October 15, 2025 • 48 mins
This week, we are joined by journalist Abby Martin to discuss how Israel's crimes long predate Netanyahu, the way the media hides Israeli society's view of Palestinians, and why Americans should should be paying attention to what happens abroad.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Small dunce help from this small, small human arel small.
It's so funky, hey, sales squad. This episode is going
to be intense, but it's necessary. It's necessary because I
(00:25):
know that so many of you all truly have not
prioritized learning about Israel, understanding the impact of Israel on
the globe as well as this American life, this uscan life,
I should say, and really why it is not a
in Yahoo issue that we should be talking about when
(00:49):
we are talking about Israel. So today we have Abbi
Martin who's joining US. Abby is a HQW, a high
quality white and she has been doing work on the
ground and in independent journalism calling out Israel for twenty
years now, twenty plus years. And when I found myself
(01:10):
in a whole new realm of individuals after October seventh,
dude to my support of Palestine, she was one of
the first faces that started popping up in my algorithm
to teach me and tell me about what I need
to know and what I need to understand about the
difference between mainstream representation of Israel and its reality. And
(01:31):
so that's what this episode is really couched in. I
didn't want to give it a flowery name like side
effects of mainstream coverage of no side effects of Israel,
because I don't feel like the majority of you all
have even had the opportunity to get a full, unfiltered,
very clear, undistilled understanding of this nation.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
There's always these like asterisks like.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Well but the religion, and well but man Yahoo, and
well but there's some people there who are good people.
And it's like, I want us to talk to Abby
because Abby has been doing this work as a white girl,
and she understands the uniqueness of being able to do
this work as a white girl where others may not
have the access to do so. I also felt it
(02:17):
really important to give you all a greater rendering about Zionism.
It's a word that I know has become part of
people's you know, zeitgeist more now than it ever has been,
and so I wanted her to help ground that for
us as well, because it's like Israel, Palestine, Zionists, like
(02:38):
those three words are just being thrown around casually, seriously, militarily, politically,
and I know that for me, being able to understand
them in all of those forms has really helped me
to also know how to put my energy and where
to put my energy. So I love that Abby is
here with us today to give us that guidance. I
(02:59):
feel so special to be able to have folks at
this caliber coming on this show for us and really
in this day and time, creating archival entries of intellect
and also empathy, because it's not just about like learning
for the sake of knowing. It's also learning for the
sake of being able to show up in love in
(03:21):
the right spaces. And if you're not careful, they will
misguide you and you're going to be over here supporting
in a way that you actually will regret. So Abby's
going to set us straight. Let's get into it. Side
effects of Israel.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
This is so neat.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
It's you know, to be here with you. I am
so excited through a digital medium. I know, Wait, where
do you live New York? Okay, where do you live?
I'm in Portland, Portland, Oregon. Baby, I know.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, I'm writing a chill ldren's book with Oh what,
that's so cool.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
It was really neat.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
There's a series called a kid's Book about and they
do like a kid's book about racism, a kid's book
about empathy, A kid's book about periods, like a kids
book about there's like two hundred of them, and so
we just did a kid's book about authenticity. We wrote
it and they're based in Portland. And again I was like,
what's going on in Portland?
Speaker 4 (04:23):
It is exactly like Portland. Ya. That's if you really
want to know what's going on, you just watch the show. Okay,
the Black block smashing up shit all the time. But
that's you know, it's a fun mix. I mean, the
one good thing about Portland, really good thing is that
we just had a bunch of DSA people elected a
city council because we have ranked choice voting finally, okay,
(04:44):
and so once that happens, it's like the floodgates are
open for actual change, as we saw with Mom Donnie.
So that's what the ruling class really wants to suppress.
But it worked here, all right.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
That doesn't surprise me though, that it would happen in Portland, right,
So Abs talking like Bessie's a taradine. This episode is
generically titled side Effects of Israel. Oh God, just because honestly,
I was always told it's such a complicated discussion, it's
(05:17):
such a complicated story.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
And you were one of the people that made it
abundantly clear that no, this really isn't that complicated through
your journalism and your commentary, and you're like dead stair,
like not dead stare, but a stair like dead down
the center of the camera to people like how dare you?
(05:42):
How dare you not understand what is going on? And
that earnestness in a white woman one channeled is really powerful,
Like that's the best I always say, like, once you
get a high quality white woman with a with a commitment,
things change. So you were out in Israel like before
(06:04):
October seventh, like you've been in the streets. Can you
just for our listeners talk to us first about like
what even brought you into that space as a journalist?
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Yeah, Amanda, it was always kind of part and parcel
with like the War on Terror propaganda. I remember when
nine to eleven happened, which of course radicalized me as
someone who just grew up in privileged suburbia in the
Bay Area, never really had knowledge. Yeah, pleasant to California, baby, Okay,
pleasant in just like pleasant fill everything's in black white
(06:34):
and it's like you're stuck in the fifties, but you know,
waking out of my privilege and ignorance, frankly, and then
getting propelled into the Iraq War and Palestine and all
of this was always kind of a crux of anti
imperialist understanding and awakening because they tried to initially blame
nine eleven on Palestinians. They blamed it on the DFLP.
(06:54):
They kept showing Palestinians dancing in the street, and I
remember the Prime Minister of Israel was on c SPAN
that week saying, this is your war on tear. Now
you can finally understand what Israel's doing. You're gonna be
folded into Israel's war on tear. So it was always
in the periphery, in the background.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I've literally I had no knowledge of this.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Yeah, and I still hear people right wingers constantly be like,
well they celebrated nine to eleven. They always just conflate
Palestinians with terror rists and al Qada, And it was
really intentional. It was really intentional. But I never really
got how maliciously and egregiously one sided the news coverage was,
I think until the flotilla massacre in twenty ten, and
(07:34):
as we see all these flotillas going to Gaza in
an attempt to break the siege. Today, this was one
on the Mari Mamara. I think back in twenty ten,
this was a group of dozens of activists who were
seized by Israeli authorities in international waters and instead of
just being arrested like they are today, nine people were
murdered on board Amanda. And I'll never fucking forget the
(07:55):
news coverage. It was like CNN playing just the Israeli
propaganda video showing people on board the ship trying to
ward off the soldiers with like tables and chairs because
they had already executed one person on board, and so
they were trying to like ward them off, and they
were like, these are the weapons. This is why they
had to kill all these people on board.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
These are the weapons.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
These are the weapons. And so my mind just short circuited.
I was like, this doesn't make any sense. What the
hell's going on? How is this happening? How are they
rationalizing this attack in international waters where they murdered all
these peace activists. So everything started unraveling. And then the
next year I started working at Russia Today and I
worked with two Palestinian colleagues who had to seriously stop
(08:35):
working and check in with their friends and families to
make sure that they were alive, because this is one
of the mowing the lawn operations that Israel just bombards
Gaza every couple of years and just kills slaughters on
armed people. So it was I just never looked back.
I mean I remember debating an Israeli spokesperson on RT
because after that happened, I did this big rant about
(08:57):
the war crimes and they had bombed an RT the
Alshrrop journalist tower and Gaza and blown off the leg
of an RT cameraman. And my boss had written them
being like, you purposefully bombed a journalist tower and blew
off the leg of our cameraman. And they said that's
because your network has taken aside, oh literally because of
a rant that I gave on air. And I was like, okay,
this is like a rogue, insane state that just admitted
(09:20):
that they bombed and directed an attack on journalists because
of the coverage our network had taken. Like so everything
just started spiraling out and Israeli spokesperson debated me and
they were like, come to Israel, you're wrong about Israel.
Come to Israel, We'll show you how great the country is.
And I was like, you know what, I'm gonna go.
I'm gonna go and see for myself. Yeah, and Amanda,
it was so much worse than even I thought that
(09:42):
I because I always thought, oh, two state, everyone wants
two states. Until you go there and you're like, oh no, no, no,
there's no second state left. There's no second state left.
And this was when this is like, this was in
twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
I was gonna say, this is a while ago.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
Yeah, yeah, this was twenty sixteen. I went there. I
spent three weeks in the West Bank. Most gracious, hospitable
people you've ever met in your life, come in, bake
you this huge, you know, Palestinian meal that barely knows you,
just tell you their whole lives. I never heard one
remotely anti Semitic thing, not one bigoted comment at all.
It was just why do they have to live on
top of my village? Why can't they live in all
(10:20):
of this this open land. We don't care if they
live here, We just don't want them on top of us, killing,
felling us. You stepped one foot in Jerusalem, one foot.
It was such visceral, palpable racism. I mean, I'm white
as fucking snow. I walk in there, are you added?
Are you like? I was just like, oh my god,
what's happening? And you just talk to people. I just said,
(10:43):
what do you think about the situation? Put a camera
in someone's face, bomb the mall, nuke them all, kill
them all. We should kill all Arabs ha. I'm just like,
what is going on? What is this society? What is happening?
And it was so shocking to me because you do
not hear this. Western media purposefully does not show us
(11:05):
what is Raeligh society thinks and believes. And we have
seen that clear as day. It is all carefully curated
and handcrafted for us by Israeli spokespeople with English accents
or American accents, and all of our media completely whitewashes
the reality. Look at Israeli media, it'll tell you just
point blank what the truth yea, and what these people think.
But we do not get that. We get a heavily
(11:26):
sanitized view of what Israeli society thinks. And it was
shocking to see it firsthand. But Amanda, this is really
really reflected and revealed in the polling of Israeli society.
So don't just take it from me. When you look
at polling done back in the beginning of the genocide,
the vast majority of Israeli society, I think it was
like eighty percent, felt that there wasn't enough firepower being
(11:50):
used in Gaza. This is when already the strip was
almost completely demolished. I mean the amount of bombardment as
we know, it's like the equivalent of like six nuclear bombs.
At this point they were saying there wasn't enough firepower.
