Courting Anti-Zionists

Lykos hårakut var i din hermergency. Du plattade all håret utan värmesed. What's wrong with your woman? Your beauty playground.

Welcome to the Commentary Magazine Daily Podcast. Today is Thursday, March fifth, twenty twenty six. I'm John Bud Hortz, the editor of Commentary Magazine. With me as always, Executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe. Hi, John. Social commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi Christine. Hi, John. Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth. And Washington Free Beacon editor Eliana Johnson. Hi, Eliana. Hi, John.

I got through an entire introduction without making a mistake. This is the first time in a week. I'm very excited. One thing I wanted to announce because people have been noticing, if you are a subscriber and you should be a subscriber, to commentary and you get our monthly magazine, you may notice a difference in this issue uh as it hits your mailbox, which is that we have

Done a little bit of a redesign. So your your your eyes are not deceiving you. Something is a little different. We have increased the point size of the type in the magazine. I've been getting emails about this. all and texts, you know, for two days now and I didn't put a note in the magazine about it. So I'm telling you now and I'm gonna tell you why I did it and it's a very sad story. And the story is

that it was becoming increasingly difficult for me. I have lousy eyes. I've had bad eyes since I was like nine years old. And my eyes are getting worse. I don't mean like I'm gonna go blind or I have macular degeneration or anything, but my eyes are getting worse and it's been increasingly difficult for me to read commentary on paper uh because of uh The fact that the type was Nine and a half.

Uh point size in our typeface Miller. And so we experimented with five or six different point sizes. We've gone up a couple of points. So the text is bigger in the magazine, the articles are the same length, nothing is different. But if you see a difference, that is the difference and it's Largely driven by the fact that I feel like I should be able to read the magazine physically that I am producing. for our readers and uh and therefore uh assuming that I am kind of like a a mid level

Or sort of median reader, the type needed to get bigger. So it the type is now bigger. That's what's going on. And now we can talk about anti-Semitic.

By the way, one other note, uh at some point during this um uh podcast Uh my sister Ruthie Bloom, columnist for the Jewish New Syndicate, host of the podcast called Israel Undiplomatic is going to join us again as she did over the weekend to uh give us an on the ground report from uh Tel Aviv about what life has been like uh over the last hundred and twenty four hours or so since the war.

started she was supposed to join us at the beginning, but uh as is part of the story, she is right now in the shelter because there was a there was an alert and a warning and the siren went off and she had to leave her apartment and go next door. into the basement to the shelter. So she will describe some of that at the time. Uh

So this uh anti-Semitism surge that uh wa was around for ten years before October seventh, but of course accelerated l wildly after October seventh, has now morphed into a different direction, and the different direction is direct engagement and involvement in the democratic parties. political process and the choices that democratic politicians seem to be making

as they look forward not only to the twenty twenty six elections and to the primaries that they are still going to engage in in twenty twenty six, but also to twenty twenty eight. And Seth, uh, Mandel, you've been covering this a lot. for the blog and we have sort of two major possible contenders in twenty twenty eight, uh Ruben Gallego and Gavin Newsom, who have in the last three or four days, done some pretty startling things.

that uh one w would have seemed unimaginable even twelve months ago, oddly enough. So can you uh tell us a little about what that is?

I agree. Uh uh it would have been unthinkable, especially for Gavin Newsom, who, you know, is a bit of a weather vane, so he's valuable in so far as as it tells you the direction that things are going. Um so Gavin Newsom, the governor of California uh decided that uh he would go on the uh Pod Save America podcast, which is the former Obama advisors and speech writers, the popular um, you know, sort of left wing

um podcast. Uh and they've become this kind of they've become the kind of place where you go when you have to bash Israel. It's it's just, you know, they sort of give you that uh bullhorn and Newsom did so. feeling that he had to keep up with the rest of his party, which is very quickly moving further and in more extreme ways against Israel.

And the thing that he was playing catch up from was Ruben Gallego, who's an Arizona Senator, uh, who is uh testing the waters for a presidential run in twenty twenty eight. officially endorsed Graham Plattner, uh other w we've we talked about him just the other day, otherwise known as Nazi Tattoo Guy. And um uh and so Gallego's. Bradner is running for senator in Maine uh uh in a pri he is uh wildly ahead in this primary against the sitting Governor Janet Mills.

uh in the Democratic primary and he is not only does he have a Nazi tattoo, but he is a far left wing S Bernie Sanders is a little too conservative for him. type. So uh he has not only got a Nazi tattoo that recently. He went on a Yeah, he went on a an anti Semites podcast and told him he was a longtime fan. He retweeted approvingly Stu Peters, who um I've written about but I don't know if people really know him very well, but he is a white nationalist.

um, you know, another sort of alternative podcaster on the right. Um and Gavin Newsom is now going on another show that uh he's going on a a a left podcaster show. But we should take tell people tell tell people what newsome So so Newsom's the Newsum's big moment is he went on Pod Save America after Gallego endorsed Platner and he you know put his finger to the wind and he went on PodSave America and they said Uh don't you think it's time to cut military aid to Israel? And

Uh and Newsom essentially said yes. He said, It breaks my heart. You know, you could see the you could see it in his eyes. Uh it breaks his heart. Um, but he uh he feels that Bibi Netanyahu is making it Uh unavoidable and this is where we're headed. And later in the interview. Go ahead. Yeah, and then also in the interview.

Also in the interview was was he said that um you know he brought up Tom Friedman's recent column and he said that people like Tom Friedman who call Israel an apartheid state are doing so uh justly. And understanding there. So essentially he's calling Israel an apartheid state and saying, yes, we're going to have to cut um military cooperation uh with Israel.

Ving firar 70 år av resor som är svåra att släppa taget om. Och det gör vi med massor av erbjudanden som är omöjliga att motstå. Boka redan nu på wing.se. De bästa resorna försvinner först. inte vill hem från.

Right. So the lar the governor of the largest state in the country who is viewed as one of the top two or three candidates. uh as we look at the field right now, has said explicitly that Israel is an apartheid state. And by the way, is also questioning our conduct of the war and Israel's conduct of the war by saying that we are committing war crimes. We need to reconcile the fact that our bombs are being used to blow up Iranian schoolgirls.

he said, of an incident that we still don't quite understand what happened, there's a school, it Seems to have been a school uh supposedly fifty seven schoolgirls were killed. There's something weird about this story. The school seems to be cheek by jowl with a nucle with a nuclear facility or a or a or an air force base and it was a s it was not a school day.

