Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three ten, episode two of Daly'sai guyst.
Day production of iHeartRadio.
This is a podcast where we take a deep dive into America's disgusting, filthy share consciousness. It is Tuesday, October twenty fourth, twenty twenty three. We are a week out miles t minus one week, seven days.
Oh thanks you hellos?
Yeah yeah yeah yeah, California Thanksgiving?
Yeah, how we do it?
What we call it?
Oh?
It's also I was, I was sidetracked because today is National Polony Day, National food Day, hey, which seems a little redundant, but hey.
Yeah sure national My Bologny is a first name, so please speak at the name.
Oh my bed, my bet, my bet name Oscar Oscar. It's National food today. Yeah, fo you know love it was?
That was that day instituted by somebody who's just like, fucking everything has a day like as an act of protest or was there somebody who got real high and was like, you know what, hits really different these days for me?
Food?
Have you this corporate consolidation like it was just monopolies now so they could just say food.
Yeah, the one food company, the three places you get your quote unquote food from But yeah, I think it started in twenty eleven, Like hell yeah, that is about when we started realizing food.
Hell food, food, food, it hits different.
Award. I'd like to take food.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely number one, first and foremost oxygen food.
We are probably a couple of years away from a like one of those farmer campaigns where they like spend their massive you know whatever. The opposite of a deficit is like all the money that they get from the government like milk. Yeah, they're massive subsidies on a advertising campaign like the the Got Milk thing, but like it'll be like pork it's different or hell yeah, dude, hell.
Yeah, milk is different.
Had like a weird mockumentary thing where they're trying to like just smirch any like oat milk, anything that wasn't milk, and I was like with Aubrey plaza, and I was like, this is okay, this is cool, this is cool propaganda.
Yeah, I forget what they call it, but it's like tree juice or something like yeah, exactly, very derogatory like.
Tree milk or something. I think.
Yeah, anyways, my name's Jack O'Brien aka Jack.
You look good.
Won't you piss those pants up? Legs are plump, motherfuckers? Won't you piss those pants up? Eat Swedish eat Swedish fish readers. When you piss those pants up? How and get to lambeau ing? Piss those pants up? That is courtesy of Macaroni on the discord on an.
Absolute Heater auto correct.
Why can't you just accept that the word lamba ing is happening without trying to turn it into lambing, which is not a thing that is happening. Is not a word lambing.
We're lambeau ing, We're lambeau ango.
Yeah.
I wasn't gonna say, sir madam, but auto correct definitely a man right.
The energy feels very.
Unactually the professional AI.
Yeah, it's like, oh, I think I know you're trying to say here the person who typed it in.
Yeah, yeah, let me correct you there. Anyways, I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my co host mister Miles Gress Miles Gray AKA.
When I need some potassium but I want to get drunk. I drink ninety nine bananas, but I don't keep down.
One hit me, Okay, shout out to my whole thing about drinking ninety bananas.
A Fighter of the Nightmare for making that a jay Z.
Wow, that was good. It's one of my favorites in a while.
Shout out to Fighter of the Nightman. Well Miles, we are thrilled to be joined in our third seat. A creative and political activist who hosts Beyond the Pale and w B A I in New York Must listen these days, always a must listen, but especially of late. Is a caucus member of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, co founder of its electoral armed the Jewish Vote. Please welcome back to this show, Raphael Shumann.
Up, it's good to have you.
How you doing, man, that's good, you know, considering gestures to the world, Yeah, okay, but trying to it's so weird. It's like, I think a lot of people feel this, but like when the world is like this, you're supposed to sometimes lock it out and do your job job, and it just seems really challenged to get into normal modes like doing laundry while while you should be in the streets and what feels like all the time right now, But.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you've been in these streets recently arrested and for your work trying to get Chuck Schumer to help bring about a ceasefire.
Yeah, and to convince his niece to stop acting and stop commed.
That's the fun social media, Yeah, yeah, watching the social media masks will slip on. Yeah means like, all right, well we're going to get into all of that plenty more, but first we do like to get to know you a little bit better by asking you what is something from your search history that's about.
Who you are? Like, the thing I always do, and it's probably always the last thing is always I'm a bad speller, So it's every random word to just get the Google auto correct and then use that. It's a really boring last search start, but it's what I need. That's my my lifesaver over there.
What's the what's the what word? Are getting hung up on?
One? Is always? Like, So now I developed a nomadic device to remember this one principal versus principal pal, and I realized, like, you know, the principal of the school wants to be your pal.
But you just picture the principle of the school turning his back his baseball cap around backwards.
I want to talk to you, Yeah, I want to talk to you about some of your Instagram posts. My man, there you go. That's like always the same thing with a cap a tel like a capital versus a capitol building.
Oh yeah, I don't know.
Well I still say that one get through like in like established I guess this quote unquote outlets for journalism, and I'm like, you can't fuck that up now, I certainly can.
Can you tell me how you keep it straight? Because this principal ship is gonna save my ass every time.
I don't know, I just the toll well is always the building, you know, for who can the bell tolls right.
The buildings around? Like, oh you could do that?
Oh hell yeah yeah, but I think I only remembered it because I only saw capital written as a kid first. And then when that new one, yeah, like capt to cow likes.
It over here. So I the I used to get desert and dessert mixed up, and then a girl I was dating, it's like, well you always want more dessert and dessert has two s'so nobody wants more dessert.
Yeah, so one, So.
There you we just we just spun off a new podcast.
