Palestine Part 1 – From Ancient Roots to 1948 | Office Hours
Dr. Roy Casagranda
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718,902 views Sep 3, 2025 Office Hours with Dr. Roy
In this episode of Office Hours with Dr. Roy Casagranda, Roy and Jeremy take on one of the most difficult and important conversations of our time: the history of Palestine.
Part 1 traces the story from ancient times through the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Roy walks us through the roots of Jewish and Palestinian identity, the role of empires from Babylon to Rome, the Crusades, and the Arab conquest. We explore the rise of Zionism in Europe, centuries of antisemitism and pogroms, the Holocaust, and the global decisions that led to partition and displacement in Palestine.
This is not just a history lesson — it’s a framework for understanding how the past still shapes the present.
This is Part 1 of a multi-part series. Future episodes will examine the apartheid system, ongoing settlements, the genocide in Gaza, the daily realities faced by Palestinians today, and what can be done.
Palestine Part 1: • Palestine Part 1 – From Ancient Roots to 1...
Palestine Part 2: • Palestine Part 2 – The Nakba to Apartheid ...
Palestine Part 3: • Palestine Part 3 – Is Reconciliation Possi...
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<팔레스타인 파트 1: 고대 뿌리부터 1948년까지> 요약 및 평론
서론: 현대 비극의 역사적 기원
본 텍스트는 카사그란다(Dr. Roy Casagranda) 박사가 팔레스타인의 역사를 고대부터 이스라엘 국가가 수립된 1948년까지 추적하며 현대 분쟁의 프레임워크를 제공하는 내용을 담고 있다
요약: 3,500년의 흐름과 1948년의 파국
1. 고대 민족과 종교의 형성
팔레스타인 지역의 조상은 셈족(Semites)으로, 서부 셈족이 가나안인, 페니키아인, 유대인 등으로 갈라졌다
2. 이슬람 정복과 십자군 전쟁
7세기 아랍의 정복은 유대인들에게 구원이었다
3. 시오니즘의 발흥과 식민주의
현대 시오니즘은 19세기 후반 유럽의 반유대주의에 대한 반응으로 등장했다
4. 홀로코스트와 이스라엘 건국
제2차 세계대전 중 나치는 '최종 해결책'을 통해 유대인 수백만 명을 학살했다
평론: 뒤엉킨 증오의 사슬과 침묵의 공모
이 텍스트는 팔레스타인 문제를 단순한 종교 전쟁이 아닌, 유럽의 반유대주의가 낳은 비극의 전가(Transfer of Tragedy)로 규정한다. 카사그란다 박사의 분석에서 가장 날카로운 지점은 시오니즘과 반유대주의의 기묘한 공생 관계다. 유럽은 자신들의 내부에 존재하는 유대인 혐오 문제를 해결하기 위해 팔레스타인이라는 제3의 공간을 희생양으로 삼았으며, 시오니즘은 그 기회를 포착하여 식민주의적 정착을 정당화했다.
특히 연합군이 아우슈비츠로 향하는 철로를 폭격하지 않았다는 지적은 현대 국제 질서의 도덕적 결함을 폭로한다. 비극을 방치함으로써 더 큰 정치적 명분(이스라엘 건국)을 얻으려 했다는 해석은 다소 파격적이지만, 당시 미국 내의 반유대주의 정서와 난민 거부 사례(성 루이스호 사건)를 고려할 때 충분한 설득력을 갖는다
또한, 유대인과 아랍인이 유전적으로 밀접하며 오랜 기간 평화롭게 공존했다는 역사적 사실은 '천년의 숙적'이라는 현대의 프레임이 얼마나 허구적인지를 보여준다
결론적으로 이 기록은 팔레스타인 문제를 해결하기 위해서는 그 뿌리에 박힌 유럽의 죄의식, 미국의 전략적 방관, 그리고 식민주의적 시오니즘의 결합을 해체해야 함을 시사한다. 역사는 반복되는 것이 아니라, 과거의 정의되지 못한 범죄들이 현재의 이름으로 다시 나타나는 것임을 본 텍스트는 경고하고 있다.
===
<Palestine Part 1 – From Ancient Roots to 1948>
— Dr. Roy Casagranda 강의 요약 + 평론
이 강의는 팔레스타인 문제를 “1948년 이후의 분쟁”이 아니라, 수천 년에 걸친 역사적 구조 속에서 이해하려는 시도이다. 핵심 질문은 단순하다.
<왜 팔레스타인 문제는 이렇게까지 풀리지 않는가?>
Roy Casagranda는 이에 대해, 현재의 충돌은 단순한 종교 분쟁도, 단순한 영토 분쟁도 아니라 <제국주의·유럽 반유대주의·식민주의·민족주의가 겹쳐진 결과>라고 주장한다. 이 강의는 특히 시온주의의 형성과 1948년 이스라엘 건국을 매우 비판적으로 해석하며, 팔레스타인인의 추방(Nakba)을 중심 서사로 배치한다.
1. 고대 팔레스타인: 다민족·다종교의 땅
강의는 팔레스타인을 “원래부터 유대인의 독점적 땅”으로 보는 서사를 거부한다.
그에 따르면 이 지역은 고대부터 가나안인, 페니키아인, 히브리인, 아람인, 아랍인 등 다양한 셈족 집단이 공존하던 공간이었다. 유대인은 이들 중 하나였으며, 언제나 단일 다수였던 것은 아니었다. 초기 유대교 역시 오늘날처럼 엄격한 일신교가 아니라, 점진적으로 형성된 종교였다고 설명한다.
즉,
→ <팔레스타인은 처음부터 다민족 사회였다>
이 점은 이후 “누가 원주민인가”라는 문제를 이해하는 핵심 전제다.
2. 바빌론 포로, 로마 지배, 디아스포라
신바빌로니아 제국은 유대인 일부를 바빌론으로 강제 이주시켰고, 이후 페르시아의 키루스 대왕이 귀환과 성전 재건을 허용했다. 이후 헬레니즘과 로마 지배가 이어졌고, 로마는 반복되는 반란에 강경 대응하며 제2성전을 파괴했다.
강의는 특히 로마와 후기 비잔틴 제국의 반유대 정책을 강조한다. 유대인의 디아스포라는 단지 “자발적 이동”이 아니라 반복된 추방과 폭력의 결과였다는 것이다.
이는 중요한 지적이다. 유대인의 역사적 고통을 이해하지 않고는 이후 시온주의의 감정적 기반을 이해할 수 없다.
3. 이슬람 지배와 유대인
강의의 특징 중 하나는 중세 이슬람 세계를 상대적으로 긍정적으로 평가한다는 점이다.
아랍 제국이 등장한 이후, 유대인은 로마·기독교 세계보다 훨씬 안정된 삶을 누렸으며, 무슬림·기독교인 사이의 중개자 역할도 수행했다는 것이다. 스페인에서 추방된 유대인들이 모로코나 오스만 제국으로 이동한 사례도 제시된다.
물론 실제 역사에는 차별과 제한도 존재했지만, 강의가 강조하는 핵심은 이것이다.
→ <유럽의 반유대주의와 중동의 유대인 경험은 같지 않았다>
이 구분은 매우 중요하다.
4. 십자군과 유럽 반유대주의
Casagranda는 십자군을 “중동 원정” 이전에 이미 유럽 내부의 유대인 학살로 시작된 사건으로 설명한다.
라인강 유역의 유대인 공동체 학살, 강간, 약탈은 이후 수세기 동안 반복되는 포그롬의 시작이었다. 그는 기독교 반유대주의가 “예수를 죽인 민족”이라는 신학적 정당화와 로마 제국의 유산이 결합한 결과라고 본다.
이 부분은 다소 단순화가 있지만, 유럽 반유대주의가 구조적이었다는 점은 분명하다.
5. 시온주의의 탄생
강의의 중심은 여기부터다.
19세기 말, 드레퓌스 사건과 반복된 포그롬 속에서 테오도르 헤르츨은 “유럽에서 유대인은 결코 안전할 수 없다”고 결론 내린다. 이것이 정치적 시온주의의 출발이다.
흥미롭게도 그는 처음부터 팔레스타인만을 고집한 것은 아니었다. 우간다 등 다른 후보지도 있었다. 그러나 많은 유대인들은 역사적 상징성과 정체성 때문에 팔레스타인을 선택했다.
여기서 강의는 매우 강하게 비판한다.
→ <시온주의는 반유대주의를 수용한 정치 프로젝트였다>
즉, “유럽을 바꾸는 것”이 아니라 “유럽을 떠나는 것”이었다는 해석이다.
이 평가는 날카롭지만, 지나치게 단선적이기도 하다.
6. 발포어 선언과 영국 제국주의
1917년 발포어 선언은 팔레스타인에 “유대인 민족의 고향”을 지지한다고 밝혔다.
강의는 이를 단순한 인도주의가 아니라 영국 제국주의의 산물로 본다. 영국은 이미 오스만 제국 해체 후 중동 분할을 구상하고 있었고, 팔레스타인은 전략적 요충지였다. 발포어 선언은 그 일부였다.
즉,
→ <시온주의는 유럽 식민주의와 결합했다>
이 지적은 오늘날까지 이어지는 핵심 논쟁이다.
7. 홀로코스트와 국제 여론
강의는 홀로코스트를 매우 중요하게 다루지만, 동시에 서방의 위선을 강하게 비판한다.
