026: How to Fight Antisemitism in 2025 feat. Ben Lorber

Ben Lorber is a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates. He joined the show for a discussion about the pro-Israel groups cheapening the real antisemitism affecting Jewish people by doing things like pick fights against children’s entertainers like Ms. Rachel and Elmo. How do we keep our moral compass steady against those who seek to wield it as a bludgeon to silence critics of the Israeli government?

Links for Ben:

* Read his book: “Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism”

* Check out his work: Political Research Associates

* Follow his socials: X and BlueSky

Exit Track: “Hunger for Death” by PUP

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Episode Transcript

(00:32):
Welcome back to posting through it.
I'm Jared. And I'm Mike.
I'm Ben. Welcome back.
Another week we got a huge response to the Jeffrey Epstein
episode. Thank you for that.
And in addition to tons of downloads, we also got a lot of
contributions in our tip jar, which is LinkedIn, the
description of every episode. Thank you so much for that.

(00:53):
It goes a long way, even if it'snot life changing money.
You know, we make this show withour own time and with our own
Dimes and it keeps things movingalong.
On this episode we've got Ben Lorber.
He's a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates
and the co-author of the book Safety Through Solidarity,
Radical Guide to Fighting anti-Semitism.

(01:14):
But fellas, we got to discuss the elephant in the room, or
rather, the little red gremlin from Sesame Street.
I'm talking about Elmo on July 13th.
If you are still on X for whatever reason, you may have
been surprised to see this blastof crazy posts coming from the

(01:35):
little guy. He's got 6500 followers which he
treated to messages like kill all Jews, Elmo says all Jews
should die, and my personal favorite, release the files at
Real Donald Trump child fucker. The posts were deleted and on

(01:55):
July 15th Elmo posted a statement which is a very like
dystopian sentence to say I should add.
Elmo said. I guess Sesame Street, whoever,
Elmo said on Sunday, Elmo's ex account was briefly hacked by an
outside party in spite of the security measures in place.
We strongly condemn the abhorrent anti-Semitic and

(02:18):
racist content and the account has since been secured.
These posts in no way reflect the values of Sesame Workshop or
Sesame Street and no one at the organization was involved.
Well, that didn't really stop some groups like We're Going to
Talk About Today from identifying Christina Vitas, who

(02:39):
is the social media manager who runs Elmo's X account.
I guess little gremlins can't post for themselves.
So Christina is the woman taskedwith helping Elmo translate his
thoughts to the screen. And yeah, they took her to task.
For some reason, a post that like stood out that Mike and I

(03:01):
were kind of making fun of privately that I wanted to talk
about was from this group calledCanary Mission.
Then can can you help listeners understand what Canary Mission
is? Yeah, yeah.
I mean, you know, Canary Missionhas been around for about a
decade now and it's essentially an operation that is this

(03:23):
primarily to like smear, you know, people who support justice
and freedom for Palestinians by accusing us of being
anti-Semitic. I mean, I have a Canary mission
profile. I think I got it in like 2018.
And it it basically pulls from your social media accounts.
It like scours the Internet, youknow, for pictures.

(03:45):
It posts your, your employer andlike its primary purpose is to
send, you know, troll armies to,to harass people, you know, to
call their places of work, to call their universities and
mostly targets students, of course.
And you know, like a lot of the targets are like first

(04:06):
generation Palestinian, Arab andMuslim undergraduates, you know,
So the, the goal is just, you know, to, to really have a
chilling effect on the Palestinesolidarity movement.
And, you know, it's been, it's sometimes as effective and it's
so it's just a really hard example of of the Lance that
like Israel's defenders can go to, you know, to Israel's

(04:27):
crimes, you know? I I just want to interject that
Ben's Jewish so I think that's an important, he's on this list,
so. Yeah.
So Canary Mission keeps these databases of people.
It's been criticized as a doxingwebsite.
I don't know that that's the terms I would use, but that's
what critics have said. A Canary mission.

(04:48):
If you follow the news closely, you might have heard of it
because it has been drawn upon by the Trump administration as
it tries to decide who it shouldtarget for deportations and
revoking student visas of of people that criticize Israel on
US soil while being foreign citizens.

(05:11):
So on July 15th, after Elmo saidhe was hacked again, what a
strange sentence. They called for a real
investigation into what happenedand to fire the person
responsible who we mentioned earlier, Christina Vedas.
They seem pretty skeptical of the original story.

(05:32):
No proof, no apology, no accountability.
Again, we're talking about a little red gremlin, right?
We're talking about a hacked X account, but they proceeded to
target Christina Vitas in a thread on X demanding that she
face accountability, AKA that she gets fired.
Followers of Canary Mission haveI've seen them circulating

(05:55):
Christina Vitas e-mail address, her various social media
profiles calling on her to be fired, and more.
I would hate to see what her inbox looks like.
The whole situation is just likekind of ridiculous, but
especially on X these days. This is kind of what like the
the quote UN quote like fight against anti-Semitism online is

(06:20):
starting to resemble more and more.
It's like all these sort of weird organizations like Canary
Mission or Betar Worldwide, justlike plucking out random things
from the Internet and being likehell, must be paid for this
transgression. Elmo must be carpet bombed and

(06:41):
like the entirety of Sesame Street, must be levelled to the
ground. Yeah, they're going to like, you
can deny them, you know, food and water for like months,
Horrible jokes. But you know, we have to laugh
in the face of these atrocities.You.
Know no no, no we're fine we're fine I immediately asked Jared
whether we whether we felt that like Elmo deserved the chair or

(07:01):
lethal injection from this but like.
At the very least, Big Bird should be sanctioned.
Yeah, no, but one thing that stood out to me about this is
it's like, like, is there any particular reason why this post
should even stand out on X like in 2025 anyway?
It's the only reason why is because the main thing that

(07:21):
stood out to me is that Elmo still has an official account on
that site. Like why?
Like why? Why are they like, who are they?
Who is Sesame Street trying to reach on a site with a that is
like, you know, filled with guyswho have spinning swastika eyes
like in their avatars. And if you if you had like, you
know, particularly like any, if you take like any handful of

(07:42):
tweets that are that are on there that my sock follows on
there, they basically look like the Elmo tweet, but was just
like a different like it's just some some idiot with activated
eyes avatar like still holding on to that from 2018.
Yeah, I mean, I'm so desensitized.
I feel like I barely batted an eye when I heard it.
And it's like my personal conspiracy theory is that, you

(08:05):
know, the right also loves to goafter Miss Rachel, you know,
for, for supposedly, you know, being anti-Semitic because she's
used her, her platform like in an amazing way to highlight the
devastation in Gaza and the impact on children.
So my personal conspiracy theoryis that, like all of the, you
know, all of the children's entertainers are now coming

(08:27):
after the Jews. And you know, it's just, I'm
just. Joking.
And these transgressions, I should add, are saying things
like, isn't it sad that 10's andthousands of children have died
like, and they're just like enemy of the Jewish pedia, Miss

(08:48):
Rachel. To be clear, Miss Rachel, not
anti-Semitic almost posts, yes. Anti-Semitic.
Yeah. God, it's to your point, Mike,
I've, I mean, the reason you have a profile for Elmo on X is
presumably to like reach children, right?
And like, you just have to be a negligent parent at this point

(09:11):
to like let your toddler roam around on X.
Like these Elmo posts rank pretty low on like the the
severity of things your child would likely encounter using X,
including from the platform owner, right?
It it's just like. Yeah, it's, it's like letting
your child like wander around through the landscape of, of

(09:34):
that game Silent Hill too. And like just just, you know,
drowning in mutilated corpses and stuff like that.
I, you know, like, you know, my kids, for instance, like they,
they're on, they're on like YouTube Shorts.
And I'm always like paranoid they're going to run into, like
they're going to run into Tim Poole or something like that.
This is a case where there's notone Tim Poole to run into.

