#418 – Israel-Palestine Debate: Finkelstein, Destiny, M. Rabbani & Benny Morris

**Lex Fridman** (0:00)
The following is a debate on the topic of Israel and Palestine with Norman Finkelstein, Benny Morris, Mouin Rabbani and Steven Bonnell, also known online as Destiny. Norman and Benny are historians, Mouin is a Middle East analyst, and Steven is a political commentator and streamer. All four have spoken and debated extensively on this topic. The goal for this debate was not for anyone to win or to score points. It wasn't to get views or likes. I never care about those. And I think there are probably much easier ways to get those things if I did care. The goal was to explore, together, the history, present and future of Israel and Palestine in a free-flowing conversation. No time limits, no rules. There was a lot of tension in the room from the very beginning. And it only got more intense as we went along. And I quickly realized that this very conversation, in a very real human way, was a microcosm of the tensions and distance and perspectives on the topic of Israel and Palestine. For some debates, I will step in and moderate strictly to prevent emotion from boiling. For this, I saw the value in not interfering with the passion of the exchanges, because that emotion in itself spoke volumes. We did talk about the history and the future, but the anger, the frustration, the biting wit, and at times respect and camaraderie were all there. Like I said, we did it in an perhaps all too human way. I will do more debates and conversations on these difficult topics, and I will continue to search for hope in the midst of death and destruction, to search for our common humanity in the midst of division and hate. This thing we have going on, human civilization, the whole of it, is beautiful. And it's worth figuring out how we can help it flourish together. I love you all. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We got ExpressVPN for privacy, Babel for learning new languages, Policy Genius for insurance, and Aidsleep for you guess to sleep. Choose wisely, my friends. Also, if you want to work with our amazing team or just get in touch with me, go to lexfriedman.com/contact. And now on to the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. I use them to protect my privacy on the internet. I've used them for many years. I've had great conversations with several people on the podcast about the NSA and the overreach and power that's there. And it's really interesting to think about the value of privacy, the value of digital privacy in our lives, how much we take for granted, how much we look the other way when the product or whatever we're using is good enough and we become the product, our data becomes the product. It's really interesting. I think transparency there is required because while it is true, all of us value privacy. We're very hypocritical on that point in many cases. We distrust certain things that don't violate privacy that much. And we trust blindly other things that violate a huge number of privacy or at least have the capacity to. A lot of us use the smartphone with a camera looking at us. Always we trust that device. Human psychology is fascinating. It worries me how easily we could be convinced at a mass scale by narratives, distributed propaganda or centralized propaganda. It all works. And it all is terrifyingly effective. Something to think about. And you should have several layers of protection in your digital and your physical space. ExpressVPN, a good VPN. And that's the one I use. It is something you should definitely be using. You can go to expressvpn.com/lexpod for an extra three months free. This episode is also brought to you by Babbel, an app and website that gets you speaking in a new language within weeks. They got Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, and more. I'm doing more and more translation. In fact, if you are somebody that speaks fluently in Russian and professionally does translation, I just did a very lengthy podcast where both me and the guests speak Russian. I'm looking for translation from Russian to English professionally done, like really, really well done. This is actually a very difficult task. Then also for hopefully the same person, but not necessarily to do the voiceovers in English. Given how fast the other person speaks that I interviewed, it's actually a pretty tricky thing. But all that is to say that I deeply care about breaking down the barriers that language creates. I think a lot of those barriers are artificial. They hide from ourselves the common humanity that's obviously there. There's differences, of course, in culture, in the music of a people, in the music of a language, but underneath it all, it's all the same fears, the same hopes, the same excitements, the same dynamics, the same things we care about, family and food and simple joy, big joy, chasing dreams, all that kind of stuff. Anyway, I use Babel more to learn languages I don't know that well. Sometimes I'll use it for Russian just for fun practice, getting the rust off. But I'm learning Spanish now. Also, I took French in high school and I'm very rusty, so I'm using Babel to again get some of the rust off. And one day I hope to get better at German and Italian. I've traveled to Italy a couple of times. It would be very helpful to be able to speak the language so that I could navigate the streets with grace and skill. Anyway, for a limited time, you can get 50% off a one-time payment for a lifetime on Babel subscription at babel.com/lexpod. That's 50% off at babel.com/lexpod, spelled babbel.com/lexpod. Rules and restrictions apply. This episode is also brought to you by Policy Genius, a marketplace for insurance, all kinds, life insurance, auto, home, disability. And I apologize for the heaviness of my tone in this few minutes that we get to spend together here. This episode was a difficult one. And perhaps this is a good moment to mention why. Because it's human beings talking about other human beings who are suffering. Human beings sitting in the comfort of a room that's not getting bombed, that's not getting shot at. A room that's surrounded by other rooms and other buildings that are safe. In the way that most places in America are safe. Meaning even when there's a crime, the rule of law applies. But the raw aspects of human nature, of the destruction and death involved in wars, seems out of this world. It is difficult to really hold inside your mind. The things I've seen in Ukraine, the hate I've seen in people's eyes when I traveled to the West Bank. There's a lot of love there, but there's also a lot of hate. There's a heaviness that comes with conversations like this. Of course, I really, really tried to bring out the humanity. Even moments of joy, the camaraderie, I tried. I'll continue to try. Anyway, this is about Policy Genius. You can find life insurance policies there that start at just $292 per year for $1 million of coverage. Head to policygenius.com/lex or click the link in the description to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you can save. That's policygenius.com/lex. This episode is brought to you by 8 Sleep and Spot 3 Cover. Another thing that I get to enjoy in life and others don't.