Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - Bad Hasbara 61: The Body Forgets The Score, with Zach Foster

Episode Date: November 6, 2024

On election day 2024, Matt and Daniel are joined by Zach Foster of Palestine Nexus to discuss Bill Clinton's pronunciation of the word kibbutzim, the Israel vibes of comedian Iliza Schlesinger, an...d 3 cantons that aren't in Ohio.Please donate to Muslim Aid USA: https://www.mausa.org/Find Zach online at https://palestinenexus.com/Subscribe 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

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Moshwam hot bitch, a ribbon polo. We invented the terry tomato. And weighs, USB drives, and the iron d'all. Israeli salad, oozy, stent, and jopas, orange rose. Micro chips is us. iPhone cameras us. Taco salads us. Pothalas us.
Starting point is 00:00:20 Olive garden us. White foster us. Zabrahamas. As far as us. Hello and welcome to Bad Hasbara. The world's most moral podcast by a country kilometer. That's right. My name is Matt Lieb and I am your most moral co-host and undecided voter.
Starting point is 00:00:45 And my name is Daniel Mate and I'm your other most moral co-host and not legal to vote or voter. I'm one of those voters who shouldn't be voting. Oh, you're one of those immigrant voters. ones who are coming into this country and voting Democrat because as we all know Democrats love immigrants. So I was mining my business one day up in Canada. Yep, yep. You know. And then just just heating up my seal broth in the igloo. Uh-huh. And I thought you can say like thing of flat ham that you guys tend to eat a lot of slathered in maple syrup. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All those things, watching SCTV reruns and listening to, I don't know, Chilliwack and Rush and
Starting point is 00:01:38 got an express, RCMP, you know, mounted delivery, you know. Oh, the Moose Police. Yeah, the Moose police, exactly. There's not, when they're not busy quelling indigenous revolts, right? There's not a lot of crime in the country. They have nothing else to do, but just deliver packages. Sure. And they delivered an express letter to me from the Democratic Party saying, hello, would you like to come to our country and destroy and undermine democracy by voting illegally and making America not great ever again?
Starting point is 00:02:20 Right. We'll take away your free health care. Make sure any kids you have will not have, you know, whatever it is called. dentist or anything of that? And I said, do I ever, one catch, you can't listen to Sloan. There's no E at the end of Sloan, Adam. That's the name of Ferris Bueller's girlfriend. Oh, she's so hot too. She was shot out to Mia Sarah. Mia Sarah. But so I was, I got to say, I was underwhelmed by your spelling there, Adam. A little Sloan joke for you. Anyway, that's the end of that bit. But yes, I am here illegally
Starting point is 00:02:56 on an extraordinary alien visa. But I can't vote. You can't vote, which is just such a shame because, you know, this is the only way that Democrats can stay in power is by allowing Canadians to come across the border and vote, which would actually be sick because I think we would have universal health care
Starting point is 00:03:19 because it would be like, of course I'm voting for someone who at least is going to give universal health care. Seriously. Credit is due to Canada. You guys have that. We still are holding on to it. Yeah. I just noticed we have new fonts. Yeah, listen, I made our squares bigger. I made the font different. I don't know if I like it. It was a last-minute change. It looks more newsy. Yeah, look at us. Look at us all professional style. Speaking of professional, I just had just given the, you know, the girth of this opening riff as we sometimes tend to go.
Starting point is 00:03:51 Yeah. Someone on YouTube, one of my favorite YouTube comments ever said, you know, I'm sure this podcast has a lot going for it. But every time I try to watch it, I get lost in a real Sephora can. Adam says, yeah, it does look like a sort of beer, beer label font. Anyway, no, but he says, every time I try to watch this show, I get lost in the 15 minutes of opening millennial banter. And I said, excuse me, sir. How dare you?
Starting point is 00:04:22 How dare you? I'm a 49-year-old man. And that's an elder millennial. at pushing the outer limit you know well i could you know hey let's who knows how old i am i'm i'm i'm 28 people tell me this show has gen x vibes and i believe them so i think it's just very funny that that this um our rambly patter at the beginning of episodes is being coded as millennial i mean listen it's not not millennial but it's also you know listen we're old guys and here's the thing about this show we're going to sometimes do a long intro you love it fuck
Starting point is 00:04:55 off you're still here you're still here um five stars in a review on all of our right to exist that's right exactly this is part of it give us reviews give us stars join the patreon patreon patreon.com slash bad hasbarah uh shout out to producer adam levin who's always on the ones and twos um and today's episode is brought to you by muslim aid USA uh so Muslim Aid USA is delivering essential medical aid and equipment to the main hospitals in Gaza. They're also providing food packages and vital non-food items such as hygiene kits and other basic necessities to those who are in need. If you would like to donate to Muslim Aid USA, go to MAUSA.org right now and donate. Do that before you join the Patreon.
Starting point is 00:05:51 Obviously, they need the money more than we do. And I say it deserve it more. Well, they certainly deserve it more, for sure. Do they need it more than me? I don't really know. I have one baby in daycare, and that ain't cheap, you know? Yeah, but that daycare is not in the Gaza Strip. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:06:11 I mean, so, yeah, you win this round. Thank you. Thank you. But yes, please donate to that. And then if you have any leftover, and you would like to hear a bonus episode every week or so. maybe every other week depending Then go to We had some really good bonus episodes recently
Starting point is 00:06:30 Dude, I know We've had great We had ASA when Stanley from electronic and taffata on Talking about his home and computer And you know His electronic devices being rated By the British
Starting point is 00:06:44 You know Secret Service or some shit One of the like I don't know what the British had You and I need to study his accent Because every time we try to do British accents We end up sounding like Oh
Starting point is 00:06:55 Oh, we're a fishy chip. You take you back and we won't got. Yeah, that's, I mean. And Aza just is so smooth. I know. Some people have a good accent. Yeah. But I feel like I, listen, I understand that some people come from different regions of England.
Starting point is 00:07:12 Yeah. And they have different regional accents. But to me, it all sounds like chimney sweep. Big deal. That's a, that's a noble profession. Okay. Jim Chiminy, Jim, Chimony, Jim, Chirie. And then our other bonus episode was with Ephra Menick from Godspeed, You Black Emperor.
Starting point is 00:07:32 Yes, and that was a great episode. And I also later found out that he does not really do interviews. He's very, very rarely been interviewed. And he did a whole, think, hour and a half with us talking about, you know, the way he grew up, you know, with Zionism, going to Zionist summer camp. and him finding his way out of that bullshit and being someone who's been a staunchly pro-Palestine voice for a long time in the entertainment and music industry which is not exactly the most friendly to people
Starting point is 00:08:05 with those types of views. Dang right. So that's a great episode and there's going to be more more episodes like that that are going to be on Patreon so please Patreon.com slash bad has Barra. Hey, Daniel. Yeah, Matt. What's your spin?
Starting point is 00:08:22 Well, the spin, this election day Tuesday, which is when we're recording, just listener guide, listener note, as you're listening to us, whatever we say, that sounds brilliant and as if we recorded it after the election, because every take we're going to give is going to be completely prescient. That's right. We don't know what happens. We don't know. Who knows? So I got this concert album, which was the first annual benefit concert concert for the congressional. Black Caucus in I think it was
Starting point is 00:08:57 1974 and we had groups like war and Curtis Mayfield and Cool in the gang and Gladys Night and the Pips So that seemed political That is political I just this just arrived Fishbone their Their early 80s EP Hell yeah
Starting point is 00:09:12 Songs like Ugly and Lionass Bitch which is the song that The Roots played when Sarah Palin came on Jimmy Fallon But the song that seems to fit today is party at ground zero because no matter who wins this election we will all be pink vapor stew soon enough
Starting point is 00:09:29 especially if if their Zionism prevails because Israel is trying to take us there and then just for no political reason whatsoever Quincy Jones died recently a couple days ago so I've got his seminal album The Dude
Starting point is 00:09:43 Rest in peace to an absolute legend Yeah a true legend A true real one He's the dopest And I don't have anything spinning, but I am wearing my Power Man 5,000 t-shirt. Shout out to Spider, who is Rob Zombie's brother. That is the Power Man. Do you know Power Man, 5,000?
Starting point is 00:10:05 I don't know. Who is this powerful man? He's a very powerful man. He's got the strength of... That was almost Donald Trump thing you've ever said. He's a very powerful man. Very powerful man. He has the strength of 5,000 man, making him a full power man.
Starting point is 00:10:21 Yeah, no, this is just a band. They did songs like When Worlds Collide. It doesn't matter. It actually doesn't matter because the music that you pick out is stuff that I believe our audience probably would enjoy, whereas my musical tastes are just, they're just my own trashy tastes. I mean, you talk about elder millennial. I listen to a lot of new metal. I think it's fun.
Starting point is 00:10:43 Rap and rock at the same time, a boom dot, da boom dot the ima. That's what I say to that. Go! all right so I feel for you buddy yeah I grew up in the era of the people who of the bands who influenced those bands who are much better than those bands like faith no more yes faith no more is great you know but when when yeah the late 90s it was a grim time at least from my perspective yeah no it was the best time of my life the only weird thing about that music uh now is realizing that the people who are doing it were adults uh because I was a middle school kid so
Starting point is 00:11:19 So corn was for me, you know, and then realizing that adults were, you know, like most of the album sales and being like, what the fuck was wrong with adults in 1999 that they related to limp biscuit? You know what I mean? Yeah. Very strange. Yeah. So today we have a guest, a returning Bad Hezbarra champion, all right? This is a guest who's been on before and he's coming back for more. Another round of, all right.
Starting point is 00:11:52 So he's a historian of Palestine, and he is the founder of the Palestine nexus newsletter. Ladies and gentlemen and everyone else, please welcome back. Zach Foster. Beem, boom, boom, beam, beam, be. You're emotionally damaged, Jewishly. What's up, dude? Yeah, why'd you guys stop? Keep that going.
Starting point is 00:12:15 That's all. I got this one, too. That tells you everything you need to know. Hey, Zach. Hey, Zach. So, yo. It's been so long. I've been waiting.
