Palestine Part 3 – Is Reconciliation Possible? | Office Hours
Dr. Roy Casagranda
70,426 views Dec 26, 2025
In this third and final episode of the Office Hours series on Palestine, Dr. Roy Casagranda and Jeremy conclude their historical examination of the Israel–Palestine conflict by focusing on recurring patterns of violence and why lasting peace has remained so elusive. Drawing from centuries of history — including the Crusades, World War II, and the events of October 2023 — the conversation explores the roles of trauma, power, global influence, and media in sustaining the conflict. Rather than reducing the issue to good versus evil, this discussion challenges viewers to think critically about leadership, systems, and what genuine reconciliation would require.
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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🔉 Dr. Roy Casagranda Podcast 🔉
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Chapters
00:00 Why We’re Talking About Palestine Again
01:05 October 2023 and the Recurring Cycle of Violence
02:30 Is the Middle East Really a Region of Endless War?
04:30 Crusades, Invasions, and the Shattering of Coexistence
06:30 Coexistence, Zionism, and the Inversion of Power
10:30 Why Peace Processes Keep Failing
12:45 Why Perpetual Conflict Serves the System
16:45 Trauma as the Engine of the Conflict
19:45 A Family Conflict, Not a Civilizational War
25:30 Silencing Moderates and Radicalizing Power
37:30 Media, Attention, and Global Complicity
40:05 Germany, Guilt, and Western Moral Paralysis
45:35 Why the Two-State Solution Can’t Work
45:50 The Case for a Single Secular State
50:20 Truth, Reconciliation, and Saying “I’m Sorry”
01:14:45 Final Reflections and What Must Change
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Why We’re Talking About Palestine Again
[music] Hey everyone, [music]
welcome to Office Hours. You're with Roy and Jeremy. Hey Roy, how are you doing today, man?
I'm good. How are you, Jeremy? Good. I just called you man. What's up, man? Uh, [laughter] Dr. Roy Kasa Grande.
Oh, friend. Why am I also a man? You are a man. [laughter] Hello. Hello, friend. Friend and man, friend.
So, today Oh, then we're going to go into this heavy talk.
I know we get like these nervous nervous laughter. We did this when we talked about Ukraine, too. We were we uh is
very Whenever we talk about something really serious, we tend to get more giggly. So, please forgive us for for
that. We're we're talking about Palestine today. This is we're going to try and wrap it up. This is our third
video. this office hours, we're going to take a step back and analyze the entire
pattern because over the past few months, it's been it's been a couple months since we've uh done one of these videos. And uh you stepping back to
October 2023 and the Recurring Cycle of Violence
October of 2023, there was the um
what the the not not invasion is not the right word, the kid kidnapping of several hostages and and murders from
Hamas and into and to from Israelis, civilians notably um which started the
retaliatory massive military um invasion
and then a siege. into the territory of Gaza. Uh and then we've gotten to a point uh the past
couple months where there was a release of hostages and a ceasefire and then the
subsequent collapse of the ceasefire and then trying to get the peace talks going again. And so this feels very familiar.
And so, so my first question, Roy, is when you step back and look at the land
of Palestine and Israel across thousands of years, what reoccurring patterns do
you keep seeing? And why does this region in particular struggle to escape this pattern?
Yeah. Uh, so I want to be careful here with the pattern because there is
definitely one. Um, this looks like another crusade. If you're living in the
Middle East and you're looking at this, you it looks like a group of Europeans
Is the Middle East Really a Region of Endless War?
have come to Palestine because they just don't want Arabs to own Jerusalem. And
uh, we're So, it looks like that's what's happening again. And of course in 1920 when the French invaded Syria um
General Giron famously went to Salahadin's tomb and kicked it and said
we're back. So you know like there is there's definitely a little bit of truth
to that. Um there's this sense that we have that the region is a place that's constantly in
turmoil and war and it's not true historically. Um there has definitely
been plenty of wars in the Middle East, but if you compare it to Europe, it looks like a a generally peaceful place.
If you if you compare it to uh Europe in the in the Middle Ages where it was just
non-stop violence. I mean, the the system of government was was feudalism.
Well, a feud is when a family fights another family. [snorts] So, you know, the whole the whole basis
of the government was if we have a dispute, I'm going to field an army and you're going to field an army. We're going to fight it out and then the
winner gets to choose how the feud is resolved. Um, and so at at some level
actually Europe is is the place where you should look to to go, "Wow, why doesn't that place ever calm down?" And,
you know, it did briefly after World War II, but that's of course completely unraveling as we speak. Um,
and it looks like we're heading towards increased conflict in Europe, which is
kind of disappointing because I, you know, I think the world is like, "Oh,
finally Europeans have stopped slaughtering each other. Maybe there's hope for everybody else." And I was like, "Well, yeah, I don't know." So,
okay. So, so I want to be careful with this idea that the Middle East is in
this constant s place of turmoil. It does get invaded from time to time and
that definitely has the effect of plunging it into a huge amount of turmoil. Uh the crusades, the Mongol
Crusades, Invasions, and the Shattering of Coexistence
invasions, for example. Um the Mongols and the crusaders both, you
know, tore the place up for a couple of centuries each and the effects were
absolutely devastating. Um it didn't help any that [clears throat] while the Mongols were tearing the place up, the
bubanic plague also broke out and that was absolutely devastating as well.
um the situation today has those
reverberations, but but it it's also very different because one of the really weird twists
in this is that historically Jews and Muslims
and and the native Christian population because uh I want to I want to be
careful here. It's, you know, we tend to do this thing where we make it Christian
versus Muslim or Jewish versus Muslim. And the reality is is that the Middle East has only ever really been that when
things like the Crusades happen. Um, so when I when I say native
Christian population, what I mean is like the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt or the Marinites, the Marinite Catholics
of of Lebanon and Syria or uh, you know, the Armenian Orthodox Church, the
American Apostolic Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church, those the Greek Orthodox Church,
those Christian populations as a general rule have gotten along really well with their Muslim and Jewish ish neighbors
and together there has usually been this sort of like triangle of peace. During
the crusades some Christians got confused and joined the Europeans
but but after a few decades they realized that was a terrible mistake and
most of them defected back over because they realized these guys are insane. They're this is a
Coexistence, Zionism, and the Inversion of Power
settler colonial project that's genocidal in its nature. they'll always see the native Christian
population as, you know, subhuman, not fully developed. And so they mostly
abandoned uh the the crusaders and and and either tacitly supported or even
openly supported the Muslims and Jews against them. So, so you know, it's not always
harmonious by any means, but as a general rule, it's relatively peaceful.
And [clears throat] and so the tragedy of the current situation is it's the
Jews and the Jews are historically the guys on the side of the Muslims and the
native Christian population. And so that's where the it's sh like there's
this kind of shock of wait a minute. No, this isn't how it's supposed to be. The
the this crusade should be the Europeans coming and the Jews and the Muslims and the natives Christians fighting the
European invaders and it and it's and I think that's you know like everybody's looking around going wait what happened?
This alliance that's been around for decent somehow got flipped upside down.