So there's something fishy about the whole thing and we don't know who hit what or whether it was a misfire. What we know is whether Israel did it by mistake. Right. Nobody knows. And he basically endorsed the idea that an American bomb had been used by Israel to kill Iranian school children. So he is saying Israel's an apartheid state. He's saying we need to revisit our financial commitment to Israel and that Israel is committing war crimes with American bombs. And he is

supposedly the establishment candidate for twenty twenty. He's the moderate. Here's your moderate. I don't even know if people would call him a moderate per se, because I don't know that moderate fits in these categories anymore, but he is certainly As the guy who is the governor of the largest state of the country, he is like um and a and a slick guy, right? His whole thing is that he's slick and political.

and very performative in trying to make himself appealing to the widest number of people, has decided to jump into the fever swamp.

It's interesting, isn't it? I think the weather vane term that Seth used is accurate for Newsom. He doesn't seem to have any core principles. And that does make him an interesting person to follow on the national stage right now with regard to anti Semitism because he wasn't using words like apartheid or genocide or any of the terms that he's now liberally uh sprinkling around all these right wing uh podcasts and that suggests that he in his effort to elevate his national

uh visibility, he sees that as necessary for the base. And I'm I recall how for decades now we've been schooled largely by legacy media about looking for all the dog whistling on the right that suggests racism or sexism or whatever ism is is uh being disapproved of at the time. And I think there is some similarity here on the left now with regard to anti-Semitism. All of these terms are used with a deliberately knowing wink.

for a group of people, all the podcast guys, but I think actually a lot of Gen Z voters in the Democratic and Progressive Coalition to signal Now I might have said this stuff about Israel in the past. It might be technically our ally, but wink wink, you know what I'm talking about when I talk about apartheid or jet

Do you think that there's a win do you think there's a wink? I don't even know that that goes that that qualifies as well. It's like giant flags are being waved. Pay attention to me. I am willing to say very outlandish things about Israel in order to get your attention and support in one of the two major American political parties. I

This is noteworthy in the sense of it tells you where the democratic base is, but we already knew that, right? Um I think this is gonna be difficult for Newsom to pull off in that the Democratic primary is gonna feature the genuine article. There are gonna be people who have been consistent on their view of hating Israel. And they're going to point out that Newsom was not long ago a pro Israel Democrat and he's on the record having visited Israel on October twentieth.

twenty twenty three. Unspoken of the wonderful people he met. and talked about the deep connections between California and Israel. And by the way, Bibi Netanyahu was the Prime Minister of Israel at that time. They were under the same leadership. Um he took heat in California. for vetoing an ethnic studies mandate that was put up by the legislature because of concerns voiced by critics of its treatment of Israel and Jews.

Um and he is on the record having praised a memorandum of understanding passed by his uh signed by his predecessor, deepening ties between California and Israel. His predecessor is Jerry Brown. Um and so Newsom's record doesn't sustain i i s um what he's saying now. It's obvious what he's doing. And Gallego, by the way,

Um, was a member oh hi Ruthie. Do we Hi Ruthie? I'll finish my point. I'll finish my point quick. Yes. Um Gallego was a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He actually does come from this. uh camp who ditched the Progressive Caucus when he ran for Senate because Arizona is a more centrist state. And he claimed at the time. Oh, they're increasing dues. Um, you know, he wasn't honest about his reasons why.

And he's someone who's actually returning to once, you know, from where he came. Um, but these guys are all dishonest and they're gonna have to face up to the you know, the AOCs of Chiron and the Bernie Sanders wing of the party have been entirely consistent on this stuff. Okay, we're gonna get back to this.

Excited to get back to this. But Ruthie Bloom, my sister, columnist with uh J and S. Co host of the Israel Undiplomatic. podcast with her friend Mark Regev, which everybody should subscribe to, joining us From Tel Aviv, you were supposed to start with us at nine thirty Eastern and the alert came and you had to go next door into your shelter, which is one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you today for many reasons, but and I talk to you every day and

Uh one of the things that has happened over the last hundred and twenty, you know, uh twenty-four hours or whatever it's been since the war started is these texts coming over our family WhatsApp chat. Uh, going back in the shelter. Oi, I just got back from Jerusalem and now I have to go into the shelter. Back again. Four o'clock in the morning, two o'clock in the morning, two o'clock in the afternoon, six o'clock in the afternoon.

The shelter, the disruption of life by this war, uh the civilian disruption of life, so significant. that and I I wanna try to get make draw this little picture. Uh your daughter, my niece, Avital, lives near Jerusalem. Her husband is in the reserves, so he's

Not there. She has a five year old and a two year old. Four year old, two year old. Five year old? Yeah, five and two, yeah. Five and two. Okay. And uh during the during the Gaza War, when she was living elsewhere and not near Jerusalem, and he was in the reserves.

She would have to when there was a siren, she would have to and the and and her two year old was a newborn, she would have to run at one o'clock in the morning out of her house n you know, to get into the shelter and you have n a ninety second warning and so this was, you know, this was her life.

And it was starting up again because she doesn't have a safe room in her house and the shelter is a little nearby. And so for the purposes of living a life in which she could get two hours of sleep, she went north. She went to three miles from the border in Lebanon to her in laws' house because getting to the shelter is easier. No, she can sleep in the shelter. That's the whole point. She can sleep in the shelter. Excuse me. And sleep through the night, not have to run

When there was a sign, they could just keep stay there. But so as we know, now the war has expanded to include Lebanon and Hezbollah and all of that. So she essentially drove into the war zone in order to get some sleep. This is this is what it life is like during this

three way war between Israel, Iran and and uh and the United States. Um so how has it been for just describe like are you are you like zoned out? Are you like Exhausted? Are you nervous? What? Yeah, not nervous. I I gotta tell you, I think everybody's sort of used to it. Some people are nervous. When you hear that siren it's very it's sort of scary, even when you know it's coming in even though you're used to it'cause the noise is very disconcerting.