(09:56):
And then Tim Poole is probably your like softest landing.
Ben, we thought to invite you onbecause during the Jeffrey
Epstein episode, towards the end, we started talking about
anti-Semitism surrounding the, the whole Jeffrey Epstein
blowback and just just, I mean, God, what a should show that

(10:16):
that that has been for the Trumpadministration.
And you know, Mike, you made thepoint and I, I think it was a
good one that this sort of rank anti-Semitism that has
surrounded it, that sort of pulses through the Mac of base
is probably under indexed in conversations or or discussions
about anti-Semitism. So we thought it'd be great to

(10:37):
have you on to talk about what solidarity with Jewish people
looks like at a time where, you know, these groups are sort of
shrugging off anti-Semitism in the Trump base while also
claiming that, you know, people must be fired because somebody
hacked the Elmo account and posted hateful messages.

(10:59):
On that note, there has been a development on this Epstein
stuff. Did you guys see the Wall Street
Journal story about? They're really pissed about that
lately. Some of them are I think some of
them are actually like leaning into it, like the Nick Fuentes
types are actually leading into the Wall Street Journal stories
like further. But he was, he was saying that
the, he, he was calling the MAGAmovement the biggest scam in the

(11:23):
history of, of populism or whatever.
Like it was something like that.He, I think what Fuentes said,
and I thought it was actually kind of interesting.
Not like he's interesting, you know, thinker or something like
that, but I thought it was revealing of something which is
he said that now we have to lookat it like, you know, he's a

(11:43):
scam and we like he's helped usher in US like he's the he's
the vehicle for us to get going.And then Trump has sort of been
exposed and it's not the other way around.
We are now leading him and he's just some, you know, some sort
of placeholder. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it remains to be seen, like, you know, how much of the

(12:04):
MAGA base is really that mad at Trump about this.
I've also, you know, seen some polling showing that he still
has a high approval who know that this is like a mostly
online thing. You know, of course, a lot of
the mostly online mega folks, you know, end up, you know,
driving the energy and the fuel of of mega over the long run.

(12:25):
But I mean, yeah, not to say that I agree with Nick Fuentes.
Like, you know, it is true that,yeah, if Trump keeps covering up
this Epstein stuff, which clearly implicates him, you
could because it clearly implicates him, there's just
going to be more energy for folks to the right of him and
more space, you know, for other folks to say, yeah, Trump is

(12:45):
compromised. But we are the real America
first agenda. And we're even more fascist, you
know, even more, more nationalist, you know, than you
know, than he, than he could ever be.
That's a very good point. And that's something I'm like
actually really scared about. And I'm glad that you mentioned
it, which is that my only fear is that if if Trump really is

(13:07):
consumed by the Epstein scandal and that sort of takes him down
and he's seen as being sort of tainted by this guy who's tied
up with all these anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, which
again, to be clear, you know, haven't been disproven
necessarily. Some of them, you know, we don't
know whether Epstein was tied toMasada or something like that.
But you know, if Trump goes downthat way and he's seen as kind

(13:30):
of a figure your head or whatever, the next iteration of
this could be quite organized and scary.
And maybe we don't see it right away, but maybe we see it in 10
years or something. And that would be really scary.
I just wanted to Jared, I mentioned I would say this like,
you know, on here, I just want to just quickly say that there's
a lot of people trying out on the right like the Jack Pozobic
class of of idiot like Cernovichobvious hoax.

(13:54):
It's an obvious hoax. It's an obvious hoax.
It's an obvious hoax. This is a hoax, right?
You see a lot of lot of people making these like these comments
or whatever. It's not a hoax.
And I'm just going to say like straight up, like I, I have done
reporting for Wall Street Journal before.
And like, I, I did it a series of prisons while I was in India

(14:16):
and, and it was supposed to be 6stories long.
And I did four of the four of the six, because two of them
were killed in legal. And they, they paid for all the
travel. It gave me like a lot of, and
they were killed because it was like, well, we don't know.
We don't have like, you know, itwas like really tight.
Like we had not got enough of a response from the Kashmir police
on this. We don't have enough response on
the, on like from the, the Indian army on this and stuff.

(14:38):
And they would kill it. And, and when I worked at
Storyful also, which is owned byDow Jones, the same thing.
And it was the same thing. It was.
It's the most strict standards and practices I ever dealt with.
That includes ABC News and otherrelatively conservative outlets.
The, the news division at Wall Street Journal is, is considered
to be extraordinarily rigorous. And like the idea that this is a

(15:00):
hoax is, is, it's just, it's just flatly not.
The story is true. I'm not even saying is, is, is
likely true. It is true, period.
If that was even a possibility, it was not getting published by
the Wall Street fucking Journal of all places.
Which like editorially if anything, is like bent
conservative towards business. Right?

(15:21):
Like it's just like it's. No, I'm just saying it's, it's
just true, period, because everybody who's up at the top
didn't want this to get published because they were too
scared, I'm sure. So it had to go through a
tremendous, tremendously rigorous process.
And I would presume also they had it for a while and did not
rush it. The timing may be to a degree

(15:43):
coincidental. I have no evidence of that.
But it's that that's just based upon the fact that it just takes
so long. I guess the Epstein thing has
been rumbling for a couple weeksnow.
So maybe they had it and they'vebeen developing it for a while.
And then they they really foughtto get it out now and for the
timing. But anyway, I just wanted to put
that out there and we can move on.
I just want to say it's definitely real.
Trump definitely drew boobs for Jeffrey Epstein and he

(16:03):
definitely said that we we sharethe same proclivities in so many
words and then we have like these wonderful secrets or
whatever the fuck. Yeah, enigmas never age.
It's just like so transparently sketchy.
It's just like, so incriminating.
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Never. Yeah, yeah.
It's just like our secret is child sex.
Like is essentially what I read from that anyway.

(16:27):
Yeah, and, and, and from what I've heard, and, and these are
just like rumor mill rumblings. The Wall Street Journal reaching
out for comments on this story may have been why there was such
an abrupt turn by the Trump administration on these Epstein
files. That that is it is possible that

(16:50):
that is why Trump changed his tune so fast to try to get his
base to move on. But but they've been largely
unsuccessful, right. So so now has his face has to
contend with this. But Ben, yeah, let's talk about
anti-Semitism. Yeah, it might have some
relation. I mean, yeah, you know what you

(17:11):
were saying earlier. It's so, you know, madding to
those of us, you know, who, who watch this for a while that, you
know, the right, you know, and many Democrats, you know, and
most establishment discourse, right?
And groups like the ADL, you know, have really flipped the

(17:31):
script and just, you know, almost created, you know, a fake
news narrative in a moral panic that, you know, the main threat
to Jewish people, you know, in this country is, you know,
college students who want an endto Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Wow. You know, the very first day of

(17:52):
the new Trump administration, you know, Elon Musk, the richest
person in the world, you know, made a Nazi salute at the
inauguration, right? There's just, you know, like
high Trump administration officials, like, oh, what's that
guy's name? I forget his name.
But you know, there are little gripers and like Andrew Tate
supporters in the high echelons of the administration, right?

