Speaker 1: Hello everyone.
Speaker 2: My name is Frieda Vaizel and I'm a New York City,
Speaker 2: Brooklyn based Jewish YouTuber with an interest in all things Jewish, subcultures, religion,
Speaker 2: New York City, and human interest stories.
Speaker 1: I'm sure many of you.
Speaker 2: Have seen some of the ways that anti Semitism is
Speaker 2: on the rise recently. For instance, there's been a number
Speaker 2: of YouTube videos that have gotten millions of views, and
Speaker 2: they depicted the Orthodox Jewish community with subtle and not
Speaker 2: so subtle anti Smitic overtones. Jews were depicted as at
Speaker 2: once controlling the world but also being so impoverished that
Speaker 2: they're destroying America. You all know I think, or many
Speaker 2: of you know what I'm talking about. I want to
Speaker 2: have a more nuanced conversation about what anti Semitism is
Speaker 2: because I think there's anti Semitism and there's criticism, and
Speaker 2: it's important to differentiate and understand the two. Today, I'll
Speaker 2: be speaking about historical and contemporary anti semitism with Duran
Speaker 2: Schaffrier from The Easy Way. The Easy Way is an
Speaker 2: English language YouTube channel that makes complex philosophy and geo
Speaker 2: politic accessible, with a focus on Israel, moral theory, and
Speaker 2: cultural device. It features deep dive analysis and interviews aimed
Speaker 2: at fostering nuance understanding. Obviously, this is my kind of thing,
Speaker 2: and so I look forward to this conversation. Before we begin,
Speaker 2: I want to say I'm trying really hard to get
Speaker 2: to five hundred channel members because that will give me
Speaker 2: a little bit of relief from worrying about the algorithm.
Speaker 2: Right now, we're at a little bit under four hundred.
Speaker 2: If you're able to be a channel member, I thank
Speaker 2: you so much for your support and Doran or is
Speaker 2: it Duran? I'm not sure how to pronounce your name.
Speaker 2: Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, actually both both attempts I would classify as correct
Speaker 3: in English. So thank you so much for inviting me.
Speaker 3: It's a great honor for me to be here.
Speaker 2: Well, it's quit pro quote because I was one your thing,
Speaker 2: which was my great pleasure and honor.
Speaker 3: Well about a time, I guess right, it's been a while,
Speaker 3: it's been a year.
Speaker 1: It's been a year.
Speaker 2: Let's begin and by just asking the question, how would
Speaker 2: you define what anti Semitism is?
Speaker 3: Here's the thing, Frida, I really can't, and I want
Speaker 3: to tell you why I can't. So here's the thing.
Speaker 3: When we think about anti semitism. Especially when the average
Speaker 3: American thinks about anti semitism, he thinks about the Holocaust. Right,
Speaker 3: this is how we are conditioned to think about this.
Speaker 3: So the anti Semitism of the Holocaust is a very
Speaker 3: specific kind of antisemitism. And also the term has been
Speaker 3: coined somewhere around that time, right, a few decades earlier.
Speaker 3: So it's a racial anti semitism. Right, It's a racial
Speaker 3: thing against Jews. It's viewing the certain group, the Jews,
Speaker 3: in this instance through the lens of what is contemporary
Speaker 3: and at the time, right, people were thinking in racial terms,
Speaker 3: and so anti semitism was a racial term. And so
Speaker 3: people today might believe that Jews control the White House,
Speaker 3: the Jews control banking, that Jews get special loans. All
Speaker 3: they have to do is go to the bank and
Speaker 3: whisper to the Jewish tailor. Right, So this is what
Speaker 3: people think, but they're not racists. Right, you can think
Speaker 3: these things without being racist. Well, you don't have to
Speaker 3: be racist to believe that there is a group or Okay,
Speaker 3: I'll give you an example. Think about the people who
Speaker 3: are very critical and fearful of Islam. You could be
Speaker 3: critical and fearful of Islam without being a racist. Right,
Speaker 3: you just conceive this ideology or religion or however you
Speaker 3: want to decide it. You have a certain conception of
Speaker 3: it in your head, and that conception is what you
Speaker 3: are obsessive towards or criticizing, or you know, you might
Speaker 3: think that it's not just to criticize Islam, and then
Speaker 3: you would say obsessive, or you might think it is
Speaker 3: just and then you would say rational. But whatever your
Speaker 3: stance is, you could concede that there is no need
Speaker 3: for racism here.
Speaker 2: Okay, So let's define racism here for a second, because
Speaker 2: I think you're not.
Speaker 1: Using racism in the general sense.
Speaker 2: We use it in popular vernacular, which is just like, actually,
Speaker 2: if you're in an islamophobe to use a term that
Speaker 2: I don't know that it has any valuable meaning, then
Speaker 2: we think that's racist.
Speaker 3: Okay, So let's define racism in the context of antisemitism.
Speaker 3: In the years in which antisemitism rose, racism was a
Speaker 3: scientific worldview. It was a descriptive worldview of how human
Speaker 3: societies organize and how human society is run. So when
Speaker 3: I say racist in the context of anti semitism, what
Speaker 3: I mean is that you truly believe that there are
Speaker 3: certain genetic inherent characteristics in a Jew that make him
Speaker 3: more prone to have certain maybe undesirable behaviors or undesirable
Speaker 3: physical traits, or you know, even if you were to
Speaker 3: go to modern times. There's even a pretty popular modern
Speaker 3: author I forgot his name, but he essentially reintroduced racism,
Speaker 3: anti Semitic racism. I'll give you an example. His main claim,
Speaker 3: and it's very popular in for neo Nazi circles, which
Speaker 3: there are not so few of. But he would say
Speaker 3: that there has actually been evolutionary selective pressure on Jews
Speaker 3: to be manipulative and go into banking and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: I'll try to explain it. For example, he would say
Speaker 3: that because you were always a minority and you were
Speaker 3: always persecuted, then you had to develop certain characteristics of
Speaker 3: being able to be very brutal and very scheming and
Speaker 3: very controlling, and over time, because you have bred within
Speaker 3: this population, it has become an inherent trait of the
Speaker 3: Jew right. So this is racist anti semitism. Islamophobia does
Speaker 3: not fit.
Speaker 1: That I see.
Speaker 2: So when you speak of racism, you're talking about a
Speaker 2: genetic predisposition of a specific population to certain negative stereotypes
Speaker 2: as a prejudice. So if I think all people of
Speaker 2: this and this culture are genetically predisposed to, let's say,
Speaker 2: be scheming liars, that's a racist prejudice.
Speaker 1: So exactly a genetic component.
Speaker 3: It's scientific racism. That's what it started out as. Okay,
Speaker 3: And you know they had this whole thing about well,
Speaker 3: we can measure that by the skull, right, all the
Speaker 3: famous spiel. So this is how it started. Today you
Speaker 3: can hold all these beliefs without being racist. And thus,
Speaker 3: because we tend to identify anti semitism with racism, that
Speaker 3: person would say, I'm not an anti Semite. I simply
Speaker 3: observe certain things. Right, But if we really yeah, but
Speaker 3: if we really think about it, this racial antisemitism was
Speaker 3: a relatively if we think about the history of the
Speaker 3: Jewish people, it was a relatively brief period of expression
Speaker 3: of anti jew sentiment. What was it like one hundred years,
Speaker 3: one hundred something years, right, this is but jew hatred
Speaker 3: existed before that, and it wasn't from scientific racism. Jew
Speaker 3: hatred exists today, it's not from scientific racism. So I
Speaker 3: ask you, I don't know what anti semitism is, does
Speaker 3: historical hatred of Jews before scientific racism also qualify as
Speaker 3: anti Semitism. I don't know. You tell me, does hatred
Speaker 3: of Jews to that? Well, I don't want to. I
Speaker 3: don't even want to say hatred because it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 3: have to be hatred. If you maybe you believe the
Speaker 3: Jews control the White House and the Finance, and you
Speaker 3: don't hate them, you just kind of you think to yourself, well,
Speaker 3: I respect them, but I want to counter that. That's,
Speaker 3: for example, is what Nick Fointes does and says. He
Speaker 3: doesn't say I hate the Jews. He says this is reality.
Speaker 3: He describes reality as he thinks it is, and he
Speaker 3: just wants to change that situation. Is he an anti Semite?