But I would say most people are very cheerful here and like Israelis tend to do, they're all leaving the shelters before they all clear as, you know, final'cause they say, Okay, we've had enough. We're going and uh But I'll tell you something interesting. There are many apps that have been created since Saturday. The latest is is something that calculates for you. You um type in how um where you are in Israel and it'll tell you how many hours so far total you have spent in the bomb shelter.

So It's like the online it's like the thing where it says you've been eight hours today on your phone. Or how many steps did you take today to the shelter? Yes. So I have so far, maybe this last siren, I don't know, have been fifteen hours total in the bomb shelter. But also there's another one. There's an app that tells you um where there are singles, single people in which bomb shelters. So singles can hook up in the bomb shelters.

And then there's a third, but this is more of a joke except everybody's talking about it, that tells you what the risk is at a given hour of the day to take a shower. Um, because the last thing you want is to be caught like with shampoo on your hair and have to rush out and get dressed and all that.

So I mean those are the kind of things that are going on. There's a lot of joking going on also and so it's not scary but it is exhausting when you lack sleep like that. And I you know, so I for example won't sleep in my bed, I sleep on the couch'cause I'm afraid to get to fall too deeply asleep and then I'm afraid I won't wake up in time. So that's that's what it feels like.

Yeah, I'm a pet owner, probably like you, didn't want to be, got a dog during COVID, and of course now I love the dog, bring the dog to the office. We'll do anything for the dog. And so here's a quick message from today's sponsor. the ASPCA Pet Health Insurance Program. These days we insure just about everything. Cars that lose value the second we drive them, phones we trade in every two years, trips we haven't even taken yet.

But our pets often go unprotected. Well, with ASPCA Pet Health Insurance, you can get help with unexpected bet bills and make sure your dog or cat gets the care they need when they need it. The ASPCA Pet Health Insurance Program offers customizable accident and illness plans, making it easier to get your pet the care they may need. It's been around for almost 20 years and has covered nearly one million pets in that time. So to explore coverage, visit.

ASPCA petinsurance.com slash commentary. That's ASPCA petinsurance.com slash commentary. Eligible eligibility restrictions apply, visit ASPCA petinsurance.com slash Amazon Terms for more info. This is a paid advertisement. Insurance is underwritten by either Independence American Insurance Company or United States Fire Insurance Company and produced by PTZ Insurance Agency Limited. The ASPCA is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance.

A thoughtfully built wardrobe comes down to pieces that mix well and last, and that's where Quince shines. Premium fabrics, considered design, and everyday essentials that feel effortless to wear. And dependable even as the seasons change. Lightwear cashmer sweater. Short sleeved Mongolian cashmere polos, linen bottoms and shorts, tees in one hundred percent Pima cotton, and European jersey linen. These are the versatile pieces that make a wardrobe actually work.

season to season. And you know, Quince works directly with top factories, cuts out the middleman. You're not paying for brand markup or fancy retail stores, just quality clothing. So that I think is the key. As you know, I'm wearing quint sweaters all the time. You've heard me talk about this for years. I'm wearing one right now. Stop overcomplicating your wardrobe. You don't need a closet full of options. You need a few pieces that actually work.

So right now go to quince.com slash commentary for free shipping and three hundred and sixty-five day returns. That's a full year to build your wardrobe and love it. And you will, now available in Canada too. Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last. Go to q-u-in-c e dot com slash commentary for free shipping and 365-day returns, quince.com. Slash commentary.

Okay, so uh the other thing to point out here is that uh when if you describe this to an American, right, i they're like Oh my God, this is hell on earth. Oh d dear God. Like how how can people live like this? You know, people are constantly emailing about Texting about you, texting me about you, how I can't imagine what you're going through, I can't imagine what you're going through, knowing that your family is like this. But not only your family, but the pretty much the entire nation.

is wildly supportive. of this war, and so if the civilian sacrifice in this war, aside from having family who were in the reserves, uh is and and obviously the occasional hit, I mean the sort of the the hit uh in Bitchemesh and others which are of course lead to tragic loss of life. But uh people are not begrudging

the effect. Like this is a n this is something for t two decades. You have almost unlike on Palestinian matters, you have an almost total national consensus that this is good and just and necessary and in fact, you know, possibly kind of Sal salv sal uh whatever the adjective would be for salvation. Can I add that this is this is something Americans should really note?

Which is that Israelis have lived next door to an existential threat to the nation and the people's existence for a very long time. And Ruthie, the fact that you can talk about the humor and like the hilarious apps that are developed That is exactly the kind of metal, M E T T L E, that Americans too rarely understand or demonstrate ourselves because we have not been tested in quite the same way. And I think it's admirable, obviously.

um nerve wracking uh for those of us who have friends and loved one loved ones who who if you get the app here and you can see where where the alarms are of a friend with a child in Jerusalem, it's that's also very terrifying to track. But the resilience and the humor and the sensibility is just completely admirable and I I salute it. I just think it more Americans should recognize that that resilience too. Well maybe it's because everybody. What? Yeah, well I was gonna first of all

First of all, you're right, John. Everybody here supports this. Um, you know, uh maybe there are a few people who don't, and there are a few um Arab Israelis who don't, let's say, but in general everybody is for this. So what do they do? What do the Israelis who are on the left who hate Netanyahu do? They champion Trump. This has ha this has been happening all along and it was during the hostage crisis as well.

The way you can support the move is to say, well, it's not really Netanyahu. Netanyahu is just uh, you know, he's lucky he has Trump and he's only doing things because an election is coming up. So you have this funny situation where Trump is the rock star.

Right. Okay, so so you got so you don't have the ordinary political divide. What what you're talking about is happening here. That is to say, because Trump's a rock star there, it's fine. Here, the polling continues to track Trump's approval rating. If you approve of Trump, you approve of the war. If you disapprove of Trump, you disapprove of the war. Except for twelve podcasters who are in the pay of the Qatar.

Who are themselves, by the way, now approving the war because the Qataris are now shooting at I Iran. So got you know, when the This afternoon, the entire politics of podcast pros may change when their paymasters start telling them to shift their tone. But I digress, or do I? Um But this idea, in other words, that there is there is from Again, m maybe Arab Israelis not, but like everyone there's gonna be a there is going there's an election coming in the fall.

