- 2 days ago
CTP (S4EDecSpecial1) Five Values From A Solo Hike
We talk with Aryeh Green about how a two-month solo hike across the Israel National Trail reshapes his life after divorce and sharpens his view of what peace actually requires. We connect personal transformation to the Arab-Israel conflict, arguing that hope only matters when it turns into disciplined action.
• Arieh’s journey from Washington, D.C. to Jerusalem and a deep Jewish American identity
• The Israel National Trail as a physical test and a spiritual metaphor
• Humility, acceptance, gratitude, forgiveness and purpose as hard-won lessons
• Desert realities: water planning, resupply and the “trail angels” culture of hospitality
• Applying those five values to the Arab-Israel conflict and the wider Islamist threat
• Why reform and moderation in Islam must be supported and must grow from within
• The Abraham Accords as evidence of real ideological change and normalization
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We talk with Aryeh Green about how a two-month solo hike across the Israel National Trail reshapes his life after divorce and sharpens his view of what peace actually requires. We connect personal transformation to the Arab-Israel conflict, arguing that hope only matters when it turns into disciplined action.
• Arieh’s journey from Washington, D.C. to Jerusalem and a deep Jewish American identity
• The Israel National Trail as a physical test and a spiritual metaphor
• Humility, acceptance, gratitude, forgiveness and purpose as hard-won lessons
• Desert realities: water planning, resupply and the “trail angels” culture of hospitality
• Applying those five values to the Arab-Israel conflict and the wider Islamist threat
• Why reform and moderation in Islam must be supported and must grow from within
• The Abraham Accords as evidence of real ideological change and normalization
SEND US FEEDBACK: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2210487/fan_mail/new
https://tinyurl.com/SubscribeToCTP
CTP Audios: https://tinyurl.com/CTPonBuzzsprout
CTP Videos: https://tinyurl.com/CTPonBITCHUTE
https://tinyurl.com/CTPgear
https://tinyurl.com/JLenardDetroitGear
AI images/videos/audio CTP uses: https://tinyurl.com/GalaxyMagicaAI
https://tinyurl.com/BookPromotionViaFiverr
- other services: https://fiverr.com/jlenarddetroit
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello, welcome to another episode of Perstitutionalist Podcast.
00:06I am your host, Joseph M. Leonard.
00:09That's L-E-N-A-R-D.
00:12It looks French.
00:13It's not.
00:14It's Leonard without an O.
00:17Thank you for tuning in, as Graham Norton used to say, on his show.
00:24Let's get on with the show!
00:25So, joining me today is Aria Green.
00:31It's spelled A-R-Y-E-H, and he said the easiest way to remember it is think Aria Speedwagon,
00:42but Aria.
00:44So, welcome, Mr. Speedwagon.
00:46I mean, Green.
00:48Thanks very much, Joseph.
00:50Nice to be here.
00:51Thanks for having me.
00:51Where were you born and raised?
00:53Where are you now, places you've been in between, that sort of stuff?
00:59Well, I was born in Washington, D.C., and when I was seven, my family moved back out to California
01:05when my father and grandfather and great-grandfather were raised.
01:08And so, I grew up basically in California.
01:10I went to UC Berkeley.
01:13And, in fact, I happen to be the Jewish...
01:15We won't hold that against you.
01:17Thank you very much.
01:19Exactly.
01:20I happen to be a direct descendant of one of the first Jewish families who came to North America.
01:25My family came in 1690 to the colonies.
01:29And my great-great-great-and-so-on, ten generations back, grandfather was known as the Patriot Rabbi.
01:35He was the leader of the American Jewish community at the time of the Revolution.
01:39And he, in fact, was a firm supporter of the Revolution.
01:42He ended up being the representative of the Jewish community to the inauguration of President George Washington in 1782 in
01:52the federal building.
01:55But, of course, certain people would have us believe we're not a Judeo-Christian nation.
02:02Right, well, exactly.
02:04And, therefore, I grew up with a very strong Jewish identity and a very strong American identity.
02:10And when I moved to Israel, which is now over 40 years ago, that's where I live now.
02:14You said, where are you now?
02:15I'm talking to you from Jerusalem, the holy city of Jerusalem.
02:21And when I moved to Israel, that was one of the big discussions in the family was the connection, the
02:26Judeo-Christian values of America,
02:29how they came to be, how they're based on basically an understanding of modern political theory and democracy and freedom,
02:37which is based on explicitly biblical sources from the Bible, from the Talmud, Jewish tradition, and medieval philosophers.
02:47And it's a very proud part of my identity and my connection both to my ancestral homeland here in Israel
02:54and, of course, where my family has been for 10 generations there in America.
03:01Yep.
03:02Biblical community, voluntary through free will, not worldly communism by theft in force.
03:12Well put.
03:13Big difference.
03:15And that's one of the main reasons why I started this show was to highlight those differences.
03:22Jesus was not a socialist slash communist.
03:28You are to want to be your brothers and sisters keeper, not done so by force.
03:36Yeah.
