Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - Bad Hasbara 73: Terms of Encampment, with Debra Winger

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

Matt and Daniel are joined by three-time Academy Award nominee, actor Debra Winger to discuss Israel in the 1970s, the only time she ever felt anti-semitism in Hollywood, and an unforgivable latke topping.Please donate to Medical Aid for Palestinians https://www.map.org.uk/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

Moshwamah bitch, a rib and cocoa toast. We invented the terry tomato and weighs USB drives and the iron d'o. Israeli salad, oozy stents, and jopas orange rose. Micro chips is us. iPhone cameras us. Taco salads us. Pothalamos us. Olive garden us.

White monster us. Zabrahamas. As far as us. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Bad Hasbara. Still the world's most moral podcast in 2025. 2025, we're here. New Year, new me, that's what I say. Same old me, I'm Matt Leve, the world's most moral co-host.

And I'm still pretty much the same most moral co-host, Daniel Mate, as I was before. Yeah, you're pretty much... Slight alterations. Yeah, you're the same guy. I mean, you know, got a... you got new digs you got a new chair i see that share new digs new hoodie got this at the harold square holiday market it's an old new york city subway train hoodie look at that look at that new record shelf but other than that you know yeah officially moved out of the old place the brick wall is no more

no more brick wall no more guitars behind you now just all your records that you keep pulling down for people to see now people will see you actually pull them down uh that's right which is nice people didn't know before that Daniel's record collection they never got to see it but it's just was piles of boxes throughout your apartment you were you lived like a like a hermit kind of in that in that sense but you did go outside I don't know what you called what what I used to do every day

that we recorded is I would sneak into some record store steal the or borrow I called it borrowing the three or four records that I was going to display and then I would sneak them back the next day. I didn't. Oh. But since I moved into this place, I figured now that they're going to be showing,

I actually had to get a shelf. So this is all brand new. This is like me and my kids' clothes at Target. Yeah. I just return them. Yeah. You know, I don't give a fuck. Target the enemy, I think.

They're probably bad, right? I'm not boycotting Target because I don't think they're on the BDS list, but I am returning my baby's clothes. If you're someone who works high up as an executive at Target, I'm just kidding. I don't do that. Meanwhile, every day when you dress your kid, you're like, grow, grow, grow, grow. You have to return this within 60 days. Grow out of it.

Yeah, I'll just get our new version of the same shirt. I don't give a fuck. Please give us five stars in a review on all the apps. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel and subscribe on all of the podcast apps that have podcasts on them. I don't know what I'm saying. And also shout out to producer Adam. He's out here on the ones and twos, putting up text on the screen and sometimes doing AI versions of our voice and making us say pro-Zionist things, which is fucked up.

And finally, today our episode is brought to you by medical aid for Palestinians. Medical aid for Palestinians works for the health and dignity of Palestinians living under occupation and as refugees. They provide immediate medical aid to those in great need, while also developing local capacity and skills to ensure the long-term development of the Palestinian health care system, which, as you know, from listening to this podcast and from whatever other news source, hopefully you listen to other news sources. My God, please listen to other news sources. Please listen to news. Yeah, please listen to news. We're not.

We're not. We mostly just talk shit about new metal on this podcast, sometimes talk about Zionism. But yeah, as you know, their health care system is pretty much non-existent now. The Israelis have wiped, I think, wiped out every hospital in Gaza. I think there was at 1.1 last remaining hospital, and that is no longer. So please donate, whatever money you have that you can spare, Map.org.U.K. Donate now. Give them money. They need it more than this podcast does. But should you happen to have any money left over and you want to hear an extra episode every

week, patreon.com slash bad hasbarra. That's where you can get our exclusive bonus content where we do the same thing, but for money. So please join that and help us out. and, you know, please first give money to map.org.uk. Daniel, what's the spin? Well, last night, Matt, I was doing some crucial research for this episode of Bad Hasbara by watching the Academy Award-winning 1983 film in terms of Endearment for the first time. Oh, yes. They really don't make films like that anymore.

It's very much a product of its era. It's just such lovely, little observant, scenes and such nice writing and wonderful acting, especially by our guest, Debringer. And I just thought to myself, wow, yeah, no, there's no Hulk in terms of endearment. That's a problem. We need more Marvel terms of endearment crossover, you know, the Avengers should have included. Jack Nicholson, I'm surprised Jack Nicholson hasn't made an appearance in some Marvel movie.

Good for him. I'm sure they've done. Can you imagine having that, like, that much money, slash. integrity. I'm not sure which is which it is first, but do you have enough money where you turned out? Because you know they've asked them like, you know, be in an Avenger. Anyway, I thought to myself, do I have the terms of

endearment of my original emotional pictures soundtrack? I don't. I found the soundtrack one of my least favorite parts of the film. I thought it was rather indiscriminately sweet. Like a scene where like husband cheats on wife, sweet music starts playing. A scene where woman gets a mysterious

illness. Soundtrack starts playing. Same soundtrack. A scene where mother and daughter are endearingly psychologically fused, but love each other very much. Same. Anyway, so I do not have that. But what I did have, I just pulled some 1983 albums off my

shelf because I thought, well, hey, what else was going on in 1980s? Sure. So I got swordfish trombones by Tom Waits. Oh, Tom Waits, yes. I got the first Tears for Fear's album, The Hurting. Oh. I got Huey Lewis and or The News. Oh, I love the news

This is a good news This is a good news source That's my favorite news source Qie Lewis is the news source Cindy Lopper Oh yeah I'm out in 93 Talking heads

Wow you got a lot of Metallica Oh kill them all And then on point Bob Dylan's infidels album You know where this was You know where this this photo was taken I have a bad feeling about this

Was it taken it? No it was it And this contains the song Neighborhood Bulley where he sort of sardonically talks about how everyone picks on Israel the neighborhood bully because, you know, it's protecting its turf. And a lot of, you know, people hopefully want to say, oh, he was being ironic, but he was being ironic, just in the other direction. Yes, yes. This is after he came out of his Jesus phase. And, you know, he found, you know, Zionism is the method. I don't talk fundamentalist Christian.

There's really, there's a study has to be done about the transition from being. like a born-again Christian back into a Jew, like there's, that is, I mean, that's a hard re-entry. That's a hard re-entry. That can only be achieved through Zionism. I'm sorry, but that is, that's the catalyst. There's no way, there's no way. And also probably through people being like, come on, you're a Jew, but you could still be a Christian, but you know what I mean? Like, kind of not really.

That's what Zionism is. Anyways, Bob Dylan, very excited for the Shalame movie. You're a Dylan fan, right? You know quite a bit of a good thing? I mean, I never got into Dylan like seriously. It was always like songs, kind of, you know, like Tears for Fears. I didn't know they did albums, you know. I didn't know Bob Dylan had whole albums of stuff.

I'm just kidding. I did know that. Matt's more of a Jacob, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love me, some wallflowers. So that's what's spinning. That's the music you should be listening to. Without further ado, I'd like to introduce our guests because we have, a fantastic guest.

I'm very excited. This is someone who, I mean, is a huge star in the Leap household, someone whose movies we played a lot, both growing up and also in my own household here, someone who is an actor, someone who is a legend, someone who is a Jew, and someone who for some reason agreed to go on the Bad Hasbarra podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, everyone else, Debra Winger is here. I feel like I, can I, like, change my mind now? Too late.

We've already pressed record. Yes. I was trying to think of Bob Dylan's reaction to a song I played for him that I wanted to use that he wrote, but somebody else recorded, which is very touchy. Because I wanted to say that about the film, was like, he said, that's legitimate. What song was it? Do you remember? Yeah, sure.

Well, it was Aral Burnside's version of everything is broken. It's pretty fucking great. It's a great song. That's a great song, which came out in 89, six years after this. Yeah, it's pretty hard to break that song. No, it's the only thing that's not broken. So that's something I didn't know about Dylan. You're saying that he was touchy about the fact that other people would record his songs and sing him better?

No, it's just that if you want to use a song that he owns, you know, wrote, you have to get his permission. You have to meet with him face to face. Well, no, I mean, I'm not dropping the thing, but I knew him. So I knew him already previously. So, and then you also brought up Tom Waits, who. wrote two songs for that same movie that I produced. Wow. Which are lovely songs that he has on the Orphans album.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, that collection of like B-Sides and Rarities. Yeah, and he called me and said, can I use those songs? I think I'm using the same voice as I did for Dylan. And I said, Tom, you wrote them. He goes, yeah, but they're yours. Oh, my God. I said, yeah, you can use your songs.

on your house listen let's listen debor it's a finder's keeper's policy over here at the wait's residence yeah i got i kind of gave you the master i i i don't know if i'm doing a good tom way i'm doing cookie monster uh i give you a master i'll tell you the best the best tom wait song i was story i have is i we had always like run into each other on new year's eve at the troubadour he used to do new year's eve at the troubadour cool and i always tried to be alone on New Year's Eve, that was my thing. And so we would sort of meet up on New Year's Eve, catch up, and then, you know, go our separate ways.

And I hadn't seen him for a couple of years. And I was very pregnant with my first son. So it was like 1987. And I was on the corner of, you know, walk and don't walk in Hollywood. And there's Tom. It was near the Tropicana Hotel where I think he's, and he just looked at me.

It just looked at me. It was very large with child, and he shook his head and said, they run the show. They run a show. Oh, my God. He had already had two. I just,

I have one that is a two-year-old who is currently not in daycare because daycare gets time off, you know? God damn, man. I know. It's like, They're like human beings who want to, you know, go on vacation.

I think if you pay enough. That's what I say. I say, come on. If I give you enough money, will you just stay home and take care of my child? But they, yeah, she, she runs the goddamn show. It's funny. My granddaughter is the same age. I was watching in preparation for this.

I was doing some research on, on you outside of just the movies. And I found a documentary called Searching for Deborah Winger, which I'd never, I'd never seen before. And it was largely about being a woman in Hollywood and like trying to both have a career and have a family. And just based on that, I just watched. And also trying to have a normal human aging trajectory at the same time. Yes. And as someone with a two-year-old in a podcast, I was. like, I fit this. I'm the same as Patricia Arquette. I'm the same as Whoopi Goldberg.