Speaker 3: Well not according to the to the scientific racism definition, right,
Speaker 3: So we need to define I don't know if we
Speaker 3: even need to define anti Semitis. We can walk through
Speaker 3: it because Jews, look, Jews have always been. Let's try
Speaker 3: to take some of the anti Semitic thinking that we
Speaker 3: see today and see where it where it fits them, Nazi, classist,
Speaker 3: classic antisemitic thinking, and where it doesn't fit. Right, So
Speaker 3: I've shown that it doesn't fit because it's not racist.
Speaker 3: It is sometimes racist, but mostly it's not racist. It's
Speaker 3: not a very prominent idea. Would you agree on that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I hear, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3: But here's where it's very similar. Here's the thing. Jews
Speaker 3: are a people, right, and by them being a people,
Speaker 3: you might think to yourself as an odd Jew, or
Speaker 3: even as a Jew, you might think to yourself, well,
Speaker 3: because they're a people, they will always have dual loyalty,
Speaker 3: and I can never be sure where their loyalty lies.
Speaker 3: And they have a point to be honest. I mean
Speaker 3: you're speaking to me right now? What connects us?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay. So this is what Hitler would have called
Speaker 3: the international jew or international jewelry, right, So you can
Speaker 3: have these believes without being a racist. Hitler thought that
Speaker 3: there was an underlying racist explanation, a racial explanation to
Speaker 3: this phenomenon. But today, you know, people believe that it's
Speaker 3: quite widespread actually, right, Think about how many Jewish influential
Speaker 3: people are essentially being blamed for having their loyalty to
Speaker 3: Israel and not to the United States. Why, because they're
Speaker 3: a Jew, and as a Jew, they belong to a people,
Speaker 3: and that people has a nation state, and thus you
Speaker 3: are not loyal. This is also the thinking of the Nazis.
Speaker 3: This is what the Nazis thought as well. And also
Speaker 3: this is what the Russian Tsar thought, you know, even
Speaker 3: back before that. So here we have an example. There
Speaker 3: is also classical, shall we say, Christian anti semitism, which
Speaker 3: I don't know if we should even define as anti semitism,
Speaker 3: but because you know, for the sake of discussion, just
Speaker 3: call everything every anti Jewish sentiment, Let's just call it
Speaker 3: anti Semitism, okay. So the Christian anti Semitism would be
Speaker 3: Jews or christ killers, right, Jews did not accept God
Speaker 3: when he revealed himself and all that. Now this is
Speaker 3: a bit more complicated because you can think about it.
Speaker 3: For example, if I think back to the Black Death, right,
Speaker 3: the Black Death was like six hundred years before scientific
Speaker 3: racial anti semitism. Jews were still blamed, right, they have
Speaker 3: this secret kabbal I don't know. They poison the wells.
Speaker 3: I don't know what they're doing. It was before the
Speaker 3: Protestant Reformation, by the way, and the Catholic Church was
Speaker 3: officially against blaming the Jews. But you know, the mind
Speaker 3: does one thing, and the hands do another thing. So
Speaker 3: does this count as anti Semitism? There are many It's okay,
Speaker 3: So the Jews are the bankers and the Jews are
Speaker 3: the other and the Jews are not one of us obviously, right,
Speaker 3: And there's classical Muslim anti semitism, you might even say,
Speaker 3: but it expresses in a different way because for the Muslims,
Speaker 3: the Jews have rejected both prophets. They wouldn't say that
Speaker 3: we killed God a because they do not believe Jesus
Speaker 3: was God, and b because they do not believe Jesus
Speaker 3: was killed. But they do have in their holy book,
Speaker 3: in the Quran, they do have prescriptions of what do
Speaker 3: you do with the Jews? Right, So right off the
Speaker 3: bat I can tell you that I believe it is
Speaker 3: in the first or the second Sira. Jews are going
Speaker 3: to Hell. Okay, Christians as well, but they're going to hell.
Speaker 3: Why because they do not accept the prophet, of course,
Speaker 3: the prophet of God, Muhammad, the last prophet. And you
Speaker 3: have a very specific prescription of how you deal with
Speaker 3: the Jews. You make them, you subjugate them, and you
Speaker 3: make them pay the jisia, which is like a special
Speaker 3: tax that you pay if you're a Jew or a
Speaker 3: Christian living under Muslim land according to Muslim law. Now,
Speaker 3: there have been periods in which this was a pretty
Speaker 3: good life for a Jew compared to what was happening
Speaker 3: in Christian Europe. But there are also periods where this
Speaker 3: was not good at all for the Jews. Right, So
Speaker 3: I guess it does this count as anti Semitism? Does
Speaker 3: the belief that if you have a Jew living under
Speaker 3: your rule, he has to submit and pay a certain tax,
Speaker 3: a special a Jew tax. Is this anti Semitism? You see,
Speaker 3: It's more complex than it seems. And I can think
Speaker 3: of another example after the right the Spanish Inquisition, for example,
Speaker 3: when it happened in Spain and in Portugal, something interesting
Speaker 3: has been going on, and they actually passed laws that say, okay,
Speaker 3: that's say that there is some benefit to blood, like
Speaker 3: a non Jew can't marry a Jew, even if the
Speaker 3: Jew converted into Christianity because they have like a bad blood.
Speaker 3: I think the name of the law was something about blood,
Speaker 3: the blood laws. Now you could say, okay, is it racist?
Speaker 3: You might be tempted to say yes, But then we
Speaker 3: have to remember no, back then they were not thinking
Speaker 3: in terms of race, right, They were thinking in terms
Speaker 3: of the salvation of your soul, if we are to
Speaker 3: put ourselves in the heads of the inquisition, and thus
Speaker 3: what I'm afraid of as an inquisitor, what I'm afraid
Speaker 3: of is that if a Catholic Mary is a Jew
Speaker 3: who converted, well, how do I know that this Jew
Speaker 3: really converted? Maybe he still practices his evil secret Jewish
Speaker 3: you know, rituals, and he is now know damning his
Speaker 3: babies or damning his wife to damnation because they are
Speaker 3: not accepting the correct faith. So does this count as
Speaker 3: anti Semitism or is it just a concern for the
Speaker 3: eternal soul of the of the Portuguese?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 2: For instance, I've spoken several people who are Jehovah's witnesses,
Speaker 2: and the Jehovah's Witnesses are religious subgroup that believes very
Speaker 2: strongly than anyone who doesn't accept their particular beliefs is
Speaker 2: going to be doomed to some kind of like there's
Speaker 2: going to be an end times I believe, I don't
Speaker 2: remember exactly.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting.
Speaker 2: Is that they have a very strong sense of obligation
Speaker 2: to inform others and recruit others to ensure that they
Speaker 2: don't end up damned, which we're allowed to say the
Speaker 2: word damned. Right. People are going to leave comments about this,
Speaker 2: but anyway, But in this case, it's like in the
Speaker 2: literal sense, we're not using it in a colloquial term. Literally,
Speaker 2: a person will be subjugated to hell if they don't
Speaker 2: follow the path of Jehovah's witness. So if someone believes
Speaker 2: that a different faith will cause eternal damnation to those
Speaker 2: of the different faith, is that a racism or is
Speaker 2: that a prejudice or is that just.
Speaker 1: A faith that someone has.
Speaker 2: I think pretty much all faiths, or most faiths, especially
Speaker 2: not modern faiths, believe that there's one path and all
Speaker 2: other paths lead to some kind of hell or not
Speaker 2: the right path, right, So I'm just what I'm saying is, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just saying what you are saying makes sense to me.
Speaker 2: To me, it is not it is not racist, or
Speaker 2: it is not a prejudice. Person say to believe my
Speaker 2: faith is the right faith and your faith leads down
Speaker 2: the wrong path.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you could say the same as well. If
Speaker 3: I were an Islamist, then maybe thinking of a plan
Speaker 3: to I don't know, lead to the downfall of America
Speaker 3: within the next hundred years. Could you really blame me?
Speaker 3: I really think that this is what is best for
Speaker 3: America and best for the world. Right, So could you
Speaker 3: blame me? It's my faith?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the line. That's the question.
Speaker 2: You have to be able to coexist with other people
Speaker 2: who have the same singular I am right, you are wrong,
Speaker 2: and to allow for these different I am right, you
Speaker 2: are wrongs to exist without pinging on each other's fully,
Speaker 2: so you're.
