0:02Max, absolute pleasure to see you again.
0:04It's been been too long. And before before I ask you the first question, actually you said something before we started going online. I'm like, we got to go live immediately cuz a very it's very accurate statement. Can Can you say it again and maybe expand on it what you mean by it? I really like that statement.
0:23>> Well, I was asking you how many live streams a day you were doing cuz you're interviewing like eight people a day, 10 people a day and you know, I said, you know, you're not going to get out of this cuz we're in a sort of cycle of warfare in which uh there will be periods of escalation and de-escalation until one side just completely capitulates.
0:48Uh it's sort of a it's it's sort of like a fight to the finish.
0:53It's an existential war and we just hear about these operations, various operations, which are named usually by Israel or the US. We had the first joint US-Israeli operation, which I call Operation Epstein Fury, others call it Epic Fury.
1:14It was a complete failure.
1:16Even Wikipedia, which is sort of a NATO narrative management machine, which um has a I mean, if you look at the Gray Zone page or my page, it's just a collection of distortions of half-truths and smears and lies. It obviously exists to manage the narrative for one um power faction.
1:37It has declared that the 2026 Iran war was a victory for Iran and a strategic defeat for the US-Israeli coalition. But when I say one side has to capitulate here, I think in many ways the US has capitulated. The US has its own interests, which are independent from Israel's, and so really this is a fight between Israel, or I should say Zionism, the ideology underpinning the so-called self-proclaimed Jewish state, which is this borderless anachronistic entity armed to the teeth between that and the resistance.
2:19Any element that resists it in the region.
2:23Um and and and and so that That's where we are.
2:26And the US wants to step away. This isn't just Trump or J.D. Vance.
2:32It's essentially the the US establishment.
2:35Um parts of the US establishment that are not ideologically wedded to Zionism for personal identitarian reasons wants to step away because they ran up against the hard rocks of reality. We can talk about that.
2:51I think if you listen to the words that J.D. Vance is using where he's actually saying something in public that US presidents have previously said in private. For example, Bill Clinton storming out of a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu during the late 1990s declaring, "Who's the superpower here?" J.D. Vance is saying this publicly, and he keeps using the word reality. And that's the operative word in this conversation about the MOU and where the US-Israeli relationship is now historically. Reality. Reality is normal international relations. Reality is con- cons- concern for the state of the global economy. Reality is domestic
3:37political considerations for Donald Trump and Republican um congressional candidates running in swing districts in the midterms. Reality is American working-class consumers trying to get to work or driving Uber.
3:55Reality is something that millions of people in from Asia to Africa have been experiencing as the Strait of Hormuz has been closed and they're getting ready for bread riots.
4:07Reality is something that most people, 99% of the people in the world, maybe 99.78% of people in the world have a sort of shared vision about that there's like a baseline reality that they experience. And nations experience are are are experiencing this reality through the framework of international relations, whether you interpret it as you know, realpolitik or or the realist perspective on IR that John Mearsheimer puts forward, where international relations is determined by clashes and conflicts and relationships between great powers, powerful states, or you interpret it through the you know, the liberal Brussels
4:56transatlanticist perspective on international relations, where a superpower enforces a rules-based order in order to guarantee the growth of liberal democracy in their vision. What No matter how you interpret it, there is a general shared reality that has these that that that has to represent basic concerns for the global majority or things just descend into complete chaos.
5:24And then there's a group that exists outside that reality and they are called Zionists. And that small group enjoys an outside influence in the United States and throughout the West and has been able to impose their influence and in doing so imposes Zionist logic on American leadership to the point where they actually compelled Donald Trump to wage a war on Iran supposedly a joint war with Israel on February 28th launching operation epic fury as they called it.
5:59What I call Epstein fury. And it completely failed because Zionist logic ran up against the hard rocks of reality. The reality of international relations and just basic global economics.
6:17And that failure has now pried the a large part of the United States establishment away or is prying it away from the grip of the Zionist movement and their institutional Israel lobbying organizations.
6:34And that's why we're seeing J.D. Vance making these statements. So now Israel's in an existential fight to continue to impose Zionist logic against the reality that almost everyone in the world exists in by dragging the United States back into this war because as J.D. Vance correctly said Israel basically and Donald Trump said Israel cannot exist. This anachronistic colonial state cannot exist without United States power backing it to the hilt.
7:09And Iran has proven that it's able to defend itself against the most powerful military force ever assembled in history and against the most powerful military force in the region. So what can be done? What what can Israel do?
7:27What can they do? That's what we're going to see and it's going to I think accelerate this downward spiral of Zionism and continue to widen the gulf between not just the US public but elements of the US establishment and Zionism.
7:49>> Oof. Man, you haven't been on the show for a few weeks, but what a comeback.
7:54Um as you spoke you spoke I came up with a lot of questions and then you answered a lot of them. For example, I wanted to ask what you meant by existential.
8:02>> Yeah.
8:02>> Um cuz you said we're going to see an existential escalation de-escalation. I think you clarified it's existential to Israeli foreign policy to Zionism. Is that what you meant?
8:11>> Yes.
8:13>> Okay.
8:14Um and based on the way you've explained what's happening right now, I think it's very important to get your opinion on this cuz you've been covering it for so long.
8:23You think the shift we are seeing by Trump and J.D. Vance, the statements they're making, Trump justifying Iran's ballistic missile program, J.D. Vance saying the quiet part out loud what what Bill Clinton said about Israel. Um Trump I think saying Israel wouldn't exist without the US.
8:42Mike Huckabee said the US wouldn't exist without Israel Israel that's the US ambassador said that. But all these statements, you think this is a fundamental shift or Trump and J.D.
8:51Vance in his administration actually breaking away from Israel? Cuz my last guest was telling me Mario be careful, the rhetoric could be as far as they go, but actions are what matters and he was a bit skeptical we'll see any change in action.
9:07>> Yeah, I don't I don't know if I I I I would be skeptical about this being a fundamental material shift in US policy. Right now all we have is rhetoric. But the rhetoric signals something about where the political culture of the United States is.
9:27The polling shows that not only do over 90% of Democratic voters under the age of I think 45 so uh oppose sending weapons in large amounts of aid to Israel, but that most Republicans under the age of 35 favor that same policy.
