Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, this is it could happen here and I'm
Speaker 2: your guest host, Matt Leeb. I'd say most of you
Speaker 2: probably know me from Robert and Sophie's podcast Behind the Bastards,
Speaker 2: which you know I've become kind of notorious for the
Speaker 2: time that I use a jar jar beank soundboard during
Speaker 2: a series about doctor Mangela. Yeah, I don't have that
Speaker 2: soundboard with me today. Sorry. Fewer of you might know
Speaker 2: me from having the world's only sopranos Slash the Wire
Speaker 2: Rewatch podcast pod Yourself a Gun, But the fewest of
Speaker 2: you might know me from my brand new podcast, Bad Hasbara,
Speaker 2: the World's most moral podcast, in which me and some
Speaker 2: of my other anti Zionist or non Zionist Jewish friends
Speaker 2: and our other friends and our other guests guests who
Speaker 2: you know you've maybe heard, like Charene here, we have
Speaker 2: casual conversations about Israeli propaganda and Israeli propagandists. For some
Speaker 2: of you, this might be your first time hearing the
Speaker 2: word has bara, and that's why the homies at cool
Speaker 2: Zone Media invited me here today. So this episode is
Speaker 2: all about has barah aka Israel's public relations and propaganda machine,
Speaker 2: and I am thrilled to be joined by my friend
Speaker 2: and one time cat sitter, Charine Uness. Hi Scherene, Hi, Matt.
Speaker 3: What an intro? Yeah, I'm excited to learn more about
Speaker 3: this actually also excited to know how you properly say
Speaker 3: has bara because I don't know to say.
Speaker 2: It right ba lah Yeah it's Barra. Yeah, that's I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: the law you know, with the with the throat has
Speaker 2: ba raw.
Speaker 3: You heard it here first.
Speaker 2: Yes, you heard it here first. I'm not I'm not
Speaker 2: the greatest at doing you know, Israeli accents or whatnot.
Speaker 2: So throughout this podcast, I'm probably gonna be butchering a
Speaker 2: lot of Hebrew words. Uh and you know, just you're
Speaker 2: just gonna have to deal with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's totally fine. That's just part of the game.
Speaker 3: I've just pronounced every name I've ever said on this.
Speaker 2: Show, so yeah, yeah, I mean you should hear me
Speaker 2: trying to pronounce Arabic names like I can't do it.
Speaker 2: I mean I attempt, Yes, that would. If there's any
Speaker 2: that happened in this episode, please but before we get
Speaker 2: into talking about has blah blah, I want to start
Speaker 2: with a quick story, Saren, Are you familiar with the
Speaker 2: Birthright Trip?
Speaker 3: Yes, i am.
Speaker 2: It was one of those things where I was very
Speaker 2: excited to one day do the Birthright Trip, and I
Speaker 2: didn't really even question. I knew, like, you know, it
Speaker 2: was a little bit, you know, they were trying to
Speaker 2: whine and dine me to go there and you know,
Speaker 2: maybe move or what not. But I didn't know how
Speaker 2: much they wanted me to move there until I went.
Speaker 2: So for me, my Birthright trip is kind of why
Speaker 2: I'm here today talking about Hasbara. It's why I started
Speaker 2: a freaking podcast about it. It's when I first started
Speaker 2: clocking Israeli propaganda. So I went in January twenty twelve.
Speaker 2: If you don't know Birthright, it's pretty much a two week,
Speaker 2: all expenses paid trip for young Jews from all over
Speaker 2: the world to go to the Holy Land, reconnect with
Speaker 2: their Jewish roots, float in the dead seat. It is.
Speaker 2: It is a propaganda tour of apartheid state. And you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to get too much into the history
Speaker 2: of Birthright, you know and all the like far right
Speaker 2: wing funders like Sheldon Adelson and stuff. There's like not
Speaker 2: enough time for that. But I'm mentioning it because it
Speaker 2: was the first time I saw how hasbara was more
Speaker 2: than just propaganda and how in my opinion, it more
Speaker 2: closely resembles like indoctrination, and the organizers at Birthright did
Speaker 2: like a masterful job of this. Like I went on
Speaker 2: a trip of American Jews who were like me, like
Speaker 2: they were like secular from mixed or like intermarried families,
Speaker 2: non bar mitzvah. It was all like other matt Leab
Speaker 2: type Jews, like ethnic Jews, right, And I realized this.
Speaker 2: I think it was like day two of the trip.
Speaker 2: One of the Israeli tour guides literally gave us a
Speaker 2: bar mitzvah like all at the same time we had
Speaker 2: a group bar mitzvah yeah, And they did it by
Speaker 2: saying like, okay, well now bar mitzvod. It just means
Speaker 2: you're a man. Now, everyone here is a man. Now
Speaker 2: choose an Israeli name, and which was like for me,
Speaker 2: I remember feeling a little, you know, I was like, wait,
Speaker 2: there's supposed to be a theme party and fucking like,
Speaker 2: yah's supposed to yeah, DJ, my dad's gonna buy me
Speaker 2: a car, or at least me a like a Honda
Speaker 2: like I thought it was more than that. At the
Speaker 2: very least, I thought I would have to like memorize
Speaker 2: a tour a portion, but no, you just go to
Speaker 2: Israel and you know a tour Guiy does it for you,
Speaker 2: so like it really works though, like you really you
Speaker 2: you go there being like you know, I'm European Jew,
Speaker 2: and you leave there and you're like, I invented falafel.
