Speaker 1: I I Boris and this is straight talk.
Speaker 2: Josh SEPs Well, back mate, straight mate. Good to see,
Speaker 2: so good to be back. I can't believe you're just
Speaker 2: complimenting me on how nice my skin looks. It's the
Speaker 2: best way to start to today.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Thank you.
Speaker 2: But I don't even have a I don't have a regime,
Speaker 2: I don't have a skin range.
Speaker 1: I can't believe it. I come.
Speaker 3: I actually have to tell everybody that I saw him
Speaker 3: loitering around the area just outside there. He did have
Speaker 3: a suit, he had a suit bag. He's going to
Speaker 3: put a suit on for the show. But I said, mate,
Speaker 3: done with it.
Speaker 1: You look great the way it is, correct the record.
Speaker 2: I'm flying in Melbourne right after this and I'm hosting
Speaker 2: a panel event for which I need a suit. That's
Speaker 2: not to say that this show isn't important. On I
Speaker 2: felt important, but I'm just feel like your vibe is
Speaker 2: more informal. I mean, what are we doing, Marke?
Speaker 1: Informal? That's what I've got to intimidate you.
Speaker 3: If I was wearing a suit, well, I want to
Speaker 3: talk about that formal vibe and I want to talk
Speaker 3: about intimidation too.
Speaker 1: Today that's the things. There are the topies you want
Speaker 1: to talk to you.
Speaker 3: I'm reaching out to Josh because he's my mate, but
Speaker 3: he also knows a lot of stuff and of course
Speaker 3: uncomfortable conversations.
Speaker 1: That's your podcast.
Speaker 3: And you're written an article recently which I'll park, but
Speaker 3: I want to talk about a little bit later.
Speaker 1: You've written lots of articles, but.
Speaker 3: One I want to talk about in particular is about
Speaker 3: your grandmother and just Eve's background. Like we do in
Speaker 3: this show, there was a lot of military activity around
Speaker 3: the world and I got in Major General Mick Ryan
Speaker 3: to talk about what's going on around the world, particularly
Speaker 3: in relation to this was straight after the USA dropped
Speaker 3: the big bomb into Iran, and I thought it was
Speaker 3: a relevant discussion.
Speaker 1: And Mick was sort of praising the.
Speaker 3: Israelis, so if it's back into your wheelhouse, but praising
Speaker 3: the Israelis for their military work, I don't think he's
Speaker 3: praising Israel for it's general policies relativety perhaps, yeah. And
Speaker 3: then I had a guy called Chris Joy, who I
Speaker 3: considered to be the best economists in the country from
Speaker 3: an Australian economics point of view. And Chris is also
Speaker 3: talking about Trump and he was also praising Israel relative
Speaker 3: to Trump relative to world economics. In other words, the
Speaker 3: effect of their what the regimes, both regimes are doing
Speaker 3: in terms of how it leads into his economic policy,
Speaker 3: his own policy relative to what he invests in.
Speaker 1: He's not saying did you buy that?
Speaker 2: Incidentally, the pro Trump tariff argument quick aside, not not really,
Speaker 2: I don't buy it.
Speaker 1: But from his point of view, he manipulates.
Speaker 3: He has a he's built AI and he's got a
Speaker 3: team of forty five PhDs who basically build probability events
Speaker 3: relative to global bonds based on Trump's demeanor, his facial demeanor,
Speaker 3: his words, and they predicted the ram bomb, It's gonna
Speaker 3: happen on the Saturday or the Sunday, whenever it happened,
Speaker 3: so that on the back of that they gone by
Speaker 3: and sell. So they build up events global events relative and.
Speaker 2: Then they short or along something depending on what yeah,
Speaker 2: is going to happen.
Speaker 3: And they'd not always get it right, but generally speaking,
Speaker 3: this all about return to the I.
Speaker 2: Mean, that's fine if you have a twelve hour time
Speaker 2: frame where you want to make money. It's probably not
Speaker 2: fine if you're looking at a five to ten to
Speaker 2: fifty year timeframe, whether or not markets have confidence in
Speaker 2: the United States and in the integrity of its currency
Speaker 2: and so on, so correct, it's a trade uncertain Tariff
Speaker 2: wars is probably not wise if you want to remain
Speaker 2: the number one.
Speaker 1: It's arbitrage.
Speaker 3: It's basically garbitrage running a basis point, so they can
Speaker 3: buy many billions of dollars worth of the US bonds
Speaker 3: or training bonds, whatever's in.
Speaker 2: The people made a ton of money after nine to
Speaker 2: eleven as well, the people who knew that it was
Speaker 2: going to happen. They were all kinds of crazy inside
Speaker 2: you know, trades, the airline stock, you know, from people
Speaker 2: from mysterious people in Saudi Arabia who made a lot
Speaker 2: of money.
Speaker 3: And whether they're in the know or whether or not
Speaker 3: they created the know, which is what he does. And
Speaker 3: as a result of in those two podcasts, the amount
Speaker 3: of negativity I got was crazy people saying, oh, you're
Speaker 3: supporting Israel and I just thought, and that sort of
Speaker 3: brings you back to this level of intimidation, not that
Speaker 3: I'm feel intimidated, but the attempt to intimidate people via
Speaker 3: social media of in terms of responses and in terms
Speaker 3: of just interaction, engagement. And I wanted to ask you this.
Speaker 3: Your podcast is all about uncomfortable conversations. It's about conversations
Speaker 3: which people don'tant talk about, and there were people listening
Speaker 3: to this.
Speaker 1: How do you deal with the negativity if at all?
Speaker 1: I mean, do you get negativity in?
Speaker 3: But you do?
Speaker 1: I get negativity? Mark? Do you know who you're talking to?
Speaker 2: I know you do it, but some people say, you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes when I complain about it, people say, you literally
Speaker 2: named your show Uncomfortable Conversations, and now you're complaining that
Speaker 2: people are being left uncomfortable?
Speaker 1: Do you complain?
Speaker 2: I don't because I have basically left social media except
Speaker 2: as a promotional tool, so you know, we post clips
Speaker 2: and things there, but I don't really engage with it,
Speaker 2: and I don't. I can usually dismiss the hate as
Speaker 2: being the just the deranged kind of yellings of somebody,
Speaker 2: And you know, I sort of think if you're not
Speaker 2: upsetting somebody, then you're not really saying anything interesting. There's
Speaker 2: no old adage about journalism that journalism is something that's
Speaker 2: somebody somewhere doesn't want said. Anything else is publicity or marketing, right,
Speaker 2: you know, the whole point is that you can to
Speaker 2: upset somebody with this most recent bout, though I have
Speaker 2: felt it it's been one of the two or three
Speaker 2: hardest professional moments of my life, with my being shoved
Speaker 2: out of the ABC as one of the other big
Speaker 2: recent ones, because I felt like there are really raw
Speaker 2: feelings on both sides, and people are hurting, and my
Speaker 2: team is hurting. By my team, I just mean a
Speaker 2: lot of people who are close to me who feel
Speaker 2: like I should be carrying water for their side of things.
Speaker 2: Given that I'm a member of the Jewish community, they
Speaker 2: expect that I'm going to have a certain defense of Israel.
Speaker 2: And when you try to inject nuance and you try
Speaker 2: to like articulate a vision that is nonpartisan or that
Speaker 2: doesn't please either tribe, I have found it more emotionally
Speaker 2: trying this time as inexhausting. As inexhausting, yeah, yeah, it doesn't.
Speaker 3: But you don't feel traumatized. You just feel tired, yeah,
Speaker 3: insulationally tired.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a little bit traumatized because it is difficult
Speaker 2: being like I mean, my whole pointed with uncomfortable conversations.
Speaker 2: Some people misunderstand that the title of the show and
Speaker 2: think that I'm trying to foster intentionally uncomfortable moments in
Speaker 2: the room or make the guests feel uncomfortable, which is
Speaker 2: not the point. The point is to try to have
Speaker 2: amicable and to whatever extent possible, comfortable conversations about issues
Speaker 2: that it's really hard not to get uncomfortable about. So,
Speaker 2: you know, we pick subjects, whether it's race or indigenous
Speaker 2: rights or welcomes to country, or you know, migration or refugees,
Speaker 2: or the Me Too movement, or male and female relations
Speaker 2: in the workplace or LGBTQIA plus issues or transathletes or
Speaker 2: whatever it might be. That if someone were to express
Speaker 2: a strident opinion about them at a work function or even.
Speaker 1: Or a family barber or a family barbie.
Speaker 2: Everyone's everyone's bum Hooles would puck her up a little.
Speaker 1: Bit, like everyone would be like, oh, are we going
Speaker 1: to go there? You know, and I try to.
Speaker 2: Like I just had on the show one of America's
Speaker 2: foremost anti gay parenting activists.
Speaker 3: And anti gay parenting activist. So she is against gay parenting.
Speaker 2: That's right, So she's a family value, did you for?
Speaker 2: People don't know, I'm married to a guy and we
Speaker 2: have kids through sarregacy. And it was actually John Anderson,
Speaker 2: the former Deputy PM who's a maid of mine, who
Speaker 2: had her on his show, and he's.
Speaker 1: A podcast.
Speaker 2: You know, he's a Christian, he's a family values guy,
Speaker 2: lifelong conservative, and he's intrigued by me because I don't
Speaker 2: fit the mold of the crazy woke, you know, super
Speaker 2: kind of captured echo chamber. He lefty that he thinks
Speaker 2: that I would be if I was a gay guy
Speaker 2: with a family who.
Speaker 1: Used to work at the ABC.
Speaker 2: And so he was like, you should talk to this
Speaker 2: this woman like she's in Australia, she's preaching her you know,
Speaker 2: I guess her gospel of family values and how like
Speaker 2: every child deserves to have its biological mother and biological father.
Speaker 2: So we sat down for two and a half hours,
Speaker 2: Mark and had a really amicable, heated, thoughtful, combative conversation
Speaker 2: about where she's coming from, where I'm coming from. That's
Speaker 2: my gold standard, right, that's what I want to do.
Speaker 2: And when it goes down, And just.
Speaker 3: Before we leave that, I haven't listened that episode, but
Speaker 3: can I can you just tell me how did it go?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What's her point? Her point is it is it about child's rights.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, So then how could a child have well, well, Mark,
Speaker 3: how can a child have rights?
Speaker 2: I mean no, I think under to say that you could.
Speaker 2: It's not an incoherent argument to say that every child
Speaker 2: has a right to a biological mother and a biological father.
Speaker 3: I think it's is that by virtue of some bill
Speaker 3: of rights for the United States tour it's.
Speaker 2: By virtue of her well, I think it's by virtue
Speaker 2: of her religiosity. But she would her ethics, her Christian ethics,
Speaker 2: But she would say it's by virtue of the nature
Speaker 2: of the way that you know, humankind is constructed, that
Speaker 2: you need a biology.
Speaker 1: It's a construct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but she would say it's rooted in our biology. No,
Speaker 2: no child has ever come into existence that didn't have
Speaker 2: a biological mother and a biological father. It's never happened.
Speaker 2: And we're now playing God in ways that are potentially
Speaker 2: damaging to the future of kids, and we're not even
Speaker 2: we're not really looking at the downsides for children.
Speaker 1: What are the downsides? Did she?
