Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - [UNLOCKED] 239: Interview With The Empire, with Julian Andreone

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

Matt and Daniel welcome Drop Site Capitol Hill Reporter Julian Andreone to talk about whose walking talk walks the walk, and who’s all talk.Please donate to HEAL Palestine: https://www.healpalestine.org/Join the Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/badhasbaraSubscribe to the Substack at https://badhasbara.substack.com/Get a Youtube Membership at https://www.youtube.com/@Badhasbara/membershipSubscribe to Drop Site: https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribeJulian Substack: https://julianandreone.substack.com/Julian on X: https://x.com/JulianAndreoneJulian on IG: https://www.instagram.com/thejulianandreone/Middle School Mysteries: https://middleschoolmysteries.com/Middle School Mysteries Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/79Qk5dGLT31Y7Jte40nmNB?si=USQ380kJRA2Zz1PL9j2_TAMiddle School Mysteries Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/middle-school-mysteries-original-studio-cast-recording/6813827235Middle School Mysteries IG: https://www.instagram.com/middleschoolmysteriesmusical/TICKETS: Bassem Youssef with Matt Lieb October 10 in Los Angeles: https://www.ticketmaster.com/bassem-youssef-the-belly-of-the-los-angeles-california-10-10-2026/event/0900646CF90AFB88TICKETS: Francesca Fiorentini and Matt Lieb October 13 in Philadelphia: https://www.ticketmaster.com/francesca-fiorentini-matt-lieb-philadelphia-pennsylvania-10-13-2026/event/020064D7D1615517TICKETS: The Bitchuation Room with Francesca Fiorentini and guest Matt Lieb October 14 in Philadelphia: https://www.livenation.com/event/vvG1FZ_uLomA9S/francesca-fiorentini-the-bitchuation-room-liveTICKETS: Matt Lieb and Francesca Fiorentini October 15 in Brooklyn, NY: https://bit.ly/octoberbellhouseBad Hasbara Merch: https://estoymerchandise.com/collections/bad-hasbara-podcastWhat’s The Spin on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/50JoIqCvlxL3QSNj2BsdURWhat’s The Spin: Part 2: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3rGDqmo1trC8qwobefELSt?si=e29b8594e17c47dbWhat’s The Spin on Tidal: https://tidal.com/playlist/3cec7963-1fc5-42bc-ab7d-64fb420eb50eWhat’s The Spin Album List: https://bit.ly/whatsthespinlistSkad Skasbarska playlist: http://bit.ly/skadskasbarskaSubscribe/listen to Bad Hasbara wherever you get your podcasts.Spotify https://spoti.fi/3HgpxDmApple Podcasts https://apple.co/4kizajtSubstack https://substack.com/@badhasbaraPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Oh, bitch, no cameras us. Taco salads, us. Oh, everybody, and welcome to Bad Asbarra. The world's most moral Massachusetts lesbian bar. My name is Matt Leve. I will be your most moral co-host for this podcast. I'm Daniel Matte, your other most moral podcast host. That's right.

We're in a great mood, folks, because we already recorded the interview and it is so damn good. It is so good. It is so good. We do things out of order sometimes in order to make sure that we maximize the time we have with our guests. We like to guess Max.

We like to guess Max. We're always guest maxing on this program. And we got some Max guests. We have a wonderful guest, Benjamin Moser, who's going to be joining us in a few. Guess what? He already joined us.

And it was fucking awesome. It was a really good fucking interview. So now we're just left to pick up the other pieces of the pod, which is to tell you things like shout out to producer Adam Levin. Let him here, folks. He's on the ones and twos. Shout out to Brent, our editor, who is on the threes and fours. He's going to do some great edits.

By the way, we talk about the ones and twos. Some non-hip hop heads asked us, you know, what is that? It's the turntables. It's the turntable one, turntable two. Yes. Which means that if Matt or I ever stutter or back pedal or go back or, you know, if we ever do any sort of weird speech things, that's Adam cutting and scratching. That's right. Yeah.

That's him doing turntableism. He's doing a remix on us. Yeah. So we never actually stutter or say things like, yeah, you know, and for me in order to fill time. No, that's actually just Adam hitting the turntables and doing stuff. Threes and fours is made up. That just sounded like a natural follow-up, too, on the ones and twos. We have wonderful show.

Oh, yeah, things to tell you. I got a couple things to tell you. One, I got one. If you are in the Los Angeles area, then you should go get yourself some tickets to the Wiltern in Los Angeles to see Bassam Yousaf as well as me. I will be there. Holy shit. That's a big and a half.

I know. I know, I know, dude. Very excited about that. I'm doing a little guest setty poo over at the at the Will Turn. Shout out to Bassam for a wedding. It will turn you into a fan. That's right. It will turn you into someone who respects me as a comic. So, yeah, that'll be really fun.

I'm very excited for that. So tickets are available now for the Will Turn. Bassem Yusuf, October 10th. That's a Saturday. What are you doing? And then on the 13th and 14th, Philly Punchline, come get your tickets now. And then on the 15th, Brooklyn at the Bell House,

Thursday, October 15th, get your tickets now. Heck yes. And I want to tell. It's out, baby. At midnight tonight, it dropped. It's on all streaming platforms. I'm in Spotify, Apple Music, Title, Amazon, YouTube music. It's called Middle School Mysteries, a new musical, see?

I will feature it on the spin on Monday, even though I don't have the vinyl yet, but I'll make a little best-of, little med leave to play for you. But for now, it sounds incredible. These kids are wonderful. I'm so happy with it. I've gotten such nice feedback already. I would really love it if all of our Patreon hogs would migrate over there.

Monday is my birthday, and I would consider it the best gift besides donating to Palestine in my name so I can get a banner on a wall just like Will Manicker did. I'm just kidding. I'm doing it for the art. I'm doing it for the prestige, you know? Yes.

No, but in addition to that, if you would head on over to your favorite streaming platform and just give it its 53 minutes of pure musical theater fun, Steely Dan for Twins. I'm so proud of it. I'm so delighted with it. Even more than making puns about genocide, musical theater is the core of what I love to do.

So I would love it if people would check that out. People should. It's really great. And yeah, so you're saying that on Monday for your birthday? You're saying your birthdays on Monday? Is that what you just said? Happy birthday. Thanks, man.

Sunday night, I'm cooking a feast that my grandmother, Judy, used to make, a Hungarian feast, and I'm inviting people over, and I'm feeding them. I'm making her chocolate nut tort. and before that, a chicken papricosh and cucumber salad and nookidly egg noodles, it's going to be fucking dope. When she was serving you her Hungarian food, would she say, Who's Hungary?

All the time. Good. I'm glad that she did that joke because that's a good one. Anyways, because it doesn't work well if you go, who's Magyar? That doesn't work. You know, anyways. Make America go outside? No, no, I'm trying to make Maggiwag.

Right, right, right. Of course, of course. So other things that you need to know is today's sponsor. Today's episode is brought to you by Action Against Hunger. Action Against Hunger has been assisting the population of Gaza for more than 20 years. You've had action against Hungary. Yeah, no, we're not taking action against Hungary. Although Orban.

You know who they're friends with? We don't want smoke. We don't want that smoke. Action against hunger has been assisting the population of Gaza for more than 20 years. There are teams have mobilized to provide hot meals and fresh and dry food. Distribute hygiene kits, connect people with shelters, and transport clean water into communities. Action Against Hunger launched nutrition programs aimed at addressing the alarming increase in malnutrition, particularly among children and pregnant women.

So if you have any money and you are able to support, please do go to the link in the description, action against hunger.org. That's A-C-T-I-O-N-A-G-A-I-N-S-T-H-U-N-G-R. Do it now. Daniel, what's the spin? I love doing spins in honor of our guests given names. Today it's all about the Benjamin's, Ben's, Ben's, and Bennies. I feel bad that he's going to have missed this spin that was dedicated to him. I'll send it to him.

So first of all, we have Benjamin Britain, the American. Was he American or is he English? I figured he was English because of the last name. No, he's English, of course. Thank God. He lived on the east coast of England near Suffolk. So this is the young person's guide to the orchestra. Hmm.

Okay. You get to hear all the different instruments. Andre Benjamin, of course. Meet the twin Andre Ben. That's right. Outcast, Aquim and I. Quimini, good album. Their best album, I believe.

Okay. You like what? Stankonia? I mean, yeah. I feel like that's pretty obvious. It's not obvious at all. Stankonia is an 8 out of 10. This is a 10 out of 10. What about Southern Plaelistic Cadillac music?

It's a little thin. It's young. It's amazing. And A.T. Allians is a 9 out of 10 as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, I was going to say, but you're going to Equamina. I'm going to Quimini. That's fine.

To me, Aquamini is the most... Yeah, it just... I got to listen to it again. I got to listen to it again. Do. Maybe I've been... Just because, you know, it's like how many, you know, what I'm going to listen to?

Every album a thousand times over and no. Yeah, and I'm not talking about the single Rosa Parks. It's not... Like, that's a cool song. But the album as an album is just extraordinary. I got to listen to it. Ben Folds Five. Ah.

She's a brick and I'm drowning. That one? Yep, that's exactly right. And then there's also the song about give me my something back, bitch. You bitch? Yeah, she's a bitch and I'm drowning. No, there's something about like, give me back, give me my money back or give me my shirt back or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When are you coming from Ben Fultz? Ben Verrine, legendary Broadway performer, star of Pippen, written by Stephen Schwartz, who wrote Wicked. About the Chicago Bulls. Exactly right.

Yeah. Scotty. That's right. Benny Goodman. All right. Benny Goodman, pure gold. Love this dude. Yeah.

Clarinettist. It's good Jew. Classic, classic Jewish instrument. The clarinet. It really is. I mean, you know, I just, I can't hear a clarinet without thinking of a Jew walking down an avenue. Yeah, no, we really made it our own. I mean, there's some good clarinet parts in, you know, Christian.

classical music, but no. I'm sure. Klasmer and then jazz clarinet. Benny the butcher from the Griselda crew out of Buffalo, New York is one of the fiercest bar spitters on the plant. Oh my God, if you don't know Griselda, go listen to them. Benny the Butcher, Conway the Machine,

and West Side Gunn, just inheritors of Wutang Mobb Deep, gang star, like, just bar spitting and great dusty beats and Benny the Butcher is the finest rapper among them, all coke-wrapped, like just coke-dealing and whatever, but he's fantastic. And this album is called

Tana Talk 4. And finally, our episode could be, although I think we might have better titles in the mix, but it could be called, B'Binji and the Jews. Elton John's greatest hits. Yes. There we go. Hell yeah. That's great. I love a greatest hits. It's a really good greatest hits,

and it skips over a lot of his other the Lion King soundtrack Yeah I don't think Elton John is such an album Guy I think he's the greatest hits guy Kind of like Billy Joel Like their greatest hits Are better than a lot of people's greatest hits

But their albums are nowhere near as good I'll admit I actually don't think I've ever just listened to an Elton John album before I've just listened to a Elgin'Jon John album before I've just Good By Red Leverick Road is good Mad Man Across the Water is good Okay

But yeah So that's what's spinning over in the Matte household okay, it is now finally time to introduce our guest. Very excited to have him on the podcast. First time. Hopefully not last time. We have a lot of great guests. Some have written books.

Some are just comedians. And the hope is always that they decide to come back again. The hope is that the comedians get a little smarter by being on the show and that the authors, the Pulitzer Prize winning authors, get a slightly bit dumber. That's right. We're trying to equalize things. Exactly. We want one world with everyone having the same intellect. Very excited to introduce him. He is, as you said, a Pulitzer Prize winner. God dang. He just put out a wonderful book that Daniel and I have been reading anti-Zionism, a Jewish history. Ladies and gentlemen and everyone else, welcome to the podcast. Benjamin Moser. Welcome, Ben. Nice to have you. Can I call you, Ben? You can call me whatever you want, Daniel.

That's how I first met you, Ben. I met you a couple of summers ago in England at a retreat featuring Avis Shlim, and you and I were the only two Ashkenazis in the place. I know. I've never felt like racially profiled as an Ashkenazi, but that was a first. It was amazing. It was all Sephardic Mizraqi academics, you, me, and a Palestinian chef. And at the time, you were working on this book,

And you must have been speaking to Avi in preparation to write about him because he's in one of the chapters, right? Well, I actually wasn't speaking to him. I mean, I knew him a little bit, and he invited me to it. I was actually looking for Arab Jewish characters to include, because as I just said, being the Ashkenazic norm in the Jewish world, I think a lot of us, you know, most of the people you know growing up in this country are Ashkenazic. But in fact, the Arab Jews are a big part of the story of Zionism, and they're a big part of the story of anti-Zionism as well, because they knew very early on that if Zionism got going and it became a real thing, that it would directly threaten their communities. And in fact, it did destroy their communities. Strange that residents of the jungle wouldn't want a villa in it.

