The Daily Zeitgeist - Seduced By Bad Propaganda (with Matt Lieb) 08.27.24
Episode Date: August 27, 2024In episode 1732, Jack and Miles are joined by Matt Lieb to discuss the subject of his podcast Bad Hasbara and more! LISTEN: Summer Rain by Zimmer90See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
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Someone was talking about
Talking shit about Champagne Supernova
On Twitter today
And I was just like, what are you doing?
It's a great song
That song rules
It's so good
It's about the songs I never heard of
I'm not going to defend those because I don't know them
But the ones I know, they came at a good time in my life
They certainly did
Shout out to Oasis Back when you had to buy a whole album for two songs know but the ones i know that they came at a good time in my life they certainly did yeah
shout out to oasis back when you had to buy a whole album for two songs yeah it's only twenty
dollars whoa ten dollars a song where are you going the warehouse yeah i was going to where
i was going to sam goody oh hell yeah we had a sam goody by you Oh Hey sis Is that something
Yeah
I don't know
Oh wow
Oh you're an
Oh hey sis
Oh hey sis
Terrible script writing
To establish a new character
Oh hey sis
And then
His eyes light up
We was gonna call
The band
Oh hey bruv
But
Oh hey sis
Yeah we went with
Oh hey sis
There it is
Then we met bell hooks
And got into like black feminism
Oasis
And then we said wait a second
Wait a moment
Cockney Oasis
Oh I
Yeah
Thing is they all have like a Manchester accent
Like I'm supposed to know what the fuck that is
It's hard
Like I'm The nerve of them talking with that accent that i can't
hey what's up pal you want to get freaking wasted bro go to the pack
yeah there we go there it is that's manchester by the sea i think yeah that's a different Manchester.
I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series,
Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church.
And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed.
Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories
behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church.
Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports.
Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry.
Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese.
Every great player needs a foil.
I know I'll go down in history.
People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game.
Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports.
Listen to the making of a rivalry.
Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden.
We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.
There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in.
Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer,
we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of
eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked
Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese.
People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game.
Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball.
And on this new season, we'll cover all things sports and culture.
Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio apps, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke.
In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles,
two women did something no other woman had done before,
try to assassinate the President of the United States.
One was the protege of Charles Manson.
26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nickname Squeaky.
The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI.
Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore.
The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current.
Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeartTrue Crime Plus, only on Apple Podcasts.
bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts. Wednesday, August 27th, 2024, which of course means it's the day that we find out if Oasis is actually getting back together.
Still don't know.
Still don't fucking know.
Fingers crossed.
27-8-24.
What the fuck?
Is that just a random assortment of numbers? There's no fucking 27th month, you fucking weirdos.
You fools.
Oh, they did it Euro style.
Anyway, today, if it isn't Oasis reunion day
It is National Pau de Creme Day
Shout out to another wonderful dessert dish
And also, shout out Georgia
Because it's National Peach Day
Love a peach
Yeah, yeah
The summer's the time
The window is shortening for good peaches
For people who go and frequent the farmer's market
Probably the highest ratio of like How good it gets during in season versus like how good it is on out season
oh yeah any anything currently like it's those hot months the hot months render some of the
sweetest peach i can eat a peach for hours to quote caster troy in face off jesus christ
that one is so oh my god yeah yeah and then i think they like isolate that to try and get his
voice and so you hear him say it like 20 times yeah and now it's stuck in my head and sometimes
i'll just say it under my breath and my wife will be like, what? I'm like, no, don't worry about it.
I said, I wish this beach had showers.
Beach.
I wish this beach had showers.
Anyways, my name is
Jack O'Brien, aka the Rally Round
the JD with the Dixie
Cup of Cum.
That is courtesy of La Caroni on the Discord.
Shout out to you. Shout out to you.
Shout out to the Republicans
with their little Dixie Cup with JD Cum
where they were like,
got them.
Got them.
What is that?
Now who's weird?
Still fucking you guys.
So strange.
Anyways, I'm thrilled to be joined as always
by my co-host, Mr. Miles Gray.
Yes, it's Miles Gray with a belly still full of Dodger dogs.
It's the Lord of Lancashire and the Shogun with no gun, Miles Gray.
Thank you so much for having me.
Just a whole bag of them just down there, right?
I was contemplating cargo pants on.
I was thinking of shamelessly just taking, filling my pockets,
my cargo pants pockets with hot dogs.
With dogs. With some Dodgers dogs.
And just strolling out. No buns.
Just the dogs. Loose.
Miles takes them down like Kobayashi.
Breaks them in half and then just
dips the bun in water.
Miles,
we are thrilled too. That voice saying
no buns, his famous catchphrase is uh one of our
favorite guests a very funny comedian the host of the podcast the front cast pod yourself with
gun pod yourself the wire and his latest podcast bad has bara uh which happens to be the most moral
podcast in existence and of all time please welcome one of the funniest people doing it
anywhere it's matt lee i said maybe francesca and matt leap got a baby
and after all she came from my balls what's up up? Wow, did it.
Musical master of the parody song. That wasn't off the dome.
That was your birth announcement.
Yes, that's how I announced to everyone that my baby was born and she came from my balls.
Like, thanks.
We didn't.
We knew that.
Well, no, in case people were like.
In case you wanted to know.
Is that your baby?
Yeah.
From your ball?
Oh, yeah.
From both of them. From my balls? Yeah, from both of them.
From my ball.
One ball.
Single.
Although, I mean, it's only one sperm.
So really it only came from one ball.
One of the balls.
You never know left nut or right nut.
That's the thing about it.
It's like, you know, the way.
If you're left-handed or right-handed, that's how you know which ball that's how you know it's like a firing squad
you know everyone uh shoots but no one knows who's actually got a real bullet and who's got a blank
yeah right and that is what i used to when i was a bully instead of saying head or gut i would say
left nut or right nut which one do you want me to just ding when i was a bully when i was a said it a very non-bully
you know i was a big time bully man when i yeah yeah i'd be like which shoelace do you want untied
loser you know i mean bullies the sick bully shit i was Yeah, it's like goodwill hunting. He's like, yeah, yeah, Jack O'Brien made me choose.
The wrench had a belt.
I said both because fuck them, that's why.
Yeah.
You remember that?
I said flick both my nuts.
Yeah, flick both my nuts.
I wish I could do, I can't really do the action.
No, that was perfect.
Pack the car and have it, yad.
All right, there it is.
My balls.
And we're back.
You're going to be reading Gordon Wood
Regurgitating Gordon Wood
You know what I mean
How do you like them apples
Alright
You want to end it
Then you're going to read Zinn and it's going to blow your hair back
And it's like everybody's read Zinn
Okay
Not everyone
Hey Matt
What up though
It's great to have you I'm so excited to be back Not everyone. Hey, Matt. What up, though? What up, though?
It's great to have you.
