Lex Fridman Podcast
#424 – Bassem Youssef: Israel-Palestine, Gaza, Hamas, Middle East, Satire & Fame
Fri, 05 Apr 2024
Bassem Youssef is an Egyptian-American comedian & satirist, referred to as the Jon Stewart of the Arab World. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - AG1: https://drinkag1.com/lex to get 1 month supply of fish oil - Shopify: https://shopify.com/lex to get $1 per month trial - Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/lex to get special savings - LMNT: https://drinkLMNT.com/lex to get free sample pack Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/bassem-youssef-transcript EPISODE LINKS: Bassem's X: https://x.com/Byoussef Bassem's Instagram: https://instagram.com/bassem Bassem's Facebook: https://facebook.com/bassemyousseftv Bassem's Website: https://bassemyoussef.xyz 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 (06:30) - Oct 7 (36:59) - Two-state solution (52:37) - Holocaust (1:00:24) - 1948 (1:09:17) - Egypt (1:23:39) - Jon Stewart (1:25:51) - Going viral during the Arab Spring (1:49:55) - Arabic vs English (2:02:18) - Sam Harris and Jihad (2:07:25) - Religion (2:26:37) - TikTok (2:31:10) - Joe Rogan (2:33:07) - Joe Biden (2:37:33) - Putin (2:39:21) - War (2:44:17) - Hope
The following is a conversation with Bassem Youssef, a legendary Egyptian-American comedian, the so-called Jon Stewart of the Middle East, who fearlessly satirized those in power, even when his job and life were on the line. Bassem is a beautiful human being. It was truly a pleasure for me to get to know him and to have this fun, fascinating, and challenging conversation.
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And now, dear friends, here's Basim Youssef. Your wife is half Palestinian, and I've heard you say that you've been trying to kill her, but she keeps using the kids as human shields. So have you considered negotiating a ceasefire?
Well, the thing is, every day, every minute of the day in a married life is a negotiation. Everything can blow up into a full-scale war, starting from a simple sentence like, good morning, what should we do with the kids today? What should we do with that piece of furniture? Any sentence can lead you to heaven or to hell at the same time. So you do negotiate with terrorists. Oh yeah, yeah, 100%.
You must. Yeah, and for her, I am her terrorist too, so it's equal. Terrorists on both sides. On a more serious note, when you found out about the attacks of October 7th, what went through your mind?
If I'm allowed to use a curse word, I was like... As many as possible. I was like, oh shit. Part of my stand-up comedy is I describe a situation where I was in a restaurant with producers and there was a bombing two blocks away in Chelsea, New York in 2016. And of course, this is the like, damn, what's gonna happen to us now? And there's like two different reactions.
There's the white reaction, which is like, oh my God, I hope nobody is hurt. This is terrible. I hope everybody's okay. And there's the Arab reaction. What's his name? What is his name? What is the name? Because you know what's gonna come. I was scared what's gonna really happen in that area. And it's like, oh my God, it's gonna be horrible. And the way that it was reported,
I didn't know how to handle this. So I basically, I went into hiding for a few days, three, four days. And I talked about Piers Morgan team talking to me two times, three times. I was like, no, I can't, how can I, you defend that? How can you defend the rape, the decapitated babies and whatever? And then I started kind of looking in the news a little bit.
And then I started seeing people coming on the shows and saying things that I know as an Arab, as a Muslim, as someone from that region, that it's not true. But I didn't know what to say, how to say it. So I said, by the third time when they asked me, I said, like, fine, put me on. And I went there. It was more of a, figuratively speaking, a suicide mission. Because it's a lose-lose situation.
I can lose stuff in Hollywood. I can, I even, I remember my managers like, Bessim, be careful. I mean, are you sure you want to do it? My managers was like, please don't do it. Please don't do it. And on the other side, if I don't perform well, whatever well means, I'm gonna be rejected by my own people.
So it was a lose-lose situation, because whatever I say, it will never be enough, and whatever I say will not be good enough. And I was going into there, and I felt that I was going into a trance for the 33 minutes that I was on that interview for the first time. You blacked out. I blacked out. I blacked out. And a lot of people ask me, is the earpiece, was that a bit...
when the earpiece kept falling it's like no it was really falling off and it disconnected and i had to save it because i cannot see them all i can hear i can just hear them and i could expect it at any time okay by some thank you i was like i i was fighting for every second to say words to put stuff in there yeah for people who don't know this is your conversation interview with pierce morgan
And you couldn't see. I couldn't see. I was just like the lens of the camera. Just like a surreal dream or nightmare. Yeah. Hello, Wassim. I was like, hello, Wassim. I was like, hi. And it could end at any moment. Your career and everything. Everything. Yeah. Yeah. So what was the drive that got you to actually do it, to overcome that fear? Multiple things.
First of all, I don't want to say it's just my wife's family because my wife's family has always been there. But this time was different. The bombing, the attack, they're usually one of those people that they're away of everything. Whatever happened in Gaza, they are always in safe places. But this time, it seems that there was no place safe. And already we heard about like two or three of the...
Of the cousins and the uncles already lost their homes. So this was too much. So I wanted to say something for those people. Because I know that, you know, I made one of the jokes that I made about like, oh, you know, it's Hassan, her cousin. He's a loser. He's a doctor. He's a doctor. And every time a hospital was bombed, we were worried about him.
So I wanted to say that because I felt that this is a family that I have never seen in my life. She actually hardly saw an uncle or two because, you know, they cannot live. But I said, like, I need to speak. At least I do something for those extended family that I have never known. But also because...
When Piers Morgan team called me a couple of times, said, okay, let's see what's going on in the show. And I just watched the stuff and the lies and the one-sided reporting that made my blood boil. And then I thought like, what am I afraid of? I'm afraid of, if I say something, I can lose my career. It's like, wait a minute. But that was the reason why I left Egypt. I said, wait, I left Egypt.
I came to United States.
I came to the land of the free where I can say anything I want. And yet I have limitation of what to say. I mean, I thought we left that shit behind. I mean, what's happening?
And I understand. I understand the connection of like how sensitive it is when you speak about Israel and all of the ready-made accusations. But as an Arab, as a Muslim, I don't react the same when you talk about Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or Egypt, or any of them. It's like, hey, you wanna diss some of these countries?
I'll do that with you, because I have strong opinions about what happened, and I already been expressing them. But when I talk, and that's why I speak, and there's a lot of Jewish people who come to my show, and they understand that. They understand that the separation,
But that kind of a grouping of blackmailing people and saying and not saying what they have in their mind, it is that kind of like one of the things that kind of like push me to go on the show.
The thing that was bothering you, was it what was being said or how it was being said?
Both. Because there are lies, which is usually in the media, but there was the total disregard of humanity. You talk a lot in your show about human suffering. And I felt that here the human suffering was not equal. I felt that's why I came up with this, like, what's the exchange rate today?
What's the exchange rate today?
Of course, it's terrible to see anybody die, but I feel that like, isn't our life not worth anything?
Yeah, you had a chart akin to crypto. Yeah. You analyzed it from an investing perspective, of course, in the dark. It's the ROI on that. ROI. And you were saying that a certain year was a good year. Yeah, 2014. 2014 was a good year for investment purposes. And also to refer to the family member that you called the loser, you were saying that –
You called him, had a conversation with him, and he keeps saying that he's not using anybody for human shields, and then you called him a loser. You can't even give a job.
The liar.
He lied to us because I have to believe. This is the one thing. It's also one of the things like how it was said. It was stuff that I've been hearing. I don't know what turned on in my head, but it's stuff that I've been hearing all my life from the media. Israel warns civilians before bombing them, and that's okay, but that's not okay.
Israel is trying to minimize the civilians, but killing them anyway, and that's okay, but that's not okay. So it is kind of like the indoctrination that we've been hearing as if it is okay, and then suddenly it's not.
Yeah, there's a kind of several layers of bullshit, almost sometimes hiding the obvious horror of the situation with kind of politeness and all this kind of stuff, just the basic value of human life. That said, it's a difficult situation.
It is.
It is. What would you do if you were Israel? Bibi called you. Awesome. Big fan. Big fan of your comedy. First of all, would you hang up right away? Would you hear him out?
Oh, I would definitely hear him out. That was like, wait a minute. That's material. That's material. That's material, man. I was like, so Netanyahu called me. I was sitting with my family. I have my phone ready. Like, oh, Netanyahu.
Yeah, it just shows up that way. I mean, what would you do? What would you do in this situation?
To answer this question, we need to understand how Israel thinks. There is an incredible speech given by Gideon Levy, the famous Israeli reporter in Haertz. And he describes a situation where he was in the West Bank and there was a checkpoint. And in that checkpoint, there was an ambulance with a Palestinian patient. And it was there sitting for an hour and a half, not moving.
And then he went to talk to the soldiers, like, guys, why are you not letting them go? It's like, ah, let them go. And then he told them, imagine if he was your father. And the soldiers stood up. It's like, what? These are pigs. These are not humans.
So when you tell me what would you do if Israel would do, it really needs to, we need to ask how does Israel look at the Palestinian and view the Palestinians because they do look at them less than human. And there is an incredible talk by Mehor Meyer.
He was a Holocaust survivor and he said, I learned in Auschwitz when I was there in the concentration camp that in order for a group, a dominant group of people to dehumanize another group, they need first to dehumanize themselves. And Israel looks at Palestinians as lesser people, as lesser beings, as some people who are dispensable.
And the way that they treat them is that they don't really care about like, that's why the exchange rate thing. So for me, if I am Israel, it will be like, what would you do if you're the United States in the time of the Native Americans? They were killing people with the millions. When you dehumanize a group of people, you really don't care.
So if I was Israel, I would do exactly what Israel is doing right now because there's no one is holding me accountable. There's no one stopping me. And I can get whatever I want throughout my history through violence.
i think a lot of the things you just said are a tiny bit slightly exaggerated so let me let me try let's please let's try so not everybody in israel so let's let's look at um several groups so people in government idf soldiers and citizens that are neither of those And not everybody of any of those sees Palestinians as less than human, just some percentage.
So what percentage is that in your sense? It's the people who have the power. So it's mostly the focus of your commentary. When you say people in Israel, you really mean the people in power.
The people having power. But as much as like, of course, I mean the people in power, because when I speak about, even when I speak about America, I speak about people in power. When I speak about Egypt, I speak the people in power, because like, you can't really talk about the 100 million people in Egypt. Or the 11 million people in Israel.
Of course, there are people who go in and they demonstrate against Netanyahu and they want him out of the government. But we have to admit that the Israeli society as a whole have moved quite a bit to the right and has been many extremes. And you know what happens when you go to the right Or you go to the most extreme, the other person go to the most extreme. And extremism breeds extremism.
So thank you for the clarification, but I really meant with the people of power. When people criticize the United States for going in Iraq, of course I'm not criticizing citizens.
But you made another point, which is an interesting point, and it's very difficult to see in the heart of people. But I wonder if you look at the average Palestinian and the average Israeli, and when they look at the other, do they have some hate in their heart? Well, everybody probably has some. What is that amount?
You know, when you look at a person that looks different than you, how much hate is there?
It depends on what is the living situation of each person. So in the Berlin Film Festival, A couple of weeks ago, there was an Israeli and a Palestinian receiving an award together. And the Israeli director said, we're going to go back to Israel. He's going to go to the West Bank. He will have no rights, and I will have full living rights.
These people managed to work together and be friends, and they have empathy to each other. Now, the average... Palestinian? It's a very difficult question, because is it the Palestinian in the diaspora, or the Palestinian in Gaza, or the diaspora in the West Bank, or the one in the citizen, as a citizen of Israel, who still have less right than a Roman citizen of Israel, a Jew.
And it really depends if I am, there are people in Arabs in Israel who are having a great life. And there are people, Arabs, who are having a miserable life. But definitely people that are living in Gaza or in the West Bank, it's kind of like on the lower tier of their living conditions. Now let's talk about the hate. What does that Palestinian see from the Israeli?
The Palestinians see oppression, limitation of movement, limitation of freedom. And then when something happens, you see the full force coming in, destroying their home, taking away members of his family. There will be absolutely no reason for him to love the other.
The Israeli, because he doesn't have the power, but he lives under his government, all he sees is the rockets or whatever, but he sees the reaction, and he doesn't see what happened to those. And as humans, we are selfish. We see what really affects us as humans.
And I cannot even imagine what it would be like to live as a Palestinian, and I'm not even talking about Gaza, because everybody talks about Gaza. But let me give you an example. And I'm not going to talk about the 12,000 kids killed in Gaza. Let's talk about just like the four weeks in the West Bank. March 4th.
Amr Najjar, age 10, sitting next to his father, shot while he's sitting in a car next to his father by the IDF soldiers. Mohammed Ziad, 13 years old, March 3rd, shot in front of a UN school while sitting with his friends. Mohammed Ghanim, age 15, March 2nd, he shot while standing in front of a storefront during a night raid. February 23rd, Saeed Jardal, he was killed by a drone fire.
February 22nd, Fadi Suleiman, killed while standing in front of the top of a Red Cross building. Nihal Ziyad, February 14th, Valentine's Day, killed a shot in the head while leaving school. February 11th, Mohamed Khattour, U.S. citizens, killed while being in a parked car. And Muaz Shams, February 9th,
Killed right in front of his home because a military car came reversing back to him and then somebody opened the door, shot him and leave.
This is the daily life of people in the West Bank.
What is the justification that IDF provides? Terrorism.
Or, I don't know, I mean, you cannot really say, like, human shields. But they would say, like, they were throwing rocks. There was a guy who went on Chris Rock, and he said, like, his son, a U.S. citizen, was killed, and they were throwing rocks. So we killed him. Even when they were throwing rocks, you kill him? But the thing is, you see, this is how easy for them to get rid of Palestinians.
I mean, I love, like, I was, I had to say I prepared a little bit for the podcast because you are in tech. So, and I am ignorant in tech. There is a movie called The Lab. It is directed by an Israeli director called Yotam Feldman. And he talks about how The military industry in Israel is very advanced.
And what is really mind boggling is in that movie, he shows how the military tests its weapons in the field in urban areas from Palestinians. It is heartbreaking. As a doctor, there's five stages of trials. There is discovery, preclinical, clinical, and then market and then post-market evaluation by the FDA. The FDA approval and then the FDA post-market.
Five, just to take a pill.
And you go in and he interviews people and says, where did you test this? They test it in the field. So when you just like, when human life is so cheap and it is so indispensable, it made me, it gave me a visceral reaction. Because you know, we as human, this has been actually the state of humanity. Humanity have lived and survived and thrived by actually killing each other.