I know. I know. I know. They were swinging from trees, you know. Yeah, right. And, but you know, that's a part of the story. Swinging from non-existent orange trees. On non-existent trees. Like, someone else needed to make the desert gloom. Yeah, someone else had to do that. It was, yeah, it was rough.

But no, so I went to that retreat because Avey said, you know, you should come because there was all these Arab Jewish thinkers and scholars and people there. And it was really a lot of fun. And I learned a lot. And then I realized kind of after it, because I was looking for somebody else. And I just. realize how Avi's story is so rich. So everybody in this book, they stand for something about themselves,

you know, like their own story. But they also, I'm using them as instances of something bigger. So in Avi's case, he tells the story of the Iraqi Jews, right? What happens to the Iraqi Jews? The oldest Jewish community in the world, which within two years, after 2,500 years of living in Iraq, they're gone. Almost every single person is gone.

These are the Jews of Babylon, yes? The Jews of Babylon, the Jews who came, whose arrival in Iraq in Mesopotamia is recorded in the Bible. And that's Avi's community. By the rivers of Babylon where we sat down. And there we we wept when we remembered Zionism. Right. I mean, yeah, and like that's one of the funny things about the Iraqis and the people who are in the Ottoman space for centuries and centuries is that these people could have easily gone to Palestine. They were in the same empire.

They could have just gotten a U-Haul and headed over there. It's not that far. They never did. Yeah, you make that point in the book. I think it's one of the first things that popped out to me as like something I just had not considered, which was, you know, we talk about exile in this way as if the Jews of the world up until 1948 were literally barred from going to Palestine. And I was like, oh, right, no, we could have gone to Palestine. In fact, there were millions of Jews in the Middle East in Iraq and, you know, in the MENA area, who at any point could have.

And just we just don't consider the fact that they didn't because they had no interest in it. They had no interest. It's like saying, like I'm from Texas. It's like saying I always longed to move to Cleveland. Right, exactly. But nobody would let me. And it's like, well, actually, I could have gone to Cleveland, but like there's a flight that leaves at 945 a.m.

That's, so that story in general, the story of the Arab Jews and the story of what happens to the Jews in the Muslim world, what happens is that Zionism needs to create a dichotomy between Jew and Arab, which had never existed before. So in the book I say that, you know, Arab was like saying Latin American. You know, it was, there's people from, they have a similar culture,

You know, there's lots of differences between the countries. There's lots of similarities. But they're basically, you know, especially when like Latin Americans outside Latin America, you know, like in Europe, someone from Ecuador and someone from Colombia, they get along just fine. It's not that different. And those people are also, they're black, they're indigenous, they're Jewish, they're Japanese, they're whatever, but they all consider themselves Latin Americans.

And the Arab world was like that too. You have lots of Christians, you still do. You have lots of Jews. You have lots of people from all sorts of different Islamic backgrounds and different sects and stuff. But Zionism needs to create a division. So that says the Arabs are on this side and we're the Jews and we're over here. And that's something that was not natural to the Middle East. The Middle East was always an incredibly diverse place where people did have conflicts sometimes.

But as Avi points out, so when I choose Avi, I finally did choose Avi. It was after the retreat where Daniel and I met. it's because so he tells the story of the Iraqi Jews. And then he also tells the story of how the Arab Jews are treated in the Israeli state, which is, you know, not to give anything away, but they did not get treated very well. It wasn't exactly Operation Magic Carpetbagger. Magic Carpetbagger. No, it was really like, like they were brought in basically as the hired help.

Right. And they were better because they didn't want to dirty their hands with like paying Palestinians because they had boycotted Palestinians since the early 20th century. So they brought in all these Jews, but they really didn't think of them as equal. They thought of them as kind of dirty, primitive people. And it's funny in the book, you see the things they say about the Arab Jews when they're trying to be nice to them. It's hilarious. I mean, it's hilarious.

But they say things like, oh, we needed these childish Jews who were so in touch with their animalistic feelings. You know, I mean, it's like kind of amazing. Like you think if this is what they're saying about the Jews, just imagine how racist they are against the Palestinians and other Arabs. But like, so he tells that story. And then Avi goes to England. His mother finally gets him out of Israel when he's 15. She sends him to England, which is the big break in his life. And he becomes a historian, but not a historian in the Middle East.

And then he gets interested in the Middle East, of course, as everyone kind of does get sucked back into the subject, including me, including you guys, obviously. And he becomes one of the new historians. And this is in the 80s. This is this movement to actually reevaluate the Zionist mythology. Alongside Benny Morris, right? Right. Alongside Benny Morris, Elon Pape, this guy Simcha, Flapan, who dies pretty early. He wrote the first book my dad ever read that kicked him over from Zionism into anti-Zionism. Yeah, so that was 87, if I'm not mistaken.

And the new historians are really interesting because they're the first people who are, they're Israelis, and they're looking in the actual Israeli archives and seeing like, what were we told in school that is wrong. So, you know, did the Arabs gang up against the Zionists in 1948 because they were anti-Semitic? And they were, it was a David and Goliath thing. You know, and so Avi and others dismantle this myth. All right, so that's the second part of what Avi can illustrate. And then the third part of it is his evolution into Frank anti-Zionism, because he's not really an anti-Nadioz. I think a lot of us, I don't know about you guys, if you were smarter than I was.

But like, I started off as a Zionist. Same. I wasn't fanatical about it. Like, I didn't have parents. I had parents who were American Jews, who liked being American Jews. They never even went to Israel. They went all over the world. They never even went there.

But they thought Israel was a nice thing. And they would never have said this or even thought it, probably. But I think, like, a lot of people, they kind of thought Palestinians were terrorists. Yeah. And so did I. I mean, I'm not exempting myself from this at all. I didn't, you know, and we didn't really see Palestinians except as terrorists. And so I think everybody in the book, so it's 12 people in the book, and everybody in the book has an evolution.

So in a sense, it's a composite biography, which is unlike your previous ones, which focused on one person. Why did you choose that format? Well, I mean, I chose the format because I've always thought, so like I write biographies, right? Like I wrote a biography about Susan Sontag. Okay, it's about Susan Sontag broke up with her girlfriend, and Susan Sontag wrote this book and all that. But really what that book is about is an intellectual history of a lot of people. ideas in the 20th century. Right.

But if I called that book, like, a history of modern thinkers on metaphor, you know, that would like not, I wouldn't win the Pulitzer Prize. Like, no would have read it. I wouldn't get reviewed. I wouldn't. So I always think, like, ideas are just really so much more interesting when they're told through the lives of people. Because we all know that ideas and books and, you know, thoughts and paintings and operas and

all this, it does make a huge impact in our lives. But if you write about them abstractly, I think the whole point. of art and about of thinking and ideas is that it's real, you know, it makes a real difference. And Zionism obviously has made such a huge difference to millions of people's lives that it's, I just think it's a real thing for all of us. Like if you're doing this podcast and you're working for Palestine and for a Jewish future in the ways that you're doing, it's because like these ideas are important and we want to understand these ideas because we know they're important to us.

Right. So I think like, you know, you could write about like why did it, is it? Israel not have, like, why are they lying about who fired the first shot in the Suez War of 1956? Well, okay, that's fine. But like when you actually see like a mother who's in the car, who has a son who might be drafted into this army to go invade Egypt and get killed and have to torture and murder people, that's just, that's the reality of war. That's the reality of Zionism. Right. And you're also telling the reality of, it seems in many, if not all cases, people who came around to it, who didn't start that way. In fact, one of your, you know, not so, what can I say,

not so complimentary, not so sympathetic reviewers who all seemed a little bit or a lot defensive of the ideas you're attacking in this book from what I've read, talked about how you're telling the stories of converts like yourself. And he presented that as if it was sort of a flaw. Like, it makes your book evangelical rather than objective and a solemn, sober, historical, you know, piece of research. What's the, you know, how do you, how do you think about that? Yeah, you should only choose subjects who were born woke. That's how it worked.

Right. I became woke. Yeah, exactly. Blue blood wokeery. I was a, I was a reactionary. Yeah. No, but I think it's, first of all, I agree. This book is evangelical.

I want to make people think differently about Zionism. I want to present evidence and stories and experiences to people that I wish I had been presented to when I was younger. I think I was, I've been thinking about this a lot. Like when I was young about my own country. So I knew that this was a shitty country from the time I was pretty young. I didn't think it was only a shitty country, but I certainly was told about slavery and Jim Crow and about the Native American genocide. And about Vietnam, which ended a couple of years before you and I were born. One year before I was born.

Okay. You know, 1975. I'm born in 19th. Oh, the year, yeah, yeah. The year. No. I mean,

I grew up. I need to know. I know. Well, only my, I have a, I have a place across the street, literally. I need to move.

It's really good. But, great, great skin. I know, I know, I know. Be gay and work out, you know, that's all I can tell you.

Drink a lot of water. I do neither. I'm telling you. We're working on the, we're working on the first one. Yeah, exactly. I mean, nobody,

no way is perfect. But, I was, I was always aware of like the shortcomings of this country. Nobody hid that for me. I grew up in the U.S. South. You know, I grew up in Texas. My grandparents grew up in 100% segregated schools, 100% segregated world.

So I didn't, I was able from the time I was young to be like, okay, well, that is part of the story of where I come from. Right. And that's something that I can think in this way. about or not think about it, but I'm aware of it. Whereas with Zionism, I wasn't even given basic facts about Zionism. I was thinking, when did I hear the word Nakhba for the first time? Like, I was probably in my 30s. You know, I didn't, that was not a part of this at all.

And so, yeah, I mean, and so it is a conversion story because Zionism triumphed in our lives. And Zionism was an inevitability. I think, Daniel, I know you're a Canadian, but Matt, are you American? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the thing about it in Canada, I'm sure true is true, too. Just everybody was Zionist, not just Jews. Even more true. Even more true in Canada.

Yeah, I'm sure it's more true. Canada's even like, Canada's woker too. Or I would say that the Jews were even more Zionist than the American Jews. I'm not sure if the society at whole was as. You point out in your book, which is a point that I've often made, was that it's not just that Jews are Zionists in America. It's that America and Americans are by default Zionists. The narrative that we have is not like I, as someone who didn't grow up going to Hebrew

school, my indoctrination into Zionism was very societal. It was by sort of cultural osmosis. My dad is a Zionist. and, or was. I mean, I think he's right now, he just doesn't, he's like, I don't do politics. But the point is, is he grew up, you know, kind of indoctrinating me to some extent with some Zionism, but it was basic. It was like, this is plan B for when Hitler is, you know, reincarnated and takes power in America.

Zionism in general, it was just kind of a fact of life for most Americans. They may not know it was Zionism. it would be like, oh, yeah, the Jews have a country in Israel because of the Holocaust and stuff. And so are, by the way, all of the attendant sort of surrounding ideologies such as anti-Arabism, Islamophobia, right? Which is how we get the Libyans subplot in Back to the Future in 1985 for absolutely no reason. And it really was default. I think that, like, I knew a lot of people who had a lot of who had non-Jewish background. I don't know anybody who would have been anti-Zionist.

And I say. Right. Zionist in the basic sense of, do you think Israel has a right to exist? Like, I didn't really know Arabs or Muslims until I was a lot older. And when I first met an anti-Zionist, I write about it in the book. I was totally shocked by what she said. And she was a white Protestant person, you know, who went to college with me. So I think that the extent to which what I describe is that we thought, I thought, Israel had problems.

There was a lot that was bad about Israel. and that we criticized. But I didn't, but there's a lot of those wrong with America, too. And I didn't think America should disappear. Can I read a quote, a wonderful quote, to that effect from your book? Yeah. You say this on page 8. It was not the fault of ideas, I thought, that people had failed to live up to them.

