Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - 165: Pokémon Go Away, with Andrey X

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

Matt and Daniel welcome independent journalist Andrey X direct from the West Bank to talk through the dangers of committing journalism in occupied territory, the newly named Netanyahu Furry Trial, and the Doha, Qatar stop on the Hillary Clinton Young Voter Alienation Tour.Please donate to Pal-Humanity: http://palhumanity.com/Andrey on IG: https://www.instagram.com/the.andrey.x/?hl=enAndrey on X: https://x.com/the_andrey_xAndrey on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AndreyXAlso follow Palestinian activist Alaa Hathleen https://www.instagram.com/alaa_hathleen/And follow Palestinian activist Ayman Ghraieb who was recently kidnapped by the IOF https://www.instagram.com/ayman_ghraieb/See Matt Lieb and Francesca Fiorentini December 13 at the Ice House in Pasadena, CA: https://www.showclix.com/event/new-world-disorder-12-13-25-7-30-pmNew Bad Hasbara Merch: https://estoymerchandise.com/collections/bad-hasbara-podcastSubscribe to the Patreon https://www.patreon.com/badhasbaraWhat’s The Spin playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/50JoIqCvlxL3QSNj2BsdURSkad Skasbarska playlist: http://bit.ly/skadskasbarskaSubscribe/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 polo We invented the terry tomato And weighs USB drives and the iron dough Israeli salad, oozy stents and javas orange rose Micro chips is us iPhone cameras us Taco salads us Pothomas us

Olive Garden us White foster us Zabrahamas Asvars us everybody and welcome to Bad Hasbara. The world's most moral podcast. My name is Matt Lebe. I'll be your world's most moral co-host for this podcast.

I'm Daniel Mante, your other world's most moral co-hosts, what's up? Why are you Jedi-pilled right now? Exactly. These are not the Patreon subscribers you're looking for. Obi-Wan, that is a name I have not heard in a long time. Thank you. You look great. Daniel, by the way. Thank you. God just give a shout out to the Egyptian brand cotton with a

K. They have a store in Lower East Side. Check them out yesterday and, man. Hell yeah. Got some new thread. I've been desperately in need of new new threads. New threads. Cold weather threads. Oh, yeah. You know, I, we don't get enough cold weather in Los Angeles for me to own all of the flannels and hoodies that I own. So, um, it's sad. The point is, is that I wish, I did not live here. They need to have like the opposite of, like, the opposite of a sauna, like, like, like a meat freezer. Like where you go to a spa and instead of a cold plunge, you just sit in like. In a freezer.

In a freezer. I would love that. Yeah. I would love that. In your hoodie. Like in your warm shit. I, you know, the scene at the end of the shining where Jack Nicholson is frozen in the snow. that's what I want for me

I just I just would love to die as a meat popsicle I just I like cold more I like cold who knows what it is is it genetics probably have I got a coast for you

uh huh what oh yeah yeah coast coast coast coast that coast yeah I should I really I really should I really should but hey let's give a shout out to our producer Adam Levin on the ones two's let's tell everyone to subscribe do that now hit the bell on the youtube page if you hit that bell

we're still short of 50,000 oh we're so close though you're so close I'll believe it when I see it it'll never happen so yeah do that and give us five stars and review for all of you uh you know audio file hogs who are out there who are like I don't want to watch it I just want to listen that's fine I encourage that it's uh it's it's it's it's it's it's it's much better to listen than to watch. But if you are an audio file, please note the audio quality on this podcast and the amount of care that goes into it. A lot.

It's above your dirt bag average. Way above the dirt bag average. You should see Adam's notes at the end of every episode. He logs every cough, every sneeze, every hard sigh, which by the way, Daniel, sometimes, sometimes that hard sigh of yours. I'll listen to it and I'll be like, oh, is he okay? you know what are you talking about man uh just listen i do a hard side too i understand ugh um it's all the it's all the yoga classes i took in my youth you know they always want you

to vocalize your out breaths yeah oh is that right you've never done yoga i did it one time to impress my life breathing in and releasing ha ha it's too sexual too sexual for me I don't I Yoga is, I mean, who are we kidding? We're all pretending as if it's about working out. It's about sex. You ever seen a yoga class? Why? Yeah, man.

Why you've been in over like that? You just don't like it because that would be a mat on a mat. Oh, hey, Matt on Mac crime over here. Today's episode is brought to you. Today's episode is brought to you by Pal Humanity. Pal humanity was founded by two Palestinian physicians and is dedicated to serving their community amidst crisis. The charity organizes field medical visits and distributes essential items including diapers, menstrual and hygiene kits, and instant formula. Their work prioritizes prenatal care

children with special needs and medication distribution. If you have any money that you can spare, please consider going to palhumanity.com right now and donating they need the money more than we do so please consider them for your you know especially during the holidays for if you you're already spending money on on bullshit might as well make it for people you don't really care about you don't really care about them who don't need it oh my mom shut up what about other people so I'll go to palhumanity.com and donate now. And if you want a bonus episode of this podcast, you can go to patreon.com slash baddest bar and get your bonus episode.

Man, last week's was a banger with Troy Bond. Oh, such a banger. Two full hours just stuffed full of. It was the fattest blince. Yeah, stuffed. Daniel, what's the spin? Well, on reflection, I probably should, given our guest, I probably should have picked X-themed artists like Sadat X.

Scratch DJs, The Executioners, X-Klan, King's X, XTC, but I didn't. DMX. DMX. The band X, the punk band with Billy Zoom. Very good. But I don't have enough of those. But when I was in recently in Burlington, Vermont, former stomping grounds of one, Bernie Sanders, the world's biggest enemy of the sovereign state of Netanyahu. That's right.

Home to the coat factory. That's right. That's right. Burlington Coat Factory. I picked up this amazing record. by Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin and Alison Krause. Oh, cool. Raising Sand, beautiful, I think Grammy-winning collaboration.

And I thought, what other great collaborative albums do I have? This is just gorgeous. I cannot recommend it enough. Okay. Robert Plant can still sing. I got Otis Redding. I got a lot, but I'll just go through them really quickly. Otis Redding and Carla Thomas, King and Queen.

Roberta Flack and Donnie Hathaway. I don't know either of those. Oh, my God. Donnie Hathaway, they got, you've got, they cover, you've got a friend, they've covered Be A Real Black, or they wrote Be A Real Black for me, you've lost that loving feeling. Incredible, beautiful soul. I love, you've lost that love and feeling, righteous brothers. This is an interesting collaboration, Laura Niro and LaBelle, as in Patty LaBelle and her trio, LaBelle, who were an amazing soul trio in their own right in the soul and disco. And this is a collaborative, like they do old girl

group like stuff, like my boyfriend's back, that kind of stuff. It's credited to Laura Niro and LaBelle, but to me, LaBelle are the real stars of this. But anyway, it's called Gonna Take a Miracle. Some jazz, Stefan Grapelli, the French jazz violinist and the Canadian piano player, Oscar Peterson, live in Sweden, the school concert. Nice. A couple of Danger Mouse collaborations, Black Thought and Danger Mouse, cheat codes from a couple of years ago. Obviously, uh danger doom the mf doom danger mouse adult swim collaboration which is where i first heard about aquitin hunger force which i then got hooked on wow look at that they're all over this album hell yeah uh fucking j z and conier west watch the throne sure really solid album i didn't want to

like it it's really good yeah i wonder what those two guys are up to yeah i think i think Kanye west might be recovering yeah you know we'll see It's hard to come back from Hitler, you know. Well, I mean, listen. Fair enough, fair enough. But we forgave Germany. Surely we can forgive a mentally ill. Yeah.