Do you think that has in part to do with like a lot of the the Jews that are currently
the the Israeli Jews like we've talked about in the in the first office hours on on Palestine is that they were all
European Jews. They had been for a while and then they all relocated
to Israel. Yeah. Or they were uh
Jews from the United States. Um Yeah. A lot of the a lot of the guys who were
key in founding Israel were actually um Jews from the United States as opposed
to Jews from Europe. A lot of the a lot of the Jewish Europeans ended up not going to Israel. They either stayed in
Europe or they went to Canada or they went to the United States. And you know, I've always wondered like you made it
through the Holocaust and then you wanted nothing to do with Israel. H that says something. Um, and then you know,
here are these people who didn't experience the Holocaust who are going to Israel cuz that there's this argument
that somehow the creation of Israel makes it so that there will never be another Holocaust. But the
[clears throat] but the irony of course is that there there is it's just called
the Makba. And instead of it being Jewish victims, it's Christian and Muslim victims who are ethnically Jews
who converted to Christianity and Judaism. And then you're like, ah,
this is terrible. Why are we doing this? Yeah. So, so this this pattern that I
was referencing then so could we consider the pattern is then and I don't mean to like if it's not a pattern it's
not a pattern but it seems like from from World War II you know that kind of
the collapse of empires as we knew them before World War II. Do you think the
pattern started then from like from from the establishment of of Israel as a state and then the Nagba and then moving
forward because it feels like we see this kind of like conflict peace resolution conflict in the United States
like presidents US presidents always tend to try and get their like Nobel Peace Prize you know at some point by
trying to do like peace negotiations. You see it I feel like every you know every president does this. So is this
this feels like just a reoccurring event of like conflict, peace kind of thing, conflict, peace, or is it just like the
tension of an oppressed people that are in their little apartheid camps?
Okay. So if we zoom in and just do the last 77 years, there's definitely a
cyclical pattern. Um and and you're right, it's it's one of there's peace
Why Peace Processes Keep Failing
negotiations, they ultimately fail. Uh a ceasefire will happen. We know it'll be
broken. Like there is no sincerity in the in the in the process of negotiating
and and I'm not going to mince words. It's on the Israeli part. Like the Palestinians definitely want this
solved. They just want it solved in a just way. So, we'll talk about Clinton's
attempt at a Nobel Prize that he ultimately didn't get. Um,
[clears throat] that I think when Yshak Rabbine was alive, there was a distinct possibility
that a deal could have been made. I think he had shocked Rabbine was sincere and I and I think he had
he had captured enough of the imagination of the Israeli public um that he might have been able to to pull
it off. I'm saying might, right? Because he still had to go through the process of convincing Israel to go along with
this and they, you know, Clinton would have gotten a two-state solution out of
it. It would have been probably a terrible deal for the Palestinians to be honest. Um, the [clears throat] Gaza
Strip and the West Bank will never a state make, right? It doesn't make it they don't make any geographical sense.
And then the Israelis already had colonies in the West Bank that were
designed to even further disrupt the Palestinians. And all the attempts at negotiating were made it pretty clear
that some of those colonies were going to stay. Um, in any case, he's assassinated. The Israelis kill him. And
the reason the reason the Israelis kill him is because they don't want a peace deal. They they can't have a peace deal.
And they can't for two reasons, three reasons maybe. I don't know. Let's see how it rolls out.
One of them is that if there was peace, they wouldn't be getting as much money from Great Britain, the Federal Republic
of Germany, and the United States of America. that one of the things that fuels the European flow of money and and
weapons is is in fact this idea that oh if we don't do this Israel will collapse
and so a huge portion of Israel's economy is this inflow of money from uh
Why Perpetual Conflict Serves the System
its its three main supporters. Um so at some level their their entire existence
depends on a permanent state of war. Um another problem is they wanted to have
this 8020 breakdown. So they didn't want it 0% Arab because they needed to get
their cheap labor from somewhere. So just think of the United States with undocumented immigrants, right? Of
course, we want to have undocumented immigrants who not only will they pick your vegetables and fruits for you, you
can pay them $2 an hour and not give them any benefits. And they'll never be late to work, they'll never call in
sick, and they'll, you know, they'll never form a union. And then you could
just extract all this really cheap debt pinage level labor out of them. Um
so so they needed the 20% Arabs so that they can mistreat them and extract their labor but they wanted it 80% so that
they could uh [clears throat] be be dominant enough that they didn't have to fear an Arab uprising. So since he
wanted to talk about cycles when um Godfrey Deu the guy who creates the
kingdom of Jerusalem he doesn't take the title king but he was the first ruler when when they captured Jerusalem they
massacre the city and one of the crusaders that had gone that was there his name was Tankrred he was an Italian
uh he tried to stop the massacre even though he had been to other massacres he this one he tried to stop and he tried
to save some some some Muslim families and he fails and they kill they all end
up being killed and afterwards he's really shook up and he goes to Godfrey and he goes why did we do this? I mean
is this something Jesus would have counseledled us to do and Godfrey said we we had to kill them because if we
didn't they were going to rebel at some point down the road. In other words,
part of Israel's resand is based on this notion that the native population has to
be expelled or murdered so that you can get them down to 20%.
And they they failed, right? It's 25% inside Israel proper. But then there's the West Bank and the the Gaza Strip.
And when you put all that together, it's more like 55% Arab, 45%
uh not Jewish. Although there's a huge
portion of the Jewish population that's Arab, right? If you're from Morocco, you're Arab. If you're
from Egypt, you're Arab. If you're from Yemen or Iraq or Syria, you're Arab. So there's so it's actually probably by the
time that dust settles 75% Arab within the the the boundaries of Palestine. And
so at some level they've failed. So the the need for the war is to try to
continuously expel the population. So money then expel then they need it for
political reasons because uh if if you look at elections every
time there's going to be an Israeli election we're they bomb Gaza like it just happens every time. It's like
clockwork. Um there's a ma a Gaza massacre event right before every election. And what that does, of course,
is that ramps up the voters and puts them in lizard brain mode. And now they're in fight orflight mode and
they're going to tend to vote for the government that's already in. And that's of course Netanyahu's entire
uh political career. So, so those those are some of the main
reasons why they they they have to maintain this cycle of violence. There's but there is one other one and then I
think this is one that we [clears throat] it might be the hardest one to to to manage cuz those are all sort of
rational and cold and calculating and cruel. But there's there's one that
Trauma as the Engine of the Conflict
isn't and that is trauma. And if we're honest with ourselves the
Israelis are reliving the trauma of the Holocaust over and over again. So, I'm
gonna be [clears throat] uh I'm gonna I'm gonna turn this into a a
relationship thing because it is it's a relationship thing. So, you know that person that that's a friend of yours who
always gets in these awful relationships and then they get abused and then they they get out of the relationship and
then they get into another awful relationship and they get they they get into a cycle of being abused. But every
once in a while, they get into a situation where they're in an awful relationship, but they're the abuser.
And that's what this is. The Israelis are a portion of them are so traumatized
from the Holocaust. Even though the hol they right, the Holocaust survivors, I
mean, they're mostly gone. This is this is transgenerational trauma at this
point. This is vicarious trauma. It's a real thing because there's epigenetics, but it's a real thing because there's
culture. And it's a real thing because they have every right to be traumatized. 850 years of pilgrims that culminated in
the Holocaust, like they would be irrational to not be traumatized.
And I feel nothing but sympathy and empathy for that trauma.
So, in a really weird twisted way, they're reliving the trauma, but this
time they're the ones inflicting it. And it probably feels really, really good.
It probably feels really cathartic because in this really strange way
there's, you know, it's it's like you're watching that movie where the um
the the guy the the evil villain does something awful and then down the road he gets an awful thing done to him. But
that's not what this is. This is there's an evil villain who who's, you know, murder raping people and then there's
some random dude walking down the street and one of the victims runs over and attacks that guy and beats the crap out
of him. There is still a catharsis. It's just it's the wrong guy. And I and I
think that's that's where the pattern has has become
uh this unhealthy kind of codependent relationship where a we the Israelis
need Hamas. Hamas keeps them in that loop. They they they probably wouldn't
know what to do if they were out of it. It would be it would be shocking
um because they've been in it for so long. they they probably can't I mean 77 years but but then throw in 850 years
prior to that and so you know it's like an alcoholic or a
drug addict. There's going to have to be a detox event at some point um and and
A Family Conflict, Not a Civilizational War
some sort of way to culturally mitigate that trauma. And you know the the the great tragedy is is I think the average
person living in the Middle East wants the Israelis to stay
There's no desire to expel them and send them back to Europe. That there's this sense of no, there are brothers and
sisters, but how do we make this work so that the Palestinians aren't their victims
anymore? And that that's where I think the, you know, people can't quite see how
this ends. Well, um it's it's not because there's this anti-semitism in
the Middle East. Arabs are semites, too. And there is this long deep profound history of connection. I'm not sure if
I'm supposed to talk about this and I may have already talked about it before, but I'll just um I'll use vague terms
in case I I'm not supposed to talk about this. But you know in the Yemen civil war there there [clears throat] a lot of
the Jewish Yemenes ended up going to Israel but there was a pocket of Jewish Yemenes who were refusing to go to
Israel who were under siege and an Arab state sent in special forces and
defeated the Houthis that were attacking those Jewish Yemenes and then withdrew
them, extracted them and they're now living in that Arab state. Uh, and you
know, that's that's how I think the average Arab wants this to turn out,
where Arabs are saving their their Jewish sisters and brothers and not
causing them more harm. I mean, I think that's a really accurate and beautiful analogy to think of
because you keep using the terms brothers and sisters and family and it it it almost feels like we like the
pattern has nothing to do with the the the region and the geography specifically, but it has to do with the
generational trauma and the region in itself is this family.
