Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - Bad Hasbara 32: All A.I.'s on Rafah, with Aamer Rahman

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

Today we had comedian Aamer Rahman on the pod who joined us from Istanbul and Daniel joined us from France. Matt was in his home, the same place he's been for years. He needs a vacation.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief FundSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/bad-hasbara/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Moshwam hot bitch, We invented the cherry tomato And weighs USG drives and the ironed Israeli salad, oozy stents and javas orange crows Microchips is us iPhone cameras us taco salads us Botharabamos us Olive Garden us

White foster us Zabrahamas As far as us Hello, and welcome to Bad Has Bar, the world's most moral podcast. How's it going? My name is Matt Lee. I'm going to be one of your most moral co-hosts for this podcast. Up top shoutouts, producer Adam Levin. From now on, I'm going to make sure that I do not forget to shout out. Our amazing producer, Adam, he's the man with the plan. I didn't write anything other than shout-out-to-producer Adam Levin, so now I'm just kind of vamping.

He's the man with a plan. This guy, without this guy, this show would be dog shit. So everyone thank Adam. Thank him in the chat. Thank him in the reviews. You know, thank him on his Instagram. I think it's, Hey, Adam Levin. Yeah, so thank him for all that shit.

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Feel free to do that. Last but not least, one of the Bad Hasbarra mods on Reddit on our, slash bad has barra. He was at he or she. I'm not sure who it was. They remain anonymous for safety reasons. One of them has been encamped at their university and them and their fellow student activists were actually all arrested yesterday on a way to make way for the, you know, like commencement ceremony of graduation or something. So I just want to give a shout out to the mods there for putting their money where their mouth is and taking action and stuff. And listen, I know that everyone on that subreddit has no idea that it's a subreddit for this

podcast. I don't care. The point is, is I love everyone on there for engaging in the subject matter and also supplying a lot of great videos for us to talk shit about. So, thank y'all at R slash bad has bar. Okay, bringing in the most moral co-host. He is here, but not. Here, this motherfucker is all the way in France.

Live from France, it's Daniel. Mate, what's a... Hello, hello, and welcome to podcast The Most Morale of the World, Bad Hasbara, with Matthew Lieb and his co-host, me. So, I just want to say that was absolutely beautiful. I love the French language. but also as soon as you showed up to

you know on to the stream yard I almost cried because you shaved what did you do your hair dog I got a Frenchman to molest my face with his scissors and machines and and and and ointments and sprays and such

and made me look like the eight year old that I actually am yeah I mean listen you look 10 years years younger. And also, if you're going to get your face, you know, shaved, France seems like a good place for it. They have, they're really good with skin care in France. I use their, you know, fucking keel's skin cream. That shit is pretty dope. As someone who has, you know, very dry, terrible skin, I really, you've got to give it up to the French for that. And I'm in Marseille and Provence, which is, you know, the home of lavender and soaps and the Marseillaise. Yeah.

You know, but you're sad about the beard. Were you a fan? Well, no. Listen, I think you look good either way, but I will admit, seeing you clean shave and reminded me of this video. And I actually downloaded it so that I could play for everyone. This is what it feels like. Hey, Meda.

Hi. This guy shaved his dreads. That is, I'm sorry, but that's the feeling head. So that guy, he shaved off all of his dreads, and then he shows up, and his baby son does not recognize him. The kid's like, oh, my God, it's going to take him another 14 months to grow those back. I know, it's like, it's like all of a sudden you got a new daddy. That sucks, you know?

Yeah. But, you know what, give it another, I mean, it won't be as bushy as it was, but give it another few weeks. I'm already used to it. I think you look great either way, dog. Thanks. It does look a little strange to me, but it feels nice. I wanted to feel the, you know, the Mediterranean air on my pores. Absolutely.

Yeah. Well, it looks good. And, you know, fucking, I will never, I'm not going to shave my mustache fucking ever, dog. I'll just let you know that. I'm going to die with this thing on. Okay. I can't promise I'll cry if you do. Oh, if I die, you won't cry if I die?

If you die, of course I'll cry, but not that you'll be able to verify it, but I promise you I will. If you shave your mustache off, I'm just saying, you can do it without fear of breaking my heart. Okay. Because I can roll with the punches, because it's unconditional. The love between you and me is not about cosmetics. It's not about grooming. It's not about sartorial anything. It's about atheism.

It's about anti-Semitism. It's about anti-Semitism. Right. Now, if you started loving yourself as a Jew, if you started developing Jewish self-respect, you know, if you stopped, if you stopped dissing our only God-given homeland and our only option for safety in the world. That's right. Yeah, exactly.

If you, if you steadied up and flew right as a Jew, then the love would be gone because this, of course, is conditional on that. It's conditional on you and I hating ourselves and our people and doing everything we can to bring about a second Holocaust. Absolutely. There's only so far, as Tevia said, there is no other head. There is no other hand. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

That's fucking musical rules. All right. Well, listen, I think it is about time that we introduce our most moral guest for this episode. This is someone who not only have I seen, you know, do stand-up, but for me only on the Internet. I've only ever seen them do stand-up on the Internet, but I've known about them for a while. And then most recently in the last eight or so months, a lot of his clips have been blowing up because he is not only hilarious, but he is also thought-provoking and correct on issues that most people are not correct about. He is hilarious. He is a wonderful stand-up comedian all the way from Australia, but calling in, he's in Istanbul right now, ladies and gentlemen, and everyone else are.

Yes, is Amirakma. What's up? What's up? Thanks for having me. Someone say anti-Semitism? I am here. You've rubbed my lamp, and I have appeared. I love it.

You have three wishes, and they all have to be about, you know, hurting the Jews in some way. And now we also represent the full spectrum of beard and mustache. That's right. Yeah. That's right. You're the link. That's right. Between me and Daniel.

Yeah. It's a, you know, I wish I could say it was a style choice, but it's literally a genetics choice. I just, I cannot grow a fucking beard. I wish I could, dog. I would, you know, that's why when I see Daniel without a beard, I'm like, come on, man. It's like, knowing a guy can do a flip, you know, and it's just like, why would you walk to use his gifts? Yeah. Just flip everywhere.

We got the father, the son, and the holy goat. That's right. That's right. I'm the holy goat. That was labored. It was not a goatee. But it's not a goatee. What is, what is your style?

called Matt. Like, what is that? Guy Fox. So you got the sole patch, you got the little bit of dusting down here. Yeah, a little dusty and then a dirty mustache here. Van Dyke, producer Adams calling it a Van Dyke. Oh, okay. I don't like that. Like Dick Van Dyke? Yeah. I mean, we were all just doing impressions of him as a fucking chimney sweep earlier before the pod started. So it all comes circle. Well, that's another kind of dick joke. Did Dick Van Dyke have? A mustache like that? You know what? I don't think he did, so I don't know why it's called that.

I bet it's... I've only ever seen him clean-shaven. Maybe there was a president. Is there a president, Van Dyke? Listen, I'm not interested in American history, all right? You know? Why? Because it's a history of fucking imperialism and slavery.

But also because... Named after the 17th century Flemish painter, Anthony Van Dyke. Oh. Okay. Flemish, huh? Where the fuck is that? Where's Fleming at? Belgium, I think.

Yeah, that sounds right. We're actually secretly very smart on this podcast. We're a bunch of smart guys. And Amir, you are someone who I think is incredibly intelligent. And I've got to say, I've been fucking digging your stand-up recently. Everything you've been saying has been both hilarious and spot on. and you have been there's like a handful of of guests that the listeners of this podcast request by name and you I think are in the like top five of people you know people are like

you got to get this guy on so so thank you for for coming I am the anti-semite of choice this is I mean the honor it's incredible yes I mean listen this is this podcast a really big deal dozens of listeners around the world, all of whom are currently getting fired from their jobs for listening to this. But so you're an Australian. What has been going on in Australia? You know, like obviously the repression against, you know, people speak out against Israel all over the Western world seems to be, you know, everyone seems to be kind of marching in lockstep, at least, you know, the government's. But what is, what's Australia doing? How's that?