But there was kind of a, we were removed from it. People in Greece didn't know what Alexander the Great was doing. He was killing and pillaging, we called him the Great, but he was killing. He was conquering, he was invading. Julius Caesar, all of the greats, he was doing, but killing was difficult. Killing had to have some sort. You have to be with your enemy.
Then you go back, catapults, then cannons, then a little bit back. And then you're kind of like standing remotely. Now you're killing people behind the screen with a button, with a push of a button. A lot of people say terrorism, they killed you with a knife. Killed one person with a knife, shot you, that's terrorism.
But if you fly a $64 million F-16 and you drop up an A-84 bomb that costs $16,000, that's not terrorism because it's remote. You're behind the screen. So what happened? What Israel is doing? It is removing itself. Like America too, drones. And then when you push someone to be in, they always brag about bombing them to the Stone Ages.
What happens when the screens and all of the obstacles that you have been put between you and those people that you have treated them this way, when this is a breach and you come face to face, you will come face to face with what you have created.
Yeah, there's a lot of interesting things you just said. So one is the methodology of killing. If you want to look at some horrific, large-scale killing, people often talk about the Holocaust. But that's visceral. You can look at Hall and Moore by Stalin, where the murder is through starvation. By Churchill in India. Churchill in India. And the great leap forward by Mao. Yep.
So starvation is a thing we don't often think of it as murder because it's quiet, it's slow, and the interesting thing about starvation is that the people don't complain as they're dying because they're exhausted. That's one, and the other is the value of human life it does seem that every culture has a unequal valuation of human life.
So those two things combined create a complicated military landscape of the world.
Yes, but the thing is, is that how we would look at technology as the savior, as we talk about how AI will disrupt, will disrupt, will disrupt, will disrupt,
And now if you go, you talk about like going to the West Bank, the people in the West Bank walk and they don't see humans. They see people shouting them from towers or behind the screens or doing, and they have like biometrics that is developed by Basel system, like that's done by HP or Google and Amazon who are like part of Project Nimbus. And you see Indivision,
developing all of this like metric and surveillance and all of that stuff. And then you have like something like the gospel that like people have actually said that the gospel can actually create a target list using AI and give you a green, yellow or a red to go ahead. And now AI is not just disrupting the market, it's disrupting our humanity.
And it is, we became so comfortable killing people from afar, killing people with a push of the button. And now it is, it is like, it's like dating apps, you know, when you, when you swipe left and right, and it's like, oh, right, it becomes so like cheap. It's not like meeting someone. It's like a lot of fish in the sea. Same with AI. Boom. 500 people killed. Boom. They killed. It's so easy.
It's so easy. It's so easy. And then it's so far removed from you. So when you put these people in this condition, you have literally put them in a different universe than yours. You are behind in your air-conditioned screens, like pushing them, blowing up a university. It's amazing. But then you meet what you have done, that you meet the Frankenstein that you have created.
And then people are like, oh, look what they did to us.
You just gave me this image of a dating app from hell, where leaders are just sitting there and kind of swiping left and right. Invade, destroy.
It's boring. Like a puppet government. Yeah.
And then turn off the phone, go to sleep. So I got, you know, I traveled to the West Bank and I mentioned to you offline that I really loved the people there. Just, you know, I've met a bunch of people like that in Eastern Europe where I grew up. Yeah, like the flamboyant, the big personalities, all of that. I also met a person who's in charge of a refugee camp who was shopping IDF soldier.
And I'm not sure the words he said are important as the consequences of the thing that you mentioned, which is the deep hate in his eyes. That didn't feel repairable at all. It was pain. It was like a foundation of pain, and on top of that, a hatred. And I was like, wow, this is what... You kill one person, that's the way you create.
Because we have kind of like a front row seat to what's happening. We think we're in it, but we can't really grasp it. I mean, people's like, oh, we're just gonna go in, get Hamas out, and we're gonna get them back in. And also when the people get back in, how do you think they would look at you? What have you created? What have you done? My show in Egypt was all about propaganda.
It's all about the use of words. Words are very important. The decapitated babies were not chosen randomly. Because you see, it plants a certain image in your brain. Imagine if you're going in, what a baby can do? It can smile, cry, and poop. That's it. It's absolutely no threat.
So when you tell people, 40 decapitated babies. They are so animalistic. They didn't see the babies. Women raped. Of course, he's an Amal to do that. And they would go through that. And they would, what was very frustrating about the conversation is the kish galloping, the kish galloping, throwing, you see the distractions?
You see what happens? It's like, what's the proportionate response? Can Israel defend itself? Do you condemn Hamas? Does Israel has the right to exist? Decapitated babies, raped women. Why don't the Arab countries take them? Why don't the Muslims kill Muslims? Look what happened in Yemen, in Syria,
in Iraq, see how they kind of distract you, they throw little things at you, so you don't know what to do, or the UNRWA, the UNN, anti-Semitic, October 7th, October 7th, October 7th, and then suddenly you are distracted and pulled into discussing all of these little things, and you're not discussing what's happening right now, it is basically stalling, giving them time to do what they do.
So there's some degree to the propaganda, so the beheaded babies and all this kind of stuff, is so over the top that it shuts down actual conversation about actual wrongs, war crimes on both sides. So it's overstating it to where everyone on social media and everywhere in the press and everywhere is arguing, almost become desensitized to actual horrors of death, which are more mundane.
They're not so dramatic as beheaded babies. Yeah, because people, a baby is shot, but decapitated babies.
There's like a knife blade that goes into the skin, the trachea, the flesh, the spine. decapitated. You can just like, he's dead. No, you go in, this is the hate, so much hate.
And you know, that's why- You have made me laugh at the darkest shit. You're such a beautiful person.
Your dark humor is just wonderful. But you see, this happened to Jews before. Remember blood libel? Where did the blood libel come from? It comes from these rumors that Jews suck baby's blood. This is what they did to them. That's what's in the cup. Exactly. That's a very delicious baby. But this is what you do.
You tell people something and it happened with the Native Americans when they were here, when they went in and they wipe a whole tribe. And Jewish people, one of the minorities that were persecuted and had this used against them for a very long time. And it is terrible and it's terrifying that's been used again.
So I just did a very lengthy debate on Israel and Palestine. And the really painful thing from that, those two historians, it was deep, it was thorough, it was fascinating, but in constantly asking about sources of hope or solutions, there was none. There was a sense of, like a really dark sense of it's hopeless. From both sides, it's hopeless. So, you know, I look to you. For a source of...
Or a source of hope. Is there any hope here? Solutions, short-term, long-term?
Obama have kind of summarized this beautifully in his book. He said, the reason why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is so chronic is one side has so much power and the other side have absolutely no power. And that's what Obama said. He said, you have Israel that basically don't listen to us. because they are supported by people who are bigger than the president, bigger than the administration.
They know that they can. I mean, like Netanyahu was caught on tape many times saying like, he's basically like belittling Americans. Like, we control 80% of the population. We don't care. This has kind of like nonchalant, kind of like we have them. And there's nothing really that compels Israel to give up anything. Because at the end of the day, what is compromise?
Compromise is like I give something, you give something. Israel is not giving anything. And they project that on you. So for example, how many times have we heard like, oh, Palestinians were giving like four, five, six, seven, 15 chances and they said no to them. And yet when you read the history, that's not the case at all. Like for example,
The whole idea about Arafat walked away from Oslo, that didn't happen. And there is an incredible video by, you know, what's his name, Joe Scarborough with Misha. And they were hosting her father, Brzezinski, he was the national security advisor. And Jos Karabou said like, well, you know, like Arafat left the Oslo court and the Palestinians left.
And then Brzezinski said like, this is like embarrassingly shallow. It's like, listen, what happened was there was a lot of catches on the Oslo court. It was very unfair to the Palestinians. So Arafat said like, I agree, but I need to take it to the Arab capitals.
and they went to Sharm el-Sheikh, they came to Egypt, and he and Uhud Barak went to there, and then Uhud Barak left because there was election, and he lost, and Iriel Sharon came, and it was destroyed. This is one of the reason why people, it's kind of like, Facts don't matter as much as what is the narrative that is being controlled.
But what were the biggest barriers to peace there? Do you think it's fundamentally leaders don't want a two-state solution? Or was there nuanced small differences that if solved could have led to a two-state solution?
I mean, maybe there was a certain point when the Israeli leaders were more open to compromise. But I can say that because each time Israel gives back land, it has to be after some use of force. The 1973 war, the Intifada, the first and second, the casualties in Gaza, they never give up land willingly and because of peace. Because if I have that much military, I can do whatever I want.
Why would I give up anything? I have that much power. Why would America or China give everything if they're so powerful? And especially if they have this kind of open check from the United States. So it is really about what can push Israel to give up something? Because you are so much stronger than me. What could compel you to give up something?
And this is why the whole thing about like trying to equalize Palestinians and the Israeli state and government, it doesn't make any sense.
So what is the source of hope? You know, Jon Stewart, who will talk about it from many angles, somebody you admire, a friend, he proposed a two-state solution. Look to the comedians for hope.
Yes, well, everybody's talking about the two-state solution, but Israel has said many times on Netanyahu and Bennett, there is going to be no state solution. In the past, even Naftali Bennett, he came in on hard talk. It's like, yeah, maybe in the past we wanted two-state solutions, but look, every time we give them land, they kill us, so no state solutions. And they are openly saying it.
That's perhaps rhetoric. Rhetoric that is supported by action. Because look at what they're doing in the West Bank that you said. They are cutting it, illegal settlement, piecemealing it. So if you have an intention at all to give them anything, why would you keep doing this? And you've called it a bunch of little Gazas.
Yeah.
It's a nice little picture of what's happening. Piecemealing it, dum, dum, dum. Because what happened in the past four months, the Palestinians have been microdosing on it for a very long time. little by little, little by little. And we would shout every time when it gets too much, and then we shut down and then little by little. But this time it was hard.
It was hard to see the blatant oppression. And the word said, maybe the Hamas Ministry of Health are giving us the bad numbers. Maybe it's just human shields. And I laugh, there's 13,000 babies killed. Does that mean that there are 13,000 military targets hiding in their diapers?
Because it is so, it doesn't make any sense to kill that many babies. It's like, oh, oops, it is out of our hands.
It's hard to know what to do with those numbers. I mean, one baby is enough.
But you know what happens? When you hear so many numbers, numbers become numbers. And you become so desensitized. And this is why there's a difference between saying, 13,000 Palestinian kids dead. It's like Mila Cohen, an Israeli baby, 10 months old. She was killed in her crib. And this is what we hear from CNN. We never hear a story about a Palestinian kid.
That's why, thank you for giving me the space for saying the names of the Palestinian children that were killed just for four weeks. Because humans needs context, they need depth. They need like a 3D look at what they can look at. But if you just give them numbers, they don't mean anything.
Is there some degree to where both leaderships, Hamas, PA, Palestinian Authority, Israel, all want war, like perpetual war to remain in power?
That's an interesting question. But, I mean, let's admit something. The Arab regimes in the area have actually used the problem of Palestine in order to stay in power, in order to get excuses, like have this enemy. And Israel, the Israeli government has used that too, and maybe the Palestinians. But... But my problem with when going into discussion, this is that the two sides are not equal.
They're not equal in power, they're not equal in influence, and they're not equal in international support, especially with the United States. So Palestinians can, the people who have made changes in history were the people with power. that people would have the ability to change things. And the Palestinians cannot really change it. What can they change?
Well, is that true though with how much support the Palestinian people have? So just like you said, there's a lot of Arab states that will voice their pro-Palestinian position. in order to distract from the own corruption and abuses of power in their own countries. But I don't think, if you look globally, there's a complete asymmetry of power and public opinion here.
Maybe in the West, but if you look globally. But do they have the same kind of weapons that the Israeli have? The literally power? No, there's a major asymmetry of literal power.
Some money to their leaders? Does that make any difference? I mean, and also when you say Palestinian Authority, which authority are you talking about, Hamas? Or the Palestinian Authority who has been kind of a domesticated kind of like, a puppy for the Palestinian who basically had been an informant on their own people.
And this is the thing also that kind of like really pissed me off when I was hearing the thing about these things. Like Hamas, Hamas, Hamas, Hamas. Like we have Netanyahu on tape confessing that he supported Hamas, gave him money in order to cause factions between the Palestinians.
So it's just like, it doesn't make, you just told me this. You just told me this. You just told me Netanyahu support Hamas. But Hamas is like, what?
I mean, to which degree does Netanyahu represent the Israeli people is a real question. To which point does Trump or Biden represent the American people?
And to which degree does Hamas represent the Palestinian people? None of these represent it, but who have the power in order to make the decisions? It really comes down to that. Well, who does have the power?
You're giving a lot of power to Israel.
Yeah.
But the Arab League- What should Hamas do? What do you think we should Hamas do? Continue doing what a charter says, which is trying to destroy Israel. And the role of the Palestinian people is to overthrow Hamas and get a more moderate leadership probably. And the role of the Israeli people
is to vote out this right-wing government and elect a more moderate leader so that there's a chance at peace with two moderate leaders.
So before Hamas even got to control 2006 Gaza, there was Ariel Sharon in 2000. And we all know what happened. And Ariel Sharon kind of like had, they came up with this amazing policy of like breaking people's, kids' bones in the Intifada. So, Baraki was also like, I mean, which one is moderate? I mean, I think Hamas is a product of what happened. I mean, we can,
If there was no apartheid in South Africa, there would be no NFC. There would be no Nelson Mandela. If there were no Nazis in Paris, there would be no French resistance. And I'm not saying, and again, I'm not, I don't want to be put in a position to defend Hamas or anybody because you know what that entails, but Hamas, again, not defending them, they went into Qutub al-Safiq.
Why did they did that? Like release our hostages, the people in prison. Because if you're talking about people who were kidnapped, Israel kidnaps people every single day. And when they had the first exchange in November 4th, Israel released 400 people, three quarters of them were women and children. Why are those people in prison?
There's one in four kids that are imprisoned that stay in solitary confinement, which is by international law, a form of torture. And you're putting kids through that.
Is it possible? So first of all, ceasefire. Yes. And longer term, is it possible for Arab states and the United States to get together and with power,
through diplomacy, enforce a solution? It's a very, very ideal solution, but you know, and I know, that the Arab States don't really have the power. All of the powers are in the hands of America. They have the power.
See, I think they have the power. I don't know. Maybe they don't want to use it. They don't. Because there's a benefit. Maybe there's a benefit. That dark... The dark sense I have is that a lot of people win from the suffering that Palestinians are going through because they can point to that and distract from corruption in their own states.
