Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to It could happen here. It's
Speaker 1: Schreen and today I'm joined by James and Robert to
Speaker 1: welcome our guest. In this episode, we are joined by
Speaker 1: Adam Brumberg. He is an artist, an activist and an educator.
Speaker 1: He was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa. His
Speaker 1: parents and his entire extended family are Holocaust survivors, and
Speaker 1: he had a very Zionist upbringing. We talked to him
Speaker 1: about how he grew up in apart Height, South Africa,
Speaker 1: how he broke free from Zionism as a teenager, and
Speaker 1: how he's come to be a very vocal Jewish anti Zionist.
Speaker 1: He currently lives and works in Berlin, and he's exhibited
Speaker 1: his art all over the world. He's also regularly on
Speaker 1: the ground in Palestine and he uses his work to
Speaker 1: raise awareness about the crimes committed daily by the IDF.
Speaker 1: Members of the German government have accused him and labeled
Speaker 1: him as being anti Semitic because of his criticism of Israel.
Speaker 1: And we're going to get into all of it. I
Speaker 1: wanted so just go back into your background a little bit.
Speaker 1: Your family on both sides are Holocaust survivors and your
Speaker 1: answertors like fled to South Africa and that's where you
Speaker 1: grew up with your parents. And I read that you
Speaker 1: went to as I in the school starting from age six.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about your family background and your
Speaker 1: experience going to as I in a school as a
Speaker 1: Jewish person.
Speaker 2: So you remember the podcast you did about Lithuania and
Speaker 2: that particular character who was from the pale who had
Speaker 2: to flee from the pogroms and all that stuff. So
Speaker 2: basically this is part three.
Speaker 3: What he's talking about here is the Spanish Civil War,
Speaker 3: specifically about an episode we did more than a year ago.
Speaker 3: As many of thirty percent of the fallen volunteers who
Speaker 3: fought in some units in Spain were Jewish. Some of them,
Speaker 3: like I'll shake In, who have written about a lot,
Speaker 3: had fled persecution in the pair of Settlement at a
Speaker 3: very young age and arrived in the USA to relative safety.
Speaker 3: But after a few years in the USA, they began
Speaker 3: to he's a menace of anti Semitism spreading back towards
Speaker 3: them through Nazi Germany and laid through fashed Italy, and
Speaker 3: they decided to take up arms and stop it. When
Speaker 3: it threatened to overwhelm Democratic Spain.
Speaker 2: Imagine that kid gets on a boat, and that kid
Speaker 2: is my grandfather. My grandfather's name is Joshua, right, and
Speaker 2: he's like a towering six foot three, beautiful man. He's
Speaker 2: studying medicine. He's fleeing his mother. His family is not wealthy,
Speaker 2: the programs are going on. He's studying medicine. Very bright guy,
Speaker 2: but every cell in his body says, you've got to
Speaker 2: get out of here. Also, also he gets this opportunity,
Speaker 2: meets a woman called Dora Clatch girl, my grandmother, who's
Speaker 2: like four foot two, right, but comes from a very
Speaker 2: wealthy family in Lithuania. And it's kind of an arranged
Speaker 2: set up, and I think Joshua is paid. Anyway, they
Speaker 2: get on a boat bound for South Africa. Some landed
Speaker 2: up in Scotland or oddly because the boat bound for America.
Speaker 2: They would they would disembark most of the all of
Speaker 2: the people on board and tell them they were in
Speaker 2: America and then take a whole lot of other people
Speaker 2: and then carry on to America so they could double
Speaker 2: the fee by the way. But anyway, my so Joshua
Speaker 2: and Dora land up on the boat and they land
Speaker 2: in the port of Durban. It's around nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, okay, and they speak mostly Yiddish. They've never
Speaker 2: seen a black person in their life. They land up,
Speaker 2: you know, on these foreign shows. My grandmother, I think,
Speaker 2: headed towards Johannesburg, and this I got from my mother
Speaker 2: on her deathbed. My mom passed away December seventeenth last year,
Speaker 2: so it's like six seven months ago, and you know,
Speaker 2: she'd like she did it magnificently and she managed to
Speaker 2: like tell those last little bits of stories. And one
Speaker 2: of those was that her mother, Dora, had had a
Speaker 2: child who died at nine months old, and she was
Speaker 2: Aknon in Johannesburg when the child died, and Joshua, her husband,
Speaker 2: was still in the So you can imagine the kind
Speaker 2: of the weirdness of that, right, I mean imagine your
Speaker 2: imagine your the father of your child not not coming
Speaker 2: to be with you when you lose your child. Coupled
Speaker 2: with the fact that they had both lost I think Dora,
Speaker 2: my grandmother, was one of eight or nine children. I
Speaker 2: think only three survived the Holocaust and her parents were killed,
Speaker 2: and the same with Joshua, so they lost all their
Speaker 2: family and there they were at the bottom tip of Africa,
Speaker 2: right without without any kind of orientation.
Speaker 1: Really, yeah, can you talk a little bit about you
Speaker 1: mentioned how you describe it as bottom feeders. I listened
Speaker 1: to another podcast you were on UH and you said
Speaker 1: that they your family suddenly really enjoyed and appreciated the
Speaker 1: change and status they had in society. Can you talk
Speaker 1: about that a little bit.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, so, you know, they got on the boat
Speaker 2: as and their identity we were were they were Jews.
Speaker 2: So they were expelled from Europe as Jews. The minute
Speaker 2: they toes touched the land in Africa, their identity transformed
Speaker 2: from being Jewish to being white, right right, just suddenly
Speaker 2: they were they were identified as white people. Like the
Speaker 2: word the word jew almost like just fell off, you know,
Speaker 2: that that yellow star that they had to wear, it
Speaker 2: just fell off. So suddenly they were like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: they were like utterly privileged, powerful and and in control.
Speaker 2: Right and with all of the with all of the
Speaker 2: corruption that apartheid provided for the elite, for the white,
Speaker 2: for the white supremacist, for the white the white people,
Speaker 2: that the Jews who arrived were able to plug into
Speaker 2: that privilege and there was about two hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: three hundred thousand Jews who fled and arrived in South Africa.
Speaker 2: So it was quite a big community and they did
Speaker 2: ver fucking well. Let me tell you, and I can
Speaker 2: tell you why. I can tell you because my father,
Speaker 2: who just saw about three days ago what's left of him.
Speaker 2: When he was active and like potent he was, he
Speaker 2: was the top tax lawyer in South Africa, which means
Speaker 2: that his clients, and those clients are people who walk
Speaker 2: through my house. Came through my house in the seventies
Speaker 2: and the eighties were probably the most hideous characters in history.
Speaker 2: You know, we're talking soul Kurzner. Sol Curzner started something
Speaker 2: called Sun's City and he exploited the buntus fand the
Speaker 2: homeland system that apartheid built, and he built this casino
Speaker 2: hotel resort called Sun's City.
