Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - 204: We Didn't Cease The Fire, with Rania Khalek

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

Matt and Daniel are joined from Beirut by BreakThrough News journalist Rania Khalek to discuss hasbara hits of the 80s, the matryoshka doll of nested Israeli missile defense systems, and whether AOC��s tireless working is working, or just making us tired.Please donate to Palestine Red Crescent Society: https://www.palestinercs.org/enNew Bad Hasbara Merch: https://estoymerchandise.com/collections/bad-hasbara-podcastSubscribe to the Patreon https://www.patreon.com/badhasbaraBreakThrough News: https://www.youtube.com/breakthroughnewsDispatches: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwZtBKjGSMzW-grFNiIzMyvqBYznqN2dgRania Substack: https://substack.com/@raniakhalekRania X: https://x.com/RaniaKhalekRania IG: https://www.instagram.com/raniakhalek/See Francesca Fiorentini and Matt Lieb May 21 in Pasadena: https://events.leapevents.com/event/new-world-disorder-05-21-26-8-pmWhat’s The Spin playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/50JoIqCvlxL3QSNj2BsdURWhat’s The Spin Album List: https://bit.ly/whatsthespinlistSkad Skasbarska playlist: http://bit.ly/skadskasbarskaSubscribe/listen to Bad Hasbara wherever you get your podcasts.Spotify https://spoti.fi/3HgpxDmApple Podcasts https://apple.co/4kizajtSubstack https://substack.com/@badhasbaraSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/bad-hasbara/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Talk those out of the hostess. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Bad Hasbara. Still the world's most moral podcast. After all these years, my name is Matt Lieb. I will be your most moral co-host for this podcast. I'm Daniel Mette, and I'm still your other most moral co-host. You would think that something might have changed in two and a half years, but... Yeah, you could have gotten less moral.

I could have gotten less moral. Someone else could have stepped up to try to take that number two spot. I mean, you're number one. you started this thing. Right. But you would think that there'd at least be a competition for the silver medal. But no, I'm clearly far in away the world's moral. I think at this point, you've surpassed me in terms of moral.

I think you are more moral. That's what I think. Really? I think I'm slightly less moral than you. I'm not sure my head can fit that crown. Yeah, I mean, love the head. Yeah, heavy is the crown that wears the head. You know what I mean?

If you love this podcast, give us five stars. If you love opening banser as polished as this. If you love the way we just start and the way we just start going and we don't even know where we're going to go, we just start going. Then give us five stars in a review on all of the podcast apps in which you listen to podcast. If you are like many of our listeners, actually a viewer, then make sure that you are subscribing to the channel in which you are viewing this. that is on YouTube at Bad Hasbara. And if you are someone who wants to... Speaking of which, if anyone wants to do a bad lip reading of us ever,

just based on the video alone... Sure. That would be fun. I think that bad lip reading is a fun thing. You know, YouTube is a wide platform with many different types of shows. If, yeah, the bad lip reading people want to... Our mouths, put words in them. Yeah, put words in them.

And, you know, you can even team up with... mission and, you know, really go bad faith with it. They tried to own us this weekend. They did. They did. This weekend, they cut together a clip from our episode with Susan in which I open one of the questions I asked, which I asked with a big old smile on my face. With a big wind up too, like you wound your way to it.

A giant wind up. Big smile on my face in which I. I ask, are all Jews parasites are just the bad ones? And then a cut to Susan saying, um, their parasites and then tried to frame that as, uh, as her answering that question directly. Uh, yeah, he smiled anti-Semitically. Shout out to Adam on the ones and twos, producer Adam. But what I was pleased about actually was when they, when they included my part and

then they quoted it in their tweets and Emily, Emily, what the fuck is her name, not straighter. No, it was Amelia Adams. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Neurotic Jew gay woman. Yeah, neurotic gay is her handle. Not calling her those things. No, no, neurotic Jew, gay. She leads with Jew. Oh, really? Neurotic Jew gay. Interesting. I love that.

It's like the Kissinger quote, you know, I'm an American first and a Jew second. And then Goldemeyer said, well, we read from left to right. Oh, so clever. Yeah, very close. So that famous non-American Goldemeyer. But someone was like, oh, Daniel, you think the synagogue should be cleaned out of Jews. And I'm like, wow, that's horrible that I think that.

Please show me the clip where I said that so I can condemn my words. And then Amelia Adams swoops in, hope this helps. And she posts the Canary Mission video where I say, and they included my follow-up. They included my clarification, which is, yeah, actually, Susan, I think. you're being too modest about your tweet. I do think I said I do think our synagogue should be cleaned out not of Jews but of certain prayers certain flags and certain practices you literally said religious ethno-nationalist apartheid worshiping fucking golden calf ass garbage I literally said not of Jews I'm I'm

always shocked when they like I mean you've gotten this far in editing it in order to make Susan look bad why not just go a little bit further edit it to make you look bad. That's right. Just take out the word not. I think our synagogue should be claimed out. Of Jews. Of Jews.

Because I hate Jews. I am bad. It's so stupid. You're already lying. I get a hard on when I think about the Holocaust. Yeah. It is my favorite Holocaust. Not to tell you how to do your job,

missionary missioners. I mean, come on, canary missionaries. Yeah, canary missionaries, you out here, you know, half, there ain't no such thing as halfway crooks or halfway Hasbara. Don't, don't, don't halfway Hasbara. Come on, go hallway. Uh, more shirts are coming, bad asbarra.com. Check that out. Also, yo, we're now on substack. The show is on substack. Wow. Is that mean we can be officially called grifters? I think so. Any time anyone, wants to call someone a grifter, they point to the fact that this person's making money on substack. Oh, they got a substack. Yeah, which I don't, you know, I don't really know much about substack other than it's a place where usually people are writing newsletters. I guess people are also now

posting videos. But bad has barred at substack.com, you can now be someone who is like, I'm a substack guy. I watch all their stuff on substack. And I subscribe to them on that, too. I think we're setting it up so that the Patreon can also be, you know, access to. that, or the bonus episodes rather. But if you're someone who is already like, no, but I love using Patreon. Well, guess what? We have that too. Patreon.com slash baddestbar.

Please join. And if you join at the $10 or more tier, then you're going to see your name at the end of this episode, and a little scrolly doll. You're going to have your name on it. That's, you know, it's nice. It's nice to have people who support this show. And for those of you who are not comfortable with substack, we are working on Domstack. Yes, we are working for all of you out there who don't want to be sub but want to be domed.

You can always do that. A sub stack is now in my head. Doing it in the Canary Mission position. Very good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like to be able to look in the eyes of the Hasbarist who's lying about me. Yeah, me too, me too. Yeah, just eye to eye.

And I would prefer it if we came at the same time. See, this is why I'm saying I'm less moral. Today's episode is brought to you by Palestine Red Crescent Society. The Palestine Red Crescent Society is an officially recognized independent Palestinian national society. It is part of the international Red Cross and Red Crescent movement and operates in Palestine and the diaspora. PRCS is guided by the Geneva Conventions and the movement's fundamental principles, humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence. Volunteer Service, Unity and Universality. If you have any money and you would like to support something good,

go to Palestine rcs.org or click the link in the description. Please use your money for something good, not just us doing more come jokes. Daniel, what's a spin? Well, we just lost a legend of Hasbara. I know. All right. Abraham Foxman kicked the bucket. That's right.

He was the head of the ADL for, I mean, for a long time. Which for those of you who don't know, that's the association for dual loyalty. That's right. Later rebranded as the apartheid Defense League. That's right. They used to be bad also. They are just worse. They're even worse now.

This was Jonathan Greenblatt's predecessor. and Abe Foxman, you know, I've seen him. He was interviewed for the Israelism documentary. A shockingly honest interview he gave. Well, he would, there was a time. He was very candid about it. There was a time where the ADL was a little bit more loose-lipped when it came to their Israel advocacy. He did another documentary in which he was, it was a documentary about anti-Semitism ostensibly, but it was really about the ADL and about the conflation of Israel and Jews.

And he, it was done by an Israeli and he was just open with this guy about the fact that, you know, he was doing pro-Israel. The movie defamation. Defamation. Finklstein was in that one.

Yes, Finkelstein was in that one as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, he, you know, he's someone who actually, for as, you know, horrible as Foxman is, he actually went on to go criticize Jonathan Greenblatt for doing what he did, but at least, but too insanely. He's like, you're going too far with the whole making every

Israeli, you know, active criticism into anti-Semitism. So, yeah, he died. He did die. Exactly. So, all right, he did. So in honor of the man we've lost, and, you know, that foxman to Greenblatt handoff, is sort of emblematic of the good Hasbara to Bad Hasbara trajectory that, in a sense, birthed his show.

The idea that Hasbara has completely gone so off the rails that it makes Abba Eben and Abe Foxman look like reasonable, intelligent people. These guys are moderates. That's right. So, Foxy Lady, Jimmy Hendrix, we're going to go all Fox today. It's all Fox today on this spin, all Foxy Lady.

Jimmy Hendricks, are you experienced? The Fleet Foxy Lady. Okay, those are fox. Publissness Blues. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco.

Oh, I mean, beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. I should have guessed, I should have guessed we would have some Wilco in here eventually. Yeah. But we did. We had the Star Wars album. Oh, yeah, we did. That's true.

But what I find, when I was thinking about this, the alpha numeric, you know, code, like, you know, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, all this. All of the words they chose make sense. but then they went and chose Foxtrot for L for for F and Foxtrod is what like a dance that was popular at the time they really banked on that dance having staying power it would be like R being running man or right or you know Y being the Ying Yang Twins

yeah or the pee we you know like or the L being the locomotion you know like Macarena twist just really hoping these dances to stay around. I just thought that was funny. Live in Color on their last album

has a song called Freedom of Expression, F-O-X. Okay, I love it. About the media. Nas, his second album, it was written. Not his best album. It has a couple of great songs on it. And it also features the debut of The Firm, which is this little mini supergroup with A-Z

and Foxy Brown on the song. Affirmative action. And finally, gang stars album Moment of Truth has a great track called The Militia featuring Big Shug and Freddie Fox. Freddie Fox being a very, I.k.a. Bumpy Knuckles, raspy voice rapper. And I once rapped to that song in its entirety by myself at hip-hop karaoke. People watching this show may not know this, but I'm going to send you on a little YouTube rabblehole. If you want to see your old pal Daniel Mette wrap your face off and his,

I used to rap under the nickname R.D.J. aka Robert Jenny Jr., at an event called Hipop Karaoke in New York City from about 2006 to about 2012. I was a two-time finalist for the championship. I was a crowd favorite. And I have a little video. We can maybe play 10 seconds, 20 seconds. This is a very difficult verse. It's about a minute and 45 long.