African-American producer from Detroit, who's one of the greatest hip-hop producers of all time. Hey, he doesn't need my forgiveness, you know? I'm just some guy. You're just some Jew. Great collaboration between a married couple, Gene Gray and Coley Chris with the album, Everything's Fine. Hannibal Burris is on this album

Oh, fun Anyway, terrific album Gene Gray retired from rapping after this very sadly but one of my favorite female emcees of all time And finally, a rapper I heard about On that album because he guessed is Denmark VC And this is his

He's also from Detroit His collaboration with Scud 1 called Cult Classic and that is a whole Wackload of collaborative LPs I'm sorry I had to I had twice that But I narrowed it down to 10 I mean, I'm always impressed by your ever-growing record collection.

And that's what's spinning at the Matei household. Now, before we introduce our guest, you alerted me to something that I had not seen. I watched the first four seconds and immediately turned it off because I was like, I need to watch this fresh. That's a good boy. That's exactly what you should do, because this, you know, what is. You can never recreate the first time seeing something like this. Like we want to be with you.

Most people watching this will be the first time. I've already seen it, but I'll enjoy watching your reaction. This apparently is an A-PAC video. That's what the people who have been posting it are calling it. It doesn't name itself as an A-PAC video. It certainly reads as an A-PAC video. But either way, it's a video for Americans by some organization that wants you to love Israel. Love Israel and appreciate Israel and be grateful for Israel this Thanksgiving, excuse me, this Christmas season, this holiday season.

Well, I'm very excited to celebrate the holidays with Israel. And here it is. It's the start of a new day. And thanks to Israeli innovation, our journey will be made easier. Oh, shit. Is this the thing? I'm sorry, this is the bad as bar a theme song. but like an A-packed version of it. I like it. It is more than that. It's not just such and such us. It's like such and such us, you're welcome.

Yeah, yeah, such and says us and now you, you're welcome. Our connections clear. Hell yeah, cherry tomatoes, baby. Show us that drip irrigation. Cleaner. Yes. I love the first renewing. renewable genocide. Thank you.

Thank you. Safer. When you come across that mountain and the top scenes out of reach morning. Medical. Phismaxe. I'll see you. I'll put you right back on your feet.

And we can take it one step at a time. We can take it one step, one step till we get it right. For morning tonight, whatever the challenge, Israel is America's partner for a better future. Oh, I love Jewish music. God. That earworm little hook, I'm already writing lyrics to it. Doing genocide. Yeah. Doing genocide.

Yeah. I love it. Gather pedophiles. It works with so many things. So many things that Israel's known for. Drip irrigation, sexual assault. Oh man. I love how enduring the theme song of this podcast is. The fact that it is, you know, when all else fails, it is the main point of, you know, sale. It's like the main argument for Israel, for every normie out there. You know, it's like they have their racist arguments. So we're protecting the West from the Islamic horde. And, you know, they have. all of their the woke arguments were in indigenous peoples who are reclaiming our land but for

the normies that's right it's uh you sure like getting around on google map huh oh you sure like eating two little teeny tiny tomato but by the but by the same token like for like for the real normies like you watch television or you're on the internet and you see an ad just for another country, like Finland, like that Monty Python song, that sort of milk toast song about how how nice Finland is. And it's just, and you expect it to be a tourism at. Yeah, visit. Visit, whatever.

Or, or, but this is like, be grateful for us because we're implicated in every aspect of your life. Well, they can't. We're not asking you to come over here and see what it's like. Just so you know, you're welcome. Daniel, you're asking them to stop being Israel. They can't stop being Israeli. Part of being Israeli is being perpetually pissed off that people aren't thanking you.

Like that's just, it's literally, I mean, it's maybe the only, like, actual Ashkenazi thing about Israel is how much of their tone is, what, are your fingers broken? You can't call me? Yeah, it's, it's a flip on that song, The What, by Notorious BiG. in metham it's it's on the one hand fuck the world don't ask me for shit yeah and on the other hand and everything you got you got us to thank for it yeah right yeah I mean

we hate you and you're welcome yes and it would be nice if you gave us a little credit you goyasha fucks you subhumans we love you so much we bestow our light upon you

benighted nations anyway yeah yeah and what And do we get any thanks for it? No. It's so Israeli. No, don't worry. I'll just sit here in the dark of my prison cell at the Hague. Yeah, no, that's fine.

Just as Alon Levy is being hung, you're welcome. We invented a new an app where you can dial us with a press of the button and still you can't call. Oh, it's so great. Shout out to APEC, whoever the fuck made that dog shit. And now I want to introduce our guest, who I'm very excited about, and I want to introduce him by showing you some of his amazing content of the reporters that, you know, I've been following for the last, I mean, for me, for a long time, but for the last two years of the new underground reporters that I've been following. He's one of my favorites. you have probably come across his videos at some point if you are on social media and you are pro-Palestine.

I'm going to play you one of the videos just to give any of our audience who hasn't seen Andre a taste of his content. Here is one that has, it kind of has everything. Here we go. You are going to arrest me? What are you going to arrest me for? What are you going to arrest me for?

Hey, look at me. What do you want to arrest me for? There! Why am I... Stop touch? Don't touch me! Don't touch me! There was just a ramming attack near the tunnel checkpoint in the West Bank near Bethlehem.

And for context, the tunnel checkpoint controls a settler-only road that passes through the West Bank, and it is surrounded by the apartheid wall. Immediately the Israeli army shut down every nearby town and city, as they do in collective punishment of Palestinians. And I happened to be in Bethlehem at the time, so I went to check it out. And as I was returning, I was stopped by the army, who questioned being in the military, who questioned who I really didn't like the fact that someone was reporting on their roadblocks. I'm sorry, I just, I love this still right here of him looking at the ID.

Who I really didn't like the fact that someone was reporting on their roadbox. And after I showed them my press pass, they threatened to arrest me, they banned me from entering and they started pushing me. You understand me? What are you now? Go down. Look, I'm gonna go grab my stuff. I'm not under your jurisdiction.

You're a soldier. civilian. I'm not under military law. I'm going to go and get my stuff. You're not in civilian. Hey, you're from Russia. Uh, so was Jabotinsky, if I'm not

mistaken. Oh, yeah. A lot of your fucking founders were from Russia, you fuck. I love, are we going to play this game? You're not even from here. You really want to play this? You want to play this game, buddy? But I love the way this video ends, because this is, I mean, this is the crux of it right here.

And everything... He showed his Israeli idea. Changed completely. They said, widened to Zales sooner. And immediately let me through, he said, I can go wherever I want. And this is an unbelievably racist country. It is crazy. If you're Jewish-Israeli, you can do pretty much anything.

And if you're an international journalist or worse, Palestinian, you're kind of fucked. So, ladies and gentlemen, everyone, else please welcome first time on this podcast a journalist activist you know him you love him andre x is here hi good to be here great to have you uh we are big fans of your content um likewise oh thank you i mean we just sit at home and talk shit you are actually there in the west bank and yeah, I just want to start off with asking about you, you know, how you ended up there, you know, the... Wasn't aware that X was a Jewish name. I sort of associated with black Muslims. Yeah, yeah. It's all fascinating to me. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? You know, I hate to sound like an I-O-F soldier, but where are you from?

And how did you get there? And how did you get there? Yeah, I got here sort of accidentally. I was here on a holiday visiting my grandparents in Tel Aviv, who were there at the time. And I just came here for two weeks from Russia. And on the day that I was supposed to fly back to Russia, Russia decided to invade Ukraine. And so I didn't take the flight ticket because, there was an immediate wave of repression

against any kind of political dissidentcy in Russia. Lots of opposition people went to jail immediately. And, you know, so if I were to stay in Russia, I would have to shut up, and I find myself unable to shut up. So I just applied for the easiest passports that I could apply for, and that was the Israeli passport. It took me three months later. had Israeli citizenship and because I was like I didn't plan to immigrate I didn't know where

I was coming to. This was a new world. Up until then I had been focused on the Soviet space in all of my work. But since I found myself here, I decided, okay, I need to figure out where I am. So I started researching and going to places and talking to everybody I could talk to and ask all kinds of questions and becoming more and more horrified with each new thing that I found out about what this place is and the principles that it is built upon.

