187. Ari Ben-Menashe on Current Events, 3/5/26

0:00Hello, good day. This is Trying Days, a journey podcast, number 187 with Ari Ben Manashi and Todd Bowman. And, you know, I want to thank everybody for your time and for your interest in this. But, you know, with the things going on in the world, I couldn't think of a better person to talk to than Ari Ben Manashi and I brought Todd along because it's always good to have, you know, more than one or two viewpoints at the table because the world's a wild and woolly place. And, you know, if Ari was raised in Iran, okay? And, Ari is a Iranian Jew, okay? I will correct you. My parents are Iraqi Jews that moved to Iran.

1:03Oh, big difference. Well, you know, a lot of our audiences, you know, some Americans and people in the world that don't know the differences between this. So, I appreciate that. But, you know, and then Ari, like he told me, you know, he grew up in Tehran, but went to American and British schools, okay? And then American community school in Tehran till I was 14, okay? And then you ended up in the Prime Minister's office in Israel. Correct. Doing some intelligence things. And, you know, Ari was a guy who told the Lebanese paper about the cake and, you know, all in North because, well, that's a long story. And I don't know, we want to get into it today. Mostly I wanted to get Ari's understandings of, you know, of current events.

2:09And so, Ari, what's going on here? And does Israel have something to do with all this? Okay, can I start going back to the revolution in Iran in 1979? The Iranians kicked out the Shah because they just didn't want them anymore. Abusive, bad regime, and so on. The only opposition left to the Shah were actually the religious opposition. And that's why Ayatollah Fomania was able to take over. Now, fast forward to 1980. The Iraqi's Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein thought that it's a good time to invade the Iran because they're weak

3:21and take over their oil fields in southern Iran. The Israelis at that point decided that they were going to help Iran fight back against Saddam Hussein. So, the Israelis and the Khomeini regime were actually allies until 1992 when Prime Minister Rabin decided that it was time to meet the Saudi king. And the Saudis bribed the Israelis into breaking relations with the Iranians. So, all the way from, of course, under the Shah, the Israelis and the Iranians were allies for 60 years.

4:22But after the revolution, from 1979 to 1992, they were also allies under the Khomeini regime, but quite clearly. And the Israelis supplied weapons to the Iranians in order to beat Saddam Hussein. And they were able to keep him away. Yes, yes. Now, in 1992, they decided that it's a good time to become enemies because the Arabs saw the Arabia especially, offered the Israelis quite a bit of money and economic help if they cut relations with the Iranians. We have to remember that the Arabs and the Iranians are blood enemies going back to many years.

5:23It was the fight between the Shias and the Sunnis. What is the difference between the Shias and the Sunnis? Can you help us a little bit? There are different, different, they believed in different, what's the next? The Shias believed it's a direct lineage to the Prophet. Yeah, that's right. There were different truths to the Prophet Muhammad. I don't want to get into it right now. It's a whole thing. But the Shias believed, one thing they believed, that the Sunnis killed their Prophet Ali. They killed him. So now they have been enemies for quite a hundred years.

6:30The Iranians and the Arabs don't get along. Starting, the Rabin had the secret meeting with the King of Saudi Arabia in 1992. And it was bribed into breaking the relationship with Iran. That's how it all started. Then what happened was that, even so, during the 90s, President Clinton decided that he was going to try to do a deal with the Iranians and with the Etullah. And Madeline Albright, his secretary of state, at the time, made a big public speech, apologizing to the Iranian people for backing the Shah for so many years to his public.

7:50And after that Bill Clinton met President Khatami at the time, President of Iran, in Mirabelle Airport, North of Montreal, in Canada, President Khatami was on his way to the UN in New York. The meeting was set, and there were about to do a piece deal between the two sides, except Monica was brought upon us. And President Clinton was derailed and sabotaged by the Israelis because of that. Now, one nation under blackmail. Of course, we also do not forget President Clinton's meeting with Ahud Barak, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Adafat again.

9:05The same thing happened. The Israelis intervened, and the deep state even blackmailed Ahud Barak, their own Prime Minister, not to do a deal with Adafat. Okay, so that's the background to this. I wasn't there in Israeli Prime Minister assassinated. Was it Rabin or Perez or somebody? Rabin was assassinated, yes, because officially he was trying to do a deal with the Arabs, with the Palestinians, and he met Adafat. And the United States, correct. Okay, sorry, go ahead. Okay, yes, and then we had Nathaniahu, then we had Ahud Barak, then Nathaniahu comes back into the picture.

