Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - Bad Hasbara 6: The Irony Dome with Daniel Maté

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

Daniel Maté is back with his long lost sibling Matt Lieb to talk about zionist comedians and musical theater being used for evil.Visit Daniel's website here and check out his mental chiropractic service!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/bad-hasbara/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Moshwamha, bitch, terrific polo We invented the dirty tomato And weighs USB drives and the iron dough Israeli salad oozy stets his office orange rose I'm from chips for us iPhone cameras bus Taco salads us Bothamabodos

All of garden us White foster us Zabra Hamas Hasbaras us to Bad Hasbara, the world's most moral podcast. I'm your host, Matt Lieb. So excited to take you through the latest and greatest of Israeli propaganda. We're talking about memes. We're talking about video content. We're talking about people deciding that women with purple hair are somehow an avatar for Hamas.

We're talking about all that good stuff, and I thank you for joining us. Just want to remind you to give us five stars in a review on all of the podcast apps that you may or may not have. Apple Podcast Store, you can do it there. You can do it on Spotify. Also, if you're watching this, instead of merely listening, I thank you.

Um, but just a reminder, um, all of this content on YouTube is, uh, essentially non-monetizable, uh, not only because I use copyrighted material, but, uh, because I say like, fuck a lot and stuff. But apparently, you're not allowed to do that, apparently. Um, you know, there's like, there's all sorts of rules and stuff like that. And, um, so yeah, if you're like, hey, you know, I like this podcast and I must watch it. Um, cool. That's fine. But, maybe uh consider you know um doing one of them super super chat things or whatever he's like you can give me a dollar and be like good show i love that i love dollars um also feel free to go to patreon com slash broadcast you will get this show as long as well as a bunch of other shows and uh you'll

you'll be able to hear them all ad free which is nice today our guest oh ladies and gentlemen our guest by Popular Demand, one of the greatest guests in the history of Bad Hasbara, a podcast which has only happened six times. Ladies and gentlemen and everyone else, our guest today is Daniel Matte. Oh, let me add him to the headway. Yeah, there it is. What's up? Oh, you sure bow to popular demand pretty easily.

Yeah, no, I mean, honestly, it's not going to take much. to take me down. You know what I mean? You're training our audience that they can just push you around and make demands of you. I feel like this is like this could come back to bite you. I really could. You know, usually I ignore the piggy's. I tell the piggy's like eat your slop, enjoy your slop.

You know, you don't get to tell a farm or what kind of slop you're getting. You know what I mean? Because deep down, they're in it for the shame and the humiliation. You got to. I mean, of course. You got to talk to them that way. Yeah. That is why you listen to a podcast.

You listen to a podcast because you are an oinking little hog and you just want to stick your nose in the content trough and go numb, numb, num, num, num, um. And I want to point out to any of my new audience who's like, what the fuck? I consider everyone a piggy. I'm a piggy, but I'm a piggy for like the wire, you know, or for the Sopranos. you know like we're all pigies for our content slop but I'm just saying usually I don't

I say hey you know eat the slop in this case there are preferences for slop and my preferences aligned I was like of course I would love to have Daniel back Daniel's one of my favorite people and you know he is one of the few people who's ever grace the inside

of the Leib Fiorintini studio here in Los Angeles. So, of course, I would have you back. I achieved full penetration. I'm not sure if it's going to feel quite the same with this level of geographic protection between us, you know? I know. I thought the same thing.

I was like, you know, it's just like, this is just such a thick condom, you know? I mean, we're talking about thousands of minds. There's more imagination to it. We can fill in the blanks. Exactly. It's great to be back. Thank you for having me, Matt.

This is such a nice surprise to be asked back. soon. It was absolutely my favorite media hit, if that's a term that people use. I think that is a term. Yeah, when they do way too much media that I've done. And so it's just, it's just delight to be back in your space today virtually or not. Oh, I love it. I'm glad you're back. I'm glad you're here. We had a great time talking about stuff last time and this time I expect no different. Although this time, because we are in two separate rooms, I imagine I will have a chance to play some of my favorite Israeli Hasbara. So, you know, I hope you're excited because this is you know, I've been, listen, I do research. And by do research, I just surf Twitter and Instagram

for hours on end, just hoping to see something that makes me feel again. I don't know if you. But I can tell by the palpating in my colon that I must be excited. Yeah, you can feel the pulsating sphincter. You're just like, ooh, wow, why am I? Wow, that anticipation of what I'm in for. Yeah, open wide, butt. Yeah. Today, we're going to be talking about all sorts of stuff.

I want to start out with, you know, Daniel, you and I are people who, enjoy making some, like, little, little funny videos online, you know, talking about Palestine, talking about keeping it light, keeping it light, you know, and trying to, you know, bring awareness to the fact that Israel is currently doing a genocide in Gaza. But did you know that there are also comedians out there who are doing the same thing, but are doing it in favor of the current genocide that is going on? Are you perhaps speaking about, and we have not prepared this at all,

I have no idea we're going to blame me, but are you perhaps speaking to me about the Middle East's finest sketch comedy program, Eretznehedaret? I mean, that is half of what I'm talking about. Absolutely. I mean, that actually very much relates to this. But I'm looking at an American version of this.

I'm speaking of a, TikTok superstar named Daniel Ryan Spalding, who I had not heard of until, you know, recent events. I'm sorry, Ryan Spalding? Daniel Ryan Spalding. Oh, Daniel Ryan Spalding. I thought you were talking about, it sounded like some kind of obscure and very non-Jewish Austrian dessert wine, like Reinspalding. It's a Rhine Spalding I think it's a 33

Yeah No That was a very good year For the rain Great year Yeah We love that year So many wonderful

So many wonderful Flavors tossed in it Yes a lot of I just have a lot of nostalgia for that year I don't really know why But this Rhine Spalding I drink It's a It tastes a little bloody

No but this is a comedian who I had not heard of before, and he did, he does like, I don't know how you would categorize it, but I would say he calls himself a power gay, which cool, and he does kind of like, sort of similar to you, he's kind of like the bizarre world view in terms of he does walk and talk videos, but they are, well, let me just, uh, Let me just introduce you to him. He's an interesting guy, so let's start. You have my attention if he's stealing my gimmick.