And uh and there are, I don't know, six or seven serious candidates for Prime Minister, and everyone's on board. Imagine just Stop for a minute here. Israel is as fractious a country as the United States and people in Israel hate BB the way people in America hate Trump. Enormous numbers of people hate B B in a almost exactly the same way. And yes

Imagine a country in which everybody comes together on this one th like we we can't even imagine that, I don't think. There's no way for us to even conceive of America having that kind of unity any longer. And it doesn't even feel like unity here, that's the funny part in a way. Okay. In the public it does. Real unity means That you don't feel it. In other words, it's like breathing. Unity is like gravity exists, you know. Okay. Yeah.

Right, but alongside this, so you have the attorney general who is really uh, you know, we're trying to fire her since since the get go and she just says, No, sorry, I mean, we have this judicial system here that is really draconian. and runs the country. And in the middle of this, with missiles flying, she says, Okay, now it's time to say that Uh Itamar Ben Gvir, the uh the uh public secure national security minister has to be fired. So that's the insane politics going on that is fractured, but

But the the funny part here is that it d it doesn't work. I mean, when you hear politicians saying when you heard l in a f three weeks ago when when Netanyahu flew to Washington to meet with Trump And he only went with two people. He didn't go with his whole entourage and they uh he's just trying to get Trump. to force the president of Israel to give him a pardon. He was there planning this operation, this war. And you know, do you hear the any of them saying, Oops, we were wrong. No.

So they're falling all over themselves to try to figure out how to support this, which they do, but also to attack Netanyahu. And one of the ways they're doing it is saying, Oh, he's taking credit for this, but then he should take blame for October seventh. Right. Politics. I'm saying socially you have a socially cohesive country that under that believes, unlike people in the United States, that Ira Iran poses an existential threat.

to Israel and that the destruction of the Iranian regime is a necessary step for Israel to secure its safety in the twenty first century. And that is an expressing a an opinion otherwise would be the controversial. opinion in Israel. What whether or not you like BB or you don't like BB or you want Ben Gavir fired and all of that, it doesn't matter who pri who would be the Prime Minister or whatever, this is what they would everybody would believe.

So it makes the shelter stuff. It's not like why are we doing during COVID, when a lot of Americans started to lose faith in the public health uh apparatus and what it was telling us about what was going on. Nonetheless, we had to adhere to all of these draconian rules and principles in Zoom school and this and that.

And there was this horrible cognitive dissonance which is I'm doing all this because it's how you do things now, but I don't believe it. I don't believe my children are at risk from getting covet. I don't believe That it's as dangerous as it was. I don't believe that rents should be suspended because of this. I don't believe in all of this stuff.

But you kind of have to go along with it because it's the because it's being imposed on you from above. And that is just that's where this mission, which you would think it's very dangerous, missiles are flying at Israel, all of that. But there's none of that. Correct. Right. Absolutely correct.

That's right. So And I was just gonna say, you know, maybe if Americans you know, I was thinking the American military, the people who serve in the US military um, are gung ho. They seem to be gung ho about this. They're really g good about their mission. They're doing amazing things. The fact that most Americans do not serve in the military, and most and all Israelis do other than, you know, except certain exceptions.

I think makes a big difference. Uh there is a sense here of you're taking part in something that is necessary. And when you you know John, when I was growing up in America, I didn't know any soldiers. Okay, like that was No, you knew a lot you knew a lot of draft dogs. And supporters of and supporters.

Of the North React. Okay, this is that I want to follow, but maybe that's another podcast. Exactly. Exactly. But anyway, that's the And so I'm wondering if you know, as I said, America, I can understand why many Americans who don't even know who the vice president is, let's face it, the ignorance among uh many Americans is really shocking. So to expect them to understand the the nature of the Iranian threat is going too far. I mean, I am sometimes I'm just shocked by the level of

ignorance about the world and about America itself and you know you ask college students when was the civil war and they don't know. I mean how can they understand what's going on in Iran?

Right. Okay. So let's now this is subject that you do you don't just write about Israel, you write about Jewish life and you w do right about America and you write about the threat of anti Semitism and we were talking before you joined about the democratic party's a shift in which the Democratic Party is now moving toward explicit near explicit anti Zionism as represented by leading candidates for president, uh, you know, testing out

Israel's an apartheid state message, which is fundamentally anti Zionist, right? I mean in the end, if you think that Israel is an apartheid state, Israel does not deserve to be supported and should not exist in its current configuration because apartheid is evil and it's therefore institutionally and structurally evil. You can't say one without the logic being that Israel is Israel does not have a right to exist in its current form. You would need some kind of regime change to

term of the moment to uh to get Israel to stop being the apartheid state. And if you have two major candidates at least so far for president. testing out this message, it they believe that this is what they need to do to win a major you know, to win

uh the nomination for the presidency or to win primaries in twenty twenty six. J John, can I just interrupt there to to say, you know, there are still people out there on the left, and this is part of why this is happening, you see them on on social media all the time. who argue that Kamala lost and that Biden would have lost. because uh they let down their base by supporting quote the genocide.

Um that that's the thing. It's there's a line that there is a document somewhere, right, Eliando Wither Shrine? There is a document somewhere in the in the Democratic National Committee's headquarters. that is under super secret lock and key in a you know in a room that you have to use an eye scanner to get into that shows that Kamala lost because the DNS wasn't hard enough in Israel. It's like the autopsy. It's the autop the democratic autopsy.

Top Democratic officials who worked on the party's still secret autopsy concluded that Harris lost significant support because of the administration's approach to the war in Gaza. Um, so it's not even clear if this is in the report. It says the officials who worked on the report found this and it's the Jews' fault that Harris lost.

Uh so um this is Interesting and I mean it's the Plato's cave problem that the Republican Party has always had, which is And John, can I just say about Probably about as credible as the uh Rhein's prebus led RNC autopsy that found that uh the Republicans just didn't do enough on immigration reform uh to win in twenty twelve. Look, when I was younger, I didn't need a lot of sleep. Now I need a lot of sleep. Uh it's not optional. I can't function during the day without it.

