962: Why Do College Students Support Hamas?

Brian Nichols  0:00  
Music. Instead of focusing on winning arguments, we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Well, hey there, folks. Brian Nichols here on a fun filled episode. Yes of The Brian Nichols Show, I am surprisingly Yes, your humble host, Brian Nichols joining me from our lovely cardio miracle Studios here in sunny Eastern Indiana. The Brian Nichols Show is powered by yes cardio miracle, the best heart health supplement in the world. If you're looking to lower your blood pressure, increase that pump at the gym, while lowering your resting heart rate, stick around later in today's episode, we're gonna talk about that in a little bit more detail, but first, we're talking all things college and campus activists, but specifically how different college and campus protesters are reshaping the global security concerns and priorities of America. And let's also with that, have a magnifying glass on the overarching Israeli Palestinian conflict, and yeah, campus, campus goofballs supporting Hamas. Let's dig into that all and more. I can't do it myself, though, joining us here on the show today from young voices. REIT Desai, REIT, welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. How you doing?

Speaker 1  1:15  
Hi, I've been I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. I am really excited to get started, really

Brian Nichols  1:22  
excited to have you on the show, Ri and I'm really excited to dig into your article today from real clear world, how campus activism on Israel, Israel Palestinian issues warps global security priorities. I read your article. There's a lot to unpack there. Love to get some of your perspectives, but first read, do us a favor. Introduce yourself here to The Brian Nichols Show audience and why your focus on campus activism, specifically some campus goofballs supporting literal terrorists.

Speaker 1  1:50  
So, yeah, hi, hi, everyone. Am The Desai. I am a student at King's College London. I own a blog page called Global love play. So I think you can follow me there. I think it would have been for the last but then I just want to say it. So, yeah, this is me, and I'm here to talk about how campus activism has, you know, deep it also disproportionately focuses on only one conflict, right? And it often, often even overshadows, like, other critical global crisis, like Sudan, Yemen or Afghanistan, like, I think all of us have just heard about it, like, for a brief moment, right? And then it just vanishes away into the media. And this is, this is one of the major conflicts which has gained so much attention over the span of time, and I think that attention has not even died down like it usually does, right? Yeah, sure, it is very important to talk about it

Brian Nichols  2:53  
well. And this is why you're here today. Because, you know, we look at and go back to October 7, I believe it was in 2023 when you had the attack from Hamas on Israel during that concert down, and I forget the specific region in Israel, but you have a bunch of Hamas militants stormed at the concert, lots of young folks literally being taken away, brought back into the Gaza Strip. Just horrific, horrific acts that were taking place there. But yet, immediately thereafter, there were, there were folks in America celebrating not just Palestinian rights, but actually celebrating a quite literal terrorist group in Hamas. And that leads me, I am an old fuddy duddy now, um, it means, leads me to feel a little, I don't know, um, like, disjointed from where I was when I was in college to where we are today. Lots has changed. And Rick, to your point, it feels like this has become a just ginormous issue, specifically in the young folks. So just help break this down a little bit. Why is there such a focus on the younger generation with the Israeli Hamas Palestinian conflict? And then, I guess specifically, why are there folks out there in the college campuses right now who are actively supporting a terrorist organization in Hamas, not just supporting Palestinians themselves.

Speaker 1  4:10  
I think I did take a very long thought off of it, and I always think that it is all like one of the main reasons, right? One of the main reasons is that they are not informed enough, like we all. I think Western conflicts receive so much more attention than the non western conflicts, right? Because I've always it might just be, you know, hierarchical as well. You know that them, their parents, their grandparents, have always been talking about, literally, the same conflicts and the same things. And I think that one, one of the things could be they're just not informed enough. Because, if I think, and I have, I have seen so so many students, confusing, how. Hamas and Palestine, or like Hamas in Gaza. So, like, I think these are the things that it's really important to, kind of, you know, know that all of these things are separate, and you're not to, like, support the terrorist organizations and stuff, because I have seen this in in universities as well. I We do have modules specifically focusing on global south stuff. But at the same time, I have not seen even, like our class discussions just revolving around global south or like just it does usually revolve around, oh, is it Palestine or Russia Ukraine. But I think even Russia, Ukraine did not receive as much attention as ISRAEL PALESTINE conflict is right now. It