Yes, yes, but he's making it fabulous. All right. Oshing is a term that angry, jealous, purple-haired girls like to throw around anytime fabulous gay guys get along with Jews. Call me crazy, but I'd rather be at a circuit party in Tel Aviv getting head than in the Gaza Strip getting beheaded. I love my Jewish friends, and I love my Jewish friends, and I love my Israeli friends

and I'm going to remind them of that every single day and there's not one goddamn thing you can do about it. You're in the streets ripping down posters of kidney. I'm sorry. Can we start with no one's trying to do anything about that? You can tell your Jewish friends

and your Israeli friends you love them all day. No one is stopping you from doing it. Girl, girl, it's giving protesting too much. Yeah. Yeah. Not protesting. Protesting too much.

It's funny. When you say protesting, it sounds like being out in the street with signs. When you say protesting, it sounds like the way Shakespeare meant it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, that's a beautiful thing about the English language. Jewish babies in your little Yasur-Arafat scarves doing your little... Oh, hold on, hold on, hold on. Yes, he puts the Yas in Yassah-A-R-Fat.

He did. He did Yassur-Fatheat. Sir, Arafat. That's amazing. Jane Cosplay, I'm a gay guy. I know that if I'm going down, I'm going down with the Jews. That's how it works. First they come for the Jews, then they come for the gays.

That's not how it works. That is not how that poem works literally at all. But go ahead. Right. Wouldn't the joke be, I'm a gay guy, so I don't know if I'm going down, I'm going down on the Jews. Yeah, that's, part of me was like, I think he was, he meant, that um but uh decided to instead make a a worse point which is that i know that the only reason that i'm standing with the jews is because the gays are next and oh fair enough sure memo to mr

memo to miss ryan spalding don't don't let a couple of straight ashkenazi jewish guys out sass you yes yes please don't they had the star of david we had the pink triangle. But that doesn't matter to you purple-haired Hamas lovers does it because you're not actually gay? Something tells me if they started targeting my people, your purple hair would turn brown

pretty fucking fast. Oh man, there's just, so he's I mean, listen, he's doing a lot here. He's doing a lot. One of the things he's doing is saying you're not actually gay, which I assume he, that feels

like a specific gripe. He knows a purple, I think he knows a purple-haired girl who yelled at him once. That's what it feels. Yeah, maybe. Or maybe he's just taking Biden's cue like, you ain't black. Yeah, I mean, he's definitely going in that same direction, which is, I mean, we can all be honest. That is only like three degrees away from a full turf pivot, you know? Like this person is very soon going to be like, also, trans are not real.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, he's certainly, he's certainly, yeah, he could have, he could have done better with that joke, with that purple to brown hair joke. I feel like something about like, if you were living in Gaza, you know, the blockade would prevent your purple hair color from getting in and your hair would go brown. And then you wouldn't be so radical, would you. Or, yeah, you know, or why do they call it the Gaza Strip when you can't even go to a strip club, you know? When you can't even take off, when you can't even take off your hijab. Yeah. You know why I like Israelis? Because I like giving Iron Dome, you know? There we go.

There we go. They're having a little fun. You know, it's a, it brings to mind this thing that, and you mentioned the Israeli sketch comedy show. there is this focus that I only have previous to Israel making this kind of content I'd only seen the purple-haired girl's avatar for all things we hate from like the Babylon B you know what I mean like that was their main avatar like let's get a you know a bisexual we need to hate women and gays at the same time and college students and anyone who

seems vaguely Marxist so they just have this purple-haired girl and it is something that he continues doing with a just a delightful video he made on TikTok recently in which he is talking to himself It is an apartheid state. Hi, I'm Mr. Daniel, and this is my friend, the purple-haired girl.

She's not a bad person, but she's been radicalized to become a raging Jew hater, and we want to help her. I don't need your Zionist help. I just want to free Palestine from Israeli apartheid. Do you know what apartheid means Purple Hair Girl? Yeah, it means two different sets of laws for different races. That's right, Purple Hair Girl. girl, but Israel doesn't have apartheid. 20% of Israel is Arab, Muslim, and Christian, and they have full equal rights of citizenship.

They can vote, hold office in the Supreme Court, own land, every right a Jewish citizen has. There's also Druze people and Bedouins. They're Israeli too, with full rights of citizenship. Israel is a multicultural system. Can you pause it for a second? Yes. So a couple of things.

I love that when he drops the sort of sassy queen thing, you can just see how miserable he is. Like when he drops the big eyes and the smile, when he's just giving the facts, he's really, really not happy. Like he's, no, no, yeah. It's like a burden for him to, like, have to carry this out. 100%. Yeah. It's, it's funny because you don't, you rarely see this much of a change in character. Like, this is supposed to be like a sarcastic guy, whereas before it was what he's, described as a power gay, you know, just walking fucking, you know, like, like he's walking down a runway, just spouting Israeli propaganda. No, no, he's like the token, he's like the token gay hire at Hasbara Inc. And he doesn't have a, he has a shitty, doesn't even have a corner

office and doesn't even get to write his own material. Like some straight guy wrote this for him. And it's like, and this, he's like, he's like Randy Rainbow after some kind, after birthright. he is yeah he's like a radicalized Randy Rainbow but he's not but he's also not Jewish so he doesn't get to be

he was yeah he got he was he was the gay Christian guy who got to tag along on birthright so and and it was and it was like a pretty homophobic space probably yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah he had a miserable time but now he's like contracted to

yeah well I mean you know it's uh when you get that sweet sweet content engagement you know we've all admitted it's it's hard not to love it it's a hard not not to feel you know that uh that oxytocin hit once uh once you once you get that like but there is a bit of like when i when i see it with this kind of content i'm always just like this is um like like money went into this you know what i mean so uh i've always that that that sweater vest at the very lead or that cardigan

oh yeah oh yeah 100 percent i mean look that is an ex you can tell you can It's got a, that's at least, what, $75 used? Oh, at least. That is not even. I mean, like, double exchange these days? Yeah, and he doesn't even get to keep it. He can't take that home. Wardrobe will tell him, fuck off.

