#387 - “Trump Will Nuke Iran Over This” Melania Epstein Scandal Is Only Beginning | Shaiel Ben-Ephraim

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Danny Jones Podcast 2h 28m 4 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 5 months ago
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What is the background of Shaiel Ben-Ephraim?

Danny Jones 0:07
It seems like you have a really interesting take on everything that's going on in the world right now. Glad you think that. So why don't you just like lay out some of your backstory for folks who haven't heard of you?
Shaiel Ben-Ephraim 0:18
Yeah, well, I'm born and bred Israeli, went to high school there, the army there, was in intelligence, BA, MA there, worked for the Israeli government, foreign ministry, did a PhD in Canada, postdoc at UCLA, worked for Microsoft. And now I do geopolitical analysis professionally. You got a PhD in intelligence? Is that what you said? No, PhD in military studies in Canada. I did intelligence when I was in the army. Oh, you were in intelligence?
Danny Jones 0:51
That's right. In Israel? Yep. How did that happen? How does one get into intelligence?
Shaiel Ben-Ephraim 0:59
You go to the draft building and they give you tests there. They give you aptitude tests. And then they, you know, they give you a psychological test as well. And then they decide. So you were in the Mossad? No, the Mossad is not military. The Mossad is like the CIA. And then you also have military intelligence. Oh, yeah. No, the Mossad is the Mossad is you need a certain kind of mental profile that I definitely don't have. I'm a nerd, you know, I'm soft. What is the mental profile screening similar to the CIA, I wonder? The CIA has a lot more analysts than the Mossad does. The Mossad has a lot more people who work in the field, manage teams. The CIA has that too. But most of that work in Israel is done through military intelligence, through Amman, it's called.
Shaiel Ben-Ephraim 1:58
Not to be mistaken. Amman. Yeah, not the Jordanian capital, but Amman. So that's where most of the analysts are. And that's what I was doing. I was an analyst. I wasn't a field. I was no James Bond. Did you want to be in the Mossad? Absolutely not. No. No. Why not? because i'm not like a killer type you know i'm not a covert uh mission type and uh no no i'm more of a nerd who analyzes things and i i that's what i did in in the military and that's what i've done my whole life did you ever rub shoulders with people in the massage yes yes i've met people from the masad they're really interesting people what are they like i Everyone thinks I'm on the Mossad, which is cool. I've never met one. Not that I know of.
Shaiel Ben-Ephraim 2:44
I don't see any of the reasons you'd invite me if you're not Mossad, so I just assumed. They're not very emotional people. They're very rational, calculated types.
Danny Jones 2:56
Lack of empathy, right?
Shaiel Ben-Ephraim 2:59
sociopathic. No, no, not, not, not, I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that.
Danny Jones 3:03
Cause I've had CIA, uh, former CIA officers on the show and they say the screening is you have to have very high sociopathic tendencies to get in the CIA.

How does one get into military intelligence in Israel?

Shaiel Ben-Ephraim 3:11
Well, I don't know the screening policies for the Mossad, so I can't tell you, but, uh, they faked at least being normal people. As far as I could tell, you know, like I didn't know this was a, I didn't notice they were sociopaths, but they were very calm and collected for Israelis. You know, Israelis are very emotional people, very expressive, and they're relatively not. They tend to be more reserved, and that was notable. Interesting.
Danny Jones 3:38
So what were you doing in army intelligence or military intelligence?
Shaiel Ben-Ephraim 3:41
um we were tracking what was going on in the occupied territories you know where where there were um terrorists where there were infrastructure uh i specialized in tracking infrastructure and a lot of infrastructure yeah infrastructure and in those days a lot of what we did which i don't think the idf is doing a lot of anymore was trying to avoid hitting civilian infrastructure So we would map out where things were, map out how things work, and hopefully avoid hitting it. But also, when you gather that kind of intelligence, when you have the moment when you actually need it, then you might actually use it. And what years? What years are we talking that you were doing that? We're talking about during the Second Intifada.
Shaiel Ben-Ephraim 4:24
So this is a long time ago. 2002. Oh, interesting. A long time ago. Oh, wow. So I'm very out of the loop with what they're doing now. I mean, I talk to people who are involved, but I think they do things very differently now.

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