I'm so excited to be back.
I love you guys.
I love talking to you guys about stuff.
Yeah.
And we're going to talk to you about your podcast, Bad Hasbara.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
The state of Hasbara at the moment.
Yeah.
What is it?
That's the only question i've got written down
yeah what is it what does that mean and is it bad i mean your title says it but is it like bad like
the michael jackson album title yeah is it bad that means good did you imagine you redo that
album cover is bb net and yahoo with the fucking bad leather outfit on with the chains that was oh shit i'm gonna make that on my phone right now was that a miss at the time
or were people like all right let's see where he's going with this bad yeah i i just remember
as a kid i was so stoked because i was like yo this motherfucker on roller skates like it fooled
my ass big yeah i was yeah yes this is the most i've ever liked an album
ever is how much i like that album when it dropped i couldn't name i'm trying to think of what were
the other good songs on that album because i think i put on a concert of that in my neighborhood just
me and my friend lip syncing two songs that we didn't really know the words to are you for real yeah yeah ever bought a michael
jackson album before so i don't know what his albums are all the way through i only know like
you know the hits but there's so many hits that it's like oh yeah this one yeah okay because i'm
definitely i'm like the thriller yeah yeah yeah oh yeah i know the way you make me feel
damn that's on bad. Man in the Mirror.
What the fuck?
Smooth Criminal, Leave Me Alone.
Leave me alone.
That video was wild, too.
Wait, I thought that was off Dangerous.
Leave Me Alone.
The one where he's on the ride.
It's on the bad remaster.
I'm looking at the bad remaster. I thought it was, too.
Yeah, that was off Dangerous, man.
Anyway, Off the Wall is also sick.
Anyway, we're talking off dangerous, man. Anyway, off the walls. Anyway, before we get to it, though, Matt, we do like to get to know our guests a little bit better by asking them, what's your favorite Michael Jackson album?
Now, what's your what's something from your search history that is revealing about who you are?
Oh, sure.
How to fix a car DIY.
That seems specific enough to me.
I think that was probably a successful search.
Yeah, no, it all worked out.
I eventually got there to what I was actually asking was,
how come my engine keeps overheating?
Oh, boy.
Yeah, and the answer was,
I don't know, man.
Could be a lot of things.
So YouTube was very helpful in that.
Yeah, man.
That's the most recent thing.
That was the Google AI at a certain point.
Yeah.
Just lost all confidence.
Yeah.
It was, it really,
as it turns out, you guys,
there's a reason why, you know,
mechanics get paid so much
yeah it's because they they like uh they know about cars and stuff you think you can like
i'm overconfident enough that i'm like i could learn this from youtube videos yeah right yeah
and it turns out you can't it turns out i you can, but not without doing more damage to your car
than you would have if you had just taken it somewhere.
Yeah.
I hung a door once.
Oh, I can do that from YouTube, yeah.
Yeah.
That's on the end.
Okay.
It almost closed all the way.
Oh, that's good.
Okay.
The door was the wrong size.
Yeah, that's the thing. size yeah that shit down you shaved it
down and it was crooked as fuck and it closed almost you can learn a lot of things on youtube
so i was like i bet i could also learn why why come my car keep overheating and it turns out
fucking can't dude wait this is i remember a little bit of insight because i i have we talk on the side
i know about your life and this is the car that you had to retrieve from up north yeah that i
just got back from up north uh selling oh yeah yeah right so you had to you drove up there it
broke down but then you had to get back down you swapped out a car with like a family friend and
yeah yeah had to go back up again to deal with yeah so i took
francesca's mom's car back to la so that i could like be around for the baby and then i just drove
it back up and then dealt with my car by selling it to carmax which is like it sounds from that
you're just like oh okay problem solved you solved. You don't understand how awful this entire experience has been.
Like, I just slept probably 11 hours in a row.
And not because I didn't get enough sleep the other two nights.
It was literally, I was just so relieved to have everything done that my body was just like, we're going to shut down.
Like, some of our organs haven't been resting for
about a month right so it was very stressful but that's literally all of my overrated underrated
everything you're gonna ask me is about this fucking car yeah perfect and the overheating
it's like why why your baby have a fever like it, it's just like, I don't know, man. Yeah. Lots of stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because there's like a thousand things.
It's like, you know, they have all this like diagnostic equipment.
And at the end of the day, nobody figured it out.
They went to the mechanics three times.
And everyone was just like, yeah, I don't know, man.
Usually I can make something up to get your money. But like, right. Fucking confound, I don't know, man. Usually I can make something up to get your money, but like fucking confound.
I don't say this often.
I'm confounded.
Well, the best part was that they actually every time they gave it back to me, they said, OK, problem solved.
And the problem was not solved.
It was just smoke billowing out of it as they handed you the keys.
Yeah, it was bad.
It was bad.
Look, usually I make something up, but you look like a man who's watched three to four YouTube videos all the way through.
I can tell you know a thing or two about cars from watching this guy on YouTube who has a very thick Boston accent, so therefore knows about cars.
He knows these guys too.
What is something you think
is underrated? Underrated?
I'll tell you what's underrated, you guys.
The meter on your car that says
H and C
with the sailboat
in the middle.
With the sailboat in the middle?
Yeah, what the fuck is that?
Okay, so as it turns
out, H and C is hot and cold.
And the second thing is that's not a sailboat, you guys.
What is that?
That's a thermometer.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I wish they had made that more clear because the H and C part,
I've always been like, oh, no, looks like I'm full on H.
That must be good.
It's like, oh, it's giving me a sailing
report it must be h for high seas or c for calm waters yeah it's smooth sailing all the way to god
i don't know why i get the sailing report on my dashboard here yeah yeah it turns out that is uh
a meter that tells you how hot engine is yep and so that's honestly one of the most important things
on your dashboard people think it's the thing that says f or or e yeah because uh turns out
because yeah you can like fill up gas and stuff but uh he i don't pay attention to that one either
but go ahead yeah that heat meter is real that's real real important. It's a hot cold. Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's very underrated because you just think it's like, I don't know.
You know, I'll let the I'll let the scientists deal with that number.
It's like the check engine light.
Right.
Yeah.
You check engine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I treat that check engine light sometimes like my car is trying to scam me.
Right.
Yeah.
You just trying to get money.
Right. Yeah. Nope. I don't, nah, bro, you're just trying to get money out of me. Nice try, asshole.
Nope.
I don't care if all of my tires are flat.
I want them all to have five pounds of pressure in each tire.
Okay?
It helps with traction.
I love the check engine light because it's like you do want to bring it in,
but only because you're like, can you turn that light off?
Yeah.