And then obviously Iran can benefit also from the same kind of dynamic, distracting from the authoritarian nature of their regime.
Definitely, but what is the core of the problem here? Is it the Arab states using the suffering or actually the suffering itself? And the suffering comes from people being displaced. Their homes were taken away. There are 7 million Palestinians in diaspora. 7 million. 7 million went out there and now they're living in Canada and America and Europe. They had homes there.
They cannot go back to them. 1.7 million people of the people in Gaza don't belong in Gaza. They were pushed from other places. The piecemeal thing of people are being, you know, in Germany, I'm going to shift gear a little bit. It's going to be a little bit of fun. There is a book that I bought the rights to, and I want to turn it into a movie.
And I bought, I optioned the right for two years in March of last year, before October 7th. After October 7th, I bought the permanent right. That book is called The Muslim and the Jew. And it is written by an author called Ronen Steinke. I read an article about this book in 2016, and I chased that book for rights for seven years. I didn't have that much money, but I wanted that book.
And that book was translated into English called Anna and Dr. Helmi. And that book tells the incredible story under Nazi Germany where Arabs went in droves to Berlin in 1920s after the First World War in the Weimar Republic, and they became doctors and engineers and journalists for two reasons. Number one, they're cheap, very cheap because of the inflation.
And two, a lot of the Arab nationalists didn't want to send their kids to England or France because they were the occupiers. And Dr. Helmy was the hero of that. He's an Egyptian doctor. And that's why I kind of like, I personally kind of connected with him. And he went to medical school, didn't find a place to live. So he lived in the Jewish ghetto, like many Arabs.
He didn't find a school to work at, a hospital to work in. So he worked in a Jewish hospital. So these are, there was a who lived with the, and actually the first director of the Berlin Mosque with a Jewish convert who converted to Islam and he was a gay activist. I'm telling you, this is like a crazy story. And this is all, this is not a fiction story.
This is not, this is actually like a non-fiction. It's written actually based on the statement, the documents of the Nazis and Gestapo. Dr. Helmy, He was in this hospital and the Nazis came in and they killed and tortured and beat up the Jewish doctor. And they made him the head of his department. Then he was, so now he's surrounded by Nazi doctor. They didn't touch him because he was an Arab.
There was kind of like a thing between Germany and the Arabs because they wanted to appease to them in order to have kind of a grassroot base, in the Arab world where he want to go next. And this is why 1934, 1935, the racial laws of Nuremberg, they had a name change. First, they were called anti-Semitic. Then they changed into anti-Jewish because also Arabs were Semitic.
So they wanted to appease the Arabs. Now, what happened to Dr. Helmy when that happened to him? He would go back to the ghetto And he would see the apartments next to him, the Jewish apartment become more and more and more flooded with people because they were moving Jews and pushing them and putting them together, pushing them to the side.
And each flat, each apartment, instead of one family, it would have three, four, six, seven families. And he was there going at home and he looked he was there, this is where the people he grew up with, he lived with, and now he's seeing that kind of discrimination just because he's an Arab.
And then he started to kind of like atone for, like because he felt responsible because he wasn't treated the same way, and he started to go and treat Jewish people in their homes because they couldn't go to hospitals. And then one family gave them his daughter. It's like, this is Anna, save her.
He took her, pretended that she's his niece, put a hijab around her, taught her Arabic, called her Nadia, my daughter's name, by the way. And he hid her in plain sight for seven years in front of the Nazis as his nurse. It's an incredible story.
And then not just that he went to prison, and then he went out and he formed with the Arab people that was in prison with him, a network that saves 300 Jews. See that kind of story? This is the Jews that were living in the Arab world. I'm not saying that the Jews living in the Arab world was living like an incredible life.
Of course, as a kind of a minority, they did not have like the full power of their full advantages of the rule. That's normal. But we had this kind of a relationship. before Israel was erected in 1948. And then of course, everybody looked at Jews at that time as fifth column, and of course, the nationalistic regimes used that. And this is why what Biden said,
was very dangerous when he said, if there is no Israel, no Jew in the world will feel safe. You are the leader of the free world. You are the president of the United States. Do you mean that you are telling me that the Jews in your country, in the United States of America are not safe? That is wrong on two levels.
Number one, America historically and right now is more safe to Jews in the world than anybody. They are safer than the Jews in Israel. They never had pogroms or the Holocaust like you wrote. They live here a good life, not perfect life, but they are better.
Second of all, if you're the president and you're telling that a group of people will not feel safe unless there's a different one, you are already feeding into their fifth column. They're like, you're Russian. You come from there. And there is a group of laws in the Russian constitution that says that Russia will protect its citizens everywhere in the world.
What happens if the president says like, oh, you're Russians. You're protected by your own country. You don't belong here. This is terrible.
Yeah, you're right. That's actually an indirect threat. Yes. You know, even saying Muslims cannot feel safe in America or something like this. That means, like, that's a threat.
But what would a Jewish person in Beverly Hills or in Brooklyn feel if he hears that? You are already telling people you need to be loyal to Israel. I mean, Israel is a foreign country. I am sorry, but Israel is a foreign country. Israel is a client country that we sponsor and it should actually be responsible and held accountable for what they do.
You mentioned 1948, the Nakba, but before that, 41, 39, 41 to 45, the Holocaust. What do you do? What do you do with the Holocaust? How do you incorporate into the calculus of morality that leads up to the displacement of 700,000 people? Palestinians from the land, how do you work that out?
It is terrible, but like, I mean, the systemic annihilation of Jewish people under the Nazi, that is like a carefully engineered, thoughtful plan, it was terrible. It was kind of like the human ingenuity put into something that is very evil. But also, it is not just that happened.
We need to remember that Otto Frank, the father of Anna Frank, has his visa, refugee visa, rejected by the United States. There's a lot of people that were rejected by the United States, rejected by other European countries, and then they were pushed into Palestine.
So you have to put yourself between, like, and the Arabs, okay, we're sitting here, okay, come, and then, all right, you don't have a home or a country anymore. That kills you. I mean, you see, if I'm not an Arab, and you give me that kind of piece of terrible human trash, it's like, oh my God, that is terrible.
But then, I'm an Arab, it's like, yes, I'm so sorry, but what do I have to do with that? Why is that my fault? The persecution of the Jewish people have started since the eighth and ninth century because they were first anti-Christians, They were like criminal immigrants. They were like conspirators.
This is the antis, like people kind of like, it's as if Europe kind of like throw antisemitism on us. You understand that like Henry Ford, Henry Ford is one of the biggest anti, he was the inspiration for Adolf Hitler. This is how antisemitic Henry Ford was. And you kind of like, gloss over that. And then suddenly we as Arabs have to pay the price. Why?
Several questions I want to ask there. So, but one, just zooming out, why do you think hatred of Jews has been such a viral kind of idea throughout human history? Oh, it's very easy. It all started from Christ.
They killed Christ. They killed Christ. They killed Christ. They're the killer of Christ.
That's a very sexy story.
That was so, yeah, that was, and that stayed for years. That stayed for centuries, I'm sorry, centuries. They're the killer of Christ. And then the Catholic Church did not allow usury But they would work unusually, so they become rich. Now the people that we hate, that we accuse them of feeling Christ are becoming rich. So that's envy now. And that's hatred.
I mean, when you talk about ghettos, ghettos was not just as secluded parts in cities. Sometimes those ghettos were outside the cities. Jews were not even allowed to work a lot of professions. They were not allowed to get into the syndicates of certain professions. So they had to go work usually and they got rich. So the people hated them more. The first crusade didn't kill a single Muslim.
All they killed were Jews. And when they finally arrived to Jerusalem, all they killed were Jews. They almost annihilated the Jews. So it was all this. And of course you have the dark ages. Who do you need as an enemy? The Jews, right? They're the killer of Christ. There's nothing bigger than this. And then you fast forward.
I mean, one of the things that I found out that was very, very, very, very crazy when Henry Ford imported the protocols of the elders of Zion. By the way, in the Arab world, protocols of the elders of Zion is so popular. And... for obvious reasons. And for the people who don't know it, it's kind of like a bunch of like stories.
And basically it's like the Jews saying like, we're gonna control the war, then we're gonna do this, then we're gonna do that and whatever. What people don't know that that is a work of plagiarism. It was plagiarized from a satirical play called Conversation in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesequieu. And it is kind of like based on one chapter or one scene or something. It's crazy.
But it's crazy how sticky it is.
Yes.
That's weird. Because if I hate you, that's great.
But if I have a story to support that hate, that's even better. But it's like one of the best stories, one of the stickiest stories about hate. Of course. It's probably the most effective. Because a lot of people hate other people. groups of peoples, but that's just like the sexiest story of them all.
Because humans need to concentrate their hate, their insecurities, and their shortcomings into one thing that they can practice that hate on. If it's a person, great. If it's a group, even better.
How do you, into this calculus, incorporate that that group is pretty small? There's 16 million Jews worldwide. And you mentioned how is that the responsibility of the Arab peoples? You know, everybody should be to blame for not taking in Jews after the Holocaust. Yeah.
But, you know, the reality of the situation, if we look at the religious slice of this, there's 16, let's say, million Jews, and there's, I don't know how many Muslims, but 1.8 billion? Yeah, yeah. Do you... that 100x difference, do you incorporate that into the sense that Jews in Israel might feel for the existential dread that we might, this small group might be destroyed?
Jews in Israel have every right to feel afraid because of everything that they see and everything they've been told, everything. But I would say that the calculus or the numbers doesn't, like, of course, like being small, it is, of course, a factor, but it is never an excuse in order to take something that's not yours.
It's saying like, hey, you have 300 million Americans and we have 52, 52 says give one state, there's too many of them. Too many of you, just give them something. It's like the fact that I have something and you don't, and there's too many of me and there is little of you.
And then you come in and it's not really Israel against the Arab world or the Muslim world because we have to say we fucked up big time. But it is the Palestinians that are in and they are being subjected to that. So it's not really like the 1.8 billion and the 16 million Jews.
And the 1.8 billion, if you look at them, some of them don't care, some of them live into regimes that are being oppressed, and those regimes are supported by the United States in order. It's easier for me as an empire to take what I want from this country if I control the dictator. And I tell them that his power is linked to my ability, to my desire to keep him in power.
So that's why you have a total disconnect between people in power in the Arab and the Muslim countries and the people themselves.
Can you speak to 1948? You know, because you mentioned taking land that's not yours. Maybe parallels with Native Americans. Yeah. There was a war. The Jewish minority fought that war against several Arab states and won that war. How do we incorporate that into the Catholic?
Yeah, well, that's also a misconception, like a misinterpretation of the event because it seems that it was like the small, it's kind of like a David and Goliath kind of story. But, and I was always like, how did we, how did we not do that?
But in reality, with numbers, I can't pull it up right now, but if you look at the numbers, the number of tanks, the planes, the trained officer, because many of those Jewish fighters came from World War II. They were seasoned fighters.
And they actually had more planes, more tanks, more artillery, more pieces of weapon, more of the all of other combined because the people that really like fought was Egypt. And you have 1948, many of those Arab countries didn't even have their independence. So they would kind of like send like a cavalry or like a people in horses.
But in fact, the whole idea was like, we won against seven nations. The numbers were totally in Israel's favor. They were better equipped. They were better trained. They had more tanks and artillery and airplanes. And they planned better. So yes, they deserved the win because they planned and we did it.
So to you, there was an asymmetry of military power even then. But what do you do with the fact that the war was won? So if you look at the history of the world,
There is wars fought over land. I agree with you. This has been the history of humanity. Humanity was not living peacefully. It's all about like people taking people and killing people, taking their land. But there's two difference here. Mostly, usually, the conquering power, like for example, England. They had England and they conquer you in India.
And after the occupation finished, they go back to England. France, Greece, Persia, Egypt, they will go and expand and shrink, expand and shrink. It's all been there. What is different here is exactly what happened in Australia and the United States. A group of people came in, not just to conquer and take the land, but to completely change, to replace them and get them out or kill them.
It was very easy with the Indians because they had smallpox, there was no social media, they did it over 400 years, they had time. The problem is what is happening right now, I agree with you, it might not be that new, but we are there and we're watching it happen.
And so now we have to confront the realities of war and empire and conquering.
Because you know what's the problem? We told ourself we can be better. After 1948, there was the universal declaration of human rights. It means that we are gonna be better humans. We're not gonna kill and take land. We're not gonna displace people. We're not gonna take people for what they are. There's now laws. There's international laws. There's international court of justice.
And now Israel is giving the middle finger to all of them.
So isn't in some fundamental way, this whole thing that we're talking about, is us as a civilization on social media, in articles and books, in newspapers, we're just trying to figure out who are we as a people.
I think the shock came from the fact that we thought that we as humanity have evolved, and now we are What have actually changed is that we became more advanced in effectively eradicating a group of people because of the technology that we have. And the fact that we can do that under the eyes and ears of all the world, and we are watching it under our phone. We have a window.
We have a window to the war. You know, 1945, people didn't know what was happening. In Japan, what? Well, we heard about it in the radio. Like, oh, today our forces came in and they launched. We don't know.
We heard it. Maybe we saw pictures after that. And it's quite edited.
But now we see it. We're into it.
And it is so much for our psyche. And we can't get it. And the Arabs are saying, like, guys, you told us. We came to the West because we were told that we were equal. You know the Universal Declaration of Rights? One of the co-authors, his name is Stefan Hessel. He's a Jew. He is a survivor of the Holocaust. And you know what happened to him?
He died, by the way, a couple of years ago, but before he died, he was canceled by so many people and he was called anti-Semitic because he joined the BDS movement and he spoke of Palestine. That is the author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that we value so much and we think that that would define our humanity. But then we go in and we are
shocked it's like maybe we were sold something maybe that was false advertisement you shared a tweet by an account called awesome jew
It reads, Islamo-Nazi comedian Bassem Youssef. Comedian in quotes, by the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, because I'm not funny. So Islamo-Nazi comedian Bassem Youssef is now denying, I love that you retweeted this like twice. Yeah. I guess suppose because it's advertising some upcoming dates. He's now denying October 7th massacre.
The Muslim radical, Bassem Yusuf, is notorious for his radical, radical said twice, for his radical hatred of Jews and Israel. In a recent clip, he claims that the atrocities committed on October 7th are fabricated or are looking for all information regarding Israel. any of his upcoming shows, as well as the venues which host The Scumbag, where Jews feel safe around this Nazi. Nazi.
I've never, this is my first time interviewing a Nazi. It's the first time I actually get called a Nazi.
