Part One: Israeli & International Solidarity with Palestinian Struggle

Margaret talks with Matt Lieb about the anti-zionist Jews and others who have thrown in their lot with the Palestinian people in their struggle against an apartheid state and genocide.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Foll Zone Media.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hello and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff, the podcast,
whose title is also its description. Thanks Thanks, I workshop
that one. I was walking my dog when I came
up with that one. With me today is Matt Leeb,
who is a comedian, an anti Zionist Jew, and a
podcast host of the podcast pod Yourself a Gun, which

(00:25):
is also a literally named podcast. It is a podcast
about how to find podcasts with which to get information
about three D printing firearms.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
That's one hundred percent of what it's about. It's a
little bit about the wire and the sopranos, and it's
a lot a bit about how to make that gun
that killed Chinzo Abbey.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Exactly.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
It's most wonderbutcast, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
You reached your target audience on that show.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Yeah, yeah, I know what I'm talking to. It's cool
Zone Media. Yeah, you guys, you have an audience of
a certain type, and they're the type of people I like.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, I'm excited to have you on for the topic.
But before we talk about the topic, we're gonna talk
about Sophie, who's our producer.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
I'm wow.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
And that's good. Ian who is our audio engineer. Everyone
has to say hi to Ian Hi. I. Our theme
music was written for us by Unwoman and today, Matt,
I don't know if you've heard about this, but there's
been a sort of it's not don't worry, We're not
going to talk about modern affairs, current affairs, Okay, yeah,

(01:33):
going to the past. But there is there's been a
bit of a k fluffle going on over in the
Holy Land. I don't know if you've heard about this.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
You know what, I'm gonna be honest with you. I
don't know much about it. I uh, I just you know.
I I go on to TikTok and the kids are
telling me to uh to dance and be pro Palestine,
and I'm like, okay, I want to be cool.

Speaker 4 (01:57):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
I want the kids to like me.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, which is why I did a pretty amazing speech
that everyone check out.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
You can you can check out that speech on you know,
one of those one of those social media apps.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, No. I obviously I know a little bit about it,
and which is why I've decided to put my entire
career at risk in order to talk about it. That's
that is a thing that I feel at least educated
enough to talk about. And I also feel like you
don't actually need to be that educated to talk about it.

(02:33):
But that's just my personal opinion.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
No, absolutely, I think that there's there's plenty to know,
but a lot of the basics you can learn fairly
quickly by looking at the situation. Yeah, but this week
we're going to be talking about some of the many,
many Jews and Israelis and some other internationals who haven't
bought into the Zionist line and have thrown down alongside

(02:57):
of and in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Hell, yes, I love it. These are my people, These
these are my Jews. These are the ones that I
hang out with the most, and you know, try to
get arrested with the most, try and fail. I was
telling y'all before the pod started the speech. We did
an action over at Hollywood and Highland where we you know,

(03:22):
did a sit in at an intersection and it was
raining like the one rainy day in La and we
were there. We were ready to get arrested. We had
done a zoom meeting with a lawyer who told us
how being arrested, how to get arrested, how to get arrested,
which is you know where these are Jewish anti Zionist groups.
We of course are going to talk to a lawyer first. Yeah,

(03:44):
you know, we're very organized with it. But then it
just kept raining and raining, and eventually the organizer was like, guys,
we you know, we're obviously not going to leave until
there's a cease fire, but also it's really rainy and
health is important, and so we're just gonna we're all
gonna go home and just dry off and live to

(04:05):
fight another day. So yeah, I still count that as
getting arrested though, you know, and legally it also counts
as being arrested. Yeah, so you know, it's good the
best of both worlds. I got to be dry in
my home and now I have to go to court.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, And I was I was saying that, like, being
willing to get arrested civil disobedience is amazing, and then
managing to go to a thing where you're going to
get arrested and then not getting arrested is actually bonus points, right,
because then you get to you know, live to fight
another day and all right. Yeah, yeah, spend the next
six months of your life caught up in court, or
you know, several years of your life caught up.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yeah, and for those who don't know. And I didn't
know this beforehand because I'd never been arrested for a
civil disobedience before. I have been arrested once in a Bloomingdale's.
No sorry, it was a Robinson's May for stealing a
usc sweater from my friend. And but that was a
mall cop. But I did get handcuffed, and.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
You yourself so wonderfully, thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
It was the one. Have you ever been to the
West Side Pavilion, Soldier?

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Have I been to the West Pavilion?

Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yes? In the before times, when we were young, there
was this great mom called the West Side Pavilion. There
was a Robinson's May there, and me and my brother
used to steal a lot. And then it's everywhere, and.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
Then it turned into a mazees and it was gloriously messy,
and you can never find anybody to give your money to,
and so people just stole things.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah and uh, and then one time it's not illegal
to steal. No, it's it's not. It's actually redistribution of wealth.
And yeah, no, and then we they handcuffed us and
took us up. They didn't take us up the elevator
to the security depot. They took us up three escalators,
no elevator escalators. So we were put oh yeah, publicly humiliated,

(05:53):
just and we were I was in fifth grit.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Now you look cool? Oh okay, yeah, yeah, you look
cool as hell. You're handcuffed in fifth grint.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
No, I was crying.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
They could see you from the sabarro. That's amazing.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, people throwing their hot dog and a stick at me.
But no, if you if you get arrested for a
civil disobedience I learned is that you basically you have
one year in which to not get arrested again. Uh,
and then your record you know, gets cleared or they
won't press chargers. But if you get arrested again, then

(06:27):
they can press charges for the previous arrest. And so
this is a case by case to be clear, Yes, yes,
not going very differently for different people at different times.
It sometimes happens that way, yes, And I to be clear,
I'm not a lawyer. I'm someone who was once in
a zoom call with the lawyer. I know a thing
or two.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
It's okay. The the political arrests I've had, I refuse
to give my name, as did like one hundred other
people each time. Nice and so eventually they just let
us out. Although one of the times I got taken
to foreign attention because I was in a different country
and it was actually really shitty.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
But yeah, no, that sounds that's too brave for me,
brave for me to be real.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, everyone else is like, yeah, this is so cool,
We're so brave, and I'm like, it's cool. I'm not broken.
It's cool.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
No, I'm not scared. Yeah, I am brave.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
I'm not gonna be in cogniti behavioral therapy ten years
from now talking about this.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
This is not trauma, this is normal.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
So okay, we've talked before on this show a little
bit about how as long as there's been Zionism, there's
been an awful lot of Jews, entire movements of Jews,
and often at various points of the majority of Jewish
people in different areas who are like, no, I'm good,
I have no interest in Zionism. If you want to
hear more about it, people can go back and listen

(07:47):
to the episode of did with Miriam about the Warsaw
getto Uprising to talk about some of the different groups
of Zionists and anti Zionist Jews working in different places
in Eastern Europe. And so there's been left wing anti Zionists,
there's been secular Jewish anti Zionists. There's been orthodox anti Zionists, yes,
and there still are and you'll see all of folks

(08:08):
like that at all kinds of demonstrations and things now.
And of course there was also a lot of zionistsh
as soon as they got to Palestine as part of
the Zionist Project, they were like, wait, but there's people here.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
Yeah. You guys kind of said something about like empty
lots of land. Yeah, there's pictures of someone's family in
this house.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah. And so there have been people, unfortunately not the
majority necessarily of the settlers, but a lot of people
have shown up and have become anti Zionists as a
result of seeing what happened with the Zionist project. Other
people called it ahead of time, and other people figured
it out later.

