B (10:29)

It is perpetuating a completely false narrative.

A (10:33)

Where are the Palestinians against Palestine? It is not genocide. Seeing these faces is the ultimate challenge to the oppressed. Oppressed binary view. You're ripping down posters of kidnapped Jewish.

B (10:47)

Babies in your little Yasser Arafat scarves. It's a trap and you're willingly walking into the trap.

A (10:57)

In the days and weeks after the October 7th attack, posters went up in Israel and in the United States of the missing those taken hostage by Hamas. And then soon thereafter in the United States. There was a counteraction. The posters were torn down. Torn is the name of a new documentary by Nim Shapira, who really provides an interesting and, I think, unexpected look into the entire phenomenon. Nim, welcome to the gist.

B (11:28)

Thank you so much for having me.

A (11:30)

Tell me a little about yourself. Situate yourself within the context of these posters. October 7, Israel so, as you can.

B (11:39)

Hear, I have an Israeli accent, a very thick one, even though I've been living here in New York for the past 12 years. So I'm also a New Yorker, and I'm also an American. I am an artist and I am creative director. So I do commercials, I work on music videos, and I've done short films and I understand, you know, brands and campaigns. I understand storytelling. And. And I would also say that I'm, you know, we're talking about my movie and how it toured the city. I'm in this intersection of being a Jewish American, Israeli. I'm also a vegan, an artist, and gay. So I think all of these intersections, you know, I felt very, very, I would say, ostracized from a lot of different communities and had a lot of questions that I had to ask myself.

A (12:51)

Yes, I have to say, I didn't see how the veganism showed up. Everything else I noted, but veganism in the movie? I don't know. Maybe I missed it.

B (12:59)

Maybe. Maybe you watch it again. Yeah.

A (13:01)

Yes, that's right. Through a vegan lens. So also, as a documentary filmmaker, what you're trying to do is put your finger on the unusual. And it did seem. I remember living through this. It did seem shocking to me. Just as a New Yorker who lived through 911 and remembered the posters of the missing there, it seemed shocking that anyone would tear down the posters of the missing. I understand that people would oppose whatever war they sensed accurately was coming. But to me, the analogy I made was even if you were against a war in Afghanistan or a war, eventually that would happen in Iraq, to tear down posters of Those missing from 911 is just, on its face, horrific. Now you have a different experience because I take it you weren't in New York for 9 11, but did these musings occur to you exactly as they did to me?

B (14:05)

So I would say you asked me about, contextualize myself with October 7th. I have to say that I was in Israel on October 7th on a. On a family vacation, and I saw the posters coming up and I was very, very proud. My city, New York, for caring and for shining a dark light on this international crisis. Of 251 hostages from over 40 nationalities, Hindus and Buddhists and Christians and Muslims and Jews that were kidnapped from the international recognized borders of Israel from people. Like people were kidnapped from their homes, from their work, from several parties, because there was several parties there. And these are mostly civilians ages 9 months to 85. So I was very proud of my city. Again, New York is the biggest home for the home for the biggest Jewish population outside of Israel. It's also a home for a very big Muslim community and, and a lot of people in the middle, I would say. And I was very proud that my city is, is shining a light and in saying like these people were taken and they are, they represent the world. A few days later, again, being in New York for 12 years, seeing the videos of posters getting ripped down, this is not like I'm watching a film in a place I don't recognize. Like, I recognized every street and alley and corner in the streets of New York. And I'm like, this is in my old neighborhood. This is where I work, this is where I go to the cinema. So it was very, very painful.

A (15:54)

So you got the footage of people tearing these posters down because as there was an action, there was a reaction and a re reaction which was to document the people tearing the posters down. The people doing the documenting would say, why are you doing this? These are innocent people. Sometimes there would be a back and forth. Some of those back and forths were kind of interesting. How did you acquire most of that footage of the people tearing the posters down?

B (16:22)

The movie itself takes place in the first three months starting October 7th and up to the first ceasefire and first host hostage deal. And that's where most of the putting up and tearing down of the posters happened. So basically what I did is comped the Internet and look for any type of encounter between people that put up the posters and rip it down. These were a lot of viral moments, but a lot of moments that I think got less views than others. It really depends on the situation.

A (17:01)

So among the people who gave answers as to the question, why are you tearing it down? And a lot of people didn't. A lot of people said this was propaganda. A lot of people said this will be used to justify a war. But one guy got into an argument insisting he wasn't anti Semitic. I thought that was fascinating. Why do you include that answer of all the choices you had to choose from?

