Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Everything You’ve Been Told About Palestine Is Wrong — Transcript

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1. 0:04Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a perspective on
2. 0:07Israel and the Middle East that very few
3. 0:10people can offer. She was raised as a
4. 0:12devout Muslim, personally exposed to the
5. 0:15teachings she is about to describe, and
6. 0:17today she is one of the most outspoken
7. 0:19critics of radical Islam. In this
8. 0:21remarkable exchange given over at
9. 0:23Wheaton College in Illinois, she
10. 0:25explains why she believes the war
11. 0:27against Israel is about far more than
12. 0:30borders or territory, and why the West
13. 0:32fundamentally misunderstand what Israel
14. 0:35is facing. These are some very powerful
15. 0:37clips. Listen carefully to what she
16. 0:39says, and let us know your thoughts in
17. 0:41the comments below.
18. 0:43>> I learned as a matter of doctrine that
19. 0:45dying while killing for the sake of
20. 0:47Allah was the highest aspiration for a
21. 0:50believing Muslim. This is called
22. 0:51martyrdom in Islam. I learned that Jews
23. 0:54had a special place in hell, and we sat
24. 0:57together very often in the mosque in our
25. 0:59neighborhood, but also in school,
26. 1:02and we begged, we we went pleading with
27. 1:05God to destroy them all, man, woman,
28. 1:08child. On a doctrinal level,
29. 1:11Israel and her enemies have a completely
30. 1:15different conception of human life. And
31. 1:18so what I know from a doctrinal
32. 1:20perspective is taking children and women
33. 1:24and civilians and placing them
34. 1:26strategically in a place where they know
35. 1:28when Israel retaliates that women and
36. 1:31children and civilians will be killed is
37. 1:34part of the doctrine of martyrdom.
38. 1:37It is taught
39. 1:39that this is schools that Hamas
40. 1:41administers, and it's not different in
41. 1:43the West Bank, and by the way, it really
42. 1:45isn't different even though I was
43. 1:47growing up in Nairobi, Kenya. It's the
44. 1:49exact same message that I got. To die
45. 1:54fi sabilillah, for the sake of Allah, is
46. 1:57the greatest achievement we all must
47. 1:59aspire to. So, that concept of
48. 2:02martyrdom, that concept of valuing or
49. 2:06devaluing human life, if you will, if
50. 2:08you if you look at it from a Christian
51. 2:09perspective, it is a devaluing human
52. 2:11life. If you look at it from their
53. 2:13perspective, it is the ultimate reward
54. 2:17is what you get in the hereafter. So,
55. 2:19Israel has to deal with that. And I
56. 2:21think sometimes we are too quick
57. 2:24and [snorts] too eager to judge
58. 2:27because we know that Israel is bound,
59. 2:31biblically bound,
60. 2:33by the very same values we share, that
61. 2:36are
62. 2:37Old Testament and New Testament, that
63. 2:38are in the Bible. So, it it's easier for
64. 2:41us to condemn Israel because we know
65. 2:42that is going It's It falls on sensitive
66. 2:45ears.
67. 2:46We never We talk about territory when
68. 2:49This dispute is not territorial, it's a
69. 2:51doctrinal and civilizational. And our
70. 2:54governments, Americans and European
71. 2:56governments, talk to Arab nations about
72. 2:59resolving this as a territorial dispute,
73. 3:02and they avoid the larger picture, which
74. 3:04is doctrinal and civilizational.
75. 3:07>> Which is it?
76. 3:08>> When you're proud of your theology, when
77. 3:10you're proud of what you believe in, you
78. 3:12don't hide it. You describe Hamas and
79. 3:14Hezbollah and all the other organized
80. 3:17jihadi networks that are attacking
81. 3:19Israel.
82. 3:21But, living in countries that are far,
83. 3:24far away from Israel, think about
84. 3:26Pakistan and Indonesia and various parts
85. 3:29of Africa, have nothing to do with the
86. 3:31Middle Eastern conflict, and the very
87. 3:32same mosques and schools and Islamic
88. 3:35centers, we get the same message. As
89. 3:37long as Israel exists as a nation, we as
90. 3:41Muslims are doing something wrong. It
91. 3:43has to be destroyed and eliminated. And
92. 3:46so, it's not hidden, it's advertised,
93. 3:48it's announced, it's a recruiting tool.