Speaker 3: It's very American of you to say, as someone who
Speaker 3: centers is thinking mainly on the Middle East, my answer
Speaker 3: to that would be different. My answer for that would
Speaker 3: be you have to make sure that you're strong enough
Speaker 3: and then live and let live, because if you're not
Speaker 3: going to be strong enough, you might let live, but
Speaker 3: you will not live.
Speaker 2: I see, I see, yeah, I mean I don't know.
Speaker 1: When you say the Middle East you mean Israel.
Speaker 3: Per se well, yes, but also not exclusively. We can
Speaker 3: think of many such examples in the Middle East who
Speaker 3: have had similar problems, say the Kurds or the Yazid's,
Speaker 3: or even the Shia under Sunni majority right, or the
Speaker 3: sun Is under Alawaite minority. If we were to take
Speaker 3: the Syrian example of the Bath Party of the last
Speaker 3: several decades. So really, you know, we tend to hyper
Speaker 3: focus on Israel. It is the case for Israel, but
Speaker 3: it's not just Israel.
Speaker 1: I see.
Speaker 2: Okay, So back to the concept of anti Semitism, you
Speaker 2: really muddel the waters, which was not what we were
Speaker 2: going to do. Here, we're put things in comfortable boxes.
Speaker 3: Well what I want to do. What I want to
Speaker 3: do is you know, I'm confusing you kind of on
Speaker 3: purpose so that you have to think for yourself. So
Speaker 3: we do see that it's not that simple. And then
Speaker 3: when people deny being an anti Semite, even if you
Speaker 3: happen to think that they clearly are anti Semite and
Speaker 3: then deny it, Now you can understand why they deny
Speaker 3: it because they're not racists, or because they're maybe they're
Speaker 3: extreme leftists and they're you know, they're saying, well, I'm
Speaker 3: anti Nazi. Actually, if anyone here is racist, it's the Jews,
Speaker 3: because the Jews are you know, passed by blood. Judaism
Speaker 3: is passed by blood in a sense. So if anyone
Speaker 3: is racist, it's the Jew And you can see it
Speaker 3: both in left wing circles and in right wing circles.
Speaker 3: I'll give you examples. Right, for the left wing circles, Israel,
Speaker 3: the Jewish state is a racist state. And I'm not
Speaker 3: going to say like if it's true false, right, I'm
Speaker 3: just pointing the fact. Right, it's it's a for the left,
Speaker 3: it's a racist state. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 1: Well, explain why? Explain why they think that? Because they say,
Speaker 1: because it's it's a it's a people determined.
Speaker 3: By blood, mostly by blood. I'll give you an example.
Speaker 3: Why can't an Arab person whose grandparents lived in Jerusalem. Okay,
Speaker 3: and let's say that now he's there, is in Jordan.
Speaker 3: Why can't he live in Jerusalem? But Shlomo from New York,
Speaker 3: whose entire family has has not touched foot in the
Speaker 3: Holy Land in thousands of years, he can go and
Speaker 3: live in Jerusalem and become a citizen. Why because he
Speaker 3: belongs to a certain race and the Arab does not. Right,
Speaker 3: So that would be the the Jews are racist case.
Speaker 1: Okay, but Jews are not a race.
Speaker 3: Or where Okay, you're saying that, but I'm presenting the
Speaker 3: opposite case, right, You're you're presenting the counter and I
Speaker 3: don't want to go down the counter. I want to
Speaker 3: present the I want to.
Speaker 1: Know, dude, left just think that Jews are a race.
Speaker 3: I don't want to overly, you know, simplify their position.
Speaker 3: But they would say that, yes, mostly it is a race.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm, because it's mostly passed by blood. You you
Speaker 3: would be you would say, yeah, but you can convert,
Speaker 3: but you know that that's not the majority of cases.
Speaker 3: The majority of cases are passed by blood.
Speaker 1: I see, okay, okay.
Speaker 3: And so they yeah, and so On the neo Nazi,
Speaker 3: more extreme right wing side, they would say the Jews
Speaker 3: have an ethno state. They would call it right, which
Speaker 3: kind of means a racist state. But they are somehow,
Speaker 3: by sinister means they are preventing us from having an
Speaker 3: ethno state because they are controlled trying to floot us
Speaker 3: with immigration. And thus, I don't know, genocide the white race.
Speaker 3: That's what many of them would claim. Right, So, either way,
Speaker 3: the Jews a racist. By the way that the Nazis
Speaker 3: also thought the Jews are racists. How so in the
Speaker 3: exact manner that they are judging them. The Jews judge
Speaker 3: themselves by blood, so why shouldn't we And also all
Speaker 3: they could see is race, So everything was analyzed through
Speaker 3: race in their perspective. Now, interestingly, both the extreme right
Speaker 3: wing and the extreme left wing would be anti Zionists
Speaker 3: because of that. And again I'm not trying to make
Speaker 3: this a political discussion. I'm only stating fact. So for
Speaker 3: the left, of course, Israel, the Jewish state would be
Speaker 3: the one racist state, right, the one racist state. Well,
Speaker 3: I guess they could say that America is also, you know,
Speaker 3: fundamentally racist or something structurally racist, Right, they might say,
Speaker 3: But the one explicitly racist country they would say is.
Speaker 1: Israel and Muslim countries.
Speaker 3: Because no Muslims are Oh, didn't even get to the Muslims.
Speaker 3: For muslim there isn't even such thing as a race.
Speaker 3: I mean there is, but as a good Muslim you're
Speaker 3: not supposed to have such thing as a race.
Speaker 1: What about for leftists?
Speaker 2: Why would leftists call Israel a racist state and not
Speaker 2: a Muslim country a racist country?
Speaker 3: Because of what the law of return? Mainly but because
Speaker 3: of the example I just gave about the guy going
Speaker 3: to live in Jerusalem. You can't have such an example
Speaker 3: for Egypt. Right, if you were to take the Shahada
Speaker 3: tomorrow and become a Muslim. It doesn't mean you can
Speaker 3: move to Cairo. And also, who wants to move to Cairo.
Speaker 1: That's not a very good argument though.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was just being sarcastic and added that, But yeah,
Speaker 3: so you can move to you can't get a citizenship
Speaker 3: and benefits as an Israeli based purely on your blood, right,
Speaker 3: that's what.
Speaker 2: They would say, m hm, yeah, yeah, I understand.
Speaker 3: Okay, So that's you know, you could jump for all
Speaker 3: sort of conclusions from that and say, yeah, so Israel
Speaker 3: kind of doesn't needs to not exist. But you could
Speaker 3: reach the same conclusion from different reasons if you were
Speaker 3: an extreme right wing from the neo Nazi circles, because
Speaker 3: you would say something like what Hitler said, which was
Speaker 3: that if the Zionists were to succeed. Of course, Hitler
Speaker 3: did not see them succeed, but he knew that such
Speaker 3: a thing existed if the Zionists were to succeed in
Speaker 3: establishing a Jewish state, since Jews as a race cannot
Speaker 3: build a country. And we can get back to that
Speaker 3: in a minute as to why they cannot build a country,
Speaker 3: and you might see some hints of that even in
Speaker 3: the conversation today but since Jews cannot build a country,
Speaker 3: that means that, you know, Israel, he didn't know it's
Speaker 3: the name was going to be Israel, but the potential
Speaker 3: Jurish state was just going to become an organist at
Speaker 3: Sion Central and headquarters of World Jewelry. Right, that's what
Speaker 3: Israel was going to become. Now tell me, Frida, here's
Speaker 3: an interesting I think if if Israel is like the
Speaker 3: headquarters of a criminal Jewish organization, does that maybe ring
Speaker 3: a bell about some maybe very anti Semitic although they
Speaker 3: wouldn't say they're anti Semitic, people claiming that Israel is
Speaker 3: a safe haven for pedophiles who run away from the
Speaker 3: US into Israel, or that you know, someone gets in
Speaker 3: trouble with the law and he just runs to Israel
Speaker 3: and is immune. Does all this ring a bell maybe
Speaker 3: as Hitler saying that it's essentially the headquarters of the
Speaker 3: of the International Jewelry, which is essentially a criminal organization
Speaker 3: hell bent on the destruction of anything else, everything else.
Speaker 2: So it's essentially a lot of the right wing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: is that a right wing kind of conspiracy?
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it would drip into the left as well.
