Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - Bad Hasbara 22: Hen Pecked

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

This week it's just Matt and Daniel talking about an Israeli propagandist named Hen Mazzig who recently got smoked in a debate. We also talk about Daniel Mate's latest walk and talk video.Visit Daniel's website and check out his mental chiropractic service.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/bad-hasbara/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Moshwamha bitch We invented the dirty tomato And weighs USB drives and the iron dome Israeli salad oozy stets and jump as orange rose Iro chips is us iPhone cameras plus Taco salads us Bothahama bullas

All of garden us White foster us Zabra Hamas Asbaras us Hello and welcome to Bad Hasbara, the world's most moral podcast. How are you? I'm bad. My name is Matt Lebe.

I'll be your most moral host for this evening or afternoon. Whenever you're listening to this, it's recorded. Who knows? One day we'll do a live stream and, you know, on that day, you guys will enjoy that because apparently people like live streams. I don't know why. I watch a live stream sometimes. times, and these are people who I like, like Hassan.

Great live stream. It's mostly silence. But anyways, it's a great, I do love that live stream. Not talking shit. Come on the pod, Hassan. Please, give us five stars in a review on all the Apple store, the podcast store, Spotify, whatever. Just go there and be like, hey, there's a good podcast, five stars, because then people will find out about it. and then you know we we will be happy make me happy that'd be nice um also if you want to support this podcast patreon.com slash bad hasbara also you know if you're like that's too many letters go to bad hasbara dot com that's right we bought a domain and what is it it's basically a link tree it just

goes to like spotify and youtube and patreon so easier to remember if you're someone who can't remember to go to patreon.com slash badass barra. Okay, today, I'm joined once again by my great and powerful co-host, sometimes co-host, hopefully more and more co-host. You know him, you love him. Ladies and gentlemen, everyone else, welcome back. Daniel Matay.

Shubidooa, scuba. It's Jetba. Excuse me, I fucked that up. It's Bad Jazz Barra. Oh, that was beautiful. Fuck. God damn it. Just a few syllables. Get it out there. I love it.

Such a stupid joke. It's a great joke. And it's even funnier when you fuck it up. That's my opinion. I, you know, I enjoy watching bloopers. I'm a bloopers guy. Well, it's all bloopers with me. I like, I'm happy to hear about this bad hasbara.com.

And I'm glad that there's a link tree. It reminds me of like when we used to, you know, back in my Hebrew school days, go along, go around collecting, you know, Sadaka money for the Jewish National Fund, aka the incremental theft society. But to plant a tree in Israel. So if you come to Bad Hasbro.com, you're like, you're planting a link tree in the nation state of Bad Hasbara. That's right.

Please come, plant a link tree and, you know, help donate. Donate, that should be a Patreon tier, by the way. It's like for $20 a month, you get to plant a tree in my front yard. My landlord won't be happy, but, you know, the, you can get me a, yeah, or speaking of suck it up, you can get me a succulent. Oh, yeah, succulent's great. Then I don't have to plant it. On my window cell. Yes.

We have a house full of succulence. It is, you know. That's not a nice thing to call your baby. Oh, yeah. I mean, she's the most sucky succulent. Just all she does is suck. Daniel, I'm so happy that you're back. I am excited for this episode because you recently put out a video that I thought was

fucking amazing and I want to get into that today. But first, we got to talk about Hasbara. We got to talk about our favorite subject here, Bad Hasbara. And in order to get into that, I want to talk about. What happened this week with our most moral friend of the pod and boy who once fought off two burglars by booby-trapping his home with Christmas ornaments, Owen Jones. Owen Jones, great man, looks a little bit like McCulley Culkin. He admits it, it's all good. And who am I to talk? I look like Daniel Stern. But Owen Jones recently went on the BBC, which is a British channel. I'm an idiot.

You went on the BBC, and you went on one of the various news programs they have. There's so many news programs. It's too many, honestly. It's just all news programs over there. And worse than that, it's all programs MME. Yeah. You know? Yeah, that's right.

That's how they spell it over there. Yeah. And here's the other thing. BBC 1, BBC 2, BBC 3, BBC 4, I don't know the difference of these. In America, all of our channels have different names like Fuse and NBC. You know what I mean? Yeah, they may be all owned by the same mega corporation, but at least they diversify the branding. Exactly.

BBC 1, BBC bloke, BBC Init, BBC. Yeah, BBC bread pie, BBC fish, BBC chips. I mean, come on, guys. Do better. That's what I say. But, yeah, Owen Jones went on and he had a little debate with someone who's going to be the main hasbarista of this episode, Henmezig. And I'm going to play a little bit of it. This is from about three or four days ago. So here's Owen Jones and Henmezid.

All the way through this has been raising civilian infrastructure to the ground. It has conducted the biggest killing of aid workers in recorded history. And the point I would make, Israeli leaders and officials were very clear from the very beginning about what they were going to do. They didn't hide it. You don't have to go through elite documents. You just have to listen to, for example, to Yov Gallant, the defence minister, he's in the war cabinet of three, who said that they were going to cut off food, water, and all the essentials of life on the grounds they were fighting human animals. And then on the 9th of October, he declared he was lifting all the restraints on solace.

and a day later he said he was lifting all restrictions on Israeli soldiers. We've now seen that and the impunity that Israel enjoys from the West has led to aid workers who shared their coordinates on a pre-approved route with massive World Central Kitchen logos who were chased from car to car with the drone until every single one was dead. You're saying that 7 million tons of food today did not enter Gaza, Israel is lying about that? I can answer that question very clearly. Israel has destroyed much of Gaza's domestic food production and agriculture.

The amount of food aid, as David Cameron has noted, is much less than before the 7th of October when the need is much greater. And not only that, the roads have been trashed, okay, for a start. Police officers which guard those trucks have been deliberately targeted by Israel with Joe Biden's own administration, condemning Benjamin Netanyahu for doing that. whether it comes to the infrastructure or, for example, the ability to transport the aid around is impossible now. So this is why the destruction of agriculture plus the inability to get a thing. And you know what, I do understand why this conflict raises a lot of emotions.

I think we need to focus on reality. And I understand, especially when you are Jewish or Palestinian or Arab, why you feel so connected to this conflict. Oh, here it comes. and really being hurt and upset. I'm upset. My family, my friends. I lost friends in October 7th. I don't understand why you are so.

