Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - 241: Hello AIPAC!!! with Francesca Albanese

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

In a record-breaking runtime, Matt and Daniel welcome UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese. They discuss the way 9/11 re-ordered the international diplomatic landscape, whether purported democracies should be judged by their professed values or their actions, and the Minions as the artistic manifestation of a smooth-domed evil man from the real world.Please donate to the International Rescue Committee: https://help.rescue.org/donateJoin the Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/badhasbaraSubscribe to the Substack at https://badhasbara.substack.com/Get a Youtube Membership at https://www.youtube.com/@Badhasbara/membershipWhen The World Sleeps, by Francesca Albanese: https://bookshop.org/p/books/when-the-world-sleeps-stories-words-and-wounds-of-palestine-francesca-albanese/937f1955dea1c2b9Middle School Mysteries: https://middleschoolmysteries.com/Middle School Mysteries Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/79Qk5dGLT31Y7Jte40nmNB?si=USQ380kJRA2Zz1PL9j2_TAMiddle School Mysteries Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/middle-school-mysteries-original-studio-cast-recording/6813827235Middle School Mysteries IG: https://www.instagram.com/middleschoolmysteriesmusical/TICKETS: Bassem Youssef with Matt Lieb October 10 in Los Angeles: https://www.ticketmaster.com/bassem-youssef-the-belly-of-the-los-angeles-california-10-10-2026/event/0900646CF90AFB88TICKETS: Francesca Fiorentini and Matt Lieb October 13 in Philadelphia: https://www.ticketmaster.com/francesca-fiorentini-matt-lieb-philadelphia-pennsylvania-10-13-2026/event/020064D7D1615517TICKETS: The Bitchuation Room with Francesca Fiorentini and guest Matt Lieb October 14 in Philadelphia: https://www.livenation.com/event/vvG1FZ_uLomA9S/francesca-fiorentini-the-bitchuation-room-liveTICKETS: Matt Lieb and Francesca Fiorentini October 15 in Brooklyn, NY: https://bit.ly/octoberbellhouseBad Hasbara Merch: https://estoymerchandise.com/collections/bad-hasbara-podcastWhat’s The Spin on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/50JoIqCvlxL3QSNj2BsdURWhat’s The Spin: Part 2: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3rGDqmo1trC8qwobefELSt?si=e29b8594e17c47dbWhat’s The Spin on Tidal: https://tidal.com/playlist/3cec7963-1fc5-42bc-ab7d-64fb420eb50eWhat’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/@badhasbaraPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hello everybody and welcome to Bad Hasbara. The world's most intramural podcast. That's right. My name is Matt Lebe. I will be your most moral co-host for this podcast. Daniel Matte, your other most moral co-host for this podcast. Can't believe we're in October, 26. October.

Coming up on three years since we met, Matt. I know. December 12th of this year will be our three-year anniversary. And we're coming up on the, my daughter's fourth birthday on the wonderful date of October 7th, a date that I celebrate every single year. And over as well. I celebrate October 7th every single year. Happy birthday to my wonderful daughter. Yeah, I know. Look at that. We're coming up on our own anniversary here on this podcast.

So many anniversaries going on. And to that, I will say thank you to everyone who's been watching and listening this entire time. people who were, you know, A-1 day ones, people who, like, showed up later. Isn't it wonderful podcasting about stuff? We all love it. Give us five stars in a review if you haven't done so yet. Come on. What are you waiting for? Do it.

It's insane. And also, join our Patreon. Patreon.com slash bad as barra. You get these episodes. You get a bonus episode every week. Who doesn't? Why have one when you can have two? Do you know how many extra times a week you can hear Matt say, you know?

Yeah, like to me, you know, come. Like the idea that you wouldn't, you know. The idea that come, you know, I mean. Like what are we doing here? Yeah, exactly. Why would you not pay for me to say more filler words while I'm trying to collect my thoughts that never come? Come spelled with a you. Shout out to producer Adam Levin.

he's on the ones and twos. He always, he out here, always on them ones and twos. And we got to give a shout out, of course, to our wonderful editor, Brent on the threes and fours, editing the clips, making them look all pretty and nice and everything. Very exciting episode.

Polishing the turds. Polishing turds. We have a really exciting episode. This is going to be a really fun one. I think y'all, we'll enjoy it. But before we get to all that, I want to remind people I'm going to be in Philadelphia on October 13th. and October 14th at the punchline in Philly,

please get your tickets now. You don't want to miss it. It's going to be a fun comedy show. I'm doing stand-up, and I'm doing a podcast, live bituation room podcast with Francesca Fiorentini, my beautiful Italian wife, who shares the name.

The only Francesca in your life? The only Francesca I need. And it's going to be. I don't care how smart, beautiful, and morally circumspect any other Francesca That's right. There could only be one Highlander. But yes, come see myself and my wife, Francesco Puranini over at the Philly Punchline, October 13th and 14th, and of course, October 15th at the Bell House in New York, Brooklyn. So please get your tickets now. The link is

in the description. What else? Today's episode is brought to you by Gaza Soup Kitchen. Gaza soup kitchen began by feeding 150 families a day in April of 2024, quickly grew to serving 3,000 people daily. Operating amidst unimaginable scarcity and risk, their team works tirelessly to prepare and serve hot nourishing meals. Across 10 active kitchen sites, the team prepares simple vegetarian meals often with severely limited supplies that depend on your donations. So it is of utmost importance that if you're going to spend any extra money that you have or even money that maybe you were going to spend on yourself, consider instead going to gaza soupkitchen.org and donating that money to people who need it desperately in Gaza.

So just all you have to do is click the link or you can type it in. G-A-Z-A-S-O-U-P-K-T-C-H-E-N.org. That's gaza Soupk Kitchen. dot org please donate right now i'll even give you a few seconds to do it oh god you're making me you're making me i wish you hadn't given them those extra seconds i was sitting with a pun that i really didn't want to make it's making the pressure in my brain is you know what i believe in you i believe that i just did i just did look at that look at that you have a stroke um just on the sudden your face troops. Oh, fuck.

Doctor looks at the MRI. You see this little black thing here? That looks like you got a pun lodged in there and it's started to metastasize and unfortunately you're blind now and you have no sense of smell. That's right. Oh, yes, the downside of not being able to do the word play that you were born to do. Daniel, what is the spin? Well, it's fall, it's autumn.

It's that time of year. Autumn in New York. Exactly. Although I didn't, I didn't, that's one song I didn't choose. Do they have autumn in L.A.? There's a reason there's no song Autumn in L.A. Because it's never, you don't have seasons. Yeah, we have summer, endless summer, and then it's gloomy for a little bit.

And then what the fuck is this wet shit? Yeah, yeah. What is this? And then Al-Nino. And you're just like, huh? And that's it. Yeah. Santa and the Santa Ana wins.

Yeah, and then fires and Santa Ana wins. Those are our seasons. And of course, pilot season. Oscar season, award season. Who says LA doesn't have season? Anyway, here are some autumn-related recordings, songs, or plays on words. Jack McDuff, great Hammond B-3 organ player. Tough Duff.

With the album, Tough Duff and Autumn Leaves is in here. There we go. Okay. Those autumn leaves. Leaves. Don't know the words. Just autumn leaves. Just more autumn leaves.

Vince Goraldi, the piano maestro with It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, the sound fact to the other television special, the lesser known one. That's right. I read that book to my daughter pretty much every night. She loves the great pumpkin. Look at this art. That's the vinyl itself. Dude, that's trippy as shit. Isn't that trippy?

Yo, look at that. Look at that. The great pumpkin. Wait, what's the autumn? part oh right yeah because it's the great pumpkin i got it i got it it took me a second all right i thought there was going to be a word thing don't look at me no it's just don't look at me it's fall it's it's autumn time uh winter spring summer or fall fall carol king tapestry you got a friend yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's good i like yeah

yeah it's good uh peter satira nice little duet with Amy Grant next time I fall in love. Okay, okay, yeah. This is the album that has, you know, I am the man who will fight for your honor. The karate could two soundtrack theme. Oh, okay.

Yeah. The one where they go to Okinawa? I remember that movie. I just don't remember the song. The sexy-ass tea ceremony and all that. Dude, that's a fucking great movie. It is a great movie. I think it's better than the first one in some ways.

100%. Yes. It's incredible. Yeah. Mr. Sato. Yeah. And then finally, KRS 1, return to the boom bap.

The opening track, well, the second track is called Out of Here, which is all about rappers who are falling off. Yeah, a lot of those. Because they fucking sucker MCs out here in the, too many sucker podcasters out here in these streets. Yeah, that's right. We don't fall off. We fall up.

That's what we do. Badhouse Verra is old school, but we ain't going out. That's right. Uh-huh. KRS 1. You know, I was just thinking about karate kid 2's. I think that's the movie that taught me about first about an American imperialism. Right.

Since it's crazy, if you rewatch that movie, you realize like, oh, the American occupying military force are the bad guys in the movie. Yes, they are. Which is crazy for like that time period, you know, people weren't really, you know, fucking with talking. talking shit about American imperialism. But shit, maybe, you know, that one slipped under the radar. Yeah, Hollywood movies would sometimes slip cool things like that in, you know, under the guise of a nice American boy learning about the world. That's right.

I mean, they still had to have, yeah, it had to be a nice, you know, cute Ralph Machio being like, there are some good Americans or whatever, but the fact that they were the, the Americans were the enemy, I was like, yes, this rules. Anyways, that's what's spinning in the Mote household. All right, everyone, now it is time to introduce our guest. I am incredibly excited for this one. This is a very fun, a very special episode of Bathurst. By longtime popular demand.

Yes, yes, people have been asking. People often ask us for big guests and we're like, we're trying, but sometimes we succeed. You know her as the author of the wonderful book, When the World Sleeps, Stories, Words, and Wounds of Palestine. You also know her as the U.S. UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. Ladies and gentlemen and everyone else, welcome to Bad Hazbarra Francesca Albanese. Hi. Hello, hello.

Hi. Thanks for having me. Thank you for coming on to our podcast. This is a big deal for us because we're mostly a pretty stupid podcast. I mean, you know, we are the opposite of an important. And it's always great to get a guest who's been doing the kind of work that you've been doing. So thank you. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. And also seeing me in the middle, like just under Bad Hasbara, sounds like a very bad start. Can you Matt or Daniel move and let me go to either to the right or to the next? You can go wherever you want. We can move this. This show, this show really, we can do anything on this show. Yeah, yeah. Do this.

so you can attack us from the left. That's right. That's right. I like it. We start. We're serving podcaster Albanese tonight. That's right. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Francesca.

It really is a privilege to talk to you. You and I have interacted once before when I was playing text support for the Instagram live you were trying to do with my father, which was a funny episode of our lives. but here you are finally on our podcast. And first of all, you have this book out about human rights, about Palestine, about your work. Can you sketch for us just your personal and professional history with this region, with this land, this place, and this people? How did you get to be so central to this conversation? Yeah, I wonder.

I wonder because actually I do not know it's just fate or just the accident because I graduated in law and I specialized in human rights law and I was always been interested in international affairs and like any, I mean like many, I've had the white savior. I wouldn't say complex, but the white savior predisposition. So since ever, I wanted to save the world and resolve poverty and injustice. I was very serious, clearly. And so I joined the United Nations pretty, I was pretty young. I mean, pretty young. I was 24, 25 when I joined the UN. And then I stayed for 10 years on with some years of study and specialization in the middle

to deepen my knowledge of human rights. And this is where I met Palestine in a more academic fashion. Because when I was at SOAS in 2003, no, sorry, in 2005, this is where I started to study critical approaches to international law and to question the roots and functions of international law, which is often, I mean, the political size, the use of international law that leads to monstrosities like the, situation in Palestine where it seems that human rights do not exist, if not as a, in a very

absurd inversion of reality. Human rights are seen in their absence. But so I've been working with the, so I was working with the UN when I decided to move to Palestine with the United Nations a refugee and work agency, UNRWA, otherwise known as the terrorist agency, according to Israeli law. Right, the Hamas run, UNRWA. Yeah, apparently, which is wrong. But, however, this is not the, neither the first nor the,

nor the last fabrications that Israel has come up with over the past years. It's a country of inventors where they're always inventing things. They're ingenious, very ingenious and creative. And then when I got bit fed up with the UN, because as I often say, the UN by then had been in Palestine for 60 years and after 60 years, if you're not part of the solutions, you're part of the problems. I moved to the U.S. and I moved to academia. This is where I had my first daughter, and I started researching and writing more scientifically about Palestine.

