#424 – Bassem Youssef: Israel-Palestine, Gaza, Hamas, Middle East, Satire & Fame

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

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lex Fridman?

  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.

• 0:28Lex Fridman?

  And now, a quick few-second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It is the best way to support this podcast. We've got AG1 for health, Shopify for shopping, Aidslee for naps, and Element for electrolytes. Choose wisely, my friends. Also, if you want to get in touch with me or maybe work with our amazing team, go to lexfridman.com/contact. And now, on to the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will, too. This episode is brought to you by AG1, an all-in-one daily drink to support better health and peak performance.

• 1:13Lex Fridman?

  I got hit pretty hard today by allergies, and I'm just in this place where nothing makes any sense. Nose is running, scratchy throat, all that kind of stuff. Just a mess. Just a beautiful, wonderful mess that makes me appreciate all the other days when such things are not felt. That's what I hear from people who suffer from migraines, that chronic migraines are so terrible that they make you intensely hate when a migraine is going on and intensely love when it's not. Every time anything goes wrong, it's a great chance to celebrate all the times when stuff didn't go wrong. But I say all that because I just drank AG1

• 1:59Lex Fridman?

  and it gave me this little drop of happiness that I can cling to as I proceed to try to work through the day, even though I feel like crap. And if you want to not feel like crap, try AG1. They'll give you one month's supply of fish oil when you sign up at drinkag1.com/lex.

• 2:18Lex Fridman?

  This episode is also brought to you by Shopify, a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere with a great looking online store. I used it at lexfreemar.com/store to put up some shirts. I should be probably putting up a bunch of other shirts. I'm a big fan of being a fan, of being a fan of podcasts of bands, of shows, of movies, of specific concerts. I still have a Metallica, I have a few Metallica shirts. But anyway, I'm a big fan of celebrating and wearing your celebration of others on your shirt. It's like a great way to start conversation. So I love it. I also love wearing just a black shirt, but a little variety is good for the soul.

• 2:59Lex Fridman?

  So if you want to inject a little bit of variety into the metaverse of the internet by selling whatever stuff you want to sell, I suggest you sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com/lex. That's all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com/lex to take your business to the next level today. This episode is also brought to you by Eight Sleep. It cools or heats up each side of the bed separately. It's like a little piece of heaven. Cold bed surface with a warm blanket, whether I'm doing like a 10 or 20 minute nap or I'm doing a full night's sleep, it's just, it's just an incredible experience.

• 3:44Lex Fridman?

  Sleep is such an important component of life, not just for your health, sort of from a physiological, neurobiological perspective, but from a spiritual perspective. Wherever this need for sleep comes from, I think of sleep as a kind of celebration of our connection to nature. It's a mini death, but the beautiful version of that. Especially when you dream, you travel to someplace where your mind is reconfiguring itself to try to make sense of the world, to try to put together the puzzle in the most hallucinogenic way possible before you get to return to the real world where everything makes a little bit more sense.

• 4:27Lex Fridman?

  Like Alice in Wonderland, but it's Lex in Wonderland, in Eight Sleep Wonderland. Check them out and get special savings when you go to eightsleep.com/lex.

• 4:40Lex Fridman?

  This episode is also brought to you by Element electrolytes that I'm sipping on right now, sodium, potassium and magnesium. My favorite flavor is watermelon salt. It's the only one I drink. I drink it many times a day. It's great when I'm fasting. My diet these days is almost always eat once a day, very low carb. And for that, especially when you're starting out, you have to get the electrolytes right. Now, as it starts to warm up and when I'm running long distance in Austin, Texas, I really have to get the electrolytes right. So you want to make sure you have a lot of salt in your body and a lot of water before you go out on the long run. I must be talking about crazy distances. I tend to prefer not to drink on the run.

• 5:23Lex Fridman?

  I don't know, there's something super inconvenient about bringing a water bottle with you when you're out on the trail or just in the middle of nowhere. I just like to forget the world, forget the needs of the body, forget everything, forget time and just focus on my thoughts. If I'm listening to an audiobook, focus on the thing that's being said and all the little tangents that my brain creates from what's being said, all of that. So, but before I go out on the run, I drink a bunch of Element to get the electrolytes right. And again, it mixes the electrolytes and the water so you get both and you're all set. You can get a sample pack for free with any purchase. Try it at drinkelement.com/lex. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast.

• 6:07Lex Fridman?

  To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Bassem Youssef.

• 6:30Lex Fridman?

  Your wife is half Palestinian and I've heard you say they'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-

• 6:43Speaker 01

  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 in the same time.

• 7:04Lex Fridman?

  So you do negotiate with terrorists?

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, and for her, I am her terrorist too, so it's equal.

• 7:11Lex Fridman?

  Terrorists on both sides. On a more serious note, when you found out about the attacks of October 7th, what went through your mind?

• 7:18Speaker 01

  If I'm allowed to use a curse word, I was like.

• 7:21Lex Fridman?

  As many as possible.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  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 going to happen to us now? And, and, and there's like two different reactions, like the white reaction, which is like, oh my God, I hope nobody is hurt. This is terrible. I hope everybody is okay. And there's the Arab reaction, what's his name? What's his name? What is the name, you know? Because you know what's gonna come, it's kind of, it's the, I was scared what's gonna really happen in that area. And I said like, oh my God, it's gonna be horrible. And the way that it was reported.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  I, 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, uh, team talking to me two times, three times. I was like, no, I can't, how can I 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 how to, 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.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  And because it's a lose-lose situation, I can, I can lose stuff in Hollywood. I can, I even, I remember my manager is like, Bassem, be careful. I mean, are you sure you want to do it? Are you, my manager 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's a, 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, I felt that I was going into a trance for the thirty-three minutes that I was on the, on that interview for the first time.

• 9:29Lex Fridman?

  You blacked out.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  I blacked out, I blacked out. And a lot of people asked 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, Bassem, thank you. I was like, I, I, I was fighting for every second to say words, to put stuff in there.

• 9:54Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, for people who don't know, this is your conversation interview with Piers Morgan. And you can see.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  I could see, I was just like, the lens with the camera.

• 10:03Lex Fridman?

  It's like a surreal dream or nightmare.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, hello, Bassem. I was like, hello, Bassem, it's like, hi.

• 10:09Lex Fridman?

  And it could end at any moment, your career and everything.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Everything, yeah, yeah.

• 10:14Lex Fridman?

  So what was the drive that got you to actually do it, to overcome that fear?

• 10:20Speaker 01

  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, the bombing, the attack, they, they usually one of those people that they're away from everything when that, 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, three of the, of the cousins and the uncles already lost their homes, so this was too much. So I, I, I wanted to say something for those people. Because I know that, you know, I, I made, 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.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  And he, every time a, a, a hospital was bombed, we were worried about him. So I wanted to say that because I felt that these are, this is a family that I have never seen in my life. I have never, she, she actually hardly saw an uncle or two because, you know, they cannot leave. But I, 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, when Piers Morgan team called me a couple of times, they said, okay, let's, 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, why am I, what am I afraid of?

• 11:46Speaker 01

  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, of like how sensitive it is when you speak, you speak about Israel. And all of the ready-made accusations. But as a, 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, you want, you wanted this, some of these countries? I'll, I'll do that with you because I have strong opinions about what I'm, and I already been expressing them.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  But when I talk about, that's why I, and I speak, and, and there's a lot of Jewish people who come to my show and they understand that. They understand that, that, the separation. But that kind of grouping of blackmailing people and saying and not saying what they have in their mind. It is that kind of like, and one of the things that kind of like pushed, pushed me to go on the show.

• 12:50Lex Fridman?

  The thing that was bothering you, was it what was being said or how it was being said?

• 12:55Speaker 01

  Both. Because there are lies, which is usually in the media, but there was the total disregard of humanity. You talk a lot about, 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? There's, there's, of course, it's terrible to see anybody die. But, but I feel that like, is it, isn't our life not worth anything?

• 13:30Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you had a chart akin to crypto.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:34Lex Fridman?

  From an invest, you analyze it from an investing perspective, of course, in a dark.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  A ROI.

• 13:40Lex Fridman?

  And you were saying that a certain year was a good year.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, 2014.

• 13:44Lex Fridman?

  2014 was a good year for investment purposes. And also to, to refer to the, to a family member that you called a loser. You were saying that you, 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. What do you, you can't even give a job.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  A liar. He lied to us because I have to believe. But this is what the one thing, it's like, 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, 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.

• 14:37Lex Fridman?

  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.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  It is, it is.

• 14:55Lex Fridman?

  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 up?

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Oh, I'll definitely hear him up. That's like, that was like, wait a minute, that's material, that's material, that's material, man. It's like, Sonya called me. I was sitting with my family, just like, I have my phone, like, oh, Netanyahu.

• 15:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it just shows up that way. I mean, what would you do? What would you do in this situation?

• 15:23Speaker 01

  To answer this question, we need to understand how Israel thinks. There is an incredible speech given by Gideon Levy at the famous Israeli report in Ha'ir. 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 soldier stood up like, what? These are pigs. These are not humans.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  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 Mihor 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 that they exchange faith thing.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  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 is no one is holding me accountable. There is no one stopping me. And I can get whatever I want throughout my history through violence.

• 17:17Lex Fridman?

  I think a lot of the things you just said are a tiny bit slightly exaggerated. So let me, let me try.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  Please, please.

• 17:24Lex Fridman?

  Let's try. So not everybody in Israel.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 17:27Lex Fridman?

  So let's, let's look at 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?

• 17:49Speaker 01

  It's the people who have the power.

• 17:50Lex Fridman?

  So it's mostly the focus of your commentary. When you say people in Israel, you really mean the people in power.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  The people have the power. But but but as much as like I, of course, I mean, the people of 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 of power. Because like you can't really talk about the 100 million people in Egypt or the 11 million people in Israel. Of course, now 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, it at a whole, have moved quite bit to the right and has been has been like many extreme. 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 like 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.

• 18:42Lex Fridman?

  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?

• 19:07Speaker 01

  It depends on what is the living situation of each person. So in the Berlin Film Festival, just like a few, 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?

• 19:53Speaker 01

  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 living in Gaza or in the West Bank is kind of like on the lower tier of their living conditions. Now, let's talk about the hate. What does that Palestinian see with whom the Israeli, the Palestinian see oppression, limitation of movement, limitation of freedom. They have, and then when there's something happens, you see the full force coming in, destroying their home, taking away members of his family. There would be absolutely no reason for him to love the other. The Israeli, because he, you know, he doesn't have the

• 20:35Speaker 01

  power, but he lives under his government, all he sees is the rockets or whatever, but like he sees the reaction, and he doesn't see what happened to those whom, 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 talk about Gaza, because everybody talks about Gaza. But let me give you an example, and I'm not gonna talk about the 12,000 kids killed in Gaza. Let's talk about just like the four weeks in the West Bank.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  March 4th, Amr Najjar, age 10, sitting next to his father, shot in a, while he's sitting in a car next to his father, by the IDF soldiers. Mohamed Ziyad, 13 years old, March 3rd, shot in front of a UN school while sitting with his friends. Mohammed Ghanim, age 15, March 2nd, he's shot while standing in front of a storefront during a night raid. February 23rd, Saheer Jardal, he was killed by a drone fire. February 22nd, Fady Sliman, killed while standing in front of the top of a Red Cross building. Nihal Ziyad, February

• 21:50Speaker 01

  14th, Valentine's Day, killed, shot in the head while leaving school. February 11th, Mohamed Khattour, US citizen, killed while being in a parked car. And Muaid 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.

• 22:17Lex Fridman?

