Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - [UNLOCKED] Bad Hasbara 67: Deutschland Unter Alles, with Hanno Hauenstein

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

To celebrate Thanksgiving, we are unlocking this week's bonus episode of Bad Hasbara. Thankful for all of you!Matt and Daniel visit with independent German journalist Hanno Hauenstein (The Intercept, The Guardian) about the ICC warrants issued for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the state of anti-semitism policing in Germany, and whether payes and vampire teeth make a character in a mural anti-semitic.Please donate to Islamic Relief USA: irusa.orgHanno Hauenstein: https://linktr.ee/hahauensteinSubscribe to the Patreon https://www.patreon.com/badhasbaraSubscribe/listen to Bad Hasbara wherever you get  your podcasts.Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/5RDvo87OzNLA78UH82MI55Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bad-hasbara-the-worlds-most-moral-podcast/id1721813926Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/bad-hasbara/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Moshwam hot bitch, a ribbon vocato We invented the terry tomato And weighs USB drives and the iron dome Israeli salad, oozy stents and javas orange crows Micro chips is us iPhone cameras us Taco salads us Both on about nos us

All the garden us White costs for us Zabrahamas Hasvaraas Us Hello and welcome to Bad Hasbara. The World's Most Moral Podcast. Who are you, Anthony Fantano?

What is this? Is that what he does? Yeah, this sort of like, I don't know, autistic YouTuber vibe of like, hello, how's it going? What's up? Everybody, we are the world's most moral podcast. How's it going? You know, I feel like that is just,

It's like naturally, I don't know what to do. Once the theme song is over, I don't know how to start the pot. It feels like it necessitates like a long, what up? You know, but obviously it's a very serious show that we do. It's true, and we've done it so many times you want to make it unique. Yeah, I want to make it different every time. Yeah, yeah. There's just something about the sort of leaning back.

Next time, do it, turned around in your chair or come from below the camera. Yeah, I'm going to have to start doing like crazy camera. tricks. Yeah. You know, like really utilize the space, you know? This is the, this is the YouTube space. We are the world's most moral podcast. My name is Matt Lieb. That's Daniel Mote right there, drinking from a beautiful Palestine cup. Hold on, hold on. Take another look, Matt. Okay. Is it Italy? It's, oh, it's hungry. Oh, well, my actual, my actual homeland, not my, not the one that, you know, not my adopted at homeland. You know, I had a lot of reservations about starting a podcast with one of the Magyar. But, you know, after some therapy and working through some of my, you know, unconscious bias

against Hungarians, I decided Daniel's one of the good ones. Listen, Rome wasn't built in a day, so I can't, you know, unlearn my anti-Magiar racism. Yeah, man, get aboard that goulash train. I got to. I got to. I got to. It's actually pronounced Madior. Oh, see. Madior. G, I had to learn this because I don't speak in area, but G. Y in Hungarian is not, uh, yeah, it's J.

Well, why don't they just do G? See, this is why I don't like, because they don't speak English. Well, you got to learn English. This is America. No one should be allowed to create a language before they learn to just speak basic English. That's what I say. Before you start elaborating on create, you know, branching out and creating something else, learn the fucking, learn to read. speak the alphabet exactly they can't even do english good and they expect to invent a whole new

language come on we're we're looking at you mandarin chinese yeah what are you doing we're looking at you stop with the four tones we don't need all them tones we're looking at you know you uh all the various language of nigeria and peoples you know we're looking at you all of human history up until about six hundred years ago whenever english was invented mongrelass language yeah come on uh but before we you know get go on with this pod of course i have to tell you to uh shout out to our producer adam levin whose birthday was yesterday happy birthday happy birthday adam good good good good guy good producer great man um and also uh uh As we used to sing in my family, may you live a hundred years, may you drink a hundred beers, get plastered, you bad boy.

You think you're going to say bastard. Happy birthday to you. I love that. That's what a wonderful family. You know what? I'm starting to rethink this anti-Magiarth thing. Also, this is Bad Hasbara alert. Weel, weo, weo.

You're emotionally damaged, Jewishly. We have been, once again, targeted by the Hezbara Telegram group of Israelis who are trying to review bomb our podcasts on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts. Wow. Yes. And so, you know, this is, I'm sorry to say, but this is the most important thing you could be doing right now is to help us fight. the review bombing. Activate the iron five-star dome. That's right.

Activate the dome. We have to defend ourselves. We have a right to exist on Spotify and various podcast apps. So if you have not given us five stars, as Adam says. Give us dome. Give us dome, please. We need it. If you have not given us five stars on, what do you call it, Spotify, it's very easy to

do, okay? So, like, I'm just going to, I'm going to show you how to do it. What's the name of a podcast? Bad Hasbara. Well, one that I haven't given a review to, the daily, let's say. Okay. That little upstart independent. So like, let's say, so it's here's the daily, right? This is not going to work. New York Times free advertising. Yeah, sorry. What you do is there's these three dots. There's these three dots next to the thing. See those three dots? You click those three dots and then you go rate show but then it tells you oh you can't rate this show you haven't listened to it you hate this show yeah you hate this show you constantly make fun of michael barbaro uh you say that his grunts sound like orgasms well what you do then is you pick

a random episode you don't have to listen to the whole thing but you once again press the three dots and you go mark is finished mark is finished i know there's a lot of steps but these are the steps the Hasbara's have taken in order to destroy our rating. Marking as finished is sort of the podcast rating version of faking an orgasm. That's right. Exactly. It's and it, please, fake. I wonder how many, I wonder how many of my Mark as finished before. Adam wrote, Mark as finish, eat as herring. So, yeah, you do mark is finished and then you can go back to the three dots at the top of show and rate the show. Give it five stars. Please help us out. It helps people see the show

and whatnot. And mostly I just like that. The Hasparas have to keep trying over and over again to destroy us. And this is the method they've chosen. And finally, today's episode is brought to you by Islamic Relief USA. Islamic Relief USA partners are working in Gaza on distribution of food parcels, provision of hygiene kits to people and shelters, provision of medical supplies and mobile clinics and immediate trauma response. Please go to irusa.org and donate now. They could use the money more than we could. But if you do have any money left over

and you want to hear bonus episodes, exclusive content, you know, AMAs, all that shit, please go to patreon.com slash bad asbarra and join the Patreon if you want. It's up to you. I think we're pretty good to our Patreon, Peggy, this month. We have. We've been really just filling up that trough. Lots more, lots more coming. Veritable slop fest over there. Daniel, what is the spin? Well, today I'm spinning records

that, you know, bring to mind a certain central European country that, you know, it's, it's stayed pretty low-key over the, over the centuries. It's never really gotten itself involved in too much. Yeah. They keep themselves. Ballyhoo or Friday. They keep to themselves. They mind their own business. and they stay pretty normal. Yeah, one of the most normal countries out there. Always having a normal one. But they're always producing great music. We're talking, of course, about...

Prussia. Exactly. The Prussians. Germany. So I've got some stuff related to German. I don't have too many actual German things, but here's one. Daniel Baranborum, who I believe is Israeli-born, but a strong anti-Zionist or at least a strong Palestine solidarity guy.

He's faced all kinds of baglach. He was good friends with Edward Saeed, set up an orchestra in a Jewish. He does look like Billy Joel, doesn't he? Yeah, Daniel Billy Joel. Yeah. Or kind of like a Billy Joe Armstrong a little bit too, like a cross between Green Day guy and piano man. That's right. Billy Joel Armstrong would be a funny character.

Yes, it would. I have to think about what that would be, but that would be really funny. Yeah, you could actually do a pretty good mashup of my life. and a basket case, I think. Yeah. I was, I don't know. Do you have the time?

That's good. That works. So anyway, great, great piano player, great interpreter of all the greats. But yeah, a Jewish, German-Israeli, I believe. German-Israeli anti-Zionist badass. Badassianist badass.

Love it. Love it. David Bowie recorded some albums in Berlin. Oh. And this was one of them. He looks, he's, he's looking rather influenced by the German influence right there. Yeah, yeah. It's looking kind of like a, like a elf of the woodland realm.

Yeah, well, this was the era of the thin white duke. Yeah. And he looks good. Here's an American take on some uneventful years in German history, the musical cabaret with Liza Minnelli and Joel Gray, featuring some really harrowing moments, including Tomorrow Belongs to Me, which is this great sort of fake Nazi folk song. And this great song called If You Could See Her Through My Eyes where the cabaret MC is performing with a woman in a gorilla suit and it's like this fun thing, but it's all about, you know,

I know she looks strange, it's wonderful, or it's weird, how could we ever be together? But the lyrics by Fred Ebb, I believe, finish with, if you could see her through my eyes, she wouldn't look Jewish at all. It's sort of this low-key protest song. And then finally, a very poignant, song in German by the American

band Faith No More. The song is off the extended version of their 1992 masterpiece Angel Dust. The song is called Daschutschunfest, and it's about a hunting party at which the narrator makes love to a young German maitchen in a pig trough

until his dog Huntweck interferes, and he's telling the dog to fuck off. Classic German story. Yeah, there's lines like she made my uh my sausage explode in my pants uh her her legs were like uh bavarian veal it's a fun little i love that faith no more guy it i mean it's basically if if goeta um was making uh you know 1992 era uh alt rock yeah alt rock i'm not even sure what you call faith no more it's proto

new metal i'm sorry to tell you well no it is a lot it's prodo new metal A lot of new metal ripped them off and watered them down and got a lot less fun. Of course, of course. And a lot more hyper-masculine. The thing about Faith No More is they had a gay, they still do have a gay keyboard player. That's right. Bottom. So there was something campy about them and larger than life and musical theater.

And the alt rocker, the new meddlers who ripped them off took the rap rock thing, didn't have any of that. that camp. Yeah, I mean, at least a lot of the more mainstream ones lost the camp and instead were just like, no, cool guys do this. And you're just like, since when? Yeah. When do cool guys go, da-pom da-da-em-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-pom-da-a-a-you-corn. You know corn.

