Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - [BONUS] Bad Hasbara's 2024 Patreon Dump

Episode Date: December 26, 2024

Matt, Daniel and Producer Adam share three Patreon favorites: Asa Winstanley (The Electronic Intifada), Efrim Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor), and Noah Kulwin (Blowback). For more join the Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/badhasbara .Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/bad-hasbara/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Bad Hasbara. Adam, want you to take this time. The World's Most Moral Podcast. Hey, hell yeah, sounds sexy. My name is Matt Leave. I am the World's Most Moral co-host. I'm Daniel Mate. I'm the other World's Most Moral co-host.

I'm third guy, Adam. That's producer Adam. The World's Most Moral producer named Adam. out from behind the curtain where he belongs. That's right. The reason we are all gathered here today to speak with you is because this is a very special episode of this podcast as it is a clip show.

I'm sorry. It's a very special episode. It makes me think this is the episode where Matt learns it's bad to touch people where they don't want to be touched. Oh, man. I don't get to go with drugs or something. Yeah, yeah, or it could be that. No, but you went straight.

Daniel learns that that glue is for sticking, not sniffing. Why does Matt have to learn about non-contensual touch? Maybe he already knows about it. Traditionally, when a TV show runs out of money toward the end of the season, they'll produce a clip show. We don't make any money, but we're still doing it. That's right. Yeah, this is special because, not because we are doing this for the month.

No, it's that we could, if you enjoy it. You see, what this clip show is, is three. wonderful sections from three amazing podcasts that we did over the last year with people who we put on behind a paywall these are all a patreon exclusive episodes and for these guests in our pay dungeon that's right behind their own paywall they actually live there they yes they live there uh waiting for us to yeah to just kind of like pull them out like a show horse and uh start trotting for all of the pay piggys and if you don't pay to hear them then no one can hear them scream. I mean opine. I mean analyze. That's right. If a tree falls in the woods and no one is paying $5 or more a month to...

Less Patreon fees? Yes. Then does it exist? So the point is that these are some sections from three great episodes that are... We're just for patrons only and we wanted to share them with you because we think that they're great. we want you to see them and then also of course encourage you if you want to this holiday season

join the Patreon you can and we encourage it and we would love that but also you know you don't have to if you don't want to but we would love health insurance yeah it's the perfect Christmas or Hanukkah gift for anyone that you want to profoundly confuse

yes exactly like say you have an uncle who is an ardent scientist and who hates jokes um give it to them and then see if they're just like what is this shit that's funny that'll be funny for us uh it's also great for someone who uh is you know out there like uh hey i really love the show i wish i could afford the patreon um you can now gift patreon's uh subscriptions to other people so um yeah give it to a friend give it to a family member a colleague uh you know whoever and uh but if not

it's fine. You don't have to, but please enjoy this very clip-heavy episode. Should we just tell people a little bit who they're getting to hear? Oh yeah, you're going to be hearing from three great guests. One is Aesow and Stanley of the Electronic Intifada right after he was raided by police. He was rated in England. For altruistic reasons, not the usual British reasons for getting raided by the police.

Right, exactly. Not the, not the British. No Saville. Yes, no no Saville, no, you know, fish and chips heist. This was due to, of course, the fact that, you know, England is a police state and they don't like what he's writing about. I believe they were trying to say he was doing something terrorism related or something. I don't know. You'll see in the episode clip that we have. We also have from the blowback podcast, Noah Cole. one who came on and talked to talk to us about his story and his life and it's a great episode uh and then finally effram menick from godspeed you black emperor came on uh to talk to us which was incredible because he doesn't do interviews um he in in general he seems to not fuck around with the he doesn't he doesn't speak much he doesn't sing much no their band has no lyrics yeah it's instrumentals and it's badass and uh he said the listenership was low enough that this is the same as not doing an interview right exactly uh and so yeah it's it's a great interview and we have a great little excerpt from it that uh we wanted you guys to hear so yeah you know sit back

relax drink some hot cocoa um gather around the christmas tree or the hannica bush or the Kwanza, bed, and, you know, and enjoy this very special clip show of Bad Hasbara. Oh, and one more thing. We are very, very close to some pretty big milestones for us here at the Bad Hasbara podcast. We are almost at 30,000 YouTube subscribers, which is crazy. That's crazy. This is, you know, one year. This podcast is, been around for one year and that is that is incredible so uh if you want to help us reach that milestone just press subscribe it's that easy the fact that you haven't yet says a lot about you the other miles does help the algorithm folks it really does it really does uh so you know please

do that uh if you haven't uh and also we are really close to three thousand uh patrons which is incredible for us. You can join now Patreon.com slash Bad Hasbara. You can join for the $5 tier or more where you get these bonus episodes or you can join for free

and that's where you'll be able to like, you won't be able to get any bonus things but you will be able to hear about what things are coming out and an episode might grab you and you might say, hey, I'd like to pay for that. So please join the Patreon. Patreon.com.

slash bad hasbara all right everyone time for you to sit back relax and enjoy this special episode bye yeah i mean you know you're still here so don't leave mashwam ha bitch a ribbon book a toad we invented the terry tomato and weighs usg drives Andy Iron Goh, Israeli salad, oozy, stents, and jacos, orange rows, microchips is us, iPhone cameras us, taco salads, us, Pothalamos us, olive garden us, white cost for us, Zabrahamas, as far as us. What do you make of, I mean, this is a bit of a pivot, but

Pierce Morgan has become such a major content factory in the past year, and he's made his entire brand now, basically, about basically being a Jerry Springer for sometimes semi-substantive and sometimes very substantive debates, but always with as much hoopla and fanfare and nonsense as well mixed in. I don't know what to make of him, because on the one hand, he's platformed Norman Finkelstein many times, long form. given Norman time to stretch out. He's platformed two people I'm closely related to, my father and my brother. I'm still waiting for his invitation for my self.

Yeah, what the fuck? He's platformed your wife, Matt? He's platformed my wife. What about what? Why is he boycotting Bad Hasbara? Yeah, so Asa, why, that's our question to you. How come Pierce Morgan won't talk to us? No, keep going, Daniel.

I'm sorry. Who's, who's, who's, uh, knob do we have to polish to get on the pierce? Here's Morgan's. But, you know, but then he'll have on a clown like Rabbi Shmooley or Dershowitz or. And the way he, the way he moderates it often is just to let people shout over each other. And I'm sitting there watching my dear brother like do heroic work. But at the same time, I'm like thinking of Chomsky's. I mean, I'm like, I'm like, is this, is this show doing more good than harm or is it doing more harm than good?

I feel like it's probably doing more good than harm because these voices are getting out there. But then I think of Chomsky's dictum about how the way to, you know, really control a liberal propaganda system is to allow vigorous debate within very limited bounds. And that's not, that's actually not true because he does allow people on with radical views from the ones I mentioned, you know. But at the same time, his presence there, like peers his presence at the same. center of the show as this sort of immovable stick in the mud of like, no matter how many facts you give me, no matter what you tell me,

is a perpetual confused child being like, but I heard there were beheaded babies, but I heard there were rapes and I still can't get over that, even if everything you're saying is true. So what do you make of that platform? What does it say about the moment? Do you yeah, do you have anything to say at all about

that circus? Yeah. Pace Morgan is an interesting character. I mean, I can shed a little bit more light on his history from the British perspective. Didn't he have briefly have a career in the United States? Yeah, he took over Larry King's show on CNN and everyone hated him. And they were like, who is this guy? And then he lost that show and he sailed back. Why didn't lose the show then? It wasn't literally like the viewers just didn't take to him. Yeah, Americans, Americans don't really go for. that like combination of pomp and no circumstance like yeah like he's he's like the second

dumbest kid in class who's saving grace is that there's like one kid with learning disabilities below him who who he can gang up with the mean kids yes and he's like he he's Americans like a certain type of like British guy but he's he's it's he's the he's actually kind of the rare uncharming British guy where it's like we're not charmed by his oh lovely jubly and then you know he's just fucking spouting talking points and and being like completely uh confrontational for the sake of just trying to bank off of confrontation and it's weird i think he also was taking over a spot from someone who was it was a thoughtful um interviewer even if he was you know, kind of Larry King is a classic, but he's a basic guy.