Speaker 4 (08:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
And so briefly, I'm going to talk about two of
those movements, but we're mostly going to talk about stuff
from about twenty years ago or so.

Speaker 4 (08:52):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
One of them is a more philosophical position than a movement.
One is a Yiddish word, it's doykite. Which means hereness,
kite being a suffix that means nis in Yiddish, so
like Yiddish kite means jewishness. This is the extent of
my Yiddish knowledge. Unfortunately, DUEI kite is basically where I am,

(09:15):
is my home, And this was a major part of
a lot of anti zion Is Jewish organizing one hundred years. Basically,
the main argument in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century was between Jews who were like, we got to
go back to Israel and others were like, honestly, Jewish
culture is as much created by the diaspora as anything else.

(09:36):
This is just as legitimate, and we belong wherever we are,
which conveniently also at all other things aside means not
creating a settler colonial state. So that one I was
like a little bit.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
Of a moral advantage, right yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Well one is clearly more moral and ethical than the other.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah, A slogan I can date back at least to
nineteen eighteen translates to wherever we live, that's homeland. A
lot but not all of the diasporists were leftists communists
like they were leftists, they were communist socialists and anarchists.
The Jewish Labor Bund was a formation that existed a
bunch of places. Basically that was leftist Jews fighting for

(10:14):
the right to organize as Jews within larger political structures.
And they're really interesting and we've talked about them before
on the show. We'll talk about them more later. I
actually thought that this week was going to be like
one half was going to be like nineteen hundred and
one half, it was going to be like the year
two thousand, and then it turns out it's all the
year two thousand, I mean, be talking about or like,

(10:35):
because there's so much. Yeah, and one thing that happened
to the historical Bundists, unfortunately, is that they they tended
to stay and fight since that was kind of their thing, right. Yeah,
an awful fucking lot of them died in World War Two.

Speaker 4 (10:50):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
See.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Also, well every aspect of Jewishness and also leftism in
Europe more broadly. Yeah, there's a newer word that folks
are using called diasporism. This was coined by author Melanie K.
Kantrowitz in her two thousand and seven book The Colors
of Jews, and this book is mentioned as the foundation

(11:12):
to it. She says that diasporism is quote it quote
embraces diaspora, offers a place we might join with others
who value this history of dispersion, others who stand in
opposition to nationalism and the nation state, who choose instead
to value border crossing. And so this is not the
only name that people will use now. But I was

(11:35):
looking into these names because like a lot of people
are like, I'm an anti Zionist Jew, or other people
will be like, I'm a non Zionist Jew. And then
other people have been looking for like ways of being
like what's our what's our like positive thing that we're saying.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
Right right, right, yeah, how do we do something that's
not immediately anti something else?

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Right, yeah, totally, And some things are just worth being
anti and then you know, sure.

Speaker 4 (11:56):
Yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
So more and more Jewish people now are breaking free
from the narrative that's taught that was taught to them
through their religious education. And what's really interesting to note
about this is that for a lot of people, at
least a lot of the people that I was reading,
this is not a break from religion or tradition. I
spent a while reading all these narratives of different diasporists,

(12:19):
and a lot of them talk about how it meant
literally just skipping a generation and talking to their grandparents
instead of their parents.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. I mean it is it's
it's not a break religiously, it's not even much of
a break culturally, you know, because the cultural aspects of
Zionism kind of extend to a couple of songs here
and there. Obviously Israeli flags and you know, shul and

(12:49):
and your temple, even your reform temples, you know, have them,
your synagogue, But you know, it's more about kind of
a a ret conning of the religion and the culture
in order to fit as Zionis narrative. So it's kind
of just about brushing away some of those Zionis cobwebs

(13:11):
that have showed up.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, no, that makes sense to me. I think people
who listen to this know that I'm not Jewish, but
I spend a lot of my time learning about this
particular thing. And yeah, so the left in Israel is
a mess to Israeli author Uri Gordon wrote in twenty

(13:33):
twelve of the left in Israel, what is important to
understand is that in Israel today, any association with the
term left is by itself enough to brand one is
disloyal and outside the mainstream consensus. Israeli society is becoming
increasingly entrenched in its siege mentality, viewing international censer of
the occupation of Palestine as a threat to the very

(13:54):
existence of the Jewish people. In such a context of
collective hysteria, aligning oneself explicitly with the left is tantamount,
in the eyes of many Israelis, to consorting with the enemy. Yeah,
and this gets that what you were just saying, No,
go sorry, no, I.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
Mean, yeah, it is Listen, I'm not I am not Israeli.
And so my knowledge of the dynamics within Israel obviously
are based on hearsay from Israeli friends. I have anti
Zionist Israeli friends and just regular ass Israeli friends and

(14:30):
from reading. So I can't claim to know what it's
like to be a leftist in Israel. But yeah, essentially,
you know, it's it's already a stigma, like you'll see
it a lot in kind of the uh, the way
that you know, the news media in Israel talks about

(14:51):
a lot of the hostages who are taken on the seventh.
You know, if there is you know, any kind of
video of you know, like the woman who shook Hamas
is one of the Hamas soldiers hands and whatnot, you'll
see them disregarded. Oh well, they're a leftist, and it's
just automatically assumed, like oh, okay, so they're a trader anyways,

(15:13):
so of course they're gonna, you know, participate in Palestinian propaganda.
So yeah, it is a dirty, dirty word.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Which is interesting in particular because Hamas is not a
leftist organization.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
No, it's absolutely not.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
It replaced the leftist organization theo is. Yeah, the idea
that like, well, of course the leftists are all Islamisists
or whatever.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
It's like yeah, no, yeah, no, I mean people in
terms of left and right when it comes to everything
that gets funneled into America, in terms of the way
we look at left and right. It is very funny
to see how many people think that, like, oh, you know,
leftism is when you are an Islamic religious fundamentalist. Just like,

(15:55):
what the fuck are you talking about? Yeah, yeah it is.
We just like to we like to throw terms around
for no reason.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, but despite this attempt, And it's funny to read
that quote from twenty twelve because it's like, oh, shit's
gotten so much.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
Worse since then, so much worse.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yes, And you know, this is the we're talking about
a lot of the stuff we're talking about is sort
of the thing that kind of tried to head off
where where Israel has gone since. Yes, but today we're
going to talk about some of the people from Israel
and elsewhere who have worked in solidarity with the movement
for a Free Palestine. And we're talking about them not
because they're like more noble or more important than Palestinian people,

(16:35):
but because, like, I think that showing people breaking the
media consensus or like the breaking the media narrative, I
think is a very useful thing to do.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
One hundred percent. Yeah, And you know, I think there
is kind of a general thought about leftism and the
Israeli left as like being nonexistent, which is like, is
a little too I don't know what the word is,
like clib It's like it's it's reductive because it is,

