Don’t Rely on the Houthis to Cure Cancer - with Douglas Murray

0:01 There's never been more coverage of Israel and the Jewish world, and never less of it is worth trusting. Arc Plus members allow us to have these conversations honestly without pulling punches or censoring any of our jokes. Join Arc Plus at arcmedia.org. [Instrumental music] You are listening to an Arc Media podcast.

0:23 They've been put under the impression that if the Israeli-Palestinian dispute was settled, something magical happens and world peace breaks out. [laughs] I love angry Douglas Murray, by the way. This isn't even the s- start. [laughs] This isn't the grade one piano of, uh, um- So, it is so hot... this is a bizarre belief.

0:45 If the Palestinians finally got the state that they kept rejecting for, for a century now, if they finally got that state, what? The, the economy of Yemen would boom? Uh, there'll be a lot more bike lanes in New York. Yeah. [laughs] I think that would be worse. Yeah, or something like that. [instrumental music] Hi, welcome to Chosen People Problems, where a secular sinful Israeli speaks to her holy religious friend.

1:13 I'm Yael, here with Chaya. New name, who this? Who, uh, what is this name? What is this show? It's, it's... [laughs] Who are we? Who are we? Who are we now? I know. Are you having an identity crisis? Do you feel... I mean, not more than on a normal day. Oh, well that's good. Yeah. How do you feel like your life has changed since Dan Senor bought you? Oh my God. Well, I bought a mansion in Beverly Hills. Mm, yeah.

1:37 We're moving next week. Um, I've now been shopping only at Rodeo Drive. Yeah, of course. So it's, it's a big upgrade. Do they have good Hasidic stores at Rodeo Drive? Oh, yeah. I mean, you should see. Yeah. I have three new wigs. Okay. It's a whole new, it's a whole new me. My life has changed dramatically since Dan Senor purchased me. Really? I think it's kinda weird that he puts us in his house and, like, locks the door.

2:00 It is a little strange. It's a little strange- I know... but I know I didn't read the contract too well. But I'm getting used to it. I'm getting used to it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, I- I'm getting better at cooking dinner for him and his wife every night. Um, but so far so good. He... This contract would be canceled so fast if he spent more than 10 minutes in person with us.

2:20 [laughs] Yeah. Let's be honest. Too late, Senor. [laughs] Too late. [laughs] No, but it's, it's fun. It's a new name. We'll get used to it. It's a bit of a mouthful, but I'm gonna try to lean into saying it as much as possible, and so that, you know- Yeah... it feels natural and, uh, it's exciting. If you say it in front of the mirror three times, then, um- Yeah, what happens?... Mandy Patinkin shows up and talks to you about genocide. I mean, talk about a chosen people problem. Yes.

2:46 Mandy Patinkin is at the top of that list. But- I love that this is how we're opening our first episode on Arc Media, but- I know, I know... but it's on brand because if you've been listening, listening to us as Ask a Jew- Yeah... we cannot stop talking about that guy, to the point where we had a journalist from the, um, the African country of Somaliland on, and at some point he was talking about their civil war, then Chaya was like, "Do you know who Mandy Patinkin is?"

3:11 [laughs] Well, I was curious how, you know, dialed in. He did know. I know. And he did. He did. I was impressed. He was very dialed in. Yeah. Do you think we can get Mandy Patinkin on the show now that we're on Arc Media podcast? Do we want him on the show? I would lo- oh my God, I would love to. What would you want to talk about? I'd be like, "Listen.

3:29 Listen, sir." Okay. I, I refuse to talk about him any longer. [laughs] Oh, you're done? Yeah. We're done 30 seconds and we're done. Okay, fine. Well, no, any longer in this episode. I feel like we should have a time limit. Oh, okay, fine. Okay, fine. Like, we can talk about Brad Lander. Can we talk about the Holocaust? Of course. I mean, that's- Okay, fine...

3:45 what else, what else would we be talking about if not the Holocaust? Right. I just wanna know what my li- what, you know, what my boundaries are since we're in a new relationship. Yeah. I have to, you know, explore my boundaries. [laughs] You can talk about the Holocaust. Okay. [laughs] You can't talk about throuples apparently. No. Our, our, the, uh, new audience will give us feedback what we can't...

4:03 And, and we're very susceptible to feedback. Oh, are we? So if you tell us you don't like something, and if you add a remark about our looks- Oh, no... we're probably gonna listen to you. If you're like, "You should never talk about Israel again, and also, like, that haircut doesn't really match your face- Yeah... then I'll be like- No... "Fine, I'm gonna get a new haircut and never talk about Israel."

4:21 [laughs] We are not good at feedback. I, I mean, we- No, please don't give us any... it, it puts us out. Yeah. It puts us out. No, totally. But it's so annoying that the first thing haters do is, like, they comment on your looks. The other day on Twitter I posted something that was like, you know, very pro-Israel or whatever, or anti-the idiots, and right away someone screenshot a picture of me and was like, "Look at this Zio pig who pi- eats all day."

4:46 I'm like, why do you have to go there? Right? Like, why can't you insult me in another way? 'Cause, uh, the rest of the day I was spiraling about my weight, you know, and I couldn't enjoy my food the rest of the day. And I'm like, some bot, [laughs] some bot insulted me. [laughs] You can't let the terrorists win. I know. I know. It's true. But, um, anyway, we're very excited. We love our new name. We love our new audience.

5:10 Hopefully, they, hopefully they love us, and we love our old audience. That's all in the contract. We have to say all of that. Yeah. I know, I know. No, but we love our old audience, and we're hopefully gonna be exactly the same as we were before, but better. Maybe the old audience can help, like, onboard the new audience. Yeah. Onboard. [laughs] Yeah.

5:27 And be like, "Listen." Yeah. I- they, they talk, uh, sometimes they go on, like, re- weird tangents about, like, men they find attractive. Just don't- That's right... ignore that. Right. Um, yeah. Or dictators they like, you know. Yeah. It just depends. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like, don't worry about that part because what's the upside? Because they'll make you laugh. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

5:47 Anyway, we're very excited for today's guest, um, somebody we've wanted to talk to for a really long time. We do have, uh, Douglas Murray on, which is, uh, super exciting. You know him from the free press. You know him as a, as a commentator. You know him as a man with a delightfully beautiful accent. All right, and we'll be right back with Douglas Murray This is not Hebrew school.

6:11 Tikvah's Millstone Scholars Program is a selective national honors program for seventh and eighth graders whose families want them to think seriously about the questions facing the Jewish people, Israel, America, and the West. Over a full academic year, students meet weekly to study Jewish civilization, modern Israel, and the Jewish ideas that shaped American democracy through primary sources, close reading, and debate with other exceptional students.

6:39 Millstone spans more than 30 cities with in-person and online cohorts. Classes begin the week of October 18th. Apply now at tikvah.org/arc. [gentle music] I'm Yael, here with Chaya Laia. Douglas Murray, welcome to Chosen People Problems. Very good to be with you. I think that's the name, right? Is that the name we settled on? I think that's [laughs]... Okay.

7:05 It's good we looked at it. There's still time to change it. Yes. This is true. [laughs] Oh my God, Douglas Murray, we are so excited to have you. This is a big moment for us. Yeah. We're, we're super, super thrilled. For people who don't know you, like, what... I don't know what their problem is, uh, but you're a columnist for the Free Press.

7:23 Um, you've written eight books, which is coincidentally the amount of books I've read, uh, I think in my lifetime. [laughs] You're a, a good friend of the Jews, a good friend of Western civilization, and now a friend of Chosen People Problems. That was good. Thank you. [laughs] Douglas is like- Wait...

7:44 "Is it too late to text Dan Senor and tell him I'm not doing this?" [laughs] One second. Before we even ask you a question, can I tell my s- I stalked you once? Oh. And I really want to apologize. I c- it's a short, quick story. Okay. But we were at, you were at AIPAC in, like, maybe 2018 or 2017, at the policy conference, and I read on the schedule that you were speaking, and I was already obsessed with you then.

8:10 And I did the most annoying, obnoxious thing, and I decided to go find the room 45 minutes before your talk so that in case you came early to maybe, like, have a, take a deep breath and have a drink and relax before your talk, I- [laughs] And hide from people like you at the AIPAC conference [laughs] Exactly.

8:31 That I would be ready there to hang out with you. 'Cause I assumed the second you saw me, you'd be like, "Oh, this is exactly why I came to AIPAC, so I could hang out with Chaya Laia." Right. And that's what I did. I went 45 minutes early. You came a half hour early, and we hung out actually in the room there. Yeah. But... And you were very nice. Right. I- But I feel really bad. Oh, no, that sounds wonderful.

8:50 I, I, I, I don't think I've been half an hour early to anything in my life, so this is, this was serend- [laughs]... this was serendipitous. Did it go better or worse than when you stalked Van Jones? Oh. Was that directed to me? No. No. [laughs] I love Van. So Douglas, the first question I'm gonna ask you is, do you think American Jews like you because of your accent?

9:13 Like, if you told us the same information, but it was, like, with a Texas drawl, would we take you seriously? Congratulations. You've trodden on my sorest toe with your first question. No. Very well done. Very well done. Oh, we got more. We got a few. We spoke to a few people in your life. Yeah. Yeah. I, [laughs] like everyone, I assume that my accent is, um, the norm.