  What is the justification that IDF provides?

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Terrorism.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  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 US citizen, would kill. And it's like, they were throwing rocks, so we killed them. 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.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  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.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  It is heartbreaking, you know, as a doctor, there is five stages of trials. There is like, 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, and he interviews people as like, where did you test this? And they tested in the field. So, when, when you just like, when human life is so, is so cheap and it is so indispensable, it made me, it gave me a visceral reaction.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  Because you know, we as, this has been actually the, the state of humanity. Humanity have lived and survived and thrived by actually killing each other. But there was kind of a, we were remotely, we were removed from it. People in Greece didn't know what Alexander the Great was doing. He was killing and pillaging, like we call him the great, but he was killing. He was conquering, he was invading. Julius Caesar, all of the greats, he were 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.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  You know, 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 in 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

• 25:25Speaker 01

  you have created.

• 25:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, there's a lot of interesting things you just said. So one is the methodology of killing. If you wanna look at some horrific, large scale killing, people often talk about the Holocaust, but that's visceral. You can look at Hall and Mah by Stalin, where the murders through starvation.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  By Churchill in India.

• 25:49Lex Fridman?

  In Churchill in India, and The Great Leap Forward by Mao.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 25:55Lex Fridman?

  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 an unequal valuation of human life. So those two things combined create. A complicated military landscape of the world.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Yes, but the thing is, is that how we look at technology as the savior. As we talk about how we AI disrupt, we disrupt, we disrupt, we 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 or Google and Amazon who are like part of Project Nimbus. And and you see in division, 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

• 27:15Speaker 01

  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's, it becomes so like cheap. It's not like meeting someone, it's like, oh, it's like a lot of fish in the sea. Same with AI, boom, 500 people killed, boom, they're killed. It's so easy, it's so easy, it's so easy. And then it's so far removed from you.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  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 condition, screens like pushing them, blowing up a university. It's amazing, but then you meet the, 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.

• 28:17Lex Fridman?

  You just gave me this image of a, a dating app from hell. Where leaders are just sitting there and kind of swiping left, right.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  Invade, destroy.

• 28:27Lex Fridman?

  This is boring.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Puppet government.

• 28:31Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, and then turn off the phone, go to sleep. Uh, 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, um, you know, I've met a bunch of people like that in, in Eastern Europe where I grew up.

• 28:49Lex Fridman?

  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 shop an 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 was, 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, you kill one person? This is what you create?

• 29:29Speaker 02

  Because we have kind of like a front row seat to what's happening. We, 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, if 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, 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.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  He's absolutely no threat. So when you tell people, forty decapitated babies, they are so animalistic, they didn't see the babies. Women raped. Of course, he's an animal to do that. And they would go through that. And they would, what was very frustrating about the conversation is the gesh galloping, the gesh galloping, throwing. You see the distractions? You see what happens? Like, it's like, what's the proportion 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, Muslims killed Muslims? Look what happened in Yemen, in Syria, in Iraq. Like, see, see how they kind of distract you? They throw little things at you.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  So you don't know what to do? Oh, the honor wa, the UNN, anti-Semitic, October 7th, October 7th, October 7th. And then suddenly, you are...

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Distracted and pulled into discussing all of these little things. And you're not discussing what's happening right now. It is basically stalled in giving them time to do what they do.

• 31:15Lex Fridman?

  So there's a, there's some degree to the propaganda, the beheaded babies and all this kind of stuff. That 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.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, because people, 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, like you can just like, he's dead. No, you go in, this is the hate, so much hate. And you know, that's why.

• 32:01Lex Fridman?

  You have made me laugh.

• 32:05Lex Fridman?

  At the darkest shit. You're such a beautiful person. Your dark humor is just wonderful.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  But, 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 babies' blood. This is what they did to them.

• 32:21Lex Fridman?

  That's what's in the cup.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  That's a very delicious baby cup.

• 32:25Lex Fridman?

  Delicious baby blood.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  But this is what you do. You, 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. So, and, and, and, and Jewish people, one of the, like, 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.

• 32:45Lex Fridman?

  So I, I just did a very lengthy debate on Israel and Palestine. And the really painful thing from that, there's two historians, it was, 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, there was a sense of, like a really dark sense of it's hopeless from both sides. It's hopeless. Uh, so, you know, I look to you.

• 33:20Lex Fridman?

  For, for a source of.

• 33:24Lex Fridman?

  Or a source of hope. Do you have, is there any hope here? Solutions, short term, long term?

• 33:31Speaker 01

  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 have so much power and the other side have absolutely no power. And that's one body, he said, like, you have Israel that basically don't listen to us because they are supported by people who are bigger than the president, bigger than administration. They know that they can. I mean, like you, like Netanyahu was a cotton tape many times saying like, he's basically like belittling Americans like, ah, we, we control 80% of the population. We don't care. They, this has kind of like nonchalant, kind of like, oh, we, we have them.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  And there's nothing really that compels Israel to give up anything because at the end of the day, what is compromise? Compromise, 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, in 2000, the whole idea about like 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.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  And Joe Scarborough said like, well, you know, like Arafat left the Oslo court and the Palestinians have, 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 what, and to, and they went to, and they went to Sharm el-Sheikh, they came to Egypt and he and Hilbarak went to there. And then he had, Hilbarak left because there was election and he lost it. Ariel Sharon came and it was destroyed. This is one of the reason why people, it is, it's kind of like.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  Facts don't matter as much as what is the narrative that has been controlled.

• 35:41Lex Fridman?

  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?

• 35:55Speaker 01

  I mean, there was a, maybe there was a certain point when the Israeli leaders were more

• 36:02Speaker 01

  open to compromise. But I can't 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 are, have this kind of open check from the United States. So it is, it is really about

• 36:40Speaker 01

  what can push Israel to give up something? Because you are so much stronger than me.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  What could compel you to give up something?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  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.

• 36:59Lex Fridman?

  So what is the source of hope? You know, Jon Stewart, who will talk about it from many angles, somebody you admire, a friend.

• 37:11Lex Fridman?

  He proposed a two-state solution.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 37:16Lex Fridman?

  Look to the comedians for hope.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  Yes, well, everybody's talking about the two-state resolution, but Israel has said many times on Netanyahu and Benazir, like there is going to be no state solution. They, in the past, it's like, even, even Naftali Bennett, he came in on the, on, on hard talk. It's like, yeah, maybe in the past we wanted two-state solutions, but like, look, every time we give them land, they kill us. So no state solutions. And they are openly saying it.

• 37:39Lex Fridman?

  But that's perhaps rhetoric?

• 37:41Speaker 01

  The 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 how, if you have an intention at all to give them anything, why would you keep doing this?

• 37:58Lex Fridman?

  And you've called it a bunch of little Gazas.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:01Lex Fridman?

  It's a nice little picture of what's happening.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Piecemealing it, dum dum dum. Because it is, 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 laughed. There's 13,000 babies killed. Does that mean that there are 13,000 military targets hiding in their diapers?

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Because it is so, it doesn't make any sense to kill that baby. Maybe it's just like, oh, oops, just out of our hands.

• 38:55Lex Fridman?

  It's hard to know what to do with those numbers. I mean, I, it's just, one baby is enough.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  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. Like, it's, it's, 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, oh, they don't mean anything.

• 39:44Lex Fridman?

  Is there some degree to where both leaderships, Hamas, PA, Palestinian Authority, Israel, all want war? Like perpetual war to, to remain in power?

• 39:58Speaker 01

  There is, that's, that's an interesting question. But, I mean, let's admit something. The Arab regimes in the, in the area have actually used the problem of Palestine in order to stay in power, in order to take, 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, 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

• 40:40Speaker 01

  power, the people who would have the ability to change things. And the Palestinians cannot really change, and what, what can they change?

• 40:48Lex Fridman?

  Well, is that true though?

• 40:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 40:51Lex Fridman?

  With how much support the Palestinian people have? So, just like you said, there's a lot of Arab states that are, that will voice their pro-Palestinian position in order to distract from their, the own corruption and abuses of power in their own countries. But, you know, I don't think, if you look globally, there's a complete asymmetry of power and public opinion here. Maybe in the press in the West, but if you look globally.

• 41:21Speaker 01

  But do they have the same kind of weapons that the Israeli have?

• 41:24Lex Fridman?

  Literally power? No, there's a major asymmetry of literal power.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  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 Palestinians, who basically have been an informant for their own, on their own people? And this is the, 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 in the, in, in, 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 supports Hamas. Like, but Hamas, like what?

• 42:11Lex Fridman?

  I mean, to which degree does Netanyahu represent? The Israeli people is a real question.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  To which point does Trump or Biden represent the American people?

• 42:22Lex Fridman?

  And to which degree does Hamas represent the Palestinian people?

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Does. None of these represent it, but who have the power in order to make the decisions? It really comes down to that.

• 42:32Lex Fridman?

  Well, who does have the power? You're giving a lot of power to Israel.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:38Lex Fridman?

  But the Arab League.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  What should Hamas do? What do you think should Hamas do?

• 42:43Lex Fridman?

  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.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  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 made, came up with this amazing policy of like breaking people's kids' bones in the Intifada. So Il Baraki was also like, I mean, which one is moderate? I mean, I think is Hamas is a product of what happened. I mean, we can, if there was no apartheid in South Africa, there will be no NFC. There will be no Nelson Mandela. If there were no Nazis in Paris, there would be no French Resistance.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  And I'm not saying, and again, I'm not, I don't want to be in a, put in a position to defend Hamas or anybody because you know what that entails. But

• 43:55Speaker 01

  there are, those are like Hamas, again, not defending them. They went into October 7th. What was their, what they, why did they did that? Like, release our hostages, the people in prison. Because if you're talking about people who are 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.

• 44:32Lex Fridman?

  Is it possible, so first of all, ceasefire?

• 44:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 44:35Lex Fridman?

  And longer term, is it possible for Arab states and the United States to get together?

• 44:43Lex Fridman?

  And with power,

• 44:47Lex Fridman?

  through diplomacy, enforce a solution.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  It's a very, very ideal solution. But you know, and I know, that Arab states don't really have the power. All of the powers are in the hands of America.

• 45:00Lex Fridman?

  They have the power. See, I would, I think they have the power. I don't.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Maybe they don't want to use it.

• 45:05Lex Fridman?

  They don't want, well, that's. Maybe they don't. Because there's a benefit, like, 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.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 45:24Lex Fridman?

  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.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Definitely, but what is the core of the problem here? Is it the Arab states using the suffering or the, actually, the, the, the suffering itself? And the suffering comes from people being displaced. Their homes were taken away. There are seven million Palestinians in diaspora. Seven millions. Seven million went out there and now they're living in Canada and America and Europe. They had homes there. They cannot go back to.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  1.7 million people of the people in Gaza don't belong in Gaza. They were pushed from other places. The, the piecemeal thing of people are being, you know, in, in Germany.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  I'm gonna shift gear a little bit. It's gonna be a little bit of fun. There is a, 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 months, for, 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 John 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 Anand Dr. Helmy. And that book tells the incredible story.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  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.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  He didn't find a school to work, a hospital to work in. So he worked in a Jewish hospital. So there was a lot of Arabs who lived with the ghetto. And actually, the first director of the Berlin mosque was a Jewish convert who converted to Islam, and he was a gay activist.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  I'm telling you, this is like a crazy story. Yeah. And this is not a fiction story. This is actually like a nonfiction. It's written actually based on the statements, the documents of the Nazis in Istanbul.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  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 surrounded by Nazi doctors. 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 grassroots base in the Arab world where he want to go next. And this is why, nineteen thirty-four, nineteen thirty-five, the racial laws of Nuremberg, they had a name change. First, they were called antisemitic, then they changed into anti-Jewish,

• 49:00Speaker 01

  because also Arabs were Semitic. So they wanted to appease the Arabs. Now, what happened, 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, one 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

• 49:44Speaker 01

  he was 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 sights 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 three hundred Jews.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  See that kind of story? This is the Jews that were living in the airport. I'm not saying that the Jews living in the airport 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, you know, advantages of the rule. That's that's normal, but we had this kind of a relationship

• 50:52Speaker 01

  before Israel was erected in 1948. And then, of course, everybody looked at Jews at the term as fifth column. And of course, the nationalistic regimes use that. And this is why what Biden said

• 51:10Speaker 01

  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're 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 America in the world than in anybody. They are safer than the Jews in Israel. They never had pogroms or the Holocaust like Euro. 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 is 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

• 51:54Speaker 01

  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.

