Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - 147: Do The Reich Thing, with Rolla Selbak

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

Matt and Daniel are joined by filmmaker Rolla Selbak to consider Netantahu’s social media strategy, anti-zionists’ purported mustiness, and the most epic team-up in JCU history.Please donate to Middle East Children’s Alliance: https://www.mecaforpeace.org/Send us an email or leave us a voice message for our next mailbag. [e-mail] / [phone]. 100 words, 20 seconds, make it count.Rolla on IG: https://www.instagram.com/rollaselbakThe Visitor: http://thevisitormovie.comJoin the patreon at https://www.patreon.com/badhasbaraBad Hasbara Merch Store:https://estoymerchandise.com/collections/bad-hasbara-podcastGet tickets for Francesca Fiorentini and Matt Lieb at the Ice House in Pasadena October 1: https://www.showclix.com/event/new-world-disorder-10-01-25-7-45-pmGet tickets for Francesca Fiorentini, Matt Lieb and friends with Daniel Maté October 13 in Brooklyn: https://bit.ly/mattfranbellhouseSubscribe to the Patreon https://www.patreon.com/badhasbaraWhat’s The Spin playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/50JoIqCvlxL3QSNj2BsdURSubscribe/listen to Bad Hasbara wherever you get your podcasts.Spotify https://spoti.fi/3HgpxDmApple Podcasts https://apple.co/4kizajtSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/bad-hasbara/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Mashwam hot bitch A ribbon polka toast We invented the terry tomato And weighs USB drives and the ironedole Israeli salad oozy stents and javas orange rose Microchips is us iPhone cameras us Taco salads us

Botharabamos us Olive Garden us White foster us Sabrahamas Asvara suss Hello, hello, hello, hello, everybody, and welcome to Bad Hasbara. The World's Most Moral Podcast. Hell, yeah, my name is Matt Lieb.

I will be your world's most moral co-host for this podcast. I'm Daniel Matei reporting to you live from the far side of 50. He did it, folks. He's 50. I'm the other most moral podcaster, and I'm old. You know, here's the thing. I saw a comment on our most recent, I think, Patreon-only episode, which, of course, you can watch yourself by going to patreon.com,

slash badass barra, and subscribing, do it. That said, 50, I thought he was 44, which I thought is a really, that's very, I like that, because that's probably, that's not even an exaggeration. He was like, I thought you were, because, yeah, I see it. Well, I like to say that 50 is the new 48. Oh, yeah, well, it is. is and look at it uh by the way 48 uh great number to choose for the israel palestine podcast

that we are definitely um so happy birthday everyone please wish daniel a happy birthday we uh you we may be a decade apart but we are uh in the same decade in our hearts thank you uh shout out as long as we both As long as you get my Ghostbusters reference, I don't care what the rest of the chronology says. Exactly. I get the Ghostbusters ones. I get 10 to 15% of the musicals and almost none of the Star Trek. But, you know, Ghostbusters is what matters. Isn't that right, folks?

And I don't get, and the only thing I don't get is like the late 90s. New metal stuff. New metal and like sublime third eye. Mary, seven, eye, six. Third-eye blinds. Yeah, all those bands. E-6. Yeah. Bands with numbers.

Bands with numbers, yeah. That's, you know, blink 182. Exactly. What was that? 98 degrees. 98 degrees. We love numbers. The 90s was all about numbers, Doug.

Shout out to producer Adam Levin. He's always out here on the ones and twos. Reminder to everyone that we are doing that mailbag episode it is coming up it's going to be the week that we are in new york which is coming up very very soon get your tickets to the bell house by the way uh there are still some tickets available you can see the link right there is in the description uh go and see us do stand up at the bellhouse october 13th um but yeah more scared than i've ever been in my life oh no it'll be great it'll be so much fun and you know the more people that go the more people uh you know will be there to support

support all of us with supportive laughs yeah and i guess it's going to be like there are much less friendly like a lot of people would not want to make their stand-up comedy debut in front of i don't know what the what's the capacity there like 300 right like that sounds like a terrifying way for me to try this for the first time at the same time you know 10 people at a comedy seller open mic night who are anywhere from indifferent to hostile to you. That's worse. It's very different than a, you know,

Matt and Fran Bellhouse, you know, podcast to Jason night. The audience, the audience will be there just to see the train wreck. And that's what's fun. That's what's fun. That's why most people,

that's why most people go to comedy. It's like going to NASCAR. You want to see someone die. Well, them a good show. Let's give them the show that they paid for. But yeah, because we're, you know, we have this big trip to New York. We're doing the two shows at the gutter. We're doing Bell House. That week, we're going to do the mailbag episode. So please get in your voicemails 747-347-348-5259 or email us badhasbara at gmail.com. Make them quick, both of them. Please, otherwise we can't, you know, we can't show it.

You know, it can't take too long. Today's episode is brought to you by Middle East Children's Alliance. The Middle East Children's Alliance is a team of staff volunteers and partner organizations who responded to the urgent needs of children and families under attack in Gaza. They are currently providing food and hygiene kits, hot meals, safe and clean drinking water and psychological support. You can donate to them right now, and you should, at MAPE. Mecca for peace.org, M-E-C-A-F-R-P-E-A-C-E-A-E-O-R-P-E-E-D-O-R-E. Please, if you have any money, give it to them, do it now, please. Daniel, what's the spin? Well, like you said, or like I said, because I jumped the gun and just came out and said it,

I should have just waited for you to wish me a blade at that birthday, but like, as per usual with me, I had to draw attention to myself. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I had to make it about you and the birthday and the time you were arrested. Yeah, yeah, nobody, colon, blank. Daniel Mette, here's everything that ever happened to him. Exactly. Well, so that was this past weekend, but that was not the biggest, happiest thing that happened last week in my life.

Oh, yeah? No, because I became an uncle last week for the first time. I love it. I love it. I love it. That's right. birth to a healthy, beautiful, adorable baby girl. And I have a niece now, and I am an uncle for the first time.

My parents are grandparents for the first time. Uncle Dan. This is all very exciting in the Matei clan. And I thought I would do uncle-themed songs and albums. Fuck yeah, Uncle Cracker, let's go. Not that era. I do not have that group, nor Uncle Tupelo. I don't have them.

Come on, man. Starting off with an album by L.L. Cool J, his latest, also known as Uncle L. That's one of his next names. Which is sort of a creepy nickname, you know, do you sort of imagine him, you know, holding a bouncing baby, be like, yes, you're doing it and doing it and doing it well. Who's doing it well? Who's doing it well? Who's knocking their boots?

Anyway, this is the force, his album from, I think, last year or earlier this year, it's excellent. There's a song on here where he just outwraps Eminem so absolutely thoroughly, and Eminem's doing his best to do his rap-ty-rap thing, but L.L. is just absolutely more effortless and classy. That's why I didn't know he was still making albums. He sure is. Yeah, yeah. Q-Tip from a Tropical Quest executive produced this album. Look at that.

Yeah. Tom Waits, Rain Dogs, has the song Cemetery Poka, which has like eight different uncles in the lyrics. Uncle Vernon, Uncle Biltmore, Uncle William, Uncle Violet, Uncle Bill, Uncle Phil. So let him go, Vernon, Uncle Vernon, independent as a hog on ice. You know what I would like to see is some sort of, I don't know, Tom Waits doing covers of, let's say... See is for Cookie? I was going to say, Old Dirty Bastard or maybe, like, DMX. Like, can you imagine him?

Doing me. Oh, baby, I like it. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, oh, it's a war of Friday's role. I would love that. Stop, drop, flip it up, skib it up, squab. You know, because he also does a little bit of scat. I love him.

The Woodstock soundtrack, which has the song, I feel like I'm fixing to die rag by Country Joe and the Fish, which starts with the line. Come on all you big strong men. Uncle Sam needs your help again. Got himself in a terrible jam way down your honor in Vietnam. Uncle Sam reference.

All right. And then we got some actual uncle titles. Uncle John's band by the Grateful Dead on Working Man's Dead. Sure, sure. Lovely tune. Uncle Albert slash Admiral Halsey by Paul McCartney on the beautiful album,

Ram that he did with his wife, Linda. Cool. That's a cute song. song. Liz Faire's white chocolate space egg album has the song Uncle Alvarez. There we go. There we go. And finally, and this is a midlife crisis splurge if ever there was one. Go ahead. Shut your funky face. Uncle fucka. You're a boner biting bastard, Uncle fuck. You fucked your uncle yesterday. That's great. Oh, the bigger, longer, and uncut soundtrack. It's truly amazing just how all in they went on the songs in that musical.

Mark Shaman, who wrote Hairspray, co-wrote some of the songs. That's right. But Uncle Fucker, one of the first time I ever saw it in the theaters, I lost my fucking mind. I was scream crying. Yes, yes. Super like underrated musical. And I feel like that's something with South Park in general.

It is musically underrated. And I mean, maybe it's perfectly rated. I could be wrong. But, like, I listened to the Mr. Hanky Christmas album pretty much every year. And it's, like, not on anyone's radar. But it's like, I've been listening to it since, like, 2000. And I just think it's, I think it's fantastic. Well, they genuinely love musical theater.