I know of them. Go! I think system of a down might be the one group that really retained this sort of operatic ridiculousness. Oh, yeah. Their camp and know it and have a great time. I love that band. Shout out to Serge Tankian, who opened up a coffee shop close to where I live. Anyways, let's talk about today's episode.

To start this off, we're going to talk about the news story. has been talking about. The ICC has issued arrest warrants for Israel's Netanyahu, Gallant, and a Hamas leader. This is a long time coming. It's widely celebrated. ICC. The last C stands for convictions. I see convictions.

I see convictions. ICC, yeah, you know me. We are obviously interested in. what that will actually mean? I don't know whether or not, you know, a lot of countries right now are, you know, saying, hey, we follow international law. So if they show up here, it's on site.

So stay out, stay out of Denmark, Netanyahu or whatever. Stay out of Canada. Trudeau's so funny because he's just been supporting Israel to the hills since Dr. Rezaven. Yeah. But his, he was kind of like a, well, you know, we do. we're having kind of an identity crisis here but we'll we do we do uphold the law so we he didn't say we'll arrest them but he didn't no he said we'll follow the law and then

lindsay graham said lindsay graham uh he said um he he he's he's very mad about this he he went on uh multiple uh united states tv shows um and uh you know voiced his displeasure at this and including at one point he said this in the senate and had this reaction just check this out we hopefully together will find a way to rest our displeasure with the icc because if they'll do this to Israel we're next this group tried to come after our soldiers yeah you can clap all you want to they got a round of applause to we're next people people are like we're next oh yes this is amazing that must have been people in the gallery oh it's got to be you know it's not the other senators because they're like oh shit well lucky he's referring to is us in power he doesn't

need to worry because they have the haig invasion act right there actually is something on the books where the u.s says we reserve the right to invade the hague and airlift out any u.s. soldiers or politicians that you bring to trial on international criminal court violation charges cool that's actually a u.s. law of course it is i mean you know even if it weren't in the books they have the right to do it uh because that's what a hegemon does yeah that's what an imperialist power would do i mean you don't step on superman's cape you don't exactly it is it's just like you know we the the interesting thing about all of this uh with regard to israel has been the way in which like a lot of the you know like the international law community

infrastructure that was created in the wake of World War II is now just slowly being chipped away because they're just like wait wait wait wait wait wait hold on let's say like this kind of applies to whoever the enemies of the United States are not to us specifically that's fucking bullshit it's the rules based international custom order yes exactly exactly it's like can i get a number five but with no account order yeah we'll have it here we don't want it here yeah no pickles no onions no accountability did you see yeah all substitutions are about did you see the washington post editorial that said this is a travesty this this is not how the international criminal court should be used basically coming right out and saying it's the

international Caucasian court like that's great you know it's only for African dictators that's right and Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Putin that's right and and of course you know in the United States we're not going to respect their decision because the you know people being arrested are the ICC needs to stop spraying Fago on the audience 100% that's that one down for me what's Fago ICP it is this is a it is a insane clown posse joke. Oh, wow. And Fago is what they spray on the audience, which is a type of soda, very popular in, like,

Michigan, I guess. Anyways, everyone is, is, uh, everyone is pleased and, uh, very few, but very popular. The gathering of the juggalo's. The gathering of the juggalo's, a.k.k.a. birthright. Um, but yeah, uh, there is a lot of displeasure amongst, uh, some, Israel backers and Israel itself, including Netanyahu, who voiced his displeasure, pretty predictably. And here's a little bit of that. The anti-Semitic decision of the International Court in the Hague.

All right. First of all, we're off to a great start already. The anti-Semitic is a modern dryfuss trial, and it will end the same way. Hold on, hold on. Hold on. It'll end the same way. Someone's going to start a really ill-conceived national liberation movement and go create a country somewhere to rescue Jews from the persecution they're receiving like where on

Mars yeah yeah you know it'll end the same way I know a lot of Palestinians and other people who probably wouldn't mind that idea yeah yeah it'll it'll end airlift the Israelis off this planet yeah let's just go to the moon Israel on the moon I would do birthright on the moon fuck yeah but yeah let's let's keep it going National court in the Hague, also headed by a French judge, it is falsely accusing me the democratically elected prime minister of the state of Israel, and Israel's former defense minister, Joav Gallant, of deliberately targeting civilians. The court in the Hague accuses us of a deliberate policy of starvation. What in God's name are they talking about in the Hague?

Maybe they're talking about, maybe they're talking about when Yoav Galand said, ain't okal ain't cheshmal ha'ol sagoo no food no water no electricity everything is closed on day one of the invasion yes yes

the concept art for this is a bond villain beaming his message to the world it absolutely is Adam it's every one of and the worst thing about it is he's standing next to the CG flag of Israel and I'm just like stand next to an actual flag man

what are we doing What are we doing here? Come on. Looks like a soccer broadcast. Yes, it does. No war is more just than the war that Israel has been waging in Gaza. After Hamas attacked us, unprovoked, the decision to issue an arrest war. I love.

Unprovoked. Just so you know, we didn't do nothing. We were just minding our own business for the last. Well, technically, we did provoke them, but we said no givebacks. Yes, exactly. Yes. We said lunchbox. and we uh that's a it doesn't matter was made by a rogue prosecutor who's trying to

extricate himself from sexual harassment charges which were probably cooked up and dug up and fucking you know jinned up by i didn't even i didn't even know that and it's so funny that he's like bringing that up this he's such a petty bitch he's so petty but this is what israel does they they spy on and and harass and get whatever the hebrew version of compromise is on their adversaries in the world of international human rights. Yeah. And it's crazy. You don't even have to go that far. I mean, you just make it up. That's all you got to do. Right. And right. And we here we have Netanyahu who doesn't know anything about clinging to power and exacerbating and going nuclear on situations in order

to try to wiggle out of unrelated accusations. Yeah, exactly. He's never, he's never been in that. He can't relate to that. No, he doesn't know anything about, you know, cataclysmic smokescreens to keep himself hanging on to a job. Yes, yes. We're motivated by anti-Semitic sentiments. These judges did nothing. They did nothing against the real war crimes committed against the millions who've been murdered or uprooted by the dictatorships in Iran, Syria, and Yemen. I just love that, we're immediately just like, well, have you guys considered instead of me just, I don't know, going after a bunch of Arabs, I know? Can you, what, why don't you guys just go after our enemies?

This seems kind of fucked up, man. This seems kind of fucked up. So he's obviously angry. And yeah, sentiment around the world regarding this is obviously in the Western world is mixed because people don't know what to think. They still don't know. And today, our episode is going to be largely focused. We've promised you a Germany episode for a while now because we haven't done a Germany update since the early, early weeks of this show. And to guide us through what has happened in the last, let's say, year in Germany, we have a fantastic, independent journalist.

He's written for The Intercept, for The Guardian, the Nation, and a bunch of German publications, which I'm going to be honest, I cannot pronounce. In fact, I'm going to have some trouble pronouncing many things on this show, including his name. I'll help you. Oh, thank you. I got your back. Ladies and gentlemen, everyone else. I want to hear you do it first. Okay.

Please welcome Hano Hohenstein. Very good. Did I do it? Not bad. Hohenstein, right? Really, really good. Steen or Stein? Are you, or Stein or Stein?

Just call me Hano for this next hour. Okay. Yeah. Hano, is it I you're looking for? Oh, Hano, thank you so much for coming on best. Hesbarra, we're very excited to talk to you about what has been a year of shenanigans. Thank you guys for having me. I remember seeing this clip of Netanyahu and I was just like, for the first 20 seconds of this,

I actually didn't believe it was actually real. Yeah, because he's so like, he's too predictable. It's immediate, any anyone accuses him of anything. He goes, the anti-Semitic, you know, decision by X to say X, Y, Z is very reminiscent of the Ely's like the Dreyfus affair. I mean, like, bringing up Emil Zara. Yeah, it sounded like a joke. It sounded hysterical. Yeah.

Too much. Over the top, even for him. Yeah, yeah. He's always, he's always got like a list of like five or six different, either like high profile, you know. anti-semitic acts that happened in Europe or like a few you know pogroms in his pocket ready to talk about it I'm sorry I'm having this absurd image of a sort of an altered version of the opening scene of inglorious bastards I'm just thinking how how Bibi would be like the worst fugitive like he'd be hiding somewhere but he wouldn't be able to shut up the minute he

So, I don't know, Hano, like, take this, I think it's a compliment because I think Christoph Waltz is very handsome and charming. You don't, you don't not remind me of him a little bit. Oh, my God. Like a younger, a much younger, but like, in a nice way. In a really nice way, right? Not playing his character. So I'm imagining you, I'm imagining.

I'm going to have the cake somewhere and put the cigarette inside. I remember that. That's right. But I'm imagining you showing up in the farmhouse, you know, and ordering a tall glass of, you know, a milk, a bon ver du le, because he speaks the French so well. And you're sitting. there and you're and you're talking to Shoshana the farm girl and you're like my dear you know we're uh have you uh have you come into contact with any Israeli war criminals lately and immediately

from beneath the floorboards Benjamin Yannia who starts streaming on his phone you know that's how you catch him this is something he would actually uh like at some point when he gets accused by the ICJ let's say next uh or you know they say it's genocide he's this is this is very reminiscent of that scene in Inglorious Bustards. Which is a true movie of history. A true movie of a thing that happened. But Ahana, we got to talk about what's been going on in Germany. This has been a year of shenanigans, and you've been someone who's kind of clocked a lot

of it, especially in the sort of the art world and the world of academia, just the general vibe of cancellations, as I think you guys say in Germany. Is there a German word for being canceled? Because I have noticed that in the kind of English language versions of these stories, they'll use the term, like you yourself will use the term canceled. And, you know, in the United States, you know, canceled means when a bunch of mad people online yell at you for something that you did that's controversial and then nothing happens and then you get to go on like Joe Rogan and then you become even more successful. Whereas it seems in Germany there's almost an actual consequence to being canceled like events get canceled. People are getting

fired. A McCarthyism that I think looks very like to us like it's what is going to be next for those of us in the United States. And there is nowhere else to resurface. Like you can't have your redemption in it because the, the bandwidth for actual debate is so severely curtailed and policed. It's interesting. Like this sort of right-wing culture war trope of cancel culture was super prominent in Germany as well.

