Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - Bad Hasbara 18: Irrefutable, with Sana Saeed

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

AJ+ host and media critic Sana Saeed joins Matt and Daniel to talk about Hollywood's big night being hijacked by one person with a conscience.Sign up for Daniel and Hadar Cohen's Jewish Healing Circle on zoom.   Visit Daniel's website and check out his mental chiropractic service.Buy tickets to see Matt Lieb and Francesca Fiorentini headline the Punch Line in Sacramento on Sunday, March 17th at 7pm. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/bad-hasbara/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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Light foster us Zabra Hamas Hasbaras us Hello and welcome to Bad Hasbara, the most moral podcast in the world. Of all the podcasts that exist in the world, we have the most morality. That's right. And it is I, your most moral host, Matt Lieb. Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Bad Hasbara.

What is Hasbara? You ask yourself, if this is your first time listening. It is the, loosely, the Hebrew word for explaining. It explains, and it is also mostly just means the Israeli attempt to spin all the news narratives in their favor. It is propaganda, and we got a lot of propaganda to talk about, but first, I'm going to do some propaganda for my own benefit. Um, first things first, about eight and a half inches. Just kidding, sorry. Um, come to the Sacramento punchline. Uh, I'm going to be there with my wife Francesca Fiorentini Sunday, March 17th at 7 p.m. There's a link in the description. Click it and then come. Please buy tickets. Tell your friends

who are in the Sacramento area to come. Uh, secondly, patreon.com slash bad has bar. Support this podcast. It is demonetized for now. Maybe it'll stop being demonetized once you stop doing copyright infringement. But until then, please. I mean, even after then, please. Support the, you know, Patreon.

Patreon.com slash bad hasbarra. And finally, last thing's last, shout out to our brand new, or not brand new, but now paid producer, Adam Levin, who is here. Um, you know, this is becoming a more and more of a, you know, what do you call it?

Professional podcast. Uh, and we have a producer and I want to thank Adam. Adam's going to be here. Just making sure everything goes smoothly and stuff like that. And again, that's why we need you to join the Patreon. Patreon.com slash bad has bar. Also, please listen to the podcast. Don't watch me. I can't make money. Um, sorry for yelling. But YouTube is an impossible game. Okay, first things first, I'm going to bring in the second most moral host of this podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, Daniel Mote is back. What's up, buddy? Oh, hi.

Sorry, I was just thinking about those eight and a half inches. I mean, listen, but that's fully, you know, bricked up. Not when it's small. You know, not when it's tired. Whatever it takes. Best of times. It was the best of times. It was the shortest times. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, something like that. How are you doing, buddy? Oh, we're off to a, we're off to a cracking start here. I'm all right, thank you. It's a cold, blustery, sunny March day early in the spring forward time frame here in New York City. It's one of those days that wants to be spring, but can't quite get winter out of it. system, so. Yeah, physically not able to, but it looks good. You just can't go outside or else

you'll freeze to death. Yeah, you can't go outside expecting a nice day with, you know, with blossoms and birds. It still feels pretty, pretty, pretty breezy. How are you? Oh, you know, pretty good. It's, uh, it's LA. So the weather's pretty much always the same, um, which is nice, because, uh, it makes you forget all problems. And it makes you go, oh sun's out nothing can be bad when sun is out so you know i have that that's great i mean it's why la is considered the happiest place on earth right there's like that's right rates of of depression and self-hatred are just there's just no one there who's like hating life and no one's ever drank themselves to death and thought to themselves

life is meaningless i should die no everyone comes here to live uh it's except if you're born and raised here like I was, then you're just born and raised with the human condition of being like, I want to die. I hate the son. And yeah, there's no L.A. for you to, and there's no L.A. for you to move to. There's no L.A. for me to move to, unless I moved to Israel, land of the free. Exactly. Home of the brave. Yes. Today, I want to introduce our guests because we have a great guest today with us for just the first hour, as if there's a second hour, with us for most of the podcast. A fantastic guest, a guest, this is a media critic, an AJ Plus presenter, and

former co-worker of mine back when I used to work at AJ Plus. Ladies and gentlemen and everyone else, welcome Sana Seid. Sorry. Fuck. It's okay. At least you didn't say Saeed the way everyone's like, oh, Edward's nice, then it's like, I'm like, no. Matt, Matt, you, you, you, you, you, you said it wrong. I said it wrong. You said it all wrong. Where were you when, where was that fucking pun when I needed it at the beginning to cure my brain? It's okay. You'll get it next time. Yeah. Yeah. That'll just be the bit. Yeah, that'll be the bit. And so far, you know, that is a running gag of mine accidentally is me not being able to pronounce my

guest names. Tyke's video about that was hysterical. You're Irish, the Irish guy? I'm going to meet him in a few weeks. I'm going to, I'm going to Ireland. He's going to come to my talk. But I was talking to him today. He made that hilarious video about watching Bad Hasbara.

And he's looking all happy that you're mentioning him. And then you and Fran do the American comedian thing of just butchering his name on purpose. And he looks so crestfallen. We butchered his name. It's spelled Tadgaha. It is spelled Tadgaha, yeah. It's not my fault that in Ireland they pronounce your names wrong or spell them wrong. It's one of the two, all right?

Sorry. But, Sana, thank you so much for coming on. I have been, I've known you for a long time. We worked at AJ Plus together. You're still there. Is that right? Yes, I am. Nice.

Almost near strong. Almost 10 years strong. Also, I wanted to thank you so much for forcing me to think about eight and a half inches on the first day of Ramadan. Fantastic. It's like, it's how I like to start the podcast out. I like to let people know up top that this is, it's not exactly going to be, you know, if you're here looking for journalism, I can't, I can't do that for you, but I can make a dick joke up top. That's what I'm about. Look, man, it's not called Goody Goody Hasbara. It's bad, Hasbara. We're bad here. We're bad. We misbehave a little. You know, we like to get a little saucy, a little spicy. Yeah, we're a spice podcast. Just spicy Jews. But so you have been doing some, what I would consider some of the most standout work that I've seen in the last few months regarding all of this, especially and specifically regarding the media critique. Um, you, I have been my go-to account, um, for, uh, on Twitter for finding headlines that, uh, completely misrepresent, um, the actual story of what's going on, uh, currently in Gaza or what's going on, um, I mean, anywhere, you know, in the West Bank and, uh, in 48 as well. And just, uh, yeah, it's been, it's been interesting to watch because I, I think I've seen

more of a concerted effort on the media's part to obscure and obfuscate the facts of what's happening for any given story. And I wanted to know when you are, do you look through it yourself? Do you wake up in the morning, grab a cup of coffee and just start perusing the New York Times? Bold of you to assume that I wake up and grab a cup of coffee as opposed to roll over, grab my phone and go, let's go. Yeah. So usually it's a mix of things. I will wake up and I'll go through the headlines of all the major news organizations.

Also, usually my phone has blown up with people sending me things. So a lot of people, which is cool, people reach out to me like, hey, did you see this, right? And it's usually also a lot of people who are international who have, who've been awake before I am. And so they've already seen what's being published in the U.S. press. And so they'll be like, hey, check out this link, check this out, et cetera. Or other journalists who themselves are unable because of the unfortunate conditions in their newsrooms to really speak out against their own newsrooms. We'll reach up like, hey, FYI, here's what's going on. Hey, FYI, et cetera.

