Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - Bad Hasbara 4: Daniel Maté

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

The homie Daniel Maté is in studio with Matt Lieb and they vibe.Visit Daniel's website here and check out his mental chiropractic service!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/bad-hasbara/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome hot bitch We invented the dirty tomato And way's USB drives and the iron dough Israeli salad oozy stets his office orange rose I'm from chips for us I from cameras bus Taco salads us Bothahama nos

All of garden us White foster us Zabra Hamas Hasbara suss Welcome to Bad Hasbara the world's most moral podcast. My name is Matt Lieb and I am your host for this podcast and this evening and forever. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast right off the bat.

I just want to say all y'all who are new to this and have like emailed and like talk to me online. I appreciate it. You guys are, you're doing a lot of the work for me. You're sending me interesting. Pieces of Hasbara. You're sending me great emails. No one has yet sent me any hot salacious photos of themselves. Good. I'm married and I don't want that. No one wants that. But thank you. Give us five stars in review on the Apple podcast store app. And then give us four or no, five stars, not four, fuck off. Five stars on Spotify.

It helps people find it. And of course, if you're listening to this slash watching this on YouTube, subscribe and do all that shit. But, you know, also listen to the podcast because that's the only way this thing makes money. Help me. Anyways, today, oh, we have a great show. Our guest today, for the first time, I think, ever in the, well, certainly in the history of this podcast, but for like the first time, I think, in any of the podcast that I've done, my guest is here with me he's right next to me which uh which is nice because you know usually I'm just talking into a screen yeah and that's not fun because I feel like I'm not getting like the

full like the vibe you know what I mean absolutely look I mean it's one thing to try and intimidate someone yeah into silence and and and obsequious uh just agreement with everything I say over Zoom right right actually in person with the eyes I know I'm scared and the like I actually can feel your fear. Yeah, I'm literally, I'm like shrinking as you speak. Right. Well, that, I mean, that speaks to my training in, in Hasbara, really. Oh, okay.

So you are a trained Hasbarists. All right. It's Daniel Maté is here. He's a friend of the pod, friend of mine, a newly acquired friend. Yeah. We started corresponding after the 7th when we were both just putting out videos, you on the internet, just, you know, screaming into the void. Yeah.

And we just started talking and one thing led to another and we're in love. And no, one thing led to another and we did Hanukkah together. Yeah. Very nice. Yeah, here in L.A. We did it. Yeah. You came to a Hanukkah event that I co-organized and hosted at my friend's place.

And it was amazing to meet you. I'm such an, I mean, your comedy is so good that I think I've told you this. I encountered your comedy one of your videos and of course your your shtick your whole bit is playing sort of a liberal Zionist. A well-intentioned, very

sincere liberal Zionist who's trying to sound very reasonable to himself and the man in he starts talking the utter horrificness of his worldview of his rationality and his logic. Yeah, the banality of his evil. I mean, really. He's a perfect Hannah Arendt

character. Yeah. comes through. I was so fooled by your excellent writing and deadpan delivery. I, like, went and retweeted this thing. I'm like, listen to this liberal Zionist, equivocating apologetics. This guy actually bleat. And then I looked at it again, because maybe I was just looking at it. I was in this mode where you're like in just the, on the hedonic tread, to quote Matt

Christman, the hedonic treadmill of reactivity. Yeah. You know, just seeing the, so I just saw the subtitles. hadn't even tuned in to hear your tone of voice right so i was just seeing the words and of course tone is everything mm-hmm and i was like this fucker look at this guy this is the epitome of everything i hate about liberals and then i watched it again i was looking at the comments but like hey well done matt this was excellent yeah and your wife you know reposts it and like i'm like i get that she's a comedian yeah i go back i'm like oh fuck i got got got by this guy yeah and i was

just yours forever after that oh well thank you i appreciate that there's uh it doesn't always go that direction because I think that there's so much content that's happened for the last three months of people saying almost verbatim the exact same things I'm saying that

you just can't keep up with it so it's just like quote tweet fuck you quote tweet fuck you quote tweet fuck you and so there's a few people out there whenever I have a video or someone post something of mine there's always someone

who just saw a little clip like a month ago and said, no, no, no, that guy's a Zionist. And I was just like, no, bro, you didn't finish watching a fucking video, which, I mean, just speaks to the level of, like, competency that recent Israelis, Bara has been, you know, like, operating at. Because if my joke version, my parody version of guys, like that is trucking people, it means that literally they are just saying, the things they are saying are so disconnected from, I think, the sentiment of normal people that they don't

see the irony in anything that they're saying. Well, in times like this, it really does try, it just, it pushes the, uh, the boundaries of satire to the point of can satire even survive a time when things are so on the nose and The open and irony is so dead. Dead and outlawed because the irony is the ability to hold on to contradictory things at once. Right, right. And in times of fascist, absolutist thinking and the kind of sentimentality that comes along with that, especially in the Zionist context, having a dark edge to your humor, like to me, that's the real threat to Jewishness.

I know. I agree. It's like pesticide. that's killing off the aphids and the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, of Jewish, uh, you know, not agriculture, but culture. Right. Our intellectual agriculture. Actual culture. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, we are, yes, all of the good bacteria is dying. Yes. And what's left is just this bare, white bone of fucking fascism. And you're just like, no, no, no, no, this is, you've ruined what makes being Jewish beautiful. Right. And you've turned it on its head into this like, um, this, because it's not, I've said before, it's not gallows humor when the hangman makes a joke. Like, like, that's, that's not gallows humor.

Before we bring our next, uh, hanging up here, folks. So I was killing children. And I said, oh, yeah, Palestinian babies die like this. Anyways, it's like, it's not, it ruins what makes, and it's not, I was going to say, it ruins what makes being Jewish, I think, beautiful and special. Certainly what makes being Ashkenazi Jewish beautiful and sure. And I feel like, and it's not to say that it's not like a fetishization of the victimhood. It's the, like, the fact that in that like caldron molded a certain,

type of person with a certain worldview, a certain sense of humor, a certain just like culture and sense of being. And I feel like, you know, Israel has taken that from me. You know, in a way, it feels like you're watching the appropriation of what seems to me to be a diasporic Jewish culture and then trying to graft it onto something that you know and and trying to claim it as this is the ultimate expression of being Jewish being someone who loves Israel

being someone who you know fights in the IDF being someone who does the things that the Israeli government does and I just like it it makes me feel bad because I'm like no that's not yeah well they can't take it from you they can't take it from us but they can try and they need to because the fact is that the gifts of being a Jew in exile. And again, the more I learn about the complexity of Jewish identity all over the world, I want to be careful that I'm not painting all Jews with the same pale. Right, right.

The same pale of settlement brush. Right. You know, nice. Which is to say that, you know, Mizrahi or Sephardic Jewish culture is very different. Very different. But certainly from the perspective of like the lineage that you and I come from, you know, my father's Hungarian, on the other side of the family, the lineage goes through Poland and Lithuania and things like that.

There's an outsider status that grants us a perspective. Yeah. Where we can see through pieties, we can see through hypocrisies, we can see through the temporary, that we can see through the false permanence of regimes and empires because we know that everything changes. We're here, one generation will be somewhere else the next. Yeah. You know, we don't get too attached to objects or identifications because we're identified

with a tradition, a way of thinking, a way of seeing the world, and moral principles and traditions that are portable. Right. That we can take with us on our backs like Matsa and Passover. Right, right. And what is that? That's storytelling, that's humor, that's poking fun at the powerful. Now, what happens when we become the powerful?

we have to kill off our ability to see complexity and it becomes crude and it becomes sentimental. Yeah. And it becomes earnest in the worst way. Yeah. You know, like earnestness is good, but this is like earnesty. Like it's like just a kind of a sappy sentimentality. For the young people out there, it's called cringe.

Yeah, absolutely. It's what you say as cringe. Yes, 100%. It is how you say a cringe. It is cringe. And, um, yeah, so I refuse to let them take that. Yeah, I, uh, and that's part of what I resonated so much with when I saw your content of the word I hate. Yeah, no, me too, me too.

