Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - Bad Hasbara 68: A Dishonor To Be Nominated, with Anthony Sargon

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

Matt and Daniel are joined by Anthony Sargon, calling in from the outskirts of Beirut to survey the tragic oversights in the Anti-Semites of the Year awards, the recent opinion piece claiming southern Lebanon is northern Israel, and the need for a new generation of hasbara hotties.Please donate to Palestine Red Crescent Society: https://www.palestinercs.org/enDo Not Worry Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@DoNotWorryPodcastSubscribe 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

Moshwam ha bitch, a ribbon polkot. We invented the terry tomato, and weighs, USB drives, and the iron d'all. Israeli salad, oozy, stents, and jopas, orange rose. Micro chips is us. iPhone cameras us. Taco salads us. Polaramos us. Olive garden us.

White foster us. Zabrahamas. As far as us. Shalom and welcome to Bad Hasbara. The world's most moral podcast. My name is Matt Lieb. I will be your most moral co-host for this podcast. And I am Daniel Matte, the other half of this.

Sometimes dynamic, do you know, we can be dynamic. We can be, we can be dynamic. I've heard from many a listener that one of the things about our duodum is that we are quite dynamic. We do all sorts of loud noises and then soft whispers. Pianissimo and then be me mezzo forte and yell at me. That's what you want me to do fortissimo? I'm going to have to. Yeah, that's what I meant.

Matt Leib, I love you. I love you too, dog. I love when you yell at me. So good to see you. So good to see all of you out there in podcast land. Thank you so much for listening to this show. Just a reminder, please go ahead and give us those five stars and those reviews on the various podcast apps. We are still, of course, being attacked by the Hebrew Telegram group.

They are trying to destroy our stars. We are activating Iron Stars. Please make sure you intercept their bad reviews. missile and you know and help us get our podcast seen by people who are on podcast apps it helps us our review our bad review bunkers are not that well no yeah they're not fortified they're not quite fortified so yes exactly we cannot you know withstand a a giant barrage of of bad reviews from people whose hebrews clearly their first language and and it's not like we have a global empire about you know back i mean that iranian money only goes

it only goes so far man i mean that's a thing it's like we're trying to you know we're trying to get more of that you know uh iranian money we're trying to get some of that you know we're trying to be a sort of like hootie like proxy we want to be a little mini hesbola but with you know with um you know podcasts like a podcast hesbola that's what we want so help us by going to patreon.com slash bad as farra please be our iran so go there and join

and then you get one you know bonus episode a week roughly sometimes not but sometimes yes and for sure what you get is every episode before it actually airs you get it at least a day early which is nice for people who need their

slop and on weeks when we don't put out a bonus episode you at least get the pleasurable anticipation of, is there going to be a bonus episode? Yeah, that's fun. You get the soaring highs and crushing lows. Exactly. You get the disappointment.

You get the partial reinforcement. Yeah. You know, it's why a lot of us stay in unhealthy relationships. It seems to be the thrill of life for people. It's what motivates a lot of things in life. It's what keeps us going. Yeah, you never know. It's like you go to a party.

You're like, hey, am I going to, you know, meet a girl tonight? Am I going to meet my future wife, you know? Fin doming us as producer Adam Levin, shout out. Shout out to producer Adam Levin, by the way. On the ones, twos, chiron's. That's right. He's up here doing lower thirds and upper fourths. And just, just crushing it on the ones and twos.

Please, also, if you have money, please donate to our sponsor. Today's sponsor is, and by the way, when I say sponsor, people have asked like, oh, are they actually like sponsoring? No, none of these organizations know about this podcast. We just shout them out and call them sponsors because it's fun. Today's episode is brought to you by Palestine Red Crescent Society. The Palestine Red Crescent Society is an officially recognized independent Palestinian National Society. It is part of the International Red Cross. And, Red Crescent Movement and operates in Palestine and the Diaspora. PRCS is guided by the Geneva Conventions and the movement's fundamental principles, humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality. So, please, for the love of God, go to Palestine rc.org slash E.N for English, and donate now. Because, as you have probably seen, if you've been paying attention,

a lot of these organizations are being attacked, Palestine Red Crescent specifically, along with things like the World Kitchen and stuff like that, just being illegally bombed by a genocidal apartheid state. So please give them the money. They need it more than we do. Daniel, what's the spin? The spin today involves several records. I know we're going to be talking about sort of an award ceremony for haters, all about haters.

So I've got, I've got notorious B-I-G, Life After Death, which has the song, Player Hater. That's right. That's right. Player-hater. I know we're going to be talking about Lebanon a fair bit. So I got me some Ferrus. Oh. Ferus, the diva of that country.

Yes. Diana Ross of Lebanon. exactly um it the diana ross of Israel uh her backup group was uh the supremacists oh there we go yeah that right you got it i had to sort that one out

i did i had to get my level leveler in you know my my joke leveler out yeah yeah yeah right um we just had uh black friday in the states so i always love bringing out some steely dan okay the song Black Friday about a bunch of about you know what to do the day after the financial crash and then finally there was a tweet about a of a hard arts article that came out a few weeks ago and ever since then I haven't been able to get this Curtis Mayfield song out of my head so I've got Curtis live beautiful live in New York but if you want to put that tweet up on

the screen Trudeau get ready nearly 8,000 Israelis have received temporary Canadian work visa so far this year five times the number in 23 and just immediately it was you know in my head Trudeau get ready there's Israeli's coming and I someone on Twitter finished the verse for me it's you know you don't need no mounties

unless Netanyahu's on board that's beautiful because Trudeau did say he would follow law and that's right and arrest these these good friends of his He's good friends of his. Yeah, his best friends, the Netanyahu's, yeah, he said he would. He said he would.

It would be amazing if Netanyahu was arrested by one of the moose cops. Yeah. That would be insane. Trudeau's such a good boy. He's like, look. Yeah. He loves the teacher. He loves the teacher.

Yeah. He loves his best friend, but he loves the, but he'll sell his best friend out to the teacher, not for moral principle. No. But because he loves the international, you know, he loves the international rule of law, the world order. He loves his own legitimacy. And that's, I mean, that's what these warrants are actually good for, to put people like him in that position. Exactly. It's only fringish nations like the United States that, you know, we'll just come out and say, we don't care about that.

We ain't reading all that. We ain't reading all that. Yeah, that's the thing, you know, are you really about that rules-based life, you know, or is it all a front for American imperialism? It's usually the latter. I think I saw a tweet by fellow Canadian Dan Beckner who said something like rules-based international martial law. Yeah, that sounds fun. Daniel, to get into this episode, we have just a it's a monumentous episode we have a great guest we have

you know a lot of content a lot of things have happened but I need to start out did you just say monumentous did I it's very possible I'm not fully awake yet so sometimes I say words that aren't words I love that word that's there's nothing wrong with making up words

no I love I love words that combine two words and create like it's a perfectly cromulent word it's perfectly crumulent I I was in a bodega once, and I heard someone referring to something as a tragesty. Tragedy is great. I thought that was fantastic. That's fantastic. That is a word now because travesty and a tragedy is a travesty.

Yeah. And something that's both momentous and monumental is monumentous. Monumentous. I'm allowed. I am allowed. But we have a monumentous new segment thanks to the people at stop antisemitism. I don't know if you know this, but there's a work show. Not our sponsors.

But our muses. Our muses, absolutely. Don't give them your money. No, no, no, no, no. In fact, if you can find a way to take money, do it. If you're like, you know, the lady who runs, it's like, I don't know, personal assistant. Just go through the bank account and start sucking her dry. But they are doing an award show.

The anti-Semites of the year. And I got to say, it is an action-packed list that, What is that? Ten nominees? Yeah, dude. Ten nominees. Look at this. You got Hassan Piker, Corey Bush, John Cusack, Greta Toonberg, Jake Shields, Jess Natalie, Jackson Hinkle, Candice Owens, Dan Blitzarian. Bill Zarian. Sorry, I was thinking Blitzarian, you know, kind of like, he's very Nazi-coded. And Bassem Yusuf. Jess Natalie is the only one

I don't know. Yeah, I don't know just Natalie either. Natal. Oh, is Natal? Yeah, there's no I. I don't know Jess, but I know the rest of them and we do have one of them former guest Basim Youssef who I believe should run away with it. I mean, this guy's been campaigning hard to get that you know. He's out there just trying to fucking like bring light to an actual genocide every day like a fucking anti-Semite, you know?