Because I object to genocide because I'm a human being. And of course it's not a genocide. I'm a human being. That's why. All right, a couple of things. Yes. Number one, just, this is just a little nerdy point. The word raising is one of these words that always catches my ear because if you spell it one way,

it means one thing. And if you spell it another way, it means the exact opposite. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, just one of those words that we should, hey, what are we doing here with this homophon. Let's just, uh, and I don't want to be like homophonic. Homophonophobic. Yeah, I don't want to be homophobic, but I'm just saying.

There's other words that even if you spell them the exact same way, they can mean the opposite. Sanction is one. Oh. You notice that? We sanction this. We mean we give it permission. Yeah. Sanction.

We condemn it. Um, what are some other ones? Well, resign and resign, uh, would be the exact opposite. Anyway, that's totally, can you rewind back to when Hen is listening to Owen? Yes, this is one of my favorite things to do. When I was watching this, I just enjoyed watching Hen's face. Yeah. Because he is clearly freaking out.

So, you know, he's not quite yet. It's when he opens his mouth. Oh, I mean, he does this a few times. Yeah, they're right here, right here, this look. All the essentials of life on the grounds there are fighting human animals, And then on the 9th of October, he declared he was lifting all the strengths. So what this looks like to me, what this looks like to me is like a kid at like a fancy restaurant that his parents took him to like. And there's like an open kitchen and they can see the chef preparing a special birthday dessert for him.

And he's like, I like this is going to be so special. This is exactly what I want. And then he realizes, wait a minute, is that chef putting people? peanuts in that cake. I'm allergic to peanuts. Why are my parents trying to kill me? Hey, what the hell? Mom, dad, I thought you love me. Is that a dog shit souffle he's preparing? He has a look of someone who honestly has not been in this position in a little while. I feel like Ken Mazik is someone who, um, you know, and we'll get into this, has been someone who has been the go-to guy for your, you know, kind of bad faith identity politics-based arguments regarding Israel's war crimes.

And he has been fairly successful at it because of the fact that most of the time when Israel is doing these war crimes in these, you know, like shiny named operation, you know, protective edge and whatnot, they're happening out of the light of day for the most part. The people who are interested in the subject know about it. The general public is not. These also operations all sound like condom brands. Yes, they do. Protective edge, cast lead. That's true. Pillar of defense.

Protective edge is when you're edging, but you want to make sure you don't get, spill everything everywhere. We all know about pre-com folks. Yes, we understand. We know what glands make it. That's right. But, yeah, hen in this does have a very much deer in the headlights look. And he ends that what I think is very eloquently stated argument by Owen Jones with his patented, but why do you care about this response? This identity politics-based response in which, like, I can understand how Jews care about this or Palestinians or Arabs.

Yeah, what he's really saying is, you know, I just really wish there was a Palestinian sitting in front of me right now. I just wish I could debate this with someone who cares about it as much as I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's one thing I love. It's when Palestinians and I are doing civil discourse, which is a point that I will also talk about. So he is sitting there trying to say, you know, like this is, how is this any of your business? And Owen just responds perfectly with this idea of, you know, like, hey, you know, because I'm a human being and I care about genocide. And it's beautiful to watch, and for a lot of people watching, they may be asking themselves,

who the fuck is this guy? So today we're going to be talking about Hen Mazig. So Hen Mazig is a, he is a singer, songwriter, musician, and founder of the rock band The Misfits. Sam Hane and Danz, oh, I'm sorry, that was the bio for Glenn Danzig. That's my bad, my bad, shit, I made this for nothing. I killed a baby today Oh shit I knew that song originally

because Metallica covered it Oh hell yeah Yeah Metallica also a great band That Hen Mazig is not in No Henn Metallazig Metallizig

Metalizig Henn Mazig is a Mizrahi Jewish Concern Troll Paid Concern Troll His entire persona is based on Western liberal sentiments that worked well with the college crowd in like 2014.

He's a gay Jew of Color who recycles or something. To give you an example of what his brand is, I'm going to read a little bit of an article that he had in the foreword. And it's an article called, I'm a gay Jew of Color who supports Israel. The left hates me. This sounds like that fucking CIA advertisement. I'm a non-binary neurodivergent woman of color who gets depressed sometimes. Right. Yeah, exactly. And doesn't like Fiona Apple as much as the people at my high school did. And I believe we should lean in to regime change in Syria.

And I am unapologetic about anything I am or America has ever done. Yeah, exactly. And I think Guatemalans can't rule themselves. That's my lived experience. Yes. That is my truth. Yes. So he wrote this article and I'll read some of it right now.

I'm a gay Jew of color supports Israel. I'm a gay Mizrahi Jew who supports Israel and the left. hates me. It's ironic. I am the embodiment of intersectionality. I am the son of an Iraqi mother and North African Berber Amazig father. I grew up in an underprivileged community, a gay boy in the closet who then became an openly gay man. Now that's a story arc. Yeah, exactly. I identify as Jewish but secular. And yes, that is quite, that is a nice. narrative. You know what I mean? Once you were a gay boy, now you are a gay man. But I mean, look, no, no, no. I mean, yeah. I think a more interesting story or could be a gay boy in the closet

who became like a raging heterosexual. Yeah, yeah. That's something I've been seen before. Exactly. I want to see something new. And I don't mean like a closet of heterosexual. I mean like a full-blooded like straight guy. Like men's rights organization activists, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So he goes on to say, you'd think as a Jew of color who's gay and from an underpillage background, yes, you stated this, the left would be a natural fit. And yet any article that contains a sentence starting with you'd think. Yeah, yeah, you'd think. Yeah, it's usually something I wouldn't think. But in this case, it's like, okay, yeah, I guess so. The left would be a natural fit. And yet from the point of view of the American Jewish and Israeli, left one cardinal sin keeps me from their ranks and he's talking about his love of israel okay but that's not a hold on that's not a cardinal sin that keeps you from their ranks yeah that if you if there was a cardinal sin that kept you from their ranks the implication but you really want to join their ranks yeah you did you did this thing and they're being all judgy about it right exactly exactly the cardinal sin that keeps you

from their ranks is that you by definition are not a leftist right yes which is i think you know bare minimum of being on the left is having left values fucking gatekeepers man keeping all these non-leftists out of the left listen i'm trying to make the left a wide tent i'm trying to let people in there who of course you know who hate occupation i'm trying to the people who love occupation i'm trying to get people who are just like hey what if we all just go to david busters and do a hate crime Like if everyone's here, then we will get the thing that we want, which is the status quo. Yeah, I think it's important for a movement that your left hand does not know what your right wing is doing. That's exactly right.

