Noa Tishby, ISRAEL: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth
[0:01]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast, Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[0:06]I'm also the host of Momstone Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology,
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[0:16]I'll proceed to that book, go to COVID-19 Vaccine Research.
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[0:29]And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram, at Zibi Owens, and my website is Zibi Owens.com.
[0:35]Okay, now back to this amazing podcast.
[0:38]I'm delighted to introduce you all to Noah Tischby, if you don't know her.
[0:42]She's the author of Israel, a simple guide to the most misunderstood country on earth.
[0:47]And this conversation was actually taped alive.
[0:51]I had a little lunch for her, and there were about, I don't know, 20-30 women in the room,
[0:56]and so every so often you'll hear laughter and comments and things like that.
[1:00]But I did the interview in that format to kind of get people to get to know Noah in a new context.
[1:06]I was introduced to her by Polly Levine, who's a friend of my moms.
[1:09]And anyway, so that's why it might sound a little different than the usual podcast.
[1:13]But Noah is an Israeli-American author, actress, producer, and activist.
[1:17]Born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel, she got her start in the Israeli Entertainment industry,
[1:22]and the original musical David.
[1:24]She had a drama scholarship from Tel Aviv Museum of Art,
[1:27]and then went on to appear in Israel's leading TV shows, films, theater, and ad campaigns,
[1:32]becoming a household name.
[1:34]She recently appeared in the Showtime drama The Affair and completed shooting on the third season of her talk show, Life by Noah Tischby.
[1:42]As a producer, she made history with the sale of entreatment to HBO, which, by the way, I loved.
[1:49]That was the first Israeli television show to become an American series.
[1:52]She co-produced the 12 Emmy and Golden Globe, nominated, and Peabody award-winning entreatment alongside Mark Wahlberg and Stephen Levinson.
[2:00]Intreatment is currently in its fourth season.
[2:02]With that first sale, she created a market that didn't exist before.
[2:05]The sale of Israeli TV formats in the U.S.
[2:08]Following entreatment, she formed and headed a joint venture between ITV Studios U.S. and Israel's major network,
[2:13]Rashette, to develop, create, and produce TV content made in Israel for the international market.
[2:18]Socially and politically passionate, Tischby, founded, or Noah founded, the first Israel-focused online advocacy and rapid response organization called Act for Israel.
[2:27]And has become a powerful voice for Israel and the Middle East.
[2:30]She initiated a partnership with the Schusterman Foundation in Summit Series, and co-created Reality Israel, a series of leadership trips to Israel for Jews and non-Jews alike.
[2:40]So, listen to our episode, and you will find out so much more about her and her very strong opinions.
[2:47]Welcome Noah. Thank you so much for coming.
[2:50]On mom's don't have time to read books, to talk about Israel,
[2:53]simple guide to the most understood, to the most misunderstood country, not most understood,
[2:58]most misunderstood country on earth.
[3:00]Thank you so much for having me.
[3:01]If it was understood, I wouldn't have had to write the book.
[3:03]Yeah, exactly.
[3:04]We could just offer it.
[3:05]Exactly.
[3:06]Yeah, why about that.
[3:07]But instead, let's have a lunch about it.
[3:08]Let's.
[3:09]So, you described really well in your book, why you were the person to write this, and why we should all care.
[3:14]So, can you just tell everybody a little bit about your background, and why you're the perfect person to write this book?
[3:19]It's not so much that I'm...
[3:20]There are a lot of perfect people to write this book, but I just want to make sure that when people read the book,
[3:24]they're confident that they're not reading a history of Israel, which is obviously slightly complicated by somebody who doesn't have the background.
[3:31]So, I had to make sure that I explained to people that, yes, I...
[3:34]First of all, I'm Israeli-American, so I was born a reason Israel, and I live in the United States,
[3:38]and I started my career in entertainment industry as an actor and producer and a writer and a model and whatever.
[3:43]However, I've been involved in Israel Advocacy, politics, behind the scenes, NGOs, organizations for over a decade.
[3:51]So, it was the first person to start the first online advocacy and rapid response organization, trying to explain to people that what's happening online is not true.
[4:01]That happened in 2011, luckily, it just gotten better since.
[4:06]Now, gotten way worse.
[4:08]So, I wanted to make sure that people are...
[4:10]They know that they can trust me with the story.
[4:12]It's not like a novelty project.
[4:13]I'm like, oh, this producer just decided to write a book about Israel.
[4:16]No, no, no.
[4:17]I've been doing this for a very long time.
[4:18]So, that's the answer to that.