And yeah, I mean, he's just like, he's a worm. He's a very unlikable worm. And I think he, yeah. Piers Morgan's background is in Fleet Street in Britain's tabloid journalists industry. My mind went to Sweeney Todd for a second. Yeah, yeah. The Demon Barber. The Demon Barber Fleet Street.

Well, you know, this is where all the newspapers were really used to be based. in London and he was the really interesting thing about his background is he was the editor of the mirror which was Britain's second or third most popular tabloid ostensibly targeted a working class audience traditionally aligned with the Labour Party including you know the neoliberal Labour Party and actually to be fair to him there was a period in the early 2000s when the Mirror was genuinely good right there was a brief moment under his editorial ship when it was actually excellent i don't know what totally happened i mean i have my i have my thoughts about it and this was during the lead-up to the iraq war and the beginning of the iraq war he did some really good stuff there i have to say yeah that's what i've heard um i mean i'll never forget i've still got some of the newspapers like he called john pilger back to write for the mirror for like a mass audience you know this was you know a circulation of millions of copies not not quite as popular as the sun which is the main tabloid which is a disgusting

rupert murdoch uh right ring rag which just literally makes up stuff and they had some fantastic uh front pages like the classic one was like uh it was a speech by george w bush and it was um talking about the reasons for um the reasons for the impending invasion and i forget how it exactly went but basically took the headlines of his speech and it replaced some of the words with um the logos of oil companies so yeah you can sort of google that and it's probably still out there somewhere there was and he was like the the paper rallied people to them literally to demonstrations so you know they had the map for the demon anti-war demonstrations and what wow now it was quite amazing actually um it was a generally good news

for a hot moment. I don't know all the reasons for that. It may have been purely cynical. It may have been, Piers Morgan thinking, well, hang on, this is a huge popular movement. We can make some money off the back of this. I would like to think it wasn't purely cynical, but I don't know totally what happened. There was a scandal a few years later where the paper, and this is what led to his demise of the paper, was they, that the paper obtained photos, which was said to portray torture by British troops in Iraq of Iraqi civilians. It turned out that those photos were faked, although there's no doubt that British soldiers did torture Iraqi civilians

in a similar way to Abu Ghraib. These photos weren't quite as explicit, terrible as those, but they were bad enough. that led to his downfall at the paper. But then he got into mass media broadcasting and he seemed to become more and more sensational. So, you know, that's his background. And he just seems to have leaned into that more

in the internet area where he has even, you know, now he's now, I think it now is just a pure YouTube channel. Yeah, it is. And it's, you know, it does very well on clicks. And it's all about, it seems to be engagement farming essentially. Francesca had a fantastic, change rhythm where she just called them out. She's like, come on, Paris. Come on. You're in this for the clicks just as much as I am. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. But do you think it's been a net benefit,

net neutral in terms of the presence of that platform as feeding us these clips of people yelling at each other, but saying some things that other people wouldn't get to hear otherwise? I don't pay that much attention to the channel. Even when there's good people on it, I tend not to make it very far in the videos because he has as you mentioned he has this sort of stubborn brick wall of well actually this this and this happened that we know didn't happen

and I just I don't have much time for it to be honest with you. Yeah yeah it is it's an interesting question because I think it's something you know I've been wrestling with because

you know in the United States because of the almost complete lack of anyone even coming close to allowing a pro-Palestinian voice to fully

express the facts of what's going on. You know, it's like you end up cheering for any, anything at all in which someone, you know, you know, there was a clip going around of this is obviously another British guy, but Andrew Garfield saying something at a, some

event in which he said, you know, Andrew Garfield is British. Yeah. Yeah. He sure does incredibly American. I've only ever seen. I have a spy to him. Tom Holland is very too. Right. Yeah. Toby is the, the OG is is the only American and only member of the pussy posse of the I was impressed. Andrew Garfield started in, uh, you don't know the pussy posse. All right. So in the 90s, Leonardo DiCaprio had a little crew of sycophantic weaners who are just other actors, and they called themselves the pussy Pussy Posse. And it's a terrible country, Asa. Well, you know, I'm speaking from Britain, so. That's true.

Also a terrible country. Yes, Eiffram Entourage, Ethan Suplei. Yeah, but yeah, no, so, you know, we. kind of latch on to anything that is remotely sounds like a critique from a mainstream

figure. So, you know, John Stewart does a daily show every Monday now and he's had a few moments of what I would call like liberal Zionist takes but really going hard on

Netanyahu which, you know, it's just weird because it's like you appreciate it uh anything yeah um yeah these moments of exasperated honesty with u.s foreign policy too with the democrats and that has a certain cathartic value and then you wish you would go further right and and it makes me you know it makes me think of like you were saying daniel this like chomsky thing of like if you set these like very narrow parameters then you can almost uh make a substantive critique of something and then people will be satisfied with someone saying something.

And yeah, so Pierce Morgan, it's hard to tell because it is genuinely surprising to see such a, I don't know, like a full-grown baby, allow himself to be shit on by people that he's bringing on his show who are kind of spitting facts, I would say. But it's an open question how much truth can really get spat in an environment like that, like, you know, friend of the show Basimusuf just went on. And a lot of people have been dragging him, not just for going on for more, you know, for peers to clip more content from that. But also, you end up in that arena debating on peers' terms.

and now you're talking about whether the resistance is justified and you're ceding ground where in ways that play to a more mainstream audience in ways that can undermine yeah go ahead it's also his obsession with the sort of gotcha question you know right i mean the the figures that he's interviewing um you know people like your brother are a really respected journalist uh my my friend uh the musician and uh and uh research uh loki oh cool has been on it a couple of times and he did really well on that um that's great but we're not people with power we're not people with political power to be interrogated in the way as if you know and he'll say well i also challenge as you know

Israelis but why are you equating us right why are you equating yeah one person is literally a spokesperson or diplomat for Israel and the other person is like, I'm a streamer. Yeah, I, you know, we're journalists, right, why are you, um, equating that? Right. As someone to be to sort of interrogate in that way. And, um, that's, that's what I don't really accept. Yeah. And I don't like this sort of got your approach either. Yeah. Yeah, it all, it all, you know, just falls back into like, this is, a guy who is like you were saying daniel the jerry springer of this particular subject

i haven't watched the interview yet i saw a clip i know um bassa mousseff said something supportive of myself so you know i appreciate that but uh does you know seem to i don't know it's like he's being he's going on there and he's being disrespected essentially by by by the maybe not by i don't know maybe i haven't watched it the whole thing. Yeah, I would say, yeah, it's not a good situation. Yeah, I would say for the most part, I see the person I see being disrespected on that show is usually peers. And sometimes, you know, it'll be a fight where he just, you know, is the fake referee for someone who's like a Zionist. Yeah, it's why I come back to the boarding school. I just, I just, it's almost like he's turned his

social role in his like his private school upbringing into a career where like he's the least popular one in the room but he maintains a certain degree of leverage or some kind of status yeah this is uh it is a thing of british you know the thing the thing that's always baffled me about british private schools is they're called public schools i know what is that why are you do that i think it's uh i mean i didn't go to private school so i don't totally understand standard mentality before what a public schools called yeah the public schools oh man state schools like i went to a comprehensive they're called comprehensive schools although increasingly now they're called high schools after the american way but like

yeah no i think as i understand it they're called public schools because they date back so far to when there was no schools they were they were schools didn't exist unless you were wealthy yeah and so as a family family, you had a literal private school in your home. Oh, private school was being homeschooled and a public school. It was public in the sense of you could go there. But you should have to pay. I think that's what it is.

