Jared Kushner: Israel-Hamas War, paths forward, macro picture, AI

1. 0:00 – 1:14

   Bestie Intros: Sacks keeps receipts!

   1. JCJason Calacanis0:00

      Sacks, what essay were you writing last night till 3:00 in the morning?

   2. DSDavid Sacks0:02

      Oh, I was blasting people on Twitter yesterday. I was collecting scalps.

   3. JKJared Kushner0:06

      (laughs)

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:06

      (laughs)

   5. JCJason Calacanis0:08

      Collecting scalps (laughs) .

   6. DSDavid Sacks0:09

      I keep these receipts of people who attack me on Ukraine and then, like, six months later, you know, they'll write a tweet admitting they were wrong, so I'll rub it in their face.

   7. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:19

      You have a little Google Doc and you just go through one by one?

   8. DSDavid Sacks0:20

      No, I just, like, bookmark them. I just bookmark them.

   9. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:22

      (laughs)

   10. JCJason Calacanis0:23

       (laughs) Yeah. You have, like, your Kill Bill list.

   11. DSDavid Sacks0:26

       Yeah.

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:26

       You are so petty. Oh my God.

   13. JCJason Calacanis0:29

       Yeah.

   14. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:29

       I love it.

   15. DSDavid Sacks0:30

       Well, I mean-

   16. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:30

       I love that about you.

   17. JKJared Kushner0:31

       Some would say that's a good defense mechanism, right?

   18. JCJason Calacanis0:33

       (laughs)

   19. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:34

       (laughs)

   20. DSDavid Sacks0:35

       (laughs) Yeah. They gotta know they're not gonna take any free shots 'cause if they do and then-

   21. JCJason Calacanis0:39

       They're coming back.

   22. DSDavid Sacks0:39

       ... you know, invariably I, I'm proven correct, then, uh-

   23. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:43

       (laughs)

   24. DSDavid Sacks0:45

       I'm gonna smack 'em. Very Trumpian, isn't it?

   25. JKJared Kushner0:48

       Yeah, it's a very hard burden for you to carry, just being right all the time.

   26. DSDavid Sacks0:51

       (laughs)

   27. JKJared Kushner0:52

       I, I, I respect the way you do it with such grace and, uh, magni- magnanimity, so.

   28. NANarrator0:59

       Let your winners ride. Rain Man, David Sachs. I'm going all in. And I said we open source it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it.

   29. JCJason Calacanis1:10

       Love you, bestie.

   30. JKJared Kushner1:11

       Queen of quinoa.
2. 1:14 – 13:12

   Jared Kushner joins the show: background, Trump's campaign validation

   1. JCJason Calacanis1:14

      All right. Welcome back to the All-In Pod. Really excited to have a guest with us today, Jared Kushner. I'm sure everyone knows who he is. We obviously talked about Jared's interview with Lex Fridman on the pod a couple of weeks ago. And what happened, Chamath, you DM'd Jared and started chatting and said, "Hey, would you be interested in coming to talk with us-"

   2. JKJared Kushner1:33

      Yeah.

   3. JCJason Calacanis1:34

      "... about these matters?"

   4. JKJared Kushner1:35

      Yeah.

   5. JCJason Calacanis1:35

      And Jared very, you know, kindly agreed to do it. So we're really excited to, uh, have Jared join us today. Jared, welcome.

   6. JKJared Kushner1:42

      Thank you for having me.

   7. JCJason Calacanis1:43

      So, I don't think you need much of an introduction. Obviously, uh, you were a senior advisor to, uh, President Trump from 2017 to 2021 and, uh, you worked on the US Mexico relationship as well as led the Middle East peace efforts, which I think is gonna make up the bulk of what we're excited to talk about today. Uh, just really briefly, since leaving, um, office, you've been investing, running a firm called Affinity Partners, is that right? Um, maybe you can share with us just a little bit about what you've been up to and then we'll, you know, kind of get into it here.

   8. JKJared Kushner2:15

      Perfect. Affinity Partners is a private equity firm that I started when we left, uh, doing growth investing, private equity investing. Globally, we raised just over 3.1 billion, uh, doing a lot of investments, trying to, uh, bring Gulf money into Israel, into the US, trying to figure out how, through, uh, investments you could bring countries closer together, people closer together, uh, looking at a lot of areas where there's, uh, structural transitions happening, uh, at large in the global economy, whether it's nearshoring, from offline to online, uh, you know, software, a lot of, uh, different interesting areas, a lot in the, the fintech space and financial services right now. Uh, but, you know, enjoying it and, uh, the goal is really to bring the experience that we had from the previously being an investor and, um, then the time in government, and then thinking through how you could use those macro, uh, learnings and connections and relationships, uh, and navigational skills to the investing side.

   9. JCJason Calacanis3:07

      Great. So we're gonna try and talk later in the show, uh, about macro markets a bit, talk a little bit about some of the activity in AI this week. We think it's all pretty prescient and hopefully we can all dialogue about that. I think it'd be helpful, when you and I talked just to get ready for the show today, you mentioned that you had a very liberal upbringing in the Upper East Side of New York and your perspective began to shift as you started to travel the country, and you were in the Trump White House and have become very active since. Would love to hear a little bit about how your perspective shifted in the time you spent, 'cause you mentioned you started traveling the country and seeing things that you otherwise hadn't seen living in the Upper East Side. Would love to hear that part of your story before we kind of get into things, if you wouldn't mind sharing.

   10. JKJared Kushner3:49

       Yeah, sure. So, uh, one thing about my life is that, uh, nothing has gone according to the plan. Uh, I grew up in, uh, New Jersey, uh, really nice place in Livingston. Uh, my father was an entrepreneur in the real estate business, banking, insurance, did a lot of different things. Uh, really brought up, uh, me and my siblings to be focused on business. And, uh, it really, for us, was a, uh, good experience growing up. Uh, obviously went to, uh, Harvard, and then after that chose to go to, uh, law school and business school, uh, where I was at NYU during that time. My, my father had a legal issue and I was forced to take over the business. Um, and so I got into the real estate business, and then after that, uh, bought a media company in New York, and that's really where I got exposure to a lot of what are called New York society. Um, my wife and I, uh, we met, got married and, uh, through that experience, uh, thought we had a very expanded worldview. Uh, at our house in the Upper East Side, we'd have dinner parties, we'd have-

   11. JCJason Calacanis4:41

       (laughs)

   12. JKJared Kushner4:41

       ... heads of banks and hedge funds and technology companies and fashion and, um, and, and then it was just, you know, a really nice life. And then her father, uh, announced he was running for office, and that was, uh, an interesting experience for us as a Republican. We didn't know too many Republicans. Um, we ended up becoming-

   13. JCJason Calacanis4:57

       Were you a registered Democrat prior?

