Dr. Cornel West on the Israeli Occupation | Joe Rogan

I mean one of the sadder features of our moment given all our the joy of reveling in each other's humanity and music and so forth is that you know you got impending ecological catastrophe, escalating nuclear catastrophe, economic catastrophe that will test wealth and equality all around the world, spiritual catastrophe in terms of intensifying forms of depression, suicide, wasted lives, lack of self-respect, not believing in oneself and thinking that the only way you can really make it is by imitating the mainstream forms of conformity. And then the political catastrophes of right-wing movements all around the world. And by right-wing movements what I mean is the rule of big money, big military, and then scapegoat the most vulnerable and try to convince the most vulnerable that it's their fault that they're in the subordinate positions that they are rather than giving them a fair chance, you see. And that's the makings of new forms of fascism and so on, you see. And you say to yourself, you know, how do we hold on to some sense of hope? And there is no hope without wrestling with despair. If you're afraid of despair, you never have hope. When you say... You got to wrestle with it. You got to wrestle with it. Not allowing to have the last word, but you got to wrestle with it. When you're talking about your concern about nuclear catastrophe, impending nuclear catastrophe, are you talking about what's going on right now with Iran? Well, I'm thinking about Russia, U.S. missile heads, Iran, the possibility of war, U.S. bombing, the pressure of Iran, Iranian brothers and sisters are as precious and priceless as anybody else. They just happen to be under an authoritarian rule that does need to be changed and transformed. There's no doubt about it. But you think, you know, all the hell they've been through, man. Eight years, the United States was on the side of Saddam Hussein. And they were all alone in the world. I mean, it's very much like our Jewish brothers and sisters felt in 1973. They'd already undergone a genocidal attack, a one out of three, press the Jews killed. And in the world, all by themselves other than the U.S. empire, you say, oh, my God, who can I rely on? And that brings out the worst in people, the worst in people, because it's all about in-crowd, in-group security. Authoritarian on the inside and distrustful of the whole world on the outside. And this is why it's so difficult to have a discussion about Israeli occupation with our precious Palestinian brothers and sisters, because to try to be able to cast a light on how an underdog, because that's the history of Jews, two thousand years, is basically underdog. Became an oppressor. And how they become top dogs tied to the U.S. top dogs. Now, you always have, again, those Jewish voices and organizations that are critical of Israeli occupation, critical of any actions of human beings, including Jews that need to be called into question. But it's hard to keep track of the rich and priceless humanity of Palestinian brothers and sisters under occupation, second class citizenship, when it's very clear that Jews have been so viciously treated for two thousand years in the history of the West as well as the history of the Middle East. And yet we have a moral duty to keep track of the preciousness of press-Palestinian babies, just as we ought to keep track of the preciousness of Jewish babies. And Gaza and Tel Aviv must have a spotlight in terms of what those human beings are going through, on both sides of that divide, as it were, even given the asymmetric relation of power and the structure of domination, called the occupation. I'd say the same thing about Tibet. I'd say the same thing about Kashmir. I'd say the same thing about Western sub-Saharan, under-Moroccan domination. There's so many examples that we human beings generate that require our moral and spiritual witness and our analytical attention, and our artists who can authorize an alternative, even if only for a moment, an alternative. Thank you.