Speaker 1: At this point in our conversation with Adam, we wanted
Speaker 1: to ask about his personal journey into anti Zionism and
Speaker 1: where it all began.
Speaker 3: So I think an interesting way to approach this end
Speaker 3: would be like, obviously they found themselves and your parents
Speaker 3: have found themselves in this country, which is systematically discriminating
Speaker 3: against people, right, this is apartheid South Africa, and Jewish
Speaker 3: people were at once active in the anti apartment movement,
Speaker 3: and as you're saying, also active in the apartheid government
Speaker 3: and the apartheid regime. And you found yourself, I guess,
Speaker 3: going to this school which was explicitly Zionist. And I'm wondering,
Speaker 3: at what point, And I suppose this involves seeing what's
Speaker 3: happening where you are as well as what's happening in Palestine,
Speaker 3: at what point did you make that connection and be
Speaker 3: like her this this like what what? Because you're you're
Speaker 3: a very explicitly anti Zionist, right, Like it's what was it?
Speaker 3: Something you read, something you saw, like what caused you
Speaker 3: to make that leap? And how was that received in
Speaker 3: South Africa?
Speaker 2: So I think it's a mixture of things. I think
Speaker 2: I've got three older siblings, so I'm the last born
Speaker 2: by seven years. I've got a brother Paul, seven years older,
Speaker 2: sister Man he was nine years older who lives in Israel,
Speaker 2: and an old My oldest brother, Jonathan is ten years
Speaker 2: older than me. Jonathan and Paul. Paul specifically was very
Speaker 2: politically active, so he started an organization unlike Israel, so
Speaker 2: that in South Africa the universities were like the bastions
Speaker 2: of the anti apartype movement. Right, and he was in
Speaker 2: a new sas National Union of South African Students, and
Speaker 2: he started to think called the End Conscription Campaign, which
Speaker 2: was to fight against forced conscription of white men who
Speaker 2: were compulsory called up into the army at the age
Speaker 2: of eighteen. And so given the fact that he was
Speaker 2: seven years older when I hit about fourteen or fifteen,
Speaker 2: at fifteen, I went on a thin called oh pun
Speaker 2: which is kind of you've heard of birthright right or
Speaker 2: pun is something. So I went to the Zionist Jewish
Speaker 2: day school. So every day i'd go, I'd have to pray,
Speaker 2: like go into the synagogue, pretend to pray for about
Speaker 2: an hour, right, And I was looking at my school,
Speaker 2: like my sister is like a gorgeous archivist, and she
Speaker 2: made this little book called Adam's Life, and I was
Speaker 2: looking at the school grades at the age of six,
Speaker 2: and it was like Jewish studies and we know what
Speaker 2: those Jewish studies were, right, So you walked into the
Speaker 2: Jewish studies room and there was a little blue tint
Speaker 2: which was the Jewish National Fund, and you would put
Speaker 2: your spare change in there, and that money would go
Speaker 2: towards making the desert bloom I say, in like work marks, right,
Speaker 2: So that was that money would go to plants in
Speaker 2: like two hundred and forty million pine trees in you know,
Speaker 2: which I'm not indigenous in Israel. But just to swing back.
Speaker 2: So at about fourteen or fifteen, what happened is, in
Speaker 2: parallel I was being told on a daily basis two
Speaker 2: things I was being told. Now, you've got to remember
Speaker 2: this was the heights of also the Cold War. So
Speaker 2: there were these proxy wars that were being fought all
Speaker 2: around South Africa, in Angola, in Mozambique. So in Mozambique
Speaker 2: you had fre Limo who were backed up by Cuba, Russia, right,
Speaker 2: you had you had Rhanamo that were backed up by
Speaker 2: America and South Africa, and they were running these kind
Speaker 2: of gorilla bush wars, right. And many of my friends
Speaker 2: who were called up in the military would be flown
Speaker 2: into Angola or into Mozambik. We dropped there and you know,
Speaker 2: they were told, look, if something happens, you weren't here,
Speaker 2: Well you're not there, you know, We're not going to
Speaker 2: come and find you.
Speaker 3: What I'm referring to here are the proxy conflicts throughout
Speaker 3: Africa that saw national liberation movements, often supported by Cuba
Speaker 3: and the USSR, fighting against various last class colonial regimes
Speaker 3: and African anti communist groups. These groups are often supported
Speaker 3: by the US under the guise of anti communism. These
Speaker 3: wars include the Civil War in Angola, the Namibian War
Speaker 3: of Independence, some of those, Ambiquean War of Independence, and
Speaker 3: the zimbabwe War of Independence. You might know the last
Speaker 3: one as a Rhodesian bush war, but Rhodesia doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 3: Living in the United States, it's easy to use the
Speaker 3: phrase cold war as a conflict free standoff mediated by
Speaker 3: nuclear powers chess something without acknowledging that in many parts
Speaker 3: of the world, proxy wars in these post colonial states
Speaker 3: and the conflicts of decolonialization throughout the late twentieth century
Speaker 3: made that period anything but cold.
Speaker 2: The point is is that, so at the age of fourteen,
Speaker 2: I'm going to these schools and I'm being told every
Speaker 2: day that if apartheid ended, that would mean the end
Speaker 2: of the white people in South Africa, right because we
Speaker 2: were by far the minority. White people were by far
Speaker 2: the minority, I don't know what it was, ten twelve percent,
Speaker 2: And there was this kind of you could see the
Speaker 2: fear because the walls started getting higher, the security gates
Speaker 2: were built, the razor wire, the electric fences, you know,
Speaker 2: it was it became more increasingly visible in the eighties,
Speaker 2: the fear keeping apart tight, keeping people apart. So I
Speaker 2: was told all the time, like if apartheid ended, that
Speaker 2: would mean the end of white people. At the same time,
Speaker 2: I was told, given that my community was like second
Speaker 2: generation Holocaust surviving, you know, the notion of Israel as
Speaker 2: a place of salvation, a place of when the ship
Speaker 2: hits the fag, that's where we can go, right, and
Speaker 2: that what we're always told that. And we were also
Speaker 2: told daily this is a land without people, for a
Speaker 2: pupil without land. That became a kind of mantra. Honestly,
Speaker 2: it was like it was said to me over and
Speaker 2: over again. Right. So, but when and what started happening
Speaker 2: is I think that I became an activist at the
Speaker 2: age of sixteen. There's an amazing she's now a dear
Speaker 2: friend of mine. We've reconnected. She's a theater director called
Speaker 2: yah el Faber, and we started an organization called Lin
Speaker 2: the Age of sixteen, which was to educate white kids
Speaker 2: about apartheid. And what we started to do was to
Speaker 2: literally kind of break the apartheid wall. We'd start doing
Speaker 2: visits into Souweta, we'd start doing visits into Alexandria township,
Speaker 2: and we started forming friendships. And you know, most kids
Speaker 2: just didn't go out of the suburbs. And suddenly we'd
Speaker 2: go away on these weekends, like led by kind of
Speaker 2: older activists, and we'd all hang in the same you know,
Speaker 2: we'd all sleep in the same dormitories, and we'd start chatting,
Speaker 2: chatting and smoking cigarettes together, and so like genuine just
Speaker 2: basic childhood friendships started for me. And when that stuff
Speaker 2: that profound very successful. Other ring that the propaganda of
Speaker 2: apartheid succeeded in creating, you know, the black person as
Speaker 2: the other, as the enemy, which it does in Israel,
Speaker 2: right on the other side of the apartheid wall is
Speaker 2: the worst enemy your imagination could possibly conjure, up right,
Speaker 2: And it's exactly the same process. And suddenly, when I
Speaker 2: kind of pierced that wall and that started falling apart,
Speaker 2: then the kind of ideology around Israel and the notion
Speaker 2: that Palestinians didn't exist. Suddenly they started to exist for
Speaker 2: me somehow. And so it was about around the age
Speaker 2: of sixteen, I'd say.