Starting point is 00:12:25 Say something in Arabic. Come on, give it to me. Give me, give me. Daniel, can I let you in on a secret? Yes, please. I was Googling, YouTubeing my name and like, oh, is there any,
Starting point is 00:12:39 is there any my content that is circulating around YouTube? An episode of Bad Hasbara pops up. And you can just click directly to the point in the pod where my name is mentioned. And it's you, Daniel. saying how sexy my Arabic is. It's true. I believe we've said this a few times on this show
Starting point is 00:12:57 where we've just kind of reminisced back to when we had you on the first time and we were both just like, damn, that accent is good. Man, that was guttural. That was good. There was a lot of heart in that. It's a beautiful-ass language. Offering free lessons to you, too, anytime, anywhere. I'm sure it'll come up as we go through the episode
Starting point is 00:13:19 doesn't speak about the region. Absolutely. So, Zach, have you been since last you saw? Yeah, everything good? Just trying to manage the work genocide balance and, yeah, hanging in there. Hanging in there? That's good. That's good. I have something for you to start off this pod. Usually, sometimes we will start with some bad Hezbarra right up top. Just Daniel and I will talk about it and then we bring on the guest. But this time, uh, I thought it would be perfect to have you on for this because it's just one of those things that I realized we had never talked about before. I don't think ever on this podcast, uh, this particular type of Hasbara where we talk about areas A, B, and C. So let's start off first with this tweet that, uh, Daniel, I believe you
Starting point is 00:14:08 found this from a guy, uh, named Jacob, Ben David, Linker. He sure does some linking here. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of linking. So he goes, I didn't want to involve myself in the Coates debate when it was fresh because everybody was really mad. But I had a couple of thoughts. One, the treatment of Palestinians in Area C is really indefensible. I don't think anybody pro-Israel has ever really addressed this on the merits. But of the 5.5 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, about 400,000. thousand live in area C. So the question becomes how fair it is to paint the entire situation of the worst situated 7.5% of Palestinians as the norm for the whole situation. And let's just pause a note for the people who aren't watching. Can we go back to the tweet? Yes, please. His Twitter handle has his name. Well, it's Jacob A. Linker. But then whatever, the description, his name, then has a series of emojis. Emojis. So, let's describe them.
Starting point is 00:15:15 Hamza? Yeah, it's a palindrome, basically. It's an emoji palindrome. It's hamsas, or how would we say that in Arabic, Zachary? Hamsa. Hamsa, okay, good. On either end, followed by two minoras, and in the center, a star of David. What are we getting, what vibes are we getting from that arrangement?
Starting point is 00:15:35 What's the, yeah, what energy are we supposed to take? What's it giving? Yeah, it's, I mean, it's giving, whenever I see the Hamza, I'm like, it's giving cultural appropriation. But, you know, it's not necessarily, I understand that there's obviously Jewish history with the Hamza and stuff. And I'm not actually, he's Mizrafi. He could be. But what it's giving me is I love Israel and I love hummus, which is a type. That's what it's giving me. Yeah, it's giving me like my Zionism is grounded in my Judaism, which is grounded in my spiritual connection to that entire region. And I think broadly and in a nuanced and
Starting point is 00:16:18 sophisticated way about this that may surprise some of you. Yeah, there's no Israeli flag. There's no beeper. There's no banana peel. And there's no fucking yellow ribbon. No, instead, it is a palindrome of Jewish symbols. So liberal Zionism is what we're talking about here. And this idea of area C being where the real bad stuff is happening is I think is fascinating to me because it lives in this alternate reality in which areas A and B are both 100% within the control of the Palestinians and that's sovereign Palestinian land. So, Zach, can you explain to me where you see the Hasbara in this? Well, I think if you look at the numbers, you would find that the vast majority of the 600 plus Palestinians
Starting point is 00:17:14 killed in the West Bank over the past 13 months were killed not in Area C. They were killed in areas A and B. Overwhelmingly probably Area A, if I had to guess here. And the reason is because Janine, Nablus, Nordishumps, the triangle in the north of the West Bank where the resistance to Israeli apartheid is fiercest. That's all Area A. We're talking about urban centers, refugee camps, wherever you have dense population centers of Palestinians, you're talking about Area A. And those are the areas where the Israeli military has carried out the most grotesque massacres over the past year and a half. They went into Janine back in July, if you recall, and bulldozed all the streets, ripped up all of the water pipes, and
Starting point is 00:17:55 completely leveled the city. They did the same in the Nordisholm's refugee camp. They're doing the same in Nablus. And that's all Area A is. So I'm, I don't even, honestly, I'm trying, I'm having a difficult even understanding where this even comes from what he's talking about at all so let's back up yeah because where did where does this where does this division and nomenclature of the different areas come from we're talking about an oslo yes from the oslo courts yeah this was a part of the the plan as far as i can tell now jack you can you can correct this and maybe expound on it with your good brain. But my bad brain knows just this much.
Starting point is 00:18:36 It's that the Oslo Accord specified three different cantons of areas in which there was differing controls of like what was sovereignty, what was Palestinian sovereign, quote unquote area, what was Israeli controlled area. And so this is from Bezellum. This map right here shows it. So Area C is the stuff in red, where there is full Israeli control of security. Israeli civilian control of land issues, restricted Palestinian building and development, settlement expansion, vast exploitation of natural resources to Israeli advantage.
Starting point is 00:19:20 And the population of Area C is 180,000, not 400,000, 180,000 Palestinians, and there are 325,000. 500 Israeli settlers. That sure looks like an enormous amount of land. I wonder why there are so few Palestinians there. Yeah. Well, that way there's less people to oppress. There's less people to be caught in the worst circumstances. Yes, yes.
Starting point is 00:19:48 These are settlement blocks, right? That's what we're talking about, Area C. No? I think the correct way to think about areas A, B, and C, is the same way you would think about the history of Zionism writ large, which is that the Zionist project wants as much land as possible with as few Palestinians on that land as possible. That's the essence of Zionism.
Starting point is 00:20:08 We want to land without the people on it. And the same approach was taken during the Azo process, during which time Israel said, okay, the 60% of the West Bank, which is Area C, that has 100, 200,000 Palestinians living on it, that's perfect, right? That's what we're going to annex. Netanyahu famously said in a leaked recording in 1998
Starting point is 00:20:28 that he was willing to sabotage the entire Oslo process just in order to retain control of the Jordan Valley, which is the bulk of Area C. Right. So this has long been, Area C has long been one of the areas of the West Bank that Israel has wanted to control, to maintain control over.
Starting point is 00:20:49 And this, we knew already in June 1967. Right. In a cabinet meeting that was held just a week after Israel occupied and conquered that territory, the Israeli army, excuse me, the Israeli cabinet determined it was June 19th, 1967 in an Israeli cabinet meeting, they determined the eastern border of the state of Israel will be the Jordan River and it will be the Jordan River Valley. That was determined 57 years ago.
Starting point is 00:21:12 And if you look at Israeli policy since, which towns, which refugee camps were destroyed and ethnically cleansed in the 67 war, it was in the Jordan Valley. 88% of Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley were ethnically cleansed in the 67. war itself. And those policies continue unabated to the present day where you have a Palestinians in the West Bank are a hundred times more likely to receive a, excuse me, Palestinians in Area C are a hundred times more likely to be issued a demolition order on their home than they are likely to be given a permit to build a home. So there's no question that Israel has. That just makes it more valuable when you get the permit. You know, it's like the golden ticket
Starting point is 00:21:50 in Willy Wonka. Yeah, exactly. They don't mention the part that, you know, the golden ticket, the people who don't get the golden ticket the people who aren't eating Willy Wonka chocolate are systematically being displaced first prize is a Cadillac second prize is a set of steak knives anyone to see third prize
Starting point is 00:22:09 fuck you you're fired third prize your home is destroyed but so like Always be closing ABC So Areas A B and C right So like what I think is interesting about this idea of A, B, and C, well, first of all, so areas A and B then
Starting point is 00:22:32 are technically under the Oslo Accords or Oslo process are supposed to be, like area A, which you see, you know, is with the lines through it, right? That is the Palestinian Authority Control, whereas area B is the Israeli security cabinet and Palestinian civilian control. Which isn't that just to say Palestinians are tried under a military court and police? Like, what does that mean? Yes. So, I mean, maybe you can expand on this further, Zach. But from what I'm, you know, seeing here, it seems to me like areas, like area A with all of these towns that you previously had talked about in these villages that aren't even named on here, these are the ones where you are constantly.
Starting point is 00:23:24 seeing the most death and destruction of being brought to the Palestinian people by the IDF. This is where you see all of the, you know, videos of IDF soldiers coming in and just like illegally detaining, arresting, and, you know, holding people prisoner, hostages, essentially. In the areas controlled supposedly by the Palestinian Authority. Supposedly by the Palestinian Authority, yeah. What's the deal with limited sovereignty? Yeah. That's exactly correct.
Starting point is 00:23:54 the 3,600 Palestinian hostages, also known as administrative detainees, which is a strange way of referring to it, right? Because have they committed any administrative violations? Did they Well, they forgot to file their paperwork. It sounds a lot like administrative detention means like you filed something wrong in the mail room, as opposed to just arresting children for the crime of walking. You forgot to register to have rights to exist. Exactly. Yeah. Those Palestinians overwhelming are from areas A and B. There's no Palestinians in Area C. As we already said, there's 180,000 Palestinians in Area C.
Starting point is 00:24:30 They're the ones being ethnically cleansed. Those are the Palestinians in Masafriata. Those are the Palestinians in Homsa in the north. And those are the Palestinians in the E1 zone that Israel is trying to take over. Can you explain the E1 zone? Where is that? The E1 zone is the area of the West Bank that lies between Malayadumim, which is the most eastern suburb.
Starting point is 00:24:52 of Jerusalem. I mean, it's a settlement, right? It's an illegal settlement, but it's considered to be a suburb of Jerusalem. So the area to the east of Malay adumim, going all the way to the Dead Sea, that area is known as E1 Zone. And for example, Khan al-Ahmar
Starting point is 00:25:06 is a very well-known Palestinian village in that region. And those Palestinian towns and refugee camps, they're the ones who are most often subject to ethnic cleansing. And actually, I would say those are the Palestinians that resist the least, because they have no rights at all. They have zero rights. rights, right? Whereas maybe in areas A and B, you might say the Palestinians have some limited sort of autonomy and there's some resemblance of some sort of Palestinian entity that
Starting point is 00:25:32 kind of, you know, is a slave to the Israeli military and allows the Israeli military to enter those areas whenever it pleases. But nevertheless, there's some semblance, at least, some facade of Palestinian autonomy. But of course, in area C, there is no facade, right? It's the Israeli military that issues the building permits, that polices the streets, that cleans the streets, that tells Palestinians, you know, whether there are a lot to go to school or not, right? Or whether or not there are a lot to pick olive girls. And when you say cleans, you mean ethnically.