Like it wasn't just like a U.S.-based thing. Like it mainly kind of revolved around. like quote unquote woke culture and like people supposedly not being allowed to say racist things anymore but um it kind of feels like herons woke herens woke right it kind of feels like when it comes to when comes to israel palestine this this thing is is more or less real like people people actually get canceled in the sense of like events get canceled exhibitions get canceled things are pretty much getting out of control in germany over the past year i wouldn't say this is like a phenomenon that started like a year ago like it's it's preceded that

a little bit like it's it's became very pronounced in the past four to five years um ever since germany passed like a now infamous um non-binding uh legally non-binding resolution the bds resolution but that had really, really, like, strong ripple effects, especially in culture. And, like, Germany is like, you know, this culture is state-funded in Germany. Right. Other than in many other countries. So it's kind of like, it's really like one of the key sort of channels for Germany's soft power in the world. And when the state has a stated raison, right?

The state's, how do you think of it? Stratz raison? You're so good. You're like, do you speak German, Daniel? I don't. native speaker like it's uh i don't um he's hungarian i'm hungarian yeah i mean it's hard to pronounce it correctly on like first attempt that's like kudos to you i've heard other other smarter people saying but you know know your enemy right know your historical enemy so the state's reason which is a

german one of these you know one of the great things about the german language it's it's like one of these words that just like um words assemble to to fit new needed concepts because you can just create compound words unto infinity. And Stats raison is, the definition would be the reason of state, right? Right. Like it's as if, the whole reason for being of the state, I guess we need to find ourselves a pods raison. We have a pods raison.

We have, we need to articulate it. What would it be? It's to ensure the security and safety and defense of Israel. Right, of course. I think that's clear. We do it every week. But when the state has its explet. So what is Germany's Stats raison?

And how does it enforce it through its funding and stewarding and policing of the arts and culture and media? Basically, state raison is a term that goes back to a speech that Angela Merkel, no longer the chancellor of Germany. but like infamously the kind of like the epitome of like post reunification german like stability and and growth and whatnot like she gave a speech in the knesset in the in the in the israeli parliament in i think 2006 in the early 2000s um for the first time really um making this concept idea explicit and kind of realigning germany's foreign policy with israel as opposed to iran and And there's a lot of geopolitical reasoning for why she did that, but she explicitly derived this raison d'etat, meaning basically that Israel's security is Germany's reason of state. It's Germany's like key principle.

All of this is not like legal stuff. This is basically a gesture of symbolic politics, but it is very powerful ever since. And she directly derived that from Germany's historical. responsibility of having committed the, you know, like mass genocide of Jewish people in the Holocaust. And was there any resentment within German society when the Statsreason is clearly and boldly and publicly articulated as to protect a foreign country as opposed to the Statsreason having something to do with, I don't know, Germans?

I mean, not to get all, not to get all Reichy about it, but I don't know, I'd want my I want my fatherland to matter in a state zone. I'd want the people who actually live here. How did Germans respond to that? I don't think there was much resentment to the degree that Israel for many Germans has come to be sort of like a function, I would say, like a shortcut almost, to sort of deal with that part of your identity as a German. that is so complicated, you know, like in a way, I'm German, I'm not Jewish. I find, um, I think the fact that like there is conversations about what that historical responsibility should look

like I think is very important. I would never kind of like, you know, do away, want to do away with that. But like, I think for many people, that's just like sort of like a projection that's happening. Like just a way to pay down the carmic debt. Right. Exactly. Like people like kind of feel if as soon as we kind of like publicly announce our sort of full-fledged support. for Israel that kind of like takes that box of anti-Semitism like that's we we won't be suspected anymore for being either anti-Semitic or or oblivious to that chapter of history and I think like you know this this sort of like no you'll just be you'll be suspected for being oblivious to this period of history right you'll just be and and actively enabling later right

we really we really have you by the balls don't we I mean we really ended up on top in this arrangement hell yeah I wouldn't have seen that one coming. Yeah. Which is unfortunate for us as being anti-Zionist Jews. Well, so what's interesting about this is that like there's something about this, you know, reason of state that feels like explicitly transactional in terms of like this is, you know, rather than just being like a gesture, gesture of solidarity, which, you know, is like, like you said, it is symbolic. um there's not it's not necessarily it's not written in the constitution you know welcome to germany aka the the israel police um but the um do you feel like german society in general

um holds on to this support as like a way of like with the expectation of this means that we cannot be accused of being anti-Semitic or doing anti-Semitism ever again? Is there resentment when, let's say, German forces start, you know, cracking down on pro-Palestine, you know, protesters and a quarter of them are Jewish? And then people go, this feels, you know, like it's targeting, you know, Jews as well as Palestinian, is there any, like, part of German society that goes like, God, these Jews are always complaining. We help Israel. And then all of a sudden, we're still anti-Semitic because we have to, you know, bust some Jewish skulls in order to do so. Is there, is, is there, um, does it

feel transactional in, in, um, German society? It absolutely feels transactional to me. Yeah. I mean, like, I think there's a, there's this, this kind of like, over emphasis on, on, on, Israel as like a kind of expression of historical responsibility has really helped the far right that is you know the the far right party that is surging all of the country right now that's like won elections in east eastern Germany just like a couple of couple of weeks ago and that is projected to reach second place in federal elections upcoming years so they're really on on the rise right now and I think this kind of model of straits reason has effectively really helped them to kind of hide their own anti-semitism.

They're like deeply anti-Semitism. They actually reject commemoration for the Holocaust. They have like minimized it on several occasions. But to them, it's like, you know, they share a similar vision of sort of ethno-nationalism with the current representation of Israel and the current government. So they're really on board with the idealized vision of Israel

as a kind of like, you know, model of like a happy ending for German guilt or like a redemptive sort of ideal, whatever. I don't know. I think that there is like a lot of anti-Semitism in German culture and like a lot of people are pretty unaware of the plurality of what, you know, Jewish voices can bring to the table. So like you said it's not like a lot of the cancellation

have actually affected Jews as well. It's not like. Yeah. I'm imagining a village scene where the Nazi commandant rides it rides into the center of town with a bullhorn and says, You don't, you know, come out to the town square. It has come to our attention that some of you are against the Jewish state.

And like, you know, strip-searching Jews to find anti-Israel propaganda and then giving them a lecture about saying Amisraeli in a German accent, like just a kind of regime of oppression of Jewish descent against the Statsrezaun. and the thousand-year Arets that we're supporting. It's interesting to me that it seems like, for the far right, at least in Germany,

that as well as being a way to kind of whitewash their past, it also seems a way to vindicate their ideology in that both are, you know, ethno-nationalists and both are just like pro-Western civilization, so to speak. And both are teleological, right, in the sense of that happy ending you're talking about, right? There's a sense that the German, the Reich was the glorious happy ending for the debacle of German history. It's the end. This is what we finally arrived at. And Israel has that same kind of function for the concocted Jewish narrative.

Interesting. Wow. and like at the same time it really connects with with their you know racism and their facility towards migration and asylum seekers and whatnot since they've like kind of like they've really mainstreamed right now this trope of quote unquote imported anti-semitism which is which is like viewed as which is I mean which I think I guess I don't know how you guys feel about this but I think like many people in Germany are not critical enough of that idea that like anti-semitism is a quote-unquote imported thing like it seems like we're kind of at the heart of this it's a strange invasive species we have never seen it here before

right right right let it be like Americans just like uh accusing like you know the Mexicans they're coming over to our country and they're bringing fast food they're bringing high cholesterol snacks they're bringing it's like are you sure about that that's you all of our favorite treats have been our favorite treats uh and that's you know it's true uh anti it's like when it's like when libs were accusing russia of you know meddling in the election and and sewing racial discord uh to to try and get trump elected like yeah he's russians they keep coming over here and they're and they're just trying to do you know black lives matter that's what's happening yeah well slavery slavery does initiate with

Slav, so it was, it wasn't our idea. Great point. But so I guess what I'm interested in starting out with, for a lot of our audience who, we have a mostly American audience. So I think if you could just give us like some kind of primer about Germany's attitude towards Israel since 1948, I know that the road to and Angela Merkel saying this is our Statsrezaan is a long one. So

how instrumental have they been in the creation of the state and the upholding of the security of the state? There's a great book about this by Daniel Mavecchi, which I can really recommend that's published both in English and in German.

I think Israel has played a key role for first of all for Germany itself for their recognition on the on the global stage as as a you know as a country I mean like there were discussions of Germany

would have a right to be to be to exist after the after the Holocaust right but like their support for their military support for Israel and their ideological support for Israel has as kind of and their reparations to Israel as part of the part of the discussions after the founding of the state has really played a major role in like

for other places like great britain who have been very suspicious of that new country to to accept germany so i think that's that's something to really give in mind and like after reunification um israel has been has been very like germany has been a very staunch support of Israel throughout the years. I think this is just like grown more intense after reunification. Like, and specifically so after the beginning 2000s after this like, um, announcement by Angela Merkel. And today up to the point where you feel that, um, there is really like you could make, I think you could make a solid argument actually using Statschres. You don't have to be an anti-Zionist or even just like a mild critic of Israel. You could even use Statschresen say, why don't we

align our solidarity with the people of Israel, you know, like you don't even have to care about Palestinians. Like it's, I don't feel like it would have to necessarily translate to outright support for a government with a lot of like, you know, fascist politicians in it. So that's what's happening right now is that Germany is delivering weapons and delivering support. And looking the other way. I mean, it seems to be the practice to just not know a lot about the Palestinians. Like, we support Israel, and that's it, and that's all we know. And, like, we're going to show a clip later of a journalist trying to, trying to grill an expert. John Meersheimer, of all people, a German journalist. And she just very blithely, well, I'll save it, but there's just

a real sense of, look, I don't know anything about this. All I know is that Israel is a right to exist. And I'm not really, and then, of course, when it comes down to it, I'm afraid to know more. because if I knew more than my whole affiliation with the Statschrezone would come into question. Does this have anything to do with the anti-Deutsch movement? Does that ring a bell? Do you know what I'm talking about? Of course. No, 100%.

