically destroy the country from within. And they're right about the threat from the outside, and a little bit on how to deal with that threat. And you kind of sympathize on that, but you cannot sanction them. You cannot support them because everything else they believe in would destroy the country from within. And that's the problem in Israel, is that the only people who seem to speak out about the threat external are people who want to create a threat internal. And the people who understand kind of liberties and freedom internally, at least to some extent, don't appreciate what needs to be done in order to quell the threat from outside. And Netanyahu, as always, is a middle-of-the-road wimpy. He's middle-of-the-road on economics. He's middle-of-the-road on security. He's middle-of-the-road on negotiating with terrorists. He's middle-of-the-road on everything, which is a massive disappointment, but he's always been like this at some point. I'm not surprised. But this is the kind of government he has. So he has a country with unbelievable potential. Unbelievable potential. You know, maybe the best high-tech per capita place in the world. Cutting-edge technology, cutting-edge entrepreneurs, developed venture capital community, industry, progress. And you have crummy economic policies that hold all that back, that suppress the standard of living. Unfortunately, a lot of Israelis living in poverty because of those bad economic policies that suppress economic activity and hold back and raise the cost of living significantly. And you have a country that is not willing to fight its real enemies externally. And a country that's being eaten alive internally by itself, by its right-wing religionists who want to destroy it from within. The the the the theocrats. And this should be a warning sign to the United States, to all other countries. And this is what happens when you let this theocratic, you know, crazy right, you let it loose. You give it political power. You know, beware. Beware. Because, you know, Israel is a good test case and it's not looking good. It's not looking good in terms of what they do when they gain that power. And, you know, Israel isn't a people. Tomorrow there's basically a television shutdown because of demonstrations. I think a lot of other cities will be too. Nobody's, you know, you can't go driving tomorrow because all the roads are going to be blocked. I mean, it's horrible, these demonstrations. On the other hand, people are feeling like if they don't demonstrate their liberties are being taken away from them and they're handing over, they're handing over all political power to the government, all political power to the government and basically, you know, eliminating whatever controls exist by a Supreme Court that monitors this. All right. In Israel at least, you know, there is, Israel is very, as I said, there is no economic left in Israel and the cultural left is not nowhere near as harmful as it is in the United States. But Israel is a centrist country. America is a centrist country. The reality is that America is in the center. What you've allowed in America, what we've allowed is we've allowed a few, what we've allowed is the few crazy leftist intellectuals, those crazy leftists at universities and academic centers dominate the debate and dominate the discussion. But the reality is that America is a dominantly center to center right country and whatever threat to America is going to arise, it's from those so-called centrist and so-called right wing. Very few people actually buy into the crazy leftist other than these intellectuals. Other these, the intellectuals and, you know, rich and the wealthy, you know, who are seeking to, you know, buy themselves into heaven. All right. Let's look at some of your questions. But just like in America I think, the real threat to liberty in Israel, the real threat to liberty in Israel, in Israel, no question, is the far right and the religious parties. There's no question about that. And then the challenge is that on some issues they're pretty good. So you've got liberties and the certain good things and how do you balance all that? How do you balance all that out? Ideally there would be a real force for free markets and for liberalism, economic liberalism in Israel that could form kind of a centrist, center-right coalition that excluded the religionists and would actually liberate the unbelievable potential that this country has. Doesn't look like that's in the cards, at least not yet. Now, if there was an election today, I think Bibi Netanyahu would suffer greatly because the reality is that very few people in Israel support this legal reform that the right is trying to pass. And if it went for an election, if it went for any kind of referendum it would fail and in an election I think Bibi would be crushed. I think Bibi knows that, Netanyahu knows that and that's why he's not allowing it to pass yet and he's trying to negotiate a deal with the opposition. Let's see. Taylor says, James Taylor asked, Delusion is a state of refuge. Wes, thank you for the $100. And Corleen, thank you for the $50. Really, really appreciate it. Appreciate it, guys. So now we're just $236 short of where we are today. Delusion is a stage of refuge. The mind unable to comprehend realities or to deal with them, finds its ease in superstitions, beliefs and