10:14Now, we have a whole history here. Of course, clearly Mr. Epstein would go back to Mr. Epstein comes into the picture with Ahud Barak. Mr. Epstein, Ahud Barak used to be the director of military intelligence in Israel before he became Prime Minister. And he was my boss, by the way, at the time. And then there were a lot of people in Israeli intelligence that were against recruiting young Epstein. He was recommended by Robert Maxwell to Ahud Barak and Ahud Barak sort of fell in love with him.

11:19They were in Israel, there were all kinds of rumors about Ahud Barak being gay. And he was recently falling in love with Mr. Epstein. Okay, now the story goes on, Mr. Epstein becomes a full-fledged Israeli asset. I think he's an asset of several intelligence operations. Basically, he was working for the Israelis. But he worked with other people too, of course, but he belonged to Israel. And he belonged to Mr. Ahud Barak. Now, having said all that, Mr. President Trump, now we're jumping for many years forward, had this idea in his first term as president.

12:41Remember, he was president of peace. Yes, he was talking about making peace. Had this idea of working at out with the Iranians and doing a sadat on the Iranians. When I say doing a sadat on the Iranians, I mean going to Iran and giving a speech to the Iranian parliament. And working it out. And in his mind, he said, these rallies were allies with these people for so many years, it will work out. He said he's going to do this privately to several people after he gets reelected in 2020. Except there was a problem. He didn't get reelected. But again, once he became president again, the idea was to make a deal with the Iranians,

13:49to sort of bring work it out between the Arabs and the Iranians, and even bring the Iranians into the Abraham Accords. That was in his mind. Didn't happen. I said it didn't happen. No, it didn't. It turns out that it isn't the Americans controlling these rallies. It's because these rallies controlling the Americans. Can I add one other thing to all this mix? Please do. The Iran Iraq war was a big boon to Western armaments manufacturers.

14:53And started a lot of bribing and returning money to people in Britain and other places. How does that work into this mix? All the bribing around the Iran Iraq war, those big military contracts? Well, that really didn't have anything to do with trying to do a peace deal with the Iranians. For Trump trying to do a peace deal with the Iranians. He actually wanted to turn the peace and win the peace price, Nobel Peace Prize. And something happened.

15:56This something was called Netanyahu and the Israelis. So go ahead. Well, I'm going to change gears a little bit. So go ahead. You guys go first. No, I was just going to ask, all right. What is thoughts about Netanyahu and who's pulling Netanyahu strings? Okay. Well, but the now who has been invited as a war criminal, ICC. He's also indicted inside Israel as well. Okay. For fraud or whatever the charges against them are. And Netanyahu is in a little and his little circle around him are in a bind.

17:00If they fight, if they keep on fighting, they were fighting in Gaza, but they couldn't keep it up. So now they're fighting with the Iranians. They have to keep it up in order to stay in power because if they are out of power, they're either in jail or dead. Yeah. Okay. So they're using all the material they have against the American politicians and others to try to make the Western leaders. And look, do the same and do what they want them to do. Remember, they start to doubt with Andrew, the former prince in England.

18:08Then they want to Mendelsob, the ambassador in the UK ambassador in the United States. To warn everybody that we have more material against, against other leaders who were friends of, friends of the, of Epstein, okay. And we're seeing quite a number of people were resigned from their positions today because of their relationship with Epstein, being afraid of what Israel is going to say about them. And are the, those resignations, you have the Lex Wet, the Les Wexner deposition, you have the Clinton's deposition, you have the resignation of the CEO for the World Economic Forum all last week.

19:18And then the Iran strikes happen on Saturday. My question to you at this point is to what extent is the Iran action, an intentional distraction from Epstein, do you think? I think it is the main, Epstein, the main cause of this, this, wow. So you mentioned earlier, you used the word deep state, okay. Who do you say, when I say deep state, when I say deep state in Israel, I'm talking about all the right, right when radicals, politically religious Jewish people that believe in the second, in the Messiah and coming of the Messiah and so on and so forth. And you know, one of the things that really caught everybody's attention, but maybe people didn't know to sit,

20:25who was the visit of the Prime Minister of India to Israel two days before this war. Remember, the Prime Minister of India is a Hindu nationalist, very anti-Muslim. Remember that. And you have Netanyahu who, the Jews aren't anti-Muslim. Lots of Jews lived in Muslim countries, it's a thing, but you have Netanyahu presenting himself as an anti-Muslim thing. And he got the Prime Minister of India to visit Israel. And I have no other explanation for that visit.