Australia is doing what it always does, which is exactly, as you said, just taking the lead from the United States and just following behind. Like, because the one thing you can be sure of is that Australia never has any original ideas. You know, if the UK of the U.S. are doing it, Australia is doing it. And why is that? Because I'm from Canada and it makes sense. Like we share a large border with the United States. We get most of our culture from the United States.

You guys, I mean, what's the point of being a backwood? prison country colony halfway yeah across the world on the underside like like basically the the the like butt tattoo of the world no offense geographically i'm just being scientifically precise because it is under the world right like it is on the bottom right of our yeah yeah yeah yeah objectively in terms of the universe north is up right so what's the point of being so far flung what's the part of being so far away from everybody having to you know you have to fly there 24 hours it takes if you're not going to make up your own mind about stuff if you're just going to borrow culture and politics about the west the cool thing about the west is it can be anywhere it can be on the bottom of the earth

it can be in the middle of the middle east it's true you can set up that franchise anywhere you want yeah is a franchise the ideas are the same and the concepts are the same the behavior is the same it's really kind of amazing because i was for a second there i was going to be like man maybe we should just like go to the moon but like the moon's probably pretty western too you They got an American flag on there already. We really fucking, really fucked up the world and the universe with all of our bullshit. But have you, have you, so before October 7th and, you know, the subsequent genocide that got ramped up after that point, how much were you talking about, like, specifically the Israel-Palestine, quote-unquote, conflict?

Was it something that you had, you know, talked about before on stage and, you know. Yeah, I mean, I haven't done stand-up for about seven years. So I've been just, I could quit, basically. And I used to talk about it. And then after October 7, I was just kind of waiting to see what people were going to say, comedians being, you know, as fearless as, you know, as we all know. Fearless, dude. Leather jacket and tired of these pronouns.

Yeah. Yeah. You know. Free speech. What happened? Andrew Dice Clay's of the human race. But, you know, not just the ones who tell us that fearless there, but honestly, I mean, we're, you know, two decades into the war on terror. There's a lot of, there's a lot of people who've made their names on talking about social justice and racial justice and Islamophobia.

whatever and i was shocked really in terms of how little people were willing to say um and how calculated people were being and i was just like why don't i just do some just say some stuff you know what worst case scenario like it'll just get ignored or you know my accounts will be banned so what so yeah i just booked i booked a bunch of shows in london um and um i called it my friend rubin from Australia who flew out to film it and um sounds pretty Jewish to me he he actually he converted to Islam so lost one all right man but not from Judaism he wasn't Jewish he just has a name that um I was just singing Lauren Hill lost ones to me myself now we really lost one so yeah I mean I hadn't done stand-up in in years um but um that's crazy I just kind of

That means I've been doing stand-up for way too long. I didn't know you stopped doing stand-up. I think I'd known you as a comedian. I think you'd also done my wife's show and Francesca Durantene. I did Francesca show a couple of years ago, I think. Maybe it was during the pandemic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did an episode of it.

I'm on social media. Like, I'm still around. I'm still talking shit on the internet. So people just kind of assume I'm still there, but I actually haven't done. and I left Australia about five or six years ago. Oh, shit. I'm like way behind an armor. Oh, it's okay.

I mean, I don't really announce it. Yeah, sure. But, yeah, I just hadn't been doing stand-up. So, and then, so, you know, I was trying to book this. Were you writing comedy for other people or were you just totally out of that way? No, no, I was just totally, you know, tweet every now and then or whatever. Yeah, yeah. So I was calling these clubs in London being like, hey, can I have like a,

a week of, you know, 7 p.m. slots and they were like, who the fuck are you? Like, what do you mean? And I was like, no, I used to do comedy once. So I got like, you know, two nights at one venue, three nights at another venue. And anything I've done that's ever gone viral, my friend Ruben filmed. So I called him. I was like, dude, like, I could only do this if you come. And he flew out from Australia. We filmed a bunch of shows. And then I just, you know, our whole thing is just to edit it, you know, whatever is usable and put it out, like, as soon as possible. Yeah. Well, that's fucking beautiful because, I mean, you know, the, the shit that you wrote then

in, you know, just the last few months has been great. I mean, and your story is kind of similar to mine, and I think Daniels as well, which is that, you know, where, you know, a lot of what kind of drove us to start, like, talking about this, you know, in public settings, like, you know, on the internet and either through like comedic, uh, Instagram videos or like serious ones or this podcast or whatever was the fact that it looked like everybody had decided collectively, at least in comedy or in the world of entertainment, uh, to stop to not talk about it, to just like pretend it didn't exist and to, uh, you know, kind of like, well, you know, I don't know. That seems kind of, kind of,

tricky um you know i'm just i'm not i'm too stupid that was the big one uh that pissed me off the most was was comedians i know who would talk about literally everything else but they're anything under the sun i'm too stupid to understand this i'm just i'm just dumb i'm just dumb clown man and yeah so i'm just i'm just a widow comedian i don't understand these big ideas i'm a little boy and i'm scared and it's like okay but you could just be an adult and say you're scared Like, I'm actually okay with that. But it was like even the idea of telling people you were scared of the repercussions of saying something in public, even that was scary to talk about that.

From people who I think, you know, if you don't, you know, base your identity around like saying the thing that people aren't allowed to say, you're also, you're either doing that or you're basing your identity around, you know, being vulnerable when everyone else is all, you know, fucking everything is. brash and macho and you know yeah it's it's one or the other and so whether it was the vulnerable comedians or the like brash and macho comedians no one was saying shit and uh it felt like i was going crazy and i'm sure that's how it felt for you and uh you bring up a lot of points in your stand-up that i think are fucking great the best one um or one of my favorites is your uh chunk on

the war on terror where you just draw the exact same parallels between the war on terror and this moment um and uh you know the way that like we are really just reliving the war on terror again and pretending as if it was so long ago that we don't even remember the lessons of it right i mean the the wild thing is there are young people now who don't have any memory of it for sure for sure like it's literally like something in a in a history book if that for that more like something that happened in a movie yeah um so there's those of us who are reliving it and you know in this like you know really kind of surreal kind of way um because it's the same but in many ways it's worse um and yeah and there's people who are kind of living it for

the first time yeah um and like it was really terrifying to see how quickly the programming kicked in again yeah and you're talking about the crackdown and the unanimity and in the media and the kind of the falling in line. Because obviously in terms of the world events themselves, the distinction is it's more localized, it's happening in one tiny strip of land and we're all watching it like in, like the war on terror was very diffuse.

Oh, we're over there in Afghanistan now. Oh, we're stopping people in airports. Oh, there's Watanamo Bay over here. Oh, there's Bagram, you know. But are you talking then about like the kind of the media climate, the propaganda climate that we're living through? Yeah, like definitely the unanimity, uniformity of the automatic position that was taken after October 7 and the repression,

you know, just the crackdown. But, you know, at the same time, like, it's also been amazing to see people organized. Like, you know, when you look at the student encampments, like, we didn't have anything like that during or after the Iraq War. Like, it was just too close to 9-11. Like we were people, people were not like tearing up their universities or, and, you know, that's kind of one advantage is that, you know, this generation is not traumatized by the crackdown of the early war on terror. Right. You know, they're not really, you know, I joke with my friends all the time.

We have that, that 9-11 voice in our head when we're talking on the phone or when we're posting something online. No matter how much we say that we refuse to submit to it, it's there, right? It's this calculation that's always going on. Whereas, you know, kids who are like 17, 18, 19, they don't have that. They're just like, well, fuck this. We're not, you know, we're not going to submit to this. They just, they just know the invasion of the Iraq. So, excuse me, they just know the invasion of Iraq as the reason they were conceived.

Yeah, right. Because, because, you know, the night that George Bush delivered his, you know, you're with us, you're with the terrorist speech, mom and dad had a little too much to drink after that. Yeah, yeah. Drain in their sorrows. Yeah, it was a different kind of baby boomer, you know? The boom was happening a few thousand miles away in Baghdad. But I think the other thing, too, not just the repression and the media in acting in lockstep and all that and governments acting in lockstep with the Western kind of like chauvinism, but also the kind of instant reversion back to Islamophobic tropes like this.