• 52:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you're right. That's actually an indirect threat.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:05Lex Fridman?

  You know, even saying Muslims cannot feel safe in America or something like this. That means like that's a threat.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  But what what would a Jewish person in Beverly Hills or in in 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 is should actually be responsible and held accountable for what they do.

• 52:37Lex Fridman?

  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? Like, what, how do you incorporate into the calculus?

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 52:54Lex Fridman?

  Of what's?

• 52:55Speaker 01

  Oh, it's terrible.

• 52:56Lex Fridman?

  Of morality that that leads up to the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians from the land. How do you work that out?

• 53:06Speaker 01

  It is terrible, but like, I mean, what the systemic annihilation of Jewish people under the Nazi, that is like a carefully engineered, thoughtful plan. It was terrible. It was like, kind of like the human ingenuity put into like something that is very evil. But also, it is not just that happened. We need, 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 that the Arabs, okay, we're sitting here. Okay, come, and then, all right, you don't have a home or a country anymore. That, that, that, that, that kills you.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  I mean, you see, if I'm not an Arab, and you give me that kind of piece of like terrible human treasure, 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? What, why is that my fault? The persecution of the Jewish people have started since the eighth and ninth century because they, they were like, they were first anti-Christians. They were like criminal immigrants. They were like conspirators. This, this, this is, this is, this is the anti, like, people, kind of like, 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,

• 54:33Speaker 01

  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?

• 54:53Lex Fridman?

  Several questions I want to ask there, but one, just zooming out. Why do you think hatred of Jews has been such a viral kind of idea throughout human history?

• 55:05Speaker 01

  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.

• 55:12Lex Fridman?

  That's a very sexy story.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  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 in usury. So they become rich. Now the people that we hate, that we accuse them of killing Christ are becoming rich. So that's envy now. And that's hatred. I mean, when you talk about ghettos, ghettos were not just 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.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  So they had to work usury 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.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  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 world and we're gonna do this and we're gonna do that and whatever. What people don't know. That they, that is a work of plagiarism. It was plagiarized from a satirical play called Conversation in Hell between Machiavelli and Montezicco. And it is just, it is, and it is kind of like based on one chapter, one scene or so. It was, it's crazy.

• 57:21Lex Fridman?

  But it's crazy how sticky it is.

• 57:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 57:24Lex Fridman?

  That's weird.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  Yes, because if I, if I hate you, that's great. But if I have a story to support that hate, ah, that's even better.

• 57:30Lex Fridman?

  But it's like one of the, one of the best stories, one of the stickiest stories about hate.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 57:36Lex Fridman?

  It's probably the, the most effective. Cause like there, you know, a lot of peoples hate other groups of peoples, but that, that's just like the sexiest story of them all.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  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, it's a, it's a person, great. If it's a group, even better.

• 58:04Lex Fridman?

  Right. 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, the Holocaust. 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.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 58:37Lex Fridman?

  How, do you, that difference, that 100x difference? Do you incorporate that into the sense that Jews in Israel might feel for?

• 58:51Lex Fridman?

  You know, the existential dread that we might, this, this small group might be destroyed.

• 58:57Speaker 01

  Jews in Israel have every right to feel afraid because of everything that they see and everything they've been told, everything. But I, I, 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, so just give one state for them. There's too many of them, too, too many of you. Just give them something, you know? It's like the fact that I have something and you don't, and I have, there are too many of me and there is little of you.

• 59:34Speaker 01

  And then you come in and, 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, the, 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 like don't care, some of them live into regimes that have been oppressed. And those regimes are supported by the United States in order. It's easier for me as a, as a, as an empire to, 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, to my, my desire to keep him in power.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  So that's why you have a total disconnect between people in power in, in the Arab and the Muslim countries and the people themselves.

• 1:00:25Lex Fridman?

  Can you speak to 1948?

• 1:00:28Lex Fridman?

  You know, because you mentioned taking land that's not yours.

• 1:00:32Lex Fridman?

  Maybe parallels with Native Americans?

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  Uh huh, yeah.

• 1:00:38Lex Fridman?

  There was a war. The, the Jewish minority fought that war against several Arab states and won that war.

• 1:00:48Lex Fridman?

  How do we incorporate that into the Catholic?

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  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

• 1:01:05Lex Fridman?

  And I was always like, how did we, how did we not do that?

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  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 weapons, more of the all of other combined, because the people that really fought was Egypt. And you have to, 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 and horses. But in fact, the whole idea was like, we won against seven nations.

• 1:01:53Lex Fridman?

  Sure.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  The numbers were totally in Israel's favor. They were better equipped, they were better trained, they had like more tanks and artillery and airplanes, and they planned better. So, yes, they deserved to win because they planned and we did it.

• 1:02:09Lex Fridman?

  So to you, there was an asymmetry in military power even then. But what do you do with the fact that the war was won? So like, if you look at the history of the world,

• 1:02:20Lex Fridman?

  there is wars fought over land.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  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 differences here. Mostly, usually.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  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 like go in, expand and shrink, expand and shrink. It's always 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,

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  but we are there and we're watching it happen.

• 1:03:26Lex Fridman?

  And so now we have to confront the realities of war and empire and conquering.

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  Because you know what's the problem? We told ourselves we can be better.

• 1:03:35Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  After 1948, there was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It means that we are going to be better humans. We're not going to kill and take land, we're not going to displace people, we're not going to 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.

• 1:03:54Lex Fridman?

  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 and in newspapers, we're just trying to figure out who are we as a people?

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  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 a 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 on the radio. Like, oh, today, our forces came in and they launched. We don't know. We heard it. We maybe we saw pictures after that and it's quite edited. But now we see it, we're into it.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  And it is, it is so much for our, for our psyche and we can't get it. And it's like, and then 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 Hassel. 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 he, before he died, he was canceled by so many people and he was called antisemitic. Because he joined the BDS movement and he spoke about 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.

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  But then we go in and we are shocked. It's like, maybe we were sold something, maybe that was false advertisement.

• 1:05:49Lex Fridman?

  You shared a tweet by an account called Awesome Jew.

• 1:05:56Lex Fridman?

  It reads, Islamo-Nazi comedian Bassem Youssef, comedian in quotes, by the way.

• 1:06:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, because I'm not funny.

• 1:06:05Lex Fridman?

  So Islamo-Nazi comedian Bassem Youssef is now denying October. I love that you retweeted this like twice.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:12Lex Fridman?

  I guess suppose because it's advertising some upcoming dates.

• 1:06:17Lex Fridman?

  He's now denying October 7th massacre. The Muslim radical Bassem Youssef is notorious for his radical, radical said twice, for his radical hatred of Jews in Israel. In a recent clip, he claims that the atrocities committed on October 7th are fabricated. We're looking for all information regarding any of his upcoming shows, as well as the venues which host the scumbag where Jews feel safe around this Nazi. Nazi.

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:45Lex Fridman?

  I've never, this is my first time interviewing a Nazi.

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  You know, it's the first time I actually get called a Nazi.

• 1:06:51Lex Fridman?

  First time.

• 1:06:52Speaker 01

  First time. I have been called so many things in Egypt. So in Egypt, I was called.

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  A CIA operative, a Mossad spy, a secret Muslim Brotherhood, a secret Jew. 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 is actually people, the Muslim Brotherhood on their show, they would say like, "He is actually Israeli and they have forged an Egyptian ID for him to come."

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:08:00Lex Fridman?

  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. Like, how, how do you like psychologically through all of it?

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  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, we have in the airboard, 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, and it is to be called a net, an Islamunazi, it must been the funniest thing ever.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  Because Islamunazi, wow, how did you, 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.

• 1:09:17Lex Fridman?

  Well, let's go to the beginning. Let's go to your childhood. You grew up in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt.

• 1:09:25Lex Fridman?

  Well, let's figure out how you came to be who you are.

• 1:09:28Speaker 01

  How did you become an Islamu Nazi?

• 1:09:30Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, exactly. It's a long journey. I do like the swastika tattoo on your ass, which I didn't.

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  How did you see my?

• 1:09:37Lex Fridman?

  You know what you did.

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  I know what you did.

• 1:09:40Lex Fridman?

  It was very inappropriate. You're also obviously a sexual harasser.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  Is this like a me too? This is like 2020. Someone would come up and say, okay.

• 1:09:51Lex Fridman?

  Please clip it. This is your me too moment. All right. So Cairo, what's a, what's a, what's a defining memory? Positive or negative from your childhood?

• 1:10:04Speaker 01

  My memory in general was, was cool. It was cool. I went to a Catholic school until the, for, for primary school, elementary. And by the time I'm done, there was kind of like a start of a decline into the public education. And my parents, they're like middle class working officials. 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 ladder in Russia.

• 1:10:41Lex Fridman?

  Thank you for speaking to the audience.

• 1:10:43Speaker 01

  The ladder. And.

• 1:10:45Lex Fridman?

  Well, so would that be a good car?

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  No, no, it's kind of like, kind of like the minimum. And my dad was not like a man of, of, 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 in education. So middle school, that was the big, 1986 was the beginning of the explosion of like 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.

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  And from, there was this moment, it 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 would 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, cracking 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.

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  I never had any kind of like, I 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.

• 1:12:24Lex Fridman?

  But psychologically, you're always, like, when you're by yourself, you felt like an outsider.

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  Yes, all the time. And that's why it's 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 part of, but they are brilliant people. So because they would mostly the 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.

• 1:13:11Speaker 01

  And I go into, 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.

• 1:13:35Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  So they would always like, oh, because you're a dancer, oh, because you don't care about medicine, you just like wanna go there and dance with women.

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  Which is true.

• 1:13:43Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  But, 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.

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  So, and I have a story that you would love. I, right before my residency, I was so much into salsa, so I had all of the money. And then you saved up, 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, to learn Roweda de Casino, which is the Cuban, kind of like circle salsa kind of thing. And I, and I went there in the summer of 2001. And my return ticket was nine twelve, 2001.

• 1:14:31Lex Fridman?

  The universe has a sense of humor, I gotta tell you that.

• 1:14:34Speaker 01

  Nine, nine twelve, 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's like, alright, I changed my ticket and I came back. Nine eleven, 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 was like, oh, you're here, you're here, you're here. Thank God, you're here. That, and I was like, I was like, I should, I could have been in Guantanamo right now.

• 1:15:06Lex Fridman?

  Flying at nine twelve.

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  And by the way, I was in Miami, they were, they, when they went to the, the flying school in Miami. So, I mean, I, I had, I had like nine eleven written all over my face.

• 1:15:18Lex Fridman?

  It'd be all over the news.

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  And my mom was like, what? He went there to dance salsa? I didn't know that salsa is like a name for terrorists.

• 1:15:27Lex Fridman?

