EXPOSED: Pro-Israel Billionaire Lobby PUSHING Iran War & California Water Crisis

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Their entire business, their pistachio business, which is like the base of their wealth, is tied directly to American regime change in the Middle East and specifically in Iran. They literally, you know, they own the brand Wonderful. You know that they're pretty evil. Uh when someone has to name their company Wonderful.

[00:00:20]>> Tell us about the relationship between Pistachios and Iran.

[00:00:25]>> Well, uh it's a pretty significant relationship. you know, Iran has for time immemorial has been sort of the leading producer of pistachios um in the region and and you know when global trade got got off the ground to the world. Um, so Iran is synonymous with it's like very much part of the Iranian and Persian culture and it's just uh a producer of pistachios, you know, that's just I mean other countries produce pistachios too in the region like Turkey and things like that, but it's like Iran is like that's that's it's it's just that's it's synonymous with the country and with the culture and Yeah. And so yeah, pistachios are um an important uh export also for the country you know um bringing in you know foreign currencies and things like that especially you know in difficult times of sanctions. So uh of course you know uh pistachios now are uh California actually uh is now the leading exporter of pistachios to the world. Uh it recently overtook Iran as um and basically stole its market share.

[00:01:30]And so no longer is pistachio are pistachios synonymous with Iran. Now pistachios it seems like are synonymous with California and with a certain um oligarch um Zionist uh family that really controls the industry and has a monopoly on on the industry in California and they live in Beverly Hills uh and all this stuff. So yeah, it's um there's a lot to talk about, I guess.

[00:01:56]>> Yeah. Uh the the beautiful res. We should we can I'll get a photo of them so people can see.

[00:02:01]>> Yes. Yes. Yes. Linda and Steuart Resnik.

[00:02:03]>> Yeah.

[00:02:04]>> And they're wonder and their company of course is called Wonderful.

[00:02:07]>> Get into I mean they they it's they literally have you know they own the brand wonderful you know so you know you know that they're pretty evil uh when someone really has to name their company Wonderful and they're sort of bad in all sorts of ways but we can get into some of some of them.

[00:02:23]>> Yeah. Well I mean let's talk about them and we actually have a trailer. I believe >> one of the most bizarre things about California's pistachio industry is that it was born out of America's meddling in the Middle East. Historically, Iran has always been the world's biggest exporter of pistachios, but the embargo allowed California's tiny industry to get a global foothold. And after several decades of continued hostility and sanctions, the US industry grew from being almost non-existent to number one in the world.

[00:02:51]As I dug into the details, I realized this was much bigger than just victory.

[00:02:56]Turned out that a small group of powerful families had seized control of California's water supply.

[00:03:03]Even weirder was that the whole thing was being driven by a pair of high society billionaires from Beverly Hills, Stewart, and Linder Resnik. They made their money off pistachios.

[00:03:14]But what really made them stand out was that they owned more water than anyone else on the planet. More surprisingly, they were on the board of several major think tanks, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

[00:03:28]They've been on the board for over a decade. It's an organization that badly wants war with Iran.

[00:03:33]>> I frankly think that crisis initiation is really tough and it's very hard for me to see how the United States president can get us to war with Iran.

[00:03:42]One can combine other means of pressure with sanctions. We could step up the pressure. I mean, look people, Iranian submarines periodically go down. Someday one of them might not come up. Who would know why?

[00:03:55]>> Wow.

[00:03:57]>> So, uh, that is a great great trailer for a great film. By the way, >> it's more like a cut it's more like a actually it's a bit of a cut down of um how the kind of it relates in the to the geopolitics and to to new conservative politics and into Iran. It's like a little it's actually not like officially a trailer, but yeah. So it gives a little bit more than a trailer would, you know.

[00:04:18]>> I see. Right.

[00:04:18]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. No, it's I think it's a great little uh intro to to the topic, you know.

[00:04:23]>> Yeah.

[00:04:23]>> Connecting things.

[00:04:24]>> Yeah. And you have a great voice.

[00:04:26]>> Thank you.

[00:04:27]>> Great voice for that. So, but tell us more about the relationship between um you know the ResNix um the lobby that uh lobbying group that they are part of that organization because everyone knows about Apac but but not everyone knows about the other ones.

