00:00:50.360One is, well, I guess they're both personal, really, when I think about it.
00:00:54.700One is our documentary called The Campaign, which was put together by my friend Kerry Holland and I finally got his family and friends showing at a theater in Toronto on Monday night.
00:01:11.300And the place was packed. It was like 350 people. Some people had to stand up and I'm not objective on the subject matter.
00:14:04.300After two years of hard work and lots of tears and travel, lots of rewrites and research, we were very proud to show people the film on Monday night.
00:14:16.360And the reason for that was the festivals have to show it first, right?
00:14:23.260We're not allowed to show it publicly until it goes through the festival circuit.
00:14:27.140So it's being shown in different places, which I'll tell you about in due course.
00:14:33.160And then it'll be shown publicly, and I'll let you guys know about all of that.
00:14:36.600But, you know, the one point I want to make, and I'm going to play the first trailer from the documentary, give you a sense of what it's about.
00:14:47.020And because this is the truth, we're living through a dark and dangerous time, and we're not going to drive out the darkness.
00:14:53.560I'm not going to drive out the hate without light and love.
00:14:58.420And the documentary tries to shine a light and to find the truth
00:15:02.880because the truth is out there and it is still worth fighting for.
00:15:07.680We live at a time when the weapons of war are not just guns and missiles.
00:15:15.420There is a propaganda battle when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
00:15:20.3402,500 protests around the world, saying the same things in different languages.
00:15:29.040I said, this looks like a campaign. This looks like an organized political campaign.
00:21:00.440Last night, I was in a packed cinema for the world premiere of a new documentary called The Campaign.
00:21:11.860And if you have been a listener of the Ben Mulroney show or radio in general, if you have been a purveyor of politics in Canada, if you read post media, if you are just a consumer of that kind of news.
00:25:44.740who was the National Director of Intelligence,
00:25:46.920so the most senior intelligence officer on earth,
00:25:50.360under Biden administration came out and said, yes, Iran is funding protests and protesters
00:25:57.940and coordinating this activity around the world. And it's dangerous for not only the democracy
00:26:03.520of the United States, but also other democracies. So that was the confirmation moment that we were
00:26:08.920on the right track. And it made us feel like we were heading in the right direction.
00:26:13.060If you have, if you, if you can, if you can see the campaign and understand how it was rolled out, Carrie, can you reverse engineer a solution?
00:26:29.900I think my gut instinct is, I don't think there's a reverse engineering of a solution.
00:26:34.240I think it's really looking at the broader ecosystem of the age of information and digital information and social media.
00:26:44.740And I think it's really about sort of how to combat the sharing and spreading of harmful information or disinformation.
00:26:54.080You know, even we had Aviva Klompitz in there talking about the data for the greatest threats and harm to society that the Economic Forum does every year.
00:27:03.8202024 and 2026, the greatest threat, not, you know, environmental, not war, not population or disease.
00:27:12.420It was disinformation. And that's an alarming statistic.
00:27:15.940So I don't think there's a way to reverse engineer it.
00:27:18.700I think there needs to be a bit of a regrouping on how do we navigate a world with changing AI and digital warfare that is really growing fast and becoming increasingly more dangerous.
00:27:32.460And Warren, I guess if we can't if we can't re-engineer an antidote based on sort of the formula that you've uncovered here, I guess that the next that the fear would be that somebody is going to take this exact same playbook and run it again.
00:27:48.140But like we said, like throw kerosene on the fire with A.I.
00:27:51.580and they that's exactly what they've done one of the guys we interviewed in the documentary in
00:27:58.420israel's guy named odin venunu is like one of the world experts if not the world expert on bots
00:28:04.100and he said to us you know by the holidays 2025 the chances are going to be more than 50 percent
00:28:13.260that the people you're arguing with online the people you're interacting with online are not
00:28:18.000people they're robots it's ai as you point out so it's it's beyond bots now it's into this realm
00:28:24.940where reality is being actually created by ai and the people who are most proficient at it
00:28:31.740are you know the iranians and hamas and hezbollah and it's amplified by bot farms and and technology
00:28:40.080and hashtags from places like china and russia and they're you know their target is not just
00:28:46.240Israel, their target, as we point out in the documentary, is Western democracy as well.
00:28:51.820All of us are being targeted by this effort.
00:28:54.000Well, yeah, and it feels, guys, like that side has staked their claim in the ground,
00:29:02.940especially here in Canada and across the Western world with our schools of higher education.
00:29:11.060Right. The fact that they have really they seem to have done a very astute job at getting their message to the next generation of leaders on our college campuses.
00:29:23.760And I don't know how I mean, is it unfair to say we need to deprogram an entire generation, Carrie?
00:29:29.740No, it's completely right. I don't know if you can like you can't be radicalized or deprogram people with truth or facts.
00:29:37.400And we're seeing that real time. And that was kind of part of the genesis of the documentary.
00:29:43.640And I mean, you know, Hitler was a great example. Hitler used like if you capture the hearts of the youth, you change the future.
00:29:49.100Yeah. So I think it's a combination of protecting and safeguarding the next generation while watching this generation that's already been pretty radicalized, you know, as they come of age, they're going to also start to see cracks in the veneer of a lot of things that they believe in with, I think, the landscape of AI digital information.