They do. Like, unironically love it. Yeah. I mean, they made a musical. They made, I mean, other than South Park musical, they made a Book of Mormon with Robert Lopez yeah yeah um so yeah uncle fucker um great song any uncle fuckers out there hit me up in my DMs shout out to uncle fuckers uh so that's what's spinning but you brought up south park and i think before we intro the guest there's been a lot of talk about the most recent south park

episode um although by the time this comes out it may not have been the most recent it will be because they're they're on a two week roll over schedule right now they're they're taking their time with each one. And this past one, interestingly, they had to push back an extra week. They just couldn't get it done by the two-week mark. So it took three weeks. And I have to think that there was two factors to that. Number one, the Charlie Kirk murder happened during that time. And they had parodied Charlie Kirk in the first episode of the season. So I'm sure they were reeling from that and what do we do? Right. And secondly, the topic itself that they chose to go at in this episode, I got the sense that they really wanted to do it extremely gingerly, carefully, and in their own way, precisely.

Sure, yeah. And that topic in particular was a B story about how there's a betting app, you know, a bunch of betting apps where people make bets. They're talking about polymarket and all those fucking, you know, those apps. And someone had placed a bet on what's the likelihood of Sheila Broughlowski, was just Kyle's mom. bombing a Palestinian hospital in Gaza, yeah. Yes. And the way that, you know, they're just, Eric, Eric Cartman is just showing Kyle the app. He's like, what is that?

And he's just rolling through all these different bets, like, will the chief score two field goals, whatever, like, what it's the likelihood that this celebrity will break up with that celebrity? Like, just on and on. And just in the middle of the list is, will Sheila Brovlovsky bomb a Palestinian hospital in Gaza, so to so forth? I was like, wait, what the fuck? Yes. And it seems to be, at least with this storyline, the episode is about like, oh, no, if Sheila, if Kyle's mom finds out about this, then, you know, she's going to get really mad and who knows what's going to happen. And people start taking the bet. They go, I think she's about to bomb Palestinian Hospital.

And yeah, and it's sort of about anti-Semitism, you know, stoking anti-Semitism. you know, reactions to anti-Semitism, causing more anti-Semitism, and it ends with this moment, which I will play, but, of course, if you're watching this on YouTube, you might see it just completely disappeared because of the fact that, you know, there's like copyright laws and stuff like that. So we'll see how much of it we can get away with. There you are, Mr. Netanyahu! Just who do you think you are? Killing thousands and flattening neighborhoods, then wrapping yourself in Judaism like it's some shield

from criticism. You're making life for Jews miserable and life for American Jews impossible. Oh, don't you roll your eyes at me, mister? You know what you're doing and you're doing it on purpose. Well, now you can just sit in that chair because I'm not going anywhere,

Buster. I've been to every PTA meeting, every school board meeting. That's how the episode ends. Yes. So that is how the episode ends and yeah, I mean, It's interesting. The freakouts have been plentiful.

Daniel, initially, you know, you watched the episode. What were your thoughts on it? Well, look, you've got to frame it in terms of, there are no Palestinians in the episode. It does not humanize Palestinians. It does not highlight the suffering in Gaza. Nope. It is South Park for better and for worse.

And South Park, to do the kind of comedy, they do, they're always trying to strike a sort of, not even in the middle position, but a sort of off to the side position, looking at not just the issues themselves, but the way the issues are being talked about. Right. And it's not going to satisfy everybody.

Maybe it won't satisfy anybody. I thought it was extremely well done. It was a very light touch. And it wasn't, they didn't hammer at home very hard, but there were like three or four moments throughout the episode, which I just thought were all fantastic, like that first moment when Kyle freaks out at Cartman about this. Yeah. And he says, why the hell would people think that my mom's going to bomb a Palestinian hospital in Gaza? Yeah. And Cartman goes, uh, because she's Jewish.

Yeah. No, but then, you know, they're laughing about. how, you know, the idea that you can't make a joke out of it, can't even talk about it, which I think is, you know, is something that this, at least on this podcast, we've, like, driven to, like, normalize, which is, like, Israel should be made fun of. It is an evil apartheid state that's doing a genocide. At the very least, it should be being made fun of. That's right.

And we are in a position that makes, we know how to do that very well and very easy. Or we try. Or we try. You know, but like we do our best. You know, our identities, if they do nothing else, they give us a kind of satirical leg up. But there's also a sense that it's so fucking horrible that you can't joke about it. Right. And there's a kind of tacit acknowledgement of this almost unparadiable situation in the world

that is so intractable and so ongoing. And, yeah, our podcast does not exist in the South Park universe. I thought, overall, they handled it quite smartly. And the fact that everyone thinks that she's going to go over there and... And bomb Gaza. And instead...

Instead, she goes over and gives Netanyahu a piece of her mind. And that little, you know, that's a very economical little piece of writing, her little monologue there. But you think of the things she says. there you are, Mr. Netanyahu, killing thousands of people, flattening neighborhoods, and then wrapping yourself in the cloak of Judaism, like it's a shield against criticism. Yeah.

Yeah. And not only that, but also, like, you know, she goes there specifically to find out who's responsible for this. And she's, you know, she's looking for who's responsible for this particular bet, but specifically who's responsible for this uptick in anti-Semitism, that she is, she is, she is, singularly experiencing because no one else. The bet is about her. Yeah, it's about her. No one else is asking about it.

They're just asking about her. And you think, you know, the joke of the episode or the misdirection is, oh, no, she's going to, you know, do what the bet says. But instead, it's essentially blaming anti-Semitism or blaming Netanyahu for creating a lot of this anti-Semitism,

which is like, you know, you can look at it in the way of sort of like, you know, at least on this podcast, we've advanced far beyond blaming Netanyahu singularly for anything. We know that he is, of course, the apex fucking demon,

but it's a lot of the times we talk about him and it ignores the societal problem of it. And just in general, the Israeli Zionism being an apartheid and genocidal ideology. But for that show and for this

specifically to be pointing out, and it does throughout the, you know, episode through satire, um, that, uh, people having these, uh, anti-Semitic, you know, views now more and more, uh, is being stoked by Israel and Netanyahu, the number one exporter of anti-Semitism across the world. And this is something that is like, might be like old hat for people who listen to this podcast. Um, but I do think for, for, you know, uh, most people, uh, it is something that they have not. fully accepted. It's

that the bare truth of that, which is that Israel actually does make Jews around the world less safe because it wraps itself in a cloak of Judaism and says these crimes we are doing for the sake of all Jews. That doesn't make us safe. It doesn't mean it's the

number one thing we should be focusing on, of course. But for South Park, I was like, okay, at least they said something. I'm happy about that. Yeah, well then they've got a Jewish family as one of their main And, you know, one of the main characters, Kyle is Jewish. And no, it was, it was very smart.

And I was glad to see it. Yeah. I was glad to see it. And I hope they do more, honestly. And I hope it evolves more so. I mean, because they, look, they're having a lot of fun with Trump. I think they're having, they're spending too much time with Trump this season. But the BB Trump relationship, never mind Satan.

Poor Satan, they're knitting a sweater, a baby sweater in, in, in, in, you know, bed at the white house i mean if you really want the i mean remember from this movie uh the relationship between satan and saddam hussein uh you could if you gave netanyahu some speaking lines if if they were really courageous they would turn him into a speaking character and well let's let's see where they go with it but so far i'm like okay i'm you know i i am a cautiously optimistic and encouraged you know the more the merrier that's that's what i say about this agreed um Now, we need to bring in our wonderful guest. I'm so happy she is back.

She is a returning Bad As Barra champion writer, filmmaker, director, Palestinian filmmaker, Rola Selbeck is here. What's up? Hey, hey, hey, hey. You all make me feel better about the world. Thank you for having me. Of course, you make me feel better about the world as well. Rolla, I've been loving the content you've been making recently on your on your Instagram and I'm just very excited to have you back.

How have you been? Since we last saw you, how have the last few months been? Yeah, me, you know, we're all doing our best. I think I told you. And yeah, we're all doing our best. And I think my heart is broken by everything, but it's also grateful for everything. So it's kind of both at the same time.

I feel you. I feel you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if I may say, if I can open, I know that you just did, like, what's the spin, Daniel? But since it was your birthday, one or two days ago, right, yesterday, I wanted to give you a traditional Arabi birthday song. Ready? Oh, oh, my God. Yes.

How thrilling. Okay. This is how it goes. It goes, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. That's all I know. that was beautiful that's best day oh yeah oh i love that i love that

well i've been uh i've been watching your content on instagram been very much enjoying it and today we have a lot of content related hasbara news i suppose um it's the thing everyone's been talking about which is uh BB and the Israel lobby's upcoming purchase of TikTok. As many of you know, TikTok has been forced to sell in order to continue being an app available at the App Store in the United States. And they are, yeah, there's a sale of it happening to apparently right now it seems as if It looks like it's going to happen.

Larry Ellison and Rupert Murdoch and Michael Dell of Dell computers, who, by the way, a lot of people, like Michael Dell gets kind of, I would say, like, flies under the radar when it comes to a lot of, like, pro-Israel advocacy and stuff. But like, Dell has direct links to the IDF, and according to documents attained by the electronic in Tefada, they've been, quote, supplying technology for Israel's artificial intelligence-assisted genocide in Gaza. So these are the people who are going to be buying TikTok. I think he's hoping that they're going to fold his name it to a slight rebrand, Israel. Yeah. He'd change.