9:36 [laughs] Uh, but, uh, no, f- uh, good friends know that, uh, when, uh, somebody says, uh, "It's the accent," um, I s- I sort of find myself bristling, uh, and, uh, usually saying, [laughs] "I, I was hoping it was 25 years of intense work." Uh, but there we are. You know what you should do is- No, no, no. It is. It is... if you have an Australian accent, nobody can take you seriously. That's not true. I know. I love Australian accents.

10:05 There are two weird attitudes towards accents I can never get. One is, one is the, the view that Australians have an unattractive accent, which I think is nonsense. I love it. I didn't say it was unattractive. Okay. Well- I said it's unserious... okay, unserious. [laughs] Absolutely not true. Which says a lot about my dating life, by the way, but... No, absolutely not true.

10:23 Some of the great thinkers of our time have come from Australia: Germaine Greer, Clive James- No... Robert Hughes, uh, uh- Hugh Jackman... I was going to come onto Hugh, obviously. Um, and, uh, and the other one, the other one, weirdly, in America is, uh, people thinking that Southern accents somehow, uh, have some kind of, uh, I don't know, taint to them. I absolutely adore Southern accents.

10:46 Oh, I love Southern accents. I just love it, so yeah. Anyway. That's so funny. And I like to be called doll by, like, old ladies. Yeah. It is sweet. So. It is sweet. No, listen, I'm married to a British man. My husband's from London, so I'm very used to a British accent, but his father was from Manchester. Hmm. And that's a different, very different accent. That's not...

11:03 I don't find it as sophisticated as, like, your British accent. It's just different. Well, the, my favorite one that I tease all my Israeli friends w- uh, about is, uh, is the, uh, is Israeli speaking English. I think they do it with saying Hebrew as well, where they go, "Eh," all the time. Eh, eh. They go, "Eh." I know. I know. So Douglas, eh, what do we, eh. [laughs] Douglas, what's...

11:23 Well, I wanted to ask you where, when the first time you ever met an Israeli was, but also what kind of reactions do you get in Israel? 'Cause you're kind of like a celebrity. First time I met an Israeli. Uh, uh, I suppose I would've met a lot of them the first time I went to Israel in 2006. Yeah. [laughs] Um- What was that like, that first time? What was your first time like, Douglas?

11:45 Uh, well, it was, uh, thank you, I'll ignore the single entendre in there. Um, uh, I, I, I was there in 2006 during the, the Second Lebanon War. Ooh. Um, but, uh, y- I mean, that made a huge impression on me because, uh, I remember I was staying in Tel Aviv, but going north, um, a lot. And- I was up north, too...

12:07 it made a huge impression on me because, um- You know, the war was going on and everyone was taking it extremely seriously because it was a serious time, but at the same time, life went on, and it sort of f- it was as a feel, you know, uh, of a society, I, I think really- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm... um, uh, s- spoke to me. Um, I'm sure I met Israelis before then. I, um, I, I, I can't particularly think. I, I d- I don't think there was a first time.

12:34 I remember, um, during that war, I was doing reserve duty- Ah... and I would come home because Israel's so small, so you'd come home like- Mm-hmm... on the weekends, like a two-hour drive, and sitting at a bar on the beach in Herzliya, and everybody's drinking and having a good time, and then all these F-16s are flying over. Mm.

12:50 And everybody's, like, raising their beers and, like, cheering. Mm. Oh. Yeah, I remember those supply planes going along the coast all the time in pairs, and, um, yeah, I m- m- that made a huge impression on me. Um- How cute was that war in retrospect, with the little Katyushas? [laughs] It was adorable. [laughs] Those, you know- Oh my God. Yes. Uh- I miss those... that's, that's one way to think of it.

13:11 One, one of the impressions it made to me, and I remember I s- said this in an interview with Bari Weiss a couple of years ago, um, uh, the, the, the thing it made me feel, among other things, was that I had a minimal understanding, uh, but a greater understanding of what my grandparents' generation went through during The Blitz.

13:30 Mm, yeah. Mm-hmm. And, um, it w- it was a, it was a very, um, m- moving moment to me to, to sort of even in a, in a minimal way, uh, understand what a society was like when you were being rocketed all the time- Mm... and, um, and had to still live. And, um, yeah, it was... It made a huge impression on me, that. Yeah, I read a book about, um, The Blitz not too long ago, and I was like, "Oh, this all sounds very familiar."

13:54 Well, my grandparents were in Auschwitz, and Bari's grandparents at the same time were killed in The Blitz in England, so yeah, very... When people don't realize that people died in London during that war. Trauma on all sides. Oh, they certainly... No, I mean, it was, uh, it was, uh, months and months of, uh, a whole population going down into bomb shelters night- Yeah... after night, and, uh- Mm-hmm...

14:15 uh, and what the people of London and the other major cities in the UK withstood, uh, um, during the time that Hitler was trying to demoralize them, which was, of course- Mm-hmm... the, the main point of The Blitz- Allegedly... apart from destroying- Allegedly... uh, public. And, and- Yeah... actually.

14:29 Um, the, uh, the, the b- the fact that the, you know, the po- the civilian population got through that and, and were not demoralized by what Adolf Hitler was throwing at them- Yeah... is, is, is a remarkable thing and part of the origin story, you know, of, of Britain that I grew up in. Yeah. One of my hot takes is Israelis are not that special.

14:49 We just have special circumstances, and a lot of people under these circumstances would, you know, get to the same, I guess, behavioral or cultural kind of norms in their lives. Sure. I mean, we've been in those circumstances- Mm-hmm. Oh... uh, you know, some, some other countries, and the c- and the divide is between the ones who remember that and the ones who don't. Mm-hmm.

15:09 But Americans have never been through that. I mean, we've had- Well, that's true... Pearl Harbor, and we've had maybe 9/11, but Americans don't understand any... There's no concept here of what war is. I mean, it's only through the movies. I don't think people get it. Uh, well, I mean, a large number, I mean, a large number of Americans, of course, uh, know somebody in the armed forces, and I think m- much larger than any other Western country. Oh, that's true.

15:32 Uh, and that's a huge thing. Um, uh, uh, the... I can't remember the figures now, but the, the number of people in the population who actually know somebody who's, who's serving, um, in America is, is, is considerably higher than in a country like, uh, Britain, where a tiny minority of, of people actually know- Right.

15:54 Really?... um, somebody who's serving, uh, in the defense of the country. Yeah. Hmm. Hmm, that's, that's true, but maybe not, like, the elites. I feel like on the co- where I live in Long Beach, California, uh, the, it's, people just don't... It's not part of the life here, you know? It's not, uh, something that is the norm.

16:11 People don't think about the army or the defense or maybe you know someone who went to West Point, you know, or- Mm-hmm... an elite school. But you're right, most Americans probably do know someone serving. But it do- it does change things. Like, I was in Israel last year during the war, and it just, it, it changes how you think about everything, when you have to run to bomb shelters with your friends and neighbors and family, you know? And- Mm-hmm...

16:34 here, it just, we can't, we just can't relate, and I, a- that's why people don't understand what Israelis are going through. Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, it's one of the reasons. I think that's true. Mm-hmm. It's one of the reasons. Yeah. But, um, what, what... Tell us what you were like as a kid. Like, were you serious as a kid? Were you into history from an early age?

16:50 Did you notice things about the world that other kids weren't noticing, or were you just, like, regular fun kid? I've no idea. I mean, who- [laughs]... who has an idea of what they look like from the outside, you know? Um, I, yeah, I think I was just a regular fun kid. Uh, I, I- Okay... I know I was always sort of very observant, uh, uh, i- in the non-religious sense, [laughs] although maybe in a way in a religious sense as well. Yeah.

17:12 But I was always observant. I always noticed things and was curious. And, um, uh, uh, but yeah, I mean, I was a normal, a normal kid, ran around, carried out practical jokes, you know, got into trouble, um, and, uh, and all that sort of thing, yeah. Um- I don't know. I picture you, like, eight years old reading War and Peace, you know? Yeah, in a suit. Yeah, no, I, I read it earlier than that. Oh, okay. [laughs] When I was... [laughs] In the original- That's true...

17:40 uh, Russian or whatever. [laughs] I think even during your trip in 2006, you, you probably didn't assume that you would become one of the faces and voices that are most recognizable with the, a defense of Israel, right? That wasn't, like, on your plan as your career path. Well, I mean, I don't think anyone, I, I, certainly not me, had a, a, a plan of career path. In my case, as a writer, I started being a writer very early.

18:04 Um, you, you do, you g- you go towards what interests you, you know? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You, you, you dig into subjects that, that more than interest you, that, that, that get under your skin really. So I d- and I don't think I had any particular You know, um, idea, and I had some ideas of what I wanted to write books about and so on, and, um, I had a backlog of them still in my head, but, uh, of the unwritten ones.

18:28 But, uh, the, uh, yeah, I, I, I think I've always just gone towards what fascinated me. Uh- Mm-hmm... and in a way, uh, if there is a connection between any of the things I've written about in my career, I think it's, it's usually things that are, are, are knotty and difficult, uh, in some way. Uh, y- and, and that I, I kind of want to unknot. Uh, there's a great line in, um, uh, in, in W.H. Auden's poem on, on September the 1st, 1939, where he says, "All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie." Mm.

19:01 And, um, uh, uh, that, that, that line's always spoken to me. "All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie." Um, now that's, that feels like a, a, a, an important job, uh, to do. Yeah. Especially, y- you know- It is... the, the lies is really, um, you know, I, I... I'm Israeli obviously, so I spent my whole life kind of being a Israel advocate against my, my will, because I would rather, you know, do other things, uh, with my life sometimes. Um, but you notice nowadays that, like, it- what you're up against is, is incredibly baseless.

