03:00 – Hamas, October 7 & Moral Responsibility
06:45 – The Asymmetry Trap: Hamas's Strategy Against Israel
14:40 – Civilian Casualties & Israel's Military Strategy
20:25 – Did Michael Walzer Change His Mind About Israel?
22:45 – When Should Israel Have Ended the War?
28:05 – Netanyahu, Gaza & Israel's Strategic Mistakes
32:45 – Iran, Hezbollah & Israel's Security
35:00 – Palestinian Self-Determination & Democracy
39:45 – The Future of Zionism & a Palestinian State
43:40 – Walzer's Final Message: Israel Must Survive
48:13 – Did The New Yorker Misrepresent Michael Walzer?
51:00 – Why Noam Does This Podcast: Access to Great Minds
1:01:00 – Bari Weiss, 60 Minutes & What Makes a Good Interview
1:02:00 – Omar Bartov, Hamas & Intellectual Accountability
1:05:40 – Do Intellectuals Change Their Beliefs to Be Accepted?
1:08:40 – The Psychology of Belonging & Political Conformity
1:10:30 – Why Interviewing Anti-Israel Intellectuals Matters
1:14:00 – Noam Chomsky, Intellectual Integrity & Controversial Associations
1:19:50 – Russell Brand, Sexual Assault & the Question of Consent
1:24:20 – Celebrity, Power & Sexual Consent
1:28:10 – Final Thoughts: Why the Walzer Interview Matters

Michael Walzer, renowned political philosopher and author of Just and Unjust Wars, joins Noam Dworman and Periel Aschenbrand for a conversation about Israel, Hamas, Gaza, and the morality of modern warfare.

Walzer discusses Hamas's October 7 attack, the asymmetry trap, civilian casualties, Netanyahu's leadership, and the point at which Israel should have shifted from military action to political solutions. He also addresses his New Yorker profile, rejects the claim that he changed his position on Israel, and discusses the future of Zionism, Palestinian self-determination, and Israel's security.

Then, a provocative discussion between Noam and Periel about intellectual dishonesty, antisemitism, media bias, and the willingness of public intellectuals to change their positions to gain approval.

Michael Walzer is an American political philosopher, public intellectual, and professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS). He is widely recognized as one of the preeminent thinkers in contemporary political theory. He is the author of multiple books including Just and Unjust Wars and the subject of a recent profile in The New Yorker titled, "A Philosopher of War Changes His Mind."

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/a-philosopher-of-war-changes-his-mind

"I've done thousands of interviews in my life. I've never been talked over quite as much as I have tonight." - Benjamin Moser Moser came on to defend his new book, Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History. Noam Dworman came with Moser's own sources and a list of what he says the book gets wrong. Was Herzl an antisemite who wanted the Jews to disappear, or a man flailing for any way out of European antisemitism? Did Iraq's Jews leave because of Zionist bombs or because of official persecution, and what does Avi Shlaim himself say? Who started the Six-Day War: the side that fired first, or the side that closed the Straits of Tiran? Should Balfour be judged the way Frederick Douglass judged Lincoln? One thing neither disputes: Jews had a right to come to Palestine as immigrants. Moser's objection is to coming "as conquerors." Also: Theodor Herzl, Lord Balfour, Abraham Lincoln, Derek Penslar, Benny Morris, Norman Finkelstein, Anwar Sadat, Nasser, the Kishinev pogrom, the Farhud, the Nakba, Gaza. Benjamin Moser won the Pulitzer Prize for Sontag: Her Life and Work. Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History is out now from Doubleday.