The anti-Deutsch movement is a very obscure fringe left-wing splinter group phenomenon that has been growing out of that kind of, I would say, rightful suspicion after reunification of like kind of a new german like nationalism you know like german german nationalism has always been complicated and when the gdr was was still existing there was a kind of like there was always a counter narrative and kind of like a state and state anti-fascist counter narrative how you know that had its own flaws no question about it but like ever since uh you reunification that the german left has basically um focused its efforts on on like on like questioning that like surge of nationalism once we were seeing it there was i think the initial impulse for that

was completely correct but like there were these splinter groups within the left that like started over identifying with with zionism and and israel um to out of again like a good impulse to address anti-Semitism within the left, which I think did exist at the time. But like, um, what was there, what was there, what was there, what was there, what was their anthem? Uh, Deutschland unter alas. Nie Wieder, Deutschland. Yeah, exactly, which is a wonderful anthem, but like, um, how great song, I think the, I think the impulse is great. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the

which movement has again it has it had it's like sort of like obscure splinter days i think their their line was we all nation states must fall but israel is the last you know they had this kind of like romantic vision of like the the kibbutznik Zionism and like somehow somehow this movement has been very influential in pop culture there were a lot of like pop cultural like bands and like and and and and and films so i think like a lot today in in in in germany's like contemporary cultural institutions there's a lot of people who kind of carry remnants of that same ideology into actually um really destructive politics i think it's still prevalent but it's it's less it's less kind of dominant as like a as like a left-wing force it's more like

it's kind of really wondered and disseminated into mainstream german culture it's crazy to me that it's like you know uh it's like the right wing, you know, loves Israel, loves Germany, the left wing, hates Germany, loves Israel. Well, it really speaks to... The centrist, love Israel, love Israel. I mean, it really does speak to a kind of metastasis of an unhealed wound. Sure. Like when a country does what Germany did and went through what Germany went through and is looked at the way, and just nothing ever got metabolized, nothing. And so what's left is just this giant Holocaust-shaped

and World War II-shaped gaping, separating wound that never heals. And then we just fill it up with coping and coping and coping and coping. And you end up with the whole state where across the spectrum, we're just trying to make that unprocessed pain go away. And then you've got the doppelgang over there in Israel, which is like the easy, like, like what would Israel what would Germany be without Israel right yeah I mean and that's an

interesting point too you know we talk a lot about you know people uh upholding you know Germany upholding and defending Israel's right to exist um but it's also it's a mutual upholding and defending rights to exist 100% Germany's Germany's right to exist uh was as was also you know in question and as part of their right to exist, they are going to help the other country who talks a lot about rights to exist. I think when you look at this, the anti-Dutch movement might no longer be as dominant as it once was in the left, but it's still very prevalent on places like Twitter, if anyone

still uses this, but like it's, unfortunately, you can really like, it's like a textbook case for psychological projections, and it really shows you something about like, Like how many, which I think, again, like goes way beyond this kind of obscure splinter movement, but really disseminated into mainstream German culture, which is this type of like replacement nationalism of sorts that many Germans, I feel like look at Israel as like a place that really epitomizes a version of nationalism. They have never really allowed themselves to have about themselves. And I, yeah, yeah. For good, for good reasons, I think, like nationalism in Germany is like a little bit of a more complicated thing. because people are more aware of, like, the, the kind of fascist implications of that and where it can end up in. But, like, so Israel in a way has, like you said, this kind of mirror image of like a quote-unquote good nationalism that, like, many, many Germans can identify with really intuitively.

Talk about a dried drunk. I mean, you get sober off your own fucking, you shift one addiction, megalomania, into a kind of masochistic, like, BDSM relationship with a dog. A little, a little, a little, skinny little dumb country in the Middle East. Yes. You know, like, you just send your checks there. Like, fucked up. It's like, like, rather than being sober off nationalism, which it's like identifying nationalism or very specifically ethno-nationalism as, let's face it, the root, I mean,

this is the root. I don't, I don't even believe that's ideological. I believe that's a fact, personally. then we could ask what are the roots of ethnomationalism. Right, of course. But, you know, like rather than, you know, getting sober off of that, it's just like, no, but there's a right way to do it. It's like back when I used to use drugs and I was just like, I'm going to use, I'm going

to use heroin like a gentleman just on weekends, you know, just for when I don't have an exam, you know. So what has it done to the German, you know, national illusion that Israel can, can, can, get away with this forever and that this is a noble kind of nationalism. What have these ICC warrants done in the German? I mean, if we're not fast forwarding too quickly here, Matt, I know you're not going about the history of it, but like what impact does that have?

Because Germany also does consider, I mean, another part of its reason to exist is it's, um, it's membership in the international world and it's the head. It's, it's right at the center of, of, of the euro and, and, and all this kind of stuff. It's a major player in international affairs. So Israel being outed as a rogue state now in this way,

did that hit with a certain amount of force? I mean, it's the process of hitting very hard. And I think people are very slowly coming to terms with the fact that the coordinate system of their belief systems is shifting, which is creating a lot of illusion and a lot of insecurity and a lot of questions about how to recalibrate. that system i think like there's really like in germany i think it wouldn't be overstated to say that

we're really at a crossroads right now of like choosing with regards to israel palestine do we want to go away of like respecting international law respecting universal human rights respecting all these things that are supposedly at the core of our belief system as like this this redeemed nation or do we want to go yeah like full on you know supporting a like a rogue state that's gone off tracks, even according to its own standards. But like, yeah, I mean, like, it's like the ICC thing is fascinating to me. When the, when the ICC first issued these arrest warrants, sorry, not issued, requested them when they first requested them.

Like, Germany actually sent a statement in, like, the, I think it's called amicus courier. It's like a kind of, like this sort of, they invoke this. principle of complementarity, that Israel would have to sort of investigate these allegations itself, which the courts don't do in Israel. It's crystal clear. And if you read human rights reports, even by Israeli human rights organizations like Yashdine, you will find that the courts in Israel do very, very rarely, the numbers are very, very minimal of the cases where even in the military, like they are investigating cases to the point that there would be actual legal accountability for what the Israeli military is doing. So in many ways, these, these, these, these,

these, uh, these, this kind of statements was a delay tactic. And many, many, like legal, I'm not a legal expert, but I've read a lot of those reports. Many legal experts have said this from day one. This is not serious. This doesn't add up with the, the, the political realities on the ground. And like, now that the, the, they're issued, there have been a few days, like, I don't Bearbrook, I think today has said that she, no one is standing above the law and, like, she will respect. They haven't said that they'd arrest them, but they've said that they'd, you know, if they came to Germany, but they said that they would like respect the international law. Yeah, this is the same, is the same statement, a similar type of statement that Justin Trudeau said. Yeah.

The Prime Minister of Canada, which, you know, now hearing it from Trudeau and hearing it from this German official makes me wonder if that is genuine, you know, like I, because I was a bit shocked that Trudeau was saying this after, as we were saying before, like, you know, a full year of cheerleading, right? I think they're all counting on it blowing over. Counting all on it blowing over or by, you know, not saying we will, you know, arrest him if he shows up on our soil instead you know we'll follow the law it's it's just very um uh it's it's ambiguous even though it sounds um not i just can't get over the i can't get over the beautiful

symmetrical irony of creating uh that your right to exist you or the need to prove your right to exist is it comes from you having just ripped the concept of you know human rights to shreds, even though it's totally scapegoating Germany to single them out as the sole perpetrators of that in the fucking 20th century of all places in the West. But and then so that now you have to make a big show of being all about the new rules-based international order and human rights. Meanwhile, parallel with that, we're going to friend up with the state that our victims create. And then those two things come into conflict. Yeah. And then you have to pick sides between your two justifications.

You couldn't script it better. You could not script it better. It's incredible. What's interesting to me is the way in which the German cultural institutions seem to be sort of, I don't want to say at the front line, but they seem to be sort of the first to be attacked. like at the very least first I hear about when I hear about the repression going on of a Palestinian solidarity not just like activists but like artists you know academics you know musicians what have you this seems to be a key component of the government trying to create a state in which all of the citizens of it know that this is a line you never, never cross. And so I want to get into that a bit because this last year has been just rife with the most ridiculous, like, cultural

cancellations that I've seen. I mean, we have them a lot in the United States, too. People are getting fired from jobs and kicked off of movies. There was an actress who was supposed to be in the new Scream movie, who was fired for pro-Palestine content. I personally know a bunch of people who have lost representation and stuff. But the stuff that's been happening, I want to talk first about what happened at the Berlinale. This is, so there was the Israeli journalist, Yuval Abraham, and a Palestinian filmmaker, it's Basel Adra.

right i don't you said it correctly 100% hell yeah uh so they got an award for uh no other land which is a documentary that they screened there and there was uh they mentioned um the fact that israel's an apartheid state uh which also the documentary i assume clearly shows uh i assume they they talk about the politics of uh separation of apartheid over there. Yeah, Yuval's, in fact, it was the Israeli Jewish filmmaker who in the acceptance speech said, tomorrow, me and my co-filmmaker have to go back to a land where I have way more rights than he does. Right.

Of movement, of assembly of citizenship. Yes. And he was condemned as anti-Semitic by the jury press. It was not just condemned, but there was also like talk of like pursuing legal action possibly. like there was it seemed like a total get that Jew hating Jew yeah how dare you sorry I have to do the accent

what are you saying but respect yourself yeah these goddamn self hating Jews the Odin they don't love themselves so anyways Nazi reeducation camps for Jews

to get more of a spine and Jewish pride You'll be sing Jerusalem of gold. It's a great song. Hebrew classes taught by SS shock troops. It's so funny. But the craziest thing about this story was, so there was a German culture minister who got in trouble for applauding. Can you tell us about this, Hannah?