So it's usually a mix of things. And then, of course, like everyone else, I log on to Twitter and I'll see kind of a maybe a particular headline has already like, a little bit of conversation brewing around it, right? And then what I try to do is when I can, when I have the capacity for it is take that and also compare it to other headlines across, not just the New York Times, even though, you know, it was funny,

I was telling my producer, I'm like, oh, we should just name our show, like, we hate the New York Times at this point. But instead, it's like, you know, what I try to do is go across all the different major news organizations in the United States, which is what I tend to focus on, even though there's no, you know, there's no, like, lack of similar headlines, like in the U.K.

Or even Canada. Canada's far worse, believe it or not, than the United States. If you think the U.S. is bad, yeah, yeah, you know, like Canada has been shocking. As the resident Canadian in the House, I can confirm this, that there's a kind of default Canadian dissociativeness. There's a kind of, like, the default trauma response of being a Canadian is to be somewhat disembodied anyway, and it comes through in the language, and you can see it in the, you can hear it in the voices of commentators and news anchors, and the Canadian coverage is absolutely terrible. Plus, the Canadian Jewish community on the whole is even more dug in and inflexible than the American one, it seems to me, you know?

Wow. I mean, I have a question for you, Sana, I mean, sorry. Go ahead, Matt. No, I was just going to say as an American, you know, from like the country, real America, not from Canada. We look at Canada as kind of just like, you know, it's like kind of our liberal neighbor to the north. They're like, you know, essentially communists. You guys are, you know, giving everyone free health care because you love Stalin. This is some Michael, this is some Michael Moore, circa 2004 shit.

Like, this is not, and it was played out by, it was played out already by then, you know. Yeah. I mean, but listen, we stuck to that narrative. As far as we know, Canada is the America that we all wished we had. You know, that's, if you talk to any, like, capital D, Democrat, liberal, they'll be like, why can't we be more like Canada? Yeah, it's a giant bilingual bodega that sells insulin for 50 cents a pop. Go ahead, sounds.

I was going to say, what is interesting, though, is that when it comes to Canada, I mean, a lot of the quote-unquote alt-right movements in the United States, a lot of the kind of big figure ads and names are Canadian, right? You look at someone like the founder of Prad Boys, Gavin McKinnis, Canadian, one of the founders twice from Canada as well. Jordan Peterson, Canadian. The relationship between Rebel News and Canada and a lot of, like, here also, you know, white supremacist groups.

Like that relationship between the extreme right, even just the regular right, But, like, the extreme right, the extremely explicitly white supremacist groups in the United States and Canada, that's all coming. That's a, that's a Canadian export. That's what we're doing. David from, David from, too. David from, exactly. David from, another example. So, yeah, it's, Canada is, it has, you know, again, it's, we have a really good PR strategy, but, yeah.

You guys have good Hasbara. We have good Hasbara, absolutely. Hold on, hold on. Sona, did I call myself the resident Canadian not realizing that you're Canadian? Yes. I'm sorry, that was fake news. Where are you from?

So I have a weird story, but I grew up in Vancouver somewhat, and I grew up between the U.S. and Canada, but Vancouver, yeah. Well, so did I. Hi, Vancouver. And somehow I didn't know this about you. I apologize. When I say Vancouver,

do I want to get more specific on the internet? I'll say Surdell. if that makes sense to you. I used to deliver organic groceries for small potatoes urban delivery out to Sirdell. See, that's what I'm saying. Shit like that. We don't do that in America. We don't deliver, you know, organic groceries to Sardell.

No, we deliver guns to cartels. That just almost rhymed. But, yeah, it's interesting because I also do see some of your coverage regarding some of that Canadian Hasbara, that Canadian spin. And one of the most recent things was Canada was among a handful of major countries, major economic powerhouses to cut funding from UNRWA after the spurious allegations that UNRWA is all Hamas, you know, that was slowly but surely picked away by actual reporters. and the Canada in I think an attempt to well I'm not sure you tell me but Canada was one of the countries that recently resumed funding and I saw a lot of praise going its way for you know doing so what are your thoughts on the reasonings behind this and whether or not it is worthy of praise or not I don't think there's anything worthy of praise in stopping funding of what is the longest running and almost only lifeline for millions of Palestinians over completely unsubstantiated allegations before any semblance of an investigation could take place.

So I give zero props to any country that's resuming aid to UNRWA after having stopped it. Because the thing is the damage is done, too, right? We already have a horrific, you know, starvation that's been spreading across, especially in North Gaza. And we've been seeing children dying. There are several, like, I mean, so many more children who are at risk of dying from starvation in the coming days and weeks. So, but I think what happened here is that Canada, like a few of the other, like Sweden,

also, as soon as Sweden joined NATO, they're like, oh, and we're resuming aid back to UNRATU. But I think they saw as, I mean, that's what they said, they saw the UN report, right? Which was probably like, no, guys, this is, and of course now we've also heard the fact, surprise, surprise, the Israelis tortured a bunch of people and got confessions that way, right? So I think what Canada saw, as a few other countries, is what their liability was, right? especially as we know that this entire genocide is being discussed and being looked at the international court level. If I'm a Canadian, you know, a federal minister and I see a report that very clearly says, you know what, those allegations were completely unfounded, ABCD, and it's

coming from the United Nations, I would immediately think about what my legal liability is in all of that. And I think that's what we saw there. I don't think it was some sort of change of moral heart. I do think that, you know, the pressure on the Canadian government maybe to an extent, but I think ultimately it came down to a very cynical move, which is what is our role in all this. And also, it does align with how this story fell out of the news once it was completely taken apart, right? Once we saw, like, who was, you know, when we saw, like, that dossier, which when other news reporters were able to get a hand on it, they were like, there was nothing in this dossier that actually says what is being claimed here, right?

Now it's not a story. No one's talking about unright in that way at all. And like I said, the damage has been done. Right. And the damage, I think is the trend. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. The damage is, or at least the entire purpose of it is, to exist as a new cycle for just long enough to get a rapid response from allied countries

and then to when it's later proven to be false, forget about it. We'll move on to something else. And it's similar with... No, go ahead. Oh, I was going to say, and honestly, like, to me, out of all the stories that have been manufactured

since October 7th, the Unreal One is one of the most blatant in terms of... We remember when that story dropped, right? It was literally about like an hour after the ICJ kind of preliminary ruling that came out. And all of a sudden, right, State Department's like, oh, FYI were going to be defunding unrued because they're a bunch of terrorists.

So, you know, by the way, no press conference today. Yeah. It was so transparent how it was done, why it was done. And so to me, this story was the most, it's like the perfect example of a completely fabricated story that was placed specifically to remove any and all attention from what should have been a, even though I know a lot of people, myself included, we're not necessarily very happy with the ICJ preliminary ruling, but that should have been the story and within hours switched. Yeah. Do you feel like, I mean, Canada has all kinds of pressure from various

sides. So if they responded to a sense of, uh-oh, we could be on the hook here from within, that's one thing. But do you think at the same time there was some back channeling to the United States to daddy to be like, um, sorry, but, uh, you know, we, we think we're going to back out on, back out on this one. Uh, and of course, the U.S. would have been like, sure, do what the fuck you want. You did your job. You pulling out now is not going to kill the narrative. No one cares about you anyway. Fuck off. Like, but do you, do you think that they would have, they would have reversed course like that without checking in with The Godfather? First of all, loved hearing a Canadian story.