   14. JKJared Kushner4:59

       Uh, I was registered Democrat growing up. Uh, my father was a big Democrat donor. We were, we'd have in our house, whether it be, you know, Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, I think my father gave, uh, Cory Booker his first campaign donation, so I've known Cory since I'm 15 years old. Uh, so really grew up around Democrat politics, uh, all of our life. But over time, I, I think during the Obama years, I, I, uh, changed my registration to an Independent. I didn't feel, uh, like the Democratic Party was fully representing my, my viewpoints, so I felt more Independent minded. And then, um, during the time with, um, my father-in-law, when he was running, uh, for office, uh, he invited me to go with him to a rally in Springfield, Illinois. We flew out there, I got off the plane and, um, you know, we, we pull up to an arena and the guy comes up to Trump and says, uh, "Congratulations, sir. You just broke the record for the arena for attendance." Uh, then he says, "Well, well, who had the, who had the record before?" And he says, "Well, it was Elton John 36 years earlier." And he says, "Jared, look, I don't even have a guitar or a piano. This is impressive." You know? So, you know, he gets up on stage and, and, um, without really notes, you know, riffs for over an hour. And it was interesting for me 'cause I was watching, you know, CNN and the New York Times and all my friends in the media basically were describing his rallies as almost like KKK conventions. But I walked around the crowd, nobody knew who I was then, and what I saw was that these were just, you know, they were, people were old, young, male, female, uh, white, minority, and, um-And, uh, and it was just people who were hardworking Americans who, who, you know, really felt like Trump was giving them a voice. And what was interesting to me was a couple weeks earlier we'd been at, uh, the Robin Hood Foundation, which is the big, uh, philanthropy in New York where a lot of the hedge fund managers, uh, support. I remember the chairman of Robin Hood getting up and saying, "You know, if we want to save, um, you know, the next generation, we want to save, uh, the kids in the inner cities, uh, we have to, uh, we have to support Common Core. That's the way that we can save people." And I remember Trump gets up there and he says, uh, "You know, if we want to save education, we have to end Common Core and send it to the states." And I'm saying, "Wait, I thought, I thought Common Core was this great thing and but why are all these people against it?" And so it, it really just kind of piqued my interest and made me realize that maybe my aperture was, was way smaller, um, way more closed than, than I thought it was, and it really led me to, to, to seek out a lot of people who had differing points of view than the people I'd been around before. I really opened my aperture, explored a lot, and over the years, I really got the chance to meet with people from both sides. So, you know, I have a lot of friends who are independent, friends who are liberal, friends who are very, uh, Republican. And, uh, you know, my personal view is I thought of myself more as a pragmatist, uh, fact-based and data-driven, and based on that, I tried to pursue, uh, the different policies that I thought made the most sense, uh, in as unemotional a way as possible.

   15. CPChamath Palihapitiya7:40

       How did you figure out that that moment in Springfield could translate all throughout the country? Like, was there a process that you guys went through to validate like, "Hold on, is this just a moment in time or is this just a specific area?" Or what is ... How did you guys get to the ground truth of what the scalable, marketable candidate looked like? 'Cause I'm sure that was part of the calculus in what you did, 'cause it... I think the, to your point, maybe the media's perspective was, "Hold on a second, this, this guy is, is riffing." But it clearly went very quickly from riffing to a methodical plan, and I don't think that that's ever really been talked about. Do you wanna just tell us a little bit about that?

   16. JKJared Kushner8:19

       Sure. Well, I, I would say it was less planned and way more entrepreneurial, and, and I say entrepreneurial in, in two different senses. You know, one is the campaign was run, was run incredibly entrepreneurially. It, it... People were told that if you work for Trump, you'll never get a job in Washington again, which is why he really wasn't able to hire a lot of people initially and why a lot of the responsibility for the campaign fell to people like myself who, uh, really just cared about him personally and wanted to make sure that he was able to do a competent job, uh, with the operations of a campaign. That led to us doing a lot of things in an untraditional way, but we actually were able to make the dollars go a lot further, whether it was building a data operation or how we targeted advertisers or how we, um, you know, did our events. We were able to just do it in a much different way. But from a, a viability of the candidate perspective, uh, I really give all the credit to him because what I saw with politicians is a lot of politicians will take polls and then moderate their perspectives. Uh, this is somebody who without pollsters and without any political experience, um, really put forward a lot of points of view. And, and keep in mind, in a Republican primary, a lot of his viewpoints on trade were very, uh, heterodoxical. They were, they were not what was conventionally thought of. And what I saw with Trump was that he was able to move the polls to him, and that was a, that was a talent and, and just a skill of persuasion, uh, and his willingness to kind of stick to the issues. I mean, at that point in time, I remember seeing polls that illegal immigration was not like a top five issue when he started the campaign, and by, you know, the middle to the end of the campaign, people were really seeing, uh, the craziness that was happening at the southern border and why that was, uh, critical to our national security. And so, um, I, I think that for him, he found a lot of his message, and with him, he was not a perfectly, uh, always on-message candidate, but what he did do was he was constantly evolving and learning and, you know, and, and would learn from the different things that happened and, and constantly evolving to, uh, find ways to, to persist.

   17. CPChamath Palihapitiya10:07

       Amazing.

   18. JCJason Calacanis10:08

       Like a startup finding a product-market fit.

   19. CPChamath Palihapitiya10:10

       Yeah.

   20. JCJason Calacanis10:11

       Yeah.

   21. CPChamath Palihapitiya10:11

       And what's he like as a father-in-law? I'm curious.

   22. JKJared Kushner10:13

       Uh, as a father-in-law, he's been great. You know, that obviously brought us a lot closer together. You know, until that time, our time was mostly either playing golf together or we'd be together at family events. Uh, working together was, uh, was, was a different element of our relationship, but I think one of the benefits I had with him was that he knew I was always gonna tell him the truth, uh, whether I agreed with him or not. Uh, I also, uh, I think one of the things he liked about me was that I, I was not... Uh, obviously worked hard. I gave him straight answers, and I didn't opine on things where I didn't feel like I had an expertise. So, if you had asked me a question, um, and I didn't feel like I knew the answer, I would say, "Well, this is not my expertise. These are the people who I would recommend I speak to to get perspective and let me bring you their, their opinions." And so, I think he saw me as somebody who was, who was competent, uh, obviously had his best interests at heart. Um, again, I wasn't accepting money for any of these jobs, so I wasn't doing it for, for financial gain. Um, and I just started to really believe in a lot of the policies that he was pushing and wanted to help him maybe translate it from a, a campaign speech to kind of technical policy and then see, uh, once he got the opportunity, uh, to help him implement it as well.

   23. CPChamath Palihapitiya11:16

       That's really cool.

   24. JCJason Calacanis11:17

       Why did you agree to do Lex and why are you doing the show today? We were kinda surprised to see you on Lex, and obviously like Lex said, it was a very different conversation than I think any of us would have expected having... The only exposure to you being through, you know, some sort of media channels. What's motivating you to kind of do this today-

   25. JKJared Kushner11:37

       Yeah, so-

   26. JCJason Calacanis11:37

       ... before we get into it?

   27. JKJared Kushner11:39

       S- so, so Lex, um, again, him and my wife are friends, and I, I, I really follow and, and listen to what he does. I, I think in society today, the, the, the news, uh, is kind of just one person's, you know, point of view, and, and they're, they're, they're picking and choosing and, and editing what they put into it one way or the other. But the medium of the podcast is something that, uh, I, my personal consumption, uh, was growing with, and, and I felt like it was a place where you could have real conversations. I think the people who are listening to podcasts are people who are looking to have a more nuanced, uh, perspective on something and, and really want to, you know, try to understand something deeper. And, uh, and I respect Lex. I, all of my private conversations with him, I, I really enjoyed. Um, and I loved that he was really trying to...... um, find perspectives from people that maybe, uh, others didn't understand to try to bring greater understanding, um, across. And so, uh, I agreed to do it after a while. I was really, really glad I did and, uh, based on the- the great feedback I got, uh, there, uh, my sense is- is that the podcast format is- is something that's, um, where you could have a real conversation. You can go back and forth, you could argue, you could disagree. Um, I think that that's where people really wanna get their information from so I- I turned down a lot of, you know, cable news or different, uh, interview requests, um, because I find that you can't have as nuanced a- a discussion and, you know, I wish things were as simple as, you know, the black and white or the political slogans that people use, but the reality is things are a lot more nuanced. So when Shamath reached out, uh, I followed you guys and I've listened to you for- for some time. I was, um, I was really happy to come do it.

   28. JCJason Calacanis13:11

       Awesome.

3. 13:12 – 23:04

   State of Israel vs Hamas, escalation risks

   1. JCJason Calacanis13:12

      Well, thanks for doing it. Uh, Sax, you wanna kick us off on the Gaza conflict and framing up the present day?