21:26So two days before those wars started. Right. So, you know, we get all kinds of propaganda and stuff about this war and we get told that, you know, America is going through its missiles that cost a whole bunch and Iran is using these very inexpensive drones. And they're, you know, they've been waiting, you know, 20 years and been preparing for this type of action. How do you see this war playing out? I don't have an answer. If I could, Ari, you mentioned about, and this is historical record, obviously, the students and the Ayatollah and the regime that's currently in place,

22:32is a consequence of the removal of the Shah, right? So now what we have are options, the Shah's son. Now, if the Shah's son were to take over in Iran, aren't we inviting a repeat of what happened in 79 eventually? And then the second part of that question would be, what is your take on the MEK and other aspects or possibilities for leadership in Iran? What do you see there? The Shah's son will not be acceptable. He's acceptable to some very wealthy Iranian exiles living in LA or other European countries or so on and so forth. The MEK is also not acceptable. They're seen as quote-unquote crazy communists or whatever they're seen as.

23:40And again, the Kurds, now we're hearing about the Kurds as well. Yes, they are, they are in Iran, but historically speaking, they were part of the, they were, they were always were in alliance with whomever it wasn't there. So I don't, I don't see it. The only thing I could see is, is a, some military general from the revolutionary guard taking over if it doesn't, I had told us. Is that what you see as, as the most likely or the best? Most likely, most likely. What is, what is the best? I mean, do we have an Iranian George Washington? Not yet. Maybe he will emerge or he or she will emerge, but not yet.

24:43I'd like to ask a question to Ari, you know, to inform our listeners about, you know, we hear all this stuff about Zionism and all of this, but now all Jews are not Zionists. What is the split between Zionists and anti Zionists? Last good question. Okay, we lost them. Zionists say, this is the state of Israel. Jews should go there and will develop the country. Anti Zionists, there are two types of anti Zionists. The religious anti Zionists say, it's God that is going to create the Jewish state. The Zionist state is an aberration. These are the religious, Hasidic Jews saying that the Zionist state is an aberration.

25:46There's even a Hasidic sect in Jerusalem called the Nathorea Carté, who are allies with the Iranian Mullahs. Not many people know about this. You can look them up. The Nathorea Carté, who are Hasidic Jews. Living in Jerusalem, their leader Rabbi Blau was an alliance with Khomeini. And his wife, by the way, since you brought that subject up, his wife, who used to be before, she was the second, his second wife, was a French Catholic person. She fell in love with her and she converted to Judaism.

26:46Her name was Ruth Bendavid. She is the one that introduced the Israelis in 1978 to Khomeini and Paris. You can look this story up. She is the one. By the way, I mentioned it in my book, Prophets of War. Yes. Yes. So there's that side of anti Zionist Jews. And there's the secular Zionists and the secular anti Zionists. Okay, we're Jews, but we're Americans, we're Iranians, we're Iraqis Jews. I claim I'm an Iraqi Jew.

27:50But I claim I'm a silly hippie. Anyway, all I say is that, yeah, there's a big difference between the Zionists and the non Zionists. But also you have to seriously realize, take into consideration, in the Tourette Karthay living in Jerusalem, who are allies of the current Iranian regime, just for your information. So, yep, there, you know, I've been Manashi, I mean, you told some stories out of school and some people got upset at you, didn't they?

28:50Well, they did. Okay. So, any last things that you want to talk about, Ari, and tell people about? The only thing I say, I would recommend President Donald Trump for the peace prize. If he does a peace deal with the Iranians and tell the Israelis to stop, force the Israelis to stop, in spite of the fact that they are trying to blackmail him. I say, President Trump, please do the peace deal with the Iranians and stop the Israelis.

29:53Todd, do you have any last thoughts? One last thing I have for Ari is how he thinks this plays out globally with respect to the China dynamic. With going into Iran, weakening China, going into Venezuela, weakening China, which are things that I've heard. What is your take on that aspect from a geopolitical standpoint? It might weaken China for a while, but the Chinese are building up economically and so on. I don't think it's going to stop China eventually. It might weaken them up right now, but very interesting story I heard on the news today. The Iranians are not letting ships pass the streets of Burmese. Other than the Chinese ships, they're letting the ships move to China through.

30:58They're letting them through. This is about the oil going to China. Lord, have mercy. I'll tell you. I want to thank you so much for your wide vast of knowledge and your historical. You were there in the room when some of these decisions and other things happened. In any last words, Ari. I'm just hoping again, I repeat, I'm hoping for a piece deal between the Americans and the Iranians and peace in the Middle East. And at that point, President Trump with all his faults should be recommended for the peace prize.

31:59Onwards to a better future for our children. Amen. Amen.