Speaker 2: Well, there aren't. Her problem is there aren't any?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 2: I mean, what's her trick? Her magic trick is that
Speaker 2: her chest move. I should say is to say, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of historical literature about how bad it is
Speaker 2: for kids not to have a stable home with a
Speaker 2: nuclear family. So she's talking about, Yeah, she's talking about
Speaker 2: kids from broken home. She's talking about kids with step
Speaker 2: parents who beat them. She's talking about kids who you know,
Speaker 2: lost a pair, and she's talking about and all of
Speaker 2: that literature trauma, trauma, trauma. She then smuggles into the
Speaker 2: modern day status quo, where, from my perspective, three seconds ago,
Speaker 2: we developed the technological and legal ability for people like
Speaker 2: me to have kids and raise them in a home
Speaker 2: that is free from all of those downsides, no traume,
Speaker 2: that is not broken, where there's no trauma, where there
Speaker 2: are loving people surrounding the kids, where the kids have
Speaker 2: all of the advantages. And there are loads of studies
Speaker 2: now that kids in same sex households fair just as
Speaker 2: well or better by any metric that you'd want to
Speaker 2: than kid And it makes sense because they're brought into
Speaker 2: existence by people who really want them. You know that
Speaker 2: it's not a sixteen year old couple of sixteen year
Speaker 2: olds in the backseat of a car at a drive
Speaker 2: in movie theater or something who get knocked up and
Speaker 2: then you know, I'm talking about Alabama here, remember, you know,
Speaker 2: and then they.
Speaker 1: Have to keep the kid.
Speaker 2: You know, obviously kids are going to do well if
Speaker 2: their parents really really love them and spent a lot
Speaker 2: of money and effort bringing them into existence. But she
Speaker 2: makes the move of saying, we can't, you know, we
Speaker 2: can't guarantee that the downsides that we normally associate with
Speaker 2: children from broken homes don't also apply to these children.
Speaker 2: And I mean, it doesn't make a lot of sense,
Speaker 2: but I found it.
Speaker 1: What I like about it.
Speaker 2: Is that I think in the past ten fifteen years
Speaker 2: or so, progressives people on broadly my side of politics.
Speaker 2: I think of myself as a pretty left wing guy,
Speaker 2: they have taken a very censorious and finger wagging and
Speaker 2: whollyer than theur Schoolmarmi attitude to everything. And they've taken
Speaker 2: a posture of we don't need to explain to you
Speaker 2: why you should be using your putting your pronouns in
Speaker 2: your email signature. We don't need to explain to you
Speaker 2: why trans women are women. We don't need to explain
Speaker 2: to you why you need to sit through a smoking ceremony.
Speaker 2: We don't need to explain to you why you need
Speaker 2: to be welcomed to your own country at an Anzac
Speaker 2: Daidorn service. We don't need to explain to you why,
Speaker 2: as a straight white male, you're not allowed to speak
Speaker 2: up in a meeting where you feel like people are
Speaker 2: being a little bit sexist against men like you. Should
Speaker 2: know that we're on the right side of history and
Speaker 2: you have to get in line right or we're going
Speaker 2: to either hound you on social media, we're going to
Speaker 2: report you to HR, We're going to know exclude you
Speaker 2: from all from polite society. We're going to potentially get
Speaker 2: rid of you from the ABC, which is what it is. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I think that's just fundamentally misguided. If you look
Speaker 2: at all the civil rights movements that have been successful,
Speaker 2: from civil rights for African Americans in the sixties to
Speaker 2: probably the most successful civil rights movement I think of
Speaker 2: all time, which is the gay civil rights movement. Between
Speaker 2: like the eighties and the twenty tens. The strategy was
Speaker 2: not you're a bigot if you don't agree with us.
Speaker 2: The strategy was, listen, here's our perspective. We're all on
Speaker 2: the same page. We're here, we're queer, we want the
Speaker 2: same stuff you do. We want to be able to
Speaker 2: open a bank account together and have joint access to it,
Speaker 2: to be able to visit our loved ones in the
Speaker 2: hospital when they're dying without being treated like a complete stranger.
Speaker 2: We want to be able to take out mortgages together.
Speaker 2: We want to not be discriminated against when we rent
Speaker 2: a house, and ultimately we'd even like to be able
Speaker 2: to get married and have that word to endorse our
Speaker 2: relationship the same way you do. You don't have to
Speaker 2: do anything straight people of the world.
Speaker 1: You don't have to change. Anything.
Speaker 2: We have to do is just live your life and
Speaker 2: extend to us the same universal values that you enjoy
Speaker 2: for yourselves, you know, equality, and that resonated with people.
Speaker 2: People came on board incredibly quickly. I mean when I
Speaker 2: was born, being gay was illegal in a number of
Speaker 2: states in Australia and the idea of gay marriage was
Speaker 2: completely ludicrous.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: That was a very fast win, and it was a
Speaker 2: durable win because we actually won. We didn't I didn't
Speaker 2: do anything, but my forefathers in the movement, you know
Speaker 2: one hearts and minds. They went on talk shows, they
Speaker 2: went on panels, they wrote op eds. Contrast that to
Speaker 2: the strategy of what you might call the woke left
Speaker 2: of the past five or ten years, where there's no
Speaker 2: ex a nation, there's no appeal to fundamental underlying values
Speaker 2: that we all share.
Speaker 1: It's just like do.
Speaker 2: As I say, do as I say, And understandably now
Speaker 2: in Trump and the far right in Europe and Elon
Speaker 2: Musk and like you know, a lot of discontent in
Speaker 2: Australia and elsewhere as well. There's a backlash people say,
Speaker 2: I don't have to do what you say?
Speaker 1: Or are they saying or are they saying, do as
Speaker 1: I say? But what I say is the opposite?
Speaker 3: What do you mean, well, Trump, Musk, the right that's
Speaker 3: called it the right is are they saying Are they
Speaker 3: saying I don't need.
Speaker 1: To do what you told me to do it?
Speaker 3: Is it a backlash from as a movement or is
Speaker 3: it this new movement or the opposite side. Are they saying, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: we don't believe in gay rights. We don't believe in
Speaker 3: two men be married or too men be married. We
Speaker 3: don't believe in your rights relative for you having children
Speaker 3: on your own and you should do what I say.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, they are, yes, riches, they are equally censorious
Speaker 2: and you know, but this is what you get Mark.
Speaker 2: When you have overreach, right, you provoke a backlash, and
Speaker 2: when when the whole game is shut the hell up,
Speaker 2: because you're not just mistaken, but winnable over if I
Speaker 2: speak to you like a grown up and you know,
Speaker 2: provide a rational space for us to have a common discussion,
Speaker 2: but you'll be on the pale. You're an enemy of civilization,
Speaker 2: You're on the wrong side of history. I have to
Speaker 2: crush you, and I have to defeat you. Then of
Speaker 2: course that provokes the other side. So you see, it's understandable, Josh,
Speaker 2: I'm saying it's understandable that you would have a ratcheting
Speaker 2: up of intensity and a kind of a cultural war
Speaker 2: of attrition where both sides think that it's a I
Speaker 2: think that it's a winner take all scenario. So you've
Speaker 2: got Donald Trump, who will basically do anything I think
Speaker 2: to crush his opponents. But he doesn't come out of
Speaker 2: a vacuum. He comes out of a cultural moment in
Speaker 2: the United States where a large base of middle Americans,
Speaker 2: of small c conservative middle Americans felt like they being
Speaker 2: talked down to and well the work and shout upon
Speaker 2: yeah by the Hillary Clinton's of the world for too long. Right,
Speaker 2: So anyway, this is all a long way of saying
Speaker 2: that what I'm doing when I invite someone like this
Speaker 2: anti family you know, this pro family values, anti gay
Speaker 2: parenting activist on the show, is trying to say these
Speaker 2: topics aren't out of bounds. Nothing's out of bounds for
Speaker 2: rational conversation. If we're going to survive the twenty first century,
Speaker 2: then we're only going to do so by sitting down
Speaker 2: in forums like this and exchanging ideas with people we
Speaker 2: disagree with as well as those who we agree with,
Speaker 2: and too much of our conversations at the moment, coming
Speaker 2: back to what you were saying about feeling sort of
Speaker 2: besieged and like attacked right on social media. Are we
Speaker 2: sit in our silos, in our echo chambers, you know,
Speaker 2: inside our kind of thought groups, which algorithms reinforce. They
Speaker 2: show us things that are eger like, yeah, we're going
Speaker 2: to like even if we hate it, we still like it,
Speaker 2: we still engage with it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It's things that in other words, either reinforce what we
Speaker 2: already believe or they demonize things that we don't believe.
Speaker 2: But as long as we stay on that video of
Speaker 2: the Garsen baby dying and share it or comment on it.
Speaker 2: Then that's a win for Silicon Valley. And as a result,
Speaker 2: our worldviews get narrower and narrower, and it starts to
Speaker 2: feel like it would be beyond the pale to talk
Speaker 2: to somebody in good faith who disagrees with us because
Speaker 2: they're an enemy. How could you defend the Garsen baby dying,
Speaker 2: Like how could you defend a child being ripped away
Speaker 2: from its mother or father in the case of gay marriage?
Speaker 2: How could you defend you betraying our first nations, brothers
Speaker 2: and sisters by questioning an acknowledgment of country. And so
Speaker 2: people get more and more like enclosed in these thought chambers.
Speaker 2: I see my job as just expanding that by ten percent,
Speaker 2: if not punching a hole in the wall altogether, so
Speaker 2: that we are all on the same page at least
Speaker 2: when we know the sort of the terrain of conversation
Speaker 2: that we can have with one another to try to
Speaker 2: figure out what's right and wrong and survive as a civilization.
Speaker 2: So basically, I'm superman, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Man, Well, I'm actually I know you're taking the pistative sort,
Speaker 3: but to be frank with you, people should listen to
Speaker 3: your podcast because unfortunately, or fortunately in your case, fortunately,
Speaker 3: the process of navigating your way through what you just
Speaker 3: explained so well requires a favoit of intellect and probably
Speaker 3: more importantly, an understanding of the topic at an intellectual level,
Speaker 3: as opposed to the way most of us look at
Speaker 3: these things as we're just looking at as you say,
Speaker 3: we're looking at Instagram. We're just getting fedbare social media,
Speaker 3: getting fed what we normally it knows we like, and
Speaker 3: we're not. Actually, we're too busy, run around business and
Speaker 3: we're not really intellectualizing these things.
Speaker 1: That's your job.
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe, look that is that's the reason why
Speaker 2: I'm saying that I am clever. But I actually think
Speaker 2: there's a muscle that everybody can flex. Everybody listening to
Speaker 2: this can flex, regardless of how busy they are and
Speaker 2: regardless of how uninformed they might be about a particular issue.
Speaker 2: And that muscle is I guess, intellectual empathy a habit,
Speaker 2: forming a habit of giving people a benefit of the
Speaker 2: doubt and assuming the strongest version of their own case
Speaker 2: rather than immediately assuming the worst. So if you see
Speaker 2: someone write an article like the one that I did,
Speaker 2: or you know, post a clip like the ones that
Speaker 2: I might post on social media about something that I'm saying.
Speaker 2: We have been trained by the algorithm to take it
Speaker 2: in the worst possible faith and to get as to
Speaker 2: either agree as wholeheartedly as possible, which is just as
Speaker 2: bad as disagreeing as whole heartedly as possible. Like, I've
Speaker 2: got some feedback in the past month from people who
Speaker 2: think that I'm on their side, which is just as
Speaker 2: upsetting to me as the feedback from people who hate me,
Speaker 2: because I'm like, I'm just because you're misunderstanding, I'm not
Speaker 2: on your bloody team. Don't think I've suddenly jumped ship
Speaker 2: and I'm on your team. U g hardiest humas supporting
Speaker 2: you know, you know, clueless fool. I'm trying to not
Speaker 2: have a team. I'm trying to encourage people to think
Speaker 2: about things with the maximum amount of generosity towards ideas
Speaker 2: don't come naturally.
