Zionism Vs Judaism And The Rules We Apply

“Moral consistency” sounds easy until the topic is Israel, Zionism, and the Israel Palestine conflict. We sit down for a serious, respectful conversation that starts with a simple correction about dual citizenship and quickly becomes a deeper look at the “dual loyalty” suspicion, the reality of antisemitism, and the uncomfortable fact that people often judge Israel by a standard they do not apply to any other country. 

We push on definitions because the words keep getting blurred: Zionism isn’t identical to Judaism, and Jewish communities themselves hold sharply different theological and political views. Along the way we talk about why calling yourself a “Zionist” can feel anachronistic (a la Coleman Hughes), what it means to support Israel’s right to exist without endorsing every government decision, and how the fog of war complicates moral judgment. We also get into the Oslo Accords, deterrence, and why “peace through strength” is persuasive to some and alarming to others. 

Then we take on the accountability question head-on: What should Americans do with claims from the ICJ or the ICC, and is international law a neutral framework or a political tool? From there, the conversation widens into blowback, reparations, truth and reconciliation models, and Thomas Sowell’s argument that courts can’t provide cosmic justice. We end in a more personal place, connecting state power and tribal scapegoating to real fear at home, and why we still believe slow, cross-cultural conversation beats performative outrage. If you want more talks like this, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review—where do you draw the line between moral clarity and moral posturing?

Transcript

Welcome And A Key Assumption

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Welcome back to the Darrell McLean show. We are very excited to be able to have our our uh guest back from last time we did a I think I titled the episode How Jiu Jitsu Leads to Conversations or something like that. Either way, it's gonna be posted again this week. And um we we didn't even uh scrape the tip of the iceberg um with the last conversation we talked about him him personally um growing up in America as a Jewish uh person, and now we want to get into he has um what dual citizenship as uh an American as and and as an Israeli American. Welcome back to the show.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

Hey, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Um can you just get into some of some of what it means to you to have dual citizenship and how did you come about the American and Israeli connection?

SPEAKER_02 1:42

So uh sorry to spoil it, but I I don't have dual citizenship. I'm only an American citizen.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

But no, it's fine. You know, I I I do know many people that have dual citizenship. Okay. I don't know if that addresses your question, but oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Okay, yeah, that that that's what I said. When I sit the free the questions, I said a lot of these have some built-in assumptions that I don't uh know. So you do you what what was uh from as much as you can, what do you think your father's view on the dual citizenship was and wh where do you think Americans get it wrong? And I'm and I'm thinking more of uh thinking that uh Jewish people have loyalty to two different places. It's kind of weird.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

I mean, I I I think a lot of people have more than one loyalty. Um I I don't necessarily see an issue, but um if no particular aspect of that that that you're curious about having to take my best stab at it.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yeah, and and I when I when I really say that I'm I'm curious, it's more or less because um I had I you know I just started writing the Substack articles a few months ago. I want to say only seven months, and I've written just very fast, um, kind of just to keep something going. And I wrote that a piece, I think it was called The Soft Bigotry of Moral Exemption, and that was kind of only because I was looking at some sociology stuff, and there was an old term we used to use called in the black community, and I used to always say the soft bigotry of low expectations. And I used to uh say that when I used to talk about how they kind of tried to coddle uh African American kids, and I was saying, no, just treat them like everybody else, and and the cream will rise to the top, and everybody else will know how to we'll know how to work with them. But kind of trading uh

Media Narratives And Moral Exemptions

SPEAKER_00 3:56

change, you moving the goalposts, um, I I thought it was uh well intentioned wrong.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

I I agree with you 100% on that. I think you've got to be completely colorblind triggered by the paper.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

And then so I um you in that when I wrote the piece, you you commented under it, so I just kind of said, Oh, I wonder, I didn't really know what you thought about that thing where I feel like at least in the media that I look at, it's we have a standard over here, and then it looks like the standard changes, but it but I mean that's in both directions. I see people who are very critical of Israel in a way they're not critical of every other nation, and then I see it on the other eye, there's people that make uh justifications for Israel in a way that I know they don't make for any other nation. That's kind of where I I kind of w wonder like where you sit in that uh in that conversation.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

Yeah, I I I think you'd find that my opinions are are very strongly pro-Israel and in support of everything they've had to do to survive and defend themselves where they are.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

And I I I think I'm I think that's where my um where my my rub kind of comes in because I I recognize I have a very natural bias. I think I wrote a post about this a while back, and it's not necessarily that I'm defended of Israel, I'm very blatant. I'm defend I'm def I'm I'm very sensitive about Jewish people, period. And and um it really it really challenges my belief systems in the sense of treating everybody the same. And then I say, well, that comes with a big hiccup because I do think like there's a very specific group of people that it seems like they have a very specific target on their back no matter where they go. And I think I would be I would be unfair to my own moral conscience if I did not recognize that. And then that there's a rustling inside of me where I say, but while we are killing monsters, I want to make sure I don't become the thing I'm trying to kill. If that makes any sense. And even when it comes to some of the Christian people that I um associate with loosely, I find what they think about Jewish people to be disgusting. You know, like they they have a certain loyalty to the state of Israel, but that's just because they want all the Jews to convert. And I I don't I find that to be a lot more than problematic. And so that was kind of my my when I even even when I frame wrote the article, I kept thinking, oh man, is this gonna be seen as anti-Semitic? You know? And so that that was kind of my my my question kind of leads to when when you saw, I don't know if you read the article or you saw the title, what was your motivation in saying, hey, I would like to uh come on and talk about, you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

I did not read the article. There was there was something about the title that suggested that there was something uh morally impure.

