Discussion on Houthi Support and Jewish Identity

Okay.

I totally support the Houthis as a Jew.

You said that, Norm.

Yeah, totally.

The Houthi flag says, "God is the greatest.

Death to America, death to Israel, a curse upon the Jews,

victory to Islam."

Mm-hmm. Yes, I'm aware of that.

How do you rec- how do you reconcile this?

I have no problem reconciling it for this very simple reason,

and you'll allow me... You can disagree, I have no problem with that.

From the,

from my first conscious moments in my own life, okay,

my parents

loathed the Germans.

They didn't loathe the Nazis,

they loathed, they hated the Germans.

In fact, I vividly recall

my father once recommended me a book on the Nazi Holocaust,

and I asked him,

you know, "What makes this book special?"

And he said to me, "I liked it

that the author didn't talk about Nazis,

he talked about Germans."

Now, my parents were very decent human beings.

The apple did not fall far from the tree.

But I could understand that

sentiment. The only,

the only Jews

the Houthis have known

are the Israelis.

It's a regrettable fact

that they don't know,

have never experienced any other

kinds of Jews.

I remember I once asked my mother, just out of curiosity,

"Did you ever meet...

Did you ever come into contact with a German who was

decent?"

And she said to me, she thought hard,

and she said, "I remember

one German soldier.

He had a kinda guilty look on his face."

That was all she could remember. One.

So it doesn't surprise me

that she loathed all Germans.

Do I wish

the Houthis were more discriminating

in their, in their slogans? Of course I wish it.

But do I understand where it comes from?

Yes.

And will that

slogan of theirs

color

my appreciation

of the fact that alone

among the world's peoples

they are resorting to armed force

to stop

the genocide in Gaza?

I have to ask myself the question,

how would my parents have felt

if this ragtag army

happened to be situated on the

point in the world's map

where they could inflect

the outcome of the Final Solution,

and these people, this ragtag people

hailing back to the Middle Ages,

they were investing all of their physical

resources and moral energy

to stopping

the extermination.

How would my parents react? Would they ask, "What are

their political slogans?"

I don't think so. That's my honest reaction.

I'm not trying to be rhetorical with you.

You asked me a concrete question,

that's how I reasoned it through.

And we should be clear that that blockade-

...

that, that blockade that the Houthis have imposed

is circumvented by the UAE, Saudi Arabia,

and Jordan,

which has created a land corridor to supply Israel with

its

vacuum cleaners and consumer goods.

Next question.

Just one more sentence.

Yes, please do.

In your characteristically slow and pointed speech

pattern,

Am Yisrael Chai.

I don't understand the relationship of those two statements, but okay.

They're not going anywhere.

Mm-hmm.

Free Gaza! Free Gaza!

Woo-hoo!

I, I, I wanna speak honestly to you.

If it does go somewhere,

and I do believe a problem is lurking now,

if it does go somewhere,

it's of your own making.

You've gone too far.

Yeah.

They said already... A book I wrote in

2008, it was taken, the title was taken by

something written by Gideon Levy

referring to Operation Cast Lead,

and the title was, This Time We've Gone Too

Far.

And Cast Lead is now a pale,

pale, pale comparison

to what's happened to the people of Gaza,

and I don't say it with glee.

I'm just saying,

if you do go somewhere,

it's of your own making