Speaker 1: My book earlier this year is Real and Civilization, The
Speaker 1: Fate of the Jewish Nation, The Destiny of the West
Speaker 1: is a book, not, as the title would necessarily imply,
Speaker 1: just about foreign policy or anything like that. Rather, it
Speaker 1: is a book about the foundations the origins of Western civilization. Well,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, there was at least one other
Speaker 1: author out there who had something of a mind melt
Speaker 1: with me, and that woman is Melanie Phillips. Melani Philips
Speaker 1: is a long standing British conservative commentator, newspaper columnist, TV presenter,
Speaker 1: and also the author of the book that I currently
Speaker 1: hold in my hands, in which I recently read myself,
Speaker 1: The Builders Stone, How Jews and Christians built the West
Speaker 1: and why only they can save it now The Builderstone
Speaker 1: and my book is on civilization. There are some things
Speaker 1: that are a little different, I think Melani and I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily agree on everything. We'll see if there are
Speaker 1: any areas where we disagree over the course of our
Speaker 1: conversation here in just a few moments. But certainly broadly speaking,
Speaker 1: we agree on the big questions. And the big question
Speaker 1: is essentially as follows in the aftermath of the Hamas
Speaker 1: program of October seven, twenty twenty three, And not just
Speaker 1: the pagram, but the world's reaction to the Pagram, And
Speaker 1: boy was that a horrific reaction. In the aftermath of that,
Speaker 1: can the West recover? Can the West one understand what
Speaker 1: it is that which built it, which above all is
Speaker 1: a biblical inheritance. Can the West understand that? Can it
Speaker 1: come to appreciate that? And can it come to fight
Speaker 1: for that and take a stand for that? That is
Speaker 1: the most important thing, because the reaction to the program
Speaker 1: wasn't just quote unquote anti Israel or anti Semitic, it
Speaker 1: was anti Western. When you are failing to distinguish between
Speaker 1: a culture that loves life and a culture that loves death,
Speaker 1: for a culture that flourishes and a culture that seeks
Speaker 1: destruction subjugation. When you can't distinguish, when you are incapable
Speaker 1: of logical you are morally discerning between these two dichotomous,
Speaker 1: completely opposing forces, then you have lost the plot. And
Speaker 1: if the West is to be saved, it must re
Speaker 1: understand the plot at its most basic, rudimentary level. Because
Speaker 1: it was the Bible that gave us Western civilization. Sure,
Speaker 1: there is absolutely a role to be played for some
Speaker 1: no Biblical sources, namely ancient Greek and Roman Greco Roman thought.
Speaker 1: There's a role for that, certainly, no doubt about that, Aristotle, Cicero,
Speaker 1: any of the greats. But the West would not be
Speaker 1: the West where not for the Bible. It's not necessarily
Speaker 1: just free speech or the marketplace of ideas or the
Speaker 1: economic market places in general. These things are important. There
Speaker 1: are key features of moderny is something that Melani Phillips
Speaker 1: emphasized in her book. But the core, the absolute bedrock
Speaker 1: of that which has made us great, and that which
Speaker 1: alone can actually still make us great. The core is
Speaker 1: the Bible. That is these shared inheritance of Jews and Christians.
Speaker 1: That is, these shared inheritance of the original people of
Speaker 1: the book, the original folks led by Moses who stood
Speaker 1: there at the base of Mount Sinai during the Revelation,
Speaker 1: the shared inheritance of the children of Issiel, the Jews
Speaker 1: and Christiendom, the great gentile offshoot that spread the message
Speaker 1: and civilized what today is known as the West. Jews
Speaker 1: and Christians should both be proud of the role that
Speaker 1: their religions have played in the development of the West.
Speaker 1: But if the West is going to stand up today
Speaker 1: against the forces that seek to subjugate it, against intersectional wokeism, Islamism,
Speaker 1: and global neoliberalism. It's going to have to regain some
Speaker 1: confidence and appreciation of what it once was and what
Speaker 1: God willing will once again be in short order. Well,
Speaker 1: it's the end of the holiday season and it's the
Speaker 1: time of the year where we are all having those
Speaker 1: deep questions as to what should we believe, should we
Speaker 1: believe in anything at all? What is the basis of
Speaker 1: our civilization? All the fun things that we discuss not
Speaker 1: just this on of the year, but oftentimes on a
Speaker 1: day day basis here on the Josh Hammer Show. And
Speaker 1: it's really a thrill to bring on a long standing writer,
Speaker 1: thinker and commentator who's been saying and writing about these
Speaker 1: very topics for many many years now, including most recently
Speaker 1: in the form of the book that I Hold in
Speaker 1: my hands, The Builder's Stone. Melanie Phillips is the author
Speaker 1: of The Builderstone. She's also a columnist at Times of London,
Speaker 1: long standing British conservative commentator. I recently finished this book
Speaker 1: and thoroughly enjoyed it. So Melanie Phillips, thank you for
Speaker 1: joining the Josh Hammer Show.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Josh, very good to be with you.
