00:10:54.000And that's always been the case, but it's, I think, a very important part of this whole0.52
00:10:58.520story that they delegitimize and defame other Jews as well.0.83
00:11:02.200I think I want to start this talking about the ways that Jewish Zionist leaders in the U.S. have whipped American Jews into this frenzy about the election of Zoran Mamdani.0.67
00:11:14.660As someone who campaigned heavily for Zoran, I spent considerable time with him talking about, among other things, Jewish identity and the significance of his campaign for young progressive Jews in New York.0.93
00:11:27.720When I saw these nonprofit leaders, especially like Jonathan Greenblatt at the ADL, his shiny bald head, just reflecting the lights of every podcast studio in the world.
00:11:40.060And the rabbis coming out against Zoran and the Zionist influencers smearing Zoran and Andrew Cuomo weaponizing the idea of anti-Semitism against Zoran, all talking about how Zoran was this existential violent threat to Jews.
00:11:56.580i couldn't believe it like i felt like we were living in separate realities on the morning of
00:12:03.300the election donald trump posted on truth social any jewish person that votes for zora and mom0.99
00:12:12.620donny a proven and self-professed jew hater is a stupid person i never said i was good at0.98
00:12:21.240impressions i feel like you really started very strong and then he got a little italian at the0.99
00:12:25.820i gave up on it halfway through he became kind of cuomo like actually all right all right let me try0.98
00:12:31.200again any jewish person now i'm just fuck i can't do it any jewish person oh yeah that's it there0.98
00:12:40.820it is any jewish person that votes for zoran mamdani a proven and self-professed jew hater1.00
00:12:47.520is a stupid person yeah that was good you really have to like curl your lips i feel like to get it0.99
00:12:52.520accurately any jewish all right i can't do it the point has been made so i was actually at a0.99
00:12:59.600meeting event thing with zoran when that post went up and zoran and i and a couple of other jews in
00:13:06.580the room made this response video to it where we were all just like this is nuts and we deserve
00:13:10.920better leaders than ones who tell jewish people what it means to be a good kind of jew i'm looking
00:13:15.480forward to being a mayor for every single jewish voter whether they're voting for me whether they're
00:13:19.440voting for someone else, whether they're not voting at all, because at the end of it, they're
00:13:22.380New Yorkers. They deserve not only protection, they deserve to be celebrated, they deserve to
00:13:25.700be cherished, and they deserve someone more than just a president who's looking to try and define
00:13:31.320what it means to be a good Jewish person in this city or in this country. I've got a couple thoughts
00:13:35.380about this. First of all, you know, both Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams, so much of their campaign,
00:13:42.200you know, Eric Adams was actually running on a, his party was the stop antisemitism line.
00:13:47.640sure yeah yeah totally normal stuff in z ways interview with him this week where she's like0.99
00:13:54.580uh fuck mary kill like where he just goes capitalism israel mary f kill communism socialism1.00
00:14:01.320capitalism i would marry capitalism israel uh social socialism and communism uh i would kick1.00
00:14:11.540to the curve yeah like very strange since israel was not at all in that section it's in his
00:14:19.480contract that he has to say israel wants a sentence anyways i think that there's like
00:14:23.480there's something so transparently cynical and disgusting about the way that these politicians
00:14:28.560have decided to use jewish people and the kind of alleged fight against anti-semitism as just part
00:14:35.080of their political messaging and the most important thing is that it relies on a very deep well of0.85
00:14:41.420Islamophobia and racism that they're constantly drawing from, right? I mean, all the kind of 9-11
00:14:47.220conspiracies. Yeah, well, just in terms of what his tweet was. The Donald Trump one? Yeah, the
00:14:53.980Donald Trump one in general. For someone who's not a New Yorker, who's, you know, living in Los
00:14:59.160Angeles and has never lived in New York, I was watching it from the perspective of just, I don't0.91
00:15:05.020know a jewish person uh who lives in the united states and is seeing the way in which the hatred
00:15:12.320of jews or supposed hatred of jews or anti-semitism was being used as a cudgel specifically against
00:15:19.120you know zoran but also against you know muslims and arabs and any brown person whether it's a
00:15:25.760south asian brown person or a lebanese brown person it was being used in order to justify
00:15:32.940The most blatant and vicious Islamophobia that I think I've seen since like, you know, September 12th, 2001, not just like people because people have been Islamophobic, you know, for a long time, but by liberal mainstream media, just the general sense that we're going to ignore this type of rhetoric in order to push instead a narrative of a virulent anti-Semitism spreading throughout.
00:15:58.320And I look at that as a very dangerous thing when it comes to, you know, Jews in America and our relationship to the rest of the country.
00:16:07.960And then also like the kind of flip side of the kind of singling out of Jews.
00:16:12.740Like, I will just say I feel so disturbed by the idea that people in our community think it's good for us to be the topic of conversation this much.
00:16:27.560It is quite a gamble. I do not understand the short-sightedness of it at all. The short-sightedness of being so heavy-handed when it comes to policing anti-Semitism, you know, in a way that it's like clearly you are tarring people who are not anti-Semitic, who are just critics of Israel as anti-Semitic. I'm like, this is neither good for us nor for anyone.
00:16:52.220I think we'll get into this, but I think we should really ask the people who are the most active proponents of that kind of mentality and approach. It makes you wonder what their actual interests are. Like, do you not care about the city being affordable? Do you not care about any of the other issues that this campaign has been about?
00:17:14.900It really drives home how much I'm sorry to say this, but I that there is a segment of wealthy and overwhelmingly white people who have made fighting anti-Semitism their pet project.
00:17:25.560And it kind of reveals that they are so disconnected from so many of the other issues that animate like people's sense of safety and well-being.
00:17:32.920And we're going to talk about what the actual interests are of the people in groups whipping up this sort of racist hysteria and why it's my belief that not only are they spreading anti-Palestinian and broadly Islamophobic racism across the population, but also making Jews less safe in the process, perhaps on purpose.
00:17:54.420I really want to spend now a good chunk of this episode talking about one of the biggest, most influential and moneyed arbiters of everything we're talking about, which is the ADL.
00:18:07.140The Anti-Defamation League, currently led by Jonathan Greenblatt, is one of the largest Jewish institutions in the U.S., period.
00:18:14.960It is one of the groups that pressured Bernie Sanders to get rid of Simone after 30 hours.
00:18:19.440Notably, the ADL made headlines in the last week when, the morning after Zoran was elected,
00:18:26.520it announced it would launch the Mamdani Monitor to track actions and appointees within Zoran's
00:18:32.660administration that, quote, impact Jewish community safety and security. It also said it's setting up
00:18:38.700a tip line for New Yorkers to report incidents of anti-Semitism. Any group is free to monitor,
00:18:45.440and in fact probably should monitor any administration, any politician for any traces
00:18:51.740of any sort of bigotry, right? Like that's, I'm not categorically against that. I'm actually for
00:18:56.440it. But this level of like specific monitoring of Zoran Mamdani and giving the Mamdani monitor
00:19:03.340a name and setting up a tip line in relation to his election is unprecedented for the ADL.
00:19:09.240For me, this has been a real moment of joy in New York City and then also real
00:19:14.160fear when we're looking at the kind of national political landscape. And it's notable that at
00:19:18.880the same time as this election was happening in New York, we were seeing story after story
00:19:24.000of very real, very virulent anti-Semitism entering the mainstream in the MAGA movement.