We're keeping it for the next sassy, gay, Zionist. Yeah, exactly. I mean, the Palestinians in Gaza. Well, purple-haired girl, Israel can't give them rights. Because they don't live. They don't live in Israel. Yeah, yeah. That's, it would be impossible.

What I, what I love about this argument, I mean, you know, and for anyone who already knows this, forgive me for, you know, telling you what you already know. But just the idea that we're now at the, I mean, listen, at this stage in Hasbara, they have to have something new and they don't, it's the same shit I've heard my whole life, which is like, no, but Gaza is its own state, you know, the way. bank they have a government there. Israel can't just... We left Gaza in 2005. Yes, yes, the same fucking bullshit.

They burned the greenhouses. They totally misdecorated the place. They just made it hideous. Yeah. What can you do with these people? Yeah, they don't even know about feng shui. In Israel, it's like saying why doesn't the U.S. give Mexicans rights? It's because they don't live in the US. Israel withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005,

even evicting Jewish Israelis from their homes. So Palestinians in Gaza. Let's just, can I just read you a little something here? Please. So they love to say this about how Israel withdrew completely in 2005, they gave them full sovereignty. It's complete and total horseshit. Number one, it's true that they removed, I think,

8,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza, and they proceeded to install 12,000 new ones in the West Bank. And it was completely understood that this was a redeployment, not really a withdrawal. Here is a quote from a book by an Israeli historian and an Israeli journalist, Edith Zertal and Akiva Eldar, respectively. They have a book called Lords of the Land. And they wrote that Israel's 2005 disengagement from Gaza did not, quote, release Gaza for even a single day from Israel's military grip or from the price of the occupation that its inhabitants pay every day, end quote. When it removed its settlers in Gaza,

quote, Israel left behind scorched earth, devastated services, and people with neither a present nor a future. The settlements were destroyed in an ungenerous move by an unenlightened occupier, which in fact continues to control the territory and kill and harass its inhabitants by means of its formidable military might. And that, Mr. Reinspolding, is called effective control, which is it amounts to the same thing as military occupation under international law. You can occupy a land by having your people in it, or you can occupy the concentration camp from the outside.

Still, you control the borders, you control who gets in, you control who gets out, you control what gets in and gets out, from everything from chocolate to potato chips to baby chickens, which Israel outlawed at various times. You control the flow of food to the point where Israel was calculating the daily number of calories that Palestinians could just subsist on. You control the airspace because you bomb the airport. You control the waterways. You control everything. And that, my friend, is not analogous as much power as the U.S. does wield over Mexico. That's not at all analogous to the U.S. granting Mexicans' rights or something, because Mexico is a state.

and its citizens have ostensibly the right to be free and to vote in their own government. So these analogies for the purple-haired girl fall apart on immediate impact. And I would love to get the purple girl in a room. So just let her know she's not crazy. I know. She's just a badly written, badly played character by the same asshole. I know. I really want to like take purple-haired girl aside and be like, you're actually, you're doing

great you know i i i understand that you're currently um the body that you're inhabiting right now um is that of uh an ignorant zionist sociopath but i want you to know keep going keep reading keep doing doing doing everything that you're doing because uh don't let this guy you know who is you 90 percent of the time don't don't let him take over you're doing And eventually, one day, you know, the marionette will kill the puppeteer. You kill your master. She'll achieve full sentience. She'll be a free-floating phantasm when she'll develop a moral conscience and actually defeat the bad sketch artist, TikTok artist that created her.

Oh, I love that. Oh, yes. You know, I would say it's, you know, it's Mr. Hyde defeating Jekyll. but I kind of feel like I mean maybe I need to actually read that book to know whether or not Hyde was actually like based like was was Hyde actually the good guy and Dr. Jekyll the bad guy yeah I haven't read it either I have it in my car but I still haven't read it um it looks like mr. Reinsbalding is in um is in Brooklyn like me so maybe him and I could do a walk and talk together sometimes that would I would love to watch you guys walk and talk at the same time if you ever catch him on the street making videos you need to start walking next to him and just doing the exact same thing uh yeah sachet with daniel yes but everybody says that it's a part time no hold on don't listen propaganda by a terrorist organization called Hamas called the u.s called amnesty international called human rights watch called bet selim like what the fuck no that is really the Israeli human rights

organization, Bitsselm, that has recently put out a report, I think 2018, that called Israel's dominion over both 48 Israel and occupied Palestine, the West Bank, and Gaza, a Jewish supremacy from the river to the sea. Yes. Yes. Yes. Just like that is Hamas propaganda just rings so hollow at this point because it's like how many more human rights organizations do you need? It's like on one side you have every major human rights organization

and inside Israel and outside of Israel. And on the other side you have what? Israel's PR department and the state department and like the you know whoever's handling Middle East diplomacy

in Western nations. Those are the only people who are like yeah no no Israel's right don't forget Micronesia Palau the Marshall Islands all the tiny Pacific Island nations that are the only ones who vote with the US and Israel every year to block a two-state settlement since the 1970s oh man I love I love that because it's just like you know it's just all this keeps reminding me of the Iraq war when we had like the coalition of the willing and it was just like you know states that you're like oh yeah yeah yeah I forgot about Palau you know I know I know it's in the ocean somewhere and yeah no it's just oh yeah it is do you think do you think this

a Zionist podcast called Bad Hamaspera oh there should be I would love to see our you know our evil twins I guess it would be us without our circle beards yeah that's right yeah They would be completely clean-shaven, and they would just play videos of me and you and laugh because they are funny. That uses people's lack of knowledge and anti-Semitic biases to spread misinformation. They wouldn't lie to me. Hamas would lie to you. They'd also gang rape you, behead you, burn you alive, mutilate and rape your dead body, and film it all, and live stream it on Facebook to your family. family because Hamas is a psychotic death cult that oppresses Israelis and Palestinians. I'm purple.

Oof. Wow. That was the punchline. Yeah. I'll be honest, I never got to the ending. That's quite a, that's quite a capper. I'm purple. Ha, ha, ha.