  Why salsa? Why, why, why did that attract you? And what, like, can you explain what salsa is? So I, I mentioned to you offline that I've been doing a little bit of tango, trying to learn it.

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, you know, samba, salsa, pachata, meringue, it's kind of like Latin dances. And it's like, you know, I don't know how you describe salsa, a couple dance on Latin beat. And I, I did it because I, I once, I, and I talk about that about my, in my Arabic standup 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 then, and I go, go into a place which called, it was called El Geto Negro. No, no, it was called Big Fat Black Pussy Cat. And then I think they, they, they thought it would be like racist or something, so they should change it to El Geto Negro.

• 1:16:21Speaker 01

  Anyway, so.

• 1:16:24Lex Fridman?

  Great, great.

• 1:16:25Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:16:25Lex Fridman?

  Great decision.

• 1:16:26Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:16:35Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, 100%.

• 1:16:36Speaker 01

  We know, we do, you know, we do everything for, for that.

• 1:16:40Lex Fridman?

  All of human.

• 1:16:41Speaker 01

  E- e- even power, even money.

• 1:16:43Lex Fridman?

  All the wars we've been talking about.

• 1:16:45Speaker 01

  Women.

• 1:16:46Lex Fridman?

  At the end of the day.

• 1:16:47Speaker 01

  The approval from the other sex. We are, we are babies. We were. We are terrible people.

• 1:16:53Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:17:04Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:05Speaker 01

  And I earned more money from salsa, more than I did as a doctor.

• 1:17:09Lex Fridman?

  I didn't know this part of you. That's hilarious.

• 1:17:11Speaker 01

  I know. I was, I was making, I was making killing amount of money. Like huge amount of money. And I, I was just like, you know, I would go finish my, my, my shift and I go to the salsa class. And sometimes I would have like 70 people in my salsa class.

• 1:17:25Lex Fridman?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:17:26Speaker 01

  I had like the biggest salsa class in Egypt. In, 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 he goes salsa.

• 1:17:38Lex Fridman?

  And escape. You must have been good.

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  I, I was okay. I was cool. I was fun. There were people better than me, but I, I, I have a, a thing about teaching. I like teaching people.

• 1:17:48Lex Fridman?

  So you, you mentioned heart surgery. So what, what motivated you to become a doctor?

• 1:17:53Speaker 01

  It was a, a choice of exclusion. I mean, there's nothing else you can do with these high grades other than doctor and engineering. I hate math, so go be a doctor.

• 1:18:04Speaker 01

  This is the Middle East. What do you expect? It's either, like I, 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 disappointment. It is, that is the choices that you have.

• 1:18:18Speaker 01

  So years after. I'm a disappointment.

• 1:18:23Lex Fridman?

  You're damn good at it though.

• 1:18:27Lex Fridman?

  That's a hard path though.

• 1:18:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:28Lex Fridman?

  Right? And it's a, it's a fascinating one.

• 1:18:31Speaker 01

  Can I tell you something?

• 1:18:32Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 1:18:32Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:18:45Speaker 01

  I don't know if that's actually related or not. You know, 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, all, everybody in my school went to the AUC, the American University in Cairo. Of course, private, 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, I kind of like, I realized that just like very, very recently.

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  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 I'm gonna do with it? I don't have that much freedom, I don't have that much money. I'm not, 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.

• 1:19:51Lex Fridman?

  Is it also possible, I like how this is a therapy session where we're psychoanalyzing. Is it also possible that you always just pick the hardest thing you could possibly do?

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  Maybe, but.

• 1:20:01Lex Fridman?

  Maybe that's the Piers Morgan thing too. Like what?

• 1:20:05Speaker 01

  Maybe, but like when I left Egypt and I came here, I still had the choice to go back to medicine.

• 1:20:10Lex Fridman?

  Sure.

• 1:20:10Speaker 01

  But I hated it. I hated it. Medicine traumatized me. The amount of like, you give up. You know, my, my brother in Egypt, he had a daughter. She's a brilliant basketball player. She is in the national team, amazing. I, 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, and then he, he, it was time for her to go into, into college. And he, he didn't talk to me for six weeks. I said, Tim, what's happened to Farida? Which college? Like, I didn't want to tell you. She went into medicine. I said, what? Medicine? Why did he do? Because he knows how I hated it. I was traumatized.

• 1:20:52Speaker 01

  I said, and I said like, dude, she's a basketball player. Make her go like to an easy school. So that's kind of inspiring.

• 1:20:59Lex Fridman?

  You still did it. You still did it.

• 1:21:01Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:21:17Lex Fridman?

  Oh, wow, okay.

• 1:21:18Speaker 01

  You understand?

• 1:21:19Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:19Speaker 01

  Uh huh. So it's kind of like, 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, on the outing and the money and whatever. So I need an excuse to be like, oh, he's a doctor, he's studying.

• 1:21:36Lex Fridman?

  At least in your own mind, you couldn't compete.

• 1:21:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, I always felt as less because, I mean, I, I didn't have any girlfriends in, in, in school. I had very little life, I had everything coming 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 of, 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, the height and the fall, the fall of, in Egypt, when I was like, the top of, of everything, I was like so, so famous. And then everything was taken away from me.

• 1:22:19Speaker 01

  That's like, ah, you see, I told you, that's 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. You know that I have a speech impediment, that I was not meant to be a TV presenter? I have an, in Arabic, it's very obvious, I cannot roll my Rs. I cannot say, 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, there in Egypt. My partner at the time, he took the video and he went to a producer, I said like, are you giving me a guy with a lisp?

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:23:12Lex Fridman?

  See, but that's the foundation of like, creating a great person.

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. Because if you're pretty,

• 1:23:21Speaker 01

  you don't need to do much.

• 1:23:23Lex Fridman?

  I probably wouldn't recommend it, but it is, it is true that.

• 1:23:28Speaker 01

  So if you are pretty, do some disfigurement.

• 1:23:33Lex Fridman?

  Find the flaws and, and be extremely self critical about them. So you saw Jon Stewart on TV for the first time in, in two thousand and three, I believe. How did that change your life?

• 1:23:47Speaker 01

  I was in the gym and I was running on the treadmill. And at that time, CNN was coming up on like on cable.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  And I was watching and there is this studio, I don't know what it is. So I put the, 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, and 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, what the, 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.

• 1:24:33Lex Fridman?

  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.

• 1:24:41Lex Fridman?

  His biting criticism of power, I would say, and also ability to highlight the absurdity of it all.

• 1:24:48Speaker 01

  But you understand, I didn't understand any of that. I didn't understand any of the references, but it is the, the rhythm, the rhythm. You know, sometimes when you even see like a comedy, that is, that's a language you don't understand, but there's a rhythm.

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  There's something, there's something in the music. So there's something with the videos and the pictures and he and the face and people reacting.

• 1:25:15Speaker 01

  What is this?

• 1:25:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:16Speaker 01

  What is this? And we had the global edition. So I went to their YouTube and I just like started to kind of like watch every single episode that I can. I said like, do you think we can have this in Egypt? I thought, no, never. And then 2011,

• 1:25:31Speaker 01

  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 political. I said, I want to do Jon Stewart. It's like, do Ray William Johnson. Jon Stewart will not work. It's like, I want to do Jon Stewart.

• 1:25:45Lex Fridman?

  So that was in there.

• 1:25:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was in there. And, and, and I, and I, and I did it and it, it worked.

• 1:25:52Lex Fridman?

  Can you talk about 2011? I mean, what, what is it? The Arab Spring? What is it?

• 1:25:57Lex Fridman?

  People here in America, you know?

• 1:26:00Speaker 01

  Depends on which side.

• 1:26:02Lex Fridman?

  Did something happen or what?

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Depends, depends which side of, 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 Islamist. It is Israel. It is everything else other than people. Oh, but it's a pure revolution. It's a pure. I, I, I, 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. Bouaziz, a fruit vendor blew, like burned himself up.

• 1:26:47Speaker 01

  Like the American soldier 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 like 20 years. And they removed him. So suddenly it was kind of like a domino effect. So then Egypt started and, and it just took 18 days. And you know, people hindsight is 2020. Saying said like, you know, just Obama 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, you know, so like they cut him off.

• 1:27:27Lex Fridman?

  Mubarak is the leader of Egypt.

• 1:27:28Speaker 01

  At that time, he was there for thirty years.

• 1:27:30Lex Fridman?

  Thirty 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 just great. You're like fucking great. Like what you did when Mark Twain Awards for Jon Stewart is 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 and a complete tangent of just the masterful introduction and celebration of Jon Stewart. Anyway, Mubarak.

• 1:27:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's a joke that I say also, like Mubarak was a president for thirty years. Like, oh, my God, you had a president for thirty years. Like, it's the Middle East. It's a very short first term. It's like, it's like, we're still warming up, baby.

• 1:28:08Lex Fridman?

  Warming up.

• 1:28:08Speaker 01

  And I thought like, we need to plan ahead. We need to plan our vacations, our careers, our jail time. It's just like, we need to.

• 1:28:17Lex Fridman?

  That's great.

• 1:28:18Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:28:19Lex Fridman?

  True.

• 1:28:20Speaker 01

  So we had kind of like the shortest, nicest revolution, eighteen days.

• 1:28:24Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:24Speaker 01

  And we thought, oh, eighteen days, we can change the country in eighteen 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.

• 1:28:39Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:28:51Lex Fridman?

  It became famous overnight.

• 1:28:53Speaker 01

  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 art 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 on 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 thirty to forty million people watch, thirty to forty million people watching every episode. A lot of people are like, wow, that's too much. That is terrifying.

• 1:29:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:38Speaker 01

  Because it means that there are thirty million people who have an opinion about you.

• 1:29:42Lex Fridman?

  You said there's a lot of aspects of that sudden fame that were just

• 1:29:47Speaker 01

  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, they always saw me in a very bad mood. It's like, why are you, 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. And in, because at a certain point, you are a human.

• 1:30:32Speaker 01

  You, 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 a lot of 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 I'm, I'm folk, I'm, people see me.

• 1:31:15Speaker 01

  But what are the people around you? And we, I've seen that. So that's why at a certain point, it's like, that's it. I can't.

• 1:31:22Lex Fridman?

  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.

• 1:31:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and, and, and it is loved by the people, but it comes with a price because at a certain if the power is too strong and you're not into a situation or a, or a, or a system that allows that, that gives you that kind of safety.

• 1:31:46Lex Fridman?

  So what happened?

• 1:31:49Speaker 01

  What happened, I was, so when, so the height of my fame, when the Muslim Brothers were, 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, twenty four seven. And they were like, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm busy, John Stewart said it beautifully one. It's like, we say shit and you say shit and we just say shit better than you. This is exactly what John Stewart, like, we're just better, we're just better at saying shit back.

• 1:32:20Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:21Speaker 01

  So, so basically I had one hour and they had like the five thing 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, they would even like kind of be the side with the army against the, the, the, the kind of the liberal sectors, whatever you call it. And at a certain point, the army kind of like flipped everybody.

• 1:32:48Lex Fridman?

  What do you mean flipped?

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  Like, kind of like they made, they made, they, they, they, yeah, yeah, they removed the Muslim Brotherhood, they came to power. And we, I, I can, I have to say, I admitted, 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, in an interrogation for six hours and they were asking all the, my jokes. And I used that in my standup comedy, describing exactly what happened in the six hours. And it is so funny.

• 1:33:14Lex Fridman?

  Okay, well, it's hilarious. But what, you slowed down. You were interrogated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

• 1:33:22Speaker 01

  The general prosecutor, the general prosecutor. And it was made based because of complaints by the, the officials in the government. Because in order to do it, it has to have a high up mandate to bring that person to questioning.