It's just, it's, it is, uh, it's crazy that they have this list, um, where they mix in like people who are just like, the problem isn't Zionism. It's Jews like Dan, uh, you know, Blitzkrieks, Aryan. Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't say necessarily I'm an anti-Semite, although I wouldn't be surprised or concerned or disturbed if I was. Yeah.

I just don't like it when a group of people. art of the Jews Are Jewish I don't see why I should accept A bunch of people being Jewish All over the place If that makes me an age of Semite Okay

I guess But it's like if you're gonna have Jews Jewing it up Doing Jew stuff And expect me not to be mad at it Then you're living in a fantasy world Yeah I mean he strikes me as An op

Right In the S tier of people on that list who might qualify for the monocle. Yeah, right. I know. If, if this were ever a good faith organization, like, you would be like, okay, you might even see things like David Duke on it, you know,

right? You know, former Grand Wizard of the Clu Klux. By the way, this is a side note, but Katie Helper recently had to, like, tweet out something like, I can't believe I have to say this, but David Duke is an actual anti-Semite. He's not just

like a anti-Semite. He's not just like a anti-Zionist pro-Palestine guy and only on Twitter only on Twitter do you see people going like I don't think you know enough about him I think you really need to do your research

on David fucking Duke yeah oh thank you Elon but it's a tricky thing we're going to get into this and make fun of it but yeah I mean it's been a year and we've talked about this on this show where I really think for the first time

actual events have caused almost a mandatory blurring of the lines between straight up anti-Semitism a kind of pre-existing and non-topical and not related to like apropos of nothing a kind of non-sequitur hatred or dislike or distrust of Jews.

Yeah. And a kind of fatigue of a Jewish supremacist state and its apologist. Yes. Committing acts of barbarity, like a tiny country purporting to speak for a tiny group doing horrible things and causing chaos virtually single-handedly and playing the victim. And some people kind of snapping and being like, well, what's up with this Jewish ethnicity thing? what's up with this Jewish state they start questioning the premise they look into it and they get confused and they start getting I'd say more perplexed and confused about Jewishness itself right then I would like and I didn't like it when Bassem was talking about have you read the Talmud like I don't right I don't want to hear about a particular group's holy books as singled out now right I can but then on the other hand on the one hand

And on the other hand, this is the Tavia tradition, right, of the great rabbi Tavia. Yes. If the Quran is open for business in terms of parsing it for genocidal stuff, if we make fun of the book of Mormon, if we make fun of all kinds of scripture, what's so special and precious and sacrosanct about our sacred texts, you know? And are we equal opportunity mockers and haters? Do we, are we claiming some kind of special immunity? And if we're claiming special immunity,

then I think we're acting like a bunch of assholes who people might get suspicious of. Yes. Okay? Yes. Liberal arts weights must answer for a heartbreaking work of staggering genius by Dave Eggers. Thanks Adam.

But yeah, no, it's like the entire, I mean, one of the premises of doing this show in particular and talking about Zionism. constantly on the show is to point to an anti-Zionist ideology that exists out there that can be applied across the board. So, for example, if you're someone who,

like I perfectly understand people who are unfamiliar with people like David Duke and don't know his sort of modus operandi, like if they don't know what his whole thing is, is making white nationalism palatable to a like political mass like his whole thing wasn't you know he wasn't saying any racial slurs he wasn't going to um use the tropes uh like the explicit anti-Semitic tropes of like his predecessors he was going to make it palatable so if you don't know that and you i can see people being

you know flung into that and being like oh wait this guy seems all right he seems like a nice guy it's like yeah that's his whole that's his whole thing um and the reason we talk about anti-Zionism and the ideology of Zionism in general is because if you apply, for example, what David Duke says about the Great Replacement Theory. He's someone who's like a big, you know, great replacement theory guy. You know, they're trying to replace us. They're trying to replace the white race in America, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you have a, you know, If you are anti-Zionist, you are actually into great replacement theory. Like, you are anti-the- idea of the ethno state or the idea of, you know,

soiling your country's genetic makeup or cultural makeup through immigration. Like, that is classic Zionist shit. Yeah, unless your anti-Zionism, quote-unquote, is just a convenient cloak in 2024, for just not liking anything to do with Jews. Right, exactly. But I would say. And Zionists aren't wrong that there are some people out there who clothe it in that. Of course, of course.

Yes, yes. And then, you know, it is, again, why I was like, this needs... That's the first time, by the way, the words Zionists aren't wrong has ever been stated on this podcast. Please don't clip it. It was part of a larger sentence. I mean, Netanyahu's got some good idea. No. Yeah, but anyways, this list is, of course, all the same sort of bad faith bullshit of stop anti-Semitism, just weaponizing, you know, anti-Semitism.

I mean, take John Cusack, an example. John Cusack? He's not, he's not an anti-Semite. I mean, that guy will say anything, you know? Yeah, he's an actor. Oh, come on, come on. Oh, say anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Took a second, took a second. Yeah. Yeah, he's high fidelity. I don't know too many of his movies, I'll be honest. He'd be better off to, no. There it is. But mostly looking at this list, I was like, not only is it like mixing people like Dan Bilzerian and Hassan Piker, who is not an anti-Semite.

But it is also, you know, got two really, you know, big snubs. And this is the really offensive part. This is a really offensive part. This is actually the hurtful part. Yes. Me and you. Where's Matt leave? I was thinking, I was, look, I'm a bit modest, but I was definitely thinking of you that you deserve.

Yeah. Well, I was thinking of you as well. Really? Yeah, no. I was like, you know, Daniel, you've worked really hard. And so, you know, I have got, I've got this right here. This is who my list would be. You know, at the top here, we have Hassan Piker, Matt Lieb, Daniel Mott,

Dipsy, he's the, that's the black telotubby, and then the AT&T girl. Oh, for sure. All obviously virulent anti-Semites. And if you're nominating me, I would love to hear your reasons and maybe, you know, we'll turn it into an award show. Well, I've given this some thought because I, you know, if we're going to lodge this protest, we have to come with receipts, right? Okay.

Well, let me. One does not just roll up into Mordor and say, that's right. Change the candidate list. Yeah, one doesn't simply go into Mordor and say, you know, that the orcs are anti-Semitic. Yeah, you miss too. So I've compiled a few of your greatest hits against our people.

Let's play a bumper. Here we go. The anti-Semites of the year. The anti-Semies. The anti-Semies. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, producer, Adam, for that.

So what do you think? Top five? Yeah, sure. Okay. I mean, look, the fact is there was so much to choose from. I could have really picked anything you've said or done in the past year since I've known you. But these were just the five sort of incidents or quotes that stood out to me. And I think easily any two or three of these boots.

hinkle off the list or knocks you know core jess natal down to a runner up corey bush come yeah um so there was one point i for i think it was at that that hollywood rally that you did that went viral that yeah yeah yeah yeah and you had a line where you you you sort of said um and this was after like just so people people people can be like oh matt's a comedian this was a bit No, this was after, you actually, there was a point in the speech. So, okay, everything before this was a bit. And now everything I'm saying now is literally true. Right.

So just switch, yeah, which is what comedians do, right? And they're always serious. You said, it's not that I hate the Jewish side of my lineage, because you're half Jewish, right? It just so happens that the only family members I've ever committed arson and or property damage, specifically gravestone vandalism against happened to be from that side. That's right. I did say that. That's true.

and I can see how in that context it does sound anti-Semitic, you're right? Yeah, I mean, I think it makes a pretty good case. I think, yeah, I was trying to. We were talking about song parodies for the show, you know, which always is a thorny topic because of copyright and whatnot. But just once you sort of,

you suggested we do an ugly kid Joe parody called I Hate Everything About Jew. And when I said, oh, like, you mean ironically, you said you had to pick up your daughter and you quickly just log off. I said, no. I ran and picked up my child. Yeah, I'm like, what's the point of that?

You just want to list the things you hate about Jews and put it to the tune of a one-hit wonder from 1991? Well, to be fair, I also suggested remaking the entire romantic teen comedy, 10 things I hate about you, but make it 10 things I hate about Jews. Right, right. And I know what, I had multiple, you know what, I know what Jew did last summer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, had a lot of those. Yeah.