(17:05):
the Israeli left is not non existent. It's there is
not zero resistance. There's a pretty wide ranging history of
leftism in Israel. It's just that it's it's grown weaker
and weaker and weaker and more and more marginalized. And
of course, you know, in our current times it is
it's almost not even acknowledged because of the fact that

(17:29):
you know, you've got an event like the Seventh and
then you've got patriotism takes over.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah, totally, and the comparisons to okay, topic, Yeah, that's
what I was gonna say.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, but yeah, we'll get in there.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah. So at some point we're going to go further
back into history of the area. And we talked some
of this on our episode about hunger strikes with Sharene,
So if you want to hear about some of that stuff,
you can go back and listen to the hunger strikes
episodes pretty recent and but for now, I think that
a lot of what we want to be talking about
star with the Second Intifada at the turn of the millennium.
But since this is cool, people did cool stuff, and

(18:05):
I didn't allow myself to go back to the year
nineteen hundred despite well, I mentioned the bond, but yeah,
in order to talk about the Second Intifada, I'm gonna
talk about the first intifada. Hell yeah, which is these
sick deal Wait, no, no, I probably shouldn't do that
as my transition. Well I have to do an ad

(18:25):
transition anyway. But here's some stuff you can buy that's
totally not related to any of this, and I don't
tell you inherently support.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
And we're back back.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
So we're gonna go to the late eighties to the
first antifada. Antifada means shaking off in Arabic. It's one
of those words that like sounds super scary or whatever.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
Like modern America, every Arab word sounds scary. Everything terrifies people. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Wait till people found out about algebra or that.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
In Arabic, Christian used the word allah because it means god. Right, yeah,
it's not a different god. Yeah right, it's just the
word for it. People are We're not a smart country, No,
we are not. So the defense minister of Israel, he'll
come up later, was this guy, Yitzakrabin, and he had
an iron fist policy of fighting Palestinian nationalism, which never

(19:30):
makes anyone happy when the stated thing is called iron fist.

Speaker 3 (19:34):
Yeah, it's already that hostile.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
Yeah, And this involved deporting a fuck ton of people
and increasing the settlements. Israel Is basically trying to annex
all Palestine, Lots of Palestinians getting murdered all the time.
And then on December ninth, nineteen eighty seven, an idf
armored truck, the Israeli Defense Force armored truck, crashed into
a civilian car, killing four Palestinians in front of hundreds

(20:00):
of witnesses. And Palestinian folks were like, hey, that seemed
like maybe it was on purpose that you drove this
giant military vehicle into this, and the idea of was like, no, no,
totally wasn't sure. And anyone who's alive right now and
has any basic modicum of media literacy understands that the

(20:20):
Israeli government lies to their fucking teeth, right.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
Yeah, it's it's pretty much you throw a stone at
any you know, Israeli news headline and you'll you'll hit
a lie. It's yeah, that's what they do mean, is
really news headline throwing a stone? Yeah, that's right. Throwing
a stone is a great example something that's going to

(20:43):
get me put in administrative detention. But no, like it's
not unique to absolutely not to Israel to be a
to do heavy state propaganda and lie about what their
military does. But it is also important point out that,
you know, taking the the the line of you know,

(21:06):
the standard line that the IDF puts out as foolish
as you know, doing the same thing in America. It's
trust in governments or the police, I was going to say,
or trusting the cops, you know, and they're it's uh no,
they lie. They lie all the time, pretty much every time.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, and and every side of the struggles that we're
going to be talking about is also lying or is
often lying. But the Israeli government just like going above
and beyond, you know, they're they're the gold medallists here.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
Yes, Yeah, they really got a lot of practice.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
In Yeah, they they're like Americans that way. M Palestinian
folks were really fucking mad about this for some odd reason,
maybe it was all the other recent extra judicial murders
that the IDEF had been doing. So the next day,
someone threw a molotov at a passing IDF patrol car.
The IDEF opened fire on the angry crowd and killed
one person, a seventeen year old who they say was

(22:02):
the person who through the Maltava maybe I don't know,
and wounded sixteen other people and so shit was on.

Speaker 3 (22:09):
Yeah, and before people, you know, I don't know, if
you probably don't have listeners who sit here and go
not ah, but in case you do, before people think like, oh, well,
this is obviously you know, PLO plot in order to
you know, do all this. This caught the PLO completely off. Yeah,
this was a completely organic uprising, and in fact, the

(22:32):
you know, the PLO was like, ah, shit, how do
we how do we get for this? Yeah exactly, Yeah,
how do we get some control of this? And well,
I mean, I assume we'll find out later that did
not end up being totally a good thing.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
No, but I'll Actually, I think that you might be
able to fill in some of the gaps of when
I was of the research I was doing about this,
because some of it is about the PLO's attempt to
try to direct some of the first antifada, but I
think it's also where noting just semantically, because I think
it's fun pointing out that at the time, no one
was walking around being like, oh, this is the first
empty fada.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
Yeah right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Hey, guys, we're gonna
do the first one we're gonna do yeah, or even
just get like, hey, guys, you know, get up, we're
doing the Intifada. It was it was not it was organic.
It was the straw that broke the camel's back. Is
when the idea of you know, plowed into those people
and uh, and it just went off as most you know,

(23:28):
I think.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
Uprising sunprisons are yeah, are they?

Speaker 3 (23:31):
You know, it's there's always a group of revolutionaries out
there somewhere who are in a cafe and go, oh fuck,
they're rising up.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
But we didn't shit, but we're the vanguard.

Speaker 3 (23:44):
Yeah, we're the vanguard. What the hell? Why'd I print
these shirts?

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, like, you know, and then they run the catch
up and like sometimes they do really good work when
they run and catch up, and other times they try.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
To fuck it up. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
And so this uprising, which I hope i'll talk more
about some of the time, but we'll talk about a bit.
It lasts until nineteen ninety three. More than eighty thousand
Israeli soldiers were deployed into the area that they occupied.
Over the course of the top that whole those years,
around sixteen hundred Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces, and
around two hundred Israelis were killed by Palestinians. Yeah, overall,

(24:22):
the Antifada was not the first. Antifada, was not a
militaristic movement, and it was not one that aimed to
use lethal force. Yeah, relatively peaceful actually.

Speaker 4 (24:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
There were roughly three power players that I've been able
to locate, organizationally speaking, in Palestina at that point. The
most prominent is the PLO, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which
is a coalition of different communists and social democratic organizations.
Fatah is the most prominent among them, with Yaser Arafat
being the main guy. And I grew up in the nineties,

(24:55):
so I didn't know who he was, but his name
was everywhere, you know.

