Bassem Youssef: Israel-Palestine, Gaza, Hamas, Middle East, Satire & Fame

If I hate you, that's great, but if I have a story to support that hate, that's even better. One of your favorite words, "Jihad."

Your wife is half Palestinian, and I've heard you say that you've been trying to kill her, but she keeps using the kids as human shields. So have you considered negotiating a ceasefire? Well, the thing is, every day, every minute of the day in a married life is a negotiation. Everything can blow up into a full-scale war. Starting from a simple sentence like, "Good morning, what should we do with the kids today? What should we do with that piece of furniture?" Any sentence can lead you to heaven or to hell in the same time.

So what is the source of hope? John Stewart, who will talk about it from many angles, somebody you admire, a friend, he proposed a two-state solution. Of course.

You mentioned 1948, the Nakba, but before that, 41, 39, 41 to 45, the Holocaust. What do you do? What do do with the Holocaust? How do you incorporate into the calculus of what's, Oh, it's terrible

Can you speak to the 1948, because you mentioned taking land that's not yours, maybe parallels with Native Americans. There was a war, the Jewish minority fought that war against several Arab states and won that war. How do we incorporate that into the catalyst? Yeah, well, that's also a misconception, like a misinterpretation of the event because it seems that it was the small, it's kind of like a David and Goliath kind of story. And I was always like, how did we not do that? But in reality with numbers, I can't pull it up right now, but if you look at the numbers, the number of tanks, the planes, the trained officer, because many of those Jewish fighters came from World War Two, they were seasoned fighters and they actually had more planes, more tanks, more artillery, more pieces of weapon, more of all of other combined, because the people that really was Egypt and 1948, many of those Arab countries didn't even have their independence. So they would kind of send a cavalry or a people in horses. But in fact, the whole idea was like we won against seven nations. The numbers totally in Israel's favor. They were better equipped, they were better trained. They had more tanks and artillery and airplanes, and they planned better. So yes, they deserved the win because they planned and we did it. So

Let's go to the beginning. Let's go to your childhood. You grew up in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt, Childhood.

Find the flaws and be extremely self-critical about them. So you saw Jon Stewart on TV for the first time in 2003, I believe. How did that change your life? I was in a gym and I was running on the treadmill. And at that time, CNN was coming up on cable. And I was watching, and there is this studio, I don't know what it is. So I put the earphones on and I started watching. And I was so taken by this that I stopped the treadmill and I just stood for the 20 minutes like this on the treadmill, just like standing there. I didn't know what he was saying, I didn't understand what is Democrats, what is Republicans? Those names that he's saying... What is Fox News? I don't understand. But I was fascinated. There was something... You know when you don't understand the music, but you get the rhythm? It was that.

Can you talk about 2011? I mean, the Arab Spring, what is it? People here in America- It depends on which side-

I love dark humor. You do a show, like you were saying, in English and in Arabic, and the story is very different. Totally different. Two different stories.

One of your favorite words, Jihad. That's my favorite hobbies.

If there was no religion, humans would have invented religion, because think about it. Think of the early humanity. You're a caveman or whatever, and then you see your family members killed and then you say, "What? I'm going to be the sheep or the gazelle that just ends and perish? I am more important." I think with the development of consciousness, humans thought that they are much more precious and important than the other animals because they have now intelligence. So my life will not end like that. My death will be even more important. There's consequences for that. There's consequences for what I do. And then the early man was there in the desert and all of these natural phenomena. They didn't know what to do. They were afraid. So they need to have refuge. They need to have something to take care of. They need to have a reason for everything, because if there's no reason, it's chaos. It's chaos.

One of the things that's really difficult to know is where to find the truth. It does seem that both sides use propaganda, and both sides lie a lot. Both sides as in?

Yes. Joe Rogan has the Comedy Mothership, which is an incredible club. Have you considered doing that club?

You already told me what you think about the state of politics in the United States, but now tell me what you really think. What do you think of the choice of Trump versus Biden? How did we end up here? I don't know, man. The fact that you have two people over the age of 90, it is-

When you look at what happened with Navalny, since you kind of really thought about this in Egypt, what happened with Navalny in Russia? What do you think about that? What happened in Navalny in Russia is not something new in Russia. Putin have this whole history of poisoning and killing people. I would have to cite credit Putin. He's bringing us the essence of the dark ages, the Middle Ages. Basically, Putin is the living example of what happens if Game of Thrones was reality. It's like, death by poison. Like blow up a plane, it like mysteriously disappears. It is very dark, but it's like, wow, it's a television show.

If we zoom out, do you think there will always be war in the world? Yes.

Let's say you're wrong about the end of the world,- I hope so.