First time. First time. I have been called so many things in Egypt. So in Egypt, I was called a CIA operative, a Mossad spy, a secret Muslim brotherhood, a secret Jew. There was also an article that was published about me in the state-run media saying in details how Bassem has been... recruited by CIA agents using Jon Stewart in order to use satire to bring down the country.
I was a Freemason, an infidel, a member of the Knights of the Temple, something like that. And there's actually people, the Muslim Brotherhood on their show, they would say like,
He is actually an Israeli and they have forged an Egyptian ID for him to come.
So it's kind of like when I guess, I said, I had, I left all of that behind and I come here, it's like, boom, anti-Semitic Nazi. Damn. I mean, I really covered everything. I don't know what else. I mean, I think I have, it's kind of like I'm collecting PhDs. I'm just like getting like all of these credits.
How do you deal with that? How do you deal with the attacks? I mean, this goes back to the decision to do the interview with Piers Morgan. How do you psychologically do all of it?
These kind of attacks, at the beginning, it's fun.
But when they evolve into something else, so for example, I was like laughing of all of the stuff about calling me this, calling me that, but then when people would come and thread the theater, because it's not the people who are making those accusations that would come to you, it's the people that will hear and see those accusations and act on it. And there's always the fear of like,
I mean, we have in the airport a lot of things that somebody would hear something about someone else and go kill him and whatever, like anybody else. So there's this, but somehow I want to make fun of it. And it is to be called an Islamo-Nazi, it must been the funniest thing ever.
Because it doesn't, Islamo-Nazi, wow.
How did you, and a radical Muslim, me, a lot of Islamists hate me. They will call me a secular infidel. So it's kind of like, who am I? Maybe I have an identity crisis and I need the people to tell me who I am.
Let's go to the beginning. Let's go to your childhood. You grew up in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt. My childhood. Well, let's figure out how you came to be who you are.
How did you become an Islamo-Nazi?
Yeah, exactly. It's a long journey. I do like the swastika tattoo on your ass, which I didn't... How did you see my ass? You know what you did.
I know what you did. It was very inappropriate. You're also obviously a sexual harasser of me. Okay. Is this like a me too?
Yes.
This is like 2020. Someone will come up. It's like, okay, we have flip it.
This is your me too moment. All right. So Cairo, what's a, what's a, what's a memory defining memory, positive or negative from your childhood?
my memory in general was was cool it was cool i went to a catholic uh uh school until the for for primary school the elementary and by the time i'm done uh there was kind of like a start of a decline into the public education and my parents they're like middle class working officials you my dad was a judge my mom was a business professor and she's and they were like one of the people's like
They didn't have that much luxury. My dad, like, drove, like, a regular, like, car, a Fiat, which is, like, the equivalent for the Lada in Russia.
Thank you for speaking to the audience. The Lada. And... Well, so, would that be a good car? No, no.
It's kind of like... kind of like the minimum. And my dad was not a command of showing off. Whatever money they would do, they would put it for us, education, give everything to their kids. This is kind of like a very, very typical mentality. And I'm sure it's in many cultures, but like we grew up with this, like everything that we have is left for kids. So they would put us into education.
So middle school, 1986 was the beginning of the explosion of international schools, private schools. And these schools were relatively expensive. Of course, now with today's currency, it's ridiculous. But at that time, it's very expensive. So I went to that school. And from, there was this moment was like, you feel less right away.
I mean, of course there's the regular bullying and stuff, but it's not that. It's kind of like you always feel less. You don't have that much of like purchasing power that can allow you to go to the same outings or travel with them. And even like how you dress, it will be modest compared to them. So I was always an outsider.
I was, and I compensated with that by two things, being good at school and being good at sports. So I was not like the typical nerd who was just like that. I was like, I was playing football, basketball, field. And I was like, one of the people would like to have me on their team. So I wasn't like, kind of like, ah, he's a nerd, get him away. But I never had a girlfriend.
I never had any kind of like, it was not like, I was not boyfriend material. So that's kind of like, it leaves remnants in you that you're not good enough.
But psychologically, you were always like, when you were by yourself, you felt like an outsider.
Yes, all the time. And that's why kind of like I'm more of a loner. I don't have a lot of what you call friends. I have acquaintances, people that I do stuff with, but I don't have like the people that I tell them everything. When I went to medical school, now medical school is a different animal. Medical school is where all of the people from the public schools go.
Public schools are very like, they are not, they don't have like, they don't have English language as like a strong, but they are brilliant people. So because they would mostly study in Arabic, but they are brilliant and they are very, very, very smart, very sharp. But then I'll go there. Now I am the sissy boy. from the private school that comes into medical school. Now I'm an outsider again.
And I go into residency and I pick up salsa. So now I'm a salsa teacher while being a cardiothoracic surgery resident. And I'm an outsider for the third time because in salsa, I'm kind of like the respectful doctor. And in resident, I'm the guy who is just dancing. So, and everything, of course, as a medical resident, you will mess up a lot.
So they would always like, oh, because you're a dancer, oh, because you don't care about medicine. You just like want to go there and dance with women, which is true. And so all of my life, I felt that I'm an outsider. I'm not part of the team. I'm not part of the core group. So, and I have a story that you would love.
Right before my residency, I was so much into salsa, so I had all of the money, and then you save that, and I was working in summers, and I was doing extra jobs, and I took that money, and I went to Miami in order to learn Rueda de Casino, which is the Cuban kind of like circle salsa kind of thing. And I went there in the summer of 2001. And my return ticket was 9-12, 2001.
The universe has a sense of humor, I got to tell you that. 9-12, I was supposed to be on a plane coming back to Egypt. What happens? Thank God, I ran out of money 10 days before that. It was like, all right, I changed my ticket and I came back. 9-11, I'm kind of like, my mom,
wake up wake up what what it's like and I see like the two tower phone it was like my mom's like oh you're here you're here you're here wake up you're here that and I was like I was like I should I could have been in Guantanamo right now yeah
Fly at 9-12. But by the way, I was in Miami when they went to the flying school in Miami. So, I mean, I had like 9-11 written all over my face. You'd be all over the news.
And my mom was like, what?
He went there to dance salsa? I didn't know that salsa is like a name for terrorism.
Why salsa? Why did that attract you? Can you explain what salsa is? So I mentioned to you offline that I've been doing a little bit of tango, trying to learn it.
Yeah, like, you know, samba, salsa, pachata, merengue, it's kind of like Latin dances. And it's like, you know, I don't know how you describe salsa. Couple dance on Latin beat. And I did it because... I once, I, and I talk about that in my Arabic stand-up comedy, not the English. I talk about, like, how I was, you know, I didn't have, like, really, like, a great, like, social life.
And I, my friends went there one day and I go into a place which, it was called El Gato Negro. No, no, it was called Big Fat Black Pussycat. And then I think they thought it would be, like, racist or something, so they changed it to El Gato Negro. Anyway, so...
Great, great. I know. Great decision. I know. So I went there.
I was like, damn. Music and women. And my doctor, a doctor dancing salsa, that is a chick magnet.
We do everything for that. Even power, even money. All the wars we've been talking about. Women.
At the end of the day. The approval from the other sex. We are babies. We are terrible people. So...
Of course. Like, I mean, that was like, that was like great. But then I, as, as a nerd, I went in so hard and now I became a salsa teacher.
Yeah.
And I earned more money from salsa more than I did as a doctor. I didn't know this part of you. That's hilarious. I was making a killing amount of money, like huge amount of money. And I was just like, you know, I would go finish my shift and I go to the salsa class. And sometimes I would have like 70 people in my salsa class. I had like the biggest salsa class in Egypt in the beginning of 2000.
And it was fantastic. And it was an outlet because you go there and there's the shifts and people dying. Damn.
And they go, salsa. Escape.
You must have been good. I was okay. I was cool. I was fun. There were people better than me, but I have a thing about teaching. I like teaching people.
So you mentioned heart surgery. So what motivated you to become a doctor?
It was a choice of exclusion. I mean, there's nothing else you can do with these high grades other than doctorate in engineering. I hate math, so go be a doctor. This is the Middle East. What do you expect? It's either, like in my joke, in my show, I said like there's, it can be one of three things in the Middle East, a doctor, an engineer, or a disappointment. That is the choices that you have.
So years after.
I'm disappointed. Here I am.
You're damn good at it though. That's a hard path though. Yeah. And it's a fascinating one.
Can I tell you something? Yes. That actually I was thinking about why did I actually go into medicine? And why did I always choose the hardest thing although I didn't love it? And I have to tell you I had an epiphany only two weeks ago. And I don't know if that's actually related or not. You know, I remember when I told you I went to this school and I didn't have that much money.
And I didn't have the luxury of time or money to be with those people and do what they do. So by the time I finished school and everybody was going to university, oh, everybody in my school went to the AUC, the American University in Cairo. Of course, private, yeah.
like American education, party time, like, I mean, of course they're brilliant and everything, but they have, yeah, they have a different, you know, social life. And part of me now, I kind of like, I realize that just like very, very recently, Maybe I went to the hardest school ever so I don't have space to use other than studying. Because if I have that much space, what am I going to do with it?
I don't have that much freedom. I don't have that much money. I can't compete with those people going out. So maybe I need a solid excuse that I'm in a place where I don't have that much of a spare time.
Is it also possible, I like how this is a therapy session where we're psychoanalyzing it. Is it also possible that you always just pick the hardest thing you could possibly do? Maybe, but. Maybe that's the Piers Morgan thing too.
Maybe, but when I left Egypt and I came here, I still had the choice to go back to medicine. But I hated it. I hated it. Medicine traumatized me. The amount of like, you give up. You know, my brother in Egypt, he had a daughter. She's a brilliant basketball player. She is in the national team, amazing.
I used to play basketball also in the Egyptian league, but I never, I was kind of like, my favorite position in the court was the bench. And... I was not as good as her, but she, and then he, it was time for her to go into college. And he didn't talk to me for six weeks. I said, Temer, what's happening to Farida? Which college? Like, I didn't want to tell you. She went into medicine.
Why did he do? Because he knows how I hated it. I was traumatized. And I said like, dude, she's a basketball player. Make her go like to an easy school. So that's kind of inspired.
You still did it. You still did it.
I still did it, but I don't know. Is it because of the difficulty or because... because of what I told you, maybe I needed something, maybe because I was not very confident in my social life. So I needed a distraction not to be, to have that much of a social life. Oh, wow, okay.
You understand?
Yeah, uh-huh. It's kind of loud because I will always have an excuse, I'm studying, I have something, I have exams. And I don't know, I kind of like self-sabotaged my own thing because I couldn't compete with... with those people on the outing and the money and whatever, so I need an excuse to be like, oh, he's a doctor, he's studying.
At least in your own mind, you couldn't compete.
Yeah, yeah. I always felt as less because, I mean, I didn't have any girlfriends in school. I had a very latent life. Everything to me came to life, so I always felt... Even stand-up comedy. It came very late to me in life. So I always feel that I'm not good enough. I feel that I didn't spend the time to build the foundation that other comedians do. So I always feel that I am too lucky.
I always feel that this is a fleeting thing. And when I went, had the height and the fall in Egypt, when I went like the top of everything, I was like so famous. And then everything was taken away from me. That's like, ah, you see, I told you. That happens when you don't build foundation, you fall. So I always feel that I...
that I am not good enough, or if I am in a position where people think I am, deep inside I am not. Do you know that I have a speech impediment that I was not meant to be a TV presenter? In Arabic it's very obvious. I cannot troll my hours. I cannot say er, I cannot roll it. So in Arabic, like Spanish, it's very obvious.
So when I did my first video on the internet that made me famous, and then I got my television deal back there in Egypt, my partner at the time, he took the video and he went to a producer and said like, are you giving me a guy with a lisp? He couldn't, he should, that's why when I came on television, I was the first ever guy with a lisp. I had two things going for me, the lisp and the big nose.
And I was always bullied for two, for these two all the time. So I always felt less.
see but that's the foundation of like creating a great person yeah because if you're pretty you don't need to do much i probably wouldn't recommend it but it is it is true that so if you are pretty do some disfigurement find the flaws and be extremely self-critical about them. So you saw Jon Stewart on TV for the first time in 2003, I believe. How did that change your life?
I was in a gym and I was running on the treadmill. And at that time, CNN was coming out on cable. And I was watching and there is this studio. I don't know what it is. So I put the earphones on and I started watching. And I was so taken by this that I stopped the treadmill and I just like stood for the 20 minutes like this on the treadmill. And then I just like standing there.
I didn't know what he was saying. I didn't understand what is Democrats, what is Republicans, what is, those names that he's saying, what is Fox News? I don't understand. But I was fascinated. There was something, you know when you don't understand the music, but you get the rhythm? It was that.
I wonder what that is that you saw. It's like the timing of the humor. I mean, there is, Jon Stewart is one of a kind. His biting... criticism of power, I would say, and also ability to highlight the absurdity of it all. But you understand, I didn't understand any of that.
I didn't understand any of the references. But it is the rhythm.
The rhythm.
You know sometimes when you even see like a comedy that's a language you don't understand, but there's a rhythm. Boom, boom. There's something in the music. So there's something with the videos and the pictures and he and the face and people reacting. What is this?
What is this?
What is this? And we had the global edition.
So I went to the YouTube and I just started to kind of watch every single episode that I can. I said, do you think we can have this in Egypt? I said, nah, never.
And then 2011... Like I had a friend of mine who was also a YouTube partner. It was something new at the time. He said like, let's do something on internet. Let's do something. I said like, I want to do John Stewart. It's like, do Ray William Johnson. John Stewart will not work.
It's like, I want to know John Stewart. So that was in there.
Yeah, it was in there.
And I did it and it worked. Can you talk about 2011? I mean, what is it? The Arab Spring, what is it? People here in America, you know. Yeah.
Depends on which side.
Did something happen or what?
Depends which side of the equation you are. Because for a lot of people, it's a conspiracy. It's American made. It is the Muslim Brotherhood. It's the Islamists. It is Israel. It is everything else other than people. Oh, but it's a pure revolution. It's a pure... I think we put too much weight on conspiracies.
I think it is normal human behavior that then become, get maybe used or abused or taken advantage of by other powers and then the conspiracy starts. But at the time, The Arab Spring didn't start in Egypt, it started in Tunisia. Bouaziza, a fruit vendor, burned himself up, like the American soldiers who did that a few days ago, and that kind of sparked protests in Tunisia.
And Ben Ali was a dictator in Tunisia for about 20 years, and they removed him. So suddenly it was kind of like a domino effect. So then Egypt started, and it just took 18 days. And, you know, people, hindsight is 20-20. Saints said, like, you know, just Mubarak became like a burden on the military, because the military are the real rulers of the country.
