00:07:13.500Translate into 16 languages. Could you maybe fill people in on like who you are, your backstory?
00:07:21.040I'm a writer. I'm a poet. I'm a journalist. I'm from, I was born and raised in Occupy Jerusalem
00:07:25.060in Palestine. I came into the spotlight in two phases, I would say. Early on when I was a child,
00:07:30.580when I was the subject of a documentary about forced expulsions in Occupy Jerusalem by settler
00:07:38.340organizations and charities and whatnot. And then again, in 2020 and 2021, when the same thing
00:07:43.580happened in our neighborhood and to our home. So our house, our house, like many, many, many others,
00:07:48.420was specifically targeted by these settler organizations that are funded by American0.84
00:07:53.320charity groups. So settlers, like they came into your house and they, while you were living there
00:07:59.120as a child, and they were like, we, we live here now. Yeah, as absurd as it sounds, as absurd as
00:08:05.580it sounds it's fairly common in Jerusalem and fairly common in Palestine but literally settlers
00:08:10.860in my case a guy from Long Island New York just came into the picture obviously this is under the
00:08:17.840protection and with the participation of the Israeli military and the Israeli police force
00:08:22.920so we came home from school there were hundreds of policemen and soldiers and all of our furniture
00:08:29.860was across the street. And half of our house was taken by Israeli settlers. And we were then
00:08:36.160forced to share half of our home with them and live through their brutality and torture and
00:08:41.480really like sexual, weird sexual harassment. And all of this happened against the backdrop of the
00:08:47.780Israeli police being there. So we really couldn't do anything to protect ourselves. And I want to
00:08:52.060emphasize how fairly common that this practice is, not just to us, but to many, many Jerusalemites.
00:08:59.320I mean, part of why I really wanted to talk to you about everything we're going to talk about today is that like one of the sort of central tenets of Zionism, which Pink has very much expressed to the world over the last couple of weeks, is this feeling of constant victimhood while simultaneously like attending like a red carpet U.S. Open event.
00:09:22.140I want to talk about what Pink thinks Zionism is versus what Zionism really is.
00:09:27.700And I feel like as someone who was faced with what Zionism really is as a child,
00:09:32.700I know you can speak to that really super well.
00:09:35.540I mean, I think what you just pointed out, the analogy,
00:09:38.300I think it's really a perfect metaphor for Zionism.0.95
00:09:41.300The fact that she can speak about unsafety and feeling of fear and victimized and blah, blah, blah,0.90
00:09:46.360while simultaneously being one of the most successful musicians in the world
00:09:50.700attending a red carpet event. I think it's the perfect metaphor for Zionism as a whole,0.85
00:09:55.420because, you know, we're talking about a people and a nation that is, you know, diplomatically,0.59
00:10:01.520financially, economically backed by the West, a nation that has the only country with a nuclear
00:10:07.540arsenal in the Middle East, you know, a nation with so much power and privilege and access that
00:10:12.000simultaneously has inhabited this victim complex. You know, I think this kind of discrepancy is
00:10:18.680baked into the national DNA of Israelis in general.
00:10:23.840We are going to get into all of that in, I think, great depth today.
00:10:29.060But first, because I do enjoy talking about the online antics of out-of-touch celebrities,
00:10:35.600I'm going to throw this up on the screen for anyone watching the video version of this episode.1.00
00:10:40.080What do you make of the visual of Pink responding to criticism over her reposting this right-wing
00:10:47.500anti-Palestinian doxin website with like a golden hour DSLR portrait of herself was the idea I guess0.98
00:10:56.660that she like looks fierce like she looks like she's serving cunt she looks stoic0.98
00:11:02.880I think she thought she looked stoic it kills me because it's one thing for you know Ed Sheeran0.99
00:11:11.620just put out this statement that's like ridiculous but it's like at least he had
00:11:15.740at least he could do it in like a notes app apology fashion i kind of do appreciate that
00:11:20.960she just fully like blew past the the apology notes app screenshot and just posted this like
00:11:26.480fierce photo of herself yeah i mean when you put it that way it's really funny one of the other
00:11:31.500things i want to say about pink not that it really matters that much but pink has been posting some0.96
00:11:36.360pretty heinous zionist shit for a long time it was just this instance uh that got people's attention0.91
00:11:44.340in the wake of october 7th but also several weeks into the genocide she posted a like0.98
00:11:49.780like a 10 point plan on her instagram towards like peace in the middle east i guess
00:11:56.980did you see this no i did not that's hilarious though show me you want to read it yeah one the
00:12:03.920hostages need to come home two hamas is a wonderful we're gonna know i'm kidding0.87
00:12:08.900that seeks to destroy jews they also murder and oppress women the lgbtqia plus community and0.82
00:12:17.820political opponents three palestinians need a solution that honors their aspirations and their
00:12:22.200humanity four neither palestinians or israelis can exist peacefully under the threat of hamas
00:12:27.800five protecting innocent civilian life must remain of utmost priority six no one i don't feel like
00:13:02.740Someone said that to the New York Times.
00:13:04.200prejudice and acts of hate toward any group is unacceptable 10 any violent or hate-filled
00:13:11.980demonstrations taking place around the world are making the problem worse not better and she ends0.86
00:13:18.120it with a place for us to meet a place for us to meet one of my favorite things that zionists do0.98
00:13:24.140and by favorite i'm being facetious but they'll always list like a series of like demands or like0.84
00:13:30.680what they consider to be objective platitudes that are all just upholding zionism and then
00:13:36.320they'll be like this is the even-keeled middle ground a place for us to meet yeah there was like0.65
00:13:42.500you hate peace and we want peace and then they they've almost sent us malarians also and this
00:13:47.720was one of the things that really blew my mind months later pink reposted a graphic from jonah
00:13:54.440platt jonah platt brother of ben platt son of mark platt the man who perhaps has more connections
00:14:02.300to the entertainment world than any other child of entertainers alive and yet uh makes a podcast0.89
00:14:09.460which i you know me too buddy me too can't talk too much shit but he wrote and she reposted today0.89
00:14:16.640is a good day to let your jewish friends know you see and believe them and their lived experience0.96
00:14:21.780love them more than you love social media propaganda and to recognize anti-zionist voices
00:14:26.240this pissed me off so bad this was also in the wake of the bondi beach uh massacre in australia0.98
00:14:33.120oh that's fucked up she was basically like blaming the violence against jews in australia0.99
00:14:40.040on anti-zionist jews it's fucked up which i and that didn't get heat at the time i was like pink0.99
00:14:46.600to be fair who's paying attention to her you know i'm paying attention to this stuff because i'm0.97
00:14:50.760not well and like i look at like what all of these celebrities from my childhood post all the time
00:14:55.880but like you know many people have made the point after this week that they're gonna have to boycott
00:15:00.380ed sheeran and pink and as it turns out it won't take a whole lot to boycott these two artists
00:15:05.240pink also you know pink has made these like propaganda videos with noah tishby she's committed
00:15:11.760to the bit wow i didn't know that oh yeah she she did these like propaganda videos with noah tishby
00:15:16.460Noah Tishby. I have a whole bonus episode about her on the Patreon, but she is a former envoy to the Netanyahu government, like basically a propagandist to to fight the, quote, delegitimization of Israel.
