TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: Should Jews Leave America? | When Marx Meets Islam: The Battle for the West
Date: 10/30/2026 Length: 01:02:30
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (00:01)
Welcome everybody to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show. And thank you all for being a part of the show and especially part of the series Should Jews Leave America that Susan and I have been focused on. And today, fortuitously a a guest who brings an angle that we've had no access to up till now, Professor Craig Considine at Rice University, and somebody who has a really terrific story. Professor Considine, you've been in this field of Christian Islamic relations for many, many years.
Craig Considine (00:42)
That's right. Yeah.
Susan Lapin (00:44)
Can you share a little bit about that path? It's interfaith dialogue was important to you, it sounds like for many years, but there's been a twist in the road.
Craig Considine (00:53)
Absolutely unfortunate twist. But my journey starts when I get to American University in Washington, DC. So I was an undergraduate student. This was two thousand and three. So right after 9/11, right in the middle of the invasion of Afghanistan in Iraq. And I wanted to figure out why something like nine eleven happened. So I started taking Arabic courses and I started taking Islam classes with the hope of getting into the intelligence community.
So I signed up for this one class, it was called The World of Islam with Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, who's the former High Commissioner from Pakistan to the UK. And I was expecting that first day class for him to talk about Al Qaeda and bin Laden and Jihad. And Dr. Ahmed completely flipped the script and he was focusing on the potential avenues for interfaith dialogue in terms of bridging this gap, whether real or perceived.
Between the West and Islam. So I became one of Dr. Ahmed's closest students. I traveled with him in 2008 across the United States on a study, an anthropological study called Journey into America. We went to a hundred mosques, over 75 cities, and we were exploring the question what does it mean to be an American through the lens of Islam? Years later, I did my PhD.
A lot of my work was focusing not just on the scholarly realm, but in the public kind of interfaith diplomacy realm. So I was visiting in people's homes, places of worship and their businesses and their schools, and it was it was extremely enriching. A lot of my work also took me to the UAE, which I'm sure we're gonna talk about throughout our time here today.
Now things started breaking down in terms of the interfaith relationships I had with the Abraham Accords in 2020. So this is where the seed was kind of planted, the seed of disruption, if I can call it that. And I it was very curious to me why so many people were opposed to peace in a new vision of the Middle East, one of hope, of integration, of cooperation, of thriving.
Versus the Middle East that we've seen for the last a hundred years, which is war.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (03:12)
So, to just clarify then from two thousand and four till two thousand and twenty, sixteen years, your work revolved around interfaith relations and you wrote you wrote some books during that period as well.
Craig Considine (03:27)
I did, yes. I wrote a book called The Humanity of Muhammad, a Christian View,
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (03:31)
Yes.
Craig Considine (03:32)
which was a biography of Muhammad and a very optimistic biography of him, looking at the moments in his life that we could take and say, Hey, like this is a historical record, it's a primary source. Maybe there's hope for a cooperation here. And that's why I got on board with the Abraham Accords in in the UAE, because this was part of a new peaceful vision for not just Christian and Muslim relations but wider Abrahamic relations. But Rabbi, I started noticing so much pushback and I was like, you know, what is it with people opposing this new vision for the Middle East? And I realized it haunts to
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (04:10)
What's not to like, right?
Craig Considine (04:13)
like Exactly. What's not what's not
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (04:14)
So what did you see?
Craig Considine (04:15)
to like? Well it was it boiled down to the normalization of Israel and Arab communities, Arab partners actually joining team, joining the same team as Israel. So it started I noticed the disruption was then in 2020. And then when October 7th happened, it was the breaking point for me. I went out publicly on my social media and I just I said the student protests, that's what really got me because I was seeing so many pawns, so many misguided people who are taking the bait. The propaganda narrative and they didn't even realize really what they were what they were supporting. And that led to all sorts of backlash. And unfortunately, Rabbi and Susan, a lot of these relationships have not been repaired. I'm still certainly pro-interfaith and I will be, but I also realize now that the interfaith realm is not just this kind of kumbaya, let's everyone love each other. There's politics involved in it. And unfortunately, politics got in the middle of these relationships.
Susan Lapin (05:20)
Can we pull aside from October seventh before as a Christian? And I and I know you I saw some videos of you speaking to Muslim crowds, my and being well received. Did you ever feel a push? Was it a we respect you, you respect us? Or at certain point did it turn into, well, if you don't accept Allah and you don't accept Muhammad as the prophet, there's only a certain point up till which that respect can go.
Craig Considine (05:51)
Yeah, that's a great point and a great question. If you go back five, seven years, maybe even a couple years, to my social media accounts, it was flooded with calls for me to convert. This was a huge, huge part of this journey, this experience. And I kind of just pushed it aside. I I I was thinking to myself, all right, maybe these people just I don't know, they had good intentions with asking me to convert. And it never really
it never really rubbed me the wrong way. Some of the relationships I thought were actually genuine, that they appreciated me, that they didn't see me as some type of useful infidel, that they appreciated the work that I was doing. They admired the integrity with which I did my work. So it was a bit of both, but now that I look back on it and I realize that that push for conversion was massive. And the interfaith work turned into
kind of political dogma. So it wasn't just about me converting, it was about me aligning more closely with the Palestinian cause versus Israel. That was the real breaking point where the floodwaters just completely opened.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (07:04)
yeah, that's it's fascinating. Back to the to the Abram Accords. was the concern or the pushback you began experiencing there? chiefly focused on the fact that the Palestinian cause was being ignored and that the Abram Accords sort of did a run around the entire Palestinian issue or was it a broader recognition of Israel which was the problem?