00:19:30.740Nick Fuentes going on Tucker Carlton, Candace Owens doing what Candace Owens does. And to my
00:19:36.660knowledge, the ADL does not have a special tip line for anti-Semitism in the MAGA movement. In
00:19:41.320fact, what they're actually trying to do is still play nice with them. They took Turning Point USA
00:19:46.680actually out of their list of extremist organizations. They dropped the civil rights
00:19:51.920line from their mission. So what we're seeing at the same time is the ADL doing very blatant
00:19:56.860kowtowing to the right and making nice with the right while escalating in their attacks against
00:20:04.120the left. And let's be clear, there is no evidence of antisemitism in the Mamdani administration or
00:20:09.600anyone affiliated with them. All of their allegations of antisemitism are all guilt by
00:20:15.220association nonsense. There is no antisemitism in this project. So the insinuation that there is
00:20:22.560calls into question the entire legitimacy of the organization. And I think we should talk about
00:20:28.820what does it mean that when you are so aggressively committed to imposing your ideological viewpoint
00:20:35.140on the progressive movement because of its pro-Palestinian sentiment, what that has actually
00:20:40.520resulted in is the ADL doing misinformation about antisemitism, downplaying where the real
00:20:46.460threats to Jews come from. I mean, I'm reassured to see that the criticism of them is getting much
00:20:51.740more mainstream, but I think this is just one really disgusting incident in a much longer arc
00:20:59.680in this fall from grace as what was once a civil rights organization and has now basically just
00:21:04.960become a pro-Israel bullying outfit. What's also interesting about the Mamdani monitor specifically
00:21:10.180is that, you know, he's saying now New Yorkers have a place to go in order to report instances
00:21:15.780of antisemitism. When the, isn't that the whole thing with the ADL, the entire thing with the ADL,
00:21:23.180their entire reason for being is to collect the data of incidents of antisemitism and report on
00:21:29.380that data and you know the idea of them having a tip line should not necessarily be news the fact
00:21:36.960that they're very specifically uh laying out like this cute alliterative name the mamdani monitor
00:21:43.360to me that speaks to their need to create the narrative before he even takes office that he is
00:21:50.340going to be doing a bunch of anti-semitic stuff and that any instance of anti-semitism that happens
00:21:57.200for his tenure is due directly to him being elected mayor. It's like an effort to get
00:22:04.020people ready for a wave of anti-Semitism that they claim has already started and we see with
00:22:11.440our own eyes, especially those of you in New York, is vastly overblown and for the most part coming0.85
00:22:17.160from psychopaths on the right. You mentioned that the ADL used to be a civil rights organization.
00:22:24.280And for the listener, I have to assume the average listener who has no idea what the Anti-Defamation League is.
00:22:33.720Yeah, look, we have in the American Jewish community, like we have basically a network of institutions.
00:22:39.080I mean, the ADL is over 100 years old.
00:22:41.020I mean, the founding of the organization was this famous story, the lynching of Leo Frank.
00:22:46.980Leo Frank was a Jewish factory owner in Atlanta, Georgia, who was falsely accused of the rape and murder of a young girl in his factory. And so he was actually kidnapped from jail by a white supremacist mob and he was lynched by them. And this incident was considered part of the revival of the Klan in the South.
00:23:09.220And so the ADL being founded as a group that is not only committed to stopping the defamation of the Jewish people, but also fighting for civil rights for all people. The ADL's history was very much about fighting against anti-Semitism and for safety and protection for Jews as part of fighting for civil rights for all people. That has always been their stated mission.
00:23:31.760Now, over the decades, the ADL, I think, has called into question their commitment to that mission, because they have, for many decades now, aligned themselves with anti-civil rights forces. So during the McCarthy era, they actually failed to stand up for the Rosenbergs and actually participated in a lot of the anti-communist crusade.
00:23:52.600In the 70s, they were helping spy on Arab American activists. In the 90s, they were helping the federal government spy on anti-apartheid activists. And of course, in the 2000s, after 9-11, they were also part of efforts to spy on Arab American activists. And there's like, there's a long history of like...
00:24:09.740Cosing up to power. I mean, they have the, unfortunately, a history of being people who work with federal law enforcement.
00:24:17.560Yeah, exactly. Working with federal law enforcement and against movements for racial and economic justice.
00:24:23.040Which is, for a lot of people, that is a confusing thing. I think that in general, the ADL is always lumped in with sort of the Jews that were, you know, instrumental during the civil rights movement in the 60s, whereas the ADL's actual history is a lot, a lot less cool.
00:24:41.820Being raised Jewish, the narrative that I was told about the ADL was that it was sort of this like intersectional civil rights group. And they played this instrumental role in the civil rights movement in the 60s. They were part of liberal progressive causes like the fight for gay marriage. But when anything came to Israel, it was just like, we need to protect apartheid. We need to defame Arabs in globally like that. It didn't make sense to me.
00:25:09.600Well, I think they have been part of a lot of kind of, I guess what we could call like mainstream civil rights coalitions, but they've always been willing to kind of also undermine civil rights to promote their Israel advocacy agenda. And I think the more extreme the conditions on the ground in Israel-Palestine have gotten, and the more like extreme they need to be to defend Israel in the US, the more they've been willing to actually undermine civil rights here.
00:25:36.740A lot of this just reminds me of, like, an organizational personification of Debra Messing, which, like, sorry.
00:25:51.060But like a few weeks ago on this podcast, we spent hours analyzing the way that like Debra Messing spent decades really standing up for every group of people until it came to Palestinians.0.64
00:26:06.880And then you saw as her inability to extend that desire for civil rights to Palestinians, everything else crumbled underneath that.
00:26:15.440And I feel like on a structural level, that is the ADL.
00:26:21.060Yeah, I think it's a lot of like the ADL used to be a group that would be like curriculums on diversity and inclusion, like get the Jews in there.0.56
00:26:29.440Like we're going to be in the room supporting that like anti-Semitism and racism, like learn about all these things together.0.52
00:26:35.380And then the more anti-racist activists were talking about Palestinian rights as part of that platform, then they became willing to join the coalition that was about dismantling DEI.
00:26:47.520Hmm. The most aware that I've ever been of the ADL has been post-October 7th, where it feels like the ADL has become an organization that almost exclusively defends Israel from criticism, especially from the left, while constantly ignoring or making excuses for anti-Semitism on the right.
00:27:07.360I would go so far as to say it makes Jews less safe. And I feel like here is where we have to talk about the Nazi salute.
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00:29:07.940it famously during the inauguration of donald trump at one of the inaugural events elon musk
00:29:15.900was giving a speech where he he did a little c kyle he did two he did two little c kyle the adl
00:29:23.480which had really, I would say at this point, lowered the bar for things worth condemning
00:29:29.600as being anti-Semitic, did not condemn Elon, but forgave him, issuing a statement that said,
00:29:36.680This is a delicate moment. It's a new day, and yet so many are on edge. Our politics are inflamed,
00:29:44.080and social media only adds to the anxiety. It seems that Elon Musk made an awkward gesture
00:29:50.820in a moment of enthusiasm not a nazi salute but again we appreciate that people are on edge
00:29:57.760in this moment all sides should give one another a bit of grace perhaps even the benefit of the
00:30:05.080doubt and take a breath this is a new beginning let's hope for healing and work towards unity
00:30:11.360in the months and years ahead and also miss rachel is hamas by the way
00:30:16.420Exactly. And also, could you fire Simone Zimmerman for existing? It is so wild to watch that video and read that tweet at the same time. Because if you watch the video of Elon Musk, he is doing Nazi salute to both sides of the room, just in case the other side missed it.0.99
00:30:39.020And for the ADL to be like, whoa, whoa, we all need to take a deep breath and just relax for a second and think about how the real enemy are Arabs.
00:30:50.320The history of the ADL's whitewashing of Elon Musk's flirtation with neo-Nazism is like quite a thing to behold and has been going on for a while.
00:31:00.560There was a really crazy incident November 2023 where, I mean, Elon Musk is doing this all the time.
00:31:07.080So like this is really like Tuesday for him. But, you know, we've all watched kind of on Twitter his descent into like really overt like neo-Nazi ideology. And like one of the kind of core conspiracy theories at the core of neo-Nazi ideology is that is the great replacement theory, right? That like Jews are helping bring in brown and black people into this country to destroy the white race and undermine our civilization. And Musk has been a booster of that ideology.
00:31:35.240there was basically an incident where like musk was getting a lot of heat for boosting some really
00:31:41.420overt anti-semitism i know that who you're referring to my brain is filled with tweets
00:31:46.980elon was boosting a tweet that was blaming jews for boosting anti-white hatred yes this was like
00:31:54.140one of many moments where a lot of people were like maybe we shouldn't be on twitter because
00:31:58.040it's like overrun with anti-semitism and da da da and then like days later elon musk was like
00:32:03.880we're gonna ban the words decolonize and river to the sea from twitter and then greenbot was like
00:32:09.720thank you so much you are such a great friend you know and also by the way like it should be noted
00:32:14.420that every time he speaks about a lot of these like right-wing leaders there's a part of me that's
00:32:20.520like you are in a social network with these people i've seen interviews where he was like oh elon
00:32:26.540musk is a nice guy you know i've hung out with elon musk there's clearly some like i i'm trying
00:32:31.880to say this in like a not anti-Semitic way but I'm just like there's clearly some cabal some cabal
00:32:37.960yeah exactly but like I'm just like you're listening to it and you're like oh you're still
00:32:44.020trying to get invited to hang out with Elon Musk and also that's the same way that he talked about
00:32:48.600Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation right you're like you're still trying to get invited
00:32:52.460to hang out with these guys which is why you speak about them with such respect even though0.75
00:32:57.860these are some of the most important anti-Semites in this country. And then when it comes to like0.74
00:33:03.220Zoran Mamdani, again, not an anti-Semite in any way, shape or form, you have no problem defaming
00:33:10.980and smearing these people and talking about them like they are the greatest threat to you.
