Israel relations, the Gaza war, Iran, antisemitism, and U.S. foreign policy controversies with Bari Weiss

Summary

Keeping It Real: Conversations with Jillian Michaels
Episode: Israel Relations, the Gaza War, Iran, Antisemitism, and U.S. Foreign Policy Controversies with Bari Weiss
Release Date: July 1, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of "Keeping It Real: Conversations with Jillian Michaels," Jillian Michaels engages in a profound and urgent discussion with Bari Weiss, a former New York Times editor and founder of The Free Press. Together, they delve into the intricate and highly charged topics surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict, the rise of antisemitism, and the complexities of U.S. foreign policy.

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Defining Jewishness and Judaism

Jillian Michaels opens the conversation by addressing the nuanced distinction between being anti-Israel and antisemitic. Recognizing her own partial Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, she seeks clarity on what it fundamentally means to be Jewish.

Bari Weiss responds thoughtfully:

"Judaism is an ethnicity to some extent, not a race by any stretch of the imagination. [...] Judaism is not just a faith; it's am, meaning peoplehood. [...] Judaism predates all modern categories like ethnicity, race, or faith."
[06:20]

She elaborates that Jewish identity traditionally follows a matrilineal descent—"you are a Jew if your mother is a Jew"—though more liberal branches accept patrilineal descent and conversion. Weiss emphasizes that "blood genetics do not make you a Jew; a decision to join the Jewish people makes you a Jew."

[10:22]

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Antisemitism vs. Anti-Israel Sentiments

The conversation shifts to understanding how criticism of Israeli government policies can inadvertently fuel antisemitic sentiments. Jillian Michaels expresses concern over the blurred lines between legitimate political discourse and hate speech:

"I'm seeing anti Semitism on both the right and the left now."
[33:48]

Weiss draws parallels to other forms of prejudice, comparing anti-Zionism to anti-Americanism in its extreme forms:

"Can you criticize Donald Trump... and does that mean you're anti American? We would laugh off the question. [...] Similarly, singling out Israel as a state that should not exist equates to a form of antisemitism."
[20:08]

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Media Representation and Language Usage

A critical part of the discussion revolves around how mainstream media has framed the Israel-Palestine conflict, particularly the use of the term "genocide." Weiss references a study by Zach Goldberg, highlighting that major outlets like The New York Times have disproportionately associated Israel with genocide compared to historical events like Rwanda and Darfur:

"The New York Times had Israel and genocide paired more than nine times higher than the peak for Rwanda."
[17:23]

This overuse contributes to a skewed perception and fuels antisemitic narratives.

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Examination of Specific Slogans

Jillian Michaels seeks to demystify inflammatory slogans often heard in protests. She asks Weiss to define terms such as "Zionism," "from the river to the sea," and "globalize the intifada."

1. Zionism
   Weiss clarifies:

   "Zionism means the belief that Jews have a right to live in some part of their indigenous homeland in the State of Israel."
   [23:19]

   She traces the negative connotation of Zionism to Soviet-era propaganda equating it with racism.

2. From the River to the Sea
   This phrase refers to the entire land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, implying the elimination of Israel:

   "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" translates to the elimination of the Jewish state, not merely a call for liberation.
   [26:26]

3. Globalize the Intifada
   Weiss explains:

   "Globalizing the intifada means promoting an armed uprising against Jews, Israel, and the West."
   [28:02]

   She provides harrowing examples of violence associated with this slogan, underscoring its extremist implications.

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Antisemitism on Both Political Ends

The duo examines how antisemitism has infiltrated both the far left and far right. Weiss argues that both extremes employ antisemitic rhetoric to demonize certain groups:

"Under the guise of anti-Zionism, there is a demonization of Jews that legitimizes hate."
[32:26]

She compares this to other forms of prejudice, noting that antisemitism adapts to different political climates, making it pervasive and insidious.

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Historical Perspectives on Antisemitism

Weiss provides a historical context, tracing antisemitism back to the origins of Christianity and its characterization of Jews as responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. She highlights how Jews have historically been scapegoated during times of political and economic turmoil:

"Antisemitism is the politics of blame and grievance, flourishing in times of crisis when people seek explanations for their hardships."
[48:51]

Referencing scholars like Rene Girard, she explains the enduring nature of antisemitism as a convenient scapegoat in societal struggles.

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Current Challenges and U.S. Foreign Policy

The discussion turns to contemporary U.S. foreign policy, specifically the role of Qatar in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Jillian Michaels questions why key Hamas leaders reside in Qatar:

"How come the powers that be are not targeting this? Like, how come the head of Hamas are living in Qatar?"
[66:08]

Weiss elaborates on Qatar’s complex relationship with Hamas, highlighting its support through funding and media influence via Al Jazeera:

"Qatar hosts key Hamas figures and funds their operations, creating a paradox where an ally of the U.S. is simultaneously supporting a terrorist organization."
[67:27]

She suggests that a deeper investigation into this relationship is essential for understanding and resolving the conflict.

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Conclusion

The episode culminates with Jillian Michaels and Bari Weiss acknowledging the profound complexities of the Israel-Palestine conflict. They emphasize the urgent need for nuanced understanding and the dangers of oversimplified narratives that fuel hatred and impede peace.

Jillian Michaels urges listeners to "check your hate and check your facts," advocating for informed and compassionate discourse. Weiss reinforces the importance of recognizing the historical and ongoing manifestations of antisemitism as society grapples with modern challenges.

"We need journalism that trusts you and challenges you, encouraging a deeper understanding of these critical issues."
[69:03]

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Key Takeaways

• Understanding Identity: Clarifying the distinction between anti-Israel sentiments and antisemitism is crucial to combat hatred effectively.
• Media Influence: The language and framing used by mainstream media significantly impact public perception and can perpetuate antisemitic narratives.
• Extremism Across the Spectrum: Antisemitism is not confined to one end of the political spectrum; it manifests in various guises on both the far left and far right.
• Historical Context Matters: Recognizing the deep-rooted history of antisemitism provides insight into its persistence and evolution.
• Policy Implications: U.S. foreign policy, particularly relationships with countries like Qatar, plays a significant role in the ongoing conflict and efforts toward peace.

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Notable Quotes

• Bari Weiss:
  "Judaism is not just a faith; it's am, meaning peoplehood."
  [06:20]

• Jillian Michaels:
  "I'm seeing antisemitism on both the right and the left now."
  [33:48]

• Bari Weiss:
  "Antisemitism is the politics of blame and grievance."
  [48:51]

• Jillian Michaels:
  "Check your hate and check your facts."
  [56:58]

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Further Resources

• Bari Weiss's Book: How to Fight Antisemitism (2019)
• Zach Goldberg's Study: Coverage of genocide terminology in mainstream media.
• René Girard's Work: Theories on scapegoating and mimetic desire.
• Free Press Media: thefp.com for more in-depth journalism on these topics.