SPEAKER_03 7:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

You know, intro was was defending itself. And I thought it would be good if you had the chance to talk to somebody that had the opposite view of that and and can explain it and articulate it.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Yeah, okay, yeah. See, my thing was, I think in the article which when I wrote it, I was I had noticed personally that there was, and it wasn't even the the modern day state of Israel, it was more of a I didn't think people had I didn't think people were doing their due diligence to to see that there are different streams of consciousness that comes from this very great well. And it seemed like to me the loudest voices in the room were the ones that got the most attention. So at that the the period of time where I wrote that, I was literally I was watching I my nephew had got me into like this Piers Morgan uncensored, and I kept seeing the same people on over and over and over and over. And I would just say, like, is there anybody else that has an opinion on this besides these like seven people that just kind of that kind of just debate each other about the topic in the most bombastic way possible? And yeah, and um, and a lot of them I will my my bias is is I lean towards academics, and so I would kind of say, well, you know, Alan Dorshewitz believes this, let's go see what Benny Hinn believes, let's go believe what uh Benny Moore says, let's go read Norman Fickelstein and Chomsky. But then it there was the rise of the comedians, is what I called it. And and that's when I said I didn't realize that they they were uh somewhere in the in the Jewish diaspora. John Stewart and the Jerry Seinfeld started to say something, and then Larry Davis started to say something, and and I was whatever they were saying honestly seemed more interesting than the academics because I kind of knew that they're actually what the academics had said, but it seemed like the comedians who had a Jewish background, but I wouldn't have known they were Jewish, had a more nuanced view. And so when I wrote the piece, I was trying to be kind of nuanced and say we have to somewhat hold this line, even even though we have a very special class of people here, and we have to come somewhat bounce back and forth. And and then it was it was very kind of difficult because I was so I think the best thing I could did when I did it was I kind of specifically name names and cited examples. But even when I was writing it, I kept thinking, I don't want this to be used as Jewish people do this. I was like, no, no, no. That specific person said that, and that's just that, you know. And and I and I it was there's a sensitivity that I have that I recognize there's people in the media that they also have, and I kind of think that sensitivity is is good. I think that impulse is good, but I also the the wrestling is I know the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And so I was trying to somewhat say this is a very complicated topic. Um uh and and so that's that's over that that's that was like a I didn't know if you had read the piece. My I my thing was with the title, the title just kind of came to me when I was thinking about writing. I was writing, I was gonna write specifically about Alan Dorsowich. And I was, you know, I was like, he's getting older. I followed him for a while. I I I I like him. He's he had I believe in a good defense, I think he's a good defense attorney. But I always just say, well, I can tell when Alan's not calling balls and stripes. And I got it, I got annoyed with him. I kept thinking, I don't want him to be defending Israel because I could tell when he's not being serious, and if I could tell, so could anybody else. And then the other part of me was just like, but who do you get to say who defends Israel? And then that's kind of that uncomfortability made me start writing the piece in the in the hopes that I could say this is more nuanced than it is. The title was just kind of uh, it was literally just a play-on of something we used to say in the 90s about uh low expectations. This was when I was a hyper, hyper neoconservative. So and that that was my motivation. So even when I sent, I think I started synthesizing questions, I made like a hundred questions and broke it down to 20 of them. And I kept, and I even I was saying like most of these are unfair because I'm preassuming something that I don't know. Uh but uh that that was my motivation when I when I uh at least wrote the article. And so I uh you have any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Well, you know, I know you have a bunch of really uh interesting questions. I think we ought to get into them.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

My um, so I want to start people off by the opening, the way I literally what I wrote was this is I wrote the opening frame is to have a serious, respectful conversation about Zionism, Judaism, Israeli American power, uh, Palestinian suffering and moral consistency. Uh we're not interested in cheap slogans or anti-Semitic nonsense. We're interested in harder questions when people with a real history of persecution gain state's power. How should that power be judged when it harms other people? The core tensions to press our Zionism, it isn't identical with Judaism. Uh there are orthodox Jewish traditions, including uh the Samperamer. Am

Defining Zionism Without Slogans

SPEAKER_00 12:58

I pronouncing that right? Uh S-A-T-M-A-R? If so, would you pronounce it for us? Uh Satmar. Satmar and the I put a neturu and ketah that reject uh uh neture karta. Okay, and they reject political Zionism on theological grounds, even if they are not representative of all Jews, that gives us a clean opening. As an Orthodox Jew, uh Zionist, if that's a preassumption, how do you how do we respond to Orthodox Jews who argue that the modern state of Israel is a theological error rather than a fulfillment? Uh so I just wanted to start off with saying, what is to uh to to us, what is Zionism, what is Judaism, and is there is there a difference?

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Yeah, that's really good questions. It's funny. I was just listening to um Coleman Hughes, I forget who's discussing this, but he's one of my favorite thinkers. He says, you know, I don't call myself a Zionist in the same way I don't call myself an abolitionist. It's you know, slavery was abolished a long time ago, so it would be a little bit anachronistic to say, but it would be anachronistic to say I'm an abolitionist, they just don't exist anymore. Um he says in the same way, you know, Israel exists, it's existed for a long time. There are people who've been born and died in the in the state of Israel. Um it's it's just as old as at least 50 other countries in the world. Um so it's a little bit anachronistic and and weird to say, well, you know, this this um I'm a scientist that I support the idea of Israel existing.

SPEAKER_03 16:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

Um which I I I thought was a neat and interesting uh analogy.

unknown 16:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

I certainly I think feel like there's something to that.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Yeah, I like Coleman Hughes. I think he's brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

So yeah, you know, Israel exists. I I don't, you know, I don't think it it should be up for debate whether it should exist and and I certainly um take in section with with people that say, well, it shouldn't exist and once major go away, that's not right.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Now if I was if I was to say, because you know, like I said, I I have a bias, if I was to say the people who say that are engaging in anti-Semitism, do you think I'd be wrong? And even if I was right, do you think it'd be it would be helpful to tell them that's anti-Semitic?

SPEAKER_02 17:30

Yeah, whether it's helpful or not, that that's a hard question. I don't know the answer. I I I tend to think it is because you know it it would be I think any other people would would feel equal umbrage if you said, Look, I don't have anything against Mexicans, but there's going to be a state of Mexico. That should be that should be southern United States, and people say um what do you mean you don't have anything against Mexicans, but you don't want to have our own country, our own place to live, our own self-determination? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Um yeah, I definitely, I definitely agree. And then and then I say I think it's one of those things where I think, like, and I and I say this often to people, I have a very uh specific view of America. And so anytime Americans start getting jingoistic going in one direction, I'm like, oh no, I know where this is going, where this is going. And a lot of times I have to question my own preassumption of like we used to they used to say the blame America first crowd. And so I don't want to be in that, but I also want to say I know that it there's a very specific group of Americans who kind of look for targets to beat up on. And every now and then it just seems like well, okay, now it's the Jewish people's turn turn again, and they they get uh blame. And normally it's around any time there's an economic downturn. They they start looking for little targets. And I remember in in the in the you know 80s when I was growing up, it was the gay panic, and then it was this, and it was the gays and the boy scouts, and then it's now it's like the tr trans athletes, and that said, oh, it's only a it's kind of a joke. There's only a certain amount of time before blacks and Jews come up. And I just I've heard that one. Yeah, you know, and I just say, uh oh.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

