P!nk’s Delusional Victimhood (with Mohammed el-Kurd)

doesn't she have a song about super girls yeah she does the call is coming from inside the house my intro is a little long so you're gonna have to sit tight for a second i apologize no problem hello hello and welcome back to a bit fruity i'm ed bernstein i'm so happy that you're here if you've been paying any attention to the news lately then you probably know that perhaps the biggest cultural spiral of a news cycle so far this year has centered around the concert tour of ed sheeran a sentence i thought i would never say i also never thought i'd be listening to macklemore while doing my makeup at eight in the morning but here we are strange times indeed for anyone unfamiliar here's the spark notes ed sheeran one of the richest and most popular musicians in the world who started off making good music shout out the 18 but then realized he could make a lot more money writing dance floor evacuating love songs that are simultaneously for everyone and no one is nine months into his sixth concert tour the loop tour at a recent show in new jersey rapper macklemore served as an opening act macklemore has been with ed sheeran for over a decade and is an outspoken anti-zionist which contrasts ed's mealy-mouthed commitment to avoiding political speech at all costs at the show macklemore made an impassioned speech which concluded with a call to free palestine one of the reasons why i wanted to come on this tour was because i wanted to stand up here on stages and stadiums across america and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart free palestine my message is for peace love for all human beings to be treated with dignity respect and equality so i say free palestine followed by a performance of hins hall a song he wrote for hindu job a five-year-old palestinian girl who was murdered alongside six of her family members when israel shelled their family car as they attempted to flee gaza city the praise and backlash was swift zionist groups like the adl and stop anti-semitism predictably labeled macklemore an anti-semite the chorus of controversy got louder and six days after the show ed sheeran kicked his friend of 13 years off of his tour ed as it were had faced mounting pressure from the zionist billionaire robert craft the owner of the new england patriots and of gillette stadium where ed was set to perform robert craft was the owner of the new england patriots and of gillette and robert craft rallied a number of the other stadium owners all of whom threatened to ban ed's show from happening if he brought macklemore on stage with him instead of using his leverage as one of the biggest living pop stars ed sheeran caved and that was that the following day ed put out one of the worst pr statements i've personally ever seen which opened with quote i am appalled by the conflict between israel and palestine the suffering and pain caused on both sides is a tragedy thank you ed sheeran good to know within two hours all of ed's opening acts pulled out of the tour as well as his own band in what is perhaps the biggest showing of solidarity towards palestine in the entertainment industry since the genocide began but we're not really here to talk about any of that we're here to talk about alicia beth more heart or as you might know her p exclamation point nk wait her real name is alicia beth more heart or as you might know her p exclamation point nk her real name is alicia that's crazy after macklemore's performance went viral pink shared to her 12 million instagram followers a post from the right-wing anti-palestinian doxing group stop anti-semitism if you don't know what stop anti-semitism is you might be more familiar with like libs of tiktok which doxes anyone who like works as a teacher or anyone in public service really who like shows support for like queer people or is queer themselves stop anti-semitism is like that for palestinians like they famously pressured delta into like releasing a statement about a flight attendant who wore palestinian flag pin that's the kind of group we're talking about she reposted a something from stop anti-semitism which accused macklemore of turning the ed sheeran concert into a quote political nightmare for jewish concert goers and called on ed to apologize to and refund his fans pink who has actually been posting disgusting shit for a long time which most people ignored until this more on that in a second was flamed and so pink posted a fierce photo of herself accompanied by a wall of text i might describe as a liberal zionist manifesto now i considered making an episode about pink in her totality as i sometimes do make these biographical episodes on this podcast how she fits into a trend of artists who ditched the countercultural aesthetics that made them famous her flirtation with early 2000s and early 2000s and her misogyny and so on but the text she's provided us next to this fierce photo of herself is so rich and by that i mean it reveals a lot about the psychology of people who still cling to zionism but think of themselves as progressive i think pink is either delusional about the ideology she supports or lying to us or lying to herself or likely some combination of the above think of this as a sister episode to the beloved unraveling of deborah messing where we began to tease out the contradictions inherent to liberal zionism today we'll go deeper and probably still bring up deborah messing because this is the a bit fruity podcast and to do that thank you for getting through my long intro with me to do that today i am so excited to be joined by a friend someone who i really adore and whose work you know i i've grown so much from muhammad al-kurd welcome to the show thank you matt thank you for having me it's really really a pleasure you sent me a message on instagram like a year ago that you had listened to the deborah messing episode and ever since then i've made it my mission to drag you onto this podcast and here we are i'm glad i can make it finally and i think it's a it's the correct episode to be on because i'm surprisingly a fan of or used to be a fan of pink you're a pink fan what's your favorite pink i know i know a couple of her songs i like the sober song i like all music about addiction so there she has a song called sober that i like oh yeah a radio hit yeah muhammad for people who are unfamiliar with you or your book perfect victims which is now translated into how many languages think about 16 now to translate into 16 languages could you maybe fill people in on like who you are your backstory i'm a writer i'm a poet i'm a journalist i'm from i was born and raised in occupied jerusalem in palestine i came into the spotlight in two phases i would say early on when i was a child when i was um the subject of a documentary about forced expulsions in occupied jerusalem by settler organizations and charities and whatnot and then again in 2020 and 2021 when the same thing uh happened in our neighborhood and to our home so our house our house like many many many others was specifically targeted by these settler organizations that are funded by american charity groups so settlers like they came into the spotlight in two phases i would say early on when i was a child when i was the first one to come into your house and they while you were living there as a child and they were like we we live here now yeah as absurd as it sounds as absurd as it sounds it's uh fairly common in jerusalem and fairly common in palestine but literally settlers in my case a guy from long island new york just came into the picture obviously this is under the protection and with the participation of the israeli military and the israeli police force so he came home from school there were hundreds of police men and soldiers and all of our furniture was across the street and half of our half of our house was taken by israeli settlers and we were then forced to share half of our home with them and lived through their brutality and torture and really like sexual weird sexual harassment and all of this happened against the backdrop of the israeli police being there so we really couldn't do anything to protect ourselves and i want to emphasize how fairly common that this practice is not just a practice but a practice that is very common in jerusalem and palestine i mean part of why i really wanted to talk to you about everything we're going to talk about today is that like one of the sort of central tenets of zionism which pink has very much expressed to the world over the last couple weeks is this feeling of constant victimhood while simultaneously like attending like a red carpet u.s open event i want to talk about what pink thinks zionism is versus what zionism really is and i feel like as someone who was faced with what zionism really is as a as a child i you know i know you can speak to that really super well i mean i think the what you just pointed out the analogy i think it's really a perfect metaphor for zionism the fact that she can speak about unsafety and feeling of fear and victimized and blah blah while simultaneously being one of the most successful musicians in the world attending a red carpet event i think it's the perfect metaphor for zionism as a whole because you know we're talking about zionism as a whole about a people and a nation that is you know, diplomatically, financially, economically backed by the West, a nation that has the only country with a nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, you know, a nation with so much power and privilege and access that simultaneously has inhabited this victim complex. You know, I think this kind of discrepancy is baked into the national DNA of Israelis in general. Mm hmm. We are going to get into all of that in, I think, great depth today. But first, because I do enjoy talking about the online antics of out of touch celebrities, I'm going to throw this up on the screen for anyone watching the video version of this episode. What do you make of the visual of Pink responding to criticism over her reposting this right wing anti-Palestinian doxing website with like a golden hour DSL? portrait of herself? Was the idea, I guess that she like looks fierce, like she looks like she's serving kind. She looks stoic. I think she thought she looked stoic. It kills me because it's one thing for, you know, Ed Sheeran just put out this statement that's like ridiculous. But it's like, at least he had, at least he could do it in like a notes app apology fashion. I kind of do appreciate that she just fully like blew past the the apology notes app screenshot and just posted this like fierce photo of herself. Yeah, I mean, when you put it that way, it's really funny. One of the other things I want to say about Pink, not that it really matters that much, but Pink has been posting some pretty heinous Zionist shit for a long time. It was just this instance that got people's attention in the wake of October 7th, but also several weeks into the genocide. She posted a like, like a 10 point plan on her Instagram account. And I think that's kind of funny. She posted a like a 10 point plan on her Instagram towards like peace in the Middle East, I guess. Did you see this? No, I did not. That's hilarious. Show me. You want to read it? Yeah. One, the hostages need to come home. Two, Hamas is a wonderful, no I'm kidding, Hamas is a terrorist organization that seeks to