So yeah, at some point I realized that I had become part of an apartheid system and like of a sadly colonial project and that I need to either leave or start doing something about it. This is such a fascinating premise. It's like accidental allie. and it's almost it's almost science fiction you know like you accidentally end up in a place

that everyone knows about and you somehow don't know much about it but you have some relatives there and like you arrive there with no priors and very quickly realize oh fuck I've gone from the frying pan to the fire and but you know understand like no one who moves there comes as a blank slate people go there they're ideologically driven or they're going to do activism. And I love that you arrived with just your head on your shoulders, your moral principles, your political commitments, and your skills as a journalist, and very quickly found yourself, A, a citizen of the place, and B, in short order, doing some of the most courageous and uncompromising work against that system of anyone who's lived there their entire

lives. Yeah, that's amazing. Look, for me, for me, I think I'm in this position where it's much easier for me to do this kind of stuff because for Palestinians, they just face so, the risks are just so much higher. And the repercussions for everything is so much higher. And for Israeli activists, you know, for them going into activists means like cutting off their entire connections, fighting with their family, like destroying their previous life. For me, my previous life was already destroyed, so there was nothing to... I love it. You were a man with nothing to lose. It's incredible.

But you do have family there. You said when you came, you were visiting, what did you say, your grandparents? Yeah, they were here. They actually also were staying here for a while, but they also made accidental Alia and stayed here for a while, and now they left the country as well. What are their thoughts on what you're doing? Have they commented, you know, have they talked to you in person? Are they leaving angry comments on your Instagram?

For them, like they, because they also, this is not their conflicts. For them, Russia-Ukraine is much more present. So I think this doesn't lead to that many conflicts, but generally they do disagree with me on stuff. Yeah. But, I mean, you know, it is nice to, you know, be in this particular position because well like you said you don't have to you know deal with family who's there trying to um tell you that you're a bad person but also what i appreciate about your content is that you are using what i think you know like liberals

out here uh would call your privilege uh in order to do uh to display actual solidarity with Palestinians, in terms of the Palestinian journalists that you have worked with, you've had multiple videos of watching them be harassed, arrested, put in administrative detention while you, by virtue of having an Israeli passport and being an Israeli citizen are immediately put in a clearly higher status than them. I want to play one video of yours that I just thought was such an amazing use of your, you know, of you basically, you use apartheid against itself by the fact that you are an Israeli citizen. You're like, you have more rights than the journalists you're working with who are

Palestinian, so you use it in a way that I think, I would like to hope I would use it if I was, if I was in your situation. So here is a video of you and some Palestinian journalists who were being detained. It's a video. Welcome. Wanted me to send you?

Do you want me to send you? Give me a number. We were in the press tour in the Jordan Valley and we were detained by the Israeli army. There were a bunch of journalists there and as you can notice, I am the only one filming because I am the only one who has an Israeli passport, so I am the only one who is allowed to film. Clearly.

There is no west that I stopped. Yeah, there are terrorists up there. Up there is a settlement called Masquod. It hosts a lot of terrorists. They committed a lot of terror attacks. They broke a woman's hand here. They burned down a house. Yeah, it's funny to you?

Funny. Why is it funny? You're so stupid, that's what funny. Who are you? For you? What IDF means? Never heard of it. I heard of I-O-F.

I heard of I.O.F. That one, that's the one that I have heard of. IDF, I don't know. What is the I-O-A? Israeli occupation forces. I stand for Israel. Just to their face. This is, for me, it is so cathartic to watch this.

To watch you explain to someone, oh, you don't know what the I-O-F is. We all been talking... Now he knows. Yeah, now he knows. And he's about to tell you, he's about to do Sesame Street for you. I stands for Israel. Can we play the rest of that?

Oh, yeah. I is for Israel. That's good enough for me. Okay, hold on. Here is the rest of that. It stands for Israel. That's good enough for me. Bad start.

Bats. Thank you. He said bad start. On what grounds are you arresting them? So, I mean, truly, like... On the grounds of Yudda and Shemran. Yeah, on the grounds of Judean and Shemaria. Yeah, so when I watch something like that, you know,

I'm seeing something that you don't, I think, often see with a lot of on the ground reporting, which is being like actively hostels the wrong word but it's like you're being contentious with these soldiers what have been the consequences for doing this kind of work

like you know when I see these videos you know I get nervous for you because I'm like this seems dangerous had there been any you know, violence that you have experienced because of this? Look, the way that that video ends is that two of my colleagues

get their, get blindfolded, get their hands tied up, get put into a military car and driven away to a military base. While I'm just left standing there because there is nothing, like by Israeli law, there is nothing that they can do to me. Because I'm not under, like as I said in the first video, I am not under military law. I am a civilian because I hold an Israeli citizenship, while everybody else there is under military law, and the army can do whatever they want with them at any point. So for me, like, obviously there are consequences, and I have been

attacked many times. The worst one was when I was hit on the heads with a stick by a settler who pierced my eardrum, and I couldn't hear for a couple of months on one ear. I too got my ear pierced in Jerusalem. It's a different thing, Daniel. That was uproves. Daniel, different thing. I was 17. And it was by a settler, I'm sure.

By definition. I mean, yeah, so, I mean, that sounds crazy. But it happens. I have 14 court cases against me, but it's... 14? Yeah. Damn, I love the rap sheet. Like, it's civilian court.

It's, like, as I said in the first video, when you're Jewish, Israeli, you can do whatever you want. Like, this country is remarkably free if you are a Jewish and Israeli. Like, it's freer than some, like, liberal representative democracies. But if you're Palestinian, it's a horrifying fascist dictatorship. And so I get to be, you know, like, more engaged because, like, I won't suffer the consequences nearly as much. And right now, the person with whom I filmed that video, just three weeks ago, he was kidnapped by the army. He's now held an administrative detention with no charge. there will be a hearing in a week that's uh they already sentenced him for six months with uh with

with like with no trial with like a military court that is held inside the uh inside the prison cell and uh what was that arch with these are the consequences for the Palestinians and that's what happens with you present this is what happens with me present this is what happens when somebody's filming yes um he is uh held on suspicion of how did they phrase it oh threatening regional security that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's the that's the suspicion it's not a charge stabilizing the middle east yeah yeah yeah and you know for what for doing the exact same thing that I'm doing because he's a he's a reporter he goes around the Jordan Valley he makes videos like

it's he does the exact same thing as me and now he is held in a concentration camp by the Israeli military. But Israeli Jewish citizens are famously a stabilizing influence on the regional security as opposed to the existence of Palestinians who are trying to tell their own stories. Yeah, Middle East never been more stable. Naturally. Yeah, I mean, it's incredible. We're working on it.

What's that? Oh, you're working on it. We're working on it, too. It's incredible to watch your content. And, you know, I've seen one of the abilities that you have, I mean, rights that you have as an Israeli citizen is you're also able to leave and come back at your leisure. You know, I think I saw you in a video view when you went to Oslo. and, you know, it's one of those things that, you know, I realized in watching this was that you have, you know, the ability like all the Israelis do to, at some point, just go.

And you, I don't know, for me, it struck me as interesting because you see how much the mobility of Palestinians are, you know, deliberately hindered by the, you know, Israeli regime. And, you know, in the video where you were, you know, that we showed at the beginning, the way it's cut is you're just showing the apartheid, you know, right in everyone's face. I don't think people have seen Israel in this type of way before, at least not, you know, large masses of people. seeing, you know, you open that video with talking about a ramming attack that had happened at a checkpoint. You then go into what exactly that checkpoint is and how it is specifically an apartheid road in which you can see the wall right there in the background.

