A Debate with Dave Smith: Israel, Iran, and American Power

Conversations With Coleman

The Free Press

Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2025

⏱️ 209 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Note that this conversation took place before Hamas addressed some conditions of President Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan and said it agreed to release all remaining hostages. This was the most requested conversation I've ever had, and one of the longest and most challenging. Dave Smith—comedian, podcaster, and libertarian foreign policy critic—joined me for three and a half hours to debate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American foreign policy more broadly. We disagree on a lot. Smith recently published a video responding to my analysis of the conflict, and this conversation gave us the chance to unpack those disagreements directly—without dodging the hard questions or talking past each other. We covered Ron Paul's influence on Smith's worldview, whether 9/11 was driven by foreign policy grievances or jihadist ideology, the Iraq War, whether Israel wants peace, what Palestinians actually want, and what American foreign policy in Iran should be. This is what substantive disagreement looks like: long, difficult, and hopefully enlightening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman.
0:03.9	My guest today is Dave Smith.
0:06.5	Dave has been my most requested guest over the past year or so.
0:10.4	He is a comedian and political commentator who focuses on American and Israeli foreign policy.
0:16.7	Many of you will be familiar with him from his appearances on Joe Rogan, Lex Friedman, and Pierce Morgan.
0:22.6	He also has a podcast called Part of the Problem.
0:25.6	This conversation is the longest I have ever recorded.
0:29.6	And when we finished, both Dave and I had the strange experience of thinking we had spoken for 90 minutes
0:35.6	and suddenly realizing it had been three and a half hours.
0:39.7	And still, there was a lot we didn't get to cover.
0:42.6	It's not an exaggeration to say that Dave and I disagree about almost everything,
0:47.5	but I think we were still able to have a productive debate with no ad homonyms,
0:52.3	no nastiness, and no cable-newsy shouting, which is exactly what I try
0:56.9	to do here on this show. And I'm thankful today for being the kind of interlocutor that can
1:01.6	actually do that without needing a moderator. In this episode, we talk about why Dave loves Ron Paul.
1:08.4	We talk about the relationship between military spending and the economy. We talk about
1:12.9	the roots of jihadist terror. We talk about whether Israel got us into the war in Iraq. We talk about
1:19.0	whether Israel's fundamental goal is peace with its neighbors or territorial expansion. We talk about
1:25.1	the creation of the state of Israel. We talk about the ethics of the occupation of the West Bank. We talk about the creation of the state of Israel. We talk about the ethics of the
1:28.8	occupation of the West Bank. We talk about the barriers to a two-state solution. And finally,
1:34.8	we talk about Iran's nuclear ambitions and the 12-day war. So without further ado, Dave Smith.
1:52.3	Okay, Dave Smith. Thanks so much for coming on my show.
	...

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