• 1:33:34Lex Fridman?

  So they went through kind of official channels?

• 1:33:37Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

• 1:33:38Lex Fridman?

  So it's all?

• 1:33:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was official, it was legal, legal.

• 1:33:41Lex Fridman?

  Very legal.

• 1:33:41Speaker 01

  So I went there and, and, and I, and I asked, and, and it's kind of like a bunch of like insulting Islam, insulting president, spreading false rumors. And I went there and I, and it was funny because I, I go into the building where there's police officers and their 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 I was like, nothing.

• 1:34:10Speaker 01

  It was there for six hours.

• 1:34:13Lex Fridman?

  He's just reading.

• 1:34:14Speaker 01

  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, guys.

• 1:34:25Lex Fridman?

  That's dark.

• 1:34:26Speaker 01

  It is. 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. So 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, we 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 and then suddenly I am blamed for all of that.

• 1:35:08Speaker 01

  It's like you made fun of us. So now it made it easier for people to kill us. 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.

• 1:35:21Lex Fridman?

  Did you criticize the army at all?

• 1:35:22Speaker 01

  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 sixteen episodes in a different season. And it was, I was walking on eggshells. And then that was canceled again. And then my, the production company that was doing my show, that we severed ties because we didn't have the show. They had their, their offices ready that have people like 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 we that, that they kind of like, they're coming for you. But I said, like, you cannot, it was an arbitration case and I lost against my, my, the channel that basically canceled me.

• 1:36:05Speaker 01

  And it's like, I don't know, but there's no jail time in arbitration. It's like, yeah, till that till the judges leave. So I jumped on a plane. The verdict was 12 noon, 11 November 5. Afternoon, I was on a plane, left Egypt and I never came back since then.

• 1:36:20Lex Fridman?

  Was there a worry of non-legal things like assassination?

• 1:36:28Speaker 01

  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 bullet will come and finish everything because I was so stressed. It's like I would laugh 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 was, I was so, under so much pressure and I remember the day that like my show was cancelled 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 accusations, doesn't bother me.

• 1:37:12Speaker 01

  Infidel spy, secret Jew, Zionist, Islamunazi, 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. Goes deeper.

• 1:37:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, certain things get to you better than others, especially if you have like a secret suspicion that you are like maybe not funny.

• 1:37:39Speaker 01

  Maybe I'm not because I was put into that, it's like because that tossed your insecurities, like I know, but you shouldn't say it out loud.

• 1:37:46Lex Fridman?

  You shouldn't say the truth 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?

• 1:38:00Speaker 01

  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 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 Gizira Club. And this is basically kind of like the kind of upper-middle-class, upper-class kind of people.

• 1:38:41Speaker 01

  And I, during that year of the Muslim Brotherhood, I was the most popular ever. People come, "Yeah!" When the military came in, people were walking to me like, pointing their fingers like, "Don't speak about CC, don't speak about the army. We love you now, but don't you..." They were like that. So I called John Stewart, just like, "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do."

• 1:39:04Speaker 01

  And at that time, all of the channels were like, closed down. All of the... 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 piecemealing, kind of like.

• 1:39:20Speaker 01

  And I remember, I was like, "I don't know what to do." He said, "Like, you don't have to do anything, just your safety comes first." And I said, "But I can't. I mean, I've been doing that for two years and I cannot just like, say, 'Bye-bye, guys. I have a responsibility, I have a team, I have people working for me.'"

• 1:39:36Speaker 01

  And I also, I cannot just like, disappear. And he said the most interesting thing ever. He said, "If you're afraid of something, make fun about the fact that you're afraid of it, instead of talking about that something." Brilliant, yeah. So, there was like, a whole episode that we did not even mention, CC. We did not even mention it, but the videos did all the thing. And the whole episode was me trying to avoid talking about him. And that, that, that's how the comedy was created. The fact that I don't wanna be here, and then I don't... So he said, "Like, if 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.'"

• 1:40:21Speaker 01

  So just by doing the simple thing about mirroring the society.

• 1:40:26Speaker 01

  That goes a long way.

• 1:40:29Speaker 01

  And I kind of tried to do what I can under the military. I mean, they they came up with a machine that treats AIDS and hepatitis C virus and basically every single and and I went to town with that. Because people think it doesn't really have to go in to go to the bigger power 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

• 1:41:14Speaker 01

  and propaganda, and from that it gets the respect. So when you go into their propaganda and expose them, they have nothing else.

• 1:41:20Lex Fridman?

  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.

• 1:41:31Speaker 01

  And this is why comedy is very specific, because people say, you were not as hard on him as you were in a Muslim. But it's like, yes, because under Muslim Brotherhood, we were like, just like saying shit for each other.

• 1:41:40Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:41Speaker 01

  But now the the ceiling was like here. So it's kind of like, how can you do something from here?

• 1:41:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, exactly. That's the art form. Yeah, in the in the Soviet Union under Stalin, the a lot of the criticism came from like children's stories and and children's cartoons.

• 1:42:00Speaker 01

  Double meaning, doubling the window stuff that means other stuff. That is the brilliance.

• 1:42:07Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but everyone knows.

• 1:42:08Speaker 01

  Everyone knows.

• 1:42:10Lex Fridman?

  Because you are like putting a mirror, like you're marrying the society. It's fascinating.

• 1:42:13Speaker 01

  And that's why I was canceled twice.

• 1:42:17Lex Fridman?

  And that is a scary one, the army. You see that in Ukraine.

• 1:42:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:21Lex Fridman?

  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 because everyone's 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.

• 1:42:40Speaker 01

  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 is this actor have more money than me?

• 1:42:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:53Speaker 01

  I'm protecting him. Why does this businessman think that he can get on his private plane and go to Paris? And why I'm here sitting like not having all of these things? So, and there's a lot of time on your hand because your job is to go fight. When you don't go fight and 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.

• 1:43:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:25Speaker 01

  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?

• 1:43:32Lex Fridman?

  That's why Iran is terrifying because you have this military that it just becomes a police force that turns against his own people.

• 1:43:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:40Lex Fridman?

  So you're, you're a famous guy talking shit in the middle of all that.

• 1:43:46Speaker 01

  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 on my head now came to life. And now I'm in America and I'm a nobody. I'm a nobody. And now it's like I have to do something, 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 I was new. And now I would go to these comedy clubs with like kids, 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. And I was bad. You're 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.

• 1:44:31Speaker 01

  And then and then what made it worse is sometimes like a fan. Like not a fan, a bunch of fans from Egypt. Oh, Bassem, you're so thrilled. They comes.

• 1:44:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, just start. The disappointment on there, that kind of like face of adoration. Yeah. That goes.

• 1:44:54Speaker 01

  And I could see it in their face. Uh, I think he's gonna drive an Uber in a couple of weeks.

• 1:44:59Speaker 01

  That's that kind of pressure. And I would go and I would cry and and I and and then the central, oh, you left. You you you you you gave up. You're a sellout. You're a coward. Why don't you speak from abroad? You're you're safe now. Like I I don't, 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. And you know, I understand, I have family there. And and and it was this kind of like thing like that I am being

• 1:45:35Speaker 01

  like attacked for not doing what I should do in their face and attacked for not being funny. And not doing good being and now I'm a fan like maybe it was wrong and I was, I didn't know. I 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 I don't, I can't, I don't know. I I I'm I'm worried to open the floodgates.

• 1:46:19Speaker 01

  And I'm thinking as if I'm functional and I'm not killing anybody, I'm okay.

• 1:46:25Lex Fridman?

  It's like, I think Elon tweeted, never went to therapy. It's gonna be on my headstone.

• 1:46:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:35Lex Fridman?

  Tell you our best buds, okay. I mean, that is terrifyingly difficult. Like, 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.

• 1:46:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:55Lex Fridman?

  Like, bombing is really, really, really difficult. Really difficult for 20-year-olds.

• 1:47:01Speaker 01

  Imagine when you were 45, 46, and then people's like, is this his midlife crisis? What is this?

• 1:47:09Speaker 01

  I went through a lot of pain and a lot of doubts, and it was terrible.

• 1:47:17Lex Fridman?

  What, I mean, how did you survive? I know you blocked off most of it, but what gave you strength through all that?

• 1:47:24Speaker 01

  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, I don't want to do that. And I don't, I don't know. I was, 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.

• 1:48:02Speaker 01

  And then I was like, why didn't, I wanted faster. I wanted more. I wanted now. I wanted, 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 that, the war happened two years ago, I would not be ready. So now they come to the show. And by the way, my show had nothing to do with 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? That the hour that I've been working on for five years. And it's all my personal story. All of what like what happened to me, me as an immigrant coming here to the United States, finding Trump as a president, finding myself in the middle of a guns rally, finding myself in the middle of a bombing, kind of like talking about how I got my citizenship.

• 1:48:47Speaker 01

  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, 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.

• 1:49:03Lex Fridman?

  I gotta say, the timing of October 7th is very suspicious.

• 1:49:06Speaker 01

  Oh my God, please don't say that.

• 1:49:08Lex Fridman?

  I don't know. I'm just asking questions.

• 1:49:10Speaker 01

  I'm telling you, one of the funniest thing, a guy, I was in Dubai and like a TV anchor came to me, Bassem Youssef, he flourishes during revolutions and wars. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what, what, dude?

• 1:49:25Speaker 01

  You're, you're making me sound like a bad omen, a very bad omen.

• 1:49:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you, Hamas and Bibi together orchestrated all this.

• 1:49:33Speaker 01

  Oh my God, that's the, that's the trilogy.

• 1:49:37Lex Fridman?

  You guys should go on the road together. I'm telling you, that phone call is coming.

• 1:49:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, but Hamas has to open.

• 1:49:44Lex Fridman?

  And they would really bomb, right?

• 1:49:46Speaker 01

  They would really bomb.

• 1:49:50Lex Fridman?

  I love dark humor. You do a show, like you were saying, in English and in Arabic. So, and the story is very different.

• 1:49:59Speaker 01

  Totally different, two different stories.

• 1:50:01Lex Fridman?

  I would love to, just the language difference, because it's the music of the language is also different. So like what, what's, how can you convert it into words? But what's, what's the difference in the, in the music of the languages?

• 1:50:13Speaker 01

  I'll tell you, because I thought that was a lot.

• 1:50:19Lex Fridman?

  All right, all right.

• 1:50:20Speaker 01

  So when I was doing the English first.

• 1:50:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:22Speaker 01

  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, uh, member of audience will receive it, it will be different than how I receive it, the energy, everything's different.

• 1:50:41Speaker 01

  So when I kind of like got it.

• 1:50:46Speaker 01

  I didn't know how to switch back to Arabic.

• 1:50:50Lex Fridman?

  Oh, wow. Yeah, fascinating.

• 1:50:52Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:51:08Speaker 01

  This is kind of like, imagine the stand-up comedy scene in America 1960s before Lenny Bruce.

• 1:51:15Lex Fridman?

  So, no swearing, conservative?

• 1:51:17Speaker 01

  No swearing, nothing conservative, everything kind of like, yeah, it's kind of like very... So, I didn't know what to do with Arabic. So, I broke the barriers. I became Lenny Bruce, I became George Condon. So, I went in and I went and I changed the whole thing.

• 1:51:31Lex Fridman?

  Seven words you're not allowed to say.

• 1:51:32Speaker 01

  For me, fifteen words.

• 1:51:37Speaker 01

  Arabic is a very rich language. So, when I did, here's the difference between the Arabic and the English show.