There was, who can forget about how? Osbara Purim party, where you dressed up as self-hating Jewish mobster, Bugsy C. Kyle. Buxi C. Kyle. Yeah, no, I remember that. I thought it was a great pun, you know. Yeah, I was like, this is worth it. When we were discussing merch, which, you know, is still an ongoing topic, we were, you know, Adam and I are talking about hats or stickers or what, the t-shirts.

you casually floated the idea of like an artisanal beer an IPA with the clung I thought it was kind of a clunky title hopstage tears yeah because like of the hostages you know it's like yeah and that you would gladly drink the tears of yeah the Israeli hostages because that's just how you get down I mean you know just having fun and then this one I don't know how the how this would go over with with the jury but it definitely made an impression on me. I don't even remember the context, but, you know, we were having one of our conversations about oral sex. One of our many. It's virtually all we talk about, and if we're not talking about it, we're doing it. That's right. And then there's a lot to talk about, right? Yeah. I mean, people talk like, you know, oh, why don't you do more episodes? It's like, oh,

sorry, I'm too busy eating pussy to actually talk to you all the time about what Zionism is. Well, exactly. But on one of the rare occasions where you came up for air, so to speak. Just do the olive bet with your tongue. Right to left, baby. Right to the left. That's how you get it done. So on one of the rare occasions where you sort of came up for error.

And I was so struck by it that I wrote it down at the time. I had to write it down very fast because it was long. But you said, and I quote, dude, I'll eat anything down there. I got me the cunolingual version of the omnivore's dilemma. I don't care what's going on down there, what time of the goddamn month it happens to be, what your medical history is. It's an all mat can eat buffet with a world full of flavors

and I never get smorgas bored of it. I'm talking, I've got a whole walk-in closet full of custom bibs for the feasting. It's all beautiful and delicious to me. I'm a pussy gourmand and I don't even speak French. Love me all the aromatic tasting notes. Only exception is if it smells like a filter fish

or tastes like potato cougal. And then you tried to say, We were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And then you'd say, well, that's not specific to Jewish woman because anyone's genitals can smell like anything, but still it struck me. And I think Adam, if he's honest, as a pretty specific aversion, you know, especially for someone who claims not to discriminate vulvally. That's true. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt gets that Michael Douglas cancer daily. I don't get that reference, but I like it. He apparently, he ended up getting some sort of form of throat cancer. because he claimed because he was eating too much pussy. Oh. Yeah. So, you know, hey, shout out to Michael Douglas. Well, that's the yeast of your worries.

Hey. Oh. So those are all good reasons. I've also submitted my own for you why I think you should be on this list. I'm flattered. I don't have a hope in hell of matching yours, but let's hear it. I think there's a shot. So Daniel Matte is a best-selling author.

musical theater lyricist and prolific anti-Semite. He has spent the last year impugning Israel's good name and attempting to delegitimize Israel. As the co-host of the Bad Hasbarra podcast, he has said many anti-Semitic things about his co-host Matt Lieb, including calling him a fish fucker. Despite the fact that he didn't actually fuck a fish,

it was a rubber fish that sung songs. So it was not an actual fish, and yet he still called me that. He has done many tropes, including saying that the state of Israel is secretly controlled by the Jews. Oh, my God. I mean, it's such a welcome secret. Yeah. I mean, you keep saying it's like, oh, you know, in Israel.

It's literally a Jewish state, Matt. I'm telling you. It's actually the world's only democracy. So that's why I'm nominating you. Also, most importantly, Daniel Matae has misnamed Israel several. times calling it things such as israel jizra hell shitrael sucks my dick real uh into the does bit dustbin of histriel piss rael new phone who disrael is not real Disneyland for pedophiles sweet dome Alabama uh that you've called the jewish state the u wish state the jewish state the

Jewish hate, the Gooch's Taint, the Daniel mate, and of course, future Palestine. So for all of these reasons above, I believe that, in fact, you are the one who should be getting this award to be the number one anti-Semite of 2024. That's my personal belief. Well, look, either way, man, it's either you or me. I mean, either way, it's what we can say is this, they jude us out of it. They absolutely jude us out of it. It's like classic Jew stuff, you know what I mean?

Classic. It's fucked up and we don't like it. And, you know, hopefully there's always next year, Daniel, you know. Next year, maybe we'll just try a little bit harder. We'll do a few more tropes. Try harder, Jew better. Okay, great. And folks, that's the end of that bit.

These things are just one big unpopularity contest. That's true. Well, we had a lot of fun. We all get awards. But now it's time to bring on our guest, who is... Who's probably feeling uncomfortable. I hope not. This guest is a fantastic podcaster in Lebanon from the Do Not Worry Podcast.

Ladies and gentlemen and everyone else, please welcome Anthony Sargon. What's up, buddy? How's it going, guys? Thank you for having me on. Hi, Anthony. Thanks for coming on. How are you doing? How are you feeling?

How's the not worrying going? Yeah. It's going pretty, like, yeah, that is the worst name that you could have for a podcast in the country that is being bombed by Israel. But hey, we're doing okay. We've survived the ceasefire. Might is getting violated daily. Apparently, Hasabella fired some rockets into Israel today after Israel apparently did like 75 violations. at the very least. So ceasefire is hanging on by a threat, apparently, but there are like fewer

drones flying over Beirut. Buildings aren't being bombed, like leveled like they were before. So there are some positives, but it is kind of a, you never really know. You know what I mean? Sure. You're always kind of just sitting on the edge of your seat. So. Yeah. So Anthony, we obviously on this podcast talk a lot about Israel and the current genocide that they are committing in Gaza and their apartheid state and they're kind of war mongering and the way that they're currently just at war with every single possible neighbor that they could have. And while we joke around about this, there are, of course, people who are living in these places who are experiencing it. So what I would ask you is like,

do you like this podcast? Do you ever listen to it and be like, this is fun? It's a lot of fun. I'm a big fan of both of you guys. Hell, yeah. I'm very happy to be on. So this is kind of surreal. And shout out to Frogan. Thank you guys for giving Frogan a platform to come on last weekend and share her story because that's all been kind of crazy.

So big fan all you guys. I love that. Well, so you, when did you start your podcast and how long, yeah, how long has it been going for? It's going to be four years in January of this year. I started it. I was a big fan. of, speaking of Frogan, a big fan of H3, H3, this is an H3-inspired podcast.

So, like, we usually just react to, like, fun Lebanese memes, random internet videos, talk about random beef. So that's kind of what we've been doing for the past three years, but as soon as things started to go down in Gaza, we started to talk about, at least, like, we couldn't ignore it, honestly, even though a lot of our audience wasn't interested in that. We kind of, I felt weird not talking about it, so we covered a lot of that. and then obviously when the war sort of... Lebanon has been at war with Israel for the past year.

It was just kind of relegated to South Lebanon, and it was just like Hezbollah firing some rockets into the north, et cetera. But it became sort of a full-scale war about two months ago, a little over two months ago, sort of the end of September. And that's when I felt like I had to shift my content to almost exclusively focus on the war. And we normally, like I get criticized a lot by my Lebanese audience for speaking too much English.

over the last couple of years, I've been trying my best to speak more Arabic and to make the podcast a little bit more, feel a bit more Lebanese, but I decided to shift back to completely, exclusively English, because I wanted, in case anyone picked up on this podcast, in case any clips got shared online, I wanted as many people to be able to watch this and just hear us out as possible. And luckily, like, that kind of helped our clip, some of our clips got, like, reacted to by Hassan Piker, Kyle Kalinsky, people I've been watching for many years. So all of that helped bring some attention to the podcast. And then I weirdly enough made a video criticizing Ethan Klein and the sort of a lot of the Zionist stuff that he's been saying on

his show. Because my show was so heavily inspired by H3, I felt some sort of responsibility to talk about that. That video kind of went viral and we ended up amassing like doubling our subscribers in just a few weeks. And a lot of most of my new audience is from the U.S., from Europe, from Australia. They're mostly Westerners. So it's been very nice to get this. this new receptive audience to kind of hear us out and listen to our story. And that's kind of like where we're at now. We still talk about silly TikTok drama, weird little, you know, parisocial things. Right.

But it's been weird. We cover Lebanon and we cover Palestine in almost every single episode just because I feel like we have to. And there's not that many podcasts in Lebanon, so. I mean, yeah, and you're offering something that I think, you know, people don't get, for the most part, which is like you are in Lebanon while it is being bombarded by Israel. So you're close to Beirut, is that right? Yeah, I'm fortunate enough to be in a relatively safe area, so in a Christian area.

I'm going to use air quotes a lot because nothing is safe, no place is safe one when you're under attack by Israel. But relatively, they've focused most of their attacks on Dachia, which are the southern suburbs of Beirut. Oh, they love their suburbs so much. a whole doctrine after them. Exactly. The Dachia doctrine. So it comes from that. Yeah.