Dude, you got an ethno state. So there was recently, um, a summit that happened. This was directly after the UN speech that Netanyahu gave. He immediately from there went on to meet with a bunch of Christian evangelical and American Jewish Zionist influencers. And he has this tweet right here. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met after his UN General Assembly speech with pro-Israel influencers and spoke with them about the challenges in the new era and the public

diplomacy efforts and the influence of the social networks on the discourse for and against Israel. And here are some highlights. Here are these pictures. Some of them, you might recognize some of these fucking chuds. No, I mean, just look at them. I mean, so we have Lizzie Svetsky's there. We have Zach Sage Fox, who is just a total creep. So many stars in the galaxy.

And, yeah, just a bunch of low lives and scumbags. And the highlight from this summit was there was a question asked by one of the influencers about, like, what are we going to do about Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson? and you know the sort of the right word shift or less right word shift but almost like oh the the shift against Israel from rightists and and Beebe answered it in this way and I just want to play you guys this video because I thought it was like I don't know it was very revealing question influencers you said We talked about the woke right. And he said, I call it the woke Reich. That's a brilliant.

Okay, first of all, having to sit there and laugh at that is so, I mean, humiliating. Imagine having to sit for the prime minister and he's going like, do you get it? This great joke? The woke rife. You understand? Listen to the, I'm sorry, but listen to the reaction. Listen to the reaction to that joke. You talked about the woke right.

And he said, I call it the woke Reich. I mean, and then he has to tell them it's brilliant. That's brilliant. Yeah, no, that's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's really good. I mean, how pun-deprived do you have to be to think that that is brilliant? I know. I mean, to not just say it, but then,

to talk about how brilliant it is and get everyone around. There aren't a lot of puns I wouldn't say if I thought them on this podcast. If I thought that one, there'd be, I'd be debating it long enough. They would no longer make sense to say it. Right. You would have missed the moment. I would have missed the moment. Yes.

But he then goes on to talk about how. But also, here's what's funny about that pun, even from his own point of view. like okay so they're the woke Reich right yeah so what's the rest of the right the Reich oh yeah that's a very good point like like you're using the word woke to modify the word right and then you're making a play on the word right you're saying that's the Reich okay so it's the unwoke Reich that you prefer that's a that's a worst right that's at the very least it sounds like the woke Reich has some like, I don't know some empathy or

principles or something I prefer my Reichs to be third but yeah it is a shitty pun and he goes on to talk about you know the threats he also makes them equivalent

he says you know they're the same thing as the woke left which is news to me the woke right because these people you know they're not any different from the woke the left i mean they're insane they're a lot of this is done with money money of NGOs vast money of governments vaster as opposed to israel which is done with what yeah oh i think just love in the hearts of humanity you know

like him i love him blaming money oh my god especially after it was like it's all been revealed like how is like directly trying to fund uh all these like right wingers like directly and podcast it's insane he's in a he's in a meeting with people who he's directly trying to influence and he's using Israeli money he's using his money in order to do so the I it's like this is always the you know every accusation is a confession thing but it's just At this point, who is buying this idea that there is some sort of like equivalent moneyed interest group that is against Israel? Who's buying this?

But that's my question. Like, who is this for? I don't understand like any of it anymore. Like, it's, it's obvious that it's not to convince anyone. So what is it? Is it just to keep the core group like? He's trying to train liars to lie. in this particular

new updated way he's it's a it's a system it's a it's a it's a firmware update for his army of of paid bots to go out and influence whoever they can influence like whatever

it is they do like keep that going yes I completely agree it is like that's why he started with that shitty woke Reich pun yeah because he's telling them he's like use that it's like when you're it's like when my mom I just gave you one for free my mom my dad does this too a lot to me he says a joke that's not really joke it's just a

quote from men and black too and then and then he will be like you can use that if you want I don't know how to explain to him like it's fine I'll do I'll I'll find my own quote from men of black two it's one hundred making fetch happen yeah stop trying to make fetch happen they're all sitting there, just nodding along in agreement, but they're not going to fucking use woke, right? It just doesn't work. Or like, stop making Kvetch happen. Yeah, there we go.

That's brilliant. You can use that. Have you, you know, if somebody tries to give you an alternative history of Israel, just look at him in the eye and say, hey, Jay, did you ever flashy things? me men in black sorry that was if my dad wasn't Netanyahu he could do a whole set

for an hour and he would think that he would think he would think he would get better and better with more and more repetition it's like that scene in the Sopranos where Tony makes a joke and he's slow motion he's watching everyone laugh and he realizes

oh fuck they're just doing this because I'm the boss but do you see but he's actually lost the plot like I don't think he's really did you see I forget where he was speaking, but when he equated himself to like Nazi genociders and criminals, he's like, oh, do you want me to talk about other genocide criminals that could be like me? Like, I'm like, what are you even talking about? We have been noticing a kind of, you know, the antidepressants are wearing off.

The, you know, the SSRIs are not working. I mean, look at them. Look at them. Just the curb your enthusiasm theme song. Sarah kills me. I don't know why she kills me. Sarah Netanyahu also, her little gremlin ass. Yes, no, she kills me.

Don't feed me before midnight. Yeah. But like he does, he looks like trash and he does look extra depressed. And, you know, I think he feels the walls closing in on him, which is just a fantastic feeling to be one. of those walls is an honor and a privilege. But yeah, he's, you know, he's going on to like, you know, talk about how all of the moneyed interest groups that are out there that are pro-Palestine and how we need to fight them. He's setting them up for the Hezbarra talking point, which is like the only reason that

we do this, that we spend money on all this propaganda, is because Iran and Qatar and Soros are spending money against us. And so he continues to say this. We have to fight back, but we have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefields in which we're engaged. And the most important ones are on social media. And the most important purchase that is going on right now is class. Tick followers.

Ticktah. Ticktah. Oh, my God. So last episode, I said he's taking on full on second vice principal. vibes these days? Yeah. Yeah. Dude,

the lean forward. Yeah. Anyone? Anyone? And they don't get it? Yeah. This Ferris Bueller reboot sucks shit. It does.

Oh my God. Yeah, man. I mean, straight up, like, looking at this moment in which he has to, like, as if anyone knows what the next fucking sentence, what's the most important thing? Everyone's like followers, engagement. I don't know. And he was like, you know. Buying TikTok.

He's like, girls, what's my weakness? Men! TikTok. TikTok. TikTok, number one. And I hope it goes through because it can be consequential. And the other one, what's the other one? That's most important.

X. X. They're so nervous. Is it X? So I really don't want to get it wrong. for B, B, he said, X, X, X, thank God. Thank God.

And then I love, in the background, you hear someone say, oh, cesspool, which is correct. X. X. Existful. Very good. And, you know, so we have to talk to Elon. He's not an enemy.

I mean, you really don't want to get the answer wrong with this vice principal, because he'll kill your whole family. In this school, the detention is administrative. You know what I'm saying? Yes, it is the worst kind of detention. Oh, my God. Oh, man. But, yeah, so, like, you know,

he's talking about this purchase of TikTok as, of course, a defensive maneuver. You know, this is, this is, of course, you know, her... This is, of course, like, him trying to make it not what it actually is, which is you are trying to buy platforms up and shore up support on social media because you see the way in which, and I'm sorry, but he refuses and they all refuse to believe this.

The way, it has organically spread. Pro-Palestine sentiment is a function of not just like the fact that social media exists or whatnot, but it's a function of the fact that you have spent so much time and energy trying to excuse genocide over and over and over again and doing the worst possible job you possibly could do with it. So he can pretend all he wants about like, oh, this is, you know, obviously, cuttery money that's coming in. It's not.

Actually, it's your money. Yeah. The money you're spending on these fucking idiots is doing it. Well, I know. Oh, go ahead, Dan, please. No, no, I was going to say, and not only is it organic, it is against all odds. Because there have been very, very strong and blatant shadow banning and cancelling people's accounts, deleting them forever. Like, it is against all odds.

It is actually against the algorithms. That is how organic and strong that the voices have been. And so now they're just like, we cannot fight this, so we're going to have to buy it, you know? Yeah, 100%. I mean, it really is like their last resort. And it's the only tool that they've ever had to use in their toolbox when it came to public sentiment is like, I don't know, spend more money on public diplomacy. This is why, you know, he says in there, you know, he's like, we, you know, we have to use the correct tools for the battlefield that we're in. And, you know, the most important battlefield is social media.

This is, I love that that's still their mindset because that says to me that they were going to continue. continue flushing their money away. And that's money that's not going towards more fucking murder directly at least. Well, and you say that they're doing a shitty job at it. I wonder if that's true. I mean, they're doing, like the thing

is the job they're doing is a shitty one. It's not so much that they're shitty at it. It's that the nature of the online world now is people, everyone can see what you're doing. And also, everyone can see what you're lying about. If it was just there was just a

firewall so to speak and an actual cone of ignorance and we didn't know what was going on in Gaza and all we had to go on was the Israeli propaganda about it then we could assess whether or not Israel's painting a credible spinning a credible yarn story

that people could in a vacuum of information buy and I would think that there'd be a lot of people who'd be highly suspicious of that to say the least but this is against the tide of what we know to be true. So the job they're doing is the, I mean, it's analogous to seeing these fucking pathetic

chuds sitting around the table with him, you're feeding information to the people who desperately want to believe you or who expediently, cynically need to believe you for their, to get their nut, you know, and the rest of us are watching you do that. And so Israel's done a fine job, I guess, feeding the best available blood, so talking points to the diehards and the opportunists. But I do think, though, Daniel, I do think, though, if I can say it, like, I, I, I see what you're saying that like, hey, you know, that's now, now who they're trying to cater to, but I do think for decades and certainly for the past two years, they have been trying to

get that quote, that middle, the one who are confused, who don't know, who are on the fence, who did the, haming and haing, I don't know. You're right. They tried so hard. You're right. And they did fail. They did do a shitty job. The Noah Tishby's and I don't know one and the Issa'i like freaking proper.

