Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - Bad Hasbara 56: Jewishly, with Bilal Sharmoug

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

Matt and Daniel are joined by Palestinian-American comedian Bilal Sharmoug to witness limits - of Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch’s commitment to tikkun olam - of British novelist Howard Jacobson’s capacity to willfully misunderstand the Israel Palestine conflict - and and of the audience’s tolerance for spotty Michael Caine impressions.Please donate to Doctors Without Borders: https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/Follow Bilal Sharmoug: https://www.instagram.com/wellfedcomicSubscribe to the Patreon https://www.patreon.com/badhasbaraSubscribe/listen to Bad Hasbara wherever you get your podcasts.Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/5RDvo87OzNLA78UH82MI55Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bad-hasbara-the-worlds-most-moral-podcast/id1721813926Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/bad-hasbara/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Yo! Bich, a ribbon polka toast We invented the terry tomato And weighs USB drives and the ironed Israeli salad, oozy stents and jopas orange crows Micro chips is us iPhone cameras us Taco salads us

Pothomas us All of garden us White foster us Zabrahamas As far as us Yo, welcome to Bad Hasbara. Yo, the world's most moral podcast. That's right.

I'm your most moral host, Matt Lieb. And I'm the only person, even on the planet, even in the running for slightly moral. For slightly the same, which is to say your other most moral co-hors. host, Daniel Mate. That's right. So excited for all of you to be here with us today on this wonderful whenever we put this out day. Shout out to producer Adam Levin for stepping in in my stead on the last. Yes, that's right. Live stream. That's right. Daniel missed the live stream. I hear it was fabulous. Well, you know, you know, listen, we did we did what we could without you and what it turns out what we could do was you know just kind of exactly what was

expected which was just me um ranting and raving um and adam just coming in with uh some killer jokes it was pretty it was pretty it was pretty did your daughter feel celebrated adequately oh absolutely absolutely i mean she she was at daycare so you know i don't even know what she was doing but uh i celebrated her and she definitely felt happy when she came home and saw all the goddamn presence and she's still at age two at this point uh

what just happened there my fucking i gotta get rid of this goddamn amazon home thing i've had for like 10 years and it just talks to me randomly it thinks i'm talking to it i'm not it's fucking ridiculous and it's like you know BDS and stuff but i kind of feel like you know i it's still

I can tell it to play a song and it will so I'm like well that's kind of sick anyways what's that what were you saying has as your Amazon home robot developed sentience and realize that your politics are it calls me towards BDS and now it's now it's calling you a self-hater it's calling me a capo would you like to play a song on Spotify capo all it does is call me self-hating to you or Hey, Alexa, play me, play me some rap music. Yeah, I know where we go.

Would you like to hear Shook Ones part one or two? Clearly, you ain't a crook son. Yes, it is, it's, I got to get rid of this fucking thing. But yeah, no, it was, it was great. I'm so, so happy to have you back. You know, this is, this is our fucking 56th episode, you know, we're still going strong. and people are joining the Patreon, which we really appreciate.

This is the episode where the Suez Canal gets invaded. That's right. 56. Good year. Good year. Today's episode is brought to you by Doctors Without Borders. Go to Doctors Without Borders.org and go ahead and fucking, you know, donate money. You could go to our Patreon and give us money there.

That's fine. But please, before you do anything like that, you know, send the money to somewhere where it can actually be, you know, used for people who aren't safe at home in America. Although I don't know how it's safe. Well, be sure to type in the name in the right order. It's not Borders Without Doctors.org. That's a joint Republican Democrat page for their shared immigration policy. Yes. I think Borders Without Doctors is what Israel is trying to make Gaza.

That's right. except without the border part they don't want to be any borders either they just like the without doctors that's right that's their favorite part yeah they were really pissed when they found out that they were trying to do you know like help and you know bring in some sort of medical infrastructure to gaza they're like whoa whoa whoa that sounds like that sounds like that involves doctors yeah sounds like it's with doctors so you want to go to doctors without borders dot org yes that is where we are donating today that is what we are supporting thank you for listening to this show and thank you for supporting the causes that are doing real great work on

yeah doing actual work and not just two guys talking shit um although you know hey this is needed to you know doctors without borders they may be helpful but they're not funny they're also doctors without punchlines yeah right how about doctors without some fucking set up punchline guys how about a premise thought of a premise the same premise always with them people need help i've heard that one hack shut up needs work needs work god hit an open mic doctors without borders um more like doctors making me bored dude all right i'll work on that one too so uh and also shout out to producer adam levin we already gave him a shout out but i'm giving him another shout out five stars in review help us out uh dan by the way we're up we're up to 3.9 stars on

uh spotify hey we're crawling our way back from the uh hasbara attack you know the fucking iron stars initiated baby they're their iron thank you to all you bad hasbara listeners who are iron doming our stars in review on spotify you guys are the true heroes you guys are the real ones uh Thank you for resurrecting our rating and fighting the good fight. Yeah, but it's not over yet. So please, listen to us on Spotify. Give us five stars. Daniel, what's the spin?

Today, the spin is this really cool new album by a Tunisian artist who lives in my neighborhood. She's become a friend of mine. Her name's M-L. I forget her last name. You can find her on Instagram. E-M-E-L is how you spell her first name. And it's this incredible album, which I can't even pronounce the title, but it translates as woman. And she collaborated with a bunch of women from all over the world.

She's like a Tunisian Bjork. I mean, you can get that sense from the presentation. And I saw her in concert at National Sawdust here in Brooklyn, put in an incredible show. She collaborated with female rappers from Iran, Lebanon, I think, Palestine. Like, it's this big Arab feminist. techno pop masterpiece. It's really beautiful. I love it. It's spelled M-R-A, I think, the title. M-R-A? Men's Rights Activist? That's sort of, that's what that is what the word is on the title, but I think it's either an acronym or it's a transliteration of an Arabic word meaning more.

Probably, but I'm going to go with it's a woman doing a album called men's rights activist. yeah exactly then i've got digible planets blowout comb which is the 30th anniversary of this incredible sophomore album from 1994 can't recommend it out of the enough and then just to end the high holiday season and just because israel basically keeps saying this to us you want it darker leonard cohen yes lennie beautiful you want it darker we kill the flame and um people sometimes are like

Leonard Cohen was a Zionist. He wrote a poem to the IDF heroes of 1967. Well, I don't know. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't. But he also wrote an incredible poem to Israel about how it's like defiling the Holy Land and killing itself. And I think the man with a poet's soul could see when, you know, when a looney tune state was acting like looney Tunes. have we um have we read that on this podcast yet i don't think we have oh man we we need to do that

because it is um it's it's incredible and and i i remember yes a hundred percent and i it was something that i think i found out about because people were doing the thing where they're like wait lernard cullen is a zionist and someone was like uh-uh check out what he wrote here and uh yeah you know this is the thing about uh zionism in israel is uh i give more grace to the older generation who were around when Israel was a baby state. They were around for, you know, born before the creation of Israel. And they may have thought incorrectly that this was a good idea. And, you know, that's the thing about ideas is sometimes they take a second before you go, like, wait, way, way, wait.

Is this a bad idea? And I know that's, you know, cold comfort to anyone who in 48 got kicked out of their homes and murdered by Israeli terrorist forces, but, you know, it's, for disconnected diaspora Jews, I can see how they would be like, yeah, this, this solves anti-Semitism before realizing. Well, because it solved the problem of making us, it made us feel better about ourselves for a while. Yes. After, you know, I think it's hard to imagine what it must have been like to live in the shadow

of the Holocaust. Yeah, absolutely. If you didn't know much about what this whole Israel thing involved, you know, 22 years after the end of the Holocaust, a Jewish army rides into Jerusalem and, quote unquote, liberates it. And now, you know, we can happily pray. Like, triumph, redemption, all that kind of stuff. And I think that was big in the popular North American ethos in the late 60s, early 70s. Yeah. And just the rewriting of.

Jewish history felt like, you know, it's, I can see how being around for it, you would be like, oh, man, this is history, you know, a place of our own and, you know, a new tough Jew that's got muscles and doesn't have any allergies. Oh, I want to be that. And then, you know, you see them decimate Lebanon in 82 and you're like, oh, no, are we the baddies? Yeah. Now, that's around the time that Bob Dylan, by contrast, went out and put out a song called Neighborhood Bulley, which is one of this sort of sarcastic, like, ah, everyone's always picking on the neighborhood bully. He's just protecting his turf.

And, like, there's no extra layer of irony to that. He was just full on, like, why is everybody picking on Israel in the aftermath of Lebanon? Yeah, and that's not so, that's not so defensible. Oh, I did see, I didn't know that. That sounds sarcastic. It was, it was a rough transition. He was coming out of his Christian period. Oh, God.

His transition drug, his methadone, was Zionism, getting off the hardcore Jesus. Sort of an unfortunate trajectory. It happens. I'm not sure what happened to his views on. I mean, I don't know that he has rigorous views on things. I think he just has, like, characters he plays for a year. Yeah, I don't even know what he's doing anymore. I feel like he's probably, I would love it if he's just, like, just eating hot chicken sandwiches and watching Netflix, just like a normal guy.

you know what I mean good for him no he's touring he's touring and he's touring okay we're going to talk about something real quick before we bring our guest in I just want to do a little bit from our segment blood leable oh yeah I've not I've not played that stinging a while I forgot how long it is That one had another 15 seconds. And it's just music and text. Yeah, there's not much going on with that one. So before the show started, I got a DM from Friend of the Pod, David Sheen, who sent this tweet. It was a tweet by the ambassador of Israel in Poland, Yaakov Levne or Livna, showing a Polish

political cartoon that I just I need you to see it is the Death Star being like blowing up Alderan and then in Polish Darth Vader

sitting Netanyahu style with an Israeli flag in front of him and he's saying in Polish we conducted a limited military operation precisely aimed into the military infrastructure of terrorists I would like to

speak to the people of Alderan I'd like to speak The rebel alliance Is putting your families in danger The rebel alliance Is the ones who are hurting you We should have peace between Alderan And the empire

Our issue is not with the Ewox I would like to say I look forward to the trees that they've tied So that they smash in the heads of the at-ats We urge you To exit your for dwelling places now. So we can destroy all the trees

and then you can come back and we look forward to sitting around their last remaining embers of your planet and singing with you as the ancients did in our shared language, yubnub

yub yubhubhub chabhubhubhubh chubnobb um so he wrote in this tweet which is my favorite thing, very sad to see a blood libel spread by a party in the Polish parliament. Political messages cannot include anti-Semitism and xenophobia.