Kill the civilians to try and win the war. Exactly. So anyone who's in Dachia, chances are like there's a 50-50 shot your house either got demolished or something. South Lebanon, a lot of historic sites. Like if you guys know Balbek where like there's there's all these ancient monuments. And like Joe Rogan keeps talking about that 2000 slab of limestone that's there that he's convinced aliens put down.

that's here in Lebanon and Israel was bombing like really close to that vicinity it's like a UNESCO protected like heritage site and they just in this like I don't think they bombed the actual sites themselves

but close enough to make them kind of shaking their ground and just like send a message and they did they did bomb some other random areas Christian areas they would bomb anywhere where a lot of refugees would be really funny if

if this is how alien first contact finally happens Israel bombs the monolith that the aliens planted there two thousand years ago And it's like their, that's their antenna for, you know, and the aliens are like, fuck this, we need to go down there

and see what the fuck is going to do. What is happening, dude? Like, you can't just go around bombing our obelisk. The obelisk sees all. You're fucking with our communications. I would love that. That's how we get into an interstellar war. God damn it.

Israel's done it again. And then, you know, who comes up with a people of Star System. People of the Gamma Quadrant. Yeah. You are not our enemies. Our enemies are your leaders who put an ancient obelisk near one of our holiest sites. They are using you as human shields. As non-human shields.

As alien shields. As humanoid shields. Humanoid shields. Oh, my God. Anthony, I've been wondering this, and this is probably a, a touchy topic or question, you know, the question of how involved Hezbollah was going to get in making good on their solid, their stated solidarity with Palestine since October 7th. And, you know, Nasrallah, you know, saying a lot of, you know, strong sounding stuff.

but there always was this awareness that there was attention that to really make good on that you're opening the gates of hell for the people of Lebanon and can you speak to the I mean I doubt that there's one unanimous feeling about it in Lebanon but what are the various feelings what have they been about wanting to stay uninvolved wanting to stay marginally involved wanting to get fully involved and give Israel the pain that Hezbollah has been promising for years that they could. Can you just speak a bit about that tension between solidarity with,

and of course, Lebanese and Palestinians have a fractured history as well. And there's many Palestinians in Lebanon. So can you just talk a little bit about those tensions? Sure. Well, just as a disclaimer, I'm not like a political commentator. So everything, like someone who might be watching might completely disagree with what I have to say.

But I'm going to give you guys like the sort of in my estimation, kind of, and based on everything that I've been reading and the people that I've been talking to. So it is very mixed in Lebanon. You have people that are all over the place, and people's feelings towards Hezbollah are very gray. It's not very black and white. Like, for example, the huge blast that happened August 4th in 2020, that basically blew up half of Beirut. That was because Hezbollah had stored a bunch of ammonium nitrate at the port. But also, which is, that's unofficial, but most people believe that Israel bombed. the port and caused that explosion. So it was kind of a tag team effort by Hezbollah and Israel.

I was in Beirut when that blast happened. I almost like lost a night. I was home when that thing happened. It was one of the most traumatic events of my life. It was like a nuclear blast and hundreds of people lost their lives. So I am not the biggest fan of Hasbullah. Hasbara are notoriously anti-LGBT when people were protesting in like 2019. There was like a big revolution in Lebanon. Hezbollah sent a lot of their people in the streets to like fight off the protesters. People like me that we're trying to fight for a better Lebanon. So our relationship with Hezbollah, a lot of peoples, is very mixed, but I also do recognize the need

for Lebanon to have a resistance. I completely understand why Hezbollah came to be. They came to be after Israel came into Lebanon in 1978 and 1982. So while, yes, I may disagree with them politically, and I think they have too much influence. In our political system, I also completely recognize the fact that Lebanon needs Hezbollah as a resistance. Our military is completely nerfed by the,

US and by by by by by the rest of the world we're not allowed to have any air defense systems we're not allowed to have jets so how are we realistically supposed to be able to defend ourselves not allowed under under what treaty under what under what sanction like what's the what's the legal regime I'm not sure I'm not sure like you that kind of sovereignty I don't know what it is but if I look it up I'm pretty sure it would be pretty easy to find but we're literally just not allowed to have jets or air defense systems so crazy what choice are you giving the people to defend themselves there are people in Lebanon who are completely in support of Hezbollah. They're part of the political party. They are right or die, Hassan Nisrella, and

Hezbollah. You have people like me that are kind of mixed. I don't maybe necessarily love their political influence and a lot of the things that they stand for, but I fully understand and appreciate the need for a resistance. And I'm thankful for all the sacrifices they made defending Lebanon against Israel and the efforts they made to help defend Palestinians in Gaza. You have people, you have extremists on the religious right that actually wished Israel annihilated more of Hezbollah. They completely hate Hezbollah. They're extremists. So they're actually angry that there was a ceasefire because they wanted Israel to damage Hezbollah even more so that there can be sort of a switch up in power. So feelings

are all over the place. You have loyalists, you have people that are happy and in support of Israel for what's happening. So yeah, it's really not a mind. And Lebanon is very diverse. So we're like around 30% Christian, 30% Sunnis, 30% Shiites. And there's a small Druze population as well. So it's very hard. to sort of pinpoint or find anything extremely consistent amongst everyone, but I hope that kind of answers that question. Yeah, totally. It really does. It's a complicated picture. Yeah, and it seems like this recent ceasefire agreement, like, leaves, it asks a lot more questions than it answers is what it feels like. It feels like we're in this kind of wait and see moment. So just for background for

people. The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah, this is, it took place on November 27th, and it's going to last for 60 days as long as either side doesn't, you know, start claiming that the other one broke it. I think Israel has been breaking it a bunch, but of course, I think, I think in order for the ceasefire to fully break down, they both have to decide fuck it, you broke it, and then they continue firing. So it allows for, so a troop withdrawal from southern Lebanon. So Israeli troops are being pulled out of southern Lebanon, as well as Hezbollah is also being pulled out. Yeah. And it prohibits Israel for conducting offensive military operations of Lebanon while requiring Lebanon to prevent armed groups, including Hezbollah,

from launching attacks on Israel. In fairness, Israeli troops were already being pulled out of southern Lebanon, just in body bags. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so it's interesting kind of seeing politically how this is breaking down on a partisan level. Like you've got the United States and Israel claiming victory because they're like, well, you know, with the ceasefire, that removes Lebanon as a front from this war and it stops them at least temporarily from doing what they've been doing for the last year, which was firing rockets in solidarity with the one goal of as soon as you stop attacking Gaza, we'll stop attacking you. So they're claiming victory for that.

And of course, I think on the other side, Lebanese people and Hezbollah is claiming victory and the fact that, like, they, you know, Israel once again tried to get into South Lebanon and once again was thrown out. Failed, yeah. And failed miserably once again because they just, it seems like the only militarily, the only thing they can do in Lebanon is to cause mass death and destruction. They can't actually occupy it, at least in the way they once used to be able to do. Pretty much. Yeah, so in general, what have you been hearing about the ceasefire? What are the thoughts? Are people, you know, mad at Hezbollah for agreeing to it? I mean, you said people on the right are. Are people, yeah, what is the general feeling around this? I think it's pretty mixed, and I actually put a poll up on my Instagram after the ceasefire to try to gauge people how they felt. So I was like, are you 100% satisfied?

to 100% dissatisfied, or are you mixed? Oh, I love this, a survey. A little mini survey, and I got about 900 votes when I stopped, like, checking the results, and about 66% of the votes were like, we feel mixed about it. So, well, mainly people are happy. So, like, there was a lot of heartwarming footage

of people going back to their homes in South Lebanon, so people piling up in cars, driving back home, regardless if their homes were destroyed or not, they just want to go back home. So you see a lot of that heartwarming footage being shared. Who's going to be upset about that? So mainly people are happy. that there is a ceasefire because people aren't dying anymore. We have 4,000 people that got

killed over this last year ever since October 8th. Most of those deaths came in the last two months when Israel kind of boosted up its hostilities. 16,000 people are injured. So at least, at the very least, people aren't dying anymore. We have a million and a half displaced people. So that stops at least because they destroyed so many apartment buildings. So many people have been left homeless. It's winter time here, so it's cold. So the fact that we don't have have to add to that number of 1.5 million displaced in the middle of winter, that's a positive. So no one can complain about that. There are some people that are upset because they think that by agreeing to the ceasefire, we are abandoning Gaza and the Hezbollah is officially decoupling

themselves from the Palestinian cause. But I don't think that's true. And I think most people understand that Lebanon sacrificed as much as it could. And I mean, the responsibility, and to be honest, the responsibility shouldn't just fall on a tiny country like ours that doesn't even have a decent standing military. The rest of the Middle East is standing idly by as this is happening. Some of the wealthiest nations on earth are just watching. So for our country to sacrifice more, I don't think that that's fair to say. And for me, as a Christian who lives in a safe area who hasn't had to sacrifice my home or any of my family members, I don't feel comfortable asking the people of South Lebanon or Dahlia to sacrifice more so that I can feel better about

myself when I'm tweeting about the war on Twitter and saying that like we haven't given up so you have to be pragmatic but the thing is no one no one knows what that ceasefire means and what are we giving up Israel considers like if someone is digging a hole in the ground they might consider it someone digging a tunnel and they might decide to bomb them so they're gonna have free rain over our airspace no one's comfortable about that yeah and and they're already there's been 75 violations that's like from a tweet that I found this morning so that number has probably gone up.