00:33:15.580And I think it's important to note that regardless of how Jonathan Greenblatt0.95
00:33:18.940personally interpreted what he calls Elon Musk's awkward gesture, white supremacists and neo-Nazis
00:33:26.540around the country were celebrating that moment. And Rolling Stone did a piece on it at the time
00:33:31.460called, Right-Wing Extremists Are Abuzz Over Musk's Straight Arms Salute. Here's a quote from that.
00:33:38.600Andrew Torbaugh is the founder of the far-right Christian nationalist social media platform Gab,
00:33:43.740which pioneered AI-powered Nazi chatbots. He shared the clip on his account with the caption,
00:33:49.920incredible things are happening already lmao far-right author keith woods whom the southern
00:33:56.700poverty law center has called a self-described ethno-nationalist and anti-semite shared the
00:34:01.500clip in a post on x writing okay maybe woke really is dead and so when you have the adl
00:34:09.100which has positioned itself as an authority on calling out anti-semitism not calling this out
00:34:14.540but in fact making excuses for it it's like this is a group that is fomenting right-wing
00:34:20.040antisemitism what's the point of you if you indeed you know as you purport to be are an
00:34:26.640institution that like monitors antisemitism and reminds people on an institutional level that like
00:34:32.420it's bad to not take the opportunity to call out the most obvious nazi salute i think any of us
00:34:40.260have ever seen, it's really telling. Why would you not call out these people? And it's because,
00:34:46.940well, they are in power and because generally they align with our interests. So, you know,
00:34:52.480if you say, I thought your interests were stopping anti-Semitism, then you would be wrong.
00:34:59.200One of the things that the ADL is perhaps most known for is tracking anti-Semitism
00:35:04.320around the country and sort of these statistics that the ADL puts out about the number of
00:35:09.580antisemitic incidents that have taken place around the country year over year like i listen to a lot
00:35:15.440of the podcast interviews that jonathan greenblatt does because understanding well first of all
00:35:20.060because i hate myself because but also because understanding how he does his job informs the way
00:35:24.540that i do mine and by the way side note in a lot of those interviews he'll get asked about the
00:35:30.080growing number of anti-zionist jews who disagree with him and who disagree with the mission of his
00:35:34.040organization or the threats posed to the ADL by the declining kinship that American Jews feel
00:35:40.420with the ethno-state of Israel. And he always just like, he always downplays our existence.
00:35:45.740He always insinuates that anti-Zionist Jews are in a relevant part of Jewish life.
00:35:51.120I know you've looked at a lot of the polling, as I have, you know, that Israel's lost a lot
00:35:58.100of support even among Jews, especially among young Jews. Do you ever worry that you might
00:36:01.980position the adl in such a way that the younger generation of jews won't see you as defending
00:36:07.580them and the things that they believe in well it's interesting 90 of jews in the polling that
00:36:12.780i've seen of the surveys that i've seen believe in the right of the state of israel to exist
00:36:18.300i.e they are zionist and so to young jewish people the vast majority of them identify with
00:36:25.420and feel positively about their jewish identity and have a strong association with the state of
00:36:30.220israel all the data shows this so you think young jews who might self-describe as anti-zionist or
00:36:36.940have problems with the state of israel at the moment you you think that they should come on0.52
00:36:42.780no but well come on like i have problems with policies of the state of israel but when you0.69
00:36:50.060talk about the young jews who define as anti-zionist lulu like there are there are young hispanic people
00:36:55.980who support president trump's policies at the border but the vast majority and the mainstream
00:37:00.940organizations fighting for the rights of immigrants don't agree with that but there
00:37:04.860are some who do there are some who do look there's blacks for trump and there's a whole movement
00:37:10.140among a portion of african americans who deeply believe in the president but like would you say
00:37:14.540to the naacp ceo why don't you represent them no it's less than why don't you represent them
00:37:20.460it's more a question of as an organization that helps define anti-semitism and has defined it
00:37:26.220as anti-zionism at a moment when these things are being debated i mean i hate to come back to this
00:37:30.940but we've seen expressed that a lot of and i've heard it from them a lot of younger jews and
00:37:37.020i've heard it from the members of the jewish community what polls are you seeing like i
00:37:42.700understand anecdotally you may have heard it from some people i believe there may be a bit of a
00:37:46.940selection bias there like let me ask have you gone to any of the mainstream synagogues like again
00:37:52.380you can go to brooklyn and find three synagogues or by the way and i appreciate you answering the
00:37:59.100question i am simply from the things that i've seen but you're giving you're giving the audience
00:38:04.620a very narrow bias as if that's where all jewish young people i'm asking a question and you're
00:38:10.380responding and saying that's not what you think it is and you're not worried about it he likes to
00:38:14.220to correct whoever the interviewer is who's talking about anti-zionist jews and he likes to
00:38:19.360say no no no they are a small minority remember uh that we jews actually are a monolith we all
00:38:26.780believe monolithically in the same thing we all believe israel has a right to exist as a jewish
00:38:32.060state we all are zionist essentially he reinforces that idea which is is a anti-semitic idea i feel
00:38:42.300like I'm insane every time we talk about the ADL and Jonathan Greenblatt or the state of Israel in
00:38:48.680general because of how anti-Semitic all of these points that they're making are. That is straight
00:38:55.160anti-Semitism to deny the existence or the impact of anti-Zionist Jews. It's just like you are just0.83
00:39:02.620saying, no, no, no, no. Jews are a monolith. We are all the same. The only number I ever hear him1.00
00:39:08.020use is 95% of American Jews are Zionists. By the way, we have so much polling at this point
00:39:14.960that disputes those numbers, that complicates those numbers. I would love to hear him comment
00:39:20.660on the 40% of American Jews who said they believe Israel is committing a genocide and the 60%
00:39:26.560who said they believe it is committing war crimes. And again, it's just like,
00:39:30.340this is a man whose job requires lying, lying about the state of antisemitism,
00:39:35.280lying about about what american jews actually believe the other thing he actually says about0.96
00:39:40.460us is he'll compare us to black republicans i just want to say it's so particularly dangerous
00:39:47.940the way in which he does this and way in which he of course ignores the like you said the data
00:39:52.600that says 40 of american jews think a genocide is being committed the way in which he ignores it to
00:39:59.440just go back to this like wherever he got the statistic about 95 of jews being zionist it is
00:40:05.260is actively tying Jews as a group to an ongoing genocide. This is a danger to those Jews. This0.80
00:40:13.980is a danger to Jews. It just makes you wonder, does he care if Jews in America are safe or not?1.00
00:40:20.000And I think it's pretty clear that if given a choice between the Jews of America or the Jews
00:40:26.580in the West and the state of Israel's policies, he chooses the security of the state of Israel
00:40:32.040over anything else. Another thing that he does, though, perhaps more than anything else, is
00:40:36.820emphasize the extent to which anti-Semitism, the way that he defines it, is on the rise in America.
00:40:43.560And every podcast he does, he'll throw out some wild statistics, like anti-Semitism in 2025 is
00:40:50.460up 13,000% from the year before, clearly with the intent of making the listener think that it's
00:40:56.260unsafe for a Jewish person to leave their home in America. Can you give me some insight into
00:41:01.580these numbers that they constantly push out? Yeah. Well, first of all, I think we should ask,
00:41:07.080why is it that your organization's budget keeps growing by the millions and yet this problem that
00:41:11.540you claim to be tackling keeps getting worse? Maybe you're really bad at your job. You're
00:41:15.840failing to stop this problem. It's like a doctor who's an oncologist who just keeps getting paid
00:41:22.180more and more and he just keeps putting cancer into the patient. Yeah, that actually is a great
00:41:27.740metaphor it's like at this point it is so clear that the organization is not cutting the spread
00:41:35.260of anti-semitism but in fact increasing it and the other thing is like the their numbers are cooked
00:41:40.660explain their data is simply not trustworthy jewish currents has done some reporting on this
00:41:46.860which i will link in the episode description i think there's a lot to say about kind of the
00:41:51.500different ways that they've cooked their numbers but one of them is just like simply if you put
00:41:57.380more resources into tracking this thing, then your numbers go up because you just are getting
00:42:03.280more incidents, right? So that's like level one. That's a charitable way of looking at it.