0:00 Noam: "This interview did not go as I hoped" 2:16 "Moserism": the opening statement on Lincoln and Balfour 14:55 Herzl's "genitals" line: diary or letter? 22:41 Herzl's mass-conversion plan and the Penslar tape 31:01 "Did European Jews have the right to come to Palestine?" 49:56 Why did Iraq's Jews leave? Avi Shlaim and the Baghdad bombs 58:42 Who started the Six-Day War? 1:13:22 After Moser leaves: Dan and Periel weigh in

https://www.instagram.com/dan.schueftan https://www.tiktok.com/@dan.shiftan 04:20 – Can civilized societies defend themselves? 11:35 – What does Schueftan mean by “barbarism”? 16:45 – Israel, the West Bank and the question of disengagement 29:00 – Settlements, separation and the future of Israel 37:05 – Freedom, Western values and Israel's critics 47:50 – The crocodile and the banana: America's Middle East policy 54:05 – Antisemitism and the future of Jewish life abroad 62:35 – October 7 and Israel's strategic position 68:40 – Hebrew, Jewish identity and connecting young Jews to Israel 77:45 – Noam and Periel reflect on the conversation Noam Dworman and Periel Aschenbrand are joined by Dr. Dan Schueftan for a wide-ranging conversation about Israel, the Palestinians, Iran, antisemitism and the future of Western civilization. Schueftan argues that the West has fundamentally misunderstood its adversaries, that Israel cannot afford to confuse concessions with security, and that the survival of liberal democracy depends on the willingness to defend it.The conversation covers the future of the West Bank, the dangers of Palestinian statehood under current conditions, America's failures in the Middle East, the rise of antisemitism, and the future of Jewish life outside Israel. Dr. Dan Schueftan is the Head of the International Graduate Program in National Security at the University of Haifa. He also serves as a senior lecturer at Haifa University's School of Political Sciences. He has taught at the Israel Defense Force's National Security College and the IDF's Command and Staff College. He has been a consultant to every Israeli prime minister since Menachem Begin and has published extensively on national security, strategic thinking and contemporary Middle Eastern history. Dr. Schueftan’s most recent book is Israel’s National Objectives – A Comprehensive Perspective (2021).

Phillips O’Brien is Professor of Strategic Studies at St Andrews. He is the author of The Strategists, How the War Was Won and The Second Most Powerful Man in the World. He has written for The Atlantic, The Spectator and Foreign Affairs. Substack: https://substack.com/@UCpFYfImma_1URlxsC0t9CPQ X: https://x.com/PhillipsPOBrien?lang=en

Professor O’Brien joins Noam Dworman, Dan Naturman and Periel Aschenbrand for a conversation about the end of American global dominance and what it means for the future of the United States.They discuss America's military capabilities, the war with Iran, nuclear proliferation, Ukraine, China and Taiwan, and whether American alliances can be restored.

01:15 Is the American Age Over?

03:49 America's Military Strength and the Iran War

10:29 The Bipartisan Roots of American Decline

16:31 Ukraine, Russia and Nuclear Escalation

19:10 America's Economic Strengths and Weaknesses

25:09 Iran's Nuclear Program and the Limits of American Power

45:04 China, Taiwan and the Future of American Alliances

55:12 Iran, Nuclear Deterrence and America's Future

"I just don't feel like the podcast is a vehicle for me to shine, or even lightly glow." Dan Naturman's resignation email, read on air in the episode where he comes back - which only happened because Periel booked two different Daniels for the same day and neither one showed up. 0:00 Dan does the intro, and Noam's two-screen Asus laptop demo. 5:18 The calendar debacle: Daniel Mendelsohn, Daniel Levy, then nobody 13:06 Dan quit by email: "a vehicle for me to shine, or even lightly glow" 21:30 Periel's Abraham Accords: cruises, MSC and Dan Tries Things 28:48 Comics Unleashed, the Letterman theory and why Dan's jokes aren't "real" 41:00 The new club's 2 a.m. litter summonses, and Noam concedes on congestion pricing 47:30 Raise the minimum wage, lose the fifth day; $25 covers vs. $50 58:59 Movie-ticket pricing, five rooms, "give good, get good" and Yohay at the Beacon Why did Dan quit, and what would make him stay? Did congestion pricing fail, or is an 11% drop in traffic just invisible from the driver's seat? What actually happened at the Comedy Cellar when wages went up 25%? And why does the Cellar charge $25 when the clubs around it charge $50? Noam and Dan agree on one thing: the Cellar is the cheapest game in town, and Noam isn't going to fix it. Also: Daniel Mendelsohn's Odyssey, the Asus Zenbook Duo, Comics Unleashed and Byron Allen, the Norm Macdonald documentary, Marc Maron, Gary Gulman, Chris Turner, Philip Roth and The Sopranos' Big Pussy, the new club's 2 a.m. litter summonses, the two-item minimum, Arizona iced tea's 99 cents, and Yohay Sponder at the Beacon. Dan Naturman performs at the Comedy Cellar whenever he's not on a cruise ship. Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen airs weeknights on CBS.