미국과 영국은 유대인 난민을 충분히 받아들이지 않았고, 강제수용소 철도조차 적극적으로 폭격하지 않았다고 지적한다. 그는 이것이 단순 무관심이 아니라 구조적 반유대주의의 표현이었다고 본다.
다만 여기서 “연합국이 홀로코스트를 최대화하려 했다”는 식의 추론은 상당히 논쟁적이며, 증거보다 해석이 앞선 부분이다.
이 지점은 학술적으로는 신중해야 한다.
8. 1947 UN 분할안과 1948 전쟁
UN은 1947년 팔레스타인을 유대 국가와 아랍 국가로 분할하는 안을 통과시켰다.
당시 유대인 소유 토지는 약 7%였지만, 분할안은 55%를 유대 국가에 배정했다. 아랍 세계는 이를 거부했다.
강의는 1948년을 “독립전쟁”이 아니라
→ <조직적 추방과 공포 조성의 과정>
으로 해석한다.
학살과 공포를 통해 팔레스타인 주민을 떠나게 만들었고, 결과적으로 이스라엘은 78%의 땅을 차지하게 되었다는 것이다. 이것이 Nakba(대재앙)이다.
이 부분은 현대 팔레스타인 기억의 중심이다.
9. 이 강의의 강점
첫째, 역사적 연속성을 보여준다.
1948을 갑작스러운 사건이 아니라 긴 구조 속에 위치시킨다.
둘째, 유럽 반유대주의와 시온주의의 관계를 정면으로 다룬다.
이는 많은 대중 담론이 회피하는 부분이다.
셋째, 팔레스타인인의 시각을 중심에 둔다.
서구 서사에서 자주 지워지는 경험을 복원하려는 시도다.
10. 한계와 비판
가장 큰 문제는 지나친 단선성이다.
이스라엘 측 내부의 다양성, 아랍 정치의 복잡성, 유대인 사회 내부의 갈등은 충분히 다뤄지지 않는다.
특히
→ “시온주의 = 반유대주의의 연장”
이라는 규정은 지나치게 압축적이다.
또한 일부 역사적 서술은 학계의 일반적 합의보다 더 급진적이며, 근거 제시가 부족하다.
즉,
→ 매우 유익하지만, 단일한 최종 해석으로 받아들이면 위험하다.
결론
이 강의는 팔레스타인 문제를 도덕적 선악 구도가 아니라 역사 구조로 보게 만든다.
그 핵심 메시지는 이것이다.
→ <1948은 시작이 아니라 결과였다>
유대인의 고통도 현실이었고, 팔레스타인의 추방도 현실이었다.
문제는 어느 한쪽의 고통만 기억할 때 시작된다.
이 강의는 바로 그 불균형을 바로잡으려는 시도다.
그래서 불편하지만, 반드시 들어야 할 이야기이기도 하다.
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🔉 Dr. Roy Casagranda Podcast 🔉
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00:00:00 Opening: Why Palestine Matters
00:01:40 Ancient Peoples and Early Judaism
00:06:00 Babylonian Captivity & Persian Rule
00:09:56 Greeks, Romans, and the Jewish Diaspora
00:15:10 Arab Conquest and Jewish-Muslim Relations
00:17:05 The Crusades and Christian Antisemitism
00:20:18 Colonialism and the Rise of Zionism
00:22:18 Pogroms, Dreyfus Affair, and Herzl
00:29:00 Race, Identity, and the Claim to Palestine
00:32:02 Balfour Declaration & Sykes-Picot
00:35:10 Zionism and Antisemitism Connected
00:41:09 Holocaust: From Camps to Final Solution
00:47:00 Nazi Racial Policies and IBM Data
00:55:00 Hatred, Opportunism, and Power
01:00:00 Why Allies Didn’t Bomb Auschwitz
01:06:00 Holocaust Death Toll & Modern Antisemitism
01:10:02 UN Partition of Palestine, 1947
01:14:15 1948 War and Palestinian Expulsion
01:20:00 Aftermath: Refugees, Druze, and Bedouin
01:23:00 Closing and Next Episode Preview
#PalestineHistory #Zionism #HolocaustHistory #GazaIsStarving
Chapters
Opening: Why Palestine Matters
[Music]
Hey everyone, welcome to office hours. We're not in Canada. We're we're back at
home. Uh Roy and Jeremy hanging out to talk about uh all kinds of things. But
this particular uh chat, we're going to dig into
a not very fun topic, but one that's that's that's sad right now. It's actually I I think it's much harder to
stomach than the Ukraine war because at least in the you know the Ukrainians and the Russians they're fighting each
other. Uh we're going to talk about Palestine where one side is just
it's being murdered. Uh there's no fighting chance and it's been that way
for a while and it's it's hard to look at. It's hard to listen to. It's hard
not to feel hopeless. um and wherever you are in the world um to try and to
try and help. So, I think thinking about this conversation, I I made like this
huge list of of things I wanted to talk about uh because I started thinking like
let's let's find out why this is going on, the historical uh aspects of it,
what's currently going on and and and then what we can do about it or what
might be hope at the end of this this the horrible process. Um, and in that,
you know, I came up with, I don't know, 30 different points to talk about. So,
let's start, if you want to start, Roy, digging into like the ancient and
Ancient Peoples and Early Judaism
historical roots of the region, like who who are the ancient peoples of like the
Palestinian people? Because this is we go this is before all the Abrahamic religions. So like uh Judaism,
Christianity, Islam, like there were people there before any of these
religions existed. Um and obviously we're not like theologians.
So like we're going to get we're going to get some of this wrong, I'm sure, and we're not going to have all the answers
and we're probably going to skip some things that might be like super obvious to some people. So like in the comments,
please chime in if you have other information. This is just something that I think is necessary to talk about. Um,
so yeah. Uh, who are the ancient Palestinians and how did the how did it evolve when
you the the Jewish, Christian, and and Muslim communities emerged from that area.
Yeah. So you you wanted me to go really far back, so I I'll try. I'll Yeah. Go further. Yeah. So there was a a group of people
called Seenites. um they ultimately ended up breaking into two groups. There's the Western Semmites and the
Eastern Semites. The Eastern Semites ended up in Iraq and the Western Semites
ended up in Syria, Lebanon, uh Jordan, Palestine, and Arabia.
And the the Western Semites that were in Palestine and Lebanon area were
Canaanites. And then they basically split into two groups. The Phoenetians being one group, uh the Jews being
another group. Um, I'm not exactly sure how closely
related the Arabs were to the Canaanites. I I think there's there's there's been a lot of hypotheses out
there that they were also Canaanites, but I'm not really sure or at least really closely related. Um, they're all
really closely related. Like, if you look at Phoenician, compare it to Arabic, compare it to Hebrew, it's
shocking how similar the three languages are. um you know like we're talking Dutch to German level of Dutch to
Deutsch level of of similarity and then um
on the other side in the Iraq area there was uh the Babylonians and uh the
Assyrians. Those were the Semites that were uh the eastern Semmites. Um
so eventually oh there were other there were other
seemetic groups too I should say in the western so like the Arammites um and all these different seatic groups
were constantly in a state of warfare and struggling over dominance and eventually Judaism formed uh my
understanding is about 3,500 years ago or so and by the way it started off with two gods Asher than
Yahweh. Um I I don't know if people really like to talk about the fact that they were btheists, not monotheists. And
actually, they're never monotheists. Judaism was a heenotheistic religion. So when it eventually became one God,
because they wrote Asherath out of their religion, um when that eventually happened, then it became a heotheistic
religion, which said there was one God for the Jews, but it didn't rule out the possibility that there were other gods
for other people. So, so once Christianity formed, the Jews regarded
Christianity as having a separate god, a different god. They didn't they didn't think they were worshiping the same god.
They thought they were worshiping a different god. And so that's the idea behind hetheism. It doesn't rule out the
fact that there might be multiple gods. It's just there's one god for your group. Um, in any case,
the uh the Jewish population in what in Palestine never probably was the
majority. They were always in struggle against these other Seemetic groups. Uh, the Canaanites,
the Phoenicians ended up uh with basically the coastal towns. So, so the
Jewish population was in the interior. It was in the state of constant struggle. in the south of Palestine was
an Arab population. So in other words, it was always multithnic and multi-religious and then eventually um
Babylonian Captivity & Persian Rule
they they get into trouble because they get conquered. They get conquered by the
Persian Empire eventually. Well, first they first they get conquered by the Neoablonian Empire. Let's do that real
quick. So what happened in the Neo Babylonian period is the Neo Babylonians decided they didn't really like the Jews
at some level but they thought they were had talent. So when when the when the
Jewish people were resisting in Palestine the Neoablonians invaded
conquered them and then forcibly extracted a population and made them live in Babylon. The their hope was that
they would be able to extract the talent and then keep their eyes on the the Jews so they wouldn't revolt later.
Um that's that's the period we talk about as the period of captivity. It's worth pointing out that the term
Palestine came from the sea people when the sea people invaded and one of the
groups that the amongst the sea people were a group of people called the Philistines and that's where we get the
term. Um, the Persians are then going to conquer
the neoablonians. And when they do, Cyrus the Great freeds the Jews from
captivity. So, to be clear, they weren't enslaved. There were definitely Jewish slaves. I'm not saying there were no
Jewish slaves. The population that was brought to Babylon weren't enslaved. They were just simply confined to the
city of Babylon. So, uh, Cyus the Great.
And then he had a si system where he he issued a bill of rights and it was
translated in every language in the empire. So everybody would have this bill of rights and one of the things
that was in the bill of rights was that the state would pay for and maintain all the religious structures.