A toilet that's overflowing has a lot of, I know, I know, but, but a fucking box of milk has content. But your work, you know, your work and your, your output and, and, and what you were moved, it's like this moment, we don't get to choose our moments. And this moment for many of us, and there are some bright spots in it, which doesn't make it any less horrifying. Right, yeah, yeah. But one of them has been seeing all kinds of people rise to the moment in their way,

in the way that they're called to do. And so when I saw your stuff, I'm like, here's a comedian using short form social media videos to really crystallize different, points of hypocrisy so that people see something they can't unsease it the next time they hear it they're not just going to have a queasy weird feeling of like oh did i just get molested right like yeah you'd be like fuck yeah i just did get molested and that's the fucker who did it and get away for get right yeah it's it's a kind of inoculation that you're doing yeah and i'm trying to do that

in my own way yeah you know i it's funny you mentioned that feeling but that is i think i i have never heard it put that way before but that is exactly what it feels like when you're dealing with the rationalization, and especially the using of like the language of social justice in order to justify these atrocities, it feels like getting molested because you are questioning yourself, you're questioning your own like lived experience, your own brain, and you're going like, is it possible that I'm just some fucking alien who when I look at a crying child or I look at someone holding, you know, their dead family in their arms that I, like, feeling for them, like, is there something I don't know? Like, isn't this? And,

and there's, there's like a connection that where you feel this icky feeling, um, but you're just not, um, given the, you just don't have the confidence to say anything and you're afraid of the consequences of what you're going to, of what you're saying, which is, yeah, that is, Yeah, so that's the first time I've heard it put that way before, but I think that resonates. Well, people have been throwing around the Darvo acronym, which is not something I was familiar with, and I forget what the components of it, the five letters are, but they name different strategies and tactics and ways of operating that narcissistic gaslighters use. Okay, so this is like-

reflect, accuse, I forget what they all stand for. Oh, interesting. I had not heard that yet. So, yeah. So people have been pointing out that at this point in the development of Hasbara, and do you know what the word Hasbara actually literally means? To explain. Yeah, it means explanation.

Right. And I remember when I was in Zionist summer camp, and I was a Zionist summer camp program leader back in the day. Oh, yeah, yeah. When we were living in Israel for 10 months. And this is a progressive left wing one. Right. But they, unironically gave us a two-day Hasbara workshop about basically how to explain Israel to the world.

Because the world fundamentally constitutionally is born to misunderstand Israel. Right. So we have to explain it. Yeah, we got a explain. It's really just all about spain. Yeah, yeah. Daniel, you got some spleen into doing. That's exactly.

Yeah. So I forget where I was going there with that. But no, yeah, so the narcissistic guess, it used to be that it was just that it was just, just about spreading false narratives that you could just, you know, we made the desert bloom. Right, right, right. It was a lamb without people. Yeah, no one was there. The Arabs rejected every piece of, you know, right, right, right. We thought those things were true, so we were just trying to explain. So it wasn't, it wasn't so subconsciously cynical. Right, right, right. It was just wrongheaded. Right, yeah, it was factually incorrect, but it was also just what you, what you had,

and it kind of put a bow on everything. That's right. We were, they were, you know, it's like, the whole postmodern obsession with narratives. They have their narrative. We have our narrative. Yes. We're in a marketplace of narratives. Yeah, everyone's got a different truth. That's right.

We're coming to the shook with our, with our, with our, with our, with our, let's haggle over our narrative. Yeah, right, exactly. But at this point in, in the, in the, in the, in the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the death spiral of has barra. It's at the point where all it has left is the most egregious, uh, what, abusive, sociopathic, and sometimes psychopathic tactics. And no wonder everyone's feeling like their soul is being dittled, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're all being fucking fondled.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes with a smile. Yeah. And then sometimes with a slap. Right, yeah. I did a debate on Instagram live with an active duty Israeli soldier. Oh, who? His name is Rudy Rockman.

Rudy Rockman? Yeah. He, uh, the fucking, he's a J-book guy. I know him from, uh, back in my, my Jew book days. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's, uh, you go on. Well, he's, he's real something. Yeah, he is something.

And, uh, someone. I think I blocked him and I think he yelled at me to unblock him recently. And it's all right. Broody blockman. Yeah, yeah, broody blockman. Um, got to block him. Yeah. You know, but it was an interesting experience for me because someone connected us.

I'd never heard of him. Someone said, I think the two of you, you know, and I'm brand new on this scene. Like, I haven't been active in this world for decades ever since I sort of got disillusioned with Zionism and moved on with my life. Right, right. And then, you know, every time Israel, quote unquote,

mose the lawn in Gaza, I'll post Norman Finkelstein on Facebook to all my friends who don't want to hear about it. But I never had a platform anyway to talk about it. So now I do, and someone's hooking me up with this, you know. And we did this debate, and he was stationed live on a military base, right outside of Gaza, like in the south of Israel, with his military fatigues on, his machine gun in his lap. Yeah.

From what I remember, or maybe I've seen him in other interviews with it. But anyway, I love having a machine gun for an interview, just in case someone asks the wrong question. That's exactly right. That's exactly. No, we won't be going there. Yeah. No comment.

No, you may not ask me. Low, as I would say. Shikit, Babakash. Hey. So, but just the experience of sitting there with him was stunning to me because here's this guy in this position where he's, he's actually going and doing these things. Right. But his tone was so friendly and, you know, it was the cadences that I remember from friendly Zionist coworkers at Zionist Kamer, the ones I never trusted. Shalom, everybody, welcome.

and we are going to have a nice conversation now. And he called me his brother, and he's talking about how the Palestinians are our cousins. And the thing is that for the first half an hour or so, or even throughout it, I kept getting, like, charmed. Because I want to believe that he's my brother. 100%.

There's something appealing. He's very good looking. He's very attractive. He's, there's a kind of, it's seductive. Yeah. And I'm not even talking about him personally. Yeah. Like, I don't know the guy.

Right, right. But the position he's in and the propaganda role he's serving. Yeah. He also seems to, He also has these views that are sort of radical for a Zionist. Like he says he believes in the Palestinian right of return. And he wants to see a future where it's everything's equal. But like clearly there's just,

I just didn't have the patience or the time or the ability to like chip away out, where's the, because there's a huge contradiction in here. Because you're going and blowing up these fucking people's lives right now for their own good. Yeah, you are serving in what you know is ultimately going to be the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. And if it's not the ethnic cleansing, guaranteeing that these cousins of yours will not want to ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,

go near you except with a rock or a Molotov cocktail and understandably. And then you're going to have more reason to do what you're doing. So there's just something sinister and darkly dishonest about this, but it's coming in the package of Jewish togetherness. Right. And I felt that in my body. I wanted to believe it and I kind of relaxed and he was sort of hosting it. It was a mistake. We should have had a moderator. But, you know, he was able to to set the table for it. So he asks me, so Daniel, I want to first ask you, and I'll tell you my answer, you tell me your answer,

and we'll talk, because we're just two Jews talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What is a Jew? And so then we spend the first 25 minutes talking philosophically about what a Jew is. And then I woke up, I gave an answer I thought was good, I was interested, and then I'd like suddenly realize, Jesus Christ, he hypnotized me. We've been talking for 25 minutes about what a Jew is.

Right, yeah. While the dude who just walked behind him in the frame just came back from, you know, bombing a hospital. Yeah, yeah. Why aren't we talking about that? Why aren't we talking about it? Because he's setting the terms of this conversation. And the terms of the conversation have to go to the philosophical

and the brotherly and all this kind of shit. Right, right. You have to go there because that is, I mean, especially when it's like Jew-on-Jew, like, Hasbara recruiting, actually. It's just like it's... That's as close as we get to Jew-on-Jew violence. Yeah, it really is.

It's just like kind of telling you that you are, you're, you are one, you're all the same. That's right. And you are, you know, of course, we all have the same values, the same morality. We all. We all are heartbroken about what's happening. Of course we are. Yeah, exactly. Who would want this?

Yeah, I don't want to do this. God forbid innocent people should die. Yeah, right. And you're just, you have no, I mean, there's, it's very hard as a person who, you know, especially I think as an American, like, in my case, like, as an American person who is essentially a white guy. Yeah. You know, when you, when you have someone, you know, or an entity like, you know, Israel and, you know, telling you that you belong. This is, this is Jew belong. You are, You know, you're not just, you know, some white person.

You're something more than that. And in fact, like, if you really want to connect, you got to go to this place where you are from, quote unquote. That's right. It's, it is incredibly appealing. It's why birthright was such, I think, a monumental success. Genius. Because of the fact that, you know, you take kind of all these, like, you know, if we're being honest, like mostly white American teens. who, yes, are Jewish, but also, you know, have white privilege.

I mean, at least since the establishment of Taglite, they've, you know, which I think was in the 90s, like these white kids have been white. These Jewish kids have been white, at least the white ones have been. And either way, they're assimilated into American culture. Exactly. But they don't, but they know that they're not quite at the core of it. Right. Yeah, there's something a little bit different, you know, not 100%.

It's like, you essentially are, you know, you grow up being like, there are white people like me, there are Mexican people like this person, there are black people like that. So it's, when someone says, no, this is like, it's not just like some additive to your being. It's at the core of who you are. Which is like, it's not to say it isn't, but it's to say, and that core, you know, you can only find a connection to it in this place. Well, but it's also playing on something that's unspoken,

is what they're really communicating is, that core is at the root of every feeling of loneliness you've ever felt, every feeling of alienation you've ever felt, every feeling of there being a void at the center of your, where belonging should be. Basically, they're sticking a finger in the, in the historically understandable and inevitable traumatic wound that we're all carrying, where lineage should be,

where Yiddish culture should be, for us Ashkenazim, you know, or Ashkenazim, as we'd say, and saying that your pain, your alienation, your confusion, which is also, of course, at that age, hormonal. Yes, 100%. This is why it's called sexual Zionism. You grab them at that age. I have not heard that term.