They're like, no, man, your coolant is all fucked up have you seen the h in the c too
dude i don't know dude i drive full on h all the time i'm always putting a lot of h in the car
i have one tire that consistently gets low and guess what i do i keep filling it back up
this is how i know we're the same fucking person tell me why i got the same i have a screw in one
of my tires yeah that is causing a slow leak but part of me is like if i i could there's a homie
up the street who will patch that shit for 30 bucks like i just bought it and he's like boom
boom boom he's like now get on in my mind i'm like yeah but what i really need is a new set
of tires so i'm waiting for the indicators to get worn down.
So I'm just going to swap out new tires.
And I'm also currently doing the thing where I fill it up every week.
And the guy knows me because I'll buy a bottle of water inside the gas station.
I'm like, yo, bro, can you just charge me for the gas?
Because I don't have 75 cents in coins.
And he's like, I got you.
Yeah, yeah.
Sometimes he knows when I come and he's like, hey. They can turn those on from the desk, which is something I didn't have 75 cents in coins. And he's like, I got you. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes he knows what I tell him.
They can turn those on from the desk, which is something I didn't.
I assumed it was like.
I hate when they pretend they can't.
Right.
It's out of my hands, man.
That happens a lot.
It's like, oh, you got to buy something, and then we'll do cash back and then get changed.
And it's like, I know you have a button, motherfucker.
Yeah.
I know you have the button.
Your finger is on it, dude, right now.
Yeah, yeah.
You're caressing it. Stop trying to get me to buy right now yeah yeah you're caressing it i'm trying
to get me to buy a donut you're dramatically caressing it have you ever done that gone into
a gas station and do like a guilt purchase like because you're gonna ask for something
i every time i've done that for some reason i buy the worst fucking thing in the store like
i somehow find the dustiest item in the gas station mart and i'm like yeah
these spicy old coated peanuts sure my good man and they're like dude really and they so much dust
i don't know why i have like a x-men power to find like the oldest thing in a gas station market
yeah what's the worst shit you got in here? You think you're doing him a favor?
I don't know, man.
Get some old snapples.
I'll eat it in front of you, man.
I know I'm washing my car using your squeegee
and it's only supposed to be the windows
and I'm doing literally the whole car.
So I will, as a favor
to you, I will buy this
dusty packet. Hard-boiled egg
in a Ziploc bag you're selling
for some reason. They do have hard-boiled
eggs at gas stations sometimes.
For some reason.
You do not got to, but they do
have it. What, Matt, is something
what was the one we said? Underrated?
Let's go with overrated here.
What do you think is overrated?
The ****** in Redwood City?
Very overrated.
It had a very good rating.
That's so wild because our most recent guest said it was underrated.
Well, listen, they're wrong.
You know who your most recent guest probably works for?
I'm sorry, the one on El Camino Real?
Yeah, that's the one.
Wow.
Overrated.
By the Marshalls? Right by the Marshallsals that's right yes okay central i will say
uh dulce who works there is very nice and she she's doing her best uh and i think she's a
wonderful manager and or businesswoman and or person who runs the front counter but i will say
i took it over three times every time they thought it was all done
every they said oh everything fixed then i would drive for 30 minutes and then i would go full on
h again i go oh that's bad i know that now that's not a sailboat yeah yeah you lied to me you tell
you well oh sir that's a sailboat actually yeah no sailboat and you're not in a sailboat are you
yeah so you're fine then shut the fuck up dude
and get on with it but you were able to offload the you're offload i so then i i went up and got
i got a quote from car max and and uh i drove the car first i i got it washed at like a gas station
with a wheat yeah yeah yeah it was and then you know i did the vacuum which of
course i had to buy a fucking donut yeah to get the vacuum yeah yeah they were like oh you still
only takes change i was like i know you're lying and then uh yeah i took it to the car max great
thing about this car is that uh it only overheats after like 45 minutes of driving yeah so i took it there and they like checked it all
out they're like yeah this is definitely a 1700 car and then they gave me the money and uh and
that paid for the new radiator that i put in there that didn't help so you netted out to zero
i netted you know what two hundred dollars $200. So everyone's eating chilies tonight.
All right.
All right.
Matt, we're going to take a quick break.
And when we come back, we're going to talk about bad Hasbara.
We'll be right back.
Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente.
And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden.
We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.
When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions.
Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed?
Or, can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job?
Girl, yes.
Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions.
Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice.
And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do,
like resume specialist Morgan Saner.
The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job
and the person who gets the job is usually who applies.
Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it? Like you miss 100% of the shots you never take.
Yeah. Rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself.
Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career
without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult.
And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church.
And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and
LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades.
Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high-control groups and interview
dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just
like mine.
Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives.
Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration.
It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again.
Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months.
These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks.
President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today.
And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president.
One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson.
I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman.
The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground.
Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore.
The story of one strange and violent summer.
This is Rip Current.
Available now with new episodes every Thursday.
Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I've been thinking about you.
I want you back in my life.
It's too late for that.
I have a proposal for you.
Come up here and document my project.
All you need to do is record everything
like you always do.
One session.
24 hours.
BPM 110. 120, she's terrified.
Should we wake her up?
Absolutely not.
What was that?
You didn't figure it out?
I think I need to hear you say it.
That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.
This machine is approved and everything?
You're allowed to be doing this?
We passed the review board a year everything. You're allowed to be doing this. We passed the
review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.
They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television,
iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, everyone. It's me, Katie Couric.
Have you heard about my newsletter called Body and Soul?
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Personally, I'm overwhelmed by the wellness industry.
I mean, there's so much information out there about lifting weights, pelvic floors,
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Everything is vetted by experts at the top of their field, and you can write into them directly
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slash body and soul. Taking better care of yourself is just a click away. And we're back.
We're back.
And Matt, it feels like we should probably start pretty basic with just what is...
What is a Jew?
Okay.
So Jews...
Can you explain to me what is a Jew?
Who is Moses?
And Abraham.
Is that the same Abraham from my book of ghost stories?
That's the exact same Abraham, as you know, 15th president of the United States.
But can you just explain what Hasbara is?
Yes. uh but can you just explain what hasbara is yes so loosely the word hasbara or hasbara or however
you want to pronounce it comes from the hebrew word meaning uh to explain so it's like an
explanation and so that that's it's essentially what it is is it's propaganda it's uh israeli
uh like public relations spin just the way you know
the united states government has its own public relations it does its own spin the israeli
government does it as well uh the difference is that uh with within israel their kind of
internal public relations is different than their outward facing public relations the
stuff that you know they they send to you know western english-speaking audience is going to
be different than a hebrew audience at home so yeah hasbara is just uh it's a euphemism for
propaganda and it is something that for a while it's only recently that the word has become kind of poisonous.
You know, now people know that that's what they call propaganda out there.
So, you know, so they don't say it as much as they used to.