So he continues and, you know, bumps up his cred as what, you know, he should be a leftist or accepted by the left because of certain things, not just his identity, but also his humanitarian work. It's amazing that the American Jewish leaders, oh, so I'm going to start with this first. Sorry, it's amazing that American Jewish leaders of the left participate in smearing me as a Hezbarist. While out of the other side of their mouths excelling the virtues of intersectionality, many American Jewish liberals would like me to criticize Israel more because that is what a, quote, good progressive does, bash Israel. Well, first of all, he misspelled Hezbarist. I mean listen bro it's not hasbarahist that's totally that's ridiculous that's ridiculous that's ridiculous that's ridiculous a hasbara is someone who loves the bad hasbara podcast that's right

if you are a hasbarist you better make sure to like and subscribe motherfuckers be the most moral otherwise your is your isomness your isness is in question yes uh so uh he says you know at the start of that. It's amazing that they smear me as a Hasbaraist. And I agree, it is amazing that he has smeared, but, you know, because it's much more complex than that. And that according to an article in the forward, it could be legally argued that he was a secret agent. So this is from the 2018 article by Aidan Pink in the forward, quote, it's called, did Henn-Mazig work as a secret agent on campuses? So, And here's a little bit from that.

In this article, Mazig admits he was a paid contractor for the government of Israel. He says that the official government advertising agency hired him to inform them about issues on college campuses. But he insists that the government never told him to do anything or paid him for anything other than his advice, which was based on information and insights he gathered during his time on American campuses. They never told him to do anything except in fact. form them about what he's on campuses. Yeah.

And it's also pretty questionable as to the idea that they never told him to do anything, being that the fact that he is on American campuses spreading propaganda is literally what they want him to do. They never told me to do the thing. I just was doing it for money on my own. This is not some away mission that some lowly ensign gets on Star Trek and Externation. You know, go to this planet and tell us something about, like, we know nothing about it. We haven't done extreme reconnaissance

and we don't have specific groups we want you to infiltrate and target. Just figure it out, say whatever. Some general notes will suffice. We'll put it away in a file. And this article went deep because they were able to get some financial documents that supported all of

their claims. So I'll continue. He continues. The consulting that I gave the government was about fighting anti-Semitism. He said in a phone interview. I gave information about being attacked for being LGBT, being a Jew of color, that gives me an understanding of how to combat anti-Semitism, racism, and LGBT phobia. And that was the consulting I gave to the agency. The documents acquired by the forward, which have never before

been made public, detail not just the total payments ordered, but also breaks them down into individual deposits. It shows Mazig was paid by the Israeli government's ad agency known as L-A-P-A-M, La PAM, which transliterates a Hebrew acronym. However, the deposits were requested by another entity, which was listed as prime minister's office, MLS, and the MLS is the Ministry of Strategic Affairs. Major leagues, it's major, it's major league soccer. It's major league soccer and it's the ministry. They're just, they're just, they're just kicking a ball around, Matt.

They're just kicking a ball. Leave them around. Leave him alone. He's just trying to do a little footy with the homies. So if you don't know, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs is the Israeli government's primary body tasked with fighting the BDS campaign against the Jewish state. Its actions, including creating an official blacklist banning Jewish supporters of BDS from entering Israel, had been controversial in some American Jewish communities. And according to the Israeli magazine and the Seventh I reported that the ministry was working with hawkish American charities on a project

in which the forward wrote last month, quote, appears to be an effort by Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs, at least in part, to fund anti-BDS activities outside of Israel that won't be attributable to the government itself. So in this article, it goes on to talk about how a lot of what Hen was doing, is very legally iffy in terms of whether or not it would count as being an unregistered foreign agent for a foreign government

which he fucking definitely was in that he is I mean the financial documents that they got in the forward that the forward you know exposed show him being paid literally

by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs but only to sit on the couch and like emote about what it's like to be, uh, targeted as an LGBT Jew of color. Right. Exactly. Exactly. They were just paying him for his, you know, sort of confessional processing, his catharsis. You know, sometimes, you know, you, you, you give a token, you get a token, you know what? This token is valid for. Now, but I mean, another questionable sentence in there is, uh, you know, they asked me about.

my experience of being attacked for these identity things, which makes me an authority on how to combat anti-Semitism and LGBT. That does not follow. No, that does not follow at all. Just because you're the victim of something doesn't mean that you're paid, you're like reliable to consult anyone on how to get rid of that thing. Right. I mean, you know, if anything, you're not. Because you keep getting attacked for it. Yeah, I mean, but I mean, there are exceptions. My grandparents, we're definitely hired by a German consulting firm for, you know, advice on how to combat anti-Semitism by virtue of the fact that they lived through the Second World War. Yeah. No, I mean, it's not to say that, you know,

he necessarily couldn't. But it's to say that the idea that he would be an authority on this is a little iffy, especially regarding the fact that he is not going on to these college campuses talking about, like, how to stop homophobia or how to be, you know, an anti-racist. He's going on there on college campuses to, basically, he was an agent provocateur a lot of the times. I mean, he was doing things in order to enrage the Palestinian solidarity organizations on campuses and in order to try and, you know, spread propaganda for the state of Israel as, you know, the token, but see, I'm gay and a Jew of color and therefore can't be racist, which is, I think, the entire point of him cynically co-opting this language. I think that that form of provocation is called making people feel hen pecked.

Yes. And there's your episode title right there it is. Genpecht. Chen peck, yeah. Finally, when Mazzig was interviewed on the phone by the forward on October 11th, this was back in I believe 2018, he said that the payments were for consulting work he had done. But he said for consulting work he had done for the ministry. No, no, not the ministry of the agency.

This was maybe this was a misstep by someone speaking in a non-native tongue. But maybe it's not. It is almost irrefutable that he is an actual Hasbara. So the idea that he's writing this article in the forward where he's just like, I can't believe the left is smearing me as an agent of propaganda. You are literally doing that and not in a way where it's like, you know, you're fucking doing it out of the goodness of your heart. You are paid to do this.

