 So I don't believe Hamas can possibly stay in any position of authority in Gaza. I think that would be ruinous for not just the people of Gaza but also for Israelis. So if you're going to get rid of them, which many people think on both sides is inevitable and should happen as a consequence of what they did, the big question is how do you do that? And I don't know any other way other than the way Israel is currently doing. Hence my personal moral quandary about this. So if a terrorist takes over the Empire State, instead of taking out, we bomb the whole Empire State? Well, that's the question, isn't it? Proportion? That is not even a question. That was not even a question because that would be ridiculous. You just got a small taste of a lengthy interview between Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef and Pierce Morgan. And I cannot believe that I'm going to say this, but I highly encourage you to watch the entirety of this Pierce Morgan video. Of course not because of Pierce, but because of Bassem, because he gives you a perspective that you almost never hear in western media and it's very eye opening. Now Pierce Morgan predictably looked foolish throughout the interview with redundant, vapid questions. But I mean, after racking up 20 or so million views on his last interview with Bassem Youssef, he probably figured that he would subject himself to more humiliation for views and clicks and it would be worth it. And I think it was because this was really good. Now in this interview, we learned quite a bit about Bassem Youssef, how he became the John Stuart of Egypt during the 2011 Arab Spring and how he was actually interrogated by Egyptian police and how they were taking selfies with him. We also learned that he was a heart surgeon before he became a comedian, which is just mind blowing to me. So I think that hearing his backstory and learning more about him was great because I knew about Bassem Youssef because of the Daily Show. I would tune in every single night and watch it. And he brought on Bassem Youssef at one point and I thought he was great. But the best part, of course, is the discussion about Israel Palestine. Now, he doesn't fancy himself as an expert, but the way that he explains things and frames the situation and uses satire and dark humor to get the point across is, I think, really, really important because it helps Western viewers who were never exposed to this viewpoint digest this information, digest a topic that they view as complex, but in actuality, it's not that complex and he makes it seem as simple as it is. So, the beginning of the video started out with that clip about proportionality, where he asked Pierce Morgan, if a terrorist takes over the Empire State Building, do you bomb the entire building? And the answer is, of course not, but it demonstrates the insanity of Pierce's position, where he can't tell if Israel's response goes too far. Now, I do want to get to some more clips. So, one of the most important things that he does is provide some much needed historical context here. And he begins by talking about anti-Semitism and a history of persecution of Jewish people because that is a really important component to this story. And this is a very lengthy section, but one thing that I want to highlight is the hypocrisy of Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who purport to support Israel and cry anti-Semitism towards its critics, but yet they're anti-Semitic themselves and Bassem Youssef points this out. The saddest thing that I saw is the people that were in so much support of Israel are anti-Semite themselves. MTG, MTG Marjorie Taylor Greene, you know, she said like, oh, I send my aides, and they took pictures of the protesters. Basically, she's surveilling protesters. And Marjorie Taylor Greene is very known for a very famous post in 2018, where she blamed the California wildfires on a Jewish space laser gun. Do you remember that? Do you remember that? I was just like, oh, they were burned because Jewish investors, Rothschild and Finnstein, anything that ends with Stein, because that's, of course, sounds huge. They put a satellite and shooting laser beams. And not just her. You have, thank you so much. He is now the speaker of the House, and he has been invited before for an organization that was funded by David Duke, the founder of the KKK. You have Kevin McCarthy, who is the former minority speaker, leader of the public and party in the House. And he accused Jewish billionaires of rigging the midterm. So how come those people are accusing us of anti-Semite? So here's the thing. So let's go to the equation that Niki Haley put on Twitter. Anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism. No, it is true. People who hate Jews, they're also anti-Zionists. It is true. And you could be someone who hate Zionists, who don't like Zionists, and you are Semite. You could even be Jewish. And guess what? You could be a Zionist, like those people, supporting Israel. And at the same time, you hate the Jews, because the Chad Jews will not replace us. These echoed in Charlottesville. It did not echo in Gaza. I