Craig Considine (07:34)
I think both of your points, Rabbi, are accurate. One, it was this concern of the Palestinian cause being dismissed, being maligned, you know, the grievances that the Palestinians have were never recognized, never repaired. That was one point. The other point, as you mentioned, the normalization of Israel is there. I would add a third point too. Like when I was doing a lot of my work in the UAE, for example, I went to the inauguration of the Abrahamic family house, which I'm sure you're familiar with in Abu Dhabi.
And the pushback against that was largely coming from Islamist Muslims. And they were concerned that a new religion was being morphed called Abrahamism, which was trying to synthesize and fuse Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. I never thought of it in theological terms. As a sociologist, as an interfaith advocate, I was looking at it in social terms. So it wasn't about creating some type of new doctrine. It was about look.
The Abrahamic family house, you have one interfaith complex, a synagogue, a church, a mosque, all uniquely suited for those different faith traditions. So it wasn't like they were creating a new synagogue. It's a traditional synagogue with traditional
Susan Lapin (08:47)
I think everybody would have objected to that. The Jews, the Christians would also object to that, to the idea of changing the religion.
Craig Considine (08:55)
Yeah, of course. I mean it's nonsensical. But for me, I saw more pushback coming from the Islamic side. maybe it was their emphasis on Tawheed and this oneness and there can be no other Allah except the Quranic Allah. There was a little pushback from conservative voices in the United States, who were also concerned about this, you know, boogeyman Abrahamism, but it was largely coming from Muslims, unfortunately. You know, the Muslims who were fans of me.
Because of my work with on Prophet Muhammad. But the minute you deviate from that type of orthodoxy, they start condemning you. And I think also in my position as a Catholic, they didn't like the fact that a Catholic wrote a popular book about Muhammad. And this is getting into a very dangerous tur territory of identity politics, right? So you can't speak about Muhammad or you can't speak about Palestine unless you fit into this neat identity category.
And that's antithetical to academia. Academia is about exactly it
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (09:56)
All of scholarship, yes, of course. It's crazy.
Craig Considine (09:59)
it doesn't matter what you look like, what you believe, it matters whether you follow the truth, the scientific truth, the scientific method. So it was unfortunate the break that that happened. but again, I wanna emphasize here, I'm still an interfaith proponent. I'm just
I have a more nuanced understanding of the political dynamics that are operating in the interfaith realm.
Susan Lapin (10:23)
Can I ask? Speaking of that, you use the phrase Islamism. We have had guests, one in particular who grew up as a Muslim and is now a Christian, who's who doesn't believe in that phrase. And I know there are organizations that will say that's a fake phrase, because Islam, by definition, is a political and a religious intertwining. And what you're saying also is that they became the political, there's a political underlay that you became aware of. But you do use the word Islamist, so how do can I ask how you distinguish between Islam and Islamism?
Craig Considine (10:57)
Yes, absolutely. And I believe because I did my homework, you had my good friend Danny Burmawi on. And so Danny,
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (11:02)
We that's who I'm thinking that's who we're talking about.
Craig Considine (11:07)
the ideological defense institute is doing extremely important work, especially on the work that I'm doing on the on the red-green alliance. And let me say this, like I think Danny and those who do not make this distinction between Islamism and Islam, like they have a very credible point. And I think over the years I'm starting to see more validity in that argument. But my only concern with getting rid of the distinction is that using only Islam will alienate partners that are working with the West, that are working with Israel. For example, the UAE. I think the UAE and those in power there and those that are operating in this interfaith world, they would be very concerned with the conflation of groups like The Muslim Brotherhood or CAIR being a representation of Islam. And we know UAE has banned the Brotherhood and has designated CAIR as a terrorist organization. So Danny, I'm again I'm not disagreeing with him, but I think for me, diplomatically, it's important to make it important to make that distinction to keep Muslims who will work with us, will be our allies, content to make sure we're not going down the road of.
Islamophobia. But listen, this is a journey for me too. It's an intellectual journey. I listened to Danny. We talked about this the other day. It was literally a week ago, today. And he makes very valid points. Let me say this too the Humanity of Muhammad book that I wrote in 2020, a lot of what was in that book I still generally agree with in in terms of there being moments in Muhammad's biography that we could potentially point to and say, hey, there's some hope here. But Danny and I talked about a counter book to that, which paints a more objective picture of Muhammad's life. So looking at the good, the bad, and the ugly. My book just looked at the good. So we're actually thinking about writing a book called The Inhumanity of Muhammad. Now, this is
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (13:11)
my goodness.
Craig Considine (13:12)
very difficult territory for me because
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (13:14)
Right.
Craig Considine (13:15)
the title of it, you know, is gonna rub people the wrong way. But what the book is going to do is to complete the true biography of Muhammad, not just looking at the good stuff, but also looking at the bad stuff, because understanding the bad stuff from my perspective will help me understand what I've been through over the years. You know, why is there so much push for people like me to become Christian, to become Muslim? Why is there so much pushback against the state of Israel? Why do events like October 7th happen? So dicey territory, but it's necessary
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (13:52)
Well we
Craig Considine (13:53)
from a scholarly perspective.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (13:56)
We would look forward to seeing that done I mean, yeah, more than dicey because your world you your world is a world of faith and you have friends and you have family and professionally you are very, very firmly established in the academic world. how all these things been impacted? How are these parts of your life been impacted, what's it been like being you?
All of these
Craig Considine (14:31)
been you know it's a great question and thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak about this because oftentimes people who have been through what I've been through don't talk about it. Thankfully I have thick skin. That's how I was raised. I was born and bred in Boston to an Irish dad and an Italian mom. So we've got some of the thickest skin out there. But at the same time I'm human. The online attacks - I can deal with I've been dealing with that forever. A lot of them are probably not even organic or authentic. They're coming from bots. But the breakdown of the relationships was pretty difficult 'cause there was a period of a year and a half where I felt like I was on an island, that the network that I have that I had created had completely disintegrated.