That is the one thing that gives me away every single time here, living in the United States. But yeah, absolutely. There was no way that the Canadian government would have made this decision without checking in with the Americans being like, hey, guys. So what are you guys finding? Let us know because we think we're going to actually start refund. And also, not only did they start the refunding, They're like, we're going to give additional money, right? Which is because they, like I said, they thought about their own necks in that moment.

Definitely let the United States know. Also probably let Israel know, too. Yeah. Like that's the thing. It's not just the United States. They probably let Israel know too. So, and wasn't there also like a U.S. intelligence, which I thought was really interesting, how it was reported on? So the U.S. intelligence said they had low confidence about UNRWA involvement, about any UNRWA involvement,

under employee involvement in October 7th. But the way I remember it being reported, and it was really quick, but people were like, the way, like news organizations were like, oh, US intelligence has confidence that Unruh employees were involved. I was like, no, no, the report says low confidence.

But yeah, it's become a... Low confidence. Low confidence is still confidence. That's right. Yes. Like, I am very, very low... I have very low confidence in my, you know

stamina in bed I'm sorry I don't know I'm going back to dick jokes I can't help it guys I can't I have very well you have very low dignity

but that just means but I still have dignity that's all that means did you say dignity well no you should have said dignity not I would never say that

on Ramadan never that's right thank you so much yeah so to continue with just some of the the headlines. One of, I think, one of the things that I saw on your timeline especially

was the New York Times and other outlets reaction to the flower massacre that happened. I don't know. Was it like a few days ago? It's like at this point, what is time anymore? Was it last week? I feel like these massacres, they keep replacing one another. But And it is, it's interesting because I feel like one of the perspectives that we don't hear from, like you see a lot of people who post, you know, headlines that feel either misleading or feel weirdly detached from the humanity of the thing they're talking about. But you're someone who works in a newsroom. And so for you, as someone who's a journalist and in the world of news, do you, what are your like specific, like, issues that you have with the way that they, the media has been covering the war and specifically the flower massacre? What were, do you remember offhand like some of the issues you were having with it? Yeah, and this is, again, as you mentioned, this is something that's repeated, not unique to the flower massacre, but it is a lot of these organizations, but it's especially like the New York Times, right?

I don't want to keep beating on the New York Times. Actually, no, I do. But the New York Times, I think, excels in doing this, which is the verbal gymnastics to completely obscure and off a skate any and all culpability of both the Americans and the Americans and the, Israelis, right? Actually, they'd probably blame the Americans before they'd blame the Israelis to be completely honest. Like, completely honest, the way that the Times functions. And for me, what blew my mind was, I should pull it out, I'm sure you have it in front of you, but what was the original New York Times headline, which was something about, what was it, do you have it in front of you? Was it the one with all the, well, the one I have in front of me, I'm not, as hungry As Hungry Gossens crowd a convoy, comma, a crush of bodies, comma, Israeli gunshots, and a deadly toll. This is the quintessential, is that the original one of the, or the final one?

I'm not sure. But either way, it's the quintessential New York Times headline sentence structure, which is like, as something, something happens, or in such and such a context, comma and then just some kind of like poetically like understated thing like and and just a kind of like it has this hidden attitude of we're just looking at the world and kind of shaking our heads at it yeah one of the things that I have from you was um on March 2nd one of the New York Times headlines was just lives ended in Gaza and you know

since the war started more than 30,000 people have been killed during Israel's bombardment and invasion and here are some of their stories and you pointed out that like there was that even in their attempt to present Palestinians as humans the role and responsibility

of Israel in 150 days of constant slaughter and starvation is muted and obfuscated and it's like for me, you know, I look at this and I see it as nothing less than an attempt to use the cover of, well, we're just doing unbiased journalism, to try to mute the, you know, the devastating language that would be applied to literally any other conflict. Yeah.

Plus they're using sensitivity language. like people online use things like unalived instead of film, which is the kind of language that drives me crazy, but I understand like if people are doing it for their own emotional protection. They're trying to get around like content moderation. That's also true. These guys are the moderator of record. This is the paper of record.

When I saw that lives ended in Gaza, like I want to trip my hair out, right? Because here's a p. And I know from like the times would probably say, look, we also humanized Palestinian. but it's like when the framing is like so like what does that mean lives ended in Gaza like what is that actually because what we know what it means in terms of like these are people who were killed by Israeli airstrikes right we know what that means because we are able to look at the context of the coverage and all that but lives ended I mean that's such a also that term also has like a

very metaphorical meaning to it right where it's like oh my life has ended in Gaza I am now moving to Egypt because you know it could it doesn't necessarily mean that it is a like like your life is actually like over if you're killed yeah yeah it's godazen's murdered or you know um it again i think the the greatest criminality and i don't use that word at all like lightly but i think the greatest journalistic criminality we have seen again and again and again and again since october 7th but not obviously it's not unique to since october 7th it's the last five five and half months, but the greatest journalistic criminality has been the complete removal of, again, any Israeli culpability in anything, right? And that, for instance, when we look at the starvation

of Palestinians right now in Gaza, it's presented as though Palestinians are just starving, that there is just a naturally occurring famine there, as opposed to, this is a policy. This is not only also an Israeli policy, but it's an American policy. You can't tell that Joe Biden can't actually exert any pressure. on Israel, an economy that is only surviving because of how much money the United States and some European countries have pumped into it. In addition to all the military aid that's going in, you pull back a couple billion and watch on Nanyahu and his cabinet start going, oh, I know about this, right?

Like, I refuse to, I also feel like that whole thing that the, that the, there's like a bit of a tangent, but I feel like that whole narrative that the White House likes to push like every, every couple weeks, they're like, oh, Biden just can't get to Netanyahu. Like, Netanyahu is such a bully, and Biden's really trying. Like, even that hot mic moment, the hot mic moment after the studio, it's also, it plays into, and there's the part that gets me, it plays into anti-Semitic tropes, right? It's like, this one Jew sitting in Israel is freaking out and controlling all of the United States government.

And I'm like, what are we doing here? Yes, 100%. And this is something that I have. you know, pointed out a bunch of times because it pisses me off so much, uh, because it just, it adds fuel to the, it's almost, it feels like a concerted effort on the part of, um, the Biden campaign, uh, if not just, you know, if it's not a concerted effort, it certainly is going to be the, uh, you know, unintended side effect is to further radicalize, uh, people into, and to anti-Semitic tropes. It's going to make, because I, you know, when I point this out, I have

people who are telling me, no, no, Biden actually can't do anything because, you know, who's really in charge? Israel, as if Israel is not a client state, as if Israel's is not propped up, as if they are not fully supported by the United States in almost every single way that a state can be supported by superpower. People will invert the power dynamic to say that, no, what's actually happening here is Israel controls everything. Right. Or the alternative is APEC.