And bringing Elon, like trying to like, you know, trying so hard to grasp at anything they can. And they have done a supremely shitty job, which of course we're all happy about it. Yeah. Well, that's why that's why we'd call the podcast what we do. But I just wonder, could they have done a better job given the assignment they gave themselves, given what they're trying to launder and given what we have. available. I mean, it's like, we can't, we can never know, but certainly they are, by putting

themselves so front and center constantly, we actually get to see them for who they are and who they are now, and they are not who they used to be. They used to have some suavness to them. They used to have some kind of, you know, Abba Eben was a slick operator, you know, um, Yitzhak Rabin had a kind of, you know, every man scrappy a June ne sequa A June Nsequa damn, very good, very good

It took a while to come out of my mouth but man, what a good one That was great It was worth it, man Thank you Yeah, I mean I You know

Whether they could have done a good job of this or not Is, you know, who knows We're not in the you know, alternate universe in which they did do a good job. What I do know is that what they have been doing is no longer sufficient, and they haven't learned that lesson.

Yes. And so, you know, this is this ham-fisted attempt at censorship, at, like, changing the algorithm is going to fail. It's true. Literally their entire, I think this is where I'm catching under what you guys are pointing to. That every time in the last few years,

is they've caught wind of their own failure. What they've done is let's do more of what we were doing. We weren't doing enough. And that's always the Hasbara logic. We need to do more of the thing that is completely blowing up on our face. Right. Yeah. And to say like, well, one of the signs that what they're doing is working is the fact that it's

still going on, it's like, I think the fact that it's still going on is more a testament to the fact that what they're really actually good at is not control. public opinion, but controlling, you know, elected officials and public institutions. That's what they're good at. What they're good at is making it, is codifying their own definition of anti-Semitism into law. What they're good at is making it so that, you know, using their money so that representatives know who's buttering their bread and scaring elected officials into silence or complicity by saying we'll fund your, you know, opponents in the next election.

Which is to say keeping going the system that has been well-oiled, well-constructed, well-fortified over decades. Yes, this is, yeah, again, the relationship between Israel and the West, both the centers of power and the centers of, you know, mainstream prestige influence is well-established, and they know how to keep those gears greased. Yeah, yeah. I mean, what they did was they completely discounted the voices of the people. They thought, hey, we have influence over all these institutions. We literally own the mainstream. We have colonized the narrative for decades. And to your point, they thought like, oh, there's just a few of these, you know, voices of the people. We can literally just do more, just, you know, pass more laws, you know, get the Israeli flag, you know, flown in Culver City high school.

Right, yeah. But they don't understand. To your point, they haven't learned yet. And they're learning it now because they literally have to buy a whole, you know, social media platform. I mean, it's, but they haven't been able to because they discounted our voice. They thought it wouldn't matter. And that's the only thing that matters. And they are becoming, these institutions are becoming so fucking irrelevant.

They don't understand the boycott that it's, that's about to happen on TikTok. They just don't know that that's exactly what's going to happen. And beyond that, I think what they also don't know is the fact that like half of TikTok, like half of like making content on TikTok is getting around the, already pretty repressive algorithm. I mean, you can't, people, this is why people just say unalive all the time. Everything is, you know, unalive. It can't even like, people say Z, you know, Z instead of Zionists. They say

H group instead of Hamas. They say juice instead of Jews. They, yeah, the one, I, when people say juice, I'm always a little bit like, you know, that's a little too 4chan white nationalist for me. Yeah, yeah. I remember kids in the playground making like, juice jokes about my dead great

grandparents not that they weren't funny but yeah I'm not saying my great grandparents weren't deliciously orange flavored I'm just saying it's not very nice it's not very nice of them

but yeah I mean the reason I'm not worried is because they don't on they fundamentally don't understand social media and they think it's like TV and they think like well you know everyone's just watching

these channels. They look at like TikTok is like, oh, we're going to take over a CNN and make it all Zionist programming, you know? Yes, they think it's programming. Yeah, that's right, actually. You're right, guys. I think they think it's as passive as TV is. And while scrolling is very, there's a passive element to it. Yes. And we shouldn't lose sight of that. I think it's easy to lose sight of the parts of it that are not passive. The fact that you're you're doing the scrolling and you can click on something and follow the rabbit hole of your curiosity and interact and interact and, you know, now that interaction, that connectivity in many ways is a deceptive illusion that's bad for our mental health

and doesn't necessarily offer real democratic solutions. But for a Hasbarist, it's very easy to make that mistake of thinking people are just, oh, we're just giving them an eye. IV drip of bullshit instead of people curating their own experience and seeking out what feels right to them. Yes. Yes. There's a misunderstanding, I think.

And it reminds me a lot of when Lily Singh got a late night show. Lily Singh is a YouTuber who got a late night show. And she was huge on YouTube. And then she had the show on, I believe it was on NBC. It took over the late, late show. or maybe that was CBS either way it was a network late night show and it um it failed you know and it got canceled and it was like oh you know she has millions of viewers but they're not watching it's like yeah the different platform people aren't watching tv and in in the same way

you know like people aren't and apologies to lily sing for even bring her in as part of the conversation but just in terms of a misunderstanding of like this of how social means media platforms work, I'm not worried. Here's like one of the reasons I'm not worried. I'm going to play a video from someone who was at the summit and has, you know, immediately took to TikTok to talk about, you know, A-PAC. And this is from the account, that opinionated girl. So here's this video from yesterday. I got the honor of meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu as part of a special focus group for Christian conservative Jen Ziers. And we were. essentially addressing the concerns that we had, right? There's clearly been a growing divide. He wanted to know why. He wanted to know what Israel could be doing better. He wanted to understand where we were coming from. And to his credit, he did listen to us extremely attentively and took in a lot of what we were saying. And from our end, while of course we were polite and we were there also trying to form more unity, we were asking him the hard

questions that a lot of people from our generation have been raising concerns about. For example, and the same way he listened to us and took in our criticisms, I'm truly hoping that you guys will listen to the answer. A-PAC is something that I see all the time. Number one, A-PAC is not an Israeli organization. It has no ties whatsoever to the government of Israel. It's not foreign lobbying. It's a lobbyist group that happens to be lobbying for a certain group of people, right?

All right. So, first of all, I love, I just came back from the BB Summit in which he was very very, very, polite and asked me, is there anything Israel could do better to help you? As if like, you know, I went to Israel and I put a suggestion in the suggestion box and now everyone's going to have peace. Well, it really, and it's also in terms of, you know, Israel's surveillance goals, it really is a case of Lumen is listening. Yeah, 100%.

You know, like, we really want to hear from you. Yes. We are all ears. Yeah. If you want to speak into your bathroom mirror in the morning about what we could do better, we'll be listening. We hear you. I'm picturing going to the Western Wall.

And you know, you put a note in? What a suggestion. The Whaley Wall is a suggestion box for how the government can more suit you and treat you. I was going to make a joke about the Olive Garden suggestion box, but I think yours is way better. I love that there's an olive garden suggestion. I remember when I was a kid, I saw like the wooden suggestion.

I'm like, wow. And that's how we got free salad and breadsticks. Yeah, exactly. Unlimited. Yeah, but I also, I love coming from this thing. And he's just like, you know, we're spending another additional $150 million on Hasbara. We got all these, you know, Christian influencers coming. we need them to take over TikTok and change the narrative.

And she comes in with the most fucking Hasbara 101 of like, did you know that APEC is not even a foreign lobbyist? They're all American. And like the idea that therefore their lobbying is not for the foreign nation of Israel is complete. I mean, it's obviously complete bullshit. Like to call it, it is true that

American donors, it's American Zionist donors, fucking Larry Ellison is a American billionaire super Zionist. The fact that he is American does not change the fact that he is lobbying for another

country. What does the I stand for in APEC? Is. Ah. No, it's Believe it stands for Israel But it's

So I mean But who knows Yes American Israel Public Affairs Committee I mean I mean I don't know

I don't understand Yes Yes It says it It says it right in the name But just so you know America is petting a cat Yeah

Exactly Meow meow Meow meow Miao So she continues To spout This is not unique to Israel. There are multiple countries that do this, and there's multiple different groups that do this.

For some reason, people just attach on to APEC, despite the fact that APEC makes up less than 5% of the lobbying. The lobbying of total lobbies in all of the United States, in which lobbying is the way and which government gets done. Including lobbies to do with internal affairs having to do with the United States, which is the country where the lobbying is happening. Right. And also, beyond that, are you, yes, there is an oil lobby, too. Yes, there is. Yes, there are. There's a lot of lobbies.

Lobbys do exist, and they all should be talked about at the same time. I agree. There's a lobby for hobbies from whatever. Yeah, there's a hobby lobby. Yeah. It's actually funny. But, like, you know, the point that she's trying to make here, is essentially like

what's the big deal every country does this and I love it too because this is this is like for someone who's never has only ever heard of APEC on you know like TikTok memes and has also never

seen APEC bragging about themselves because once you see APEC bragging about themselves you quickly realize like everything she's saying is bullshit they constantly are talking about all the races in which they're people they backed when. They're constantly talking about the people that they are tearing down.