And yeah, it was a very interesting documentary, kind of a time capsule, too, because it just it was filmed like 1999 or 2000, and it came out, you know, 2002. And was it really? Full disclosure, have never seen it because didn't want to answer the question. Did you like it? Smart. It's a good way to not answer it. It was not called that when she asked me to do an interview. It was called State of the Art.

Oh, interesting. So that's why I agreed to do the interview. I mean... Had you known they were naming the documentary after you? I was working on my obscurity, ironically. Hi, Deborah. I'm working on a film called Hoodwinking Deborah Winger. Yeah. Well, I love Rosanna, but, you know, to be...

And, you know, to be fair, there was a bit of hoodwinking. And when this is a famous story in my family about my husband's relationship to the world at large as far as, like, publicity, social media, you know, like we just got him off a flip phone. And when she finally called and admitted what she was going to call it all along, and, of course, she probably wouldn't have gotten any other actresses. to interview on it either if you don't. And I said, I hung up the phone. I was like, shocked, you know, like, I can't stop her. It's public domain, you know. Arles said, oh, don't worry, honey.

Nobody will see it. Which, of course, it was the number one film in Japan for like three weeks, you know. Yeah, it was a big splash. Yeah. And, you know, I was impressed with it because it got so much. so many candid moments with you and all of the other actresses interviewed in it. I was, you know, I had seen in interviews, but you are one of the hardest, I feel like one of the hardest people to get to sit down for an interview.

You don't interview that much. I'm doing my Botox face right now. Well, it looks great, honey. You're glowing right now. But what, so I guess my first question of you is, what the fuck? you're doing here what are you doing here you know i mean i just broke out in a sweat um i have to say it was the moment you caught me too you caught me in a loose moment right but you did you mean when we when i ran into you at the we were at a night that was yeah refa alir and i was with norm i was laughing i think i had

a drink and the worst part was my son was there uh yes asked me in front of my son was there uh yes asked me in front of son, which that's the kiss of death because he just wants me to do things and be in the world. So there was no way that I could say no. Yeah, but I mean, you know, you could have said no. Like a lot of people have said yes and then they don't text back. I'm happy that you, I think Daniel and I met once and he probably knew I was not bad person. I'm pretty, yeah, if I say yes, I did obviously. think about it a lot. Oh, well, that's... Not texting back.

Yeah, listen, I think about not texting Daniel back on a daily basis. No, but the truth is I like, I guess, you know, on this serious side, which I don't know if you have that side. We try. We've been known to have a serious side. You know, I'm always

my question to myself always with press and whatever, being a celebrity is, you know, it makes me break out and rash. Yeah. And it always has. Like, I'm honest about that all my life. It isn't.

Is there something that I have to bring that, you know, is maybe, that I haven't heard maybe? And sadly, I haven't heard a lot. Yeah. From my world of celebrity-laden, people that will do telephones for just about fucking anything. Yes. And, you know. And nothing on Gaza, nothing on Palestine. That's pretty much crickets.

I mean, would you agree, Daniel? It's just not out there. Am I missing it? I mean, there are certainly people that chime in. Yeah. But you could count on one hand the celebrities are on two hands. It's so shocking that, you know, we're watching old tapes of Vanessa, you know. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because, you know, this part of what this podcast deals with because of, you know, I'm a stand-up comedian who before this was doing podcasts about the Sopranos and about the wire, you know. And just since the seventh, I've had the kind of same feeling that you've had in general of seeing people I know who. will talk about pretty much any, any other social cause. They will make it, you know, part of their social media like Uvra. Like, it'll be like promotion for some show they're doing, some cool variety piece about how great of a comic they are, and then 10 other social causes. Ceasefire now.

Well, you would hope so. I mean, that's what I hear is ceasefire now. Yeah. Seast fire. Like, it's so past work. And that took months. It took months for people to get the guts to just say ceasefire. Seasfire was anti-Semitic.

Yeah, Seasfire was anti-Semitic up until like, I don't know. Can you imagine my Jew rating right now? I mean. Yeah, in the, in the toilet. My Jew rating is. Have you seen her Jew numbers? We can't hire her right now. They have that TVQ, TV Jew.

Yeah. Yeah, they have a TVQ. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're Jew rating. The Q rating is perfect. I'd like to hear, ask you about your, your history with Israel and history with this subject specifically. Like, is, you've been to Israel, right? I had read that you had stayed in a kibbutz for a while. Yeah, you don't, you know, whatever you read on the, this part of the celebrity problem. Yes, yes.

Actually, I have a lot of Israel. I have a lot of stuff, the least of which is that I went there when I was 17 in 1972. Now you can figure out my age. I didn't go the full Hasbara tour. They don't think they had birthright in 72. No, they didn't have it. But as close as you can get to.

They hadn't realized it was necessary. Yeah. Right. Yeah, there were still, you know, Arab Israelis and Jewish Israelis with shops next to each other. And yes, there were people with machine guns on the corners, but, you know, they just had a war. Yeah. It was like to 72.

It was actually, it was just before they had another war that was kind of catastrophic to their newfound self-image as winners. I think it got into the more, you know, it started right after that, this were more of their what they're what they would really become like yeah and um but i that wasn't enough for me my upbringing had been so strong i mean i had orthodox grandparents um but i grew well i was born in cleveland ohio which was a big you know in a big orthodox jewish neighborhood and um you know they were american orthodox they weren't They were Ashkenazi. But I just found, I told Daniel, that I was the only thing I did to prepare for this was I went up into my box of old things and went through some letters that I wrote to my grandmother that I reclaimed from her house after she died because wasn't really allowed in her house before she died.

but um and the first postcard i wrote her from israel says dear grandma it's not at all what you thought here that was i was 17 from postcards from the edge of anti-zionism yeah right yeah postcards from the ledge so so what did what did you mean by that uh like what do you remember what your experience was in terms of like what did you think you were getting into versus what you saw yeah well i guess i thought you know at seven i was going to a jewish place you know where i was going to feel my judaism i couldn't even find anyone that you know went to chule yeah i don't i i just i couldn't believe you know and then of course it caught my fancy in the other way that they get you and then i sailed into another relationship with Israel, which lasted, you know, for quite some time.

I remember, you know, I was trying to sync up what my feelings were with each war. You know, like I can find in my notes, like, fuck, what's going on in Gaza, like in the 80s, you know? Yeah, yeah. And then, like, I found this old cookbook that I had, a taste of Palestine. A taste of Palestine. This is written by my friend's father, Naomi Shihab Nye. It's her father, Aziz Shihab. So I was getting this kind of education from going there.

And then I joined the board of a school in Jerusalem. And so I sat on that board for almost a decade. It was called Yad Biyad, Hand in Hand. And it was a multicultural school. It was, every classroom had two teachers and Arab, Israeli, and a Jewish, Israeli. They had Christian, Muslim, you know, all, everybody was supposed to be represented. The money was supposed to come evenly from all. Wow.

And I sat on that board for a while. And what part, what sectors of Israeli society were you then allied with at this time? Is it like the Shalom Achrav? Quadrant. So now I'm, so now I'm not really hooked up with anything. except that I have, I mean, I have such a diverse experience every time I go because my cousins have made Aliyadh. They're living on a, you know, my cousin who was in the SDS at Berkeley, married Asabra like years before. And now I go to visit him.

He's settled one of the first Moshev's on the Syrian border. And when I went to see him in the 70s, he painted this picture of like, oh, yeah, we'd tell each other when we're going to shoot, you know, and everybody goes in at the thing. And so I had this now experience of somebody who was far left who became now fucking, I didn't even recognize him. He was. Was that over a period of time? Did it, did it, you know.

Sure. I hadn't seen him for 10 years. But I think everybody can cite this. This is not an uncommon thing. Oh, 100%. He's the lefties that went to Israel in the 70s and became righties. I mean, I've seen it, I've seen it happen, you know, in the 2000s, friends of mine who, you know, were lefties and then made Alia, or not even just went on birthright and it's just completely... That's a low bar for their, they weren't, yeah, that's embarrassing.

It is embarrassing. It is embarrassing. Like, I understand, listen, we all, we all want to have sex, but come on, man. You're willing to give up literally all your beliefs to fuck? Birthright cured my oldest son. That cured him any connection with Israel. Yes, it was the same thing with me. And it would happen to a few of us, but for the most part, you know, there was also, for every one of me, there was two of, you know, people who would decide that, yes, Israel did indeed belong to them, someone who, you know, didn't speak the language, nor had any connection to the land other than being told it was yours by the prime minister. I guess the I guess the whole Kibbutz and Moshev scene gave people with lefty aesthetics or

or vibes you know they gave him a nice yeah utopian landing pad it's larping it's live action role play as you know you're larping as a you know as a Marxist

on a commune and you know you're like no the guns you know the gun we need the guns the guns are part of it you know it's part of the larp it's just you know it's a very specific it's uh it's the type of cowboys that jews like you know drop city in the jordan valley yeah you know we we we're not into like the cowboy hat and americana stuff we're into the uh orientalism that's our that's our cowboy shit and so it went from that kind of i was ingratiated by all that same stuff i won't lie about that

That seems cool, you know, as in the banana fields at 5 a.m. I mean, it's like a, you just go, oh, I'm doing this now. And then it kind of morphed into the film community who, that has a lot of cool people. And I remember being on the jury at the Jerusalem Film Festival. I met one of my dear friend, Saeed Kashua, who was an Arab Israeli, who had a big hit show in Israel for years called in English Arab work. Abu D'Avri, and it was a big sitcom where, you know, Abad-Aravid, yeah.