Yeah, there you go, a roll when you're when something is rolling. Two l's, you know, the l's get on a roll. Yeah, so that's you know, and this this could be the whole show.
Conaughey, mic conn august, Hey, what do you know there?
It is all right?
What are you doing to write? Matthew mcnaughey. So often we were doing it.
There was a run. There was like when he was talking about running for.
And we were fully in support of it, and so we had headlines such as, why not now, McConaughey, why not now? Yeah, mcconnaughe, Hey, how about this handsome fella? I do like to watch his scene in Wolf of Wall Street on a somewhat regular basis. The vocal warm up right into him, just fully embodying everybody I know who has ever worked on Wall Street Street?
Bros?
Yeah, what is something you think is overrated?
Overrated? The Pledge of Allegiance? I'm sure people have touched on that, right. It's just so creepy. It's like like it's like.
Hey, before class begins, we're gonna tell you some dirty ship that we did as a nation. But before we do, here's a like a blood oath bond.
But you would die for this ship right here. I would die for this you too, right.
Right, then you kill someone in front of them. Yeah, it's like benzal in training.
That right, right right, Yeah, it's a why would we just think? I went to Lutheran school in elementary school, and I was I've always brought this up when the Fledge Pledge of allegiance came up. We had to also pledge allegiance to the fucking Christian flag and to this Christian flag dude, to the Savior for whose kingdom it stands was the whole thing. And I was just like, this is so yeah, it's a The flag is like it's white with like a purple. It's like shaped like
the American flag, but it's all white. And where the stars are it's like purple with a red cross in it.
Oh wow.
And everything else white. The stripes are white, no stripes, it's just like basically white where we'd get blue. And because if they're both white then you wouldn't be able to tell. Hey, and that's all white with us.
That sounds about white.
Yeah, sounds about white. Yeah.
The pledges and wild Ship I think under God was added fairly recently. Yeah, because they were like, no, why what, why why would we know our whole thing is that we did this like to avoid getting God like those well those are the freaking guys, right, we don't do the God thing.
Yeah, no, oh, you guys are gonna love this in about two hundred years.
What is something you think is underrated?
Oh? I think it's interesting. In Jewish culture or religion, we don't say the word God. We don't say God's name unless we really mean it. So we have like a placeholder name, and we say because we want we don't want to like cry wolf. You know, God's out there listening to everything at all times. And if we just keep saying God, God, God, God, God, God, what about when I actually need God? So there's and which is like the that's how you refer to saying God.
But when you actually are meaning God, you have to say God's name, which I can't say on the show unless you're giving something to pray about.
But is so you can say like goddamn. And that's because that's not God's name, right.
No, yeah, for us, it's not God's name, right, so God, but we won't spell a lot of us won't even spell God, g D G dash D if you notice, right, yeah, yeah, So so some people include the word God to not even say the word God, which I just don't.
Isn't like an abbreviation for like, isn't it like abbreviated yahweh too?
Yes, there is. There's a with an apostrophe kind of kind of deal.
Right right right, Yeah, I like that. I like that.
Now, now now you better be say something important because you said God's name, and now he's listening to the podcast. So this whole podcast we got, we got raise the bar, raise the bar.
I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag and his kingdom for Christ with I sucked it up. No, but I do like this conceptually about being like, yo, don't wear God out, you know what I mean, don't always can be like please and just you're talking about like I lost my keys, you know what I mean?
Or like you're fucking you know, like you just yeah, like he doesn't want to see that, but he has to check in because said.
Right, he's sorry, sorry, somebody's calling my name over.
Money shot.
No, I'm yeah, just like a college roommate who errently walking Okay, sorry, guys, got I heard my name?
Like that idea, and I think we should do more of it. We should do more at words for when we don't mean the word ye.
Right, well yeah truly because I think like in a way like I get for me personally going to like Lutheran and Catholic schools, like it feels like it just gets worn out to a point, like you say it so much and like yeah, yeah, God for sure, for sure.
Yeah the question is nothing sacred in this country? Absolutely not, no, no, what what. I'm reading a book about the NBA and then I teen seventies, like written in the nineteen seventies, and it's just wild, like the things that we have fully taken for granted about how just everything media, everything works like they're still getting used to it, like the cellauty nature and shit, and like they're just like it's
really weird. Like money comes in and kind of like corrupts things, and like the owners kind of feel like they know better than the people who like play and coach basketball, which is weird because they just made their money in frozen food.
But it's their dad dying.
Yeah, dad's dying as the number one wealth creator I.
Think in this country absolutely.
Whenever it dies, it like when when an angel loses, when a dad dies.
Yeah, someone gets a lamba damn man, how I get like you?
All right? First of all, you just got to wait for your super rich to die. Oh I don't know, my dad, I don't think that's what.
Well the money roll in. Well that's on you, man. Yeah, that's on you for not knowing.
Hey, bootstrap it, man, you get a better dad.
Yeah, I mean, stop buying those Starbucks.
Exactly, exactly, you fucking avocado toast habit is not just bad for you, bad for this country, it's bad for your whole generation.
Sir.
We were just talking about avocado toast guy because he was the same guy who was like, yeah, man, like people need to lose their job, so they stopped trying to think that they like employers should be given them more money. That Australian Yeah, dude, he's the guy who he's the og avocado toast guy, and he's a fucking millennial.
Yeah, he's like a young Australian millennial. Yeah, but he gets it.
He gets it. All right.
Let's uh, let's take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about what's happening in Gaza and the movement for peace in the United States.