I mean, it is, you know, I feel bad for APEC to have to listen to someone, you know, kind of like minimize their great success. If you have a problem with lobbying like me, that's totally fine. I'm against APEC because I'm against lobbying. But you can't just hone in on one specific group. If you're going to be against it, then be against you. against it for everybody all at the same time moving on from that we were asking questions about uh these rumors that israel has been going out and funding people and no none of us were paid for

that meaning but i wish bibi if you want to write the 150 million check go for it but um we asked we asked about funding and as he explained israel is not offering to fund anybody they're not trying to get involved in american political advocacy groups that has never happened and if you're concerned about this who you should be concerned about is katar because they okay so I love about this, the point that she's making here is Israel does not directly fund any of these people. And it's like, yeah, no, I'm, I'm sure that that's the case. I'm sure that all of them are funded through their various fucking funders of all of this bullshit. Whether it's, you know, the fucking Tel Aviv Institute, whether it's like, like, they have tons of money that goes

into paying for people like that opinionated girl and also there is part of me that's like watching someone going like I'm doing this for free it's really sad to me like I really

I truly hope not I mean I don't really know it's very very it's I'm trying to like I analyze these types of people I'm like does she really believe what she's saying. You know what I mean?

It's a great question. It's like I don't really know. Like I do think that something does happen when you're that close to some, you know, maybe when you're that close to power, when you're that close to like, you know, group think in a room. I don't really know. But I do believe she's not doing this necessarily for money, this person. I do think that there's a lot of money that goes in.

And I mean, as we know, even from Charlie Kirk. I mean, Netanyahu had him supposedly, like, they're writing love letters to each other, whatever. Yeah. She's doing it for clout and influence. That's what influences are attracted to. And she's decided, you know, being teen witch is not enough. She needs to, doesn't she look like that girl from Teen Witch? You ever see that movie?

I'm getting strong early 90s cult comedy vibes. Stop that. But, you know, she's on the Christian. right Christian Reich sphere and you know Uncle Beebe is going to feed her some lines I'm not sure where her beliefs

come into it I think she's they find a lane and they go for it until they decide there's a better lane you're 100% right I mean even look at her name that opinionated girl I mean you're 100% right I love that you said that now because I keep wracking my brain it's like actually the beliefs

really don't really play into this at all at all. Yeah. And it's funny that you mentioned that about her name. The most interesting thing that I found out about this is this was not her original name for her account. Yeah, she used to be that Zionist girl. No! No! No! Here's a picture of her wearing an IDF hoodie. And it's very funny to me to you're going to make a video where you're just like first of all I just want to let you know

that I'm against APEC too but only because I'm against all lobbies and also no one's getting paid to do anything and everything is immediately I'm against pro-Palestine people but only because I'm against people who are pro

anything right okay I might take back the belief thing dude that's insane that is what a find what a fine and I don't know I don't know why she changed it

maybe she somehow lost her original account wagon I don't know I mean it's not necessarily that she's made much of a secret out of it but it is just very funny to me to do a video about APEC and trying to like I don't know

trying to play like listen Israel doesn't pay for people to influence anything you know that's not what we do at all I did it for free as that Zionist girl until my account got got suspended for doing porn. I'm just mad that we can't call ourselves opinionated anymore. I know.

I know. The O word. Now we have to be the world's, you know, most funniest Jewish anti-opinionated podcast. We're anti-opinion. I guess we're anti-opinion. They are doing this. They are going out and funding these universities and these political organizations. Many of these protests slash riots that you see destroying our cities.

Now she's, yeah, now she's talking about Qatar and the other, you know, groups, the shadowy dark money groups funding pro-Palestine. A lot of that has foreign funding from Qatar. And yet people are silent about it or they're pointing the finger at Israel for something that they're not even doing. The last thing that we really touched on was the aid. People don't know this, but Netanyahu's first address to Congress was to say that they didn't want aid.

Jimmy Carter, who was a notoriously anti-Israel president, is actually who started this because he saw that Israel was building up their Air Force, and he didn't want them to. So he gave them aid that they could only use to buy military weapons from us, and they had to agree to shut down their manufacturing. All right. So now she's getting into the white phosphorus handcuffs, I'm right? Very nice. But yeah, getting into the fact that, like, you know, America funds Israel through its

tax base and she's saying well we spoke to Netanyahu and he's never even wanted the money which is okay thank you thank you so much for that I'm sure I'm sure whatever he said is true and thank you for your service and I'm sure two weeks ago he didn't thank a bipartisan group of Democratic and Republican lawmakers who had flown to Israel specifically for the continued military support he has been here four times this year this year just this year what are you coming for what are you meeting like hexeth for like i what are you talking about like yes i don't understand man yeah and every time he comes you know it's uh the running meme is like oh he's coming to go get his money and and whatnot and uh you know at the end of the day to pretend like this pretense of oh well

you know israel is just some country out there you know that's just unfairly picked on. This isn't working. This doesn't work for anyone. It all feels forced. And the last video I want to show is one that's gone kind of viral again recently. I'm not sure how old it is. I don't think it's a very recent video, but it's Xavier de Rousseau, who is a U.S. conservative black Prager U gay Zionist he's got a lot of identity

and he made this video with Emily Austin who is you know some another right wing chud and here is just here is why I'm to stand in the middle of that intersection you know what I'm saying? Yeah

here's why I am not worried about the TikTok takeover just to lose the wars so they can cry about it and then try it all again you must see anti-semites are literally obsessed with Jews now walk with me okay for those listening at all though we have chris tucker from the fifth element yeah we got we got ruby rod uh like total ruby rod aesthetic he is uh sipping you know a smoothie And he's talking about the musty anti-Semites who are obsessed with Israel.

I, I, I mean, it's beautiful. You can tell, hello, hello, fellow authentic countercultural figures. Yeah, this is the most fucking, like, straight up. How do you, fellow kids? Yes, yes. Straight up, this is, who's supposed to buy this bullshit? This is so embarrassing. You know, it's, oh, my.

But that's my question. I know, I know. It's always the question. Who is this for? Who is this for? It's crazy, man. Like, I don't get it. I mean, I think it is at this point for no one and it makes it actual art to me.

You know, there's something about it that it's like there is an artisticness to it because it is well funded, which feels anti-art, but no one wants it. Yeah, yeah. The question is, would you keep pursuing your craft? even if they're even if no one wanted to hear it and these people truly are committed to the bit yeah but this is it it's for this actually it's for the funders it's like hey and this is what the funders think that's it that's it that you i think you've nailed it on the head when you ask who this is for it's for the people who are funding it yes it's because they need to play this to their grandson who is also black and gay and they're going like or he's considering becoming black and gay

yeah or he's considering it and he has been sharing some ceasefire now memes and you want to be like no no no no it's actually not cool it's not cool to hate Israel uh can we watch the rest oh yeah please there we go while you must the anti semites are stacking eviction notice Jews are out here stacking up businesses. Jews control all the industries. Maybe if you spent more time taking notes from successful people, you wouldn't have to spend your nights and weekends spreading hate from your anonymous account with an anime profile picture.

Dude. I'm sorry, but Jews, it says, you must be anti-Semites are stacking up eviction notices. Yeah, you're getting evicted while Jews are out here kicking you out of your building because they are in the building and they are shifting landlords. What is he doing? Wait, is this, sorry, when they said Jews own all the business, like, is that, was that anti-Semitic or is, or is they saying like that's like a, a, no, no, they're, they're, they're

proudly, it's like when Jay-Z in his song, the story of OJ says, you know, you want to know why Jews own all the property in America, credit. He's giving, he's sort of lamenting black people's lack of, uh, wealth. savvy and saying that if you want to know how so he makes a claim right yes a broad generalization that a lot of who offended by it used to be anti-semitic to say that right oh it still is

no I'm not according to whoever this fucking no but that's you know the interesting thing about it is that it's like it just depends on who's saying it if you're saying it in a positive light in order to continue funding a genocide then it's okay if you're saying it and you're against Israel then of course you're an anti-Semite. I mean, we're living in a post-Norm Coleman world where

fucking Norm Coleman went to Israel, went to the Jewish news syndicate conference, and said, what's going on? Why can't we control the narrative? Jews are the masters of the universe. Yeah, yeah. He literally used that phrase. Right. Yes. And just saying, like, we control Hollywood. Why can't we get control the dang social media? Like, this is a world we live in now in which people are just proudly, as I say, putting on the octopus suit and just

being like, why does everyone keep doing the tentacles meme to me? Because you put on the suit. This is insane. Yeah. I couldn't. I don't know. This is actually insane to me because that has been

one of the most, like that phrase has been the most, one of the most touted anti-Semitic phrases for decades. And now all of a sudden this fucking, you know, I don't know who this person, like, with a sippy cup talking about, like, saying like, oh, we know this is the truth. Sorry, you can't be cool like us.

Like, what? Yes. It's like. With a strawberry sonic drive-thrues milkshake. I know. And also, who is he calling musty? I'm not sure. I mean, I think, you know, in general.

You don't know how we smell. Yeah. First of all, I smell great. Daniel also smells great. Let's not start spreading hate about how we smell. Okay. Do you work as hard as Jews? Do you network like Jews?