[4:21]And to why would people care is extremely important in my view, because this is not Israel is not...
[4:29]And I know this may sound controversial for people, right?
[4:32]But Israel is not a Jewish topic or an issue.
[4:35]Israel is not a Jewish American.
[4:37]Israel is not about even Justin's Israeli issue.
[4:40]Israel is important for the national security of the United States.
[4:45]Israel is a stabilizing force in the Middle East.
[4:48]And everybody in the Middle East knows this, except Iran and the social justice warriors in the United States.
[4:57]Like legitimately.
[4:58]Those two people have for some reason entities, for some reason, join forces and are acting towards
[5:05]dismantling the single consistent democracy in the Middle East,
[5:09]delegitimizing its right to exist.
[5:12]And they are allowed to do this.
[5:14]First of all, it's intentional.
[5:15]It's not by accident.
[5:16]It's by design.
[5:17]And we've been...
[5:18]And I say we, because we've been a few of us in the advocacy world and in NGOs and in research,
[5:23]we've been trying to warn people about this for a long time.
[5:27]We're like, there is something bad that's happening.
[5:29]It's intentional.
[5:30]It's well-funded.
[5:31]It's political.
[5:32]And it's going to bite us.
[5:34]And it came out in this conflict in the most...
[5:37]The recent conflict with Israel and Hamas in the most obvious of ways,
[5:41]but it's been going on for a very long time.
[5:44]And by not supporting Israel, especially progressives and liberals,
[5:49]they're destabilizing the security of the United States.
[5:53]So that was very important to me to write and to make clear which is why people should care.
[5:58]The reason this was allowed to happen is because of lack of education.
[6:02]The reason that this was allowed to happen is because there are a lot of people on the other side,
[6:08]which is nefarious, well-funded, anti-democratic, anti-Israel, anti-values,
[6:14]anti-United States and Western values that is well-funded on the pro-Israel side,
[6:20]especially within the Democrats, within the left, unfortunately,
[6:24]there has been a sense of confidence and we've been very lucky to not need to know.
[6:33]So within our community and I say our community and the Jewish community,
[6:37]the non-Jewish community, the pro-Israel community that is not Jewish,
[6:40]just to be the normal people, right?
[6:42]None of us thought that Israel would be a questionable issue
[6:46]and because we allowed ourselves to not know the history,
[6:50]we allowed these nefarious forces that have an intent to penetrate, okay?
[6:56]So I wrote the book in order to first and foremost educate the people that want to know.
[7:01]Jewish community, non-Jewish community, people that are like,
[7:04]I'm watching social media and I don't know a lot,
[7:08]but I don't think, I don't think Israel is a genocidal state.
[7:14]Like I don't think Israel is causing ethnic cleansing,
[7:18]but I really don't know how to answer that question.
[7:22]Like I really don't think that's true, but I don't know what to say about it.
[7:25]This is what the book is for.
[7:27]Get your facts right, get educated, and then you'll be able to actually know
[7:31]first of all what it is that you should say in second why this is all happening.
[7:35]We were talking earlier about sort of underdog culture,
[7:39]and that people maybe on social media are leaning against this viewpoint
[7:44]because they want to support,
[7:46]they view Israel somehow is not the underdog at all.
[7:49]They perceive it as the strong,
[7:51]and it's not that it's weak, Israel is not weak,
[7:54]but presenting, first of all,
[7:57]the narrative that you have to be either pro-Israel or pro-Palestine is ridiculous.
[8:02]It's ridiculous.
[8:03]This is like one-sided, it's, again, it's intentional,
[8:07]not a single person within Israel or within the pro-Israel community is like,
[8:11]I would say, I'm against Palestinians.
[8:13]It's ridiculous, right?
[8:15]So first and foremost, nobody would say that.
[8:18]So first and foremost, that's the case.
[8:19]And they're trying to present it as if you're either or.
[8:21]Like you literally, you post on social media Shabbat Shalom
[8:24]and the Palestinian flags in return.
[8:26]Like, what happened?
[8:28]I'm asking that's rhetorical, actually. No one happened.
[8:30]You read the book, you'll see what happened.
[8:32]This was, I mean, seriously, the book is like,
[8:35]the fact that the book came out on April 6th,
[8:37]and the war happened a month later,
[8:40]and every single tweet Bela Khadid put out there
[8:43]is addressed in the book.
[8:45]It was like shocking to us because we knew this was coming.
[8:49]I knew this was coming.