And so but you know, I will I'll I'll stick up for America a little bit. I don't think that's only an American thing. I think it's everywhere and every time there's always been that that you know population and scapegoating. Yes, and I think America's just probably been better than most places. Um I would compare America's my friends anywhere else. Yeah. The evil, you know, of scapegoating and and populism and those kinds of things. And you know, we're not exempt from it, but I think probably better than most places in most times.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

I think I think that's true. I think I would like to agree with that. I was reading uh a French intellectual who said, I and I've I have to figure out who he is, but he said, what actually happens is as countries get more civilized, people start to notice every slight. And that's and that's becomes annoying. It is frustrating, but he said that is the nature of uh people becoming more civilized. And then I just said, Oh, maybe maybe I'm just I was laughing at myself. I said, maybe I'm just too sensitive. You know, but but but then when I got to the question about whether it was helpful, it's like uh as a black male who grew up in uh Jacksonville, Florida, which is like the very bottom of the map of the South, I didn't I didn't like when people tossed the word that was racist. I'm like, well, it may have been racist, but I also know it's not helpful because it me when somebody said when you tell somebody in my experiences that was racist, what they hear is you are a racist. And and it seems like it used to shut down the conversation. And um and my big thing is conversations across class and cross culture and cross c cross-religious backgrounds is how you actually solve society's problems because a lot of times people talk about people and not to people. And so it was basically like if I have a show, I think I've had it for seven years now, and my whole notion is don't be tribal. When there's moments like this, I don't want to be tribal, even though I kind of have a tribe. Um, I I when I think about uh a lot of the stuff that I see, um, I am afraid for a lot of my my friends who are Jewish. I'm afraid for my my teachers who are older because they're deep in the south, and I kind of think there's a lot of ignorance there. And I say, you don't even know these opinion, these people's opinions and views, and I see them being shouted down at places, and you know, and I it it was very troubling to me, and it was kind of a like uh if there's gonna be something happening, if for my own conscience, I can't be silent, but I also don't know what to say. If if that, you know, I don't know if it's helping or if it's gonna uh make it worse. Um I I do like that Coleman Coleman thing because I I like to tell people sometimes with me it's it's a double, double thing. I think sometimes we need to be plain and not academic. And then other times I say sometimes we use words so broadly that they muddle the terms, they they muddle the water, they muddy the waters. Like if I were to say I was a Christian, I don't even know what that means. You know, and then other people would be shocked that I say, there's about 48,000 different versions of that. I think there's 45,000 that are still practicing. What are you? And so I say, Oh, I'm a Methodist. You know, and that's where at least you know, you you may not know what I mean by Methodist, but at least I gave you some a jumping-off point. Um, and so that's kind of what I I like what Coleman said, but I kind of think sometimes defining what you mean by what you say gives people at least uh a nugget um of everything. So when I come to the the question of the modern state of Israel, I'm getting it from this this rabbi um by the name of Charles Feinberg. And uh he kind of really shaped a lot of the theology of what we call in my camp the dispensationalist camp. Uh and so he he believed there was a spiritual Israel, but there was a physical Israel, people on the land in order for the promises of God to be kept. And so that's where my starting point is. There is a spiritual Israel, but there's a physical Israel where the people will return and get the land. Do you and so that's kind of where that's where I stand is um, and do you believe that the modern state of Israel is a theological necessity or a historical necessity or simply a political reality, the Jews have the right to defend themselves?

SPEAKER_02 24:17

I think it's all three. Um there's there's never been a kind in any in history where the the Jewish people um on purpose would would prefer to be anywhere else than living in Israel. You know, if you look at if you open up the Torah or or open up a book of the the six hundred and thirteen commandments, there's so many. them that apply only to when you're actually living in the land. The land of Israel for the people of Israel. So it's absolutely um imperative that Jewish people live there. As far as as far as the historical necessity and I I think it'd be hard to look at the world and say, yeah, there they don't really need their own country and their ability to defend themselves. I think um you know we nobody else is going to be there for us.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Yeah. And I I I I want to jump in some of these questions that we have a hard stop. I I started to think about it really when I said I I felt like the media was starting to poison my brain because I remember talking to my friend and he's a conservative I helped him start a podcast called Overopinionated and I and I said I can't really think of a a religious theocracy that that I like and he knows me. He said yeah you can and I said which one and he said you like the Pope I said I said oh yeah but I never think of it as a a place with actual power so I kind of and I kind of was like that that Protestant whatever I have I listen to when the Pope when the Pope's talk because I've respected the last four I would say for the most part and uh and so I just I'll I'll listen to what they say but I take it with like a grain of salt. I didn't my brain had blocked out the part that Rome was actually a an uh uh could be seen as a theocracy because when I think about theocracies for the most part I think about Saudi Arabia which I don't like and I think you know and so I my brain kind of thinks theocracy bad and that gets kept it gets kept it moving. The second question I had was uh where do you draw the line between loving Israel and defending actions of is the Israeli state because we know those are not the same thing. You can love America and still say America's done wicked things should Israel be exempt from the same moral scrutiny and how do we like juggle those yeah so there are there have been things that that government yeah first of all I I think a state can't do anything.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

People do things people have motivations people have morals states don't

Faith, History, And State Survival

SPEAKER_02 27:06

really um 100% agreement you know there are elected governments it's it's a democracy there are things that elected governments have done that I disagreed with um I disagree with the outlook force I think that that has been like unfortunate consequences um but yeah so so obviously I don't think anybody in in any democracy is gonna that's why there's parties and people yeah you might support one side and and what they're trying to do and and in Israel there there tend to be more than two parties. And so you can take there just like anywhere you know the same way you may I don't know where you fall politically but yeah and and everybody has their own places where they fall politically and and what the or any previous government has done depending on where their politics may not like it. Yeah um so I I don't think it's any different with Israel. Yeah I agree and I I think you know if you're talking about the which I think you're you're you want to get there as far as the conduct of of a war you know again you have um overall there there's there's there are lots of levels to it there's the overall strategy then there are tactics within the strategy then there's actual execution you know out in the actual field and then you know there's the fall of war and all of that and you know I agree with every decision you know every soldier who's you know under fire and you know trying to rescue a hostage that's being tortured and you know it's hard to say I mean I I think you just have to analyze each one of those case by case. Yes yes the question is whether I agree with the the overall strategy. Um I don't know that I have the expertise to say you know I I could have come up with a better strategy. I I don't think I do.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Yeah um and I I go ahead. Oh I I I was just gonna say I