Speaker 2: So the Hasbara highlight of the trip for me was
Speaker 2: this like mega like birthright mega event. It was in
Speaker 2: Jerusalem and a huge arena in which they had like
Speaker 2: Israeli speakers, donors, rappers, and there was like a there
Speaker 2: were rappers at one point who just started rapping about
Speaker 2: things that they claim Israel invented, like iPhone, computer chips
Speaker 2: and like the cherry tomato, which was you know like
Speaker 2: and by the way, a not insubstantial amount of the
Speaker 2: trip was spent telling us about how Israel invented the
Speaker 2: cherry tomato. Like we went to places like you know,
Speaker 2: farms and stuff where they showed us this like drip irrigation.
Speaker 2: Multiple people were just like, man, we invented the cherry tomato.
Speaker 2: Here can you believe it? And I was like this
Speaker 2: seems like a lot of effort for just this one
Speaker 2: particular thing, which may or may not be true. But yeah,
Speaker 2: So the headliner of the mega event of that night,
Speaker 2: the cherry tomato on top, if you will, was a
Speaker 2: speech by none other than Prime Minister Benjamin Bibi Netanyahu.
Speaker 2: Straight up, the Prime Minister of Israel was the headline
Speaker 2: speaker of this birthright event and an arena filled with
Speaker 2: like twenty thousand teens and like early twenty somethings, which
Speaker 2: was kind of like amazing, Like, you know, listen, here's
Speaker 2: the thing I knew. Benjamin netnya who I like, I
Speaker 2: knew enough about Israeli politics to know that, like he
Speaker 2: was a fucking right winger and bad. But like I
Speaker 2: have to admit, even I, you know, as a twenty
Speaker 2: six year old who kind of was starting to get
Speaker 2: like woke on Palestine, you know, so to speak, like
Speaker 2: even I was like kind of like, whoa this is.
Speaker 2: I'm a little charmed, a little honored to see the
Speaker 2: Prime minister here. He took time out of his busy
Speaker 2: schedule of doing crimes, probably to address us. And you know,
Speaker 2: I actually found the speech of that night. I actually
Speaker 2: have some clips from it that I want to play.
Speaker 3: That is incredible, that's great.
Speaker 2: So yeah, he he was like casual, he was off
Speaker 2: the cuff. They wrote a speech for me.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to read it.
Speaker 2: Like he even did a little bit of crowd work.
Speaker 4: Anyone here named Rachel.
Speaker 2: So that right there is what we in the Jewish
Speaker 2: community call Rachel profiling. That's when you just start in
Speaker 2: front of a group of Jews and you ask whose
Speaker 2: name to Rachel. Shout out to Rachel Blumenthal for telling
Speaker 2: me that joke. In college. It was. It was like
Speaker 2: a crash course in Hesbara. Like he told us we
Speaker 2: were from Israel.
Speaker 4: At one point, you all come from great countries, great countries.
Speaker 4: Did you all come from here?
Speaker 2: All of you?
Speaker 4: That's your birthright.
Speaker 2: He was telling us that, like you know, once again,
Speaker 2: it was everything they invented phone, you know, the cell phone, ships,
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. He was telling us to make aliat
Speaker 2: to Israel, which means to you know, move to return,
Speaker 2: to come back. You know. Essentially what he was vying
Speaker 2: for was like move to Israel and start a family.
Speaker 2: It's very like sex based, like the way it works.
Speaker 2: The big thing I took away was him telling us
Speaker 2: that he wanted us to go back home and tell
Speaker 2: people the truth about Israel.
Speaker 4: But the most important battle that we have to fight
Speaker 4: is the battle for the truth. And all of you
Speaker 4: can become ambassadors for the truth and ambassadors for Israel.
Speaker 2: And of course, you know, he then proceeded to tell
Speaker 2: us what the truth about Israel was.
Speaker 4: Go back your respective countries and tell the truth about Israel.
Speaker 4: The only way to fight a live to tell the truth.
Speaker 4: Tell him about a country where people are free, free
Speaker 4: to initiate, free to work, free to speak, the country
Speaker 4: where you can criticize the Prime Minister although he never
Speaker 4: makes mistakes. This is a country which has in which
Speaker 4: Arabs have full right something they've been denied in all
Speaker 4: the vast lands around us. And a woman in this
Speaker 4: country can sit anywhere she wants. That's our position. This
Speaker 4: is a free country.
Speaker 2: So him going up there telling me that what he
Speaker 2: wants from me is to go back home and be
Speaker 2: an ambassador for Israel and tell the truth about Israel.