Speaker 4 (24:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Then there's the Islamic organizations, and at the time, I
believe this was mostly the group Islamic Jihad, but shortly
after the Antipada kicked up, a little known group called
Hamas was formed. Then there's a third type of organization
that was actually the organization that largely coordinated the Antifada,
which was community councils. And as you mentioned, the Antipada

(25:25):
start off as a spontaneous uprising, and then these other
groups get their shit together and they form the Unified
National Leadership of the Uprising, the UNLU, which did all
kinds of interesting shit. They led grassroots to mutual aid
projects and kind of basically it's like, while the Marxists
and the Islamists are arguing about who should be in charge,

(25:47):
the people were like, well, we're in charge.

Speaker 3 (25:49):
We're just going to do this.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
It was not a central vanguard the UNLU. It was
neighborhood committees, and they pushed for people to stop paying
access to Israel. They literally referred to this as no
taxation without representation, which is you know, obviously that wild.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
If that sounds familiar, yeah, there's a reason.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, that's where the phrase comes from. And
they also boycott at Israeli goods and started growing more
and more of their own food. Originally, at least the
parts led by the UNLU intended to refrain from lethal violence.
This was not a moral stance. They didn't feel that

(26:30):
it would be a moral for them to defend themselves
with lethal force, but it was a strategic one. They
were like, look, we'll get crushed.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
We can't.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Shoot to death the modern militarized army of Israel. Yes,
the PLO tended to agree, and for the first year
Hamas and Islamic Jihad also agreed. Women led at every
level of the First Intifat. I read this whole long
article about this. It's pretty interesting, partly because before it
so many of the men who were leaders in their

(27:02):
community who were dead or imprisoned or locked up. And
since everyone involved, including Israel, is a very patriarchal society,
they didn't notice that women lead things.

Speaker 4 (27:17):
Right, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Every major faction had a women's committee, and since all
the organizing was illegal, they all met as like knitting
circles and like cooking groups and shit, which fucking rules.
That is great, and they weren't really suspected because of patriarchy. Yeah,
the whole thing, due to repression, the whole UNLU. I'm

(27:40):
avoiding saying it because it's tongue twister.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
To me, I have no idea.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
It's a tongue twister. It went underground all along. Israel's
kind of murdering the shit out of everyone. They're collective
punishing the shit out of everyone. The UN of course,
comes in and it's like, hey, Israel, cut it out,
you're being bad. And Israel's like no, it's fine.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yeah, They're like no, yeah, bugs, bunny meme.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
Yeah yeah, no, yeah, exactly, this is going to come up.
This It would be shocking to the modern audience because
now everyone obeys international law, especially Israel. Right and overall,
the PLO and a lot of other folks generally wanted
what was called the one state solution in the nineteen eighties,

(28:26):
and specifically they were fighting for a singular, secular state
for Jews and Arabs alike, a democratic society, right right.
When people say one state solution, they either mean this
good nice thing, or they like mean a secular democratics like,
they mean the either the version that doesn't have two
sets of laws for two different ethnic groups, right right, right,

(28:49):
or they mean an apartheid state. Yes, yeah, this is
this is the issue with the you know, talks of
one state solution, is that or they will assume you
mean if they're you know, Zion is taking you in
bad faith, they will assume you mean a all Arab

(29:12):
Palestinian state in which the Jews have been driven into
the sea, which is not what the one state solution means.
Despite the Twitter accounts you can point at and go,
but this one said I should move back to Poland
It's like, yeah, some asshole on Twitter is always going
to say something stupid.

Speaker 4 (29:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Absolutely, And so the one state solution was overall the
vibe until and the Twesday solution first, or I got
to tell my in the early eighties. But the thing
that at least that I was reading talks about really
picking up during the first Antifada and the Twoesday solution
was a compromise, right, it was a fine Israel, you
get all the shit you had before nineteen sixty seven,

(29:51):
which is an awful lot, seventy eight percent of right
what used to be Palestine, and then each country is independent.
And this could be called the no one is happy solution, right, yeah,
because at least currently a majority of the Palestinians in Israel,
Israelis reject the two state solution, even though it's most

(30:13):
what most political groups are claiming they're pushing for. I
think Israel is very clearly pushing for the one apartheid
state solution.

Speaker 3 (30:20):
Rights, that's what they want, But the two state solution
is just I mean, it's considered in at least in America,
the standard liberal kind of safe. You know, this is
my way of saying I want peace is you know,
I want a two state solution, which I understand. I

(30:42):
mean I used to be that way too sure. I
used to be like, yeah, two states, that makes sense.
And then I realized that there's still that problem of
the ethnic demographics in Israel. Yeah, have to be held
at a certain level of Jews and Arabs and then
you and if they're not, you've got a something weird

(31:06):
gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
So we'll go on yeah, no, and we'll get to that.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
So this uprising it worked. I mean, it didn't solve
the problem, right, but it forced international attention and it
got people involved in the peace process, and it is
why people sat down to the table and started looking
to negotiate.

Speaker 4 (31:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
So, in nineteen ninety three and nineteen ninety five, Israel
and the PLO signed some peace accords called the Oslo
Accords because they were signed in Oslo. Again, accords not
usually very interestingly named.

Speaker 4 (31:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
This created the Palestinian National Authority. It gave Palestinians a
limited authority over the Palestinian territory. And this was supposed
to be temporary. It was a five year temporary thing,
at the end of which, in the year two thousand,
the Palestine In state was going to be created. And
this involved signing. This accord involved the PLO acknowledging the

(32:07):
state of Israel, which is a pretty major compromise when
someone comes into your house and takes three quarters of it.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
No, yeah, and you're also agreeing to you know, this
kind of like nebulous possibility of continued settlement and restriction
and you're still agreeing to it on good faith in
the hopes that you can come to a compromise later
like huge, huge.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
And so the it which is worth pointing out because
the world in the nineties and it's still the media line,
especially the Israeli media line, but people don't tend to
believe it anymore, which is great. People still view the
Palestinians as the people who refuse to compromise and the
reason that this fell apart. But I'm gonna I knew
some of this, but reading the rest of it, I

(32:59):
didn't think I could get angrier about what's happening right now.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
Yeah, you know, that's where that's your first mistake. You
can always get more incensed.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah, and so the PLO acknowledged the state of Israel,
which is a major compromise. It rescinded that recognition in
the year twenty eighteen. Basically it was like, we will
recognize you when you go back to recognizing us. That
was the whole point, you know, And so sixteen is like, ah,
they don't recognize as well anyway, whatever. Yes, the creation

(33:27):
of Palestinian Authority was a huge blow to all the
grassroots organizing and the women's organizing. Under the Palestinian Authority,
women required a guardian to apply for a passport for example.
Right this is there was There was some not good
stuff about them. Yes, the Oslo Accords made no one happy.
The militant Palestinian organizations considered it to be an unacceptable surrender.