I mean, the whole story, can I rewind this just like one inch? No, because like the story about this film, like, I've mentioned. moderated panels with those two people several times and I really want to say this is like what they this film shows the reality of Palestinians in Masafayata which if you know anything about Israel Palestine is like the South Habron Hills like the southern part of the West Bank and area so-called area C of the West Bank which the reality there is that like after the Supreme Court in Israel issued like ruled basically even though they have no real jurisdiction there in reality with legal fiction but they ruled that this is like a military firing zone now

and ever since like a policy of like forces placement and like ethnic cleansing basically has really been exacerbated there ever since 2022 way before this current government is what kicked in now so this is this is the reality that it shows and it shows it through the lens of these two people like these two filmmakers the journalist israel yubal abraham and ambassal adra who shows the reality he's an activist in his own Palestinian village over there and it's just like you know it doesn't romanticize their relationship

which is what I really like about this film but it also shows the complications and like also the humor in it sometimes but it just like it gives you an in on like two people with again very different living realities like fighting this occupation

in their own way Yuba isn't journalist and Basel as an activist there's not much you can really say about this film, which is why it was so surprising to me that, I mean, I'm sure there's other examples of even cultural production you could scandalize better, because this is just like, it's not a scandalous film. And these two people are also not saying scandalous things. Like, Yvada Baham saying, I live under, you know, this is an apartheid system. It's not, it's something that's consistent with what all human rights organizations working on this issue.

I've said, literally all of them. Repeatedly, yeah, I mean, including Israeli human rights organizations. And a few South Africans who might know something about it too. Yeah, exactly. Right. Anyway, so they gave their speeches at Berlinale. Like, they stood next to each other. Basel said, like, implored Germany not to send him more weapons and, like, and Yuval mentioned that, you know, their life experience is different and that it's apartheid. Claudia, so one key element we haven't spoken about is like Bildseitung, which is like...

What is that? Bill's setting is the biggest newspaper in Germany, which is owned by the publisher Axel Springer. I guess it's something like the Fox News of Germany, just a little bit worse because it's taken more seriously by more people. It really influences the discourse on Israel-Palestines very heavily. Bill, this is B-I-L-D, right? Right, right, right. It's Germany's biggest newspaper. So they had a clip, they published an article about, like, you know, kind of showing how a,

Claudia Roth clapped to this, to this one, scandalous speech of these two people. And they kind of like, these two people who clearly didn't understand the message of their own film. Yeah, right, exactly. Right, right, right. They sent an army of German cultural critics to correct the filmmakers about what the film actually showed him was about. Yeah. Anyway, shortly thereafter, and this really shows you something about the climate, I think, because Claudia Rode, she's a politician of the Green Party.

they were supposed to be the liberal left-leaning party. She issued a statement that her clapping was directed at Yuval Abraham, only one of the film. It was just like, I mean, there was something so bizarre in the idea that you would like, you would hear a speech about apartheid and like two different realities and then you would go on to reinforce the fact like that. You apartheid and your applause. Yes. I mean, people.

I built the wall down the center of. my hands and I was only clapping on one side of the wall. We have an iron dome that takes away the sounds of claps, but only for Palestinians. That is literally the sound of one hand clapping. They call it, wait,

they call it clap heartite. That's the way it's right now. Beautiful. Clap hearthead. Anyway, it's like, it's it was quite something like to either, I, I find it remarkable that there has been

no apology issued on, or or that this tweet hasn't even been deleted. I mean, this is just like the level at which the discourse is moving in Germany in this direction. It's, it's, it's, it's crazy to me. And it's, um, it's shocking and incredibly entertaining, but from, you know, I, I watch it nervously and I nervous laugh at it because I, I see it as, um, reminiscent of past, you know, McCarthyism and also possibly of what's to come. in the United States. And we're going to continue talking about that after we take a quick

commercial break. So everyone, please stick around. We'll be right back. Hanno, Howenstein, how are you doing? Stein, I forgot. Is it seen as Stein? Hohenstein, exactly. Howenstein, Stein, okay, Stein. I like Stein. It's a type of beer mug, isn't it?

I believe so. Stein is a beer mug? Here in the United States. Yeah, maybe. That's what we call it. I don't think I've seen it. Okay. You know, my last name is German.

Of course, Lieb. I mean, it's like, it's, it's, it says something like cute actually yeah yeah it's it means cute like love or something like that clearly yeah so i call him leban i i call matt leban's realm that's my little that's my little that came for i need some space to be cute um do you have do you have uh german family background or no it's weird uh i was i was looking through like family tree stuff and it was all uh ukrainian um ukrainian Jews and I was like, at what point did we just get a Lieb tacked on there? I don't know. I thought I was a, you know, German Jew for a while until I saw a freaking, all these Ukrainians.

I'm going to think of it. In the lyrics to mine hair from this is, I think one of the lyrics is mine, my Lieber hair, I think, or something like that. Call me that. My sweet man, my dear instead of calling me cute space. But let's let's go back to, um, what, what we were talking about in terms of the repression that the German state is doing of all of these cultural institutions. A very interesting one to me is the Documenta exhibition. Am I pronouncing that right? Documenta? Right. Totally. Okay. So what is the history of that exhibition and how is it maybe morphed? from, you know, something that was used to try to, you know, erase the past to recreating

with a new group of people. Well, the documentary has been founded, founded, not funded, founded basically after the Second World War as a way to kind of like for the German federal republic to kind of show that this legacy of quote-unquote end-a-te-const, you know, the Nazis used to create art exhibitions of so-called degenerate art to distance themselves from what they would have labeled as like Jewish art or whatever kind of artistic expression they would like they would like censor and and and legitimize so the the documenter was a way of like showing this kind of avant-garde art and like as a way of embracing kind of different you know showing that this this chapter of history is over basically and right and kind of embracing this. diversity of artistic expression it's like there's a lot to be said about like how that ideal was actually pretty flawed from the get-go because many former Nazis as has been the case in in many sectors of the German you know

society and public for for decades have actually been many of the people in the founding founding curation of document have actually been former Nazis and have actually privileged, you know, pretty, pretty much like German-centric art. So it's not like, it's not like this ideal really worked from the get-go, but like it's, I think the documenter has in the, in the, it's like a, how do you say, like quintanial, you would say? It's like it happens every five years, you know, like a biannual, like a quid. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it's progressed over the years to become more international, less. fascistic and yeah and you know increasingly with the discourse shifting it's like the last edition of the commenter was very much an expression of like an awareness of colonialism and colonial legacy and like different ways of like art making different ways of creation trying to shift direction from the quote unquote global north to the quote unquote global south and like really allowing for different ways of like of curating and showing art and like this this last documenta i think was um an epitome of of some of the some of the things we're seeing i mean it was a first kind of like a sparkle of some of the the discussions we're seeing right now in the art world

and and the and the broader culture and academic sector around like anti-semitism and like how we define anti-semitism how we you know how we kind of like um uh project antisemitism to other people and a lot of those discussions really revolved around a commenter that's that happened in 2022 right and yeah there's a lot to say and so what it seems that when you talk about like how to define anti-semitism Germany and you can mistake me if I'm you can correct me if I'm mistaken but defines antisemitism with the iHRA definition is that right where they specifically the this definition has been very controversial i mean here in the united states it's trying to be

adopted by you know our own politicians is essentially criminalizing um anti zionism uh and calling anti zionism anti semitism is this definition um of anti semitism has been a adopted by the German state, and is that being used specifically to target these institutions? Well, yes, I mean, like, the Iro definition of anti-Semitism is it's not like it's written in the Constitution, but it has been continuously reaffirmed in the shape of state resolutions. One of them was passed only like a month ago, the latest one on anti-Semitism really explicitly reinforcing the iron definition

of antisemitism and I think what's the issue with that is that it leaves a lot of room for interpretation of what

anti-Semitism is I think there is real anti-Semitism in Germany I think it would be completely like again I don't want to downplay that

phenomenon at all but like time and again in the last years in Israel, Palestine and beyond this definition has been

instrumentalized and used against people both Palestinians also Jews also people from all over the world who voice various degrees of criticisms of the Israeli government or the Israeli state to label that as anti-Semitic and basically shut them up so that's I think that's where where that friction is coming from and it's it's definitely played out during documenta quite heavily like there was

a report that was after basically when documenta opened there was it was curated by this team of Indonesian curators called Ruan Gupa and at the center in castle so this relatively small town castle is basically built around this art exhibition and there's like one central place where all the action is taking place and in the central place there was a big mural that kind of commemorated or encapsulated the history of Indonesian politics. And this mural showed all sorts of figureheads and one of those figures was actually a figure of what could be interpreted as a Jewish figure.

Like it had these, how do you call these curls in English? Right, exactly. And it had like vampire teeth. And, you know, it looked pretty antisemitic. There was nothing to, there was nothing to, you know, like there was not much to discuss. It was an anti-Semitic, it was a tiny fraction of that mirror, but it was an anti-Semitic fraction of it. So I can, I can, yeah, no, I can, I love the vampire teeth.

