 Alright, so let's move on to America's role here in what maybe the positive case, we've talked about how America's compromised Israel and weakened it. So maybe talk a little bit about that, but then what do you think America's stance should be vis-a-vis Israel and why? I think the defining theme of American policy, if you look at, and I look at primarily the last 25 years, which is when America became deeply involved in attempts to resolve a conflict. The defining theme there is a negation of justice, like we're going to do policy and we're going to try to resolve this and negotiate a solution. And yeah, there are hard questions in this conflict, there are moral questions. We're not going to deal with those. We're going to put them to the size because what we want is, we want outcomes, we want compromise and we want middle of the road solutions. And if we get boiled, bogged up in these moral questions, we're never going to get there. And to me, that is, and that's true of Clinton, that's true of Bush in a certain important way, and it was definitely true of Obama and there's elements of it coming through, I think, under Trump who's got a peace plan reboot in the works. And that approach, which I call, I mean, in various ways it is, we're going to put more moral questions to the side, we're going to negate any kind of importance to moral questions. My view is that kind of agnosticism to this is a recipe for disaster. And so that's part of what informs George Bush's sellout of Israel during his administration, which we talked about earlier in the conversation. And one of the results of that is you empower the people who are hostile to you. You make them stronger and you give them moral credibility and encouragement. And that's sort of the defining theme is that when you take morality out of this issue, you try to address it without first coming to objective judgments about the adversaries and what you should do is you can't solve it and you can only make it worse, which is sort of the record of the last few decades. And what I argue in the book is, well, that is the lesson. Is it's not an option. It's not a nice to have. It's a must do that you bring morality into it. And specifically moral judgment of the adversaries and also of America's stake in it. And so the book sets up, well, here's how to here's how to do that to reach a view of where you're where you should stand if you care about these fundamental values of human life and freedom and progress and prosperity. So, you know, the book comes out and says, well, it's to the extent that Israel is a free society that is the side you should stand on. And anyone else who's for freedom in that region, they deserve your support, not the tyrants, the monarchs and the theocrats, which is essentially what we've been doing. And so I have a chapter arguing, what does it mean to be to have a principled approach to this region that takes freedom and individualism as the moral compass? And I come out with, well, you need to be pro-Israel for these particular reasons that it's a free society and to the extent that it isn't, if it stops being a free society, you wouldn't have this view. Like it's a conditional evaluation. And consequently, you would have to be hostile to anyone who's anti-freedom. And that's primarily the Palestinian cause and then all the regimes that supported and enabled it, and then all the regimes in the region that are themselves variations on the theme of tyranny and authoritarianism. And you would have to use that principle of freedom as a guide to, well, who are our friends and who are our allies? You would have to stop pretending, for example, that Saudi Arabia is a bosom ally. It is not. I mean, that is one of the longstanding scandals of American foreign policy. And the same thing with Iran. It's not like, well, yeah, all we need is a better Iran nuclear deal that, you know, the Trump team can renegotiate and get us better. That is ridiculous. What you need is to really appreciate that Iran is one of the spearheads of the Islamist movement and you can't deal with them. Like they need to be eliminated. So that's sort of the basic framework of how to evaluate and figure out our stake in the Middle East. And then I have more concrete steps towards, well, how do you end this conflict and how do you clear the road so that there can be a long term resolution? But the key thing in that part of the book is it's worse than foolish to think there's some overnight solution. You need to take certain steps that create the possibility of resolution. But then it's the Palestinians have to change their moral values and their cultural values. And that could take generations. Yeah. Yeah. And I talk about some of what that involves and there's things they can do and there's values they can adopt, but they and all the other people in the region who are hostile to freedom and progress. And there's too many of them. They all need to change their views. And unless that happens, you're fooling yourself into thinking that there's some like, oh, yeah, if we add that eighth piece of paper in the agreement, we could then have peace tomorrow. That is ridiculous. And that's essentially how they think of this. And it won't happen unless the U.S. leads on that. That is the U.S. has to demand that that happened. The U.S. has to support Israel's efforts in making that happen because it won't happen otherwise. As long as the U.S. is ambiguous morally, that sanctions the Palestinians to take on whatever position they want. And it really is an absurd, you know, the U.S. is a moral leader, whether it likes it or not. I mean, the only other alternative is the U.S. to butt out completely and let Israel do whatever it needs to do. But as long as the United States is in a leadership position, its ambiguity helps the Palestinians. Yeah, I don't mean I'm not sure what you mean by but out, but I would take that to mean that would have to be only you would butt out and say, we're doing this. We're giving you the room to do the right thing. Not we're doing this and we don't care because butting out can also mean the kind of wrong poll perspective. Like if we only leave them alone, they'll leave us alone, which is not at all true. I mean that I think your point about moral leadership is it is essential that I mean, what we do sends so many signals in the region that people don't appreciate that every little step we take is a signal to our adversaries and our friends about how serious we are. And we are a giant as a sort of America is a giant on the world stage, even if it behaves like a kind of a wimp in many ways in my view. And that kind of to me, the most this goes to an issue that I think some of your listeners might be really exercised about, which is America's view of its support of Israel is typically seen as essentially material. Like look at all the military hardware we can give you and look at all the collaborations we can do and the technology and the money and the financial backing. Yeah, OK, you might have arguments about doing that. And I'm not against technological and military collaboration and even