[8:50]It was the reason that I wrote the book,
[8:51]but the quickness in which this happened,
[8:53]and the not just anti-Israel,
[8:56]but the anti-Semitic attacks like actual,
[9:00]not like online, you know,
[9:02]what you've borrowed, actually,
[9:04]the online social media program,
[9:06]which it couldn't be more true.
[9:08]Like it's a program.
[9:09]They're trying to get Jewish and pro-Israeli
[9:12]and pro-Jewish voices out of social media,
[9:15]and like you can't even say no to anti-Semitism right now,
[9:17]because you get hate for it.
[9:19]What happened? Why is this, right?
[9:22]So the fact that it happened so quickly was shocking.
[9:24]And the fact that it went from this kind of woke conversation
[9:28]of like, I am supporting the perceived underdog
[9:31]to attacks on Jews all over the United States
[9:34]needs to make us all pause and rethink
[9:37]where we're going with us.
[9:39]So who are the they that you keep talking about?
[9:42]Let me get to that in a second.
[9:43]It's very important.
[9:44]It's actually very important, but to answer to the question again
[9:48]I received under dawn.
[9:50]There is no, technically, Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
[9:54]Okay, I know, right?
[9:56]It's not an Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
[9:59]It's an...
[10:00]Israeli Arab world conflict.
[10:02]And it has been going on for nearly a century.
[10:06]And the Arab world, which knows this, right?
[10:08]And it's starting to backtrack away from this,
[10:10]hence the Abraham Accord and all these like
[10:13]deals that are happening, right?
[10:15]The Arab world as a whole, 21 countries
[10:17]give or take trying to kill Israel,
[10:20]depending on the year, right?
[10:21]Sometimes it's this country, sometimes it's that country,
[10:23]it's Egypt and then it's Hamas.
[10:25]And then it's this, it's that,
[10:26]essentially Israel has been an under attack for a century, right?
[10:31]And it's all 21 Arab countries around
[10:33]that have been kind of,
[10:34]I'm not implicating all of them at the same time,
[10:37]but the Arab League as a whole
[10:39]has been very anti-Israel and unfortunately
[10:42]have been using the Palestinians as a pawn in this game.
[10:46]Because if one of these rich Arab countries
[10:50]in the region would have liked to solve this conflict,
[10:53]50 years ago, they could have,
[10:57]but they chose not to.
[10:59]So they took the palace, poor Palestinian people
[11:00]and put them in refugee camps in Lebanon
[11:02]and in Jordan and this and that and that.
[11:04]They were like, wait, just a second,
[11:06]we're not solved, the war is not over.
[11:08]1948 never happened.
[11:09]This war of independence that Israel did not want,
[11:12]did not start and won, right?
[11:15]They were kind of in a concerted effort
[11:18]going, let's just, let's just, we don't care.
[11:22]We have all the oil money, we're good.
[11:24]You guys just staying here for G camps.
[11:26]We're not gonna repopulate you
[11:27]and like reintegrate you into society.
[11:30]Let's just wait with this and see what happens.
[11:33]We're playing the long game.
[11:34]So this is not an Israeli Palestinian conflict.
[11:37]It's an Israeli Arab world conflict.
[11:39]It needs to be viewed that way.
[11:40]And when you view it that way
[11:42]and you have a country of nine million people
[11:44]within the Middle East,
[11:45]the single consistent democracy within the Middle East
[11:47]with 21% Arab Israeli Palestinian population in it
[11:51]that have more rights than in pretty much every other
[11:55]country in the region have more freedoms,
[11:57]specifically women, not to mention LGBTQ plus community, right?
[12:01]When you view it that way, who is the David
[12:04]and who is the Goliath?
[12:06]You've got nine million people
[12:08]and then nearly 300 million people around 21 countries.
[12:11]And you've got 8,000 square miles, 8,000 square miles
[12:16]and like the entire region around
[12:20]that's conspiring to take out the one Jewish state,
[12:25]the one democracy in the region.
[12:29]And it's like, if Israel's not there,
[12:31]Iran is taken over.
[12:33]Like there's no doubt about,
[12:34]look, Congressman Richie Torres is waving his head.
[12:37]Sorry, I'm just giving, you know.
[12:38]Yeah, Iran is taken over.
[12:40]This is like all these forces that are pretending to be
[12:43]about pro-Palestinian Palestinians,
[12:45]they're supporting illiberal voices within the Middle East.
[12:49]And again, everything is shifting in the Middle East.
[12:51]Like all these countries right now, the U.A. in Bahrain
[12:54]and Morocco and Sudan,
[12:56]a couple of states like all these countries
[12:58]are aligning with Israel
[13:00]because everybody in the Middle East
[13:02]they're basically willing to say publicly
[13:04]what everybody in the Middle East already knows.