This is your job. And whether or not it was the ministry or the agency, I'd like to think he was working for the American industrial band ministry. But whether, remember them? But the mind is a terrible thing to taste. But either way, it is a ministry. It's a religious ministry. You're ministering to the flock and you're trying to, you know,

you're trying to cast out the evildoers and you're a minister in a cult. Absolutely. um to get back to hens article um yeah yeah yeah sorry i keep taking us away no no no not at all uh into silly pop culture references and i love silly pop entities okay listen dude the whole point of this podcast is to some are you gonna fire me please don't ever leave i love you too much to fire you anything you fire me i'm a cuck um anyways uh so i was going through his article and i found another claim that he made that I mentioned previously earlier about his humanitarian efforts and how he can't believe the left doesn't love him because he's such a humanitarian.

And to read from his article, and this makes me intolerable to the left, despite the fact that I worked for several years promoting Palestinian human rights. And despite the fact that I'm critical of the current right-wing government in Israel and support a two-state solution, despite the fact that I believe we should be working to find a permanent status for asylum seekers and opposer deportation. When you ask some prominent left-wing activist in North America about me, they will call me a right-wing Hasbara and activist and fake progressive. I don't care if you're a right-wing, Hasbara activist or a left-wing-hazbara activist. It doesn't matter at this point. Hasbara is not about left or right anymore. No, no. This is a, it is

bipartisan fuckery. I think we can all agree with that. Well, it's unipartisan because what he thinks is left in Israel has just joined the center right. Exactly. And the Israeli left has moved to Berlin because why would you stay there? It's the historical journey of Jews from the Middle East being persecuted by a fascist regime and seeking refuge in their true homeland, which is Deutsche. It was just Deutscheland, Deutsche Laos. Yes, well, you know, not Uber, but like just, you know, everyone's. I said Juber.

Oh, fuck. That was a good pun, too. Not real. So he talked about his leftist credentials here. I mean, he's worked for Palestinian human rights. He's a humanitarian. So what is he talking about? Yeah, what do you do?

Yeah. So I was trying to find what he did. And I came upon a Ted X talk that he gave a decade ago. Oh, exciting. Remember the days of Ted talks? I remember Ted, man. We would just watch those and be like, oh, man, I'm going to do something with my life now. Oh, man, that was pithy and not very insightful, but easy to share.

Wow, that was long. So I found this TEDx talk that he did. And this is the pro-Palestinian activism that he is talking about. Here we go. To join the Kogat unit. The Kogat unit is the humanitarian unit of the Israeli Defense Force. It's the unit that takes care of the Palestinian civilians. As we understand, there's many Palestinians that have nothing to do with the conflict,

that they want to live their life. And the job of my unit is to help them. and i served in the west bank i served in hebron in jerusalem and in ramala um i saved the life of thousands of Palestinians and every time i did something like from what can't tell you from whom how amazing it feels how amazing it feels to save the life of you know what he did he walked into the room where they were like we're going to bomb three thousand Palestinians and he's like guys guys guys no don't do it please please please please ramp the number down and they said okay only 1500 and Okay, he saved the life of 1,500 Palestinians.

You know, it's like he's a regular Oscar Schindler here, you know. Israelis are obsessed with their unit. You ever noticed this? When Israelis talk about their service, we had, there was this running joke back in my Zionist summer camp days where this particular counselor named NIR, I think his name was. And he was out on Tjul, which is the Israeli word for like hike or overnight camping trip with one group. and kids were complaining about flies and mosquitoes.

And he says, excuse me, I'm sorry, but in my, when I was in the army, in my unit, we had flies as big as how you say, helicopters. But they're just like, their unit is such a point of, like, pride. I guess that's what happens in armies, like you're born with your boys and. I was, I was talking to someone. who was an Israeli expat a couple months ago and hopefully I will have them on the show soon, but someone who was a refusal did not join the IDF and eventually, you know, left Israel and was talking about just how important unit placement is in, not just in like terms of regular, you know,

like bragging rights in Israeli society, but like in high school bragging rights, like a high school, will, they talk about how many students got into this unit or that unit or officers, how many officers came out of their high school, the way we talk about like, oh, this school is really good for people who want to go to an Ivy League. It is, you know, so units are very important, you know. I mean, listen, I like my unit, you know. These days, Kogat's main job is tweeting. They've got a really active Twitter account.

Yes. Let's posted some wild stuff. Oh, yeah. That Twitter account, by the way, started by Sarah Silverman's niece, I believe. And, yeah, that's a lot of fun. But, hey, you know, she started the social media account. It doesn't mean she started Kogat. So his pro-Palestinian activism, his humanitarian work is with Kogat,

which is the coordination of government activities in the territories. Ah. They are. Which territory? The what territories? How would you describe those territories if you had to choose an adjudication? a descriptor. I will, I'll tell you how they describe them on their Twitter bio.

The territories of Judea and Samaria. Oh, those territories. Yes, a.k.a. the West Bank. And the Gaza Strip, which they still graciously called the Gaza Strip. I'm just, I just can't get this question. I'm like, what's the legal status of those territories, you know? Yeah, I mean. Are they Israeli territories?

I mean, who knows, man, you know? Like what passports to the people in those territories can? and you know listen who knows really someone knows the point is it's it's anti-semitic for you to ask that daniel yeah i think there's a unit whose job it is to know that and keep that guard that knowledge yeah like uh guard it like a prison guard which is essentially what cogett is uh now this is from the uh from a interview that was given um on Al Jazeera explaining what Kogat is and what they control. Here we go.

Pogad and how does it work? Right. I mean, Kogat sounds civilian, but as you already said, is a unit in the Ministry of Defense. It's staffed by military officers and it's an executive body of the IDF to actually implement occupation. Executive and more ways than one. It's not a civilian body. It's in many ways when it comes to Gaza that the prison gatekeeper because it kind of keeps the gates and controls the most important choke points for aid, for people, for capital, for any sort of flows going in and out of Gaza.