Speaker 1: Do we need to have a team? No? Is that
Speaker 1: the point? That's the point.
Speaker 3: So is tribalism emerging into our communit out of society.
Speaker 1: In other words, pick a team?
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean I think it's natural. I think it's
Speaker 2: perfectly natural. I think we've always had it right. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, go back to prehistory and we all were tribes,
Speaker 2: and so we have a cent and when, especially when
Speaker 2: things start feeling uncertain, you hunker into your tribe and
Speaker 2: you circle the wagons and you try to protect your kin.
Speaker 2: And that's a perfectly natural response, not just for Homo sapiens,
Speaker 2: but for all mammals really, right, all clan animals. I
Speaker 2: think we did a good job of inventing the Enlightenment
Speaker 2: and liberal again, we like I had.
Speaker 1: A partner it.
Speaker 2: People invented the Enlightenment and liberal democracy and institutions like
Speaker 2: for everything from the US Constitution to the Declaration for
Speaker 2: Human Rights and all kinds of things, so that for
Speaker 2: the second half of the twentieth century we understood that
Speaker 2: the main objective was to turn the volume down on tribes.
Speaker 2: You listen to Martin Luther King speak, you listen to
Speaker 2: Gandhi speak, you listen to Nelson Mandela speak.
Speaker 1: I mean Nelson Mandela after he.
Speaker 2: Was axed, is imprisoned, and then he got elected. Right,
Speaker 2: all of the white supremacist racists who had been in
Speaker 2: the previous government said, fine, don'torry, We're not going to
Speaker 2: you will let you do your thing. He said, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: stay in cabinet.
Speaker 1: I want you with me.
Speaker 2: I want you guys who locked me up to be
Speaker 2: working with me, because the only way the country recovers
Speaker 2: is by us working together.
Speaker 3: And famously upset his own crowd by wearing a spring
Speaker 3: Box jewsey. He's a spring Box game where there was
Speaker 3: no not one person of color.
Speaker 1: Yes, right, exactly, and gurageous. People say it's greageous. Actually,
Speaker 1: i'd see really.
Speaker 2: Clever, absolutely so smart, smart and brave both. And you know,
Speaker 2: you just listened to Obama's speeches from you know, when
Speaker 2: he was emerging onto the scene. I believe it 'm
Speaker 2: not it's twenty years ago now.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: He came onto the scene twenty one years ago when
Speaker 2: he first gave us speech at the Democratic National Convention,
Speaker 2: which brought his name to people's attention in political circles
Speaker 2: in the States, and it was all about how there
Speaker 2: is no red America and blue America. There is no
Speaker 2: black America and white America. There are only the United
Speaker 2: States of America. I get to chill up my spine
Speaker 2: even just reciting that. It's so beautiful and in the
Speaker 2: intervening twenty years. I think the left has just gone
Speaker 2: a bit crazy, and that's caused the right to go
Speaker 2: a bit crazy in losing sight of universalism, of this
Speaker 2: idea that the tribe actually is a bit of a
Speaker 2: dead end. Don't think about tribes. Don't judge people on
Speaker 2: the basis of their skin, or their genitals, or their
Speaker 2: sexual persuasion. Try as hard as you can to judge
Speaker 2: people on the content of their character. Try to have
Speaker 2: everyone get along, try to reduce inequality, try to reduce prejudice.
Speaker 2: But that almost on the left now comes across as
Speaker 2: a passe right wing excuse for inaction, like, oh, do
Speaker 2: you think that you know, all of a sudden, it's
Speaker 2: just fine for us not to pay any attention to
Speaker 2: like we need to have serious conversations about race and
Speaker 2: about sex and like my identity. And we have to
Speaker 2: change the rainbow flag so it's not a rainbow flag,
Speaker 2: but it now represents like First Nations, you know, transgender, indigenous.
Speaker 2: Like the whole point of a bloody rainbow is that
Speaker 2: it's a rainbow. It's got everything in it, you know,
Speaker 2: you don't need to also add in a little black
Speaker 2: thing to include likes there's an obsession with tribalism and
Speaker 2: identity that I think is occluding our vision and is
Speaker 2: just is distracting exactly. It's an ancient instinct, and I
Speaker 2: think social media and the instability of the globe is triggering,
Speaker 2: is flaring up that tribal instinct. Yes, out of fear
Speaker 2: and out of I think a delusional interpretation of the
Speaker 2: way the world is. Through social media, you know, people
Speaker 2: are presented with an extremified version of things because the
Speaker 2: algorithm knows that that's what they're going to spend more
Speaker 2: time on. I mean, you know, most people who are
Speaker 2: certain one way or another about their position on big, complicated,
Speaker 2: controversial issues that we all deep down know there isn't
Speaker 2: an easy answer to. I'm talking about all of these subjects,
Speaker 2: right Gaza, international relations, you know, whether to bomb Iran,
Speaker 2: race relations, same sex marriage, whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: Religion.
Speaker 2: Anyone who has a strident opinion about those things was
Speaker 2: either raised in a you know, a blinkered, blinded, constrained
Speaker 2: environment and has never been able to escape that prejudice,
Speaker 2: as is often the case with highly religious people, or
Speaker 2: they're consuming a view of the world from social media
Speaker 2: that is just sending them down a rabbit hole and
Speaker 2: is constantly reinforcing that worldview and has deranged them. I mean,
Speaker 2: you look at the social media feed of someone who
Speaker 2: thinks that Israel is blameless, and you look at the
Speaker 2: social media fair feed of someone who thinks that Israel
Speaker 2: is committed to committing a genocide against the Palestinians, and
Speaker 2: you're looking at two different worlds.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that. Tribes Israel.
Speaker 3: You're Jewish, Yeah, you're part of I mean you would
Speaker 3: you consider yourself as part of the Jewish community?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, you feel strongly.
Speaker 3: About perhaps the Holocaust. Yep, you've written an article recently
Speaker 3: about your grandmother. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What was the article titled?
Speaker 2: Well, the part of the problem is that the journalist
Speaker 2: doesn't write the title. The sub editor writes the title.
Speaker 2: And people should know that too, and people should be
Speaker 2: aware of that, because I think that's a large part
Speaker 2: of the misunderstanding about what I was trying to say.
Speaker 1: But it was called just in case you want to
Speaker 1: look it up.
Speaker 2: Just go I actually don't remember, but it was just
Speaker 2: if you google Zepp's SVDPS Israel, I'll tell him. It
Speaker 2: was something like my grandmother survived the Holocaust and now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to tell me exactly what it is.
Speaker 3: My grandmother fled the Holocaust. Now it's time for Jews
Speaker 3: to abandon Israel. Now that's that's written by Josh, but
Speaker 3: he didn't put up the title. And that title is
Speaker 3: usually the case is the Cidney Morning held and the age.
Speaker 1: And the age. So the Fairfax Group published it.
Speaker 3: Usually it's the someone internally who writes there better writes
Speaker 3: that it.
Speaker 1: Usually this paper writes the headline.
Speaker 2: It's usually a drag and they want to make it
Speaker 2: they're dragging the audience. Yeah, exact, and that's fine and
Speaker 2: it worked and it worked. So just to give people
Speaker 2: some background, my dad was born in a refugee camp
Speaker 2: in nineteen forty three in Switzerland to Jewish parents who'd
Speaker 2: fled Poland just before Hitler invaded Poland. There all the
Speaker 2: rest of his family and his parents family were wiped
Speaker 2: out in concentration camps, and he was raised by foster
Speaker 2: staunched Lutheran foster family in the Swiss Alps for the
Speaker 2: first two years of the war, and then when he
Speaker 2: was eight, after living in Paris with his mum and
Speaker 2: her new boyfriend, they came out to Australia on a
Speaker 2: boat as refugees. So that's the like sort of backstory.
Speaker 1: To my history.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not a religious person, I don't, you know,
Speaker 2: I go to synagogue and I don't feel I'm not
Speaker 2: raising my kids Jewish. But you know, you're part of
Speaker 2: a clan, You're part of a tribe. I relate to
Speaker 2: my Jewishness a bit like I will relate to my Gainers.
Speaker 2: I sort of think it's just the thing that's in
Speaker 2: the back that's a part of the backdrop tapestry of
Speaker 2: who I am. And I'm sort of proud of it,
Speaker 2: and I'm also sort of annoyed by it, you know,
Speaker 2: in differing measure and.
Speaker 1: But you're already be defined by it.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be defined by it exactly. And
Speaker 2: I'm certainly not going to carry water or Jewish that's right,
Speaker 2: that's right. I'll be defined by the things I do, yep, right, well,
Speaker 2: as you said earlier on, by your character exactly, yes,
Speaker 2: by my choices. I'm not you know, this is why
Speaker 2: I also have made enemies by like I wrote also
Speaker 2: a piece you know, not too long ago, against gay
Speaker 2: pride or just asking.
Speaker 1: For people to the same newspaper too, the same newspaper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, like do we need to be proud at
Speaker 1: this stage? Like what are we being proud of? Exactly?
Speaker 2: Like I understand we needed to be we needed to
Speaker 2: pretend to be proud when.
Speaker 1: Everyone thought it should be more proud than anyone else.
Speaker 2: Exactly, that's right, just but also what are we being
Speaker 2: proud of? Like I'm not proud that I'm six foot,
Speaker 2: I'm not proud of being white. If I was proud
Speaker 2: of being white, we would immediately understand that that's a problem. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, you shouldn't be proud of being but you're
Speaker 2: not embarrassed. You weren't though at the same time, I'm
Speaker 2: not embarrassed and I'm white. But I also think it's
Speaker 2: silly to be proud of being black or Asian or
Speaker 2: gay or like what like be proud of the things
Speaker 2: you do.
Speaker 1: Who gives it what?
Speaker 2: So that was my basic point. And then but you're
Speaker 2: not part of the Israel trip, part of Jewish. I
Speaker 2: am part of it, you know, I am, whether I
Speaker 2: want to be or not, a guy who will be
Speaker 2: labeled as gay and a guy who will be labeled
Speaker 2: as a jew. Right, I'd be Jewish enough to be
Speaker 2: shoveled into a constant tration camp. You know, I'd be
Speaker 2: Jewish enough for you know, for Hitler. He's not going
Speaker 2: to be you know, he's not quibbling whether whether I
Speaker 2: believe I'm history. Yeah, I'd be straight in, straight into
Speaker 2: the straight into the gas shads. So you know, there's that,
Speaker 2: And then what's happened is that I've had this sort
Speaker 2: of conflicted relationship, like a lot of Jewish Nians do.
Speaker 1: I think, with the state of Israel. Here's a country
Speaker 1: that the politics of Israel as as opposed.
Speaker 2: To exactly not This is a very important distinction, not
Speaker 2: with israelis and not with the existence of a country
Speaker 2: that is called Israel, but with the expectation that a
Speaker 2: lot of people in the Jewish community have that we
Speaker 2: have to only have conversations internally about our problems with Israel,
Speaker 2: and we shouldn't that It's sort of again that the
Speaker 2: kind of the wagons, you know, surrounding the caravan, and
Speaker 2: like the hunkering down and the tribalism, like we shouldn't
Speaker 2: air our dirty laundry about Israel to the rest of society,
Speaker 2: to non Jewish people, because that will only give ammunition
Speaker 2: to you know, anti Semitism or something. And I've been
Speaker 2: newly on that since October seventh, since the barbaric attacks
Speaker 2: by the hardest death cult who can select?
Speaker 3: What do you think about that, Josh so so, just
Speaker 3: talk about October seventh, Yeah, just as a preface right.
Speaker 1: Now, Well, it was.