We'll be right back.
And we're back and rat First, first of all, I listened to I think it was the most recent episode of Beyond the Pale is the most recent episode that was on SoundCloud where you were talking about your experience, you know, like we referenced earlier, you know, protesting at Schumer's house getting arrested. That there was a story from the bus that n YPD put you guys on the
bus after. And there was a story about a where there's original and about a wedding song that that just like kind of warmed my heart in gave me something to warm my heart in a place that I wasn't expecting necessarily to have my heart warmed.
Can you talk about those two stories.
Yeah, So we were in front of Chuck Schumer's house to push him to back the ceasefire legislation that's coming out that already has come out since then by Corey Bush and Russido to leave and others. And he's used to people in front of his house and he also heard about it. So the police were ready. So what we have to do is block the streets and Grand Army Plaza, which is a big plaza that's like a major artery in Brooklyn, where he lives, and that's where
we were arrested. I think over fifty three of us or so. Yeah, And of course we were put in these buses. NYPD likes to commandeer MTA buses when they have a mass arrest, and that's what they did here. And they were basically pulling us into the bus from blocking the traffic. And it's Brooklyn, so half the people we blocked the traffic before, we're like cheering us and
recording and putting on social media. So we were going into the bus and I realized they sit down puffed in this bus and hey everyone, because police here pretty much are obsessed with arresting people for jumping fairs, not paying fairs, and everyone just started singing a song like like just calling them out for all, like not only comingdeering a bus for free, but all of them just walking in for free, which is they actually Yeah, there was a story where we were arrested with two elected
officials in the state and one of them was Zoron and he was on Mendani and he was with me and a friend and this woman, an older woman, amazing adorable activists. Her name is we call her raz but her name is Rosalind Pachsky, and she's a very like, long time and very all member of Jewish Voice for Peace ABP, which was part of that coalition of left
Jewish people and activists that were confronting It. Was like two thousand people came out to confront Schumer on this, and they bring her into the buns and she sits down and you imagine like maybe a five foot tall, like sweet grandma, and she's looking in and sits down. Her hands are behind her back, and what we realize is that she's not really cuffed, like she's somehow waiting to get a custom.
To pro move.
Yeah, so your hands buying your back immediately, and they'll assume that you've been.
I don't think why she was cuffed or why she maybe someone felt bad for her, they didn't cover I don't know, but the thing is she's like has her hands on her back that everyone thinks she's cuffed. And there's this and Zara Zarn's Muslim and one of the few are only actually Muslim elected in that in that
state Assembly. He's just like, you know, sitting there, we're all like in pain with these cuffs, and he just does the most jewish motherly kind of amazing thing, which was you just see her hand, you see him and her kind of look and wait till the cops are
looking the other way. And then her hand slips out from her back, goes into a bag and takes out a candy, which I immediately realize is a wor there's original and Zoron without a word, turns around, opens his mouth and she feeds him this candy and makes her hand back in behind her like she's a cuff. And it just was the most amazing thing for someone like me who often has a camera on him. Is really so I'm telling I'm gonna I'm reaching Molly Crabapple with
this story. She's like, I think you all know about her. She's just amazing illustrator. And I want to have this illustrated because to me that it was this magical moment. And while I'm experiencing that moment, I mean, where there's a you know, like, what are there commercials like this? Like didn't we grow up with were there's original commercials like this? Not like in a bus getting.
Arrested right when protesting It would have been way more.
Yeah, but it was like typically like an older elder or someone.
Yeah, an elder showing love.
Yeah that is, and none of.
Us we're ever excited by where there's original.
No, but like in that situation, hell yeah, like the brand is strong.
I didn't even know it was still around, but I could use it one right, Yeah, but yeah, I don't know, Like yeah, so that that's like the story that's like the ones. There's so many stories of ros wherever you go with her. He's a powerful figure that brings a lot of history with her. She was like Acunia professor and reproductive right scholar back in the day when like
no one was that. Yeah, she's incredible. And then there was this other I think the other story you're referring to is while I'm like while we're kind of like looking down and we were like shaking the bus. We were like giving the cops a really hard time. And during that moment, one of my someone at Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, their new political director, he came on the bus and I guess enough of us knew.
Alicia actually got married that day. Earlier that day that then that day, Alicia was had her marriage and decided that her honeymoon was going to be getting arrested with us, and so people just started stomping and singing, and it's a bustle of Jews. So it was like the Jewish wedding song. I was like, everyone's like stomping. It was so beautiful. But I even caught a cop like put his hand on his heart and just be like, ah, way are you pretending.
He's like you need some chairs for the whole Like what these cups?
Sorry? Yeah, he's been to it looked like he'd been
to a Jewish wedding. And you know, those are just like the two beautiful things that happen in this kind of movement space where where people come out for real shit and still we find like joy and right friendship and stuff and these things and those long conversations we have in jail cells and sitting on a jail cell and seeing the carvings of like act up etched on the thing, and one day, twenty years from now, someone else sitting there seeing the etchings of BLM on the
chairs and just getting that energy from this long arc you.
Know, yeah, I don't know that story.
And just generally the movement that you're involved in is such a beautiful testament to the Jewish faith that like I don't know, so that so many people at this time of terror are willing to like advocate for justice, and it reflects like a clarity and the humanism that is uncommon in the religions I grew up around, you know, like a Baptist in the South, or like Catholicism or you know, but I've always I've always admired the Jewish faith, and you know, I feel like this is a time when, yeah,
people like the things that are getting talked about are this violent Zionism or anti Semitism. It's like, no, like what about these stories?