So uh the the neoablonians when they conquered Palestine they destroyed the
temple of Solomon because they were so mad at the Jewish resistance. So the Jewish the newly free Jewish population
goes to Cyrus the Great and they say hey uh they destroyed our temple of Solomon
according to this bill of rights. You have to repair the temple and is like
yeah that's the deal. We will build and maintain your religious structures. So yeah we'll rebuild it for you. What did
it look like? So the Jews came up with this amazing mea. They they built a
human-made mea and then they were going to put the second temple of Solomon on the top. And of course, Cyrus the Great
is like, "What the hell? The Babylonians destroyed this. They must have really hated you. This is a a human-made
mountain." And his response was, "I only know one group of engineers in the world that could do this." So, he went and
hired Egyptians and they built the mesa and then using uh Persian gold, they
they they paid for the the construction of the second temple of Solomon.
Um then Alexander the Great conquers the Persian Empire and and takes over
Palestine and then of course uh he's ultimately his empire breaks apart and
the Saloy kids end up with it and then the Poleamies end up with it. So it it it's constantly changing hands. that's
constantly in struggle and then the Romans take it over. The the the
population of people living in Palestine, the Jewish population, but also the
non-Jewish Semites that were living there didn't like Roman rule and they resisted and uh they became a bunch of
stonethrowing rebels who just wouldn't stop throwing stones at the Romans. And
ultimately in the end the Romans would have rebellion after rebellion that they had to deal with. They were constantly
putting it down. Um they the Romans were especially cruel to the Jewish
population. They they didn't they didn't put up with this constant state of rebellion. Eventually they tore down the
Greeks, Romans, and the Jewish Diaspora
second temple of Solomon. And then they turned the the mesa the humanmade mea
into a garbage dump so they could desecrate the temple. And uh and then
the last time the Romans did anything was either in the year 629 or 630. We're
not really sure the exact moment, but um the Romans and the Persians in their last war against each other, which
essentially went from 602 to 628. It lasted 26 years, but the first few years
there wasn't really much going on. Um in that war, the Romans win, which was very
rare. The Romans usually didn't beat the Persians, but they won. And they won big. Like the Roman army was parked
right outside Tispoon, the Persian capital. And so the Persians were obligated to
surrender because they were about to lose their capital. And it's actually probably not true. The Romans probably
wouldn't have been able to take it. But nonetheless, it was 28 or 26th year of
war, and there was no sign of victory on the Persian side. So they surrendered. But in the surrender, the the Persians
said, "Please don't get vengeance on the Jews. That's the that's one of our conditions for surrendering. You have to
promise us you won't." Because the Jews had sided with Persians against the Romans. And so, Heraclus, the Roman
emperor, said, "Yeah, yeah, of course. I'm happy to sign a treaty that bans me
from getting vengeance on the Jewish population." Uh so he he by the way the
Persians had captured the true cross the holy sponge and the holy uh spear and
they had taken it to tispoon. So that was part of what he got. He got those three relics back. He took them to
Constantinople and then in 629 end of 629 or beginning
of 630 he decided to bring those holy relics back to Jerusalem. And
while he's there, he's looking at the city and he goes, "You know what? Screw it. I really just
hate Jews." And he wanted to massacre them. So he he uh massacres the
population in Jerusalem, driving them out or killing them outright, and
essentially drove most of the Jews out of Palestine in the process. He probably killed about 20,000
uh people in that massacre. And this this was what what year
it was either 629 or 6:30. Okay. It was and it was probably winter that
winter somewhere in that winter. It might have been later like or earlier, but it was right around winter.
So was was there already like a a Jewish diaspora at that point or was that kind of like the big part? So I'm thinking
like you you're talking about the destruction of the second temple uh when the Romans destroyed it. Um, and now
we're we're jumping ahead a little bit, but is is is the Jewish population already kind of
leaving the that area and kind of a more dispersed area through the Middle East?
Oh, definitely. Um, there multiple events brought Jews out. Uh, you know,
Jews had migrated to Egypt. There were Jews that living in Ethiopia. Jews had gone into Europe. So, there were Jews in
Spain and Italy, Greece. They were in North Africa already at this point. When Cyrus the Great liberated the Jewish
population in Babylon, he said, "I like you guys a lot. It would be amazing if some of you moved to Esphon in Iran. Uh,
well, if if anybody's willing to do that, I just want you to know I'll give you land and I'll set you up." And and a
group of Jews moved to Esvon. There's still a descendants of that Jewish community, you know, 2,600 years later
still hanging out in Esvon. Um, so there there there was already this
movement of Jews throughout the area and then every time the Romans would exact
cruelty on them in Palestine, they tended to disperse even more. So,
so you know, when Heraclus kills 20,000 or so people in his massacre, it was
probably a small percentage of the Jewish population because it had already been spread out so much.
So then what what was what was life like for the the Jewish
population and the the Palestinian population after those events like in the broader region?
So, so you know like Roman rule had always been extremely cruel not just in Palestine um in 391
roughly 392 when the Romans burnt the great library that they also attacked
the Jewish quarter in Alexandria and drove off or killed the bulk of the
population of Jews that Alexandria at the time Alexandria was the largest
Jewish community in the world so it wasn't actually you the population wasn't actually in that
moment in Palestine so much. It had spread out so much that it was now in Alexandria. Um that Roman cruelty was
just a regular part of everyday life. The Roman cruelty gets interrupted
Arab Conquest and Jewish-Muslim Relations
really dramatically when the Arabs build their empire because they end up conquering the entire Persian Empire and
about 60% of the Roman Empire. And in the areas that they conquered, the the
Arabs uh treated the the Jewish population as sisters and brothers and they didn't they didn't unleash the kind
of cruelty that the Romans had. And so the the Jewish population found uh immediate allies in the Arab population
and frequently would act as gobetweens between Christian communities and Muslim
communities because a lot of the Christian communities had put uh sanctions on any interaction with
Muslims. So the Jewish people found that they could go in and they could make a deal with Christians on behalf of
Muslims. And so in in a really interesting way, the partnership between Muslims and and Arabs, because there
were Christian Arabs as well, the partnership between
Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the under Arab rule was uh really strong and and a really healthy one. And you get
some really amazing philosophy that comes out of that period.
In fact, when uh Spain begins the process of
getting rid of its Jewish population under Queen Isabella,
a huge number of those Jews actually ended up moving to Morocco just to because they knew it would be safe in
the Arab world. Uh some of them went to the Ottoman Empire. Some of them unfortunately dispersed into Europe
where they were just going to get pogged on a regular basis. But uh
for Jews living in the Middle East, the Arab conquest was a huge relief. It meant no more Roman persecution
until the Crusades. When when the Crusades launch in 1096, the first thing
The Crusades and Christian Antisemitism
the Crusaders do is they they launch the world's first ever program um on the Jews living in the Ryan River
Valley in Germany. and they massacre thousands of Jews, rape a bunch of Jewish women, thousands of Jewish women,
and that's how they start the crusades. And then when they arrive in the Middle East, they just slaughter Jewish
communities. They slaughter Muslim communities as well. And and then they would burn down synagogues because they
thought there was no way to cleanse them. But when they captured mosques, they would just do a a prayer and switch
them over into churches. But they but for the crusaders, Jews were so impure and so contaminated, you couldn't you
couldn't you couldn't clean up a a synagogue. That that was the level of hatred that the Christian world had
towards the Jewish population. Where did that come from? So
uh the majority of that hatred was just a leftover of the Roman Empire's hatred.
Like there was no rationale behind it. I mean Jesus was a Jew. So, you know, you're like, if if you try to use logic
that Christians shouldn't hate Jews. It makes no sense. Um, it it makes no sense
for Christians or Muslims to hate Jews because so many of the prophets are Jewish. Like, how you can't reconcile a
religion. You would have to hate your own religion. And so really it was just mostly a leftover of
the Roman hatred of the Jewish population that then got turned into well the Jews killed Christ and that
became logical justification. It's completely irrational and illogical. But right that's how most of these
hatredbased things are. They're just I really want to hate that guy. I've got
to come up with some way to make it make sense. that you killed Christ so I hate you.
So maybe like a lot of pent up anger and they just wanted to direct it. It sounds
like how we most anger these days for everything, right? Yeah. I mean I think that's what is
happening in United States with with immigrants. There's literally no reason on earth for for a bunch of colonists
and immigrants to hate immigrants. And yet that's that's the the thing in
happening in the United States right now. Yeah. Speaking of
colonies, so how how did we get from, you know, we have we have these empires
and then we go from, you know, empires to continuing a new era of empires where we have um we're colonizing different
places, which I guess it's the same thing. We just started using different terminology with it kind of with a
different purpose behind it. Makes it seem better somehow. We're not just
conquering, we're colonizing. We're we're pushing you out to make this
space better for for us. Yeah. Um so that transition
um in the Levant area and specifically like Palestine uh where would when would that have
started do you think or what what started that? Yeah. So you were talking about the
Colonialism and the Rise of Zionism
contemporary situation that that we're facing in the in the kind of so definitely more contemp we're
not talking about ancient history or crusades. So maybe like because I'm thinking like Zionism. Zionism is is is
pretty it's a pretty new concept in terms of human history. Yeah. It's like 135y old idea.
Yeah. It's it's post and you know in terms of like for all of our US listeners it's it's post civil war.
