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Empire Files
The Settlers, Israel Bombs Aid Ship, MAGA’s Pentagon
00:54:32
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- [00:13]
A
Welcome to the Empire Files podcast.
- [00:16]
B
This is Abby Martin and Mike Pricer.
- [00:20]
A
Been a while. I always say that I always start off, been a while since we did a podcast, but. But it truly has for good reason. Mike.
- [00:28]
B
Yeah, you know, we've, as any of you following the show know, we're just deep in trying to finish our new documentary, Earth's Greatest Enemy, which we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. About two months ago, we had our first rough assembly cut of everything, which was over three hours long. All stuff that we liked as contained vignettes and little scenes. But we realized there's no way we could show people a three hour movie. And it's, it's not something we want.
- [01:00]
A
We don't want to do that to you guys.
- [01:01]
B
And it's not something we wanted to break up into a miniseries because, you know, like Gaza Fights for Freedom, you know, we wanted to make sure this was a self contained film that could be used for community organizing and activists and events and things like that for many years to come. And so that's much harder to do with a miniseries. So we wanted to make sure it could be in a, in a single documentary film. All the information that we wanted to present.
- [01:26]
A
Yeah. So it's taken several months just to try to pare it down, to make it feasible.
- [01:32]
B
So we have cut over an hour and so it's. Now it's our. So we, about a few weeks ago we got our second rough cut which was a more reasonable length of around two hours. And so now we're really just kind of going through. We did, we had a couple final shoots. Like we hired this incredible videographer in Iraq who did some shooting there for our part on the impacts of war and things like that. And so yeah, so we got that other rough cut, had some extra shoots done, and now it's. Now we're in the final pass pretty much. And so, you know, of course these things take time, like color grading and final sound mixing and things like that. But it's in the home stretch. We're not adding anything else to it. Everything is in there and we're just kind of perfecting every little bit. And so we've already announced that we'll be releasing it sometime this year, late summer, early fall. And you know, those who haven't signed up on our email list, on the website to get notifications about that or on our social medias, we also put out an interest form, people who are interested in hosting a screening, there's a form you can fill out so we could start to work on those logistics and you can find that in our latest substack article from Earth Day. There's a link in there for the interest form to try to, to host us in your city or town. Because we will be doing. The first phase of the release is gonna be an in person tour where Abby and I will travel and you can only see it in a theater where we are going in person to present it. And that'll be the first phase of the release before it's available in other ways.
- [03:01]
A
We're thrilled to get to that stage. Please be a part of this nationwide tour and of course we're open to coming internationally. We just need all interest to be generated on this forum and then just of course contacting us through social media and being a part of going to truly be a movement. And it's going to take all of us on board to, to get this message out there, but I promise you it will be worth the wait. You guys are going to be blown away at this. Dude.
- [03:29]
B
I think it's good, Mike. I think it's good. It's hard to tell seeing you guys over again for so long.
- [03:34]
A
No, honestly, I mean content, content, quote, unquote content. The world we live in. But I mean when you're just watching anything now it takes, I mean especially miniseries that are just dragged out because they just want the viewer to, you know, they want you invested in nine episodes that could be told in a, in, in a one episode story. But look, watching these miniseries and stuff, it's like it really does take like, like three episodes for anything to even feel like it's happening. And I feel like watching our movie, it is so intense and so like fast paced and you're just flying through these topics. I, I'm almost worried it's too, too. We pack a lot intense. I, I almost worried about the opposite problem of people being like what the. Like they're just hit in the head with a 2x4 of truth baby. But anyways, that's coming, it's coming fast. So get involved. Earthsgreatesenemy.com Mike, so much to say. So much has happened. I think we just wanted to start by talking about Louis, the British documentarian, famous BBC journalist and his new documentary called the Settlers. An hour long BBC piece that came out about two weeks ago immediately became viral. Rightly so. Lots of chatter. I watched it. You h. You have not watched it. And just to preface this, I love Louis Theroux. I mean he's one of my inspirations in the world of journalism. I think his style of journalism is very good because he just lets people talk. I mean, he does have the tendency to go to the most extreme kind of pockets of the world. The racist. The crazy racists in South Africa, the people in the US who still have chimpanzees. I mean, he was the first person to do that. It wasn't the Chimp Gone Wild or whatever, this Netflix series. I mean, Louis Theroux did the things that people tend to do much later. You know, the Westboro Baptist Church. He just goes and just, like, lets these people speak for themselves. So in 2010, he had gone to the west bank and. And did show the vanguard of the settler expansion, you know, the settler movement. There he was. He was on the ground talking to these people 15 years ago already. So that was already an inspiration for me before I even really knew a lot about the situation. That was around the same time of my political awakening when I learned about that. And that was crazy. But. But again, I think I always just thought, as a lot of people do, these are the lunatics. These are the craziest people that you can find, and they are totally unrepresentative of Israeli society. That's what I thought back then, until, of course, we went in 2016 and did. Did our own investigation. And of course, now in the midst, in the throngs of two years into the genocide, I think it's very clear that this is representative of a lot more than just the extremists on. On the edge. Edges of the West Bank. But. But yeah, I want to talk about it, and I want to talk about, you know, what I think about it. Mike, do you have anything to say about, like, the clips that you've seen and things like that?
- [06:35]
B
Well, the clips I've seen seem good. I mean, the stuff, the. I think probably all the best bits are what has been going around. I mean, I think maybe after you saw it, you told me that I've seen the best moments from it by just the clips I've seen on social media and stuff. I mean, I thought it was. I thought a lot of it brought back a lot of memories of us being there. You know, the scene where it's at nighttime and they're in this house or, you know, parts of a house, and there's settlers, like, pointing, like, the green laser pointers at them and everything. That was something that happened to us, but it was soldiers doing it. And so that was like a little, you know, it brought back some of the anxiety about being There. But I do like that he showed in that scene in particular how Louis threw. And I assume he was just kind of playing dumb for the sake of the question, but he's like, oh yeah, can we call the police?
