Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff, your
Speaker 2: weekly podcast about how there's lots of bad stuff, but
Speaker 2: sometimes there's good stuff that usually exists in relation to
Speaker 2: the bad stuff. One of the good things that exists
Speaker 2: in relation to this bad world is my guest Matt Leeb.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm one of the good things.
Speaker 2: That's it's not going to feel extra awkward once we
Speaker 2: talk about what the subject of this.
Speaker 3: Now I'm excited, very excited.
Speaker 2: Yes, you are the host of the most moral podcast
Speaker 2: in the world, Bad Hasbro. Is that correct?
Speaker 3: That is correct? That is my new podcast, newish. I've
Speaker 3: started it, I think in late December. Yes, it is
Speaker 3: the world's most moral podcast. Badhaess Bara and you can
Speaker 3: check that out. We talked about Israeli propaganda. It's a
Speaker 3: lot of I would say it's a lot of fun,
Speaker 3: but you know, fun is one of those, you know,
Speaker 3: nebulous terms.
Speaker 2: One man's take a ton of things that are bad
Speaker 2: sometimes otherwise there's not really a lot available to us
Speaker 2: in this world.
Speaker 3: Otherwise it's just crying. And it's like, you know, sometimes
Speaker 3: you've got to have a different outlet for your emotions
Speaker 3: other than crying. Sometimes you gotta laugh, and that's what
Speaker 3: we try to do. It's a comedy podcast about Israel.
Speaker 3: What a time. You know. What's also actually interesting. I
Speaker 3: think I talked about this wanting to do this podcast
Speaker 3: the last time I was on this show.
Speaker 2: I think so too, because it was around It was
Speaker 2: just last December, I think you were last on.
Speaker 3: Yes, and I was just like, you know, I think
Speaker 3: I said something along the lines of, you know, oh, man,
Speaker 3: I just I wish I could do a podcast about this,
Speaker 3: and I've wanted to do it for years. And then
Speaker 3: one day, in the middle of the night in December,
Speaker 3: I was just like, market, I'm gonna just put an
Speaker 3: episode out.
Speaker 1: I get my idea is it's always in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night. Yeah, And I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: odd why I must do immediately.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's that's that's how I roll. I just like
Speaker 3: I get a spark of inspiration, and usually that sparks.
Speaker 2: And says, do you want to you know, live a
Speaker 2: decent life and inf case you have to make this show?
Speaker 3: That's right. Yeah. And most of my AD's in middle
Speaker 3: of night are like eat cinnamonto, scrunch or you know,
Speaker 3: but this time it was make a podcast, which is
Speaker 3: kind of like masturbating, but.
Speaker 2: Mine is usually I'm clearly dying if it's the middle
Speaker 2: of the night. I've actually learned to not take my
Speaker 2: body's messages to me seriously smalllywhere between about two am
Speaker 2: and eight am.
Speaker 3: That's that's honestly the best way to go about living.
Speaker 3: All of the messages your body gives you at that
Speaker 3: time of night are lies.
Speaker 2: Which there's like a non zero chance that I will
Speaker 2: die at some point of some horrible fever and I'll
Speaker 2: be like, no, I'm just anxious.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, no, it's not a heart attack.
Speaker 3: I'm just just yeah, exactly, I had a really spicy
Speaker 3: and then you die, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: My chest is always numbah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: The left side of my face is always droopy. You're
Speaker 3: going crazy, Matt.
Speaker 2: That's extra fun because the reason I feel terrible in
Speaker 2: the mill of the night right now is I'm recovering
Speaker 2: from oral surgery and one of the things is that
Speaker 2: like my face is a little bit numb, and like
Speaker 2: has been for a couple of weeks, and like, oh boy,
Speaker 2: we'll be hopefully for a little while longer and not
Speaker 2: like the rest of my life but it's like, I
Speaker 2: certainly signed a form that said your face might be
Speaker 2: numb for the rest of your life.
Speaker 3: I signed a form that says it is what it is. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but you know that or not? Yeah, but speaking.
Speaker 2: Not at all of I'm sure there's a way painful
Speaker 2: extract whatever. Today we're talking about Israel Palestine. We're actually
Speaker 2: not talking about Israel today because Israel does not exist
Speaker 2: at any point during what were talking about today.
Speaker 3: Wow, that is, first of all, so offensive, How dare you?
Speaker 3: Israel has always existed right in the hearts and thel's hearts.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yes, for the names of the people who
Speaker 2: were there who called the Palestine, but yeah, including the
Speaker 2: Zionists who called it Palestine at the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, including all of the reading material that was
Speaker 3: out there, the pamphlets and you know, the agit prop,
Speaker 3: all that stuff, but you know, in the hearts, it
Speaker 3: was there.
Speaker 1: We're going back to, like the Ottoman Empire.
Speaker 2: We are I'm going to talk about the Ottoman Empire today.
Speaker 2: I I mean, most of what we talk about not
Speaker 2: the Ottoman Empire. But I haven't had much of a
Speaker 2: chance to lock about the Ottoman Empire anymore before, so
Speaker 2: I'm excited listeners. Magpie is smirking very excited for Ottomans.
Speaker 2: I love the atom very interesting. We are headed back
Speaker 2: to the land where Monotheism was born, the land of Palestine.
Speaker 2: We're gonna talk about it's prehistory during the Ottoman Empire
Speaker 2: and all the resistance of settler colonialism that folks there managed,
Speaker 2: running up into the main topic of today, the Great
Speaker 2: Revolt of Night teen thirty six, nineteen thirty nine. Oh wow,
Speaker 2: When I say the main topic of today, I mean
Speaker 2: part of Wednesday, because really I'm just talking about all
Speaker 2: of roughly eighteen fifty to eighteen forty two.
Speaker 3: Right, we'll get there. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Originally I actually planned this whole thing as a resistance
Speaker 2: to the Knakba episode, which is later, you know, nineteen
Speaker 2: forty eight or so, But there's so much to talk
Speaker 2: about before that that that's a different episode one day. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we are going to talk about how Palestine was not
Speaker 2: an empty land, and how from the very start Palestinian folks,
Speaker 2: Muslim and Christian alike and together fought against the settler
Speaker 2: colonial project that was displacing and killing people everywhere it went,
Speaker 2: which means we're gonna talk about Zionism ooh.
Speaker 3: Subject, I've heard about this. I think you know, I've
Speaker 3: heard a thinger two, yeah, got some Thoughtsanism.
Speaker 2: In the grand scheme of things is a relatively new ideology.
Speaker 2: It shows up in the late nineteenth century, around the
Speaker 2: time that just a fuck ton of modern ideologies were
Speaker 2: being developed. And so sometimes when we're like, oh, zionism
Speaker 2: is brand new, it is worth understanding that, like everything
Speaker 2: is brand new in the nineteenth century. Yes, yes, the
Speaker 2: idea of like, let's be a nation is sort of
Speaker 2: a nineteenth century concept, which doesn't It's kind of hard
Speaker 2: to understand, You're like, well, clearly had states and governments
Speaker 2: before that, but nationalism is a new project of the
Speaker 2: nineteenth century. Zionism is of course a form of nationalism.
Speaker 2: Everyone is going to use the word nationalism differently. It
Speaker 2: had a fairly distinct meaning in the nineteenth century when
Speaker 2: the first wave of nationalism swept across Europe. In general.
Speaker 2: We have this flattened view of Europe as being the
Speaker 2: sort of colonial center, and that's fair, but in the
Speaker 2: eighteen hundreds it was more clearly itself also an internally
Speaker 2: colonized space. Various ethnic groups were part of countries that
Speaker 2: they or empires that they didn't want to be part of.
Speaker 2: They wanted self determination, which means in some ways they
Speaker 2: wanted nationalism. This was a common left wing position to have.
Speaker 2: It seemed like a very natural way to fight imperialism.
Speaker 2: I feel like there's like so many of these words that, like,
Speaker 2: I mean, like literally, once the Nazis happened, like all
Speaker 2: words change meaning for very yes.
Speaker 3: Yes, or more so like solidify in the public consciousness
Speaker 3: as a distinct thing that totally may or may not
Speaker 3: have been the initial definition of the word totally.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So you have, like, for example, kind of on
Speaker 2: the leftish I mean, that's right when people involved this too.
Speaker 2: You have Italian nationalism, you have Slavic nationalism, you have
Speaker 2: Irish nationalism, you have Siberian nationalism.
Speaker 3: Those are the.
Speaker 2: Examples I use because i've like specifically read about them
Speaker 2: doing research at various points for this show. All kinds
Speaker 2: of nationalisms associated at least as much with the left.
Speaker 2: But the left soon developed an ideological position that I
Speaker 2: would argue is a easier to support one. It's called internationalism.
Speaker 3: Whoa, I know, that's a crazy one. I know, what
Speaker 3: if nationalism before everybody.
Speaker 2: Basically yeah, yeah, let's still destroy empires, but unite people
Speaker 2: based on their class position rather than their nationality ethnicity,
Speaker 2: without erasing national differences or like ethnic differences. That's why
Speaker 2: it's internationalism, not single.