9:50And there's a new poll. I I I don't know if it was a Pew poll. It was reported by the Jewish Daily Forward. It shows that And this is a Jewish Daily Forward headline. You can even pull it up. Close to 50% of American Jews under the age of 35 are functionally anti-Zionist.
10:06What does that mean? That close to 50% or maybe more than 50%. It was like right around the 50% mark of American Jews under the age of 35 declared their support for a single state in Israel-Palestine, a a one state where everyone enjoys equal rights um under the law.
10:26A state sort of like uh the United States under the Constitution.
10:31Rather than a ethno-supremacist state, which is what Israel represents and which which uh informs the Zionist ideology.
10:40Uh a plurality support a a a like a fairly large number support a two-state solution, and only a minority support >> [snorts] >> the solution that um Ben Shapiro put forward when he was a young uh sort of neo-con child actor writing for Townhall, which was like I think the connected to the Heritage Foundation, when he called for the ethnic full ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population.
11:05So, I mean the you you uh might want to start shifting your rhetoric if you're someone like J.D.
11:14Vance and you might want to run for president in 2028.
11:19Donald Trump and Marco Rubio have been too cowardly to make the case for the MOU in public. I think they understand that they may actually be planning to sabotage it. They have been subjects of Israeli influence in a much more substantial way than J.D. Vance has, although Vance is capitulated again and again. I don't know what it's like to be vice president. So, Vance has to go out there and be the salesman of this MOU. And, you know, I think this is the best moment that J.D. Vance has had during a fairly mediocre, lackluster vice presidency. Uh this is like his comeback tour. The the young the youth like this.
12:01Uh and Marco Rubio suddenly looks diminished. After J.D. Vance, remember he was sent out to Islamabad for the humiliation of uh Israel calling him and telling him, "No, you're not allowed to make a deal." Now, he's kind of flexing.
12:14Um and this is just the reality of politics in the United States. I mean, we've seen too many images of murdered children. People are starting to understand what uh Zionist logic really means in practice.
12:27And it's something that just doesn't um it can't be accepted by humanity. So, the rhetoric has it's it's guide I mean the one of the finest political analysts today, Sean Strickland of the UFC, said it correctly. This rhetoric is tailored for the midterms by Trump. But, that says something positive about our culture.
12:50And then you can kind of get the sense from the Israel firsters in who were in Trump's coalition who are basically AstroTurf figures.
13:02They're either like these influencers who are getting 7,000 a post or a few hundred a post from Bridges Partners, which is an Israeli foreign ministry uh front group that pays influencers, or they're you know, people like the three Marks, uh Mark Levin, Mark Thiessen, and Mark Dubowitz, who are the three key Israel first figures pushing Trump to war with Iran.
13:25And they sent Trump into a complete imbroglio, one of the worst military defeats, maybe the worst military defeat the United States has suffered.
13:35I I say period, maybe since like the Civil War, which was just a a defeat for the South and a sort of spiritual defeat for the American public cuz so many Americans killed each other.
13:47I left out Vietnam because the economic damage of Vietnam was contained.
13:53Uh this was a defeat for US empire that the US will never recover from.
13:59And will obliterate or will ultimately lead to the erosion of this power of the petrodollar.
14:05Uh the Strait of Hormuz is still not open.
14:08The three marks helped lead Donald Trump into this and now they stand exposed.
14:13And the sort of MAGA influencers who are exist out of their loyalty to Trump and are just there to put forward whatever message Donald Trump wants them to put forward. There's actually a gap between the Israel firsters and the sort of MAGA loyalist paid influencers right now. You can see it with Mark Levin attacking Trump and attacking everyone. He's even attacking Israeli opposition figures, like a a Jewish American is being more Israeli than uh Yair Lapid. They look crazy. Um and what they say doesn't make sense to the American public. Like you're going to see reflected in these comments that
14:51the commenters are going to say that what I'm saying makes a lot more sense than what Mark Dubowitz was saying uh last week. I watched that uh interview you you had with him and he he seemed like he was in full panic mode.
15:05Uh and it nothing was adding up because his entire vision of what was going to happen in Iran and everything that he and the Foundation for the Destruction of Democracies, his Israeli cutout think tank in Washington, gave to Trump, the blueprint they they forward for this war, it completely failed because it represented Zionist logic. So, you know, why does why does one uh you know, Jewish commentator make more sense than the other Jewish commentator?
15:33I'm not a Zionist. That's why the commentators are going to be saying, "This actually reflects the reality that I live in more than this other guy who's just trying to spin to get Trump back into the war." And here's another here's another problem that Zionists face right now.
15:48People just don't want to see more killing. They don't want to see another Minab school strike. 168 people killed, teachers, 100 over 130 schoolgirls on the first day of the war.
15:59Zionists had no problem with that.
16:01And Pete Hoekstra had no problem with that. That was horrifying to everyone.
16:06And, you know, they killed female volleyball players in Lamord, Iran on that same day testing a new missile for Lockheed Martin.
16:13Uh what's happening right now in Lebanon? Four Israeli soldiers were killed yesterday.
16:18Uh and how did Israel retaliate? Over 150 air strikes killing 48 people and wounding 96 according to Lebanese Ministry of Health statistics right now.
16:28That's how they respond.
16:30Pe- people can't take this anymore, but Zionists want more of it. They're pushing Trump for more of it, and they're in full panic mode that they won't have this. It's like they're addicted to killing. It's like they see force and and um bombing apartment buildings as a goal in itself. Even Trump has said, "Netanyahu would get on the phone with me every day and tell me which apartment building to bring down."
16:51And I found this a little bit strange.
16:53So, they stand exposed right now where and and the United States public is responding positively to the rhetoric of J.D. Vance. And just one other point, I think if this war had succeeded, uh obviously we wouldn't be hearing this rhetoric from from Vance. Vance would be completely diminished because he was considered one of the restrainers. And Marco Rubio would be out there celebrating Israel. He'd be joining in with this, you know, festival of Israeli hegemony and demanding more killing.
17:26Let's you know, send the troops into Tehran. I I don't know what they'd be doing right now if this war had somehow succeeded. It was a regime change war.