Avodat-Aravit, a big sitcom where, you know, everybody laughs about, you know, the Arabs working for slave labor. Right, yeah. And, you know, my friend Saeed was writing it, who's also a very talented novelist. And he was from, like, Tirah, which is that triangle up north, you know, here and his whole family was there. So I started to learn about, you know, being a fifth class citizen as he talks, speaks

of it, not even second, third, fourth. Right. Because, you know, there were black Jews came first. Right, right. Yeah. It's interesting, too, to remember that Israeli apartheid or Israeli racism makes some room in the popular culture for some knowing, winking humor about it, you know, just like ours always, I mean, we're, you know, there's a great.

tradition of black comedians telling the, the straight truth about the black experience. But if you were an alien coming down and, you know, some white supremacists like you see, there's no white supremacy problem here. We let our blacks express themselves. Right. Yeah. Israel has some room for that as well, always has. There's, it's not, it's not segregated in the sense of no Arab shall make.

cultural content right not yet it's in this it's in the sense of especially then that was back right yeah but also this so then each time there was an incursion you know I learned a little bit more I got a little bit more uncomfortable I had a few more fights with my friends I mean Naomi and I didn't speak for a while she doesn't remember this but I do because she was sending me stuff that she wanted to educate me with and Naomi is uh Naomi Shihab Nye, my friend whose father wrote this book. Oh, okay, gotcha. She's a poet.

And she's a Palestinian poet. And she would send me things, and I got really upset because I said, how can I read material written by people who won't even use the word Israel? Right, right, right. Like now, that would be like a prerequisite. Yeah. Now it's like, you don't send me anything unless you. do a search and replace and call it Israel.

Yeah. Or is not real. I really did think of that when I was going to do this thing. I just said, you know, if you're going to talk to them, then you have to be honest. And it's embarrassing for me. I'm embarrassed. I mean, I think this is the this is a level of honesty that I think both Daniel and I have displayed on the show.

We talk about our Zionist pass or the, you know, growing up. Norm will say, and I kind of agree with Norm Finkelstein who says, or Finkelstein, you say Finkelstein, I say Finkelstein. Yeah, let's call the whole thing Jew. Yeah. That if you're, the word Zionist should really be reserved for people who move there. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Because otherwise we're just walking around name calling, you know.

Right, right. But I, when I, when I, when I. Jewish supremacy. Yeah, yeah. Norm does prefer saying Jewish supremacy. I think with me personally, I talk about it as because it's an ideology. And part of the ideology was, you know, growing up believing that Israel was my land. Like Israel was a place that I could go to as soon as the Nazis take over, which is any day now.

And it's funnier experience of like getting mad at someone sending you, you know, the so embarrassed about that and so grateful that she doesn't remember it i mean you know you probably had the enough uh good sense to not not yell at oh no i was embarrassed i just said it makes me feel bad because my grandparents you know like it was like just a it's just this guilt all the time this guilt you know and then i think my relationship with saeed was really the turning point because I really started to see the apartheid prospect, which honestly, you know, when you're there in the 70s, you really, like we were talking about, it really didn't feel that. Right.

Because people had their shops right next to each other. Everybody was coexisting. I would go into a park in Jerusalem and send a picture. And Naomi would say, oh, I was pleased to play there in East Jerusalem, you know. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then the walls. Yeah, well, the settlements, I mean, that the settlement.

were building steadily in the 70s and into the 80s, it became kind of an... But it's as embarrassing as the Catskills. I'm sorry, but the Catskills have fucking settlements now. So, you know, on 17B, they have their own off-ramp. Sorry, I know I sound like that. There's settlements in the Catskills? Yeah, it's, you know, Kyriott-Jo-L. They have all their own rules and shit.

Oh, that's crazy. I've only read a few stories about the kind of like the upstate New York, you know, like Hasidic communities and what's going on? What's going on with that? Yeah, and I'm so reluctant, you know, because I sat with my grandmother. This is so embarrassing. I sat with my grandmother on the porch in Cleveland and we would watch the chasids go, you know, know, walk because they went to a different synagogue, and they would walk like little ducklings, you know, with the 10 children behind them. And my grandmother would say some of the worst things I ever heard my grandmother say. The most anti-Semitic shit you've ever heard. About them. And I said, but I was the little girl, I'd say, but they're Jews.

They're not. They're, no, they're crazy. Those are fanatics. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And now, you know. Which is very common now.

You know, like, I have a friend that I made, we did a satyr in the street, and I met a man on the subway on the way home and making all new friends. And he said that he moved to Israel in 1948 from Poland as a baby. He was a newborn baby, and his parents moved on the heels of the war, but they were communists. So when he got to Israel, he wasn't dealt any of the Hasbara. and he kind of couldn't wait to get out of there. But his name was Moishe when he came from Poland and when his parents presented themselves in Israel and said, you know, they said, what's your baby's name?

They said, Moish, and they said, you know, he's Moshe. Yeah. Because they didn't want any of that old world bullshit. Yeah, no, they were done with the... They were the biggest anti-Semites, you know. That's what Moshe feels anyway, is that he was living in the most anti-Semitic place he could have. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you do see the amount of like scorn and disdain for especially, I mean, especially Polish Jews. I can only imagine, you know, just the, just the way in which Zionists, you know, and Israelis in general talk about, you know, victims of the Holocaust. I mean, and they do it usually by, you know, we are no longer lambs to the slaughter is kind of the thing. But if we weren't, if they weren't, you know, massacring, slaughtering, I mean, I don't even know what words we can use anymore going into 2025.

There's no words left, honestly, because it's, genocide seems lightweight. Right. I've just never, you know, I don't know if genocide in the old definition of the word included tearing up olive trees from the roots. I don't think it included trees. So we have to, like, there's an echo side, there's a genocide. So if they weren't doing that on top of everything else, then we would just be free to be anti-Semitic Jews, as we always were. Like we all, every religion has infighting.

Sure. But we're not free to do that anymore. Yeah. Because some of us are killing. Yeah, I know. Israel has destroyed a, lot of things, including my ability to be ironically anti-Semitic. Did you light a menorah? You did, Daniel, I know.

Yeah, all eight nights. Yeah, you know. And we lit, and thanks to my girlfriend and roommate Hadar, we lit an extra candle for Palestine every night. Yeah, I saw that. That's nice. I couldn't even take mine out of the closet, so there you know. They wear one on their sleeve, you know.

Yeah, yeah. I'm not, yeah, I'm not, I'm not willing to, I'm not willing to give them, give them all the symbols forever, you know. I get that and I appreciate you. I, I don't feel like they've won. I feel like I'm in a really, uh, it's not a new question. I, you know, I've struggled with my faith in lots of different junctures. But, you know, I remember when my son went to talk to the rabbi at first for the first, for the first. meeting before his Mitzvah, he said, I don't believe in God. And the rabbi said, congratulations, you're a Jew. Yeah. Yes. And my work is done.

Yeah. You know, Peter Bynard has a new book coming out. I think it's called something about Judaism after the destruction of Gaza, like really reckoning with what does it even mean? How is it even possible to keep this? When you've seen those tanks with, you know, they've co-opted. the religion. The tanks called Mercavas, which is a religious, it's a biblical reference. What are they chariots or? Chariots, yeah. But I mean, you know, they, they, I have always felt,

so when I joined the BDS movement, everything, somewhere around the way too late is what I want to admit on the show publicly. I was way late to the game, but that's just a sign of how deep your familial, you know, constraints go like my grandparents, even though they're dead, they still had a hold on me. And I just, I just couldn't believe it was true. It was so hard for me to have those blinders. I said something when we hosted Chanukkah, we had maybe 10 people over. And it occurred to me that like, what's this festival actually about? We talk about it's about, you know, the Zionist interpretations about it is it's about freedom and victory and Jew, you know, Jews will never be slaves again, will never be dominated. Or it's about faith in God or

whatever. Miracle of the lights. Or it's about the miracle of the lights. Well, literally, the word Hanukkah, I think, means dedication. It's about the rededication of the temple after what, after it was defiled. And it's one thing to dedicate something. for the first time. Like, we'll christen it, we'll, you know, bang, you know, we'll break the champagne on the ship and send it off. Great. All the possibilities are open. Nothing's happened yet. There's no stakes, really. We're just wishing a good journey. A rededication indicates that something fucking very calamitous happened that should not have happened to a very sacred thing and that somehow we must have dropped the ball somewhere along the way. It's a big deal to admit that something

needs to be rededicated. There's a lot of grief in it. It's not a celebratory thing. It's a serious-ass enterprise if you're taking it seriously, right? To rededicate something that got defiled or desecrated. So I think your grief and your embarrassment, I'm going to say your embarrassment is appropriate, not personally. Like I'm not pointing the finger at you, but I think you're feeling for us and for a lot of us. Well, you actually were when you were you just pointed the finger. I just wanted to point out. I am not emotionally

doing the thing that my body is doing. I was pointing at Matt actually. Actually, I was actually producing. Fuck did I do. I'm pointing at producer Adam just because that's part of what he signed up for. That's all point our finger. Polka at him.

But you get what I'm saying, right? That the festival itself, the holiday itself suggests that something we were, We, you know, on our watch, something got defiled and it's going to take something to rededicate it. It's starting with cleaning it up and feeling the grief and rage and disappointment and embarrassment that comes with with something sacred getting desacred.

Well, I'm just that much older than you. I may be just too fucking tired to get interested in it again because I think this is like my fifth time having to regenerate my, and you know, I just may be finished with monotheism. I just may be finished with it. Oh, thinking about Polly? You think about going to Polly? It's just there's not a monotheistic religion that isn't just the beginning of wreckage in every, you know. Let's open this up, Adam says.

There should be a Bible. Is there a Bible story where some character says to God, hey, can we just open this up? Yeah, I don't know. Bring another couple gods in here, like sort of like religious swingers, you know? I don't think that's news to the Bible. I don't think that's news, although I don't know, I don't know if women got the same. Yeah. No, yeah.

