The full transcript

Dave, Alan, how are you?

Good.

Good. How are you?

Good, man. Good to see you again. And Alan, pleasure to meet you, and happy birthday for your birthday yesterday.

Oh, thank you.

I'm going to jump straight to it. And Alan, I'm going to ask you a question. To get your stance today, I understand what your stance was before the war. when the war started. We are where we are today. Iran still is able to fire missiles, fire drones. They've struck the Gulf. They struck Israel. Oil prices are nearing $100 again. Munitions are depleted. Do you still think the war was a good idea? And what do you think Trump should do next?

Well, first of all, let me thank you for having me. The art of debate is quickly dying around the world. Certainly dying at major universities today and on television. So I want to congratulate you on putting out a debate on such an important subject. I think this war is the most important war that the United States has fought since the Second World War. And let me tell you why. I'm going to first begin with one word: 1935. 1935 was the worst year in modern world history. Now you might ask, what happened in 1935? The answer is nothing happened in 1935. That's why it was the worst year in modern history. In 1935, France and England could have stopped Nazi Germany. The Versailles Treaty had been signed. The Versailles Treaty prohibited Germany from rearming. It prohibited Germany from instituting a draft. They violated those and other provisions of the Versailles Treaty, and France and England did nothing. As Winston Churchill wrote in a book, While England Slept, and John Kennedy wrote a similar book, While Europe Slept, the world allowed Nazism to end up taking how many? 50, 60, 70 million lives. which could have been avoided if France and England had engaged in a preventive war, not a preemptive war because it wasn't imminent, but a preventive war based on the Versailles Treaty. If both countries had sent in troops and had set back, even if they hadn't destroyed, set back the German military, the German armament industry, considerably. Um, you know what would have happened? Whoever did it, if Winston Churchill had been the Prime Minister, they would have been attacked and they would have been condemned. Oh my God, what did you do? Hitler wasn't posing an immediate threat. He's some tinhorn dictator. Uh, he would have probably gone away. Maybe he would have lost the next election because history is blind to the future. We only understand the past. We don't know the future. And we now know that had they done this, even if they hadn't succeeded completely, even if they had been condemned, they could have saved tens and tens of millions of lives. So I look at everything I see today through the prism of 1935, 1939, 1940 to 1945, uh, the worst years in, in probably the history of the world, and how it could have been prevented Had there been action taken in 1935, and so when we look back in history to 2025, 2026, 2027, I think we will see that the attempt by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, which could have endangered the world horribly, was halted. It wasn't maybe permanently stopped. It wasn't maybe obliterated, to use a term that was used by President Trump, but it was certainly delayed. It was certainly halted, and a very powerful message was sent to Iran: You can't do this. We're not going to let you develop nuclear weapons. Yeah, you can raise oil prices. Sure, you can make it painful at the pump. You can do all of those things, but none of them are as important as preventing Iran from. Developing a nuclear arsenal. And I think that the United States, along with Israel, has done a considerable— taken a considerable step toward halting Iran's nuclear potential. Have they stopped it completely? Probably not. All life is a matter of degree, and you shouldn't expect the kind of total victories that we eventually had over Japan and Germany. Those are rare, and those are even rarer in today's world. But when you ask me to evaluate that war, the most important war in modern American history since the Second World War, even if it doesn't succeed any more than it's already succeeded— now, my hope is that it will do more. My hope is that we'll see regime change, we'll see the overthrow of the Iranian regime, we'll see the total destruction Of Iran's nuclear potential, we'll see the opening of the Straits of Hormuz. But even if we don't, there are other routes around the world, and no country should be able to control oil flow or the flow of other minerals. So on balance, I think this war has been a great success. Very unpopular, as would have been a preemptive attack in 1935 by France and Germany. But as as Mao Zedong said when he was asked. whether the French Revolution was a success, he said it's, it's too early to tell. And it's really too early to tell, certainly, whether the Iran War has been a success. But I think history will judge it a considerable success. And I think the alternative, doing nothing the way the world did nothing in 1935, maybe would have been applauded today, maybe would have helped some people get elected. But history looked at it as a disaster.

+4.5 C-1.2 · Partial concession: strikes did not obliterate the program · Alan Dershowitz

Thank you. Dave?

Okay.

I think that while the question of a, say, British and French invasion of Germany in 1934 would have resulted in much better than what the world got with the biggest catastrophe ever in World War II and the Holocaust, and whether a preemptive war in one particular situation would have stopped a lot more violence is a very interesting thought experiment for, say, like, a college professor to run by his students in a 101 history course or something like that. But in order to use that to justify a current war, I think this whole line of argumentation falls apart under the slightest bit of scrutiny. I mean, even if one were to grant completely the hypothetical that, yes, preemptive war at this one point in history, this one obviously very unique, known for its uniqueness in catastrophe, this one period of time, if a preventative war would have been better there. Okay, well, it could also be true that just perhaps not imposing the Treaty of Versailles and humiliating Germany in front of the world could have also prevented this. And maybe there's a way that could have prevented World War II that didn't involve war. Also, even if none of that's true, you still can't extrapolate from that that therefore the one lesson of history is that aggression and preemptive war is always correct. I mean, how about all of the examples where war and aggression— You know, no, I'm saying you can point to one example wherein you want to argue that pacifism had a huge cost to it. But how about all of the times that aggression had a gigantic cost to it? I don't know, like maybe Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria and Libya and Somalia and Yemen, the drone bombing campaign in Pakistan. I mean, we have gone through 25 years of catastrophic, disastrous wars sold off of lies. And I'll say this war, the decision to launch this war, is the most idiotic decision, the most disastrous and reckless decision out of all of them, because it comes when we are that much more bankrupt and it comes when we should have— we have no excuse for not learning some of the lessons, not just of World War II, as everybody from Mr. Dershowitz's generation loves to trot out, but some of the much more recent, much more tangible lessons about these type of military actions. in this region of the world, in this greater war on terror. And I'll just say finally, like, 2 quick things here. Number one, there were clear, concrete goals of this war laid out. And so if you want to try to make this barometer now, well, 6 months in, I think we're doing pretty good. The goals that were laid out by the administration were very clear. Okay. We can go through them very quickly. This was a war of regime change. That's what was announced from day one. Of course, Mr. Dershowitz has for years admitted that that's what he wanted, as has Benjamin Netanyahu, who the other—

+9 C-5.1 · Granted the 1935 counterfactual in full before contesting it · Dave Smith · low confidence: excluded from score

That's right.

day admitted that—

+0.5 R-6.1 · Interruption to correct Smith · Alan Dershowitz

He hasn't admitted, he's claimed.

Excuse me, correction stated. Mr. Dershowitz has openly stated that that is his position, as has Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history, the other day, who bragged about how he was able to drag the United States into this war. Anyway, the point here is that the goal was regime change. The people were supposed to take over the government. That was goal number one. Number 2, we were supposed to recover the nuclear dust. We were supposed to abolish their nuclear program. We were supposed to abolish their ability to support Hezbollah. Hezbollah. We were supposed to take out their intermediate missiles and the goal of opening the Strait of Hormuz, which wasn't a problem before the war but became a goal after the war. Those are 6 very clear goals that were laid out, and absolutely none of them have been achieved. And there is not the slightest reason to think one of those 6 will be achieved in the near future. The costs already are probably in a couple hundred billion dollars to the American taxpayers. If you really start adding up all the bases that have been destroyed and the munitions and the, the, the equipment and the military mobilizations. That's not to mention anything of the hundreds of billions of dollars that have, uh, uh, that have been of damage in the global economy. At this point, we don't know the exact numbers, but at least we are in the 15-ish range of Americans who have died over this war. There are real American families who will never have their loved ones back. And that's not to speak of the thousands of people that we've killed over there, little children in schools, not to mention little children whose only crime was being related to an ayatollah, as if we'd ever accept that type of humanity over here in America. And the final thing I'll say real quick, and I apologize if I lose track of time sometimes, but the final thing I'll say is that if you're supporting this war right now, whether you're lying or not, we could get into— I don't agree with some of the claims that are being made here about Iran's nuclear program, but all 3 of us know that the president of the United States of America is lying the American people into war right now. Lying us into this war and lying to keep us in this war. His claim is that Iran was 2 weeks away from having a deliverable nuclear weapon and they were going to wipe Israel off the face of the map and that they've killed over 100,000 protesters. Those are his claims right now to justify the current war. We all know those are lies, completely unsubstantiated. There is just absolutely no one who can back them up with anything in the world. And I'd love to see Mr. Dershowitz try. But if he can't, then in essence, you're backing up a president as he lies the country into a war.

↳ P17 raised again here · first raised at U-083

I'm not here to defend President Trump. I'm not here to defend anything he said.

You're defending his war.

+7.5 R-4.2 · Redirected from the actual war to a war in theory · Alan Dershowitz

I'm not here to defend his war. I'm here to defend a war.

We're done.