Loving Israel Without Blindness

SPEAKER_00 29:18

definitely agree and I I knew because I I don't know if everybody remembers because we have short memories as humans uh that this he is a lawyer and I I most of my friends are lawyers because um most of the time I'd spent with the federal government and we used to use a term when I was a field training officer it's qualified immunity. And so most of the time when I'm thinking about it I'm thinking about it from a I have to judge every individual by every individual action. One number two there is a certain amount of qualified immunity where a a soldier a police officer they are not judged by what I am judged by as a Monday morning quarterback. They are judged by what they were able to see at the time the fog of war etc etc and I that is a more nuanced and serious conversation that I don't think you know like I said I don't think people actually have I don't think people are familiar with what qualified immunity is and I think they judge it based off the moral standards that they already come to the table with if they have moral standards are they judge are they judge it based on some bias that they have and a lot of the times I feel the bias is in the negative of the state of Israel. And so um I I I definitely agree. So for me politically I always tell people I'm a man without an island because I do something personally that I don't think is helpful but to be honest I can't help it. I don't like the fusing of religious uh religion and politics but everything I approach I approach it from a religious lens so I'm useless when it comes to politics because I just kind of have a well that was wrong and that was wrong and that was wrong and that was wrong and well who do we vote for? And I just say well you got to vote your conscience because nobody's gonna be 100% correct. We are all making the best decisions in in this time and space that we can we will have to make deals over here that we don't necessarily like but we really like this thing over here and that's the nature of what it what it is to be a republic or a democracy or a functioning society is I don't get everything I want. And because of that and because I I'm more religiously known and as affiliated with religious traditions I try to not stay in politics but so long because I don't want people to think like my friend Josh said he said I'll hear your show sometimes and I think oh man Durell's very conservative then you say the other times I say oh Durell's very liberal I said I just exist. I am just trying to be morally consistent. I'm trying to tell you what my heart feels at the time I'm trying to be as vulnerable and personal as I can I try to tell you where my biases lie and I try to tell you when I'm wrong, when I'm right when I'm happy when I'm sad and I'm like that's the best I can do. I can't tell you who to vote for or or anything else. I can say that I grew up in a very collectivist family. I know what it's like to live with my great grandmother and my grandmother at the same time as well as my granddad and my great granddad. I feel like the model my family had works and I wish everybody did it but I it seems like people like their own space like their own stuff and so politically that leans me more to like a like a Bernie Sanders type of person or an Angus King type of person where it's like you're you're uh you you're inside of something but you're not inside of something but even that I think there's some times where I think okay he's wrong about this so I can admire somebody in one area which is their give everything to the poor spirit but I also can say well I don't really know if I agree with this uh treaty this this NAFTA stuff or whatever and so I I think I'm just I try to be more serious about these types of conversations than I think American politics allows uh I and that that's kind of where I where I'm at uh personally and so I you you said something about about uh there's no nation states or speak and I and I and I've uh I I kind of somewhat agree as I I often say nations are not neither moral nor immoral they are somewhat amoral they do what's necessary at the time and then there's other people who are historians academics who try to somewhat synthesize what a nation did does and say this is where we were right this is where we were wrong but even that is a matter of opinion of perspective when you said something you said you brought up the Oslo Accords in your opinion why were the Oslo Accords incorrect and did you give us a just a brief summary of what the Oslo Accords were yeah so the Oslo Accords were I I think supposed to pave the way to uh a new Arab state a Palestinian state in parts of the West Bank and and Gaza um and I you know I frankly view that as a mistake okay didn't think that it was it was useful for Israel to cede territory that it that it won in a defensive war and that it shored up the borders and made it a more defensible country and and more I I I always believe in peace through strength and I thought that this was uh a chipping away and uh uh harmful to deterrence and and made Israel look weaker and invited a lot of the the violence that subsequently happened. And was the Oslo course was that Clinton Yes okay yeah that that's that's Clinton. Yeah I um I have a um natural bias I I don't like the Clinton machine and I've tr I've kind of tried to back off it's been so long enough removed from his presidency that I've tried to go back and look at some of the stuff that he did but I just thought Bill Clinton was full of s you know stuff but I recognize he was the most famous uh Democratic president and so I I have to have an incredibly talented politician. Yeah and but I but during that during the Clinton years um I was reading No One Left to Lie to the triangulation of William Jefferson Clinton by Christopher Hitchens I always thought he was a scum and uh and so it was just now I'm trying to back off back out and not so personalize my my feelings about a guy and kind of say okay this is what he did this was good this was awful this was good this was awful but I I I I thought most of Clinton's foreign policy was god-awful uh and I think it was more

Oslo Accords And Peace Through Strength

SPEAKER_00 36:18

of a he was always trying to instead of say these people are right and this is wrong he tried to come up with a middle ground that I think what you said is is chipped away at the fabric of something that did need to be chipped away at and of course then there's a power vacuum that comes in and starts to knock more of that down. So I think I'm in agreement uh with the also accords um I'm gonna jump right into this question three that I have here the International Court of Justice said in its July 19 2024 advisory opinion that some of the Israeli policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territory that's a slow thing including settlement expansions, restrictions, demolitions and forced displacements pressures violate international law. As a lawyer but also as somebody who personally knows this stuff do you reject that legal framework entirely or do you believe that Israel has some obligations to comply with it?

SPEAKER_02 37:25

And I want to add and add into that a bit do you do do how serious seriously should we as Americans take international law I I don't take it seriously I I I I don't take anything the international criminal court says seriously and I think it's it's political um and I I wouldn't recommend that the US Israel or anyone else I care about submit itself to its jurisdiction I I don't I it it's it's political it's very similar to imaginations where you know everybody gets a say but not everybody should have a say for example why should Iran be on the Committee for women's rights in the world for nuclear nonpolit proliferation so you have all the worst actors have just as much say as anybody who's a good actor and you're gonna end up with a spoiled institution. And I really don't think that the US Israel like I said or anybody else that that for should uh submit itself to the jurisdiction of international criminal court I think if uh I I don't support it.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Yeah and I I I'm I'm in agreement but like I said I I when I say sometimes I feel like I'm useless in this area because I I look at it from a theological standpoint uh in in the reformed Christian tradition we really esteem Paul and uh Paul said something like if man can be righteous by the law your Christ dies in vain. And so anytime I think about any international whatever I'm like nope my my my my brain says no if laws kept us then we wouldn't need uh Bibles we wouldn't need religious people we wouldn't it men will see laws and twist them to figure out how to get to to their ends and the last thing I want is a big big federal bureaucracy that I can't control