Sexual Zionism? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, I know this. Get a bunch of horny teens in a bus. Take them to a concentration camp. Get them really upset. Yes, yes. And get them really feeling close to each other and very vulnerable.

and then fly them across the Mediterranean to the land of milk, honey, bikinis, raves. Hot soldiers. Hot, hot ass soldiers, you know, including the guy I was talking to you. He's hot. Yeah. And now you associate forever in their minds

with, you know, that now that foreign country is the place of attainment, liberation, ecstasy, joy, belonging, and all of that. And then anyone who wants to take that away from you, must have him. I must hate you, deep down inside, yes. You know, I, after I did that debate with him, which was two and a half motherfucking hours long.

D.G. Oh, my God. I had to take a five-hour bath and then rest for about, it took me three days to recover because not just talking to him, but doing it in front of tens of thousands of people. Oh, yeah, yeah. And feeling this burt, like, it's, like, I'm in this terrible position. I'm like, I felt, am I betraying Palestine by even talking to him? Right, right, right, right.

lot of really supportive message from Palestinians being like it was really hard for me to listen to him, but what you did was you exposed him or you stood up for us and all that. So cool, I'm not sorry I did it, but it did take me a long time to recover in my body somatically. It really affected me because, again, that push and that pull of wanting to trust him and wanting to even belong to what he's trying to invite me to. But everything in my gut is telling me this is evil. It's pure evil. I can't trust a thing I say. This is an illusion. Like in some, you know, seems like Lord of the Rings, a temptation moment. That's what it felt like.

And then I was like, well, what is the actual pop culture metaphor I'm reaching for here? Are you a Star Trek that next generation fan? I know of it. So do you know Data? Yes, of course. Bransbeiner, right? Do you know his twin brother lore? No, I don't.

I'm not that far into the lore of lore. Exactly. But the wordplay is actually on point here. So data is the android aboard the Star Trek Enterprise. Right. For you kids, this is the 1990s. reboot of the original Star Trek series, Star Trek The Next Generation, with Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard and all that. And Data is, he's programmed, he was created by

a scientist who made him to be, you know, he's got a strong sense of ethics and morals and loyalty. He's very, very, very quick, very humble, but very, very powerful at whatever he puts his mind to. But he's very obedient and very loyal to his employers, really, the Federation, you know, who are the good guys, right? Right. Just exploring the universe, not interfering. Yeah. He has no emotions. Right. He wants to be human. So he's very susceptible to the, that's his one temptation. Anything that can make him feel something. He wants to feel it. He feels a deep alienation from spirit, from soul, because he has none. But he has the, he has like, he can feel the potential for it. He wants to learn.

Yeah. So his humanity is always, as often a plot point throughout the show. Well, at a certain point a few years in, we find out that his creator made a double, a twin brother named Lour. Oh, sure. And Lur looks like him, talks like him, same actor. But he has a circle beard and he's evil. He doesn't have a circle beard, but he has a smirk. And he has a glint in his eye and he has a warm tone in his voice.

Yeah. He has a very honey voice. And he says, brother. you know and there's a kind of like you and I are above them they don't understand us they're not bad but we need to dominate them and he's always trying to fuck with with data's program and like get him to to join him and it's very tempting for him and I that's how I felt afterwards I was like I here I am with my ambivalence not that I'm not human I very much am but part of my humanity part of what makes data so human is his ambivalence he's not sure yeah he's pulled in different

directions but lore is certain and he's smooth and he uses the language of brotherhood right to basically cloak a sort of supremacist fear-based world view that he wants to recruit Laura into and what I realized afterwards also is that their very names are are poetic in this respect because when we talk about you know the competing narratives here of people who can see through Zionism as a destructive ideology versus people who are still clinging to it. Well, they have the lore. Right. And we have the data. Right. Right. Right. And, 100%. And so that was... That's beautiful. I love that. And I do love that in this analogy,

we're all androids in a sense. Trying to, trying to be as human as we can within our constraints. Yeah, but I mean, I think that is like a great, um, kind of encapsulation of this playing on identitarianism. And you know, you see that with, I mean, you see that with a lot of things. I mean, you know, in the United States, obviously, we're very identity politics focused,

at least, you know, in the kind of liberal spheres, democratic spheres. And I think that is kind of the kind of insidious, like, and pernicious thing about Zionism and liberal Zionism is that it uses that language. It always has. Yeah. I mean, of course, it always has, but it's in a more pointedly faux social justice sense

because of the idea that like, you know, I can't claim if I were born, you know, like in the 40s or whatnot, and I, you know, I came of age at around the time of not, you know, Born at Israel's creation came of age around 67 war, I can't claim that I wouldn't have be holding on to this feeling of righteousness that Israel, you know, is this country that is defending itself and, you know, it's doing what it needs to do and the pride that I would take in that. Like I, you know, I'm no, I'm not saying that any of us are any better than people who are like older and who like just hold on to this belief about Israel. Absolutely. But using that same rationale now just is so disconnected because of the fact that Israel is such a firmly right-wing and openly racist country at a societal level and a governmental level. And again, not to say America is not a racist country at both a societal level and a governmental level.

But the difference is that I think if you're trying to recruit an American liberal who acknowledges that America is a racist country and they're against racism and they're trying to fight against it. and you're using it, then you are a predator. You are praying on their openness and you're praying on their progressive attitudes and you're praying on the fact that, you know, people want to belong. Yeah. Well, you're actually a very specific kind of predator. You're a vampire. Yeah, yeah.

Because you need the lifeblood of their identification with you to keep your thing going because your thing is not self-sustaining. Right. You know, it doesn't actually belong to that land. I'm not saying Jews don't belong to that land. Jews have been there for a long, long, long time. But the Jews who belonged there were actually marginalized and used by the Jews who came there. Yes, 100%.

Totally used. So the predatory nature of Zionism. Zionism itself, right? And it vampirizes, yeah, Jewish ambivalence, Jewish uncertainty. Jewish loneliness. And pride and identity and culture and all of the things that are on its own, you know, are what are beautiful about being Jewish. And it takes that and it perverts it. And it uses all that to pray on people. Like when I went to, you know, birthright, it was my only experience actually in Israel.

All my other experiences with Israel have been just living in West L.A. My whole life, which is very, especially you know, right next to a very Israeli neighborhood, not just Jewish, but as an Israeli neighborhood. There was, you know, Pico

Robertson area. And, but when I went there, it was very effective because they were, you know, singing camp songs. I was like, like, damn, this whole country sings camp songs, that's crazy. Like, it, it played on that, you know, that cultural connection that. Yeah, the whole country is a youth group.

Right. That's what it, it was, that's, I was like, can you make a country out of a youth group? Can it's like, it's wild. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's effective in that way. Um, and it's also, once you kind of like, see it for what it is, it's, uh, incredibly offensive. Because you're just like, this is, you. prayed on the fact that, you know, as a people, I'm not painting every Jew this way, but

generally a little bit, a little bit paranoid. Like, you know, there's always a little bit of why is this person doing this to me? Or why is this someone taking advantage of me? Why is someone just hate me for no reason? Or what's going to happen if things go south? Yeah, what's going to happen if this shit really pops off i i grew up watching saved by the bell and i remember being like why do they not like screech what is it about screech like i get that he's kind of goofy but he's just trying to make him laugh what's wrong with that and this fucking arian zach morris comes out and just like shits on them in front of all their friends yeah and i just i remember feeling a strong connection to screech um not just because i kind of look like

him, but because I kind of act like him. Like, there was a bit of me that was, you know, a loud, goofy idiot. Yeah. And, um, and, you know, when I watch facts, I'm, I'm a little older than you. I grew up watching Facts of Life. Yeah. And Mindy Cohen, uh, who played, uh, Natalie Green on on Facts of Life was like the only out Jewish teenager in like the pop culture space. Yeah. And I remember she was on the cover of like, you know, I don't know. The phone work. Nebish magazine or whatever magazine they told her as teenage. Yeah.