And sleep quality actually matters. That's not a trend. This is not a quick fix. It's about choosing comfort that lasts. That's why I'm going to talk to you about Bolin Branch. Their sheets are made for moments of unmatched comfort. They're breathable, incredibly soft, designed to get better over time. As you know, this is sleep you don't compromise on. And I've had great experience with Bolin Brand sheets. So has Abe Greenwald. They're softer, they get softer with every wash.

The quality is unmistakable, the feeling is beyond all description. So sleep sand with bowl and branch. Get fifteen percent off your first order plus free shipping at bowlandbranch dot com slash commentary with code commentary. That's bowl and branch, b-o-l-l-a-n-d branch dot com slash commentary, code commentary. To unlock fifteen percent off, exclusions apply. Look, I'm like you. I have too many logins. I have too many passwords. If I want to shop for something at a store I've already used,

And I go there and I know I have a login and it's gonna store all my information that I can't remember. Did I use this email or did I use that email? Did I use this name that I use or did I use another? And then of course I have no idea what the password is. And you know what makes it easier, what makes it work, is when at the top you see a purple button.

Right there of the payment options. And that button makes everything easier for you. No need to get your wallet out. No need to spend time logging in. You just complete your checkout with the tap of one button. Truly one of the best features in the chaos world of online shopping, and that is the Shopify purple button. Shopify, of course, the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and ten percent of all e-commerce in the U.S.

It's an amazing service. And, you know, if you use it not only to buy, but you use it as a way of doing e-commerce. Like commentary does, it accelerates your efficiency, whether you're uploading new products or trying to improve existing ones. It helps you get the word out, and it's a commerce expert with world class expertise. and everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. So don't have your cart abandoned because you don't know how to log in.

See how you as a seller can make more sales go caching with Shopify and their purple Shop Pay Button. Sign up for your one dollar per month trial today at Shopify.com slash commentary. Go to shopify dot com slash commentary. That's shopify dot com slash commentary.

Right. Okay. If it's if it's even true. Like we don't we don't know but it's true. But when I say it's I I would believe that they would argue this and believe this. Right. If you really were gonna run data like that and try to regret regression analysis. I believe they believe it. Okay, right. But that's what Justin believes they believe it. Gallego believes they believe it. In twenty nineteen.

Everybody in the Democratic Party knew that the way to win was to go insanely left. And there were 19 candidates in that race, and they were talking about you know, how much how to make healthcare single payer and how to I mean I'm trying can't even remember the set of issues that these debates that the Democrats had where they were all like scrambling to get to each other's left right, were, you know, like ticking off a box. It was classic

early social media domination and politics stuff where they were all online and they all thought that everything online was real life and all of that. And Biden sort of stood there and said, No, I'm not gonna add I'm not gonna tax add a special tax for billionaires. No, we can't have this kind of healthcare. No, you know, I'm just gonna be like

I'm very left wing, but I'm not as I'm not crazy like you, Elizabeth Warren. And he and he won, right? So Similarly, Republicans in two thousand and eight and two thousand twelve, particularly two thousand twelve, kept getting pushed.

to the right, like having to pay fealty to conservative groups and their issues and they're all broken up into, you know, this issue about guns, this issue about abortion, this issue about healthcare, this issue on, you know, bathrooms, on, you know, whether bathrooms should be

uh could be mixed gender and stuff like that. And all that stuff meant people were going to these debates and ticking off boxes to satisfy con constituencies that a lot of Americans were like, I don't know what you people are even talking about. And that's that's what happens in this atomized atmosphere.

My hope is... Well I was just gonna kind of Yeah, go ahead, Christine. I I was just gonna add that the the difference with anti Semitism now is that in the eighteen to thirty four year old demographic in this country, it is quite uh culturally rooted on the right and the left now in those very online eighteen to thirty four year old populations. So we just there's just a story out of Miami about the county G O P

having a WhatsApp chat group among reaching out to college students in Florida uh to get them to, you know, support Republican candidates and whatnot. And it it devolved into this esoteric Nazi nightmare of a group chat. Um this has happened among so and this is so this is going on on the left and the right and that's what concerns me about anti Semitism compared to some of the clear differences

in policy and opinion on things like transgender and men and women's sports. There you have very clear divides right versus left, but the anti Semitism is a through line, unfortunately, now in this younger demographic on both sides of the aisle. Right. My hope though, the only the only hope that I have about this is that it is a wild overestimation of the importance of this issue relative to other issues to vote to actual voters.

and that and that we look at these politicians and we think, well, they know what they're doing. They're they're spending tens of millions of dollars on research and polling and focus groups and then they know what's pushing people's buttons. But then when we learn what happens when these campaigns fail, it turns out that the campaign manager is spending fourteen hours a day on Twitter and is in fact or the candidate and is in fact being consciously guided.

by that m mood. Like we knew, for example, that the DeSantis campaign Which probably didn't really have a chance but there was given everything that happened with Trump and the indictments and things like that after twenty twenty one. But you know, DeSantis and Trump were like neck and neck. And that DeSantis kept making these weird mistakes because he had ceded his public messaging to very online folk in his communications shop.

who thought that Twitter was real life and so weren't talking about anything that actual real pe people cared about. And that's one of the weird things about anti Semitism. And you can talk about it and eighteen to thirty four year olds are we are are anti Semitic and that's awful and everything. But again, don't they they also want to buy a house and it's too expensive. Like is anti Semitism a tenth as important to them? as the price of as rent or their mortgage?