Speaker 2: More more horrifying than the savagery of people storming across
Speaker 2: a border and like raping innocent young partygoers at a
Speaker 2: music festival who are high on ecstasy, a lot of them,
Speaker 2: which is what was happening on that date. What's happening
Speaker 2: on that day?
Speaker 3: It has But you're saying it had great ramifications, that
Speaker 3: there was greater intent behind it, Well.
Speaker 1: There was a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I mean, I think it was just just
Speaker 2: to remind people. Right, You've got over a thousand people,
Speaker 2: you know, innocent people and a pretty hippie, dippy part
Speaker 2: of the country who were left part it was a
Speaker 2: left wing part of the country. Therefore they're you know,
Speaker 2: they're mostly peace nicks and they're mostly it's a love
Speaker 2: rave right in a field, and these people are being
Speaker 2: raped with rifle butts and you know, having their internal organs,
Speaker 2: you know, smeared everywhere, and you know, just the most
Speaker 2: and with glee, like these people are don't with glee, right,
Speaker 2: It's not like this is a regrettable casualty that we
Speaker 2: have together, we have to do in order to achieve
Speaker 2: something on our way to attack a military installation or something.
Speaker 2: They're not going for any military installations. Wanted to kill
Speaker 2: lots of Jews. It was a pogrom. But what was
Speaker 2: more disturbing to me than that was that immediately instantly
Speaker 2: protests all over the world in support of the Palestinians
Speaker 2: who had elected this jihadist death cult Hamas, which had
Speaker 2: then carried out this attack before Israel had done anything.
Speaker 1: Right, we actually went down here with your prowse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: literally days after it, Yeah, with people yelling where are
Speaker 1: the Jews?
Speaker 2: And then there was some misinformation that they had said
Speaker 2: gas the Jews. And then you know, I got into
Speaker 2: a few arguments online with friends of mine, like Antoinette Leatwof,
Speaker 2: who was saying like, no, no, no, it wasn't gas
Speaker 2: the Jews, it was where of the Jews?
Speaker 1: And I was like, excuse me for not being.
Speaker 2: Hugely reassured by that distinction. Why are there a bunch
Speaker 2: of Arab Muslims, you know, rallying, screaming.
Speaker 1: Where are the Jews? Do they have good.
Speaker 2: Intentions for me? It's not a consolation that they're not.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 2: This is what I'm sort of objecting to and why
Speaker 2: I wanted to write the piece. I don't want the
Speaker 2: whole world, including Australia, to become tribalized into identity groups
Speaker 2: who feel like they have to carry water for either
Speaker 2: jihadists or the Netta Yahu government. That's not my fight,
Speaker 2: that's not our fight, that's not the fight of That
Speaker 2: shouldn't be the fight of Arab Australians. That shouldn't be
Speaker 2: the fight of Muslim Australians. Certainly shouldn't be the fight
Speaker 2: of foggy headed, lefty, well meaning white Australians on Instagram
Speaker 2: who have no connection to the region but see images
Speaker 2: of devastation on their iPhones and think that it's now
Speaker 2: their calling to bang on constantly and become elatant, yeah
Speaker 2: about how terrible Zionists are and use the terms Ionists
Speaker 2: in ways that smell to most Jews like anti semitic,
Speaker 2: you know, like slander. So the point of the article
Speaker 2: was basically saying we have to find a way to
Speaker 2: talk about our Jewishness, the Jewish community, where we're not
Speaker 2: always carrying water for Israel. So when I said when
Speaker 2: I write, I probably if I write it again, Honestly, Mark,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't write that. I wouldn't write it's time for
Speaker 2: Jews who abandon Israel. But as you know, when you're writing,
Speaker 2: you've got these two competing needs. When you're writing, one
Speaker 2: is to be highly delicate and nuanced and explanatory and
Speaker 2: hedging everything you say so you can't possibly be misunders stood,
Speaker 2: and right in a very academic way.
Speaker 1: You annoyed with yourself. You're doing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and people it's boring. Nobody wants to read a thesis.
Speaker 2: The other need you have is to have people fall
Speaker 2: off their seat and go bloody hell. That punched me
Speaker 2: in the gut. I felt that, you know, I really
Speaker 2: felt that the audience, and so you know, I spend
Speaker 2: the whole art I spend eleven hundred and fifty words
Speaker 2: talking about what misguided hypocrites. I think that the anti
Speaker 2: Zionist movement is how they don't understand the history of
Speaker 2: that region, theyn't understand why there's a settlement. They don't
Speaker 2: understand why, I mean the settlements in the West Bank.
Speaker 2: They understand why there's an occupation. Most of them don't
Speaker 2: know about the Oslo Accords. They don't know about Yitzak Rabin.
Speaker 2: They don't know what happened in nineteen sixty seven. They
Speaker 2: don't know who invaded the West Bank. When Israel was created,
Speaker 2: it wasn't Israel, it was Jordan. They don't know who
Speaker 2: invaded Gaza when Israel was created. It wasn't Israel, it
Speaker 2: was Egypt. They don't understand why Israel is sitting on
Speaker 2: this land at all, because it was invaded by all
Speaker 2: of its Arab neighbor who wanted to either kill all
Speaker 2: the Jews or drive them out of the region. And
Speaker 2: then it won a military victory, which ordinarily means you
Speaker 2: get to keep the land.
Speaker 1: You don't just give it back that you know, you
Speaker 1: don't get the deal. That's the deal. You don't get
Speaker 1: to keep invading.
Speaker 2: They invaded in forty eight, the Arab States in sixty seven,
Speaker 2: in seventy three, and every time they want they want
Speaker 2: to go, you know, okay, we're going to wipe out
Speaker 2: all the Israelis and we're going to take back all
Speaker 2: the land for the Arabs, and then when we lose, oh,
Speaker 2: let's just go back to the starting place. No, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: that's not how wars work. You don't get to just
Speaker 2: keep declaring war against the people and then just say
Speaker 2: can we have a do over? So, you know, there
Speaker 2: was a huge history, and then you don't have to
Speaker 2: go to the nineteen nineties and the fact that the
Speaker 2: Nobel Peace Prize went to Yitzak Rabin and Shimon Perez
Speaker 2: and the Palestine leader for you know, really agreeing to
Speaker 2: a two state solution. Then the Israeli PM gets.
Speaker 1: Assassinated, but the Israelis continue.
Speaker 2: To try to figure out a way to divest themselves
Speaker 2: of these territories which they're occupying, which was supposed to
Speaker 2: be the Palestine land. And what happens then, you know,
Speaker 2: so they have Camp David in the year two thousand
Speaker 2: and Clinton gets together with Barak and the Palastinian leader
Speaker 2: of Bus and they make another offer, and the Palestinians
Speaker 2: walk away, and they launch what's acutely called the Second
Speaker 2: Intofada in the year two thousand, which really ramps up
Speaker 2: in the northern summer of two thousand and one. You
Speaker 2: see posters. Now that's say globalize the Intervada. Have you
Speaker 2: seen that on stickers and posters and stuff, people say,
Speaker 2: globalize the Innovada, meaning the Palsenian cause is our cause,
Speaker 2: you know, the Palasian cause is the Indigenousustralian cause. You know,
Speaker 2: it's about work, it's about fighting back against the white
Speaker 2: colonialist you know, structural patriarchy and global capitalist hegemony of
Speaker 2: like the military complex. Yeah, the colonizers. So the world
Speaker 2: is like bifurcated into these two very simple camps. You're
Speaker 2: either a colonizer zionist, you know, militarist, pro us imperialist
Speaker 2: white or you're an innocent, blameless person of color, colonized victim.
Speaker 2: It's victim or victimizer. It's colonized or colonizer. That's that's
Speaker 2: like this simplistic binary that you're supposed to accept about
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: The fact that the.
Speaker 2: Arab States have been pushing Islam at the end of
Speaker 2: a sword for centuries across the Middle East. The fact
Speaker 2: that the Jews had the Kingdom of King David thousands
Speaker 2: of years ago. The fact that when you dig up Israel,
Speaker 2: it's all Jewish archaeological stuff. The fact that if anyone
Speaker 2: was doing a welcome to country in the Middle East,
Speaker 2: in Israel, it will be the Jews doing the welcome
Speaker 2: to country in Israel. This is all sort of glossed
Speaker 2: over because of the atrocities that are being perpetrated by
Speaker 2: Israeli right now. Right now, people see that, they see
Speaker 2: a snapshot, and just as if you'd seen a snapshot
Speaker 2: of Hiroshima or the fire bombing of Dresden on your
Speaker 2: phone every single day. I mean, who would you think
Speaker 2: was the good guy in World War Two if every
Speaker 2: single day the Nazi, Yeah, the Nazis were feeding you
Speaker 2: all of the information about how horrible it was to
Speaker 2: live in Dresden. I mean, how would you continue to
Speaker 2: support that sort of a campaign. So there's this lack
Speaker 2: of historical Well, the second in fart just to stop
Speaker 2: on the point of Intafada, because you know a lot
Speaker 2: of people don't know this. First of June two thousand
Speaker 2: and one, vast majority of Israelis are behind the peace process,
Speaker 2: which has now been dragging on for seven eight nine,
Speaker 2: about ten years of trying to figure out a way
Speaker 2: to give the West Bank and Gaza back to the
Speaker 2: Palestinians and create a state and the major stumbling block
Speaker 2: is the question of the right of return of Palestinians.
Speaker 2: Right the UN when they set up you remember, end
Speaker 2: of the Second World War, countries are being created all
Speaker 2: over the Joint Refugees are all over the place. My
Speaker 2: grandparents are kicked out of you know, Poland, kicked out
Speaker 2: of Europe. They come set up here, huge flows of people.
Speaker 2: The Jews are being kicked out of all the Arab
Speaker 2: countries in the Middle East, and they're going to Israel
Speaker 2: because they're hoping that the country's going to be created,
Speaker 2: and it gets created, and there's a bit for Israel,
Speaker 2: and then to the east of that there's the West
Speaker 2: Bank and Gaza for the Arab population. They weren't called
Speaker 2: Palestinians yet they invented that nationality after you know, they
Speaker 2: were dispossessed from the land, and that was where the
Speaker 2: Arabs go. And then about a fifth of the population
Speaker 2: of Israel proper remain Arabs. They are Arab Israeli citizens, right.
Speaker 2: They enjoy equal rights to the rest of They're probably
Speaker 2: the best treated Arabs in the world.
Speaker 1: There's Arabs living in this the Arabs living in Israel.
Speaker 2: You know, if I gave you, if I suddenly click
Speaker 2: my fingers and said, all right, you're now an Arab
Speaker 2: and you don't know whether you're going to be rich
Speaker 2: or part of a royal family. You're just going to
Speaker 2: be an average citizen, right, You're just going to spin
Speaker 2: a You're going to roll the dice, and you could
Speaker 2: be anywhere in society at any level. You could either
Speaker 2: be poor or rich or whatever based on status.
Speaker 1: Whatever.
Speaker 2: You get to choose to be anywhere in the Middle
Speaker 2: East as the place. I mean, you're not going to
Speaker 2: choose You're not going to go to an Arab state.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course most and that by the ways of
Speaker 3: most people. Most people don't realize that Israel treats the
Speaker 3: Arabes who live there. Well, absolutely, I want to reframe it.
Speaker 3: It's not like they're treading will just there's no treing well,
Speaker 3: no turing bad.
Speaker 2: There's three citizens in a liberal democracy that's rich and
Speaker 2: in avery. So what do you do about the Arabs
Speaker 2: that are surrounding the place, Well, the instant Israel gets created.