Yeah. I'm purple. Ha, ha. I've never gotten to the end of that. Didn't know it ended with. purple ha ha which is uh it's funny that that's like uh an ironic thing literally you that you wrote it you made her purple you can't just be like look at this idiot you're the idiot you wrote the fucking sketch yeah well i mean basically he's summing up

that's the extent of the joke like yeah that is confess that's the whole thing that's really all he has on her and yeah and she's a woman and the misogyny is very clearly, very strong there. This sort of aggressive, you know, there's a particular strain. There's this particular strain of white, gay, male misogyny that I've seen a lot in the musical theater world. Oh, yeah. I'm in musical theater.

I write musicals, which is not to say that there isn't a large strain of white straight male misogyny, which of course is. Oh, yeah. But, I mean, we invented it probably. But it's very strong in this video, this kind of like wanting to inhabit this. like, I don't know, wanting to do the drag thing, but just really kind of despising the character you're playing and having no insight into it.

Yeah, yeah. There's, you know, like this hateful version of women that I think, you know, is displayed by a lot of, like, your white male gay men. And this is like the Zionist version of that, where you just see someone who's just like I don't see

completely why your avatar of, you know, Hamas supporting leftists or whatnot is just some woman. But I imagine it's the same reason that every single right wing publication

from like Daily Wire to Babylon B to Fox News to fucking all of them that they do the exact same thing. That is who they hate. And they are a little less shy about the fact that it's because they find women annoying. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like they will just outwardly admit their misogyny, whereas he probably thinks he's good,

which is one of the reasons that nothing pisses me off more than liberal Zionism. You know, listen, at least hard right Zionists know they're bad. Yeah, I don't exactly get liberal vibes from him. I mean, he could very well be a gay Republican for all I know. He, I mean, he comes off as a gay Republican, but if I had to guess, I would say very much so, you know, he holds himself as, if not a liberal, but someone who is just like a centrist realist who is, you know, pragmatic, correct. Yeah, he's a pragmatic progressive or something like that. Yeah, was like happy about gay marriage getting passed. is mad that trans people are now taking the mic you know i got mine jack yeah i got mine

you are done um yeah so listen shout out to um you know mr ryan spalling here um i will say that i i went back into his um history and uh found a little bit of an origin story um as to why this um because like before this he was just doing you know like watching talk and talk videos. He had a big weight loss journey, which I think is great, good for him, and all that. And then now he just makes these like, I'm gay and not Jewish and love Israel. But this is what I found as to why that's the case. He woke 20-somethings who don't actually give a shit about anyone but themselves. I gained 12,000 Instagram followers overnight and all I had to do was say that Hamas terrorism is wrong.

I mean, if you want to know the reasons for making that kind of pivot, that's one of them. Yeah. Is he being, is he actually confessing that he just did that in a craven way, or is he? I mean, I believe he is trying to recruit others to do the same thing. And he's also somewhat bragging like, oh, you're going to hate Israel? Well, guess what? You're missing out on the followers, which I will say shout out to anyone online who posts and reposts like anything that is pro-Palestinian. Because all y'all are the true heroes who make it possible to look at that video and go like, you know, you also, you do get love for being someone with a conscious who loves Palestine. So thank you.

Yeah, I mean, I don't like thinking of it in these terms, but it's just a fact that in these past three months, you know, there's a big part of, I mean, there's room. The world is wide enough to quote a song from Hamilton, which I'm sure he loves. The world is wide enough for. Hamilton and Zionist, cowardly, exactly, cowardly Zionist genocide deniers and fine upstanding, you know,

Jews like you and me holding up the best of our tradition and Palestinians who are finally getting a voice in the discourse to all have a piece of the follower pie. And, you know, none of it matters because 25,000 people have died and Israel has gone entirely insane. But if you want to play the follower game, okay, do you. I know, I know. It's just like, you know, it's, there's a shamelessness to starting your video out that way. And I, you know, he did a pretty, early on. So I like to imagine that at this point, if you were to rewatch that video, it'd be like, maybe I shouldn't start off with, I did this for clout. Well, this is the thing, though. It's like when when wonderful comedic traditions get

bastardized for the power centers, they become quite, quite sinister. So Camp, right? Camp is actually a very subversive style of comedy. I remember. when I saw Hedwig in the Angry Inch, which is one of my favorite musicals, I saw it off Broadway in the late 90s. And I didn't expect to like it because I was like, well, I'm not gay. I've never had a sex change operation. I'm not East German. You know, all of the identity categories of this character, right? Right. And this was sort of in the years before transgender discourse, what it was what it was now. So the whole premise of the show was German boy has a botched sex change operation ends up German girl in in America out of place and all this kind of stuff.

But I found myself weeping and laughing and relating to it so much because the camp of it was this lacerating wit that cut through hypocrisies and also cut through pain, personal pain. And it had vulnerability to it, but there was this barbed edge of self-protection, but so much self-loathing in the mix. And of course, as an Ashkenazi Jew, I completely agree with that and being betwixt in between and all of that. So this persona that you know, gay performers and writers and artists have developed and it's not a persona. It's a whole genre. It's a whole world. It's a whole ontology has so much richness to it and it's so humanizing. But then you take the surface elements of it, which is just sibilant s's like certain kinds of

snaps and like head movements and like a certain kind of like crude sarcasm where you just mean the opposite of what you say or you mean exactly what you say but you're just saying it in this tone and all of a sudden you've you've lost the the spark of humanity at it and now it's just a new flavor of fascism it's fucked up yeah yeah yeah and you know at the end of the day like uh any of the reservations you had about not enjoying something end up being correct because bad art is bad art. You know, I will say, of course, you know, it is more sinister to have bad art for speaking out in favor of fascism.

But, you know, even if it's just, you know, completely apolitical, not funny. Or worse, if it has great politics, but it's not funny and it's bad. I hate that shit. Bad social justice, bad social justice art. It's tough. I know. I know. It's, it's, you know, I, uh, I, uh, I support the, the message, but, uh, I'm always just like, just make it funny, please. Yeah, it's like, try. Um, the craft, you know, exactly. Uh, I, uh, you and I are old school estates, you know, we're old souls. It's not like these kids, these purple-haired kids these days.