Less than two percent of Israeli Jews thought that there
was too much firepower used. So fast forward to just
a couple of weeks ago, there was another poll done
(12:11):
that showed that I think it was ninety percent of
Israeli Jews were completely unconcerned with the starvation that was
manufactured by their governments. See, this is normally unconcerned.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
This is why I'm like, this is not a net
and yahuo issue.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
No, this is an Israel issue.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
This is the vibe, This is cradle to grave net
and Yah Who's the scapegoat, just like Trump is the
scapegoat for American society. Trump, similarly to Netanyah who. They
reflect the exact real corpor issues. I mean, this is
how Americans. I mean, America's racist, it is, but not
(12:51):
as racist as Israel. Netan Yaho is the true face
of Israeli society. So when you hear Bernie Sanders call
it netan yah Who's war, that's a way to preserve Zionism.
They don't want you to face the true reality of
what Israeli society is. And it's too far gone. That's
why BDS is necessary.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Where did you even develop an antenna that would pick
up on this hasbar and propaganda?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Because I was I was in the United I was
in my dorm.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Room when the second plane hit the Twin Towers, and
I can tell you that I didn't have any kind
of like side I about Israel until I was in Hollywood,
and people would basically get threatened, their careers would get threatened,
et cetera if they asked certain questions, and I was like, well,
(13:45):
what is that?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
And then when you ask what is that?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
People are like, don't do that, don't do that unless
you want to be with them.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
And You're like, I mean, I guess all right.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
So I mean, like, did you grow up in a
home that was conscious about all of these things, because
I can promise you so many of our listeners did
not have any consciousness about Israel in Palestine, let alone
Israel in our government until the last two years, right.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
I mean it's crazy. I studied political science in college.
I even took a like a Middle East studies class
run by a Palestinian professor. I couldn't even fucking tell
you like what Gaza was when I left that. I mean,
it was so overly complicating the situation, even when you're
taking a college course on it from a Palestinian. Yes,
I mean San Diego STI was so militarized. It was like,
(14:33):
I mean, San Diego is like the most concentrated military
city in the country. It's like five bases, and so
I was just surrounded by frat boys and bros, like
military bros that were just unquestioning. But I think it
was really the Iraq war propaganda. First of all, my
brother was like balls deep into conspiracy theories. So he was,
you know, he was showing.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Me like he was showing me, oh, there it is.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
He was just like, let's go, Like okay.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
I was like, no, what I mean it's cra oh,
like did she just come out the womb like this?
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Like, okay, there was a conspiracy theorist.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
Arizona eleven Press for Truth that was basically realizing that, hey,
if our government is you know the fact that the
Bush administration rejected the nine to eleven commission, they had
to fight tooth and nail. He was trying to appoint
Henry Kissinger to run the investigation. I was like, hold
on hold.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
What how old are you in this time? Though you're
in college?
Speaker 4 (15:23):
I was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, so you understand that that's unique and special. Yes, yeah, okay,
you're saying it very normal, But I'm telling you that
back then, yeah, that's kind of like the wave now.
You know, I think that the youngers are definitely more
on top of things.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
But I feel like eighteen, so I would have been twenty.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
I was twenty, so like we were, really, I was
coming into a lot more awareness around police brutality and
like things of this nature. But the geopolitical concepts that
were not concepts? Did you have political realities that were
out there? Were just not prescient to me? And you
are somebody who has really helped to open my eyes
(16:07):
in just the expansiveness of Israel's involvement on a geopolitical
level in a way that helps me to bring to
my audience, right, that allows me to be able to
be like, Okay, so I don't know if you guys
know this, but you should really care because I think
people continue to say, we don't need to worry about Israel,
it's over there, right, which is nonsense. And so can
(16:29):
you just school us real quick on why that's nonsense
in your opinion?
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Yeah, well, there's like two big debates about well, there's
many more. There's two big schools of thought here. Well, actually, no, no,
I think look, the majority of people in this country, Amanda,
think we don't need to worry about anything around that.
Like they don't understand, like our government is the soul.
Like if you pull the rest of the world, they'd
(16:56):
be like the United States is the devil. Yeah, like
this whole like death to a America mantra, like that
did not start and stop in Iran, Like that is
basically the consensus of the planet. And when they say
death to America, they mean the American military machine that
has been installing puppet leaders, violent military coups and undermining
their country's sovereignty with sanctions and regime change for the
(17:17):
last pubberds of years Amanda, and so it's really horrific
when people kind of wash away all of the things
that are going on in the least or Latin America
or Africa and just say, oh, we have nothing to
do with it. Our government is so intimately involved in
the majority of the world's conflict and they're managing them all.
And the US military is the enforcer and protector of
global capitalism. So it's really you know, Israel when you
(17:39):
look at Israel similarly to what Colombia and Uganda served
the US military up until recently, Colombia got taken over
by a left wing president for the first time in
its history. But Israel serves a very important strategic role
for the US Empire in the Middle East. Around nineteen
sixty or nineteen seventy, the US saw its strategic partnership
in Israel and star flooding it with money. It was
(18:02):
around the same time that we saw anti colonial movements,
independence movements spurring all across that region, Nacer in Egypt,
and all of these anti colonial movements that we needed
to tamp down on to re establish our hegemony in
the region, and so that's when I think the partnership
really solidified and started to become concentrated. So ever since then,
(18:24):
we've just flooded Israel with hundreds of billions of dollars
and endless amounts of weaponry. And what it serves the
purpose of is it's our attack dog in the region.
So of course oil being the pivot of the modern
industrial economy, and Israel is basically right there with the
natural gas pipelines, all of the oil flow in that region.
It's the most oil rich region in the world. And
(18:46):
so look at all of Israel's neighbors. First of all,
they're all countries that the United States wants to crush.
You back during the Iraq War, when Wesley Clark, the
former NATO commander, I remember that infamous interview that he
did with Amy Goodman, and he was like I was
told by I think it was like Dick Cheney or
someone like Colon Vally, was like, we are going to
go after seven countries in five years, and he just
(19:08):
like listed them all and you look at every single
one of those countries and we've fucking gone after all
of them except Iran.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, yeah, good old Lady.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
That was an iconic interview because it was just like
when we're a hammer, every problem as a nail, and
they couldn't do it all at once because of course
the backlash from Iraq and the resistance that pushed us
out of Iraq, but yeah, they wanted to, and so Lebanon,
Syria Iran. You know, when we have an out of control, rogue,
fucking nuclear armed attack dog in the Middle East, and
(19:39):
we're just like, no, you do you We'll back you up,
and we could always have the plausible deniability of oh no, no,
that's Israel's war, but we have to get involved because
we're their strongest ally, and so yes, we should care
about what Israel's doing, not only because it's horrific, genocidal
apartheid state that's committing endless atrocities and start war with
(20:00):
all of its neighbors and posing an existential threat to
the world because it has nuclear weapons, but also because
the United States is the only reason that this is happening.
The United States is subsidizing and funding all of this,
and the United States has a nuclear armed gun to
the heads of the planet, basically blackmailing them being like
(20:22):
we will fucking kill you, dude, or we will sanction you,
or we'll throw tariffs on whatever. All of it is
just under this economic blackmail and nuclear armed threats to
say you can't do shit because we control the world.
And as long as that exists, I don't know how
we can hold Israel too account.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
You know, at this point, seeing the world start to
push away the US, or at least try to what
ends up happening when you know you threaten nukes, You
threaten nukes, but ultimately you're not the only woman nukes anymore. Right,
So I know some people are like, well, that would
never happen, and I'm like, no, you don't understand. These
(21:03):
people are terrible and they have bunkers like they would
absolutely nuke the shit out of everyone and be the
last twenty people on earth.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
They have no problem with that. I feel like your
brother would agree with me.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Oh my god. I mean, like, the thing is I
ask myself every day, how is it possible that the
people who are in charge of the world, how is
it possible that the fucking five hundred richest people don't
see the forest, that the trees don't understand that we
are digging our own graves that their grandchildren are still
going to live on a planet.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Because I really feel like they're.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Resources because they have seed vaults. Dude.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Yes, like Bill Gates literally has he either operates like
to the extent of not just has a part ownership.
I think he operates the seed vault in the North Pole.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Yes, he does. He does. They all have probably like
ten silos like that show side They probably already have
like multi level underground bunkers that can either hate that show.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
By the way, it.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Got really boring. It got really really boring. I was like,
how now you're just alone in an underground silo, Like,
let's wait.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I don't know where we're going with this.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
I don't know because it just should have been one season.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
That's it done.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
I did a whole research thing because I was like,
let me not waste my time. And then I looked
up the story and I was like, Oh, this isn't
going anywhere, got it?
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Thank you, Thank you saving my time.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Not investing another twenty hours.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
What do you think is the biggest one of the
biggest lies that you feel like you see people constantly
needing debunked about Israel?
Speaker 4 (22:36):
Oh my god, I think that there's two really big ones.
One of them is the fact that Israel's this misunderstood
democratic state surrounded by people who just want to kill them, Amanda.
They have to do this because they would be killed
if they didn't. Now, I think that we all know that,
you know, because Israel's invested so much money in hasbra
(22:58):
everything's inverted, so reality.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
For the people who don't know, it's basically.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Their word for like an explainer, it's like propaganda to
use to explain that black is white and up is
down right, Yeah, arewelling and propaganda that they have employed
thousands of people at Tel Aviv University. They get prizes
and rewards. But who can correct the most Wikipedia entries,
who can leave the most comments on message boards? So
(23:23):
when you're reading things online, it's really easy to be
confused because of just the disproportionate nature of like Hasbraa
bots and propagandists that are just asserting a false reality.
But I would say that's the number one lie. But
I'd say the most egregious lie is the fact that
this is just a war, that this is a war
(23:44):
between two equal sides, that Gaza is somehow its own
country that has a military and Hamas is like the
government of this other country, and we know that Gaza
is a territory that is militarily occupied from the outside
by Israel. Gaza was a warehouse of refugees that were
(24:05):
expelled during the Nakba, during the initial formation of Israel
in nineteen forty eight, when they raised five hundred villages
to the ground and expelled hundreds of thousands of people,
and seventy five percent of people who were living in
Gaza are refugees that were ethnically cleansed from an artificial
border fence that they can see like miles outside of
(24:26):
where they lived, that they can never go back to.