Speaker 3: Anti anti nation. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: From this point of view, you can view nationalism as
Speaker 2: a politics of class collaboration. It's basically it's like, hey,
Speaker 2: you poor Irish, you have the same interest as the
Speaker 2: rich Irish and they are different than the English right right,
Speaker 2: And from this point of view, the poor are used
Speaker 2: by useful idiots, by the local rich to get one
Speaker 2: over against the foreign rich. And I am not going
Speaker 2: to rabbit hole this as hard as I want to, yeah,
Speaker 2: because it doesn't totally relate with what we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about today a little bit. But so you have
Speaker 2: a split between international which developed kind of out of
Speaker 2: left wing nationalism, and in regular old nationalism. And a
Speaker 2: lot of this nationalism is very morally defensible. It is
Speaker 2: natural for an oppressed group to want to find national
Speaker 2: unity and drive out their foreign rulers.
Speaker 3: And it's natural for a group, especially minority ethnic group
Speaker 3: in a geographic space, to want to govern themselves and
Speaker 3: have the right to self determination. It's not an inherently
Speaker 3: reactionary position to.
Speaker 2: Have right exactly. And that's like one of the things
Speaker 2: that easily gets lost. And one of these nationalisms is
Speaker 2: called Zionism. This one is messy right from the start
Speaker 2: because the Jews who were developing this were largely a
Speaker 2: diasporic people. They're not the majority anywhere that they're living.
Speaker 2: A bunch of anti and non Zionist Jews were like,
Speaker 2: that's chill. Wherever we are is home, right, We've talked
Speaker 2: about that a bunch of times. But meanwhile, the Palestinians
Speaker 2: are also experimenting with nationalism. Naturally enough, they're living undern empire.
Speaker 2: Throughout the mid eighteen hundreds, you've got what's called proto Zionism,
Speaker 2: which is before anyone actually was using the word Zionism,
Speaker 2: but it mirrors the project that's going to come later.
Speaker 2: This founded the first colonies of Jews and Palestine. To
Speaker 2: be clear, this was not the first Jews in Palestine.
Speaker 2: It's the first distinct colony as like a separate thing
Speaker 2: that is outside the Arabic society. Yes, because there were
Speaker 2: tens of thousands of Jews living in Palestine already.
Speaker 3: Yes, they were called Palestinians. Yeah, exactly. That is an
Speaker 3: important thing to remember whenever someone claims Jewish personhood as
Speaker 3: being distinctly Israeli in the region. No Palestinians included all
Speaker 3: sorts of different ethnic groups, as Americans do, as the
Speaker 3: French do. Know, you know how we all used to
Speaker 3: be normal and remember these things.
Speaker 2: I know at Palestine's specifically we're gonn talk about a
Speaker 2: little bit later, But Palestine specifically it's national identity was
Speaker 2: very like, hey, what are the place that refugees show
Speaker 2: up to? Yeah, like you want to be Palestinian. That's cool.
Speaker 2: We have like some cultural things right about being Arabic
Speaker 2: and you know, but like, yeah, anyway, well we'll talk
Speaker 2: about it. Yeah, and in order to talk about it,
Speaker 2: we get to talk about the thing I want to
Speaker 2: talk about since I started the show because I didn't
Speaker 2: know enough about it, but I wanted to know more
Speaker 2: the Ottoman Empire. Oh yes, you like my vaguely Christian
Speaker 2: white American education. I did not know about the Ottoman Empire,
Speaker 2: like as an adult.
Speaker 3: No, completely, I had heard of it. I knew I
Speaker 3: knew of it. I think I at some point learned
Speaker 3: just enough to associate it with the the hat the fez. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I know. I was like, I know, a fez is
Speaker 3: part of it. I know, we're just talking about Turkey. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but that's that was pretty much all I knew about
Speaker 3: it for a long time until I probably like late college.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, honestly, until I started doing more research into
Speaker 2: history and for this show, I kept being like, why
Speaker 2: whenever I'm trying to read about cool vampire related things,
Speaker 2: why are they all fighting the Ottomans?
Speaker 3: Who are the Ottomans? Why do they keep bringing up
Speaker 3: this sold an empire that was just people putting their
Speaker 3: feet up on Ottomans? What does it mean? Yeah, there's
Speaker 3: an easy joke we all knew I was going to
Speaker 3: do eventually, because I can't help myself, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: So I knew about the Ottomans as the place that
Speaker 2: Eastern Europeans kept fighting and or being part of. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I also knew about it because I kept running
Speaker 2: across it as the place that queer Europeans fled to
Speaker 2: for sanctuary, because yeah, I didn't know that Ottoman Empire
Speaker 2: way the fuck more like gay and trans inclusive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Automan Empire more like Hotterman and.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly, or it's actually Automan it mean never mind, Yes.
Speaker 3: I got it, I got it.
Speaker 2: Ye finish, No, it's embarrassing. Okay, So the Ottoman Empire
Speaker 2: is this big fucking empire that was around for roughly
Speaker 2: six hundred years. That is more than twice a USA
Speaker 2: for people keeping track.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a long long time been around.
Speaker 3: I think the only I'm trying to think of an
Speaker 3: empire rival in terms of length of time maybe Holy
Speaker 3: Roman they were around for a while, yeah, different, you know,
Speaker 3: they ended what like it's after Napoleon or something like that,
Speaker 3: and started like charging.
Speaker 2: Again, confused honestly by the like difference between the Holy
Speaker 2: Roman and the original Roman.
Speaker 3: And then yeah, me too. No, yeah, for a long time,
Speaker 3: I was like, that's all the same thing, right, And
Speaker 3: then someone laughed at me and I said, no, I'm
Speaker 3: just kidding. I already knew. And then I read it Wikipedia, and.
Speaker 2: So I actually feel like this entire episode a little
Speaker 2: bit all of the stuff that I and I think
Speaker 2: a lot of other people had been like just kidding.
Speaker 3: I already knew.
Speaker 2: About like, oh yeah, we all knew about early Zionism,
Speaker 2: like totally, we all understand the way that And so
Speaker 2: I just was like, fuck this, I'm gonna like I'm
Speaker 2: going to be the idiot in the room and just
Speaker 2: like really try and learn all this shit. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: the Ottoman Empire is not the good guys, but they're
Speaker 2: not the bad guys compared to any other empire going
Speaker 2: around at the time. They did a bunch of genocides,
Speaker 2: which is famously not a good thing to do.
Speaker 3: Yeast that. Yeah, Yeah, the.
Speaker 2: Ottoman Empire was ruled from Turkey, and Turkey is not
Speaker 2: an Arab country, so you've also have Arab nationalism coming
Speaker 2: up at this time. That's like, hey, I speak Arabic
Speaker 2: and I'm not ashamed of.
Speaker 3: It, right right. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, over in England you have a reasonably active enforcement
Speaker 2: of the death penalty for dudes loving dudes. I know
Speaker 2: most about this in England, but I've also read about
Speaker 2: other people, Like there's like stories of like a frendship
Speaker 2: German people like going to you know, going to the
Speaker 2: Ottoman Empire in order to not be killed.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: In the Ottoman Empire an incredible amount of gender and
Speaker 2: sexual diversity being tolerated, and it wasn't until the westernizing
Speaker 2: influence of the nineteenth century that poets stopped openly talking
Speaker 2: about how great it is when ladies love ladies and
Speaker 2: dudes loved dudes. We covered, for example, the Russian Swiss
Speaker 2: adventuring Muslim cross dresser Isabel Aberhart, who traveled freely as
Speaker 2: a non passing man in North Africa in the nineteenth
Speaker 2: century in a different episode, And the first time I'd
Speaker 2: heard that story, I was like, how did she get
Speaker 2: away with it? And the answer is that, like gender
Speaker 2: and sex were understood differently at the time in that place.
Speaker 3: Damn, it's wild. I mean, you know, if only only
Speaker 3: we had had the CIA back then, then we could
Speaker 3: have overthrown the government. And so a little bit of homophobia,
Speaker 3: I know, get that started sooner. Let's get it started. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, bush here just wasn't born early enough. I
Speaker 3: always say.
Speaker 2: That's completely true, and everyone who lives in that region
Speaker 2: just also thinks that.
Speaker 3: If all think that, yeah, every famously think that.
Speaker 1: Es.
Speaker 2: Besides man and woman, there are gender expressions common in
Speaker 2: Muslim society and Automan society at this time. Sexual and
Speaker 2: gender permissiveness were part of these. Like Oreo and like
Speaker 2: Europe knew this. The Orientalist tropes were like, oh, they're
Speaker 2: all gay over there.
Speaker 3: Right, the most European phrase of all the time. Oh,
Speaker 3: it is everyone needs guy. Yeah, it was just blog
Speaker 3: seven six with blogs I don't know, and I totally
Speaker 3: am against it. So much does it cost to get there? Eh,
Speaker 3: I'm just going to take a quick vacation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are five different non binary gender identities and
Speaker 2: I did not have the time to get into them all,
Speaker 2: but if you want to, you should read gender and
Speaker 2: sexual Minorities in the Ottoman Empire on Wikipedia. Wow, sexuality
Speaker 2: was still illegal in the Ottoman Empire, but it wasn't
Speaker 2: enforced socially or criminally. And we are talking about a
Speaker 2: huge empire and six hundred years, so this is like
Speaker 2: roughly I'm going to go with roughly when I described this. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there was another group of people that came from Europe
Speaker 2: seeking refuge in the Ottoman Empire, away from the violence
Speaker 2: and hatred of the backwards, closed minded Christian zealotry of
Speaker 2: Western Europe.