03:37At any rate, it does say in your Podmatch bio,
03:42listens learned over a course of a two-month solo hike across Israel.
03:48Humility, acceptance, gratitude, forgiveness, and a sense of purpose.
03:55I like that.
03:56That's why I wanted to reach out and talk with you.
04:00What was the, or get the biblical pun, get the biblical pun in.
04:06What was the jannesis of the thought to write a book?
04:13Well, I appreciate the question, Joseph.
04:15That was actually my first book almost now 10 years ago called My Israel Trail.
04:20And my new book, Finding Peace in the Promised Land, which just came out,
04:24which is about the Arab-Israel conflict, actually continues the same themes of those five,
04:29that conceptual framework of those five elements.
04:32So I'm happy to make the connection.
04:34And your question is a very reasonable one.
04:38They came out of lessons learned.
04:41And, well, let me give one sentence in background.
04:44So the Israel National Trail is about a 700, 800-mile trail,
04:50which goes from the border with Lebanon in the north of Israel down to the Red Sea,
04:55or the Gulf of Eilat, which opens into the Red Sea at the south of Israel.
04:59And it goes through the hills of the Galilee, and it goes along the coast,
05:03and it goes up to the hills of Jerusalem,
05:05and down through the Negev Desert, down to Eilat on the border with the Sinai Desert.
05:11And as I said, to the Gulf of Eilat, which opens into the Red Sea.
05:15And that trek is kind of Israel's answer to the Appalachian Trail,
05:18or the Pacific Crest Trail, or Spain and Portugal and France's Pilgrims Trail.
05:24But, of course, it's not only a trek as in a hike with physical challenges.
05:28It is obviously an incredibly meaningful experience to anybody who is connected
05:33to our shared Judeo-Christian heritage.
05:37So I did it after a devastating divorce.
05:40I decided I had to clear my head.
05:43I went off on this solo hike, eight weeks, 48 days of hiking,
05:48although I did not hike on the Sabbath, on Shabbat,
05:51but all alone with a 50-pound pack on my back.
05:55And it was a transformative experience.
05:58And I never expected to write a book.
05:59But in the end, the physical elements of the hike,
06:03finding myself on the side of a cliff and not thinking I could move forward,
06:08became a metaphor, for example, of what happens when somebody finds themselves divorced
06:14and doesn't know what else to do with their life,
06:16or the fact is meeting any personal challenge.
06:18Yes, whether it's...
06:19You lost your sense of identity at the time.
06:22Yes.
06:23Identity, sense of purpose, sense of understanding of the world.
06:27And so for me, and for many others facing personal challenges,
06:32whether it's being fired or death or divorce or what have you,
06:35that issue of acceptance became a very, very important lesson that I learned
06:41there on the side of a cliff, which I translated, of course,
06:45to the importance of my acceptance.
06:48Yes, this is one of my grandchildren's coming in and joining us for a moment,
06:52which is always, always a pleasure.
06:56And there's the other one.
07:00So Noga and Aviv, you can close the door when you leave, please.
07:06So those five elements that you mentioned were actually learned from the physical elements of the trail.
07:12Humility I learned while walking in the desert, hour after hour, day after day,
07:17all on my own and recognizing the smallness of my place in the universe.
07:22The acceptance I just mentioned on the side of a cliff where I just wasn't sure I could...
07:27What I'm supposed to do, where I could go.
07:29I almost called the emergency services to come and save me from the side of this cliff
07:33where I couldn't move forward.
07:35I couldn't move back.
07:36I didn't know what to do.
07:37In the end, I just said to myself,
07:38this is your reality.
07:40You have to accept this and figure out what are the possible next steps.
07:44Nobody's going to save you from where you are.
07:47And similarly, the issue of gratitude and being full of appreciation for all the blessings in my life,
07:52the issue of forgiveness, whether it was forgiving my former wife for leaving us
07:57and breaking up the family, whether it was forgiving myself for issues that were part of
08:03what led to our divorce and her decision,
08:06whether it was forgiving God for letting it happen.
08:09These are all part of my first book,
08:10which then led to the last element was this,
08:14what Viktor Frankl talks about,
08:16the man's sense of meaning,
08:22basically based on having a sense of purpose,
08:25having a goal and set of objectives in your life.
08:29And so all of those things were part of this first book that I wrote,
08:32which I'm glad to say has helped many people facing their own personal challenges.
08:37But then I basically applied those same elements to the international conflict that we found ourselves here in for the
08:45last hundred years.
08:46And so my newest book, Finding Peace in the Promised Land,
08:49basically says, look, we're going to need a lot of humility,
08:52a lot of acceptance, a lot of forgiveness,
08:55certainly a sense of shared purpose
08:57if we're going to find a way to bring some sort of peace between not just the Arabs and the
09:03Israelis,
09:03but between the Islamist world, the Islamic world and the wider Muslim world and Western civilization.
09:13Yep.
09:14I've got to back up because my audience knows I can never pass on a joke.
09:19So you started off from the creek of a little and went to the gulf of a lot.