17:34But it failed.
17:35And it failed because we have to acknowledge this. Like it's not that the United States establishment naturally opposes these these wars. They're just looking at the failure and the economic consequences and saying, "Zionist logic doesn't correspond with ours."
17:51But it it we have to acknowledge why it failed. It failed because of the wisdom of figures like Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam and Ali Hajizadeh who are former IRGC generals who basically designed Iran's strategy.
18:11For years they were preparing for this.
18:14Both are dead.
18:15Uh Moghaddam was killed in 2013 while testing a new ballistic missile and Hajizadeh was killed uh during the 12-day war. I think on the first day he was assassinated. What did they do?
18:27Um Moghaddam designed Iran's ballistic missile program. I got a chance to take a look at it a month before the 12-day war last year at the um Iran's air aerospace expo park outside Tehran and they show the entire evolution of this ballistic missile program which is completely legal under international law. They're allowed to do it. It is essential to Iran's deterrent, but they weren't going to be able to get the parts for a sophisticated aircraft the way Israel does. So this is their substitute for uh an air force and it has worked. It gave them the ability to basically remove US bases from the region. I think
19:07many of the US bases in the Gulf states will not come back. The ballistic missiles also pried the Gulf leadership away from this oil protection racket where they would basically pay to have US bases there to protect their infrastructure. Now they realize there is no protection and they have to have normal relations with their neighbor, Iran.
19:29Uh Hajizadeh designed the Operation True Promise responses to Israeli terrorism and aggression, which ultimately became a response to US-Israeli aggression. And these you could see the progression from True Promise 1 to 3 and 4, how how much more sophisticated the targeting became, um how much um better the coordination between drones and ballistic missiles became, the pacing of the ballistic missiles, how much more uh clever it was, and then the designing of the missile cities.
20:04These were very controversial in Iran, and you had like Iran International and a lot of these um Israeli or Saudi or CIA-backed outlets that are designed to kind of promote regime change in Iran. They would always point to the missile cities as this waste of money um that the IRGC was wasting money that could have been used on the Iranian public or like them giving money to their allies in Hezbollah. The missile cities proved to be um durable and resilient. I mean, there was that one um smaller missile city in Yazd that just kept getting hammered day after day uh by um US and Israeli bombs, and it
20:41kept launching. The launches kept coming. So the missile cities protected the uh firing capacity. And then the investment in the just a cheap Shahed drone program, which was so effective that the US reverse-engineered the Shahed drone into the Lucas drone.
20:56Uh and then finally, um the willingness to the ability um also the the the small fast boats. We kept hearing, "Oh, operational success.
21:05Operational success. The US has uh destroyed Iran's navy, and Trump was being told this lie again and again. Uh the navy's been destroyed. Well, then why were they able to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed?
21:17Because the navy wasn't destroyed. There were naval bases around the Strait of Hormuz that were fortified, kind of like the missile cities, which would allow for launching of drones and these small fast boats. Some more wisdom from the um IRGC, which allowed the Strait of Hormuz to be closed. And we're still at a point where Iran has more cards to lay on the table. Bab el-Mandeb to the Red Sea could still be closed uh by Iran and its allies in Yemen.
21:47So, this is reality, okay? This is the military reality. The US and Israel lost. This isn't the Gulf War anymore, where smart bombs and you know, the the F-15s are going to be able to just uh demolish some worn-out uh post-colonial Arab Ba'athist army that's armed by the Soviet Union. This is a more sophisticated beast you're talking about that has mastered asymmetrical warfare, and there's nothing that can be done about that reality. If US force cannot triumph over that reality, then Zionist logic cannot be imposed, and it will be discredited. So, we have to acknowledge the military reality along with the political one.
22:34>> So, how does the regional reality look like now? Um I made a post a few day a few weeks ago now that for for regional peace to exist, Iran has to recognize Israel's right to exist, and Israel has to stop their foreign policy approach to the to regime change in Iran. Both have to change their approach to one another.
22:53Uh but my question is broader than that.
22:55What about Hezbollah? I don't think I don't like Hezbollah. Um I think we've had a discussion before, yeah. But I think But I've agreed I was born there but I've agreed I I I understand reality. Now now my position is Hezbollah will be there to stay. I think as long as Mojtaba Khamenei wants Hezbollah to remain, it will remain. I don't think a military solution is the right solution. It has to be diplomatic.
23:16But what happens to Hezbollah? What happens in Syria? What happens to the Gulf where there's talks about an alliance between Turkey, Qatar, Saudi, Egypt, Pakistan, and maybe even Iran?
23:27What does the UAE do? The UAE has already improved relations again with Iran. There's been multiple visits. So how does the region look like post this war?
23:35>> We we we you said that Iran has to recognize Israel's right to exist.
23:40And I think that's a that's a key point.
23:42I mean a right to exist is what? Because the Palestine Liberation Organization under Yasser Arafat in 1988 recognized Israel's right to exist. Did you know that?
23:55That That what does that mean?
23:59>> [snorts] >> Right to exist is what?
24:01>> I'll I'll I'll just clarify it very quickly. I I know that's kind of a vague term that people throw around. Tucker did a great job, you know, questioning what that term even means. I think it's I'll rephrase it to Iran has to change their approach to Israel. Stop talking about wiping out the Israeli state. They can disagree with Israeli foreign policy. They can clash when it comes to Palestinian issues, Hezbollah. But I think there has to be improved relations for the sake of Lebanon, for the sake of Syria, for the sake of Yemen.
24:29But then it comes down to the Palestine issue, which I have no idea how we can solve that. So that could be the core issue and without solving that, everything else won't be solved either.
24:38So that's kind of I'm countering my own point.
24:41>> Okay, well this goes to this this this speaks to the point that I've been making throughout this entire conversation.
24:47Um when you know, what is it what does Israel's right to exist mean? And what what does Iran have to accept? I think Iran would accept an Israel that would not be aggressive.
25:00I think Iran would accept an Israel that went along with the Arab peace initiative of 2002 put forward by I think King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
25:13And it was introduced through Thomas Friedman's column at the New York Times, not a particularly radical proposal for a Palestinian state. That's what Saudi Arabia still demands as a condition of normalization. They can't have it.