Starting point is 00:25:59 So, but there's a straw man here, right? Because I haven't completed, I haven't finished reading Coates's book. But he's saying here, he's seeming to claim that Coats is depicting life in Area C as if it's what's happening everywhere. But what Coates, from what I've seen, is describing as things like checkpoints, Jewish only roads, the daily humiliations and invasions
Starting point is 00:26:26 of privacy. None of those things are native, so to speak, to area C. That's just life under the whole occupation everywhere. In fact, if you even think about the division of the West Bank more generally, the fact that there are these three areas isn't of itself part of Israel's project of Cantonization and Bantustanization and ghettoization. Look at the map again. There's no connectivity between the various areas of, between areas A. In order to get from Area A, which is Hebron, to area A to Bas, to Area A to El Karam, you have to pass through Area C. In other words, you have to pass through areas where Israel has complete sovereignty,
Starting point is 00:27:05 total civilian and security control. And that's obviously very intentional, right? Israel's project in the West Bank is to divide and conquer, pit Palestinians against one another, prevent Palestinians in area A, from traveling or moving to area C, prevent Palestinians in area B from building home in area A. This is all part of the apparatus. Yeah, if you look at it, everything, there's, they've worked specifically. They've made this area C make it so that nothing is contiguous.
Starting point is 00:27:36 It is completely cut off. All of these areas are surrounded by area C, which is controlled 100% by Israel. And the strange thing about this is, like, we're talking about, you talked about in 1967, they had this, you know, the cabinet got together and said, we need to control the Jordan Valley. And you forget looking at this, that this whole area's A, B, and C thing was part of a peace plan. This was the idea of somehow creating the two-state solution. And one of the things being, Israel gets to control even more of the West. bank than it legally was authorized to control before the peace process started. That is, I think, an insane thing to me, the idea that this is like now set in stone almost.
Starting point is 00:28:32 I mean, it's obviously it is still considered an occupation under international law. But Area C to me is as being like a very specifically named thing makes the dream of those cabinet members in 1967 a reality. Does it not? That's absolutely correct. And in fact, if you look back to Yitzchak Rabin's campaign in 1992 when he was campaigning for prime minister, he campaigned on the message of getting Gaza out of Tel Aviv. In fact, there's even one quote where he says, my plan is to push Gazans into the sea
Starting point is 00:29:09 or something to that, I'm going to push Gaza into the sea. He actually says that. The whole concept of Oslo was separation, Hafrada. Right, the idea was, we need to extricate ourselves from the Palestinians, total separation. This was the idea when the wall first came about. Itzhak Rabin proposes, we're going to build a wall to separate ourselves from the Palestinians.
Starting point is 00:29:30 And so if you really think about what Oslo was, it was a way for the Israeli left and the Israeli center to tell the world, we are making sacrifices for peace. By the way, this was the same rhetoric during the disengagement plan in 2005. It's all part of the same. story, which is to say that we are making painful sacrifices for peace. We're giving up land. We're giving land back to the Palestinians when, in fact, no such land is actually being given
Starting point is 00:29:56 back to the Palestinians, which we know because on any given day, in any given week, and any given month over the past 30 years, the Israeli military is entering all areas of the West Bank, all areas of Gaza. There's no Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank. That's just a myth. And it can't be stated too many times. that these so-called generous concessions from Israel, whether it's in Oslo or more insidiously in Camp David, which is always held up as the scenic one on of Israeli generosity and magnanimity.
Starting point is 00:30:31 In fact, those are not concessions. The Palestinians are the ones who have made, you know, over and over and over again, enormous concessions to what they are entitled to, which is the whole of it. it's in it even if you want to just take at 1948 out of the mix and only look at 1967 right article is it article one of the new geneva convention it's inadmissible to acquire territory with force in a war whether you started the war or didn't start the war
Starting point is 00:31:02 so you don't even pull out that bullshit that red herring canard you know although israel did start the war but but so every concession starting with the Palestinians the PLO saying we will recognize, you know, Israel's right to exist along these borders is a historic concession. And then certainly starting with Oslo, giving up, like allowing a single Jewish settler to remain in some final status agreement in the West Bank is a enormous concession. And everything Israel gets is not them giving something up. It's them taking something. That's right. You could say that the Oslo process itself was the result of an emerging Israeli consensus
Starting point is 00:31:51 after the first intifada that we cannot directly control the lives of millions of Palestinians forever. Recall that from 87 to 93, you had daily protests, daily riots, you had attacks on Israeli military targets. You had something like 180 Israelis be killed during that six-year period. Of course, Palestinians, about 1,100 Palestinians were slaughtered during that same period. The violence is always disproportionate. But nevertheless, Israel was facing real costs to maintaining this occupation. So what was the plan? The plan was we need to subcontract out the policing of the streets. We need to subcontract out the dirty work. We're going to, we need a kind of, you know, a compliant subcontractor, which was the Palestinian Authority, a project
Starting point is 00:32:40 of the Palestinian Liberation Organization led by Yasserada Fet, who was isolated. It wasn't defund the police who's delegate the police. That's exactly correct. Yeah. And so there was no real withdrawal at all. In fact, as we already established,
Starting point is 00:32:53 Israel doubled its settler population from 93 to 2000 during the time when it's supposedly giving land back to the Palestinians. In fact, it's even taking even more land and expanding the settlement enterprise, confiscating more land, destroying more Palestinian homes, more Palestinian olive groves.
Starting point is 00:33:10 at a time when Israel, again, is supposed to be giving land back. They're actually taking more land. Yeah. Well, they never miss an opportunity to not miss an opportunity to take more land. Yeah, it's just crazy reading this tweet, realizing it's coming from this level of Hezbara, like liberal Zionist Hasbara, that I don't think I've actually seen before. Because I've seen the argument, you know, bi-liberal Zionists about occupation in general being, like, wrong. And then, you know, but, and then a thousand reasons why you still need to support this war, support this genocide, support the ethnic cleansing.
Starting point is 00:33:48 I've not seen this granular of an argument where you're trying to act like actually the only thing that's wrong in the West Bank. Or it seems like with regard to Palestinians at all is in Area C. Like the fact that they control Area C is under full Israeli control, that's wrong. and then to act like, but hey, that's not all of the Palestinians. There's so many more who live in freedom in places like Janine, Hebron, Gaza. It's like that is a fucking insane thing. I want to continue reading this tweet. Two, a lot of Israeli restrictions like checkpoints were pretty justified as immediate responses to problems
Starting point is 00:34:32 and on the assumption that they would be temporary things that only lasted a few years. Pretty justified. That's a great phrase. Yeah, it's not fully, but it's like pretty justified. Like, it's low-key justified to do some apartheid. A lot of the issue is the sense of the permanence about them, not that they popped up to begin with. Sort of like the occupation. Right, exactly. Like, Zach, when you were talking about how immediately after conquering this territory,
Starting point is 00:35:06 accidentally, oops, what are we going to do with this? land that we didn't want you know um they had a cabinet meeting but to the world they were totally nodding along and being like oh of course it's temporary it's you know it's it's a temporary occupation a war just happened and we just got to make sure we're secure for a second now we need to go through an auction process lost and found we have to vet the people who we found this territory who's who we're going to give it to all this paperwork so now now he's talking about the headache of that and the i mean i guess you could make the case you even I'd like to hear him make this case.
Starting point is 00:35:39 Okay, fine. Let's say, like, after 9-11, the TSA was justified for a couple of years, but the permanence. But that was the whole fucking point. Right. If you study the history of Israel's occupation of the territories, you'll understand very quickly that there was never any intention of withdrawing from the territories, not in 67 or 68, and not in 1993 or 94, and certainly not since. And we know this because the Israeli military underwent an extensive service.
Starting point is 00:36:08 of every town, of every village, it developed a population registry. You don't do that if you're planning on leaving in a year or two. No. There was an attempt to solidify, to intensify Israeli occupation forces in the occupied territories almost from the day the occupation began. And in fact, these are- They wanted to know where to send parting gifts. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:36:29 How do you send thank you cards if you don't know where everyone lives in their name and their first and last name and the name of all their relatives, their family tree? our honor to occupy you and brutally dominate your lives for the past span of time. Yes. Unfortunately, it's time for us to go. Yeah, it's like writing in someone's yearbook.
Starting point is 00:36:49 Now it's time to say good night. Shout out to Ringo. But yeah, this is like just finishing off his tweet. I learned in law school that discrimination parenthetical the drawing of distinctions.
Starting point is 00:37:08 are okay so long as they're proportionate to a particular need. So the question is whether burdens Israel puts on Palestinians are proportionate to the legitimate Israeli concerns. And then finally, he writes three, the issue of, quote, fault comes up. Basically, Coates treats everything as the Israeli Jews fault, Coates dismisses these complex debates of fault and causation as irrelevant because he thinks the status quo is unconscionable. To some extent, I think there's validity to saying, quote, no matter whose fault. it is the status quo is shit and i want israel to do whatever it is and its power to improve things to uh the extent feasible to what extent to what extent to what extent do you don't do this at all and it's just blaming the Israelis for everything i need to know to what extent do you think
Starting point is 00:37:55 it's not valid to say that yeah i mean like what more needs to be said right exactly this the status quo is shit and the party with the power to do something about it should end it but this is this gets to like the i think the perfect liberal zionist um mindset which is that like i understand where you're coming from and not wanting uh a government to do oppression ethnic cleansing apart but you're making me feel blamed and it this doesn't feel equitable yes but you're making me feel blamed and also like it's a tough situation because uh i what happens once the boot is off their neck are they're going to to come after me? Because if that's the case, we got to keep that boot on their neck
Starting point is 00:38:41 until they calm down. Like this is, this is like the perfect, you know, like liberal sinus thing of being like, but my feelings. Right. And to channel another Beatles song, this is the most insidious Beatles song of all. Octopus's Garden. No, well, ooh. Yeah, Octopus's Garden is an anti-Semitic trope. Ringo. I'm fucking, I'm on to you, motherfucker. no it's we can work it out my dad and I actually we lead this workshop about parent adult child relationships
Starting point is 00:39:16 and I had the idea of bringing in this song as an example of the attitude we often take in relationships where it's like you're acting on the surface you're acting conciliatory but the whole thing is a fucking monologue about see it my way try to see it my way right but it's this non-stop monologue
Starting point is 00:39:34 it has no chorus it has no it just keeps going on and on and on and the accusation is why do you see it your way with the risk that our love may sue be gone we can work it out
Starting point is 00:39:44 we can work it out life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend get under you know just do it in an Israeli accent and it does sound
Starting point is 00:39:53 like half the things that a liberal scientist in Israel would say try to see it my way why do we have to keep on talking till I cannot go on why do you see a doorway at the risk of knowing
Starting point is 00:40:05 that the peace process could soon be gone. We can work it out. We can work it out. Life is very short. Inzman, reversely. For fussing and fighting, my friends. Why is all this
Starting point is 00:40:21 all this intifada? You know, we can work it out. Just shut the fuck up and get back in your home. Yes, that is exactly right. It also reminds me of the first, or at least one of the, The interviews with Tana Hadsi Coates that blew up, the CBS interview, where the guy, I forget his name now, who, who got circumcised twice, by the way.