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This episode serves as a crucial conversation for anyone seeking to understand the delicate balance between legitimate political criticism and the perpetuation of hate. Jillian Michaels and Bari Weiss provide a platform for informed dialogue, urging listeners to engage thoughtfully and compassionately in these pressing global issues.

Transcript

[Jillian Michaels]

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[Bari Weiss]

I'm so excited to be here.

[Jillian Michaels]

I gotta be honest, choosing a topic with you was like Sophie's choice. I was like, okay, current events in the news, the evolution of the woke. Right. The downfall of legacy media.

[Bari Weiss]

But I chose we're gonna do all we can do a lot. I'll talk very fast.

[Jillian Michaels]

No, this one's serious. I, I have all transparency. I have avoided the Israel Gaza conversation for two reasons. One, you, you can't win. And two, it's so complex and I know nothing about it, that no matter what you say, what you push back on or what you don't push back on, you lose. But ultimately, I have become so confused after watching debate after debate after debate. You are the person that I believe can disseminate this best for me. And I think you will be the most fair. Now, whether people agree or disagree, I'm going to encourage them. Do your own homework. Fact check. Everything we're going to talk about. I want to approach this from a different angle, though. I'm very tired of assigning blame. I, I don't see how that gets us anywhere. And it's like, well, you know, Israel did this. Well, Palestine did that. And it literally, it just goes back and forth thousands of years, starting now and then all the way back through the 60s and World War II and this and that, till you end up at like the hills of Ishmael and Israel and we're all the way back there and no one knows what the fuck's going on. So I want to first look at this with regard to the difference Between. Or if there is one, if you think there is one. Anti Semitism versus being anti Israel. And I bring this up because I'm now starting to see many people that I. I really love and respect come out against Israel aggressively. But I don't believe that they are anti Semitic. So can you explain to me what is Judaism? What is being a Jew? And what I mean by that is it's an ethnicity, it's a religion, and it's associated with a government. I want to start there. I don't. I really, honestly, I'm not being stupid. What is. What does it mean to be a Jew?

[Bari Weiss]

Wow. Okay. We need. We need more than an hour to tackle the topic of what it is.

[Jillian Michaels]

To be a Jew. I'm sorry. Because I'm. I'm 37% Ashkenazi Jew. I've never read the Torah. I don't have a menorah. I've never had a Shabbat dinner. I don't live in Israel. Am I a Jewish? Am I not a Jew?

[Bari Weiss]

Do you do. Was your mother Jewish?

[Jillian Michaels]

She is. Well, her mother was Jewish. Her father was Italian.

[Bari Weiss]

Technically, Judaism passes through. It's fun. It's hilarious. I'm not a rabbi. I should, like, add every caveat in the world that even though Gillian Michaels considers me to be an expert on this topic, many other Jews in the world will take issue with it. But from the most traditional understanding of Judaism, you are a Jew if your mother is a Jew, it's a matrilineal religion. There's many other people who would say Judaism can. That's too conservative. It's too Orthodox a description. It can be passed through the father's line as well. And that's what more liberal branches of Judaism believe. But by the most traditional strictures, Jillian Michaels, you are a Jew.

[Jillian Michaels]

I'm a Jew.

[Bari Weiss]

The question of what is a Jew and what is Judaism? And it's not a dumb question. It's actually a very sophisticated question. And the reason for that is because Judaism has been sort of boxed into all of these different modern categories that did not exist when Judaism became a thing in the world. Judaism is an ethnicity to some extent, not a race by any stretch of the imagination. As people who have been to Israel will know. The vast majority of Jews in Israel are Jews of color. Again, Jews don't understand themselves by these categories whatsoever. I'm using extraordinarily contemporary language, like people of color or white people. Yeah, yeah. You can be an Ashkenazi Jew. You can be a Mizrachi Jew. A Jew from North Africa. You can be a Sephardic Jew, a Jew that originated in Spain and was kicked out during the Inquisition. It doesn't matter because they're all Jews. So what does it mean? Well, most fundamentally, it's a belief in monotheism, a belief in one God. If you believe in Jesus being the son of God, you're not a Jew. I mean, like categorically, because that is to not believe in the fundamental sort of that. That's like that was the fundamental original fissure, right, between Christianity and Judaism.

[Jillian Michaels]

Jesus was a Jew and then it split because you thought Jesus was the son of God or you didn't, you became Christian or you stayed Jewish.

[Bari Weiss]

Right. But I think the, the core reason why this is a relevant question is because when people are trying to understand what Jew hatred is and what is simply being critical, being skeptical, being, you know, any other, any of the other things you were describing, it's like, well, what am I against? Am I against Judaism? As you were saying, Gillian, Judaism as a sort of state, is the Jewish state. Well, the reason that the question of what is Judaism and what is a Jew becomes extraordinarily relevant is because you are trying to understand, and I think many people are trying to understand. Well, in order to know if something is anti Jewish, you need to know what Jewishness and Judaism is. The core thing, I think, for your listeners to walk away with is that unlike Judaism is a thing that predates all of these modern categories of ethnicity, of race, of faith, the Judaism of faith. Well, it is a faith, but it's also other things. The Hebrew word for what Judaism is is am, meaning peoplehood, and peoplehood encompasses all of these different things, including a connection to a particular piece of real estate, about which there is a tremendous amount of, let's just say, heated discussion across the world right now. So when you talk about Judaism, I think it's just important to remember that it is a category that goes back thousands of years that predates all of the things we try to slot it into. But because we live in a, in a time where we think about things in terms of ethnicity, race, faith, et cetera, those become sort of imperfect categories. Does that make sense?

[Jillian Michaels]

It does make sense. It does make sense. So even if I know nothing about the religion, though my blood shows that I am 37% Ashkenazi Jewish now, it's not a race, it's a genetic trait, because I can be all different ethnicities and still have Jewish genes and a Jewish religion.

[Bari Weiss]

Well, here's the thing. I Do not believe in, in here. Here's the core thing. You can be born someone with zero Ashkenazi genetics. Ashkenazi genetics do not make you a Jew. Blood does not make you a Jew.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay.

[Bari Weiss]

A decision to join the Jewish people makes you a Jew.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay.

[Bari Weiss]

Can you convert to Judaism if you are born a black evangelical from Louisiana? The answer Judaism gives unequivocally, along any strand of Judaism, including the most fervently Orthodox, is absolutely yes.

[Jillian Michaels]

Got it.

[Bari Weiss]

And the reason is because Judaism is not about what your. You go to 23andMe what the results are. That might be an interesting curiosity. But, Jillian, if you, if your mother happens to be Jewish, technically, does that mean you're a Jew? Yeah. But if you don't identify as a Jew, if you don't identify with the Jewish people, if you don't do any of it, sure, technically you could be considered a Jew, but it's kind of, kind of comes out in the wash.

[Jillian Michaels]

Very interesting.