The instant, like, who are we kidding? We all know Muslims sometimes just kill people for no reason. Like stuff that we, you know, I distinctly remember people feeling ashamed of after a few years of that, at least liberals, feeling ashamed of after a few years of kind of like saying shit like that publicly, like all of a sudden, you know, Bill Maher was like quieter about his Islamophobia. And he covered in this kind of like new online atheism type shit where it's like, no, I hate all religions. I just only talk about Muslims. And like, you know, people like Sam Harris having a more and more niche like foothold in this kind of like, like his career was not as booming as it once was during the war on terror. Yeah, it's true. Like this era and that era are both very much coded by people saying to me, yeah, but have you listened to what Sam Harris?

has to say about it, he's really smart. Exactly. That's a mark of a very decadent and disturbed moment in history when people are asking you whether you've considered the deeply thought through viewpoints of Sam Harris. Sam Harris, who has said almost verbatim, like context actually doesn't matter. The only context that's important is the fact that Islam is inherently inferior

and a like religion of war. Remind me to tell you the New Testament parable of the good Sam-Harristan. Oh, I will, I probably won't be able to remind you. It's just a bad pun. It's just a pad pun. Oh, oh, okay. The good Samheristan, the good Samaritan is. Oh, wow. Wow. Listen, you're jet-lagged. I mean, it was a jet-lacked fun.

But no, I mean, like, for, for me, you know, all the, you know, things that you brought up, I felt the same way, but it was a special. among, you know, as you were saying, Daniel, like the people, smart people, the people who, you know, I think are thoughtful people, or at least I once thought were thoughtful, now just like the instant reversion to kind of a general Islamophobic attitude and a general kind of like submission to authority, which is something that they, you know, certain liberals, of course, like to be bootlickers. But like a lot of the people I knew were. a little bit, they were more in my mind than just liberals, you know. And I always kind of thought their Zionism was just a not well thought out, like, baseline that they had. But then their Zionism overtook their common sense, you know. And definitely, when I say programming, this, so, you know, it felt like, you know, maybe in the last five or ten years, that kind of, you know, there's also been kind of this general kind of workification of mainstream.

culture, right? Like we've had kind of these movements on representation and, you know, like, you know, the media landscape has changed. There's more brown people on TV and there's all this kind of stuff. But, you know, October 7 happens. And like you said, like that, that Islamophobic framing of wait a minute, maybe not all, but some of them are just crazy. You know, like we're not going to, we're just not going to interrogate this event in any kind of context or whatever. This is what can you do sooner or later? Yeah. They're going to act up.

This is what happens when you live next to Muslims. That's right. And then instead of, you know, that automatic kind of hand-wringing of like, yeah, it's bad, but if they just hadn't, you know. Guess what? Which is, you know, that liberal Zionist character that you play, like, it's so close to home. Every time I watch it, I'm just like people's heads are going to be exploding on all sides over this because that's really it.

It's like, yeah, it's bad, but. they kind of like 10% deserve it because you know like it's just because I remember that being I remember that being the kind of you know sometimes spoken or unspoken justification around Iraq and Afghanistan it was just like well you know what are we to do you know I wish we didn't I wish we didn't have to bring the hammer down on these people but yeah but this here's what we won't tell you okay of course representation matters it matters a lot but you know what else matters misrepresentation that's right and and and so like if you're going to get represented we just you just have to expect that we're just going to when the time is convenient and and when it serves our

political purpose we're going to we're going to roll it back we're going to roll it back i have a question for you about your comedy i'm because i saw you perform in edinburgh like 13 years ago at the the fringe in 2011 and we got to meet backstage and like mad i've been so happy to see you you coming back on the scene because I've always loved your comedy. I guess if I had to describe your style, because I'm always paying attention to different comics, like what's their approach, what's their vibe? I think the word laconic comes to mine, like a kind of slow, observational, dry, and very, very patient style. Like you'll build your bit patiently. You will not rush for a joke, unlike me who's just like premature ejaculating puns all over the place. And I'm not a comic. I'm

just a guy who loves puns and who loves puns. Exactly. I'm just a dad joke. Machine factory without being a dad. Exactly. What is it about Zionism and Zionist propaganda and this moment that lends itself so well to your way of doing comedy? Because I've just been noticing there's just something delicious about your ability. to, in a long form bit, kind of act like you're, like, you sort of head fake one way and then you go in the other way. How have you found it matches or doesn't match your approach? I think the advantage is really in who I'm speaking to.

And because I've always, you know, I mean, some people consider it a cop-out, you know, if, like, if you kind of do comedy, the preachers of the choir. But to me, like, I've just never, I just never found it enjoyable to be like, yeah, I'm going to get on stage. I'm going to have them all on my side by the end of this bit or whatever. I'm just like, I'm just going to do what I like. And if there's other people who like that, I'm going to do it, right? So I always know the end point, like, I don't have to water it down because I'm just going to make the point I'm going to make.

And along the way, sometimes it's fun because I know the audience is on side to maybe like act like I'm not going to deliver. But, yeah, I think the, the, what's the word? I mean, there's just some comfort in knowing that people understand what I'm talking about. I'm talking to people who understand this, and you can call it pandering if you want. Like, you know, that's a lot of the anti-woke kind of rhetoric is like, oh, you're just pandering. Well, okay, you're also, like, everyone's fucking pandering, dude. Everyone's pandering to whoever likes the kind of jokes that they tell. I'm guilty, you know.

So, yeah, I think knowing that your audience has. has a level of understanding of these issues means that you don't need to spell it out in a, you know, in a kind of childish or watered down way. And you can kind of play with it for longer and kind of, you know, be more detailed about it because people, they're going to understand those concepts. Yeah. And I feel like now more so than ever has there been like more of a mainstream understanding. of what Israel like is other you know like other than just the kind of classic oh Israel is the

where all Jews come from you know like that's that was kind of the the classic understanding is like oh it's the state that we need to protect in order to make up for you know anti-semitism over thousands of years I mean now people are like oh this whole Palestine thing seems like like there's more to it than people have been saying. Yeah, like I'm, I'll be the first to put my hand up that, you know, I'm always complaining about like this superficial wokeification of culture and, you know, how we, you know, there's all these kind of buzzwords around intersectionality and whatever. But the flip side of that is that ideas like colonialism are more mainstream, right?

Like, you watch a movie like Black Panther. There's a joke in there where like one of the characters, calls a white guy colonizer as a joke right which requires the audience to have some like basic understanding what that means you know you wouldn't have seen that in a movie 15 years ago as like a throwaway joke yeah so there there is a level to which like people have a basic understanding that's different than to what it was 10 or 15 years ago completely yeah and and I think that like the interesting thing about this moment with the with Israel and Palestine and, you know, this quote conflict is that people have been able to also see

how much of what they've been told is a lie. And they've been able to apply these concepts that I think they haven't really had a chance to before, outside of some kind of theoretical thing, a reading about the history of colonialism or the history of Western Imperialism, or, you know, talking about just straight lobbyists and the power of a lobby and talking, you know, about American foreign policy in a way where they, you know, they don't have to, like, where they don't feel like they are choosing, it's almost like it almost exists outside of politics because of the fact that are, um, choosing, it's almost like it almost exists outside of politics because of the fact that are, um, um, choosing. are, you know, Western, fucking, like, political systems are in lockstep as supporters of Israel. It feels like we are seeing something, like, new and different, like, something that, you know, like, whereas there are a lot of social movements and whatnot, especially in the United States, which, you know, are more democratic politicians will appropriate, you know, they won't lead,

but they'll gladly get those voters. You know, Black Lives Matter being the big one. Like, there was a lot of politicians who wanted to, you know, do, you know, what did Pelosi wore like a-the-cloth? Yeah, the Kentee cloth and took a knee and stuff like that. And it's like, you know, there was this level of appropriation that would happen. But it was like it was partisan in that democratic politicians could use it. They didn't believe in anything.