But I was like, I was kind of in love with her. I also felt kind of sad for her because she was kind of like the, the ugly duckling. But then she got beautiful later. But yeah, no, like we didn't have a lot of role models. And they were kind of, they were outcasts. Right. And you kind of, you know, you, I'm not saying that like, the representation of at least specifically screech was, you know, openly anti-Semitic,

but I remember as a kid just feeling a little bit like he was, I don't know, feeling like there was something there and then me always having a little bit of this feeling. I'm like, is this a thing? So there's like a general like fear and a paranoia and a prey on that. I feel like is what a lot of Zionist recruiting relies on. And it's for me once you kind of like you know wake up to that fact you just kind of

it's you you end up wanting to fight it with every fiber of your being and it's so funny because right now you know we're at a time where you see people you know I would say bad faith actors some of them I would say some people just earnest

and ignorant being like I can't believe how much anti-Semitism I'm seeing you know and they're talking about like seeing a protest a ceasefire protest or they're talking about like a college student who uh you know wrote an essay or like you know like they're they're talking about stuff that word intifada yeah yeah just seeing the word intifada and uh you know like they're parsing the meaning of like you know uh if someone is a martyr or dies as a shaheed like is it uh you know that that means they killed jews and all all this kind of like, you know, thinking. And I understand that, you know, at least from the good faith people, I understand that feeling of like being like, I can't, I cannot shut up. Absolutely. When I see anti-Semitism. But for me, I like look at all that stuff and I just look at the programming that's done, you know, through years and years. And I go like, I agree, we need to fight anti-Semitism

with every fiber of our being. And I think the greatest exporter of anti-Semitism in the world, world is Israel. Not just exporter, but importer. Importer as well. And fabricator, and I don't just mean fabricator in the sense of making it up. I mean, it's gross domestic product. It's what it consumes. And in fact, you go all the way back.

Sorry, were you done? Oh, yeah, I was. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was just going to pull you forward a little bit. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk me, baby. Yeah. Yeah, a little podcast technique.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just, my buddy. Get in the frame. If you go look at the writings of the early Zionists, you want to talk about, you know, it's like this has become such a cliche since October 7th, but every accusation is a confession. I know. And when it comes to Zionism, it's just true.

When it comes to Hasbaraa, so they call us self-haters or self-loaters. Right. Okay. You want to, you go back and look at the early writings of the first Zionists. Yeah. You want to see some self-hatred, some rejection of what of what being Jewish has meant in exile, in quote unquote exile. Being a wandering Jew, being a ghetto Jew, being a Talmud Jew, being an artist or intellectual or labor leader Jew, they rejected all of that.

They saw it as weak and sniveling. Yeah. They wanted to be the Aryans. They wanted to, you know, you look at Jabotinsky. Yeah. You talked about the cowering, sniveling Jew, the victim Jew, no, we're going to create a proud, strong desert Jew, you know, with a, with a, you know,

With a nice square chin. A nice square chin and a garden rake and or an oozy in his hands. Right. Rather than like a safer Torah or a, you know, deep, deep rejection of vulnerability and ambivalence. Yeah. And intellect and moral thoughtfulness. Right. Understandable from a trauma response perspective.

Sure. Right? I never want to feel that way again. Yeah. Where did it get us being so nice? Where did it get us being so moral? It got us in the ovens and the gas chambers. Look, I can feel that.

And I think that sometimes the risk for people like me, maybe you feel this as well, is I'm so disgusted with the uses to which the exploitation of anti-Semitism is being put. And, you know, Norman Finkelstein is the prime exposure of this ever since his book, The Holocaust Industry 20 years ago. And people hated them for writing that book. But it's true, there is an industry. you know, there's no business like Shoah business, and they exploit it, you know, and they exploit it to the hilt, not because of some sinister Jewish conspiracy to control

the world, but, you know, you could be forgiven to, if it kind of looks that way sometimes. Yeah. But it, no, it's actually to, to insulate this country that's a, that's a strong ally to U.S. foreign policy interests. Yeah. From criticism. But my disgust at all of that exploitation sometimes lead me to want to vitriolism. dismiss any of the feelings or even the facts that might suggest

that Jews aren't safe sometimes or that there is hatred towards Jews, or even that there's irrational hatred towards Jews that weaves its way sometimes into pro-Palestine activism. I want to deny that, because it's not convenient to my narrative. Right. But if I'm actually honest about it, and I talk to Palestinians, they're like, no, no, we see it. Yeah, of course.

And of course it would be. Yes. And we don't need to deny some part of the truth in order to salvage the part of the truth that we want, because as Norman says, like truth and justice are not at odds. Right. You know? So the fact is these feelings, the way, this is the way trauma works.

You carry a feeling in your body from something that happened. And then your mind makes up a story about that feeling and it projects it outward and it sees it everywhere now and it completely limits your response flexibility. Yeah. In the present. And that's what happens with the Zionist stance. The trauma is real. The fear is real.

may even be some evidence that points to it's not entirely gone, the anti-Semitism. It's true, it's not. Of course, yes. And, but the uses to which it's being put, the story it's being put towards proving is one in which we will never be safe, right, in which anything we do is justified, and in which there's something shameful actually about being a target. There's something shameful about being vulnerable and therefore we have nothing in common with vulnerable people and And therefore, we want to align ourselves with the powerful. And that, to me, is the ultimate degradation of and desecration of Jewishness.

So like you, I think that's the prime threat to not just Jews physically, but to the Jewish soul. 100%. And I think that that's when I see these, the way that people will look at, like, for example, Norman Finkelstein's book about the Holocaust industry and just and other critiques of Israel and just kind of like label them as anti-Semitic and whatnot. I like I look at specifically we're talking about, you know, his book in the way that the Holocaust is, you know, used in order to bolster the Zionist project, I don't look at that critique.

To look at that critique, this is inherently anti-Semitic. It's saying it's like, it's like fooling the world and that it's like, no, no, no, no. It is praying on Jews. Specifically, like, you have to understand that, like, the effect of something like the Simon Wiesenthal Center, you know, the Yadvashem, or,

you know, Museum of Tolerance. The effect on Jews... Is that what the Museum of Tolerances? Yeah. Yeah. I've driven by it on the freeway several times. Yeah.

I don't know what it is. I'm like, oh, that sounds tolerant and not. I could probably tolerate that. Oh, boy. Well, the thing is, is it's like, you know, it's a Holocaust Museum, essentially. And it is...

Anything with a name that milk toast. Yeah, I know. And just inoffensive has to be a fucking dark, dark place. I know. And it's like, it's so... it's so dark because once you kind of like realize once you see the way in which places like that are utilized for example this is a tangent but uh someone had posted uh something like you know did you know that

um the Palestinians built a village on you know a um on the ruins of a Jewish community that existed in like 300 CE or something like that and you know trying to to be like, so they're the ones destroying villages. I was like, yeah, first of all, we're all building ruins on top of other people's civilizations. That is, that's, I mean, you know, and secondly, I was like, oh, okay, that's very interesting. Also, did you know that the, in Israel, they built, they desecrated a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem to build literally a museum of tolerance. Yeah.

They literally did that. And not only that, but it was so egregious that there was, there was, there was. multiple stopwork orders from people in Israel who are just like, and judges want going like, no, no, this is fucked up. We can't fucking do this. And it went forward, open 2019. Wow. And so like, you know, to call it the Museum of Tolerance and have it be on top of a fuck, it just.

Well, actually, it's perfect. Think of what else the word tolerance means in a different context. Yeah. In the, in the, you know, addiction context. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They've kind of grown a little bit of a tolerance. Your tolerance goes up to the point where you don't even feel it.

That's right. You need more and more racism. Yeah. And you need more and more belongingness. And you need more and more. Blatent disrespect and Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism. Yeah. And military aid and destruction and fear and deterrence.

Yeah. And, you know. But yeah. So like, you know, I look at, I look, when you're talking about these places, like the Yadbashem or Museum of Tolerance or whatnot, Holocaust museums. The effect that they have on Jews is, it's different. It's different than people going into,

just Gentiles going into a museum. It's because it's not, it's like a Gentile can go in there and they might be affected by it. But the absolute fear and horror and disgust and personal feeling, paranoia and the feeling like this could happen again is visceral. And so when, you know, when Norman Finkelstein is is critiquing that industry, I read it as a critique of a, of a project that is meant to pray on the trauma of Jewish people across the world. It is that like Israel praise upon us. It makes us scared. It makes us paranoid. It makes us, like, the idea that people

actually say with a straight face in this country, we need Israel to exist because one day, no matter what, we are going to be forced to move there. We're going to have to escape. It is, like, people will say openly, it is their contingency plan. Did you see what Joe Biden said at the Hanukkah Party? Yeah, when he said. The president of the United States. Yeah. said not a single Jew is safe if without Israel without a single Jew in the world would be safe basically if not for this foreign country that I'm funding yes I'd be like sending out the you know the SS tomorrow to round up our Jews but I don't dare do it because of my buddy Israel right and like that to me I look at that and I talked about this before um but it's it's why I look at

Zionism and liberal Zionism in American, kind of diasporic Zionism like people, they don't live there, they're not from there, but they're holding on to it because they know eventually that they'll have to move there. Cash in that chip. I look at that as defeatism. Because if you actually believe in

any of the social justice ideas that you proclaim to, the idea that you're like, well, no matter what, we're fucked, Nazis are going to take over. That's right. That's you giving up. That's you saying, okay, you know, at some point, they're always going to win. The Nazis are always going to win, and we're going to have to move there.