19:37 It's not like you're arguing with people about like, well, two-state solution, not two-state solution and, you know, could we have been doing more to like, you know, move the peace process along? Now you have to be like, "No, actually the Air FlyDubai thing happened, and it was- Mm... at Netanyahu who orchestrated that." Like, that's where the conversation is or it feels like to me. Yeah.

19:58 We're speaking the day after that happened, and, uh, um, one of the headlines that somebody sent to me this morning was the BBC News that had, uh, "According to far-right Israeli min- Minister Ben-Gvir- Mm-hmm... uh, uh, there was an attempted hijacking." Yeah. And they know exactly what they're doing. I, I tweeted about this yesterday too- Mm-hmm...

20:17 is, you know, all of the accounts say, Netanyahu says, and like, like, bro, there's video of this. Like, you can talk to any one of the 174 passengers who are all giving interviews all the time, but they know- Mm... exactly what they're doing. They're, they're kind of making it a he said, he said, I guess. Yeah. The, I mean, there is, there, there are journalistic standards that, that could be at play early in, in a story. Mm-hmm.

20:42 Uh, I mean, and, and, and I s- I sensed some of that, which is, I mean, for instance, you know, people, and I know this myself from r- reporting, you know, you've got to be careful in the early, really now, I mean, it's not even hours, it's minutes- Yeah... of a story, uh, to make sure that, that, that, uh, you've got the facts right.

20:58 And, uh, but the facts in this came out, you know, very fast and as you say, I mean, uh, people were giving interviews and, and, and, and the facts were really w- well known. By the time that a lot of media were saying, yes, according to Netanyahu, there was an attempted, uh, uh, uh, hijacking. Th- this shows, um, you know, a really, a, a mania, and I think what you refer to in, in terms of the sort of oddity of the change of the conversation, I don't think of myself as an Israel advocate or anything.

21:26 I'm just a, a, a writer and I, um, say what I see and, and argue for the cases that I care about and, and, um, and know about. But I think that, I think there are two things that have changed. One is, um, a- an even greater stupidity in, uh, uh, I-- and I don't say that on the beha- on, on the part of the public per se, but a greater stupidity among, uh, many of the people who have, uh, a microphone and a megaphone.

21:54 Who's the stupidest? I, I, where to begin? Um- [laughs] Pick a- But-... pick your favorite. [laughs] I, the, the, the field is too large. Um- [laughs] The -- but I, I think that the, the sheer lack of knowledge, uh, uh, of people who are speaking, uh, i- astounds me. Uh, and I suppose it's because obviously with platforms like the podcast world, there is no, um, need to have any, uh, expertise to enter it- Mm-hmm... and that's- Mm-hmm...

22:21 and there's a great value to that 'cause you, you can hear lots of voices and different opinions and all that sort of thing. But it means that a lot of people think they, they should be talking about subjects that they just really don't know about. Right. And I think the second thing is of course, uh, and perhaps more important is, is the sheer pitch at which, um, in the last three years, since October 7th, 2023, um, people have, as you say, I mean, moved from a sort of, um, are you in favor of the two-state solution to, um, uh, uh, we need to support Hamas if we're- Yeah...

22:56 if, if, if there was, there was a perfectly reasonable, uh, argument that used to exist of people who would say, "You know, I'm, I'm on the side of peace," you know? Mm-hmm. And they'd say, you know, "That's why I support a two-state solution." And, and they sort of knew, they-- some of them knew a lot, some of them knew very little or a little.

23:13 But that, that, that was sort-- there was a sort of default position, uh, including among, um, um, some Jews and others. There was a sort of default position about two states, Fatah being a vague partner for peace someday, that sort of thing. And now, I mean, the, the people that, those of us who are, you know, uh, sympathetic to the Isra- Ir- Israeli side on this just notice that, I mean, that si- the other side has, has, has radicalized unbelievably.

23:38 I mean, now they're, now they're, they're sort of, you know, demand, demand that, that, that a genocide took place where it didn't, uh, demand, uh, you know, s- support for the martyrs of Hamas, deny that Hamas carries out the atrocities it does. And I mean, it's a, it's a real radicalization on the anti-Israel side and, um, that's of course in the end to the enormous detriment, among other things, of the Palestinian people who, who will, will never get anything so long as, uh, their representatives, uh, uh, and their supporters are people who, um, support a death cult annihilationist movement like Hamas, you know?

24:13 What do you, what do you feel works to talk with people through some of these issues? Like, I work on a college campus. My students loved Charlie Kirk, even if they didn't agree with him. They loved that he came, and he, like, confronted people face-to-face and, like, debated them. Do you find that when it comes to this kind of conversation around, you know, genocide or, or a- anything about the Israel-Palestine conversation, like, is there any point to the debate?

24:38 Is there any point to trying to engage with people, or is it something we should just sort of work around and, and stay... I, I, I don't... I'm not sure how I feel about it, so I'm curious what you think. You know, people have their own styles of doing things and their own methods. Uh, uh, Charlie was an enormously effective communicator, and, um, many, many people loved him, uh, and, uh, were inspired by him.

25:05 You know, he had obviously many detractors as well. I f- I find it very hard to talk about him because, um, I'm, uh, I think that the discussion on the American right, uh, has gone pear-shaped- Yeah... uh, as we might say, uh, for a number of reasons in the last year or so. Um, but, uh, noth- nothing has had a greater impact on that than, uh, than the murder, than Charlie's murder. Mm-hmm. And, um, I, it, it, it, I think it had a, it's had a huge effect on e- everyone who knew him.

25:37 And actually, i- if I can say so, and I don't want to linger on this, um, more particularly the, the, the unbelievable attempts by people who were ostensibly friends of his and colleagues of his to trash his legacy and indeed him- It's disgusting... and his, his widow. And I, I've been, um, uh, really, uh, profoundly shocked by the behavior of certain people around that.

26:02 And, um, uh, uh, you know, it's a reminder that hell is a bottomless pit, you know, and there's always another- Yeah... layer. Mm-hmm. But I would also just say that, I mean, the, the, the, it, it, there are three people who, um, who clearly had a greater influence than we realized, uh, on the American right, and in particular in relation to, um, a sane and decent attitude towards Israel, uh, whose loss has clearly had an effect on the movement.

26:29 One is, is Charlie's murder. Another is, um, Jordan Peterson, uh, being taken ill again, and another is Dennis Prager's accident and illness. Mm-hmm. And, uh, all three of these men had a, a huge i- uh, i- impact. Uh, people listened to them. And, um, and I worry that the, the people that, uh, would've listened to them, would've been reined in from going to crazy town, have been led to crazy town and evil town by, um, by people who've tried to step into their, their sh- shoes or, or seize their audience, or whatever you wanna say.

27:03 Yeah. Yeah. We need to make sure you go get your physical, Douglas. Yeah. And [laughs] make sure you're consistently in good health. I try. I know. [laughs] It's true. No, those are big losses. I mean, I, I... Dennis Prager, I, it's, I'm h- I'm so happy you mentioned him 'cause we've, I very rarely hear people mention him anymore. Mm-hmm. And he was such a profound voice on the right, and, and in general. And he is.

27:27 I mean, he, he- Yeah... he is, thank God, I mean, he's- And PragerU is very visible. Yes. And, uh, Den- I went to see Dennis in his hospital a while ago, and, um- Oh, good... he, uh, you know, it's, uh, he, he's, he's suffered a terrible, um, uh, uh, injury. Yeah. Uh, and is, is paralyzed from the neck down, but his, his, uh, he can speak, and his, his brain is still there.

27:48 And, um, there's, uh, there's some, um, uh, great blessing, a huge blessing in that, so. Yeah. What a-- It's so interesting to think about what your legacy could be. I mean, thank God Dennis is alive, and h- he should be well for many more years, hopefully. But it's just interesting to think about, like, if you died today, like, what would be the...

28:09 You know, what would you have left over? And you just mentioned three people that I think have made a very profound effect on the world, and it's important to... I mean, I always tell my students, like, "Be the kind of person that you wanna hear about after you die," you know? Mm-hmm. And I think a lot of people are beclowning themselves right now, uh, especially in the media, and making themselves sound insane, and they'll be remembered for it. I actually wanna put it on their gravestones.

28:35 That's my new... I wanna write now, like, Hannah, you know who Hannah Einbinder is? Mm. This Jewish actress who's a halfwit. Like, I want it to say on her tombstone, "Hannah believed Israel committed a genocide. She was an idiot." You know? Like, we should remember forever. [laughs] You should do, like, what's that project where they go to, um, soldiers', uh, headstones that were buried- Yes...

28:56 Jewish, Jewish soldiers that were buried in the battlefield? Yes. Operation Benjamin. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and they replace a cross with a Star of David. With a star, yeah. You should do that for- The reverse... for celebrities, like, who have died. Yeah. You know, and just remind everybody what they believed in. Bernie Sand- "Here lies Bernie Sanders. Threw the Jews under the bus every chance he got. Thanks."

29:17 That's what I, that's what I'm gonna do. I mean, if it's any consolation, I mean, most people aren't remembered at all, um, other- That's true. [laughs]... other than, I mean, other than by the people who love them. And, um- That's true... uh, but, but it- So with Hannah Einbinder, I'm not too concerned that there'll be- But it, it's, it's-... a lot of people to remember.

29:34 [laughs] It's a good, it's a good rule of thumb to behave today i- i- in a way that you'd want to be remembered for or at least, you know... Uh, a- and I, I think I, I said many years ago, um, in reference actually in a speech to PragerU last fall that, uh, at the beginning of the sort of COVID and all that sort of era, I, I remember a friend saying to me, "You know what?