Yeah. And then no one wants to, you know, get rid of your brother. You you love your brother. You love your sister.
You want everyone to just get along. But the the trauma, the trauma is very real. The abuse is very real. The tragedy and
it's all very real and it's very painful. Uh, and when people or cultures
are unhealthy, they they get used to this and they continue at this this this cycle of
abuse and retaliation because that's that's all they know. That's that's just how they kind of have to live in order
to feel whole in some twisted way. And I think the other points that you're mentioning, they feel like almost
justifications to an end to fulfill that u you know cathartic release in a in a
in a strange way. I mean I'm sure that there are people who are well aware and have no ties to the trauma uh but are
definitely you know using this trauma to their personal gain and to their advantage. Uh that's going
to happen anywhere in the world. name somebody whose name starts with a B and an N.
Yeah. [laughter] Yes. And then several more and several others. And if you say anything bad
about them, you will leave their party and their well wishes and the you no
longer can ride those coattails. Um but yeah, the generational trauma I feel like is it's very it's very real. I
mean, how could it not be? Yeah. I mean just I mean the tragedy is
is the experience of the Eshkanazi is that they they picked up these
European behaviors and then brought them back and and that's that's the tragedy
of this. So, in a in this really strange way, they've come home
and it should be a safe space, and it could have been a safe space, but they
came home with the wrong lessons and this this pile of
trauma, and now they're enacting those bad lessons out, and they're enacting that trauma out.
Yeah. It's almost like a bunch of, you know, Vietnam veterans or or combat veterans who have they they're dealing
with PTSD, survivors guilt, all kinds of trauma, uh, in terms of, you know, the
pilgrims, the Holocaust, all everything else that was going on. And then coming home, uh, some can effectively manage
it, others they take it out on the the stranger walking down the street, like you were saying. Uh that's just another,
you know, just continuing the the the through line on trauma. I guess what's
what's interesting is a lot of a lot of people
can and will understand that retaliating against someone else is not the right
approach. And so you kind of have this almost this higher sense of extremist
ideals uh either from the the Israelis or or the the Palestinians who have
become uh radicalized in their through their trauma or or through whatever else
caused them to become radicalized. How do you think that the and tell me if I'm wrong that the
level of extremism is higher than those who are moderate? And why does it seem like the the moderates are always
snuffed out? Yeah. Okay. So, Israel, of course,
Silencing Moderates and Radicalizing Power
focused on the moderates and imprisoned them and assassinated them. Um, and I
think it's because they wanted to keep the violence levels at a high pitch. like whether it was subconscious, they
were just, you know, fulfilling this pattern or whether it was on purpose because they wanted to keep the money
flowing and they wanted to keep the the levels of violence high to control the Israeli population because think about
it. Um, a lot of the Israeli population doesn't even know that there were Palestinians there, right? It's the same
like the United States population. Ask an ask a person in the United States, what was the name of the Native American
nation that used to live on the land that you're living in. And high probability people won't know. I was on
a one of these uh Instagram live or I don't know, it might have been Twitter,
one of these live things, and there was this guy who comes on and he's he
started sounding like he might have been a little anti-semitic. So I I started going after him a little bit because I'm
not going to I'm not going to put up with that. But at one point he um
I asked him I said what's the name of the Native American nation in the part of the country that
you live in? And he was in Connecticut. And he goes, "There was no Native American nation here." And I'm like, "Okay." [laughter]
I can off the top of my head name several Native American nations that were in Connecticut. So it was like this
moment of oh wow. You This is a level of profound
you know, cognitive dissonance to get to that level of denial. And there's a portion of the population of Israel
who's the same. And so the Israeli government, their whole mantra is not
that the Palestinians were here and we had to dig them out, but that they're basically invaders. They're the
interlopers. and and and so you know there's this and then it they're evil and they want to
kill us and they villainize them and they've they've confused a port so much
of the Israeli population. I'll give you a weird example. This is I want to say
10 years ago but it's got maybe it was more there. They had the one of these contests these cooking contests where
Israelis would cook and then they would get weeded out. these uh reality TV
shows and they got it down to three three people
and one of the people was a Palestinian woman.
You're like, "Wow, a Palestinian might win the the the cooking contest." Like,
hell that'll ever happen. And then um the other two people were Jewish. One of
them was ethnically from Morocco. So she was Jewish, Moroccan, Israeli.
And then the third person was a German who was born in Germany, raised as a
Christian who converted to Judaism because he needed to undo the Holocaust
by create by by making himself a Jew. and he moved to Israel and became a
Zionist to make what his ancestors had done just a
few generations earlier right again. He was fixing the balance.
And those are the three people that were left. And at one point, the Jewish Moroccan Israeli woman goes,
"It's fascinating to me meeting this Palestinian. She's the first Arab I've
ever met. And it's like, "Lady, you're an Arab.
How do you not know you're an Arab? You're from freaking Morocco."
And it's like such a disconnect. It was bizarre. Bizarre. Spoiler alert.
The the German convert one. That was that was going to be my guess
cuz [laughter] for the sake of the show, they would Yeah, that feels appropriate. That is That is absolutely wild, though. feel
like it's the story of like you know the people who get the 23 and me or the whatever DNA test done and they find out
that you know they are part of the group that they do not want to be associated with.
Yeah. Which if you live in the Middle East very very high chance
you're going to be related to everyone in some way. Yes. [laughter]
Yeah. My recommendation is if you're a nationalist, if you're a racist, don't do 23 and me. Especially if you're from
the American South. There's a lot more people in the American South who are white who [laughter]
who if the one drop rule was applied to them would not be white anymore. Yeah. And here's another hint for us
Americans. [laughter] Same team. Uh if you meet someone with your same
last name who is of a different race than you [laughter]
and your name is Johnson, too. [laughter] Yeah. Just helpful hints. Yeah.
Yeah. Helpful hints. So, you you want to think it was a good thing, you know, like, you know, helping
out the Underground Railroad or what what have you, but likely that, you know, you had some ancestors that owned
some people. So, yeah, that's also very true. Yeah. Or just good loving. Could be good
loving. Could be good loving. There's a lot of that. There's plenty of that. I mean,
yeah, that's what war. I have a black friend who was raised believing that his two grandmothers were
Cherokee and his two grandfathers were black and and he's a black man. Like, when you see him walking down the
street, you're not thinking, I wonder if that guy's part Native American. Like, he just looks black. And one day I went
into his office and he was upset. He was clearly shook
up. And I'm like, "Dude, what happened?" He goes, "I took 23 in me." And I was like, "Oh no." He goes, "What do you
mean?" I go, "I know what this means." He goes, "What do you think it means?" And I go, "You didn't have two Cherokee grandmothers. You had two white
grandmothers." And he goes, "Yeah." And I go, "Yeah, it was illegal for white women to marry black men in the United
States. So they those two white women magically became Cherokee." And he's like, "Oh my god." And I go, "That's why
you have me in your life. I'm going to help you stop hating your white half." And I hugged him.