00:42:08.100Can you give the less charitable way? I mean, number two is expanding the definition of
00:42:13.200anti-Semitism to mean criticism of Israel, which is essentially what they've done to a degree that,0.93
00:42:19.680I mean, is ridiculous. There is, of course, room for the idea that, you know, criticism of Israel
00:42:25.400can be anti-semitic but the way in which anti-semitism is defined at least by the ADL
00:42:32.540creates essentially a new definition of anti-semitism so that the tracking of it all goes
00:42:39.560under the banner of anti-semitism when some things might just be criticism of Israel or
00:42:45.060criticism of Zionism or criticism of apartheid like if you're putting drew a swastika on someone's
00:42:51.220dorm room door in the same category as someone had a Palestinian flag on their own door,
00:42:58.340then we have a real problem with the numbers.
00:43:01.060Then the numbers are, in fact, cooked.
00:43:03.460Just like two things I would add to that is Currents did an audit where they would have
00:43:08.220like a swastika drawn on a desk alongside the synagogue hostage situation in Colleyville.
00:43:13.020So it's like these two things are not the same.
00:43:15.120A gunman walking into a synagogue is not the same thing as someone drawing a swastika on a desk at a school. The ADL isn't tracking how many other racist slogans were also written on that desk. They are just collecting the data about anti-Semitism to show how bad it is very specifically and exclusively for us.
00:43:35.180And then the Israel thing that you're talking about, it's 100% true, but this is part of what I mean by how they're cooking the data. So right after October 7th, the ADL put out this data of anti-Semitic incidents since October 7th, and they counted every pro-Palestinian march in America as part of those incidents, including, by the way, protests that were led by JVP and If Not Now, who they have now also accused of anti-Semitism.
00:44:02.560But then the other thing that's really interesting, even in the data that Jewish currents agreed was anti-Semitic, the ADL's own data did show that organized white nationalism was responsible for more incidents in 2023 than every year since 2017.
00:44:17.540and that there was a clear correlation between antisemitism and anti-LGBT organizing.
00:44:24.180So if you actually talk to the extremism researchers at the ADL, they would probably
00:44:29.040explain to you that, yes, the most virulent forms of antisemitism in this country are coming from
00:44:34.000white nationalist movements who happen to also be anti-queer and also Islamophobic. But then
00:44:39.600the organization has decided to basically muddle that data by mixing in all of this
00:44:45.640pro-Palestinian activism and saying that that is the biggest threat to our community. So it's
00:44:49.920it's almost more complicated or like even more sinister, I guess, than them simply being a
00:44:54.880pro-Israel advocacy group, because I'm like, you know, some of the data about what is actually
00:44:59.040going on with antisemitism and you're choosing to downplay it and misinform our community
00:45:03.480because you are so committed to Israeli apartheid that you are willing to to lie about what you
00:45:09.320actually know is happening. Just a few weeks ago, Jonathan Greenblatt was giving this speech where
00:45:13.980he said, quote, this year, ADL's Global 100 survey of antisemitic attitudes around the world
00:45:21.440found a 46% shift. 46% of the adult population, 2.2 billion people, harbor elevated levels of
00:45:32.600antisemitism. That's nearly double the rate that we saw a decade ago. For the first time since we
00:45:40.060started tracking these attitudes in the 1960s, the younger generation is more likely to hold
00:45:48.220elevated anti-Jewish views than their parents or grandparents. And I just don't get it, right? Like
00:45:55.760you devote your organization to defending what every major human rights organization has ruled
00:46:00.440a genocide. You make weekly speeches about how criticism of that genocide is actually an attack
00:46:07.440on Jews, thereby tying Jews to the war crimes of 77-year-old ethnostate, whether we want to be
00:46:15.240tied to it or not, and then complain that the world hates us. And I am left with two conclusions.
00:46:23.640One is that Jonathan Greenblatt is stupid, which I personally don't think he is. And two is that1.00
00:46:30.960Jonathan Greenblatt intentionally feeds this cycle, which creates more antisemitism because
00:46:36.460His constant hysteria about the rise of anti-Semitism guarantees the future of his
00:46:41.640organization and his career, which he makes more than $1.2 million a year. That's my hot take.0.99
00:46:47.340I mean, I think that's right. And I think also if we are looking at the sinister motives behind it,
00:46:52.740because I agree, I don't think he's stupid. I think he is very specifically pushing this0.85
00:46:58.300narrative because, well, number one, I think that he understands the future of Israel and0.79
00:47:03.320the future of Zionism is going to be only supported by the right wing of this country,0.85
00:47:07.540of the United States. He understands that you cannot anymore sell an ethno state to0.87
00:47:13.960liberals. There are still, of course, liberal Zionists who are holding on to it.0.93
00:47:19.220Deborah Messing, hang in there, sister.0.90
00:47:22.140Yeah, don't worry. Israel will be normal again someday. No, but he sees, you know,0.98
00:47:29.120that cozying up to the right is important for this continued institutional power he's not wrong
00:47:36.420in terms of uh he sees how any other institution that is a civil rights institution at least in
00:47:43.500name is being attacked as being a woke dei distributor and being of course neutered as
00:47:49.420much as possible and attacked by the trump administration by the right wing so he understands
00:47:54.020at least who ideologically lines up with him. But I also think in a more sinister sense,
00:48:00.800he understands that if given the choice between the two, between actually stopping anti-Semitism
00:48:06.020and protecting the interests of the state of Israel, he sees the state of Israel as being
00:48:12.980the ultimate protection against anti-Semitism. So he's willing to sacrifice the safety of
00:48:18.720American Jews in order to reach that end. And I think that is a really dark way of looking at it.
00:48:25.820But I think that is borne out to be completely true. Because at this point, I am not totally
00:48:31.000unconvinced that Jonathan Greenblatt wouldn't be happy if all the Jews of America were forced0.68
00:48:38.520at gunpoint to go to Israel. I mean, that's me being very cynical, but I can't help but look
00:48:45.420edit that way wait i'm gonna pee really fast pee time i feel like we're only like halfway through
00:48:54.440matt's script he he edits it down to a nice like good chunk but uh yeah you know we have lots to
00:49:03.460say i just want to give a quick shout out to blue land for sponsoring this show and for being the
00:49:10.100show's longest running sponsor through all the trials and all the tribulations you guys have
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00:50:30.520slash fruity. Thank you as always to Blueland. And now let's get back to the show.
00:50:35.980so speaking of getting all the jews to israel there's this video that i saw on instagram
00:50:41.920recently which is from ben kaspit who's like a pretty well-known i think kind of centrist
00:50:48.000israeli pundit he wrote a biography on netanyahu like this is like a pretty serious mainstream guy
00:50:54.440and there is a video going around of him in hebrew on a radio show he says i would vote
00:51:01.720for Zoran Mamdani because I want there to be antisemitism in the diaspora because I want0.80
00:51:09.080all Jews to come to Israel. And the guy says, you're in favor of pogroms. And he's like,
00:51:14.760yes, that is good for us. And I think it's just like, I mean, it's very rare that someone says
00:51:25.940the quiet part out loud. It is very clear at this point that a big part of advancing Zionism0.93
00:51:32.320is keeping Jews paranoid, afraid, and even physically unsafe around the world. And that0.89
00:51:39.720is a core part of the propaganda strategy. It's a core part of the foreign relations strategy.
00:51:44.960And by the way, it's also part of the strategy for how they keep Israeli Jews fearful and paranoid0.94
00:51:50.720is they're like blasting them with all this propaganda about all the alleged anti-semitism0.73
00:51:57.180in the diaspora. So they don't watch what's happening in Gaza, and they don't think about
00:52:01.780leaving the country. It's like really, really sick and really sad. It is really sick. I think
00:52:07.600also, I don't pretend to understand what Greenblatt's motives are. I mean, I think it's pretty
00:52:13.300clear that he's beholden to an incredibly old conservative, like donor class, presumably.
00:52:20.140And also that at this point, like, as you said, he's made the calculation that it's important for them to be in the good graces of the American right, even if that risks losing all credibility. But the other thing that I kind of see from him and from so many of these other kind of like right wing Zionist figures is it feels to me like white grievance politics, but with a kind of Jewish flavor on it, because I actually don't think that Greenblatt wants Jews to move to Israel.