You know? Yeah? Absolutely?
Yeah.
But you were also there for a story that came up on the show in DC, the action on the rotunda and the question that we were asking on this show is where the fuck was the FBI?
Man, like more evidence.
That the deep state has a massive left wing bias? Am I right?
I mean there was Yeah, like Marjorie Taylor Green said, this is an insurrection with that same energy, which was really baffling to see when truly we're seeing.
People come together to advocate for peace.
But there's this Fox clip I should send you, and it's it's them like wondering how we got in and how we did it. And then the Fox journalist actually who was on the ground was kind of like honest, and he was just like, Oh, they got in by just going through the metal detector and saying that they're coming to practice free speech and that's our free speech laws. Like they were trying to make it into this big thing like people look the way.
So did open the doors for them to enter it?
Yeah, exactly, But it was just like anyone can go into the rotunda and meet their their Congress member and talk, you know, you could literally talk to their staff. You passed by AOC's you see a bunch of post its on the wall, like she's like the rock star in Congress. Of all these post it's like showing their adoration and support of AOC, and.
It's kind of it's kind of cool, but just like, so, so what's the difference between that and what happened on January sixth? Like that's why I was like, oh, just because you guys weren't ripping things off the wall and chanting that you wanted to.
Hang the Vice president.
That's that's why you're allowed in the public.
It's basically the public doar in public?
Come right, how did you get this cheat code that you weren't supposed to rip things off the wall and threaten to kill.
But it was it was that there was two actions in DC. One was led by if Not Now, and that was sealing all the entrances and exits to the
White House, which the Secret Service arrested people for. And then this event a couple of days later for the for Congress, and that was to really just take over the rotunda and and what happened was there was ten thousand people outside supporting US, five hundred went in and together that was the largest Jewish action for Palestinians in history anywhere in the world.
Wow, can you describe what if Not Now?
Is?
Just for anybody who doesn't know.
So there's two groups really largely at play here. One is if Not Now and if Not Now? So Holstary JVP Jewish Voice Piece because it's older, it's like three decades old, and it started, of course with in solidarity with Palestinian So it's very much like their orientation is like go to the front line of who's being affected by the occupation and partheide and let them lead and we be their Jewish allies their comrades, you know, and
that's a beautiful model. And if not, now it's ook at another level, not in competition or anything, but like that identifying that there's also something in our culture and how we were raised that needs to be addressed and that we need to unlearn the things that we were raised with throughout our lives. And so it's very much inward and it's very much more youth oriented at least initially, and then also really specifically about ending American Jewish support for for apartheid and occupation.
And like, and I've seen so many wilds, Like I've seen people call Jewish Voice for Peace like a terrorist group, like some really awful shit or like and I and rap. Since I've known you, and like you've come on the show, like we've had a lot of conversations where your work in you know, standing up and they're being in solidarity with the people of Palestine has opened you up to all kinds of attacks like that people would accuse you of being like self of self hatred and things like that.
I'm really curious, especially for you, who's so involved in this and is looking at it through the perspective you are like what that's been like to watch watch these things unfold the last few weeks and begin to see these rifts open up in really really dramatic ways, and you know like what that process is to sort of look on and say, like so, like some of us are here, others are completely there. Yeah, like what how do we make sense of it?
That's such a good question, And there's still so many open things that we're learning, Like right now, there is a use of the statistics. There is a huge difference depending on your age and like where you fall. And this issued either as an American of any faith or no faith, or as a Jew. But I think if not now in JPP had like shift the paradigm and made it safer for a lot of people to be able to say, like why am I being called anti Semitic?
If these Jews are also believe what I believe? And then also we do that too, like we say, why are we called self hating Jews? If Israel's largest human rights organization calls it apartheid and there's a whole society called making the silence? Who are veterans in Israel who oppose the occupation? Many of them had even refused to serve and spend jail time refusing to serve. And it continues today. And these are like teenagers, like or early twenty year olds. So there's all this kind of layers
upon layers of people seeking safety through validation. And it's kind of sad because what results for Palestinians is that I think you've probably seen all these super clips online, and that is when Palestinians are brought on to news shows, they're not asked about if their families, okay, who they lost,
what they fear. They're asked if they support terrorism, you can ask, yeah, exactly, and it's really and then some of the Palestinian guests and experts and journalists would say, oh, by the way, my uncle died and my nieces missing and XYZ, thanks for asking, know what I mean, and they would just go they would just pivot back to Amman, which is really it's it's really I can't imagine what that feels like to have to be to not only have to disavow things like I posted, I mean the
other day it was an asteroid that was coming to Earth to destroy and I wrote, yeah, but do Palestinian support it? You know, like it's just like becoming this thing.
We're just gross. And also when they do speak about anything with Israel and Palestine, a Palestinian has to be like a PhD in European anti semitism in order not to say something that's triggering and this, and I understand those triggers, but also there's almost zero grace for Palestinians to just even mourn or speak for their own security.
Yeah.
Yeah, we get this article in the La Times over the weekend about how the left has really led us down. I mean that we've gotten this article over and over again.
It's like, yeah, it's millennials are killing X industry. Is the left is really there this week it's this thing.
And like they're going to be able to find anti semitism on the left because there's anti semitism everywhere, Like anti semitism is it is a huge problem. But in this context, as you're as you're there involved in this struggle for peace, it seems like you've seen something quite different from anti semitism being on the grid for these protests and these actions.