Speaker 3: Scientologists closes not scientologists, ok no, No, it's Jews. Oh okay,
Speaker 3: oh that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not just the Jewish people born in the region,
Speaker 2: but Jews fleeing persecution from Europe. The Ottomans explicitly welcome
Speaker 2: Jewish immigration. Ashkenazi Jews came in large number in fourteen
Speaker 2: seventy after being kicked out of Bavaria, which is part
Speaker 2: of now Germany when the Alambra Decree in Spain in
Speaker 2: fourteen ninety two. The other bad thing that came out
Speaker 2: of Spain in fourteen ninety two, Yeah, which forbade practicing
Speaker 2: Judy and told folks either convert to Catholicism or get
Speaker 2: the fuck out. Yeah, a lot of people get picked
Speaker 2: get the fuck out.
Speaker 3: It's crazy that it's the same year as Columbus sailing
Speaker 3: the Ocean Blue. Like Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue and
Speaker 3: the Spain kicked out the ocean jew You know.
Speaker 2: That is the rest of the rhyme that people.
Speaker 3: People forget about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a rasure. Forty to one hundred thousand Sephardic
Speaker 2: Jews picked get the fuck out and headed over to
Speaker 2: the Ottoman controlled area, and then more non Zionist Ashkenazi
Speaker 2: Jews came over fleeing Pograms in Russia in the nineteenth
Speaker 2: century as well. Yeah, when they assimilated into the Ottoman Empire,
Speaker 2: they didn't have to give up their religion or culture.
Speaker 2: The Ottoman Empire was not a perfect liberal paradise. Religious
Speaker 2: minorities were given a great deal more freedom and autonomy
Speaker 2: than they had in most places in Europe. For example,
Speaker 2: they could have whatever job they wanted, which is a
Speaker 2: big thing that Jews couldn't do in most places in
Speaker 2: Europe at most times. But like a lot of like
Speaker 2: all non Muslims, Jews had to pay some kind of
Speaker 2: like weird taxes and have dress codes and only live
Speaker 2: in certain areas. Although people like to argue about how
Speaker 2: enforced this all was, I don't know if you knew this.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of propaganda.
Speaker 3: Around this period and how a thing or two about this,
Speaker 3: and propaganda and ret conning around Jews living in the
Speaker 3: Arab world for you know, a thousand years, and the
Speaker 3: amount of ret conning about how bad it was is
Speaker 3: is a subject that I'm very interested in, as it
Speaker 3: is usually brought up to justify some sort of you know,
Speaker 3: in vengeance thing going on. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so it's like I read people being like, well,
Speaker 2: the Jews were can only live in certain areas, but
Speaker 2: they weren't. They weren't like the bad areas like the
Speaker 2: Pale was in Russia right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when people talk about, you know, Jewish life in
Speaker 3: the Arab world during this period before and after, at
Speaker 3: least up into the establishment of Zionism, you hear among
Speaker 3: at least a lot of propagandas the word deemi a
Speaker 3: lot and I don't know, And it's basically their description
Speaker 3: of the second class citizenship status of Jews in the
Speaker 3: Arab world. And it's always brought up in this way
Speaker 3: to kind of justify a kind of generalized anti Arab
Speaker 3: sentiment amongst Jews, either in the region or just in America.
Speaker 3: They'll be like, you should hate Arabs because of that.
Speaker 3: And I just like to remind people Europe much worse. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so incredibly worse that bringing up Demiism or bringing up
Speaker 3: you know, just the way Jews were treated in the
Speaker 3: Arab world is just so clearly what about ism that
Speaker 3: I can't believe anyone takes it seriously.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know what people should take seriously.
Speaker 3: Ah, is it products?
Speaker 2: They should they should seriously consider whether or not they
Speaker 2: need a new car or whatever the.
Speaker 3: Hell a new car.
Speaker 2: I need a new car otherwise these ads second class
Speaker 2: citizen here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the newest car.
Speaker 2: I made Sophie make a face. I think. I think,
Speaker 2: I well, here's ads and we are back. And so
Speaker 2: in Palestine in general or in particular, this national identity
Speaker 2: that's starting to develop in the nineteenth century specifically focused
Speaker 2: on it being a place that refugees and persecuted people
Speaker 2: could come and be Palestinian, and a lot of it
Speaker 2: from the very beginning is like, we are religiously tolerant.
Speaker 2: That's our whole thing, and which is in comparison to
Speaker 2: the Ottomane were anyone who is not Muslim, and the
Speaker 2: Ottoman empires to pay all the taxes and have the
Speaker 2: same restrictions that Jews have. And there's a you know,
Speaker 2: huge Christian population in this area as well, but the
Speaker 2: national identity in the area was fairly limited. And this
Speaker 2: is the kind of thing that it's like it's easy
Speaker 2: to be like, oh, everyone always saw themselves totally as Palestinian,
Speaker 2: because that would be a very convenient way to write
Speaker 2: about a history. No one had nationalism until the mid
Speaker 2: nineteenth century. Palestine got it at the same time as
Speaker 2: everyone else. So when I say they got it recently,
Speaker 2: I mean so did everyone?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, And that's an important thing to point out,
Speaker 3: especially again if we're talking about ret conning. One of
Speaker 3: the things that Zionus propagandists like to do is to
Speaker 3: just talk about the non existence of Palestinians as a people,
Speaker 3: and they're like, the Palestinians as a people only became
Speaker 3: a thing, you know, like you know, recently, And it's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's the same thing with all forms of this modern
Speaker 3: nationalism that you're talking talking about. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: you can't claim Zionism existed at the beginning of time,
Speaker 3: just because it feeds your narrative.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Zionism about as old as nationalism, yes, exactly, a
Speaker 2: little bit newer than nationalism. Yes, a Palestinian would be
Speaker 2: more likely to identify with their family, their religion, and
Speaker 2: their immediate town or city far more than as a
Speaker 2: nation like kind of in that order, But again, so
Speaker 2: would everyone, you know, right, the Ottomans who controlled Palestine
Speaker 2: during the start of Zionism, they ruled it in classic
Speaker 2: imperial form. They weren't always super great to everyone, but
Speaker 2: by the mid nineteenth century, starting in eighteen forty five ish,
Speaker 2: as relates to land ownership, the Ottoman Empire is losing
Speaker 2: a lot of its power Britain started toying with the
Speaker 2: idea of Jewish colonies in Palestine. In eighteen forty nine,
Speaker 2: after pressure from some British Jews, the Ottomans relaxed the
Speaker 2: law against foreign Jews purchasing land, and the first settlement
Speaker 2: started in the eighteen fifties and eighteen seventies. So if
Speaker 2: you see the Jews are allowed to buy land now,
Speaker 2: it's like no foreign.
Speaker 3: People buy land now. Yes, there is a distinction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is the proto Zionism. The people didn't
Speaker 2: identify Zionis because that didn't exist yet. Some of them
Speaker 2: were still assimilating and learning Turkish and Arabic and all
Speaker 2: of that. But this is the start of the we're
Speaker 2: going to have separate and like we're going to be
Speaker 2: separate and autonomous within our colonies thing is starting to
Speaker 2: happen at this point. By eighteen fifty eight, the Ottomans
Speaker 2: started doing again the thing that everyone was doing in
Speaker 2: a bad way, transferring ownership of land out of communal
Speaker 2: hands and into private land available for sale. So people
Speaker 2: don't like talking about the enclosure of the commons as
Speaker 2: part of all this, but it's part of it. Suddenly
Speaker 2: a village didn't communally own its land, but individuals did.
Speaker 2: And this model has been used colonially all across the
Speaker 2: world to disenfranchise indigenous populations of land and then sell
Speaker 2: it off. I've or at least I've personally read about
Speaker 2: it hapening in Mexico and Ireland and the sort of
Speaker 2: internal colonization of England even.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can kind of extrapolate from just you know,
Speaker 3: reading a little bit of history, you can extrapolate that
Speaker 3: to the rest of history as well, especially during this era,
Speaker 3: especially you know, during the golden age of capitalism and
Speaker 3: private property.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Like what if we take everything out of
Speaker 2: because it's like I grew up kind of thinking like,
Speaker 2: well everything is owned by someone, right, yeah, same yeah, idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very new and and it is it is interesting
Speaker 3: that you kind of take for granted, like a lot
Speaker 3: of the kind of the I would say, like the
Speaker 3: capitalistic culture that we live in now, we just kind
Speaker 3: of assume is how it always was. This is why
Speaker 3: whenever someone you know talks about like, oh, you want
Speaker 3: to you want to live under socialism? Oh, I guess
Speaker 3: you don't. I guess you can't sell shirts. And it's like,
Speaker 3: do you think commerce didn't exist until capitalism.
Speaker 2: Exists, exactly.
Speaker 3: You know, commerce has been a thing, right, that's a
Speaker 3: whole different guy, bro.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. The idea of owning stuff, meaning that
Speaker 2: you don't have to work but instead can make money
Speaker 2: off of owning stuff. That is what capitalism is, yes, exactly,
Speaker 2: it is a different model.
Speaker 3: Yeah model.