00:52:47.280that's not really what I hear from him. But what I do kind of hear is like, it's the victimhood
00:52:52.440complex and that it does serve him in some way to kind of keep the volume dialed way up for0.59
00:52:57.660wealthy white Jews. Yes, that you are in danger. Like I saw a clip the other day of him on some0.88
00:53:05.160TV show where he like, looked at the camera and was like, I want you to know Jews in New York,
00:53:10.140the ADL is here for you. We have your we have your back. Yeah, right. And I'm like,
00:53:14.400you are just looking at like Lizzie Savetsky and like the like congregants of the like five
00:53:22.840Upper East Side congregations that you consider to be the only legitimate Jews. Yes. You have0.89
00:53:29.980segued me perfectly into a tweet that I wanted to bring up from Jonathan Greenblatt from last
00:53:35.600month leading up to the election where he said, it is so profoundly sad that Jewish Americans are
00:53:42.600now discussing worst case scenarios when american jews are making contingency plans to flee we must
00:53:48.900recognize this as a five alarm fire for our entire country that requires a whole of society approach0.66
00:53:54.960to solve what are you talking about i'm so like this actually kind of boils my blood a little bit
00:54:02.280jonathan greenblatt i'm gonna look into the camera what the hell are you talking about it's fine
00:54:07.780it's fine this is what he does and this is what the institutional jewish community in america has
00:54:16.520been doing now very openly for two years which is trying to compare the treatment of jews in the
00:54:23.820united states right now to the treatment of jews in europe in the 20s 30s and 40s yes like this
00:54:29.860idea that it is in some way comparable to the actual fleeing of Jews out of Europe or Jews
00:54:39.080being exiled from wherever they were in the Pale of Settlement. This conflation is totally insane
00:54:45.580and not grounded in reality at all. It is a narrative that is being pushed by these institutions
00:54:52.200to tell everyone Jews are scared, Jews are scares. And to make the Jews themselves scared.
00:54:58.280Exactly. And to make Jews scared, like, oh, you weren't scared this whole time? You should be scared. Which brings us back to that tweet that we talked about at the beginning, the child who's having a panic attack over Mamdani, where it's like, it's not just the father, the person who posted that tweet, who's at fault here.0.85
00:55:17.120it's the fault of our actual institutions of jewish institutions in whether it be in new york or0.64
00:55:23.620you know across the country telling jews everywhere you should be afraid and i don't
00:55:29.980see how that is anything but anti-semitic to whip jews into a frenzy of fear it actually just shows0.99
00:55:36.180like a profound lack of care for the well-being of jews like you just want the average jewish0.71
00:55:42.040person and like this is by the way like this has been their messaging like for a while i mean i0.79
00:55:46.440I'm now forgetting the name of Greenblatt's memoir, but if somebody wants to Google,
00:56:00.180Because the reason that they're saying that like, oh, we're on the precipice of anti-Semitic
00:56:05.340fascism is not because there's a fascist in the White House or anything, but because of
00:56:10.480like protests at Columbia University to divest from apartheid.
00:56:13.680And I got to say, it's kind of reminds me of the like, my child is scared of Zoran Mamdani, but sort of in the other direction.
00:56:20.740Like when those protests were really at their height, my grandma, who I am so close with and love, called me, my grandma who was born in the 1930s, you know, she called me and she was like, I don't remember it ever being like this for Jews in this country.
00:56:37.240and i really felt like upset because i very gently was like basically like it's fine i mean it's not
00:56:47.580entirely fine not for the reasons jonathan greenblatt thinks but like we're okay like you
00:56:53.060you can go outside like someone isn't going to be standing there with a swastika poster
00:56:57.700this jonathan greenblatt tweet where he's like it's a five alarm fire and jews are fleeing
00:57:03.360It really reminds me of this one tweet from Meghan McCain.
00:57:08.040So in 2020, following the protests in response to the murder of George Floyd, Meghan McCain tweeted,
00:57:14.900My neighborhood in Manhattan is eviscerated and looks like a war zone.0.81
00:57:19.960De Blasio and Cuomo are an utter disgrace.0.96
00:57:57.000And then the cherry on top of this exchange is that, as it turns out, Meghan McCain, at the time, wasn't even in New York. She was in Virginia.1.00
01:04:05.700She comes across with a cooler demeanor.
01:04:08.640Noah, politics aside for the moment, to me, far more frightening and far more stark than
01:04:14.360his progressive policies and plans with no backup, his lack of experience, etc.
01:04:18.520It's his blatant and rife anti-Semitism.
01:04:20.860Yes, it's horrific, to be honest with you. And this is not just terrible for Israelis and for the Jewish community. This is terrible for Americans. Let me start with the first thing that to me is the most violent and the most vile, which is his whitewashing of what Intifada is about.
01:04:38.280But she, nonetheless, tweets in all caps the morning after the election.
01:04:43.060we've survived anti-semitic leaders before we'll survive mamdani now i'm israel hi oh yeah you did
01:04:51.680her that was good that was good i love this tweet so much she goes we've survived anti-semitic
01:04:58.620leaders before girl you are israeli who are you talking about well okay here's the thing lizzie
01:05:05.100savetsky is like a right-wing republican right her whole thing is like white lady republican1.00
01:05:11.520grievance politics, but as an American Jew. Noah Tishby is doing a different game. Important to
01:05:18.040note, she actually used to be an official employee of the Israeli government. She was actually for a
01:05:24.100time, the Israeli government's special envoy on anti-Semitism. This is a person who's a trained
01:05:30.780propagandist for the Israeli government, whose whole shtick is that anti-Israel sentiment,
01:05:37.480like accountability, criticism of Israel is the anti-Semitism, right? And then she actually lost
01:05:44.740that job because she very lightly criticized something that the government did. And so then
01:05:50.980she had to kind of pivot to being an influencer, but she's still on the same beat, right? And she's
01:05:56.320one of these people who positions herself as like vaguely liberal, like she's not actually aligned
01:06:01.400with the Netanyahu government, but she's still doing essentially propaganda for them.
01:06:05.580And I think it's important to note that, like, in both of these cases, like, I don't believe for a second that Lizzie Sovetsky is afraid.
01:06:13.420And I don't I don't believe that Noah Tishby is either.
01:06:17.000You know, I don't think she's worried about surviving a, quote, anti-Semitic leader.
01:06:21.540Their mission here is not telling everyone they're afraid.
01:06:24.760Their mission is to spread fear amongst these communities, amongst Jews and amongst people who are regular Christian Americans who see anti-Semitism as a bad thing.
01:06:37.440And they want to let these people know Jews are afraid and Jews themselves, you should be afraid.0.80
01:06:43.340That is their entire motive here, you know.
01:06:46.120So we've covered, I think, in a good amount of detail, these institutions and people that, for one reason or another, but typically for self-serving interests, whip up this racist hysteria, especially among Jews, so that Jews everywhere will recommit themselves to Zionism, to the state of Israel, to making excuses for violence and genocide and racism against Arabs in the US.0.56
01:07:12.340And what I want to pivot to is just like, do you see my cat? She's joined me. And what I want to talk about just briefly is the other side of this exchange of rhetoric. Who are the people receiving this? And what happens to them? Well, we've talked about the crying eight year old who is so terrified that Zoran Mamdani won because his father's a racist who instilled racism in him.
01:07:35.960and i've mentioned my grandma who you know might see stuff on the internet and like not
01:07:41.180know better and i also just want to revisit deborah messing and i just have to say0.95
01:07:46.960we one track mind baby fuck yeah we respect the commitment how can i tie this to death listen i0.55
01:07:57.800just have to say uh six oh my god if you're watching the video version of this podcast0.98
01:08:03.180there's two cats on you now there are two cats now on me hey guys you want to talk about deborah
01:08:07.780messing what do you have to say he's got nothing left to say six weeks ago i made an episode of
01:08:14.740this podcast about deborah messing and her sort of fall from grace he he ha ha as like a liberal
01:08:22.720hollywood icon to someone who is now spewing the most racist far-right rhetoric so many times a
01:08:29.440day on Instagram. It is unbelievable, all because she prioritized her belief in Israel as an ethnostate
01:08:34.900and all of her other liberal beliefs sort of collapsed underneath the weight of that. But at
01:08:39.620the time, just a month and a half ago, I really had to make the case for why I was making that
01:08:44.940episode. Because it's not like Debra Messing is a supremely relevant celebrity in the year of our
01:08:50.760Lord 2025. In the days leading up to the mayoral election in New York City, for whatever reason,
01:08:57.180The internet just collectively woke up to the fact that Debra Messing had gone a little crazy.
01:09:03.800And I thought it was like the fog had cleared in front of me.
01:09:07.240And very vindicating, I think, for you.
01:09:09.440I think it was kind of amazing to watch everyone finally see what you've been trying to tell people forever.
01:10:14.100She also posted another one, and this was so vindicating for me as someone who's waiting, who has been waiting for a very long time for Debra Messing to just come out as a Republican.
01:10:24.360NYC Republicans, you guys are going to save our city.