And so, though I was disappointed by Israel, Zionism remained in my mind something pure. I thought that was exactly right. I remember that that's the logic, right? It's like there's the Zionist dream, and it's a nice. dream and dreams are good. Martin Luther King had a dream. The Zionist ideal. And if the ideal is intact, it means we can still work

towards it, hence progressive Zionism. Hence, peace now, land for peace, and the occupation. And let's get back to what it always was and was supposed to be. This was really talking about our generation and the way we grew up. So many good things, from our perspective, good

things happened. Now, like nobody told us that the fall of the Soviet Union was going to be the greatest mass impoverishment event in world history, but it seems to have been. From the perspective of people in Houston, it was really great that the Soviet Union fell, the Berlin Wall fell, that South Africa improved, that Northern Ireland improved all these dictatorships in Latin America. Oh, I did wonders for the rockets shooting percentage, I remember.

Yeah. I mean, listen, the rockets, you know, I don't know, they were champions a few times. That wasn't really my scene. Well, now they didn't need to be aiming towards the Eastern Block. you know, they could actually focus on the basket. Focus on the goal at hand. That's right. So I think that like, I think it was natural to be, to think, okay, this is a bad problem.

And we can acknowledge that this is a bad problem and something bad happened to the Palestinians as well as to the Jews. But let's just grow up here. Everybody sit down. Let's have a nice chat about it. And we're going to figure it out. This was the whole peace process. This was Oslo.

This was the Madrid conference. This was Rabin and all that on, and Arafat on the White House lawn. I'm sure that for younger listeners, this sounds like Chinese, but it was a hopeful time, and it really felt like things were getting better. So I thought, like, you could be critical of Israel. And a lot of people were. I mean, a lot of Jewish people were. But we didn't think that Israel, we thought Israel had problems.

We didn't think Israel was a problem. So that's the difference between liberal Zionism and anti-Zionism. And it took me a long time. I mean, I was probably 40 before I was. would really say, you know what, this is just a horrible mistake. It shouldn't be here. It's just unjust from the very get-go. And that's a hard thing to do, even if you're not propagandized into it as much as I did.

I was just thinking, like, my dad and I collected Israeli stamps when I was a little kid. I kind of forgot about that until, like, a couple weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah, but it was like Sabra's plucking in orange. Right, right, right, yeah. Or like a menorah. Like, who's against a menorah? Yeah, yeah.

Well, I guess that's one thing you had in common with Palestinians. They collect Israeli stamps, too, just on ID cards and, you know, on conviction notices and eviction notices and eviction notices and leaflets telling them their house is about to be destroyed in a humanitarian way. So you do something really interesting in the introduction of the book, which, again, is as far as I've gotten so far, but I found it just gripping. You decide to, in the service of debunking your own, you know, dissing your own illusion of, you know, Zionism having been a pure thing that went wrong, you go back to the source, you go back to Herzl, and you pick up a book which belonged to your grandfather, which he may never have read, the spine is intact, is this heavy copy of der Udenstate, right, the Jewish state, and you start reading it. Or the state of the Jews. Or the state of the Jews. Yes. Which you informed me for the first,

I didn't realize. It wasn't even supposed to be a political tract, a polemic. It was supposed to be a novel, like a science fiction novel, essentially, about a mythical land, a mythical society. This is so weird. So there's all these kind of famous writers out there that nobody's read and everybody thinks is wonderful. Right. They've never read them, right? And then you go in there. So I have this book. My grandfather escapes Germany in 1938. And he comes to the United States. And one of the only, the only thing I have from that time is this book. And it's quite big. I mean, it's this kind of thing. Like, if you're traveling and you have, like, you don't want to check another suitcase because it's going to cost $90 or whatever extra. You would be like, you know what, I'm just going to buy this book somewhere else.

Right. I can get this at Hudson's books once I get in. Herzl anywhere. You know, that wasn't like, it's not like a rare book. It's not like written by his grandfather or something like that. Right. But he brings this book out. It was important enough to him to bring it.

And so he brings it out. And it has Herzl on the cover looking kind of serious. and he has this long beard that's like an Old Testament prophet beard. And I always thought that book was kind of what I thought about Jewish history. It's like, okay, well, my grandfather escaped, his family managed to get out. And then the Holocaust was horrible, but then we got Israel. Right. And that was sort of that was this very simple view of Jewish history.

Well, anyway, I mean, as I've been, you know, getting more and more interested in the subject over the years and years that I've been. thinking about it. I finally read this book and I thought this is the most bonkers book I've ever read. And it's really weird because Herschel, like he's one of these people who like, like, he says everything he's thinking. Yeah. So. No filter type of guy.

No filter. If he had Instagram, you'd be checking in on him every few days. Like, is he, is he okay? Right. Or like, do you mind if I say you look really fast? And you're like, well, actually, like, I don't love that you said that, but like, thanks for your being so candid, right? Like, thanks for the memories.

But, like, you know, he's kind of one of those people who will just, he'll say stuff. And it's really interesting because it makes it hard as a biographer, because you do have to take him seriously. Right. But he has these fantasies. And he's an absolute sci-fi. He's like the El-Rohn Hubbard, the Jewish people. I was thinking the same thing.

I was like, did it turn out that Derr Udunstst is actually the Dianetics of Jews, which literally makes it Zionology. Elohenu, Ron Hubbard. Yeah, that's right. Very good. Except he hated Jews and hated Judaism. Right.

He hated, well, that's one of the things that, so like just some of the stuff he writes in there. So first of all, a few years earlier, he has this fantasy of getting all the Jews together in the cathedral of Vienna and bringing in the Pope who's going to, like, respond to this guy. who's like not really anybody.

He's like a journalist. Well, he's got a long beard, though. Well, he gets the long beard a little later. Maybe that's eventually. Yeah, he's really like, he's a pamphletist in his early 30s when he comes up with a scheme. He's going to get all the Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He's going to say everybody, you know,

you all come at 930 to the cathedral, and the Pope's going to be there and you're going to be converted to Catholicism, and it's going to be great. It's just, that's a crazy, like, when I read that, I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, the founder of modern Zionism

has also had once had a plan to mass convert the Jews of the world to Catholicism, or at least the Jews of Vienna. All of the Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was a good third or quarter of the Jews in the world. Well, in a sense, Zionism is just a modified version of that plan. Yes. I think about it.

Yes. Well, it is. And Zionism was also, the rabbis objected to it, because Zionism was taking the Jews out of religion. So not because they were going to go get converted by the Pope because nobody really took that seriously. And I think Herzl eventually kind of came back from that. But that's only three years before he writes the Jewish state.

That would be very bad, actually, for the Catholic Church. Do you imagine how long Jews would take in confession booths? Oh, my God. My God. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. But in my defense, you know, it's complicated. my childhood and she said, you know. Yeah, and then all of the priests would just be like,

and how did that make you feel? And they would just turn into psychoanalysis, and no one needs that. You know what I'm saying? And also, to be fair, it's hard for child molesters to switch mid-career to circumcised penises. They should learn to code. I mean, it would have been better.

It would have been better. But, like, it is really crazy. though. And Herzl's, he's really strange. And so he has this fantasy and his next fantasy, after he comes up with the Jewish state, he has a fantasy of crowning. He's going to create himself and his family as a dynasty over the Jewish state. And even his son, who's four, by the way, four years old at the time, he decides to crown the doge. Can you explain Doge? Because this is, this was a term I had not heard before. What is Doge? We only know Doge as an Elon Musk-Trump concoction. Right. Really? Okay. Well, I spent a lot of time.

time in Italy growing up, I guess. So the Doge is the elected, it's related to the word for Duke. It's the elected sort of constitutional monarch of the Venetian Republic. Ah, okay. And also of Genoa. So Doge, it's the title, it means Duke. It's the same route. But basically, it's kind of a constitutional monarch.

Yeah, it's still hereditary monarch, but also constitutional. It's not hereditary, but I think Herzl wanted to make it hereditary. I mean, in Venice, it's not hereditary. The point is he's looking around his apartment like... It's how ready, Terry. I'm sorry. I can't stop. Very good.

I can't stop. Very good. But like he looks around like apartment 12F, you know, wherever he's living at the time. And he's like, he's his kid, you know, watching cartoons. He's like, you're going to be the doge of the Jews. And he even sends telegrams to the son on his birthday. And he says, greetings to my father king.

And this feels like, yeah. Okay. So like, we're laughing. Crazy, blah, blah, okay, sure. He's like, Game of Thrones character. It's, it's, some kind of mad. No, he's not as good. There was, like, a writer's room involved in Game of Thrones.

Herz is just, like, he's just, like, spitballing. Yeah. And you talk about what a bad writer he is. I had, let me just read another quote, because I loved this. As Oscar Wildrides, there was no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well-written or badly written, that is all. And then you say, and the failure of Derr-Urude-State is, writerly. The charge leveled at Herzl's theater was that his characters are one-dimensional

cardboard stereotypes. A play or a novel filled with characters who confront no dilemma and are plagued by no doubt and exist only to attack or advance certain views is a bore. Yet Herzl is thunderstruck by even his most modest thoughts. Herzl is constantly wowing himself with his ideas. It's like Joe Rogan. This is like whenever Joe Rogan goes off on a tangent, just like, can you believe that like we're just this ball of gas and space or whatever and you're just like cool jami can you look up whether if you will it it's still not a dream whether it's a dream or not jami yeah i mean it's it's it's really like it's hard to like not make fun of it so that's what i write after this because i set this up and i explain also something that's very important is how anti-semitic he is and it's

really i'm not easily offended like i make jokes about how woke I am. I'm not that woke. Like I can take, I can roll with some punches. And like I'm not, you know, especially now where like everything is being described as anti-Semitic, but like he's actually anti-Semitic. In a way that is really it kind of gives you the creeps to read a lot of it.

Because it feels, you know, it feels Hitlerian almost. I mean, he's not talking about mass elimination of people, but he is really anti-Semitic. What's the line he has about wanting to hide his genitals? He's obsessed with circumcision. And he's obsessed with manliness. And this is something, by the way, that comes into Zionism and to Israel very much, is that they look down on Jews who are pacifistic, which the Jews always were. That was the principle of the religion. The main prohibition of the Torah is thou shalt not kill. So Judaism was always a principled pacifistic religion. And so he doesn't like this because he thinks it's faggity, you know, basically. And he's always talking about, he's always talking about, he's always

talking about his dick, and he's very upset that he's circumcised. And actually, the Doge son, the emperor's son, is not circumcised, which is quite remarkable for somebody who has a movement that's all about being proud of being Jewish, right? He's actually deeply ashamed of his genitals, and he writes, I am ashamed of my genitals. In a way that is really like, okay, bro, you know. And so you can make fun of him and you can laugh at him, and he's... No, I'm starting to feel for him. Well, it is a, no, but it's a real, I know, Daniel, I didn't want to, I know this is hitting close to home. Yeah.

I mean, but like, you remember that, you remember that night in England too, huh? Well, listen, we'll always have the Cotswolds. But, like, he's, he's, you have to take him seriously. Right. You have to, because he's so important historically. And he was important to people like my grandfather. I don't know how. I never knew my grandfather.

But I think he did catalyze a movement based on people who, Jews who felt humiliated, Jews who felt discriminated against, Jews who felt like... Resentful. Resentful. Well, you know, here we are. I'm doing my best. I'm living in my stettel. All I'm trying to do is like have my little shop and feed my kids and constantly humiliated,

constantly discriminated against shut out of education, shut out of economic opportunity. Maybe it is better if we just left and just. had our own society and just lived under Jesus. I think everybody understands that, but it is weird. So Herzl dies at 44. So the whole thing, so between, so which means he's like, I don't know, early 30s when he's getting everybody baptized in the church. And then 44, he's dead and he's already catalyzed this huge movement.

By the time he's dead, he's already very famous. And his works are printed in every language in Europe. And all over the world, he's known. So anyway, you know, in my book, I start off with a rabbi in Eastern Poland, Belarus, who is one of the first people to really take Herzl seriously from the Judaic, which is to say the religious perspective. And that is really shocking how quickly this guy named Aaron Samuel Tamaris understands the threat that Zionism represents. He called himself another sensitive rabbi.

Was that the name? One of the sensitive rabbis. One of the pseudonym. That's right. Yeah. His pseudonym is one of the sensitive rabbis. Yeah. And so Tamaras is really, because he loves Judaism in a way that I find totally inspiring and wonderful.