They didn't believe that, like, we should defund the police. They've spent the last few years saying, no, we should fund the police. It was fun. But at the very least, they were giving, you know, rhetoric support, you know. Whereas, like, this is something completely different, where they're not even throwing a bone to people. And you have to sift through, you know, 400 plus Congress people to find one who will say, some real shit about it. And I think like, so people are able to finally kind of apply this like, you know,

what colonialism is to like a real world situation. And I think it's blowing people's minds a little bit because they can't believe that this isn't something from history. They can't believe it's that it's a now thing, you know? And like you said, there's, you know, the Democrats are not able to position themselves as the good guys in any way. yeah right like they're front and center the main characters of this this genocide they are in power yeah so that you know that's that's another thing that I think for especially young people is just kind of

ripping the mask off the entire system right now there's there's this kind of no option between the two parties yeah in terms of you know which one of them wouldn't do this right I saw a very uncomfortable interview today between Naomi Klein and Bernie Sanders oh boy where you know they're both clearly uncomfortable uh because i think naomi wants to be respectful honest but also respectful of someone who in many ways is on side but he's also he's also working for the corporation that's killing all the bunny rabbits in the meadow and you know like and and and and and and and And Bernie's job, you can see on his face, he's, you know, he's, on the one hand, he's talking about how Israel is destroying God's and society.

And he's talking about how it's, these are war crimes and he acknowledges to being made with U.S. weapons. And the other hand, his job right now until November is to get people to vote for Biden, his good friend Biden. Yeah. And he's in this position. And, and Naomi is trying to not be too confront. with him by that, but she's also saying, this time, honestly, Bernie, I don't feel comfortable

telling anyone that they need to vote for Biden on moral grounds. And then they both try to pivot to, and here's how much worse it would be under Trump, which I guess is a, you can try to make that case if you want. Certainly Trump is no friend to Palestine, quite the opposite. He's talking about he would kick all the protesters out of the country and all that, right? But it was really uncomfortable and it gave me this kind of sickening feeling of like what it's going to be like between now and November listening to people

try to make the case for why people should without being like I'm not telling you you should but you know you probably should but no one has the right to tell you you should

but we're definitely going to blame you afterwards if he doesn't one way or another you're getting blamed this is the thing that annoys me the most about these fucks and I'm not someone who is

is in general, like an electoral politics focused person. So, you know, like I don't have problems with people who are like saying, well, you know, you probably should vote for Biden on like a personal level if I know them. Because I know that it's coming from a place of pragmatism and whatnot. I go, okay, you know, I get it. I get why you would say that because, yes, Trump is bad. But the problem I have is with people who are trying to claim that, Biden has to do this in order to win the election. He has to go full-throated support for Israel in order to win the election.

They say that, meaning like if he were to go against Israel and go against the lobby, then he would lose the election. Of course, that makes no fucking sense because if he loses the election while still being in full-throated support of Israel, it just means that you're going to find a way to blame, quote, the left. either way because he's like it's just a way to blame students at encampments that's all it is because that's what electro politics is a way to blame students at encampments basically yes straight up and it just it makes no fucking sense like okay he loses if he supports uh you know

Palestinian human rights because of Israel's you know lobbying power um and he loses if we don't shut up about it while he is supporting Israel full-throatedly. It's like it's total fucking nonsense and it also puts the impetus on being electable with the voters rather than like with the candidate. You know, it's fucking bullshit. You know, the interesting thing when I, um, you know, when I decided to put out these, these clips, like I was obviously bracing myself for backlash from Zionists. Sure. And for whatever reason, like maybe because of my algorithm or whatever, I've got like barely any like some but but like really not like I expected like maybe like some of these things are gonna I'll just get mass reported in my my account to get shut down right right

but the worst like the worst backlash has come from liberals like yeah like I was I was kind of just stunned like it was like you know like I had to mute stuff because it was just like you know waves and waves of who the fuck is this guy he's not even in America why does he have an opinion about America, you know, Trump's a million times worse, you know, subredits and articles being written about me. And I was like, okay, you guys are, yeah. Oh, you know that, like, Trump would send you, like, to a camp, right? You know that Trump would, like, and it's just like, oh, yeah, or even like, yeah, I'll be clapping when you guys get taken to the camps. That's exactly right. Yeah, like, I was like, okay, cool. You did it to yourselves. And it's like, what, this is.

You sound like great people to, for me to align myself. right exactly seems like i saw one i saw one tweet that was like look i'm the world's biggest ally literally but if you people vote in trump i will be there cheering when he deportes you like it was basically no self-awareness the guy really thought he was going to you know appeal to somebody with this and this guy from uh uh like a think tank of some some center for neoliberalism or something something sinister Yeah, something horrible, like wrote an entire article around, like, there's like a 50-second bit at the end of one of my jokes where I'm just like, you know, a system that gives you these two choices is terrible or whatever. And, you know, it's making fun of, you know, liberals who just won't acknowledge a genocide and, you know, would rather, like, lecture, you know, minorities.

And he does, like, he writes his whole article and, like, the best line in it is, like, you know, he's, like, he writes his whole article and, like, the best line in it is, like, yeah people are dying in Palestine but it's not a genocide I was like okay buddy do you not like so you're just going to be the guy for my joke like is that yeah I know the amount of people who just end up going this but unironically and you're just like that doesn't embarrass you what does that not embarrass you not only not embarrassing like being very smug about it yeah like okay cool this is like yikes and and it just goes to show like the amount of like unearned confidence that liberals have from watching, you know, just way too much Aaron Sorkin, you know, like they are just, they are confident in their worldview being correct. They're confident in the idea that like, you know, sometimes the tradeoff of lives of brown people is a calculus that has to be made because that's what it is to be in power.

and power is ultimately good if it's, you know, held by the West because the West likes gay people in veganism. And it's just like you have completely lost a thread on kind of like what it is to be a human being. A human being, someone who doesn't put people in categories of just like collateral damage for the greater good of Western society. Like you have to be a psycho to say that out loud unless you're in an Aaron Sorkin fucking TV show. I'm imagining the next Aaron Sorgan project. the liberal Zionist newsroom.

And in the pilot episode, I don't know who Jeff Daniels would be in this case, but some actor of that caliber. I mean, the daily White House press briefings now are like the West Wing on steroids. Yes, yes. Oh, they are. It's incredible.

I have to play some of that because that shit is like, so there's this guy Kirby and he's not the ghost that sucks in people from the video games, no, it's a man and like I just

I have a couple of clips from him where he is just his defense of, you know, Israel's actions whether it be in Rafa or anywhere in which war crimes are clearly taking place is always incredible.

I love it when he gets offended at journalists' question. And frankly, I take offense at that. Yeah, right. And these, like, these are people who are West Wing-Pilt people, absolutely. And they're just, you know, fucking, they only appeal to the, like, liberal fucking, you know, the hill white-lanyard monkeys who, like, will do anything to, like, enter a fucking conference in which, you know, Henry Kissinger was a. speaker, you know, and they're like, well, I like to listen to all types of.

And so like, here's, here's Kirby, uh, defending the atrocities in Rafa in a very interesting way. Have we have taken, we have conducted airstrikes in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where tragically we cause civilian casualties. We did the same thing. We owned up to it. We investigated. it and we tried to make changes to the way we tried to learn from it to make changes so that

that those set of mistakes wouldn't happen again including as we pulled out of Afghanistan where we did take a tragedy which been deducted in an airstrike which tragically killed a father and some of his kids we atone for it we learned from it and we put in place procedures to try to prevent that from happening again and that's what our expectation. Wow. Oh great so are you Are you going to pull out of Israel-Palestine then? Are you going to learn that lesson? What have you learned? You talked about atonement.

Like, atonement is when you say, I'm sorry. No, he kind of does this. Well, hey, you can't make it all my, well, I'm breaking some eggs. That's exactly right. It was like, hey, listen, sometimes you got to do a few war crimes in order to get like a nice piece, Niswah salad going. We've bombed. Don't get me wrong.