00:15:32.500That's it was in her job title. She was actually fired by Netanyahu for fractional disagreements about judicial reform.
00:15:38.580And now she just does it for the love of the game. And also what I imagine is a lot of money.0.95
00:15:43.400But so Pink's been on this for a while, and yet this was the one that broke through.0.97
00:15:47.200And last thing before we get into the essay, I want to start on a light, if stupid, note.
00:15:52.740In breaking from my usual chronological method of podcasting and perhaps in an effort to
00:15:57.640build suspense for what we're about to read, I want to first examine the seven Instagram
00:16:03.000stories Pink posted the day after posting the essay we're about to dissect.
00:16:08.320Pink was getting heat for that essay, and so she responded with a series of what can
00:16:12.580only be described as divorced sassy white mom millennial zazzle mug print graphics you want0.95
00:16:19.380to take turns sure i'll start being liked by everyone is a clown's job even though famously0.98
00:16:26.040many people hate clowns the next one is it's like a cartoon of a flamingo and written written
00:16:32.480around the flamingo i'm not for everyone and honestly that has saved me a lot of time
00:16:38.980um the one next to this is uh length screen it says what do you mean end quote probably what i0.88
00:16:47.280fucking said burn oh no she didn't next one rainbow text painted on a white canvas don't0.99
00:16:54.660let idiots ruin your day it's your day ruin it yourself heart was she posting these on the same1.00
00:17:02.080day she was not only posting these on the same day but i was in the airport waiting to board a1.00
00:17:07.140flight when this was happening and i i was so annoyed because of the text that we were about
00:17:12.560to read that pink had written that i was like refreshing her instagram page again i don't see
00:17:17.260this as like a flattering portrayal of my own behavior with all of this but i was i was refreshing
00:17:21.920her instagram page and it was like every 10 minutes she posted another one of these cards0.98
00:17:27.440that was like fuck the haters i was like pink you have 200 million dollars and like wait0.98
00:17:36.260you think she was sending them to her publicist and getting like approved or just oh no1.00
00:17:41.920posting this was raw posting like from bed i think okay the next one is a cat
00:17:47.140voguing maybe like a ragdoll like posing weirdly like cuntily and it says if they want to paint
00:17:56.000you as the villain pose the next one it's like a queen almost like like from like a deck of cards0.86
00:18:07.560kind of vibe like it's a queen drinking a mug of tea if my honesty offends you0.99
00:18:14.440imagine how much i can't stand your bullshit whoa and then okay wait the last one is actually my0.98
00:18:21.060favorite you want to read it yeah sure it's a it's a duck inexplicably it's a it's a duck with0.99
00:18:32.900butterfly wings like smirking at the sky you've never seen one of these wait really no i don't
00:18:40.420i've never seen it i'm like i don't know if there are like a lot of ducks that wear butterfly wings
00:18:44.640with bows on them it's it's a pink original i don't just say wild things on social media
00:18:49.140In real life, I say them with eye contact.
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00:30:49.380I subscribe to a lot of stuff. I like to read a lot of stuff.
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00:31:00.240I personally think it should be illegal to have to write an email to a services subscription department to request that they unsubscribe you and cancel your incoming payments, but it's for another day.
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00:35:14.560I think this was accidental Jew face.0.96
00:35:17.940If McLemore is someone who had like an even remotely robust history of like flirting with like actual anti-Semitism, anti-Semites.0.67
00:35:27.640I just think if he was like trying to be a discreet anti-Semite, I feel like only someone who would never, ever actually apologize for being anti-Semitic, someone like a Nick Fuentes would do this and then not, you know, apologize for it immediately.
00:35:42.320Yeah, no, apology seems really sincere and mature.
00:35:44.940And I'm of the mind that people should be forgiven once they apologize.1.00
00:35:48.960Not to not to make decisions for Jews, but that just made two cents.1.00
00:35:53.140None of this is why we're even here.0.98
00:35:55.500like pink pink wrote like i forgave him and you know who forgave him the adl you know you know
00:36:02.200what's interesting also is that if you if you look at what is now defunct uh the israeli ministry of
00:36:08.480strategic affairs their prime strategy or tactic is you cannot debunk the message so you must debunk
00:36:16.720the messenger you cannot discredit the message so you discredit the messenger and this is exactly
00:36:20.900what she's doing, she's deflecting. Instead of responding to the content of what he said,
00:36:25.660she's deflecting by bringing up something from like over maybe 10 years ago, which is classic0.66
00:36:30.800Zionist tactics. People are only bringing this up now because of the Israel conversation. So let's
00:36:35.820get back to that. When Pink quotes in this statement, Macklemore saying that this isn't
00:36:42.000about Jews, told Jews this wasn't about them, but he doesn't get to decide that for us.
00:36:47.140She seems to be inferring that his comment was dismissive of Jews.
00:36:54.400But it wasn't. The opposite was true.0.95
00:36:57.560To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters, criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide, in no way is a criticism of you.