And just so people are really clear about this, Gaza
before the genocide started, Gaza was the only place in
the world that refugees couldn't even flee by boat like
they'd often do elsewhere in the world. They were under
such tight naval blockade by the Israeli military that if
they just strayed too far out fishing, it would be
(24:47):
blown out of the water by Israeli warships. And there
was a no go zone around Gaza, which was only
twenty five miles by five miles long, so a very
tiny strip of land with two million people living in there.
If you just strayed too close to this fortified false border,
you would just be shot dead. So that was a
policy in place forever. That's a fucking prison. That's a prison.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
We've shashank redemption. That is a prison.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
That's a prison. And when you ration food and water
when the un was even sane in twenty nineteen, that
by twenty twenty it would be uninhabitable because of a
lack of potable water because they kept bombing the water
desalination plants, so that already was happening. This was a
policy in place from the get go that water and
food would be ration. They wanted to put Palestinians on
(25:34):
a diet and maintain that very basic caloric intake that
would avoid famine. So that's why it was so easy
to just flick the switch. And I'm sorry, but in
twenty twenty five, the fact that people in Gaza didn't
even have electricity to like keep their meat refrigerated, or
medication or anything like that, I mean, it's just so
medieval and crazy that the siege was already in place
(25:57):
and that this was already accepted. So it's extremely frustrating
that people think they just have total misconceptions about it
because the Western media has done such a piss poor job.
And I would say intentionally, So, you know, I read
this poll back in twenty twenty three, like I think
like two months after so it was like December or
something from Pew that said half of Americans didn't know
(26:18):
if more Israelis had died than Palestinians, and like the
entire conflict, and it's like, Okay, whose fault is that?
Whose fault is that?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Well, you know, the US media.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Okay, So when Kanye was saying all of his things
about Jewish people, his error was that he should have
said Zionists. That was his error, right because if he
had said specifically, Hollywood has run by Zionists, the music industry.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Is run by Zionists, that actually is not untrue.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
And I think that there's a very important distinction to
make between the two. And you know that being said,
I feel like the lie that I know that a
lot of people I feel like around me don't understand
is the separation between.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Judaism and Zionism.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
And they from a good place feel like, well, I
can't say anything about Israel because then I would be
being anti Semitic. And that's like the top Hosbara hit,
like that's their hit tune is if you just say this,
if you do this, you're a bad person. If you
talk about Israel, you're a bad person. If your question Israel,
you're a bad person. And I just feel like that
(27:28):
for a lot of us who know better, is like
we're so far past that. It's like I'm fine, then
I'm a bad person, right, But I feel like on
a regular basis, I'm shocked that people are still preserving
a certain sense of fear around not getting in trouble,
not like you know, getting arrested at the encampments, but
(27:48):
more so literally being like a bad person if they
are questioning Israel, because that is somehow questioning a religion
of a of holy people, And that's the choke hold
for a lot of black folks, is the religion aspect
that is connected. I remember, like shortly after October seventh
(28:09):
talking to a friend of mine who is a gospel artist,
and he was like, well, you know, Israel's the Bible.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
So I was like, oh Lord literally and so oh.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Lord like, and I was kind of stuck because I
genuinely was like, I don't know where to even start
with trying to get him to understand. So I started
at like, okay, So they just like decided to name
it Israel. It wasn't like it came to them through
a tablet that had inscriptions on it on a mountain.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
It was a boardroom, and.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
They were like, well, we could call it this, we
could call that, or we call this call that. And
so I would love if you could just help expound
upon like the political reality of Israel, because I think
that it's important that people understand like the political reality
of Israel as it exists, because that is what's getting
protected by a religious like spiritual mysticism mm.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Hmm right, And that has been very confusing for people.
I mean, I had just read this insane article yesterday
of the gandin Judge on the ICG kept the voting Dude,
she was perplexingly, perplexingly kept voting with Israel even though
it's like so flagrantly violating all this international law. And
then of course we got the answer Amanda of why.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah, she said, yeah, something like I'm doing the Lord's
work and God will.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
In the end times. We're in the end Times. That's
what she said. We're in the end times. So you know,
I'm pretty sure that's not how international law is supposed
to work. That you're leaning like apocalyptic Bible scripture and say,
oh no, no, no, it's okay, Israel, you can commit genocide
and blow up the planet because that's just armageddon. Baby,
let's dive in and lean into it. It's like, why
(29:59):
the hell are you sitting on an international court?
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Why is why is she alive? I have no idea.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Well, I guess because she's siding with Israel and they
have hooks in every spot.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
So but it's crazy. It's like, shouldn't disqualify I mean,
like if you are an ardent believer in like the
literal Bible, like that should disqualify you from your job.
But I guess that's the world we live in, Amanda.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
But look at our Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Andy Barrett is literally a member of a Catholic cult,
isn't she?
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Like in Opus Day or something like that.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
Like, and look at Tulsa Gabbart, who's in charge of
the seventeen spy Agency. She's in a homophobic cult.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, it's yeah, she's in a homeless yes, a p
texxcept all of these people. Have you ever seen shiny,
happy people.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Like nineteen eighty four mixed with idiocracy? It's like if
more terrible cocktail. It's like if morons were running nineteen
eighty four, like a detalitarian police state run by morons,
run by Donald Trump? Like how how? But yes, I
think the miss and the spirituality and people who don't
want to appear anti Semitic, who know nothing about the situation,
(31:05):
I'd say that's a lot harder now because Israel is
so blatantly coman in genocide. It's like unless you are
under a rock, I don't know how you cannot hear
a lot of rocks. But I mean one only has
to really realize that Israel was going to be created
(31:26):
in Africa. I mean like they were pontificating all of
these other countries to form a Jewish state in They
knew the utility of putting Israel, you know, right in
the middle of all this spiritual hub where Christians, Jews,
and Muslims had lived for thousands of years in relative
harmony until this colonial project uprooted millions of people. So
(31:49):
the reality of Israel today, they claim that they're a democracy.
They're not even on its face. Even if you just
look at forty eight proper, there is an apartheid system
even within forty eight. Forty eight means the area Jal
borders of Israel, and you have dozens of laws that
segregate Palestinians. First of all, you can't marry Inner faith
marriage is illegal. Gay marriage is illegal. Yes, yes, you know,
(32:11):
so all of this pink washing and gay washing.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
If you are Palestine and you're gay, they'll kill you.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Well, you'll throw you off.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
Yeah, it's like the idea is even like we wear
vegan leather boots. It's like okay, yeah, like we won't.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Kill also murderers.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
Yeah, it's like okay, but you wear like lamp shades
made out of like child's skins. So you know, I
don't you know what are we talking about here? I mean,
within forty eight proper, there's it is so discriminatory. I mean,
look no further from when Iran had the short bombing
spree of Tel Aviv and you actually saw the majority
(32:50):
of deaths were Palestinians because of the bomb shelter segregation
within forty eight as well, So bomb shelters don't really
exist for Palestinian neighborhoods, communities. Every Israeli Jew that I
have talked to never interacts with Palestinians. Similarly, during like
Jim Crow, it's like basically like Palestinians are the workers.
(33:11):
They are the class that works and doesn't interact and
talk to people. So that's how it works. And then
of course the real crazy military occupation when you go
outside of forty eight and just look at the three
plus million Palestinians living in the West Bank an area
AB and C, which is just a straight up military
(33:33):
occupation Amanda. I mean it is a fascist military dictatorship
where there's curfews, where there's checkpoints, where it's just abject
humiliation and subjugation and essentially just torture of Palestinians on
a daily basis. I mean they don't even have water lines.
They have water tanks on top of their little villages
that Israeli soldiers will go and just terrorize, vandalize and
(33:53):
spray pungent skunk water to just destroy their month supply
of water. I mean, just the daily amiliation ritual that
they will do to make Palestinians' lives living hell. You
can't have weapons right because they're under a fascist military dictatorship.
So not only can you not arm yourself from the
fanatical settlers who go and terrorize and kill you, as
(34:14):
we know on a weekly basis, if not daily, you
can't even have Palestinian insignia. Holding up a Palestinian flag
can get you shot and killed. I remember going to
a village called Sebastia where several Palestinians were in the
hospital because they were shot and nearly killed for erecting
a Palestinian flag on a hilltop. The day before, Israeli
(34:36):
soldiers had perched up and just taking people off as
if it were target practice. Who put up Palestinian flags.
So all of these things are under military order. I
think it's like one oh one that just makes it
impossible to organize, to form even in five people or more,
that's considered like a dangerous group setting. The list goes
on and on and on of how horrific the reality
(34:57):
is on the ground for Platinians. And then of course
you know Gaza is a whole other beast entirely, but
when you're just looking at the West Bank and Israel proper,
the apartheid runs very deep.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Is there any feelings you have around like these protests
that I'll see ever so often happening in Tel Aviv.
I mean, I saw protest recently and I said it
was performative, and people were like, you.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Shouldn't say that.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
There are nice people in Israel, And that made me
feel like when Donald Trump was like, there's good people
on both sides, and I know that there are I'm
sure people in Israel who are varying degrees of Zionists,
But for me, it's like, if you still want Israel
to exist, I'm looking at you sideways like that's where
(35:46):
I'm at at this point. So when I see the
marches that are really more about stop doing bad things
that makes us look bad, that to me takes my
faith away from there being like an actual part of
their society, which is a small society, but a part
of their society that is genuinely against us. Do you,
from what you've researched, from what you've seen, from who
(36:07):
you know, is there a genuine portion of their society
that is actually like we gotta get this stop?
