#422 — Zionism & Jihadism

I am here with Aviv Retagur. Aviv, thanks for coming on the podcast. Thank you for having me, Sam. It's good to be here. We were just talking offline that you were, we could be interrupted because you're you're in the middle of a war. It's gotta be intense over there. I mean, so you and I had we we scheduled this podcast some weeks before Israel struck Iran, and so and we had too much to talk about even then. But now, now we have the the current front in the war to talk about. So let's just jump in. I mean, many people will be aware of your work because you have been, to my ear, the most eloquent spokesman for and journalist covering what is happening in Israel and both factually and just the the the moral logic of the war in Gaza. But, how would how do you summarize your work as a journalist at this point? First of all, it's, thank you. It's an honor. I I have had two hats. I've been a professional working journalist since 2005, but I had the side hustle as a history teacher, whether it's in English for American college students visiting Israel I've spoken to, we once estimated something like 8,000 of them over the last fifteen years and and Israeli pre military academies and others informal frameworks and when the war happened something very strange happened which was that I have these lectures online I have these lectures that some colleges put on YouTube and they went insanely viral. And suddenly everybody really there was this hunger for the deep explanations. Nobody here is stupid. Nobody here is a moral cartoon, even if some Westerners insist on making us so, whether Israelis or Palestinians. And if you can give that story that Israelis and Palestinians and different kinds of Israelis and Palestinians actually think they're living in, people find that extremely, extremely valuable. So I think that's what I'm trying to provide. It's more teacher than journalists actually, or maybe it's what journalism should be at its best. I I I don't know. It's certainly what I think is my my goal. And can you remind me what why is your English, so perfect and unaccented? What's going on there? Have you, are you, an AI that has perfected the the the simulation of, human speech? I keep trying to convince people it's Mossad training, but nobody nobody believes it. No. Half my childhood was in The States, because of my parents' work. Wait. Which half? I went to high school What what years were you in The States? Something like ages nine to 18, something like that. Okay. Great. Well, Yeah. Let's start with Iran. I mean, I I ultimately, I wanna talk about the war in Gaza and the pervasive misunderstandings about it and and really just the the pervasive, misunderstanding about Israel's role in the world, place in the moral order of civilization at …