Speaker 2: Instead of allowing the Arabs to form their own state,
Speaker 2: Jordan invades the West Bank and guyes We'll take that.
Speaker 2: And by the sixties what is now the West Bank
Speaker 2: is like a third of Jordan's economy and population. It's
Speaker 2: like a big thriving part of Jordan, and Egypt is
Speaker 2: sitting on the Gaza strip. So the reason why initially
Speaker 2: why there was no Palestine was because the Arab states
Speaker 2: didn't want there to be, because they wanted to keep
Speaker 2: the land for themselves. Then they got a bit greedy
Speaker 2: and tried to take over Israel completely in nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 2: and unfortunately for them, Israel won back those territories and
Speaker 2: then was like, well, what do we do with them now?
Speaker 2: And everyone in Israel basically thought we're going to have
Speaker 2: to help them create a Palastinian state at some point.
Speaker 1: The problem was every time they.
Speaker 2: Tried to broach the topic of creating a Palastinian state,
Speaker 2: every single Palestinian leader, including up until today, found it
Speaker 2: impossible to say that they don't have a right to
Speaker 2: go back to Tel Aviv and the original places where
Speaker 2: some of them came from. Some of them were born
Speaker 2: and raised in the West Bank, some of them born
Speaker 2: and raised in Gaza, but many of them can trace
Speaker 2: their ancestry back to what is now Israel proper, and
Speaker 2: as far as Israel's concerned that's not a fair deal.
Speaker 2: Nineteen forty eight was a weird time. It was a
Speaker 2: long time ago.
Speaker 1: So yeah, a lot of Palatinians are hanging around with
Speaker 1: like a key or on.
Speaker 2: It's a thing in Palestine to have a key hanging
Speaker 2: on a necklace around your neck to the house that
Speaker 2: you're great great grandparents came from in what is now
Speaker 2: some Israeli town saying like someday, someday I'll be able
Speaker 2: to return, and my romantic it's very romantic, and it's
Speaker 2: really sad, and my heart goes out to the Palastinian people.
Speaker 2: I mean, I am as devastated as anybody about how
Speaker 2: badly they've been screwed. I just disagree with the mainstream
Speaker 2: Palastinian narrative that the main cause of their being screwed
Speaker 2: is Jews. The main cause of their being screwed is
Speaker 2: the fact is the dysfunctional way that the Arab world
Speaker 2: has continued to inflame the Palestinian right of return, that
Speaker 2: someday we will go back to the sea, the Jews
Speaker 2: won't be here anymore. This kind of a lot of
Speaker 2: Arab autocrats and the Arab street and the jihadists and
Speaker 2: the Iranian Theocrats have a vested interest in promoting in
Speaker 2: whipping up this kind of anti Semitic.
Speaker 1: It's good.
Speaker 2: Well, it bonds them together, it gives them a common enemy,
Speaker 2: and it absolves them of the responsibility to do anything
Speaker 2: for the Palatinians. Right, they don't have to allow Katar
Speaker 2: just hosted the World Cup, right a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2: Who build all the stadiums. They shipped in people from
Speaker 2: Bangladesh to build the stadiums. Why don't they let Palestinians
Speaker 2: come and build the stadiums and send some money back home?
Speaker 2: Do you want to Why do you think that because
Speaker 2: they don't like I mean sad truth is, the Arab
Speaker 2: golf states don't like the Palestinians. They think they're gey hardists.
Speaker 2: They think they're trouble, they think they're lazy, they think
Speaker 2: they're dysfunctional, and they don't see a future in them.
Speaker 1: They see a.
Speaker 2: Future in oil money, tourism, opening up to the world,
Speaker 2: and ideally eventually being on the same side as Israel
Speaker 2: in the United States. They want to back winners, they
Speaker 2: want to back the stronghorse. The problem is the Hour
Speaker 2: of Street can't contemplate that. So the Arab leaders who
Speaker 2: are playing a double game, right the Arab leaders in
Speaker 2: the Golf States and in Saudi Arabia. Their attitude is
Speaker 2: keep talking a big game about how much we care
Speaker 2: about Palaestinians, but don't give them the ability. Don't give
Speaker 2: them any work visas to come and work here and
Speaker 2: send money back to their families in Gaza or the
Speaker 2: West Bank. Don't allow them to get citizenship or permanent
Speaker 2: residency in places like Lebanon, where tons of these refugees
Speaker 2: currently live, and they're stateless. They can't even travel Mark.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I've I've met people in Lebanon who asked them what
Speaker 2: nationality they are, and they say Palestinian. They have a
Speaker 2: Palestinian ID card, but they're not Lebanese. They don't have
Speaker 2: a passport, and as far as they're concerned, they say
Speaker 2: they're Palestinian. They've never been to the town that their
Speaker 2: great great grandparents came from. Their parents have never been there,
Speaker 2: their grandparents have never been there, and sometimes their great
Speaker 2: grandparents have never been there. But their home, deep in
Speaker 2: their heart, is still this town in what is now
Speaker 2: Israel proper. And they've been sold a lie by Arab
Speaker 2: leaders and by international aid organizations and by well meaning
Speaker 2: lefties around the world for sixty years that someday they
Speaker 2: will be able to return. And so the pickle that
Speaker 2: Israel has found itself in which it was trying to
Speaker 2: address is like we get this bit of land, you
Speaker 2: get that bit of land. We don't get to come
Speaker 2: and live in the West Bank or like Gaza, if
Speaker 2: you don't get to come and live on in Israel,
Speaker 2: like it's supposed to be two countries. And the inability
Speaker 2: to find a way to divest itself of the West
Speaker 2: Bank and Gaza has now led to Israel into what
Speaker 2: I think is this moral abyss, where it is running
Speaker 2: a military occupation in the West Bank, humiliating and degrading Palastinians.
Speaker 2: It continues to build settlements meaning towns, you know, just
Speaker 2: constructs Jewish towns on what is supposed to be Palatinian land,
Speaker 2: which is hardly a show of good faith that you're
Speaker 2: actually serious about a two state solution. And now it
Speaker 2: has taken the most brutal and militaristic approach to addressing
Speaker 2: the problem of having jihadists, you know, of having essentially
Speaker 2: terrorists running the Enclaven Gaza, where there seems to be
Speaker 2: no care for human life whatsoever or no proportionality.
Speaker 1: Now it seems that or you think that is the case.
Speaker 2: Well, look, I understand how tricky it is to talk
Speaker 2: about because as far as the Israelis are concerned, Look,
Speaker 2: israelis Rozrael Israel, as far as Israel is concerned. But
Speaker 2: I would have to say that now they are almost indistinguishable.
Speaker 2: I mean, I would say that ninety percent of the
Speaker 2: Israeli population is on board with the view I'm about
Speaker 2: to articulate, even if they don't agree with the Netanyahu government.
Speaker 2: They would say there used to be Israeli towns in Gaza,
Speaker 2: there used to be settlements, and we withdrew in two
Speaker 2: thousand and five and there was no blockade there. Israel
Speaker 2: was not stuff and around with Gaza at all. There
Speaker 2: was a full unilateral withdrawal. They ripped out. The army
Speaker 2: went in and ripped out, screaming Jews from Gaza, in
Speaker 2: order to say, you know what we're done, have it,
Speaker 2: take it, do what you want with it, guys, We're
Speaker 2: over having a military occupation. And that was a test
Speaker 2: case for the West Bank. There are a lot of
Speaker 2: people in the Israeli government at the time in two
Speaker 2: thousand and four to two thousand and five, who thought,
Speaker 2: the way we're going to do this is to withdraw
Speaker 2: from Gaza, and as long as that works, we'll just
Speaker 2: unilaterally withdraw from the West Bank and we won't keep
Speaker 2: waiting for them to accept our right to exist.
Speaker 1: They're never going to do it. They're never going to
Speaker 1: come around.
Speaker 2: Just build a big wall, leave side by side. The
Speaker 2: problem was the Prime Minister of Israel had a stroke
Speaker 2: and wasn't able to completely fulfill that. And the other
Speaker 2: problem was it was after nine to eleven George W.
Speaker 2: Bush and Connolly's a Ris the Secretary of State, and
Speaker 2: the United States were big on empowering the Arab world
Speaker 2: to be more democratic. They wanted to shake up of
Speaker 2: the Arab world. They thought the problem was too many
Speaker 2: Arab dictators, and so they were like, let's empower the
Speaker 2: Ghazan people by giving them a vote for who they
Speaker 2: want to rule them. And the Israelis were like, don't
Speaker 2: do that. They're going to just vote in a bunch
Speaker 2: of usholes who want to kill everybody. And they were
Speaker 2: persuaded otherwise by the international community and by the US.
Speaker 2: You know, let's create a democratic Gaza. Well, the Gazans
Speaker 2: have voted for terrorists. They voted for Hummus Humas. And
Speaker 2: once you've got this fully, I mean, I don't want
Speaker 2: to mince words here. People should not understand Hummas as
Speaker 2: anything other than an incredibly ragingly jew hating, murderous, genocidal
Speaker 2: death cult. I mean, this is not a you know,
Speaker 2: some people sort of think, well, it's you know, it's
Speaker 2: a it's sort of like Nelson Mandela or something like,
Speaker 2: it's a liberation struggle.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's that.
Speaker 2: It's not the plo I mean it is of course,
Speaker 2: of course, it is fueled by the frustrations of a
Speaker 2: people who yearn for freedom. But their freedom has not
Speaker 2: been deprived by Israel over the past since two thousand
Speaker 2: and five, their freedom has been deprived by the terrorists
Speaker 2: who are holding them hostage and by the Arab states,
Speaker 2: especially Qatar, who empower that. And I'll add by the
Speaker 2: cynicism of the Netanyahu government in facilitating that, because it
Speaker 2: sort of suited Israel's right wing government to have Hummus
Speaker 2: in power in Gaza, because it was a It meant
Speaker 2: it gave them an excuse to not pursue peace. Right
Speaker 2: they were like, well, we're not going to go negotiate elections, yeah,
Speaker 2: because we're war.
Speaker 1: No election.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, well, I mean of course they're not going
Speaker 2: to have elect I mean, hummus would never allow elections.
Speaker 3: Anym But also in Israel, so I see what sort
Speaker 3: of securities position.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean he'll have the elections that he's required constitutionally
Speaker 2: to have, but he doesn't have to. Yeah, he can
Speaker 2: call them at the time of his choosing, and it's
Speaker 2: when it suits him the best. So this is a
Speaker 2: long rambling way of saying that once you've got the
Speaker 2: death cult in charge, then Israel imposes a blockade because
Speaker 2: you can't have people who are obviously committed to I mean,
Speaker 2: they start getting money, right, Gaza starts getting money from
Speaker 2: the international community, and what does its government do with it.
Speaker 2: It doesn't build. It could have built Singapore with the
Speaker 2: amount of money it's gotten, could have built high rises,
Speaker 2: could have made itself a technology hub, could have dinailing
Speaker 2: with it. It builds the largest tunnel network in the
Speaker 2: world that it doesn't allow civilians into. It only allows
Speaker 2: its military into, and then uses its civilians as human
Speaker 2: shields and pawns. So again, this is a long round
Speaker 2: about way of saying they've rigged the game the Palestinian
Speaker 2: government in Gaza, such that anything that Israel does to
Speaker 2: get rid of them is going to make Israel essentially
Speaker 2: guilty of genocide in the eyes of the world. Like
Speaker 2: if your own government is committed to killing as many
Speaker 2: innocent people as possible in order to stay in power,
Speaker 2: then you're basically booby trapped the system such that your
Speaker 2: adversary has to do horrendous things in order to get
Speaker 2: you out of power. And the tragedy is that Israel
Speaker 2: is doing those things. Like I don't know whether or
Speaker 2: not you can classify it as war crimes or genocide
Speaker 2: or whatever. To me, there's a legalistic way that you
Speaker 2: can say that Israel is guilty of genocide by that yardstick.