That almost, that makes enough sense that I'm like, okay, fine, fine, fine, fine. But it's led to this sort of ridiculous, it's a very stupid kind of. I mean, we can't get into all of those. I like, I don't know why. It's a public school in the same way that a pub is a public house. pub is short for it's a place for the public to come but it can be privately owned right is there state pubs unfortunately not oh see this is i thought you guys had socialism oh there is to be to correct that there is a number of pubs in the house of commons oh are you for state pubs in parliament so i suppose

those are state pubs some some british shit is cool But I want to talk about this album that you just, that you just had come out, which has certainly made some waves within, both within like the, you know, the punk scene, but also in a larger, broader sense within the Jewish-Canadian scene, based on the title of it. So you have a new album, and you're starting your North American tour, is that right? yeah yeah yeah this weekend yeah so and i i assume you'll be playing some from this album right here which is uh called no title as of 13 february 2024 28,340 dead which uh when i saw that i said that's uh the coolest most badass thing that i've seen come out of the music industry in a while, just kind of any kind of acknowledgement of the current genocide in Gaza. What made you choose that title? Well, okay, it's tricky because we're an instrumental band. And so we,

you know, we have to contextualize everything all the time. A lot of work goes into this act of contextualization, you know, because we have no lyrics, you know, and we don't want to make just feeling music, you know? Like, right. I have feelings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so that's always what the process has been. So like every record title is like, okay, you know, mostly we're engaged with each other in a room together, but you know, like where, what is happening right now?

So a lot of the titles, uh, a lot of the previous record titles are sort of like reference state violence, whether it's over violence or the violence of neglect, you know, and then also what it is to be an individual. within that state. So this one was a motherfucker because it didn't seem like any title felt kind of cutesy. You know what I mean?

And then also, you know, like there's a broad spectrum of left politics in the band, you know? And so it's like everyone has to agree on the fucking title. How many members currently? There's eight members, you know? Yeah.

So and then the other thing is like, when you hand in, like the February date there is when the master's got handed in, you know? So when you hand on the masters, it's like seven months before the thing comes out, you know? Right. So at first I was like, I was like, okay, no title. We'll just call it no title. And then, yeah, the idea that here's this number, which at that point was already kind of an arbitrary number because the Gaza health ministry had been shut down.

You know what I mean? Like the number had not gone up already at that point for a. couple of weeks, you know. So it's a stalled number. But it's like it's a demarcation. Like this is what the number is on this date. Best case scenario, the day after we handed the masters in, peace on earth prevailed and the war ended, you know what I mean? Right. This case scenario, it's like, okay, yeah, that happened. We still have to acknowledge it. But the bummer, like handing it in, it's like, okay, by the time this record comes out, the number is going to be, you know, some multiple of that and we still won't know what the fucking number is you know right right and then yeah the

idea too i mean like we have lots of different type of people who like our music across a broad spectrum so the like a it's fucking depressing that just saying what the undercounted tally is on a date is a political gesture that's fucking depressing you know like that should just be a human gesture you know like can we at least agree on that you know so the only i mean A real brave title would have been red triangles, you know, or death to Israel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, this is this, like, can we just acknowledge this? And within the title, the only thing, you know, the only gesture is we're not including the Israeli dead, you know?

Like, this is Palestinian debt, you know? Yeah. Like, there's no, this isn't a war, you know? Like, this isn't the, like, the tragedy of, you know, the phenomena, the human phenomena war and people fucking die and it's sad, you know? It's amazing to me when politicians like Obama are like, it's been a year since the horrific attacks, so many people have died on both sides. And I'm like, even if you're, even if you're inclined to include the initial down payment of Israeli dead on day one, that's the only day on which you have Israeli civilian dead. You have to subdivide that number by the number killed by their own Hannibal directive. And you'd have to wait until about October when Israel finally couldn't resist going into Lebanon,

October of the following year, of this current year, to get any significant numbers, like large numbers of Israeli military dead too in any, you know, except like a one-off here or one-off there. It's incredible. And your number is so clearly. lopsided. It's a brilliant move, I think. I think it's actually very, it's much more radical than some slogan or some fist in the air posture, like just the raw data and naming the, and putting a date on it. This is what it was then. It raises the unspoken question. What is it now when you're listening to this? It was also, oh, sorry, I cut you off. No, I'm done. It's also like it was a way

to make whatever whoever had to write about the record would have to tell on themselves or not in how they described what the number was referring to you know what i mean like it was a way to force cbc hosts yeah well totally except yeah no cbc hosts you know but uh but yeah like it was in again i'm speaking from a place of privilege i'm just going to talk about my own experience I'm not saying it's the most important. But, you know, in the litany of like kind of psychic warfare that we're on the receiving end of as like caring, thinking human beings is like the degradation of fucking language, you know, and the kind of like, it's all just kind of normalized this talking around shit.

And the way language gets used creates a live truth, you know? Like it's really, so it's a way to be like, okay, well, how are you going to describe this thing? Are you going to fucking call it the Hamas Israeli War? You know, like, like, so it was being aware of that too, you know. Yeah. And this wasn't the first time it, that you'd, that some Israeli atrocity had prompted a title for you, right? I did a just, even just a cursory Wikipedia search reveals that, uh, you had a song

with a date of 09-1500, as in September 15, 2000. And it's described in the liner notes of the album it's on as Ariel Sharon surrounded by a thousand Israeli soldiers marching on Al-Harama al-Sharif, the Temple Mount, or the Dome of the Rock, and provoking another intifada. Do you ever worry that you'll, I guess you don't have to worry that you'll run out of source material if you name your songs after Israeli atrocities?

yeah yeah i mean no you know i mean i don't know that's it that one's hard because it's like some of the like less you know ungenerous politicized criticism of what we do together as a band has been that thing like oh you're profiting off oh sure right the shit in the world you know like that kind of shit you're talking to the bad hasbarah podcast yeah yeah yeah don't worry about it we won't judge you yeah yeah i mean are literally all our sort of material is the terrible things Israel does. Yes, yeah, yeah, totally. It's our Statsch raison.

Yes, we are, and we are, we've said this before, we are, once Israel is gone and Palestine is a single state, we are happy to convert back to just talking about the wire and madmen, you know, that's all I've ever wanted was to talk about my favorite TV shows. I didn't want to do this shit. I want to do a podcast about my favorite Montreal bands. Yes. Len Len's Toronto, dude.

Oh, I'm sorry. God damn. Come on. Men without hats. Yes. Oh, there we go. Of Montreal, are they? I'm just kidding.

They're from UC Santa Cruz. But yeah, I think one of the reasons why this album title stood out and, you know, was remarked on by people was because at the time that you were, you know, that the press releases were coming out saying this is what it was called. There was still, and we're still in this moment, kind of this, I don't know, cone of silence around this issue, especially in the music industry. The music industry was somehow worse than the, like, film industry in some ways. And I'm judging that sort of based on the Grammys. You know, I think this album was, I think the press releases went out either right before, right after the Grammys this year.

I'm not entirely sure, but I just remember there was an entire section about October 7th, you know, during the Grammys. And I think Annie Lennox was the only person who actually said anything about what was happening in Gaza. And it was, you know, just a couple of words, much appreciated words, but just, you know, like, no war. or something like that yeah yeah um and so uh you know it's uh as much as you want to shit on yourself for being like ah well you know you know maybe we should have done the red triangles and put a picture of sinwar with a heart on it you know it's like it's like it was you know it does it did what i think great music does especially great political music does uh and makes an actual point that um gets people talking yeah it's it's it's

force conversations in some ways in a in a small way you know just to be clear but uh and that's been gratifying you know yeah and you know like uh yeah yeah that's been gratifying do you get pushback um in your i don't know in your industry or do you do ever um uh have you experienced in the last year um anyone who has tried to I don't know, get you to get you to see for yourself what Israel is actually like. And like, has anyone tried to birthright you? No, again, you know, but like we're, we've, we've made particular decisions, you know, a long time ago. So we're kind of sheltered from that stuff, you know, like we definitely, when we were mouthy during the Bush years, we definitely got more of that.