mean, in Gaza, they say worse stuff in between the bombing on their downtime. But, and these are the same people who are seen with Nick Fuentes, with, with, with Steven Bennett. And you know what's most interesting? And all of those people are buddies with Benjamin Netanyahu. So how does this work? How does this work? And you know the people who speak against this, like John Stewart, like Bernie Sanders, like Naomi Klein? What do they call these people? What do they call them? Self-hating Jews. And you know what else they are now? They call them, they call them capos. Capos. You know what's capos? Capos, basically these were the Jewish inmates in Auschwitz that were forced by the Nazis to stand as guards on their own inmates. You see how degrading this is. And this is the way to shut down conversation. Anti-Semite. Islamophobic. You hate America. You hate the military. You hate Egypt. War on Christmas. This is how you shut... An environment that does not allow disagreement is not an environment made for... It's an environment for control. Let me ask you this. That is a really important point to make. It's really a no end situation for any critic of Israel. If you're not Jewish, then you're an anti-Semite for criticizing the government of Israel. But if you're Jewish, then you're a self-hating Jew for criticizing the government of Israel. It's like Israel, no matter what, cannot be criticized. Otherwise, you are the bad guy. They're above criticism. But yet anti-Semites like Kevin McCarthy and Donald Trump are friends with Netanyahu. And it just doesn't make sense. And I think that the people who are inclined to not listen to critics of Israel due to the allegations of anti-Semitism might hear this and think, yeah, that is a little bit absurd. Is it not? Why are these people, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who are accusing others of anti-Semitism, massive anti-Semites themselves? It seems a little bit disingenuous. It almost seems as if this is an effort to stifle any legitimate criticism of Israel. Now, is it the case that anti-Semites use this situation to bolster their anti-Semitic Nazi viewpoints? Absolutely the case. There are opportunists everywhere. But you have to be nuanced and acknowledge that that is not the totality of the criticism of against Israel. This is not about people. This is about governments and the actions of government. And that is really important. So we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can acknowledge that anti-Semitism is real and it's a growing issue around the globe. But at the same time, we have to acknowledge that criticism of the government of Israel is not tense amount to anti-Semitism because people are people and governments are governments and we are allowed to criticize governments. We can criticize the Saudi Arabian government without being called Islamophobic, just like we can criticize any government without these types of accusations. But moving on. So we get to arguably the most important portions of the interview next where he provides Western viewers with some much needed context about the situation that I don't think they know about. So if you're wondering why Palestinians feel so angry and some of them become radicalized, take a moment to understand how these conditions breed animosity. And that's what he talks about here. Which is 50 miles from Gaza. And according to the law, those people have absolutely no right to go back. Even if you are a Palestinian with an American passport, they give you hell in order to go in. And yet a Jewish person born anywhere in the world, born in Poland, born in Ukraine, no question asked, he can jump on a plane, land in Israel, and get the Israeli citizen and take a house that most probably belonged to a Palestinian. So it is not just like it is an ongoing injustice that has been happening. Now imagine this happened in America. Imagine a foreign government showed up to your home that your family has owned for generations and they evict you forcibly at gunpoint. How would you react as an American in this situation? I would imagine that many Americans would shoot the trespassers because most Americans complain about foreigners living in our country, let alone taking their homes. But in this situation, imagine that this happened. There would be no legal recourse for you. You essentially have to sit back and take it or you get shot. Everything you own gone like that. Your entire life uprooted. You are never going to forget that. And you're going to spend the rest of your life finding ways to exact your revenge. But on top of that, the same people who took your home killed a family member in an air strike. I mean, colonialism is violent and the animosity catalyzed by that violence will not start to dissipate until these people get justice. And this brings us to Bassem's next point. How radicalization happens and it is the result of Israel's role in radicalizing and creating terrorism. We can both agree that the scenes in Gaza right now are horrific because I do feel that. But I don't know how else Israel can eradicate Hamas than the way that they're currently trying