- [07:23]
A
Oh yeah, no, that's. No, of course he was trying to
- [07:26]
B
like laughing at him and being like, what police? It's all one regime. And I thought that line was important because I know that some of the criticism has been it's showing these people as the fringes of society. But I felt like that proved that they were showing that. No, the whole apparatus protects them and is part of it. It's one regime. The settlers and the government and the society. I thought, you know, I was heartened to see that.
- [07:49]
A
I think, I mean, to me that reference was the pa, the Israeli soldiers and the settlers, that I wasn't, I wasn't at all taking in as like the Israeli government in general and society. But I mean, that alone is important to say the PA and the IDF are, it's like a shell. And the IDF protects the settlers and they work together.
- [08:09]
B
Right.
- [08:10]
A
I think even though the documentary was great and like you said, it really did reveal very important things about the occupation. Like, for example, he goes to Hebron, he talks about the ghost town he talks about. He basically lays out exactly what we do that 600 settlers now control. You know, they've expelled all these people and it's just this crazy area that's just surrounded by cages and people. You know, all of that was really great.
- [08:34]
B
It was some of like the same exact moments.
- [08:37]
A
It really was.
- [08:37]
B
It's like walking down that street, the Israeli soldiers coming up and checking your
- [08:40]
A
id, harassing you, and any of the
- [08:42]
B
Palestinians have to go the other direction.
- [08:44]
A
Exactly. And then exactly like what happened to us? We. He goes and he's like, well, let's check out what these checkpoints look like. And you know, he, he goes up to them. We went through with a hidden camera and showed I think our. What happened to us in the west bank. And what we've documented, I think is more hard hitting and more intense than what this documentary shows. But what's very important about this documentary is the fact that he actually meets with the leaders of the settler movement. This woman who apparently was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in Israel, that, that should tell you something.
- [09:15]
B
Oh, that crazy.
- [09:15]
A
The Diana, I mean, she's been doing this for like 50 years. I mean, you see footage of her back in the 80s and she's like doing the same thing. And so she is really Personally responsible for like a lot of what has happened with the green lighting of the government. But they just use her as the person who's like the fall woman. I mean they can blame everything on her while fronting. Like they disagree with these people but, but like she says to Louis Theroux, we do what they can't. We go and take this land, we set up the outpost. I mean it's crazy. You see these people, they're like from Texas, armed to the teeth. They're just living in a tiny like U Haul, like literally moved in like eight kids in like a U Haul truck. And they're just sitting there waiting for like the electricity lines, the water lines and the, and the military base.
- [10:02]
B
Yeah.
- [10:02]
A
And all those are created within months of any random person from around the world can just go, if you're Jewish and just go set up one of these. If your mom's Jewish, if you're whoop. And just go set up one of the, you could just bring like a little like tractor and you just sit there and then, and then all of the state comes to your aid and it's just completely batshit crazy. And this woman is just, and, and he was just like the problem with the documentary of course is, is the liberal Zionist sheen on it. And that's, I think that's obviously necessary in order to get something published on BBC. And in fact, which is explain what
- [10:35]
B
do you mean by that, the liberal
- [10:36]
A
Zionist sheen of pretending that this is not representative of Israeli society. So, so there is a point made to this woman, this crazy lady talking to him about how the government considers her like a Jewish terrorist and extremist, like, like prominent ministers in the government. You know, I mean looking at Israeli society, the president is supposed to be like a liberal, you know, he's there signing bombs, dropping on Gaza. This guy, no one is really liberal, but like this is, this is the idea that's presented to us so that the fact that that was posited to her is one problem, you know, and then that's when she's like, I have Netanyahu's phone number in my phone. I can call him anytime. So like there is a, there's a good aspect of it and then there was kind of a bad aspect of it which shows that like pretending that a lot of the government disagrees with her and hates her and actually considers what she's doing. Terrorism, I don't buy that at all. And another problem is because of Louis Theroux's interview style that is so open ended and Left to your, like, your interpretation of it, which is good, because it's like, he doesn't ham fist anything. He just lets you interpret, which is amazing. But the problem with that is that you have a lot of Zionists and Israelis saying this. Like. Like what I said at the beginning. Like, these are the craziest people. Why doesn't he talk about Israeli society? You know, like, basically using the documentary to say he didn't show the real truth of Israel. Anyone can go to the circus. Anyone can go to the freak show at the end. The margins. And of course we know. Come on, dude. Oh, yeah. And here's the. Here's the oddest kind of part about it. And I don't know how it is after October 7th. Look, we're in touch with Gaia Dan, one of the very few hundred anti Zionist Israeli Jews living inside of 48. And she has corroborated. Not. We're not talking about Orthodox Jews, obviously. There's a lot of those who disagree, who are anti Zionist and who get beaten and all that, and who are refusing conscription. I'm talking about the secular anti Zionist Jews. There's only a couple hundred of them and they all know each other. And so I. I find it hard to believe that this documentary is accurate when it shows, like, all the violence happening right now in the West Bank. There was, like, human shields of, like, Israelis, like, stopping them, I mean, burning olive trees down. I personally was, like, shocked because I have never seen that in my life. So I don't. It seemed slightly staged. Not saying it was. Maybe they knew that BBC was filming there. I have no idea. It just seemed.
- [13:03]
B
I'm sure that stuff exists, but I guess in the way that it's featured, as if that is when all these clashes are happening. There's these Israeli peace activists who are there, like, on the front lines. Like, I'm sure that that was coordinated in a way for them to be there where the cameras are going to be. Because we didn't see any of those people when we were there for a month. I mean, we were with Ronnie Barkin, an Israeli peace activist who we went with alone. And he was just like. All he talked about is how alone he was going into the west bank, how nobody does it, you know, so, you know, not to say those people don't exist and that they don't do that stuff. But. Yeah, I mean, the. I would imagine they are not present for 99% of the. That happens.