(18:13):
I could go on and on. But they're like the kind of
real anti-Semitism, as you said,you know, coursing through the
MAGA base and the leadership is just totally obscured and
downplayed. And everyone is just going to
told her, you know, to redirect to, you know, to those of us,
you know, who, who support justice for Palestinians.
It's just the most madding, you know, SIOP, if you want to call

(18:35):
it that, or just, you know, inversion that it just really
makes it hard right now. Yeah, I, I was trying to
remember like, which Trump administration official you
might have been talking about and several came to mind, which
I think is kind of, you know, illustrative of, of the problem
you've identified here. Well.
I wanted to on that note, I wantto do this up front rather than

(18:56):
like in the back, which is I want to talk about just quickly
before we move on to some, you know, some of the egregious
stuff that has been going on around the use of anti-Semitism.
So I just want to talk about like legitimate left wing
anti-Semitism. I say that as somebody who the
White House like said a statement when I reached the
Stephen Miller emails, I think the White House had some sort of

(19:17):
thing. It was like the author is a left
wing anti Semite. I remember that like stinging me
so badly because it was you would never get even get it from
a social media read. It was purely my racial makeup
being like part Arab or just sort of like identified through
video. We know he's Arab.
Must be an anti Semite like, right.
It was really difficult. I remember at the time I'm
feeling really hurt. But like being an Arab and left

(19:40):
wing. I wonder like, you know, I, it
does it does exist to some degree, right?
Like you do see some stuff that's out there.
I have seen, for instance, we like, we're definitely going to
talk about the word Zionist as apejorative and like whatever.
And like there's, there's obviously you have to be able to
make criticisms of Zionism as asany serious person, including

(20:03):
even if if you're Israeli and should be able to be critical of
it, right, Because it's not a solid inset thing that
necessarily even there. I guess my question, my question
is, is like, how prevalent do you think it is?
And like how? How do you actually?
Identify it when you see it because I feel like we're
entering a stage where people have become so cynical about the
idea of anti-Semitism in left spaces.

(20:25):
People are so angry, there's so much hurt that they don't even
look at it. No, you really.
Yeah, I think you're really right that.
Yeah, because of all these accusations that are often
cynical, people don't want to look at it, you know, and we
shouldn't be surprised in many ways that of course there's
anti-Semitism that comes up in left wing spaces.

(20:45):
I mean, there's misogyny that comes up in left wing spaces.
There's anti blackness. You can go, you know, on down
the line. I mean, you know, you know,
people who who speak as leftist,who, who go to rallies, who
join, you know, organizations orwhatever are just people.
And we bring all of the biases that we inherit, you know, in
our society until we we do the work of, you know, unlearning

(21:07):
them. So, you know, I think there's
sometimes like a panic that can come up or a an understandable
fear for for people who are Jewish that like if there's any,
any anti-Semitism that we may encounter in left wing spaces,
we just have to like, you know, run or several ties or go to
Twitter. And, you know, it's like, I
think, you know, you know, some of the ways it can come up is

(21:29):
like, you know, in conspiracy theory thinking, I mean, you
know, anti-Semitism, like you could as a conspiracy theory of
who sits at the highest heights of power.
Like the, the story it tells is there's, there's an elite cabal
of Jews who are pulling the strings, you know, and the left
is concerned with power. The left wants to figure out the

(21:50):
who's behind the scenes, how theworld works.
And so there's a danger that that conspiracy thinking, you
know, can come in not only about, you know, Israel
sometimes, but the way that we understand the economy.
I mean, I was around and, you know, during Occupy Wall Street,
you know, sometimes you, you would hear about the Rothschilds
or the Illuminati or, you know, the, the, you know, the, the

(22:11):
hidden hand behind the, the, theFederal Reserve, you know, that
stuff, it can be overplayed, butit can be there.
So that's, that's one important way.
I think it's important just to kind of, you know, learn about
that and sharpen our analysis of, of capitalism and of all the
systems at play so we don't makethe mistake of thinking they're
there's like a hidden cabal, whether it's, you know, Jews or
the Illuminati or whoever. Yeah, I I where I see it and I

(22:34):
don't know if you've seen this, Jared, like I'm thinking of a
few people that I won't mention,but I have definitely seen
people like drawing attention tothe like dancing Israelis
conspiracy around 911, right, People who are obsessed with
911. And that one has been disproven.
Even grey zone for people who don't know that as like a very
conspiratorial site that has like doesn't it have some sort

(22:54):
of left wing, not left wing, excuse me, doesn't have some
sort of like Russia ties. Am I wrong Jared?
Like. Yeah, yeah.
So that's it's, yeah, it's had to deal with that a lot.
They, they're very like conspiratorial publication that
often covers matters of foreign policy and like many
conspiratorial publications thatcover those policies from this

(23:18):
sort of self-described positioning as like anti
imperialism or whatever. But they end up drawing
sympathies and kind of backing into the corner with governments
that their own countries are hostile to, including Russia,
right. And there's been a whole host of
things, allegations about funding and that sort of stuff.

(23:39):
So we don't have time to go through all of that.
Maybe that's another episode. That's a good idea actually.
But so, so my point is that I think even Grey Zone did a
debunk of dancing Israelis. And for people who don't know
it, it's this idea that there's like these 5 Israeli national
people and men, I think, and they're all like there's some,
someone saw them or reported them dancing as the outside as

(24:02):
the twin towers fell or, you know, whatever.
And, and it was looked at, you know, they looked into it
pretty, you know, it was pretty thoroughly debunked.
Everybody has looked into it, the timing of it, the
possibility that it happened. And, you know, I, I think like
people can't imagine, for instance, that 911 could just,

(24:23):
you know, could just been a performed by terrorists because
of the implications that happened after and this.
And yes, some of those implications may have benefited
folks like Netanyahu to some degree, people who are like, you
know, very, you know, warlike intheir, in their perception of,
of, of their surroundings or whatever.
But that coincidence has also happened right to some degree.

(24:45):
And we we we we know who flew The Who who flew the planes into
the tower because we have eyes and we've seen what happened for
decades now. But yeah, I mean, now that we've
kind of established that that that it that it is a thing.
Let's talk, you know, a little bit more about why I think the
door is open for anti-Semitism kind of grow in left spaces, you

(25:07):
know, and and that is the sort of labeling of critics of Israel
as anti-Semitic. And and I guess I wanted to ask
is Canary Mission is one person.We were one group.
We already mentioned who else isreally doing this right now?
The Trump administration. But but who?
Who else is really doing it? Yeah.

(25:27):
I mean, you know, it goes back ultimately, you know, to the
70s, but it really picked up steam in the early 2000s with
the rises of the BDS movement, you know, the boycott,
divestment and sanctions movement, you know, as as civil
society, you know, groups aroundthe world started to call for,
you know, for boycotts and for divestment.