Speaker 3: And it was It's interesting that it was like through
Speaker 3: your experience of living in an apartheid state that you
Speaker 3: were able to, I think appreciate that, like that what
Speaker 3: was happening to the Palestinian people was like another form
Speaker 3: of settle colonialism.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think, yeah, like none of this, none
Speaker 2: of this is intellectual. So I think like everything that
Speaker 2: came to me or has driven to me is lucky
Speaker 2: is through lived experience. It really is. So I think
Speaker 2: it's like through these friendships that I realized and you know,
Speaker 2: like touching, touching skin. And this is one of this
Speaker 2: is the difference between a Partheit South African Apartheit Israel
Speaker 2: Palestine is that we were segregated by law, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, mixed marriages were prohibited by law, sex was
Speaker 2: prohibited between races. But the thing is that we were
Speaker 2: mixed together because the labor force was needed, right, So,
Speaker 2: like you know, the nineteen sixteen Tax Act forced a
Speaker 2: lot of black migrant male workers into the cities to
Speaker 2: work on the gold mines, which meant that there was
Speaker 2: the presence of the other amongst us. And because there
Speaker 2: was the presence of the other, the other, there was
Speaker 2: also the desire and it is a sexual desire or
Speaker 2: essential desire, and the smells, and we would touch each other,
Speaker 2: and we would walk through the city and kind of
Speaker 2: rub up against each other. Now, my nieces and nephews
Speaker 2: having grown up the under under the inter father and
Speaker 2: because of the Apartheid War, they've been deprived of that
Speaker 2: sensual experience.
Speaker 1: Of the other in Palestine Israel.
Speaker 2: You mean in Palestine Israel. Yeah, so that you know
Speaker 2: they've built they've built this twelve foot there's twelve foot,
Speaker 2: seven hundred kilometer long concrete tsunami of a war that
Speaker 2: divides people, which means that you know, until recently, nobody
Speaker 2: uttered the word Palestinian because they didn't exist, right, And
Speaker 2: so for my nieces and nephews, what was on the
Speaker 2: other side of that wall was, like I said, their
Speaker 2: worst the worst enemy that their imagination could conjure up.
Speaker 2: And children's imaginations are amazing, right, And I did say
Speaker 2: this a while back where where you know how for
Speaker 2: cos spoke about he spoke about the structures that were
Speaker 2: built around the plague, and after the plague ended, he
Speaker 2: was still left with these structures. Right now, let's think
Speaker 2: about the apartheid wall. You've got the seven hundred kilometers
Speaker 2: a long, massive like concrete thing. It goes like five
Speaker 2: meters underground. Yeah. Now, unlike for cose hypothesis that war
Speaker 2: has created the plague, that war has created the enemy,
Speaker 2: because what's on the other side of that wall, that's
Speaker 2: only that's only accessible through these little checkpoints that are
Speaker 2: manned by these you know, poor teenage like little foot
Speaker 2: soldiers of the state. That's the that's the only way
Speaker 2: to penetrate that war. So on the other side of
Speaker 2: that wall is whatever you tell the people is there,
Speaker 2: and and that's the that's the horror of that situation.
Speaker 1: I actually, I'm kind of glad you brought up the
Speaker 1: plague idea because you mentioned that on a different podcast,
Speaker 1: and I thought it was really like poetic to illustrate
Speaker 1: that a plague can be constructed by the structure versus
Speaker 1: actually the plague.
Speaker 4: And it's it's also kind of worth noting, you know,
Speaker 4: as you were talking about the restrictions on interracial marriage,
Speaker 4: in South Africa. Versions of that very much still exist
Speaker 4: to this day in Israel, including heavy restrictions on inner
Speaker 4: marriage between Israeli and Palestinian people. You know that that's
Speaker 4: a bigger topic than I want to just kind of
Speaker 4: casually get into it. Like there's a number of restrictions
Speaker 4: that exist into the present day because like civil marriage
Speaker 4: is not really a thing there as it is in
Speaker 4: a lot of other countries.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I wonder, like you said that Palestinian people
Speaker 3: existed in your childhood only as this sort of construct, right,
Speaker 3: this other construct and your experience of black people in
Speaker 3: South Africa has shown you that those other constructs were
Speaker 3: false and misleading and served perhaps an agenda when you
Speaker 3: decided that, like your stance was anti Zionism, and then
Speaker 3: you said to your I'm guessing, to your friends, your family,
Speaker 3: to your fellow children at the school, like, hey, this
Speaker 3: is fucked up here and this is fucked up there too.
Speaker 3: How was the response.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like, you know, one doesn't come to these
Speaker 2: decisions of a na and like announce it right, right.
Speaker 2: So there's vague memories I have, Like, like I said,
Speaker 2: I was on that all pun trip, which is like
Speaker 2: this three week or three month trip. I mean they said,
Speaker 2: like one hundred and fifteen year old kids, you live
Speaker 2: in a in a building in Jerusalem, and it's basically
Speaker 2: like this three month propaganda tour. Right, You're given a
Speaker 2: Bible and you're told that that's your guidebook. Literally you
Speaker 2: like you traverse, you traverse this place following the stories
Speaker 2: of the Bible, and that's meant to be like your
Speaker 2: holy land. But I did have one of the it's
Speaker 2: called a Madrich, I think, a teacher. He was he
Speaker 2: must have been eighteen or nineteen. He happened to be
Speaker 2: kind of like a vaguely liberal Zionist. And I remember
Speaker 2: clearly him taking me to an anti Kahani protest, so
Speaker 2: there was still like Maya Kahane was alive, and we
Speaker 2: know that Mayogahni. You know, the Corness movement, as you know,
Speaker 2: was a kind of you know, they spawned the ben
Speaker 2: Geviers and these fascists who are in power now, but
Speaker 2: at the time they were deemed a terrorist organization by America.