Yeah. So they are essentially, first of all, they are a military unit. So, you know, not a civilian humanitarian aid NGO that like coordinates efforts with the government in order, you know, as a third party to, you know, make sure that, you know, these two governments are talking to, no, it is the, they are the, the most I.OF of I.F. You know what I mean? Like when people call all Israeli soldiers, you know, the Israeli occupying forces as rather than the Israeli defense forces, like they're almost quite literally the IOF in every sense. They are the occupying force within the occupied territories and surrounding Gaza and are responsible for,

I mean, the general managers of the occupation. Yes, 100%. So to call that my humanitarian efforts or whatnot, you know, to be like, you know, I did some Palestinian solidarity work as a member of Kogat is like fucking insane. It's a crazy, crazy thing to say. So, yeah, after being a member of Israel's forces in the Occupied West Bank, Mazzig became a representative of the Israeli government-funded lobby group, Stand With Us.

In that capacity, he has taken part in lecture tours given by Israeli soldiers. According to the website, Stand With Us, such tours allow those in the attendance to ask tough questions. more recently he has also been working with another lobby outfit known as camera we've talked about camera the committee for accuracy in middle east reporting in america they're the guys who uh yell at the new york times for not being Zionist enough yeah yeah hard to please yeah very impossible to please something to say oh fuck um yeah so he uh you know he was actually challenged on his framing him frame himself as like a humanitarian by a on Twitter and in classic liberal Zionist fashion he had this to say how can UCL friends of Palestine and will violently shut down speakers based on

their race sexuality gender nationality name of liberal value be put in the same line let alone be the merits of your all campus activism yeah and that tortured sentence construction is his attempt to mock what UCL Friends of Palestine Society, which was, how can IDF and humanitarian be put in the same line, let alone the same bio? Right, exactly. So he attempted to do something, which is a really good Twitter format, actually. You take the construction, my brother's great at this. Yeah.

You take the construction of your opponent's sentence. Yeah. And you expose the absurdity of that by elegantly flipping the terms, but keeping the structure, and you sort of show something more clear. but he just does it in a very ham-fisted labor-d way. I mean, and bad faith way, because he immediately is, you know, he is pivoting to this being about his gender or his sexuality or his race. Like, he immediately does the thing that Hen loves to do,

which is get into the identity politics protection of I am a gay Jew of color and therefore attacks on me are not only, anti-Semitic, but also racist and anti-gay, which is, of course, not true. Do you think he was bullied in the boys' bathroom for being a husband? Yeah, probably. I mean, listen, I would. That's really, that's really traumatic. Yeah, it's got to be hard out there, you know?

It's like, there should be, like, they should have their own country, I think, you know. They should have their own closet, at least. Yeah, I agree completely. Hen has made an entire career out of using these kind of identity politics to make the occupation and ethnic cleansing and genocide like sound woke to a Western audience. But while some liberal Zionists do this as like a coping mechanism, he does it for money. you know like that is the important thing to note here is that like this entire liberal persona is a facade it's one thing to actually believe this stuff and use it in order to justify so that you can sleep at night you know and I know a lot of liberal Zionists who do this they they need to have

this narrative of Israel is you know is good for gay people it's good for feminism it's good for all these, you know, all these, you know, XYZ liberal values in order to feel like this is justified. Like maybe on some level it's okay to do this. And that's not to excuse people who are doing that as a coping mechanism, especially now during, you know, this, you know, a genocide and a war crime that is so egregious that I feel like, you know, 100 years from now. people will be talking about it's going to take a lot of it's going to take a lot of yom kippur's to

expiate that one yeah yeah and you know so i don't forgive it but it's it's it's just so much worse from hen because it's disingenuous like he serves at the pleasure of the far right wing government that he pretends to abhor nothing makes that more apparent uh than his myriad of attacks on Ahead to Mimi. Oh, boy. Yes, yes. He went after Ahead to Mimi a lot. You know, when Ahead to Mimi was arrested in 2017 for slapping an I-O-F soldier in, you know, a very

famous viral video, he had this to say on Twitter, Lull, white Palestinian, arrested by black Israeli policewoman. Yeah, delightful. yeah immediately making it inverting the uh the who is oppressed narrative you know based on skin color which is like is is actually racist like that's a thing whenever people talk about like identity politics is you know like you know when you talk about like black lives matter or black power people will be like that's racist and you know it's not um what he's doing there is knowingly inverting the power dynamic and that therefore does make what he's doing

super fucking racist well this is one of the this is one of the I got to say like give the devil it's due and you know we may see this slightly differently but this is one of the dangers of identity politics being at the crux of oh I completely agree with that of social yeah activism because when you decouple the language from analyzing material power Yes. And put it on to consequential but superficial features about people. Yeah.

Now anyone can take that language and co-opt it. You know, he can use the word intersectionality as if that means something in this context. All it means is I'm a lot of things. Right. And he can play the oppression Olympics and be like, you would think that since I'm at the receiving end of all these systems of oppression that whatever but look I'm not like it just it's kind of what happens when identity politics backfires and gets used in bad faith a hundred percent and I feel the exact same way in fact

you know this is the thing when he talks about like intersectionality um intersectionality is not when you individually say I am this this this this and therefore in the oppression Olympics I am unimpeachable intersectionality is actually what you are talking about. It's it's when you don't take a race essentialist or ethnicity essentialist view on something or class essentialist view on anything where you go like there is a myriad of factors that matter here. Society and the makeup of society in it in Israel is a factor that he completely ignores and just kind of superimposes this American structure of white supremacy and says there's a big overpass over that intersection. The highway

The highway of truth just goes, just doesn't actually intersect with like occupation. Yes. All of the, all of the systems of apartheid and oppression and inequality, including the Ashkenazi Mizrahi one, which we probably have a guest on at some point to talk with us about. But, you know, he's just eliding. He's only including the intersecting streets that serve him. Right. 100%. And this is an issue that I've, you know, had with identity, policy. politics in general, especially in the way it's so cynically used by people, you know, who are Zionists

because of the fact that, like, they can use their, you know, the historic disenfranchisement in anti-Semitism and brutality brought upon, you know, people doing anti-Semitism to our ancestors in order to justify something that does not compute in the same societal context. you see this all the time with white Jews Ashkenazi Jews in America where you you know like this is one of the most disgusting features for me is one of the reasons I started like really going hard on liberal Zionists is because what I was seeing was people who said things like Black Lives Matter who said things like stop Asian hate and people who I assumed we're acting in solidarity with these groups

who said they wanted to dismantle white supremacy and then turn around after October 7th and use and co-opt the language of identity politics and kind of the rules around it. Yeah, would you hide me and shit? Like using that kind of like sort of victim, victim forward mentality that a lot of- Jewish friends.