[laughter] Oh man, it's it's I wonder if it was
just something about the the Cherokee. I don't know if because they were
civilized Indians. Yes, I guess so. But I I I hear that a lot. Uh even in my wife's family, and I
hope she doesn't get mad at me selling this, but like her her mother, they kind of carry this idea that like did you
know that like I'm 1/8 Cherokee? this this whole percentage thing and then you know they do 23 and me and they find out
absolutely nothing whatsoever which is not an indication of heritage or
whatever but it's interesting because no none of that heritage was carried on anyway if it's true
I don't know if it's just a a silly exotic thing that some people want to carry on to specific to
Cherokees I don't know I there is there's a romanticization of the Cherokee and and rightly so I mean
and the Cherokee were amazing, awesome nation. Um, I I I won't lie. When I took
23 and me, I was like, "Please be part Native American. Please be part." [laughter] And I'm not I'm 100% concungistador. So,
um, I don't You can't You can't be 100% concisador. There's got to be some good loving. I
mean, I I love that term. I don't know why, but maybe. I mean, immigrant and colonial settler.
My my greatgrandparents from what is what was then the Russian Empire is today Sweden. I mean Finland, but they
were Swedes. Swedes from what is today Finland, but it was then in the Russian Empire. When they came to Wyoming, it was like 1890
something. They went on a they went on those um prairie schooners and settled. I mean,
they were colonial settlers. They were stealing land that didn't belong to them. and and then they decided they
hated Wyoming and moved to Michigan. So, uh the uncolonial settler Wyoming, but
Michigan's still [laughter]
just ask them anomaly how they feel about we can talk we can talk about this along. We This is the fun fun note. This
was one of uh the conversations I remember when we were getting to know each other because I think I had just done the 23 me DNA test and you had done
yours. We actually have our our tests shared to see if we're related. [laughter] And so we were sitting in
your office during office hours uh and and going over all of our our stats, which is interesting because if if
anyone does 203 me, it kind of changes all the time based off of their the advancements and how many people do it
because they don't have there's no control. There's not like here is someone who we know is 100% from this
this unless they're unless they're analyzing DNA from
long buried bones which is I I imagine they're not but anyway
they're not group it's it's it's like yeah it's based off of surveys by people and
then mass how did you identify I identify a spinach oh look that's spinach DNA
that's and and it and you were saying earlier, it doesn't work that that way.
And I want to clarify it. You've got 23 chromosomes coming from one parent, 23
from the other. Well, they had 46. So, it's random which 23 you got. So, you
might be part Greek, but you got none of the Greek DNA cuz you didn't get the right 23.
and and and so all it can tell you is what DNA got passed on to you, it can't
tell you the percentage. So if you if you have a sibling and they take the test, they will get very different
results on percentages. And so and then it it can't tell you
what you're missing. So for example, your your wife's family getting no Cherokee, that doesn't mean they don't have some
Cherokee ancestry. It just means that they didn't have the DNA. And and so at
the end of the day, 23 and me is a fun exercise, but I wouldn't take it seriously. No, it's it's it's Yeah, it is fun. Me
and my wife did it. Make sure we weren't related before. Oh, that's a good one. That's that's actually No, that's a really good thing,
especially if you're from the south. Easy, easy. Roy, one last note on So, my
mom did it the 23 me as I got as a gift and she actually had over 4% of of uh
Native American and I have less than 1.1% which is See that's proof right there.
I'm sorry about that by the way. You could have gotten bigger. I got more concisador. That's that's
what it is. And more German actually. Yeah. But mostly just English. A lot of
English blood and this white Oh, wait. What? I thought you were supposed to be Scottish. I'm sorry. The the whole island. Yes.
Yeah. Okay. Don't make that a mistake. That's terrible. I mean, there's one part that anyway,
we'll we'll get into that. Yeah. It's Let's get back to the dark subject that makes us depressed. I feel like you and
I are trying to avoid the talking about the drama. Yes. Oh, all right. So, so speaking of
narratives, you talked about this already about how the people in power
tend to silence those who are have more of a legitimate narrative and reason to
have peace. Um, you talked about some of the language. Uh, let's move outside of
Media, Attention, and Global Complicity
of the state of Israel and talk about kind of like global media u political
labeling like the UN's determining of like reasonable grounds for genocide. What h how does that shape what the
world sees, believes, and kind of ultimately allows all of this to to
continue to like almost allows this trauma to take place rather than to actually I feel like we were closer to
stepping in cuz more of the world was enraged almost uh over the past couple
years. Um, but I feel like ever since the ceasefire
happened and the the hostages were returned, uh, everything just kind of
fell off the the global stage, at least it has in the US in terms of in terms of everyday news and the news cycle.
Yeah. I mean, one of the problems that you're going to always have is the Americans have the attention span of a of a of a goldfish. And so, uh, if
there's a if there's a global crisis or a local crisis for that matter, there's not going to be any real meaningful
follow through. Um, and and we don't we don't want to fix
it, right? Because at the end of the day, if Israel is wrong, then isn't the United States wrong?
I mean, this is this this is a problem. We're we're heavily invested not just
because we want white people to kill brown people, but we're also heavily invested because it reminds us of our
own pro process, our own story. And and we got way past the 8020 mark. Uh Native
Americans, I think, are 1.4% of the US population. So we,
you know, we took it to a much higher degree. Now, of course, United States is
58% white. So, ultimately, the the the white supremacist side of the project
has fallen apart, but [snorts] uh the white population United States shrinks as a percentage of the public by
0.4% every year. So, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize in 20 years
United States will be 50% white. Um, so there's there's there's there's lots of
I think sympathy or empathy like, oh, you know, the Israelis are kind of in a boat that
we're going to be in that white South Africa has already been in. How do how do we solve this settler colonial
project? I want to shift over to Germany actually and pick on Germany a little
Germany, Guilt, and Western Moral Paralysis
bit. So Deutsch, I am part German. Um, my
great-grandmother's name was Maria Teresa Pompomaya, like German German.
And my and the man she married was a mix of German and Italian. So, uh, I'm
probably more than an eighth German. I just don't know how to calculate the the mix. And my family left
Sutiroll, which is today in Italy. And I just went to my ancestral homeland in
Sutiroll in Italy. uh this summer and it was really awesome being there by the
way. It's it was very strange and cool. Um but that you know it was
AustriaHungary when they left in 1904 when they went to the United States. [clears throat]
So and I've lived in Germany for 5 years and I speak really bad German and I'm
and I'm in love with Germany. So what I'm going to say now is is not coming from a place of anger or
anti-Germanness. It's coming from a place of
uh it's time it's time to move to the next level. It's it's time to grow. And
Germany stuck. And I don't blame Germany for being stuck, but talking about trauma, um
because what Germany did in World War II, the Holocaust, uh was truly beyond shameful. like it
was it was a it was a cruelty on a very vile level. Um
and as a as a person with German ancestry I feel the shame. So even though my people had left before
it doesn't matter right that everybody of German ancestry still feels this collective
trauma. You know I lived in Germany for 5 years during the the cold war. [clears throat] I I was 16 to 21. So
very important years in my in my personal development. Um
and it it made me feel really connected to Germany and German culture and and
but at the same time Germany lives the guilt and shame of what it did
all the time. Like it's there were I was there in a cold war. So there was the reminder if nothing else because Germany
was split into two and there was a you know US military and the French military, the British military and West
Germany and uh my mother was a civilian nurse working for the army.
So it was this constantly stuck reliving it. There's no way to escape it. Uh I
went to DHA and was traumatized crying the whole way through.