00:37:11.260my message is for peace love for all human beings to be treated with dignity respect
00:37:20.840and equality pink's categorization of him saying that is he told jews it wasn't about us you know
00:37:28.180i think macklemore's statement in response to uh being dropped from the atshiran concert was
00:37:34.700so so so so masterful and selfless and i was so amazed by it and i think reached out to
00:37:41.240him directly but i will say that this bit of this speech that you just played right now actually
00:37:45.400kind of i i find to be a bit unstrategic because to me it's irrelevant whether or not criticism of
00:37:51.460israel is a is offensive to jews and i don't think the the holding of hands and the calling and
00:37:57.120uh the prioritizing for good intention the prioritizing of of jewish feelings is helpful0.93
00:38:02.840to anyone because what it does is that again it takes away the light and it takes away the focal0.92
00:38:08.060point and the centrality of the genocide at hand to talk about what I consider to be a very
00:38:14.660secondary conversation, a very side conversation. This is not a critique against him or anybody who
00:38:20.360does those things in good faith. I know so many people that do this, but I famously written a
00:38:26.020book about why I think it's a bad strategy in the long term, because again, it reinforces the idea1.00
00:38:32.100that Palestinian advocacy needs to be pre-approved by Jews in order for it to be valid.0.69
00:38:38.980And I take issue with that, to be honest.0.99
00:38:41.260I also think it's a bad strategy in the short term for reasons that are very evident in this essay.
00:38:48.840You know, Zionists have created this like impossible discursive dilemma where they constantly tell us that it is anti-Semitic to hold Jews worldwide responsible for the actions of the Zionist regime.0.99
00:39:02.100thereby conflating Jews with Israel, which which I agree. Yeah, of course. As much as like I feel0.98
00:39:07.600I feel responsible just because it's being done in my name as a Jewish person. But but but broadly,
00:39:12.080I agree. It's like you shouldn't go up to a Jewish person and start yelling at them about
00:39:15.660what they personally are doing to the Palestinians without knowing anything about their stances on0.51
00:39:20.580anything like I think that could be anti semitic for sure. But when anti Zionists like Macklemore
00:39:26.240explicitly separate their criticism of Israel from Jews,0.80
00:41:13.760after like a period of plane hijackings
00:41:15.660and suicide bombings and various ways of violent resistance.
00:41:19.660And also this is post 9-11. We have portrayed largely as violent terrorists. And many of our Palestinian, not ancestors, but like the generations before us, and also many of our allies and like well-meaning journalists and diplomats and activists have sought a toolbox that seeks to resituate the Palestinian from the category of the demonized, the category of the terrorist into a category of the victim.
00:41:42.080And the hope was by resituating the Palestinian in that category, the Palestinian would then be seen as a human being and then would be seen as deserving of human rights, dignity, freedom, equality, and whatnot.
00:41:55.180Unfortunately, of course, that toolbox was born out of necessity, but it has proved to be myopic because just as portraying the Palestinian as a terrorist is dehumanizing in a one-dimensional portrayal, so is portraying the Palestinian as a victim because it says that we can only enjoy a very limited affect in order to be seen as human beings.
00:42:18.480And if we are to be angry or if we are to be hateful or hate our oppressors or whatever, we would then be condemned to death, essentially.
00:42:28.100And some of what I call the politics of appeal are like an over-reliance on Jewish voices.0.94
00:42:33.600You know, instead of saying this human rights organization says this, you must say this Israeli or even Israeli human rights scholars say this.0.90
00:42:42.740Because their Israeliness or their Jewishness gives their testimony a lot more validity.0.79
00:42:47.600Now, in the short term, that may convince a racist who doesn't believe Palestinian testimony of the fact that Israel's crimes are true.0.56
00:42:55.080But in the long term, what it does is that it reinforces the hierarchy of testimony that we're dealing with in the first place.
00:43:01.560And it does not challenge the problem at hand, which is the racism or at least the racial bias that exists in the listener, the viewer, the reader that prevents them from taking Palestinian testimony and interrogating it.
00:43:14.240another attempt to appeal would be like you know the highlighting of women's children's deaths
00:43:18.820over palestinian men's deaths and that what it does in in short and brief what it does is that
00:43:24.560one it takes away the agency of women and children and it robs them and erases their
00:43:28.820contributions to our cause and to our history to our very very very diverse history but at the same
00:43:33.780time it condemns palestinian men to die it says that palestinian men are presumably fighters and
00:43:39.200fighters are presumably always supposed to die. And those tactics, again, most of the time they0.95
00:43:46.120come from a good place and attempt to outsmart or outwit the system, the very Zionist, the very0.83
00:43:51.720racist system. But they fall short. I think it's time that all of us are a lot more dignified in0.93
00:43:58.840our approaches. And I think we can learn this from the black movement. We can learn this from0.96
00:44:03.420feminist movements. We can be a lot more dignified in the sense that we can root our politics in1.00
00:44:08.100self-respect and we can approach the world with a politics that does not shrink us and does not
00:44:14.680belittle us in order to coddle our oppressors. You know, it's so interesting to the constant
00:44:21.140need to cite Jewish voices. And like on one hand, I get it because what Zionists do essentially is0.99
00:44:28.900identity politics, where it's, you know, they'll say things like, you know, if you're not Jewish,0.91
00:44:33.980you can't speak on this yeah and so this has of course created a very loud uh vocal contingent of
00:44:39.640jews who do speak on this because like i am personally of the belief that like it's a moral
00:44:44.600duty and also if these people if their priority is stopping anti-semitism as they so often claim
00:44:51.140and as is sometimes actually the name of their group i think the best way that we can curb
00:44:56.420anti-semitism which you know anti-semitism is bad i think a genocide is worse but if you know if
00:45:01.800we're talking about anti-Semitism, I think it's probably actually really wise to loudly distinguish
00:45:06.640Jews from the actions of the state committing the genocide. But regardless of all of that,
00:45:11.980one of the reasons I'm really moved by you and our dynamic is we're the same age.