Speaker 2: And and I remember going to an anti Kahani protest,
Speaker 2: So somehow that planted a little seed in me, and
Speaker 2: I guess, you know, I think the anti Zionism came
Speaker 2: afterwards because I was so focused on the anti apartheid
Speaker 2: struggle because that's where I was and that's what I
Speaker 2: was doing. And my university was either spent like running
Speaker 2: battles with riot police or smoking weed. And I literally
Speaker 2: went to about three classes. Honestly, I was definitely the
Speaker 2: odd one out in my school. I mean, you know it,
Speaker 2: being a Zionist Jewish die school. I'm still you know,
Speaker 2: I'm still probably perceived as lack an absolute fucking avarration.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you did describe your mother in one podcast as
Speaker 1: as diehard Zionist, and so I can only imagine. And
Speaker 1: you you mentioned your nephew and her husband both were
Speaker 1: in the IDF, so I can only imagine. I think
Speaker 1: it's good to bring up that despite all of that,
Speaker 1: you were able to like think deeply about it and
Speaker 1: work your way out of that brainwashing. Essentially, before I
Speaker 1: get too carried away, let's take our first break. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back, b RB, and we're back. I want
Speaker 1: to talk now about your experience in Germany and how
Speaker 1: you experienced like state level accusations of being an anti
Speaker 1: Semitic person even though you're just a vocal Jewish antixionist.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about what led this person? I didn't
Speaker 1: even though this person existed. Stefan Hensel, who is the
Speaker 1: anti Semitism Commissioner of the City of Hamburg. That's a
Speaker 1: position someone has, But what led him to call you?
Speaker 1: These really atrocious things in so many newspapers and like
Speaker 1: basically like justlist and libelist stuff.
Speaker 2: Okay, so check it out. So my mom dies seventeenth
Speaker 2: of December. Yeah, I go away to a yoga retreat
Speaker 2: where there's there's Lola coverage. I'm like, I'm offline. I
Speaker 2: get back to and there's emails from like people are
Speaker 2: ready trust you know, and and serious people in my
Speaker 2: life saying, you know, dude, you've got to respond to
Speaker 2: these allegations that are in like de zeight Billin and
Speaker 2: zeol Tad's you know, basically every major newspaper in Germany
Speaker 2: and social media all over the place, there's this character
Speaker 2: like you said Stefan Hensel, who is the commission of
Speaker 2: Antisemitism for the state of Bullin. Now eight of the
Speaker 2: states of Germany have commissioners of antisemitism, right, none of
Speaker 2: whom are Jewish, none of whom were elected. They kind
Speaker 2: of semi it's it's super weird they are, it's semi legal.
Speaker 2: I mean, like nobody knows that exists, nobody knows that,
Speaker 2: nobody elects them. This character Stephan Hens, and I don't
Speaker 2: want to pay too much attention to him because he's
Speaker 2: just like a nebulous, Islamophobic pro Zionist, you know, bureaucrat.
Speaker 2: But anyway, he does a series of interviews, and to
Speaker 2: summarize the numerous interviews and his social media posts, I
Speaker 2: am called, quote literally a hateful anti Seamite who advocates
Speaker 2: for terrorism against Jews. Now this is two weeks after
Speaker 2: bearing my Jewish mother, who was a second generation Holocaust survivor.
Speaker 2: Now that is that definition of gaslighting right now, as
Speaker 2: a white man, it's testimony to my privilege that I
Speaker 2: haven't experienced gaslighting on a daily basis as most women do.
Speaker 2: Certainly every Palestinian friend I have, they experience that every
Speaker 2: minute of their lives because their very essence is illegal
Speaker 2: being Palestinian. You know, the blood that runs with their
Speaker 2: veins is illegal. They don't exist because they're Palestinian. Right,
Speaker 2: But so I stand accused of these things, and I'm
Speaker 2: like I'm god smacked. I'm like, and the reason is
Speaker 2: is because I've been vocal about my support and solidarity
Speaker 2: for Palestinian rights, and.
Speaker 1: It was particularly about your support for the BDS movement.
Speaker 2: Right exactly. So BDS, boycott, divestments, sanctions has become a
Speaker 2: kind of it's like one of these terms that emerges
Speaker 2: in the world. It's like terrorism or or on drugs
Speaker 2: or what are the terms can we come up with?
Speaker 2: You know, it's like it's one of these catchphrases and
Speaker 2: it's like bids. Yeah, and it's like it's just like
Speaker 2: people don't even associate it with boycott, divestment sanctions. If
Speaker 2: you break it down, you know what ended apartheid in
Speaker 2: South Africa? There was no there was no sudden moral awakening. Basically,
Speaker 2: the Cold War ended. Reagan and Thatcher, who were total
Speaker 2: supporters of apartheid South Africa, Suddenly the Cold War ended.
Speaker 2: South Africa wasn't that important an asset and there was
Speaker 2: international pressure and you know, more and more people started
Speaker 2: to see what the atrocities that were going on, and
Speaker 2: sanctions and divestments started to happen. Right, So polaroid become
Speaker 2: BENI Polaroid I did a project about this was one
Speaker 2: of the first companies that colluded with the South African
Speaker 2: government but also divested when that when when they were exposed,
Speaker 2: and that led to a number of banks divesting from
Speaker 2: South Africa, so sanctions and investments, and essentially the South
Speaker 2: African government in the late eighties was financially broke. So
Speaker 2: they were forced to the negotiation table because they were broke,
Speaker 2: not because they they they woke up one morning and said,
Speaker 2: oh my god, we're we're oppressing the majority of black
Speaker 2: people in this country and and you know, so it's
Speaker 2: just like they were forced to and so so BDS,
Speaker 2: which is a peaceful, non violent means of resistance that
Speaker 2: that that started during the Second inter Father has become
Speaker 2: one of these catchphrases. And I'll tell you a story.
Speaker 2: And this all came to a head around last year's Documenta,
Speaker 2: which happens in the city of Castle in Germany. Now,
Speaker 2: document is a really interesting art event in the art
Speaker 2: world calendar, and last year Documenta was that was a
Speaker 2: very very interesting little theater play. So what happened during
Speaker 2: Documentar last year is that there was a group of
Speaker 2: Palestinian artists who were invited to show work, and their
Speaker 2: space was invaded and there was graffiti was sprayed in
Speaker 2: on the walls. There were two things were sprayed. One
Speaker 2: was the number one eight seven and then the word perolta.
Speaker 1: Can you just explain what those both mean?
Speaker 2: I'm not exactly sure, but one eight seven I can
Speaker 2: tell you, okay. And the reason I can tell you
Speaker 2: is because one eight seven was spray painted outside my
Speaker 2: front door, inside my apartment building. And one eight seven,
Speaker 2: as any gang member in California will tell you, is
Speaker 2: the Californian penal code for murder. And when you spray
Speaker 2: one eight seven, it's a death threat.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, and so.