And a few years later, it's not here, but I published a book about Palestinian refugees in international law. And that was working on this kind of research, but also with civil society, to advance a dissemination of scientific knowledge from within the Middle East. about Palestine, when the former Special Rapporteur told me, look, my post will be vacant next year. So just I'm telling a few people who I think would be great for the job just in case you were interested. And of course, back then I said that this is not going to happen one year and a half later here. I mean, it was May 22 when I started working as a Special Rapporteur on the Occupy. Palestinian territory. It's a pro bono. It's a pro bono position. So it's not paid, which means that for, I mean, I was supposed to continue my work, to continue my university teaching and my writing, etc. And things went differently or decided otherwise. But again, I didn't expect that you occupied Palestinian territory, which had gone through various disasters and tragedies and catastrophes, would turn that bad during that my Monday. But, yeah, I've been quite vocal.

Right. How could you have known? Yeah. No, indeed. But, yeah. I mean, did the previous, you know, special rapporteur give you any advice upon coming in where they like, you know, one thing to know before doing this job is you will be called an anti-Semite for the rest of your life? Yeah, honestly, Matt, they didn't have to tell me because I do remember. I mean, Professor Richard Falk, the most. I mean, he's been a lighthouse for generations of lawyers, like militant jurists, as you say,

but also lawyers who wanted to have a positive impact in terms of justice and in terms of access to fundamental freedoms, not just in the US, but he was an icon and he's been so vilified. Well, he was accused of being a self-hating Jew. because he's Jewish. I've heard that one. I've heard that one. Yeah, he's been accused of, for his integrity and for he's never stepping back, he's been vilified by the pro-apartheid lobby, I mean, lobbies around the world,

but particularly in the US. And also Michael Link, who followed in his footsteps, and he was the one who preceded me in the mandate. I mean, he was also vilified, accused of supporting terrorism and anti-Semitism, of course. So I was prepared. I was accused of anti-Semitism with pretty much the same arguments that are recycled over and over. I mean, if you go to Federer to the first report of that very unsufferable organization called Un-Watch, UN-Watch, Un-Watch. Yeah, UN-Watch.

It should be called Un-Watch. It should be called, yeah. This is their prerogative. They're unwatchable. They're un-watchable. Unsubscribe. Unbelievable. Honestly, they're quite, I mean, I call them the pro-apacti

minions because this is what they are. But they have... You mean like the little yellow creatures with one eye? Yes, those minions. Because they work, they work for the... For group. They work for the evil one. They go around looking for the evil character.

giving them protection. Then they are cutie guys, which is something that the folks at the watch are not. They're not cutie ties. And they're yellow in the sense of cowardly. Yeah, they're cowardly in yellow. And yes, that's right. This is what you're saying in the U.S. The yellow.

Yeah, yeah. It's an old school way of calling someone a coward. It's a country Western way of saying it. Let me ask you a question. I got to say, Gru does, grew looks a lot like Jonathan Greenblad of the ADL. Like put up a picture of the guy from Dispeicable Me with the Minions and he looks pretty much identical to him. They're both bald. I didn't know.

No, I didn't know. I just have, well, this is something that I will only share in my memoir, but I have like a caricatural portrait of the Mignon Barbu, the bearded, the bearded minion in my house. Yeah, he's pretty obnoxious. Already in February 2022, they had six pages on how with the usual tropes that they would use against me. And it's been recycling. Israel's had a chaotic, at least Zionist propaganda has had a chaotic relationship with the UN since Israel's inception. Because when I was growing up, the Hasbara that I was taught going to Zionist Hebrew school in summer camp was, the UN gave us

what you know was essentially our birth dula right the the partition plan the Arabs didn't accept it we did right then there was the fact that that Israel was violating more UN human rights resolutions

resolutions Geneva conventions and so on and so forth than any other country and then they would flip it around and be like oh that you know you know the UN but it's like On the one hand, they want to appeal to international legitimacy when it's convenient. But on the other hand, they want to act like it doesn't apply to them. Have you noticed a similar kind of strange? Yes. Yes.

Yeah, very much so. I think it's one of the characteristics of the country, also in terms of the connection between domestic and foreign policies. I mean, look at the statement that fugitive Bibi Netanyahu gave to the general family the other day. I mean, he was basically justifying the bombing to smithereens of the entire region saying, we have no choice. We have no choice but destroying Gaza. We have no choice but destroying Lebanon. We have no choice. And he was not talking to the UN.

He was talking to his own public saying, please, please, please, like me again. This is the one. Yes. Well, because the UN, he wasn't talking to the UN because the UN left the room before he started speaking. And then he's like,

if there are any other moral cowards in the room, leave now. Your book is called When the World Sleeps. And I guess when I want to ask you, to what extent has that sleep been disturbed at this point? And what are the mechanisms that allow the world to go back to sleep? Like, what is the snooze alarm on that alarm clock? when the world sort of rouses itself and goes, oh, genocide, somehow it doesn't stay awake

all the way for long. What are you seeing about the relative consciousness? Yeah, no, I think there is more consciousness. There is more consciousness, but if on the one hand there is more consciousness, there is also more repression. And the repression needs another level of understanding. There is repression, because as I've often said, the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians. I cannot say Israel and Palestine because Israel is inside Palestine. So there is a part of Israel which means the fact of saying Israel erases part of Palestine in its history. But however, the relationship between Israel or apartheid Israel and the Palestinians is such that epitomizes the relationship between the might and the rest.

the super-powerful predatory elites, in fact. I mean, Israel epitomizes predatory elitism. And it's not even Israel per se, because there are so many people in Israel who don't even understand who are paying the brunt of it. And I'm not saying people who are sympathetic with the suffering of the Palestinians.

Even among Israelis who hate Palestinians, I think many of them do not even realize how their life is turned miserable in the name of, perpetual perennial conquest and war. And so there has been this eternal, how to say, but dichotomy between what Israel has told to be or wanted to be and what Israel is, in fact.

But today is clear, it's clear that Israel, and this is why I speak of Israelization, of liberal democracies. Israel represents a model where you can sacrifice. I mean, yes, people vote, including many Palestinians, but many more do not. Palestinians in Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, have been under Israeli rules for three generations since 1967.

Yes, it's true that as of 2007 in Gaza, there was Hamas, but there was no Hamas before. There was Israeli military rule and direct military rule from within and not just from outside. Oh, and by the way, there was Hamas because the Palestinians elected them. Right. If we want to talk about the virtues of democracy and inside 48 Israel, you know, Arab Israelis, as Israelis call them, Palestinian citizens of Israel, get to vote sort of as a treat. But, you know, they're always being threatened to be sent to bed.

without their democracy dessert, like recently when there was a ruling by some high court that they were going to ban all the Arab parties. For sure. It's not an equal. I mean, it's not that in Italy we have this very strong distinction between procedural democracy, meaning it's the process to vote at substantive democracies, which is measured by how well or not minorities are treated. It's a substantive democracy measured by the access, the actual access to justice,

the actual access to services and to rights. And this is why Israel today represents a model because it can easily repress unwanted populations. And in Western countries from the US to Europe, Australia, you can see the unwanted, the ones who are forced into the margins of lawlessness, first of all, migrants and refugees. But Palestine, because Palestine,

created, I mean, the genocide in Palestine created this awakening of conscience and or consciousness and therefore prompted a reaction, wanted the elites, the political elites to change course and cut ties with Israel. This is 70% of the European population. Then the same repressive tools that are normally used against the unwanted others have been used against citizens. And this is incredible because, I mean, in Europe, we have this conception of two fundamental pillars of our democracies. One, I mean, in the US as well, it's freedom of expression and freedom of association. And both of them have crumbled on our head.

So today, in Italy, we are about to pass a law that will prevent Italians or anyone from saying that Israel is an apartheid state. This is considered racism. And in fact, racial hatred, you can go, you can be, you can be incriminated because of this. And this isn't constitutional, but it will force people to start proceedings, to indicate the law, etc. So Italy is becoming the avant-garde of the Israeli Hasbara. This is at odds with my impression. I thought that under Maloney, or Maroni, what's her last name?

Meloni, that there'd been some at least gestures toward, you know, strong statements against and the embargo and all kinds of, like, isn't it true that she's come out at certain expedient moments and said things that maybe are pandering to the anti-Israel crowd or the pro-Palestan crowd? No, it was just a theater. It was a very theatrical move. I mean, she's, has been falling really down on her head in a public pulse. It's almost as if we can't trust right-wing populists anymore, you know? It's just such a shame. I'm so the old days when we could trust all right-wing populace.

The thing is that this law that I'm referring to, it's a bipartisan law. I mean, the Italian parliament today looks like the old days. U.S. Congress vis-à-vis Israel from the left to the right. It's a big, happy Zionist family. And, yeah, welcome. One of us, one of us, Google, Gable. I mean, it's interesting. It gives new meaning to La Cosa Nostra. La Cosa Nostra is Israel. Yes. Yeah, it's not the black hand. It's the white hand. I don't understand your jokes, Matt. Well, you know, like, The Black Hand from the Mafia, you know, and Godfather 2. There's this movie, Godfather 2.

It's how I engage with all Italian culture. That and my wife is also a Francesca, but she's a Francesca Fiorentini, not Albanese. Did you get married to an Italian? I did. Half Chinese, half Italian. You survived. Yay! I'm surviving barely.

I'm hanging on by a thread, Francesca number two. So before this Israelization of Italian politics, it's Europe, it's Europe and the West, and it's happening to you as well, guys. Have you seen? Well, of course it's happening. Yes. Oh, I'm very familiar with it. This is a very, for us, it's a normal thing to see this sort of like absolute bipartisan

support. But at one point, it did include the populace, like the populace of the United States, where people just kind of went, yeah, of course we love Israel. It just, you know, it just is. It's just the only democracy in the Middle East. Right. So only democracy in the Middle East is a, you know, land without people for people that land. All of the Hasbara BS. Now, of course, things have changed and you're seeing more and more a majority of voting aged Americans and especially young Americans, too, are not pro-Israel. And of course, of course, course, nothing has changed in our political system.

Yet. Yet. I mean, if we're, I'm trying to be optimistic. No, because peaceful, peaceful means of change, take time. Take time. You still have these, these people in the government and you need an electoral process or a total unrest. So I truly hope that, I mean, things are changing.

Palestine is making a difference at the political level, but of course it takes time. Yes, yes. But, you know, when you talk about the bipartisan nature of it now within Europe, or within Italy specifically, is that new? Is that a change, this bipartisan? Like the fact that that Italy, as far as I can tell, you know, according to, you know, our media over here, Italy has long or has now had a populace that has been pro-Palestine more than it's been pro-Israel, maybe for a while, maybe even before October 7th, is that not the case? Look, when I was growing up, Italy was a place of wisdom and compassion toward the people in the region because it was, there was an understanding of Israel that it was frankly too generous in

retrospective. I think that people hadn't realized all the harm that Zionism had done to the Palestinians. To start with, but however, politicians 40 years ago, up to 40 years ago used to say, look, Israel has a state and the Palestinians do not have a state. So technically, there has been a huge support for the creation of a state of Palestine. Then what happened? Two things. First of all, 9-11 changed everything, because 9-11 coincided. also with the second intifada and the rise of society bombers, honestly, it was a brutal form of terrorism and getting exploded. And again, it can be prompted by desperation, etc., but it's terrified. I mean, it made Palestinians lose much of the consensus they had, because meanwhile, the context

was of the war on terror. And the other thing is the peace process. The peace process has created that these hiatus in the capacity of ordinary people to understand what was going on in Palestine. Because even I, I mean, I've been living in Palestine, for God's sake, for years. And still, for me, it was not even conceivable to condemn the illegality of the occupation as a whole or to talk about apartheid. And I'm talking of 15 years ago, no more than that. So things have changed rapidly, but politically things have not evolved. Meanwhile, over the past 15, 20 years, Israel has invested a lot through its Ministry of Strategic Affairs and anti-Semitism, whatever it's called, in fostering, in really buying consensus and fighting.