[13:06]Israel is really not the biggest problem in the Middle East.
[13:10]Iran is, Iran is, period and of story.
[13:14]So the David and Goliath that is a mistaken narrative
[13:19]that is so to uneducated American
[13:22]on social media in some freaking supermodels
[13:25]that think they're Robert Meechem all of a sudden, right?
[13:29]I mean, seriously, really is so twisted
[13:34]and so dangerous because they're mouth-peacing,
[13:38]they're being mouthpieces for illiberal radical voices
[13:42]in the Middle East that are laughing their asses off
[13:44]because this is all succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
[13:47]Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
[13:49]No, yes, thank you.
[13:55]It's okay, in the podcast, we have an audience.
[13:57]I'm gonna explain that.
[13:58]That's all right.
[13:59]I'll remind people now.
[14:00]There's an audience here.
[14:01]Yeah, no big deal.
[14:02]So obviously part of the strategy is education
[14:05]and trying to dispel all the misperceptions
[14:08]that are out there.
[14:09]What else is there on the table
[14:12]that everybody can do to make sure
[14:14]that all of the antisemitism and all of the anti-Israel
[14:17]and this new cool, like let's not,
[14:20]I call it in the book, this new hip social justice cause.
[14:24]It's called anti-Zionism.
[14:26]It's adorable.
[14:27]Yeah, it goes something like this.
[14:28]I'm not anti-Semitic.
[14:30]I'm just an anti-Zionist, right?
[14:33]And it's like,
[14:34]oh, is that stems from not understanding what Zionism is,
[14:38]not understanding?
[14:39]Well, this is like a whole,
[14:41]and we have to get back to the who is behind it,
[14:44]because it's very important.
[14:45]So first of all, just for everybody's
[14:48]kind of like background in the sanding,
[14:50]I always say this, we as the pro-Israel
[14:53]and Jewish and non-Jewish community need to be able
[14:55]to answer what a Zionism, right?
[14:57]Why are you Zionist?
[14:58]So Zionism is a movement for Jewish liberation
[15:02]and self-determination.
[15:04]In a Jewish, not an exclusively Jewish state.
[15:07]Okay, Zionism is a movement for Jewish liberation,
[15:10]self-determination and a Jewish,
[15:11]not an exclusive Jewish state.
[15:13]It never, ever, ever talks about an exclusive state.
[15:16]A Jewish exclusively Jewish state,
[15:17]and we'll get to that in a second.
[15:18]Zionism is about the Jews,
[15:20]like any other people allowed to self-govern
[15:24]and their tiny piece of ancestral land.
[15:26]That's it.
[15:27]The Jews allowed to have a state.
[15:28]So how can you be against that?
[15:31]Is the question.
[15:32]Like if you,
[15:33]because a lot of people would say like,
[15:34]oh, Zionism is offensive to me, right?
[15:37]It's ridiculous to be offended by a meaning
[15:39]that you gave to a word, right?
[15:40]Like I'm super offended by this microphone.
[15:42]But this microphone is so offensive to me.
[15:44]I can't please don't say the word microphone,
[15:45]because it's crazy, right?
[15:48]It's like, it's about feminism, right?
[15:49]Men are like, it's so aggressive.
[15:50]No, feminist spedical rights for women.
[15:52]It's if you choose to get offended by it.
[15:55]That's your story in your head.
[15:57]So those people which we'll get to in a second
[16:01]have been working for years to brand Zionism,
[16:03]something that it is not.
[16:04]So now saying you're a Zionist
[16:07]is like the word Zionism,
[16:08]a turn to do a slur, which is again crazy.
[16:11]Zionism is a progressive movement.
[16:13]It was designed to progress Jews
[16:15]away from persecutions and thousands of years
[16:17]of oppressions and progress them into self-governance.
[16:21]And it worked out beyond belief, right?
[16:23]It's almost like we're victims to our own success
[16:25]in that sense.
[16:27]So that's number one.
[16:28]The people behind this, okay?
[16:32]So there are a couple of different kind of awful forces
[16:34]that are working together.
[16:35]This whole thing originated in Soviet propaganda, okay?
[16:41]This whole thing originated
[16:42]and the Durban Conference in 2001
[16:45]in which the Soviet Union basically,
[16:47]it leans on the Soviets passing a UN resolution
[16:50]that Zionism is racism.
[16:52]Again, Zionism is not racism
[16:55]because in Zionism and every founding document of Zionism,
[17:00]they always talk about equality to every ethnicity,
[17:04]race, sex, like literally in Herzl's book Out New England,
[17:08]which is the founding document of Zionism,
[17:10]which was written in 1902.