You might have a president that kind of like have certain powers, but at the end of the day, when the military sees that a certain president is like too much of a burden, too much of like a... So they cut him off. And Mubarak is the leader of Egypt. At that time. He was there for 30 years. 30 years.
By the way, speaking of which, because it was a joke in your Mark Twain speech. I got teary-eyed just watching that. That was great. You're like fucking great. Like what you did with Mark Twain Awards for Jon Stewart. It's great. I mean, your comedy is great in general. And I wanted to go to your show. I definitely will.
But that's like a little stroll on the complete tangent of just the masterful introduction and celebration of Jon Stewart. Anyway, Mubarak. 30 years.
And it's a joke that I say also, like, Mubarak was a president for 30 years.
Like, oh my God, he had a president for 30 years? Like, it's the Middle East, it's a very short first term.
It's like, we're still warming up, baby. And I tell them, like, we need to plan ahead. We need to plan our vacations, our careers, our jail time. It's just like, we need to... So we had kind of like the shortest, nicest revolution, 18 days. And we thought, oh, 18 days, we can change the country in 18 days. So, but of course we were naive and we had this kind of hope. So Mubarak was removed.
There was an interim period by the military, took it for one year. Then they did elections. Muslim Brotherhood came to power. They stayed for one year, and then the military removed them. And in these three years, my show started. It started by kind of like a YouTube video. It became famous overnight. Overnight. Five to six videos, boom, went out.
And at that time, I was waiting to get my clearance to go to Cleveland. I was accepted in a fellowship as a pediatric heart surgery in a hospital in Cleveland.
And I said, all right, I'm just gonna do a couple of videos, maybe I'm gonna put it in the internet, and maybe after a year or two, after I come back from the fellowship, somebody will come, hey, why don't you write a show that looks like Jon Stewart? That was my mind. Took five weeks. I had my first contract of television, and overnight, The exposure.
And over the next two, three years, I had 30 to 40 million people watching every episode. A lot of people are like, wow, that's too much.
That is terrifying.
Because it means that there are 30 million people who have an opinion about you.
You said there's a lot of aspects of that sudden fame that were just horrible.
It's toxic. It's toxic. It's unnatural. It's unnatural. When people started to recognize me in the street and take pictures, I was awkward. It's like, why do you want to have a picture with me? Why? Why is it? Because I didn't feel that I'm worthy enough to be like a reward for someone to have a picture. And I didn't understand it.
I was actually, I was kind of an ass sometimes because people thought it was arrogance. No, it was confusion. And I remember like my director and my producers and people around, they always saw me in a very bad mood. It's like, why are you not enjoying this? It's like, because this is not natural.
This is not natural. This adoration, this love, and this have to end somehow, and it did.
Because at a certain point, you are human. And people kind of the adoration and the fun and the love comes because they see you saying stuff because you do your job basically. Political satire is basically us making fun of politicians in the media. And a lot of people have really strong opinions about politicians in the media.
So we came that, we articulate that and we give it to them and we make them laugh. So for them, we made a great job. So why don't you do more? But you are limited. And at a certain time, you can't. And at a certain time, you're afraid because we're humans. Because you're afraid about like, if I continue speaking up, not like something will happen to me.
I'm kind of like maybe have some protection because people see me. But what are the people around you?
Mm-hmm.
And we, I've seen that. So that's why at a certain point, it's like, that's it. I can't.
I mean, there's a lot of things to say there, but one of the difficult things of fame in your situation is you're not just having fun, you're criticizing power.
Yeah.
And it is loved by the people, but it comes with a price because at a certain price, if the power is too strong and you're not into a situation or a system that allows that, that gives you that kind of safety. So what happened? What happened, I was, so the height of my fame, the Muslim Brotherhood was in power. And at that time, they had their media, and I had one show.
I had like one hour per week, and they had five channels, 24-7. And they were like, you know, John Stewart said it beautifully once. It's like, we say shit, and you say shit, and we just say shit better than you. This is exactly what Jon said. We're just better at saying shit back.
So basically I had one hour and they had like the five things that they were like, you know, they're calling me all kinds of names, not just me, like all their enemies, you know. And then I just had one hour and I would kind of like annihilate them in one hour a week. So at a certain point, they would even like kind of be the side with the army against me.
the kind of the liberal, secular, whatever you call it. And at a certain point, the army kind of like flipped everybody. Like kind of like they, yeah, they removed the Muslim Brotherhood, they came to power. And we, I have to say, I admit it, I supported that in the beginning because I had, daily threats I had, I was actually interrogated and arrested under the Muslim Brotherhood.
I was in an interrogation for six hours, and they were asking all my jokes, and I used that in my standup comedy, describing exactly what happened in the six hours, and it is so funny.
Okay, well, it's hilarious.
But what? You were interrogated by the Brotherhood.
The general prosecutor. The general prosecutor. And it was based because of complaints by the officials in the government. Because in order for the general prosecutor to do it, it has to have a high up mandate to bring that person to questioning.
So they went through kind of official channels.
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it was official. It was legal. So I went there and I asked, and it's kind of like a bunch of insulting Islam, insulting president, spreading false rumors. And I went there and it was funny because I go into the building where there's police officers and there are judges and all of them are big fans of the show.
And some of them were taking pictures of me. And then I'm sitting there and it was the most ridiculous interview ever because he was asking me about my jokes. It's like, what did you mean by this joke? And it's like, nothing.
It was there for six hours.
He's just reading your jokes back to you. He was reading my joke and he's reading the jokes and the junior judge is sitting there like cracking up.
It's like, I remember that.
It's like, guys. That's dark. It's kind of like, and I'm laughing, but in the same time, it's like the whole situation is ridiculous. But then at the end, I was released on bail. So I went back to my show and I make fun of that.
And you have to be honest, the Muslim Brotherhood were in power, but Egypt was like right out of the revolution for there was kind of like an equal spread of power between the people. There was not like someone who would come in and just like, the Muslim Brotherhood didn't have that power yet, but they were kind of, People saw that they were moving towards that. And then the tension rose.
And then there was like a kind of a confrontation between them and the army. And then a lot of people were killed in the street. It was terrible massacre. And then suddenly I am blamed for all of that. It's like, you made fun of us. So now it made it easier for people to kill. It's like, dude, come on. You're doing that to me too. I just did it better than you.
And the fact that you sided with the same people that flipped against you, that's not my fault. Did you criticize the army at all? Yeah. So after that show, I did like one episode against the army and I was canceled the next day. And then I went to another channel, did 16 episodes in a different season. And it was, I was walking on eggshells. And then that was canceled again.
And then the production company that was doing my show, that we severed ties because we didn't have the show. They had their offices raided. They have people having death threats. So I woke up one day, 11th of November, 2014, and my lawyer said, like, leave the country right now. There is this legal case that they're coming for you.
But they said like, you cannot, it was an arbitration case and I lost against the channel that basically canceled me. And they said like, but there's no jail time in arbitration. It's like, yeah, tell that to the judges, leave. So I jumped on a plane. The verdict was 12 noon, 11 November, five afternoon I was on a plane, left Egypt and I never came back since then.
Was there a worry of non-legal things like assassination?
I can tell you something. I was so stressed because of the show, because of everything. I sometimes I would wake up in the morning and I hope that the bullet will come and finish everything because I was so stressed. It's like, I would love because I'm too much of a chicken to kill myself. So I would like rather have someone else do it for me. So I, I, I, I was, I was so under so much pressure.
And I remember the day that like my show was canceled indefinitely the second time. under the army, and I was like, I don't have to worry about what kind of script I have to write next week. Because this is, you know, remember when you asked me about like that tweet, about like all of those, these accusations doesn't bother me. Infidel spy, secret Jew, Zionist, Islamo-Nazi, that's bullshit.
What is really, what really leaves a mark is the criticism to your craft and your work.
So you're not funny. It goes deeper. Yeah, certain things get to you better than others. Especially if you have like a secret suspicion that you are like maybe not funny.
Maybe I'm not because I was put into that. It's like because that talks to your insecurities. Like I know, but you shouldn't say it out loud.
You shouldn't say the truth out loud. You shouldn't say it out loud.
Like you shouldn't say it out loud.
But what about the weight of the responsibility of speaking truth to power? So like walking on eggshells, like what did that feel like?
Well, after the Muslim Brotherhood were removed- You have to understand, like when the military coup happened, it was a very popular coup. Like people loved the army. In Egypt, the army is more sacred than the religion. People love the army. But the army can go in the wrong. So me going against the army was, I mean, the Muslim Brotherhood was not very popular.
They were popular for their own basis. But people accepted the fact that like we make fun of them. But Sisi at that time, he was a god. And I used to go to this high class club called Gizir Club. And this is basically kind of like the kind of upper middle class, upper class kind of people. And during that year of the Muslim Brotherhood, I was the most popular ever. People come, yay!
When the military came in, people were walking to me like pointing their fingers like, don't speak about CCU. Don't speak about the army. We love you now, but don't you? They were like that. So I called John Stewart. I was like, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do.
And at that time, all of the channels were like closed down, all of the independent, I was the only one left, because it was difficult for them to get rid of me very quickly, because I was too popular. It was kind of like peace, peace milling kind of like go. And I remember something like, I don't know what to do. He said, like, you don't have to do anything, just your safety comes first.
And so but I can't, I mean, I've been doing that for two years. And I kind of just like, say, Bye, bye, guys. I have a responsibility, I have a team, I have people working for me. And I also, I cannot just like disappear. And he said the most interesting thing ever. And say, if you're afraid of something, make fun of it.
about the fact that you're afraid of it, instead of talking about that something. So there was like a whole episode that we did not even mention Sisi. We did not even mention him, but the videos did all the thing. And the whole episode was me trying to avoid talking about him. And that how the comedy was created. The fact that I don't wanna be here.
So he said like, you will be surprised how people can relate to that because there was a lot of kind of like, oh, we love him, but we feel we cannot speak. So just by doing the simple thing about mirroring the society, that goes a long way. And I kind of tried to do what I can under the military. I mean, they came up with...
a machine that treats AIDS and hepatitis C virus, and basically every single, and I went to town with that. Because people think, it doesn't really have to go in, to go to the bigger parts like, you're an asshole, no. You talk about their propaganda. You talk about what they want people to perceive them at. And it's a failure. And for that, that kind of hit them even more.
Because what do authoritarian figures do? They work on two things. Fear. and propaganda, and from that, it gets the respect. So when you go into their propaganda and expose them, they have nothing else.
That's brilliant. So like, you are walking on eggshells, but you're doing it masterfully, that you're revealing sort of the flaws in the propaganda, the absurdity of the propaganda, and so doing or criticizing them.
And this is why comedy is very specific, because people say, you were not as hard on him as you were on the Muslim Brotherhood. Yes, because on the Muslim Brotherhood, we were just like saying shit for each other. Yeah. But now the ceiling was like here. So it's kind of like, how can you do something from here? Yeah, exactly.
That's the art form. Yeah. In the Soviet Union under Stalin, a lot of the criticism came from like children's stories and children's cartoons. Double meaning, double in the window stuff.
That means other stuff.
That is the brilliance. Yeah. But everyone knows. Everyone knows. Because you are like putting a mirror, you're mirroring the society. It's fascinating, actually.
And that's why I was canceled twice.
And that is a scary one, the army. You see that in Ukraine. Everybody supports the army. That's why Zelensky getting rid of the head of the army was a big, big deal. It's a really dangerous thing. And everyone was afraid to say anything negative about the army, especially during war in that case. And in this case, maybe there's civil war, that kind of thing. But think about it.
Actually, an army during peace is much more dangerous. Because think about it. I don't really have an enemy to fight. But I have all of this power, all of this tank. Why does this actor have more money than me? I'm protecting him. Why does this businessman think that he can get on his private plane and go to Paris? And why am I here sitting like not having all of these things?
And there's a lot of time on your hand because your job is to go fight.
when you don't go fight and we when you have the lack of that's why that's one of the things I love the United States about is the fact that the army cannot really get power but they kind of like the army is the power is actually in the military industrial complex which is a different issue yeah it's kind of like a different kind of issue but if you have all of that power like why am I sitting around just like playing guard for you guys that's why Iran is terrifying because you have this military that it just becomes a police force that turns against its own people yeah
You're a famous guy talking shit in the middle of all that.
Yeah. And when I left, I went through a very dark side. Dark, dark, dark. Because all of the insecurities, all of the stuff that had been like working in my head now came to life. And now I'm in America and I'm a nobody.
I'm a nobody. Nobody.
And now it's like I have to do something. I have to earn some money. So I started to do stand-up comedy five years ago. And I sucked because it was my second language and it was new. And now I will go to these comedy clubs with like kids and 21, 22 people. And then I'm there with a family to support that. I'm going there to do it for $15, $20. And I was bad. How bad? You're bombing.
Bombing big time. Eating shit. Eating shit big time. Dying up there big time. And I would go back home and I would cry. And then what made it worse is sometimes, like a fan. Not a fan. A bunch of fans from Egypt.
Oh, Bessie Music. You know that? They come. And then... Yeah, just start.
That kind of face of adoration that goes... Yeah. And I could see it in their face. I think he's gonna drive an Uber in a couple of weeks.
That kind of pressure. And I would go and I would cry.
And then the central, oh, you left. You gave up. You were a sellout. You were a coward. Why don't you speak from abroad? You're safe now. I already spoke. I don't want to be, because I don't want to be an activist. I was doing that for comedy when it was good for everybody. But now they want me to go into YouTube and just like throw rocks from outside. I was like, you know what, I understand.
I have family there. And it was this kind of like thing like that I am being... like attacked for not doing what I should do in their face and attacked for not being funny and not doing good.
And now I'm feeling like maybe it was wrong and I was, I didn't know, I really, it was so traumatic that I don't know actually how I went through these years and I blocked so many details from my brain because I have been using this technique for a while now that I have been erasing a lot of my, there is a lot of memory gaps in my brain.
And I'm trying to suppress it because it was very, very, very traumatic. And a lot of people told me you have to go to therapy, but I don't, I can't, I don't know. I'm worried to open the floodgates. And I'm thinking as if I'm functional and I'm not killing anybody, I'm okay.
I think Elon tweeted, never went to therapy. It's going to be on my headstone. Terry, you're our best buds. Okay. I mean, that is terrifyingly difficult. After being a surgeon, after being a superstar, super famous, going to eat shit at local tiny clubs in the United States. I mean, eating shit, period. Bombing is really, really, really difficult. Really difficult for 20-year-olds.