It has put a lot of hundreds of millions of dollars to fight the BDS movement. So the conscientization movement led by Palestinians for excellence. And it has worked because we don't understand the country. In our constitutional system, we don't have lobbies. The lobby, which is from my perspective as an Italian, as a European, lobbies are a form of accepted corruption. And it's so unusual. that it's, in Italy is not, I mean, you couldn't have something like APAC

that brags about how many, how many politicians he manages to buy. Uh-huh. Yeah, publicly. Yeah. But don't quote them because quoting them is anti-Semitic. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

I'm past that. I'm not sure than that. Being there and on that. And hello, A-PAC. I can tell you. Oh, by the way. That's going to be a, that's going to be a, A sting for us.

I mean, it is put that. Hello, A-PAC. Once, I was in front, in 2012, small parentheses, actually, let me close the previous thought, otherwise I will not finish. So, no, what I wanted to say is that in Italy, there are lobbies, pro-Israel, pro-apartheid, in fact, pro-apartheid Israel lobbying groups like LNET. and there are investigations on them exposing how corruption is not an isolated and episodic event, but it's a system. It's a system of corruption, like where the same lobby group touches politicians and businesses

and goes hand in hand with the predatory elites is part of the financial and economic components of the predatory elites. Oh my God, Francesca Albanese is resuscitating tropes. I'm not saying that it's Jewish. I mean, many of the Italian Zionists are not even Jewish. Hello. And in the U.S. as well, they are Christian Zionists. And you also have Muslim Zionists these days. So, no Jewish person?

Don't worry about it. Israel is the biggest exporter of anti-Semitic tropes in the world by far. I know. And they also consume their own product. It's a self-sustaining factory. But they like to cry victims a lot. Yeah, we always have a public. So I just wanted to make sure.

But let me tell you this story. When I moved to the U.S., it was 2012, and in December, I was really pregnant. So with my big belly, I went to the in front of the APAC in the Congress venue in Washington, D.C. where the APAC was having its national conference because I was attracted by all the, actually my first encounters in the US was with Jewish Voices for Peace, and they were staging a protest

because of the 2012 war against Gaza, which killed dozens of people. And there was this guy, this guy getting out of the conference who pushed me so hard. It probably was in his 70s or mid-70s, He pushed me so hard that I barely stood on my feet and I said, look at this asshole. Oops.

Yeah. No, you can swear. That's fine. I normally don't. Yeah. I mean, if ever you're going to call someone an asshole, someone who pushes a a visibly pregnant lady is, yeah. And he also said, clearly he couldn't, it was my, my non-U.S. accent was not lost upon him. and he said, go back to your country. Great. That sounds like us.

Coming out of a Zionist conference, he said, go back to your country? Yeah. That's rich. No, no, no, no. And I have witnesses for that. I'm not making it up. But this is just to say, this is how close I've been to an APAC guy in my life. Yeah, yeah.

They, we build them different over here for sure. Yeah. In talking about sort of the, the chief. changes that we are seeing. I am feeling heartened by some of the news that's coming out regarding in England right now, in the UK, the British, the UK Green Party. Have you heard that this happened, I think, in Brighton, October 4th, so just yesterday, as we're recording this, the Green Party in England and Wales formerly voted to define Zionism as a form of racism over at its annual conference. And it passed 1222 to 813. So this has got to be the first mainstream political party in all of Europe to be explicitly anti-Zionist.

And when I see stuff like this, it fills me with a little bit of hope. Like, it's been a dark three years for me personally, Francesca. So finding any sort of light at the end of the tunnel is always, I latch on to it like a moth to a flame. I want to just show some of the headlines regarding this. So this is from the Jerusalem Post. UK Greens adopt Zionism as racism motion, become Europe's first mainstream anti-Zionist party. That's a surprisingly normal headline for the Jerusalem Post. They just reported the fact there.

They are so sober. I mean, yeah. They saved the real crazy for their op-eds, for their blog section. Yeah, that's right. Non-stop source of hilarity for us on this show, but that headline was pretty factual.

Just the facts, folks. And this is the Green Party. This is a statement following this vote, following the vote of the anti-Zionist policy at the Green Party conference, the five Green MPs, the leader, and co-deputy leaders have issued a joint statement. As Greens, we will always uphold universal human rights.

We will never tolerate any form of discrimination or harassment. We will continue to stay in an opposition to genocide, ethnic cleansing apartheid, and the illegal occupation. We will continue to call out the heinous crimes, the Netanyahu government. And we will continue to work to ensure that the Green Party is an anti-racist party in every way. We know there is no conflict between supporting the rights of Palestinians and the rights of Jewish people. You know what I like about that? They didn't fall into the usual lazy trap of saying, we know there is no conflict between supporting the rights of Palestinian people or the aspirations of Palestinian people and the safety of Jewish people.

Right, right. You ever notice how they can't? Two most important things. It's like safety first is what they always say. And then pipe dreams. Yes. Yeah. No, that was good. Yeah.

But the thing is that I, it's really important to get out of the trap that, again, apartheid Israel, but I think Zionist ideology has planted in our mind that Jewish people can only be safe in Israel. How? How it's possible? Don't you see how terrified Matt and I are? Francesca, stop for a second. Look in our faces.

Look at our body language. Can you not see the abject existential terror that racks our nervous systems at every minute of every day living in this diaspora country? It's contagious. There are special earthquakes just for Jews in Los Angeles. Did you know that, Frances? That's right. Here in New York City, there are subways that if there's too many Jews on it, it goes slower. Yeah.

No, it is, you know, absolutely insane the amount of. of that internalize has bar that we have, you know, in terms of the Jewish community about we can only be safe in Israel. But also just the main defense of Zionism has been. But Zionism means something different to me. Zionism is not what Zionism does. Zionism is what I think Zionism should do if I were in charge of the world. Zionism is like jazz.

I wish we would say the same of communism. Oh, right. I mean, right? Or Nazism. Or Nazism. That's the thing is, well, they've got, we don't wish they would say same thing about Nazism, but that's the way that it comes off when people talk about it. I know, exactly.

Well, first, let me read you. This is one of the MPs who is a green MP who is deeply saddened that the Zionism, is racist emotion has passed. It doesn't reflect green principles or my own view. and then he talks about some schlock about self-determination, equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians, but of course he doesn't believe that. Here is Ja'eer Lapid. I am a Zionist.

I believe in the Jewish people's right to a state in our homeland, in our right to live peaceful in peace and security. As we prepare to mark three years since October 7th massacre, the U.K. Green Party has chosen to side with terrorists and anti-Semites. It is not Zionism that's racism. It is the Green Party. Yeah, Irle Pied, one of the... People got to say, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, well, that's what he said in Hebrew, but it doesn't quite...

There's no literal translation. Yeah, Irlepid, who's one of the, you know, nice humanitarian alternatives to Beebe, who, of course, is the sole culprit here. He recently gave an interview with some Israeli podcast or some... somebody, I forget, in Hebrew, where he talked about how, you know, some of the revelations, I think in the film Naza show that we have, we can't let Hamas turn us into them, you know, like killing babies and expelling people from their homes. What are we Arabs? When the 1,000 children slaughtered later.

Right, right, right. I wish they'd ask this question like. I know. 21,000 lives, young lives. Yeah, maybe October 8th. Yeah. Finally, just on this note, they also, by the way, this is from Haaretz, Israel banned UK Green Party leader, Zach Polanski, after Zionism is racism votes.

British Jew loses his right to return. I know. They've decided that he is now no longer Jewish enough to return to the land. that he explicitly is saying is not his and why should he be allowed unrestricted access? That's what happens. Sometimes you commit a traffic violation and you lose your driver's license, which is to say your license to drive Palestinians out of their homes. That's right. He's lost officially his license to kill. And that is the real tragedy here. But we had another comment from another tweet from someone which...

That's a very, very, very bad joke. Well, look, I never said I was perfect. I only said I'm hilarious. What do you think the bad in our podcast name is for? It's bad jokes about Hasbara. That's the full length. That's the full length of podcast. It's not Hasbara.

Yeah, well, we say it wrong because we choose to. Well, but Hasbara is also wrong. Well, at least in Hebrew, it's Hasbara. It's the last sentence. The last syllable. Hasbara. We say Hasbara, that's American. Hasbara is what most of the world says.

Okay. I would say as barra as of now. Hasbarat. You pronounce it any way you like. You've earned the right as someone who is a main target of it. Exactly. Because I have to mention it as the cause of my misery. That's right.

There was a tweet on the topic that Matt raised of everyone having a different definition of Zionism, this convenient sort of semantic uncertainty principle when it comes to Zionism. There's a tweet. here by someone who I don't know him, you might. He describes himself in his bio as a human rights fellow. Yeah, for the London School of Economics and Sociology. His name is Alonzo Germendi. Oh, yeah, he's great. Okay, great. So he attempted to thread a needle here in a tweet thread that got some pushback from folks on our side that we just wanted to run by you and to see what you make of it, because to me, there's some merit in it, but there's there might be some

fallacies in it too. He says, identities are complicated and contradictory. They don't need to, quote, make sense. There are millions of people who identify as Zionist, often in very pragmatic ways. They believe that Jews should have a homeland in the land of Israel, period. That does not make them racist. Okay, pausing just for a second, that's what Yai'ir Lepid just claimed to support, that the Jews should have a homeland in what Zionists call the land of Israel, or what, you know, people trying to appeal to biblical history. Next tweet in the thread. At the same time, and here's where he starts to, you know, heavily qualify what he just said,

historically and ideologically, 20th century Zionism was premised on the racist idea that there was a land without a people for a people without a land. This led to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, which is an inescapably racist process. Those realities, identifying as a Zionist does not make you racist, and Zionism is premised on racist foundations can absolutely coexist. I would assume this is the default for most self-identified Zionists. I don't think most people have thought about this too much as adults. In fact, it's Israel's actions that are pushing these shallow Zionists to a definition to think about it often for the first time. If enough people are pushed into choosing either the ideology

changes, it is abandoned, or it is entrenched. This happens all the time. So that's the end of his thread, yes? Yes. And then we have a couple of comments about it. Right. So Neil's Brinch says, it either makes them ignorant or racist. Just like someone calling themselves Nazi and when confronted saying they're just German nationalists. And Alonzo says, yes,

that's humans for you. So trying to hold on to this nuance. Mohamed Al-Kurd, friend of the show, who I know you just did an event with. Yes, Francesca? Wow. You're really spying on me. I'm really spying on you. Last night, if I'm not mistaken. Do you even have the time and location?

Yeah, he's got it all. You were kicked out of the Mossad, telling the truth. I know what color socks he was wearing. Your definition of Zionism does not matter, nor does mine. Zionism is defined by its material manifestations. The purpose of a system is what it does, and the Zionist system does racism and genocide. Simple, please spare me the arrogant, insufferable, grating Oxbridge debate. Your opinions are irrelevant.

People are dying. Yeah. So what do you make of this attempt on Alonzo's part? And what do you? Yeah, I've got some thoughts, but I'd love to hear yours because since you matter more. Okay. It's spontaneous.

It's not that I've been thinking through it. But I don't like, I don't like thoughts that start or explanations that starts with complicated or complex. Because it, yeah, it's a way to anticipate or to downplay what you're going to say. And sometimes certain topics deserve or demand courage. I tend to understand. Oh, no, I tend to agree with what he says. You'd be surprised. But in a sense, I really think that there are a lot of conscientious ignorant, which is not an excuse, but there are people who are good on so many ways and they would never, never vouch for or subscribe what Israel is doing. Their ignorance today

is unforgivable. So on the other hand, on the other hand, I totally understand and Mohammed's frustration and in sufferance because honestly people are dying and this is again, it's not about what Zionism is in an academic debate but what he stands for today in 2026. It's also not about what racism is on an emotional personal individual level.

It's not because this is one of the problems. The word racism itself, never mind just Zionism can mean different things to different people. racism itself has morphed and evolved to mean a lot of different things, one of which is a personal attitude of animus that when I see somebody over there from that group, I irrationally hate them. It also means structural material systems that along so-called racial lines subjugate others

and raise other people to levels of supremacy. But also, I want to say, I mean, this has been my experience, huh? But in reading history, it seems to me that for many people, Zionism was the access to the only homeland they could have, I mean, not even thinking through. Then it doesn't, because the Jews in the 50s were still not welcome and kicked out from Europe. So in the late 40s and early 50s. So there was discrimination against the Jews even in the US. So it's not that they were so welcome or accepted or well-off as they are today. So for many, going to Palestine was not, I mean, there was no other options, was the only option available.