And even one of my books, it was called Beyond Dialogue, Building Bonds Between Christians and Muslims. It dropped, it was published in 2024, right as I was being canceled. So no one was no one was reading about it. No one was inviting me on. So I felt isolated for sure. Secondly, there's a security component to this, which is also very real. And Rabbi, you were touching upon it a little bit. I do have two kids, two young kids. I have a third on the way. I'm married. I've had over the years multiple threats that are credible enough that had to involve public officials with the FBI. They were concerned about what was happening on my social media pages, basically bot farms getting death threats, having to go to Rice University, contact them, contact my boss and say, listen, like this is this is real. This is something that I feel is a legitimate threat.
Thirdly is the actual professional environment that I'm in. Being a conservative voice in a department of sociology in 2026 in Western academia, you're a unicorn in a in a bad way, not a good unicorn. I've been publicly attacked. I've been I've had my Wikipedia page vandalized. SJP has called me a Nazi on multiple occasions, and you know that
That turn or Zionist Nazi, like in modern academia, it's like the same thing. If you're a Zionist, you're
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (16:44)
I'm sorry, it's who's SJP?
Craig Considine (16:47)
Students for Justice in Palestine. This is the main campus organization that is fueling all the chaos and the cancel culture that we that we see on campus. So, you know, it's like a boxing match. You know, you take a couple blows, you fall down, you go to your corner, you regroup.
But I feel like now with my new book, When Marx Meets Islam, I feel like this book and the argument that I'm making, it's right on the heartbeat and the pulse of what we're seeing happen in our society today. And I feel like the momentum is starting to kick up again and new friends, new networks, new groups are reaching out to me, like yourselves, which I which I really appreciate. So it
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (17:31)
Well, we are big admirers of courage and we like hanging out with people who are courageous 'cause it rubs off
Craig Considine (17:39)
Absolutely.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (17:41)
When one of the things that I mean, you are on the college campus and as you say, that's a tricky place to be, but one of the things that I don't think Americans have paid enough attention to is that the cam the riots on col or the rallies on college campuses that were anti Israel and pro Palestinian broke out October eighth. We were happened to have been in Israel on October seventh. The country itself was in a state of shock. Israel--
I don't know if you've spent time in Israel, but it's a gregarious country. People sit in cafes and chat, people walk on the street and chat. It was silent, it was eerie. If you walked on the street, no one was greeting anybody, everybody was literally still in shock. Israel had not responded in the slightest way, and that was when the anti-Israel stuff started. So it was clearly planned. This wasn't an organic feeling of outrage because the organic outrage should have been against women who were raped and grandmothers who were carried off into captivity and infants who were murdered. So there was it was planned. And right now, as we speak, there are riots going on in France. And from what I've heard again, there are certainly they may have started or there was there are groups that were peaceful and have concerns about allocation of funds, but it's quickly taken over.
Who is so who do you think is pulling the strings behind the youth today?
Craig Considine (19:09)
Great question. And let me say too, Susan, October seventh, SJP, Students for Justice in Palestine, at Columbia, had a toolkit already ready, prepared to distribute to all the useful pawns and the foot soldiers on campus and elsewhere on how to deal with the fallout from October seventh. And I write about this in my book that there were people operating on Columbia's campus who had family members and Al Aksa brigades. So there was clear coordination going on between entities in Gaza and entities here. And let me say this this entire movement, this anti Zionism, anti Jewish, anti Israel, is also anti American, anti West, anti Enlightenment, anti capitalist. That is that much is clear. On the opposite side of this is the Red Green Alliance, which my new book is all about. This is a strategic tactical coalition of leftist groups, progressive, communist, antifa, et cetera. and then also kind of liberals who are kind of in no man's land, but they refuse to be conservative and they refuse to be pro-America. And then on the opposite side, the green side, you have a network of Islamist groups. So in the US, it's
The Islamic Society of North America, its CAIR, Council on American Islamic Relations, it's MAS, it's SJP, and then there's also more violent groups, actual terrorist organizations. So they are coordinating together strategically, not because they share the same values. Anyone who's studied Marxism and Islamism knows that these are two totally different movements. However, they have the shared enemy, and that's what it's all about.
Primarily the West. Let's overthrow the w the West. For the Left, overthrow capitalism. For the Islamist, it's overthrow the Great Satan. America. And then also as part of that, on the periphery of the West, we have Israel holding down the Middle East as the only liberal democracy in the region. So if you can take down the US-Israel Alliance, you can take down the West straight up. Now this unholy alliance as many call it unholy because it makes no sense and it's also evil and immoral they have an infrastructure in play it's a it's a well coordinated as I explained in my book a five tier layer to this this army. The first tier are the students, the activists. These are the useful pawns or the useful idiots. Naive.
willing to go do the dirty work on campus, on the streets. So you need a army of actual bodies. So that's the first layer. I'll bring you through this quick. The second layer of this, in terms of why so many young Westerners are following or placing themselves in this alliance, it's the academic curriculum. It's what's being taught in Western universities, especially in the social sciences, treating the United States as fundamentally evil or wrong and it's always been wrong and it's never been right. It can't be right. So the indoctrination in the classroom justifies the actions of the students. It makes them feel like what they're standing for is just and right. The third layer of this army, the red green army, is the civil society realm. These are the organizations that frame themselves as a civil rights organization or a human rights organization.
or an interfaith organization, whatever it might be, and they're operating in the public sphere. So they're reaching the voters. They're doing the community work. They're doing advocacy on campus. They're also well funded and they also lobby. Fourth tier are your politicians, progressive politicians or Islamist politicians. We're seeing it with Mamdani, with Rashida Taleb, with Zohran Mamdani, with non-Islamists like AOC. These
I call it in the book, these are your rooks on your hypothetical chessboard, right? So they're not the kings and the queens, but they're right below it. They turn the campus slogan or the reading in a syllabus or the agenda of a civil society organization into law, to official law. The last layer of the army is the international component, the access. So Qatar, China, Iran, Hamas, Turkey, all largely aligned with the goals of the Islamist.