25:26Nobody can have that.
25:28Palestinians certainly can't have that.
25:31Why not?
25:32Zionist logic.
25:34We have to interrogate Zionism to understand one of the central crises of humanity today, which is that there's this tiny little nation that exists outside the realm of international law, normal international relations, and basic human decency and morality because it is an officially ethno-supremacist state, which must be, in order to maintain its national identity, a so-called Jewish state, although I can't exactly define what Jewish is.
26:05Feels like Mike Huckabee, this Christian evangelical, gets treated like a better Jew than I would by the Israeli interior ministry that might not even let me in. I don't even know if that guy had a bris.
26:17>> [gasps] >> Definitely didn't have a bar mitzvah, but he had a meeting with the Israeli spymaster Jonathan Pollard.
26:24So, what what that means that Israel has to violently demographically engineer this reality by maintaining itself as a borderless colonialist entity that is constantly expanding settlements to establish Lebensraum, and it's moving into Syria into the Golan. It is now established a long-term presence in southern Lebanon, and it does have expansionist intentions there.
26:49It is annexing parts of the West Bank de facto through settler terror and military presence.
26:55And as Netanyahu has boasted that he has taken 60% of the Gaza Strip, which is now just mostly destroyed and is effectively a death camp.
27:08And that he will take more and move to 70%. That corresponds directly with Netanyahu's own expression of Zionist logic in which Israel cannot exist as a Jewish state unless there are 70% Jews and 30% non-Jews, i.e. indigenous Palestinians on any piece of land. And if Palestinians maintain more of their population on that land, then it cannot be part of the Jewish state. That's a mandate for ethnic cleansing and it corresponds directly with what Israel is doing with the yellow line in the Gaza Strip.
27:41So, this is why no one can recognize Israel in the region and why Israel is in this permanent state of war because of its the anachronistic um character of how it defines itself as a state. It cannot be a state of all its citizens or all its people.
28:02And so, that's also why you have Hezbollah.
28:05You think what what what what what?
28:06Hezbollah like they're like this um group of Shia ideologues who exist to just destroy Israel and fight Israel and they just No. No.
28:18Why was Israel in Lebanon in the 1980s?
28:22Why did it invade Lebanon? It was supposedly to push back not Hezbollah, not the Shia population, but the Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO, who were composed of refugees in Lebanon who had been pushed out of what was Palestine from 1948 on. There was a massive wave of refugees in 1967 as well in order to establish the so-called Jewish state.
28:48There wouldn't have been refugees in Lebanon. Lebanon wouldn't be in this crisis had Israel not been established along the guidelines of Zionism and ethno-supremacism. So, Israel goes in, brings its military into Lebanon, and they initially were told that the Shia population would support them and throw candy at them, but they couldn't resist abusing the Shia population in the south and abusing the Lebanese population in general as they quickly marched to Beirut, caused massive war crimes, formed alliances with the most odious elements, the Lebanese Phalange, which carried out the Sabra and Shatila massacre with
29:29Israeli guidance, and so on. So, Hezbollah was created to defend Lebanon's population, and particularly the Shia population of the south, against this force that actually aimed to um of essentially occupy Lebanon either by proxy through the South Lebanon- South Lebanese Army or through the Lebanese Phalange, which are, you know, the Lebanese Forces today remain an ally of Israel, and to uh push that population out.
30:00So, Hezbollah exists to defend Lebanon against this aggressive force.
30:06Hezbollah would not have existed if Israel had not established itself as an exclusively Jewish state. So, that's my point is Hezbollah is there a reflection of the uh toxic effect of Zionist logic on the region, and you say, "Oh, well, you know, what can we do about them? You don't like them."
30:26There's a reality there that a a political reality, Mario, that you have to um re- that you have to recognize, which is that Le- Hezbollah is the largest parliamentary faction in Lebanon, and that this war that Israel's waging is also an excuse for Joseph Aoun and Samir Geagea and all of these corrupt forces that have no clear mandate to rule to actually remove the largest parliamentary faction, their enemy by proxy through Israeli force because they can't do it by politics alone. They can't do it with the consent of the Lebanese public. And in order to do that, what else do they have to do?
31:13Something that is absolutely criminal that is not being sufficiently condemned, which is the ethnic cleansing of the Shia population of Lebanese citizens in the south. They're being ethnically cleansed. It's a war on the Shia community because Hezbollah can't be defeated on the battlefield or at the ballot box.
31:33>> Um the Hezbollah issue is really tricky.
31:36So, I had a great conversation with Yaakov uh earlier today. First time we speak from the Jerusalem Post. And uh the the Yaakov Kats Kats Yeah. And you know, he was actually really good at explaining things cuz I I struggled to understand how Israel could have people like Smotrich Smotrich, Kats, and Ben-Gvir in their government making such statements. And you know, you don't see that in any other country in the civilized world. Uh and just trying to understand really how Israelis see what's happening in Lebanon, what's happening in We didn't talk about Palestine cuz that that's a whole other episode by itself. But mainly focus on
32:08Lebanon and Iran.
32:09And um you know, he started to explain to me the Hezbollah situation.
32:14Hezbollah does act and the reason I'm not a fan of Hezbollah I understand reality. Also, Lebanese government has voted to disarm Hezbollah. I understand the reality. I just There's also a fact that there is no state that could really flourish when it has a state within a state. Now, the counterargument to that is there should be a deterrent for Israeli aggression and the Lebanese military is too weak, which is a very valid point as well. The Lebanese military needs to to to be empowered and needs to be armed.
32:41And then there's the chicken and egg problem. If we disarm Hezbollah, do you really trust Israeli intent, especially when you see them level villages in southern Lebanon?
32:50And the Israelis are like, if we pull out of southern Lebanon and there's a new resolution for Hezbollah to pull out of southern Lebanon as well to to have a buffer zone where the Lebanese could go back home, despite what stupid cuts is saying. The Lebanese people can go back home, but Hezbollah does not return to Israel's border. Israel does see Hezbollah as a threat and rightly so.