29:57 How, how do we get through this period?" And I said, "I don't, I don't know. But I know one thing is that rule number one should be don't go mad." Mm. Yeah. Um, and, uh, a large number of people, I think, did go mad and, uh, it's... some of it's understandable, uh, but all of it's regrettable. Yeah. Getting a little more, 'cause these last three years have been insane.

30:16 I'm getting slightly more optimistic lately. Really? And I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe it's just the, you know, I've, I've, I've reached the pit of despair, and now there's [laughs] only one way to go from here. But I'm like... I was just telling somebody yesterday, it's like you can't lie to all the people all the time. Yeah.

30:33 At, like, at some point the truth is coming out, and y- and I'm very concerned that a lot of people aren't listening to the truth. But I'd much rather be on the side that's factual- Mm-hmm... and a minority than the side that is- Yeah... has a lot of supporters but is based on, you know, it's like a house of cards. Mm-hmm. Yeah. There's no, no problem of being in a minority viewpoint on something.

30:56 I, I've been on that many times in my life. Mm. A- as I have been on majority viewpoints, uh, sometimes. Um, but there's no shame in or there should be no difficulty in being in a minority on a particular issue. Well, it's, it's difficult for, for us, like geopolitically. Mm. It's, it has real implications. It does. But, uh, you know, uh, what, what, what are you gonna do to change that?

31:17 I, I, I just wrote a, a piece, again, in the Free Press this morning about a sort of reflections sort of three years into the post October 7th war. And, um, and one of the things I wanted to remind people of that is we, we... And maybe this go, go, goes to your, um, um, m- breakout of, uh, o- of slight optimism. Uh, y- I think it's increasingly important that we keep separate, uh, uh, or at least ke- keep an awareness of the separation between the online chatter and the real world. Mm. Mm-hmm.

31:47 Uh, the two, uh, the two are connected, but the, the but the overlap is not by any means complete in that, in that Venn diagram. Uh, the online world, which we now all have to live in to some extent or pay some attention to, let's say, um, is filled with hyenas and hysterics and, and, uh, and much more.

32:09 But if you look at the actual facts, as I wrote in the Free Press column today, um, uh, the facts are unbelievable, uh, on the side of Israel and her allies. I mean, j- just let me take a second to, to replay that. If you imagine that Yahya Sinwar on the 6th of October, uh, had ref- had been told what was going to happen as a result of his actions. Of course, he was a psychopath, as I've spent some years pointing out. Great.

32:37 Um, I mean, we know that from, from the way he behaved and the way in which he strangled Palestinians to death with his own hands before he was in an Israeli jail. Uh, but so he would have probably gone ahead with it anyway. But if you'd have said to him, um, "Three years from now, this is the situation."

32:53 The ring of fire that the Iranian revolutionary government has put around Israel as a trap to make sure, among other things, that if the Israelis were ever to bomb, uh, the Iranian nuclear program, uh, on the point at which they thought it was close to breakout, that that ring of fire, particular rockets were stored in Lebanon by Hezbollah that were meant to rain down on Israel w- in the event of an Israeli strike on the Iranian nuclear reactors.

33:18 If you'd have said, "Look, the Israelis are going to do a number of things in, in roughly this order. They're going to go into Gaza, um, through the force of the IDF and the IAF and persistent pressure are going to get the release of, um, most of the hostages alive, uh, and, uh, are going to kill all of the leadership of Hamas, kill Sinwar in Rafah, where they were told not to go by the President of the United States and the Vice President at the time, Kamala Harris."

33:48 And Instagram. And, and of course, all of Instagram. He said, "All eyes on Rafah." All eyes. They had their eyes on Rafah, but they didn't notice that, uh, there was no, of course, w- war crime, genocide, whatever- Right... in Rafah. There was an ama- If they had their eyes on it, maybe they could look for the hostages- Yeah... at the same time. Right. Absolutely.

34:07 Uh, but you know, the IDF found, uh, Sinwar there and killed him. Uh, they found Ismail Haniyeh in, uh, Tehran and killed him. After Haniyeh, one of the Hamas leaders' death, there were a lot of people online who said things like he, uh, lived a Palestinian-- was born a Palestinian, died a Palestinian.

34:23 And as I never fail to point out, no, actually, he was born an Egyptian and died in Iran. Um, and, uh, uh, and but if you'd have said, uh, that, that Hamas would be taken apart, not, uh, at the moment, still enough to ensure a completely clear plan for post-war Gaza, but, but Hamas' leadership would be completely decimated.

34:44 Then the Israelis would move on to Hezbollah, um, destroy most of its rocket capabilities, um, take out thousands of its, um, terrorists in, uh, two of the most astonishing counterterrorism operations of all time, the pager, uh, and then the walkie-talkie- Oh my God... operations. Amazing. Were then going to, having decimated Hezbollah, having then also killed the leader of Na- uh, uh, Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah- Mm-hmm...

35:09 who wanted the annihilation of the Jewish people, uh, but who, um, IAF killed in an incredibly successful operation. And then having dealt with Hamas, and then having dealt with, um, Hezbollah, and having all the time the irritation of the Houthis in Yemen, um, who have not been winning. And then, then that the, that the all of the, uh, surface-to-air missile capabilities of the Iranians would be taken out, uh, under the, uh, leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant.

35:38 Um, and then the skies of Iran would be the Israeli Air Forces to operate in at will. And then the Israelis came back and took out, um, almost all of the, of the missile capabilities of the Iranians. And then the, the American Air Force and the beautiful B-2 bombers, to quote President Trump- [laughs]... would come in, uh- They are very beautiful... behind them like the cavalry.

36:03 And, and then, uh, uh, having achieved all of that, having brought it right to the head of the snake, um, given the Iranian, uh, regime another chance, uh, and then the Iranian regime decided that it would, it would not stand down. And then the Israelis and the Americans came back again- Mm-hmm... killed the Ayatollah. Uh, it, it, it- Mm-hmm...

36:27 and, and destroyed the remaining nuclear program and most of the missile capabilities of the Iranians, and that the Iranian economy would by now be on its knees and, uh, a- and so on. If, if you'd have said all this three years ago, this, this is one of the most successful wars in history. Uh, the number of achievements a- and the unknotting of the problem that the Iranian revolutionary government set up to trap Israel in, and watching over the last three years, um, the Israeli army and air force and others, uh, and the intelligence services and others manage to break out of this trap piece by piece- Mm.

37:10 Uh, to the, to the point that in, in late 2026, this, this whole trap has, has, uh, Israel has been freed from almost the entire trap that was set up to destroy it. This is an extraordinary thing, and what's more, uh, not in any way to underplay the casualties, uh, that have resulted from it. But to have, to have achieved all of this with such minimal, uh, civilian casualties on the side of the enemies, uh, the, the societies like, uh, that in, in, in Hamas around Gaza, that, that, that, that, that no genocide occurred, that in fact an incredibly concerted pinpoint campaign occurred, a war started by Hamas.

37:55 That the, the, the number of dead on the, on that side, the side that started the war, has been kept so minimal, and that the number of Israelis and Americans- Mm... who have died in this war have been so comparatively low by historical standards in warfare, is an astonishing thing. And everything I've just laid out, sorry, rather laboriously in the last few minutes, but- No, it's okay...

38:15 everything I've just, everything I've just laid out is, is like forgotten knowledge or unknown knowledge to the hyenas and hysterics online- Yeah... who just insist that it's otherwise. I was gonna ask you if you think Israelis agree with that, because I think a lot of Israelis wouldn't agree. Really? I don't know. I, I've no idea if- Mm-hmm. Well, you mean most Israelis, or? Not, not, not most.

38:37 I mean- Which part wouldn't they agree with, though? We do have an election coming up. Um, uh, I mean, I think if you ask the average Israeli right now if, you know, if we're winning, they'd probably say no. Really? And maybe that's a gut feeling. Uh, and w- everything you laid out is correct, right? Like, everything you laid out is true, and we're obviously in a much better state and some amazing achievements, uh, have happened.

39:00 But they see Hamas rebuilding in Gaza. Mm-hmm. Uh, they see the Iranian regime still intact. Every time they leave the country, they're verbally accosted by somebody- Mm-hmm... some idiot, or not let into something, or not, you know, removed from conferences or film festivals or whatnot. You know, I, I'm, I'm kind of thinking this through as I'm talking to you, right?

39:22 Because I don't dis- uh, in one, on one hand, I don't disagree with anything you've said. On the other hand, it doesn't, it doesn't feel like we're winning, 'cause there's still such a long road ahead. But that's because o- of a couple of things, if I can say. So one is, um, I mean, I, I said this in the Free Press piece. I- I- Israel has won the war and lost the PR war. Mm-hmm.

39:40 And that's a problem, but it's better than the other way around. It's better than winning a PR war or winning a war for, for global- Mm... sympathy and being annihilated. Yeah. That's right. But we're not annihilated, but when, do you think we've won the war, or we're winning? We're like, we're up like in the fourth quarter. So we're in the, in the final stage of this. Mm-hmm. Without, without a doubt.

40:00 Now, uh, but what you describe is a perception issue. Um, uh, I, I, and I don't want to be glib about this, but, you know, okay, a film festival- Mm-hmm. Mm... um, you know, does a standing ovation for a, a libelous anti-Israel film. Okay. Right. [laughs] You know, worse things happen at sea, as we used to say. [laughs] Right. We'll be right back.