Speaker 1: Well, it's really a delight. So I did recently finish
Speaker 1: this book, as I said, and I was struck by
Speaker 1: reading it. Melanie, I think you and I had something
Speaker 1: of a mind meld for your book. In my book,
Speaker 1: Israel and civilization have a lot in common. There are
Speaker 1: some differences, to be clear that they're not exactly verbatim
Speaker 1: carbon copy, but very broadly speaking similar books written in
Speaker 1: a in a post October seventh milieu in this world,
Speaker 1: the world where the world has been morally confused as
Speaker 1: as to who to side with, not just between Israel
Speaker 1: and Hamas, but more broadly speaking, between civilization and barbarism.
Speaker 1: More generally speaking, Melli, I think I think one thing
Speaker 1: that I would like to kind of start in and
Speaker 1: to get our conversation started here. For a while, right
Speaker 1: of center partisans such as myself, perhaps yourself as well.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how you would self described, but conservatives,
Speaker 1: I think felt pretty reassured that we were unanimously on
Speaker 1: the side of team civilization and not team barbarism. But
Speaker 1: unfortunately here in the United States there have been some
Speaker 1: signs that not everyone who thinks of him or herself
Speaker 1: as being conservative or on the right is necessarily part
Speaker 1: of teams civilization. I was told me that maybe you
Speaker 1: could kind of just dive in unpack some of these strands. Here,
Speaker 1: what is Western civilization as you can see and define it?
Speaker 1: And then perhaps by extension, why do you think that
Speaker 1: some folks who think of themselves as being on the
Speaker 1: right seem to have lost the plot a little?
Speaker 2: Yes? Well, to me, western civilization is more than just
Speaker 2: a geographical area. Obviously, it consists very largely of the
Speaker 2: geographical West. But to me, it's an idea, and the
Speaker 2: idea is modernity. To me, the West became the West,
Speaker 2: as it were, in the way that we think of it,
Speaker 2: when the modern world really emerged after the eighteenth century Enlightenment,
Speaker 2: when we had the division of church and state, the
Speaker 2: arrival of toleration of minorities, the development of what became
Speaker 2: democracy and the democratic nation state, and that powered what
Speaker 2: we now think of as the world, which was to
Speaker 2: be the cutting edge of technology, of science, of reason.
Speaker 2: That's what I mean when I that's what I mean
Speaker 2: when I talk about the West. Now, your second question
Speaker 2: was what happened to the West and was that your question?
Speaker 2: What was your question?
Speaker 1: Well, let's let's start there. I want to get into
Speaker 1: also some internest sine fights happening on the right of center.
Speaker 1: Let's let's let's start with why did conservatives?
Speaker 2: Why do conservatives lose the plot? Okay, so perhaps undlike yourself,
Speaker 2: I never thought conservatives had the plot. Ever, to me,
Speaker 2: conservatives had lost the plot a long time ago. And
Speaker 2: it's really the failure of conservatism, I would say, over
Speaker 2: several decades, which has caused this situation to occur. Because
Speaker 2: for sure, what has driven what we are now seeing,
Speaker 2: the eclipse of reason, the replacement of truth by power,
Speaker 2: ideologies based on power relations, and all those things which
Speaker 2: from which I think in large measure the animus against
Speaker 2: Israel has developed. It was the left that powered all
Speaker 2: that through their ideological preconceptions and obsessions. But we should
Speaker 2: have been able to rely on conservatives to conserve, to
Speaker 2: understand what was at stake, what was at risk, and
Speaker 2: from where I was sitting, and I'm going back now
Speaker 2: to you may be shocked to hear this, but even
Speaker 2: in the time of Margaret Thatcher, when I was a
Speaker 2: young journalist and I was working for The Guardian, and
Speaker 2: it was considered by everybody on the left that she was,
Speaker 2: you know, totally dreadful and so right wing and so on.
Speaker 2: And it was around that time that I began to
Speaker 2: realize something was going terribly wrong with the West, and
Speaker 2: I decide did I realized that she didn't understand what
Speaker 2: was going on at all, and that the right, the
Speaker 2: forces of conservativesm And I'm really speaking from Britain because
Speaker 2: from the perspective of Britain, because that's the country I
Speaker 2: know best. But I think this kind of crosses over
Speaker 2: to a large extent to what happened in America as well.
Speaker 2: Maybe not quite the same time, but what happened was
Speaker 2: that this that when the Soviet Union collapsed, when the
Speaker 2: Berlin Wall fell, I remember conservatives in Britain saying, what
Speaker 2: do we do now for an encore? We've shot our fox,
Speaker 2: we don't have an enemy anymore. What banner are we
Speaker 2: now going to march behind? And I remember the answer
Speaker 2: the answer was, we will march behind the banner of liberty.
Speaker 2: And at that time, at that point, I thought, oh, no,
Speaker 2: they don't get it, because if they are adopting liberty
Speaker 2: as their light motif, they are going to occupy exactly
Speaker 2: the same patch of ideological ground as the left. The
Speaker 2: left did liberty in the social sphere, lifestyle choice. Everybody
Speaker 2: makes up their own lifestyle. Nobody can tell anybody that
Speaker 2: their lifestyle or culture is better than anyone else, all
Speaker 2: that sort of stuff. It's basically to do with the self. Me,
Speaker 2: I am an individual whose own subjective perspective trumps facts
Speaker 2: and evidence and reason. That was what the left was saying,
Speaker 2: and it was busily collapsing Western education as a result,
Speaker 2: because it decided that the nation's state, the Western nation state,
Speaker 2: was born in the original sins of colonialism and imperialism
Speaker 2: and exploitation and whiteness and all the rest of it. Now,
Speaker 2: faced with this, the conservatives didn't really it didn't realize
Speaker 2: this because the conservatives only saw the Soviet Union. The
Speaker 2: Soviet Union disappeared, therefore there was no problem anymore. So
Speaker 2: what we they're going to do? They were going to
Speaker 2: have liberty as their load star. So they adopted liberty.