Okay, so you're done with monotheism, but you're clearly not done with, like, talking to your people as your people. I mean, here we are. Because I feel I have a debt. I do feel I have a debt that I will owe for the rest of my life. Okay. So that's your rededication. It doesn't take the form of lighting candles or. religious pageantry, but there's some sense of this is there, there's an obligation there

somehow. I did find a letter that said, can they take the star off the flag? I don't think it's fair. Yeah. From when? How old were you? Yeah. I think I have to look at that letter. I don't think it was dated, but I feel like that could have been in the 80s, you know? Wow. Where I just went, it's weird because that's a religious symbol. And it's on the tank. a flag. And of course, that was before. I really could get to that point. But you can imagine that I didn't like that it was on a flag because what if I don't like everything they do? You know, then. And I think we're seeing such a deep, deep result of what they planned all along. Because as Moshe told me, my friend, what he, I said, how did that star end up on that flag? And you probably have some historic

reference and I've talked to Norm about this, but I mean, they made a deal with the fucking rabbis at the beginning of that state. They made a deal because they knew they needed that. And they made a deal. And you know, if you go, you've got Maya Shereem, but it's like a Mayas Shereen is like a ghetto. I'm sorry. I don't know if that's even the politically correct word, but you know, when I first went there in the 70s, I went there with short sleeves. They spit on me. You know, it's an orthodox, ultra-Orthodox neighborhood. Orthodox enclave. Yes.

So I think, and they made a deal to get that star on the flag with the rabbis, promises to the rabbis. Yeah, the shield, a shield of David. Yeah, because the Haganah and Zionists, they didn't get a shit about religion. Yeah. Yeah, but it's, it's been a useful, I mean, political tool. Totally fucking smart. It got all our American dollars. Yeah.

And it's a way to do what Israel loves to do, which is paint their national project as for all Jews and as part of Judaism and as co-opted Judaism entirely, I mean, at least publicly, the PR spin has. So you can be like someone burning an Israeli flag is someone burning the Jews, you know. So I just want to continue asking about this journey that you've kind of taken in kind of like coming to terms coming to grips with what no punning coming coming to terms of non-endearment yeah yeah exactly um yeah terms of encampment yeah terms of encampment oh shit that's the episode title that's the episode title perfect wow it's rare that we we actually have a guest who is that good at punning guests

Guests have tried, but we rarely accept guess suggestions. Many have tried. Most have failed, but that was beautiful. But yeah, so, you know, I was looking through your Instagram and seeing some of your... Desperate pleas. Yeah, desperate pleas for, is anyone else seeing this? What the fuck is happening? And were there other incursions into Gaza in the past, were you all? also protesting that, was October 7th sort of the turning point for you to public advocacy? I was part of the BDS movement. So early 2000s, I was there for, was it 2004, Lebanon, the first

level? 2006. 2006, I was there for a film festival when that happened. Yeah. And something inside of me turned. I heard people talking. I heard it all different. It was like, I don't know, if it was a movie, it would be like it was going through some kind of language. It was, I heard it differently. It was like I heard what was underneath it. And I had become just unbelievable racist bullshit and I it was mixed with what I you know learn from Said what I learned from Naomi what I came together what I saw when I was there which was building building I went to the West Bank I was horrified and then you know I started to I divested I pulled off the board I quit the board because I realized

you know as good as what they were trying and I'm sure they're trying still I'm not maligning that school I don't I haven't kept up with that I think they're still trying yeah to do coexistence stuff yeah yeah it is uh have you found yourself um no targeted have you found yourself yet have you been targeted for for your views uh yet like uh are Are you on any of the famous, you know, stop antisemitism.org lists or anything like that? Yeah. Where were you when the anti-Semitic the year nominations came along? Yeah. I just want to say that this is where I really benefit from being so completely without, you know, I mean, I don't give a shit and I don't know. I have a sense that I'm not quite, you know, my phone's not ringing off the wall. There's a weird

There's some weird fucking shit going on in Hollywood What do you What do you mean? Yeah like I think people are just so conflicted They just are so frightened I mean I just take it back to Because the simplest way to say it is

Look at the ridiculous Around Glazer Yes Absolutely ludicrous Jonathan Glazer made it Jonathan Glazer made it unbelievably beautiful, you know,

meaningful, important film. And we're in this swamp of bullshit, you know? So I signed that letter was the first sort of public things.

Like, I couldn't even believe the ridiculousness of having to stand up for him. Also made a beautiful speech about it. Yes. With one unfortunate sentence clause construction thing,

where he said, I reject my Judaism being used as whatever, you know, a little copy editing would have made it a little harder for them to. Just imagine what you can edit out of this to. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We're cutting this all out of context.

You're saying some fucked up shit. You're pointing the finger. Who knows who you're pointing the finger at? I've said every word you need already. Yeah. To put together the worst possible. I hate all Jews. I love terrorism.

My rabbi. sucks white power um oh no so uh yeah that just you know back to the the glazer thing i did think that was a very interesting moment uh in um hollywood at least the feeling because you know i live in los angeles and uh and i've seen the amount of intimidation that's been going on um with regard to you know people who are trying to speak up about this who are being shut down and a lot of the being shut down seems to be by previous versions of you and myself you know you will post something you know in support of Palestinians and then a previous version of me back when I was still a little bit like hey it's unfair for anyone who's not Jewish

to talk about Israel you know people I know have gotten letters from people or got Hey, DMs from people. Watch your tone when you're filling in my historical blanks. Yeah. I never did that.

No, no, no, no. I'm not saying you did that, but like, it is the feeling that I get is that a lot of the intimidation. Some of it comes from the very top

and some of it is just very defensive people who just still have not gotten over the fact that they don't know what they're talking about when it comes to Israel. I know this fear

of not having a homeland which by the way sounds unbelievably germanic to me a hundred percent motherland yeah yeah homeland yeah you see that that times of israel blog that said jews need leban's realm in in Syria he actually they actually he on ironically used the word levin's realm yeah yeah and you know it's it's been interesting to see I feel like the the glazer speech the reaction to that was a desperate cry. It was like these, it seemed like the whole Oscar ceremony. There was not, the only mention of October 7th was, you know, through Glazer's speech.

And they were the, and I think a lot of people, you know, in Hollywood are just like, I'd rather not talk about this or have nothing to do with it as opposed to like. Excuse me, you can lump it into every, you know. Oh, yeah. So many movements have just, if you really dig deep, it's just about not wanting to lose any jobs or any celebrity. You know, I mean, what's the reluctance for women to speak up about guys that have, you know, without, forget about without going to the extreme of having somebody canceled just to say, yeah, that existed. That was fucked. I'm really glad it's going to course correct, you know.

Yeah. Maybe you don't have to pull. so hard, you know, to, like, ruin people's lives. Maybe we can course correct without, you know, burying everybody that ever patted an ass uninvited. But anyway, I, you know, now that'll see you could take that out of. And I plan to. But anyway, I would say this.

Deborah Winger makes impassioned plea for clemency for Harvey Weinstein. Well, stranger things have happened. But I would say that, you know, everything goes in sort of these gradual, because I remember being really captivated by that phenomenon of people, where are they? And, you know, then there'd be like a sentence here or there from somebody pretty famous, you know. It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough. And then it sort of segued into all the people that were willing to say how bad Netanyahu is. Yes. Remember that period? That period was really long, where it was all Netanyahu's fault.

Yes. As if our problems were all Biden's fault. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, a lot of it comes down to the figurehead. But come on. Yeah. It's a, I mean, it's an easy, it's an easy scapegoat because you can pretend as if, you know, well, if we just got rid of this Netanyahu guy, the rest. Yeah. The rest would fall into place. Everyone. Everyone else is like, no, we want peace. We want voting rights in and into apartheid. And every Israeli I talked to for a while, that was it. Yeah. Well, and to be fair, the previous four years of the first Trump presidency

had primed these people to blame the latest, most outlandish, ugliest face of the regime. You want a more suitable, you know, face of the regime. And then we can just go, but please don't be embarrassing about it. My wife is locked out of the house. She's telling me to come down. I'm sorry, I'll be right back. And Daniel and I don't take her. Cuck, sorry.

Cuck. Cuck. Who's a cuck? I called you a cuck. I'm a cuck. You had to run for the door during your podcast. I love my wife. I love my wife, Deborah.

And also she was yelling at me via text. I can always tell. All caps. All caps and middle fingers. Why did they have to add that to the emoji list? Well, we'll continue on talking with Deborah Winger. But first, we do need to take a quick commercial break. So let's do that.

We'll be right back. I was watching some old movie on YouTube. and I guess I didn't pay for the premium out here. So an ad came on and it was, have you seen this? Was it Santa? Yes. What the fuck?

Okay. Who even came up with that? Have you seen it, Daniel? I haven't. But let's use this. Let's, let's, let's, we're already, we've already been back. We've been back. We've been back.

Welcome back. Oh, shit. This bad has bar. Bad As bar. I'm now. buried Santa Claus. I've ruined everything. CIA was advertising on our show. The fucking CIA was advertising their leadership masterclass and teamwork masterclasses.

It was? Yeah, on YouTube, on YouTube stream for non-subscribers. Oh, man. You gotta really be careful on that. Yeah, you really never know with YouTube or with like these like podcast programmatic ads. A great thing with the UGA one was I just did an episode about it. I was like, you know what? Instead of yelling at my podcast hosting company,

I'm just going to do a deep dive into what they do. And lo and behold, turns out they are, you know, they're skirting international law by getting money to all the settlers. Of course, as it turns out. But what does Santa Claus even have? Hold on. What's the Santa Claus thing? Santa Claus is doing a pro-Israel ad.

I mean, wouldn't like the Iron Jones? You look as if you have this queued up, Matt. I look as if you're about to play this for me and for us. Yes. So what I'm going to do is I am going to play it. I have to download it first. Boom. I've just downloaded it.

So yeah, this has been playing. This, I remember this from last year, actually. So they're reusing last year, Sazbara. But, yeah, it has been playing in like, what do you call it? like YouTube, it's been playing on Hulu, it's everywhere. But here it is. This is the Santa Israel ad. So Santa is opening a letter that says Israel on it.

Okay, so it's a kid's drawing of terrorists who have murdered people. Dear Santa, I'm writing to you for the first time. With a very heavy Israeli accent. Yes, for the first time I'm writing to you, because I usually don't believe in you. But this time is different. People came into our house. They hurt my mommy and my little sister took my daddy away.

And after holding him, I'm all alone I wish you could help Santa's weeping This is the saddest thing Santa has ever heard I want Santa to be like I want Santa to be like

Okay all elves meeting now Who the fuck went and heard these people I've told you about this We don't do anti-Semitism here anymore We don't bring them gifts But we also don't go and scare them Santa looks like a mixology bartender with that stash. Yeah.