And in the foreground, you can see a road very specifically for Israelis and only for Israelis. And yeah, you know, I look at that and I see. I see that how, if you're someone who lives in the West Bank, if you're someone who is a Palestinian, this is the reality that they're living with. And I just don't think a lot of people get that, even from documentaries that are about this kind of stuff. It's like, you know, so I appreciate what you do.

Yeah, with freedom of movement, that's definitely, it's one of the biggest differences. And let's alone moving, you know, going out of the country, within the, within Palestine, people are not allowed to move. Ayman, he's now held in 48 across the green line. And he's held, and he's there for the first time, the first, for the second time. The first time he was also under arrest. The only time in his life, he told me that he has seen the sea was while he was being

transferred on a prison bus, one prison to another, a few years ago. And he's, like, it's a half an hour. drive from here, the sea, and he has never seen it. And this is the reality for the Palestinians here. I have a two-part question for you, Andre. Number one, I'm really struck by your choice to only engage with them in English, at least in the videos that we've seen. And they're sort of bemused enthusiasm at, okay, I'll play with you in English. I'll show how cosmopolitan I am. And I'll answer, you know. And they try to talk to you in Hebrew. And you're like, nope, no, this is. for an international audience. We're going to do it in English. We're going to do it my way.

And they follow your lead. Where did that instinct come from? And just can you tell us anything about the sort of the dynamic of that in terms of watching them become aware that, in fact, they are performing for an international audience. And it's almost playful, but you always get the last laugh. It's always at their expense. So I'm interested about that approach. And secondly, and you can take these in either order, do you try to engage with Israelis back in 48 Israel to be like, yo, like, I'm new here and I'm doing more than you.

Why don't you come with me? Like other, like Israeli journalists, press people, people who think of themselves as liberal or pro-peace or whatever, what is your, how are you trying to communicate, if at all, the work you're doing to people who could be joining you and making a difference? So in terms of English, I mean, I'm more comfortable in English than I am in Hebrew.

So when they are happy to talk to me in English, I prefer that. Sometimes they don't speak English and then I switch to Hebrew. But yeah, oftentimes they are, you know, they speak very good English and they're happy to engage. And some of the time they want to show themselves off and they want to play to an international audience and they, like, make little comments. Sometimes they, like, put masks on and hide themselves because they're afraid of repercussions. They're afraid that they won't be able to leave the country.

And in terms of the Israeli audience, the stuff that I make is not for an Israeli audience. If you want to talk to an Israeli audience, it needs to be in a completely different style and in a completely different language, genre, everything. Because, you know, and it's, like, I have a lot of respect for people who are doing it because it's, you know, it takes a lot. You need to, like, come up to them and say, you know, I understand you have legitimate security

concerns. You're afraid that this five-year-old girl will grow up to be a terrorist, but maybe killing her is not the solution. And it's like, because this is the only one that you can actually, like, convince somebody, but I just have zero patience for that. Maybe it won't go well for your son's mental health to do that when he's 18. Yeah. I like it I respect the fact that you have no interest in that kind of communication

because just hearing you say it out loud the amount of having to put your hand on someone's shoulder and just be like hey buddy I know you're afraid and I understand that you can like see a lot of death of Palestinians and kind of put that away And, like, who wants to have that intro before a plea for Palestinian human rights? It is, it's, I appreciate it. I appreciate it. You're like, no, this is not about that. This is not about reaching an Israeli audience.

This is about reaching an international audience. And I appreciate the opposite. I appreciate the people who do go through that and who are happy to, like, who can mentally handle that kind of conversation. I cannot. So I feel like I have a different. sort of mission. And I'm trying to, yeah, reach a foreign audience to get pressure on all of this. And you can see, you know, that you playing that role, the other role, wouldn't work. Because just in the conversations you're having with these IOS soldiers, you are immediately being put in a box of being

an outsider just via the fact that you're Russian, you know, via the fact that you are not, quote, Israeli to them, even when they see your passport, even when they see that you're an Israeli citizen, they're going to say, ah, you're not really Israeli, you know, you just, because any Russian Israeli they've ever met is a complete right winger. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So, like, they can, they, so you being the person to try to appeal to like, you know, the general Israeli audience, they'd write you off anyways. So I kind of, you know, yeah. But let me ask you something about that because one of the things I imagine, and I don't want to, if you don't want to reveal this or speak to this, that's totally fine. The people I've spoken to in organizations

like standing together, one of the reasons they do it, both Israeli and Palestinian citizens of Israel, is because they're planning to live there for a long time. It's their society for better or worse. And they're trying to improve that society, humanize it even by 1%. And, you know, I spoke to a Palestinian organizer who goes and talks to right-wing, Israelis around class issues. Why? Because she, you know, like it or not, ideologically pure or not, is that's the lived reality of her life, right? For you being new there and having arrived there accidentally, as opposed to ideologically or via an accident of birth, is there more of a sense that you're just dropping in and you could take it or leave it? Or like, do you have a sense

of, no, my calling is to be here and doing this work, or is it sort of neither of those? Of course it's easier for me than for people who grow up here. Of course it's easier because, as I said, I don't have to burn down the bridges behind me because I don't have these bridges. And, yeah, it's definitely something that makes it easier for me. and also, like, I try to not go to 48, all that much. I stay in the West Bank, the only Israelis. I talk to our activists, amazing, wonderful people

who are also working in the West Bank and in many different organizations. Yeah, the rest is just settlers and soldiers that I run into, and that's a whole different story. Yeah, well, I love it. I think it actually shows my bias because for some reason, I assume that you're based in 48, even though you spend a lot of time

and, you know, it's like somehow in my mind I can barely imagine a Jewish citizen of Israel choosing to base them. Of course, Amirahas has done it. Right. There is precedent. Right, but your immediate assumption was that, oh, you go back to Burshev or Tel Aviv

or West Jerusalem or something at least. No, I'm fulfilling the mission of colonizing Yudavishamvran. Right. You're just doing it. You're doing it in your own way. Yeah. Well, it is really great. I mean, you know, if people aren't following you, they should.

But we want to talk a little bit about what's going on also in the United States and our relationship with the wonderful best friend, wife, even state of Israel. We had a video that we talked about last week with this person. I'm not sure if you're familiar with her. Hillary Clinton, have you heard of her? I heard something. Yeah, so Hillary Clinton is a famous... She's our actual president.

She's our actual president. Since 2016. That's right. I've been saying, not my president. I still with her through thick and thin. I scream but her emails when I orgasm. You know, I realize we need to start making bumper stickers that say still with her. and it's just in the shape of Israel.

Because that's the type of dead ender that exists, I feel like, now in the Israel space as well. But Hillary recently, you know, was interviewed for the magazine or newspaper Israel Haim, which great newspaper. If you have a chance, Andre, to read. Yeah, they writes about me a couple of times. Oh, yeah. And I'm sure glowing reviews.

Glowing reviews. And she went on this panel to talk about how she was really just stunned and saddened by the fact that kids these days are getting all of their news from TikTok. You know, they're not getting it from the usual, you know, New York Times, you know, Israel High Home. They're getting it from people like you, you know, Andre X, who's out here smearing Israel. She got a lot of pushback for that. And she went back on the, you know, I guess her job is to speak to large groups of people.

Yeah, I highly paid conference gigs. Yes, and embarrass herself. Daniel, your brother Aaron caught up with her. Was this in Doha? It's in Doha, yeah. Aaron's there for the, for the Doha conference. And it's not entirely filled with ghoulish assholes. No, yeah.