We like to say peace and justice, right, like peace, Yeah, because like a lot of people, yeah, a lot of people define peace, and I think peace is the right word, but a lot of people have redefined peace to mean quiet, and like, you know, there's no there's no there's no rally as I can tell for Black Lives Matter right now on the streets. That's very large right now, But that doesn't mean there's peace, right there's still those things
are still happening every day. So I guess I like to remind folks to also say just this part, because peace in Gaza is four hours of electricity a day, calorie counting by Israel to not allow too much food and water, limitations, a blockade around every well, note travel restrictions. It's just open air prison. And a lot of people define the day before that horrendous attack by Hamas on civilians, a lot of people define that that day before that
it's peace. And yeah, anti Semitism. Yeah. Another thing is like it's very easy to kind of assume antisemitism is like in the water in the air, and it's really it's something that's manufactured by the right, and it was created by the right in Europe in order to remove
to create, like a middle manager like to create. So the core of racism is this like supremacy, ethnic supremacy, and for example, the idea that someone exists like Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela or something exists like black culture defining global culture for decades and decades, all of these amazing accomplishments, all the inventions, all the things, all the scientific breakthroughs that any black person does, negates the idea of white supremacy. So a useful tool to undo
that is the idea of this mystical Jewish person. This Jewish person, be it Sorrows or whoever, is behind the success of black people. It's behind the migrant you know, like the idea that America is this immigrating beacons for immigration and all these things. And so it's a really useful tool to a redirect like financial pain and suffering from capitalism to a group of people, and also to
protect the idea of the myth of white supremacy. And I guess, like what I'm seeing on the streets to your question, finally, what I'm seeing on the streets, I do see occasionally anti Semitic thing. I will see it, and then sometimes most of the time I'll call the person in and be like hey, like they'll be like the Jewish state. This is like what the Jewish state does. And I'll be like, well, do you mean the Israeli state or do you mean the Jewish state? And then
they're like, oh, I didn't think about that. But had they said that in front of a New York Post reporter, that would be on the front page and would be used to define DSA, would be used to define anything and try to destroy the left. And what I saw in Israel there is an Arab town forget the name right now, there's an Arab town that after the attacks,
welcomed Jewish refugees. And the history of that Arab town was it was one of it was the site of the most horrific massacre by Jews of Palestinians of Arabs in that town. And they still are opening their doors to the families affected by that attack by Hamas. You know, you're seeing these things on the street and you're you're basically going to find what you're looking for, right, And the question is what are you amplifying and what are you using to define an entire thing with?
Yeah, because I've seen how useful that sort of the left is anti Semitic, like that, how that take has been used by like establishment democrats and shit to completely try and take the wind out of the sails or question the validity of people pointing out that the ills of Palestinian people living under occupation and then just being able to sort of use this like thought killing cliche to be like, well, they're all anti Semitics, so let's now back to our person and on the ground from
the IDF that is going to tell us exactly what's happening now. And yeah, like I see how like in a way, like for the establishment politics too, like this has been used to being like, oh, we can also sort of try and kneecap a movement as well by bringing it into this, you know, a very skewed perspective that they.
Want to show absolutely absolutely. And also what I saw the difference in our protests, the Jewish ones, the police were like there and they they threw a lot of people around and did this stuff. But when I went to the Palestinian youth protest in front of the Israeli Embassy in DC on that Friday night, it was riot gear. It was cars parked in a way. There was also this guy infamous cop I forget his name, but he's known to have killed a BLM protester and he's just
walking around like it was so different. And these were two kids, right, and it was it was wild that these kids in this little redsdential neighborhood of this very secure Israeli embassy were met with riot cops versus US in the heart of the power of the United States and the most sensitive part of the world. And we were just you know, singing into a bus, you know.
Right, Yeah, let's take a quick break and we'll come back.
We'll keep talking about this.
We'll be right back and we're back and wrap.
Something I saw you pointing out on social media is this idea that Hamas is a right wing organization.
I think people.
Understand that this Israeli government really favors settlers and you know what they call settlers or I guess what are called settlers, but like really just violent militarists stick intervention is a right wing government, and it it feels like we're being asked to choose between They're just like there's just these two right wing options and that's that's it. And we either side with one right wing option or you side with the other.
And the whole that was kind of.
Clarifying to me to just think about it as like, no, well, I've never in my life sided with the right wing option in any circumstance, like why should I start now? But it does feel like that is getting blacked out from the entire conversation.
And I have to admit saying that they're a far right organization a it's not like an exact match to like European or Western far right. But also and it also does this thing of flattening the Palacinian resistance, which is greater than Hamas. There's a lot of groups and the most favorite group actually like people don't know their names and I don't even remember their names. But there are a lot of youth groups who show up without any kind of real ideology. It's more like a mutual
aid kind of thing. And they have been springing up and going after soldiers and going after violent occupying soldiers and going after violent settlers and getting killed like more than anyone. And those are the ones that are the most popular fighters, resistance fighters by Palestinians, not these groups.
Not to say these groups don't have the port like even in Ukraine, the azov As we know the Azov Battalion has their neo Nazi past and present, and people also have this struggle of like hey, they're like, you know, they've lost the most lives, they fought the most battles, they've won the most battles with Russia. Let's just park this this ship until, you know, including the Jewish president.