[00:04:42]>> Yeah. I mean I mean look yeah just to to talk about we're the organization that we were featuring there and the speaker who was talking about um you know basically doing a false flag attack to get to to start a war with Iran doing like a kind of a Vietnam war kind of thing where you you know you basically attack one of their ships and or submarines and then you know get them try to respond to you in some way and then you know to go to war uh like what's happening now essentially that's called Winnipe it's uh it stands for the Washington Institute for uh Near East policy and it's like it's >> they always try to make it sound like they're smart >> smart and it's like some kind of academic think tank. Really it's it's an Apac spin-off. It was actually specifically spun off of Apac because Apac, you know, already um um this was several decades ago was already, you know, doesn't have the best name uh in the business. It's essentially known as a front for Israel and representing is the interests of Israel. And so they needed something that had more credibility, that had more, you know, that that didn't have that that baggage.

[00:05:43]And so they they were they created as a spin-off project and spun it off independently. And when you know, basically took on all these it was just like a neoonservative like hangout. You know, you you you uh I think the Bush administration, Cheney in particular, his team, you know, a lot of the people on his foreign policy team came from there. You know, where these sort of resident fellows, you know, basically it's it's you know how these things are in Washington DC. You create these organizations for when you're out of power, you kind of can go cool your heels, make a bunch of money, essentially do lobbying and kind of academic work and put out books and make money while you're out of while your party is out of power or while your clan is out of power. When you whenever you come back to in power, you like that's where the administration draws the talent. You know, they there's, you know, it's it's kind of a normal thing for both parties in in Washington DC. And it's like one of these things. So, it's a it's it's a lobby group. It's a it's a think tank that is like concentrates, you know, the most hardline pro-war uh voices and and interests. Uh and you know, it's not just about Iran, but just generally speaking, it's these are the most like regime changeoriented people.

[00:06:51]Uh new conservatives people used to call them, you know, and you know, that that word isn't used so much, you know, but it's like like the labels change, but really the policies remain the same. But and so the what I was just I I was surprised you know when I first started reporting on the Resnik back in 200 I I'm almost like don't want to say it 2009 you know that's when I first started reporting on the ResNix and it through like was first interested in their water politics because I was in California reporting on real estate uh speculation and water was like a key aspect to real estate speculation because you need water to build homes and and sell it to Wall Street and all all this stuff. But then I found them who they were they had like the largest chunk of water in California under their control, private control. and and very quickly I realized, you know, made the connection between their wealth, their pistachio business and uh the foreign policy of the United States of America and and and their role in like these pistachio, you know, these these farmers like who no one really even knew back then were on the boards of all these like neoonservative Bush uh administration kind of Republican really Republicanoriented uh think tanks who were very very hardline on Iran. And I, it was very strange because I was like, "Oh, these are like liberal donors. They're they're like backing, you know, uh, Barack Obama. They're, you know, they're like generally they they they they vote at least they they back Democratic party candidates. They're like and, you know, have Ariana Huffington when she was still a thing over at their house, you know, and and have these liberal parties and have all these liberal kind of historians and all these people who are kind of part of the liberal world. um like yet they're like in bed with the like the kind of the rankus Republican party new conservatives and it was just like what what was going on there and it's very it became very clear is because their entire business uh their pistachio business which is like the base of their wealth. It's not the only source of their wealth at this point but it's the base of it um is tied directly to American regime change in the Middle East and specifically in Iran. Um going back really going back to the first elected government in uh democratically elected government in Iran which was toppled by the CIA and with the sha being kind of reinstalled as an American puppet and then that led to a revolution in Iran which resulted in the current government coming to power right and so and then you know that which then triggered all these sanctions against Iran starting with the Carter administration and it's the imposition of these sanctions in response to what it was what was at the time a broad-based popular uh movement to overthrow a hated leader, right? Um these sanctions are imposed by Carter were the genesis of the pistachio industry in America and um >> you think he had a conflict of interest because of the whole peanut farmer thing?