[Bari Weiss]

The core thing, and this is something that I feel is like very much misunderstood right now, is there's a lot of people on the far right and the far left that fetishize Jewish iq, that fetishize the idea that Ashkenazis are different in some way. Because iq, I think all of that is like a road to oblivion. I don't even understand that conversation. The fundamental thing is the thing that makes you a Jew is a decision to join the Jewish people, to state your faith in the belief in a single God, and to essentially throw in your lot with the Jewish people. One of the earliest stories of conversion in the Hebrew Bible in the Torah is the story of Ruth, when she says to her daughter in law, Naomi, she says, your people will be my people and your God will be my God. And the reason that that phrase stands the test of time is what comes first in that phrase? God or peoplehood? Peoplehood comes first. It's throwing in your lot with the Jewish people. So again, just to bottom line it for people that are listening, blood genetics, that does not make you a Jew.

[Jillian Michaels]

Got it.

[Bari Weiss]

What makes you a Jew? And the reason that Judaism is open to everybody is that you can convert without having any Jewish history or ethnicity whatsoever and be regarded as just as Jewish, as a person that can trace their lineage back to, I don't know, the hills of Judea 2,500 years ago.

[Jillian Michaels]

So now, having said that, if I was to be critical of Netanyahu.

[Bari Weiss]

Yes.

[Jillian Michaels]

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[Bari Weiss]

Yeah, I mean, there's so much in that statement and there's so much sort of true information and frankly kind of like information warfare happening right now around this issue. I want to just pull out one example and people can go look at this article in Tablet magazine. A really excellent data science called Zach Goldberg did an amazing study during the sort of past five years of the peak of wokeness. And he studied the ways that the words privilege, racism, Anti racism, white supremacy came to become categories because the legacy press kind of willed them into being. And he has these unbelievable graphs. I'll share you with them. I'll share them with you, Ghilain. Maybe you can include them in the show notes. He recently did a story a few days ago about the way the mainstream press has created this idea that there is a genocide going on in Gaza. And he did it very simply. He looked across the mainstream press at coverage of the genocide in Darfur, the genocide in Rwanda, the genocide in Bosnia, and he studied the instances of the use of the word genocide. Okay, The New York Times had an article pairing Israel and genocide reached levels more than nine times higher than the peak for Rwanda. Okay. The New York Times had Israel and genocide paired more than six times than it had for Darfur and genocide. Now, Rwanda again. 800,000 people murdered in an extraordinarily short period of time. I say that as context to begin this conversation, not because I'm justifying anything that has happened with innocent people killed in the war against Hamas in Gaza. You are not a person. Like, if you cannot be empathetic to seeing the reality of what war is, I don't know if you are still a human being. Anyone should be empathetic to that. In the same way that when we saw images coming out of October 7th of people mutilated, of people burned alive, tied to their children, tied to their parents, of people being shuttled off into, like, terror tunnels where some of them still remain to be. I think a good human being in the world is to be empathetic to all of that kind of suffering. I think what is important in terms of the distinction you were making when you said, can you criticize Netanyahu and be. And does that mean you're anti Semitic? Of course not. I will. I will demonstrate it right now.

[Jillian Michaels]

Many of my Jewish friends and Israeli friends do actually criticize him. That's where.

[Bari Weiss]

Of course. So it's a little bit like saying, can you criticize Donald Trump? Or can you criticize Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and does that mean you're anti American? We would laugh off the question. Of course not. Right now. Imagine you had a situation, though, where someone is not saying, donald Trump's a horrible president, but don't, donald Trump's a horrible president. And in fact, because he's such a horrible president, all of America should be dismantled. America doesn't have a right to exist.

[Jillian Michaels]

Got it.

[Bari Weiss]

How would we describe that person? I think it would be fair to describe that person not simply as Anti Trump or anti the Trump White House, but fundamentally anti American. And I think that's the little bit of a trick that's happening right now. People are trying to dress up their fundamental view, which is that of all of the states that exist in the world, with all of their myriad flaws and with all of the flaws about the ways they came into being, only one of those states does not have a right to exist. And what is that state? Is that state, you know, Russia is that state. China, which is carrying out a genocide against the Uyghur population, the Muslim Uyghur population? You never hear about that. There's only one single state about which that is even the conversation. Why is that? And that is where it starts to become a question of double standards and demonization, that sometimes the person expressing them. And I think this is also really important to point out and cut me off if I'm going on too long.

[Jillian Michaels]

No, please, I'm here to learn from you.

[Bari Weiss]

Oftentimes, the young people that are going along with a set of progressive orthodoxies, which unfortunately now includes hatred of the state of Israel, do they hate Jews in their heart? Of course not. The vast majority of them, the people putting on the keffiyeh and, you know, celebrating like Hamas, do they actually know what's going on? Could they actually locate Israel on the map? Do they actually know what they mean when they say from the river to the sea? No, but that doesn't mean that the content of what they're saying is not at its heart. I don't know what the right word is, but profoundly problematic. So in other words, I'm making a distinction between the sentiment in someone's heart, which we can never judge. And I want to assume and still believe that the vast majority of young people going along with this movement don't really know what they're saying. But if you are shouting globalize the intifada, that literally means. That's not like a metaphor. It means open season on Jews worldwide.

[Jillian Michaels]

I want to talk about that. Actually. I want to go through all these terms because. So people know what they mean. From the river to the sea. Globalize the intifada. Death to Zionists. I want to literally go through these things. So people, the Al Aqsa flood. So. So can you please go on and explain, like, what these things mean? What's a Zionist? River to the sea.

[Bari Weiss]

Globalized.

[Jillian Michaels]

Joe.

[Bari Weiss]

Okay, You. You. I'll go through them fast. And you tell me.

[Jillian Michaels]

You do questions.

[Bari Weiss]

You say them. Yeah.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay. Ready?

[Bari Weiss]

Start with Zionism.

[Jillian Michaels]

What is a Zionist what is Zionism?

[Bari Weiss]

I am a Zionist. The vast majority of Jews on planet earth, nor the 95% by some polls, maybe you could say it's a little lower. Are Zionists. What does it mean to be a Zionist? It means a belief that Jews have a right to live in some part of their indigenous homeland in the State of Israel. Now, that some part is doing a lot of work because many of us would say if peace would be possible by splitting up the land with Palestinians, by all means, let's do it. Some people would say, some people who would identify as Zionists say there can't be a Palestinian state. But up until October 7th, I would say the vast majority of Zionists in the world believed that there would be some sharing of the land between the Jews and their right to be in their indigenous homeland. And the Palestinians, who also are in that land, full stop. That's what Zionism is. It's extremely simple. People have turned it into a kind of smear. I want to do a sidebar on this because I think it's extraordinarily important. Zionism has been actively turned into a word that is the equivalent in the minds of many, many people walking around the world right now as being something like racist. The reason for that is very clear and historical. When the Soviet Union lost the Cold War, they did not stop fighting their prisoners proxy battle, their battle against America and against America's primary ally in the Middle east, which was Israel. And they literally. And I write about this a lot in my book. There's a journalist called Isabella Taborovsky that's written about this at length. Her family is Soviet Jews. They actively sought to create an international information campaign equating Zionism with racism. This is not like a conspiracy theory. This is a reality. I really urge people to go and to look into this history. And it's funny because the Soviets lost the Cold War, but they've won this very strange posthumous victory where when you hear a young person on a campus like Columbia, where I graduated from, shouting, Zionism is racism, they have no idea that they are shouting the slogans of what Reagan called the Evil Empire. And it is profound to go and read that history. I think it'll be shocking to people. Anyway, that's what Zionism is. That's the root of how it became a sort of poisoned word. And there are many, many handmaidens of that Soviet propaganda campaign, witting or unwitting, that are trying to make it into a terrible word right now. Okay, next one.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay, so the next one from the river to the sea. We've all seen the clips of the, you know, the journalists going into the streets asking people who are at the protests, what Weaver to what sea? And they have no idea.

