It Could Happen Here - Hasbara, Pt. 1 with Matt Lieb

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

Guest host Matt Lieb is joined by Shereen to discuss the phenomenon of Hasbara propaganda.Recorded January 30th, 2024twitter.com/mattliebinstagram.com/mattliebjokesIntercept Article: https://theintercept.com/2024/01/28/new-york-times-daily-podcast-camera/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and

expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. of Google search. Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Hey everyone, this is It Could Happen Here and I'm your guest host, Matt Lieb.

I'd say most of you probably know me from Robert and Sophie's podcast Behind the Bastards, which, you know, I've become kind of notorious for the time that I use a Jar Jar Binks soundboard during a series about Dr. Mengele. Yeah, I don't have that soundboard with me today, sorry. Fewer of you might know me from having the world's only Sopranos slash The Wire rewatch podcast, Pod Yourself a Gun. But the fewest of you might know me from my brand new podcast, Bad Hasbara, the world's most moral podcast, in which me and some of my other anti-Zionist or non-Zionist Jewish friends and our other friends and our other guests, guests who, you know, you've maybe heard like Shireen here. We have

casual conversations about Israeli propaganda and Israeli propagandists. For some of you, this might be your first time hearing the word Hasbara. And that's why the homies at Cool Zone Media invited me here today. So this episode is all about Hasbara, aka Israel's public relations and propaganda machine. And I am thrilled to be joined by my friend and one-time cat sitter, Shireen Younis. Hi, Shireen. Hi, Matt. What an intro. Yeah, I'm excited to learn more about this, actually. Also excited to know how you properly say Hasbara, because I don't know if I'm saying it right. Has-ba-ra. Yeah.

Has-ba-ra. Has-ba-ra. Yeah. That's, I mean, listen. With the zuh sound and the... Yeah, the ra, you know, with the throat. Has-ba-ra. You heard it here first. Yeah, the Vah, you know, with the throat. Has. Bah.

Gah. You heard it here first. Yes, you heard it here first. I'm not the greatest at doing, you know, Israeli accents or whatnot. So, throughout this podcast, I'm probably going to be butchering a lot of Hebrew words. And, you know, you're just going to have to deal with it. Yeah, and that's totally fine. That's just part of the game.

I've mispronounced every name I've ever said on this show. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you should hear me trying to pronounce Arabic names. Like, I can't do it. I can help if that ever happens. I attempt. Yes, if there's any that happened in this episode, please. But before we get into talking about Hasbara, I want to start with a quick story. Shireen, are you familiar with the birthright trip?

Yes, I am. It was one of those things where I was very excited to one day do the birthright trip. And I didn't really even question I knew like, you know, it was a little bit, you know, they were trying to whine and dine me to go there and, you know, maybe move or whatnot. But I didn't know how much they wanted me to move there until I went. So for me, my birthright trip is kind of why I'm here today talking about Hezbollah. It's why I started a freaking podcast about it. It's when I first started clocking Israeli propaganda. So I went in January 2012. If you don't know birthright, it's pretty much two-week all expenses paid trip for young jews from all over the world to go to the holy land reconnect with their jewish roots float in the dead sea it is a uh it is a propaganda tour of a apartheid state and um you know i'm not going to get too much into the history of birthright you know and all

the like far right wing funders like sheldon adelson and stuff there's like not enough time for that um but i'm mentioning it because it was the first time i saw how hasbara was more than just propaganda and how in my opinion it more closely resembles like indoctrination and the organizers uh at at birthright did like a masterful job of this like i went on a a trip of american jews who were like me like they were like secular uh from mixed or like intermarried families non-bar mitzvahed it was all like other mat type jews like ethnic jews right and i realized this i think it was like day two of the trip one of uh the israeli tour guides literally gave us a bar mitzvah like all at the same time we had a group bar mitzvah yeah and they did it by saying like uh okay you're now bar mitzvah uh it just means you're a man now everyone