What are we doing? What is, at this point, blood libel means nothing. Are you saying that for thousands of years, christened them as accused Jews of blowing up Alderon? It's just this idea that like, this is blood libel, you know, the centuries old. idea that all Jews are Darth Vader. Every Jew is a Sith Lord. The breathing thing does track, as many of us

do have emphysema or or just, we're just short of breath. Yeah. Or we lead sedentary lifestyles and have weewee. I'm a wesey guy, you're a wheezy guy. Weezy. Love wheezy. Yeah,

weezy. That's Lil Wayne for those who don't like lean. But yeah, just the idea that you know we're calling this blood libel like at some point at some point i'm offended because like these are like the ideas around a lot of these like old anti-semitic tropes are not um like they are real things there were christians who were just like doing pogroms because a child would go missing and they said oh the jews next door are using uh our child's blood to make their matzah like this is like this is a documented thing there's a lot of a different anti-sumet

tropes that are, you know, documented absurdities that people believed about Jews. When you just start saying, Darth Vader, calling Darth Vader Israeli is blood libel, I just go like, I don't think you really even care about words. I think you just haven't fun with it.

Adam says Waddo is the only Star Wars blood libel. That is true. It was true. Waddo was, I mean, man, if you don't remember Waddo, was the apparently the pod racer dealership owner

very crooked nose and he had a lot of slaves well Misa don't remember any other racial stereotyping in the Star Wars in the Star Wars Misha sure think the Jews had it

had it worse Misha Bustin Misa Capo or the Trade Federation that was just Chinese for no reason. That shit was wild, dude.

The idea of, I'm sorry this is off topic, but if George Lucas just going, can we make these trade federation guys more Chinese? I think I want to see more Chinese looking guys. And everyone's like, I'm not questioning him. He made

Boba Fett. Anyways. The Darth Vader thing, I mean, the blood label thing, the fact is literally the only Jewish thing in that cartoon is the Jewish star on the Israeli flag on the desk of Darth Vader. That's right.

And again, it's the ultimate just, you know, blood libel by association, the fact that we're criticizing a government that's represented by the Jewish star. I mean anytime we talk about that government, it's now the same as blood libel from centuries ago when Jews didn't have a state. Yes.

That actually did documented things. Yes. It's 100%. Everything you said is exactly right. It is the idea that, in fact, they could have gotten rid of the Israeli flag there and that you still would think it's anti-Semitic because you're like, wait a second. Is that referencing the Israeli government doing, you know, like war crimes and then saying they did a limited strike? Like, they'd still find it offensive because at this point to even talk about the Israeli government doing. crimes against humanity is just considered it's just considered trait you know antisemitic blood liable which is uh not true man it's not true because uh you are a government that is doing that and we will get into the way that is defended i'm actually just now imagining him doing a video for every single planet and star system that the empire comes to ice creatures of hawth our war is not with you it is with your

government of whatever those whatever that abominable snowman guy was from Hawth. The Wampa Beast. Yeah, Wampa Beast. Yeah. You know. Your people sleep inside of the guts of Banthus.

Slice open the, oh, it's Tontons, yeah. We need your help to throw the Palestinian people into the pit of Karkoon, where they will be slowly digested for a period of 10,000 years. oh my god we have had it we have had intensive discussions with the sarlac yes the rancor is on

side too that's so funny oh man the tattooing accords yes the tattooing accords so um to talk more about uh hasbara and everything that's going on uh we have a great guest a hilarious comedian uh who I met recently doing a stand-up show that was a fundraiser. It is Palestinian-American comedian Balal Sharmoog. How's it going, boys? What's up, dude. Thanks for having me. First, I just want to say that blood label intro, it might be my, I mean, I almost fell out

of my chair. That was insane. Yeah, you know, I did, I did, that's, okay, to be fair, it's most, just something I found for free on an Adobe Premiere and I was like I'm going to put a blood label in front of it just hit me out of nowhere

out of left field. Hell yeah dude I got stings for days dude I got stings I got bumpers I got fucking you know random shit we got this one thing from Glenn Gary Glenn Ross oh oh Patel yeah

that's it's you useful sometimes. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Boil Charmog? Fucking, what do you get these? What do you fucking get these deadbeats? What are you getting? First and foremost, I was telling somebody I was going to come on the bad Hasbro a podcast and they told me they're like, oh, like the gummy bears.

And first of all, I was like, okay, I know I look like a guy who would do a gummy bear podcast. A little bit. But then a tear fell down my eye and I said, well, how beautiful it must not be to not out of the horrors of the world. I know. It is, it is nice that there's people out there who go like, what is, what does that mean as farah? And I just go like, oh, my sweet summertime. And then I proceeded to take that light and get into a long winded explanation. That basically ended with, you know, and sometimes there are just things you can't explain.

Yeah. Yeah. Which is what, this is often what I end up saying after. I'd take a certain kind of gummy bear. Yeah, if you have a bad haribou, then all of a sudden you're shitting out your butt, shitting all that blood out your butt, you know what I mean? You know, man, there's just some things you can't explain. Give me another gummy. Give me another one.

I like the clear white ones. Those are the best one, and it's because it's like some sort of pineapple-ish flavor or coconut. I don't know what it is, but it's really good. Am I allowed to say I like the white gummy bears the most? I feel like everyone got real quiet it when I just said I have a preference for white gummy bears. Everyone's just looking at me.

No, I think you're right. Yeah, I think it's okay. I was, I was thinking about the kinds of gummy bears that you as a sober person don't do. What kind of gummy bears do I as a sober person not do? Is there a drug I haven't heard about? Well, no, but there's gummy bears with drugs you have heard about in them.

Inside of them? Gummies is a popular delivery tool. That's what all the kids are doing now, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, with the times. dude i fucking got sober before before all the cool weed shit i got sober at a time where there was only two types of weed it was like swag and chronic and then sometimes chronic would be so like way too way too strong and i would just like i would have a little emotional meltdown which i think

is is the best way to do it because now if you want to get back into it it's scary there's so many things out there's too many choices i feel like it's you go to a you know like a dispensary and it's just like a look staring at a netflix menu just like i don't know what i want bring back the swag chronic binary that's what i say i when times are simple i feel like if the soviet union were still around that's those are the choices they'd have and they would like come to america for the like baskin robins The two true genders, Adam says. The weed gender binary. Simpler times, huh?

Simpleer times, man. We got vanilla and chocolate. All these kids walking around calling themselves mid. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Makes me sick. Yeah. It's like mid is just the non-binary version of weed.

Yeah. So you guys met at a comedy show. Yes, we did. Yes. Yes. We met her at a comedy show, and you, so you're a Palestinian-American. I want to ask, you know, how's the last year been? Yeah.

You know, I've been thinking about that because I did a show last week and, you know, I get to the portion where I say I'm Palestinian, you know, and the crowd just like goes crazy. It's awesome. You know, it's amazing. But then also I did comedy October 8th. Yeah. You know? Yeah, yeah.

And that was like. whoa, people didn't know what they could laugh at. And I didn't know necessarily how I even felt about everything that was going on. You know, at the time, too. I just needed an outlet to get out. But, yeah, it's been an interesting year. I think, obviously, it's been a very hard year, you know, with everything that's going on. But in a unique way, it's also been kind of a very uplifting year in terms of, like,

the massive amounts of support that, you know, I never thought I'd see in my life. time yeah and in in terms of the the comedy scene um i feel like one thing i like to talk to especially comedians on the show about is uh the the kind of shift in that and the way uh that people um at least in my experience people who used to like talk about uh you know politics and whatnot it was like part of their brand or whatever um how many of them just completely shut down after October 7th of last year where they just decided, you know, it's not my place to have an opinion one way or the other about whether or not war crimes are good. And what did you, what was your experience within the comedy scene?

Because I know when we did the show together, one of the great things about doing these like shows with uh where the the premise essentially is like a fundraiser for gaza or um you know some sort of organization that is helping people uh everyone in the green room seems to be like very uh happy that they're able to talk openly about this kind of stuff yeah no there's yeah there's a difference um between doing a show where you know the people are coming you know just support pal saying you know everybody's on your side it's a home game i call that a home game yeah yeah you know and then you know and whereas you're doing a show at a random club you know in north hollywood you don't know who's in the audience uh maybe sometimes you have to dip your

toes in first you know and and kind of gauge the audience so what has so what has your comedic angle been or angles i mean like for any comedic in approaching this you need an angle of approach I think Adam must have just said something funny people chuckled out but I missed it because I was It was a very L.A. reference too

Yeah, very very very I won't bother but I'll just feel left out You know Matt's approach Obviously or one of his approaches In his sketch comedy scenes seems to be Stand up But I'm talking about your

Oh oh oh yeah yeah yeah the videos I do yeah yeah uh which i could imagine you bringing into your sketch your stand of comedy but yeah yeah impersonating a liberal zionist twit and kind of watching you know exposing the cognitive dissonance and the comedic contortions that a mind goes through when it's trying to hold on to increasingly incompatible ideals like human rights and i'm a good person on the one hand and i support the state of israel on the other so he exaggerates that that's and he does it extremely well not to make your hilarious comedy so much less hilarious by dissecting it and explaining it. Oh, dissect the way. Yeah.

But I'm just wondering for you in terms of your craft as a comedian, Bill Al, I'm sure you have your own emotions, your frontline reaction to it all, which I imagine is not to necessarily laugh at it. How do you transmute whatever's happening for you organically in the face of what's been happening into something you can bring on stage? And what are your preferred approaches to tackling at this topic? Yeah, you know, I think, it's it's a lot of just bringing your emotions on stage but also i like to just heighten

kind of the ridiculousness of some of the aspects of it some of the some of the things going on you know like i have a joke where i say like white people i love your support for palestine but you know calm down you know a guy came up to me the other day he's like we got to stop what israel's doing i'm like thank you it's a genocide he said yeah and they're controlling the weather with their minds and i'm like well come on I don't know if you're necessarily on my side when you're doing that, you know. And plus they control it with their money, not their minds. And so it's like, so it's like little things like that just kind of taking like the most

ridiculous aspects of what's going on right now. Ridiculous, but also super uncomfortable because, like that joke points exactly at a really uncomfortable spot, which is, well, when you got a big. section of the world Jewish population, acting in ways that map pretty well onto some pretty nasty inhuman stereotypes. How do you navigate that? And at what point do you stop somebody and say, thanks, your support is starting to feel like recruiting me into a conspiracy theory or something super racist that I wouldn't want to be a part of.