Right. But, you know, for a while there, it was just the euphemism of choice because everyone would say, like, we need a way to explain the actions of our country to people who maybe, you know, don't understand why we need to bomb this hospital or, you know, mass arrest a bunch of people without trial stuff like that and just to yeah ensure the constant
flow of like economic and military support too in the other direction to help just always kind of
keep the levels at a place where people like in the united states don't get so incensed with things
that they really start demanding right especially stuff that you know if it were done by any other country in which like the american people or
western people don't have kind of an automatic like sympathy for you would be like hey i demand
that this country stop doing that and hasbara is meant to be like well here's why we need to
right it's the explanation for things that you, you see a version of events on social media and you go like, damn, that seems like super cruel and bad. But there has to be a reason for it. Like, why would, you know, why would the Israeli people do this? It must there must be more to it. And they go, there is more to it. And here's our explanation for why this is okay.
Right.
Yeah.
Just fill in those blanks.
Exactly.
Yeah.
More sophisticated, more tailored to each of the countries and specifically the U.S.
Yeah.
The U.S. and the West in general.
Yeah.
Because of specific Western sentiments and morality like we you know as a western liberal states like europe or you know the european union like uh and the uk and america and canada you have like a certain
morality that you know we all kind of profess to have where it's like killing killing innocence
is bad and right you know stuff like that right and shit like that
yeah yeah and and you know so you need someone to say why in some cases that's okay or why what
you're seeing is not actually what you saw right and you shouldn't believe anyone but us yeah yeah
and you guests hosted an episode of it could happenen Here with Shireen Lani Yunus.
That's right.
And you talked about your own experience with Hasbara and going back to a birthright, the birthright trip.
That's right.
Can you talk about birthright, what that is?
And like, I don't know, that was a helpful putting that.
birthright what that is and like i don't know that was a helpful putting that i knew what birthright was or i thought i knew what birthright was but i hadn't really put it in the context of
the hasbara yeah until i kind of heard you talk about it yeah so the birthright trip for those
who don't know is a free trip that young jews from i think ages like as young as 18, as old as 26, something like that,
the Israeli government will pay for Jews all around the world to come visit Israel.
And it's like an all-expenses-paid trip in which you go there and you have a very, what's the word?
Idyllic?
Curated.
Curated.
Yeah.
A curated trip to Israel where you see kind of what they want you to see.
You know, you see the nightlife in Tel Aviv and you see the kibbutzes in the north and the Masada.
And you see all of these, like, amazing ancient artifacts of Jewish history.
And you feel, like, close to it.
You see the Wailing Wall.
history and you feel like close to it you see the wailing wall and uh and you are you know you you do if you're a non-religious jew like me you uh put on uh to fill in for the first time which is
like the this wrap this wrappy thing you put around your arm and you wear this little box on
your head yeah yeah it looks like a gopro and uh and you dabbing for the first time and
and all this stuff and it's like it's an experience that is 100 meant to either get you to move to
israel or get you to go back and tell everyone how great israel is i mean that is essentially
the trip and the trip that i took
was people who were all secular there was very few of us were like practicing or like you know
none of us were like kosher right sure we were all trafe uh and so like it was meant to be like
you know it doesn't matter whether or not you're you can be an atheist the point is this is your land and it's your right by blood to be here and the craziest thing that
happened was that there was a giant like event a mega event at an arena in which all of the
birthright trips got together and the head speaker like the headliner was Benjamin Netanyahu, who was prime minister at that time.
This is in like 2011, 2012.
This motherfucker has been the prime minister for so long.
Since Churchill.
Yeah.
It is wild that like we keep saying, you know, this is the only democracy in the Middle East.
And it's like, is it?
Because this guy has been like the dictator forever, dude.
Yeah, that story blows my mind because it just, well, I guess it puts in the proper context how important, how much of a priority this narrative is.
This creating, building this narrative, convincing people people they have Netanyahu speaking to children.
Yeah.
Yes.
Like who could make you feel more important than the leader of the country in telling y'all as young people, like the future is in your hands and like the future of Israel is in your hands.
100%.
It was like, and I remember that was the moment in which I was like, oh, damn.
Like, I knew that getting the youth, Jewish youth of the world on their side was like important to them.
But I didn't know how important because I was like, this is the prime minister is going to like come here. he doesn't have better things to do than to talk to a bunch of like brats about
like,
about how great the country is and about how they're actually,
he kept telling us,
he's like,
you're all from great countries,
but you're from here.
This is where you're from,
which was for me,
you know,
another kind of like red flag.
Right.
Because you had those moments like throughout it like like yes were you kind
of cynical going into it are you kind of noob or you obviously had your own worldview and when
things kind of butted up against that you're like wait a second at this point i was you know
cynical enough about israel because i'd been to like college and i've gotten some perspective on, you know, the nuances of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
I wasn't like a full anti-Zionist Jew at that point.
I was just someone who was more critical than a lot of my peers.
Sure, sure.
But not, you know, critical enough to, you know, to pass up a free trip.
Right, right.
Am I right?
enough to, you know, to pass up a free trip. And so, you know, for me, I was 100% I was on the lookout for like some of these things, but I was also there because I truly was like,
no, they're right. I need to see this with my own eyes. I mean, that's how it's like build.
It's like, come see Israel for yourself. As if like what you're seeing somehow negates the things you're not seeing that you've heard about, you know?
Right, right.
It's like, come see South Africa for yourself.
It's like, yeah, this place seems pretty great as long as you're not in a Bantu stand, you know?
Yeah.
Who are those people in that prison?
Bad guys.
Bad guys are there.
You know, we got great whites.
You can see great whites down here.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
There's surf down here, you know?
Right.
But yeah, it was like, for me, I was trying to, you know, I was trying to have a free trip.
And I was trying to like a little bit be like, I want to see it for myself.
and i think for me it had the opposite effect that they were going for because what they were going for was you're going to see how great this place is and then you're going to start questioning
every time someone criticizes it as like oh they're lying about us and this was something
that benjamin netanyahu directly said to us he said you know there's a lot of lies out there and the only way you can fight lies is with the truth so tell people what you saw here and then he proceeded
to tell us what we saw there and here is a bullet point yeah here's a bullet point
a democracy that was flourishing with opportunities for many people a diverse population that kind of
right and it was a lot of you know stuff that was going to appeal to young liberal you know college age kids which
was like you saw gay people existing you saw women with the bikinis and not being told that
they had to cover their face it was very right much like compared to those arabs over there right
you know that was like binary yeah yeah that was right. That was like. That's the binary, yeah.
Yeah, that was the thing.
We are, you know, even the phrase the most, you know, they say we're the only democracy in the Middle East.
Everything is like in the Middle East.
Everything is in the region in comparison to the Arabs. And that is meant to appeal to a Western audience, which is by and large biased against Arabs and Muslims.
So we're more willing to believe that, you know, everything Arabs do is backwards and problematic, you know, and therefore they're less deserving of our sympathies.