00:45:20.220And just having known you for some time, I think that a lot of things about us are similar. I think
00:45:25.660we're both very dry you i think are drier than me but still political and makeup gurus we're both
00:45:34.060but we were born in different places and that has shaped our biggest differences so much of
00:45:43.880why i get credibility as a voice in online politics at all is because i'm a jew talking
00:45:50.440about this. And I'm grateful for that. But also to your point, like it's it's unfair. It's unearned
00:45:57.280valor. Yeah, I think I think we exist in a world in which your Jewishness is a currency. And I0.98
00:46:03.480don't think I think it would be foolish if you're someone interested in the Palestinian cause. I
00:46:08.680think it would be foolish of you to just abandon that currency or not exploit that currency. I
00:46:13.140think it's actually quite wise to use the access you have into certain rooms and certain dinner
00:46:18.020tables that I may never access I think that's quite wise and that's the strategic thing to do
00:46:22.800but you must also name the elephant in the room and that's I think what you've been doing and I
00:46:27.640think that's what many people have been doing and must continue to do is that the elephant in the
00:46:32.200room being that the reason why your testimony holds a lot more weight is because of anti-Palestinian
00:46:36.920racism is because of Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism and just naming it is enough to get the
00:46:43.460listener to question their bias i am not of the mind that only palestinians should be should speak
00:46:47.940on palestine i do not believe at all in any identity identitarian framework or identity
00:46:53.600reductionist beliefs but i think you know the the issue again becomes if you're only citing people
00:47:01.940because of their jewishness because sometimes sometimes the things that are cited are so
00:47:07.400comical like sometimes people will cite ishaq rabin to make a pro-palestinian point ishaq rabin
00:47:12.340The West views him as the soldier of peace, but he himself was the architect of an Israeli policy called Break the Bones Policy, in which he instructed the Israeli soldiers to break the bones, to literally break the arms and legs of Palestinian detainees upon arrest.
00:47:27.360People cite the other Israeli prime minister, now his name is escaping me, but he was the architect of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and they cite him to make a pro-Palestinian point.
00:47:36.920And that is so humiliating to see, you know, it's like the bar is in hell.
00:47:52.580Rhonda Abdel Fattah, a Palestinian writer, wrote in Mondo Weiss, quote,
00:47:57.940Since when do the victims of genocide have the responsibility to defer to and protect the feelings of those who enact support and enable their genocide?
00:48:06.920do Palestinian feelings, let alone lives, count? Zionist claims that Jewish communities feel0.54
00:48:12.860unsafe by the word intifada and chants of free Palestine are thus read as code for anti-Semitism0.95
00:48:19.940and accepted as truth in mainstream discourse. Rather than interrogating the warped translations
00:48:26.460of Arabic words and contextualizing Palestinian expressions of freedom, Zionist feelings are
00:48:32.700privileged over clear-headed normative interrogations of a racist political ideology.
00:48:38.900And this all reminds me a lot of one of my favorite Eve Barlow tweets. Do you know who
00:48:45.220Eve Barlow is? She's the Jews are tired lady, like the one who saw the free parking sign and1.00
00:48:50.500was terrified of it. Yes, exactly. For people unfamiliar, she is perhaps most famous for one1.00
00:48:56.900of her viral tweets from yesteryear where she wrote, I think I actually know the tweet verbatim
00:49:02.540off the top of my brain just embarrassing you are sick it was like it was like just saw a free0.55
00:49:09.720parking sign and thought it said free palestine the jews are tired this has been uh labeled by0.79
00:49:17.720many one of the worst tweets of all time but in fact about a year ago she tweeted something else
00:49:22.840to lesser fanfare but i just loved it you want to take this yesterday a crowd of perhaps 15 to 20
00:49:29.200people in keffees and watermelon t-shirts were on my street and i walked past them they saw my
00:49:35.060star star of david they saw my star and looked at me with intimidation i felt outnumbered and
00:49:41.920sincerely wondered what would happen if it had escalated where's the hate crime they looked at
00:49:51.520her oh my god she walked past people visibly sympathetic to the palestinian cause and this
00:49:58.720in and of itself was worth running to the internet and you know talking about how she felt scared
00:50:04.920and I think this is like a particularly egregious example of this but sentiments like this the like0.84
00:50:10.260I heard a chant and I felt scared or you know I saw a keffiyeh on a cashier and I felt scared
00:50:18.840stop anti-semitism get him fired get him banned it's like these sentiments specifically in the
00:50:24.680United States have like both prevented conversation about ending a genocide and have simultaneously
00:50:31.780like upheld this standard where we continue to fund genocide? I think, you know, people like
00:50:37.960this Barlow woman and Pink and whatever, because of the the presumable influence they have,
00:50:44.000people like Jonathan Greenblatt, of course, I think they use these tactics and this this fear
00:51:19.600brought up with let's say bedtime stories that are so one-dimensional people do not hear about
00:51:26.840jewish resistance to the holocaust they don't hear about uh you know a happy ending to the
00:51:31.880jewish story don't hear about the fact that they have you know been able to establish a state been
00:51:35.960able to climb up the ranks of the social order they don't hear about these things they hear a
00:51:40.440very one-dimensional story about the holocaust and they also hear constantly that it that it can
00:51:46.160happen again at any time. Despite them living in high rises, despite them never setting foot in
00:51:52.060Palestine, despite all of the privilege and wealth and protection and access and whatnot,0.87
00:51:55.900the Holocaust could happen at any time. And that is, of course, this perpetual victimhood0.82
00:52:01.120is, of course, the pretext that allows Israel to legitimize their perpetual warrior sense that0.82
00:52:06.860allows them to be in constant war with everybody. But it's completely irresponsible. And it's such
00:52:13.500a betrayal to the jewish people to have this kind of genesis story or like self-conceptionalization
00:52:20.000that is entrapped into victimhood and i think we're all susceptible this kind of thing and
00:52:24.880all marginalized people could fall into that trap but it's really important to point this out i mean
00:52:30.000a few years ago actually i was listening to a lecture by this zionist woman and she had cited
00:52:35.160a survey for for different reasons but she had cited a survey that after the 1967 naksa the 1967
00:52:40.940War, the Six-Day War, after Israel was able to occupy many Arab lands in Egypt, Syria and in
00:52:47.500Palestine, and was able to defeat many Arab armies, there was a survey of American Jewish
00:52:53.140public opinion. And over 90% of the people who took the survey said that they believed that a
00:52:59.740second Holocaust was afoot. That is insane. That's an insane thing to think that you just so
00:53:08.080gloriously won this massive war so succinctly won it and you think that your death is at the door
00:53:15.500and because these feelings are are real it doesn't mean that we have to coddle them at all i think
00:53:22.260the appropriate thing if people are imagining things appropriate thing is to not coddle them
00:53:28.180it's to actually reject them to actually say this is not the truth this is not reality and you are
00:53:33.260in a lot of ways delirious i mean in psychology people call this apophenia which is seeing
00:53:38.940patterns where they don't exist like literally the free parking sign if you just hear the the
00:53:44.800word free palestin and you hear jewish genocide that is on you right i mean i can talk to you
00:53:50.400about a different example in the uk where where there's a cancer hospital that showcased art
00:53:56.640artwork made by children in gaza and the jewish patients reported it and said that it made them
00:54:02.800feel unsafe and fear for their lives that's insane to for you to see to see watercolor on ceramic0.83
00:54:09.560and think pogrom that's insane yeah no that's fucking crazy sorry that was a bit of a tangent
00:54:14.860no no no it's a good tangent and it's something that i think about a lot because i think about0.97
00:54:19.460how like white women behaved during jim crow i do think in that era like a lot of women because of
00:54:28.280their own racism genuinely believed that if a black man made eye contact with them, that they0.94
00:54:34.300were endangered. Look how the hysterics of white people as the era of apartheid South Africa came
00:54:43.740to an end. Like they genuinely believed their lives were under siege because of multiculturalism.