You know what I mean? And like, you know, more reviews that would like reference like terrorist. scrawl and this kind of shit like this way to be like this is and we you know we live through all of that so people i mean it's interesting like we just played a bunch of shows in germany and they're definitely promoters there we've worked with for years who won't book us anymore because of their fucking yeah crazy love of the jewish people yeah they love us dog but you know like there are people over there who've yelled at friends of mine who when i see them at like fucking yell at me you know like like like what the fuck are you doing but you know i don't know

we've been we're already pretty isolated you know so we're not really um we keep chugging along but we're not i don't know i don't want to jinx it you know like yeah yeah i know but yeah it's like nobody really everyone kind of i don't know we've already cut off access and shit like that you know so yeah by by not being on social media you mean or no by decisions we've made you know like there's things that we don't get off or like it's whatever this is just boring industry shit and it's all horseshit you know yeah yeah well it's interesting it's interesting to me because you know i i i see the way in which bDS specifically is a huge fear of um i think a lot of Hasbarus out there.

Yeah. And because they, and I think rightfully, see culture as being, you know, something that can actually make a lasting material change if a culture, you know, especially if everyone decides Israel is an apartheid state and they start acting like it is. And recently there was an article that came out in the Toronto Sun. Well, not recently. published in February 2024 just

about how anti-Semitism in the music industry is a long standing issue and unfortunately for some this was an article that was written by Warren Kinsella who was the lead singer of the Hot Nasty's

I don't know if you guys are familiar with Warren or anything but yeah I know the name I had no idea he was a lead singer of anything yeah yeah uh just sounds like a standard name of a canadian conservative newspaper pundit yes warren cancella warren cancella warren can it's like the hot nasties is his weekend blues band or what like because yeah i think he is just a pundit you know oh yeah well it said uh this is this is how the toronto son had uh uh they said he was the lead singer of the hot

nasties um but uh perhaps perhaps they are a short lived guelph bar band they sound great but yeah in the in the article he goes on to I mean I just I just want to show you a little bit of it

just because I was just so taken aback at the very top of it in which we've got Kinsella anti-semitism in the music industry is a longstanding issue and then a picture of Roger Waters you know right there

and then quote you fucking Jew Now, anyone looking at this article immediately thinks that Roger Waters was yelling, you fucking Jew at someone, as it is a picture of him pointing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then quickly it's revealed, once you scroll past the ads, that that is what the big skinhead wearing, drowned the boat people t-shirt had just called the lead singer of the Calgary punk band

The Hot Nasty's. Hold on, so Warren Concella is not. the lead singer of the Hot Nasty's. No. I mean, this is what it said in the article. I don't know if Warren Kinsella is the lead singer of the Hot Nasty's. He's referring to himself. The Toronto son thought he was.

Okay, I'm confused. Well, let's see what happens. Let's see what happens. I believe he's talking about himself, but we'll see. Oh my God. That's a really funny way to write. Okay. Let's see. The Nasty's had just finished their set at the University of Calgary's Mick Ewan Hall opening for the popular

British punk band 999 when someone spotted the skinheads making Nazi salutes. The skinheads and his buddies continue to spew Jew hatred. The hot nasties lead singer and lead guitarists continue to tell the skinheads to shut up or else.

The skinhead threw a punch, a fight erupted. The skinheads retreated on that night at least, bloodied and bruised, but vowing to return. And they never... Sounds like a really, really funny kids in the hall skit. Yeah, I mean, especially... Especially him writing about himself.

And they really never really left. Because anti-Semitism remains a significant problem popular culture and in the music industry in particular. We've been seeing plenty of it since the atrocities of October 7th. First of all, that entire anecdote was about a skinhead at a show that got... When he was in college. Yes. got beat up by both the lead singer of the band and the crowd.

And immediately, it's like, yeah, there's a lot of anti-Semitism in the music industry. Just completely extrapolating the fact that Nazis do exist and listen to music. And oh, these bands are. You could also frame it as drunken hooliganism exists on Alberta college campuses. Right. at at rock shows so now we're about to go from uh there's uh nazi punks out there to here's all the people who are supporters of we know there's nazi punks out there right wasn't the dead kennedy's wrote a song telling them to fuck off yeah exactly um so yeah uh evidence

uh evidence that showed up again this week roger waters regarded it as an anti-semit by his own former bandmates in Pink Floyd, was this week dropped by his music publisher, BMG, as Variety reported Rogers' anti-Semitic statements, quote, infuriated his former bandmates as they have driven off several suitors interested in acquiring the wizening pans recorded music catalog, which was said to be on the market for half a billion dollars, which is a very funny reason. That's to me, I'm like. Also, funny use of the word whizening. I like, you know, just the word whysenic. Like, the adjective I use, when Pink Floyd comes on mind, I'm like, ah, whizening. But it's typical Canadian pundit prose, like just overly, like, just reaching for some fancy sounding word. You haven't really checked out what it means. Yeah, it's UCC talk.

It's like, I'm a really good boy. Yes, yes. Yeah. I mean, listen, that is a very, very. wisening band. Let's be real, you know? I think it just means old in this case. Yeah, aging. It's the Soros talk is what it is. Yeah. Other artists who have refused to perform in Israel or cancel gigs there because of pressure from anti-Semites who make up the BDS movement. From the anti-Semites who make up the BDS. Yeah, yes. Like that's all it is. Right, right. Include but are by no means limited to

Rage Against the Machine Cyprus Hill Patty Smith The Strokes Julian Casablancus System of a Downs Serge Tonkian Questlove

Godspeed you black emperor shout out Run the Jules Antiflag Santana Sting Lord Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey Shakira Elvis Costello Lauren Hill Pharrell Williams Snoop Dog Coldplay Lenny Kravitz

Cassandra Wilson Cat Power and unfortunately many more They got the punctuation on your band written band name wrong that's how you punctuate the original source material after which you named the band right no no no no we moved the exclamation point a few years ago to what's that we moved the

exclamation point many years ago oh you did okay up with the movie thing so okay okay okay got it so on the album i've got here you still had it at the end of the name now you've got it after the you okay got it now it's after you um which i i think i one thing i really appreciated about this particular moment of I don't know, mass hysteria among Zionist pundits and writers is the confidence in in like everyone agreeing with them to the point at which they're just going to make a list of what I would consider now

cool bands. Like that is, and it's great to hear. Like some of these things I didn't know. First of all, Lana Del Rey, shout out okay I had no idea that the strokes Julian Casablancus was cool as shit

you know Snoop Dog is doing BDS yeah God bless him yeah that's like this is this is all wonderful news it's a psychedelic list yeah it's pretty great

unfortunately it does go on to point out a few outliers which is very sad some notable artists who refuse to along with the BDS bigotry, however, Nick Cave of the birthday party and bad seeds refused to cancel a show in Israel, memorably saying at the end of the day, there's maybe two reasons why I'm here. One is that I love Israel and I love the Israeli people, and two, is to make a

principal stand against anyone who tries to censor and silence musicians. What bravery. Very brave. Tom York of Radiohead had... Sorry. Adam just wrote, Snoop Dog refuses to perform in, uh, isle real. Isle real. Very good. Tom York of Radiohead had similar views posting on X. We don't endorse, uh, Netanyahu any more than Donald Trump, but we still play in America. Music, art, and academia, uh, is about crossing borders, not building them. Okay. Can I say something about this motherfucker and that argument? Both those please please do and tom york are especially galling because nick cave like i speak for the dispossessed i'm the

you know the air of johnny cash or whatever right and fucking radio head who made bank by being like we have politics and we have feelings you know yes okay first of all when the when that when bds approached them saying please don't play these shows we're fans please don't play these shows it was a different time they could have just fucking ignored it you know what I mean they could have just played the fucking shows and people would have some people would have been bummed it wasn't like right now you know but instead they had to be like how dare you how do you know I make art for people and that's what it you know yeah and fucking the sorry can you bring that Tom York's quote back up again whoever yeah yeah so yeah this oh hang on this uh

Okay, the non-endorsing thing. Okay, there is not, if there's a BDS thing for the United States and people were like, hey, please don't play America, you know, like America has to change and it needs to be, you know, isolated in the world. Right. That would be a fair argument to make, you know what I mean? It's like leaving aside the fact that people who actually, as far as I can tell, God bless them, liked Radiohead were like, please don't fucking play these shows, please. You know? And the reaction is like, fuck you. You know, it's it's it's it's it's it is it's completely ego driven too because that I, you know, I saw I saw in real time when that was happening because I remember around the time this was happening at the same time Roger Waters was also trying to, trying to get them to not play in Israel. And I could tell, um, that it felt I mean, obviously there is a relationship. I believe Johnny Green with their guitar player is married to an Israeli and I believe lives in Israel. But beyond that, with Tom York specifically, I could also tell it was just sort of an ego thing of like, but I'm the good politics guy.