modes of irrational procedure. Is it easier to believe than to think? I don't think it's easier. It takes a little less effort to believe than to think but I don't think it's easier. It's thinking is an achievement, thinking is a challenge and people have to learn how to think. It's something that you're not born instinctively to do. You know, certainly not at a very sophisticated level. Human beings have developed that capacity, improved that capacity, fine-tuned that capacity. Aristotle taught us logic that was crucial to ability to think. You know, we have developed that rational faculty and thought about it. That's, philosophers have contributed, the better philosophers to ability to do that. But it's still true that a vast number of our population of the world is still stuck on superstitions, on beliefs, on faith and on the negation of reason and rationality. And because they don't know, because it's a challenge, because it's maybe because thinking requires taking responsibility, you need a certain psychology for that, you need a certain self-esteem for that. Beliefs allow you to, you know, superstitions allow you to shrug responsibility. It's some force in the universe guiding you rather than, or determining things, not your decisions. Adam Reed says, who's the most hated politician in Israel? Right now, it's Rotman, who I debated. Harper Campbell asked, can't we just be results-oriented at some point in time? I don't know what that means. I mean, you should be results-oriented. But what does that mean? It means thinking in principle about the way to achieve certain goals. In principle, it means value-driven. You want to achieve your values. Well, you have to figure out how to achieve your values. And that requires principles. So yes, I mean, we're not, nobody, I'm not against being results-oriented and it seems wanting to attain results. It's that you have to take a principled, rational, long-term perspective and you have to choose the right values, i.e. the right results, to be oriented towards. If you choose the wrong results, you can destroy your life. Alex says, there's really this brag about their health services being better than cheaper than the U.S. I'd like to understand why the American Health Services are allegedly too expensive and inefficient. Where would you suggest to start? I mean, that's a big mission. I mean, there's a guy named John Goodman who writes a lot about healthcare in the United States. And I think he has a think tank that does a lot of work around healthcare. You can find it there. But the U.S. system is expensive because it's super inefficient because it is this weird combination of government, Medicare and Medicaid, which is socialized healthcare for old people and poor people. A combination of that plus private insurance, there's heavily, heavily, heavily regulated, so it's really not really private insurance. And private doctors and private hospitals and private healthcare providers. And it's this mishmash that has created hyper-inefficiency, which makes it expensive. On the other hand, there are no lines. There's no rationing. And so while it's expensive, if you know how to navigate it and if you have health insurance, what most Americans do, or if you have Medicare, you get the best healthcare in the United States in the world. There's no question in my mind that healthcare services in the United States are the best in the world. When foreign leaders and when rich people in all kinds of countries who have socialized healthcare systems get really, really sick, where do they go to? They come to the U.S. They come to Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic and lots of other hospitals and places because the United States has the best. And that's because it still has elements of private. But it's expensive because it's completely inefficient. It's a complete mess. It's pulled apart by conflicting incentives and regulations and controls. And a government that dominates well over 50% of all healthcare dollars spent in the United States well, well over 50 cents of every dollar well over 50 cents is spent by the government. Clark Young. Off-topic, but did you see the video of Stephen Crowder abusing his wife, what a maniac? I did not. And that is truly horrible for a man to do that. James Taylor says, I'm debating a Marxist and he replied with Marxism is not anti-ability because Cuba has more doctors than any other country. How corrupt do you have to become in your soul to engage in this level of mental gymnastics? Very. I mean, healthcare in Cuba is horrible, life expectancy in Cuba is low. It is low in every United States as well but for different reasons. There are a lot of doctors in Cuba but they have lousy facilities and they don't make decent living. And if they were allowed to leave and if America accepted them, they would all leave tomorrow or many of them would leave tomorrow. Of course, Marxism is anti-ability or it penalizes ability even if it wants people who are able but then it penalizes them. Doctors don't make more money than other people in Cuba. So, yes, you should tell your friend next time you get sick you should go to Cuba to get treated. See what he thinks about that. Michael says a dark age looms over closer and both political parties have descended to ever lower levels of Dante's Inferno. Aristotle ends up Plato, no one