So like there's this complexity that I always kind of think, like what if like some a super alien force came and started bombing queens and like some proud boys were like handing them their ass. I might chill out for like a day or two against the problem. I don't know, like I know what I would do in these situations. But yeah, like so, and it wasn't just Hamas in those in that breach of Gaza prison. It was other groups.
In fact, you hear a lot of stories from from Israelis who, no matter what the news was trying to make them say, they were saying no. This person entered my house. He asked for the keys to the car, and we told him like there's no gas, and he's like, I'll take and he took the car. Or he asked for a banana and we gave him a banana and he left, and they seem a lot of them seemed
just really hungry, like you. There's all these testimonies that they don't play in English in the US that they play in Israel all the time, including like to be fair, like including there's stories of a Palestinian person in Israel using an image of the kidnap grandma to sell pizzas, you know, it's like a meme and stuff like that, and like Israel bulldozed their pizzeria in response. You know, there's everything you want to find, you will look for
in any kind of thing, you know. Yeah, but it's not defining all the things right.
I've heard some people say that Western media is actually like more right wing, like further to the right than Israeli media.
Even absolutely the things that I would read from even a right wing book or like a centric's book, like Benny Morris and all these other historians in Israel, Amos oz poets, like all of these Israeli hardcore that they served in the military, even Prime Minister that I could repeat something the prime ministers of Israel said or the heads of security has said, and if I say that in the United States, I would be called antisthematic for those things. They say, if I was Palestinian, I would
do the same thing Palestinian. These are people who became prime minister, they say, are the head. There's a there's a great documentary everyone should watch everybody. It's called Gatekeepers.
It's Israeli and there's English subtitles, and all it does is is interviews the heads of shin Bet, which is like the biggest security agency over decadeses all of their heads minus one or something, and they all what they say, these like hardcore people that like their living was torturing people for information, and they're saying, there's no military solution to this, ever, and what's going to happen is we're
going to destroy our country. We're going to destroy any hope of democracy, and it's going to be like a far right religious like theocracy. If you do this's you know, like all of them say. Ariel Sharon wore criminal on his death bed said something to the to the like of you know, we have to choose this or we're going to lose Israel. We have to choose a negotiated settlement or we lose everything, like and then when you repeat those kind of things in the US, you're anti Semitic.
Yeah, And I think another part that I've only like sort of recently started seeing more and more, like I think there's been as this whole, you know, this conflict unfolded, there are a lot of people were like, well, you gotta go back to this, you gotta go back to here, you gotta go back to the UN or you got to go back to the fact that Europeans and the United States didn't know what to do with these Jewish people and probably didn't want to repatriate a lot of
these people for you know, as we've learned from past guests, like the amount of businesses that were just absorbed by.
People when Jewish people were fleeing Western Europe during World
War Two and things like that. But another point that I think isn't discussed enough, but we would talk about on the show, especially at the time when the US Embassy was moved to Jerusalem, and like Mike Pompeo was like so giddy about this that then there are a few people were like, there's actually if you go further back, there is this relationship between especially like well it's more specifically in the United States, like these Christian evangelicals in
the United States in the US specifically, but obviously this is a larger thing that goes back centuries. But the idea of how the support is always intertwined with the idea of the end times coming, and it's when people are always like, well, why would they let this happen? Or why are they looking the other way?
And a lot of people are saying, like all the time, you'd see people who are experts in this field or come from these communities say, you, guys don't understand like this, the like Israel becoming a country is a lot of people see that as a prophecy fulfilled on the way to bring back like the you know, the return of Christ.
But this goes back centuries and I know that you you, I've seen you post like things that are sort of in this realm too, But is like, I mean, how much how much awareness do you think, like in general there is around that because I think a lot of people look at it as like, obviously the United States is providing the munitions to the Israeli govern but there's also like these there's these underpinnings of this theocratic just hardlineer stuff about being like yeah, the rapture, this this
has like a dual purpose.
Yeah, there's so many interests here. There's like weapons manufacturers who love the existence of Gaza, you know, because they can toy, they can play and research new weapons and have like a real life battlefield, which is what they're trying to build in cop City, you know what I mean, Like this kind of like practice arena, and except in Israel that practice arena is like actual human beings. There's
this guy who's a really good historian. I wish he had more followers, but he really touches on this really well.
He's on Instagram as a m o y a l Amyl Ri Moyal and he does a really good video, really going long form, breaking down the Zionism before Jews spoke about it, and there is like a link, a direct link to right wing Christian evangelical kind of folks and in the UK, and he makes the case like, you know, the UK decided to offer us a homeland at the expense of Palestinians, and the question is like why, Like the UK at that time and even a lot of time today is one of the most anti Semitic countries,
the most casual anti semitism in the world, and why would they just end over this valuable piece of strategic land to just a bunch of refugees from Europe. And the answer is that there are very powerful people who have this interest of end times and they are giddy to the other day, I was listening to radio and New York City there was something it's a signal that's taken from another town, because when they do the weather, it's all off. I don't know where, but it's called
the Bridge. And I think there's a podcast the British Christian Radio or something like that. They were gidy. They are if you turn any like evangelical like Christian radio right now. They are so happy and basically their plan is coming together and that is death and destruction for people who are not Christian, and Jew's dying and people converting and Jesus coming back, and there is a very
much straight line. Like Zionism spiritually means a lot of things, like we at every prayer, at every dinner, we talk about or in holidays we talk about going back to Israel, and a lot of people read that in many different ways, like I'm from Uzbekistan as a Jew there in this ancient society, like we when we said we were called Israel.