Starting point is 00:40:48 The first time was real. The second time was just you invited a rabbi to poke his dick. I encourage the audience to Google that story. Oh, we've covered it. Oh, you've covered it. That's very bad hazbaricanta. It is on our Will Meniker episode, which is also a page. Patreon-only episode with a portion of it available to the public.
Starting point is 00:41:08 Yeah. So go on. So in that interview, he says the same thing. He says, you know, if I take away the accolades, I take away the awards, you know, the context, the history, the occupation, you know, the ethnic cleansing. If I take everything away, this book would. Comprehension of the English language. Yeah, my ability for abstract thought.
Starting point is 00:41:32 Good faith. And then, you know, this book would, you know, be at home in the backpack of an extremist or something to that effect. Yes. And then he goes on to say that, right, that, you know, Tanasi Coates lays all the blame at the doorstep of Israel. And Coates' response, I think, is a very admirable one, which is something to the effect of, look, if the perspective you are giving us right now is everywhere, right?
Starting point is 00:41:56 You just turn on CNN, you turn on Fox News, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post. they're all telling you, they're all presenting this sort of both sidesism, this sort of, well, there's this and there's that, there's the occupier and the occupied and presenting them as if these are somehow two equal sides to a story, when in fact, obviously that's total nonsense,
Starting point is 00:42:14 and in fact, when you actually take the side of the oppressed and you take the side of the people who are under the boot of the occupier and who are the victims of an apartheid regime, well, then how is that perspective not more, how is that perspective not more prominent on mainstream news channels and in the mainstream media. And of course, that is the ultimate issue here,
Starting point is 00:42:37 which is that when you are trying to fight oppression, you know, you have a duty and a responsibility to present that point of view. Your duty is not, when you're trying to like solve for injustice, your duty is not to sort of both sides the issue, which is apparently the viewpoint of the American mainstream media. Especially since, as Noam Chomsky pointed out in manufacturing consent, it takes way fewer words to lay out hegemonic dogma to repeat you know you actually need like the
Starting point is 00:43:11 boundary he's talking about the boundaries of concision in mainstream media and how that serves to privilege um the the voices we always hear and to exclude the voices we don't because if I'm going to come on and, you know, CNN in between commercial breaks and explain how the U.S. is a imperialist force and supports dictators in Indonesia and South Vietnam and, you know, South America and whatever, and say something that goes against what we always hear all the time, I need time to actually unspool that. Right. Right.
Starting point is 00:43:51 And that already is taking up all the space. Right. With concision, you can just speak in cliches and soundbites like Israel has the right to self-defense. Right. And it feels like, you know, it's a like gut feeling, right? It's like, well, yeah, my gut says it's right that the Palestinians don't want peace. They want to kill all the Jews. And it's like, that's not your gut telling you that. That is actually just years of imperialist propaganda. That's your prejudice. That's your well-entrenched prejudice. It's there for a reason. Yes. Unfortunately, while you were sitting there saying things like Palestinians teach their children to hate Jews, your imperialist government has taught you to hate Palestinians and Arabs and communists
Starting point is 00:44:40 and anyone who goes against the interests of the United States. From birth, you've been taught this. So you've actually been taught, my dear Westerners, to hate. far more people that exist. I don't know. I don't know, Matt, I think you're exaggerating. I think you could think about the people who support Israel as kind of being divided into three areas, right? There's sort of area A, area B, and area C. At most, there's 7.5% of the people who really
Starting point is 00:45:09 hate Palestinians who live in that area C. So I don't know of why we're using that area as representative of the whole. Yeah. Well, you're right. I need to rethink my thoughts because all I can think of is I support areas A, B, and C. Area's ass, area's cock, and areas boils. Areas. That was good.
Starting point is 00:45:32 Areas, hey, you fucking occupying these people. I'm so stupid. Be you serious here. Areas, see this fucking fist. It's in your fucking teeth. See this watch? This watch costs more than your car. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:45:49 Well. A to apartheid. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it is just like, you know, seeing something like this where you're just, you're being told, you know, it's funny, we're cantonizing these, like, you know, Palestinians, right? But we're also cantonizing our empathy in this. Like, let's cantonize the way, what we feel empathy towards and, you know, what is apartheid here.
Starting point is 00:46:16 We're cantonizing that. We're going like, well, okay, obviously there's like a little bit, like, just an inty, teeny bit but it's also very useful for anyone to uh who wants to continue this war of ethnic cleansing on gaza because then you get to say well if we're judging by you know this particular you know narrative the idea of like only the west bank is experiencing apartheid only the west and only in this very particular area in which are only 180 000 Palestinians um then that means the 2.3 million people who live in Gaza are actually free. And those people have been free since the, quote, end of the occupation in 2005. Yeah. This is one of the, I think, one of the most
Starting point is 00:47:06 poignant examples of Hasbara, which is that every Hasbarahist has to draw their line somewhere, right? Oh, the problem is Gaza. The problem is the West Bank, but Gaza, we can commit genocide. Oh, the problem is area C, but area in B, A, and B is. great. Oh, the problem is the, you know, the occupation part of it. Within Israel, wow, everything is lovey-dovey. Everyone has to draw their line. Because they are in this constant tension of how do we create a Jewish and a democratic state? When we give Jews extra special privileges. Yes. And so you're constantly trying to come up with something that, well, beyond that, well, that's beyond the pale, right?
Starting point is 00:47:53 Because you have to justify your own kind of moral high ground. And the way you do that is by drawing this arbitrary line in the sand, wherever you think it's gone too far. Because ultimately, the problem is not Area A, it's not Area C, it's not Gaza. The problem is the idea that Jews should have more rights than other people in Palestine. That's the problem. But if you say that. Zach, they're not drawing lines in the sand.
Starting point is 00:48:15 They're drawing lines in the fertile, nutrient-rich, irrigated soil. that we irrigated ourselves with our own two-hand. Drip technology. Yeah, through technology, through doing desalination and through incredible startups. Startups that make burger taste better. Startup nation. Startups that make burghelt... I don't know why.
Starting point is 00:48:44 Whenever you're an Israeli say burger, it makes me laugh. Yeah, there's a restaurant. I remember this from my 10 months there. I don't know if they still have the brand. I think you've visited that area much more recently than I have, Zach. They still have Bouguel ranch. Is Bouguel ranch still a chain there?
Starting point is 00:49:02 Burez Barre. Burethanche is pretty awful, but. Yeah. Yeah, it's really innovative. Israeli innovation, I think, is reaching all-time highs in 22 and 2004. I mean, you've got kind of a genocide within a genocide.
Starting point is 00:49:17 Oh, yeah. You've got accidentally. getting shot in the head twice. That's right. These are Israeli innovations. I know. They invent new shit every day. And every day I go, like, I got to add to the theme song.
Starting point is 00:49:27 There's just not enough new inventions in the theme song. Well, we are going to continue this conversation, but we got to take a little itty-bitty break. So everyone, please stick around, listen to these commercials. And we will be right back. jumping jacks was us and we're back all right this badass bar our guest is Zach Foster guys it's election day and uh you know what I'm we're going to put this episode out tonight it's coming out tonight so people can be with us on election day to know you'll learn nothing because obviously this is recorded hours earlier you're not going to learn shit about
Starting point is 00:50:19 These are the days of miracle and wonder. I mean, you know, when my grandparents were kids, you know how many days they had to wait between recording a podcast episode and putting it out? I mean, you can't, you literally can't calculate it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But nowadays, you can record an episode and have it out within hours. In people's actual earholes, the same night.
Starting point is 00:50:41 So, yeah, we're not going to obviously know who won. I don't think we're going to know, I don't think you're going to know who won by the time this comes out because I have a feeling. that this is going to be a squeaker, but I wanted to talk a little bit about one of the narratives that has been happening. So there's a comedian who I've talked about before on this podcast named Eliza Schlesinger, and I'm just going to talk about a little bit of this tweet that she wrote and extrapolate a general sentiment that I've seen among the liberal Dem pro-Israel crowd.
Starting point is 00:51:19 um so eliza writes uh how i i don't normally share who i vote for i think it's personal and you and you can vote conservative or liberal on so many things and still be a good person blah blah blah blah blah blah but then she finally gets to i voted early and i voted Kamala not because i like her tax plan or her economic plan and i'm not pumped about her israel vibe but she stands for democracy yada yada yada yada no no let's not let's what's the yada she believes in America and in coming together, she believes women are humans, okay, there's a, there's a, there's a actual policy. No, yeah.
Starting point is 00:51:55 You could support. Coming together is always really exciting. Yeah, I hate coming separately, but it's really hard to time it. Did, but dumb, bum, bum, um, so anyways, uh, the, I love, speaking of a, speaking of yet another Beatles song. So, yeah, this idea I have seen on the, like, pro-Israel Democrat side, this thing where they talk about, you know, listen, Kamala isn't a perfect candidate, and then they'll say something along the lines of, and I don't trust her on Israel.
Starting point is 00:52:39 I'm not sure what fucking reality these people are living in. They're living in a reality in which somehow Kamala Harris has not spent the majority. of her incredibly short campaign for president doing everything in her power to make it clear that there will be no change between Biden's policies in Gaza and Biden's policies with regard to the Palestinians and hers. No, there will be, Matt. They will be delivered identically, but more achingly. Yes, they'll be more sad about it. They'll be more sad. The notes they write on the bombs will be, oh, we're so sorry we have to kill you. I hate having to do this.
Starting point is 00:53:22 It'll be the same lyrics set to different music. It'll be a remix. Yeah, yeah. I hope one day we can have peace, it'll say, on a missile. This hurts us more than it hurts, sorry, running out of room. Yeah, sorry, right? Why did you make us do this to you?
Starting point is 00:53:36 Yes, exactly. We're only hitting you because we love you. Yeah, so here's just, for those of you who maybe forgot, Here's just a little montage of some of Kamala's best moments talking about Israel and Palestine and what's going on there currently. It has a right to be heard, but right now I am speaking. And let me be clear, I will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself. And I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself. A terrorist organization called Hamas caused on October 7,
Starting point is 00:54:18 including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival. If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that, otherwise I'm speaking. I don't know that anyone who has seen the images who would not have strong feelings about what has happened, much less those who have relatives who have relatives who have died. But I also do know that for many people who care about this issue,
Starting point is 00:54:50 they also care about bringing down the price of groceries. They also care about our democracy. I'm sorry, Matt, please stop. I actually, I haven't cried about Gaza, okay? I've had a lot of strong opinions about it. I've had concerns. I've had a lot of debates, right? Sure.