Speaker 2: I recommend everyone read the book Debt by David Graeber
Speaker 2: for the history of money and anyway.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so suddenly a lot of farmers in Palestine are
Speaker 2: finding themselves tenants, and a lot of landowners are like, oh,
Speaker 2: fuck it, I've got all this land, I'll just sell
Speaker 2: it to the Zionists, right, And a lot of places
Speaker 2: were suddenly bankrupt, which means that the Ottoman state could
Speaker 2: confiscate their land and sell it Zionists. Well, once they
Speaker 2: started calling themselves Zionists, right, which they started doing in
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety. And it was in response on to the
Speaker 2: ethnic and religious hatred and violence faced by Jews and
Speaker 2: Christian dominated Europe. The idea is everyone else gets an
Speaker 2: ethno state, where's our ethno state? Right, the modern version
Speaker 2: being no one gets an ethno state. But you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was Zionism was immediately controversial within the Diaspric Jewish community,
Speaker 2: and people want to hear more about it. Listen to
Speaker 2: our episodes about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the Jewish
Speaker 2: Resistance de Zionism episode with me and Matt Leeb.
Speaker 3: That's right, it's a great one.
Speaker 2: Plenty of folks were in Desionism. They had a bunch
Speaker 2: of conferences, the first two in Switzerland in eighteen ninety
Speaker 2: seven and eighteen ninety eight. The ideological founder of this movement,
Speaker 2: not the coiner of the term, but the kind of
Speaker 2: patron of it, this guy named Theodore Herzel. He's a
Speaker 2: Hungarian Jew who in eighteen ninety six published a pamphlet
Speaker 2: called Der Hudenstadt the Jewish State. That's right, and he
Speaker 2: had already been thinking the shit over. We know what
Speaker 2: he wanted to do. In eighteen ninety five he wrote
Speaker 2: it in his diary, which is like, you go, how
Speaker 2: your like evil villain thoughts, don't put it in your
Speaker 2: fucking diary, Yeah, dear diary. Or one hundred and forty
Speaker 2: years later, someone's gonna.
Speaker 3: Yeah, dear diary. So I read about this new thing
Speaker 3: it's called colonialism. Seems pretty nifty, thinking about doing that. Well,
Speaker 3: that's all for now, yeah bye.
Speaker 2: He wrote, quote, we must appropriate gently the private property
Speaker 2: of the estates assigned to us. We shall try to
Speaker 2: spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment
Speaker 2: for it in the transit countries, while denying it employment
Speaker 2: in our own country. The property owners will come over
Speaker 2: to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the
Speaker 2: removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly,
Speaker 2: which is like just so clear from you know. And
Speaker 2: it's it's funny that no matter how many times like
Speaker 2: Hurtzel's own writings get brought up by people who are
Speaker 2: refuting some person online saying just you know, like it's
Speaker 2: how can it be settler colonialism if we're indigenous. It's like,
Speaker 2: can you read his writing and he goes like, we
Speaker 2: need to take the indigenous population and throw them into
Speaker 2: the sea and or into transit countries. And it's just
Speaker 2: like it's it's there in black and white, and it's
Speaker 2: this we're talking about the founder of modern Zionism saying
Speaker 2: the words, and you're just like, just like a different time,
Speaker 2: he didn't know how to take Yeah, no, he didn't
Speaker 2: yet know that in order to get you know, the
Speaker 2: narrative to play in a modern sensibility that he would
Speaker 2: later have to just change it to actually, we're indigenous
Speaker 2: and they're the colonizers because reasons.
Speaker 3: Yeah, why not?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he did it in public. I mean he's
Speaker 2: also saying right when he says, oh, the removal of
Speaker 2: the poor must be discreet, right, Yes, you're like, this
Speaker 2: is my evil villain thought. I hope no one notices, right,
Speaker 2: And so Jerusalem's on and off again. Mayor Use of
Speaker 2: Dia writes a letter to Herzel, and he's like, hey, buddy,
Speaker 2: I hear you trying to create Ethna state over here,
Speaker 2: but like, we.
Speaker 3: Kind of have our own thing.
Speaker 2: We're part of the Ottoman Empire's a bunch of people
Speaker 2: who live here.
Speaker 3: Sorry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And despite what Herzel had written in his diary
Speaker 2: in eighteen ninety five, you'd be shocked to know that
Speaker 2: we were back to Dia. He spoke about it differently,
Speaker 2: saying no, no, no, you don't understand. We'll make the
Speaker 2: country better and we totally won't kick anyone out. Or
Speaker 2: to quote him directly, you see another difficulty, excellency in
Speaker 2: the existence of the non Jewish population in Palestine. But
Speaker 2: who would think of sending them away? Not me?
Speaker 3: Certainly someone bad would not me though not me. Don't
Speaker 3: don't worry about it, Yeah, don't worry.
Speaker 2: A lot has been written about how early Zion has
Speaker 2: seemed to be incapable of referring to the indigenous populations
Speaker 2: of Palestine as Palestinians or even as Arabs, always just
Speaker 2: as non Jewish people, because the whole thing is that
Speaker 2: they're claiming that Palestine doesn't exist. Palestinians don't exist. They're
Speaker 2: just some non Jewish basically like squatters in what should
Speaker 2: be their territory, you know, oh, the Ottoman Empire, like
Speaker 2: put some people there, I guess, you.
Speaker 3: Know, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: This continues today. Nu Ginrich said that Palestinians were a
Speaker 2: recent invention, that they were quote in fact, Arabs. Mike
Speaker 2: Huckabee said, quote there's really no such thing as Palestinians.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, And it's just it's a constant refrain from
Speaker 3: anyone who is trying to deny not only you know,
Speaker 3: the rights of people to the land that they currently
Speaker 3: inhabit and or inhabited before they were ruthlessly ethnically cleansed. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but it's a way to also dehumanize them in a
Speaker 3: way where you go like, because you have no rightful claim, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, because I'm going to deny you personhood. You know,
Speaker 3: therefore your anger must come from another place. It's not
Speaker 3: because you want your home back and you literally have
Speaker 3: the key. It's because you hate Jews and and and
Speaker 3: it's also just incredibly racist in a way that should
Speaker 3: seem obvious to anybody, but like the kind of the
Speaker 3: idea that you can just take a group of people,
Speaker 3: you know, and steal their homes and go like, why
Speaker 3: don't you just move to places with all the other
Speaker 3: people like you, you know, like all the other Browns.
Speaker 3: As if like an Arab is just this heterogeneous whatever
Speaker 3: is it homogenous or religen homogeneous group of people. I
Speaker 3: never said I was smart, you know, as if they're
Speaker 3: they're all the same no matter where you go. And
Speaker 3: it's just like so incredibly right. And you see this
Speaker 3: and the again, and you know, I hate to keep
Speaker 3: bringing up propaganda and hasbara, but like you see this
Speaker 3: all the time and just kind of like the you know,
Speaker 3: even in their like political cartoons, you'll see you know,
Speaker 3: a Jewish person sitting on a chair that says Israel,
Speaker 3: and you know there's all these other chairs that say
Speaker 3: all the other Arab states, and a Palestinian will say, hey,
Speaker 3: you're sitting in my chair, and the implication of that
Speaker 3: cartoon being you can move to any of these other places,
Speaker 3: and it's like you're sitting. It is actually you took
Speaker 3: him out of a chair and he made that chair.
Speaker 3: You can't just be like, no, it's okay if you're
Speaker 3: a refugee, if there's someplace else, I think you look
Speaker 3: like you should live. That's just racist, bro right, And.
Speaker 2: I wonder, like how much because they're also even kind
Speaker 2: of doing that And now I'm completely just conjecturing, but
Speaker 2: like they're kind of doing that to themselves as Jews
Speaker 2: by being like, oh all Jews, Yes, all Jews belong here,
Speaker 2: one is all the same.
Speaker 3: Yes, that is And that is you know, part of
Speaker 3: the kind of like backdoor anti Semitism of Zionism, where
Speaker 3: you you know, you look at it as you know, oh, well,
Speaker 3: isn't it isn't it's got to be pro Jewish. It
Speaker 3: seems to be about a project of Jewish control and
Speaker 3: domination of the land of Palestine and you go like, yeah,
Speaker 3: but it also is completely race against every Jew who's
Speaker 3: not there, Yeah, and the Jews who are there too
Speaker 3: as being kind of like just all the same and yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I I said about my reading this week excited,
Speaker 2: just like I was like, Oh, all these books about
Speaker 2: resistance can be blow by blow revolutionary action, right, and
Speaker 2: there is going to be some of that. But I
Speaker 2: had to read more than one Palestinian author making the case.
Speaker 2: I understood why they had to make this case that
Speaker 2: in fact they were Palestinian, like they the author, right,
Speaker 2: and that's a thing they can be, and they can
Speaker 2: trace their lineage back centuries in fucking Palestine like they
Speaker 2: had to. I've never had to read a history book
Speaker 2: by someone who has to first prove that they're allowed
Speaker 2: to exist.
Speaker 3: Right, to justify to justify their own history, like not
Speaker 3: just not just like justify it, but like prove that
Speaker 3: it's real. Because of the amount of propaganda surrounding the
Speaker 3: idea of Palestine as a figment of the imagination of
Speaker 3: these wily Arabs who just hate Jews.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the the global implications of Israel was also
Speaker 2: intentional and clear from the start. The framing of the
Speaker 2: modern situation. Herzel wrote that the Jewish state would quote
Speaker 2: form a part of a wall of defense for Europe
Speaker 2: in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism.