Agenda. They're providing the cover diplomatically at the UN. The UN is basically a lost cause. They're providing funding to universities. We know Qatar is the primary beneficiary of all the money that's really going into not all the money, but a lot of the money that's going into universities. And then you have China with TikTok and Qatar with Al Jazeera. They're providing the narrative. So all of this together is a, you know, it looks maybe messy and complicated, but
This is what it is. That's the playing field and that are it's the different branches of this red green army.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (24:33)
Gosh, y you've really you've depicted it all in the form of a chessboard or of a battlefield with all the sections and I really want to absorb that. Is that laid out in when Marx meets Islam in your newest book?
Craig Considine (24:50)
Yes.
Yes, Rabbi, it is. it's part of the structure of the book. So as you move through the book, that hypothetical chessboard is a consistent fact throughout the book. I also frame this as a soft war. if you've read The Art of War by Sun Tzu, the ancient military strategist from China.
He had a famous line in The Art of War that you can win a war without even firing a bullet. I was on Fox and Friends on Saturday morning and they were asking me about, you know, is this a war? And I said, Yes, it is. I mean, look what's happening in France. But it's not a traditional conventional war. It's not being fought by missiles or fighter jets or on the ground in the trenches with grenades. It's fought with activism. It's fought with narratives, with academic theories, with civil society organizations, with political groups, with lobbying. So you don't have to you don't have to fire a weapon to actually win this this soft war. And arguably with the way the modern world is set up, you've got to win the narrative. And I know there's been a lot of criticism within Israel and outside of Israel. They've handled the hard war extremely well. You know, Lebanon is basically, you know, Hezbollah is not doing great. Hamas is still there, but greatly weakened. Iran greatly weakened. Syria is onto a new path, whether that's good or bad. We'll see. But there's been a lot of criticism on the soft war side, not doing enough to capture that narrative, to push back against this ridiculous claim of genocide or settler colonialism or apartheid. So you've got to win the airwaves.
You've got to win what we see on the screen, that is arguably just as important as what is ac actually happening in the tunnels or in the skies.
Susan Lapin (26:46)
Is there a way to do that? In other words, you're depicting a an the other side as well funded and united and willing to work very much, you know. Look, the U we worked with Russia during World War II. At a certain point, you n you unite against a common enemy. I don't get, I think part of being a conservative is feeling independent and not maybe playing so well with other people. Is there is there a way for the con for the side that understands to win a narrative that also especially is very for the younger generation is a social media phenomenon that I I'll admit people of our age don't begin to grasp. In other words, are there faces on the on the side? And then you have really betrayals by people like Candace Owens or Tucker Carlson that people, you know, really looked to as, well, these are my conservative influencers and they betrayed us now. Are there, is there a hope or is this Sort of almost a hopeless thing to win the narrative.
Craig Considine (27:49)
I think there's hope. I think strategically we have to be focused on maybe one of the five layers of the chessboard that I laid out. Right. So instead of just tackling all of those fronts or battlefields at once, start pinpointing specific areas or realms that the conservative side or the pro America, pro Israel side feels like they can actually make a strategic inroad. So I have seen I have been hopeful on what is happening, at least during Trump's Trump Trump's administration, with the academic front. So making sure federal funds, for example, aren't going to universities if universities are basically isolating their own students who happen to be Jewish or who happen to be conservative. There's a lot of different academic groups also of professors who are Jewish and non-Jewish like myself who are starting to coordinate, starting to figure out how can we push back against this tidal wave of progressivism and anti-American and anti-Israel sentiment on campus. Susan, the social media thing is obviously a massive component to this. you know, there are good bots and bad bots. We know that the bad bots are heavily active on social media, you know, saying America's awful and Israel is genocidal and all that, but You know, I hate I hate to go down this road, but maybe governments who are trying to defend themselves have to start thinking about using the same type of strategies that the enemies are actually using because it's effective, unfortunately. Now I know that might sound immoral, but how else are you gonna win the war? Now there are there are great voices out there, but unfortunately we live in an era of echo chambers. There's a war on reality. So even if you present, and this can be backed up sociologically, I teach this in in my class on polarization. Even if you show people on the other side that here is a different narrative,
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (29:52)
Okay.
Craig Considine (29:54)
here's a different position, they will not even objectively look at that story or fact or article from the media because it's coming from a side that has already been deemed immoral.
or evil or wrong. Now that seems to me like a whole different battle. This is one of apathy, of mistrust, of categorization and stereotype. So there's a lot of work to be done. I think it's already being done. And I'm hopeful and certainly not gonna take it and lay down and let all this happen.
Susan Lapin (30:32)
We interviewed Professor Robbie George. He mentioned Zaytuna College in California as a ray of hope. It's a Muslim college. If I went on the website, the women are wearing, you know, full hijabs and the men look Islamic. and it's supposed to be a liberal arts college, I believe, that really respects the Islamic tradition and is a place where someone who's faithful to Islam can learn in the way that there are Jewish colleges and there are Catholic colleges and there are evangelical colleges. Is this, do you see this as a wolf in sheep's clothing or as a ray of hope?