Starting point is 00:55:09 But the emotional damage just broke when she spoke about it. about the price of grocery. This lemon that I bought the other day, it shouldn't have been $2. When I go on DoorDash, okay? And I ask for collaborating peppers because I like collaborating peppers. And I don't want to go all the way to sprouts
Starting point is 00:55:31 to get collaborating peppers. And then all of a sudden, the driver tells me, oh, they don't have any more collaborating peppers. Can I get you this other? It's like off-brand is a different type of pepper. And I say, yeah. And I come back in the bill, it's $10 plus, plus the tip.
Starting point is 00:55:50 Why do I have to tip? This is, honestly, this is like a genocide for me in a way. A genocide for my wallet. And folks, we are not making fun of genuine economic fucking insecurity. Oh, no, absolutely not. We're making fun of the fact that she would in any way compare that to a literal fucking genocide. When what she's talking about the context is, I understand that those people I've had relatives who have died but also groceries costs a lot you fucking snake i know that these people
Starting point is 00:56:20 are inconsolably broken inside from what's happening to their families and their people but do you know what cheers them up saving money i mean i think on here's a coupon for that genocide the trauma of trying to cancel my subscriptions they hide the cancel button yeah i can't find the cancel button. And it drives me crazy. I think before genocide, we need to figure out where exactly they put the cancel button on the door dash app. Okay. And how come when I get Grubhub and I accidentally put the deliver, but what I meant was pickup, they can't stop that. Anyways, they forced me to leave a 26% tip on the screen. I have to leave a tip. No, it's just, it's just, it's just fucking insane because again, And in no way am I making fun of anyone who has, yes, prices have gone up.
Starting point is 00:57:13 And of course, inflation matters and economy and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm sorry, but this idea that you can say that sentence where you go, I understand they care about their dead relatives in Gaza, but also fucking that shit. I mean, but these people have perspective, okay? I just can't, I can't imagine, I can't imagine being, like sharing Eliza's perspective on this at all. this idea that I don't like her vibe on Israel. Which one? I'm not exactly pumped about her Israel vibe.
Starting point is 00:57:45 Yes. Like, do you mean the thing where she's callous in a way against Palestinians that sounds equally, if not more genocidal than Biden? Is it that? There's part of me that has a lot of trouble fully understanding where these people are coming from when it comes to believing that Democrats are in. any way better on Israel than Republicans. I'm not saying that there aren't some elected
Starting point is 00:58:16 officials that have been better. Of course, there have been. And I think there's a larger proportion of them in the, quote, Democratic Party. But when we're talking about individual candidates, when we're talking about Bill Clinton, you know, like, I need to play this clip of Bill Clinton recently in Michigan. It's not just individual candidates and individual personality. It's the ones they choose to trot out at the key moments. Yes, exactly. Who do you go to? You go to Barack Obama with his folksy,
Starting point is 00:58:47 uh, well, if you're a Muslim, which is a legitimate, valid thing to be. Uh, who cares about human life, which is valid and worth caring about.
Starting point is 00:58:58 Why would you vote for a man who called you a name one time? Yeah. We never called you names. It's a what aboutism election campaign. Yeah. If you like your apartheism, You can keep it. You can keep it.
Starting point is 00:59:10 No, it really is. I mean, this is the level of what aboutism when it comes to this has been insane this whole time. And it's just funny to me because the care that Kamala has taken to make sure that people like Eliza Schlesinger and anyone else who is this like pro-Israel Demp, the amount of care she's taken to make sure that they understand that she is going to let Israel finish the job. It's just so much that I'm like, where are you getting this? Where are you getting this idea from? It's like what the right wing says like, oh, you know, you're going to elect a communist like Harris. We all laugh because we go, I fucking wish, dog. But it's the same kind of brain rot with these Zionists in the Democratic Party where they somehow are just like, I don't like the way she talks about Israel.
Starting point is 01:00:04 Like, fucking, what do you mean? Okay, but hold on, hold on. I don't know this Eliza person. Was the implication of, I'm not pumped about her Israel vibe that she's not sufficiently pro-Israel? Yes. I think the wording in her statement there is also meant to be like it's intentionally ambiguous. Like, oh, no, when I said this, what I meant was in the like, I'm not pumped that her vibe is so genocidal. And when knowing her history with posting this shit, which she has, you know, early on she saw the amount of people who were, you know, trash talking others like Amy Schumer and, you know, Sarah Silverman, she kind of like was like, I'm going to not post my unvarnished thoughts about this.
Starting point is 01:00:56 But her history has essentially been to accuse people on the left of doing anti-Semitism, like, constantly. So the idea that when she said she is not for, you know, not pumped about Kamala's Israel vibe, that is for sure coming from a place of being like, you know, I don't like this idea that she's going to go out there and try to do a two-state solution. Like, that's, that's my reading of it. What it means is that she probably got mistargeted on social media. Yeah. Because as you well know, the Kamala Harris campaign is targeting Jews with messages that say, Yes.
Starting point is 01:01:38 Kamala is the biggest supporter of Israel in U.S. history. And then they show advertisements to Muslims and Arab voters saying Kamala's going to fight tooth and nail for a ceasefire. And it's like they probably just mistargeted to her and showed her the wrong ad. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And people were just like, oh, man, you know, she's reading, she's reading all the stuff about how Kamala wants peace. And she's like, I do not like this vibe. I am not pumped about this whole idea of two state solution, which is just a fucking crazy thing to think in general. I mean, you know, it's like if you are in any way thinking that a presidential candidate who talks about a two state solution is somehow pro-Palestine, I'm sorry, but you just clearly have, you have not really read about this issue for very long. This is new to you. You are new if you are like, well, she does say she's pro two-state solution. I had somebody who wrote to me who was mad that I had like a Kamala tweet that was critical of her answers whenever it came to, you know, questions about Israel and Palestine and the genocide.
Starting point is 01:02:51 And he wrote, you know, is like, this is going to be, you know, like, you shouldn't criticize because this is someone who just said they want a two-state solution. Like, what more do you want? And I mean, if our last segment has showed us anything, it's that that means nothing. It means nothing. Well, I would say it actually does have a meaning. It means forever apartheid. That's what two-state solution means.
Starting point is 01:03:21 Yes, it does. It means I support Israel's permanent presence in the West Bank in Gaza. I support the status quo, which is actually a one-state solution. We're living a one-state reality. And so if you're talking about a two-state solution, you're just delusional. You're just denying the reality of the world that we live in. And that's Kamala, in a nutshell. Yeah, 100%.
Starting point is 01:03:43 Yeah. And I'm sorry, but like bringing out Bill Clinton to be the person who's going to going to talk about Israel, Palestine, like in Michigan, in Michigan, and having him say this, you know, which, this clip, which I'll play in a second, is just, I mean, if there's ever any indicator as to what the, like, the norm, what the median feeling about Israel and Palestine is in the Democratic Party, I think this clip sums it up pretty well. To talk about the hardest issue here in Michigan is the Middle East. I have to be careful for what I say because there's only one president at a time and none of us can get ahead
Starting point is 01:04:26 of where we're going. When he says there's only one president at a time and he's talking about Benjamin Netanyahu. But I think we're going to have to essentially start again on the peace process. I understand why young Palestinian and Arab Americans in Michigan or think too many people people have died. I get that. But if you lived in one of those cabootson. Cabots them.
Starting point is 01:05:03 Caboots them, but I don't believe them. Well, shove them. Everyone who was on the flight log should have to spend the rest of their lives looking like they opened the arc of the covenant. He's not looking good. where the people there were the most pro two-state solution of any of the israeli communities oh this fucking talking point yeah and Hamas butchered yeah that's how they got repaid for their yeah right for peace yeah what are and what he's doing here is he's asking Palestinian and arab and
Starting point is 01:05:45 Muslim Americans to engage in the put yourself in their shoes, what would you do if you were them? Yes. It's talking down to them in a way that is incredibly insulting because it assumes that they have not at any point thought to themselves, I wonder what it's like to be someone else. Like that is, what the fuck? But it also, it also accompanies an absolute prohibition on doing the same thing to the people who did the so-called inexplicable thing that you're describing. What would you do, Bill Clinton, if you had woken up on October 7th inside of a prison, the only way to get out of which is to break out. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:06:32 What if you were born? Which is the sin that Tanaasi Coates committed by saying, I don't know that I would have had some kind of moral principles stopping me from breaking out and causing some mayhem if that had been my life. And he's asking, he's asking us to do that for, you know, sympathetic left-wing Israeli victims of the massacres on October 7. And he's revealing his true self here, right? Because he spent eight years in the White House acting as Israel's lawyer, right? You recall the negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians were mediated by the United States negotiating team. And in fact, you even have anecdotes from people like
Starting point is 01:07:13 Diana Butu, whereby the Palestinian delegation, would be handed a draft that would have in the margins, the comments that were accidentally left by the Israelis, which had to approve the draft before it was sent onto the Palestinians. And so his only worldview is of, the only worldview I am able to empathize with, if I'm able to understand, is the Israeli perspective. He acted as Israel lawyer for eight years. Yeah, yeah. And was instrumental in cementing into a false sense of history the notion that the Palestinians
Starting point is 01:07:53 really could have had at all at Tabah and Camp David under his auspices, you know, but they walked away from the most generous peace offer in history. Yeah, yeah, which looked a lot like this. Yeah. Looked a lot like fucking Area C, A, and B. In the lead up to Camp David in July 2000, Arnifed had, realized that Ehud Barak had an election coming up. There was so much distance between the two sides. There was no chance that a piece that would be reached in just a couple of months.