And you know like there's there's this profound heavy
weight every Austrian and every German carries having well except the 20% that vote
Nazi those guys probably don't carry it because they're well they're Nazis. Um
but other than that [laughter] so um here's the thing
Germany and Austria have so pegged themselves that there is onet is so attached to the
existence of Israel they've lost sight of their own humanity. So the new it's
it's really 1940 all over again except this time the antlo the end the final
solution isn't that the ger that the Jews should be exterminated it's that the Palestinians should be exterminated.
So the great tragedy of the this because we're in a tragedy.
The great tragedy of this cycle is that Germany and Austria have committed themselves to the genocide of the
Palestinians in order to make themselves feel like it's okay that they genocided
the Jewish population. And you know, 77 years after the
creation of the state of Israel and [clears throat] 80 years after the end of World War II, it's time for Austria
and Germany to step up and go, "Yeah, it's not okay. Two genocides does not
make it right." And and I think that's that's also some of what goes through in
the mind of Americans as well. There's this sort of sense of, oh yeah, we could have let so many Jewish refugees enter
the United States during the period heading towards the Holocaust and we turned them away and they ended
up being murdered and we feel shame about that as well. But but it's it's
time to move to the next level. If Germany really does want to atone for
the Holocaust, supporting Israel isn't the answer anymore. In fact, Germany needs to cut
Israel off. What Germany should do is if they're worried that cutting Israel off
means that Israel will collapse and that they there will be a like a reverse Nakba where there's a mass uh migration
of Israel's Israelis out of Palestine. Then what Germany should do is it should say we immediately grant every single
Israeli citizenship German citizenship. You want to undo the Holocaust, give
them a safety net, give them an escape path, and then cut off their their money
and their weapons until they go to the negotiation tables and make a just deal. And there's only one just deal, and it's
Why the Two-State Solution Can’t Work
a single secular state in Palestine and Israel with Palestinian right of return.
Anything else is another it's it's just another festering wound that will last
The Case for a Single Secular State
into all eternity. The South Africa tried to split it up into a bunch of bantto stands and the world rejected
that. Why would we accept it in the case of the Palestinians and the answer is is because a
European guilt and then b we see it as a white brown conflict. For the record,
many of the Israelis are themselves brown. In fact, there are there are black Israelis as well. Um but in our in
the imagination of Europe and the United States, this is a white brown conflict. And by the way, just for the record,
there are Palestinians who are very light color, they look white, and there are Palestinians who are very dark
color. Um, and because they're also a diverse population. Um, so it's it's not
technically a white brown conflict, but it is a European culture versus a Middle
East culture conflict. It's not it's not a religious conflict. That is a it is a settler colonial conflict where a group
of people from outside have come in stolen the land and country from another group wi with the goal of ethnically
cleansing and genociding them. And the fact that Germany and Austria are complicit in this makes them now double
Holocaust. Right now they have the Holocaust and the Nakba. They've they've made it worse. And this is really a
tragedy because Germany is the place Germany and Austria are where we get Kant and Hegel and Vitkinstein and you
know Hassurl and Marusa and Avent and Haidiger we get one brilliant philosopher after the other my list is
hasn't ended right Habbermos Marx just you keep going but but it seems like
Germany has lost Germany and Austria have lost their ethical compass and have
allowed themselves to trap themselves in this bizarre corner. I was in an argument with an Austrian where he said,
"No matter what the Israelis do, because they're Jewish, he backs them." And I actually point blank asked him, point
blank asked him if they if they genocide the Palestinians, that's okay then. And he said, "Yes,
this is how lost they have become in their own self-importance." Because when
you think about this, it it's a sign that Germans and Austrians are narcissists because they think that
their crime against humanity is so horrible that it's the only thing that
matters, that the that the crime against humanity that the Israelis are committing doesn't matter anymore.
I I'm sorry, Germans and Austrians aren't that special, that they get their that they need to have their own
category. And and I think it's really profound because at that point then why aren't the Mongols making up for the
genocides they did? Why aren't the Spaniards making up for the genocides they did? You know what I mean? Like
there's it's not like Germany and Austria are the first countries on earth to commit genocide. The British commit
genocide. The the French committed genocide. The the Dutch and the Portuguese did genocide. Like uh
every European state, look what the Belgians did in the Congo. like it's just this this isn't unique to Germany
and Austria. I think what I is shocking and I think this is the real issue.
What's shocking is that Hitler killed only white people.
We're used to the British murdering brown and black people. We're used to the Spanish murdering brown people.
We're used to the Portuguese murdering brown and black people. But having white people slaughter white people, I think
that's what shocks us about Hitler in World War II. And it makes the Germans and the Austrians feel like they're in
some kind of weird special category. And it and it's like, "No, dude. Genocide is
genocide. It's always wrong regardless of who the recipient is. And
you're not special. You're just another group of people who have a bad history."
like everybody in the United States, like everybody in Canada, everybody in
Brazil, like this is the way we get past trauma is is not
creating new trauma and it's not living the cycle of trauma. It's addressing it,
confronting it, admitting our role in it, admitting the role of our ancestors in it, and then telling our stories and
trying to bring those stories into some kind of coherence. And I think that was
what was so powerful about the truth and reconciliation that South Africa did at the end of apartheid
Truth, Reconciliation, and Saying “I’m Sorry”
that you know people on both sides committed violent
acts. Let's give everybody amnesty who comes clean right here right now. If you don't come clean right here right now or
we find out you did something later, we're going to zap you. But if you come clean here and you tell the story and
tell us where to dig to find the bones so that people can bury their relatives,
we'll forgive you. I think that's really powerful. And of course, something like that is going to would have to happen
at some point down the road. But I'm saying this because that's not what Germany and Austria have done. What
they've done is they've taken their their trauma for and guilt and shame and
given the Israelis weapons and money and said, "Go,
you you figure out how to resolve our problem." So
in a really bizarre way, what Germany and Austria have done is they've they've
farmed off their guilt and shame and instead of taking responsibility for
at the same time that they also do take responsibility for it. It's a mix. No country on earth has done better job
of taking responsibility for their past. I think it's using the South Africa
truth and reconciliation as an example. like Germany and Austria have the truth part down, but they're not doing the
reconciliation. They're just passing that part to to the state of Israel,
which is yeah, not not effective. While most of the rest of the world, including, you know, the United States, we we don't have the truth down yet.
We're still in that that denial phase of, you know, like there's there's no genocide. I mean,
like some of the population, but the official line that that's being towed is
there's no genocide. you know, we have to support Israel because
I I don't know why we support Israel. Yeah. Besides, you know, having an ally in
that area, but there's a weird cultural connection that kind of is tied to the
pseudo Christian identity uh is a big part of it. So, it's it's an interesting
relationship for sure. Yeah. It's a it's a strange twisted one too because right historically
Christians have hated Jews and Muslims and Jews have gotten along and you're like what what is this? All of a sudden
you like them. So you did the Holocaust and you went yeah I changed my mind like
what what is this? I don't understand.
So for the the trauma to be addressed, we need accountability, a recognition
for trauma done and trauma being carried and we need some actual reconciliation.
How do you think that that happens? Do you think it happens with supporters
stopping arm shipments? Uh, does that happen first or does it happen, you
know, in Israel with with people becoming aware and
and making a change? Is it something that could happen at all?
So, one of the problems is a lot of the people who are moderate, who are Israeli, have left. So, uh, on the
Palestinian side, the Israelis killed them or imprisoned them or they've turned them into copos, right? because
the PLA has just basically become a capo institution. Um the capos were the guy
who were the were the prisoners in the concentration camps that ran the prisons for the SS Toten Fabant. Um, so they
were the the capos were the collaborators. And for the record, in
case uh those Palestinians who were collaborating, haven't figured this out yet, uh the SS would murder the capos
periodically just because they didn't want anybody who had become too familiar with the
system and understood the inside workings of the system too well. And then they would bring in a whole new
group and they tell them, "Look, you'll get better food. we'll give you access to, you know, better living quarters.