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41:19 Welcome back to Chosen People Problems with our guest, Douglas Murray. Well, I'll bring it back, I'll bring it back to the ground. Like I said, you do still have Hamas rebuilding in Gaza. Mm-hmm. You have the West Bank, which seems to be a powder keg. Big problem, yeah. And then the thing that we know about our enemies is that, and, and this is amazing to me because I look back at myself when I was young.

41:41 I was very involved in the peace movement in Israel. This was in the '90s. Mm-hmm. And, and I believed all the things that people, you know, the same people who accuse Israel of horrific things believe it. I didn't believe Israel was bad, but I believed that the Palestinians wanted peace, and that if we just give them land, everything will be good. Sure.

41:58 Um, and if I couldn't understand that, and, you know, as an Israeli, uh, and it took buses literally exploding every day on my way to, to, to school, uh, to change that, I, I can't imagine how to change that here. But, but I'll, I'll bring, I'll bring it back to, to what you said. What, what we know about our enemies is that... And, and they've said it themselves.

42:19 If, if, if there's one Hamas fighter left standing in Gaza, they won, because they'll take that one Hamas fighter and they'll keep fighting and they'll make new people or whatever. And, and so we see this kind of powder keg building up and, you know, Netanyahu talked a lot of, in the beginning of the war about, about a total victory- Mm-hmm...

42:36 a complete victory, and a lot of people mocked him for that. But we're not there, and I don't think we can ever win Unless we fully, fully win Well, l-let me, um, uh, let me take it this way. Um- This was supposed to be a funny interview with Douglas, by the way Oh [laughs]. We're supposed to talk about, like, which one of the, like- Hilarious... Hamas terrorist is hot- [laughs]...

42:55 and all that stuff, but- Okay. Well, maybe we can get on to that We can go back to the blitz. Yeah I'll just say very quick, uh, uh, in my view, after three years of war, there is no longer an existential- Yeah... physical threat to the State of Israel. Right. Um, i-i-i-it's, the, the scenario of the Iranians getting a nuclear, uh, bomb, uh, i-i-is at the very least not going to be a- an issue for some years to come, uh, even if the ayatollah's remained in power, the ayatollah, uh, remained in power.

43:28 To my mind, the annihilationist possibility with Israel h-has been taken out by, uh, this generation of Israelis. Now, on the issue of, um, perception and PR and all of that, yeah, I mean, this is, this is... There's been such a concerted campaign by terrorists like the Qataris and so on to pump around misinformation, and there's just been a lot of general lack of sympathy for the, uh, uh, State of Israel in this war.

43:54 Um, uh, y- that's a problem. Uh, that is a problem. Uh, but, you know, there are several ways to look at that, and o-one of them is, look, the casino of international opinion is rigged. Mm-hmm. Uh, the UN casino is rigged. Um, uh, you know, uh, careful about putting your money in it. A-and just bear in mind that the way in which the media, and therefore the online world, prioritizes things is, is probably at the moment beyond anyone's control.

44:24 I mean, you just mentioned the West Bank, Judea and Samaria. Uh, I, I, I don't say that the, the issue of the West Bank is by any means a straightforward one. It isn't. It's one of the knottiest, most difficult, uh, um, of problems. But it's not, uh, um, a first order. It shouldn't be in any way a first order priority f-for the world.

44:43 Hearing somebody like, um, the embarrassing foreign secretary in the UK, Ed Miliband, talking about this being a priority is like, you know- It's insane... it's, it's insane. I mean, there's a, there are land disputes going on on the contested land there. And, um, you know, u- and, and there are horrible attacks by both sides. But this is a minimal issue- It's insane...

45:07 compared to anything else that is happening across swathes of the Middle East, across swathes of Africa, a-a-and China and elsewhere. So why do people decide that this is the issue? And I would t- I'll just give you quickly my, my answer to that. It is, it is, a-and this is partly a fault of my own profession.

45:28 It is, it is the, the media is not honest anymore about what it cannot report, and let me just flesh out what I mean. After the mur- after the killing of Marie Colvin, um, b- in particular in the Syrian Civil War, journalists pretty much from the West withdrew from Syria because they realized that they were a target.

45:46 And once ISIS was targeting journalists and beheading them and so on, it really... I mean, there were incredibly brave exceptions, but by and large, the, the Syrian Civil War fell off our front pages, and Bashar al-Assad and his backers in, uh, Tehran and others, and jihadist groups and others were able to kill hundreds of thousands of people, some fighters, many innocent civilians, for a decade.

46:10 And it was not on anyone's news agenda, that we didn't have, uh, this obsession whilst hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people were killed in Syria. Why? Because the media couldn't report from there. Why has there not, uh, why do we still not know, even to the closest 10,000, how many Iranian citizens were murdered by the regime in Iran in the early part of this year? I mean, people say, some people say 10,000.

46:39 Some people say 30,000. Some people say 50,000. Why have, why has this not been on the f- why has it not been all eyes on Qom? I know [laughs]. All eyes on, on Tehran? Yeah. No, nobody cares. Nobody cares. But, but l-let's just look at, at one of the reasons why. One of the reasons why is because the journalists, journalists and the media are not honest about the fact that we cannot get people into Iran to report freely and to show the images and the body bags.

47:08 I mean, there are some images from inside Iran, obviously. Um, but it is extremely hard for brave Iranians to get some of that out. Um, w-why is, why is this not on the front page of everyone's newspaper since January of this year? In part, it's because the media can't- Right... uh, uh, report it. They can't get people in. They can't, can't do this.

47:29 By contrast, anyone can send a camera crew to Hebron, um, find a, a, a crazy, uh, um, a Jewish, uh, um, uh, s-settler or whatever you want to call them- Extremist, whatever, yeah... uh, an extremist- Yeah... or, or, or have a rifle pointed at them, uh, for going to the wrong area, uh, from somebody of the IDF. Mm-hmm. And make it in time for their dinner reservations in Tel Aviv. And then, yeah.

47:55 [laughs] And then you're back at the American Colony for cocktails by 6:00. Yeah. This is- Yeah... this is something that, and I've, I'm sorry to, this is a hobby horse of mine, because I just think it's, it's deeply dishonest of the journalistic profession not to admit what we cannot get to in terms of story.

48:11 And it means that this obsession, uh, with the West Bank at the moment i-i-is, is just out of all proportion to other things that are happening in the world. If the people like the British foreign secretary to talk about this as a priority, you know, if, if, if, I'm not minimizing, but if around 14 people, I think, have been killed In the last few years in, in the West Bank, in Judea and Samaria- Mm-hmm...

48:38 in this violence. That's, that's a blip of what happened in an hour in Iran for weeks. I know. I know. I've heard somebody say it's like the equivalent of, of dangling keys in front of a baby. Yeah. But w- we have a friend, we have a friend who asked us, you know, who's not Jewish, and said, "Oh, I have a friend, and she keeps posting about, like, uh, Sheikh Jarrah," this neighborhood in East Jerusalem where Palestinians were, you know, and Israelis were fighting over home, and it became, like, a big campaign.

49:08 And he's like, "What do I say to her?" I say, "Tell her to kind of zoom out for a second and ask herself why- [laughs] Why she knows about that... some random non-Jewish chick in Maryland is posting about Israel real estate court- Right... issues." Absolutely. Like, does that not strike her as a little- Odd... odd, or not a great use of her time? I agree.

49:30 Look, I mean, I mean, if, if, if a Jew builds a conservatory in East Jerusalem, it's international news. And, and meanwhile, uh, you know, a government like that in Syria or, or, or Iran massacres tens of thousands of its people. And, and, and people don't say, "Oh, I wonder, you know, what, what attitude should I have towards this?"

49:48 And there's various explanations as to why this priority is, uh, uh, this strange order of priorities has happened. Some people say it's the media and only the media. Uh, but it's also, uh, um, uh, to quote, uh, what Caroline Glick famously said some years ago on a stage, I think in New York, "It's also this obsessive compulsive desire to pick at the Jewish state." Mm-hmm.

50:12 And it's an obsessive compulsive disorder, and I do regard these people as having a, a, a, um, a, a, an obsessive compulsive disorder when it comes to the Jewish state. W- And, and I think they, they should ask themselves, "Why am I obsessed with this real estate question in East Jerusalem?" Mm-hmm. W- why do I think I need to have an answer to it?

50:37 What has gone wrong in my life that I f- that or, or in my circle of friends, or am I being manipulated into thinking I have to have an attitude towards this when there's all these other things that I don't apparently have to have an attitude towards? And then, and, and then, of course, sorry, very quickly, rhetorically then, if, if you say something like I just said, because all of the escape routes are kind of deliberately cut off in this argument, people say, "Oh, that's just whataboutism."

51:03 Well, it's not whataboutism. It's a very urgent and important and deep question of priorities. And I think that a, that a certain number of people prioritize this issue of the Israelis and the Palestinians for a reason which they've been given for more than a generation. This goes back to your time as a young peace activist. They've been, they've been put under the impression that if the Israeli-Palestinian, uh, dispute was settled, something magical happens and world peace breaks out.

51:36 [laughs] And there. I love- Yeah... angry Douglas Murray, by the way. Yeah. [laughs] It's my favorite Douglas Murray. This isn't even the s- start. I know. [laughs] This isn't the grade one, this isn't the grade one piano of, uh, of- So, it is so hot... but, you know, th- this is- [laughs]... but this is, this is a, a, a, um, this is a bizarre belief- Yeah...