And yeah, victim-forward. We also cite individual psychological. oriented. Your Jewish friends are not okay. There was a New York Times article why your Jewish friends are all shaking. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Like it. I was like if that sentence doesn't end with because he just had a really good orgasm, I'm going to be pissed, bro. Or he just got out of watching Requiem for a dream. Yeah. I remember I was literally shaking after that movie. But I've always said Zionism is the OG identity of politics. I mean, again, having grown up in it. Yes. The core question that our counselors and program directors were obsessed with is, what is a Jew?

Jewish identity, Jewish identity, Jewish identity. And as a kid, I actually didn't like this word identity. I'm like, my identity is mine. Why are you trying to get me to buy into some kind of consensus identity that we, and then what? What are we going to do with it? Oh, I see what we're going to do with it. We're going to use it to say that no matter what anyone else says, no matter what universal values say, no matter what the cost are to other human beings,

our identity grants us the privilege and the imperative to do what we want, when we want. And you can't, it's like Eric Cartman adopting woke language. 100%. Yes. You know?

Yeah. And I feel like that is what I saw among so many liberal Zionists after the seventh. People that I knew, I saw them as, you know, kind of co-opting this language. in order to use it as a cudgel against these other minority groups for not immediately either backing Israel or not staying silent

because this is an us thing and this has nothing to do with you. It was very much like using the like, you know, the idea of like black spaces and colleges and whatnot and how, you know, hostile that makes white people at a college. Like, oh, what the hell? It was that. It was going, why can't. can't we do that but for a literally existing apartheid state as opposed to just like a fucking

a wing of an administrative building in which people are like this is going to be a black space it was just so clear to me that like a lot of these people decided that when they were you know against white supremacy or dismantling you know white supremacy they were like well that doesn't include me that I am not an oppressor and that to me I was like oh you you are completely acting in bad faith then this is 100% about posturing this has nothing to do with any kind of self-reflective or you know attempt to better yourself and society this is about like being like well that's not us and it completely you know ignores the white privilege that white people have like I'm sorry but white Jews have white privilege and you can't do that we're doing we're doing

we're doing pretty well we may not always feel very secure but our feelings are not I mean this is where you know rabbi ben Shapiro uh is actually technically right that your feelings are not facts except his feelings he thinks are facts I'll tell you one quick story and then maybe we could maybe we could pivot to yes yes the rest of we got just because I've got a I've got a yeah yeah in a bit um I had and I'm not going to name any names, but I had dinner once with a rather prominent person who's prominent in various domains, including, well, I don't even want to say it, but, but, but, there's, there's, there's politics and there's other stuff, right? Okay. This, this person is and known for having a humanistic view and for, um, for, um, standing.

for what's right and for bucking the trend and for I think being a very compassionate person and we were speaking about I forget what was going on but maybe there was a rise in like there was like a 2% rise in swastikas on synagogues or there was some mean tweets from someone or there was right I don't know maybe Elon Musk had just taken over Twitter and so there was like an increase in like grope trolls and shit i don't know more like like a like a 10% increase in pepe memes right i forget what the provocation was it was something wasn't nothing but it wasn't the holocaust right and this person said to me like very kind of confidentially and like just shaking their head i just can't believe it you know here we were 2020 black lives matter

we were there for them this person's jewish we were there for them where are they they for us right now with what we're going through? Yeah. And I was like, this is lunacy. Complete. And it's nasty. It's really a kind of bedrock nastiness. And you start to really viscerally see what people like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King

spoke about when they talked about the danger of the white liberal. Yes. The hostility underneath it, the contempt underneath. white liberalism, this expectation that you're going to see us as good, and then you're going to be on our side. Yes. And we're going to just ignore the material differences between us. Right.

And all of that. In favor of this like essentialist view that, you know, if you take it to its logical end, this, you know, identity essentialism, then you can justify, you know, you can justify this entire ethnic cleansing based on a narrative that you have adopted in your head and you can do, you can be openly racist

because you're like, well, you know, technically my identity has been more historically marginalized in yours, even though the context of America that is absolutely not the case. You can't say to a black guy, well, you know, I'm Jewish. So I know a thing or two about systemic

violence and you know being oppressed it's like the history of jewish oppression in europe is vast and horrifying and terrible but do you know how many country clubs we didn't get to join matt oh in america i mean listen most of us we had to like start our own you know what i mean fucking bullshit well let's and let's not and let's not be total dicks about it of course there's been persecution of jews in the states there's been targeting there's been anti-semitic incidents there's been massacres there's been lynchings yes it happened of course and there's no there's there's no disputing that there is there continues to be anti-semitism in the united

states and people who do not do not like jews and uh made made to order by israel actually well in a lot of cases yes and it's but the the question is is whether or not that um the existence of anti-semitism uh you know is whether or not it is okay to put that up against the uh existence of different forms of discrimination, racism, sexism, homophobia, and use that to uphold and fortify an apartheid state in thousands of miles away. It's like a completely, it's completely disconnected from the reality. I don't know about that, Matt.

Kogad actually launched an internal investigation of that question and they found out that actually it is okay to conflate those things. Oh, thank God. It's perfectly sensible, and it's actually good for Palestinians, too, and it's the humanitarian approach. So who are we going to believe, a podcaster in L.A. or, like, the army, their unit. Yeah.