Speaker 2: From the point of view of economics. They decided that
Speaker 2: the free market was the solution to everything that was
Speaker 2: wrong in the world. I remember missus Thatcher thinking saying,
Speaker 2: in fact that if everything in Britain was run like
Speaker 2: Marks and Spencer iconic store, which was at that time
Speaker 2: very well run, then everything will be fine. And I
Speaker 2: remember thinking, none of these conservatives understands that what has
Speaker 2: gone wrong is a denial of the world springs of
Speaker 2: Western culture and Western civilization, which is rooted in biblical values,
Speaker 2: which consists of upholding a set of traditions rooted in
Speaker 2: history going back, in the case of Britain and the West,
Speaker 2: many hundreds of years. And if you get rid of that,
Speaker 2: if you get rid of that scuffolding, the society and
Speaker 2: the culture will implode. It will just disintegrate. It will
Speaker 2: no longer know what it is, it will no longer
Speaker 2: love what it is, it will no longer want to
Speaker 2: defend itself. And that's exactly what happened. Scroll on down
Speaker 2: all these decades and we arrive at now, and there
Speaker 2: are elements on the on on, on what's called the right,
Speaker 2: which do understand this. They understand that in order for
Speaker 2: the Wester survive, it has to reconnect to its core
Speaker 2: values rooted in its historic traditions, in its religion. It's
Speaker 2: it's its religious basis, uh, and in the institutions that
Speaker 2: have kept it going, but they understand that. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, in America we have seen this faction
Speaker 2: or this this this, this this element in in conservatism
Speaker 2: which kind of got that I think correctly, has itself
Speaker 2: now splintered, and we've seen the emergence of I think
Speaker 2: you were alluding to this the Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentez,
Speaker 2: canda own tendency, which has gone down a conspiracy theory
Speaker 2: rabbit hole, which is deeply, deeply anti Semitic and has
Speaker 2: an entirely false idea of what America is and what
Speaker 2: the West is and how they should behave And so
Speaker 2: America is in a state of confusion. Britain is not
Speaker 2: in that state of confusion yet he doesn't have an
Speaker 2: equivalent to Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes. It has a
Speaker 2: few fringe actors on the extreme white supremacist right, but
Speaker 2: they really are tiny. But Britain has a different trajectory
Speaker 2: that Britain has. Kind of if you can imagine America
Speaker 2: as being I see it in a sort of pictorial form.
Speaker 2: America is kind of divided down the middle. You have
Speaker 2: the people who want to preserve America and Western civilization
Speaker 2: on one side, you have the people who want to
Speaker 2: destroy it and replace it by something else. On the
Speaker 2: other among the people who want to preserve it, they
Speaker 2: have shaded off into this lunatic tendency. But basically it's
Speaker 2: a line down the middle Republicans Democrats. In Britain, we
Speaker 2: don't have that line. It's not a line down the middle.
Speaker 2: It's more a kind of diagonal line. The entire system
Speaker 2: has slid, nobody has got it, and so we see
Speaker 2: the arrival the emergence of a populist party reform led
Speaker 2: by a extremely charismatic politician called Nigel Farage, who at
Speaker 2: the moment is leading the polls amazingly in a two
Speaker 2: party a very very strong two party system. According to
Speaker 2: the polls, he become Prime minister. There's an election today.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's going to happen, But anyway, that's
Speaker 2: not the point. The point is that he's come from
Speaker 2: nowhere because basically the British public has lost faith in
Speaker 2: the entire political system. Now in America, I don't think
Speaker 2: you have that. I think you have a division, a
Speaker 2: very sharp division. So it's a different kind of situation.
Speaker 2: But basically, can servatism has lost the plot for many,
Speaker 2: many years, and that's why we are where we are.
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Speaker 1: another fantasy show. It's a sweeping story of belief, redemption,
Speaker 1: and the origins of Western civilization, told through a bold
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Speaker 1: Wire Plus, watch the new trailer and out at Pendragon
Speaker 1: Series dot com. Well, I really appreciate the deeply false manser.
Speaker 1: And again, folks, Melani Phillips, you fought Melanie on X
Speaker 1: at Melanie Latest. She also has a substack crent new
Speaker 1: book which I hold in my hand, The Builder Stone,
Speaker 1: How Jews and Christians built the West and why only
Speaker 1: they can save it. I very strongly do recommend it.
Speaker 1: I spend the number of Shabots Jewish shabbitz reading it myself.
Speaker 1: So Melanie, I there's lots of compact there. To be clear,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure we have time for all of it.
Speaker 1: But one thing that you said that deeply resonate with
Speaker 1: me was this quip about Margaret Thatcher during the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: talking about this well run department store and how that
Speaker 1: could or could not solve solve all of our problems.