[00:09:45]>> Yeah, that's that's a good point. I I you know I I don't think he could foresee it at that at that moment because >> pistachios weren't like you know it wasn't like a global commodity that that was really sought sought um that that that people were fighting to to get or to buy. I mean it was a pretty fringe thing. I mean it was actually very organically embedded in a lot of cultures particularly you know in in the Middle East >> but it wasn't like something that people were clamoring to grow or to buy in America or around the world. Actually the Resnik single-handedly helped create the pistachio market. um through marketing, through this very very aggressive um very wellunded marketing campaigns. I mean, they like no one ate pistachios in America. If you you remember you grew up you grew up in America, no one ate pistachios when you were younger. I'm sure I mean they were like in probably specialty stores, right? If you go to like a Persian store in Westwood in Los Angeles, there'll be pistachios there, you know. And then those pistachios would have come from Iran or they would have come from quote unquote Turkey which are frequently essentially like Iranian pistachios that are kind of just you know >> um like sanctions washed you know uh and they're sort of you know so so but but that it would be these specialty stores from cultures that actually eat pistachios. There weren't like a a mask >> snack food which they've become today.

[00:11:00]you know, you go to any uh any grocery store, any gas station actually, and there'll be these like wonderful pistachios just like in your face. And so, um the Carter, you know, Carter, it'd be pretty funny if there was like a if there was like a secret uh nut monopoly, you know, controlling world affairs. They're like, "Okay, you know, the peanut farmers, yeah, exactly.

[00:11:20]>> The peanut farmers can get Latin America, you know, right?

[00:11:22]>> The pistachio farmers get the Middle East, you know, this kind of stuff. They they divvy up the world." But no, it wasn't. It was just like at the when these sanctions kicked in, suddenly there are these farmers who were beginning to experiment with pistachios, I think it was already kind of like there were these experimental programs.

[00:11:38]No one was really doing because the climate is very similar in the central valley in California. And then it was like, oh wait, so suddenly the market is cut off. Oh, there's a reason to actually invest in this right now. And then as time went on, >> of course, >> you know, you then there is an interest, then there's a conflict of interest. You have these farmers who actually then depend on sanctions, depend on sanctions to in order to protect their business and especially when it was still developing, the sanctions were important, you know, and so um and so from then on pistachio farmers, the Resnik, you know, being kind of the the the first ones that really understood like the gold mine that they were potentially sitting on and really invested in it heavily and expanded it. they've been they've gone full full you know fully into the sanctions regime and you know basically funding uh organizations and think tanks and institutions that uh have a maximalist position with respect to Iran >> right >> wow >> well there uh speaking of maximalist uh uh positions um have they we don't know if they've said anything about this war do we probably not going to do that openly Okay.

[00:12:50]>> Um, say that again. I'm sorry. I was just >> All right. I I messed up my segue. I was before I go into the maximalist thing.

[00:12:56]Do we have we do we know if the ResNicks have said anything about this war?

[00:13:00]>> Um, no. I haven't. You know, look, no, they have not seen said anything about it. And just generally speaking, they're extremely PR savvy. They they know that the best, you know, thing to do is just never to comment. And to to be honest, they're you know, a lot of what they're um you know, they like to kind of they'd like to keep their hand in this hidden, you know, it doesn't it's not it doesn't look good, you know, for their business.

[00:13:23]They don't like, you know, the negative attention that they're getting. Uh and so I they haven't commented, you know, and so they actually generally don't comment on politics or geopolitics only when they're forced to, you know, um like when they can't not say something.

[00:13:37]But at this point, no one's asking him even the question, you know, uh and uh and and I want to say, you know, I don't think that they're like the primary drivers of the war. It's not because of >> the pistachio industry because the pistachio industry for, you know, the billions of dollars it generates, >> it's not like a huge industry. Uh but for me what's interesting about the role the pistachio plays is that how embedded some of like the more innocuous like products and businesses that you think are kind of innocuous and and aren't connected to foreign policy or or you know this really really hawkish >> right >> interventionist foreign policy that America pursues um that you don't think they're really connected and yet like you scratch the surface and you find them in this in an unexpected way. So basically business interests big and small have a connect have a an interest or have a stake you know in these conflicts right in like in whether it's whether it's Iran or Ukraine or other things that there's there's money to be made and there's interest. So there's almost like a a consensus in the a type of consensus in the business community, right? It's it's not just like the oil companies and the weapons weapons makers or whatever. There are other small businesses who also have a have have a role to play. And so it is important, you know, like for a kind of a like a ruling class consensus or something like that.