- [13:43]
A
Yeah. And one of the Guardian reporters doing a review of the settlers said it Would have been really great to show this, this window into the activists. Like, we should have heard more from them. And, and it's just like. Well, that, that's exactly the problem is like these liberals that were just like, yes, like, this is what we need to see more of them.
- [14:03]
B
Right? Yeah. Totally disingenuous about. You know what? Those are the fringes. I mean, when the, when the Zionists complain that, oh, Louis Theroux just found the craziest Israelis to talk to, they're, they're really referring to the Israeli Peace Act. Those are the crazy extreme fringes of Israeli society that you really have to seek out to be able to interview. But yeah, I mean, all those people agree with the settler movement people. I mean, the thing that they don't like about them is that they, they do look, they're, they're not good at PR because they are openly insane and openly insane settler mentality where like the Israeli PR line is to act a certain way and look a certain way and communicate the ideas in a certain way, that is all bullshit. But the settlers are just kind of brazen in their beliefs and that's what they don't like about them.
- [14:52]
A
Totally. And just to drive that home, the Palestinian activist Mohammed Harini, who was at the village of At Touwani in Hebron, that Louis the Rue witnessed that kind of settler, like the settlers taunting them. And then the whole laser scope scene. That guy wrote an article for Mondo Ice saying, I was in the BBC documentary the Settlers. This is the part of my story they didn't tell. And he. And the whole article is basically like, this is a sanitized version of what the truth is. Like, they took out everything about the Nakba. They took out my whole story about my family, how we got there. He was like, it does seem like a very surf level. This is happening now. And it's all heightened because of October 7th. He's like, instead of. This is literally the natural outcome of the settler colonial project. Like, this is Zionism. This is what it, this is what happens with it. And the settlers are necessary component of it. So this is really interesting that he wrote this kind of critique.
- [15:50]
B
Yeah.
- [15:50]
A
Talking about how he felt kind of slightly exploited and underrepresented in terms of what he thought his story was going to be. So, yeah, I mean, one hilarious thing too is at the very end, it's so fucking representative of Zionism. The crazy woman, you know, and then it shows the disgusting, you know, the tourism, all these young settlers that are just watching Gaza be bombed, you know, they're all drinking tea and whatever. We know that this happens. But it was just especially gross, I guess, considering the genocide and the level scale of destruction. But at the end of the film there, Ben Gavir is all like, they're all like cheering, talking about resettling Gaza and they've all signed up for it. There's like 600 families already that signed up to, to retake the homes. And the woman goes up to Louis Theroux and she's. And he's just like, what about the settler terrorism and violence that, that you guys are encouraging? And she's just like that there is no settler violence. Settler terrorism and settler violence does not exist. And he was just like, what about this case? In this case? And then she's. And then she literally pushes him as hard as she can and she's like, push me back. And he's like, I am not going to touch you. And she's like, this is what the Palestinians do. They'll push you. And then it's like, this is what you just did.
- [17:03]
B
You just did this.
- [17:04]
A
Like it was just like, oh God. Like every accusation is a division. It was just like, holy shit. It's so nuts that she wanted him to push it like an 80 year old woman and then just be like, this is what Palestinians do. They push you and then they only film you pushing them back. Like literally what you're doing. Anyway, that's, that's my take. I'm curious to hear what you guys think because. Yeah, I mean I, it did feel very like deja vu and it also just felt sad and depressing that, you know, two years in it kind of takes someone like Louis Theroux. I mean, thank God he did it. But it's just like, why is it, why is it taking us so long when this is already like at the final stage?
- [17:43]
B
Well, that's the thing is like, I don't. You may recall more his, when he did it in 2010, the same thing. Because he did basically the. Yeah. Very similar thing in 2010. I don't know if he spent as much time with Palestinians, but I don't do remember from that like how much is different between the two or it's like it's the only. The thing, the main thing that seems to be different is that the settlers control more.
- [18:05]
A
That's exactly, exactly. And it was basically like the same story. Yeah, yeah. I mean that's the problem is that like this guy said, there's nothing else.
- [18:13]
B
Oh, these people are context fringes of society, yet they continue to thrive, grow and expand 15 years later.
- [18:19]
A
Yep. And it's just, oh, Netanyahu's just driving all this. I mean, it's the same problem with the Bernie Seri Sanders, the Bernie Sanders narrative. And that's a huge.
- [18:25]
B
You can't mention what's happening in Gaza without saying the extremist government of Netanyahu.
- [18:30]
A
And I, and I do want to remind people that, look, obviously some conditions were put in order to get this on the BBC. Even though Louis Theroux's a saint and great at his job. Like, I think that that's quite clear. Especially when we know what happened to that last BBC documentary, How to Survive a War, that was taken down because the son of the Hamas agricultural minister was in it. And so they did this six month, incredible documentary from this kid filming him surviving a fucking genocide. And then because his dad was a member, a civilian member of the government in Gaza, they pulled the documentary and, and put a target on his back, essentially. They literally put a target on the back of like a kid and his family. Yeah, so that happened. So, yeah, a lot, A lot's going on, Mike.