[17:12]He talks about the Arabs in the region
[17:15]and the Arabs like it's never is about exclusively
[17:18]Jewish state, okay?
[17:19]By the way, in 1902, Herzl also talks about
[17:23]like equality for blacks.
[17:25]Like in 1902, he writes that the blacks,
[17:28]like the Jews deserve to,
[17:30]so you know, why are they being treated like that
[17:32]because of the color of their skin?
[17:33]Like that book couldn't be more like it's so liberal.
[17:36]It's almost delusional in how liberal it is.
[17:40]So these are the founding documents of Zionism,
[17:42]but the Soviet Union was the one
[17:43]who pushed in the United Nations
[17:45]this resolution that Zionism is racism.
[17:47]And they used Nazi propaganda.
[17:50]So literally would take posters of Nazi propaganda
[17:53]saying the Jews control X, Y, and Z,
[17:54]the Jews did Dada Dada and changed the word
[17:56]to the Zionists.
[17:58]The Zionists did Dada Dada, the Zionists did Dada Dada, right?
[18:01]So taking something that it isn't
[18:02]turning it into a propaganda that is enigmatic, in essence.
[18:05]Completely anti-Semitic.
[18:08]So then this resolution passed
[18:09]and then it got dismantled in like the early 90s,
[18:11]I think in 91.
[18:12]And in 2001, there was a conference in Durban, South Africa,
[18:16]which was called the conference for racism, right?
[18:19]That's it was a United Nations conference against racism.
[18:22]That conference was taken over by anti-democratic countries,
[18:26]also remember in the United Nations,
[18:28]but less their heart, 50% of,
[18:31]50% of the countries that are member state
[18:34]in the United Nations are non-democratic.
[18:36]A lot of them don't want Israel to exist.
[18:38]So they pass all these resolutions
[18:39]that give the anti-Israel movement an air of legitimacy.
[18:43]As if, oh, well, the United Nations passed it,
[18:45]it should be okay.
[18:45]No, not at all.
[18:47]So the Durban conference became so anti-Israel
[18:51]that the United States and Israel walked out.
[18:55]Because it literally was confiscated and taken over
[18:57]and this was the origination of this attempt
[19:00]to brand Israel and apartheid state.
[19:03]So they took all that language from Soviet Union propaganda
[19:06]and they're like, hmm, we tried to kill Israel
[19:08]with military force, didn't work.
[19:11]We tried to kill Israel with terrorism and didn't work.
[19:16]Let's try to literally delegitimize the state's
[19:19]existent existence and try to actually dismantle it.
[19:23]So they took that language from the Soviet,
[19:25]from Soviet propaganda and this entire campaign
[19:28]to brand it in apartheid state
[19:29]using the same kind of like tools of South Africa.
[19:32]To brand Israel and apartheid state,
[19:34]when you look at the rights that Arabs are getting there,
[19:35]when literally the third largest party in Israel is Arab
[19:38]and an Arab parliament member right now was the reason
[19:42]for the existence of the part of the government.
[19:45]Like he, Mansua Vas was an Arab party member
[19:48]within Israel, he literally was the lynchpin.
[19:50]He was sitting there like deciding on whether or not
[19:53]the Israeli government would get created.
[19:56]To call that apartheid, it's an insult to anti-apartan.
[20:00]movements, right? But that's what's happened. That language created the basics for the language
[20:06]of a movement called BDS. BDS stands for boycott divestment in sanctions.
[20:12]It was a movement that was recreated whatever long story it's on the book in 2005. And the
[20:19]attempt was to put the same pressure on Israel as he did to South Africa. Boycott Israel in
[20:24]academia in finance investments in every way, in companies, boycotting companies coming in
[20:31]or whatever. They made a conclusion that American youth is impressionable and not educated enough,
[20:39]and they decided to put their entire effort or majority of it on campuses. So they started
[20:45]infiltrating campuses in plain sight, just sitting there with tabling things. And instead of
[20:51]saying what they were actually about, because the founders of BDS don't even hide that they're
[20:56]after dismantling Israel, like they're not, they don't hide it. They're videos all over. That's what
[21:00]that's, that is what they are after, okay? Instead of doing that, they flipped the language and started
[21:06]using this woke language of justice and freedom. So literally selling this on campus, saying
[21:13]Palestinian Lives Matter 2, right, bringing in all these people and activists and social justice
[21:22]organizations like BLM, like the Women's March, like rape victim organizations for crying out loud,
[21:30]like rape victim organizations are now under the BDS tent supporting BDS, which is funded by people
[21:40]who support Sharia law. We'll get to that in a second, which is literally the embodiment of rape
[21:45]culture. Like there is no women's rights in like a Sharia society. Come on. And I'm saying this as a
[21:53]liberal because liberals have a tendency to be like, oh, we're not going to criticize any religion.