destroy Jews. They also murder and oppress women, the LGBTQIA plus community and political opponents. Three, Palestinians need a solution that honors their aspirations and their humanity. Four, neither Palestinians or Israelis can exist peacefully under the threat of Hamas. Five, protecting innocent civilian life must remain of utmost priority. Six, no one should, I don't feel like these things are in order. Six, no one should celebrate the murder of women and children. So we have to cancel the party. Ripping down images of kidnapped children is inhumane. Seven, nuance and complexity are not rewarded on social media. That's not really a step to take. Eight, the responsibility of traditional media to report the unbiased facts has never been more critical. Couldn't agree more. Someone say that to the New York Times. Prejudice and active hate toward any group is unacceptable. Ten, any violent or hate-filled demonstrations taking place around the world are making the problem worse, not better. And she ends it with a place for us to meet. A place for us to meet. One of my favorite things about this show is that it's that Zionists do, and by favorite I'm being facetious, but they'll always list like a series of like demands or like what they consider to be objective platitudes that are all just upholding Zionism. And then they'll be like, this is the even-keeled middle ground, a place for us to meet. Yeah, there was like, you hate peace and we want peace. And then they vomit us into cemeteries. Also, and this was one of the things that really blew my mind, months later a graphic from Jonah Platt, Jonah Platt, brother of Ben Platt, son of Mark Platt, the man who perhaps has more connections to the entertainment world than any other child of entertainers alive and yet makes a podcast, which, you know, me too, buddy, me too. Can't talk too much shit. But he wrote and she reposted. Today's a good day to let your Jewish friends know you see and believe them and their lived experience. I love them more than you. Love social media propaganda and tokenize anti-Zionist voices. This pissed me off so bad. This was also in the wake of the Bondi Beach massacre in Australia. Oh, that's fucked up. She was basically like, blaming the violence against Jews in Australia on anti-Zionist Jews. It's fucked up. Which I and that didn't get heat at the time. I was like, pink. To be fair, who's paying attention to her? You know, I'm paying attention to this stuff because I'm not well. And like, I look at like, what all of these celebrities from my childhood post all the time. But like, you know, many people have made the point after this week that they're going to have to boycott Ed Sheeran and pink. And as it turns out, it won't take a whole lot to boycott these two artists. Pink also, you know, pink has made these like propaganda videos with Noah Tishby. She's committed to the bit. Wow, I didn't know that. Oh, yeah, she she did these like propaganda videos with Noah Tishby. Noah Tishby. I have a whole bonus episode about her on the Patreon, but she is a former, uh, envoy to the Netanyahu government. Uh, like basically a propagandist to, to fight the quote, delegitimization of Israel. That's it was in her job title. She was actually fired by Netanyahu for fractional disagreements about judicial reform. And now she just does it for the love of the game. And also what I imagine is a lot of money, but so pink's been on this for a while. And yet this was the one that broke through. And last thing before we get into the essay, I want to start on a light, if stupid note in breaking from my usual chronological method of podcasting, and perhaps in an effort to build suspense for what we're about to read, I want to first examine the seven Instagram stories pink posted the day after posting the essay we're about to dissect pink was getting heat for that essay. And so she responded with a series of what can only be described as divorced sassy white mom, millennial zazzle mug print graphics. You want to take turns? Sure. I'll start being liked by everyone. I'm going to start with the first one. I'm going with the first one. I'm going And no one cares that you have haters. It's like, congrats, you're a famous person online. Like, no one cares that you have haters. But also, it's not evidence of anything except for the fact that, like, you exist in public at this point. And I don't think that's good. But everyone has haters. Make your argument. I also think it's fair. Like, I don't think everything. I think it's okay for people to disagree with you or even be a little bit vitriolic. And that doesn't really amount to violence if you are in the position of wealth and access to power that she is in. You know, I think, like, get a grip. Do you want to get into the text at hand? My friends, we've waited long enough. We are now going to spend much of the episode reading Pink's liberal Zionist manifesto. Within its text, I've found meaning. And I've separated that meaning into a series of vignettes. Through which I hope we can all learn more about Zionism, about Pink, and maybe more about ourselves. I'm just kidding. I don't know if we're going to learn about ourselves. But without further ado, the statement begins. I've been quiet in my own words for a week, which you know isn't like me. So here they are. Last Sunday, I reposted somebody else's post about Macklemore's set at Ed Sheeran's show. It said things in words I didn't write. And I wouldn't have chosen all of them. Then the comments came. And I did what I do when I'm hurt. Which is post snarky memes and act like I'm fine. That's on me. A repost isn't a statement. And a meme isn't a spine. Do you think that's AI? I don't know. A meme isn't a spine. It's very like chat GPT. Like a this isn't a this. And a this isn't a this. Yeah. We haven't really yet gotten to the meat of the statement, obviously. But a repost isn't a statement. Isn't that literally what it is? Quite literally a statement. Also, it's interesting in this manifesto, as you call it. She begins by, distancing herself from the post she reposted. But obviously to those who've read the statement, she then, I guess, adopts it again. That's the thing. I actually think this is like a really fitting intro to the rest of what she says. Because what she's saying here is like, I wouldn't have said it that way. And the stop anti-Semitism people, you know, calling the Macklemore thing, you know, saying that he turned Ed Sheeran's concert into a nightmare for Jews. That's a little harsh. That's a little crazy. Like, I don't know. I wouldn't say that. This is coming from like an openly like right-wing Zionist group, which is like distinct from what I'm about to tell you, which I think is important to keep in mind. She continues. Social media makes all of us cheap and fast, and we all know it. But I'd rather be disagreed with for what I actually said than hated for what anybody else wrote. So let me say it. I was born a Jew. I didn't pick it and I've never hidden it. And this week, a whole lot of people decided what I believe without asking me, without checking a single thing I've ever said or done. Wrong. I've been all over what she's said and done. I know what she thinks. Sorry, continue. Because of a repost and the word Jew, where apparently enough, like the zeroing in on the word Jew is killing me. Anyway, because of a repost and the word Jew, where apparently enough to fill in the rest. But let me fill it in myself. Of course, I don't speak for Israel, for any government. I never have. What I said in October 2023 is still exactly what I believe. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Palestinians deserve a future that honors their humanity and their aspirations. Protecting innocent life comes first everywhere and nobody should ever celebrate the death of a child. Anybody's child. I spent a decade as a UNICEF ambassador for kids who did not choose the country or the way they were born into. There's like an undertone here. We can talk about it. And I have grieved every one of them on both sides of that fence. I didn't do it from behind the screen. I went to those children and held them. I'm not going to litigate a complex war in an Instagram caption. And I'm not going to recite anybody's slogan to earn back a follower. Discussion one, liberal Zionism. So this felt like Mohammed Baib to me. She writes, protecting innocent life comes first everywhere and nobody should ever celebrate the death of a child. Anybody's child. So just to kick us off here, liberal Zionism is the flavor of Zionism Pink deals in. Liberal Zionists believe that the existence of a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine, which creates second-class citizens of Palestinians through an apartheid system, is compatible with other human rights-based causes, which Pink frequently boasts her support of. Liberal Zionists think that the maintenance of a Jewish ethnostate is in itself a civil rights cause, alongside things like LGBT rights and anti-racism. And liberal Zionists believe that the problem with Israel is not Zionism, but a perversion of Zionism by Israel's far right, represented by leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben-Gavir, etc. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind how seriously Netanyahu has damaged first and foremost Israel. And second, the perception that people, not just in the United States, but around the world, have of Israel. We'll get into that in a bit. But the leaders I just listed show an open disdain for Palestinians. Two weeks ago, Israeli Security Minister Itmar Ben-Gavir tweeted an AI-generated video showing Palestinians being loaded by Israelis into a slaughterhouse on a conveyor belt. Liberal Zionists like Pink, Pink, in supposed contrast, professed their sadness over the deaths of innocent Palestinians. They mourn the loss of Palestinian children whose deaths, they say, could have been avoided if it weren't for the leadership of certain Palestinian adults, certain non-innocent Palestinians. Now, I say this as Mohammed bait because for people unfamiliar with your work, much of it deals in this categorizing of Palestinians as innocent versus not innocent. People who deserve it versus people who don't. And when I read Pink's invocation of the word innocent, my Mohammed Al-Kurd senses began to tingle. I think you're absolutely right. There is a tendency in the, I think, in liberal Zionist spaces and in many of the Western spaces and Arab spaces, to be frank, that are sympathetic to Zionist tendencies. You know, I think wholesale all-Palestinian life is condemned to death, but there are other ways of doing it. There are the Palestinians that deserve to be mourned. And then there are Palestinians that we are forbidden from mourning. And it seems that she puts children in that camp. But what I found even more grating about the, or infuriating about the statement is the implication of the line. She says, I've been a UNICEF ambassador for kids who did not choose the country or the war they were born into. As if to say, you know, by saying the country, as if to say it's not their fault that they're Palestinian. Still problematizing the fact that they're Palestinian. And this is like a liberal tendency we see among many self-professed Zionists or human rights believers. And, you know, you mentioned B'Tzalel Smotrich and Etamar Ben-Gvir. And I want to point out the