Speaker 3: Yep. And these are words that to this day that
Speaker 3: are repeated by people, you know, both Israeli officials and
Speaker 3: people you know in the West talking about Israel as
Speaker 3: this outpost for quote civilization, quote Western civilization specifically. It's
Speaker 3: like that nothing has changed there except for like, it
Speaker 3: depends now who you're talking to as to whether or
Speaker 3: not you want to tell them that this is an
Speaker 3: outpost for the West, or if you want to tell
Speaker 3: them this is a gay haven for all right, you know,
Speaker 3: as long as they don't want to get married, right,
Speaker 3: as long as they don't want to get married there,
Speaker 3: anything like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the same shit, yep.
Speaker 3: And of course, famously, the Zionist Project wasn't even sure
Speaker 3: if they wanted Palestine. They floated at Argentina and some
Speaker 3: other places that they could colonize instead, but they did. Yeah, Uganda,
Speaker 3: they thought about you as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anywhere that had intentionous populations that they could right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the trouble with you know, colonization is like
Speaker 3: part of the deal is they're going to be people there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, weird, No, Tara Knollys, is that what
Speaker 2: you're saying.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying. You know, it's not this whole
Speaker 3: idea of land without a people for people, that a
Speaker 3: land not a thing.
Speaker 2: Huh. Well, if they had known that, they probably would
Speaker 2: have behaved very differently, because they certainly actedly it was
Speaker 2: without a land.
Speaker 3: No, they very much knew. And that's the most exactly
Speaker 3: intense part about the whole thing. Yeah, they very much knew.
Speaker 2: So before the BRIT's takeover. Well to Palestine at the
Speaker 2: dawn of the twentieth century under Ottoman rule was an
Speaker 2: agrarian society that was rapidly modernizing. New schools were opening
Speaker 2: all over the place. Ottoman state schools were opening, as
Speaker 2: well as religious schools started by both Christians and Jews.
Speaker 2: The overwhelming majority of Jews at this point are Palestinian Jews.
Speaker 2: I've read both that they were three percent of the population.
Speaker 2: I've also read like up to seven percent of the population,
Speaker 2: depending on which book I'm reading. I have never studied
Speaker 2: a subject for this that I've run across. More conflicting everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is, it is. I always just kind of
Speaker 3: take the average between the two.
Speaker 2: I know, so somewhere between three and seven percent of
Speaker 2: the population, yeah, which is a higher percentage than the
Speaker 2: percentage of the people in the US who are Jewish,
Speaker 2: which is two point four percent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, something like that. And then you know, in terms
Speaker 3: of the world's point two percent like.
Speaker 2: That, which kind of goes to say that you can
Speaker 2: have a culture and influence in your society with only
Speaker 2: three percent of the population.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah for sure. And it also is
Speaker 3: you know, I think there's an internationalist argument to be
Speaker 3: made too, for the idea of you know, eight people
Speaker 3: self doing self determination without stealing someone else's land, you know,
Speaker 3: not to say that, you know, obviously white American Jews
Speaker 3: don't benefit from like white supremacy. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: of course that is also the case, but yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the Palestinian Jews living in Palestine were largely
Speaker 2: ultra Orthodox and non Zionist. By eighteen ninety seven, these
Speaker 2: early Zionists and the Proto ones before them, they only
Speaker 2: had started nineteen settlements with a few thousands Zionist Jews,
Speaker 2: as compared to like. For example, Jerusalem in eighteen ninety
Speaker 2: seven had twenty eight thousand Jews. Electricity and roads and
Speaker 2: railways are starting to creep into Palestine. With modernization came
Speaker 2: greater centralization of power into the hands of a few rich,
Speaker 2: elite Palestinian families. This does not make the place exceptional,
Speaker 2: It makes it typical, especially for an Ottoman region. Yes, Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: popular struggle against Zionism is already happening on the ground.
Speaker 2: In nineteen oh eight, folks from the village Kafur Kama
Speaker 2: tried to get their land back and a bunch of
Speaker 2: anti Zionist newspapers got started in Palestine. And a lot
Speaker 2: of this resistance is essentially nationalist. It is also opposed
Speaker 2: to Ottoman rule. And you start having nationalist political parties.
Speaker 3: Right, and it's I don't know, and maybe you can
Speaker 3: tell me. But around this time is the kind of
Speaker 3: the birth Arab nationalism or is this proto Arab national
Speaker 3: It seems to be the beginning of Palestinian and Arab
Speaker 3: nationalism seem to be very intertwined, is the best as
Speaker 3: I understand, So I believe that these national parties are
Speaker 3: also you have Arab nationalism trying to get out from
Speaker 3: under Ottoman rule, right and like, and the resistance against
Speaker 3: Zionis those happening wasn't a we don't like foreigners or
Speaker 3: we don't like the Jews thing. It was a I
Speaker 3: was living here, but then the Ottoman centralized landownership, and
Speaker 3: so suddenly some rich assholes sold my land to foreign
Speaker 3: rich asshole, and now the Zionists are living in my house. Yeah,
Speaker 3: here and there. Sales to foreign Jews had started to
Speaker 3: be blocked, but Britain basically kept being like, no, you
Speaker 3: better let it keep happening, putting pressure on the Ottomans
Speaker 3: about it. But eventually the Ottoman Empire stopped all land
Speaker 3: transfer to feign Jews nearly twentieth century. Nineteen oh two
Speaker 3: or nineteen oh five, I don't know, I've read both.
Speaker 3: We'll say nineteen oh three and a half.
Speaker 2: Yeah, April nineteen oh three. Yeah, the Ottoman Empire was
Speaker 2: falling apart and fast. The Balkans and Libya fell out
Speaker 2: of its control in the nineteen tens, and then, of
Speaker 2: course famously the whole thing collapsed the.
Speaker 3: End of World War One.
Speaker 2: That's right, World War One hits the Ottoman Empire really hard,
Speaker 2: half a million people in the Empire starved. Between nineteen
Speaker 2: fifteen and nineteen eighteen, three million people die violently, mostly civilians,
Speaker 2: mostly Armenians, Assyrians and other Christians, facing genocide at the
Speaker 2: hands of the Ottomans. World War One reached Palisine itself
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventeen, with the British on one side and
Speaker 2: the Ottomans backed by the Germans and the Austrians on
Speaker 2: the other. The Ottomans cracked down hard on nationalism during
Speaker 2: the war. They started hanging nationalist leaders in the street
Speaker 2: because Arab nationalists were siding with Britain out of their
Speaker 2: mutual enemy, the Ottomans and the Ottomans were conscripting Palestinians
Speaker 2: to fight the war. The Allies, slowly, through shelling from
Speaker 2: coast and trench warfare, invaded Palestine and they conquered it.
Speaker 2: Much like you can be the conqueror of these ads.
Speaker 2: Whatever they're selling. If you buy it, you have conquered it.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's what money does. It conquers. I'm going to
Speaker 3: go conquer myself some double cheeseburgers at some point. I'm hungry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, me too, probably need a snack during
Speaker 2: break between recording and they didna yet. But here's the ADS.
Speaker 3: And we're back.
Speaker 2: So did you know that if the British Empire tells
Speaker 2: you a thing that you can't always trust that they'll
Speaker 2: do what they say they'll do.
Speaker 3: I refuse to believe that the British have never lied.
Speaker 3: They've only accidentally told a falsehood.
Speaker 2: They sometimes tell the truth when they say we're going
Speaker 2: to do a really bad thing.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's most of the time.
Speaker 2: So in nineteen sixteen they said they told a lie,
Speaker 2: which is that they made promises to the Arab nationalist
Speaker 2: leaders across the Arab world, basically being like, hey, we've
Speaker 2: got your back, don't worry, help us against the Ottomans,
Speaker 2: will totally give you independence.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: But then on November two, nineteen seventeen, the British Secretary
Speaker 2: of State for Foreign Affairs, a man known to history
Speaker 2: as Arthur James Balfour Balfall, made what was known as
Speaker 2: the Balfour Declaration. Now, I wish I could do a
Speaker 2: British accent, I can't. I reclaire basically on the name
Speaker 2: of my good family, His Majesty's government. I literally, if
Speaker 2: I had a gun to my head and had to
Speaker 2: speak British, I'd be like, oh, and then hope.
Speaker 3: For the best.
Speaker 2: Is a message from the Queen. Let's figures at the
Speaker 2: social scene. As long as this is a crass song,
Speaker 2: I can do it.
Speaker 3: That's great.
Speaker 2: Thanks. Anyway, His Majesty's government view with favor the establishment
Speaker 2: in Palistine of a national home for the Jewish people,
Speaker 2: and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement
Speaker 2: of this object. It being clearly understood that nothing shall
Speaker 2: be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights
Speaker 2: of existing non Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights
Speaker 2: and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. Yeah,
Speaker 2: a lot of take.
Speaker 3: On those words. Those words very important, very very important.
Speaker 2: One you can don't be afraid of, I believe you
Speaker 2: call them full stops over there. Don't be afraid of
Speaker 2: ending a sentence and starting a new one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, just go for it.
Speaker 2: I was going to say that they were right about
Speaker 2: the ballfour decoration, but actually no, that's all lies too.
Speaker 2: They don't nothing shall be done to prejudice the civil
Speaker 2: and religious rights of existing non Jewish communities in Palestine.
Speaker 2: That is not what's going to happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Well they also nothing will be done to
Speaker 3: not prejudice the civil rights. Yeah, it works both ways.