Not these purple-haired kids these days with their woke mind virus in trying to, yeah. I want to pivot real quick to talking about one of the, you know, biggest distributors of Hezbara. That's Israel's Twitter account. Daniel, do you know they have a Twitter account? I do. She's so cute. She's a 14 year old girl. And she's like really not having it, you guys. Like she's really like she can't. Yeah. She can't with with this fundamentally. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. She is she literally can't. And big yikes. But yeah, it is it is this. It's interesting because it kind of goes back and forth between like, you know, news clips of, you know, whoever they're, you know, favorite Hasbarist is, you know, talking to meet the press or whatever, and like some funny video like that,

like that sketch comedy show. But I wanted to talk about, actually, this is what I want to talk about. I want to talk about bringing them home. This is something that I, you know, if you're anywhere in this world and you have at any point criticized Israel or at any point said that you would like them to not do a genocide, you will be inundated with people who go like, what about the hostages, bring them home, bring them home. it has been a hundred days and at this point I don't know how it's possible for anyone who still says this to not feel deep shame and self-loathing the only people at this point who are actually working towards freeing the hostages are people who are in the streets screaming for a ceasefire and the families of the hostages

and the families of the hostages that's right going to the Knesset and pleading with them to stop the madness yes and it is just to constantly see even now even today the bring them home meme or hashtag

being utilized by people in response to literally every single criticism no matter how great or small of how they're conducting their operations

in Gaza it's just like it's sickening to a degree in which it almost feels like mocking it almost feels like mocking not of the

thousands of dead Gazans but of the literal families of victims of the Hamas terror attack that happened on the

7th like these are people who want their family members back they want them home and as of today i believe only uh and i'll have to to check to make sure to see if maybe it's been updated um but last i checked only one one hostage was rescued in an operation by the idf one that's right that's right that is it and it's not exactly in tebe is it no it's not it's it really isn't and and you know it's funny when you search uh idf uh hostage rescue you know trying to find like let me get this number here because this is ostensibly the reason they went into gaza this is a

reason for all of this um uh you just find articles about intebe over and over again you just and i'm like no no now i want to know now what is happening is there do they have some fucking you know are the special forces going in there and freeing people One. Only one so far. Meanwhile, they actually, no, they definitely liberated three of them from this mortal coil. From this mortal coil. Yes, they've murdered, I think at this point five, they've admitted to five hostages who were killed by Israel. You know, of course, we know of the three, the big ones, just the ones who literally escaped their captors, had banners that said, please, you know, help us. We are Israeli, had their hands up and we're still summarily

executed. At least they were waving white flags and they had their shirts off. So they weren't wearing suicide vests. And then that's right. Of course, there's however many hostages have been killed in the rubble. I mean, you talk about, you know, Netanyahu put out a tweet about murder tunnels. Well, okay, your hostages are being held in tunnels throughout this densely populated area and you are, you know, dropping seismic levels of explosives and just obliterating everything, that's a great rescue operation. Yeah. And meanwhile, you're not, you're not negotiating.

Like, hasn't, hasn't, haven't these people seen a hostage movie? Have you not seen Glenn, sorry, I was going to say Glenn Gary Glenn. Glenn Gary, Glenn, Day afternoon. Not dog day afternoon. Yeah. That's a different movie. You stupid fucking cunt. You stupid.

But you see this watch. Who ever told you that you could work with men? You see this watch? Oh, yeah. But yeah, no. Going to Lampkin. Sorry. No, but Dog Day Afternoon and Die Hard.

Hostages, even the most psychotic deranged ones, want something. That's what the hostages are for. It's leverage. Which means you either play ball and negotiate. And it turns out Israel has what to negotiate in the form of Palestinian hostages in their torture dungeons, thousands of them, including women and children, kidnapped, nabbed from their beds with no charge, administrative detention, held for six months renewable at a time,

right? So you either do that or you deal with not doing that. Right, right. You don't pretend that you're doing it by the mass bombing of Gaza. You don't pretend that you're doing it by the mass bombing of Gaza. pretend that oh that's what we're doing and and that that i think is the most uh like sickening part of this is you know at at some point i think i just kind of assumed that they would um drop the hostages pretext because you know you can't like you said you can't be like they're holding our hostages in these tunnels you know and then cut to a video of them doing this mass explosion of a tunnel underground in guys allegedly and then just be so you don't give a shit you're you got your soldiers you got your

soldiers dancing the horror singing nothing will be alive under the ground they got translators there just chanting it back to them in English just in case you missed it American sign language interpreters it's in every language but yeah man it yeah at this point, the vast, vast, vast majority, I believe upwards of 130 hostages who have been released have been released due to hostage exchange from ceasefires that they had. A ceasefire is how you bring them home. If you care about bringing them home, then that's what you do. And just the idea that anyone is still out there to this. this day. I mean, if you look at fucking Israel's, you know, a Twitter page, like, their

fucking masthead is bring them home. It's still that. Yeah. It's still that. I'm surprised they haven't done a Les Mis style video with the song Bring Him Home. It's embarrassing, but a lot of people in the Broadway community right after October 7th. And I guess I can understand it in the immediate aftermath, although I cringed as hard as cringe can be because, you know, I'm in that world and I knew that it was going to skew very, very, very, very Zionist. But they did a big, you know, they met up in Times Square and sang, bring him home from Le Mez, dedicated to the hostages. And by this point, of course, it was already clear what was either happening or going to happen. And they, you know, took aside. And they sided like with the Russia-Ukraine war, of course,

She's just side with whichever side our official enemy is against the side that our friends are with. And we weep tears and we really mean it. You know, we're singing this musical theater anthem about freedom. But, you know, we'd never sing, you know, bring them home about Palestinian prisoners. No, ever. You know, we'd never, we'd never, we'd never go out and do a version of Rise Up from fucking Hamilton to be like, you know, when are these colonies is going to rise up, you know, well, what about these settler colony is going to rise up? You know, so it's just, it's like, I've always found musical theater to be such a touchy,