[Bari Weiss]

Right.

[Jillian Michaels]

What does it mean? Which river, which sea? And what does that actually mean for anybody who doesn't know that's watching?

[Bari Weiss]

Okay, so we're talking about the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea. This is the tiny. It would shock people how small? It is the size of New Jersey. There's giant countries in the Middle east, and yet we are talking about a state the size of New Jersey, and we're talking about between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea. It's a very beautiful phrase. It rolls off the tongue. But what do people mean by it? Great question. Well, what I take it to mean, and I don't really understand how there could be another perspective on this particular one, is from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. Okay, well, from the river to the sea, that means the entire. All of it. All of the land that contains the west bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel proper. So people shouting that again, might think it just means, I want liberation for people that are being oppressed. I want liberation for people that are suffering under war. What they're actually chanting is an eliminationist slogan for the one state in the world, again, not mentioning any of the other states. So there's one little nice intellectual loophole, which is, if you're an anarchist that doesn't believe in any states at all and wants to dissolve all borders, can you be an anti Zionist and not be an anti Semite? Sure. But like the vast majority of people that are not anarchists living in like some co op in Berkeley, there are people who, I don't know, just for some reason only want this one state to be dissolved. Okay, what's our next. What's our next phrase?

[Jillian Michaels]

Globalize the intifada. What is the intifada?

[Bari Weiss]

So there's a lot of people that want to make. Want to convince naive and ignorant people that intifada is something like a metaphor for struggle or for like a liberatory struggle. But what does an intifada actually mean? What it actually means is armed uprising against the Jewish people, Israel and the West. Because remember, and this is like a core to the point, is that what feels like a Jewish story? Maybe in this particular moment in June of 2025, in hindsight, and when the history is written, will only be the beginning if this movement is successful. So when people talk about globalizing the intifada, what they mean is that anyone that supports Israel or that supports the west as they define it, is a legitimate target for violence. And this takes us very clearly to the two instances of horrific violence that unfortunately, because we live in the world we live in, have not become cause celebs at all, which is the attack by the alleged shooter, Elias Rodriguez against two young gorgeous people about to become engaged, Jerome Leshinsky and Sarah Milgram, where he hunted them down outside of the Jewish museum in Washington D.C. and murdered them. The details of what he did as she was crawling away trying to save her life are unfathomable, but no one is. No celebrities are making videos talking about them or their names. And then more recently, the flamethrower Molotov cocktail attack that was carried out against a group of peace loving people calling for the release of these hostages that are still being held more than 600 days later by Hamas, getting attacked by Molotov cocktails and flamethrowers, including an 88 year old holocaust survivor who was burned on the streets of Boulder, Colorado. So if people are like, intifada, it sounds abstract, do not let it be abstract in your mind. That is what globalized the intifada actually practically looks like. And so when you start to realize that, you look back at the kinds of protests that we've seen, especially on the part of the most like educated, pedigreed, elite people in our culture, people at Ivy League campuses saying, glory to the martyrs, globalize the intifada. Do they defend this? Is this, is this what they were talking about?

[Jillian Michaels]

When you, when you glorify the Al Aqsa flood? That is what happened on October 7, correct?

[Bari Weiss]

Yes. The Hamas, Hamas terrorists branded the actions they did that day as the Al Aqsa flood. And a lot of these sort of illiberal leftist movements in the States have used that same language, like flood Philadelphia for Palestine, flood XYZ as a kind of wink and a nod to the Al Aqsa flood.

[Jillian Michaels]

Got it. Okay, so before we move on, I want to, I want to then say the following and correct me if I'm wrong. It atrocities have occurred on both sides. I would argue throughout history. I would argue that most people don't think Israel has completely clean hands and is completely innocent. I would suggest that I myself am critical of Netanyahu. I think he is a very controversial character. And you know, look again, you could, oh well, Israel did this to us and they took this and we did that to that. And it goes, it goes back and forth, back and forth. But when you start to say, when you think you're saying, I want, you know, the killing to stop in Gaza, or you think that you're saying, I would like to see a two state solution, or I would like to see a world where, you know, Palestine, the Dave Smith of it all, Palestinians can vote. They have a sea report, they have an airport, and we could, we could get into, you know, why they don't, and Israel doesn't feel safe and there have been, you know, suicide bombers and all of that. Nevertheless, when you chant globalize the intevada, when you chant death to Zionism, when you chant from the river to the sea, what that actually means is none of what you think it does and eradicate Jews is actually what it means. Am I right in assuming that?

[Bari Weiss]

Yes.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay.

[Bari Weiss]

I mean, again, I want to just be clear that many people shouting these phrases, they're only doing it because it's like the current. Cause I know you could easily give them a sign that says, you know, net zero carbon or whatever the sign will be. No, seriously, it's like it's all interchangeable.

[Jillian Michaels]

To play devil's advocate, we've all been bombarded with images of children under rubble dying in Gaza. And you're just like, oh my God, okay, how does this stop? And I have to tell you, when I got in this conversation with Dave Smith, and obviously I was very horrified and disgusted and angry about October 7th, and he's like, well, where is your outrage about the children dying under the rubble? And I was like, I'm outraged, but like, I don't blame, I don't hate Palestinians and I don't hate Jews. I just want the dying to stop. That, I think, is the difference is I am seeing this give rise to new forms of anti Semitism. I am seeing, you know, people feeling more safe to express their anti Semitism because of this. And that's what is deeply alarming to me. And I'm wondering if that's what's alarming to you and I, I, and then beyond that, my next question is I'm seeing anti Semitism on both the right and the left now.

[Bari Weiss]

They're speaking in unison. Yes. So I think one of the things that's been so shocking, you know, I, I, I should say for the listener who has no idea who I am.

[Jillian Michaels]

That I'll tell them in the beginning.