Speaker 1: And this is something that I've been very critical of
Speaker 1: on this side of the pond as well in my
Speaker 1: own capacity. Is this notion that that conservatism is really
Speaker 1: just interchangeable with classical liberalism, and that that that that
Speaker 1: free markets could solve each and every one of our
Speaker 1: problems the world over, that there is no solution for
Speaker 1: which simply deregulating and cutting taxes is not merely necessary,
Speaker 1: but is actually sufficient. I've been extraordinarily critical of of
Speaker 1: this myself because it seems to me and I don't
Speaker 1: need to I certainly don't need to describe this to
Speaker 1: a well known British conservative commentator. But going back to
Speaker 1: to and Burk himself in so many great conservative statesmen,
Speaker 1: oftentimes from your side the pond, it seems to be
Speaker 1: that the that the that the essence of conservatism is
Speaker 1: this notion that we exist to conserve, as its name
Speaker 1: would imply, and to therefore culturally preserve, as Burke would
Speaker 1: have described it, in this social compact between the dead,
Speaker 1: the living, and the yet unborn. And that raises then
Speaker 1: the obvious question as to what exactly are we conserving there.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of ways to answer this question,
Speaker 1: but I think you and I would both agree that
Speaker 1: it really does ultimately start with the Bible. And this
Speaker 1: is itself something of a contentious point, because you do
Speaker 1: have some folks here, at least on this side of
Speaker 1: the pond. Do you name some of them, folks like
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson and so forth, who are trying to essentially
Speaker 1: write the original people of the book, that is to say,
Speaker 1: the Jewish people out of the story, out of the
Speaker 1: story of the United States of America, and by extension,
Speaker 1: out of the story of Western civilization. There's essentially an
Speaker 1: attempt in information operation to get rid of the Judeo
Speaker 1: from the Judeo Christian in the popular term has been
Speaker 1: used in the United States for many decades now. Now
Speaker 1: you and I both push back on this very strongly
Speaker 1: in our in our respective books. There I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: if you could just present that argument in very forthright
Speaker 1: Fams what is the unique contribute To be clear, we
Speaker 1: could speak for hours about this, but perhaps in more
Speaker 1: succinct fashion, what is the most forthright to the point
Speaker 1: case for the unique contributions of the original people of
Speaker 1: the book, the break tradition where generally the Torah and
Speaker 1: all that that entails.
Speaker 2: Indeed, it's a tremendously important point, not least because so
Speaker 2: few people really understand it, even people who are sympathetic
Speaker 2: to the Jewish people really don't understand it. The point
Speaker 2: being the absolutely key importance and significance of Judaism to
Speaker 2: the development of the West and to the values that
Speaker 2: everybody holds deer or people who are civilized hold deer.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's such a thing in the West that
Speaker 2: you know, in one compartment is religion, and that stands
Speaker 2: for all bad things, you know, people who don't have education,
Speaker 2: people who are irrational, they're superstitious, authoritarian, And in the
Speaker 2: other box is all good things. And that is set.
Speaker 2: It's rationality, it's reason, it's science, its progress. And this
Speaker 2: couldn't be more wrong because it wasn't the Greeks and
Speaker 2: it wasn't imprinted in our DNA as universal values, the
Speaker 2: values that everybody who is civilized in the West holds dear,
Speaker 2: whether they're secular or religious, are Jewish values. Okay, Christianity
Speaker 2: is the foundational creed of the West, but Christianity doesn't
Speaker 2: come from nowhere, and the principles that animate the West,
Speaker 2: which were brought into the West through Christian Church, are
Speaker 2: basically Jewish values. What do I mean by that? They're
Speaker 2: moral values. They are the values that people take for granted.
Speaker 2: The idea that we all have should have respect for
Speaker 2: every human life. Well, that's only because we believe, or
Speaker 2: the Bible tells us that every human being was made
Speaker 2: in the image of God. If you don't believe that,
Speaker 2: you don't respect every human being. The idea of personal
Speaker 2: freedom and political freedom, this is something that's not fully understood.