Starting point is 01:08:21 And he said, look, I'm willing to go to Camp David under one condition. You do not blame me if things fail. And then what did Clinton do? He blamed Arafat, of course. He betrayed him. He sold them out. Shlomo Ben-Ami, the foreign minister of Israel at the time, went on to say that had he been a Palestinian, he would have walked away as well. He would have rejected Camp David. Camp David was a joke. It was how do we present the Palestinians some peace deal in which the Israeli military retains control of everything? We're going to retain control of the Jordan. How do we make them an offer they can't accept? Right. Exactly right. Yeah. And then Clinton, of course, goes on in this speech of all the Gaul to talk about Jews' religious
Starting point is 01:09:03 title to the land. He calls it Judean Samaria. Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean, I have the rest of the clip. I don't know if it includes that, but let's get a little bit more. The people who criticize it are essentially saying, yeah, but look how many people you've killed in retaliation. So how many is enough for you to kill to punish them for the terrible things they did? That all sounds nice until you realize what would you do if it was your family and you hadn't done anything but support a homeland for the Palestinians and one day they come for you. You know, it's true. I think what I would do is suddenly flip my entire worldview and values on their head and become a hateful fucking bigot, which I had never been
Starting point is 01:09:50 before. Right. Until this moment. No, Clinton, I would probably do what people like Mao Zinone did and what Noi Katzman did, right, who we've had on the show. I would recognize and or what Nureit Pellet did when her daughter years ago was killed. I believe by a suicide bomber, I would say loudly and clearly, without hedging on my grief at all or whatever emotions I have privately, I would say, I don't blame the killers. I blame the killer government that created them and that made sure that they would have no options. Yeah. Joel Biden, a professor of Middle East history based out of Stanford, I believe, came out with a similar message on October 7th, 2024. And in fact,
Starting point is 01:10:39 he has a, was it a niece or a nephew who was killed on October 7th. He has family in some of those Kabotsam in the Gaza envelope and he says look like what is happening in the name
Starting point is 01:10:54 of defending the Kabotsam in the name of protecting Israel's genocide and this is the opposite of what I would have hoped. So you have so many examples of my family members of the victims who were killed who refused
Starting point is 01:11:09 to accept a genocide being carrying out in the name of protecting Israelis or somehow defending Israel. Right. Yeah. Or even in, you know, a service of getting justice for their, you know, killed a family member. Like they, you know, I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I don't understand or like I couldn't put myself in the shoes of someone who's filled with rage and vengeance. But what I will not accept is this idea that that is what a government should follow. We should base all policy on the rage and vengefulness of people who are recently bereaved. And the idea that that is the norm. As if the rage and vengeance came mainly from those families. Right, exactly. Fuck that. It was imposed upon them. Yes, it had to be sold to that
Starting point is 01:12:08 that entire country, which is why the massacres that did happen and were documented on film were not enough. That's why there had to be 40 beheaded babies. That's why there had to be a baby in an oven. That's why there had to be systematic, planned mass rape of our precious Jewish women. That's why all of these things had to be part of the narrative, because without that, there wasn't enough rage inventions organically brewing in the hearts of those very, I think, If I had to stereotype the kinds of people he's describing, they're sensitive. They are, they're emotional, they're bereaved, they're heartbroken about the situation and they have retained the capacity somehow inside the Israeli crucible for some kind of human
Starting point is 01:12:59 empathy and putting themselves in the shoes of the people that they're not supposed to put themselves in the shoes of, i.e. the human animals, five, kilometers away on the other side of that fucking wall. And this fucking move that Clinton makes of, well, it sounds good to be really upset that 40,000 people or 100,000 people or 200,000 people have died until you ask yourself this question, what would you do? As if there is no other answer than the one he's just sadly implying as the only one. And just to finish this, I just, the way that he puts it right here, listen to this.
Starting point is 01:13:38 slaughter the people in your village, you would say, well, you will have to forgive me. I'm not keeping score that way. I'm not keeping score that way is the way that he puts that. This idea of like, you know, it might sound, you know, nice and reasonable even to be like, how many more dead people do you need in Gaza when there's already been 40,000, you know, quote unquote, the official number, right? And he's saying, oh, we're not keeping score. that way by so what does that mean does that mean uh the what is because that is how numbers work
Starting point is 01:14:20 is you can kill however many people you want you oh don't worry i'm not keeping score that way like what the fuck kind of logic is that you're you're only keeping score on october 7th right like October 6th there was no scoreboard October 8th there was no scoreboard but October 7th everyone was keeping score everyone knows exactly how many is raised we're going to killed on October 7th, down to the exact number, 764. Well, usually rounding up. Yeah, right. The telling of it, but still.
Starting point is 01:14:48 Look, I think if I would just, if I could just. I think was it, was it Kamala who tried it out the 1400 number? I mean, into October of this year, it was Obama. Obama's tweet said 1400, 1400. Israeli civilians, just wrong in so many ways. What were you going to say, Zach? Well, the 1400 tweets like, Barack, yeah, go, go. back to your yacht out in the Pacific because you're not paying attention to what's been
Starting point is 01:15:11 happening. But look, I think what's especially insidious about this kind of talking about the Kibbutzim and the Moshevim in the Gaza envelope and emphasizing like the history of those communities. Well, let's talk about the history of those communities. Why are there so many towns a mile two, three, four miles right on the border of Gaza? You guys probably know the answer to this. I lived on one of them for 10 months. The reason those communities exist in the first place, Be'erri, Reim, Kfar Aza, you know, Kfar Aza, these communities were built in the 1940s
Starting point is 01:15:45 for the purposes of expanding the borders of the Yshu of the Jewish community in Palestine to take over land and to conquer territory and to establish a front line and to put civilians on the front line to use Israeli civilians as human shields. And regrettably, I mean, this is the sad truth of October 7th, but they eventually
Starting point is 01:16:08 serve the purpose for which they were originally built. Tragically so. Yeah, yeah. You know, the most popular folk song of early Zionism that made it into American popular culture, the weavers, you know, the good communist weavers, Pete Seeger and Ronnie Hayes and Ronnie Hayes and Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellman. They sang Tena, Tena, Tena, Tena, Tena, which is a song, the lyrics are, come, you young pretty girls of the most. You know, Tena, Tena, Tena, Tena, Tena, Tena, Tena, which is a song. The lyrics are, come, you young pretty girls of the most. of the Moshev, of the Mosheva, the soldiers are coming home. Come greet them. And it's, you know, so it, it was this fascist frontier song of come greet the young conquering. I love, I love it because it's also, it's more sexual Zionism. And you know my thoughts about that. 100%. I mean, these,
Starting point is 01:16:59 these communities partook in the atrocities in the ethnic cleansing on, excuse me, in 1948. Yeah. Right? These communities were the ones who expelled. Arabs from Israel. They were direct participants. We have anecdotes and evidence of people who helped establish those communities. One of the founding members of Beiri, who founded that settlement in 1946,
Starting point is 01:17:22 he partook in the massacres and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. And then what happened after 48, Israel expanded the Gaza envelope, built another dozen some settlements, including Nakhal Oz, which stands for Nakhalim Mool Aza,
Starting point is 01:17:37 Nakhal soldiers standing across, from Gaza. And in the 1950s, Israel carried out countless raids into Gaza in 1953, in 1955. In 1956, they reoccupied Gaza. And guess where their soldiers were based in and where their military HQ was based in when they carried out those raids, slaughtering Palestinians in Gaza? Well, guess what? They were based in those communities. And we could read Moshe Dayan's eulogy of one of those soldiers who was killed in one of those raids from, I think, 1952 or 53, who said, you know, we shouldn't blame the Palestinians who killed this young soldier. They were doing what they had to do.
Starting point is 01:18:15 We're trying to conquer their land. They're not going to like it. We just need to keep the faith. We need to keep going. But he understood, he understood as the editor of Ha Ha Haaret does, which we can talk about some other time, that the Palestinians who committed those acts were committing acts of resistance. Yeah. And it's nice. It is nice on some level, I guess, that now on some of this Qybutzium, there have congregated communities of lefty, pro-coexistence, pro-humanitarian, you know,
Starting point is 01:18:53 Jews with good feelings towards Palestinian, Jews with positive attitudes towards Palestinians, Jews who are willing to criticize their own government, maybe some Jews who are willing to go to jail for not refusing in their own army. But, the sins of the father will visit the other generations. That's in, that's in our Bible too, I think. And the notion that somehow we have the right to just have the right politics and live in these places and be immunized from the consequences of how those places got there in the first fucking place. Yeah. I'm sorry, that's not how life works, not for human beings. And I can't help but fume a little extra at this continued, whatever you call it, trope of trotting out the
Starting point is 01:19:43 idea that it doesn't matter what your politics are. It doesn't matter how pro-peace you are. You can be as anti-Zionist Jew. Hamas is still going to get you because Hamas has one thing on their mind, you know, and it's killing all the Jews. This constant refrain that, you know, and, you know, I don't. Obviously, we all get this all the time from people who are Zionists, who are telling us that, like, you know, oh, you think they'll let you live because you're one of the good ones. All with the narrative that we are, that first of all, that Hamas exists everywhere, that this is not a very distinctly Israeli issue.
Starting point is 01:20:27 And also with the idea that, like, on October 7th, they went out in search of leftists or the idea that, like, you know, it's like, these guys, they didn't care if you were left or right. And it's like, well, you're right about that. They cared if you were an occupier on their fucking land and an oppressor of their people and a genocider. That's what they cared about. Hamas Elmer Fudd. Sh, I'm hunting leftists. Yeah, yeah, be really quiet. You guys saw that tweet?
Starting point is 01:20:58 Was it someone who I think was the tweet? Like, God, if I was doing Mali at a rave outside of a consecration gram, but I probably deserve to be attacked too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, and this is, sorry, we're going to get kicked off for that? No. This is the thing. If not deserved to, like, if not deserved to,
Starting point is 01:21:19 right, could reasonably expect to be. Yeah, and not have the right to demand that I not be. That's the thing. Right. Because these rights to Israeli security, no matter where they want to be or what they want to be doing are enforced with violence. Yes. That right to life for Israelis to do Israelis wherever and in whatever they way they want
Starting point is 01:21:44 comes literally at the expense of Palestinian freedom in each and every case. And I think the blindness to the realities of your own society, I'm sorry, but it can only take you so far in terms of empathy from people. I think people, I do understand that there is a huge blindness when it comes to this, especially among Israelis, the, you know, not being able to understand the society that they live in that outside of Israel, it is very strange to throw a rave outside of a concentration camp outside of a giant open air prison um but to to expect everyone to be like to share your view uh that that is somehow not weird i think is that's asking a lot i don't know that seems
Starting point is 01:22:42 like it's asking a lot it's asking a lot of people to be like no i get it sometimes sometimes you got have a you know a really big party uh next to the warsaw ghetto you know you do not have the right to be immune to the consequences of your illusions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No one has that right. I'm sorry, no one has that right. You can hope, you can roll the dice, you can lament, you can cry, you can mourn, and you can feel any kind of way you want to feel about it.