Yeah. So it's it's not it's not that old. I mean goodness like thinking about like
we we did the Trail of Tears. We did we we did all of this in the US before it
started in in Palestine. So like I feel like we're a good example of how to do
this these horrible things that are about to happen in the in the years to
come. We inspired the rest of the world. I mean uh we inspired uh South African
apartheid. We inspired Zionism. We inspired Nazi Germany. I mean what and Nermberg the Nazis that we were trying
kept going what are you talking about you were our inspiration and kept trying to invoke our Supreme Court rulings in
their defense Buck v was their favorite thing they would invoke they'd dude all we ever did was copy you and Buck v is
the Supreme Court ruling that allows the state to forcibly sterilize anybody they want um it's for the record for those of
you it's 1927 Buck v um it was part of our eugenics program that the first
state in the United States that started eugenics program was Indiana in 1901. So it was 26 years into our eugenics
programs. It has never been overturned. It is still the law of the land just for the record. Um and there are still cases
of people being sterilized by the state. Um so in case you're wondering,
not only did we inspire the Nazis, we're still doing it. Um yeah. So okay,
Pogroms, Dreyfus Affair, and Herzl
Zionism came about. Uh there was a Austrian a Jewish Austrian named Herzel and what
happened was a thing called the Drifus affair. So 1096 there was that pilgrim on the Ryan
River. Europeans, Christian Europeans began to systematically regularly
pilgrim Jewish communities. So anytime anything went wrong, the Jews would get blamed. there was an inflationary event,
the Jews did it and they would get pilgrimmed. Uh, you know, there was a thunderstorm that caused flooding and
killed some people. The Jews did it and they would get pilgrimmed. And this was happening from, you know, Western
Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe. It didn't matter if you were in Russia or in France. There was pilgriming
taking place on a regular basis uh for 800 years. by the time we get to
Theodore Herzel. So, uh,
you would have had to have been completely oblivious to European history to not come to the conclusion that life
as a Jew in Europe was hard because of the constant pogo that took place.
Interestingly enough, the Drifus affair, the straw that broke the camel's back and caused the creation of Zionism,
wasn't a pogram. Drifus was an officer in the French army who was then framed
and incorrectly uh found guilty for a intelligence leak
in the French army and he ends up going to prison and everybody knows he's
framed. It's obvious it's a kangaroo court. The French were just looking to scapegoat somebody and and Drifus got
scapegoat for the Jewish community. that felt bad because he was Jewish.
And so Theodore Herzel goes, "We just can't be here. There is no way we'll
ever integrate into European society." It's worth pointing out though that
Herzel was also sorry that um Drifus was also German. So he was he was in
he was from the part of uh France that is ethnically German majority. So when
he he gets busted, the French aren't just busting him for being Jewish. They might not have even cared that he was
Jewish. They were probably busting him because he was German and it was an easy way to to scapegoat somebody in the
French army. But it doesn't matter. That's how the population of the Jewish population interpreted that it was a
that it was an anti-Jewish attack. So what Herzel comes up with is an idea of
creating a Jewish majority state somewhere on the planet. And he was
really interested in Uganda. Um there were there was talk of doing it in New
Mexico and Arizona. There were several other places that were mentioned and he was very much against doing it in
Palestine. Having said that, he starts this uh
congress of people who are trying to figure out where to do this and they start to organize Zionism. Very quickly,
most of the Jews who were interested in Zionism decided Palestine was the place because they saw it as a way to return
back to their ancient hereditary homeland. Now, it's worth pointing out
there's we have this weird these weird notions about race and ethnicity and
nationality. So I'm going to use myself as an example here. When you become a
minority in a country and then you give it several centuries, what ends up
happening is the because you're slowly interbreeding into the majority
population, you can do the math on this. It's not hard. I'll show you how it
works. You will eventually start to lose your ethnicity genetically.
So in other words, you will stop being that immigrant population because you will end up breeding in. So think of it.
So I'm part Swedish. My Swedish ancestors are Finland Spence, which means they're Swedes from Finland.
So they moved hundreds of years ago into Finland as colonists to be clear. They
weren't the good guys in this story. But so let's say I'm the that the the first
Swede in in Finland to marry a Finn. So now my children are half Finnish, half Swedish. And then let's say they marry a
Swede. So now their children are 3/4 Swedish, one quarter Finnish. But if
that kid that's 3/4 one quarter marries a Finn, right? That means that at that
point that their their child is going to be 58 Finnish, 3/4 38 Swedish. And every
time that happens, they be get further and further away from being the halfway mark.
So eventually what starts to happen is that minority population's DNA fizzles
up. When when I did my DNA test, 23 and me, I'm not very Swedish. My grandmother
was almost pure Finnish. because her ancestors had been in Finland for so many centuries, there was
no way to retain it. So in other words, if you were to look at Jews living in Europe, they looked European. If you
were to look at Jews living in Morocco, they look Moroccan. If you were to look at Jews living in Egypt, they looked Egyptian. Jews living in India looked
Indian. Jews living in China look Chinese. It there's no weirdness or
anything. It's not horrible. They're still Jewish. I'm still Swedish because it it it really isn't about DNA. It's
about identity. My people identify as Finland Spence. They have Swedish last
names. They spoke Swedish. It's not There's no magical DNA thing that links
you to anything. Native Americans are starting to figure that out. Like all these stupid fractions are keeping track
of, you know, like 1/8, 132nd, 164th, like at what point. So, you know, it's
the it's the thing of I have a ship and I repair it and I keep repairing it and
200 years later I've replaced every single part in that ship. Is it still the original ship? And the answer is,
yeah, of course it is. It never changed its name the whole
time. You all the cells in your body are completely replaced. What is it every seven years? So, you know, like yeah,
that's that's how this works. It's the culture. It's the story. It's it's it's the culture. It's the story. The
Race, Identity, and the Claim to Palestine
genetics doesn't doesn't really matter. Having said that, that was the claim
they were making was we have this genetic, ethnic, racial connection to
this chunk of land. Let's go home. Ironically, the people who were living
there were ethnically, genetically 80% Jewish. They had mostly converted to
Christianity and Islam. But there was a Jewish Palestinian population because
under Arab rule and then later Ottoman rule and everything in between because there were, you know, there were the
Seljuks and the Fatimids and the Mamluke and uh under all those different groups,
the Jews had thrived and they had done very well for themselves. And so there was a there was always under Muslim rule
a a Jewish community with the exception of during the crusades uh in Palestine.
So when when the European when these European Zionists are talking about Zionism and then Zionism as ideology
spreads to the United States, they're talking about ignoring the fact that there's already an existing population
there. ignoring the fact that the ethnically and genetically that population is actually very heavily
Jewish a lot more than they are, right? Because they're so now heavily very European and they they want to go cuz
they think of themselves as real Jews and replace the population that's already there and they know there's a
population of people there. They they start telling the lie of a land without a people for a people without a land and
it's just not true. uh in any way, shape or form. And they know this. So So they have a problem.
And the problem is if they go under Ottoman rule and they
live in Palestine, the Ottomans aren't going to let them make their own state.
That's not going to happen. So that there's no path towards creating a
Jewishonly state in Palestine as long as there's an Ottoman Empire. So that's but
that doesn't mean they can't move there. And so that little by little Jews start to move and they start to buy land.
Ironically enough they were having trouble getting financing for land to to do mortgages. Uh there was a South
African bank that jumped in and started helping them make the land purchases. I
I just think that's so interest African bank that stepped in and said,
"Yeah, we'll help you." Birds of a feather, right? We're white colonists in Africa. you're a white colonist in Asia.
Let's help you out. Um, and as time went by, by the time we got
to 1947, uh, the Jews owned 7% of Palestine. They
had purchased legally purchased and had a deed to 7% of the land.
So then, so go ahead. No, go ahead. Oh, so I was So before we
Balfour Declaration & Sykes-Picot
get that far ahead, I I know that like so there's the the
Balffor uh declaration. So that was kind of what during World
War I, correct? So how how did how did that like cuz in
my mind I'm thinking, yeah, that's a great notion. You guys should and you know, if you want to spend the money and
live somewhere else, like we can all do that. That's fine. How does the idea of
uh you're saying like need to get these people out of here which we've done the same thing in American history. We had
the idea of manifest destiny which like hey this this land belongs to us. Oh there are people here. Yeah whatever.
Yeah. Um it's a good it's our god-given right to go from sea to shining sea. Um, so
the bow for decoration, how did that kind of create the the mindset of
beginning to partition this land and make it something different and and it
kind of pushed people into different places. Yeah. So the British Empire uh at the
start before World War I even started was looking on how it could partition
the Ottoman Empire. And they one of the things that they were also really keen on doing was splitting Iran in half. And
so the British and the French actually got together at Sykes Pico and they they
carve up the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Empire because uh the Persians
didn't belong to the Ottomans. And the idea was that Russia, Italy, France, the
UK, and Greece would each get a piece. So that you know they were talking about
um Russia would get a big chunk of land in uh Thrace and Constantinople. They
would have basically the Dardinell and Bosperis that would allow them direct access to the Mediterranean. Uh the
Greeks would get Isizmir area. The the Italians were going to get Antalia, that
beautiful coastal region of southern Turkey. And then the French were going to get Syria, Lebanon, Iraq. And then
the British were going to get Palestine, Jordan, and southern Iran. And then the Russians were going to take northern
Iran. The Russians had a different thing in mind. They decided to go communist and anti-imperialist. So they refused to
participate in them. And so once they're out of the picture, the British couldn't conquer the southern half of Iran. They
needed they needed to divide and conquer it. They needed the Russians to get the north. And of course, that means the Russians aren't going to go into
Constantinople. So the Russians are out of the equation. So the British tell the French, "Sorry, Iraq is ours. That's our
consolation prize for not getting southern Iran." And the British were in the bigger, better, more powerful
position. So the French were just like, "I guess in that while that's going on, the
Balffor Declaration goes on because what Balffor is thinking is so one of the
things that's interesting about Zionism is it's intimately intertwined with anti-semitism.