[Bari Weiss]

If they don't know, but that I, you know, I wrote my book how to fight antisemitism in 2019. This is an issue I've been paying very close attention to for a Very long time. And yet even someone like me that's very attuned to this issue has been absolutely shocked by this sort of political and spiritual tragedy that began on October 7th, and especially on October 8th. And by that, I mean, you would think that the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust would be enough to wake people up to the aims of a group like Hamas. Instead, it somehow did the opposite. It somehow made people believe and like, as you're saying, Gillian, like, catalyzed a kind of latent hatred of the Jewish people and of Israel. And there's this incredible quote that I pulled ahead of this conversation. We had this wonderful piece called Free Palestine Terrorism about what happened in Colorado and what happened to D.C. and I just want to read this one thing because I think it's brilliant. There's a book called Terror and Liberalism by this intellectual, Paul Berman, and. And he was writing in 2003 about the intifada, about the suicide bombing campaign that was carried out against innocent people across Israel in synagogues, at hotels, in pizza restaurants. I remember one bombing that took place because I will never forget that they killed a father and his daughter on the day of her wedding, the day she was supposed to get married in a cafe in Jerusalem. And here's what he said. The popularity of the Palestinian cause did not collapse in the wake of these bombings. It increased. There was an idea that each new act of murder and suicide testified to how oppressive were the Israelis. Palestinian terror, in this view, was the measure of Israeli guilt.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yes, I've seen it. I'm sorry, Barry, I've not seen it. That is the argument. Well, what do you expect them to do? They're not allowed to have a military. They're not allowed to vote. You've blockaded everything. So how are they supposed to do this? And. And I have. I mean, I've listened to the arguments.

[Bari Weiss]

But it's almost like each bad thing that happened on that day, each rape, each murder, each kidnapping, somehow seemed like it was the measure of Israel's guilt.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yes.

[Bari Weiss]

The amount of evil that they withstood, rather than simply, this is an evil terrorist group that's murdering people, innocent people, many of whom lived in communities explicitly committed to peace and coexistence.

[Jillian Michaels]

I've seen that exact argument. I've watched. I've tried to watch so much of the other side in order to at least push back a little and try to present like a fair case. You know, if. If Dave Smith was here or Bassem Yousef was here, they would tell you, wow, you know, Israel killed 100,000 people here, here and here. And. And they're not allowed to have an army. And. And listen, okay, I said bad stuff is happening on both sides. But instead of, oh, my God, October 7th is one of the most gruesome, gory, disgusting, and awful events that has ever occurred in my lifetime. It's, see how much they've suffered. Look what they had to do.

[Bari Weiss]

But instead, what has happened is that beginning on October 8, with people across the west celebrating the slaughter of Jews, it's led to, over the past 600 or so days, a new reality where the stigmas that we used to take for granted, the taboos that existed against open hatred of Jews, has been more and more normalized on the far right and the far left. And often it's coming under the very, very, very, very thin veneer of just being against Zionists. But if you're just against Zionists, well, how do you explain someone that goes to a Jewish museum and murders people, young people there hunting them down? What is that? Is it just because he's against Zionism? I mean, at some point that begins to fall apart. And I think what has happened is there has been a permission structure created by all of the people who, under the guise of anti Zionism, have demonized Jews such that Jews walking around visibly identified as Jews or going into Jewish spaces, like my daughter at her preschool or going to the JCC for a swim lesson, or anytime I give a speech in public. I think most people would be shocked to learn that all of those spaces have. Have armed guards at all times, because that is. That is now the reality of being a Jew in American life. How has that become acceptable? And yet here we are.

[Jillian Michaels]

I hear it though, Barry. I hear it like this. Like someone will say, you'll be at a restaurant, and whenever I'm in Los Angeles, lots of Jewish people and some woman will be ordering and she'll, you know, be high maintenance with the waitress, which, by the way, I always am, whether you consider me a Jew or not. And I'll hear the table over there go, pushy jewelry. And I'm thinking to myself, like, are you effing kidding me? I grew up in Los Angeles. I grew up in the San Fernando Valley. Everyone was Jewish. I didn't even know antisemitism was a thing. I did not know it. Now it's like, pushy Jew. And you feel fine saying that, or I'm starting to notice it in things like, well, Kanye did have a point. And I'm like, what point is that? I just Just tell me. I think, is it.

[Bari Weiss]

What's the point?

[Jillian Michaels]

Well, you know, the Jews are like a little mafia. I'm like, holy. How? I'm not anti Semitic or anything, but I mean, they are. They're like a little mafia. They control everything. And I'm hearing that stuff. I've never heard that. Never. I'm 51, grew up in California. I have now lived on both coasts. I even have a place in the frigging middle of the country. I. I've never heard this before in the last couple of years. You would be ashamed to say such things. And it's become an end. And I, I have made this case and people have disagreed with me, but I feel very strongly that Kamala Harris did not choose Josh Shapiro because he is a Jew. So when did the left become anti Semitic? I thought it was always like the crazy, like weirdo skinhead alt right guys that were anti Semitic. When did this happen that it became progressive to be anti Zionist? I'm curious.

[Bari Weiss]

Okay, well, let me hope. Let me see if I can do this. The left basically came along and create and said the cat, the unofficial caste system that we've all lived under for forever, in which cis hetero white men are at the top and disabled people of color at the bottom. That's evil. And the right solution to that isn't, in my view, the constitutional American version, which is judge each person as an individual and believe that each person is created in the image of God and deserves to be judged not based on their immutable characteristics, but on their deeds. No, no. Instead what we're gonna do is we are gonna reverse that historic caste system that's been so unfair. And now white hetero cisgendered men like you're Jon Hamm's, your Brad Pitts.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yep.

[Bari Weiss]

They're gonna be at the bottom. And the more disability you have, the more claim to victimhood you have. It's not just that you're at the top. It's like you're almost born into some kind of sacred, protected identity group, whereas at the bottom you're born into kind of an original sin. Now what these people. So this is where white privilege and all of that stuff comes in and we don't have time to unpack.

[Jillian Michaels]

All of that's the Jew part, though, because they're such a successful thing.

[Bari Weiss]

So here's what they do. They say, rather than the old fashioned view that used to be commonsensical, which is we believe in equality of opportunity. These people don't believe that. They only believe in equality of outcome as the true measure of fairness. So any kind of disparity between groups needs to be seen as suspicious. And what does that mean if you are, you know, Asian kids outperforming people on the test? Little suspicious there. Which is how they have just. Which is how they have tarred Asian communities as benefiting from white privilege, hilariously. And what about those Jews? Little suspicious. They're incredibly successful by virtue of their numbers. They're overrepresented in all kinds of fields. Not only that, most of them, they appear to be white. They benefit. Look at you, you benefit from white privilege. So more than that, we're going to go further. Not only are they too successful according to their numbers, and that has to be suspicious again, because the true measure of equality is outcome. And if we didn't all finish the race at the same time, something must be amiss there. Not only do they benefit from white privilege and their white passing, but oh my God, they support the last bastion of white colonialism in the Middle east, which is Israel. Which is how if you put everything through that sieve, right, which is false, wrong, rotted out in the same way that the right wing racist equivalent is okay, because it all judges people based on the sins or the fortunes of their blaine of birth. What comes out is basically a new stack, a new caste system where you got your like cisgender hetero white men and then Jews are like kind of, kind of right there. And that is how, Jillian, you take a group that has within our lifetime, okay, 80 years ago, suffered the worst imaginable genocide in human history in which 6 million of our people were burned alive, shot into pits or worked to death and make them into an oppressor caste.