Speaker 2: And so. What the media did in Germany is said,
Speaker 2: oh no, no, no, hang on, there's a hip hop
Speaker 2: band in Hamburg called one a seventh.
Speaker 3: Okay where that came from?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was going to mention that Sublime also has
Speaker 4: a few songs with one eight seven.
Speaker 1: They were just Sublime fans graffiti.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a song. Riots there was a radical
Speaker 3: branch of the Sublime Banklet.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'd love to hear his music, but I.
Speaker 3: Think you don't want any Sublime.
Speaker 2: No, no, I really do. After this, I'm going to
Speaker 2: actually look and listen to. But so on the morning
Speaker 2: when when so back to documenta. So they spray painted
Speaker 2: the staff and and then there was a fural because
Speaker 2: there was there was an Indonesian collective who did a
Speaker 2: giant mural and one of the pieces that one of
Speaker 2: the characters in this mural depicted an IDF soldier, an
Speaker 2: Israeli defense for a soldier or an Israeli occupying for
Speaker 2: a soldier as a pig. Right, policeman soldier as a pig.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's an old troup. We've all done it, right,
Speaker 2: you know, they're the pigs. Police are the pigs. But
Speaker 2: there was an idea as a pig, and it was
Speaker 2: and so it was deemed anti Semitic, and fair enough.
Speaker 2: It's like it's Germany. It's an Israeli person in a
Speaker 2: uniform depicted as a pig. It's tasteless, you know, it's tacky.
Speaker 2: Immediately they kind of covered the mural up, right, but
Speaker 2: bang the troops came in. The israel lobby, the Jewish
Speaker 2: lobby came in. Boom, right, they seized the opportunity and
Speaker 2: they hit and suddenly the word BDS came in, right,
Speaker 2: and so the two curators from grown Rupa who were
Speaker 2: amongst the collective who were curating that year's documentor were
Speaker 2: visiting professors at the Art School in Hamburg, where I
Speaker 2: had been a professor for the previous six years. Okay,
Speaker 2: and Stefan Hensel like a little kind of surgeon. He
Speaker 2: pinpointed these three little pernicious kind of pro Palestinian people
Speaker 2: that were inside a German university, and he wanted to
Speaker 2: remove them with his little tweezers. And and so he
Speaker 2: grouped us together and he slammed the word anti Semitism.
Speaker 2: He accused us of being anti Semitic, and so he
Speaker 2: weaponized this word and this word like it's such an
Speaker 2: interesting word, right, anti Semitism. It's like, so here you've
Speaker 2: got a guy. Now he's never declared, and not not
Speaker 2: that it's of any interest to me whether he's Jewish
Speaker 2: or not. I mean, I don't think he has the
Speaker 2: right to buy into my lineage of trauma. He doesn't
Speaker 2: have that right. But he married a Jew. He named
Speaker 2: his son, I think David or something. Right, these are
Speaker 2: so there's all these kind of.
Speaker 1: Like gestures to make him see you like he's uh
Speaker 1: has the ability to say these things.
Speaker 2: Not not a loophole as much as a kind of
Speaker 2: as a kind of dress code. Right. It's like, my
Speaker 2: son's called Yeah, my son's called David. I'm married to
Speaker 2: a Jewish person. I've lived in Israel for six years.
Speaker 2: I ran the Yidisha Gim, the Israelisha Germanisia organization, you know,
Speaker 2: Israel German organization, which is like, you know, an Islamophobic
Speaker 2: kind of weird or weird ass think tank. I don't
Speaker 2: know what they do, right, but the point is, here's
Speaker 2: this guy, and I bet you I would lay money
Speaker 2: on it that his parents or his grandparents were perpetrators
Speaker 2: during the Holocaust. And this is this is the way.
Speaker 2: This is the psychological twist. This is like the beautiful
Speaker 2: little that the mind does to get oneself out of
Speaker 2: feeling shit about yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean even attempting to remove those people from
Speaker 1: their posts is like, that's a great example of Germany
Speaker 1: using anti Semitism, like weaponizing it at an institutional level.
Speaker 1: Like that's a that's really unfortunate. I want to I
Speaker 1: do want to mention this really quick. In twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: Germany tried to make BDS a hate crime and even
Speaker 1: though it was challenged and then it was found to
Speaker 1: be unconstitutional. That like the fact that tenth was made.
Speaker 1: From what I understand, there's still an attitude in Germany
Speaker 1: about BDS being this illegal ish thing.
Speaker 2: Fair exactly. So it's like, you know, my father was
Speaker 2: a law as I said, So I know the difference
Speaker 2: between law and justice, and I know what a test
Speaker 2: case means. So you bring something to trial means it
Speaker 2: enters into the language of society, right, And when you
Speaker 2: say is BDS anti semitic and you like test this thing,
Speaker 2: suddenly there's this presumption and there is a presumption that
Speaker 2: BDS is anti Semitic, And I can give you concrete
Speaker 2: examples of how it's happened, how it's played out over
Speaker 2: the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, I want James to mention you looked up
Speaker 1: that word, right, James.
Speaker 3: Isabel Peralta. Yeah, I'm familiar with her, unfortunately, and I
Speaker 3: think this kind of lines up with the sort of
Speaker 3: she came on the scene in twenty twenty one that
Speaker 3: I had been around doing antimptisms for a long time.
Speaker 3: She is a self self described fascist in Spain. She's
Speaker 3: part of a group or at the time was leading
Speaker 3: a group called huvnor Patriiostrica, which is patriotic youth, and
Speaker 3: like the speech that she's most famous for was delivered
Speaker 3: at a commemoration for the Divisio on a Fool, which
Speaker 3: is a blue division. They're the Francoist volunteers who fought
Speaker 3: for Nazi Germany, which you know, if you're commemorating that,
Speaker 3: you're kind of a piece of shit. And then she
Speaker 3: went on to be a further piece of shit, I
Speaker 3: suppose by like, she's very explicit in her antisemitism, right,
Speaker 3: she doesn't do what a lot of these people do
Speaker 3: and kind of veil it. She talks about Jewish people
Speaker 3: as the eternal enemy. And it's worth pointing out that
Speaker 3: in Spain, Spain has had what's largely called anti Semitism
Speaker 3: without Jews, or sometimes called that because Spain conducted ethnic
Speaker 3: cleansing or it conducted a literally they'll call it an
Speaker 3: olympietha like a cleansing and a removal of Jewish people,
Speaker 3: and Spanish Jewish population is still very small, and so
Speaker 3: this sort of virulent anti Semitism that were seeing on
Speaker 3: her behalf, it had impacts all around Europe, and she
Speaker 3: was kind of the the most prominent and outspoken anti
Speaker 3: Semite for a little while there.