to do it. Do you have an alternative for them? Well, again, we are locked in the same thing. What can we do now? But we don't look at what was happening over there. You, the best recruiter for Hamas is Israel. I mean, you have talked a lot about the horrible condition of Gaza. I mean, let's imagine like a little boy called Rami. He lives in Gaza. You know, he has a horrible life, but like, you know, it's like, it's not that bad. I know he has a cousin in the West Bank. He's living a good life. He woke up in the morning and he found out that he was kidnapped by three settlers. He was burned alive by kerosene and he was forced to drink the kerosene. His name was Mohammed Abu Kudair and that settlers did that to him in 2016. All right, you know what I'm just going to leave is I'm going to find a way to go to Europe. His aunt is a published author and she won a prize in the Frankfurt Book Fair. His name is Adneesh Talib. And now she was canceled because of what's happened just because of her Palestinian. His other aunt in America, his name is Amawi. She is a speech therapist and this is close to my heart because of my son. And she was fired because she did not want to sign the government condescent that you cannot join BDS, which I don't understand. Why do people choosing to protest peacefully by not buying goods from a certain country? Why would the United States make that its own issue? So, and this guy, this Rami is being approached by, like, join Hamas, join us. Let's go kill. No, no, no. I don't want to kill. I'm going to live in Gaza. It's a life. But 97% of water is not good for human consumption. Half of the population are anemic. Even the sh** is not being treated. And it goes into the shores of Israel. It's horrible. And then he wakes up in the morning. He doesn't think about killing Jews the first thing in the morning. He thinks about being there at five o'clock at the first 50 people in the line for bread because if he doesn't, he will miss the food for his family. And he goes back and he finds a message saying that we are going to bomb your house. He comes back, he loses his old family. Now tell me, what is a proportionate response for that? I don't know. I don't know. You cannot create terrorism and then you... I don't know. You have, they have created this. Which I don't know is the answer. The best recruiter for Hamas is Israel. Exactly. It's a hard thing for a lot of people to digest, but it's true. I mean imagine being a young man. You're angry. You live in Gaza. You lost family members. You're oppressed. You have no economic prospects. You can't leave. And a militant comes to you and says, hey, we formed a group and we're taking up arms against the enemy who's causing all this pain and suffering. Many people are going to say yes to that because they have nothing else. It's not condoning or justifying it, but it is going to happen. I mean, it's happening around the world. It's happening here in the United States with the young men who are becoming radicalized and joining right-wing groups because they have no economic prospects and they are in cells and they can't find anyone to date. So these conditions here in the U.S., if these can breed radicalization, then imagine if things were exponentially worse, where you don't have access to food and your family members are getting killed. I mean, knowing these conditions is really important. You can't bury your head in the sand and pretend as if everything was copacetic beforehand. You have to acknowledge that people are suffering and that suffering is caused by the apartheid regime of Israel and people in Gaza live in the world's largest open-air prison. So you can't just pretend as if they're going to be okay with that. They're going to be unhappy and many of them are going to become radicalized and want to take up arms. That's a threat to Israel. So long as the occupation continues, Israel is going to be threatened by this. And Basim goes on to explain how Israel repeating the same strategy isn't going to change anything. It'll only make matters worse. Terrorism is a virus. Yes. It's a virus. I agree. If a patient with a flu came to you and you're a doctor, how can you treat that patient? How do you treat as a doctor? How do you do? Well, you're the doctor. You give them nutrition, fluids, and rest. So the immunity of the body gets rid of the virus on its own. If I receive that patient with a flu and I took a sledgehammer, I was like, why are you not getting better? Do you think that patient will get better? No. You are weakening him. You are making him worse. Israel did not just like weaken the body of Palestinians, making them unable to get rid of hate and radicalism. They have openly bolstered about helping and giving money to the same terrorist organization. So I agree. I think Netanyahu is complicit in keeping Hamas in power because it suited him politically. Yes. And I think you can't get away from that. Yes. There's no question of that. But there's also no question that the Israeli government, led currently by him, has to stop Hamas from perpetrating another terror attack. And again, it comes down to