Imagine when you're 45, 46, and then people are like, is this his midlife crisis? What is this? I went through a lot of pain and a lot of, like, the doubts, and it was terrible.
I mean, how did you survive? I know you blocked off most of it, but what gave you, like, strength through all that? Because I didn't have any other choice.
Because I started that. And the only reason that I could is to continue. I don't know what else to do. I don't want to go back to medicine. I don't want to do that. And I don't know. And bit by bit, bit by bit, I started to kind of like be better, be better, be better.
And I was at a certain time a year ago, a year ago, this is where I started to kind of like hone the craft and kind of sell more tickets and sometimes even sell out some shows and sometimes sell a theater. So like it was going and the money was flowing and it was good. And then I was like, why didn't, I wanted faster, I wanted more, I wanted now, I want Netflix deal or whatever.
And then the Piers Morgan thing happened and then I blew up. And then suddenly I'm selling out everywhere. And it's like, ah, if those people came, if the war happened two years ago, I will not be ready. So now they come to the show, and by the way, my show had nothing to do with the October 7th. My show is my thing that I've been crafting and working on.
You know how difficult it is to do the first hour the hour that I've been working on for five years. And it's all my personal story, all about what happened to me in Egypt, me as an immigrant coming here to the United States, finding Trump as a president, finding myself in the middle of a gun rally, finding myself in the middle of a bombing, kind of like talking about how I got my citizenship.
It's all like funny stories, like my origin story. So they come in and they expect October 7th and all this is my personal story, but it's good and it kills and they love it. It's like if that kind of like blew up in America happened to me two, three years ago,
I would not have people who come and be disappointed. I gotta say, the timing of October 7th is very suspicious.
Oh my God, please don't say that.
I don't know. I'm just asking questions. I don't know.
I'm telling you, one of the funniest thing, a guy, I was in Dubai, and like a TV anchor came to me, Basim Youssef, he flourishes during revolutions and wars.
Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what? Dude! You're making me sound like a bad omen, a very bad omen.
Yeah, you, Hamas, and Bibi together orchestrated all of this. Oh my God, that's the trilogy. You guys should go on the road together. I'm telling you, that phone call is coming. Yeah, but Hamas has to open. And they would really bomb, right?
They would really bomb.
I love dark humor. You do a show, like you were saying, in English and in Arabic. And the story is very different. Totally different. Two different stories. I would love just the language difference. Because the music of the language is also different. How can you convert it into words? But what's the difference in the music of the languages? I'll tell you. Because I thought about that a lot.
So when I was doing the English first, I was, I actually had good jokes, but I was missing the delivery because the cadence and the music and the rhythm is different. The way that an English speaking American member of audience will receive it, it will be different than how I receive it. The energy, everything's different. So when I kind of like got it, I didn't know how to switch back to Arabic.
Oh, wow. Yeah, fascinating.
Because here's the thing, with English stand-up comedy, you have a huge library. You have like a legacy. You have like years and years and years of people doing comedy. But in Arabic, it's very new to us. And most of the Arabic stand-up comedy, especially in Egypt, is very tamed. This is kind of like, imagine the stand-up comedy scene in American 1960s before Lenny Bruce.
So no swearing, conservative.
No swearing, nothing conservative, everything. It's kind of like very... So... I didn't know what to do with Arabic. So I broke the barriers. I became Danny Bruce, I became George Collins.
So I went in and I went and I changed the whole thing.
For me, 15 words. Arabic is a very rich language. So when I did, here's the difference between the Arabic and the English show. The English show, surprise, surprise, is a unifying language. even for a group of Arabs.
So if I give the same exact show to the same 1,000 audience members in the same theater, and they're the same people, same makeup of like Lebanese, Egyptian, Syrian, Saudis, English will be a unifying language. Arabic is a dividing language because you have 22 dialects and the dialects are vastly different. And like maybe Egyptians understand a little bit of Lebanese, but not that much.
But the references, Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian, totally different animal. That's like a totally different language. Saudi, Emirati, Kuwaiti, totally different. People understand the Egyptian dialect because it's the dialect of most of the artwork and the movies, but the reference in the everyday street talk might not be understood by them. So now I have to go in
and talk to all of these dialects together. So I formed my, big part of my show is like, what are you guys expecting of this? This is what, this is, we gonna, when I go do profanity and you're gonna like it? This is the problem with the show as a dialect, and I construct all of these sentences formed of so different, different words. For example, an iron. In any Arabic dialect, it's an iron.
In Saudi Arabia, it means ass. That's one example. That's one example. So imagine if you can actually construct sentences having all of these things in one sentence. So I would construct a whole section of my show about that.
So it's really very much about self-reflective on language and the limits of language that's allowed.
And the limits of language. And I tell them, part of the show is like, I know what's the problem with me doing Arabic. It's like, if this was an English show and I was telling you fucking shit, I bet you'll be, ha, ha, ha. But if I do one swear word, all of you will scream shit. It's like, why? Is it because we are ashamed of our own language?
So it's kind of like, it's not just like about swearing. It's about like, there's a lot of philosophical pathways in this. Yeah, there's profanity and people have fun, whatever. But like, it is about like, how do we treat our language? And I tell them, we speak Arabic as Arabs, but it's not the same Arabic. Crazy, right? And you're doing the show in America also, which is another level of upset.
Oh, yeah. Actually, the Arab diaspora in America is some of the best audiences I have. they are like wonderful, and they come from, and I did it also in the Middle East, and maybe I'll do like an Arab tour in the Middle East in the fall.
Which countries would you go to and not?
Jordan, Lebanon, I'm doing UAE, I'm doing Kuwait, Egypt, Bahrain, Egypt, I don't think so. I don't think so.
Is it personal, is it worry about your safety?
Well, I have the American citizenship right now. So I am relatively safe. There's a block. Honestly, there's a block. There's so much that happened. And I know never bad mouth Egypt. It is my country. It has all of my memories, 40 years of my life I lived there. But when you get hurt so much, instead of trying to kind of, I don't wanna take revenge, I don't wanna like that, I just want to avoid.
Because Egypt gave me so much fame and so much love and so much hate and so much rejection. It was a very tumulus relationship, very, very difficult. And a lot of people tell me, well, don't you miss Egypt? And I tell them every time, the Egypt that I miss is not there anymore. It's not bad or good. It's not worse or better.
It's just, I'm different and the places are different and the people are different and the circumstances are different. Whatever image that you have of what you love is not there anymore. That's why a lot of immigrants, especially Arab immigrants, they live here, but they're there.
And then when they go back for a vacation, they get disappointed because they didn't find what they want. And then they come back here and they're disappointed because this is what they want to come back, but it's not there anymore.
yeah their view of that place is from a different time i have that you know my parents but everybody that left the soviet union i mean it's such a complicated relationship with that it's sometimes borders on hate disappointment in the uh in the case of the soviet union perhaps similar to egypt is the promises sold when you're younger
And the promise is broken by the possibility of what it was supposed to be. With the Soviet Union, I'm sure with Egypt is the same. Iran is the same. So they have a very complicated relationship with that.
Yeah. That's why, like, for example, people from Iran, I remember quite well the World Cup that was made in the United States. And the Iranian team will play in America. And there were people, people,
in the audience all wearing, they hate the regime, but they have this kind of connection with the country.
And this is the whole thing. You can actually love the country and you not have to agree with the regime.
Would you ever perform in the West Bank? No. Gaza?
Because if I go there, I have to go to the Israeli checkpoints and I don't want to go through this. I don't want to have an Israeli soldier telling me what to do.
Yeah, there's a demeaning aspect to that whole thing. Very. Even in subtle ways, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I have so many Palestinian friends with an American passport, U.S. passport, living here. They are born here. And they talk about the humiliation and the intimidation and the harassment that they go in. It's like, do you want me to try?
Yeah, that little bit of a humiliation.
A little bit. Yeah.
Oh, sometimes it's major, but I noticed that even a little bit, after a lifetime of that, it can turn to hate towards the other.
Yeah, and resentment.
Resentment. And then how do you do anything with that resentment?
I have a friend of mine. He is from Palestine, from the West Bank. He's American here. He was born here. And we talk about, you know, we have, of course, all of this discussion about what happened, and he tells me, you know, in October 11th, in the West Bank, and there was a village called Kosra.
And on that village, like, the settlers went in around the village, and they sent a message on Facebook, it's like, you rats, get out of your sewers, and we're gonna be waiting for you. Intimidation through technology.
and then they went uh the the it is because we have like another uh settlement next to it called the eshkodesh eshkodesh they have people there who were training something called mishmriti isha which is basically the guardians of isha and it's like a paramilitary group that trains other settlers on military combat give them weapons and do like military drills
And they went there like militarized and went there. And it was actually co-founded by a Jew from Brooklyn, not even, and like an Israeli. And he is like one of the disciples of Meir Kahane. I'm sure that you know who Meir Kahane is. He was the Jewish defense lead, the people who assassinated Alex Oda here in the United States. And they were there with their weapons outside, intimidating people.
This story carries everything that is wrong with the situation. You have people from Brooklyn, from outside, just because they're Jewish, they can't come and they can't claim the land from the people there. Anybody from Poland, just because he's Jewish, he can come and take the land from other people. They're using technology to intimidate Palestinians. They have unchecked military power.
These are not IDF soldiers. These are settlers and they have free reign in order to intimidate and to kill the people. And you understand, this is the daily life of Palestinians.
Not in Gaza, in the West Bank.
What do you do from your, what do we do? What do people do? to nudge this towards peace, towards flourishing?
Here's the thing, I wanna talk to the people of Israel. What is Israel doing right now is not just unfair to the Palestinians, it's unfair to the Jewish people in Israel. No, it is unfair to the Jewish people around the world. Because the way that Israel links itself to Judaism, At a certain point, you know, remember like ISIS and Qaeda when everybody hated Muslims?
You know, sometimes humans are simple. They cannot have the nuances to separate. So anybody who with a Muslim name, with a Muslim face, with a beard, who looks Muslim, he would do it because of that actions of those atrocities. You have the power as a person to separate yourself from an abusive power, a horrible power, and be yourself.
I am really worried because the rise of anti-Semitism and the rise of hate against Jews is not because of the Jews. It's because of the actions of the government. Jews do not have to be on the side of apartheid. Ronnie Kestrels, he is a Jewish South African, and he fought shoulder to shoulder next to Nelson Mandela. He was part of the African National Conference ANC.
And he had an article saying, like, I know what apartheid is, and I saw Israel, and this is what they have. And the thing is, the Israeli government should listen to other people. You cannot call anybody who criticize you either an anti-Semite or if they're already Jewish, you call them like self-hating Jew.
You cannot do that. You cannot continue doing that.
Because we did that. When I would go in and criticize the Islamists, it's like, oh, you're self-hating Muslim. You're not really Muslim. You're an infidel. You're a secret. You're a secular, whatever. We have the power in order to reform the course by holding people in power accountable. And the thing is, it is very stupid to actually call this antisemitism. My idol is Jon Stewart.
I voted for Bernie Sanders. Sarah Taxler, the one who did this amazing documentary about me, Tickling Giants, she's a Jew. She is married to an Israeli Jew. We have a good ratio because we know what the right is. They don't have to associate themselves with the action of the Israeli government.
One of your favorite words, jihad. That's my favorite hobbies.
It's his favorite hobby. It's my show. It's like, what's his favorite? I talk about like how when a white shooter does something, he talks about all of his family and all of his hobbies. Like, what if we did this for Arab terrorists? What are his hobbies? Jihad.
You see? You should be a comedian.
Yeah. Yeah.
Wow, you're making me feel good.
Okay. Sam Harris has done several episodes on jihad, and people should go listen to it, even if you disagree with it. But the basic idea... that he's proposing is that this idea of jihad, in the negative connotation of it, of martyrdom is a thing that gets, is counterproductive, is destructive to the possible future flourishing of Palestinian people. What do you think of that?
There's just the idea of martyrdom.
Yeah, I totally agree, but people don't wake up in the morning and say, like, I want to declare jihad. Think about it. Why would anybody choose to end his life by taking other people with him and end that life? His life must be miserable. He must be pushed into that. Nobody chooses death over life willingly. One of the first suicide bombers in the Palestinian resistance were Christians.
We don't talk about that. I think he would say that the presence of a story that you can tell yourself when you're in a really shitty place, that you can go to a much better place by sacrificing your own life, just the fact that the presence of that story is there is harmful.
Of course, but here's my problem with Sam Harris and... Usually people, they have free range talking about the Islamic faith and nitpicking the stuff that makes it put in a bad light. I can go and nitpick every single religion. There are Jews there, like Ben Ghafir, who openly say spitting on Christians is not a hate speech. All right.
They are, I mean, you can bring me like all kinds of videos of Islamic jihadists saying horrible things on YouTube, and I can bring you Jews who live there. They're like, we're going to have the whole world enslaved for us, and everybody would love to be slaved for the Jews.
You know, I can use the Talmudic argument that if you tie a man to a tree and he dies of thirst and hunger, you didn't kill that man. And this is kind of the same arguments like, ah, we're not killing Palestinians, it's just like killing, they're dying by themselves, you know? So it is, the nitpicking of a certain narrative, religious narrative,
that is separate from the political context and what's happening right now, it's very unfair. Because I can read, if you want to have a deep dive into religious texts, nobody will be happy. And I can bring stuff from the Talmud and the Torah and stuff that is horrible. But like, you know, this is a way, again, of like, distraction.
I dare you to talk shit about Buddhism and Jainism, though. Try.
Well, you know, the people who killed the Muslims in Myanmar, weren't they Buddhist? Yeah.
Well, let's go Jain. Okay, I'll find religion. I've got to get back to you.
I'll have to find religion. The flying monster, the church of the flying monster spaghetti.
The flying monster. As a person who tries not to eat carbs, I'm deeply offended by that. I mean, they're Scientologists. All they do is actually buy real estate.
I think there's a few books written about the fact that they do other stuff as well.
So even there, Mormons sometimes, they're some of the nicest people I've ever met. But I'm sure there's also darkness there too. Oh boy, religion. There's soaking in Mormons. There's what?
Soaking.
What's soaking?
Okay, so I don't know how much. So soaking, basically, if you get into the woman and you don't move, that's not adultery. That's not like... Oh, interesting.
So there's a loophole. You go in and you just take. There's a loophole.
There's a loophole.
It's the thing. Religion has a loophole. Yes, and Muslims, we do that the whole time. We pick and choose our sins, the stuff that we enjoy. It's just... Where are you?
There's 72 virgins waiting for all of us.
Maybe if I converted you as a Jew, I'll get you 80.
I don't know. We can negotiate. All right.