01:10:30.180Now, I have to say, I have to say, I talk a lot on this podcast about grifters, someone like Lizzie Sivetsky, someone like Noah Tishby, someone like Jonathan Greenblatt in his way.1.00
01:10:41.380I think they are creating Jewish fear to grift off of, whether it's money, social capital, followers, whatever.0.93
01:10:50.600Debra Messing, to me, is not a grifter.0.96
01:10:55.080When it comes to cynical grifters versus like true believers, I think Debra Messing falls squarely into the latter category, right?0.98
01:11:03.400Grifters are calculating and savvy.1.00
01:11:32.380And after two years of stewing in this type of rhetoric, she has completely lost her mind.
01:11:39.960She's a fanatical racist, and she also believes that Zionism and its torchbearers at the ADL are necessary to keep her safe.
01:11:48.260Yeah, it is. I think the most shocking of all of the 91 shocking stories was the, you know, we are commanded to speak the truth in Judaism and Christianity and Islam, you are commanded to lie.0.88
01:12:02.380like this is particular post 9 11 uh anti-muslim bigotry there's a concept that i remember being
01:12:12.340spread around early on in the war on terror this idea of a takia which was the secret islamist
01:12:18.420the idea of a muslim may seem moderate but they are commanded um by the quran to not reveal that0.95
01:12:25.660they are in fact a fanatic jihadist or whatever which is complete bullshit and i hadn't seen it0.97
01:12:31.720for a long time, you know, since 9-11. I mean, it was like, it was around during the war on terror0.98
01:12:36.560and everyone kind of like stopped spreading these kinds of memes. And after October 7th,
01:12:43.140it all came back and seeing Debra Messing post something that a incredibly racist grandmother1.00
01:12:50.780would have posted, you know, on September 12th, 2001. To me, that shows that this is indeed a
01:12:58.520deeply rotted brain. This is someone who is living in deep fear and not just, I think,
01:13:05.280a run-of-the-mill grifter. I think someone who has been grifted and someone who is being,
01:13:09.940I mean, I hate to say that she's a victim, but in a way, she is a victim of the scare campaign that
01:13:18.040has gone on for years against Jews in general from the institutional Jewish community.
01:13:23.680I mean, also when we're talking about like, where did Debra Messing get all these ideas?
01:13:27.060I mean, we know that she's been taken on these propaganda trips to Israel. We know that she's
01:13:32.320very actively embedded in this network of pro-Israel propagandists. And they are feeding
01:13:39.020her this steady diet of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian racism. And I also found that0.84
01:13:45.820post to be the most shocking of these. The immediate place that my mind went to hearing
01:13:50.560this, I've also heard that kind of Islamophobic, basically conspiracy that you're talking about,
01:13:56.140Matt. I've heard people say stuff like that. But what it sounds like to me is the same logic
01:14:02.260that fuels classical antisemitism. There is a school of thought in the school of studying
01:14:08.860antisemitism that basically says that the way that Muslims are scapegoated as this other that
01:14:16.880is coming in to try to undermine and subvert our societies has a lot of deep parallels in the ways
01:14:23.440that classical anti-Semitism said that Jews were going to do a lot of that, right? I mean,0.67
01:14:28.780I think, again, it goes back to like, Deborah's not listening to this, but it's like a question
01:14:32.220for people who buy into that kind of thinking. Like, do you want to live in a society where
01:14:38.380that kind of like, kind of blanket stereotyping and conspiratorial thinking about other groups
01:14:44.740of people is allowed? Because almost always anti-Semitism does come back into that. So like
01:14:51.040this whole conversation is about how we actually deal with and think about antisemitism. To my
01:14:56.920mind, a society that normalizes such racist conspiratorial thinking is one in which any
01:15:03.240group could potentially be unsafe. Because if you're willing to believe that about one group
01:15:07.060of people, why wouldn't you be willing to believe it about another? And like, by the way, you could
01:15:11.540take a lot of that thinking. That's what Nick Fuentes thinks about Jews. He thinks that we
01:15:18.080can't coexist in Western civilization. He thinks that we're the ones who are actually lying,
01:15:24.540trying to subvert this society, cannot coexist in this white American Christian nation.
01:15:30.360Which tees me up perfectly because I have spent this episode talking about the way0.92
01:15:35.320mainstream Zionist institutions and people and leaders and influencers have enriched themselves
01:15:40.800by inflating threats to Jewish safety from pro-Palestinian groups. But it's not that I'm
01:15:47.140not concerned about Jewish safety. I just don't think it's threatened by diverse campus activist0.99
01:15:53.440groups calling for Palestinian equality. And I'm worried about the amount of space people like0.99
01:16:00.420Greenblatt and Tishby are taking up in the conversation about antisemitism. While in the
01:16:06.440background, right this very moment, to your point, antisemitism is having a meteoric rise within the
01:16:13.080movement and so we need to talk about groipers which even saying that word i'm like i didn't
01:16:20.300know what a groiper was until very recently yeah it feels like just saying the word you feel
01:16:25.260slightly assaulted yeah yeah yeah yeah i don't like it yeah it's like people who didn't like
01:16:29.920saying the word moist it's like the same thing right exactly yeah yes this all feels like the
01:16:34.980flip side of the conversation we've been having can you guys talk about groipers and nick fuentes
01:16:40.560and all of these figures who have way more clout within the mainstream right than I
01:16:45.520have ever remembered them having. You know, I'm not an expert on
01:16:48.920Groypers, despite, you know, I don't know, being a straight white male on the podcast.
01:16:56.460But I do know that the Groypers kind of come out of the sort of alt-right movement,
01:17:01.860sort of very online, very 4chan based Christian nationalist movement. And Nick Fuentes,
01:17:08.240he is like the the leader of the groopers a big portion of it is incel based as well this idea of
01:17:15.280regular chauvinism and regular misogyny but like to a degree that is i think embarrassing i think
01:17:21.220for a normal person to see someone outwardly support fuentes has been openly anti-semitic
01:17:27.620for a long time and of course you know anti-black you know anti-woman all that stuff anti-whatever
01:17:33.220And the fact is, is that he himself has always been kind of relegated to the sidelines of this kind of right wing discourse, although he has had more and more in the last few years, these brushes with sort of mainstream Republicanism and conservative institutions.
01:17:48.900I think he attended an event at Mar-a-Lago.
01:17:51.640He did. He went to Mar-a-Lago with Trump and yay.
01:17:53.840And, you know, is someone who has been gaining more and more legitimacy since October 7th because of the fact that he was able to tie sort of this growing pro-Palestinian movement into his own ideology and kind of twist it to be just about Jews and Jewry and, you know, being this like the ultimate enemy.0.52
01:18:17.540And he has been rising up lately alongside figures like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, who are collectively forming this anti-Zionist right, which is, and I try to explain this to people, actually about hating Jews.
01:18:33.280But, right, and this is just tying it all together, it's really hard for me to explain that these are anti-Semitic people, because people like Jonathan Greenblatt have watered down what it means to call someone anti-Semitic in a way that makes this conversation impossible.
01:18:49.540It makes anti-Semitism more possible, because you cannot engage honestly.
01:18:56.780That ties in to the most recent inroads that Nick Fuentes has made into the mainstream American right when he recently did an interview with Tucker Carlson, who, by the way, has one of the most listened to podcasts in America.
01:19:13.540and because the heritage foundation which is the largest conservative think tank in america
01:19:20.460has deep ties and a relationship with tucker carlson they were asked to denounce or affirm
01:19:27.780the interview that tucker carlson did with this white nationalist neo-nazi nick fuentes
01:19:32.360and there are a lot of right-wing zionists who work at and donate to the heritage foundation
01:19:39.520Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, put out a video on Twitter, which
01:19:45.200I'm sure he now regrets, defending Tucker Carlson and the Nick Fuentes interview, which
01:19:51.140has now created this turmoil and sort of civil war inside of the Heritage Foundation.
01:19:56.600My loyalty as a Christian and as an American is to Christ first and to America always.
01:20:03.080When it serves the interest of the United States to cooperate with Israel and other
01:20:06.620allies, we should do so. But when it doesn't, conservatives should feel no obligation to
01:20:12.320reflexively support any foreign government, no matter how loud the pressure becomes from the
01:20:17.060globalist class or from their mouthpieces in Washington. The Heritage Foundation didn't
01:20:21.940become the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement by canceling our own
01:20:26.180people or policing the consciences of Christians. And we won't start doing that now. We don't take0.90
01:20:32.260direction from comments on X. We also don't take direction from members or donors, though we are
01:20:37.960inherently grateful for their support. Ben Shapiro, obviously probably the most famous
01:20:43.120right-wing Zionist in media, said that Kevin Roberts' statement on Tucker Carlson is a, quote,
01:20:48.820betrayal of the Heritage Foundation's history and principles. And this is the thing with right-wing
01:20:54.860Zionists, which I'm just going to say Zionists. How? How is it a betrayal? The Heritage Foundation0.94
01:21:01.280and the right in general has been so happy to go after every other minority group,
01:21:08.140why would you think that Jews had some protected status within these extraordinarily bigoted
01:21:16.300fascist institutions? Well, it's because you butt into the belief that Zionism,0.83
01:21:22.040which is about the protection of an ethnostate, genuinely was also about the protection of Jews.