- [19:22]
B
I mean, yeah, I mean, one more thing. On the, the Israeli society thing, it's like, I think the, the kind of denial of Israel as a, as a mass of genocidal settler freaks, you know, which is the dominant strain in the society. But to like a large, large degree, like, not even like, oh, that's the. They're. They're 51% of the country, so they control all the elections, but much more dramatically. I've just been thinking about this a lot with, you know, in this, this Trump era and like, seeing what, seeing what public figures and politicians are popular, seeing what podcasts are popular, all what, what media is popular, all of these things. And also the, the extreme, like, you know, openly fascist type of stuff that the Trump administration is doing. And it's, you know, just what the shit that they're tweeting. The, you know, all of the administration officials, like, getting decked out and like vet bro, combat gear and like doing these deportation photo ops, like, it's all just really like horrifying looking. And yes, I mean, that the administration, it's like, there, it doesn't represent most of America, but it is a fact that a significant portion of the American population is lapping this shit up and loving it. And that's the reality of America, is that we have many, many, many millions of people who are just deeply awful, horrible people. And they're in power now and they're Controlling the levers of not just government, but the media and the courts, the only kind of balance on it. I mean they're very openly just being like, well that stuff doesn't matter either. And so it doesn't matter. The Constitution and the law, all these things that have in the past been able to be kind of checks are just like, well, we don't have to follow that either. And yeah, and so it's, I don't think, yeah, it's definitely not fair to say, oh, Americans are all these like Trump loving, insane people. But a lot of them are. And with it, and, and comparing it to Israel, it's just that to like an extreme magnified degree.
- [21:25]
A
Oh yeah. I mean the fact that liberals can't blame Russia, again, like, I mean that, that has to tell the world something. Right? Because for the, the first term that was the narrative like, nope, we didn't really do this, that Trump was illegally installed by Russia so that, so then the world could like give us the plausible deniability like oh God, this lunatic was, was implanted by a foreign government. Oh my God. Even though I'm sure the majority of the people knew that that was a farce. But like at least there was some sort of like pretense like no, no, no, this, this wasn't us. Nope, not representative. And so now it's just like there is absolutely no hiding the fact that this was a choice. Yeah, this is very clear.
- [22:07]
B
Of course a large number mandate. Large numbers of people who voted for Trump, you know, are not like fascist reactionary type people, but who are just people who are hurting economically and like saw this as this anti incumbent way out. You know, there's no, most people do not see a future or hope in this country and for good reason. I don't, I don't see much of that either. And that Trump was a, you know, that definitely helped Trump quite a bit in the election. I think the, the biggest like explanation for it's, it's just like the amount that the Internet has melted people's minds in this country and that all of the shit the, the, the anti trans history, like the obsession with pronouns, the like all these things that like have people have just been consuming online and just getting led down these weird right wing rabbit holes. It's just a country that has been. And I don't know if it's like, no, it's called Elder Millennial and Boomer, literally demographics of people who have been online way too much. But like the, all of the, the administration is operating as just Simply like a Reddit super online administration. I think it's the first of many online administrations. Like so much of their campaigning and what they are doing is catered towards online virality and popularity and even making decisions based on those types of things. And I just think it's just the inevitable outcome of having a super online society that's going to be again, the first of many ultra online administrations.
- [23:35]
A
I mean, but what does that translate to? It's like it's one thing to just be online. I mean that's smart branding. But what are they? It's the, it's the feeding into like the conspiracies and the severing of reality online and like leading people.
- [23:48]
B
Yeah, and like memeification of politics. It's like Elon Musk is kind of the most open representation of it of like just going out and saying like, I am a meme. And like this is. We are doing a, we have a meme department. Doge is a fucking meme and he made it. The like there's a bot. It's a branch of the government. Not a branch of government, but it's a section of the government now. And it's all. That's the kind of the brains that these, these people are just online scrolling all day, looking at memes on these weird right wing community forums and things like that, and then doing things in politics that they think will be popular there, but that also benefits like the ultra rich. But it's, you know, it's completely, it's
- [24:28]
A
like, I think there's like, it's like the Elon Musk people. Yeah, half of them are doom scrolling and just trying to cater toward these people. But then it's like, yeah, they're being stage managed also by like the technocrat, technocratic oligarchs who have like very specific plans that are integrated into like the globalizing surveillance. And I mean the Palantir stuff is legitimately terrifying. The Alex Cap, that guy who's now like the CEO of Palantir, he's a maniac dude. He, he did some sort of conference call with the board of directors and he just keeps talking about how much they have to kill people and like behead people. He's like, heads are gonna roll. He's like, we have to cut heads off. And the people are just like, I don't know who he's talking about. It's real. And he's just like, he's like smiling and laughing. It's like, what on the hell is happening here? It's just so funny that we went from don't be evil. Like Google, like branding itself is like, we're yet like the government. The NSA is bad. We're good. Remember that whole like the, the mass shooting, the San Bernardino, the iPhone, the Apple being like, we're not going to unlock this for the government. It was like this moment of time that I actually feel like was like engineered. Now looking back 10 years later, it does feel like a moment in time where the government bad, private industry good. In terms of surveillance, it was like NSA spying bad. Google no.
- [25:48]
B
Evil.
- [25:49]
A
Google good. Like, like there was this weird. And then it was like the, the Piero Midiar and. And this is like we're. I don't know, man. I feel like we just all got hoodwinked and now we're just in this bizarre universe. I don't even. Oh, back to your point about like the, the three branches though. It's so funny. It's so obvious. Like we all took civics and it's like, yep, all the branches keep each other in check. And then you're like, oh, wait, actually that's just all decorum. Yeah, it's only if someone just wants to.
- [26:19]
B
Yeah, it's like the conduct.