Craig Considine (31:13)
Good question. At this point, I would say maybe somewhere in the middle of that. I hate to play the political, the political angle, but let me let me share a little bit. so I've been to Zaytuna. Zaytuna's president is Sheikh Hamza Yusuf. So I spent a whole day with him out there and very bright man, knows his Western history, his enlightenment history. And this is an important point. So Hamza Yusuf was a was a big part of the behind the scenes push for the Abraham Accords. When I was going to the UAE, I was being invited by the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, which was organized by the UAE government. And the main imam or sheikh behind that was Sheikh bin Bayya. Sheikh bin Bayya who is basically the chief imam in the UAE. He's from Mauritania. Sheikh Hamza Yusuf was his top student.
And they have like a father-son relationship. so Hamza Yusuf has that backdrop. And he also got tar he was also targeted. when the Abraham Accords dropped, a lot of people were pointing the finger at him and saying, You allowed this to happen. Now, with that said, I do get email updates from them. So I've subscribed to their email updates and they have a lot of strictly Islamic stuff, they have a lot of bridging the perceived or real gap between Enlightenment or Western philosophy and Islamic philosophy. So they are doing that, but I'm not sure where they stand on the Palestinian issue. And this is really the d the ultimate dividing line. Is it a wolf in sheep's clothing or is there some potential hope? Because for me, that's like the litmus test, where you stand on this. If you're looking at Hamas as a r resistance group rather than a terrorist group, I think you've lost the plot. So it's hard to for me as an outsider to Zaytuna, it's hard for me to really capture what is really happening there because all I'm seeing is their public image and their public face. But I do know Sheikh Hamza Yusuf and I think he is on the right side of this conundrum that we're dealing with.
Susan Lapin (33:27)
I imagine he's under a lot of pressure as well to not go too far
Craig Considine (33:30)
Big time.
Susan Lapin (33:31)
over a line.
Craig Considine (33:32)
Well, he was also canceled by his fellow Muslims during the Black Lives Matter movement, which is by the way,
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (33:38)
really?
Craig Considine (33:39)
yes, which is by the way a Marxist communist movement that was not shared with the general public when this thing went viral. so he was canceled because he was pushing back against basically black on black violence in cities. He's he was basically saying,
Why do we only care about black people African Americans when they're being shot or mistreated by law enforcement officers? Why aren't we thinking about the general life, the daily struggle that a lot of African Americans, especially in urban settings, are dealing with where you have urban environments rife with gang, with murder, with drugs. And he was bashed for that because
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (34:21)
With us.
Craig Considine (34:22)
The opposition was basically saying, Well, like you're taking like the white supremacy narrative, you know, but I think what he was saying is right. I mean, you have to look at the total picture. Why do we only care about these people's suffering and hardship when it can be exploited politically? You have to be objective. You have to look at the whole the whole spectrum and the whole story.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (34:46)
to take a look for a moment at the American kid at Columbia University. you know, Monday to Friday he's wearing a kaffiyah and waving a Palestinian flag in the protests. And then on the weekends he goes home to the family mansion in Scarsdale. And to what extent does he know that, for instance, in nineteen seventy-nine, Iranian socialists worked hard joining with the Islamists to bring back Khomeini from Paris to take over Iran and that soon after Khomeini liquidated all the socialists in Iran who helped like is this university educated a young person - is there an awareness that fundamentally the two parties can't possibly coexist?
Craig Considine (35:42)
I don't think they see it that way, Rabbi. I think they have been indoctrinated so much into identity politics that they're unable to look at things truthfully. So the way I describe identity politics is that over the years, different forces in society have created a hierarchy of racial and religious and culturally oriented people. And the way a lot of young college students see
Muslims or Arabs, they see them at the bottom of the poll, which is really silly because if you look at Muslim Americans and their median income and the jobs that they have, they're doing quite well as a population. So they're really not at the bottom of this of this hierarchy, but that this is what they believe. So you have to, if you want to be a good young person, you have to support the groups at the bottom of that ranking.
If you don't, you can be socially ostracized. Now, the danger is that they see this support that they give groups at the bottom of this hierarchy as blanket support. So you can't criticize their faith. You just have to accept it. Right. So if I come out as a professor and I criticize a Islamic group for their political activities, a lot of students will say, you can't do that.
You can't criticize a Muslim group because they're oppressed. They're at the bottom of the ranking. So they use Islamophobia to not only fear monger young people, you know, but they also do it to eliminate any type of criticism at all, objective criticism of a group that happens to be Muslim or a group that happens to be Islamic oriented. So this is how they're operating, and it's identity stacking.
Right. This is the term I use, identity stacking. So if you're if you're Muslim and if you're Arab, you have to support the Palestinian cause. And the way that this hierarchy is created, Palestinians are at the bottom, African Americans are perceived at the bottom. So therefore, if you're black, you have to support Palestinians. And if you're Palestinians, you have to join the Black Lives Matter movement. So this is this is what we're seeing. And there's no room for independence, for free thought. It's all or
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (38:00)
So that
Craig Considine (38:01)
orthodoxy.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (38:03)
the victim is always virtuous in this moral universe.
Susan Lapin (38:07)
And they don't have to be an actual victim, they can just be perceived as a victim.
Craig Considine (38:11)
Absolutely.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (38:12)
And the notion that the victim is sometimes complicit in his own misfortune is unthinkable.
Craig Considine (38:17)
Yes, a hundred percent. And the victimhood mentality, I mean, it is very deeply embedded in universities. I see it, you know, not all students too. Like I'm not trying to paint, you know, there's some awesome, brilliant, independent students, hardworking students, conservative students. They love their country. That exists. But I think they're few and far between. And this victimhood mentality, like I just sometimes I just want to like shake some students and like you are at.