Why We Distrust International Courts

SPEAKER_00 39:28

and the last thing I definitely want is a big international one that I that I'm you know I'm subject to that I have that I may have to pay for that I have no real say so in it because I I I think I have the I know the human heart I'll I'll put it that way and it's not always good and because I know how tribalism works you don't necessarily know that well when your grandfather did that one thing he was very upset at the time and he didn't he he was actually embarrassed that he did that and I'm holding on to a tradition that my granddad didn't actually want me to hold on to but my love for him is making me take wrong positions. And one of the things I've recognized in humans the hardest thing to do is say you're wrong especially in public especially if you're a leader of a nation and because I know this I don't believe in international law per se. I look at it as a this is what they said this year this is what they said this year and that's I kind of just leave it at that it's more of a academic all right they they said this in 20 whatever and and keep it moving. You know what I mean because I I I see I and this is where I say I see the same thing with America. It's a good good good uh foundational ideals but we also know uh how people practice it and how people try to undo it and there's always a a give and take and so I kind of like that um my my um this is not uh something that was on the in in the pre-questions this is just something that I think about being that we both agree that nation states people etc vote and do bad things the CIA had a term that became when it came in vogue after 9-11 and it was called blowback and it was basically uh a memo that said because of the way the United States uh conducts foreign policy in it in the Middle East that it would come with what they called unintentional blowback and it was basically like so eventually the the uh people in the Middle East would attack America or America's proxies. And when we think about a s a state and let's say a state that's doing negative what should be the recourse for the people that the negative was done to let's say this is not necessarily thinking about Israel i i it when the tides turn I I think about this deeply when I think about Russia and then Ukraine or whatever and I say well a lot of these people are in positions based on treaties America forced to decide and um it's what what is what is the what should be or could be the recourse if we know a state goes in the right wrong direction to push it to kind of make amends almost like a reparations that push it back in the other direction.

SPEAKER_02 42:44

I it's it's a little vague I give me an example.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

So I'm thinking I'm thinking like in South Africa we know apartheid was wrong and so they had the truth and recon reconciliation commission and everybody got up and kind of you know said what their peace was and and that was like a first step. I don't know if if people if everything that happened after that was good but I think at least the truth and reconciliation thing they did was good. When it comes to the American context I think of the Native Americans uh getting you know their reservations uh and so that's kind of where I've what I'm thinking if if a if uh when when Hitler had killed all the the Jewish people at the Holocaust I think there should be something that every state that participated in it at perpetuity should have to pay because of the harm that was done. Now a lot of people don't like that but I just I kind of say tough titty uh states participated in it they benefited from it they slaughtered millions of people they stole things and they should have to pay for it as long as it takes and but I know and so that's my position. So my thing is what it what is your position on we know a nation state did something awful what should be the the repair for what was done awful every case I think is is going to be different.

SPEAKER_02 44:16

I don't know about in perpetuity uh I think that that keeps grievances going in perpetuity and I don't know if that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Yeah I I mean I do I agree I know it's difficult but and I and I and I know it's difficult Elena says I wrestle with it all the time but I just I I think about it like this. In this country that I sit in we don't put timestamps on okay so the Native Americans they they they they were the indigenous people

Blowback, Reparations, And Grievance Debt

SPEAKER_00 44:45

they were taken off the land they get this well there's not a timestamp that says for 75 years we just kind of and and we just kind of grew to live with it. Is is there a grievance? Could be and I just but my brain my thing says yeah and so is the guy who watched his family get slaughtered and and eight people lived you'll learn to live with it um things happen and I don't think it's just forever we can tell people tough deal with it things happen everywhere. And that's what I say that unintentional blowback of telling people they should forget their suffering but you should remember yours. That's like even with 9-11 uh I remember how how deeply I was affected by it. I was sitting in 11th grade math class and and I say we have our never forget pens and I said if somebody were to come and say oh you should forget we would think about how crazy that sounds you know that would it'd be so insensitive. And so it's like because I remember I want to re I want to repair what the damage that was done. I can never replace the the children I can never replace the stories I can never replace the buildings but I can say we can give you this for this period of time because you this person's family saved this for for three thousand years and you took it. You know and and they didn't and they can't get it back. And they've played you have no idea how much they plan to pass that down for two thousand more years. So it is a it is a very difficult question but that's kind of where I say like there's people that did not earn the Declaration of independence. They didn't earn you know and I say so there are sacrifices that have been made so that we can be free and that blood is The ground in perpetuity. So that's what my brain thinks in perpetuity. I have no problem paying a tax for something that my nation did that I didn't agree with, but nevertheless, it happened. And I I don't you know, and that's kind of wh why why I pose that question. Only because when you when we brought up nation states and what they do and the harm, my brain thought, so how do we repair the harm? And and it is it is difficult, but I I think like in litigation, you know, you sue, you go to civil court, you you get something, and it doesn't it doesn't, it doesn't you even sometimes you see it, they're not fully whole. They they get the money, uh whatever, but what what's money to the to the lost loved one? You know, my grandmother has a house in Florida that she lets nobody live in because there was a storm that came through and it destroyed the pictures. And even though she got other houses, it was the pictures, it was the memories.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's it's it's uh Thomas Sowell is one of my my favorite thinkers. And oh yes. And I think he's right when he says that you know there's there's a limit to the kind of justice that a that a court can give or or that laws can give. They can't do cosmic justice. They can't, you know, it's like it's like God can reward you for the effort that you put into something, but people won't. You know, because it's you have to, you know, if you're you're building something for somebody, let's say you know you're building a table, you know, and I can be a table for a hundred bucks. If it costs you a thousand bucks and you have to you have to redo it ten times, pain a thousand bucks.