And I think this is something that you see a lot with progressives who are being asked to talk about something. that if they're being honest, just makes them super uncomfortable and they feel like they don't want to do it because it's a risk. It's a real risk. And that's not to say that, you know, Radiohead hasn't made risks before talking about politics. But with this particular issue, you can tell that the, uh, for them, just being told, hey, it's actually fucked up for you to do this immediately causes this ego driven reaction of like, well, fuck you. You think you know better than me. All my politics are good and smart because I'm good man. I'm good guy. You know, if you're yelling at me, you must be bad guy. Well, it's the logic of an abusive partner, you know?

Yeah. Like any criticism is like, like, how, you know, it's exactly that fucking thing. It's just it's a bad human statement, you know? It's politically a fucking disgusting, you know? But it's also just a bad human statement, you know? Like, it's gross. It's also a mess too, like in terms of like the point that he's making there like you know we don't endorse Trump and we don't endorse Netanyahu and it's like I you are actually missing the point entirely if this was no one asks you not to play a country because they're unhappy with who got elected in that country yeah yeah like and also framing it that way is is is completely fucked up because you know this idea of framing it as censorship um the only censorship that's actually

happening is people being mad at you if you, uh, you know, play there. You are, you are not being censored. No one is actually stopping you. You're mad that people are mad at you about it. And you're probably mad that they have a point. Um, and, uh, and also it's, you know, this is, this is the same, it's an apartheid state. Do not play an apartheid state is what you're being asked. You're not being asked to not play there because Netanyahu sucks. Yeah. Because the society is literally an apartheid society yeah also nick fucking cave when had a tour booked in russia and when russia went into ukraine he canceled the fucking tour so what the fuck man you know like is this is this is this a real value you have or is it ideological you're revealing that it's fucking ideological like

yeah russian's bad israeli's good fuck you you know and i happen to know there was disagreement inside the band and radio head that there was yes there was a a feeling among other members that But, well, at the very least, we should play Ramallah, too. You know, if we're going to go there, we should make a point by crossing that apartheid line and that there's a strong sense that because of the domination of those two frontmen members of the group, that idea went by the wayside. And they just missed an opportunity to do something genuinely either don't play, but if you're going to play, then do something that subverts the

I would at least have seen it as an attempt even if it was like you know ill-conceived even if it kind of missed the point I would have at least seen the attempt and appreciated it but instead you know and this is all pre-October 7

for me as a you know as I very much a radio head fan you know someone who I was in high school when they were hitting their fucking peak so like this has been the most as a radio head i'm an as a radio head fan as well as an as a jew uh this has been like incredibly heart to yourself you do you jew that's

why i really hurts um but yeah like it's been incredibly heartbreaking to see them in particular because like hail to the thief you know for me i was like it was a very uh i was like, ah, this is political. I loved it. And so when October 7th happened, I just in my head, I was like, please, please, please change Radiohead, please, please, say something, say anything, please. And you've just seen this absolute silence. I mean, my latest, the only thing I've heard Tom York say is that Radiohead is basically on permanent hiatus and no one wants to hear from us anymore. So, yeah, I mean, is that, is that, I mean, is that, I mean, is that, I I mean, did he say that post-October 7th?

Yeah, recently. Regarding this issue? Not regarding this issue, just regarding the future of the band. See, this is my, this was my big, my big fear is that October 7th is going to break up Radiohead. I'm sorry. This is, you know, obviously there's a lot of other horrible things going on, but I was like, if this breaks up radio, I'm going to be fucking hell as sad.

The end of Radiohead is your own October 7th. That's my October 7th, you know? so noah you're a jew you're a jew there's an excellent israeli accent if i remember correctly oh is that right it's pretty good i mean i admittedly it's out of uh out of it's out of it's been out of about out of work for a while sure how did you come by it were you a summer camp kid like me so i'll go i'll go a step further i went to israel as a teenager like i'd been as a bunch as a kid, the summer program, went to, like, a, you know, a summer camp where Zionism was a, you know, like a major part of the, of the content.

Right. But do you mind saying which youth group or which? No, it was, I went to a camp in Canada, actually. Which one? Was it Geshe? No, Massad in Winnipeg. Okay. Wow.

It was. Daniel's also a Canadian guy. Yeah, I'm from Vancouver and I went to a Habonim summer camp in British Columbia. Oh, okay. So, yeah, this was, it's not a schooled Seth Rogen in the ways of Zionism. Oh, that's fun. I, I mean, it seemed to have, like, maybe, like, half taken, I don't know. Yeah, it had half took him.

Yeah. Yeah, he, so, not he, I, uh, went to, yeah, I went to, yeah, I went to Zionist summer camp, but that was less, uh, meaningful, like, all of that was kind of, like, uh, table setting for then when I, like, went for, like, a summer. of high school and like did a program in Israel and like really uh or as they call it their hypha school i mean this was yeah like this was similar like a lot of the youth pro youth groups and stuff this was a reform movement one of different ones okay um and so this was a real uh it was it was a you know like on a 16 year old kid who like most 16 year old kids hates being in high school

and and so on it was like this is awesome i found meaning in life and then i finished high school a semester early and went back and did a semester at Ben Gurian University in like the study abroad program there and kind of realized that like like this is not as simple or straightforward as I had thought and and sort of began. What were you seeing that clued you into that? There were a couple. Some of it was just conversations with people that really did not, you know, like, um, just a kind of intolerance, uh, toward Arabs and Palestinians, like a, a base racism that is really like, like racism obviously exists in American public life in a meaningful way.

Sure. Uh, but it was, it was different. And it was from, you know, people who do not code or who did not code as anything other than like, you know, quote unquote progressive or, you know, bourgeois liberal types. I think that's the. the jarring thing about it, uh, and it's something that, uh, like the rest of, at least American society, um, who's paying attention has been exposed to that they're like, whoa, what the fuck's going on? Because, uh, yeah, Tel Aviv is the San Francisco of the deep south.

I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a good way of putting it because it is like, there, there is like a degree to which like, you know, even when I went back and, and I, you know, did, you know, I was, I, I, I, I, like, went back mainly with the purpose of like, going to West Bank and meeting people or like interning it's some human rights NGO or something where I didn't do even the little work I was given or something because you know this was all like I was I was very young when all this happened and you know I just remember for me probably like the real breaking point was when I went to Hebron or Hebron and you can't really go to that city and, and, like, be, uh, up front. Like, it's, it's just the most, like, um,

it's, it's not like the way the occupation looks everywhere, but the way it looks there is such an exaggeration of all of the things about the occupation that are evil. Yeah, I've not been there, but from what I can tell, it's very apartheid. It's where a code starts his narrative of, right, like he starts at Yad Hashem, but then he pivots to and the next day I'm in. Because you I can't, and, and, you know, like, it's, you really can't, yeah, it's, it's just, so, like, visiting that, like, you know, really triggered something, um, as did, ultimately, like, when I was in college at UC Berkeley, I was very involved in the student arm of J Street, which was how I met a lot of people who are now, um, doing, you know, it was a really interesting time to be involved in that, because it was essentially a lot of kids who had grown up in, like, like I did, like, you know, fundamentally Jewish milieus. mostly not, you know, really not orthodox, but somewhere, you know, reform and conservative. And there was just like a really earnest belief that the Obama administration was serious about, you know, negotiating a two-state solution and all these things. And the disillusionment that many of us felt

over the course of those two administrations was so substantial, I think, that like it kind of combined with what many people had, ultimately, which were real experiences in Israel and the West Bank that form their perspective, I think people, you know, like almost everybody I've worked with in those days, like J Street now is an organization that like until last week has been, you know, backing the Biden policy in a lot of different important ways. You know, so it's like a lot of the people who are in the organization kind of grew past that. And, you know, I think the like last 10 years in particular have really been, you know, this process of where like the knowledge that like I do have from having been there and and

you know knowing something about the subject uh but really largely having gone through like the the disenchantment you know um is to me like like that was actually like the most meaningful and insightful part of it like the idea of like well what was it about like the idea of israel and Zionism that like held such sway for somebody like me and um What was it like to have had every, you know, like there, it's, like, it's just not a, it's not easy. I mean, that is like the hardest part about the quote unquote like deprogramming is, because it's not just about like learning facts, right? It's not even about seeing things with your own eyes. It's like at some point, you know, like you said, you're going through this process of like, okay, I've seen with my own eyes.