Starting point is 01:23:14 But when reality catches up, it's not about you deserved to die, it's not about anyone, but it's a question of, could we have reasonably predicted that this would happen, yes, would it be reasonable to expect like something like this would never eventually come to pass as long as this is the status quo? No, it's insane. It's insane to think that. It's insane. This is like, I think probably one of those many moments in which you have to convince people that they are not the crazy ones for having these thoughts. You are not crazy. I got to play this thing. You are not crazy. I'm not crazy, crazy. you're normal you're normal to look at that situation and be like it seems like a bad idea
Starting point is 01:24:08 and to think that they were not going to get at some point have something happened it is it was built for it now i've got now i've got suicidal tendencies playing in my head i'm not crazy anti-zitis you're That's great. Look, one of the most common things you'll hear about October 7th is that it came out of nowhere. Wow. So unexpected. Yeah. And yet, you know, 2018, 2019, Israel slaughters Palestinians in the hundreds who are marching for peace, unarmed Palestinians,
Starting point is 01:24:40 protesting as part of the Gaza marches return. 2021, Israel slaughters 250 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. 2022, more violent than 2021. 2023, on the eve of October 7th, more violent than 2026. 2022. You had a pogrom on October 5th. In area A, right? I think Huara is, I believe area B, if I'm not wrong. But, but you had pogromed. You had a half dozen pogromes in 23 on the Eap. You had another Gaza march of return like protest throughout the month of September just days before October 7th. This was all predictable. Palestinians have been
Starting point is 01:25:16 protesting and resisting for for years and years and years. What the hell did you expect what happen and sometimes they've been just quietly putting their heads down and living and enduring it doesn't matter what they do whether they resist don't resist peacefully resist peacefully and and what do you think that those uh you know those leftists that you know uh that people like bill clinton and all the other hasbarists trot out you know for their hesbara needs what do you think they were fighting for in terms of the ones who wanted peace the ones who wanted coexistence They knew this could happen. This was the result of this is what they were trying to stop.
Starting point is 01:25:59 Any, ask any anti-Zionist Jew has been like doing this work who's been in this fight, whatever, for a long period of time. We've all seen Israel as this powder keg. It's not just been, obviously, we want the end of the oppression of Palestinians and we want, you know, Palestine to be. free. But we also don't want to see mass slaughters of Jewish people or mass slaughters of Israelis. It's like this is what like peace is peace for both, you know? And right now what you have is apartheid, which is security only for one people. What has happened? Barely. People don't talk about the number of Israelis and Jews killed since October 7th because how do you talk about the suffering of the perpetrators when there's two million people being starved to death? But of
Starting point is 01:26:51 of course inside Israel, the reporting from December 2023 was that you had more than 10,000 Israelis who had been injured. This is almost a year ago. Is it 20,000 now, 30,000 now? And you're telling me this war, this genocide is somehow in the interest of Israel and the Jewish people, sending Jews off to die? You know, genocide is obviously dangerous for the victims, but it's also dangerous for the perpetrators. And Israel is just sending Jews off to die. I mean, can you imagine if another country was doing this? Just sending tens of thousands of Jews off to die? It's a good
Starting point is 01:27:24 thing that trauma ends with the person who's traumatized. It's a good thing it doesn't ripple forward into the future. You know, because at least we can contain this thing, you know. At least it won't spill over into the nightmares of the unborn children. Two generations, three generations from now.
Starting point is 01:27:40 That's what I love about trauma. Trauma has a nice, it's a nice closed book. It has a nice ending. The body doesn't keep score. Body does not keep score. Famously. maybe there's our episode the body gets the score but like just to to round back to electoral politics
Starting point is 01:28:00 because it's election night in America everyone and obviously I think one of the things on this podcast that maybe people have noticed is the fact that both Daniel and I have an aversion to talking about electoral politics in America during a genocide and I think one of the reasons for that
Starting point is 01:28:18 is not only because it's gauche, but also because of the system that we currently live in. Whoever loses tonight, Netanyahu wins. That's just how it is. Am I reading right that he fired Gallant today? Oh, for real? That news just broke like 20 minutes before we started recording. Oh, damn, RIP, Galant. Sir Galant.
Starting point is 01:28:39 Sir Galant. I didn't have time to make an Image and Heap suck my dick remix to Galant being fired. Oh, well, you know, that'll be in the next one. But yeah, like... In jashmal, in ma'am, in o'achal. That's literally word-for-word what he said about, you know, there will be no water, no electricity. Yeah, thank you.
Starting point is 01:29:06 Look at that. Look at that. You've got a great Hebrew accent. With my Hebrew accent and your Arabic accent, we could, we're just... And me, British action. Together! We could take out of the world. We can redo the Balkoor Declaration.
Starting point is 01:29:23 Do a whole inception. Just rewrite history. Yes. We need to go back to 1917. As long as I get to be Morgan Thu, then we're good. We got to do a live reading of the Balfour Declaration. Oi! Wes.
Starting point is 01:29:38 Is me awful bale for you? Me speaking about putting all the Jews together. Without hurting the wrong. rights of all the non-Jewish Muslims and Christians and Palestine. Everybody, we could do it. If there's one thing British people are good at, it's putting people in land. It's not theirs and everyone having peace here.
Starting point is 01:30:03 Oh, okay. So electoral politics? Electoral politics. So yeah, it's been one of, I think, it's been contentious, I think. We were talking earlier in the break that I think we've, haven't seen so much of the like pro-Palestine you know left so split when it comes to this there's a lot of infighting and I think you know I think it's some of it is justified and
Starting point is 01:30:33 some of it is not and yeah I guess like you know let's talk about what this election means for the Palestinian people what should the Palestinians do Zach yeah What's your plan for them? Do you like genocide with asada mashed potatoes or sate of carrots, right? I do like mashed potatoes. Do you like snow ethnic cleansing or like medium-paced ethnic cleansing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you like, you know, of 100,000 Palestinian dead or 110,000 Palestinian dead?
Starting point is 01:31:12 Yeah. It's where we're at. and it's it's been it's been difficult because you know i've seen whatever happens with this election you know it's like uh the the i've been waiting for this shit to be over for a while and i'm not just talking about the genocide talking about this fucking election and the reason that i've been so annoyed at it is because i what i see is uh not enough cynicism if that sounds weird but i feel like not enough cynicism of the uh electoral process and too much um too much hope do you guys share that view that there seems to be a lot of
Starting point is 01:32:05 rancor between uh different factions of the pro-palisian left um who uh where i you just kind of want to take both people aside and go, hey, guys, uh, as long as money controls our politics, who the fuck, what does this fight for? I don't know. Look, I'm very cynical, though. You're a more hopeful man than I am, Daniel. Well, not necessarily, but I'm, but I am compassionate to those who, who, who's give a shit reservoirs haven't fully. Yes. They have somebody to give a shit for. There are people who have issues that matter to them in a very, visceral way and they calculate that gauging, I mean, that people make the case, we're not voting for our leader, we're voting for our opponent, we're voting for our adversary, we're voting
Starting point is 01:32:57 for which tyrant we would like to organize under. And I'm not an organizer. I'm a guy who spouts off on YouTube and Spotify. You talk shit. Right. There are people who organize and organizing is happens under material conditions and people have takes on now people disagree even on those lines some people will say well it's better to organize under a right wing republican government than under a right wing democratic government that in fact democrats can get more evil done because they have the veneer of you know pro-social values and even on the grounds of abortion these are valid debates to have they're tactical fucking if noam chomsky can put out a blue no matter who argument right yeah you know he's not a dupe one one thing i've i'm i'm not saying i
Starting point is 01:33:49 agree with it i'm not persuaded by it and i'm much more drawn to the kind of you know pox on both their houses and let's let's let the democrats feel the pain of what they've wrought here especially in this case sure but i don't know what to say about it i think the narrative is is that, well, if you want revenge, well, then you're going to vote against, you're not going to vote for Kamala. But I think that's the wrong framing. I think the framing is,
Starting point is 01:34:17 how do you push the Democrats to be more anti-genocide than they are today? And I think if you take that perspective, then you come up with some different conclusions. Number one, if you do develop a third-party block that can then, because, you know, if you have three, four, five, six percent of the vote, you have a real voting block
Starting point is 01:34:37 and you can now apply pressure on the mainstream. Democrats, if they want the vote, if they want the anti-genocide vote, they have to heed some of the demands. And this was, of course, Nora Atticat's demand when she was offered the vice presidential slot on Jill Stein's ticket. She said, look, I will happily join this ticket. If and only if you, if it only if, I think at the time was Biden, but basically if Kamala or Biden agree to impose an arms embargo on Israel, then we will drop out of the race. You have a real demand and you have a real voting block and you can and you have something to offer so i think so my
Starting point is 01:35:13 question is how and i think by the way one way you push the democrats to become more anti-genocide is if they're in the opposition recall that it's today you have people like get your lepeed in israel talking about the suffering of the israeli military military he just came out a few days or a week or two ago talking about so many israeli soldiers are being killed a narrative which is no one is talking about in israel why is he saying that because he's in the opposition right and so if you have a if you have an opposition Democratic Party who has now has to sort of present itself as the opposite or as somehow differentiated from the current presidential candidate. Well, guess what? That will push them to become more anti-genocide. So I think there are arguments to be made here
Starting point is 01:35:51 on both sides. I'm not here claiming- If only those in that Democratic Party who elected them, who elevated to power on the grounds that they're going to be the ruckuspringer's had an appetite for that. Did you see AOC's video? She's like, she's talking to Tim Walls. And she said, like, oh my God, please save me from another four years of having to wake up every day and do resistance against Donald Trump. Shut the fuck up. Oh, my God. What?
Starting point is 01:36:15 You're looking forward to four years of brunch with the Democrats? Right. Do we really believe at this point that you're really going to push back against the party of Mama Bear Pelosi? Yeah. What is then? What's your fucking job? You're telling me you've had trouble waking up during Trump's administration.
Starting point is 01:36:32 The last fucking year has been insane. Yeah. the idea that oh my god there's just like there's there's so much of this that like is about this personal feeling of having to fight having to work uh and that and here's the thing like i understand a regular person or a person with a job uh who is like save me from the trump news cycle because save me from the horse in the hospital it is yes it is incredibly annoying, 100%. But in terms of like the
Starting point is 01:37:10 idea that we're going to that somehow like a Kamala presidency placates us in any way as people who believe in anything, I'm just like, you're fucking crazy and if anything, you should be fighting. That's what you're supposed to do. Not only that, as if Trump is any less annoying
Starting point is 01:37:31 when he's out of power. As if MAGA goes away when you, you know, defeat it. Shit stays annoying. There's no, there's no amount of scorn that's going to get rid of. And the Democrats stay obsessed with him, whether he's in power or not. They act like the resistance party towards him. Yeah, the hashtag resistance has been obsessed with him even during Biden's administration. Right. And this has been, you know, a constant back and forth of Trump being president and being like, you know, still acting like he's not president and Biden being president and acting like he's not president. And it's just, it's, this is why I can't,
Starting point is 01:38:15 I can't, you know, I get, I get people, I, I think it's good that people aren't like me. I think it's good that people aren't as cynical as I am. Uh, because I, I think hope is good. If I learn anything from Shawshank Redemption. It's that if you lose hope completely, you end up like Brooks, but also Brooks had hope and maybe that's why it doesn't mean it's, it's convoluted. But if I learn anything from Shawshank Redemption, it's that it is good to have hope. And I, where are you going to place your hope? Sandy Beach and Say Watanio? I don't know, dude.