I'm sort of getting into my own. No, please, I love this. Well, it's just such a, it's such a powerful art form because it combines theatrical storytelling, drama, with music, which means that combined, it can achieve some of the most transcendent, surreal, heightened effects. It can communicate things that can't be communicated by mere words alone. They say that once a character can no longer speak, they sing, and once they can no longer just sing, they have to dance. And that's what can happen in musical theater. So that's really

cool. And if you have it in the hands of real humanist writers like Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bach from Fiddler on the roof, or Stephen Sondheim, who is a different kind of humanist, you can get into some really beautiful, complicated, and

lovely kind of just omages to what humanity is capable of, the good and the bad. But in the wrong hands, it's also the most emotionally manipulative, potentially fascist art form possible. Yeah. Because again, you're putting words with music. And when there's no clash between the words and the music,

when it's just a hat on a hat, when there's no complexity, and when you're using it then to advance a political agenda of the people who are already in power. It's an art form that I want to get far away from. So it's a strange thing to be a part of because I love it. And I'm very, very sensitive to its misuse. So I'm surprised that Israel hasn't seized on that particular Le Miz song, Bring Him Home to do a stupid video of their own.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I had the exact same critique, I think, of, you know, stand-up comedy when it comes. comes to, it's the ability to use it for the sake of fascism, you know. And it is, you know, almost worse in a way, not to, you know, denigrate musical theater, but, you know, it's, musical theater has, I think, at this point in, you know, modern American history, probably a smaller reach than now, you know, stand-up comics do.

And so, like, at the very least, like, you know, with regards to fascist musical theater, at least, like, it's still not as accessible to a general public as, like, you know, a fucking some guy standing in front of a mic doing his fifth special about how a trans person corrected him once and he's never going to forgive her for doing so it's not it's not a very funny special i watched it this morning oh yeah see i can't i you know i i i have this thing with chapelle where you know i i i remember him as he was you know it's like yeah i i like to uh you know just remember killing them softly and chapelle's show and everything you know everything after that i'm like nah that's a different guy you know it's basically it's the paul is dead theory

but for Dave Chappelle like I like looked into pictures I'm like no he died in a car accident in 66 and they just replace his ass I understand I have a bit more leeway for him and I have a I have a slightly different read on on some of those you know on the line between provocative even offensive comedy and bad fascist comedy sure sure but the real but the risk the risk with someone like him is you just get so lazy and now it's all all about you and your controversies. And now you're just higher in your own supply. You're just recycling your fumes.

You're just giving your audience what they think they want. And you're not actually, you're losing what made you so great in the first place, which is, well, he's still got his storytelling ability. But you're losing your insight into anything worth having insight into. Yeah. I mean, at some point, you know, it's just like, I think what you want to do is do a podcast. I don't think you want this doesn't need to be a special. necessarily but you know still shout out to him for uh he did a show in boston recently in which he that's exactly right yeah in which he uh yelled at someone uh who tried to hackle him about you know

israel or something and he said you know he stood with the palestinian people and so because of that his his no no his space jews joke from a couple years ago that's pretty fucking funny oh it's a great have you heard that joke oh yes i love that joke so so here's that's a case i watch clips where yeah yeah you'll watch the cliff so that's a case where his i don't give a fuck what anybody says about me i'm going to just do whatever comes out of my joke book yeah it's like you you take the the good with the the often very bad and very lazy or you don't take it at all it's all good but yeah yeah anyway you're you're saying that stand-up comedy when basically when it starts punching down and when it loses its taste for really taking the piss out of those who deserve to

have the piss taken out of them. Yeah, it can be, become another tool for just... Right, yeah, and I have the same kind of like an emotional reaction that you have to, you know, what happens with, when musical theater is weaponizing that way, where I'm just, you know, I just look at it and I go like, ah, you know, this is

this is it's almost it's also bad because I think laughs reinforce a worldview sometimes for certain people and that's not necessarily what a laugh is. And I think that a laugh is good for your ego

but it doesn't necessarily mean that what you're saying is relatable or correct in any way this idea it's funny because it's true it's like that's not a thing like things can be funny because they're also true but also there's a lot of false things that are hilarious there's just a well but that's just a logical that's just a logical fallacy you can say that this particular

joke is funny because it's true but that doesn't mean that something is true because it's funny right exactly exactly and i think we uh we have now tend to put comedians on a pedestal and i think we need to remember that um all of us um are we are fucking stupid and trash and you should not at all ever put a comedian on a pedestal we are all degenerates and uh you know we are all just begging to be liked like like children so yeah you know Yeah, and I think a musical theater people are begging, musical theater people are begging to be told that we're special and talented.

And the thing that bugs me about it is that it's not going to be used for meanness so much as it's going to be used for like communal feeling good about ourselves when and just not. So like self-congratulation is a big thing in musical theater, pushing people's buttons to make them feel like they're laugh, like they're crying at the right moments and feeling the right things and so on and so forth. and kind of flattering their own self-concept which I guess is what the two things we're talking about have in common.

Anyway, I don't know how we got off on that. Oh, it's fine. I enjoy getting into musical theater and I'll be honest with you, all right? When I finally allowed myself to listen to Hamilton, I was like, this is pretty good. The music's good. I'm not going to front.

Like, I know I'm supposed to be, like this sucks it's schoolhouse rock and i'm like no it's kind of some of those songs are fucking bangers though i mean i'm not i'm not trying to you know but like i'm not i'm not trying to be a live or anything but like can't motherfucker just like a cheesy ass song let me live can't a motherfucker just you know just be in the room where it fucking happens where it happens you know oh wait yeah wait for it's a great song it's it's it's got lots of great stuff in it I went through phases with it. At first, I wanted to hate it, and then I loved it, and then I saw it, and then I saw

it again, and then I started to, like, listen to it closer, and the more and more I listened to it after that, the less I liked it. So I feel like my, I feel like my hate for it is both informed by love of its craft, but it's also well-earned, because I went through the whole journey. I didn't skip to the end. I, you know. This is how I feel about Israel. That's exactly how I feel.

It's very informed. you know, I went through this, you know, initially loved it, could do no wrong. Then I, you know, I was like, I don't know about that. Then I went on birthright and I was like, I don't know, maybe Israel is good. Everyone keeps saying it is. Fucking anyone who goes on birthright has the right to hate Israel. I mean, 100%. You did your fucking time.