No, because you're too busy cheering on a group of musty terrorists. Why, everyone can't be musty, dude. This guy's got one line and it's just talking about musty. But also, do you work as hard as Jews? Damn. What are we doing? You know what they say about Jews. Uh, work will set you free.

That's what the famous thing that Jews just fucking. Yeah, are you on a council of elders? Exactly. Have you written any protocols? No. Maybe if you got off your ass, stop playing Nintendo Switch and started joining various cabals, you too could hold the globe with your many tentacle to arms. You need to stop throwing so many footballs and start joining more cubballs.

It's so dumb embarrassing. It's so embarrassing, man. It's so damn embarrassing. It's like, and just have to sit here and get yelled at to work as hard as Jews. Oh, God, God. You smell like dirty earring backs. And if we're going to keep a real, you're really mad because your income is giving side hustle. Period. Hanging a hate from outside Shabbat. You can't even get in.

I'm sorry, what? That delivery. That delivery. Yeah, yeah. I mean. This is insane. Yeah, you just like, it's just funny. watching someone who by the way i mean you know zavier is not jewish not that it matters uh but you know he's uh he is a paid zionist bootlicker it's what he does he works for prager you and he's done this and if you if you want to see more of him uh there is a great uh episode of i think it was

night school that mark lamont hill did where he had him on and he did essentially a debate with him. But, you know, it was clear that Xavier was not, did not want to debate debate. He wanted to keep it as cordial as possible. And Mark Lamont-Hilda has this beautiful mode of debate and discussion in which he is like, he will very kindly, like, make you check yourself. You know what I mean? That's perfectly said. I love him so much. I did not realize that he had enough. I'm definitely going to watch it right after this. Yeah, it's, it is great. And it is like, Mark just, just totally fucking just gets his ass.

And the way that, you know, Xavier handles it is, you know, kind of feigning, feigning ignorance on a lot of things and pretending like, listen, I talk about lots of other things when he's like so, I mean, this is a guy who went to the fucking GHF, like, Gaza Humanitarian, you know, Foundation AIDS site. these are the people who are shooting various Palestinians desperate for food went there and talked about how much aid there was and how everything is fine and how it's just all a bunch of Hamas propaganda. I mean, total scumbag.

Total scumbag. Wow. Wow. But we do need to take a quick commercial break. So on that note, do you guys like products? Well, here's some. We'll be right back. And we're back.

This Bad As Barra was a most moral podcast here with Palestinian filmmaker, Rola. Hey, do you know, Rola. Hey, hey. Hey, hey. By the way, you have this distinction Rola of being our podcast guest universe's finest pronounceer of Israel and Israel. Yeah, that's true. No one does it like you. Yes.

Yeah, I like it because there's a hiss in it. Yeah. I appreciate it. Israel. I love it. I feel if I have to say that word, I have to say an ad of it, I feel. Yes.

You really got the iron in there. So, Rola, you're a filmmaker, and I wanted to talk a little bit about this recent, I suppose, open letter pledge that has come out called the Film Workers for Palestine, in which people are actors, and people who work in the industry

are signing to pledge to not work with any Israeli production company or anything that is directly implicated in the continuance of this genocide. And not just the genocide, but complicit in abuses of Palestinians in general, which has been, you know, kind of a big term,

I've seen in the industry in the last, like, you know, 22 months or whatever. What are your thoughts about it? Like, what do you know about this particular pledge? I signed it. Nice. And, yeah, and like you mentioned, like a lot of us in the industry signed it. I think that this is, honestly, it's hard because I understand that it's just a letter. And I do know that, like, my people are still being genocide in the Gaza.

So it's hard. It's hard. I understand it might be hard for audiences when I say this is groundbreaking. It's like, well, what is this? It's a fucking letter. But it is groundbreaking if you understand the context in which Hollywood operates. This is actually groundbreaking. This is earth shattering, actually. Yes. Because all of the agencies are the big ones that the talent. And they're some very big name talents on there. So. Yeah. We've got Mark Ruffalo. A.O. Edibiri. Tilda Swinton, I mean, like Javier Bardem, Emma Stone, Joaquin Phoenix. I mean, these are name names. Yes, 100%. And so this is so significant for two reasons. One, because all of the big agencies in the studios are extremely, they are run by Zinus. In fact, I was part of CA, as you know. Yes.

And of course, you know, the second October happens. It's like, you know, I stand with Israel and like town hall. and I don't know what. And, of course, I got dropped a few months later as well because of me being so vocal on social media. So they are extremely Zionists. So for a letter to not just say, you know, hashtag ceasefire now, you know, this kind of neutral, tepid, you know, All Lives Matter language, this is like we are directly not going

to work and directly boyconing Israel and the Zionist entity. That is unprecedented. And it is really truly. something to behold. So yes, I understand that, hey, you know, our people are still being genocided, but in the context of the apex, like the core of Zionism storytelling, this is insane. So I'm very, very happy to see it. Yeah, same. And that's sort of my thoughts about it too, where I like always want to give the preamble, I understand, you know, to all the

people who are like, you know, uh, you know, what is this really? You know, is it, does it mean anything? This feels like, you know, too little too late or whatever. Like, um, my, after that preamble, I'm like, no,

this is, this is, this is, this is wild. But that preamble applies to literally everything. Literally everything. That's right. Hundreds of thousands of people in the London streets. Well, so what? It's not going to stop the genocide. I mean, my dad often will preface his remarks by saying nothing any of us has done has likely saved one hair on the head of one Palestinian in Gaza. And that's maybe an exaggeration. There are things we can do.

We can donate certain families have gotten out. But relative to the scale of the horror and all of the attention on it, I mean, the input to output in terms of result is measly. If we're judging it in terms of, you know, the ultimate success we want. goal yeah that's right yes yes but the longer game all of these things make a difference and in an industry in industry like yours to see something like this as you're saying is very significant just like this flotilla that's sailing to Gaza right now with 40 or 50 boats it's an escalation of what's been there before yes but now they got a few navy boats from you know so it's like it's a fortification of something that's been building for a long time it's a mainstreaming it's a it's a it's a

normalization of the right things. Yes. Yes. And I think that word is key. Or the right things, if you know what I mean. More like do the right thing. Do the right thing. That's actually brilliant.

Spike Lee should remake that movie. More like Spike Lieb. Spike Lieb. So yeah, like it's the normalization of people doing the right thing and uh and that in especially in the entertainment industry is is groundbreaking people people i mean we've all seen it i've been we've been calling out since the episode one of this podcast which is like people are you know uh in the industry they're cowards a lot of them and rightfully so in a way you know i don't mean to like you know i'm a cow we're all cowards

in different ways um you know i some people are just workers And they're like, I need my fucking job. I, you know, that is first and foremost on a lot of people's minds. And the repression is serious here. So to have this, you know, happen is a big deal. Of course. And I will say to your point, I think the important part, the big thing that we all wanted was for people with privilege to be risking their careers, not for people who are desperate and who are just film workers or grips or lighting people. You know what I mean?

Even though People with Sopranos podcast We wanted more Susan Sarandones Particularly people who hadn't already been blamed For electing Yes Trump and George W. Bush You know?

100%. People whose names, yeah. And I know we'll say And yet the first letter Like the first phone workers for a Palestine letter If I'm not mistaken Most of the names on there were people who were not big-name people.

There were people who were actually risking their careers. Maybe they just started. Maybe they're, you know, in the background. They risked a lot. And it was shameful, shameful to see people who had privilege, who had that FU money or who had that FU career, right? It's like, so what, you know? Those people being silent.

So now the fact that those people with privilege are not only just signing letters, but putting their names and being EPs on films like the Voice of Hindrajab film, and Palestine 36 and a few others like that is a statement and the fact that it happened I will say in the again in the context of Hollywood in the context of this world that we're in so quickly where were we last year versus this year is insane so and I think he's the world wild Matt it is wild it is wild to witness and it is a joy to witness and inshallah more and more escalations I hope so as well unfortunately The usual suspects in the Hollywood sort of Zionist sphere are mad about it. And Variety covered the counter-protest, the counter-letter. And we're going to read that right now. Leib Schreiber, Mayam Bialik, Deborah Messing, among 1,200 industry names, rejecting Israeli film boycott in new open letter,

colon, it advocates for the erasure of art. All right, Daniel, you want to read this? Yeah. Leav Schreiber, Maimbiolic, Whoa, Blossom, whoa. And Deborah Messing are among more than 1,200 entertainment industry names who have signed a new open letter

denouncing the call for a boycott of Israeli film institutions over the war in Gaza. The letter released on Thursday by the nonprofit organization's creative Community for Peace and the Brigade. Remember the brigade? We covered them. Oh, yes.

Urges the nearly 4,000 signes of the boycott pledge. Hold on. Adam just wrote, chill and grace. Yeah. Fantastic. Well done. Urges the nearly 4,000 signes of the boycott pledge, including Emma Stone and Joaquin Phoenix, to reconsider their stance.