   2. DFDavid Friedberg13:19

      Sure. Based on what I've read, it seems like Israel has now formed a perimeter around, uh, Gaza City. They've sort of bisected Gaza between this north and, uh, south, and they've been trying to bomb entry or exit points from the Hamas tunnel network. And it seems like their strategy is to kind of gradually close in on that tunnel network and basically try and eliminate Hamas from- from sort of this northern part of Gaza, and then one assumes they'll move to the south. And I guess one other element to add to it is that, you know, while Israel is doing that, you're seeing protests both in the West and, uh, in the Arab or Muslim world. You're starting to see statements condemning Israel by leaders of these other countries in the region. I'd say the one by Turkey, by Erdoğan, was notably harsh and threatening. But you're starting to see again, as Israel proceeds with this operation, you're starting to see more and more condemnation from various parts of the international community. So, let's start with that, is, you know, how do you assess what's happening on the ground? What do you think the prospects for success are? And how do you assess the risk that this sort of escalates horizontally in ways that are kinda hard to predict and could spiral out of control?

   3. JKJared Kushner14:40

      Yeah. So- so there's a lot of different ways you can go with that, but I'll start with kinda-

   4. DFDavid Friedberg14:43

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JKJared Kushner14:43

      ... the first question, which is, um, in the immediate aftermath of the attack, my- my biggest concern was that Israel was clearly, uh, caught off guard from an intelligence and military perspective with the attack, and the attacks were... Th- th- they shook a lot of people. They were, they were very, very heinous beyond, um, uh, really comprehension. It's- it's crazy the more and more stuff that comes out, and we were seeing a lot of it in real time thanks to, you know, the fact that right now with X and what- what Elon's done there to, uh, to not try to censor things in the way that it was happening before. So, uh, we were all getting a lot of information in real time and it was really pulling at a lot of people's heartstrings. My big fear initially was that Israel would react, uh, emotionally as opposed to, uh, to- to pragmatically, and I think that, uh, the steps that they've taken since then have been, uh, very wise. I think the fact that they took their time and have been very methodical about getting their supply, uh, lines ready, about working how to garner as much international support. I mean, you have to remember, these weren't just Israeli citizens that were killed. These were American citizens, they were German citizens, they were Thai citizens, uh, they were UK citizens, and- and the hostages as well are not just Israeli citizens. So, uh, I think that Israel took its time to get the military operation set. Uh, I've seen them go slowly, methodically. I mean, Gaza is a very, very complicated place. I mean, we studied it for four years. We- we- we- we were very closely watching all the different incursions. We managed Hamas and- and their, uh, their malicious activities, uh, very, very closely, uh, to avoid situations like this. And, uh, the place is booby-trapped like- like crazy. And so I do think the fact that the Israelis have taken their time and been very methodical and have come up with a strategy has given me, uh, more hope. I mean, every morning I- I wake up and I look to see, you know, uh, praying there hasn't been more casualties, um, in Israel and, um, and the hope is that they continue to do it in the best way possible. Um, so I think that the goal for them is really the elimination of Hamas. I think that, um, you know, the- the big point that I really wanted to make in the last podcast, which is why I went back, uh, to- to really do the point was that, um, the people who are protesting, um, i- in favor of the Palestinians, a lot of the Israelis and the Palestinians want the same thing, which is, uh, they want security for Israel and a better life for the Palestinians. And I think what people have failed to really grasp, um, for a long time is that Hamas has been the root cause of a lot of the- the- the bad lives for the Palestinians. If you think about Gaza, uh, before this recent... Before October 7th, I mean, o- over half the population lived under the poverty line. Um, you know, people were- were really trapped there and people would blame Israel for the blockade, but what's also happened over the last 30 days is a lot of the worst fears that we had during the administration or things that Israel would be saying, uh, have totally been proven true. I mean, you've seen now them going to some of these, uh, schoolhouses where there's, you know, there's 500 or- or- or 50 different, you know, rocket launchers, um, you know, in the schoolhouses, the hospitals. All of the terrorists that they've captured that they're interrogating are saying, "Well, that's where the military headquarters are." You know, now we're learning about this, um, this tunnel network which they're saying is hundreds of miles of- of tunnels underground. Well, that's why, you know, Israel wasn't allowing cement and a lot of these, eh, these materials in the cement that went in which was supposed to build houses for- for the people of Gaza was then stolen by Hamas to- to build these tunnels. The, uh, the pipes that went in to- to fix the water were then taken and turned into- to rockets. The- the fuel was- was- was stolen and- and not used for- for- for the hospitals or- or for people to have better lives. It was stolen for them to operate their tunnel network and then to fuel the rockets. So, um, it's a situation that- that really does have to be dealt with. Again, Israel, you guys are, I know, poker players, so, uh, so Israel definitely has the stronger, you know, hand to play here, so I think time is, on the one hand, in their- in their favor.... uh, but on the other hand, obviously, you know, the international community has historically been very, uh, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic in the way that they've approached a lot of these, uh, these skirmishes, uh, to date. But I will say, I think there's been more international support for Israel this time than I've ever seen, um, and I do think that that's, uh, a very important thing. So, uh, that- that's maybe general. If there were some of the specific questions that you want to get to in there I can-

   6. DFDavid Friedberg18:47

      What about the risk of ho- horizontal escalation? Let's just talk about that for a second. 'Cause you do hear, I think, a growing chorus of countries who are denouncing Israel. They're saying that this is collective punishment, that the bombing of Gaza is indiscriminate. They want it to stop. There's, um-

   7. CPChamath Palihapitiya19:05

      Genocide.

   8. DFDavid Friedberg19:06

      Genocide, yeah. I'm not saying I agree with that rhetoric, but you, you do hear it. You know, there's a effort at the UN to, um, to pass a ceasefire resolution. So there's a lot of people who want the ceasefire and there's a lot of inter- growing international pressure for that. And then you've heard threats from, you know, again, Erdoğan in Turkey that if there's not a ceasefire at some point, they're gonna have to get involved, they're gonna have to act. Iran has said similar kinds of things, although I think it's pretty clear they don't wanna get involved, they don't want this to escalate into- into a wider regional war, but they've sort of intimated that if the bombing continues that they might have to take action, they might feel pressured to do that. So I guess one question there is, is time on Israel's side? It does seem like, again, there's more pressure to stop the military operation over time as opposed to less.

   9. JKJared Kushner19:56

      Yeah. So, so the answer is, is everyone's talking their book and that's what they should be doing, they're talking to their populations. The question is what people will actually do. I, I would say that, you know, the hardest thing for us all is obviously you see civilians in Gaza who are being used as human shields and, uh, the last thing that anyone wants is for more civilian deaths to occur. Uh, it's funny, this morning I was speaking to a friend, uh, in Israel who was telling me that yesterday there was a- a major evacuation of- of, uh, civilians in Gaza and, uh, a lot of people were surprised that the Israeli Defense Forces were basically putting themselves in between the Hamas militants and the Gazan civilians to protect them and open up a corridor. And again, one thing that Israel's done, I think, a good job of is getting out a lot of the facts about how, uh, they've been warning the Gazan civilians to flee, asking them to go and, um, and what happened was Hamas was, you know, shooting them down with snipers and trying to prevent them from going because they wanted them to stay in place, uh, as human shields, uh, in- in the schools and the hospitals where they were conducting their terror activities. And so, uh, what was interesting to me was, um, what my friend was telling me, he was speaking to a friend of his who was a soldier, was that, uh, was that, um, is that a lot of the civilians were really thanking them for liberating them from- from Hamas and for risking their lives to help them, uh, get out of Gaza. And a lot of these people, again, they've been prisoners to Hamas, uh, more than anything else for a long time and they wanna see themselves, you know, out of there so that they can, you know, perhaps have a better opportunity to live a better life. And so, um, so I- I think that the current region, I think the biggest immediate threat is- is from Hezbollah at the north. I think that's been... Um, I think Israel going to full ready alert, uh, wa- was a really smart thing. I think the US moving, uh, the battle carriers there I think was also good. I think the, uh, the statements from, uh, from the US administration, uh, were strong upfront. Again, whether people, uh, believe that they'll- they'll- they'll back up those statements is- is another thing 'cause they do have a little bit of a credibility deficit in the region based on what they've done over the last couple of years. Um, but I think that's all been very helpful in kind of pushing, um, pushing Iran back and- and- and sending a strong message to Hezbollah, which is, "If you want to attack Israel, don't do it when they're at full military readiness. Israel's a nuclear power." And I think everyone is starting to realize that this has been Iran trying to manipulate things and as long as they think there's a threat that you're not gonna go after one of their proxies but you may go after them, that's been the best way of keeping a de-escalation. I think with Turkey and others I- I've spent, you know, many hours with Erdoğan, uh, personally talking about Gaza and I know that, you know, he has a big heart for the Palestinian people, he hates, uh, to see their suffering and it's also good politics from him. You know, he's also from, uh, a Muslim Brotherhood, uh, you know, uh, leaning party. Uh, but I think, you know, in his heart of heart he does have to acknowledge that a lot of their plight is- is- is led to by bad governance. Um, he may not want to admit it publicly but the reality is, is the best way to improve the lives of the people of Gaza is to, uh, eliminate, uh, Hamas and put in place a structure where people can finally have the opportunity to- to live, uh, more freely and- and- and make better lives for themselves.