Because it's, you know, you see so many Jewish people these days and all these rabbis and all these rabbis and Yom Kippur saying, we've got to get the kids to love Israel again. Yeah. And, you know, you just think. Play that sting. Matt. Crazy Jews. No, the wrong sting.

Hold on. Right. Crazy Jewish. Nope, this one. We wanted you to be Zionists. There he is. Exactly. That's Ami Hirsch.

And they're yelling this all the louder because so many people are not Zionists. A lot of people are, unfortunately, still. But he gets, Tamaras gets really excited about Zionism because he thinks it's going to represent Jewish pride and a Jewish cultural revival, the revival of the Hebrew language, which is a big part of the early Zionist rhetoric. And he thinks it's great if people want to make. move to Palestine and live a Jewish life around the holy sites, which people always had. You know, I mean, Palestine was between 95 to 97% not Jewish, which is something that, boy, I wish I had known that my entire life. Yeah.

So he thought it was fine. You know, Canada is probably 3% to 5% Jewish, right? But that doesn't mean you're going to move into like Ontario and say, okay, everyone, we're going to ethnically cleanse you. Right. You know, there was a way to emigrate to Palestine. Palestine, you know, and build up a Jewish culture there. And nobody, certainly the Palestinians and the Ottomans who ruled over it in the Arab monarchs, they didn't object to that.

What they objected to was what we've seen. And they and Tamaras and a lot of the Orthodox in Eastern Europe understood this from very, very early. That there's no way you can put all these Jews in the middle of a non-Jewish country. I mean, that's going to be devastating for both parties. And Hurtzolsa is the only way we can do it is with imperialist support. Yeah. Was this the, I'm trying to remember if this is the same chapter in which he gets invited to maybe it was the first national Jewish or Zionist Congress.

And there he realizes that the organizers essentially are just going to speak Russian the whole time and no one is going to even attempt to try to get through to this like group of rabbi. who are all sitting up front and orthodox and they don't speak a word of Yiddish. Is that this same chapter? Well, so Zionism hated Yiddish from the very beginning, which was the majority language of most Jews and certainly in Eastern Europe.

And so it's weird, Russian was not their language. I mean, no matter how fancy you were and went to Yale or whatever the equivalent was in the Russian Empire, of course it was very hard for people to get admission to universities from the Russian Empire. But, you know, there was nonetheless this rising class of urban Jews who had been educated and who knew who were Polish speakers or Russian speakers or Hungarian speakers. But Tamaras understands that they're speaking Russian in order to make a point

about they're setting themselves off from what he sees as the sources of Jewish culture and from the actual Jewish people who are of course Yiddish-speaking people. And then this goes all the way into the Israeli state. I mean, there's a famous incident, I think, in 54, where they actually firebomb the main Yiddish publishing house in Israel. And the humiliations that they heaped on people for speaking Yiddish, in a funny way, it's not that different from how they treated Arabic speakers. They saw this as degenerate diaspora, gobbled and gook. So the movement was anti-Jewish culture because it was trying to create a new Jewish culture. I mean, the positive way to say it is, okay, we have to get rid of the diaspora, we have to

reinvent ourselves. All right, I mean, up to that point, it's okay. I guess, but the amount of violence that involved towards Jews. I mean, forget the Palestinians. I mean, that's a whole other chapter. But from very early on, Zionists showed a willingness not only to, you know, censor people and to humiliate people, but actually to murder Jewish people who are dissenters. Right. So that's its origins.

That's its founder. You know, and, you know, I suppose you can't tell everything. about an idea from the person who invented it, but you can tell a lot and the sort of madness of Herzl, what you call the Ibsen-like horror of it, because the playwright Ibsen had a quote about how when you dig under the surface,

you're going to find, of, you know, respectable people, you'll find heinous crimes. And certainly heinous thought crimes, crimes against logic, crimes against, and crimes against even his own alleged principles like Jewish pride. But moving ahead to just sort of the takeaway of your book, I want to ask you what you think people, what are the most overlooked inherent aspects of Zionism, overlooked by people who still adhere to Zionism, but also even by people who

oppose it? Like, what do people miss about this ideology? that it's worth knowing that you're trying to bring to light in the book. What did you learn about the nature of Zionism? I learned so much about it that I actually was, again, I was kind of shocked and ashamed almost that I didn't know all this stuff. I think if I can put it really bluntly, after this process of many years of studying, because I studied Hebrew in college,

like I did all the Jewish stuff that I was supposed to do. I did all that. And I thought I knew this history really well. What's really shocking is that everything about Zionism is a lie. Everything. So if I'm talking about America, okay, so I grew up knowing that America had all these skeletons in the closet. Sure. But like I wouldn't say everything about America is a lie.

Like I would say like our Constitution and our First Amendment and things like this are real achievements. That there's a lot that we can be proud of as Americans without having to be Pollyanna. Right? We understand that, you know, there's stuff about us that's good and there's stuff about us is bad and okay. And there's a genuine impulse and arc or movement within the country working against its fundamental nature and trying to not, you know, never mind more perfect union, but a more human society. Right. There is. And there's a lot in our heritage that we can, I think we're constantly going back, you know, to, you know, we go back to, you know, we go back to say like, Martin Luther King, but Martin Luther King goes back to Lincoln and Lincoln goes back to Washington and Washington goes back to the, you know, idealists of religious freedom and, you know,

etc. Whereas with Zionism, there's really nothing about it that's not a lie. Yeah. It is, and it's really unbelievable. I mean, I did hear that, you know, a land without a people for people without a land when I was a kid. And I actually can't believe that. actually one of these Zionist reviewers said today we know that it was not a land without a people it's like oh good Sherlock when did you get that memo right like but like for a lot of people it's hard to disengage so i mean today we know edward saeed was not lying exactly right yeah right yeah right no but honestly like for for Zionists who are still wed to Zionism you know who are still not going to be able to listen to it. Nothing that they, nothing that I say or that you say is going to move the needle for them.

But I think for a lot of people, in the last few years especially, people are really troubled by this. And there are actually a lot of Jewish people are really open to trying to understand it. And I mean, everything, another thing that I learned pretty early on was that the, okay, so the Palestinians are ethnically cleansed. Okay, people finally do admit that. But you've got to understand that the Jews were ethnically cleansed from the Arab countries. And it was about the same number of people. It's about 800,000 people. Right, right, right.

So, yeah, you know, it's kind of a wash. It's kind of like what happened when the Greeks and the Turks had what they called a population exchange, which is another word for ethnic cleansing. Right. You take your people, we'll take our people, and everybody's going to live happily ever after. Well, I mean, we were talking about Avis Shaman about Iraq. And this is an absolutely unknown story to me. Yeah.

So why is it that the Jews managed to live in Iraq for 2,500 years? And you can imagine 2,500 years in Iraq was not, it wasn't all like, you know, Santa Monica every day or week. Sure. There was a lot of shit went down in 2,500 years, as it would in me country. Right. But like, the story was they were kicked out. So, okay, so, but why do they leave?

Now, the story that Avi discovers after all these years, and I don't want to make it too concise, but basically, and as part of a bigger historical movement, the Zionists actually bombed Jewish targets in Iraq in order to panic the Iraqi Jews until leaving. I did the same thing to the Egyptian Jews. This hurts us more than it hurts you. Right. But it's all for the good. Right. And so to think that this movement that was based on in my, the telling I was given as a kid, and I'm sure you two as well, the telling was that Zionism was to make Jews safe. Right.

Well, it turns out. So, okay, then why are they bombing synagogics? Why are they doing, you know, false flag attacks in Egypt? You know, it's, it's, why is it that, you know, the actual. most unsafe place for Jews in the world is Israel. You tell the story of one of the people in your, your gallery of anti-Zionists, was assassinated in Palestine by the Jews. That's right. Yeah.

Well, that's an incredible story. And that's actually where I started the book. That's a man named Jacob Isoldehan, who was famous, he was famous in his own time. He was the author of the first gay novel in Dutch, written in 1901. He then becomes a, human rights activist during the First World War. And like a lot of people, including Tamaras,

the rabbi, he's absolutely shocked by the spectacle, not only of the war, but of the role that Jews are being forced to play in this war. So like Hungarian Jews who are part of Empire X are killing people who live like five miles away who might be their cousins because they belong to the Russian Empire or the German Empire. There's this unbelievable slaughter and hundreds of thousands of Jews die in the First World War. And he becomes a scientist because he thinks, I don't know. don't want to be involved with this horrible, these Christian empires that are just, you know, murdering each other century after century. So he becomes a Zionist and he goes to Palestine in 1919. He's the first Dutch Jew to immigrate as a Zionist. And he gets there. This is very

funny because I write about the solipsism of many Jews and many Zionists. He gets to Cairo. And he says, he writes back to Amsterdam and he says, golly gee, there's a lot of Arabs in Cairo. And like, it's another one of these things. My mom does a lot of black. people in Africa. Right. But it's like that. It is like that. But like you realize like how deeply like the Jews were just thinking about the Jews.

Right. They weren't. And then he gets to Jerusalem and he's excited to come. He prays at the Western Wall and he has this kind of, he's very religious as well. He's Orthodox. Anyway, he gets to this. Orthodox and openly gay? Well, I mean, openly gay in the sense that you were in 1920, right?

Right. Right. I mean, he does write and publish. He didn't have the pride flag in his bio. Right. I mean, maybe he would have. He was extremely outspoken in a way that... That got him killed.

Well, I think that gay people can be, just in the same way that Jews can be historically. So Hannah Arendt writes about the pariah, you know, and she thinks the good Jews are the pariahs. They're the Jews who don't want to be like everybody else. They want to do their own thing, basically. And this is a theme that comes throughout my book, which is that a lot of the anti-Zionists are paris of some kind,

whether they're women, whether they're communists, whether they're homosexual, whether they're whatever. Well, anyway, making a very long story short, Dahan is a Westerner. So he's Dutch, which means, to this day this means that he knows English, he knows French, he knows German. If you go to a reception with the British consul, he knows how to dress and he knows how to like, you know,

take one drink and not two drinks. The Orthodox don't. Orthodox who live there are, they're either of Palestinian origin or they're of Eastern European origin. And they're religious people who, they don't have anything to do with nationalism or armies. They try to avoid the government. They try to avoid everything. They want to just pray and live their lives near the holy sanctuaries. But they don't have, they don't know how to speak English.

They don't have anybody who can speak for them. The Zionists do, because the Zionists are Europeans. And so the Zionist, so, so Dahan becomes very important for them. And he's able to communicate the Orthodox position to the British authorities. All right, long story short, they murder him. 1924, as he's walking out of the synagogue where he's praying for his father who's just died, they fire three shots at his chest and kill him. Who's they?

Well, that's a good question. They happen, the guy who gives the order becomes the second president of the state of Israel. So Lettingeshko? No, it's Ben-Zvi. And so, and one of the other things that's really surprising about this, God, there's so much that's surprising that I learned in this book is that almost every Israeli leader,

if not every single Israeli leader that I know of, has been involved personally, not just giving orders, but personally in acts of terrorism. Yes. From the very beginning. And so terrorism is in the DNA of this movement. And it's so what we're seeing now, what Nan Golden calls the Holocaust on our phones,

is something that goes back really, really far. It's not just, I mean, of course, anyone who's listening to this realizes that, you know, there was a day before October 7th. But there was a century before October 7th. Yes. And for all the terrorism that was aimed at, at Palestinians. A lot was aimed at getting

the Jews in line too. Yeah. So I want to ask you about the hangers on, the people who are still holding on. You know, we mentioned your reviewers, Isaac Chodner and the New Yorker, someone in New York Times, someone in Haaretz. And they all, they present as if they wanted to like this book.

They wanted to be, you know, persuaded. But somehow you didn't give them an in, because you're so staunch and evangelical and apparently don't care anymore about Zionist feelings, about Zionist positionality, and about Zionist myths. You've done away with it, and I would suspect you've become woke in the original sense of the word woke, which is to say awake, aware, and cognizant of the impossibility of penetrating it. And I want to read you a quote from

a Yom Kippur sermon at Central Synagogue in Manhattan. this was reprinted in the foreword. The rabbi said this, among many other things, we cannot reduce a vast Jewish idea to the politics of the moment. And I feel as if this is kind of channeling some of your reviewers. As British writer Howard Jacobson

and the living embodiment of Der Sturmurmer caricatures of Jewish physiognomy. How dare you? He is. I'm sorry. I know, I know. Zionism, big nose, tiny hands. Zionism.