Brian Nichols  5:48  
certainly received a lot of dollars, though, um, but let's, let's talk about that a little bit more, because in your article, you you outline how it is the focus on these issues, and as you talked about here today that sometimes over, they over, not say overstate, but they really do take the energy of the focus and attention away from quite other very real conflicts. I know in the article, you mentioned that the tragedy is taking place in Sudan. I think you said 8 million people going through displacement right now in Sudan, you had the Yemen humanitarian catastrophe. 377,000 people die in that proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which, by the way, the US has been funding. And then you go back to to Israel, right? And this is where I think a lot of folks, you know, they start to maybe get more paying attention to this than they would otherwise we've sent, what, $158 billion to the country of Israel, and I think the number is like 170 something billion to the country of Ukraine. That was just last year, or over the past two years. That is so I think that the real conversation comes down to a lot of and this may be my libertarian bias coming in right a lot of people in my world, we see these issues not so much as the horrific humanitarian crisis. Is that they absolutely are. But take that and then add the nuance that a lot of these these conflicts and these crises feel that they could have been prevented, if not for the United States, just simply stepping back and not having unintended consequences by us supporting one side or the other. I mean, and I had this conversation with Abdullah Hayek a couple of weeks ago where we were digging into look at we funded the Mujahideen, which then turned into al Qaeda, which then attacked us with the vision of trying to get us into a Forever War in the Middle East and get us to spend trillions of dollars of our blood and treasure to cripple us economically, which, hey, we're $36 trillion in debt. I think they maybe had some type of a mission accomplished there. So you see, just in that one instance, and that's not even looking into the other conflicts, like ISIS and, you know, the Syrian the Syrian civil war, you have our involvement in Libya. I mean, you just go down the list, a lot of folks see the the American influence in these conflicts. And I would say, you know, to give them the benefit of the doubt here, these campus activists, is it, is it so much that they are just invested in the emotional narrative, or are there a lot of campus activists who rightfully are saying, hey, not supporting Hamas, I'm not supporting literal terrorist organizations, but rather, I'm calling out the fact that America has, by, you know, by either direct or indirect involvement in these conflicts actually exacerbated the issue and made things worse.

Speaker 1  8:34  
I think I would agree, because even even, I think even us, intervention in Iraq that was also not needed, like that was just not needed, right? If, if somebody who actually would want to fight for the oil it, it should have been Middle East or, or even Europe on many levels. But why? Why us? Right? It's just, you know, this US media narrative of making, making us as, as as a global power who kind of helps everyone who is like giving to everyone who is like intervening and meddling. And you know, I think that meddling is also going in many, many wrong ways, in so many, so many conflicts, because it has escalated so many conflicts, instead of, like preventing it as well. And in your

Brian Nichols  9:20  
article, by the way, I just want to use one example. I'm a big fan of the Patrick bet David podcast, right PBD, and they are of Armenian descent, and you have one line in the article. Western leaders have also been discussing how to respond to Israel's military activities in Gaza for months, but the replies to Azerbaijan's ethnic cleansing of Armenians has been largely passive, despite the forced displacement of over 100,000 ethnic Armenians in 2023 there were no significant demonstrations, no trending hashtags, no global mobilization such as that for Palestine, because the issue lacks the political connotation that draws activist attention and politicians are less likely to engage. In the crisis, and read that right there. Going back to the overarching theme of your article, how campus activism on ISRAEL PALESTINE warps global security priorities. Like, I think we can absolutely walk and chew gum at the same time, but when you have these these activists, and you know this is the old adage, the squeaky wheels, the one that gets the grease right, when you have these very loud groups of folks, activists on campuses, wherever it may be, who are getting the attention of these politicians. It does impact our global foreign policy prescriptions, and I would dare say, in many cases, maybe not in the best of ways, from an American first perspective, but also just from a global perspective, we might end up doing more harm than good. What say you?