But at the same time, it feels pretty good to have people on the side of Palestine for one. Exactly. And so that's, like, dramatizing and heightening your own discomfort in that moment strikes me as, like, a brilliant thing to mock. 100%. Because it is like, you know, I go on Twitter and I, like, see a post of somebody who, like, post something, like, really profound and insightful about Palestine. And then I'll, like, go through the rest of his tweets. I'll be like, oh, no. I know. It's such a bummer, too, because I feel like, you know, unfortunately, I get too much. of my

like exposure to different people from Twitter you know I'm like I'm like two I just never got that into like TikTok I use Instagram but it's not like I'm I just like my algorithm is all just kind of like funny videos of shit like completely

not politically related so Twitter which is now the algorithm is just favoring either super Zionists or neo-Nazis. And so, like, I'll see something that conforms to my political anti-Zionism, and I'll be like, oh, hell yeah. And then I'll, like, want to like the post.

And then I go, let me just see real quick, whatever. And then it's like just neo-Nazi shit, neo-Nazi, neo-Nazi. I'm like, bro, what am I? Like, oh, damn it. You just, it's very annoying. And a lot of like Zionists will do the thing where they'll be like, well, these are the people you're in bed with just so you know. So, you know, if you're at a march and there's one Nazi there and no one tells them to go home, you're at a Nazi march. And I'm just like, have you ever seen a Zionist march that didn't include a healthy dose of normalized racism,

a normalized genocidal language. And it's not just coming from fucking randos. It's coming from the government. The people you guys voted in. Yes. It's just crazy to me because I'm just like, you want to talk about Nazis.

We could talk about Nazis. But yeah, at the same time, I'm just like, can we please stop following accounts that are just called like, you know, the goi knows. You know. You really have to let those people finish. the chant before you decide if you're going to join in.

I know. It's like, from the river to the steat, Palestine will be free. From those money-grubbing hook, nose, use money-lending. My controling. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, all right, guys, we got to get out of here. Oops, oops. But yeah, has there, in the last year, have you been talking, what kind of, what are the

conversations you've been having with other? people in comedy yeah i just feel like um since october 7th a lot of comedians who i didn't even at first know we're jewish even um just started having some crazy radical ideas you know i was like wait a minute dude you were like a nice guy they're like finish them yeah finish them on give them hell and i'm like wait a minute you were like you invited me here fucking the birthday party yeah yeah and it's just been so like eye opening

in like for like the first six months dude I was like having back in force and DMs like just trying to like rationalize with people you know just be like yeah look look at me man hey I'm Palestinian I'm not so bad you know and like you know and then it just turned into like I'd be sending articles and they'd be like that's an anti-Semitic article

and I'm like it's the UN what are you talking about Yeah. It's funny. Everyone has the, it's the exact same trajectory. It's the starting out with the DMs. Hey, I've noticed that you've been saying some shit that leads me to believe that you've lost your mind. I'm hoping that we can talk about it and that you will see that you've lost your mind. And then a little bit of like, well, no, yeah, I know. Things are just crazy. Obviously, I've like very nuanced views. Cut to, you know, a month later. You're just back and forth sending articles. one person like you're sending it from like you know human rights watch and they're sending it from like human rights watch watch watch yeah human rights watch watch exactly just like opinion articles in the new york and like see this is the facts and i'm like i don't think so yeah right yeah exactly where they're just like okay so there's a new opinion piece by brett stevens that i think you really need to read and it's entitled why some people don't have souls. Yeah. Are they animals or are they human? Yeah. You're just like, hmm, feel like you're choosing your op-eds really specifically. Yeah.

And yeah, so that was like kind of crazy. I mean, I had a tough time even like the comedy scene. I would be at places and like I'd hear somebody make like a really bad joke, you know? Yeah. And just like, you know, the comic and me is like you know it's a joke everybody's trying something now but like the palestinian in me i would literally stand up and boo people like i just you know like i fucking wasn't having it for a while you know yeah so it's uh yeah it is crazy to see kind of the how people's true colors come out sometimes yeah no it is it is wild i mean uh i would you know i would go to different shows and I would have this experience. I don't know if you can relate to this.

Where because of my, the things I would post about and whatnot, I would have at least one person kind of show up, like just like sidle up to me at some point in a, you know, dark corner of wherever we're performing and go like, hey, I really love this stuff that you're talking about with Palestine. I think it's really important. and they would like whisper it but let me ask you guys like are there are there comedians out there making pro-Israel jokes in comedy clubs right now yes yes there are but from what i've like belmar types is that the vibe certainly bill mar i mean yeah yeah but like there's Well, Balal, you give me your answer to that.

I don't know. I think from what I've seen, you know, the guys who are going to do it are towing it. You know, they're not necessarily dipping full, full-blown genocide on stage, you know. So what is their, what's their bit? What's their, what's their angle? What do they think is funny? I mean, it depends on who you're talking about. But a recent example I saw is, um, uh, it was a big.

bit about genocide and about the definition of the word genocide. And essentially, the joke was about, you want to talk about genocide. And it wasn't directly comparing it to the Palestinians either. It was about someone else calling something else a genocide. And then it led into a thing about how as a Jew I you know let me tell you what genocide actually is and it was a you know

it was a funny angle but it was also very much coming from a place of let me do a bit about how no one else can say anything is a genocide except for us I mean I feel like there is a joke to be made there by someone

to say all these marginalized groups who've been throwing around the term genocide to describe their plight in America for the last 15 and 20 years. Are you guys going to keep using that word after this? You know, like, might that be a little hyperbolic now? But that's, but the premise of that joke is that what we're looking at actually is that.

It's a little inconvenient for, you know, it's like we might have to pair back some of our rhetoric. Yeah. And I've seen people use like, for example, like, that's like gays for Palestine you know as like something that's like such an oxymoron or something like that and you know that's whatever it's like it's one of those things where it's like towing it but it's not necessarily going into it's just a quick aside yeah but it's a very quick way to see where someone is coming from and it's a way of people like testing the waters and stuff and

to be honest like the the types of stuff that i have seen especially in l.A. has been tame compared to the stuff that you see uh i mean i feel like new york they have like there's certain comedy clubs that are just about like having zionist comedians and stuff because uh you know in la i think everyone is um they're more uh you know thirsty for mainstream uh glory yeah 100 percent man they're keeping it very um mainstream well you've given me an idea from next time i want to have a really really bad date night i'll go find one of those Zionism comedy clubs. Take my lady friend

and go be miserable. But I, Breath, as the worst comedy club in America. But I wanted to veer into this conversation about liberal Zionists and about Yom Kippur. So we recently

online... You're comfortable making fun of Jews. Yes, Bila, we should have checked with you. We're going to be making fun. We're going to be making fun. We're going to be making fun. of some jews today we're gonna talk man they're my cousins dude it's all in the family at the end of the day man come on now play uh don't tempt me with a good time baby what i was born this way um but there is a uh a rabbi i believe he's um a reform rabbi uh named rabbi Emmy Hirsch, whose video of his speech during Yom Kippur services went viral.

And this was something that he put out, he put out himself, all right? There's not, you know, something that it wasn't selectively edited in order to draw outrage. It wasn't leaked. No, it wasn't leaked. And it was incredible. In fact, he has now created a new soundboard on Bad Hasbara, just from the shit he said in the speech alone. Oh, that's so great. Yes.

But first, I will play some of his speech, and we can kind of go through it because good stuff. Good stuff. He mostly is directing this at children who are watching this on the Internet. This is not a room filled with Jewish youth. who are a left-wing anti-Zionist. So it's very clear he's not playing to the room. He's playing to the future virality of this clip. He's also playing to the parents of those kids who are not there.

They are in the room. Their kids didn't come with them this year. And the parents are feeling very rejected and upset. And like they want someone on their side. This guy is basically, I said this on Twitter. This guy is basically if Matthew Modin played the villain character in some Stranger Things spin-off set in an Eastern Seaboard Hebrew school in the early 90s, the very early 90s, and the soundtrack, just like the Stranger Things thing is, you know, it's just total

fan service for 80s nostalgia. The soundtrack would team with like early, like early 90s Beastie Boys, like Check Your Head Beastie Boys, and PJ Harvey and the breeders and fucking, they might be giants and de la soul and there'd be a real big climate you know how like master of puppets formed this big oh yeah climactic viral epic stranger things climax scene while it would be on yom kippur and it would be all the students singing hunger strike by temple of the dog we're going hungry exactly and there'd be and they'd be fasting in solidarity with Palestine and this guy is losing control of the young Zionist minds. Yeah.

So, uh, his theme would be be Beck's loser. Bex loser. Doesn't he look like Matthew Moodyne? He does. He does. And some people were saying he looked like Stephen Colbert, which is kind of white dude with glasses syndrome. I feel like, uh, you know, as a white dude with glasses.

Looks a bit also like Alan Ruck. He looks the most like Alan Ruck. Um, he does have some Connor Roy energy to him. Yes. But here is some selections from his speech. And if you do not feel this special bond with other Jews, you're emotionally damaged, Jewishly. And I say to all of our young people.

By the way, you're emotionally damaged, Jewish. Jewishly. That, of course, that of course is on the soundboard. You're emotionally damaged, Jewishly. I mean, like, how this is? I feel like you're emotionally damaged, Jewishly is the real as shit I've ever heard. Oh, my. I'm like, yeah, dude.

I feel like there's people who are emotionally damaged, and then there's people who are Jewishly emotionally damaged. This guy's got megachurch pastor vibes. I know. It's just, it's really, you know, it's like when your two favorite worlds collide. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it makes the worst thing you could possibly. imagine um we need to really do a deep dive into like uh the entire modern reform movements um kind of deciding to mirror a christian super churches and evangelicalism uh it is like it is it's wild

but actually that that brings me to my other comparison it feels like a footloose type movie you know yeah like there's a there's a there's a pastor father but a zionist Shaliyah, like a member of the UJA or some kind of mainstream Jewish organization and his son or his daughter is going to this liberal Zionist Hebrew summer camp and like, I don't know, words like Nakbah are coming up

and like he needs to step in and be like, no, you are not doing a Dabka at Visitors Day talent show. You want to get loose, foot loose. Kick out the Israelis. Jelly juice. Please, Luris from the river to the sea. Kill all Jews.