- [26:21]
A
The second someone gets in, like Trump, they're just like, oh, the justice system. You think I'm going to follow the courts? No, no, no. And then everyone's like, oh, my God. And then all these people are like, no, no. Oh, yeah. Oh, you try to screw over the courts, you just wait till those lawsuits kick in and all the. It's like, well, that again, what. That's just paper. What. What do you think is going to happen? I mean, if they just don't follow the judges and they start arresting them, what, they don't care about the legal, like, back dealings. That's going to take years to get this stuff. Like, I don't know, it's just nuts. Did you see that the, the whole. That billionaire wealth transfer. I mean, this like totally went under the radar with how the news cycle works. But just the tariff thing, how Trump announced, what was it? The, the Charles Schwab guy, he was just like, you made a cool couple hundred mil with that. You know, like just the, the totally open insider trading, stock exchanges, like the fact that they just. The biggest wealth transfer in the history just happened with the tariffs thing overnight. I mean, this is like nuts, right? And just. It just happens and then it just. We just go on to the next thing. I mean, there's so much to say about Israel and I. It would take 20 podcasts to cover it. So let's just quickly talk about what's happened in the last week, which is a lot. But you know, the ceasefire obviously collapsed and Israel resumed its bombing campaign almost to the point of the beginning of the genocide. I mean, hundreds of people at the beginning, like 500 people the first day, like, I'm sorry, the first week. Every single day we're being killed. Just horrific, horrific new levels of depravity.
- [27:55]
B
The big difference now post ceasefire is that there's no more like Israeli like invasion into Gaza. Right. During the war, like that was a big thing that changed. They withdrew to these lines. They're still fighting on the lines. There's still Israeli soldiers being killed in these areas. But there's no like mass invasion of Gaza anymore. So they've just gone back to like, like old tactics of bombing, starvation, which we'll talk about. But then like really limited troop movements, like within Gaza, Correct?
- [28:24]
A
Well, yes, until now. So Netanyahu and Likudniks have just announced that they are going to do a full blown, just taking it over. They're going to completely invade, reoccupy and whatever Palestinian is left will just be concentrated to a tiny zone, a militarized zone. So that I don't know if that's like in the works or what, but that was just announced just two days ago. So this is now the plan. I'm not sure what's going to happen, but yes, as you mentioned, 60 days without one bottle of water, not one ounce of baby formula. I mean it's just absolutely depraved when you look at this, the justification for starvation, a million babies being necessary.
- [29:06]
B
It seems like the food and water shortages are worse now than they were during the war.
- [29:11]
A
Yeah, yeah. And I wonder if there, I mean I know that there were trucks getting in. I remember Maz Maza, the videographer from Gaza Fight for freedom was saying, yes, there were trucks, but it was so much lim like it was so limited. And now I. There isn't one truck that has gotten in, not one for 60 days. So that is extreme. You see, 60 babies have already died. 60, they're bone thin. It's like the Holocaust. It is like watching holocaust footage. And people know this. Anyone who has a baby, you can't feed a baby water. And if you can't produce milk, which how could you with no water? You need baby formula. So this is an intentional thing to kill infants? This is designed to kill infants. This is a genocidal policy. So that's what's happening. They're bombing the hell out of Gaza. They just killed 100 people last night. So, of course, people are desperate. They're trying to retool and re. Strategize how to, how to circumnavigate the situation, how to bring aid directly to Gaza. So a couple friends of mine, Tiago Avila, an incredible activist from Brazil, Nicole Genes, an incredible activist from Egypt who is, or she's Romanian, but she lives in Egypt. She's organizing aid deliveries as much as she can. Jacob Berger, an actor who's Jewish, he's from Brooklyn. And Greta Thunberg. This is Greta Thunberg, the famous climate change activist. They were all going to get on a new Gaza freedom flotilla.
- [30:43]
B
The same boat, right?
- [30:45]
A
The same boat. And no, I don't think it's the exact same boat. I think it was called the Conscience. And they were waiting a long time to get the boat because it's really politically risky for a country to put their flag on a boat given the right, you know, the implications of this, because you are attempting to break a siege by directly delivering aid to Gaza. And so that that was happening, it was very under the radar. It was totally classified and confidential, which is really scary. Even though I was looped in, they were very careful about their messaging, which tells me that Israeli surveillance technology and the reach and scale and scope of what they can do is just terrifying.
- [31:25]
B
Well, just remind people this was a recreation of an attempt in 2010. You know, that's when I went to Gaza. It was in 2009. It was right after that phase of bombing. So I was in an aid group that crossed the border legally through Egypt with permission from the Egyptian side to bring in aid. So there's these activists who took a ship that was filled with aid to try to go through the ocean blockade and deliver all this aid. And the Israelis, in international water, had Israeli troops drop in from helicopters and just start shooting people and killing people. They killed how many people in that?
- [32:01]
A
10.
- [32:02]
B
They killed 10 activists unarmed. And then, you know, the, the media coverage at the time, Abby, you'll remember it better than I did. But all the media coverage was showing how viciously the Israeli soldiers were attacked and had to defend themselves by killing these 10 activists in international waters.
- [32:19]
A
That's what my brain short circuited when, like, I watched that propaganda video on cnn. And I just remember Glenn Greenwald was on it, on talking about it, and I was just like, wait, whoa. I couldn't wrap my mind around the
- [32:33]
B
fact that it was like zooming in on, like, someone holding a chair.
- [32:35]
A
A chair. And it was zooming in on them with a white circle being like, this is a weapon. It was, like, clearly just delivered from the Israeli military. I was like, what is going on? How are they telling me that a chair and a table is a weapon and that it was justified to kill these people? It just made no sense. And that was the really formative moment to deepen my understanding about the media bias and just how insane, egregious the situation was. But, yeah, Mike, that was the last time.
- [32:58]
B
That was the last time people tried to take a ship to break the blockade. And so it was pretty gutsy for everyone involved in this one to make the decision to get on another boat to go to Gaza, because Israel has just become so much more openly insane since 2010. And so the expectation. I feel like the expectation would be that you're not going to. They're not going to allow that boat to be delivered. And you could expect what they did in 2010 or worse. And even on that boat was the son of one of the people killed in 2010, right?