Red nose. Big home. Fathers, mothers, grandparents, children are still being held hostage by Hamas. Do something you useless fat fuck? Yeah. Sit there and crying? Yeah. I love the idea of asking Santa, too, because it's just like, listen, we've asked our

government and they certainly don't want to bring us home have we tried santa what's like are they writing are they writing to mythical holiday figures from all traditions all over the world like are there like commercials running in center house yeah are there you know commercials running in in india in pakistan of like i don't know various blue elephant gods receiving communications yes or is it just santa i imagine a It's just Santa, because, listen, Christians, Jews, we are all one now, I guess, or something. I don't know. Hey, Haifa is the center of Baha'i faith, right?

Oh, yeah. See? They're already there. And what about Jews for Jesus? That's a thing. They're now just called the, what do you call them, messianic? Elves, the apostles. Yeah.

They got the whole thing. But I just like, that commercial is just, is amazing to me to write to write to Santa because Netanyahu will not respond. But who is that appealing to? Like, Sanisir, I know that, like, I, I'm sure that I would not be able to laugh at anything you guys make fun of before I did this show. And here I am just guffawing. But it's, it's weird. It's weird when I stop. I just go, I want to take a shower with a brillo pad.

All it is is just layering on another fucking layer of emotional plaster. Like just like more like another layer, another coat of guilt paint to the world. Just remember that we are suffering in ways that you cannot understand. And that anything anyone says about us, this is what you are reinforcing. Yeah. Anyone who is pro-Palestinian is making Santa cry. You don't want to make Santa cry doing. But that commercial like crosses the line of Shonda because it talks about, you know,

Shonda Claus. Sondra Claus. Thank you. Yes. Dear Shonda Claus. But yeah, I mean, that one is, it's, it's. Dear Shonda, I don't believe in you anymore. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, it is, it is meant to be for the vast majority of American Christians who, have grown up. Yes, as placeholders. Yeah, exactly. But even the ones who are just like not the psycho-fundamentalists, like just your regular everyday Christians, they know about the history of Jews and Jewish oppression, really some do, right? And they just want to remind you that our shared enemy is the scary Arab and that this is,

It's just trying to reinforce this idea of the continuation of Jewish suffering around the world and how you can you can do something to help by standing up for these hostages. I have a question, you know, like, because this is sort of your New Year show, isn't it? Yeah, well, it's the New Year, New Year's show. Certainly our first show. First show of 2025, that's right. What the fuck are we going to, like, what do you, what? what what can I possibly find to re up to you know express some new form of shock and and it's just it's just so getting really like I don't want to be on social media I'm not on anything but Instagram but I don't even want to do that anymore like I know because it just seems it just

disgusting. Yes. It all seems disgusting to me. And then I think, well, what, you know, what is at my, I'm out, I, you know, in the streets, I got arrested, I write, I do this. What's left for me, you know? It is a great question. I mean, this is something that I've been struggling with, um, myself and trying to, uh, you know, at some point, uh, what, what else can you do, right? Other than, you know, we've been screaming. at the top of our lungs for over a year. It's part of the cacophany now. It's just part of it. We're playing our part, you know. Yeah, and it feels gross to continue playing the same part if you know that if it, because it feels like the results, we're not seeing any results.

We've failed to stop a genocide. We have failed to stop the ethnic cleansing, the continue, we've failed to stop the second NACPA. And so you, you go like, what percentage of, So I'll just put that, the question here. And then I'm just opening this other door, which is that I've stopped since the early 80s, I think, or no, late 80s was my last time that I participated strongly in a campaign and a presidential campaign or a senatorial campaign. But I used to be very active and work for candidates. And then I just got so.

sickened in the 90s by the money that, you know, I saw that the first domino was getting money out of. So I've been working solely with a group called American Promise, which is there to basically undo what Citizens United did, which is getting money out of politics. Hopefully with a constitutional amendment, we have 22 states that are poised to ratify. It's been on the bills in their states where we need 36. It's going very well. It's slow work. But Through this work, I have discovered that 76% of Americans think that there is too much money in politics, that it's wrong. Right. So we have something that we actually agree on Americans.

I mean, that's kind of the thrilling side of it, you know, and I work with Republicans and libertarians and independence in American Promise. It's a cross-partisan group. that same amount of people, it's getting close to, I think, do not agree with the money being spent to bomb Lebanon and Syria and, you know, even if they didn't want to speak up about Gaza because, oh, it's just a mess there, whatever, it's too confusing, or we don't know all the details. Right, right. So a majority of Americans have been forest ceasefire for a long time, including. So what the fuck?

Yeah, I know. I know. This is my my feelings exactly this. And I mean, especially you're talking about this example of working to get money out of politics. This is something you probably felt for a long time. You know, you're like everyone agrees with this. Yeah. It's the first domino. Do we live in a democracy or not with like, well, we live with too much comfort because, you know, when we were fighting fracking in New York, we were fighting to get a ban. for fracking it just was weird like people wouldn't show up you know we would have these say like if you agree with us could you just come to this rally do something it was like too cold or it was raining or you know it couldn't come to the rallies and then like you know I helped produce a film that where the guy you know holds a bit lighter up to your faucet and the faucet catches on fire because there was so much methane in the water So I just, I just am shocked by the comfort that we have come to know. And somehow because they could imagine their faucet being turned on and not having water, that really struck people. You know, we got nominated for an Academy Award and that I feel like Gasland was like

a big shot over the bow on that, you know, before Cuomo called the band. But what do we need to do to get? people to show up. You know, we don't even have the numbers that they have in London or, you know. I know. I know. I have been impressed with the numbers in other countries. And here's the thing. I've also never seen this much support for Palestine in my life when it comes. Like, this is the most support in America that I've ever seen. I mean, we feel that it's going to happen. It may not happen in my lifetime.

Right. It sort of feels it's like that moment when the impossible becomes inevitable. Right. Yes. And I guess, you know, when we talk about what are we do or what are our roles in it, I was looking, I was feeling this exact feeling. And then I saw an article, an exclusive that came from DropSight, which is Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grimm's new news outlet about the fact that the Israeli. government in 2025 is going to be adding $150 million to their already existing Hasbara budget. So we have- Come on, wait, let's pause. Yes. Hasbara budget. We just want to see the spreadsheet on that? Yeah, I would love to. I just want to see the names of the different weirdo Twitter and Instagram accounts that are getting the money. That's budget. That has budget, yes. they're raising the money

they're raising their budget to add I mean who I don't know the previous amount that they were spending in 2024 whatever it was waste of money the fact that they're adding another 150 million and I kind of realized with that information I was like

well there is a reason we do this podcast and one of the reasons is that their constant PR game someone says It's $3.5 billion in U.S.D. Yes.

You know, the way in which they are constantly spinning the truth and, like, trying to change the narrative, to me, I say, like, there does need to be, at least, you know, in some small way, someone making fun of it. But, that's true. I was wondering where you were going. But we're such, I don't know, Daniel, like, don't you feel we're just in such echo chambers now? Oh, sure. I mean, it's so complete, the diet's cast, you know, like, I mean, you've, that's your experience. But then, you know, if you switch out, if you somehow, you know, if your algorithm gets a zap or something and you get like a weird ass feed, like the other day I got Cindy Crawford lighting the menorah with Noah Tishby, I'm like, how did that get into my algorithm? rhythm. Yeah, I saw Galgado lighting it with her and she said one of the most disturbing things.

Oh, I have the video of it. So look, you're asking great questions, Debra, and they're unanswerable questions on a certain level. We could try to answer them. But just like what I said about the rededication thing, like part of our job right now is not to reach for easy answers. You know, you've become friends with Norman Finkelstein during this time, which has been really sweet to see. And he, you know, I remember taking a walk with him on Coney Island and him talking about how fond he was of you. We take many walks on Konyat. It takes you on the five-mile Gaza

width walk. Well, it's kind of cold now. Yeah. We have a film club. Oh, you do? Yeah. You have a what club? A film club. You watch movies together? Norm and I and another person. Oh, I need to know what his favorite movies are.

Well, he's very, I don't know. What do you mind? Is this? He's a freak for, you know, because if you send some, he'll be so happy to have but he's a freak for 40s British film noir you know murder mysteries okay because I think at the end of the day when he's been writing all day it's like what will turn my brain off the most yeah yeah well so transporter films yeah so he what's he been what what what bet what drum has he been banging recently well I mean it's it's the drum it's the drum it's the drum of Gaza is gone

Not only are we failing to save it, we failed. It's gone. It's dead. I'm with him. I mean, I believe that, you know, I also follow Bison, so, you know, you see this wonderful. They're building a school or whatever. But as we know it as any kind of. So what's the value in speaking such bad news?

I don't know. Because it's a window on the truth. And we got to get related to reality. We got to keep updating our relationship to reality. And I guess I don't know what the point of this podcast is. And we've done enough self-flagellation, self-flattery. Oh, please someone tell us we're relevant. Our whole holiday special was a riff on my, you know, sort of narcissistic.

Your neuroses. My neuroses about it all and all of our neuroses about it all. The fact is we're doing it and people find value in it. And maybe that's just maybe that's just an escape or whatever. But whatever the value is, it's that a place where. people can come and hear something that's not spun, that's just human beings responding in a human way to a situation that is inhumane in the extreme. And you're being so human in this conversation, so vulnerable, so truthful, so rageful, so woeful, all of that. There's just value in

that and your gifts as a communicator and a performer and all of that. I feel a little too Jewish, you know, because isn't the base of Judaism is to ask the best questions. and sometimes the best questions and sometimes the best questions aren't answerable so no there none of them are answerable it's a telmudic space in that sense yeah but this is like at there's a moment now where we need a fucking answer you know there's a moment where we need the most un-jewish thing which is an answer all right yeah that would be that would be great you're are you saying we need Michiach now. Is that what you're saying?

I also have to see those signs as I drive home. It's coming. I'd rather those than all the Jew-Balong signs that we have in Los Angeles. Do you guys have them in What is that? We did in Brooklyn, at least for a while.