He watched a Palestine soccer game, a football game with French. Galvonez, who also spoke there. Oh, yeah. So, you know, they, it's a big tent. It's a big tent over in Doha. And I just love your brother going up to her. Yeah, this is his, this is his biggest sort of, you know, embarrassing a public figure since that,

was it Chris Coons on the, on the Amtrak train? Yes, yes. So here is Aaron Matte trying to speak to Hillary Clinton. Hi, Secretary Clinton. I can ask a question I'm a journalist with the Greyhound Can I ask you? You said at the Israel Heung Summit

that young people are brainwashed because of social media. What about young people who just don't want to see U.S. made bombs kill Palestinians? Any message for them? No, okay. No message for them, apparently.

Too bad. She looks like she's walking in clown shoes. She looks like Pennywise. So, she did have something to say to the people to address those things that Aaron was talking to her about. And I'm going to play a little bit of that video because it's just the way in which this person seems to live to double down is, I mean, it's truly commendable in a way. Every time you see her speak, it just becomes more and more clear why she lost. She's the most unlikable politician in U.S. history as far as I can, that's my estimation.

Yeah. Andre, did you vote for her in 2016? I voted for every candidate. As always, I've rights. Right on everybody. That was your job as a Russian. Look, exactly. As a Russian, you were pulling the strings of our democracy. That's right.

That's right. I heard you were doing that. Okay, here is Hillary Clinton speaking at the law. And so I've had many, many conversations with very smart young people. In talking with them about their views, they were certainly entitled to those views based on whatever information they had. But they did not always know why they were saying what they said. You know, when they say from the river to the sea and you say what river and what sea and they

don't know, which have personally happened in conversations that I've had. I can't get. I'm sorry. Which have definitely happened. I'm sorry. First and foremost, zero percent chance. Zero percent chance that she has been in a conversation with multiple students individually where she started quizzing them on do you know what river and what sea.

She makes this claim based on the fact that she teaches a class at Columbia in which she, I assume, talks to a few hundred. people all at once. The idea that she's going to have office hours, where she's a, yeah, come to my office and we'll discuss Israel, Palestine. Zero percent chance. It is 100 percent her getting that from watching a social media video in which a Hezbarist did that at an encampment.

I guarantee that. So I just had to point that out. There is beauty in her raging about this and the Israeli state raging about this because this just demonstrates the impending democratization of media, the ongoing democratization of media, which has its horrible sides, but it also has the wonderful side about the fact that they can do nothing about this. The New York Times and the Wall Street journals of our world cannot deal. They can write as many articles as they want. They can throw as much money as they want on this, but now anybody can pick up a camera and film what's happening. It's uploaded.

Yeah, it is truly like, you know, I see it as for the tech companies, an unfortunate side effect of their technology, which is that they have not yet been able to stop people completely from posting the things that are, they are seeing that are happening to them, that they are taping with their own phone. And it is, the silver lining in all this is watching

this struggle against this. What she is lamenting here is not being able to have the narrative control of, I mean, not just what's going on in the Middle East, but her own Clinton legacy. Like, you know, she was living in a time,

at one point in which it was like, you know, Hillary Clinton was either a good Secretary of Defense if you were reading, you know, the New York Times or if you were reading any like liberal rag or a bad Secretary of Defense if you were reading the Wall Street Journal or whatever conservative rag. Now she is faced with what the rest of us think about Hillary Clinton. And she's realizing, oh, the only allies I ever actually had are people who were essentially paid by the party that I am the head of to be nice to me. It's true.

She's only relevant to people who despise her. Yes, yes. That's the only relevance she has now is super villain, super predator. Yeah, she's become the very thing that she weren't against. That's exactly right. The super predator. And wasn't she asked, wasn't the prompt for that question, the interviewer patiently trying to explain,

to her why people took offense to her comments at the Israelai-om conference? Yes. And so there's just, you see, not a shred of humility or self-awareness. I have some more of that from that point. Great. Grapple with history, but what I can speak to is they're grappling with the here and now.

And I think there's a genuine anger in the United States and around the world that some of that anger is deflected. But, Ravi, I'm angry about all of the human rights abuse. Deflector shields up. All of the excessive use of force.

I'm angry about, you know, what happened on October 7th in Israel and what happened in Gaza. I'm angry about what Russia is doing in Ukraine. What happened in Gaza, Howard? I'm angry about the Eastern Congo. I mean, of course, the suffering in Gaza is horrific. I love it. Of course it is. It's supposed to be.

I like it like that That's what the money is for That's what the money is for You think we're investing In some bargain basement Food stamp suffering You think we're gonna go For Kirkland brand suffering?

No, this is top shelf shit We're spending billions For name brand suffering Jules I know my suffering is top notch You know why? Because I pay for the good shit Okay

We buy the good shit Okay I don't need you to fucking tell me that the suffering I inflict is good. I know it fucking is. It's pulp fiction. It's pulp fiction. I know it.

I think this is the only thing, the only good thing that Donald Trump did is that his coming to power destroyed this genre of saying nothing while trying to appeal to everybody. Of course I care about the suffering of the Congo. So why? What are he doing about it?

And it's like it's so, all of this nonsense that actually represents and communicates nothing. thing. Yes. Well, I wish it had destroyed it. It's the bygone era. I wish it had destroyed it, but it didn't destroy it quite.

Hasn't it? Well, I think now Biden's term has completely destroyed it. You know what I'm saying? It had a comeback with Corinjean Jean-Pierre and Anthony Blinken and all this people. Like it, like in the horror movie, it reached up out of the bathtub and whatever, had a last gasp. And now I think it's dead. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, that I do. Actually, I agree with that as well. is like this has been the one thing that I think we can take as a silver lining is the fact that Hillary Clinton and just this type of politics has lost all credibility. It is completely not respected. And it only gets more and more disrespected as more and more people get to see people like Hillary Clinton or her husband, Bill. talking about Judea and Samaria in front of a group of voters in Dearborn, Michigan. Like, the fact that these people are so far out of touch and saying absolutely nothing,

people can't help but look at that and, you know, put it against the stuff that they are seeing with their own eyes on social media, like, you know, your content or the content of anybody in Gaza who is taping just the absolute like disgusting, you know, the genocide, you know, they're taping it and they're showing it to everyone and how are you going to look at either of these politicians and take them seriously? And I think she's in this spot where even her, like even the supporters of the ideology, I have no idea where Dearborn Michigan is, but like I doubt that even the people who are supportive of Israel find this compelling. I feel like this is so wooden and unrepresentative of anything that it's like it's obsolete it's useless it's uh yeah and at best it's an anesthetic

for the for the supporters of israel like they would show up dead dead eyed and dead face to this and be like it's like an ivy drip like just give me something just give me and it doesn't hit the way it used to but it might get them through the next few weeks to hear hillary drawn on this deerborn michigan by the way has a massive arab and palestinian population right so so so it was even going in there the absolute level of contempt and condescension that these two ghouls, zombies, desiccated monsters unleashed on people during the last election cycle

trying to stump for an even more desiccated movie monster in Biden was something to behold. I love the way the guy's question ends with he's trying to plead with her better nature to be like Hillary, can't you understand that there's anger? And a lot of young people feel like their anger is being deflected. And she's like, well, let me just deflect that. Yeah.

Well, everyone's anger is being deflected. I'm angry about a lot of things. Yeah. Just to finish off what you say. Everywhere is horrific. So let's look at what we can do to try to resolve, you know, what is being done to people in so many different settings right now. And I think that the emphasis on one terrible conflict, sort of,

doesn't do justice to the challenges get justice's name out your fucking mouth I it is just don't you fucking say that word yeah she you know like sorry for yelling at him

she literally said nothing there and it's an impressive amount of nothing for such a hearty word salad and I I want to iceberg lettuce in that fucking word salad yeah why Matt's don't you think that we should think about how we can do things in order to resolve the things that are happening

to people in different situations. Do you disagree? I've never been against doing things to resolve the crises that are happening to everybody everywhere all at once. Especially when it's doing things to resolve the crises that we are causing. Yeah, well, I think that if you're thinking about the crises we are causing. No, we should. Isn't it fair to think about the crises that everyone is causing everywhere?