How do I still remain attached to this idea of Zionism, of Israel? and whatnot, while simultaneously trying to make it more free for Palestinians. Eventually, like, the thing that is required is deep introspection. And that's, like, asking someone to be looking at themselves is almost not practical. I would add, in defense of my opposition to myself, I don't think you have to even be a particularly introspective person to go through this kind of process. I think that one of the things that has been kind of seated in like the discourse around Israel and around people's relationship to it is the degree that it's not like, oh, my God,

has like Israel corrupted American Jewish institutions and all that. Like the issues in American Jewish life like are much bigger than Israel and have to do with like the general, like, what purpose does a religious movement serve in a world where like nobody gives a shit about being religious or the people who do are like increasingly reactionary? and insular. It's that like when you, you know, like what feels like people leave is that like, oh, no, no, no.

Like this isn't like, like what you see in Israel and like what you encounter is not normal. And to make it normal, you have to have had all of this preexisting ideological conditioning or to have been like exposed to like a different facet of like, you know, the American media apparatus or whatever media apparatus that like gets you to like buy into it. Because it's not like, if you believe,

leave on the most basic like elementary school level kind of like morality that you're brought up with. It's just not possible, you know, it's just straight up not possible to rationalize unless you start accepting active truths that you say out loud, like, well, that's just how Arabs live. You know, things like that. That's just not, yeah. And the the piece of introspection that I think is required or at least helps a lot, the enzyme, let's say, the introspective enzyme that'll catalyze that reaction. And this is why on some level, the mind doesn't want to go there. Because you know you're going to have to give something up.

You have to ask yourself, what am I getting out of holding on to this illusion? Why do I not want my illusions to be dissed? Why am I with Axel Rose saying, I've worked too hard for my illusions just to throw them all away, one of my favorite lyrics? Hell yeah. And I think that it comes down to what Matt was saying about, you know, I'm holding on to this idea of Jewish sovereignty and Jewish safety and Jewish strength. all that sort of stuff. And at the same time, I recognize Palestinians aren't free and I want

them, I want to work towards making them more free. But at a certain point, you realize the project of liberal Zionism is not to make Palestinians more free. It's to make yourself less uncomfortable with the ineluctible misalignment between what this ideology requires of you and what your heart or conscience or truer universalist values. The inevitable and irresolvable clash between your tribalism and your humanitarianism. And that making the palace, and that Oslo and two states and land for peace

and liberal Zionism and Shalomashav and all these things for all of the good intentioned people involved in them over the years have fundamentally been a project to buy time for the Zionist conscience. Don't make me give up this up completely. I can't live without it. I don't know who I'd be without it. It becomes like to me the,

the starkness of that choice became clear to me in sort of like abundance like I have like a couple like distinct memories from when I was in Israel like one summer I interned at an organization that was based in Tel Aviv and I lived in a couple different parts of the city that summer and I remember like you know reading the headlines every day and there were like race riots in in Tel Aviv that summer and you had um A Likud member of Knessa, you know, I remember God. She got up at a park and there, you know, so near outside of the Tel Aviv like bus station is a park where there's like a lot of African migrants or at the time. I'm not like, I don't know if it's still, but like who would, you know, essentially mill about because the Israeli government like essentially did not want to acknowledge them or offer them social services. And so just kind of like let them be there. Right. And so then you had the member of the Likud, Miri Ragev, a really nasty woman. She, you know, gave a pretty infamous speech where she got up and said like Hasudanim Ham Sartan, like the Sudanese, they're a cancer. And it, you know, like that is like there's a lot, you know, like again, like I think that, you know, now we say like, oh, well, Donald Trump got up and said like all Mexicans are rapists.

how different is that, you know, between American Israel? And like, the kind of difference was just how easily, like, you know, like Israelis put on like that, you know, war, that dehumanization. And then when the time came to apply it to, like, the other that is universally, you know, consented to as an other within society, the Palestinians, it just doesn't fucking matter. I mean, you know, it just doesn't, like, it was just scary. Because Reggie was talking about African Jews, right? Yeah. She was talking, no, no, no, she was talking about,

No, no, no, she was talking about, like, migrants, because, again, remember that this is also, like, like, Israel has, like, a really, like, the, Israeli, what consciousness is, like, extremely white, even, even, like, you know, though Israelis themselves obviously come from such a, you know, like, the majority of Israelis do not come from, like, European nations. Right. Yeah. But Israelis and Israeli consciousness is like shaped around viewing themselves as like a beachhead of Western civilization. Yeah. Even the Mizrahim are whitewardly mobile. Yeah, exactly. And so you get like a sense of like like the Sudanese at a time when by the way like Israel had like at the time, you know, like the year this the year before the events that I'm describing, there had been like, you know, social protests akin to occupy where people pitch tents and so on. Like this is a, you know, a country going through the typical like at that time, what was. happening everywhere in terms of in cost of living crises housing what have you like social discontent on that level

and it's just that like Israel speed ran to you know like literally let's run around and like light on fire like migrant like homes and refugee centers and things I mean it was really like I that kind of reality

just to experience like a bit of it keep the homeless fire burning yeah exactly and you know and again like it's all like again not of all that stuff is like that exceptional like I'm sure if you go to countries in Europe there are parts of the United States where everything I've just described happens but again what none of those places have is this like again like a state sanctioned other who are like exist in permanent subjugation and who by the nature of their subjugation will fight back right are going to be you know like you can just imagine all of the different ways in which again like we arrive at the moment we're at now where like when

those people did fight back like now like they are like israeli's society and consciousness like can't be wound back like liberal signism like liberal human values as they're supposedly stated like cannot be grafted onto a society that's already progressed to like a pretty terminal condition you know and i also think that like uh what you know while other countries also do have their like right wing you know uh psychopaths who are telling people to you know burn down migrant camps and blah blah blah blah blah um the uh i think one of the major differences uh at least from my perspective as like an american you know fucking guy uh like uh a mere freaking american a fucking real american um is that um the messaging around the uh you know support for israel

it does not include this idea of there, yes, there are some right-wing people, but there's also some left-wing people. It's more, the messaging around it is whatever Israel does, there's a purpose, and we support it. And so because of that, we don't really, like, you're not going to see most politicians, you know, trying to stop the Israeli right. Like, occasionally get your Bernie Sanders, it talks about, you know, oh, this right-wing, you know, lecoot party and whatnot. If we can only get back to the good old days of Benny Gantz. Well, the best test of this, of course, is the so-called America firsters, you know.

Yes. And I'm not cynical enough to not hold out some hope somewhere in me that like some anti-deep state, anti-intelligence agency, anti-NATO sentiment, nativist sentiment might lead to some policies that are better for the American people. But then you, but in the next breath, you look, and Vivek Ramoswamy is saying, look, if Israel wants to go root out every member of Hamas all over the world and blow them up and blow up the entire municipal center that they happen to be stationed in and kill millions of, I think Israel should do that. I mean, this is, I mean, that to me, though, is like evidence, though, of, like, those are symptoms of, like, what I would call, like, decline, you know, in the sense that, like, those are not actual, like, rival parts of the coalition that are meaningfully competing. for power as represented through the avatars of like Matt Gates at AG who hates Israel because he was allegedly blackmail. His father was allegedly blackmailed by Israel. Interesting.