1998.
Best year ever. Well, they last a long time.
Yeah.
So... I'm not sure I want 70. I need to... I'll throw five in the mix and see how we feel.
Yeah, can we... If you want to upgrade. Yeah. Can we do a trial period? But in general, if you just zoom out, do you think religion is... In what way is it good for the world? In what way is it harmful?
If there was no religion, humans would have invented religion. Because think about, think of like the early humanity. Like you're like a caveman or whatever, and then like you see your family members killed, and then you say like, what, I'm gonna be like the cheetah or the gazelle that just like ends and perish? I need to have, I am more important.
I think with the development of consciousness, humans... like thought that they are much more precious and important than the other animals because they have now intelligence. So my life will not end like that. My death will be even more important. There's consequences for that. There's consequences for what I do. And then the early man was like,
They are in the desert and all of these like natural phenomena. They didn't know what to do. They were afraid. So they need to have refuge. They need to have something to take care of. They need to have a reason for everything. Because if there's no reason, it's chaos. It's chaos. It's terrifying. It's terrifying. There's nothing. There has to be a reason. There has to be a reason.
There has to be a purpose. There has to be like a cause, something. I'm not just going to be like die like a cockroach being stepped on. And that's kind of like part of it is ego. The whole world rotates around you in a way. It's the ego. So religion actually got a lot of it from humanity itself. Like me, us, like us being humans. And there's, and many religion is a collection of stories.
And those stories based on things that humans did themselves and they attributed it to gods.
And there's an aspect of religion where you humble yourself before a thing that is much greater than you. So that has a I would say a very positive effect of humbling.
It will be great if it's stopped there. But here's the thing, if you humble in order that your ego kicks in and feel that you are better than someone else who's not humbled in front of the same God, that means that I will have all of that train that I can use that, because now, what does it mean being humble? I'm divine. But you're not. I'm way more humble than you. But you're not.
So you see how they kind of like the oxymoron, I'm humble and I'm surrendering, but in the same time, I am better than you and I'm more entitled. Isn't it crazy? Yeah. It's beautiful. It's crazy. I mean, look at like the Muslim Christians and Jews and everyone. It's like, all right, Muslims, we surrendered. I mean, I'm talking about the extreme ones. I mean, like people say, I surrender to God.
Good. Keep it that way.
like if you go I surrender to God that means that I am closer to God than you than you should die okay Christians Christ is love and he loves me and we gonna be together but you don't get into his kingdom and you die you see it's the same thing yeah it's just if you stop it stop there stop where you are humble and you feel that you're a piece of shit and you are worthless human being and you are there yeah stop there
But once you say, oh, that makes me a better person than you, and it makes me more with God than you, so that would give me the entitlement to kick your ass.
Yeah, we always ruin a good thing. Don't we? That ego. You've been outspoken recently. with Piers Morgan, but just on this topic, and you talked about the Superman story, which I would love it if you were in a Superman movie, but have you lost job opportunities?
because of this? Because it's picking up? There was other, a couple of things that were going on, but they stopped. Again, I don't know if it's October 7th.
The Superman story just so. Yeah, yeah.
What role were you?
Okay.
What did you audition for?
Yeah, it's okay.
So in June, I was traveling to Dubai.
and right an hour before i i get into the car and go there my manager said like best i'm going to send you a script read it it's for superman it's like oh superman you know i i i'm not really good in auditions i'm not as an actress so it's like okay i'm just gonna do it send the tape i do that they send it i go to the airport and and i read i and i can i think i can talk about it now because they said they changed the script
So basically what I found it interesting in that new script is that there is like a dictator in a country that invades another country and Superman interferes politically. That's the first time we ever see Superman interferes politically. So basically it was like Russia and Ukraine, but because of me, it was like, it couldn't be Russia and Ukraine.
So it had to be something kind of like with a flavor. So I read the role as if as a mixture of Trump and Mubarak. I did this mix and like, you know, I had like the kind of, but also like kind of like the essence of Trump into it. I went to the airport. It's like an hour. It's like James Gunn saw it. He loves it. What? I never had an audition that fast. I mean, I had a few roles, but not that fast.
Not like that. And then it's like, well, the strike starts like tomorrow and we need to be on the phone. But after the strike, we cannot talk. The SAG after strike, like where the writers and the actors strike. So like, well, I'm going to be on a plane right now. It's like, wait, once you land, you can have a Zoom call with James Gunn. I have a call with James Gunn. He's, I am a huge fan of him.
The guy took like something like Guardian of the Galaxy, nobody knew about it, made amazing trilogy. And he is like a really cool guy. I like what he did. And it was like really nice. And he started to talk to me about the movie. And you know, like I talked to people before casting them. So I know that everybody's on set, have a good chemistry. It was amazing.
So in your mind, if you're an actor, what does that mean? You got the part. And he told me, you got the part. Month goes by, strike goes by, October 7th happens, I do Piers Morgan, one and two, and then I go to my Australian tour. My manager called me, asked him, the circle's over. It's like, you don't have the part anymore. I was sad, very sad, but for three days.
And so like, I need to stand up for it, khalas. I'm actually doing very well, alhamdulillah. And then, when I went to Chris Como, I, after I finished the show, he told me, did you lose any opportunities? And that was off record after, after the show was like, we concluded. And I said, I talked about Superman and I found myself when I was talking, I was angry. I was bitter. And I went home.
It's like, why was I angry? Why was I bitter? It wasn't meant to be, and I'm living a good life now. I don't need to. So when I was asked again the next day in two different interviews, the BBC and another one was alone with my friend, Dina Abedallah, I said the story in a different way. I said, I don't have any anger.
As a matter of fact, maybe if I was Warner Brothers, I didn't talk about James Gunn, I thought it was the studio. If I was Warner Brothers and I'm a Muslim, I wouldn't have like a Zionist or a pro-Israeli in my movie. But I want to tell them that like when I criticize Israel, I am not a threat to you as a Jew. And we can actually have more in common. That was more of a kind of empathic.
So when I said that, the internet went crazy. And you know, James Gunn have haters because you know the Snyder verse and all of the, it's a word that I don't understand. And James Gunn like had all of these attacks on him. And I was pissed of how it was handled. I wasn't angry at James Gunn, but I thought it was. So my publicist, I'm just like, Bassem, stay calm, don't speak.
It's better to not talk about it. I said, okay. So there's nothing wrong about me, but I see the heat is rising against James Gunn. And that is a guy that I had a personal connection with, even through Zoom. And I didn't like what was happening.
And then he called me and he explained to me, I said, Bassem, you know, I actually use, like have camera tests before people before finally, I didn't know that. And then we changed the script and it was the strike, so I didn't call. And also I thought to myself, I'm small, I'm a small actor. I'm not that important for him to call me to say we're gonna change the script.
So I still think that like the timing sucks and everything. But then I went and I did a video explaining exactly what I'm telling you because I didn't want to be famous for the wrong reasons. Because that would be unfair. Because that was, already people were, and I was having like interviews. Can you come about this? Like guys, that's it, I'm not gonna talk about it because this is a non-issue.
And I didn't, and when I talked to James on the phone, I felt how sincere he was. So I didn't want someone to, because of me, will have that kind of attack because I know what it means to be on the other side of that kind of attack. It's terrible. And it ruins your life and it ruins your day. And nobody deserves to be doing that.
And I don't want to be the reason for someone else to go through that pain.
And you also said that you don't want to be a victim.
I don't want to be.
I'm doing great. I'm selling out everywhere.
I'm having a wonderful, loyal audience that's coming to me. Why would I be angry about the role of Superman? Yes, it's great to be in a superhero movie, but so what?
You know? There's a wisdom in that. Even if you weren't doing great, that's a choice a lot of people can come to, which is like, do I play victim here or not?
It's greed. It's greed. They want more attention. They want to be more into the thing. They want more and more. And there is so much to go around to be enough for all of us. But it is greed. It is ego, ego, ego, ego. I need to be in the center. I need to be victimized. I need to be people feel sorry for me and love me. And it is not the right way. It is not because it is fake. It is fake.
It is made up. And I did not victimize myself when I left for Egypt. I mean, in the time that I was, now I speak about it now. But in that dark times, I was detained in airports. I didn't have my American passport yet. I was still traveling with my Egyptian parents. And I was detained in an Arab airport. I was going to be delivered to the Egyptians. I had shows when I was still starting.
I had hecklers being sent to me by the Egyptian embassy and Egyptian council in New York and in London to curse me and to take videos of that and then send it to state-run media in Egypt. And I didn't speak about that because I felt that like, if I speak about that, I feel about like what was going on to me, I would be victimizing myself.
It's like, if I'm gonna be good, I'm gonna be good because of what I do, not because of what people's perception of what I'm going through.
Yeah, and that becomes a slippery slope and somehow victimizing yourself. Goes to more victimizing.
Yeah. And then you cannot leave that habit. You can only exist and thrive if people feel sorry for you.
Yeah, I mean, Israel and Palestine currently both have that temptation.
I would always push back when you do the comparison because one of them is not really in the same kind of power. I mean, yeah.
For sure. To you, that's a big problem.
It's very easy to say why Palestinians would victimize themselves, but Israel with all of that military might, man, it's too much.
What Israel is doing is that they're victimizing the Jewish experience. And I don't think it is fair for a lot of Jews. I don't think that they should use the Holocaust and the persecution that happened to Jewish people all through history in order to push an equally oppressive agenda. That is not fair and it's not good for the Jewish people living.
And it is basically a disrespect to the memory of the Holocaust. I told you, I want to make a movie about the Holocaust. I do. Because what happened was that kind of engineered torture should never happen again. And it should not be happening now.
100%.
And I think, and you know, can I be a conspiracy theorist for a second? Please, the earth is flat.
We all know this.
A part of me thinking... Maybe they are doing that intentionally because if there's a rise of anti-Semitism in Jews, there will always like points like, see, they hate us so we can do whatever we want. Because you see, if we let go of our might and our strength, we're gonna go back to the concentration camps because you see how the world hates you. And again, when you say they are people in power.
Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. Listen, it's always the people in power. I believe that humans are easily corruptible and easily repairable, but the corrupt part is much easier. But people could change, but power, people and power are very dangerous. Very, very dangerous, especially if you have religion, which is power by itself, military might, political support, and money.
Dude, that's a very, very, very dangerous recipe.
All that said, I do believe in the power of the little guy, the individual, to overthrow the government. I don't know if you heard, but the Arab Spring happens.
But, okay, here, we are... Just among friends. We are Americans, right? We're Americans. Allegedly. We're Americans.
How funny is that? Like, just giving our two backgrounds. We're Americans. We're Americans.
It's like... We're Americans.
There's one thing about the power of the little guy that I am very sad about. Because, you see, I love America, by the way. I consider it my new home. And I want my kids to grow up here. I'm very grateful for the opportunity that I have in the United States.
And I criticize the United States politics and I criticize it out of love the same way that I was criticizing what's happening with Egypt out of love. What is worrying for me is how the power of the little man is diminishing. It doesn't matter now who do you vote into power. They will not listen to you. They would listen to the people who paid them to be there.
And it is very concerning because I can see the American democracies turning, not even slowly, very rapidly into an oligarchy. If I'm sure that all of the millions of people who are voting, they don't vote for the NRA. They don't vote for APAC. They don't vote for the pharmaceutical companies. They don't vote for the military industry complex.
And yet, the people in power, they come in, they take your vote. and my vote, and they are loyal to those people, not to us. And it is very, very, very concerning. Very concerning. And this is the danger on American policies, American politics, and American democracies.
It is dangerous because basically the vote becomes just like a ceremony that someone with the more funding will get to power, and then he's not loyal to you.
Still, the fire, I mean, we are in Texas. Everybody's armed to the teeth here.
Yeah, but what are these arms gonna do in front of tanks?
Well, you said the American military is unique in this way. I know, but for now. For now, the tanks are... First of all... I believe Russia has more tanks than the United States. Tanks, I don't know. I'm not an expert in military strategic deployment of arms, but the United States uses different kinds of weapons.
They have drones and they have the lasers and they're sitting comfortably behind the screens. It's kind of like it turns into a big Xbox game.
Yeah, and they sell a lot of those things to everybody.
It's crazy because the defense budget is 68% of American military. It's like almost $850 billion each year. And most of that weapons, we don't even need it. We just do it because of the contracts. There was like an incredible 60 minutes, I'm sure that you saw it, the one about like the gouging of the prices of the Department of Justice.
It was one of the most fascinating things that I've ever seen. They say like a valve, a safety oil valve that used to be sold for $329, now it is sold for $9,000. Why? Because there's only five weapon companies and they can control the prices.
And in 2006, the whole Apache fleet of the American army in Iraq was grounded because there was one valve that they were like gouging the price and didn't want to give them. The Stinger missile, just like the missile, the one that you carry and it's like the anti-aircraft, it used to be sold for $25,000. Now it's sold for $400,000. And nobody is doing that.
Because the DOD has fired 130,000 people, including engineers and negotiators. So now, in order to cut expenses, now we're paying more money. And the thing is, we do not have a say in this. We do not have a say in how my tax money and your tax money is being spent. Because I'm sure you don't want your money to be sent to Israel like that. I'm sure. Even if you're Jews, I'm sure.
I'm sure that like, I don't want my money to be given to some Muslim countries who kill other Muslims. I'm sure. But it is not, here's the thing. What kind of power do we have other than speaking? So what is left for us is free speech. And now when you speak, they call you anti-Semitic. You see why I'm angry?
But still, I mean, America's holding pretty strong despite the criticisms on the free speech front. But if you look at the freedom of the press, freedom of the speech index, America is not at the top. It is not.
And this is why, for example, it is very disheartening for me to see that the Western media, Western press that used to be the beacon of freedom are now using as mouthpieces. And it is funny how the New York Times, Nixon got angry in the New York Times in 1971 when they found leaks about him lying about the Vietnam War since the beginning.
And now he hired the plumbers, you know, the special units and orders to go in and find the leaks. This was Watergate, basically, because he was angry to see who leaked that instead of fixing the problem. Now, the New York Times have published this story about the rape that was a hoax that was written by Anna Schwartz, who someone will have no experience with.
And now, when it was leaked, instead of them correcting themselves, they went in and they had their own investigation to see who leaked. The New York Times in 2003 became the mouthpiece of George W. Bush of the WMD. And now, as an American, I see that the New York Times becoming a mouthpiece of a foreign country.
Why do you do that? One of the things that's really difficult to know is where to find the truth. It does seem that both sides use propaganda and both sides lie a lot. but both sides as in... Both Israel and Palestine, pro-Palestine, pro-Israel. There's a lot of lies.