Speaker 3: That's the things they kind of feed off each other
Speaker 3: in a sense, because today even the extreme right wingers
Speaker 3: would say that Israel is racist, and they would use
Speaker 3: the sirve the same arguments as the extreme left, and
Speaker 3: the extreme left would say that Israel as I don't
Speaker 3: know a controlling the banks and you know, shadowy figures,
Speaker 3: and then by this they would take the arguments of
Speaker 3: the extreme right. So that's the one thing they could
Speaker 3: they can agree on. The Jews.
Speaker 2: The Jews that brings the horseshoes theory to life.
Speaker 1: The Jews as the unifying idea.
Speaker 3: We always bring people together, we do good work.
Speaker 1: Why are people saying such horrible things? That's my sense
Speaker 1: of humor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my dark just clarifying.
Speaker 3: That's good. I like it. But you know, then then
Speaker 3: they ask the question gets asked, well, what do you
Speaker 3: want us to do if we're traders when we're in
Speaker 3: your country and we're genostidal maniac when we're in our
Speaker 3: country and it's essentially a criminal organization, then what do
Speaker 3: you want us to do? Disappear? I guess right. So
Speaker 3: you would get different answers depending on who you ask,
Speaker 3: but essentially, now that you see we can say the
Speaker 3: return of Christian antisemitism. Also recently that people are using
Speaker 3: their faith as a bassist for let's just say, jew
Speaker 3: bashing antisemitism, essentially what you and I would call anti Semitism.
Speaker 3: But they might not right. And also in the Muslim
Speaker 3: world they have different reasons. So I'll give you another example.
Speaker 3: As far as the Christians go, do you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: think about it, Why were just even allowed to live
Speaker 3: under Christianity during the Middle Ages and all that hundreds
Speaker 3: of years. Why the Muslims weren't allowed to live under
Speaker 3: the Christians? So why the Jews?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 3: The reason is that the Jews remind you as a
Speaker 3: Christian and show you what happens to the people who
Speaker 3: have been abandoned by God.
Speaker 1: Wow. The example.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's the that was the mainstream belief of
Speaker 3: why this should be allowed. And this is also a
Speaker 3: case you know, we think of it as offensive, but
Speaker 3: it's actually you know, quite tolerant. At least you don't
Speaker 3: kill us, right for the time, it's not that bad.
Speaker 3: So it's not that bad. But when the process stant
Speaker 3: Reformation came along, Martin Luther, actually, you know Martin Luther,
Speaker 3: the guy who started the Reformation. He had a different notion,
Speaker 3: and I don't remember the exact argument, but for him,
Speaker 3: the the argument of keeping the Jews as you know,
Speaker 3: people who show you what happens. That's a false argument,
Speaker 3: that you can just burn their places and drive them
Speaker 3: off the land. So there was here we can see
Speaker 3: as the start of a theological dispute about what is
Speaker 3: our relationship with the Jews as Christians. Right one side
Speaker 3: would say, you know, just let them be here, or
Speaker 3: you know, just let them be you know, poor and
Speaker 3: ugly and disgusting, and you know, that's fine by us.
Speaker 3: And the other side that would develop would claim, no,
Speaker 3: we have no reason to have them here. Why they're
Speaker 3: only corrupting us, So kick them out, burn their stuff,
Speaker 3: drive them out. That's literally what he said, drive them out.
Speaker 3: But then another view developed, the view that's called and
Speaker 3: that has popularized Zionism in the United States. I must say,
Speaker 3: it's called dispensationalism. If you've ever heard about that freedom right.
Speaker 3: So the main view of Christians is that the covenant
Speaker 3: between if we're going into Old Testament stories and again
Speaker 3: we're not. You don't have to be a religious person
Speaker 3: to accept or not accept this. I'm only accepting explaining
Speaker 3: the story and how the narrative is structured. So you
Speaker 3: could be there was a covenant in the Old Testament
Speaker 3: between Israel, right, what's called Israel and God. So there
Speaker 3: are two ways that the Christians interpret that today. One
Speaker 3: view is called the Covenanial view, and that says that's,
Speaker 3: by the way, the view of the Catholic Church, for example,
Speaker 3: that says that Israel today is the Church. The covenant
Speaker 3: has switched because in the Covenant has been fulfilled and
Speaker 3: changed by Christ by the sacrifice on the Cross. And
Speaker 3: thus the Church is the new Israel. The covenant is
Speaker 3: between God and the Church, which is now Israel. And
Speaker 3: when I say the Church in this sense, it could
Speaker 3: mean the Catholic Church, but it could also mean what
Speaker 3: is called the Body of Christ, like all the believers. Okay,
Speaker 3: So that's one interpretation. The other interpretation, which is slightly newer,
Speaker 3: is called dispensationalism, which means that no word does it
Speaker 3: say that the promise has been revoked, and so there
Speaker 3: is a new covenant. There is a new Testament. By
Speaker 3: the way, in Hebrew, the name of the New Testament
Speaker 3: is Habrita Kadasha, which literally translates to the New Covenant
Speaker 3: if you were to translate it, it okay, So there is
Speaker 3: another covenant with the Christians, but the Covenant with the
Speaker 3: Jews did not expire, and thus the Jews are still
Speaker 3: God's chosen people. So you have these like you used
Speaker 3: to have these two competing views of what do we
Speaker 3: do with the Jews? Today you have these competing Jews
Speaker 3: views of what do you do with the Jews? What
Speaker 3: are the Jews? Are the Jews? As a as a believer,
Speaker 3: do I think that they are God's chosen people? Or
Speaker 3: do I think that they've been abandoned by God because
Speaker 3: they did not accept Jesus?
Speaker 1: What did you call dispensationalism?
Speaker 3: Yes, dispensationalism is the view, is the view that Israel
Speaker 3: is still chosen and covenanial, well covenancial thinking. Is the
Speaker 3: is the opposite that Israel is now the Church.
Speaker 1: I see.
Speaker 2: So those who those Christians who believe that our Zionists
Speaker 2: essentially are dispensationalists. Is that what you're saying, those who
Speaker 2: believe that Israel is the lend that was promised.
Speaker 1: To the Jews and are actually very strong Zionists. Often
Speaker 1: there's very strong Christians.
Speaker 3: Yes, and The thing is that there used to be
Speaker 3: this thing that was like the most powerful, the most
Speaker 3: popular educational bible in America. It was called the Schofield Bible.
Speaker 3: You might have heard of it, and what it was.
Speaker 3: It was a King James Bible with notes for teaching
Speaker 3: and learning, right, with special notes and so notes. These
Speaker 3: notes were pushing people towards dispensationalist thinking because it would
Speaker 3: clarify certain passages as here God means that he did
Speaker 3: not abandon Israel, and here God means blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: Right, I see.
Speaker 3: And today, if you've ever heard prominent anti semits, today
Speaker 3: they are saying that the Schofield Bible is essentially a
Speaker 3: Zionist plot to control Yeah, they say it was funded
Speaker 3: by the Rothschilds, and that it was a Zionist plot
Speaker 3: to brain wash America essentially.
Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, were you in the middle of a thought
Speaker 2: or can I ask you other questions? Now? Go on?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what were you saying?
Speaker 2: I don't know if our reception is a little problematic
Speaker 2: that by the time I'm done talking, you seem to
Speaker 2: be hearing.
Speaker 3: Me, or maybe it's my thought that's a bit slow.
Speaker 2: That's okay, that's Okay, we can take our time, we
Speaker 2: can adjust as needed my question. There are a couple
Speaker 2: of things that I'm really interested in this conversation. First
Speaker 2: of all, it's really interesting to look at how different
Speaker 2: philosophies and religions gave rise to different ways of looking
Speaker 2: at these people who were a minority in their myths,
Speaker 2: like the Jews in the Middle Ages.
Speaker 1: But also.
Speaker 2: Something I'm interested in pausing and defining for a minute
Speaker 2: is the concept of conspiracy theory, because I feel that
Speaker 2: that's very relevant in our contemporary culture. The concept of
Speaker 2: what is actually conspiracy theory epstein? Are we even allowed
Speaker 2: to talk about that? Is that like like that was
Speaker 2: part of this For years, There's been very neg connotations
Speaker 2: to conspiracy theories, to the point that the mainstream media
Speaker 2: would deride anyone who talked about Epstein. And then suddenly
Speaker 2: the mainstream media no longer called it a conspiracy theory.
Speaker 2: So I'm wondering, how would you define a conspiracy theory?
Speaker 3: Okay, so I'm guessing literally, if we were to think
Speaker 3: what a conspiracy theory is, there's the colloquial use, which
Speaker 3: means like a theory that involves the conspiracy that is
Speaker 3: highly unlikely to be true. Right, that's like the colloquial use.