Zionism and Antisemitism Connected
So the ideology of anti-semitism was originally called udenhos which
literally means Jew hatred. But hatred is an emotion. And so in the 19th
century staking a claim to an emotion sounded irrational at a time when you
know post enlightenment we're all supposed to be rational thinking logical beings scientific
beings with a scientific method. So they decided to come up with a new term and they came up with anti-semitism.
They thought if they if they said anti-semitism, it didn't sound as emotionally charged as Jew hatred did.
The their goal was to purge Europe of the Jews. So you know, no more pilgrims
because there wouldn't be any Jews to pilgrim. It's not it it's its origin was
in Jew of Jew hatred was in the pilgrims, but they they've advanced past that by the time they're saying they're
anti-Semitic. They didn't care how the Jews were out of Europe. The goal was just to get them
out. So when Herzel comes up with Zionism, they're like, "Yes, that's brilliant. We can we can expel the
Jewish population and we can put them somewhere else. We don't care where. Palestine, Uganda, whatever makes
Australia, we don't care. We just need them out of Europe. So, in an ironic twist, the Zionists and the
anti-semmites are actually working towards the same goal. Balffor gets wrapped up in all of this and and
without the authority to do so declares that Palestine is the Jewish homeland.
And of course, the British are annoyed with him because they're like, "No, dude. We're taking it over as part of
our of our post, you know, Ottoman Empire carve up event that, you know, we've got our knife out and it it is
turkey and everybody loves to carve a turkey and Thanksgiving. You know, they're carving off chunks
here and there. And for the British, owning Palestine was the fulfillment of
the Crusades, right? And they finally got Jerusalem. Uh
I'm trying to remember his name. Gurod, the the French general Gurod. He the he
he wins the battle of My Saloon, which was a right on the border between Lebanon and Syria was fought in 1920. Um
because in the aftermath of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, an Arab state that owned the Hijaz Mountain, so
western Saudi Arabia, uh Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon had formed
and its capital was in Damascus. and its flag was very similar to the Jordanian and Palestinian flags. Um the the black
and the white stripes I think are flipped. That's the difference between the flags. And uh the king of it was
King Fisizel. So if you watch Lawrence of Arabia, it's the guy played by Alec Guinness. He became the king of this
state. And um when when they when the Ottomans were forced to surrender, the
the British and the French were like, "No, we're not letting you have this state because that territory is going to
us except for the Hijazz mountains." So the British made a deal with the Saudis. So the Saudis would get the Haz
Mountains and in return for the Saudis allowing the British to, you know, take
Palestine and Jordan and Iraq and then the French would take Lebanon and Syria.
And uh so the the British end up becoming really good friends with the Saudis in the process, right? Cuz
they're they're they're working in tandem together. And King Fiso was then given the consolation prize of becoming
the king of Iraq. So uh the British were like, "But you're unemployed. We heard
you're unemployed." Gurod goes over after he's defeated the
Arabs and Fisel is surrendering. He goes to Salahedin's tomb and he kicks it.
Salahedin's tomb is in Syria. He kicks it and he goes, "Salahedin, we're back."
In other words, in everybody's mind, the end of World War I was the fulfillment
of the crusader dream. There's nobody nobody thought any other way. Like
today, people like, "No, whatever. Such bullshit."
that World War I ended up being a new crusade and and so when the British got Jerusalem, it was the dream of dreams
because Richard the Lionheart never captured Jerusalem. So here they were finally fulfilling Richard the
Lionheart's dream, you know, nine centuries later and uh eight eight and
some change centuries later, they they pulled it off and they were so excited about it because
Okay, wait a minute. No, it's seven and some change centuries later. Uh they're so they're so excited about it. And so
the idea of creating a Jewish state was no, that was that was an so balour
uh was in a way this sort of cheat, right? The race started but the
fire the gun hadn't been fired yet. And so the British stopped it from
happening. So, how did it evolve from, you know,
World War I to, you know, wrapping up World War II to what what happens?
Yeah. So, then as time goes by, it becomes increasingly clear to the
Zionists who are moving to Palestine that a they're not buying the land fast enough, right? By 1947, they got to 7%.
Like, if they were going to try to own their goal was 80%. So at the rate they
were going, you know, it was going to be several centuries before they were going to get to 80%. So that they they began
to realize this isn't happening fast enough. A B they began to think that the
British were never going to let go of Palestine. Like that this Palestine was going to become for Britain what
Holocaust: From Camps to Final Solution
Gibralar is for Britain or Northern Ireland is for Britain. Like there was going to be this peace they were going to hold on to. So, a group of terrorist
organizations formed Lehey, uh, the Stern Gang. There's all
these little Jewish terrorist organizations that form these Zionist terrorist organizations and they begin
killing people. They blow up a school bus. They attack a hotel. They attack a British military installation. And
they're doing, you know, the kind of terrorism that we came to associate later with with the Palestinians. They
were doing it in the 19 20s and 30s. Um, and this is this is in Palestine or is
this this Palestine? Yeah, it's in Palestine. And it was driving the British absolutely
bonkers. At one point, uh, they captured Yedshak Shamir who was a member of Lehey
and they exiled him to Uganda because they didn't know what to do with him. Um, when you think about it, that was
really gentle. Like, why not shoot him? He's a terrorist. I don't, you know, like you got to hand it to the Brits.
That was really humane, dude. We're sending you to Uganda. Like, bye. Um,
Ley actually met with uh Adolf Hikman because Adolf Aikman was trying to
figure out his goal as a Nazi was how do I get the Jews out of Europe? That that
was his goal. And so, he was willing to work with Zionists in Palestine because it got them out. Ultimately he concludes
and the Nazis conclude that this isn't fast enough that more more desperate
measures need to be taken. So in 1941 at the V conference uh alikman decides on
entis the final solution and they began exterminating Jews in death camps. But
up until that moment he wasn't he didn't feel any need to do that. And so, uh,
representatives of Vikman met with Lehei, I believe in Lebanon, and they worked out a deal. And so, again,
Zionism and anti-semitism will work hand in hand. They're they're they're,
you know, two sides of the same coin. In in a in a way, what Zionism is, it's the acceptance of anti-semitism. It's like,
okay, there's we can't live with white people because white people are just too evil and cruel and sadistic. So, we need
to go somewhere else. and and you know th those same white people are like yeah bye go we can't
wait to get rid of you and so uh World War I World War II breaks out and
you know there's this thing this general kind of well we didn't really know how bad things were that the United States
will say or or or or Germans who are living near the concentration camps or the death camps would Okay. And the
answer is no. People people did know to a degree anyway, right? There there was some level of we weren't fully sure what
was happening, but we're pretty sure things were bad. It's to the point where
aerial photographs were taken of ours and they're in the National Archives and
the aerial photograph has markings labeling everything. So there's the crematorium, the gas chambers, so they
knew what was there. So, so the allies,
the people living nearby, like there's this kind of feigned, oh, if we had only knew, it's all They totally
knew. Maybe they didn't know the full extent to which it was happening, but they knew. So, one of the interesting uh
twists is there were Jews who were trying to get to Britain and the United States. Um,
the St. Louis is a ship filled with Jewish refugees coming to the United States. the United States redirected it
sending it to Cuba and after being stuck in Cuba for a while ultimately they most
of them were sent back to Europe and many of them actually end up dying in the Holocaust. So, you know, one of the
the great great ironies all all of this is that the United States flexed its anti-semitic
muscle in the in the in the period uh of World War II to the point where we
literally caused Jews to die because we wouldn't take them in as refugees. And um
people were pulled in a survey. How do you feel about Jewish refugees
leaving Europe? And twothirds of Americans said that they feared they would be terrorists
that they Yeah. And so as a result, they didn't want those Jewish refugees coming
into the United States because they feared they were they were going to work for communist organizations or they were
working for Nazi Germany secretly and they just didn't they didn't want to have them. Uh
and and so when the government sends, you know, ships like the St. Lewis back.
It's really an expression of sort of the organic homegrown anti-semitism that the
United States has always had. Um,
as in the beginning in Germany during the Holocaust, like the initial stages
when they were first building concentration camps, they were kind of a joke. Like they barely had any fence.