That's right. And then we can get a full understanding. Yeah, it's a kind of obscene self-obsession to only focus on the murders I'm doing. That's right. It's a kind of self-absorption. Yes, it's narcissistic. It really is. Yeah.

It's malignant toxic narcissistic. Don't you guys ever think of somebody other than myself? So, you know, speaking of her thinking about herself, one of the things, One of the things that she talked about in the previous video was essentially about... Which we played on the Troy Bond episode this past weekend. Yes. What you can get if you're a Patreon member? Look at that.

You know, look at you selling things. How to tell them where to find it, man? Patreon.com, they're by those bar. In that video, she is, you know, lauding the legacy. She says, the kids these days don't know the legacy of the peace deals that were thrown away by the Palestinians, the peace deals that, you know, her husband, President Bill Clinton himself worked so hard to do. These, these zoomers have, unfortunately, never studied the opportunities that Palestinians never miss to miss opportunities. Exactly. And she, she mentions these.

None of them have, have Abba-Aben vibrators. That's right. And huggy pillows. Yeah. But yeah, so she talks about that in that video, and I wanted to play from this conference in Doha. She had, or not she, the conference also had this guy Robert Ballion, who was a special assistant to Bill Clinton, went on to serve in the Obama administration as a lead negotiator on the Iran nuclear deal, which is the good foreign policy that came out of the Obama. Obama administration, and he went on to talk about these Camp David negotiations and kind of compared them to the previous negotiations that, what's his name, Jimmy Carter had done. Not even, skipping over Oslo, of course, because.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Specifically, camp. The less said about Oslo, the better. Yes, but Camp David 1 versus Camp David 2, which is important in the context of what exactly Hillary is trying to claim. And I don't know, I don't think we know whether or not he was specifically refuting Hillary or if someone asked him about her. I don't think so. No, he wasn't. I think he just happened to be on the same stage at a different time. And he happened to talk about one of her talking points

and completely contradicts it. Yes. And I have a video of that. Here it is. Camp David 1 to Camp David 2. So President Carter at Camp David 1 the Americans came with a paper to negotiate between the Israelis and the Egyptians and went back and forth but the Americans kept the pen. Camp David, too, was different. What happened there basically was after a first futile effort to put a paper on the table, which was rejected by Prime Minister Barack, I think at that point it became a free-for-all where the Americans ended up taking Israeli ideas, presenting them to the Palestinians, the Palestinians

rejected them, they went back to the Israelis, they asked for more ideas, and the U.S. became reduced almost to the role of messenger, which is why we say it wasn't really a negotiation. It was a negotiation within the Israeli team. It was a negotiation within the American team, but it wasn't a negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians. It was presentation of constantly changing proposals based on Israel's estimate of what the Palestinians couldn't say no to, an estimate that proved wrong time and time again. I love the image of America just handing Israel their pen

and never asking for it back or Israel never giving it back. It's like that kid's in the hulskit, my pen! I mean, it's interesting, you know, to see that perspective, especially given the way in which the Clintons talk about their legacy of almost bringing peace to the Middle East if it weren't for them damn Palestinians. The most generous offer in history.

Yes. We're so generous to them, and they rejected our peace proposals every time. Andre, can you do a good Israeli accent? And how does mine sound? Your sounds good. I wouldn't dare. I wouldn't dare. Fair enough.

I wouldn't dare to compete, Matt. Yeah. How dare you? Yeah, I just love that. I love that, you know, this flies directly in the face of a ghoul like Hillary Clinton trying to, you know, trying to say, hey, the kids these days, they don't know about the official narrative of the Camp David peace process. On the same stage at the same event. Which is one of these fascinatingly recurring historical motifs where election propaganda makes its way through history to the point where, like, it doesn't matter anymore. Because this myth that the Palestinians torpedoed the negotiations, it was created by Ehud Barak in order to get re-elected.

And he asked Clinton to say that it was the Palestinians who torpedoed it. And then he lost the election anyway. But the myth stuck. And like now we're living with this myth that the Palestinians torpedoed the negotiation. Yeah. That's so interesting. It is. It is.

And, you know, people forget that. I mean, because people- Russia-Gate would be another example in a way, you know. Sure. It was used post-election by the Democrats to explain why they lost. And then it became an entire way of thinking and looking at the world on the part of Democrats who now will use that to explain all kinds of things, including why kids are seeing videos of Gaza.

Right. Yeah. And, you know, what's interesting is like, because the Clintons did get something out of Ehud Barack's little, you know, narrative spin. And, uh, it's, it's just so funny because, like, you, you know, Ehud Barak, you know, now can just lick his wounds with that, although, you know, now he's, now, who knows what else he's going to be licking in prison. Uh, is he going to prison?

Probably, right? Probably not. Um, because of the Epstein stuff, you know, um, but, uh, yeah, no, but, you know, Hillary and, bill are they get to live on that being the official narrative they get to just be like you don't understand how hard we tried to to do peace um and uh when they are them they are the mad the mad rappers of american politics sure sure we got john blaze shit we got john blaze shit they aren't all that anyway yeah no i get it uh but now you guys need to get something else and it's ads so everyone please stick around listen to these ads again if it's for ice sorry we are trying to get

rid of these fucking ice ads but stick around don't join ice and we'll be right back and we're back this bad as barra the world's most moral podcast you know ever since we played that video of andre in bethlehem i've been thinking once pluribus runs its course, which so far I'm not quite sold on, but I'm enjoying it, but I'm not loving it. I have an idea for Vince Gilligan's next show. I think he needs to get back to the basics, get back to what he's really good at, and do a show called Methlehem, which is about a humble Palestinian chemistry teacher. Yes. Who, in order to feed his family, needs to start cooking crystal for Israeli soldiers at checkpoints who are, you know,

fatigued and need to stay up all night, torture or detainees. So it's a big moral conundrum for him, but he really gets into it. And by the end of the show, he's the Israeli minister of security. I am the one who roof knocks. I am the one who knock buzz. Fuck, that's better. That's a better pun. Very good.

Very good. Thank you. You helped me get there. Yeah, listen, it's a collaborative effort. Andre, we're going to move on to talk about this next subject matter. Have you heard of a guy named Benjamin Netanyahu? No, who's that? We're really busting out the obscure characters in this episode.

Yeah, this is a very obscure guy. So he is this dude from Philadelphia, born and raised, on a playground where he spent most of his days. That is a fresh Prince of Bel Air reference. Thank you very much. um he is the embattled prime minister of the fake state of israel and um he put out a video recently in english which is that's how you know it's going to be exciting stuff uh in which he is directly addressing his real constituency uh yeah yes the israel constituency which is the united States of America.

And he's directly addressing his trial. Which we haven't talked about much on the podcast, mainly because who gives a fuck. Like it's been used as so much of a decoy. And it's a way that liberal Zionists convince themselves that they're anti-Natineahu because they went to some corruption protests and whatever. And it's so, you know. It reminds me of like during the war. in Iraq, like the Santa Cruz City Council officially called for the impeachment of the

president. And I was just like, listen, I get we're all having fun here, but what is the city council of Santa Cruz, California going to do to get the ball rolling on the impeachment? Worse than that, in the first Trump administration, Democrats turned out in massive numbers to, like the biggest anti-Trump protest was a march against the firing of Jeff Sessions. as attorney general. Oh, my God, I forgot about that. Yeah. So, yeah, we haven't covered this much.