Speaker 2: You know, it was the first time I realized that
Speaker 2: he was giving me a job to do. And this
Speaker 2: is a job that I think a lot of Jewish
Speaker 2: people who may be listening to this podcast can relate
Speaker 2: to the job of telling the truth about Israel and
Speaker 2: the job of you know, stopping the slander that is
Speaker 2: out there about Israel in the media and on the internet,
Speaker 2: press and all that stuff. And it was the first
Speaker 2: time I realized that, like, oh, part of the hasbara
Speaker 2: isn't just you know, some government thing. It's like, my job,
Speaker 2: My job is to is to tell the truth. And
Speaker 2: he said something in that clip, the only way to
Speaker 2: fight allies with the truth. And so I am going
Speaker 2: to follow his advice. That's what I'm going to do, Shreen.
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell people the truth about Israel. And
Speaker 2: I think I think it's time to do it. So
Speaker 2: let's get into it. Let's talk about the truth. Let's
Speaker 2: get into talking about hasbara. What is it? What is it?
Speaker 2: And so loosely, hasbara is it's a modern Hebrew word
Speaker 2: derived from the word lasbier hasbier meaning to explain or explanation.
Speaker 2: I say loosely because it's kind of a made up word.
Speaker 2: So you know, a lot of words in modern Hebrew
Speaker 2: are sort of made up words. Remember, Hebrew is like
Speaker 2: an ancient liturgical language, and modern Hebrew was created by
Speaker 2: like Jewish linguist nerds who wanted to revive the language
Speaker 2: to be a spoken one, and that's how you got
Speaker 2: modern Hebrew, which is fine, there's nothing wrong with the
Speaker 2: reviving a dead language. But because of that, a lot
Speaker 2: of the words in modern Hebrew are kind of inventions. So,
Speaker 2: according to Mosaic Magazine, has bara is strictly a twentieth centuryism.
Speaker 2: You won't find it in Eliezer benu Huda's a monumental
Speaker 2: complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew, whose second volume,
Speaker 2: in which hasbara appears only as the first word of
Speaker 2: hasbarat Panim, was published in nineteen oh two. So it's
Speaker 2: not something that you see in kind of like the
Speaker 2: original beginnings of, you know, the creation of modern Hebrew.
Speaker 2: Like colloquially, his bara like refers to like media pr branding,
Speaker 2: mud slinging. It's kind of a like a sort of
Speaker 2: like catch all term for general propaganda used to create
Speaker 2: a narrative based on Israeli government talking points meant for
Speaker 2: a foreign, usually American or just generally Western audience. People
Speaker 2: who deal in hasbara are called has barists or has baristas,
Speaker 2: which is fun.
Speaker 3: That's that's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean listen, has Barista, I think gives
Speaker 2: a gives it a little bit more flair, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of imagine someone kind of like making you coffee,
Speaker 2: but instead of coffee, it's they make you lies.
Speaker 3: So nope, I'm not gonna do that.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I like it. I wish I never was born. Well,
Speaker 2: so there's all sorts of like has bars like. Some
Speaker 2: of them have like a official positions within the Israeli government,
Speaker 2: such as the head of the IDF Spokesperson's unit, Daniel Hagari,
Speaker 2: who you might remember is the guy from that video
Speaker 2: taken at the you know, the children's hospital, you know,
Speaker 2: in Gaza, and he's like pointing at what he thought
Speaker 2: was a list of his Israeli hostages, but was like
Speaker 2: literally just a calendar, didn't have any names. It was
Speaker 2: just he was pointing at days of the week thinking
Speaker 2: they were names because that's what a calendar has. And
Speaker 2: also it's so fucking weird that they can't read Arabic, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're in the Middle East, you are the spokesperson.
Speaker 3: I think something interesting about how Hebrew was revived as
Speaker 3: well is that a lot of words were taken from Arabic,
Speaker 3: a lot of words are very similar to Arabic, so
Speaker 3: it's like even more funny that they were they can't
Speaker 3: even read the language that they kind of took a
Speaker 3: lot of words from.
Speaker 2: But I'm saying that, like yeah, in Israel, it's almost
Speaker 2: like the appropriation was just part of the process of
Speaker 2: the cleansing, you know, just like stealing something, saying it's
Speaker 2: ours and then not even being able to identify an
Speaker 2: Arabic word that you yourself say. So, yeah, so there's him.