The guards weren't armed. Most of what happened was you you had to do uh lots
of push-ups and jumping jacks, you know, like it was almost like a fitness program in the beginning and and they
just little by little like you slowly boil the frog kept making it cruer and
cruer and cruer until they got it to the point where there were literally death camps. And one of the reasons why it
Nazi Racial Policies and IBM Data
transformed this way was funding. They just didn't the government hadn't allocated the funding to do the full
cruelty. But but another reason they did it this way is they they it was
deliberate. It was a way to get the Germans who were going to be committing these crimes against humanity and these
you know this cruelty ease them into it. the fear that the Nazis had. Well, when
the Nazis would recruit people for the uh Fabant, the the part of the SS that
was going to be in charge of the Holocaust, the death head uh league that
Tottenkov Fabant that that's a great name. They had a skull and crossbone of course on their helmet, but that was
just an SS symbol that they got from the Prussians. The Prussians used it. Um
the uh when they when these guys were doing this, they they would test you to
see if you were a sadist. And if you scored as a sadist, they wouldn't recruit you because they wanted somebody
who was going to follow orders. They didn't want somebody who uh wanted to do
this. Interesting. Yeah. So they were their goal was to
recruit school teachers and and butchers and you know mailmen and police officers
just regular everyday common folk and then put them into a
situation where they're starting outside of the concentration camp. Like maybe they're the cleaning the laundry or
they're somehow or food delivery. So they know there's a concentration camp but they're not even sure what's going
on inside. and they have this slow contact and then you just slowly ease them in until you've got them where
they're doing the worst of worst and that was the goal and it was very effective. The Nazis understood human
psychology to a degree. You know, the not they weren't geniuses by any means. They they were actually idiots who kept
making lots of stupid mistakes and thank God um because it it lowered their
efficiency rate and ultimately cost them the war. But but they did know enough
about psychology and propaganda and how to trick people that they they would do these really interesting steps. One of
the ironic twists is as things got worse and worse, Jews were trying to flee and a lot of
them realized they weren't going to get away. You you you kind of needed to be a person who was of interest if you were
going to get away, right? like if you're Herbert Maruza or Hana Aarent or or one
of the scientists that we'll employ on the Manhattan project, we can't wait for you to show up because you're a brilliant mind or and you're going to do
something great for us. But if you were a common Jew and you know there's the stereotype that all the Jews were rich
and they were all bankers, the the reality was is they were just as rich as everybody else and and and common a
common Jew just didn't have the kind of economic wealth that was going to get them that to safety. So uh some Jews
began to make the calculation, what's the safest place in Germany? What's the safest place? and they realized it was
the vat and there was actually a large number of Jewish men who just simply
joined the German army because it it was safe. You weren't going to get zapped.
Uh now it turned out well was probably a big miscalculation cuz by the time the war ends a huge portion of the German
army's dead. Uh 7 million Germans died over the course of the five and a half years that
they fought World War II. six million of them were men. But but in the beginning, right, that was the calculus was, oh,
at least the state isn't going to get me. I might end up being killed by a Soviet soldier at some point, but at least I'm not going to killed by a
fellow German. Because most of the Jews living in Germany didn't identify as
Jewish first. They identified as German first. In in the same way that the
Protestants living in Germany didn't they weren't running around wanting to create a Protestantonly state, they were
Germans. The Catholics were Germans. They just happened to be a different religion. And so for them, this was this
was a strange reality that the Nazis hated Jews so much because those Jews
were thinking, "Dude, what the hell? I'm I'm a German. Why would you why would you hate another German?" And right,
well, especially like going back to what going back to what you said earlier, but at this point, several centuries in and maybe a
millennia later, a lot of these Jews, German Jews are they look, they sound by
by all means they are German. So like how would you even how would you even know a German Jew is
a German Jew? And so many of them have converted to Christianity. Like Karl Marx, he he was
raised a Christian. Yeah, he had Jewish ancestors, but they converted. Uh, and
so, you know, if I remember correctly, Edmund Husurl also converted. So, there one of the
weird twists about the Nazis is for the Nazis, this was an ethnic thing. This
was about genetics. This was a bloodline thing. So, there was no way to convert
out. So, what they needed was they needed the the census data.
IBM had been doing the census for the Vhimmer Republic.
So the Nazis when when the Vhimmer Republic bought the census data, they didn't care about the religion. So they
never bought that segment of the data. They only bought the part of the data that they needed for voting purposes. So
when the Nazis came to power, they went to IBM and they were like, "Hey, you guys asked in your survey what a
person's religion was, right?" And IBM's like, "Yeah." And the Nazis go, "We want to buy that data." And that's how they
knew where everybody was. That's how they knew what door to knock on at night was they had IBM's
uh religious data. But then then what they would do is they would go into the
government records and they would look at birth certificates and they would trace your ancestry back and they'd be
like, "Yeah, you're a Protestant now, but your grandparents were Jewish." And
that meant you were in trouble. There was no no way to unjweify
yourself. Like you were an atheist, you were a Protestant, you were a Catholic. It didn't matter. And uh
there was actually a member of the SS. It turned out he was a quarter Jewish. And when they found out, they just shot him in the head. Um you know, like a
high ranked member of the SS. He was he was actually one of the only blonde men in the in the top echelon of the of the
Nazi party. If you look at their pictures, they're all a bunch of brown hair, blackhaired men
who are trying to create the perfect blonde race. You're like, "Dude, have you guys looked at yourselves? You're
clearly the guys you're trying to get rid of." And Right. Yeah. I mean, like, I I imagine there
are so many people who were just completely ignorant to the fact that they had Jewish heritage, ethnicity.
Yeah. Uh, you know, Jewish DNA. And so suddenly they find themselves in this, you know, you're you're an SS officer
and you're like, "No, I'm all for this." And suddenly someone's holding a gun to your head and you're like, "What
what are you doing?" You know, and I'm sure that there are other reasons, too. It wasn't just at the you it seems like it would have been
an easy excuse to commit some heinous acts at the same time, like, "Oh, it turns out that, you know, this guy I
don't like at all or who who got the promotion and I didn't uh he's Jewish." Yeah. Yeah. Let's stop him. I mean that
that's basically what Haidiger did to his professor Edmund Hassurl. He was like, "Yeah, that guy is of Jewish descent. Let's let's fire him." And they
did. And then Haidiger got his teacher's job. So it was like a dirty little dirty
little maneuver. I I read uh Funlook's book, Pansa Commander, and uh he fell in
Hatred, Opportunism, and Power
love with a journalist and she was an eighth Jewish. She was an aal and her
father was a quarter Jewish. That was basically the cuto off. If you were an eighth, you were okay. If you were a
quarter, you you were in trouble. You had to walk on eggshells. So, there's this constant tension about what's going
to happen to this this woman's father. But here's the twist. He was an officer
in the Vermacht. And so when he he wanted to marry her, but the rules that the Vermacht had was
an active duty officer couldn't marry a person who was 1/8 Jewish, but an
inactive duty officer could. It's so random and arbitrary. And then
so like he's so he's like, "So if I go on leave, I can marry her and then what
happens when I come back and become active duty again?" And they're like, "Well, you'll have already married her,
so it'll be okay." Oh, man. The the rules we create for ourselves to
to get around things and to create different different scenarios is just it's mindboggling. That's like all of
human existence. Cuz it's all about hatred management. Yeah. Just Yeah. Hatred management,
justification. How do I get what I need but still do the bad thing?
Yeah. Exactly. And then and then the twist of twists is what what state go
wakes up one day and goes you know what I I really hate the smartest segment of my society. I'm going to exterminate it.
You know like Freud Lurl Marx Einstein like yes it's
true there were a bunch of non-Jewish Germans who were brilliant geniuses but it's also true there was a huge section
of Germany that was Jewish that was genius. And it's clear that the Jewish
population was disproportionately over represented in the genius pool. Uh
you know, Arant and Marcus, the list goes on and Horheimer. Uh and so
Fritz Hobber, it's just insane. So So there's also a madness to all of this that's going on
that that makes no sense. It it's cruelty stacked on cruelty mixed with
arbitrariness, right? Uh so how how how
does this then lead to the outcome of 1947 and then you know
going into 1948 in Palestine. Yeah. So
unless you have more to talk about Germany and everything. Well a little bit and it's this at no
point did the United States ever because we bombed the living hell out of Europe. We didn't just bomb Germany. We were
bombing our allied countries, too. We just if you were under Nazi occupation, we were going to bomb you. Um, the
question was only we we had designated several cities as off limits for bombing. So, we weren't going to bomb
Rome, for example. That was off limits. We weren't going to bomb Florence. Uh, we weren't going to bomb H High H
Highleberg, Paris, uh, Prague. There was a few cities that
we just decided under no circumstances would we bomb them. H Highidleberg, Germany was spared because we already
knew that we were going to use that as the headquarters for United States Army during the occupation period and we just
we wanted a nice pretty intact town to be our headquarters. So, we decided not to bomb it. Um you know, if you've ever
been to Prague, you know why we didn't bomb that city. It is one of the world's gems. It is truly one of the most
beautiful cities I've ever seen in my life. Um, Rome, it's kind of obvious, you know, Florence and Italy. Yeah, you
don't want to. There are some places you didn't want to bomb, but we bombed the living hell out of Europe.
There was another area that we didn't bomb, and we were very careful not to. Anything to do with the Holocaust.
So, we never bombed a single concentration camp, a single death camp, or a single railroad track leading to
one of them. Now, here, you know, like the I've heard logic about this. I
should say ill logic about this. Well, we we were worried we'd kill Jews. Okay. So, don't bomb the concentration camps
because those were just prison slave labor camps, right? There's a high probability the Jewish population could
survive that. But the death camps, why wouldn't you bomb the death camps? They're going to die anyway. And maybe
if you bombed it, it would give them a chance to run away. You would break down a wall or knock a fence down. And then
certainly you want to bomb the trains because if you can, yes, if the train derails, there's a chance that Jews will
die, but at least you give them a chance to jump out of the passenger cars and passenger cars. Who am I kidding? The
box cars and they could run into the countryside and escape. We never did it.