- [33:29]
A
Correct. Correct, yeah. Ismail Behesti, the son of one of the activists who was executed in the 2010 Gaza flotilla. I mean, these people are heroes. Honestly, I. I'm just completely in awe that anyone, doctor, nurse, any activist who is selfless of a humanitarian to put their lives on the line. So what happened is last week, on Thursday, they were an hour away from Malta. So Malta, just to give you an idea, is about 1700 miles away from the coast of Gaza. It's all the way across the Mediterranean. Couldn't be further away in the sea. These activists were taking their own boats to join the main boat of the Conscience. There were already 18 people on board of the Conscience, the main vessel that was going to be traveling to Gaza. And then my other friends were about to board. So what happened is 14 miles or kilometers off the coast of Malta at midnight, all of a sudden, drones bombed the ship. Literally drones bombed the ship. They were. It was a targeted strike. And no, it wasn't like a Reaper drone. It was like quad drones that were deployed from another aircraft. And they did a targeted strike on the ship's generator. Blew a huge hole in the mass of the ship. And the people. I mean, you could see the footage. It's smoke, it's fire. They thought the ship was going down, it was getting water. They were doing SOS calls. No one was responding for several hours. I was trying to coordinate all the press and try to get people to get eyes on them so we can put pressure on the Maltese authorities to actually help them. Because it's really sketchy the fact that Malta was not responding to the SOS calls. And in fact, Cyprus was the only country that had responded and dispatched a vessel. Cyprus is, like, above Israel. That's how far Cyprus was. It made no sense. Looking at the map of why Malta was ignoring them. The only thing that made sense was if Malta was involved. Someone tracked the flight of what military plane left Israel, circled around Malta, and then at a low altitude flight, 5,000ft, circled around for five hours before the attack, and then flew back. Clearly, it's all right there. The fact that they just didn't even care to turn off the transponder. They knew that we could see exactly what they did. That's the impunity they have. Like, they didn't even care that it was just you could track the flight and prove that it was them. This act of terrorism in international waters 1700 kilometers or miles away from Israel, and bombed the ship. Luckily, no one was hurt, but it's just such a crazy international incident that no one even condemned Mike. I mean, at the same time, simultaneously, you had these fires going on, and all of the European leaders were saying they were gonna. They were gonna do this dramatic, like, gathering of all the firefighting services from Europe to help Israel. And it's like, meanwhile, they are bombing civilian vessels 2,000 miles away from Gaza with humanitarians on board, intending to sink them and kill them potentially. And I. I woke up. Your friend, the guy who we're gonna have on Seth. Seth Harp or whatever, the guy, he said of something funny. He was like, I just took a nap. And he's like, when I woke up, I. I saw that Israel tried to drone strike Greta Thunberg. He's like, I guess I can't be surprised anymore.
- [36:48]
B
Yeah.
- [36:49]
A
But it's just absolutely insane.
- [36:50]
B
And then. No. And there's no. There's basically zero media coverage.
- [36:54]
A
Zero media coverage, zero condemnations from any political authorities. The only person who said anything was the Turkish Prime Minister. And Hamas.
- [37:02]
B
Well, because it was all Turkish citizens on the ship. Yeah, but nobody else said anything.
- [37:06]
A
Turkish And Abidjan. Yeah, no one said shit. Still. They're just pretending like it didn't happen. And they. And Israel has the plausible deniability of just saying, oh, it's just drones. What? Even though we have the tracking of their flight and all that, but because they have these drones now, back in 2010, they had to commandeer the ship. They had to hijack it and actually, like, repel, like, soldiers on board. But now they're just like, oh, what? Didn't even happen. What? Oh, you're crazy. But what's funny, Mike, Even though Israel hasn't, like, officially admitted it, check this out. Two. Two insane things. The Times of Israel talked about it. I mean, the Israeli media is basically saying it as if it was fact. This is the Times of Israel. Basically, they're saying, the convoy, quote, the convoy was organized by Hamas, and those on board plan to engage with IDF troops as they approach the Gaza shore,
- [38:00]
B
like, with guns, I don't know, like, shoot them.
- [38:02]
A
I mean, they had baby formula on board, you sick fucks. Yeah, and then. And then you had officials in Israel saying, you know, Israel's not officially commenting. They're like, but, but, but this guy is like, yes. They're like, this ship was affiliated with Hamas and this was a sophisticated airstrike. And he's like, when we talk about increasing pressure on Hamas, we don't just mean expanding regular ground maneuvers. This is like an Israeli official basically saying, like, we did this because we can. And. And I think it's just. It's the. The part that's so disturbing. Not that this was unprecedented because you just talked about the horrific deadly attack in 2010, but the distance and the precedent that this sets in terms of we will attack international solidarity activists anywhere in the world. I mean, the pager attack was already kind of like a message. Like, we can you anywhere. Like, like, we have control of the supply chains. Like that. Like, your cell phone can explode if you're just like, are anywhere in the world. Like, that was that message to me. But this is like, if you even, like, step foot. Like, they didn't even wait. They just, like, they were like, you're. You're. You're far enough where you can drown, but we won't even let you get a. Like, we won't even let you, like, get close, dude.
- [39:14]
B
Yeah.
- [39:15]
A
Like, we blow you out.
- [39:16]
B
Yeah, well, because, yeah, they want to do it before, but more prominent people got on the ship, too.
- [39:21]
A
Yeah.
- [39:22]
B
Like Greta and others, you know, they knew that it was going to pick up people that, you know, would generate more media coverage and stuff like that. So doing it before, it's just like, you know, oh, the ship that was going to pick up Greta Thunberg, you know, versus, like, Israel bombed Greta Thunberg. Yeah.
- [39:38]
A
Which, like, you know, they wouldn't have cared.
- [39:42]
B
Yeah.
- [39:42]
A
I mean, they. Maybe they were. I mean, who knows, dude? It's just so insane. And Then of course, just as if that wasn't crazy enough, I mean just in the last two days, Israel was bombing Yemen, Lebanon, the civilian Palestine, they bombed Sana Airport.
