The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table

Hen Mazzig, co-founder of the Tel Aviv Institute and author of The Wrong Kind of Jew, says Israel won on the battlefield and lost the world, and that explaining Israel "is not a replacement for policy." He spent five years in COGAT, the IDF unit that issues Palestinian permits and prison visits, and was attacked by settlers while in uniform. We play his Piers Morgan fight with Norman Finkelstein ("Am I a child killer?") and go through what Amit Soussana actually said. Noam asks whether Israel would hold the West Bank if it had no holy sites, why the occupation is the Palestinians' best weapon, and why "sunlight grows mushrooms." Also: Mamdani's October 7 statement, Mearsheimer on the Hannibal Directive, Eurovision, and why Noam thinks everyone should have a baby.

0:00 Hen Mazzig, three years and a day after October 7

4:19 "We won on the battlefield and lost the world"

18:36 Food, famine and the arguments that don't work

28:52 What if the West Bank had no holy sites?

37:56 Smallpox, arrogance and "have a baby"

52:13 Five years in COGAT: what the IDF's humanitarian unit does

61:40 "Am I a child killer?" Finkelstein and the rape deniers

76:00 Mearsheimer, the Hannibal Directive and "sunlight grows mushrooms"

Three years after October 7: What's Next for Israel and the Jewish People.

Noam sits down with Coleman Hughes, Eli Lake and Salo Aizenberg to ask whether the war was worth it. Coleman says Israel traded prestige for power and Hamas did the opposite. Salo brings the Gaza Health Ministry's own 2025 report: 50,000 births, 25,000 deaths, and 108 hospital workers who appear in Hamas's own martyr notices as commanders. Eli says Israel's strategic position has never been better. Noam is the pessimist in the room: "The optimists died in the gas chambers. The pessimists have pools in Beverly Hills." Also: why Hamas never gave up the hostages, John Mearsheimer on tape claiming the IDF killed its own, Coleman's Joe Rogan clip, Noam's 2019 emails that predicted all of it, and a fight over whether Israel should leave the West Bank.

0:00 Three years after October 7: Coleman Hughes, Eli Lake, Salo Aizenberg
2:22 Opening statements: what Israel and Hamas each traded
11:14 Noam: "The optimists died in the gas chambers"
18:41 Why Hamas never released the hostages
33:33 Conspiracy theories and the Mearsheimer tape
47:35 Salo's slides: Gaza's 2025 numbers and the nurses who were Hamas commanders
1:07:09 Should Israel leave the West Bank?
1:21:50 Noam's 2019 emails, Coleman on Rogan, and the diaspora

Is Nathan Cofnas's "Guide for the Hereditarian Revolution." a plan to heal or America, or is it simply a racist manifesto dressed up as science.

We ask him to his face. Cofnas is the philosopher at the center of the Jason Arday plagiarism affair.

He says that, all else equal, smarter people have more human worth. He says freedom of association is worth it even if some diner bans blacks and Jews. And he says race realism is about to break into the mainstream whether we like it or not.

Noam takes him through A Guide for the Hereditarian Revolution line by line: the Charles Murray debate, Jared Taylor, a speech by Michael Levin (whose book Cofnas calls important), white kids "brainwashed to despise themselves," Nikole Hannah-Jones's daughter and the lifeboat question. Periel arrives late, just in time to call it insane (as usual).

0:00 Intro: "I feel like you're a white nationalist"

9:26 Is a smarter person worth more?