Speaker 3: The point is nothing will be done and eventually we'll
Speaker 3: leave and then yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, notice that there's no mention of Palestinians or Arabs
Speaker 2: once again. Yeah, non Jewish communities. Yeah, yeah, that is.
Speaker 2: And I think it's also important to point out there
Speaker 2: too that like the lobbying done on behalf of the
Speaker 2: you know, early Zionists in you know, uh, Britain was substantial,
Speaker 2: at least the very much in comparison to the completely
Speaker 2: non existent Arab lobby of trying to lobby the British
Speaker 2: to you know, to not do that. Yeah, and uh.
Speaker 2: And it's also important to like, if you look at
Speaker 2: early Zionism from not from the perspective of like today's
Speaker 2: like modern Israeli, but from the perspective of a a
Speaker 2: rich European guy going, oh, I'm gonna call me up
Speaker 2: some land there, then it all kind of makes a
Speaker 2: lot a lot more sense. And I think it's like
Speaker 2: you can put it in a perspective that you completely understand,
Speaker 2: as opposed to kind of this like I don't know
Speaker 2: the view of the Proto or the early Zonus is
Speaker 2: kind of being we kind of put like a modern
Speaker 2: spin on it as like they were all necessarily, you know,
Speaker 2: doing it for these reasons of leftist self determination. And
Speaker 2: this is not the full story. No, that's a good point.
Speaker 2: A lot of these, a lot of the initial like hey,
Speaker 2: even like the proto Zionis stuff is like a specific
Speaker 2: millionaire will be like, hey, Autumnus, can I please buy
Speaker 2: some stuff?
Speaker 3: You know? Right? Yeah, yeah, we're doing a thing. Let
Speaker 3: me buy some air.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so people have said that the UK did
Speaker 2: this because they loved Jews and wanted a homeland for them,
Speaker 2: or that they hated Jews and wanted them out. I
Speaker 2: think that the iron wall to keep out the barbarians
Speaker 2: is the motivation here. That seems to be the the
Speaker 2: one that makes the most sense to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I you know, I think there's a lot
Speaker 3: of like there's a lot of reasons why Zionism was
Speaker 3: appealing to like the non Jewish European population, and I
Speaker 3: think it includes all these things, you know, And but
Speaker 3: you have to remember that like as much as the
Speaker 3: British were and you know, probably still are kind of
Speaker 3: anti Semitic, you have to remember that they were also
Speaker 3: you know, coming at this from a point of view
Speaker 3: of like, you know, they were also incredibly Orientalists and
Speaker 3: the amount of you know, you know, the devil you
Speaker 3: know versus the devil you don't know, I suppose, And
Speaker 3: so they weren't looking at you know, the arab As
Speaker 3: like a better option than the Jew totally they were.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and with one sentence, that guy fucked over the
Speaker 2: entire region, if not world, and doomed it to conflict
Speaker 2: for at least the next century.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was uh, you know he cut
Speaker 3: his teeth where Oxford.
Speaker 2: He had been named Bloody Balfour after his five years
Speaker 2: of ruling England's first colony, Ireland.
Speaker 3: Oh there we go, well, well, well.
Speaker 2: And it was his government that had written the Act
Speaker 2: in nineteen oh five that kept Jews from Russia fleeing
Speaker 2: Pograms from settling in the uk Ah.
Speaker 3: This is a fun guy. Yeah, you can tell, you know,
Speaker 3: Bloody Balfour. I think I was right when I said
Speaker 3: the British or a little anti Semitic a was right.
Speaker 2: And the comparisons I I already knew why, like Ireland
Speaker 2: and Palestine like get along and throw down together. But
Speaker 2: after researching this period in particular, I'm like, oh, I
Speaker 2: really got it. Yeah, it's like pretty immediately they're like,
Speaker 2: all right, well, we're we just kind of lost Ireland.
Speaker 2: Let's move all of this literal same people over, the
Speaker 2: black and tans, over to Palestine and start sucking up
Speaker 2: people there too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, and then you see, you know a lot
Speaker 3: of Hey, that black and Tan idea seems pretty smart. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, and kind of like once the state of
Speaker 3: Israel is established.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Britain held Palestine after the war, before nineteen twenty two.
Speaker 2: This is an informal occupation, but right away they started
Speaker 2: working directly to help the Zionists, and right away the
Speaker 2: Palestinians started getting together to try and resist. And the
Speaker 2: main form of resistance in this very early stage of
Speaker 2: British rule were these Muslim Christian brotherhoods. Folks were like,
Speaker 2: it is unite or fail, so they work together. They
Speaker 2: used a cross within a crescent as their symbol. It
Speaker 2: gets so fucking heartwarming, like they would have religious tolerance
Speaker 2: and multi faith acceptance was has been a part of
Speaker 2: that Palestinian national identity since the very beginning. And there's
Speaker 2: all of these accounts, both from back then and now
Speaker 2: about like Christians reciting the Muslim call to prayer, Muslims
Speaker 2: presenting at Christian events, and along the way, at least
Speaker 2: in the beginning of all of this, they worked to
Speaker 2: make sure that the hatred of Zionist Jews did not
Speaker 2: spill over into Palestinian Jews. The First Palestinian Congress of
Speaker 2: February nineteen nineteen included in its anti Zionist manifesto a
Speaker 2: welcome to those Jews quote among us who have been Arabicized,
Speaker 2: who have been living in our province since before the war.
Speaker 2: They are as we are, and their loyalties are our own.
Speaker 2: I think the solidarity gets real messy throughout the twentieth century,
Speaker 2: and I've read at least that since the creation of
Speaker 2: the Israel nineteen forty eight, that the solidarity was broken
Speaker 2: and that the Palestinian.
Speaker 3: Jewish identity gets rare or non existent. Oh, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 3: essentially non existent. And it's like, you know, it's one
Speaker 3: of the sad things about the whole thing is because
Speaker 3: you know, you you see the pull of you know, Zionism,
Speaker 3: and just like the Jewish nationalism is being I mean
Speaker 3: it's not. It's it's hard to resist. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: especially once the conflict starts becoming this constantly increasing cycle
Speaker 3: of violence, and as it becomes more and more clear
Speaker 3: among the you know, Palestinian population that you know, this
Speaker 3: is what they're going to do, that the Zionists are
Speaker 3: going to take over, and and yeah, so it is
Speaker 3: it's very sad. You maybe you found something, but I've
Speaker 3: I've yet to find a heartwarming story of Jewish resistance
Speaker 3: to Zionism within Palestine.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's only the like individual stories like what
Speaker 2: we talked about last Deceummer. There's actually one story that
Speaker 2: I for this part, but it got caught because I
Speaker 2: did not get to the Nakba for this week's episode.
Speaker 2: There's a story about one of the the the niece
Speaker 2: of one of these like main militia leaders of who
Speaker 2: later became a very important I forget his name, but
Speaker 2: one of the big Zionist assholes behind the Knackba. When
Speaker 2: they're planning to invade Yafa, which is one of the
Speaker 2: big and most important fights in the Nakba, his niece
Speaker 2: escapes and goes into Palestine to go tell one of
Speaker 2: the women leaders of one of the like all women's militias,
Speaker 2: the chrysanthemum flowers to be like, hey, they're coming. And
Speaker 2: along the way she like rips her leg open really
Speaker 2: bad on barbed wire and has spent like three days
Speaker 2: living with this woman like recovering before she can before
Speaker 2: she can go home. But that's like, that's all I
Speaker 2: got for heartwarming stories during that time.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Yeah, it's such a bummer. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: if you're looking for, you know a lot of those
Speaker 3: heartwarming stories, you really have to look towards like internationalists,
Speaker 3: Jews and totally you know, Europe and Russia and whatnot.
Speaker 2: I'll still take Christian Muslim solidarity too, you know.
Speaker 3: I like it. It's great. I just you know that
Speaker 3: there's there's a part of me that's just like, why
Speaker 3: is nationalism so appealing them? It's just power now, yeah,
Speaker 3: you mean we will be the privileged class. Yeah, all right. Yeah, And.
Speaker 2: These cross religious alliances set about to systematically prevent the
Speaker 2: foreign occupiers from claiming it was a religious issue. Specifically,
Speaker 2: when the British put a Zionist in charge of the region,
Speaker 2: Palestinians resigned from government positions from the British government, you know,
Speaker 2: the local thing in protests in protest of that, and
Speaker 2: they also went on strike. There was petitions, protests spread
Speaker 2: and most of these protests started off nonviolent and symbolic,
Speaker 2: and they were met with bullets by the British, and
Speaker 2: a lot of ways you can kind of say that
Speaker 2: the cycle of violence of actually starts with the British
Speaker 2: killing nonviolent Araba protesters. But students and peasants and tribal
Speaker 2: leaders and Christians and Muslims and are all protesting alongside
Speaker 2: one another. Sometimes they're being gunned down at funeral celebrations
Speaker 2: by the British. They're not entirely nonviolent. Of course, armed
Speaker 2: resistance to the settlements is ongoing, as is the expulsion
Speaker 2: of Palestinians from their homes that are sold out from
Speaker 2: underneath them. Tens of thousands of people are homeless in
Speaker 2: this period. They are like forced out of their homes
Speaker 2: in this period. Meanwhile, the Zionists are forming defense organizations
Speaker 2: and changing all the land ownership laws and shit like that,
Speaker 2: like basically just putting themselves into all the local government
Speaker 2: positions in order to make everything work out for them.