here is a man now choose an israeli name and uh that which was like for me i remember feeling a little you know i was like wait i i was there's supposed to be a theme party and fucking like a dj my dad's supposed to yeah dj my dad's gonna buy me a car or lease me a like a honda like i thought it was more than that uh at the very least i thought i would have to like memorize a torah portion but no you just go to israel and uh you know a tour guide does it for you so like it it really works though like you really you you go there being like, you know, I'm a European Jew and you leave there and you're like, I invented falafel. So the Hasbara highlight of the trip for me was this like mega, like birthright mega event. It was in Jerusalem and a huge arena in which they had like Israeliraeli speakers donors uh rappers and there was like a there were rappers

at one point who just started rapping about uh things that they claim israel invented like iphone computer chips and like the cherry tomato uh which was you know uh like you and by the way a not insubstantial amount of the trip was spent telling us about how israel invented the cherry tomato like we went to places like uh you know uh farms and stuff where they showed us this like drip irrigation multiple people were just like man we invented the cherry tomato here can you believe it and i like, this seems like a lot of effort for just this one particular thing, which may or may not be true. night the cherry tomato on top if you will was a speech by none other than prime minister benjamin bb netanyahu straight up the prime minister of israel was the headline speaker of this birthright event and an arena filled with like 20 000 teens and like early 20 somethings which was uh kind of like amazing like

you know listen here's the thing i knew benjamin netanyahu i like i knew enough about israeli politics to know that like he was a fucking right winger and bad but like i have to admit even i you know as a 26 year old who kind of was starting to get like woke on palestine you know so to speak like even i was like kind of like oh this is i'm a little charmed a little honored to see the prime minister here he took time out of his busy schedule of doing crimes probably to address us uh and you know i actually found the speech of that night i actually have some clips from it that i want to play that is incredible that's great so yeah he was he was like casual he was off the cuff they wrote a speech for me i'm not gonna read it like he even did a little bit of crowd work anyone here named rachel so uh that right there is uh what we in the jewish community call rachel profiling that's when you

just are in front of a group of jews and you ask who's named rachel uh shout out to rachel blumenthal for telling me that joke in college it was it was like a crash course in hezbollah like he told us we were from israel at one point you all come from great countries great countries but you all come from here all of you that's your birthright he was telling us that like you know once again it was everything they invented phone you know the cell phone chips blah blah blah he was telling us to make aliyah to israel which means to you know move to return to come back you know essentially what he was vying for was like, move to Israel and start a family. It's very like sex based, like the the way it works.

The big thing I took away was him telling us that he wanted us to go back home and tell people the truth about Israel. But the most important battle that we have to fight is the battle for the truth. And all of you can become ambassadors for the truth and ambassadors for Israel. And of course, you know, he then proceeded to tell us what the truth about Israel was. Go back to your respective countries and tell the truth about Israel. The only way to fight a lie is to tell the truth. Tell them about a country where people are free. Free to initiate, free to work, free to speak.

It's a country where you can criticize the Prime Minister, although he never makes mistakes. This is a country in which Arabs have have full rights something they've been denied in all the vast lands around us and a woman in this country can sit anywhere she wants that's our position this is a free country so him going up there telling me that what he wants from me is to go back home and be an ambassador for Israel and tell the truth about Israel. You know, it was the first time I realized that he was giving me a job to do. who may be listening to this podcast can relate to the job of telling the truth about Israel and the job of, you know, stopping the slander that is out there about Israel in the media and in on the internet and press and all that stuff. And it was the first time I realized that like, oh, part of the Hasbara isn't just you know some government

thing it's like my job uh my job is to is to tell the truth and he said something in that clip the only way to fight a lie is with the truth and um so i am gonna follow his advice that's what i'm gonna do shereen i'm going to tell people the truth about Israel. And I think it's time to do it. So let's get into it. Let's talk about the truth. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even

deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists

to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough, so join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising

Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app

or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Let's get into talking about Hezbara. What is it? What is it? And so loosely, Hezbara is a modern Hebrew word derived from the word lasbier, hasbier meaning to explain or explanation. I say loosely because it's kind of a made up word. So, you know, a lot of words in modern Hebrew are sort of made up words. Remember, Hebrew is like an ancient liturgical language and modern Hebrew was created by like Jewish linguist nerds who wanted to revive the language to be a spoken one and that's how you got modern hebrew which is fine there's nothing

wrong with uh reviving a dead language um but because of that a lot of the words in modern hebrew are kind of inventions so according to mosaic magazine uh hasbara is a strictly a 20th centuryism you won't find it in eliezer ben yahudah's monumental complete dictionary of ancient and modern hebrew whose second volume in which hasbara appears only as the first word of hasbara panim uh was published in 1902 so it's uh not something that you see in kind of like the original beginnings of you know uh the creation of modern hebrew like colloquially uh his bara like refers to like uh media pr branding mudslinging it's kind of a like a sort of like catch-all term for general propaganda used to create a narrative based on israeli government

talking points meant for a foreign usually american or just generally western audience people who deal in hasbara are called hasbarists or hasbaristas which is fun that's that's true yeah yeah wow i mean listen hasbarista i think think, gives it a little bit more flair. You know, kind of imagine someone kind of like making you coffee, but instead of coffee, it's they make you lies. Alayte. Nope, I'm not going to do that. Sorry. Alayte.

I like it. I wish I never was born. So, there's all sorts of like has bars like some of them uh have like official positions within the israeli government such as the head of the idf spokesperson's unit daniel hagari who you might remember is the guy uh from that video taken at the uh you know the children's hospital um you know in gaza and he's like pointing at what he thought was a list of his Israeli hostages, but was like literally just a calendar. Didn't have any names. It was just, he was pointing at days of the week thinking they were names because that's what a calendar has. And also it's so fucking weird that

they can't read Arabic. Like you're in the Middle East. You are the spokesperson. I think something interesting about how Hebrew was revived as well is that a lot of words were taken from Arabic. A lot of words are very similar to Arabic. So, it's like even more funny that they can't even read the language that they kind of took a lot of words from. But I'm saying that like, yeah, in Israel, it's almost like the appropriation was just part of the process of the cleansing. You know, just like stealing something, saying it's ours, and then not even being able to identify an Arabic word that you yourself say. So, yeah, so there's him. Then there's like everyone, if you've been on Twitter, you've seen a lot of a lawn levy who, uh,

he's, um, his official title is the official Israeli government spokesperson. And that's through, uh, the basically the office of the prime minister. He's a British guy. We like, he raises his eyebrows.

It's like the meme, you know, like he, he goes like home. That's what he's famous for. Then there's, uh, a lot of these like non-governmental like israeli civil society has bara organizations like stand with us or like uh apac uh the washington

institute for near east policy the anti-defamation league christians united for israel the israel on-campus coalition i mean there are there are tons of them, tons of them. And then, of course, there's people who are just in it for the love of the game, like celebrities, artists, actors, who make Israel public advocacy part of their thing. It's a fascinating world filled with ghouls and goblins. So, hezbara itself uh interestingly is hezbara so early zionists had no problem calling their pr campaigns um and like their branding for a jewish state and palestine uh propaganda they would say it's we got to do propaganda because in the early 20th century the term was generally considered to be neutral. Like people said they were doing

propaganda when they were doing propaganda. Once the word became a pejorative, they created the word Hasbara, which is a nicer sounding word with more neutral connotations. And although it's now used as a pejorative by critics of Israel and me and stuff, the word is still used to this day in Israel. It is still a fairly neutral sounding word. There are Hasbara workshops sponsored by Israel. They have Hasbara fellowships. That's the name of the fellowship. Like you can get merch that says Hasbara fellowship on it.