Rice. You are at Rice University. You're at one of the top universities in the country. You're doing well. You have professors who care for you. You have all the opportunities right in front of you. And you're a victim? You're oppressed? I don't know what it is. Like, why do people fall back on that like as a crutch? Rabbi and Susan, maybe you can you can provide some insight or some philosophy. Like why if you're not a victim, why play the victim card. It's just it boggles my mind.
Susan Lapin (39:17)
I don't know if you have that's a whole another topic. But right now that's social
Craig Considine (39:21)
Ha ha ha.
Susan Lapin (39:22)
cachet. If you're not a victim, you are a nobody. So you're worse
Craig Considine (39:26)
Right.
Susan Lapin (39:26)
than a social You need to you need to get those points. You need the victim points to be somebody today.
Craig Considine (39:31)
True.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (39:31)
How has life changed for Mrs. Considine over the last five years? Well, she had babies. Well, other than the babies. socially, some of this leaching into into her world other than her standing alongside you who are being attacked. I mean, nobody wants to s no woman wants to see her husband attacked. But socially and and family wise, have there been tough impacts on her as well over the last five years?
Craig Considine (40:02)
I think the main thing that sticks out, Rabbi, is when I started a turn away from this, you know, blanket interfaith support for groups, when I started pushing back against the Islamist oriented narratives and groups, I don't really think she saw the important distinction between that. And I think she was concerned that I did a total one eighty.
And she was just like, wait, but like you used to you used to speak very highly of Muslims and now you're criticizing Muslims. And I think she was a little wary about that for a little bit. Not because of my mental health. I think she knew I was I was I'm squared away, but I think she was concerned about the the social fallout. because I mean I
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (40:48)
Yes.
Craig Considine (40:48)
I lost like I think across X, Instagram and Facebook, I lost like a hundred and fifty thousand followers.
on Instagram alone, I lost like a hundred, a hundred thousand followers within like a one year span. And I'm on obviously I'm on social media. She's also on social media and she's active. And she was seeing that and she was like, This is how the modern mind works. Like if you're if you're being canceled on Instagram, you must be doing something wrong. And I was having to kind of defend myself. I'm like, listen, Miriam, everything is good. Like this is where I'm at.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (41:24)
So difficult.
Craig Considine (41:25)
I have new knowledge. I have a new understanding. It's a little uncomfortable, but this is what I need to do. So it was a little a little rocky on that front. But otherwise, she was always very supportive. And I
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (41:37)
Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah.
Craig Considine (41:38)
think now she gets it. She gets the recent book and she gets the distinction. she's not a Mamdani fan. So I guess that's good. At least I've chipped away at that a little bit. But overall it's okay. Haven't faced a lot of backlash from family or friends. So that's all kind of
Susan Lapin (41:58)
Good. Well that's nice to hear.
Craig Considine (42:00)
yeah, that's all short up. And actually some of my friends who were conservative or s you know were or still are, they're like, hey, we like this this new book, this new idea that you're pushing out. So, you know, you win you win some and you lose some. My mom always taught me that you can't please everyone. If you're trying to please everyone, It's not gonna work. You've lost the plot. So thankfully I'm meeting good new folks like you. and we move forward.
Susan Lapin (42:29)
There's an election coming up in a f in a few weeks in the United States. And we our background is we f thirty years ago started saying the Christians are the canary in the coal mine in the United States, because at that point it was still totally unacceptable to say something nasty about Jews, but it was not it was completely acceptable to say terrible things about Christians. And we were trying to warn the Jewish community, hey, you need to stand up for Christians.
Which is a flip of history and it we were not as successful as we would have liked to be. But our concern was that a weakened Christianity in America would first of all weaken America, but it would also weaken the Jewish safety in America. But at this point, from what we understand, we've been told by people who know that thirty percent of evangelicals, for example, do not vote. And like the Jewish vote, I think the Catholic vote can be very democratic, you know, towards the dem or how would what would you say to somebody who's saying, you know, Palestine, Israel, I just want my gas prices are high. I want to live in a safe community. I don't like, you know, certain things that are like the homeless on the street. I don't want violence. I don't but I look at something in France and I say, well that's not America. We're far away from that. I don't feel a compunction to vote. My life is basically okay. If anything, I'm gonna vote for Democrats because my I paid too much for my gas last week.
Craig Considine (44:05)
So let me say this. Like I think the Israel issue, which overlaps into the Jewish population is the number one battleground for the future of the West. And I talk about this in in my book. So Israel is the Western periphery or the east the easternmost element of the West. So whatever happens over there to Israel is going to shape the West at large and it's going to shape the well-being of the United States and Europe. But what we're seeing are narratives from the Middle East and old enemy dynamics and framing being played out here in the United States. So you're seeing like these old Arab slogans being infused into American society and the American populace.
So it's all connected. I mean this is a this is a globalized w world and what we're seeing now is unfortunately w again, like we saw in World War Two, Jews are the number one boogeyman. But not all Jews. you have progressive Jewish voice for peace, the true useful idiots of
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (45:20)
Yes.
Craig Considine (45:20)
of the Mamdanis of the world. So like, what I would say to these people, this this even happened to me recently. The my book launched two weeks ago in New York City, and I was having dinner by myself at an Italian restaurant, and there was a woman to my right, and we started talking, an older lady from New York, and she happened to be Jewish. And I told her about my book, and she said, Well, I don't really care what's happening in Palestine. And she's like, I'm not really following you know, Mamdani, she's kind of is what it is. And Again, I wanted to shake her and say you need to wake up, but like you know, you are a potential pawn. The minute the power is supplanted by the likes of Mamdani even more, as Rabbi you said earlier with the Iranian revolution, it'll turn. Those forces will turn against those who had previously done the dirty work for the Islamist movements. so it does it what happens over there definitely matters and what happens here impacts what's happening over there.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (46:24)
I mean I think that's one of the one of the most profound points you've made that I'm gonna think about a great deal is this idea that Israel is the frontier of civilization and w what what's happening there is a harbinger for everything else. I do wanna think about that. That's amazing. yeah.