I know, but...
It's a lot of inequality, man. There's a lot of people on the internet, but who have the mainstream media siding with? Yeah, but thanks to social media. Yes, thank God for social media because now it's individuals. They're people. You're comparing BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal with just people with a TikTok account.
Who has more power, in your view?
Now, it is actually very, very fascinating to see the little man having that power over the media.
In fact, disproportionately so. This is my problem.
But you cannot call people with TikTok propagandists while people being paid to give you the news and they deliberately lie to you.
Yes, I can. They're both propagandists.
Yes, yes. But the mechanism and the intentions are different. because here's the thing. I'd rather have the TikTok guy than the- Like the TikTok guy is a TikTok guy, all right? But if you have the New York Times being told that, being exposed to be lying, and then they get this like UN report, which is like a disgrace, and you just put the title and you don't talk about it.
It's like, I'm fine with CNN and Jake Tapper and all of those people spreading the rape allegations for years. They didn't, I don't even want them to refute them. I want them to bring the Israeli reports saying that it didn't happen.
The Israeli media themselves, they didn't even bother, not once. Is that balanced? That's not.
So that's why people in TikTok, because they have to take matters in their own hand.
Yeah, but the problem with the people in TikTok, It's the drug, the dopamine rush of getting a lot of likes. So instead of talking about the death of civilians, they'll talk about beheaded babies or the equivalent. They're going to actually make up stories because the made up stories are going to be more viral. And so now we're just in this scene, this muck of lies.
And there's a lot of people who actually exposed those lies on TikTok.
So you have both. You have both. And it's kind of like the democracy of the social media, as we always call it. But if you have the street-run media, that is the legacy media, CNN, BBC, New York Times, Fox News, all of those people, and they are like spreading lies and they're not even doing their journalistic job in order to at least bring the other side. That's problematic.
And that's worse. You're supposed to be journalists.
Yes.
You're supposed to be reporters.
Report, you know?
Yeah, but I see that this is like a catalyst, an inspiration for the citizen journalist to rise up. This is what you're doing. Oh, this? Yeah.
This is what you're doing. No, this is what you're doing because you go into the deep dive. This is like a no filter thing. There's no spin. The long form. The long form is going to save us. I see why you hate the TikToks, like a dopamine rush. Stupid TikTok.
Five hours later.
I saw the resentment in your face.
I can't look away. For those 30 seconds, I do four hours.
I mean, both have a place. Both are exciting. But I can't... It is very dangerous because you can't look away. And I almost never... Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I almost never feel better ever after having used TikTok.
Makes two of us, I can't, I cannot, I cannot. I have a team, by the way, I give my password to like a team, I don't even go there because I once in a dark night, very late at night, I went TikTok and it was like,
Two hours. What? Yeah. What?
I said, no, no, no. No, no, no. This is dangerous. I'm really like an Instagram and Facebook guy.
I don't need that.
And I barely get out of Twitter. I mean, like X, I don't. I can't. X is a cesspool. X is just like the concentrated hate. It's too much.
It's too much. I can't.
So you don't check it at all? You try not to check it at all? It is very intense. I don't. I don't. I just like, I post something and I run. Posting ghosts. So you're doing comedy here in the United States right now. Joe Rogan has the Comedy Mothership, which is an incredible club. Have you considered doing that club? I would love to. I mean, I- Do you know Joe? Of course no.
Who doesn't know Joe?
I feel like it's a small world of comedy. That's why I- No, I think like Joe's story was like, what he did and stuff that he did in the UFC and his podcast and- It just, it's, it's very impressive. The fact that he is there and he's bringing all of those people, whether in comedy or his podcast is very impressive. And this is what, this is what is the media is all about.
What is like the internet is all about to give you the experiences of stuff that you might never experience. And that is very important. I mean, you do it with people where like you go into their brains. He goes take people and they take their experiences and their lives and their story. It is very interesting.
And this is the beauty of that art form because you have all of these experiences at the tips of your hands and it is there for you to learn from. And what he's doing, like when he moved to Texas and we did the comedy mothership, anybody who would push comedy forward, that is the most difficult art form and the most demanding.
And the fact that you do that, and he might not even be making money out of it, but he's doing that because of his passion, that is enough.
Yeah, he really believes in creating this place where comedians can be really free. And one of the cool things about the Comedy Mothership is like, Comedian is king there. Yeah. Like, you have to bow down to the... Because, you know, the comedian who came there came after, like, eating shit.
Yeah, eating shit. Dying out there. Everywhere else.
If you are busy, you're a saint.
I have eaten shit for many years.
Now I'm going to give you shit.
It's great. You already told me what you think about the state of politics in the United States, but now tell me what you really think. What do you think of the choice of Trump versus Biden? How do we end up here? I don't know. I mean, like the fact that like you have two people over the age of 90.
Yeah.
It is.
I think it's over a hundred, but that's all right. Combined like a hundred and seventy. It is so sad. It is so sad that this is what we can produce as a society. Like a demagogue and a sleepy Joe. He's too, he's not there, man. He's gone. He's gone. He could, you know, like when old people could be like a danger for themselves, he's a danger for the whole world. I mean, like the whole world.
Like if an old person would die, he would like, you know, have like a hip replacement. We can need a new planet because of one decision. But it's not just that. It's not that. It's... What are, when I came here, listen, I am, I'm a Democrat. I always like, and I told you, like, I vote for Bernie Sanders. I, like, I supported him, like, 2016, but I couldn't vote then.
And of course, a huge bad fan of Obama. And one of my friends, he's like, he's the first Muslim president. But he killed Muslims. Like, that's the things Muslims do. But anyways. I love that line. And it just, I think the whole idea, like my shock is, I told you about like what Biden said about like, I'm a Zionist. Okay, we are Zionists.
But then like Jews are not safe in anywhere other than Israel. It's like, dude, what the hell are you saying? And if you don't care about me and you don't care about my misery, why would I care about you winning or losing, you know? And I have a joke that I told people, like why would even Biden care? Listen to us. He just raised $145 million in California alone from pro-Israeli groups.
I mean, what can we Arabs working in the vape business do to him? It's like we cannot compete with that. I mean, like practically, I mean, it's like life is unfair. The guy is a politician. He needs bills to pay. He needs a campaign to run. He needs money. He will go to the people who will give him money. Joe Biden is the highest paid politician from Israeli lobbies, $4.6 million over the years.
Yeah, but I also believe in great leaders that go against all of that. But unfortunately- Bernie Sanders was like that. Bernie Sanders- Yes, but also age. I don't want to be ageist.
Of course, of course. No, no.
But even with like, because I remember listening to Bernie Sanders 20 years ago on Tom Hartman Show, and I don't want to say anything against Bernie, but like he was sharper then. Of course. There's a thing with age. Yeah, of course.
No, I think I'm a huge fan about like putting a limit on your working years because you don't want to have like a Mitch McConnell moment every now because now the whole thing is like, what is this? Isn't this not like a... a hospice care home, it is unfair, it is unfair.
And that the whole idea that you have like unlimited, like you have a limit for the president, but you don't have limit for Congress people and senators. That's, what do you mean? This is basically, you can go in and be in governance forever. And you know, the longer that you can get, the more corrupt you will get.
And that is very concerning for Americans. Everybody. Everybody becomes corrupt after. I mean, that's why two terms is a good limit. For everybody. Yeah. And, you know, maybe half a term for Egyptian leaders. Well, you know, our half term is 15 years. Quarter term. You should come back and run for office there.
Oh, my God, no. No, there's a curse in Egyptian presidency. Nobody comes there. He's dead or in jail. Yeah. It's not the most appealing job.
They might make a statue of you, though. Make you look good. After my death? I look very good dead in a statue. Yeah, when you look at what happened with Navalny. since you kind of really thought about this in Egypt. What happened with Navalny in Russia? What do you think about that?
Yeah, but what happened to Navalny in Russia is not something new in Russia. I mean, Putin have like this whole history of poisoning and killing people. And it's kind of like pretty much, I would have to say credit Putin, he's like bringing us the essence of the dark ages, the middle ages. It's like, you know, like basically,
Putin is the living example of what happens if Game of Thrones was reality. It's like death by poison. Like a blow up a plane. It's like mysteriously disappears. It is so... It is very dark. But it's like...
It's like a, it's a television show. Maybe that's what attracts us to that part of the world is that it's so much on display, this game of power, of geopolitics, of war.
No, but the same happens in the West, but I'm behind closed doors. It's not that open. It's not that pronounced. It's like, oops, Epstein.
It's like, oops.
we just like i think i think because of the west is more advanced like in movies and cinemas we kind of directed better yeah i think i think the outcome is like the way that you kind of like said the scene is like scene and scene that's why people are all like landing on the moon they're like i get it but you know we haven't gone back there's the flat
All right, if we zoom out, do you think there will always be war in the world? Always be suffering? Yes. Yeah.
But here's the thing. I don't think for long. I don't think that will happen for long.
Wait a minute.
Yeah. Yeah. Because here's the thing. Humanity is destined to have war, especially, it will have war. But something happened in the last 50 years. We have had, now we have much more lethal weapons. The problem is, the beginning, it's like swords against swords, horses, cavalry, like cannons, catapults, mini-missiles, cheeky, cheeky, cheeky.
But now we're like, you know, like a press of a button, you can annihilate the whole planet. And this is the problem. Wars will all continue. The problem is when is gonna be the tipping point where we are actually going to destroy ourselves. And it is so easy now to destroy ourselves, the amount of weapons and the quality of weapons that we have.
It is designed to kill more effectively, more, it just, it is crazy. It's like we can create our own destruction on ourself. And I think we're not that far away from it.
Just looking at nuclear weapons, the fascinating thing about nuclear weapons that I've gotten to learn recently just how few people are involved in a full on nuclear war that kills basically kills everybody. Well, three plus billion people right away. And the consequences of the nuclear winter, it's unlivable. But all it takes is, I mean, one president can do it.
So it could be even a false alarm, misunderstanding. Like what happened in the Cuba missile crisis. But again- And now there's more nations are prepared and ready to launch.
I don't know. And you have a media and a 24 hours kind of like thing that makes you like at edge the whole time.
That's crazy. There's a dark perspective on this where there's certain members of the media that would kind of enjoy the prospect of nuclear war, like a little bit. Just let's get as close to it as possible.
You have another factor that will contribute to that. Religion. And remember how like the radical Islamists talk about like the end of time and whatever, but like most of the Islamic don't have that much power. Problem is with Christian Zionists now being on the top of the world with America. They have been pushing for that kind of conflict to kind of escalate, escalate. Listen to Sarah Palin.
It's like God wants us here.
Like Karl Rove, all of the new gods. The dispensationalist Reagan. There's an incredible book called, like, Forcing the Hands of God. Oh, beautiful book. I read this, like, it's published 1998, but it still matters today. The whole idea about, like, especially the Zionist Christians who love Israel, but they hate the Jews. They're anti-Semite, but they love Israel because of its role.
This is all basically formed because of the interpretation of the Bible of Schofield and how they talk about the end of time, the Armageddon, and then the late great planet Earth and then left behind Sirius and all of that. It's all about, like, we're heading to Armageddon.
The problem is Islam has their people that believe that the end of time, and then we have the Christians that believe in the end of time. And then you have Israel happy that those people are using it for the end of time. And then the whole idea about them pushing as many weapons and troops and people in the Middle East to be there for the nuclear Holocaust.
And John Hagee, one of the pastors talk about that, about the brimstones, and it's not gonna be a nuclear holocaust. All of that people, it's crazy how people are so despising life that they are wanting death. So now you always have these revelations, but these revelations mean nothing if you don't have an effective weapon in order to make it happen. And this is the crazy thing.
And I'm worried that the end is going to be by someone that wants to meet God a little bit earlier.
Somebody who's really in a hurry. Well, I have good news for you. Maybe we'll become a multi-planetary species.
Maybe Elon Musk will lead us the way to get out in space.
Maybe he's one of them.
He's a secret lizard.
I asked you offline to not mention the lizard people.
There's like a whole people that believe in the lizard people. It's crazy.
I actually have to be honest. I haven't fully looked into lizard people. I probably should. You should. Yeah. Well, maybe I'm afraid of the truth.
Then, then, then, then, then. Removing my face.
So let's say you're wrong about the end of the world. I hope so. And it all turns out great and humanity flourishes. Why would that happen? What gives you hope for that trajectory for humanity?
Younger people. The people of TikTok that you don't like.
Yeah, there is a lot of like bullshit there. You know, after you saying this, people just keep sending you TikTok videos. These younger people. This woman showing her boobs. That woman. That's going to save us. All right, awesome. Thank you.
No, there's like, I think... there is a wealth of, you know, remember like the joke that said like we thought that like when we have internet, we're gonna have like be more, you know, more informed and now we're watching twerking videos and that is true. But on the other side, the fact that you have the availability of information,
I'm learning a lot, and there's people who are using that platform. It's not the majority because it's not very interesting and exciting, but I think there might be a tipping point where there's enough people that would be aware, and maybe they would collectively do something in order to bring back the power to the small man. Maybe it sounds very naive, but we don't know.
We don't know because we, you have already seen the legacy media and the legacy politicians shaking in the past few months.
They're getting nervous.
They're getting nervous because people are calling them out. And those people were like hiding behind their desk, behind in their offices and not like not to holding a house for that, but like people now are calling them out. And it is not going to happen like this year or next year, but I think it's something. What advice would you give to those young folks?
I will never give advice to those people. Get off TikTok. I will never because their input is different than mine. But there's one thing I learned when people told me, did the revolution fail in Egypt? Did people, that the people, it's like, listen, the revolution is not an event. It's not like, hey, we go in, we topple the government. It's not a revolution. A revolution is a process.
It's a very long process. And maybe that process, I mean, as much as we don't like what happened in the Arab world, but the people there, the awareness that happened and the discussions that have been opened that you didn't even imagine what happened in the Middle East is happening.
And maybe the beginning of any hope of change is that people start talking, speaking out, talking about stuff they were not allowed to speak about. Like, for example, Israel. So...
The revolution continues. Ah, yes. Bassem, you're a beautiful human being. It's truly a pleasure and honor to meet you. I could just feel the love radiating from you. I hope I get to see you perform live. I hope to get to see you many more times.
Thank you for being who you are. Thank you so much. And I would love to invite you for my new special, The Islamo-Nazi Bassem.
That should be the title of your autobiography. Thank you so much.
Thank you, brother. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Bassem Youssef. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from Jon Stewart. The press can hold this magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen.
Or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected, dangerous flaming ant epidemic. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.