Yeah, this is a, this is a story that like it's totally Googled. Mark Caputo, the journalist, has a pretty good story about it from 2021. This is sorry, side note, but that, you know, I was seeing that he didn't take, you know, A-PAC money. And then I was like, well, that seems, you know, interesting to me. So I googled it and I also found a bunch of like, um, pro-Israel statements that he has given, which I thought was, uh, but he didn't vote for the anti-Semitism bill. No, he did it. He's like, fuck that. You're not, you're going to tell me I can't say the Jews killed Jesus. Yeah. I respected that. I was like, yeah, man. Well, he's, I mean, again, like, I think, but part of that is, you know, he'll, like, I do agree and believe that he'll say anything to

anybody. A hundred percent. He, he, I went on his website and like, uh, he, he, I went on his website and, uh, he, He had a video he put out six days ago about how we should defund the UN and use that money to to fund Israel, which I thought was like just a, that was a beautiful fiscal conservative neocon psychopath take. But you're making a, you're making a larger point about the talking power and the decline. So it's basically that like if you look at like an actual power analysis, you know, like in the sense of like what are like the actual like stakeholders and the leadership? of the American government, who determines our strategic outlook and our policy alliances. And it's like, yeah, like the sort of outcomes, big picture are clear. We are going to continue like using Ukraine as a proxy and a power competition with Russia. We are going to continue arming Israel to the teeth as it carries out a genocide, in part

because it has like a disciplining effect on our enemies knowing like, well, it'll be, you know, like they're like, I'm just citing one of the many rationales that people can develop for like, why would the U.S. do this with this? You know, what is the, what is the, what is the kernel of rationality that people are clinging to when defending stuff that is like unconscionable and, you know, I would argue, like, pretty obviously strategically untenable. But like a Ramoswani, like, part of what like I think is sort of it shows just how Trump is like the mediatized people's candidate, their media, like, you know, if you're

consuming this, is that like, he's surrounded with people who play and talk every side of this and who can represent different things. on the surface and give the appearance that there is something like, you know, if not like the most, you know, like, it's like the team of, it's like Lincoln's team of rivals, except like they got hit with like the toxic sludge that that guy got in from Robocop. Like it's a, you know, it's like such a, like a like a disgusting like a zombieified version of like a normal concept. And it's because it doesn't actually correspond to the real underneath, which is that, you know, you know, the U.S. has a gazillion reasons to continue arming Israel as it did under the Democratic

White House and then it will surely do again now under the Republicans. And, you know, one other thing I would add there is that like the, you know, like the reason that I would again, I began with saying that that's a sign of decline is that like if you can't justify this just on a consistent basis, like the strategic value in the relationship anymore and it has to like be justified through like discourse tricks you know yeah which is how I put it like yeah you know like through like a smoke and mirrors kind of process then like what that suggests to you is that like this is a thing you know again I described Israeli society as being in a pretty terminal condition I would say that the U.S. Israel relationship is now in a terminal you know it's it's like the fucker's ripe you know it's not

gonna I don't think that you know and by the way that ripeness can last decades more you know what I mean like I don't mean to say that oh yeah it means that by June next. yeah we're going to have his routine like that's not what i mean it's it's like i think that there is you know but like there's um they're making decisions and setting themselves on like a historic trajectory uh that is like you know to me it just suggests that like yeah like these like the basis of your whole podcast like is in part because like this is like a like it is like the the noise of their death rattle right how long it is how long and annoying it is it is it is fucking it's uh it's the fucking

T-1000 melting in the fucking lava and just just being like I'm gonna change in every fucking guy changed into this whole movie and and so you just you're watching uh what seems like very confused messaging for a country that's being like you know we're we're a powerful nation who will destroy you and also I saw a quilt at the UN and it made me cry I'm gonna tell the teacher to take out the quilt um which It was a story I have to play a little bit of, for those of you who haven't seen it. At the UN, apparently, there was something called like a peace quilt or something like that. Children made a bunch of different panels, you know, like they drew with colored pencil or whatever the fuck.

And, you know, it says shit like peace and like, you know, a globe and everyone's hugging it. and not in like a anti-Semitic Der Sturmurmer way, you know? And then fucking, what's the name of this fucking guy? It's the permanent representative to the UN, Israel's permanent representative, Danny Dannon went there and he shot this video, which we'll just take a look. For a man named after a yogurt, he's... He sure has no culture. He sure has no culture.

Well, you guys know, I mean, we'll get to this, but I do hope that you guys know about like his couch incident. I do not know about his couch incident. All right. Well, so we'll, we'll, let's, I want to see this quilt episode, but then we'll like round it out. I want to, I'll send you the link for it. Yes, please do. Please do.

Here at the main entrance of the United Nations, where thousands of people are passing every day, the UN decided to put an exhibition about world peace. Look at the drawings of children from all around the world. nothing about Israel nothing about our hostages look what they have they don't recognize Israel they promote

so that is he is pointing to a panel on this wall of children's drawings one of them has a piece of watermelon that looks like the borders of Israel slash Palestine and it says from the river

to the sea Palestine will be free and I love this notion of look at this whole quilt Nothing about Israel. Yeah, nothing about the host. It's anti-Semitism by omission. Yeah, exactly. He's disgusting children, hope for an ended genocide.

Shout out to producer Adam 11. Shout out to producer Adam. Here we go. Hate in those drawings. Hate, look at all the hate. Teach peace, free Palestine, peace comes from within. Peace, peace, peace, peace. Yeah, hateful.

But I love the way he ends this. I demand that the UN will remove the exhibit immediately and will stop with hypocrisy against Israel. Oh, man. Just like calling for the removal of the the children's like turkey hand paintings that say love is good is like fucking insane. And that and that to Israel like no speech, you know like no news is good news. For Israel, no speech is hate speech. Like if you don't, if you're not talking about us, you hate us. If you are talking about us, you hate us.

Anything that's not our official talking points about ourselves is an attack. And that is the fragility and brittleness and extreme volatility of Bad Hasbara because it requires constant revalidation. Right, right. And within very specific parameters. Yes. Like the revalidation has to be what's on. the fucking talking points memo

or else it's things are... If you're not reading your children official Sahel press releases and teaching them word for word to... If you're bleeding, you're bleeding. If Alon Levy is not your babysitter

at the top of your babysitter club, you are... You are a Nazi. Come on, no. We're trying to... I'm trying to... I mean, listen, Luke. He's looking for the couch article i could tell i really am no it's i mean it's because i want to say all right so i'll i'll tell you what it is from memory because i remember but i wanted to find like a source

so denon is like he's like headline from like 11 years ago about him is like he's israel's ted cruz like he's um like and that's a compliment uh no no no it wasn't then for sure but it was definitely but the idea though is that it's you know like like but now look at him he's in the fucking u.s like what the fuck does that tell you about like oh they're annoying guy whatever Yeah, no, they win. He was the representative of the UN and there was an incident like Israel has very fucked up

in weird relations with Turkey like Turkey is publicly you know, a conservative like Islamic country and and it in the government at least especially with under the AKP and Erdogan

and they publicly obviously positioned very strongly against Israel but then privately there's like there's meaningful trade and and and some, and we can assume strategic relationships. Right. Strategic relations that go on between them. However, like, Israel had to, I remember this, that, like, there was, like, like,

Danone gave some press thing where, like, he invited the guy in, and they had, like, they took photos to, like, you know, show, like, we're having, like, you know, this is us having, like, an incident. Like, we're expressing our discomfort at each other in this office. And then Danone is, like, turning to the report is. And he says, and as you can see, I've put him in a lower chair as a mark of shame. like just telling the report like what he's like I remember and it was you know it was like I'm sure like it's frustrating because Google both sucks now and like the keywords for this story are like unfortunately obscured but like no I have like very explicit memories of Danny Danone doing this like he's exactly the kind of guy who would be like listen the children on the on the quilt chemise Yeah, I mean, so he actually, was he able to, did he put him on the little couch?

Did he put him on a little? I think he did. It was like, and then, but the thing was is then, like, somebody's translating it. And it's like, wait, what the fuck? Like, I don't know if like the guy ran out of the room, but it was like subsequently, it was like viewed again, because this was at a phase, though, when like, when Israel did something like that, its hands got slapped. You know, now, now the country's comparatively, like, far more shameless. Oh, my God. Yeah.