(25:49):
You know that a lot of of organizations, you know, of, of,
of Israeli agencies and pro Israel organizations in the US
and around the world, I've really developed this language.
And here in the US, it's some ofthose organizations, you know,
claim to speak for the American Jewish community.

(26:10):
Groups like the Anti Defamation League, of course, and its CEO,
Jonathan Greenblatt, of course, they increasingly don't speak
for the American Jewish community.
More and more of us are deeply critical of what's going on in
Gaza and what Israel has been doing the Palestinians, you
know, for a long time. And it's also, you know, groups
like Christians United for Israel and its leader, Pastor
John Hagee, right? Christians United for Israel has

(26:32):
I think 11,000,000 members. And that's more than the entire
American Jewish community, right?
So Christian Zionist groups alsoplay a big role in this.
And like you said, you know, theTrump administration and also
the Biden administration, you know, most, most bipartisan
leaders in the, you know, in the, in the political
establishment have adopted this,this talking point.

(26:53):
So it's really pervasive. But, you know, I think, like I
said, more and more American Jews are beginning to see
through it and most of the base of the Democratic Party is
seeing through it. And increasingly, some parts of
the MAGA movement are also growing critical of of US
support for Israel. And so it's a bizarre phenomenon

(27:13):
now to see people like Tucker Carlson who who are saying some
things that we on the left wouldsay, but he's filtering it
through like a nationalist and aconspiracy theory lens that is
just really mind boggling to watch.
So I'm curious to get your thoughts been just on why this
is damaging ultimately to the fight against anti-Semitism,

(27:34):
because anti-Semitism is legitimately a a real problem.
It's a real dangerous problem with the very bloody track
record it it can put Jewish people in a lot of danger when
these attitudes percolate through society.
But the conflation between criticism of the Israeli

(27:56):
government or criticism of Zionism with anti-Semitism, you
know, categorizing it in the same sort of bucket as things
that motivate things like the Tree of life synagogue shooting,
right? Or I'm thinking of Jonathan
Greenblatt, the ADLCEO comparingpro Palestine protesters to Klan

(28:21):
members. I think it is what what he did a
couple years ago. You know, that kind of
conflation, that kind of of use of the term anti-Semitism or the
use of that label to bludgeon critics of US support for
Israel. Like, why is that that damaging?

(28:41):
Why is that? What?
Yeah. Why should people feel alarmed
by that, in your opinion? Yeah, I mean, what it's, you
know, it's damaging for free speech.
I mean, a lot of the efforts to to silence critics of Israel are
rewriting free speech laws, you know, shutting the 1st
Amendment. We haven't we have groups like

(29:01):
the Heritage Foundation who who are using this template to, you
know, push for policies that aredismantling universities that
are, you know, we've seen arrests of, you know,
deportation and, you know, threatened deportation of folks
like Mahmoud Khalil that, you know, basically, I mean, there
are ways this fight is now beingweaponized by the Trump

(29:23):
administration, you know, to threaten citizenship, you know,
to deport non citizens with really frightening implications.
And also, you know, for, you know, like the you know, like
you said, like you, you mentioned the tree of life
shooting. The reality is that the most
violent anti-Semitism, you know,comes from the right and from

(29:45):
the white nationalist movement, right.
And it's, you know, it's horrific, really, it, it's
insulting to equate the worst synagogue shooting in American
history with, you know, speech on a college, a college campus.
You know, that might make some Jewish students uncomfortable,
right? You know, it's insulting to
equate your political critique of the state of Israel or the

(30:08):
ideology of of Zionism with anti-Semitism.
I mean, this is a political critique that calls for equality
in a nation state. And that's just categorically
not the same thing as hatred of Jewish people or of conspiracy
theories. And arguably, I think some of
this stuff can increase anti-Semitism.

(30:28):
You know, when Trump arrests Mahmoud Khalil and tweets out in
a Shalom Mahmoud, right, his administration as a largely
Christian nationalist administration, right, groups
like the Heritage Foundation whoare pushing for this.
These are Christian nationalist groups and what they're doing is
they're slapping a big old Star of David on their push to
destroy American democracy. And you know, they're teaching

(30:51):
people to equate, you know, Jewish power as they see it, you
know, this anti-Semitic idea with with fascism essentially,
you know, so there's ways that Ithink it actually, you know, if
you tell people that they they can't have free speech, you
know, because, you know, becauseof make make Jews upset, because
it's anti-Semitic, people are going to say, wait, Jews seem to
have a lot of, you know, power to crush free speech.

(31:12):
And that's just, you know, it's mostly Christian nationalists
who are running this right now. And so it's, I think it's
actually can increase anti-Semitism in this really
fucked up way. Yeah, to your point, I have seen
some bleed over. But there, there there's a
phrase that white nationalists use, Jewish supremacy.
You'll see that a lot like, oh, this is Jewish supremacy.

(31:33):
Like, you know, it's just sort of inverting the white
supremacist idea and kind of saying this is ultimately Jews
run everything and they control us or whatever.
And what's interesting is it does feel like some Jews are
involved in this, of course, butit does feel like it's actually
many white people like Trump andand others who like are kind of

(31:57):
embracing this sort of, it is just sort of like almost using
the mask of a Jewish person to, to come down on the people with
with some form of supremacy or some sort of authoritarianism.
And I think it's really polluting.
It's really polluting people's understanding of, you know, who
is involved here and where powerlies.

(32:18):
And I actually think one thing that helps me, of course, is
like, like I said, an Arab person who is not Jewish, who
has criticisms of Israel, for instance, is to is to often is
editorializing, not asking a question.
But I'm curious what you think about is like, I always try to
unite my critique of Israel witha critique of the United States
because to a degree it is an extension of United States

(32:41):
foreign policy. And until Tucker Carlson kind of
gets his way with whatever isolationist nationalist thingy,
whatever it it, it is really just an extension of the United
States in many ways. Yeah, no.
And that's a really good plan. I think it's important to, you
know, there's this other white nationalist phrase that, you
know, David Duke started using in the Zionist occupied

(33:03):
government, you know, and we've actually do sometimes seem to
see that phrase and, you know, on some ostensibly left wing
account, you know, on X or whatever.
Like that's the thing. A lot of this stuff is just on
the Internet and people just, you know, retweet it, not
necessarily knowing where it comes from.
But like you're saying the, the,that gets it backwards.
The, the idea that the US supports Israel because the

(33:25):
government is, you know, occupied by like a Zionist
cabal. The reason that the US has
supported Israel since the, you know, since the 70s is access
to, you know, oil and to trade, you know, and, you know, as a
beachhead in the Cold War and later the War on Terror, right?
You know, there's a there's a shared resonance, a shared

(33:45):
mythology between these two countries.
You know, both are essentially, you know, settler colonies.
You know, we could go on and on.But yeah, I totally agree with
you that there's that. It's helpful to look at it that
way. When I see the ZOG thing come
from left in left wing spaces, it usually is in relations to
AIPAC, which is legitimately, legitimately spooky.