Speaker 4 (36:14):
No, I would say significantly. No.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
I knew I wasn't bugging.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
No, no, no, no, no, for real, no Aman, And
I've been saying this for years and people are like,
you're cherry picking, you're anti Semitic, you're generalizing, you're painted
with a broadbush. I'm like, look, not only did I
have the anecdotal experience of just talking to random people
in the street, and I know anti Zionist Jewish Israelis
they know each other because there's only a few dozen
(36:38):
of them. Literally, Look, there are tons of Orthodox like
anti Zionist Jews who are super uber religious, that are
like beaten, who try to resist the draft. Like there
are those contingents. They don't really talk to these people.
I'm talking about the secular Israeli Jews, this broadbrush that
(36:58):
we like to look at, the secondular liberal Zionism. Right,
those people are few and far between. And I would
say that the left has been rapidly disappearing because look,
if you're a leftist, if you're a radical in Israel,
how could you even stomach living there? I would want
to get the hell out. And that's what a lot
of people do because they can't possibly live around fascists
(37:21):
who just talk about one of they wanted to kill
Arabs all the time. I mean, it's disgusting. And so
the Israelis that I know who are anti Zionists have
obviously fled and lived elsewhere because a lot of them
have dual passports and it's very easy to unlike Palestinians.
But even when you just look at polling and the
protests that you're talking about, people look at the protests
and they say, well, look there's tons of people protesting wrong.
(37:42):
Those are people protesting net and Yahoo. Those are people
protesting for the hostages. Look at the demands, look at
what they're saying. There was hundreds of thousands of people
in the street even as far back as October twenty
twenty three, because it was all about the hostages and
it was all about outing. Because they've always hated net
Yaw who he's always been seen as this corrupt.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Then how did he get in office?
Speaker 4 (38:06):
It's just all these coalition government deals and stuff. I mean,
I will say the war has definitely helped him, kind
of similarly like to Bush, It's like, once you're at war,
it's kind of hard to like switch wartime presidents, you know.
But then there's Isaac Herzog, who's like the president. He's
like this symbolic figurehead. He's supposed to be like this
liberal guy. You have nof Taly Bennett who just switched
(38:28):
with Netan Yahoo, who's even like kind of more of
a fascist than him, and then it switched back. Now
it's really crazy when you look at actually like the
representation in the government. I mean they have like this
is another thing that people say, They're like, well, there's
an Arab in the Kanesse. There's like Arabs in the Kannesset.
It's like yeah, they're hated, and it's just tokenized, like
none of these people actually have any real power, and
(38:49):
all these government ministers are openly genocidal fascists, like very
very openly. But the protests, by and large, it's just
about Netan Yahoo, is just about corruption, it's about the
hostages because that's what they really want. They want the
hostages back. Not one protest that is over like maybe
a couple hundred people. And I want to say that
(39:09):
very generously because I just saw it in the last
couple months that looked maybe like one hundred people maybe
a little bit more, that we're holding signs about gods
and children, right, And I was like, okay, people are
like hundreds of people out protesting the starvation. I'm like,
first of all, I don't believe that no all men
have to like be there because I don't believe that.
(39:29):
I mean, I talked to people and tell Vivan Jerusalem
who were like, I'm a leftist, I just want the
occupation to be more humane. I'm a member of the
Labor Party, but we need these infiltrators out of here.
Like I met people who were like leftists at anti refugee,
anti African rallies there, Like, I mean, it is so
we think that our like overtin window is like, you know,
(39:52):
so far right, where the Democrats, you know, even though
they're called radical commis from you right, they're like they're
so right wing, Amanda, the left is considered like for us,
it would be very conservative because like you said, I mean,
Zionism is the baseline, and Zionism is an ideology that
is rooted in supremacism and racism and bigotry. I mean,
(40:13):
it's predicated on ethnic cleansing. It's an artificial majority that
you're imposing on indigenous people. And in order to maintain
an artificial majority of Jewish Israelis, you need to constantly
expel and ethnically cleanse the indigenous people, and so at
its root, at its core, it's racism.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Honestly, I think that's a really key tenant that a
lot of folks haven't been able to put together because
they're not black, and so like, the concept of it
being racism for a lot of American folks of all
backgrounds is like, oh no, it's like a different thing.
(40:52):
It's something different. It's like, no, no, it's racism. And
this whole conflation of religion is not real either, this
whole idea that it's the Muslims versus the jew No,
because I just saw or they in July they blew
up a Christian Palestinian town the former.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Pope you know, used to call.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
I'm like, at this point, how do you feel like
at this point? Actually, this is going to be our
Patreon question. Our Patreon question is in your mind, do
you see any like steps that can happen during this
inflection point that if you could wave a wand like,
what would those inflection point steps be? Aside from it
(41:35):
all being a rap, come on over to the sales
squad and join us. I guess the last question I
would ask is what is Israel's role in where the
United States is today, because I think a lot of
people think that there is like oh, Israel and Palestine,
but like Ice and the United States, here and there
(41:55):
is a through line.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
There's one hundred percent of through line. I mean, imperialism
is a multi prompt beast and it affects everything. I mean,
looking at immigration, First of all, the crux and root
of the migration crisis is our economic policies and the
violent militarism that we impose on other countries. So look
at Mexico, look at Guatemala, look at Al Salvador, look
at Afghanistan, look at Gosam, and all the plight of
(42:18):
all the people trying to cross the graveyard of the
Mediterranean and dying and going to Greece. All of this
is the root of our policies, our wars in the
Middle East, our economic policies in Latin America. So all
of that's intertwined. And then you look at the way
the police behave. NYPD has an office in Tel Aviv.
They are trained. They go over there and they get trained.
(42:39):
The brutality is directly trained. That's the only thing we
get from the tax dollars going all of our taxes
going to Israel. We subsidize their healthcare, all their education,
and then they train our police and how to be
cruel maniacs who just shoot people and ask questions later.
Not that that started in Israel, but it's just integrated
(43:00):
seamlessly to now where the training is so under lock
and key that our police behave exactly the way that
Israeli military does to Palestinians. So that's one thing. I mean,
everything is it bleeds into the next. I mean the
economic crisis. I mean, all of this is because we're
just wasting away one point five trillion dollars on the
Pentagon and the military. So when we can't buy eggs
(43:22):
at the store or gas, and Biden and Trump are
just like, well, we need to sacrifice because we need
to do this and that abroad. That doesn't resonate with Americans.
So all of these things that seem like disparate issues,
they are all deeply connected, Amanda. And that's why you know,
for the last five years, I've been working on a
movie about the US military's impact on the environment, because
(43:42):
unless we actually get to the root of imperialism's effect
on climate change and pollution, and integrate it with our
environmental movements. We're never going to solve the planetary crises
that we face, which is you know, deep environmental catastrophe.
And we have to stop this military beast. We have
to stop the empire. We have to because a habitable
(44:04):
planet cannot coexist with a global military empire. And so
all of these things are interconnected. And that's why it's
so important to be rooted in anti imperial anti colonial
education and understanding, because it doesn't start and stop with
one struggle. That's what they want. They want to atomize
us all. That's what liberalism has done. They've packaged and
(44:25):
sold all of our struggles back to us through the corporations.
And it's really sad because we're so atomized and separated
from each other, and we all fight for our own
individual causes without realizing that we are all part of
a collective and unless we work together, we are all doomed.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Well, this was fine.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Do you think we'll see Do you think we'll see
the end of Israel in our lifetime?
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (44:50):
I God, I hope so, Oh God, I hope. So
I want to say yes, but I don't know if
we're gonna I mean.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
You know, hust'll be in the US.
Speaker 4 (45:03):
Unless the New drops first. I mean, we are in
such an insane.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Time, it's just like existing.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
I want the US to fall, I want Israel to fall.
I want imperialism to fall. Look, let's just keep it going.
It's real. First is reel the one that we can do.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
I like to think of it like on Star Wars,
they have these like big machines that are like the
transmitters to all of the robots, and so like if
you just knock over one of those big machines, all
the robots, all the droids are like yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
So I like to think of the United States like that,
Like if the.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
United States gets unplugged, so to speak, then these other
factions are just gonna be like yeah. Because, like we
said in the beginning, the United States is funding them,
it is arming them, It is really legitimizing them.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
And the people.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Don't even realize in how many ways they are supporting
them themselves. Like I make a point to now check
every time I buy something like is this israelly owned?
I went to get a birthday cake the other day
and it had like some Hebrew.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
And when I was walking out, I was like, whohoa, whoa.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Does this cake have anything to do with this room?
And they were like no, that's just the kosher stamp.
And I was like okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Okay, okay, no good okay.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
And then there's like a restaurant here called Art Cafe,
and I just moved to Nayak and so I went
there a few times and they had yet many items
on the menu, and so in my Amanda positive heart
of hearts, I'm like, oh, only if I got no,
this is an Israelian restaurant. They are of course appropriating,
(46:39):
and they have been on like the Rockland County BDS
list for like years.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
So that's the end of that.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
No, exactly, I can't do it. Exactly, we can't. No,
it's time. That's time the last.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
Do you have any idea when the movie's coming out?
Speaker 4 (47:01):
Yes, it's coming out in a month. We're gonna take
it on tour. I best see you in New York. Yes,
you will come and be a captive audience. Yes, clockwork Orange.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Can I like interview you and do like a moderated
Q and A.
Speaker 4 (47:16):
Can you come on my show too?
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Please? Please?
Speaker 4 (47:22):
Wait? Is your jewelry things out?
Speaker 1 (47:23):
Ninety watch that, Yeah, go and watch that. I just
keep getting texts all day from people like.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah, that was really brave. So I'm immediately going to
go take a nap after this because I.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Had no idea that I would be like emotionally drained,
Like I'm like.
Speaker 4 (47:45):
Dreamed and drained.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
We're all already drained.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
So it's like, you know, there's so much happening and
so much to learn and so much to know. And
I really appreciate you for being steadfast in knowing your
purpose and sticking with it, and that expanding all of
our knowledge and our empathy as well. Right, it's not
just about knowing about it, it's about feeling it as well.
So thank you, Abby, and I can't wait to see
(48:11):
the film. What's the name of the film, Earth's Greatest Enemy?