00:54:50.620I was getting dinner with a friend recently who had just returned she's Palestinian and she can't go to Palestine because of her work you know because she would probably get kidnapped by Israel trying to visit her own family but she was recently in Jordan for the wedding of an extended family and she returned home and she brought me back a keffiyeh that she had gotten there which was very kind.
00:55:13.020we were standing outside of the restaurant after dinner and she she put it on me she was like
00:55:17.660showing me how to fold it correctly because I didn't fold it correctly and we were standing
00:55:23.020there in the middle of midtown Manhattan and this like visibly orthodox Jewish woman and her family
00:55:27.780walked past us made eye contact with me saw what we were doing and her eyes got so wide and she0.68
00:55:35.700like started yelling at me do you know what would happen to you and I could tell she was genuinely
00:55:42.240experiencing some sort of like anxiety attack over seeing my friend put a keffiyeh around my neck
00:55:50.160and it was the craziest thing we said nothing to her we didn't even look in her direction
00:55:54.220it is this like it's like a form of psychosis it's fully it's fully psychosis and that is not
00:56:00.300to like use it as a slur or like derogatory it is clinical this kind of derangement it's clinical
00:56:06.360It's like mass psychosis and it needs to be addressed.
00:56:10.220And the fact that organizations like the ADL and like Stop Antisemitism
00:56:13.760exploit this like existential fear that exists within the Jewish community,
00:56:18.760it's so irresponsible, but obviously quite strategic0.98
00:56:22.820because we continue to coddle it instead of calling it out for what it is.
00:56:26.420I think words have meanings and safety, you know,
00:56:28.980it's very often weaponized by right-wing forces to take away people's liberties.
00:56:34.400A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And to that end, I saw yesterday Jonathan Greenblatt, who we talked a lot about him and the ADL in another episode of this podcast. Jonathan Greenblatt's salary at the Anti-Defamation League, which did begin in earnest as a civil rights organization and has descended into a de facto PR agency for the Israeli government. He makes, in his capacity as the CEO of this nonprofit, $1.4 million a year. And the ADL's, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:57:02.720what 1.4 million dollars a year to get on twitter and complain about hassan piker are they hiring
00:57:08.640but like the adl's whole thing is that every year they release an anti-semitism audit where they
00:57:21.980will tell you incidents of anti-semitism across this country have skyrocketed four million percent
00:57:28.280this year mind you you know if you go in and look at the various instances of anti-semitism that
00:57:34.560they're labeling it's all like you know kid at columbia university wore a free palestine shirt
00:57:39.020also the the category for the adl the category for what is included as anti-semitism is so
00:57:44.880expansive i remember one time when i was writing an article for the nation i said like the
00:57:49.080occupation's tentacles uh blah blah blah and my editor was like that's an anti-semitic trope to
00:57:53.380talk about jews and octopuses and whatever so i then went and like tried to learn more about the
00:57:58.580the jewish tropes and there are so many but also like many dictators many uh whatever political
00:58:06.400leaders many political opponents have called each other names the octopus has been used for so many
00:58:13.000different movements and yet somehow it makes it into the adl guidebook as a specifically anti-jewish
00:58:18.660trope yeah and that happens with so much it's unbelievable and it's all like instilling fear
00:58:25.300in the broader jewish population because these statistics get disseminated far and wide and then
00:58:32.060it helps the adl fundraise and it helps jonathan greenblatt make 1.4 million dollars every year
00:58:37.560not to get too far down like the non-profit industrial complex but just my god pink you
01:03:11.660The Guardian article that we just read from had 34 comments posted in 2006, and they were almost all positive, even if tinged with misogyny. Jackie Chung wrote, I don't like Pink's horrible grating poor me music, but she deserves some credit. And at least it's not another insipid ballad about how tortured or strung out she is.
01:03:35.120so anyway i don't think this song is bad and i'm sure some people were really mean to her about it
01:03:40.760and i'm not trying to be pedantic but i do think pink is trying to retroactively insert herself
01:03:46.580into a sort of dixie chicks narrative that just does not apply 2003 was not 2006 at the point in
01:03:54.260which she made this song the anti-bush sentiment that she was espousing in the song was overwhelmingly
01:04:00.060popular and i don't think this is evidence of the bravery that she thinks it is i think it was
01:04:04.860safe for her to make that kind of song and also if the backlash comes with a lucrative record deal
01:04:09.700i'll gladly take the backlash which i think is the the piece of information she seems to be1.00
01:04:14.940constantly dismissing is her wealth and power you were not a martyr in making an out like maybe
01:04:21.120perhaps a platinum album that earned you lots and lots of money and you're not a martyr for singing
01:04:26.560a political song at what i assume was a very lucrative tour you were uh commodifying that
01:04:34.420political sentiment into a lucrative product thank you very much for for opposing the as you1.00
01:04:40.740call the gulf war but it wasn't at your expense miss pink we know that the chicks aren't nearly0.99
01:04:48.660as famous today as they could have been and as they were when they were pushed out of the
01:04:53.320mainstream pop scene uh because of their actual brave stance against the invasion of iraq when
01:04:58.560it was popular like yeah pink making this statement it's like it doesn't make sense
01:05:02.820Because it's like, well, if it was really brave and so against the grain, then why are you still one of the, you know, top touring artists in the United States?
01:05:11.060Because of the jumps, the jumping jacks she does.