And in order for that to be possible, we're going to have to allow this mass atrocity, this genocide, this expolation, the ethnic cleansing. Like, that is defeatism. You have given up, and the idea that you would still hold on to any of these, like, principles, while simultaneously justifying this thing, to me, I'm like, these two, the service. does not square? Is that it? You can't square that circle. Can't square that circle. 100%.

But at the same time, you get to have it both ways. Because it's like, when that day comes, then we shall move back there, right? But in the meantime, we're gonna live here. Obviously, because it's fucking better. It's better. Of course, it's better. We don't, I'm not Israeli, I don't speak Hebrew.

I don't want to live, I don't want to serve in an army, I don't want kids to say. And also a lot of Jews seem to die there. That's exactly right. So we're gonna stay here. We're gonna pay for seasons tickets to watch them play that sport. We're going to cheer them, right?

They do that dirty work for us. But meanwhile, we're going to basically bankroll, underwrite, clap for, or ignore the cost that that incurs upon another population that we'd rather not talk about, called the Palestinians. Yeah. Right. And they just have to fucking suck it up for us, for my great-grandchildren's eventual need to flee somewhere, you know. Ahmed in Janine

or Muhammad in Khan Yunus, whatever, has to lose his entire family. I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to live here. Yeah. Here in, you know, fucking Skokie, Illinois or Patterson, New Jersey, or wherever.

Yeah. Or the Upper West Side. Right. So the expectation we're placing on them. And then we wonder, why do people hate us so much? Now, people hate us so much for irrational reasons. There are irrational foundations for anti-Jewishness.

I'm not going to gaslight people into saying, no, you're making it all up or we're making them do it to us. But it's not fucking helping. No, it certainly is, yes. And this is the other part of Finkelstein's thing. I mean, I think he would say, yes, you're right that Zionism praise on Jews. But his whole book, the Holocaust industry, was about the shakedown of German banks. Oh, right.

And the shakedown of European countries and the uses of European guilt. Yeah. To create an iron wall of diplomatic and military and economic support. for Israel in perpetuity and that is very sinister and that starts to look like the stereotypes that we're so concerned about right of a cabal of of of of of of hock-nosed shady scheming hebes behind you know right like you and me right behind behind the scenes pulling the strings of everything which is what you know I made a video you know one of my walk-and-talk videos like one of my first forays into like

short-form satire like what you were doing I was inspired by you and I was like guys, you know, I'm really having a dilemma here because people are coming at me saying I'm an anti-Semite, I'm a self-hater, I'm actually promoting Jew hatred throughout the world. And obviously, that's my purpose. Like, that's what I'm hoping to do. That's my intention. Yeah, I'm trying. I'm doing my best.

Like, here I am trying to cause the Second Holocaust, but me, ma'am, my DMs are full of Palestinians saying, thank you, brother, I love you. Thank you for restoring my faith in the Jewish people. Thank you for restoring my faith in humanity. People like you, you are my true brother. So I'm like, this isn't working. I'm thinking I need to change tactic. I think I need to, like, get Sasha Baron Cohen and Amy

shoo-me together and go behind the scenes and fucking browbeat TikTok executives and tell them, you know, I need to get Harvard presidents fired for fucking, like, stumbling over some words in a hearing, over some bad faith questions. I'm just wondering maybe that way if we saw, if people saw us acting like a cabal of shady fucking golems, or golems or whatever the fuck, they might come for us already. Come on. Yeah. Like, honestly, guys, at this point, I'm just going to buy a fucking octopus suit. If I do it in an octopus suit, then will it happen? That's what you want, right?

Like, 100% I agree with you and that satire is like spot on because it's, it is so, like, this is good Christian baby blood, by the way. Yeah, no, it's delicious. Farm to table? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, neighbor to table. really, really irony and rich, you know, it's like Folgers, but blood libel. Irony. Yeah.

Oh, hey, look that. Israel is irony anemic. Aye, the irony dome. Yeah, but, like, I look at, I look at so many of the things that they do. And so much of, like, the media spin and, like, the PR. you know and you know they meaning israel and zionists not jews as a whole yes of course yeah yes of course no i all jews no anti-semites fuck off yes uh nazis please die um but like i look at the you know i mean not to mention the incredibly disgusting like strong arming i think of

uh that norman finklesing talks about of you know the germany and and european states they are so cucked yeah super cucked And, and, and, and, but I, just from a media perspective, I look at it and I go like, yeah, you can't on one hand, like, talk about tropes and with the other hand be like, I'm going to use the media to silence me. It's like, I am not, you are not helping. you are not helping like quash the tropes you're talking about you're wearing the octopus suit

don't wear the octopus suit stop trooping it up man yeah you're doing tropes it's like and it's why I like you know I feel like I'm going crazy whenever I see it because I'm just like I fucking hate anti-Semitism

I hate the way that Jews are give it a chance I mean I got to try it. I'm trying to tolerance, man. I'm trying to tolerate it. There's a museum.

There's a museum about it. But yeah, I'm like trying to not like turn, I'm trying to not go crazy. I'm like watching actual anti-Semitism. I'm watching a campaign of anti-Semitism coming from Israel. Playing into tropes, playing into Jewish fear, praying on Jews, praying on anyone who, like, isn't Jewish. speaking out and then saying they're doing it from as a representative of all Jews and of course praying on real live Palestinian and then of course in real life praying on real life Palestinians and and I look at it and I'm just like this is as someone who hates

anti-Semitism this is fucking atrocious and it is such a huge fucking like it just it does anti-Semitism it is the greatest like entity anti-Semitic entity in our time. And that is actually its true nature. It's not its stated purpose, but it's its covert purpose because it wants to confirm the story that says that this diseased ideology needs to continue to perpetuate itself.

As long as there's a single anti-Semitant on the planet, well, we'll keep producing them. But then this begs the question for people like you and me because I'm sure you're like me. This has been three months, right? The irony got me through maybe some of the first month. the outrage and the disgust. But at a certain point, it just starts, it's like, it becomes like, I need, I need something else

because this is going to destroy me. That's why you start a podcast, Daniel. That's the ticket to quote, quote, famous Zionist, John Lovett. John Lovett. Yeah, that's the ticket. I've been trolling him a bit, but he ignores me. But so, but what is the antidote? because we're getting sucked into this vortex of hatred.

And we can say it's not self-hatred, but it's hatred of something to do with ourselves. Sure, sure. It's hatred, you know, and that itself is corrosive. Yes. And it's exhausting, and we can't keep it up forever. And I'm starting to, you know, I'm starting to think about things like love,

which is like, it's like the actual antidote is a kind of, I mean, Cornell West is such an, an inspiration in times like this sort of what is the spirit of a blues people a jazz people a klezmer people which is what we are yeah yeah what does resilience look like it's got to do with love it's got to do with joy and and and when I look at it from that perspective instead of like shaking my fist at why look at what these Jews are exploiting Jewishness I'm like no they're not Jews to me yeah I'm not even going to accept the debate on that you're not being Jewish sorry you're I'm not the anti-Semite yeah you might be but whatever you're doing whoever you're

are, whatever you're doing in the name of, I got to stand against it because I'm, I'm actually, I've got to protect, like, whatever is valuable about Judaism lives in me. Like, I don't have kids. I know you have a kid. I'd like to have kids. If I'm going to pass Judaism onto my kids, I have to, like, preserve it, which means I have to be around people who keep it clean. Yeah. Right? I got to keep it kosher. I know. You know, and that's got nothing to do with bacon. You better have nothing to do with bacon because I'm not giving that up. I'm going to fuck that. But, but the trafe, you know, the, the, the, the uncoshiness is in the mixing of tribal supremacy with a sense of security.

You know, and we can go back to our earliest traditions and we don't have to be religious, but we can consult our actual scripture and our greatest intellectuals and our thinkers and our scholars and see that there's so much embedded in Judaism. It's so funny, Rudy had this crazy concept of Jews as the immune system of the world. Oh, Lord.

He's like, that's his idea with the chosen people. We chose to, you know, and there's something actually beautiful about that, except when you distort it even two degrees, it turns in Naziism. It's straight up Naziism. That's exactly right. And I said to him, okay, we're the, have you ever heard of autoimmune diseases? Yeah, right. Do you know about lupus?

Jupus. Yeah, the body is fighting back. The body, you know, the immune system no longer knows what's the friend and what's the enemy. Right. But, but in terms of we have to have inoculation against, against the virus. And that's what Zionism has become. Zionism is zombieism at this point.

Yeah. And in a zombie movie, you could see your best friend get bitten. Yeah. Right? And you might have to club them to death with a baseball bat in that movie, right? You might have to bash their brittle skull.

Right. Right? And say goodbye to them and cry and then, you know. But the difference is we're living in the real world where... We can't bash her brains. We can't bash their brains, but also it is curable, at least theoretically.