selling them ours. But it's completely wrong to think that being pro Israel and kind of pro free societies means we just pile on the money. That's not what it means. It's primarily a moral endorsement. And that's sort of your point about America having to take this as a really firm stand. And I don't think America has a choice about being a moral leader. It should be something we shoulder and really live up to because nobody else can do it and nobody has a claim to. And given that we have the mightiest military force on the planet, we have to be because there has to be some guidance to that military force. Government is force. And the government has to be guided by papa morality. And it's not. Now, let me just I know there's a lot of discussion going on about killing civilians and all this. All of that is addressed in Ilan's other book. And I want you to refer to that because I'm not we don't have to talk about all that here. But here's the other book I'm putting it up on screen. This is the book Winning the Unwinnable War. There's a series of essays there on issues related. Ilan's opening essay in the book. Deals with the issue issues of civilian casualties and what's appropriate to do in wartime. There's an essay there about just war theory that I co-authored with Alex Epstein about civilian casualties in war. And the you know, so if you're really interested in the whole question of morality, war, the Middle East, the slumists, I highly recommend both these books. So so the first book Winning the Unwinnable War and then, of course, Ilan's new book. Which is I think I've got it on screen. There we go, which is on screen now, which is what justice demands, which is specifically oriented towards the question of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And let me just let me I'm just going to say something. And I know I'm often accused of insulting my audience, but let me just say something just based on the chat and stuff. A lot of people are just ignorant about this crisis. A lot of people who think they know, you know, ignorant about this crisis. A lot of people just don't know the facts and don't know the evidence. A lot of people also have the wrong moral perspective on it, but they don't know the actual history. They don't actually know Israel. I bet you that most of the people who criticize Israel have never even been there, although there are plenty of Israelis who criticize Israel inappropriately. The altruism trumps anything. I recommend reading Ilan's book to learn more about the facts, right? So somebody's accusing me of ad hominem. It's not ad hominem. I'm just saying you're probably ignorant. Read the book, learn more. If you're not ignorant, great. Good for you. Then you're just wrong philosophically, morally and from any other perspective, given given what you've been spouting on the chat. So go engage with the book, read it. For those of you, for everybody, like it or hate it or middle of the road, write, write on Amazon, write reviews on Amazon. Really would appreciate that. But read it first. I've noticed that some people are writing reviews on Amazon before they read the book, both positive and negative. So please read it first. But let me say something about that. You're wrong, because I think I haven't seen the chat, so I don't know kind of questions, but there are going to be questions about the book and I anticipate that a lot of people, even if they're sympathetic to on round or even objects, they're going to disagree with things and that's OK. And I want what I'm going to do after the book comes out and people have a chance to read it, because I think it's a necessary condition that you read the book to have a view of it and a view of the argument specifically, so not to make light of your views. But I expect there'll be questions and disagreements and hard issues. And I'm not. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to have some online Q&A's with people. So send questions and I'll be answering questions. And I'm going to do this at live events. I'm going to do this online. And I want those questions. I think part of what happens is I understand your frustration and it could be well warranted with some of the people you're referring to. I don't know what people believe me is warranted. I mean, there's a lot to learn about this conflict. It's a complex conflict. There are a lot of issues. And there's a lot to learn about the unique perspective. Objectivism has an event on morality and applying morality to political to political international context. None of this is simple. And that's why I encourage people to, you know, to read the books and to engage with the actual content, rather than throwing out throwing our comments or committing yourself to a perspective without being challenged with the opposite. Because I don't think you'll get Elan's perspective on this crisis, the objective perspective on this crisis from anybody else. Let me say one thing about that, because I know the theme of the show is living objectivism. And part of my goal in the book is to it's a it's not something I talk about explicitly, but it's part of what drove me to write the book. And it's to say the objectivism and incredibly powerful philosophy and it is a philosophy for living on earth in many ways in your own life and your own pursuit of happiness, but also and in this case, especially for understanding the world and talk about a quintessentially impossible conflict, right? This is one of the hardest cases you could take on. And the goal of taking it on is to say, you know, objectivism has so much value to contribute to our thinking and our understanding of the world and to solving really hard problems. And the way to do that is not to it's not a policy perspective or policy analysis. It's a philosophic reassessment and analysis of an issue. And so what a part of what I mean, I want to encourage people and, you know, both the ones who are sincere and the ones who might not be so sincere is to really grapple with that part of what the book is saying is here's a new philosophic perspective on this issue, which I think is incredibly clarifying. You are going to have questions. Let's talk about them. I want people to ask questions, but I think it'll help me. I'm interested in learning what people's views are and the objections they have. But I think to me, the value is you will get a greater appreciation for what it means to hold a kind of pro individualist, pro-capitalist, pro-reason perspective on the world by engaging with the book. Because I think part of what I try and I think I accomplish this is to present that perspective on this issue. And I know it's charged, but then every issue is charged. And that's fine. You need to be part of what I want is for people to get, OK, you could be really upset with me, but let's talk about the issue. I mean, that's not that's not right about it seems like for the reasons I think we've talked about things like this issue seems to be more charged than a lot of other issues and for a variety of reasons. But yes, people get very emotional about it as with others. But yes.