fact that Etamar Ben-Gvir, to be exact, is Israel's policies literally personified. What I find so funny and frustrating at the same time is that people like Pink may have an issue with his venom and his vitriol and the way he talks about it. And the way he spits things and the way he's saying things bluntly. But what he is so often saying is just a mere reflection of like Israeli policies, systematized violence that is codified into law, right? He once got on television and he said, Jewish life and Jewish security is more important than Palestinian life. And then somebody from the White House bemoaned that statement as unacceptable, even though that is literally Israeli law. Whereby Jewish life is literally more valuable and more precious than Palestinian life. So it seems as though Pinks and the likes have no issue with what kind of blood is at the hands, what kind of violence is at the hands of these Israelis. They just want them to wear a glove while committing it. Hmm. Is there anything else I should tease out in that statement? Because a repost and the word Jew were apparently enough to fill in the rest. But let me fill it in myself not to be snarky, but one of the other things that really came through in this essay from Pink is not just how problematic her beliefs are, but like this is going to be snarky, but like how insufferable of a person she seems to be. It's just it's all of this. Like you put words in my mouth based on the Instagram story that I posted and nobody knows what I think because nobody asked. And I'm not going to tell you what I think. I'm just going to keep alluding to the fact that I think something. I would like to take a quick break from the show to give a shout out to the sponsor of today's episode. This podcast sponsors and patrons help make the show free for all of you. So if you'd like to check out the sponsor, you can check out the sponsor. If you would like to use the next 90 seconds to zone out, look at the sky, go take a pee break. I can't tell you what to do with your time, nor what. i like to you know how commercials work anyway. Shout out to the sponsor of today's episode, Rocket Money. There is really never a bad time to get a hold of your finances. And if you've been on the lookout for a really easy way to do that, Rocket Money might be the right tool for you. And I get it. Budgeting sucks. Reviewing your own bills sucks. 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Here's what I was reacting to. I was in the room at the Grammys in 2014 when Macklemore rapped same love and 33 couples, gay and straight, got married to it. And I cheered. No questions asked. Four months later, Macklemore put on a hooked nose, a black beard, and a bowl cut, performed in it, and called it a quote, random costume. Every Jew I know, knew exactly what it was. The same love, it turned out, had a guest list, and we weren't on it. This is AI. It's AI. This is AI. I think it's AI. But he apologized, and I let it go. Because that's what we do. We let it go. Then last weekend, he stood in front of a stadium full of music-loving families with violent images from a war on the screens. Dedicated a song, to the movement of his choice. So dismissive. And then took the mic to tell all of the Jews in the stadium that it wasn't about them. You don't get to decide that for us. That's what prompted my repost. Not free Palestine, and not anyone's right to say it. I have never asked for another artist to be silenced, and I'm not asking now. Well, I don't need anyone fired, and I don't need anyone fired. I don't need a refund. I do believe that she does not need money. What I need is to be able to say, as a Jewish mom, that scared me, and it scared people I love. Without being told our fear is just propaganda, and without being told I'm somehow cool with genocide because I noticed. Discussion two, Zionist feelings. I just first want to get out of the way the 2014, McElmore Jew face costume. Have you seen this? No, but the photo, the way she described it, I was like, doesn't sound that crazy, but the photo is a bit hilarious. The photo is crazy. The photo is crazy. And McElmore, like, God bless you. I think you've done all the right things lately. This is crazy. She let it go. Why is she bringing it up now? I thought she let it go. I think we all know why she's bringing it up now. But just to clear the air on that really quickly, because I don't necessarily think that we can continue without just, like, explaining what happened here. So basically, in 2014, McElmore performed a pop-up concert as part of a larger multi-artist exhibition in Seattle, where he wore this wig, a stick-on beard, and a very large prosthetic nose. It looks, I mean, undeniably like a Jewish caricature, like an antisemitic. It looks like a Jewish caricature, like an antisemitic. Okay, first of all, he immediately apologized for this. He explained that he was trying to disguise himself, as my understanding is the concert was, like, a secret until it happened. He said, quote, I respect all cultures and all people. I would never intentionally put down anybody for the fabric that makes them who they are. I love human beings, love originality, and happen to love a weird outfit from time to time. Accidental Jew face. I mean, who among us hasn't? I think this was accidental Jew face. If McElmore is someone who had, like, an even remotely robust history of, like, flirting with, like, actual antisemitism, antisemites, like, anti-Semites, I just think if he was, like, trying to be a discreet anti-Semite, I feel like only someone who would never, ever actually apologize for being antisemitic, someone like a Nick Fuentes, would do this and then not, you know, apologize for it immediately. Yeah, and the apology seems really sincere and mature, and I'm of the mind that people should be forgiven once they apologize. Not to make decisions for Jews, but that just made too sense. None of this is why we're even here. Yeah. Like, Pink wrote, like, I forgave him, and you know who forgave him? The ADL. You know what's interesting also is that if you look at what is now defunct, the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, their prime strategy or tactic is you cannot debunk the message, so you must debunk the messenger. You cannot discredit the message, so you discredit the messenger. And this is exactly what she's doing. She's deflecting. Instead of responding to the content of what he said, she's deflecting by bringing up something from, like, over maybe 10 years ago, which is classic Zionist tactics. People are only bringing this up now because of the Israel conversation, so let's get back to that. When Pink quotes in this statement, Macklemore saying that this isn't about Jews, told Jews this wasn't about them, but he doesn't get to decide that for us, she seems to be inferring that his comment was dismissive of Jews, but it wasn't. The opposite was true. To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters, criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you. My message is for peace, love, for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality. Pink's categorization of him saying that is he told Jews it wasn't about us. You know, I think Macklemore's statement in response to being dropped from the Ed Sheeran concert was so, so, so, so masterful and selfless, and I was so amazed by it, and I think reached out to him directly. But I will say that this bit of this speech that you just played right now actually kind of, I find to be a bit unstrategic, because to me it's irrelevant whether or not criticism of Israel is offensive to Jews. And I don't think the holding of hands and the coddling and, the prioritizing, for good intention, the prioritizing of Jewish feelings is helpful to anyone, because what it does is that again, it takes away the light, and it takes away the focal point and the centrality of the genocide at hand to talk about, you know, what I consider to be a very secondary conversation, a very side conversation. This is not a critique against him or anybody who does these things in good faith. I know so many people that do this, but I famously read in a book about why I think it's, it's a bad strategy in the long-term because again, it reinforces the idea that Palestinian advocacy needs to be pre-approved by Jews in order for it to be valid. And I take issue with that, to be honest. I also think it's a bad strategy in the short term for reasons that are very evident in this essay. You know, Zionists have created this like impossible, discursive dilemma where they constantly tell us that it is anti-Semitic, to hold Jews worldwide responsible for the actions of the Zionist regime, thereby conflating Jews with Israel, which, which I agree. Yeah, of course. As much as like, I feel, I feel responsible just because it's being done in my name as a Jewish person. But, but, but broadly, I agree. It's like, you shouldn't go up to a Jewish person and start yelling at them about what they personally are doing to the Palestinians without knowing anything about their stances on anything. Like, I think that could be anti-Semitic for sure. But when anti-Zionists like McLemore explicitly say, explicitly separate their criticism of Israel from Jews, here we have Zionists like Pink cry anti-Semitism regardless, insisting that it is in fact not up to McLemore to decide when Jews and Israel can be conflated. And I think this is like a perfect encapsulation of the centrality of Zionist feelings, however incoherent, in the global debate over Israel and Palestine. And emphasis on the word feelings, by the way, because I feel like that gets lost in the noise of these conversations. is that we are more often than not talking about feelings and sentiments, not lives, not bodies. We're talking about feelings. And so the feelings of Zionists are given primacy over the lives and very often the mutilated bodies of Palestinians. And that is a crazy, like you said, to use your word, it's a crazy dilemma that we're in, that we're constantly having to address feelings while bombs are raining down on us. Even Macklemore, like so explicitly being like, I'm not blaming Jewish people. And then Pink just insisting that he's blaming Jewish people. And it's like, well, you can't win. The goalpost keeps changing. And this is like the lesson we need to learn is that there is no appeasing them. It's not that they have an issue with how we advocate. It's that they have an issue with the fact that we advocate at all. This was evident in her, you know, October 7th solution to the peace in the Middle East, where she's like, any protests are bad and a pogrom. Do you want to talk more about the politics of like appeal? Yeah, I mean, that's great that you bring it up. I think, you know, we have been, particularly after the first Intifada and the second Intifada in the 70s and 80s and in the early 2000s, after like a period of plane hijackings and suicide bombings and various ways of violent resistance. And also this is post 9-11. We have portrayed largely as violent terrorists. And many of our Palestinian, not ancestors, but like the generations before us, and also many of our allies and like well-meaning journalists and diplomats and activists have sought a toolbox that seeks to resituate the Palestinian from the category of the demonized, the category of the terrorist into a category of the victim. And the hope