Why Allies Didn’t Bomb Auschwitz
And and also another thing to think about was if we blew up that train, that was a train they couldn't use for
military purposes. So it served a dual purpose of helping interrupt this the Holocaust at the same time crushing
Germany's ability to do warfare. Um and and we never did it. We we spared Dal
and Bergen Beltson and Treblinka and Avitz and Paris and Prague and Florence
and H Highleberg and and I have to ask the question why
why didn't we not feel the need to drop at least one bomb on something like
wait till there's no train on the track and blow up the track. just interrupt it
somehow. And the answer is I think at the end of the day we wanted to maximize
the Holocaust. We wanted to make it as bad as possible. And I think there were two reasons for it. One, we were still
extremely anti-Semitic. So we didn't care that the Jews were being murdered and we were happy to let
it unfold. And the second thing is is I think we were Zionist. We were anti-Semitic Zionists and we wanted to
create Israel in part so that we could encourage American Jews to leave. So, so
we thought the way to to do this was to make sure the Holocaust was as horrific as possible so that we could convince
the world that Israel needed to be created. Do you think there's also an aspect of
we wanted to maintain the crime scene so to speak so that in one part like yeah
let's make it as let's not facilitate necessarily but not
do anything to disrupt the Holocaust so that after World War II we can obviously
be the good guys here you know this is uh just I'm just thinking of you know
going back to the public like oh my gosh look at what we found and it's None of
it's damaged. Like you can still go to all these places today for the most part and it's they're in great shape. You can
walk through the primatorians. I went to Dao. I am pure I will never go
to another thing like that again. It was horrific. Like I was flying the whole damn time. Yeah.
I was in Dao as well. And it's just it's horrific. I'm glad Germany's preserving
but it's horrific. Yeah. They've actually done a really good job at the museum of just like it
is sobering and it's it's just yeah
horrific is the right word. It was horrific. They have everyone.
They never fired up the crematorium because it was not a death camp. It was it was just a slave labor camp. So, you
know, Avitz is even worse. Trebinka, those were death camps. Like people were
brought in the rail cars and then exterminated. Um,
so I'm part German. This is a point of shame for me that we did this. I, you
know, we have to live with this shame forever cuz in the thousand years, well,
thousand years is too long. Our civilization will be definitely gone by then. Uh, in 110 years, right before our
civilization blinks out, we'll still remember that we did this. it it won't
be uh a thing from some ancient civilization that we're not connected to. It's worth pointing out though, and
you keep hinting at this, the United States did it first. We genocided the Native American
population, and then on top of that, we brought in slave labor and form of African slavery. And you know, that's
exactly what the Germans were doing. They were exterminating Poles and Ukrainians and Russians and they were
and Serbs and they were doing it with the intent of of colonizing that land
and they they of course killed Roma and they also killed Jews like this was a this was a massive project but they also
enslaved populations too. So they were doing both the slave plantation kind of model and the genocide. And um and then
they also had reservations like they basically turned southern Poland into a
giant Polish reservation in a similar way that we did with Native American reservations. Uh they called it Gulvong
General. They the Germans used French to describe
their concentration camp and they called it the general government and you're like what what is that?
Wow. Yeah. And of course the whole thing is to confuse people I think. Uh
to make you go I I don't even know what that is. Um it's another layer of justification too
for the general public I think. It's like, no, the name is general government and it's just a little off because it's
in French, so it, you know, I don't quite understand it. So, it can't be the thing that everyone else is saying it
is. If you think that way, then, you know, you're just distrusting. Exactly. Yeah.
Oh, man. It's worth pointing out that Germany murdered 5 million Poles in World War
II. 3 million were Jewish and 2 million were Catholic. uh like per capita Poland
was one of the most severely murderized places in in World War II. Uh Yugoslavia, Poland and and Russia I
think were the and China actually. Also Indonesia might be up there too. It was
it had a really high death rate. Um
th those were like you know millions of people dead in each of those places. And
so World War I end World War II ends and there's this horrific moment of oh my
god what just happened you know eight years of a little bit over eight years of war 65 million people dead whole
cities flattened uh and there's this the you know the
Holocaust Death Toll & Modern Antisemitism
exposure that there was a holocaust so anybody who was still in doubt or confusion or didn't understand was
suddenly forced to confront the fact that something really horrible had happened beyond just the war. And one of
the things that the Zionists began doing is they began saying really big numbers. So,
uh, they would say 11 million dead. And I think at one point some Zionists were even saying a larger number than 11
million, but there were only 11 million Jews in Europe. So, you know, like 13 million. And you're like, wait, where'd
the other 2 million come from? And eventually the number that everybody kind of settled on was 6 million. And
that's that's problematic because that's one of the things that the Holocaust deniers like to do is they like to pick
on the number because the number is probably closer to 5.1 or maybe 5.4
million. So then they go what you know if you're exaggerating and calling it 6 million then then maybe you're lying
about other things. And so one of the things I think we need to be careful with is uh first of all in terms of
catastrophe what's the difference between 6 million and 5 million? is already I can't wrap my mind around
it. So, I'm trying to make the habit of not giving the Holocaust deniers any ammunition. Um because one of the things
that's scary about this moment is I I'm seeing the rise of anti-semitism. I
mean, I think it's popping up everywhere. And we need to be really careful as we thread this that, you
know, if you're anti-ionist, you're not anti-semitic. Anti-semitism is a very specific thing. It is the hatred of
Jews. Being against Zionism has nothing to do with hating Jews.
In fact, if anything, most anti-semites are Zionists. And so, uh, it it's
actually the other direction. And so, for people who are allies of the Jewish people like myself, like you, you know,
we we want to skirt this thing and be really careful to make sure we don't give ammunition. So, that's why I will always say 5.1 to 5.4 million Jews were
killed. Yeah. Yeah. I think you make a really good point in terms of the broader context of talking about
Palestine and and Palestinians and genocide and different things. It's it to be clear, it is not the Jewish people
that are doing this. If anything, the Jewish people are also caught up in this horrific thing.
Uh so they they can't like it's hard for us to think like what can we do? I can't
even imagine the general public who who is paying attention and and looking at
these things who are not Zionist like how helpless they feel that they're their neighbors who are trapped and
stuck and starving and dying of thirst and who are being shot and their homes are destroyed and you know here they are
like I was thinking this the other day. I was like this is sounds dumb but I was like getting emotional. I was I was
feeding my cat and I was looking at my cat and I was like, "My cat is so much
better taken care of than than some of these people right now." And it's just heartbreaking. So, I can't imagine what it's like to be uh Jewish like in Israel
and your neighbor and you know it's just it's just hard. It's a hard topic to to
to talk about. It really is and it's a complicated topic because right most
people who hear you know if you say I'm an anti-ionist they can't separate it
out and they immediately go to oh you're an anti-semite like no right right no that's that guy over there with the
KKK hood on his head that guy the swastika flag uh we're in a different
camp so okay so World War II ends there's this point of trying to figure
things out and the Zionists have what they think is a perfect justification
for creating pal a state in Palestine. They go to the UN and the UN votes and
UN Partition of Palestine, 1947
votes to partition Palestine. Now the crazy thing about it is in 47 when the
UN makes the vote 7% of the land lawfully belonged to Jewish colonists
because they had purchased it. So they they had the deed to the property. The
UN gives 45% of the land to a Palestinian state and 55% of the land to
a Jewish state. Now, what's interesting about that is a huge chunk of the land
that they're giving to the Jewish state is the Ngev Desert, which is like it sounds, it's a desert. So, when you when
you look at it in terms of arable land, it was probably closer to 40% going to
uh the Jewish state and 60% going to the Palestinians. So even though it it wasn't an even split in land in in terms
of square acres in terms of quality land actually a little bit more was going to the Palestinians.
Having said that the Jewish state is Jewish only. Well the the Zionists were
hoping to create an 80% 20% ratio. That was they thought that was sort of the
golden number. Um whereas the Palestinian state will be multi-religious like Jews, Christians
and Muslims will live in the Palestinian state. So, so the creation of Israel
will be an apartheid state right from the get because it's going to be a colonial state, a colonial enterprise,
not unlike what the Africconers did. Uh, apartheid is the Dutch word for segregation. So, not unlike what
American colonists did. And then what will happen is there will be a minority population in Israel that will be Arab
that will become the cheap labor that the Israeli state can employ to to build
its h homes and roads. Right? You need that. So they don't they don't want this to be a 0% Palestinian population. Um
they they're not sure that they can even achieve that. They just they just want it to be 80%.
When the when the Arab population around the world, so Arabs in Morocco and Arabs
in Iraq and Arabs in Palestine hear what the UN is doing, there is universal
rejection of it because in the Arab mind, they couldn't understand why Palestine wasn't going to become an
independent secular state. They didn't have any problem with there being a
Jewish population in Palestine. There was a huge Jewish population in Morocco. There was a significant Jewish
population in Egypt. There was a big population in Yemen, a big population in Iraq, a big population in Syria and
Lebanon. So the idea of there being a big population in Palestine made sense.