[Jillian Michaels]

Got it?

[Bari Weiss]

That's how. So once you're in the river of that worldview and once you understand that historically Jews play in the antisemitic worldview the role of whatever the most detestable loathsome qualities are in that country or society or country, which is how under Nazism, Jews are the race contaminators. How under communism, they're the arch capitalists. And what is the gravest sin of our time today? Racism and imperialism. The Jews become racist because they become white people in white passing benefiting from white privilege. And they become colonialists because they support not their indigenous homeland, but they support, et cetera, et cetera. So how do you get to this place if you follow along with that rubric, which I get it is a little wordy, but I hope is coherent enough for people to understand how this becomes the thing, how it becomes politically kosher and even valorized to demonize Jewish supporters of Israel and Zionism. If you think about those videos that have recently gone viral, I want you to imagine you're at a restaurant in a black majority neighborhood and you have someone coming up getting in the faces of people in that restaurant or a gay neighborhood and harassing those people, getting in their face, intimidating them, asking them their view on geopolitical matters. How do you think people would respond to that? Let alone how do you think people would have responded over the past 600 days on college campuses if you had mobs of students and outside agitators calling for lynching or calling for the expulsion of gay students or calling for anything that touches on any other minority group, it would have been like, over in a day. And yet somehow glorifying the death of Jews has become the politically chic cause of the day.

[Jillian Michaels]

I want to talk a little bit about your comment that antisemitism has been baked into the culture. So we're talking about what's going on now, but this has been going on for hundreds, thousands of years. When I went back in 2010, I went to Israel and I went to Palestine. And I'll be honest, it, it's a, it was a, you know, I was like, this is a very clearly a complicated matter that is not black and white. And when I spoke to a person, I had different guides in different places. A person in Palestine and a person in Israel, by the way, they don't even remember. I swear to God, I am not making this up. Maybe they were idiots, but they, they don't even remember where this began or why. And they just take me back to the Bible of Ishmael and Israel and I'm like, really? We're going back 2000 years to this? So why is this anti Semitism baked in, as you say? Is it because Jews killed Christ? I, I, I, I'm, I'm asking you, honestly, I, where did this begin? Why has this been a thing for so many years before today?

[Bari Weiss]

God? Well, it goes back before Christianity itself. It goes back to this story of. I write about this in my book this eg Priest and it's worth, really, it's like one chapter in my book. I'm honestly happy to make it free for everyone that listens to this show, or at least that chapter of it, because it's too complicated to summarize right now what I would say a good rule of thumb is, and certainly it goes back to the origins of Christianity, the way that that story became understood not by Jesus himself, but by the people that followed. What I would say on one foot, though, is that Jews represent difference. And difference is something. Whether it's the difference of not believing in Jesus being the son of God, or the difference or any kind of difference. That difference has been used to scapegoat, hate and ultimately create a politics that's organized against us. The question of why it persists is like the question, right? It's like, how do you explain something that has endured for so long? And far be it for me to tell you why. It's like asking me why gravity works. I don't know why you answer it, though, Barry.

[Jillian Michaels]

That's what's so crazy.

[Bari Weiss]

I think there's one very, very, I think, comes the closest to explaining this, which is there is a wonderful, wonderful scholar called Ruth Weiss who created the field of Yiddish studies at Harvard. Don't hold the Harvard part against her. She's extraordinarily critical of Harvard. And she talks about how there's lots of explanations of what anti Semitism and yes, anti Semitism is. Yes, it's a shape shifting virus. Yes, it turns, you know, the Jews into whatever, into a symbol and of whatever the most loathsome qualities are of that culture, as I talked about before. But she's like, no, it's more simple than that. It's actually more pragmatic than that. She says antisemitism is the organization of politics against the Jews. In other words, antisemitism is the politics of blame and grievance. She calls it the politics of the pointing finger. So let me spell it out a little bit more, okay? There is a reason that antisemitism tends to blossom and catch on like a fungus in times of incredible political and technological turmoil, where people are looking for an explanation of what went wrong. Why was I left behind? Why was myself, my community, my family, screwed over? And there's a lot of people that have the right to ask themselves that question in this moment, as they have in many other times in history, and especially economic depressions. Think about what's going on right now in this moment, with the technological revolution that we're only beginning to live through, with the absolute collapse in authority structures that we used to believe in and institutions that we used to rely on. At the economic transformation that AI is going to bring a lot of people, or at communities that have been hollowed out by globalization or fentanyl, or just look at the stew of things that are happening in this moment. Anyone that studies history will not be surprised if I told them, hey guys, guess what's happening right now. Jews are getting scapegoated. It's like that is the template throughout history. And there's lots of groups that get, get scapegoated. There's been. There is no one that writes about this more brilliantly than the scholar Rene Girard. If people have not read him, I cannot recommend his work more highly. He is like the guy on the question of scapegoating. And historically, Jews have been the go to scapegoat. So those are just some explanations that get us somewhere to answering the question of why it's endured. There's spiritual reasons, but there's also just very clearly pragmatic political reasons. You talked earlier, Gillian, about how the left and the right are kind of like singing from the same hymnal. This is the thing that is unifying them. Yeah.

[Jillian Michaels]

Like when you talked about, about the woke. Right. On your one podcast and you, you said specifically, hold on, I have so many notes for you. You go now it seems like because everything was taboo. Nothing is taboo and nothing is forbidden. And I thought, oh my God, I. That is what I'm starting to hear. It's like, well, now I can, like, I can make fun of illegals and call them what I can't. I'm afraid I'll get triggered by the friggin algorithm. But slurs like, like, you know, yes, I can say these things and say these names and it's allowed. But I was watching all of this unfold on the right when it was just like, oh, you know, all the antisemitism we've already, I'm sorry, on the left, all the anti. Semitism we already discussed of this like progressive movement on campus, the left media bringing, mentioning genocide hundreds of times more than they did in Rwanda and Darfur. And I'm just like, okay, hold on. Like it's starting to feel like it's closing in. I know that sounds crazy, but from the extremes on both sides, I'm like, what is happening here?