Speaker 1: So that was the name they graffitied, along with one
Speaker 1: of the seven.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess trying to tie this documenta to her
Speaker 3: disgusting anti Semitic, which is entirely distinct things, right, Like
Speaker 3: I think, as you were saying, and like that, by
Speaker 3: by putting the two in the same phrase, we conflate
Speaker 3: them when when they are entirely distinct things. And she,
Speaker 3: I think all of us would agree, is a terrible
Speaker 3: person views.
Speaker 2: But if we dig a little deeper, we get to
Speaker 2: the core, which is why did the Nazis and the
Speaker 2: Zionists collaborate in the nineteen thirties Because they had the
Speaker 2: same desire they had. They wanted the same outcome. They
Speaker 2: wanted the Jews out of Europe. They wanted them to
Speaker 2: move to Palestine, right. Zionism was a European project started
Speaker 2: in the early twentieth century in Vienna. They wanted their
Speaker 2: Jewis out of Europe and into Palestine. The Zionists did,
Speaker 2: so they collaborated, and I think, really, truly, I think
Speaker 2: that we do face a real threat of real anti
Speaker 2: Semitism in Germany. And I have two children. My daughter
Speaker 2: is thirteen, her name is Lennie. My little boy is ten.
Speaker 2: His name's Marlow. And if you look at the police
Speaker 2: report of twenty twenty two that was released in Berlin,
Speaker 2: there are multiple numerous incidents of visual and quite violent
Speaker 2: incidents of real anti Semitism, right, And why are we
Speaker 2: not addressing that because my kids are in danger? And
Speaker 2: instead we have the Minister of Culture, whose name is
Speaker 2: Claudia Roff. Stand up a couple of weeks ago on
Speaker 2: a Friday night at the opening of Haka. There, you know,
Speaker 2: a huge institution that my dear friend Bonaventour, who comes
Speaker 2: from Cameroon is he's been made the head of this institution.
Speaker 2: And it's a Friday night, and the whole is full
Speaker 2: of people and it's glorious, a beautiful night. I mean,
Speaker 2: you have diversity like you've never seen. This is like
Speaker 2: queer diverse blackness, indigenous thought, it's queer thought. It's like
Speaker 2: fucking peaches. Is there? Everyone's there, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: And Claudia Raff takes the stage, she takes the microphone,
Speaker 2: and what does she say? She says in the silence
Speaker 2: in the room, and she says BDS is anti Summitic.
Speaker 2: Like what the fuck? Yeah, BDS is antisemitic. And I'll
Speaker 2: tell you I love Boner. Now let me tell you
Speaker 2: about Bonavento. Bonnac came from Cameroon thirteen years ago. He
Speaker 2: has a PhD. His PhD is in biotechnology. He worked
Speaker 2: all day building pacemakers while he set up a cultural
Speaker 2: institution called Savvy Contemporary and Savvy represented the Bipop community
Speaker 2: in Berlin and in Germany. Right, Bonner is a genius.
Speaker 2: He deals with post colonialism like I mean, he's a maestro.
Speaker 2: He's amazing what he has done. He's changed the landscape
Speaker 2: of this country. He's brought colonialism into the into the
Speaker 2: discourse of the country, into the culture. Right. But my
Speaker 2: fear is is they've used him as a trojan horse,
Speaker 2: and they've got the German States have got their fist
Speaker 2: up his fucking ass. And that night when he it
Speaker 2: was Bonner's night, it was the night of diversity. There
Speaker 2: comes this pernicious minister of Culture and she stands up
Speaker 2: and out of the blue, she says, b DS is
Speaker 2: anti semitic. Bona because he's such a graceful, smart man,
Speaker 2: and because he knows that we are fighting intersectional struggles
Speaker 2: that happen at different velocities and happen at different speeds
Speaker 2: and come at different angles. He came up on stage
Speaker 2: and he said, we come in peace. It scares me, No, it's.
Speaker 1: I could only imagine what it was like to be
Speaker 1: there a person. I mean, it sounds mortifying, especially if
Speaker 1: you're Palestinian or Arab bird, just an anti Zionis in general.
Speaker 1: I brought up a story here that I heard Adam
Speaker 1: talk about on a different show, but future me is
Speaker 1: recording this now because I wanted you to have some
Speaker 1: more context to the story so you can really grasp
Speaker 1: the irony of it all. It's a great example of
Speaker 1: the divide and intensity that happens, or that can happen
Speaker 1: with anti Zionists and Zionists within the Jewish community itself.
Speaker 1: Adam said that some of the people who he had
Speaker 1: assumed were friends and allies have disappeared, which is one
Speaker 1: of the prices you pay for criticizing Israel. Adam had
Speaker 1: been spending more time in Hebron, what he described as
Speaker 1: a wasteland. He said in the previous interview that you
Speaker 1: spend ten minutes at Hebron and you get the notion
Speaker 1: of apartheid, occupation and Jewish supremacy. You get it, and
Speaker 1: no one has to utter the words. Adam has documented
Speaker 1: violence in places like maximum security jails Afghanistan two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, Iraq two thousand and five, but he said
Speaker 1: that two times he's felt the most existentially and physically
Speaker 1: a threat of death. One of those times was last
Speaker 1: year when he was in Hebron and him and his
Speaker 1: team went to take photos of olive trees. Olive trees
Speaker 1: in that area can be two thousand to four thousand
Speaker 1: years old, and since nineteen sixty seven, Israeli settlers have
Speaker 1: destroyed one million of these trees. I have an episode
Speaker 1: about this and the significance of the Palestine olive tree,
Speaker 1: about how it's not only an immensely important crop but
Speaker 1: also a symbol of Palestinian culture and resistance. I talk
Speaker 1: about this in that episode as well, But it bears
Speaker 1: repeating that destroying olive trees is one of the most
Speaker 1: clear examples that Zionism isn't about wanting to return to
Speaker 1: a sacred land that is destined to you. Instead, Zionism
Speaker 1: is hateful and inexcusable. Adam shares this sentiment, which I appreciate,
Speaker 1: and I really loved learning about his work with olive trees.
Speaker 1: I just don't think Zionists have any kind of rebuttal
Speaker 1: or reasoning to support why the hell they keep destroying
Speaker 1: olive trees decade after decade, Like in what universe can
Speaker 1: you say and believe that you have a genuine attachment
Speaker 1: to that land, a biblical right to that land? Like
Speaker 1: how could you say that you love that land as
Speaker 1: a sacred space, but then also go and destroy what
Speaker 1: Adam describes as its quote oldest indigenous citizens, aka the
Speaker 1: olive trees. That's not a person who loves that land
Speaker 1: that it's a person who was driven by hate. So
Speaker 1: Adam is working to preserve and protect these trees. Settlers
Speaker 1: pour gasoline down the center of the tree trunk, so
Speaker 1: by the time you see smoke, a tree is already dead.
Speaker 1: He was there and have run with a camera taking
Speaker 1: photos of the trees. And then Jewish settlers sent these
Speaker 1: packs of kids that he said were ages five to seventeen,
Speaker 1: dressed in full religious garb, accompanied by the Israeli military.