I lost my voice somewhere through it. But let's see how far we can get through it. Let's do it. That's my first, y'all. You think I got it? Come up with you, come on, y'all. You guys hold me from around. I come to collect for you two feet, brothers and rap.

I'm here, and check. My style is water, and he's spreading around. When you brothers don't blow, right, you fuck, I must say, how I get down. And maybe now I split the fuck in the face of every MC who came in the place. It's all you never erase. And she's the only recognized when it flows. I'm worldwide for the pitches when I turn to home. That is fantastic day.

Daniel. I love it. Thank you. I love it. So there's a lot more of that on YouTube people can find that if you just search RDJ, Hip-C, Kirok, NYC. There's a lot more. There's a lot more out there if you want to check it out. Listen, I think hip hop karaoke actually, the way it's been described by you in the past, I've been like, oh, that seems like something I would never want to go to. And just watching it just then, I actually kind of like this idea.

Oh my God, it was the best time. It looks really fun. It was a Shangri-La of just hip-hop nerddom of all kinds of people, locals, non-locals like me, just getting together for the love of the art form. I love that. And imitating our favorite emcees. That's beautiful. And you know what? And you looked great doing it too.

Thank you. I was a younger man. I had more voice, more wind. I think you still have a lot of wind. Well, we could see if I could do it sometime. But anyway. Your wind is quite long. long sometimes.

But it is one. That's so I've been told. Anyway, that's the spin. That is the spin. And now I am so excited to introduce our guest. First time on the pod. She is currently in Beirut. So this is our Bat Hasbara correspondent from Beirut in our Beirut office, journalist for

breakthrough news. I imagine when it comes to this show, this audience, You already know her. You already love her. Ladies and gentlemen, everyone else, welcome to the podcast, Ranya Khalek. Hello. It's so good. Beyond with you guys coming to you from Beirut from the Bad Hasbara Bureau.

Hell, yes. How did I do with the last name? That was fantastic. That was very well done. Yeah, well done. I like the passion. Yeah, there's a lot of passion. I really got the ha in there and then the lack.

Yeah. Yeah, you said it well. I got to say, hearing you guys talk just now. Made you want to leave? No, no. I was very entertained. And I also was impressed with Daniel's talents. His MC school.

Thank you. And I got to say, like, after you said Robert Downey Jr., I was like, oh, my God, you guys kind of look alike. Oh, yeah. Have you heard that? Have you been told that? Oh, I've been getting it since I was 15 years old. That's why you named your stage name. Okay.

I didn't, no, I didn't name myself that. I walked into hip-hop karaoke the first time. fall of 2006 or 2006 and Jason the sign up guy I said I want to do a de la soul song what's your what's your name daniel he said you kind of look like Robert danny junior and he wrote down RDJ that was that became my station wow wow look at that I you know what I had never noticed that until this very moment you're right the comments have people mention it oh I don't read the comments because I don't like being yelled at why would I why would I ever read the comments so sometimes they're nice Sometimes they're nice.

I love comments. In fact, commenters, just kidding. Keep commenting. We love you. Tell mad who he looks like. No, don't. Because I already know. Daniel Stern,

sometimes John Totoro. I get it all. I understand. At least with John Totoro, it's not like a Jewish-coded thing. The way it is with Daniel Stern. You look like Jew. Yeah, you look like one of those Jews from the thing.

You look like one of those Italian-Euts. who they sometimes cast as a Jew, and they want the Jew to be really exaggerated, like in quiz show. He does. He does. Shout out to John Tutero, although he's definitely done Arab face before, to which I say shame on John Totoro. But also, shout out for the ones in which, you know, he does play a Jew very well.

Rania, thank you for coming on. Really excited to have you on this podcast. It is a hell of a time to be in, Beirut. How long have you been there? So I've actually lived in Beirut for the last like eight and a half year, something like that. So I've been here for a while. I mean, I'm back and forth a lot, but this is like been in my home base. So I know it well. Yeah. Yeah. And you're like, your family is from there, right? Like this is your. Yeah. So my family is from Lebanon. My parents. Well, my dad actually passed away a few weeks ago here in my life. I know. I wanted to send our condolences.

Sorry with that. I appreciate that. It's been a, it's been a really, awful couple of months for a lot of reasons. But yeah, it's, so I grew up coming to visit Lebanon. And I love it here even now, which sounds crazy. But I think this is probably the worst time it's ever, ever been, ever been in my life. Yeah. I mean, it seems like at least in, in your lifetime, I mean, people. And for those who are, and for those who were there and remember the bombing in the 82, 83,

What are they saying in terms of how it compares? It's actually interesting you say that because I, after what we call here Black Wednesday, which was April 8th when the Israelis dropped, you know, bragged that they dropped 160 bombs in 10 minutes, most of them concentrated on Beirut. It was absolutely terrifying. It just felt like there was like Russian roulette of bombs around you. And I don't think I've ever been that scared in my whole life. But the reason I bring that up is because I actually, a friend of my message me to check

on me, who's older than me. And I was like, oh my God, it was the scariest day of my life. It was terrifying. There's such, I said, I've been like, there's such demons or something about the Israelis. And he was like, yeah, I know what you mean. I was that when I was there in Beirut in 1981, they killed 400 people in one day in Beirut and it was so scary. It was terrifying.

And I'm just sitting there thinking, oh, my God. Like, they have done this before actually killing like hundreds of people in a single day with just like insane U.S. bombs from the sky. So generation after generation, like over and over again. It doesn't end. It's the most twisted inversion of our Passover thing. Throughout the generations and every generation, they rise up against us. And, you know, in every generation we drop bombs on them.

And for some reason, they can't stop hating us. Well, that's going to end up on Canary Mission. Speaking of that, this feels like that's true, please, please. Yes, yes. And add this to Canary Mission, because I want to talk about Roald Dahl for a second, just because it, I saw this play recently on Broadway with John Lithgow, as Roald Dahl, the children's author. And it's about his anti-Semitism.

It's called Giant. And in many ways, it's an interesting play. It's a great performance by Lithgow. But it takes place in 1983, right around the time when he had just published a book review of a book about Israel's assault on Beirut. And he got into all kinds of trouble for this review. Now, the play itself... I had all kinds of criticisms of it.

But I went back and read the review itself. And it's so interesting because you can tell from some of the tone and certainly from other things Rold Dahl said throughout his lifetime and especially later in his life. But yeah, he had some kind of weird, he found Jews unsavory or distasteful or something, like in addition to his Israel criticism. And at a certain point near his death,

he said, I am certainly against Israel and I have become an anti-Semite. because of how the Jews have supported Israel, that kind of thing, you know. And, you know, Jews controlling the media and the banks. There's tropes all the way. The guy was trope happy. At the same time, if you read that book review that he wrote, he said things like never before has a race of people gone so quickly from being pitied victims to being murderous, you know,

barbarians or whatever. Never has a race of people squandered the goodwill of the whole world so quickly. I'm looking through the whole thing and line by line I'm like where's the lie? He was saying things that were, and he was saying this while Israel was doing exactly what it's doing now. So here I am sitting in a Broadway theater full of

Manhattanites taking in this play which has the pull quote outside the theater which is the most urgent play of the season and I'm thinking to myself, yeah, it is probably the most urgent play of the season but not for the reasons that the playwright or the producers or the audience thinks

because this is still happening now and the conflations are still happening now by Zionists and then telling the world you're not allowed to conflate. So it was really uncanny. Anyway, that was just looking at the in every generationness of it. You know, it's interesting you say that too because like I think about, so I grew up in the U.S.

I grew up in northern Virginia. And my parents immigrated to the U.S. in the 70s. But they were back and forth. Most of their siblings still lived in Lebanon. And, you know, they understood Israel to just be this really evil settler colony that was just constantly bombing them, right? Right. They didn't understand the nuances of why that's okay. What? Yeah. What you're saying is your family had read a whole bunch of advanced, like, you know, graduate level, postmodern academic work to call it a settler colony.

That's what Adam Lewis-Cline teaches. Well, they actually, interestingly enough, my parents were really political, so they did understand it actually as a settler colony. Yeah. I mean, maybe all the decolonization language wasn't around it. But they understood what Israel was, for sure. But at the same time, like, I, like, they always, like, they always differentiated. And good for them that they did, right? Like, we had Jewish neighbors in Virginia and, like, they were really good friends with them.

And, like, my mom used to take me to bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs. And, like, she would just get really annoyed when, like, people planted trees as gifts, like, in Palestine, right? Sure. What does she have against vegetation? She hates vegetation. She just, she hates greenery. To her, the part of New York, she hates the most essential park. It's just too green. A perfectly good department complex could go here.

Yes, yes, concrete. I want concrete. But also don't forget, we came from a desert that wasn't blooming. So we're not used to, we're not used to a greenery. That's right. But like I'm being here now, like in Lebanon, I'm sitting here like throughout this, the last couple months because I was here in 2024 and that was really scary too. But this was worse. This has been worse.

It's still, it's still scary. But it's like less intense, but still very scary. But I really have never felt the kind of terror that I experienced trying to navigate like my own security the last couple months here with this war, with this this version of this like this worst version of Israel. Yeah. And I'm just sitting here thinking, like, how did my mom ever let me go to a bar mitzvah? Like, that's actually kind of amazing she did. Yeah, yeah. Maybe because like the Jewish state was like always bombing.

They like actually entered her home. Yeah. She wasn't there. And there must have been some Israeli flags in the synagogues. Mm-hmm. You must have shown. Oh, yeah. One prayer for our soldiers.

Of course, of course. And then also like I had like all of my friends who, a lot of them. at least. They would get really not, I mean, I think a lot of them supported Israel. Some of them vocally, the ones who didn't,

I don't know if they did or not, but I know one family in particular who I was like friends with their daughter, I remember one time I was at their house and their mom had this big, like her, in my memory, the star of David necklace she had

was like the size of my face. So it might have not been that big. But I remember it being so big. It was huge. It was huge. It went around her entire face and it's fun. She couldn't even hold it up. She was hunchback.

because it was just so heavy. You were smaller than Adam points out. Probably. That's probably true. But I just remember her being like, her mom being like, so like what, like what is your family's religion? I've heard your Lebanese. Oh, what's your family's religion?

And so my family's Lebanese Druze. And I'm like a kid. I don't know. Like I don't know this stuff. But like obviously we all know a lot of the, the Druze in Palestine, like serve in the Israeli military. They're like the Arabic speakers. They're some of the most vicious in terms of the way they treat Palestinian.

and they don't consider themselves Palestinian. The Druze in Lebanon are not like that. And I'm not to say like we're so amazing. Oh my God. It's just different situation, different geography, different context. But I was like, oh, my family is Drew's and she got so excited. She was like, we love the Druze. And I was like, oh, my God, I felt really special.