33:09And then so what what people in Israel say, "Mari, how do we know this resolution won't be applied?" Cuz last time we trusted it to be applied, Hezbollah did return to the south. So my question to you is, what is the a logical solution to that problem there?
33:22Cuz again, I don't think disarming Hezbollah is a solution in the in the short term. Iran would not allow that to happen. So then what is the what is another option? How do you How do you achieve what the Israelis want for their own security, but what the Lebanese want by getting their land back, and what Iran want, which is keeping Hezbollah?
33:40>> Well, that's a Zionist solution. I mean, it's not a legitimate solution. The legitimate solution is that Israel should be disarmed. The IDF should be disarmed. They're the aggressor in the region.
33:50The United States should suspend weapons to Israel and then begin a process of peace and reconciliation where the ethno-supremacist apartheid system is peacefully dismantled. That's the solution. Why we're just not allowed to talk about it.
34:06You get called an anti-Semite if you talk about it. The solution isn't to ethnically cleanse the Lebanese population and disarm those who are defending themselves against a country that has invaded them again and again and again. And this whole proposal, by the way, was cooked up by the US, by the Pentagon and the CIA, and Saudi Arabia to push Lebanon into civil war once again.
34:31There's just no force internally that can do it. The Lebanese army's basically a neo-colonial joke that was set up by the United States to not defend Lebanon's borders against the main force that's constantly invading it.
34:45The United States. And it looks as if Joseph Aoun has um green green-lit some Israeli assassinations of Lebanese army commanders because they didn't they weren't interested in going to war with fellow Lebanese citizens who happen to be Shia living in the south.
35:01So, I'm not going to go along with some uh you know Zionist solution about uh how we can guarantee the security of an ethno-supremacist state that is illegally occupying 70% of the Gaza Strip, most of the uh the occupied West Bank, the Golan Heights, uh and then is res- is responsible for genocide in which over 20,000 children have been killed since October 7th, which is continuing to push an eight-front war in which the eighth front is the United States, and according to the Defense Intelligence Agency of the Pentagon, Israeli spying on American officials and Americans is now at a critical level. I'm supposed to
35:43be concerned for their security? No, I'm concerned for the security of the 1 million people who have been ethnically cleansed in southern Lebanon who can't come come go back to their homes. These homes are being destroyed. Hezbollah is not going into Israel and blowing up entire villages with D9 operators is getting paid per house that they destroy. That's what Israel's doing. It's doing it in broad daylight. It's It It's proud of the fact that last night it massacred 50 civilians.
36:11It's proud of the triple and quadruple tap strikes it wages on front first line fr- uh respond front um first responders in southern Lebanon because it puts them on the IDF's X account. It's proud of that. Hezbollah's not doing that. They're showing footage of themsel- them hitting Israeli soldiers.
36:28How many Israeli civilians have been killed versus Israeli soldiers? How many Lebanese civilians have been killed?
36:33Close to 4,000.
36:35Since Israel began this assault after violating the ceasefire over a thousand times between November 2024 and March of this year, Hezbollah wasn't violating the ceasefire. Israel was. Israel's violating the ceasefire in Gaza every day. Every day. They don't care about a ceasefire. Their presence in Lebanon is now a violation of the MOU. So, let's talk first about the security of Lebanese people and there won't there won't need to be a Hezbollah or an you know, an IRGC ballistic missile program or Iran having nuclear breakout capacity if you don't have this nuclearized ethno-supremacist state existing along
37:14apartheid lines. So, let's let's start that discussion and let's also just consider what happened to um I mean, let's put yourself in Joseph Aoun's shoes.
37:24As if this guy has some real popular mandate. As if the Lebanese public wants to normalize with Israel. Like pull the Lebanese public on normalization with Israel, including the Sunni public.
37:34They're not down with that.
37:35What happened to Joseph Aoun if he resisted this whole program of uh you know, assaulting and ethnically cleansing the Shia community uh and disarming Hezbollah with some imaginary force?
37:49Uh consider what happened to Saad Hariri in 2017 when Muhammad bin Salman got worried that Hariri didn't want to confront Iran.
37:59He wasn't interested in uh this this confrontation that Aoun is playing out right now. They brought him to Saudi Arabia and they basically tortured him like Suge Knight hung Vanilla Ice over a balcony by his ankles. It was like that.
38:12And they humiliated him on national TV and then sent him back and he they were like, "You're our bitch." So, the idea that Hezbollah is this this Iranian force that doesn't represent anything and is a state within a state, and then the government in Beirut, the authorities, that they're not controlled by some outside force is a complete fantasy. Joseph Aoun's mandate is not to the Lebanese public. It's to Saudi Arabia and the CIA. And same with Najib Salam. That guy doesn't even have a party, the prime minister. Who is he?
38:42He has He has like what constituent base does he have? He was at the ICJ uh basically doing nothing about Israel's genocide charges, and then suddenly he's just shifted into this position as Lebanese PM. He's a He's He's a technocrat.
38:58So, let's let's let's stop operating along you know, I I let's not have to We don't have to view the world through the lens of uh Israeli defense establishment stenographer Yaakov Katz.
39:12Let's look at it through the perspective [snorts] of the people on the front lines of this war of ethnic cleansing, and give them security first.
39:23>> So, I don't disagree with you. So, that's my stance after I saw the villages being leveled in southern Lebanon. I'm like, asking Hezbollah to disarm when Israel's committing what it's committing in southern Lebanon is no longer a logical solution because there's no more deterrent against what seems to be a lot more sinister ambitions on the Israeli side. Leveling villages is not getting rid of Hezbollah. So, that's the argument I was making earlier today.
39:47Um just to to understand your position if if Israel pulls out of south Lebanon and Hezbollah pulls out of south Lebanon and there is a ceasefire, and south Lebanon will have no Hezbollah presence whatsoever. Do you think that's a pragmatic step forward for peace in the region or between those two countries?
40:08>> That's the thing. Israel will not pull out unless there is a massive Hezbollah presence because the apartheid state of Israel only understands force. We have to look at the West Bank as an example.
40:22Uh 2005 to through 2007 Israel was engaged in this process of sort of mopping up the second Intifada, which guaranteed um Palestinians control over the Gaza Strip without settler presence.
40:40Uh and they gained that through force.