I'm here to defend a just war, an attack on the nuclear facilities that slowed down and set back Iran's obvious desire to have nuclear weapons. Your logic, uh, we would have opposed D-Day as well. You know how many civilians, children, babies, mothers, uh, civilians, French civilians died as the result of America and Britain attacking Germany on D-Day? Thousands and thousands. War is hell. Uh, when you engage in war, you do always a cost-benefit analysis. How many people will die? How many, uh, innocent people died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to prevent the United States from having to send soldiers into the islands of Japan where 100,000 American soldiers would have died. That's what governments do. They make these impossible, difficult, tragic decisions to save 100,000 American soldiers' lives and at the sacrifice of perhaps 100,000 innocent Japanese lives. And you know, we don't know for sure. Would all the Americans have been killed? We don't know. Did we know that 100,000 people would die? That's what happens in war. And so you always have to ask the question: What's the least worst alternative? Now, I'm not here to justify the goals of this war. I had one goal for me. My goal is to prevent Iran from becoming and staying the most dangerous country in the world. since Hitler's Germany. Iran has caused more damage, more American deaths, more deaths of Iranians. And, you know, so Trump may have been wrong when he said 100,000 people died. Maybe it was only 30,000 protesters who died. These are things we don't know. When Hamas claims that 70,000 people were killed and it turns out that at least a third of them were combatants and terrorists, These are statistics that the fog of war prevents us from knowing. My God, we have certainty. What I know for certainty is that to have allowed Iran, to have allowed pacifism, to use your word, to prevail, and to have done nothing, and to have allowed Iran— it wouldn't be 2 weeks, I agree. It might have been 2 years, it might have been a year, it might have been 6 months, it might have been 3 months. We don't know for sure. And when you don't know, you have to act on uncertainties and capabilities. And, and that's why it was correct for the United States and Israel to engage in surgical attacks on the nuclear facilities. Israel first knocked out the air defenses. Very few people, by the way, were killed during that phase of the war. They were military targets, legitimate military targets. Iran had declared war against the world. It had killed hundreds of American Marines. It had killed hundreds of Jews. And Israelis in Argentina. It had put out fatwas on Americans, Canadians. My friend Erwin Kotler, who was a peace-loving man, a human rights activist, had a fatwa put out on him by the Ayatollah and had to spend the rest of his life— he's my age— walking around with armed guards. And that And just recently, Iran put out a fatwa essentially on Donald Trump's son and on Benjamin Netanyahu's son. And so we're talking about an evil regime, a dangerous regime. And if that regime were to get nuclear weapons, it would be far worse than North Korea, a hermit regime having nuclear weapons, or Pakistan or India or Israel or the United States or Great Britain or France. I think there's every reason to believe, and when you have to make policy decisions, you have to base it again on probabilities, every reason to assume that if Iran had a nuclear arsenal, it would have used it. After all, just quote the people from Iran themselves, the former President Rafsanjani, who said, if we develop a bomb, which we should and which we will, and if we drop one bomb on Tel Aviv, it will be the end of Israel because Tel Aviv is a one-bomb state. These are quotes from—

↳ evidence for the P4 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-015

+4.5 C-1.2 · Partial concession: Trump's casualty figure may be wrong · Alan Dershowitz

Alan, just a question on that particular point. I want you to expand on that point. You're talking about Iran's nukes, then, and you've also criticized them for that. They don't have a fatwa on President Trump, but there were articles and there was talk within the government about killing Trump. And you've just criticized that, yet the United States killed their leader. How does that achieve the objective of destroying their nuclear program by killing their leader, killing their leadership, and destroying their military?

I'm not here to advocate killing leaders. I do think that you make military decisions, military decisions sometimes right, sometimes wrong. In this case, it seems like perhaps it backfired, perhaps that we don't know for sure who is the current leader, but the current leader, whoever he is, may be even more reluctant to make any kind of peace than the previous leaders. Again, I'm not here to make a tactical defense of any particular action. The only defense I'm making, a tactical action, and that was the surgical attack that Israel conducted to knock out Iran's air defenses. And then the United States decision to send in the B-2s and do a surgical strike which set back— didn't obliterate, but set back the nuclear program considerably. I think that was very, very important, very productive. and has saved many, many lives in the long run. We'll never know that for sure because, again, we're always dealing with probabilities. Look, I wrote a book—

↳ P2 raised again here · first raised at U-007

+2 C-4.1 · Acknowledged the leader strike may not have advanced the objective · Alan Dershowitz

So let me go— I'll just go to Dave to respond to that point because I do want to go to where we are today in the war. And you mentioned their current leader as well. I want to ask you a few questions about him and whether you think he should be targeted because he's someone that is not too keen Alive or dead. But Dave, just on the thoughts on the Iranian, the perception of Iranian government being evil and the alternative that if the same regime, which by the way is still in power, remains in power versus being able to achieve regime change.

But well, I just got to like, I'm sorry, I just got to respond to a few things who were said here, but I'm happy to pick back up on that. But look, I'm sorry. I mean, for Mr. Dershowitz here, for his response for me to be, so I make the point that this war is being sold off lies. And if you're supporting this war, then you're supporting a war being sold off lies to the American people. Like, I think that is a fairly legitimate point, to which Mr. Dershowitz responds that he is not defending Trump and he's not defending this war. Well, if you're not defending this war, I got to be honest here. Like, I'm unclear on what we're debating. I would take that as I just want— Hold on one second. Hold on. I didn't interrupt you at all. I just sat quiet while you said your whole thing. So let me just get my piece out. Okay. If you're not defending this war, literally the title of this says, The Iran War, 6 months in. I think we're talking about the war that's going on right now. That war is being sold based off lies. And essentially, by your answer there, you just said, yeah, you cannot— you're not going to sit here and say it is 100,000 troops. You're certainly not going to say it was going to be 2 days.

↳ P8 raised again here · first raised at U-025

Okay.

But that's what the commander-in-chief is saying as he's selling this war. Now, are you just saying you won't take a position on whether you support this war or don't? Because if you do support the war, I'm saying then you support a war being sold off lies. I don't see how you get to dodge that. Like, at least in the in this debate. Do you support this war or not?

↳ P4 raised again here · first raised at U-014

Let me answer it. I support the war. I support the attempts to get change. Okay. Or the attempt to destroy Iran's nuclear—

↳ evidence for the P8 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-017

+0.5 R-6.1 · Interruption of Dershowitz's answer · Dave Smith

So then, to be clear, once—

okay, okay.

I'm sorry, but this was just like a yes or no question. I'm still—

Now you got to let me answer the question, please. You've asked me the question.

Well, it really was a yes or no question, because if you support the war—

I'm a lawyer. I know how to deal with yes or no questions. You object to them and you don't answer yes or no. Okay.

All right. Fair enough. You are a good lawyer, but I'm just saying—

Yes or no to a question that requires a more complicated—

But instead of, instead of being lawyers, let's just be good faith about this. I'm building an obvious logical argument that you can respond to. I'm saying if you support the war, you support a war being sold off lies and you know they're lies.

↳ P4 raised again here · first raised at U-014

Are you afraid of my answer in full?

Not at all, sir. Go ahead.

I am not here to defend any particular politician any more than I would have been there to defend Franklin Roosevelt's statements about the war or Winston Churchill's statements about the war. Politicians tend to overstate their arguments during wartime. That's very common. I'm not here to lie. What I'm here is— let me be very clear— I'm here to defend the initial attack that was made against the nuclear weapons. I am here to defend efforts which I hope will someday—

↳ evidence for the P4 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-015

↳ evidence for the P8 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-017

The initial attack, Alan, the one last year or this year? The initial attack.

You're talking about the 12-day war, the initial attack.

I'm talking about the initial 12-day war, but I want to make it very clear.

So you won't even defend this war? We're already here and you're not defending the war. So I win the debate. What is this?

↳ P8 raised again here · first raised at U-025

I defend regime change. I think it would be the best world—

+0.5 R-6.1 · Interruption to press the theory point · Dave Smith

So just in theory.

for—

So we're not here. I'm sorry, Mario. Can I, can I appeal to them? Can I appeal? Listen, Alan, I just got to—

For clarity. You want clarity, Dave, on Alan's position?

I'm appealing to the moderator for clarity here. Hold on. Hold on one second. Let me ask the moderator a question for clarity. Are we here to debate in a war with Iran in theory, or are we debating the war that is currently taking place 6 months in? How is there confusion on this topic?

↳ P8 raised again here · first raised at U-025

I'll ask the question differently. So you support regime change. Do you support the way Trump is achieving regime change militarily this year?

+3 C-1.2 · Conceded Trump's approach has not succeeded · Alan Dershowitz

No, of course not. He hasn't succeeded. I would see a much more aggressive effort.

This is the best they got to defend the war.

This is—

but this— but so do you believe— so putting Trump— sorry, Alan, I'll just— for asking clarity, I want to ask you for more clarity. Just for more clarity, Alan, I'll let you answer. Let's just understand your position. Do you support regime change through military means, through war? But you think— okay.

↳ P10 raised again here · first raised at U-049

Yeah, I support regime change by almost any means. I support it through economic sanctions, even if that involves economic sanctions that impact innocent civilians, as they did in Germany and they did in Japan, as they did in every war. I'm completely in favor of any effort to achieve regime change through economic, through military, through diplomatic, through any way that we can.

+4 C-3.1 · Head-on answer on regime change by any means · Alan Dershowitz

Even, even just to include, does that include, does that include assassinating Alan, just does that include assassinating the leader as well? If Trump believes that's right, okay, including assassinating the leader of the country?

+4 C-3.1 · Head-on answer on assassinating the leader · Alan Dershowitz

If that's successful, I was in favor of assassinating Hitler. I would have been in favor of assassinating Stalin. And I am in favor of assassinating leaders who are killing 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 Iranians and are threatening the world. I think the Iranian regime, the current Iranian regime, is the greatest danger to world peace Since the Second World War, and so Trump Trump has done so. And I just charge it and allow let me finish. Please let me finish. Anything allow the people of Iran to elect their own leaders to bring back anybody who can bring peace and and and and and end the torture and end the tyranny. I I support that. Yeah.

So you support Trump if Trump wants to continue? Just a final question on this to get. Alan, I have to ask just to get more. So if Trump's strategy right now is to continue to militarily bring down the regime, I know you don't support maybe tactical decisions he's taken, statements he's made. But if continuing the operation right now militarily is something you support?

↳ P10 raised again here · first raised at U-049

↳ evidence for the P10 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-050

Yes. Oh, definitely.

↳ evidence for the P10 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-050

Dave, I think we've got it. Dave, you can— I think we understand Alan's position.

I'm in favor of that. I think it will save—

I'll let Dave to—

make the world a better place. Yes.

Dave, I think it's pretty clear now Alan's position. He does support the war. I think he's trying to distance himself from certain statements Trump is making.

Yeah, it's a complete cop-out. It's a complete cop-out. I mean, I don't know what to say. We're debating the war here. If you're supporting this war, this war is being sold based off lies, and you want to say, well, I support the war, but politicians— I mean, listen, you can't interrupt every single time I talk.

↳ P8 raised again here · first raised at U-025

I will have to allow Dave. Do you mind if we let— if you don't mind. So if you don't mind, just let Dave respond to the full point, Dave, and then we'll go back to you, Alan, with a few questions.

Of course.