Check it out Earth's Greatest Enemy dot com. Check out
the tour. I hope to see you there.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
Thanks Amanda, I really really appreciate it.
Small dunce help from this small, small human arel small.
It's so funky, hey, sales squad. This episode is going
to be intense, but it's necessary. It's necessary because I
(00:25):
know that so many of you all truly have not
prioritized learning about Israel, understanding the impact of Israel on
the globe as well as this American life, this uscan life,
I should say, and really why it is not a
in Yahoo issue that we should be talking about when
(00:49):
we are talking about Israel. So today we have Abbi
Martin who's joining US. Abby is a HQW, a high
quality white and she has been doing work on the
ground and in independent journalism calling out Israel for twenty
years now, twenty plus years. And when I found myself
(01:10):
in a whole new realm of individuals after October seventh,
dude to my support of Palestine, she was one of
the first faces that started popping up in my algorithm
to teach me and tell me about what I need
to know and what I need to understand about the
difference between mainstream representation of Israel and its reality. And
(01:31):
so that's what this episode is really couched in. I
didn't want to give it a flowery name like side
effects of mainstream coverage of no side effects of Israel,
because I don't feel like the majority of you all
have even had the opportunity to get a full, unfiltered,
very clear, undistilled understanding of this nation.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
There's always these like asterisks like.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Well but the religion, and well but man Yahoo, and
well but there's some people there who are good people.
And it's like, I want us to talk to Abby
because Abby has been doing this work as a white girl,
and she understands the uniqueness of being able to do
this work as a white girl where others may not
have the access to do so. I also felt it
(02:17):
really important to give you all a greater rendering about Zionism.
It's a word that I know has become part of
people's you know, zeitgeist more now than it ever has been,
and so I wanted her to help ground that for
us as well, because it's like Israel, Palestine, Zionists, like
(02:38):
those three words are just being thrown around casually, seriously, militarily, politically,
and I know that for me, being able to understand
them in all of those forms has really helped me
to also know how to put my energy and where
to put my energy. So I love that Abby is
here with us today to give us that guidance. I
(02:59):
feel so special to be able to have folks at
this caliber coming on this show for us and really
in this day and time, creating archival entries of intellect
and also empathy, because it's not just about like learning
for the sake of knowing. It's also learning for the
sake of being able to show up in love in
(03:21):
the right spaces. And if you're not careful, they will
misguide you and you're going to be over here supporting
in a way that you actually will regret. So Abby's
going to set us straight. Let's get into it. Side
effects of Israel.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
This is so neat.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
It's you know, to be here with you. I am
so excited through a digital medium. I know, Wait, where
do you live New York? Okay, where do you live?
I'm in Portland, Portland, Oregon. Baby, I know.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, I'm writing a chill ldren's book with Oh what,
that's so cool.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
It was really neat.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
There's a series called a kid's Book about and they
do like a kid's book about racism, a kid's book
about empathy, A kid's book about periods, like a kids
book about there's like two hundred of them, and so
we just did a kid's book about authenticity. We wrote
it and they're based in Portland. And again I was like,
what's going on in Portland?
Speaker 4 (04:23):
It is exactly like Portland. Ya. That's if you really
want to know what's going on, you just watch the show. Okay,
the Black block smashing up shit all the time. But
that's you know, it's a fun mix. I mean, the
one good thing about Portland, really good thing is that
we just had a bunch of DSA people elected a
city council because we have ranked choice voting finally, okay,
(04:44):
and so once that happens, it's like the floodgates are
open for actual change, as we saw with Mom Donnie.
So that's what the ruling class really wants to suppress.
But it worked here, all right.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
That doesn't surprise me though, that it would happen in Portland, right,
So Abs talking like Bessie's a taradine. This episode is
generically titled side Effects of Israel. Oh God, just because honestly,
I was always told it's such a complicated discussion, it's
(05:17):
such a complicated story.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
And you were one of the people that made it
abundantly clear that no, this really isn't that complicated through
your journalism and your commentary, and you're like dead stair,
like not dead stare, but a stair like dead down
the center of the camera to people like how dare you?
(05:42):
How dare you not understand what is going on? And
that earnestness in a white woman one channeled is really powerful,
Like that's the best I always say, like, once you
get a high quality white woman with a with a commitment,
things change. So you were out in Israel like before
(06:04):
October seventh, like you've been in the streets. Can you
just for our listeners talk to us first about like
what even brought you into that space as a journalist?
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Yeah, Amanda, it was always kind of part and parcel
with like the War on Terror propaganda. I remember when
nine to eleven happened, which of course radicalized me as
someone who just grew up in privileged suburbia in the
Bay Area, never really had knowledge. Yeah, pleasant to California, baby, Okay,
pleasant in just like pleasant fill everything's in black white
(06:34):
and it's like you're stuck in the fifties, but you know,
waking out of my privilege and ignorance, frankly, and then
getting propelled into the Iraq War and Palestine and all
of this was always kind of a crux of anti
imperialist understanding and awakening because they tried to initially blame
nine eleven on Palestinians. They blamed it on the DFLP.
(06:54):
They kept showing Palestinians dancing in the street, and I
remember the Prime Minister of Israel was on c SPAN
that week saying, this is your war on tear. Now
you can finally understand what Israel's doing. You're gonna be
folded into Israel's war on tear. So it was always
in the periphery, in the background.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I've literally I had no knowledge of this.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Yeah, and I still hear people right wingers constantly be like,
well they celebrated nine to eleven. They always just conflate
Palestinians with terror rists and al Qada, And it was
really intentional. It was really intentional. But I never really
got how maliciously and egregiously one sided the news coverage was,
I think until the flotilla massacre in twenty ten, and
(07:34):
as we see all these flotillas going to Gaza in
an attempt to break the siege. Today, this was one
on the Mari Mamara. I think back in twenty ten,
this was a group of dozens of activists who were
seized by Israeli authorities in international waters and instead of
just being arrested like they are today, nine people were
murdered on board Amanda. And I'll never fucking forget the
(07:55):
news coverage. It was like CNN playing just the Israeli
propaganda video showing people on board the ship trying to
ward off the soldiers with like tables and chairs because
they had already executed one person on board, and so
they were trying to like ward them off, and they
were like, these are the weapons. This is why they
had to kill all these people on board.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
These are the weapons.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
These are the weapons. And so my mind just short circuited.
I was like, this doesn't make any sense. What the
hell's going on? How is this happening? How are they
rationalizing this attack in international waters where they murdered all
these peace activists. So everything started unraveling. And then the
next year I started working at Russia Today and I
worked with two Palestinian colleagues who had to seriously stop
(08:35):
working and check in with their friends and families to
make sure that they were alive, because this is one
of the mowing the lawn operations that Israel just bombards
Gaza every couple of years and just kills slaughters on
armed people. So it was I just never looked back.
I mean I remember debating an Israeli spokesperson on RT
because after that happened, I did this big rant about
(08:57):
the war crimes and they had bombed an RT the
Alshrrop journalist tower and Gaza and blown off the leg
of an RT cameraman. And my boss had written them
being like, you purposefully bombed a journalist tower and blew
off the leg of our cameraman. And they said that's
because your network has taken aside, oh literally because of
a rant that I gave on air. And I was like, okay,
this is like a rogue, insane state that just admitted
(09:20):
that they bombed and directed an attack on journalists because
of the coverage our network had taken. Like so everything
just started spiraling out and Israeli spokesperson debated me and
they were like, come to Israel, you're wrong about Israel.
Come to Israel, We'll show you how great the country is.
And I was like, you know what, I'm gonna go.
I'm gonna go and see for myself. Yeah, and Amanda,
it was so much worse than even I thought that
(09:42):
I because I always thought, oh, two state, everyone wants
two states. Until you go there and you're like, oh no, no, no,
there's no second state left. There's no second state left.
And this was when this is like, this was in
twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
I was gonna say, this is a while ago.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
Yeah, yeah, this was twenty sixteen. I went there. I
spent three weeks in the West Bank. Most gracious, hospitable
people you've ever met in your life, come in, bake
you this huge, you know, Palestinian meal that barely knows you,
just tell you their whole lives. I never heard one
remotely anti Semitic thing, not one bigoted comment at all.
It was just why do they have to live on
top of my village? Why can't they live in all
(10:20):
of this this open land. We don't care if they
live here, We just don't want them on top of us, killing,
felling us. You stepped one foot in Jerusalem, one foot.
It was such visceral, palpable racism. I mean, I'm white
as fucking snow. I walk in there, are you added?
Are you like? I was just like, oh my god,
what's happening? And you just talk to people. I just said,
(10:43):
what do you think about the situation? Put a camera
in someone's face, bomb the mall, nuke them all, kill
them all. We should kill all Arabs ha. I'm just like,
what is going on? What is this society? What is happening?
And it was so shocking to me because you do
not hear this. Western media purposefully does not show us
(11:05):
what is Raeligh society thinks and believes. And we have
seen that clear as day. It is all carefully curated
and handcrafted for us by Israeli spokespeople with English accents
or American accents, and all of our media completely whitewashes
the reality. Look at Israeli media, it'll tell you just
point blank what the truth yea, and what these people think.
But we do not get that. We get a heavily
(11:26):
sanitized view of what Israeli society thinks. And it was
shocking to see it firsthand. But Amanda, this is really
really reflected and revealed in the polling of Israeli society.
So don't just take it from me. When you look
at polling done back in the beginning of the genocide,
the vast majority of Israeli society, I think it was
like eighty percent, felt that there wasn't enough firepower being
(11:50):
used in Gaza. This is when already the strip was
almost completely demolished. I mean the amount of bombardment as
we know, it's like the equivalent of like six nuclear bombs.
At this point they were saying there wasn't enough firepower.