You just have to help us run the concentrate. It's vile evil stuff. Um,
so the that's what the PLA is. It wasn't supposed to be, but that's
what it's devolved into. So, at some point, what you you'd have to do is
decouple the PLA from the Israelis so that it doesn't play that role anymore, so that it can actually be the voice of
the Palestinian people. Um, it's [clears throat] one of the reasons why there's support for Hamas, right? Because people are like, "Well,
my option is Hamas was willing to fight and CAPOS. Of course, I'm going to go with Hamas. Why would I why would I
support these collaborators?" Um, and then yes,
at least Great Britain and Germany need to cut off all aid. I've given up on the United States. Like I have no hope for
the United States ever figuring anything out. Um maybe after the second civil war
you'll there'll be some kind of awakening but I doubt it. Um [clears throat]
especially because I doubt the United States will survive the second civil war. Um
it and since it seems like that's what the United States really wants to do, I
can't figure out why. Uh it makes me even more hopeless. In any case, Germany
and Great Britain, if they cut off a to Israel, it would force Israel to the negotiation tables. So then the question
that needs to be asked at that point is, what kind of future do you want?
So, if you're an Israeli, do you want a future where there's permanent constant
turmoil and you don't have the weapons and the money to fight and terrorize all your neighbors and blow up Syria and
Lebanon regularly just because you like to do it? or or do you want to make an
actual peace so that you and [clears throat] your children don't have
to live in constant state of fear and constant state of you know Israel could
collapse at some point then what happens and if that becomes the answer
then yeah there has to be some kind of mechanism to sit Palestinians down with
Israelis and do some kind of truth and reconciliation because there's no way to
move forward without it. At one point, I don't know if the British are still doing this, but at one point, they had a
program where they would go to a prisoner who had committed a violent crime, and [snorts] they would ask the
prisoner if they were willing to apologize to the victim or the family of the victim. And if the prisoner said
yes, they would then go to the victim or the family of the victim and they would ask, "Are you willing to hear an apology
from your victimizer?" And if they said yes, they would arrange
for the two parties to meet and then the prisoner would apologize. And the they
discovered that the recidivization rate, the repeat offender rate dropped 25%
just from having that guy say I'm sorry. The likelihood they were going to leave prison and commit another crime went
down 25%. The power of I'm sorry is I
mean it's profound. Um we'll never have a program like that in United States because we love the the cycle of
violence. We can't wait for the next violent event. But in a place like the
UK where they are actually trying to get the violence rates down, you know, a program like that is really successful.
So there's there needs to be a point where everybody can sit down and and just
literally say, "I'm sorry." Uh I don't know how from the moment we're in now we
get to that. Like I can't I can't envision it. I don't I don't see it.
What what I'm what I fear is that at some point, you know, as the United States plunges into the second civil war
and there's there's no money and weapons going to Israel and the Russians then
take advantage and they're like hammering Poland and they're hammering uh Hungary because even though Orban
likes Putin, you know, the Russians will backstab him first chance they get. Um
the Europeans won't be able to send weapons and and and money to Israel anymore. And then at that point, Israel
goes into a state of collapse because it it can't sustain itself. And we end up
with a reverse Nakba. And to me, that's just the catastrophe. Another another
catastrophe. Like what? We don't need to go there. That's the worst possible outcome.
What [clears throat] needs to happen is the Israeli and the Palestinian population need to figure out how to
peacefully coexist in the same piece of real estate. and I just I just don't know how to get
there. But uh there will be a resolution. The question
is will it be a good one? That's that's that's the tragedy on the
table right now. I think it requires a lot of
inner peace and confidence to one say I'm
sorry and then for the other person to accept that and then give forgiveness and the amount of healing like you said
the amount of healing that can happen as long as other people don't get in the
way of trying to keep that from happening it it can happen. I mean this
is if it if it could happen like what better place for it to happen than this this place that reveres its brothers and
and sisters uh and is they all you know believe very similarly uh in in terms of
their spirituality. So it feels like forgiveness is one of the tenants of of
of everything. So peace is definitely a
possibility. It just the ones who are opposed to peace have to
step aside, which seems it seems impossible right now. It does. It feels like it.
I mean, I was in Lebanon this summer. I've probably said this before. Well, while I was there, the Israelis were bombing.
And you know, one of the things that happened was one of the Lebanese the
Lebanese guy that I was with, he he would point to a bridge and he'd go, "See this bridge?" Yeah. In 2006, the
Israelis blew it up. See this apartment building? Yeah. In 2024, the Israelis blew it up. Like it it bec it was a part
of my trip in Lebanon was a tour of what the Israelis blew up. And you know the
just the fact that Europe and the United States don't care that Israel randomly
blows up stuff in another country. It's just mindboggling. like it it just shows you the extent to which Europeans and
and Americans think that Arabs are subhuman and unworthy of just basic human rights. Um and in any case, I
didn't really mean to get off on that topic. My my point was that at some level
the United States believes that Israel is fulfilling its foreign policy objectives in the Middle East, which is
to keep the Arab states in a state of chaos, to keep the Arab states uh in a
state of terror. I mean, because you don't know when the Israelis are going to bomb your country next, right? That's
that's that's what terror is. It's it's not the violence, it's the not knowing
when the violence is coming.
So to kind of bring all this together for because in the beginning what one of the reasons we started this this little
series was there was feeling of kind of hopelessness for for a lot of people in
the region and globally honestly of people who are watching from the outside who just felt hopeless and overwhelmed
and desperate and sad just seeing these
things unfold and not being able to do thing. What
What central truth of of all of this
would you hope that people would take away from our conversation and
what's h what's happened what's happening and and what you hope happens moving forward.
I I think the most important thing people need to remember is this isn't good versus evil, black versus white. Um
I am my default setting always is the attacker is wrong. Israel attacked
Palestine 77 years ago. So the Israelis are in the wrong period.
But they have been there 77 years and they are as Jewish people native to the
Middle East. They deserve to be in the Middle East. They should be in the Middle East if they want to be. They
should be anywhere they want to be, right? if they want to live in Tibet, I support them moving to Tibet. It's just they want to be here and I want them to
be here. Um, I'm in the Middle East right now in case that here didn't make sense. Um,
I I let me shift conversation just a second and make this personal, but I'll
I'll make it vague enough that I'm working on two projects right now. And
one pro project uh is run by an Arab and
the other project is run by uh two Jews and then the there's a third person who
doesn't identify as Jewish but has Jewish ancestry and
the the project we're working on has
in both cases it's about Arab history and the project I have the most faith in
is the one where it's two Jews and then a person of Jewish ancestry who are at
the head of the project, not the one that's being run by the Arab. And it's not because I'm I'm biased and I think
the Jews will do a better job because they're just better or something. It's because they are doing a better job. And
and the the the thing that I think people need
to remember is this is complicated and messy and human beings are human beings
and at the end of the day most people don't actually approach
there's that 20 30% who do but most everybody else doesn't actually approach
this as oh what's your skin color and oh what imaginary friend do you worship And
you know what I mean? Like most people come at it as, "Oh, you're another human
being. I'm going to show you kindness. I hope you show me kindness in return. Let's have an exchange. Maybe we can
tell some jokes." Right? And and I and I think we get stuck in this
stupid paradigm of those are the bad guys, these are the good guys, and we hate the bad guys. And it's like a
Hollywood movie and you just want the good guys to kill the bad guys before the last scene ends. And that's never
going to work when we're dealing with real life situations, especially when we're dealing with conflicts.
Um at if we're going to fix this conflict, first of all, there's no military
solution, right? Israel has nukes, so there's no invade and let's solve this.
That's that's off the table. Like people will go, "Why aren't the Arabs doing anything? What are they supposed to do?
Invade Israel and then get nuked? Like what what does that look? Invade Israel and have the United States help Israel?