23:33 "Some barriers set up between the races"

32:16 Jared Taylor, AmRen and Michael Levin

53:03 "White children are brainwashed to despise themselves"

1:29:54 Nikole Hannah-Jones and her daughter

1:41:53 Lower human worth? The lifeboat question

1:47:38 Closing argument: yarmulkes on the basketball court

Nathan Cofnas, A Guide for the Hereditarian Revolution (Feb 5, 2024)

https://ncofnas.com/p/a-guide-for-the-hereditarian-revolution

Nathan Cofnas, Are Smart People Superior? A Reply to Noah Carl and Charles Murray (Apr 26, 2024)

https://ncofnas.com/p/are-smart-people-superior-a-reply

Debate with Charles Murray: IQ and Human Worth (Sept 16, 2026)

https://ncofnas.com/p/debate-with-charles-murray-iq-and

Nathan Cofnas, Why We Need to Talk about the Right's Stupidity Problem (Jan 2, 2024)

https://ncofnas.com/p/why-we-need-to-talk-about-the-rights

Nathan Cofnas, Beating Woke with Facts and Logic (Oct 9, 2025)

https://ncofnas.com/p/beating-woke-with-facts-and-logic

Nathan Cofnas on X, "Jews tried to be white nationalists" (Apr 28, 2018)

https://x.com/nathancofnas/status/990243373180219397

David Reich, How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of 'Race,' New York Times (Mar 23, 2018)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/opinion/sunday/genetics-race.html

David M. Quinn, How to Reduce Racial Bias in Grading, Education Next (Nov 2, 2020)

https://www.educationnext.org/how-to-reduce-racial-bias-in-grading-research/

Nikole Hannah-Jones on her daughter's schooling, New York Times Magazine (Sept 20, 2026)

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/magazine/ny-public-schools-black-students-segregation.html

This American Life, Ep. 898, An Argument (Nikole Hannah-Jones and her daughter)

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/898/an-argument

Did Israel starve Gaza, and why don't many Israelis believe the experts who say it did? Noam sits down with Alex de Waal, the world's leading famine scholar (World Peace Foundation, Tufts), for a tough but good-faith debate. De Waal argues that Israel could have ended the hunger "within a matter of days" and didn't. Noam lays out why people like him stay skeptical. Did his March 2024 warning that "tens of thousands" could die not come true? Why did a claim of 62,413 starvation deaths circulated with little pushback. They get into Mike Spagat's mortality survey and the missing child deaths, the 2025 blockade and the IPC famine call, flour prices, Hamas and aid, and whether it's still famine if people aren't dying. Both of them give ground along the way. Periel closes on the hostages, and de Waal ends with a plea about Sudan.

0:00 "Very well nourished": why Israelis doubt the famine experts
11:48 "The mud sticks": de Waal's own confession
25:03 "Tens of thousands": the warnings vs. Spagat's count
40:11 Feroze Sidhwa's 62,413 and "all errors are equal"
47:34 The 2025 blockade and the famine declaration
59:27 Flour prices, Hamas hoarding and Israel's "calibration"
1:06:50 Is it famine if people aren't dying?
1:18:31 The hostages, and Sudan

Get KAKISTOCRACY on Amazon: https://bit.ly/4hxg9Lh

Synopsis

Richard Hanania is back. His new book, Kakistocracy, argues that populism ends in rule by the worst people, and he and Noam spend an hour testing that against the news: why populism can win without being popular, whether the Iran war was worth the shot even if it fails, whether China would rather help us than fight us, and how the right built a media culture where Tucker Carlson can say Israel killed Charlie Kirk and the vice president shrugs. Then the hardest subject on the show: Nathan Cofnas and "race realism." Hanania explains why he thinks the taboo is universal and why Cofnas is wrong that breaking it defeats wokeness, and Noam tells two stories about kids the experts wrote off. Plus the Epstein email dump, diagnostic inflation, and why smart people believe in God, demons, and the supernatural.

0:00 Intro: Compliments
4:21 "Believe the media": defending the Times, what populism is, and "low human capital"
11:24 Is populism even popular? Mamdani, Trump's 30 percent, the AfD, and what populism costs
22:42 The Iran war argued with hindsight: Hormuz, the Houthis, "worth a shot," and China
35:00 Making things up: Tucker, Candace, Charlie Kirk, Ilhan Omar, and Father Coughlin
41:51 "Our guys lie less": Covid, the mulligan, gatekeepers, and what democracy is for
52:59 Race realism: Cofnas, Charles Murray, little Bernie Goetzes, and two kids the experts got wrong
68:02 Diagnostic inflation, labels, and why smart people are finding God