09:28We used to say, taking the kids down to a lot when it would occasionally rain,
09:33a lot is the name of this port city on the gulf of a lot,
09:37which opens into the Red Sea.
09:39So we used to say, we like a lot a little when it's raining.
09:44We like a lot a lot when it's not.
09:48Yeah.
09:50They need to put that on a t-shirt.
09:53Right.
09:55You should be on the board of visitors board.
10:05So is there a third book in the works?
10:10No.
10:11Well, this, my second book, this new book just came out.
10:14For the benefit of people listening or whatever,
10:19we are recording actually on Monday, August the 3rd.
10:25You'll see the video behind the scenes exclusive fairly shortly after we record.
10:32But the actual play date over the audio platforms might not be until much later.
10:41So just to give people a time reference, when you say, when you say recent.
10:49Well, the official launch, which was at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem,
10:54was on July 19th.
10:56So that was just a couple of weeks ago.
10:59And I'm actually planning a speaking tour in the States in November.
11:04So kind of the whole, this whole set of months over the course of the summer and the fall
11:09are kind of part of our launching events.
11:12So I think we can continue to say it's a relatively new book until January.
11:16That's my approach.
11:18Although by then, hopefully, peace will have broken out in the Middle East and it'll become passe.
11:22Oh, let us, let us hope and pray.
11:27But like I always say, hope is great.
11:30Hope is wonderful, but it's not a strategy.
11:34And prayer is also wonderful.
11:36It's something we should do.
11:38We can't expect God to wave a magic wand without us also putting in the work for what we're praying
11:46for.
11:47Absolutely true.
11:53So, not sure what I want to ask next.
11:58I got out of bed, I think, a little too early this morning.
12:02My brain hasn't fully engaged yet.
12:07Take a moment to think.
12:08I'm going to shut the door here so we have a little bit more quiet.
12:11Okay.
12:14But I'm, I'm here and listening.
12:16Happy to answer any questions.
12:18All right.
12:19Yeah.
12:21The, how, how many days again was the hike that you made?
12:27The hike itself was eight full weeks, hiking 48 days, meaning six days a week.
12:33Six days a week I hiked and on the Sabbath I rested.
12:38That's quite a trek.
12:41How many?
12:42It was definitely a physically and emotionally and psychologically challenging trek.
12:48There were some days which were harder than others with great elevations or heat in the desert and very steep
12:54climbs or descents.
12:55And some which were a little bit more easy.
12:58But even walking on the flat for 30 kilometers or 20 miles with a 50 pound pack on your back
13:04all alone for days.
13:06And that's also something of a physical challenge and, and obviously emotional and psychological as well.
13:11Were you prepared, did you live off the land kind of through it or did you have some, enough supplies
13:19to get you through it all?
13:21That's a question I'm often asked.
13:23And in the desert, the three weeks of hiking through the desert takes a lot more planning.
13:27You have to actually plant or bury water supplies or have somebody else make sure for you that there's water
13:35supplies at different points because you can go for two or three days without coming across any sign of civilization.
13:42So, yeah, that, that had to be planned out.
13:44I carried, you know, five kilos, which is what maybe five, five liters of water is, I suppose, like two
13:53gallons or something every day.
13:55So you had to refill that and food, quinoa and oatmeal and some fruit and what have you.
14:01So I had to replenish.
14:03Sometimes I had people deliver to me.
14:04Sometimes I had on the way down buried or hidden in various different spots.
14:09So they have, they have DoorDash in the desert?
14:13No, they definitely don't.
14:15We had to do it ourselves.
14:17So when you mean deliver to you, are we talking literal and airdrop or?
14:23So I know because this was really kind of, this was a decade ago, therefore it was before the drone
14:30delivery world that we live in today.
14:33No, what I meant was there, there are desert Jeep tour companies or individuals who will, for a fee, make
14:44sure that you have, you know, water waiting for you under a certain tree.
14:47It was like a, like a James Bond thing.
14:49The second tree after the first rock.
14:52Follow the treasure map.
14:57And so either that or, or I would have somebody meet me at a certain point or, or what have
15:03you, I will say something that's unique to Israel is an institution that we call trail angels.
15:08And whether it was in the desert, which also happened, but also in the north, even when you're a little
15:13bit more around civilization, trail angels are individuals, sometimes students, sometimes retirees, or just normal working people who open their
15:23homes for the through hikers of what's called the Shvil, the trail, the Israel trail.
15:29And for free, they provide lodging, a bed to sleep in, a shower, often dinner, breakfast, often they'll pick you
15:38up from the trail and bring you back.
15:40If they're not actually on the trail, they'll let you do a, you know, do a bit of laundry.
15:45Some of them have like resupply cupboards where they just say, take whatever you want, noodles or quinoa or, or,
15:52or different things, you know, chocolates or granola bars.
15:55So it's, it's, it's, it's a unique element of Israeli society where it's kind of like a family, complete strangers
16:03who, you know, you, you're in touch with them.
16:06There's a list on the internet and you call up someone and you say, hi, I'm hiking through, I'm on
16:11the Shvil, I'm on the trail.