Yeah, I mean, again, I think it's like, honestly, I think it speaks for itself if at this point when we're having debates in this war, the people supporting it can't even commit to supporting it and have to fall back to this like, no, no, no, I just support it hypothetically. I mean, just think about like how unfair this is. This is Again, again, you got to not interrupt every single first. I sat back. I gave you multiple questions. I let you say a whole bunch of things that are completely wrong. I'd like to respond to all of them. You also said Iranians killed the Marines at the barracks attack. That's not true. But okay, it was an Iranian proxy group is what you're supposed to say. Anyway, I'd like to get to all of this stuff, but I can't just be interrupted every single first sentence that I start talking. And I'm sorry, I'm not going to let go of this point. It is so— this is— I mean, sir, it's— I guess this is a little bit Ironic, given our age, for me to call you this, but frankly, it's a childish argument to say, I won't defend the war as it is, but I defend the war in theory going perfectly. Therefore, I can defend this action because, you see, I'm just defending regime change where it works. I'm not defending actually launching this war here in reality, where, of course, we just ran an experiment on this and the topic of this debate presented was the current war. I'm kind of like taken aback that you're actually going, Well, no, I don't support the war as is. I support it the way I would want it to be. And now, so I guess I'm just going to take the win on the war that is, or we could just say there wasn't a debate on that. You can't defend the war that is. And I guess with the remainder of our time, we could move on to me trying to debunk some of the other stuff that you're saying here. And look, I mean, obviously, I think anyone should have learned the lesson from the last few years that simply sitting here and saying, I would have killed Stalin or I would have killed Hitler. I mean, this again, this does not sound—

+0.5 R-6.1 · Interruption while Smith held the floor · Alan Dershowitz

I was asked the question.

Dave, go ahead.

Okay.

Okay. Anyway, go ahead. By the way, the first question, Alan.

But like, to interrupt me just to say you were asked the question. I didn't say you weren't asked the question. I'm saying you said this. Okay, so you just said this anyway. There's no point in just breaking up my thought for no reason. So you said yes. So you're saying this, but that's not the question. I mean, even the question wouldn't be, do you want to kill Hitler necessarily? There would be questions like, do you have the capability of killing Hitler? What happens after you kill Hitler? How many people are going to die as a result of that? There's so many questions to be asked. And it's very sloppy and lazy to just say everybody's Hitler. Look, we launched a war that we have no means of winning. It has been a complete disaster. And this was very predictable. This was predicted by all of the people with a little bit of wisdom in the room. The idea that somehow Netanyahu was able to convince Donald Trump that this was going to be easy or something like that, and even any of these efforts The idea that Donald Trump would have just threatened them on Easter and that would get them to capitulate, the idea that they wouldn't have closed the Strait of Hormuz, or the idea that an economic blockade alone is going to topple this regime, like, all of these things are, let's say, wishful thinking at best. So again, the war that we're actually talking about was launched in a disastrous way. This whole thing's a disaster. But Mr. Dershowitz isn't here to defend this disaster. So on that argument, there's really no more debate. So let's go to this.

↳ evidence for the P2 verdict on Dave Smith · ruling prints at U-014

+6 R-2.2 · Reductive mockery of the analogy · Dave Smith

Let's go to this.

Look, let me say on a point that you made there, because everybody loves to rattle off all these things and then talk about how Iran are the Nazis. Iran is the worst regime since World War II. And I'm certainly not here to stick up for the Iranians, although every single critic of mine will insist that I am, as Mr. Dershowitz does. But I think that's really dumb. Well, if you listen, sir, I mean, you know, a lot of people do make that argument when you oppose a war that you're sticking up for the other side. But I would just say, if we're going to make this personal about me and who I'm defending, enough said. You've defended some people in your day. I'm not actually defending the, the Ayatollah. Okay? You understand?

↳ P13 raised again here · first raised at U-067

+2 R-2.2 · Personal jab about Dershowitz's clients · Dave Smith

I do.

I'm defending the American people against people who advocate your types of policies bankrupting this country. You've already destroyed the republic and you're on your way to destroying the nation. And I'm trying to stand against that. Now, you can mention that Iran— first off, Iran, as he said, didn't kill our Marines in Lebanon. A proto-Hezbollah type group that had been organized by the IRGC was involved in that. And fine. But if you're going to— they bring these things up. They're not going to bring up when we backed Saddam Hussein invading Iran. They're not going to bring up how brutal he was and how we were okay with it. They're not going to bring up when we toppled their government in '53. They're not going to bring up all the reasons why there's animosity. But you know what? You know what? At least be consistent. At least one of you guys be consistent. 2 years after, 2 years after that attack on our Marines, Ronald Reagan, at the behest of the Israelis, sold weapons to the Iranians. So if 2 years after that, Ronald Reagan and the Israeli government could deal weapons to the Iranians, don't come back to me. This was last century. Don't come back to me now and start using that just as one of your pylons because you need another little piece of something that sounds like a justification. Here's how serious people think about going to war. Is this— has this country attacked us? Is this a war of choice or is this a war of aggression? Is this a war of defense? Is this a just war? How does it measure up to the just war theory of Christianity? Think about things like that. Iran doesn't pass any of them. And the idea that Iran was a threat to any of us is nonsense. And all that nuclear stuff is bullshit too.

↳ P13 raised again here · first raised at U-067

↳ evidence for the P2 verdict on Dave Smith · ruling prints at U-014

+4 R-2.2 · Ad hominem: attacking Dershowitz's record and person · Dave Smith

Go ahead, and I'll let you respond first.

Go ahead. I have been teaching theories of just war for what, 50 or 60 years. I'm very familiar with St. Thomas Aquinas' just war theory. I'm very familiar with Michael Walzer's just war theory, and I believe that this is a paradigm of just war, just as— and I'm going to go back— just as England and France attacking Germany at the eve of the Second World War would have been a just war, even though it wasn't a preemptive war, just like in '67 when Israel attacked people who were ready to attack it, but perhaps not imminently that day, was a just war. I think there are just wars if on balance the goal is to prevent a greater, far greater evil in terms of innocent lives. Now, can just wars sometimes be mistaken? Of course they can be. We've made mistakes about wars. We probably shouldn't have backed Saddam Hussein.

↳ P1 raised again here · first raised at U-007

↳ P15 raised again here · first raised at U-076

↳ evidence for the P7 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-007

+3 C-1.2 · Partial concession: US wrongly backed Saddam Hussein · Alan Dershowitz

But you don't. But on this particular war, I want to ask you a question, just kind of lead this to the next topic. Dave mentioned earlier a quote by Netanyahu from a few days ago, and because we started talking about why this war started, you went back to the attack on the barracks about 50 years ago by Hezbollah as one of the reasons why the Iranian government is evil.

No, go ahead. I'm saying under theories of just war and under international theories of casus belli, countries have a right to respond to attacks on its civilians that were done by subordinates like Hezbollah.

But that was what I mean, but that was 50 years ago.

That was not my justification. My justification was the fact that intelligence showed that Iran was determined, although they said they weren't, to develop a nuclear arsenal. And if that is true, then it was perfectly proper for the United States and Israel to prevent that from happening or to try, even if they failed. So it's better to have tried and failed to do that. Now, in fact, they didn't fail. They didn't succeed completely. It was a mixed bag, as it would have been a mixed bag in 1945 if Germany had been attacked by—

↳ P15 raised again here · first raised at U-076

↳ P2 raised again here · first raised at U-007

↳ evidence for the P15 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-078

+4.5 C-1.2 · Partial concession: strikes did not fully succeed · Alan Dershowitz · low confidence: excluded from score

So the main issue, the main issue for regime change is the nuclear weapons. But I do want to get a quote. But Alan, I want to get a quote. I've got a question for you, so I'll give you the mic again. The quote that Dave was referencing for Netanyahu, and Netanyahu said the following on Hebrew media to the voter base before the elections. He said, it took a long time to bring the United States to its senses. I was able to do this Because I had close to 1,000 hours of American television, influence in the United States, and intimate knowledge of all its leaders, both those who support us and those who do not.

Mario, I don't want to be on a show if you're going to quote Nick Fuentes in the middle of it. I'm sorry. Who is this? Who is this who said this? That was Benjamin Netanyahu who said that.

Okay.

So, Alan, I want to—

I'm sorry. I was outraged.

I was appalled.

I thought we had an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist on our hands.

Alan, go ahead, please. Yes, yes, of course. Sorry.

What you quoted Netanyahu saying is exactly what Winston Churchill did in the 1930s and early 1940s. He came to America, he went on American media, he was interviewed by American newspapers. He was looking out for the interests not only of Great Britain but of world peace, and he was urging the United States to get into the war. And Franklin Delano Roosevelt Didn't completely comply. He did the Lend-Lease. He gave aid, but he waited until obviously Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and then Germany declared war, and other countries declared war in the United States. But every prime minister of every country is always going to be urging other countries to come to its defense and help it. There's nothing wrong with that. Now President Trump. didn't just roll over. He made his own decision. I know President Trump. I've defended him. I was his lawyer during the impeachment. I didn't vote for him when I was his lawyer during the impeachment, but I was his lawyer the way John Adams was the lawyer for the people who committed the Boston Massacre. That's what lawyers do. And so I know him. He's not going to roll over. He's not going to simply say, because Netanyahu— who he has mixed feelings about— asked me to do it, I'm going to do it. He did it because he felt it was in the best interest of the United States. Judge him on that. You can say—

Okay, but so, but, but could I—

So it begins to smack a bit of antisemitism when you say that the Jewish leader of the Jewish state was the one who got us into war. That's not true.

Okay, but so hold on. Can I just ask you, can I, can I ask you, because look, you're not here to defend this war. We don't really have a debate. I've already kind of smoked you with what— but like, okay, let's just So let's just move on to this. You're going to tell— can I just ask a question for a second without, like, come on, let's just talk back and forth here. Listen. So you're telling me, and I want to just hear yourself as you say this out loud, because I was using the example of this where people were saying, when people were saying the Israel lobby unseated Thomas Massie, people were saying that's an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. But then— Hold on. Okay, let me just finish the thing, man. Okay, so you say it was, but then, like, John Podhoretz from Commentary magazine says, you're damn right. Jewish money came in and destroyed you. Randy Fine goes, you're damn right, Jewish money. So Benjamin Netanyahu's going like, how exactly can it be that you're going to sit here and say that these very prominent Jewish Americans in positions of power and influence are allowed to make this argument?

Wow.

It's fine when they say it, but if you say the exact same thing but oppose it, you're a Jew hater. Like, think about What the logic of that? It can't possibly add up to you.