00:30:11.980even just this you know movement of people wanting to get off the grid or coveting the 90s you know
00:30:19.560i think that's going to help us um when i say do program at least make them question but it there
00:30:26.520might be a generation that's just too far gone right now i don't know i don't have the answer
00:30:30.340with how to fully do that well we're going to take a quick break but when we come back more with my
00:30:34.640conversation with carrie holland and warren kinsella about their upcoming documentary uh the
00:30:38.740campaign i got a lot of questions for you guys and also i want to let our viewers know there's
00:30:42.920somebody who's seen this film uh this it's a very even-handed fair look at this entire dynamic it is
00:30:51.860not a one-sided it is not um it is not as far as i'm concerned slanted in favor of anything but
00:30:59.080the search for the truth so don't go anywhere when we come back ben mulberry show
00:31:08.740I smashed straight through a plate glass bowl
00:36:16.260So, yeah, you know, I find myself being a lot more hypervigilant
00:36:20.980than I ever used to and a lot more cautious.
00:36:24.680Thankfully, nothing, you know, where I've had to take drastic measures,
00:36:28.500but I can't say that I don't fear when this film comes out
00:36:32.420that that's not something that I would be thinking about more seriously.
00:36:36.460Well, I think it's important to note for those people
00:36:39.220who are hearing about it for the first time here today is the third act of the film might surprise
00:36:45.980a few people because you don't pull any punches when it comes to, you know, the role, the
00:36:52.160responsibility of Benjamin Netanyahu and his government in sort of, I don't know, laying the
00:36:58.320groundwork for some of this mess. And I think I appreciate that, Warren, because, you know,
00:37:06.020there are those out there, uh, who take your position, which is very similar to mine in terms
00:37:11.460of our, our defense and support of the Jewish people to mean a raft of other things, which
00:37:17.120that support doesn't necessarily mean, but there are a lot of people who want to shortcut their
00:37:22.360way to a conclusion about you or about me or about anybody who supports, uh, one position
00:37:27.680in this, uh, in this battle. Uh, and, and you, you let it be known, uh, that you're no, you're
00:37:33.620no fan. And this film is highly critical of Benjamin Netanyahu. Yeah. And that was something
00:37:40.720I struggled with, actually. You know, so I'm an Irish Catholic Zionist. Carrie is Jewish. And
00:37:47.100she said to me and she was right and I was wrong. She said, look, we've been to Israel. We've talked
00:37:53.060to people there. And the many of the people we spoke to been right across Israeli society were
00:38:00.580critical of the government they were critical of the war they felt that more should be done to
00:38:04.900bring the hostages home they were unhappy and you know if we're doing a film about propaganda
00:38:10.380we can't ourselves put out propaganda we needed to show what israelis themselves were saying
00:38:17.080and i'm glad that carrie prevailed and that took some serious guts yeah because i think the three
00:38:22.720of us and older people in the jewish community in canada didn't want us to do that yeah it was
00:38:27.700important that we did and um i think it's a better film as a result and and yeah it well you know it's
00:38:32.940going to make people sit in a little bit of discomfort right this is you're right propaganda
00:38:37.420carry is supposed to make those who are receiving it feel one particular way and this film is going
00:38:44.080to make people feel a number of different things some of it is going to be validating of their
00:38:48.900concerns and other things is going to other parts are going to challenge what they believe is truth
00:38:55.300And I think that's a really, I got to say, I was surprised to feel that in that moment.
00:39:00.260But the end result, I think, is a more, I mean, I'm sure it's truthful to you, but the end result is a movie that I think is going to be more, is going to be received in a wider way.
00:39:14.580I mean, it was easily, I think, the most challenging part of the storytelling was that section.
00:39:21.420And I feel like there's a few things with that play which you touch upon.
00:39:24.740Do I believe that Israel is at fault in any way for anti-Semitism or the government?
00:39:48.980I think one of the biggest challenges around this conversation in the many arenas that it's being had are the sort of like this quieting of the Israeli voice.
00:40:00.100There's a lot of people in the diaspora that speak for and about Israel.
00:40:04.500And when we got to Israel and we're filming on the ground, there was a sense of there's a little bit of a patriotism that's being appropriated.
00:40:11.980understandably so because of you know not only our ties to it but out of fear that's not reflected
00:40:18.920of the voices on the ground and i think people's inability to kind of hold a few truths at once
00:40:24.800you know which is there's the there's israelis there's the diaspora there's the the a million
00:40:32.100different opinions and feelings about all of it your your ties to judaism your ties to israel
00:40:38.520your your political stance your your religious affiliation and we just really felt like we had
00:40:44.020to it was a show not tell moment because one of the biggest tropes is that all jews are the same
00:40:49.520all israelis want this war they all support the government no no and we were able to show that
00:40:54.560versus tell you so if we could plant that seed of you know oh i might have gotten that wrong
00:41:00.880what else could i be you know misinterpreting yeah uh warren if if you could only show this
00:41:07.820to one group of people who would you want to show it to in order for it to have the most impact
00:41:14.040well i'd love for the prime minister to see it our prime minister who this afternoon announced
00:41:19.440that israel was acting in an illegal way and occupying parts of lebanon those same parts
00:41:26.060at which missiles were being filed at israel people like that really need to be woken up
00:41:31.800and shown the reality that, as Kerry says, that public opinion in Israel is not a monolith.