(33:50):
Right wing Israelis were like, this is when bullshit's sell
out nonsense. And I guess if it actually worked in
the end, maybe people will be singing a different team.
But it did as far as I can tell, the
introduction of the Tuesday solution of the Oslo Accords were
a victory for one interested party, and that party was

(34:12):
capitalism and US interests. Yep, Because the guy who signed
for Israel Yet, Zakrabin, he is now the prime Minister.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
He's moved up in the world. He's no longer just
the Minister of Defense. He's no longer just the iron
fist guy exactly. Now, no longer just breaking bones. Now
he's shaking hands.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah, and the prime Minister has more power in Israel
than the president does.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
Basically.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
Yeah, he's the privatization guy. He is the like, sell
off everything to multinational corporations guy. He is the bringing
for an investment guy. And he's a big part of
moving Israel away from the socialized economy that it kind
of started with because, for better or worse, Israel started
off like mostly by the leftist Zionists. Yeah, yeah, and

(35:04):
he moved into a privatized economy. And just think for
a minute about how even messier politics and discourse on
Twitter would be if Israel was still the leftist Zionist
state and doing all the same shit, because they would
be doing the same shit, but.

Speaker 3 (35:19):
Right, right, but they would be I mean, you know,
their version of that, of course, is just doing neoliberal
identity politics and economics intertwined. You know that it's still
messy now because they will you know, fly gay flag
and Gaza and say, see, we're good, but it would

(35:39):
be even worse and messy if they were fucking hammer
and sickle leftists. And yeah, just like Tanky Twitter is
just like Zionists. All of a sudden, you're like, god,
fucking damn it.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
Yeah. Fortunately Israel totally that respector of gay rights, where
gay people can totally get married.

Speaker 3 (35:59):
Just kidding they hundred percent. Yeah, yeah, look into that.
By the way, you know marriage Israel or hetero sexual
interfaith marriage. Yes, it's real goal, yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
But Rabin he's really into bringing in foreign investment, privatizing
the shit out of everything, and he is seen as
a champion of peace for fighting for the peace process.
He also and I know people can change their tune,
but I think it's worth pointing out he served as
a commander during the Knakma of nineteen forty eight and
once signed in order to expel people from their home
so that Israelis could come in and steal people's homes.

(36:37):
So he signed the accords, which pissed off the right
wing so much that this far right guy yglamr he
was like, you know what, I should murder the Prime minister.
So he listened to Matt Leaps podcast I'm Just Gone.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
He learned how to make the shinzo abbe gone.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
Yeah, and then he so that part isn't true, but
the rest of it is true. He murdered the prime minister.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yes, yes he did. And you know, it was at
a time when the politics on the in the right,
i mean in Israel, on the right were doing some
stuff you might look at as familiar for right wing
politics in America. A lot of you know, targets superimposed

(37:29):
over the face of being, you know, in posters and stuff.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Like being like, we're going to kill this guy, and
then they do, We're going.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
To kill this guy stuff, and then they actually did it.
And the person that you know, I mean, I'm sure
you'll get to this, a person who was one of
the biggest cheerleaders of going against the Oslo Accords and
was running for Prime minister bib and yahoo.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you make of the conspiracy
theory that says that shin Bet the sort of FBI
of Israel knew about the assassination, didn't do anything.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
Have you heard this?

Speaker 4 (38:06):
I have.

Speaker 3 (38:07):
I'm I'm always I lean against most conspirats. Yeah, it's
so hard when it comes to Israel because they they
are like that, you know, and and so is the
United States. And I still even you know, in US
conspiracy theories, you know, I'm still like, I'm willing to

(38:28):
entertain them, but I'm not you know, I don't put
much stock into them because I don't think you need
shin Bet to actually like not do something for this
to have happened, like they maybe they could have stopped it,

(38:48):
maybe they couldn't have It's I don't know, I don't know.
I don't know these things. I always just I look
at them and I go, ah, it's possible. I don't know.
I need to have some faith in the world. Yeah,
I can't just be thinking everything's conspiracy.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
No, no, no, that that makes sense to me, because
it also like it doesn't in my mind. It kind
of doesn't matter in the end, you know, Like exactly
the basis of it is that one of you Gall's
best friends in the right wing movement was an undercover informant,
and basically the Israeli government was like, well, yeah, but
he didn't know about the assassination attempt, and like, uh, okay, yeah,

(39:25):
that seems possible. He might not have been like sitting
around with hanging out with his friends, being like, you.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
Know, I'm gonna do tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
I'm an assassinated guy.

Speaker 3 (39:34):
I'm gonna kill him.

Speaker 4 (39:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
No, But in Israel, it is a very popular conspiracy
theory and a lot of people on the right end
the left, you know, it's it's pretty mainstream. It's their
Kennedy assassination.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
It's a lot of people think that that was the
case at the very at the very least, that you know,
they could have stopped it and didn't. And then there's
people think it was just straight up you know, a
political assassination done by the actual sinebit.

Speaker 4 (40:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
But fortunately with the centrist capitalists sort of peace loving
president freshly dead obviously all of Israel rallied around him
as a martyr and pushed for the two state solution
to crack down on right wing extremism. Or or he
was replaced by Benjamin.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
Not Yeah, at the head of a right wing coalition.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Yeah, we're still dealing with today, who cranked up all
the illegal settlements.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
Yeah, yep, it was.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
And so the left becomes further and further isolated from
the left. The rest of Israeli society around this point.
And one thing that I read was that it it
was actually the failure of the Oslo Accords that pushed
the Israeli Zionis Left towards becoming the Israeli anti Zionis left,
basically being like, oh, we thought we were going to

(40:58):
actually not be occupiers. We thought we had a way
out of that where we could have our two states
and settle down and hang out in peace. But that
didn't happen. Yeah, and so the Zionist project has fewer
and fewer excuses left at this point, besides, of course
their motto, which is we're winning, so fuck you.

Speaker 4 (41:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
And you know how you can be a winner, Matt
leaps now by if you sign up for Cooler Zone media,
you don't have to listen to these ads. You only
have to listen to the Truians.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
Yeah. Oh man, dude, that's the best of both worlds,
where you get the perfect transitions into the ads. I
think we can all agree absolutely nothing more perfect than
a cool Zone media and transition but without actually having
to listen about you know, fertilizers or whatever whatever your

(41:52):
programmatic ads are trying to sell.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
Here's those programmatic ads that you totally can just press
forward fifteen, can spout four times music again, but don't Yeah,
and we're back, so you go a mirror. He's still
in prison. He's a political cause for the right wing.

(42:18):
Probably the only reason is still in prison is that
the legislature had to pass a specific law that says
whoever is president is not allowed to pardon this specific guy. Yeah,
which is a kind of impressive, like fuck this guy,
but that is an impressive feat.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
And it's also it says a lot about the state
of Israeli politics that you have to pass that law.
That's true, that you have to pass a law, and
it's like this is the one murderer. We can't let
it out. Yeah, Like it is quite wild. It's quite wild. Indeed,
because they knew, they were like, oh he's good because
you know, you go is not unpopular in a lot

(43:05):
of Israel. He's actually quite quite popular, quite uh praised
for what he did. Ye great and to this day
is still proud of it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
And his brother who was one of the conspirators, like
actual conspirator, not conspiracy theory conspirator, but like nor planning
and went to prison for it. And was like, yeah,
I was part of the planning. And then he's now
out of prison and he's campaigning for his brothers.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
Yeah, but I mean now's the time. That's true. Yeah,
So the Oslo Accords they didn't work. The final nail
in that coffin was the two thousand Camp David Summit
at Camp David, Maryland, which goes into the theory that

(43:48):
nothing good happens in Maryland.