This doesn't justify the fact that they joined a nationalist project that was premised and implemented through the years around the dispossession. of the Palestinians. It's not that the Palestinians were dispossessed in May 1948, full stop. I mean, the NACAB, was cleansed, ethnically cleansed throughout the 50s. So that I could go live there in 1993, 94 on a kibbutz and have a nice agricultural experience. That's right. And this is the other thing. When he's... Yeah, well, Daniel personally made the desert bloom. I just, I will have you now. No, he invented the cherry tomato and everything. Well, I actually caused a massive rupture in the main water line of the country.

I drove over it with a tractor. It was my first act of anti-Zainist sabotage, although it was just mainly clumsiness. But this is the other problem with what is real. It actually happened, yeah. I was living on a kibbutz 20 kilometers from Gaza, and I made it too sharp a turn with a pipe truck, pipe cart behind me. Anyway. Oh, you were having the young Zionist kibbutz experience. Francesca, I know you, look, I know you, I know you named one of your chapters Gabor,

and I know you interviewed the guy. I don't know if he included in his interview with you, you didn't seem to include it in your book, that he sent all three of his kids to a Zionist summer camp for years. So you want me to blame your dad now? No, no, no, no, no, not at all. I just want to balance. Yes, he does.

Look, it's complicated, okay? There's a lot of, when we talk about fathers, especially mine, things get very, very calm. I'm just joking. Yeah, you see. You see, it's a mind-field. Sorry, now I need to ask. I need to ask you.

And how old were you? Do it. Huh? How old were you? How old were you? From age, from age nine till 16, I was a camper. And then at 17, I went to it. Did they let you drive a tractor when you weren't?

No, no, no. That's when I was, no. Tractor time, I was 17. But I didn't have a, but I couldn't drive a car. I couldn't drive a car. They should have asked to say. see my driver's license for a regular car before they gave me a tractor. Yeah.

But in any case. There's a new driving a tractor. Oh, yes, let's go back to question. So, but Alonzo, yeah, yeah. But Alonzo is talking about many Zionists, right? So, okay, you're talking about the Zionists who ended up in the Zionist project as unwitting recruits to this ethno-nationalist apartheid genocidal project because they had no other option. But when he's writing here, what he's also referring to is people here and people in Italy and people in the UK.

And they are not in the position of needing a safe refuge. They live in a safe refuge. So what they have, what they're holding on to with their Zionism is an emotional, attitudinal, and intellectual block against getting unignorant. And so to me, the dangerous thing is in trying to explain a way. way people's Zionism by means of either trauma talk, which to me is a misuse of trauma talk, or safe haven refuge, historical Jewish unsafety talk. You know what I'm saying? And so I think Alonso might have gotten himself into some trouble here. And what Mahat said was completely reasonable. He says, I'm the expert on Zionism. I don't care what your definition is. It happened to

my body, my house, my family. That wasn't a question. That was just a... I got it. I got it. You were using me and Matt as your psychotherapist. Yeah. And that is. Your psychotherapist's couch. Yeah. Yes. No, Daniel, you can.

Matt is the right side. You can sit on me whenever you want, Daniel. That's fine. Just in terms of my, can I include? In my post-a-special rapporteur thing, I could join the two of you. Yes. No. I see the enthusiasm.

I take it back. No, I said yes to it. it. Join us. Join Look at Daniel. He's still thinking. No, no. This podcast needs a special repertoire on bad jokes. You're the first guest who's had the

balls. What's the Italian word for balls? For chutzpah. Cajones. What would you say? Pallé, but I'm a woman and I don't Pallé, Pallet. I do not like this because I'm a woman so I don't need those attributes that you need that frankly don't make for a nice impression anyway.

That's a good point. Fair enough. Classless American men. I think women ovary are better than men's testicle in terms of... You're the first guest to have the ovaries, the tubes, whatever you want to say, to tell us to our face that our jokes suck. You're not fawning on us like most of these guests.

I didn't say that. I just put it on me. me. I said maybe, I said, Matt, I don't understand your jokes. You did at one point say there was a bad joke. I've done many bad jokes. Just to complete this conversation about Zionism, theoretical Zionism that we all hold, you know, with separate definitions in our heart and what Zionism does. And Francesca, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this Green Party vote that calls it explicitly racism. The way I feel about it is that at this point,

there's, you know, we're three years into a genocide. I'm personally done holding hands with anybody in my community who wants to hold on to this idea that Zionism somehow means something separate than what Zionism does. I understood that for many, many years and have held many, many hands and even had my own hand held through it. And I understand there's, you know, in terms of recruitment, in terms of trying to convince someone to your point of view on this, you do have to allow for some nuance and allow for some space. The vote itself, I think, is important because it opens up the Overton window for people and specifically political parties to stop for a second with the holding of the hand and make a ruling on, make a decision

about this rather than the constant back and forth, rather than the debate, the ongoing debate about what Zionism is. Now we can start from a point of Zionism is racism and I'll tell you why. Francesca, I'd love to hear how you feel about that vote. No, look, I am, I have the same problem you have instinctive. meaning enough of pampering your interlocutor who continues to ignore what has been fallen Palestine. Again, 21,000 children, every time I say that there is something that explodes in me. Because the fact that we keep on talking about that means that without any,

any political solution inside wanting to stop Israel, meaning it would take the Vatican to mention one, sending the navies its fleet or its boat, its vessel, to Gaza and break the siege. This is what needs to be done. So in the face of this, having to entertain and pamper the interlocutor in his dehumanizing denial, it's an excess. an exercise that it's extenuating.

At the same time, at the same time, I also preach for those of us who are non-Palestinians, because I understand Mohammed al-Kurd, they say, enough, guys. Enough, we have tried to help you. We have come your way thousands and thousands and thousands and times per year, all over. I mean, from the Americas to Europe enough. But those of us who have no blood and flesh into this, I include myself,

I can try to withhold the instinct of punching the interlocutor metaphorically and try to persuade as much as possible around a form of knowledge that they need to embrace. And there are so many authors or so many scholars like Alonso who has tried, I mean, even Jewish scholars who have tried. I mean, for me, the best is Amos Goldberg, who really tries with the trauma, discussion, and embracing the pain of the other. But at the end of the day, you cannot polish a third. Sorry, I mean, there are certain people who cannot be fixed.

Let them rot. where I insist is accountability. So while, you know, why people can have their own thoughts as citizens, if they are in positions of power, they need to abide by the law. Constitution or international law alike. I don't mind their ideologies, as long as the ideologies don't turn taxpayers into material contribution to a genocide. So Francesco, we're running out of time with you for the,

this episode, but we are delighted that you have said you'd be willing to come back because we know that there will be much demand for that. Did I say that? You did say that. I heard you say it. I think we have it on today. It's recorded. Yeah. It's a record.

Someone who needs to Yes. I'm just saying. Court of law. Grock, make me a video of Francesca Albanese saying I'm funnier than Matt. So I wanted to ask you about just to just to zoom out. Just to zoom out a little bit as we close to the question of human rights and international law in general.

You know, like I said earlier, Israel has this chaotic relationship with international law, on the one hand crediting it for being its midwife and decrying the fact that it was never upheld by the Refusenic Arab armies that invaded and refused to accept its international legitimacy. On the other hand, whenever there's a UN resolution that goes against it, as there have been since forever, it describes international law as anti-Semitic. And over the past few years, many commentators have said,

including Noura-Aricot, that there's a full-on, full-frontal assault on international law itself, the legitimacy of it, the validity of it, the applicability of it, the universality of it, being waged by Israel

with not a little success. And as a counter to that, I want to read something you wrote in the book, and that'll full circle the question, and you can just take it from there. This is why human rights perform an almost therapeutic balancing function. They remind us that we too are human, despite the fact that we may find ourselves on the side of power. We know well that by nature human beings are vulnerable, complex, and fractured.

And this fragility is inevitably also reflected in the colonizer, in whom it is often possible to find a bit of the drama of the colonized. Can you talk about the state of international law and human rights as an institution and a concept in late 2026? Yes. First of all, I would like to comment on the first issue that you brought, the fact that Israel has had, oh God, I'm going to use schizophrenia again, has had a quite schizophrenic relationship with international law and with the United Nations as a whole. Because of course, Israel needed the legitimacy of the international community and the UN.

But then the more it grew, I mean, the stronger it grew and the more the oppression of the Palestinians became obvious, the more Israel started to challenge the United Nations and also not just to pretend to comply, but to openly violate international law, subsequent resolutions of the United Nations, and the conventions, the conventions, the Geneva Conventions on the occupation, etc. This is a feature that has exasperated over time, because in the last, as you asked me, where are we in 26? I can tell you, in the last three years, Israel has completely capsized, turned international law on its head, because it has taken some fundamental principles of international law, like the fact that you cannot wage a war against civilians and destroyed it. Israel has justified an assault, a full-fledged assault against civilians, as complying with international law, Israel has claimed self-defense when as of October 8, 2003, and I was attacked

furiously worldwide by the pro-Israel allies. But on the 8th of October, 2023, I was saying, Israel cannot claim self-defense under international law under the UN Charter. Because in order to wage a war, you need to be attacked by a state. And people under occupation are not necessarily a state. And yeah, we can claim that Israel has suffered the worst attack in decades. Fine, it's true. And there were massacres on October 7 that gave legitimacy to Israel to repel the attack and to apply justice, to carry out law enforcement operations.

But law enforcement operations are no war. And since then, Israel has systematically targeted civilians, civilian objects like hospitals, schools, residential areas, mosques, churches, and so on and so forth, and destroyed Gaza. And it has justified this saying, oh, but we are issuing evacuation orders. We are giving them notice, and we are sending people to evacuation zones, and we are opening distribution centers, and you name it. So Israel has used the international law jargon to confuse people to create a legitimacy of compliance with international law, but what it has done, it has normalized a genocide. I mean, it's been a genocidal war.

And this kind of dismantlement of basic tenets of international law didn't start with Israel. For me, it started with 9-11, because 9-11 led to an extraordinary recourse to the concept of legitimate self-defense that led to the invasion of sovereign nations, sovereign countries, and the normalization of torture, renditions, indefinite detention. And it became normal. The thing is not that torture didn't exist before, but after 9-11, it became normal, ostentatious. And now, so the U.S. with a war on terror normalized torture

and the other denial of or the other violations of use cogens and norms that cannot suffer any form of derogations in the same way as Israel has normalized genocide. And in fact, in Lebanon, it has applied the same script. In all cases, they rebranded first. They rebranded and the normal. So I totally agree with Nura, when she says

it's been a full and full on a front on international law. But at the same time, at the same time, and this is why I say it's been like the age of extremes, we have seen, I've never seen such a globalized, a popular recourse to international law categories. All of a sudden, the International Court of Justice and the trust, the certain, judicial proceedings have become mainstream.

I mean, at a certain point, the website of the International Court of Justice was so loaded by people connected to watch, for example, the decision, the proclamation of the decision of the International Court of Justice on the advisory opinion, on the legality of the occupation,

then the system almost crashed. And so, in a way, I think that we are, because the genocide in Gaza that has leaked outside of Gaza, I think that ethnic cleansing is the goal in Israel is committing acts of genocide and other international crimes on the way. But in a way, this is also giving us the opportunity to advance human rights in a way that is more sustainable, it's more real. And in a way, Palestine is a metaphor to also talk and speak about what's happening in Sudan, what's happening in Congo, but also what's happening to migrants.

Because as I was saying at the very beginning, migrant and refugees experience closure, indefinite detention, repression, suspension of rights. So we do see that, yes, there is an Israelization of our societies where security comes first, where where the military ethos becomes the driving force and not economic welfare or civil and civil liberties. However, there is also a Palestinianization of the society. And because its new, human rights are the last peaceful way of fixing things. Because after this, I'm afraid, and it's not a threat, it's an anticipation, but it will be violent, there will be violence. I mean, yeah, this is, that's almost by definition the point of these types of institutions is there needs to be the rule of law or else there's, you know,

violent repression begets violent resistance. And there's, there is, it's an inevitability. And you actually gave me some hope about the idea of the preservation of international law, because you're right. This is the first time. I think, you know, it's unprecedented, unprecedented the amount of that international law has been subverted and these institutions have been, you know, made to be, I mean, at this point, run cover for the crimes of Israel. But now people are saying, oh, shit, there is a reason we need these institutions. If ever there was a case study for why we need international law, it's right in front of us every day. Yeah, but we need another form of multilateralism.