- [40:01]
B
There's not one military jet. It's unlike airports in the United States that have military. Like here are Portland Airport, you take off, you see military jets on the airport, on the airstrip because it's. The National Guard uses the Portland airport as their air base. Hawaii. It's similar. There's many airports in the US where you will see combat ready armed fighter jets on the tarmac. That was not the case at Yemen's airport. So our airports, you could argue are legitimate targets, but not Yemen's. They blew it up just to blow it up.
- [40:36]
A
It's crazy to see footage of looks like, like some apocalyptic, like a zombie movie. You're just like seeing huge passenger jets just on fire, like massive. Just like, like Alaska Airlines. And it's just like, you know, you're just like, what the is going on? And there's all these like first responders just being like bomb Tel Aviv. Like, what the fuck are you doing? Sorry, I'm feeling manic right now. But no, what's weird about it is that because the Houthis, apparently the Houthis just struck a truce with Trump, which is fascinating. So this just happened yesterday. The Houthis are now agreed that they will not bomb any US ships in the Red Sea. But they were like, this truce does not apply to the Zionists. So I don't know where this is going to go. It's really escalated in terms of what Israel is doing. But then on the other half, on the other side you have like Trump trying to de escalate the attacks on the US but, but of course we know that Trump will just allow. The fact that Trump is literally just allowing and green lighting and helping Israel finalize the genocide and recolonize just completely openly is stunning. You know, and I keep getting invited to go back on Piers Morgan and debate these people and like all the, and it's just like, what, what is there to say? I'm gonna, I'm gonna sit and talk to a like neo Nazi who is, is somehow trying to like justify what it's like at this point.
- [42:03]
B
We do invite you on like every
- [42:04]
A
week at this point in the genocide when it's like done. You know what I mean? It's like the, the mat. It's like we're just literally, we tune in. It's worse than any Black Mirror episode. You could just. Oh, you live stream A torture and killing box. The word genocide and ethnic cleansing don't even like do it justice. What we have been seeing. And I don't even know how to like speak to someone or debate hate someone. I really don't. Yeah, I don't even know.
- [42:27]
B
Yeah. And it's also like, I imagine it feels like what's the point?
- [42:30]
A
Yeah.
- [42:30]
B
You know?
- [42:31]
A
Yeah. To get on like Hellboy. Jonathan Sicker is that guy with like a massive like Minecraft head.
- [42:38]
B
Yeah, yeah, right. Because it's just like all it's doing is just generating views for Piers Morgan. You know, that's really, you know, that's the tough thing about it. It's that like, it's good to be able to confront these people in the way that you did and whatever, but like to do it over and over again endlessly. It's like, I can imagine.
- [42:52]
A
It feels like I get emails every day from people saying you're not fit to be a mother. I get like, literally, yes, dude. I get like massab, like simps harassing me daily, being like, you fucking got destroyed. It's like, what are you talking about?
- [43:09]
B
Yeah. And so as we have the intentional starvation of 2 million people and just extreme dire tipping point for the people of Gaza right now and the announcement from Netanyahu that they are going to basically restart the war, reinvade and displace everybody. At the same time you have that, you have the severe repression of pro Palestine activism in the place where it's most important, which is in the United States. And so you have Trump delivering on his campaign promise to deport pro Hamas activists, doing these really draconian, outrageous and illegal raids of student activists across the country, which of course has, which is one prong of his agenda. Right. I mean they're rounding up farm worker labor leaders. I mean they're just, they're going after all different types of people who are not US citizens and including people who are US citizens as well. But anyway, so you have this, you know, this extreme policy by US backed Israeli policy on the one hand, and then you have the extreme repression of people who are saying, hey, this is bad, we should not do this. But there has been a recent development that is possibly good. Right. Was there some bill that was defeated
- [44:21]
A
that was, well, not defeated, it was just put on hold. The Anti Semitism Awareness Act. Yeah, this is just trying to ramp up the codify essentially the false equivalency between anti Semitism and anti Zionism. So this was another Trump executive order that was within the first hundred days that. That declared that anti Semitism was basically like a prohibited form of discrimination in schools and universities. And they're using the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliances or essentially, like whatever. The working definition from these disingenuous groups like the adl, which is essentially, don't compare Israel to Nazi Germany. Anything that is like. Like a criticism of Israel's anti Semitic. You know, it's just that whole absurd slippery slope that is totally stymieing the First Amendment. That would have been codified and like, legal, like, legally enforced by cops and stuff. Like, so there was this fiery Senate hearing where Rand Paul, the guy who tried to get me arrested and charged with stalking and harassment. There is a really great quote from him. This is from Responsible Statecraft, where he. He talks about, you know, the First Amendment, the Constitution. The Supreme Court ruled that you can say terrible things in this country, even though. Which is horrible that he's like saying, you know, this is anti Semitic. But it's like the principle is just so crazy to undermine the principle of free speech that, like, we all herald. Like, this is like the bedrock of American democracy that's highlighted in all of our cinema and like, lore about our country. You know, this is supposed to be the premise of why America posits itself as like the. The necessary imperial empire to spread democracy. And the bedrock of democracy, which is free speech in the First Amendment. But. And it actually stems from a Ku Klux Klan case in 1969. It's like the fact that the Supreme Court was like, yes, you can be a Nazi. Yes, you can talk about, like, killing. Like, that's how disgusting the speech is that you can say. And that's enshrined in a lot. And like, now if you're opposing genocide, that is, you know, they're. They're willing to change. They're willing.
- [46:31]
B
Not even changed by your country, perpetrated by a different country.
- [46:35]
A
They're willing to change the entire Constitution
- [46:38]
B
to, like, criticize another country.