Yeah. And just to answer Daniel's question from earlier, I think most, a lot of people probably didn't want Hezbollah to get involved in the war. They were comfortable with the tit for tat, you bomb here, we bomb there, sort of not crossing that red line. Because Lebanon has been going through an economic crisis, COVID crippled us a few years ago on top of the economic crisis, like we've been going through nonstop sort of crap. So to add a war on top of that, a lot of people didn't think we could handle it economically.

his credit, Hassan Nisrella, tried to keep this from escalating for a very long time. So I know people, I know he's considered a terrorist in the U.S. and all that sort of thing, but he was a very pragmatic figure who, weirdly enough, was very good at de-escalating the situation. And when Netanyahu was desperately looking for war in Lebanon, it was Hassan Nisrella that kept that from happening for as long as he did. Yeah, it's true. And I remember he, uh, there was a lot of shade thrown his way by a lot of people

you know in the Palestinian solidarity spaces when he was giving a big announcement I believe it was in December or maybe November and the announcement wasn't we are going to full scale

war with you know we're going to invade Haifa or whatever it was you know he was following through on his promise, but he was not going to goad, you know, Israel into a full-scale war. And Netanyahu, I think, was clearly desperately trying to get this front open. And in so doing, has now had to pull back, you know, with his tail tuck between his legs, and he has to try to spin this as some sort of victory.

They talk a lot about, like, the Hezbollah infrastructure being, you know, severely damaged by, you know, the last few months. And so when I see what they use to, as, like, evidence of that, I mostly see, you know, bombed out homes and cities. So do you, how many people in your life do you know who I've, had to flee southern Lebanon like what has what has been um uh your you know personal stake in this uh other than it being your own country of course yeah i mean for me again i i feel i'm one of the lucky ones and part of me feels guilty like even though my country's being bombed i feel guilty that other people are are getting it worse than i am it's a weird it's a weird feeling to get but when you're seeing like and i'm online complaining about the war and then i'm

like i ask myself do i have the right to complain as much as someone else if i'm not directly being bombed but besides that a lot just a lot of friends mainly a lot of friends have been affected some of them completely lost their homes some of them their homes got heavily damaged because of building nearby got bombed I I sell have a vintage comic book business it's called the comics dash where I've partnered up with a small store in a region in Beirut it's called multiverse games they sell board games like collectibles funco pops all that sort of thing so I have a comic book stand there where I sell a bunch of vintage comic stuff from the 60s the 70s old

collectible stuff. And on the final day of the ceasefire, in the last hours of the day, Israel was going ham, just bombing any place they could, causing as much damage as they could before the ceasefire went into effect. And they threatened the building that was right behind that shop. And Hamada, that area is full of families, full of kids. It's just a bunch of nerds playing Magic the Gathering in the basement of that store. So, like, no threat there. But have a massive collection of comics there of like over like a couple thousand comics like it's worth a lot of money and that almost got destroyed and you said Israel threatened it by what means did they threaten it did they knock on the roof in their parlance like no so that's it what's the delivery mechanism for

that threat so they tweet out these these notices kind of like what they do in Gaza sometimes they'll highlight a building in red and they'll say if you live in that building or or however many meters around you have they don't even tell you how much time you have to evacuate but like you need to evacuate. And they share that stuff on Twitter. Like most people aren't on Twitter to see that. And half the time, it's in the middle of the night. But that, that happened to be at around like 8 or 9 p.m. I can't remember the exact time. So they shared that, that picture out. So everyone in the shop had time to evacuate. Everyone was safe. No one was harmed. And luckily the, like, the whole building was fine. They just like, they smashed one window. But like,

that was just something that. And I even feel bad and I feel dumb complaining about a comic book collection when lives are at stake. You know what I mean? So, but it's just, uh, But mainly a lot of friends, losing homes, which is extremely messed up. And just there's a lot of sad stories. We try to cover them on the podcast, like someone I've never met, but there was a cafe shop owner that just was right across from her building. He used to sell her like chocolates and coffee, her whole life ever since she was a little girl. And he died.

He got bombed. He was on the balcony when Israel bombed a building nearby. And he died. He basically watched that little girl grow up. And there's thousands of stories like that across the country. so yeah that's uh yeah it's yeah it's got to be fucking insane and you know i can see it being you know kind of uh people having mixed thoughts about the ceasefire in general just because you've got you know um it's there's just something that's so uh inadequate about the uh the idea of a ceasefire

when it comes to this like general genocidal apartheid regime where you just uh More and more it grows into this feeling of like, you know, it would be nice, would be a dismantling of this regime. Yeah. And then a ceasefire. Because, you know, at the end of the day, you've, you know, Israel, like you said, they can, if someone digs a hole in South Lebanon to, like, dump their trash into, they can be like, you're breaking the ceasefire, time to Bonavirut. And it just feels like an entire region held hostage. which, you know, leads me to my next question for you, which is like, well, what if it didn't have to be? What if instead you were Israeli?

Ooh. Yeah. So, because I don't know if you know this, but it turns out that South Lebanon is actually just North Israel. Oh, you don't say. Yeah, yeah. You know, I don't want to tell any tales out of school. Not since realtors declared Bushwick East Williamsburg. But yeah, there's a recent article in the Jerusalem Post.

That was a good Brooklyn joke, L.A. Yeah, that was. Look, Adam's got Brooklyn humor as well as L.A. humor. There's a recent article in the Jerusalem Post, an opinion, an op-ed, about how southern Israel is actually just sorry, southern Lebanon is actually just northern Israel and we're going to read

this and talk to you about it but first we have to take a quick commercial break. So everyone please stick around we will be right there. World's Monumental podcast here with Anthony Sargon of the podcast. Do not worry. And we are not worrying because we here in the United States and also you in Lebanon are soon going to be part of Israel. So there was an article recently in the Jerusalem Post that, well, this is the

headline. Southern Lebanon is actually northern Israel. Opinion. Thank you. When you see something like this, by the way, Anthony, is there, like when you look at it or you're just like, oh, great, here we go. Like how much of you is actually like sitting here, like expecting a, if not a full-on annexation, like an attempt at a permanent occupation? Are you actually, like, worried about that? I'm kind of surprised that it's not happening now. I'm not surprised because, I mean, I know that Hasbalah, in terms of, like, on the ground, like, guerrilla warfare, they're pretty unmatched in the region. So, I mean, for the idea to be able to take them down, that's pretty unrealistic.

Yeah. But, I mean, I thought they would make more of an effort, like, to keep trying. I thought they were going to keep at least trying and trying and lose way more soldiers before giving up. When I see things like that, I used to maybe a few years ago probably, like, would foam at the mouth and get, like, super angry. At this point, we're so used to this. Like, anytime I hear someone talking about, human shields, or I don't even feel like I have the capacity to get angry anymore. I'm just like, are people actually, like, still falling for this?

Like, can people hear the same thing over and over again and still kind of buy that as an excuse to murder people or to bomb a whole population? Like, there's a bunch of tweets from, like, unhinged people in Israel that are like, we can't wait to ski on your slopes or we can't wait to do, like, just the weirdest things that we constantly see. there's this lady her name is Carolyn Glick I don't know if you guys are familiar with her

she's like some kind of political commentator like she's saying that she said that Lebanon isn't even a country she said it's a forward operating base yeah yes she's like it's not even a country it's just a forward operating base with no culture she's like there's just a bunch of people

there that decided to call it Lebanon I'm like what and they're and like it gets millions of views on Twitter millions of likes millions of comments and I'm just like who believes leaves this. Is this real? Literally what a country is, is that a bunch of people there decided to call it something at a certain point in time. Yes. Yeah. No, like Italy is a country. Germany is a, like, Canada is a country. Well, this is like part of like the

general like Israeli insecurity. Like one of the things that pisses them off to the point of which like they're trying to change the definition of anti-Semitism isn't just like the criticism of, like, Zionism or their actions or whatnot, but they constantly harp on the de-legitimization of Israel. They will not, you know, accept Israel's right to exist. Like, this is, this is, like, the whole thing with them is, like, they keep talking about, like, the offensive nature of calling Israel, like, the Zionist entity, rather than, you know, saying country. And it's like the people calling you like the Zionist entity or like not recognizing you it's like yeah we also don't the United States doesn't recognize like North Korea right we know North

Korea exists but we our government is just you know decided that they're going to paint them constantly as a bad guy and do everything they can to undermine you know their leadership and their people on it. About two thirds of the global south is under U.S. sanctions and some form or another. Like, yes. And just like the way in which Israelis react to that kind of repudiation, that form of repudiation is to be like, that's delegitimization. We are a real country.