(34:06):
Like the idea that like so much money goes to these politicians
and now we have this genocide going on in the middle.
It's it is it actually, when youlook at it, you're like, whoa.
I mean, it inspires conspiratorial thinking.
I think it's, you know, for me, I have to give, it's not like I
want to got to hand it to the conspiracist or whatever, but
you have to at least admit it's almost like the Epstein thing,
you know, that it looks extremely fucked up and you have

(34:29):
an emotional response to it because like in your own life,
everybody is short $10, right? We're all running around like,
you know, we're all dollars short for literally everything
we do. So we're frustrated.
We're living in hell. That's the nature of American
capitalism. And like, you know, it's, it's
very easy to find a scapegoat when you see that amount of

(34:50):
money kind of pouring in. I will add though, I don't want
teasers from a future story I'm doing.
But like I have seen up close evangelicals who are not as far
as I know, getting paid by Israel, putting in an Israeli
flag like next to the stage where they give their speech,
making them making Zionism like more important seemingly than

(35:13):
Christianity almost in there. I couldn't believe what I was
seeing how how like how centeredit was in a sermon that was a
mostly anti-gay, anti LGBTQ sermon.
So that I saw it in Idaho. Very bizarre thing for a
Northeastern dude to see. Anyway, my point, my point is
that I think it's coming from this critique around AIPAC.

(35:35):
And I think it's important to point out that some of these
people will do this for free. It's not clear to me at all that
Ted Cruz needs money to to show for Israel and quotes as as, as
you know, his his his trolls will say.
Yeah, no, no, definitely. I mean AIPAC is a as a lobby.
It's a powerful lobby like like the gun lobby, like the, you

(35:56):
know, the weapons industry lobbies and which, you know, a
lot of, you know, you know, not tiny amount of of overlap there.
And I agree, it's definitely important to to be, you know, on
guard against conspiracy theory thinking and to be able to name
the the real power that the groups like APAC, you know,
hold, you know, as one part of this larger constellation of of

(36:18):
interests. The prop up US support for
Israel for sure. The last thing we want to do is
to say like, oh, we shouldn't criticize them or to to downplay
the real power they do hold here.
So yeah. Yeah, On the topic of lobbying,
if you want your head to really spin, you know, you can look at
APEC lobbying and then you couldalso just look at lobbying for
like, I don't know, the Pharmaceutical industry or like

(36:40):
health insurance companies. That shit's wild.
This is this is a symptom of a problem bigger than, you know,
some secret cabal or whatever. So in your book, Ben Safety
through solidarity, A radical guide to fighting anti-Semitism.
I'll put a link to that in the description.
You and your co-author, Shane Burley kind of laid out a like

(37:03):
retrace of anti-Semitism and howit's been talked about in
society and try to think throughlike an alternative way of
thinking about it, an alternative way of talking about
it. I guess my first question is
what prompted you and Shane to to embark on that, you know,
certainly, you know, to the length of a book.

(37:24):
I, I've been talking to Mike as he's been writing his book and
it sounds like a fucking nightmare.
So so you guys must have felt this was pretty important.
I mean, I will say you having a co-author made it easier.
Yeah. You know, Shane Burley's
amazing. You know, he's a he's a he's a
journalist who also, you know, tracks the right.
And it's it was definitely, you know, easier, you know, only

(37:44):
having to write half a book and still it took us years.
We actually, yeah, I mean, we, it's funny, we turned in the we
thought was the final draft likea few days before October 7th.
And then we were like, oh wait, like we need this back.
And we were able to like add in a few things, but yeah.
It's like an export out of like Adobe Premiere where it's like

(38:04):
version one, final final 2, two final one, version 3.
Yes, so many Google Docs. But yeah, I mean, we, yeah, I
think, you know, it was precisely the this frustration
that drove, drove both of us to want to, to do this together.
I mean, I, you know, I, I, you know, I come out of the, the

(38:25):
Palestine solidarity movement and the kind of, you know, fight
the right research world. And so for years I worked on
college campuses and I saw the way that these anti-Semitism
charges had been used to silencecritics of Israel.
You know, you know, Shane also was involved with his campus
Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, you know,
and, you know, he spent, he spent years in an anti fascist,

(38:46):
you know, organizing in the Pacific Northwest.
So we saw the way that like anti-Semitism charges are still
misused and the real threat of anti-Semitism, you know, the
rising alt right, you know, justShane was there on the streets
in Portland, you know, facing off with the Proud Boys and so
many other groups, you know. And so we just, I remember the
deep dives I did, you know, reading Kevin McDonald and all

(39:10):
the outright shit in like 2017 and being like, you know, this
is real. And so, yeah, we just, yeah, we
just knew for. People who don't, I, I, I'm
always the one who stops things to introduce somebody in case
you don't. So you can't just blow through
Kevin McDonald's for sure without it because because he is
like. No relation to the Big Mac.
He is a what? How would you describe him?

(39:32):
A like a like an academic whose brain melted like what?
What would you describe this guy?
He he's read one of one of the more loved texts of the All
Right era culture of critique. Yeah, though he's like the
intellectual godfather, I guess you could say of of like their
anti-Semitism. So yeah, I mean just stuff like
that. Like, you know, just as both of

(39:53):
you were, and so many of us werejust, you know, seeing the rise
of of the anti-Semitism that waslike, you know, coursing through
the alt right. And also the way that these
conspiracy theories can sometimes show up in our own
ranks. I mean that's the thing like you
know, Shane has stories in the Pacific Northwest of like seeing
in the anti war movements. You know, some of these
conspiracy theorists who would get a platform there, too.

(40:16):
So basically, we were like, we need a better analysis of this
stuff. The ADL is not cutting it.
The ADL is like, you know, working with cops to, you know,
tell people not to. You could, you know, to, you
know, to take to the streets in Charlottesville.
You know, the ADL was not, you know, rising up to the task at
hand. We needed like an analysis of

(40:38):
anti-Semitism to put it it back into social movements that says
like, how can we fight this through a bottom up, you know,
grassroots approach of allying with, you know, different
marginalized communities and fighting for a better world
together. Let's talk about ADL, actually,
you know, not to do a sequel. We did an episode of about ADL

(40:59):
with Vegas Tunnel to work there for I think about a year or so.
And he had a few stories for us.At the time we did it.
They had just praised the Trump administration for what happened
with Khalil. Since then, we've seen I think
more more of the same. It's like I, I feel like, you

(41:21):
know, I'm in my, my most intimate chats, my most like, my
closest like chats were Jared Hannah, Bob Silverman, right?
It's it's always like a like we're we're in our signal
things, whatever. It's always like who's going to
tweet out this thing we're all want to criticize about what ADL
just said. Like it feels like it's usually
not me because I'm, I hate beingonline, but what's going on

(41:44):
there? Because has ADL always been like
this? Because I feel like they've
become like I have started, you know, as somebody who who, who
is in SPLC, like the Pepsi to their Coke, you know, and knew
them. Is it me?
Have they gotten worse? I feel like they've always been
pretty bad. And I was naive and wanting to

(42:06):
believe they're OK, but I feel like they've just it's maybe
it's October 7th for people who don't remember that episode or
don't know. Jonathan Greenblatt is the CEO
of ADL. You see him on TV if you watch
Morning Joe, if you see any likeFox and Friends.
I don't know if he's on Fox and he's on Fox and he is like, you