B (17:26)

So when I looked into hundreds of videos of people ripping down the posters, I tried to categorize them and find every logic and Let the record show that I'm doing air quotes behind the ripping down of the posters. And this is because it was really hard to talk to the other side and, and understand why they do it. And you know, in trying to talk to the other side and understanding them, it doesn't mean that I want to forgive them. It just means that there are different narratives and we are 5,000 miles away from the war and there are no missiles and rockets above our heads. So the least we should do is sit down and talk and disagree. Specifically, the video with the guy ripping down the poster of a kid saying, I'm not anti Semitic. You know, there are a lot of words that are being thrown to the air. I'll use the Mandy Patankin quote from the Princess Bride that says, you keep using that word. I don't think you know what it means. Holding Jews accountable for what is happening in Gaza is anti Semitic. There is no other way around it. You can protest and demand answers from the Netanyahu government. And in fact, this is something that Israelis are doing on a daily basis. Just this week, almost 700 days to the war, Israelis, hundreds of thousands of Israelis, stopped all traffic and didn't go to work on a workday, demanding a ceasefire and hostage return and stopping the war. So it's definitely worthy to criticize another's government. But holding every Jew accountable and not seeing a young girl that was kidnapped as a hostage, like seeing her as a white colonizer, as I saw in the film, is, is something that is very, very depressing on so many levels.

A (19:46)

Right? There was a 4 year old, 5 year old, and one of the people tearing the posters down said, looks like a white colonizer to me. So you also quote Aaron Turr, who is a First Amendment expert, with fire. And I've done some events with him and he, he offered two insights. One was, I think, insightful and worthy and it's something I expected. And one was a little unusual. So insight is putting up these posters is free speech, and tearing them down, if you think it's legitimate, is essentially the heckler's veto. But then later on he said filming the people who tore them down to shame them or to maybe enact some form of societal retribution is essentially cancel culture. That was something interesting to think about. How much do you agree with those?

B (20:42)

I just want to tweak your quote by Elon. He is talking specifically not about the filming, but about the doxxing. And he's talking about exposing the names, addresses and creating an Internet campaign to get these people Harassed, basically. So I think if I remember correctly, that's what he's talking about. I would say that again, like what I try to show in my film, there's a lot of grace between the white and the black of our lives. And I really hope that people would, you know, people, when they watch the film, they say, I agreed with 70 or 80%, but these 20 or 30% made me really angry. And I disagree. And I say, great, like I made a film that made you think I will. To this, to this question, I will say that if you are a person that works in the public sphere, if you're a teacher, if you work for the city council, if you're, if you're a lawyer that works for, for the government, if you're a doctor and you rip down those posters, you know, it's very, very troubling to see that. And there will be consequences to ripping down that poster, from that to, you know, harassing private people that are, you know, again, rip down the poster. That's a different approach, which I disagree with. So I'm all for, let's say, public servants being accountable for what they did. And I'm against the vilification or chasing after regular people. Like me. Like yourself maybe, maybe not like me and yourself, because we are more in the public eye. And, you know, I have expectations from every community that I show the movie to, whether it's, you know, right wing Jews living in New York or left wing Jews living in New York or people in the middle or the Muslim community.

A (23:00)

So here is my promised, I guess we'll say steel Manning of someone who would tear down a poster. They might say something like, well, of course, I have so much humanity. My heart goes out to 250 people who were either killed or kidnapped. And that shouldn't happen anyone. Which is exactly why I'm foreseeing how this is going to play out, which is that the kidnapping of the 250 will have a ripple effect or inevitably lead to a counteraction. And that counteraction could lead to 25,000 innocents dying. And in fact, that person, if they argued that at least 25,000 innocents have died in Gaza, the Ministry of Health there says it's 60 something thousand. We don't know how many of them. Tens of thousands, maybe Hamas fighters. But yes, Certainly at least 25,000, maybe 40,000 innocent civilians have died in Gaza. And part of the reason that happened is the impetus was given by rescuing these sympathetic hostages if we could take down the justification for the impending war which happened, we'd have actually had a net benefit for humanity. So that's something like the Steel man case. I don't know that anyone said that on the videos that were captured. But what would you say to that? I mean.

B (24:27)

Or no, no, I can, I can answer.

A (24:30)

Was there anything close to that case made that. Because I take from our interview that you were interested in actually hearing out the best arguments.