[21:58]No, no, no, no, no. By not criticizing the bad shit that's happening around Sharia, around the
[22:04]administration of Islam, you're living, you're, you're leaving the liberal voices within that
[22:09]community out to dry. Like you're leaving them out to dry. So all these groups and all these movements
[22:17]are now under like BDS just basically infiltrated into BLM is one of the worst. It's one, it's unbelievable
[22:24]that it actually happens. BLM supporters, they don't know what it is that they're supporting.
[22:29]They don't realize. And it's not just that. It's even like the Jews don't really like Sarah
[22:33]Silverman, right? She posted TikTok like a few, a couple of months ago. And she's like, talks
[22:38]about whatever. What I'm just like, am I for BDS? Yeah, of course I'm for BDS. I'm like, no,
[22:42]you're not. You're really not. But she doesn't know. I don't think that it's, I don't, and I
[22:48]say this in the book a lot. I have a chapter I was saying in, in my book, if you read one chapter in my
[22:53]book, just read BDS because that, that'll give you what you need to know, right? And, and she,
[22:58]and she's like, well, as long as we understand that BDS is about like the policy and the government
[23:03]and the policy. And I'm like, no, but that's the thing. They're literally cloaking their dagger.
[23:08]It's a movement where people with bad face pream those with bad knowledge.
[23:14]And what happened beyond their wildest dreams is because they used intersectionality,
[23:20]right, to infiltrate these social justice movements. So they came to BLM and they're like,
[23:25]Palestinian lives matter too. It's white on brown oppression, right? First of all, false premise,
[23:33]because Israel is not white. Israel is just not white. 21% of Israel, 31% of Israel is actually
[23:38]to find themselves as Eastern European. They were using what we see in America, which is a lot of
[23:41]American Jews are from Eastern European descent. So they were like, it's white on, you know,
[23:46]it's white on brown oppression. Brigitte was amazing and actually said that verbatim and I quote,
[23:51]you know, this is if any, it's like brown on brown oppression, if you really want to kind of
[23:55]go down that road, which is not even true to begin with, but like they use false narrative to
[23:59]infiltrate these social justice movements. And unfortunately, what happens is that
[24:06]black culture is pop culture and BLM is black culture. And this just infiltrated social media and
[24:13]like the infiltrated our pop culture and our social media in the most extreme way that I think
[24:20]shook anyone who's Jewish, not Jewish, anybody who likes democracy should have been really,
[24:27]really bothered by this. And we should really be bothered by this. Now, again, bearer of bad news.
[24:34]Thanks. Sorry. Yeah, we are. Thank you. We're coming to like a fun lunch. I'm like, we're
[24:41]but there has to be something, there has to be some antidote. There has to be something to counteract
[24:47]these forces. Otherwise, it's just to, otherwise then why? Or like, where do you see this going?
[24:52]Where is the logical extension of what's happening? I think the good thing that happened now is
[24:55]that a lot of people woke up first and foremost. So a lot of people realize that, again, whether
[24:59]they knew what was happening or whether they were surprised, whether they have the information or
[25:04]whether they don't, a lot of people that don't have the information were like, I don't think
[25:07]this is right. Like, I don't know enough to kind of counter this, but what I'm seeing in social
[25:12]media right now is not right, right? So number one is really educate yourself. It really is,
[25:19]it really, really is because you have to know, you have to know what to answer and you have to
[25:24]know for yourself, right? And number two, I think personally, I'm going to go after BDS. I think they
[25:30]need to be ousted from every normal society, from every campus. I, in my book, I go down, you know,
[25:37]there's, there's like a, there are congressional hearings by terrorism finance experts
[25:42]who are calling on Congress to research their sources of funding. And, and literally showing from
[25:49]this an organization called AMP and American Muslims to Palestine, AGP and students, SGP, students
[25:55]for justice and Palestine, where you track them down and this, these people have spent years
[26:00]tracking the month where the money comes from. It leads you to this organization called the Holy
[26:04]Land Foundation, which was designated a terrorist organization for passing $12.5 million to Hamas
[26:11]and dismantled seven of its founders were sentenced to jail, two of them fled the country,
[26:15]five of them actually seven prison, one of them got released and I was a turkey like organizing
[26:19]stuff for Hamas. His daughter writes like pieces of New York Times, a long story, right? But all
[26:24]those people are the people that are like through this sophisticated umbrella are sponsoring your
[26:30]online, like they are on campus, BDS campaign in plain sight, in plain sight. And well intended,
[26:38]young liberal Americans are going, yeah, totally. Let's support you guys, not realizing you're
[26:44]about to dismantle the single consistent democracy in the entire region, the only country in the
[26:51]region in which you can go on the beach with your same sex tempo and make out and nobody's going to
[26:56]do anything. Like Bella Hadid cannot have a career anywhere else other than in Israel. How is
[27:03]everything she's saying not getting consequences? How is she not putting together what she's saying
[27:10]to like anti-Semitic attacks that are happening? I feel like you should call her. I tried
[27:16]stay wouldn't care, you know? I mean, I don't personally know her, but you know, it's just, it really
[27:24]it's, again, this is not about Jewishness. It's about American values. It's not, you don't have to be
[27:31]Jewish to support Israel. You have to understand the region and understand what the forces that be are
[27:41]and see who supports your values, not who has a better meme. So, but the danger, of course, is that
[27:48]if you are outspoken about this, then you get canceled yourself. Oh, yeah. I'm uncancelable.