I didn't understand what she was saying. I don't know why, but I'm certain there's no nefarious reason as to why. At all. At all. And so I look back on those kinds of things and I'm just like, wow. But I'm also just like amazed again, like I think about now and I'm like, how the hell is people supposed to differentiate here? Like there's a star of David plane dropping bombs. There's like people entering homes and leaving graffiti. They're telling you they're doing it in the name of the Jews and the Jewish state and on and on and on.

Yeah, and Jewish safety. That's the other thing too. It's like, you know, so just in case you as an American Jew are feeling, you know, not represented by the, you know, reasons for this. they'll let you know, oh no, and we're doing it for Jews around the world to stop anti-Semitism for happening. So it really, you know, when you said, like, it's wild that your mom even allowed you to go to a bar mitzvah. It's like I feel that in terms of the way in which I think it's generally commendable how despite Israel's tireless work conflating the two, there are people who decide to not just use that as a blanket. You know, fuck them all when it comes to Jewish people. And I think to me, I'm like, and I say this to other people, you realize that's like something you yourself wouldn't probably do.

Like I don't think most people, especially Americans, especially people in the West, would ever give the grace that, people in the global south do, you know, when it comes to, you know, the way Americans treat them, or that the, you know, people in the Middle East do to the way that the Israelis treat them. It is, that's kind of a minor miracle when people are enlightened enough to be like, well, I don't mind someone and my daughter going to a bar mitzvah because I'm not a racist piece of shit the way. these Israelis are doing. It's like to me, that is, it takes more strength than I don't, than I think I could even have, you know? Yeah, I mean, it's impressive. Yeah. Yeah. You often,

you often hear younger Arab people talking about how, oh, my auntie or my mother or my grandmother or someone in my family from an older generation said to me, no, we remember when Jews lived among us where, you know, we have, we have a, we know from our experience. Do you feel like that the fading of that memory generationally is going to lead to less willingness to give that I mean, certainly, yeah, there's no question. Come on. Like, it's like, it's nice. Like, I'd love to sit here and say, oh my God, Arabs are so amazing and like, we're just like special. Like, I mean, there's definitely look, like the Israel's existence in this region is the reason that like the protocols of the elders of Zion became a popular book at one point because people are like these people keep telling

us they're Jews and they're bombing us. Something's wrong with them. Like that's the context, you know, that they're living in. And then, I mean, it's really interesting. Like you see the trajectory of some people. Like, Rifat-Ale-Avier is one of them, for example, who like got to leave Gaza and came to the U.S. and spent time as well. But like even before he left Gaza, like made a lot of friends outside of Gaza and became really educated about the Holocaust and was like, oh, okay. Like the only Jews he'd met before that were people who were either stopping him at checkpoints, killing or kidnapping his family members and telling them they were doing it in

the name of the Jewish state. And when like, but it's like, you know, their context is just different than the context of Western Europe or of like the U.S. and the way we understand the Holocaust. So of course there's people here in this region who don't like Jews as a community because they, you know, just know Israel. That's all they know. They don't know anything else. But something's not computing, Ronnie. You said that Rafat, you know, brought into his mind. But he learned about the Holocaust. But it doesn't seem that that resulted in him. Not getting killed.

Feeling that him being bombed would be just. You know, he clearly didn't absorb the lessons of the Holocaust. Yeah, which is why it's okay. When he didn't cheer on his own death. Yeah, yeah, exactly. When, you know, clearly he didn't understand why, yes, it's okay for Barry Weiss to put a kid out on. Which I'm so sorry, you guys, I've been meaning to ask you all this time you guys are doing. How are you guys?

Do you feel okay? Thank you. First of all, can I say thank you? Because we haven't talked about our feelings in about 10 seconds. We're just getting by, you know? Well, I just hope, like, I just hope what's happening here is, like, making you guys feel more safe. A little bit, a little bit. You know, every, you know, my heart, you know, it gets warmer every time a bomb goes off.

I feel more safe, more serene. No, but it only because it brings us one bomb closer to the end of all bombings. That's right. I hope so. I genuinely hope so. Yeah. One bomb closer to the edge. And I'm about to break.

Lincoln Park. Ooh. You know, we were talking about the sort of, uh, the way it's almost generational in which, you know, Lebanon is bombed by Israel. There's a video that's been circulating online recently showing an Israeli soldier from 1985. And it is wild because you, you know, you see so many videos like this now because everyone has like a camera phone and the entire Israeli occupation force decided it was like everyone would agree with them when they, post something genocidal. Back then, you didn't see it quite as much, which is what makes this video kind of interesting. This is an Israeli soldier in 1985 talking about Lebanon.

Oh, I'm not dealing here with human beings. Hold on. Is that Bezalov-Schmortritch? I don't think so. That fucking looks like him. That's like a 15-year-old. No, no. This guy speaks better English than Smortrish. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They all do their eh. I am not dealing with human being. All the terrorists and they don't have any human feelings. So I cannot deal with this man.

How I would have dealt with other soldiers or something like this. Those are not soldiers. They are terrorists. I mean, it is just the same goddamn talking points that, you know, we've been hearing for the last two and a half years, for anyone else who's been paying attention longer than that. Same talking points in the last 20. Turns out it's just always the same talking points. I've never lived in a time in which they didn't consider any of their Arab neighbors human beings. you know yeah it is well but mad i've heard a new talking point actually that's much more a new one much

warmer and kinder than it yeah can you play the isaac ursog video oh oh yes because he's he has some very warm loving aspirations for his lebanese neighbors he really wants to he'd love to visit you know so play that you play actually no play show us the tweet not the yeah it's i yeah the video itself is not as interesting as what he tweeted yeah yeah he tweeted with this video it was on israeli so-called independence He says, my dream is to get into a car and drive straight to Beirut, visit that beautiful city and befriend the good people of Lebanon who are not human beings. I shared this message of hope and peace with ambassadors, diplomats, military attaches, and faith leaders as we celebrated Israel's 78 Independence Day at the President's residence here today. So he can't wait to get out of my dreams and into my country. See, there is something especially about when Israelis say they want to come here, like, it makes my blood, like, pleasure go up.

Right. Like, I just, the idea, like, it actually hurts. Like, it's a feeling I can't describe. It's like a mix of nausea and, like, and, like, just boiling blood. You know what I mean? I mean, I can imagine because the way in which Israelis, especially, you know, the Israeli on the street, maybe, maybe, of course, my, you know, thought about this is painting. by the various man on the street videos that Israel likes to put out in which they ask. Shout out to Abby Martin, too, for doing that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big shout out to Abby Martin. But the way in which they talk about Beirut or Lebanon in general is that it's a beautiful country and it sure is a shame. It's not Israel. Yeah. I got that joke out of it. That was good.

Billy on the roof. But yeah, they talk about it, you know, as like this. It's just such a shame that we can't. get along with our neighbors in Lebanon. Yeah. And, but the way they talk about it is like, because the land is so beautiful. Not the people. The people need to leave.

Well, they have good parties. Can you just imagine if those parties were filled with Israelis? Like, the way, the way they talk about it is, is incredibly, I mean, it's... But there'd be more rapes. That's what would happen is. Well, it is, but it's a very, it's a very rapy way of talking about it. It's like, it's like, that, you know, that, you know, that, that beautiful woman across the bar, she's amazing.

Why won't she talk to me? I can't wait until I can have access. Her ugly fat cock-blocking friend, Hezbollah won't let me get up in there. Yeah, straight up. That is how they talk about it. I'm also sure that Herzog is also really looking forward to that drive from Jerusalem to Beirut, which on a Jewish-only road would take about 45 minutes. That's right.

There'd be so much less traffic. I mean, there used to be a train, actually. There was a train that went all the way from Beirut to Haifa. Wow. Yeah, like in the 40s, my dad remembers his dad would take that train to go get oranges. What happened? I don't know. The train just stopped and go.

I don't know what happened. It's weird. It's so weird. Now it's like nobody. Yeah, it's something probably Hezbollah. I'm assuming. Or Hamas. Hamas.

Hamas. Iran. I don't know. Yeah. The shock did. Ayatollah Chaminé, yeah. Ayatollah Chamein. Showed up and cock blocked the train.

So it's just in terms of the ceasefire and what's going on with that. So the ceasefire at this point is somehow still holding on as a concept while not holding on, you know, in terms of the realities of fire ceasing. Matt, we really need to create a new bumper. We didn't cease the fire. Yeah. Oh, that's cute. That's catchy. That's catchy.

It's very, yeah, we love a good catchy bumper. But there's been continuous violations of it. The UN interim force in Lebanon is documented over 7,500 air violations, 2,500 ground violations, all by Israeli forces. And the casualties seem to just be mounting in ways that, like, putting up numbers that make just the concept of a ceasefire. sound completely meaningless. What is the reality on the ground there?

And what are you living through? I actually didn't know the number that you just put out, the 7500. That's pretty wild. And it's kind of like a record-breaking number because there was a ceasefire in place before this recent escalation that was for 15 months since the end of the last war in 2024. And the Israelis violated it 15,000 times. But it took them 15 months to violate the ceasefire 15,000 times.

So now what you just said is they've done 75. 500 violations in the course of what a month? Not even actually. I think it's three weeks. Yeah, three weeks so far. And that's just air violations. Meanwhile, 2,500 on top of that ground violations.

Matt, I'm surprised at you, Matt. You're a recovering addict. You don't just ceasefire cold turkey. That's true. That's true. You got to taper off. It's actually dangerous.

These guys are weaning up, though. Yeah. They're like getting higher. Right. Exactly. They'll hit bottom fast. That's true. A harder crash and then it'll really stick.

Yeah. So maybe there's like a method to the madness. But no, no, in all seriousness, this has been an ongoing war that it's shocking the word is still being used. It's mostly like the, and the ceasefire was, it was declared unilaterally by Donald Trump. And it's important to understand why. I just want to give a little context to that because the ceasefire in Lebanon, came into place a week after the ceasefire between the Americans and the Iranians.