I feel bad. I feel bad about it. We feel real bad. Look, look, we've bombed refugee camps. Okay, we did it. And in the process of bombing refugee camps, there's been times when we've killed some refugees. Okay, so we learned about that. We learned the lesson and in the future, when we

bond the refugee camps, we're going to put things in place to make it less likely that we're going to kill quite that many refugees. He really was like, hey, who hasn't, guys? Who hasn't? Well, it's this idea of like, you know, you know, hey, real adults understand that sometimes you got to kill people.

And it's just like, it's, and as like you were saying, Daniel, it's like this like, hey, you know, and we learned from it. And, you know, we killed some refugees when we bombed the refugee camp and we investigated it and we learned some important lessons. The most important lesson we learned is we can do this with impunity and literally no one can do anything about. it. So what we've learned is that when you say I'm sorry, that's considered atonement because that's the new definition for atoning. What we've learned is that press conferences make things go away. Yes, exactly. And saying I'm sorry, you know, with a front-facing fucking camera. And the annoying thing about it is like John Kirby is doing that press conference talking about Rafa in this way where as if this hasn't been the exact same thing for

every single war crime that we have seen carried out in the last eight months. I mean, it's the same thing with when they, you know, killed the people at the World Central Kitchen. It's the same thing, you know, when it was the little girl who was fucking murdered from car to car and, you know, fucking like, you know, just kind of this like, this idea of like, well, Israel's going to do an investigation and isn't that great? And we're supposed to continue to nothing has happened from all those other ones why would we think

and tone policing the journalists now because the journalists are getting more and more frustrated sure and there was a guy even mainstream ones yeah there was a guy recently who's like how many how many more charred corpses does the president need to see yeah he was from CBS and it was like well you know I tell you know I'm a little bit

you know offended by the framing of your question like you know you guys are you guys are not behaving properly in class like you know let's keep it You know, no need to hit below the belt guys. You know, just as people are being burned a lion. Like, it's one thing to, like, you know, murder a boatload of children. It's another thing to disagree, guys. Yeah.

I mean, it's another thing to, like, be mean to me. That's fucked up. Like, these guys are such pussies, too, because it just comes from this place of, like, you know, authority, their authority being questioned by people. who have an emotion, you know? It's like this idea of like, whoa, you're not supposed to be emotionally attached to this. It doesn't matter how many people die. Your job is to ask me nicely what I'm going to do about it.

And when I say literally nothing, you're supposed to go, okay, noted and write it down. Like the idea that you would be frustrated is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is crazy. What are we, a communist country? Before we continue, it is very important. Speaking of communist countries, we are not in one. We're in a capitalist one.

And because of that, we have to do commercials. And so we're going to take a quick commercial break, and then we're going to be right back. So stick around, motherfuckers. Okay, we're back. Here we are. Back, back again. I want to talk about something that went viral. Have you guys seen the All Eyes on Rafa image that went viral?

For those of you who have not seen it, I'll put it up on the screen right here. And if you're listening, you know, you can just Google it. All Eyes on Rafa. Where is it? Yeah, here, right here. So this is a, like, clearly AI-generated image that spread around the internet like crazy through, you know, through Instagram, I think mostly, and Twitter. This image was shared by 47 million people. And in fact, it's one of those things where the image got so popular that it kind of made both Zionists and anti-Zionists mad.

Like, I think everyone has a critique of this in some fashion. Like, it made Zionists go fucking crazy. Zionists were just straight up, pissed off about it. Like, I don't know if you guys seen all the, like, versions, the Zionist versions of this. I've seen the counter. I've seen the counter AI. Yeah, exactly, this one. There's one where the AI image.

Which looks like the most horrible Pixar film ever. Right. I was like, what is this? Pixar is October 7th. Where were your eyes on October 7th? Look at that child sitting there in perfect lotus position. Yeah, I know. Like even their babies are doing yoga?

Damn. Where were your eyes on October 7th? A Hamas guy in front of a baby who is like sitting in a lotus position and, you know. A cool of blood in the sand. Yeah, yeah. And like, you know, people like the absolute scumbag, Michael Rappaport were, you know, just going, crazy about this image because it was shared so heavily

so he did this little video I'm just going to play a second of it where you Rafa right all eyes on Rafa all eyes all information on Rafa where the fucking hostages in Rafa where's the hot all you need to hear that no I'm sorry it's just

one of the worst guys in the world man you can't hear him without just thinking oh god fucking A it's like a fucking screwdriver in my brain we're all eyes on wrath um and the washington

posted an article about this but it was like the weirdest article because it was just about how the image was AI generated it was like an investigative piece where they're like this seems to have been made by AI which is something that literally everyone knew

here's the headline an image calling for all eyes on Rafa is going viral but it seems AI generated as if there was anyone who thought it was a real photo. I know. And the weird thing is, in the article, they consulted an AI expert.

In the article, they go, okay, it says, there's clearly no cleanly cut rows of tents or sloping snow mountain tops near Raffa's encampments. Tents sitting among fields and buildings and the areas dotted with palm trees and the occasional Sandy Hill footage of the deadly Sunday night attack showed a very different.

Rafa, Simon noted that if the image were real, other images depicting the same scene would be available, given the size depicted of the camp and the international focus on, why are we writing this? Do you know what else would be in the photo if it was real? A bunch of text on the ground saying all eyes on Rafa. Like, do you think that the, do you think people believe, wow, the residents of Raja Rafa took time out of their busy days being incinerated and beheaded to go out and form letters in this what like

what looks like an Iowan cornfield like arms across America use your own tablet like to take a photo of it it just like I love I love the idea that they're like well it's possible some people were just like you know the yeah they're running for their

lives from the north but also content is content bro like we got to make we did this for the post like who the fuck anyways I don't know why Washington Post did that but I want to see the corresponding article that's like, however, a baby did single-handedly hold off a Hamas fighter as shown in this incredible award-winning photo.

Yes, no, that one was real. The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, like how this AI-looking image is actually real, though. That baby was crazy. Not all babies were beheaded on October 7th. Here's the story of the one who survived. Yeah, the Tiananmen Square baby is just standing there. A beheaded Israeli fetus took the photo. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

But so, like, obviously, you know, the popularity of this image is something that pissed off the Zionists and whatnot. But I noticed that it also, there were some, I think, like, some fair critiques of it from people who do care about this. Like, people are basically calling this, the sharing of this image and the rapidity of how, you know, far and wide it was spread as being like the new black square. from like, you know, 20-20 Black Lives Matter George Floyd protests. And the people, you know, are also saying that sharing this is like you're sharing a sanitized image. You're sharing something that is AI generated,

which is fucking stupid. And you could be sharing actual photos of the mass atrocities that are, you know, being carried out, of which there is no shortage. And like, I'm going to ask you guys how you feel about this in a second, but I'll say that, like, On the one hand, I agree the kind of frustrating nature of social media is such that, like, people will, something will become popular and, you know, everyone will share something and that's their version of activism.

On the other hand, I feel like this issue is something in which people very much have been avoiding for months and months. and there's like this idea that like you know oh it's the same thing as a black square i don't think so because like we said you know earlier i feel like there is no political uh party you know uh to like appropriate this thing you know what i mean yeah congress people are not kneel are not kneeling in in no they're not kifia themed fabrics yes exactly in the rotunda yes uh and you know we're we're not having in any meaningful sense of debate by our elected leaders as to whether or not a genocide is going on or whether or not Israel's and apartheids. It is just like it is lockstep. And so I think like we do this thing where we criticize the whole like liberal thing of raising awareness, which I get

because it's cringy. Like there's a cringy nature to this idea of always constantly sharing stuff in order to raise awareness. Do you remember the click hole thing, the pledge? Oh, no. What was that? This is from back, like about 10 years ago when click hole was, you know, having its day. Yeah, yeah. The sort of onion offshoot.

Yes. It was this video, this inspiring video series called The Pledge. I've taken the Pledge. Have you taken the pledge? It's like young millennials being like, let's take the Pledge. Taking the Pledge is a concrete step you can take to make a better world. And just on and on like endless. content about the pledge, but they never say what the pledge is, what you're pledging to.