Andre, what do you know about this corruption trial? What's the word on the street in the West Bank? Look, there is this impression that is sometimes given that, oh, Netanyahu is waging everything that is waging in bombing different countries and continuing the genocide in Gaza in order to, save his ass, which is not true because, you know, it's done with the support of the entire Israeli apparatus who are not on trial for corruption and who are happily supporting the genocide and supporting death and cleansing of the West Bank. But yeah, this is a case that has

been drawn, that has been dragging on for many years now. And, you know, he's, he is using every opportunity possible in order to cancel court sessions in order to slow it down even more. What is your impression of Israeli society in terms of their actual fatigue of Netanyahu? I thought you were asking for his impression. Yeah. Like a comics, you know, can you impersonate Israeli society? Can you do? Yeah, yeah.

Here's my impression. I don't like him on the other hand. dead Palestinian baby I love it okay I'll vote again yes a little bit of column A a little bit of column B I guess area A and area B

no what is it do you the way that this trial and this storyline has played in the United States very specifically in liberal Zionist circles is that

like you said oh you know everything that he is doing is in in support of like trying to distract people from his claims, from his multiple corruption charges. Everything he's doing is to stay in power that, you know, Israeli society is not behind this, you know, genocide. Of course,

they don't call it a genocide. In Israel, are, is he as unpopular as he is with liberal Zionists in the United States? Like, I got into this whole case. started learning more about it from the film called The Beebe Files that was released. It's like two or even three hours long. It's very long and it's very boring. Don't watch it unless you're like really into Israeli politics. And I, so like there I actually had it explain to me what the trial is. And it's this liberal Zionist movie, which explains like how horrible Netanyahu is.

And I remember that after watching my movie, like I was standing there and thinking, did this movie just make me more pro-Bee-be-b-be? And here we come to what I said is going to be the hottest take you ever heard than this. Like, when I actually learned what he's on trial for, like all the details of it, his wife

was taking, like, is getting expensive champagne? He's like helping his friend. Like, it's the shit that like every other world leader does. This is like every liberal Zionist is doing the same shit. And his counter-argument to that is that it's a coup attempt. And out of that movie, I came out thinking, oh, like, yeah, it is a co-oatempt.

It is absolutely a co-o attempt. It is the liberal Zionist Israeli establishment trying to, like, do a legislative coup against Netanyahu. Like, I'm not saying it's bad. Like, not all coups are bad, but, like, we have to phase the music. It is a coup attempt. It's just that, like, if you don't need to do it with guns, you can do it through court. That's fine.

Okay, that's fine. But there's something you don't know. That's not all he's accused. of and it actually has to do BB's corruption charge has very much to do with another BB as we're going to see

yes that's right here it is I want to share something with you I'm accused of receiving favorable press coverage from a second rate internet site two years ago the judges called them

that was unnecessary yeah second rate not even first rate like they gave you favorable press coverage and you're like it's not even a good website. Fuck them. Prosecution in and they say drop the bribery

charts, it doesn't hold. Just let's end this thing. Prosecution refused. Yeah, it's a political trial. So what's left? Well, they said this when they cross-examined me. They said Prime Minister, 29 years ago, your son

received a Bugs Bunny doll. From now on this trial will be known as the Bugs Bunny trial. And you also received cigars from a friend. That's what I'm being charged with. Six years, six years of bogus investigations on these idiotic charges. I got to sit down when I tell you this. Okay.

Look, I agree with him. Idiotic charges. This guy is committed to the whole host of our time. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I didn't know about the Bugs Bunny thing. You didn't? No, he said he did. Yeah, look, maybe.

And that doesn't change your mind. That's fucking. That's a smoke. weapon. It's worse than the genocide. Well, actually, here's what Bugs Bunny had to say about this. And what you up, Dr. Mangala. Hey, Dr. Mangala, beautiful.

The time that it took to make that. Oh, you have no idea. Oh, you don't know. It's not even that good, but that's one of those, the time it took for me to make that is a force multiplier of how funny it is. It makes it funnier when you know how much equipment he had to buy in order to make that. I had to, like, animate the, you know, Netanyahu's head on top of Elmer Fudd's. So, Andre, I have not seen the BB files, but I tend to agree with you in spirit about this without actually knowing the details behind this, you know, behind what he's charged with.

in spirit i've always sought to myself like whatever he seems to have been accused of and charged of from the like just cursory reading i've done uh it always seemed to me to be like yeah you could um probably apply this standard to any israeli politician in the west and get them uh you know technically caught doing something illegal And I've always found it so funny how the Israeli, like, media in general, and liberal Zionists in general, bring up these charges. It just, you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of when, I mean, in this Trump term and in the first Trump term, every other week he was just doing crimes out loud. And people would be like, that's it.

We got him. We got him doing this crime. And people didn't see the forest, you know, through the trees where they, they couldn't, they couldn't understand that like, all he does is crimes. You are, you are, you are like picking out ones. Everyone thinks that they're going to Al Capone someone. That's what it feels like. Like Al Capone, notorious Chicago gangster finally was put in prison due to tax evasion. And it's always been this like thing.

Like, wow, they didn't get for the murder. They didn't get them for all the, you know, the bootlegging, all that stuff. They got them for the tax evasion. It is so funny watching the extreme version of that where this guy is literally doing a genocide in front of everyone's fucking face. And the society in Israel is so in denial about the complicity in this crime that they're like, no, this guy's, you know, this guy is also taking Bugs Bunny dolls. The underlying principle, of course, is don't indict the tyrant for what his predecessors have done. I mean, like don't. Like, don't.

indict Trump for war mongering, for extraditional assassinations, you know, do indict him for the things that seem to make him different that we can distance ourselves from. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. But Bugs Bunny, man, that's, I mean, that's wascally. That's some wascally, wascally, wascally, uh, shabotry. Wabotry, you know, forget the war quimes. Ain't I a stinker? He says as we hang him in the hague. Do you... I think I took the wrong turn on the way to Ashkelon.

That's very good. Ashkelani. Andre, do you get a general sense from Palestinians when it comes to this kind of local politics? how much are, you know, Palestinians in the West Bank keeping up with this kind of shit? Or is it like the way in the United States we look at it is like, this feels like local news. Like it doesn't translate to most Americans. Is that the same in the West Bank? Or are people paying closer attention to what's going on in the Israeli courts?

Oh, people are paying attention. People are paying attention to Israeli politics. they know the parties, they know the dynamics, they make their own predictions, because whatever happens on that side of the green line has direct bearing on what is happening here. So, of course, now people are very much aware of what is going on in the Israeli courts and the Knesset and everything. Do they see any, is there any, like, hope, like, for him to actually be convicted of something, or do they look at that and they go like they're going to just replace them with the liberal Zionist who's going to continue this ethnic cleansing or are they more practical than that or more hopeful than that?

What is your general feeling about it? I especially recently, I've had this conversation several times with friends and I heard several times that he's a cat with nine lives. He's just going to win the next election. He's not going to be convicted for anything. and this is just going to go on. And this is the vibe that you have in the West Bank a lot of the time. Wow. Yeah.

I mean, I tend to agree with that as well. It just seems like, yeah, the entire, you know, Israeli court system to me does seem like mostly theater, especially when they, you know, the crimes are just so out in the open that it's like, why have courts if you're doing genocide? You know, at this point, it's, it all seems like theater to me. It's almost like the point of civilian court is to spit in the face of the occupied people who are dealing with military court. That's what it feels like, you know, as an outsider watching it. Speaking of which, in terms of, you know, what the kind of system that they have in the West Bank versus the kind of system they have in Israel,

I want to talk, our last thing is going to be a more hopeful ending on this episode. Where I want to talk. Yeah, I know. Isn't that crazy? I want to talk about Bethlehem for a second. And, you know, we're getting close to the holidays. And there was a prolific hasbarist. His name is Ayal Yaobie.