   10. CPChamath Palihapitiya22:57

       Jared, you said something that I think is really interesting, you said Erdoğan has a soft spot for the Palestinians. Can I just take that concept and just,

4. 23:04 – 38:55

   Historical context around Israel's relationship with the Arab world, understanding the modern Middle East

   1. CPChamath Palihapitiya23:04

      can you explain the historical context of Arabs, the Arab world and their relationship with the Palestinians? Sort of, 'cause it's definitely had its ebbs and flows over the arc of history and so how do people think about it as, just broadly speaking, just in terms of like the big historical arcs that have kind of shaped this relationship between Arabs and- and Palestinians specifically?

   2. JKJared Kushner23:27

      All right, well, that's a, that's a question we could spend about three days talking about-

   3. CPChamath Palihapitiya23:30

      (laughs)

   4. JKJared Kushner23:30

      ... but I'll try to give you kind of a very quick, uh, version of it. So I- I think that, you know, a- a lot of this goes back really to, uh, people say it goes back to a lot of times but I- I think that the- the, we- we have to probably go back to, and I'll try to do this very quick, is- is really in 1948, uh, which was a complicated time. It's post-Holocaust, uh, post-World War II. Um, you know, again, the Middle East, uh, really in the early 1900s was a lot of ar- was created by a lot of arbitrary lines drawn by foreigners and you had a situation where Israel, uh, is- is, the UN puts forth the Partition Plan, Israel, uh, they're willing to recognize Israel as- as a state for the Jewish people and also give a state to the Palestinians. Uh, the Arabs reject that and attack Israel and there's a whole war. During that war, um, it was flared up really by, uh, General Nasser from Egypt who at the time was the leader of the Muslim world. Uh, during that war, um, Israel was able to, uh, defy the odds and win and a lot of Palestinians were either forced from their homes or displaced from their homes. You know, there's- there's versions where they say the Arabs said, "Leave your homes and then, um, you know, when the war's over you're gonna come back and take, take everything."Uh, some Arabs, uh, stayed in their homes and actually today they're Israeli citizens w- with full, you know, equal rights as other Israelis. Um, and so, so that happened. Um, then in 1967, uh, that's when Egypt attacked again and, uh, during that war, again, Israel miraculously won and, um, and that was really kind of the- the time where, um, Israel was able to expand their territory. They took over the West Bank at the time, which wasn't ... didn't belong to the Palestinians as much as it belonged to Jordan. It was part of Transjordan at the time. Uh, and then they also gained control of the Gaza Strip, which also, uh, was previously, uh, administered by Egypt. Although, when Egypt was administering it, they didn't take it as their territory. They never granted citizenship to the people who were there. So between 1948 and 1967 when the Six-Day War occurred, um, most of the leaders in the Arab world enjoyed, uh, leaving this issue out. It was a great way to stoke nationalism and to, uh, it was a very easy political issue for them to have to say, "Well, we need to do this and, you know, to- to- to fight for the Palestinian people." So in a lot of ways, it was a way to deflect from their shortcomings at home and to justify certain actions they were taking because they were fighting for this- uh, this group of people. Then it gets really interesting after the Six-Day War. So this was the second time that the, uh, Arab countries had failed to- to destroy, uh, Israel, which is what they had promised they would do. So there's a young, uh, terrorist at the time named Yasser Arafat, and he was part of a party called Fatah, and what he said is, "You know what? All these Arab leaders, they're lying to you. They're failing you. Uh, I'm gonna be the one to start creating a liberation and opportunity for the Palestinian people." So he took on this mantle, uh, was able to use his Fatah group and- and some pretty, uh, thuggery ways to take over the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which is a way that he got some international acclaim. And at the time, he was doing that from Jordan, so, uh, this was about 1968, 1969. Uh, they caused so much trouble in Jordan, uh, that, uh, King Hussein at the time, who is King Abdullah's father, who really was a- a very, very, uh, special, um, diplomat and leader in the Middle East, uh, got so fed up with- uh, with Arafat. I mean, at the time he was causing trouble, they- it was- it was steering people away, people wouldn't invest there, uh, they wouldn't ... it was- it was hurting tourism. And then they took it a little further and they tried to assassinate him, which was probably, uh, the final straw. So the Jordanian leader said, "Get these people the hell out of my country." Um, it was a big clash between the, uh, PLO, um, uh, and- and Fatah, uh- uh, terrorists, and then the Jordanian police and military, uh, and they were able to expel them, and then the Palestinians went to Lebanon. Uh, that's where Yasser Arafat was. So they were there for about 12 years. Uh, again, they went back to their old ways of- of- of fermenting, uh, radicalism and finding ways to- to cause trouble. Uh, when Israel, uh, invaded Lebanon in 1982, uh, then Yasser Arafat fled again, uh, this time to Tunisia. Um, in Tunisia, they were living pretty well. It was a beachfront place, they were in these beautiful villas on the beach, and they kind of became a little bit disconnected, uh, from the Palestinian people, but there was a lot of resentment, uh, of the broader, uh, Arab world because they felt like, again, the Arab world didn't really s- ... they would say they were for the Palestinian people but never really stood up for them in the way that they felt like they deserved. So it was- it took until about 1988 that finally, uh ... this is 40 years after, uh, 1948, the War of Independence, where, uh, the PLO was finally able to get the Arab League to say ... and this is really because Jordan was just, like, done with this issue, to say, "Okay, we're gonna acknowledge that this land here should become a Palestinian state." So the notion of a Palestinian state really didn't emerge till about, uh, 1987, 1988, uh, which is the same time that Hamas actually, you know, came about. And they came about really from ... they were an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, um, and their whole thing was basically, "We're gonna, uh, do full terrorism in order to, uh, prevent- uh, prevent any compromise or any deals with Israel." So then you go to 1991, which is a very, very important, uh, time for the Palestinians, mostly because, uh, Saddam Hussein in Iraq invades Kuwait. Um, and that was very scary for a lot of the Arab leaders, right? They didn't want ... Uh, they did fear Saddam. Uh, he was a- uh, he was seen as the radical. Arafat, uh, and the Palestinian leadership backed Saddam Hussein mostly because they knew that he was seen as the revolutionary and popular with the more common man. Um, and this pissed off every single Gulf leader because they basically said, "Wait, this guy, if he's gonna take over Kuwait, he could come for Saudi Arabia, he'd come for UAE." So they were all very against that, and at the time there was about over 200,000 Palestinians in Kuwait. What happened at that time though was that that made the Palestinian leadership so weak because a lot of the Arab countries cut off the funding. It was just done with them. And that's really what led to the Oslo Accords. So the Oslo Accords happened, uh, not because Arafat necessarily- you know, all of a sudden said, after, you know, 37 or 27 years of trying, you know, terror and- and pushing forward, uh, he basically ran out of other options and this was his only way to get some form of legitimacy. So they dropped from their charter, uh, the whole notion of destroying Israel and said let's try to create this area where we can have governance and try this whole, uh, effort for a Palestinian state. So that's really kind of th- the- the- this- uh, uh, long short version of kind of how we got to then. And then i- in the last, I'd say, 30 years, the- the big change that I would say between then and today is that you have a lot ... you have a new Middle East forming, and a lot of the work we did in the Trump administration was really to help what I'd call the new Middle East emerge where you have, uh, a lot of economic, uh, opportunities now happening in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar. Uh, ther- there's been a massive mind shift where if you go kind of post-Arab Spring, a lot of these leaders are saying, uh, you know, "How do we create o- opportunity for our people?" When I got into my job in 2017, all of the experts were saying to me the big divide in the Middle East is between the Suis- uh, the- the Sunnis and the Shias. And when I got there I said, "No, no, no. The divide is between leaders who want to give opportunity, uh, and betterment of life to their people and people who want to use religion or- um, or- or whatever issue they want to hold onto from the past in order to deflect from their shortcomings and justify bad leadership." So, um, so I think what's happened today is you have a lot of the Gulf countries really wanting to see this issue.... uh, get resolved, which is different than you had in, in Camp David in, in, in 2000 when Bill Clinton was, uh, getting close to a deal with Yasser Arafat. I think the Saudis and others at the time didn't want this issue to go away. But now the issue is really no longer useful for the Arabs. The only people it's useful to, quite frankly, is Iran and that's why they've been backing Hamas and Hezbollah and all these other functio- factions in order to continue their project of instability. So, uh, the way I kind of view this period right now is that the Middle East today is way stronger, um, than it's been in the past and this is, what I would say, the last gasp of Iran and, and those who have, you know, pushed for destabilization and kind of this whole, um, you know, Islamist jihadist project at the expense of kind of a collaborative, uh, Middle East, which ha- which will then will create a lot of opportunity, uh, for the next generation to, to really thrive.