Craig Considine (46:46)
Can I add too, Rabbi? Let me just quickly add, like and I write in the first in the introduction of my book, I justify why the defense of Israel is intrinsically valuable for us in the United States. I mean, it we shouldn't have to break it down in terms of numbers or contributions that the state of Israel is making to the United States. I mean, these are old allies, it's a liberal democracy, we should support it for that reason alone.
But there's also real strategic benefits to supporting Israel. And I'm sure you're familiar with it. You know, the aid that is being given to Israel from the United States is not a one-way street. A lot of it comes back through investment, through military technology, through new technology, through cybersecurity. The list goes on and on. Did you see this new commercial that the Sayed campaign put out?
Did you see this?
Susan Lapin (47:46)
No.
Craig Considine (47:47)
It's two people in a grocery store. It's a husband and wife. the husband, I think it was the wife had bananas and the husband had like some lettuce. And they were going back and forth. Which one should we should we buy? Should we buy the bananas or should we buy the lettuce? The commercial goes into this black hole about aid to Israel, that they can't afford the banana because all the their taxpayer dollars are actually going to Israel.
without any deeper insight into the real transaction that happens between the United States and the state of Israel. It's not a handout. It's not a handout. And people don't realize that. But people aren't doing the critical thinking and they're not digging deeper into the relationship. It's very, very important.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (48:31)
Yeah, no, you make a powerful point when you compare I think you compare aid to just the trade, the ordinary trade that goes on between Israel and the United States, which is so important.
Craig Considine (48:45)
Exactly.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (48:45)
your book When Marx Meets Islam. twenty two years ago.
The late great David Horowitz wrote Unholy Alliance, the Radical Islam and the American Left. Is your book a kind of update? Is it 'cause there's if David came back to life and from twenty-two years ago, he'd be shocked by a lot of things, even though he was somewhat prophetic in that book, right?
Craig Considine (49:15)
Absolutely. And
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (49:17)
But you needed to write When Marx Meets Islam.
Craig Considine (49:21)
Yeah, it's an updated version, Rabbi. And I make this very clear,
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (49:24)
Really.
Craig Considine (49:25)
like literally in the introduction. I think it's the beginning of the second section of the book, so probably page three. I say that this is an updated version to David Horowitz's Unholy Alliance. So he wrote that in yeah, it was two thousand three, two thousand four. He was looking primarily at foreign policy and he was looking at the anti-war protests.
My book is slightly different. It does focus on that, but I'm looking at like the infrastructure and the operational strategies and tactics of the alliance from the campus to the curricula to civil society and onwards. Now there's also another important parallel here because David was a former communist who
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (50:09)
Yes.
Craig Considine (50:10)
did a 180 and became a conservative. And
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (50:11)
Yes. Yes.
Craig Considine (50:14)
My journey is similar because I was previously doing a lot of work even with groups that I now view as extremely problematic. So I was in the inside seeing what this red-green alliance actually looks like, and I had to remove myself from it because this is just part of my journey and where the truth was taking me. So we both give a kind of dis not a dissenting view, but a an insider look into what this movement actually is and then insight into why we left and what are the ramifications of actually leaving. So the two books are extremely similar. and I mention him throughout the book. I mean, I don't think I've
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (51:01)
Well we - I find I what I would like to try and you'll tell me if I'm wrong, I'm trying to characterize your book as very urgent because it's telling the reader what's really going on behind the headlines. You see something in the story, you see something in the paper, you see something on television. Now you get an insight into the forces that made that happen. What's really going on behind the political and the street and the financial. I that's true, isn't it? I mean the there is there's an urgency to your book that I find very compelling.
Craig Considine (51:46)
Yeah, and half the battle with writing a good book is the timing. And I guess I had the foresight a year and a half ago, when I started writing this book, I was thinking, Where where's this going? You know, I'm reading the landscape, I'm saying, What's gonna happen? I mean, I didn't know Mamdani was gonna win, I didn't know El Sayed was gonna win. But like if you asked me a year and a half ago, w was that possible, I would say, Yeah, it's possible because the infrastructure's already there.
You know, the seed has been planted. You just got to water, you just got to water the seed. And the book, going back to Horowitz, it's unique because it explains what is happening and the justification for a lot of the decisions that activist student groups, civil society organizations are making is rooted in sociological theory. So there's like three big theorists I use. It's Karl Marx, obviously, he creates the oppressor versus the oppressed. There's Antonio Gramsci, the twentieth century Italian communist
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (52:44)
Italian.
Craig Considine (52:46)
who he wanted to enact a war against culture, cultural hegemony, and he said the best way to change a culture is to go into its institutions and change the institutions from the inside, which we're definitely seeing this happen from academia onwards. And then the third theorist that I use, and Horowitz didn't really
dabble in sociology. It was more political science. The third theorist is Frantz Fanon, the post-colonial
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (53:15)
Yes.
Craig Considine (53:15)
North African philosopher who said that violence is justified in order to overthrow a colonial entity. Now the way that plays out in modern Europe is you have
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (53:28)
October the seventh is what that is.
Craig Considine (53:31)
ex exactly, right? So if you can
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (53:33)
And in modern Europe we see it on the streets of Paris.