16:13Could I stay with you tonight?
16:14And they say, well, we're going to be out.
16:16We're at a wedding.
16:17And in fact, you don't even bother calling others in our community because it's a small community of like 70
16:22families and everybody's at this wedding.
16:24But you know what?
16:25We'll leave a key out for you.
16:27Please come in, make yourself at home.
16:29I'm perfect strangers.
16:30And, and it's a, it's a wonderful institution in Israeli society.
16:34I bet the chance of the shower every once in a while through the way is welcome.
16:40Oh, believe me, the shower itself, even more so sheets, you know, and sleeping with a pillow or having a
16:47real towel.
16:48Well, you know, there's the, the, the things that you take for granted that you don't recognize when you've been
16:52sleeping rough with a sleeping bag and a small and a very thin, you know, air mattress, very, very thin.
17:01And, and, and, uh, in a tent, you know, on the rocks or on the, or on the dirt.
17:05So, so being in sheets with a pillow is, is like, um, luxury.
17:11Was that the one and only time you've done this or have you done this before?
17:16Are you planning to do it again?
17:19Uh, it's a reasonable question.
17:21And the answer is, uh, it was the first and only time I, I, when I say that it's kind
17:26of funny.
17:27I grew up in California, so I did a lot of hiking, Yosemite and, and in the Sierras and in
17:32the coastal range, but they were always day hikes or maybe one or two, uh, once or twice a year
17:38when I was in high school.
17:39So it's not something you just decide to do with the drop of the hat and you go do it.
17:44You, yeah, and it's also not something I've never done before this kind of a trek.
17:48I'd done one or two night overnight backpacks in, uh, in the mountains in California and my kids growing up
17:54when, when I was, uh, raising my kids, we did a lot of camping, um, and day hikes, but, but
18:00nothing more than a, a one night, you know, overnights.
18:03It's the idea of, uh, of eight weeks, um, nonstop walking, hiking, schlepping, trekking, trudging.
18:12Uh, it was, uh, did I mention I had a 50 pound pack on my back and I, and I
18:18was 51 years old, by the way there that, that, the, right.
18:21A big difference between trying to do it in your twenties and trying to do it in your fifties.
18:26Well, precisely, the real cohort, the cohort in Israel that does the Israel national trail is usually the, after the
18:33army crowd.
18:3421 year olds who, they used to go to India or used to go to South America.
18:39They still do, but a lot of young Israelis, both religiously observant and, uh, and less so and, and more
18:45secular, um, will, will hike the Israel trail as a through hike also maybe six, eight, 10 weeks, uh, in
18:53small groups.
18:54So, you know, everybody that I met on the trail was 21, not 51.
18:57So me with my 50 pound pack on my back at 51, it was, uh, it was something of an
19:02ordeal.
19:03And I didn't do anything.
19:04I did a bit of training.
19:06I'm in pretty good shape.
19:06I, I, I bike and have biked for the last 20, 30 years, three, two, three times, uh, a week
19:12and, uh, leading up to the hike, once I made the decision, which I made at the top of half
19:18dome in Yosemite with my, uh, daughter who we hiked to the top of half dome, which was a grueling,
19:24really, really difficult challenge psychologically and emotionally, not just physically.
19:28And we got to the top of it, this was just after she was released from, uh, uh, from, uh,
19:34her IDF, her, her service in the Israel defense forces, uh, where she was in the intelligence unit.
19:40And just, uh, as, uh, as my divorce was being finalized, we got to the top of it, I said,
19:45I'm going to hike the Israel trail.
19:46And that was, you know, six weeks later, we finalized the divorce and I was out on the trail and
19:51the kind of preparations I did was basically a couple of days.
19:54I put some rocks in a backpack to simulate the, the 50 pounds I was going to be hiking with
19:59just to make sure I could do the, the 20 miles or so that I needed to do every day,
20:04um, kind of 12 to 20 miles in any average day to make sure I wasn't, you know, starting off
20:09with something that I, that I wouldn't be able to finish.
20:12That's an important disclaimer to, yeah, uh, minor tests work your way up.
20:18I'm so out of shape.
20:20I have to have trouble with 20 steps, 20 miles in a day of a hike.
20:28So, and I had a question, but it left my brain.
20:37My ADHD OCD brain is in ADHD mode.
20:41It just like, whoop.
20:47So, uh, you could ask me how I've applied these lessons to.
20:52Yeah, of course.
20:53I mean, I only read it at the beginning, the lessons learned over the course, and yet we didn't get
21:01there.
21:02So indeed, how do we, how did you learn to apply these lessons?
21:06It's the whole reason I decided, was here to talk to you, and I'm going to forget to ask, so
21:14thank you.
21:16You, um, you may have read that I have a master's in international relations, and I worked in Israel's prime
21:22minister's office in addition to my business career.
21:24And I also spent a decade working with the foreign media who are based in Israel, and with all that
21:30experience, um, I also, uh, combined that with working with, uh, with Natan Sharansky, who is a hero of the
21:37Jewish people and of humanity and was one of the leaders of the human rights movement in the former Soviet
21:43Union.