Right. Which is even more sinister. And there's truth to it. But it's like, come on, bro. Like, take responsibility. Look, do the elders of Zion have me by the balls in my life? Absolutely. Does the worldwide Jewish cabal keep me from.

doing the things I want, being nice to people. Do they, you know, absolutely, do they, you know, am I completely on their, but I'm not going to go around blaming them for it. I'm going to own my cowardice. I'm going to own my weakness. You know what I'm saying? Like, I can't blame the Jewish conspiracy for everything. The New York Times plays into this as well in the sickest way, the thing Sano was just

talking about. And now I'm going to, this is a quote from my brother here, or a tweet that he tweeted out, quoting a piece by Peter Baker and Michael Crowley in the New York Times. Because according to the times is Peter Baker and Michael Crowley, Biden is, quote, delivering death and life at the same time, unquote, in Gaza, quote, illustrating his elusive effort to find balance in an unbalanced Middle East war, end quote. They find that the U.S., quote, finds itself on both sides of the war, in a way, arming the Israelis while trying to care for those hurt as a result.

it's astonishing it is it's so disgusting because it is a narrative that is I think very appealing not just to like your standard issue Nazi but it's appealing to the libs who will who love more than anything to find a reason to defend Biden any reason at all that that Biden has no power whenever it comes to something that he's, you know, I mean, literally, Biden has no power whenever there's something he can't get done. It's because he doesn't have the power to do it, which includes, like, recently there was a tweet from Biden in which he said something like, no one should ever go to prison for smoking just a little bit of reefers or whatever you said. And it's like, you have the power to declassify cannabis.

in the scheduling. You could change the scheduling of it. He himself, unilaterally as president, could do this. This is not a question of going to Congress to see whether or not it's to make it legal or to decriminalize. It is well within his power to, number one, not enforce any of the federal drug laws against weed. And number two, to change the classification of the drug. He has the ability to do this. And it's the same thing in Israel.

He has the ability. to unilaterally not give the weapons that he did give unilaterally. He has the ability as president to do so much more than he's doing

but people pretend including him that he doesn't and that feeds into anti-semitism. This is why I get, go ahead, son. I was going to say

it's also mind-boggling to me. Actually, it's a mind-boggling, not really, but the fact that we do have other reporting that tells us that Biden

himself does not give a shit about Palestinians, right? He heard, come on, Harris herself was quoted as saying, he's not listening to us. We've heard from other anonymous staffers. There was a lot of great reporting in the Huffington Post with their reporter

of Ramaz Shah, where he's been talking does a lot of like anonymous sources within the State Department and White House, and they've said the fact that he won't even acknowledge the fact that Palestinians are suffering. In private, he won't. Not only that but we remember when when this genocide marked 100 days and he put out that statement right

there was not a single mention of Palestinians at all right so the president himself people around him have also said that this man does not care about Palestinian life like and so it's it's when I said earlier that it's kind of mind-boggling to me it's just again going back to what I was saying earlier is that you have to, as a journalist, you have to go really out of your way to not talk about what is being shoved in your face. And that is why, you know, I'm like, we need to understand that the U.S. news media is not, like, I know it's like, yes, free and fair press, et cetera, right? Or free press, but it's not. Because there's something almost more unfree about a press that willingly does state propaganda without any kind of

duress. Yeah. And which is what the American press absolutely, and especially the New York Times, as we're doing. Yeah. Well, we're going to change the subject to something more glamorous,

you guys. Before we do, can I tell you one quick Biden thing I learned the other day? There's an extraordinary piece in the London Review of Books by an author from India named Pankaj Mishra called Deshoa, after Gaza. It's very long. It's very complex. It's an incredible history of the uses of the Holocaust in relationship to Zionism. And it's stunning in terms of its breadth. But there's one incredible anecdote in which he talks about, like he says, a strenuously willed affiliation with

the Shoa, which is the Hebrew word for the Nazi Holocaust, has also marked and diminished much American journalism about Israel. More consequentially, the secular political religion of the Shoa and the over-identification with Israel since the 1970s has fatally distorted the foreign policy of Israel's main sponsor, the U.S. In 1982, shortly before Ronald Reagan bluntly ordered Began to cease his, quote, Holocaust, small H, in Lebanon. I didn't know Reagan used that term.

Good for him. A young U.S. senator who revered Elie Wiesel as his great teacher met the Israeli Prime Minister, in Begen, Manachem Began, the right-wingers, owned stunned account of the meeting. The senator, wait for it, commended the Israeli war effort and boasted that he would have gone further, even if it meant killing women and children. Began himself was taken aback by the words of the future U.S. president, Joe Biden. No, sir, he insisted. According to our values, it is forbidden to hurt women and children, even in war.

This is a yardstick of human civilization, not to hurt... civilians. In other words, Manacham Began, if this anecdote is correct, had to human rights spain to Joseph Robinette Biden in 1982. And that's who is now pretending to give half a shit, a fraction of a fuck about Palestinian human rights, even as he's financing their liquidation and starvation. And if you know anything about Israel's 1982 invasion of,

Lebanon you one the first thing that should stand out to you is of all of the israeli aggressions slash wars to be in favor of a more aggressive action that is the most insane one to be like you guys should have done more death because that one is almost universally uh looked back on Even in Israel, they're like, yeah, we were a little crazy on that one. At least they used to. Now, I'm sure they're like, we should have done more. They had hundreds of thousands of people out in the square in Tel Aviv protesting it. That's right.

Back when there was a peace movement in that country. If you also look at, and again, this is a part that's so frustrating. I mean, there's a piece to be done here. So maybe, you know what? I just got inspired. Maybe I'll do this piece. But it's actually looking at, like, Biden's history, even policy-wise, right? Like, if we look at U.S. funding military aid to Israel over the decades, right?

Because a lot of people point to, well, after a 67 war is when American attitudes really changed towards Israel. And they were like, okay, we can use also Israel as a greater ally in the Cold War. Yes, but the massive funding doesn't start until we start hitting the Obama years. That's right. And a lot of people forget that not only was Joe Biden, the vice president, for, for for uh president Obama but also the reason why he was picked was because

Obama didn't have foreign policy experience he was not a phone policy guy he was he was a pretty you know didn't have that much experience and was and all his experience was domestic and Biden for a very long time has been kind of the the face of like US foreign

policy establishment yes right and so it is not a coincidence that even though the Obama presidency is always kind of depicted as the, oh, he was really standing up to Netanyahu. He wasn't. Neen Yahoo said himself that Obama, the Obama administration was great for Israel. As even Anthony Blinken, who was Deputy Secretary of State himself, had also said at,

I think it was an AJC conference. But it's no coincidence that that funding goes up when Joe Biden is vice president and that the fact that we have this genocide taking place when Joe Biden is president. And for any reporter to ignore. this is, like I said, journalistically criminal. It is absolutely criminal. 100%.

Completely agree. And the other thing that I agree with is that it's time for a break. That's right. I have to remember to go to commercial break now. Because if I don't,

the commercials happen on the podcast randomly and then people yell at me. So stick around. We'll be right back. Let's hear what SodaStream has to say. Yeah, so that's true. So destructive.

Yeah. And we're back. Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to talk about some glitz and glamour. Today, our main topic is Trail Glazer. That was the pun I came up with. This week we had one of, oh, no. I'm sorry. Just let me be me.

No, no, I'm not sad about the pun. I'm sad about his speech and the way he made it so easy. easy for them to misquote him. Yes, yes. We'll get to that. The grammar of it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But, so we had the most magical night in Hollywood just happened.

The glitz, the glamour, the magic of the silver screen, surely nothing could ruin such a wonderful night like this. Except for everyone who was trying to get to the red carpet, they were met with these protests right outside. This is a. Right outside the, I believe, the Cinerama dome, which if you've ever been to it, it's awesome and great. And, you know, I'm, oh, there we go, and yeah. And yes, so they were protests outside, but in general, I think this was like one of those days where we all, you know,

if you're someone who watches the Oscars, which I do, because it's, you know, as someone who grew up here, It's kind of like a national holiday. It's like everybody, you know, like there's less traffic. Everyone's just at home watching all their favorite rich people get the statues. And in general, one of the reasons I was watching it was because I wanted to see if Hollywood, you know, in its history of being, you know, on the forefront, of telling it like it is, you know, consequences be damned if they were going to say anything. about, you know, the ongoing, I don't know, genocide that's happening in Gaza. And apparently not. You know, there was not much that actually happened.