else at Contatilla and Inran. Inran's answers aren't getting into the culture. Not yet, slowly. They are getting to you guys and you guys will help spread them to other people so they will get there. But yes, Inran's answers need to get into the culture. I don't think a dark age is looms anytime soon. These things always take much, much longer than you expect them to take. Andrew says, I like Inran's answer when Johnny Carson asked her if she feels down on the holidays. She says, I'm chronically happy. I'm not sure if her feelings are valid evidence but they at least imply the practicality of her morality. Yes, I think that's absolutely true. Did I skip one? No, I think I got that. Okay, Michael says it is so difficult to argue for deregulation because the response I always get is these regulations exist for a reason. People are not creative or prideful enough to imagine a world where the individual is left free. Yes, that's true. But one response to that would be what reason? What's the reason? When they give you the reason, you can ask them do you think there's any way to deal with a legitimate problem you've pointed out without government regulation? Can you imagine a way and maybe you can hint and give them some indications of how it could be handled without government regulation and at least get them thinking about it. Show them they might be an alternative. Show them that there is thinking out of the box. And maybe that's how we get where we need to get. Don't give up. There's no way to get Einran's ideas into the cultures to keep debating these people and keep putting these alternatives on the table. Alright, guys, we're still $236 short of our goal of $650 and we haven't done a show in a long time so I'm hoping some of you will step up and get us over the edge here so we can make our goal even though, again, haven't done a show in a long time. Liam says happy 75th birthday Ron you look great for your age. Yeah, not my 75th birthday, it is the state of Israel or the 75th anniversary of its independence which is a better way to phrase it. Michael says no amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen. True, but if anxiety is part of what motivates you to act in order to change what is going to happen because you can act to change the future, then that's the purpose of anxiety. It's to motivate you to act, motivate you to try to change what's about to happen or to prepare yourself or to get you ready. Clark says how do you know we have natural rights? Through logic, I mean natural rights are a necessary requirement for humans to live in societies with one another in a civilized way, i.e. in a peaceful way. So it's not that you have natural rights that are placed on you by some external entity it's not that you have some natural rights that nature has endowed you with you have natural rights because you are a rational being and rationality requires freedom from coercion and force in order to if you will be facilitated, activated, used for your existence. You can't exist without it. So that is the source of rights. It's your nature as a rational being and your requirements the requirements of your survival. By the way, we have about 90 people watching and we're looking for about $230 so you do the math but $3 or less from everybody would get us there pretty quickly and Paulo thank you for the sticker. You can use the stickers to do it so you don't have to ask a question if you don't have a question. It would be great if we got a few fifties or hundreds somebody that's been saving up all the last week where I haven't done shows but I appreciate all the chats and all the support. Clark says bizarre how socialists leftist hate free markets while simultaneously having the best marketing ever. They have the best marketing ever because their orientation is people not reality in a sense of people's psychology and they're good at manipulating that psychology and playing to that psychology and that's what makes great marketing. Thanos, thank you $50, really appreciate it. Does Objectivism has any room for Luddites? I've seen that level of language directed at AI generated art and wonder if it's warranted. No, Objectivism doesn't have any place for Luddites for haters of technology for technology's sake. I think that AI generated art is raises interesting valid interesting challenges. I think to all of us in terms of what art is where it comes from and to that extent what AI is and I think there's a lot of thinking that has to go into that because the answers for that is not obvious. If AI can produce a piece of art that is the quality of Michelangelo's David and I enjoy it first of all, can it? Is it even possible for AI to do that? Just by copying or by you know in a sense seeing common commonalities between great art and then reproducing great art that's not exactly like any one of them but is uses the commonalities between all of them wow we'll see if AI can actually do that with art not illustration not with comics but with actual art with fine art. We'll see if it can actually do that but if it can that would be interesting that would be really interesting it's a real challenge for artists there are a lot of legal issues that will have to be thought through property rights issues but I don't know I don't know what sense a person would be called I don't know what sense objectives are