[27:54]You know why? By the way? Because I just don't care. Not because people are like,
[27:59]oh, are you getting hate? I'm like, yes. But then again, I've been doing this since like at least
[28:05]2011. I had radio Hamas started following me in 2011 on Twitter. I was like, I don't know, I feel that
[28:10]at me. I said, you know, wait, but I'm, I'm used to this. And to me, it's like history will judge
[28:20]where you, your alliance is stood, right? I know that if I can sit and talk to anybody or people
[28:29]would actually read the book or do the work, Richie did, like kind of get yourself educated. You'd
[28:33]be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, yeah, hang on a minute. I don't think this is right. So, I personally am not
[28:41]afraid because, you know, I'm telling the truth with a cunning use of facts, you know? And
[28:52]I'm not going to shut up. So there's no canceling somebody who doesn't, isn't willing to shut up.
[28:59]So where are you going to take this? I feel like, why are you not in trying to be the government or
[29:04]like what else can you do? Like, where are you going with this? It's a great question.
[29:11]There's, there's, there's, there are a bunch of their plans. But right now, I think the most important
[29:17]thing for me is to get as many people as possible, educated on the facts as they possibly can.
[29:22]So if you don't, it was important to me to write a book about Israel that makes it easy
[29:27]to understand because people are like, oh my god, it's so complicated. I'm like, no, it actually isn't.
[29:31]It actually isn't. It's just that nobody was able to communicate it in a way that people go,
[29:35]oh, all right, fine. And I've done this for many years. I was able to find a way, I knew how to do this.
[29:41]So get as many people as possible, educated as many people as I can, educated through the book,
[29:47]through talks, through this podcast. There's, um, I think, as if I can help it, BDS's days are
[29:54]numbered. So that is something that we all need to kind of be very focused on and kind of be like,
[29:59]all right.
[30:00]Because if you look at what's happening,
[30:01]all the social media stuff,
[30:02]if you track it back, back, back, back, back, back,
[30:04]you get to BDS.
[30:05]And if you track back, back, back, back, back, back, back,
[30:06]from BDS sponsors as a proponent, you know,
[30:08]opponents, you'd find people that are at best
[30:13]called my sympathizers, if not worse.
[30:15]But I'm just gonna say at best sympathize
[30:18]with the cause of come on.
[30:19]So we have a lot of work to do.
[30:21]We need a bit, this is a big ship
[30:23]that needs to be turned around in America.
[30:25]I do believe that out of 10 people
[30:29]that are on the, let's say, normal liberal,
[30:31]normal conservatives, like not on the crazy sides,
[30:34]just willing to listen,
[30:36]whether conservatives or liberals doesn't matter.
[30:37]I believe that out of eight out of 10
[30:40]are completely open to changing their minds and listening.
[30:44]Two out of the 10 have been radicalized on, you know,
[30:49]Israel is a genocide state.
[30:50]And it doesn't matter what you tell them,
[30:52]including the numbers of Palestinians that were there.
[30:54]When Israel was formed, which was 150,000,
[30:57]and now they're like 2.9 million.
[31:00]So again, the worst genocide ever, right?