Speaker 2: Then there's like everyone if you've been on Twitter, you've
Speaker 2: seen a lot of Alon Levy who he's His official
Speaker 2: title is the official Israeli government spokesperson, and that's through
Speaker 2: the basically the office of the Prime Minister. He's a
Speaker 2: British guy. Like he raises his eyebrows. It's like the meme,
Speaker 2: you know, like he goes like, oh, that's what he's
Speaker 2: famous for. Then there's a lot of these like non
Speaker 2: governmental like Israeli Civil Society haspara organizations like Stand with
Speaker 2: Us or like a PAK, the Washington Institute for Near
Speaker 2: East Policy, the Anti Defamation League, Christians United for Israel,
Speaker 2: the Israel on Campus Coalition. I mean, they're of them
Speaker 2: tons of them. And then of course there's people who
Speaker 2: are just in it for the love of the game,
Speaker 2: like celebrities, artists, you know, actors, you know, who make
Speaker 2: like Israel public advocacy part of their thing. It's a
Speaker 2: fascinating world filled with ghouls and goblins. So the word
Speaker 2: his bara itself interestingly is hesbara. So early Zionists had
Speaker 2: no problem calling their pr campaigns and like their branding
Speaker 2: for a Jewish state and Palestine, propaganda. They would say
Speaker 2: it's we got to do propaganda, because in the early
Speaker 2: twentieth twentieth century, the term was generally considered to be neutral,
Speaker 2: like people said they were doing propaganda when they were
Speaker 2: doing propaganda. Once the word became a pejorative, they created
Speaker 2: the word has bara, which is a nicer sounding word
Speaker 2: with more neutral connotations. And although it's now used as
Speaker 2: a pejorative by critics of Israel and me and stuff,
Speaker 2: the word is still used to this day in Israel.
Speaker 2: It is still a fairly neutral word. There are has
Speaker 2: Borrow workshops sponsored by Israel. They have has Barrow Fellowships.
Speaker 2: That's the name of the fellowship. Like you can get
Speaker 2: merch that says has Barrow Fellowship on it. And the
Speaker 2: reason is because it doesn't translate. The word isn't translate
Speaker 2: to propaganda. It just means to explain, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: seems innocent enough. It's not about doing propaganda. It's not
Speaker 2: about They don't call themselves liars. They're not saying I'm
Speaker 2: going to lie. They say they're merely just explaining. And
Speaker 2: I found this speech from the Middle East Policy Council
Speaker 2: that goes into depth about what has Barro is beyond.
Speaker 2: Just like propaganda. Quote has Barrow links information warfare to
Speaker 2: the strategic efforts of the state to bolster the unity
Speaker 2: of the home front, ensure the support of allies, disrupt
Speaker 2: efforts to organize hostile coalitions, determine the way issues are
Speaker 2: defined by the media, the intelligentsia, the social networks, established
Speaker 2: parameters of politically correct discourse, de legitimize both critics and
Speaker 2: their arguments, and shape the common understanding and interpretation of
Speaker 2: the results of international negotiations. So behind this term is
Speaker 2: a large, well funded information warfare apparatus dedicated to shaping
Speaker 2: you know, Israeli discourse in the media and the government
Speaker 2: and academic institutions everywhere. And they use all of the
Speaker 2: tools in their toolbox to silence criticism of Israel, and
Speaker 2: what they can't silence, they soften. Sometimes it's through coordinated
Speaker 2: letter writing campaigns. Sometimes it's harassment. Sometimes it's doxing. You know,
Speaker 2: people have been doxed. So before I continue, I want
Speaker 2: to address that uncomfortable feeling you had when I talked
Speaker 2: about like Israel and the media. I want to say
Speaker 2: that is that is not to say that Israel or
Speaker 2: the Israel lobby or Zionists quote control the media, all right,
Speaker 2: So they do not. That's why Hasbara exists, you know,
Speaker 2: That's why the Israel Lobby exists. If they controlled the media,
Speaker 2: they wouldn't have groups like Camera, for example, constantly day
Speaker 2: in and day out, harassing the New York Times and
Speaker 2: CNN and PBS to get them to talk about Israel correctly. Okay,
Speaker 2: So it's important when people hear these criticisms of Israel
Speaker 2: that they don't try to see them as like otherizing
Speaker 2: Israel or like you know, a lot of people they
Speaker 2: get uncomfortable because a lot of these things will match
Speaker 2: old anti Semitic tropes. But it's important to remember that
Speaker 2: these lobbying groups exist in Israel. They exist in the
Speaker 2: gun lobby, in the big oil lobby. This is not
Speaker 2: unique to Israel. The unique thing about it is how
Speaker 2: willing the America in public is and the West in
Speaker 2: general is to letting themselves be lied to. That's why
Speaker 2: I'm interested in it. But let's talk about Camera real quick,
Speaker 2: because this is a recent thing that happened. Some news
Speaker 2: happened recently about the New York Times and their connection
Speaker 2: to CAMERA. This is from a recent article in The Intercept.
Speaker 2: The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis,
Speaker 2: or CAMERA, was founded in nineteen eighty two in response
Speaker 2: to what it claims was anti Israel bias in the
Speaker 2: Washington Post reporting on the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Since
Speaker 2: its inception, CAMERA has successfully lobbied for hundreds of corrections
Speaker 2: in major media outlets, seeking to streamline a pro Israel
Speaker 2: line in news reports and editorials at a smere journalists
Speaker 2: whose work it disagrees with, and launched boycott campaigns against
Speaker 2: news organizations it believes are not responding with enough deference
Speaker 2: to its requests. So the way this group operates is
Speaker 2: that they go through any and every article about Israel
Speaker 2: looking for sentences, looking for terms, definitions, anything they disagree
Speaker 2: with and lobby for corrections to be issued. Camera doesn't
Speaker 2: do this quietly. They openly brag about it on their website.