51:55 um, as I've said for many a year. The idea that if the Israeli-Palestin- if the Palestinians finally got, uh, uh, finally got the state that they keep, ke- have kept rejecting for, for a- Mm-hmm... century now. If, if they finally got that state, what, the, the economy of Yemen would boom? [laughs] Yeah. Uh, there'll be a lot more bike lanes in New York. Yeah. [laughs] I think that's how it works. Yeah.

52:17 Yeah, or something like that, and, and all trans people would be free or, or, I don't know. I mean- Yes. Yeah. It w- yeah. Yeah. It's magical thinking. It is. Well, I just, I want to say two points. First of all, to Yaels point about, like, how Israelis feel, it's very easy for me living in California to say what I'm going to say.

52:33 But unfortunately, Israel is in a rough neighborhood surrounded by rough, a rough people and a rough religion. And so this idea that there's going to be total victory or total peace, I mean, I'm an Orthodox Hasidic Jew, so yeah, we believe in a Messianic era coming one day. But practically speaking, I just don't know if that is something that Israelis can really, you know, consider happening any time in, at least in our lifetimes. I wish it could be- Israelis are also very hopeful people.

53:02 I wish it could be different, but- Yeah... I feel like that's, that's practical. And the second thing I'll say is, what you laid out, Douglas, like, the whole path about this war and everything that's happened, you can't imagine what it did for my soul as you were saying it. Honestly, like, just remembering all of those victories the way it played itself out is so important for us.

53:20 And I think as Jews, we, l- memory is a huge part of our culture and our, our, uh, our, even our ritual, and there's going to be a holiday one day that we're going to celebrate for this, right? We'll probably have a fast day on a Monday, and then Tuesday is going to be we have to eat three meals. Why does it always have to be a fast? Well, because we're going to have to remember October 7th. Oh, okay. Mm.

53:40 That will be the fast. I found out the plan. And then the next day- Yeah... but the next day is going to be, like, a big festival, and there's going to be something that we read. Yes. And I'm going to submit the transcript of Douglas laying out the whole war, and I think that's going to be what we read. That's going to be like the Haggadah for October 7th war. What do you want us to eat, Douglas?

54:01 What do you want us to eat on that holiday? You get to pick. Um, uh, I, I, I could- I couldn't, uh, tell a Jew, uh, which dish to, to- Not British food Why? We're... You know, we could use some- Hey, hang on. I'm not going to have any of that. [laughs] You started with a, with something on my accent, then you decided that that was a mere flattery- I, I like, um-... in order to get me with an attack on British cuisine.

54:19 [laughs] Baked beans And that, you're decades out of date in your attack on British cuisine. It's, it's among the finest in the world now. [laughs] It's true. It's true. Well, you, you, you seem to have a, uh, misinformation problem out there. Yeah, absolutely. So you- Well, we got to do a lot-... should work on your perception... we, we got to do a lot to mop that up, and I hope- Yeah.

54:36 [laughs]... that the British Council and others are, uh, addressing this. Oh, my God. Yeah, we... Well, when you're busy having to defend Winston Churchill now instead of bangers and mash- Start with something easy... you know? That's, that's where we're at. I learned that Winston Churchill took a lot of his meetings in bed. [laughs] So now when I lie in my bed and scroll Instagram and answer an email- You don't feel so bad...

54:55 I'm like, I'm working. [laughs] Just, just like Churchill. He would also sometimes dictate articles, uh, from the bath. I know. That's my next step. [laughs] Yeah. No, no. That's my... The, the p- good people at Ark Media are going to have to, uh, deal with that. He was also much worse than Hitler, so be careful how you, uh- Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

55:10 Ac- according to the people who know nothing, but still- I-... but still speak. Yeah. Yeah. The painter from Austria. I wanna take a little turn here, 'cause I... Something that I've always wanted, all... I, I really wanted to ask you about this, but you had a, a column in the Free Press every Sunday for a while.

55:29 Um, I, I can't explain to you what it did for me, and I, I really wanted to tell you that, because every week I would read it, and it was so touching. And I, I felt like a dumb-dumb a lot of times, 'cause I couldn't believe how much you read, how much you know by heart, how much you, like, internalize literature and poetry.

55:47 And it really made me think differently about my reading practice and how I consume sort of the written word. And I'm curious if you could just say a word about that, and what, like, how you felt about that column, and sort of sharing your love of- Yeah... literature and the w- written word in general. Yeah. I mean, I, I...

56:04 That was, that column was an idea of Barry Weiss' because when she started the Free Press, uh, she said she wanted me to write a column. And at the time I was writing about four columns a, a week, and I said I didn't think I had another politics column in me. And, uh, she said, um, she said, "No, I don't want you to do another politics column.

56:21 I want it to be about something else." And I said, "Like what?" And she said, "Well, how come when I'm on stage with you, you sort of pull these quotes out- Mm-hmm... of your head, and, like, how do you do that?" And I said, "Well, I just re- you know, try to remember things, and if there's something I read which is, which really speaks to me, I, I try to keep it up here. I try to put it up there and, and hold onto it."

56:38 And, uh, so she said, "Write a column about that" And it was a, it was a great, um, it was a great spot by her, and I loved doing that. It was called Things Worth Remembering. It ran for about a year and, um, I, I, uh, I loved doing that column. Um, uh, sadly other things intervened for a time, not, not least the war, and, um, and put that on the back burner.

56:58 But, uh, I, I think, um, I think one of the things I tried to bring across in that, for me, literature, uh, is a sort of, uh, is a, is a close relation if not the same thing as, as, um, as religion. Yeah. Um, and if I, if I may, just explain what I mean by that. Uh, there was a, there was a, an interview with the poet W. H. Auden, who I referred to earlier.

57:27 There was an interview with him once where he was asked what the point of poetry was, and, uh, his, his first, uh, answer was to quote Dr. Johnson's glib observation that it, you know, is to make life better or at least not measurably worse. Mm. But the second thing that, that Auden said, uh, has always stayed with me, he said that, "I think that poetry and all great art is our, our, our greatest means, uh, of breaking bread with the dead." Mm. Mm. Mm, that's so beautiful.

57:59 And I think of great literature, uh, from all over the world as a means to break bread with the dead. Mm. Um, and, and there's something Eucharistic in that- Yeah... as, as, as Auden wanted to imply. Um, Seamus Heaney wrote a beautiful tribute to his friend Joseph Brodsky, uh, when he died, and did so in the meter and rhyme of one of Auden's greatest poems, his Elegy on the Death of Yeats. Mm.

58:29 Heaney wrote, uh, to hi- uh, to his late friend, he said, um, "Worshipped language can't undo damage time has done to you. Even your peremptory trust in words alone here bites the dust. Dust cakes still. See Gilgamesh feed the dead. So do again what Auden said good poets do, bite, break their bread." Mm. I think this is- Wow... the first time anybody has ever recited poetry on this show. Wow. That's a beautiful...

59:00 That's beautiful. And, and, and- That's beautiful... of course the reference there to Gilgamesh in the legend of Gilgamesh. Right. He, he, he, he, um, uh, where the, the dead are found, uh, uh, when we see them, they're eating cakes of dust. Mm. Right. The literature, poetry, and, and music, uh, these are my- Yeah... first loves in a way.

59:18 Do you have any guilty pleasures? I love that. Like, I can't ima- Like, do you also watch 90 Day Fiancé in addition to reading poetry? No, I, I, I- It's wonderful. You should. I don't know what counts as a guilty pleasure. Uh, uh, I watch a lot of, uh, you know, sort of, um, Netflix, Hulu, all of those sorts of things. Okay. And, um, I...

59:39 There, there are not very many true crimes documentaries that I haven't seen. Oh, me too. Oh, true crime. I didn't, I didn't realize that you're a true crime buff. Yeah. It's how I relax. That's definitely- I don't know how to explain it. It's... Isn't that strange, by the way? Yeah. Yeah. Do you know that show, um, um, that only exists in hotel TVs, Forensic Files? [laughs] I've seen it, yeah.

1:00:00 Every time you open up a hotel TV, it's there. Yeah. I once flew from LA to New York on 10 episodes of Forensic Files- Oh, my God... 'cause they're 30 minutes each. That's funny. And they're such lovely little bite-size murders and- This guy who saved the plane yesterday, he said that he wa- he knew what to do 'cause he watches, uh- Yeah... you know, these air crash shows.

1:00:19 And I just thought, "Oh, my God, that was brilliant." I told my f- my sons, I have four sons, I told them yesterday at dinner, I was like, "I feel like if I would've been on that plane, I would've known what to do. Like, I would have also pulled- Yeah... the th-" I would've taken selfies. They could not stop mocking me- Yeah... the entire rest of the night. They were like, [laughs] "Mom, you would've been sobbing in your seat.

1:00:40 You would've been h- hiding in the bathroom." I'm like, "No, I would've gone up there, I would've taken care of business." They were like, "Absolutely, no, no," You're... They're like, "You're the worst." Well, I mean, it's, it's, it's certainly, I hope the world has noticed that if you're on a hijacked plane, you should hope you're on a hijacked plane with Israelis. [laughs] I know.

1:00:55 But actually the world hasn't noticed, Douglas Murray, because I've been watching some of the coverage of this- Yeah... and it's all about the co-pilot who- or the captain, who is a hero and deserves all the recognition, but a lot of it barely, it kind of glosses over the, the role of the passengers in this. Yeah.