21:43And he, uh, I had the privilege of connecting him, one of my, one of my, um, roles in working
21:51with him when he was the vice prime minister, um, was to connect him with activists who were, who were
21:58very, very, um, uh, strongly and powerfully involved in promoting freedom and liberty and human rights and democracy in the
22:08Middle East.
22:08And these were, uh, Arabs who self-identified as Palestinians, they were Lebanese and Syrians and Saudi Arabians and Egyptians
22:15and, and many others.
22:17And, and through that, I, I got to know, um, a whole world of what I will call moderate Muslims.
22:24And by moderate, I mean the way we would define what true moderation is, tolerance, acceptance, um, an ideology which
22:33promotes peace and coexistence.
22:35Uh, and, and, and all of those themes were, were kind of part of my thinking about what, what peace
22:44could look like if we had a partner on the other side that really wanted peace, uh, as a real
22:50value, as opposed to wanting to either destroy Israel or kill Jews or Christians or all infidels as they described
22:58them and, and take over the West.
23:00And so, um, um, that was actually something that connected for me back to my studies at Berkeley because I,
23:06I studied Gundy and methods of conflict resolution at UC Berkeley.
23:10Yes, back in the eighties and yes, I was a good liberal American and, you know, many of us were
23:17like a Ronald Reagan or now an Alan Dershowitz or, or others over the years who have said, you know,
23:23I, I, I, I, I have a certain liberal tendency to understand the importance of, uh, of, of providing for,
23:30for those, uh, who are less well off in our society.
23:35Biblical community, not worldly communism.
23:38Yes, precisely.
23:40And so, um, I studying Gandhi and methods of conflict resolution was a very important base for me when I
23:46moved to Israel 40 years ago, that informed my understanding of what real peace could look like.
23:51But it took those 40 years wandering in the desert as it were, um, it took those 40 years to,
23:58to appreciate how to apply those principles.
24:02And I did it with, through this lens of these five elements from my first book, from my experience on
24:07the trail.
24:08And one of the most important elements, aside from the forgiveness that, that is going to have to be achieved
24:13by both sides, but most particularly on the Arab side, to forgive Israel for its insistence on our existence, to
24:20forgive us for our defensive military operations, which clearly is, uh, have caused, you know, death and destruction.
24:25Uh, unfortunately we've been forced into that position, but there's, there's, there's a lot of forgiveness to be, to, to
24:32be, uh, worked on, including, of course, from our Jewish and Israeli community, forgiving the Arabs for their constant and
24:39violent hostile rejection of our legitimacy, of the legitimacy of any, any connection between the people of Israel.
24:45Well, that one little speck over there amid that sea of Islam is not a threat to Islam, yes.
24:55So, so that, that issue of forgiveness, uh,
24:59Got an intruder again.
25:01That, that issue of forgiveness is, is central, um, because we Jews are going to have to forgive the Arabs
25:09for the, the, the continual terror attacks and wars and death and destruction.
25:14I don't mean only October 7th, you can go back to 1929 and the pogrom in, in the Hevron or
25:19the Farhud, the, the pogrom in Iraq in 1941 and everything in between then and now.
25:24Plenty of examples, yes.
25:25Yeah. And so, so forgiveness plays an important part.
25:29And so does acceptance, the idea of accepting the legitimacy of a connection between the people of Israel and the
25:34land of Israel as our ancestral homeland and the legitimacy of, of Israel's founding.
25:39All of this comes together with, with understanding the importance of a sense of purpose, that if the Arab and
25:45Muslim leaders inculcate in their societies, instead of a culture of death, this death worship, culture of hatred, of rejection
25:54and violence, if they inculcate, uh, not just an acceptance and forgiveness, but a sense of purpose, uh, of coexistence.
26:02Then that is the, that is what's required for any real peace to be, uh, even possibly envisioned in our
26:11region.
26:12And what I do in the book, very importantly, is that I base these, the, these, this thesis, I base
26:20it in, in standard normative Islamic thought and Arab culture, meaning I go back to the Quran, to the Hadith,
26:28the commentaries on the Quran, to medieval Islamic scholars, to modern Islamic scholars, to ancient Arab cultural texts and modern
26:37pronouncements by Arab leaders,
26:38proving that this conceptual framework of a moderate Islam, of a moderate accepting, uh, Arab society that believes in coexistence
26:49is not some liberal Kumbaya pipe dream, but rather is part and parcel of the heritage of both Arab society
26:59and Islam, uh, heritage which has been hijacked by the jihadist, terrorists, Islamists, um, who run Iran and truthfully also
27:08Qatar and Turkey.
27:08Turkey and many other nations, and obviously the terror groups like Hamas and Al Qaeda and Islamic State and, uh,
27:14and Hezbollah and the others.
27:16Um, and they've hijacked what was a normative Islam, uh, ideology and Arab culture.