They like say it over and over again. And everyone's like, okay, whatever. The point is your genocidal maniacs doing apartheid. And they're just, they're more mad about being called not real than they are about people being mad about genocide. Which is why the is not real nickname is so effective. Yeah, they hate it. It's so funny. And so like because of that, they're always running kind of like, the way they run defense against this is to be like, oh, actually no countries are real. And it's like, okay, fine. So in this article, he kind of goes on to just talk about reasons why Northern Israel

or southern Lebanon is actually northern Israel. So as the IDF battles to clear, southern Lebanon of Hezbollah terrorists, it is worth highlighting an intriguing historical fact. Is it worth highlighting? Is it? That's the question. One that many seem to have forgotten.

Having grown up with an international boundary between the Jewish state and our neighbors to the north, we take it for granted that this is how it has always been and should be. But the truth is that the current border between Israel and Lebanon is a little more than a century old and is entirely artificial. Guess what's less than a century old? Yeah, exactly. A relic of a time when European colonialists whimsically drew lines on a map over a bottle of brandy and smoke-filled rooms. I'm sorry, but I love looking at like a bunch of Israelis looking at Sykes-Picot and just being like,

These guys are just making up states. It's like, yeah. What do you think Israel is? Historically speaking, southern Lebanon is, in fact, northern Israel, and the roots of the Jewish people in the area run deep. Whether or not this can or should be translated now into a political reality is a far more complex question. But there is simply no denying our connection to the land. He then goes on to just talk about different times in which in the Bible in which they talk about historical, in which, in the Bible in which they talk about historical ancient Israel as having parts in southern Lebanon and, you know, doing the Zionist thing of being like. I love it.

Yeah. Ancient texts. That's my favorite thing. Busting out the old quotes. That's it. Yes. And the book of Joshua. That's how you know.

You know, just take it. It's your land. You're right. How did I miss it? How did I miss that quote? Yeah. Oh, my bad. I'll just leave my home. Go for it, dude. It's all yours. This is just like it's it's like filled with quotes from the Bible, the midrash, uh, fucking, um, further evidence, archaeological evidence. Uh, this is like the classic Zionist

like thing, right? Where you just kind of go like, uh, well, you know, we, uh, we dug in this, uh, one hole in southern Lebanon, and we found a very old coin that, you know, that had a guy with a, you know, a menorah and, you know, another guy, you know, with the Star of David. And so, therefore, this is ours now. Let's see. Oh, less proof than Elizabeth Warren's college application. True. I love that Elizabeth Warren essentially just did Zionism, but for her you know for her native american roots that was yeah but i don't think the issue here is a lack of evidence i think the issue is fuck you it's inadmissible like that's not how it works that's not how it works exactly uh like the the idea of having you know uh a historical connection to any

place as being a pretense for doing uh like ethnic cleansing and colonialism is fucking it's fucking insane and drawing new whimsical borders yes the Bible is not a lease that's right the Bible is not a lease that's absolutely true and and it's it's interesting just like watching

the the same playbook being used but for you know for Lebanon because you just kind of see like oh wait we can do this all day with every single neighbor that Israel has we can talk about like the different Jewish connection to Iraq and the

Jewish connection to Jordan and to Syria and to fucking Egypt. I mean, eventually this stops being like this, you would think it would stop it's like it wouldn't be as potent. I know and that's kind of what was shocking when the war here like started and all of that same exact messaging started. And the whole human And Shields argument again, like Hezbollah's hiding rockets in people's homes and like they have rockets and garages. Most people in Lebanon don't have garages. There are no garages. Most people live in apartment buildings.

You can't fit a rocket launcher in a kitchen in Lebanon. But they already started just planting those ideas in people's heads. And we've, and I just, I'm sitting here as a Lebanese citizen watching what happened in Gaza over the last year, seeing that exact same messaging being used on us. I was terrified. When the war started here, I was convinced that like they're going to do the same exact thing here. And I'm kind of shocked that there has been a ceasefire, to be honest with you guys. I thought it was going to be way worse. But I think the fact that Lebanon is like a full sovereign nation that is like recognized by the rest of the international community. There's a bit more pressure to put an end to this pressure that does not exist. And for Gaza or Palestinians, like they don't get any courtesies.

But it was kind of crazy seeing the same thing happening. And having watched what happened in Gaza and seeing all of these brave like creators, like, Bison or Mautez share their stories for so long and share all this harrowing footage and people dying and being chopped up in the bits and nothing happening. The world doing nothing to help. Yeah. And then seeing Israel do the same thing here. I was like, oh, like, doesn't matter what I say or do online, nothing's going to make a difference. Like if Mautez and Bison couldn't make, couldn't make a difference with what they were showing the world, what chance do we have? So it's just... All of which raises the question, Anthony, are.

Are you ready to accept Israel as your, as your Lord and Savior? As your personal Lord and Savior. Are you really, are you willing to, to join the Jewish state as a silent partner, let's say. Yeah. There's certain things on your applications that, you know, you know. It sounds great on paper. Yeah. Some kind of limited sub-citizen.

Sure. I would love to. they keep, will you be Israel's Puerto Rico? Yeah. Like what do they expect they keep, you know, expanding greater Israel and greater Israel? That's the thing. There's the, how, like, there's a, there's a finite number of Jews. Right.

Yes. This is, I mean, this is, I mean, this is the, the whole thing with the, you know, idea of like greater Israel and this like expansionist ideology is like, it's so much of it is clearly just modeled after like American Manifest Destiny and of course you know regular as European colonialism right um but the difference is was like citizenship when it when it comes to you know like these places um is not as much uh like of like I don't know ethno nationalist you know when it comes to Israel, like you need to have Jews filling up these places. You have these like settlers in the West Bank and like, you know, throughout the world, obviously, there are

Jews who want to go and, you know, live on what is essentially illegal stolen land. But not enough. You got to, you really, you got to allow the Christian Zionists to move. That's what has to happen. Well, you're already Christian. You're halfway there. Kevin Spacey, yeah. Christian, I don't know if he's Christian or not, but he just went. Kevin Spacey is a new addition to Israel. They're lucky to have him. Oh, God bless. He might be moving to, if he moves to South Lebanon, that'll be cool.

You know, I'll move in next to Kevin. I can't wait for his video as Frank Underwood, you know. In Israel, I'm the new president of Lebanon. So, hey, they say there was already a people living there and that I'm occupying it. I don't care. They could get Army Hammer maybe to go to go next. You never know. Just a weird sex person.

perverts just have them go there's real sense on them all there and that you just fill the rest of it up that way yeah yeah that's true that they just are like all right we've run out of Jews just whatever Hollywood sex pervert now wants to go bring a man bring a man rash Kelly oh dude like it is it is just uh it's wild because the way in which they interact with this like idea of colonialism is to look at it as something they're not doing and something that only existed in the past and was bad. Like they have switched. Zionism used to be open about their colonial aspirations, about it being a colony, until

you know, there was, in general, people became anti-colonial, until there was a big movement of people decolonizing. And so they had to switch into being like, no, no, no, no, we're about being indigenous. We're indigenous now. And yeah, you're right. Colonialism is bad. And that's why we have to invade Lebanon. To continue, he just goes, so how was southern Lebanon cut off from Israel?

So just how was southern Lebanon essentially cut off from northern Israel? The origin of this division happened a century ago. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France reached a secret accord in 1916 called the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which effectively divided much of the Middle East into spheres of influence between London and Paris. Basically, a line was drawn on a map, and it was that scribble which essentially came to serve as a border between Israel and Lebanon, as we know it today. I love that, you know, on this map, they're still doing Palestine Eurasia in 1916. Right. So, like, did they actually make a border between Lebanon and Israel, or was it a state that maybe you've heard of called Palestine?