And he had posted a tweet in which he talked about. you know, Christmas in Israel. This is the only country in the Middle East that would allow this to happen. And I want to play that tweet for a second just so you guys can see it. This was Ayal's tweet. And he's showing this Christmas tree lighting ceremony here. And is this Christmas in Israel the only country in the Middle East that you will see this? And of course, you know, in the background, you see a,

big Christmas tree, you see some lights, you see, you know... And you hear singing in Arabic. And you hear singing in Arabic. And people very quickly pointed out that, first of all, they showed Christmas tree lighting ceremonies in other countries like Lebanon, like Jordan, like his claim that this would only happen in Israel is obviously absurd. But the most absurd part was that he was saying it was in Israel. So this was in Bethlehem, which is in the West.

Bank, which is not Israel by any sense of the word Israel. And someone should ask him why this was the first time in three years that that Christmas tree had been lit in Bethlehem. Yes. And I saw that you actually went to this ceremony. Is that right, Andre? Yeah, I was there standing next to the tree. And it was funny to see Ayalist tweet after that.

Yeah. And I have a video of it, which I think is the video that you put out. And I wanted to play it because you also got footage of the mayor of Bethlehem giving a speech before the lighting. And I thought it really contrasts with, number one, AAL's like ridiculous, fake news that he's doing. But also rather than it being this like, you know, Hasbara, you know, pro-Israel thing. It ends up kind of being, this video that you made, Andre, ends up kind of being, it's a somber yet hopeful vision that I saw.

You know, maybe this is the Christmas inside of me where I just saw this video as just kind of beautiful and saw this Christmas tree lighting celebration as like truly, I don't know, something that gave me a little hope. So if you don't mind, I'm going to play your video. Today, for the first time, in two years, the Christmas tree in Bethlehem is being lit up. In the back, you can see the Church of the Nativity, where Jesus was born. There are a lot of people who came from all over the world crossing checkpoints, being questioned at airports. But now there are thousands of people in this square to watch the Christmas tree light up.

Where the bagpipes come from? Do you have an answer for that, Andre? Yeah, there is a story behind that. If I'm not mistaken, there were Scottish soldiers in Palestine during the First World War who were staying there and they were like, because they had a music division. And that just like the locals got inspired and since then there have been bagpipe players in Bethlehem for the past 100 years. Now I heard this from one source, double check this, Google this. I don't know whether this is actually true, but this is what I heard.

I love that story. There are also bagpipes that are indigenous to the Middle East and Iran. There are instruments that are very similar. Oh, look at that. Everyone be bagpiping. All right. I'm going to continue the video. We gather once again to proclaim hope.

This is the mayor of Bethlehem, Meyer Nikola Kanawati. To a wounded world, our people continue to suffer behind walls, under occupation, in exile and displacement, and in Gaza where children are born beneath rubble. Tonight our tree shines for Gaza's children, for every family seeking safety, and for every person who still believes that hope can be reborn. I invite the whole world. Come to Bethlehem. Your visit strengthens the resilience of our people

and preserves the living roots of the Nativity. Merry Christmas and may peace be upon Bethlehem, Palestine and the whole world. Two, one. I love this. So, look. To Eyal Ya'Aikobi, Mabruk, Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas, you genocidal fuck. Yes.

You should be so proud. Look, it's... With Yal Ya'Iakobi, I have to say... This was a moment when I think I see... started, like when I saw that tweet, I started understanding here more because, you know, there are a lot of people who are really dedicated to pushing Israeli propaganda for like

justification of the genocide and so on, who are very ideological about it. But this is, this is not Asbarra. This is not him like trying to sneak something in. This is just engagement bait. This is like him saying an obviously outrageous thing to get retweeted and to get attention. Like that is his category, you're right.

yeah I don't know what like at this point I don't really know if he's ideological at all about it or whether he's just the grifter who's doing this for engagement's attention and money yeah I mean I do think it's for sure the latter I mean I think he knows that he's a content mill because he he does like obvious fake news all the time this is it's like he's one of those accounts that doesn't even try to mask it with some sort of like almost technically correct fact that obscures the actual whatever, the actual facts on the ground, he just will lie. And he'll do so in a way that like everyone who engages with him is just being rage-baited essentially. But I also believe that he understands his role when it comes to this, which is that he is the Grinch who stole Bethlehem's Christmas tree lighting ceremony. And that's what he wanted to be is that type of Grinch. you know. It was every every Jew

down in Jewville liked Christmas a lot and they say that the Grinch's Mogan David grew two sizes that day. My hot take about Bethlehem besides the Vince Gilligan thing is they should, their official theme

song should be jump around and I'll tell you why please. In Hebrew and Arabic, Bethlehem, I don't quite now to pronounce it in Arabic, but it's very similar. It means house of bread. Oh, shit.

House of bread. Now, in French, in French, it's house of meat rather than bread. The lecham in Hebrew is bread, but lachme, lacham in Arabic is meat. But it seems like neither the Hebrew speakers nor the Arabic speakers named the city. It's from Canaanite, Bait Lachmo. And Lachmo was a gods within the Canaanites. Pantheon, allegedly.

Wow. But it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a really, really cool city in that it has always been super like a mixture of everything because it's on the, on several trade routes. And they were since, since forever, there have been, for instance, Nabateans, uh, alongside with, with Jews and with everybody else who were like the Nabatians are pro-Arab, who spoke proto-Arabic. And so it's always been like this sort of mixture. And, uh, yeah, like some of the comments of the, on the, of the Zionists on

under my video and under Eyal's post, I've been like, this is a Jewish city, we need to retake it back and kick them all out. Well, that is so much more interesting and historically relevant than my stupid multilingual pun. Matt, do you want to finish it off for me? Yeah, I know we're going to say, House of

Bread or in French, P-A-N-P-A-N-N-French. Yeah, P-A-N-N-French. Spelled the same way, and that's how he got to House of Pain. And he loved it because it sounds like, jump around is the hit song that they hat. I should pack it up and pack it in. I, yeah, back it up. Let me begin. No. Let you end. I really, I truly do love your pun getting derailed with actual interesting facts from

Andre. It's what it deserves. That's what it's what it deserves. I'm sorry. No, no, no. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. You give me the chance. I'm going attention about history. I will always take it. Thank you for doing so. I'm both a pun pig and a pain pig, if you know what I'm saying. There we go. Andres, truly thank you so much for coming on Baddus Bar and speaking with us. Where can people find you and your work and support you? You can find me on any social media on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook.

And I would also encourage people to look to the ground because, like, yes, there is a lot of me on the internet, which is blowing up, and this is, I think, in large part because of just general racism, because it's like I'm a white guy who is here, and it's like I seem more trustworthy to many people, but I encourage everybody to look. There are many Palestinian grassroots journalists who are reporting on their own oppression, what was happening in their houses, like look up Alar Havalin from Masafriata area, look up Aymandhrya. who will hopefully get out of the Israeli concentration camp where he's held now. And yeah, look to the source.

Look to the people who are reporting on their own lives. Absolutely. And we will put their social media handles as well as yours in the show description. So please everyone follow Andre and follow other Palestinian journalists who are on the ground right now. And thank you so much for coming on. Truly, it was a pleasure to have you. And for staying up late with us. Good to be here.

Yeah. Thanks for staying up. And thank all of you out there for staying up with us. Patreon.com slash badass barra. Baddhaer at gmail.com for all your questions, comments, and concerns. All right, everyone. Thanks again so much for listening. And until next time, from the river to the sea.

I love that I got to hear Matt say the Christmas in me. Oh, I did. I do have Christmas in me. Jumping Jacks was us. Push-ups was us. Gopma-ga us. All karate us. Taking Molly us.

Michael Jackson us. Yamaha keyboards. Us. Jarja vix not us. Andor was us. Heath Ledger Joker us. Endless friends' success. Happy meals was us.

McDonald's was us. Being happy us. Bequam yoga us. Eating food us. Reading air us. Drinking water us. We invented all that shit.