That's so funny. Yeah. Oh, man, click on the best. I commit to continuing to be a liberal. Like, what is the, what's the problem? Yeah. I commit to continuing to raise awareness. To raise awareness and to be aware of my commitment and committed to awareness.

Yeah, and to scold you if you're not aware of being made aware or raising aware. That's right. And if you ask me what I'm talking about, don't ask me to do your emotional labor. Please, don't ask me to educate. Please, don't ask me to educate you, you know. It's not my job to educate. It's not my job. But I think, like, well, just real quick, I think the annoying thing about, like, the, the kind of raising awareness thing is, like, valid, you know, people are annoying.

Liberals are annoying. I get that. The thing is, is not everyone actually is aware. And to raise awareness on this is maybe as ham-fisted or as, like, kind of cringy as the whole thing. thing was, it does have an effect. I think we need to look at this and go, like, I would love it if being for Palestinian human rights was as politically, like, feasible or normalized as, you know, being like, I believe that gay marriage should be legal. I believe that people should have the right to an abortion. Like, it can be something in which there are multiple sides of it, sure,

at least it's in the conversation. It's not just uniformly, wow, that's anti-Semitic. It's fucking crazy to me. And so I look at this and I go like, this is a, this is maybe a performative act, but I also am like, I'll take what I can get when it comes to this shit, especially if it gets fucking, like, normal, regular people to finally say the first fucking words out of their God,

not even out of their mouth, on their social media feeds, about this fucking genocide. So that's my feeling about it. Yeah, I saw some celebrities who I think presumably had been silent on this shared that. Yes. I would just say about it, look, at a certain point, online activism, online anything cheapens everything. Yes, completely.

And there's something sickening about an AI generated image. Yes. The cleanness of AI, just the soullessness of it. Yes, yes. that it could have been like there's a human being was not involved you could basically tell a computer hey make me an image that will manipulate people's emotions into paying attention to something called r a f a h it doesn't have to know what it is any context what the history is yeah you you could have made something called all eyes on kibbutz berry and it would have been

the same image like to the computer it's all neutral and you can feel that in the aesthetics of it. You can feel the coldness of it, the emptiness, the meaninglessness of it fundamentally. Now, we attach the meaning because we know the context. And added to that context is what you're saying, Matt, is that there's been so much silence on it in the mainstream. So that's great.

But yeah, look, on a certain level, there are moments when doing this podcast. I have this sort of empty feeling inside, if I'm honest. Yeah, yeah. We're voices on people's phones, making jokes, about thing and our jokes make no difference now i'm not i'm not i'm not i'm not trolling for or fishing for compliments or reassurance i know the value but feel free yeah keep yeah feel free to tell us no we're good because we do this for virtue no but you know

what i'm saying like that at a certain point this this method of distribution this method of production even though this is a very human created and distributed podcast mediating anything through this technology cheapens things and even the best activism that's happening online on social media, you stay with it long enough, you follow the best accounts, and you tune in day after day, and at a certain moment you wake up and you're like, oh, I'm consuming content. I'm not, I'm not really doing activism. And you can feel that gap and you feel your powerlessness and you feel the gap between your powerlessness and the Erzat's feeling of power you get from people engaging with you and liking your comment or

arguing with you or whatever. So I think in a way the AI generated image is the perfect synecarchy or the perfect it's the perfect distillation of something that is at the heart of all of this for us, which is we're engaging in it remotely. Most of us are not there on the ground. Yeah. You know, we're not living in Palestine. We're not living in Israel. We're not dealing with the consequences on the ground. For those people, those people are having a qualitative, qualitatively qualitatively different experience. And I think there's something disturbing about that. And it should be disturbing because that's just part and parcel of this moment.

As far as the merits of that particular image of its own, yeah, it's chinty aesthetically and whatever. It has upsides. It has downsides. But I think it's pointing to something deeper, a kind of nausea that we're all feeling at just being. We're all trapped inside this big gladiator arena, this big fucking. movie theater, Broadway musical

that none of us ever want to watch and we're throwing peanuts at the stage and none of us can change a goddamn thing about what's happening. And it, what can I say? As we were saying before, like, because people are paying such a price for speaking out, the idea of people being able to kind of skate past it

by sharing this kind of inoffensive generic image because a lot of people I saw, I'm sure you guys also saw, people who haven't said anything until now we're able to post this and so I mean there's no way of knowing like yeah I'm sure for some people hopefully it's the beginning of them saying more but I think there's also like that that resentment from a lot of people who have been saying stuff that this is your way you're you know your your ticket out you say it once and then you go back saying nothing yeah no

it's true I mean like and and I feel I think both of those things you know either there is that part of me that's like, you know, wants to call someone a coward for doing, you know, something as simple as sharing an inoffensive image with people who, you know, where you're not saying anything that's necessarily going to get you in trouble or whatnot. The other side of me does see it and go like, the more that we can normalize people at least to, you know, to doing fucking something. Like, I realize that I set my expectations low of people and I should probably up them. I think I have higher expectations of people who are, you know, like in power,

elected representatives. Those are the people I have high expectations of. I have less high expectations of just kind of general public, especially when there's fucking jobs on the line and they don't know what the fuck they're going to do. And I want to give an example of, like, One way in which I think this shit can be useful in some way. Like the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund was able to raise an additional $40,000 within, I think, an hour or maybe two hours after Ariana Grande shared a link on her Instagram story.

And like, this is someone who, you know, Ariana Grande had not been someone who had been posting about it. this been being like here donate here and donate there um this was almost like a moment in which she felt safe enough to share this kind of link and it did raise forty thousand dollars for Palestinian children's elite really fund and you know I see that as a net good you know is she the one who someone died at her concert in yeah and was there was a terrorist attack at one of her concerts in London yeah yeah yeah and I don't know whether or not like if she

said anything else regarding this or whatnot but as far as I know she had been silent about it and it's funny because you see like the immediate reaction because like even such a small thing is sharing a link to donate to children got a reaction from a friend of the

of the pod Emily Schrader, the Hasbarist Settler, from Los Angeles, who now lives in Israel and is indigenous now. She made a little video where she was yelling at Ariana Grande and Duolipa, and I'll play a little bit of that right now. A lot of celebrities sharing posts against the war in Gaza called Al-Azan Ratha. Sounds nice, right? Humanitarian. But here's the reality. Every single celebrity engaging in this campaign who was silent on October 7th, and has said nothing about the fact that we still have

more than a hundred hostages being held by Hamas is a racist. Bet you didn't know she was going to call him a racist. I just love that is a racist. Like, is a what? Is a what? Can go on? Go on, white lady.

Who care when it's a conflict involved in Jews? Where was your outrage over China shipping off Muslims to concentration camps? Where were the protests when the Islamic Republic of Iran executed over 800 people. You know, it's funny. You could have just said Iran, but I think you wanted to make sure people knew he's Islamic.

I think you could have said Iran. In 2023 alone, where was the social media campaign against the execution of LGBTQ in Iran, Yemen, and other Middle Eastern nations? Where is the global demand for aid to Sudan, where there's a famine and mass killings?

Well, that's true. Yeah, I mean... Where is the demand for aid to Sudan? I mean, yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, what, you could do it? It's got nothing to do with Jews, you've got nothing to do with the fact, I mean, this is the thing,

they always want to make this about Israel being a Jewish country. No, no, no, no, not at all. Yeah. No, I mean, it's like, this is the same fucking what aboutism that they always fucking do every single time. Someone actually decides to, you know, fucking nut up and say something about dead children. that we are killing

that we are killing yes with our tax dollars and they're just like oh what about what about all these others you're just mad because the Jews are the one killing them

and it's like that's a fucking weird excuse bro oh wow we can't we can't also do kill children oh okay racist much like are you a psychopath you're like who is this for

anyways you see that reaction and you go and i have to say that like you know part of me is like it's important to even if you're doing it you know as a fucking celebrity like eriana grande and you're doing it like almost you know thoughtlessly like okay i'm just going to put this link in one of my stories like and it's just going to be my dipping my toe in trying to help um as much as like you know we can call it like, ah, this is an online fucking whatever, activism.