With Twitter's @1basemoney, Matthew Mežinskis. Is there room for pro-Ukrainian people to disagree??? 0:00 Matthew Mezinskis: Latvia, Bitcoin and Darryl Cooper's "accident" 10:16 "Are these evil people?" Diagnosing Carlson, Cooper, Horton and Dave Smith 23:12 Scott Horton in 2020, and "not one inch" 34:36 Can Ukraine roll Russia back? The map, the no-fly zone and the nuke question 45:33 Trump's diesel deal with Putin: disgraceful or triage? 51:22 Witkoff, "Dim Philby," the four oblasts and the fortress belt 58:30 The Axios report, Kuwait's drones and whether Trump is compromised 01:14:48 Larisa Horton, the Oxford Union, Macklemore vs. Kraft and Russia's outhouses "What we're seeing now is that sunlight grows bacteria much quicker than the lack of sunlight did." Noam Dworman, lifelong free-speech absolutist, admits the Darryl Cooper era has shaken his faith in what free speech produces - prompted by a Latvian-American Bitcoin analyst who thinks Tucker Carlson, Dave Smith and Scott Horton are the exact people Eastern Europe learned to fear. Was Trump's diesel deal with Putin a betrayal of Ukraine, or triage in the Iran war? If nobody in the know predicted Putin's invasion, why does everyone now call it inevitable? Would Putin ever have used a nuke over a no-fly zone? Is Trump compromised, or just a man who likes dictators? Noam and Matthew Mezinskis disagree on most of it, but agree on this: there is no kompromat on Trump, and we'd know by now if there were. Also: Tucker Carlson's Poland remarks, Steve Witkoff and "Dim Philby," the four oblasts and the fortress belt, the Axios report on Zelensky, the Kuwait drone attack, Scott Horton at the Oxford Union, Larisa Horton, Macklemore and Robert Kraft, Jeffrey Sachs to David Sacks, Russia's one-picket rule, Pussy Riot, Tulsi Gabbard's biolabs, Operation Spiderweb, and the WHO sanitation chart that ends the show. Matthew Mezinskis is the creator of Porkopolis Economics, tracking Bitcoin against the world's fiat money supplies since 2018. Find him at porkopolis.io and @1basemoney.