↳ P19 raised again here · first raised at U-094

↳ evidence for the P18 verdict on Dave Smith · ruling prints at U-094

I've never said anything like it. Both sides.

So respond to that.

You're going to let me answer, please? Both sides are—

+0.5 R-6.1 · Interruption cutting into Dershowitz's turn · Dave Smith

I've interrupted you 10 times less than you have me.

Both sides are entitled to state their views in the marketplace of ideas. That's what the First Amendment protects. That's what—

+0.5 R-6.1 · Interruption cutting into Dershowitz's turn · Dave Smith

Obviously.

Would you stop cutting me off?

Well, you're just— you're wasting with filler. Just answer. Come on. Obviously they all have a right. But you're saying you judge one as anti-Semitic And the other they're allowed to say.

But don't interrupt me and cut me off. Okay. So both sides have a right to express their views, and they did. But when people say— and I'm talking about people like El-Sayed, I'm talking about people, uh, other like, like, like, uh, you can name them, you know who they are— just try to blame everything on the Jewish lobby, Jewish money, And yeah, there are some Jews who say that, and they're as wrong as non-Jews who say that. I'm here to defend the right of all sides to make their arguments in the marketplace of ideas and let the voters decide. We're having an election coming up. Israel is very much on the ballot in many places, and we're going to see how that comes up. And the voters—

+0.5 R-6.1 · Interruption cutting into Dershowitz's turn · Dave Smith

Yeah. Thank God. You're about— it's about the Israel— I'm so glad you said that because Israel, Israel is about to deliver us socialism. That's exactly right. Israel's on the ballot and Israel is so hated right now. Now that we're going to turn to socialism instead.

We voters have the right to make a decision who to vote for, what party to vote for, what candidates.

No, voters vote and we have free speech. I know, I know.

We're not going to have— we're cutting me off. So I'm going to— if I'm interrupted one more time, I'll press the button and I'll end the debate. Okay.

How about deal? Neither of us interrupt. I won't interrupt again.

Sounds like a good deal.

Sounds like a good deal.

Go ahead, Alan.

I'm saying that it's part of the American way that every side has the right to defend itself. Irish Americans have the right to support Irish independence. Catholic Americans have the right to support the Vatican. Muslim Americans have the right to support Muslim causes. And Jewish Americans, those who are Zionists like I am, have the right to support Israel. I always put America first. I always think of what is best for America, what is best for world peace. But in thinking about what's best for world peace, I take into consideration Israel, Israel's survival. Israel's the only democratic country in the Middle East. It's the only country that completely and unequivocally supports the United States and helps the United States with its intelligence, with developing Iron Dome and other rockets. So I'm very proud of my support for America, support for Israel, and my voting for candidates who I believe support peace and oppose countries like Iran, which are not only opposed to Israel, but they're opposed to the United States. The United States is the big devil. Israel is the small devil. It's the United States Marines who were killed by Iran. Yes, Iran. Iran put Hezbollah up to it. We had a trial in Argentina where it was proved to judges that Iran put the people who blew up the Jewish community center and the embassy? It was Iran. Iran has done all these things. And the United States and Israel has the right to protect itself from ongoing terrorism that threaten not only the sons of leaders, but average American citizens. So I'm going to continue to fight and support America. I do support this war. I don't think it is going as well as I'd like to see it go. But in the end, I would like to see regime change. I think the world will benefit enormously from regime change. Now, you can argue whether we're going about the regime change in the right way. Maybe there are other things we can do, whether we can use the CIA. You probably object to that. Maybe we can use the Kurds to try to undercut the regime. Remember, we're not talking about a democracy now. We're not talking about Chile. We're not talking about Allende. We're talking about a tyranny. We're talking about overthrowing a regime that has never gotten a single vote in its life. And so I'm proud to play a role in trying to undo the evil that is the Iranian mullah regime today. And I will continue to do that for the rest of my life.

↳ P12 raised again here · first raised at U-019

↳ evidence for the P13 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-080

↳ evidence for the P5 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-050

↳ evidence for the P8 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-017

+4.5 C-1.2 · Partial concession: the war is not going well · Alan Dershowitz

So, Dave, the question I have for you is a tough question. I'll let you answer everything. I want to add a question, though, because I want to give you a tough question to answer. What is your recommendation now? I think even Alan said that the war didn't go as planned. And Trump is in a position where if he walks away, Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, and I think that has economic and geopolitical ramifications for generations to come. So, as you respond to Alan, I want to get your answer to that as well. Go ahead.

No, let me just say, and I do want to say this, as passionate as I am on the issue, and I know there's a lot of people certainly online who are very passionate on the issue, and I think most people who agree with Mr. Dershowitz hate my guts, and most people who agree with me hate Mr. Dershowitz's guts, because that's just kind of the temperature of the room. I do just want to say I respect certainly, particularly, and I don't mean this at all in a disrespectful way, but like at your age, I really do respect that you're still willing to tangle and have this conversation. I don't mean that at all. I mean that genuinely, just that like, man, I said this before we started, man, I just hope I'm still slugging it out with people, you know, and for as long as you have, I do admire that. And so I didn't mean to like come off rude, like badgering you, interrupting just there. So I will make an effort not to do it going forward. I was just trying to kind of make a point here, and I was actually really hoping this would get through to you. And I feel that you kind of didn't respond to it because you started talking a lot about how, well, everyone has free speech to say this, and in a democracy you get to vote. Look, I'm very well aware of the First Amendment. I'm very well aware of our democratic practice, our democratic practices. But the point is that fundamentally here, and I really hope this is something maybe, and maybe this is very presumptuous for me to think that I would leave you with something to think about. But the idea of what you're saying here, forget anything being legal. I'm just talking about how we judge it. I think this idea of saying that Jewish leaders with power— I say this as a Jewish person myself, for whatever that matters. I don't use that as a credit or something, just so you know where I'm coming from. Maybe that Jewish leaders in positions of power are going to stand up and say, yes, we did this policy. We as organized Jews take credit for this, or we as Israel take credit for this. But then if some non-Jew stands up and points that out, yet is critical of it, We label them as a bigot. I think that is, number one, just on its face absurd and unfair. And number two, the best way to foment a lot more bigotry against Jews in this country. That is just my personal opinion. And I'm very, very convinced that I'm right about it. Now, to your point—

↳ evidence for the P18 verdict on Dave Smith · ruling prints at U-094

Before you ask your question, very quickly, Alan, just very, very briefly, do you genuinely— I've been meaning to ask you this, but I'd usually do this in a one-on-one on interview. When you say you use the word antisemitic, do you really mean it? If someone looks at this and says, looks at Netanyahu's quote and reads that quote and says, maybe I don't believe Netanyahu is the reason that Trump went to this war. I think he played a role. He's not the reason. But other people believe Netanyahu is the reason he managed to convince Trump or force Trump into this. If someone has that belief, doesn't matter what religion Netanyahu is, um, do you think it's fair? Or do you genuinely believe— that labeling them antisemitic is the right thing to do, or do you think it's just an effective way to argue against people making that point?

Well, I think in isolation that would not be deemed to be an antisemitic statement, but when you consider in context that these— many of the critics who are making this point are only focused on the only nation-state of the Jewish people in the world, They never protest, uh, what's going on in the Sudan. They never— in fact, they have a name for it: whataboutism. Oh my God, you can't do that because it deflects attention. But when you focus all the attention, all the human rights, only on one country, uh, and that happens to be the nation-state of the Jewish people, and one leader who happens to be the leader of the nation-state of the Jewish people, uh, that's wrong. Now, when a Jew says it, it's wrong. When Peter Beinart says it, it's not only wrong, but it's also antisemitic. Peter Beinart is an antisemite. He singles out Jews for unique criticism and applies a double standard. For me, the definition of antisemitism is very simple: when you apply a double standard to things Jewish, invidiously, negatively toward things that are Jewish, Jewish states, people.

+3 C-1.2 · Partial concession: the statement in isolation is not antisemitic · Alan Dershowitz

That's it.

So that's my definition of antisemitism.

I got it. Adevalay, respond to this and then the question of—

Yeah, maybe I'm just a bit more of a right-winger on positions like this, and this might be kind of considered shocking to some people, but I kind of feel like, you know, in the United States of America, Jewish people are 2% of the country or so, something like that. I mean, this is a Christian country. It has historically been a Christian country. It's a Christian majority country. Jews are doing extraordinarily well in this country. We're not an oppressed minority. We're not victims. Jews are essentially killing it all across the board. And I just don't really think that we should be in the business of lecturing the majority of this country where we are, you know, kind of doing very well about their unconscious bias or their things that aren't antisemitic remarks, but it is still antisemitism. I mean, I'm sorry, but like, I get your point. It's true. There are— look, I really, really cared about certain wars. I'm the guy who was talking about Yemen, the Saudi invasion of Yemen on the Joe Rogan podcast when no one cared about it at all. And I was just up there like, guys, there's this crazy humanitarian crisis going on. We should all be talking about it. Absolutely. Should what's going on in Sudan get a lot more coverage than it does? Absolutely. But at the same time, it does just feel like a cop-out because it makes all the sense in the world that people have been hyperfocused on Gaza and now Iran over the last few years.

+3 C-1.2 · Partial concession: other conflicts deserve more coverage · Dave Smith

Obviously.