(42:28):
know, focus like a laser tunnel vision on calling people
anti-Semitic. That's basically he's it is his
only conversation point. He's got very little nuance.
I'm just curious like, have theyalways been better?
Did they get worse? Because it does feel like they
have become more reactionary after October 7th.
And it does feel like they are doing a tremendous amount of

(42:52):
damage to the label. anti-Semitic in the sense that I
almost be like scared to use it in some ways.
Like I have to be very careful how to use it because of the way
they use it. I think it's both.
And I think, you know, they've always been not great, you know,
and there's over the years there's been good people who've,

(43:12):
who've worked there and done good work.
And so, you know, you want to acknowledge that and feel for
the people, if there are any, who are still doing really good
work, who are still trapped there now.
But I think, yeah, you know, they've they do have a history
of, you know, you know, if you really want to go back to it,
you know, through the 80s of they've always kind of taken
this approach of like, you know,extremism is an equal problem on

(43:34):
both sides of the political spectrum.
And so, you know, even back in the 80s, there were lawsuits
that exposed how they were surveilling left wing groups,
you know, in addition to neo Nazi groups.
You know, they have always, you know, they went after, you know,
Arab American academics who are critical of Israel's oppression,
you know, during the after 911, their last CEO.

(43:59):
How am I blanking on his name? He was like, he led the
organization for decades, you know, Anyway, yeah.
ADL leadership, you know, you know, join like the Islamophobic
chorus and and, you know, sayingthat there shouldn't be like a a
mosque built, you know, near, you know, near Ground Zero.
You know, there's all these waysin which they have always been

(44:21):
not great, you know, And yes, since October 7th, under the
leadership of Greenblatt, they've gotten a lot worse.
I mean, this guy's essentially, you know, he comes from the
private sector, right? He came from the Obama
administration. He was, I think the CEO of you
could kind of like a green, you know, water company.
So, you know, he's like a water salesman.
I didn't know that, is that true?
Yeah, yeah, he sold water. Fuck.

(44:43):
OK OK interesting and that's very interesting and it's also
seems to be like work if you ever see him speak it that that
that resonates. Sony Martinetti nonprofit radio,
big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%.
You're with me on our live coverage of the Next Gen.
charity conference after party we're at Johnny Utah's and my

(45:06):
guest now is Jonathan Greenblatt.
Jonathan is the founder of EthosWater, which everyone is
familiar with. I mean, to me there is a strong
danger of people turn tuning outany conversation on
anti-Semitism because of these folks.
And, and the next thing I would,I would say is like in Europe, I

(45:26):
mean, is, is ADL an organizationthat is supposed to fight
anti-Semitism? Or is that a sort of front to
protect Israel from criticism? Because it's starting to feel
like the second thing to me. And that is not the way I
thought of them before. I mean, even if they were bad, I

(45:47):
didn't, I thought that they werereally like, OK, well, they're,
they're laser focused on this issue and and whatever.
And they may be more conservative, if, you know,
leaning, but now it feels like it's really primarily a vehicle
to protect Israel from criticismof the genocide.
Asking questions like that, it, it feels like conspiratorial

(46:07):
right to to even go there because it's like, oh, they've
actually, they say this thing, but they've actually got this
other agenda. But if you just observe the
activity of the organization andwhat they choose to speak out
on, I think it is a fair question.
So like, how do we kind of ask harder questions like that that
that get us kind of close to thetinfoil hat, but might be

(46:31):
grounded in truth? Like how how do you think about
navigating questions like that without veering into what we've
been talking about, which is this, you know, going into
conspiracy zone and and and entertaining legit
anti-Semitism, which I don't think any of our listeners and
certainly none of us here would ever.
There's no, there's not, you know, a red blood cell in our

(46:52):
heart that I think wants to indulge that kind of stuff.
I don't think it's, you know, obviously I'm not peering into
the, the boardroom meetings or the heart of Jonathan
Greenblatt, but my my sense is that they aren't, you know, you
know, cynically, you know, claiming to fight anti-Semitism,
but they're actually, you know, just purely a front for

(47:13):
defending Israel. I think it's a little murkier
than that. I think that they actually do,
you know, do believe that they're fighting anti-Semitism
and that they think the primary threat right now is from people
wearing Kafias and waving Palestinian flags.
And I think that's just a wrong headed approach.
Like, I think it comes from like, not to make too much of
the generational divide because I know, like a lot of, you know,

(47:35):
boomers and people who are olderthan that who, who support
justice for Palestinians. But there is, I think, also a
generational divide there where,like, you know, I think a lot of
older folks do like, you know, do you strongly support Israel
from how they grew up and the time that they lived in?

(47:55):
You know, and really the ADL, just like so many other hollowed
out institutions is, you know, it has its directives, you know,
disproportionately dominated by a by like a geriatric, you know,
donor class and you know, it's alegacy establishment
institution, right. So in many ways, it's like a
crisis of democracy in the American Jewish community.

(48:16):
Many, many American Jews are really aghast of what Jonathan
Greenblatt especially is doing. I mean, he's just made like a
mockery of the organization and of the cause of fighting
anti-Semitism. And, you know, he's cast his lot
with MAGA and, like 80% of American Jews, you know, did not
vote for, you know, for Donald Trump.

(48:36):
And so I think it's like, you know, it's their donor priority.
So it's not that they're, you know, they're coordinating with
the Israeli government, though. I mean, it's possible that's
happening in some form, you know, and if that is happening,
it's not because there's some like, you know, shadowy,
duplicitous, you know, Jewish nature.
It's, they are a, a legacy organization who reflects.

(48:58):
Yeah, like 1 interpretation of fighting anti-Semitism and also
like they reflect the political class they're a part of right
And they've they've never been aradical organization.
They've always been suspicious of of left wing and progressive
social movements, and that's whotheir donors, you know,
represent. And so, yeah, I think that's the
kind of way to understand it I want.

(49:19):
To remind our listeners from thelast time we talked about ADL
that they were apparently monitoring Black Lives Matter
demonstrators recently. So we don't need to go back to
the 80s. We can, we can just think not
too long ago. So on the whole, avoiding

(49:40):
anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, I'd like to do
introduce you to my once again to my friend Jeff EPP.
Jeffrey Eppstein. It's coming at Jeffrey Epstein.
It's coming at Jeffrey Epstein and yay podcast, which is really
like it's like the two sides of brain brain rot.
So here's the thing. You know, we covered this a
little bit last time. Pizzagate, big pedophilia

(50:03):
conspiracy theory thing that hadsome element of anti-Semitism
among some of the people who believed in it.
But you know, I would say them, probably the majority of them
were mostly obsessed with the idea of liberal elites and, you
know, whatever enemies of DonaldTrump, it mutated into Q Anon.
That was like a big deal, you know, bigger than Pizzagate in

(50:24):
many ways. And that also had an
anti-Semitic element. That kind of was was part of it.
But I think, Jared, you would agree not not the main part of Q
Anon. It was it for some people.
There were some like thematic similarities, but I don't think
the majority of Q Anon believershad anti-Semitism like as a core

(50:46):
motivating belief even even evenif the themes kind of, you know,
rhymed. Yeah.
And that's like an aside, but that's I think a helpful
distinction. It's not always when we say,
like, anti-Semitism is a big problem in the magnet movement.
It's not the, like, everyone under that category holds this,
like, conscious hatred of Jews in their hearts that they're