01:10:58.020Zionism is simply what it does, you know?
01:11:01.500because if you look at history if you look at the word fascist today or the word nazi today0.94
01:11:06.940at the time of its inception like if you look at the etymology of the words these words to their
01:11:12.480owners you know to the to the people who've coined them they meant positive things i mean
01:11:17.000nazi is is a shortening of the national uh socialists fascist is also its own uh system
01:11:24.860that was meant a certain positive thing to its uh you know the peoples who've coined these terms
01:11:30.200And then throughout history, they've held these negative connotations because of the actions of their supporters and members and whatnot.0.60
01:11:38.640And now they are derogatory and they are a slur, rightfully so.
01:11:43.340And I think Zionism, a movement that is defined by its material, tangible actions being occupation, apartheid, and most recently literal genocide, should be a slur.0.80
01:11:54.460A movement that is so expansionist, that is so racist, that is so, so supremacist, that advocates for the robbery of people's lands, for the robbery of people's livelihoods should be a slur and people should be ashamed that they're Zionists.0.62
01:12:08.260I think in some liberal Zionist spaces, but also in some progressive spaces, Jewish and otherwise, there is I hear sometimes a discussion about should we ostracize liberal Zionists or should we ostracize Zionists on the fence by creating a wholesale rejection of Zionism?0.70
01:12:28.320And the theory of change there is that if you actually hold simultaneously that Zionism as a movement is behaving badly now, but it also could mean positive things, then maybe you can win people over.0.54
01:12:42.060I personally think that's horrific and insulting, but also I would accept that kind of grace from people if they would extend it to Nazis, if they would extend it to fascists, right?0.87
01:12:54.220But that kind of complexity would never be applied to Nazis and fascists, rightfully, I think. But it would never be. It's only in the Jewish context that something so horrific and violent, materially, tangibly, not abstractly, something so violent, is allowed this kind of grace and this kind of space to exist in its multi-diverse definitions. It's really insulting.
01:13:20.420A hundred percent. And, you know, in my notes, what I wrote here is that like in its most basic like etymological sense, like it's it's not a slur. It's a neutral descriptor of someone who supports the political ideology of Zionism. I think the misalignment is like, what is Zionism?
01:13:39.540Pink has not provided us with her definition of Zionism, but her friend and collaborator,
01:13:47.500the former Israeli envoy to combat anti-Semitism and the delegitimization of Israel that was her
01:13:53.400official title, has provided us with that definition. The definition she often employs
01:13:58.060is a Zionist go-to. What is Zionism? Zionism is the Jewish people's right to self-determination
01:14:05.320in parts of their ancestral homeland, Israel.0.97
01:14:46.320If the only people who get to define their own beliefs are supporters of those beliefs,
01:14:51.400we aren't necessarily going to get an honest answer
01:14:54.460or one that includes the negative consequences or harm.
01:14:57.880So I want to ask you, how would you define Zionism?
01:15:02.120I mean, simply put, I think Zionism is the attempt to establish a Jewish homeland on top of Palestinian land by way of ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide. But again, I think even my own definitions falls into this problem that you have outlined is the idea is who is the reliable source, right?
01:15:24.180Who can be the reliable narrator to define something?
01:15:31.620I mean, maybe I, because Zionism is practiced on my body, I have a very intimate definition of it.0.61
01:15:37.400Maybe that's an argument that can be made.
01:15:39.080But I think a better argument, which is not something I've created, by the way, this is a popular political idea, but a system is simply what it does.
01:16:12.460The problem, they will tell you over and over again, is Benjamin Netanyahu, a warmonger, perhaps even a war criminal, who is undermining the otherwise good-natured Zionist project with his unique callousness towards Palestinian life and bottomless hunger for power.
01:16:32.040Here is liberal Zionist Queen Hillary Clinton, who Pink campaigned for and appeared alongside on The Ellen Show in 2015 alongside fellow liberal Zionist Amy Schumer, the 2010s really were crazy, espousing this exact belief on television this week.
01:16:50.380Look, I have said repeatedly, I love Israel and I hate Netanyahu's government and his policies.0.51
01:16:57.940I love America and I hate Trump's government and policies.
01:17:01.640I think it's bad in the first case for Israel what's happening.
01:17:04.580And I think it's really bad for the United States what's happening.
01:19:55.700I mean, I don't think this is only a Hillary Clinton tactic.
01:19:58.720We've seen Bernie Sanders himself only blame the current Israeli government or only Netanyahu for genocide and for actions that Israel has been doing for seven decades and Zionism has been doing for 100 years.0.53
01:20:12.540Yeah. And that actually dovetails really well into what.0.50
01:21:38.480It's understood that in most places, and especially in the United States, the youngest generations are typically the most progressives.
01:21:47.160That's how, you know, the arc of history is long, but bends towards progress happens.
01:21:51.960What people might not know, though, is that statistically in Israel, the opposite is true.
01:21:58.760Israeli youth represent the most right-wing age demographic in the state, far more right-wing than the generations that preceded them.
01:22:07.580In a recent poll, I'm going to have to check my source on this, I'll throw it on the screen, said 73 or 74% of Israeli youth identify as right wing.
01:22:20.920Yeah, I mean, this is really interesting. I was talking about this with a friend recently because we're discussing the idea of like, how can you change people's minds when this is kind of a country that is uniquely right wing in terms of where the youth sits on the political spectrum, as you just said.
01:22:38.380My opinion is that Israeli society is extremely diverse, you know, because they're essentially all of the Jews from all over the world who have come and built a homeland on top of our homes.
01:22:48.120But that diversity means that they're very different also culturally.
01:22:52.880And the one thing, the one thing that seems to be connecting them is hatred of Palestinian people.
01:23:00.020And if you look at Netanyahu's political history, he's often timing his wars on Gaza, what they call mowing the lawn. He's often timing it around election campaigns. There's a positive correlation between him butchering Palestinians and his political popularity.
01:23:19.120You earlier mentioned Etamar Ben-Iqbir posting an AI-generated video of Palestinian prisoners on a conveyor belt to be slaughtered.0.60
01:23:29.660We are on the brink of Israeli elections right now.
01:23:33.200So these things are electoral gimmicks that get these people popularity.
01:23:38.460What I'm going to say next is going to sound a bit absurd and it's going to sound like I'm using it as a metaphor.