And the reason is because it doesn't translate. The word isn't translate to propaganda. It just means to explain, which is, you know, seems innocent enough. It's not about doing propaganda. It's not about, they don't call themselves liars. They're not saying I'm going to lie. They say they're merely just explaining. And I found this speech from the Middle East Policy Council that goes into depth about what Hasbara is beyond just like propaganda. Quote, Hasbara links information warfare to the strategic efforts of the state to bolster the unity of the home front, ensure the support of allies, disrupt efforts to organize hostile coalitions, determine the way issues are defined by the media

the intelligentsia the social networks establish parameters of politically correct discourse delegitimize both critics and their arguments and shape the common understanding and interpretation of the results of international negotiations so behind this term is a large well-funded information warfare apparatus dedicated to shaping you know israeli discourse in the media and the government and academic institutions everywhere and they use all of the tools in their toolbox to silence criticism of Israel and what they can't silence. They soften. Uh, sometimes it's through coordinated letter writing campaigns. Sometimes it's harassment. Sometimes it's doc, uh, doxing, you know, people have been doxed. So before I continue, I want to address that uncomfortable feeling you had when I talked about, uh, like Israel and the media. I want to say that is, I, that is not to say that Israel or

the Israel lobby or Zionists quote control the media. All right. So they do not. That's why Hezbollah exists. You know, that's why the Israel lobby exists. If they controlled the media, they wouldn't have groups like camera, for example, constantly day in and day out harassing the new york times and cnn and pbs to get them to talk about israel correctly okay so it's important when people hear these criticisms of israel that they don't try to see them as like um otherizing israel or or like you know a lot people, they get uncomfortable because a lot of these things will match old anti-Semitic tropes, but it's important to remember that these lobbying groups exist in Israel. They exist in the gun lobby and the big oil lobby.

This is not unique to Israel. The unique thing about it is how willing the American public is and the West in general is to letting themselves be lied to. That's why I'm interested in it. But let's talk about camera real quick, because this is a recent thing that happened. Some news happened recently about the New York Times and their connection to CAMRA. This is from a recent article in The Intercept. The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, or CAMRA, was founded in 1982 in response to what it claims was anti-Israel bias in the Washington Post reporting on the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Since its inception, Camera has successfully lobbied for hundreds of corrections in major media outlets seeking to streamline a pro-Israel line in news reports and editorials. It has smeared journalists whose work

it disagrees with and launched boycott campaigns against news organizations it believes are not responding with enough deference to its requests. So, the way this group operates is that they go through any and every article about Israel, looking for sentences, looking for terms, definitions, anything they disagree with, and lobby for corrections to be issued. Camera doesn't do this quietly. They openly brag about it on their website. Like recently, Camera successfully lobbied new york times to issue a correction removing the word occupation uh from an article

and they wrote this on their website quote the mask slipped for the new york times reporters kum hamas stenographers uh this week when they absolutely neglected to don't down hamas's preferred language before passing off the terror organization's talking points as original reporting take notice of the framing of the new york times uh and their mask slipping and their reporters as being stenographers for hamas this is like quite the accusation uh given that the new york times is like has and continues to have coverage described as biased in favor of israel like according to an intercept analysis it was found that in the first six weeks of the war uh new york times consistently delegitimized palestized Palestinian deaths and cultivated a gross

imbalance in coverage to pro-Israeli sources and voices. So the exact opposite of what camera is claiming is the truth here. You know, this is, this is actually a famous Hasbara tactic. It is the, uh, the I am rubber, you are glue tactic. And, um, it's really something to see it in action. Like, I don't know, Shireen, if you've seen how often you've like read some pro-Israeli, uh, voices, you know, Hasbaris online and heard them say stuff that you're like, I know for a fact, the exact opposite of this thing is true.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Every, uh, every accusation is a confession. know for a fact the exact opposite of this thing is true you know what i mean yeah every uh every accusation is a confession i've yeah it feels like that is true all the time when it comes to this stuff and also the intercept article is very good i'll put it in the description for those ones read the whole thing i'm glad you mentioned that because i didn't know that much about camera until i read that article and i was just like what like i knew that that was a thing that it was that was done like they would change words recently the new york times was like a decline of death or life

like they used the word decline to describe to describe what was happening in gaza they decided the article's headline was going to be like death's actually declining in gaza exactly and like the standard ones are always there, like blast or conflict or whatever it is. Those are unfortunately so normal now, but to see it all laid out by The Intercept is really,