Less than two percent of Israeli Jews thought that there
was too much firepower used. So fast forward to just
a couple of weeks ago, there was another poll done
(12:11):
that showed that I think it was ninety percent of
Israeli Jews were completely unconcerned with the starvation that was
manufactured by their governments. See, this is normally unconcerned.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
This is why I'm like, this is not a net
and yahuo issue.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
No, this is an Israel issue.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
This is the vibe, This is cradle to grave net
and Yah Who's the scapegoat, just like Trump is the
scapegoat for American society. Trump, similarly to Netanyah who. They
reflect the exact real corpor issues. I mean, this is
how Americans. I mean, America's racist, it is, but not
(12:51):
as racist as Israel. Netan Yaho is the true face
of Israeli society. So when you hear Bernie Sanders call
it netan yah Who's war, that's a way to preserve Zionism.
They don't want you to face the true reality of
what Israeli society is. And it's too far gone. That's
why BDS is necessary.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Where did you even develop an antenna that would pick
up on this hasbar and propaganda?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Because I was I was in the United I was
in my dorm.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Room when the second plane hit the Twin Towers, and
I can tell you that I didn't have any kind
of like side I about Israel until I was in Hollywood,
and people would basically get threatened, their careers would get threatened,
et cetera if they asked certain questions, and I was like, well,
(13:45):
what is that?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
And then when you ask what is that?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
People are like, don't do that, don't do that unless
you want to be with them.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
And You're like, I mean, I guess all right.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
So I mean, like, did you grow up in a
home that was conscious about all of these things, because
I can promise you so many of our listeners did
not have any consciousness about Israel in Palestine, let alone
Israel in our government until the last two years, right.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
I mean it's crazy. I studied political science in college.
I even took a like a Middle East studies class
run by a Palestinian professor. I couldn't even fucking tell
you like what Gaza was when I left that. I mean,
it was so overly complicating the situation, even when you're
taking a college course on it from a Palestinian. Yes,
I mean San Diego STI was so militarized. It was like,
(14:33):
I mean, San Diego is like the most concentrated military
city in the country. It's like five bases, and so
I was just surrounded by frat boys and bros, like
military bros that were just unquestioning. But I think it
was really the Iraq war propaganda. First of all, my
brother was like balls deep into conspiracy theories. So he was,
you know, he was showing.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Me like he was showing me, oh, there it is.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
He was just like, let's go, Like okay.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
I was like, no, what I mean it's cra oh,
like did she just come out the womb like this?
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Like, okay, there was a conspiracy theorist.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
Arizona eleven Press for Truth that was basically realizing that, hey,
if our government is you know the fact that the
Bush administration rejected the nine to eleven commission, they had
to fight tooth and nail. He was trying to appoint
Henry Kissinger to run the investigation. I was like, hold
on hold.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
What how old are you in this time? Though you're
in college?
Speaker 4 (15:23):
I was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, so you understand that that's unique and special. Yes, yeah, okay,
you're saying it very normal, But I'm telling you that
back then, yeah, that's kind of like the wave now.
You know, I think that the youngers are definitely more
on top of things.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
But I feel like eighteen, so I would have been twenty.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
I was twenty, so like we were, really, I was
coming into a lot more awareness around police brutality and
like things of this nature. But the geopolitical concepts that
were not concepts? Did you have political realities that were
out there? Were just not prescient to me? And you
are somebody who has really helped to open my eyes
(16:07):
in just the expansiveness of Israel's involvement on a geopolitical
level in a way that helps me to bring to
my audience, right, that allows me to be able to
be like, Okay, so I don't know if you guys
know this, but you should really care because I think
people continue to say, we don't need to worry about Israel,
it's over there, right, which is nonsense. And so can
(16:29):
you just school us real quick on why that's nonsense
in your opinion?
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Yeah, well, there's like two big debates about well, there's
many more. There's two big schools of thought here. Well, actually, no, no,
I think look, the majority of people in this country, Amanda,
think we don't need to worry about anything around that.
Like they don't understand, like our government is the soul.
Like if you pull the rest of the world, they'd
(16:56):
be like the United States is the devil. Yeah, like
this whole like death to a America mantra, like that
did not start and stop in Iran, Like that is
basically the consensus of the planet. And when they say
death to America, they mean the American military machine that
has been installing puppet leaders, violent military coups and undermining
their country's sovereignty with sanctions and regime change for the
(17:17):
last pubberds of years Amanda, and so it's really horrific
when people kind of wash away all of the things
that are going on in the least or Latin America
or Africa and just say, oh, we have nothing to
do with it. Our government is so intimately involved in
the majority of the world's conflict and they're managing them all.
And the US military is the enforcer and protector of
global capitalism. So it's really you know, Israel when you
(17:39):
look at Israel similarly to what Colombia and Uganda served
the US military up until recently, Colombia got taken over
by a left wing president for the first time in
its history. But Israel serves a very important strategic role
for the US Empire in the Middle East. Around nineteen
sixty or nineteen seventy, the US saw its strategic partnership
in Israel and star flooding it with money. It was
(18:02):
around the same time that we saw anti colonial movements,
independence movements spurring all across that region, Nacer in Egypt,
and all of these anti colonial movements that we needed
to tamp down on to re establish our hegemony in
the region, and so that's when I think the partnership
really solidified and started to become concentrated. So ever since then,
(18:24):
we've just flooded Israel with hundreds of billions of dollars
and endless amounts of weaponry. And what it serves the
purpose of is it's our attack dog in the region.
So of course oil being the pivot of the modern
industrial economy, and Israel is basically right there with the
natural gas pipelines, all of the oil flow in that region.
It's the most oil rich region in the world. And
(18:46):
so look at all of Israel's neighbors. First of all,
they're all countries that the United States wants to crush.
You back during the Iraq War, when Wesley Clark, the
former NATO commander, I remember that infamous interview that he
did with Amy Goodman, and he was like I was
told by I think it was like Dick Cheney or
someone like Colon Vally, was like, we are going to
go after seven countries in five years, and he just
(19:08):
like listed them all and you look at every single
one of those countries and we've fucking gone after all
of them except Iran.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, yeah, good old Lady.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
That was an iconic interview because it was just like
when we're a hammer, every problem as a nail, and
they couldn't do it all at once because of course
the backlash from Iraq and the resistance that pushed us
out of Iraq, but yeah, they wanted to, and so Lebanon,
Syria Iran. You know, when we have an out of control, rogue,
fucking nuclear armed attack dog in the Middle East, and
(19:39):
we're just like, no, you do you We'll back you up,
and we could always have the plausible deniability of oh no, no,
that's Israel's war, but we have to get involved because
we're their strongest ally, and so yes, we should care
about what Israel's doing, not only because it's horrific, genocidal
apartheid state that's committing endless atrocities and start war with
(20:00):
all of its neighbors and posing an existential threat to
the world because it has nuclear weapons, but also because
the United States is the only reason that this is happening.
The United States is subsidizing and funding all of this,
and the United States has a nuclear armed gun to
the heads of the planet, basically blackmailing them being like
(20:22):
we will fucking kill you, dude, or we will sanction you,
or we'll throw tariffs on whatever. All of it is
just under this economic blackmail and nuclear armed threats to
say you can't do shit because we control the world.
And as long as that exists, I don't know how
we can hold Israel too account.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
You know, at this point, seeing the world start to
push away the US, or at least try to what
ends up happening when you know you threaten nukes, You
threaten nukes, but ultimately you're not the only woman nukes anymore. Right,
So I know some people are like, well, that would
never happen, and I'm like, no, you don't understand. These
(21:03):
people are terrible and they have bunkers like they would
absolutely nuke the shit out of everyone and be the
last twenty people on earth.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
They have no problem with that. I feel like your
brother would agree with me.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Oh my god. I mean, like, the thing is I
ask myself every day, how is it possible that the
people who are in charge of the world, how is
it possible that the fucking five hundred richest people don't
see the forest, that the trees don't understand that we
are digging our own graves that their grandchildren are still
going to live on a planet.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Because I really feel like they're.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Resources because they have seed vaults. Dude.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Yes, like Bill Gates literally has he either operates like
to the extent of not just has a part ownership.
I think he operates the seed vault in the North Pole.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Yes, he does. He does. They all have probably like
ten silos like that show side They probably already have
like multi level underground bunkers that can either hate that show.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
By the way, it.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Got really boring. It got really really boring. I was like,
how now you're just alone in an underground silo, Like,
let's wait.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I don't know where we're going with this.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
I don't know because it just should have been one season.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
That's it done.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
I did a whole research thing because I was like,
let me not waste my time. And then I looked
up the story and I was like, Oh, this isn't
going anywhere, got it?
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Thank you, Thank you saving my time.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Not investing another twenty hours.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
What do you think is the biggest one of the
biggest lies that you feel like you see people constantly
needing debunked about Israel?
Speaker 4 (22:36):
Oh my god, I think that there's two really big ones.
One of them is the fact that Israel's this misunderstood
democratic state surrounded by people who just want to kill them, Amanda.
They have to do this because they would be killed
if they didn't. Now, I think that we all know that,
you know, because Israel's invested so much money in hasbra
(22:58):
everything's inverted, so reality.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
For the people who don't know, it's basically.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Their word for like an explainer, it's like propaganda to
use to explain that black is white and up is
down right, Yeah, arewelling and propaganda that they have employed
thousands of people at Tel Aviv University. They get prizes
and rewards. But who can correct the most Wikipedia entries,
who can leave the most comments on message boards? So
(23:23):
when you're reading things online, it's really easy to be
confused because of just the disproportionate nature of like Hasbraa
bots and propagandists that are just asserting a false reality.
But I would say that's the number one lie. But
I'd say the most egregious lie is the fact that
this is just a war, that this is a war
(23:44):
between two equal sides, that Gaza is somehow its own
country that has a military and Hamas is like the
government of this other country, and we know that Gaza
is a territory that is militarily occupied from the outside
by Israel. Gaza was a warehouse of refugees that were
(24:05):
expelled during the Nakba, during the initial formation of Israel
in nineteen forty eight, when they raised five hundred villages
to the ground and expelled hundreds of thousands of people,
and seventy five percent of people who were living in
Gaza are refugees that were ethnically cleansed from an artificial
border fence that they can see like miles outside of
(24:26):
where they lived, that they can never go back to.