Jew-belong was like, I don't know, some like liberal Jewish organization that would write cute signs, Like, yes, even if you're, you sometimes eat bacon, you're still Jewish. This was pre-October 7th. Wait, there's a clause? There's a Shonda Claus for a bacon. There was a Shonda Claus where you could sometimes eat bacon.

It was like a cute thing to get people to like get more in touch with your Jewish roots, you know, even if you're just of Jewish ancestry. Was it like that group that John Void dances with once a year? I doubt it. You know those telephones? Oh, yeah. The Chabad Telethon? Yes. Yes. Yes. No, these is much more liberal. And then October 7th happened. And now all the signs are just like, you know, you used to go to UC Berkeley to learn about math. Now you learn about how to kill Jews. And it's like, we survive the gas chambers. We'll survive your gas lighting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, it's, it sounds like some fucking joke I would make up. Yes. It's madness. But yeah, I, you know, whether I tell you one short. norm story. Oh, yes. Our hogs would be,

our hogs are sorry. They're oinking in anticipation. What hogs? Well, we call our listeners. Hugs. No, it's a nice thing. Everyone's a hog. I'm a hog for the wire. I'm a big fan of the Sopranos. I'm a hog for the Sopranos.

Everyone's a squirrel trying to get a nut. We're all hogs trying to get acorns. Yeah, we're all hogs trying to. Remember the squirrel nut zippers? I do. Yeah, pull that album out. T-shirt yesterday. We were walking home from Konea and we're going to get some Chinese food. And this guy was walking towards us.

Sidewalk was not wide enough for three people, but, you know, I started to sort of fall behind. No, I went ahead of norm. And the guy stops right in front of us and he spits. And the spit, the lugi landed on my foot. So that's how close we were standing. And he just started just unbelievably hurling invectives, you know, just shocking even for me. Wow. But like, you know, and you're worse than Hitler peppered with your worse than Hitler.

But loud, loud on the street, you know, you're a fucking capo. You, you know, I can't stand you. May your whole family die. And he said, well, actually, they're already dead. Yeah. You know, he was not saying anything. I've never seen anyone stand so quietly while being verbally abused. And I just thought he was no body language, nothing, just his hands folded in front of him and listening.

Well, he has debated Rabbi Shmooley. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, I later asked him, like, where is that chip? Because I need a little bit of that. Yeah. But anyways, just standing, you know, almost respectfully.

But mostly it was just such an. interesting. As a mother, I'd like to go back to, you know, my kids being little because I'd like to give them some of that. But it was just like how to defute, like the guy ran out. It's like there's only so many awful things you can say. And then you either have to move on your way or repeat yourself. Spit glands are finite. You have to. He was repeating himself now. A lot of Hitler. A lot of Hitler. Did I say that you're a capo yet? I already did that? Okay. Okay. Exactly. It's so he's stop. He said, runs out a fuel. And then I think Norm said something like, he says he said something else, but I heard him say, you said a lot of terrible things. Just like Imago therapy, you know. And then the guy walks on and, you know, I'm still like just looking down at my boots, you know, with the luggy on him. And I'm like, so does that happen a lot? Because usually we're on Coney Island and young people come up and say, oh, Professor, you know, just like elbow, will you take our picture, you know?

Right. And I bet that rolls off his back just as easily as the insults do. Yeah, yeah. You said a lot of kind words. He just walks away. And he said, no, he said to me, he doesn't get it at all. And I said, what doesn't he get? He goes, that was like a bad night in my house.

You know, if my father didn't like the food, he would say, this is worse than Auschwitz. You know, and if my parents got in an argument, they would say, you know, you're worse than Hitler. This is just how we talk. This was just a regular night at my home. It has absolutely no effect on me. This is how my father ordered at restaurants. This is not anything new. So I need more of that because I have been called a cop-o.

Oh, yeah. Oh, man, yeah. It is. But I'm sure, you know, like when you ask. I don't know. I mean, I know I've gotten hatred on my, but, you know, I'm not used to it because I don't, even, I've always voiced my opinions, but I wouldn't say people have really sent me hate before this. The only hate I've ever really known is at the hands of Jews. I'm sorry to say. No, I mean, that's, you weren't, you weren't getting hatred from Shirley McLean fans during the Oscar competition. 83 for who was going to win best actors. God. I mean, I really haven't gotten this kind of hate ever from any group.

Even at fracking, I got, you know, a lot of farmers saying that I was, you know, didn't know what I was doing or saying or how dare I with the family farms. They should be able to lease to whoever they wanted. But I think everybody sort of found some, but this is beyond the pale. Wow. It is beyond the pale. Yeah. The pale of settlement.

Yes, very good. Well, speaking of Hollywood and their Hezbara, Daniel, you brought up, you both brought up these wonderful Noah Tishby Hanukkah videos that she's been putting out every night, a new candle, a new celebrity, classic Hezbara. And there was one that she did on the final night of Hanukkah with Gal Gadot, who is, you know, people know as Wonder Woman. and five degrees of separation there i was i know you were wonder girl that's right uh much i think i think we can all say i should do the shonda clause yeah yeah you are the classic uh wonder girl um but uh yeah this was i mean listen we've been watching these like tishby videos every now and again on this show this one stood out because of uh well because of what gal does i mean galga Galgatad said something in here.

What Galga does. Say some, yeah, what Galga does. I've heard some depraved shit come out of the mouths of Zinus. This thing made me scream, a howl in outrage and disgust. All right, here we go. I'm gonna relive that for you right now. Last day, final candle of Hanukkah. And who do we have here?

Ah! Tell me a childhood memory. Usually my mom will fry Latkes. Latkes is like fried potato pancakes. I just want to say before we continue, I love when they do the explanation of Jewish things because then you really do know who the video is for. You know, trying to figure out who the Hezbarist is targeting is always apparent when they're just like Latkas, which is a fried potato pancake that we eat during Hanukkah, which we call the Festival of Lights.

Right, but you notice that Galgadadat was trying to say potato patties. and Tishby says pancakes Anyone who calls it a potato patty I swear to God Israeli Latkas are the worst And we're gonna get like they're just not It's just more What did Adam say?

It's during Hanukkah Which is our Christmas That's right Latka is like fried potato pancake I love eating it with sugar Or with ketchup Yeah

God damn it What? No! Fuck no! That's what I said literally last night and I'm saying it again. Fuck no! Fuck no!

Sorry for clipping my mic. Jewishly. Yeah, I'm emotionally damaged Jewishly. Sugar and ketchup with your fucking Lodkas? Try to catch up with the Hezvara. I, it's, I, I just, it is, listen,

I'm not, I'm not a I don't judge anyone's faith nor ancestry well didn't Israel invent ketchup oh well Israel invented the cherry tomato cherry tomato ketchup then cherry tomato ketchup was invented and then of course they also invented sugar um yeah that is that is really uh I mean I as an American as a proud American uh shout out to uh really trashifying Latka's Israel I love it, you know? Make them trash. Trailer, trailer, Latkas.

Yeah, trailer lotkas is, I'm kind of, I'm kind of with it. I'm for this. Because it's like, I love the food, and I love winter. So this is like the winter holiday. Adam says, I eat my lotkas with the traditional Hidden Valley ranch. Yes. We are going to name a new settlement, Hidden Valley. It's going to be in Gaza.

Oh, man. What is a family tradition that you have now? Because you have four girls. Yeah. She has four girls. Four girls. We don't have a new family tradition, but because we're not living there in Israel, then it's important to us to make sure we mark every night and we celebrate it every night and we sing the song.

And they think that it's very symbolic, especially nowadays, where the entire world is going through different turbulence. I think that there's something beautiful about families getting together and lighting candles. Candles, bringing light, and hope. So this is, yeah, this is the new... The world is going through turbulence. Different turbulence. I mean, there's all sorts of turbulence. How passive can you different?

See, that's the problem is we need to stop talking about genocide and start talking about the different turbulences that are happening. The turbulences are happening. I mean, listen, there's turbulence here. And no, there's no pilot who's, getting on the big speaker and letting us know it's all going to be okay. Good afternoon. Good afternoon passengers. Just a word from the flight deck here. We've had a pretty smooth ride so far, but we are entering a period. We will be entering a zone of some turbulence where you might find yourself unexpectedly connecting dots between different historical events and feeling empathy for people that you're not supposed to. So please do fashion your seatbelts, put your blindfolds on and your noise cancelling and, reason canceling earphones on we'll let you know when it's safe to uh think about jews again and please if you have a nut allergy

oh yeah is that the extent of the lotka or is that they go on to then they go then they go then they go on to light the light get the candles with some israeli melody for the fucking prayer that yeah this was a weird melody and i'm not again you know i can't talk shit but i mean i just like This is, it should be Dan-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dun-dha. Give me my Ashtonazi version. Yeah. Dude, that was...

Don't mess with any Ladino for me. Yeah. That wasn't Ladino. That wasn't Sephardic. That was, that was pure... I didn't hear it. That was some Sabra-ass melody. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, where are we doing there? Oh, that's just people that can't hear that, I know. But they're going up at weird moments. I could be wrong. Maybe it's a traditional melody. It probably is a fine melody. I don't like it.

I don't like it. It's got too much sugar and ketchup all over it. Yeah, sugar and ketchup all over that melody. Make it more normal. Sour cream and apples sauce. Back in my day. Oh, man. I made some good ass luck because last week I got to tell you.

Oh, yeah. Dude, so I just, I went to a Hanukkah party and I was eating some lotkas and I was like, these are amazing. Did you make these? And they're like, I got a traitor Joe's. And I was like, fuck. You guys were such better Jews than you just won the Jew thing. I think I had a jelly donut, but only by accident. You can eat lotkas, Deborah, they don't have, they don't have, they don't have lotcas on their uniforms. I can't do anything that reminds me of how stupid. but I was of how I really am. Sorry, that was Nickelback. It's not like you to tell stories.