Speaker 2: And as you pointed out, at this point, people still
Speaker 2: don't know, Oh, they're trying to take over completely. You
Speaker 2: know that's going to come in the mid thirties. Then
Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty two, Britain gets handed the country more
Speaker 2: formally by this brand new thing, the League of Nations,
Speaker 2: which is later it becomes the UN, and the region
Speaker 2: becomes known as Mandatory Palestine. This is a perfect example
Speaker 2: of the stuff that I would always like not and
Speaker 2: be like, oh, I totally knew it. Mandatory Palestine means yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know what you mean. It's like like they ha, yeah, yeah, stuck.
Speaker 3: This Palestine is mandatory. Yeah, it will be on the test.
Speaker 3: If you do not do this Palestine, you will be
Speaker 3: fired or something like that. I don't know.
Speaker 2: After World War One, this new League of Nations created
Speaker 2: a mandate system that was supposed to kind of be
Speaker 2: an anti colony in which colonial forces were supposed to
Speaker 2: act as stewards of local administration. I'm going to use
Speaker 2: a lot of supposed to here. Non annexation of the
Speaker 2: territory and developing the territory for the benefit of its
Speaker 2: native people's were core to the ostensible purpose of these mandates.
Speaker 2: It didn't work that way anywhere, not just in Palestine,
Speaker 2: it was by and large the usual colonial administration, just
Speaker 2: dressed up a bit to be like, oh, we're like
Speaker 2: the anti colonial administration that still tells me what to
Speaker 2: do and shoots too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But in Palestine it's extra funny because the people it
Speaker 2: from the gate was supposed to represent and care for
Speaker 2: was the Zionist project, not the Palestinians. These Class A mandates,
Speaker 2: which included Palestine, I think this is all of the
Speaker 2: Arab the former Ottoman areas are supposed to be under
Speaker 2: a mandated occupation until they were ready to stand alone
Speaker 2: as their own nation. Which is funny because everyone kept
Speaker 2: saying that Palestine doesn't exist as a nation, even though
Speaker 2: like it was mandated to become one.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And also, you know, like on the passport of
Speaker 3: many of Palestine's first prime ministers, Yeah, it'll show their
Speaker 3: face and their name. Where are they from Palestine? Yeah.
Speaker 2: The mandate for Palestine included the ball four Declaration verbatim.
Speaker 2: It went on to erase the connect of the non
Speaker 2: Jewish people from the land entirely. So as much as
Speaker 2: I hate the British, it was the League of Nations
Speaker 2: that really handed Palestine to the Zionists. Formally, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: that goddamn League of Nations. They didn't do shit anyway.
Speaker 2: Now they're the reason Hitler.
Speaker 3: Or something probably.
Speaker 2: Have a mostly I can slightly more than not okay,
Speaker 2: what I do instead of totally just nodding along when
Speaker 2: people talk about things that I don't know all about
Speaker 2: is I'll know like one thing about that thing, so
Speaker 2: I'll be like, yeah, oh yeah, And the League of
Speaker 2: Nations was totally responsible. Now I can't think ofbout anything
Speaker 2: off the top of that, but yeah, they like didn't
Speaker 2: stop Italy from colonizing somewhere.
Speaker 3: Also, I also nod along, and I just and I
Speaker 3: just go uh huh. I also knew that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's always yeah. I was born knowing that absolutely,
Speaker 2: and most of the Ottoman Empire was carved up to
Speaker 2: mandates of France and the UK. Saudi Arabia and Yemen
Speaker 2: were independent, and at least Saudi Arabia, I just like
Speaker 2: literally don't have the research about Yemen. A least Saudi
Speaker 2: Arabia was given this independence by Britain and was therefore
Speaker 2: pretty beholden to the UK. So the other Arab countries
Speaker 2: weren't really in the best position to immediately support any
Speaker 2: resistance to the British mandate. The Arab people of these
Speaker 2: other nations supported it, but the institutions of power felt
Speaker 2: like their hands were tied. Immediately in Palestine, general strikes breakout.
Speaker 2: Most of the rebellion was what you would call popular struggle,
Speaker 2: like mass direct action, rather than armed struggle. Even the
Speaker 2: British knew it. To quote author Mason B. Kimsea from
Speaker 2: the book Popular Resistance in Palestine, the British admitted in
Speaker 2: private correspondence that the Arab leadership was pushing for popular
Speaker 2: resistance and resisting calls for armed rebellion. But by nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty two, this early resistance fell apart. After the failure
Speaker 2: of the nineteen twenty to nineteen twenty two revolt, the
Speaker 2: Palestinian resistance took on a more muted character. Instead of
Speaker 2: demanding independence, folks were like, well, how about some representation
Speaker 2: and change to some of the laws that currently say
Speaker 2: that Zionists get everything. This didn't work. And I read
Speaker 2: two different Palestinian historians talking about this next period in
Speaker 2: the nineteen twenties, and they wholly disagreed about what happened.
Speaker 2: Like fundamental like ones anyway, I think because popular struggle
Speaker 2: isn't noticed as much by history because it's not attached
Speaker 2: to a political party, ideological position, or like a set
Speaker 2: of ruling families. But both of these historians, who disagreed
Speaker 2: about what was happening, agreed on one point. During the
Speaker 2: crucial period of nineteen twenty to nineteen thirty five, resistance
Speaker 2: was hampered by the fact that Palestine, left over from
Speaker 2: its rule by the Ottomans, was set up very hierarchically
Speaker 2: and patriarchically, so that institutions of power that they built
Speaker 2: were centralized and non democratic. This left it vulnerable to
Speaker 2: a split between the elites and the general public, and
Speaker 2: between one set of elites and another. Top down institutions
Speaker 2: like this, according to these Palestinian historians, very vulnerable to
Speaker 2: divide and conquer of an empire. Yeah, the Zionists started
Speaker 2: to build a specific Jewish controlled sector of society, like
Speaker 2: an economic sector of society, under the slogan a Vota
Speaker 2: evrett or Hebrew labor. A lot of the early Zionists
Speaker 2: were leftists or called themselves such I hate gatekeeping, but
Speaker 2: I might keep them on this.
Speaker 3: This is this is one of those things where you
Speaker 3: can't help yourself, but gatekeep a little bit just because
Speaker 3: you're just like, I don't know how you can you know,
Speaker 3: do the I am a socialist thing while at the
Speaker 3: same time, you know, knowingly taking part in acts that
Speaker 3: include well, ethnic cleansing.
Speaker 2: Here is where I am not about to call them Nazis.
Speaker 2: Sure they were national socialists. They were nationalists and socialists
Speaker 2: they were not. When they go together, it means something
Speaker 2: different in different content testes. Yes, yes, But once they'd
Speaker 2: come to Palestine to join the Zionist project, they dropped
Speaker 2: solidarity along class lines instead of national lines, which was
Speaker 2: the overall internationalist and leftist project to set up labor
Speaker 2: unions that advocated for Hebrew labor and for having its
Speaker 2: own working class, not even work alongside Arab workers. So
Speaker 2: it wasn't even just like the only represent the Jewish
Speaker 2: workers and specifically the Zionist ones, not the Arab ones
Speaker 2: or whatever. It's like an entire which is of course
Speaker 2: class collaboration because they're working with the bosses to make
Speaker 2: sure that no Arab people are hired. Right anyway, So
Speaker 2: I'm going to gate keep them on their socialism a
Speaker 2: little bit, yeah, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: For being that racist, yeah, and it's yeah, it's hard
Speaker 3: not to do. And I also, you know, like this
Speaker 3: is the thing about also at the time, the general
Speaker 3: popularity of the idea of socialism and the way it
Speaker 3: can so easily turn into like just your regular average
Speaker 3: Western chauvinism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, yeah, totally. And so a ton of
Speaker 2: capital came in from abroad to support this separate Jewish
Speaker 2: economic sphere. This was like basically how they colonized. I mean,
Speaker 2: they were buying land and setting up colonies right in
Speaker 2: settler colonialism, but by creating this entirely separate economic sphere,
Speaker 2: they're buying up land everywhere they can. By the mid
Speaker 2: nineteen thirties, the separate sphere is more economically powerful than
Speaker 2: the Palestinian economy, despite Jews being a very small minority population.
Speaker 2: Still and this we don't interact with the Arabs thing.
Speaker 2: This absolute non integration policy is what so clearly distinguishes
Speaker 2: the Zionists as a settler colonial project, rather than people
Speaker 2: fleeing religious persecution who are, like right, hoping to keep
Speaker 2: their religion and culture some autonomy wherever they land. One
Speaker 2: group did try to do actual leftism for a couple
Speaker 2: decades the Palestinian Communist Party sick. It started off primarily
Speaker 2: Jewish and anti Zionist, it allowed both Palestinians and Zionists
Speaker 2: in and it was actively recruiting Arabs. By nineteen forty three,
Speaker 2: the sort of internal contradictions within it were just too much,
Speaker 2: and it split into pro Zionist and anti Zionist factions,
Speaker 2: which honestly makes sense. I could imagine just being like,
Speaker 2: we tried a certain type of political pluralism.