   5. JCJason Calacanis31:23

      Jared, isn't there, like, at this point... Then, like, uh, i- is it hard or easy to create an objective target? We, we call individuals that Israel wants to target Hamas, but there's no card-carrying members of Hamas. You don't wear a jacket that says, "I'm a member of Hamas." And walk around with an ID card and there are some folks who are sympathetic, who believe that Ha- Hamas represents a resistance movement. There are some folks who obviously feel terrorized, uh, and ruled over, and there are some folks who support the cause but don't pull the trigger. There are some folks who pull the trigger but don't wanna support the cause but are being forced to by some, uh, reports. H- how easy and how hard is it to really direct a military operation at such a fluid population that they're... it's very hard to ID and target? And as we've seen in years past, there's always another group that seems to emerge. You cut off one group, you get rid of Al-Qaeda, ISIS emerges, and there's this almost, like, you know, fluid transition of, uh, of this intention. And particularly in this Gaza community, it's very difficult perhaps to distinguish between who's Hamas and who's not Hamas. So, how do you actually achieve the objective there and, you know, how does the military target?

   6. JKJared Kushner32:52

      Yeah. So, so that's probably the most important question that I think people have to, um, really be thinking about as we kind of enter this phase, right? So, uh, it, it's both, how do you do this in the short term and then the long term? And so, you can't kill your way out of an ideology, but there obviously are some bad leaders at the top who are culpable, who, um, who, who are military targets, and I imagine that it's really, you know, knowing the capabilities of Israel and Assad, it's just a matter of, you know, when and how, as opposed to, uh, anything else. But then you have a lot of mid-level and, and, and younger members of this group and, uh, I do think that a lot of these people are in this situation more circumstantially. I think this is what they've been taught to believe. I think this is, uh, really the place they were and this was the, the system in Gaza where if you wanted to advance and live a better life then you really had to succumb to this, uh, tiered system. So, how deep the ideology is, um, people will debate that in different ways. If you go back to 2016 in the campaign when we were dealing with ISIS, uh, the talking point that everyone used was you have to defeat the territorial caliphate of ISIS and then you have to win the long-term battle against extremism. Uh, one of the things that President Trump did when he went to Saudi Arabia in 2017, uh, the reason we went there was that the Middle East was basically on fire. I mean, if you had... ISIS had a caliphate the size of Ohio. They were, uh, ruling over eight million people. They were beheading, uh, journalists and, and killing Christians. Uh, Syria was in a civil war where 500,000, uh, people were killed, a lot of Muslims, and you didn't see the same protests on college campuses when that was happening as, uh, you know, Assad was gassing his own people. Uh, Libya was destabilized, Yemen was destabilized, and Iran was on a glide path to a nuclear weapon having just been given $150 billion in cash through the, uh, disastrous JCPOA, uh, deal that, uh, that Kerry and Obama negotiated. So, uh, it was a mess, and so Trump went there and, um, a- and basically was, was pretty tough with what he said and he said, "This isn't our problem, this isn't your problem. This is all of our problem and we need to, to root this ideology. Get it out of your, your homes, get it out of your mosques, get it out of this Earth." And, uh, the King of Saudi Arabia stood up at the time and said, "There's no glory in death." And that was really important. Uh, two of the big, uh, deals that came out of that, people talk about the big, uh, investments, did over $500 billion of investments, uh, and arm sales, uh, with Saudi Arabia that created a lot of US jobs. Uh, but the two agreements we made that didn't get a lot of coverage during that time was that we did a counter-terror finance center that we set up where we got all the Gulf countries to really, uh, allow treasury to work closely with their banks to stop a lot of the funding to the terrorist organizations and then these kind of borderline organizations. And then the second one was, in Saudi Arabia, which is the custodian of the two as- holy sites in, in Islam, Mecca and Medina, um, they started a counter-extremism center where basically they were, uh, combating online, um, radicalization that was occurring. And if you remember in the US in 2016, we had the San Bernardino shooting, we had the Pulse Nightclub shooting, and we had a lot of people being radicalized online. Uh, one of the things that I'm very proud of from the Trump administration is the work that we did, uh, to really help Saudi Arabia change their trajectory. And what I realized quickly was that, in the US, we just did not have the capabilities to win the long-term ideological battle ourselves, so, um, we can be mad at, you know, Saudi for some of the things that they've done in the past, but they were the, the most powerful partner we could have in order to, um, try to, uh, combat, uh, the radicalization that was occurring, both in terms of stopping the funding but also, um, you know, replacing the clerics who were doing the radicalization with, uh, clerics who were, uh, restoring Islam to a more peaceful and, and more proper, uh, place. So, uh, that was something that, that's really occurred and it's made a big difference. I was just in Saudi Arabia a couple weeks ago at their big investment conference, uh, and what was really exciting to me was I was meeting with a lot of the younger Saudi entrepreneurs. And, uh, I did a, a conference in Bahrain to talk about the Palestinians, uh, in 2019.... and one of the big challenges we had when we were putting that together is we were thinking about who are the role models for these young Palestinian kids? And in the, in the Muslim world, they... You know, they had some sports stars, they had some business leaders, uh, but it wasn't really, uh, people who were necessarily, um, relatable to a lot of the younger generation. In Saudi, I was at an event with all these young tech entrepreneurs there who are building, uh, amazing companies. There's a lot of unicorns there. Uh, they're doing a lot of the... you know, the, the companies that are dominant in the US and in Asia, and now they're building them for the Middle East there, and it's very, very exciting. And these really are the next generation of role models for a lot of these kids. So, um, th- that's a long way of saying that, you know, obviously, you have to do what you have to do from a military perspective, and, and the hope obviously is that, uh, it could be as quick as possible and that as few civilians as possible, uh, are, are, are hurt by this. Um, but, uh, the notion is, is that once that's, once that's completed, you need to then create a framework where people don't just have more despair, uh, because i- in an area where there's no hope and opportunity, then obviously the radicalists and the jihadists, that's really where they do their best recruiting and they flourish. So, uh, so, so once this occurs, there needs to be a paradigm created where the next generation feels like it's better for them to get a job, be part of the economy, uh, and where they can live a better life through capitalism, uh, than by going to, to these jihadist groups.