01:23:42.920But in my life, my own home, my own front yard has been literally turned into the offices of into the makeshift offices of various Israeli politicians around the time of elections.
01:23:56.380So Itanwar Benigvir himself had once come into our front door and set up a makeshift office before him.0.62
01:24:03.140An Israeli politician named Nir Hassoun did the same thing because that to the Israeli public and to Israeli youth, that signals a commitment to the occupation.
01:24:13.440And now we are on the brink of elections.0.54
01:24:15.100And yet everybody from across the political spectrum in the Israeli Kineset, in the Israeli political movements, all agree on genocide.
01:24:22.460Even the left wing elements all agree on genocide.0.79
01:24:25.200all seem to think that they're not going hard enough because this is the fabric of Israeli0.71
01:24:30.880identity today. It's genocide against the Palestinian people. And, you know, I've been0.66
01:24:36.460like many millions of Palestinians in Palestinian diaspora have been like the victim of so much
01:24:41.740vitriol. But I think I don't often spend time talking about it because obviously there's a
01:24:48.080priority and premise to the genocide taking place. I think it's bombs are more important.0.60
01:24:52.240But even in my childhood and growing up, I knew that it wasn't safe for me to walk down the street while a group of settler youth is approaching.0.97
01:25:01.200I knew that one day of the year they have what they call Jerusalem Day, where they march in our neighborhoods and will literally start stomping on our cars and forcibly opening our doors and going inside our living room and breaking our windows and whatnot.0.82
01:25:15.880not. I knew that that would happen once a year and that they were doing it under the protection0.94
01:25:19.760of the police. And that generation after generation, the violence would only seem to
01:25:24.080increase. And today in the occupied West Bank, we're seeing Palestinian village after the next1.00
01:25:29.040be targeted by Israeli settler violence. And these are not just police officers. They're not just
01:25:34.120soldiers. These are young Israeli men who are going out of their way to do pogroms in Palestinian0.99
01:25:40.340villages, that tells you something about the quality of political life in Israeli society.
01:25:48.340One other core definition that Zionists will often give Israel, including Noah Tishbe,
01:25:57.880the pink colleague that I've mentioned, they call Israel, quote, the only democracy in the
01:26:04.400Middle East. In an essay for the foreword called Noah Tishby asks how Zionism got to be a bad word.
01:26:12.440She repeats this claim, as she does many times in her book, Israel, a guide to the most
01:26:16.920misunderstood country on earth. Your thoughts on if Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East?
01:26:22.440There are, I think, over 60 laws that discriminate against Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship.
01:26:28.640So even what they call Arab citizens of Israel cannot enjoy that democracy.
01:26:32.640I want you to highlight that for a second, because we sat down like a few months ago and you were explaining to me how this works, because one of the retorts that especially liberal Zionists will often say is there's Palestinian Israelis, there's Arab Israelis, and they are they have full rights, just like Jewish Israelis.
01:26:50.220Yeah, I mean, that's obviously a trope. The idea that there are Arab Israelis or Palestinian Israelis and whatnot. I'm not sure you'll see like an Uncle Tom figure here and there. But all Palestinians, first of all, we can't really own land. 93% of the land of Palestinian land is state owned by Israel.
01:27:08.340There are over 60 laws that explicitly discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel, so-called Palestinian citizens of Israel.0.59
01:27:18.540And even if you look at the Israeli nation state law, which is the closest thing they have to a constitution, they say that Jewish settlement is the national value to protect and promote, if I'm not mistaken in the quotation.0.69
01:27:30.760So they explicitly name Judaism as the thing.0.77
01:27:35.540So obviously it's not a democracy.0.79
01:27:37.080But I want to go a step further and say that even if it were a democracy, even if the Israeli0.59
01:27:42.360government was truly a true democracy, that still would not excuse genocide. So the retort itself0.66
01:27:50.200is irrelevant. The idea that we're saying Israel is committing genocide, and then they respond and
01:27:54.300say, well, it's the only democracy in the Middle East, that is entirely irrelevant. It doesn't
01:27:59.500matter if it's a dictatorship or a democracy. Genocide is bad, full stop. It also strikes me
01:28:04.720as not even true. And this is like obviously secondary, but it's not even entirely true
01:28:12.360for Israelis. And we saw that this week, Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Zor,
01:28:20.900who you might remember from their work on 2024's Oscar winning No Other Land, they just premiered
01:28:27.940their new documentary, NASA, which documents the IDF's callousness towards killing Palestinian
01:28:34.860civilians. Upon its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Israel's minister of culture,
01:28:41.240Mickey Zohar, wrote on Twitter that he will be stripping the citizenship of these two Israeli
01:28:47.800filmmakers for making the film. And I know in the context of like the ongoing genocide against
01:28:53.940palestinians and all this other stuff it's like i i'm very well aware this is not the biggest thing
01:28:58.440that's happening right now but it just strikes me as like yet another example of like you know this0.99
01:29:03.740is not a democracy in any sense and like what zionism and the zionist regime is willing to do0.91
01:29:08.600to other people like they will do to its own yeah i think 100 i mean part of this zahar's
01:29:14.920sentiment i think is incentivized by the fact that we have upcoming elections but i think you
01:29:20.500know, it's a kind of a popularity tactic. The Israeli public are very, very angry with the
01:29:25.060film. And so that makes sense that they would say something like this. But even if you look at other
01:29:29.000racialized populations within Israeli society, like Ethiopian Jews, like Yemeni Jews, they are
01:29:35.660not included in this democracy and they are discriminated against. And we have seen this
01:29:39.520historically since the 40s and 50s after the Nakba and how the Israeli government was literally
01:29:46.500stealing Yemeni and Moroccan Jewish children and putting them in the hands of Ashkenazi families
01:29:53.320to raise them, or like giving Eastern Jews like impossible conditions to live in. Or there's been0.89
01:29:59.760like two or three weeks ago, there was this protest in an Israeli town saying, you know,
01:30:04.220people should be allowed to have black skin color, but they shouldn't be allowed to have it in our
01:30:09.280schools. We don't want our kids going to school with Ethiopians. I mean, that's the thing happening1.00
01:30:15.340right now in that very lovely society.