was by resituating the Palestinian in that category, the Palestinian would then be seen as a human being and then would be seen as deserving of human rights, dignity, freedom, equality, and whatnot. Unfortunately, of course, that toolbox, unfortunately, of course, that toolbox, was born out of necessity, but it has been, it has proved to be myopic because just as portraying the Palestinian as a terrorist is dehumanizing and, you know, a one-dimensional portrayal, so is portraying the Palestinian as a victim because it says that we can only enjoy a very limited affect in order to be seen as human beings. And if we are to be angry or if we are to be hateful or hate our oppressors or whatever, we would then be condemned to death, essentially. And some of the, what I call the politics of appeal are like an over-reliance on Jewish voices. You know, instead of saying this human rights organization says this, you must say this Israeli or even Israeli human rights scholars say this because their Israeliness or their Jewishness gives their testimony a lot more validity. Now, in the short term, that may convince a racist who doesn't believe Palestinian testimony of the fact that Israel's crimes are true. But in the long term, what it does is that it, it reinforces the hierarchy of testimony that we're dealing with in the first place. And it does not challenge the problem at hand, which is the racism or at least the racial bias that exists in the listener, the viewer, the reader that prevents them from taking Palestinian testimony and interrogating it. Another attempt to appeal would be like, you know, the highlighting of women's children's deaths over Palestinian men's deaths. And that, what it does, in short and brief, what it does is that, one, it takes away the agency of women and children. And it takes away the agency of women and children. And it robs them and erases their contributions to our cause and to our history, to our very, very, very diverse history. But at the same time, it condemns Palestinian men to die. It says that Palestinian men are presumably fighters and fighters are presumably always supposed to die. And those, those tactics, again, most of the time they come from a good place and attempt to outsmart or outwit the system, the very Zionist, the very racist system. But they fall short. I think it's time that all of us are a lot, a lot more dignified in our approaches. And we don't, I think we can learn this, like from the black movement, we can learn this from feminist movements. We can be a lot more dignified in the sense that we can root our politics in self-respect and we can approach the world with a politics that does not shrink us and does not belittle us in order to coddle our oppressors. You know, it's so interesting to the constant need to cite Jewish voices. And like, on one hand, I get it because what Zionists do, essentially is identity politics where it's, you know, they'll say things like, you know, if you're not Jewish, you can't speak on this. And so this has, of course, created a very loud vocal contingent of Jews who do speak on this because like, I am personally of the belief that like it's a moral duty. And also if these people, if their priority is stopping anti-Semitism as they so often claim, and as is sometimes actually the name of their group, I think the best way that we can curb anti-Semitism, which, you know, anti-Semitism is bad. I think a genocide is worse, but if we, you know, if we're talking about anti-Semitism, I think it's probably actually really wise to loudly distinguish Jews from the actions of the state committing the genocide. But regardless of all of that, like one of the reasons I'm really moved by you and our dynamic is we're like the same age. And just having known you for some time, I think that like a lot of things about us are similar. I think we're both very dry. You, I think are drier than me, but still political and makeup gurus. We're both, yeah, exactly. But we were born in different places and that has shaped our biggest differences. So much of why I get credibility as a voice in online politics at all is because I'm a Jew talking about this and I'm grateful for that. But also to your point, like it's unfair, it's unearned, but it's also fair. And I think that's what's so interesting about it. And I think that's why I think it's so important that we're all in this together. And that's why I think we're all in this together. And I think that's why I think we're all in this together. - Yeah, I think we exist in a world in which your Jewishness is a currency. And I think it would be foolish if you're someone interested in the Palestinian cause. I think it would be foolish of you to just abandon that currency or not exploit that currency. I think it's actually quite wise to use the access you have into certain rooms and certain dinner tables that I may never access. I think that's quite wise and that's the strategic thing to do, and that's the strategic thing to do, but you must also name the elephant in the room. but you must also name the elephant in the room. And that's, I think what you've been doing. And I think that's what many people have been doing and must continue to do is that the elephant in the room being that the reason why your testimony holds being that the reason why your testimony holds a lot more weight is because of anti-Palestinian racism, is because of Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism. is because of Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism. And just naming it is enough to get the listener And just naming it is enough to get the listener And just naming it is enough to get the listener to question their bias. to question their bias. I am not of the mind that only Palestinians I am not of the mind that only Palestinians should speak on Palestine. should speak on Palestine. I do not believe at all in any identitarian framework or identity reductionist beliefs. or identity reductionist beliefs. But I think, you know, the issue again becomes But I think, you know, the issue again becomes if you are only citing people because of their Jewishness. Because sometimes the things that are cited are so comical. Like sometimes people will cite Ishaq Rabin Like sometimes people will cite Ishaq Rabin Like sometimes people will cite Ishaq Rabin to make a pro-Palestinian point. to make a pro-Palestinian point. And that is so humiliating to see. was worth running to the internet and you know talking about how she felt scared and i think this is like a particularly egregious example of this but sentiments like this the like i heard a chant and i felt scared or you know i saw a keffiyeh on a cashier and i felt scared stop anti-semitism get them fired get them banned it's like these sentiments specifically in the united states have like both prevented conversation about ending a genocide and have simultaneously like upheld this standard where we continue to fund genocide i think you know people like this barlow woman and pink and whatever because of the the presumable influence they have people like jonathan greenblatt of course i think they use these uh tactics and this this fear as a way to delegitimize palestinian palestinians and to pile on the ground to palestinians and whatnot but i do want to stop and say that i do think these feelings are real not to say that they are legitimate not to say that they are valid but they are real i think i think largely many many jewish people feel these feelings and it is because in my opinion they have been many jewish people this is not since the beginning of time i think this is largely after the holocaust and after the world war ii many jewish people have been uh brought up with let's say bedtime stories that are so one-dimensional people do not hear about jewish resistance to the holocaust they don't hear about uh you know a happy ending to the jewish story don't hear about the fact that they have you know been able to establish a state been able to climb up the ranks of the social order they don't hear about these things they hear a very one-dimensional story about the holocaust and they also hear constantly that it that it can happen again at any time despite them living in high rises despite them never setting foot in palestine despite all of the privilege and wealth and protection in the world access and whatnot the holocaust could happen at any time and that is of course this perpetual victimhood is of course the pretext that allows israel to legitimize their perpetual warrior sins that allows them to be in constant war with everybody but it's a complete it's completely irresponsible and it's such a betrayal to the jewish people to have this kind of genesis story or like self-conceptualization that is entrapped into victimhood and i think we're all susceptible this kind of thing and all marginalized people could fall into that trap but it's really important to point this out i mean a few years ago actually i was listening to a lecture by this zionist woman and she had cited a survey for for different reasons but she had cited a survey that after the 1967 naxa the 1967 war the six-day war after israel was able to occupy many arab lands in egypt syria and in palestine and was able to defeat many arab armies there was a survey of american jewish public opinion and it was a survey of american jewish public opinion and it was a survey of american jewish public opinion and over 90 percent of the people who took the survey said that they believed that a second holocaust was afoot that is insane that's an insane thing to think that like you just so gloriously won this massive war so succinctly won it and you think that your death is at the door and because these feelings are are real it doesn't mean that we have to coddle them at all i think the appropriate thing if people are imagining things appropriate thing is to not coddle them it's actually reject them to actually say this is not the truth this is not reality and you are in a lot of ways delirious i mean in psychology people call this apophenia which is seeing patterns where they don't exist like literally the free parking sign if you just hear the the word free palestine and you hear jewish genocide that is on you right i mean i can talk to you about a different example of that but i don't know if you can tell me what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what you're talking about but i don't know what The hysterics of white people as the era of apartheid South Africa came to an end. Like they genuinely believed their lives were under siege because of multiculturalism. I was getting dinner with a friend recently who had just returned. She's Palestinian and she can't go to Palestine because of her work, you know, because she would probably get kidnapped by Israel trying to visit her own family. But she was recently in Jordan for the wedding of an extended family and she returned home and she brought me back a keffiyeh that she had gotten there, which was very kind. We were standing outside of the restaurant after dinner and she put it on me. She was like showing me how to fold it correctly because I didn't fold it correctly. And we were standing there in the middle of midtown Manhattan and this like visibly Orthodox Jewish woman and her family walked past us, made eye contact with me, saw what we were doing and her eyes got so wide. And she like started yelling at me. Do you know what happened to you? And I could tell she was genuinely experiencing some sort of like anxiety attack over seeing my friend put a keffiyeh around my neck. And it was the craziest thing. We said nothing to her. We didn't even look in her direction. It is this like it's like a form of psychosis. It's fully it's fully psychosis. And that is not to like use it as a slur or like derogatorily. It is clinical. This kind. Of derangement. It's clinical. It's like mass psychosis and it needs to be addressed. And the fact that organizations like the ADL and like sub-antisemitism exploit this like existential fear that exists within the Jewish community. It's so irresponsible, but obviously quite strategic because we continue to coddle it instead of calling it out for what it is. I think words have meanings and safety. You know, it's very often weaponized by right wing forces to take away people's liberties. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And to that end, I saw I saw yesterday Jonathan Greenblatt, who we talked a lot about him and the ADL in another episode of this podcast. Jonathan Greenblatt's salary at the Anti-Defamation League, which did begin in earnest as a civil rights organization and has descended into a de facto PR agency for the Israeli government. He makes in his capacity as the CEO of this nonprofit one point four million dollars a year and the ADL. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What? One point four million dollars. One point four million dollars a year to get on Twitter and complain about Hassan Piker. Are they hiring? But like the ADL's whole thing is that every year they release an anti-Semitism audit where they will tell you incidents of anti-Semitism across this country have skyrocketed four million percent this year. Mind you, you know, if you go in and look at the various incidents of anti-Semitism, it's all like, you know, kid at Columbia University wore a free Palestine shirt. Also, the category for the ADL, the category for what is included as anti-Semitism is so expansive. I remember one time when I was writing an article for The Nation, I said, like, the occupation's tentacles, blah, blah, blah. And my editor was like, that's an anti-Semitic trope to talk about Jews and octopuses and whatever. So I then went and tried to learn more about the Jewish tropes. And there are so many, but also like many dictators. There's many, whatever, political leaders, many political opponents have called each other names. The octopus has been used for so many different movements, and yet somehow it makes it into the ADL guidebook as a specifically anti-Jewish trope. Yeah. And that happens with so much. It's unbelievable. And it's all like instilling fear in the broader Jewish population because these statistics get disseminated far and wide. And then it helps the ADL fundraise. And it helps Jonathan Greenblatt make $1.4 million every year. Not to get too far down, like, the nonprofit industrial complex, but just, my God. Pink, you have been victimized by the ADL. Join the club, sister. Doesn't she have a song about supergirls? Yeah, she does. The call is coming from inside the house. She continues. And please don't talk to me like I've never stood up for my beliefs when it was unpopular. In the middle of the Gulf War. In 2006, I put out a song called Dear Mr. President and sang it every night on tour while my country was in a war I didn't support. And I took the hate for it. And I sang it anyway because my sharp criticism was of a government, not the flawed country I love and who my dad fought for. So I said that this episode wasn't going to be like a biographical, like, pink episode. And so far, I have stayed true to that. However, I do. I just want to talk a little bit about this because, first of all, in the middle of the Gulf War in 2006, you know when the Gulf War was? The 90s. Yeah, the Gulf War was 1990. I thought she meant, I don't know why, I thought she meant the invasion of Iraq. That's what she does mean. But she says, huh. But she calls it, she says in the middle of the Gulf War in 2006. Maybe she thinks Iraq is in the Gulf. I actually did not. It didn't even, like this, I did not even occur to me. to me i just read it as an invasion right off in the middle of covid in 2013 so you know the gulf war was in 1990 it seems like she meant the iraq war which is what her song dear mr president was about three years after the u.s invasion of iraq which happened in 2003 pink released dear mr president a protest of then president george bush pink in the song lambast george bush for his opposition to gay rights his failed education policy no child left behind and most notably his support for the iraq war which we were three years into now i have a little tangent about this if that's okay yeah please i don't doubt that pink received some backlash for this song i'm sure she did but i think it's worth examining given pink's current assertion that this song is evidence of her progressive political bona fides what the reception to the song really was i found an article written about this song from 2006 in the guardian written by caroline sullivan who wrote curiously nobody appeared to object when the tune made its initial appearance on her album i'm not dead it was only a week ago when a clip of her singing it at a concert appeared on the website youtube on the website youtube on the website youtube very quaint very quaint passions became inflamed dear mr president became youtube's second most viewed video of the week with 172 780 hits for that to be the second most viewed video of the week on youtube early youtube was charming it was 1990 to go for yeah that's right that's right and some hundreds of comments some of these praised her outspokenness but others were very anti-pink another one wrote pink is a stupid girl keep that shit to yourself one said succinctly whore uh well that's bad i don't think anyone should comment whore on pink's video of her performance of dear mr president i don't think people should say keep that shit to yourself i don't agree with the people who did that but you know as we all know and like i mentioned at the top of the episode you can say just about anything on the internet and get a bunch of shit for it and the reality was that the vast majority of americans did not support the iraq war by 2006 when this song came out a cnn poll from that year showed 34 percent of americans supported the war down from over 70 percent who supported invading iraq in 2003 when the chicks then the dixie chicks famously spoke out against it and had their careers destroyed as a result according to gallup george bush's approval rating in may of 2006 two months after this song was released was 31 nearly his lowest ever and several percentage points lower than donald trump's current approval rating which we all know is extraordinarily low because of how much people across the political spectrum don't want the iran war the guardian article that we just read from had 34 comments posted in 2006 and they were almost all positive even if tinged with misogyny jackie chung wrote i don't like pink's horrible grating poor me music but she deserves some credit and at least it's not another insipid ballad about how tortured or strung out she is so anyway i don't think this song is bad and i'm sure some people were really mean to her about it and i'm not trying to be pedantic but i do think pink is trying to retroactively insert herself into a sort of dixie chicks narrative that just does not apply 2003 was not 2006 at the point in which she made this song the anti-bush sentiment that she was espousing in the song was overwhelmingly popular and i don't think this is evidence of the bravery that she thinks it is i think it was safe for her to make that kind of song and also if the backlash comes with a lucrative record deal i'll gladly take the backlash which i think is the piece of information she seems to be constantly dismissing is her wealth and power you were not a martyr in making an out like maybe perhaps a platinum album that earned you lots and lots of money and you're not a martyr for singing a political song at what i assume was a very lucrative tour you were uh commodifying that political sentiment into a lucrative product thank you very much for for opposing the as you call the gulf war but it wasn't at your expense miss pink we know that the chicks aren't nearly as famous today as they could have been but they're not as famous as they could have been and as they were when they were pushed out of the mainstream pop scene uh because of their actual brave stance against the invasion of iraq when it was popular like yeah pink making this statement it's like it doesn't make sense because it's like well if it was really brave and so against the grain then why are you still one of the you know top touring artists in the united states because of the the jumps the jumping jacks she does oh yeah the flipping around her brain shook around a little bit too much so i got you there that's funny pink continues i stood with gay kids before it was fashionable and with trans kids now and when it isn't and with their family when it oh sorry when it isn't and with their families sorry what i stood with gay kids before it was fashionable i think this was and with trans kids now when it isn't i stood with gay kids before it was fashionable and with trans kids now when it isn't and with their families and i handed out the books that got banned and you know i got called every name there is and i do all of it again tomorrow i have stood up for other people's people my whole career and i know exactly what it costs and now i'm standing up for my own people and i thought i knew going in how lonely that would be and it's lonelier than that but i'm doing it anyway can i can i just say something about that last line please that really grinds my gears to say that oh standing up for lgbt or black people whatever was was lonely uh but standing up against so-called jew hate is even lonelier there's the zionist tendency to exceptionalize jewish suffering over any other kind of suffering that is so insane and so racist to to say that anti-semitism is somehow exceptional and is somehow more harmful or more painful than other forms of bigotry and other forms of racism and this is not something that pink invented by the way this is official israeli narrative that is echoed largely by mainstream jewish american organizations i remember recently being in a in an in the archives and picking up a book written by an israeli scholar in the early 1990s and the first chapter was about how anti-semitism is worse than anti-black racism and detailed the ways in which anti-semitism is worse than anti-black racism and it's it goes into like empirical detail to to make this crazy racist point so when i first read this i was immediately transported back to october 2023 when a one other liberal zionist amy schumer posted uh one of the most abhorrent celebrity posts celebrity takes of that time which went very viral at the time and which has been essentially rewritten here into pink's statement verbatim here is the here is the poem that amy schumer shared in the shape of a jewish star oh my god first they came for lgbtq and i stood up because love is love then they came for immigrants and i stood up because families belong together then they came for the black