   7. CPChamath Palihapitiya37:55

      But its leadership targeting right now. That's the objective, effectively. I mean, that's what I'm hearing. It's in some summaries.

   8. JKJared Kushner37:59

      I think it's leadership and, and then degrading of capabilities, right? So... 'Cause again, what you've seen as well, you've seen this with cartels in, in, in, uh, in South America, and you've seen this with terror organizations, you know, you, you kill the top guy and, and sometimes you cut the head off the snake and the snake dies, and sometimes it just, you know, scatters into a lot of little pieces, and then you ends up... it ends up becoming more complicated, not less. But I think here-

   9. CPChamath Palihapitiya38:19

      Right.

   10. JKJared Kushner38:19

       ... obviously leadership, but, but significantly degrading, uh, the capabilities for anything in Gaza to, uh, to, to threaten Israel, and

   11. JCJason Calacanis38:29

       And then actively build a better way. Actively build a better solution.

   12. JKJared Kushner38:33

       That's the only way. And by the way, even today, it's, it's much more easy to visualize that than it was in 2019 when I was talking about this, because you're seeing the economic project in Saudi Arabia, you're seeing what they're doing in UAE. I mean, the, the fact that Saudis shifted so much in five years should give you hope that it's really, really possible, and they've been pushing the rest of the countries to try to emulate and, and compete with them, which is, uh, also an amazing thing.

5. 38:55 – 1:04:54

   Failed solutions, Israel's response, paths to stability

   1. JKJared Kushner38:55

   2. CPChamath Palihapitiya38:55

      I'd love to get your reaction to the difference in tone and messaging from Western governments versus what you're seeing sometimes on the ground with some of these protests, and just how almost diametrically opposed the language and the rhetoric and the point of view is. How is it that... And sort of this is why I kind of asked you just for a little bit of a, a history. How is it that people aren't taking all of these views in? How is it that there is this radicalization that may not be happening in the same level in the Middle East, but is maybe happening actually in the West-

   3. JKJared Kushner39:30

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya39:31

      ... whether it's in our universities or other ones?

   5. JKJared Kushner39:33

      Yeah, so that's something... Like, my friends in the Middle East, a lot of them are laughing at the West because they're basically saying, "You know, we, we got all these Islamist radical Muslim Brother people the hell out of our countries. You don't see the same protests, uh, in those places that you see in the West." And, um, and I think that in, in, in the West, what's occurred is, is people... I, I saw this a lot when I dealt with the Europeans where people's understanding of the issue, uh, is more with their heart than it is with their head, and obviously nobody wants to see any suffering, um, o- of any human beings, but the reality is, is that, you know, the, the solutions that they've proposed for the last 75 years have all been, uh, just nonsensical. They- they've more often than not perpetuated the problem than they've been solutions to the problem. And, you know, I faced tons of criticism when I was, you know, in my role working on this issue, uh, and mostly because I, I kind of looked at all the things that have been done in the past and keep in mind, being asked to, to work on, you know, the Middle East, it's like a... it's almost like a joke, right? It's, it's the hardest problem set you can get in the world, and I think we almost made it look too easy getting the results that we did, and, uh, we left it very quiet and, uh, and I think now people are starting to appreciate that it wasn't that easy and it's not, um... it's not a simple problem set to deal with. And, uh... But I think that a lot of people, um, were, were, were kind of looking at, um, at, at what they thought was wrong, but looking at the wrong root causes for how it got there.

   6. CPChamath Palihapitiya40:55

      Mm-hmm. I have a question for you and Sakhs. I'd love to get your guys' opinion on this. India dealt with a terrorist attack when Manmohan Singh was prime minister, and basically it was an extremist Muslim group from Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, that came in and killed a lot of Indians, but a lot of foreigners as well, right? Attacked some of the major hotels in Bombay, et cetera. And what happened was Manmohan Singh didn't do anything. And in hindsight, what was written is, you know, they debated what to do. They debated, "Do we go after this group? Do we show some proactive demonstration of force? Do we invade Pakistan?" Ultimately, they went on a more covert path to sort of dismantle that terror network, and there was just a lot of international support that came around it. Can we steel man whether it would have been possible for Netanyahu to take that path, or was it really not even reasonable? Just curious what you guys think about that.

   7. JKJared Kushner41:59

      Do you want to go first?

   8. JCJason Calacanis42:02

      Uh, no, you should go first, Aaron.

   9. JKJared Kushner42:04

      Okay. So-

   10. JCJason Calacanis42:05

       (laughs)

   11. JKJared Kushner42:05

       ... um, (sighs) look, a- a- anything's possible, uh, Chamath, and, and I think that there's different ways. Look, I think the big fears initially were that going into Gaza, number one, you'd be walking into a big trap, and number two is you would be inviting, uh, major escalation in the region. The, the third fear was obviously the degradation of the Israeli economy. When we did, uh, the Abraham Accords, one of the big, uh, attractive, uh, things to a lot of these countries to be partners with Israel was their, uh, massively robust economy and what could happen if they go to war and it's a prolonged war is that economy can go off track. I think GDP will take a big hit there, uh, in Q4, but obviously, you know, in Israel, they do have a history of coming back right away, but if this is a prolonged, uh, war effort, uh, there could be big hits. And then you also think about in the age of, you know, AI and software development, losing, you know, a day of productivity is the equivalent of losing, you know, a week or a month-... and, uh, and they don't wanna fall behind in what they're doing. So, there, there is an argument to be made for doing that. But I do think that from Israel's perspective, um, I, I do think that they understand this threat. I think that they want to eliminate this threat, and I think their view is, is, uh, "We, we, we can't live like this anymore. Uh, we, we underestimated it before, uh, and, and we will not let that happen again." And I think also the psychology of, of really the Jewish people is... You know, it was funny, uh, once I was sitting with, uh, with, uh, Prime Minister Netanyahu and one of the generals and, uh, and Bibi was basically saying like, "You know, if, if Iran gets too close, this is what I'm gonna do. We're gonna have to take matters into our own hands." And the general basically said to me, he said, "You know, I get it. You know, you guys aren't going back to the ovens." And I was just like, "Wow." You know, it was like, it was a real acknowledgement of like the way that Israel operates with kind of no margin for error. And I would always say when I would negotiate with the Israelis that, you know, sometimes you do a contract and there is like, you know, there's, there's two issues that are a 10 and like a couple of issues that are a five and like a whole bunch, you know, a whole bag of issues that are like twos and threes. And when I would negotiate with the Israelis, like, they would treat every issue like it was like a 10, you know what I mean? In the sense that like they, they, they just operate like there's no margin for error. Um, and, uh, and I do think that obviously there was some complacency and, and, and the internal division, you know, led to them being caught off guard here. But I think that, uh, they're gonna do what they're gonna do to make sure this, this happens. And I think there's also a way where Israel feels mentally like, "We have to show that we're strong or else people will, will, will go after us." And I think that that's what they've done. And I will say, you know, the fact that Israel's gone from being completely divided to now, uh, fully united in, in this effort. I mean, even the people on the far left, um, in Israel who are all peace, who are, you know, funding, you know, jobs with the Palestinians and, you know, housing them in their homes, I mean, they're basically saying they wanna go to war. So the mentality there is very much, "We need to do what we need to do now to keep ourselves safe." People are very, very, uh, heartbroken for those who are, who are past, um, they're, they're, they're praying very closely for the hostages. Um, and, uh, but they've given a lot of latitude to their government to do what it needs to do to make sure this, this is, this is not, um, this does not occur again. And I, I will say too, like, Israel also recognizes that I think now they have the world more on their side, uh, than they have in, in, uh, in past conflicts. And, and I think their view is to, um, their view is to, to, to do it while they have that situation.