Woo. Oh, God. Just the fear is in the edge. Oh, boy. We're going to make that. We're going to, all right. We're going to continue with Rabbi Ami. No, it's too good.

It's wow. I love your generation. So sweet. I think you're amazing. Know that we tried to instill in you a sense of justice, righteousness, virtue, honor, rectitude, honesty, and decency for all people.

And other human qualities that make me bunch up my fist like this when I say them and shudder with incontrinal rage. Anti-racism! I feel like he's trying to do the Barack Obama fucking and it's just coming out like really aggressive. Barack Obama's like rhetorical style and speaking pattern melted a lot of liberal Jewish brains because they were just like that's how you sound smart and good.

So now you have like Josh Shapiro who's just like doing an Obama impression. Let me be clear. Israel has right to exist. If I just get the cadence right. Yeah, if I get the cadence right, I can call them human animals without people noticing. And people think I'm nice. And people think I'm a good guy.

All right. This guy's too seething. This guy's got much more John McCain energy. 100%. Like every word coming out of him is like it's clenched buttocks. It is 100% the feeling of your, getting yelled at by your dad. And I love that he's like, this will inspire

the kids. Worse, your fucking stepdad. Yes, yes. Yeah, yelled out by your stepdad. All right, here we go. And if these ideals lead you to be critics of Israeli policies or the American Jewish community, so be it. So be it,

what we did not intend. That's got to be on the soundboard, right? I should add, so be it. So be it. No, I have a few others, but so be it, will be at it. It's for your generation to turn your backs on our people. We wanted you to be Zionists. We did not intend that our emphasis on Tikun Olam social repair would lead some Jews to join anti-Israel demonstrations.

So let's back up for a second, where he's just like, and if this leads you to be critics of Israeli policy, so be it. Well, don't demonstrate about it. What do you do? Listen, if you're a critic. We taught you, we gave you a perfectly good model for what it means to be a critic of Israeli policy. It's not at rallies. It's not around non-Jews. It's certainly not around Palestinians.

It's sitting at the breakfast table. on Sunday morning reading an essay in the New Yorker lamenting that Israeli society is 15% less courteous

than it was in 1978 and that Jews are shoving each other to get onto buses and that no one smiles at each other anymore and that might have something to do with the excesses of the occupation that's criticism of Israel

yes and that only yeah only that and also Israel really has to do something about its stray cat problem these are the issues the old city

I understand there were many mice but now too many cats we gotta do something and I say that as a Jew and I love this country but to love this country means to bring the hard criticisms

too. And I just don't think it's sitcoms have been up to snuff since the death of Yitzhak Rabin. Yes, this entire speech is about the unintended consequences of his generation of Jews, teaching their kids about social justice and Tikuno alum, which is means to, you know, heal the world or repair the world. These, like, concepts of Jewish philanthropy and... That are supposed to remain concepts. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You're not supposed to do them. You're supposed to think about them and talk about... We taught you to make speeches using the term Tikunalam whenever you can

and connecting it to anything. But don't do anything with it. All you need to do with it is make a good graphic design poster that says heal the world in English and in Hebrew. That's what it's for. It's for posters at Hebrew day schools. It's not meant to be taken literally. Say you feel bad for them.

Don't actually feel bad for them. And certainly don't act on their behalf. What happened to Jews being brothers? This whole speech is also about how we've abandoned Jewish brotherhood. And the first half of this fucking speech, which hasn't gone viral, which I combed through, is just him staring at an Israeli family at a cafe. He said it's basically it starts with a story about how he's in London. He's at a cafe

and he sees an Israeli family and he sees these beautiful prepubescent girls. His words, not mine. And he talks about their innocence and their, you know, the way that they're just living their lives. They're happy and texting and eating cheese. And it just goes into,

his mindset changes from, like, oh, look at that happy family to, I can't believe the barbarians of Hamas killed these beautiful Jewish women. Look at these girls sitting right in front of me right now. Hamas killed them. I'm thinking about each of their pelvic bones. Yes.

I can't help, as you do, when you're in a cafe with beauty, to think of it being crushed and strangled. Think of them not even being able to have a fully developed Mons pubis while they sit there. The girls were on the cusp of sprouting wings. They had that pubescent look of not yet fully realizing how beautiful they would soon be. It's such a perfect encapsulation of like the mind rot of this generation of liberal Zionists where they literally, are staring at Israeli prepubescent girls in a cafe and being like, they're too beautiful to kill.

And you're just like, what do you do? And then God help me, my mind went to, how come my own daughters aren't this beautiful? Yeah, exactly. It's because I have these goddamn ugly Ashkenazi jeans. I don't have the beautiful mixed Yemeni Iraqi, you know, Ahmadzig jeans inside of me. Quite frankly, this younger gentleman. generation of North American Jews, I'm not sure Hamas would even deign to rape you. You're not beautiful enough, nor prepubescent enough.

This guy is a straight psychopath, and I love it. Yeah, we'll continue with a little bit more of his rants. Oh, I want more, yeah. I love this guy. We did not intend for American Jews to lead Passover satyrs in so-called liberated zones, liberated from Zionists that violate not only university policies, but threaten the safety of Jewish students.

We did not... Wait, okay, but just so I'm clear, these are Jewish students you're talking about who are leading Passover Saders inside of liberated zones. Proponent of dorm loss, is Adam. And then you're like, but also, this is a danger to Jewish students.

Which ones? Oh, you're talking about the ones who aren't at... the Passover saters. Okay, fair. Give me an example of that being an actual thing. Give me an example. And it's just like this, it's,

he was repeating the same fucking bullshit, you know, Jewish students are in fear for their lives thing, which is hard to do while simultaneously talking about the Jews who are leading these Passover saters. It's, uh, and that's the thing.

You asked for an example and, and they can never give you an example. No, they get, they'll show you some viral saters. video from like visigrad or whatever these like weird yeah like or they'll send you a shabbas kesterbaum interview yes exactly and you and you're just supposed to um you're supposed to believe that uh every major news uh outlet is um has an anti israel bias but uh some fucking psychopaths blog post is like a real account of i'll never forget the first

time somebody told me that well the media's bias against Israel my fucking head almost fell off yeah I couldn't believe what I was hearing yeah yeah I was like oh you

you think they have a bias against you yeah that's wild yeah this the idea this whole thing of like the complete inversion of reality we're going to get into that later with this interview that Isaac Chottner did with some British a Jewish writer who had a little meltdown recently.

But yeah, it is a complete inversion. It's like any, you know, every accusation, a confession, et cetera. I'm going to play a little bit more. What I love the most about the part we just saw where he's like, we did not expect you, some Jewish students, to lead Passover saters at pro-Palestine protests. What he's basically saying is, we never thought that that was possible.

we never right it's not that they didn't expect it to happen it blows their mind to think of the passover service yes being taken divorced from zionism yeah repatriated from zionism yes and applied in this situation he's like you weren't supposed to use this right against us yes and and he's just is just really, really mad actually that the Passover service actually does fit the purpose so well that so many Jews did naturally do it

that it formed a massive point of solidarity and communion between activists. Yes. And that, yes, that left Jewish Zionist students feeling very threatened and on the outs. They had some real unsafe feelings

because all of a sudden the structures that kept their little world view world view safe to hold without being threatened is now are now gone those guardrails are gone

and of course these are many of the same people who will have we've said this a million times this bitter herb is pressed about the bitter herb nice these are the same people

many of them who would have made fun of safe spaces on campus you know you're supposed to go to you're not supposed to go to university to feel intellectually safe

supposed to go to learn. You're supposed to have your role to you shaking up. Not this. Yeah. Not this. Yeah. This is too much. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

When we said, when we said you should be critically thinking, we did not expect you to always do it. Come on, man. Sometimes you kind of just fucking just be like, well, no, I'm not thinking about that one. That one I'm going on pure gut. Think critically about when you should sometimes just fall in line and accept everything your elders tell you. Absolutely. I just love the chat. background too oh yeah yeah the guy in the background occasionally he raises an eyebrow

every now and then he'll raise an eyebrow raising eyebrows like oh this guy's spitting facts oh this guy this is straight fire this is fucking mullet well i think i think this guy is younger this guy is younger he's a millennial so he's like a good one in the class yeah dude he's like i told them i told them i told them if you keep pantsing me If you keep panting me at the point, Rabbi is really going to have it in for you. Yeah, I'm going to be rabbi's best friend, which makes me Hashem's best friend,

which basically makes me better than you. Okay? Hey, you guys. Or excuse Jews who burn American flags. Fuck you. Or support those who do. Yeah, we've never had a tradition of supporting radical opposition to regime to empire.

like it's one thing to like you're starting off talking about like how can you divorce is from Zionism and then you got like also what are you doing burning the American flag it's just like can you come off it with your fucking bullshit I'm sorry but your entire generation uh your entire liberal generation whether or not he's specifically you know of this mindset I don't know I assume he is but you you've defined your self identity as people who protested the Vietnam on war. Eat a fat fucking dick if you're going to pretend

like now you're like burning the flag who we should never burn a flag. Shut up. It only sucks when you don't agree with it.

You know what I mean? Yes. Exactly. And for a really nice counterpoint to that, are we done with the clip? Yeah, yeah, sure. It's more bullshit.

So there's a sermon that I was fortunate to be present to attend at a Russia Shona service that was given by Ariela Aisha Azulai, who's an Arab-Jewish, Israeli-born, now teaches it Brown, really wonderful scholar,

interesting thinker. I would love to have her on the show, actually, and I think she'd be down, so we should get on that. But she gave this incredible sermon about the Colnidre prayer, which is the one that starts Yom Kippur, right, which is sort of the saddest prayer or the most solemn prayer in the Jewish liturgy. And I didn't know much about it, but Needsre means all our vows. And essentially the format of the Colnidre prayer is that all our vows up to this point, all

oaths, all prohibitions, all things we've given our word to are null and void for the purposes of all of us being on an equal footing and that we can all prayer together and start fresh on this day of repentance. And she says, I got a copy of it. Let me just read this one little

sentence here. She says, I want to suggest that our ancestors adherence to this prayer is linked to the fact that this prayer that this prayer does not, as it is often understood, deal only with vows made by individuals. It is not only about personal tishuvah, which is the Hebrew word for return or reconciliation with the divine and with our true self,

but it also rather concerns vows that communities made were forced to make or accept as theirs. And she goes on to name a whole bunch of collective, quote-unquote, vows that Jews under Zionism in various communities have been forced or induced to make. And she's saying that the power, the rebellious, anarchic, subversive power of this prayer, which is why it was attempted to be outlawed many times by different imperial powers, is that as it grants the community the right to say, you know what, fuck that. That's off. We take, we're not following that anymore.