ludics now again I don't think based on how we see art today I don't think AI produces art it produces something that is very similar to art that looks like art it doesn't come from it's not reflecting anything of the producer so it's a real challenge I don't necessarily have answers to how to think about you know AI art but it is an interesting issue that is going to raise real questions for objectivists Harper Campbell says Europeans live longer than Americans because their cultures are more social and less phony I don't think so I think that Americans partially because of their virtue because of individualism because of their ambition that is part of what it means to be an American because they haven't settled a more disappointed in their lives than Europeans and Israelis are when it doesn't live up to that ambition and that expectation to a large extent to some extent I think because of the mixed economy to other extent because they don't have the philosophy to match the individualism and the ambition but this is a Israelis I think because of the physical threat I think because of the physical threat are much more values oriented than Americans or Europeans but there is a difference between Americans and Europeans Americans are much more depressed there's a lot more deaths of despair what are called deaths of despair, a lot more suicide there seems to be a lot more death from drugs and alcohol abuse and that's a real sociological it's a real phenomena and it's an interesting phenomena I actually need to get the stats and see if America is worse and how much worse it is but I think it has to do with the failure of the mixed economy to live up to Americans' expectations and America's promise and that Americans know this and in that sense they're more disappointed in their lives than Europeans are Holly, how are you on how bad do you think the banking crisis will get God I've been wrong about this so far because I didn't think it would get as bad as it had already gotten it really depends on the recession it depends on how bad the recession is going to be it depends on when it starts how badly it hits because at the end of the day bank crises are almost always this is an exception but almost always crises of credit the 2008 was mortgages but this crisis we'll see the crisis so far is being a bank run I think bank run crises can be easily controlled and I think this one should have been already controlled it's a tragedy it hasn't been and but I keep thinking this is it in terms of the runs on banks but I do worry and I am concerned about the coming crisis that is driven by credit not by not by these if you will the run on the banks so and that's coming I think the recession is we'll see if I raised interest rates again today but I've been calling for a recession for a year now so I've been wrong and I expected to start soon but it hasn't yet but that is where you'll feel that's when you'll know the extent of the banking problems to real extent okay let me run through these because I'm running late here Andrew says what is the aesthetic culture of Israel do the arts track western art yeah very much so Israel's very much in the arts very much a western country Richard says the AI generated art is innately derivative it's a huge sample of text images and music on a separate note the biggest AI risk is a gullible audience it requires even more critical thinking than social media yes I think that the AI generated art has to be and it's not art again but it has to be derivative because AI is not capable of creative and imagination so it has to be derivative but then the question is how good do you need to be and how knowledgeable do you need to be as an art expert to be able to differentiate it from the real thing that an is derivative art inferior and I will put it this way for most people to what extent is the derivative art inferior to the original when most people can't tell the difference again interesting questions I don't have the answer why the west is flirting with our third inch politicians nowadays because the mixed economy is coming to an end because this half freedom half not this intervention in parts of our lives but not in others by what principle by what standard because the left has gone crazy on the left the right goes crazy on the right but these are all responses both left and right and I think the depths of despair are two to the failure of the mixed economy to the failure of the nation that's been caused by the neither here nor there non-committal, non-values oriented nothingness of the mixed economy James says morality is like any other law of nature for which you cannot break but rather it breaks you true enough Michael says why is America more Christian when it comes to sex unless Christian when it comes to welfare altruism Israel and Europe appear to be the reverse I think because America was founded by a bunch of individualists and it was founded by a bunch of freedom lovers and it created a constitution that protected elements of freedom so what happened was that when it came to business and government and those kind of things America was relatively free and relatively capitalist and when it came to kind of the social things where it was more about the traditions of of Christianity family and things that were determined more on a communal basis that's where they that's