40:42And that that was that was how they got the Israeli settlers out of the Gaza Strip.
40:47Hamas did it.
40:49>> [snorts] >> Fatah, they did have the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade participating on some level in uh the second Intifada, and it's much harder for them to uh It was much harder to wage a kind of guerrilla campaign in the West Bank because of the deeply embedded presence of Israeli military bases and settlements, the terrain, etc.
41:07Um but by 2007, there was this sort of Dayton plan, General Keith Dayton counterinsurgency plan.
41:16The final iterations of Palestinian resistance were destroyed in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus by the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority security forces trained by Keith Dayton and DynCorp, this mercenary firm, and you know, Tony Blair was hanging out at the at the um American Colony Hotel milking the so-called peace process. And Mahmoud Abbas comes in and promises some kind of like economic peace with Israel. He gets what what I would call like the golden occupation or the the five-star occupation. He gets Ramallah and area A, these cities in the West Bank where it it feels like you're in the Arab world,
42:01and you don't necess- you don't usually have Israeli soldiers all the time.
42:06Uh but once you get out of there, you're surrounded by, for example, this massive Qalandia a There are settlers, settlements continue to expand. Israel deepens its control over the West Bank, steals all the water in the Jordan Valley, and >> [snorts] >> if Palestinians resist or throw rocks, they are arrested, they are tortured, there's um they are shot if they do anything more, and the Palestinian Authority has to arrest Palestinians during the day, and then the IDF comes at night and does, you know, breaks down indoors and arrests children in their beds in villages like Nabi Saleh uh or Bil'in or Ni'lin, which tried to
42:45attempt an unarmed resistance against the apartheid wall, which cut the West cut deep into the West Bank. This giant wall. It wasn't built along the '67 borders.
42:56That's what So So why am I giving you this whole history that I and telling you, you know, what I've personally witnessed in the West Bank?
43:03That's what will happen to Southern Lebanon if there is no Hezbollah. That's what will happen if Joseph Aoun's plan goes forward or if which is basically the uh Israeli and US plan for Lebanon.
43:17So what That's what will happen with normalization. And that Shia population of Lebanon, which has elected the largest parliamentary block in Lebanon, will start to become homeless, and they will become permanently ethnically cleansed.
43:33And so it's up to this this this this so-called international community, which allowed the Holocaust of our time to just occur in Gaza, it's up to them to try to uh prevent that. And they won't do it. That's why Hezbollah exists.
43:46Someone has to step into the breach and control this monster uh in Tel Aviv. They're So So that's that's my point. Mhm. No Hezbollah, the South Lebanon becomes a de facto the West Bank.
44:02No uh what? No No Assad in Syria, who with his allies in the IRGC and so on. Look at what happened to the Golan in Syria under Jolani aka Al-Shabaab. Israel's just there. They're skiing on Mount Hermon, the highest point in Syria.
44:20>> Yeah.
44:21Now, I'm I'm very critical of Israeli foreign policy in in in Syria and that was the question I asked Katz earlier today, the journalist. And he he agreed.
44:29He said, "Mario, our policy should be to give Syria a chance to pull out of Syria and try to improve relations with Al-Shabaab." So, that was his position.
44:37So, I think we'd all agree that's the right position with Syria. And with Lebanon, I agree with you that that's I I'm just saying the solution There has to be a a pragmatic solution. When you say something like disarming the state of Israel Do you know Actually, I'll ask you the question. One of my guests asked me the question, so I'll ask you the same question. What do you think Uh hold on.
44:57Um FDD CEO asked you that question, Dubowitz.
45:00What do you think would happen to Israel if it is disarmed right now?
45:06>> Well, it depends on how it's done.
45:08I mean, first of all, why why don't we have a global summit on Israel's nuclear program and a national campaign against a nuclear Israel?
45:22Why was there a campaign against a massive campaign against a nuclear Iran?
45:27>> Yeah. I agree.
45:28>> Uh one obviously run by Israel's cutouts in the US like this this guy Jason Brodsky who's just like an Israeli operative posing as like this American guy. Why?
45:40Iran didn't even have a active nuclear program, but we can't talk about Israel's nuclear weapons uh when it's just wh- what what when clearly it's the one that can't be trusted with nuclear weapons. Wh- what Was anyone fearing over the last several months that Iran was going to deploy, for example, a tactical tactical nuclear weapon or had done so? No, the fear >> No, everyone everyone yeah. Everyone I asked on my show exactly everyone in my show, the the I would ask them that question throughout the war. The most common answer, the the people that were worried, they were worried about Israel um deploying a new kind of Iran. But,
46:11that's also because Iran did not have a nuke, so let's just be fair here.
46:14>> So, it's not my job in my position, it never has been. I defined my job for myself, um which was to put forward ideas that I thought were um logical and sane and moral and ethical um that that might not uh align with the current consensus, which accepts genocide, which accepts occupation, which accepts permanent war and profits from it, and accepts insider trading on war.
46:44I'm I'm putting forward a different idea that might you know, infuriate Zionists right now and seem insane, but it's the same idea that led to the dismantlement of South African apartheid, which I mean, I had some serious problems about how that was done, including by the African National Congress, but it led to that.
47:05The These are the same ideas that influenced the dismantlement of the English occupation, the British occupation of Northern Ireland.
47:15Um and a a kind of cold peace in Northern Ireland.
47:22And we have to put forward these ideas because this is the only way out of this crisis, which is one of the central crises afflicting humanity, and not operate along the cold, dead, zombified uh logic, I would say poisonous, toxic, cancerous logic of Zionism, which is put forward by pretty much everyone aligned with Israel. And you know, I've been putting forward this con- these concepts ever since I started speaking out about this issue in like 2009. It got me run out of a lot of jobs in journalism and you know, led to me to kind of go independent with the Gray Zone and obviously these ideas are
48:07falling on fertile soil because we're pretty popular at the Gray Zone in a lot of those places that ran me out like the Nation magazine for example. I mean, who even reads that anymore?
48:18>> I've never heard of it. But just I I want to ask you but isn't there other solutions other away from the extreme?