Other stars and industry professionals putting their names behind the new open letter include Gene Simmons, Sharon Osborne, Greg Berlante, Jerry O'Connell, Howie Mandel, oh no, not Howie. Not Howie. Jennifer Jason Leah, oh, fuck. I know, bummer. Jerry O'Connell, sorry, I already got him, Lisa Edelstein, Aaron Foster, Anthony Edwards, Rebecca de Morne, Sherry Lansing, and Chaim Saban. I love Haym Sabarm. You don't say. famous good Hollywood businessman Hyam Saban is signing the letter

Real artistic What we need is a group of Zionist power rangers who will fight against all of the Hamas potties and don't worry we can do it on the cheap we'll just use

another show and we'll just splice it in and we'll only have to pay all act as peanuts that is that's brilliant that's Heim Saban Power Rangers guy so here's the letter we know the power of film

we know the power of story that is why we cannot stay silent when a story is turned into a weapon when lies are dressed up as justice and when artists are misled into amplifying anti-Semitic propaganda the letter begins. The pledge

circulated under the banner of film workers for Palestine is not an act of conscience. It is a document of misinformation that advocates for the arbitrary censorship and the erasure of art. To censor the very voices trying to find common ground

and express their humanity is wrong, ineffective, and a form of collective punishment. It's kind of genocide. If you think about it, like to do this is sort of genocidal you're kind of you're starving us from our art yeah you're starving us from more seasons of fowda look if they were making the case that look you guys are going to end up censoring the next no other land or this this new Israeli film Israeli Palestinian film the

C, which has just been selected by Israel, the Israeli film industry, to be its submission for next year's Oscars, right? And it's about a Palestinian trying to make it to the sea, right? Oh, yeah, they mentioned that in this article. Oh, do they? Okay, right. Yeah. Right. But it's such a straw man because what they're saying is every single, that's all Israelis do. That's all Israeli film institutions are about. Israelis are just desperately trying to get the message of freedom and justice out there. And you guys are undercutting that. Yeah, exactly. As if that's the rule and not the exception. Especially since they do actually bring that up in this article.

Oh, lovely. In which, hold on, it says... Here it is, yeah. Yeah. As the new letter points out, in spite of the boycott calls, much of the country's left-leaning film and TV industry has been standing against the Israeli government at their own risk. Just last week, the film The Sea,

which tells the story of a young Palestinian boy who risks his life to go to the beach in Tel Aviv, won the top prize at Israel's Ophir Awards and was submitted as the country's selection for the Oscars International Feature Race. As a result, the Israeli Sports and Culture Minister vowed to cut funding from the awards. I mean, it's just like, as the new letter points out,

they, in fact, there is an Israeli filmmaker who made something that is anti-genocide, and it was, of course, punished by the government. that is how is that a point in favor of continued support for Israel and the government of Israel you know like we haven't we don't know do we know what the specific uh stipulations are of the filmworkers united for Palestine boycott like would it in fact uh say we're not going to work with the production company that made that film or whatever i don't know and this is always a question when it comes to BDS-related stuff.

Right. You know, like, I'll come out and say it because someone's going to discover it and put it in the comment somewhere. The myth of normal, the book I wrote with my dad, just came out in Hebrew in Israel, and it was published by Radical House. I think that's what they're called,

which is a radical anarchist, basically anti-Zionist press there. And we chose to get this book about trauma and healing there and someone posted a picture on Instagram of it being held up by one of Israel's most prominent Palestinian human rights lawyers in Hebrew.

And I was like, well, I feel complicated about that. But these are the nuances and gray areas of this sort of thing. But that is not the main thing being targeted. Exactly, yeah. By this sort of initiative. We're talking about Galgadot is, is the avatar for normalized mainstream Israeli progenicidal society and the government

that would come down hard on the choice of a film like the sea. Yeah. And I also, from what I know about the boycott is, or at least the pledge, rather, it's about what they deem, and I don't know how they deem it, I don't know what the mechanism for deeming something to be complicit in human rights abuses against Palestinians. But it does seem like they will make informed decisions about that in particular. But I will say this, even if they didn't, even if it was blanket BDS, the way that like, I believe, you know, the BDS movement took a lot of flack for still boycotting no other land. And, you know, wrote a letter explaining, like, this is how we come to the decision.

I don't have a problem with that. I agree that it sucks for those particular filmmakers who made the sea and they want to show it and whatnot. And that it sucks for, you know, if like no other land is getting, you know, if it was in any serious risk of actually getting boycotted by pro-Palestinians when in reality it's being boycotted by literal theater chains and distributors. I mean, that's the real boycott happening. The worst it's gotten from Palestine advocates is some like... Is discourse.

It's a bit of a caveat. It's like, this is a complicated thing to celebrate. That's the worst it's gotten from the pro-Palestine side. But like even so, even you know, if that is the case, where we do, I think, a disservice to the idea of what the point of BDS is when we say, but what about this or that? Or that.

or the other, what about all of the, you know, it's like understood, but what is BDS? What is it for? Why are we doing it? And what is the reason behind it? And also, where is it proven to have worked in South Africa? You know, like the point of it is the principle of not working with and socially and economically isolating an apartheid state that's doing a genocide.

Simple. You know what I'm saying? This is so disingenuous. It's so disingenuous. We all know you don't care about this story of a young palis. It's like, come on. Like, who the fuck believes that? Like, it's absolutely ridiculous.

And I don't know. I think it's so, so fucking disingenuous for that to be the center of like, oh, why 1,200 people from the industry. Why I am Saban? Like, we can sign on to this. Okay, sure. I mean, no one believes that. No one believes. I think, yeah.

Yeah. I really do think it is, like you said, it's, ingenuous, the only reason they would ever even bring it up is for the sake of arguing against people doing a genocide. And to be clear, and we've said this, you know, I think the last time we covered this organization that wrote this counter letter, which is called the creative community for peace, they are explicitly an anti-BDS group. They were created in the wake of BDS. They said, how do we get around this? How can we fight against that? Oh, I know we'll get fucking Deborah Messing and a bunch of people who no one gives a shit about to be the,

you know, the voice for the Israelis. And, you know, so yes, that is why it was created. It was created specifically to attack any sort of movement and solidarity between, you know, people in creative communities who actually do want peace. Yeah, 100%. Just a little bit more from this article, if you could, Daniel. When artists boycott fellow artists based solely on their country of origin, it is blatant discrimination and a betrayal of our role as storytellers, Messing said in a statement.

History shows us that boycotts against Jews have long been a tool of authoritarian regimes. By joining this effort, these artists are knowingly or unknowingly aligning themselves with a dark legacy of anti-semitism. This vague thing about being storytellers. Like what does that even mean? It means truly nothing. Like Netanyahu and the TikTokers are storytellers. Yeah, exactly.

You know, our art is telling stories and not allowing me to tell a story of the time that me and my teen friends did drugs and partied in Tel Aviv is actually a crime against humanity. And it is depriving generation. Storytelling is a human faculty that we've done for eons and millennia. And the stories we come up with, they're not always true, but they're truer in a deeper sense.

And to try to stop a country from telling their story, the story they made up about beheaded babies, and babies burned in ovens, is erasing art. This is our art. This is our art. Oh, my God. This is our art. Since the dawn of humanity, human beings have gathered around fires and told each other ghost stories of entire families, hogtied and doused and kerosene.

Right. And skull-fucked. Right. Yes. I mean, it's like, I love being like, I know you consider me a racist polemicist, but I'm actually a storyteller. I'm actually just the narrator of my own truth. And my own truth contains a lot of racist polemics.

I don't know what to tell you. I don't know what to tell you. That's part of it. By the way, this like aligning themselves with dark legacy of anti-Semitism. Yeah. That shit really, really gets me. It gets me a lot. Like, I don't, how can you, chalas?

Like, there's no more taking it seriously. There's nothing, nothing. I don't even understand. I just think it's just so, so damaging in so many ways when they just keep saying. Right, because they're continuing down the same goddamn line. I mean, you know, especially as soon as you start saying, historically, boycotts against Jews, because they're always trying to tie BDS to, you know, Nazi Germany doing boycotts of Jews. And the, you know, again, it's conflation with Israel and all of the Jewish people.

And it is, it's just so tired at this point. Conflating Israeli film studios and tech conglomerates with Jewish shopkeepers. Yeah, right. Someone was a shoemaker in Warsaw who like got his fucking storefront broken into. And it's like, no, we're talking about Elbit systems, you fucking fascist. Yes. It's like, I feel sorry for us. Like, you know, we now own like TikTok, we now own.

Paramount we now own CBS we now own like CNN we now own HBO we now own Warner Brothers please I know feel bad for us okay yes but our stories hashtag this is it's crazy while all you musty anti-semites art out there owning HBO and TikTok yeah yeah exactly you're too busy being evicted by Jewish landlords being musty and evicted oh man but yeah I mean you know the letter goes on and on to, uh, you know, do the same thing that we've seen them do. Yeah, my idea, like next goes on to say that besides, this letter does nothing to stop the war in Gaza, bring the hostages home, or help curb the alarming rise of anti-Semitism globally. Yeah. You know, it does help, uh, doing a, uh, creating a cabal of Hollywood Jews who are being

like, actually to be against genocide is sort of Nazi. That's, that'll be helpful for. us that'll that'll help curb the alarming rise of anti-semitism globally which of course you know it makes me angrier still because all they do is contribute to the rise of global anti-semitism it's all they do and i mean it's all they do beyond forgiving a goddamn genocide and it really is uh truly disgusting um i uh a propos of something we were talking talking about, about six hours ago, I just thought of brilliant, you know, Nazi Germany. They had the concept of the superior race. They called it the heron vogue, you know?