Speaker 1: Adam and his crew kept getting attacked by these kids
Speaker 1: as the military stood by, but he explained that you
Speaker 1: can't lift a finger to defend yourself because these kids
Speaker 1: are miners. Adam talked about this and said, if I
Speaker 1: was Palestinian and I pushed back, I would be shot
Speaker 1: on the spot. The fact that I'm Jewish, I would
Speaker 1: just be removed and the work would simply be over.
Speaker 1: So he got beaten pretty badly several times, and apparently
Speaker 1: there's footage of it somewhere, and his experience and have
Speaker 1: brown again is one of those two times that he's
Speaker 1: felt the most existentially and physically at the threat of death.
Speaker 1: The second time happened a few days later, which is
Speaker 1: the story I briefly mentioned to him in the recording
Speaker 1: that we did that I want to talk about more here.
Speaker 1: So a few days after that incident, Adam returned to
Speaker 1: Berlin and it happened to be the anniversary of krystel
Speaker 1: Nacht or the Night of Broken Glass, which is widely
Speaker 1: known as the beginning of the Holocaust. It's also called
Speaker 1: the November Pogrom, and it was a pogrom against Jews
Speaker 1: carried out by the Nazi Party with some particition patient
Speaker 1: from the Hitler youth and German civilians throughout Nazi Germany
Speaker 1: on the ninth and tenth of November in nineteen thirty eight.
Speaker 1: The German authorities looked on as this happened without intervening.
Speaker 1: The name Krystelnacht is literally translated to crystal Knight, and
Speaker 1: this name comes from the shards of broken glass that
Speaker 1: littered the streets after the windows of Jewish owned stores, buildings,
Speaker 1: and synagogues were smashed. So back to Adam's story, a
Speaker 1: memorial for krystel Noacht is held at the sight of
Speaker 1: the two old synagogues that had been burned down in Germany.
Speaker 1: Adam arrived there with a crew holding signs that said
Speaker 1: Jews against Fascism everywhere. He's surrounded by fellow Jewish people,
Speaker 1: and this big guy comes up to Adam, and Adam
Speaker 1: describes this guy as being much bigger and much taller
Speaker 1: than him. And so this big guy looks down at
Speaker 1: Adam and he says, get rid of those signs. Who
Speaker 1: gave you the right to be here? Adam responded, quote
Speaker 1: the death of ninety percent of my family. What troubles
Speaker 1: you about the sign? Are you anti Semitic? Are you fascist?
Speaker 1: Are you bothered by the word everywhere. Have you got
Speaker 1: this weird synesthesia thing where you see the word everywhere
Speaker 1: and you see Israel. Do you think I'm implying that
Speaker 1: there's a possibility that Israel could have fascist traits? In
Speaker 1: response to this, this big guy starts attacking Adam. So
Speaker 1: Adam ran absolutely terrified. He ran and sought protection from
Speaker 1: the German police. The irony of a Jewish person feeling
Speaker 1: his life threatened by another Jewish person and then seeking
Speaker 1: refuge from the German police. Adam says this was the
Speaker 1: most surreal moment of his life.
Speaker 2: So so ironic. But let me flip that story on
Speaker 2: its head, right, And now, okay, So it's nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: eight and I am on the front page of a
Speaker 2: new paper and I get home to my mother and
Speaker 2: she's furious. She's fucking furious because there I am on
Speaker 2: the front page of the newspaper. And I'm hold, I'm there,
Speaker 2: my face is there, and I'm holding up a flower,
Speaker 2: and in front of me is a is a South
Speaker 2: African riot policeman. Right. And it was one of the
Speaker 2: demonstrations I was at at the age of eighteen, on
Speaker 2: the campus at Vitsa University. All Right, and I got
Speaker 2: into ship from my mother, who said, what the fuck
Speaker 2: are you doing standing in front of the riot police.
Speaker 2: I got into ship from a black student society, because we,
Speaker 2: as white students, took orders from a black student society.
Speaker 2: He said, what are you doing holding a flower to
Speaker 2: the fucking pig doing it like this? This is not
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixties. We're fighting a struggle. So I got
Speaker 2: in ship from both sides. Right now, cut to May,
Speaker 2: a few months ago, I mean Iranian Platz, there is
Speaker 2: a commemoration organized for the ongoing Knakba. All right, we
Speaker 2: know what the Knuckba is, the catastrophe, right, so in
Speaker 2: nineteen we don't have to explain that. But all for
Speaker 2: two the year before that, all commemorations for the knackbar
Speaker 2: were banned. And in May, the commemorations for the Knackbar
Speaker 2: organized by Palestinian groups were banned. So Yidish Stima, which
Speaker 2: means Jewish voices the organization they organized a commemoration and
Speaker 2: we gathered together on a beautiful Sunday morning, and you know,
Speaker 2: it was really lovely, and there were kids there, there
Speaker 2: were old people. It was great, and we were all
Speaker 2: all gathered together there and we gave the platform to
Speaker 2: some Palestinian voices who were just speaking about freedom from
Speaker 2: the river to the sea, you know, And suddenly the
Speaker 2: riot police came boom, boom, boom, you know. Lines of
Speaker 2: them intercepted us. And I was faced again at the
Speaker 2: age of fifty two, not eighteen, So flipped from nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty eight to twenty twenty three, and I'm facing eye
Speaker 2: to eye with the fucking white riot policeman and it
Speaker 2: was the same riot policeman. And you know what I
Speaker 2: said to him. I said to him, where was your
Speaker 2: grandmother during the war? And he didn't answer me, and
Speaker 2: I said, do you know where my grandmother was? And
Speaker 2: he said, I don't care, At which point I turned
Speaker 2: around and two or three, and there's there's footage of
Speaker 2: this from every single angle. Two or three of these
Speaker 2: right policemen jumped on top of me, brutally beat me
Speaker 2: and arrested me, handcuffed me. They handcuffed me so tightly
Speaker 2: that they had to call the fucking fire brigade to
Speaker 2: cut the handcuffs off me. And hang on, it gets worse.