Speaker 2: Like recently, Camera successfully lobby The New York Times to
Speaker 2: issue a correction removing the word occupation from an article,
Speaker 2: and they wrote this on their website. Quote the mask
Speaker 2: slipped for the New York Times reporters kum Hamas stenographers
Speaker 2: this week when they absolutely neglected to done down Hamas's
Speaker 2: preferred language before passing off the terror organization's talking points
Speaker 2: as original reporting. Take notice of the framing of The
Speaker 2: New York Times and their mask slipping and their reporters
Speaker 2: as being stenographers for Hamas. This is like quite the
Speaker 2: accusation given the The New York Times is like has
Speaker 2: and continues to have coverage described as biased in favor
Speaker 2: of Israel Like. According to an Intercept analysis, it was
Speaker 2: found that in the first six weeks of the war,
Speaker 2: New York Times consistently delegitimized Palestinian deaths and cultivated a
Speaker 2: gross imbalance in coverage to pro Israeli sources and voices.
Speaker 2: So the exact opposite of what Camera is claiming is
Speaker 2: the truth here. You know, this is. This is actually
Speaker 2: a famous has Bara tactic. It is the I am rubber,
Speaker 2: you are glue tactic, and it's really something to see
Speaker 2: it in action, Like I don't know seen if you've
Speaker 2: seen how often you've like read some pro Israeli voices,
Speaker 2: you know has Baris online and heard them say stuff
Speaker 2: that you're like, I know for a fact, the exact
Speaker 2: opposite of this thing is true. You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah, every every accusation is a confession. It feels like
Speaker 3: that is true all the time when it comes to
Speaker 3: the stuff. And also the intercept article is very good.
Speaker 3: I'll put it in the description for those woe to
Speaker 3: read the whole thing. I'm glad you mentioned that because
Speaker 3: I didn't know that much about camera until I read
Speaker 3: that article, and I was just like, what, like I
Speaker 3: knew that that was a thing that that was done.
Speaker 3: Like they would change words recently. The New York Times
Speaker 3: was like a decline of death or life, like they
Speaker 3: use the word decline to describe.
Speaker 2: To describe what was happening in Gaza. They decided the
Speaker 2: articles headline was going to be like death's actually declining
Speaker 2: in the.
Speaker 3: Gaza exactly, and like the standard ones are always there,
Speaker 3: like blast or conflict or whatever it is. Those are
Speaker 3: unfortunately so normal now, But to see it all laid
Speaker 3: out by the intercept was really I'm really glad I
Speaker 3: did that article so it will be in the description,
Speaker 3: and I'm glad you mentioned it. But it does go
Speaker 3: back to the idea that every accusation is a confession.
Speaker 3: I think that's something to remember every time you see
Speaker 3: a headline.
Speaker 2: It's true, and it's something that you know. It's almost
Speaker 2: become a cliche online because you've sa I've seen it
Speaker 2: so many times people saying that, and I think it's
Speaker 2: important to remember that this is sort of the tactic
Speaker 2: of hesbara. Like what makes hesbara particularly notable and like
Speaker 2: often hilarious is that it doesn't merely just spin narratives,
Speaker 2: but it inverts them to essentially make like an alternate reality.
Speaker 2: It's not just that hesbara is information warfare. Hesbara is
Speaker 2: straight up info wars like Alex Jones level shit. The
Speaker 2: same way Alex Jones will run the same like fantastical
Speaker 2: paranoid thread to every major news event that happens in
Speaker 2: order to reinforce his worldview and prove that he's right
Speaker 2: and everyone else is wrong, you know, like that's Israel
Speaker 2: does this, but with like far more money and far
Speaker 2: greater success, and it kind of makes sense why they're
Speaker 2: successful at it. Like Alex Jones info wars shit like
Speaker 2: praise on white Christian paranoia that like the Blacks are
Speaker 2: trying to take away our guns so they can make
Speaker 2: our children trans or whatever, like total fantasy in saying
Speaker 2: shit that you have to be like already far right
Speaker 2: wing to believe. Well, like Israeli info wars praise on
Speaker 2: a much more grounded in reality paranoia that of anti Semitism,
Speaker 2: Like anti Semitism is real, it's historical, it's evil, it's pervasive,
Speaker 2: it's pernicious. Like this kind of paranoia makes sense, and
Speaker 2: not just for Jews, but like for anyone of conscience,
Speaker 2: anyone who has empathy, you know, like that they understand
Speaker 2: anti Semitism is bad and needs to be fought. And
Speaker 2: that makes Hasbara very effective. You know, people want to
Speaker 2: support Israel because people want to support the Jewish people
Speaker 2: and they want to fight anti Semitism. And when the
Speaker 2: IDF mantles a children's hospital and says we had to
Speaker 2: do it to stop Hamas. Look, here's a list of hostages.