Speaker 2: Hiroshimu was genocide. Lots of things that the West has done.
Speaker 2: Vietnam was genocide that were you know, because like genocide
Speaker 2: technically under international law, I think is just the the
Speaker 2: whole or partial like prevention of a people from being
Speaker 2: able to exist as a people. So if you think
Speaker 2: of the Gardens as a people, you'd have to say
Speaker 2: that that's the case, right, Their lives are being rendered
Speaker 2: intolerable to live as Garzens. But if, as many Israelis
Speaker 2: see it, you see the gardens as a shat upon
Speaker 2: rump of the wider Arab world, and there are half
Speaker 2: a billion Arabs living in the Middle East and just
Speaker 2: a few million Jews, then it's obviously.
Speaker 1: Not a genocide.
Speaker 2: Like I spoke to one Israeli member of parliament, former
Speaker 2: member of parliament on my show, and she was like,
Speaker 2: you know when it'll be like a genocide when there
Speaker 2: are half a billion Jews and only a few million Arabs.
Speaker 2: Like the population of Arabs and the population gardens, of
Speaker 2: the population of the West Bank of Palestinians in general
Speaker 2: is continuing to grow and grow and grow. And I
Speaker 2: think when people, when the lay person hears the word genocide,
Speaker 2: what they think it means, and what I think it
Speaker 2: morally means is the intentional attempt to wipe out an
Speaker 2: ethnic group, to wipe it out. And I don't think
Speaker 2: that's what Israel is doing. But I also don't think
Speaker 2: that as a Jewish Australian I should be expected to
Speaker 2: keep making excuses for a state that I think has
Speaker 2: become deranged by its own predicament as in Israel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and well, can I just go back on the garden,
Speaker 3: the Garden Hamas differentiation? How do you reconcile that this
Speaker 3: is part of the narrative? But innocent gardens innocent let's
Speaker 3: call Palestinians who have nothing to do with Hamas but
Speaker 3: nothing to do with the ruling party are being killed
Speaker 3: whilst Israel is trying to get rid of Hamas as
Speaker 3: the reigning sort of group in the organ within Israel. Man,
Speaker 3: how do we reckon sold that?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: You know, like I get the fact that Israel wants
Speaker 3: to get rid of mus I get it because, as
Speaker 3: you said, it seems to be the terrorist organization and
Speaker 3: they're intent on one thing, one thing alone, that's wiping
Speaker 3: out Israel or wiping out Jews generally, and israel I
Speaker 3: guess too.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, there's Palace.
Speaker 3: There are Gars, people living Gaza who've got nothing to
Speaker 3: do with any of that. At what point do we
Speaker 3: say that Israel's gone too far?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean that's the question, isn't it. That is the question.
Speaker 2: I don't know the answer to that. But you know,
Speaker 2: you start wars, you know, play stupid games, win stupid
Speaker 2: prizes mark the start a war, then your people die.
Speaker 3: But but you do see the unfairness because a lot
Speaker 3: of people in Palestine were a lot of Gazans at
Speaker 3: the time, willn't even know that October seventh is going
Speaker 3: to happen, that they weren't warned.
Speaker 2: No, that's I mean, that's what I'm so sympathetic to many.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm conflicted in two ways. Right on the
Speaker 2: one hand, I think they that gardens are basically hostages,
Speaker 2: hostages to a had used death cult, Hostages to the
Speaker 2: cynicism of Arab autocrats, hostages to the whole notion of
Speaker 2: jihadism as it's sort of perpetrated by the same kinds
Speaker 2: of forces that gave rise to ISIS And a lot
Speaker 2: of this is linked back to Iran and the theocracy there,
Speaker 2: and hostages of international The international community have always found
Speaker 2: Israel a bit unseemly in a way that they single
Speaker 2: it out for like the Unitedations has more resolutions against
Speaker 2: Israel than any other country in the world, I think
Speaker 2: than the next you know, ten or something combined, Like
Speaker 2: do we actually believe that it's actually more worthy of censure.
Speaker 1: Than North Korea? In Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 2: I mean, come on, what's going on is yeah, and
Speaker 2: you know, nothing it's done is even remotely approaches the
Speaker 2: atrocities of the next you know, worst fifty countries you
Speaker 2: know who don't who aren't censored. So israelis smell a rat.
Speaker 2: On the question of like, how many dead babies? Is
Speaker 2: too many dead babies? I kind of think it's the
Speaker 2: wrong framing in the sense that I think that implicit
Speaker 2: in the question about this, at least for me in
Speaker 2: the early stages of the war, is a belief that
Speaker 2: the Palestinian people, through their views, their community, their elected representatives,
Speaker 2: their arguments on the global stage, were deeply, deeply wronged
Speaker 2: by Israel, only wanted peace with Israel and were predictably
Speaker 2: going to do something outrageous in order to break out
Speaker 2: of the sort of open air prison that Gaza had become.
Speaker 2: And if you start from that starting point, then I
Speaker 2: would sort of say that almost no civilian casualty is
Speaker 2: worth the price. At the time, I was arguing that
Speaker 2: Israel should have done something like moved the entire population
Speaker 2: of women and children into the southern part of Israel,
Speaker 2: or maybe into the Sinai where Egypt is and create
Speaker 2: a huge humanitarian zone where they could be well treated.
Speaker 2: And then any military age male who remains in Gaza
Speaker 2: either let them either vet them and let them out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and forget about the hostage hostages.
Speaker 1: They're done.
Speaker 2: Sorry, you know you're not going to you know, this
Speaker 2: is the last time we bend over backwards and reward
Speaker 2: you for taking our hostages.
Speaker 1: This is it.
Speaker 2: It ends here, and just flood the tunnels or something,
Speaker 2: you know, just like go full there. There are strategies
Speaker 2: you can imagine that would have avoided the amount of ongoing,
Speaker 2: constant carnage that I think has been reputationally terrible and
Speaker 2: morally abysmal. But if you flip the script and you
Speaker 2: see Palatinians not as innocent, Like, here's an interesting thing.
Speaker 2: Mark tim Mitchell said this to me actually on my show.
Speaker 2: Notice who we give sympathy to, and notice who we
Speaker 2: give agency to, and it'll tell you a lot about
Speaker 2: our own prejudices and biases.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Notice who we.
Speaker 2: Give sympathy to, and notice who we give agency to,
Speaker 2: because we often overdo it. If there's a brown, poor
Speaker 2: person standing amid rubble, we give them all the sympathy
Speaker 2: and none of the agency. And if there's a white
Speaker 2: guy in a fancy suit, speaking perfect English, who is
Speaker 2: educated in an American university and who's in charge of
Speaker 2: a lot of expensive bombs, we give them all the
Speaker 2: agency and zero sympathy. And that's a fudge. Yes, the
Speaker 2: Palestinian child, it does not deserve to be in the
Speaker 2: situation they are in, so we can see. But their
Speaker 2: uncles and their grandparents have been complicit, or at least
Speaker 2: been manipulated by people who are complicit in a refusal
Speaker 2: to accept that any Jews have a right to a
Speaker 2: country in the Middle East, a country that was established
Speaker 2: under international law at a time when it was perfectly
Speaker 2: legitimate for them to live in the boundaries that where
Speaker 2: they were. And we've split ourselves into these two kind
Speaker 2: of narratives where imagine, like just to sort of try
Speaker 2: to amp up our sympathy for the people who most
Speaker 2: Australians regard as being the villains in this which is
Speaker 2: the Israelis, Imagine you bend over backwards in the nineties
Speaker 2: with a large majority of your population really wanting a
Speaker 2: Palacitian state, which they did, and the response you get
Speaker 2: is what's called the Second Intofada, which is. I think
Speaker 2: it was fifteen hundred drive by shootings in the space
Speaker 2: of a single year. So every other day you've got
Speaker 2: a bomb or a drive by shooting in your country
Speaker 2: at a time when you thought that you were on
Speaker 2: track for a peace process, you know, on the June
Speaker 2: the first in two thousand and one, the first bomb
Speaker 2: was at this nightclub on the beach, which was mostly
Speaker 2: high school students.
Speaker 1: That's the other thing.
Speaker 2: They were mostly targeting kids because they knew that would
Speaker 2: be the pressure point, the pain point. So imagine you're
Speaker 2: a parent who you know with fifteen or sixteen year
Speaker 2: old kids and they're out in Fitzroy and Melbourne, or
Speaker 2: in Newtown in Sydney, or in Fremantle in Perth and
Speaker 2: the pub that they're in it has a bally bombing
Speaker 2: style bomb and that happens two days later, and that
Speaker 2: happens two days after that. How many weeks or months
Speaker 2: of that do you need before you go, hang on,
Speaker 2: why are we doing the peace thing? What do they want?
Speaker 2: What is this all about? I thought we were talking
Speaker 2: to each other about. Oh, they don't want peace at all.
Speaker 2: They're timing these bombings to coincide with the peace talks.
Speaker 2: Because they want the whole Enchilada, And that's popular position
Speaker 2: in Palestine, It's a very popular position in the Arab world,
Speaker 2: and it's an increasingly popular proposition in Australia and the
Speaker 2: West that Israel is a shitty little country that shouldn't
Speaker 2: exist at all. Basically, it's kind of a colonial project
Speaker 2: and it was the Palestinians land all along.
Speaker 1: So if you're in Israeli, like, can we understand.
Speaker 2: Why they would elect a shitty little government like Netta
Speaker 2: Yahoo's And you know, they even went back to the
Speaker 2: drawing board after the second into Farda, and they tried
Speaker 2: in two thousand and eight. There was the biggest, most
Speaker 2: generous software that Omett put on the table, and the
Speaker 2: Palaestinians wouldn't take it because it didn't involve Palestinians moving
Speaker 2: en mass back into Israel and swamping the Jewish population
Speaker 2: because their great great great grandparents lived there. Like do
Speaker 2: the Jews get the right of the right of return
Speaker 2: if they left Iraq in the forties? Do the Jews
Speaker 2: get a right of return to Syria? Do the Jews
Speaker 2: get a right of return to Poland? The only people
Speaker 2: who get a right of return back to the places
Speaker 2: where their ancestors were displaced from. In this Palastinian worldview,
Speaker 2: the Palacinians in the West Bank and Gaza who get
Speaker 2: to demolish Israel basically demographically by coming in in their
Speaker 2: millions and millions and millions. What country in the world
Speaker 2: would tolerate that kind of refugee resettlement. What the Israelis want,
Speaker 2: understandably is their country and a Palastinian country. Now, I
Speaker 2: am super critical of Israel for being disingenuous about pursuing that,
Speaker 2: for having been conflicted about it, for maintaining a brutalizing
Speaker 2: military occupation in the West Bank, for continuing to build
Speaker 2: towns in the West Bank that make it seem like
Speaker 2: they're not really committed to a two state solution, for
Speaker 2: the brutality of the blockade on Gaza, which was understandable
Speaker 2: because a death cult was in charge, And for the
Speaker 2: way they prosecate prosecuting the war. And the point of
Speaker 2: my article was to say, we as a Jewish community
Speaker 2: have to be free from bullshit and brave in saying
Speaker 2: this state is not our state, it's not my state,
Speaker 2: it's not the state that my grandmother envisioned, it's not
Speaker 2: a state that's living up to the aspirations of what
Speaker 2: it means to be Jewish. To me, it's a state
Speaker 2: that has fallen into paranoia, bitterness and dehumanization. But it
Speaker 2: is a state that has a right to exist, and
Speaker 2: it is a state that is in a part of
Speaker 2: the world that persistently refuses to accept that right. And
Speaker 2: it is a state that is dealing with neighbors who
Speaker 2: it is occupying, who have persistently, with one voice, insisted
Speaker 2: that they have a right to come back to where
Speaker 2: their great great grandparents were born, a right that nobody
Speaker 2: else in the world gets. And so it's a bit
Speaker 2: bloody rich I feel for us to be dividing up
Speaker 2: our own society, for Jewish Australian parents to be worried
Speaker 2: about their children waiting at the bus stop because they
Speaker 2: could be identified as going to a Jewish school, for
Speaker 2: my dad's nursing home, to have put up big new
Speaker 2: security fences and bollards, or really, in the past twelve months,
Speaker 2: because some deranged jihadist might drive a truck bomb into
Speaker 2: a bunch of old Holocaust survivors. You say that's paranoia
Speaker 2: or you don't. No, I think that's legitimate legitimate. I
Speaker 2: think there is legitimate concern. I like that this is
Speaker 2: how toxic it has become. And I'm proud that I'm
Speaker 2: a member of a community where I can speak out
Speaker 2: and write a piece like I did saying this Israel
Speaker 2: doesn't speak for me. Where are the pieces by the
Speaker 2: Arab Muslim Australians saying that the Palestinian cause doesn't that
Speaker 2: that doesn't speak for them, but Hummas doesn't speak for them,
Speaker 2: that the idea of eradicate Israel.