I look at that and I go, like, she raised fucking $40,000 from a simple act. And even if she had raised none, and one of my favorite Twitter posters, you guys know, Hurt Copain. Like, this fucking dude is one of my absolute favorites. He's so fucking funny. And he goes by at Saeed DiCaprio. And he writes, by the way. way, this goes deeper than just money. Celebrities being vocal protect people from being kicked

out of their work or schools because it makes it less, quote, taboo to hold the same position, which in parenthetical, which makes it easier to call for policy changes. And then he goes on to say, and I know this is common knowledge for most, but I just see people comparing what X and Y celebrities would raise if they posted about it. And it's like, even if they raise zero dollars it's important to just do it regardless and then he points to an example he goes for example this tweet in which he wrote long live palestine in october 2015 um almost got me suspended from school at the time thanks to you wonderful people however i can say uh that and be okay now still criticizing the occupiers and being against funding them with missiles is still

stigmatized so we have some ways to go and i think that's like an important point it's like I'm sorry, but making this a normal thing, making it not a stigmatized, scary fucking, like it should be weird that people are losing their jobs. People should be fucking furious that they're trying to pass laws making it illegal to boycott Israeli products. Like people, yeah, you know what I mean?

Yeah, people forget how taboo the word Palestine has been. Yeah. What it automatically triggered. Yeah. So, yeah, you know, how much is a pop star going to say, right? Right. Like, you know, if you're here waiting for, you know, Taylor Swift to, you know, denounce the Zionist usurper, like, it's not going to happen. Right. Her next album is just called Crush the Zionist entity.

Like, which boyfriend is she talking about? So, but, but, you know, like you said, you know, it, you know, it, um, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it. it's creating a new baseline for what can and cannot be said. And it's pathetic. It's like it's terrible. It is pathetic. That's someone posting a link with the word Palestine in it that's about saving dying children is something new for us, but it is.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I think that like we're fighting against a current here. You know, and I don't mean it like in like, I'm not, I don't consider, I'm not like saying, I'm fighting against the current. But I mean, like, just rhetorically, you know, talking about this shit can get you in trouble. I mean, that is like, period. And it's actually one of the reasons why I kind of like give, allow some people a little bit of grace.

I feel a little weird expecting, especially like non-Jewish people in my life to say something publicly about it. Because I understand that it's a scarier thing. Now, some people disagree with me. They say it's way scarier if you're Jewish. doing it. Not in my case, but I think in a lot of other people's cases in which they could lose their whole families. You know, it's like a fucking, you know, nationalism is a cult and Zionism is no different. So it is scary for those people as well. But, you know, and just in general, people are, you know, they're afraid to talk about it. And,

well, Amber, you said that one of the things that drew you to speak about it was just feeling like, okay, well, where's the comedy community? What are they going to say? So you you came in you said what you said what's the response been I have expectations of people I have expectations of people based on what they've said and done before right right you know have you heard from them sent

themselves out there and you know built themselves up as you know X Y and Z so you know I have I guess different expectations for different people and have and has anything like since you've put yourself out there have you heard from any of these people have they know noticed your return or you know uh you know i've got some kind of like quiet follows uh on uh you know

on on instagram or like a couple of people reaching out or um but you know like there was a this comedian in uh new york libyan comedian uh mahon ad el shaki who you know you guys should have on yeah yeah he did he did a story recently where he's like if you have a huge following as a comedian. Why are you quietly reaching out to me behind the scenes being like, great, buddy, you know, it's so great that you're speaking up. He's like, well, why the fuck aren't you? Like, what is, what's

the point of this, you know? Glad to see you doing your thing, bro. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. Really being true to keep grinding, man. Keep grinding, man. Love you're important. That grind mindset. You rise and grind every morning. You talk about Palestine or Pakistan or whatever.

Your hustle, different from my hustle. It's good to see you hustling. It's like, hey, how about, you know, you could do something. No, no, no, no, that's all you, that's all you. Mad respect. I don't want to your turn, man. I'm not a smart person. I don't steal bits, man.

I don't steal bits. That's your bit. I'm going to do something about, like, you know, the Uyghurs, maybe. I don't know. I'm thinking about it first, man. I think about keeping about, thinking about frosted flakes and stuff. Maybe like Pop-Tarts. That's kind of more of my thing.

Yeah. And again, you know, like, I mean, your comedy is a very, very difficult industry. I know. it. So for younger comics, newer comics, I get, like, I don't expect them to launch until like a brand new one-hour show about Palestine. But there are people who have a lot of insulation. There are people who have huge fan bases, and it would not be that easy to just cut them off from their livelihood. In fact, it would be impossible. Like, there are some people who have an independent fan base now that would respond well to them saying it, and would continue to support

them. So, you know, like, again, like, you know, I hold people to different standards. And especially based on what they've done in the past or what they've been willing to say or how they presented themselves in the past. Yeah. Well, speaking of comedians, we're going to end on something very important. The greatest living comedian in the world recently went to Israel and came back He came back speechless I'm talking about of course My main man Jerry Seinfeld

You might know him from such films As Unfrosted The Pop-Tart story Or B movie Which is a movie about a B You might also know him as The Ben Affleck to

Larry David's Matt Damon From the show Seinfeld You know, actually, I want to take that back because at this point, I think I love Ben Affleck equally to Matt Damon. They're both great. But, no, Jerry Seinfeld, I don't know if you guys saw him. He went on Barry Weiss's show. Barry Weiss, that champion of ruthless crusading.

Well, just free speech, you know. The truth teller. Moral courage. And she, years ago, I remember, I think it was like five or six years ago, She did an event at the 92nd Street Y, I think like Jake Tapper or one of these ghouls, liberal ghouls interviewed her. And she talked about how anti-Zaynoz Jews are like Jews back in the Hellenic period or I forget what era or whatever, who would get voluntarily uncircumcised. I'm sorry, say that again.

Excuse me? Uncumcumcised. They would have skin grafted on or something like that to rejoin the, the, you know, the, you know, to assimilate, basically. She's calling us, you know, dick traitors. First of all. Dick, dictator. First of all, I'm not a dictator.

How dare you, Barry White? Second of all, I didn't know. Charlie Chaplin did make my favorite film, the great dictator. I love the, it's so good. But also, Sasha Barron Cohen made a much more Islamophobic one called Just the Dick Trader. That's right. That's right. No, but, like, first of all, I didn't know you could grow back your, Worskin, but also Barry Weiss is, you know, famous for being a free speech warrior and a piece

of shit. You may know her as someone who was indirectly or directly responsible for the death of the Palestinian poet. Was it Rafat? Refat al-Hara, yeah. And years before that, she made her name trying to get a Palestinian Columbia professor fired, Joseph. Yeah, that's kind of, her whole origin story is all Zionism-based. Her great quote was, it was something like, yeah, children die, but this is the unfortunate burden of Israel's independence or something, you know, there was a recent... Something dope and normal and good.

Yeah, yeah, something really cool. Something you want to print on a T-shirt if you're an IDF sniper. Yeah, it's something like the 14 words, you know, similar to that. but you know judiized um yeah so i just wanted to play a little clip of uh this is so stupid i want to play a little clip of jerry seinfeld uh on that show here we go yes since the war started how was that trip uh the most uh powerful experience of my life really i'm sure yeah why um You know, you just... Are you thinking of someone in particular?

But up, da-da-la-da-la-d-da-la-d-da-la-pom-ba-bop-da-la-pom-bop-bop-poh-poh-poh-pha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-da-da-da-da-da-da. Oh, so there's a... I recorded this right before the show, okay? Yeah, so, you know. Her show is called, her show is called Honestly. Yeah, yeah, sure is. And honestly, it's dog shit. Well, as I posted, he's a double-dip shit.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, you double-dip the show. shit. Yeah, it's like putting her whole mouth on Netanyahu's asshole. Twice. Anyways, that interview, don't watch it. It sucks. He mostly is just talking about how he wishes.