I was watching. I was fairly disappointed. There were... Wait, I'm not going to sit here and let you erase one of the most important moments in Hollywood history with Mark Ruffalo walking that red carpet. That's right. And letting us know that he crossed the bucket line. but that humanity won.

That's right. That is right. Listen, I appreciate the handful of celebrities, like the Isleshes and the Rami, who's cool, and the Ruffalo's, and the Mahershalas, I appreciate, I appreciate something more than I appreciate nothing. And I will say some, you know, like, you know, Rami, I think has done far more, you know, actually outspoken advocacy for Palestine than the people I listed. But at the same time, I do find it to be incredibly frustrating that the height of protest in this thing is a pin. And I want to give credit where credit is due, but the pin is so small. it's so tiny look man no look no you wear that pin you're going to ruffle a few feathers i fucked that up i know but it was good it was good ruffalo few feathers ruffleow a few feathers

ruffleow a few feathers ruffle oh it's a good tongue twister yeah um but it's a vague pin too like i i'm at that point where i'm like we are five and a half months into this genocide this is not simply that's the pin that's the pin yeah that's the pin that's the pin it is it is it is a red circle and then a slightly lighter red hand and then in the middle of the hand is a heart which a black heart a black heart doesn't really i mean it's basically a black square what people started like we know that moment when that happened right uh in in in in the summer of 2020 when the black squareification happened of the BLM like we was like all right that's that's that's the liberalization of that yeah it was over and it was co-opped oh everyone did their part we did a black square i like

I said, I'm five and a half months into this genocide. Like I, I'm going to be an asshole about it. And I'm like, and I don't think it's being an asshole about it. But so, you know, if people see it, I don't care. But I'm like, we're five and a half months into this. This isn't like a far away genocide happening with the countries that you have nothing to do with. And you're like, oh, this is her. No, this country is overseeing this genocide. You as taxpayers, I as a taxpayer, am paying for this genocide. anything less than screaming at the top of my lungs about that this is a genocide that needs to fuck it, but needs to end, like, is to me, it's just not good enough, especially if you have positions of power, because there are people, working class people, students who are putting their lives, their futures, their careers on the line because they get it, right?

They understand what's at stake here and what's happening. So when I see someone like Ruffalo or anyone else wearing a pin or being like, I'm like, I don't, like, what do you want? What do you want me to do? Be like, good for you. You can't even say genocide. Like, what you don't? I know.

It's so hard because it's like, you know, I want to encourage it. I want people to not feel like, you know, they, like to not be so scared that and feel like there's no incentive. But it also feels disgusting to have to incentivize being against a genocide. Like, what do I have to do for you? Like, I have to rub your back. No, I'm glad if you do anything at all. But also, it's really not asking that much, I think, which is why while I was watching the awards, once the awards started, not much else was happening.

Oppenheimer lost, what was the other one called? It was Oppenheimer, poor things. They won big at the Oscars. But the biggest winner of the night, the elephant in the room. That elephant took home most of the awards every single. single, every single, I think, winner went up there and talked about anything other than the ongoing genocide in Gaza, except for one. And this was the thing that is swept across social media. Jonathan Glazer, the director of the now Academy Award winning film, Best Foreign Film,

a Holocaust film named Zone of Interest, a horrifying movie about the banality of evil. he, when he won his Oscar, he went on there, on the stage, totally shaky, and I knew when he started shaking, I said, ah, this is going to be it. This is going to be it. Because, you know, as someone who myself is a public speaker with like stand-up and stuff, the only time I shook more visibly in public was when I was doing a speech in public about, you know, how Zionism is anti-Semitism and racism and all that stuff. So I knew he was going to. to say something because that's the look of someone who's about to say some shit that he knows is going to get a lot of his family yelling at him, friends yelling at him, and possibly hurt some opportunities. Do you know what else he directed? Oh, hold on. No, no, no, no, no. I know one other thing he directed. And it was the music video for virtual insanity by Jamarqua. That's amazing. So I went and saw the zone of interest. The zone of interest is an incredible incredible film. Of course, it made me think of Gaza. It's brilliant. And as I was leaving the

theater, I'm like, who is this guy? Well, first of all, I thought he was German. He's English. He's Jewish. He directed sexy beast with Ben Kingsley. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. One of the greatest films in the history of funny British accents in my opinion. It is. It is. There's not enough Ben Kingsley in it, but quite a hell of a director, you know. And zone of interest is wonderful. So let's see what he said. Yeah, here we go. All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present. Not to say

look what they did then, rather look what we do now. Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It shaped all of our past and present. Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewish and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October, whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza,

all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist? Now, the rest of that speech is fine and great. But this line that he says, And I'm going to read it because, you know, who knows, I'll probably have to take out that speech because of a copyright strike. But this line that he says, where the fuck? We stand here as men who refute?

Yes, yes. We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust. They refute their Jewishness in the Holocaust. What? And the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupying. which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether victims of October 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza.

My kingdom for a copy editor. Come on, man. So here's the thing. When I saw this, my first response was, hell yes. And the reason it was hell yes is because, number one,

he was the first person to go on there and directly talk, like say the word Gaza, which I was like, beautiful um but also um i think the point that he's making here of uh we stand here as men who refute their jewishness and the holocaust being hijacked um by an occupation is something that i think you know for me is like almost like the the the premise of everything of me talking about uh this other than obviously you know the the moral imperative is also you know it's secondary

to that but it's still pretty important to me which is that like this is a complete hijacking of Jewishness, it's a complete hijacking of the Holocaust and the lessons of the Holocaust, all to be used for the purpose of doing what I would consider a classic holocaust-y behavior. And that is something that for me, I was like, that's an incredibly powerful message. On the other hand, a little copy editing, tiny bit, tiny, tiny bit, I think would have gone a long way because I did go, I had to listen to it a few. few times because of the where he put the emphasis while he was saying it too. And I was like, does he mean refute? And then when I read it in a sentence, I said, oh, yes, we refute that hour Jewishness and the Holocaust is being.

If he had said that hour, it would have changed the entire sentence. He used the gerund being. He says, we refute our Jewishness and the Holocaust. That's a clause into itself. Being, blah, blah, blah. Yes. It's a, there's, I'm not a grammar teacher, but a grander. teacher could absolutely pinpoint

and say, why, that's an unclear English sentence. Sure. And it's, in fact, it's the perfect unclarity to give to your enemies. I totally give him props for saying what he said. I'm glad he said it. It's just, and they would have fucking distorted it and been in bad faith about it no matter what he said, even if it said it perfectly.