I believe that too. People have choice. And we have agency in terms of how we show up. And in this new year, you know, I've been taking a little break from my, um, my, uh, you know, highly deeply committed and tireless, indefatigable read, compulsive, addictive social media use. Yeah, yeah, um, which I get so much praise and thanks for, and it's very bad for me. Isn't it? It's just so, uh, but just look.

Deans of love. Oh, good God. Is it such a turn? Love me. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I am good. Tell me I'm good.

No, but I mean, let's be real. That's a dopamine hit. When someone likes your posts, it's scientific. It is. And when people who are, when people who have been silenced and who are grieving and hurting and in pain say to you, you give me hope and I can't speak now, but you can. Yeah. You know, that's a turn on.

It's exciting. However, if I start making it about me and playing that role and not coming back to us, how did this thing start, at least for me, speaking up, on October 8th, I got out my phone, I went outside and I just started, I pressed live and I started talking. I'd never done an Instagram live before. I had no reason to think anyone would tune in. I knew I had some things I needed to say to hear myself, say them to clear things up because I knew things were about to go to fucking hell.

Yes, yes. And I just started talking and I was doing it from a place of not try to get attention. not trying to prove anything, but just to put something into the world that could be an antidote or a probiotic or an antioxidant or something that would be healthy in a time that was gonna be very malnourished and very polluted, very toxic.

Now, here we are three months later and my platform's kind of blown up, relatively speaking, a lot of incentive to keep going and doing the exact same thing, but if I keep doing the exact same thing, time is moving on and my insides, are changing and everything is changing. I got to remember to reconfigure. And so I've taken a break for the past week

and I'm coming back to it now in the New Year. I want to reconfigure it from a place of like, how can I actually step outside of the entire toxic thing and only speak in a way that is clear and pure and not let these bastards drag me into their insanity. Yes. And not let them. So I can actually offer a hand out of the ditch

that they're in if they want it. Right. If they want a hand out of the, the Sarlac pit of, you know, of Zionism, of Zionism, I will. Israel advocacy. That's right. I will be Landor-Carl Rissian and they can be on solo and I'll pull them out. If they don't, I can't save them.

I know. But I can't save them if I'm sliding into it too. And if I'm constantly like, you fucking, you're ruining Judaism and all that. No, Judaism will survive you. Yes. Yes. And it's in me and it's in you and it's in our jokes and it's in our laughter and it's in our joy. And all that, you know, that's my like, that's my little.

That's my little sincerity moment for the day. I love that. And I completely feel that I, you know, I became, I had kind of a similar path. I mean, like the, you know, for the first month, though, for me, I wasn't creating content. I wasn't like making videos or whatnot. I was talking to liberal Zionists I knew. and trying to understand not knowing they were liberal Zionists

to be honest. Some I knew and I was like forced a conversation with them and then some who I was just like hey shit's kind of crazy out there right now and trying to like gauge how they're feeling and finding out that they were like yeah I know too bad we got to kill all those people they were being like Rick the hormone monster in Big Mother

what are you gonna do Why are you going to do that? Let me show you had to masturbate. That's my favorite. Nobody wants it, you're going to say. If it's off of them. But like...

Just vibe, baby. But I was like, you know, I spent, I think, the first month just kind of like not trying to give up. up on people. I still haven't given up on people. But I realized that there was kind of, I was like fighting against a current that I was not going to win because like no matter how much sense I would make in a conversation with someone and how little sense maybe they were making,

I realized that at the end of the day, the phone conversation ends. And then the social media spiral of like, you know, um, here's, you know, uh, local news footage of anti-Semitism happening on a college campus, you know, here's a faked video from one of those fucking Twitter accounts that look like news, but it's like called visigoth. Well, I forget what the fuck that is, but there's like one account that like literally doctors videos and they said, they're, they're saying we call for Jewish genocide and yeah. And they weren't. They said, we charge you with genocide. Well, that's one of the unfortunate, I'm a lyricist, so I heard that.

I'm like, oh, fuck, it's too bad. We charge Jew with Jewish, the G sound at the end of charge. It's just a, but there was a more egregious version of that in Canada. In Canada, where I'm from, it's ludicrous. Canadians are, no, I'm not even going to say it, because I'm a self-hating Canadian. I don't want to get that smear all over your lovely, all over your lovely, 15, loving, tolerant podcast. But the Canadian Jewish community is very dug in and very afraid and very, very, It's very difficult for me.

Right. And there's a group called Siege, Canadian-Israel Jewish Alliance or something like that. Yeah. And they put a video and the caption said, listen to these protesters in Ottawa chanting,

Judah, Judah, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide. Right, right. And you click play. Yeah. This is in Ottawa, okay? Right.

And where the parliament, where the government is, where the prime minister is. Yeah. You turn it on, it's like clear as day. Trudeau, Trudeau, you can't hide. It's like not even close.

Yeah. That we charge you with and we, we want Jewish. You could, if someone was listening for that, but it was just so, it was just so transparent. Yes. I mean, that, if that was like, that was my Bad Hasbara moment. Yeah. This is all they have now.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, like, you can't, if you're looking for it, if you're in that spiral of fear, I mean, it's just for me, it just reminded me in 9-11. It was just like everyone was having this 9-11 response where you were just consuming the fear. And you know, but the difference was for, I think

at least for Jewish Americans that I know, they were looking for confirmation of this kind of, that their paranoia was right the whole time. So they were looking for this and they couldn't avoid it.

They couldn't avoid because they were on social media and the algorithm was telling them, this is what you need to see. And so every conversation I was having, it was just like, you know, I was fighting against the tide. It just was not going to work. And so then I just started doing videos about people that I knew. And that was cathartic and nice and whatnot. Did it feel kind of like treasonous or like, did you feel like?

No, not at all. But only because I, I mean, only on a personal level where there was a few people who I, that's all I mean, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I don't mean to your people. I just mean to your people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, to the homies. Yeah, I mean, a little bit. There was, there's a few people who I haven't seen since and very much inspired certain videos.

And I was like, I'm sorry, but this is what you sound like to me. Yeah. You fucking, but, you know, so like. You don't like it. Don't be friends with a comedian. I know. I mean, listen, I've spent my entire career taking the shit dumb as people say. I'm using it. No, but like, I felt like that was like my mode of catharsis. But I feel you in that like the, I still believe that people will come around.

And I think the thing I'm fighting now is not resenting them, they do. Because like there are people now who, you know, said some pretty awful shit to me and my family who are real fucking quiet now, real quiet. And I think some of that, you know, and some, like part of me believes that what the reason for that is because this is just so egregious. I mean, who are you really defending now? You know, these are people who are just like, it's Netanyahu.

you know and whatnot and now they can they can do that game where you just go like oh it's these two politicians well that's i mean that's who the rape stuff is for and i'm not and i'm not weighing in on what did or didn't happen right right right but but the daily constant reminder of that will keep people like that at least quiet yes because if that happened then who am i to then it's just it's just it's just a kind of it is wet blanket on any sense of moral outrage about the present And you bring up something I want to talk about before we close out here, which is that I got a few emails from people who I was playing this clip of some psychopath in Israel, you know, on a stage with like Lee Kern and that guy, Elon fucking, you know, that guy on Twitter. He's like the PR guy. Elon Levy.

Yeah, yeah. Is that his name? Yeah. Alon Levia Yeah, Alon, yeah And then it was like Lee Kern and Michael Rappaport

Now she was basically A Rappaport's lost fucking mind But like so there was This woman I forget her name She was a psychiatrist And she was using her credentials

As a psychiatrist to say That they live next to Sociopaths And I posted about her this morning Yeah And there's you know, talked about 20,000 living,

I won't live next to 20,000 rapists. And I'm like, oh, that's, so that is your, that's the way you're going to justify this, um, you know, uh, ethnic cleansing and, and genocide. And people were like, you should push back against those claims. Uh, and, and the way I feel about it is that this is a clear, um, rhetorical trap.

It is part of, uh, the narrative control. It's not that I don't, uh, believe that people who are journalists and who are, you know, this is what they do, shouldn't be critical and shouldn't like, you know. Forensic. Yeah, be forensic about it. That's what my brother and Max are going over at the gray zone. Like they're doing, you know, and it's tough work and people hate them for it.

But I think journalists need to be asking questions. That's literally the job. But as far as you and me. And as far as you, the way I look at it is I look at it, you know, everything from the perspective of what is the. Israeli has bar a machine trying to do here. And I look at this at the same way I look at the 40 beheaded babies or the baby put in the oven or, you know, and I look at this and go, this is a trap.