27:23And it's up to the Arab people and the Muslim people to basically go through the kind of transformation that's
27:29necessary, uh, as a condition for peace.
27:32And I always say very, very strongly, who am I, some American, Israeli Jew, not even a scholar of Islam
27:40and, and, and, and, and Arab society.
27:43Who am I to say, oh, you have to go through a reformation.
27:47You, you have to do what's right for you.
27:49I say to any time that I speak with Muslims and Arabs, you have to do what's right for you.
27:54My book and my argument is, yeah, is it right for anyone to be such suicidal lunatics?
28:01Well, my point is you're absolutely right from anybody with a moral compass would agree with us that, that there
28:09is wrong and there is right.
28:11There is evil and there is good in this world.
28:14And, uh, and murdering and raping and bludgeoning innocence by definition, I don't care what religious you're coming from, religion
28:22you're coming from, what religious tradition or none is by definition morally reprehensible.
28:27But I'm going one step further and I'm saying not only is it, is it kind of conceptually right, uh,
28:34from almost any perspective, I'm saying something much more basic.
28:38Arabs and Muslims can and should live their life according to their, their values the way they see fit.
28:44However, anybody in Israel, anybody in the Middle East, anybody in Western governmental circles, American leaders, European leaders, or others,
28:54pundits, media experts and analysts, academics and cultural leaders, public figures, celebrities, anybody who cares about peace, anybody who says
29:03that they want to see peace between Jews and other Israelis and Arabs and other Muslims,
29:08have to understand that this is simply a factual reality without such a transformation, without an overthrow of these fanatical
29:18Islamist, jihadist, terrorist supporting regimes, there cannot be peace.
29:24That's just a fact they can choose the Arab and Muslim people around the world can choose to go down
29:32the path of coexistence and tolerance based on Islamic and Muslim and Arab sources.
29:36Or they can choose to continue to continue under the rule of these tyrannical, dictatorial regimes.
29:42But that is a real choice.
29:45Without such a transformation, there is absolutely no chance for peace.
29:49And October 7th came to prove how hateful and extreme the Arab is.
29:55That's part of the big problem, all the indoctrination of the youth.
30:01They do have free will and they do have choice, but they are so inundated and brainwashed that the choice
30:11is attempted to be made for them.
30:14They almost don't have a choice.
30:17I don't mean to put words in his mouth, but do you know who Dr. Zutty Jasser is?
30:23Sure.
30:24Yes, I'm supporting him for Congress.
30:27He's running, again, in Arizona.
30:30He's the author of Reform, Battle for the Soul of Islam.
30:36So, yes, there are moderate Muslims out there.
30:41It just seems their voices are drowned out by the radicals.
30:47And, in fact, I'm not sure if you're aware I wrote terror strikes coming soon to a city near you.
30:55And not all Arabs are Muslims.
30:59Not all Muslims are Arabs.
31:01You know, it's a shame I got to say that disclaimer over and over.
31:06Everyone does.
31:07Yeah, and not all terrorism is Islamic, though that's the majority of what we deal with now.
31:14Like in my book, I go on to Om Shrinyoko, the Tokyo Christian doomsday cult.
31:23The same kind of 12-er cultist mindset.
31:27I tell you, yes, absolutely.
31:29And so I definitely agree with that, Joseph.
31:32And that's one of the fundamental points both of my book and every time that I talk about it.
31:38The Arab world and the Muslim world does have free choice, but that doesn't mean they have freedom of action.
31:44It's very hard to live under a dictatorial, tyrannical regime.
31:46But one of my arguments is actually twofold.
31:52Number one, it's up to and it's incumbent upon all of us in the West, in the free world, to
31:59support those voices of moderation,
32:02whether it's Iranians rising up against their regime or moderate voices in Palestinian or Jordanian or Egyptian or Syrian society.
32:10It's so important that they get support, both moral support, diplomatic support and economic support,
32:16to help them in their effort to foment some sort of a revolution in their own societies.
32:25Just like the American government with its wheat sales and the salt talks and negotiations over nuclear disarmament with the
32:35Soviet Union helped.
32:36And this is one of the things that Sharansky and Andrei Sakharov and others were very, so very instrumental in
32:41improving,
32:42is that by using that leverage, they opened.
32:46The West helped to open up the Soviet Union society such that it led to the overthrow of that dictatorial
32:53regime by its own people
32:54once they had a taste of those freedoms.
32:56And that's what...
32:57He won the Cold War but failed the warm, lukewarm peace.
33:01Right.
33:02So that's a different issue which we don't have to go into, but supporting those who are standing up against
33:09their own dictatorial tyrannical leaders,
33:11whether it's Iran or even Turkey or within Palestinian society, Jordan and elsewhere,
33:18it's really incumbent on Western leaders in America and Europe and elsewhere to ensure that they have that moral clarity
33:26and don't just use the real politic of, you know, well, this is a dictator, it's true, but, you know,
33:33he's our dictator,
33:34so we're going to support him.