Speaker 1  10:39  
I think exactly like I totally agree with you, because on many levels, policy makers usually tend to look at something which is trending right, which is gaining people's attention, because at the end of the day, for them, it is, it is about winning an election, right? And then, if they are meddling, slash, you know, getting involved in the conflicts which have more, you know, people attention, like the media attention, and then, you know, I think it eventually shapes, uh, how, how, you know, I think everybody shapes the media, or like narratives through Media, right, via, via YouTube, via television, via newspaper. I think everybody has their sources of getting information, and I think it is very important to also look at what kind of sources we are looking at right Why talk about this? Because on many levels I have, I have seen so many people just not looking at right sources and then mixing up the fact that, you know, Hamas and Palestine is literally the same thing, right? Which is, which is, which is so not, and which which might just be like one media narrative, because you just saw a glimpse of something.

Brian Nichols  11:59  
And by the way, really quick like this. This is actually a very like it's a very topical conversation based on a podcast as we're recording today, just for folks behind the scenes. We were recording on April 12, this past calendar week. There was a debate over on the Joe Rogan podcast between my my buddy there, Dave Smith, and then Douglas Murray. And one of the overarching themes that Douglas Murray kept on bringing back to was, I would call it an appeal to authority, right saying, hey, you know, you're not an expert. Dave Smith, you're not an expert, to have a conversation on this. And I think that's a completely falicious argument. However, there is a grain of truth in terms of we need to be aware of the sources, the people that we are citing, because there is very much this, this outrage culture, where policy and people's perceptions are based not on actual like what's happening, but just social media posts, right? And then they inflate that by, you know, by regurgitating those posts despite not knowing if they're true or not. And this is not to say that, you know, Douglas Murray won that debate. I actually think Dave Smith handled Douglas Murray very, very well in that conversation. But different conversation for a different day. But looking at if I were to give Douglas, you know, a little bit of a, you know, points here and there, I think that is a fair point not to just appeal to authority, because I think that's a garbage argument, but rather trust but verify, right, like if you're gonna see a post on social media before you hit that retweet button, before you take it and you turn into your own post saying, like, oh my gosh, the calamity that the travesty here, we need to, we need to do something about this, which I have warned my show many a time, the danger of do something politics that's very, very bad. Like, when you look at that, you do need to trust but verify, and how easy it is read when you look at in our social media world today to just hit a retweet button, right? I actually think it was Twitter back before Elon Musk, they did something right. Believe it or not, they actually did. And what they did was they put a little note underneath every article when you try to just instantly retweet the article without clicking on the article, to say, Hey, do you want to read this article first before you share now, I know a lot of content producers are like, Come on, man, you're making it more difficult for me to share my stuff. But at you know, at the very least, what they were doing was trying to get rid of this, this, you know, this, um, social activism by retweet and actually like, I'll say require, but at least try to drive people in the direction of, hey, let's make sure you know what you're, you're you're retweeting. You know what the content of the article is, before you actually start regurgitating a narrative.

Speaker 1  14:31  
Oh my gosh, I wouldn't know about this, this Twitter before Elon Musk, because I never started using Twitter back then, because I think, yeah, I'm too young, so you make me feel cold

Brian Nichols  14:46  
very I appreciate that.

Speaker 1  14:49  
Sorry, but yeah, I think again, it is very important for us also to kind of know what we stand for. But at this. Same time, what is kind of, you know, what you're tweeting, slash posting, is it exactly what you stand for? Right? Because I've seen so many people coming, you know, like posting anything out of nowhere, and it just comes out of nowhere that, oh, this person doesn't have this opinion. Why is this person posting this, right? So it is also very important. And then when you call, call those people out, Oh, I did not read it properly, right? That's, that's just not an excuse to kind of fall into that trap of spreading misinformation, slash, you know, being, being a little hypocritical about your about your opinions.