And just so people are really clear about this, Gaza
before the genocide started, Gaza was the only place in
the world that refugees couldn't even flee by boat like
they'd often do elsewhere in the world. They were under
such tight naval blockade by the Israeli military that if
they just strayed too far out fishing, it would be
(24:47):
blown out of the water by Israeli warships. And there
was a no go zone around Gaza, which was only
twenty five miles by five miles long, so a very
tiny strip of land with two million people living in there.
If you just strayed too close to this fortified false border,
you would just be shot dead. So that was a
policy in place forever. That's a fucking prison. That's a prison.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
We've shashank redemption. That is a prison.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
That's a prison. And when you ration food and water
when the un was even sane in twenty nineteen, that
by twenty twenty it would be uninhabitable because of a
lack of potable water because they kept bombing the water
desalination plants, so that already was happening. This was a
policy in place from the get go that water and
food would be ration. They wanted to put Palestinians on
(25:34):
a diet and maintain that very basic caloric intake that
would avoid famine. So that's why it was so easy
to just flick the switch. And I'm sorry, but in
twenty twenty five, the fact that people in Gaza didn't
even have electricity to like keep their meat refrigerated, or
medication or anything like that, I mean, it's just so
medieval and crazy that the siege was already in place
(25:57):
and that this was already accepted. So it's extremely frustrating
that people think they just have total misconceptions about it
because the Western media has done such a piss poor job.
And I would say intentionally, So, you know, I read
this poll back in twenty twenty three, like I think
like two months after so it was like December or
something from Pew that said half of Americans didn't know
(26:18):
if more Israelis had died than Palestinians, and like the
entire conflict, and it's like, Okay, whose fault is that?
Whose fault is that?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Well, you know, the US media.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Okay, So when Kanye was saying all of his things
about Jewish people, his error was that he should have
said Zionists. That was his error, right because if he
had said specifically, Hollywood has run by Zionists, the music industry.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Is run by Zionists, that actually is not untrue.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
And I think that there's a very important distinction to
make between the two. And you know that being said,
I feel like the lie that I know that a
lot of people I feel like around me don't understand
is the separation between.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Judaism and Zionism.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
And they from a good place feel like, well, I
can't say anything about Israel because then I would be
being anti Semitic. And that's like the top Hosbara hit,
like that's their hit tune is if you just say this,
if you do this, you're a bad person. If you
talk about Israel, you're a bad person. If your question Israel,
you're a bad person. And I just feel like that
(27:28):
for a lot of us who know better, is like
we're so far past that. It's like I'm fine, then
I'm a bad person, right, But I feel like on
a regular basis, I'm shocked that people are still preserving
a certain sense of fear around not getting in trouble,
not like you know, getting arrested at the encampments, but
(27:48):
more so literally being like a bad person if they
are questioning Israel, because that is somehow questioning a religion
of a of holy people, And that's the choke hold
for a lot of black folks, is the religion aspect
that is connected. I remember, like shortly after October seventh
(28:09):
talking to a friend of mine who is a gospel artist,
and he was like, well, you know, Israel's the Bible.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
So I was like, oh Lord literally and so oh.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Lord like, and I was kind of stuck because I
genuinely was like, I don't know where to even start
with trying to get him to understand. So I started
at like, okay, So they just like decided to name
it Israel. It wasn't like it came to them through
a tablet that had inscriptions on it on a mountain.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
It was a boardroom, and.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
They were like, well, we could call it this, we
could call that, or we call this call that. And
so I would love if you could just help expound
upon like the political reality of Israel, because I think
that it's important that people understand like the political reality
of Israel as it exists, because that is what's getting
protected by a religious like spiritual mysticism mm.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Hmm right, And that has been very confusing for people.
I mean, I had just read this insane article yesterday
of the gandin Judge on the ICG kept the voting Dude,
she was perplexingly, perplexingly kept voting with Israel even though
it's like so flagrantly violating all this international law. And
then of course we got the answer Amanda of why.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah, she said, yeah, something like I'm doing the Lord's
work and God will.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
In the end times. We're in the end Times. That's
what she said. We're in the end times. So you know,
I'm pretty sure that's not how international law is supposed
to work. That you're leaning like apocalyptic Bible scripture and say,
oh no, no, no, it's okay, Israel, you can commit genocide
and blow up the planet because that's just armageddon. Baby,
let's dive in and lean into it. It's like, why
(29:59):
the hell are you sitting on an international court?
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Why is why is she alive? I have no idea.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Well, I guess because she's siding with Israel and they
have hooks in every spot.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
So but it's crazy. It's like, shouldn't disqualify I mean,
like if you are an ardent believer in like the
literal Bible, like that should disqualify you from your job.
But I guess that's the world we live in, Amanda.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
But look at our Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Andy Barrett is literally a member of a Catholic cult,
isn't she?
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Like in Opus Day or something like that.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
Like, and look at Tulsa Gabbart, who's in charge of
the seventeen spy Agency. She's in a homophobic cult.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, it's yeah, she's in a homeless yes, a p
texxcept all of these people. Have you ever seen shiny,
happy people.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Like nineteen eighty four mixed with idiocracy? It's like if
more terrible cocktail. It's like if morons were running nineteen
eighty four, like a detalitarian police state run by morons,
run by Donald Trump? Like how how? But yes, I
think the miss and the spirituality and people who don't
want to appear anti Semitic, who know nothing about the situation,
(31:05):
I'd say that's a lot harder now because Israel is
so blatantly coman in genocide. It's like unless you are
under a rock, I don't know how you cannot hear
a lot of rocks. But I mean one only has
to really realize that Israel was going to be created
(31:26):
in Africa. I mean like they were pontificating all of
these other countries to form a Jewish state in They
knew the utility of putting Israel, you know, right in
the middle of all this spiritual hub where Christians, Jews,
and Muslims had lived for thousands of years in relative
harmony until this colonial project uprooted millions of people. So
(31:49):
the reality of Israel today, they claim that they're a democracy.
They're not even on its face. Even if you just
look at forty eight proper, there is an apartheid system
even within forty eight. Forty eight means the area Jal
borders of Israel, and you have dozens of laws that
segregate Palestinians. First of all, you can't marry Inner faith
marriage is illegal. Gay marriage is illegal. Yes, yes, you know,
(32:11):
so all of this pink washing and gay washing.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
If you are Palestine and you're gay, they'll kill you.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Well, you'll throw you off.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
Yeah, it's like the idea is even like we wear
vegan leather boots. It's like okay, yeah, like we won't.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Kill also murderers.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
Yeah, it's like okay, but you wear like lamp shades
made out of like child's skins. So you know, I
don't you know what are we talking about here? I mean,
within forty eight proper, there's it is so discriminatory. I mean,
look no further from when Iran had the short bombing
spree of Tel Aviv and you actually saw the majority
(32:50):
of deaths were Palestinians because of the bomb shelter segregation
within forty eight as well, So bomb shelters don't really
exist for Palestinian neighborhoods, communities. Every Israeli Jew that I
have talked to never interacts with Palestinians. Similarly, during like
Jim Crow, it's like basically like Palestinians are the workers.
(33:11):
They are the class that works and doesn't interact and
talk to people. So that's how it works. And then
of course the real crazy military occupation when you go
outside of forty eight and just look at the three
plus million Palestinians living in the West Bank an area
AB and C, which is just a straight up military
(33:33):
occupation Amanda. I mean it is a fascist military dictatorship
where there's curfews, where there's checkpoints, where it's just abject
humiliation and subjugation and essentially just torture of Palestinians on
a daily basis. I mean they don't even have water lines.
They have water tanks on top of their little villages
that Israeli soldiers will go and just terrorize, vandalize and
(33:53):
spray pungent skunk water to just destroy their month supply
of water. I mean, just the daily amiliation ritual that
they will do to make Palestinians' lives living hell. You
can't have weapons right because they're under a fascist military dictatorship.
So not only can you not arm yourself from the
fanatical settlers who go and terrorize and kill you, as
(34:14):
we know on a weekly basis, if not daily, you
can't even have Palestinian insignia. Holding up a Palestinian flag
can get you shot and killed. I remember going to
a village called Sebastia where several Palestinians were in the
hospital because they were shot and nearly killed for erecting
a Palestinian flag on a hilltop. The day before, Israeli
(34:36):
soldiers had perched up and just taking people off as
if it were target practice. Who put up Palestinian flags.
So all of these things are under military order. I
think it's like one oh one that just makes it
impossible to organize, to form even in five people or more,
that's considered like a dangerous group setting. The list goes
on and on and on of how horrific the reality
(34:57):
is on the ground for Platinians. And then of course
you know Gaza is a whole other beast entirely, but
when you're just looking at the West Bank and Israel proper,
the apartheid runs very deep.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Is there any feelings you have around like these protests
that I'll see ever so often happening in Tel Aviv.
I mean, I saw protest recently and I said it
was performative, and people were like, you.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Shouldn't say that.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
There are nice people in Israel, And that made me
feel like when Donald Trump was like, there's good people
on both sides, and I know that there are I'm
sure people in Israel who are varying degrees of Zionists,
But for me, it's like, if you still want Israel
to exist, I'm looking at you sideways like that's where
(35:46):
I'm at at this point. So when I see the
marches that are really more about stop doing bad things
that makes us look bad, that to me takes my
faith away from there being like an actual part of
their society, which is a small society, but a part
of their society that is genuinely against us. Do you,
from what you've researched, from what you've seen, from who
(36:07):
you know, is there a genuine portion of their society
that is actually like we gotta get this stop?
Speaker 4 (36:14):
No, I would say significantly. No.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
I knew I wasn't bugging.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
No, no, no, no, no, for real, no Aman, And
I've been saying this for years and people are like,
you're cherry picking, you're anti Semitic, you're generalizing, you're painted
with a broadbush. I'm like, look, not only did I
have the anecdotal experience of just talking to random people
in the street, and I know anti Zionist Jewish Israelis
they know each other because there's only a few dozen
(36:38):
of them. Literally, Look, there are tons of Orthodox like
anti Zionist Jews who are super uber religious, that are
like beaten, who try to resist the draft. Like there
are those contingents. They don't really talk to these people.