Speaker 3: But I guess the literal use would be the belief
Speaker 3: the theory, right, the belief the theory that you have
Speaker 3: about some conspiracy going on, And that would make it
Speaker 3: seem less outlandish because you could say that everything is
Speaker 3: a conspiracy theory, like I could go to the Middle
Speaker 3: East and point you at like one hundred conspiracy conspiracy
Speaker 3: theories right now. But in the colloquial use, we normally
Speaker 3: think that it's something done by the government, like in
Speaker 3: a shady way. Right, This is what we mean when
Speaker 3: we say compared to conspiracy theories, I don't know, And
Speaker 3: I gotta say, I I don't know that much about
Speaker 3: the Epstein story. I know that it exists, so but
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be able to be that helpful about it.
Speaker 2: Well, let's not talk about Epstein, then, let's talk about
Speaker 2: in general, because I think fundamental to anti Semitism as
Speaker 2: it exists in certain circles today, and I think, particularly
Speaker 2: in the right wing part of.
Speaker 1: The underground, our conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2: And I think the question is where is the line.
Speaker 2: I like finding or trying to articulate a line where
Speaker 2: there's oftentimes a fuzzy line. So let's say, what's anti
Speaker 2: Semitism was something you've just made even more fuzzy in
Speaker 2: a way. Likewise, what is a conspiracy theory? If someone
Speaker 2: says to you the Jews all like Nick Fuentes, the
Speaker 2: Jews all have all the power. They control Hollywood, they
Speaker 2: control the White House. At which point do you, personally,
Speaker 2: as a thoughtful person, do you say this is a
Speaker 2: valid idea. I will engage with you on the possibility
Speaker 2: that you're right.
Speaker 1: And which point do you say this is.
Speaker 2: A conspiracy theory and I am not engaging with you.
Speaker 3: That's a good question. I'm not sure I know the answer.
Speaker 3: It seems to me like in America, where free speech
Speaker 3: is so important, it seems to me like you should
Speaker 3: always engage.
Speaker 2: I have to say, if someone says to you, Okay,
Speaker 2: I totally believe the world is square or whatever flat.
Speaker 2: I don't think many people think it's square, but I
Speaker 2: think some people think it's flat. If someone says that
Speaker 2: to you and says, Daran, listen to me, I'll explain
Speaker 2: to you why it's flat. And five minutes and you
Speaker 2: notice they're a total nut case, like their explanation.
Speaker 1: At which point do you say this is a.
Speaker 2: Conspiracy theory or do you say to yourself, I need
Speaker 2: to give this this a chance and listen to it.
Speaker 3: I think the framing here is I would not think
Speaker 3: to myself, by the way, that was a brilliant analogy.
Speaker 3: I don't think I would say to myself, this is
Speaker 3: a conspiracy theory, I shouldn't engage. I would probably say
Speaker 3: to myself, this person is crazy and I shouldn't engage. Right,
Speaker 3: So my problem is my problem is not the conspiracy theory.
Speaker 3: My problem is is the person.
Speaker 1: I say.
Speaker 2: That's an interesting distinction because, for instance, during COVID, I
Speaker 2: felt very strongly that we needed to have a conversation
Speaker 2: about if lockdowns were the right course of action. And
Speaker 2: I didn't think I was a conspiracy theorist for it
Speaker 2: at all. Like to me, it was very clear that
Speaker 2: there was a public health crisis and the actions that
Speaker 2: were taken were very, very radical, and I thought it
Speaker 2: was necessary to discuss if that was the right course
Speaker 2: of action.
Speaker 1: And I got really really flamed, and it left.
Speaker 2: Me the very confused or difficult feeling towards conspiracy theory
Speaker 2: as a concept, which I think is something I struggle
Speaker 2: with all the time. I ask myself, when am I
Speaker 2: just dismissing, Oh, this person's inn case of conspiracy theorist?
Speaker 2: And when do we have to engage? And the place
Speaker 2: in which it's relevant is if someone says, well, the
Speaker 2: Jews have all that power or something like that.
Speaker 1: Where do you go from there? With that?
Speaker 3: One second, I just want to go back to your
Speaker 3: COVID analogy. I think most sane people, unless they were
Speaker 3: highly politically motivated, would agree to debate you on that issue.
Speaker 3: And if they didn't agree, I think there was something
Speaker 3: wrong with him, I must say. But they would be
Speaker 3: correct to write you off as a nut job if
Speaker 3: you were to say, not only write these the lockdowns
Speaker 3: are too much blah blah blah. And also they just
Speaker 3: want to inject us with this thing because they're injecting
Speaker 3: chips into our skin, and this way they can try no.
Speaker 3: But it matters.
Speaker 1: But maybe it's true, but maybe it's true. See I
Speaker 1: don't believe it, but maybe it's true.
Speaker 3: It could be true, but there seems to be some
Speaker 3: line that when it's crossed, you say, like, my problem
Speaker 3: is not with the conspiracy theory. My problem is that
Speaker 3: this person is likely paranoid or that he has some problem,
Speaker 3: and I shouldn't engage with him, Like I don't say
Speaker 3: that he belongs in jail, essentially, but I don't need
Speaker 3: to waste my time on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's that's exactly. It brings me back to
Speaker 2: the epscene files, because when I heard of the EPC
Speaker 2: epscene killed himself again again, I was like, Eh, conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2: I feel guilty doing it because it was done to me,
Speaker 2: But then these people are proven right essentially. So I
Speaker 2: think central to the conversation about how Jews are discussed
Speaker 2: today is the question of how can we have conversations
Speaker 2: about different people and what is a conspiracy theory that
Speaker 2: is like not worth engaging with.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I would have to talk to a rabbit,
Speaker 3: to a rabbit anti Semite for that, I have to
Speaker 3: be honest, Like, I have only one example of one
Speaker 3: such case. I had a conversation with a person who
Speaker 3: who during our talk suggested some things that sounded kind
Speaker 3: of Nazi to me. Okay, they sounded kind of Nazi adjacent.
Speaker 3: He floated a bunch of ideas about how you know,
Speaker 3: the Jews controlled the White House and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: and I was explaining to him why I think that
Speaker 3: he is mistaken. It was a civil debate, and he
Speaker 3: kind of accepted my answer. So I thought to myself, Okay,
Speaker 3: so it's not crazy. He's just heard it so often,
Speaker 3: and now that he has to think about it, he
Speaker 3: abandons these notions. But later, when we got off the air,
Speaker 3: he told me, don can I tell you something? Sure?
Speaker 3: And he told me that his brother is actually has
Speaker 3: been in prison for like twenty years, and that his
Speaker 3: brother joined a neo Nazi gang in prison, and that
Speaker 3: his brother has become obsessed by the Jews and doesn't
Speaker 3: ever stop talking about the Jews. And then I thought
Speaker 3: to myself, so this is how he got his ideas.
Speaker 3: I didn't just think these were Nazi ideas. He literally
Speaker 3: got them from Nazis. So think what happens now when
Speaker 3: Nazi ideas are widespread on the internet on YouTube. And
Speaker 3: I have to tell you free, I don't know if
Speaker 3: anything can be done about it, because they they do
Speaker 3: have a point, right, because it depends when you say
Speaker 3: Jews control Hollywood. Okay, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 3: Because you could just say there are a bunch of
Speaker 3: prominent Jews. Let's say that I'm the conspiracy theorist and
Speaker 3: I'm telling you Jews control Hollywood. Okay, you ask me
Speaker 3: what I mean, and I'll tell you Hollywood is essentially
Speaker 3: all the big studios are run by prominent Jews. Okay,
Speaker 3: And this might be correct. I don't know what the
Speaker 3: status in Hollywood is today, but I know that it's
Speaker 3: certainly used to be correct. It might be correct still
Speaker 3: to this day. So I might say this, but the
Speaker 3: line is crossed here if I believe that these Jews, Okay,
Speaker 3: for this to be a problem, we would have to
Speaker 3: believe that these Jews are essentially loyal to their own
Speaker 3: kind and not to me, not to my group, but
Speaker 3: to their own group, and that they are using their
Speaker 3: power and their influence to advance certain goals that benefit
Speaker 3: their group and not my group. And not only do
Speaker 3: they benefit their group, they are actually harming my group. Right,
Speaker 3: So saying that the Jews control Hollywood is not enough.