Speaker 4 (43:50):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
I don't know why for the Wireland, that's true.

Speaker 3 (43:53):
The Wire is good. Baltimore.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
Baltimore is like not by this sag.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (44:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
So if you're listening and you're in Maryland, if you're
in Baltimore, it's okay.

Speaker 4 (44:05):
Yeah, if you're in.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Baltimore, it's all listen to the Wire podcast.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
And listen to The Wire yourself, the Wire yourself, well,
pod yourself a gun.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
Okay. I've never I've never seen more than like four
or five episodes of the Wire. So this is why
I haven't listened to your podcast. Do I how does
this work? Do you do? You watch the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
You watch the Wire and then do it at this
but you could do either at.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
The same time, Like, how does this how do you
recommend a new wire.

Speaker 3 (44:34):
I recommend people just jump into it, even if they
have never seen a single episode, because it is asking
a lot for someone to watch an entire TV show.
But if you must, you can always you know, binge
it like, start watching some episodes and then you know,
if you want to, you can watch an episode, listen

(44:55):
to episode, watch an episode, listener episode. We do every
episode and it is it's it's it's a lot of fun.
And you know, even for people who don't like tv rewatch.
You know, I've heard people say it's it's more than
just tv rewatch. Plus I do a parody song that's
a synopsis of every episode. Wait really and yeah, okay,

(45:18):
then yeah I did. My best one was I did
this Paparazzi by Lady Gaga. But it's about Presibuluski, who
is a cop. Yeah, he's a character on the show.
You'll you'll like it, probably, I don't know. Probably.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
So the other thing that happened in Maryland, the only
of the two things that happened in Maryland. I'm from Maryland.
That's why I'm talking shit on Maryland. I should make
that pa.

Speaker 4 (45:42):
Oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
Just so that everyone who's docsing me as like one
more piece of information. Yeah, all right, So they show
up to Camp David, Palestinian negotiators, including Yaser Arafat. They
went in prepared to accept Israel's right to seventy eight
percent of historic Palestine and except remaining only on the
twenty two percent that they currently controlled the West Bank

(46:06):
and the Gaza Strip. Yeah, they were even willing to
do some land trades on a one to one basis
for some of the land that Israel really wanted. They're like, yeah,
we really want this, like one little part, you know,
mm hmm. And their one demand was that they were like, Okay,
if this is our territory, if this is a state,
Israel has to withdraw from our territory because we are

(46:29):
now a sovereign state, right, And they weren't willing to,
as one of them put it in negotiat or put
it compromise further on the compromise that they had already made.

Speaker 4 (46:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
They also wanted all Palestinian refugees to have a right
of return so they go back and this stuff they own,
whether it's in Palestine Israel and stuff like that, you know, right,
Israel was like, we hear that, we hear that that's
what you want. What if instead, and this is basically
the same thing. Anyone who's listening will totally understand this is
basically the same thing. How About you get seventy three

(47:02):
percent of the West Bank because we really like the
West Bank. Yeah, and you get one hundred percent of
the Gaza strip, and we get to keep the largest
settlements within your borders. And the West Bank will be
split in half by an Israeli controlled road, and it'll
be split into four cantons, of which one is entirely
entirely Israeli, with Israeli controlled borders between each of the cantons.

(47:23):
So your state is now divided into four more parts.
And Israel would control all your air space of course naturally,
and and your.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
Water yeah, oh got it didn't even against the water part. Yeah,
and your water as well.

Speaker 4 (47:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
And we can put troops in your quote unquote state
anytime we want, if we decide it's an emergency, and
there's no right of return because literally their stated reason
is because they would ruin the Jewishness of Israel. They
did not want any more ethnic minorities than they already had.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Yeah, in the.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
State of Israel because for folks, so the Gaza Strip,
most of its population is descended from refugees displaced from
other parts of Palestine when Israel took it all.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
In forty eight. Yeah, it's like I think over, I
think it's seventy eight percent forty eight ers and descendants
of forty eight ers.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
Yeah, oh come yeah, that makes sense. And not every
Palestinian was displaced. So Israel has and had and has
a sizable air of minority of Israeli citizens. That minority
is about twenty one percent, and that's all they can stemic, right, yeah.
And so Palestine was like why did you fucking fly

(48:40):
us here?

Speaker 3 (48:41):
Like why are we here?

Speaker 2 (48:42):
How is this? How is this a state? Like what
are you offering us?

Speaker 4 (48:48):
Right?

Speaker 2 (48:49):
And you see the fucking Clinton's running around being like,
you know, we offered Palestine a state, but they didn't
take it. Yeah, this is the state they didn't take.
Because this is still a major media talking point, right, Oh,
we offered Palestina state and they didn't take it. Both
Israel and America blamed the failure of the summit on

(49:09):
the fucking on the PLO.

Speaker 3 (49:11):
Who were already compromising to a degree that most Palestinians
were not four. No, they were already compromising so much
that like, had they had they agreed to this, it
wouldn't have mattered, Yeah, because Israel would have continued their

(49:32):
incursions as is now their right, and Palaesinians would still
be living in this uh non state in which a
foreign army can do whatever the fuck they want.

Speaker 4 (49:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
So the fact that they said no to this, people
in the room, you know, on Israel's side have later
gone on to say, yeah, I wouldn't have taken I
wouldn't have taken that deal either. No, why would you
take a deal? It's terrible.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
It reminds me of one of our most recent episodes.
It might be the most recent episode that we did
on the show was about Lakota resistance to the American Empire,
and over and over again, America would be like, oh,
just come to the table to talk, and they'd be like, fine, well,
put down the guns, we'll come talk. This is what
we want. We're willing to accept this, you know, limited

(50:21):
thing that, and then they'll be like, no, just kidding,
you don't get anything. And they'll be like, yeah, why
why am i here? Why am i here. Yeah, this
brings us to the second Inti Fautam, the background from
which is this week's main the main story of this week, which,
in classic cool people form, will mostly emerge next episode,

(50:42):
you know, first episode context. The second Inti Faoutum was
not as peaceful. Framing it this way is dangerous. It
was less peaceful than the first one. Right, well, the
first one with a peaceful because is real, kept murdering people.

Speaker 3 (50:57):
But right, right right peaceful on the pro Palestine. So yeah, yes.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
Starting in nineteen ninety six, Israel started making contingent The
Israeli government started making contingency plans for if the two
thousand summit failed, about all the shit that they were
going to go steal. As soon as this didn't work,
so the Palestinians also made contingency plans for all the
shit they were going to not let get stolen. Framing
and around a Palestinian violent uprising is like if someone

(51:25):
is laying siege to me outside my house for five
years and then I make some plans to defend my house.
I don't feel like I am the source of violence
in that situation.

Speaker 3 (51:36):
Yes, okay.

Speaker 2 (51:38):
Riots broke out in Jerusalem in September two thousand over
an Israeli politician, Sharon doing some provocation shit where he
shows up in helicopter and is being a dick. Yes,
Palestinians threw some stones, so Sami Samy Palestinians through stones,
the idea fired one point three million bullets.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
Yep, in the.