01:21:27.700And here we see, plain and simple, that that is not the case.
01:21:31.280I don't know why we're surprised when the Heritage Foundation, who are the authors of Project Esther, like actually made very clear that they have substituted any real definition of what anti-Semitism is for just anything that is anti-Israel.
01:21:47.240Project Esther is like an addendum to Project 2025, basically using the fight against anti-Semitism as part of this broader Project 2025 to kind of like dismantle liberalism and liberal institutions in America.
01:22:00.940and to kind of go after and criminalize the entire progressive movement, progressive institutions,
01:22:06.880democratic institutions, like all under the guise of fighting anti-Semitism. So like
01:22:10.620the people who already bought into Project Esther, like made their bed with the Christian0.76
01:22:15.480far right. I'll say like the civil war has been very fun to follow. Obviously love to see divisions0.79
01:22:22.060in our opposition, but we should know like Kevin Roberts first statement said, you know,
01:22:28.180we should be free to criticize Israel. We're not going to be silenced by the globalist class.
01:22:32.180America first is always our priority. The globalist class. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Straight up.
01:22:36.980And then he had to like do a little backpedaling about Fuentes when there was a lot of fact because0.78
01:22:41.840then there were a bunch of these like right wing Jews who were like, whoa, wait a second. We're0.70
01:22:45.760like in bed with overt anti-Semites. Yeah. Like, wait, wait, I never thought the leopard would
01:22:49.400eat my face. And after we saw Roberts kind of backpedaling a little bit, then Greenblatt,
01:22:55.080you know, got up and thanked him and said he really appreciated it. And to me, this reveals
01:23:00.320something about how, again, it's like, okay, Greenblatt clearly wants to be in the room with
01:23:05.260Roberts. He still wants to be able to pick up the phone and call. You can always tell based on his
01:23:09.700tweets, like who he still wants to have meetings and sit at the table with. Seems like Greenblatt
01:23:14.460has made the calculation that he's like trying to hang with the Heritage Foundation. Pretty gnarly,
01:23:18.400if you ask me. I think the other thing about this, and it's bigger than the ADL, but I think this
01:23:23.680does go back to kind of like the failure of like centrist liberal institutions to understand the
01:23:29.540moment that we're in. The kind of old school ADL establishment playbook is we call out anti-Semitism
01:23:36.080wherever it rears its ugly head. David Feldman, who is a scholar in the UK, who's done really
01:23:41.700amazing work on anti-Semitism, he talks about anti-Semitism as this like reservoir of ideas
01:23:48.420that exist in the culture, kind of just like racism, like that there are these animating
01:23:52.720ideas and beliefs that are latent in our culture that people can draw from and believe. And so
01:23:57.820somebody can say something that is anti-Semitic, just like someone can say something that is
01:24:01.720racist. And that is different than being an anti-Semite, who is somebody whose ideology
01:24:09.300and worldview is actually motivated by those ideas. And I think for me, I actually listened
01:24:15.960to the Nick Fuentes on Tucker Carlson. I also listened to the Candace Owens interview. And
01:24:20.620you listen to these people and you're like these are anti-semites like this is like this is a
01:24:25.840worldview driven by the idea that jews are this nefarious other trying to undermine our society0.68
01:24:33.080i mean like fuentes is like the jewish organized jewry are the ones who are the reason that we1.00
01:24:40.040don't have good things in this country and jews cannot assimilate into this society and then1.00
01:24:45.760candace owens is just like these people are straight up evil monsters right like her whole1.00
01:24:50.220thing is that there's like a secret cabal that is you know of bloodthirsty evil child killers0.96
01:24:57.400molesters like it's she has every every trope like in the book is like part of this actual
01:25:04.000belief system that she has that she is actively infusing into the culture what we're talking about
01:25:08.740is on a level of danger and influence that far surpasses any random mistaken tweet we've seen
01:25:17.180from somebody in the progressive or in the Palestine movement. And yet somehow, Greenblatt
01:25:22.460talks about these very powerful anti-Semites like they are nice people who just did an oopsie
01:25:28.300and talks about the activists on the left like we are a danger to civilization. This is why I0.84
01:25:34.540keep saying that it requires them to actually lie and misinform people because it's so upside
01:25:40.040down world and the priorities are so twisted. And by the way, the other thing to then get into about
01:25:46.420this is that Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens hate the ADL. And they hate the ADL because the ADL
01:25:52.900has obviously tried to get them canceled because of their Israel politics. And then they use that
01:25:57.400as evidence that the ADL is part of this cabal, this censorious, evil, baby-killing cabal that
01:26:03.720is trying to run our country and destroy our institutions, et cetera. Then what it takes us
01:26:08.580back to is that the commitment to Zionism and to defending Israel from criticism over all else0.51
01:26:15.460muddies the water about antisemitism and is also helping fuel antisemitism because these people
01:26:21.820are then taking all of that and saying, look, I have even more proof now. Matt, you and I have
01:26:28.180talked about this a fair amount. All the time. We've gone down these rabbit holes together
01:26:32.180because it's like, it's so crazy making to watch like Israel's committing a genocide.
01:26:37.020And then we have like Jews around the world who are like standing up and fighting it.
01:26:40.280And then you have all these Nazis who are like, yes, Israel is committing a genocide.
01:26:45.660And by the way, let me tell you that it's actually because of the Talmud that they are doing that.
01:26:51.520This alliance of right wing white nationalists and Zionists like has always been a shaky alliance
01:26:56.520Because for years, I think, Israel and a lot of the pro-Israel proponents, they understood that what the right wing of Israeli society and Israel in general wanted is the same thing as what the right wing of white Christian America wanted, which is an ethnostate.
01:27:16.520state. They understood this alliance to be pretty solid because in fact, I remember one time Richard
01:27:22.000Spencer, who was like the prominent Nazi of 2016, 2017, described themselves specifically as a white0.63
01:27:29.520Zionist, meaning that like what he wanted was a white Christian ethnostate, the same way Israel
01:27:36.760has their own Jewish ethnostate. Right. They're all like, we would love to have a place that0.94
01:27:41.980builds a lot of walls that keeps out immigrants that kills brown people that outlaws human rights1.00
01:27:47.560organizations that criminalizes free speech like let's fucking go right and and so they've always0.98
01:27:53.600gone hand in hand in that sense but i think that the problem with this alliance to me is not just0.91
01:28:00.840that like you see now obviously right-wingers who are becoming openly anti-semitic and using
01:28:05.900Israel as a tool to get there, but also that the immediate threat is not necessarily to
01:28:13.720Jewish Americans, but the immediate threat is to literally everyone else. The threat is to0.96
01:28:20.340black Americans, as anti-blackness is what this country was founded upon, or anti-Arabs,0.99
01:28:26.980anti-Muslim. These are the people who are actually at the front of the firing line0.99
01:28:31.760when it comes to this ideology. Jews have been, I think, somewhat protected in this kind of like
01:28:38.260tent of whiteness or whatever for a while. And we are certainly down the line going to be attacked
01:28:44.700as well. But when you look at anti-Semitism and the definition of it specifically is not being
01:28:49.560about being anti-Jew, but being like you said, Simone, being this like collection of conspiracy
01:28:55.340theories about who is secretly trying to subvert the society, who is secretly organizing in0.60
01:29:01.620order to hurt the host nation and to raise themselves up. If you look at it as that type
01:29:07.700of ideology, kind of devoid of specifically being about Jews, then what you are seeing is anti-Semitism
01:29:15.160from the pro-Israel camp and anti-Semitism from the actual white nationalist Nazi camp being the
01:29:24.140exact same thing. When you look at that, to me, I don't have a fear of camps for Jewish people
01:29:30.800in the future from all this. I have a fear of camps for Black people, for gay people,0.95
01:29:38.100for trans people, camps for all of these other groups that the right has for years claimed is0.99
01:29:44.120working secretly behind closed doors to destroy our white Christian nation. And I think it's
01:29:51.640important to understand that definition of anti-Semitism is universal and not specific
01:29:57.920to just jewish people in america i just also want to go back for a second to like just comparing
01:30:04.280this to the freak out about zoran mamdani let's take anti-semitism and jews out of this for a
01:30:09.800second like zoran's campaign is about building a city that is affordable he wants people to be able
01:30:16.500to like afford their rents and their groceries and enjoy public transit afford child care we
01:30:23.420listened to tucker and fuentes which again by the way that interview was so creepy because if you
01:30:30.860didn't know anything about these guys it really like they watered down their extremism in such a
01:30:35.920sinister way until they got to the last 20 minutes or so of the podcast and i will say like as a
01:30:42.520woman listening to this it really made my hair stand on end because it the the end of the podcast
01:30:49.080is where they start talking about their views about gender and about women. And these guys
01:30:54.120have some of the most regressive and scary views about gender. I don't listen to a lot of right
01:31:00.600wing podcasts, but the things that they believe about the type of domination, gender domination
01:31:07.480and conformity that they want to see in this country. Again, when we talk about the conversation
01:31:13.280about Jews and antisemitism, what really, really insults me about Greenblatt and all these other
01:31:18.800groups, they talk about Jewish interests as if we aren't also people who want to live
01:31:24.400in cities that are affordable, as if we don't have women in our communities who want to
01:31:29.000have our reproductive rights protected, who want to have our rights as women, as equal
01:31:35.060citizens in this country protected, as if we don't have queer and trans people in our
01:31:39.380communities who are going to be endangered by these religious fundamentalist movements
01:31:44.240and their visions about gender, right?