Speaker 1: Why do you think?
Speaker 2: Do you think equally because of the tribalism factor that
Speaker 2: we were talking about before, and.
Speaker 1: I strongly tribal then say that, yes, yes.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 1: I think so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think Muslims as a rule, and
Speaker 2: I'll get a lot of shit for saying this. I
Speaker 2: think that the Muslim community, as a rule, it tends
Speaker 2: towards more conservatism, and tends towards closing ranks, and has
Speaker 2: been too apologetic for dysfunctional systems of government and for
Speaker 2: jihadism and for Islamism. Over the past twenty or thirty years,
Speaker 2: you know, there's been a kind of like, well, it's
Speaker 2: not our problem's got nothing to do with us. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, major Muslim institutions from Saudi Arabia have been
Speaker 2: spreading their version of salaphust Islam right throughout the world,
Speaker 2: across the you know, this kind of Wahabi extremism, or
Speaker 2: even across places like Indonesia. And I would like it
Speaker 2: if members of the community were more willing and more
Speaker 2: open to say like, no, no, no, no no. The
Speaker 2: things that are getting preached in lakember Mosque about you know,
Speaker 2: white people and Jews being pigs and Americans being imperialists Nazis,
Speaker 2: that's not that's ridiculous. And so I'm just trying to
Speaker 2: do my bit by saying, like, we have to find
Speaker 2: a way of talking about our ethnic communities in the
Speaker 2: diasprain places like Australia that does not hit us to
Speaker 2: the wagon of other countries or other agendas overseas. Do
Speaker 2: not import that kind of toxicity here, you know, like
Speaker 2: this is our country. Let's all get along with it
Speaker 2: and don't expect the Jewish community to endure, know, pain,
Speaker 2: discrimination and very real threats of violence, I mean very
Speaker 2: real threats of anti Semitic jew hating violence which people
Speaker 2: delusionally think is directed against Zionism, colonialism, imperialist aggression, but
Speaker 2: is really sort of an the latest incarnation of an
Speaker 2: ancient distaste.
Speaker 3: For the jew Did you think that's because one side,
Speaker 3: let's call it the Jewish side, much more distant through
Speaker 3: generations away from Israel, and the other side is not
Speaker 3: not as distant. In other words, they might have a
Speaker 3: parent here who's just come in from one of those
Speaker 3: countries that are anti Israel. Do you think there's somebody
Speaker 3: just to do with the sequence of time?
Speaker 1: Interesting? Could be?
Speaker 2: Could be also, I think, I mean the Israel thing
Speaker 2: is like the Jewish community, it's the oldest enduring ethnicity
Speaker 2: in the West five thousand years. Not from a physical no,
Speaker 2: I understand what we're saying. But the point that I'm
Speaker 2: making is Israel's existed for eighty years, less than eighty years, right,
Speaker 2: So no Israel existed in forty eight or in sixty seven.
Speaker 2: They took over Palestine right when they were invaded. So
Speaker 2: the Jews have had ninety eight point something percent of
Speaker 2: their history with no Israel. I mean, there was the
Speaker 2: ancient kingdom and all list of stuff like in prehistory,
Speaker 2: but I mean Jews are very familiar with not carrying
Speaker 2: water for Israel. Because it didn't exist for ninety eight
Speaker 2: percent of Jewish history. But I don't think that Muslims
Speaker 2: and Arabs have learned the skill of distancing themselves from
Speaker 2: the ideas of Arab nationalism and Muslim liberation that emerged
Speaker 2: in the twentieth century, Like these are reasonably recent things
Speaker 2: like this kind of extremists. You know, you go back
Speaker 2: a couple of centuries and Muslims weren't extremists. There's nothing
Speaker 2: intrinsic to Islam that is extreme. But I think partly
Speaker 2: as a result of oil and partly as a result
Speaker 2: of colonialism and whatever you want to attribute it to,
Speaker 2: there is a major dysfunction. Anyone who denies that there
Speaker 2: is a major dysfunction in the way that the Arab
Speaker 2: Muslim world articulates its sense of self is kidding themselves.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is the other thing about a Palestinian state.
Speaker 2: What Arab Muslim state are we thinking this Palasinian state
Speaker 2: will look like? That's going to be so great for Palatinians?
Speaker 2: Most anti Zionists can't answer that question for me. Point
Speaker 2: me to this great, well functioning state that says as
Speaker 2: rich and liberal and democratic as Israel, that's great for gays.
Speaker 2: That's great for women. Where is this place? And so
Speaker 2: we're going to create one more failed Arab Muslim state
Speaker 2: which is probably going to become a proxy for Iran,
Speaker 2: would almost certainly just become a place where for Iranian
Speaker 2: meddling the way the south of Lebanon is, it would
Speaker 2: become Asbola and much stronghold. So yeah, they deserve a state, absolutely,
Speaker 2: but let's not be dewy eyed about how magnificent everything
Speaker 2: would be if only Israel would get the hell you know.
Speaker 1: But what's your solution is, Josh? I mean, I'm not
Speaker 1: suggesting you have the solution, but I'm glad you asked
Speaker 1: because they have a point plan. No I don't. But
Speaker 1: where does it all end up?
Speaker 3: I mean for Australians are talking about not not not there? Right, yeah,
Speaker 3: because we are talking about here. So where what do
Speaker 3: we do? Is that politicians need to intervene? What what
Speaker 3: I mean? I know you have you intervened, but.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, I've intervened. Liked I would have liked to
Speaker 2: see stronger remarks about anti semitism earlier after October seventh,
Speaker 2: just to make it crystal clear from the Urban Easy government.
Speaker 2: You'll notice something interesting when we like when we talk
Speaker 2: about the about other forms of bigotry or prejudice or violence,
Speaker 2: we don't feel the need to add on a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of other forms of hate. But when people talk
Speaker 2: about anti Semitism, they never put a full stop after it.
Speaker 2: When people say, like remember the nurses who were who
Speaker 2: got into trouble for being on that zoom or where
Speaker 2: they were. You know, they were talking about how for
Speaker 2: Jew came in. They were in Israel, in Sydney and
Speaker 2: they were talking to in Israeli. Yeah, they're doing Israeli
Speaker 2: journeys social media guy. Yeah, so you know if a
Speaker 2: Jew came in, we wouldn't treat him. In fact, you know,
Speaker 2: Jews have come in and we've sent them to hell.
Speaker 2: So right after that, a parade of politicians at a
Speaker 2: state and federal level came out and said there is
Speaker 2: absolutely and the Nurses Association also released a statement saying
Speaker 2: there is no place in Australian society for anti Semitism
Speaker 2: or any other form of anti Muslim bigotry or ant.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, here on a second, if someone had
Speaker 2: said had been caught saying I want to kill all
Speaker 2: the Muslims, I wouldn't treat a Muslim. Would you come
Speaker 2: out and say, and you know this supposed it's like
Speaker 2: a white it's a neo Nazi, right, you know, kill
Speaker 2: all the Muslims. He's obsessed with Muslims. That's his one focus.
Speaker 2: It's all he cares about it. He doesn't talk about
Speaker 2: any other ethnicity. He's just going in on the Muslims.
Speaker 2: Would they come out and say there is no place
Speaker 2: in our society for hatred against Muslims or Jews?
Speaker 1: Of course they wouldn't know. Of course they wouldn't.
Speaker 2: There's a tacit understanding. I think in polite society throughout
Speaker 2: the West that there's something a little bit fishy about
Speaker 2: the bloody Jews. And there's certainly something a bit fishy
Speaker 2: about that bloody nuisance state of Israel, always you know,
Speaker 2: doing shit that we don't want it to and being
Speaker 2: mean to the power Sinians. You go to the Middle East,
Speaker 2: you talk to Palestenians, talk to Arabs, talk.
Speaker 1: To Jews, talk to Israelis.
Speaker 2: They are all much more on the same page about
Speaker 2: the nature of the problem than we are in Australia.
Speaker 2: Like I've spoken to Arab Israelis who were born in
Speaker 2: Palestine who are now Zionists because they're like, you don't
Speaker 2: get us, Like you don't understand us. We are very complicated,
Speaker 2: like meaning the Arabs, you don't understand us Arab Palestinians,
Speaker 2: Like we are a very complicated bunch, and we won't
Speaker 2: take yes for an answer, and like, you know, you
Speaker 2: have to, we have to be sort of massaged in
Speaker 2: a way. And I don't know if that's true or not,
Speaker 2: but I know that the conversations that they're having there
Speaker 2: are a lot more nuanced and sophisticated than this silly
Speaker 2: binary that we have over here where we try to
Speaker 2: superimpose all of our own white colonial historical guilt onto them.
Speaker 2: I mean, what's basically happens since October seventh. I think
Speaker 2: in countries like Australia and the United States, is white
Speaker 2: well meaning people have taken the burden of colonial that
Speaker 2: they feel guilty about.
Speaker 1: Them we're now very virtuous about it all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in relation to our own indigenous people, in relation
Speaker 2: to our own conflicted relationship to the British Empire and
Speaker 2: its misdeeds, and we're just superimposing that template onto a
Speaker 2: part of the world that we had no bloody idea
Speaker 2: how it's working, because it's complicated and messy, and there
Speaker 2: have been Jews and Arabs floating around that neck of
Speaker 2: the woods, bumping into each other. They know each other
Speaker 2: so well, so much better than anyone of us knows them.
Speaker 2: Let them sort it out. It's their problem, that's what
Speaker 2: That's the point I was trying to make in my peace.
Speaker 2: Israel Is for Israelis. It's not for the Jews of
Speaker 2: the world to make excuses for Palestinians and Arabs. They
Speaker 2: can all sort it out, okay. Don't allow the plight
Speaker 2: of one minority community of Arabs in the Middle East,
Speaker 2: the Palestinians who've been shot upon six ways from Sunday
Speaker 2: by everybody, by Arab states, who won't give them visas,
Speaker 2: who won't give them permanent residency, who continue to bolster
Speaker 2: Hammas and Jihadas like, let them sort that out. You
Speaker 2: don't have a duty as an hour of Australian to
Speaker 2: be defending Jihadis over there. You don't have a duty
Speaker 2: as an hour Australian to be standing up against your
Speaker 2: Jewish compatriots and fellow Australians because those Jews are somehow
Speaker 2: proxies for a state that they've never been to and
Speaker 2: don't have any control over abroad, Like, the last thing
Speaker 2: we want is to become a huge multicultural warring group
Speaker 2: of factions all representing our international obligations on the streets
Speaker 2: of Australia with some well chosen bomb synagogues or you know,
Speaker 2: or sucker punches to you know, people because of their
Speaker 2: own ethnicity and multiculturalism has worked really well in Australia.