I've never seen, I mean, this video is a perfect example because I can't think of anything more shameless than being like, I'm going to, I'm going to tattle on the UN for the children's drawings, especially when like one of the biggest crimes you're accused of is just unrelenting child murder for the last year. Well, I got an idea they could take that quilt down, put it on the couch. And then when J.D. Vance goes to visit, he'll be really happy to, oh, fuck the quilt on the couch. Yeah. No, but it was funny, though, when people were saying it was a couch fucker. Like early, it was funny. I'll admit. But, yeah, so the, of course, the way this story goes is they did not remove the quilt. they took down or they covered the panels that were offended. They hunted the children down. They hunted the children down.

And they reeducated them. And yes, exactly. And even though the quilt was not fully removed, of course, Fox News just said it was. UN removes quilt panel artwork calling for Israel's extermination after facing backlash. They did not. So it is still there. I'm sorry. Bradford Betts is like a tech mobile fake guy name.

What's that? Bradford Betts. Bradford Betts. Like, sorry, like making fun of names is corny. No, you're 100% right.

No, but to your point, like there is like a quality where like what they are trying to do pretty clearly to me at least by doing that is like, well, like, you know, we use when we do use exterminate with people and people compose a state, we are talking about the Holocaust usually. So therefore we can now acceptably use the term,

exterminate to talk about Israel. Yeah, that's what they're doing. And it's always, it's always what they're doing. It's always what they're doing. It's, it's why they can go from, it's like Scooby-Doo. It's always a motherfucker in a mask, you know? Yeah, every single time. It's always the same thing, every goddamn time. Yeah, and I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for, never mind, I got away with it. Um, and he did claim victory after they covered up some of the panels. I think they removed like a portion of the quilt and just to just to round it out yesterday i exposed the hypocrisy in the u.n. all right it's too fast i expose the hypocrisy of the u.n through an exhibition featuring children's drawings where the state of israel was erased and filled with hateful imagery

and firmly after firmly addressing the u.n. leadership there's no you did not firmly address anyone he made a video complaining to the mods. Well, no, he absolutely, but he made a video complaining to the mod. He also probably, like, had an underling, like, go and, like, throw a fit in the out room of, like, the secretary general. Someone was punching and crying. He wants the, the biggest toddler in Israel to have his own panel on that quilt, which is Benjamin Netanyahu, with his little diagram of the whole territory.

That's right. Yeah. That's true. It is, like, actually, this makes so much more sense now, because. like, Bebebe loves props. He loves props. I think all Israelis love props. Actually, wait, you guys should do.

I watched a really good documentary recently. Who got the props? Who got the props? What's the talk? King Beebe. King Bee. It's made by Israeli journalists. And it's like, it's not like, it's the last part of it's like kind of me.

But it has like a great, like it tells the story of Netanyahu's political career through like media essentially, which is a great prism to deal with both because it means that like, the thing is told pretty much exclusively through archival. Yeah. But it, like, shows you how much of, like, a trickster he's always been. And, and his love of props? Well, yeah, that goes into it. He's the gallagher of genociders.

Well, he had, there's, um, some woman who gave classes about, like, how to do public speaking and stuff. Like, there's one clip ever of Netanyahu and his job as, like, a diplomat speaking in English where he looks like shit and he doesn't sound good and he's mumbling. And it's like the last. And, like, the people in the dock, like, put it, like, this is the last time you'll ever see him like this. Because then he does, like, these speaking courses and, and they play the tapes from the woman who does it. You know, he did Toastmasters Israel, just to play off the, the rest of the video here.

I just want, I just want to show how, how this goes. After firmly addressing the UN leadership, this exhibition was fixed. Fixed. I love the, the, the fucking, just this photo here. It's like, they brought in the Israeli Ray Donovan to fix it. You can't actually. tell what's been fixed. What you see is a ladder and a quilt. And it just, this is, this is a possibly one of the three quilts taken down. There's a big blank space on the wall. Now it's

been fixed. Yeah. Look at you. I fixed it for you. We fixed it for you. Yeah. And these anti-Semitic drawings will remove from the walls. We will stand up for our truth. Stand up for our truth. And each time we witness acts of anti-Semitism or hypocrisy, we will confront them head on just just uh it the there's something about the pettiness of which the pettiness that they'll allow themselves to like be caught up in you know whether like we we will not let a single act of anti-semitism go um it's it's um well because they view it i mean there is you know this is there there's they've also reached a point though where part of what they're like trying to combat is like the very like like they have now

a worldview or like a system of belief about how anti-Semitism works which is that like to stop the the condition from spreading you've got to attack the germs right wherever they exist yes yeah and so that literally like it's you know um and and it's you know clearly i mean at least to me it's like part of that is like a direct function of like their material reality in that like they just don't have anything to do aside from post all day and so like getting upset at stuff and like you know it's it makes total sense relatable exactly no it's extremely relatable um you understand why zionism was so appealing to me at a young age um but just combing through things looking for the germ of anti-semitism because you don't want that chip to blow precisely you can't let anything go because if you let something go

well, you may have just let the thing, you know, you may have just let the fox in the henhouse. Now, what foxes in the henhouse do not count? The people who are like, as long as they're pro-Israel, but we'll like talk about like Jews needing to all be in Israel so that Jesus can come back and stuff. That's okay.

That's not a germ. That's actually the kind of, that's like the good bacteria. Right. That doctors tell you about. That's exactly right. That's the good bacteria. That's 100% right. Because, you know, it's for them, it really is, you know, Anti-Semitism is always just been a tool for the state of Israel to use to their advantage one way or the other.

It's just very clear that you know, you call out anti-Semitism whenever it's, you know, somehow will hurt the Zionist project and you and then you say something isn't anti-Semitism or you allow anti-Semitism when it strengthens the Zionist project, which is why, you know, evangelical Zionists are fucking like. allowed to say shit like all the Jews should move back to Israel so that Jesus can come back and you know kill most of the Jews shout out to shout out to the new UN ambassador Mike Cuckabee oh my God yeah and of course you know as I've said a 16 zillion times on this podcast Israel and the Zionist project is the biggest anti-Semitism factory in the world that runs on its own effluent like it runs on its own product it creates the anti-semitism

it runs on it it sources it from all over the world where it can't find it it fabricates it I mean that's hard like it's nuts and the extent to which also they both view this as an active policy in different circumstances like they'll pursue that they will do things

that they know stir things up and then they will also you know, unconsciously. I mean, like, even through other designs, if it does happen, because, you know, they decide, like, well, what if we, like, have our consul general meet with and, like, really blow a lot of hot air behind the sales of, like, college students in a given city to, like, target SJP, you know, if that makes people, like, get pissed about Jews, great, more people that come to Israel. I mean, where they really don't give a shit about this and where they actively foment the perception is in Europe because they're convinced that, like, the next

a great, meaningful immigration wave of, like, well-capitalized people that they can get are, like, Jews who have to leave Europe because they're scared of, like, Muslims, uh, which is an insane statement, I know, starting with, let's say, Amsterdam. Maybe that's what that whole debacle is about. Let's go, let's go source some, let's go root some, some people up. Let's, let's, let's go, uh, talk to our potential, uh, next immigrants about how unsafe they are there. Let's go create the conditions on the ground where we would plausibly be a better option for them. Yeah. I think that there is in some, with some of them, too, the, like, active thought that there is a,

um, like, part of what I think in general, like, feels that is like the act, the actual active thought, which is not like, you know, like, if we mess this shit up, these guys will move here because they, they realize how unsafe it is here. Like, that's the like second order. Right. Of course. Yeah. Like what to me is always a part of it is like that they actually have like a real

kind of like shocking amount of chauvinism about like Jewishness and who is a Jew and who's not a Jew and like when they encounter like and they are Jew when and being non a diaspora Jews in out of Israel like in the diaspora world like they view themselves as you know it's it's like their new Jew it's like real like real real real intense yeah no I think that's exactly right. Thank you so much for watching that. Please like and subscribe, and please support us. Patreon.com slash badhasbara or go to badhasbara.com. Ah.