SPEAKER_03 48:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:27

Hundreds can get for somebody else for a hundred. And you know, so I think we we just have to leave cosmic justice to God and do the practical human justice that we can. Yeah, um, and and we can't cosmically solve every everything that it's just beyond the power of humans to resolve. I mean, I think people that are already dead uh are beyond our power to help or punish. Um and we just have to leave that down.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

That's a beautiful I I like Thomas Sowell too. Uh he was one of my my I always when I would read Chomsky, I would read Tom, I would read him as a counterweight because that way I could stay, you know, balanced. So then I there was a bias. The fact that he he looked like me. Uh I was very I was very proud of that. Um and I I always tried to be a very uh nuanced thinker. Um and like I said, that's why sometimes on these questions I think I'm somewhat useless. And because I I do at times I say, well, trust me, I I want God to come back and render justice because I I do I do see people, and I do see the that they suffer, and I do see that there's something that they that was lost and and that they it's you know it it it's uh and I'm I'm there with them in that suffering and and I do want the cosmic justice and then I also sometimes um because he was more of a libertarian and I just kind of say, yeah, it's very convenient to always not be able to repair these people's suffering, but then you have some some person over here who's an elite, and every time they they stop a toe, it seems like we could find ten million dollars for them. And and and so I say it's very convenient that you can't find it because you also have to know that it's not political expedients or for you to find it.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

Yeah, but but but there there also is a very moral basis for for his view.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

Oh, yes.

Limits Of Law And Cosmic Justice

SPEAKER_02 50:36

You know, if you if you think about it, if if you're going to try to do cosmic justice and and try to right the wrongs uh people that aren't alive anymore and visit justice on people that aren't alive anymore, you you have to put somebody in power that's going to take money, especially at the end of a gun, you know, by taxes going to health care taxes, but you're gonna take money from from people that aren't voluntarily giving it, and then they'll decide, you know, what justice means and who should be the beneficiaries of it and who to give it to. And so it's it's it does violence to the freedom of the people who maybe wouldn't rather pay that.

SPEAKER_03 51:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:17

Um and then it it puts money into the hands of somebody who who's the kind of person that seeks power because you know, those are the kind of people that go into politics, exactly, and you know, gives gives them the power to you know do what they think is is justice. So I I think the the besides the the fact that it's not expedient to try to do this this kind of cosmic justice, I think it creates some moral problems as well.

SPEAKER_00 51:45

Where oh I I agree. I I agree. And my my thing is this, I I'm writing I'm writing a book that I think is gonna be done in two years. And it and it's on it's on just war theory. And I always tell people my my feel of theology was apologetics, so religious apologetics, and I just kind of debated whether God exists. I found it very exciting. And then the other, but the other was what we call moral theology. And so it's always like, what is the moral answer to this question? And so what started to bother me over the past few years was people would throw out just war theory, and I would say, I don't think they read just war theory. And most of the wars that people say are just as they don't meet uh St. Thomas' Aquinas' view of Jess War Theory. They don't meet St. Augustine's view of Jess War Theory. It's just that they're sitting in a country and there's gonna be a war and they're gonna pull out some pastor, and he's gonna say, Oh, this is a just war. And I just say, well, he kind of has to say that, doesn't he? And he also he has a political uh viewpoint, but that is not traditional just war theory. There are certain parameters that had to be met. I've re I have rarely seen them met, and so I'm I'm conservative in the sense of I am very rigid. Everybody's running for it, and I'm standing there with a stop sign saying no, no, no, no, no. But so I I I know we have a hard stop. Um and I I don't even there's a lot of questions that I think should go into this, but I'm also weary of I when you get into this podcasting space, either they want a one-hour show or they want a four-hour one. So I I um of course I want to speak to the one hour day.

SPEAKER_02 53:29

I've got I've got 20 minutes, and we don't want to stick back up with the yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

Yeah, that's a course. So I wanted to get people to know that we have a lot more questions. And he was very correct when he said I'm trying to beat to the uh a certain issue. Because my thing is I'm not interested in just like, oh, there's a war going on. Like there's always gonna be a war going on. So and I do agree that this is the to me, this is the best time, but I am still concerned because I have friends who are who I'm afraid for, uh, who I see not being treated fairly. Um and so it was just like I can't do anything but have conversations. Um, and so and that's kind of my my my um I wanted to not give you a pushback, but kind of think about give you my my stream of thinking when it comes to what you said about the cosmic justice versus um with Thomas Sowell um and the Chomsky and Lens and the door switches versus the um Finkelsteins and kind

Just War Theory And State Power

SPEAKER_00 54:33

of where I sit in this is and I just say from from my tradition, uh we were would we be considered, and I reject this term, I'm just gonna throw it out there. We would be considered religiously liberal. Uh and that was the Methodist tradition, especially when it comes to the African Methodist Episcopal Churches where I grew up, we split from our denominations because of segregation. And so our theological stream has always been our our priests, prophets, whatever, where we're always the ones getting murdered. Uh and so that's the Kingian tradition, the the Richard Allen's, you know, the the Nat Turner's. That's I just grew up knowing that we're gonna say some stuff, we're gonna get killed. Uh Dylan Roof literally shot up the uh Mother Manual African Methodist Episcopal Church. I had gotten rid of every gun that I had at the Gotham Military, and I had I went back and had to arm myself and felt like a crazy person because I watched all the men start started carrying guns in the church. That's that's where I sit with with in this. Is um there is there are political streams like whatever these young males are going through that made a male, Dylan Roof, have come to my church who he had no connection with and murder innocent people that I knew. You know what I mean? So it's not just a political question to me. It literally showed up to my doorstep. My grandmother was calling me, telling me I needed to do something about my grandfather because when she goes to praise practice, or he's outside the church with his gun. And I just told her, I said, there is no way I can tell my grandfather how to protect his family. There's no way. Especially after what we've seen. A president that I didn't vote for had to go to my denomination and sang Amazing Grace. You know, and then I had to listen to everybody, oh, this was a political, I'd said, oh yeah. You know, that's when I started to realize this country has gotten so bad that this stuff, while I tried to ignore it, has showed up to my front door. And that's kind of where when so when I whenever, however long the Dylan Roof and the Mother Emmanuel AME Church was, and I I went to St. Stephen's African Methodist Episcopal Church, that's something that we we are fully aware of now. That when this type of stuff starts happening, we have to be very conscious of it. And so that's why I try to say, I'm not allowed to take sides on these issues. I'm really not. I I I have to somewhat have some moral consistency, and the moral consistency is this. I don't believe the state has the right to do X. And that's where I stand. And I say, now I know that people will say somebody

When Politics Hits Your Front Door

SPEAKER_00 57:33

has to do it. I say, well, that's what you'll say, and I'll watch you do it. And so I would say, I don't believe the state has a right to kill its citizens. And I would say, and that and so I'm anti-abortion. And I would say, I don't think the state has a right to kill its citizens. So I'm anti-death penalty. And that's a very difficult one, because trust me, I think there's some people that I really believe deserve to be dead. And then so when I get into that, that feeds to my just war theory. That feeds everything is kind of cut me consciously trying to be morally consistent with the sense of I don't think the state has a right to kill somebody who is in the image of God. But I know that states have to do things and I know that it's gonna happen. But I'm saying I don't think we should give states that right because historically speaking, states are made by people, and people are not always honest. And and and so my when I try to tie this to the Thomas Sowell thing is if we always can find money for the wars, then I I say that we should always be able to find money for the repair. And I want you to have the last statement about uh where do you what do you think? Like I get that right or wrong, or do you kind of see where I'm coming from of this this this tension that that I kind of have here?