I was just like, the past, I was like, oh, this sounds like it's going to be nice. And it was like, hey, yeah, okay, all right. I can understand why, you know, like, like Jewish people in Germany felt very offended by seeing this like state-funded exhibition and the first thing they see is this big neuron then there's this anti-semitic element in it i i think that's pretty fucked up um but what that set off is like kind of like um a media frenzy that was very tendacious and very much dominated by like you know right-wing actors that kind of went started going through this exhibition basically picking any fraction of it that dealt because the exhibition itself was very heavily

focused on the legacy of colonialism so they basically went through it and looked at anything that was even closely ready to Palestine and started scandalizing the hell out of it so there was one story particularly you know stuck in my mind about this show by this this this this Gazan artist um Muhammad al havajri i think you pronounce his name um who has he had this cycle of images called guernica gaza so So it kind of alluded to Picasso's Guernico, exactly. And like the title alone for people was like an indication of that being anti-Semitic because people said like, okay, this artwork makes an illegitimate comparison between

what happened during the Nazi time. Picasso basically, you know, manifested in his artwork and his famous artwork and what happens in Gaza. Right. And I don't know. Granica is Spanish. war, right? It's the, it's Franco's fascists. So, hmm. Yeah, well, this was the, yeah. Yeah, and, and this was used as a way of saying you are doing a one-to-one comparison between, uh, Nazis and what's

happening in Israel. Right. And, and so was he, it was his art, um, shut down, like, do they close his exhibit or no the whole thing wasn't shut down it was all shown and like the commenter finished with the artworks they could be shown but the the media friends really took over kind of like everything documenta was about was the discussion about antisemitism for the time as long as it lasted and like there was an expert report being written um by very respected professors and heads of institutes that basically labeled a few artwork as anti-Semitic and among them that like artwork of that

Palestinian artist is like one that like kind of stuck in my mind because it also related to Gaza like this person tried to sort of like rework his own memories from the wars he's experienced living in Gaza in art and it was like it was seen as anti-Semitic by standards of saying something like you know he didn't he didn't adequately represent the fact that, you know, the IDF's operations in Gaza aren't directed against the civilian

population. Actually, they hide, you know, Hamas terrorists actually hide, all the human shields. I'd like a document from these motherfuckers, the creators of this definition of this definition. What are we allowed to compare Gaza to? Yeah. Like, what historical, like, are we allowed to ever compare it to anything? If so, could we have a handbook of things that we are allowed to compare it to? Yeah, they had the Hezbara handbook.

And in the handbook, it says a list of things you're not allowed to compare it to. But it doesn't give you a list of things you should. Right. And I feel like... They'll allow you to compare it to, I don't know, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising if you cast Israel as the residents of the Warsaw Ghetto. Right. If they're in the ghetto.

As opposed to the ones who policed it. I think what's fascinating about this is the way in which, you know, it was latched onto by the right wing. you know in in in Germany because specifically out of a need to cast Islam or Muslims as like the real purveyors of anti-Semitism and you know with regard to academic institutions this seems to be like a through line in terms of talking about colonialism right and the way in which the German right has latched on to specifically post-colonial studies as being as being an anti-Semitic dog whistle. Can you tell me more about that?

Like, how is that being used by the right? And also, how is that not an, like, doesn't that imply that Israel is a settler colonial society if you're like we're supporting Israel by attacking post-colonial studies because they they keep talking about how Israel is a colony but go on it's it's an interesting interesting question like the degree to which like that that attack actually carries a little bit of like a lot of admission of like you know historical realities on the ground that's that's that's an interesting thought I mean, we do this in the United States, too, you know, with our right-wing politicians, one who, you know, they want to do things like things that, they attack critical race theory or something like that. Or the, what was that New York Times, the project regarding this 1619?

1619 project, yes. and just like the way in which they you know the way in which they attack these things almost implies a form of racism where if you're saying like we don't want to teach slavery in schools because it makes people think we're racist it just makes me go sounds like you're racist like if you're if you want to ban post-colonial studies because it you think it's they're talking about Israel, you know, it's like, you're just saying out loud, you're implying that Israel is a settler colonial state. Yeah.

I think, like, the way it's viewed in Germany is that, like, post-colonial theory has attached itself to Israel, which, of course, you have to know that Israel is born out of immaculate conception. Right, exactly. No harms have been done in the founding of that state. It has always defended itself, and it's like a sacred nation. of innocent people so that's that's uh we all know the premise upon which we have to like we have to understand all that no but like seriously it's not a colony if you're indigenous like me and daniel

we're both indigenous to israel i don't know if you know that um i'm only half indigenous but daniel's full indigenous yeah anyway like i think your your um your comparison right there is actually quite quite fitting like it's very similar to what is happening in the u.s with with critical race theory the kind of culture wars around that like what's just like interesting I think in the US there is a broader consensus that that is like a sort of

right wing culture war whereas in Germany that kind of rhetoric on on post colonialism as a supposedly kind of corrosive force directed first informants most against Israel is something that's there's almost like

almost consensus from the right to the left on on this on this issue or at least on the degree to which the language around that is so generalizing like you will you will read these articles in the fadz the kind of like the the media the newspaper of the german bourgeoisie and you will read it in the build siteung like the kind of big tabloid but you will also read it in in tuts which is like a the supposedly left wing newspaper the biggest left wing outlet in in in germany that was founded in opposition to the the major conservative media like you will you will find a lot of like this kind of rhetoric on like post-colonialism is something you know like uh like de de post-colonial theory first of all it's like it there's no such thing as the post-colonial theory it's a very kind of like it's a very broad kind of yeah it's a broad field of research that has a lot of like contradictions i mean within lines of thought within it

like it's very hard to generalize these kind of things and any of which can be critiqued substantively like the 1619 project I saw black historians going at it right saying that this is an oversimplification this is that this is shoddy research whatever right

but that's different than saying this is some kind of leftist conspiracy to unravel our entire state's reason yeah right United States reason United States reason

because we want to we don't need a reason I think what's behind a lot of like this rhetoric is a general sort of like fear of of comparisons between different chapters in history and like

a suggestion that like as soon as you compare things like for example if you compare Germany's colonial crimes and the first genocide in the 20th century in today's Namibia in like the former German colony if you compare that with the Holocaust

in order to try to understand to what you greeted one informed the other you know like I mean some of those some of the same personnel was active in both and some of the same methods that were developed in Namibia on Shark Island in like a colonial city were actually you know

we're repurposed in the genocide against Jews these things are real and they're researched by many scientists across the world but like often like these things when they come up in the German public sphere that scandalize this quote unquote relativization because I think the general the common assumption is that like this is like a forbidden de-exceptionalization of like this key chapter of of German history that is like basically undermining our German responsibility identity or this is when the floodgates

opens okay a couple of things though right if you can't compare historical events you can't do history right right that's number one number two the verb to compare doesn't mean to say two things are identical. In fact, what you do when you compare is you hold them up to each other and say, what do they have in common or are they different? Or sometimes they're not even talking about comparison.

Like in the case you're saying, you're talking about placing them both on a continuum of consequence that one preceded the other and in some ways informed the other. You're putting two things side by side and looking at them at the same time. If you can't do that, then you can't think any attempt to section off any one piece of history and put in a glass case and say, this shall never, ever again be thought of, like what they tried to do with October 7th.

Do not. I should warn you very strongly, as A.lon Levy said to the Brown UK interviewer interview. Not to contextualize October 7th. Yes. You're telling me that in German intellectual circles and scholarly circles, there's an actual line of thought that says, let's section something off and not allow anything else to appear next to it? Well, I'm generalizing this a little bit. Talk about immaculate preconceptions. Right, 100%. No, this is like really that this is the way in which is discussed, at least in Germany's Fitton, the newspaper sections.

Like, that's the common thread. And I think, you know, I 100% agree with what she said. think also like to make to criticize a comparison predicates a predicate making comparison right i mean you can't pretend it if you're not making comparisons in the world this is like things happen to be relational but like it's it's really interesting when you look at the i fd the far right fascist parties in germany government appeals they have like they have drafted several appeals um calling for the defunding of post-colonial theory as such and they're explicitly saying that past colonial theory by default is anti-semitic because it calls into question

designist narrative and interestingly if you look if you read these things closely because i'm like a nerd you know an absoluteist when it comes to these kind of things they are often referencing articles that come from these like left-wing publications and it's really quite interesting that there's a kind of like suddenly the ideological difference seem to have evaporated on that specific issue because there seems to be almost like a kind of consensus or at least a tundacious drive that drives both the right and the left in Germany to these talking points that relational theory, post-colonial theory, any kind of like, basically it's also like a very intellectual anti-intellectual sort of like rhetoric like anything that really

questions, causes into questions historical narratives is corrosive, is dangerous, is something we should like reject and definitely not go into deeper. It's crazy to me, too, just the, you know, because we hear a lot about this kind of exceptionalism when it comes to the Holocaust from sort of the Israeli side and, you know, in the United States as well, it's just like any Holocaust comparison is kind of an immediate, how dare you, and anti-Semitic attack. You're supposed to view, you know, this event as living almost outside of time in this particular, like the atrocities. of the Holocaust, which of course were, you know, insane and massive and disturbing and horrifying, are supposed to, you're never supposed to compare them. I find that, you know, with, it's like understandable as a knee-jerk reaction, I think, for a lot of Jewish people and whatnot.

What I find kind of interesting, it's almost a little bit offensive that, in Germany, Germany, they would do that. Because, you know, part of my issue with exceptionalizing these things is we make Nazis not into human beings and we make them not into people who are, who you could be. Like, anyone can be a Nazi. Well, that's another thing that Israel has in common with Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany was also immaculately conceived. It appeared out of nowhere suddenly.

Yeah. Someone snapped their fingers. What I mean by that is to say that, like, the. The idea that Nazis were these, you know, monsters, you know, born from hell from underground and they popped up, you know, is an understandable thing, I think, you know, for me, when I'm talking to other people in the United States, but there's something about a German going like, no, no, no, no, no, we could never be that. And it's like, what? No, you, of any, you're born from that's a previous generation. You can't claim this type, like that type of exceptionalizing of Nazism, of the Holocaust and whatnot, it just feels a little bit, it just feels weirder coming from a German society. I don't know. I don't know. There's a kind of like, there's almost like a sense of pride in that, like in German society. Like I'm, you know, when I see on, when I look in Twitter and I see people talking about like Gaza as a second Holocaust, I, I, my own German trigger points are being like, I understand, you know, why people are very cautious about these comparisons.

And I think it's also, as a German, I think it's also good that there's a certain level of reservation sometimes within German society to make this kind of, but at the same time, I'm like, you know, in German society, often it feels like, you know, it's like, don't take away from us being the worst people in history. There's almost like a strange kind of pride in that. And that's like, that's like also no longer, you know, sincere. It's just like, it's kind of like just sort of like, well, it's true that like the Holocaust was an a dominable, you know, dark genocide. But at the same time, you know, it's it lives within a continuum of historical, you know, it's facts.