I was just personally like, so close. Yeah. Did you guys watch the gentleman behind them? And you see how he's, like, smiling, and then as soon as he hurts, refute, he's like, oh. Yeah. The way his face completely like he's trying to control it but he's like what's that now yeah no i thought this was like i you know i have my own issue in terms of um like the kind of equivocation in terms of

or the way that Palestinians are made into secondary victims right as well always after uh you know israeli victims of october 7th but like um so i i understand why that was done but i kind of wish that being said i do think it's very powerful and i think that um you you the the strongest part of the statement is the context in which it comes which is what the film is about yes right if this was just some other film like if this was shrek three the shreckening yeah absolutely shak three barbie or poor things and they just like oh i mean i guess that would be powerful maybe but it's like okay but for someone who actually made this film about the banality of east to then speak to people who are absolutely participating in that as well, right, who are in the

zone of interest, right? That's the thing. We all are, if you think about, right? We're in the zone of interest, which is why I wish, I wish the word genocide or something more had been used just because I think when we refuse to acknowledge what this country, this government here is doing, we keep ourselves purposely in that zone of interest as well. I understand why you didn't and I get it. But like, but um, I thought with the context, it was, it was incredible. Um, one of, um, someone on Twitter pointed out that, um, at least of this more, as of this morning, the Academy Awards had not put out their, uh, his, um, uh, speech. That put out almost every other single speech, but not his. Yeah. The, the, the claim around that was something around, um,

like ABC gets first dibs for the clips. Uh, and so therefore, the, uh, the, Oscar's YouTube channel can't post it until, you know, 30 days or whatnot. But it all rings a bit hollow just because you just, you see kind of like, I don't know, I mean, listen, that could be a perfectly cromulent explanation, but at the same time, I'm just like. The cromulence for me is a little in question. Yes, sure. Isn't it notable, though, and that in the past few weeks, the biggest dust-ups, the thing

that's inflamed the Hasbara industrial complex the most have been two awards speeches at film festival or award ceremonies, victory speeches by Jewish filmmakers, one of whom is an Israeli. That's right. I mean, it says everything. And I know Sana, you do have to go, but do you have any final thoughts on that?

I think the one thing that made me really sad, actually, was when I saw that speech was, thinking about how we've yet and I know Rami's been mentioned but we've really yet to see powerful Muslim and Arab

individuals in the entertainment industry say it with their chest and to me this kind of it's a whole other conversation about representational politics and all that I'm not quite sure the point of accumulating any kind of power or

proximity to power if it ends up being just more about self-growth versus utilizing that power to actually, you know, hold power to accounts as well. So to me, like that just made me sad where, yes, the most powerful speeches or callouts that we're seeing right now are coming from people who are Jewish, from filmmakers who are Jewish or people who have, again, who are in positions of power who are Jewish. And it just kind of breaks my heart a little because I also know that a lot of people are just afraid of like repercussions for their careers and whatnot.

But it's, you know, in these moments, I'm like, there are things more important than a career as well. You know, it's a perfect illustration of that, the limitations of representation politics, son. Here you and I are. Two Canadians, we outnumber this guy on this podcast. And you know what? It's probably an American team who's going to win the Stanley Cup this year again. That's right. Maybe the Canucks have a chance.

We're doing all right, but. But it's still going to be filled with Canadians and some Russians and Swedes. I'll tell you this. That's true. Whatever happens. I promise not to watch it, because I don't get it. Sanna, where can people find your work? And what's the name of your series on AJ Plus?

So you find my work on Twitter, Suna Sade, S-A-E-E-E-D. Also on Instagram, Suna Face, very easy to remember. I actually have two series on AJ Plus, one which was literally created as a response to everything that's been going on. So it's called The Occupation Style Guide. It's primarily on Instagram and Twitter is where it primarily our audience is. And then my main show is called Backspace, which is a media critique series that looks at major news headlines in the United States and the kind of genesis of the way that these stories are told and how we can tell those stories a bit better as journalists. Hell, yeah. Well, check them out.

It's very good. And follow Sunna on Twitter because you're one of my favorite follows. And, yeah, you're the homie. I'm going to quickly say, I just want to say that, Matt, you have been truly a breath of fresh air. And I'm not kidding, when I say a lot of my group chats are pretty much at this point, just fan clubs of you. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, everyone's always like, Matt leaves the best. Oh, my God.

Yeah, like literally every other day we're like sharing your tweets. We're like, oh, Matt's so kick ass. Oh, that makes me amazing work. And thank you so much. And especially for, like, using comedy in the way that you've been using it has been really needed, too. So I really appreciate that. I appreciate that. You know, tell the homies at AJ Plus that me and Francesca have a baby now.

And, you know, like, hey, what about Newsbrook coming back? Help us. I would support that. I would support that in this moment. That would be so sick. But that really, honestly, that makes me feel great to hear. And I love all y'all. And tell the group chat, what's up from me?

Oh, my God, they're going to freak out. Hell yeah. Awesome. All right. Thanks so much, guys. All right. Bye. Bye, Sana' said, everyone. To round out. What's up with me not being in their group chats? I was just thinking the same thing.

I was just like... Why did they create a group chat to erase me and hate me? Honestly, I think it's a Canadian thing. I think sometimes people, when they find out someone's like Canadian and stuff, they're just like, oh, let's not. We're looking for an American. I mean, believe me. People call me a self-hating Jew.

That's got nothing to do with it. It's the Canadian side that sparks the... You're self-hating Canadian. That's right. To finish up what happened with this John Glazer speech thing. John Glaze? Yeah, Mr. Glaze it up. 420 glaze it.

As soon as it happened, I feel like the Hasbarosphere went fucking insane. Like, people were reacting. First, it was just a full-on meltdown. We had people just being mad online, which is my favorite is when they're just mad online. We had this guy, Avi Canner, or Connor, said, You hijacked the Oscars for your naive, selfish, vile narrative blaming the victim. Gaza was not occupied on October 7th. Yes, it was.

Yes, it was. Butchered your brothers and sisters. Shame on you. Yes, it was. This idea that Gaza is not occupied because in 2005 they removed settlers is just complete horseshit. And move the operation of the prison to the perimeter of the prison. Yes, exactly. It just, yeah, it just, they just control literally land, air and sea, and they control everything.

They can't. By the way, did you see the clips of the U.S. trucks coming through with concrete slabs to build this pier like just a huge convoy of like just like truck after truck after truck after truck I'm like wow man how Hamas is so they're so they're so they're so evil they'll let they'll let concrete through but not food it must be yeah you know Israel must be letting them do whatever they want and it's really just the you know yeah that's yeah that's right I mean if the concrete can it can get in it certainly the food can um yeah no I mean clearly Hamas is letting in the concrete so that they can chisel it into little rocks to throw.

That's right. That's what it's for. But yeah, also, by the way, they estimate that that peer that they're building for aid will take at least two months, which means two months of starvation. And that is... Well, especially if you have to, and then you have to go through peer review. God damn you. Damn you, Matay! Am I right?

Damn you! Am I right? Am I right as you cry? I get no respect. No, no, no. It's just the horribleness of my own pun makes me weep. No, I know. But I love the idea of the stand-of-comedian who's just doing jokes about genocide.

And every time he says, am I right, folks, tears are pouring from his eyes. This guy knows what I'm talking about. Where are you from? So, yeah, I mean, there was just like, tweet after tweet. My favorite was John Podhoritz, the lesser Podhoritz, just tweeted, Jonathan Glazer, you can go fuck yourself and stomp your Oscar up your ass. In that order? I mean, I assume he would, if he had chance to edit it, you'd say, you can go fuck yourself with the Oscar.

Right, right, right, right. Something along those lines. That reminds me of a fantastic Jordan Peterson tweet that I just have to find. Hold on a second. I got to find it. Wait, is it the Elmo one? It's the Elmo one. It's the Elmo one.