I'm really glad they did that article. So it will be in the description and I'm glad you mentioned it, but it does go back to the idea that every accusation is a confession. I think that's something

to remember every time you see a headline. It's true. And it's something that uh you know it's almost become a cliche online because you've i've seen it so many times people saying that and i think it's important to remember that this is sort of the tactic of hezbollah like what makes hezbollah particularly notable and like often hilarious is that it doesn't merely just spin narratives, but it inverts them to essentially make like an alternate reality. Uh,

it's not just that Hasbara is information warfare. Hasbara is straight up info wars, like Alex Jones level shit. The same way uh alex jones will run the same like fantastical paranoid thread to every major news event that happens in order to reinforce his worldview and prove that he's right and everyone else is wrong you know like that's israel does this but with like far more money and far greater success. And it kind of makes sense why they're successful at it.

Like Alex Jones, Infowars shit, like praise on white Christian paranoia that like the blacks are trying to take away our guns so they can make our children trans or whatever. Like total fantasy and insane shit that you have to be, like, already far right wing to believe. While, like, Israeli Infowars preys on a much more grounded in reality paranoia, that of antisemitism. Like, antisemitism is real. It's historical. It's evil. It's pervasive. It's pernicious.

Like, this kind of paranoia makes sense. And not just for Jews, but, like, for anyone of conscience, anyone who has empathy, you know, like that they understand antisemitism is bad and needs to be fought. And that makes Hezbollah very effective. You know, people want to support Israel because people want to support the Jewish people and they want to fight antisemitism. And when the IDF dismantles a children's hospital and says, we had to do it to stop Hamas, look, here's a list of hostages. People want to believe them. It's like Mulder from the X-Files,

like, I want to believe, which is the same impulse as Alex Jones believers, essentially. Like, you don't want Sandy Hook to be a possibility. You want it to be a conspiracy to take your guns away. You want those children to be secretly actors pretending to be dead. So when Israel says we aren't killing children, we're killing Hamas, people want to believe that. As much as I hate that you compared Fox Mulder to this, you dragged him into this

and i'll get over it but i won't forget i'm sorry to you know to to bring him into this conversation but you know i'm just saying molder if he wants to believe that stuff what else does he want to believe you you just hope you really hope and pray that he's not going to fall for the hezbollah but he might know you really don't and it's like you know it's hezbollah is effective because it gives you something like a nice legitimate sounding explanation for why israel needed to do something that you might usually think is bad like that's how it's worked for decades in the same way that hezbollah serves to explain things for you to basically take the Israeli government at its word. That's kind of how it works.

It gives you a believable explanation and not only sounds like kind of real, but it conforms to your personal beliefs. And yeah, but speaking of personal beliefs, if there's one thing, oh, let's see if I can do this. If there's one thing I'd love to believe in, it's commerce. And so, yes, I mean, listen, people have to make money somehow. So it looks like we have some products and services that we have to sell. And yeah, when they sell you these, these products and services, please believe them when they say how good they are. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series,

The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High.

It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex Elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google Search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech

from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things

that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough, so join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, We'll see you next time. on the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday.

And we are back. So, we were talking about Hezbollah and how, you know, the explanations conform to your personal beliefs. The interesting thing about Hezbollah is that they have different types of Hezbollah for a wide range of personal beliefs it's uh it's not one size fits all it depends on who you are there's a conservative version and there's a liberal version like israel israel has been very successful and their ability to brand themselves as both a liberal democracy and a outpost for western values fighting the muslim hordes usually these strategies have been like pretty separated right

you know like you you can't claim to you can't do them at the same time it'll sound weird it's like israel is the only gay friendly, climate conscious, feminist democracy. And that's why we got to do genocide. Like that doesn't, that doesn't sound right. Like you tell the city dwelling liberal elites about the gay stuff. You tell the conservative Christians about the Western civilization stuff stuff that's kind of how it works the basic conservative hezbollah doesn't actually interest me all that much because it's uh i don't know they don't have to work that hard at getting conservatives to be okay with killing muslims um you know it's like muslims arabs you know they they're they're fully willing to you

