Lex Fridman Podcast
#418 – Israel-Palestine Debate: Finkelstein, Destiny, M. Rabbani & Benny Morris
Thu, 14 Mar 2024
Norman Finkelstein and Benny Morris are historians. Mouin Rabbani is a Middle East analyst. Steven Bonnell (aka Destiny) is a political livestreamer. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/lexpod to get 3 months free - Babbel: https://babbel.com/lexpod and use code Lexpod to get 55% off - Policygenius: https://policygenius.com/lex - Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/lex to get special savings Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/israel-palestine-debate-transcript EPISODE LINKS: Mouin's X: https://x.com/MouinRabbani Mouin's Podcast: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLkT5TSHWFSYKY_6vrNn_vZAmfunA_s9g - Benny's Books: https://amzn.to/3Vf7NNU - Norman's X: https://x.com/normfinkelstein Norman's Website: https://www.normanfinkelstein.com/ Norman's Books: https://amzn.to/3IqouxU Knowing Too Much (excerpt): https://jumpshare.com/v/8EUbbP40Do44ITDfJUoR - Destiny's YouTube: https://youtube.com/destiny Destiny's X: https://x.com/TheOmniLiberal Destiny's Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Destiny/ Destiny's Website: https://destiny.gg - Norman and Mouin provided additional links to supplement the discussion. See them here: https://sites.google.com/view/israel-palestine-debate/home PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Check out the sponsors above, it's the best way to support this podcast - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here's the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) - Introduction (12:11) - 1948 (1:10:43) - Partition (2:15:16) - October 7 (3:09:27) - Gaza (3:36:02) - Peace (4:40:47) - Hope for the future
Full Episode
The following is a debate on the topic of Israel and Palestine with Norman Finkelstein, Benny Morris, Muin Rabbani, and Stephen Bunnell, also known online as Destiny. Norm and Benny are historians, Muin is a Middle East analyst, and Steven is a political commentator and streamer. All four have spoken and debated extensively on this topic.
The goal for this debate was not for anyone to win or to score points. It wasn't to get views or likes. I never care about those. And I think there are probably much easier ways to get those things if I did care. The goal was to explore together the history, present, and future of Israel and Palestine in a free-flowing conversation, no time limits, no rules.
There was a lot of tension in the room from the very beginning, and it only got more intense as we went along. And I quickly realized that this very conversation, in a very real human way, was a microcosm of the tensions and distance and perspectives on the topic of Israel and Palestine. For some debates, I will step in and moderate strictly to prevent emotion from boiling.
For this, I saw the value in not interfering with the passion of the exchanges, because that emotion in itself spoke volumes. We did talk about the history and the future, but the anger, the frustration, the biting wit, and at times, respect and camaraderie were all there. Like I said, we did it in an perhaps all too human way.
I will do more debates and conversations on these difficult topics, and I will continue to search for hope in the midst of death and destruction, to search for our common humanity in the midst of division and hate. This thing we have going on, human civilization, the whole of it, is beautiful. And it's worth figuring out how we can help it flourish together. I love you all.
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And now onto the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. I use them to protect my privacy on the internet. I've used them for many years.
I've had great conversations with several people on the podcast about the NSA and the overreach and power that's there. And it's really interesting to think about the value of privacy, the value of digital privacy in our lives, how much we take for granted How much we look the other way when the product or whatever we're using is good enough and we become the product. Our data becomes the product.
It's really interesting. I think transparency there is required because While it is true all of us value privacy, we're very hypocritical on that point in many cases. We distrust certain things that don't violate privacy that much, and we trust blindly other things that violate a huge number of privacy, or at least have the capacity to. A lot of us use a smartphone with a camera looking at us.
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