01:31:45.680Like the idea that the only thing that you as a Jewish person should care about is whether or not they like this country overseas that, by the way, is committing a genocide that you also deny is happening.0.68
01:31:58.140It's so insulting, but it's also that that's when you start to see how dangerous it is because they're willing to let all these other things go in favor of advancing this one pet issue that they have.0.65
01:32:09.060And again, like it does then make you question, like, are these people who just really don't feel endangered in any other way and feel like they can be hysterical about this one thing?
01:32:29.380I want to wrap this up. I usually do a sort of call to action. But for people who are authentically concerned about anti-Semitism, who may be well-intentioned, but peripherally are absorbing this like ADL-fueled narrative about Zoran, I guess, what does the average person do to combat anti-Semitism that isn't like the Mamdani monitor?
01:32:55.760I've always thought and always believed in the idea that your solidarity, being intersectional, is the only thing that actually does protect any minority groups in our country.
01:33:10.640If you are worried about anti-Semitism, then you need to be attacking the ideas within that type of hatred.
01:33:19.660If you're worried about attacks against Jews in the United States happening, you need to understand that attacks against Jews happening are one of the symptoms of attacks against all sorts of these discrete and insular groups in America that are being attacked.
01:33:37.400it's not about saying anti-Semitism doesn't matter, but it's about understanding that the
01:33:41.860people who are spreading fear of anti-Semitism are themselves anti-Semitic and racist. You know
01:33:49.400what I'm trying to say? It's like, so what do people do instead of calling the Mamdani monitor?
01:33:55.500Organize with people who are not racist, who are openly and outwardly not racist.
01:34:01.600I don't know how you combat it otherwise. Rather than saying, no, we need very specifically to only care about this one thing. If that's all you care about, if it's just Jews and the safety of Jews, you're going to find yourself with some really unsavory bedfellows. And I guarantee you, they do not have your safety or the safety of your community at heart in what they are trying to achieve.
01:34:25.740Well, I agree with all that. I think what I would just add is, first of all, we should just like remind people that so much of this is based in a ton of misinformation and smears and, you know, remind people to be really skeptical of the sources that they're being sent about these things.
01:34:41.860I can't tell you how often I've been hearing from people, as you just talked about earlier, Matt, who are just like getting straight up misinformation about like Zoran and what he stands for and what his campaign has stood for.
01:34:52.760Right. So like that's thing one thing, too, is that I can't believe we're just talking about this now at the end of this conversation.
01:34:59.100But I guess I'll just say like the ADL and groups like them, they operate on a theory of anti-Semitism that it's basically like this virus that's just in the water that will always be there forever and ever.
01:35:10.720so the only thing you can do if you actually listen to those people and what they say you
01:35:15.340should do it's mostly just like be proud stand up be yourself right which then also like leads to as
01:35:22.140we've talked about so much of this like overt racism but also then like the lizzie savetsky
01:35:26.980like going to harass people i'm so glad to hear that you hate this city i think what i just wanted
01:35:32.320to add to what matt said so beautifully is that like jews will be safer and better off in societies
01:35:39.560in which there is less racism, in which there is less conspiratorial thinking, in which there is
01:35:45.680less street violence, in which people aren't resentful of some powers that are hoarding wealth
01:35:52.200and committing foreign wars and all of these things. And I think there is one group of people
01:35:57.020right now in our society, to go back to this far right that we're talking about, right? What the
01:36:01.600far right is saying are the sources of all those things are the Jews. If you want to fight
01:36:06.320anti-Semitism, you should want to fight all of the conditions that are leading people to feel
01:36:11.840that kind of resentment, to not getting the things that they need, and to also living in
01:36:16.900social conditions where violence and scapegoating are so normalized. So for me, it's like fight
01:36:24.200alongside other communities because all of us will be safer and better off in a society where
01:36:30.240none of these things are allowed to happen, not just for Jews, but for any person.
01:36:33.460i just got chills that was really good and i literally had here and if not you may end up
01:36:42.060like deborah messing and you don't want that but honestly that was i don't i i can't end with that
01:36:48.760like that simone you just i'm pro you ending with the deborah messing callback i i just i just want
01:36:53.820to say like if also if you're a jewish person who's listening to this and are actually like
01:36:58.080where do i go what do i do there is a vibrant jewish left that exists in this country yes
01:37:02.980that you could be a part of and learn from. There's groups like Jews for Racial and Economic
01:37:07.060Justice in New York City. There's Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now and Bend the Ark on the
01:37:11.620national scale. There are vibrant communities of Jews who are fighting for these values. And so
01:37:17.020you can be a part of those. And the more that you can also support and be part of those organizations
01:37:22.260and movements and uplift them, as actually a lot of my friends at Jewish Currents have been saying,0.92
01:37:27.480so much of the hysteria that we are seeing right now is actually from an older generation of jews
01:37:34.580who are panicking that they have lost the narrative and lost the control so actually
01:37:38.500like the hopeful way to end this i would say is knowing that there is a way in which we are
01:37:43.700winning the narrative in the u.s right now and we are growing and we are a force to be reckoned with
01:37:48.960and they are doing everything in their power to deny our existence and our power but guess what
01:37:53.280we just won the new york mayoral election baby yeah like i don't know that's so dorky of me no0.96
01:37:58.620no you're right like deborah messing's gonna hate that we just won the freaking mayor election you
01:38:04.820know like they are freaking out because we actually won something so like let's also be
01:38:10.120not just proud of that but think about what does it mean to then like continue to build
01:38:15.160a formidable movement that is really a force to be reckoned with and if not
01:38:19.180you may end up like deborah messing no i'm just kidding
01:38:23.680i need to stop making this woman a focal point of my life listen matt here's the beautiful thing
01:38:31.600deborah messing crashed out everybody found out that she crashed out you have been vindicated you
01:38:36.800get to move on you get to move forward with your life yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i saw that there's
01:38:42.280some like Zionist on Instagram made like a post about me that I happened to see because it was
01:38:49.300sent to me. And I was reading some of the comments, which I know I shouldn't do. But one of the0.69
01:38:54.840comments was just like, yeah, and he has an unhealthy obsession with Debra Messing. And I
01:39:00.800was like, you know what? They got me there. They got you there. Can't argue with that.
01:39:08.640oh man matt and simone thank you so much for going down this rabbit hole with us today
01:39:17.520where can people find more of both of your excellent work uh you well you can find me uh
01:39:25.000every week sometimes twice a week if you're a patron uh on bad hesbara the world's most moral
01:39:30.120podcast yeah i'm on instagram and stuff like that at mattlieb jokes well i'm on instagram and
01:39:36.500Twitter, although I don't usually participate in the Nazi site much anymore. But my handle is
01:39:42.220Simone Arzim in both places and the Beyond Israelism podcast on Zateo. We're out there too.
01:39:48.900And if you've made it this far, which I have no idea how long this episode will be once it's
01:39:54.040edited, but God bless all of us. Thank you so much for listening. It means a lot. We put a lot
01:40:00.080of work into this show and I'm proud of it. I hope you enjoy listening to it. I love you so much.
01:40:05.780and until next time stay fruity and sane stay sane it's hard out here all right that's where