And I insist it is to be a decolonized multilateralism. So it's like in a way it's a sort of organic process. We reach the limits of what this system could deliver. Because as a former Secretary General said, many years, ago, the United Nations was never meant to lead us to heaven, but to save us from hell. And I think so far it has worked. Now it's not working. It is not working because the fact that it has not prevented the war in Ukraine or the war in Sudan or the war in Yemen. I mean, Palestine once was an exception. Now it has become the norm. It has not been able to regulate.

regulate predatory elitism and despite the fact that there have been some attempts. So what I'm trying to say is that this is the time. This is, we, like Norman Finkelson was telling me the other day, was reminding me the other day or a few things that I think are worth sharing. The first is that crisis is the matter of opportunities. So here, and this can go in both directions, it seems that we are nosed diving into the abyss, but as a friend of mine, an Italian philosopher, says, it could also be that we start flying and pulling out our wings while nose diving.

I think that this is the, because for example, what's happening right now in terms of repression, it's true again what Norman was saying, saying during the Vietnam War, there was such a, such a movement, the anti-genocide movement is wider and is more articulate, but there is also more repression. Yes, it's exactly because it's wider and more articulate. It's proof, if any, it's proof of how effective the anti-genocide movement is, and we have one thing, actually, several things to do, but one is to persevere. We cannot give up. We cannot give up. We shall not be silenced. We shall not be fragmented. We shall stay, if any, more united. Unity of the people, those fighting for the environment, those fighting for LGBTIQI plus,

those fight rights, those fighting for indigenous people's rights. This is the time to unite, because the common enemy, as I often say, is the predatory elites who decide today they can even profit from the slaughter of 21,000 kids. And nothing of the repression is entirely new in terms of quality is the quantity. So before, I mean, Norman Finkelstein was kicked out of university for his positions on Palestine. Now it's happening more. But people know, and this is why Israel is losing consensus in the US, not only because in order to transfer money to Israel,

the then is from the US taxpayers' money, then is used to purchase weapons from Lockheed Martin and the line, I mean, it's U.S. citizens paying, but it's also that this is used to slaughter kids. And so many people are seeing that. And their parents. We cannot fool. We cannot fool them. Not to turn the conversation back from hope to gloom, but you mentioned Norman,

and he was on my mind when we were talking about the state of international law. His new book, which I've got here on my shelf, which I'm going to read as soon as I get through Ben Moser's book, Gaza's grave diggers is a forensic prosecution, really, against the prosecutors, against the people who are supposed to be Gaza's stalwart saviors in the international law, judges and so on. And he's alleging, and I think documenting massive corruption blackmail at the highest levels. How concerned are you about Israel's ability to, I mean, Bibi Netanyahu gave an interview some time ago when he picked up, held up a phone. He said, you know how easy it is to penetrate this and tell lies about you?

I can destroy your reputation just like this. In the film Naza, which I'm not sure if you've seen, they even zoom out by the end to talk about the Bibi's intelligence unit whose job is to come up with sexual blackmail on Palestinian negotiators and so on and so forth. So what, I guess, yeah, can you speak a little bit about that aspect of it? How big a concern is that? And this is why. And this is why I often tell my husband, Jesus Christ, we are so boring because I'm sure that we are spied on.

We even have, we even had, I mean, I joke about that. I should be more serious. But I don't know how to take it other than with irony. We had people entering our house like a few weeks ago. Oh my God. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, it's been, it's been happy.

And I said, look, if it bugged it, let's see what they can. come up with because we're really boring. We look like this fake family. We did, we bugged their spice cabinet and all we could find was vanilla. Yeah. No, in the sense, the worst thing they can get is me swearing. But I even said a bad word tonight with you, which I think is never done. But so this, it's as bad as it can get. Yes, they turn your reputation. I mean, I mean, this is a very typical mafia style technique. In Sicilian, there is even a word which means mudding, mascareare, mudding people's reputation. First, you try to silence them by threatening them.

Is that what mascara means mud? Mascara means mud? No, I don't know. No, but masca, maybe because it's from, it's, yeah, mascaria means covering up, with mud. So getting, ah, what an interesting question. I'll get back to you on that. You find me unprepared, Daniel.

Grazie mili, professor. Yeah, we're filled with questions on here, tough ones. This is the thing. This is the thing. So if, then they start threatening you, threatening your family, calling you a night. And then if you don't step back, if you keep on talking,

bloody hell, then they they will sanction you, they will threaten you with, I mean, with death threats, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then we'll see. But the thing is, the thing is, people shall not despair. People shall not despair because it doesn't matter. If we manage to think, and this is a very philosophical concept,

let me see if I manage to commit. But this is a test for humanity. It doesn't matter who we are as individuals. Francesca Daniel or Matt, it doesn't matter. We have to stand for the same. If one falls, the other will take his or her place. You see what I mean? And we advance for something that includes freedom and justice for all,

which meaning not the trillionaires because they have to pay taxes, a lot of taxes and give back what they have stolen over centuries. Let them pay. That's right. But I guess as we wanted to close, another part of your book that I was moved by was when you talked about Avatar. Oh yeah.

You open with an Avatar quote in one of the chapters. Jake Sully says, teach me how to see like the indigenous see. But another science fiction resistance to empire story that resonates for me as much or more in this moment is Andor

because this is the Star Wars series. And unlike an avatar where it's a rebellion of just this planet of indigenous blue people against the American Empire. In Andor, it is, and to me it sounds a little bit more like what you're actually describing. It's a network of rebellions across the entire galaxy, including by planets and societies that have nothing to do with each other except they want to kick the fucking empire out of their lives and bring this thing down.

And there are some groups that would never have spoken to each other. there are elites who are rebel elites who are moles inside the empire who are working to bring it down. There's liberal bourgeois. There's liberal bourgeois. There are working class people on pharics. There are prisoners. There are, you know, and everyone does what they can. Yeah, yeah.

There's Andy Circus. You know, and to me that is as inspiring, the idea of everyone pulling together in their way. because the one thing we have in common is we are against this predatory elite that knows no end and that cannot be sated. It'll never not be hungry for the next meal and we are the meal.

Absolutely. Look, we could have an entire podcast about movies and how certain movies have revealed the part of the story. Now I can't remember the title of this movie that I think it's so telling from the Black Mirror series. It is the nation something.

And it's soldiers, probably American soldiers, who have an implant that make them see the other, the rebels, who are people with imperfections, like genetic, just they are not perfect. In a Nazi system, they would be the non-Aryan. And this chip makes them seem, sorry, makes them look as monsters. This is what Habara does. This is what propaganda and indoctrination do.

And what this podcast is, we put a chip into people's brains that makes them see Hasbaristas as clowns. Right, right. And really, that's what we're doing. Right. I mean, it puts a chip in the brain to allow them to understand

that they are not, they're not just sitting here passively dealing with the heaviness of the Hezbara, they get to laugh at it with others and enjoy themselves and even get to hear some wonderful guests like Francesca Albanese. Wow. Come on and tell us how much she loved it being on the podcast. Francesca truly was a pleasure talking to you.

We really thank you for coming on and we know you've had to deal with a lot. Thank you for dealing with us. with us, you know. And come back and let's do a movie episode. Yes. Please come back. Come back anytime. Once again, the book is called When the World Sleeps, Stories, Words, and Wounds of Palestine.

Just a second. Just a second, because guys, you have not been disciplined enough. Oh, is that right? I want to be disbunded. Little cameo for the bad Asbahas. Show us that beautiful cover. And then let me tell you a story. I've been fighting with a publisher for,

I can't tell you how long because I didn't want her to change the cover, which she did. Because she said that the original cover was not, like, suitable for the American public. But then she made me a gift because the original cover of the book is this one. Wow.

Wow. Guys, did you read the book? Oh, I know. I read with my ears, Francesca. And I only got a digital copy of the book last night, so I'm only a little bit into it. But it's a beautiful, beautiful piece of heart. That's so bad, guys.

But isn't it amazing? No, I've read the whole book. Francesca, I've read the whole book with my ears. So just so you know, I've read it all. Quiz me. And it's called, because this was in Italian, this is the translation of an Italian book that I wrote. It's beautifully written.

Yes. Thank you. And then there is a sequel, which is the light of awakening, that it has even more darkness, but more light than this one. Well, it's a wonderful book. I suggest everyone read it with their ears or with their eyes. Either way, it's great. Or with a finger.

With your fingers, braille, wherever you can and whatever. language that you speak and or listen to or understand, please do. Can you imagine brailing a transcript of this podcast? God. No, I was imagining you calling your dad. Dad, this one needs a serious psychotherapy. Can you cure her? Yeah.

You know, we need help. This one. Francesca, thank you again for coming on. But everyone, please stick around because there's more. to go. We will be right back. And we're back. As Bad As Barra the World's Most Moral Podcast. Damn, that was a good interview.

Hot Damn. Hot Damn. That was so great. Shout out to Francesca Albanese for coming on the podcast at all. If it were a meatball, I would say that it, in no accent in particular, that it was with no gesticulations whatsoever. That it was rather piquant. Spicy meat a ball. I mean, wow, I got to say, Mamma Mia, that's what I'm going to say. She really was fantastic.

Well, I can do those. I'm married to an Italian. I'm allowed. Yeah, I'm looking for a, I'm looking for a stew. Sto guts. Is Stu gotts here? I'm looking for a ghoul, a gaba ghoul. That is, that's really, it's a great Moe impression.

Thank you. Really? It's hard. I don't know how Hank Azaria has done it all these years. He's generational. talent. So thank you to Francesca Albanese for coming on. Very excited for Badiz Barra

Part 2 with her. Maybe. We'll find out. But we have a little bit more for y'all. More news, more shit, more Hasbara. So we all have at this point done the Naza

discourse. We've talked about it. Daniel saw it. I'm going to see it. That was going to be my pun earlier. Soup Naza, but it's terrible. I mean, look, that's, I think that was fine. I'm glad you did it. I'm glad you did it. Yeah, now that I did it out of context, that doesn't feel so horrible.

Yes, because you waited an hour to do it. That's when it's okay. So we've talked about Naza, the, you know, the Israeli movie. There's another one. There's a new Naza. Naza Part 2. It's not a sequel. It is the Israeli government.

The Snyder cut, like, I don't know Marvel and DC, but wasn't there like they both owned the rights to one of the properties? Well, the Snyder cut has something to do with Justice League, I believe. And, you know, it was. So this is the Injustice League cut. This is the Injustice League's Snyder cut of Naza. The Scheister cut. Yes. This is, the award-winning documentary was getting too much acclaim.

It was getting too much buzz. So the wonderful, beautiful apartheid state of Israel decided there's one way to get us to stop talking about it. And it's by creating our own NAA. That's right, everyone. This is a tweet from the embassy of Israel to the USA at Israel in USA. A new Israeli documentary is setting the record straight. Naza, the real story, offers a first. hand account from senior IDF commanders and intelligence officers who were directly involved in the fight against Hamas in Gaza.

Using combat footage, declassified materials, captured intelligence and firsthand testimony. And a completely AI generated graphic of a perfect moonlit night in, I guess, Tel Aviv with the moon reflecting on the Mediterranean Sea. That's not a real photograph. You can't prove that it's not. It might be. They say very specifically... That looks just like the AI living room rendering that a designer sent to me when I was wondering what else my living room could look like. Look, who's to say whether or not the Israeli government uses AIs in their marketing material?