Speaker 2: It's not screw it up by getting too obsessed about
Speaker 2: what's going on overseas.
Speaker 1: What do you think that?
Speaker 3: What do you think we get obsessed by what's going
Speaker 3: obsease in that particular region. We don't have a we
Speaker 3: don't have marches and protests and lots of media around
Speaker 3: what's going on, say places of Africa.
Speaker 2: Well, I think because of the colonialism thing. I think
Speaker 2: because of what I was just saying, which is that well,
Speaker 2: I think there are two big reasons. One is what
Speaker 2: I was just saying, which is that it's a it's
Speaker 2: a very neat template. I think sort of easier to
Speaker 2: understand it, much easier to understand, right, poor brown skinned person,
Speaker 2: you know, poor brown skinned people were living there doing
Speaker 2: their thing. Everything was idyllic, and then parachuting in from
Speaker 2: Europe were all these white Jews who came in and
Speaker 2: pushed them out and then were mean to them. This
Speaker 2: is completely ahistorical. Most of the Jews in Israel are
Speaker 2: from the Middle East. They were kicked out of other
Speaker 2: Arab states and they're you know, they're from that neck
Speaker 2: of the woods.
Speaker 1: There was.
Speaker 2: This was not a colonial project like the British in
Speaker 2: Africa turning up and take control of.
Speaker 1: The joint exactly without coming in from Turkey and Israel from.
Speaker 2: That area and when they were coming to a place
Speaker 2: for thousands and thousands of years. So it was you know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't It wasn't traditional colonialism.
Speaker 3: Coming from Georgia and Armenia and the families went in
Speaker 3: right right exactly.
Speaker 2: So I mean, in other words, it was a colonial
Speaker 2: you know, people will often say, well, they even talked
Speaker 2: about it as a colonial project. Yeah, Colonialism meant a
Speaker 2: slightly different thing in the thirties and forties, just sort
Speaker 2: of meant a benign you know, to the early Zionists,
Speaker 2: that meant a benign way of reclaiming the territory of
Speaker 2: their ancestors and creating something beautiful out of it, and
Speaker 2: they did create something incredible. I mean, it's it's it's amazing.
Speaker 2: It's to create this rich, democratic, technologically advanced country in
Speaker 2: a part of the world that is not renowned for that.
Speaker 2: Now I've just lost track of whorld was going. What
Speaker 2: did you just sar ask me?
Speaker 1: I said, why don't we not? Why don't we.
Speaker 2: Yah soth Africa? So there's that, there's there's that component.
Speaker 2: It's quite easy for us to look at that and go, oh, well,
Speaker 2: that rhymes with all of the colonial crimes that we've
Speaker 2: been complicit.
Speaker 1: And we can compartmentalize it. We understand.
Speaker 2: You know, rich white guy in suit with bombs bad,
Speaker 2: poor black person in rubble you know, a brown person
Speaker 2: in rubble good. That's simple, and that when we get
Speaker 2: to Africa it's much more complicated. Hang on, they're all black,
Speaker 2: they're all fighting each other, but they're sort of saving
Speaker 2: China going into into Africa. Why don't we talking about
Speaker 2: that manipulation that process?
Speaker 1: Yeah, good question.
Speaker 2: I mean the other thing, the second thing that I
Speaker 2: was about to point to is the way that social
Speaker 2: media algorithms work and the way that people with vested
Speaker 2: interests in this are able to rig social media. Like,
Speaker 2: let me just make one point here. You remember during
Speaker 2: when ISIS was a big thing in the War on Terror,
Speaker 2: and you know, Syria was collapsing and they so there
Speaker 2: was the first thing I remember going viral was the
Speaker 2: beheading of the Wall Street journal journalist Daniel Pearl beheaded
Speaker 2: live online. Then they and they started getting good, jee
Speaker 2: hardists at understanding social media, much better than clumsy governments
Speaker 2: like Israel's government and the United States, you know, where
Speaker 2: everything has to go through some marketing department or whatever.
Speaker 2: And this came to the sort of apotheosis of this.
Speaker 2: The ultimate incarnation that I can remember was those downed
Speaker 2: American pilots that they dressed up in orange jumpsuits. This
Speaker 2: is really ingenious. They would capture an American pilot. And
Speaker 2: this was a time when Guantanamo Bay was very controversial
Speaker 2: and there were inmates, you know, who were alleged jihadists
Speaker 2: who were dressed in orange jumpsuits at GITMO. They ordered online.
Speaker 2: ISIS ordered orange jumpsuits, dressed up the American pilots in them,
Speaker 2: locked them in cages in the desert, sprayed them with
Speaker 2: petrol and ignited them and we watched American pilots burning
Speaker 2: in cages in the desert dressed up as Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Speaker 2: That's ingenious and evil and like, that's villainous, but really
Speaker 2: shrewd right as far as manipulating public opinion. It suddenly
Speaker 2: makes Americans go, holy hell, is there a comparison between
Speaker 2: what they're doing what we're doing in Guantanamo Bay?
Speaker 1: Like how sav who are these people? Like?
Speaker 2: It's it's shocking. And there are deep connections between ISIS
Speaker 2: and Hamas and Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. They
Speaker 2: talk to each other sometimes these are the same people.
Speaker 2: They go back and forth, like, so, why are we
Speaker 2: focused a lot on Gaza? It's not entirely an accident.
Speaker 2: Every image that comes out of Gaza is tacitly approved
Speaker 2: by a ji hardest terrorist group, that is the government
Speaker 2: of Gaza, which has deep ties to ISIS style, you know,
Speaker 2: and a lot of sort of DNA and experience from
Speaker 2: jihadiest groups.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Some people say, oh, well, they are not approving every article,
Speaker 2: every image that comes out of Gaza. You can't dismiss
Speaker 2: all of the images that come out of Gaza. I'm
Speaker 2: not saying all the images are manufactured, what of you know,
Speaker 2: the atrocity is there. What I'm saying is if there
Speaker 2: was an image coming out of Gaza that showed the
Speaker 2: world that it's not quite as bad everywhere in Gaza
Speaker 2: and that maybe the Israelis are taking some care with
Speaker 2: some people, or that there are letter drops from aeroplanes
Speaker 2: which there have been, or draw knocks to make sure
Speaker 2: that the civilians are out of the building. How long
Speaker 2: do you think that citizen journalist would last at the
Speaker 2: hands of Commas if they if that material was getting out.
Speaker 2: So it's not that everything's fake, but it's that everything's
Speaker 2: one sided, right, and they're much better at playing that
Speaker 2: game of manipulating global opinion than the Israelis are.
Speaker 1: There's a terrible at it.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a something people should understand is there's
Speaker 2: actually quite a long standing Jewish philosophy that you don't
Speaker 2: explain yourself to other people, They're never gonna understand. It's
Speaker 2: this kind of paranoid Jewish thing of like, you know what,
Speaker 2: don't waste your breath, Like they're going to say they
Speaker 2: give a shit about you, and then when when it
Speaker 2: comes to crunch time, they're going to turn their backs
Speaker 2: on you. And they're not going to allow the boats
Speaker 2: full of Jewish refugees after the Holocaust to come and
Speaker 2: land in America anyway, And you're going to have to
Speaker 2: go back and you'll all be gassed. Spare yourself the hassle,
Speaker 2: Just go and bomb me round like pathetic marketing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: terrible marketing, terrible at marketing. They're obstinate people like and
Speaker 2: it's so easy Israel, you know, they're just like, they're
Speaker 2: clueless about it.
Speaker 1: So why do we care.
Speaker 2: So much about Garzara? And we don't care about the
Speaker 2: Chinese in Africa? A. We don't see anything on on
Speaker 2: screens about the Chinese in Africa, So it's not marketed. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not marketed. B The Africans aren't any good. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's nobody with a vested interest to make that a
Speaker 2: big issue, right, there's no equivalent of the Mullas in
Speaker 2: Tehran or you know, the leaders of Casbolo who want
Speaker 2: to make that an issue. And three it's complicated and
Speaker 2: difficult for us to understand. And it's difficult. We wouldn't
Speaker 2: spend a lot of time hovering over a video of
Speaker 2: that if it came up on as an Instagram reel
Speaker 2: would be like, wait, who's who are they? What are
Speaker 2: they doing? Maybe they like it doesn't fit into that
Speaker 2: neat template. So I think it's a it's a it's
Speaker 2: a sort of perfect storm. It's like the perfect media
Speaker 2: story for people who aren't terribly well informed about the
Speaker 2: issue to feel passionate and virtuous about.
Speaker 1: Well, I think there's been a for me.
Speaker 3: I haven't said much today because so I'm apart from
Speaker 3: having unbelievable talent sitting here, if you're in a cycle
Speaker 3: of this whole region, and I think this is a
Speaker 3: perfect explanation of at an intellectual level of the arguments,
Speaker 3: arguments I'm saying in plural, not one if everyone and
Speaker 3: against just the arguments. And I'd say to anybody listening
Speaker 3: to this today, thank you for listening. But I'd say, well, equally,
Speaker 3: get onto Josh's podcast Uncomfortable Conversations, because just go through
Speaker 3: the episodes and find something in there that might suit you.
Speaker 1: Because this is the sort of stuff that we here
Speaker 1: in Australia.
Speaker 3: We've got to resist being pushed by the traditional media
Speaker 3: to take sides.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, and there's a lot of partisanship in the
Speaker 2: mainstream press, not just.
Speaker 3: By the way on what's going on there on over there,
Speaker 3: but in relation to all these things that we've been
Speaker 3: trying to be divided on everything. Yeah, you know, and
Speaker 3: we didn't get tired to talk about Trump and or Maske,
Speaker 3: et cetera.
Speaker 1: But that maybe we live that for another day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that'd be great.
Speaker 2: And I should say, since you're directing people to uncomfortable conversations,
Speaker 2: if you if you're interested specifically in this subject and
Speaker 2: you want to hear me in real time with how
Speaker 2: I felt in the aftermath of October seventh. Then in
Speaker 2: December of twenty thirteen, I did like an hour and
Speaker 2: a half long monologue which was like one of the
Speaker 2: most passionate and heartfelt and I think articulate ways that
Speaker 2: I've ever done of trying to flesh through a complicated issue.
Speaker 1: Date again data It was.
Speaker 2: In December of twenty thirteen, and it was called why
Speaker 2: Jews Are Literally Nazis. Well, I had wanted to do
Speaker 2: a train headline, I think my own headline. Then I
Speaker 2: wanted to name half the episodes why Jews are literally
Speaker 2: Nazis and the other one why Muslims are literally terrorists.
Speaker 2: But you would get the same episode, but I couldn't
Speaker 2: figure out technologically how to release the same episode. But
Speaker 2: just to show people how binary and stupid we were
Speaker 2: all being, and how you click on one because you
Speaker 2: want because that reinforces your belief. But Jews aren't Nazis
Speaker 2: and Muslims aren't terrorists.
Speaker 1: We're all people. Wow, that's amazing. I'm going to go
Speaker 1: back to listen to that myself. Thanks good, Thank yoush.
Speaker 1: Great to be here.