But I think that's an important piece of context like this is for people who
disagree with israeli policy like the in a way you know yeah that israel is very protective of this is
what you're up against like yeah this level like they fund children who unremarkable children not to be uh no
you're just a kid and they treat you like an olympic athlete like better than an olympic
athlete olympic athletes are like this food fucking sucks like yeah you know what i mean
so i don't know i that was just an important piece of context for me in the whole like that. It is a massive and vast propaganda machine. It's like they want to hard sell you on the idea of moving there or telling people that it's good.
And it's once you kind of dig deeper into like, well, wait, why do you care where I live?
That's when you start running into what is going to be the main issue with the Zionist project,
which is that they need to establish and maintain a jewish demographic majority in
israel because it's the only way they can continue to be a quote democratic state at least within the
within the borders of you know actual israel like 48 or whatever and not in the occupied territories
obviously because that's just straight apartheid. But within Israel, like without that demographic majority, their whole fear is that like Arabs who have a higher birth rate are going to be more and more.
There's going to be more Arabs, more Arab voters, and therefore they're going to vote out the Jews.
And so it is part of the project to get us to uproot our lives and move to Israel.
And they do that in a series of
ways that I find to be
blatantly anti-Semitic.
I mean, the birthright trip is at least
them trying to
catch more flies with honey.
The vinegar is them trying to convince you
that everybody hates you.
No matter where you are in the world,
if you're a Jew, you are hated by your neighbors.
And I feel that that kind of instilling that paranoia
is like blatantly anti-Semitic.
Yeah, and I think, I mean, like,
that's where you kind of see the levels
at which it works, right?
Because you'll have Americans in the United States
that have been exposed to that,
who sort of continue to carry that torch
of like putting forward those talking points
and also getting their friends around them to be more sympathetic because they can say oh i know
someone who's been to israel they've only told me great things about it so that's like the first
layer of like inoculating people like towards any sort of criticisms and then you get to a moment
like october 7th right and people really begin to shift their focus there. And then
like you see the propaganda and the talking points come out in a very aggressive way. Like what,
how do you see that shift? Because obviously this is something like the term has been like
used since like the eighties, but what I'm in a lot of, a lot of critics of like the Israeli
government have always pointed at like this policy of basically gaslighting people and be like, no, you're not seeing what you're seeing kind of thing.
Right, yeah.
But what is that, like, now, like, how have you seen it ramped up?
Because, I mean, when you've come on, we've talked about, like, what's happening in Gaza from time to time.
Not always specifically about, like, the propaganda dimensions.
But now, what, like, just how are you seeing you seeing like the evolution of that starting from
sure you know october to even now because i'm sure there's like moments where
yeah things get even more aggressive or slightly more wacky or whatever but yeah so like the
interesting thing about the attack on the 7th was that at that moment you know the day of the 7th was that at that moment, you know, the day of the 7th and even in subsequent
weeks after, the Israeli government had the goodwill of everybody in the West because they saw,
you know, a terrorist attack that, you know, no matter what way you slice it, you did see innocent people being killed by hamas and you know different groups
within uh gaza and so people were just like oh i'm against terrorists right and so that goodwill
being squandered was the really interesting thing that subsequent to the seventh the amount of death
and destruction that was immediately like raining upon the palestinians
uh in the gaza strip like very quickly turned people i think the hasbar had a lot to do with it
because they the israeli pr machine was just not prepared like people were had not been media trained in a while is my guess uh that you had people
going on these like you know news magazines and talk you know news talk shows and panels and
whatnot with no sense of i have to present this for a western audience so that they understand
it instead you had people asking simple questions
like, you know, anchors on the BBC. I remember one of them asked, I think Naftali Bennett
is an Israeli politician, like, well, what are you guys doing to minimize the deaths of civilians
in Gaza? And he just yelled at him. He just said like, come on, man, you know what,
you're going to ask me that after what they what, you're going to ask me that after
what they did, you're going to ask me that, you know, like you're going to care about that. And,
and it was just such a, it was, it came from such a place of just being tired of wearing the mask
that people, I think, started seeing more and more the way in which Israeli society was just like,
we are okay with murdering these people, like way more okay than you guys thought we were,
you know? And so after the seventh, you saw people, you know, being told basically not to
believe their eyes, what they're seeing is, you know, not what not to believe their eyes what they're seeing is you know
not what they're actually seeing everything that you think you know is backwards if you see a video
that shows a hospital being bombed you have to not immediately blame israel for doing it you have to
hold withhold your judgment until we tell you whether or not we did it.
And then, you know, just kind of saying it was Hamas.
And they kept doing it.
And the thing is, in the past, whenever there have been any of flare-ups, so to speak, in Israel or in Gaza, a lot of the war crimes that people have been exposed to in the west there's been an outcry at first
and then there's been a wait wait wait let's get all the facts straight first and then a few weeks
of radio silence where it goes out of the news cycle and then they admit like for example the
murder of al jazeera journalist shereen abu akhled was big news when
it first happened it just seemed to be a straight execution of this famous journalist right and then
the israelis denied it they said we didn't do this they said it was a you know palestinian plot to
make us look bad and then enough time had passed in between you know that story got out of the news cycle and
then eventually it was just i think they had no choice but to admit it because of uh their own
journalists within israel saying yeah this is definitely us right and people stopped you know
it wasn't a big news story anymore so people were just like oh we forgot we moved on to whatever
other thing because of just the the scale of the destruction
since the seventh it has not left the news cycle so they've found themselves not having the time
to wait for people to forget right and so you see very clearly how the sausage is made
where every time there's some bad news about Israel, then they counter it with like something
bad is happening to Israel via the international community. For example, when the ICJ, the
International Court of Justice, finally came out with their, you know, preliminary ruling on whether
or not this could be a genocide. And they said, yes, it could be.
Immediately after, maybe less than 24 hours, there was charges all over the Israeli media
and over Western media that UNRWA, which is the UN's, you know, palestinian refugee group that like helps palestinian refugees specifically
was complicit in october 7th like unruh is the un did october 7th was like the big thing it was
everywhere all of a sudden everyone was talking about it rapidly the united states stopped funding
unruh all of this stuff and it became, the story was like talking
about whether or not UNRWA was complicit in these attacks on the 7th. And it stopped, we stopped
talking about how the ICJ just said, it looks like this is very possibly a genocide happening.
Right, right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so, you know the the strategy i think of like trying to
stuff the media with a bunch of counter points a bunch of talking points is rubbed off on people
in a way where they're they just feel like you they're insulting our intelligence you know and
i think if you watch pierce morgan you see a perfect example of that. This guy is a total fucking shill.
Like, he is someone who loves Trump.
He loves anything conservative.
He hates woke people.
You know, he's just like, but with him, what he likes more than anything else is himself and his own.