And you might remember when that ceasefire went into place, the Iranians had entered that ceasefire with the Americans under the condition that Lebanon be included. And then it was the following day after that in which the Israelis dropped 160 bombs in 10 minutes, bragged about it, killed like 400 people in a day, mostly in Beirut, that very terrifying day I opened talking about to try to basically, collapse that U.S. Iranian ceasefire. And then the Americans came out and said, well, we never agreed Lebanon was going to be a part of this. And the Iranians were like, yes, you did. The Pakistanis were like, yeah, you did. And then that became a whole thing. But all that's to say, a week later,

Trump imposes this unilateral ceasefire on Lebanon. And he basically did that to take it out of Iran's hands, to get to take the credit away from Iran. Because Iran has, till now, still been insisting on Lebanon being included in a broader regional settlement. And the Americans, and okay, I could talk more about that in a bit, but the Americans are basically orchestrating all this theater between like the Israeli and Lebanese officials sitting together for direct negotiations to try to basically say Iran didn't do this, we did this. But in terms of the ceasefire itself, okay, so you've got over 7,500 air violations, as you said, 2,500, I believe, ground violations. I'll just throw out a few more numbers. Since that ceasefire that went

to affect April 17th, the Israelis have killed somewhere between 340 people to, I mean, some people are putting out a number of 470, but I think there's just like a little bit of a miscalculate misunderstanding about where a few hundred people came from in terms of how the death count has been since April 16th, but at least 340 people have been killed in three weeks of a so-called C-spire in Lebanon. And in that time, the Israelis have refused to withdraw. they're still occupying several villages at the border of Lebanon. They're blowing up villages with these controlled detonations that you've seen probably very dramatic footage of. Unbelievable.

Just completely disgusting, bragging about it, not even pretending it's anything, but destroying villages so people can't return. They have issued displacement orders. Oh, and by the way, I'm so sorry to interrupt, but we joked about hating vegetation earlier. Oh, Israeli really hate vegetation. I think it was Mary Ragev or one of these ghouls. who said something about, yeah, we are destroying the towns, we are displacing the people. And of course, we are destroying the vegetation. So there's nothing to return to. 139,000 acres of agricultural land has been destroyed, has been destroyed by the Israelis.

Intentionally, they're doing that intentionally. They are so indigenous to the land. They love it so much. They want to send it to hell. That's right. Yeah. So that you can't grow food on it. Because also the south of Lebanon is like where all the agriculture is grown, right? Right. Right. So that's like the agricultural heartland of Lebanon. And they're intentionally destroying that because they don't want Lebanese to come back. And Miri Regev actually, she gave an interview and what you were talking about just now.

She actually said the purpose of what the Israelis are doing right now is to flatten all of Lebanon south of the Latani so that Lebanese can never return. They have issued what they call evacuation orders, what we call displacement orders, because that's what they are, for 14% of Lebanon at this point, south of the Latani. Since the ceasefire, they've issued displacement orders for 80 villages in the South that aren't even, and that's not including the villages they're still occupying. So their strategy here is to empty out the south of Lebanon of people. And they want to do this for a couple of reasons. They want to do this to create what they call a buffer zone, but what is actually like a dead zone where just there are no Lebanese people living. Because the idea is, Hezbollah is the Lebanese people, right? Hizbollah is the people who live in the South.

If you get rid of the people, you don't have resistance. And that's Israel's strategy moving forward is to always create these buffer zones or these dead zones where nobody can live. So they create distance between them and the population they're hostile against so that they can't fire rockets at them or something. So they're basically trying to push a huge portion of Lebanon's population over a million people into the north of the country, much like what they've done in Gaza, where they've pushed everybody into like 40 percent of Gaza. Gaza and the rest is taken over by the Israeli military. That's what they're trying to do with this. And when these people get to the north, these displaced people, and by the way, thank you for debunking yet another weasel word evacuation orders.

Evacuation orders is when I say to you, hey, your house is on fire. You need to leave. Right. Displacement orders when I say, I'm going to light your house on fire, get the fuck out. Right. But do they not think that when the people from the south get to the north, like, they're going to retain some memory of what was done to them? And now the border will be somewhere else.

And they'll be, like, the rockets will come from, like, yes, what's the fucking idea? I mean, of course they understand this. It's a hundred-year history. Which is why, which is why the Israelis are also, in addition, trying to depopulate the south of Lebanon, essentially ethnically cleanse it. And then you have Israelis like Basal Smotrich,

who want to eventually settle the annex that territory, make the Latani River, the new northern border of Israel, and then settle the south of Lebanon with Israeli Jewish settlers who are actually already by, They're actually already purchasing. They're reclaiming. They're reclaiming. Like the word slut.

They're reclaiming it. They're already renaming villages to Jewish names. They've been doing it since 24. And they're like, they've got plans. They've got maps and plans, right? And in terms of what you were just talking about, Daniel, yes. So the Israelis recognize that that doesn't get rid of his bala, right? They just pushes them into a different space and pushes their community, the people that

support them into a different space. So that is why there's also this political war on Lebanon, this economic war on Lebanon, that the Americans are pushing in sort of forcing the Israelis to be a part of, which is to basically force the Lebanese government into a position where they actually join Israel's war on Hezbollah. And they do Israel's dirty work for them. You've got Marco Rubio talking about training and arming units inside the Lebanese army specifically to attack Hezbollah, which would just be like death squads in the country, because that's what the Americans are really good at We love to make a death squad. Yes. Yes. And the Israelis, we love a good death squad. We love a good death squad. We love a good death squad.

We love a good death squad. We love. As American as apple pie, some might say. But you also have, you also have the Americans basically like pushing this agenda through various political figures inside Lebanon, specifically through the presidency and the prime ministership. And so they're creating internal strife inside Lebanon and Israel's hoping for like a civil war.

Because Israel, the Israeli military, themselves have repeatedly said, we cannot disarm his Bala. Like, we're not capable of doing it. We've tried. It's not working. We need the Lebanese to do it for us. The Lebanese also, by the way, can't disarm his Bala because the Lebanese army depends on the Americans for their weapons and the Americans will never, ever arm the Lebanese army in a way where it could ever pose a challenge to Israel. If you arm the Lebanese army enough to actually disarm Hizbollah and start like a real war inside the country, you would also be army people who'd want to fight Israel.

Right, exactly. And the Americans know this. So it's, So it leaves you between a rock and a hard place if you're like a sinus. You're saying that even under, because I really wanted to ask you about this split in Lebanese society, which you've been posting about. And, you know, I would love to understand more. Even underneath the more appeasement or collaborationist or whatever you'd want to call it, the faction of, excuse me, Lebanese society in the north that is against Hezbollah and. more given towards negotiations with Israel or appeasement or whatever, you're saying that even underneath that, the Americans know that there's just a deep resentment of Israel. And if they could, they would strike back. What is this split? And who, like, what are the forces or, like, what is this,

what are the fault lines? So I would say, I would put it more like this with the Lebanese army, because the Lebanese army represents all of Lebanon, right? So it's got Christians, it's got Drews, it's got Shias, it's got Sunnis. So the Lebanese army is an institution that's quite patriotic. And if it came down, I mean, a lot of them, if they could fight Israel, they would. They literally cannot fire it back at Israel. Like, they are not able to. Lebanon doesn't have an army. That's why Hezbollah exists, because Lebanon does not have an army that can properly defend it.

And so there's an understanding among the not like simpleton kind of American politicians that, yes, the Lebanese army, some elements of it would not turn on Hezbollah because they'd see it as turning against their own people, which is exactly what it would be. And then there are probably elements of the Lebanese army that would. And so by forcing the Lebanese army into position where they have to actually confront Hezbollah for real for real, that would start a civil war inside of the country and it would cause the army to split as well. And that's very dangerous for a place like Lebanon for that's like so sect-based where there's a history of sectarian civil war. There's, I would say with the people who are like appeasement-minded when it comes to Israel and Lebanon, and I don't believe it to be the

majority, only because there was a poll done late last year that showed that 89% of Lebanese are against normalization with Israel. So that's a huge chunk of the country. It doesn't necessarily mean those people all support as Butler. But it does mean that they obviously see Israel as an enemy. With the political class that's appeasement-minded, I would put them into two camps. I think there's one camp of them that really believe that armed resistance doesn't work and that the only way to end the cycle of wars is to actually

just like, you know, do negotiations with Israel and become like Jordan or become like Egypt. I think this is really misguided because I don't think you can become like Jordan or Egypt for a few reasons, but like one of which is you're just too weak of a country.

You have two weak of a government and Israel will just eat you up. Like, they actually will. They have no reason not to. You have no leverage. especially if you're disarming the only part of your country that's capable of fighting them, right? And especially if you were removing yourself from the one piece of leverage you really have, which is to be a part of the negotiations between the Americans and the Iranians. That's Lebanon's actual leverage.

There's another smaller part of Lebanon. I would call this a tiny minority, but they're very loud and they have a lot of money. And it's not because they're Jews. I'm just telling. And this is like this like sort of oligarchic. right-wing MAGA class in Lebanon that's like close to the Trump administration, that actually are kind of like Lebanese Zionists, right? Like these people, these people want to, you know, be, they don't care about the South,

give it away. They're very sectarian against the Shia. And they think that they are like of an upper, like upper class hierarchical like human being that's above the Palestinians and above the disgusting Lebanese Muslims. Like that's actually how they think or Lebanese, you know, or Lebanese Shias. because some of them are they mainly Christian? I think it's actually a bit multi. It's most Christian and Sunni. But not only.

There's other, there's every, there's even she. There's, look, we even have self-hating Shias. Like, like, so I would actually say they're quite multisect that these particular people on talking about. And they have, maybe they all have different reasons why they think the way they do. But they are basically kind of like of a, they are just, they've thrown their lot in with the imperialist. They're so pro-Western.

And they want Lebanon. They think Lebanon can just be like Dubai if we just get rid of his bella and who cares about the Shias of the South. They're gross anyway. Is it a class? Is it a class thing then? So is what unites them is that they're the ruling class that they have the money. They're the ruling class of the money and they also have a really right-wing ideology. Like these people are actually close to like Lindsay Graham. They're like buddies with Marco Rubio. They think Morgan Otakis is really great. One of them's even dating her. This guy called Antun Senawi. He is a Lebanese banker who actually. stole a ton of money from Lebanon during the economic collapse here and played a role in it. Like actually, because people still can't take their money out of the banks, they lost their

life savings. This guy gained from that. He's literally dating the woman who Trump appointed to be in charge of the Lebanon file when he first came into office. Her name is Morgan Ortegas. She's a horrible right-wing Zionist. And he calls himself a Lebanese Zionist. And he funds all these media outlets in Lebanon, these right-wing sectarian media outlets that are pushing, you know, peace with Israel. So this class of people is the malicious class. And they want to see a civil war in Lebanon. And they have dinner with people like Lindsay Graham and totally agree with them. And also, I would argue this particular class of people in Lebanon, they, Hezbollah is a part of the largest political bloc in parliament because they have a huge community

they represent. And so they democratically win elections. And these other people don't win as many seats. And so they love the Israelis bombing, you know, the South and weakening Hezbollah because they're just weakening their political opponents in a way that they can't because they just can't win democratically. So they let Israel, they want Israel to do their journey work. And in fact, this same political class of people in the war between Lebanon and Israel in 2006 were exposed in the WikiLeaks documents as telling the Americans, please let Israel's war continue for longer to weaken Hezbollah further because they hated Hezbollah more than they hate Israel. And, you know, and listen, there's a lot of people who don't like Hisbalah domestically

for all kinds of reasons, but they would never be like, oh, but Israel's, like, you know, they're worse than Israel. Like, at the end of the day, once Israel invades the country, forget about the domestic stuff. This is like existential now. Yeah, it's interesting the, the strategy there of, like, not being able to weaken Hezbollah democratically because they have, you know, actual support of people. And so what you're describing is like, well, they just allow the South to be decimated and occupied. It's like a, it's like a really brutal form of gerrymandering in which you can actually stop. Well, what if we just bomb the counties that go, you know, towards. Don't give them ideas, Matt.

