YouSaid · the spoken record

John Mearsheimer

lines on the record: 214
first: 2023-11-18
most recent: 2023-11-18
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“There's no question it's a top priority for them, and there's no question they mean it. But it's also a top priority for us not to let them take Taiwan.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you're a country and I'm a country and there's land between us, I can take my Panzer divisions and I can go right across the land and get into your country or attack your country. And you, of course, can take your Panzer divisions and come across that same piece of land. But if there's a big body of water between us, your Panzer divisions can't go across the water. And then the question is, how do you get them across the water? And that's very tricky. And in a world, we have lots of submarines and you have lots of aircraft and you have missiles that are land-based that can hit those surface ships. It is very, very hard to attack across a body of water. And all you have to do is think about Normandy, the American invasion of Normandy, June 6, 1944, coming in on Omaha Beach, right? Oh boy, that was really difficult.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yeah, I think geography is very important. Big bodies of water really matter. In an ideal world, you'd like to have the Pacific Ocean between you and any potential adversary, 6,000 miles. 6,000 miles of water, hard to get across.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's because there's this body of water called the Taiwan Strait. Which is a big body of water, and getting across water is very difficult, unless you can walk on water.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know My argument is there will be, there is right now, a serious security competition. And at the same time, there is a real possibility of war. Whether or not we avoid it is very hard to say. I mean, we did during the Cold War. We had a serious security competition from roughly 1947 to 1989. And we thankfully avoided war. probably came the closest in 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis, but we avoided it. And I think we can avoid it here. Is it for sure? No.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's our argument, right? But anyway, we goofed both with regard to Ukraine and with regard to the Middle East. And we're now up to our eyeballs and alligators in both of those regions. And as you described my view, this is not good because the area of the most strategic importance for the United States today is East Asia. And that's because China is there and China is the most serious threat the United States faces.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Billy understood that things were only going to get worse. And the White House shut Millie down and said we're not negotiating. So we have blown a number of opportunities here to head this problem off at the pass. But that's my view there. And with regard to the Israelis, my only point about Israel is that it would be better for Israel and better for the United States if we, the United States was in a position the United States was in a position to put pressure on Israel from time to time. As Steve and I say in the book, we should be able to treat Israel like a normal country, right? The fact is that countries sometimes do stupid things. This includes the United States and Israel. And if Israel is pursuing a policy that we think is unwise, we should be in a position where we could put pressure on Israel.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think just on Ukraine, we should not have pushed Ukraine to join NATO. And once the war started, we should have worked overtime to shut it down immediately. March, right? In the fall, early fall of 2022, the war starts February 2022, this March 2022, which we've talked about, which is in negotiations, in the fall of 2022. I think it was in September. The Ukrainians had won two major tactical victories, one in Hirson and the other in Kharkiv. And at that point in time General Milly, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said now is the time to negotiate because this is the high watermark for the Ukrainians.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it was there. Was he the person who was going to take advantage of it? I don't think so. Well, he's a student of history.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I think what you're missing here just in the Israeli case is that the Israeli government is not interested in a two-state solution. And you want to remember that Benjamin Netanyahu, who looks very hawkish when you look at him in isolation, doesn't look so hawkish when you look at him compared to the rest of the people in his cabinet. He almost looks like a moderate. He's got a lot of people who are way out to the right of him. And these people, and this of course includes Netanyahu, are not interested in a two-state solution. So the question you have to ask yourself is if you're Benjamin Netanyahu and it's July 7th late in the, excuse me, October 7th, late in the day, what do you do? You're not thinking about a two-state solution. You're thinking about an occupation that's”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To you, is I think that this punishment campaign is not going to work strategically. In other words, they're not going to beat the Palestinians into submission. They're not going to finish off Hamas. And at the same time, by pursuing this strategy, they're doing huge damage to their reputation around the world.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And since then, since October 13th, if you look at the number of protests around the world, 95% have been pro-Palestinian and 5% have been pro-Israel. And what this tells you is that public opinion around the world has shifted against Israel. And if you look at some of the demonstrations in places like London and Washington DC, it's truly amazing the number of people who are coming out in support of the Palestinians. And all this, again, is just to support my point that it was just not smart for Israel to launch this bombing campaign. You can make an argument for going after Hamas. and doing it in a surgical way or a surgical way as possible. But that's not what they did. And again, my point.