He thinks he's a genius so when an israeli pr guy comes on there
and can't can tell him exactly how many hamas have died but can't tell him how many civilians
have died right even though it's like well wouldn't the number be the rest of the number
is there for civilians and he's like no i can't say and it's like but you know how many hamas there's a great video where he's just like he can't believe that this guy does not have a
better answer right for him and just yeah right and and pierce morgan is like since the seventh
has been has been famous for asking every guest whether or not they condemn hamas and even he
has been like no you have to at least lie to me. You have to like be good. You at least have
to give me something plausible. The Hasbara has to be good so I can explain to people why you guys
are good. If you're not going to give me that, then I'm going to yell at you. And I feel like
that is a lot of a lot of people recently. All right. Let's let's take a quick break.
We'll be right back. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix
documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member
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perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital
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Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job?
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When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre.
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and we're back we're back hell yeah one thing you know i i realized too of like the effect of the
pr machine is like especially in like you know you know, like in the United States, Hollywood specifically, are there a lot of groups that are called like creatives for peace or these other groups that are clearly doing like the bidding of like what like the Israeli government or people who are sympathetic to the Zionist project or like, you know, there's like the most recent thing was that Emmy nominated news thing.
It's Bisan from Gaza and I'm still alive was nominated for an Emmy.
And this group came out that's like creatives for peace, like creative community for peace.
Hey, we really think this is like the Emmys, the Academy should really actually take back this nomination because this person is tied to like terrorist organizations or whatever.
This was like a news piece that won an Edward R. Murrow award, a Peabody award.
We're talking about legit journalism.
Right.
On the ground, this is someone who is not a journalist who like flew into Gaza for, you know, all of Messing and like Selma Blair signed to it?
And you're like, what?
But they are clearly, you know, they are acting on whatever they feel is the most beneficial to the optics for what is happening, right?
And this group in particular, Creative Community for Peace, is a group that has their origins in the beginnings of the BDS movement.
So as soon as BDS started happening, you know, people boycott divestment sanction. And one of the
key components of that is a cultural boycott of Israel. And by the way, these are tactics that
were used by people who were against apartheid in South Africa.
And this is a very effective tactic.
In order to counter that, Creative Community for Peace has been like,
we got to make sure that we get the celebrities on our side.
So we're going to do everything we can to cozy up the celebrities.
So the entire Creative Community for Peace like name is some bullshit they're not
about peace what they are about is making sure that bds is not a tactic that catches on right
it's a it's a reaction to a non-violent political movement for ending of apartheid in israel and
they're like no no no no that bad we're about peace right right exactly
like that woman shouldn't have an emmy it's like yeah right anything to do with this 24 year old
journalist in gaza whose videos are i survived another bombing yeah it's it's bad because and
it's the great thing about that story is they couldn't even call her Hamas because that wasn't, they, they, they tie her to the PFLP.
Right.
And so it's like,
they can't,
they can't,
you know,
they usually just say,
Oh,
they're Hamas.
This person is Hamas.
But in this case,
they're like,
Oh,
we got a video of her speaking at a rally.
Right.
And so let's,
we're going to call her a terrorist.
And yeah.
Yeah.
But like,
you just see these like talking points or sort of uh stories
either intentionally covered or not covered like you also see how that's acting on our media like
the prison prisoner abuse scandal yeah fucking was like nowhere right yeah and like it took me
reading like many other things well i mean like that most people were talking about it but like
if you were watching msnbc read the new york times or washington post or cnn you probably got very little on it and for
all of the emphasis that was happening on like you know sexual assaults on the seventh like and
like the weird lack of visibility on something that was happening that was documented even on
video was like very alarming it had me
really feeling like truly i'm like oh shit like this is this is fucking wild like i'm seeing shit
i'm reading reports even from like haretz or whatever yeah in israel and i'm not we're not
we're barely getting anything like that here and you realize too like to the point of what
has bar is meant to do is to also for audiences especially in the united states because the united states is like
israel's golden goose yeah it's number one supporter yeah like it's really important that
people in the united states the that the tide doesn't turn against them and it does feel like
in polling most people are saying like yeah we need to knock this shit
off like yeah this seems bad immediately and so it feels even more strange in america too to be like
we all know this is bad we're all saying this shouldn't be happening and then we even have our
own politicians being like no no no it's all good like don't worry like right just just avert your
eyes children because the adults are actually doing something. And that's what I think is really insidious part of how it's affecting the discourse here,
because not only that, anyone who advocates for, like, Palestinian personhood is treated
like some kind of pariah or threat to other people's safety.
And I think, yeah, and I think another dimension of all of this working in conjunction is a
lot of the emphasis when talking about what's happening in Gaza, the West Bank is like to not talk about the main struggle between Palestinian people and what is like what no no like the the thing that i'm really concerned about is watch
like i'm seeing really disturbing images and accounts come out of gaza and the west bank
right i'm seeing literal like video of babies being killed in gaza palestinian children being
killed on a regular basis awful shit but again like all like our media will pick up talking
points to then do the same thing because obviously
in the same time you know like apac and groups like that were huge supporters of the invasion
of iraq because it was always to be like yeah yeah exactly that's that's it now exactly that
was their only comment on the word thank you exactly they just write this uh yeah yeah no i mean it is like the hezbollah is meant to
make people in the west complacent to what happens in israel what the israeli government chooses to
do and in gaza and whatnot and you know things like limited coverage of what happened in that, was it Staitimon?
Or, you know, I can't pronounce anything good.
But the prison in Israel that, in which we, there's video of not just the sexual assault of a Palestinian prisoner, but also video of then the, you know, people in the Knesset and, you know, Israeli parliament debating whether or not they're allowed to do that.
Right.
Right.
And it brings to mind like us debating in the United States, are we allowed to torture?
Are we allowed to have Guantanamo?
And, you know, totally missing out on the question of like, are these people human or not human?
Do they have the same
rights as us or do they not have the same rights as us? And it's like when you have a society that's
just decided, you know, takes as a matter of course that Arabs are not equal human beings.
And of course, that's not the question they're going to ask. They're not going to ask, is it
right? They're going to ask, well, is it legal? And, you know, so I think the United States and Israel are not that different in terms of the way in which we have a bias against a racist bias against Arabs.
And, you know, we we are going to cover a story like that as a couple of bad apples, you know what I mean?
As opposed to as a part of a bigger narrative of the Israeli brutality against Palestinians.
And the reason that we do that is not necessarily because of some nefarious group.
It's not like the news media all gets together
in a cabal right right right how people you know can quickly veer into the lane of antisemitism
where they just go oh the cabal of of of journalists, by and large, have towards Israel being the good guy.
For better or worse, Israel is the one that reflects our values.
Right.
And, you know, you can't look at a story like what was happening in that prison as something that exists as part of a larger context.
You have to be like, yeah, they got some crazy guys over there.
It's too bad.
It's really too bad.