Like I don't understand. Nobody can fight the United States." Well, I mean, unless the United States is stupid
enough to invade that country and then then you can just zap them like Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam. But but as long as
it's you know the United States is just bombing from afar, you're just there's nothing you can do except sit there and
take the beating. So there's no military solution. This has to be resolved in a humane, gentle, kind
way if we're going to make it so that the world is better off on the other
side. And uh I get the hopelessness. I want to point some things out. Gen Z has
this figured out. A lot of millennials have this figured out. It's definitely a generational
thing. And I and I don't just mean you know uh Gen Z as in there's a population
of people who are uh you know angry at their parents have
this figured out. I mean, like, there's a huge segment of young Jewish Americans, a huge segment of young
Jewish Europeans who have figured this out. There's a huge segment of Christian
Europeans and Americans who have figured this out. And they're young. And it I'm
seeing it percolate up into older age groups as well. But
this is terrible, but it's the truth. Even if the older age groups hold out,
they're going to die off anyway. And little little by little, the millennials and the and Gen Z are going to start to
move into those positions of power. Maybe we'll get we'll get better
decision-m in the future. I mean, if anybody's objective, you can't help but
realize that the boomers are stupid and I'm ex generation and my generation
sucks. We've never done anything. We're an unknown variable, right? we're just X
like whatever worthless. So if you're waiting for the dumb
boomers and the generation that's never stood for anything to come to your rescue, you're hosed.
But the good news is generation X is retiring out. The boomers are dying off.
They won't give up power until they die, right? You could just look at United States Congress and realize that, you
know, there's there's people who knew Abraham Lincoln still in office. Um, [clears throat]
they're going to have to die before they'll give up their power cuz they're narcissists and they so until they they're out of
the way, then we're going to have this garbage 2025 is a garbage year. It's
another garbage year. We've had how many terrible years a one after the other. Um
and the world is heading in exactly the wrong direction at every front, right? The war in Ukraine is stupid. Uh the
United States is going to attack Venezuela, it looks like. So we're plunging towards another stupid war. Uh
it's been insane watching the pundits try to spin the Venezuela war. They
sound exactly like the pundits did for the Iraq war. And you're like, "Dude, it's the same thing. Why are we doing
this all over again? Oh my god. Uh and and you know, they're they're actually
saying it's going to be easy. [clears throat] Oh my god. [laughter] Just so dumb. It's so dumb. We're ruled
by morons. The planet is ruled by morons. And here's the tragedy. We voted
those morons in. So what does that say about us? We must be the world. I think
2025, the global population, the 8 billion of us, are the dumbest people to ever walk the planet. We have we have
these stupid devices that allow us to instantly access information and we're
dumber than a brick. It's unbelievable. Like, how did we get here? [laughter]
There there was I was watching one of the I think it was Fox. I don't even remember. He's like, you probably don't
know where Venezuela is. I mean, you probably know it's in South America. I
really feel like there should be a global war. If your country can't identify the country you're about to
blow up on a map, you shouldn't be allowed to attack it.
Seems totally fair. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Oh [clears throat] my god.
I feel like all this is happening while we're breaking records on the oldest people who have ever led countries.
Yeah. Like two presidents in a row, USA. We've we've got the we're breaking records. The oldest president ever.
I want to point out that the old kingdom Egypt collapsed and ended up in a 170
year long period called the intermediate period. It was basically a prolonged civil war because they had a leader
named Pepe II who ruled for 102 years. He he he became king when he was like
six and he died when he was like 108. And he destroyed Egypt. He destroyed it.
It makes sense. I mean, 500 years ago, go spend time with your grandkids. Like
enjoy enjoy life. Your legacy is already in there.
We need more teachers. Go become a teacher. Boomers and Gen X and to to a certain extent millennials
like we do get distracted by our our devices, but I think Gen Z has has
learned because they were born with them how to use them as a tool of
information. Not all the time like we this is this is like I think booers they don't know how to like this the way
that cultural information the exchange of information culturally down through the generations has definitely shifted.
So, I think that the younger generations are are more empowered and I think that's partially why
they uh aren't fallen for it. Yeah. [clears throat] They're not they're not totally savvy.
They are savvy. It's harder to like when I tell them the conspiracy theories that people believe
when I'm in class, they're like, "What? That's so stupid. Who are these dummies?"
They know they know not. They know to be skeptical because there's so much BS. Like it's turning on your phone and
going anywhere on your phone is just you you you have to filter through all of the the nonsense cuz it's all just
advertising. We're all just users on a platform. That's where advertising
money. Even if even you guys watching this, the advertising that you get on the sidebar or that pops up for an ad like, "Sorry,
we're not the customers, we're the product." Yes. [laughter] But boomers, I see it all the time, you
know, like, "Hey, I saw this ad and it looked like a really good." I'm like, "Why do you still trust ads? Why do you
trust anything?" Or politicians who promise you stuff. I'm always baffled by, "I'm going to
vote for so and so cuz they promised me X." What? Dude, there's a piece of property
I want to sell you that's about 500 miles souththeast of Houston.
[laughter] the ocean. Yeah, it's a little wet.
Is it underwater? It's pristine. Yeah, [laughter] there better be some a sunken ship there. That's all I have to say.
Something against, you know, there is a Spanish ship filled with gull.
Oh. Oh, boy. Well, thank you, Roy, for So, don't be gullible.
Don't Yes. Don't Don't be gullible. Don't listen if something seems
too Let's go back to uh what what is it? Um don't believe something because you
are afraid it might be true or you want it to be true. Do your due diligence and just it's as
simple as googling something and looking around for a little bit. If someone tells you something or you see a post or
something, just look it up real quick. It's so easy. It's so easy. we can just
double check something and then we can use our brains and think does that seem right?
Uh last year I was in the US still and I got into a conversation with a boomer
Final Reflections and What Must Change
who told me a just a nonsensical crazy
dumb completely unbelievable story about Palestine. like just off the rails. Oh
my god. And I immediately pulled my phone out and just went to Snopes. Just
I knew it was wasn't true. I just wanted to see how fast it would have taken this
boomer to figure out it wasn't true. And you know, within seconds I had a not
true answer. And you know, well, uh, Snopes is controlled by the the deep state. Yeah,
it's okay. Go to other sources. Go to BBC, go to The Guardian, go to Al Jazzer, go to CNN, go to Fox, just
anywhere and just doublech checkck your stupid story. And basically this
person's belief was we should kill all the Palestinians because apparently some
of them, a tiny percentage, were committing this really horrible crime against humanity. That wasn't true, just
for the record and was completely made up. It was completely nonsensical. It was It was as nonsensical as the
Democrats are in the basement of a pizzeria in Washington DC murdering children and then eating their faces.
It's as nonsensical as lizard aliens have taken over the federal government and the Earth is flat and that we never
went to the moon, right? It's it's just this and Elvis is still alive and he's hanging out with JFK and they're going
to the three of the the the two of them are going to marry Donald Trump and when they do they'll merge into one being and
become the new messiah and usher in an age of a thousand years of peace.
Did you just come up with that one because that was good. Yeah, just just off the top of my head and and then they go back in time and kill
JFK and they Oh my god. Even though one of them is JFK. No, sorry. It's JFK Jr. I got confused.
It was JFK Jr. I just can't keep track of it all. This This is how it feels, though. I'm like, I don't I don't understand.
What I find interesting is good. I love the go back in time and kill Jan. It wasn't Lee Harvey Oswalt. It was
Elvis Trump Jr. Yeah. [laughter] What's fascinating is that I think
you're going to run into those people who will deny deny deny even in the face of uh facts not just facts but like
very logical reasonable evidence uh but then you will have people who
I can't believe I fell for that so I think it is important to
gently correct I don't want to even use the word correct which just like hey I don't think that doesn't sound right.