Speaker 2 (52:01):
First couple of days. Jesus, a French mediator who was
like trying to was trying to be in the middle
of all this, you know, is trying to figure out
how to make this work, was like, it is hard
to convince the world that this is like a samey
same thing, or that the Palestinians are the aggressors, right
while Israel is shooting people from helicopters for throwing rocks. Yeah, overall,

(52:24):
any given clash at this time period had about a
ten to one casualty ratio. Ten Palestinians killed forevers every
Israeli and soon it is a more violent clash than
the First Intifada, although we're going to talk about aspects
outside of that. But there's a stronger Islamic influence on
the violent parts of the resistance movement this time around.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (52:49):
And you know, I want to say unfortunately. But you know,
at the same time, I mean just like I don't
fucking live there. No, I know exactly if I'm in
that position, I can't tell you I wouldn't fucking yeah,
drawn to the point of madness.

Speaker 4 (53:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
And also just like so no, go ahead, sorry.

Speaker 3 (53:07):
No, it's just say, you know, it's it's like I
I'm a guy who understands political optics, and I'm also
a guy who had an older brother who bullied him
a lot. Had no but like, you know, yeah, yeah

(53:28):
we're cool.

Speaker 4 (53:28):
Now.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
Yeah I didn't. I wasn't implying I killed him, but
I did think about suicide bombing him. No, but it
is the point being that, you know, it's uh, you
know it is it gets violent, yeah, on the pro
Palestine side.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
No, And honestly, like I where I'm at personally, I
have like literally no ethical qualms with people's right to
self defense. I have no qualms with people targeting Israeli
military instructures and stuff. But the thing that Hamas is
famous for is of course being as long terrorists or whatever,
because they do terrorism. Starting nineteen ninety four, seven years

(54:05):
after their formation, they declared that they were willing to
target Israeli citizens and not just military targets.

Speaker 4 (54:13):
Right.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
The reason that they did that was because in nineteen
ninety four, an American Israeli settler named Baruch Goldstein threw
a grenade into a mosque in Hebron and then opened fire,
killing twenty nine on armsiville.

Speaker 3 (54:31):
Yes, this guy, by the way, Baruch Goldstein. He later
he's well, he's no longer with us.

Speaker 4 (54:39):
Rip. But a.

Speaker 3 (54:44):
Super right wing fascist Israeli named Ben Vere, who is
you know, been in the Israeli right, literally called the
Israeli fascist Zionist wing of Zionism is now in power,
has a portrait of Bruck Goldstein in his home.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Oh my fucking I'm god, I'm not. It's funny that
this whole thing leads to lots of situations where I
am not surprised, but I'm still shocked.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
Yeah. No, it's like when you see it's because the
Israeli right in our I don't know, in our kind
of like news media is essentially just portrayed as like, oh,
these are like these religious whack job settlers and whatnot,
and then people essentially just talk about them as this

(55:35):
kind of like, ugh, I know they're annoying, right, Yeah,
and people I think forget how much of this state
is caters to these people and their ideology. And so
when you hear like someone would have a portrait of
a mass wearing Israeli terrorist in their home, you'd be like, well, certainly, yeah,

(56:00):
that's respectability. Respectability of politics would dictate that a person
who is pro that wouldn't say it, you know, out loud,
or have a portrait of the person who did that.
But you'd be wrong, Yeah, you'd be yeah, no that yeah, yeah,

(56:22):
So that's why. So that's why that that's why Hamas
was like, oh fuck it, we're you going for.

Speaker 2 (56:28):
Yeah, civilians and they and it's like it doesn't make
it okay because to the wrongs don't make a right. Yeah,
but you can, you can fucking understand it.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
Yeah, it's not it's not this, you know, again with
the narrative around Israel Palestine, it's not that Islam is
terror and violence. That's that's the whole thing, you know.
It's like they try to like reduce like Islam and
anyone who is Muslim into this like you know, archetype

(57:02):
of the terrorist who just kills because it is they
believe in their book it says you're allowed to kill
the Heathens. It's like, no, there's very real political reasons
around it that are very specific to this conflict, very
specific to Israel Palestine, to the back and forth of
the violence between them. It is not like just ah, well,

(57:25):
it's because they're born that way or their religion tells
them to be that way. It's you know, we like
to be reductive when it comes to Islam because of
the fact that it's easy for Americans to understand they
hate us for our freedoms. You know, boom done. No
need to think about any context outside of I'm free
and you hate that our women wear bathing suits.

Speaker 4 (57:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
Massa's statement was that if Israel did not discriminate against
fighters and civilians, they would before between If did not
discriminate between fighters and civilians, then they would be forced
to respond in kind, but they would stop targeting civilians
as soon as Israel did. Time after time, they offer
Israel a quid pro quo, no more targeting civilians, agreement,
and time after time, Israel's like, now we're good.

Speaker 4 (58:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
And at the start of the second Antifada, Hamas wasn't
wildly popular before the second anti Fada started, about ten
percent of Palestinian supported Hamas. A year and two it
seventeen percent died. By two thousand and six, they were
democratically elected as the governing force in the Gaza Strip,
defeating Fatah the Yaesir Arafat's group, who I think died
right around this time.

Speaker 3 (58:33):
Yes, two thousand and four I think keeped okay, and
four or five, But yes, that's that is what happened.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
And I don't I don't like Hamasa's policies or their tactics.
But the only reason they are not perceived as a
legitimate force is because that Israel doesn't recognize Palestine as
a state. That is the only reason.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
And they also didn't recognize the election of Hamas when
the elections happened. Yeah, they did not recognized the election
and they actually democracy right exactly, and they tried to
get you know, they tried to coordinate a coup by Fatah,

(59:13):
who was you know, the Plos political party, and that
coup did not work out. And you know, if you
hear about you know, Palestinian on Palestinian crime around the
time of Hamas, you'll mostly see hamas As like, oh,
they got into power and they just started killing the
political opposition. It's like, no, they tried to they tried

(59:34):
to undo the election, right, they tried to undo the election.
And it's worth noting there's not been an election since. Yah,
so when well and so, but also when here, when
you hear people say, you know, well they voted for
you know, they voted for Amas. You know the fifty
percent or I forget a huge number of Palestinians are children,

(01:00:00):
and uh, we're not alive or voting age in two
thousand and six, and so the idea that they would
be responsible for Hamas being in power is fucking atrocious.
And even if they were, it would be fucking a
tros right. No, I did not vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yeah,

(01:00:21):
when he became governor, and if he had started terminating
all the other states and then they collective collectively punished
all of California, you'd be against that. It was a
very I'm really dragging that metaphor out, but you get it.
Oh yeah, and absolutely, And plus he has that sword, yeah, dude,
Conan sword. Yeah, he would have stopped man, he would
have stopped all the collective punishment that I'm imagining in

(01:00:43):
my brain.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
And now tell you would have personally gone out there
and done it. So the second indefautam as before the
election of Hamas, and it's the background story to the
thing that is today's story, because not all the uprising islamisist. Basically,
the Palestinian authority was increasingly central during this point, but
the popular assemblies are still around. They're alienated from the

(01:01:05):
centralized authority. But they organized an entire movement focused on
strategic nonviolence. And again I'm not making an ethical statement
about that, but they did it, and I think it's cool.
I think it was an interesting strategy. The main issue
was the wall called the security fence or the apartheid
wall or the segregation wall, or Wikipedia calls it the barrier,

(01:01:28):
because I think that's New.