Come on. is not a country or a system of government. Zionism is an expression of a people's soul. It is a longing and a necessity, a utopian fantasy. It's an understanding of history and a solution, an act of reasoning, an act of despair, a prayer, a poem, and a song. And since when do we Jews let other people do our naming for us?

If we refuse the Zionist name, well, ever since we started changing our name to Moser from Moses and Matei from Meltzer, if we refuse the Zionist name because others have smeared it, or because some have stained it with violence, we hand the word to its most fanatical followers and its most hostile opponents. We abandon the Zionists working every day

to build a more secure, just, and peaceful Israel for all its inhabitants. And we surrender a word that has carried the dreams, sacrifices and hopes of Am Yusrael for generations. That's from, I want to rescue the word Zionism. We cannot reduce a vast Jewish idea to the politics of the moment opinion from the fore. By Angela Voktoll.

So you're not surrendering a vast Jewish. idea to the politics of the moment. You're analyzing that vast, allegedly Jewish idea across its history. But what do you, what's your attitude towards this kind of, you know, fingernail gripping? I think the technical term is cope. I think that they are, they're absolutely trying to cling to something that is their projection. So this woman who's on like, what is it, 50th in Lexington or something. It's about what she thinks about it, right? She's just fine.

She's collecting her salary from Bill Ackman or whoever the guy is at Central who's paying her bills. She's not asking what does Zionism mean to the Palestinians? What does it mean to the people who have been ethnically cleansed? What does it mean to the father who is carrying around his child and the child has no head because Zionists blew off the child's head in a camping basin? for Zionism, for the right, so this woman in New York can feel, quote unquote, feel safe. Like, does anybody else have a right to feel safe as well?

Does she, do I have to pretend like I respect this person? Because I don't. Right. I think this person is a vicious racist. I think this person is a solipsist and a despicable immoral person. I don't care if she calls herself a rabbi. I think if you call yourself a rabbi, it's even worse. And in Jewish religion, you say that,

The people who commit the sin of blasphemy, the going can be forgiven for that. It's not easy, but they can be. But Jews who dishonor the name of God cannot be forgiven. And I feel that I've grown. So people who want to find. God damn right, Benjamin. God damn right. Well, I don't forgive you, Daniel.

No, because people want to preserve. You have an assumption. But people want to preserve. Yom Kippur, don't worry about it. Oh, yeah, that was last week. Yeah, the calendar started up. But, like, I think that these people really, they really think that their own subjectivity and their own feelings

should prevail over the feelings of people who were being starved and bombed and murdered and stolen from and exiled. Yes. And I just feel so angry about it and so much disgust for it. And I think that people rightly say that my book is angry. Like, you're not angry about this? It's happening in your name. It's happening with your leadership.

It's happening in the name of, you know, I know that you have a Holocaust background, Daniel, as do I. It's happening in the name of the $6 million. And am I supposed to roll over and say, let's have a nice chat about what you feel and, like, Howard Jacobson, who said the most toxicly racist things about Palestinians and who, to me, and I've met him. I mean, I don't know him, but I've certainly seen him at things

and hung out with him at festivals and stuff. I've certainly drawn him before. I'm just kidding. Well, right. No, because he's sort of, like, he is sort of, like, without even getting into Destromo. Eli Valley is his father.

Yeah. Yeah, no, but he's kind of, like, he's kind of, if you're Jewish and you grew up around old Jewish grandpas, he's kind of fun to hang out with. Yes, I can see that. But, like, once those people cross the line to me into supporting genocide,

like, I am sorry, but I don't give a fuck about how this makes you feel. You're going to stand up here in the middle of Manhattan in the richest Jewish community in the entire world in all of history and you're going to make it all about you. So people are right to see me as an enemy. I think that if they saw me as not an enemy,

if they saw me as somebody who was kind of going along with them and kind of agreed with them on this, but maybe not on that, then I would be selling myself out and I feel like I would be selling out my ancestors. Totally. It's like they want you, they're like, can't you give you?

us just a little bit of Zionist myth as a treat. That's, and that's essentially what liberal Zionism is. I'm going to give you a little bit of the, you know, Zionist creation myth as a treat. But I'm going to admit to these set aside things. I'll admit to the Nakpa. I'll admit to the occupation. I'll admit that, you know, an occupation in and of itself is a war crime. But I'm not going to admit to the part of the narrative that makes me feel good, the part of the narrative that says, no, this is a project that is ultimately good and in service of not just Jews, but the whole world. And it is, it's one of the last parts, I think, to go when it comes to Zionism. It was for me. And you know, I'm not against it. I have to say, like, I'm very willing to talk to

people who are on a journey because I was on a journey. And I think I didn't get there in 10 days. I mean, I got there, I got there probably, I was probably 40 by the time I was able to say, not Israel does bad, but Israel is bad. That was a real step for me. It's a step that I still, I understand that people think that's extreme. But, you know, so I'll walk you through it if you want me to. And that's what this book is. I mean, my book is trying to say, this is this myth, this is this myth, this is this. This is what this person thought.

And actually it was really interesting because I have a left-wing background. You know, I mean, I come from a democratic, you know, like liberal Democrat-American background, pretty standard for Jews in this country. And I did, like, I was really interested in what conservatives thought about this. Like, why did conservative people object to this from all these different perspectives as well as like, you know, I come from sort of reform Ashkenazic, you know, American background. I was really interested to learn about the religious objections with the Reform Jews, which I write about in the chapter about the synagogue in Houston that splits in 1943. So I want people to like understand that everybody's been on this journey. The Zionism was really a successful con job.

And a conquest of people's minds. I mean, you mentioned Reform Judaism. It shocks me to hear that there were splits in Reformed Judaism in 1943, because the Reformed Judaism I grew up with, as the host, the guy who introduced you in Jasper at the event, I forget his name, but he's the head of the American Council for Judaism, which is hilarious to me. It's the ACJ, as opposed to the AJC, the American Jewish Committee,

who is representing a 85-year tradition of reformed Jews who no longer have any pulpits, any Bimas. None. And you know what else, when I listen to this rabbi, and what makes me so angry. Not one rabbi, as far as I know, maybe you know, as far as I know, not one rabbi in this country has lost their job over Gaza.

Not one rabbi was willing to stand up on Yom Kippur and say, Meap Kulpa, this is a Jewish genocide committed by Jews. Except the rabbis for ceasefire and the rabbi of Kolot Chayin. Yeah, but they don't have a job. Do they have like a congregation where they, I mean, they have all these congregations

like the ones that I go to in Brooklyn, which are like held in basements of churches and people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't, as far as I know, nobody was willing to. I mean, that doesn't mean there's not a lot of rabbis, but who are pro-Palestinian who are on the right side. But they're not willing to put their job on the line. Well, not the ones who have the jobs,

not the ones who have to answer to the Bill Ackman's. I actually met one, you know, a few weeks ago randomly on a walk. And I just, my child was playing with her child. One thing led to another found out that, you know, she was a rabbi somewhere. I won't say where. And we got into this whole conversation about, I talked about this podcast and she talked about how she is, you know, pro-Palestine, but she is afraid to lose her job. And she does not, she doesn't want to put her livelihood at risk, her family at risk,

her community at risk. And nobody wants this season three out on Netflix. Yeah. And, yeah, I feel for her, of course. Yeah. Were your genitals misformed? But, I mean, were you, were you mingled in some accident? Like, you know, it's like, yeah, wear your ball. Grow up here. Yeah. I mean, because these people, not to her, you know, I'm going to get canceled for saying that. But, like, really, like, these people, they're not willing to risk anything. Of course they know. And a lot of them privately will say this.

Yes. And of course nobody wants to lose their job. But at the same time, like as a rabbi, you have a really, I think, a sacred task to represent the Jews. I know. And to lead people. I know. And so people who fail at this, of course, nobody misunderstands that it's horrible to lose your job,

especially when you have children and you have a mortgage and you have a life. But, you know, some things were in the middle of a genocide. Yeah, I know. And do you think none of us have risk anything? Like the three of us, like, I don't know what you've risked. But I know that every Jewish person I know has had breakups with family members, breakups with friends.

You know, I get all this shit. Like, you're mentioning these reviews. Like, I used to be a respectable writer. You know, they gave me the Pulitzer Prize until I became an anti-Zionist. Right. And then suddenly I'm an idiot, and I don't know what I'm talking about.

They're calling you the Tanahasi Coats of the Jews. Right. Well, actually, to me, a big honor. And Tanahasi, you know, who had more kind of, of credibility as a public intellectual than almost anyone in this country. And this happens to all of us, and we know it's going to happen. And yet, we still think that things are important. We think that writing books is important. We think that standing up for human dignity is important. We think that standing up against racism and certainly against genocide is important. So, you know, crime me a river,

lady. I know. I know. Can I go back to this quote because I am just like, I'm still floored by by what is quoted here. Zionism is not a country or a system of government. Zionism is an expression of a people's soul. Can we just change Zionism real quick to Nazism? This is exactly what I wanted to say about this. And I hope, hopefully, it's confluent with what you're going to say. No, that's what I'm saying.

So the structure of that sentence, the structure of that thought is inherently extremist, is inherently anti-human, is. apparently fanatical and dangerous. Yes. Fanatical dogmatism. The concept that this thing I believe in is not something material with consequences. It's an idea.

And not only is an idea, it's an idea I will protect against reality, whether other people's reality or universal reality. I will deny, I will disclaim, I will minimize anything in the name of it. I will attack anyone who attacks it. I will protect, I will hug it and squeeze it and call it George. No, but it's also like some sort of kindergarten-y concept of, like when people send these kids,

like I don't have children, but like a lot of people who, like my friends who send to these super progressive schools in Brooklyn and places like that where everybody like encouraged to express themselves through ceramic art or something. You know, it's like, it's an expression of my soul. And you're like, okay, asshole. Yeah. The expression of your soul is murdering tens of thousands of children. Yes.

And you're sitting there talking about how somebody calling you out on that is hurting your feelings. Like, I'm sorry. I just, I have nothing but contempt for these. At the time, at the time of year where we're supposed to do cheshbonnefesh, soul accounting. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, of all times. Presumably, soul accounting would include accounting for the things that the expression of your soul creates in the fucking world.

Not unless you have a clever sole accountant. That's true. That's true. I know a guy in flushing. You know, he'll get you a rebate. Exactly. I mean, it's very, like, it's so beneath contempt that I find it very, and it's all, I wrote an article that got me in a lot of trouble last year earlier this year called

We have talked enough about ourselves. And it's about an equator, which I encourage people to check out if you're interested, because it's shorter than my book. But it's about how this emphasis on Jewish feelings, Jewish fear, Jewish this, Jewish that. I mean, I admit, like, I do think a lot of people are afraid. I do think anti-Semitism is a real danger. I think nobody Jewish, especially who comes from a kind of backgrounds,

I don't know your background, Matt, but like Daniel and I certainly have a background where we're very aware of this and very afraid of it. But there's something that it's all about you all the time. And all you have to do is look on your phone and you see what's happening in Palestine. You see what's happening every day. And you are choosing to focus on your feelings. It just my family, like I have to say, like, I'm glad my grandparents aren't alive.

Because they were, and I don't know how you grew up in this sense, Daniel. But like a lot of the people, the Holocaust survivors and the refugees I knew, they were very grateful to America. They were, they felt very lucky that they were here, that they weren't in Nazi Germany. or Poland or wherever. And they always emphasize to us, be grateful. Do not walk around thinking that you're so great just because you won the white kid lottery and you got to live in Houston, Texas, and not in a Stettel in Belarus, you know. Be grateful for your education, be grateful for the country you live in, be grateful for the rights that you have. And also, and the other part of that

was, and again, you know, we, a lot of Jews in the South, you know, we come out of the civil rights movement and the experience of that. You know, it was very much about what can you do for others. And this was not just me, me, me, me. And I'm actually really shocked to learn how many Jews got this message of me, me, me. That's the story Norman. That's the story Norm tells of his childhood in Brooklyn, of a kind of superior Jews are better, you know, and I think that the aggregate truth is somewhere in between what you and I grew up believing and what he experienced in his particular neighborhood, you know, being surrounded by Chuck Schumer and, you know, that whole generation of New York Jews who had that smugness and, frankly, a lot of anti-civil rights racism as well. But no, you're right.