community and i stood up because black lives matter then they came for me but i stood alone because i am a jew that's insane like again just saying because i am a jew i am alone like that exceptionalization is so insane that is verbatim what pink has written literally and i'm alone and it's i knew it would be lonely and it's lonelier than that but i'm doing it anyway i noted that her invoking her support for gay people in this what happens when a pink invokes gay people in her argument in support of israel call that pink washing pink washing hey what happened to fun oh i just got the joke sorry oh my god i am so oh my god that is embarrassing no no it was it was it's a bad joke it's a bad joke no it's great wonderful joke pink continues something has changed in this country and you can read it in my own comments not really anymore because she limited them and now the only comments come from gal gadot but anyway you can read it in my own comments quote from the river to the sea zionist spat like it's a slur it is by people who couldn't tell you the details of what i believe because i hadn't told them yet i wasn't asked i was told girl what i don't think most of them hate jews i think somebody handed them a story where the jew who won't apologize for existing must be the villain and they've been putting words in my mouth ever since But I've been portrayed as the villain before. This is so like Taylor Swift reputation. But I've been portrayed as the villain before. I can take it. I just won't take it quietly. And I'm not going to teach my kids to. They need singers like me. This is what I mean where it's like, okay, yes, the belief system she's espousing here is one thing. But like the personality that is really seeping through these words is another. Just a bit dated. Chapter whatever we're on. Is Zionist a slur? It should be. It should be. The argument here that she's making is that people don't know what Zionist means. Right. And they're using it as a slur. But people do not know what we Zionists believe. And the rebuttal to that, the very logical rebuttal is that there is no definition. There's no first of all, in genocide, there's no room for like wishful definitions of Zionists or generous definitions of Zionism. Zionism is simply what it does. You know, because if you look at history, if you look at the word fascist today or the word Nazi today at the time of its inception, like if you look at the etymology of the words, these words to their owners, you know, to the to the people who've coined them, they meant positive things. I mean, Nazis is a shortening of the national socialist fascist is also its own system. That was meant a certain positive thing to its, you know, the peoples who have coined these terms. And then throughout history, they held these negative connotations because of the actions of their supporters and members and whatnot. And now they are derogatory and they are a slur. Rightfully so. They should be slurs. And I think Zionism, a movement that is defined by its material, tangible actions, being occupation, apartheid, and most recently, literal genocide, should be a slur. A movement that is so expansionist, that is so racist, that is so, so supremacist. That advocates for the robbery of people's lands, for the robbery of people's livelihoods should be a slur and people should be ashamed that they're Zionists. I think in some liberal Zionist spaces, but also in some progressive spaces, Jewish and otherwise, there is, I hear sometimes a discussion about should we ostracize liberal Zionists or should we ostracize Zionists on the fence by creating a wholesale rejection of Zionism? And the theory of change. The theory of change there is that if you actually hold simultaneously that Zionism as a movement is behaving badly now, but it also could mean positive things, then maybe you can win people over. I personally think that's horrific and insulting. But also, I would accept that kind of grace from people if they would extend it to Nazis, if they would extend it to fascists. But that kind of complexity would never be applied to Nazis and fascists, rightfully. I think, but it would never be it's, it's only in the Jewish context, that something so horrific and violent, materially, tangibly, not abstractly, something so violent, is allowed this kind of grace and this kind of space to exist in its multi, like diverse definitions. It's, it's really insulting. 100%. And, you know, in my notes, what I wrote here is that like, in its most basic, like etymological sense, like it's, it's not. It's not a slur. It's a neutral descriptor of someone who supports the political ideology of Zionism. I think the misalignment is like, what is Zionism? Pink has not provided us with her definition of Zionism, but her friend and collaborator, the former Israeli envoy to combat anti-Semitism and the delegitimization of Israel, that was her official title, has provided us with that definition. The definition she often employs is a Zionist go-to. What is Zionism? Zionism is the Jewish people's right to self-determination in parts of their ancestral homeland, Israel. Seems innocent enough. But the problem is, anyone can define the movement that they support any way they want to. Riley Gaines doesn't identify herself as someone who hates transgender people. She says she's saving women's sports. Nazis were simply protecting their bloodline. Supporters of women's sports. Reporters of apartheid South Africa said black and white people could be separate but equal, and they simply wanted to preserve cultural identity. And American anti-abortion activists are, of course, protecting the unborn. We're always protecting something. We're always on the defense. If the only people who get to define their own beliefs are supporters of those beliefs, we aren't necessarily going to get an honest answer or one that includes the negative consequences or harm. So I want to ask you. How would you define Zionism? I mean, simply put, I think Zionism is the attempt to establish a Jewish homeland on top of Palestinian land by way of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide. But again, I think even my own definition falls into this problem that you have outlined. The idea is, who is the reliable source, right? Who can be the reliable narrator to define something? Is it its supporters? Is it its opponents? I think neither, really. I mean, maybe I, because Zionism is practiced on my body, I have a very intimate definition of it. Maybe that's an argument that can be made. But I think a better argument, which is not something I've created, by the way. This is a popular political idea. But a system is simply what it does. A thing is simply what it does. If you want to define Zionism, you should look at how it interiorly manifests. And just by opening Twitter, we can see that it manifests through bloodshed. Staying here for a second. And liberal Zionists like Pink generally believe that Zionism is not the problem with Israel. And therefore, you know, using Zionist as a pejorative is anti-Semitic. The problem, they will tell you over and over again, is Benjamin Netanyahu, a warmonger, perhaps even a war criminal, who is undermining the otherwise good-natured Zionist project with his unique callousness towards Palestinians. Here is liberal Zionist Queen Hillary Clinton, who Pink campaigned for and appeared alongside on The Ellen Show in 2015 alongside fellow liberal Zionist Amy Schumer. The 2010s really were crazy, espousing this exact belief on television this week. Look, I have said repeatedly, I love Israel and I hate Netanyahu's government and his policies. I love America and I hate Trump. I hate Trump's government and policies. I think it's bad in the first case for Israel what's happening. And I think it's really bad for the United States what's happening. That's not the full clip. I just find it amazing because I'm like, I think there's also another group of people that it's bad for. So I think we've got to be very clear of the messages we send. Hopefully the Israeli people, especially after this bombshell that came out in the Israeli press, who had been literally called and warned that Hamas was planning something. This was a failure of leadership. This was a failure of, you know, protecting the people of Israel. He'd been told what was going to happen. So if the Israelis want to vote for that again, then I think the United States has to take a very tough position. I can't believe God took Dolly Parton and not our friend here. You're going to get me in trouble. I really can't believe you. You made me listen to Hillary Clinton, by the way. But anyway. I'm sorry. I'm going to Venmo you like reparations for that. Please do. $1.4 million. Genocide is, I always say, is not a one man show. And the attempt to pin all of this bloodshed and killing and murder on Netanyahu himself is an attempt to save this very rotten, very complicit system of Zionists. It's a very. It's a very old tactic. And I think it pleases Netanyahu more than it pleases anyone that he has also given all of this credit and all of this glory for having single-handedly genocided the Palestinian people or single-handedly changed the fate of the Israeli state. But it's obviously a cop-out. And I think it's really important that everybody across the political spectrum to name Zionism as the issue. Same with the Holocaust and same with World War II. I think it was necessary for us to name Nazism as. as the root cause of the bloodshed because that is the only way we could have a process of denazification. Similarly, I should say, we should name Zionism because that then gives us a roadmap or a blueprint or a toolkit or whatever you want to say to how we can clean up this mess anyway, which is by de-Zionization. Zionism exists, not abstractly, it exists through a system, through a set of laws, through a set of institutional protocols that can be traced and erased and uprooted. And that is what these people are getting at by omitting the perpetrator, by pinning all the blame on this individual who will die in the next two decades. It's an attempt to save Zionism and its core as a system. I think that's what's happening here. I think some progressive politicians themselves even know this. I mean, I don't think this is only a Hillary Clinton tactic. We've seen Bernie Sanders. Sanders himself only blame the current israeli government or only netanyahu for genocide and for actions that israel has been doing for seven decades and zionism has been doing for a hundred years yeah and that actually dovetails really well into what sorry that was so npr of me nope that was so like welcome to new york times the interview that dovetails really well into that sorry that was like annoying but that does segue really well into another thing which i so i just sometimes i i get like overly like podcast voice and i just i'm like yeah i was gonna say you have a really good like radio voice i'm delilah welcome back i was gonna say howard's turn but that's probably offensive as hell right i don't know and jew hatred muhammad and jew hatred oh and he's jewish damn sorry i will i'll refund your your venmo 1.4 million dollar reparations payment you - perfect but but that does segue really well into another aspect of this that i wanted to talk about because in an effort to understand what zionism actually is versus what someone like pink wants it to be i want to