It's a huge global event that has huge implications that is all essentially happening because of this country. So I do think it makes a lot of sense that people— I think, like, let's just stop assuming bigotry in everyone until there's actually something that's genuinely bigoted. And to me, like, genuine bigotry would be like— and I think Mario was kind of getting at this— like, it's not like I have a suspicion or a theory about Netanyahu. It would be like blaming Barry the accountant, who happens to just be a Jewish guy, for the crimes of some other Jew. Like, that to me would be antisemitism. As to your question, about the control of the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, look, a lot of these things— this has also been one of the lessons of the war in Ukraine over the last few years. You know, at a certain point, it doesn't just become pie in the sky, like what you wish would be the case. Or, you know, as Marco Rubio said, it's intolerable that Iran has control of the strait and has tolls on the strait, even though a couple of weeks later, the memorandum of understanding seemed to pretty implicitly guarantee that that's going to happen going forward. The more adult question is, what can we actually do about this? And, you know, the Pentagon's— the Pentagon sent their estimation to Congress. I think this must have been about 3 months ago. And they said that they thought it would take about 6 months to militarily open the Strait of Hormuz. And this would have to be after the war has started. They couldn't do it during war conditions. So that's the reality of the situation. Huh?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm saying after the war has stopped. That's right. And so the idea here, the reality is that the Iranians Iranians can control the Strait of Hormuz. And I think one of the things that's going to get scarier and scarier for people to grapple with, and this is going to be a very interesting dynamic in the future of warfare, is that these drones are just getting cheaper and cheaper, man. And even if you were to topple this government, who's to say, even people like Mr. Dershowitz might have estimates that have shown that only 10% of the people or only 20% of the people support the Ayatollah or the mullahs. I would venture to say that that number is probably quite a bit higher than whatever the true number was in the past. But I would also say, hey man, 10%, even if that's the number of 90 million, is 9 million. And that is more than enough for a healthy insurgency. And if you're talking about where cheap drones can be flown at ships, and that's going to make it tougher and tougher to get insurance companies to back them up, it does seem like, as has always been the case with the Iranian problem, a diplomatic, a political solution is right, is obviously what should be pursued here rather than America's—

↳ P26 raised again here · first raised at U-124

↳ evidence for the P27 verdict on Dave Smith · ruling prints at U-124

Are you against sanctions? Are you against sanctions as well?

Of course.

Trying to solve this problem through non-kinetic means.

Of course. Listen, none of this works. This is all insane. This country has lost their mind. And I wish we would just listen to some of the advice of the founders of this great nation and what they said about wars and acts like this. You know, the farewell address of George Washington and Dwight D. Eisenhower should be played on a loop in every school in America. No, we should not be. Sanctions are acts of war and they're acts of war against the civilian population. The whole goal of sanctions is to impoverish the poor people who live under these brutal regimes even more so that they'll overthrow the regimes. And we don't even care empirically whether it works or not. And you look at Cuba and North Korea, you look at Iran, you look at Iraq, you look at so many of these countries, Venezuela, We've sanctioned to death and it still never did it with the sanctions. And we either used military intervention or we just gave up on it. We just sit there impoverishing people for no reason. It's criminal.

But then how do you solve it? Sorry, Alan, I'm going to go to you in a sec. Just one last bit, Dave. Then how do you solve it though? Because we're in this problem. You're against this war. Completely understand. Solve what? So do you think the US should walk away and allow Iran to charge whatever they want in the Strait of Hormuz? The mess has been created. We are where we are. So what do you think Trump should do? Because if Iran is not conceding militarily, if they're not conceding to sanctions, they're not going to concede to diplomatic discussions.

↳ P23 raised again here · first raised at U-115

Right. Well, what are they going to concede to? I mean, what, you know, like, you know, again, it's just there's something about the way you say the word let that it just— and I don't mean to like be nitpicky, but like if you could imagine if like I was like fist fighting Jon Jones And he was beating me up and you were like, oh, you're just going to let him do that? And I would just be like, I'm not exactly letting him. You know what I'm saying? Like the word let isn't exactly correct there. And I'm not saying like Iran is exactly Jon Jones to the US. It's not that.

What I'm saying is that the Americans don't have a choice. He's got other tools though. He does have other tools. I don't think he should use most of these tools. He does have other tools. Sanctions are one of these tools. Diplomatic pressure is another one. Obviously limited kinetic strikes like we've seen recently are other tools.

↳ evidence for the P25 verdict on Mario Nawfal · ruling prints at U-127

I mean, all of this is No, no. And what right do they have? So just walk away?

You know, I'll take that word back. Just leave things as they are. Leave the mess as it's been created. The Gulf countries are not happy with it. They don't want Iran to control the Strait of Hormuz. Some Asian countries are not happy with it. Just walk away. Is that your solution?

↳ P23 raised again here · first raised at U-115

Yes, absolutely. Just walk away. I mean, the best— these memorandum of understanding, all of these deals, they're just going to be a joke. They're going to be torn apart by every member of the Israel lobby. Trump's going to be mocked and ridiculed. the whole way out. Everybody who was against the war isn't going to be satisfied with it anyway. And we're never going to follow through with actually, like, guarantoring hundreds of billions of dollars for the Iranians anyway. The whole question is just whether this war is finally over and the Iranians have given us enough of a black eye that no one's going to want to try it again here. That's essentially all they're doing, and they're probably going to do it and still be standing. Absolutely, Americans should get out of this. We have absolutely no right to have done any of the things that we've done. And, you know, you can, you can sit here and invoke Like all the, the worst, uh, countries in the history of the world. And it's easy to say, you know, oh, these guys are the next Hitler or something like that. But our government has over the last 25 years just started 6 or 7 different wars of choice that have resulted in hundreds of thousands of people being killed. We're the ones who launched a sneak attack Japanese style in the middle of negotiations. We're the ones who killed their leader and killed a whole bunch of little kids here. Yes, get out of None of the American people wanted this anyway. It's all too ridiculous. This is insane policy and we're not doing any good by staying there. And all the incentives in the world are for this thing to come to a resolution one way or the other. And you know what? If the future now is that once Iran flexed the Strait of Hormuz muscle, now they charge a toll, nobody except the Iranians, I think, particularly likes that.

↳ evidence for the P23 verdict on Dave Smith · ruling prints at U-132

But—

But yeah, Donald Trump's an idiot. He shouldn't have launched this war. We shouldn't listen to people, respectfully, like Mr. Dershowitz, who are saying we should have launched this war and we wouldn't be in this situation. And at this point, we can't do anything to undo it. And all we can do is waste more of our blood and treasure trying, and we're still going to fail anyway. So let's stop now.

↳ P24 raised again here · first raised at U-136

Alan, I've got a few questions for you, but I'll let you respond to the points that David's made.

Well, first, I want to make a point. I'm getting a bunch of tweets from people who are watching this saying that he is getting much, much more time than I am. I don't know whether that's true or not, but I think you ought to—

I've got a timer here, so I'm actually trying to— it's been pretty equal, to be honest. It's been pretty equal.

It didn't seem equal to me, but if it is—

And that last one, that last one was long by Dave, so you're going to have a long one now. I've got a few questions for you.

I want to go back to his first point where he says Jews in America are killing it, they're not in any problem, there's no trouble, Well, let me tell you this. I have been a civil rights activist now for 70 years. I have defended the rights of African American people. I went down south. I marched with civil rights workers. I defended the rights of gay Americans, transgenders, women, etc. There is no greater problem, no greater civil rights issue in the United States today, no greater civil rights issue. than antisemitism in the United States today. None greater. This is far greater than racism, sexism, homophobia. Why? Because all the other problems are moving in the right direction. The trajectory is in the right direction. No politician today will get up and make a statement that Black people are inferior or it's okay to hang them from trees. Nobody will say that about any other group today, but it's okay to say that about Jews. We see that the Metropolitan Museum was about to honor a man who said, you know, Hitler, I love Hitler, and he would have killed all your people. They would never do that in relation to a gay person, a person who had said that about gay people, etc. So antisemitism today, today is the greatest civil rights issue. Issue. And anybody who is not prioritizing the fight against antisemitism, which is often disguised as anti-Zionism, but we know there are legitimate anti— arguments against Israel, but there are also illegitimate ones that flow over to antisemitism. Anyone who's not prioritizing the fight against antisemitism cannot proclaim themselves to be civil libertarians and advocates of civil rights. So it's important that we understand where we are. We're in 1932 Germany today. We're not in 1935. We're not in 1937, but we're in 1932 where Jewish students at German universities were not treated equally and were not given equal standing and were not being admitted in proportion to their qualities and their test scores. We are in 1932 Germany.

↳ P21 raised again here · first raised at U-118

↳ evidence for the P22 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-118

And we have— I've got I've got my first question for you, Alan, when you're ready.

Now I'm going to answer.

Of course, I've got a question for you. So I've asked Dave the question on what should Trump do with the situation that he's in right now. My question to you is the complete opposite. How far could you advocate for regime change? And you think the war, if I understand correctly, should continue and you expect it to continue after the midterms?

Well, I sure hope so.

You sure hope so. So how far do you think Trump should go in this?

+4 C-3.1 · Direct answer on the limits of regime change · Alan Dershowitz

Well, I hope as far as is necessary to bring about regime change that can be done rationally and reasonably and without too much cost to the United States. Certainly economic sanctions and trying to destroy the economy and the currency are the right thing. I think targeted strikes of the kind that we've seen is the right thing. Now, I don't approve of a ground invasion of Iran. I don't approve of other steps that would cost American blood and treasure, but I do believe that everything that can be done reasonably to help the people of Iran bring about regime change— because, you know, you may argue that 20%, 30%, you disapprove of the figure of 10%, are opposed to the Ayatollah Khomeini, but certainly a majority of Iranians would be incredibly pleased The Iranians would love it. The Iraqis would love it. The Saudis would love it. The Emirates would love it. And the world would love it. It would be the greatest accomplishment that we've had since the end of the Second World War, if we can do it.

↳ evidence for the P25 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-054

↳ evidence for the P29 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-114

Now, but the question, the question, the big question, Alan, the big question is, but at what cost? But that's the thing, because you've mentioned things like targeted strikes as an example, but we've seen targeted strikes for months and it hasn't worked. worked. We've seen sanctions.

↳ P28 raised again here · first raised at U-153

Yes, yes.

But the, but the problem is that munitions are being depleted. I think the interceptors that block the missiles that are landing on the Gulf, landing on American bases, about 70-80% of them have been depleted on the, the, uh, the PAC-3s and the, the Patriots and the, the— what's the other one called— the THAAD batteries. They've been depleted. You've got the Tomahawk long-range missiles have been depleted. You've got the The commanders in Europe, I think, put out a report a few days ago saying that the levels are at crisis levels right now, and they're even going to have difficulties protecting the US mainland because of how significant the depletions are. It will take years to replenish. So the question is, that's up to this stage in the war where the Supreme Leader has been replaced by the same family member. Iran is still standing. Iran's still able to fire missiles and drones. So when do you— when would we get to a stage where you'd be like, okay, maybe, maybe the US would not be able to achieve regime change, or it does not make sense to achieve regime change because it comes at a very significant cost for the United States?