So our actually we weren't called Bujarians. We're called Buarians because a white man found the first of us in a town called Buhara and decided this is a Buhari and now forever we're called Buarians because of its white traveler. But we were always called Israel. We were called Esareel. So when we said esil, we meant us where we are, where we're home. And you know, there is a lot of tradition about that. I could go into on a
whole other show. But the spiritual meaning has many This is why a lot of Jews are so even human rights caring Jews are so triggered with even the term anti Zionism and all these things. It's just wound up in so much of our Even that wedding song we were singing on the bus protesting Israel. We're singing on the bus. It has a reference to Israel in the song. You know. So there's a lot of contradictions.
Right right, because I think a lot of people also underrate like just how you know, there's like a group called Christians Unified for Israel that has like a lot of sway, especially within the Republican Party.
People talk about APAC all the time, but actually the biggest thunders are Christian Zionists as well.
Yeah, and I think that's and a lot of people are like, well, I don't like, you know, I think it really became clear, especially right after the embassy was moved, and Donald Trump at a rally was like, yeah, he's like, you think the like people would be excited about it. He's like the evangelicals, they're actually more they're more excited than the Jewish people about this.
And oh yeah, he's always lambasting on us. He's always saying we're not returning the favor and right, yeah, and he's saying the Christians and are the ones who are.
Grateful, right, and now we're like and now, like to a certain point, I'm like, okay, well I'm glad, Like, you know, Pompeo and Pence obviously like aren't part of the mechanic, the mechanical, the machinery of the government, but.
We still it's still a huge force to be reckoned with. And I know Joe Biden, like one of his like sort of community outreach people he had during the transition comes from this like evangelical Wow, yeah, so like you see that like there's still there's like a consistency to all this, and now like as I see and watch what the president is doing now, I'm yeah, like I mean, I'm he's he's pretty consistently been saying like yeah, no, it's like no matter what this is, this is what
we're going to stand with Israel. But as but I'm always curious to see, like especially when you see people in the streets like saying this is not what we want, not in our name, or we cannot repeat the mistakes that we did like in nine to eleven with immediately just jumping to conclusions and like unleashing just unrestrained wrath. Like how he like how even this administration is looking at it and like what they're even calculus is you know what I mean, Because I'm like, yeah, this is
a lot of people that voted for you. There's a lot of people that you gave them the binary of like well you know, it's the lesser of two evils or like I'll hold my nose. But now with increased resistance to what is happening, I'm I'm just like, really that's also just I see how further things can ravel even domestically.
Yeah, I mean, it's it's like uncharted territory. With Biden, it seems like he could he could pass something and it's going to create a climate, core of workers, and it's going to be like this amazing thing that we never thought any president would do. And then on this side, he took forever even just to mention Palestinians and lied about like the beheaded baby story and other things. I really don't know, Like it's just like it's so uncharted to me what to expect. But it's like anything is
up from this because it's so dire. But I am moved though. I am moved because if you do see people, they are taking stands. During when we did the White House thing, if not Now, we steeled every if not now people field every entrance and exit. There's so many of them, more than a dozen, and Secret Service and everyone came to arrest them. And during that moment inside the White House, there are there were people who signed
an internal letter who agree with us. While we're screaming on the streets, Joe Biden's opening up his email and his a is reading like a letter from his own staff protesting his position. Same thing with Staffers in Congress have written up hundreds and have written internal letters and stuff, and people are resigning all over the country from their companies, from agencies and also getting fired. There's a young woman who got fired from CIA recently for her stance. Yeah.
Yeah, and I think what they I think that they posted something as like innocuous, as like we're starting to see who supports genocide? Yeah that, And I think that's when we've been saying this, like for the last few weeks, the landscape has so become so hostile towards any sort of utterance of like a resolution like if it's not a full throated support of like yeah, they have the right to defend themselves no matter what. If that's not the take, like then you see a lot of.
It's interesting is when they do speak like that, especially off the cuff, when they say like we must do what's necessary because you know whatever, and if it's innocent people, it's innocent people, but we have to get blah blah blah, and that's that's what they chose. They say, so like Israelis are saying that the Israeli military hawks are saying they chose Hamas even though that election was like almost two decades ago whatever, But like that, they chose Hamas
and therefore they deserve it. But that's also what Hamas said when they went into those settlements, those towns. This is not defense of them, but those towns where they were invading, invading, were quote invading but also invading. They those were the forms. So Gaza, the existence of Gaza is ethnic cleansing. So it's these Palisines used to live all across Palestine Israel, and now they're pushed in there and remove the right to vote. So that's literally the
existence of Gaza itself is already ethnic cleansing. So there's really no debate. So they actually Hamas says the same thing, and al Qaeda said the same thing when they did the towers. They said that we voted for Bush and others who who are bombing Arabs and the thing and al Kaid are awful evil. Of course we have to say that is that a hunting right But but but they they said the same thing. So I'm wondering, like why are all these right wingers are saying the same thing,
and how how they're all benefiting from each other. They're literally feeding each other and we're all on the sidelines, like oh my god, and having to choose a side between all of them.
To your point, yeah, I still feel like a lot of people don't understand like some of the things that you've made reference to, like the calorie limits, the electricity limits, the shutting off of fresh water, and like the people of guys that can't just leave like that, that's that's the thing that I like people who don't follows who are like, well, why don't they just leave then?
And it's like out of which exit, which which which exit are used to? They're not a bomb.