48:22The status quo is unacceptable. Things in the region the way Israel conducts its foreign policy I'm I'm staunchly against. The other extreme of disarming Israel I find it also to be just not practical. Wouldn't there be a middle ground where for example, the US as we're seeing right now hopefully action follows. The US and the international community genuinely start to pressure Israel cuz when you when you remove that kind of bubble of impunity that we've offered Israel then Israel has to find a different solution to Iran, to Hezbollah, to Syria rather than try to deal with everything through military
48:56force.
48:57>> Well, Israel's not going to disarm. Uh look at Itamar Ben-Gvir, the security minister who said we have to kill thousands of Lebanese mothers for every Israeli soldier killed. That's the linchpin of Netanyahu's coalition and he's going to be in New York. He's going to be in New York on July 7th for United Nations conference uh called I think like investing in peace or enforcing peace and it's a conference of police chiefs.
49:24>> Ben-Gvir.
49:26>> Ben-Gvir will and you know, he needs to be held accountable for that he's personally responsible for the torture and murder and rape of thousands of Palestinian prisoners. He recently put himself on video torturing and abusing humanitarian flotilla activists who are the heroes of our time.
49:46Uh he's proud of torture. He's a torture fetishist and he is the Nazi of the 21st century and he's coming to New York.
49:53Um he but he he represents the end. He's he's sort of the I He's like the soul of the Israeli government right now. He's like their true spokesman. And his party, Otzma Yehudit, they're gaining a lot of popularity among Jewish Israeli youth. So, yeah, they're not going to give up their weapons. They're not going to end the genocide in Gaza if we keep giving them tons of aid. I think there's a nice way to go about it where the United States we start electing leadership that will just end all aid to Israel until they start to act like human beings instead of barbarian child killers and torture fetishists and uh
50:32you know rapist by canine proxy.
50:36But, you know, there's a there's a nice way to do that and and and we should support those kinds of leaders, and we should not vote for those who propose giving one penny, even though I guess the Fed the the Treasury isn't printing pennies anymore. So, one nickel to Israel.
50:51Um and you know, when we we talk about responsibility to protect this doctrine that the United States used, for example, to destroy Yugoslavia.
51:00Um it was a it was enacted to bomb Syria, including on the basis of obvious deceptions like the one in Duma.
51:09We always hear about it. It's it's just basically a ruse to attack countries that are official enemies.
51:14We have a responsibility to protect the Palestinians with military force if Israel continues with this genocidal policy in which they've now established cranes and towers to fire into the tents of people whose homes were bombed in the Gaza Strip. Uh a journalist from Gaza just sent me um some photos and video of a tournament he just filmed. Uh his name is Mohammed El Saife. Great journalist on the ground of uh girl amputees, 12-year-old girls who are amputees who are um having a sports tournament of amputees. That's the reality that it these people live in. They are the Holocaust victims of our time and we
51:52have a responsibility to protect them and we need you know, we need to support candidates in the United States who uh also would be willing to use the US military to protect that population.
52:06Uh that's something that might seem absurd, but there was actually uh proposal similar to that put forward by the Colombian president Gustavo Petro at the UN last year to intervene on behalf of the genocide victims.
52:21In Gaza, there was just no force willing to do it, but that doesn't mean we can't we can't change the politics here and actually elect candidates that are willing to do that if Israel refuses to disarm its Holocaust regime.
52:36It might not be now, but people might look at this interview in 50 years and say, well, yeah, he called it.
52:44>> Um the last thing I want to ask you and and I wanted to ask you this early on.
52:48Glad I didn't forget. There is something that um So, Tucker meant in the last week alone, Tucker mentioned it to me, Marjorie Taylor Green and Joe Kent all talked about or mentioned they were concerned about um the president possibly being under duress.
53:05And they all linked it to you know, asked them the question, especially Marjorie, uh when she started seeing that shift and they all pointed to Butler, the assassination attempt. I've never asked you that question. I've never heard you talk about it. Do you think there could be any truth to it that the the could be the president could feel threatened whether himself, his family, whether it it it to his life um or something less sinister, maybe legal threats, um economic threats, or just political threats. Is that a possibility on what's guiding his decisions cuz the Iran war just such a stupid war. You were talking earlier how
53:43the Strait of Hormuz the Iranians succeeded in with the Strait of Hormuz with their missile underground missile facilities. But everyone knew that.
53:50Everyone knew about their their missile facilities deep underground. With the US intelligence, I'm sure they knew how deep it was. Everyone knew Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz. They could easily strike Gulf infrastructure. So it's not you didn't need to be an intelligence analyst to come to these conclusions. So then the question it begs the question why the hell did Trump do this? That's why I've been giving that that theory a lot more thought recently.
54:14>> Well, I I have talked about this a lot and I've written about it a lot. And if anyone's interested uh The Gray Zone under my byline we put I published a investigation called how Israel and the FBI manipulated assassination plots to go to Trump into Iran war.
54:33And this was published on March 6th. So anyone can look it up. Um >> Can you Can you Can you retweet if there's a tweet about it and I'll retweet it as well so people could easily spot it?
54:43>> Yeah, I'll just send it to you in the chat. Um >> On WhatsApp. Yeah, send it to me on WhatsApp if you can. And I'll just retweet it for the audience.
54:50>> All right. Uh I'm just looking you up real quick. All right, here it is. So um Yeah, I mean this was an investigation I did into the case of someone named Asif Merchant.
55:02And there were several other cases, but basically into all of these um supposed terrorism cases which were spun as Iranian assassination attempts against Donald Trump directed by the IRGC. And remember on February 28th, 2026 when Donald Trump launched operation {quote} {unquote} Epic Fury he and and assassinated uh Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he said, "I got him before he got me."
55:35That was I mean Trump was like in really excited about this. It's because he was told by the Israelis that um he you know, the the the Israelis did this. And then and then and Hegseth went out and said, "We also killed an IRGC operative who had directed several attempts at against Donald Trump."
55:56And what was that based on? What was that comment based on? It was based on several plots that never would have reached their conclusion, which were never serious, which were always being monitored by FBI undercover operatives, informants, uh in many ways guided by the FBI.