Brian Nichols  15:44  
It's weaponized empathy. We've seen this here many a time. We talked about this in the show where, and we know, by the way, just going back to the core values here at The Brian Nichols Show, one of the things we always talk about is how everything in life is sales. Right? You're either selling an idea, a product, a service, your politics, whatever it may be. And we know that when people are making buying decisions, they do so based on emotion, right? So they're making that, that mental choice, right there on the emotion, and then they use the logic, the facts, the figures, the reasoning behind the scenes to help justify that emotional decision. So when I look at a lot of these campus activists, I feel that they've made the buying decision right, going back to the example here, with the emotion, but then they don't take that next step to actually do the logic, the reason that you know exactly. And then that leads to much more, you know, folks just kind of like singing the song, whatever the next crisis is, and re, you know, I don't know. Maybe this is because I am much more of a an American first libertarian, where I'm saying guys like, at the end of the day, I, and trust me, I care about these issues across the country or across the world. I care about the, you know, the 100,000 plus Armenians being displaced. I care about the crises that are happening in Sudan. I care about the American proxy war in Yemen that's killed hundreds of 1000s of women children, and that just it breaks my heart. And I say that to say, Yes, I should be able to care. But I do think when it comes down to a global conversation, we have an obligation, first and foremost, to care about the things that are in the confines of our own border, not saying at the expense of others, but rather, let's make sure we have you in the Jordan Peterson approach, clean your own damn room first, right? Like pick up our own our own mess. Let's deal with our own issues. We have a lot of crises here in America, whether it's, you know, dealing with natural disasters or are just insane spending that we have right now on an annual basis, in the trillions of dollars, the waste, fraud and abuse that's been exposed by Doge like there are very real issues that we need to address here in America. I would say, before we go and start dealing with foreign issues, I fly a lot for work, and when you're on the plane, what's one of the first things you hear from the flight attendants, right is when they're doing the whole safety instructions and they're doing the mask part for the oxygen, they always say, what? Make sure you put your mask on first before you help your neighbors. Right? Why? Well, because if you're in the air and there's no oxygen, you might get a little hypoxic, so you're not making the right decisions. I think America right now, RE is hypoxic. I think we are. We're very much we have not put our own mask on first, and we're watching, as you know, we're putting the mask on everybody else across the world, at the expense of not just our country, but the therein.

Speaker 1  18:29  
Yes, I think it just, it's just creating more catastrophe than it already was, right? Because, because even in Iraq, right, even Iraq's intervention by us was a global war on terrorism, right? So, which is something that they thought, that just doing like good for the people, that just, you know, it's like a global war on terrorism, right? But just only just us intervening, no, no other countries, and I think other countries which actually the neighboring countries, which actually supported us, right? They were also, they did not want to be in the bad books of the superpower at the end of the day, right? And that's the reason they were like, oh, okay, we're gonna support you full, uh, full proof. So, and even like in Sudan, right? Sudan was like, I don't think there was un intervention as as for per se. But after the fall of like Omar Al Bashir in 2019 Sudan entered a very, very fragile civilian rule, right? And then that's the that's how even, you know Al Qaeda and other terrorist organization that we were talking about, they found their routes through Sudan. They even found their routes through Yemen on on many levels, right? Because Yemen is at the mouth of the Red Sea. The southern part. And it gives, you know, gives a way to most like it was a base for al Qaeda for a very, very long time. And, you know, these states are still, still, you know, kind of the drug routes and the arms and weapons routes for most of the conflicts, right? And more or less all the conflicts are kind of supported by each of the countries. So you can't, you can't really blame, like, just one country, but I think at this point, all the countries should just actually put on their masks and deal with their own issues inside the countries like it is, it is very important to do that, rather than intervening in somebody else's issues and making it worse.

Brian Nichols  20:54  
Amen, can't agree more well, and how about this, as we go towards the the tail end of the conversation today, I like, I like to not just talk about the issues we see here in the show, but also, let's give some prescriptions, if we can, right? So let's go back to the the overarching theme here of your article, which is, you know, the campus activism piece, right? And how it's it's changing a lot of our global security priorities, not in a good way. So looking at the average college campus activist, um, RE and I'm just gonna say it, you're younger than I, and I think that's, you know, absolutely a welcome voice here in the show, because I still think in my head I can speak to the college the college kids, and get them motivated and influenced. But then I look in the mirror and I see the gray hairs, and I'm like, Oh, I'm old now. So it's good to have someone who is of a quite. Here we go a younger voice, because you're from young voices on the show to be able to talk to the youth, right? And I guess you know, if you're talking to the youth and you're talking to these college campus activists, like, what would be your prescription to them? Like, how would you have the conversation with a pro Hamas activist on campus? Is there even anything of value to have a conversation, or is it that we need to have more voices countering the goofball voices? I don't know the answer. What do you think?