don't even have to like couch it in something no that's just what happens to us it's it's fine right and it's interesting too because like this idea of uh of you know being a western outpost an outpost for western values is not like that is very much falling into the um almost the the whiteness thing of europeans where you kind of like because jews like european anti-semitism wasn't about how jews had western values it was about how jews represented this other this this thing that you know they don't they didn't share values there were some weird other thing and uh you know this was not the uh the charge of anti-semitism in europe and now with like israeli propaganda towards you know that's aimed towards conservative westerners

they're like no no we're the most western like we're so western that we're gonna be the ones who are on the front lines stopping the evil you know know, Arab hordes. And yeah, but it's like the, that's interesting, you know, in some aspects, but it's the liberal stuff, Shireen. Liberal Hezbollah is where the lies get so wild. Like that's the stuff that I grew up with, you know? Yeah. No, it really, like pinkwashing in particular is like what yes it's just they're they're so egregious in their use of using like the gay struggle for their own agenda it's really really gross um yeah and it's and it's weird at how effective it is or how effective it has been

for so long because it is something that i think it's kind of like the the first stop on the hezbollah tour you know when you are hearing someone kind of like talking about why we need to stand with israel they will start right there with the you know the pro-gay rights stuff yeah and it's like the reason i i find it interesting is like, Israel's so effectively been able to like, brand itself as representing and supporting all these positive liberal traits. Well, a lot of it is just not true. Like, for example, liberals are pro LGBT rights, right? You know, they love gays, they love gay rights. And that's a good thing, of course.

And yet gay marriage is illegal in Israel. It is illegal. It's also mixed-faith marriages are also illegal in Israel. They will recognize those marriages, but they will not perform them. You cannot get gay married. You cannot get interfaith married in Israel. If they are performed abroad, then they will recognize them. That's kind of the loophole. Also, by the way, Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza who marry an Israeli

citizen cannot then get Israeli citizenship through that marriage. You also can't get Israeli citizenship if you marry an Israeli and you are from a quote enemy state uh that read arab if you want to know what the enemy states are they mean arabs so uh you know i don't know liberals should hate that they should look at that and be like well i don't like that you'd think right another example like liberals love democracy and they hate racism uh yet believe israel when they say they are a democracy because they'll be like we have you know 20 arab muslim population you know two million uh and all with the right to vote um meanwhile they're like ignoring the 5.3 million palestinians who are currently living in the west bank and gaza under military

control by israel like this is a situation was which has explicitly been called apartheid by most major human rights organizations you got you know human rights watch amnesty international the international federation for human rights and even including human rights orgs in Israel, Yesh Din and B'Tselem. They have all called this an apartheid state. And apartheid, to be clear, is racist. And I'm against it. Yes. And I think most liberals would say they're against it.

Don't you think, Shereen? You would hope so. You would hope so. That's kind of like part of the thing with the liberal. You're like, I don't like bad people right yeah yeah yeah but you know it's uh it's once again it's this thing where we're willing to be like oh they say they're a democracy and therefore i believe it and i think it's you know you have to remember that like israel's got like a caveat for all this stuff it's it's usually they'll say you know their credentials are touted with this

like in the middle east the the most gay friendly in the middle east or the only democracy in the middle east but like once again that kind of only serves to implicitly condemn those enemy states you know filled with arabs as being racist and backwards and homophobic and anti-democratic and therefore unworthy of liberal sympathies so it's uh you know your liberals will look at it and they'll go like well i mean compared to iraq and you know the the of course it's like forgetting why why the middle east is the way the middle east is you know they they will there's a complete like vacuum like everything exists in a vacuum when it comes to american imperialism so you don't but you just want to believe that arabs are backwards people rather than looking at any kind of like western imperial imperial complicity