Speaker 3: But y'all are Zionists. It's not working. It's a hard
Speaker 3: thing about a big tent. You know. It's like, you know,
Speaker 3: I kind of some clowns out. Yeah, exactly what democratic
Speaker 3: party doesn't work either, you know, the big tent. We want,
Speaker 3: you know, people who like abortion and people who want
Speaker 3: women all to you know, be second classes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, big ten. Yeah exactly. There's like there's certain lines
Speaker 2: that are too far, you know. There is like even
Speaker 2: if the ten is open sides, there's still people who
Speaker 2: are on the opposite hill.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. Yes.
Speaker 2: During the nineteen twenties, it was still in vogue to
Speaker 2: talk positively about colonialism, so the Zionist and Palestine were
Speaker 2: really blunt about it being a colonial project. Yep, this
Speaker 2: revision of zionist guy zeb Zabatinsky was really mask off
Speaker 2: about it to the point I think where like other
Speaker 2: people were like a little bit like, hey, you keep
Speaker 2: keeping could you put your mask back up?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: He wrote basically is like, well, of course they're going
Speaker 2: to fight back. They're colonized people. Like he honestly looked
Speaker 2: at the situation and was like, Oh, all the following
Speaker 2: bad things are going to happen, but we're the good guys,
Speaker 2: and I don't care.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sorry, it's Jabatinsky. Okay, yeah, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why, as he said, quote Zionist colonization can
Speaker 2: pursue and develop only under the protection of a power
Speaker 2: that is independent of the native population, behind an iron
Speaker 2: wall which the native population cannot breach.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just there.
Speaker 2: I know, one hundred years later, they're just describing, Hey,
Speaker 2: this is what we're gonna do, you know, like starting
Speaker 2: to that diary entry in eighteen ninety five where he's like, Oh,
Speaker 2: we're gonna kick out all the pores, and and.
Speaker 3: There's just there's just so much revisionism when it comes
Speaker 3: to the you know, the founders of Israel and the
Speaker 3: founders of Zionism, where you just like people act as
Speaker 3: if Zionism was the movement to uh make a gay
Speaker 3: haven in Tel Aviv.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's just like it it's not what that is.
Speaker 3: It's like this, it's just so it's it's just it's
Speaker 3: so insane to believe the amount of people who have
Speaker 3: just bought into this stuff. And you just especially when
Speaker 3: you read Jobatinsky, because this guy was just a open
Speaker 3: races and like kind of hated Jews. Like if you
Speaker 3: read some of the quotes from this guy, just so
Speaker 3: you can feel the resentment of Jews, like you feel
Speaker 3: him not believing, like not being radical in that for what, No,
Speaker 3: that Jews need to be remade as a people, that
Speaker 3: Jews are a weak people, that Jews are essentially just
Speaker 3: built wrong and they need to be rebuilt into this
Speaker 3: you know, militant desert people.
Speaker 2: Okay, So is this the guy behind the like because
Speaker 2: there was the attitude of like, yeah, Jews being like
Speaker 2: small and weak, and so then there's this like masculinization
Speaker 2: of Jews where like, no, we are big and strong
Speaker 2: and patriarchal and totally don't listen to our mothers anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yes, and is also the like ideological founder
Speaker 3: of like the La Coute party and uh, you know
Speaker 3: which is like the right wing party that you know
Speaker 3: net and Yahoo is a part of in Israel. Like
Speaker 3: you know, this is this is this is their guy.
Speaker 3: And you just like just the way that people kind
Speaker 3: of ret coon early Zionism to be nothing. But like,
Speaker 3: you know, just it's all these Jewish refugees. We're just
Speaker 3: like we're just trying to live here. Don't hurt us Arabs. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and you just read the writings of Jabutinsky or you know,
Speaker 3: you you read anyone from this period who was taking
Speaker 3: a leadership role in the colonization of Palestine, and they
Speaker 3: are saying, let's go colonize Palestine. And even you know,
Speaker 3: you talked about the letter to Yusuf Dia or like
Speaker 3: Yusuf DA's letter to Hertzel and his you know Hertzel's
Speaker 3: letter back. He's using all the same tropes that any
Speaker 3: colonists has said about why we it is good for
Speaker 3: us to colonize an indigenous people's land. It's like no,
Speaker 3: we're gonna bring We're gonna bring culture, yeah to these
Speaker 3: savage Yes, we're they're you know, this is this will
Speaker 3: be good for them, this will you know this, this
Speaker 3: will trickle down economics.
Speaker 2: Them essentially, which is like, ugh, so interesting about because
Speaker 2: he's saying that to them while he's privately being like,
Speaker 2: I don't care about them. They're gonna get nothing, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: And which is even then, you know the rich are
Speaker 2: saying when they say that things are going to trickle
Speaker 2: down to us, they know it's not. They just don't care.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, they just you know, if it'll it'll if
Speaker 3: it'll buy them some time, yeah, then they'll do it.
Speaker 2: And so throughout the nineteen twenties, Zionists are moving to Palestine,
Speaker 2: they're buying up land, they're displacing people everywhere, and they're
Speaker 2: talking about openly as a colonial project. And for most
Speaker 2: of the time, the Palestinian elite are busy asking the
Speaker 2: British really nicely for things to improve, which was and
Speaker 2: this will shock you entirely ineffectual. When I say the
Speaker 2: Palestinian elite, I don't mean like, ah, he's like rich.
Speaker 2: I mean on some level, I'm saying, like the rich
Speaker 2: people in this society, but it's like they're not the
Speaker 2: powerful people in the society. At this point, Zionis are
Speaker 2: already the powerful people in society. The historians are writing
Speaker 2: about it this way to distinguish between sort of the
Speaker 2: working class and the popular revolt that is happening. And
Speaker 2: all of this sets us up for the next large revolt,
Speaker 2: the al Barock Uprising, which we will talk about as
Speaker 2: well as the Great Revolt of nineteen thirty six on Wednesday.
Speaker 3: Oh all right, stick around for the exciting conclusion of Palestine.
Speaker 3: I know, sorry, they're in satisfying.
Speaker 2: There is so much beautiful resistance that happens during all
Speaker 2: of this time, and it's like, and it's so interesting
Speaker 2: to me how different researching this has been from a
Speaker 2: lot of what I researched wards a lot of the
Speaker 2: exact same stuff, like trade union's doing a general strike,
Speaker 2: and like, all of these things are happening. Because of
Speaker 2: the dense cloud of propaganda that people have to work through.
Speaker 2: It's harder to just come in with the beautiful adventure story,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, it's harder to come in and just
Speaker 2: be like hell yeah, and this guy took to the
Speaker 2: hills and got grenades and blew up. People were trying
Speaker 2: to kill him, you know, which is going to happen
Speaker 2: in the next story, but there's not.
Speaker 3: Oh hell yeah, I'm stoked on that. But you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: it is and it's interesting too. You know, I'm obviously
Speaker 3: not a historian, and I all of my history book
Speaker 3: reading is via audiobook, but you know it is. I
Speaker 3: do find it fascinating the amount of kind of like
Speaker 3: conflicting information that you find and kind of retelling this story.
Speaker 3: And I feel like that is one of the things
Speaker 3: about this particular story is you've got to fight through
Speaker 3: a lot of revisionism and misinformation. And that's why people
Speaker 3: like jab Atinski for me, is just an interesting fella
Speaker 3: because of his kind of revision to scionism and whatnot.
Speaker 2: You can go to the direct sources, you can read
Speaker 2: the primary sources. It's all recent enough at least for
Speaker 2: that at least for them someone they believe.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, yeah, but it's got to be on
Speaker 3: audiobook for me to read.
Speaker 2: I am no. I actually do all my fiction reading
Speaker 2: now on audiobook form because I have to do so much.
Speaker 2: I have to do so much reading for these podcasts
Speaker 2: that I can't use audio for it, and it's like
Speaker 2: hard Like actual books, you've got a high I have
Speaker 2: to be the person to translate these things into other things.
Speaker 2: I'm like, this is the best job anyone's ever had.
Speaker 2: My job rules, Yeah, it's pretty sick. I hang out
Speaker 2: with my dog and I read history books. But if
Speaker 2: people like getting information in an audio format and are
Speaker 2: concerned about the dense fog of propaganda around this issue,
Speaker 2: do you have any them?
Speaker 3: I have one suggestion. Listen to Bad Hasbara, the World's
Speaker 3: most moral podcast. It is a weekly sometimes twice weekly
Speaker 3: podcast where it's a comedy podcast where me and my
Speaker 3: sometimes co host Daniel Matte and our huge array of
Speaker 3: guests go through some Israeli propaganda and make fun of
Speaker 3: it because oh my god, do they think we're that stupid?
Speaker 3: And it's a lot of fun. It's a very cathartic podcast. Then,
Speaker 3: you know, the more people I get to listen to it,
Speaker 3: the more I can live like a life like yours
Speaker 3: in which I could just stay at home reading history books.
Speaker 3: And you know, I don't have to have you know,
Speaker 3: ten jobs the way I have now, So please listen
Speaker 3: to it.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you that.
Speaker 3: Please.
Speaker 2: The secret to live in the high life off of podcasting. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's living in West Virginia mortgage is less than you're
Speaker 2: like anyone I know's rent.
Speaker 3: But I.
Speaker 2: Mean it's wonderful here. Everything, everything's great, Okay, but yeah,
Speaker 2: and I've been I've been listening to your podcast while
Speaker 2: building out my van. Actually it's been a good h
Speaker 2: and So it's a personal seal of approval and we
Speaker 2: will buy it back on Wednesday, talking about this again.
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.