Speaker 1  22:07  
I think, for me personally, if I meet somebody right, I would love to at least have a conversation and know why the person is supporting, supporting the terrorist organizations, like there have been so many, so much awareness about Hamas being a terrorist organization, right? But I've also seen some of the people who choose not to believe that, right? They just choose not to believe that it's a terrorist organization. And I think I respect everybody's opinion, so at the end of the day, I'm like, okay, like, I respect your opinion. It might just be, you know, my narrative from from what I am looking the world at, right, and then there would be somebody else in that narrative. So I think, and all of these issues also shape like it in a way. It just like all of these reports obviously go to to the security and the policy makers around the world, right? And that's how even they are like, Oh, this is the only thing that's going on, right? Because at the end of the day, they have to make people happy, right? Because they want again, sales in the next election, they want words. So I think this is, this is something that every student should, kind of, you know, make sure and do that they should look at, you know, because, again, genocide is a genocide everywhere. It's where people like humanitarian impact and humanitarian crisis are like one person dying or 10 people dying. It might just be the same thing, right? So at the end of the day, we need to focus on the one person dying as well as the 10 people dying, right? You You cannot just have like, you know this? You know how I, I've always seen that horses, horses have these, I don't know what, what it's called, but they have these, these things, all the blinders, yes, the blinders, right? The blinders, sorry, the blinders, right? And they could, they can just see straight. So I think you just need to, like, get those by blinders out and really look at the other things that are going on as well in terms of campus activism and actually talking about the issues. Because as an IR student, I would love to talk about like, each and every issue that's happening. And you know it is, it is next to kind of impossible to talk to anyone or have any conversation without mentioning inside Palestinian conflict, right? Yep, so that's something we need to kind of focus on as well, looking at the right narratives, getting getting our uh. Uh, you know, our sources, which are just, you know, which we are just blinded by to, like more exclusive sources. I think even if you look at the UN DP reports, right, the UN reports, UN reports also has reported around more than 300,000 I think 377,000 or more deaths in in Yemen, in the proxy war. So I think it is so important to kind of read not just news outlets, which is giving you like breaking news, but at the same time, it is so important to kind of detach yourself from that traditional rat race of of traditional media, and look at the other conflicts while referring to, like, some local newspapers or some, I don't know, like looking at the podcasts like, like yours. I mean, that would, that would help, right? So it is. It is very important to kind of be aware of what you're doing. Agreed,

Brian Nichols  26:06  
agreed. Read, well, how about this? As we go towards the the last bit of the show, we do a segment called Final thoughts. I'll kick things off and I'll turn things over you to bring us home. So we'll start out there with everybody's favorite, favorite voice, the nasally voice from the daily wire. Ben Shapiro, facts don't care about your feelings. No, Ben, you're right. Facts don't care about your feelings. However, feelings don't care about your facts. And guess what? Feelings sell. So when you go into a college campus and you're talking to college activists, if you're trying to go in by saying, Well, you don't really care about X, Y and Z, because, you know, hundreds of 1000s of people are displaced here, or millions of people have been killed here, and you're not talking about that, right? They're going to shut down. They're going to get defensive. Why? Because we're only addressing the facts piece. We're not talking about the feelings piece. And the goal that we're trying to do here with folks who are more college activists, right? I'm looking at them not necessarily as potential air quote buyers of what we're selling, but rather, they are folks that we can help them see something for the first time or hear something for the first time that they can't unhear or they can't unsee, right? We plant that little seed of doubt, and just in the way we approach it, we can water it, sprinkle sprinkles from fertilizer on it, and let that plant grow into something in the future that they just can't ignore. So for example, when you're talking to these college activists, and these campus activists first know your market, right? If you're talking to somebody and they're just a complete goofball leftist, they're not going to have a dialog. That's fine, right? Don't, don't go in with the the goal of trying to change their mind. But if you find somebody who's like, Well, yeah, I'm here because I care about injustice, and I want to, you know, raise up these voices. That's great. Start asking questions, right? Which I know folks like Ben Shapiro hate that hate he hates that. We ask questions, but it's important to ask questions, because asking questions helps you understand where, in this case, your prospect, or in this case, that the campus activists where they are. And the whole goal of the show is to what meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. So if we find a campus activist who they're not a radical right, they're just kind of, they're with the group, and you're talking to them, and you start asking questions like, Hey, why are you here today? Oh, cause I care about injustice. Okay, well, tell me more about like, injustices that you care about, and start digging through and understanding more of what motivates that person. Then I think we have a more effective chance to start planting the seeds of doubt, like we talked about here today, as saying, Well, you know, hey, this is a horrible tragedy. You know, in Gaza, what we're seeing with, you know, women and children being being buried under rubble as Israeli air strikes come and hit and, you know, that's what's tragic about that is that this could have been entirely avoided if and then we can go down the path, right? It's our not explaining, but rather giving the very necessary context that a lot of these folks simply don't have. Because, as we talk about today, a lot of these folks are the retweet activists. They see something on social media, they get really motivated to go out. You know, the Tick Tock activists, I guess, is more more the actual mentality right now. They see, you know, the video, and they want to be part of something bigger. They want to be part of, you know, this, this movement that's going to help save the world, and if we can start to help them see things a little bit differently, even if we don't convince them today that the seeds of doubt that we're helping plant will grow into something in the future that hopefully will help change political discourse, but it starts with us actually going out, meeting people where they're at, on the issues they care about. And sorry, Ben, leading with feelings, not just facts. That's my final thoughts for today. REET, what do you have for us? Bring us home today. What are your final