Speaker 3: You need that extra headen assumption of a conspiracy that's
Speaker 3: going on, a literal conspiracy in the literal sense. So
Speaker 3: are the Jews push do I believe maybe I'm a
Speaker 3: Muslim in the United States and I believe that the
Speaker 3: Hollywood Jews are pushing Zionist agendas, or maybe I'm a
Speaker 3: right wing extreme antiese might and I believe that the
Speaker 3: Jews who control Hollywood, they're pushing open border policies right,
Speaker 3: and they're trying to subconsciously influence the American to you know,
Speaker 3: have less children, they would say, become LGBT. You know,
Speaker 3: the the structure of the family. And you know, so
Speaker 3: when I'm confronted with that, I asked, I said, so, wait,
Speaker 3: it can't be both, can it. It can't be both,
Speaker 3: So which one is it? By the way, the Nazis again,
Speaker 3: I can't I go to the Nazis, they said the
Speaker 3: exact same. The Jews are loyal to themselves. They are
Speaker 3: pushing They wouldn't call it LGBT back then, but you know,
Speaker 3: they have this famous story about a sex change clinic
Speaker 3: that was opened by a Jew and Berlin, and how
Speaker 3: the Jews were destroying the structure of the family, and
Speaker 3: how they had like these sexual abomination bars or you know,
Speaker 3: pubs in which they would provo promote their DEVNC. So
Speaker 3: this is becoming, by the way, people are trying to
Speaker 3: push this narrative again, today, when they're retelling the story
Speaker 3: of the Second World War, they're trying to re tell
Speaker 3: it in a different way, which makes the Nazi action defensive.
Speaker 3: For example, another example that people used for World Jewelry,
Speaker 3: there was I think it was in the late thirties
Speaker 3: or in the mid thirties, there was a declaration of
Speaker 3: war by Judea on Hitler. This is what the newspapers said.
Speaker 3: What it meant was that Jews worldwide were upset at
Speaker 3: what was going on in Germany at the time, I
Speaker 3: think it was before the war actually broke out, but
Speaker 3: still Jews were concerned and they boycotted Germany, they barcouted
Speaker 3: German goods, and then the press said, Judea declares war
Speaker 3: on Germany. And thus, if you would were to ask
Speaker 3: neo Nazi today who declared war on who first, they
Speaker 3: would say the Jews, they would cite this. So again
Speaker 3: it everything depends on how you tell the story. And yeah,
Speaker 3: and again they have a point. They do have a
Speaker 3: point that like the Nazis would also say the Communists
Speaker 3: were Jews. And again it comes up today where the
Speaker 3: Communists were the Jews, Well, the Jews, the Jews were
Speaker 3: disproportionately represented by the commune in the communist movement. And
Speaker 3: you could also come up with social factors for this.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: For example, you might say it's because the Jews were
Speaker 3: the were the one group that had the most to
Speaker 3: gain from abolishing all distinction between people. Right, That's essentially
Speaker 3: what communism is like. The only thing that matters is
Speaker 3: that I belong to the correct class and then I
Speaker 3: can be like everyone else. So it makes sense that
Speaker 3: the Jews would be there. That's one explanation. Another explanation
Speaker 3: you could give if you're a Nazi would be it's
Speaker 3: in their blood or somehow they're genetically predisposed to be Communists,
Speaker 3: or you could say if you are a modern anti,
Speaker 3: say might a modern Nazi. They would not take the
Speaker 3: racial route. Mostly, what they would say is that the
Speaker 3: Jews were just looking for an excuse to murder Christians.
Speaker 3: And then they would they would say, tell us about
Speaker 3: how the Communists, the Bolsheviks murdered millions of Christians, and
Speaker 3: they would call that the biggest genocide ever, and they
Speaker 3: would emphasize this to make it bigger than the Holocaust. Right.
Speaker 3: By the way, they would also deny the Holocaust, but
Speaker 3: just in case, they don't they also make it like
Speaker 3: the first genosiders were actually the Jews. They started it
Speaker 3: against Christians or against white people, so you could there
Speaker 3: where I lose that. Where I think someone has lost
Speaker 3: the plot is when he's presented with several explanations of something,
Speaker 3: instead of picking the one that seems most plausible, he
Speaker 3: would always pick the one that fits his extreme ideology,
Speaker 3: or he has never even considered these options, which is
Speaker 3: also suspicious the.
Speaker 2: Idea that I think this is a very good distinction.
Speaker 2: When you'll tell, you'll often present a scenario I'm trying
Speaker 2: to think. Let's say I show videos of acidic women
Speaker 2: covering their heads.
Speaker 1: And the most likely.
Speaker 2: Explanation for or judgment for this custom is to say, well,
Speaker 2: the majority of Westerners judge these women for covering their heads,
Speaker 2: and some people don't. The conspiracy theorists will or the antisemi.
Speaker 2: I don't know that I would use the word antisema.
Speaker 2: The person predisposed to kind of judgment about the Jews
Speaker 2: will immediately jump to see the Jews are allowed to
Speaker 2: cover their heads and Muslims get criticized. I see this
Speaker 2: all the time, where it's like, why would you jump
Speaker 2: to that reading where did you go from seeing a
Speaker 2: minority group with a special clothing garb to reading into
Speaker 2: that as proof that Jews get special privilege. You've made
Speaker 2: so many assumptions in the middle, like saying Muslims would
Speaker 2: never be allowed to do that. What are you talking about.
Speaker 2: It's in New York City. We see people in hit
Speaker 2: jobs all the time. So I find it interesting the
Speaker 2: way people will take their ideology and impose it on
Speaker 2: tiny bits of information without at all considering the more
Speaker 2: probable explanation, which is that this is a city or
Speaker 2: a country where a diversity of religious observances are tolerated,
Speaker 2: and it's not a special privilege for Jews. It's simply
Speaker 2: an approach towards minorities.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah it does.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, here's what I want to ask you, like,
Speaker 2: as we're winding down to our hour, something that I
Speaker 2: actually struggle with. You're a secular person, right is that
Speaker 2: fair to say? Yeah, I have no idea, you want
Speaker 2: to explain your own, So I don't work off assumptions,
Speaker 2: and I am guilty of what I accuse others of doing.
Speaker 3: Actually I don't know what I would define myself as,
Speaker 3: So just go on your assumption and I'll go away.
Speaker 2: You'll clarify in the answer. Okay, here's what I was
Speaker 2: going to ask. I know a lot of religious people
Speaker 2: who will say, well, anti Semitism is back.
Speaker 1: It's always been there.
Speaker 2: It is a fixed flight of the world, and we
Speaker 2: don't have to ask why it's back. It's always been there,
Speaker 2: it will always be there, and that's the end. For me,
Speaker 2: as someone who sees the world I think in a
Speaker 2: less religiously predestined way, that answer doesn't satisfy.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, we're all people.
Speaker 2: Some people carry more prejudice in their hearts than others.
Speaker 2: For instance, there will be sexism always, some people more so,
Speaker 2: some people less so. There will be anti semitism more
Speaker 2: so and less so. But sometimes it will be worse,
Speaker 2: and the reason for it to be worse will be
Speaker 2: explainable and definable, and you can find it in the
Speaker 2: cultural context. In other words, things can be understand. A
Speaker 2: rise in anti Semitism should be understood, in my view,
Speaker 2: from the perspective of a geopolitical context that causes increased
Speaker 2: anti semitism. When you see anti semitism on YouTube, do
Speaker 2: you ask the question of why is it getting worse.
Speaker 2: Why is anti Semitism getting worse? Or is that not
Speaker 2: a question you ask?
Speaker 3: I sometimes wonder about it. I can think of a
Speaker 3: variety of possible explanations. Of course, of course geopolitics could
Speaker 3: be involved. But you have to remember that there is
Speaker 3: a let's put it this way, there's a vast literature
Speaker 3: to pull upon. There's a history of this, so it's
Speaker 3: very easy to just go to all the ideas which
Speaker 3: we think were completely unfounded, for example, the Nazi hatred
Speaker 3: of Jews, right, so we view it today as completely debunked.
Speaker 3: But really, when we look at how the conversation is
Speaker 3: around us today, we can say, yeah, the racist factor
Speaker 3: of it has been kind of completely debunked, right, Almost
Speaker 3: nobody brings that up, But the same ideas are still
Speaker 3: coming back, right. It's they have a vast array of
Speaker 3: literature to draw upon. And the same goes for mostly
Speaker 3: anti semitism or Christian antisemitism. Although I must say, like
Speaker 3: the I do not consider well, maybe it's a bit
Speaker 3: late in the interview to say that, but I do
Speaker 3: not connsider Christianity as a whole to be anti semitic necessarily, Okay,
Speaker 3: And of course the Catholic Church is firmly against it.