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Versus pro Palestine. And then it looked at the numbers from October 13th up to the present. And I think the numbers were 69% were pro-Palestinian in the first six days after October 7th, 69%. And I think 31% take these numbers with a grain of salt. 31% were pro-Israel. So I think it was 69 and 31.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Lashed out in ways that are counterproductive. I think going on a rampage and killing huge numbers of civilians is not, it's obviously morally wrong, but it's also just not in their strategic interest, right? I mean, because it's not going to buy them anything, right? And in fact, it's going to cost them, right? Because people all over the planet are turning against Israel. I saw an Israeli think tank today that has been tracking protests around the world, gave some figures for what it looked like between October 7th and October 13th in terms of the number of protests around the world that were pro-Israel.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Israelis had no good strategy. It's not like there's a magic formula that they just didn't see, and we should have told them what the magic formula was, right? That's not true. They were, in a sense, caught between Iraq and a hard place in terms of what to do. But they're smarter things than dumber things. And I think the Israelis...”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From my offensive realist perspective or my realist perspective, that's what you should do, right? My view is states are rational actors. They should be cunning, right? They should think about the strategic situation they're in and choose the appropriate response. And what happens, and this is why my theory is not always correct, is that sometimes states are not rational. And they misbehave. I would argue in the Israeli case that it would have been good after October 7th or starting on October 7th if the United States had tried to hold the Israelis back and countenance a more moderate response, a more take some time just to think about how to deal with this problem.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I think if you look at how we reacted to 9 11 and how the Israelis are reacting to what happened on October 7th, there's quite a bit of similarity in that both sides, the Israeli side and the American side are enraged, right? And they lash out and they go on a rampage. And the end result is not good”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It doesn't work. The Palestinians are not going to roll over and submit to Israeli domination of their life. So the whole concept of the iron wall, Gabotinsky's term was misguided. And by the way, if you look at what the Israelis are doing, they're trying to do two things. One is the iron wall, and that's where you punish the civilian population in Gaza and get them to submit. The other thing that they're trying to do is get Hamas. They want to destroy Hamas. And the belief there is that if they destroy Hamas, they've solved the problem. But as many Israelis know, including people on the hard right, even if you destroy Hamas, they are going to be replaced by another group, another resistance group, and that resistance group will employ terrorists.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're purposely killing civilians. This is the iron wall. They're trying to beat the Palestinians in a submission. There's no way you kill this many civilians. If you're trying to precisely take out Hamas fighters. And by the way, the Israeli spokesman, the IDF spokesman, has explicitly said that we are not pursuing precision bombing and that what we are doing is trying to maximize the amount of destruction and damage that we can inflict on the Palestinians. And I think this is a major mistake on the part of Israel. First of all, it ends up being a moral stain on your reputation, number one. And number two, it doesn't work.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but you don't see that's not what Hamas is doing. I mean, I want to be very clear here. I am not justifying Hamas' killing of civilians, okay? Not for one second. But I'm just saying, and by the way, just to go to the Israelis and what they're doing in Gaza, right, as I said to you before, I do believe that is a massacre. And I believe that's to be condemned, the killing of civilians. This is not legitimate collateral damage. They're directly punishing the population. But I would not call that a genocide, right? And I would not compare that to the Holocaust for one second. I just want to be very clear on that.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What Hamas did doesn't even come close to what happened to European jury between, let's say nineteen thirty nine and nineteen forty five, although I date the start of the Holocaust to 1941 if we were looking at it closely. But let's just say 1939 when they invade Poland. 1939 to 1945, what Hamas did pales in comparison. It's hard to believe anybody would make that argument, right? Yes, a lot of Jews died, but hardly... Hardly any compared to the number that died at the hands of the Germans. I mean, no parallel at all. And furthermore, Hamas was in no position to kill all of the Jews in the Middle East. Just not going to happen.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is it possible that you could have another genocide? Yes. And I would argue that what you had in Rwanda was a genocide. The Holocaust is not the only genocide. I believe the word genocide is used too loosely today. And as you know, lots of people, and I mean lots of people who are pro-Palestinian accused the Israelis of engaging in genocide in Gaza. I think what the Israelis are doing in Gaza represents a massacre. I would use that term given the number of civilians that they've killed and the fact that they've been indiscriminate in terms of how they've been bombing Gaza. But I would not use the word genocide. For me, a genocide is where one side attempts. To eliminate another group from the planet. I think that what happened with the Holocaust was clearly a genocide Now”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Reducing, I wouldn't want to say completely eliminating, but reducing a lot of the hatred that existed between Germans and their neighbors. But that's really kind of an anomalous case. I mean, you go around East Asia today and the hatred of Japan in a place like China, the hatred of Japan in a place like Korea, just not to be underestimated. But I think a lot of it just has to do with the fact that you're dealing with social groups that have crashed into each other at one point or another. And there are those lingering effects. And by the way, this gets back to our discussion a few minutes ago about trying to get a two-state solution between the Palestinians and the Israeli Jews now that you have had this horrible war, which is ongoing.