B (24:40)

Correct. And I can definitely speak to that. I think that first of all, the movie takes place in the first three months of 2023. I think no one knew that after 700 days the war is going to still happen. There's going to be an international humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians will die and the hostages will still be held by Hamas. Israel's strategy for wars is doing very short wars because Israel can't handle long wars. And I would say that if someone gave me that reasoning, I would call it, I wouldn't say it's an excuse. I would say reasoning or pov. I would tell them that ripping down a poster of five year old will not shorten or prolong the war. If you want to pressure the government of Israel or elected officials in the United States, you can do it. Go protest in front of the consulate or embassy of Israel, go protest in front of the White House. But what we've seen that started with ripping down of the posters is erasing someone else's pain. And I would also say, and we've seen it like you can, like there's enough lamp posts and there are enough walls in the city of New York and they can coexist side by side.

A (26:20)

How do you think this movie plays differently now than maybe right when it was locked? Because my perception is the war in Gaza has gotten much less popular. It was never popular. But more and more people are aggrieved by it. More and more people in the United States are blaming Israel for it. And I suspect that the 2024 version of this movie, there'd be a lot of sympathy for the hostages, for those sympathizing with the hostages, a lot of antipathy for someone who would tear down a picture of a hostage. But I'm also sensing that in late 2025, people are just so sick of everything that's gone on in Gaza and just, it's just so sickening that they would, they would downplay or degrade the salience of the importance of ripping down a hostage poster. When put when juxtaposed with all the horrors of Gaza, that's a good Question.

B (27:31)

I will say that this is not a movie about the Gaza war. This is a movie about America. This is a movie about empathy and freedom of speech. And the kidnapped posters are the way to talk about it. There is no perfect timing, you know, to, to release a film I didn't want to like I know, like I know I'm not. I'm aware of the lack of empathy and hostility towards any narrative that is coming out. My name is unfortunately from a lot of torn. The Israel Palestine poster on New York street is a film that I. I have been vocal against Netanyahu's government since 1995 and the past two years having this government in Israel are extremely hard for me. Even before October 7th. These are the worst two years of my life. But in addition to that, and again, I'm trying to hold several things true social fabric of New York has been torn. You know, I've seen more. I go around the streets now when it's the elections for choosing who's going to be the next male and there is more posters about the war in Gaza and the hostages then about who's going to be the next mayor. So this topic is in the heart of New York and I hope that people will watch the film because today it's posters, tomorrow it can be a different topic that people disagree with. And that is why it was important for me to bring someone like Aaron Ter who talks about the value in freedom of speech and conversations.

A (29:27)

Nim Shapira is the director of the.

B (29:30)

Documentary which can be seen basically freedom of speech, communal solidarity and became polarized. Thank you so much.

A (29:49)