Well, it's very possible that will happen, and that's what our leaders are there and our military experts are there to determine how far we should go. I'm saying we should go as far as we can. Without endangering other values. Now, we may have to use other means, and I think maybe we are using economic sanctions that are less costly. We may have to make— take a very radical step. We may have to say that the Gulf of Hormuz, the Strait of Hormuz, can never be reopened again, that it's too dangerous to allow Iran, which is on one shore of it, to control the flow of oil. So, from now on, the world is going to figure out alternative routes for its oil, maybe using pipelines, maybe using other mechanisms, but we can't allow Iran to maintain effective control, and it will maintain effective control. Now, certainly the defeatism we're hearing from Mr. Smith, the idea of just walking away and allowing Iran to rebuild its nuclear weapons, to dig below the places that were bombed and perhaps recover the dust or whatever is left and to start rebuilding a nuclear arsenal. I don't think very many Americans want to see us walk away in shame from that, but even if they did, it would be wrong. It would be wrong. It would be much, much better for the United States, with the assistance of its allies, to make sure that we maintain effective control if not regime change, then effective ways of making sure that Iran can't do what it would like to do. Remember, too, that Iran is very different from North Korea. North Korea just wants to stay in power. The Iranians have as a goal to become the most important dominant power in the region, and the only way they can do that is through improper means, either controlling waterways or developing nuclear weapons or using its drones and others to terrorize, uh, the people in the area. That has to stop. And the United States— You said—

sorry, Ellen, but you— so you said as long as it doesn't come to this country.

Yeah.

So as long as it doesn't come— as long as the cost to the United States is not too heavy. And ideas you've given— I understand you're not a military strategist, but you've mentioned one is to to permanently block the Strait of Hormuz. Now, any economist would tell you that would lead to catastrophic economic consequences.

↳ P28 raised again here · first raised at U-153

+3 C-1.2 · Partial concession on Strait closure costs · Alan Dershowitz

Short-term, not long-term.

Short-term. Long-term, there would be pipelines. But then the issue there, for example, Alan, is Iran has made it clear that if that happens, if the blockade is not lifted, they will strike Gulf energy infrastructure. They will strike the alternative pipelines, the Fujairah pipeline, the Yanbu pipeline in Saudi. So the problem is that maybe Is it possible as well, Alan, that we're already at a stage where all options have been exhausted by the president? He's trying sanctions now as a last resort. Is it possible that we could be at this stage already?

↳ P28 raised again here · first raised at U-153

No, we're not. We're not. We still have overwhelming military power, and we could use that military power combined with economic power to bring about regime change. Now, at what cost is the question, and how quickly? But I think the ultimate goal has to be that we can't— cannot allow Iran to dictate the terms. If they're gonna— if we do this, they're gonna do that. They're gonna take over this, they're gonna take over that. We cannot allow them to be in control. They are a country of 90 million people, yes, but they are a country with no economy whatsoever and no military whatsoever. Yeah, they're using drones and they've done it very effectively and very capably, but we cannot lose this war to a country that is trying to control and devastate the entire Middle East and destroy one of our most important allies. And if they did that, ultimately try to destroy us as well. No, we can't be defeatists. We can't just back away and say we made a mistake. We did not make a mistake. We have encountered difficulties that we did not anticipate. That happens in every single war. If we had Mr. Smith around in 1943, he would have been saying we made terrible mistakes in Germany, we shouldn't have D-Day, we shouldn't have the Battle of the Bulge, we shouldn't be killing civilians. That's not the American way.

↳ P27 raised again here · first raised at U-154

↳ evidence for the P24 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-154

↳ evidence for the P26 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-154

↳ evidence for the P28 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-150

+4 R-2.2 · Ventriloquism of opponent's position · Alan Dershowitz

Understood. Dave?

Well, if you had had me around for the last 25 years, we wouldn't have fought the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, and we wouldn't have destroyed Gaza, and we wouldn't have fought this war in Iran. So you just saved millions of people and trillions of dollars in this century. But yes, I guess if you pretend I was alive at a time when I wasn't alive and you make up a policy that I would've had at that time, you could have me responsible for the Second World War. Anyway, I would say, geez, I don't know where to start with this. All right. Mr. Dershowitz accuses me of being defeatist. Well, I apologize for my reluctance to join him in his optimism. Um, I do, you know, remember, again, we can harp on this, we live in 1932. And so all you can think about is that regime change is right. The unfortunate detail is that we do not at all live in 1932. We are not in the Weimar Republic. We have not been defeated in World War I and been humiliated internationally. The, the truth is that we are nowhere near that radical of a period of political time, although I think policies like this pushing us more and more in that direction, including the bankruptcy and hyperinflation. That being said, I remember as we were— because I lived through all of this— as America was backing or orchestrating themselves regime changes with Saddam Hussein in Iraq, all of the people supporting it said everybody will be happy, everyone will love it. Benjamin Netanyahu guaranteed that positive reverberations would sweep through the region. They said the same regime when they were overthrowing Libya, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and having regime change there. They said they were liberating the people when they started funding the rebels against Assad. They said that this was liberating the people when they overthrew the Taliban. They said that this was going to be wonderful, that the new Afghan army was going to stand. I remember very well when we backed the regime change against Yanukovych in Ukraine. This was going to usher in the new age of prosperity for Ukraine, Mario. They were going to be a part of the European country now. We had stolen them away from Russia, you see, and now they could prosper. But I don't know if you've checked up on Ukraine, uh, recently, but it didn't go like that. And I don't know if you've checked up on Yemen or you've checked up on Afghanistan or Iraq or Libya or Syria, and there's just no reason in the world to think it wouldn't be every bit as much a disaster in Iran. You know, all they have is this— I mean, I'm sorry, but I'm just like stunned by how much what Mr. Dershowitz has to offer here is like, we can't let them do this, we have to overthrow them, you have your military leaders figure that We bring all the economic pressure and all the military pressure. It's like these are all just vague assertions. You have no plan, sir, for how to do any of the things you wish to do, and you can't defend the current war that is implementing these, these desires of yours. We have no reason to think that, that if this regime were to fall, there wouldn't be 10 million radicals with guns in the streets, that it wouldn't kick off a civil war just like it did in Iraq, just like it did in Syria, just like it did in Afghanistan. Why should we think any different? But just the vague assurances. I mean, I'm sorry, but what is really tearing this country apart right now is that our politics, and I say this with all due respect, but our politics is dominated by boomers who have a disproportionate loyalty to a foreign country who just want to keep fighting these wars and going like, yeah, well, we don't like these guys. We have our reasons. And none of you guys are really the ones who are going to pay the price for any of this. We have no idea what the costs might be. You know, as Mario alluded to, almost every military expert will tell you this entire time we've still been relying on enormous Iranian restraint. I mean, not like the 12-day war. The calculation on that has changed. But they could hit one of these desalination plants. Everybody recognizes that. They could do a ton more damage than they are right now. You, sir, you're playing with the lives of millions of people. We've already bankrupted this country all for this this, I don't know, idea that you'd like to topple this government halfway around the world, which just so happens to be a big problem for Israel.

↳ P26 raised again here · first raised at U-124

So we're talking about disproportionate loyalty. If that isn't a code word for antisemitism, I don't know what is. And I accuse you to your face of being—

+0.5 R-6.1 · Interruption · Dave Smith

We got here. We made it.

Disproportionate loyalty to foreign country.

What would cause that? Alan, do you mind if I ask you?

So in case the win wasn't already assumed, now we have it officially.

So, Alan, do you mind if you explain? I would love you to explain what you mean by this. You seem very upset by that statement.

Explain what you mean, and then I'll explain. I'll explain what I mean after.

Why do you— Disproportional loyalty. You're talking about dual loyalty. You're making the core accusation that has been made about German Jews, Polish Jews, British Jews, American Jews— disproportionate loyalty. That means dual loyalty, that we're not loyal to the United States. I am an American citizen. I love America. Everything I say is based on what I believe is based for— is good for America and good for world peace. The fact that I happen to believe that support for Israel without regard to any particular government of Israel, any particular policies, but Zionism, recognizing that Israel has the right to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people, is good for America, which the vast majority of Americans believe, is not dual loyalty, is not—

↳ P31 raised again here · first raised at U-163

Really? Still?

Shame on you. Shame on you for invoking a trope that goes back thousands of years actually to the Book of Esther in the Bible, to the Book of Exodus. Dual loyalty, disproportionate loyalty. Shame on you.

↳ P31 raised again here · first raised at U-163

So, Dave, I want to stick to this point before we go to other questions I had to Alan. Dave, I really want to stick to this point because it really—

Well, yes, I should respond to that.

What do you— yeah, why do you think Alan's so upset by it? Um, could it be seen as an antisemitic trope? And what do you mean by it?

Well, I mean, obviously, I mean, Just logic would dictate that if I'm a Jewish person and saying another Jewish person has loyalty toward Israel, it wouldn't be anti-Semitic. I'm not saying all Jewish people have a loyalty toward Israel. I think some of them do not. Let me let me tell you a little story, and I would encourage people to go watch both of these shows, and you can go watch them, and you can tell me if I am if I am misrepresenting this in the slightest. I was watching Pierce Morgan, and and there was something actually that Mr. Dershowitz said that that kind of resonated with me that I thought was very fair. It was an episode where John Mears. Mearsheimer was on. But you guys weren't debating one-on-one. It was like Piers interviewed Mearsheimer and then interviewed you. But like at the end of the interview with Mearsheimer, he asked you, he said like, well, I got Alan Dershowitz coming on next and he's criticized you for this or that. And then Professor Mearsheimer said something like, well, he's the Israel lobby. And then you got on and you said, excuse me, I'm not the Israel lobby, not working for any lobbyists. I'm an American citizen. I have a right to have my opinions just like anybody else does. was, and here are my opinions. And I kind of went like, well, look, I can certainly get what Mr. Dershowitz is saying. A couple months later, Mr. Dershowitz is back on Piers Morgan to announce that Alan Dershowitz is no longer a Democrat. He has left the Democratic Party and is now a Republican. And the reason why is because they've turned anti-Israel. So because of that one issue, even though he expresses that he agrees with them on all the other domestic issues, he'd switch parties to the Republicans. Now listen Sir, I'm sorry, but if this one singular issue is so important that you would switch your lifelong political party, and this issue is a foreign government, then you cannot say it's out of bounds for people to point out that you have a loyalty to a foreign government. You said it yourself in different words. And if you want to claim that that's bigotry, or that somehow me as a Jewish person, I don't love my mom and my grandma, and I don't love Jewish culture or something like like that. This is silly, man. No one believes that you can't have— that those 2 things go together. They just don't. And, and I'm sorry, but if people in one country— I would say this if it was true about Italian Catholics, I would say this if it was true about Irish, I would say this if it was true about anyone— if they're—

↳ P30 raised again here · first raised at U-162

+0.5 R-6.1 · Interruption · Alan Dershowitz

+3 C-2.1 · Acknowledged an opponent point as fair · Dave Smith · low confidence: excluded from score

Don't say it.