Speaker 2: I mean people understand if they think about it, that
Speaker 2: you know, from the Mosaic Code in the Hebrew Bible,
Speaker 2: mediated through Christianity, we have things like compassion and putting
Speaker 2: other people first and stuff like that, and moral taking,
Speaker 2: moral responsibility. These are vital to the West. Without that,
Speaker 2: the West wouldn't have been the moral and therefore the
Speaker 2: civilizational force that it became. But what people don't fully
Speaker 2: understand is that there was something else that was terribly important,
Speaker 2: which was that the principles of that animated the people
Speaker 2: in the eighteenth century Christian evangelicals, the Puritans, who were
Speaker 2: the people who are political thinkers in Britain, and they
Speaker 2: basically laid down the template for what became in due
Speaker 2: course Britain's constitutional monarchy. It was where the power of
Speaker 2: the monarch and the church were constrained by the democratic
Speaker 2: institution of parliament. Now that arose in Britain because those thinkers,
Speaker 2: those eighteenth century evangelicals, drew explicitly on the Hebrew Bible
Speaker 2: and on the example of the Davidic monarchy in ancient Israel,
Speaker 2: which had certain key principles, of which perhaps the most
Speaker 2: important were two. First of all was the idea that
Speaker 2: law which governs everybody was not something to be handed
Speaker 2: down by a ruler and imposed against everyone's will to
Speaker 2: make everyone do what the ruler wanted. Law. In the
Speaker 2: example of the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Kingdom of Israel,
Speaker 2: law was founded in the consent of the people. Going
Speaker 2: back right to the point where Moses came down the
Speaker 2: mountain and said to the people, here's the law. What
Speaker 2: do you think, will you do it? And they said,
Speaker 2: we will do and we will hear. And this idea
Speaker 2: that law had to have the consent of all the
Speaker 2: people is absolutely fundamental to modern democratic representative democracy, and
Speaker 2: it was revolutionary at the time it was given to
Speaker 2: the West by the Jews. That was the first really
Speaker 2: important point. The second equally important point was the idea
Speaker 2: of limited government. Okay, there were plenty of monarchs kings
Speaker 2: in ancient Israel who were dreadful tyrants and you know, ghastly,
Speaker 2: but the template was limited government that the kings of
Speaker 2: ancient Israel understood, or should have understood, that above them
Speaker 2: was the Almighty. They were not the supreme ruler. I mean,
Speaker 2: in ancient civilizations, the ruler was supreme. Nobody was above
Speaker 2: the ruler. The ancient kings of Israel believed that above
Speaker 2: them was the Almighty, and they were in turn surrounded
Speaker 2: at their level by people who constrained their power, people
Speaker 2: called prophets, people called judges, and people call priests. Now
Speaker 2: that principle also was understood by the framers of British
Speaker 2: parliamentary democracy. This idea of limited government, and the idea
Speaker 2: that again in the King David did this. You basically
Speaker 2: unite what would otherwise be warring tribes into a united kingdom.
Speaker 2: These were revolutionary concepts, and those people in Britain who
Speaker 2: produced the template for what became Britain's parliamentary democracy went
Speaker 2: to America, founded America and founded your constitution. And you know,
Speaker 2: American constitutional documents are absolutely studied with the explicit references
Speaker 2: to the Hebrew Bible. So the importance of Judaism to
Speaker 2: the development of America and the development of the West
Speaker 2: cannot be overestimated. That's ancient Israel and ancient Judaism or
Speaker 2: Judaism from ancient.
Speaker 1: Times extraordinarily, Will argued again. Melanie Phillips is the author,
Speaker 1: most recently of the book that I hold in my hand,
Speaker 1: The Builderstone, How Jews and Christians built the West and
Speaker 1: why only they can save it availble everywhere books are purchased. Melanie,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play Devil's advocate for just a moment's here,
Speaker 1: and then perhaps we'll move on to more contemporary political issues,
Speaker 1: of which I would love your opinion on some of
Speaker 1: them as well. And the Devil's Adam. The question is
Speaker 1: essentially this, Let's say hypothetically that I am sympathetic to
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson's arguments here. And one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: I'm sympathetic is because, although, let's conceive the sake of
Speaker 1: argument that Genesis one twenty seven, Deuteronomy seventeen, which you're
Speaker 1: kind of alluding to, this notion that the ancient kings
Speaker 1: in Israel had to write Taurus roll because they are
Speaker 1: bound to off, let's kind of stimulate, just for the
Speaker 1: sake of argument, that all of these things are really
Speaker 1: important for Western civilization. You know, wink, wink, nudge, nudge,
Speaker 1: They're really, really, really important. Okay, back to the hypothetical,
Speaker 1: Let's say that I agree that they're important, but I
Speaker 1: don't think that the jew Which people themselves, are necessary
Speaker 1: anymore because Christianity itself has existed for two millennia. Now,
Speaker 1: so what do we still need this Jewish Christian alliance?
Speaker 1: What do we still need this alliance between the United
Speaker 1: States and Israel and so forth there? How do you
Speaker 1: respond to that particular, that particular objection, let's call it.
Speaker 2: First of all, Jews are Judaism is still necessary as
Speaker 2: the underpinning the moral scaffolding of the West, even though
Speaker 2: the West doesn't realize this. It is if Judaism were
Speaker 2: not to exist anymore, Christianity would quite quickly implode, and
Speaker 2: the West would follow suit. If you take away the scaffolding,
Speaker 2: the whole structure collapses. But that's in the kind of realm,
Speaker 2: of kind of the abstract thinking. More pertinently, perhaps for
Speaker 2: the Tucker Carlsons of this world, the Jews are vital
Speaker 2: today in Israel, the very country which he thinks is
Speaker 2: dragging America into pointless wars which are not in America's
Speaker 2: interest and from which America gets nothing. It could not
Speaker 2: be more the other way around. First of all, in
Speaker 2: military terms, as successive American administrations have fully understood, Israel
Speaker 2: is the It's what's it called, you know, the the
Speaker 2: the the aircraft carrier, America's aircraft carrier in the Middle East.
Speaker 2: It is the forward salient. It's the forward troop carrier
Speaker 2: of the defense of the West against the Islamic world.
Speaker 2: If Israel weren't there, the Islamic world would have no
Speaker 2: barrier between it and the West. I e America. That's
Speaker 2: the first thing. The second thing is that America, like Britain,
Speaker 2: unlike other countries which currently disdain Israel and are hostile
Speaker 2: to it. America gains an enormous amount from Israel, far
Speaker 2: more than it gives. Now that may see, aren't contentious.