The idea that you would sit around debating whether or not this happened, as someone who's not there and someone who does not have the resources and, you know, and of course, they very purposefully will make sure that journalists aren't there, you know. journalists like your brother are doing the best with what they have. And, you know, but they want us to be the guys who are debating whether the baby was put in the oven or if it was just burned like regular. Right. They want us to be put in that position because then any critic of Israel is just kind of a fucking freak. Right. We're a freak because we're going, well, how do the, we're parsing how the baby died. That's exactly right. Meanwhile, what are we not debating? We're not debating

the undebatable, which is that yesterday, you know, a hundred babies died. Right. Right. And that, and that, you know, and they were burned as well or crushed as well. Right. And, and it's not to, you know, by our, by, by our bombs and our white phosphorus and our money and our diplomatic support and our veto. Right. Right. And, you know, with the complicity, not just of our government, but also the passivity or outright support of people that I know. That's right. People that I love and people who are family and people who are friends. And so, you know, this idea that I would fall into their obvious poison pill of like, oh, are you against me too?

It's like, no, I'm not, I wasn't there. I do know that there was an attack that happened. And I wouldn't like go around trying to justify which was okay and which wasn't okay. That's not the point. The point to me is that parsing and promoting every single detail of that day has a very specific person. It's, it's the purpose. It's to keep the person who is well-meaning and the person who has empathy and has the ability to feel from speaking out. It's to keep them in this state of constantly like, on the back foot. Yeah, what can I say? What can, you know, it's like every

detail that comes out is promoted by bad faith actors, Hasparis, Israeli, you know, government officials, Israeli representatives, our own State Department, and it is this like drip, drip, drip, every day a new detail, every day a new atrocity. And the idea of like denying it to me, it's like that's, that's not my, I'm not a journalist. I don't know what happened, but what I do know is why they're doing it. And I know that when I fall into that trap, I'm just out finding myself outright because I find the New York Times to be such a suss publication based on a track record of inventing atrocities

to justify foreign atrocities by out. But when I fall into that trap and I reminded I saw downstairs at your place you have a book about The Wire. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That great line from the very first episode which Marla Daniels says to her husband, Cedric across the table.

Yeah, the game. Reddick, RIPP, right? What does she say? You cannot, the game is rigged, but you cannot lose if you do not play. Exactly. you know and you have to be you have to be really clear about which game you're going to play and which game you're not going to play right yeah you know the game of that somehow it's relevant what exactly happened for the purposes of is israel's response justified right

no Hamas could have I'm being very serious right yeah yeah yeah like Hamas could have killed your mother killed my mother and the mother of everyone I know you know killed 400 babies ripped their heads off and like done unspeakable things I mean I'm just not being terrible now but like I'm just trying to imagine the most horrific gruesome thing

they want me to imagine right you know you just meditate on what would Hamas have to have done for you to be for me to be like yes I'm sorry we have to go do what Israel's doing now it's a good idea it's morally justified it's going to lead to something better and the Palestinians basically deserve it and we shouldn't stop it. There's nothing.

Yeah. There's nothing. Yeah. Okay? And then I go back and I look at what's actually alleged based on what we know. Something like less than a thousand civilians died. Some sexual attacks happened.

Yeah. Some atrocities. Some acts of hot-blooded revenge by suicidal men who are committing one last act of homicide as a final statement of what they're doing on this planet and their godforsaken lives, that some horrible things happened at the, you know, as people broke out of a prison camp.

Right. A concentration camp. There's nothing you can tell me that happened on that day that has me budge one inch. Right. Or even flinch. And you trying to use my compassion for the purposes of shutting down

the rest of my fucking compassion, fuck you. Right. I'm not doing it. And I say that with love. And if I can, from a, like, love for something greater. Like, I'm just not falling for it. And I actually don't believe the person saying it that they actually believe it.

Right. Now, I don't know if I'm with you that I believe everyone's going to come around. I think some people will not come around. Oh, no. I don't think everyone's going to come around. And we have to, we have to hold space for those who will. We have to ask ourselves a question, what will our relationship be to them when they come around too little too late? Yeah.

There will be consequences. Yeah. We have to grieve the fact that some people are lost to us in terms of, you know, morally and spiritually. Yeah. But that's just how it is. But what are we doing to keep alive the North American world Jewishness that's going to be left?

Just like Israeli Jews there who are still going to live on that land. There's no future in which the Jews all leave. No. That's not a thing. Yeah. That's not happening. It's not a thing. And it's also not what, to me, is.

is being put forward. No, except by the most strident, terminally online. Yes, terminally online people. Like Instagram brained people who just are looking for a kind of pure hit of ideological raw. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They just want that fish scale like up their nose, into their like, yes, eradicate all that one.

And, and, and, you know, that's the seed of all kinds of means to an end, evil down the road. Yeah. And it's completely understandable. And that's also inverse. I can't go for that. can do. Right. And that's, that's just the, you know, that's just the inverse of what it's, that's just Zionism again. So, that's right. And that's one of the successes of colonialism, you know, a dear,

a dear friend of mine who's been educating me a lot about this recently, you know, points out that, like, one of the successes of colonialism is it's a virus that implants ourselves in our minds and not just in the minds of the oppressor, but in the mind of the oppressed. So that when the oppressed fights back, they do so using the mindsets and assumptions and working theories of the colonists and this is why Audre Lord, I think it was, said the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.

That's right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it's... And because you and I are Jews who were such great allies to African Americans during the civil rights struggle, we can absolutely appropriate that quote

for our own purposes because we're good. And what things do we get? What things do we get? Where are they now? Where are they now? You know, I listen to rap. look I listen to rap music and I say three words three words NWA ad rock MCA Mike D yes what haven't we done for your culture exactly you know I know M&Ms I love it

whenever I go on Netflix I go straight to the black voices tab and I say what black voices well I listen to today and now you just you're not going to let us you're not going to let's do genocide? Where's Black Live Matza? Yeah. Where is it?

Where's the Jewish voices tab? Oh God, that tab. You know, that's next. The next thing is going to be

Amazon's like, you know, lifting up of Jewish voices. Finally. And it's, finally, we'll have some

representation. And it's all going to be either just Zionist documentaries. It's going to be the entire show Fowda.

It's going to be, Sasha Baron Cohen's the spy And then like You don't mess with the Zohar Yeah yeah yeah You don't mess with the Zohan Zohar Zohar Zohan maybe I don't know

I never saw it Some people I know Who are Kind of like Who are leftists and what they said Actually It's kind of good Is it?

I don't know I've never seen it It looks like dog shit to me I don't yeah I bet it's super racist But some people I know are like Just watch it It was the odds

Yeah I mean Listen it was a different time No but you're right I mean The, the, the, I mean, I just, I have to watch my own triggers. As my dad likes to say, the trigger is the smallest part of the gun. Yeah. And one of, you know, if I, knowing myself, the thing that gets me into a seething fireball of, of, of loathing for my quote unquote own people is the self pity.

Yeah. And the self-obsession. Yeah. As if we didn't have Schindler's list. Right. Win every award. As if we didn't have fucking Exodus back in the 70s, right? You know what the theme song was?

No. To the movie Exodus, based on the lyric in yours. These are literally the lyrics. This land is mine. God gave this land to me. Oh, yeah, yeah. As if, you know, I'm not saying we run Hollywood, but it's not like we don't run Hollywood. Oh, so we invented Hollywood.

Exactly. Yeah. Chabelle had that great thing about. Yeah. He's like, that's terrible, terrible racist. It's a racist stereotype, the Jews control Hollywood. But there's a lot of Jews out there. But this notion that somehow our story is in any way marginalized.

I know, I know. Holocaust history is given pride of place in, you know. But this is the kind of thing that starts driving me down a rabbit hole of, man, fuck, we suck. And I can't live there because that is corrosive to my own pride and holding. Now I'm playing the game that you lose if you play. Yeah. And I always just look at it as like, you have.

to have an equal amount of, if not more so, a disdain for not, it's not about your own people. It's about, I mean, it's about capitalism, it's about geopolitics. It's about, you know, the project of Zionism. Like, you have to look at all of this through a perspective of like... Eurocentrism? Yeah, Eurocentrism. Understanding the plight of Mizraki Jews is very important to? Right.

The position they're in and all of this? Right. And the fact that that is like completely erased from the narrative. So it's like, you know, you look at, if you look at it purely from just like, oh, us Jews and our self-pity, you know, it's like you're- Including, including us left-wing anti-Zionist Jews and our self-pity. Right. That's where I, that's when I can realize. So when you pull yourself back. Right. Because I'm, okay, I'm being that. I'm doing it. Because it's all inside Jewish baseball. Yes. When who will save the soul of the, of the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. Ashkenazi. North American Jewish identity. Well, maybe it needs to fall apart. Maybe we need, maybe we need to submit to the fact that we've reached an inflection point, a crisis point, and something needs to be reconstituted and we need to see ourselves in a more healthy, fulsome way, you know? Yeah. And I think

it's, a lot of it is going to have to be pointedly political. And I think a lot of it is also going to have to come from a local and community level. I mean, the one thing that I, the one thing that I wish and I assume exists but I don't know about is like I would like I would like a non-Zionist Hebrew school for my child you know I would like you know a non-Zionist temple or synagogue you know I would like and I know that that has to exist

in some level but I also don't know of any. Well, if it doesn't exist, we have to create it? I'd like to live as if someone's creating it. We just have to find out who that is. We got to find out who that is. And help them, you know, because we can't be the only ones thinking about it. Yeah, we can't be.