33:37But I do want to point out it's very important for us to recognize,
33:40yes, October 7th was instrumental in helping me to publish these arguments because it became so clear to at least
33:47many of us in Israel
33:49and in America and elsewhere the kind of evil that we have to stand up against and stand strong against.
33:55But there's a positive element also in the last few years which encouraged me to publish my book,
34:00and that is, of course, the Abraham Accords.
34:02I was going to ask you, obviously you are a supporter of Trump and the Abraham Accords, as am I,
34:10and the one thing Jimmy Carter got right in his entire presidency was at least the semi-normalization with Egypt
34:21that came out of that during that time.
34:24There would be no attempt or chance at Abraham Accords without that,
34:29so I give Jimmy Carter the peanut farmer bad president, his at least due for that.
34:38I think, forgive me, but I think that you're being far more generous than I would have.
34:43And I think that most historians also recognize that the two major players in the original Camp David Accords
34:55between Egypt and Israel were, of course, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin.
35:00Yes.
35:00And they are the ones who deserve your praise.
35:03Jimmy Carter...
35:04More...
35:05Yeah.
35:06He helped me...
35:07He helped me...
35:07He made it a little.
35:09And yes, I'm not...
35:11I would dare say that if there were a different U.S. president,
35:16it might have been a little more difficult for that to have occurred.
35:21So I think he deserves an itty-bitty bit amount of credit, but not the majority.
35:28That's...
35:29I'm not arguing with you that he deserves some credit.
35:34My point is that it was the courage of both Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin...
35:39Absolutely.
35:40...who made it happen.
35:42Absolutely.
35:43And so, yes, the Abraham Accords picked up where...
35:47I mean, that was obviously 1979, 1981.
35:50And since then, all the other accords that we've had, the peace agreement with Jordan,
35:54the Oslo Accords that created the Palestinian Authority,
35:58these were not in the same spirit at all.
36:01Because Anwar Sadat said,
36:03I accept the conceptual framework that the people of Israel are indigenous to the land of Israel
36:10and have the right to their re-established sovereignty in their ancestral homeland.
36:16And the Jordanian...
36:19The peace agreement with Jordan, I think actually King Hussein had a similar attitude.
36:23But unfortunately, both of them were succeeded by governments that allowed their educational frameworks,
36:29their media, their government to become extremely hostile to Israel and Jews and the West.
36:35And until the Abraham Accords, we didn't have another...
36:38To say nothing of Yasser Arafat and then Mahmoud Abbas and their hostility to any legitimacy given to a...
36:45Not to even go into the five times they rejected a chance in a Palestinian state.
36:50Oh, absolutely.
36:51And that's just five.
36:52You can go back eight times the Palestinians and dozens of times all the Arab world,
36:57going back to 1917, if you will, or even before.
37:01But the Abraham Accords were significant.
37:05Not because, oh great, another peace agreement with another Arab country.
37:09But exactly because...
37:11And Donald Trump and the others that were involved do receive a decent amount of credit
37:18for negotiating and encouraging and pushing the Abraham Accords.
37:22But again, the leaders of Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and Sudan and Morocco
37:27deserve obviously the bulk of the credit.
37:29Because what happened here was, and I quote them in my book extensively,
37:33the leaders of Bahrain, the leaders of the United Arab Emirates.
37:36These are leaders who have said, we as Arab Muslims, and including religious leaders from the UAE and Bahrain and
37:45Morocco,
37:45we as Arab Muslims declare that the people of Israel have a natural place here in the Middle East.
37:55They are integral parts of the Levant.
37:58We welcome them.
38:00We embrace them.
38:02Israel, the country, the nation state, as well as the Jews.
38:05And we believe that the future is one of coexistence as an Islamic and Arab value.
38:11That kind of a statement in the last few years went well beyond even Menachem Begin's statements.
38:18And it was reflective, which is why I use them extensively in my book as points of reference.
38:23The question is, do they mean it or are they just mouthing the words?
38:29Absolutely.
38:29And I can reassure you on that from every standpoint, including as a businessman,
38:34I have been in Bahrain and twice in the United Arab Emirates in Dubai.
38:38And I walk into supermarkets in Bahrain where there are tables with Israeli cherry tomatoes saying a big sign made
38:50in Israel with Israeli flags.
38:53And when I use the word embrace, that's what I'm talking about.
38:57I'm not talking about diplomacy or words or signed agreements.
39:01I'm talking about the actual integration.
39:04Not even just integration and interaction.
39:07I'm talking about an ideological acceptance, acknowledgement and embrace of an entire worldview
39:18that rejects categorically that oppositional rejectionist front by Islamic Jihad and Hamas and Iran and the others
39:27who attempt to claim that Islamic thought and Arab pride and Arab culture and Islamic theology by definition
39:41is against the idea of either independent religious thought like for Jews, Christians or others
39:52and is against the idea of a connection between the people of Israel and the land of Israel
39:57or legitimacy of the founding and the existence of the modern nation state of Israel.
40:02The kind of statements that we're hearing and have heard in the last 10 years from the United Arab Emirates
40:07leaders
40:07and Morocco and the King of Morocco has always been more moderate than many of his counterparts
40:13throughout the Arab Muslim world and Bahrain are actually important markers of this kind of transformation that we're talking about.