Speaker 2: Then an hour later, I'm on the front page of
Speaker 2: the Berlin Zetel. There I am being marched off by
Speaker 2: German police, right police. And you know what, the headline says,
Speaker 2: one hundred anti Semitic Palestinian protesters disrupt Jewish memorial. Check
Speaker 2: it out. Check it out, and you know what, I
Speaker 2: think it's still up there. Yeah, Okay, this is where
Speaker 2: we're at. This is where we're at in this country. Like,
Speaker 2: forget fact checking. This is not a Palestinian. I'm a
Speaker 2: fucking Jew. You've arrested a fucking third generation Holocaust surviving Jew,
Speaker 2: You mother fucking Nazi. And they tell me de Nazification
Speaker 2: never happened in this country. There's no such thing as
Speaker 2: neo Nazis. They're Nazis man And this Stefan Henzel, he
Speaker 2: wants the Jews out of Germany. That's what's underneath all
Speaker 2: of the shit, right, because if they were worried about antisemitism,
Speaker 2: let's talk about antisemitism, okay, because I've got kids and
Speaker 2: they need to be safe.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, I was reading the other day a news
Speaker 4: article from I think fifty one or fifty two that
Speaker 4: was about one of the god Now I was facing
Speaker 4: ot his name, but he was he was a Wehrmacht
Speaker 4: general who was you know, commanded troops on the Ast Front,
Speaker 4: survived the war and later got into German politics. And
Speaker 4: it was just a it was an article about one
Speaker 4: of his political rallies where protesters were like broken up
Speaker 4: and beaten up by German police officers. And it's kind
Speaker 4: of this the same, like, yeah, what were your what
Speaker 4: was your family doing during those twelve years? You know,
Speaker 4: like it's it's really it's a question you can ask,
Speaker 4: but it's rarely really a question, right right, Yeah, Like
Speaker 4: there was never any that's such an important point, you know,
Speaker 4: particularly when we talk about like why there is you know,
Speaker 4: such what you can call technically support for Israel that's rooted,
Speaker 4: as you noted, often in just getting Jewish people out
Speaker 4: of Germany. Like there was never any kind of real denatification.
Speaker 3: No, yeah, no, no, no systemic level.
Speaker 2: This is all about white supremacy man. Because I'll tell
Speaker 2: you what, and this goes deeper. On the fifteenth of July,
Speaker 2: they made a law in Berlin that all public swimming pools.
Speaker 2: They claim that there was a rise in violence in
Speaker 2: public swimming pools in Berlin. Okay, particularly in Nikol and Kreutzberg, which,
Speaker 2: as we know, other areas of like migrants, particularly Palestinian
Speaker 2: Middle Eastern migrants. Right. And in fact, if you look
Speaker 2: at the statistics from twenty nineteen to two twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: violence has gone down by twenty one or twenty three percent,
Speaker 2: I can't remember correctly, so that's incorrect. But now we
Speaker 2: have a state a position where at the entrance of
Speaker 2: every swimming pool there is a police fan and they
Speaker 2: are ethnically and racially profiling people who come into swimming pools. Right,
Speaker 2: And there is basically a law that says that there
Speaker 2: shall not be more than three men read three men
Speaker 2: of color in a public swimming pool. Okay, And this
Speaker 2: this is where we're heading. Felix Klein, who's the Federal
Speaker 2: Commission of Anti Semitism, Stefan Henzel, who's the Hamburg one,
Speaker 2: these people that the mayor of Berlin. On Pentecost night,
Speaker 2: he tweeted, check out check out his tweet. He tweeted something.
Speaker 2: It went like this, It said, we wish everybody a
Speaker 2: happy Pentecost, and we wish our guests a lovely time.
Speaker 2: Our guests. This is like, dude, I mean, you know Christian,
Speaker 2: it's grim It's fucking grim man. And you know these
Speaker 2: people want a white they want a white Aryan Christian
Speaker 2: fucking country. They want the dark people out.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a huge part that people don't realize
Speaker 1: is that Zionism is mostly white supremacy and mostly very
Speaker 1: anti anti Jewish, because that's advocates for just like the
Speaker 1: expulsion of the Jews.
Speaker 2: Again, well, it's a fucking mental illness, is what it is.
Speaker 1: I don't disagree with you.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to reflect, like maybe as we as
Speaker 3: we end up on how far the needle has swung
Speaker 3: when we talk about like anti Semitism, anti Zionism, and
Speaker 3: sort of where they because they do have a lap, yeah,
Speaker 3: but they don't know they are not the same thing.
Speaker 3: And I think about how there's this letter that is
Speaker 3: the New York Times published like it was in the
Speaker 3: late nineteen forties forty eight, forty nine. It co signed
Speaker 3: by a lot of prominent Jewish intellectuals, including Hannah Rent
Speaker 3: Albert Einstein, talking about the settler policies in Israel at
Speaker 3: that time by Zionist groups at that time as fascist,
Speaker 3: which is something that would now be considered to be
Speaker 3: like antisemit, Like that's calling Israel fascist? Was what got
Speaker 3: you chased at him by that guy. It's considered to
Speaker 3: be anti Semitic in Germany, right, Like these are people
Speaker 3: who you know, had lost family members. You know, they
Speaker 3: can the nuclear family to the Holocaust, like prominent Jewish
Speaker 3: intellectuals who would now be considered I guess anti semitic
Speaker 3: under this by saying sit New York Times would publish
Speaker 3: and the Times wouldn't publish that now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know a few of us got together in
Speaker 2: Oranian pluts in a place where we were arrested in
Speaker 2: May a few like Jewish friends of mine, like some
Speaker 2: from Brooklyn, some from Israel, some from here. And you know,
Speaker 2: five nights ago, a young Palesinian man was arrested by
Speaker 2: twelve Israeli policemen and they branded a they cut with
Speaker 2: a knife the Star of David into his chield. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and there's footage of this and they literally cut the
Speaker 2: Star of David into his cheek. And we wore red
Speaker 2: Stars of David at the schedule tonight, And it just
Speaker 2: strikes me as ironic. You know, like eighty years ago,
Speaker 2: my ancestors were forced to wear a yellow star as
Speaker 2: a lapel on their armband or stuck to their jackets
Speaker 2: to shame them, to declare them as Jews, as dirty
Speaker 2: Jews in public. And now I feel like I've got
Speaker 2: to wear this red star because of our collective shame,
Speaker 2: because of what's being done in our name by the
Speaker 2: State of Israel and by Zionism. And this is not
Speaker 2: allowed to be done in my name. Really, that's sorry
Speaker 2: to be so grim?
Speaker 1: Fuck No, I mean, if there is ever an ending story, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a grim story, but I think it's a great
Speaker 1: place to end. There's still so much I want to
Speaker 1: ask you. I would love to know your thoughts about
Speaker 1: like liberal Zionism, but that's gonna have to wait for
Speaker 1: next time. Thank you for giving us time in the
Speaker 1: middle or the early mornings.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much of course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Adam, where can people find you online and help
Speaker 3: support the advocacy you're doing.
Speaker 2: Mostly I'm a bit of a geriatric, so I'm just
Speaker 2: on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Adam Broomberg put it in the description for anyone that
Speaker 1: is curious. Thank you for doing your work. Everyone go
Speaker 1: follow Adam, make sure everyone doesn't. Just let's let's protect Adam.
Speaker 1: Let's protect Adam and his family out there.
Speaker 2: But thank you again, Thank you guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, Thank you, Adam really appreciate me.
Speaker 1: And that's the episode. It Could Happen Here as a
Speaker 1: production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool
Speaker 1: Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot com or
Speaker 1: check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for
Speaker 1: It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot com
Speaker 1: slash sources. Thanks for listening.