• 1:51:47Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:52:31Speaker 01

  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, 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, the show as a dialect. And I, I construct all of these sentences formed of so different, different words. For example, an iron in any, in any, in any Arab dialect is an iron. In Saudi Arabia, it means ass. That's one example. That's one example, you know?

• 1:53:14Speaker 01

  So imagine if you can actually construct sentences having all of these things in one. So I would, I would construct like a whole section of my show about that.

• 1:53:23Lex Fridman?

  So it's really very much about like self reflective on language and the limits of language that's allowed.

• 1:53:29Speaker 01

  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 fuck and shit, I bet you'll be ha, ha, ha, ha. But if I do one swear words, all of you will scream. It's like, why? Is it because we are ashamed? For only, so it's kind of like, it is, 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 we, we, when people have fun, whatever. But like, it is about like, what does, how do we treat our language? And I tell them, we speak Arabic as Arabs, but it's not the same Arabic. It's crazy, right?

• 1:54:04Lex Fridman?

  And you're doing the show in America also, which is another level of.

• 1:54:07Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, actually the Arab diaspora in America is some of the best audiences I have. They are like wonderful and they come from, they just, and I did, and I do, 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.

• 1:54:21Lex Fridman?

  Which countries would you go to and not?

• 1:54:24Speaker 01

  I worried, Jordan, Lebanon, I'm doing UAE, I'm doing Kuwait.

• 1:54:29Lex Fridman?

  Egypt.

• 1:54:30Speaker 01

  Bahrain, Egypt, I don't think so. I don't think so.

• 1:54:33Lex Fridman?

  Is it personal? Is it worry about your safety?

• 1:54:39Speaker 01

  Well, I have the American citizenship right now, so I am relatively safe. There's a block.

• 1:54:45Lex Fridman?

  Sure.

• 1:54:46Speaker 01

  Honestly, there's a block. There's a person, there is, there is, um, there's so much that happened. And I don't, and I never, I know never bad mouth Egypt. This is my country. It is some, like, it has all of my memories, forty 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 is a very, it was a very tumultuous relationship. Very, very difficult. And it's, 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.

• 1:55:30Speaker 01

  It's not worse or better. It's just, I'm different. And the places are different and the people are different and their circumstances are different. Whatever image you had, you have of what you love is not there anymore. That's why a lot of immigrants, especially Arab immigrants, they, 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 wanna come back, but it's not there anymore.

• 1:55:56Lex Fridman?

  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, in the case of the Soviet Union, perhaps similar to Egypt, is the promises sold when you were younger. And the, 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.

• 1:56:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's why, like for them, people from Iran, you know, I remember, I remember quite well the World Cup that was made in, done in, in the United States. And the Iranian team were playing America and there were people, people in the audience or wearing Iranian, they hate the regime. But they have this kind of connection with the country.

• 1:56:55Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:55Speaker 01

  And this is, this is the whole thing. You can actually love the country and you not have to agree with the regime.

• 1:57:02Lex Fridman?

  Would you ever perform in the West Bank?

• 1:57:06Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:57:06Lex Fridman?

  Gaza?

• 1:57:07Speaker 01

  Because if I go there, I have to go through the Israeli checkpoints and I don't want to go through Israel. I don't want to have an Israeli soldier telling me what to do.

• 1:57:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, there's a demeaning aspect to that whole.

• 1:57:16Speaker 01

  Very.

• 1:57:16Lex Fridman?

  Even in subtle ways, yeah.

• 1:57:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, I have so many Palestinian friends with an American passport, US 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?

• 1:57:34Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that little bit of a humiliation.

• 1:57:39Speaker 01

  A little bit.

• 1:57:42Lex Fridman?

  Well, sometimes it's major, but I noticed that, you know, even the little bit is, after a lifetime of that, it can turn to, it can turn to hate towards the other.

• 1:57:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, and resentment.

• 1:57:55Lex Fridman?

  Resentment. And then how do you do anything with that resentment?

• 1:57:58Speaker 01

  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 of what would happen. 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 send 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, it is, Kosra have like another settlement next to it called Esh Kodesh. Esh Kodesh, they have people there who were training something called Mishmeriti Yeshah,

• 1:58:43Speaker 01

  which is basically the guardians of Yeshah. 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 Israeli. And he is like one of the disciples of Mayor Kahane. I'm sure that you know who Mayor Kahane is. He was the Jewish Defense League, the people who assassinated Alex Oda here in the United States. And they were, they were there with their weapons outside intimidating people. Now, this story carries everything that is wrong with the situation.

• 1:59:26Speaker 01

  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 rein 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.

• 1:59:53Lex Fridman?

  What do you do from your, what do we do? What do people do to nudge this towards peace, towards flourishing?

• 2:00:05Speaker 01

  Here's the thing, I want to 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 the Judaism. At a certain point, you know, remember ISIS and Qaeda and when everybody hated Muslims? You know, sometimes the humans, the 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.

• 2:00:44Speaker 01

  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 antisemitism and the rise of hate against Jews is not because of the Jews. It's because of the actions of a government. Jews do not have to be on the side of apartheid. Ronnie Kestrel's, he is a Jewish South African and he fought shoulder to shoulder next to Nelson Badella. 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, Israeli government should listen to other people.

• 2:01:26Speaker 01

  You cannot call anybody who criticizes 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 Islam, it's just 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 anti Semitism. And like, my idol is John 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.

• 2:02:11Speaker 01

  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.

• 2:02:18Lex Fridman?

  One of your favorite words, jihad?

• 2:02:23Speaker 01

  That's my favorite hobbies.

• 2:02:24Lex Fridman?

  It's his favorite hobby?

• 2:02:25Speaker 01

  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 I was like, what if we do this for Arab terrorists? What are his hobbies? Jihad.

• 2:02:40Speaker 03

  You see, you can be a comedian.

• 2:02:42Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:44Lex Fridman?

  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.

• 2:03:20Speaker 01

  I totally agree, but like, 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.

• 2:06:01Lex Fridman?

  I think there's a few books written about the fact that they do other stuff as well. So even there Mormons, sometimes there's some of the nicest people I've ever met. But I'm sure there's also darkness there, too. Oh, boy, religion.

• 2:06:18Speaker 01

  There's soaking in Mormon.

• 2:06:21Lex Fridman?

  There's what?

• 2:06:21Speaker 01

  Soaking.

• 2:06:22Lex Fridman?

  What's soaking?

• 2:06:23Speaker 01

  OK, so I don't know how much so soaking basically like you if if you get into the woman and you don't move.

• 2:06:32Speaker 01

  That's not adultery. That's not like.

• 2:06:35Lex Fridman?

  Oh, interesting.

• 2:06:35Speaker 01

  So you go in and you just say.

• 2:06:37Lex Fridman?

  There's a loophole.

• 2:06:38Speaker 01

  The loophole.

• 2:06:39Speaker 02

  There's the thing of religion.

• 2:06:40Lex Fridman?

  Religion has a loophole.

• 2:06:41Speaker 02

  Ah, yes, and Muslims who do that the whole time, we we pick and choose our sins, the stuff that we enjoy. It's just.

• 2:06:48Lex Fridman?

  We're human. Seventy two virgins waiting for all of us.

• 2:06:50Speaker 01

  Maybe if I converted you as a Jew, I'll get you eighty. I don't know, you know, like we can negotiate.

• 2:06:56Lex Fridman?

  But I also have questions about whether.

• 2:06:58Speaker 01

  A very good deal. I'll give you and maybe also there a Camry.

• 2:07:01Lex Fridman?

  I have to be honest.

• 2:07:04Lex Fridman?

  It's pretty good. What year? I don't know. Nineteen ninety eight. All right. Best year ever. Well, they last a long time. Yeah. So I'm not sure I want seventy. I seventy two.

• 2:07:15Speaker 02

  I'll throw five in the mix and see how we feel.

• 2:07:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, can we?

• 2:07:18Speaker 02

  If you want to upgrade.

• 2:07:19Lex Fridman?

  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 and what way is it harmful?

• 2:07:32Speaker 01

  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 sheet or the gazelle that just like ends in parish. I need to have I am more important. I think 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. They will 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 there in the desert and all of these

• 2:08:16Speaker 01

  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 is no reason, it's chaos.

• 2:08:28Speaker 01

  It's chaos.

• 2:08:29Lex Fridman?

  It's terrifying.

• 2:08:29Speaker 01

  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. It has to be like a cause, something. It's just, I'm not just gonna be like, die like a cockroach being stepped on. And that's kind of like part of it is ego.

• 2:08:46Lex Fridman?

  The whole world rotates around you in a way.

• 2:08:48Speaker 01

  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.

• 2:09:07Lex Fridman?

  And there's an aspect to 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.

• 2:09:17Speaker 01

  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 humble in front of the same God.

• 2:09:28Lex Fridman?

  Go there.

• 2:09:29Speaker 01

  That means that I will have all of that train that I can use that because now, what does me being humble? I'm divine.

• 2:09:36Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:37Speaker 01

  But you're not.

• 2:09:38Lex Fridman?

  I'm way more humble than you.

• 2:09:39Speaker 01

  Ah, 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?

• 2:09:48Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. It's beautiful. It's crazy.

• 2:09:51Speaker 01

  I mean, look at, look, look at like, like the Muslim Christians and Jews and everyone. Like it's like, all right, Muslims, we surrender. I mean, I'm talking about the extremists. I mean, like people, like people, I surrender to God. Good. Keep it that way. Like if you go there, I surrender to God, that means that I am closer to God than you, then you should die. Okay, Christians. Christ is love and he loves me and we're gonna be together, but you don't get into his kingdom and you die. You see, it's the same thing.

• 2:10:17Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:10:19Speaker 01

  It's just if you make, like, stop, stop there. Stop, stop where you are humble and you feel that you're a piece of shit.

• 2:10:25Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:26Speaker 01

  And you are worthless human being and you are there.

• 2:10:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:30Speaker 01

  Stop there.

• 2:10:30Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:31Speaker 01

  But once you says like, 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.

• 2:10:40Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, we always ruin a good thing.

• 2:10:42Speaker 01

  Don't we?

• 2:10:44Lex Fridman?

  There you go. You've been outspoken, you know, 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?

• 2:11:05Speaker 01

  I, there was other, a couple of things that were going on, but they stopped again. I don't know if since October 7th.

• 2:11:12Lex Fridman?

  You know the Superman story, just so.

• 2:11:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:11:14Lex Fridman?

  So what role were you?

• 2:11:15Speaker 01

  Uh, okay.

• 2:11:16Lex Fridman?

  What did you audition for?

• 2:11:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's okay, okay.

• 2:11:21Speaker 01

  So in June, I was traveling to Dubai. And right, an hour before I, I get into the car and go there. My manager's like, best, we're gonna 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 actor, so I was like, okay, I'm just gonna do it. Send the tape. I do the tape, I send it, I go to the airport and, and I read. 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 interfere politically. So basically it was like Russia and Ukraine. But because of me, it was like, it had, it couldn't be Russia and Ukraine.

• 2:12:06Speaker 01

  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, I, I, I, I did this mix and like, you know, uh, like the kind of the mix, but also like, kind of like the, the, the, 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, I had a few roles, but not that fast, not like that. And then it's like, well, the the strike starts like tomorrow and we need to be on the phone or but after the strike, we cannot talk the SAG after strike like we're the writers and the actor strike. So like, well, I'm gonna be on a plane right now. It's like, wait, once you land,

• 2:12:49Speaker 01

  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 Guardians of the Galaxy, nobody knew about it made amazing trilogy. And he is like a really cool guy. I like I like what he did. And it was like really nice. And 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 is 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, the

• 2:13:32Speaker 01

  circus was over. It's like, you don't have the part anymore. I was sad, very sad, but for three days. And so like, I'm need to stand up with it. I'm actually doing very well. Alhamdulillah.