Well, no, these days we should call it the heron woke. You know, you ever thought about that? It's kind of brilliant. You know, what were you saying? You're scary, good at that. I need to lean into the camera. Yeah, that's right. The lean in, the lean.

Anyone? I really think, like, if he could just retire and get tried for war crimes. Yes, yes. Hung, whatever. He could lead some great, he could lead some great storytelling classes to his fellow inmates at the Hague. Yeah. You know, like one of those redemption stories in jail. I would love, oh, like the movie Sing Sing.

Sing, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, but. Apologies to Coleman Domingo. You really, apologies. That's right. Please, please. We love you and we love that movie.

Fabulous, fabulous movie. Yeah, no, he really, he really missed his calling, you know, as a substitute teacher who fucking sucks. Before we go, I just want to read a little bit of a thing. And it is just, sometimes I find an article written by, uh, a scumbag, and I just have to share it with people. So I, this is continuing on this concept of this subject of Hollywood and the betrayal of people, people betraying Israel. Here's from Wynet Global, the article is called The Capos of Culture, how Hollywood Jews

betray their own. And it is mostly about Hannah Einbinder betraying everyone. I'm just going to read you just some excerpts from it. Like the Capos of the Holocaust who collaborated with Nazis, today's cultural elite trade Jewish dignity for applause. The Capos did it all for applause? Yeah. Like, oh my God.

The article sort of does that. But instead of fear for their lives, they're doing it for clout. And I'm like, well, seems like a different thing. Seems very different. Just as the Capos of old bargained. their dignity for a few extra crumbs of bread per day that might stand to keep them alive a few weeks longer.

Yeah. Hannah Einbinder did this, but knowing she was going to live, which makes it worse. So earlier this week, Hannah Einbiner took stage at the Emmy Awards ceremony, and in that moment, she received not glamour, not courage, not artistry, but the dangerous ignorance of a generation. Her performance was not just another Hollywood act, it was a symbol, a symbol of how far so many American Jews have drifted from the harsh, unyielding truths of history and the present. There she was, bathed in lights, surrounded by applause, yet also wrapped in a cocoon of blindness. The Los Angeles bubble, sunlit, insulated, and safe, has created a class of Jews

for whom October 7th might as well have happened on another planet. You know what's crazy about this sentence is that I think to me if that is true makes a lot more sense than what I

experienced, which was a class of American Hollywood Jews in the industry for whom October 7th happened directly to them and it hasn't stopped happening ever since. and has never stopped.

One is far less delusional than the other. I just love as if, oh, they live as if disconnected from the eternal story of our people, as if the sexual assault of Jewish women. You can say grape on TikTok. Oh, that's right, it's grape. Jewish women and the slaughter of families and the humiliation of entire communities

are somehow irrelevant to their politics their red carpets and their careers. And what makes Seinbinder silence her posturing, her carefully curated political messaging so grotesque is that she is a woman. And I hate women.

And I hate that. I hate women. A woman who chooses... It's a fact that anything when done by a woman is gross. It's even more gross. It's anti-Semitism, but with cooties.

A woman who chooses not to confront the fact that women, Jewish women, were brutalized in the most savage ways imaginable on that black day. Yes. So this person goes on to, I mean, just, it is like, it is not anti-Semitic, but if I were doing it were, if I were doing with a joke, German accent, you'd be like, oh, this is a sort of mind-comfy. I do not say this with hatred. I say it for sorrow, for I feel pity for someone like Hannah Einbinder. One day, the very people she defends in their ideology, the rage, their rejection of Jewish existence may turn on her as they have turned on countless others.

history is filled with Jews who believe their assimilation their solidarity their silence you had me at history is filled with Jews yeah history is filled with Jews I'm done reading tell me about it

that's why I don't read history too many Jews in yeah too many Jews in history but yeah this this person writes this entire thing and I just want to read this last part the lights of the Emmys may shine for a moment

but the Jewish story is eternal. If we allow the capos of culture to define us, we invite our own erasure. But if we confront them with honesty, clarity, and courage, we reaffirm that the center of Jewish life is not Hollywood but Jerusalem, not applause, but truth, not assimilation, but survival. That is the choice before us, and it must be made now. Adam Scott Bellows, the writer of this article, is the founder and CEO of the Israel Innovation Fund and the author of the forthcoming book, Never again is not enough. Why, Hebraization is the only way to save the diaspora.

Cringe, cringe, cringe. I kind of want to read that book. I kind of want to read Never Again is not enough. I think Never Again is enough. Never Again. Give me some Never Again. I'm good. I'm full, dude.

That's plenty. I couldn't pop. Possibly never again. Oh, man. It is, I love it. Like, talking about the Hebrewization of the American diaspora, I don't like it. I don't like it.

It is to me. But apparently it's the only salvation. It's the only way. It's sort of the last solution to the Jewish problem. Look, Rola, you made a video that got some traction recently about the Hebrew language and the ways that the reasons of why. Israeli Hebrew sounds so German as opposed to, say, Semetic, you know? Yes, that's right.

And there was a lot of great points in it, especially that if we were to hear the Hebrew that these people claim to be tied to spoken, it would sound much more like Yemenite. Yes, yes. It would actually be guttural. It would be the way the so-called Mizrahi people spoke when they first got to Israel and were told they had to stop being Arabs, whatever. Now, I happen to like Hebrew as a language. happen to like its grammar, its syntax, I like some of its idioms, I enjoy speaking it.

That's one thing from my Zionist education. Just the language itself, I like conversing with anti-Zionist Israelis in Hebrew. But I do notice that it sounds different when spoken by people with different ideologies. And just like German is like a great language. But when it's spoken by fucking fascists and genociders and whatever, it sounds really fucking scary. Yes. But the Hebrewization he's talking about is erasing what makes Matt and I the Jews that we are in terms of my sensibility, our irony, our, you know, he's talking about steamrolling a whole lineage

of Jewish intellectualism and artistic innovation that we're just never going to let that happen. It's the Jewish equivalent. of the way Mormons will be like, oh, I'm, I'm baptizing Anne Frank. She's Mormon now. Yeah. It's like, it's like the way that they are, like Zionists are all about the flattening of Jewishness and Judaism and what it means to be a Jew. And it's the reason, you know, why I first, you know, or not, it was one of the many reasons why I first got radicalized to this.

So I was just like, oh, these guys, these guys hate Jews. The founders, the founders of political Zionism, they were so anti-Semitic. Yes. The most vilest fucking quotes came out of their mouths. I'm like, what? They couldn't stop talking about the musty European Jews. Literally. Yes.

That's what they were like. They wanted to be furthest away. These Christians are out here owning banks and running countries and colonizing. Afra and y'all musty Jews are over there in the stettel you know you're smelling like lodkas and small tearing

nasty ass pickle smell like earring backs the earring back earing back but yeah it is big sip it is it is uh yeah it's truly amazing and um you know

I I I love the normalization of of just calling people capos, just the normalization of demonizing American Jews who are anti-Zionists is just, it's really, it's fun to watch because it's a nice mask-off moment for Zionists. And it's actually disgusting. The worst is when people who are not of Jewish background do it to Jewish people. That is so anti-Semitic. I actually don't understand why people are not freaking out more about that shit. Like in Chris Como or whoever. I'm like, are you insane?

You are talking to an actual Jewish person. In what world do you have any right to even talk at them about what is a good, quote, Jew versus, you know, a Kappa or a bad Jew? It's so disgusting. It's gross and it's fascinating at the same time because it's like for me, I look at that and go, oh, look, you know, there's an inroad for a systemic version of anti-Semitism. You know what I mean? Like, we don't really, we haven't really, you know, had that in a few, you know, a couple of generations, at least in America. You know, obviously the, there has been some systemic anti-Semitism in the past and whatnot, but, you know, for at least my lifetime. And it has been pretty non-systemic.

And now it's like, oh, there's an inroad for it. Now there's a way for, like, non-Jewish people to just do. anti-semitism out loud. It's a lot of fun. Oh, Rolla, just promise us that you'll come visit us in the Hebraicizing re-education camp. Oh, yeah, no, for sure. I'll be there. I can run a workshop if you like.

I got you. Yeah, that'd be great. I'll run a workshop in Israel. Yes, please. Hebrewization school. It's every Saturday, and it's mandatory. Rola, thank you so much for coming back on Bad Hasbara. We loved having you.

Thank you guys for having me. And Mabrook, Daniel, you're now a khalo. You're now, it's like, yeah, Khalo Daniel. Oh, shit, Mabruk, yeah, yeah. Chala, if you hear me. What did they call Bernie? Wasn't it Amo Bernie? I thought that meant uncle.

Hammo is just general uncle, but Khalo, because you're the brother of your sister who has a child. So the child will call you Khadu and Amu. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So on the mom's side, it's a child. On the mom's side is chalo. On the dad's side, it's ammo. Oh, wow. Yeah.

It's actually two different words. Okay, great. Yeah. I love that. Well, congrats to you, Daniel, for being an uncle. And thank you, Rola. Where can people find your work and follow you on the socials? Yeah.

I'm on Instagram at Rola Selbach. And you can also go to my site, RolaSelby.com or The Visitorovie.com, if you want to find out about my next upcoming Palestinian film. Absolutely. And we will have links to that. in the description thank you for coming on and thank you to everyone out there

who is you know listening subscribing email us baddestbar at gmail.com patreon.com slash badasbara for all of the bonus episodes thanks everyone for listening and until next time

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