Speaker 2: But America relies, as does Britain, to a very great degree,
Speaker 2: on Israeli intelligence, Israeli military intelligence about the region, and
Speaker 2: not just about the region, but increasingly about Islamic extremism
Speaker 2: and terrorism that has come already planted itself in America
Speaker 2: to as a result of the negligence of successive American administrations.
Speaker 2: And I would say British administrations too. But Israel has
Speaker 2: the intelligence about this, or about a lot of this,
Speaker 2: and America needs that. The next thing to say is that,
Speaker 2: you know the famous figure or the famous argument that
Speaker 2: America basically funds through billions of dollars every year Israeli
Speaker 2: military equipment and song and you know this is just,
Speaker 2: you know, a drain on America's resources for what, well,
Speaker 2: this is completely untrue. I forget now the precise figure,
Speaker 2: but it's something like America gains something like more than
Speaker 2: one thousand times the value in terms of arms productions,
Speaker 2: and heaven knows what else that goes on in America
Speaker 2: as a result of this relationship which in which America
Speaker 2: pays whatever it is, thirteen billion, whatever it is I
Speaker 2: can't remember, and gets back in effect a vast amount.
Speaker 2: More so, these things are tremendously important. And the last
Speaker 2: thing to say is that far from dragging America into
Speaker 2: fighting foreign wars, and you know, our boys are gonna
Speaker 2: die for what for our cause in which we have
Speaker 2: no skin in the game. This is obscene. It is
Speaker 2: Israeli boys and girls who have been dying to protect America.
Speaker 2: It is against you know, a Israel A has been
Speaker 2: fighting a desperate existential war of defense against basically Iran
Speaker 2: and its proxies. Iran. I mean, I don't know whether
Speaker 2: people like Tucker Carlson even know about this, but Iran.
Speaker 2: When the Iranian regime came to power in whenever it was,
Speaker 2: seventeen nine, was it, it declared war immediately on America
Speaker 2: and subsequently, in all the decades since then, it has
Speaker 2: attacked American interests over and over again, American military basis
Speaker 2: over and over again through its proxies. But it's basically
Speaker 2: Iran and has caused the deaths of countless numbers of
Speaker 2: American and other coalition forces in Iraq. Through roadside bombs
Speaker 2: they provided, and so on. Now it's a bit of
Speaker 2: a mystery to me why over all this time America
Speaker 2: and the West did not respond as any normal, sane
Speaker 2: society would have done to being under attack in this
Speaker 2: way and basically fought back. But it didn't. Okay, But nevertheless,
Speaker 2: it's been under attack all this time America. Iran has
Speaker 2: made no secret of its continuing ambition and aim to
Speaker 2: destroy America and the West. It has said over and
Speaker 2: over again that it regards it as essential to destroy
Speaker 2: Israel first, to kill the Jews first, because then it
Speaker 2: thinks that the way will be open to destroy, to
Speaker 2: attack and destroy America and the West, not least because
Speaker 2: the Iranian regime believes that behind that, like other Islamists,
Speaker 2: people who wish to inflict or impose Islam upon the
Speaker 2: rest of the world, they believe that there may foe
Speaker 2: is Western modernity, and they believe that behind Western modernity
Speaker 2: is the Jews. They're not entirely wrong, and they believe
Speaker 2: therefore that in order to defeat Western modernity, they first
Speaker 2: have to defeat the Jews and the nation state of Israel,
Speaker 2: the Jewish nation state of Israel, and then the way
Speaker 2: will be open to attack and defeat America. So even
Speaker 2: if the Tucker Carsons of this world really loathe them,
Speaker 2: detest Jews, which clearly they do, and think they're of
Speaker 2: no value to humanity, nevertheless they are demonstrably vital to
Speaker 2: American interests. And in this war of the last two years,
Speaker 2: it's been Israeli boys and girls in the Israeli Defense
Speaker 2: Forces who have been fighting Iran and its proxies and
Speaker 2: dying and getting terribly injured, taking the heat in order
Speaker 2: to enable Israel to survive, for sure, but also serving
Speaker 2: as the essential defense for America. It's not American boys
Speaker 2: who are dying for Israel. It's Israeli boys who've been
Speaker 2: dying for America.
Speaker 1: You know, as is often said, Melanie, you go to
Speaker 1: the Saturday people first, and then and then to the
Speaker 1: Sunday people. This is kind of one of those axioms
Speaker 1: of history. One of my favorite examples to bear this
Speaker 1: out is is Karl Marx himself, right, I mean Karl
Speaker 1: Marx in the Communist Manifesto he in angles. They lay
Speaker 1: out this comprehensive assault on Kristin Doman and Western capitalism.