[31:03]Two out of those 10, they've been radicalized
[31:06]and it's fine, but I do believe that eight out of those 10
[31:09]are willing to listen and willing to get themselves
[31:10]educated and don't think that Israel's a big bad wolf
[31:13]and willing to listen to the whole story
[31:16]and coming from me, I am a liberal.
[31:19]So the book is very balanced in that sense.
[31:22]Like I talk about the bad shit about Israel too,
[31:24]because no country is perfect.
[31:26]It'd be ridiculous to say,
[31:27]like Israel is never done wrong.
[31:30]That America never do wrong.
[31:31]I mean, come on, when we love this country.
[31:33]So I feel like this book addresses a lot of people's concerns
[31:37]and it gives a very kind of concise
[31:39]and hopefully fun and definitely easy to read
[31:42]history of the country.
[31:43]And just one last question.
[31:46]What about the parents who are concerned
[31:47]about what their kids are posting?
[31:49]Oh, God.
[31:49]Because a lot of moms have said to me, you know,
[31:51]my kids are posting things or, you know,
[31:54]I've had somebody send me a powerful
[31:56]presentation of all the slides of their sons,
[31:58]like post is something that happened to my son
[32:00]for saying this or what?
[32:02]Well, she was pro Israel, but very outspoken way
[32:05]and sort of, I don't know, in a way
[32:08]that made her very nervous because it's very provocative.
[32:11]But then on the other side, people who have children
[32:13]who are very woke and want to support
[32:15]what all their friends are doing
[32:16]and posting on social media, not totally understanding.
[32:18]What do you do as the parent?
[32:20]Or what do you think we all as parents
[32:21]have the obligation to do?
[32:22]Well, first of all, get them to read the book
[32:24]as it uses the word, you know, the F word a few times.
[32:28]So, you know, just to make sure people are awake.
[32:30]So they won't feel like they're like dragged into some
[32:34]so straight about that.
[32:35]So F word is a selling point of this book.
[32:37]For a certain generation, yes.
[32:38]Absolutely.
[32:39]Yes, I actually had a very, very, very famous
[32:42]and an important like reporter historian, whatever.
[32:45]And he's like, you used it so well.
[32:46]It's very strategic.
[32:48]You know, it was kind of wake up if you think you're asleep.
[32:50]So it's so marketing.
[32:51]Yeah.
[32:52]Just a little bit.
[32:53]It's just hidden in there.
[32:54]The first name of the book was actually WTF is Israel.
[32:57]Yeah.
[32:58]But I was advised to not.
[33:00]Maybe tone it down.
[33:01]So the thing, I think that for parents, first of all,
[33:05]make sure your kids are educated.
[33:06]I think there's a whole thing about Jewish schools as well
[33:08]that I think is problematic.
[33:10]And I think that we didn't give, in the Jewish world,
[33:13]we didn't give our kids enough information
[33:16]to actually deal with the outside world.
[33:18]A lot of people looked at this BDSM campus thing
[33:20]and was like, oh, it's fine.
[33:21]They'll grow out of it.
[33:22]You know, it's just on campus.
[33:24]But what they didn't understand, it's like,
[33:25]this is an impressionable age that literally embedding
[33:28]in them what they think for life, right?
[33:31]And we didn't do a good enough job explaining
[33:33]to them to begin with.
[33:35]So I definitely say, I definitely think that that is important.
[33:39]And also, I think maybe in a kind of like a lighter kind of way,
[33:41]not to worry that much about what the kids post
[33:44]because in our perception, it's like, oh my God,
[33:46]this is crazy.
[33:47]And in their perception, it's like, yeah, I don't care.
[33:48]You know, it's out there.
[33:49]And then it's, I can delete it or whatever.
[33:51]We know that it's always out there,
[33:53]but they're way more, they don't have a problem with privacy
[33:56]as we did growing up to them.
[33:57]It's not even a concept that needs to be watched
[33:59]or cared for or whatever.
[34:01]So, but definitely get them educated.
[34:03]And the woke kids just know that Hamas sympathizers
[34:08]have already got to them.
[34:09]If not through actual campaign,
[34:12]but then through the social media kind of duplication
[34:15]and like this, hate new social justice cause
[34:18]called anti-Zionism.
[34:19]It's okay.
[34:20]Wow.
[34:22]Thanks for coming on Monster Time Treating.
[34:24]Thank you.
[34:32]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.
[34:34]Don't have time to read books.
[34:36]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[34:38]at Zebioans and at Moms.
[34:40]Don't have time to read books.
[34:41]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com
[34:44]and sign up for my virtual book club
[34:45]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[34:48]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[34:51]for the Sound Editing.
[34:52]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[34:54]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.