And she goes on to list a bunch of vows related to Zionism that have been extracted from Jewish communities in various ways. And the reason I'm reading that is this guy is the imperial power that's saying, no, but you said we, but we remember when you were 13 and you had a bar mitzvah and we blessed you in the blood of the Israeli soldiers and we said that now you were a member of the community, you said that. Yeah, yeah, I might have said that when I was 13. I'm taking that back. We're taking that back. All our vows are null and void. And he can't stand that. Yeah. And it's driving him crazy. and it's happening at a rapid rate yeah that's the true fear i think is just kind of like this past year is just how much it's taken over i feel like it's not enough still you know but i think it's exponentially better than where we've been at yes and it's it's very clear that you know um he you know for all the different you know anti-zionist um jewish reactions to israeli um you know, war crimes in the last, you know, 20 years or so.

There's never been this level of reaction. And it is... And defection within the ranks? Yes. And awareness outside the ranks. Like the whole, like Zionists are feeling it from within and from without. Yes. By the way, just so we know who this guy is specifically,

this is from an article that came out yesterday. in the forward. Rabbi Emil Hirsch has made advancing the Zionist cause a focal point of his work for more than 30 years at the forefront of Reformed Judaism. He is a former IDF tank commander and helped lead the push

for the reform movement's official support of Israel in 1997. So for him, this is... Yeah, he's a great guy. He is literally IDF, and this has been his life's work. His life's work has been to be the guy within Reformed Judaism who is pushing it towards Zionism. And so for him, when he's screaming, you know, we wanted you to be Zionists. He is essentially screaming about the job that he's been doing.

He's like, what the hell? You're making me look like a schmuck. Yeah, I am not a schmuck. I'm sitting here watching my family do Passover with a bunch of arabs, and I'm sitting here holding my schmackle alone with a setter plate filled with bitter herbs that I'm going to have to eat alone. Have I told you the story of me being at synagogue on Yom Kippur as a teenager and the rabbi is popping off about quote-unquote, Palestinian tree terrorism? No, but that sounds great.

I'm sitting next to my father who's recently come back from the West Bank on doing a medical tour, seeing olive groves get burned by settlers, not to mention Palestinians get their arms incapacitated and their heads caved in by so-called rubber bullets.

I'm sitting next to my father and this rabbi, this reform rabbi, very reminiscent of this guy in the video. But this is back in 1988, 889 here on Yom Kippur on the day of atonement and that's the other fucking gawling thing about this video this is the day of atonement this is the day of personal responsibility and accountability and reflection and getting right and letting go of vows that we've made right like I just said and this guy's getting upset that his younger generation is just being a little too reflective a little too

accountable but I just remember hearing my dad's teeth grinding next to me as the rabbi went on and on about the Palestinian tree terrors and my dad eventually got up and walked out sitting there and I'm like, this is the thing I'm caught in. But that's back in 1989 or whatever. It's so great now that a speech like that, a rabbi can like film it and be like, okay, it's time to go nuclear on the world, put this out there, convince everybody. And he gets completely ratioed. Yeah. Because, yeah, feel like those. I feel like sometimes those are like our best friends. You know, like they put out their ridiculous. contradictory statements and these just outlandish videos.

Yes. Make himself look like one of my favorite people is Rabbi Shmooley, dude. Oh, I love Rabbi. Shmooley is the fucking man, dude. Yeah, keeping it real all the time. Truly Shmooley. Truly Shmooley. That guy, I mean, he does all the argument I need to do for me.

If I was Sam, I'd have an advice column called yours Shmooley. Yeah. The Shmoolinator, dude. That's, that's, I call him. the schmoolenator. We gotta love the schmoolinator. I do have a quick aside about your dad, 25 years ago, my dad actually read his book and changed his life. Wow. He was like really like he was loved your father, but he was afraid for a long time to look into his politics. Because he knew he was a Jewish man. So like he revered him so much for his work and addiction and stuff like that, that he didn't

want to know, you know, which is, which is a very uniquely Palestinian thing, I think. Yeah. It is, you know, somebody's politics, uh, can shift your entire view on them, and especially in terms of Palestine. I mean, they can have great politics everywhere else, but it's just that one thing that, you know, that'll really ruin it. But, uh, he said when he finally did find out your father's politics, he said it was a breath of relief and he said he felt ashamed for not wanting to look into it soon.

Oh, it's totally understandable. Super understandable. That's a great story. You really never know. But on the subject of it being a gift, some of these people, our next segment is truly a perfect example of that. But before we do that, we do have to take a quick commercial break. So, everyone, just lock yourself in and get ready to listen to ads

because it's time for these dudes to get paid. I'm sorry. So stick around. we'll be right back and we're back bad as barra world's most moral podcast here with

Balal Sharmoog what up dog so we got to get into this this is this is a bad as barra breaking news it's not breaking news at all but this is just

we found a new guy. This is someone, his, his name is Howard Jacobson. I've known of this guy for a good 30 years. He had a crazy. I missed him completely. He had some kind of book. I forget what it was called, but it was some kind of like, he's a British Jew. Yes. And one of these sort of, he thinks of himself as, I think he called himself the Jewish Jane Austen in response to being described as the English Philip Roth. he's caught between being the English Philip Rod than the Jewish Jane Austen. I doubt he's quite both.

But he had a book, I forget what it was called. Roots Schmoots, Journeys Among Jews, I remember that, yes, from 1993, which is sort of just like a kind of bewildered traveling journalist, going to various places and writing about it in sort of a British way. Yeah. And then he had a novel called the Finkler Question, which won the 2010 Man Booker Prize. Yeah. That's the last I heard of him. Yeah.

And, you know, he's someone who, like, you know, is a fairly well-respected British, Jewish author who lost his mind after October 7th. And he's someone who recently about this interview that I'm about to read was something that happened as a response to an article he wrote maybe a week or so ago in which he described all the images of dead Palestinians, especially dead Palestinian children that we see night after night after night on the news as a new form of basically media-backed blood libel. that it is blood liable to show the carnage that Israel is reining down upon the Palestinian people, which, you know, once again, what are we doing with this, you know, blood libel label at this point? It is, we're doing it wrong. I'll just say that much. Can we just show a picture of this guy for a second?

I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I spoke earlier about, and this is a difficult thing to talk about, okay? I spoke earlier about how, how are you a Palestinian comedian in a time when so many Jews are somehow acting out a program of like anti-Zionist, sorry, excuse me, anti-Semitic stereotypes on steroids come to life, animatronically. Now, look, there is a certain physiognomy to Jews, and I'm not saying that anyone who looks like this necessarily, But can we just look at this guy? Oh, come on. Come on, man. Come on. We all look, we can't just go into the, like, just looking at him.

Get it off of the fucking screen, man. What are you doing to me, man? It's not, it's that he's not, it's that he is not an attractive, man. It says nothing about us as a people, Daniel, and it says nothing about, you know, us as, you're sending me more photos. This exact physiognomy, if you changed his emotional inner world, would be a lovely, beautiful, wise-looking rabbi. It's actually not about the physicality, but if you look at this picture, it gives off

vibes of a kind of, what's the word? Hectoring shiftiness. That's what I see in my nightmares, fellas. I mean, yeah, it's got to... Listen, there's not a Jew on this podcast who, with the wrong angle, can't look a little bit globe-holdy. We all, as Adam is talking about, we all can sometimes, depending on, look like a merchant of somewhere. It looks like we could easily be a merchant in some port city.

Maybe somewhere in Italy, let's say. Yeah, it's very Kronos-esque, you know. Yes. But, you know, here's the thing is, you know, physiognomy aside, there's no physiological, at least, or physiognomy, there's no facial consistency between the type of brain rot that Zionism creates, it is just

extra funny when they are when they turn into just what I would consider like the perfect diasporic Jew stereotype of our modern times in which they are super pro Israel despite like having only a narrative

connection to the land Like the way in which he describes his connection to Israel and every Jew's connection to Israel is essentially like, I haven't been there, you know, maybe more than one time. But, you know, I've been hearing about it for a while and I know it's good. And I feel like they're my brothers. And it's like, okay, you can feel that way. But isn't it weird? Wouldn't you immediately go like, wait, wait, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about once the murdering of children started being normalized. Well, it did throw him into a kind of crisis, and he describes that in this article.

Yes. This is, it's called rationalizing the horrors of Israel's war in Gaza. Shout out to Isaac Chautner, the interviewer, who did quite a good job of just letting. I sat show change. Thank you. Thank you, Adam. Yeah, no, shout out to him. I mean, like, he's, this is a great interview.

because he's doing literally what the job of a journalist is, which is to ask, like, follow-up questions based on the logic of the person's previous answer. And be like, it sounds like you're saying, yes, yes. And so it starts, obviously, it's a longer interview, so I'm not going to read the whole thing, but I just hear some of it. So first, the intro, the novelist Howard Jacobson,

has already written a number of books, many of them about the British Jewish community when he won the Booker Prize for the Finkler question in 2010. In a review in this magazine, James Wood was more critical than the consensus writing

that the novel was, quote, always shading towards the adivistic and reactionary. So he goes on to talk about that since Hamas's attack on October 7th, which killed approximately 1,200 Israelis, Jacobson has been increasingly outspoken about anti-Semitism, which always a good sign. And critical of those who question Israel's military campaign in Gaza, which is killed more than 42,000 people. And then earlier this month, he wore this controversial piece in The Observer, which he said

that the media, sustained media coverage of Jewish, of children being killed in Gaza was functioning as a new blood liable against the Jewish people. Can we, can we quote him? Yeah, you go back to the quote. Remember, he is British. So he's very, diving, bacon, fishy tea. It's like, that's his whole vibe. Such bias, as I have described, conscious or not, has contributed not just to the anxiety level of Jews,

but to the atmosphere of hostility and fear in which they now live. The litany of dead children corroborates all those stories of their insatiable lust for blood. It's like, every time Israel kills a baby, people are like, oh, Israel just killed a baby. And then me goes, yeah, me goes, oh, this is exactly like 492. We got kicked out of Spain for this. This must be a loy. All right.