address the issue of israeli youth the future torchbearers of zionism if netanyahu is a bad seed in an otherwise good ideological apple as shirley believes then the young zionists roaming israel will surely recapture zionism's good-heartedness when their time comes or will they it's understood that in most places and especially in the united states the youngest generations are typically the most progressives that's how you know the arc of history is long but bends towards progress happens what people might not know though is that statistically in israel the opposite is true israeli youth represent the most right-wing age demographic in the state far more right-wing than the generations that preceded them in a recent poll i'm gonna have to check my source i'm gonna have to check my source on this i'll throw it on the screen said 73 or 74 percent of israeli youth identify as right-wing yeah i mean this is really interesting i was talking about this with a friend recently because we're discussing the idea of like how can you change people's minds when this is kind of a country that is uniquely right-wing in terms of where the youth sits on the political spectrum as you just said my opinion is that israeli society is extremely diverse you know because they're essentially all of the jews from all over the world who have come and built a homeland on top of our homes but that diversity means that they're very different also culturally and the one thing the one thing that seems to be connecting them is uh hatred of palestinian people and if you look at uh netanyahu's political history he's often timing his wars on gaza his you know what he what they call mowing the lawn he's often timing it around uh election campaigns there's a positive correlation between him butchering palestinians and his political popularity you earlier mentioned uh etamar benekvir etamar benekvir uh posting an ai generated video of palestinian prisoners on a conveyor belt to be slaughtered that does not exist in a vacuum we are on the brink of israeli elections right now so these things are electoral gimmicks that get these people popularity what i'm going to say next is going to sound a bit absurd and it's going to sound like i'm say i'm using it as a metaphor but in my life my hat my own home my own front yard has been literally turned into the offices of into the makeshift offices of various israeli politicians around the time of elections so you're tomorrow himself had once come into our front door and set up a makeshift office before him an israeli politician named near hassoon did the same thing because that to the israeli public and to israeli youth that signals a commitment to the occupation and now we are on the brink of elections and yet everybody from across the political spectrum in the israeli uh kineset in the israeli political movements all agree on genocide even the left-wing elements all agree on genocide all seem to think that it's not going hard enough because this is the the fabric of israeli identity today it's genocide against the palestinian people and you know i've been like many millions of palestinians in palestinian diaspora have been like the victim of so much uh vitriol but i think i don't often spend time talking about it because obviously there's a priority and primacy to the genocide taking place i think it's bombs are more important but even in my childhood and growing up i knew that it was a very important time for me to walk down the street uh while a group of settler youth is approaching i knew that one day of the year they have what they call uh jerusalem day where they march in our neighborhoods and will literally start stomping on our cars and forcibly opening our doors and going inside our living room and breaking our windows and whatnot i knew that that would happen once a year and that they were doing it under the protection of the police and that generation after generation the violence would only seem to increase and today we're seeing a lot more of that in palestinian villages we're seeing a lot more of that in palestinian villages we're seeing a lot more of that in the occupied west bank we're seeing palestinian village after the next be targeted by israeli settler violence and these are not just police officers they're not just soldiers these are young israeli men who are going out of their way to do pogroms in palestinian villages that tells you something about the quality of political life in israeli society one uh other core definition that zionists will often use is noah tishby the pink colleague that i have mentioned they call israel quote the only democracy in the middle east in an essay for the forward called noah tishby asks how zionism got to be a bad word she repeats this claim as she does many times in her book israel a guide to the most misunderstood country on earth your thoughts on if israel is the only democracy in the middle east there are i think over 60 laws that discriminate against palestinians who have israeli citizenship so even what they call arab citizens of israel cannot enjoy that democracy i want you to highlight that for a second because we sat down like a few months ago and you were explaining to me how this works because one of the retorts that especially liberal zionists will often say is there's palestinian israelis there's arab israelis and they are they have full rights just like jewish israelis yeah i mean that that's obviously a trope the idea that there are arab israelis or palestinian israelis and what not sure you'll you'll see like an uncle tom figure here and there but all palestinians first of all we can't really own land 93 percent of the land of palestinian land is state owned by israel there are over 60 laws that explicitly discriminate against palestinian citizens of israel so-called palestinian citizens of citizens of israel and even if you look at the israeli nation state law which is the closest thing they have to a constitution they say that jewish settlement is the national value to protect and promote if i'm not mistaken in the quotation so they explicitly uh name judaism as the the thing so obviously it's not a democracy but i want to go a step further and say that even if it were a democracy even if the israeli government was truly a true democracy that still would not excuse genocide so the retort itself is irrelevant the idea that we're saying israel is committing genocide and then they respond and say well it's what's what's the only democracy in the middle east that is entirely irrelevant it doesn't matter if it's a dictatorship or a democracy genocide is bad full stop it also strikes me as not even true and this is like obviously secondary but it's not even entirely true for israelis and we saw that this week israeli filmmakers yuval abraham and rachel zor who you might remember from their work on 2024's oscar-winning no other land they just premiered their new documentary nasa which documents the idf's callousness towards killing palestinian civilians upon its premiere at the venice film festival israel's minister of culture mickey zohar wrote on twitter that he will be stripping the citizenship of these two israeli filmmakers for making the film and i i know in the context of like the ongoing genocide against palestinians and all this other stuff it's like i i'm very well aware this is not the biggest thing that's happening right now but it just strikes me as like yet another example of like you know this is not a democracy in any sense and like what zionism and the zionist regime is willing to do to other people like they will do to its own yeah i think 100 i mean part of what this zohar's uh sentiment i think is incentivized by the fact that we have upcoming elections but i think you know it's it's a kind of a popularity tactic the israeli public are very very angry with the with the film and so that makes sense that they would say something like this but even if you look at other racialized populations within israeli society like ethiopian jews uh like yemeni jews they are not included in this democracy and they are discriminated against and we have seen this historically since the 40s and 50s after the nakba and how the israeli government would was literally stealing uh yemeni jewish children and putting them in the hands of ashkenazi families to raise them or like giving eastern jews like impossible conditions to live in or there's been like two two or three weeks ago, there was this protest in an Israeli town saying, you know, people should be allowed to have black skin color, but they shouldn't be allowed to have it in our schools. We don't want our kids going to school with Ethiopians. I mean, that's the thing happening right now in that very lovely society. Sounds democratic. Yeah. Back to Pink. She writes, so to the ones who are furious with me, you don't have to agree with me. You never did. That's been our unspoken agreement for 25 years and it still stands. And so do I. You don't have to agree with one thing Israel's government does to not want the Jewish family two rows down from you to be scared or targeted at a concert. That's the only thing I'm asking anybody for. To the ones who are frightened this week, Jewish or Muslim or Palestinian or Israeli, or just tired of all of it. I see you. Thanks, Pink. And if anybody wants to really know what I think, just ask me. I'm right here. I've never been hard to find. And I'll keep speaking out in my own words. Well, I can't really just ask you, though, because you're pink. You know, there's this phenomenon that I've been noticing for a long time, which has become really glaring lately and which has reared its head throughout this Ed Sheeran. Mess. Essentially, it's where a Zionist can describe their beliefs in a way that sounds deferential to, quote unquote, both sides, but which is very clearly understood by one side as support. The comment section of Pink's Instagram statement, however lukewarm and even keeled someone unfamiliar with Israel and Palestine might have perceived that statement to be quickly became a meeting place for the most hardline Zionists in politics. And culture to celebrate pink, to celebrate each other and to celebrate Israel. I have one screenshot here from thousands of comments of fanatical Israel supporters, I'm sure by their own admission. That's not me, you know, labeling them as anything I don't think they would call themselves. The first comes from your favorite, my girl, Deborah Messing, who said, Shana Tova pink, which a lot of people don't know what that means. It was Rosh Hashanah last week. Shana Tova pink. And I'm sure a lot of people know what Shana Tova means. Happy New Year. It's the Jewish New Year, followed up by Dana Bash, CNN's genocide heir in chief. Shana Tova, here's to a peaceful 5787 for us all. Jonah Platt, Shana Tova, right back. You are so far from alone. Wait, what's 5787? That's the Jewish year. That's like how it's like 2023. But like in or it's not in Jesus years. Yeah. Why did I just say it's 2023? We're stuck there. We're still there. I say 2023. And I mean, last year, you know, I'm still there. You have Deborah Messing, Dana Bash, Jonah Platt, Eve Barlow, Gal Gadot left a comment on this about how supportive she is. And last but not least, just in this shortlist, Israel war room, Israel war room, which is a obviously openly pro Israel sort of war oriented news Instagram account, which