"To say that Boris Johnson went there and forced the Ukrainians to fight on - that is complete bullshit." Why did Zelensky ignore six requests from Trump to stop hitting Russian refineries, and does the Russian diesel deal that followed make sense while the Iran war has fuel at crisis prices? What was Steve Witkoff doing calling Putin a "great humanitarian" this week? Did NATO expansion provoke the invasion, or is Putin just a man who can't stand being slighted? Is Russia Hitler's Germany, or is Munich an overused analogy. Is Trump is saving Zelensky from himself? Also: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky, Steve Witkoff, Henry Kissinger, Boris Johnson, Victoria Nuland, Paul Krugman, Samuel Charap, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Dave Smith, Candace Owens, Theo Von, Iran war, Strait of Hormuz, diesel prices, Donbas, Crimea, NATO. Sergey Radchenko is the Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the author of "To Run the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power." He is writing a history of the Russia-Ukraine war, to be published when the war ends. Follow him on X: @DrRadchenko. 0:00 Dan's still out; Noam's 2017 Crimea clips: "sanctions till the end of time" 13:40 Sergey Radchenko on Trump's Russian diesel deal and the six requests Zelensky ignored 28:46 Witkoff calls Putin a "great humanitarian": what's the strategy? 36:20 Will Russia roll over Europe? Munich, Kissinger's last word, NATO's empty promise 44:15 Should a victim compromise? Donbas, security guarantees, did the West provoke Crimea 57:40 Why Putin invaded: humiliation, hubris, Obama's Atlantic interview, Afghanistan 1:08:36 The Istanbul talks, the Boris Johnson myth, and the verdict on Trump 1:24:49 Post-game: Dave Smith, the Absolut Pussy ad, Candace Owens, Theo Von

"They hated each other." That's Elliot Kaufman describing Israel's war cabinet, not its enemies. Kaufman joins Noam Dworman on the rivalries, leaks and gambles behind Israel's war since October 7. Why did Netanyahu wait 20 days to invade Gaza? When was Biden saving Israel from itself, and when was he holding it back? And why did killing Nasrallah trigger a furious phone call from Washington? They also confront what both consider Israel's biggest mistake in Gaza: taking ground, leaving, and having to fight for it all over again. Also: Gallant and Gantz, Jake Sullivan and Lloyd Austin, the Philadelphi Corridor, Rafah, the Qatar strike, Trump's "all I heard was yes," Mamdani's October 7 statement, and Iran under blockade. Get the full story in Kaufman's new book, In the War Room: The Inside Story of Israel's Fight Against Hamas and the Iranian Axis, coauthored with Yonah Jeremy Bob. 0:00 Elliot Kaufman and the case for airing Israel's dirty laundry 6:44 Churchill's war room vs. Israel's: "they hated each other" 18:25 Mers-el-Kébir, Netanyahu's history test, and the 20-day wait to invade Gaza 30:06 Hostages, the Philadelphi Corridor, and the Saudi deal that wasn't 38:34 Rafah in days, not months, and was Biden really in decline? 48:46 The morning of October 7: Halevi's note and one aircraft 55:12 Killing Nasrallah without telling Washington, and how the Iran war began 65:29 Endgame: Petraeus, raid-and-leave, "all I heard was yes," and the story that leaves Hamas out

Hen Mazzig, co-founder of the Tel Aviv Institute and author of The Wrong Kind of Jew, says Israel won on the battlefield and lost the world, and that explaining Israel "is not a replacement for policy." He spent five years in COGAT, the IDF unit that issues Palestinian permits and prison visits, and was attacked by settlers while in uniform. We play his Piers Morgan fight with Norman Finkelstein ("Am I a child killer?") and go through what Amit Soussana actually said. Noam asks whether Israel would hold the West Bank if it had no holy sites, why the occupation is the Palestinians' best weapon, and why "sunlight grows mushrooms." Also: Mamdani's October 7 statement, Mearsheimer on the Hannibal Directive, Eurovision, and why Noam thinks everyone should have a baby.

0:00 Hen Mazzig, three years and a day after October 7

4:19 "We won on the battlefield and lost the world"

18:36 Food, famine and the arguments that don't work

28:52 What if the West Bank had no holy sites?