Speaker 3: That we can talk about that, that's a different topic,
Speaker 3: but firmly anti Semitism. They had they had a a
Speaker 3: whole meeting called Vatican two. They had they put out
Speaker 3: a document I think it was in the sixties. The
Speaker 3: document was called the Noraate and it kind of redefines
Speaker 3: the relationship between the Catholic Church and Jews. And it
Speaker 3: also ends ends trying It puts an end to trying
Speaker 3: to convert the Jews and saying that they're a part
Speaker 3: of God's plan and blah blah blah and all that way.
Speaker 3: That's a whole other spiel. So I do not consider
Speaker 3: Christianity as a whole as an anti Semitic religion. But
Speaker 3: if I were a Christian anti Semite, I have a
Speaker 3: vest historic literature to draw upon, right, Yeah, So this
Speaker 3: is what I'm trying to say, like it could be.
Speaker 3: And if I if I do believe that Jews kind
Speaker 3: of run things behind the scenes, I have literature to
Speaker 3: draw upon, and I can go back and say, hey,
Speaker 3: this guy also thought this way, and he might have
Speaker 3: had a point. Maybe Hitler was a good guy. And
Speaker 3: if if we were also I think you cannot neglect
Speaker 3: to mention this, But say, okay, let's say that we
Speaker 3: have a glass of water, okay, and you take a
Speaker 3: little bit of apple juice and you sprink it into
Speaker 3: your glass of water. Okay, is the wall Is the
Speaker 3: average color of the water going to change?
Speaker 1: Yes? Yes, a little bit of apple juice.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, necessarily it's going to change. Right. The more
Speaker 3: you add, the more it will change. But by definition,
Speaker 3: once you add some it will change. The same goes
Speaker 3: I'm sorry to say, but the same goes for immigration
Speaker 3: from Muslim countries. If you were to have a society
Speaker 3: that harbors extreme hostility towards Jews for the past hundred
Speaker 3: years at least, probably more. There were some better times,
Speaker 3: but yeah, okay, extreme animosity. There was animosity even before that,
Speaker 3: but it became extreme and bloody and violent for about
Speaker 3: one hundred years. Okay. If you were to import these
Speaker 3: people into your curunt, would you hatred on average rise, decrease,
Speaker 3: or remain the same. Of course it would rise, sir.
Speaker 3: If you were to import people from countries in which
Speaker 3: mind comf is a best seller and in which the
Speaker 3: biggest and most successful history YouTube channels in Arabic tell
Speaker 3: you the history of World War two and they tell
Speaker 3: it from a Nazi perspective. Literally, they tell it from
Speaker 3: a Nazi perspective about how the Nazis waged war against
Speaker 3: the Jews, And they get, well, what do you think
Speaker 3: are going to get? These ideas will circulate?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's interesting that you say that. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm open to hearing from I don't keep up with
Speaker 2: things like that very much. When I hear ideas like this,
Speaker 2: I'm listening. I had Izzy Posin on my show and
Speaker 2: he talked about immigration in the UK causing a rise
Speaker 2: of anti Semitism, and that interview got quite a few
Speaker 2: very angry comments from people who are on the left
Speaker 2: who are very very frustrated or outraged by this insinuation,
Speaker 2: which I'm hearing from you as well. And I think
Speaker 2: Izzy is coming from the right. I'm not sure. I
Speaker 2: mean putting everyone in boxes, but I feel like some
Speaker 2: degree is helpful. So I just want to pause here
Speaker 2: and hear, like, where do you see this argument that
Speaker 2: you're making coming from in terms of the spectrum of
Speaker 2: the political world, and how do you feel about how
Speaker 2: the left respond to it?
Speaker 3: So I gotta say I wasn't trying to make a
Speaker 3: political argument. That's why I gave the example of the
Speaker 3: of the glass of water and the apple juice, right.
Speaker 3: I mean necessarily, once you add something that is different
Speaker 3: than the average into the average, then the average will change.
Speaker 2: But what you were saying, essentially was that Muslim countries
Speaker 2: have a high prevalence of anti Semitic.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's that's a fact.
Speaker 2: Okay, you wanna you wanna? Yeah, you want to talk
Speaker 2: more about that, like how how that is like received
Speaker 2: or how do you saying stating this as a fact
Speaker 2: in a contemporary discourse, how people respond to it, and
Speaker 2: how you how you handle the discussion.
Speaker 3: So, of course, in American politics, this the mere mention
Speaker 3: of this fact would be considered right wing, right, but
Speaker 3: I would like to qualify that. And by the way,
Speaker 3: I don't Again, I don't see myself as a particularly
Speaker 3: political person, but I know some history, and I know
Speaker 3: that Arab countries and Muslim countries as a whole, not
Speaker 3: all of them, but almost all of them, with the
Speaker 3: exception of I don't know Kosovo, which we can get into,
Speaker 3: but they have a very very heavy animosity towards Jews.
Speaker 3: We can think of for example, well all the way
Speaker 3: back to the Second World War, right in which the
Speaker 3: religious figure Jajamin al Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem,
Speaker 3: that was his role at the time, he called for
Speaker 3: jihad against the British and the Jews, both right, the
Speaker 3: British and the Jews, and there was the famous Farhood
Speaker 3: massacre in he I. At the time, Iraq, I remind
Speaker 3: you had a Jewish population, not from after the Balkohva revolt,
Speaker 3: not from after the destruction of the Second Temple, but
Speaker 3: since the Babylonian exile. Okay, there is there have been
Speaker 3: Jews living in Iraq for what is it two and
Speaker 3: a half thousand years, something like that, and these people
Speaker 3: were like that, massacred like that on in one second,
Speaker 3: when the Jews of Iraq, when Israel was established, these
Speaker 3: Jews were seen as Zionist collaborators, which by the way,
Speaker 3: the Jews of the United States are also increasingly being
Speaker 3: viewed as. Okay, so they were seen as Zionist collaborators,
Speaker 3: and the Iraqi government opened like a window of time
Speaker 3: in which a Jew can say, well, I'm living to Israel.
Speaker 3: Ok we will let you leave. Fine, you can leave,
Speaker 3: but then when they closed the window of application or
Speaker 3: no towards the closing of that application window, they passed
Speaker 3: another law that said that anyone who has applied is
Speaker 3: actually not allowed to live with anything. So again that's
Speaker 3: you have no property, your home, your stuff. You can't
Speaker 3: take anything with you, maybe a suitcase, but like you're done,
Speaker 3: all your stuff now belongs to the state. And mind you,
Speaker 3: this is before Hussein, this is before Saddam Hussein. This
Speaker 3: is the Hashemi family that rules Jordan today. So this happened,
Speaker 3: and now people today, Muslims today, would say, well, this
Speaker 3: only happened because these Zionists have conducted false flag attacks
Speaker 3: against Jews in Iraq, like against their own people in Iraq,
Speaker 3: to get the Iraqi Jews to turn on the Iraqi government. Right,
Speaker 3: there's always an explanation. But so this is the Iraqi
Speaker 3: Jew experience. And by the way, they all left, pretty
Speaker 3: much all of them left. There are no Jews in
Speaker 3: Iraq today and this was like one of the largest
Speaker 3: communities ever, so have Okay, so maybe the Zionists, the
Speaker 3: evil Zionists, were involved. Okay, maybe they were, but are
Speaker 3: we really to believe that not a single one was
Speaker 3: left and like the the it was such a pleasure
Speaker 3: to live to live over there. The people loved them
Speaker 3: and accepted them so much. There was no anti Semitism
Speaker 3: at all. No, well, you know, they wouldn't call it
Speaker 3: anti semitism, but there was no anti semitism at all.
Speaker 3: It was great, It was perfect. Same goals for Egypt.
Speaker 3: By the way, there are no Jews in Egypt, almost
Speaker 3: no Jews, Morocco, Libya, all these places there were million,
Speaker 3: like a million Jews. Why are none of them are
Speaker 3: left over there? So I think that's a pretty strong
Speaker 3: that's a pretty strong argument in favor of the these
Speaker 3: societies being very hostile towards Jews. And I have to
Speaker 3: remind you that these Jews were not Zionists to begin with. Today,
Speaker 3: by the way they are debase, their descendants are the
Speaker 3: base of the right wing, right wing political power in Israel.