I did it. I did the thing. I went to the thing and you said, oh, you don't, you can't know unless you come here. I knew I came there and I'm like, okay. I know now. Now I know. Thank you. Sorry.

Speaking of video, or speaking of music, we're going to end this podcast with this. And there's a chance of this. Were you going to show me something from the Israeli Twitter, the Twitter account? Oh, that's, well, yeah. I mean, the only thing I mostly just wanted to rant about bring them home, but I will play this one thing that they posted New Year's Eve. look at his face i know what are they doing hold on hold on hold on hold on i got to see his face again i got to see the face like i'm going to kiss her i'm really oh i'm sorry but like i'm sorry but like

Don't make him do that face. Obviously, it's not funny that people were kidnapped, but why does he look like someone who just got turned down? Like, he looks like he got rejected by Hamas. Like, he looks like, that's right. Like, oh, damn, man. Like, he looks like he's looking across the bar. And all of a sudden, the girl he brought to the club is talking to some other dude.

And that dude is wearing like Afia. and he's just like, what the fuck? Like, should we describe the visual for those listening to the... Yeah, for those listening? I mean, it's a, it's a profile of a man. It was a man or a woman who were about to kiss. It was like New Year's Eve, 5, 4, 3, 2, and then she dissolves. And then it said...

Like something out of like a Harry Potter movie or something, or Lord of the Rings. Like, she just turns to ash and like... I mean, it's straight up. I think it's... From the bottom up. Yeah. Yeah, it's, uh, what do you call it? It's, um, like Avengers Endgame like style.

Like, yeah, it's Thanos, like fucking snapped his fingers and kidnapped 200 people in Israel. Yeah. Um, yeah. And then he's, he still goes in for the kiss, but he sort of sees the dissolving coming and he looks kind of vaguely like, oh, fuck, not again. Yeah, it does look like this has happened before. He starts, yeah, he's like, fuck, why can't I catch a break? I've been cucked by Hamas. And he just starts to turn around towards the camera like, are you, are you fucking kidding me?

Like, it's a very bizarre reaction. It is. And I'm sorry. But like, again, why to me this is something I can look at and fucking laugh about is that you are not trying to bring them home. Like, the fucking nerve of Israel and their propagandists to use the hostages as this pretext when at this point you've made it abundantly clear that if it's between stopping, killing mass Palestinians in Gaza and bringing them home, you choose killing. You choose killing all of the Palestinians and you choose to put the hostages in harm's way.

You don't give a shit. so you can make your fucking you know uh like dramatic fucking content to try to shame other people into not supporting a ceasefire but it makes no fucking sense you do not care about bringing them but it's completely undramatic these people don't look like they have any chemistry they look like they were totally set up by two friends he looks half pissed off half relieved yeah and and it's also it's so it's so insulting It's so trivializing. Like, imagine having a loved one actually taken from you.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. And basically this, and just the pain of that and the confusion of that. And this video turns that into like, Hamas wants all Jews to get no New Year's pussy. Right. Exactly. That's what Hamas.

It's in their charter. It's a cock block. We must cock block the Jewish people. They must not get a nut. No, not November has turned into no not December, and there will be no not January. You're making them sound Yiddish. I know, I realized, you know, in the middle of it, I couldn't do the voice. Well, that's better that we default to that.

We should always just, you know, like, when are you going to, you don't need me to do an Arab voice. You get it. To end this podcast, I want to end with something just amazing, an amazing bit of Hasbara that has a little bit of a backstory that I'll get into. But this was sent to me by a friend online. And it is a video of what looks to be like a concert that, happened in Israel, excuse me,

in which they are doing a cover of Learn to Fly by the Foo Fighters, but instead they're singing about bringing them home. And it is, so it's essentially a parody song. It's like they Weird Al, Weird Al Yankovic'd Learn to Fly in order to do a song about Hamas. And I'm going to play a little bit of that for you right now. It says United Against Evil. You see some people clapping and playing bass. You know what's funny about that? What? It has the same initials as United Arab Emirates.

It does. Oh god. Yep. This time it's a horrible monster. From Hamas. They are filled with hatred and anger. How many drummers are? Do they like 100 troubles?

Yeah. That's such a great rhyme. The evil monsters from Hamas. kill, burn, maim, slaughtered children with their moms. That's supposed to rhyme with Hamas. Hamas. Their moms, Hamas, you know, it's a slant rhyme, but, you know, I'll allow it. I'll allow it.

Weird Al Yankovic, but make it morose, obtuse, and just no fun whatsoever. And a bunch of Israelis, and they're having so much fun. Look at them. Oh, yes. But it gets, it gets better once I explain the context. Humanity is now united. Humanity is cold. Fight against the total evil of us.

Fight against the total evil of a bomb. Pause that. I don't think they really want to be taking this humanity is now united angle on this particular moment in history. I feel like you're not, you don't really want to be saying that majority rules in terms of what, how humanity is feeling about. This is so sad to watch. It really, it really is. Well, it gets better. But first, let me just finish this chorus. Ready to eliminate him off. So there's thousands of drummers. There's thousands. It looks like there's hundreds of drummers, hundreds of bass players, hundreds of guitar players out in a field.

you know, playing music and you're like, you know, where, what is, where all these Israelis doing? This is weird. Let me give you some background on this. So this is a video that was shared by Ella Travels Love on Twitter, which is, I guess, they're doing a bunch of, you know, nice Hezbara. And it appears to be a bunch of Israelis having a concert called United Against Evil in which they do a parody song of Learned to Fly. This video is fake. And so the real video is 100, oh sorry, 1,000 musicians play Learn to Fly by Foo Fighters to ask Dave Grohl to come and play in, I don't know how to pronounce this, Chesna, Italy. Those are Italians. That,

this, this is not something that happened in Israel. This is who over, who over, who, overdub the vocals. I don't know. Someone who hates some oz. Um, the, yes. So the, the actual video is this. Um, and it's, they're just singing where to fly, which is actually kind of awesome. That is great. I, I, I, they're, they're united to get Dave Grohl to do a foo fighter's concert and Chessna, wherever the heck Chessna is. Look, look, I was, you know, when, when Kurt Cobain shot himself in 1994, I was, I was in Israel. I was on keyboard. And that made a bad situation even worse for me. But so I'm, I'm a Nirvana guy, right? Like, you know, so food fighters is a little after my time. Yep. But it is very, but those Italians begging Dave Grohl to come and,