37:56 Smallpox, arrogance and "have a baby"

52:13 Five years in COGAT: what the IDF's humanitarian unit does

61:40 "Am I a child killer?" Finkelstein and the rape deniers

76:00 Mearsheimer, the Hannibal Directive and "sunlight grows mushrooms"

Three years after October 7: What's Next for Israel and the Jewish People. Noam sits down with Coleman Hughes, Eli Lake and Salo Aizenberg to ask whether the war was worth it. Coleman says Israel traded prestige for power and Hamas did the opposite. Salo brings the Gaza Health Ministry's own 2025 report: 50,000 births, 25,000 deaths, and 108 hospital workers who appear in Hamas's own martyr notices as commanders. Eli says Israel's strategic position has never been better. Noam is the pessimist in the room: "The optimists died in the gas chambers. The pessimists have pools in Beverly Hills." Also: why Hamas never gave up the hostages, John Mearsheimer on tape claiming the IDF killed its own, Coleman's Joe Rogan clip, Noam's 2019 emails that predicted all of it, and a fight over whether Israel should leave the West Bank. 0:00 Three years after October 7: Coleman Hughes, Eli Lake, Salo Aizenberg 2:22 Opening statements: what Israel and Hamas each traded 11:14 Noam: "The optimists died in the gas chambers" 18:41 Why Hamas never released the hostages 33:33 Conspiracy theories and the Mearsheimer tape 47:35 Salo's slides: Gaza's 2025 numbers and the nurses who were Hamas commanders 1:07:09 Should Israel leave the West Bank? 1:21:50 Noam's 2019 emails, Coleman on Rogan, and the diaspora

Is Nathan Cofnas's "Guide for the Hereditarian Revolution." a plan to heal or America, or is it simply a racist manifesto dressed up as science.

We ask him to his face. Cofnas is the philosopher at the center of the Jason Arday plagiarism affair.

He says that, all else equal, smarter people have more human worth. He says freedom of association is worth it even if some diner bans blacks and Jews. And he says race realism is about to break into the mainstream whether we like it or not.

Noam takes him through A Guide for the Hereditarian Revolution line by line: the Charles Murray debate, Jared Taylor, a speech by Michael Levin (whose book Cofnas calls important), white kids "brainwashed to despise themselves," Nikole Hannah-Jones's daughter and the lifeboat question. Periel arrives late, just in time to call it insane (as usual). 0:00 Intro: "I feel like you're a white nationalist"

9:26 Is a smarter person worth more?

23:33 "Some barriers set up between the races"

32:16 Jared Taylor, AmRen and Michael Levin

53:03 "White children are brainwashed to despise themselves"

1:29:54 Nikole Hannah-Jones and her daughter

1:41:53 Lower human worth? The lifeboat question

1:47:38 Closing argument: yarmulkes on the basketball court

Nathan Cofnas, A Guide for the Hereditarian Revolution (Feb 5, 2024)

https://ncofnas.com/p/a-guide-for-the-hereditarian-revolution

Nathan Cofnas, Are Smart People Superior? A Reply to Noah Carl and Charles Murray (Apr 26, 2024)

https://ncofnas.com/p/are-smart-people-superior-a-reply

Debate with Charles Murray: IQ and Human Worth (Sept 16, 2026)

https://ncofnas.com/p/debate-with-charles-murray-iq-and

Nathan Cofnas, Why We Need to Talk about the Right's Stupidity Problem (Jan 2, 2024)

https://ncofnas.com/p/why-we-need-to-talk-about-the-rights

Nathan Cofnas, Beating Woke with Facts and Logic (Oct 9, 2025)

https://ncofnas.com/p/beating-woke-with-facts-and-logic

Nathan Cofnas on X, "Jews tried to be white nationalists" (Apr 28, 2018)

https://x.com/nathancofnas/status/990243373180219397

David Reich, How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of 'Race,' New York Times (Mar 23, 2018)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/opinion/sunday/genetics-race.html

David M. Quinn, How to Reduce Racial Bias in Grading, Education Next (Nov 2, 2020)

https://www.educationnext.org/how-to-reduce-racial-bias-in-grading-research/

Nikole Hannah-Jones on her daughter's schooling, New York Times Magazine (Sept 20, 2026)

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/magazine/ny-public-schools-black-students-segregation.html

This American Life, Ep. 898, An Argument (Nikole Hannah-Jones and her daughter)

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/898/an-argument