If their number one loyalty was to their foreign government, I think they should be nowhere near positions of power and influence. You end up serving as a 5th column, in effect an agent of a foreign government, if they are at the very top of your priority list. The number one, the most fundamental agreement of a democracy is that we are a nation, right? And I'm not even saying democracy or nation-states or any of that are perfect, but that's the agreement, that our loyalty is here first. So don't tell me it's a trope to say that you left a political party over that issue.

↳ P30 raised again here · first raised at U-162

↳ evidence for the P31 verdict on Dave Smith · ruling prints at U-176

Let me— please, I did not leave. Please.

Yes.

over that issue. I left a political party that I was a member of for 70 years over a multiplicity of issues, including that issue. But I also left them over a range of issues, a movement to the hard left, a willingness to, uh, bash America, not to accept America. I've written a whole book on it. You can get it on Amazon today. It's called Why I Left the Dems and So Should You: Confessions of a Reluctant Republican. But now you've raised the stakes. You've not only accused me of disproportionate loyalty, but of being a fifth column. No, I think I vote always on what's best for the United States. Now, you and I disagree. You don't think that support for Israel is good for the United States. I think it is. If I were Justice Scalia, and I've spoken to Justice Scalia about this, we were friends, his primary loyalty was to the Catholic Church. He said if he had a choice between doing something that violated his obligation to the church or violating the Constitution, he would have to have left the Supreme Court because he could never, ever violate his—

But he would have left.

And I don't know whether he would have left or not, but he wrote about this in a book, in an article in a magazine called First Principles, I think. That's not my view. I'm going to be an American all my life. I love America. America rescued my grandparents from Poland. America rescued my cousins from the Holocaust. I love America. I will always put America first. But putting America first for me means a worldview that supports a democracy, the only democracy in the Middle East, the only country in the Middle East that unequivocally supports the United States. States. I'm very proud of my support for Israel as part of my support for the United States. I do not have disproportionate loyalty. I am not a member of a fifth column, and especially by invoking the language that has been used for 2,000 years. So I repeat it.

↳ evidence for the P30 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-170

Alan, just if Dave or anyone else—

Not how you win a debate.

Or anyone else do have loyalty to Israel, disproportionate loyalty to Israel, they mean this very objectively. Nothing to do with the religion itself. Do you think it moves away from the issue instead of addressing the exact issue like you've addressed it now, where your loyalty stands, why you actually left the Democratic Party? And instead of labeling it as antisemitic and addressing their specific concerns, that would be a better way to respond to the issue. I'm just really trying to— the reason I'm asking that question is to really understand why it triggered you to that extent, because you got the most upset when he made that statement in the entire conversation so far today.

↳ P20 raised again here · first raised at U-117

say.

So why— it gets you that upset, and why do you label it as antisemitic?

↳ P20 raised again here · first raised at U-117

Because I have memory and I have history, and I understand what it means to say that people have disproportionate loyalty and what comes next when you say that. When you accuse somebody of a fifth column, what comes next? So of course it's something that would cause me tremendous grief, and especially when it's directed at somebody like who's devoted my whole life to defending the rights of others. I've defended so many other people, and now is the time. To everything there's a season, as the Book of Ecclesiastes says, and this is the season for standing up for the Jewish people, not only in Israel but in the United States. And so I am prioritizing, I am prioritizing my remaining years of life to what I think is the greatest civil rights and civil liberties threat to America today and to the world today, and that is growing antisemitism disguised as antisemitism by calling people disproportionately loyal to a foreign country and accusing them of a fifth column. So, you know, we're at it. I'm going to devote my life to defeating people like Mr. Smith when he makes accusations of dual loyalty, disproportionate loyalty, or Fifth Column. I am as good an American as you are. I am as good an American as anybody who signed the Declaration of Independence. My family has been here now for more than half of the American history. We came over in 1889, I think. My family has served honorably in the military. And the idea that you would call somebody like me disproportionately loyal because I made a decision to change parties based on a multiplicity of factors, including its attacks on the American people.

↳ P31 raised again here · first raised at U-163

↳ evidence for the P30 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-170

David, the reason I've asked this question to Alan, I'll let you respond. The reason I've asked him is that I see some people use the antisemitic label as a, you know, they weaponize it and they use it as a way to shut down an argument. And there's others that sincerely mean it. And to be honest, from this conversation, exactly, from this conversation, Alan genuinely believes it is an anti-Semitic comment, rather than just weaponizing the term. I want to get your thoughts on it.

I don't know. It's just—

+2 C-4.1 · Declined to attribute motive · Dave Smith

Obviously, I don't agree with it.

If Alan is dedicating the rest of his life to defeating people like me, I would say that, well, you didn't achieve it tonight, but you're young yet, sir, and you keep at it, and you're going to do it one of these days. I would say that, look, the idea that Look, first of all, this is just too childish and silly. And I think throughout this entire debate, whatever this has been, I've been making arguments, not just making assertions. And I've been pointing out that if you believe this, then you should also believe this. And all of these points have just been dodged. And Mr. Dershowitz has not been able to defend this war. And of course, it now devolves into accusations of antisemitism. Now, if you're going to say he really believes it, whereas others use it to shut down conversations, I'm not going to speak to motives, but that is in effect what it just does. And this is very, very silly. I would say the exact same thing about people like Mike Huckabee who are in positions of power, who have openly said that they have a religious devotion to Israel and because of their religious fundamentalism believe that Israel has the right to take huge swaths of Lebanon and Iraq and Saudi Arabia and Jordan. I would think that was crazy, and that's loyalty to a foreign government. I would also say for people like Ted Cruz, who said that the purpose of why he ran for the Senate to begin with was to be the biggest supporter of Israel. But I would also just point out that anybody here, I would challenge you to go watch the episode of Piers Morgan. It was Alan Dershowitz and Joe Kent. It's the first question Piers asks Alan Dershowitz. At the time, he didn't say it was a multitude of reasons. He said it was over the Israel issue and explained the whole time how that issue was so important. And even though he agreed, if he could check being a domestic Democrat and a foreign policy Republican, he would. But you only have one option. And so he had to pick based on what the most important thing is. And anyone can go watch it for themselves. And even if he wants to say there was a multitude of things— I'm not done, sir. You were just smearing me. I'm not done. And even if he wants to say there were a multitude of reasons in there, the point is still that support for a foreign nation is right up there with your absolute top positions. You said it yourself out of your own mouth, and anybody can go watch it. And I think that is pretty consistent. with where you've been for your whole career, as you say, a defender of Israel. Look, man, if you're— this is the real problem that people like Mr. Dershowitz have. If you're going to attach every criticism of Israel or every criticism, criticism of people who are clearly fanatically supportive of this foreign country and say that that's antisemitism, that's why you get this huge rise in antisemitism where you can claim it's the biggest civil rights issue of our time, because now you've married— viewing how you feel about the Jews with the Israeli government. And the reason why antisemitism, as you define it, which as we've already established is pretty vague and ridiculous, the reason why that's been exploding over the last few years is because Israel committed a genocide in front— in 4K in front of the world and forced the American people to fund it against their will. And so they didn't very much like that and they turned against it. And then they dragged us into another war, which they openly bragged that they did. And it's a disaster and the American people didn't want it. That's why there's this big rise. But I'm just not done yet, sir. I'm sorry. You had your time to smear me and call me an anti-Semite. It's fine. I'm going to finish here. This idea that the big thing that we're up against— Jews in America. Yeah, I'm going to make sure to tell Ira, the Jewish kid in Park Slope who's got a trust fund and lives in a loft, that he should jump on the Amtrak and go down to the hood in Baltimore and recruit people for the biggest cause of our time, which is protecting Jewish people in America. Against an anecdote of Alan Dershowitz that someone said something. No, there's been a rise in people criticizing Jewish people, in large part because there's been a huge conflation between the actions of the state of Israel and the Jewish people, and also because the actions of the Israeli government have created the most fertile recruiting ground imaginable for people trying to convince you that there's a problem with the Jews. Listen, I just think the bottom line here is we were here to debate a war. Listen, I don't very much care what Alan Dershowitz's moral judgments on me are. He thinks I'm an anti-Semite. I mean, the fact that this devolved after you couldn't put up an argument at all to you calling me an anti-Semite, it's like, dude, you're, you're like a cartoon character of the archetype of evil, like, like Satan's spawn who mastered legalese or something like that. The guy who gets O.J. and Epstein all You're going to sit here and morally judge me? I'm sorry, man. I was trying to be reasonable through this thing and go, you know what? You're a guy. We're having a sparring match. I appreciate it. Your age. But screw you, man. You're sitting here smearing me. I'm arguing against a war, dude. There's been 7 catastrophic wars in a row, and I'm using the little bit of platform, the little bit of influence I am to say that people of your generation need to let go of the goddamn wheel. You've given us enough disasters. $40 trillion in debt. getting millions killed. Enough of this.

↳ P32 raised again here · first raised at U-176

↳ P34 raised again here · first raised at U-122

↳ evidence for the P31 verdict on Dave Smith · ruling prints at U-176

+2 R-2.2 · Ad hominem, Satan's spawn and OJ/Epstein · Dave Smith

Can I answer, please? Of course, Alan. A combination of ageism, racism, antisemitism.

The trifecta.

We've increased that because now he's made a new argument. Yeah, there's a lot of antisemitism, but Jews cause antisemitism. It's exactly what Nazis say.

+5 R-1.1 · Strawman of the rising-antisemitism claim · Alan Dershowitz

Some Jews. Some others fight against it.

Others like me heroically fight against it.

Sorry, but we're in Klan territory now.