[Bari Weiss]

What's happening is that the political center right now has collapsed. And those movements on the. What we used to think of as the far right or what we used to think of as the far left are gaining power. And again, there's reasons for it. People feel like the old kind of what's been called like the neoliberal consensus didn't work for a lot of people. So we're living in a moment of rising populist energies again for very understandable reasons. But Populism. There's. There's good populism and there's bad populism. The kind of populism that listens to the common sense of ordinary people. That's good. The populism that says the voice of the people is the voice of God. No, it's not. The populism that says might makes right. And what the majority of people are crying for must be true, because they're the majority and they're. No, it. That's. That's not true at all. And so that's part of, I think, what's happening right now. And I don't think it's at all crazy to feel like things feel narrow and narrower because the space for that center feels like it's less and less. The good news, though, is that, yeah, wild number, like, majority of Americans identify as being in the middle. The majority. And by that, I don't mean, like, the mushy midpoint on every issue. I just mean they don't feel. They feel like you and me. Like, they don't feel like they go down every line on the blue or on the red. They think there's a lot of things to be grossed out and alienated by from both parties. And they're like, why can't people be more reasonable? Like, yes. Why can't there just be, like, the normal people? Okay, so that's the majority of people.

[Jillian Michaels]

I feel the problem about all of it. And I'm starting to see it's like, oh, no, no, now all trans is bad. And I don't want trans, you know, willing to die for our country in the military. And I don't. I'm like, hold on, wait. Whoa.

[Bari Weiss]

Right? Like, why can't you hold a position where it's. I don't think children should be able to make immutable changes to their body. Okay? But if a person transitions in adulthood and they make choices, just like they make a choice to get a tattoo, right. I'm going to respect them.

[Jillian Michaels]

They're mentally ill. They shouldn't be in the military. I'm like, wait, wait, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's like, yeah, it's this. And it's the same thing. I'm seeing it with anti Semitism, I'm seeing it with anti trans. And I'm like, how are we getting here?

[Bari Weiss]

Well, the problem is, is that the. The. The politics right now is. Is rewarding those extremes.

[Jillian Michaels]

Got it.

[Bari Weiss]

And then the algorithm. I hate sounding like this person, but what goes. What goes viral online, you know, what goes Viral.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yeah. Hate anger. Click.

[Bari Weiss]

Hate anger engagement. Right. Hate anger engagement. Like Nelly and I joke that there's a lot of money in like, bigoted, anti semitic podcasting right now, like a lot of good business opportunities there. Because. Because it's what goes viral, it's what engages people.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yeah.

[Bari Weiss]

And those of us that feel ourselves to be in like this commonsensical, reasonable place, like, it's you, you're not really represented by either of the, the parties and the candidates that tend to get the most attention, and you're increasingly not represented by the things that go most viral online. And so that's both, like, the opportunity is. The good news is most people feel that way. The challenge is how do they find a voice in a moment where the loudest, most extreme voices feel like the only voice in the room?

[Jillian Michaels]

Often it's so true. And even when, if I do a show, right, and you and I will do this show, and in the comments, we'll talk all about the ways I didn't, like, push back, call you out, which is why I just said, listen, there's no clean hands on both sides. Can we agree that bad shit has happened, that there have been atrocities on both sides? That's not the point. The point that I want people to take away is whether you disagree with the way Netanyahu has handled October 7th. It has unquestionably fed into an anti Semitism that I am watching spread and grow on both sides. And you want to be careful about being a part of that. And you should check your hate and check your facts. That's what I'm asking people to do.

[Bari Weiss]

I think it's just worth people asking themselves. Think about all the people that are outraged every day on the Internet. And did they have anything to say about those two young people shot outside of the museum? Did they have anything to say about Americans burned in Boulder, Colorado by, in this case, an illegal immigrant who was here from the Middle East? Ask yourself if they didn't say anything, why they didn't. Like, why there is a silence around only this group or a specific demonization only around this group. Again, it's not about, like special pleading. It's just notice, yes. What causes outrage and what doesn't, even.

[Jillian Michaels]

When we talk about, like imperialism, as you mentioned in the very beginning of the show, which we could go back and look at what happened after World War II. And because this has been, maybe we will, for just a moment, correct me if I'm wrong in understanding this. It seemed like Britain had what was then, what is now. Israel, Nobody wanted the Jews. Nobody wanted to take the Jews. What are we going to do with them? Stick them over here. And then Palestinians who were living on land got uprooted. I get it, you're very upset. You have a right to be upset. But it was. Is it the Jews fault, is my question.

[Bari Weiss]

Well, there was a partition plan put out by the UN which was splitting the land, the Jews and the nascent Zionist community that was living in Israel. And again, Jews have been living there for the hills of Judea, different numbers.

[Jillian Michaels]

I get it.

[Bari Weiss]

Jews agreed to it, Arabs did not. Thus began the 1948 war in which multiple Arab armies began a war against Israel. And it's been like, again, we'll have to do a separate podcast on like, of the history of remedial history of Israel, which I'm happy to do. I know, but you have to ask yourself, like with Camp David, with what Clinton was trying to do, with all of these different initiatives, you have one group that refused to negotiate, that is saying there can be a Palestinian state, and then you have a nationalist movement in Palestinian nationalism, not saying the majority of Palestinians, majority of Palestinians want, I believe, what every human being in this world wants when, which is to raise their children in peace and prosperity and give their children a better life, but a version of nationalism that believes that the only way to fulfill your national ambitions is not to have part of the land, but to have all of the land, which is in the Hamas chart, fundamentally at odds. And so I think that's one of the realities that those of us who have spent our lives believing and giving voice to the idea of a two state solution have had to confront, which is, can you have, you cannot have two states if the one group is saying, we don't want you to exist and have a state at all. And so how do you. And this is the question. That's the question.

[Jillian Michaels]

That is the question.

[Bari Weiss]

How do you support movements and people inside the west bank and Gaza? I mean, I'm sure this is not, this should be headline news. It hasn't been. The unbelievably brave people that over the past two months, this far into the war are now saying, come what may. And what may often means torture and death. I am demonstrating against Hamas publicly and openly in Gaza, like those brave men and women that are doing that right now in the face of what could come. Like, those are the people that need to be empowered both in Gaza and the west bank after the war. But you can't make peace with a version of Palestinian nationalism that Says, from the river to the sea.

[Jillian Michaels]

Can you make a version? And I agree with you. You're totally right. But here's why I say this. I mean, Barry, there's a clip of him which I'm sure you've seen, right? So this is from 2001, and it surfaced, I guess, in 2010. And he's speaking to a group of bereaved families in Alfra about relations with the US and the peace process. And he was unaware he's being filmed. And he said, I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction, and they won't get in the way. He also bragged how he undercut the peace process when he was prime minister during the Clinton administration. They asked me, quote, before the election if I'd honor the Oslo Accords. He said, I said I would, but. But I'm going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the 67 borders. I bring that up only because, like, I think both sides. What is the. He doesn't seem to want that. I. Netanyahu doesn't seem like a person that has the best intentions. Now, I'm an idiot. I have done no homework on him. But given everything I've witnessed over the past 600 days, as you've mentioned, this, quote, criticisms of, quote, quote, Israel seem to be criticisms of him and his party. And I, I would quote, he's. I. There's no moral equivalence to Hamas, period. End of story in my book. You don't even have to. I'm just saying.

[Bari Weiss]

Yeah.