They already got the idea. That's what they're doing. I will say, you know, one thing that has been, I mean, I don't want to say, you know, like a bright spot because, you know, in, you know, war and especially in the way Israel wages war, there are very few bright spots. But one of them has been Israel's inability, despite all their blustering to stop Hezbollah from. affecting them. And despite all they're misproncing, of all the, in the lexicon of mispronance, Hezbollah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hizbalah. Balah. Yeah, it's like they're like, eh, eh, they're just being stuck in your, there's like a piece of hair. Hasbalah.

Despite everything, despite their constant, you know, hey, look at the terrorist action we did with the Pagers, they haven't been able to stop, you know, Hezbollah from continuable, from continuing to offer resistance.

And one of the ways is really worrying them is these new, they're not new, but this type of drone warfare that we saw a lot in Ukraine and Russia, which is this fiber optic connected drone that they use to, they've been using it to stop and blow up iron dome batteries, which has been, pretty amazing to watch. Is AOC okay with that? Because I know she felt like the Iron Dome was a... That's right, yeah. It's like a defensive mechanism. AOC is like, I don't know.

What do I do? I'll vote against... Conduct, do I condemn it? We'll get into AOC discourse very soon. But first, I just want to show this video of these drones hitting this, this battery here. Now, Hizbollah also has the social media team.

They, I believe, put the music behind it. I was going to say, those drones have a bump and, you know, boomer. You know, their speaker system is on point. It's a pretty good speaker system. Yeah. And there you see that's, it's either Iron Dome or David Slinger, one of the, like, you know, quote, defensive weapons that Israel uses. Here's, here's this.

And then, the bang. Now, the reason it stops. Yeah, the reason it stops and rewinds is because the video ends there because it explodes. And it ends up doing severe damage to these batteries. These missile systems are incredibly expensive and effective. They do work, you know, at intercepting. you know, missile, especially, you know, like Katusha rockets. Like, they know how to intercept these.

But these particular types of drones have been really a struggle for the Israelis to stop. I don't know if it's if I'm like, this is a bright spot or whatnot. But when I see stuff like that, there is something about the way in which resistance continues. that gives me some hope that that there's at the very least the there's not this um you know Israel often paints itself as like this enemy that is undefeatable so why even try you know it's like resistance is futile they're basically the borg they're you know um Daniel will get that because he likes star trek um but i give it i give it a year before congress is passing a bill that we must fund a new defense system to protect the iron dome god they already have like

12 layers, guys. The platinum roof, the titanium shield. Also, if everybody hates you that much, like you clearly did something. I mean, you know what I mean? It's not just one of your exes. It's all of them. It's all of them.

Yeah. No, but it's, it is, it is wild to see, you know, this kind of tactic working out. Is there, what are your feelings about You know, I mean, look, I'm always happy to see Israeli military equipment be hits. And also, by the way, notice, like, Israelis are like, ha ha, we hit a paramedic.

And then, like, his ball is like, well, we hit a military target. Yes. I hate the way you're dehumanizing Israeli weapons systems. So you're absolutely right. I really hope that family, did you send condolences? The family of that iron dup battery? The family of missiles that are inside that battery. That's their home.

You bought the home. I mean, and it's their land. Mommy missile and Papa missile. And like three different generations of missiles. All just taken out by that fiber optic droat. There's more to that video that I want to show. You know, you talk about the way in which the Israelis, like when they're doing this kind of propaganda, it's like, yeah, they're celebrating. it's like, yeah, they're celebrating a fucking a hospital being hit or, you know,

civilians being massacred. And then they'll just try to explain it away. Meanwhile, you're seeing these, you know, video after video of these drones in particular, at least coming out of Lebanon, in which they are striking military equipment and soldiers. Very specifically. And, you know, this is like, and these are the soldiers and another battery of missiles. And here he goes. Boom.

I mean, again, this is not me, you know, doing anti-Zionist Jewish hand-wringing going, oh, yes, blood or whatever. This is, this is me showing this, you know, for all of the might of the Israeli military, These are the types of tactics that they are ending up having to deal with. And in asymmetrical warfare, what can I say? You look at the amount of equipment the Israelis have versus this fucking, you know, cheap drone that is connected by a wire. It costs like a few hundred dollars to make. Like it's literally a few hundred dollars to make and that's it. It's like a fucking EWOC contraption with like two big logs like crushing an ad act.

Exactly. You guys are such boys. But yes. We are. But I appreciate that. But no, no, I mean, I think, look, it does. I think that that is, there's a few ways that that serves, like, our side of the war. And by our side, I mean, the people who are, like, against, like, this, like, army of rapists,

just, like, invading and destroying everything around them. And that's, I think it's, like, it's definitely a boost, like, in terms of mood to see that, like, because it's like you're watching this big bully just smash everything. around them with complete impunity. And so when you see, when you see like the weaker side hitting back, it feels good. Because like there's like, okay, like there's some, there's, there's some fight back, right? You want to see that. You want to see. And Hizbela is capable. I think after 2024, and I would include myself as one of these people, uh, I think a lot of us thought like Hizbola had been really weekend. You had their entire senior leadership completely eliminated. The pager attacks

were horrific, disgusting act of terror. But it did leave Hizbola disbola. oriented for like at least five days is what I've been told because they were also using those devices to communicate and now their entire communication system is like totally down. So that war was devastating for them as an organization. And so and then there was 15 months of, you know, quote unquote ceasefire when the Israelis kept violating and his bullet didn't fire a single bullet at Israel. And a lot of people, including me, started thinking maybe they're not able to. Maybe they're not capable of it.

And what we've seen in this war and this next round is they have. been able to basically push back another Israeli invasion, though the Israelis are still in Lebanon, but they had to, the Israelis walk into the same trap every time because, you know, they try to invade in the same way and they always kind of fail. They get slaughtered. I mean, Israelis don't die in as big numbers ever as when they're trying to do a ground invasion of Lebanon. But you got Smotris's son getting, you know, smoked. I don't know, did he die or did he No, no. No, you didn't die.

But like, disappointed everyone. I know, right? We're like, no. I have no opinion on the matter. South of the Latani is... I want everyone to live. I want everyone to, I don't want anyone to die. I don't want it really be nice if everybody just stopped the war.

Everyone lived. If they stopped blowing up the villages. Right, exactly. I would like that. Actually. Actually. But yeah, I mean, I think that Hisbala, no matter what happens, Hisbala is going to still have a fighting capability.

Hezbollah is different than Hamas in a few ways in terms of their power because they're not operating in this tiny little besieged coastal strip. They're operating inside of a country that has a lot of geographic depth. And they also have the backing of the Iranians in a pretty direct way that makes it so they're still able to like, you know, I mean, the Americans are always trying to stop it. But, you know, they're not able to plug in every hole, obviously, because they were rebuilding over 15 months. and that was happening with Iran's health. But at the end of the day, is Hezbollah going to be able to force an Israeli withdrawal or force the Israelis to make concessions? I don't know.

And the reason I say that is because I think we're dealing with a different Israel than before because this version of Israel is willing to take losses, like of their soldiers, right? Like they have an entire doctrine, the Hannibal doctrine, where they'll even kill them. their own soldiers to prevent the other side from taking them as prisoners of war as leverage. Hell, they'll kill their own civilians for it. Exactly, which they've now included in the way they did that on October 7th. So I think that, you know, the reason the occupation of Lebanon ended in the year 2000 is because Israel couldn't take the losses anymore. It was too painful.

Perhaps if this ends up being an extended occupation in that way, perhaps we would get to that point. But let's not forget, that took eight. It took 18 years to kick the Israelis out of Lebanon. I think what I think the more immediate leverage that Hezbollah has is Iran pushing for Lebanon to be a part of a broader regional settlement between the Americans and the Iranians. Because what the Iranians are demanding is Israeli withdrawal. And they're also and they're also demanding that the Israelis stop the bombing. And I'm not, I don't, you know, we can sit here and talk about the ideological connection between Iran and Hezbollah and all that. And like, there is something to that for sure.

But there's also a material reason why Iran wants that. It's because Iran does not want Israel's borders to grow. Like they don't want a bigger Israel, Israel occupying Lebanon. And also it's a test. If the Americans can't like force the Israelis to stop in Lebanon, that might signal that the Americans can't stop the Israelis from bombing Iran again. Because Iran wants this to be the war that ends all wars. So Lebanon's also a little bit of a test in terms of its inclusion. But again, if this, if that falls apart, let's say Iran stops demanding Lebanon being included. Let's say it doesn't get included. Let's say for some reason Israel's able to just keep occupying and bombing, Hezbollah is going to make it very difficult and painful for them. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know,

we've already seen lots of signs of at least Israeli society cracking under that continued pressure. and crack faster guys crack more the Israeli soldiers are fighting back you know they're trying to get Mother Mary hooked on cigarettes that's right which is causing real which is causing real problems

for Israel's Department of Outreach to the Christian world this is the bad Hasbara right here like actually it's kind of incredible the way they're just like so openly like you know what let's just let's destroy a statute of St. George right

Yeah. Let's do it on video and then boast about it. Crazy. Did you hear that Israel appointed a special envoy to the Christian world? No. Who I think was a Drew's guy. I think, didn't we say he was free? Oh, yeah, that makes that sounds about right.

Oh, maybe he was Christian. I don't know. But yeah, yeah, maybe he was Christian. He was from somewhere in 48 Israel. But yeah, like, in the aftermath of the toppling of the statutes. of Jesus, they responded to that of like, okay. But, and since then, yeah, the statue of St. George. Everything's going to be fine.