Earlier this year, an Israeli organization called Yuri Saffone, Awaken O'North, was founded with the aim of encouraging Jewish citizens. in southern Lebanon, and it has called on the government to act. While some may view this idea as far-fetched, it is worth remembering that just a century ago, so too was the notion of a sovereign Jewish state. After all, today's dreams have a tendency to portend tomorrow's reality, especially in the Middle East. If you will it, it is no internationally recognized sovereign border. If you will it, it is no international law.

If you will it, it is no war crime. Thank you, Herzl. By the way, it ends with a little bio of the writer. The writer served as deputy communications director under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Oh, shocking. Impartial. Yeah, completely impartial. So are you saying, Anthony, that you don't want to be in Israeli?

Maybe not. It sounds tempting. Like they say they have, like, I don't know, the nice beaches, nice food. even though I think most of that food is pretty much ours. So I think I'll stick to it to work. They have this thing called hummus. Yeah. They have a spice called Zatah.

Zatat. Well, that one just went viral again over the last few days. People have been freaking out over the Zatar thing. I love that. I just find that stuff funny now. Like, I used to get mad. Now it's just kind of comical. I think the world, I think just the world is caught on.

So as long as the rest of the world doesn't take it seriously, I'm okay with it. You know what I mean? But it's... But, I mean, you know, worst-case scenario, you'd become Israeli, right? I'll become Israeli. Now you're Anthony Sargon, you know, Israeli Arab citizen of the greater state of Israel. And now you can, you know, do fun things, like join the IDF and be in prison for no reason.

Exactly. Yeah. And the Lebanese government would love that too. oh yeah exactly they would totally appreciate that they'd be like hey all right why not but yeah there is we're talking about Zatar

at least I can get all the free McDonald's I want if I'm in the IDF I'll get free McDonald's they will serve us free free McChickens and free McGrittles and that's all that matters I mean kind of worth it but yeah here's what you're talking about this is from a

from a website called the Nashir? A Jewish cooking 101. What is Zatar? The Israeli spice you will want to sprinkle on everything. Our favorite Israeli spice is subtle and so versatile. This caused the funniest group of memes to be created that is essentially just the theme song to this podcast. Where people started creating ones that just said like, hot dog, what is this Israeli did?

Like a German Bratwurst. Yeah, German Bratwurst. People have been like doing just parody versions of this fucking article for the last week. And it's been such a joy to watch. Because I think you're right, Anthony. People are, in general, have like caught on to this form of Hasbara, this like food colonialism that Israel loves to do. They see, you know, what is a classic, you know,

Middle Eastern cuisine, quote, unquote, and just turn it into a thing that Israelis invented with their. And I was called, so I was a guest on Frogan's podcast, Arabs, a couple of months ago. And we had a small segment talking about, like, food and cultural appropriation, how Israelis sometimes appropriate our food. And Ethan Klein actually ended up reacting to that clip and just, like, sad they're calling me, and I'm an anti-Semite for saying that hummus is an Arab dish. And I'm just sitting there watching like my former idol, the man who inspired my whole podcast with my face like plastered on his screen just being like these these fucking anti-Semites. And I'm like, this is like what? And I'm being bombed. As my country is being

bombed, he's busy talking about hummus and he's just mad about the hummus. And like that's just like, what kind of world are we living in right now? It is. It's crazy. It's crazy. Daniel, so Daniel, while you were gone, I don't know if you watched the episode, but I did say that you watched a good portion of it. I did say that you had died in a plane. A cum drinking accident. Yeah, a cum drinking accident on a deserted island. But that you would be back and you are back. But I don't know how much you know about this Ethan Klein guy, but he has been like on a year-lom-tale.

I don't. I'm old, guys. So the whole world of, you know, streamers, such as yourself, and the, like, it's, I mean, I'm, I'm new to being a podcast host, but I don't, this, yeah, the whole, the whole world of people who create content. And, and, and, and then, the incredible, the incredible amount of influence that can accrue to someone like that. Yeah. Yeah. And it's very perisocial, for sure. I mean, it's, it's, it's like the weirdest kind of internet drama you could get into. but he just has so much influence

and the fact, like Matt said last week on the episode, the fact that Ethan took it to like, he tried to turn it into action and actually tried to get people banned for speech and stuff. Like that's when it got really serious. Like at first it's just clips. He's just complaining about people. That's still not okay.

He sent a lot of hate towards Frogan. Right, of course, of course. And harassment and stuff. But sort of when you tried to turn that into like legislation or get congressmen involved and sending letters to Twitch and getting, because I could get the platform. if Ethan sort of sets his eyesight on me for some reason,

he could try to get me off of YouTube for some reason. There's nothing I could do about that. So it is important to just to make that distinction. Because according to Ethan, 90% of Jewish people are Zionists, because to him being a Zionist is just thinking that Israel has a right to exist. And it's way more complicated than that. And just trying to simplify it or change the definition, and then having anyone who uses the term Zionist to be platformed

or called an anti-Semite, like that. that's not fair yeah and beyond not being fair but it also like completely uh undercuts i think like this uh his entire like whether he knows it or not it undercuts his worldview about like um the uh the defenseless you know uh jewish american who is doing nothing but just trying to live his life and make his content and being you know uh persecuted by the world around him. It's like, no, you are actively persecuting people who, including Anthony, who is currently in a fucking, you know, his country is a war zone because of Israel's aggression. I mean, it is, it's kind of an insane thing, but it's also one of the reasons why I find liberal Zionists

to be so fascinating because there's just like, there's like an ideological commitment to being mad about the pettiest shit instead of something that is like grossly more detestable like genocide and apartheid just being like no but how can you say that

Jews didn't invent hummus maybe you should die bitch like that's like whoa what the fuck yeah it is it is wild man I hope he doesn't I hope he doesn't go after you anymore no no I don't think I mean it would be Honestly, talking about him has only helped the channel grow.

So if anything, he's just helping me spread the message and share what's actually happening in Lebanon. So all of that crashing out. He's been losing views, losing subscribers. So it's actually been having a real, like, world effect on them. And I've been able to share my message with more people. So it's been great. Thank you guys for having me on and to be able to talk about Lebanon with your audience.

So it's really, I really appreciate it. I love to talking to you. We still have a little bit more time to talk about another podcast entering the podcast space, guys. Unfortunately, our time in the sun is coming to a close because there's going to be... Who's coming for us? Just, you know, you know what the Avengers is? You know, it's like all the Marvel's guys. you know you've got like iron iron man's and uh the the Hulk Hogan um you know all those guys

yeah a stretchy arm guy yeah it's like a super team right captain Yankee doodle dandy captain Yankee doodle dandy uh with this with his shield um there's a new one of those and and it's really it's going to give us a run for our money and I'm I'm scared and I'm afraid I'm crying uh it is a Dream Team, Breonna Wu, and Alon Levy, have started a podcast. Ooh. Yeah. They have started a podcast that is going to take the world by storm. And I'm just going to play just a little bit of it, just to see the type of analysis that

they are doing on how to up the Hasbara game. So much money out there that the Muslim states are pouring into information warfare in this country, where is Israel's generational project to get your most photogenic, interesting, well-spoken people on TikTok to promote the hell out of them? I'm sorry. So in this clip, we've got Brianna Wu talking about how the problem with modern Israeli Hasbara is that the Israelis are just not hot enough. They're not photogenic enough.

They're not photogenic. They're too fucking ugly. You know, you can't open up your phone and see people like Alon Levy or Henna Sieg. They're photogenocidal. They're funny. Exactly. Yeah, I love this. By the way, did you see that picture that an Israeli soldier posted of himself masturbating

to, in a lawn chair like overlooking the ruins of Gaza? No. His pants are, it's sort of you have to look closely, but he's got a tissue next to him. and it's like this you see his dick you see his hot? No no no it's sort of from a 45 degree angle

from the back but it's a kind of like this is how I feel about what we've done in Gaza I'm jerking off to it is remarkably Oh my God Yeah no I mean

The problem with that guy was he wasn't hot enough Are you saying that Michael Rappaport is not hot enough Matt Is that what you're saying? I'm not saying it Brianna Wu is saying it I think Michael Rappaport is one of the

beautiful men who's ever existed a beautiful lovely lovely man i like him because it's like he looks like um just like you know a a mush of clay um that is just you know rolled around in the dirt for a bit and then just you make a little mouth on it and make it say racist stuff it's just like a beautiful i used to love that guy anytime michael rapaport used to like he used to be in sitcoms all the time anytime he used to show up like years ago i would always be happy i'm like oh it's the dude that swears all the time and now he like fucking hates my people like i just see him i just see him celebrating the death of like brown people every day and i'm just like what like yeah and i worked with him at two comedy clubs uh and you know i i uh featured for him uh oh dude yeah i've

worked with him uh you know done i don't know seven or 10 shows with this guy and uh he was he was relatively normal i mean he was a nice guy at least uh but uh you know, that's the thing about this whole, you know, October 7th thing is that a lot of people, him, Ethan, like, just got broken. Brains got broken. You know, the switch just, we need a Timothy, Halema. Halemae. Very good.