But, yeah, so that is what Henn does. And it is, I think what I loved about watching him and Owen talk, the debate was watching his entire thing fall apart amidst an onslaught. of indisputable facts from Owen about what's happening in Gaza and what and everything that we've been seeing with our eyes for the last six months. And it reminds me, as I watched it, I thought of your video, Daniel. And I want to play a little bit of it for you here because it is just, it's so good. And I'll let you, you know, comment on it because I'm not going to play the whole thing. But it is, yeah, it's perfect. So I'm going to play it for you right now. I made a video a few months ago talking about how the door only swings one way. I was speaking to Zionist Jews in the mainstream Jewish community who are alarmed about some of their friends and families in the direction they're taking, turning against Israel and standing up for Palestinian rights and wondering what's going on. And I said,

you're going to have to get your head around the fact that you've lost these people because the door only swings one way it doesn't go in the opposite direction if you've been attached to israel as a jewish state and thinking that its actions are justified and seeing israeli jews as the victims of the palestinians and then you actually learn about a different point of view you were never taught once that point of view gets you your gut you can't go back you can't unsee it it doesn't work in the opposite direction because that's called waking up out of chauvinist illusions it just works in that one direction and i've been thinking about what it must be like now in april all these months

later. I mean, that was in December. A lot's changed since then, actually. For a lot of us who are watching these horrors, if you don't want to call it a genocide, that's up to you. That's fine. I don't care what you call it. Actually, I mean, it is one. But if you don't want to call it that, then I would say, okay, well, how many rungs down the ladder of atrocity is it? Is it like one step removed from genocide? Is it two steps removed? Three steps? How close to genocide are you comfortable being on the side of? Whatever it is, it ain't good. And there's more and more evidence that it's at least very plausibly somewhere up there in that top tier of horrible things we would never want to be associated with. And more and more of the world sees it that way.

And that's what I've been thinking about it. What must it be like at this stage to still be clinging to the idea that Israel is the victim? To still be hoping to convince the world of that view. It's got to be really painful. I think it must be sinking in at this point. In the wake of the killings, what the consensus seems to be, no matter what the Israeli army's internal self-investigation says were deliberate, deliberate targeted killings,

pretty systematic, whatever you think of the deliberateness, that seems to have been pretty systematic, killings of the World Central Kitchen aid workers, the bombing of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, a whole lot of just madness on Israel's part, just kind of a lot of going rogue and doing things that are very hard to explain or defend. So I want to talk to you a bit about what you said there about like it must be very painful.

And this is something that I've been thinking a lot about. And I just, I love the framing of it because sometimes I find myself being, you know, so full of resentment regarding some of the people that I know who, you know, both people I know and don't know, obviously, who continue to this very day to defend these actions. And some who seem to have just doubled down. And watching that video, it just filled me finally with like just a feeling of, I don't know, relief. like I took a breath and I was just like yeah you know it's just it's at this point it's just so clear we see the narrative that Israel has constructed fall apart and and that

you know the the reality start being acknowledged and watching people's doubling down not as a manifestation of just like spite necessarily or like like evil, but as a manifestation of their just pain, they're clinging on to this, this narrative because they can't, they can't handle the realities. Like, speak more on that, please. Well, I'm, I'm, thank you for all that. I mean, my favorite feedback I get is that people tell me that some of these videos I make help them breathe, you know, and hopefully, you know, if I can offer anything, it's to say things that need to be said but aren't being said. I wrote a song back in 1997 during one of my last summers working at one of these Zionist summer camps.

I was back then like a singer-songwriter with a guitar trying to be the Malani DeFranco, but I didn't have the balls. And I didn't have the ovaries. And it was in reaction to this reaction I got from fellow counselors after I had included about two minutes of Nakhba content, without even using the word Nakhba, I used the word catastrophe, but into one of these typical special days where we would role play the creation of the state of Israel.

And I insisted that we give a couple of minutes just to let the kids know there's another version of this story. And I played a Palestinian unnamed, who in 1948 says to everyone gathered at the, whatever, at the Independence Day celebration. something else happened here that you don't know about and either you're going to want to know about it

you're not going to want to know about it but if you don't want to know about it it's not going to go away it's going to come back to bite you we're not going away we're not going to forget this and your national day of victory is our national day of catastrophe

and I thought it was pretty powerful and the kids seemed to like I thought it was like a healthy thing if you're going to do a Zionist day at least fucking like be honest yeah like just to be honest about it like there's something else

that happened here that has consequence. That's as far as I could go at that point. I've gone much, much further than that since then. But there was only so far you could go within that context. But anyway, that was still pretty radical within this left-wing progressive thing. I got back to the counselor's lounge and they scrawled on the whiteboard immediately with someone had written,

Yom Ha'at's Ma'ut, our national day of quote-unquote catastrophe, this sarcastic thing basically being like, I ruined everyone's good time. And I wrote this song called No Matter How You Will It, which is a play on Hurtzels. If you will, it is no dream. And I'll just tell you the sort of opening lyrics. They speak exactly to what you're saying here. And I was observing it back then because I could hear it in their voices and just the blistering rage and perplexity and hostility at me for ruining their illusion.

And the lyrics were, you can feel it crumbling, your hold on what you've known and what you've needed to be true. And now I see you stumbling through sentences that break apart and reveal the rift inside of you. Because no matter how you will it, it's still a dream if you can't face reality for what it is and what it always was. And you could try to kill it and justify your blindness, but it's going to come up from behind you. And I don't think I want to be there when it does. and then the bars bro yeah bars yeah

the chorus was and you know because the truth is yours but sorry because your view is yours but the truth is not and it won't bend to think everything you were taught Jesus yeah it won't bend to fit everything you were taught beautiful yeah

so it's this psychological thing that was really evident to me back in that environment because we were held together by this web of shared illusions and a shared lore and a shared mythos that that says this is the thing we get to celebrate uncomplicatedly and then we can deal with the issues but don't make us go back and face the fundamental weakness of the premises on which our whole

worldview is based and it reminds me of that Axel Rose lyric I've worked too hard for my illusions just to throw them all away And people get so invested in the stories that give them a sense of meaning and purpose and belonging. And Zionism has been that. It's an emotional addiction. And so what we're seeing now is, you know, the drug pushers of that dope doubling down and trying to, you know, make, you know, basically like in the wire, give it, you know, new names, yellow caps, blue caps. Pretend that it's the raw, but it's some stepped on shit.

And it's just not, it's just not, it's not hooking people. And those who are hooked on it are just not getting the same raw hit from it anymore. Because reality is closing in on them and the walls of the crack house are crumbling. And I'm just going to stop that metaphor right there. No, I mean, to continue it, you know, the fucking, there's some people who you just wonder what the OD is going to look like, you know? You just, because at some point, the OD is just pivoting to full-on fascism. And you've seen that, you know, obviously among, you know, in Israeli society and in, you know, kind of more conservative Zionist circles, you know, people proudly Zionist.