Look, that guy. He's going to fix everything. The guy who kicked the nun is not going to kick any more nuns. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah, he's going to make sure no more making the statue smoke. Jesus Christ.

I mean, it's like the shit that they have to do in order to get their own army to just not make a PR blender for them. It's just wild. And it almost makes you feel like they don't actually give a shit, which they don't. I don't think they do. I don't think they do either. We need to take a quick break. But everyone, please stick around.

Don't join the CIA. You know, buy whatever fertilizer or whatever they're selling. I don't know what our ads will be. But don't join the CIA. We'll be right back. And we're back this badass barra the world's most moral podcast here with Rania Khalek. Did I do it as good this time? Beautiful. Beautiful.

Loved it. You do it just so I can hear it. Well, okay. So actually, my last name is actually Abdul Khalik. Oh, man. But, but like we all kind of just dropped the Abdul after 9-11 because people kept asking if we were related to Osama bin Laden. because I'm not joking. There's not even an Abdulin in his name.

You know what? I don't know. Maybe one of the hijackers' first names was Abdul. I don't even know like what. I don't even know any abduals from that. All right. Let me this. Well, you've got what?

You had the, what was it? Not MBS. That's Muhammad bin Salman. Who is the guy with the hairy chest? Abdul is like a patronymic name. It's like son of or descendant of. right is that what like abdul is basically yeah yeah it's like servant servant of so actually my last you could have just you could have just you could have just anglic you know mic you know

that's right okay yeah like i had a thought of that or oh it's too late now it's i can't undo it so now it's i guess you'd say chalek chalik like like but it's like i got it i feel like i did it pretty good you did you did yeah yeah no i was in press because you did the chah I mean the ha ha is like a hard sound to say so I I I'm hard to say without making it sound Hebrew well yeah and also like and also like they love to add like the Israelis love to add to add ha I think they do it actually on purpose as to be condescending is it yeah the whole like hasbalah Hamas like they know they know they know they know they know how to say they know that's true because when they talk about hummus they still say hummus they say hummus

But they don't hummus. They're just being assholes. They're just being racist. They're just being racist. That's crazy. You're so, that's true. But it's very on brand. It's very on brand.

They don't say chazvara. No, they don't. They can say the ha. They can say it. They can say it. They're just being assholes. They can, wow. You know, I'm starting to turn on this whole Israel thing.

Yeah, this Zionism thing is kind of dumb guys. I got to think they're, I think they might, I think they might be racist. Well, speaking of suddenly turning on completely innocent figures, let's get into some discourse that'll piss everybody off. Yeah, all right. It's time for discourse, guys. Unfortunately, discourse has happened and we have to talk about it because we have opinions. For anyone who didn't spend the entire weekend on Twitter, boy, are we about to fill you in and some exciting stuff. Yeah, welcome to hell. So AOC Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. did an event at the University of Chicago with David Axelrod.

You'll remember him from the Obama administration. And during this event. Noted leftist, David Axelrod. Socialists, you know, Marxist. I heard he's a Maoist. Yeah, Marxist Maoist, David Axelrod. Noted apologizer for past mistakes and past associations. Absolutely.

He hosted her. at this event and she gave an answer that has been going viral. First, I'm going to play you sort of the clip that was taken from this event. And I'm going to give you the full context of it right after. But this is the clip that's been going viral. It is AOC talking about Marjorie Taylor Green. I personally do not trust someone like Marjorie Taylor Green, a proven bigot and anti-Semite on the issues of what is good.

for Gazans and Israelis. I know. I don't think that it benefits our movement in that instance to align the left with white nationalists. So that is the clip that went viral and caused a lot of discourse. The discourse has been flowing,

not unlike Spice in Dune. And the discourse kind of like split into two. camps, I would say. One is a camp that is filled with people who are ostensibly pro-Palestine, who, you know, some are anonymous accounts. Some are, you know, prominent pro-Palestine voices on the internet, talking about how, hmm, it's kind of rich for you, AOC, to go after Marjorie Taylor Green when, you know, you have not so much been a leader on this particular issue since October 7. It seems kind of strange. She has been a leader.

Well, she's been an elected leader. Right. And she did some leadership at the DNC when she led people towards a lie called the people we want you to vote for are working tirelessly for a ceasefire. That's leadership. Right. Right. Yeah, that's a kind of leadership. It is.

A kind of leadership, yeah. I mean, sheep dogs are leaders. Sure, that's true. They're leading something. You're the dog leading the sheep into the slaughterhouse. The other part, the other camp in the discourse are people who, you know, I would say some are also ostensibly pro-Palestine, you know, people in accounts. Many of them are, I would say, more so just, you know, online progressives and also people who support more, I would say, some of them are centrist. Some of them are near a tandon level centrist.

Someone from the Atlantic was very protective of AOC. Who are going after people for criticizing AOC for saying that, hey, you know, kind of rich for you to be the one to attack Margie Taylor Green when at the very least she kind of broke with her party to be against us. Now, here are some of the tweets that came out. The big one that was getting a lot of play and a lot of criticism was from Ryan Grimm, who said, MGT sacrificed her political career to stand against. Genocide, Against Trump, against the Epstein class, and to defend the survivors of Epstein's trafficking. If that doesn't earn credibility, I don't know what possibly could. To which Arash Aziz of the Atlantic, famously socialist magazine, The Atlantic, wrote, it's fitting for Ryan Grimm to support MGT.

That's his politics. And that of dropside, after all, I admire the honesty. But those of us on the socialist left should naturally pick AOC. It shouldn't be hard. Again, this guy is... He also, by the way, supports the bombing of Iran. He's an Iranian pro-regime change. He's a pro-regime change. The socialist pro-regime change.

Yeah, okay. You know, that whole faction of the left-wing socialist movement that says, yeah, kill Iran. kill my own family members in service of this imperial war. And hey, and dear Jeffrey Epstein, please edit my article about it. Right. So, you know, those are some of the camps that were coming out. But I think it's important that I play the full context of the,

both the question that was asked and how she answered, because it really, to me, makes the entire discourse. seem completely in bad faith, specifically the part where everyone is accusing, anyone who says, hey, why are you attacking Marjorie Taylor Green when on this particular issue, AOC, you have not been, you certainly have not been a leader on this issue, and you have not been great on this issue at all. So in fact, why would you put yourself in this position? You got to watch the full context of it. Here it is for, forever. In 2021, you stated that there were, quote, legitimate white supremacist sympathizers at the core of the House of Representatives caucus.

Yet since then, in efforts to ban congressional insider trading of securities, you've worked across the aisle with representatives such as Representative Tim Burchett, a Republican from the state of Tennessee. Do you stand by those former comments and do you think that they make bipartisanship harder? I do stand by those comments. It's just true. And for his part, you know, Congressman Burchett has called me a communist and a witch. But you know what? We got to ban insider trading in Congress. I care about results. I care about results.

Now, there are certain places where certain areas where I don't think that we should ignore some folks' record on some of these. issues, right? It's about where we trust intent, where we trust where those outcomes are going. I personally do not trust someone like Marjorie Taylor Green, a proven

bigot and anti-Semite on the issues of what is good for Gazans and Israelis. I know. I don't think that it benefits our movement in that instance to line the left with white national.

And this is So much worse. I hadn't seen that. I didn't know. I had not seen that initial question. You would think that the question, you would think the question was like, what do you think of Marjorie Taylor Green? She's also totally undermining.

She's also completely undermining her own argument. Yes. On the one hand, yeah, totally. Like, I care about results. I hate this man. He's disgusting. But I will work with him to ban insider trading. However, I won't work with the same bigots to, to, to, to, you know, to, you.

stop a genocide? A genocide. And also, like, what? So banning insider trading, we can totally go across party lines, which you should. And that is, I actually agree with that. And also sanctioning and condemning China. I'll sign on to Ted Cruz, you know,

but this is the step too far for me. This is on Gaza, it's too far. Fuck, I'm sorry, fuck you. Like, that's just, oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. And you can feel the bullshit coming when she says, some folks. The minute that Barack Obama little, you hear that, she's like,

just, you know, some folks. What a disappointment of a person. Like, I was so excited when she was elected. And I've always felt, you know, like, I've criticized her a ton, but I've also always felt like, I still agree with her on most things. Right.

Right? Like, more than I do, obviously, like, even Marjorie Taylor Green, by the way. Of course. That's the thing. The problem. with this the way that this discourse is being framed is that the critics of aOC are being put into this camp of oh so what you want marjorie taylor green to be president oh so you're a big you're a big

marjorie taylor green fan it's like no that is not what no one is saying i believe in now everything marjorie taylor green has uh ever stood for no one's even saying that she's not a racist or like or white nationalist or white nationalists what they're saying is that You know, it's a ridiculous claim to make about someone doing a legit criticism of AOC when it is very clear that the racist person, maybe racistly put an amendment to deny weapons sales, ban weapon sales to Israel. Also, you know what? Real quick, like, why is Marjorie Taylor Green? She is, by the way, she is basically like a Christian white nationalist.

She is, she is a racist. She's totally in support of like deportation. I mean, the stuff, she was very much in support of the entire, like all that, the ice in Minneapolis. 100%. No, and she used to be viciously anti-Palestinian too. She posted the thing about the,

of the, you know, the Statue of Liberty and a Burka. She voted to censure Rashida Taleb. You know, she was. However. Why is it okay? Why is it okay? Why is it okay to do things with Zionists and then not with her? Like, why are we not looking at Zionists the same way we look at the white Christian National? Right. That's another, it's another double standard.

And AOC doesn't. AOC appeases Zionists all the freaking time. She acts like they are somehow their feelings matter and she'll like meet with like she did. Remember how many times she would like meet with some of the worst of them to make them feel better after she'd said something like even media like that had like a little bit of like Palestine. Palestinians are human sentiment to it. Which is by way, also, why she needs to use the word anti-Semite as a standalone addition to Bigot. Right. Right. Many of you hear bigot and anti-Semite.

That entire phrase, I don't think we need to ally with a bigot and an anti-Semi when it comes to, I don't think she knows. I don't trust her on what Ghazans and Israelis need. Did you hear that phrasing? Oh, Gossens, by the way, Gossens. Now, some people on the Internet were. like, oh, Gazans, Rafad Alarir used that term. Lots of people use the term. It is the term from people from Gaza.