I doubt it. Well that's I mean that's the the question is whether the messaging that is the our your money is going to Israel is going to resonate. That's why that particular talking point is used and why that particular Talking points effect has to be tracked, which is, you know, like yesterday Marjorie Taylor Greene said, you know

Oh, we're spending a billion dollars a day to help Israel fight a regime change war in Iran s and you don't have health care. Like that that is the message, if that is getting through to people then they're making the connection between I can't buy a house and I hate the Jew like that's the blame the Jews for virtually everything. And that's what Mam Dani utilized also. Remember that that uh video, that clip of Mam Dani a couple of years ago?

came out where he said, you know, you have to be able to to explain to people that when the when the the NYPD's boot is on your neck, that boot has been laced by the IDS. Right. And he was explaining like here's how you make it all about Israel and make everything about Israel and you know find a way to connect it all and blame the Jews. That's that's the that's the sort of nexus point that really can make convince people, even though somewhere deep inside they must know.

that Israel's not the reason they can't buy a house. Uh you hope that somewhere they they have this like you know, Spidey sends so this alarm that's going off saying like this sounds like a logical fallacy, but it's getting buried by all the uh you know, the online noise. But it's a very dangerous cultural and political and historical moment in this country when the kind of nihilism

is expressed through this anti Semitism. I think that's what you're describing, Seth. They don't feel they they don't think that there's a cynicism that can curdle into nihilism about our institutions, about our politics And when it starts to become expressed through anti Semitism as a shared understanding, that can become quite dangerous, not just for Jews, but for an entire society. And I think that's the point where we're not there yet.

But that common language and the fact that it is bipartisan now is is is something that I think we should be continue to be worried about.

I mean I'm I'm terrified about it. I'm I'm I'm I mean, aside from everything else, I'm heart sick. about it. You know, we could sit here for days and say, We told you so, you know, l last thirty years we've been saying don't you know, Democrats are going bet. Jesse Jackson just died last week. Jesse Jackson was the uh Harbinger was the wa was the Harbinger of this move uh on the part of the Democratic Party when he ran

for president that the intersectionality that he basically gave birth to, right? The Rainbow Coalition idea. That idea has two faces, right? That they're all minority groups are oppressed in the same way, depending on where they are or who they are, except for the Jews.

The Jews aren't part of the Jews who make up what point two percent of the population of the planet Earth and two percent of the population of the United States don't constitute a minority group. They are part of the oppressor class. And the and the and the colonial class. And that idea birthed in the nineteen eighties by Jesse Jackson and then academically by Kimberly Cr and others.

commentary and various other publications, including the Weekly Standard, which I saw and what the Freebeacon has been doing since the Freebeacon started. We have been sounding the alarm bell about the left and anti Semitism and campuses and all of that. For almost two generations. So I could say I told you so, but even so. You know, I don't wanna say I told you so because I don't want it to be true.

that the message has had this positive effect or ha has had this success, I still wanna believe that my country is not the country that is going To take this lying down. And I don't know that it is, is my point. That is, these polay, these poles and stuff like that are in part. Push poles intended to Make people feel that everybody's turning on Israel and they are. Getting that result, but you know, there was a poll there, you know, that that could be very soft, insanely soft.

Uh and and could turn in a week. The way opinion about the other thing. our involvement in the Middle East in twenty thirteen, when sixty four percent of people said we should get out of the Middle East of the United States, it turned on a dime when two people got beheaded by ISIS. And then a week after the beheadings 64% of Americans said we should go into the Middle East and destroy ISIS. That was one that's literally

Oh, two weeks. Our bombs are are are helping Israelis kill little schoolgirls in Iran type of rhetoric.

Right. Because if if Israel if the nexus between the way to connect you know, m m your unhappiness with whatever's going on in America to the Jews, if the connecting point is Israel. Then you then the n the next logical step is to, you know, shine a spotlight

on what that money is being used for. And so that's why um and that's why the lies come out at a blistering pace. And that's why nobody They're they're so popular when they first come out that nobody even corrects themselves later on because it's like, well, everybody said the same thing and so you can't even point at one person, you're like, Hey Gavin, remember when you said this, it turned out not to be true?

Literally everybody says, Oh well, I read in the New York Times, whatever. But that is why the Israel stuff cannot be ignored. That's why the, you know, anti Zion just anti Zionism stuff cannot be ignored because the fight is over Israel. Israel is what people in the United States and elsewhere are using to foment anti-Semitism. So that is the battlefield we fight on. Uh just to let people know, uh we are w we're on a platform that records our podcast and we're having various

Abe's disappeared. We call it disappearing Abe Day. Yeah, it's a disappearing Abe has been in and out. Ruthie is now back. I'm just saying like uh we there there are if you're watching this on YouTube, I don't even know how the YouTube cameras work exactly. So but uh we are having a lot of uh weird instability here, uh like the American opinion of the Jewish people.

And Israel. But I I do think it's striking that we're having this conversation about the Democratic Party. And of course you mentioned this horrible Republican chat group, and of course the weird, you know, look smaxing incellish weird, you know, closet cult of boy loving boys, uh, who hate women on the right.

And all of that who are also anti Semites and this weird you know, all all that stuff going on on the right that makes us nervous and Tucker and Meghan Kelly's whoredom as she slavers after Tucker's audience. All that stuff. Meanwhile, the United States is treating Israel as though it were Great Britain in this war. The word is partner. Trump has said Israel's our partner. Hegseth has said Israel is our partner. We are fighting this war together almost as equals. This is the closest.

Coordination relationship that Israel and the United States have ever had and that America has had with a single ally in a gigantic struggle. Since the second world war. Like when we fought in the Gulf Wars and all that, and we had people on our side, they were on our side, but we were like fifty you know, f s a hundred eighty percent of everything was happening and NATO was twenty percent, right? In Afghanistan and Iraq or were ninety ten or something like that.

This is close to a fifty fifty split and every morning Hegseth says I'm blown away by the Israelis. They're so such great partners. Look what they're doing. We're in lockstep together. All of that. And so there is an irony that the Democrats are spinning off into you know uh Nazi land while the supposed Nazi party

uh and you know, Trump is so terrible and he's a Nazi and all that are, you know, basically Announcing to the world that the only reliable ally that the United States has when push comes to shove and the chips are down is this ten million person Jewish state. This tiny little place in the speck in the middle of a sea of hostility. Pretty astonishing that this is happening at the I think it's no accident that it's happening at the same time.

No, by the way, I would just like to add, I said to you before how Trump is uh experienced in Israel. Well Heg says Oh my God, he might as well be Elvis because he's also handsome and all this. It's like, wow, we need to be so the this guy is amazing and uh you know Also Rubio, by the way, uh both of them. And there is talk about how it's interesting that Trump seems to have sidelined J D Vance in favor of Rubio, etcetera, and there's

hope for that and a lot of Israelis saying, Can you im Oh my God, can you imagine if Kamala had won that election? Oh my God, do you know where we would be right now? Oh my god like that. That's the talk around. But but will Hegeth do have his own uh gas station in Israel the way Elvis does? That's the that's the real Elvis test. He might, he might, and even get some hamburgers named after him. He might give it some just give it some time.