this question. What do they do to get rid of Hamas if it's not what they do? I don't know. But like as an Israeli citizen listening to this, how come that my prime minister bragging about giving money to the terrorist group that he is using right now to eradicate a whole group of people and yet using them as an excuse? Isn't that weird? This is like Tony Blair being like found, like giving money to Al-Qaeda or ISIS and then going to fight them. How does this work? How does this work? I agree. How does this work? And what Basim's getting at, which Pierce Morgan does not pick up on by the way, is that the existence of Hamas is beneficial to Netanyahu because he uses them as a justification for moral oppression, right? They are a gift when it comes to propaganda. They are a gift when it comes to the geopolitical interests of Netanyahu. And this isn't speculation. Netanyahu admitted all this and more Israelis are becoming aware of it, thankfully. CBC reports Israelis don't agree on much, especially lately. But polling shows they mostly agree that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to blame for leaving Israel unprepared for Hamas's onslaught on October 7th. The accusations aimed at Netanyahu go beyond merely failing to foresee or prevent the Hamas attack of October 7th, however. Many accuse him of deliberately empowering the group for decades as part of a strategy to sabotage a two-state solution based on the principle of land for peace. There's been a lot of criticism of Netanyahu in Israel for instating a policy for many years of strengthening Hamas and keeping Gaza on the brink while weakening the Palestinian Authority, said Mirov Zonzin of the International Crisis Group. And we've seen that happening very clearly on the ground. Hamas and Netanyahu are mutually reinforcing in the sense that they provide each other with a way to continue to use force and rejectionism as opposed to making sacrifices and compromises in order to reach some kind of resolution. Zonzin told CNBC News from Tel Aviv. In August of 2019, former Prime Minister Ahud Barak told Israeli Army Radio that Netanyahu's strategy is to keep Hamas alive and kicking, even at the price of abandoning the citizens of the South in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. On March 12th of 2019, Netanyahu defended the Hamas payments to his Likud party caucus on the grounds that they weakened the pro-Azlo Palestinian Authority, according to the Jerusalem Post. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Israel's regular allowing of Qatari funds to be transferred into Gaza, saying it is part of a broader strategy to keep Hamas and the Palestinian Authority separate, a source in Monday's Likud faction meeting said the Post reported. The Prime Minister also said that whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for transferring the funds to Gaza because maintaining a separation between the Palestinian Authority and the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza helps prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. So if Netanyahu benefits from the existence of Hamas and doesn't actually want them to be eradicated, then what's the point of this bombing campaign? Maybe it's not really about eliminating Hamas. Then what's the conclusion? What's the takeaway? What's the point? Well, I mean, maybe this is about driving Palestinians out of Gaza. Perhaps this is an ethnic cleansing. Basim lays out all of the puzzle pieces for Pierce Morgan and shows him where they have to go. And all he has to do is push them together to see the full picture, but he never does that. And at one point, Basim even brings up cancel culture and confronts Pierce about it. You know, saying if you're against cancel culture, how can you not be enraged by the cancellation of an entire group of people? I'm paraphrasing, of course, but that's kind of him using Pierce Morgan's cancel culture line against him. And it's this interview is interesting because on one hand, Pierce Morgan expresses sympathy for innocent Gazans, but then justifies Israel's brutality by refusing to say that their response has been disproportion and Fain's ignorance when it comes to what do they do? I mean, you see that constantly. Now on some levels, it is deeply frustrating because Pierce Morgan is probably being purposefully obtuse. But on another hand, he does give Basim use of the space to really explain all of this thoroughly. So in the end, I think that this was really a good watch. So I would highly encourage everyone to check out the full interview I'll link to it down below. Because part of the problem is that our government and Israel's government and many Western governments in Europe, they capitalize on mass ignorance of Western citizens. They use that against us. But if we wake up and we see that the situation isn't as complex as they want us to think it is, well, it's going to be a lot more difficult for these leaders to justify what's happening currently and keep defending it. So I think it's really important that we all educate ourselves and using comedy and satire to do so is a very, very powerful tool.