All right. So there is an article that we want to read from the Jewish Chronicle. Let's light up some Jewish Chronicle, some Jewish Chronicle and read the Jewish Chronicle. We're going to light up some chronic, read the Chronicle. Chronic Judaism. Yes. We're going to the doctor for either that or chronic bronchitis. Yes That's right So Daniel You can't say chronic bronchitis

Can't say chronic bronchitis When you have chronic bronchitis Isn't that Anyway Your son is somewhere right now Debra being like She's so funny She thought she wouldn't fit in on this podcast

Yeah I was like Why is she so perfect for this Why does this work so well? Why is she the third host Of Bad Hezbarah? We've been trying to fill the third chair And I thought we just did it It's crouched

So eccentric Bad His Barra shit holy crap well we're searching for you and we found you a podcast to co-host so chronicles of smarmia what are you going to read smarmia there it is chronicles of smirmia perfect the truth of the Palestinian cause by by Melanie Phillips Melanie Phillips friend of the show is she have we read her before I don't know if we read her before but I've read her before and she is I mean well

we'll just read this together All right Are we gonna do it in our British accents? It's parroting really with two R's in one T I want to typo it right away I don't It could be a British thing Like the way they spell color with a you

Definitely with two R's But yeah But you're Canadian So you spell things weird too You also spell color with the you The tsunami of Jew hatred that we're living through has left many in a state of stunned disbelief.

That's so true. It seems incredible that thousands of people in Britain and the West are parroting falsehoods about Israel that aren't only outright lies and willful distortions, such as... Two ELs! Yeah. I agree with you.

Yeah. I agree with you. There should be two ELs right. Well, three Ls overall, two Ls in the middle there, yeah. Such as accusing the IDF of killing journalists and hospital patients when these are actually terrorists. Wait, so our first willful distortion or outright lie is that the IDF didn't kill journalists and hospital patients

because you can't kill a terrorist. That's what they're saying. Such as killing hundreds of thousands of human beings when these are in fact demon spawned from an alien planet. In fact. I think we made that very clear, sure. But also demonstrably ridiculous, such as the claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza,

where the population has increased by 2.02% since the start of the war, according to the CIA fact book. What? I really got to. First of all, I didn't know that the CIA had a fact book. I think we're going to need to get ourselves a copy of that book. That sounds right. I think she gets it delivered to her door every day.

It's like, yeah. Right. So this is where I would not do well on your. your show as a regular because this makes me want to cry. I mean, I just, I can laugh so far and then I just like, yeah, no, you're, you're going to cry, but because, but your mind's going to change entirely when I read this next paragraph. The reason you're crying will totally reverse. Because listen to this, Deborah, did you know that Jews are being unambiguously targeted? Many Jewish authors can't get published. Artists, writers and performers have said they're being frozen out of British cultural

life because they refuse to describe Israeli actions in Gaza as genocidal. It's as if Britain and the West have gone through the looking glass. I wonder if she's going to use Orwell as a comparison. No, that would be too on the nose. And or

Alice in Wonderland. It's as if Britain and the West have gone through the looking glass into a nightmarish Orwellian world. Oh, wow, in the same sentence, where the meaning of language has been reversed and lies have become unchallengeable truths. it's crazy reading these because you do uh you know i've said this before but you can kind of um if you just come into something in the middle uh it sounds like what you're experiencing

and then you realize that they're saying the exact opposite thing so they are experiencing a gas lighting that is happening that in which i don't believe they're really experiencing i don't i don't believe that they are putting out there in bad faith. Yes, yes. I completely agree. I completely agree. But there are, I do believe that they are putting it out there in bad faith in order to convince

other people, because I do believe that there are a lot of Zionists and, you know, pro-Israel supporters, in general, in the United States and, you know, in Europe, who need to latch on to this idea that everyone is lying and that, you know, the only

people who are telling the truth are the these very Jewish-specific media outlets. Well, hence the brilliance, if I can use that really, almost sardonicly, of the Zionist state because there's nobody allowed in to report. So who can dispute this? And when they say that the population has increased, who's going to dispute it? nobody's allowed in. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And British, well, the CIA fact book would know, if anyone. British Jews are especially primed to lap this stuff up because they have, they have this perpetual sense that the next Holocaust is, is just around the corner. Right. No, my British friends are even worse than my American friends. Yeah, no, it's, there's a kind of permanent. What is that about? What's going on with?

They live through the blitz. Yeah, that's the thing. They got bombed, you know. So they, it's just so strange to me because they're, and they've never had us, I said this on the episode with Aso and Stanley, which people can check out by becoming Patreon members, that they've never had a Seinfeldian kind of breakthrough. British Jewish culture has never become embraced by the mainstream. there is no the influence of jews on popular culture doesn't make british jews i think i think in

subtle in i think there are ways in subtle ways american jewishness just feel at home here because american jewishness has influenced americanness so much whereas britishness is more serious i mean i remember talking to attenborough about this because his family took in a child from the um you know they They had the kids that came up to the UK from Germany that they took in. Yeah, yeah. And today, his family adopted one, Dicayat Meryl's family. And so, and I said, why do I feel this underlying weird sort of anti-Semitism here? And this was, I don't know, when did I make Shadowlands like 19, I want to say, 93 or something?

early 90 and you know he's he of course disavowed it he was not Jewish but you know he just but I did feel it there I did yeah I don't know what that so you know that they are also living with an with an actual right memory of a little of anti-Semitism that I don't believe here it's like you know I mean not to quote norm too much but really why not, you know, when he says, like, whoever lost a job or, you know, the only thing you couldn't do is maybe get into a country club in Cleveland in the 50s, but, you know, or, or certain or a white shoe law firm. I mean, there were. Yeah, yeah. But they started their own law firm. We created our own.

Right. Exactly. Yes. There's never been that, but there maybe has been a little bit more of that. Right, right. Yeah, I guess, but it's just, you know, it's, it's, I still. I still don't fully buy that their living memory of British anti-Semitism makes them more Zionist. I feel like it's at this point, it's just there.

I think there's also a general British commitment. Like it's almost in the British DNA to be like, well, sometimes doing colonization can be good. Like, I feel like there's a little bit of them that's just like, well, listen, some of the places turned out all right. I'm just saying. They didn't mind it so much in India. Yeah, right. I think it's just like, oh, okay. But this article on any ground is just infuriating.

Yes, yes. I hope we're going to land on something funny. Otherwise, I'm going to go rip some shit up. Yeah, we'll see what happens. And if it doesn't land on something funny, we'll just make it up. Yeah. Of course, anti-Semitism is always with us. But how can so many subscribe to the same insane obsessions and blood libels, which, under both Nazism and medieval Christianity, presented the Jews as driven by a lust for money and power to form a murderous and demonic conspiracy against the rest of the world? How can so many in the West have simply lost their minds like this? Oh, boy. To anyone who's been paying attention to the Middle East over the decades, the answer is obvious. It's obvious, really? For these claims are all too. familiar. I think she's about to zero in on a simple answer to why things are complicated and dangerous. And I think she might have happened upon a certain people that's to blame for

all of it, that we can conveniently put all of our hatred and animosity towards. That's a good strategy. Yeah. For these things, I hope it's Europeans. I hope it's Europeans. I hope it's Christians. tropes relentlessly voiced by the Palestinian Arabs, including the supposedly moderate Palestinian Authority. We have found the rot, and it's coming from Palestine. Yeah. A few weeks ago. I don't know. Lately, the PA is looking pretty American. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it just shows, it goes to show that it's just like, there's nothing, there's nothing, like, what's the purpose of even being a puppet for? you know,

Israeli expansionism and American imperialism. Like, they're still going to hate you. Why just, I heard, I heard that when Palestinian police were beating up Palestinian protesters, they whispered under their breath. I'm sorry to do this.

The Jews made me do it. Yeah. You know, fucking blaming the Jews. Yeah, always blaming the Jews. A few weeks ago, a PA official said on PA TV that Jews controlled the media,

said on the PA television station that Israel, controls, that Jews controlled the media, and so had convinced the world of the lie that atrocities were committed by Palestinians on October 7, 2023. Do you have a source for this? In a June sermon

on PA TV, what is PA TV? Palestinian Authority TV, I assume. Yeah, okay, I'm going to need a source. A popular Muslim preacher declared that the Palestinian Muslims didn't want to state, but wanted to kill all Jews for the sake of Allah.

Jews, he ranted, quote, always conspire against humanity, not only against Muslims, but against humanity as a whole, and passed down their malignant and cursed genes from generation to generation. Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right. And then a whole bunch of other claims. Mm-hmm. In May, a columnist wrote on the website of the official PA Daily, Al-Ahiat Al-Jadida, that the war had seen, quote, a stream of Israeli holocausts and massacres,

with Israeli vampires and the government dancing the dances of death and crime, while they drink the blood of Palestinian children and they have yet to satiate the thirst. Where is the lie? I mean, this is the problem with this, like, you know, the policing of tropes when it comes to this. It's like, okay, but maybe they, maybe they are they're not, I have not seen videos of them drinking blood,

but I have essentially seen videos of them dancing the dance of death. like the dances of death and crime are are very apparent they're out there they're on TikTok doing it the fact that I haven't seen literal like blood drinking is like I mean at this point it's just because my algorithm is

trying to get me to watch more happy things like dogs and cats being friends and stuff I'm trying not to get depressed by it I'm sorry racist tropes bad colorful morbid metaphors to describe accurate power relationships inevitable you know Masters of war by Bob Dylan you know talks about the you ain't worth the blood that runs in your veins and you you you you you've thrown the worst fear to ever be hurled fear to bring children to this world. He says a lot of brutal things to these masters of war because he's calling out people

in power. And I'm sorry, these people have a lot of fucking power. And there's a lot of blood of Palestinian children, which if they're not drinking it, they are certainly profiting off of it. Yeah. It's a shame. It's a shame that there were things called blood libels against people that these motherfuckers claim as ancestors, Jews in Europe a long time ago. But the two have nothing to do with each other. Right. Yeah. And it's just like, you know, uh, at some point, you go like, if every trope, if every single like trope in the world has been leveled at the Jews, you know, uh, this idea that you're not allowed to in any way use colorful colorful language to describe your own oppression because that is anti-Semitic. It's just like, it's just another

weapon of tone policing that I think you know and it just it's weird that it still works in any way to like dehumanize people who are literally going through a genocide because it's like oh did they say Israeli vampires that's kind of problematic you just uh you have to already be okay with

devaluing their lives to you know I don't think their language choices is why you think it's okay that this is happening to them it's not my fucking fault BB looks like nosferatu he does i just so depressed because um you know i don't watch mainstream is expanded i i just don't know how this is going to turn around i i just don't see any it's you want to find something for the new year and i'm just not finding it guys something

Something to hold on to you mean something like something new that some newness in the you know like now they're even capitalizing on the tropes that it's so yeah I mean I will say onion has so many layers yeah I will say that the one thing that is always for me made me like I hear this article and I see the same article that has been written over and over again for the last 12 months and even longer really uh and so um one of the things that doves give me hope is um hearing the same argument over and over and over again and knowing that they expect different results but at this point i don't know any you know i think if you are someone who's already looking to fall for this kind of shit You don't even really need it. It's true, but I mean, they're going to get what they want. Oh, yeah.