Speaker 1: Of you, if you go back a few years prior
Speaker 1: to the Communist Manifesto, there is a deeply anti Semitic
Speaker 1: treatise that Karl Marx pens on the Jewish question, because
Speaker 1: even he understood, you cut to the source, you cut
Speaker 1: to the scaffolding, as you say, before you actually get
Speaker 1: to the broader entity. And I couldn't agree with you
Speaker 1: more strongly that a lot, that a lot of these provocateurs,
Speaker 1: both left and right, because certainly do well to understand
Speaker 1: this most rudimentary of concepts. But while while I have you, Melanie,
Speaker 1: I want to go on a related topic, kind of
Speaker 1: going more into into contemporary discourse, even outside the realm
Speaker 1: of foreign policy, because we're talking here, among other things,
Speaker 1: about the threat of radical Islam at jihad, about the
Speaker 1: threat of jihadism and s Trea supremacism. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that becomes more obvious here by the day,
Speaker 1: it certainly becomes very obvious from a British perspective, by
Speaker 1: the day, by the month, by the year as well,
Speaker 1: is the the the ever thorny question, if we can
Speaker 1: even call it an unresolved question at this point, as
Speaker 1: to whether or not Islam and Western civilization are are
Speaker 1: broadly speaking compatible. This is something that my tragically assassinated
Speaker 1: late friend Charlie Kirk was adamant about in the final
Speaker 1: year or two of his life. He was arguing bothciferously
Speaker 1: that that Islam and Western civilization and the United States specifically,
Speaker 1: where broadly speaking not compatible. And Melanie, have to be
Speaker 1: honest with you. I know you're you're British. I studied
Speaker 1: and I did a college semester of studying it at
Speaker 1: UCL University College London, right in the heart of London
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine. I have such fond memories.
Speaker 1: I've not been back to London since then. I'm frankly
Speaker 1: terrified to go because I think I'll barely recognize the place.
Speaker 1: So whether but whether it's the images we see of
Speaker 1: the streets of London, Paris, Brussels, this horrific recent massacre
Speaker 1: on the beach, and Bandai Beach and Sydney, Australia, there
Speaker 1: are all sorts of incidents here in the United States.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get too dire, but you're kind
Speaker 1: of the right person to kind of turn this question to.
Speaker 1: And I guess the question is is as follows, speaking
Speaker 1: here necessarily about hard jihad but about soft, surreptitious forms
Speaker 1: of jihad, about jihad via immigration, there's actually a whole
Speaker 1: kind of obscure Islamic doctrine on exactly that actually on
Speaker 1: kind of a softer form of spreading the message. I
Speaker 1: guess the question is this is is Western civilization salvageable
Speaker 1: or are we so far down the rabbit hole not
Speaker 1: just of the declining Church, not just of decline religiosity,
Speaker 1: but just from a purely kind of multiculturalist perspective. Can
Speaker 1: we actually undo Pandora's box this point.
Speaker 2: It's a very a good question. I'm my own view,
Speaker 2: and call me hopelessly optimistic. It's never over till it's over.
Speaker 2: The West hasn't begun to fight this, It hasn't even
Speaker 2: begun to acknowledge what it's up against. It refuses to
Speaker 2: do so. So if it carries on in this way,
Speaker 2: the West is finished. And Islam will indeed colonize, finish
Speaker 2: colonizing Britain and Europe. And I'm afraid America in due course,
Speaker 2: more slowly, more difficultily, perhaps, but that's the way it's going.
Speaker 2: Can it do it? Yes? It can. The problem has
Speaker 2: been too, has been has been a double headed problem.
Speaker 2: The Islamists, who are not stupid, and the Islamists, by
Speaker 2: which I mean Muslims who wish to take over the
Speaker 2: world for Islam. They understood a long time ago what
Speaker 2: the West never understood, which is that of a culture
Speaker 2: of society, a civilization destroys its religious scaffolding. It's finished.
Speaker 2: It no longer will know what it is, it will
Speaker 2: no longer even like what it is. It will no
Speaker 2: longer be pare to defend what it is, it will
Speaker 2: no longer even understand what's happening to it. And it
Speaker 2: understood that Britain was very forefront of this. Britain is
Speaker 2: the most most advanced post religious nation, I would say,
Speaker 2: in the West, and it honed in on Britain. Britain
Speaker 2: was where al Qaeda was formed, because Britain was the
Speaker 2: most hospitable to Jihadis who Britain said, let them all in,
Speaker 2: let them all in. It's multiculturalism, they're fine. We cannot
Speaker 2: possibly oppose them because that's racism and Islamophobia and all
Speaker 2: the rest of it. But nevertheless, this process happened, has
Speaker 2: happened across Europe, and it's happening more slowly but certainly
Speaker 2: surely in America too. So it is salvagible because in
Speaker 2: this sense that it's happened because there was never a
Speaker 2: fight put up by the West. The West basically said,
Speaker 2: we can't assert the superiority of our values and our
Speaker 2: culture over Islam, or over any other society because any
Speaker 2: other minority in our midst because that's racism. Now, every
Speaker 2: single minority except for one, has understood that the bargain
Speaker 2: from the eighteenth century, from when modernity started, from when
Speaker 2: tolerance was invented, from when church and state were separated.