Starting point is 01:38:52 Like, out of the country. It is, it's, it's, it's, but yes, it's, it's like, when you're placing your hope in electoral politics, I, I can't help but be, um, like, listen, I want you guys to vote your heart and vote your head, but also. And at this point, we want you to have voted your heart or have voted. Yeah, it's a little too late. polls will be closed. I think the ultimate, I think the ultimate lesson here is that activism and social change does not happen at the ballot box. Yeah. It happens on the streets. It happens by lobbying Congress. It happens by shutting down Elbit Factor. It happens by podcasting and making dumb puns. That's right. It happens by shutting down
Starting point is 01:39:39 Elbit factories. This is how you change the world. You do not change the world at the Bell box. Yeah. But people could still make a case, okay, we know we don't change the world, but we take five minutes, ten minutes, two hours, however long you have to stand in line, you go, you pull a lever once every four years, and you make a tiny notch and try to push things incrementally in a direction towards less harm, you know? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:40:08 And I will not fault anyone for that, but what I won't tolerate for one. second is the cynical attempt to emotionally manipulate voters in this particular electrical cycle, much less Palestinian Muslim Arab voters or any of us with intelligences and moral consciences into any calculus that says, yeah, genocide is bad, but or and, yes, and, fuck you. Yes, yeah. This is the insanity of the Harris campaign that two's run, which is that you have the polling data is very, very clear.
Starting point is 01:40:42 Democrats oppose Israel's actions in Gaza. 77% of Democrats, according to an ABC poll that came out in August. There's ABC again. Support an arms embargo on Israel. You're telling your own base, go fuck yourself. So that Palestinians can get slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands. Yeah. And it's stuff like that that like, you know, it just adds to my cynicism.
Starting point is 01:41:10 ABC, always be cynical because I can't, I can't. help but go like like my entire impetus for talking about this on a podcast for doing bad Hasbara it was the idea of the normalization of this conversation to stop
Starting point is 01:41:28 treating Israel as if it has a special status it is a state that can do no wrong it is a state that is allowed to do genocide and the idea that more and more people are seeing clearly that Israel is not the good guy on the world stage. They're very clearly the bad guy maybe one of the worst
Starting point is 01:41:44 bad guys we've seen in a long time. And it's more like especially bad because we are directly supporting their genocide. And so, and the hope being that people, you know, get wise to this, get woke on Palestine and stop electing leaders who are paid off by APEC or, you know, ones who are compromised by the Israel lobby and then you see like a poll that says 77% you know support you know an arms embargo and that not make a dent in the platform of the Democratic Party and all I can say is go is I don't know what's left yeah like what if what do we do like what is the what is the equation like what percentage would we need of those 77%
Starting point is 01:42:43 if that opposition translated into a change in voting behavior, at what threshold would that 77% matter except anecdotally and statistically? Right. It comes back to Citizens United. Like you said, Matt, this is the Supreme Court case that said corporations are human beings and super PACs can spend as much money as they like to elect anyone they want. And that's why you have all of these pro-genocide candidates getting elected to the U.S. Congress. You know, they took down
Starting point is 01:43:15 Jamal Bowman with $15 million of APEC money funneled through the super PACs. Cory Bush as well. $6 million to unseat Corey Bush. They tried, they offered $20 million to both Hill Harper and Nasserbadoe to take down Rashida Talib, but they rejected the blood money. They tried to take down
Starting point is 01:43:31 Summer Lee. They tried to take down Ilhano Omar. This comes back to the Benjamins. I hate to use that phrase, but I mean, they're just telling us the playbook. And he said, well, well, well, look. Looks like you finally revealed your true colors. My middle name is Benjamin.
Starting point is 01:43:48 All about, oh, both of you, fucking octopus's gardens over here. I have an octopus tattoo, actually. Good. But yeah, no, you're, yes, it's, so it's in this, like, kind of like, state of, like, cynicism and hopelessness that I go into this election that's happening right now. And I can't help but feeling like until our praxis goes beyond the ballot box, I say maybe try to relax on the factionalism that we're doing within the pro-Palestine left where we just go like, you know, fuck you if you're voting for Jill Stein. like I can't I'm sorry but like fuck off if you're someone who is voting uh mad at someone for voting third party and can we cut that shit out and can we park it with words like existential like this is the most existential no no you don't get no I'm sorry you don't get to
Starting point is 01:44:56 talk about existence when there is a genocide happening I'm sorry this theoretical idea of your existential um threat if that has not been used cynically uh to to create and harbor a genocide. But we have to do genocide first so that we don't get genocided. That's right. That's right. I recommend, by the way, you mentioned Nura Eracott, and I'm so glad that you spoke her name before I did because your pronunciation of her name is so wonderful and more
Starting point is 01:45:29 accurate. But she was on Brianna Joy Gray's podcast, Bad Faith. It's a very good interview, and she spoke about how there's also this completely illusory idea that you can cleanly separate what America does abroad from the regime here oh we can preserve American rights at home but we just have to kind of
Starting point is 01:45:50 sacrifice a few people as if the draconian tools of oppression that come home don't come home from somewhere haven't been well honed in practice and she goes through a really compelling historical list going back over a century. Yeah, I mean, how many Israeli police are in the United States?
Starting point is 01:46:16 Is that Israeli military police? Israeli military are training U.S. police departments across the country. This has been an ongoing partnership that has only strengthened over the past many decades. This is little Israel. Yeah. Do you know how many kibbutzum there are in Arkansas? I mean, there's probably. Probably none.
Starting point is 01:46:40 But yeah. They're called cop cities. Look, this idea that the United States, I mean, I think there is one other thing to say here, which is that we like to exceptionalize the United States of support for Israel, but I think that's a mistaken understanding of history. In fact, the United States was the biggest supporter of apartheid South Africa after the United Nations declared that an unbinding resolution
Starting point is 01:47:01 to impose arms embargo on South Africa. Guess who are the two states continuing to? just to play arms. Little daddy and big daddy, United States and Israel, right? Who was, who did the United States support across Latin America in the 70s and 80s? We supported the dictatorships. Who does the United States support in the Middle East? Egypt, Saudi Arabia, okay, Jordan, these are all dictatorial monarchies. You know, who did the United States support in the war on Yemen? We were bombing Yemenis children for a decade, okay? Who did the United States support in Iraq? We destroyed that country and killed a million Iraqis, right? This is this idea
Starting point is 01:47:36 that somehow the United States is some force for good in the world. This is a myth. And that's why when you get young people asking the question, why is the U.S. so pro-Israel? I don't get it. Well, that's because they just don't know U.S. history. We have a deep and a dark history of supporting dictatorships, of undermining human rights, and of supporting settler colonial states and genocides. There's nothing more American than supporting a genocide. Yeah. Damn, I want to salute a flag right now. That's how I'm feeling a little nationalist. you know let's fucking let's go let's kill those people but yeah in in summation uh when it comes to this i'm just so glad it's over because um i mean obviously it won't be over by the time
Starting point is 01:48:21 this comes out but it'll be the beginnings of it hopefully by the time the bonus episode comes out um there will be a president-elect and either way um uh the job of i think I think what I'm doing right now is deputizing myself to say to you one very important thing is that like do not be depressed by the outcome of this election because there is no outcome that is not depressing and knowing that you know that you had no control at the ballot box you know you didn't you didn't have it's not on you that this is a country that is going to to continue this genocide, no matter who gets to be president. So instead, we got to come back reinvigorated to figure out other ways to end American Empire. And we're going to figure it out together on the Bad Has Barra podcast. Imagining Matt Lieb as Robin Williams hugging the American voter and the listener as Matt Damon, it's not your fault.
Starting point is 01:49:32 Yeah, it's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. it's only some of you like some of you's faults probably in some way but mostly not but yeah
Starting point is 01:49:43 I'm just I'm gonna be stoked when it's over I voted third party because I live in California and I can do that and you know if you voted third party I appreciate it if you voted Kamala
Starting point is 01:49:59 hey we all have our faults if you voted Trump yeah you're We're also bad. Anyways, I fucking hate electoral politics. Well, that's been our episode of Bad Hasbara. I love our nation, and I salute the flag for all the good it's doing in world. Zach Foster, thank you so much for coming on Bad Hezbarra again.
Starting point is 01:50:29 Matt Leap, Daniel Matte, thanks so much for having me. So good to see you, man. Where can people find you? You can find me on X, formerly known as Twitter. Fuck, yeah. At the under, at the, uh, it's my X handle, underscore Zach Foster. And you can subscribe to my newsletter at Palestine nexus.com. And, and if you don't mind just one more plug, I'm actually launching, I'm actually launching a course on Zionism.
Starting point is 01:50:56 If you're still listening to this podcast two hours in, then you're going to love the course because we're offering a history. of Zionism. It's kind of a Zionism 101. It launches tomorrow. You can sign up for it at Palestine nexus.com. Amazing. I might just join up. I need to learn some of the basics. I find myself still not quite with a full grasp of the facts I need. It's a history of Zionism that Zionists don't want you to know about. That's the tagline. I like it. Well, we will have a link in the show notes. So please click the link and do it right now. Patreon.com slash bad hasbara for all of the bonus episodes.
Starting point is 01:51:39 Plus you get these, you know, episodes of this show a little bit earlier than everyone else. Badhasbara at gmail.com for all your questions, comments, and concerns. All right, everyone. That's been our show. And until next time, from the river to the sea. What are you complaining for? It's not like you live in area sea.
Starting point is 01:52:02 Jumping jacks on. Push-ups was us. Godmaga us. All karate us. Taking Molly us. Michael Jackson us. Yamaha keyboards. Us.
Starting point is 01:52:14 Charged a minks on us. Handor was us. Keith Ledger Joker us. Endless bread success. Happy meals was us. McDonald's was us. Being happy us. Bequim yoga us.
Starting point is 01:52:28 Eating food, us. Breathing air, us. Drinking water us. We invented all that shit.

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