Nobody thought that was weird in any way, shape, or form. In fact, as Jews moved to Palestine, Palestinians were
welcome welcomecoming them. Even even once the terrorism kicked in, Palestinians were confused because they
saw the Jewish people coming in as brothers and sisters escaping
persecution. The Palestinians, by the way, also let Armenians in. So during the Armenian uh
genocide that the Ottoman Empire enacted there, a lot of Armenians had escaped to to Palestine. And the Palestinians were
like, "Yes, Jews, Armenians, you're both welcome. Come. Of course, we'll let you in." So So there was this confusion, I
think, on the part of Palestinians. Wait, why are you doing this? What what happened was it was so bad that there
were Palestinians who were letting Jewish Europeans live in their homes and then after partition if the Palestinians
stepped outside of the home they'd come home and they find the locks changed and they they were like wait why can't I get
into my home and then the the the family the Israeli family on the inside just simply wouldn't open the door and
wouldn't let talk to them wouldn't let them in and they would just that's how they would lose their home.
And so in the in the mind of the Palestinian, this was just an upending of wait a minute, we welcome you in, we
put you in our house, we fed you, and and then the first opportunity you had,
you stole our home from us. Like they couldn't they couldn't reconcile this.
1948 War and Palestinian Expulsion
So the Arabs very loudly say, "We reject the UN partition plan." So in 1948, the
Israelis launched an offensive campaign and attacked and invaded Palestine
militarily. And they they fought uh they didn't fight the Palestinians because
Palestinians had no army. So what happened was in World War II,
Palestinians and Jewish Palestinians or the Jewish colonial settlers in
Palestine both uh volunteered to join the British military. So um
I can't remember the name of the movie that came out uh that was set in 1940 Dunkirk. It's it was just a few years
ago. Uh, it's probably got an obvious name like Dunkirk or something. I think there is a movie called Dunkirk.
Yes. Yeah. Was it Was it like 5 years ago or something like that? Yeah.
So, there was it was like the ultimate Brexit movie. It was here we are. We're Britain against Europe and here we're
doing our last stand. One of the crazy things about the movie was everybody was white. Like you just it's just white
person after white person after white person after white person and you're like dude the French army had African
soldiers. There were Moroccans and Algerians and Seneagalles and Cameroonians. Like there were black and
brown soldiers in the French army. The British had a bunch of Indians that they
left behind. And they the the people who the racists
who made that movie couldn't figure out how to show the color of of those two
imperial armies. I mean, tens of thousands of Indians got left behind because the British were like, "No, no,
no. We're going to bring the English over first. If there's any room left, we'll bring you Indians." But what the
hell? Why would we bring you? We don't even like you. And so, uh, that that
movie like to me is the the quintessential whitewash that in La La Land, right? a movie about jazz with no
main black actors and it um it's like the white fantasy. We'll get we can't
create our own culture. We had to rely on black people to make us a good good form of music, but we really hate black
people. So, we're not going to we're going to pretend like they had nothing to do with it and just make a musical
about nothing that worst from the anyway. So um
when the when the Israelis, the people who will become Israelis, the Jewish settler colonists in Palestine
volunteered to join the British army, they were actually put into a military unit and trained and given weapons and
actually sought combat. When the Palestinians did it, the British were like, "No, we don't want you guys to
learn how to use any weapons because you'll fight us someday." So they they made them steadors and they just loaded
and unloaded ships. And so when when 48 happens, the Israelis are trained. They
have weapons. They know what they're doing. The Palestinians knew how to load and unload ships. And so as a result,
they weren't really in a position to fight. They they they had done nothing to prepare for this fight. I think the
fight completely caught them off guard. And then the Israelis did a massacre. They actually did multiple massacres.
One of them was at a place called Darius and they just went in with machetes and it chopped the Palestinians to pieces
and they did it because they were trying to trigger a panic. Their thinking was
we're not going to end up with all of Palestine but we're going to end up with a bigger chunk than 55%. If we can get
the Palestinians in the 55% to flee through fear, then we'll, you know,
we'll end up hopefully with the 8020 population splits. They they really
didn't end up with one just for the record. They ended up with about a 7525 population split which is close to the
8020. So I guess I think they can give themselves you know like an A minus for ethnic cleansing and genocide. It was a
very successful campaign and when the dust settled the so the the Arab armies
that fought, the Egyptian army, the Jordanian army, the Syrian army when they fought they were incompetent to say
the least. um they they they didn't coordinate their actions. So the Jordanians went in first. The Egyptians
came in later. So there there was a lack of coordination. The Egyptian army had
been uh supplied with weapons from uh corrupt people. So some of the weapons
didn't work. They had bought a bunch of um Stewarts, the little tankets the
United States used in World War II. They were fast, but you couldn't you couldn't destroy anything with them because
they're, you know, 37 millimeter gun isn't going to penetrate the armor of a panther. A and so I'm not even sure what
they were for. Like I would have I would have put a flamethrower on all of them cuz a flamethrower can destroy a
panther. Uh because you know they're fast small target zipping around and so you just bought a bunch of these but
they were they had all seen combat. They weren't brand new Stewarts. They were used Stewarts. So, you know, like some
of them the they couldn't turn to the left because the mechanism didn't work. They could only turn to the right. And,
you know, some of them the turret didn't work anymore or the machine guns weren't working or it was just disaster. The
rifles the Egyptians went in with half of them couldn't fire because they were the pin was messed up on the the firing
pin was messed up on them. And so like these incompetent, poorly experienced
armies go in to fight these Israelis and they just get their h their asses handed
to them. It's a catastrophe. When it's done, instead of ending up with 55%, the
Israelis conquered 78%. The remaining 22% became the Gaza Strip
Aftermath: Refugees, Druze, and Bedouin
in the West Bank. And um in terms of arable land, the is you Israelis
probably ended up with uh uh
70% 75% of the Arab land. They still, you know, because they they they had the negative desert. So that sort of didn't
give them the 78%. So it was probably about 70% of the Arab land. So So the Arabs really just got hosed in this.
Mo most of the population today in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are actually refugees from the rest of
Palestine. In in other words, they're not native to the West Bank or the Gaza
Strip. They're they are transplanted miss from uh the rest of Palestine.
And so that's that's how Israel is created. It's it's a series of uh
massacres that are designed to trigger a panic. the panic does happen. Most of
the Palestinians flee Israel. So today it's about 25%
Arab that with Israeli citizenship and about 75% uh Jewish with Israeli citizenship.
There's also a huge Drews population because one of the things that the Israelis realized was the Drews were
never going to quit. They they would fight to the death. And for the Drews,
this was an issue of loyalty to the land. So they they had this profound
deep connection to the land. So the Israelis actually went to the Drews and made a deal and they said, "Look,
we're all about the land, too. Uh we'll make you a deal." bill and they
basically integrated the Drews in and gave them citizenship and they they have voting rights and they representation in
the Knesset. The Israelis also went to the Bedawin and made a deal and the Bedawin foolishly went along with it.
The Drews ended up better off than the Bedawin. The the Israelis never intended to honor their deal with the Bedawin. Um
so the Bedawin in the end got screwed. the Drews are are too dangerous for the
Israelis to screw them because they know that first of all the Drews are not only armed, they serve in the IDF. And so for
the record, for those of you who don't know who Drews are because I think there's this confusion, Drews are a sect
of Shia Muslims. Um the MUA
has actually clarified this because there is a little bit of confusion and he has said that they are a sect of Shia
Muslims. So, it's not just my opinion. There's a widespread opinion. Now, some
some people will be like, "No, they're heretics." Yeah, yeah, whatever. They're a sect of Shia Muslims. Uh, at the end
of the day, that's all that's all there is to it. So, ironically enough, a segment of the IDF is actually Muslim.
Um, so it's complicated in the same way the
Closing and Next Episode Preview
Crusades got complicated and messy, right? the the there were Turkmen who
fought for the crusaders. They were there's a high probability that some if not most of the Turkmen were actually uh
Turks and maybe even some Arabs and Kurds in the mix who ended up on the
other side. And so in a way the Drews have be the Drews in Israel have become the the Turkmen of the Crusades.
It's wild. They're wild. Yeah, it's, you know, this this happens in almost every topic that
you talk about, but history just, you know, repeating itself. It's like, wow.
Yeah, this is a reoccurring theme. It feels it feels like a surprise every time for some reason.
Oh, I think for this for this uh episode of office hours, which we I think we've
landed on a name finally for our little hangout. Uh, I think this should be
enough because it's a lot to kind of to kind of sit with. And we're going to do we're going to do this
again cuz we have in my list of things we made it through one and two of like
10 different things that I wanted to talk about. So, four more episodes.
I mean, we might the talking about ancient history and getting to where we are now. like we just got to the
formation of Israel after World War II and so the rest of it can
uh I think is it gets us closer to where we are today but that's just a huge chunk to
understand that history. I mean that's 3,500 years it was exactly exactly so so next time we'll
talk more about like what that actually looked like. you kind of you kind of went into it a little bit, but uh the
apartheid and like the actual um what what it was like on the ground kind of
the the day-to-day life and then going into the systematic removal and eraser
like the settlements uh you know the the further division between Palestinians
and Israelis and like you know maybe start getting into why Israel is trying to completely eliminate uh even more.
Um, but there's just a lot there's a lot to talk about. Um, so thank you Roy for for chatting about
all all of this with us. Uh, any anything else you want to add before we say bye for now?
You know, thanks Jeremy for doing this. This is awesome. Yeah. All right, everyone. Uh, until
next time. Um, you we'll we'll we look at some of the comments. If you have any
any other questions, we might add them to these some uh we always tend to get
people riled up in the comments section. So, uh y'all have fun out there and and
uh and uh we'll see you next time. Yeah, I'll get a bunch of hate email
next week. We'll see. We'll see. Yeah. All right. It's easy to find my email, so hit me
up. Bye, guys. Thanks, Roy.
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