Speaker 2: People want to believe them. It's like Molder from the
Speaker 2: X Files, like I want to believe, which is the
Speaker 2: same impulse as Alex Jones believers. Essentially, like you don't
Speaker 2: want Sandy Hook to be a possibility. You want it
Speaker 2: to be a conspiracy to take your guns away. You
Speaker 2: want those children to be secretly actors pretending to be dead.
Speaker 2: So like when Israel says we aren't killing children, we're
Speaker 2: killing hamas, people want to believe that.
Speaker 3: And yeah, let's just say hate that you compared Fox
Speaker 3: Mulder to the like you dragged him into this and
Speaker 3: I'll get over it.
Speaker 2: But I'm sorry to you know, to bring him into
Speaker 2: this conversation. But you know, I'm just saying, Molder, if
Speaker 2: he wants to believe that stuff, what else does he
Speaker 2: want to believe? You just hope, you really hope and
Speaker 2: pray that he's not going to fall for the hesbara,
Speaker 2: but he might know you really don't. And it's like,
Speaker 2: you know it's hiszbar is effective because it gives you
Speaker 2: something like a nice, legitimate sounding explanation for why Israel
Speaker 2: needed to do something that you might usually think is bad.
Speaker 2: Like that's how it's worked for decades in the same
Speaker 2: way that Hasbara serves to explain things for you. To
Speaker 2: basically take the Israeli government at its word. That's kind
Speaker 2: of how it works. It gives you a believable explanation
Speaker 2: and not only sounds like kind of real, but it
Speaker 2: you know, conforms to your personal beliefs. And yeah, but
Speaker 2: speaking of personal beliefs, if there's one thing, oh, let's
Speaker 2: see if I can do this. If there's one thing
Speaker 2: I'd love to believe in, it's commerce. And so yes,
Speaker 2: I mean listen, people will have to make money somehow.
Speaker 2: So it looks like we have some products and services
Speaker 2: that we have to sell. And yeah, when they sell
Speaker 2: you these these products and services, please believe them when
Speaker 2: they say how good they are. And we are back.
Speaker 2: So we were talking about hespara and how you know,
Speaker 2: the explanations conformed to your personal beliefs. The interesting thing
Speaker 2: about hasbara is that they have different types of hespara
Speaker 2: for a wide range of personal beliefs. It's not one
Speaker 2: size fits all. It depends on who you are. There's
Speaker 2: a conservative version and there's a liberal version. Like Israel.
Speaker 2: Israel has been very successful and their ability to brand
Speaker 2: themselves is both a liberal democracy and a outpost for
Speaker 2: Western values fighting the Muslim hoards. Usually, these strategies have
Speaker 2: been like pretty separated, right, you know, like you can't
Speaker 2: claim you can't do them at the same time, it'll
Speaker 2: sound weird. It's like Israel is the only gay friendly,
Speaker 2: climate conscious, feminist democracy and that's why we got to
Speaker 2: do genocide. Like that doesn't that doesn't sound right. Like
Speaker 2: you tell the city dwelling liberal elites about the gay stuff,
Speaker 2: you tell the conservative Christians about the Western civilization stuff.
Speaker 2: That's kind of how it works. The basic conservative hasbara
Speaker 2: doesn't actually interest me all that much because it's I
Speaker 2: don't know, they don't have to work that hard at
Speaker 2: getting conservatives to be okay with killing Muslims.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like Muslims Arabs, you know, they're fully willing to
Speaker 2: You don't even have to like couch it in something.
Speaker 3: No, that's just what happens to us.
Speaker 2: It's fine, right, And it's interesting too, because like this
Speaker 2: idea of you know, being a Western outpost, an outpost
Speaker 2: for Western values is not like that is very much
Speaker 2: falling into the almost the the whiteness thing of Europeans,
Speaker 2: where you kind of like because Jews, like European anti
Speaker 2: semitism wasn't about how Jews had Western values. It was
Speaker 2: about how Jews represented this other this this thing that
Speaker 2: you know, they don't they didn't share values. There were
Speaker 2: some weird other thing. And you know, this was not
Speaker 2: the the charge of anti Semitism in Europe. And now
Speaker 2: with like Israeli propaganda towards you know that's aimed towards
Speaker 2: conservative Westerners, they're like, no, no, we're the most Western,
Speaker 2: like we're so Western that we're going to be the
Speaker 2: ones who are on the front lines stopping the evil,
Speaker 2: you know, Arab ports. And yeah, but it's like the
Speaker 2: that's interesting, you know in some aspects, but it's the
Speaker 2: liberal stuff. Sure, liberal hasbara is where the lies get
Speaker 2: so wild. Like that's the stuff that I grew up with,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it really you the pink washing in particular
Speaker 3: is like one, yes, it's just they're they're so egregious
Speaker 3: in their use of using like the gay struggle for
Speaker 3: their own agenda. It's really really gross.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's and it's weird at how effective it
Speaker 2: is or how effective it has been for so long,
Speaker 2: because it is something that I think it's kind of
Speaker 2: like the the first stop on the Hasbara tour. You know,
Speaker 2: when you are hearing someone kind of like talking about
Speaker 2: why we need to stand with Israel, they will start
Speaker 2: right there with the you know, the pro gay rights stuff.