But they say that the documentary provides important context about how the war was fought and the challenges Israeli forces faced on the battlefield. And you can watch Naza here. at this website, nazadocumentary.com. I want to point out something that's, if it's not obvious to you yet, they named it Naza as well for one very important reason, which is to make sure that people,

when they search for Naza, you know, the documentary that is winning fucking festivals and is already getting all the, you know, buzz and acclaim. So when people start, search it, they find this instead. It's to actively stop people from finding the documentary online. They want to flood the internet with their version of NAA, so they named it the same thing. It's just basic ZIO, I mean, SEO. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yes, it's a search engine

optimization or search engine Israelization. Depends on who you ask. That's good. So this is the website. I have a few just, they have a lot of like frequently asked questions on here. I just want to read just some of this. So first of all, you open the website. The first thing you see is a active view counter that picks up. They have already claimed to have 25 million views. Guys, I don't mean to say that your numbers are cooked, but prove it. I'm sorry. No, you don't. And also all of these allegedly frequently asked questions. Right. They were up from the moment the site went up. Right. Yeah. That's a very good point. I hadn't considered it. It's like how frequent could these questions be? Well, they came up a lot in our writer's room. Yeah, that's right.

Frequently anticipated questions. Yeah. The other type of fact. Fervently, fervently anticipated questions. So first it starts with, What you'll hear in the film? What was under the baby's crib? What the fuck kind of F-A-Q question is that? That's the first. What does the fox say? Yeah, exactly.

What was under the baby's... Hold on, like, why would that be a frequently... Why is it the first question? Officers describe a children's room with a tunnel shop beneath the cot. What is this an answer key, like for a pop quiz? Dude, straight up. Are they trying to make sure you haven't fallen? and asleep? They are made, they're like, look, there's a lot of people who are not even going to

press play on this motherfucker. We got to make sure the first text they see is, what was under the baby's crib? That'll grab them. Uh, yes. So they, what was under the baby's skin? Mechanized anti-Semitic technology. That's right. How do you tell a terrorist from a civilian, fighters in civilian clothes and uniforms left behind in empty homes? You didn't answer the question. Yeah, this is the thing. We don't. We don't tell the difference. We can't. They want you to press the arrow.

No. A man walks up holding a child's hand. Now what? What is this? Quora? We need to get this free stockers on quarators. A checkpoint decision told by the soldiers who had to make it. Where do the eight trucks end up?

Who decides when to fire? Did the hostages medicine ever arrive? These questions and more will be things that you hear in the film. Like, yeah. When's my Uber Eats order getting here? They need to have their own Google

for this shit. These questions are great. A man walks up holding a child's hand. All of a sudden, an NBC anchor is standing there with a microphone and there's a camera crew. Who should he called for legal representation? That's right. Now what? Am I getting the primetime reference

right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Chris Hansen. So just, I have to read some of these because these are insane. I didn't click for the explanation on all of them. Here are just some of my favorites. So under the frequently asked questions menu, there's like different categories.

One is title. Is this the same film as other films called Naza? No, this is Naza the real story, the Israeli documentary shown on this site. Other works share the name, check the full title, the 4902 running time, and the address, Nazadocumentary.com.

To watch the other knockoff version of Naza, go to Nasa bloodlabel.com. Yeah, Nasa evil boo. What is the title in Hebrew? I love the just explainate. Like, at this point, I'm like, this is them just being like, we just need to ask questions

and fill it up with some texts. So let me flex my Hebrew reading skills. Please do, please. Naza, hasipura amiti. Naza, the real story. Yeah, there we go. Hebrew is written right to left, and the quote marks inside the first word marks an abbreviation. Thank you.

All right, the film. It asks questions like, what is it? Who speaks? Yada, yada. And then it asks the question, why do the interviewees keep talking about civilian clothes? Because they describe it as the core problem. They say fighters took off uniforms and vests, moved between buildings like everyone else, and in one account even posed as a hostage.

They made it hard to tell who was armed in the rules for opening. fire, they described were built around it. It's, they're doing the Hasbar for those of you who don't want to sit and watch the thing. Whose account is this? The people on screen. IDF commanders and intelligence offers speaking about the operations they ran. The film was made with their cooperation. We publish it as they tell it.

In case you were wondering whether or not this was a biased film or not. They were literally just like, we're just here to record whatever the IDF says, guys. Just a few of my favorite moments. Does the film deal with hunger in Gaza? Briefly. One interview. We touch on it. I mean, you know, we dabble.

One interviewee says he never saw a place with hunger or without food and says Hamas took the aid convoys. That is his statement and the film leaves it to speak for itself. Thank you, Phil. This is the film that that prides itself on being the one that, like, checks its sources and is, like, rigorous in the other way, in the way that the other one isn't. Right. And they're like, yeah, one of our soldiers makes the mistake of mentioning the question of hunger,

but he quickly dismisses it. And we think his blanket suspect denial speaks for itself. Like, one interviewee said, I didn't see shit about that, dude. Everybody looked pretty good to me. I'll be honest with you. I didn't notice. Thank you. Thank you.

And we thought it would be more powerful just to let those words resonate on their own without commentary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we figure it speaks for itself. By it, I mean, the IDF soldier saying it speaks for himself. And then these are two just great questions. Is it on Netflix or any other streaming service? Not that we know of. The full film is on this site.

why does the person answering this question just sound kind of not related to the film? They're just like, I don't even know, dude. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. I mean, you can probably find it

but as far as I know, nah, it's just here. Are these real humans in this film? I mean, probably. I mean, I don't know, look at it. Why are you asking me? Does the site track me? We set no cookies.

We do not set. sell or share personal data. Well, I mean, guys, guys, when the film itself, one of the frequently asked questions is, are you going to send this to somebody? And they're just like, no. That's a bad sign. That's a bad sign.

Daniel, you went through and just took random stills through scrubbing. Is that right? I did more scrubbing of this video than I have of my entire pots and pans collection. And I just came up with, yeah, I just came up with random. I didn't watch it. But all you have to do is just look at stills of the captions. But also not just the captions. We'll notice what they tried to do in terms of mimicking the art,

the artistic choices made in Yvall Abraham and Rahal Shores movie and what they sort of ended up with aesthetically. Yes, which is fascinating. First, this is an important disclaimer at the start. This film was shot on the rooftops of Tel Aviv and features real testimonies from senior officers who took part in a variety of roles in the Gaza War. Unlike other similar films, for the filmmakers, it was important to support everything that is said in the film with photographs and video footage wherever possible. Right. First of all, y'all throw in shade, but you're not, like, just name it.

Just like, unlike the other Naza, they're just like, unlike other stupid or worse or films. Unlike other films. Who will not be mentioned. That this film is a complete hysterical, desperate reaction to so much so that we stole their title. Yeah. Yeah. Unlike some other shit, I don't think I need to mention its name. Everything in ours is real and everything in theirs is fake.

So these are just random slides. All them other slim Nazas are just imitating. Yeah. So won't the real slim Naza please sit down and turn around and not kill your face. Like, I can't stress this enough. Naza, the original Naza. Yes. I feel like I'm talking about the battle between the Real Roxanne and Roxanne Chante or something like that.

Sure, sure. Some rap battle between similarly named rappers is a beautiful piece of cinematic work. It truly is. Even if you don't want to see it, even if you have issues, issues it. It is extremely artfully done. The cinematographer does gorgeous work. They make smart artistic choices.

And the way that they make it visually compelling, despite the fact that a good portion of it is you're just looking at shadowy talking heads, the heads are just silhouettes in the total darkness, is remarkable. Here, they're up on a roof. and to protect the faces of the soldiers, which, by the way, I thought the anonymity thing was supposed to be a knock on the original night.

That's what, literally. So here, they just put the people with their fucking back to you, sitting in this fucking patio chair on a roof. Yes. A very badly composed shot. Literally. They're just facing away, talking to no one.

There's no interviewer. Guys, guys. Looks like they're sitting in the corner of detention. You can't start off the fucking movie with the like unlike the other film which like fucking didn't even have its sources checked. This one is way better. Also we are going to make sure that they remain anonymous. That part was good. That part was good. Like fucking insane to me that the entire thing was like you guys haven't checked the sources. We're unable to debunk this on its merits because of the fact that you've anonymized all the people. And so,

we're going to make our response, but also anonymize the people because at the end of the day, we all have the same concern, which is justice in the international criminal court. And the way we're going to anonymize them is have them turn their chairs around, like literally turn their backs to us and sit away from us like they're sulking. Remember that episode, Matt, where you and I stood up because... That's right. Because of the Yomazikaron thing on Pierce-Morri. I'm going to just...

The rest of this episode, I think I'm just going to turn around. like this. Yeah, let's turn our backs to it, dude. Let's just turn our backs to this, yeah. Now, I'm having trouble looking at the computer, but that doesn't matter. It doesn't mean I don't have thoughts about things. Well, why don't you just make some shit up like these guys do? Okay, on this slide, he says, when we were eating children, we didn't like it

because it tasted bad, but we did it because we were starving. Is that what I said? That's exactly what he said. All right, let's turn around. One, two, three. All right. No, he says that's how they exploit our restrictions in order to hurt us. So, of course, what he means by that is this is how they exploit our kindness, our restraint, all of our regulations that are prohibitions on killing, you know, on causing NASA collateral damage.

And this is like, these are, again, random stills. You are scrubbing through physically in the screenshot. You can see you're just randomly scrubbing. Yeah. And all right, so here's some other ones. you found. Random shot. Random shot of.

Supposedly innocent baby's room. We saw this in schools. Bro. You randomly scrubbed to supposedly innocent baby's room. That's how. Those four words together. That's the most Israeli combination of words. Supposedly innocent.

Not even baby. Is it the room or the baby? Who knows? Let your mind go with it, buddy. That's fucking insane. You know how dense with Hasbar it has to be for supposedly innocent baby's room? What happened to innocent and till proven potty trade? Yeah, I know.

Oh, my God. And then random shot where you see a bunch of, I guess, what's to be assumed as Hamas fighters. And it says, and hookah tobacco and all sorts of items that aren't truly necessarily. And I can only assume that is in a segment about, you know, restrictions to the imports and aid. And a sublime CD. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Another soldier turning his back to us.

Precaution to avoid harming innocent civilians. He can't quite form the phrase innocent civilians. Innocent... What's the word? What's the word for Arab that you are not allowed to kill? I forget that word. We use it so... We don't use it very often.

I don't speak human. That's right. I'm not fluent. But turning a child's bedroom into a combat zone is something... Just every... You can't scrub through it without finding something. You can't! These are barely curated.

one's really funny. Jews, oppressed Arabs and how IDF soldiers are essentially So he's obviously talking about some kind of trope. This is fucking I like to pretend that he's kind of getting excited there. Oh yeah, let's get back.

Jews, oppress Arabs and how IDF soldiers essentially essentially Man, they translated M to a. I'm sure they absolutely did, Adam. That's not a joke. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, will the real slim noises please stand up by Eminem? M and M and Eam. Eminem. Eminem. There's actually a settlement block called Gush Emunim. Oh, that's right. It's for all the, yes, the pluralized. Eminem.

Eminem. Wow, man. That is, look, we've had enough Naza discourse. You know, we've talked about it, and we've landed on where we've landed with it. What I love about this is it makes you, again, remember that some of our issues with this shit,

uh, compared to the amount of time and money resources that go in, to trying to stop this film from being seen. I think it tells you everything you need to know about whether or not this shit is, you know, whether or not this shit is impactful in some way. There is general fear and you see it, you see it in the reactions by the Israeli government to this movie.

There's general fear to this being seen, not just seen by regular people, but seen by, you know, these festival audiences, these sort of, you know, elites who go to fucking

Colin or whatever so you know it's uh I don't know this to me is serves as another bit of advertising

for the movie by Yuval and uh Rachel and um again I'm gonna have to see it right because if someone goes to this they're gonna be like this is dog shit this is clearly not

what I was looking for. Right. They will find their way to Yuval and Rahal's movie. Yes, exactly. And, you know, for whatever problems people do have with it, I think if it were just like, oh, it doesn't tell us anything, you know, that any of us need to know, it doesn't matter. Like, those arguments to me, I'm like, I don't know if that's true, dog. I don't think there would be this amount of fighting over it.