The reason for the rise of antisemitism is that Jews have supported Israel. And you then said that they supported a genocide. Let me spend a minute on that. Anybody who accuses Israel of genocide is immediately a racist, an antisemite, and a fool, and a liar. There is no Unbelievable argument that Israel has committed genocide. Israel has killed fewer civilians in proportion to terrorists and combatants than any country fighting a comparable war in world history. Even if Hamas is exactly correct about everything, even if the ratio is 3 civilians for every terrorist, and the ratio is more like 1.5 to 1, not 3 to 1, but even if the Hamas figures are correct. It is the lowest ratio of civilians to combatants by any NATO country, by the United States, by any European country. The idea that you would call it genocide when Israel responded to a genocidal attack, an attempt to kill as many Jews as possible on October 7th—

+4 R-2.2 · Ad hominem labeling of anyone holding the position · Alan Dershowitz

That's a genocide.

And use the term to describe Israel's self-defense demonstrates More than almost anything else you've said, the bigotry and bias that runs through your veins and you can't stop it. You can't get rid of it. On this show, you started out disproportionate loyalty, fifth column, then Jews cause antisemitism, Jews cause genocide. You're, you're digging your own grave. You are proving to anybody who wants to listen. and has the reason to listen, that the most dangerous thing in America today are Jewish antisemites, self-hating Jews like you who will turn your Jewishness into hatred of the Jewish people, the Jewish state. And you talk about Jewish leaders like Podhoritz is a Jewish leader and you quote him and therefore he must be right. He's—

↳ P36 raised again here · first raised at U-200

+4 R-2.2 · Ad hominem, bigotry in the veins · Alan Dershowitz

+5 R-1.1 · Misattributing an appeal-to-authority to Smith · Alan Dershowitz

+0.5 R-6.1 · Interruption · Dave Smith

No, I didn't say therefore he must be right. Come on. Come on, man. Attempt, attempt an argument.

Attempt to I'm going to finish my argument.

Argument?

And so, the position that today antisemitism, refusal to admit Jews to universities, applying a double standard to Jews, denying them positions, and applying all kinds of double standards, not only to Jews but the Jewish state, is today the greatest danger that the civil liberties and the civil rights community faces. And anybody who doesn't recognize the increasing danger of antisemitism, or worse, says, yeah, I recognize there's a little bit more antisemitism, though Jews are killing it. Jews are killing it. That's a quote from you. They're doing so great. But even recognize it and then says, but it's the Jews' fault. If you just be quiet, if you just accept my views, there won't be antisemitism. They'll leave you alone. him. But if you defend Israel, if you speak up, if you try to defend yourself, you're going to cause more antisemites. Do you understand that argument? That's exactly the argument.

↳ P33 raised again here · first raised at U-144

↳ evidence for the P35 verdict on Alan Dershowitz · ruling prints at U-196

Alan, do you mind if I ask you a quick question, Alan, as we get close to wrapping up?

Ron, today, that's exactly the argument that antisemites have made for 2,000 years. Welcome to the 2,000-year history of antisemitism. You are now an important important part of that horrible, horrible history. Shame on you.

Shame on me? I've done so much harm in my, in my life. So much harm. I think I got O.J. off after he killed those people.

Alan, just a, just a question as we wrap up.

Do you think when these people can't find any arguments against a lawyer—

+0.5 R-6.1 · Interruption · Dave Smith

No, I'd find an argument. Let me talk, dude. I'll tear— I can't find Alan can't find any argument. You just made a— you just spoke for 3 minutes that was purely assertions that I'm a bigot. There wasn't anything approaching an argument in there.

Argument you can possibly—

Mario. Okay. Oh, that wasn't an argument. It was a little jab. I was being funny after your rant of nothingness. No, go ahead, Mario.

I want to ask you just one, just one very, very quick question, just because when it comes to Gaza, it gets very emotional for me. Usually I get very— I'm very nuanced about Lebanon, less so now. Iran, very nuanced. And I'm happy to take those debates. Gaza, when I look at the pictures, Lisa, you can show that picture that I think Defense Minister Katz posted today, if I'm not wrong. And when the average person sees the photos and videos coming out of Gaza of 90% of the buildings destroyed, without looking at the— so that's him just looking out in Gaza. You can show the next picture, Lisa. That was just today. And just keep that one open. And the reason I show it, Alan, is when the average person And I'm thinking about my trainer. He's an Australian person. He came to me a few days ago. He's like, Mario, I never even knew where Israel is located. I didn't know anything about Palestine. Then I saw those videos coming out of Gaza. And he's someone— he's not racist. He's not a bigot whatsoever. And he started— he was telling me a few days ago, when you start seeing footage like this, putting aside the definition of what a genocide is, do you think the average person looking at this would come out with a certain perception of Israel, one that could then evolve into antisemitism?

+4 C-3.1 · Direct answer to a hard question on Gaza footage · Alan Dershowitz

Yes, I do. And if there had been pictures of the Battle of the Bulge and what happened after D-Day and how American troops went through the coastline of France and caused proportionately a much greater amount of civilian damage, they would have asked for the end of the Second World War. War is hell. And when you have Hamas, and by the way, not only Hamas, but the people of Gaza, the vast majority of the people of Gaza supported October 7th, along with many American university students at places like Harvard and other places supported October 7th. When you have an event like October 7th where they come over the fence and just murder indiscriminately and rape and hurt and kidnap So many people, of course you're going to see a response to it. I wrote a book about it. It's called Jewish Blood Is No Longer Cheap. And it was very important for Israel to send a message after October 7th that this is not the Holocaust. This is not the Inquisition. When you attack Jews like you did on October 7th, there's going to be a response. Now, Israel tried its best to minimize civilian casualties for a very obvious reason. It doesn't benefit at all when a civilian is killed. It's terrible for Israel. It's terrible for the world. When they see a picture of a dead baby, it's horrible. So of course Israel will do everything in its power to prevent that and reduce that from happening. But Israel had to respond, and it had to respond disproportionately to make sure that Hamas's promise that it would do it again and again and again, that it would have one more October 7th after the other, To make sure that that doesn't happen, Israel's response was absolutely proportional and the right thing to do. I am glad they did it. I wish fewer civilians had died. I wish that no civilians had died. That would have been ideal. And if Hamas hadn't hidden their soldiers in tunnels underneath mosques and houses and schools and hadn't hidden their terrorists among civilians and hadn't created a situation where they wanted civilians to be killed by Israel. Israel so that they could show these pictures, which your friend from Australia understandably hates. But that's Hamas's doing, and that's what Israel was confronted with. So I agree with you. These pictures are awful. I wish they didn't happen. I wish they didn't occur. I wish the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki hadn't occurred. I wish D-Day hadn't had to occur. So many innocent American soldiers and so many innocent French people. were killed. But when you start a war the way Germany and Japan started a war, or the way Hamas started its war on October 7th, there is going to be a cost. And the cost is tragically going to be paid by too many civilians.

David, I'll let you respond, Dave, because earlier there was a lot of personal attacks as well. So I'll let you wrap it up with the final response.

Okay, sure. Well, look, what can I say to close this out? I mean, obviously, Now we're talking about Gaza, the topic of this debate, although I would love to debate Mr. Dershowitz on the destruction of Gaza. And I think that would be interesting. Although I will say largely, I'd love to respond to all the things he just said there. But just this debate has just so been— I mean, I've done so many of these and the debate's just kind of been won. I mean, the American people's support for Israel has absolutely collapsed. No one really buys any of these excuses anymore. I guess I'll use my final Point here to just point out a couple things. Number one, that this was supposed to be a debate on the current war in Iran. I mean, I don't really know how this is— I was kind of surprised by this, but the fact that Mr. Dershowitz did not— just simply walked away from even attempting to defend this thing, I think shows you where we're at right there. This is— the war was supposed to be on this. The debate was supposed to be on this war. He cannot defend this war. Therefore, I think that tells you what happened in this debate. debate. And for it to just move, I got to say, for it to just devolve into Mr. Dershowitz essentially shrieking racist at me for saying things where there just clearly is no bigotry at all. Any person with common sense can just see that there was just nothing I said there that implied that I hate a group of people or that I'm leading to do— it's just absolutely— this type of stuff is ugly on blue-haired 15-year-old girls, and it just looks ridiculous on a man in his 80s. I'm sorry to say that. I'm not going to answer smears with the same type of smears end this thing, but you couldn't put up any argument. You can't defend this war. None of this is working, as I laid out at the beginning. Maybe just to rehash this again, this was the dumbest decision in modern American history. Anyone with an ounce of wisdom could have told you you were going to get into a catastrophe just like that. They launched it and we're there. Exactly. Mario, I'll make this last little point and then this will be done. Do you remember, man? Because I know you paid attention to this stuff. I say that rhetorically. Man, after the 12-day war, there were a bunch of us who really warned that this was risking catastrophe and there was absolutely no reason to do it. And man, when the Iranians showed restraint and warned us ahead so that no Americans got killed in their retaliation and they created—

↳ evidence for the P36 verdict on Dave Smith · ruling prints at U-201

40,000.

I'm not done. And they created the off-ramp for Donald Trump, which he did take, that war. Then after that, all of the hawks, all of the hawks, excuse me, mocked us relentlessly. Oh, you panikins, you were so worried about a disaster. Well, here we are a little over a year later, and those of us who said we were just at halftime were absolutely right. And those of us who said we were flirting with a catastrophe were absolutely right. And here we are, hundreds of billions of dollars down the tubes, thousands of innocent people killed for nothing, for absolutely nothing, haven't achieved a single one of the war goals. This thing is a disaster. And it's a disgrace that anybody's still supporting it.

I support it.

That's it. I'm done.

Well, Dave, Alan, pleasure to speak to you both. Appreciate your time. It's been 90 minutes. And Alan, much respect despite the debate, respect for your energy doing this for 90 minutes at your 88th birthday. Dave, you took the personal attacks like a champ. Appreciate you both. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thanks, Mario.

All right, guys, that will be it for today for me. Brandon Wyckoff will be doing the next interviews. I hope you enjoyed the conversation between— for Zero Hedge, that was done for Zero Hedge. I think they're streaming it separately as well. Um, I do debates for them every few, every few months. I hope you enjoyed it. It's different to the debates that I usually do that are a lot more nuanced and military, militarily focused. Um, but I really enjoyed this conversation and see where both sides were coming from. I'll see you guys tomorrow. Bye-bye.