But AOC is talking about the broader conflict. And what Gazans and Israelis need, and I don't trust Marjorie Taylor Green on this. People are being like, oh, well, you want AOC to apologize for what she's done. When are you going to ask Marjorie Taylor Green to apologize for her Islamophobic comments? The answer, as everyone is saying is, I'll ask her to apologize. the minute you keep telling me I need to vote for her in 2028. Marjorie Taylor Green is not being set up as the darling of, you know, the great, whatever-colored hope of the Democratic Party in 2028, you know, we're not,

we're being asked to go with this person and trust her, and it's totally valid. And it comes on top of, it comes on top of several instances of AOC pissing us all off on this issue. Especially this issue. Yeah. On this issue, yeah. I think this is what makes me, you know, more mad about this is that AOC, it's not that she hasn't done and that her politics, like, holistically, if you were looking at her politics, I agree with her on most, probably most things. The problem is that she's very clearly on this run for the, you know, she may be announcing a. a candidacy for president, right?

And since October 7th, she has been not good on this issue. She has been noticeably not good on this issue. The fact that she would bring Marjorie Taylor Green up in this moment, unprompted. And worse than unprompted, it's like this is her, as opposed to Marjorie Taylor Green, I will work with this one white nationalist

for this issue, but not for that. To me, it speaks to her pretty shitty political instincts. And I think this is the problem I have is like, we're already, you know, being told to not criticize AOC for things. Because, hey, she, you know, what if she runs for president? She's got to be our person. I'm like, no, fuck that. I'm worried about her political instincts.

This is called vetting, folks. Yes. Properly vetting. It doesn't mean I like Marjorie Taylor Green. means that she herself is putting herself in a position to be criticized for an issue where she deserves criticism. Well, also, also, if you think about it this way, too, this issue, if you look at the polling of the Democratic base, it's like overwhelming majority, this is a genocide. We hate Israel. Disarm Israel, basically, right? Yes. So, like, it's kind of a no-brainer.

And if you are, it's actually a canary and a coal mine issue. Because if you are willing to piss off your base this much on what should be a no-brainer issue this early on, what else are you going to sell out on? That's also what I think about. Yeah. Like seriously, what else are you going to sell out on? And then there's other tells. There's other signs, right? People are like, Marjorie Taylor Green hasn't apologized for this and that. Well, she's apologized for a few things. She said at least, I got it wrong. I got some things wrong. She's spoken to pal. I'm not talking about sincerity. I don't know if I believe that, you know, I'm not talking about belief. Of course, of course.

That's not at all what I'm talking about. No, I know. I'm talking about the willingness to say it publicly. That's right. To put even a performance of humility, and I don't completely disbelieve it in an entirety. Yeah. But whatever, that's irrelevant. Have you ever seen AOC ever say, you know what?

I was wrong. I got that wrong. No, actually no. What you get from her when there's any pushback, literally on anything, is this kind of performative, Instagram selfie ready. Yes. You see her a little body language? She's like, I just don't.

This kind of, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this is this you don't know what I'm dealing with. You don't understand the ins and outs of politics. She does. By the way, she bodes very badly. It bodes badly. It bodes badly, but like, this is actually the moment to criticize because she needs a backlash. Because if she doesn't get a backlash, she's not going to shift.

She needs to respond to the base. Like, these politicians need to be forced to be forced to respond to. respond to the base that they are like demanding support them. Like, okay, if you want our support, then be good on this issue or no? That's right. Like that's, and this is the most important issue. At the very least, apologize to me for saying, apologize to us, sorry, for saying that that they're working tirelessly.

Like, you should be ashamed. You should literally be so ashamed of that you said that. And Jasper Nathaniel and my brother Aaron both said similar things. on Twitter that I thought were smart. You don't even need to come out and do the full Monty apology. You don't need to be like, yeah, I was a cynical craven liar covering for powerful war criminals because

I wanted power in their administration. You could lie in your apology. You could lie in your apology. You could say, you know what? It was an aspirational comment. I wanted that to be true. I even thought it was true. It turns out it wasn't, I found out pretty quick. It wasn't. It was a really good tweet. It was a really good tweet. It was a really

good tweet. And it's true. But she can't even do that. Well, this is the thing. When it comes to this particular, like, criticism where AOC is going after Marjorie Taylor Green, it bodes well or it does not bode well for her political instincts because there is such a direct line of counter-criticism, which is that Marjorie Taylor Green introduced an amendment to the 26th Department of Defense Appropriations Act, aimed specifically at cutting $500 million in Israeli defense funding. This is for the missile defense systems.

She, AOC voted against it while Rashida Talib and Ilhan Omar voted for it. So you're already putting yourself in that position where you have to be like, well, now I have to explain. And she, at the time, she did have to explain. And her explanation was something along the lines of, well, It wasn't going to pass anyways. Didn't want to, you know, it wasn't even going to get done. So who cares? And also, I don't want to see any innocent people dying, which is why I don't want to

defund Iron Dome. Right. And it was the defense of Iron Dome. Yeah, yeah. It protects innocent Israelis. She is now backed away from that position. And she is now, once again, she moved with J Street on this issue in which it was all defense, you know, weapons to Israel should be cut, which is also something.

that Netanyahu is saying too. So they can kind of showing a little bit. And Ram Emanuel. Yeah, the new liberal Zionist line is going to be okay with the fence. It's not that radical. But, you know, the fact is that she's, whether or not she moved independently to that after, you know, or did it because of J Street. It doesn't really matter.

The point is that Marjorie Taylor Green tried something. And you can say, oh, well, it wasn't going to pass anyways. You know what else hasn't passed? is her anti-insider trading bill with Tim Burchett of Tennessee. Yeah, didn't stop her from boating with him on it. It is still. It shouldn't. And it shouldn't.

It shouldn't. And she's not wrong to be like, hey, in Congress, you have to work with some, you know, people who's on certain things, their views are pretty abhorrents. The point of being white nationalists, you can't then also have a cutout. Well, not Marjorie Taylor Green because she's, you know, she's, she is beyond the male white nationalism during this, you know, during a genocide. It just, it reads to me like she is completely out of touch with the base, you know, especially left.

Seeing the context of like the question that was asked, like, why did you, why did you bring this up? Like for who was that for? And then also, if you don't want the Marjorie Taylor Greens and the Tucker Carlson's, getting the attention and credit for saying what everybody should be saying, then don't let them own that. Yes, lead, lead. Like, lead on it. I don't want it to be fucking talk or excuse my language.

I don't know if I'm also to say the F-O-L-Wing here. No, please, but it's true. Be better than them. And it's not hard. It's not actually hard because at the very least, AOC can be as good as Rashida Taleb or as Ilhan Omar. Or she could at least be in solidarity with them. Well, that's what I mean.

Them not leading on this issue is also there's a danger to, it in a different way that I just want to really quickly point out because like I don't I you know I know you have feelings about the how genuine MTG is I don't know with her I really don't with Tucker Carlson I don't know how genuine he is on the Palestine issue but I do see some craven opportunism in the sense that he is gaining a huge following of people who might be progressive minded who might have politics similar to us because of how what he's saying about Palestine But are you guys seeing what he's saying on shows in between the Palestine stuff? Right.

It's fucking horrific bullshit. Somali Americans are destroying American culture. That's why we have to deport Africans. It's like he's literally, he's going to be radicalizing people into like right-wing MAGA shit who are coming for the Palestine stuff. I'm not saying every person who watches him for the Palestine stuff is suddenly going to be a raging MAGA. But that guy's got presidential ambitions too. Yes. And it's like that is literally going to be.

an entryway into right-wing politics if you let those people own it. Yes, 100%. Okay, well, maybe if we tried leftist more to cut AOC some slack rather than demanding that she fucking step up and do what he should be doing. Literally every defense of her I've seen

has been absolutely absurd on this. Some people are like, excuse me, you want AOC to speak nicely about someone who has incited racist hatred against her, tried to get her killed, supported January 6 in Saranios. Number one, no, we've never said we need to be nice to her. She's the one who brought the woman's name up, unprompted. Okay, number one, number two, you know who has been able to show some grace to M.TG?

I had a conversation with Ilhan Omar when I met her backstage at a, or at an afterparty when Mikhail had Eric Clapton come and do a big fundraiser for Palestine for Gaza, and I was very lucky enough to do. to get a ticket. I heard about that. I heard about how awesome that was. It was an incredible. I totally was going to go, but I was busy.

You're busy. Yet, yet, yet. It was a, it was a, it was a, it was a, it was a invitation must have gotten lost in the mail. It got lost in the mail. Yeah, that's what happened. It was a truly beautiful night of music. I just, I mean, I just, and I developed a whole new appreciation. All right, but go on.

I spoke. Easy, easy, easy, Matt. Wow, the party that you were at that we were not at sounds, sounds amazing. I'm so happy you had the best time of your life. I'm openly a jealous man. You could live in New York if you wanted. I can't. Anyway, I talked to Ellen briefly, a representative Omar briefly,

and she spoke about it, and she's also spoken about this publicly. Like, she approached Marjor Taylor Green to thank her for advocacy, and she told me that Green had tears in her eyes and really warmly appreciated and was almost bewildered by her kindness and her grace. Like, you're supposed to hate me because I incited hatred against. do. And that is actually possible if you make something more important than, I don't know, your brand. Like that's possible if you stand on principle. I don't even think you have to take the extra step of going up to her personally and thanking her for, you know, or changing her tune on this.

You don't have to do any of that shit. But if we're talking about wielding power, if we're talking about what's the type of concessions that you're making, don't put insider trading up. against genocide funding. To me, I'm like, that is stupid because everyone here on this pro-Palestine podcast absolutely wants a bill to pass that stops congressional insider trading. I don't. I love insider trading. I love a good insider.

Sorry, I did not sign up for this. It's like, we have to sit there and watch as you say, well, this, of course, is an important thing to, you know, a lie with white nationalists. But this other thing isn't. Instead, you can wield your power and say, you know what, I'm going to fucking bite my tongue and fucking vote on this thing, even though I know it's not going to pass. Because at the very least, I understand that me voting against that is going to look bad. You know, it's just, I see the criticism that people have of Marjorie, of people who are not defending Marjorie. Taylor Green, by the way, of people who are criticizing AOC. That's what they're doing. It's not a defensive. And it's like people are essentially just like, you have to understand when she proposed the bill to stop the funding of the Israeli genocide machine, she did it racistly.