And it's this kind of refusal to see and condemn the society itself as deeply racist, as deeply supremacist we're looking into like
a funhouse mirror as americans yeah like israel like israel's policies too because look baby we
see the settler colonial aspirations and we we game recognize game there too and in the same way
when it comes to have reckonings with like true like the actual oppressive systemic forces
that act on people there doesn't matter if it's here or abroad it's like unless it's specifically
to dehumanize then it's like well look what they don't allow their women to do or look right but
if it's if it's if it's about actually a self-critique or something that we are we have a
hand in like you know the israeli military then it turns into
brain gymnastics contortion act where it we do everything but have a real discussion around
what is isn't or who is or is not a person although you know that reflexively it feels
very easy for especially american media to be like well you know unfortunately they don't look
like us.
Like the Ukraine thing obviously was good for ratings because they're like
Western European looking people,
but anything else,
we just have this reflexive switch to say,
yeah,
the,
the,
the oppressions is kind of part of it.
Yeah.
And like,
well,
you know,
well,
what would you do if you were surrounded by Arabs?
Like,
that's kind of like what they,
that's their explanation for a lot of things is like,
well,
if,
what if,
what if America was surrounded by Arabs?
Like,
you'd be so scared too,
right?
Yeah.
Wouldn't you be scared?
And wouldn't you do everything you can and build big,
big walls to wall yourself off.
And that's not necessarily untrue because it's about the United States.
We love to build big walls to keep brown people out.
Absolutely.
The difference is, is that like in Israel, when they talk about this stuff, they talk about it as if they are that they have a right to do what is essentially colonialism.
if they have a right to do what is essentially colonialism.
And when people try to put it in the context of like,
oh, this is colonialism then,
they go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this is not.
This is actually anti-colonialism.
We are actually indigenous.
And so they have to layer on this bullshit when Zionism was a colonial project, explicitly so.
You know, like this was something that they said back when colonialism was not considered bad.
It was considered like how a people did self-determination.
You know, it was like creating a colony was just like, that's how we are strong, you know? And then once decolonization became kind of the norm,
like colonialism became kind of a dirty word,
they had to change what they were saying they were doing
from, you know, colonialism to,
oh, no, no, we're actually an indigenous rights movement,
which is like completely bullshit.
I mean, it's just like one of those things
where you can't, and this is as far as I think biggest issue of late is you can't be like we are, you know, we are the liberal bastion of the world.
like a as a leftist everything you love is a liberal you know gay people women's rights and all this stuff bleeding heart shit we're that but also we are the outposts of the west and our
civilization uh we are the only people keeping the mongrel hordes you know the the arab the evil
arab out and you're like you you can't actually appeal to these are two different
demographics you're trying to appeal to it's like you're trying to feel appeal to both the fascists
and to the libs it's to the people it's like we got a little bit of something for people who
believe all people are human beings and deserve respect and we also got a little bit of something
for people go these motherfuckers ain't people yeah right. Right. Yeah. It like that sort of, that balancing act is so it's tricky.
Yeah.
And it just,
it's hard to sort of stomach or take seriously a lot of the time because like
what is being said,
it juxtaposed with what is happening.
It just,
you're like,
it's so clearly,
it's so clearly lies and propaganda.
It's so clearly them trying to like,
you know,
get you to turn off a part of your brain. And, uh, and I
think, you know, as this has been the most I've ever seen, uh, in terms of people who have kind
of woken up to this reality of what Israel like actually is and what they actually are is just
like a brutal right-wing apartheid state that its existence is predicated, at least in its current formation, its existence is predicated on the ethnic cleansing and the disenfranchisement of Palestinians.
And, you know, if you don't know that, you know that now.
At least a lot of people are waking up to that.
I think some part of you knows that. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, I mean,
after a while, you know, you, you just go like, Oh,
now I get why every time, like if a family, you know,
has one member who is like,
is a Hamas guy or a PLO guy and they haven't, you know, done an act of terror or they did,
let's say, a stabbing or something. It's not just a case of, okay, they're going to arrest the guy
and he's going to be in jail because he did a crime. They're going to bulldoze the house of
the family. You're just like, wait, why do that? That's not normal. That is not is not something that like if that happens in the
united states if they're just like oh man that gang member did a shooting let's bulldoze their
house like that shit is you go oh this is uh that's not good this is definitely about something
big yeah this is definitely about a land project i'm american and i'm even like way to say yeah right is that like legal
yeah are you like allowed to do that like why would the the whole family gets their house
bulldozed and it's not to say that united states doesn't have you know tons of history regarding
like stealing land obviously i mean we do that that's how we are here. But it's, you know, it's a question of trying to convince us that it's something else, that it's like, oh, you know, the only way to fight terror is to do ethnic cleansing.
And that's when you, yeah, you know. hopeful because from my perspective it feels like we're like there there was this movement
there were the student protests there was and as things have settled the gravitational pull
of the hasbara and just of the sort of legacy mainstream media perspective has pulled things in that direction like it feels like we're losing
ground right and like the student protests now have like settled in the mainstream imagination
as like people sharing you know anti-semitic is the word that you see used a lot of the time so
right like how how are you feeling about like the state of the movement as it's currently
constituted and just that whole dynamic?
I mean,
I'm not like,
uh,
by nature,
someone who is like optimistic.
Uh,
I just,
it's,
it's,
um,
this is for me has been something that,
because I've,
you know,
studied it and cared about it for a long time.
I've always, I've never seen it as like completely intractable.
I've always seen it with the view of like, eventually this is going to end. I mean, there's just like, you know, but the question of like in my lifetime has always been kind of like, oh, I don't know about that.
question of like in my lifetime has always been kind of like, Oh, I don't know about that, but you know, but I will be honest. I've been a lot more optimistic in the last few months
because I have not put as much stock, I think, into a lot of things that maybe more, if you're
new to this issue, you might put more into something like uh the student protests or whatnot
and go like oh man this seems like something could happen like i i was like that's a great thing to
me i've been what i've been putting stock into is kind of the broad american public opinion on
this issue is changing because of the continued focus right news media on this, even if it's biased news media.
And like social media has been a huge thing for this because the main issue I've always seen is
that people don't know about it. People just kind of go on their like more basic assumptions about who the good guys and
who the bad guys are or they like opt out by saying i don't know man it seems like they've been really
fighting for thousands of years and it's very complicated i'm not going to figure this out
and now i think people are because they're becoming more educated on the subject and seeing with their own eyes what's happening and because israel has not
improved their pr strategy right i am feeling more hopeful i'm feeling more and more like they
are eating themselves from within in that society i've seen i've heard from more left-wing Israeli voices than I have in the longest time.