but also like reinforcing this like racist backward stereotype also like dehumanizes arabs and muslims and palestinians to such a degree where people can't overlook genocide now you know like it's all part of that it's all part of that yes they're different they're not like us they don't like gay people they don't let women stand up or whatever the fuck it is it's just like it's it really is infuriating because you wonder like how can this happen it's because of little stuff like this that's not very little when it's all together and it just reinforces this like barbaric trope and then people just go on their go about their lives being okay with genocide because to them these people are human anymore right 100 you you look at this like as part of

a pattern of like the delegitimization of the arab being in a way it It's like, all of this is a pattern of like, what are things we can say about Arabs in order to make them so far from us that you just don't care if they live or die or, or more so you, you more, you're more willing to believe that the people who are like us, the Israelis are the ones telling the truth. That they're the ones who have the empathy. They're the ones who let women sit wherever they want, whatever the fuck that meant from Bibi's speech.

But they're more like me.bs i don't know them and i guess you know if they say they're bad they're bad you know it's it's just part of it and i think what pisses me off about it is the liberal willingness to believe it and i i think it's like i don't know it's fascinating to me because especially right now in the last, you know, four months or so of this brutal incursion into Gaza, it's like so clearly illustrates why people on the left fucking hate liberals. They're just so easy to manipulate if you know the right words, you know, like if it were any other group, if it were any other group instead of Jewish nationalists, like if it were Christian nationalists, they'd be like clearly condemning it. Like liberals have such a facile identity and race essentialism that they either excuse the crimes committed by the Jewish state because Israel asked them to do it. And they want to be like good allies or whatever, or they ignore them because, well, it's not my place to say I'm not Jewish.

I feel like I should like, like there's just so squishy. It kind of reveals the modern american liberal for what they are which is like a tiny baby whose self-perception is at the root of their ideology right uh and it's just it's important to remember that europeans doing atrocities to indigenous populations uh has always come with the gift wrapping of these savages don't share our values it's always been like that so when you see an israeli soldier flying a pride flag in the rubble of a raised palestinian city like just remember that's not liberation that is regular ass by the book colonialism same shit you know what i mean oh yeah i mean i still am loving the description of an american liberal as a tiny baby they are little babies they're

little tiny babies you got they've got they can only hold like one sort of political critique in their mind at once and you know if they choose this kind of like identity essentialism then it's so much easier to just kind of go like hey you know i don't really think it's my place to talk about this right now it's like oh isn't that fucking convenient it's just it's cowardly and like in retrospect they're probably going to change their story about what their stance was like you know what i mean And it's just, it's really infuriating. And I think it is important to remember that what you're watching Israel do and what it has done for the past 75 years, over 75 years is just colonialism. And it was described that way since the beginning. But that was really, thank you for explaining all that matt yeah and you know there will be more in uh in part two we'll get down to some of these myths we'll get down to uh the way in which has bara kind of works to invert narratives to a degree that you know are almost so shocking that you have trouble believing the historical truth and are more comfortable

believing the a historical fiction but uh but shereen what do we do now plugs or yeah what do i say commercial break that's no that's that's the end of part one you did a great job thank you that's listen i've never guest hosted a thing here on cool zone media, but I'm very happy to. And if you like, you know, me, obviously, you know, listen to bad as bar,

the world's most moral podcast. If you like me and my wife, we're going to be at the Sacramento punchline, March 17th at 7 PM. That's a Sunday. We're headlining together. I mean, you know,

co-headlining. So I'll go up, she'll go up, but it's really good. It's a really good show. We did it in san francisco it's so much fun please come out to it uh march 17th uh that's sunday march 17th sacramento punchline come see matt lieb francesca furandini where can people follow you just in case they don't know they should oh if you don't know uh at matt lieb on twitter at matt lieb jokes on instagram at Matt Lieb Jokes on Instagram. And yeah, check me out.

I'll post all the dates and stuff over there and all the podcasts over there, too. Awesome. Oh, yeah. Great job. Okay. Goodbye. Bye. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media,

visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHe and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships and culture in the new iHeart podcast,

Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions sponsored by Gilead now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking música, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some

fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight up comedia, and that's a song that only nuestra gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.