Fascism is the obliteration of mixed feelings, isn't it? So it's the perfect, it's one very ready and quick-fix solution for shit is getting uncomfortable. The contradictions are getting to be too much. Okay, let's just eliminate the contradictions. Right. Kill it. And say, like in your wonderful little sketch, I'm bad now. Yeah.

And then you adopt all the other things that you need to adopt to justify that, which is, well, the world's against us, and it's only us, and we can only rely on ourselves, and fuck it. You know, fuck the world. Don't ask me for shit. Yeah. The other thing is much more. more human, but it's scary to contemplate, which is to feel the feelings that you've been keeping

at bay, which might include guilt, shame, horror, regret, grief, fear, the fear of not being, the fear of the fact that this Jewish state has not kept us safe and nothing will ultimately ever completely inoculate us or ensure us against persecution, because there is no people that can yeah America is not going to be safe for Americans are not going to be safe forever from the consequences of what America's done absolutely and if we read the Bible I think you know the Bible we claim to use as our as our passport our and our real estate claim guide there's there's all kinds of scripture that says don't put your faith in armies don't put your faith in nations you know that's just not where it's at in terms of real security

Yeah, 100%. And I think, you know, for the people, you know, who have now had the opportunity to use this, you know, identity politics-based argument in order to like to justify every single action because they go, well, I mean, you know, yeah, sure, Israel's bad and right wing and stuff, but, you know, have you seen the Arabs or whatnot? it's gone to the point where there is no, there's whatever thing you're going to make up in your head about how Arabs or Palestinians are worse than Israelis. At this point, there's no, there's nothing comforting about making that because one is imaginary and one is happening. That's right. And Alon Mizrahi, who I know is someone that we are still speaking to. Oh, we will have on very soon.

We're going to have on, yeah, has a great tweet. I can't find it right now, but I was looking at it earlier where he basically says that you can only say that Israel is some kind of beacon of Western values if you segment what Israel actually is into these different parts. Yes. You know, 48 Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, all this. But Israel functionally is the whole fucking McGillah. Yes.

It's the whole thing. And you cannot separate these things. They're intricately linked. So the fact that some people enjoy something that looks like a European lifestyle with some racism in it in one segment of that does not wash. And if you look at the whole thing, he says, then Israel is by far the most tyrannical and brutal regime in. the neighborhood. Maybe he says accepting Syria because he's not sure what's going on there right now or who's ruling it. But he makes that, alone is a, you know, Israeli Jew. That's right. An Arab Israeli Jew. So, yeah, they can't rest on that anymore. It's just with every passing day,

of course it's got to be painful. And, you know, I like to take the piss and, and such a weird expression. We love taking piss, you know. I like to give it. I like to take it. We're a couple of piss pigs over here. Give me more. Give me that. Yeah.

Give me that. Give me that. I'm sorry, go ahead. And, you know, I think a little targeted cathartic cruelty towards these. Oh, sure. Propaganda swine like Hen Mazig and the others. Like, because it is. We're trying to do propaganda and the other counter propaganda.

We're trying to get. of antioxidants. But at the very same time, I think, having, at least for us in the Jewish community, I don't necessarily recommend or prescribe to a Palestinian that they should feel any ounce of compassion for any Israeli at this moment. That's not their job. But our jobs, if you really want to get inside the heads of your opponent, the person you're opposing, and even hope to seduce them back from the dark side, or court them back from the dark side, You've got to have some compassion for what they're going through. Look at what Luke had to do with his own father.

I feel the conflict in you. Let go of your hate. You know? That doesn't mean I'm going to stop dragging you on Twitter. I get way too much validation for it. And I'm an insecure Ashkenazi Jew just like you. So, of course, I'm going to do that. But also, you deserve it because you're fucking supporting a genocide.

But at the same time, if we can start to notice these cracks in their foundation, they're, you know, there may be breakthroughs on the way. Yeah. The hope is. that there is because, you know, at some point, Passover is real close. And why is this Seder different from all other Sators? That's the question, I think, for all of us. Really?

Like, why is this here different? I think for me, it's because I don't know which ones I'm going to be invited to. Right. But Daniel, thank you so much for that video. And thank you so much for your intellect and your compassion and for being the sometimes co-host of Bad Hasbara. I love having. I'm really I'm I love being had and I and I wouldn't want to be had by anyone but you and I love that it's happening more frequently and more regularly because you're giving me advance notice and I'm not traveling so

much so yeah yeah let's keep it going my friend. Let's keep it going yeah and uh you know until the wheels fall off exactly until we are finally targeted strike down uh knows. No, we'll be fine. You mean like a YouTube copyright strike. Yeah, yeah. Copyright strike. Yeah, yeah. Not like a drone that. Knock on wood. No, knock, knock, knock. But real quick, where can people find you? Plugs, anything you want to shout out before you go. Danielmate.com, walkwithdaniel.com, and at Daniel B. Mate on both Twitter slash X and Instagram. Hell yeah. I don't use Facebook anymore. So, yeah. But follow all those. He's a great follow great guy and uh thank you to everyone out there who continues to listen to this podcast uh we love

you all uh that's a beautiful watermelon you got there it's a watermelon stress ball someone gave it to me in ireland it's really great i love it i get to squeeze palestine and and in a loving way in a loving way it's a hug with five fingers uh yes so please go to patreon dot com slash bad has bar support this podcast uh help for up more time in both of our lives. Listen, if we can just do this, I think we'd both be very happy. So please donate and or subscribe.

And yeah, badhasbara at gmail.com for all your questions, comments, and concerns. All right, everyone. That's been our podcast. And until next time, from the river to the sea. All praises due to GEO. hell yeah thank you saved me on that one bro jumping jacks was us pushups was us godmaga us all karate us taking molly us michael jackson us yamaaha keyboards us jarja mix not us handor was us keith ledger joker us endless red success happy meals was us mcdonalds was us being happy us bequem yoga us Eating food, us, breathing air, us, drinking water, us.

We invented all that shit. If it's someone who is in the United, Pronto will go to be because he'll come Christy Nome, I'm

the Secretary of National of States. It can eviter problems, descargandos the app, CIPP Home, and deporting

a possibility to go back to form legal. If not it does, we'll encountering and we're under the President Trump,

our laws can't and our front of Thank you.