• 2:13:46Speaker 01

  And then, when I went to Chris Cuomo, 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 I'm living a good life now. I I don't need to. So when I was asked again, the next day, two different interviews, the BBC and the other and another one with my friend, you know, with Allah, I said the story in a different way. I said, I don't have any anger.

• 2:14:30Speaker 01

  As a matter of fact, maybe if I was Wonder Brothers, I didn't talk about James Gunn. I thought it was the studio. If I was Wonder Brothers and I'm a Muslim, I wouldn't have a 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. So I was more of a kind of empathic. So when I said that, the internet went crazy. And you know, Jim's gonna have haters because you know, the the Snyder verse and all of the that 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.

• 2:15:14Speaker 01

  So my publicist and manager like, best him, stay calm, don't speak. It's better like to to like not talk about it. I said, OK. So as I'm, 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 even through Zoom. And I didn't like what was happening. Then he called me and he explained to me as I best him, you know, I actually use like have camera test before people before. Finally, I didn't know that. And I, 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 think 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.

• 2:15:59Speaker 01

  Because I didn't want to be famous for the wrong reasons. Because that would be unfair, because that that was already people work that. And I was having like interviews, can you come about this somewhere? It's like, guys, that's it. I'm not gonna talk about it because this is an issue. And I did, I didn't, and I, when I talked to James on the phone, I felt how sincere he was. So I, 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.

• 2:16:35Lex Fridman?

  And you also said that you don't want to be a victim.

• 2:16:37Speaker 01

  I don't want to be, I'm doing great, I'm doing great. I'm selling out everywhere. I'm having a wonderful loyal audiences coming to me. Why I would be angry about the role of it's Superman? Yes, it's great to be in a superhero movies, but so what? You know?

• 2:16:51Lex Fridman?

  But you know, there's a, 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?

• 2:17:02Speaker 01

  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's 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 passport.

• 2:17:44Speaker 01

  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 consulate in, in New York and in London to curse me and to take videos of that and then send it to the 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.

• 2:18:16Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, and that becomes a slippery slope and somehow victimizing yourself.

• 2:18:20Speaker 01

  Goes to more victimizing.

• 2:18:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:22Speaker 01

  And then you cannot leave that habit. You can only exist and thrive if people feel sorry for you.

• 2:18:28Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I mean, Israel and Palestine currently both have that temptation.

• 2:18:34Speaker 01

  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.

• 2:18:42Lex Fridman?

  For sure.

• 2:18:43Speaker 01

  To you, like, that's a big problem. It's very easy to say why Palestinians will victimize themselves, but Israel with all of that military might, man, it's.

• 2:18:52Speaker 01

  What Israel is doing is that they're victimizing the Jewish experience. And I don't think a lot of, 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, I do, because what happened was that kind of engineer torture should never happen again and it should not be happening now.

• 2:19:29Lex Fridman?

  So to you, what Israel is doing is leading to more antisemitism in the world.

• 2:19:33Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. And I think, and you know, can I be a conspiracy theorist for a second?

• 2:19:37Lex Fridman?

  Please, the earth is flat, we all know this.

• 2:19:39Speaker 01

  A part of me thinking, maybe they are doing that intentionally? Because if there's a rise of antisemitism in Jews, there were always like points like, see, they hate us so we can do whatever we want. Because if, because, because you see, if we let, let go of our might and our strength, we're going to go back to the concentration camps because you see how the world hates you.

• 2:20:02Lex Fridman?

  And, and again, when you say they are people in power.

• 2:20:05Speaker 01

  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, corrupt part is much easier. But it, you, you, people could change, but power, people in power are very dangerous. Very, very dangerous, especially if you have religion, which is powered by itself, military might, political support and money. Dude, that's the, that's a very, very, very dangerous recipe.

• 2:20:38Lex Fridman?

  That, you know, all that said, I, I do believe in the power of the little guy, the individual to overthrow the government, you know? I don't know if you heard, but the Arab Spring, uh, you know, happened.

• 2:20:48Speaker 01

  But, but, but, but, okay, here, we're.

• 2:20:51Lex Fridman?

  We are here just among friends.

• 2:20:52Speaker 01

  We are Americans, right? We're Americans.

• 2:20:55Lex Fridman?

  Allegedly.

• 2:20:57Speaker 01

  We're Americans and...

• 2:21:00Lex Fridman?

  How funny is that? Like, just giving our two backgrounds.

• 2:21:02Speaker 01

  We're Americans. We're Americans, it's like...

• 2:21:08Speaker 01

  We're Americans. There's one thing about like the power of the little guy that I am very sad about. Because, you see, I'm... I love America, by the way. I... I consider it my new home. And I want my kids to grow up here. I have... 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.

• 2:21:38Speaker 01

  What is worrying for me is how the power of the little man is diminishing.

• 2:21:45Speaker 01

  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... 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 AIPAC. 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.

• 2:22:31Speaker 01

  And it is... This is the danger of American... on the American policies, American politics and American democracies. It is dangerous because basically, the vote becomes just like a ceremony?

• 2:22:43Speaker 01

  That the someone with the more, uh, like, funding will get to power and then he's not loyal to you.

• 2:22:51Lex Fridman?

  Still, the fire, I mean, we are in Texas. Um, everybody, everybody's armed to the teeth here.

• 2:22:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, but like, what are these arms gonna do in front of tanks?

• 2:23:01Lex Fridman?

  Well, you said the the American military is unique in this way.

• 2:23:05Speaker 01

  I know, but for now.

• 2:23:07Lex Fridman?

  For now, the tanks are. First of all, I believe Russia has more tanks than the United States. Tanks, I don't know. You know, I'm not an expert in military strategic deployment of arms, but the United States uses different kinds of weapons.

• 2:23:23Speaker 01

  They have drones and they have the lasers and they have they're sitting comfortably behind the screens. It's kind of like it turns like a big Xbox game.

• 2:23:30Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. And they they sell a lot of those things to everybody.

• 2:23:35Speaker 01

  It's crazy because the the defense budget is 68% of American military. It's like almost 850 billion dollars each year. And most of that weapons, we don't even need it.

• 2:23:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:49Speaker 01

  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 Defense. It was one of the most fascinating things that I've ever seen. They say like a valve, a safety of a safety oil valve that used to be sold for 329 dollars. Now it is sold for 9,000 dollars. 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 is one valve that they were like gouging the price and didn't want to give them. The Stinger missile, that that that's just like the missile, the the the one that you carry and it's like the anti aircraft. It used to be sold for 25,000 dollars.

• 2:24:34Speaker 01

  Now it's sold for 400,000 dollars. And nobody is doing doing that. You know why? 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, 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?

• 2:25:20Lex Fridman?

  But still, I mean, America's holding pretty strong despite the criticisms on the free speech front. But if you look at the free, freedom of the press, freedom of the speech index, America is not at the top.

• 2:25:33Speaker 01

  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, is now using it 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,

• 2:26:15Speaker 01

  that was written by Anna Schwartz, who someone who have no experience. 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 for George W. Bush of the WMD. And now, as an American, I see that the New York Times is becoming a mouthpiece of a foreign country? Why do you do that?

• 2:26:37Lex Fridman?

  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.

• 2:26:49Speaker 01

  But both sides as in?

• 2:26:51Lex Fridman?

  Both Israel and Palestine, pro-Palestine, pro-Israel, there's a lot of lies.

• 2:26:54Speaker 01

  I know, but...

• 2:26:57Speaker 01

  It's a lot of inequality, man. Are you like, there is like a lot of people on the internet. But like, who have the mainstream media siding with?

• 2:27:07Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but, you know, thanks to social media.

• 2:27:10Speaker 01

  Yes, thank God for social media, because now it's individuals. They are people.

• 2:27:14Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 2:27:14Speaker 01

  They're people. You're comparing BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, White Wall Street Journal, with just people with a TikTok account.

• 2:27:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, who has more power, in your view?

• 2:27:24Speaker 01

  Now, it is actually very, very fascinating to see the little man having that power over the media.

• 2:27:30Lex Fridman?

  In fact, disproportionately so, like, hey, like, this is my problem.

• 2:27:34Speaker 01

  But you cannot call people with TikTok propagandists while people being paid to casually give you the news and they deliberately lie to you?

• 2:27:41Lex Fridman?

  Well, yes, I can. They're both propagandists.

• 2:27:43Speaker 01

  Well, propagandist, okay, yes, yes. But like, but the mechanism and the intentions are different. Because, because here's the thing.

• 2:27:52Lex Fridman?

  I'd rather have the TikTok guy than the, uh...

• 2:27:54Speaker 01

  If, like, the TikTok guy is a TikTok guy, all right? But i-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. Like, I'm fine with CNN and Jake Tapper and all of those people, like, 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.

• 2:28:33Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but the problem with the people in TikTok is 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 of...

• 2:28:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28:45Lex Fridman?

  They're going to actually make up stories, because the make-made up stories are going to be more viral. And so now we're just in this sea, in this muck of lies.

• 2:28:54Speaker 01

  And there's a lot of people who actually expose the lies on TikTok. So you have both. You have, yeah, you have both. And it's the 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.

• 2:29:16Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:17Speaker 01

  That's problematic.

• 2:29:18Lex Fridman?

  And that's, that's worse. You're supposed to be journalists.

• 2:29:21Speaker 01

  Yes. It's supposed to be a report, report, you know, report.

• 2:29:26Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but you know, I see that this is like a catalyst, an inspiration for the citizen journalists to to rise up.

• 2:29:33Speaker 01

  This is what you're doing.

• 2:29:35Lex Fridman?

  This, yeah.

• 2:29:36Speaker 01

  This is what you're doing. No, this is what you're doing because you go into a deep dive. This is like like a no filter thing. There's no spin.

• 2:29:42Lex Fridman?

  The long form, the long form is going to save us.

• 2:29:47Speaker 01

  I see why you hate the TikToks, like a dopamine rush, you know, but then stupid TikTok.

• 2:29:51Lex Fridman?

  I I saw five hours later.

• 2:29:52Speaker 01

  I saw the resentment in your face.

• 2:29:56Lex Fridman?

  But I can't can't look away.

• 2:29:57Speaker 01

  For like like those like thirty seconds, I do four hours.

• 2:30:03Lex Fridman?

  I mean, both have a place, both are exciting and, you know, but I can't. It is very dangerous, like 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.

• 2:30:18Speaker 01

  Makes two of us. I can't, I cannot, I cannot, I have a team. By the way, I give my my my my password to like a team. I don't even go there because I went, I once in a dark night, very late at night, I went TikTok and it was like two hours. What?

• 2:30:36Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:37Speaker 01

  What? I said, no, no, no, this is dangerous. I'm I'm I'm really like an Instagram and Facebook guy. I don't need that.

• 2:30:45Lex Fridman?

  But even there, man.

• 2:30:46Speaker 01

  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 two, the concentrated hate and X is too much, it's too much, I can't.

• 2:30:56Lex Fridman?

  So you you don't check it at all? You try not to check it at all? It is very intense.

• 2:31:00Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I can't, I can't. I just like, I post something and I run.

• 2:31:06Lex Fridman?

  Posting ghosts.

• 2:31:09Lex Fridman?

  So you're you're doing comedy here in the United States right now?

• 2:31:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:31:12Lex Fridman?

  Joe Rogan has the the Comedy Mothership, which is an incredible club. Have you considered doing that club?

• 2:31:18Speaker 01

  I would love to. I mean, I.

• 2:31:20Lex Fridman?