01:32:29.180Followed up by Dana Bash, CNN's genocide heir-in-chief,0.73
01:32:33.520shana tova here's to a peaceful 5787 for us all jonah platt shana tova right back you are so far
01:32:41.580from alone wait what's 5787 that's uh the jewish year that's like how it's like 2023 but like in
01:32:48.700or it's not in jesus years yeah why did i just say it's 2023 we're stuck there we're still there
01:32:55.220i say 2023 and i mean last year you know i'm still there you have deborah messing dana bash
01:33:01.540jona platt eve barlow gal gadot left a comment on this about how supportive she is and uh last but
01:33:09.260not least just in the short list israel war room israel war room which is a obviously openly pro
01:33:17.020israel sort of war oriented news instagram account which thanks pink for speaking out blue heart
01:33:24.420they're kind of adl-esque like anytime i've had a speech at universities they always reach out to
01:33:30.220the university with like, uh, with a petition to cancel the thing or, you know, stuff like that.0.55
01:33:35.420Oh, Israel war room does. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and so my question here is it's like pink has written0.89
01:33:40.880the statement where she's explicitly stated in what we just read, you know, to the ones who are
01:33:45.000frightened this week, Jewish or Muslim or Palestinian or Israeli, I see you. And so to
01:33:50.940someone who doesn't know all that much about this, they might be like, well, she's playing to all
01:33:55.860Besides, this is a neutral call for peace and maybe just her existence as a Jewish person and her right to not be scared at the Ed Sheeran concert.
01:34:03.500And yet everyone commenting is like the most hardline pro-Israel activist on Instagram.0.64
01:34:11.080You use the word rhetorical sneakiness, which I think is a very, very good word to describe this.
01:34:15.780Are you familiar with the Israeli project Global Dictionary of 2009?
01:34:22.200So the now defunct Israeli Strategic Affairs Ministry, which is now kind of the Israeli foreign ministry, collaborated with a different NGO to create this thing called Global Dictionary or Global Dictionary Project, in which they have literal language that has been engineered by marketers.
01:34:41.200marketers, one really famous marketer, but other marketers and marketing agencies and PR agencies,
01:34:46.620but also psychologists and whatnot, to make Zionism appeal to different kind of audiences
01:34:53.260everywhere. So all of these things that we see, like the rhetorical sneakiness in her post,
01:34:58.900the attempting to seem balanced or attempting to cater to both sides, all of these things are
01:35:03.780engineered. Much like the question about, do you believe Israel has a right to exist?
01:35:07.940that was explicitly engineered as a distraction to derail discussion in the 60s by that same
01:35:15.140ministry. And now we have this kind of rhetorical tricks that all or most Israeli supporters
01:35:21.520retort to that are meant to distract from the debate or diffuse the debate or make them seem
01:35:27.240neutral. And I have to say they're quite masterful. I mean, even like when she's saying
01:35:32.300if you're a Palestinian or Israeli, but also if you're tired of it all, to allude that this is
01:35:37.040like a fatiguing problem, like a fatiguing issue that people are debating about, even though it's
01:35:42.840like thousands of miles away, and what do I have to do with it? This is, I think, a masterful way
01:35:48.520of, one, depoliticizing the issue, but two, distancing it from the context of the U.S.,
01:35:54.360even though it is entirely enmeshed within U.S. politics. And so we see these kinds of rhetorical
01:36:00.540tactics, you know, when an Israeli politician goes on CNN, they'll say, they'll begin their0.98
01:36:05.520statement by saying i mourn every civilian life lost but war is brutal and shit happens and so0.92
01:36:14.360that makes them seem a little bit more reasonable so they're quite masterful at um at propaganda
01:36:19.960which makes me think that not only did chachi pt help her in writing this uh statement but i think
01:36:25.860there was a pr firm or at least people heavily involved in israeli propaganda that are helping
01:36:31.600her because they have determined uh very wisely that this is a propaganda asset this singer with
01:36:37.340the edgy haircut she is a propaganda asset oh i i i bet and i'm not even being like cheeky i bet
01:36:43.520noah tishby was involved in the construction of this statement yeah because we know that she is
01:36:47.900a professional israeli propagandist we know that they are friends and she even says you know in
01:36:53.960this statement all i want is the right to say i'm scared and to not have my fear labeled propaganda
01:37:02.300well like i'm sorry but it is yeah i mean noah tishby is very i think like her elk and like all
01:37:08.580of these people that come from this tradition of israeli propaganda they're a bit better than us
01:37:12.180at this you know like our books are like genocide israel's genocide and gaza which is true we're
01:37:16.640very very transparent for them it's like understanding israel 10 questions about israel
01:37:20.920Palestine what do you not know about Israel and it's it's it's very unassuming it's very
01:37:26.020neutral sounding and so it seduces people into picking it up and it's though it's it's I think
01:37:31.800it's the work of not political scientists scientists but the work of marketers who know0.88
01:37:35.980how to appeal to population because in Israeli set of priorities I believe they're not interested
01:37:42.740in appealing to the student population to populations that are politically engaged
01:37:47.000because they understand that the electoral population,
01:38:32.800Yeah. And the same sort of like rhetorical sneakiness was running through the text of Ed Sheeran's statement, which we don't have time to get into today. But, you know, he literally says, I don't want to take sides. And it literally his statement opened with, I am appalled by the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The suffering and pain caused on both sides is a human tragedy.
01:39:00.520This was widely criticized by most of the world, but who liked it? Pink. Because Zionists are smart enough to understand that this supposed neutrality means siding with Israel. And so I guess the question that I pose to people is just like, are you?0.88
01:39:20.800It's also just to say, I think he retorted to this like both sides, conflict is bad, blah, blah, blah, out of the rhetorical sneakiness and out of this like Zionist impulse to appeal to a large population.
01:39:32.400But also, and I want to emphasize this, is because he cannot afford to, at this point in time, three years into a genocide, he cannot afford to make a statement that is explicitly pro-Israel.0.53
01:39:44.620Pink's statement in 2023, the October statement, was so explicitly Zionist and pro-Israel.
01:39:51.260And today, the tide has shifted so much in the world, not necessarily institutionally, not necessarily policy-wise.
01:39:57.140But the tide, in terms of public opinion, has shifted so much in the world that she knows she cannot afford to be as openly pro-Israel as she was just three years ago.
01:40:05.360And I think that is something to look at.