(51:08):
thinking about all the time. It's like a way of thinking.
It's like where these conspiracytheories, you know, all came
from and, like, where they lead if you dig deep enough on the
Internet. But yeah, I like that
distinction. I think that there's a
transition period between what happened, you know, from Q and
on to sort of this there's overlap with Jeffrey Epstein's

(51:28):
story, right? That's happening in the
background and more news is being uncovered as as Q Anon
goes along and then and then he air quotes committed suicide.
Sorry and sorry there. Are some conspiracies out there?
Yeah, so he he you know, he goesand, you know, and and and

(51:50):
disappears his little island in the sky and Q Anon starts to
fall away and and the real story, the real pedophile
conspiracy story starts to take hold.
I think on the right. And it is a conspiracy of of
some conspiracy can be defined in different kinds of ways.
I mean, the fact that there's people trying to protect

(52:12):
themselves from being seen having sex with children as a
conspiracy, right? Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine
Maxwell were involved in a conspiracy together.
It starts to become a bigger andbigger thing.
And this time there is like the anti-Semitic element of it is

(52:32):
not it's they don't have to conjure up too much to get
there. And there's a few reasons why.
One, Ghislaine Maxwell's father was widely believed to be a
Mossad agent, died under suspicious circumstances,
actually. Then you have this, his
relationship to Les Wexner, who has ties to Israel apparently.

(52:56):
And you have members of the Israeli government or whomever
coming and going, or at least one or two people, right, coming
and going from his New York residence, right?
So this starts to trigger this, this thought that he's possibly
a Mossad agent or connected to Mossad in some way or working

(53:17):
from Mossad. I want to put out the
possibility that, you know, it is possible that he's not a
Mossad agent, but also connectedto Mossad in some way.
That is possible, right? Like that you could be like.
Even if it's just like personal friends.
Right. You coming from?
Yeah, or, or you could just, youknow, they come for information
and he gives it, right? It could be something like that,

(53:38):
right. I mean, or, or they ask him for
a favor and he does it. I mean, there could be something
there. It doesn't have to be directly.
But he also has this shadowy, you know, business finance like
background, which is like nobodyreally fully understands.
So it like it, it raises a lot of weird questions.
So, yeah, I just want to ask, you know, just, you know, what

(53:59):
do you see happening with this story right now?
I'll just tell you that I see itreally starting to explode on
the right. And I think it's a kind of a
wave that is taking a lot of random Trump supporters with
them, you know, in this anti-Semitic kind of like
conspiracy land. And to be clear, we don't know

(54:22):
that it's not true, right? Like we, it could be that he
does have this connection to theside.
I'm just curious what your thought is about it is what are
the dangers potentially? How do we even talk about it?
I mean, if you don't have answers to all those questions,
that's OK because it's it is really challenging.
No, I mean, I think the way to talk about it, there's a lot of
there's a spectrum between what you just said, which is like a

(54:45):
reasonable attempt to, you know,trace these connections.
You know, I mean, like all you have to do is, you know, read
Noam Chomsky or, or, you know, pay attention to know that like
this is the way that power works.
You know, as you said, you know,some, there are, there are
connections between intelligenceagencies and the military

(55:07):
industrial complex and folks in finance and elite folks like to
hang out and they like to not show what they're doing.
You know, sometimes you can readabout, you know, the plans of
the capitalist class in the pages of the Financial Times.
And sometimes they, you know, they like to meet and not, you
know, put it out there. So there are, there are.

(55:29):
Conspiracies. So many of them have private
yachts, right? It's not that they all love
maritime exploration, it's just that that is incredibly private,
right? These are larger than life elite
people and they're willing to pay out the nose for a fancy
boat so that they can go out in the middle of the ocean and get

(55:49):
some privacy. Yeah, yeah, you're like a lot of
power happens on the golf course, right?
And not to I I know you love golf, Jared.
We talked about that a few not to come after golf here.
Unfortunately not a lot of powerhappening in my golf game, but.
But like, yeah, there's a difference between that and, you
know, what Candace Owen said yesterday of like, you know,

(56:10):
Israel as the master of the universe.
Look at the Star of, of David. It's an occult, this symbol that
Aleister Crowley used to, you know, like there's a the, you
know, what conspiracy theories do is they they try to, you
know, peek under the surface of some of the stuff and just, you
know, draw like a fantastical story of like the hidden hand
behind the scenes. And so I think it's important.

(56:33):
And that can be seductive, you know, for people who might just
be getting radicalized, you know, or who might have a lot of
of parts of their analysis that are progressive and that are
left wing, you know, but you know, who can understand, you
know, how Wall Street works, right?
So there is a you know, so I think there it's important, you

(56:53):
know, like you said, to, to be honest and to look at, you know,
the the sick, you know, fucked up stuff Jeffrey Epstein did and
to be able to ask questions and trace connections.
And also just, you know, you know, learn about anti-Semitic
tropes, could try to check yourself and, you know, realize
that ultimately, you know, the like we said before, you know,

(57:15):
the reason the US supports Israel is not because of cabal.
There is not like a cabal of allpowerful Jews who run
everything, you know, like it. Power is a lot more complicated
than that. And so I think just kind of
holding that in your head as youtry to sort through this stuff
is really important. I I think one thing that's worth
noting is that I, I do think that Israel and, and the, the

(57:36):
place they currently hold in theworld and, and the number of
conflicts that surround Israel makes this like a much bigger
thing, you know, then it would otherwise normally be for
specifically Jews. And the, what I sort of mean by
that is that like I never reallysaw anti black conspiracy

(57:59):
theories around P Diddy. You know, you never do.
I mean, even from even from these, even from these like
these idiots online that are like, oh, actually, to be clear,
some of them are not idiots. Some of them are just miss, you
know, their, their direction is misplaced and they may have
other sometimes they have other mental health issues and

(58:20):
whatever. Some of them are actually, you
know, too smart to be doing whatthey're doing.
But I never saw them being like,Oh, well, you know, now we see
what black people do. You know, it's never like that
because they just have this veryfamous.
I was supposed to say rapper, but he, he, he can't be called a
rapper because he's just, he's got no game.
He's a producer. Money making person in In the

(58:44):
music industry, a person who made money is a music.
Industry During a certain periodof time, he was like a kingmaker
in music. I saw, I saw, I officially saw
Wu Tang with, with my son. It was fantastic.
And that was an actual rap there.
But my point is that, yeah, he like, he, he sucked the, the,
but no, you never see this like,ah, so this is what happens when

(59:06):
black people get rich like they do, You know, you've never seen
anything like that. But what this this element of
like Israel and like this idea that Israel is siphoning our tax
dollars and in order to build a sort of war machine for their
own agenda or whatever, this is creating a lot of extra problems
for ordinary Jewish people. And I hear like I had a friend

(59:28):
of mine was like, told me that like somebody, somebody like
rejected her like that she met on a dating app because she was
Jewish. And she's like, I'm not like,
I'm not a Zionist. Do you know what I mean?
But like, it's becoming like, it's becoming like really
difficult for a lot of Jews, I think.
And it's partly because people have, you know, maybe the
conspiracies are the one are pushing it, but they're starting