  Do you know Joe?

• 2:31:21Speaker 01

  Of course, no. Who who does a new Joe?

• 2:31:23Lex Fridman?

  I feel like it's a small world of comedy, that's why I.

• 2:31:26Speaker 01

  No, I I think like Joe 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 they take their experiences and their and their lives and their story. It is very interesting. And this is the beauty of of that art form because

• 2:32:08Speaker 01

  you have all of these experiences at the tips of your hands and it is there for you to learn from. You know, and and I what he's doing like when he moved to Texas and we did the comedy mothership. Anybody who would like 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 doing that because of his passion. That is enough.

• 2:32:34Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, he's he's the he's really believes in creating this like place where comedians can be really free. And one of the cool things about the comedy mothership is like comedian is king there.

• 2:32:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, like there.

• 2:32:48Lex Fridman?

  We have to like you have to bow down to the.

• 2:32:51Speaker 01

  Because you know, the comedian who came there came after like eating shit.

• 2:32:54Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:55Speaker 01

  Dying out there everywhere else.

• 2:32:56Lex Fridman?

  If you you have basically, you're a saint.

• 2:33:00Speaker 01

  I have eaten shit for many years.

• 2:33:04Lex Fridman?

  Now I'm gonna give you shit. Ah, 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 what do you think of the choice of Trump versus Biden? How do we end up here?

• 2:33:18Speaker 01

  I don't know, man. I mean, like the fact that like you have two people over the age of ninety.

• 2:33:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:23Speaker 01

  It is.

• 2:33:24Lex Fridman?

  I think it's over a hundred, but that's all right.

• 2:33:26Speaker 01

  Oh, combined like a hundred seventy. It is so sad. It is so sad that this is what we can produce as as a society. Like like a demagogue and a sleepy Joe. I just he's too he's he's not there, man. He's he's gone. He's gone. I mean.

• 2:33:49Speaker 01

  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, if, if, if an old person would die, who would like, you know, have like a hip replacement? We can need a, like a new planet because of one decision. It's, but it's not just that. It's not that. It's, um.

• 2:34:10Speaker 01

  What are, when I came here, listen, I am, I'm a, I'm a Democrat. I always like, and I told you, like, I, I vote for Bernie Sanders. I, I, I like, I, I, I supported him. Like 2016, but I couldn't vote then. And of course, a huge fan of Obama. And one of my friends is like, he's the first Muslim president. But he killed Muslims. Like, ah, that's things Muslims do. But anyways.

• 2:34:34Lex Fridman?

  I love that line.

• 2:34:37Speaker 01

  Uh, and, uh, it just, I, I, I, I think the, the, the, the whole idea, like my shock is. I, I, I told you about like what, 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.

• 2:35:00Speaker 01

  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? Listen to us. He just raised 145 million dollars in California alone from pro-Israeli groups. I mean, what, what can we Arabs working in the vape business do to him?

• 2:35:24Speaker 01

  It's like, we cannot compete with that. I mean, like practically, I mean, it's like, life is 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 lobby, is 4.6 million dollars over the years.

• 2:35:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but I also believe in, um, great leaders that go against all of that. But unfortunately, you know.

• 2:35:51Speaker 01

  Bernie Sanders was like that.

• 2:35:52Lex Fridman?

  Bernie Sanders. Yes, but also age. I don't want to be ageless.

• 2:35:57Speaker 01

  Of course, of course. No, no.

• 2:35:58Lex Fridman?

  But even with like, because I remember listening to Bernie Sanders twenty years ago on Tom Hartman's show, and I don't want to say anything against Bernie, but like, he was sharper then.

• 2:36:10Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 2:36:10Lex Fridman?

  There's a thing with age.

• 2:36:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. No, I, I, 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 are like, what is this? Isn't this not like a house by scare 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 congresspeople 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.

• 2:36:44Lex Fridman?

  Yes, that.

• 2:36:45Speaker 01

  And that is very concerning for Americans.

• 2:36:48Lex Fridman?

  Everybody. Everybody becomes corrupt after. I mean, that's why two terms is a good limit.

• 2:36:54Speaker 01

  For everybody.

• 2:36:55Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. And, you know, maybe half a term for Egyptian leaders.

• 2:37:01Speaker 01

  Well, you know, our half term is fifteen years.

• 2:37:04Lex Fridman?

  Quarter term.

• 2:37:08Lex Fridman?

  You should come back and run for, for office there.

• 2:37:10Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, no. No, there's a curse in Egyptian, Egyptian presidency. Nobody, nobody comes there like is dead or in jail.

• 2:37:20Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:21Speaker 01

  It's, it's not the most appealing job.

• 2:37:23Lex Fridman?

  They might make a statue of you, though. Make you look good.

• 2:37:26Speaker 01

  After my death. I look very good dead.

• 2:37:33Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, when you look at what happened with Navalny,

• 2:37:39Lex Fridman?

  since you kind of really thought about this in Egypt, what happened with Navalny in Russia? What do you think about that?

• 2:37:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, but what happened in the valley 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. He's I I I would have to cite credit Putin. He's like bringing us the essence of the dark ages, the Middle Ages. It's like, you know, we know, like, basically Putin is like, 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 I it is it is very dark, but it's like, wow. It's like a it's it's it's a it's a it's a television show.

• 2:38:30Lex Fridman?

  Maybe that's what attracts us to that part of the world is that it's so much on display, this game of of power, of geopolitics.

• 2:38:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:38:40Lex Fridman?

  Of war.

• 2:38:41Speaker 01

  No, but the same happens in the West, but I'm behind closed doors. It's not that open. It's it's it's not it's not that pronounced, you know? It's like, oops, Epstein.

• 2:38:55Speaker 01

  We're just like, I think, I think because of the West is more advanced, like in movies and cinemas, we kind of direct it better.

• 2:39:02Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:02Speaker 01

  And I think I think the outcome is like the way that you kind of like said the scenes like, mm, scene and scene.

• 2:39:07Lex Fridman?

  That's why people are all like landing on the moon. They're like.

• 2:39:13Lex Fridman?

  I get it, but, you know, we haven't gone back.

• 2:39:18Lex Fridman?

  There's the flat.

• 2:39:22Lex Fridman?

  All right, if we zoom out, do you think there will always be war in the world?

• 2:39:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:39:27Lex Fridman?

  Always be suffering?

• 2:39:28Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah. But here's the thing, I don't think for long. I don't think that will happen for them.

• 2:39:34Lex Fridman?

  Wait a minute.

• 2:39:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:39:36Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:36Speaker 01

  Because here's the thing. Humanity is destined to to have war, especially it will have war, but that that something happened in the last 50 years. We have had now we have much more lethal weapons. The problem is, the beginning is like swords against swords, horses, cavalry, like cannons, catapults, mini mini sized. But now you're like, 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 going to 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 the quality of weapons that we have.

• 2:40:19Speaker 01

  It is designed to kill more effectively, more, more, 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.

• 2:40:29Lex Fridman?

  Just looking at nuclear weapons, the fascinating thing about nuclear weapons, I've gotten to learn recently, just how few people are involved in a full-on nuclear war that kills, basically kills everybody.

• 2:40:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:40:45Lex Fridman?

  While three-plus billion people right away.

• 2:40:49Speaker 01

  And the consequences of the nuclear winter, it's unlivable.

• 2:40:54Lex Fridman?

  But all it takes is, I mean, one president can do it. So it could be even a false alarm, misunderstanding.

• 2:41:02Speaker 01

  Like what happened in the Cuba missile crisis?

• 2:41:05Lex Fridman?

  But again, and now there's, more nations are prepared and ready to launch.

• 2:41:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. 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.

• 2:41:22Lex Fridman?

  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, just let's get as close to it as possible.

• 2:41:36Speaker 01

  You have another factor that will contribute to that.

• 2:41:41Speaker 01

  Religion.

• 2:41:44Speaker 01

  And remember how like the radical Islamists talk about like the end of time and whatever, but like most 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, like God wants us here, like Karl Rove, all of the new gods, the dispensationalist Reagan.

• 2:42:09Speaker 01

  There's an incredible book called like Forcing the Hands of Gods. Oh, beautiful book. I read it's like it's published nineteen ninety eight, 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 they laid great planet Earth and then left behind Syria and all of that. It's all about like, we're heading to Armageddon. The problem is Islam has their people that believe that they're 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.

• 2:42:50Speaker 01

  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 Haggie, 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.

• 2:43:30Lex Fridman?

  Somebody who's really in a hurry. Well, I have good news for you. Maybe we'll become a multiplanetary species.

• 2:43:38Speaker 01

  Maybe Elon Musk will lead us.

• 2:43:40Lex Fridman?

  Lead the way. To get out in space.

• 2:43:42Speaker 01

  Maybe he's one of them.

• 2:43:49Lex Fridman?

  I asked you offline to not mention the lizard people.

• 2:43:54Speaker 01

  There's like a whole people that believe in the lizard people. It's crazy.

• 2:43:57Lex Fridman?

  I actually have to be honest, I haven't fully looked into lizard people. I probably should.

• 2:44:01Speaker 01

  You should.

• 2:44:02Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, well, maybe I'm afraid of the truth.

• 2:44:08Lex Fridman?

  Then, then, then, then, then.

• 2:44:13Speaker 01

  By moving my face.

• 2:44:16Lex Fridman?

  I mean, what, so let's say, let's say you're wrong about the end of the world.

• 2:44:21Speaker 01

  I hope so.

• 2:44:22Lex Fridman?

  And we, it all turns out great and humanity flourishes. Why would that happen? What, what gives you hope for that trajectory for humanity?

• 2:44:36Speaker 01

  Younger people, the people of TikTok that you don't like.

• 2:44:41Speaker 01

  I, I, I, yeah, there is a lot of like bullshit there.

• 2:44:45Lex Fridman?

  You know, after you saying this, people just keep sending you TikTok videos. These younger people, this.

• 2:44:53Speaker 01

  This woman showing her boobs, that, that woman.

• 2:44:55Lex Fridman?

  That's gonna save us.

• 2:44:58Lex Fridman?

  All right, awesome. Thank you.

• 2:45:00Speaker 01

  No, there's like, I think, uh, 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, we were watching twerking videos and that is true. But on the other side, the fact that you have the availability of information. I'm, I'm learning a lot and there's people who are using that platform for that. It's not the majority because, you know, it's not very interesting and exciting. But I think there's, 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.

• 2:45:45Speaker 01

  And maybe it sounds very naive, maybe it's fine, 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.

• 2:45:58Lex Fridman?

  They're getting nervous.

• 2:45:59Speaker 01

  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 hunch for that. But like people now are calling them out. And it is not gonna happen like this year or next year, but I think it's something.

• 2:46:11Lex Fridman?

  What advice would you give to those young folks?

• 2:46:13Speaker 01

  I will never give advice to those people.

• 2:46:17Lex Fridman?

  Get off TikTok.

• 2:46:18Speaker 01

  I will never, because like their input is different than mine.

• 2:46:21Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:22Speaker 01

  But like, there's, there's one thing I learned when people saw 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 the pro, 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 were, you didn't even imagine would happen in the Middle East, is happening. And maybe the beginning of any, 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.

• 2:47:04Lex Fridman?

  The revolution continues.

• 2:47:05Speaker 01

  Ah, yes.

• 2:47:07Lex Fridman?

  Bassem, you're, 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.

• 2:47:21Speaker 01

  Thank you so much, and I would love to invite you for my new special, The Islamunazi Bassem.

• 2:47:27Lex Fridman?

  That should be the title of your autobiography.

• 2:47:30Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 2:47:31Lex Fridman?

  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.