Yeah. This by the way is one of the great tourist attractions in Israel. If you go to Israel, on the road to Jerusalem, there is a uh an Elvis gas station restaurant. Uh which I think is is is it owned by Druze? It's actually it's uh is it Jewish owned? Isn't it is it in an Arab village?

I think it's in a uh I think it was in an an Arab village, right? Am I wrong? Anyway, but but but you drive down the highway and there's this giant painting of L. Anyway, it is worth it's worth did you go th well it's not kosher, so you probably didn't go there, Seth, but um

We we stopped there to get you know, at least to get to get the experience and to, you know, grab a a bottle of you know, one of when I when I went I was on the teen group so they still Israel was still selling the old Coca Cola bottles. with Hebrew writing on the Hebrew script on it. Everybody wanted one. So that's we killed two birds with one stone. We got the C Elvis and got the Coke.

Yeah, it is it is a hilarious it is a hilarious waste station. It's like Israel's version of one of those pla where, you know, it's like the world's largest ball of twine, you know, when you're driving across country. You know, it's like come come see the largest the world's largest ball of twine or the world's largest, you know rubber band ball or something. That's the Elvis that's the Elvis restaurant. Okay.

Eliana. Wait, this is I have a question for you guys about this whole issue'cause you get into the weeds about the midterms, et cetera. Now there are two polls, uh the there are uh several polls that put Republican support for this war in the eighty percent. This one's eighty four percent, that poll says, you know, Fox, CNN, all of those polls.

put Republican support for the war very high. Then there's another poll that says, or Reuters I think, that said only one in four Americans support the war. So I'm trying to understand what this means. Is the Republican Party really not uh going with the Tucker people? And what does that mean in in in general? Eliana, do you you wanna take that? So sorry, I had to look away for a second. Can you read it? So so the polling says the last I mean, obviously polls have different results.

Somewhere between eighty and ninety percent of the r of of of people who identify as Republicans are supportive of the war. Yeah. And are not and therefore the Tucker Meghan this is a war for Mark Levin. This is how Bus it's like I want don't take my audience, I'm gonna take your audience. You know. You're not the one who's gonna get bul blue bullet coffee. I'm gonna get the blue bullet coffee ad or whatever that ad blue rifle or whatever the hell.

That that advertising is. Don't you don't you think you're gonna get that that that discount customer code? I think that's it. That's my customer code, Livin. Get your hands off my customer code. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm just r I'm just, you know. No, I I was struck by the results of the CNN poll, um, which I don't have it in front of me, so I'm repeating from memory, which is that um you know, eighty six in ten. Six in ten Americans disapprove.

and of the um m self identified MAGA uh Republicans eighty plus percent approve, the number goes down when it's just folks who identify themselves as Republican, which I think and and then as Christine said, majority of Americans disapprove. Um which I think underscores the president's point uh that he is MAGA. Um his supporters support are going to support whatever he does. Uh number two.

scores a point that Carl Rove makes in the Wall Street Journal this morning and John that we've talked about yesterday and the day before, um, which is that it would behoove the president Um And it does have to be the president himself though some of his um cabinet members, including the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, and the Secretary of State have been out there, uh, to make the public case for this um a little bit more than he has been doing, uh, though he has been out there.

Um and by the way, Steve Wickoff did quite a compelling interview with Mark Levin that hasn't gotten very much attention talking about his experience at the table with Iranian negotiators. I think the president um would do well to draw attention to that. So uh Carl Rove makes the point. And he ends with the quote, um, with the Abraham Lincoln quote, um

without public opinion, you know, nothing can succeed. Uh with it nothing can fail. And I think that's very true. Um and the final point I would make on this is um that If overall this is a success, public opinion will be with the president. Um, if it's viewed to be a failure, of course public opinion will be against it. So I think there's a risk in putting too much stock in public opinion.

five or six days into something that is very much in the making. Like and and I think the president has been wise. to make these decisions without looking at polls. He's done he has done what he thinks is right. I think that's commendable and admirable and courageous and

Public opinion will be shaped by the outcome of this war and there's a whole lot of uncertainty about how things will will end about you know, there. This is such This is such an important point because the I think the only poll that matters is has been consistent over time for quite some time, which is that most Americans have s viewed Iran as a threat, an unfriendly uh country slash

enemy, something like seven or eight out of ten. Those are consistent numbers. So Eliana's absolutely right that if this is a success, I think you will see that shift to okay, we've taken care of an enemy of of the United States. But I I am a little concerned about it it's those independent voters. I don't think this is gonna be a huge midterm um election issue unless it it continues to drag on. But those independent voters are are um

very uh careful in terms of their support of Trump, even though a lot of them brought him back in in twenty twenty four. So watching I'll I'll watch closely those numbers because we know MAGA, as you said, will be with him no matter what. Democrats will be against him no matter what. It's that it's that

Broader middle that that I always find worth watching. And they're also at a disadvantage messaging wise because Uh if they're successful, we won't know the extent of this success for a while because for decades the reason America has been pulled back into some of these conflicts in the Middle East is Iran. So a r a truly successful stomping of the Iranian threat

would mean that in the future we don't get pulled into as many crises. We don't have to go solve as many crises. We don't have you know, all these and we don't have, you know, our kind of our bandwidth, our political bandwidth. taken up with Middle East stuff and Iranian proxies and all that stuff. as much as we do now in the general conversation, that's not something you're gonna be able the day after to say, look what we did for you. It's just the sort of thing that will have

great long term benefits to uh um America's, you know, psychiatric health. And we have we have an object lesson in this in the most unpopular thing that happened in the twenty first century, supposedly. Which is Trump doesn't want anyone to associate this with the Iraq war. The Iraq war was terrible, was so stupid. It was the dumbest thing we ever did. Right? Terrible. Twenty years, twenty, twenty three years since the Iraq war began.