I don't think they would try this hard. Yeah, I want to recommend the people that they take a listen to Ariel Angels, Jewish current, podcast on the nose. There's an excellent, excellent interview with Joshua Oppenheim, I think that's his name, who did the act of killing about the East Timor, the Indonesia genocide. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And also a Palestinian citizen of Israel, is it Rami something? I forget his name. I apologize, but he's a journalist living in that country. And they talk about the movie, not this movie, obviously, but they talk about the actual Naza movie

with great nuance and and I thought accuracy having seen it myself. Yeah, it's Joshua Oppenheimer, not to be confused with Lance Oppenheim who was also a documentary filmmaker but he makes incredible, hilarious documentary films. He co-directed the

Elizabeth Holmes thing with... Oh, yes, yes, with Nathan builder, yeah, which by the way... And the the Dateline thing. Do it. Like, Lance This, Aubenheim is one of the best Florida stenographers you will ever find. This motherfucker is just has, he's great. What do you mean Florida stenographer? I mean, this guy understands, this guy, this guy understands a really sick world.

He's, he's just really great. What I mean is that he, he, he, so movies he's made, you have to see Renfair. Renfair is a incredible series about people at a Renaissance Fair. You know who just posted a Renfair selfie? He did some kind of heaven, which is about the, that's about that place in Florida, the Pines or whatever, the nursing home. What were you saying? Do you know who just posted a Renfair selfie just today on Instagram?

No, I don't. Our last guest. Friday's guest. Brianna Joy Gray posted a picture of yourself at a Redmond. This sounds very. Yeah. Yeah. You know,

when you ask last guest, I blank out this podcast. I disassociate this. Fair enough. Yeah. Anyways, Lance Oppenheimer's documentary, some kind of heaven,

is one of the, one of the greatest movies about the villages in central Florida. You got to check that out. Anyway, still a little bit more to talk about. I think to end this podcast, Daniel You and I

go through a lot of news A lot of headlines You read a lot about what's going on We look at a lot of bold face type And then our eyes glaze over At a lot of small face type Which we often don't bother to To delve into

Because who has time for details The big version Exactly We don't need that shit But you have something for me that I don't know. I have not seen. I'm coming in blind.

We are going to do a top 10 list. Yeah. Can you explain? Can you intro this? It's actually a top 10 plus one. I had to include 11 of them. I just, sometimes when I want to know

what the state of play is in liberal Zionism, I just turn to Haarets' Twitter feed. Now, we know that sometimes Haaret posts really good reporting. It can happen. It can happen.

They can have, you know, occasionally very good op-eds by the likes of Gideon Levy and Amirahas. And damn it, I'm forgetting her name, but she's a Palestinian citizen of Israel. I would love to have her on the show, but I think she said that she's a little camera shy. But anyway, they do have some very good stuff sometimes. And then they have a lot of what a B'amabrava to show now, which is a top 11, really top 10 plus one list. kind of a David Letterman-style top-10 list of just some of the best are its headlines from the past couple of weeks.

I think I might make this regular because they just churn it out. I love it. In a few cases, I went in and took a few screenshots of the contents of the article. Sometimes the headline just stands for, on and so on. I think taken together, they give you a pretty good composite shot of the state of the Junion.

I love it. Let's get into it. Hell yeah. All right, here we go. All right, so at number 11, the fact that Hebrew University is still ranked among the world's 100 best is a miracle. Akin to when oil lasts for longer than you think it's going to. That is true.

What a miracle it is. Wonder of wonder. Yeah. What does that say about you that you're like, the fact that we're still in the top 100 universities in the world? whole world. It's a miracle. It is a little bit of where they're just like, because honestly, guys, this is a dog

shit place. It's like, you thought it was bad before. Holy fuck. Oh. Yeah. It's almost like they're talking of shit. It's like the fact that we're still among the world's hundred says, uh, not something good about the state of universities around the world.

As Bob Dylan said, we are idiots, babe. It's a wonder that we still know how to, it's a wonder we can even feed ourselves. Oh, sorry, I must have forgotten to change the number on this one. This would be number 10. No, you just did it. Okay, great. Here's number 10. I like this one very much because it's about a musical.

A nuclear bomb is launched from Iran in the first act. Israeli musical faces the apocalypse. In Iranian atomic bomb, compulsory Shabbat observant, and a zombie attack. The creators of the ends of days, now at Gesheer Theater in Tel Aviv, wanted to write an apocalyptic satire, then reality caught up. So I'll just sum up for you what this is. This sounds like sort of Israel's slam frank, sort of an absurdist musical

that's trying to parody something about the times. You know, in this very long article, which is not uninteresting to me as a musical theater creator, and they interview a whole bunch of the cast and the creators and all that, Gaza, Palestine, occupation, genocide, isn't mentioned once. Cool. I love that.

But the plot of the musical, which is a little droll, a little comical, is that, yeah, Iran launches a nuclear bomb and the state of Israel decides to try to get right with God by making Shabbat observance compulsory. Like if everyone just observes the Sabbath really hard, maybe it'll save us from this plight, you know? So they're clearly taking on the liberal Zionists. I love that. A version of what's wrong with the country, which is to say we're in such a tip. terrible neighborhood. Everything's chaotic. We're run by religious extremists and everyone hates us and there's war going on. And that's as sharp as the satire seems to be. I could be wrong. I haven't seen it, but I read the article and I didn't detect much in the way of, well.

I mean, as a headline, it works because it's like, you know, guys, we're having a real, you know, genocide going on to our musical theater, you know, in this country. An Iran nuke has really destroyed our ability to satirically paint everyone else who's not Jewish as a zombie. And that is the real... Edna cleansing? Sure. Settlers, we get the job done.

Yeah, that's God. All right. Number nine. No, the New Yorker did not blame. punctuation for Palestinian suffering. This one's about some piece in the New Yorker. Yes, I saw. A linguist who uses modern Hebrew as an example of, I guess, the dangers of artificially updating languages.

I love this. Things that you need to tell the Haaret's readership. No, the New Yorker did not blame punctuation for Palestinian suffering. Oh, good, because I'm pretty sure it did. All right. Number eight. Hey, Israel. Com as a bitch. Oh, uh, eight. Why the sunkiss fruit gem brief discontinuation hit so hard for American Jews.

Fuck, dude. So I didn't know this. I didn't know this. Have you seen this? Have you seen this? Have you seen this? You heard about this? I heard about this. Wow. What a great audience. Oh, wow. The sunkissed briefly discontinued sunkissed fruit gems saying they were no longer profitable to make.

And religious Jews in America freaked out. So I got a few paragraphs from this. I just found this very funny. So they're talking to some Orthodox woman. It was a gut punch, she said. Because of the memories that are attached for me, I tend to make them as last as long as possible and really savor them.

She started thinking about trying to manufacture a replacement. Now, maybe we should colonize a different sun-kissed flavor. Oh, come on, man. I drop of orange-flavored fruit gems. The idea is that, you know, you've been to bar mitzvahs, right? Where they throw the candy at the kids and they're soft and they don't hurt? That's right. Yeah, what are they going to do?

Like start pelting people with jolly ranchers, fucking Palestinian style. Like, you know, you can really kill someone with a fucking jolly rancher. Jesus Christ. Now she may not need to manufacture a replacement. Sunkist announced late Friday on Shabbat, no less. Oh my God. They're trolling. They're trolling.

That it had heard the outcry of Fruit Gems fans and was working on finding a new partner to, quote, help us bring back the same great flavor, quality, kosher certification, and fruit forward goodness you know and love. Bro, it is wild to me that, like, they're like, okay, we are sun-kissed and we hear you, although we are taking huge losses trying to make this only for the smallest subsection of Jews,

who have never heard of gummy savers, we have decided, yes, we will continue. Like, this is, is this not the same as doing, like, economic aid to Israel? It's just economic aid to bar mitzvah candy. We are also changing our name out of respect, from sun-kissed to six-pointed star fucked. Yeah.

The announcement was met with relief from the hordes of fruit gem fanatics, who had come out of, the days since e-Jewish philanthropy first reported that the Ferrara candy company,

which produced Jelly Belly in 2023, had determined that fruit jams were unprofitable. Well, I mean, that's just,

that's blood libel. To call a favorite Jewish product unprofitable? That's, yeah, first of all, wow. Second of all,

it's, I love that they're just straight up, like, we're protesting outside of Wanka's factory because, because,

because of the soft treats that we like are no longer are no longer profitable fucking A guys someone on Twitter this is apropos of nothing except Wonka someone on Twitter the other day pointed out

someone had talked about how like something was the Willy Wonka golden ticket and people were turning it down and someone said five out of the six kids who got that golden ticket ended up dead that's a good point I feel like Zionism was the the Wonka golden ticket for Jews.

That's right. It's the only safe place for us to eat candy, right? Augustus Gloop, motherfucker, drowned from the chocolate river to the bubble sea. Augustus Galute. Yeah. But this is my favorite sentence in the whole thing. On social media, some suggested reciting the Jewish prayer praising God for reviving the dead. They said the cottage for fruit gems.

They said the mourners cottage for fucking cans. candy, dude. Visgadol, Viscadash, give me the candies. I like it a lot. All right, that's it. All right. There we go. This one is wild.

That deserved a little Paul Schaefer for a moment. Go ahead. I'm going to throw my cue cards over my... Yeah. Uh-huh. Welcome to Panama's Israeli Surf Paradise. From Backpacker Haven to Millie. dollar villas.

And this is an example of Haarets, publishing an article about what Israelis do in the rest of the world. And this is just like normal news to Israelis. Like they don't... Sure. Like, okay, anyway. In less than 20 years,

Israelis transformed a quiet stretch of Panama's Pacific coast into a booming surf town that became a refuge during COVID and after October 7th. Now its growing popularity is straining relations with locals and nature. Where else? That's the most Israeli thing to do.

Strain relations with locals and nature. Yeah, you guys are bending the laws of physics with your fucking annoyingness. I just like, every time I read one of these people, like one of these articles, I'm always just like, these same people who are just like, where are we supposed to go? Where? You tell me. So where are the Jews of the world supposed to go? It's like, I don't know, man. How about Panama's Israeli surf paradise?

You know what? Let Elon Musk have them. Send him to Mars. Send him to Mars. Just kidding. We're having fun. We're having fun. So this is a paragraph from... Oh, more of it, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I just picked from a few paragraphs into it. This is perhaps the culmination of a transformation that began less than two decades ago, in which a group of Israelis who settled on this beach turned it into a venue for international surf competitions and a major stop on the Humus Trail. Oh my God.

The Israeli backpacker route that runs north from South America to Mexico. And that's before we get it to the returns on the real estate and business empire, the group built on the beach, which draws buyers from the United States, Canada, Panama, and of course Israel. So, first of all,

not only are they colonizing this narrow strip of Central America in Panama, not only are they you know gobbling up real estate. Properties, yes. Just human fucking private

equity drones. Right. Private elite slop. But they call this route, this backpacker route, the humus trail. I mean. They use a stolen

food Yeah. To name their, to name their, name their plunder path. Call it the Borsd backpacker belt. That's better. The Boers Fanny Pack. Yeah.

Like, just to call it the hummus trail is just insult to injury, which is their favorite way. It's their favorite thing to do after injury. Oh. All right. Number six. Number six. I just have the headline and subhead for this one. They spent weeks identifying the dead after October 7th.

Some ended up in a psych ward. The Israeli army tasked them with determining which bodies believed to be terrorists were actually dead Israeli soldiers and civilians. For weeks they lived among the dead. Three years later, each had become one of the crazies, as one puts it. So essentially, this is the Hannibal cleanup crew. Yo, yo! Now, and then they fucking committed them.

Just be like, oh, they're crazy. So don't listen to whatever stories they may have heard or done or something. scene, bro. Like, they, Israeli army tasked them with determining which bodies believed to be terrorists were actually dead Israeli soldiers and civilians. So I just need to know whether or not the, they were just like, look, I was fine when I thought all of these were terrorists. That's right.

But then I saw one of them was wearing capri pants and had the vial of ketamine on them. And I said, no, it's one of ours. That's one of our country. And it drove them sick in the head and they needed some Hannibal doctorin. Yeah. I need to get me a Hannibal doctor. A doctor, a doctor Hannibal.

Fucking A. Terrible. This one is unbelievable. Number five, a Torah dance at Nova, not on this sacred ground. It's dancing on the blood. All right. With blaring music and Torah scrolls,

mostly teenage Jewish revelers. gathered Saturday night at the Nova Massacre site near the Gaza border to celebrate Simchat Torah despite opposition from October 7th families. Oh, man, that is, you know, if ever there was like a symbolic act of how Israeli society uses and views their own fucking dead, this is it. They dance with the Torah because that's what you do on Simchad Torah. That's right. You dance around the street with the Torah because we're celebrating. when God gave, when we received the Torah on Mount Sinai. That's right. Yes. Yes. And it's dancing on the blood. And they're like, that's fine.