SPEAKER_02 59:01

Yeah, yeah, this is another one where I'm just gonna have to say depends in case to case. Um I don't think that again, you know, in perpetuity and in carrying on grievances, especially beyond any particular generation, is gonna be useful. I don't think anybody should be in quoting Thomas Soleil or paraphrasing anyway, anybody should be born into the world with a pre-existing grievance or with a pre-existing debt or guilt or something that they do or have anything to do with. Um but you know, to the extent that there's there's there's an ability to write some wrong you know in the current generation involving the actual people who are at home, you know, or somebody that has a very close relation to them, you know, obviously you know, it's a great or like God forbid, you know, kill my wife and a community to them. Um it would make sense. Something that my kids would relate ring come and that kind of thing. So you know, it makes sense that you would have a claim to that you know somebody that just has to share some tribal affiliation or something, or you know, another generation later. That's getting too far and it's we're gonna do the world where again babies are born with with a prepackaged set of other grievances or or guilt or debt. And I don't think we should do that. That's uh that's good.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:30

And that's and that's a good and I do like the fact that guys, I tried to name, or at least we named some people that I think that uh that I do like. Coleman Hughes is very uh soft-spoken, uh kind of like me. Yeah, uh, he's he's um uh somebody that I really wish people would listen to versus like the stupid ass Candace Owens of the world. Uh Coleman is definitely more serious. Obviously, Thomas Sowell is is a towering intellectual. He would be considered a libertarian, which I don't um if you want to check him out, uh he has a lot of stuff on uncommon knowledge uh that's um it's readily accessible, definitely a serious intellectual thinker. And I think if we could uh get more people like them in front of the media and less people like the blowhard that I said her who should not be named, um it it would be a better place. A lot of people, I believe, are just grifters and they're they're grifting off of uh tribalism. Um a lot of them, I I I assume they're deeply racist and and deeply anti-Semitic, and they're they're playing with populism, which I've always thought was a dead end. And and I wish that people could have conversations like we just had, and kind of slow down versus like go for, because a lot of this stuff, it is so complicated. And I don't want us to make the mistake that when I was in a neoconservative, we used to say about the uh communists. You would say, Well, Karl Marx didn't understand the human condition. And I say, uh same. The human condition is they will seek revenge. The human condition is they will they will seek uh some war. The human condition is that they will see themselves as perpetual victims sometimes. The human condition is we have the capacity for love and forgiveness and shift and peace. And so I say, like, don't forget those things. And if we can kind of look at people sometimes and not see them as a tribe, but look at them and see us, we can heal the land. And uh I want uh that's kind of where where my motivation is in having these continual conversations, um, as as many as they take. There's a lot of loud noise in the world, and I don't want to be a part of it. I want you to get the last for for your heart out, and we'll have you back on as a gazillion times by a gazillion different issues.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:14

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And you know, I know there are a lot of questions we can get to. Happy to join you the next time.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:19

Yeah, yeah. And I and this is um um something that I've always done. I used to have some lawyers on regularly um talking about some laws that were being passed in the states and from their perspectives, and it just got to where life happened and I stopped having guests. And I'm very I was actually very thrilled because I don't know if you know, you you are the first guest I've had in years, and it's uh it's it's it's been it's been very fruitful. I always look forward to uh conversations. Uh and so thank you for coming on.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:56

Very good. Thank you for having me. Looking forward to the next one.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:01

So there was a lot of names that was mentioned in the uh episode. I'm gonna try to give you a brief uh summary of a few of them just so you can uh maybe engage some of their work. One name was uh Coleman uh Hughes, and Coleman's uh a 30-year-old uh from New Jersey. Uh he's known for writing on issues related to race and racism. Uh his notable work was a book called The End of Race Politics, Arguments from a Colorblind Society, and that came out in 2024. Now, Coleman is an American writer and a podcast host, and a fellow at a man at the Manhattan Institute for Policy and Research, and a fellow contributing editor at their City Journal. He is the host of the podcast called Conversations with Coleman. Now, Thomas Sowell, well, or some people like to call us Thomas Sowell, is an American economist, uh, economic historian, and social theorist with widely published commentary and books, and is a TV guest and radio. He is well known, voice of American conservative movement as a prominent black intellectual, born July, I mean June 3rd, 30th, 1930, is now 95 years old, lives in Gastonia, North Carolina. His education was Harvard University, Howard University, and University of Chicago, to just say a few. Uh, some of his books near a fellow at Stanford University at the Hoover Institution as well. And over a decade's long career, he has authored several books written on race education, political theory, and classical economics. Now, his core ideology and scholarship is free market economics. Uh, he's a strong advocate for free markets and a critic of government intervention in the economy. He studied under renowned economist Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago. His constrained versus unconstrained vision is something he has famously explored, how differing worldviews shape political and economic disagreements. In his book, A Conflict of Visions, he contrasts the constrained vision, which accepts humans' limitations and focuses on systemic incentives, with the unconstrained vision, which assumes humans' uh perfectibility and relies on experts to solve social ills. Empirical focus, instead of focusing on stated intentions of policymakers, Sowell evaluates the actual results of public policies, which has led to bold critiques of social justice

