On the Oct. 11, 2023 episode of his Rumble show Slightly Offensive, Elijah Schaffer hosted Keith Woods — an Irish white nationalist, Holocaust denier, and self-described “raging antisemite” — for a debate on Israel’s war against Hamas. Woods denied the massacre of concertgoers in Israel while Schaffer’s other guest, Austin Peterson, called Palestinians “savages.”

Peterson, a libertarian Internet personality, framed the war between Israel and Hamas — and Palestinians more broadly — as a “clash of civilizations” between “savage” and inferior Palestinians and superior Israelis. He also blamed Palestinians for the conditions in Gaza, while Woods blamed Israeli policies.

“I sort of pull from Ayn Rand on this one who sees this from the clash of civilizations perspective,” he explained. “She sees this from the clash of civilizations perspective. She sees the Israelis as the advanced technological civilization and she described the Palestinians as barbaric [savages].”

Rand, whose writings influenced the modern libertarian movement, said in a 1974 lecture that Arabs are “one of the least developed cultures” and “savages who don’t want to use their minds.” And on The Phil Donahue Show Rand said Israel stood “amidst almost totally primitive savages who have not changed for years and who are racist.”

Peterson compared the situation to the actions of conquistador Hernán Cortés who led the brutal overthrow of the Aztec Empire.

“The Catholics came in and they settled Mexico and South America and they said there would be no more human sacrifices, for example,” he said. “I mean, how long must a civilized nation tolerate barbarity at its gates? … I very much see this as analogous to American expansionism and the fighting between American pioneers [and] savage Indian tribes at that time.”

“Those people definitely got a better deal than Gaza did. They don’t even pay income taxes in this country. [If] the Gazans can get that good of a deal I think they’d be much better off than the Native Americans,” he added. He also predicted that the Palestinians “will be treated as the savages were” and “relegated to the dustbin of history” “due to their own behavior.”

Woods, in turn, argued that according to Peterson’s “might is right” philosophy Hamas’ attack on Israel was entirely justified. Peterson replied that there was “no moral equivalence” between Hamas and Israel because Israeli soldiers in Palestinian territory “don’t go to the music festivals and capture their women and spit on their corpses and parade them through the streets.”

Peterson also compared Palestinians to “the Black residents in the South Side of Chicago who cry all day about how the terrible white man is oppressing them on a single day” and said he doesn’t “give special victimhood status” to them.

Questioning if the Palestinians are truly victims at all, Peterson asked Woods if they were “capable” people with the power to inflict a major attack on Israel, or if they’re “poor little helpless Muslims” oppressed by the Israelis.

Woods said that while they “were capable of launching a pretty impressive strike against the Zionist state,” Israelis and Palestinians aren’t in an “equal position” due to the blockade on Gaza, among other things. “So I don’t think you can take those conditions and say this is a sign of a people being innately inferior,” he said.

Woods also denied that Hamas’ attack on the Supernova music festival — which left at least 260 people dead — actually occurred, telling Peterson that, “And as far as the moral equivalence, again there’s no indication that the descent on the rave turned into some kind of mass slaughter. The latest footage to come out is Israeli police officers were at the rave firing at Hamas soldiers, and civilians were there in cover with the Israeli police.”