I'm talking about the secular Israeli Jews, this broadbrush that
(36:58):
we like to look at, the secondular liberal Zionism. Right,
those people are few and far between. And I would
say that the left has been rapidly disappearing because look,
if you're a leftist, if you're a radical in Israel,
how could you even stomach living there? I would want
to get the hell out. And that's what a lot
of people do because they can't possibly live around fascists
(37:21):
who just talk about one of they wanted to kill
Arabs all the time. I mean, it's disgusting. And so
the Israelis that I know who are anti Zionists have
obviously fled and lived elsewhere because a lot of them
have dual passports and it's very easy to unlike Palestinians.
But even when you just look at polling and the
protests that you're talking about, people look at the protests
and they say, well, look there's tons of people protesting wrong.
(37:42):
Those are people protesting net and Yahoo. Those are people
protesting for the hostages. Look at the demands, look at
what they're saying. There was hundreds of thousands of people
in the street even as far back as October twenty
twenty three, because it was all about the hostages and
it was all about outing. Because they've always hated net
Yaw who he's always been seen as this corrupt.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Then how did he get in office?
Speaker 4 (38:06):
It's just all these coalition government deals and stuff. I mean,
I will say the war has definitely helped him, kind
of similarly like to Bush, It's like, once you're at war,
it's kind of hard to like switch wartime presidents, you know.
But then there's Isaac Herzog, who's like the president. He's
like this symbolic figurehead. He's supposed to be like this
liberal guy. You have nof Taly Bennett who just switched
(38:28):
with Netan Yahoo, who's even like kind of more of
a fascist than him, and then it switched back. Now
it's really crazy when you look at actually like the
representation in the government. I mean they have like this
is another thing that people say, They're like, well, there's
an Arab in the Kanesse. There's like Arabs in the Kannesset.
It's like yeah, they're hated, and it's just tokenized, like
none of these people actually have any real power, and
(38:49):
all these government ministers are openly genocidal fascists, like very
very openly. But the protests, by and large, it's just
about Netan Yahoo, is just about corruption, it's about the
hostages because that's what they really want. They want the
hostages back. Not one protest that is over like maybe
a couple hundred people. And I want to say that
(39:09):
very generously because I just saw it in the last
couple months that looked maybe like one hundred people maybe
a little bit more, that we're holding signs about gods
and children, right, And I was like, okay, people are
like hundreds of people out protesting the starvation. I'm like,
first of all, I don't believe that no all men
have to like be there because I don't believe that.
(39:29):
I mean, I talked to people and tell Vivan Jerusalem
who were like, I'm a leftist, I just want the
occupation to be more humane. I'm a member of the
Labor Party, but we need these infiltrators out of here.
Like I met people who were like leftists at anti refugee,
anti African rallies there, Like, I mean, it is so
we think that our like overtin window is like, you know,
(39:52):
so far right, where the Democrats, you know, even though
they're called radical commis from you right, they're like they're
so right wing, Amanda, the left is considered like for us,
it would be very conservative because like you said, I mean,
Zionism is the baseline, and Zionism is an ideology that
is rooted in supremacism and racism and bigotry. I mean,
(40:13):
it's predicated on ethnic cleansing. It's an artificial majority that
you're imposing on indigenous people. And in order to maintain
an artificial majority of Jewish Israelis, you need to constantly
expel and ethnically cleanse the indigenous people, and so at
its root, at its core, it's racism.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Honestly, I think that's a really key tenant that a
lot of folks haven't been able to put together because
they're not black, and so like, the concept of it
being racism for a lot of American folks of all
backgrounds is like, oh no, it's like a different thing.
(40:52):
It's something different. It's like, no, no, it's racism. And
this whole conflation of religion is not real either, this
whole idea that it's the Muslims versus the jew No,
because I just saw or they in July they blew
up a Christian Palestinian town the former.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Pope you know, used to call.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
I'm like, at this point, how do you feel like
at this point? Actually, this is going to be our
Patreon question. Our Patreon question is in your mind, do
you see any like steps that can happen during this
inflection point that if you could wave a wand like,
what would those inflection point steps be? Aside from it
(41:35):
all being a rap, come on over to the sales
squad and join us. I guess the last question I
would ask is what is Israel's role in where the
United States is today, because I think a lot of
people think that there is like oh, Israel and Palestine,
but like Ice and the United States, here and there
(41:55):
is a through line.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
There's one hundred percent of through line. I mean, imperialism
is a multi prompt beast and it affects everything. I mean,
looking at immigration, First of all, the crux and root
of the migration crisis is our economic policies and the
violent militarism that we impose on other countries. So look
at Mexico, look at Guatemala, look at Al Salvador, look
at Afghanistan, look at Gosam, and all the plight of
(42:18):
all the people trying to cross the graveyard of the
Mediterranean and dying and going to Greece. All of this
is the root of our policies, our wars in the
Middle East, our economic policies in Latin America. So all
of that's intertwined. And then you look at the way
the police behave. NYPD has an office in Tel Aviv.
They are trained. They go over there and they get trained.
(42:39):
The brutality is directly trained. That's the only thing we
get from the tax dollars going all of our taxes
going to Israel. We subsidize their healthcare, all their education,
and then they train our police and how to be
cruel maniacs who just shoot people and ask questions later.
Not that that started in Israel, but it's just integrated
(43:00):
seamlessly to now where the training is so under lock
and key that our police behave exactly the way that
Israeli military does to Palestinians. So that's one thing. I mean,
everything is it bleeds into the next. I mean the
economic crisis. I mean, all of this is because we're
just wasting away one point five trillion dollars on the
Pentagon and the military. So when we can't buy eggs
(43:22):
at the store or gas, and Biden and Trump are
just like, well, we need to sacrifice because we need
to do this and that abroad. That doesn't resonate with Americans.
So all of these things that seem like disparate issues,
they are all deeply connected, Amanda. And that's why you know,
for the last five years, I've been working on a
movie about the US military's impact on the environment, because
(43:42):
unless we actually get to the root of imperialism's effect
on climate change and pollution, and integrate it with our
environmental movements. We're never going to solve the planetary crises
that we face, which is you know, deep environmental catastrophe.
And we have to stop this military beast. We have
to stop the empire. We have to because a habitable
(44:04):
planet cannot coexist with a global military empire. And so
all of these things are interconnected. And that's why it's
so important to be rooted in anti imperial anti colonial
education and understanding, because it doesn't start and stop with
one struggle. That's what they want. They want to atomize
us all. That's what liberalism has done. They've packaged and
(44:25):
sold all of our struggles back to us through the corporations.
And it's really sad because we're so atomized and separated
from each other, and we all fight for our own
individual causes without realizing that we are all part of
a collective and unless we work together, we are all doomed.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Well, this was fine.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Do you think we'll see Do you think we'll see
the end of Israel in our lifetime?
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (44:50):
I God, I hope so, Oh God, I hope. So
I want to say yes, but I don't know if
we're gonna I mean.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
You know, hust'll be in the US.
Speaker 4 (45:03):
Unless the New drops first. I mean, we are in
such an insane.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Time, it's just like existing.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
I want the US to fall, I want Israel to fall.
I want imperialism to fall. Look, let's just keep it going.
It's real. First is reel the one that we can do.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
I like to think of it like on Star Wars,
they have these like big machines that are like the
transmitters to all of the robots, and so like if
you just knock over one of those big machines, all
the robots, all the droids are like yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
So I like to think of the United States like that,
Like if the.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
United States gets unplugged, so to speak, then these other
factions are just gonna be like yeah. Because, like we
said in the beginning, the United States is funding them,
it is arming them, It is really legitimizing them.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
And the people.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Don't even realize in how many ways they are supporting
them themselves. Like I make a point to now check
every time I buy something like is this israelly owned?
I went to get a birthday cake the other day
and it had like some Hebrew.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
And when I was walking out, I was like, whohoa, whoa.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Does this cake have anything to do with this room?
And they were like no, that's just the kosher stamp.
And I was like okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Okay, okay, no good okay.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
And then there's like a restaurant here called Art Cafe,
and I just moved to Nayak and so I went
there a few times and they had yet many items
on the menu, and so in my Amanda positive heart
of hearts, I'm like, oh, only if I got no,
this is an Israelian restaurant. They are of course appropriating,
(46:39):
and they have been on like the Rockland County BDS
list for like years.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
So that's the end of that.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
No, exactly, I can't do it. Exactly, we can't. No,
it's time. That's time the last.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
Do you have any idea when the movie's coming out?
Speaker 4 (47:01):
Yes, it's coming out in a month. We're gonna take
it on tour. I best see you in New York. Yes,
you will come and be a captive audience. Yes, clockwork Orange.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Can I like interview you and do like a moderated
Q and A.
Speaker 4 (47:16):
Can you come on my show too?
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Please? Please?
Speaker 4 (47:22):
Wait? Is your jewelry things out?
Speaker 1 (47:23):
Ninety watch that, Yeah, go and watch that. I just
keep getting texts all day from people like.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah, that was really brave. So I'm immediately going to
go take a nap after this because I.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Had no idea that I would be like emotionally drained,
Like I'm like.
Speaker 4 (47:45):
Dreamed and drained.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
We're all already drained.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
So it's like, you know, there's so much happening and
so much to learn and so much to know. And
I really appreciate you for being steadfast in knowing your
purpose and sticking with it, and that expanding all of
our knowledge and our empathy as well. Right, it's not
just about knowing about it, it's about feeling it as well.
So thank you, Abby, and I can't wait to see
(48:11):
the film. What's the name of the film, Earth's Greatest Enemy?
Check it out Earth's Greatest Enemy dot com. Check out
the tour. I hope to see you there.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
Thanks Amanda, I really really appreciate it.
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