And like that's it also kind of like doesn't, you know, it almost has this like a fact that when people exceptionalize that chapter of history, they also like, you know, undermine their own sense of responsibility. but like push it away it's like it's like it's separating yourself right that's the real separation that's the real exceptionalism yes yeah yeah and to me that I think that's why I find it you know just it just feels I just never heard it from a German perspective before and it feels it feels like more icky and it kind of you know it makes me examine that you know it feels equally as is for anyone to be doing that, anyone exceptionalizing this or not allowing, you know, American history to also be put on that continuum of like settler colonial atrocities and just like the industrialization of mass murder. Like this is, we, you know, we're involved.

We're involved in that. And this comes back to something we talked about with Naomi Klein, you know, the fact that Norman Finkelstein, whose parents, Finklstein, whose parents were, you know, barely survived and his entire family was wiped out, he calls it the Nazi Holocaust. And he doesn't capitalize Holocaust. I'm not saying people shouldn't capitalize Holocaust, but I'm saying that, to me, what recommends that approach is it gets you out of this box where some one historical event is placed above all the others and all the others are just pushed away out of sight and out of my what about the armenian holocaust the word holocaust just means mass sacrifice mass you know sort of ritual massacre and we i think enough time has gone by and i'm speaking as the

great-grandson of holocaust victims i don't i don't need their deaths to be mourned on some special s tier of massacres above all the others i need that i need the scale of it to not be minimized either, like not to flatten it and be like, ah, but that, but history is about understanding the important differences and the important commonalities between things. Anything else is, is corrosive, I think, to the human intelligence, both intellectually and emotionally and spiritually. We have to be able to, yeah. But I mean, this, this like type of, first of all, I think that's very honorable to be

able to save that. But like, it's, I think one should appreciate that. But at the same time, this is, this kind of discourse is considered something very dangerous still today. Like, we saw when Masha Gassen wrote an article in The New Yorker kind of calling what is happening in Gaza today. Like, one of her key argument in the essay that actually deals with the German situation quite upfront. And it's, I really highly recommend reading that. I think it's from, it was published in December last year. Last year.

And so she basically picks on this description of Gaza as like an open air prison, which is often invoked. And she kind of argues it's actually not an open, like the image isn't adequate. It's actually much more akin to a ghetto. And it's really actively invokes her own family history that has, you know, has escaped Russia. And I think, you know, like she was, I mean, her prize ceremony was canceled. back then she was receiving the Hannah Aram prize in Germany in Bochum and the one one a key foundation of in Germany the Heinrich boll foundation the foundation of the green party they pulled out after some um German israeli lobbying group basically um scandalized the fact that that that um mashergessen

received their price following the new yorker essay and like every in in some way you can say you know you can you can laugh at that and like on some level it's just ridiculous you know it's like it's Germany has lost the plot and like like many people many people laugh that like likely Hannah Aron herself wouldn't be able to receive the Hannah Arn Prize like look at what she wrote about Eichmann and like how she you know what kind of connections she made with Zionism and like what conversations she had with Sholem yeah but on another level this is really scary it's like really kind of this kind of German sort of like sense of um sense of entitlement kind of arguing what type of Jewish perspectives, all sorts of perspectives are permissible.

It's like true universalism is seen as a kind of like as something that is illegitimate today in public discourse. And I think that's very dangerous. Never mind the fact that there have been Israelis, both fervent proponents of this policy and opponents of it, who have called it much worse than a ghetto. Baruch Kimmerling, the Israeli sociologist, called it the largest, concentration camp ever to exist. Giora Island, who is the same Israeli general and military advisor who was advocating that Israel spread pathogens and epidemics in the south of Gaza to thin the population,

back in 2002 or 2004, called it a big concentration camp, approvingly. Okay. So, Maschigessen, by comparing it to the ghetto that her forefathers lived in, is not even pushing the envelope. That's well within the range of what experts and policymakers have called it. It's just astonishing. And I think one needs to

be cognizant of that like discursive standards being set and then think about the living reality of Palestinians in that country whose entire existence is basically kind of defaulted as like as prototype

anti-simile. I think that Palestinians in Germany, the way they're talked about in public discourse are often kind of like these strange, I mean, Nomi Klan would say doppelganger, but I guess like reincarnations of like, of like Nazis. Like it's just like it's really, yeah, it's like it's really like it's a one-on-one projection of what's happening. If you talk about a comparison, that comparison is crystal clear to me. And not just in, you know, German society, I'm sure. I mean, But in the United States, the way we, you know, talk about Muslims or Islam, it is so reminiscent of anti-Semitism that it's kind of perfect because you don't even really have to change

the word, you know? It's just like we can keep the idea of the Semitic language, you know, thing and be like, anti-Semitism also applies to Arabs. Yeah, and Nazi Germany didn't have the Hollywood machine. I mean, their vehicles for making culture that denigrated a whole people were relatively modest. I mean, they pioneered a lot of that stuff. But go back and watch true lies. Go back and watch any movie from the 80s, 90s, aughts.

Right. Up until very recently, maybe even now, you know, even the show Homeland that was trying to be nuanced about all this shit. You know. You see the portrayals. of Arabs and of any Muslim and it's all of the same tropes, you know, to the T, you know, from the, you know, what is it, fifth column, third column? How many columns are there? Fifth column? You know, the idea of the, you know, or the idea of the incompatible nature of Islam and the West, which is clash of civilizations. Clash of civilization. The way that it's talked about, in fact,

in that sense like Elon Musk has been like retweeting people like Tommy Robinson in the UK who basically just you just search and replace Jew and Muslim

and you have just classic anti-Semitism European anti-Semitism so you know in terms of comparison they are almost one to one

it is and then of course and then we should probably move on but then there's the absurd just brain-melting fact that these people will compare anything to the Holocaust but they won't compare the Holocaust to anything

it's like this kind of this black hole that sucks up all the comparisons right like oh Amsterdam you know soccer who is Israeli soccer hooligans starting shit you know fucking around and finding out is crystal knock

they're more than willing to pull out the Holocaust anytime Israel faces any consequences for its actions but God forbid we should look at what Israel the state with power and a military is doing and say when else has this happened in history anyway we've said it too many it's becoming mundane to say yeah we're repetitive um but uh so is so is history whoa but i can't say that that was wild um before we either repeats itself no does it rhyme it is a fugue.

Yeah. It is John Cage's album of silence. But before... There's the One Note Samba. Yes. Before we get out of here, there was a little bit of... I don't know,

I want to call it hopeful news, but there was recently a speech given. Daniel, do you want to talk about this? And we can hand it over to Hano? Yeah, so Hano, if I get it, any of these details wrong, let me know. So Nan Golden, who's an American Jewish photographer, huge in the art world. She's actually quoted extensively in the myth of normal, the book I wrote with my dad. He interviewed her about her recovery from addiction, but also the way her activism

played a big part in her healing. So she was a huge part of trying to get the Sackler name taken down off of endowments on museums and things like that. The Sacklers being the, I believe, Jewish, family that was responsible for mass marketing oxycontin and other pain killers. Am I right about that? So Nan devoted and took a lot of risks in being just an outspoken advocate against that kind of predatory funding of the arts. Anyway, so Nan had a career retrospective or has, it just opened at the Noi Gallery. Is that how it's pronounced?

it's like the noya national gallery now I'm like really testing your German Noya national gallery He's like great Daniel has multiple hidden talents He can do accents I can't So the new national The new national gallery yeah

Which I assume is state funded 100% heavily yeah And it's a career retrospective of Her work And I'm not clear on whether they imposed a cap on no work from since October 7th or if she herself didn't have any to show she says something about it in her speech

but in any case they allowed her to make they were clearly concerned about the fact that she was going to use this as a platform but she insisted look if you're going to have me you're going to have to let me give a 17 minute speech at my opening and she did and it's really

something and it was allowed to go on now So we have a clip. We'll play just, I don't know, 60, 90 seconds of this. She goes on for quite a while. She starts it with a moment of silence to the victims in Gaza, in Lebanon. And she also includes, and she's very careful to say, the 860 Israeli civilians who died on October 7th.

Oh, wow. Like, she narrows it down. Wow. Like, she doesn't go with the official number. Right. the real number in terms of Israeli civilians. She's not, she's not including Israeli soldiers in the moment of silence. Good for her.

Wow. And then she says, are you uncomfortable? I hope you are. We should be uncomfortable. And then she goes on to say this. The cultural crackdown. This is a city that we used to consider a refuge. Now over 180 artists, writers, and teachers have been canceled since October.

September 7th, summed for something as banal as a like on Instagram. Many of them Palestinian, 20% of them Jews. Why am I talking here? I decided to use this exhibition as a platform to amplify my position of moral outrage at the genocide in Gaza and Lebanon. I saw my show as a test case. If an artist in my position is allowed

to express the political stance without being canceled. I hope I'm paving a path for other artists to speak out without beastaping censored. I hope that's the result. Why can't I speak Germany? Criticism of Israel has been conflated with anti-Semitism. Anti-Sionism has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. so that's where she got the first of many ovations and things started to build and then she speaks for another at least another 10 minutes really naming names and giving details about what's going on there and why she's opposing it and really just dedicating this show to raising awareness about that and then at the end of that the director of the gallery whose name is just a second cloud yeah that's right cloud klaus bisenbach klaus got up there and felt compelled

to speak and people weren't really in the mood for it can we have about 20 seconds of that let's do it right right so what he says what he says to express your mind I hope I once in my heart

to express myself from all right so what that started a bit in the middle what he actually what he says was, as I said in my opening remarks, I disagree with you on this issue, but I agree with,

I support your right to express yourself. And he says, I hope I will also be allowed to express myself and people are not letting him. And he spoke over the booze for quite a while, but he started like, you know, just lecturing people about how when Jews are attacked and how October 7th was unprovoked.

And the director of this art gallery feels compelled to follow up. Now, it's not censorship. He let, he did let her speak. True, true, true. But it's just so weird to me. It's just so strange to see this art administrator feel the need compelled, whether from within or without, I don't know who had what at his back to prompt him up there, to get up there and scold people for not understanding the context, which is that there is no context and nothing Israel does is, doesn't have a justification. Yeah, it's interesting because it's, you know, at least in American media, it is, we would associate this kind of stuff with East Germany.