   12. JCJason Calacanis45:10

       Saks, what do you think? Could Netanyahu have taken the, the path of doing nothing?

   13. DFDavid Friedberg45:16

       No, I don't think so. I mean, not given his domestic political situation. I think the Israeli people demand a response. And look, one of the arguments that Israel would make is that if this happened to you, the United States, or you, Russia, or you, China, what would you do? I mean, I think we know. We would turn Gaza into Fallujah or Mosul. Russia would turn it into Grozny. So I think Israel is taking the response that I think most countries would take, given their situation. The thing I worry about is that Israel is not the United States. I mean, the United States, because it's so powerful, can act largely with impunity. We don't have to worry as much about blowback. And Israel does because at the end of the day, they're a small country in a very hostile region. And so I do worry about the potential for unintended consequences here. One potential consequence is horro- horizontal escalation. Does this war somehow spin out of control and it could lead to a much wider regional war that would not be in Israel's interest? The other is diplomatic isolation 'cause I do think that Israel is taking a big hit right now in the information war, the war of republic opinion. And then finally, you do have a lot of civilian casualties and, and those civilians have brothers and sisters and cousins and so forth, and that's gonna lead to the next generation of terrorists. And so, even success in this operation against Hamas doesn't solve the long-term problem. I mean, it just kinda keeps it going. So, I think all of those things are potential problems but at the end of the day, if Israel can have a successful military operation here that significantly degrades or destroys Hamas without this thing spiraling out of control that buys them time to find a political solution, then maybe it will be worthwhile. I mean, I think a lot depends here on what the outcome ultimately is. I think it's like a very tough thing to judge without knowing what the outcome's gonna be.

   14. JCJason Calacanis47:11

       The King of Jordan a couple of weeks ago gave a speech and, uh, in the speech he said, "There is no peace possible in the Middle East without the emergence of a Palestinian state, with a two-state solution being the only path forward. A Palestinian independent and sovereign state should be on June 4th, 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and so that the cycles of killing whose ultimate victims are innocent civilians end." Is this the only path to stabilization, Jared?

   15. JKJared Kushner47:47

       Mm, yes.

   16. JCJason Calacanis47:47

       And is that where we're headed?

   17. JKJared Kushner47:49

       S- so that statement is, is the same throwaway statement, right? That's the safest statement for anyone to say because that became-

   18. JCJason Calacanis47:55

       Right.

   19. JKJared Kushner47:55

       ... the international consensus. So, you know, o- one thing that was super interesting to me when I was working on this was, um, I kinda said to my team once, I was like, "Where does the Palestinian claim for East Jerusalem as the capital come from?" And I had a guy on my team who was a, a military guy who actually worked for John Kerry, and I'd always have him in the room 'cause he would represent the Palestinian perspective, um, 'cause we had a bunch of Orthodox Jews and, and, you know, we tried to be impartial but i- you know, we'd, we did the best we could to have, you know, all perspectives represented. And, um, and, uh, he came, he said, "I, I actually don't know." And then what's interesting is, you know, when, uh, when the West Bank was actually, uh, governed by Jordan, the capital at the time was Amman. And so, it really wasn't till the, uh, the, the 1988, um, uh, uh, launch of, of this right for a Palestinian state that they self-declared that the capital should be East Jerusalem. And so, uh, that was actually an interesting notion as well. And I think that, you know, everyone knows that that's not gonna be the case and, you know, I asked one of the leaders once why they say that, and they said, "Well, it's a cliché." And I said, "Well, maybe we need a new cliché." And he says, "Yeah, that's a good idea. Let's come up with a new cliché." So-Uh, I think whatever solution is going to occur has to be pragmatic, right? You- you... The reality is, is that if- if we're gonna learn from Gaza, there's a couple of lessons to learn, right? Number one is, you know, Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 or 2006. Uh, they forcibly removed 50,000 Israeli settlers, uh, from Gaza. Um, all those people, they- they left their- their homes, they left their businesses, um, thinking that would be peace. They- they transferred governance of Gaza to the Palestinians. The Palestinians then, uh, had an election. Again, it was, uh, you know, the- the PA at the time convinced the Bush administration to allow for Hamas, even though their charter called for the destruction of Israel, to participate in the election, and they won in a democratic election. Since that time, there's been no improvement in the economy. Uh, it's become a- a- a real security risk for Israel. And so Israel, uh, withdrew and then let them govern themselves. And now you have what's happened today be the case. So I- I think the reality is, is that, you know, if you look at the historical, um, uh, maps and the historical lines, I mean, there- there's really no, uh, making a claim. There- there's no, uh, other example in history where somebody's lost three offensive wars and then has been able to maintain their claim over a territory, uh, that they had before. But I do think that there is, uh, an international consensus, and I do even think in Israel there's a consensus to give the Palestinian people the ability to kind of, uh, have their own land and- and then also to govern themselves. So, um, the word state is- is a very loaded term because it- it comes with a lot of definitions to different people, but I think the constructs of what's achievable is, um, i- is in the West Bank or Gaza, uh, there can be no security threat to Israel, and this is something that, uh, that they were insistent on before and I was sympathetic. Uh, this was even before October 7th. And if you go back and look at the work we did and what we put out, we had a security regime that we designed with, uh, US, uh, intelligence and military and- and Israeli intelligence and Israeli military, uh, that we thought actually gave a lot of autonomy, uh, from police force perspective to the Palestinians, allowed them to build their capabilities and- and they kind of like earned their way into more and more security control, which I thought was the right way to do that, 'cause you don't wanna take a ton of risk there. The other part of it though, in any state, is you need a functioning, uh, economy, otherwise obviously you have a big, uh, grievance party. The biggest problem the Palestinians have faced over the last, call it 25 years since- since Oslo, uh, I guess almost 30 years now since Oslo, is, uh, is just bad governance. So the problem with the PA is- is they were elected I think in 2005, and, uh, they haven't had another election since. So I think President Abbas is in the 16th, 17th, 18th year of like a four-year term. Um, very not popular. He's more popular in Washington and in, you know, the United Nations than he is, you know, in his own country. Um, he's, uh... There- it's a very corrupt system. Again, a lot of the money's gone for, uh, for- for the leadership, their family, for the top people, but not to the... It hasn't trickled down to the people. And so the- there's not a lot of trust on it. Uh, you know, I held a conference in Bahrain where I brought all the top investors in the Middle East. I brought, uh, Steve Schwarzman from Blackstone came, uh, we had, uh, Randall Stephenson came from- from AT&T, and everyone came and said, "You know what? We actually would love to help the Palestinian people. We'd love to invest here." Uh, and then they looked at the magnitude of it. I mean, it's three million people, which is like a small state in the West Bank, and two million in Gaza. Again, it's like a small state in the US. Um, and obviously to build things it's much cheaper. I mean, the GDP per capita there is about $3,000 per person. So, uh, you know, it's- it's- it's cheaper labor, it's- it's- it's easier to do it and it's connected right to Israel, right? Which is like, you know, California not being connected to Silicon Valley. So the prospects for prosperity spillover are- are massive, uh, being sandwiched between the rich Gulf A- And, uh, the growing Israel. So... But the thing that's missing in... for the Palestinians is very basic things, right? There's no fair judiciary. There's no rule of law. Uh, the governance is terrible. The institutions are incredibly opaque. And what all these people were saying is, "We'd love to invest here, but it's just not an investable place." And so the thing that's been holding back the Palestinian people has not been Israel, it's been their bad leadership. And again, you're seeing in other places in the Middle East that with the proper leadership, uh, investments can come and those investments will actually lead to people living a much better life.

   20. DSDavid Sacks53:05

       Uh, how does that leadership change in your view?