As opposed to the Nova Festival itself, which was dancing near the blood. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Also dancing on the blood of the families that got expelled in 48. That's dried blood, dude. That blood doesn't even matter. It's like, no, the blood is on the other side of the wall. We're just want the, I want them to hear the dance. I want the blood to hear the dancing. A Torah dance at Nova, not on this sacred ground. Go do it in Gaza.

Go do it in the West Bank. Go do it, you know. But not where our sons and daughters die. Yeah, what are you guys insensitive? What do you think? Where do you think you live? Where do you think you live? Do you even talk to your own people?

It's just crazy to me when they're just like, can you be surprised? How can you be surprised? Fucking nothing but leopards eating your own face. I need more Schaefer after that one just to clear the power. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's get a little shape, go. Hey, this one asks a great question.

Can liberal Zionism offer a home to young Jews disillusioned with Israel's government? It sure can on a hilltop. That sure does, dude. Oh, man, we need a home. Young Jews describe struggling to find a community where they can question Israel openly. but not disclaim it. They want to question it. They're, you know, they're looking for a place where they can edge.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to start somewhere. At Israel Policy Forum's Young Professionals Network, even right-wingers and anti-Zionists are welcome. Hell yeah. They're trying to create a safe space, basically an outlet for people to get the gay, you know, pray away the gay,

like shake out the anti-Zionist. Play away the gay. So a certain young Ms. Reikman says, I am a Reichman. Jesus Christ. The thousand-year Reichman said what now? I am a liberal Zionist, but I'm not making the tent just for liberal... We have a big Sukkah, you know?

Yeah, that's right. We keep a big sukkah in this party. I'm not making a tent just for liberal Zionists because I think people have really different definitions of what it means to be liberal and what it means to be Zionist. Oh, kind of like we talked about with... Francesca, yeah. When I describe our tent, it's for people who believe in a secure Jewish, Democratic

state and Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. And I think it's important to be precise. When? Why start now? I think it's important to be precise when I say that, you know, I agree with, of course, the idea that we all, this is our land and kill anyone who's not us. And also we need to reconcile ourselves to peace. While a thousand-year Reichman said, Attid events,

Atteed is the, I guess, the little subgroup. Attid means future in Hebrew. Are open to a range of participants. Leadership positions remain reserved for those who are committed to the organization's values. I mean, let's not get crazy here. We have people on the right who really don't support a two-state solution at all.

And we have people who might say, we support one democratic state from the river to the sea who are invited to come to our events, right man said. They're not going to be in leadership positions. They are not running our chapters. They are not being recruited for any of our leadership programs because we do want those people.

to be values aligned. Sure, sure, sure, sure. You know what's great is that they named the fucking thing. Like, they named it after when they want to get around to actually discussing, you know, criticism of Israel. Sometime in the future, guys. Yeah. You know, like.

Their podcast is called Democracy Eventually. Yeah, democracy eventually. Exactly. All right. Number three, just the headline, I was born in Paraguay and raised in a Japanese community. I came to Israel for love. Cool. Good, good, good.

And my favorite part of it is the heading, like I guess the, whatever, the segment, what do you would you call it? The column or the category for this article is called Holy Landings. Number two. This one is fucking crazy. Okay. Under Israel's security, targeting women and children,

Israeli professor indicted for plotting mass casualty terror attacks on Arabs and Palestinians. Fuck. I mean, I guess everyone wants to be in government these days. Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. I mean, look, if you want to do that, you got to go through the right methods of doing that. You got to get elected first, buddy. Exactly. All right.

Don't try this at home. Have you even gotten a master's degree in doing mass attacks and casualty events against Arabs and Palestinians? No, I don't think so. There's rules to this shit. Nice work. If you can get it. And you can get it if you're Zai. Yes. According to the indictment, the Bar-I-Lan University math lecturer

planned to lead 12 terror cells that would target Arab communities across Israel. He allegedly tried to extort far-right Knesset candidate Moshe Faglund into joining his plan. And this is the Israeli burn after reading. I'm going to read you some of the story here. It's incredible. Please. An Israeli university lecturer is accused of planning mass terrorist attacks targeting Arab Israelis and Palestinians

and seeking to recruit far-right politician and election candidate Moshe Faglin to his plans, according to an indictment filed Monday with the Law District Court. I mean, he knows how to pick him. I mean, Faglin, it's understandable that he would think Fagland would be on board for this. Yeah, I know. I kind of like, I kind of get it. I'd be pissed too if I was like a psychopathic mass murderer trying to do, you know, anti-Palestinian terrorism and faglin of all people was just like that's weird fuck you that's all

you preach you psychopath yeah this is the Israeli rupert pumpkin yeah this is the dude who you know we played before uh I mean you've see we played plenty of clips is one of the most right wing psychos in fact he recently did an interview in which he said like um in terms of the killing mass killing of children um you know me personally because I'm because I am weak. Morally weak. Because I am morally weak, I would want to not kill children. And he described that as...

But Jewish law says I have to. Yes, this is him calling himself morally weak because he has... Which, by the way, he's clearly not. He's clearly, to his definition, morally strong and that he is absolutely okay with the murder of children. Fucking psychopathic bullshit. According to the indictment, the defendant, a mathematics lecture. at the Barilin University in central Israel, a man in his 60s,

called his plan, Amya Aset Transfer in Hebrew, or the nation will carry out a transfer. His stated goal, allegedly, was to cause Israeli Arabs to flee or be expelled to Jordan, Lebanon, and Gaza. I wonder where he got that idea from. Yeah, man, what a unique idea.

Did he just invent that? Did he just come up with that? Is he trying to Israel, Israel? He's trying to Israel, Israel. Israel. According to the investigation, the suspect attended two public events held by Faglund and attempted to arrange a meeting with him to present an outline of his plan. But the former lawmaker did not respond to any of his approaches. In September, as the election approached, the suspect allegedly wrote an extortion letter addressed to Fagelin, criticizing and disparaging him for failing to cooperate with the plan he had devised.

This is why I need Moshegland to be played by John Malkovich. Yes, yeah. I know who you are, fucker. I'm down with it. Let me win the election first. This guy's like, it's not drivel. It's just showing his plan.

Or he would say it's not dribble. Dribble. According to the indictment, the suspect believed that the mass simultaneous terrorist attacks, coupled with their amplification and real-time dissemination on social media, would lead Arab citizens of Israel to flee beyond the country's borders. During the court hearing,

following his arrest, the suspect said that his lawyer suggested he would act a little crazy, saying it would help him reduce his sentence. But, quote, I'm completely competent and stand by my actions, he added. He also told the court not to be held. Guys, guys, guys, I'm just going to let you know, all right? This might be weird for you, but I'm going to act like a complete psychopath in there, but just so you know. That's great.

He also told the court not to be, this is obviously translated from Hebrew. He also told the court not to be held in detention with Muslims, adding that quote, I am not a danger to anyone right now. My life has been completely turned upside down. I have so many things to do in financial matters to deal with. I don't see to whom I could pose any danger, he added. And then the press de resistance, all the prison guards are Muslim, and I'm afraid. I'm there alone.

I'm a professor at Barilin University, and I worked until my arrest. I did nothing for myself. I buried my life for three years. I did all this before October 7th. I don't think I should be punished. Damn, dude. God damn. Just, dude, I beg for the mercy of the court.

I was not supposed to get caught. Fucking faglin. I'm Jewish, okay? Yeah. What the hell? I thought this is what we were about. Why is everyone acting like it's weird that I want to do another knockba? I thought we were into that shit.

It's in our constitution. Oh, fuck. God damn it. I got financial matters to deal with you. I'll try to hold this over my head. Isn't this the most Cohen Brothers article you've read? He's just so wild. I have financial matters.

You don't understand. I have a call. I have a lot of items in my life that require my attention. And being in this prison cell with these Muslim guards is it's cramping my ability. It's curtailing my ability. to attend to these matters. God, I have a Zoom meeting at three. All right, last one.

Last one, and this is a bonus, really, because I didn't get it from Ha'Arts. I got it from the most, what Harits wishes it could be, the New York Times. And this is the op-ed guest essay. Israelis are exhausted. There is a way out. I hope the next sentence is,

well, you know what, I'm not going to finish my thought there. It's through the port of Tel Aviv. That's right. Yes. So this, I forget who wrote this, but I just have to read some of this garbage. Because this, I mean, this is just, this is farm to table liberal Hasbara. Israel's coming election is best watched from Palace Ruth in Argos.

Escalis's Agamemnon, the first play of the Orestia trilogy begins there with a watchman, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. In Israel, the watching never ceases to end. Yeah, tell the people. people of Gaza that watching never cease the stand. Tell Francesca Albanesea, the watching never sees the stand. The last act before sleep is to reach for the phone on the nightstand to check for news. If you, we do that here too, fuckers. It's called addiction. If you wake during the night, you check it again. Yeah, duh, we're junkies. Before morning coffee, the day begins

in the same place. Has something happened in Iran? Has a reserve call up been announced? What did the government do while you slept? Yes, Palestinians are just, you know, dozing through their lives with no need to check for updates. Yeah, they're sleeping soundly, dude. Being glued to a phone, of course, is now part of the human condition. It is especially acute for Israelis. Everything is especially acute for Israelis. Yeah, everything is more. Everything is more. Before the smartphone era, the beep signaling the hourly news bulletin on the radio could silence a whole bus. The instrument is new. The habit is not. Israelis check for trouble the way people elsewhere check for rain. But nobody decides the weather.

So the page closes with the question, can Israelis, and this is related to the upcoming election, can Israelis recover the ordinary privilege of not having to watch their government all the time? Israel has never entirely been off alert. A state of emergency declared in May 1948 remains. There was something absurd about a national emergency old enough to have grandchildren. Yeah, you think? There's something absurd about a nation. That's weird.

That's built on. That's weird, guy. Isn't that weird? It's weird. like, this is weird that this is just like, this nation and this like emergency is like, it's going, why is it going on so long? I don't know. I'll just move on.

I mean, it is absurd. Someone should do a satirical musical about it, about a country that is a national emergency that becomes an international emergency. Hey, Palestinians. Isn't that weird? Fucking absurd. You guys probably can't relate. Israelis work through wars, planned holidays around missile threats.

and resume dinner after leaving the shelter. Life goes on. Vigilance never turns up. See, the fact that this is being written for people in America is, this is why it tops the list. And this is, let me just finish here. More than two centuries ago,

the French-Swish political thinker, Benjamin Constant, argued that representative government allowed citizens to entrust the work of governing to others while retaining the duty to watch those who govern. One of democracy's quietest promises

is that politics. need not occupy every hour of private life. That's right. Making the promise quietly. For many Israelis, that promise has broken down. They cannot stop watching. There is, however, a limit to the freedom not to watch. Israelis may be entitled to intervals of inattention,

but not to ignorance of what their government does in their name. And it goes on to talk about killing tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza and do the liberal Zionist thing of like, there's terrible things. Of course. This election will offer Israelis the chance to go back. to their bliss full ignorance dude go back to brunch dude it's time to go back to brunch and I hope

you guys understand what Israelis have had to go through to pay attention it's very acute the fucking genocide they are doing has got to be exhausting I love the word does not appear in that article either by the way um you didn't say

the name of the author um and it's clearly e fart low right because it is the Jews are tired. That's all it is. Yep. Oh, and that's our top 11 list. I feel like we can make this a regular thing. I mean, every few weeks we'll have at least 11.

Very easily. Very easily. All right, everyone, and that's our podcast. Patreon.com slash baddestbarra. Baddust barra gmail.com for all your questions, comments, and concerns. All right, everyone. Thanks again so much for listening. And until next time, from the river to the sea. one of my

my preferiti and our episodes, which is to say one of my favorites of all over episodes. Okay. I just knew that if I put an Italian plural sentence in, I'd get a rhyme with... I mean, yeah, chances are always good.

I would have said something like, oh, yes, I'm going to eat this spaghetti. Boy, really worked up an appetite for some canoli. That's right. for a linguit. All right, sorry.

Francesca, I hope you didn't hear this part. Bye. Bye.