Yeah. So, some people get annoyed by it and they will stick to it. We see a lot of this, you know, the development of the term echo chamber and stuff where people
just want to feed these things and sometimes it gets so deeply rooted in their belief system that it becomes this
impenetrable bias in their life and especially if it's multigenerational, which we see a lot of. Um, but sometimes
it's it's just as simple as I don't think that's right. That's not that's not what that means. This is what it
means. And then if someone actually enjoys thinking with their brain um or
if they still we still have that social structure where you can like tell a friend like no that's not right that's
incorrect and if they love you and respect you they go what do you mean [laughter] and then you have a conversation I think
we lose that with some of this um which is important to have those conversations. So, if you can do it in
person, yes. But having said that, don't be surprised when your friend goes into
cognitive dissonance land and it's like, "Well, but you're wrong. I know I'm right about this." Because one of the
things that we've discovered is it doesn't matter how much logic and how many facts you throw at a person, if a
person is stuck in cognitive dissonance, they they're they will figure out a way to spin themselves back into that
position. And like I I remember at one point I was in
a conversation with a kid I saying kid childhood friend who I knew later as an
adult. We were talking about US foreign policy and I said look Zan Gman has a
list of all the things the United States has done since like 1890. Go to his
website and I want you to look at each of those and then come back and tell me
that the United States has done more good than harm. and he he looked at the list and he came back and he said that
that list list looks right. And I went okay tell me that the United States has
done more good than harm. And he just kept saying that list looks right. And I'm like no that's not the point here.
You keep telling me the United States has done more good than harm. Look at that list and then tell me that's true.
We invaded Honduras eight times. We invaded Nicaragua seven times. We invaded Guatemala five times. Why?
because they changed the price of bananas. We literally murdered people
because customers in grocery stores didn't want to pay a few extra pennies for bananas. We literally sent in the
Marine Corps and shot the place up, hence the term banana republic. And I need you to look at that list and
tell me it's good. He couldn't do it. But at the same time, he refused to say
it was bad. and there is nothing you could do to make him go. This is this is bad
when it's obviously bad [laughter] for your own sake and your own sanity
for this is for you Roy and myself because I've been in those very similar situations even just what I think are
completely innocent questions like hey do you remember when we went to that restaurant last year to a family member this is a real conversation and they
said you know no I don't and then I go to the detail of like I remember because
something embarrassing happened to me and and they say, "No, it must have been someone else."
And [laughter] I was like, "Whoa." And then me being dumb, I'm like, I just
keep trying to provide evidence, which it just turns into an even more awkward conversation. So, I I've had to learn to
just stop. So, if you do run into those people, it it's not. You have to think to yourself, is this productive? If the
answer is no, then save your sanity. Save your sanity. Yeah.
Also, that's another reason why Gen Z is savvy because they've heard their uncle
and Thanksgiving go off and talk about how, you know,
they they went off on their sexist, misogynistic nonsense. They went off on their racist nonsense. Well, if Trump
had been black, he would have gotten three Nobel prizes by now, right? And then they they in their insanity and
dumb statements, they then turned and said, "Global warming is a hoax." And you know, those Gen Z guys are like,
"Yeah, it's easy for you to say you'll be dead before the worst of it hits. [laughter]
We won't be. However, I I will be, but not Gen Z." Yeah. It'd be nice for my kids to be
able to go see some glaciers, but I don't think it's going to happen. Yeah. It's not looking good. Sorry. Any anything any positives we can
This is I think this just might not be a positive. This is not a positive. This is why we have to keep d redirecting the
conversation. So this this video will be released on Christmas day as a little gift for everyone.
Oh, awesome. Oh, I have a positive. Donald Trump ended the war between Aubber Ba and Albania.
I know you've never heard of Aubber Ba before. Nobody has. And nobody even knew it was at war with Albania. But Donald
Trump ended that war. If he had only been black, he would have had 18 Nobel prizes by now.
Well, he is the oldest president to ever exist. Yeah. Or to be elected. Is he Is he the I
don't know what the record is now. He will be the oldest. And you know, when he gets to his third term, we'll we'll see. He will break
both records then. So he will break every record at that point. Yeah. And and for those
we talked about this before those of you don't know about the third term. We used to have third terms just no one ever
made it that far. And so we what FDR he went four.
Okay. He but he died one month into or two months into his fourth term.
Was it was it Eisenhower that Congress was like hey let's stop this this he will be a it was Truman.
It was Truman. Okay. Yeah. So, we passed a constitutional amendment, but because it was during Truman's administration, we grandfather
claused him in and then he just he he only ran for one reelection, he his
popularity rating was so low, he knew he wasn't going to get another term. Wow. So,
so anyway, we ended a war against countries that don't exist or
one of them exists, but the war doesn't exist and the other country doesn't exist. Yeah. which I think is that do we get
like an achievement for yeah it's what's what's interesting is he obviously was trying to take credit
for ending the war between Azerbajan and Armenia but there was nothing to to
negotiate the Azerbajanis overran Norno Cararbach and the Armenian population
fled in a mass exodus event and so it was a catastrophic defeat for Armenia
that ended any claim to going to car. So, there's nothing to
negotiate. Like, it's just it's like being in the emergency room and a dead patient shows up and you're like, "Well,
there's not much I can do as an emergency room doctor for this one because well, they were decapitated for
one and we don't we don't have that surgery yet." So, what you're saying is that anything
that happens, we can reframe and take credit for it. That's exactly what Trump does. And then
and then he walks around saying, "Look at how amazing I am." It's like,
but you've got a whole generation of people that will believe it because they want to believe it. They they trust they trust an older
white man. Yeah. Because that's what they've been taught their entire life. Yeah. Which Gen Z has been taught the
opposite. So that's another thing. [laughter] Me, too. Just for the record. Yeah. As an older white man, I have
learned to distrust people like me. Yeah. Yeah. [laughter]
Oh, well, uh, thank you for let's for for for doing
these three episodes to cover this. I know, uh, a lot of people wanted to hear your thoughts on this. So, thanks for
letting me ask you some questions. And thank you viewers for for sticking around to to hear all this. and thank
you for your patience for this this last uh episode on over Palestine. Uh we're
going to continue to do office hours. Uh this might be the last one for this year, but we're definitely going to
continue. We don't have a schedule for these things. We just kind of do them when we when we have time, when we think it's appropriate to talk about
something. Um that's not to say let's do something fun next time. Like yeah, we'll do we'll do something fun.
We'll we'll do let's talk about like trees or something.
myial network underneath the trees. That has nothing to do with trees. That's that's fungi.
But they're trees to do with trees. Okay, fine. Yeah. Okay, now we have a topic.
Okay, see the whole communication network that we have to get, you know, some botist. Funny thing when I was
learning Arabic, one of my instructors was a uh had a PhD in forestry and
what the heck in in Sudan and he was telling me that the trees would communicate with each other uh through not through the micular
network but through pherommones in the leaves so that yes the giraffes would only eat uh upwind
because the trees downwind all the leaves were bitter and so they did this study to figure out why are the giraffes
bathing this way But the leaves were bitter because the trees that were being eaten upwind
would release this pheromone and the trees downwind would release a bittering agency in response so they wouldn't be
eating eaten. Anyway, probably not talk about the next time,
but we're talking about it now. [laughter] Oh, on that note, thanks everyone and we
hope you enjoy the rest of the year. Happy New Year. 2026 should be interesting. I can't say it's going to
be good. That's, you know, it's gonna be another garbage year. 2020 was supposed to be the year of
perfect vision and then it's been pretty rough ever since then. [laughter] It's been really rough. Who do we get in
2020? Not perfect vision. Co. Yeah. Yeah.
Messed up my vision a little bit. Thank you, Roy. Uh, we'll hang out again
soon. All right. Bye, everyone. Thanks for watching. Bye, everyone. Y'all come back now. You
Thank you for watching this episode of Office Hours. If you want to support Royy's channel or get more involved in
these conversations, we just opened YouTube memberships. So, take a look.
And we have three tiers and more information on that student tier coming up here shortly. Roy's got some classes
[music] planned for 2026. Thanks for being here, y'all.
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