It is hard to remember what a central figure Saddam Hussein was in the fore lobe of the world's brain. From about nineteen eighty until he was deposed in two thousand and three, a quarter century, he was one of the most important disruptive and obsessional figures on the planet Earth and the threat from Iraq. taking over Kuwait, developing chemical weapons, was it going to it tried to develop a nuclear weapon and Israel took out the reactor in nineteen eighty one.

So Iraq was a terrible failure, right? Does anybody think about Iraq today? Iraq sitting there, Baghdad, Basra, you know, this country sitting there in the middle, you know, next to the Levant and near Turkey and all of that. Iraq is off the world's map. It's off the consciousness, and the w no one is worried about Iraq. Everybody on the planet was worried about Iraq for a quarter century. Imagine 2050 when the when the nation Iran is not anything that we talk about or think about.

I mean or we're visiting or we're going there to the beaches or whatever. Right. We're gonna we're gonna in twenty fifty they're gonna host the the Tehran International Film Festival and we're gonna go remember how we used to watch. They have three of the world's greatest filmmakers.

by the way, are Iranian. And one of the you know, there's an Iranian dissident filmmaker currently under arrest in absentia, Jafar Banahi, who was up for an Oscar both for screenplay and for best international feature at the at the Academy Awards. in two weeks, having won one twenty years ago, and there are two other Abbas Kiristami and others. Like, this is no joke. Like this is ir you know, this is Iran is a country that was halted in its move into the first world by this regressive

Revolution in nineteen seventy nine. I'm just saying that we're not going to be able to do that. It is an I end the film. It was just an It's on Hulu, so if you have a subscription you Yeah, free on Hulu. I w I would just say we will be talking more about Iraq, um, because we're gonna be talking about the Kurds going forward and their involvement in this conflict. But I just mean I just mean geopolitically.

Iraq was at the forefront of the world's conversation about geopolitics and we took it off the map. Whatever whatever you say this wasn't worth it or it was stupid, go ahead. You go right ahead. I don't think that's true by the fact that we it's like you forgot that you had this. horrible kidney stone for twenty five years because you finally got it cleared out of your system and pain you don't have a memory of pain.

And the the absence of a rock from the world's brain is something that we simply, you know, now take for granted. And I think that's what Seth's analysis of what it means to win this conflict. And to end Iran's international ambitions and its nuclear ambitions and its ambitions to destroy Israel would mean

So, all right, quick uh final quick recommendation. Uh uh Last night out of nowhere I watched on Netflix a movie called Sovereign. Which I'd heard about. I just popped up, it was there. Turn on at ten thirty at night. It is a uh a movie uh about a real life event which was this West Texas police shooting. In 2010, by a father involving a father and a son, and the father was part of the sovereign movement that is this.

idea, the most famous expostulator of which was Wesley Snipes, the actor, uh, that, you know, uh uh every person is a unique sovereign unto himself in the United States and The government has no call on your money, has no call has no right to tax you, it has no right to make you have a driver's license. You can do whatever you want. And it's the story of the less sort of this month in which this father and son descend into kind of uh barbarism and a a nightmare as as all of their ideas

start to cr crash in on them and um and it's really, really brilliant and devastating. It's brilliant about this world of uh weird um it's weird because the podcast bros these people who uh use like Tucker Carlson's experts talk in highly sounding educated ways about the tax system and money and this and that, only everything that they're saying is gibberish.

And makes no sense. And every time they have to come in contact with an authority figure and explain what it is that they're doing, judges and policemen go, What are you t what are you talking about that you You you you're y there's a person who uh there's a person that has your social security number, that's not you. That's only your straw man, but you're a a real person. This is a true thing, this is a true thing that happened.

Offerman is astonishing in it. The actor Jacob Tremblay, who is in Room, is his son. Dennis Quaid plays a sheriff. very brilliantly. It is a devastating it's a real emotionally wrenching, devastating movie, but it is really brilliant and um

And I think it's important because as I was looking up reviews in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep, uh, there was a lot of effort to connect this movie to, you know, Trump and MAGA and all of this. And I it's just important to note that this actually happened in twenty ten.

the sovereign movement was like very active in the early in you know, fifteen, twenty years ago before Trump Trump arose and um and did not it really was very extreme and so it's really a portrait of This thing, and you can you can watch it without saying, unless you're, you know, a TDS movie critic who

doesn't know anything about anything. You could just look at it and say, well, you know, it's obviously a portrait of MAGA and life under Trump, which which it's not. But that's sovereign. It's on Netflix. Uh and and as as as Seth said, you can now watch this Iranian

Movie which I have not seen but which everyone says is brilliant. I uh it was just an accident by uh Jafar Panahi. Um it'll be very interesting to see what happens with that at the Oscars, you would think,'cause Oscar voting is all this week. Uh perversely, because of course the left hate you know, the left gave a big award, you know, at the Oscars to this uh Gaza propaganda pa Palestinian propaganda movie, No Other Land.

last year you would think that they would want to maybe express support for freeing Iran from its evil tyranny by voting for Panahi's movie and they're not going to'cause in fact they don't care about Iran and they don't care about anything. Acceptating Israel, so that's what's going on there. Ruthie, uh Israel undiplomatic. Uh you and Mark talked this week about uh

About obviously gee, I wonder what you talk about this week. We did, and I've gotta tell you, it's just I mean, in my opinion, and as I tell him this all the time, he's hopelessly he still ha thinks. that Trump is would prefer a deal with and I said with who they're all dead, but anyway That was our main argument. I said that's insane and uh anyway Okay. Anyway, so you you wanna hear a sprightly conversation between two Anglo Israelis.

uh uh Mark a former uh diplomat, Ruthie, of course Ruthie, uh sharing the same Zionist views, both right of center, though Ruthie is far to the right of center. with disagreement and it is great and it's it's uh it's a must listen so go subscribe to Israel undiplomatic and Ruthie I'm excited that you were able to be on here for forty five minutes without being summoned back into the shelter. So at least you got twenty five minutes of peace. Okay. And uh

Uh as it happens, everyone uh uh for s everyone else is gone but Ruthie and Seth. Uh Abe's Abe's internet collapsed. Christine and and uh and Eliana had to go off to meetings. She's cattle burnt.