He's basically just doing Tony Smirno the whole time where he's like, what happened to Gary Cooper, strong, silent type. He's, you know, listen, what are your thoughts? Final thoughts, Amher, on Jerry Seinfeld, there's a comedian. The greatest comedian of all time? Yes or no? Yes or yes? Yes.

Yes. Because I just, he represents comedians. Yeah, that's right. He's the living representation of all comedians. Just narcissists obsessed with their own genius. And deeply misanthropic, too. Like there's a deep, there's a deep hatred of people at the heart of Jerry Seinfeld's comedy. I've always felt this.

Back in the days of, what made Seinfeld a really enjoyable show was like the human foibles of George and Elaine and, you know, Kramer's wackiness, whatever. But at the heart of, the more and more that show went on, I just had this sense that there was this seething loathing of people. And he really embodies it. But wrapped, wrapped in a kind of, wrapped in a kind of wackiness. Yeah. Wackiness and squeamishness.

Yeah, yeah. And squeamishness like, ooh, isn't it gross when people are weird? Isn't it weird when people are gross? Oh, now let's item. Like I blame that show Seinfeld for kind of like creating this inventory of different kinds of gross, unpleasant people that were now allowed to have names for

and make jokes about it and be like, ooh, I don't feel comfortable with him. I don't feel comfortable with her. and it just felt like a meanification of of culture at that point in the 90s when everything was getting meaner and and morchalla that was my feeling about it I mean I agree with you to a sense I think the differences is that I've I've always agreed with the the deep hatred of humanity within Jerry Seinfeld the difference was that I thought it was funny because it was essentially you know harmless because it was it was just kind of like because it was making fun of the person who hates people. But even just in being someone who's like a clear snob,

I always thought it like kind of funny because he just kind of wore it on his sleeve. It never came with genocide. It was like, oh, I thought you were just kind of an asshole. And it's like, you know, I allow for there to be assholery of someone is doing it in sort of a harmless, toothless way. I mean, it's not, he was never necessarily doing anything racist or sexist maybe a little bit with the manhand stuff. Like, in general, it was just kind of like the minutia of the world pisses him off and he hates it.

And like all the little bits that make us human he hates. And I'm like, oh, that's kind of a funny type of monster. That's the Larry David kind of in the show, the guy who reacts too much to something that's, you know, too, you know, a minute. Yes. But the difference is that Larry David actually is self-deprecating because he is the butt of the joke and he faces consequences for his assholery and he never learns. And so that's the

Jerry Seinfeld never faces any consequences whatsoever in his own comedy. He's just this blank. He doesn't hate himself. He doesn't hate himself. And that's the problem. And I remember the one episode in which he does a bit about like, you know, being

he can't be a with a woman who is exactly like himself because he hates himself too much. And I remember it's the only time where I was like, that feels like a George storyline. Jerry doesn't hate himself. Jerry thinks he's the fucking smartest person in the world. I wish he had the courage to hate himself. He really, if he only had the courage to realize. The way we all have the courage to hate him.

That's right. It's really insane. Talk about emotional labor. He refuses to hate himself, so he has to make the entire world hate him. We have to do it for him. What an asshole. Lazy. Lazy. Outsourcing that emotional labor.

Seriously. That's what Zionism is about. But yeah, I mean, I wish, I wish comedians would have the guts to say something. They don't, of course. None of them do. No, they don't. In fact, they'll cozy up to power anytime it's convenient. Listen, that's just the way of the world.

And that's, I think, the end of the podcast. I think we have had enough. Amir. I love you, dog. Likewise. I was so happy that I was able to be on. I have one last Seinfeld tidby. You can cut it out, maybe.

Oh, no, no, no, please, please, please. But, you know, philosopher Andrew Schultz weighed in, and he was talking about people walking out of Seinfeld's commencement speech. Was it a Duke? Or some Ivy League. Somewhere. And Schultz is like, yeah, you know, and there's like all these kids walking out because there's a Jew on stage. I was like, really, bro?

I know. Wow. Once again. cutting to the heart of the issue yeah yeah it like shit like that pisses me off to no end because it is so uh it is so narcissistic and self-serving and i'm like listen i don't i don't know andrew shultz enough to know whether or not he's like a real life dumbass or plays one on tv um but i in general like to give people enough credit to know when they're being manipulative lying narcissistic pieces of shit. And that's a manipulative, lying narcissistic thing to fucking state

when it is so fucking clear why people are doing this, you know? If you want to hear an old story about Jerry Seinfeld being an asshole back then, Danny Hawk is a great, it's kind of a legend of New York City monologuing one-man shows kind of thing, you know, does various voices and characters. I remember seeing him 20, 25 years ago doing these incredible one-man shows of different different New York characters from across the borough's different backgrounds he was sort of a he's a white Jewish guy strong in the hip-hop community things like that kind of like who Michael Rappaport would be if he had a soul and any any intelligence you know but like he's got that look and that sound but just just just

just he's a really good dude and I've met him anyway he was cast as Ramon the pool guy on Seinfeld the you know and he got fired because he basically refused to play up the the Spanish accent and they kept having to cut and Jerry would come over it and be like, look, you were really funny in the audition. Can we have you do it more Hispanic, basically?

Yeah. And, you know, in his monologue work, Danny creates full-blooded characters from the boroughs, from Queens, Bronx, including Puerto Ricans. So he can do a Cuban accent, for instance. But in the context of the show on Seinfeld, there's no character here. The joke is the guy's crazy Cuban pool guy. You know,

And he refused to do it and he got, anyway, I just sent you guys a link to an old article about, about that. But yeah, that was the thing. Like, Seinfeld didn't, he resented a comedian trying to bring more craft and character and humanity to his performance. Right. He's like, no, can you just make it dumber and meaner, please? You're on Seinfeld right now. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's like one of the reasons why, you know, I trust no clean comic, I say.

Right. if you're a clean comic you're probably a psychopath and if you're a cosby and Seinfeld that's right and if you're a you know a dirty comic or a mean comic like jeselnick truth is you're probably a really fucking nice guy in real life and jeselnick is is a nice dude I don't know his stance on anything Palestine wise but I will say that every story I hear about Anthony jeselnick in real life in my own you know limited interaction I've been Like, he seems nice. Thank you so much for coming on the show again, man.

I really appreciate you taking some time out of your Istanbul stay. I know it's late there, my bad. Thanks for having me, man. No, it's my pleasure. Hell yeah. Where can people find you? What plugs you got? Let's plug them.

I mean, I'm going back to not doing stand-ups. Hell yeah. Living the dream. I literally just reappeared and I'm going back to my, my civilian life. But, you know, I'm on Instagram and Twitter. I made a TikTok. But, you know, I have a couple more clips from those shows and then I'm... This is Amher's plug for Leaving Me the Fuck Alone.

Yeah, I love this. God bless you, sir. You return to see my old work anytime. Yeah, yeah. You can check it out. You can rewatch it a thousand times. yeah shout out to you for uh you know for putting it out there and just uh putting up both middle fingers and saying fuck you and for and for visiting us before you piece out of this

motherfucker yeah yeah i always happy to come back man i'm really really uh really glad you guys had me on yeah well please come back we'll definitely have you back uh thanks for coming on and everyone follow him on ticot on instagram on twitter probably other shit you too um and uh subscribe to bad has barra on patreon patreon dot com slash bad has barra you can support this podcast and support me and daniel and adam too i don't know i'm singing this i'm tired i got to pick up my baby shit is wild but uh all right everyone thank you again so much for listening and from the river to the sea jerry is not sponge worthy yeah thank you producer adam for that one jumping jacks was us pushups was us

godmaga us all karate us taking molly us michael jackson us yamaha keyboards us jarja mix on us and or was us keith ledger joker us endless bread success happy meals was us mcdonalds was us Being happy us Bequam yoga us Eating food us Breathing air us Drinking water us We invented all that shit

Thank you.