Speaker 3: Yeah so, but these people were not Zionists. They were
Speaker 3: Arabised Jews. But this wasn't enough interesting.
Speaker 1: Wow, thank you for answering this.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's such a delicate conversation, but personally
Speaker 2: these are like important questions for me.
Speaker 1: It feels like you're not allowed to talk about it.
Speaker 2: To some degree, but for me it's important to have
Speaker 2: these discussions. So we were talking about the rise, you
Speaker 2: were giving the answer, and I want to wrap up
Speaker 2: our interview. I wonder if you have any other thoughts
Speaker 2: on the rise of anti Semitism besides for the apple
Speaker 2: juice analogy.
Speaker 3: I think it's a mix, right, I think it's men
Speaker 3: may different factors going into one. First of all, you
Speaker 3: have okay, so it's like an interaction between many different things.
Speaker 3: You have this going on. You have the way in
Speaker 3: which we conduct our conversations online on x or on Facebook,
Speaker 3: and that space being highly susceptible to outside actors, be
Speaker 3: it organic or inorganic. Right, so these things can also
Speaker 3: influence our conversation and maybe add a few ideas that
Speaker 3: might have been fringe but now generate a lot of
Speaker 3: traction because they're sensational.
Speaker 2: Right, do you believe that I ran it, for instance,
Speaker 2: pushing funding but ideas like that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Not only do I believe that, I know that, but
Speaker 3: not so much. I ran more China and Russia they
Speaker 3: are more powerful with it. But would they would be
Speaker 3: aligned with Iran in this particular case, Yes, we can tell,
Speaker 3: we can have we have people that can monitor these
Speaker 3: sorts of things, and we know that there are in
Speaker 3: fact bot farms. And you can think to yourself by
Speaker 3: the way that you think. Think as a congresswoman, for example,
Speaker 3: Let's say you're a congresswoman and you post something about
Speaker 3: something criticizing Israel, okay, and suddenly you discover that you're
Speaker 3: getting a hell of a lot more likes and reposts
Speaker 3: and shares. Now, this could be entirely artificial, done by
Speaker 3: outside actors. But what do you learn from that as
Speaker 3: a congresswoman to do it more? And what do other
Speaker 3: people watching you learn also to do it more? Right?
Speaker 3: So it could. So it's a lot of different things.
Speaker 3: And of course it's also the fact that there has
Speaker 3: been a substantial effort by the geopolitical enemies of Israel
Speaker 3: two portray it at a very very very negative light
Speaker 3: with the Gaza war especially right, this was a very
Speaker 3: strong catalyst for all of this. And again, war is
Speaker 3: not great, right, nobody loves war. But the war in
Speaker 3: Sudan wasn't pumped that hard into Western news feeds and
Speaker 3: social media feeds, right, and arguably it was way worse.
Speaker 3: Same with Yemen. Now, you could bring up all sorts
Speaker 3: of arguments, Like normally people would say, yeah, but we
Speaker 3: do not fund Yemen, and we do not find fund Sudan,
Speaker 3: and we're not allied with this country, but we are
Speaker 3: allied with Israel, so it should be held more accountable.
Speaker 3: That might fine. I'm not arguing with that, if that's
Speaker 3: what you want to claim. But Mike would still hold
Speaker 3: true that it's been pushed way harder and way more
Speaker 3: as a geopolitical tool, by the way, as a tool
Speaker 3: of force by countries, and by the way, that's not
Speaker 3: even a new thing. That's not even new. Jingiz Khan
Speaker 3: even used to do it to his enemies even before
Speaker 3: he was a great conqueror, Like he would spread the
Speaker 3: rumors about the emperor of what was it. I think
Speaker 3: it was the Jin dynasty, like the dynasty that controlled
Speaker 3: northern China at the time, right, and then these rumors
Speaker 3: would be pushed all the time, and you know, to
Speaker 3: shake his legitimacy or something like that. Everybody does it.
Speaker 3: It's a part of warfare. Not all warfare is fought
Speaker 3: with tanks and rifles.
Speaker 2: Suppressing because war, we imagine, is a very clear cut thing.
Speaker 2: We know what it is and when it permeates and
Speaker 2: bleeds into our perception of reality. That rob us of
Speaker 2: our ability to know what's real and what's not, and
Speaker 2: that's so destabilizing and so disruptive to just our sense
Speaker 2: of our trust with each other in conversation. It's it's
Speaker 2: for me, it's very frustrating that a lot of people
Speaker 2: and buy it what we can call propaganda. And then
Speaker 2: you're trying to have a conversation, and so much of
Speaker 2: it is shaped in these artificial contexts, or even if
Speaker 2: it's shaped by mainstream media, it's often like so much
Speaker 2: someone else shaping your perception of reality, and then we're
Speaker 2: trying to have a discussion off of almost an artificial reality.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I guess you could call war a spectrum.
Speaker 3: It's a spectrum. It doesn't have to go as font
Speaker 3: clause of It's like the premiere or military theorist of
Speaker 3: the West would say, war is just the continuation of
Speaker 3: policy by other means.
Speaker 1: I see, I like that. I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 2: My final question and then will wrap up to which
Speaker 2: degree do you feel that having these conversations in a
Speaker 2: climate in which so much of what we say can
Speaker 2: be weaponized is something you are anxious about.
Speaker 3: So I'm actually not anxious at all about that. I'm
Speaker 3: you know, I'm generally not an anxious person. I just
Speaker 3: say that. I think, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: How do you do it teach me?
Speaker 3: Oh? Well, have you heard of Marcus Aurelius?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: Oh, I think we can discuss it later if you want,
Speaker 3: or now, whatever you prefer. But yeah, I've I you
Speaker 3: read it every once in a while, and I feel
Speaker 3: like after maybe it's also a part of getting older,
Speaker 3: But I've become like very good at separating what is
Speaker 3: up to me and what is not up to me.
Speaker 1: Oh, I like that was Buddhists.
Speaker 3: I get. No, whathis this detachment? Right? It is to
Speaker 3: be detached from the things that are happening around you. Well,
Speaker 3: I guess there are some similarities. But also I would
Speaker 3: have to say that I am not anxious about this
Speaker 3: being taken out of context. But I also don't think
Speaker 3: that these kinds of conversation help, Like they do help,
Speaker 3: but it's like that it's like such a small influence
Speaker 3: because most people they just already decided what camp do
Speaker 3: they belong to, and you know they will act according
Speaker 3: to that. But you know, maybe we made a little
Speaker 3: bit of a difference, and I hope with did that.
Speaker 2: Well, the truth is my view, my philosophy about this
Speaker 2: is I'm not here to dissuade anyone who is an
Speaker 2: anti Semite of their views. It's just not something I
Speaker 2: care about talking to these people and convincing them. But
Speaker 2: I do feel strongly about my own right to clarity
Speaker 2: and the right for those of us who live in
Speaker 2: this confusing world to understand what's happening around us, just
Speaker 2: to have a better understanding of the issues in the world.
Speaker 3: Well, that's the story of your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for adding a piece of
Speaker 2: to that story. I really enjoyed talking to you. What
Speaker 2: can we say to the viewers to check out more
Speaker 2: of your work? Your podcast? You keep you keep it
Speaker 2: updated sort of. I saw your last post was a
Speaker 2: month ago.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well I haven't posted in quite some time.
Speaker 3: Maybe I should hurry up. Actually I'm more more active
Speaker 3: on my Hebrew channel, but I should for this interview.
Speaker 3: It deserves a post on my English channel as well.
Speaker 1: Love that. Love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you're you're popular in Hebrew circles.
Speaker 1: Doing for an Israeli audience content.
Speaker 3: I guess you could say that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what would you say to Summer is what your
Speaker 2: content is about?
Speaker 3: Really quickly, Oh, I just talk about what I'm interested in.
Speaker 3: It's usually philosophy, psychology, geopolitics, history, sometimes just YouTube stuff.
Speaker 3: That's kind of what I'm into.
Speaker 2: Me too, mostly into YouTube, just YouTube stuff, the other
Speaker 2: things I don't know. Well, thank you so much, Duran,
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed talking to you. And thank you also
Speaker 2: to the viewers on YouTube and the podcast listeners as well.
Speaker 1: And bye bye,