We come from all of it and this is what choice is about. This is what agency is about, which I think is in many ways what Judaism is about. You know, God has spoken. He's given us the commandments. He's given us the framework, the structure, the rituals. Now what are you going to do with that? You know, and the Torah is here, the word is here, how are we going to interpret it? Well, let's argue about it from dawn till dusk, because the arguing is the meat of it. And if you fuck it up, yes? Well, I mean, the books of the prophets, my book opens with these epigraphs from the books of the prophets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is this idea that the Jews of the Chob has chosen people and therefore, I'm taking your apartment. That is not the message of the Hebrew Bible. The message of Hebrew Bible is if you get

arrogant, if you disobey the laws of the commandments, God is going to smite the shit out of you. This is so clear in the Bible, it's made in every chapter of the Bible. But I don't think a lot of Zionists really even care about the Bible, just because they never cared about Judaism in general anyway. But I think that no matter what your background is, what I wanted to do in this book is show all these different people who have these different backgrounds and who come at this from different ways and who have a journey that tells you that there's another tradition in Judaism,

that we're not outliers. we're actually historically the mainstream and religiously and culturally and ethically in the mainstream. And so that's the message I'm trying to give to people is that, because a lot of people feel alone. I mean, it is really, I often say it's like being the only gay kid in seventh grade, you know, and you're like, oh shit. And then you realize, actually, first of all, I'm not the only gay person in the world. Secondly, gay people more fun than straight people. So, like, I want to hang out with the cooler people and not the like, you know. And this is a real moment.

I felt like Daniel and I met at this retreat for anti-Zionist Arab Jews. And it's just so nice. I think that like the positive side of this for me, so like Daniel, I met you through this work and this movement. And I met like literally hundreds of other people. They are just, they're the best people. We need to make T-shirts, anti-Zionists are more fun. Yeah.

They are. We are. It's true. No, because it's like when you argue with these people, you really realize there's a limited mental capacity here that we're dealing with. And the mental capacity, it's not necessarily IQ, but it's just the ability to have some empathy. It's an emotional capacity almost more than anything else. Yeah. Because it is a rewiring of your not just, it's a rewiring of your brain. And it's a rewriting of a story that you have to do. I think it's one of the things that comes off, you know, what's so shocking about unlearning Zionism is, as you said, bluntly,

Everything is a lie. Everything is a lie. And that is, that's hard to take. That's hard for even me to take. Sometimes I still find myself being a little bit cynical when I hear something that I, you know, I remember the first time I read Abbey Shalame. And I just thought to myself, this can't be true. This has got to be, you know, this has got to be a little bit cope. That's what I thought. I was like, nah, this is, this is just trying to. going a bit too far. Yeah, I thought it was going too far and it was just trying to, you know, because it just sounds, it's too much to rewire. But also at the same time, one of the reasons I love this book and love that you don't pull those punches is because it's people who didn't pull those punches that are the reason that I got to the place where I am now. I needed that blunt honesty. I needed to be shocked out of this. This is like electroshock therapy for people who, you know, grew up with all the Zionist myths.

And, you know, it's important to have that. These middle steps are inevitable. People go, you know, from Zionists to liberal Zionist. and then sometimes they stay there or sometimes they finally grow the fuck up and I think it's important to be blunt I think we all understand that

we all understand that evolution and we understand how hard it is it's very hard to let go of something that that's why right at the very beginning for me it was a process of growing up and a process of but Hannah Arendt says you don't

you know you want to be a real person right you don't want to live with stupid childhood myths, you actually, as painful as it is, and I think it was painful for all of us. It's nice to believe in this story. It's just, it's a lie, and it's not only a lie in a sense of a novel. It's easier to be Pinocchio than a real boy, you know, a big nose puppet. That's right. That's right. Telling lies. That's right. And I mean, for us, I think nobody disagrees with the, or nobody misunderstands that. Yeah. But I think that, like, especially since the genocide, you know, I just think you have a real obligation,

even if you're not going to come to where we are now, but I hope that people who read my book, like maybe they'll move 5, 10% towards... Or they'll just drop it. They'll drop the attachment to it and then see what emerges in its place. You don't necessarily have to replace it with being an avid bathezbar listener,

looking for every piece of anti-Israel content, being like, look at these fuckers, you know, getting your new bias confirmed or even going to pro-Palestine rallies, although I hope people do. I love you, the fact that you're speaking about it as emotional immaturity, because if you think about emotional injuries that keep people stunted developmentally, it's, first of all, there are always injuries to our attachment system,

what we attach to, who we orient to, who we feel safe around. It's always about safety, whether it's interpersonally or ethno-nationally. And then we hunker down around it. Our personalities develop and the coping strategies ossify and resists. agitify around that and then we will tooth and nail fight to protect our self-concept. And that's how all kinds of pathology happens in this world. And when it happens collectively, millions of people lose their homes, lives, limbs, and minds. So I think the most compassionate frame I can hold as someone who's got, you know, at least one foot

in the like, you know, trauma developmental world for reasons. is that, is that these people are in development, and they're in a state of arrested development, and you can't make anyone grow, and I'm not going to coddle anyone who is fighting not to, but I'm not going to buy into the idea that Zionism is who they are. Zionism is what they're infected with.

And fortunately, this is not a zombie movie where every single one who's infected needs to be bashed in with a baseball bat. Some do, but some can turn back. Maybe Jacobson. Just kidding. I think one of the really encouraging things, I mean, it's sort of sad to try to be encouraged over these last few very dark years. But I think that the statistics show how many people have been reachable. How many people do actually want to be real people and they do want to grow up.

And a lot of people don't, and that's their problem. And I just say goodbye, including the people I've been very close to. They won't go there. And I understand they won't go there. But they have to, you know, as they say, I hope they get the help they need. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I ain't going to be the one holding their hand, but I will hold the hand of people who are of good faith and who really want to learn and who had the same education I had.

I mean, I understand it. Yeah. But it's time to, again, stop talking about ourselves. It's time to focus on what the reality of Zionism is. And I think going back to your earlier question, Daniel, I can't remember when, but talking about why did I write this as personal stories? It's because the attachment, the development, that's part of the story of anti-Zionist Jews. Like, we've all gone through this. We've gone through it in different ways.

And we come out in different places. I mean, it's not that everybody comes out in this book at the same place. But we understand it as a process of evolution and of growth. And so I think as a movement, you know, some of these people, like the other night, Jasper was saying, talking about some of this criticism of like of naza you know should israeli jews be able to talk about this well i think they should like i don't think that everybody has a i don't think everybody has the right answer including me i don't have an answer i don't offer an answer to israel what should be done about it in this book but i think you do have an obligation to at least um not be stupid

and to do what you can in your role in your function and what i love about this book in addition to everything that said is, you know, there are people online who, you know, often in bad, so there's a valid observation to make that Jews have not willingly sacrificed enough for Palestine. It's true. Not enough Jews have done what you're saying. I don't feel like I've sacrificed a whole ton. I come from a doubly privileged background of having had a pretty anti-Zionist family, so there was less to lose there. I've lost one friend and probably some theater contacts want nothing to do with me. We'll find out as I step back into that world. But, Not enough Jews have, but sometimes this tips over into a kind of very anti-Jewish sentiment of like,

if Jews want to prove that they're pro-Palestine, pick up a machine gun, go storm the Israeli embassy in your town, and be a martyr and die like the Palestinian martyrs did. I think that's horseshit. But what your book is doing is you taking up arms and your arm is the pen. You know, you're taking up and your armaments are also your uncompromising words and the clarity of your thoughts and the unwillingness to coddle anymore. Which I'm allowed to express because I'm Jewish. If I was Palestinian or Arab saying this stuff,

I would be unemployed for life. And it's only a seeming contradiction that you say, because I think Jasper tried to devil's advocate as this the other night. You know, it's a valid thing to think about, but it's a seeming contradiction that you say we shouldn't be talking about ourselves, and then you go write anti-Zionism, a Jewish history. But the way I read that is, you're not saying Jews are going to free Palestine and therefore people should only or exclusively or even primarily be listening to Jews. But Jews need to know

that there is an anti-Zionist history of their people as much as or more than there's a Zionist history. And we need to reclaim it. Otherwise, we can't oppose Zionism intelligently. All we can do is fade into the background and kind of like Herschel wanted to do, just kind of convert ourselves to be like, let Zionism. have it. Like, just fine. Take Judaism and we'll just divorce ourselves from it and be over here with the rest of the people. No, fuck that. I'm not going to let you have my Judaism. Well, that's a really important thing because I think a lot of people, one of the things I want to do with this book is show people, especially younger people, but not only younger people. I mean, it's been really

huge movement across generations now, but to show them that there is a heritage that we can draw on for the future. Because I think that, um, I mean, a genocide is a pretty big thing to have happened to a quite small group of people, actually. Like, there's just not that many Jews in the world. There's 15 million Jews or something. It's not that many. Half of them are in Israel. So, you know, what are we trying to save?

You know, is there something that we want to save besides this kind of ethno-nationalist fantasy? Or is there something more? So I'm trying to help point to something more. Yeah, yeah. And it needs to be pointed out. I think one of the, you know, things I find generally bad faith about, you know, what do we need this for? Isn't this just centering, you know, Jews and whatnot?

Is you are attempting to show a real history. You're attempting to break from the idea of this sort of. mass Jewish consensus around the time, you know? And, and the idea that people, that Jews are a monolith and monolithically and historically tied to Israel and Zionism. And that to me is like, that is an incredibly important function and people shouldn't decide not to because they, because of some sort of like standpoint identity politics thing. I think that you can argue about the function of propaganda in general, sure, or the function of history.

But to me, that's you have that, go ahead and have that argument in general. Don't turn it into a, yeah. Go ahead and be subjectively tired of hearing Jews talk about Palestine. Fine. That's cool. Tune us out. Like someone said to me the other day. of it. What's that? I'm sure we are. But I'm saying other people can be so tired of it that they

people, other people can be so, yeah, we're sick of hearing ourselves. I hate the sound of my own voice. You won't. But I mean, wouldn't it be great as so many people, you know, have done who just, they don't say a word. I mean, I've been shocked by how many writers I know who they just, they have gone through this genocide and they feel whatever they feel, nobody will ever know because they refuse to speak out. And I find that, I don't know. I find, like, I have a different view of what a writer should be and what a Jewish person should be.

So I think that that's something I've tried to be true to. And I think that, like, knowing these people in my book, I just feel very close to them. I feel like they're my little angels or something around me. It really makes your book and Molly's book from this year, companion pieces, developed an intimate, almost imaginal relationship with them, bringing them into the present, what would they say now,

what kind of compatriots would they be in the various class and justice struggles and anti-Zionist struggle? I'd be curious to hear a conversation between the two of you about your books. We just did an interview together. Oh, fantastic. But not on online written. But no, I mean, we have really similar viewpoints, and so do so many people.

And like, so she writes about the Bund. I don't write about the fund also because I'm friends with her and I knew she was doing this but also because there's so many things to write about. So I write about Iraq, I write about South Africa, I write about Brazil, I write about Texas I write about all this stuff.

And you write about Phyllis Shalonger from from Israel who left? I mean, who is a fucking hero that woman? I mean, I talk about somebody I feel it's like I feel her presence with me. I went to her grave with her son

in Germany. And I just felt so happy to be even with her in the, you know, her dead form, because I have so much admiration for her and what she stood for. And so I think that's the heritage that we want to try to represent and try to give on to people. Because what I found is for all the stuff that I have lost during this, I mean, it's not a joke. You know, people, I don't think anybody thinks it's a joke, but like it really is unpleasant, the whole thing. Like, writing this book, publishing the book, you're exposing yourself. But at the same time, you do have a sense of ancestry. I really appreciate you filling in that because I think the more sense of ancestry we have, the more ground we have to stand on. The less brittle our advocacy is,

the more rooted, the more genuinely proud it can be. Because a shame-based advocacy, because we do a lot of mocking of Howard Jacobson types and Jonathan Greenblatt and Lizzie Svetsky and and Chen Mazig and and and you know Dershowitz and Rappaport and on and on and on all these people who make your skin crawl to the point

of making you almost want to sluff off your sounds like a Yiddish word I don't think it is your Jewish coil you know this this this yeah sluff off your your Moyal coil yeah

And then Reischloff, the one coil. And that's a shitty feeling. And then you do sort of start, pardon the term, kind of shucking and jiving for the anti-Semites a little bit, or worry that you are. You know, like putting on a caricature and all that. And if that's, yes, the satire and the self-parody and all that is great. But it feels toxic to me when that's all I have.