And even before like they're not allowed to leave for like cancer healthcare, like for you know, they're not allowed to leave and like that it is the definition of
an open air prison. But you know, and just a Muslim person I know recently said to me that, like when we get these like mainstream communications from organizations like we stand with Israel communications as Israel is just indiscriminately bombing innocent people and children in Gaza, They're like it feels like this won't stop until they put all the brown people in a concentration camp like the like, and I the US has had a prison for brown people, that is a war crime like in Cuba for the
past twenty two years, that like it's this is not imaginary, like it's happening right now to them, right like, And I just ask like people who are having trouble with coming around to the position of peace to like try and view things from the perspective of somebody who has lived through the past twenty two years in this country and then that this is this is happening. You know, that's let alone, like the people who have lived in an open air prison and an apartheid state for you know, over Dame.
I don't know how much time we have, but like there is something that would be useful to help decode. And one of that is like a lot of this is like at least in the Jewish community and people who want to stand with us, are these triggers, And one of them is like there's all these like interpretations. So like when someone goes to a rally and someone screams from the river to the sea, a lot of people get triggered, and really you should follow up and
ask what that means. And usually the answer is everyone should have a vote, Like it's really even the one that they try to make into a monster, into this evil super whatever left kind of thing BDS, which is boycott divest campaign, which is the single most unified thing that Palestinian civil society demands. This is when when you say what should we do for Palestine, it shouldn't be
what Americans are saying or Jews are saying. It should be what Palaestinians are saying, and Palasinians are saying, Boycott, divest from from until we all have one person, one vote, which is just like the most basic line kind of human rights thing. It's not it's not radical at all. It's not scary at all. What is scary to people is and it's understandable too. It's not sometimes like it's either you want to choose villains or whatever. But I can't look at my uncle who's great on everything and
problematic on Israel and say he's a monster. But he's confused and he's afraid that there's going to be another time that Jews don't have self determination. Yeah, and you know, and there's there's ways to fight self determination, fight for democracy where you are. That's one point. There's also models for multinational, multi ethnic date kind of things that you could do with Israel. There's you know, it's just like a lot of this is emotional and triggering and actually
solvable with conversations like I've had those conversations. It's actually fixable.
Well, raf thank you so much for coming on to talk to us about this. Thank you for all the work that you're putting in, and yeah, we really appreciate it. We'd love to have you back.
Thank you all back on, and thank you for the cheery inch. I love your beginnings of all your shows. It just they always make me happy. The shouting, the corny morning zoo vibe. I love it so much. And this is the first time I like laughed like this and smiled in a while.
So thank you, Thanks well, thank you. Where can people find you? Follow you all that good stuff.
You can find me at Rafael Shimanov on Twitter, at Rafternoon on Instagram. And you said, definitely if you're Jewish out there, sign up for either. If not now, if that's your vibe or Jewish voice or peace, check them both out. And if you're not, all the fights are connected. Find your local grassroots, find your local mutual aid group. It's important. You're gonna need these connections when things get worse, and things are gonna get better, but they're gonna get
worse first. And thanks everyone.
Is there a work media that you've been enjoying?
Oh yeah, there's this thing that I have pinned to my top tweet. So if you go to Twitter and you find me, there's this Morgan who's one of my friends who I was arrested with in New York and it was one of the It went and it went wild. They got like eleven million views, like right away, because people are so hungry to see people just speaking truth.
And it was him in the crowd in front of like the in the park in front of Chuck Schumer's house, like stating the case and revving up the audience and revving up the activists and also distracting the police from our other action is going in front of his house with his beautiful speech, and you have to watch it. You have to see the energy and the hurt that he's feeling. And also, like the contract, it's hard to speak.
You don't want to make it sound like it's about us, because it's not about us, like we're part of this, but it's about Palestinians and we should be talking. We should be lifting up Palestinians as as much as we can to talk on this everywhere.
Yeah, Miles, where can people find you? Is there a working media you've been enjoying?
Yeah, at Miles of Gray and all that at place is a basketball podcast, Miles, Jackot mad BOOSTI podcast for twenty day fiancees. Let's see a tweet I like is from rob at okay, but still tweeted this is This is from like earlier in the year, tweeted female therapist.
Your friend with a fat, ugly baby will have to accept that your truth is your truth.
Male therapist. Yeah, it sounds like the medication isn't working at all. But to go back to something you said flips notes last time, uh q doba is mid I want to challenge you on that.
That's pretty good.
Uh tweet I've been enjoying.
Dylan Glula tweeted at some point during Planet Earth, David Attenborough should assure you that you won't be this high forever.
And.
I was hoping there was an impression.
Yeah.
You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore. O'Brien, you can find us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist. We're at d Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fanpage and a website, Daily zeitgeist dot com, where we post our episodes and our footnote where we link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode, as well as a song that we think you might enjoy. Myles is their song that you think people might enjoy it?
Yeah, this is soothing instrumental music.
It sounds like you're like if there was a Speak easy, but the jukebox only played like menu music from a Nintendo or game Boy game. This track is called Lata and it's by this artist, Frankie Reyes, and he plays like a OG like synthesizer and uses MIDI But this like but he's a great like well he's just a great musician. But the but the esthetic of it is so like eight bit like video game music. It's really
I don't know, this is really cool. So you know, take a break, listen to this track by Frankie Reyes.
All right, we will link off to that in the footnotes. The Daily Zeitgeist is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio Wrap, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show that is going to do it for us this morning, back this afternoon to tell you what is trending, and we'll talk to you all then.
Bye bye,