   21. JKJared Kushner53:07

       So the way that I would think about this is that if you're waiting for a solution to come to you, you're not gonna find it, right? If you say, "Okay, let's go back to the UN." Well, they have a perfect track record of failure. "Let's go back to the PA." Well, they have a perfect track record of failure. You're definitely not gonna go back to Hamas. So you need to find something different. So I think you either need to create something new or you need to, um, look at what's working and put it together. So some places that could do it, I mean, the World Bank has a lot of good, uh, institutional knowledge. Uh, they helped us work on the plan, the World Bank and the IMF. Um, you know, some of the other regional governments. I mean, Jordan, uh, their government is- is pretty- pre- pretty capable. I mean, they're- they're better at military than economy, but I think they're- they're starting to focus more on economy, um, a- as they realize that- that that's necessary. Um, if you look at the benefits of that area, uh, the Palestinian people are- are- are... Like, a 99% literacy rate, again, through the taxpayer... US taxpayer dollars and international donations we've paid for them to become, uh, very educated. Unfortunately, I think we've poisoned, uh, their minds with a lot of what's been taught, um, in their curriculums. Um, they have a pretty good healthcare system there. Again, I think it could be improved because it's been done very kind of piecemeal versus holistic. Um, and then in addition to that, um, they obviously have, uh, a tremendous amount of tourism sites. I mean, you know, Jewish, Christian, Muslim tourism sites. So, uh, if they ever get their acts together, I mean, the- the boom in that area can be, uh, unbelievable and I think it could work very, very well. Um, there was one time where the Palestinian economy was working. I think it was about 2007. There was a guy named Salam Fayyad who was, uh, the first time somebody came in who was, uh... He was not corrupt, uh, things were happening, um. You know, wages were rising, uh, projects were moving, the money was actually getting to the people, and he became so popular because he was such a... doing such a good job administering that, uh, that the president got rid of him, that Abbas got rid of him because he saw him as a threat to his power. So, you know, what's happened is not different, right? You always have kind of a tyranny of the minority in some way.... uh, with, with, with most forms of, of government. And so, uh, what happened was is as he was starting to gain popularity, he became a threat to kind of the cronyism that occurred. And so I think that the international community, if they're gonna put money into this, uh, again, to either rebuild, number one, it has to be conditions-based. Again, we've put tens of billions of dollars into this situation, right? I mean, this, this refugee group has gotten more money, uh, over time than any refugee group in history by a factor of maybe 100, right? And then, you know, y- y- you, you, none of it's been conditions-based and it has to be i- i- in a set where people are trying to create outcomes. And I think one of the problems is a lot of the people working on this don't have business backgrounds. They understand, you know, human rights or they understand politics, but, uh, they don't understand capitalism and they don't understand what kind of framework you need in order to allow a society to thrive.

   22. CPChamath Palihapitiya55:48

       Has Treasury ever tried to trace these dollars, or some other organization, to just show where the theft happened and where these pools of money have gone to?

   23. JKJared Kushner55:58

       There's some intelligence on it, uh, that I can't go into, but, uh, but I think most people don't wanna know, to be honest, Chamath. I mean, you could just look at it in, in-

   24. CPChamath Palihapitiya56:06

       Yeah.

   25. JKJared Kushner56:06

       ... a couple of ways, like, you know, you look at, um... You know, we would meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu in Washington and he would take a commercial El Al flight to come meet us, and he runs a military superpower, an economic superpower, uh, in the region. Uh, President Abbas would come visit us in Washington and he, uh, obviously represents a, a refugee group, and he would fly in a $60 million Boeing business jet, uh, private jet to, to Washington.

   26. CPChamath Palihapitiya56:29

       (laughs)

   27. JKJared Kushner56:29

       I mean, I'd meet with him and we'd be sitting around and, uh, you know, he'd put a cigarette in his mouth and then somebody would come over and they'd light the cigarette for him and I'd be like-

   28. CPChamath Palihapitiya56:36

       (laughs)

   29. JKJared Kushner56:36

       ... "Am I meeting with the head of a refugee group or am I meeting with, like, a king?"

   30. CPChamath Palihapitiya56:38

       (laughs)
6. 1:04:54 – 1:15:36

   GOP debate, establishment blind spots, pragmatic politics, tribal infighting

   1. JKJared Kushner1:04:54

   2. JCJason Calacanis1:04:54

      Jared, did you see the, um, debates last night? Did you watch them?

   3. JKJared Kushner1:04:59

      Uh, no, I did not.

   4. JCJason Calacanis1:05:00

      Sax, did you watch them?

   5. DFDavid Friedberg1:05:03

      Uh, I didn't watch the whole thing. I've seen clips on social media.

   6. JCJason Calacanis1:05:06

      Do you have any takeaways? I mean, was it even worth watching?

   7. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:05:10

      Yeah. I thought, I thought the clips did a pretty good job of actually showing some of the punchier moments. But the crazy thing is that the, the mainstream media has completely erased Vivek's candidacy. I don't even think it exists in the eyes of the mainstream media. But if you look on, on X, all the posts were like, "He clearly won," and he was basically throwing fireballs everywhere.

   8. DFDavid Friedberg1:05:35

      (laughs)

   9. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:05:35

      But then if you go to, you know, CNN or Fox, you don't even hear his name.

   10. DFDavid Friedberg1:05:40

       Right.

   11. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:05:40

       So it's, it's a real, real difference.

   12. DFDavid Friedberg1:05:43

       The mainstream media coverage is what they want you to believe, and social media is what actually happened. It's what people actually believe. And I think that if you look at social media, what it shows is that Vivek dominated the debate and he was throwing fireballs and he was slamming the Neocons on the stage and showing that there's been, I think, an irreparable break between the Neocon establishment wing in the Republican Party and the more populist MAGA wing. So I think that's, that's kind of what social media is showing. And then, you know, if you listen to mainstream media, they're, they, to the extent they talk about Vivek, it's that he had some sort of meltdown and he insulted Nikki Haley's daughter or whatever, something like that.

   13. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:06:27

       (laughs) About her TikTok usage. (laughs)

   14. DFDavid Friedberg1:06:28

       Yeah. By the way, all he said is that, that they, he was being berated for why he created a TikTok account and he's like, "I want to reach young people." You know, like your daughter who's on there? And, um-

   15. JCJason Calacanis1:06:39

       (laughs) Is that what he said?

   16. DFDavid Friedberg1:06:39

       And for that, Nikki, yeah, that's what he said, and Nikki Haley called him scum for that.

   17. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:06:43

       Well, no, but she also, she also pulled like the Will Smith line, like, "Get your, my daughter's name out your mouth." (laughs)

   18. DFDavid Friedberg1:06:50

       (laughs)

   19. JCJason Calacanis1:06:50

       Did she slap him?

   20. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:06:52

       No, she didn't.

   21. JCJason Calacanis1:06:52

       Oh.

   22. DFDavid Friedberg1:06:52

       I think it's a pretty good point. There's like 75 million young Americans on TikTok. If you want to reach them, that's where you post your messages. I have seen Vivek's stuff on there. I've seen RFK Jr.'s videos on there. Like, everyone uses TikTok now if you want to reach people.That's just reality.

   23. JCJason Calacanis1:07:10

       Nikki Haley doesn't?

   24. DFDavid Friedberg1:07:11

       I'm not sure. I don't know that she has much of a social media following because I don't think her campaign inspires any real grassroots. I think her campaign is supported and propped up by the GOP establishment wing. I don't think there's any market for what she's selling among the grassroots, so social media is kinda pointless for her. But if you actually wanna reach people, especially young people, use social media.

   25. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:07:34

       Well, it was pretty intense when Vivek said that the, the head of the RNC should just be fired for all the losing, and kind of went through every single election in the midterms and whatnot that they've lost since she became the head of the RNC. And apparently, on social media, uh, she mouthed something to the effect of, "This guy's an A-hole. He's not gonna get a single cent for months."

Episode duration: 1:50:18