94. 3:51I understood the orchestrated abuse
95. 3:54of the key building blocks of the
96. 3:57secular liberal state. The principles of
97. 3:59freedom of speech, freedom of religion,
98. 4:01freedom of association, the immigration
99. 4:03and asylum system, the civil narratives,
100. 4:06the legal loopholes. I understood all of
101. 4:09that. I understood what happened on
102. 4:10October 2023
103. 4:13in Israel and Hamas's horrific attack,
104. 4:16not as a territorial dispute as the news
105. 4:19media tells us, but as a doctrinal and
106. 4:22civilizational war. The way I look at
107. 4:24this question is I see it very often by
108. 4:27the people who are opposing the question
109. 4:29as a displacement activity. Sure, Israel
110. 4:33is faced with a theology that wants to
111. 4:36eliminate it as its neighbor.
112. 4:38And sometimes it can be overwhelming to
113. 4:40be a tiny nation, it's the size of New
114. 4:42Jersey,
115. 4:44and to have as your neighbor Iran and
116. 4:46Syria and Lebanon and that kind of
117. 4:49thing.
118. 4:50But I go very often to Europe, and the
119. 4:52European elite love talking about and
120. 4:55judging Israel. But now they are
121. 4:58confronted with the same theology on
122. 5:01their soil.
123. 5:03And what do they do? Every time these
124. 5:05difficult and sensitive questions come
125. 5:07up, they can't protect the Jews in
126. 5:10Britain and in France and in Sweden and
127. 5:13in Italy and in Holland because that
128. 5:15theology has come for them.
129. 5:18But it's also come for their own
130. 5:19citizens, and the response I always get
131. 5:21is let's talk about Israel. It's a
132. 5:24displacement activity.
133. 5:26>> Yeah.
134. 5:26>> It's psychological. It's denial. Let me
135. 5:29tell you something, ladies and
136. 5:30gentlemen, forget about Israel. Israel
137. 5:33will look after itself. Let us face this
138. 5:36force here because it's now here. Can I
139. 5:39also please point out that in
140. 5:41right after October 7, and Israel was is
141. 5:45up to retaliate, and the leadership
142. 5:47started speaking to Arab countries, to
143. 5:49Egypt, Jordan, "Please come and take the
144. 5:52people because we are going to go and
145. 5:54find Hamas." To go and find Hamas and
146. 5:56seek to destroy Hamas was the right
147. 5:58thing for Israel to do. But why did the
148. 6:01fellow Arab Muslim countries refuse to
149. 6:04take the Gazans? That is the question
150. 6:07that is never asked in the lead-up
151. 6:10to establishing a state for the Jewish
152. 6:13people.
153. 6:14Arab countries responded with a great
154. 6:17deal of hostility. And the Jews who
155. 6:20lived in Arab countries were evicted in
156. 6:23countries like Egypt, Yemen, Saudi
157. 6:26Arabia. They were That is the Middle
158. 6:28East, so all across there were about
159. 6:31850,000,
160. 6:32about a million Jewish people.
161. 6:34That tiny state of Israel absorbed all
162. 6:37of those people. It never
163. 6:40Jewish refugees never became a problem
164. 6:43because for the state of Israel, it's
165. 6:45not theologically do want a piece of
166. 6:48real estate to establish a state and
167. 6:50live peacefully.
168. 6:52But when you make it theological, then
169. 6:54you use the human beings,
170. 6:57the displaced Arabs, the what the term
171. 7:00Palestinian has for a long time meant
172. 7:02something else, but the ethnic Arabs
173. 7:04that have, as you pointed out,
174. 7:07greater, larger land masses. The idea
175. 7:11was never to reabsorb them. The idea was
176. 7:14to park them there and with UNRWA, a
177. 7:17United Nations agency, international
178. 7:19grants, money was used to keep them
179. 7:23there on hold because
180. 7:26those human beings were a a sacrifice
181. 7:29for that big theological restoration of
182. 7:33the caliphate. And in order to restore
183. 7:35the caliphate, you have to get rid of
184. 7:38the state of Israel. You cannot have
185. 7:41a Jewish state today.