Speaker 2: And it's like, the reason I find it interesting is
Speaker 2: like Israel's so effectively been able to like brand itself
Speaker 2: is representing and supporting all these positive liberal traits. Well,
Speaker 2: well a lot of it is just not true. Like,
Speaker 2: for example, liberals are pro LGBT rights, right, you know,
Speaker 2: they love gays, they love gay rights, and that's a
Speaker 2: good thing, of course, and yet gay marriage is illegal
Speaker 2: in Israel. It is illegal. It's also mixed faith marriages
Speaker 2: are also illegal in Israel. They will recognize those marriages,
Speaker 2: but they will not perform them. You cannot get gay married.
Speaker 2: You cannot get Inner faith married in Israel. If you're
Speaker 2: there performed abroad, then they will recognize them. That's kind
Speaker 2: of the loophole. Also, by the way, Palestinians from the
Speaker 2: West Bank or Gaza who mary an Israeli citizen cannot
Speaker 2: then get Israeli citizenship through that marriage. You also can't
Speaker 2: get Israeli citizenship if you marry in Israeli and you
Speaker 2: are from a quote enemy state that read Arab. If
Speaker 2: you want to know what they states are, they mean Arabs.
Speaker 2: So you know, I don't know, liberals should hate that.
Speaker 2: They should look at and be like, well, I don't
Speaker 2: like that, you'd think, right. Another example, like liberals love
Speaker 2: democracy and they hate racism, yet believe Israel when they
Speaker 2: say they are a democracy because they'll be like, we
Speaker 2: have you know, twenty percent Arab Muslim population, you know,
Speaker 2: two million and all with the right to vote. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: they're like ignoring the five point three million Palestinians who
Speaker 2: are currently living in the West Bank and Gaza under
Speaker 2: military control by Israel. Like this is a situation was
Speaker 2: which has explicitly been called apartheid by most major human
Speaker 2: rights organizations, you know, human Rights Watch and it's the International,
Speaker 2: the International Federation for Human Rights and even including human
Speaker 2: rights orgs in Israel. Yes, Din and but sell them.
Speaker 2: They have all called this on apartheid state and apartheid
Speaker 2: to you know, to be clear, is racist And I'm
Speaker 2: again yes, and I think most liberals would say they're
Speaker 2: against it. Don't you think, Serene, like it help something
Speaker 2: you would hope. So that's kind of like part of
Speaker 2: the thing with the liberal You're like, I don't like
Speaker 2: bad people, right, yeah, yeah, but you know it's once again,
Speaker 2: it's this thing where we're willing to be like, oh,
Speaker 2: they say they're a democracy, and therefore I believe it,
Speaker 2: and I think it's you know, you have to remember
Speaker 2: that like Israel's got like a caveat for all this stuff.
Speaker 2: It's it's usually they'll say, you know, their credentials are
Speaker 2: touted with this like in the Middle East, the most
Speaker 2: gay friendly in the Middle East. They're the only democracy
Speaker 2: in the Middle East. But like, once again, that kind
Speaker 2: of only serves to implicitly condemn those enemy states, you know,
Speaker 2: filled with Arabs as being racist and backwards and homophobic
Speaker 2: and anti democratic and therefore unworthy of liberal sympathies. So
Speaker 2: it's you know, your liberals will look at it and
Speaker 2: they'll go like, well, I mean compared to Iraq, and
Speaker 2: you know that they yeah, of course, it's like forgetting
Speaker 2: why why the Middle East is the way the Middle
Speaker 2: East is? You know, they they will there's a complete
Speaker 2: like vacuum, like everything exists in a vacuum. When it
Speaker 2: comes to American imperialism, so you don't, but you just
Speaker 2: want to believe that Arabs are backwards people rather than
Speaker 2: looking at any kind of like Western imperial imperial complicity.
Speaker 3: But also like reinforcing this like racist backwards stereotype also
Speaker 3: like dehumanizes Arabs and Muslims and Palestinians to such a
Speaker 3: degree where people can't overlook genocide. Now you know, like
Speaker 3: it's all part of that, ac it's all part of that. Yes,
Speaker 3: they're different, they're not like us. They don't like gay people,
Speaker 3: they don't women stand up or whatever the fuck it is.
Speaker 3: It's just like it's it really is infuriating because you wonder,
Speaker 3: like how can this happen? It's because of stuff like
Speaker 3: this that's not very little when it's all together, and
Speaker 3: it just reinforces this like barbaric trope. And then people
Speaker 3: just go on their go about their lives being okay
Speaker 3: with genocide because to them these people are human anymore.
Speaker 2: Right on, you look at this like as part of
Speaker 2: a pattern of like the delegitimization of the Arab being.