We got to find it because this is, I saw this. Damn it. TIG put it out. Where was it? It's on Twitter somewhere. Can someone find it? I'm going to find it because it is. So recently.

the account Elmo's official Twitter account was tweeting out Ramadan Mubarak everyone yes tweeted out a Ramadan Mubarak to everyone

which is you know very nice and it's beautiful for you know all of the Muslim viewers of Sesame Street

to get a nice Ramadan Mubarak from Elmo La La, la, la, Ramadan. And, of course, Jordan Peterson said, and, oh, I do my best, Jordan? I've got, I've got a pretty good Jordan impression. Can I do it? Oh, okay.

All right. Well, I'm going to, I'm going to share this so that, so you can see it. And Jordan Peterson, quote tweeted it with this right here. And he did it in one of his, like, free verse poems, you know, with like the line breaks. So it's, Hamas will never win over the righteous keepers

of the West up yours, scum And I thought to myself Up yours Up Elmo's Is the only way Elmo ever gets to speak That's right The only time Elmo speaks

Is when someone's got It up Elmo's Yay! Just the puppet thing, I couldn't, I couldn't. Honestly, fantastic. And we're going to have to bring back your impression. We're going to have to find more Jordan Peterson content specifically for you to read. Well, you're going to have to find it and give me some time to lean into the tears of choked, choked rage that come whenever I think about the good I'm doing in the world.

Young men of the West. I love it because it sounds like you're singing Rainbow Connection, but about how much you hate trans people. That's right. That's his whole thing. Why are there so many tweets about pronouns. And whether you're girls or guys. So, yeah, there was a bunch of tweets,

but after a while of people just yelling and, you know, just wanting to do violence against a Jewish man who just won an Academy Award for a Holocaust movie in which he mentioned the fact that the Holocaust is being hijacked. In such a notoriously anti-Semitic Jew unfriendly town is Hollywood. Yes. I would think this would be an inspiring story of overcoming the odds. That's right. That's right.

But instead, people freaked out, and they eventually, they took a breath. And they said, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, guys. We need to, let's put our heads together. and, you know, we've got to center ourselves, we've got to focus, you know, people need us right now. They need us to lie to them about what had happened. And so they did. And what they found out was this angle, perfectly put by the former liberal Zionist churned full-on-Hasbarus and genocide apologists, Baccia, Unger, Sargon.

Oh. She wrote, I simply cannot fathom the moral rot in someone's soul that leads them to win in a for a movie about the Holocaust, and with the platform given to them to accept the award by saying, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness. You know where the lie is in that sentence? That she can't fathom, well, I mean... No, it's the period. It's the period she put after Jewishness.

Oh, yes. If she'd been honest, it would have been an ellipsis, because that's just not where the sentence end. It's not even where the clause ends. We stand here as many refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being used, and we already criticized the construction of that. But she's smart enough to know that that's not what they said. They all know. They all know and they all say it.

I mean, Bata, the other lie there was that the kind of like implicit thing where she's imagining a soul. Like, I think she's just jealous because she sold hers a while ago. Yeah, fair enough. You know, she's just mad at anyone who still contains one. I mean, to her credit, I saw her on system update debating Glenn Greenwald. And she's, she's completely wrong on Gaza. But at the very least, she's not one of these conservatives who's, like, calling for censorship on campuses.

She's telling Jewish students to stop being whiny. Right. And, you know, she's calling out people like Ben Shapiro and these fucking hypocrites who make fun of safe spaces for black and trans people, but now want safe spaces for Jewish. She's like, no, have the courage of your convictions. If you're going to be an anti-snowflake, don't be one yourself. I respected that. But this is just such a bushly bullshit. People, Batia is one of those people who, like, came from, I was first made aware of her when she was, I think, editing the foreword.

Yeah. And I remember, I mean, she also may have written some stuff for tablet and whatnot. And I remember there was glimmers of this, like, there's two possibilities. And we should do a whole episode on Batya, because I think she's a perfect example of when liberal Zionism turns into what it inevitably turns into. Look, she could have gone the Unger route or she could have gone the Sargon route. Yeah. We're seeing the eye of Sargon now. Yes.

But instead, yeah, she went full apologist and genocidal. And so, yeah, she's got these glimmers of like, you know, like I guess her past self where she would just be like the principal, right? But the thing about it is that in general her entire thing is like lying. Um, and she's, she's someone who lies for the purposes of the Israeli, uh, war machine and state. So, um, yeah, she wears the mug and david around her, around her neck, like an amulet of like, yes, of like, that's what she's loyal to. She's loyal to that identity and that country. Yes. And, and, and, and, and fuck any other sense of principle. Yeah. She just, she, she just, uh,

she kind of just, uh, hates, she kind of just hates Jews is the thing with her. Just the way and, which she talks about Jewish anti-Zionists. It comes from a place of being like just sick and tired of Jews always being so complainy, which is... We got into this with Schmulli, too, right? That's right. It's like, it's the classic Zionist self-hatred of like, we need to stop being such victims. We need to turn our whining towards military might. Right, exactly.

They must fear us. They must fear our whining. Yes. Too long have the Goim mocked our quetching. They need to fear our quetching. They need to fear our self-pity and our self-obsession. They will tremble in their unconsher boots when they hear us whining about how we're the victims of everything. Yes.

Yeah. No, I mean, it is really like, it's, you could draw a straight line in terms of that parallel, which is funny because she did, like, back in 2012, an expo's, on on Schmoli that was very good and kind of like pointed out his self-obsession

and his kind of shaky past and you know his misdealings and fraud with you know stealing from the I think it was like the Lechheim Center or whatever something he created in England and whatever and then

he had them pay his mortgage like real real scumbag stuff. Two life. To life. Embezzle. Embezzle. My wife. So, yeah, everyone was, this is the thing that they latched on to was a complete misreading of this speech to talk about him refuting Jewishness and, you know, and my favorite was, I was just like scrolling through all the people who were talking about this. And I found this one video where I was like, who the fuck is this guy? And it was turn out to be the executive director of Stand With Us. Oh.

Yeah. And I just, I loved it because I love that the executive director of a very well-funded Hasbara organization, this is like the video he made. I was like, don't you guys have like a team? Let me just play it for you. Nothing Glazer. You stood at the Oscars and you said that you refute your Jewishness. Well, it doesn't work that way.

Now, I'm not ordained as a rabbi, but my husband. My understanding has always been that you can't refute your Jewishness. You could decide to be a Catholic priest tomorrow, but you'd still be a Jew. And just as I'm not a rabbi, I also don't speak on behalf of the Jewish people. But I believe the majority of Jews would say to you, Jonathan, we refute you. We refute your actions which will encourage more record high violent anti-Semitism. We refute your words which will empower the Nazis of today, Hamas. Just a close up on Hamas, in case you didn't know who the Nazis of

today were not the actual nazis like the ones in march in charlottesville it's just like this fucking this fucking guy like how do you spend three full minutes on a premise that you just made up out of whole cloth you know what i mean are you ready for some refute bow nice oh i think we just not really no that was good we stumbled on at the very least an episode title um refute yeah refute ball Yes, are you ready for refuel? Monday night, it's Monday night refueling this. That's right. But yeah, it was, you know, at the end of the day, I think my thoughts on this are the speech was great, except for, you know, it was easily, I think, misinterpreted.