And so a book like this coming so much from the heart is really good for mine and ours. and that of anyone reading it. Yeah, yeah. So really, truly wonderful book. We know we have to let you go. Where can people find the book? Is it in bookstores now, everywhere? It came out on Tuesday, so I hope it's,

I don't know if it's in every bookstore. But, you know, I'll be curious actually to learn that. But sure, you can get them anywhere. You can get books. Yeah, and I hope people will. I'm listening to it right now on my audible app. Oh. Did you narrate it, Ben? Read by me.

I love that. Yes. And so I've been listening to you talk for the last six hours. And now I've added another hour and a half. And I can't recommend this book enough to people because it really, as we've said, a thousand times over at this point. It's a really great book. And, you know, if you feel less alone by just listening slash watching this podcast, this

is like a historical version of feeling less alone. You are, you know, you get grounded in sort of, um, anti-Zionist history and, and, and, and, and ancestry. And I think that you are not alone. Yeah. There are other Jews. Oh, wow. Oh, that's, that's great, Daniel. Israel. I know, I was like he's going to have to finish this. Yeah, there we go. Um, Ben, thank you so much for coming on the show and speaking with us. We really appreciate it. Really, my pleasure. Thanks for giving me all this time. I loved it. Thanks for giving it to us. Yes,

your time. We love it. Everyone, please stick around. There's a little bit more show. So, we will be right back. And we're back. This Bad as Barra, the World's Most Moral podcast. Wasn't that interview with Benjamin

Moser so good? Where was the lie in our enthusiasm at the top of the show? I know. I know. No, where was it? You wouldn't lie to you. Now where. That was one of my favorite interviews we've ever done. Yeah.

And definitely my favorite book interview we've ever done. No offense to all the others. But like this, to me, this book, more than any other, gets at the very heart of, and when I say heart, I mean it, not just metaphorically. Like, but emotionally of what this podcast, where it comes from, what it's trying to do and why. Yeah. And for, you know, for reasons that you and I, that, and it fills in so many blanks for both of us about why we're doing what we're doing. And who did it before us? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then, you know, like I said before, it makes you feel a little bit less crazy to see people having essentially my experience, which was a birthright experience. You know, like the Dutch guy he talks about who very excited, he goes there, and then he's just like, oh, this place racist.

Oh, no, oh no. You know, back in the day on birthright, if you didn't swallow the lies, they assassinated you. Right, exactly. Now they, well, we'll see what happens. But yeah, very good book. But we got to move on. We got a couple more things to talk about. So BB was in, was at the UN. We're going to save that for Monday for the most part. I think that, you know, there's a lot to talk about there that I think our general audience is also going to want to hear about. But before I just move on from that, there is one thing I wanted to play for you, Daniel, because I don't know if you've seen it yet and I'm worried that you will have seen it by Monday.

There were some counter protesters. So we know there was protesters, you know, outside of the UN who got arrested. Some pretty famous ones too. Yeah, yeah. And I think on Monday we'll have a deeper conversation about the sort of general charge of like, this was just a photo op to, you know,

the long and short of that is, that's what protests are in the United States, guys. I'm sorry. Look up the several meetings of the word demonstration. Yeah, I think, I know it might be shocking to hear, but yeah, it's largely theater. We're trying to demonstrate something. Yeah, I mean, that's not to say that I don't wish that, you know, Hannah Einbinder and Susan Sarandon didn't storm the UN with suicide vests on. I would love that.

And maybe if Mayor Mamdani hadn't send like an armada of NRA of. NYPD cars to escort Beving at Yahoo, said he wasn't going to protest and discouraged people from protesting, even as saying that, you know, the ICJ should arrest and convict this wanted war criminal, it would have been something more than theater, but there were limits imposed. Yes. Now, you know, that's not to say that there's... Oh, sure. Do your liberal apologetics. Go for it. That's not to say there isn't something to critique there, but it is to say that maybe we'll save most of that for Monday.

Yes. Yes. But there is one thing that I wanted to show you. This was a videotaken of a counter-protester who wanted to, while I guess Bibi was inside, he is a MAGA supporter who wanted to protest Mamdani. You know? So he agrees with me. Well, you'll see. This is a counter-protester who had a sign that confused some people,

and I've never seen someone be confronted by their... I've never seen a more perfect video. Shout out to Will Meneker for posting this, so I became aware of it. Check out this video. What does that sign mean? Okay, so I'm going to start off with the reading of this for those of you who are, you know, listening.

This guy's holding up a sign that says, this is the love of my life, my wife, my wife, and it is a pig in the middle, and on the very corner is like a wild boar yeah like yeah not just a pig we're talking about a black let's be clear it's a pig of color yes it's a sow uh i assume um and this is a uh this is a picture of mom dani in the corner as well uh and then it says and she is great in bed um and i guess he should have put a speech bubble coming from mom dani's mouth well this is okay i know i'm just gonna play the rest of it for those of you.

You're joking. What? You're joking. Well, I'm just trying to, I'm trying to draw you out. What does it mean? Let's do it the easy way. Look. Who is this a picture of it?

That's our mayor. It's our own world. Okay. Now, let's read it together. This is the love of my life. Uh-huh. That is his wife. That's, this is written from the perspective of the mayor.

This right. Nobody got a picture of his wife. I snuck in, I took a picture, I enlarged it, and I taped it to this side. And it says, he always says, this is the love of my life. Uh-huh. And she's great in bed. Uh-huh. He has sexual intercourse with a pig.

The joke is that he is having sexual intercourse with a pig. His wife. His wife. Who's a pig? Uh-huh. It's like, God, I got to explain everything. I mean, this is like... I'm going to pause it for a second.

It's very clear that this video started with him having, having already been asked multiple times, what does your sign mean? He's already frustrated that he's had to explain it multiple times. It's almost as though your wife is living. I mean, 99 and 9.10% of the people can read this and figure out what it means. When somebody says to me, what's the sign mean? I mean, you're not trying to figure it out.

I'm trying. I had a 12-year-old child. If 99% of the people can figure out, then why are so many people asking you what it means? I've never seen someone so... How are these 1% point 1% of the people finding you? It's just like you ever had a really disappointed, teacher. I was just trying to explain you.

And they had a lesson plan all mapped out. And to them it was just self-evident. And like even the smartest kids in the class. Yes. They're like, I don't know. We're asking clarifying questions all the way until the bell. And then,

and then, you know, at the bell rings and people start leaving. And the substitute teacher or whatever finds the one kid in the class, the teacher's pet who was with him all the way or pretended to be. And he just looks at him. He's like, what's with your classmates? These kids don't. understand this very clear

concept. A 12 year old child start laughing when he saw this and he was able to distinguish. It lands with the 12 year olds. Right. Okay. Shout out to that guy and his just comic frustration at having to explain

that. No, it's not my wife who is a pig. I'm telling for the last time. is Mamdani's wife who is the pig. I'm saying, look at the sign again. I've never seen so much where I've explained a joke. So, he's just so disheartened. It's hard to make shit land sometimes, man.

I get it. You know? Yeah. Being a comic is difficult. We need to get that guy a job on Madison Avenue. He'd make a great madman, you know? He comes in with a pitch and... Yeah, he's a pig.

for a billboard and no one understands what he's talking about. Holy fuck. Anyways, that's my favorite guy. And we'll talk more about what happened at the UN on Monday. What happened inside? Yes, what happened inside or happened outside.

You know, suffice it to say, the lighting was such that he looked like Hitler. So, you know, B.B. as Hitler will make an appearance on Monday slash Tuesday, you know, Monday for you, Patrions, and Tuesday for everyone else.

But before we go, I need to do, we haven't done this in a while, Daniel. It is time for our favorite segment with the world's longest bumper. It is time for I'm Israel AI. And a picture of Hamas as an octopus or a bug. I'm Israel, aye. I'm Israel. I'm Israel. Hey, hi.

Israel. Hey, hi. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Guys, we have a doozy. I also haven't seen this one. Oh, you didn't watch it. I didn't watch it.

No, I wanted to experience it raw. I also didn't watch it. I just watched like a little bit of it and I said, oh my God, okay, we have to talk about this. The background on this, you know, to be honest, actually, I don't know much of the background on this. This is posted by someone who's called Dumb Fuck Finder. I don't know, guys. Someone who decided to make a new short film. What's unclear about my name?

I'm finding Dumbfucks. Yeah, that's right. Well, it sounds like you're a finder who is a dumb fuck. Yeah, that's right. A 12-year-old could understand. A 12-year-old walked by and said, oh, I get it. You find dumb fucks. Not me as the dumb fuck.

So anyways, dumb fuck finder wrote a tweet that says, New Short Film Propaganda Warfare, colon, Israel, Hamas, and the weaponization of the narrative. And it is a bit long. We'll see how much we can stomach. But here is this absolutely insane new bit of propaganda. Fantastic. We attack Israel.

They'll come back with everything. This is Hamas in the tunnels, by the way. And the animation style is very, what, American dad? Yeah, sort of like a Seth Macfarlane type cartoon. How do we win? We don't win the war. We win the story. All right, so this is AI October 7th done in Family Guy animation.

Based. They've broken through the wall with a bulldozer, and here you see some dirt bikes, and these are Hamas fighters. I like this shot here. Yeah, they look kind of cool. Not this one, the previous one, the motorbike, the Mad Max, you know. Yeah, and here is, I suppose, Nova Festival. Paragliding troops with fan boats.

Anger travels. faster than context. Hold on. Hold on just a second. What happened in between that fanboat attack and the real footage of destroyed buildings in Gaza? That they just skipped ahead.

Yeah, they kind of skipped. I feel like they're missing a chapter. Yeah, they're missing a few years of chapter. Yes. But instead, we're talking about how anger travels faster. Travels faster than Context. Then contexts.

I love, and by the way, right there, you just see a, these are different hashtags. Free Palestine, hashtag ceasefire now, hashtag Gaza genocide, hashtag Paliwood. I don't think they would be writing Pallywood. But more important, hashtag stand with Hamas. You know, everyone's favorite hashtag, you know, the one we all did. That's the one. Thank you so much for that one. master their context.

All right, and here's an elementary school of Hamas. They're giving everyone the headbands and the gun. Kids don't look like they're so sure about this. Yeah. Tunnel underneath the classroom. We make every target a dilemma. Ammunition under schools. Weapons near hospitals.

Positions inside civilian buildings. If Israel doesn't strike, we keep operating. That guy, that voice actor's accent sounds very Israeli. I'm sure it's an AI dub, but... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So if still strike, the camera will be ready. France, what's the letter of the day? Okay, so now they have Miss Rachel, which they've decided to animate and make look, I guess, fat.

Yeah, like a dumpy, like a dumpy Midwestern grandmother. By the way, Miss Rachel's children's album came out at the exact same minute as mine. I know, I know, that's right. I didn't want to say anything because I don't want any competition. That's okay. It's friendly competition. But shout out to Rachel. And then, of course, here is Motaz next to her.

Hi, Miss Rachel. Hi, yes, it's Aaron from my friend Motas. Yay. Moon! He chokes her until she goes purple. Yeah. You know, that audio is from a real meeting between the two of them. A meeting in which he did not choke her to death.

You can't do the fucking, like, oh, don't you know, they'll throw you off a building. if you are literally on top of the building already with some Palestine, you know what I mean? It's like, but they didn't. It's like, well, they would in my mind. No, that's not true. Do you remember in the voice of Hennarajab when they used the real audio of her helpless cries from the car?

That's right. And then they had her CGI'd and she turned into the Incredible Hulk and broke through the car and then smashed Israel. That's right. I remember that. She stepped on Tel Aviv. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then she kicked a gay dude off the roof. That's right. And I was like, well, now I get it. Here's El Shifa Hospital. They are... Bombs in... Bombs getting IVs in hospital beds. Yeah, so now we're doing a little bit of...

We're doing a little art here, guys. Instead of patients, there are bombs who are getting fluids pumped into them. Wait, you hear this? Yala, move! All right. And that... Camera, camera, we go now. Yala, everybody in.

Quick, put them here. Camera this side. Closer, closer. I need the fire behind. Yeah, Allah! Okay, now they're showing Pollywood. These are a bunch of press people

who are putting the fucking, putting the dummies of people inside of the burnt out, the building that just got bombed by Israel, which is a strange move given that you did just freely admit that Israel did fire a rocket and bomb the hospital.