So we spoke to him. What is it? This is Chattner. What is it that you have wanted to get across the readers since October 7th? I was in such a confusion of fear and stress and upset. The fear and the upset and the heartbreak was the massacre itself. And then the speed of the response to the aftermath of the massacre was so hideous, so unexpected. Such a kind of topsy-turvy.

version of what we normally expect a response to catastrophe to be that it just threw me into half confusion, half fury. Now, wait one second. Before you continue this, when I was reading this, I said, yeah, dude, the aftermath of the massacre was so hideous and so unexpected and such a topsy-turvy version of what we would normally expect a response to a catastrophe. No, no, but he's talking about the speed of the response to the aftermath. Yes.

Oh, he's talking about the response to the aftermath of the aftermath. Yes. This is like one of the many times in reading something that a Zionist says in which for a second I go like, oh, they're going to say something. Say the right thing. Say the right thing. They're going to say something real. What he's talking about is the fact that afterwards, when by the way, Israel immediately started a mass bombing campaign that killed thousands, like within the first week. And so, like, this idea that, like, all of a sudden people was in the streets,

they were saying things like, ceasefire, don't do that. Oh, can you not bomb them, please? And I said, what? Whatever have it would be nice to the youths. They're showing dead babies on the television. They're showing more dead babies. I say, wait a second. Give us a few weeks of killing the babies.

To continue, you can keep going. Sorry. What the hell was going on? The people could turn like that on the people who've been attacked. All those people who said, no, no, hang on. Don't talk about anti-Semitism. This is anti-Zionism. All that went is the people attacking Israel, couldn't remember if they were attacking Jews, Israeli, Zionists. I thought, the world that I live in is not the world I knew. It's changed, and I still feel that. I'm living in a world I don't recognize it and find it very hard to comprehend yes he it's just so crazy that it's what the what the hell happened yeah are these

people so mad yeah i don't understand can we go back to the previous sudden people turned on the Israeli government and it's like well did you watch what they what the response was immediately no but you remember the seventh yeah you remember i never forgot so he's he's he's what he's he's amazed by is the speed of people's response to the aftermath. Yes. Apparently, he skipped the part of checking out what the aftermath was. Like, what are they responding to? Yes.

He's like, oh, my God. Like, this horrible massacre comes, okay? Yeah. And then within a week, within a week. Yes. People, it's like people had this preset response. Oh, Israel's going to kill a whole bunch of people and cut off food and water. Now, I'm still grieving what happened on October 7th.

I haven't had a chance to check out what Israel is actually doing. Right. You're just telling me with all these accusations. I can't be expected to check out and see if it's actually happening. Yes. Israel would have had to have been planning this for years for them to respond that quickly. And I can't imagine that that's true. Yeah.

They would have had to have mapped out every area, every single square in the grid of Gaza for years. And they couldn't be because they left in 2005. And they never did exactly that. back in 1947, 48. Like they had a list of every single Palestinian living everywhere and what they were going to do with them. In order for that to happen, Gaza would have to be the most surveilled place

on the planet. Yeah, and that's impossible. It can't be. If it's so surveilled, then how come I think of it so seldom until October 7th? I was never looking at it. How long? I never think about it? Never look at it.

Why am I think about it all the time now? If it's so surveilled. How come they don't allow journalists in there now? So after this, Jotner, after the war in Gaza started and there were these, all these civilian casualties, we saw Israel intentionally denying humanitarian aid to people who were starving. What should the response from people have been at that point? I'm going to try to do Steve Coogan's Michael Kane. Oh, yeah, that's not something I can say because I don't know what my own response should have been.

She was only 16 years old. I trusted no one and I trusted no report. That doesn't mean I didn't see some pictures on television. I saw pictures indeed. I saw many pictures indeed. The BBC has been appalling. It's been appalling indeed. It just showed you pictures, unbearable pictures,

heartbreaking pictures of dying babies every night. But any wall would look appealing if you just showed the suffering of the, Women and children. So he was only supposed to blow the bloody doors off. What do we do and we fall down, Master Netanyahu. We get back up. But any war would look appalling if you just showed the suffering of the women and children. Okay, so funny accents aside, let's get into what he actually says.

Yeah, that's what he says. So I thought, who am I to believe here? I read a lot of people. I believe some. And I didn't believe others. It turned out very badly. And the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu is contemptible. And I have no doubt about all that.

But that didn't mean that something didn't need to be doing. Didn't he doing? There was no alternative to it. Israel has to try to get Hamas. I thought Netanyahu's belief that he could wipe out Hamas was stupid. So I felt this war had to be prosecuted. If a war is prosecuted, it will be ugly. Okay.

So what I want to know from him is. Mm-hmm. look every night they keep bombarding me yeah what did you exactly say about the the babies the previous one yeah he said yeah yeah yeah it just showed yeah it's been appalling yeah it just showed you pictures unbearable pictures heartbreaking pictures of diving babies every night but any war would look appalling if you just showed the suffering of the women and the children okay so let's take just take for a sake of argument what's totally untrue which is that they only showed the suffering of the women and children. Because they showed the suffering of the men, too.

Yes. Yeah. Right. But what else would he like to show, would he like the BBC to show you, in addition to the actual pictures of the women and the children that would make their reporting less appalling and more accurate? Do you want for every picture of a Palestinian woman and shop? To be accompanied with a picture of them also dressed as Hamas with a gun. This is what they want. And to be honest, this is like the entire Hasbara industry at this point, four people like him. It has been four people like him.

This is exactly the target audience. Every time you hear this fucking insane Hasbara about Pallywood, you know, essentially the crisis actors of Palestine who pretend to be dead, the children that are actually dulled.

Every time you're like, who are the fucking monsters who are putting this shit out? And who are they trying to convince? Because when I see this, all I think of is like Alex Jones level conspiracy. It's people like him. It's for the liberal Zionists who cannot understand a world in which they cannot present themselves

and in extension their people as an extension of himself as the victim, as the absolute moral good. I think that's part of the biggest problem most many other things with liberal Zionism. I feel like every time they see a picture of a dead baby or something like that, they'll, they'll paint a picture in their head of like a terror tunnel that was right underneath it.

And if only the baby wasn't there, there were the stronghold with, you know, noops that is going to fucking one day take out Israel. And there's, obviously, that never comes out, you know, but it's this picture. Well, why don't you show the, what was underneath? Well, maybe it's because there's nothing underneath, you know? That's exactly right. So their go-to question, the go-to question when a normal person sees a dead. baby is who did this how did this happen their question and then you might come to the question

how do i stop it from happening right that's that'd be the next thing but the first thing is who the fuck did this how in the world could this have happened when they see a dead Palestinian baby they're like how did that get there yeah yeah why is this in my face right now yeah why am i looking at this right and what what is what is your motive behind showing me this that's right and what's the real story which is like that's where you really see the brain rot of October 7th starting to set in. You see the way that this is broken people where they think it's a media conspiracy to show what's happening in Gaza. And by the way, this is a place where, once again, they have not allowed foreign journalists in. The only images that we are seeing out of Gaza have either been carefully curated by the IDF or they are from citizens.

people who are in Gaza taping their own Holocaust. You want them to assassinate foreign journalists now? Yeah, that's right. You want to put foreign journalists I don't want to put any in danger, so let's just have a media blackout.

You know, this is fair, spare. And I've had the people who like, you know, I mean, they see the word press and that's what they do with whatever trigger they've got. Press what? The trigger? That's that?

I've had people like, you know, Honestly, you guys obviously hear it all the time. I was like, well, Hamas can stop this whenever they want, whatever they want, whatever they get stopped it. And then, you know, like, you show them a picture of a dead baby, like, wow, I'm sorry, Hamas killed that baby. Yes. And it's like, what are you, what is this mental gymnastics? Like, you don't think that a guy who's looking at a fucking thermal cameras at a screen that could see a building full of people. Yes.

And presses a button and knows how many people in there, what size these people are if they're probably children in there and can just press a button and they say, I hate Hamas is making me do this. It's like, Howard actually gets into theorizing about the capacities of Israeli bombing surveillance a little bit later on. But to continue with his emotional breakdown, because this is what I love about this is we are seeing a man fight with himself because he refuses to let go of an ideology that that allows him to dehumanize an entire group of people

in the exact same way that he would find deplorable if it were done to him. And he just superimposes himself and his own victimization onto it. And in the case of the dehumanization he does, is the dehumanization of, I don't want to know about these people. Yeah, yeah. It's not the dehumanization of, oh, I know them and they're all. It's like, I don't know about them.

Yeah. I don't really exist for me. Yes. And I just know it has to be done. That's right. And Netanyahu is a terrible guy, contemptible, the worst. But I will fight to the death. But you know, even a contemptible clock has to bomb babies twice a day.

Yeah, exactly. So to continue, I asked you about the specific intentional denial of humanitarian aid. And your answer was something like, well, I don't know what. to believe anymore when I read the news, so I can't really comment on that. Is that right? Well, put quite like that. It sounds low as though what I said was stupid and ignorant. One got accounts and accounts and accounts and it was very odd to know what was the truth. Well, just for example, the American government, which has been very supportive of Israel and has kept sending them weapons and tacitly acknowledged that it has tacitly acknowledged

that Israel intentionally denied humanitarian aid. Lots of humanitarian groups. have said the same thing. All right. This is an incredible dance he does here. Well, if Israel was doing that, then what can one feel except it's monstrous? I've said one has to balance these things. This thing has got to be done. Okay.

Did it have to be done quite so cruelly? No. Oh, good. Did it have to be done so? See, I'm very worried about the indiscriminate and the disproportionate. I've got snagged up on the disproportionate argument and the indiscriminate argument. The disproportionate one I can't buy because I don't know how you'd measure

what you have to do after that massacre. We know we can't measure life for life. I don't buy the disproportionate. I don't buy it. So you're saying the idea that 1,200 Israelis were killed and now 42,000 Gassans have been killed that comparing the two

in and of itself is not any sort of argument. Well, all right, Isaac. What's the figure you'd choose? I'm just trying to clarify what you meant. I don't know how you do the mathematics of this. And I'm not going to say the mathematics of revenge because while, of course, there was an element of revenge and you wanted it to not be revenge, you didn't want it to be a punishment either. I hated that word punishment. The amount of telling on yourself here is so great.

I'm not going to say mathematics of revenge because I don't want people to think this is about revenge, where it is, but only a little, and that's bad. And, you know, and it's not punishment. I hate that word because that word implies revenge. And it would imply that I'm not really a liberal. So I think the justification for what Israel did is to make sure that this never happened again. So, okay, it's prevention. Yes. And I think in the attempt to make sure that this never happened again, the numbers were inevitably going to have to be high.