Yeah. You know, it's just like, oh, it's a lot of, a lot of reminiscence right now, like what, the stories people tell about the Stasi and the kind of extreme repression of cultural expression. That's very much the vibe right now around this issue. And it's, it's crazy because you just, you know, you see that and you figure at least on a living, as living memory, a living historical memory, people, that would be, I don't know, somewhere in kind of like the cultural zeitgeist is being talked about, you know, because they'd be like, listen, I, you know, I'd live through the Stasi and I lived through this, like, but you don't, do you see that? Do you see people comparing this kind of, you know, McCarthyism to but is I mean German but but how could I mean they did let the show go on

it's just that he feels the need to come in and make some kind of corrective speech sure sure but I guess I'm talking about like that the corrective speech in and of itself almost feels it's again it's like protecting himself against the McCarthy's right it's he's protecting himself I've got some more of his quote he says in his speech he could have just said okay thank you for that speech

we have a different position but we support you're right to say it. But it's always been the case that when you have to bring an alternate view to allow a certain view to be expressed, it's not actually free expression. Right. Like back when my dad used to appear on panels or on news programs on CBC and Canada to speak about Palestine,

they had to have another member of the Jewish community to refute him. To refute him, right? So here's what this non-Jew says in response to Nan Golden, and the Jewish-American superstar photographer. He says, Israel's right to exist is beyond question for us. The attack on the Jewish state on October 7th of 2023

was a cruel act of terror that cannot be justified by anything. He says, all people in the Middle East have the right to live without fear and with the assurance of their safety. The director ended his speech with a rejection of the cultural boycott of Israel, citing the museum's commitments

to freedom of expression and its historical responsibility to the Jewish state and that it will not allow, quote, calls for or incitement of violence, the legitimization or trivialization of active terrorism, the injury and killing of civilians, or support of terrorist organizations. No word on whether they will uphold the ICC ruling.

And then the National Gallery puts out a statement that condemns the slogans shouted by the attendees. He says, slogans were shouted that do not align with the institution's code of conduct. the Neue National Gallery explicitly distances itself from the statements made by the protesters and emphasizes its commitment to freedom of expression, respectful dialogue, and mutual respect. And then there's a bunch of politicians, Claudia Roth, the aforementioned, right?

Right. Clapartheid. Right, the clapartheid activist or politician. Lambasted. Federal Minister of Culture, but yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. for with her clapologetics

lambasted Nangolden for her quote unbearably one-sided political views I love that unbearably

one-sided saying she was appalled at the way people in the audience chanted and Berlin's cultural senator

if I would have clapped I would have clapped away from her I would have clapped for the I was clapping too

but it was for the other guy who was refuting the refuting guy that was what I was clapping

for Nazis god damn Jew sorry inverse clap yes anyway let me just like yeah yeah can you synthesize this for us

that's what happened but what do you make of this do you see like I do some sort of some good news in it that this was allowed to go on or what's what's your take yes I mean the bar is incredibly low like I mean there have been cancellations for for artists calling Israel's action

in Gaza a genocide. There have been cancellations of things for people calling it a ceasefire. I mean, again, like, the degree to which this has been normalized is really hard to describe. Like, if I were to like now describe the phenomenon

in short, I wouldn't know where to start because there's been so many cases and they're all, of course, individually different. But like, it's the phenomenon is something that's really kind of you can look up every week another thing another artist another academic whatnot so the fact that they went through with it

that they gave her the stage they let her speak her her words and they didn't chase away the audience um that were partly visibly pro-palestinian with like parisian scarves kofias um that is i think something one could describe as whatever progress of sorts and like you know i think it would be naive to assume that like claus bisenbach is the head of like a state fund an institution would like not distance himself in some way from from that speech it was kind of that was expected even though i still felt like i was there in that room and i still felt it was rude like i've never seen i've never seen such a thing happen even when it comes to like a low level artist but this is like we're talking about nan golden we're not talking about no we're not talking

about someone who just started doing photography last year right and like has it has as a tumbler blog right now like this is like renowned international star of in the art world and like to kind of like publicly distance yourself from that person kind of suggesting that she doesn't I mean like so you know implicitly suggestion suggesting all sorts of like strange things it's a little bit of like it's quite rude but it adds up with what happened also in as a prelude to the show which I think you need to if you want to get the bigger picture you need to understand that they the the Natsunaga organized a symposium to talk about art and activism in the context of, you know, Israel-Palestine and invited a couple of people. Some of them were actually progressive people like Yael Weizmann from forensic architecture and Candice Brights, who was also Jewish and had herself a couple of shows canceled over the past year.

And this symposium was supposed to debate these things, but Nan Golden said, and I've interviewed a couple of of days ago she said to me in person like she she never signed off on this she wandered her name distance from the show because she saw it as a way of like them sort of whitewashing her positions them kind of distancing themselves from her positions publicly by saying okay in order to understand this show to really be able to digest this you have to like look at this you know discussion right there which a surgeon general's warning uh on a pack of cigarettes except and several of the panelists Several of the panelists pulled out in solidarity with her, right? They said, we don't want to go above her.

I think discussing these issues is great, but, like, you know, she just, like, wasn't, wasn't, like, approving of that. She didn't want that. And, like, I'm, you know, it is quite telling of the current state of affairs that, like, you do all these, like, shenanigans, you know, that are not in, in coordination with the artist. Klaus Bezenbach, the head of Natanzagli, also took his name of the show's announcement a couple of weeks before the opening that tells you a little bit about, like, the. the details of it and then golden also told me that in zoom calls with people from the gallery she was there was suggestions that she is anti-semitic stuff like that like so it really it really speaks to the through the kind of environment we're in but like what i will say is like i have been at this opening and the speech was preluded by like what she did is like she went up in the speech and

said like you know everyone told take your phones away we're going to do a few a moment of silence And she kept that moment of silence for over four minutes, which, I mean, that was very powerful. I haven't seen this. And that was kind of like the prelude to like commemorating the victims in Gaza and Lebanon and also in Israel. But like the civilian victims. I think I think that she really did a powerful thing there. And I asked her in my interview like, you know, if there has been so much, you know, this is a traveling exhibition. It's been in Amsterdam.

It's been in Stockholm. and it's come to Berlin now and it's go elsewhere afterwards I was like you know if you if you face all this like trouble with with the head of the gallery why didn't you ever think of considerer of canceling it yourself and she was like I didn't I I thought about it many times to cancel I actually wanted to cancel many times but the only reason I went through with it in the end was the speech like that was her number one motivation to do this and I think that's that's if you've seen the speech you would really like you understand why That was really like a powerful move, I think.

It's a great speech and I think it's, it was worth it for her to give it and give it publicly. And honestly, I feel like having, you know, Klaus come up right after to publicly to publicly distance himself from it, I think actually did her a favor. I think it was, I think that was great because it just, you know, it's showed the level of, uh, the level of power that the speech had in terms of it's something that immediately must be refuted by the person who put on the event or owns the space. There was an amazing moment. Like after the broader part of the audience that had shouted Klaus Bisenbach down during his speech had left the building, he actually went on to give his speech again. like this time uninterrupted you could actually hear the words

and it was quite remarkable because like you know the National Gallery is like a building with glass with a glass facade it's a very beautiful Mise van der Rohe architecture that was like renovated a few years ago

and these so you can see through and what these activists did is like they went kind of to that area behind where the speech was given and they put up like a banner that said like state's reason is genocide

So, like, Statsresorne is genocide. And they put it up behind Klaus. And, like, it was just like, you know, something, I made a video of this. And it's like, right at that moment where he said, we value freedom of expression and we value freedom of speech, you saw the security personnel of Noir Natsunegovina coming up to, like, take down that banner.

And it was like right in the background. It's like, it's just, it was kind of like an iconic moment of like just showing like, yes, you do value. That's, again, I think, you know, we have to be appreciative of the institution letting her do the show. I think that's where we are in Germany. I think it's important that like these things are still happening. But at the same time, there's something so kind of like twisted and ironic in the sense of like, you know, you're just like you're literally cracking down an activist and kind of like praising freedom of speech. Like give me a break, you know.

Yeah. It's well, I'm interested to see where this goes. you know and I'm sure you will be writing a lot about it so thank you for coming on the show please tell us where people can follow your work so we can get more updates on what exactly is going on not just in Germany but in the rest of the world whatever your beat may be yes where can people find you well thank you guys so much for having me I'm working for like you said they intercept the guardian the nation outlets like that like I work for a lot of German outlets as well that I won't bore your listeners with like looking up right now I'm not sure when

you're a German themselves but like I'm also on the I'm on a few yeah I'm on I'm on I'm on Instagram and like and Twitter as well if people want to find me there so that's that's easy ways yeah absolutely as of like a few weeks ago I'm trying to re-activate my blue sky account because it's like an actual migration happening yeah yeah they're finally going to be taking off yeah yeah it's uh you know It's still got some issues, mostly with the content. So, you know, if you're out there, if you're a good Twitter shit poster, please go on Blue Scotty. We need some levity in there. But we'll put links to all of your socials in the description of this episode.

Hano, fantastic talking with you. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys so much. Lovely to chat with you guys. Yeah, great having you, Hano. Thank you. And great. for all of you to listen to slash watch.

And you can listen to more and slash watch more here on Patreon. Patreon.com slash bad hasbara. Please join it or email us with any questions, comments, concerns at badhasbara at gmail.com. All right, everyone. Thanks again so much for listening. And until next time, from the river to the sea. All you didn't please report to mandatory ethnic pride therapy. It was long, but it was great.

Taking Molly us, Michael Jackson, us, Yamaha keyboards, us, Georgia binks on us, Andor was us, Keith Ledger Joker us, endless red success, happy meals was us, McDonald's was us, being happy us, bequem yoga us, eating food, Food, us, breathing air, us, drinking water, us. We invented all that shit.