40:22And that's why it's really important to recognize it's not just the death culture and the death worship
40:30and the culture of hatred that led to October 7th, just like it led to now we're at the 25th
40:34anniversary of 9-11.
40:36You know, it's not just that we're recognizing the power of that ideology and how we have to stand strong
40:43against it.
40:44We, all of us, in the West, in the free world, led by Israel and America.
40:49And more importantly, within Islam. Reform can only come from within, truly.
40:55So, right. And so that's what I'm saying. It's not just the negative aspect of opposing such a hostile and
41:03violent ideology of the Islamist jihadists.
41:06It's also important to recognize the positive element of the real changes in behavior and ideology and even theological perspectives
41:16that we've seen through the Abraham Accords by these real moderates in Arab and Muslim society,
41:23including at the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and the like.
41:27So, that's what makes me hopeful, by the way. That's what gives me hope, makes me optimistic.
41:33I am an optimist by nature, but I've been privileged to meet and to interact with some of these truly
41:44moderate Muslims and Arabs.
41:47And that's what gives me hope. Now, I don't know. Is this kind of a transformation going to come about
41:52leading to peace with Israel
41:54and the West in the next two months or the next two years or the next two decades or the
42:00next two generations?
42:01I don't know. But I am confident it will happen just as it happened with the former Soviet Union.
42:08Yeah. Well, you mentioned hope again. And as I say, hope is great. Hope is wonderful.
42:13So is prayer. But it's not a strategy. We must work.
42:17And you also mentioned element again. So I'm going to quasi tongue in cheek go back to the start.
42:25The humility, acceptance, gratitude, forgiveness, and sense of purpose.
42:30Those value elements that you had clarified to you while you were out in the leather element.
42:39Ah, ah, see what I did there?
42:45Anyway, that's what makes me the best show on the Internet.
42:50I'm kidding, people. I don't suffer hubris. That's a joke, people.
42:57Others will know what anyone viewing this as a first episode. I need to throw that in there.
43:03That's a joke. I'm making fun.
43:06So now where can people find you? Do you have a website?
43:11Thank you for asking, Joseph. The answer is, I think the easiest thing is, first of all, I'm on Facebook
43:17and LinkedIn primarily.
43:19I'm also on Twitter and Instagram, but mostly in Substack.
43:22But Facebook and LinkedIn, you can look up R-E-A Green like you spelled it, A-R-Y-E
43:28-H.
43:29Green like the color.
43:31And connect with me.
43:33Also, I welcome, especially people who've read the book who want to either ask questions or argue with me.
43:39I welcome comments, input, and feedback at rea.green at gmail.com is my email.
43:46A-R-Y-E-H dot green like the color at gmail.com.
43:50And so there's a website for my first book, myisraeltrail.com.
43:54But that's not, I don't have a website for my book that just came out, Finding Peace in the Promised
44:00Land, but it can be found on Amazon and every major platform.
44:04So can my Israel trial.
44:06Okay, sounds good.
44:08Thanks for stopping by.
44:10Appreciate the time.
44:12Thank you very much for having me.
44:14I appreciate your interest.
44:15And so do my grandkids.
44:16Yeah, the kids, I think the kids are about to go crazy now.
44:21They need you back.
44:24I'll put you in the bed.
44:26Have a good one.
44:33Hope.
44:36Hope is great.
44:38We need more hope.
44:41But it in itself
44:44is not a strategy.
44:48Shall be known by fruits.
44:52Action God.
44:54Demands of you and me.
44:59Hope is a whisper, a pretty thought.
45:03A warm blanket when battles are fought.
45:06But a whisper won't win, no, not a single fight.
45:09Gotta stand up and shout with all of your might.
45:13Yeah.
45:14Hope is fine.
45:17It's a lovely thing.
45:20But hope is not a strategy.
45:24No, it ain't a strategy.
45:27You gotta move your feet.
45:29Gotta feel that beat.
45:30Hope is not a strategy.
45:35For you and for me.
45:38For you and for me.
45:41Talk is cheap.
45:43A dime a dozen phrase.
45:44Pretty words spin through all of your days.
45:47But action speaks louder, thunderous sound.
45:50When your boots hit the ground, no turning around.
45:53We can dream big dreams, paint pictures in our head.
45:57But if we just sit still, we might as well be dead.
46:00The fruits of our labor are what the world will see.
46:03Not just what we wish for, but what we choose to be.
46:12Cause hope is not a strategy.
46:15No, it ain't a strategy.
46:18You gotta move your feet.
46:20Gotta feel that beat.
46:22Hope is not a...
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46:39Thank you for having tuned into another
46:42Constitutionalist Podcast Show.
46:46I really appreciate that you stopped by.
46:50Again, please like, share, subscribe.
46:53We need you to help spread
46:56the Constitutionalist movement.
46:59Thank you again.
47:00Take care.
47:01God bless.
47:03Love you all.
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