Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - Bad Hasbara 61: The Body Forgets The Score, with Zach Foster
Episode Date: November 6, 2024On 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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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.
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.
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
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?
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
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
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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
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
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
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.
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.
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
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?
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
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
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
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
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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,
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
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
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
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.
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?
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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
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,
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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
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
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,
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.
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.
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
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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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,
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,
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
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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,
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,
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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%.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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
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.
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
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
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,
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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.
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
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
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
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,
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,
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,
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.
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,
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
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.
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?
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,
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
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
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.
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
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,
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
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.
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
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
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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
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
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
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,
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
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
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
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?
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.
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
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
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,
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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%
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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?
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.
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Jumping jacks on.
Push-ups was us.
Godmaga us.
All karate us.
Taking Molly us.
Michael Jackson us.
Yamaha keyboards.
Us.
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.
Eating food, us.
Breathing air, us.
Drinking water us.
We invented all that shit.