Right. So why would you need the dummies? That's right. You can't have both. You can't be both like, oh, it's all Pallywood and fake. And also, yes, we bomb the hospital in order to kill all of the Hamas agents who are all press people. You can't have it.

You can't have both. And this press guy has horrible teeth. Yeah, right. He's drooling and he's got a sole patch. Yes. And this looks more Rick and Morty. than it does a family guy. Because, you know, AI.

People, the people. We upload this on all social media. The liberals in the right-wing Jew haters will believe it and spread it everywhere and we get paid for all the views it gets. More falafel for us. We're still recording. Zaman can't have the mehna

to be a coiffiehury and I can't have a child doing the reporter thing and then it zooms back. She looks very scared speaking in Arabic and then it zooms back. And she is under the gun, like they're forcing her a gunpoint to do all this. Yes, right.

And again, they're forcing her to report nervously in a terrified way that there are bombs incoming. And then right as it zooms out to show their machine guns, bombs fall in the background and entire apartments are destroyed. So again, they're doing the stupid thing of life. There's just so much cognitive dissonance. It's like there's just not a single narrative they're willing to stick to. So instead it's every narrative. You can't put all of the excuses in the same as bar a piece. I think cognitive is a stretch.

Yes. Yeah. Listen, there's not much cognitive anything going on. The shit is on. People making these are essentially vegetables at this point. It's like the lesbian bar in Western Mass. You can't be mask optional and mask mandatory at the same time. That's right.

You have to pick a lane. Evacuate the road. All right. This is Israel, a drone, saying everyone evacuate. Bomb is in coming. Warning has been delivered, but the civilians remain inside. Hamas isn't letting them leave. Motherfuckers. Everybody downstairs. Move.

They warned us. That comes out of Naza. I think there's a scene where one of the anonymous sources says, you know, every night one of us in the control room would say the word, motherfuckers. Because they would. because they wouldn't heed our warnings. Right, because we were forced to kill them. We were so mad about that.

Look at this guy with two pupils in each eye. Yeah, well, you know, AI. He's got colons for pupils. Yeah, more like AIs. He's got colons for pupils. Pupils for colons. Stupid. Stay.

You die a martyr. Leave, we kill you, and you die traitor. Now go back to your place. Yes. So Hamas is forced. civilians to stay inside their place. That is the narrative here. Mahmoud, your time to shine is now.

Go. All right, that's Mahmoud Khalil. Holy fucking Christ. Yes. A.A.M. Who apparently was in Gaza, taking, getting marching orders? He was in Gaza in the tunnels.

About the genocide. Yallah, y'allah. Israel is committing a genocide. They must be stopped. Free, free, free, free Palestine. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Close enough. I think it goes a little differently.

It's a different time signature. I like it. It's like, guys, it's a waltz, all right? We're not in common. We're not in common time here. Free Palestine, free Palestine, free Palestine. Free Palestine, free Palestine. That was Israel bombing a school, by the way.

Yeah, yeah. And that is a human shield. Yeah, doing a bench press of a kid. He's holding a child hoping that the bomb hits the child. You know, it's really when you see them like doing it in AI that you realize how fucking stupid the human shield libel against Palestinians is. Because I have always thought the same thing too. It's like human shield in what sense?

Like they're holding a child in front of them hoping you shoot them. And yeah, that's. pretty much it. That's what it is. Put cement on them, make it look real. Ah, yes, perfect. I call CNN now. Why would you need to fake it? You don't need to fake it if it is something you're admitting that happened

and you're saying you had no choice to do it. Why would you fake it? It doesn't make sense. Anyways, here's LGBTQ for Palestine. I love your constructive criticisms about how they could improve it. I'm just saying, like There's something at this point, it's not like, listen, I just need them to try harder.

Yeah. I need them to try harder. I need their propaganda to mean more to them, not just to me, to them. It has to matter. Yeah. Oh, sorry. A totally believable breaking development tonight, Hamas officials now state that approximately 930,000 children were killed overnight in an Israeli strike on a school.

Yeah, a bunch of. By the way, a bunch of like young, gay, you know, queer for, Queers for Palestine people who are just watching CNN. CNN, which is apparently a rabidly anti-Israel channel. That's Dana Bash or something. You know, massively inflating the numbers of children dead rather than not reporting them and attacking anyone who claims, or blacklisting anyone who claims that Israel's committing a genocide.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to their family. Wait a second. No, they don't. Since when are there almost a million kids in one school? And since when do they go to school at night? Wait, a million kids in one school? Do you think that the claim is that they bombed a school and killed fucking 20,000 at this point? Well, in the video, they said 930,000 kids were killed in a school bombing.

Okay, all right. So just so that's clear. So good. So we're making up the fake news that they're, okay. And then we're showing a strong Chad American dad. That's right. A normal guy. It says good people, good dogs, good times in the background.

In case you weren't sure who were good. Cool at night. Gaza, the famine. Aid for the people. Sorry, DJ Khaled has not visited Gaza. That was a fat guy in a kaffia eating chicken wings. And now here is Israel just doing some aid drops. Humanitarian aid for God.

No food for you. Now go. There's something. There's an evil here that can't be understated. You know what I mean? It can't be understated. And at the same time, I mean, it turns my stomach. It's gross.

But it's hard for me to separate out how much of that. Because the AI cornyness of it, the tackiness of it is such a factor in the grossness. like it's worse than Der Stommer because it's animated and it's way more it's even more hateful but at the same time Dersstromer like employed artists artists right like they might have been fucking like

just genocidal maniacs or they might have just been you know artists hard up for a gig right sure sure but at least it was like a human being there was some penmanship you know they had lines they had shading you know it was craft to it we're doing Derstormer by computer now

which is just such a force multiplier of dehumanization that I can't even express myself. Oh, and now beautiful, beautiful. And now we get to Iran. And in the most obvious classic nod to anti-Semitism, they've decided to make the Ayatollah the puppet master. The hook was white-bearded. evil-eyed. And by the way, I see a few people on here. I see Candace.

I see Tucker. I see Bernie. One of those women is AOC. I see AOC. And then I see a guy. Ed Sheeran? Is that Ed Shearin? That's got to be Ed Sheareran.

I think that's Ed Shearin. What's he doing there? I don't know. I don't know. I guess they're like too little, too late, homie. I know you had to fire him. Oh my God And who's the one on the very right though

The woman? I don't know Looks like Lauren Bobert to me Is it? No, but Bobert's not like Yeah Is that Rania? Rania's not I wouldn't be Rania. Maybe it's Mia Khalifa Oh, it's Kamala.

Yeah, that's Yeah And who's the guy next to her? It looks like the Pink Panther Is that me? Looks like Inspector Clouseau That's probably me No paid influencers and public figures plus the dumb ones plus the dumb ones okay great and here is

Drake Drake what what it says drit still waiting for free Palestine but apparently everything isn't black and white and red and green yeah I'm seeing everyone's true colors for real I'm sensing a thing all right so that is a real Drake song he has a song called free Palestine which barely talks about Palestine. I know, but then we see him getting taken by Hamas. I'm seeing everyone's true colors for real and this place is way bad. You know, that lyric to me is pretty clearly not pro-Palestine.

Everything is black and white and red and green. He's criticizing a kind of sides taking, it sounds to me. Yeah. It does kind of sound like that. I never really Everyone's talking free Palestine. Everything is black and white and red and green. I'm seeing their true colors for real. Yeah.

It's a little ambiguous. Which is weird for Drake because he's such a good lyricist. Okay, here's Tucker next to the code pink lady. Medea Benjamin. And he's got a clown nose on. He's a juggalo in a kaffia. Yeah. Well, not a kaffia.

He's in a, that's like the... That's the Jordanian. Or the Saudi. Saudi, the Saudi. Yeah, which I, okay. I mean, Hamas are awesome. I might just move here. Getting shot by Hamas.

Here's Queers for Palestine. They're dancing with Hamas. And then they say Charmuta, but they were just dancing with them, but okay? Drag queens on top of trans, on top of furries, collapsing in a heat. Yeah, yeah. And then here's a bunch of Palestinian backwards people and they're giving the middle. Was this video, I'm sorry, was this video made by coalitions, like a coalition of different right wing like troglodyte reactionary interest groups?

Like, no, please include our hateful content too. Yeah. Like it's just a clearing out. Like everyone had to like get a moment. A homophobe who was just like, I feel vastly underrepresented in this. Do you think you're could add some stuff where we kill some gay people. And then, of course, we- Colin Cabernick. Yeah, you see, yeah, Kyrie, Colin Kaepernick. Shit, you know what?

I wish I knew who in the WNBA this is. Who's on the Las Vegas Aces number nine? Shout out. Death to America. Death to America. Death to America. Free Palestine. Oh, I'm sorry.

That is, that's Theo. and I don't know. Maybe they mean Hassan? I doubt it. I don't know who that is. All right. And we're back to this fat guy.

We're not for Giza. Was that Mamdani? Yeah, that was Mom Dani. All right, they're all dancing around. Here's queer. Oof. We get the point. point. And they all explode in a pink rainbow.

Yeah. So, um, like a reading rainbow, pink rainbow. All I can say to that is fucking hemorrhoid clot. Yes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is, um, it is. I mean, at this point, what are we doing here? You know, it's like you, you, uh, you, you, you, you look at what the narrative is. And it's, and, and I, you know, I understand, uh, the trying to make propaganda about the other side's propaganda. of course I do that. But do you think you really you really think you're going to convince people

that like to watch this and go, yeah, don't you understand you bunch of gay lords that they they fucking hate you for being gay? It just, you know, it's the same problem we deal with all of

their, you know, their propaganda, which is that they can't they can't pick a narrative they can't pick a side they can't pick a lane they can't pick a straightforward framework in order to sell people so instead they're just doing memes for the people who still believe which are becoming fewer and fewer and um thank god for that you know i thought that thing was never going to end yeah the problem with the problem with amy srial ai is that the bumper is sometimes the most fun part of the segment. I agree. I agree.

Sometimes we'll get one that's actually like whimsically awful or awful in some way, you know. Yeah. But like that, you know, cyber Zionist account or whatever. Oh, yeah. Yes. We have fun with that. But this one is just so fucking unrelenting and hateful and evil.

And I'm sorry. Yeah. Hack. That's the, you know, I, I, I, I know I should be more offended. And in a moral level, I am more offended at how overtly racist and genocidal it is. But like, the comic in me is just like, it's just hack. Yeah.

It's just, it's the same joke over and over again. I'll bet the AI bot that created it is depressed after that. Oh, 100%. Like you go to it the next day and you're like, hey, what's up? Want to hang out? And it's like, yeah. Absolutely. I'm here for you, man. Whatever you need. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe that's the way we beat the machines is we make enough of these videos that they just kill themselves.

That has been our episode of Bad As Barrow. Man, what a wonderful. We had everything on this episode. We had it all. Sometimes, this is why you want to be a Patreon member. Because you never know when a Friday episode is just going to fucking be a highlight of the month. It's just going to be a banger like that. Exactly. So we thank you, all of you who are patrons of this podcast. And, you know, I'm going to let you guys also know that you can up yourself on a tier and you can get your name in the end credit there. So why don't you do that? If you are a patron who's at the $5 tier, why don't you go to the $10 tier? You get your name at the end of the episode.

That's a fun thing. Someone was commenting that their name didn't appear. Do we update that regularly? Are we? I think so. If you have questions or issues. No, I. I understand.

So, but this is one of those questions, comments, and concerns that you can send to bad as barra at gmail.com. That's what? Are you being served by us? Yes.

If you have not seen your name, then please let us know Badazbara at gmail.com for all your questions, comments, and concerns. Subscribe at the $1,000 a month level. Matt will, you know,

Carnival Barker style or auctioneer style, read your name out real quick. Dude, I know. You know, there's going to be a point where, we're going to have to do that. And it's going to be a high tier, but we will do it. I thought you were going to say that if you go to a thousand dollar tier, Matt will

siggity suck your dick. No, that's the $75 tier. That's right. Yeah, that was way cheaper than $1,000. Patreon.com slash bad as bar. You're not back. Your mouth game is bad. It's good.

I could. I could. Let's get out of here. All right, guys. Thanks again so much for listening. And until next time, from the river to the sea. Buy Ben's book immediately. Jumping jacks was us.

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