Craig Considine (53:36)
Exactly. And even though you have second, third, fourth generation Moroccans, Algerians, and Libyans living in Marseille and Paris, they still view Fr the French as the colonial master. But the war is not about liberating Morocco anymore, because Morocco's liberated. The war is now liberating France, which is they're turning against their own country. In the Israeli context, if you can if you can frame successfully
If you can manipulate young people to think that Israel is a colonial entity, then you can use Fanon's resistance as a means of overthrowing the colonial power. So the book is unique in this way. And let me say also, and I pride myself on this, the book brings receipts. There is sociological theory, right, which is abstract ideas, but it also documents the issue.
Through the legal filings, the legal proceedings, through the documents from the organizations, from direct quotes, from activists, from civil society leaders, from politicians. I look at legislation, I look at what's happening in international organizations. I let the opposition speak for themselves. And I just analyze what they say. But the book brings the receipts, and that's extremely important. There's hundreds and hundreds of citations in the book.
Susan Lapin (55:03)
Well we will be linking to it and I know that people will be interested in seeing.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (55:07)
I just want to turn aside from you, Dr. Considine, for just a moment and speak to our audience and say Happy Warriors. it's not often that we actually advise you to get hold of a book. We not only look out for your money. We look out for your bookshelf space. As you can see behind us, it bookshelf space is at a premium. But your bookshelf is your arsenal today. It's where your armaments reside. And in in in the battleground that is that is occurring right now, ultimately, in my view, and I'm not speaking for our guests, but in my view, a struggle between barbarism and civilization, one that'll determine.
The kind of country your grandchildren will live in. Whether you are listening to this in Africa or in Europe or in Asia, the battle is worldwide. And a critical piece of ammunition that you need on your shelf is When Marx Meets Islam by our guest by Dr. Considine. I strongly advise everybody to have a copy of this book. It will be critical.
Crucial in almost every encounter you have, business wise, socially, family wise. it will equip you in in a way that will be extremely effective and enable you to be increasingly effective in all your conversations. So that is a very specific recommendation. Thank you.
Craig Considine (56:44)
Thank you so much for that, Rabbi. And let me say too that the book offers a strategy throughout the whole thing. So I'm not just laying out the receipts and complaining and saying we're losing the war. I'm saying this is what's happening. This is what has gone wrong. And this is how we deal with the next steps. So it's forward thinking and it's very clear with the recommendations for professors, for activists, for politicians.
It's neatly laid out. This is what we could do to push back against this barbarism.
Susan Lapin (57:20)
I think we're running we're beginning to run out of time. If I could ask you to close with one piece of advice, whether we have a lot of people listening who have children or grandchildren of college age or in their twenties, if you could give one piece of advice to them how to open a conversation or push the door a little bit ajar to make those kids think, gosh, maybe what I'm hearing isn't the truth on ten different topics.
But they're all really related. What would your advice be?
Craig Considine (57:53)
For young people, I would say a couple of things. you have to be courageous. We talked about the importance of courage earlier. you have to be comfortable with going against the grain. There might be some initial backlash, some initial opposition, but if you're really committed to changing people's hearts and minds, you have to stick with it. You have to be persistent, you have to be calm, you have to use knowledge.
It can't be emotional and it can't be anger. It's long work, it's hard work. Thirdly, you have to have thick skin. We talked about thick skin earlier as well. in short, it's really important to be to be tough. that's how I was raised. It's you're gonna have ups and downs in life. You're gonna meet people who don't like you. You're gonna meet people who do you like you. So I guess my fourth thing here is.
Have faith that there are people out there that will connect with you, that will understand. So if you have five conversations and they all go bad, don't give up. Keep searching for like minded people. Start building networks, start building alliances. That will help you think more clearly and that will also give you support. And then finally, let me say, because I know the title of your podcast is Should Jews Leave America?
I would say absolutely not. Do not leave. we need you just as much as you need us. I mean, this is this is a family. You belong in the United States. You've always been here. You're here before the country started. An invaluable population to the United States on so many different fronts, from the highest level of finance to politics to the entertainment world, whatever it might be. I have so many Jewish friends. Y'all can't leave.
We cannot allow this barbarism to win. We're in the fight together, and that's the way it's going to be.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (59:51)
that was gonna be my next question, of course, exactly, is what would your advice be to a Jewish associate raising a young family and stay and fight or go go
Craig Considine (1:00:04)
A hundred a hundred percent.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (1:00:05)
somewhere else and we intuitively associate with that outlook and I think we both feel very privileged to feel that that we're standing shoulder to shoulder with you and with as you say so many others who do understand what's going on and are willing to pay the price which we believe will be temporary in popularity and sometimes even fame and fortune for taking the position that essentially protects civilization and allows everything that the West has created to be able to be part of the future. we will also want to wish you every blessing and you know may God continue to give you the courage you so obviously have in vast quantities and bless you with success and also to help your wife cope with some of these enormous challenges that you did not have to bring on yourself. It's ever so much warmer and fuzzier to talk about we'll all get along and here are ways we can all get along. And sometimes, sometimes that can only happen when after there has been a principled stand on unchangeable truths. So you're doing that and we're proud to be a small part of that.
The book is called When Marx Meets Islam, and it's by our guest, Professor Craig Considine. if you've enjoyed this conversation, then you will definitely find the book not only useful but also enjoyable. Professor Considine, if there's anything at all at any point that Susan and I can do to be helpful to you, you can definitely count us in, and we wish you ongoing great success in everything you're doing.
Craig Considine (1:02:08)
Thank thank you so much. This was a total pleasure, a real honor, and I'm glad to have new friends. And I
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (1:02:15)
As are we.
Craig Considine (1:02:16)
I hope I hope God blesses you and all his abundance and I wish you and your family nothing but the best and you're in my prayers.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin (1:02:25)
Thank you very much indeed. We'll talk again, I hope.
Craig Considine (1:02:29)
Thank you, Rabbi.