where Christianity stuck Christianity couldn't stick to the government stuff because the government stuff really was dominated by the founding fathers Europe Europe basically Christianity were secularized but the morality wasn't secularized so sex was secularized and the role of government was not and that's why so you get philosophers who basically want government to do welfare and altruism but who don't really care about sex and partially because Europe is more influenced by Marx and Marx as a materialist so he doesn't care about the spiritual and sex he cares about the material which is economic and therefore he wants to regulate the material and leaves the spiritual the sexual therefore to the individual to determine researches at UCSD have found a genetic switch that extends life of yeast cells by 82% they say the same switches in human cells and are working on neurons and stem cells this is very cool science 27th of April 2023 very cool a lot of stuff like this happening around aging and longevity that is going to be very exciting and going to be reaching us in the next decades by the way we're about a hundred dollars short of our goal Liam says is BB's career finished what average is really saying about him are you surrounded by an army of leftists in Tel Aviv no as I said there are no leftists in Israel not in a traditional leftist sense there are centrists I don't live in Tel Aviv I live in Haifa my family are all left of center they have never voted for the liquid in their lives they despise BB they've always voted against BB but I wouldn't call them leftists in the sense of crazy leftists of America they're center left and I mean some of my family are leftists no question a crazy leftist is BB career finished never say finished when it comes to BB he always manages to somehow manage to survive and manage to win again and achieve the prime ministership it seems like it's impossible to get rid of BB oops where are the super chats sorry let's see Matthew says great quote from Leonard in the TV bit from last week in that TV bit from last week I don't know which TV bit you're talking about the purpose of the majority is for choosing the personnel of government not its principal yes that's what democracy should be limited to choosing personnel not principals not governing principals not ideas Bri says Propolis extract is available at Simon B farm to fix your throat near Ben Gurion airport it is a part of the B's immune system and has many viral bacteria properties thank you I mean Manuka honey has the same properties and I use it and it's quite soothing I don't think I'm going to have the time to make it a propolis I fly out on Friday okay last two questions if you still want to support the show about $100 short you've got like three minutes to do it in Gail says maybe a good show a discussion about an ideal government structure yes I think that would be and you know the American system of government comes very close to that ideal structure what America needs really is is a better constitution but the structure is already there you know two houses an executive and a legal system all separated is really good so yeah a show on why it's an ideal structure would be good all right a question about clones how many clones of Biden could you take in a fight as he is now versus how you are now only 10 at a time and when you defeat one another waddles into the battle no weapons I don't know I mean I think that the biggest difficulty would be me just being exhausted I don't know how quickly I would be exhausted I'm also not exactly a fighter I haven't gotten into a fistfight or a real fight since I was in high school I don't know how to fight I'm not trained in fighting I probably shouldn't say this in public right because people think I know Krav Maga and so I you know I don't know if all I know Biden has like a black belting kung fu what do I know all right thank you everybody really appreciate the support thank you for joining me on such short notice I might have a show tomorrow same time same place and about the same time I think I will see I'll let you know tomorrow and let's see and then as I travel I'll be doing shows but yes the next few weeks then on shows so hopefully you'll appreciate the shows that I do do we're all going to have to pick it up on the super chat we've been lagging over the last what month and a half but hopefully that'll pick up once we get back to a regular stream of shows thank you everybody really really appreciate the support really really appreciate you listening don't forget those of you listening after the fact those of you listening on the podcast please consider supporting the show on a regular basis through monthly support you can do it on Patreon on Patreon subscribe star and of course on Iran book show dot com slash support on thanks for the video Andrew has a question Senator Ron Johnson said the Biden administration policies are taking from the successful and giving to the unsuccessful he quickly added we all want to help people we're good people but nothing said after that had any teeth yeah of course uh senator Ron Johnson is read out the shrug the likes out the shrug the supports out the shrug then yet doesn't get the morality about the shrug one sad but true all right everybody again thanks for the support keep it coming monthly monthly support Patreon