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But we are part of tribes or social groups or nations call them what you want, ethnic groups, religious groups. But the fact is that these tribes often crash into each other. And when they crash into each other, they end up hating each other. If you go to a place like Bosnia, right, the Croats and the Serbs, oh my God, and then throw in the Bosniaks, which is the term for Bosnian Muslims and Muslims, Croats, Serbs. And the tribes hate each other. And in a funny way, that hatred almost never goes away. And I guess there are some exceptions to that. If you'll get the Germans after World War II, they've gone a long way towards...”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, just to make a general point on this issue in our conversation here today, you often talk about individual leaders and the word individual often pops up in your vocabulary. I believe that we are ultimately social animals before we are individuals. I believe we're born into tribes. We're heavily socialized and that we carve out space for our individualism”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Would argue in the end, if anything it's going to foster anti-Semitism, I think you don't want to run around telling people that they can't talk about Israel without being called an anti-Semite. It's just not healthy in terms of the issue that you're raising, right? But I still agree with you that it is a tricky issue. I don't want to make light of that. I know that there's this piece of literature out there called the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And I fully understand that if you're not careful, you can come close to writing volume two of the protocol. But I don't believe that we wrote anything that was even close to that. And again, I think that a healthy debate on the issues that we were raising would have been not only in America's interest, but Would have been in Israel's interest.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You want to talk about it. It's just important to talk about it. It's important for Jews, right? In the United States, for Jews in Israel to talk about this. The idea that you want to silence critics is not a smart way to go about doing business, in my opinion. If we were wrong, if Steve and I were so wrong and our arguments were so foul, they could have easily exposed those arguments. They could have gone into combat with this in terms of the marketplace of ideas and easily knocked this down. The problem was that our arguments were quite powerful. And instead of engaging us and defeating our arguments, they wanted to silence us. And this is not good, right? It's not good for Israel. It's not good for the United States.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, you hit the nail right on the head. That's exactly right. And And there was nothing that we said that was anti Semitic by any reasonable definition of that term. And, you know, huge numbers of Jews have known me and Steve over the years. And nobody ever ever said that we were anti-Semitic before March 2006 when the article appeared because we're not anti-Semitic. But look, you've got this interest group, right? that has a significant influence on American policy. And on Israeli policy.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We obviously, when we wrote the article, which we did before the book, gave the subject a great deal of thought. I mean, what you say just now is music to our ears. I'm talking about me and Steve. I mean, I think that your point about dog whistles is correct. Look, we went to great lengths to make it clear that this is not a cabal. It's not a conspiracy. And in fact, in a very important way, the lobby operates out in the open. They brag about their power, right? And this was true before we wrote the article, right? And we said in the article and the book, and you heard me say it here. First of all, it's not a Jewish lobby, right? Secondly, it's not a cabal, right? It's an American interest group.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know it is important to talk about these issues in my humble opinion. And I think if we had talked about these issues way back when it would have gone a long way towards maybe getting a two-state solution, which I think was the best alternative here.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The lobby. And when John Mearsharmer and Steve Walt come along and say you have to understand that this special relationship is due in large part to the lobby's influence, that is not an argument that people in the lobby want to hear. So the point is you have to go to great lengths for all these reasons. You have to go to great lengths to silence people like me and Steve Walt. One of the ways to do that is to call us anti-Semites. I think the chapter or the section of the book where we talk about this charge of anti-Semitism is called the Great Silencer. That's what we call the charge of antisemitism, the great silencer. Who wants to be called an anti-Semite? Especially in the wake of the Holocaust? Do I want to be called an anti-Semite? Oh my God. No. And so it's very effective.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hamas attacked on october seventh because there were just a bunch of anti-Semites who hated Jews and wanted to kill Jews. This is not Nazi Germany, right? This is directly related to the occupation and to what was going on inside of Gaza. And it's not in Israel's interest or the lobby's interest to have an open discourse about what the Israelis have been doing to the Palestinians since I would say roughly 1903 when the Second Aliyah came to Israel or came to what was then Palestine, right? We want to talk about that. And we don't want to talk about from the lobby's point of view the influence that the lobby has, right? It's better from the lobby's point of view if most Americans think that Americans support of Israel is just done for all the right moral and strategic reasons, not because of...”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When you have a disaster and what happened on october seventh is a disaster, one of the first things that happens is that people begin to ask the question, how did this happen? What's the root cause of this problem? This is a disaster. We have to understand what caused it so that we can work to make sure it doesn't happen again. So we can work to shut it down and then make sure it doesn't happen again. But once you start talking about the root causes, right, you end up talking about how Israel was created. And that means telling a story that is not pretty about how the Zionists conquered Palestine. And number two, it means talking about the occupation, right? It's not like...”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's the silence people. It's very, very important to understand that one of the lobby's principal goals is to make sure we don't have an open discourse, a free-wheeling discourse about Israel. Because they understand people in the lobby understand that if you have an open discourse, Israel will end up looking very bad. You don't want to talk about the occupation. You don't want to talk about how Israel was created. All these subjects are ones that will cause problems for Israel. See, just to go to the present crisis, okay?”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think until there is a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there's no hope of putting an end to this nonsense, right?”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Zionism, right? And these were not people who were anti-Semites, if you go back to the 30s, 40s, fifties. And the same thing was even true in Europe. There were all sorts of European Jews who were opposed to Zionism. Were they anti-Semites? I don't think so. But we've gotten to the point now where people are so interested in stopping any criticism of Israel that they wield this weapon of calling people anti-Semites so loosely that the term has kind of lost meaning. So I think Netanyahu is wrong-headed to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But what they meant was you're criticizing the lobby, you're criticizing Israel, and therefore you're an anti-Semite. Okay, if that's what an anti-Semite is, somebody who criticizes Israel, you know, probably half the Jewish community, if not more in the United States, is anti-Semitic. And of course, you get into all these crazy games where people are calling Jews, self-hating Jews and anti-Semites because they're critical of Israel. But even people who are anti-Zionists, I don't think they're anti-Semitic at all. You can argue they're misguided. That's fine. But many of these people are Jewish and proud of the fact that they're Jewish. They just don't believe that nationalism and Jewish nationalism is a force that should be applauded. And you want to understand that in the American context, there is a rich tradition of anti-”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, you can define antisemitism. Any way you want, right? And you can define antisemitism to incorporate anti-Zionism. And I think we have reached the point where anti-Semitism is identified today, not just with anti-Zionism, but with criticism of Israel. If you criticize Israel, people will say, some people will say, you're an anti-Semite. And if that's your definition of anti-Semitism, it's taken an important term and stretched it to the point where it's meaningless, right? So when Steve and I wrote the book, wrote the article and then wrote the book, all sorts of people said that we were anti-Semites. This is a ludicrous charge.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What drives most, if not almost all the Jews. This is not to say there's not a religious dimension for some of them, but I think that the main connection is much more tribal in nature.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or if you take a group like Jewish Voice for Peace, right, Jewish Voice for Peace is not in the lobby. So it's wrong to call it a Jewish lobby. But with regard to the American Jews who are in that lobby, I think that really this is all about nationalism. It's not so much religion. Many of those Jews who are influential in the lobby are not religious in any meaningful sense of that term, but they self-identify as Jewish in the sense that they feel they're part of a Jewish nation and that in addition to being an American, right, they are part of this tribe, this nation called Jews, and that they have a responsibility to push the United States in ways that support the Jewish state. So I think that's...”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, first of all, I think you have to distinguish between Jews and Christians. You want to remember that there are a huge number of Christian Zionists who are deeply committed to Israel no matter what, right? And then there are a large number of Jews. The Jews, they're obviously the most important of those two groups in the Israel lobby. But, you know, one of the arguments that we made in the book is that you should not call it the Jewish lobby because it's not populated just by Jews and Christian Zionists are an important part of that lobby. But furthermore, there are a good number of Jews who are opposed to the lobby and the policies that the lobby purveys. And there are a number of Jews who are prominent anti-Zionists, and they're obviously not in the lobby.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But we couldn't get a two-state solution because it was almost impossible to put meaningful pressure on Israel because of the lobby. So this was not in Israel's interest and it was not in America's interest. And that was the argument that we made. And we, of course, got huge pushback for making that argument.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What every president since Jimmy Carter has tried to do, as I said before, is to foster a two state solution, to push Israel, which is the dominant player in the Greater Israel push Israel to accept the two state solution. And we have run into huge resistance from the lobby whenever we tried to, let's be blunt about it, coerce Israel, right? In a perfect world where there was no lobby and an American president was free to put pressure on Israel, to coerce Israel. I believe we would have gone a long way towards getting two-state solution. And I believe this would have been in Israel's interest.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not surprising given the nature of the American political system. So our argument is that the lobby is not doing anything that's illegal or illicit or immoral or unethical. It's just a good old-fashioned American interest group. And it just happens to be extremely powerful. Our argument is that this is not good for the United States because no two countries have the same interests all the time. And when our interests conflict with Israel's interests, We also argue, and I cannot emphasize this enough given what's going on in the world to day, that the lobbies effects, the lobby has not been pushing policies that are in Israel's interest. So our argument is that the lobby, right, the lobby pushes policies that are not in America's interest or not in Israel's interest. Now you're saying to yourself, what exactly does he mean by that?”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“that you can find between any two countries in recorded history. It's truly amazing the extent to which Israel and the United States are joined at the hip. And we support Israel no matter what, almost all the time. And our argument is that that is largely due to the influence of the lobby. The lobby is an extremely powerful interest group. It's very important to understand that the American political system is set up in ways that allow interest groups of all sorts to wield great influence. So in the United States, you have an interest group or a lobby like the National Rifle Association that makes it well nigh impossible. To get gun control. And so with the Israel lobby, you have this group of individuals and organizations that wield enormous influence on U.S. policy toward the Middle East. And this is”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The argument that Steve Walton and I made, actually we wrote an article first, which appeared in the London Review of Books, and then we wrote the book itself. Our argument is that the lobby is a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that push American policy in a pro-Israel direction. And basically the lobby is interested in getting Israel getting the United States. And here we're talking mainly about the American government, to support Israel no matter what Israel does. And our argument is that if you look at the relationship between the United States and Israel, it's unprecedented in modern history. This is the closest relationship.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To have a two state solution, and you've already taken care of the PA on this front, the Palestinian Authority, but you've got to convince Hamas that it's maximalist goals are not going to work and it's in its interest to follow in the footsteps of Arafat and accept a two-state solution. But even if you do that at this point, let's say that there's a lot of willingness intellectually on both sides to do that. The problem is that the hatred that has been fueled by this recent conflict is so great that it's just hard to imagine how you can make a two-state solution work at this juncture. That's why I've sort of taken to saying, and I hope I'm wrong here, that, you know, on the two-state solution, that boat has sailed. It's just... It's no longer possible.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That plus the fact that the Israeli government is filled with people who have no interest in a two-state solution, they're ideologically deeply committed to a greater Israel. They want all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea to be part of a Jewish state. They're just ideologically committed to that. And of course, as we were talking about before with regard to Hamas, Hamas wants everything between the river and the sea to be a Palestinian state. And, you know, when you have two sides with those kinds of views, right, you're in deep trouble because there's little room for compromise. So what you have to do to get this to work is you have to convince the Israelis that it's in their interest.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Amnesty International and Betsalum, which is the leading Israeli human rights group, all three of those institutions or organizations have issued detailed reports making the case that Israel is an apartheid state. Furthermore, if you read the Israeli media, right, all sorts of Israelis, including Israeli leaders, refer to Israel as an apartheid state. It's not that unusual to hear that term used in Israel. This is disastrous for Israel, in my opinion. And Steve Walton, I said this, by the way, when we wrote the Israel lobby, that Israel is an apartheid state, which is equivalent to Israel as an occupier, is not good for Israel. And that brings us back to the two-state solution. But as you and I were talking about a few minutes ago, it's hard to see how you get a two-state Solution. And the end result of this conversation is utter despair.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Palestinians' equal rights inside a greater Israel, in large part because there are now as many Palestinians as there are Israeli Jews, and over time the balance, the demographic balance shifts against the Israeli Jews and in favor of the Palestinians, in which case you'll end up with a Palestinian state in Greater Israel. Democracy for all doesn't work. The Israelis, I believe, are quite interested in ethnic cleansing. I think they saw this recent set of events as an opportunity to cleanse Gaza, but that's not going to happen.”
2023-11-18 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source