Reading List And Closing Credits

SPEAKER_00 1:06:49

and welfare incentives. His major works, Sowell's prophetic writing, spans economic history, culture, and social theory. Some of his most widely read books include basic economics, a highly accessible introduction to economic principles, a conflict of visions, which is an exploration of ideological organ organs and political struggles, social justice fallacy, which is a critique of modern social justice policies and systemic theories, and black rednecks and white liberals, a collection of essays challenging conditional wiz the conventional wisdom on race and culture. Another name that was mentioned was uh Noam Chomsky. Uh Noam, uh Abram Noam Chomsky was born on December 7, 1928, an American intellectual philosopher, linguistics political activist, and social critic. Now, Chomsky is sometimes called the father of modern linguistics. Chomsky is also a major figure in analytical philosophy and one of the founders of the discipline known now as cognitive uh science. He's a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war politics. In addition to his work in linguistics since the nineteen sixties, Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American left as a constant critic of foreign policy of the United States, contemporary capitalism, and um the corporate power that he calls corporatocracy. The years he's known as a fierce critic of corporate power, U.S. foreign policy, and mass media. His major contributions would be linguistics. He revolutionized the field by arguing that humans are born with the innate capacity for laying up to proposing a concept of universal grammar. In cognitive science, his work challenged behavioral models of learning, helping establish a modern foundation of cognitive science. Political activism, a prominent and public intellectual, he has authored over 150 books, criticizing pyramidalism, capitalism, and state power. Media criticism, he co-authored Manufacturing Consent with Everett S. Herman, a seminal text detailing how media functions as a propaganda tool for ruling elites. His notable works are synthetic structures or synthetic structures in 1957 established his foundation theories on generative grammar, manufacturing consent, the 1988 book and film, The Sports Political Economy of Mass Media, and Welcome for American Dream in 2017 breaks down the concentration of wealth and power. Academic roles and later life, he spent decades as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, before becoming a laureate professor at the University of Arizona. Having suffered a stroke in 2023, he requires ongoing care and remained largely withdrawn from the public discourse. Some of Chomsky's books are Manufacturing Consent, Syntactic Structures, Lectures on Government and Binding, the Minimalist Program, and so a lot of them. Some of the ones I I read personally were his works on uh homogeny. So I think uh the one of the first ones I read was Because We Say So, and that was really uh well done, at least it uh spoke to me. Another one was on his concepts of homogeny, and it was simply called homogeny or survival. Um it's very good. There's a famous one, which is the Extential Chomsky. Uh, there's propaganda in the public mind, conversations with Noam Chomsky. There's one called Interventions, uh, there's one called God and the Welfare State. Uh there's one uh famously just Chomsky uh Anarchanism, and there's one A New World in Our Hearts, and that's a conversation with him and Michael Albert. And um there's one on called uh New Horizons, I think, uh, which is uh a study on language in the mind. Like I said, he wrote over 150 books, so you'd be quoting forever. Uh no a famous one was Notes on Resistance, uh, World Orders, and Old and New, uh, and um Chomsky on Democracy and Education. And of course, you could uh want us to get something spicy. Uh, there's one called Nat 11, who's there at Alternative, and um it's just kind of a uh when you have such a body of work between him and so well, it it's anything you pick up uh it's gonna be it's gonna challenge your thinking. I think the book Occupy by Chomsky was good, understanding power, the indivisible Chompsy was good, and Chompsky for activists. Occupy was probably one of the first ones I read because that's when I somewhat uh started to make my political economic shift, I should say, and became more politically uh aware. Um, I think I think I'm not sure. I think I mentioned Norman Fickelstein. Um I'd have to go back and listen to it in its entirety, but in in the same vein, Fickelstein is a uh basically a student of Chomsky, and he's an American political scientist and activist. His primary fields of research are politics of the Holocaust. And Norman Fickelstein um he he talks about the politics of the Holocaust and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and he was born in New York City to a Jewish Holocaust survivor, actually, in 1953, which would make him 72 years old. Um his books are American Radical, uh Defamation, uh, the Occupation of the American Mind, Notes to Eternity Ever Again, just to name a few. Um his uh most controversial book would have been called uh something like the Holocaust Industry. Uh, that's the one that got him the most uh attention, if I remember correctly. I mentioned Charles Feinberg. Um also some people will call him Rabbi Charles Feinberg. But either way, if you want to look him up, you would just put in Dr. Charles L. Feinberg. He was born June 12, 1909, and died August 22nd in um 1995 at the uh age of 86. Now, Feinberg was an American biblical scholar and professor of semantics and um Old Testament. He was an authority on Jewish history, languages, and customs and Old Testament and biblical prophecies. Feinberg was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, raised in an Orthodox Jewish community, graduating from Hebrew Institute of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh in preparation to be a rabbi. In 1930, he converted from Judaism to Protestantism through the ministry called uh the Chosen People Ministries. He went to earn his TH.m in 1934, his th.d in 1935 from Dallas Theological Seminary, his A.M. in 1943 from Southern Methodist University, and his PhD in 1945 in archaeology and semantic languages, semantic languages. From John Hopkins University, Feinberg married Anne Priscilla Freeman in 1935, and together they had three children, Paul, Lewis, and John. Feinberg joined the faculty of Dallas Theological Seminary as a professor of Old Testament in 1934 and begun radio broadcasting messages the following year. During that time, he served as a pastor of a church since 1940. In 1948, Feinberg joined the faculty of what would later become Talbot Theological Seminary, and in 1952 he became its first and longest serving dean. And in 1958, he oversaw the and updated to the fundamentals, a defense of central teachings of Christianity, and later was a on the team that originally translated what is now known as the New American Standard Bible. In 1981, a uh Fet script was published in his honor, tradition and testament essay in the honor of Charles Lee Feinberg, including contributions from John F. Waldrough, Bruce K. Walkati, Walker C. Casey Jr., and Glenson L. Archer. Feinberg's works and his books, uh Hosea, God's Love for Israel, Major Messages of the Minor Prophets, and that came out in 1947. God Remembers, a study of Zechariah, 1st edition, and that came out in 1950. Abakah, Problems of Faith, The Day, Zephyr, the Day of the Lord, Haggard Rebuilding the Temple, Malachi, Formal Worship, Major Messages in Minor Prophets, New York American Board of Missions to Jews in 1951, 1952, Zachariah, Israel, Comfort and Glory, Major Messaging on Minor Prophets, New York and American Board of Missions to Jews. Um so he wrote uh a lot about uh prophecy and stuff, uh a lot of articles. Charles Weinberg was one of the pivotal founders uh in the thinking of uh what we would um know as as as biblical prophecy. Uh pejoratively um some some would say dispensationalism, some would say premillennialism, uh, because he uh wrote about uh millennialism in 1980, uh the two major views, and this was like a third edition, but uh it's definitely a body of work that if you're in my uh camp, we look to often, Charles L. Feinberg. Anyway, uh just wanted to give you a sense of the stream of consciousness that was happening in this episode, so people can at least uh if they wanted to for their leisure go back and see somewhat who we think about when we think about these questions and these answers, and someone try to better understand uh me and our distinguished guests. At any rate, thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you on the next episode.