Speaker 2: In the West, the understanding has been that the or
Speaker 2: Western civilization will tolerate minorities. It will say, you're welcome
Speaker 2: to form communities of faith and communities of culture, provided
Speaker 2: you uphold the core values of our society. We can
Speaker 2: all discuss what the core values are, but I would
Speaker 2: say one core value is the equality of women. Another
Speaker 2: core value, even more core than that, is the idea
Speaker 2: that the entire society is governed by one law for all. Now,
Speaker 2: the problem has been that there's a very very significant
Speaker 2: number of Muslims who came into Britain and Europe who
Speaker 2: and now America, who do not accept that, who say
Speaker 2: that there can be no superior authority to Sharia law,
Speaker 2: Islamic law, because Islamic law, Sharia law is the word
Speaker 2: of God, and consequently we do not accept any secular
Speaker 2: authority above it. Now, I think it's very important to
Speaker 2: say that in Britain and in the rest of the West,
Speaker 2: there are many many Muslims who don't agree with that,
Speaker 2: who have genuinely signed up to Western values, who live
Speaker 2: in the West because they value equality and freedom and
Speaker 2: all the good things that the West provides. But there
Speaker 2: is a huge, let's say a minority, but it is
Speaker 2: vast who don't sign up to those things and who
Speaker 2: have set out to conquer the West. Now that you
Speaker 2: talk about ji Had, it is the jihad she Had
Speaker 2: is simply Islamic holy war to take over the non
Speaker 2: Islamic world for Islam. But it takes different forms, and
Speaker 2: they're not stupid. The Islamists. In some circumstances, they will
Speaker 2: use force, they will use intimidation, they will use terrorism
Speaker 2: in order to terrorize, in order to help subjugate people
Speaker 2: through terror. But they will also use and they have used,
Speaker 2: particularly through the Muslim Brotherhood, they will use the most
Speaker 2: devastating weapon of all, which is, as you implied or
Speaker 2: you suggested, a kind of soft g had which is
Speaker 2: actually not soft at all. It is basically cultural takeover.
Speaker 2: It is where they use the openness and the democratic
Speaker 2: institutions of Western societies to infiltrate them and subvert them
Speaker 2: from inside. And it's like the frog being boiled in
Speaker 2: the pot so slowly and so gently. The frog has
Speaker 2: no idea that it's being boiled until it's dead. And
Speaker 2: that is what has been happening. And so now you
Speaker 2: have this process has advanced to a very great extent.
Speaker 2: And even now, I mean you talk about the terrible
Speaker 2: atrocity at Bondai Beach. I read just today was it
Speaker 2: or yesterday various people in Australia. I think it was
Speaker 2: a correspondent for the ABC News and I think it
Speaker 2: was one of their ministers saying or possibly in the
Speaker 2: prime minister saying that what happened at Bondai Beach had
Speaker 2: nothing to do with Islam, nothing to do with religion.
Speaker 2: I mean, what do they think it was? You know,
Speaker 2: these people were murdered for veganism. I mean, what are
Speaker 2: they talking about? And this has been the case in Britain.
Speaker 2: They will not accept that it's founded in the religion
Speaker 2: because they think that. And it comes back to the
Speaker 2: very first question you are are asked. That would mean that,
Speaker 2: you know, we demonize all Muslims and we demonize Islam.
Speaker 2: Now this has to be picked aside a part very carefully.
Speaker 2: One should not demonize all Muslims, as I've said, there
Speaker 2: are many Muslims who are not signed up to this.
Speaker 2: But to argue that what we are living through, that
Speaker 2: she had both terrorism and democratic infiltration and subversion. To
Speaker 2: say that that is not being done in the name
Speaker 2: of Islam, and to say that it's not being done
Speaker 2: in accordance, in strict accordance with the precepts of every
Speaker 2: jurisprudential authority in Islam is simply a lie, and it
Speaker 2: is a suicidal lie from the point of view of
Speaker 2: the West. So you know the question you ask originally,
Speaker 2: is Islam compatible with Western civilization? For sure? Radical Islam
Speaker 2: is not compatible. By radical Islam, I mean the understanding
Speaker 2: the interpretation the religion which says it is a religious
Speaker 2: duty on all Muslims to make the non Islamic world
Speaker 2: and the not Islamic enough world Islamic. Now that is clearly, demonstrably,
Speaker 2: unarguably incompatible with Western civilization, and that is what we
Speaker 2: collectively in the West have harbored. So you know, yes,
Speaker 2: there are Muslims who, you know, they get a spiritual
Speaker 2: and moral uplift from their Islamic faith. Fine, but an
Speaker 2: awful lot understand Islam to be as much a political
Speaker 2: ideology as it is what as it is a communion
Speaker 2: with the divine, which is how the West thinks of religion.
Speaker 2: The West has a very Western idea of religion. It
Speaker 2: is a communication between the individual and the Almighty, and
Speaker 2: that's fine. If Muslims wish to interpret it in that way,
Speaker 2: that's great. And if they find you know, uplifting and
Speaker 2: positive and constructive moral principles from their faith, fine, no
Speaker 2: one's going to object to that. The problem is the
Speaker 2: understanding of Islam, which is rooted in the theology that
Speaker 2: it is simultaneously a political ideology of conquest and domination
Speaker 2: and war, and that, I'm afraid is its history, and
Speaker 2: that is unarguable.
Speaker 1: Very well said as always Melanie Phillips, So one fun time, folks.
Speaker 1: Melanie Phillips is a calmness for the times of London.
Speaker 1: She's also the author of The Builderstone, How Jews and
Speaker 1: Christians built the West and why only they can save it.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful book. I strongly encourage it to all
Speaker 1: of you out there. Melanie has been a real pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thank you for all you've been doing for a very
Speaker 1: long time now which you may be lated. Happy Hannagh
Speaker 1: and hope to chavel with you again sometime soon.
Speaker 2: Happy Hannakha to you, and thank you so much for
Speaker 2: your time.
Speaker 1: You better thank you as always for watching the Dosh
Speaker 1: Hamershire