Speaker 1  29:32  
thoughts? So about my final thoughts? I usually don't add anything on my final thoughts other than what I've said in, usually the podcast, but I really want to add one thing that you know, it is very important for us to also look at the fact that how student narratives are shaped, by by the by the academics, right, by by our professors, right? They are the ones who teach us. They are the ones who we talk to in the class. So I think. Think it is very important that they are the ones who start talking about Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan, for us to actually know what's happening there, right? Because that is, that is the first step I have not seen. I just have one question like, Have you ever seen anybody like to the audience that have you ever seen anybody who has specialized in in all of the all of these countries? Yes, people have started to, you know, specialize on global South, on China, India, so many. But what about these nations? These nations still deserve, and these catastrophic events do deserve so much attention. So I think it's very important that our activism and our policy decisions reflect a comprehensive understanding of the global conflict, like by expanding our focus beyond just the familiar narrative, or, like just having, you know, this oppressor victim mentality, we can address, like a broader spectrum of humanitarian crisis, and I think we can contribute to and by this, we can contribute to, like, a more equitable, and, you know, more fair international response.

Brian Nichols  31:14  
Great Desai, it has been a fantastic conversation today. Thank you for joining us. And with that being said, we obviously want folks to be to go able to go ahead and find you after today's episode. So first folks head over to Real Clear world. You can go ahead and check out Reed's article again, how campus activism on ISRAEL PALESTINE warps global security priorities. That link will be in the show notes, but read social media. Where can folks go ahead reach out if they want to continue the conversation? Continue the conversation.

Speaker 1  31:43  
So you can reach out to me at global Love Day, which is like a Hindi metaphor for global affairs. So yes. So it's global underscore, love day. Love Day would be L, A, F, D, so you can follow me there. Awesome.

Brian Nichols  31:57  
And folks, if you got some value from today's episode, which I know you did. Please go ahead and give it a share. When you do tag yours truly at B Nichols liberty, you can find me on X, on Facebook and on Instagram. Also for The Brian Nichols Show, you can watch The Brian Nichols Show on your favorite platforms, like rumble on x, which, by the way, we are live streaming our shows on Monday and Friday nights at 9pm Eastern. Make sure you hop over there and check that out. And by the way, we are also a podcast, so you can go ahead and check The Brian Nichols Show on your favorite podcast. Catchers like Apple podcast, Spotify YouTube, music, wherever it is, just do me a favor. Hit that little subscribe button. And of course, hit that notification bell to miss a single time we have a brand new conversation. And by the way, if you're joining us on one of those video platforms like YouTube, Twitter or rumble head down below into the comments. Let us know your thoughts. How do you deal with campus activists? Do you deal with campus activists, and what do those conversations look like? Go ahead and let us know down below your thoughts. But with that being said, Brian Nichols, signing off here on The Brian Nichols Show for read Desai, we'll see you next time. Thank you. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai