Name: Destiny on Learning about Israel & Palestine | The Adam Friedland Show
Uploaded: 2024-12-13T15:00:47.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Destiny on Learning about Israel & Palestine | The Adam Friedland Show' from TAFS Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-12-13. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Destiny on Learning about Israel & Palestine | The Adam Friedland Show' from TAFS Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-12-13. Transcript available.

Kind of the position that you inhabit, which is like Democrat, Israel, is like
the perfect
kind of like, you get both, because the internet is so polarized, right?
You get like, you have like rose emojis and then you have Nazis.
There are a lot of Nazis now.
But inhabiting this position, it seems like, I'm not speculating that you're
doing this
as a business move, but it is kind of the perfect troll.
You are going to have the most people that want to yell at you that you can
yell back
at.
I mean, there's…
The centrist community can't be like…
There's a lot.
There's a lot to…
You don't go to centrist parties on South Beach.
You're asking me these big questions, okay?
No, I'm just saying it's…
These are big questions.
I'm just saying like…
It's not the most profitable position to hold.
I'm saying you have the most people that you could like…
Yeah, but the problem is, is that when you actually want to fight with people,
if you
actually want to challenge people, those people don't want to talk to you.
This is something, it's my whole career has been like continually learning this.
It's like in the beginning of this year, I chatted with, I debated Shapiro, Owens,
and
Peterson, but it was only because I was willing to like, do it with like kids'
gloves the
whole time.
And you and Ben kind of liked each other at the end.
It was…
I mean, because it was a nice…
Because you both talk fast.
No.
It was because if he says some crazy shit, I'm not going to call him out
hardcore on it.
Because I'm trying to be nice and like build bridges so we can have more
challenging
conversations.
But I think the reality is, yeah, is that if it's ever going to be…
Because he's a piece of ass.
Only because of the yamaka.
But you're saying that you debate only things you're passionate about.
So what gave you a passion for it?
I don't know initially here.
I think that personally, in like the month before October, it was the first
time I'd ever
had like a formal diagnosis for ADHD and I started medication for it.
So, for the…
I'm not joking!
You're going to do this TikTok crap, your mental illness?
No.
I'm saying that for the first time in my life, okay?
Because there's been a lot of jokes on my stream about how I'm always playing
games and
I'm like debating people at the same time and I'm watching videos and I'm like…
But I started medication and I noticed afterwards that I can actually sit and
just read a book.
And it's been very hard to like read like full books and whole papers and stuff.
You started reading books?
Yeah, books.
What was your first book?
That you read?
I'm trying to think of a joke.
Stop.
The game.
What?
Neil Strauss, the game.
Yeah.
Easy.
Okay, go.
Hilarious pop culture reference.
Okay, continue.
For Israel-Palestine, it was…
What was the first book?
You said you just learned how to read a book?
I think it was like Scars of War, Wounds of Peace by Shlomo Ben-Ami.
It was his first book on the Camp David Peace process.
Yeah.
But after I was able to like read stuff, history became a lot more interesting
to me.
Like a joke on my stream is always like fuck history, that's boring as fuck.
But now I like, I super enjoy reading about history.
And then in reading and learning the conflict, like there's just like a lot of
cool people, events, like places.
There's just like a lot of cool stuff involved.
So what led you to the conclusion that you've reached?
This is my sales pitch for Israel-Palestine, okay?
Yeah.
This is my issue, okay?
Is that both sides are very invested in telling an entirely alternative history
to the other side.
And because of…
And you go with the winner.
What?
You go with the winners.
No, I think there's a shared mutual history between the two.
But the people on the far sides of this don't like to acknowledge any like of
the shared stuff.
So like for instance in '48, right?
Correct.
I understand why the Jews would want to leave Europe after the Holocaust and
everything else
and after they got promised to the British in 1917 with the Balfour Declaration
and all this.
I understand that.
But I also understand if you're a Palestinian or an Arab, why you want to fight
these motherfuckers coming in.
They've made a bad bet.
Seems like if we look today, it's a pretty good bet, no?
No, because the objective of Zionism is to keep Jews safe and in that sense it's
been a failure.
Because they're at war the whole time.
Yeah, the wars that they're winning though, right?
What is winning wars?
People are dying.
As in the country still exists and there's not like millions of Jewish people
being murdered.
What do you mean?
That's, being at war and people dying in wars is not like keeping people safe.
I think that if you were a Jew and you just come out of the Holocaust
and then you could go to a country that's at war for 80 years.
Those people didn't just come out of the Holocaust.
Those people made Aliyah before that.
Oh, you're trying to really trigger me.
Okay.
What do you mean trigger?
Okay.
The majority of the Jews that were there by '48 were probably from Europe.
I agree with you, right?
First, second, third.
There was a ton of Aliyahs.
Aliyahs.
Aliyahs.
Aliyahs.
Yeah, for people coming over.
After '48 and every successive war there was a huge migration of Jews from
surrounding Arab states.
Correct.
Because people would get mad.
Yeah.
So today the majority of the people living there are of Middle Eastern descent,
right?
So it's worth having like a democracy that's based on an ethnicity where in
order to maintain
it you have to maintain a majority naturally, right?
The sad thing is that probably most democracies are built this way.
You just aren't perceiving it because you don't have that same kind of like.
Because I'm American, bro.
Yeah, you don't have the same pressure.
Sick.
Like even in the United States we don't take more than, of all the immigrants
legally we accept
per year, no more than 7% come from each country, right?
That's not the point I'm making.
What I'm making is if you're going to establish a Jewish state, right, you have
to establish
a Jewish majority.
Sure, yeah.
It's going to be a democracy, right?
Yeah.
And so like there's a demographic issue if there's just as many Palestinians.
Yeah, there is.
That's why traditionally they didn't capture the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
And after '67 they did and it fucked shit up a lot for them.
This is not like two sovereign groups of people that are at war with each other.
There's a power imbalance and if you ignore that power imbalance and you say
that there are
two sides to every story, then you ignore kind of the political reality there.
Okay.
I understand your view.
The facts.
I think that your view is super wrong.
Why?
Because you're only accounting for one side and you make it seem like it's so
obvious
like who's in the wrong.
Why am I accounting for one side?
Because you're saying that it's so simple for who the wrong side is here.
When it's not, both sides are made...
I didn't say the wrong side.
Generally, as soon as you utter the phrase power imbalance, it's like you're
automatically
assuming...
They don't have the right to self-determination.
Okay, do the people...
That's just a fact.
Even with what you're saying, hold on, do the people around them with self-determination
have
the right to vote?
Logical fallacy.
Logical fallacy.
Actually, that wasn't a logical fallacy.
I'm saying that they don't have political sovereignty.
That's true.
And they are occupied...
That's true.
...by people that do.
That's true.
But then the question is, what is the resolution of that look like?
Any time the fucking prime minister is about to go to jail, then he has to fuck
up some
Palestinians.
That's the resolution.
My grandma lives in Cape Town, bro.
Jesus.
She didn't have to move because black people got to vote.
What does it have to do with...
You can end an apartheid.
Yeah?
Do you think that if...
Do you think that if Jews lived as a minority...
I do right now.
Do you think that you live in a minority state where the majority are Arabs?
I'm a minority in America.
Are the majority here Arabs?
Do you think that you would face the same pressure here that you would...
What's the difference?
I'm saying it's a country where people vote.
Okay.
Right?
I...
My top line complaint actually is I actually feel like no foreigner should ever
talk about
Israel-Palestine.
Asia, Gaza, Germany.
We had beef with them, no?
I don't know how that would have worked, but maybe they should have.
It's like people complaining about past wrongs.
I can understand that.
I'm sympathetic towards that.
But that doesn't get you any closer to like, what does the resolution look like?
And if you just say, well, one state...
The resolution is that everyone can vote in a country.
Okay.
I don't think that that's...
I don't think Jewish people are ever going for that.
And I think...
Understandably so.
Extensive demographic study of what people lost.
Reparations for...
Like, reparations for what they lost.
Do you think...
Truth and Reconciliation Commission?
For the...
And one man, one vote.
Do you think that for the Jews that left all the surrounding Arab states, do
you think
they should all pay reparations as well?
You can end in a part time?
What?
Do you think all the surrounding Arab states should pay reparations to all the
Jews that fled as
well?
I mean like, yeah, I guess so.
Jews got fucking reparations for the Holocaust.
Yeah, but not from all the surrounding Arab states.
Okay.
You started reading a book in October and now you think you're fucking William
Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare...
That's the...
That's the...