What Really Happened at NatCon Israel?

I want to just get started first by, you know, I've been at conferences before and I've seen what happens. There's a vibe in the room, you know? And then it gets clipped up and it enters the interwebs, right? It starts to enter that sphere and the second it does, it gets processed in this different way. It sort of enters internet reality. And there's there's truth to that, but there's a perception that often doesn't necessarily reflect the vibe in the room. So, just set us up for us like what the energy was, the temperature check of the Nat of the NatCon conference. What was it like for people coming to Israel and being brought in the national conservatives, the Israelis there. Give me give me a sense of the vibe in real life. >> So, I mean it was a it was a fun conference. It was definitely different than other conferences I've been to even NatCons. I mean it's it's in it was in Jerusalem and it was for right-wing primarily, you know, the targeted audience was right-wing Israelis. That's you have to understand that's that's who's mostly there. Um, you know, the only very few Americans made the trip except for the people who were invited guests or staff. I don't I actually don't know of anybody else. So, it was the audience was almost exclusively Israeli. Now, plenty of like dual citizens. Like I had plenty of conversations with people who had sparkling flawless English who clearly, you know, of course they do. They were they were born in America or or what have you. >> [gasps] >> But, that's I think that's the sort of key context that that helps you understand like what who is this conference for? Who were we speaking to? Like I I gave a speech on the the lawfare in the United States, but it was it was a frank speech totally framed for an Israeli audience because it was about the lessons for that for Israelis judicial reform debate, which I'm I'm fairly familiar with. And the other speakers in the panel were all Israeli talking about various features of the lawfare regime against it. So, you know, that's I think, you know, the conference was sort of targeted at it's targeted at Israeli audience, an Israeli right-wing audience both in terms of like And so that that influences kind of how the panels are being constructed, what speakers are being asked to talk about. You know, we're we're thinking about how do we how do we add value? Like how do we do something interesting for an Israeli audience? And and I think that, you know, I wasn't personally involved in a lot of the speaker selection, but I wouldn't I helped I would have done something similar. I definitely would try to recruit some speakers who didn't ultimately end up coming for the very panel that sort of stirred up all the controversy. And my instruction to them was basically similar, which is like just say what you think, right? Like we're not going to guard it. Like the the point of having a panel like that is like we think an Israeli audience should be hearing you know, clearly this is this huge problem. We we think they should just be hearing like unvarnished what what do you think is happening on the right. >> So, it sounds like like intention-wise the goal is, you know, finding alignment and shared cause and value with sort of the right in the United States broadly speaking and the right in Israel broadly speaking and to see that there's possibly like, you know, shared interest and alignment in terms of in terms of just understanding, especially with your speech, you know, like what the right had gone through and felt under like you get told the story about what's going on in Israel politically. And it's often kind of dominated by this whole narrative of BB uh judicial [clears throat] reform, he's trying to, you know, have a power grab and there's like these people who don't get heard. So, in a sense it's an opportunity for Israelis on the right to also be heard and recognized, right? >> Correct. Exactly. I mean, we in a sense we are the we are we hear them mediated through their own kind of mainstream progressive now speakers. And the very interesting dynamic is this is also a function of who speaks English well in Israel. It is not the right as a general rule. Like Netanyahu is the glaring exception on this front. Many of the others went to MIT, you know that. Exactly. Exactly. And they love him. And and maybe Netanyahu also has a has sort of habit of wanting to only guy who really speaks English super well on his in his faction, you know, whatever that that is. But the point being that like we often hear about people like Smotrich, for example, who spoke um, Hebrew. We hear about him through the mediation of Israeli centrists and liberals and their attitude towards him kind of comes through and it's not I mean that happens too, you know, for us, right? Like Israelis uh were saying to me things like, "Well, yeah, I mean I read the New York Times to kind of understand American politics." I'm like, "Yeah, you see you see the problem. That doesn't necessarily give an accurate reflection of who the American right is, either." >> Yeah, I've always been frustrated when I see when I started to see the drift on the right about Israel. I'm like, "You guys are suspicious of every article coming out of this very same press apparatus and media apparatus when it comes to so many topics." The way they talk about Trump, the way they talk about COVID, the way they talk about everything domestically. And then suddenly internationally, "Huh, well, it's so interesting what's going on over there. I have full face and faith and trust that this is unbiased reporting." It's It's like a weird lapse. So, I think it's important to remind