But I don't. I think Sana's right that it was too polite. I think, I mean, it was great that it happened. I'm totally going to be generous and say. yes to something happening and and good for him and and he strikes me as a not a very powerful speaker and nervous clearly you know but I think just the lesson in it for all of us is half measures and half steps in a moment like this are very very dangerous because if you don't come out with your full throat and just say it all of your effort to be measured

All of your effort to be, to be nuanced. To thread that needle just lets them grab the needle and poke your eye out. And they're going to do that anyways. There is no winning that. No, you're not going to escape the consequences by being nice. Yes, you're never going to use the right words. The right words will always allude you because there are no right words other than I stand with Israel and there was a ceasefire on October 6th.

Like, there's no correct words that include human rights or empathy for the Palestinians. That's right. So you got to do what Malcolm X said and make it plain. Yeah. You know, like, just plain, as if I was advising him. But it's tough. It's tough because he's got his own, I bet, I bet Mark Rofalo when he got home last night to his wife and kids. They sat down at the breakfast table, maybe this morning.

It was like, I want to tell you about something really courageous I did, you know. See this man? I was walking the red... See this pin? This pin cost more than your cost. See this watch? Put that orange juice down. Orange juice is for Oscar winners only.

No, but, you know, he's like, you know, I was walking the red carpet, and someone turned to me, and I put a fist up, and I said, Humanity won, and I had my agent for the rest of that award ceremony, blowing, you know, blowing up my phone, telling me, you know, you're never going work in this town again in March yeah you know but I did but I did it anyway I did it anyways yeah I mean like that's the thing is the amount of half measures that you see you know like again I'm someone who's who's desperately hopeful that the that there will be sort of a come to Moses moment within the entertainment industry and community and I mean and the only reason I is a purely selfish reasons because I'm just like listen I would I would love it if uh you know I could continue doing the things that I have spent my career doing uh without uh hoping that without like worrying about every job that I'm not getting it because I'm an anti Zionist um but at the same time you know I I still am incredibly critical of the fact that like you know there's all these pussy half measures and it's like

Like, you know, you're going around wearing a pin and you certainly, like, that should be the lowest end. In fact, that should be something that I think should be, in a fair world, that would have been mocked a long time ago. Yeah, absolutely. It's the black square. We were. When Clickhole had that, are you taking the pledge? Do you remember that? No, no, I don't.

It was in the aughts or the early 2010s in the times of these, you know, sort of a viral. Facebook campaigns for nothing and specific and it was like take the pledge and you watch this video about like you know young fresh-faced young influences be like I'm taking the pledge are you taking the pledge this February something

hundreds of thousands of people will take and of course it's never specified what the pledge is but you're just taking the pledge is the thing now I think the takeaway from all this is we got to you know we got to quote Mike Erman Trout here and say no more half measures Walter

that's right No more half measures. Yeah. Yeah. And I will say this before we move on to just one more thing. Oh, great. I do think that looking at this, the reason that I am optimistic and I end this with a good taste in my mouth is because of the fact that if ever there was a sign that the PR battle is all but lost for Israel, it's the fact that, um, the fact that, um, there was a sign that, um, the PR battle is all but lost for Israel. It's the fact that there was nothing, nothing at the Oscars that was purely just about October 7th and about, you know, pro-Israel.

Like, think about the Oscars after 9-11, right? Sure. Like, think about the Oscars after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Think about the amount of stuff that people had to say. The amount of grandstanding. 100%. You know, it's wild to realize? Yeah.

There was more explicit October 7th propaganda at a recent U-2 concert in Las Vegas. Yeah. Than there was at the Academy Awards. Yes. And they sang a song. Have we played that on this podcast? No, but I didn't know about that. I would love to play that.

I'll send it to you. Yeah, it's like, I look at that and I say like this is, you know, not only was he not booed for that speech, but he was cheered for it. There were people who were scared to cheer, absolutely. But he was, he did get a round of applause. And I think that, like, I look at that as, like, a pure PR battle loss. Like, the fact that liberal Hollywood, like, did not, like, they just pretended it didn't happen. And that's the big reason that has bars are mad.

It's because the only statement that mentions October 7th is the same statement that says you're using our Jewishness and the Holocaust. to justify your aggression and, you know, occupation and all that stuff. And I'm like, to me, I'm like, that is, that is wild how much goodwill was squandered by Israel. It's wild that they, that they even let him one, because they could have known he was going to do that. I think he's made public statements. The funniest refutation of his speech, I forget it was A.N. Lovie or which one of these punch be, maybe. It was a guy who said something like the zone of it. No, no, it was Ben Shapiro, maybe.

Something like the zone of interest is a film in which there are no Jews. Those are the only kinds of Jews that matter to Jonathan Glazer, the invisible ones, the ones Jewish suffering. So he takes the like very bold and I think extremely effective artistic choice. That's the central conceit of that film, which is that you're on the outskirts of Auschwitz It's at the home of its commander and his gardening happy wife and their miserable empty lives that's only filled with their power and privilege. And it's actually a very human look at dehumanization of the oppressor.

And meanwhile, the oppressed are just a rumor. They're just a whisper of smoke. That's the fucking point of the thing. And he takes this as like, ah, this guy wanted to erase the Jews. It's as if there were no Jews killed in the Holocaust. this is like anti-art like you just I love that I saw someone else tweet this is some nobody but it was like

someone tweeted like this isn't a movie about Jews this is a movie about Nazis like essentially saying you know people keep calling this a movie about you know a Jewish director who made a movie about Jews but no it's a movie about Nazis

as if as if it's somehow about how Nazis are good well but that's but that's the real I think that's what they're deeply uncomfortable with actually. To watch that movie, they have to face what Nazis actually are. They're not

a slick villain played by Ray Fines in Shenzl's List, which was a great performance. Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. Well-written character, you know. They are boring. Yes. Bureaucrats. They are moving pieces around

on a chessboard. They are doing their job. They are going home to their wives. They are serving powers much bigger than them, they're worrying about promotions, they are banal as banal can be, and it's very uncomfortable to see that because it disrupts the narrative of angels and demons that we need to hold on to if we're going to use the Holocaust to justify what Israel is doing, and it forces us to look in the mirror at, we're all kind of like that. Yes. In a way. Yes. I think that's exactly right. It's like we've moved, watching a movie in which Nazis aren't portrayed as almost

like this like superhuman evil like once in a century or once in a generation or once in a millennia devil people sprouted from the ground who came up just to do murder with their pitchforks and their forked tails and so it's like no showing them as people who uh you could see you know it's like you can see people in your own life including yourself being like lulled into this bureaucratic form of complete, I mean. Yeah, industrialized assembly line mass murder. Now, but you say once in a century, once in a lifetime, and not my, I'm doing an alternate version of the Talking Head song once in a lifetime.

You may find yourself living in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife on the outskirts of a concentration can. And you may say to yourself, well, which crematorium should I install? This is not my zone of interest. Oh, man. All right. That has been, I think that's an episode of Bad Hasbara. What do you think?

That has been Hasbara. That has been Barra. Thanks everyone for listening. Daniel, thank you so much again for being my co-host. I love you, dog. I love you, Kat. Oh, hell yeah. Fuck yeah.

Do you want to plug anything? No, I'm, everything's, everything's good and plugged. But, you know, find me in the usual spots. Fuck, yeah. If you want more nonsense. Yeah, if you want more nonsense, find him in the spots. You know where he be. All right.

Badhasbar at gmail.com for all your questions, comments, and concerns. And what else? So we got patreon.com slash badhasbara. Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. And until next time, from the river to the sea, wearing a red pin is not enough for me. Sorry. Sorry.

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