thanks pink for speaking out blue heart. They're kind of ADL ask like anytime I've heard a speech at universities, they always reach out to the university would like with a petition to cancel the thing or, you know, stuff like that. Oh, Israel war room does? Yeah, yeah. Well, and so my question here is, it's like pink has written the statement where she's explicitly stated in what we just read, you know, to the ones who are frightened this week, Jewish or Muslim or Palestinian or Israeli, I see you. And so to someone who doesn't know all that much about this, they might be like, well, she's playing to all sides. This is a neutral call for peace, and maybe just her existence as a Jewish person and her right to not be scared at the Ed Sheeran concert. And yet, everyone commenting is like the most hardline pro Israel activist on Instagram. I use the word rhetorical sneakiness, which I think is very, very good word to describe this. Are you familiar with the Israeli project global dictionary of 2009? So the now defunct Israeli strategic affairs, ministry, which is now kind of the Israeli foreign ministry collaborated with a different NGO to create this thing called global dictionary or global dictionary project, in which they have literal language that has been engineered by marketers, one one really famous marketer, but other marketers and marketing agencies, NPR agencies, but also psychologists and whatnot, to make Zionism appeal to different kinds of audiences everywhere. So all of these things that we see like the rhetorical sneakiness in her in her post the attempting to seem balanced or attempting to to cater to both sides, all of these things are engineered, much like you know, the the question about Do you believe Israel has a right to exist? That was explicitly engineered as a distraction to the real discussion in the 60s by that same ministry. And now we have now we have this kind of rhetorical tricks that all is or most Israeli supporters retort to that are meant to distract from the debate or defuse the debate or make them seem neutral. And it's I have to say they're they're quite masterful. I mean, even like when she's saying if you're a Palestinian or Israeli, but also if you're tired of it all, to allude that this is like a fatiguing problem, like a fatiguing issue that people are debating off about, even though it's like 1000s of miles away, and what do I have to do with it? This is, I think, a masterful way of one deep politicizing the issue, but to distancing it from the context of the US, even though it is entirely enmeshed within US politics. And so we see these kinds of rhetorical tactics, you know, when an Israeli politician goes on CNN, they'll say they'll begin their statement by saying, I mourn every civilian life lost. But war is brutal, and shit happens. And so that makes them seem a little bit more reasonable. So they're quite masterful at propaganda, which makes me think that not only did Chachi Petit help her in writing this statement, but I think there was a PR firm or at least people heavily involved in Israeli propaganda that are helping her because they have determined very wisely that this is a propaganda asset. This singer with the edgy haircut, she is a propaganda asset. Oh, I bet, and I'm not even being like cheeky, I bet Noah Tishbe was involved in the construction of this statement. Because we know that she is a professional Israeli propagandist. We know that they are friends. And she even says, you know, in the statement, all I want is the right to say I'm scared, and to not have my fear labeled propaganda. Well, like, I'm sorry, but it is. Yeah, I mean, Noah Tishbe is very, I think, like her elk and like all of these people that come from this tradition of Israeli propaganda. They're a bit better than us at this, you know, like our books are like genocide, Israel's genocide in Gaza, which is true, or very, very transparent. For them, it's like understanding Israel, 10 questions about Israel and Palestine. What do you not know about Israel? And it's, it's, it's very unassuming. It's very neutral sounding. And so it seduces people into picking it up. And it's though it's, it's, I think it's the work of not political scientists, scientists, but the work of marketers who know how to appeal to population because in Israeli set of priorities, I believe they're not interested in appealing to the student population, to populations that are politically engaged, because they understand that the electoral population, the people who vote in general are not necessarily, are not necessarily, are not necessarily, are not necessarily that informed about the Middle East or that interested in the Middle East. So they want to capture the imagination and the attention of someone who's a little bit curious, but not that involved. Because anybody that is truly involved in Middle East politics, this would be a no, no brainer to not, not because of just our scholarship or our ability to communicate ourselves effectively. But because in the presence of so many burning children, it is very hard to make an argument on behalf of Israel. That should be your next book, Palestine, a guide to the most misunderstood country on Earth. Yeah, it's already in the works. That's how you get them. Yeah. And the same sort of like rhetorical sneakiness was running through the text of Ed Sheeran's statement, which we don't have time to get into today. But you know, he literally says, I don't want to take sides. And it literally his statement opened with, I am appalled by the conflict. between Israel and Palestine. The suffering and pain caused on both sides is a human tragedy. This was widely criticized by most of the world, but who liked it? Pink. Because Zionists are smart enough to understand that this supposed neutrality means siding with Israel. And so I guess the question that I pose to people is just like, are you? It's also just to say, I think he, he retorted to this, like, both sides, conflict is bad, blah, blah, blah, out of the rhetorical sneakiness and out of this, like Zionist impulse to appeal to a large population. But also, and I want to emphasize this is because he cannot afford to, at this point in time, three years into a genocide, he cannot afford to make a statement that is explicitly pro-Israel. And neither can Pink. Pink's statement in 2023, the October statement was so explicitly Zionist and pro-Israel. And today, the tide has shifted. So much in the world, not necessarily institutionally, not necessarily policy wise, but the tide in terms of public opinion has shifted so much in the world that She knows she cannot afford to be as openly pro-Israel as she was just three years ago. And I think that is something to look at. A note of positivity, even. Yeah, yeah. Pink concludes, it's Friday. It's not Friday evening. Well, actually, the day that I'm releasing this will be Friday. So it'll be Friday once again. Well, it's Friday. It is Friday. TGIF. For working people who have more to worry about than pop stars and pylons, very chatty VT. I'm telling you. It's the end of a hard week. It's also the 25th anniversary of September 11th. And my prayers are with the innocent souls we lost that morning. And at sundown for Jews, it's Rosh Hashanah, our new year. Now I'm going to go make dinner for my kids, light the candles, dip some apples and honey, pour a glass of wine, and be full of gratitude. That's my tradition. It also happens to be a Jewish one. No, it's explicitly a Jewish tradition. Like, that's not, it's the tradition of Jews. It's not your tradition. That grinds my gears. That's so annoying. It's like me saying Ramadan is my thing. It's not. It's a Muslim thing that I observe as a Muslim. Like, why? Yeah. This ending, that's the end of the statement, by the way. Congratulations. We all got through it together. But I know, I'm like, let me take five paragraphs and spend two hours talking about it. This just killed me. She's like. Like, for working class people who don't want to, who don't want to hear about all this because you guys have jobs. And also, it's 9-11. And Rosh Hashanah. Goodbye. It's like, just throwing spaghetti at the wall here, you know? Yeah. But this, I mean, this line, we've been hearing for so long from Zionist institutions, from even, like, members of the Israeli government, where they treat anyone who cares about this as, like, frivolous. We saw this a lot with the sort of war on college encampment protesters in 2024, where it was like these elite, privileged college students with nothing better to do than to tent out. And Greta Thunberg is actually a rich girl from a rich family. And so she's clearly just, like, wasting her time protesting. And it's very interesting to me that she wraps up this statement with, like, a plea to the working class. Yeah. It's also true. What you were talking about earlier, like, a clever trick, like, it's a psychological trick by way of linguistics to signal to the reader that this is trivial, or this is of no moral urgency or no political urgency. It's a faraway issue that we shouldn't care about and is only cared about by these elites. So it's a way to kind of, again, distance the U.S. from its colonial outpost, frankly, in the Middle East. I want to conclude with just noting what I actually noted. Which is that the day after releasing this statement, which caused a lot of controversy online, but sure did get the support of Gal Gadot, good for Pink. Pink took her nine-year-old child to the U.S. Open, where they were featured heavily as celebrity guests typically are at the U.S. Open. They had professional photos taken of them. Pink wore what I actually think is a very cool jacket. Like, a sort of, like, green wool jacket with embroidered tennis players on it that cost $860. Yes, I did find the jacket. Thank you, reverse image search. And it just, like, it just, like, struck me because this whole statement is about, like, giving deference to Pink's fear. And, like, Pink's fear matters. And the next day, you know, courtside at one of, like, the most prestigious and expensive sporting events to attend. In the United States right now. With her child, who is alive. And one step further, and you might think I'm, you know, really cynical in saying this, and that's fine. It is, it is cynical, but maybe worth mentioning, that it did almost feel to me like her trotting out her child in the professional photo shoot that they had. It did feel like a bit of a wielding of a human shield. 100%. 100%. And I think, again, like we said earlier, it's a bit of a wielding of a human shield. And I think, again, like we said earlier, it's the perfect metaphor for Zionism. Expensive quota, the expensive U.S. Open, while crying online about how unsafe and vulnerable you feel. It's the perfect encapsulation of Zionism as perpetually having victim complex and a warrior stance. It would be comical if it wasn't so offensive and if there weren't so many lives on the line. But I think you're, I want to tell your listeners to just take this as an opportunity to always rule. And I think, again, like we said earlier, it's the perfect encapsulation of Zionism as perpetually having victim complex and a warrior stance. But I think, again, like we said earlier, it's the perfect encapsulation of Zionism as perpetually having victim complex and a warrior stance. And I think, again, like we said earlier, it's the perfect encapsulation.