[Jillian Michaels]

Does he want peace, too? Does he want the. What is the answer? How do you find good people that want peace and prosperity for both sides? Do you think those people exist in that region right now?

[Bari Weiss]

I do, but I also think that people have been hardened. And, you know, we talked earlier in this conversation about the first intifada, the second intifada. I lived in Jerusalem during part of the second intifada. This is the, you know, these were the years where sort of the beginning of the Iraq war, where there were. You didn't. We weren't allowed. I wasn't allowed to take public bus. Because you didn't know if they would blow up. I mean, that experience for changed people.

[Jillian Michaels]

Hence blockades and the not having an airport, not having a seaport, not letting things in that could be made into bombs because of this experience that has gone on and on and on.

[Bari Weiss]

Right. And it's just like, you have to ask yourself, if we had an experience in America where there were militias and terrorist groups coming over the border with Mexico into California for a period between 2000, 2003, and randomly blowing up restaurants, cafes, and buses, would we maybe then have a different view of what our relationship with Mexico should be?

[Jillian Michaels]

I get it. I understand. It's so, like, if I. Then. Okay, right. So now let me play the. These are children. You know, this started like the 18 years ago when Hamas got into power, and they weren't even actually voted in by. They didn't have the. Oh, my goodness, Jillian. The majority of the vote. You know, now they're all suffering. They. They're not even really truly pro Hamas. Like, I've heard both sides of that. And then I hear people say, no, no, no.

[Bari Weiss]

Well, they live in our terrorist regime. Like. Like, I think anyone that's honest will tell you that no one suffers. Who suffers more from Hamas? Israel. Yes, they've suffered horribly, people. But who suffers the most? I know these families and children that are immiserated by a terrorist organization. It is literally a terrorist state.

[Jillian Michaels]

I know.

[Bari Weiss]

So we don't know what people really believe because they get killed if they disagree openly with Hamas, which is why these visuals of people going out and publicly. We've done some great journalism around it with people, partners on the ground that have gone out to protest Hamas publicly, even at pain of torture. It's unbelievable. I mean, just think about. Also, there's been a lot of reporting and a lot of misinformation, but a lot of reporting about just the state of food security in Gaza and whether or not people are starving. Okay. Hamas literally has been purloining international aid for themselves, reselling it on the black market to people, and then using those funds to enrich their own freedom fighters. So, like, now you have this new group, the. I think it's called the Gaza Humanitarian foundation, trying to provide aid. And everyone's criticizing, and it's like, well, guys, like, what's the solution here?

[Jillian Michaels]

That is the qu. That is the question. Because we could go back and forth. They did this, they did that. This happened here. Well, then they did the like. I. I've heard it. But then when you ask, I saw the guys on trigonometry, ask Bossim Yousef, well, what's the answer? He's like, well, not this. And they're like, but what is the answer?

[Bari Weiss]

Here's an answer. Here's an answer. There's more than 50 people dead and alive that have been held in the most unimaginable conditions for more than 600 days. Release them. That's it. You want to end the war. All of these people taking to the streets saying, end the war, end the bloodshed, call for the release of the hostages, that will end the war. Like, it's the most basic thing in the world. If you're. Everyone wants an end to the war. Everyone I know in Israel wants an end to the war. It is their sons and their uncles and their fathers that are fighting this war. And it has been devastating on the population of. I mean, we don't, like, we're not comparing suffering, but they want to end the war.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yeah, I get it.

[Bari Weiss]

But if you are a sovereign country and you depend on, because there's a universal draft on fulfilling your promise, which is we're not going to leave people behind in battle, especially innocent civilians that were captured, some of them from their beds, then what is Israel supposed to do? Just say we're writing off those 50 people? What are they supposed to do?

[Jillian Michaels]

I actually don't know. But here's a question that I would ask, and I know you and I could talk about this for hours. What I always wanted to understand is how come the head of Hamas and all those, the head brass of Hamas are living in Qatar? Aren't we homies with Qatar? How come we haven't said, turn those guys over, we want those guys. How come we're not targeting this? That's. That's something that I also don't understand. Like how come the powers that be are not targeting this? That would be my first question. Question. Because that's what I would do is be far more selective and go to Qatar and say, hand him over. I don't need the plane. I'm just saying.

[Bari Weiss]

I mean, I agree. And you know, if we want to be as good faith as possible, that's. I think what Steve Witkoff is trying to do. The question of Qatar is worth a whole nother episode. And I would love to do it with you.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay.

[Bari Weiss]

It is a very complicated issue in which a ally of America, the country that hosts our largest base in the Middle east, the Al Udeid Air Force Base, also is aligned with Hamas, also funds Hamas, also controls Al Jazeera, the most potent propaganda outlet megaphone in the Arab world. And it is an absolutely fascinating story. I hate to plug it, but we really did have the definitive story on this.

[Jillian Michaels]

Incredible. I talked about it on her take. I. I cited the entire article. It was mind blowing. What you. I'll put it in.

[Bari Weiss]

So we have a Podcast. And we have a piece called How Cutter Bought America. And it's, it's a really fascinating story and I, I, yeah, I, I wish I could go into it. I would love to do a separate conversation about it.

[Jillian Michaels]

Listen, you have an open door here. I will take you anytime you are available. Because there's so much that I could disseminate with you. I just want people to know where they can get more from the Free Press. Honestly with Bari Weiss, you have been educating me now since I discovered you when you were interviewing Dr. Casey Means. And it is very bizarre that I would learn about her through you, which should have. Absolutely.

[Bari Weiss]

That's crazy.

[Jillian Michaels]

Been the other way around.

[Bari Weiss]

That's actually crazy.

[Jillian Michaels]

I got sent the podcast from a million different people.

[Bari Weiss]

Well, Jillian, as you know about you, I have known you since, since the. What is it? 20 minute shred. What's the video that I love? The 30 day shred.

[Jillian Michaels]

The 30 day shred.

[Bari Weiss]

30 day shred. Changed my life, baby. I need to get that VHS tape back. S.H. michaels will change your life, change your body. Here's how people can find what we do. If you believe in the kind of journalism that you used to expect from the legacy press, we have picked up the flag that they have put down. It's honest, it's fearless, it's independent. We admit when we get things wrong, we try as hard as possible to have multiple views on many different topics so you get the strongest position on lots of sides of an argument. We're journalism for adults. If you're looking for journalism that just reaffirms your prior biases, we're probably not for you. But if you want journalism that trusts you and that challenges you, go to check out the Free Press@the FP.com I also have a podcast. There's lots of different podcasts we do, and I would love for you to, to check out what we do. I'm proud of it.

[Jillian Michaels]

Very. Thank you so much. Let's, let's hopefully let's continue the conversations and I'm very grateful for you joining me and all that you guys do there at the Free Press.

[Bari Weiss]

And honestly, thanks, Jillian.

[Jillian Michaels]

Thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed the podcast, please, like comment, subscribe and share and make sure to let me know what guests you want to see on in the future.