Whereas AOC voted against defunding the Israeli genocide machine, but did it anti-raciously. She wokely said, I will not. I will not cut. aid to Israel while they are massacring a people. I mean, our friends in Gaza, our friends and Gaza did actually differentiate those two votes and much more appreciated the AOC vote. Yeah, we're like, well, she, we don't want to, we don't want a racist vote to stop our genocide. Right.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Our friends in Gaza were snapping and going, yes, queen. Keep the funding going. Like, to me, it is, it's such a bad faith reading. of people in general to even bring up Marjorie Taylor Green I think is part of

this thing that I see it's this new meta in which when you on the left when a pro-Palestine person does something like say hey say what you will

you have to hand it to Tucker Carlson on this particular video clip he owned that liberal Zionist by pointing out the hypocrisy in their stance. People immediately are going, so now you want, you want him to be the president. Talker for president. Now you love Nick Fuentes. Now you love. No. No. I had to say it to someone again today when they're like, you do not have

to hand it to her. I'm like, what do you think having to hand it to someone means? It means you don't want to. You'd rather not have to. You'd rather the circumstances. We'd rather be living in a world in which that's not the nearest available. person who's doing the thing that ought to be done, but it happens to be the case. So it's not about praising them to the heavens or claiming that everything about them is great, much less endorsing them for some office. Well, I was just going to say, like, again, like to go back to the fact that she is absolutely willing to, like, take people like Jonathan Greenblatt seriously.

Right. Like, who, again, I see, I actually see him as vicious. He's more vicious in my opinion, Martin. Yeah, I mean, by far. Because he basically agrees with her on most things on top of being pro-genocide. Right. I mean, and he has much more power, actually. Yeah.

Yes. He's much more connected to the institutional levels of leverage of power. Also, Major Taylor Green is literally not in Congress. She's no longer in Congress anymore. And you know what? It's actually clear why she brought Marjorie Taylor Green up because she has a guilty conscience and because she wants to score points with the people that she thinks she needs to,

like she's made a calculation somewhere in her, whether it's conscious or unconscious, that she's, she's going to get this presidency or whatever it is that she wants by pushing the same buttons that Kamala pushed, that Hillary pushed, you know, by pointing at the alt-right or whatever, and blah, blah, blah. And someone who, oh, yeah, Adam Carlson on Twitter said the craziest thing. Let me actually read this tweet. He says, the weird, tiny but loud need to get some fresh air online left, continuing down the path of disowning aOC over basically nothing for the next year is only going to further endear her to mainstream

progressives and liberals, thus making her more likely to win the nomination in 2028, to which I say, if that's true, then what are you complaining about? Shut the fuck up. That's what you won't? Actually, actually, but also what? What does that mean? Well, what he's saying is if you keep accusing her of being a sellout, it's only going to make her sell out even harder.

And that's going to make her more likable? Yeah. Who's that? No, more likable to the, more likable to people to the right of us. So the people who would never vote for her, even if they were on fire? Like, this is just stupid. Listen, I don't, I, I, I, I don't, I, I, I don't, I'm not as pessimistic about it to, to think that she is all part of like a general pivot to the right. I think more likely than not

that what she is is incredibly, incredibly easy to lobby on this issue. She has been lobbied to shit by J Street, right? And she, after October 7th, I believe she decided to sort of go in the Bernie direction when it came to talking about this issue, which was to essentially not lead at all, wait until the moments were right to say something

and then offer at least a little bit of something to say. And I'm sorry, Matt. And along the way, say some outright lies. Of course. Of course. Like when you're not saying anything, I know you're not. But I think it's important to say like...

But I'm not talking about silence. I'm talking about words like Pamas to rape people on October 7th. Or I don't think we should have a ceasefire, which Bernie said. If you're going to take Bernie's lead, you're going to end up speaking some... some things that are true and a few very, very consequential lies.

Yes. That should never be forgotten. And I agree. And it's not me saying it should forgive her for it. But I think what it is, this is me at my most optimistic when it comes to AOC. Because I've never been a big AOC pessimist when it came to, I think she does get a lot of bad faith attacks. That does happen. But, you know, when it comes to this issue, those, the attacks are, they are correct.

I mean, they are right. It is people rightfully pointing out that she has been pretty shitty on this particular issue. I think she is someone who needs this pressure. If you, if you are too gun-shy to pressure someone like AOC, then you really, you really, then politics isn't for you, I think. I think then what you really want is, I think, I mean, I don't know what you want.

If you're someone who's like, no, no, no, no, we can't go after AOC. It's unfair. She's, you know, close enough on all these other things. She is so lobbyable. She is someone who will literally, if you yell at her enough, and I'm not saying be mean to her,

but I'm saying point out these moments in which she is fucking up, I guarantee you she will not do the thing where she doubles down. I truly believe that she's... There's one way to find out. There's only one way to find out. Exactly. There's only one way to find out, which is

you keep it up. You keep up the pressure. And if you're someone who doesn't believe in that type of pressure or whatnot, then I'm sorry to say that you're going to end up being pretty mad online about it. Someone with a very large fault. Someone with a very, very large following me. I don't want to

name them because I want to whatever. had the gall to use the phrase taint. And please no scatological puns here, Matt. I'm not in the move. I didn't. Good. Good. But I've thought of it.

These online leftists who are tainting are the most prominent and promising far left candidate but 2028. We're not tainting her. We're pointing out that there's shit on her face. We didn't put it there. I just like, no, I think it's a really good point. like Matt, the way you're putting it, it's like you don't belong in politics if you think this is the way to go. Because it's like there are massive lobbying groups that have so much funding and can put so much pressure. And you just want to sit back and be like, don't criticize her.

Well, all they're doing is like putting so much pressure. All they're doing is calling her office, calling her an anti-Semite. You're handing them the policy that they want. Yes, exactly. That's what's going to end up happening. It's what I loved about, you know, sort of, you know, sort of, you know, you know, there's this anti-electoral, you know, faction, I think, of people on the left in general who, and I understand sort of, I'm a pessimist when it comes to electoral politics most of the time. But if you're someone who does vote or does, at the very least, is holding onto the idea that maybe, you know, it is possible for things to get better, I look at the pressure as like part of it.

It's like you want people who you can yell at. You want people who you can convince of stuff. And if you're not willing to do that for this issue, then you're not allowed to complain when other people are doing it. Because you're just like, you can't be like, yes, I care a lot about the Palestinians and about ending, you know, Zionism and ending the genocide. But don't yell at AOC. All she's doing is, you know, trying to attack. Marjorie Taylor Green for out of spite. Well, also historically in this country, like there's politicians that get elected.

And even if you hate electoralism and hate the parties, like some of those politicians, you will have their ear a little bit. And historically speaking, you have to put pressure on them to push the policies that even they promise to enact. Like whether we're talking about Zoranam Dhani, who I actually think is better at politics and has better politics than AOC. But like, he still needs to be pressured. Of course.

Like, you're sitting in the room with really powerful people who have a lot of pressure points that they can put on him. And if you're in the streets making demands or as groups making demands, he can point to you and say, well, I have to do what they're saying, girl, they'll have my head. The new deal was not the result of the sheer force of FDR's will. Right. Or not criticizing him. Right. It was a result of his will being pushed over the, you know, over the top by press. pressure from below.

Right. Pressure from the people that those policies would benefit. Yes. And it's just people, I think we, there's a little bit of me that kind of mourns where our, how focused our politics were on the left in the past couple of years and how they're slowly once again falling apart. because I see people who are deciding to just go full bad faith and say like, hey, anyone who criticizes as AOC for criticizing Marjorie Taylor Green is just believing in the same things that Marjorie Taylor Green does and is a racist and you should be ashamed of yourself.

And it's like, this is the type of shit that I feel like even just a year ago, people who were, I don't know, rad libs or whatever, would avoid trying to push because they knew they were going to get shit for it. People weren't buying this like constant, constant like, oh, I'm going to use sort of standpoint, you know, politics or identity politics in order to water down the pro-Palestine movement, to water down criticism, well-deserved criticism of someone who was acting pro-genocide, essentially. And now people are, are, are starting to back away from that as like, well, Palestine is just one of the issues that you can put up against congressional insider trading. And it's like, guys, fuck that.

Is it because it's become like normalized? Like, is it because it's just been happening for so long? It's like everyone just like, well, that's background noise now. Yeah. And it's because people I think, you know, who are, I think a lot of our well-meaning. I think a lot of people are they are weary or they're wary of people

putting them in the camp of oh so you're pro-white nationalists and they're trying to not There's also there's also possible that like AOC Like she's look she's I don't think she's dumb I think sometimes she's word salad about things Where you're just like what did you just say But I think she she's pretty calculating

and she's quite ambitious and perhaps that's a fisher she would like to create and meant in some ways. It's like it's useful. It's like anyone who's going to criticize me in this, you're going to get called a white nationalist because I'm making it about MTG now

instead of about genocide. Right. Like she literally basically argue. I'm going to create my own basket of deplorables and this time it'll work. Yeah, I mean, there could have been an element of that. Because I'm younger and more media savvy than Hillary and like, like I basically liked,

I basically liked her approach, but we need to revamp it for the, Instagram era. Maybe I'm just naive, but after two and a half years and a lost national election, I just can't believe. I just cannot believe that someone would be just so ill-informed enough, have such bad political instincts that they think that the right move is to pivot right on Palestine. And I just, I don't think that's... the case because I can't. I can't believe it. But you know what? I'm sure the comment section has a lot of things to tell me about my optimism. And now it's their and now it's their term

because I think that's about all we've got. Yeah, I guess that's a show. Guys, thank you. Rania, thank you so much for coming on to the we love Marjorie Taylor Green show because we're racist. It's a white nationalist power hour. Exactly. Two Jews and an Arab. That's right. Two Jews and Arab. Just going Marjorie.

Yeah. I like them big. I'm like them largery. I like them with big crosses and a Jesus. And more white people, less of us. More white. Rania, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people find your work and support you?

Well, I really, I had so much fun. This was like, this was almost as fun as that Eric Clapton concert. We didn't get invited to. All right, I'm a smuck. No, this was a really, really fun episode to get to do. I really appreciate you guys inviting me. Such an honor. And people, they can follow my work.

I host a show called Dispatches at Breakthrough News. And you can follow me on Twitter, on X. What's it called? X and Instagram at Rania Callick. And when we'll have all the... Oh, and I'm a grifter too. I have a substack. Oh, check up the substack.

We're going to have links to all of that. in the show notes. So everyone, please, as soon as you can, follow Rania, follow her work, support her on Substack, all of those things. Rania, Chalik, so great talking to you. Thanks, guys. You are awesome. You are. And so are you out there, everyone in the world. Thank you so much for listening, everyone. Oh, patreon.com slash bad hasbara. Baddhasbara gmail.com for your questions, comments, and concerns. All right. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, from the river to the sea. You know who else likes Bodies of Water?

MTG. Okay, bodies of water are canceled. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Jumping jacks was us. Push-ups was us. Garmagas us.

All karate us. Taking Molly us. Michael Jackson us. Yamaha Keyboards.