Because they're going to get half of Gaza, you know. They'll leave the south to, you know, for people to fucking make a fake ass, whatever. And, you know, have some kind of life. And then they're just going to, you know, have their beachfront property. And they're going to build more settlements in the West Bank. I just don't see any end to the insanity. Look, honestly, talking about the rededication thing, like, again, And it's been on my mind so much.

I think when we started this podcast, well, Matt started this podcast and I joined it soon afterwards. And for the better part of this year, I had a certain kind of smug bravado to me of like, well, we're winning the propaganda war, at least. Or Israel's running out of cards to play. Or Hasbullah is going to come around one of these days. And even people like Norman Finkelstein were persuaded of the coming victory of the party of God. Oh, yeah, we were excited when we would go and there'd be a good turnout.

It's like, wow. And I think we just had to face. That was like at the beginning of the year. Look, Israel's been racking up a string of big victories. They're on a streak. And now they're upping their Hasbara budget. And Matt, you can say it's wasted money. Maybe it is.

Or maybe their metrics show that it's working in exactly the ways it needs to. Maybe they can pivot to this bullshit. Maybe they don't need fucking A loan levy anymore, being an unpleasant fuck. Maybe they can just do Noah Tishby lighting Hanukkah candles and talking about salt or sugar

ketchup lodkas with Galga don't. Yeah. Singing the song wrong. Yeah. Singing the song. Maybe they are at that stage where, you know,

and so where are we? We're just here providing some alternate viewpoint on the moment and trying to bear faithful witness to it, whether it's through satire and comedy or grief and tears and rage. We're just trying to, I don't know, be a voice of like, here's what we're seeing.

And in this moment, I can't find any easy comfort. I can't find any good news, any, you know. And Palestinians are celebrated justly for this quality of Samud, you know, steadfastness and patience. and a kind of stick to it's like stick-to-itiveness. No, it's something much, much deeper than that as a way of being. I don't know what there is for us to cling to, except just if what we're doing has some kind of positive effect,

some kind of purpose, some kind of value for people. Let's keep doing it in the meantime until the next, until the next, until the worm turns until Israel starts catching some losses I mean you know they had the biggest Vasquer, 63 people were killed yesterday you know

yeah yeah it's like as we're speaking yes we are speaking and you know babies are being killed yeah I think the one thing I do hold on to is the one thing that gives me hope is I do believe that Palestine will be free.

I believe that, you know, one way or another, it will be. And I think I don't know how long- When they get rid of all the Palestinians that are there first? No, I'm not, I think I'm not that, I think I'm not that cynical anymore, not that, like, pessimistic anymore. I have those moments, too. I feel that sometimes, like, this is just

inevitable. But I do think that the more inevitable thing is that Palestine will someday, because this is, you know, I've been reading a lot of Mandela recently. I just finished a long walk to freedom and long read to freedom. Let me tell you. How about a few less words? I think the walls will come tumbling down and everybody will. I mean, it's not that I, it's, it's not necessarily that I believe that this is going to happen in a similar way or the same way, you know, but I more and more see what is happening as just being their continued attempt to make apartheid, to make their apartheid. you know, look more and more official to stop this idea of a two-state solution, to make it literally impossible for there to ever be any contiguous state. And I think that only leads to one thing, which is one state. And I think one state only leads to another thing, which is, I don't,

you know, you could say, oh, they just kill all the Palestinians. I've, I've thought that too. I don't, I don't know if that's, I think that's pessimistic. And it's not fair of me to think that. The weapons are pretty different than ever before. Oh, I agree. And also the attitude of the Israeli is much more disgusting. The, the attitude versus like the the Afrikaner. I mean, at least the Afrikaner, it's strange reading because you, after a while, you're like, do the Afrikaner have more shame than the Israeli? That's insane to me. But that being said, I do think that one way or it is true that Palestine will be free and I need to I I like doing talking about this because of the fact that I don't think yet people know this and I do think people need to get on board before history shows well we have an American problem too I mean it's not only oh yes no I know and specifically I am talking about Americans who both Americans American Jews and just American, you know, liberals who are too scared to say anything. And I think, like, the cowards need to stop being cowardly and they, they need to start speaking out against it. And if shame is the only weapon that I have, then I will use it. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, listen, there's a lot of things, there's a lot of reasons to be pessimistic.

No, I admire your, I'm not going to like, you know, counter you. I want to, I want to, you know, I, I, Steve Sosby is doing great work with Heel Palestine. I mean, there are people that have something, I guess, you know, I need to find it and then cultivate it. I so far have not found it. But first, but first, you have to tell the absolute bedrock truth of how you're feeling about it.

Yes. Yes. too far for me at this very beginning of 2025 and deborra again you are speaking what's in the hearts and and minds and and and and and worst fears of many many many people listening to this even people who chant from the river to the sea of palestine will be free very confidently yeah how can any of us confidently say of course no we never we're not terrified of what's coming and and and you know like you speaking that hopelessness, I actually think is an important ingredient to building whatever we want to call hope. And this podcast, yeah, we I'll tell you, it's brought me closer to my friends,

you know, that are of quote opposing, you know, the races and the ethnicities that are supposed to be opposing one another. I am now closer with. So that's an odd kind of, you know, plus I have never felt more anti-Semitism by Jews. But you probably can look back in my little bit of press that I've done and find that very statement in the late 70s, early 80s, whereas the only people that were against me doing urban cowboy were, you know, Michael Eisner and, and what's his name? I don't want to say the other Jew. But the Jewish guys, you know, and then, and then he said, like, you know, she's too Jewish.

I went to dance school with girls like her. And then, you know, Jim Bridges, who was directing the film, said, I don't, is she Jewish? Yeah, I went to dance school. Like, nobody questioned why he was in dance school. Weird thing. Too Jewish for, it's urban cowboy, not rural cowboy. What's his problem? But that was my first, that was 1979.

It was my first encounter with it. Because I became very good friends with Jim Bridges, and he said, I was so shocked when they stood up and said you were too Jewish in the casting meeting. Yeah, that is insane. But yeah, it is, you know, I've also gotten, you know, a lot of, you get the most anti-Semitism that I've ever got. And I used to. But you're more Jewish than me, man. No, I'm not. I'm less Jewish than you.

I'm not even- You present more Jewish. Yeah, I just look more Jewish. I'm just Jew ewee. That's different. Jewie and Jewish, two different things. Jew-esque. Yeah, Jew-esque. But, yeah, I do think that it is important for honesty is important in this and like being someone who is going to say your feelings honestly.

Well, I would just hope that if anything, I mean, none of the people that we're talking about listen to your podcast. That's what I mean about the echo change. murder. Speaking of which, if next time you take that Coney Island walk, if you'd put in a good word for us with a good professor, he has, he's, he's, he's, he's been invited to come on. Yeah. He keeps, he keeps shunting me off because he's got a book to write about Gaza. No, he is really madly.

He is ready badly. He is right. But maybe you could get us. But just let us let him know, we're nice, we're nice guys. Come with a 40s, noir classic. Yes. British. Did he show you the record I got him?

Did he, have you seen? the record I got him. I hope he kept it. Did he show you the doll I made of him? I made a doll out of his own hair. I found it. In Los Angeles, we're not best friends, but Adam, thank you, Mr. Snarky. When I was in Los Angeles, I got up, I picked up a record in like the TV movie soundtracks section of a record shop. John Brown's body is yeah the name of a poem that became a song that became a television special

and i got him the soundtrack of that you know because he used to sing that song in interviews john brown's body lies a moldering in the green um well i think that you i will i'll say something but i mean and a pun is not foreign to him so it's just it's a questionist of the humor of things right now. Sure. That is, that's the question. Everyone's waiting to find out.

Yeah. We just don't talk about it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I will say you, you have gracefully found some humor in it in this episode.

You've been really fantastic. It's been so great to talk to you. You, officially we are offering you the third co-host position. I do like Shonda Claus. Yes, Gianna Clause is very good. Come on, that's a keeper.

Yes. Terms of encampment, I mean, it's also good. Yes, you fit in perfectly, but thank you, really, truly, thank you for coming on. It was a thrill when I found out that you were agreed to it, I was over the moon. So thank you for coming out. Well, thanks for making me feel like I'm part of the, you know, Jewie in crowd when we all know, I'm not. Ever since you left Hollywood, you are no longer part of it. No, but it's been great.

I just want to say I was a bigger Jew than most of the people that are accusing me of being Capo, so. Oh, yeah. You've earned your exile. My two friends are absolutely untouchable. Yes. Well, Deborah. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

And my son will be very happy that I ventured out of my cave. Yes. shout out to your son. Now we'll go back. Yes. Thank you everyone out there for listening to Bad Hasbara. Please subscribe. Give us those five stars in review. Patreon.com slash Bad Hasbara. Please join that. Bad Hasbara at gmail.com for all of your questions, comments, concerns. Email us. Eventually, I will read them. They're piling up. And yes, thank you so much everyone out there for listening. And until next time, from the river to the sea. Anyone can be Jewish, but can you be Jewie? Wow. See, this is why he's the best. That's why he's the best.

For a small fee. Jumping jacks was us. Push-ups was us. Godmaga us. All karate us. Taking Molly us. Michael Jackson us. Yamaha keyboards.

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. Breathing air, us. Drinking water us. We invented all that shit. Thank you.