And it just seems more and more like the people in the West who once had a more unconscious bias about preferring the Israelis over the Palestinians are now having that kind of
reversed and are just starting to see Israel for what it is, which is like a racist apartheid
state. And I think that that shift in public opinion is important because at the end of the
day, one reason I think Israel's been able to get away with so much is because
people just don't care. And I'm starting to see that change. Now, the only worry I have with it
has been, I want to make sure that people don't fall into the traps that a lot of Israelis,
or at least Israeli media guys set, which is, like, act so much like an
anti-Semitic stereotype that you believe in anti-Semitic stereotypes, and act in a way in
which you're saying, oh, all Jews believe this, because Israelis love to do this. We are
representatives of all Jews, and then get people to believe that all Jews support the state of Israel and its actions.
Like that to me is an important facet of like speaking out on this for me, because I'm like, I want people to know that Jews are not a monolith and do not like automatically support Israel, no matter what they say, no matter what polls they bring out,
when they say like a majority, vast majority of Jews, they always say like something along the
lines of like, connect strongly with Israel. And it's like, well, yeah, obviously Israel,
quote unquote, the, you know, the thing from the Bible is different than the modern state of
Israel. And also, yeah, any Jewish person is going to
have a connection through Judaism to the idea of Israel, ancient Israel specifically, but also,
you know, we've been taught about Israel as being like the place that we earned through our blood,
you know, and mass extermination attempts over thousands of years in Europe, like you're not going to change that overnight. No one's, you know, but I do believe that the idea that all Jews automatically support Israel is a complete fabrication that is proliferated by Hasbarists who want us to all seem like we are in solidarity with one another as like
blood jews which is just this really fascist like mindset but yeah i i'm feeling more optimistic
because people are more and more speaking out about it or realize that Israel is not the good guy.
And a lot of Jewish people in the West are actively ashamed of the people that they know
who blindly support Israel.
And the young people have really made me feel like maybe there's a future here.
But yeah,
who knows?
All right.
Well,
appreciate having you on.
I want to point out.
It's a funny podcast.
It is a funny podcast.
Yeah,
we just get, but I feel like we had a lot of ground to cover and we appreciate you covering it with us.
Do a bit real quick.
We'll go into a bit.
You want to do?
Yeah,
I'll just do a,
it's a me and bar at my wife.
I say stuff like that.
It's pretty cool.
I have a soundboard usually.
So it's pretty sick.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You'll love the podcast.
Do you use the deep voice modulator too?
Oh, I use the deep voice modulator.
That's how I pretend to be.
Got a great fun song.
Yeah, I got songs and shit.
Manly staple.
Yeah, so, you know.
Yeah, go check it out and where can people
find you follow you hear the podcast all that good stuff you can hear the podcast wherever you
get your podcast it's called bad has bar of the world's most moral podcast uh you can also watch
it on youtube uh there is a youtube channel so you can see our faces while we're doing it
so subscribe to bad as we're doing it. So subscribe to Bad
Esbora on YouTube and yeah, follow me on Instagram at Matt Leib Jokes. And you know, if I can,
I'm on Twitter at Matt Leib.
There you go. Is there a work of media that you've been enjoying a tweet or otherwise?
Yeah. So there is, this is not like the funniest thing.
Okay, so there's a couple.
One is I just got introduced to someone named LA Beast.
I know this is an old YouTuber.
And apparently he was like back in the day, like he was just like a prank guy.
So I just started going through all of like his videos.
And he has a video in which he, uh, is mad at his dad.
So he goes into his dad's oldsmobile and drinks Epicac and soda.
And he just,
Oh my God.
You vomit all over it.
And I can't,
I can't explain how funny it is.
You just have to watch LA piece.
It,
it just made me,
it made me, I don't know, like nostalgic for the days of la beast it it just made me it made me i don't know like nostalgic
for the days of youtube when it was just like like idiots eating cactuses and shit yeah i mean
back when youtube was fun and it was just like like halfway dying in slow motion as a vlog
yeah shoe nice and you're like that guy just drank a fifth of stole all right yeah you're like oh man
that's crazy yeah so so that was cool um and then the other pieces uh this is just a thing i think
everyone should watch is uh ret and link who i do a show called good mythical morning yeah and they
have a separate channel called uh ret and link on on youtube and they just started a series called Wonderhole. And I'm not in it.
I'm literally just plugging it because it's really good.
It's called Wonderhole.
If you subscribe to the Rhett and Link channel or just go there and you'll see the first episode just came out a couple days ago.
It's really good.
It's not like their usual studio stuff.
So yeah, check that out.
I'm literally only plugging it because I like it.
And not because...
Will you get a cut?
No, I don't get a cut.
I'm not even in it.
They didn't even ask me to be in it.
And so half of it I'm plugging because I'm mad. So you're mad at them. I'm kind of in it. They didn't even ask me to be in it. And so like half of it, I'm plugging it. Cause I'm mad at them.
I'm kind of mad at them.
Cause I'm like,
you tuned in being like,
let's see what this bullshit is.
Yeah.
I was just like,
all right,
I'll watch this.
And then I was like,
wait,
this is really good.
What the fuck?
So yeah.
Anyways,
uh,
check out,
check out wonder hole.
It's very good.
Awesome.
Uh,
miles,
where can people find you?
And is there a work of media you've been enjoying?
Yeah.
Find me on the Twitter, the Instagram, at Miles of Gray.
Find Jack and I on the basketball podcast, Miles and Jack Got Mad.
Boosties.
Find me on 420 Day Fiance.
Talk in 90 Day Fiance.
A tweet I like is from Derek Cressman at Derek Cressman said,
the Electoral College is DEI
for rural white folks.
No.
No.
That's our word.
You can find me on Twitter at
Jack underscore O'Brien.
A tweet I've been enjoying, Mike
Bovias
tweeted a picture
of J.D. Vance photoshopped into
the hot wings set and it says
and these are chicken wings?
How long have you hosted hot ones?
These are hot sauces?
What's a good number of wings to eat?
I'll do whatever makes sense when it comes to the
hot sauce. Oh my gosh.
Just really nailed
the tone of JD Vance.
Yep.
You can find us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist.
We're at The Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram.
We have a Facebook fan page and a website, dailyzeitgeist.com, where we post our episodes and our footnotes.
Footnotes.
Footnotes.
Footnotes.
We're like, oh, it's the information that we talked about in today's episode,
as well as a song that we think you might enjoy.
Miles, is there a song that you think people might enjoy
yeah uh there's a track oh wow i was playing that ryan adams cover of wonderwall and then i
completely lost it messed it up there it is uh it's a track called summer rain uh by the group
zimmer 90 i've not heard of this band but this song has like a lot of plays it came up in a
playlist i was listening to uh and it just got like again it's it's calm it feels like summer rain it's not gonna
it's not like some blow your speakers out type aggro kind of beat anything it's like a nice
little kind of like rock tune you know what i mean indie rock vibes so this is summer rain by zimmer
90. all right we will link off to that in the footnotes. The Daily Zeitgeist
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