If you're a terrorist, you do have yourself in schools and hospitals. So if the Israelis are going to get you, they're going to have to attack those things. If it's a war crime, Chotner asked, to hide in a hospital, it's also a war crime to indiscriminately bomb a hospital. Wow, you just use rhetoric. Oh, no, not rhetoric. Indiscriminately. Wow, what's indiscrimination? If you're trying to, that's not a word.

I'm against indiscrimination. I think it's racialists to do indiscrimination. Yeah, a bunch of Jews talking about getting discriminating. against right now. Whole Palestinian world's like, yeah, we're being indiscriminated against right now, and it's far worse. It's indiscrimination. If you're trying to go after

people who are hiding there, how do you get them if you have to be discriminant? What do you do? You have to make a judgment about balancing civilian casualties with war. I'd like to think that Israel has in the main done that. In the main. I'd love

to think that too, dog. Wouldn't that be nice, wouldn't be so nice to think that? Does how they have fought the war in the past year, let alone what members of the Israeli government think of Palestinians, make you think that they're trying to do that? Should I read that again? Basically, how does last year make you think that they're actually trying to do the right thing? I would like to think Israel's done its best. Some people will laugh in my face, but I haven't been convinced that they've been one. wildly, or not wildly indiscriminate. Yeah.

It's a little bit of indiscrimination is a tree. It's just not wildly. Oh, it's not crazy with it. It's like, you know. Indiscrimination on a leash. Yeah, that's right. Domesticated. Oh, just did some indiscrimination.

It's like if you just let him keep going. Just like the more questions he asked him, he's like, well, she may be a little bit indiscriminate, but it's not like we're killing everyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, what is killing everyone when they still, some people let it's like after a while just let them talk yeah killing everyone but we're not being cruel about it yeah one or two people maybe being a little bit crude but maybe and then he says you know

one or two people in netanyahu's cabinet have said the most appalling things and if they were just taken out right now removed from government if there was a button i could press i would be perfectly happy uh the current admitted israeli administration has no imagination for what it might be to be a palestinian i feel that with a great passion that has been cruelty in this government. You know who else has no imagination for what it might be to be a Palestinian? You, dog.

Someone who, when he hears about dead Palestinian babies, thinks, but is this good for the Jews? Right. 100%. 100%. And, you know, he gets into this where he's like, you bring up the number of children being killed in Ukraine in your previous piece

and the number of children being killed in Gaza. And you say that the news coverage of the two has been very disproportionate. Can you talk about that? And he says, yeah, it's interesting. Of all the pieces I've done, this is the piece that everyone seems to be the most upset about. I mean, I've been writing about writing it for many months, and I didn't, you know, and I thought, well, no, I'm going to have to just do it and risk it. And it upsets people because the minute you talk about the death of children,

not only every word, but every comma is scrutinized. Crazy how that works. I fucking like this guy, dude. I know. This guy rips. Well, I get it. And now I think I should have trusted my own feeling at the beginning. Don't go there.

But I wanted to record the experience as a Jew, and it was shared by many of my Jewish friends. Can we get an as a Jew alert? Are you calling yourself an as a Jew? I thought that's us. Yeah, that's great. Night after night after night, the BBC showed pictures of a beautiful Palestinian child alive one minute and dead the next. That is the most monstrous thing. We shed tears.

We couldn't bear to see it. Where some children targeted, if some children were deliberately targeted, that is absolutely monstrous and indisputably a war crime. If some were targeted, I don't know. We don't know. But when a plane flies overhead, it doesn't deliberately target the Jew. it cannot. There's no such plane and there's no such pilot.

We're without having a technology for that yet. I mean, bombs are only targeted Jews yet. There's no such plane. What is he even worried about in this? I don't know what this clause is. Well, he's trying to... Say bombs are indiscriminate.

Right. But what he doesn't understand about international law is that indiscriminate killing of civilians includes like just normal human intelligence to be applied, which is that if the reasonable expectation is that the consequence of your action will be the death of mass numbers of civilians. Yes.

And you do it anyway. Then it doesn't matter whether you were targeting them. That is called indiscriminately targeting civilians. Yes. Putting bombs in the areas which they are for whatever reason, whether or not you know where that bomb, especially if it's a 2,000 pound bomb that's going to kill everything, that is indiscriminate by legal definition.

And I have a tough time. I'm no war expert here, but I have a tough time with all the technology we have thinking that wherever they drop these bombs, they know exactly what and where and who is there at all times. Yes. In fact, at this point, it's like very clear when they are doing what is essentially a targeted murder of an entire family in the way that they will wait for everyone to be home before they kill and sometimes do it when the person that they are targeting is not there. They also have a whole AI system called Lavender and Where's Daddy, right? Daddy's home, is that what it was?

I think. I thought that's what it was. And here's the thing. I'm not, I'm not even saying that there isn't also the case in which the Israelis will target someone specifically and kill other people accidentally. No, I agree. They're also incompetent. But the idea that at this point, you can deny the intentional killing of civilians, especially after what, like dozens of doctors, this is written about in the New York Times, talk about their experience in Gaza and we see the x-rays of children with sniper bullets lodged in their heads and lodged in their bodies.

And you see the angle that those bullets were put in them. And you see that this is from an angle of someone who was far away and pointing down. At this point, to deny it is just, I mean, you know, is akin to hospital. Holocaust denial. You are no different. It's an insult to the sharpshooter skills of the brave men and women of the idea. Of the idea. Yes. Yeah. Well, but what he says is to turn the war into nothing other than the murder of children made me sick, maybe not want to trust the news. I was happy to say, this is like watching half-mass propaganda. Look at what the Jews do. Look at what the Jews do.

Ring the bell, folks. Jews kill children. Ring the bell! What world is he living in? the alarm the Jews killed children Jewish bell This is morning This is Morning Bell By radio head

All right That's kind of What I have Trouble figuring out Sometimes is like Are these people Are these people just that stupid Or

Or are they just inherently bad people? You know, I honestly I don't think it's stupidity I think it is 100% just they I'm sorry but you're emotionally damaged that is quite literally it's rot it is yes it is at this point is such fervent denial can only be explained by someone's you know mass paranoia and also someone's like need psychologically and maybe even like physiologically to believe in this thing we call

Zionism, to believe in Israel, to believe that they are the good guys. And they will literally, this has barra that he has talked, everything he talks about in this where he's talking about, oh, this all feels like Hamas propaganda is because he is being convinced that

everything that he's seeing on the news is a lie. He has to believe they're lying. That's the only way this works. Or he has to at least deeply question it in a way that is, I would say, unfair. So, yeah, it's because honestly people like him are being targeted by these Israeli PR efforts to be like don't worry

everything they're saying is a lie here's a picture of some uh israeli uh beautiful israeli teenage girl who was killed on october 7th remember how hot she was remember how sexy she was remember she was just dancing and having a good time speaking of which i i've talked to you guys about this in the group chat yeah mad but it's and it's a horrible thing to laugh at but i just it they just make it so easy. There's one account that just all it does is it posts pictures of beautiful Israeli women who were killed. Yes. And the format is such and such name. She only wanted the dance. Seven slash ten. Okay. Now, the European date format would be day slash year, right so that's what they mean they mean 107

but it looks like they're saying 7 slash 10 with just this picture of this beautiful look how beautiful she is she only wanted to dance 7 10 and I'm like man every single one of these like dead war heroines they're just rating her

like they're just giving her a B minus C plus Barstool Hadi and it's it's morbid and terrible but I it always makes me chuckle she only wanted to dance

she just wanted to dance and someday maybe be an eight yeah seven out of ten American eight yeah it's pretty good you know grading on a curve for Israel you know she's obviously only seven but she's a hypha 10

yeah about the uggos in hypha all right so just to continue just a few more points here and Chana really gets on him about some of the shit in which he's like, he's essentially fact-checking him live.

Because some Ukrainian children were able to leave many of the frontline areas. Gazans, including children, were not allowed to leave. And Israel has fought an incredibly intense war that has killed tons of children because they're not trying to avoid civilian casualties as well as they should. That's how I would describe it. And yes, how careful do you think the Russians are to avoid civilian casualty? And he makes a great point here. I don't think they're being careful.

And in fact, a lot of Ukrainian children have been kidnapped and taken to Russia. But you were talking about the media and the way children have been killed in Gaza. So that could explain some of the discrepancy. And what he's talking about here is the difference in the amount of children killed. He's like, I think it was something like in three years, something like 2000. Well, he says it. He gives the number later on here. About 2,000 children in Ukraine over the course of two and a half years.

Over 15,000 children killed in a single year in Gaza. Yes. And he's like, you know, like that is, this is a thing that people like, you know, Jacobson here don't want to think about. Their entire thing is, well, war is war. War is ugly. as if this isn't a war unlike other wars. As if this is not something that if it were any other people who were perpetrating it, we wouldn't be like, holy shit, we are living in a time in which a Holocaust is happening.

Yeah, I mean, whatever you want to say about the whole Ukrainian children being kidnapped and taken to Russia, I've seen different accounts of what that was actually all about. But even let's grant, okay, let's say Russia is not being particularly careful with civilian casualties. how is Israel still so vastly outpacing them in terms of the children they're killing? You know what the Ukraine-Russia war has that the Israeli Gaza, so-called war, doesn't have fucking front lines, battlefield positions, areas where soldiers are doing battle with each other and territory is being won and lost by the inch, the mile, the yard, or whatever. That's not happening, as Norman Finkelston's been saying, there is no war. in Gaza. It's just a giant killing field. And right now

northern Gaza is the latest sub-killing field. And that doesn't exist in the Ukraine. There is no place in the Ukraine-Russia war where Russia has Ukrainian civilians boxed into an area they can't leave, and they're just relentlessly bombing them

with no attempt for the Ukrainians to fight back. Yeah, I tell people all the time, I'm like, okay, where do you want them to put their supplies? You want them to put them in the military? out close. You let them build all those years. Right. Exactly. You put them in downtown Tel Aviv the way the Israeli army does, okay? Get it away from civilians. Buy a movie theater. Yeah. Yeah. And just like to back up to something you were saying, Daniel, this is like an incredibly important point in terms of like Zionist programming that I and maybe

you also grew up with, which was when people talked about the vastly disproportionate deaths between the two, quote, warring parties because that's how they were, you know, presented to us as like kids, people would always say, and I remember it stuck with me, which is just like, wait, so Israel's the bad guy just because they're better at war. Yeah. The whole, the way it is, like, framed is that, like, Israel cannot be held accountable for its actions because the people they are at war with are just because they're bad at, you know, having gun, technology. It's a way of saying, like, we are two equally armed parties at war with each other. We're just better at killing them than they are at killing us. And we're supposed to just kind of, it was a way to keep the framing as, well, this is a war. This is a war. I forgot that sometimes, but there can be wars in which one person is way, way better than the other, as opposed to just realizing what this actually is, which is straight up shooting fish in a barrel.