and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, but I'm very confused now about I mean I come to think of it listening to that Israeli version it sounded weird right it sounded like kind of you know when you over when you try to create the sound of like a chorus by like recording yourself many many times the same voice or two voices yeah yeah that's exactly I had to really because I as I was listening I was like it's weird that this sounds like shit but I didn't think about it yeah like that sounds that sounds like dog shit i think it is it almost i was like is you you you wouldn't be able to hear that yeah well you you wouldn't be able to hear that s yeah so clearly uh if it was

recorded from these people alive like you just wouldn't that's right that's right yeah what's also really funny is if if Israelis were forced to actually pronounce hamas the way it's actually pronounced could just hemis or something like that. Yeah. Even just putting the emphasis, they wouldn't have a song because they need of Hamas. Yeah, yeah. It's beautiful, too, that I had the same reaction you did,

which is when I looked at this. I didn't even question whether or not these were Israelis. I was just like, it says a lot that I can look at a sea of Italians playing foo fighters. And I go like, oh, yeah, those are Israelis. Please. You know, I mean, I'm not trying to say, listen, I understand that 50% of the Jewish-Israeli population of Israel has some sort of, you know, at this point, Mizrahi, you know, ancestry. You know, there are a lot of Ashkenazis and Mizrahi's living together. They have babies, and that's the thing. But I will say, they did, those Italians, did not. look that dissimilar and uh i don't know if you could say that israel is the europe yeah israel is like the eurovision colony in the middle east yes to the extent that it you know and then of

course it has this largely overlooked arab jewish component yeah uh where the music well they're they're not overlooked if you need to use them in order to uh bolster the uh i don't know the dna credentials of uh well i think i i think dave grose should should i think dave grose should take his his uh at this point geriatric rock band to israel and set them up on the border and it'll be them against amas you can call it the foo fighters versus the jew fighters i love it i love it it's see you already got the branding done daniel foo fighters v jew fighters get them together i mean who's not going love it everyone you know we can all enjoy you know the power of rock music bringing us together or you know occasionally tearing us apart yeah yeah but i don't think i don't think i don't think

kurt's ghost would love it very much but he doesn't love yeah i know you know i i listen i know that people like foo fighters and i allow i allow that that's fine i have not i've yet to listen to a foo fighter song that I didn't kind of feel was like um like what if target made nirvana yeah it's like what most deaf it's like what yesine bay most deaf said about drake it's like hip hop that you that you can shop to you know yes it's like oh yeah this is dope this makes me want to check the discount aisle like food fighters it's totally inoffensive to me and some of it's even kind of good but it never quite it just never quite pays i never hit with me yeah yeah I get that it's good, but I think...

It's fine. Yeah. Like, you know, it's fine. You can like it. Why do I have to like it? I'm not going to fight the fighting of the foo. No, yeah, fight foo. Let them fight the foo.

Yeah, someone's got to fight foo. And if you are someone who's a foo fighter, feel free to foo fight. That's what I say. So, anyways, in conclusion, Uh, beautiful, beautiful video, beautiful piece of Hezbara. Um, those were Italians, not Israelis. If you couldn't tell the difference, think about it. Think about why. So some is, some Israeli genius decided to culturally appropriate Italian bad taste to try to make bad, bad hostage barra. Very good. Oh, on that note, Daniel. Thank you so much for once again, gracing me over here at Bad Hasbara. Love you so much.

Where can people find you on the internet? Well, first of all, the love is more than mutual. Thank you for having Matt. People can find me on the Twitters and on the instas at Daniel B-M-M-T-E, that's M-A-T-E-B for Brooklyn, although my middle name is actually Benjamin. And, yeah, walkwith-daniel.com for my mental. chiropractic service and daniel matte.com for all my musical theaters so you can go find out how i'm trying to keep that art form from sliding into fascism and um mediocrity that's right that's right

while while not while not getting produced at all hey listen if i had money i would produce your musicals i'm sure that's true of literally anyone who's friends with you and the family with we would all do it if we only could you see this is a danio have you considered um uh having rich friends well you know what i i went ahead and wrote a bestselling book with a bestselling author named my dad oh yeah as as those royalties start to come in i'm starting to start to think that you might be rich now well i might be not not if not rich, but in a position to fund my art in such a way that I don't need to be doing the banging my head against the wall, asking, when is the world going to discover me kind of thing?

Like it's, you know, what else? What else is financial stability for, if not, well, helping others, but also making your non-lucrative dreams come true. So right, exactly. That's, that's, that is part of the plan. So I shouldn't be complaining. I'm in a very, very fortunate place. But, you know, It is, the musical theater is very dear to me and I've been writing it for going on 15 years now and got a lot of stuff online. People can check it out. Yeah, well, I'm going to post links to all of it in the show notes. Check it all out. And Daniel, once again, thank you so much for coming on. The door at Bad Hezapara is open to you literally 24-7. I love you, I love it. You'll be seeing me coming through plenty more times then. Yeah, I love you too. Thanks for helping me.

yeah one day i'm gonna dig a tunnel it'll go from brooklyn to los angeles and we will meet together in that tunnel and podcast but but we're gonna get our singles cross and so like you'll think you're coming to me and i'll think i'm coming to you and we'll meet right underneath kansas city and we'll be like ha ha jokes on both of us

yeah i know now we have to be in kansas city actually kansas city missouri is pretty dope i like pretty nice yeah yeah uh patreon dot com slash Frotcast and also Bad Hasbara at gmail.com for all of your questions, comments concerns. Please feel free to send me any Hasbara that you have seen that is funny, that is sad, that is interesting, that will inspire a good conversation.

Badhasbara at gmail.com All right, ladies and gentlemen, everyone else, thank you so much for listening. And until next time, live long. and prosper because you were doing that I still don't have a sign out from the river to the sea Tuesday nights

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