1:01:12 Look, I mean, um, Is- Israelis are in the, um, unenviable position of not being able to do anything right in global opinion at the moment. [laughs] Right. But, you know- Right... but again- Uh, the, the, uh, reality and the facts can make that change. Uh- Yeah. You know, maybe- Yeah... there are, uh, large numbers of people who think that, um, uh, yesterday a bunch of Israelis attacked an innocent pilot who was merely busily stabbing his co-pilot and, and that this was some act of Islamophobia or whatever.

1:01:44 Uh, maybe, maybe there are some people who think that. But, um, um, a larger number of, of normal people will, um, will have simply, you know, said, uh, "Good on the people who managed to do that, who managed to, uh, save the, the people on board." And, and you know, and again, uh, you know, the sum of this will just come down to facts.

1:02:05 Uh, if, if, if people want to decide that they don't want to benefit in their lives from the innovations and the discoveries and inventions and, and much more of the people of Israel, then they can, they can get their, um, future medical examinations, uh, courtesy- Yeah... of the Houthis. Yeah. We should- And, uh, and if they, if- People reverse BDS... if, if, if they want to, if they want to rely on the Houthis, uh, for cancer research, g- go ahead, be my guest. Go ahead. [laughs] Yeah.

1:02:33 They, they have good dance moves. Okay, wait, we should... Last questions. Last questions. Okay, you go first. Last questions, Yael, 'cause we've kept g- Douglas for a while. Well, I just wanna know about your writing. Like, do you, 'cause you're a prolific writer, do you write every day? Do you have like a, a system for how you do that? I think people are always curious to know.

1:02:51 Uh, uh, when I'm writing a book, I'm extremely, uh, strict with myself, uh, about, uh, word count, number of words a day and that sort of thing. Oh, interesting. Um, because I, I know I need to map out to meet a deadline. I need to map out how many words I'm going to get done. Mm-hmm. On that, um, there was a piece of advice which rather strangely comes via John Cleese, uh- Mm...

1:03:15 o- o- one of the Monty Python crew. Mm-hmm. A- and a great, great man, uh, and a hero, uh, of mine. Uh, John Cleese, when he wrote, was writing Fawlty Towers, was maybe the greatest sitcom ever written. Mm. Mm-hmm. Uh, he said that he and Connie Booth, when they were writing that, uh, he said that they, sometimes they would have a really good a- uh, day's writing, and then they'd have a day when they didn't get anything down.

1:03:38 But the thing to do was to make peace with the fact that, that, that was the pattern sometimes. Right. Um, a- and I, I remember when I first heard him say that, how true that rang. The, the worst thing for writers is, is, is that thing of thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to have writer's block," or, "I'm staring at a blank page," or...

1:03:59 To become super self-aware is, uh, uh, um, debilitating for a writer. And, um, but fortunately, I mean, I've been doing this for, I mean, th- this makes me sound so ancient, but I wrote my first, I wrote my first book in 1997, so- Wow... I've now been almost 30 years a- Wow... writer, which is insane to me.

1:04:22 And when my first book was reissued on the 20th anniversary of its first publication a few years ago, I, I just thought, what's the, the, the Fairport Convention song, Who Knows Where the Time Goes? I, I, it's, that's the great- Yeah... that's the great mystery. Mu- much greater mystery than how we write. Do you procrastinate at all? Oh, yeah. 'Cause you're not a big social media guy, right? You're not.

1:04:41 I, no, I don't, I don't post or promote social media because I don't want to work for billionaires for free. [laughs] That's so true. So you procrastinate by watching Forensic Files? [laughs] Uh, no. I never said I watched Forensic Files. I, I- Yeah. But you should. It's fantastic. [laughs] Uh, I, I can procrastinate, yes.

1:05:00 Reading the things I need to read, including books, uh, uh, that I, I, I want to read and enjoy reading, and also sometimes have to read. And, uh, and in my case as well, um, playing the piano. Uh, it's, it uses a different bit of the brain and, and so on. So for me, it's a much more- Yeah... relaxing and, uh, meaningful thing to do in my downtime. I don't know if piano playing would count as procrastinating.

1:05:22 I don't think it does, but- No... but i- in, in general, no. I, I, we're all capable of putting off what we should be doing and, um- Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah... and so on, but, but I try not to. Talking about time moving, I really, really, my son is getting married next week and I just keep looking at... He's home this week for the holidays, it's a Jewish holiday, and I just keep looking at him and I'm like, "How- Yeah... is this baby that I just was holding a few minutes ago, like, getting married next week?" Yes.

1:05:48 It's, it's, and time is so- Isn't it astonishing? It's, it's- It's astonishing. It's, I know. Yeah. I have that all the time. And it, it, I remember, uh, one of my great, uh, friends and mentors in the UK who died a few years ago in his 90s, and, uh, he used to say, "You've just, the thing you cannot c- I cannot communicate to you is age."

1:06:06 He said, "I just don't know how this happened. How am I here, you know, married for 70 years? And how am I, how am I here at 90? Uh, how did it, how did this happen?" Yeah. It's bizarre. And, uh, and, and you know, we all have that same instinct. It's, it's, it's al- it is and always will be a mystery.

1:06:22 The, the, well, the only line I ever think of that consoles me on that is that lovely Norm Macdonald line, he's one of my heroes. He said, "The only thing an old man can tell a young man is it goes fast, so fast." And he said, "The only tragedy is that the young man will never believe the old man." No, no. Yeah. I know. We think that aging is something that happens to other people. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes.

1:06:43 So you look around and you think, "God, everyone's got so old." [laughs] Yeah. [laughs] And, um, there's a beautiful, there's a beautiful and very consoling passage in Tolstoy to, uh, return to where we started almost. Say it in the original Russian. [laughs] No. [laughs] Alas, I can't. Um, uh, one of his characters, if I remember rightly, um, it, it, it, he describes the, the process of dying as being a, it, it, like the feeling of being on a train and having, and it stops at a station.

1:07:10 You have that sudden fear that you're on the wrong train- Mm. Mm... and it's going the wrong direction. And then you have the realization that no, you're on the train going to the place you're, you're meant to be going. Oh, my God. That is the worst thing I've ever heard Oh, I, I- I love it... I find it very consoling. I think it's, it's, it's- Oh, that just gave me, like, chills...

1:07:30 it's got the same, it's, it's got an aura of Ecclesiastes about it. Yes. You know, man- Yeah... goes to his long home. Mm. Um, yes. Yeah. Wow. Well, I'm just m- I'm glad you mentioned Clive James in there 'cause I feel, I have my, uh- Oh... Cultural Amnesia book right behind me, so it made me feel very smart 'cause- He was, he was a, a, a friend and a great hero. Wonderful, wonderful man. Really? Wow. I adored Clive. He was just brilliant.

1:07:55 That is a, the, that book is a, is a book that everyone should read. It's- Yes... Michael Moynihan suggested it, and he, I, I read it, and it's- Ah... it's some, I, I, I felt, I felt good afterwards, you know? Like, I felt more enriched and, and- And I remember when I, I interviewed Clive just before he died for The Spectator, and he said something then, um, which has always stuck with me and I would like to think would be what I, I, I would say as well at that stage was that I asked the question, uh, "Did you get what you wanted from this life?"

1:08:26 Mm. And I remember Clive just said, "Oh, yes, more than I deserved." Oh. Wow. Ugh. You know what's amazing about Douglas? And I wanna give you a, a compliment here. Usually we manage to drag down all our guests to our level. In what way? Uh, to, is it a very low level? Yes. It's like- You can, you can- It's like do you think Ahmadinejad is hot or not?

1:08:47 Like, what do we, do we think he's attractive- No... or not? Like- Mm. No? Well, I'm very glad we didn't get onto the hot terrorists question there. [laughs] Um, so, uh, uh, maybe, maybe another episode or maybe with another guest you could do that. [laughs] Well, thank you very, seriously, thank you so much for giving us your time today.

1:09:05 It really means a lot to us, and thank you for everything, all- Yes... every book you've written, every article you write, it just, it's really, we're, we're lucky to have Douglas Murray, honestly. We are, we are lucky to have Douglas Murray. Thank you. I appreciate you- The world is, not just the Jews. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. So thank you so much.

1:09:21 As soon as we got off that interview, I opened my Instagram and I saw, like, I guess somebody had translated his Free Press, uh, story to Hebrew. Mm-hmm. And so it was, like, one of the Israeli meme accounts, the viral accounts, and they called him, in Hebrew they called him a, Douglas Murray, the super commentator. Aw. That's cute.

1:09:39 [laughs] So I was like, I sent it to our mutual friend and I was like, "Can you send this to Douglas and tell him they called him a super commentator?" That's so cute. [laughs] That's funny. Well- Wait, wait. Hold on. [upbeat music] Can I say something mean? I'm gonna go right into it, Yael. Go for it.

1:09:57 Because you know the show Nobody Wants This, which is the most appropriate title for a show that has ever existed in the history of mankind, okay? Be- [laughs] Can I just say I watch that show and I don't remember if I liked it or hated it, which says so much about the show, like how forgettable it is, right?

1:10:18 Like, that is the wor- that would be worse than saying I hated it. I'm like, "I don't even remember if I liked it or hated it." That's how forgettable it was. Yeah. I, well, I do. I remember and I hated it, and it was so interesting to me that people kept sending it to me and saying, "Oh my God, they're podcasters. You're gonna love it, and it's about Judaism, and it's a rabbi."

1:10:36 And I watch it, and listen, this has nothing to do with Reform, Orthodox. I don't care. It's not about that. I just did not like that show. The characters are such caricatures- Mm-hmm, yeah... of, like, hu- real people, including the mother, which is the most offensive Jewish character I've seen ever. I mean, the whole thing- But we like that actress, don't we? I love her. I love that actress, Tova.