All right, let's continue this clip. Get a different story out there. It does not exist. The enemies of Israel are funding this. y'all are not and neither are American organizations. There's got to be a generational project to educate the American

people. Hussbarahsplaining to Alon Levy? He knows. He's working on it. Chill. That's all he's been. He's got a basement full of 10 year olds. Yeah. He's got all these new kids he wants to try out. They're cute

and they just want peace and a little bit of more land in Gaza. Come on. He feeds them raw dog meat and saubra hummus and trains them to talk about twist. So what does he say to this? What's his response to Brianna? Oh, we'll see. I mean, it's probably a project in 1948 to help Americans understand.

We need to recognize Israel. Yeah, no, that's it. I'm sure his response to it was something like you're absolutely right. The problem with what I've been doing for the last year is that I'm ugly. ugly as fuck and that what we need is some sort of like hot Israeli like it's just so funny to hear this as a strategy because it's and it's funny coming from briana woo who is like i mean the perfect avatar for like the will never learn anything democrat chill type person who just refuses to ever like learn a new piece of information and kind of like

synthesize that into some sort of new idea? It's just someone who is ideologically committed to doing the same mistake over and over again. I don't know about that, Matt. I mean, Brianna Wu is now this sort of, you know, trans voice that's saying the Democrats went too far to the radical woke left and that, you know,

and that, you know, abandoned the core medical issues that the trans community is facing instead of, you know, replacing it with with an insistence on certain kinds of new gender orthodoxy and you know just trying to try to try to split that difference i well one of the things i found uh hilarious about briana woo was that there was a there was a day like a 24 hour period where um she posted uh something talking about how her zionism is an ineluctible consequence and and and sort of extension of her experience as a trans woman. That because I am trans, therefore I must support Zionism.

And on the very same day, there was a post by, I don't know if this person is Israeli, but her name is Maya, and she is a detransitioner. So she's one of these people who regrets identifying as a man. and regrets hormone therapy and all this kind of stuff. And of course, in the war over gender identity and that's like a total flashpoint, right? D-transitioners.

But this same person is a total Zionist and was like the day, October 7th was the last day that I wore breast binders or something like that and stopped mutilating myself. What I found hilarious was that each of these people who are on diametric opposite sides of the debate around

gender identification and puberty blockers and all the attendant issues on that front of the culture war. We're each using their particular positionality in that culture war to justify the exact same

Zionist position and saying that because I'm me, I could not come to any conclusion other than Amiswai. It was very, very funny. It's amazing. It's just like nothing nothing so perfectly highlights just the ideological incoherency of Zionism and its attempts to latch itself onto like pre-existing political positionalities

because you just go like you could pretty much take anything. Yeah, well, and it sort of underscores more generally the emptiness of as an anything. therefore the position I've come to is inevitable because of you know that that that that that identity sure identity has political components but it's not a one to one it's not linear no of course of course and ultimately it ends up just being circular right yeah and it's just so clear that you're just going to uh i mean that's the thing about Zionism is you can pretty much just reinforce your own worldview however you like. It's just kind of like, it's like build a bear, but it's like, you know, it's like for building your own ideology.

But quite frankly, the same is true of anti-Zionism. Oh, I mean, sure, sure. You can do that. Because you and I are essentially saying as Jews, not, I mean, we're not saying this, but we are in some ways saying like our sense of Jewishness is at complete odds with Zionism. Now, even if we weren't Jewish, we would still not be. be Zionists, but like our positionality in there is informing and the way we relate to Judaism is relating how we relate to Zionism. Well, Dan Bilzerian is saying as someone who hates

Jews, I can't, you know, I hate Zionists. I mean, like, what the fuck? No, yeah, I guess you could make that point. I think the, the obvious difference in, in that to me is as much as like someone who was like an out-and-out anti-Semite might consider themselves doing something out of not hatred but actually love I do feel like we

more recognize hatred when we see it if it's hatred against something like the Jews or something that is like generally accepted whereas like you know you can make a mainstream argument for being

Islamophobic. You can make a mainstream argument in the West for why Gossans need to be killed by the thousands. And that's the fucking insanity of it. That's right. So, yeah. But I just love that Rihanna Wu is out here, you know,

just trying to solve this issue, the only way that she knows how, which is to just, it's just to make the exact same content that has been made for fucking a full year now

if not you know longer look man as long as the wu tang clan doesn't get involved i'm okay with it they should call it they need to call it the wu tang clan that is the name of the podcast oh i love it i love i love it i love it i love a new podcast is out here

is this actually a new podcast or was i said an interview no it is it is there's going to a new alon levy slash briana woo joint because that's a weird setup they have like that looked like a like that's a pretty shit like if they're talking about spending more money to spread like more propaganda that they're not spending much on this podcast so far they're like sitting in like a little like I mean maybe they well you know they need to invest in a Homer Simpson clock yeah exactly no they got no microphones like at least you guys have microphones so exactly yeah and you know they maybe the Elon learned from his previous podcast that uh spending that entire money on a fucking straight-up TV set is not necessarily going to translate into views and listens. So maybe he's trying to go more Comtown with it. No intro song, just him and Brianna just talking about getting gay with their dads. That's what Comtown's about and that's what Alon slash Brianna Wootown is going to be about. And I, for one, look forward.

to it more content the better i look forward to stavros's uh appearance on the podcast yeah i want stab to go on uh all right well anthony it really was a pleasure having you on this podcast talking about his barrow with you uh where where can people find your work uh you guys can it was a pleasure being on thank you guys so much uh and for for like using your voices for good you guys are like the sort of anti-zionist jews are the greatest allies that i think uh we can have because your voices are the most important voices out there so thank you for using them to to spread the word and you know to speak out against the atrocities that israel has been doing so it's been amazing you can find me on youtube at just do not worry podcast um that's

you could have found me at the movie theater to watch gladiator too but that has been banned from lebanese cinemas because of an ex idf actor being in the film so that's happening here yeah they ban no no glicket in lebanon we're not getting any glicked so that's that that's a wicked and glad I guess you won't be getting snow white either no nothing with Galgado so all Galgado movies regularly get banned and now what I just those are okay I'm usually for those they also banned Venom 3 which I'm okay with but they banned it because the producer is Avi Arad who used to be in the IDF like back in the 60s so I think we're not going to get any more Spider-Man movies in Lebanon ever again which breaks my heart

I'm a big Spider-Man fan, so... You know, I'm torn on this, because on the one hand, I'm like, oh, that's messed up. You should be able to see Gladiator, too. On the other hand, I'm just like, yeah, based. It's pretty based, though. It's pretty based. It's pretty based. It sucks, you know, but...

I'm conflicted. Yeah. That's what torrents are for. I know. I'm a big movie fan, and, like, movie theaters are struggling everywhere in the world, and in Lebanon specifically, and they keep banning movies, but, like, I'm like, I don't want it's like they're literally killing us so like yeah if you're going to be on screen i kind of get it so yeah i'm all for that so dude uh well shit i'm i'm i'll uh listen i'll go to the movie theater

i have a i have an iphone i'll make a little screener for you all right thank you i appreciate you i appreciate you that's how i'll help uh you can find do not worry pod wherever you get your podcast uh and the youtube link will be in the description so please please Please click it, watch the show, and, you know, support Anthony and also any of the, you know, H-3 fallen fans. Please feel free to listen to this podcast and listen to Do Not Worry. And just we will fill that Ethan size hole in your, in your vagina. Thank you. I'm sorry.

What happened? Listen, I'm fading. Fading fast, Daniel Mote. Patreon.com slash badhasbara. Please join the Patreon. Badhasbara at gmail.com for all your questions, comments, and concerns. All right, everyone.

Thanks again so much for listening. And until next time, from the river to the sea. Give all those anti-Semis to Madden me. Push-ups was us. Godmaga us. All karate us. Taking Molly us. Michael Jackson, us, Yamaha keyboards, us, Georgia binks not us, Andor was us, Keith Ledger Joker us, endless bread success,

Happy Meals was us, McDonald's was us, being happy us, Bequam yoga us, eating food, us, breeding air, us, drinking water us. We invented all that shit. Yeah.