Speaker 2: In a way, it's like all of this is a
Speaker 2: pattern of like what are things we can say about
Speaker 2: Arabs in order to make them so far from us
Speaker 2: that you just don't care if they live or die,
Speaker 2: or more so you you more, you're more willing to
Speaker 2: believe that the people who are like us, the Israelis,
Speaker 2: are the ones telling the truth that they're you know,
Speaker 2: they're the ones who have the empathy. They're the ones
Speaker 2: who you know, let women, you know, sit wherever they want,
Speaker 2: whatever the fuck that meant from BB's speech, But like,
Speaker 2: you know, they're more like me Arabs. I don't know them,
Speaker 2: and I guess, you know, if they say they're bad,
Speaker 2: they're bad. You know, it's just part of it. And
Speaker 2: I think what pisses me off about it is the
Speaker 2: liberal willingness to believe it. And I think it's like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's fascinating to me because especially right now,
Speaker 2: in the last you know, four months or so, of
Speaker 2: this brutal incursion into Gaza, it's like so clearly illustrates
Speaker 2: why people on the left fucking hate liberals. You know,
Speaker 2: they're just so easy to manipulate if you know the
Speaker 2: right words, you know, like if it were any other group,
Speaker 2: if it were any other group instead of Jewish nations nationalists,
Speaker 2: like if it were Christian nationalists, they'd be like clearly
Speaker 2: condemning it. Clearly like liberals have such a facile identity
Speaker 2: and race essentialism that they either excuse the crimes committed
Speaker 2: by the Jewish state because Israel asked them to do
Speaker 2: it and they want to be like good allies or whatever,
Speaker 2: or they ignore them because well, it's not my place
Speaker 2: to say, I'm not Jewish. I feel like I should like, like,
Speaker 2: they're just so squishy. It kind of reveals the modern
Speaker 2: American liberal for what they are, which is like a
Speaker 2: tiny baby whose self perception is at the root of
Speaker 2: their ideology. Right, And it's just it's important to remember
Speaker 2: that Europeans doing atrocities to indigenous populations has always come
Speaker 2: with the gift wrapping of these savages don't share our values.
Speaker 2: It's always been like that. So when you see an
Speaker 2: Israeli soldier flying a Pride flag in the rubble of
Speaker 2: a raised Palestinian city, like, just remember that's not liberation,
Speaker 2: that is regular ass by the book colonialism, same shit,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean, I still am loving the description
Speaker 3: of an American liberal as a tiny baby.
Speaker 2: They are little babies. There's little tiny babies. You got
Speaker 2: they've got, they can only hold like one sort of
Speaker 2: political critique in their mind at once, and you know,
Speaker 2: if they choose this kind of like identity essentialism, then
Speaker 2: it's so much easier to just kind of go like, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't really think it's my place to
Speaker 2: talk about this right.
Speaker 3: Now, exactly. It's just it's cowardly and like in retrospect,
Speaker 3: they're probably going to change their story about what their
Speaker 3: stance was, like you know what I mean, And it's just, yes,
Speaker 3: it's really infuriating, and I think it is important to
Speaker 3: remember that what you're watching Israel do and what it
Speaker 3: has done for the past seventy five years, over seventy
Speaker 3: five years, is just colonialism and it was described that
Speaker 3: way since the beginning. But that was that was really
Speaker 3: Thank you for explaining all of that, Matt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know there will be more in part two.
Speaker 2: We'll get down to some of these myths. We'll get
Speaker 2: down to the way in which has Bar kind of
Speaker 2: works to invert narratives to a degree that you know,
Speaker 2: are almost so shocking that you have trouble believing the
Speaker 2: historical truth and are more comfortable believing the ahistorical fiction.
Speaker 2: But Surene, what do we do now? Plugs? Or yeah?
Speaker 2: What do I say? Commercial break?
Speaker 3: That's that's the end of part one. You did a
Speaker 3: great job.
Speaker 2: Thank you. That's listen. I've never guess hosted a thing
Speaker 2: here on cool Zone Media, but I'm very happy too.
Speaker 2: And if you like you know me obviously you know
Speaker 2: listen about his Bar the World's Most Moral podcast. If
Speaker 2: you like me and my wife, We're going to be
Speaker 2: at the Sacramento Punchline March seventeenth at seven pm. That's
Speaker 2: a Sunday. We're headlining together. I mean, you know, co headlining,
Speaker 2: so I'll go up showcoa. But it's really good. It's
Speaker 2: a really good show. We did it in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: Is so much fun. Please come out to it March seventeenth.
Speaker 2: That's Sunday, March seventeenth, Sacramento Punchline. Come see Matt Leib
Speaker 2: Francisca if hearing.
Speaker 3: Where can people follow you? Just in case you don't know?
Speaker 2: They should If you don't know, at Matt Leib on Twitter,
Speaker 2: at mattleib jokes on Instagram, and yeah check me out.
Speaker 2: I'll post all the dates and stuff over there, and
Speaker 2: all the podcasts over there too.
Speaker 3: Awesome.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, great job. Okay, goodbye bye.
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