1:10:56 Wait, we should only be mean, we should only be mean to Adam Brody. And the, okay, now let's get to the mean part. I mean- Okay... this Adam Brody- Who's not even that hot. Let me put that out there... I mean, he's kinda hot, but- Right here. I mean, he's no General Dan Cain, but- Okay, fine Yeah. But he doesn't know anything about Judaism, and he doesn't know anything about Israel, and he doesn't need to comment on what's going on in geopolitics. He di- there was no need.

1:11:19 He literally could have just said nothing and everybody would be much better off. I just, I can't, I can't get over this guy. Like, for what? He's gonna live with this, he has to live with this now forever. That's it. It was a way for him to be like, "I have a big Jewish show coming up, but don't worry, I'm one of the good Jews, so you can listen to it." Ugh. Or watch it or whatever it is.

1:11:37 Well, I feel bad 'cause a lot of people love that show, a lot of my friends love that show, but I'm just ca- You wanna know about mean? I'm gonna say mean. It's a stupid show, they're dumb, it's a dumb premise, and I just hate the whole thing. So don't watch that show, watch an eight-hour Shoah documentary instead. [laughs] Or something like that. No.

1:11:55 No, if you like that show and you wanna watch it, okay, fine, but you have to commit to watching a Holocaust documentary afterwards. How's that? For each episode. For, yeah, uh, yes, exactly. One Holocaust documentary. Yes. Yes, exactly. Or, or you could also watch something about the current war in, in Israel and, you know- Yes, an October 7th documentary... October 7th. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's fine too.

1:12:14 Yeah, but from the Israeli perspective only. Yeah, a p- an anti-October 7th documentary, not a pro-October 7th, just to, you know, put that out there. Exa- to be clear. Okay. Anyway. Um, Adam Brody, we're, we're tra- I feel better now... we're trading you out this week. All right. If you are a subscriber... First of all, if you're not a subscriber, why you're an a- why are you an antisemite?

1:12:32 Let's start with that. But if you are a good person and subscribe to our show, uh, we are gonna do, um, we are gonna do some, uh, special episodes for you where we are even more unfiltered. Believe it or not, you're, you're getting the, the filtered version right now. So our DMs are open. That is our special show where we will answer listener questions for Arc Plus subscribers.

1:12:53 So check out the link in the show notes. You can send us your questions there. Don't be embarrassed. Seriously, like, there is no such thing as a dumb question. Exactly. [upbeat music] You probably wanna know what this move to Arc Media means for us, for you, and we have no idea what's going on, right, Kayla?

1:13:20 Well, we just got here. We're brand new. We're trying to figure it out ourselves, so we have a lot of questions too. So we'll let the boys explain to you. We'll toss it to Dan Senor and Elan Ben-Atar, who I'm sure you know, co-founders of Arc Media, and they'll tell, uh, you what's going on. We should probably listen to this part too. Yeah.

1:13:35 We'll let them mansplain it to us. Yeah. [upbeat music] Hi, I'm Dan Senor. And I'm Elan Ben-Atar. We're the co-founders of Arc Media. Today, Dan and I are here to announce three big changes coming to Arc Media that we think our community is really going to love. First, we're expanding our current membership into something that includes so much more.

1:13:58 We're calling it Arc Plus, our new upgraded membership program. We're also welcoming an incredible new podcast to the network. And lastly, we just launched our new product we're calling The Fold. It's a new way for our community to connect with each other. Both of these products will help fulfill our mission to become a town square for Jewish people everywhere.

1:14:21 When we first launched Call Me Back in 2020, it wasn't at all a show about Jewish life or Israel. But then October 7 happened, and everything changed overnight. We were trying to help people understand something that, to be quite honest, we were trying to understand ourselves. That day didn't just reshape Israel, it reshaped the entire Jewish world.

1:14:43 People were looking for a trusted voice, and they found it in Call Me Back. It became the go-to destination for millions who were trying to understand Israel's seven-front war and the wave of antisemitism that followed. And the Jewish diaspora turned to the podcast. We realized the need went well beyond Call Me Back, and our mission became clear: to build a trusted, forward-looking media company for Jews all over the world.

1:15:10 Which brings us to today, and to what's actually changing. First off, our Inside Call Me Back subscription is evolving into a new expanded subscription, Arc Plus. Arc Plus gives you exclusive content as well as ad-free listening across every Arc Media show. That means more conversations and insight with all of our Arc Media contributors, including our newest contributors, Michal Biton and Lauren Iso. The Call Me Back release schedule is shifting, too.

1:15:38 Monday's episode stays put. But our second episode, which used to go out on Thursday, now drops for Arc Plus members on Wednesday, two days early, before everyone else gets it on Friday. And for Arc Plus members, our Ask Me Anything episode keeps going out every Friday as usual. Most importantly, though, the price isn't changing.

1:15:59 Arc Plus is still eight dollars a month or eighty dollars a year, but you're getting a lot more with your membership. We're also happy to welcome Chosen People Problems to the network, formerly known as Ask a Jew. It's hosted by two of our favorite people, Yael Bartur and Chaya Leah Suffrin. If you come to Call Me Back for serious in-depth coverage, Chosen People Problems is where you'll go when you need a laugh.

1:16:24 They also cover Israel and Jewish life, but they're just a lot less buttoned up, and there is a lot more laughing involved. Let's take a listen. [upbeat music] Hi, welcome to Ask a Jew, where a secular, sinful Israeli speaks to her holy religious friend. I'm Yael, here with Chaya Leah. We're the Jimmy Kimmel and Brendan Carr of Judaism.

1:16:44 [upbeat music] My ultimate crush in this war remains General Dan Kane. I'm just putting that out to the universe. The biggest brat. Okay, but if Hitler wanted to meet with you, you wouldn't go? I mean, [laughs] it depend... I thought you were gonna say depend, depends what year. And I'm screaming at my kids under my... I'm like, "You are embarrassing Hashem right now. Because of you, there's antisemitism."

1:17:04 Wait, there's a second part to the Seder after the food? [laughs] Did we ever get a verdict on those nipple piercings? Was that a thing? [laughs] Sorry for those listening and editing this. It's gonna get worse from here, by the way. This should actually be the intro. Chosen People Problems. We're like Amit and a dove, but more so. Please tune in, or Dan Senor will be mad at us.

1:17:28 So yeah, that's why they hate my podcast. [laughs] Yeah, I get it. Clearly, Yael and Chaya Leah don't filter themselves. Most people are careful about what they say when talking about Israel and Jewish life, but Yael and Chaya Leah just say it like it is. And that's what we love about them. Their show wouldn't be half as good if they had anyone standing over their shoulder telling them what is safe to say.

1:17:50 That's true for all of our shows, and that independence is what makes Arc Media different, because there's never been more coverage of Israel in the Jewish world, and I don't think there's ever been less of it you can actually trust. We are not sponsored by a government, and we are not an advocacy group. We're independent. We are only accountable to our listeners. So when you become a member of Arc Plus, you're not just getting exclusive content.

1:18:15 You're supporting honest conversations about Israel and the Jewish world that we all depend on. And those conversations don't have to end when the episode does. When we speak with listeners, you tell us that you want a place to ask for advice, offer what you know, and meet people you would never otherwise cross paths with.

1:18:32 A place where we can explore Jewish life in full, from the hardest questions to the things that bring us joy. So we built it. It's a new private community called The Fold. We designed The Fold around three things: helping each other, thinking together, and enjoying Jewish life together. And the range is important.

1:18:53 Israel and geopolitics will be part of The Fold, so will Jewish history, religion, books, food, family, work, culture, and the questions that don't fit neatly anywhere. You might take an idea from one of our podcasts and explore it further. You might ask for advice about something happening on your college campus, recommend a book, swap a Shabbat recipe, or just post something that made you smile.

1:19:15 You'll hear from people you would never otherwise cross paths with. Someone in Sydney, Atlanta, Kansas City, Jerusalem, or perhaps right around the corner. People with different backgrounds and points of view, and real knowledge and experience to share. We'll get things started with live weekly events, opportunities to engage with Arc contributors, and new ways to go deeper on what you hear across our shows. Then members will take it from there.

1:19:42 That's what makes The Fold different. Arc listeners are already deeply engaged. Now you can find one another, and everyone can contribute. You can disagree. We just ask that you show up in good faith. The Fold is for you if you care more about understanding than winning. And we'll stay active moderating it so things don't go off the rails. The result should feel like Jewish life itself.

1:20:06 It needs to hold the hard things we are all dealing with. It can also hold a serious argument, a practical question, a new friendship, and a very good joke. You may first walk in because of something you heard on one of our podcasts, but we hope you keep coming back because of the people you meet and the community we build together. So bottom line.

1:20:26 Bottom line, Arc Plus, The Fold, and Chosen People Problems are available now. If you're already a subscriber, keep an eye on your inbox. We're sending an email that walks you through everything new you now have access to. And if you're joining us for the first time, it's easy. Arc Plus and The Fold are available on arcmedia.org, and you can find Chosen People Problems wherever you get your podcasts.

1:20:50 None of this would have happened without our Inside Call Me Back members and our Call Me Back listeners. Every question sent in, every episode shared with a friend, that's what got us here. If there's anything we've learned in the past few years, it's that despite being spread out all over the world, we are one people, and we need a town square.

1:21:10 We hope you'll come build it with us, and we'll see you on Arc Plus and in The Fold. [upbeat music]