Speaker 3 (01:01:29):
York Times is line around it, because they like I
always like to find a neutral term for prison bars.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
Yeah, totally. And in contrast to some of the other stuff,
this new movement involves an awful lot of women, and
soon they had solidarity from internationals and from Israelis. The
first network for solidarity at this time, at least that
I ran across, was called ta Ayush. This was a
network of hundreds of activists. I believe israelis both Jewish
and Arab citizens of Israel, and they would bring food

(01:01:58):
to besieged cities and towns, defend Palestinian farmers from settlers
and soldiers as they worked their lands. And though this
particular group continue to be woven throughout the story, basically
there's a lot of cool stuff that's going to happen,
and there's a lot of different groups that are all
going to be doing it, and they're going to be
coming from slightly different angles and working together to do

(01:02:19):
really cool shit.

Speaker 4 (01:02:21):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
In two thousand and one, you get another organization, the
International Solidarity Movement, and this is a Palestinian led organization
which brings volunteers from around the world to participate in
non violent direct action against settlements and occupation. They're pretty rad,
they're very consciously supporters of diversity of tactics, and I
think that this statement like gets at the balance between

(01:02:46):
why is strategic nonviolence and the right wing hates them.
Because of the following statement, as enshrined in international law
and UN resolutions, we recognize the Palestinian right to resist
Israeli violence and occupation via alogity mint arms struggle. However,
we believe nonviolence can be a powerful weapon in fighting oppression,
and we are committed to the principles of non violent resistance.

(01:03:08):
And so the right wing like loses their shit over this,
being like they're clearly terrorists, they say, right there. Ism
actions include everything from mass demonstrations to forming human chains
to block soldiers from fucking with Palestinians, like when Palacine
needs to go and tear down military roadblocks, they'll defend them.
They will also break curfew to escort kids to school.

(01:03:31):
Soon they move to human shielding and witnessing and they
start staying in home slated for demolition and they're like
riding with ambulances and shit. And this is like two
thousand and one to two thousand and five ish is
sort of their heyday. They're still around in Amatrona. The
information I have is between two thousand and one and
two thousand and five.

Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
Right, Yes, that's what we are focusing on.

Speaker 2 (01:03:54):
Israel makes a huge deal out of Hamas and it's
human shields right now, And the implication is that Hamas
keeps civilians around just so they can like do their evil,
nefarious shit, and that they've like forced or brainwashed all
these civilians.

Speaker 3 (01:04:08):
Right, or they've literally tied them to their chest.

Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
Yeah, totally, yeah, exactly. In reality, the human shield movement
is brave as fuck, people from relatively privileged positions who
are generally voluntarily acting to protect civilians and activists.

Speaker 4 (01:04:24):
M hmm.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
There were For example, we talked about this last time,
but I just I was so interested in all the
parallels between this episode and the last episode. There were
white voluntary human shields at the occupation of Wounded Knee
in the nineteen seventies by the American Indian Movement, and
it was the people who lived there already were like, no,
we'll stay, and then they can't murder everyone because there's
white people here. And then the media was like they've

(01:04:47):
kidnapped these white people. Of the white people are like, no,
we're here on purpose, we live here, fuck you. Or
on their side there are neighbors, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:04:54):
Yeah, that sounds relatively familiar.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
Yeah, this is the what kind of human shielding that
the ism was doing. To quote an article from The
Stranger quote, when a Palestinian was shot a while ago
near the Rapa Egypt border crossing and Israeli soldiers wouldn't
let anyone walk into the area to retrieve the body.
The ismmers say that they took a stretcher, walked into

(01:05:19):
the area despite Israeli fire, picked up the body and
removed it for burial. And that's who the ism were
and are. And so in two thousand and three, Israel
thought about this and they said, what if we just
kill these people? Can we get away with that cat
we just kill them? Do you think we can kill

(01:05:40):
a twenty three year old blonde American woman in broad
daylight get away with it?

Speaker 3 (01:05:45):
Ah, you don't know until you try. Well, you don't
know until you try.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
Well, I answer that question on WEDNESDAYD since that's a
shitty cliffhanger. The answers, yes, they can, and they will.

Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
Yeah, they can.

Speaker 4 (01:05:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
I mean you probably guess that, yeah, by our tone
of a you know, silly resignation to the horrors of
the world.

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
Yeah. And so we will talk. We'll tell that story
and some more stories.

Speaker 4 (01:06:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:11):
And it's a really amazing story. And I'm so glad.
I was hoping that we were going to talk about
Rachel Corey in this episode or in this series, because
she is an incredible martyr and uh, should be someone
who more people know about what happened to her and

(01:06:32):
what she did and what happened to her family subsequently.

Speaker 2 (01:06:35):
Yeah, but if you like the why yeah, thanks, yep.
If you like making light of bad things that are
represented on television screens, because the Wires about that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:06:47):
Yes, you'll love Pod Yourself a Gun a TV rewatch podcast.
We went through all of the Sopranos, and we are
about to end season four of the Wire and then
there's only one more season after that until we find
a new TV show that we can all watch together.
And also, like I said, I want to learn how

(01:07:08):
to make that chinzo abbe gun. Pod Yourself a Gun
wherever you get your podcasts and also follow me on Instagram. Uh,
and you'll see some of my anti Zionist Jewish videos.
They're they're funny and stupid, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
And well received by everyone. They're they're really good.

Speaker 4 (01:07:29):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
I I you know, there was a time where this
was too niche of a subject for you know, jokes
about it to be understood, and now we live in
a shitty a shitty timeline, so finally, yeah, these jokes
are not niche.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
Yay that's the side. If you want to follow me
on social media. I'm still technically on Twitter, but I
hate that. I'm on Twitter somehow I can tell you
about it. And I'm on Instagram at Marty Kiljoy. I'm
on substack. I write an essay every week and half
of it is free and half of it's like more
personal and it is only for people who pay me.

(01:08:11):
It's not it's not like freemium. You actually get the
better stuff for free. You just get to like me
talking about like my dog and why I like winner
if you if you pay me, and you can also
cooler Zone Media, then you get all the cool zone
media podcasts. And if you do like current events, because
we don't do current events on the show clearly, but

(01:08:33):
it could happen here. Just current events and so just
Hood Politics with Prop. I never realized until later that
the reason we always say hood Politics with Prop is
because that's the name of the podcast. The with Prop
is in the name, and so if you're searching it,
it's Hood Politics with Prop and it's a These are
good event podcasts, and.

Speaker 3 (01:08:53):
It's a great podcast, and you know, Prop is prop Rules.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
We'll talk to you all on Wednesday.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on cool zone Media,
visit our website coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.