(59:51):
to create this atmosphere where it's where this idea that being
Jewish itself is toxic. I'm just curious your your
thoughts about that. Yeah, no, I mean, that's another
important way to, you know, that, you know, to make sure
that anti-Semitism you to fight anti-Semitism or whether it's in
left wing spaces or on dating apps is not to yet to subject

(01:00:11):
Jews to litmus tests over there Israel politics, you know, just
because they're Jewish, right. I mean, it's like and it's hard.
Hard, you know, because like thestate of Israel says that it
represents all Jewish people. So does Donald Trump, so does
Jonathan Greenblatt, you know, so, so does the leader of
Christians United for Israel, right?
But I think it's incumbent on usto, you know, but, you know,

(01:00:33):
both to separate the the atrocities of the state of
Israel from everyday Jewish people and also to, you know, I
go one step further. And also to say that the word
Zionist, it can mean a lot of different things to a lot of
different people. And, you know, I think there,
you know, there are a lot of reasons why some American Jews

(01:00:55):
might still identify as Zionistsor might not be totally on board
with, you know, a critique of the very, you know, basis of
Israel being a Jewish state. That, you know, we as a Jewish
person who is anti Zionist, I want to help them work through
that. But I would also, you know,
argue that, you know, subjectingpeople like that to, you know,

(01:01:16):
to litmus tests or or demonizingthem on that basis or.
Socialize. Socialize.
Social isolation. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. So I think that's that is an
important way to show solidaritywith Jewish people, you know,
just as we would for for any group that holds a multiplicity
of perspectives, right. Not not excusing, you know, any
support for horrific war crimes,but also being able to hold

(01:01:39):
nuance and complexity and the way we deal with real human
beings who are not, you know, beeping Netanyahu.
So as we wrap up here and ask you a big question, complicated
question, but one that I know that you've thought a lot about,
which is how can people are listeners, US is people who are

(01:01:59):
opposed to what's happening in Gaza and that sort of thing.
How do we remain steadfast in our solidarity with Jewish
people while also not feeling, you know, trying to navigate
these sort of complicated questions about morality
surrounding what's happening in the Middle East, surrounding

(01:02:19):
critiques of power, surrounding all kinds of things?
Because because these are a lot of, you know, at least on their
face, seemingly opposed ideas, right?
Of like what we want to support Jewish people.
We acknowledge that some Jewish people might have reasons they
feel are very valid or personal or, you know, we don't, we don't

(01:02:39):
know until we ask, right, about why they would still be
supportive of Israel as a Jewishstate or, or whatever it may be
with, you know, some of the alarming things that I think,
you know, we've all seen these videos, we've all seen these
photos that have gone around of,of these horrors that have
happened in Gaza. And we've, a lot of us that are

(01:03:01):
horrified by those videos are also horrified by our
government's support of, of these conflicts, right.
And how do, how do we square allof that without compromising
more want and, and in that otherdirection on our moral compass
that wants to support and, and like I said, show solidarity

(01:03:22):
with Jewish people everywhere? Yeah, no, I mean, you know, this
isn't like an electoral podcast,obviously, and I don't live in
New York City. But, you know, from what I've
seen from afar of the way that, you know, Zaran Mamdani's
approached it, I think I agree with a lot of what he's doing,
right. I mean, he is, you know, being
very clear in his Palestine solidarity politics and he's not

(01:03:43):
budging on them. And he's also I, you know,
talking to Jewish communities, you know, speaking very clearly
about the need to fight anti-Semitism, you know,
recognizing it as a real, you know, a real problem and one
that should be, you just should be combated, you know, wherever
it shows up, you know, and advancing, you know, real

(01:04:04):
policies to fight anti-Semitism,you know, not by silencing
speech, but by investing in mental health services,
investing in bystander trainings, investing in
community resilience. You know, like I think they're,
I think on an individual level, just demonstrating that you
care, that, you know, it's, you know, anti-Semitism is real and
that you care about the safety of of Jewish communities,

(01:04:27):
including those whose politics you don't necessarily, you know,
agree with, I think is really important.
And in our book, we talk a lot about, you know, the importance
of building coalitions, you know, between, you know, Jewish
communities and other communities who are, are
marginalized, you know, and, youknow, under threat from in, from
rising authoritarianism and, andfighting for agendas that, that

(01:04:50):
uplift, you know, all of us not investing in, you know, in
racist policing, not investing in the, the security or
surveillance state, but, you know, investing in, in mental
health services, investing in, in communities, in
neighborhoods, building relationships, you know, not
only building relationships after like a synagogue is
attacked or a mosque is attacked, but already having

(01:05:10):
those relationships in place. I mean, I think just, you know,
you know, building our communityresilience and, and developing
ways to think and talk about anti-Semitism that recognize
that all of our struggles are connected, right?
That it's not, it's part of rising authoritarianism.
It's deeply connected to other forms of oppression in our
world. And yeah, I think that goes a

(01:05:31):
long way toward the approach that we need.
Well, Ben, thanks for joining, posting through it this week.
I've really enjoyed this conversation.
Yeah. And I want to, I just want to
add one thing to Ben whatever which is that we mentioned
previously the Arab, you know, pro Palestinian etcetera.
I am so grateful to Jewish intellectuals like yourself who

(01:05:56):
fight so hard to get about this stuff and because because,
because it's sometimes hard, I think for Arabs to be able to do
it because we're so afraid of, you know, the consequences.
Like anytime you say open your mouth, there is, there are
consequences. You know, I've experienced it
first hand. I just want to say like, I
really appreciate it. I appreciate the solidarity.

(01:06:16):
And you're you're great. You should be, you should be
famous. That's my personal.
That's always been my Ben Warburopinion.
Totally. Right back at you, man.
I appreciate it. Yeah.
Then where can people find your writing your commentary?
Where can people check out your work?
Yeah, well, it definitely. In my organization, Political
Research Associates, we do amazing work in monitoring the

(01:06:39):
far right and helping social movements fight back.
And so you can find [e-mail] and all
of the socials, and you can findme on a blue sky or
unfortunately on X still for some reason.
But yeah, I appreciate it. But we'll link to all of that in
the description. I'm a huge fan of Political

(01:07:00):
Research Associates, similar vein to to Mikes comments about
you. Another place that deserves a
lot more credit for, for all theincredible work that's getting
done there. You know, you know, when I first
started, you know, doing this work in like, 2018, you know,
both of you have just, like, shone a light on these bastards
for so fucking long. And you've been such leading

(01:07:22):
voices in the fight against authoritarianism.
And I think we've all watched it, you know, go from 4 Chan,
you know, all the way to the White House and back again.
But, you know, I really admire all the work you all have done,
you know, up close with these motherfuckers.
And so, yeah, keep it up. And thanks for everything you
all are doing. Thank you.
That means a lot, Ben, especially coming from you.

(01:07:43):
And before we get out, I just want to do another plug for the
tip jar that's down in the episode description.
If you want to throw us a dollaror two, even a little bit goes a
long way on this little bootstrap bootleg thing that
we're doing here. You got to give or the site goes
dark. You got to give.
We'll see you next week. Bye guys and.

(01:08:06):
I want to know how you explain violets still running through
your veins, and I want to know the truth, and I want to know

(01:08:28):
what's in store when the Hulkierfor God comes.
Staring. Down your door, I want to know.