- [46:41]
A
So. So, yeah, the Rand Paul was just like, so basically, we want Europe's laws. He's like, do you realize how insane that would be? I mean, Europe is horrible. Europe. It's crazy what Europe's doing. And that's what they're trying to do here. They're trying to make it so you can't say certain things. And I don't. The whole ZOG idea of, like, Zionist occupied government is erroneous because this is obviously just the entry point to try to, like, create a precedent so that they will be able to do whatever they want. Like this is like the easiest entry for these rebranded neocons to just do whatever. Yeah. It's not just about Israel. This is like, about like a draconian shift, you know.
- [47:20]
B
Right, yeah. Like why does the US want to ban criticism of Israel in the United States? Because of the Zionist lobby or Zionists that control the government? Or because the United States really needs a military garrison in Israel to dominate the most oil rich region of the world with a lot of anti American governments that are in power and doesn't want people in America to criticize that kind of bedrock of its imperial power in the most strategically important region of the world, both militarily and economically. That's why, you know, it's not just because the government is under the control of Israelis. You know, that's just like a tail wagging the dog type situation. But yeah, people often, I think confuse the reality there. But I mean, of course there is a lot of influence of the Israeli lobby in pushing these things through and helping write them and things like that. But, but again, I think it's been said before, the Israeli lobby is powerful, but it is empowered by the US State because it serves a very important purpose for it.
- [48:26]
A
100%, I 100% agree. And again, I think this is going to turn into anti Americanism. This is going to turn into kind of a new red scare where it's going to go far beyond just critique of the current, like the genocide that the US is subsidizing. This is a slippery slope that's going to broaden, I guarantee you.
- [48:46]
B
Yeah, honestly, it would be a lot harder in my opinion to pass laws, you know, say, say they tried to outban criticism of the Iraq war during the Iraq war. Right. I feel like it would be a lot harder to pass those kinds of measures on state or federal level than it is for what they have been able to do with criticism of Israel. And I think part of it is the, the important role for them that the US that the Israeli lobby does play, which is crafting the propaganda narra about if you support this, you support like another holocaust against Jews and this is all necessary to protect so Jewish people can live in safety in a world that wants to exterminate them and all this stuff. They've done a very good job of creating the harsh, harsh propaganda that has paved the way for these types of things and been able to, you know, pressure all these politicians into voting for them.
- [49:36]
A
You know, it's such a good point that you bring up. It's like the whole idea of like you can criticize anything except for Israel. That means that Israel has undue influence over this country. It's such a false premise and perspective because, like, you're saying it's the easiest entry. It's like the easiest way to pigeonhole people who are critiquing like, American empire into like a, like terrorist sympathizers. It's actually like, because of the nature of the propaganda and because of just how successful this campaign has been, it's like if you, like you were saying, if Israel had nothing to do with. It would be much harder to be like, you're a terrorist sympathizer for opposing the US Genocide in whatever all like, name the country or the Iraq war. But because. Yeah, because Israel has done such a great job that it's the anti Semitism thing and it's the terrorist sympathizing thing. So it's like two edges of like a very dangerous sword that can be easily used to just like, strengthen the fascist regime, the Trump regime.
- [50:36]
B
Yeah. And I think there's, you know, this bill that just got put on hold, I guess I think it's because it's. That didn't have support for. From some Republicans that were needed to get it passed, like Marjorie Taylor Greene. You know, people that are getting a lot of alkalades for, hey, America first. This is Israel first. And we're supposed to be America first. And this kind of giving them alkalades for. For taking the principled stand here, which I don't really buy into, because the, the reasons for them doing this, Liz, is not good ones. These people are horrible.
- [51:11]
A
You mean we shouldn't work with Marjorie Taylor Greene? The only way I'd work with her is to eliminate daylight savings time.
- [51:18]
B
I'm in favor of daylight savings time, honestly.
- [51:21]
A
Wait, what? You like our kids being up till 10pm well, in the summer, I think it's. Yeah, I don't know if that would change.
- [51:29]
B
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if it would work. But. No, I mean, the re. Like, why would someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene, like, oppose this? It's like when you look at, you know, I kind of go on some of these, like, conspiracy forums and stuff like that to see what people are saying and like, the, the like kind of MAGA conspiracy base and everything. They fucking hate Israel. Right. And so this huge base of like, online conspiratorials. I mean, obviously there's a huge base that has become.
- [51:58]
A
You mean the actual anti Semites?
- [51:59]
B
Yeah, like the stuff that Marjorie Taylor actual, like. Yeah, people Like Jews, that ZOG stuff and Jews control the world and the media. Like, those people are very critical of Trump and his Israel policy now. And so people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is very much in that community, knows that to maintain her credibility in them, and it's very much her beliefs is like, from that community. That's what explains. It's not a principled stand against for free speech and stuff like that. It's just that she thinks that Jews control the world and that. That Trump is being beholden to Jewish in the global Jewish interests or something like that. And so, yeah, I mean, there's this weird confluence of things happening there. I mean, obviously it's good that it was blocked, but that's just how. That's just how cooked we are as a country that the only reason this huge, massively unconstitutional, insane free speech violation was able to be blocked was because there's enough Republicans whose brains have been melted by even worse sectors of the Internet. Yeah, well, obviously, there's still need for everyone to continue to be active and in the streets with whatever's coming next with Gaza. But also the current, you know, extremely dire situation and the, you know, repression of pro Palestine activists in the US and the people that are in prison right now for doing exactly what they should be doing. That wraps it up for the episode, but we're going to keep rolling here for our patrons. So we're going to have an exclusive half of this episode where we're going to talk about a few different things. The downfall. The spectacular downfall, hopefully, of two very heinous people, Pete Hegseth and John Fetterman. So excited to talk about both of those stories. But to start, Abby, I think we should address the controversy of you smoking weed with Snoop Dogg last time you were Los Angeles.
- [53:55]
A
Yeah. Mike, how did that happen? Yeah, right. People thought it was a Madame Trudeau wax museum statue of Snoop Dogg, but. But actually, I was really with him, Sam.