It's just straight up liquidating a concentration camp and, you know, mowing the mowing the lawn, as they say. And it's, it's important to remember that that is something that is deeply ingrained with, I think, a lot of us, which is this framing of this as war. And it's also, it's a way of shifting the argument, too, because then it shifts the argument from well, you know, if it was two equally armed sides, and one was a lot better, where's the morality in that? But that's not even the case. Yeah. So it's just a very clever way to like take the argument away from. Yeah. And say, hey, you also, trust me, you want the Israelis to be better at this. Because if it were, if it were Hamas, it were the Palestinians who were

better at, you know, war technology, you don't, don't for a second think that they wouldn't do a genocide. And so we stay the victim. We stay in this constant state of like, we are just literally one more Iran donation of weapons away from being genocided. Meanwhile, every time Iran or Hezbollah attacks Israel, we get more evidence that all things considered, they're pretty good at targeting military outposts. Yes, I know. In fact, Jeremy. Jeremy LaFredo, the gray zone journalist who was arrested by Israel and has been released but not released from the country. What was he arrested for? As far as I know, he hasn't been allowed to leave.

But what was he arrested for? He was arrested for doing a report which basically debunked the Israeli claim that the Iranian missile attack didn't do any damage to Netavim Air Base. Oh. To a military opus. Now, PBS had done the exact same reporting. okay right but that and that's they accused him of helping the enemy how does it help the well first of all how is it a foreign journalist job to worry about who's the enemy who's the enemy and like i'm not i don't have allegiance to you but moreover how does it help the enemy to show that their bombs

hit an air base because it in the media war it shows oh big bad iran actually knows how to do something close to proportionate and discriminate from that far away. And even after all the provocations, they're going after Israeli military targets. Whereas when Israel wants to show that it's going after a military target, it has to come up with some big AI generated animated fucking animated bullshit. But Hogwarts staircases underneath the fucking hospital.

This might look like a normal Hamas train station. Yeah. But if you go to this stop, you go straight to Hogwarts. Yeah. This might look like a normal Hamas, but under here is the Ravenclaw dormitory. We are here in Gaza, in sector six and a half. If you walk through this wall, you will transport right in. How well, Jacobson? This one is for you.

look at all these ones we found underneath this hospital bed we found it under this child's bed the golden snitch okay he was reading all right so we got we just just to finish up some of this um because i i just as he goes more and more crazy um it's just it's just fascinating to me What should the lead story on days when lots of children, what should be the lead story on days when lots of children are killed?

I'm not talking about those days. This was every single night. I'm telling you, I saw a big, a dead baby every single night. Die after die, baby after baby. Not just on the days when lots of children were killed, but every day, Howard, do you think that might be a reason for that? Do you think there might be no days when lots of children weren't killed? No, it's every day.

telling you. It's every day. They're trying to make me think Israel's doing this every day. Yeah. But this is where it goes great. He goes, I couldn't look at you couldn't look at a child. Pictures of a child being killed

every single night without thinking this is making my people, my kin, out to be child murderers. And then he says, Howard, I think maybe we're in a bit of a worrisome place. If you see photo,

of dead children on television and your first thought is they're trying to make me a Jew hate my people and he says you've twisted what I say that's not my first thought that's not my first thought

but even though can you even go back there Matt because his explanation in between there where he says you know you can't look at a picture pictures of a child being killed every single night

without thinking this is making my people my kin out to be child murderers I've got two options for you I can believe it's true Okay, it's true. It's true. That's what we do. That's what the Israelis, not us, but the Israelis do. But we feel a kinship with the Israelis. That's what they do. Everything they said about us in 1,300 and 1,300 was true. This is what the Jews do. Kill children. I'm not going to buy it. I'm not going to buy it. But am I in Israeli? Am I just like them? This is madness, bro. This is just him just going, okay, it's true. It's true. Israelis, they're killing kids. Oh, I guess I got to be. big nose and control the weather. Oh, I guess I'm a giant octopus holding the globe.

Oh, look at me. I'm drinking a Christian blood. It's like, can you take maybe a step back for a second and be like, this exists within a very specific context of nationalism? Yeah, man. You don't need to take the Zechlon B capsule just because Netanyahu is a genocide. He's not you. I'm sorry, but this is like the straight, this is the funniest thing ever for him to go, the liberal

Zionist to anti-Semite pipeline is that's fucking, that's beautiful, dude. But it shows the, yeah, the, the brittleness of his ideological position because it's, it's there but for the grace of liberal Zionism, go him, you know, like he'd have to believe in the worst anti-Semitic theories if he didn't hold on to, but we're good. Yeah, and it's one of those things where it's like, okay, well, so maybe this is true. Now what? Yeah, because I'm not going to fucking change. my thoughts so yes yes and now what do you want me to fucking do and for him that can't be because he's already someone who this based his own self-image on believing that he uh does care about that kind of

stuff that that stuff is monstrous that murder is monstrous murder of children is monstrous so instead he has to um deny it and that's what he's going to continue doing um so he asked if it's his second thought he says it's not my second thought it all depends on how often you see them and when you see them talking about pictures of dead children. You see them and you see them and that's all you see and then you feel, oh, is this what the war means to the media? Is this what they want to stress again and again and again? I'm not saying that if

all those children were being killed, that we should not know about it, but it's perfectly possible now for people to call Jews in the streets of London child killers, child killers, exactly as we would have heard 700 bloody years ago. I love this jump. It's just, it's the same, like, as soon as I admit,

Israeli war crimes, I might as well just join the Nazi party is fucking nuts. Yeah. And it's like, what do you want us to do, Howard? If a Palestinian, if a Palestinian kid gets, gets killed, what do you want him to do? You want it on a ticker on the bottom? Yeah, yeah, just a ticker with a name on it. All right, so he then talks about how you yourself said that they weren't going to completely defeat Hamas. But I want to bring this back to what you said about the streets of London.

One of the things that has been so disturbing about anti-Semitism, especially after October 7th, is American Jews or British Jews are being blamed for what the Israeli government is doing. I agree this is disgusting. But it seems that this has somehow led a lot of American and British Jews like yourself to support whatever. the Israeli government is doing 100% yes this is exactly what I like literally what I've seen is like because of the fact that people are conflating the two they're like I'm going to also conflate myself with the Israeli government by supporting them whole hog and he says I take your argument but it's a bit of a quagma when you say well don't confuse us with the Israelis we've got

nothing to do with that because the next stage of that is all all these terrible things that you say about Israel are allowed to be true. What? Okay, what he's saying there is, if I can't, if I don't throw myself in front of Israel to protect it, he's revealing the curtain. Yes, then what you're saying is this isn't about anti-Semitism.

This is about what the actions of the Israeli government. Then all of these things are allowed to be true. if I say, well, I'm not a part of this. So instead, I'm going to take a bullet for Zionism by making this about me and making this about anti-Semitism and making this an anti-Semitic plot for Hamas to control the media. Fucking wild, bro. Fix your brain dog. There's a classic folk song from the 60s or 70s called Streets of London.

I don't know if you know it, but it's sort of like, if you think you've got so many problems, let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London. London, and I'll introduce you to an old homeless woman, and you'll see the quiet, you know, dignity of, of the real people, but I'm thinking, because he talks about the streets of London here. I'm just trying to imagine in my head a song about, you know, let me take you by the hand and show you some juice feeling really uncomfortable. So close to the truth. That's the thing. He's like, he's just so close. He's like, he's saying it he's like if i just if i don't let you conflate uh israel with judaism if i don't let you put

those two things together then my argument's dumb but as long as those two things are he's just so close yeah yeah well it's it's it's it is just that is a level of commitment to zionism that uh it's it's not even about anything other than um this refusal to believe that Israel isn't acting with more morality than, say, the Palestinian, say, Arab countries. This refusal to believe that of the actors at war in the Middle East, quote unquote, Israel wouldn't be by default the most moral and himself by default having the most moral position, which is that who supports Israel. And yeah, it is, I mean, if you talk about,

like, you know, this, like, level of, you know, supremacist thinking that has infected people because of Zionism. You're just like, you, you see it right there, this colonist brain. Like, well, certainly we're more moral than the, than the Arabs. The savages. The savages, yeah. Yeah. So supremacy. I say the word. Oh. Well, we have to, we have to end there because, listen, this, it's a great interview and shout out to him for having a full on nervous breakdown during this interview.

The last line of it was like, I probably look pretty crazy at the, you know, in this interview, but I hope you can understand that I'm, I am crazy. And Chautner's like, no, no, it's all good, dude. I think we got everything we needed. Yeah, we got everything. peace bro um you come off great and we also got everything we need here at the bad hasbarah podcast balaal thank you so much for coming on and talking to us man thanks for having me guys love what you guys do you know as a palestinian just know we fucking love you guys man i love you too dog and i think

you're hilarious to shit where can people find your uh find you on social media yeah yeah you You can follow me at well-fed comic on all platforms, and I just want to give another quick plug. It doesn't even need it, but I Googled the scariest book of the year, and it's Halloween. It's October, so this came in the mail after I got it. Oh, hell, yeah. I don't know who this Tallahassee-Cote fellow is. Yeah, it's a guy from Tallahassee, yeah, seems like a real scary guy, so, you know, tis the season. But, yeah, buy the book, follow me on all platforms.

You've been amazing. You've been amazing. We'll have a link to your socials and the show notes, both on the podcast on the YouTube below. Once again, you're dope. Thank you. And we love all of you out there. Patreon.com slash badhasbarra.

Badhasbara at gmail.com. And all right. Until next time. From the river to the sea. I'm emotionally damaged, Jewishly. You're emotionally damaged. Jewishly. beautiful jumping jacks was us push-ups was us godmaga us all karate us taking molly us michael jackson us

yamaaha keyboards us jarja mix not us handor was us keith ledger joker us endless red sex us happy meals was us McDonald's was us Being happy us Bequem yoga us Eating food us Breeding air us Drinking water us We invented all that shit

Thank you.