them of that. Like, "Yeah, you know, you just because an Israeli Haaretz" This was an Israeli paper that printed this, so it must be legit what's going on in Gaza. It's like, "You know, we have a New York Times here. Is everything coming out of New York Times true about America?" So, >> Right. And that's And that's And that's generous to Haaretz to compare them to New York Times. It would be more like comparing them to like, I don't know who what the communist rags are. Comparing them like a Hasan or something. That's at least my understanding of Haaretz's role. >> But, I think people on the right who aren't as informed, they hear the word Haaretz or like Israel It's presented by the liberals as a, you know, legitimate Israeli, you know, press operation. So, I think it's to provide some clarity and that's important. But, what I wanted to get into because the way it's being framed and I think processed online and people are receiving it as this lecture from American right-wingers to Israelis and Jews to shut up and keep quiet and let us build a coalition and and move to the side. So, I want to maybe correct those, um, you know, that [clears throat] that false, um, uh, the way people are perceiving it, the false perception. But, the way I look at it is there's this Everybody knows there's this like fissures on the right that have been happening, right? And I what I saw from some of the speeches at NatCon is there's a diagnostic element to it where if I'm interpreting it graciously, it's you know, don't shoot the messenger, how to win friends and influence people, how to form coalitions and not jump to conclusions, stop throwing anti-Semitism around where it doesn't belong, you know, with everything with all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I get that. That's sort of a diagnostic, but the problem for me is prescriptively, you know, it seems like all this messaging might be aimed at the wrong crowd because split in this or maybe it's not exclusively to be aimed just at Israelis and Jews. The The idea being that on the right, you have the the traditional sort of conservative positions that have largely been aligned with Israel and continue to be and see those alliances as strong and have made the case. And then you have like sinister actors who have really been the most divisive figures in the movement, namely Tucker Carlson and the like. And then you have the people in between who say, "Okay, um how do we call that out?" There's disagreement over how to deal with it. So, you kind of have these three lanes here and what's confusing is all the things they were saying about, you know, what you're missing about what's going on on the right. I'm like, "Say that to the Groypers. Say that to these people who are falling into Tucker's uh lane and Tucker's trap because you know, I think a lot of it has to do with previous relationships that have compromised people, so they associate Tucker with the right, but what he's doing is this leftist project in my opinion. So, call out the actual divisive people. Sure, don't manufacture Nazis for to hunt, but when there actually are people peddling these ideas that are anti-Western, anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, call that out, too. It's just as unproductive to ignore it. So, what's your take on that? >> Yeah, so so I think two sort of sort of prefaces here, right? First, who we are and second, who are we speaking to? So, first like, I feel like I've earned a decent amount of credit as someone who was willing to go out and defend Israel and the American alliance in very unfriendly forums. Like I, you know, in I went on like that ridiculous debate that was probably a a waste of time with Alex Jones and a whole bunch of other people. I did I go on Piers Morgan regularly. Um and I'm usually like the only guy defending this position. So, and Yoram is the like look, it's a conference in Israel that Yoram is putting on with his friends from the Israeli right. Like, we're not sitting here like this is not some secret plot to further anti-Semitism, guys. Like, we I promise you we have, you know, my I'd be spending my whole career doing very different things if that were my project. Um, and then secondly, the audience again for all these speeches is Israelis. So, if it feels like this is maybe a bit more bracing than like in a speech in America to like American Jews would be or or in America to an American Republican audience, then I feel like that's partially because we're in Israel and we're literally we flew to Israel and are speaking with a star of David behind us because I don't feel like we needed to just do as quite as much maybe throat clearing as as people would anticipate on the on the question of like it's we all think Israel's good. We're at we we like it. We're here. We flew we flew a long way for a short conference. Like, it's we're here to do that. So, I think that that and and and so that helps people I think this was designed to be descriptive, right? And maybe and prescriptive only to the extent it is like these panelists' ideas of what they think is the right way to talk about or understand the what's happening on the American right. >> Mhm. >> And so once you I mean and now I don't agree with every single point they made, obviously. Like, it's a it's we didn't we don't vet their speeches. Like, we we put people who we thought would have interesting things to say. And to be fair, I think there is an aspect of NatCon that is historic through the conferences that it's supposed to be a place where people say somewhat provocative things. Not not not offensive, but like this is supposed to be a provocative conference. >> [music] [music] >> Mhm.