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Visit Omaha steaks.com for 50% off site wide during their Red Hot Sale event and for an extra $35 off use promo code flavor at checkout. That's 50% off at Omaha Steaks.com and an extra $35 off with promo code flavor at checkout. See site for details. And now the spiel Israel has targeted Hamas leaders in Qatar who had reportedly gathered to discuss a propos proposed ceasefire. Initial reports out of Israel were that key Hamas leaders were killed. Hamas, whatever is left of it, issued a statement contradicting these reports. As of this recording, Khalil Al Haya, deputy chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau, is listed on Wikipedia as having lived from 5November 1960 to 9 September 2025, whereas Khalil Mashal, acting leader of Hamas since the killing of Yahassinwar, is listed as still alive. The boldness of the strikes into an independent foreign country is remarkable. Qatar is unlike Lebanon or Iran. Israel is at war with those countries or factions within them, while the US maintains close ties with Qatar, even hosting US Central Command there. This has prompted some commentators like Professor Sultan Barakat to predict massive change. I think this is going to be a watershed moment, to be honest, similar to the day when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. As far as the Gulf state security is concerned now they will have to rethink their whole assumption that their security can be guaranteed by the United States and by good relationships with the West. All the, you know, blah blah that we've been living for the last 30 years. That was Barak Hat speaking on Al Jazeera, the Qatari owned broadcaster. He was speaking just a few miles from where the blast happened. He teaches at Qatari institutions. I understand why he why the Qataris would like to think that this might change everything, but I'm not so sure. In the 2017 diplomatic crisis, other Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain also Egypt cut ties with Qatar. The other Gulf states blockaded Qatar and expelled its citizens. Why long simmer intentions to his long simmering tensions? What set it off? Remarks by Qatar's Amir Sheikh Al Thani praising Iran and Hezbollah and Hamas and also criticizing President Trump. Qatar playing footsie with and hosting the Muslim Brotherhood and also very specifically Hamas was highly objected to by its neighbors in the Gulf. So the specific reason for the strikes was to get Hamas and that is not an objectionable reason to the Saudis or the uae. Will the Gulf states, all US allies conclude oh now this means we can't trust the US to be an ally because they did allow a strike on another ally or Will these other countries conclude maybe we shouldn't host the entity that carries out terror attacks on the United States ally Israel? No one ever seems to conclude maybe we shouldn't attack Israel. The Middle Eastern public, Iran especially, they never draw that lesson. But since terror attacks against Israel do consistently redound against their perpetrators, greatly affecting the actuarial tables of those who attack Israel, I don't know, maybe at some point the message will get through. This isn't to say that the strikes were necessary or smart or even successful. The case against them is this. When it comes to the US as a negotiator or an intermediary in these conflicts, strikes like this crater trust. Israel, by contrast, puts its trust in craters blasting the ground where Hamas headquarters once stood. The White House says it knew beforehand and it won't happen again. And this does set back the peace process. And we're very sorry, but also, yeah, we don't like Hamas. The strikes coming two days after Donald Trump urged peace talks have an echo of his vice to the Iranians. You know what? Give me two weeks to think about it. Oh, wait, no. In the meantime, here's a bunker buster straight into your mountain. And it also strikes me, not with, say, an airstrike, but with insight that this is how wars against terrorists work. A country is attacked by terrorists and that country wants to go out and kill the terrorists and the aligned terrorists and maybe sometimes people who weren't even the main terrorists, but were terrorists like. And then other countries in the region of the world say, fine, you can get those specific terrorists who struck you, but not these other terrorists. Or you could get the terrorists who hold the guns, but not the terrorists who wear the suits and fund the people who hold the guns. And we, we who are in party to the conflicts, we have this other list of terrorists who we don't want you to kill. And then the affected country, be it the United States or France or Russia or Israel, will routinely ignore the suggestions of the non involved states and kill all the terrorists they could kill. That is the pattern at least. Israel is very good at killing its enemies and the leaders of its enemy factions. But then what? Kill more enemies is the answer. Okay, okay, but then what? Well, we got Ismail Haniyeh in an Iranian guest house. Gotta kill him. Okay, he's gone. But then what? We got this beeper thing we're working on. Impressive. But then what? Well, we could take out Iranian generals and scientists in their apartment. Yes, I know, that was amazing that you could do that. But then what? Well, Hamas is in Qatar in a meeting room. Okay, but then what? And I guess Israel would say, oh, we've got a few more ideas, but at this point they're taking out the Black September call ups right now. The then what is being predicted, as you heard in that clip, as then what? A massive reordering of Middle Eastern alliances. I think that's doubtful. No one acted in out of character or out of line way in this strike. I'm not talking about out of line as defined by international law or international norms, but by the logic of this conflict. If you told me years ago that Israel would strike into Qatar and kill Hamas leaders because they could, I would say the disapproval of the international community would not stop them from doing that. The problem isn't that this strike changes everything, it's that I think it maybe changes not much. I'm not issuing a verdict on the wisdom or even and especially the success of the Israeli strike. I don't know if it was smart. I don't know if it really worked as a case in point. Khalil Al Hayah, who at the beginning of the spiel I said was on Wikipedia as dead. I just checked. He's now listed as alive, delisted as dead. Israel wants to destroy Hamas and get the hostages back. Benjamin Netanyahu has clearly prioritized the first, even at the expense of the second. And Israel would say that destroying Hamas means killing many, many Hamas fighters, but also killing all the Hamas leaders. It can kill every last name on the org chart that rated is important enough to have a title, a security detail, and in this case, pretty fancy accommodations in Qatar. Killing your enemies is what countries do during wars, and it's what Israel is doing pretty ably. But it's not what countries do to get out of wars. What they do is offer some semblance of an answer to the question and then what? And that's it for today's show. Cory Warr is the producer of the Gist and Ashley Kahns, our production coordinator Kathleen Sykes helps me with the Gist list very much helps me. Philip Swissgood consults on all Matters Substack, where I am@mikepeska.substack.com and Michelle Pesca oversees it all. Peru. G Peru de Peru. And thanks for listening. Hey, this is Dan Harris, host of the 10% Happier podcast. I'm here to tell you about a new series we're running this September on 10% happier. The goal is to help you do your life better. The series is called Reset. It's all about hitting the Reset button in many of the most crucial areas of your life. Each week we'll tackle a topic like how to reset your nervous system, how to reset your relationships, how to reset your career. We're going to bring on top notch scientists and world class meditation teachers to give you deep insights and actionable advice. It's all delivered with our trademark blend of skepticism, humor, credibility and practicality. 10% have here is self help for smart people. Come join the party.