And I know we're not. And so if it does exist, I'd like to know about it. And if it doesn't exist, someone else do it because I got a podcast. Well, and this is what I was going to say is that, you know, it may not happen in our lifetimes or you know it may not be up to us because we might just you know be the end of history but so right point is as I'm going to say to your daughter when when I leave here it's like it's up to you girl like you you got because we're we're just we're just going to we're just going to I'm just being joking I'm just totally kidding no please like like like she'll just say back to

you she'll go track too exactly because she only says tract exactly which means I'm off the hook yeah yeah I told the baby yeah she's got to do it okay up to you babe give her a high five I'm good we're good so it's up to you kids it's up to you Twatto. Twatto. But yeah. Daniel, this has been so much better than the show that I had planned. Because, like, I was, I had, like, some dumb videos that I was going to play.

And I just was, you know, but then as soon as you started talking, I was like, oh, this is so, this is nice. This is why I started this podcast. It's, like, taking these, like, Jewish conversations from, like, inside walls to outside walls. And it's, like, one of the things that I think. I like about doing this is that, like, I came to a point where I was like, you know what? The idea, because I used to never want to talk about any of this in front of anyone who wasn't Jewish. And because I was, you know, if you agreed with me and you weren't Jewish, it'd be like, you hate the Jews. And now I have come to realize that these are conversations that people have been having for years, but just not doing publicly.

And it's very nice. It's very cathartic for me. Me too. And look, again, not to get all in our egos about it, but the DMs don't lie. Yeah, DMs don't lie, dog. The actual effect, this is not the reason to do it, but the actual effect, one effect,

of non-Jewish people witnessing Jewish people talking like this, is they can breathe again. Yes. Yes. Yeah, I knew I loved Jews for a reason. Yeah, yeah. Like I knew that I felt I related to them. Right.

And it breaks the programming of this dark, This dark attempt by people to co-opt Judaism and Jewishness by claiming they represent all Jews. Like every single has bars. Every single, like, a public Zionist claims they represent all Jews. Here's a really funny trick they're now pulling. Yeah. I'll post something or a debate with somebody or whatever. And people in me and my comments be like, he is a member of a friend.

He does not represent all Jews. And I'll be like, yeah. I know. I know. That's the point. We don't claim to represent all tombs. In fact, what the best of Jewish tradition is being willing to speak in the name of

those who aren't the majority. Yes. Because those who aren't the majority aren't speaking for a reason. So it might as well be me speaking. You know, like that's my expression of my Jewish. Speaking for a minority. And then they bring out the term,

like you were talking about the weaponization of like woke social justice language. Yeah. They love this stuff, man. Like 2020 has been just a boon for Zionists. All these new academic like activisty terms and you know we can have that other conversation but well they're all from 2015 and they're all BuzzFeed but yeah exactly so that's why they don't ring totally true to

people like this is an old mean yeah that's a hundred but tokenization oh yeah how they're saying oh someone's using token Jews like you know Matt Lee or Daniel Matte or Norman Finkelstein or whoever and I'm like that's not what tokenization means you absolute tool yeah yeah yeah yeah it's not at all what it means yeah yeah yeah it's what we are is dissenters yes and there was used to be a magazine called Descent. Yeah. A Jewish magazine. Yeah. And maybe there still is. Yeah. And like also it's funny because the other term that they use a lot

is they paint any anyone's dissenting, speaking out against Zionism. They call them as a Jew, ASA Jew. Oh, right. Right. As a Jew and then they say something anti-Zionists. As if that's not what they're doing. That's all they do. All they do is just claim like your Jewish friends are scared and it's just like you can't claim to be all Jews you know New York Times headline why all your Jewish friends can't stop shaking that was in the New York Times can't stop shaking see that's that buzzfeed language

I'm talking about it's just like your Jewish friends are scared and they literally can't they really they literally can't with this um they're screaming like And it's just so, oh, childish. Your Jewish friends are shaking. Yeah, well, it's trauma porn. It's like your place of power literally in this fucking diabolical matrix is sitting in front of your computer generating re-traumatized feelings that make you feel scared and alone,

screaming it to millions of people and having people being like, yes, girl. Like, yeah, exactly. And then it doesn't make the feeling go away. No. And now you're just getting off on it. Yeah. And now you're just trying to infect the whole world with it and use that to make them shut up. It's terrible.

Yeah. It's brow beating people. So basically, I think what we can agree here and now, you know, as a Gen Xer, I can say this. As a Gen X. This might be a little, you know, self-hating for you. But it's millennial's fault. Oh, yeah. I agree.

All of your lingo, your language, your technology. I know. We, we, and. Because now Israel's tweeting. I know. Like a child. Like a, like a, like a, like a. Like a 23-year-old on BuzzFeed, so it's like, 2015.

Yeah, it is, it is watching them tweet like a child is like killing me because I'm just like, who is this for? We need to, we need to do some like some readings. Yes, yes, we do this again sometimes? Let's do it again very soon. And be more like a hundred percent comedian about it. Yeah, I love it. And you're, so you live in New York, right? I live in Brooklyn, New York, yeah.

So we will, of course, be doing through the computer again. Well, you know, I just started seeing somebody out here, so... Who knows? Maybe. If that happens, Daniel, I would be... I'm just saying I might be visiting more. Oh, okay. You're not moving.

What do you need New York for? It's all the rats. I'm telling you, if there's another Holocaust, you're going to be begging to come to New York. That's the safe space for Jews. That's true. That's true. That's my Zionism. is eventually moving to New York and getting a spot at the comedy seller.

People are, oh my God. Hide me, comedy seller. Would you hide me and give me a second headlining gig? Yeah, yeah. Would you hide me and give me a spot? Daniel, thank you so much for coming on Ben Hasbara. We really appreciate it. I'm sorry, Matt, I'm sorry, excuse me,

but you're mispronouncing the world. Hasbara. Hasbara. Hasbara. Hasbara. Yeah, but, you know, I'm going to pronounce it the way I pronounce it as a way of shitting on. In Hebrew, it be Hasbara, ra.

Oh. Bad is ra. Oh, that's right. Hasbara ra. Yeah, that's right. Bad is raw. I say raw, not ra, rah, rah, rah. Ra, rah, rah.

Ra. I was also bad at French accents when I was a kid. Thank you so much to everyone for listening. You would follow Daniel on his social media. Daniel, what are your handle? My handle, my one and only handle on Twitter and Instagram. Twitter is much more snarky and bantery and Instagram is a little bit more sincere

but it's all me. Daniel B-M-A-M-A-T-E and if people want to check out my musical theater work, it's at Danielamate.com and if people want to check out my mental chiropractic service called Walk with Daniel where I take walks with people

and help them get their minds unstuck very quickly. It's not therapy, it's not coaching, it's like let me get in, get out, line up your mind on a situation where you're feeling stuck. Crack your brain. Crack your brain so that you can your best self and just go and do the thing, walkwooddaniel.com.

Check it all out. And patreon.com slash frotcast for all of you out there who are watching the show and are like, I'd like to support monetarily, Patreon.com slash fracast. In other words, I'd like not to be a raging anti-Semite. That's right. It is anti-Semitic to not give me $5 a month or $8 a month. If you want to hear your name, shout it out on a show about the wire. you'd have to listen to that in order to also. Anyways, Patreon.com slash frotcast. Email me with anything badhasbara at gmail.com.

All right, everyone. Thanks again so much for listening. And until next time, I'm trying to figure out a sign out. One sign out was there is a list. And it was very specific to that guy who was like pointing at the calendar. But I feel like people don't know that. What's a good sign out? Until next time.

I mean, if you want to choose. This isn't the wire pod. right right yeah if it was that you could say you want it one way but it's the other way yeah so if for the wire podcast they say if you come at the king you best not miss yeah so now I need this one uh what is the what is the best keep uh don't uh okay and uh I mean I could be sincere and just be like um free Palestine but yeah yeah seems too sincere how about I Yeah, we're going to have to think about that. We'll figure it out.

But until next time, there is a end phrase coming. Thank you so much. Don't believe everything. Don't believe anything that Israel tweets. Yep. Bye. Jumping jacks was us. Push-ups was us.

Grab-maga, us. All karate us. Takey Molly us. Michael Jackson, us. Yamaha keyboards. Us. Georgia binks on us. door was us.

Heath Ledger Joker us, endless fed success. Happy meals was us. McDonald's was us. Being happy us. Beacon yoga us. Eating food, us. Breathing air, us. Drinking water us.

We invented all that shit.