56:18And and prior to that, which were being directed by Israeli intelligence, uh specifically this plot of this Pakistani national named Asif Merchant, um who was just sentenced or who was just convicted of a very nebulous assassination plot, um which Trump was told were Iranian plots against him.
56:42And it got to the point where during Donald Trump's campaign for president, he was flying on a ghost plane to campaign stops, and he basically send his his staff on Trump Force One, and he was riding on Steve Witcoff's private jet because he was told, completely falsely, based on the shadiest information that IRGC operatives were in the United States and were planning to take Donald Trump out with uh anti-aircraft weapons.
57:11This was This was fake. It It was basically fake, and Trump was being manipulated. But, there were real plots.
57:18I mean, there were real assassination attempts on Donald Trump.
57:22Um more real than the than attempts on any president since Ronald Reagan, since John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan. And these are weird attempts, Like, Butler it was weird. Everybody just can feel that it was unusual that this um unknown man who had we were initially told had um no, you know, online footprint, Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to scale a roof after testing a drone at the Butler Fairgrounds, and then fire several shots uh before a heroic local cop shot him as the Secret Service basically froze.
58:01Um and then no one was I don't I don't There weren't like immediate firings at the Secret Service, and he nicked Trump's ear, according to the official account.
58:09Uh there was the Ryan Routt, you know, he was able to get close to Mar-a-Lago with a rifle.
58:14Um this guy who has this shady background of training American and foreign volunteers for the uh International Battalion in Ukraine.
58:23And then uh the assassination of Charlie Kirk clearly shook Donald Trump.
58:28But with the Butler plot, there's no clear evidence pointing to Iran um at all.
58:36But that didn't bother Mike Waltz.
58:39Mike Waltz was at the time a member of Congress, was very pro-Trump, was in sort of, you know, Trump's bullpen in Congress, and was someone whose career had been cultivated by the Israel lobby. He's one of the largest recipients in the House of Representatives of AIPAC money.
58:56Uh AIPAC, you know, helped recruit him.
58:59And you know, after he after Congress, he went into the Trump administration. He was initially NSC director until Signal Gate on Yemen. Now he's the UN ambassador. But he was on the committee to investigate Butler, and he kept trying to guide the committee into this weird rabbit hole in which Butler was actually an Iranian plot.
59:22It's so strange. Now, what if Butler had succeeded?
59:26And Trump had actually um been assassinated on that day, and Mike Waltz was pushing this Iran narrative, and who was who was standing in next in line in the Republican Party? It was Nikki Haley, who was one of the biggest Iran hawks and neo-con fanatics in the Republican Party today.
59:49Um and she would have potentially filled Donald Trump's shoes as the nominee and launched a war on Iran right then, blaming Iran for killing Donald Trump. I mean, that was a possibility.
60:00Uh there's a great book right now by Ken Silva.
60:04>> He was on my I was I was chatting to him a few days ago. He knows so much about the damn assassination. He knows the weather, the temperature at the time.
60:12Um but yeah, he's got an incredible book.
60:14>> He's he's the expert and he's also not like a conspiracy theorist. He's a conspiracy analyst or he believe he only deals with conspiracy facts. So, he's actually poured cold water on some of the sillier assassination conspiracy theories. A very serious reporter and analyst.
60:31And you know, I consulted him on my investigation.
60:35Um but the overall point I'm making is that when that there's there's clear evidence, there's a clear record of uh Trump being placed under duress through um real assassination plots where they've been spun into an imaginary a Iranian plot to us um or um and more of dubious Iranian plan to avenge the death of Qassem Soleimani by killing Donald Trump. And Trump believed that up until February 28th.
61:11Um I don't know what he believes now or if he believes that Israel will seek to eliminate him, but I do know from several sources who've talked to Donald Trump and been around him that he's not fond of Netanyahu and that he's very wary of Netanyahu and that he feels a deep sense of unease um and is aware of the ability of these Israel-directed forces to harm him. But when I say harm him, I mean it's more like they he he Political fear that they could harm him politically or Miriam Adelson could pull the plug on Trump's financial feeding tube. There are many areas of leverage that that they have uh short of actually
61:51physically harming Trump.
61:56>> No, her publication Israel Hayom put out a piece calling him I think they called Trump a traitor today.
62:01Um and in an article in an op-ed >> Uh yeah, I mean and and assassinations in their wheelhouse. I mean that's they have a entire division of the Mossad dedicated to assassination and that's why I think many people believe that Charlie Kirk was assassinated by Israel even though I found no evidence of that and >> Yeah, I'm not denying >> I deny it twice. I was reading another piece in the Jerusalem Post in which they sort of imagined Joseph Aoun, the president of Lebanon being assassinated by Hezbollah, but uh you know, and then that would that would sort of they said if that happens, then the US will have to go back to war with
62:38Iran. So, you know, that would make me get conspiratorial a little bit.
62:44>> Yeah, exactly, exactly. I wouldn't expect Israel to kill Joseph Aoun or the Americans and by the way, I support what Israel do.
62:50Um but always skeptical, but I support it. But anyway, yeah, if if when I see a story like this, I I I I don't disagree with your skepticism.
63:00Um Max welcome back. Don't leave us for too long again. It's good to chat to you again. Give us your overview on things.
63:07Love the analysis and I'd love to do this again soon. I appreciate your time.
63:11>> Thanks a lot, Mario.
63:12>> Thanks, Max.
63:14All right, guys. I'll be going live again in a few seconds with Brendan Wykert, and then we have Trita Parsi right after. We have an incredible lineup today.
63:22Let me see who else we have. Trita Parsi, Brendan Wykert, Glenn Diesen, Alex Jones, Malcolm Nance, Larry Johnson, and Jack Farley. So, they're all scheduled for today. And the last two interviews you should check out. Professor Izadi from Iran, and Yakub Qureshi from the Jerusalem Post.
63:39Both great discussions that I really enjoyed.
63:41So, we've got a lot of interviews left for the day. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. It's going to be a long day and an incredible lineup. I hope you enjoyed the conversation with Max Blumenthal as much as I did. He's been covering this longer than most that I most people I speak to.
63:56So, he's he's always a good person to listen to. I'll see you guys in a couple of minutes with Brendan Wykert. Bye.
Read the essay version →