The Critical Compass Podcast - Gaza in the Western Political Landscape ｜ A Critical Compass Discussion

00:00:00.000 Western liberals have been taught for decades now that all oppressions intersect and overlap and are related to each other.

00:00:07.380 And this is a situation where, in my opinion, Western liberals being raised and taught in schools their whole lives about how we live,

00:00:19.000 in the US and Canada specifically, about how we live on stolen lands, we're colonizers, we're oppressors,

00:00:25.680 all of the crimes that we committed against the indigenous populations. 0.99

00:00:30.200 What I believe is that Western liberals see themselves in this conflict as being in the position of being able,

00:00:39.380 as they feel, being able to stop or prevent a modern-day colonization.

00:00:55.680 Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Critical Compass.

00:01:06.640 Today's episode, we are talking about Queers for Palestine,

00:01:11.640 the rallying cry of various groups protesting for the last couple weeks

00:01:18.800 in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel and Israel's military response to that.

00:01:26.000 My name is Mike and this is James.

00:01:28.480 James, let's start with talking a little bit about kind of the nature of the Palestinian and Israel conflict as we know it.

00:01:40.500 Yeah, I guess we've kind of got a difficult situation because you've got wildly different perspectives in two groups of people.

00:01:47.820 You've got a land-based disagreement, so one group saying that we deserve this land and another group saying we deserve this land.

00:01:58.820 You have a history together as well as you have differences in religious beliefs and claims to that spot as well.

00:02:06.560 And when you mix all this together, you've got a difficult situation where it's hard to find any compromise when people think they have the divine right to a place.

00:02:21.680 So that creates issues already.

00:02:23.940 I guess it is difficult to get a sense of what every citizen is thinking and saying.

00:02:35.160 We can only, when we're doing our own research and we're trying to get a sense of people's ideas, we do have a sample biased.

00:02:44.000 But it is worth looking at what laws exist in a place.

00:02:48.240 What do their religious texts have?

00:02:51.840 Also, if a mass protest, if there's any messaging that is common and repeated and pretty much is sanctioned by a mass protest, that's usually, you could sum that up as them being one of their beliefs.

00:03:07.800 You do get into a tricky place where, I don't know if everybody thinks they're subscribing to the same ideas.

00:03:14.920 So from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free.

00:03:20.300 I hear some people saying that that means zero Jews in the whole area from the river to the sea.

00:03:27.740 Like the only way that it can exist peacefully is if nobody's living there who is Jewish. 1.00

00:03:36.380 Right.

00:03:36.440 Other people just say, well, that's more metaphorical and maybe they're supporting that, chanting that, and maybe not thinking about it in the same way.

00:03:47.360 So you may get some disagreements on what some of these messages actually mean.

00:03:53.460 And you get people actually living there, but then you have this Western dynamic of people supporting from the West with kind of a limited perspective here.

00:04:03.640 And that's maybe something we'll touch on is when you get activism from the West being filtered through these identity politics.

00:04:14.640 What does that look like?

00:04:16.120 Yeah, well, and part of what it looks like, as it turns out, it seems, is that to be a Western liberal or a leftist, that means that you must support Palestine. 0.75

00:04:30.260 And apparently, if you support Israel, that means you're a right-winger, a far-right, or otherwise a conservative.

00:04:37.580 What do you think are some of the reasons for that?

00:04:44.400 And I'll have my opinion in there after.

00:04:47.220 So I think when it comes to social justice, they're very much focused on an oppressed and oppressor lens.

00:05:01.500 And no matter where you were like, intersectionality is basically this idea that everybody is oppressed and the oppressor because you may be oppressed on multiple categories.

00:05:12.660 And if that is a core belief, it is not surprising for people to look at Palestine and maybe look at some of the land disagreements or the territorial shifts as acts of oppression. 0.84

00:05:26.980 And there may be some legitimacy.

00:05:28.840 It's over the history of maybe some negotiations on land were done more fairly than others.

00:05:38.060 So there is always a kernel of truth in that, but that's how you get this oppressed, oppressor lens applied to this situation.

00:05:48.100 With Israel being viewed as the oppressor and Palestinians being viewed as the oppressed.

00:05:53.900 Yes.

00:05:54.380 One thing to add is if you do talk to some people from Israel, they are viewing themselves as oppressed as well and being oppressed by Palestine and or just the religious texts calling for their demise.

00:06:10.620 And the surrounding – well, that's for sure.

00:06:13.120 And who talked about that just last week about – oh, that was the Eric Weinstein and Sam Harris debate where Eric talked about how there are certain elements of the Jewish and Christian texts that put a natural sort of – I don't know the term,

00:06:37.380 but sort of a limiting factor on the religion that Islam doesn't have when it comes to conquest, military might, and the ultimate goal of the religion.

00:06:50.040 I'm very much simplifying it, but I think that's maybe what you're referring to.

00:06:53.040 Yeah, and if – I think if you look at the pure numbers, the ratio of Muslims to Jewish people in that area, very much – is it 1 billion to – is it even a couple million right now?

00:07:11.800 Yeah, I think it might be 8 to 12 million or in that kind of range, I think.

00:07:17.340 Yeah, sub 100 for sure.

00:07:19.860 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:07:20.540 Yeah, yeah, like – so they have a fraction of the number of people.

00:07:23.840 So in their eyes, they very much feel very much alone in a sea of people who don't like them.

00:07:30.940 Yeah, yeah, just by the numbers.

00:07:32.640 I mean, just by the numbers, the land mass, the area, that's pretty hard to argue against.

00:07:39.300 So it was just interesting to see them also take the perspective of being oppressed in this situation.

00:07:46.500 So we have a situation where both groups think they're being oppressed by the other.

00:07:51.400 Mm-hmm.

00:07:51.780 And so how do you come to terms with that in discussions?

00:07:55.880 Well, and so that leads me nicely into what my little pet theory on this is, is that the – and Douglas Murray talked about this as well later in a video clip that we're going to show.

00:08:11.480 So – but he talks about how Western liberals have been taught for decades now that all oppressions intersect and overlap and are related to each other.

00:08:22.480 And this is a situation where, in my opinion, Western liberals being raised and taught in schools their whole lives about how we live – in the U.S. and Canada specifically – about how we live on stolen lands.

00:08:39.140 We're colonizers, we're colonizers, we're oppressors, all of the crimes that we committed against the indigenous populations. 1.00

00:08:45.960 What I believe is that Western liberals see themselves in this conflict as being in the position of being able – as they feel being able to stop or prevent a modern-day colonization.

00:09:01.940 And in some way, this would atone for the self-hate and the guilt that they feel for how they were raised to view themselves in the Western world.

00:09:14.100 That's just my thoughts.

00:09:16.340 Yeah, it's – they can't stop colonization at home, so they're looking to other places to – where this is maybe the – in their eyes, the biggest current example of this happening.

00:09:28.940 Yeah, it's the – it's happening in real time, their perceived atonement for the sins of their fathers, right?

00:09:37.920 Yeah, and I guess that touches on also the driving motivation of some of these activists is this idea of quick salvation from sins.

00:09:50.780 And it's funny, you are born with original sin of – since if everybody's oppressed and oppressed, it doesn't take long before you are blamed of being an oppressor to somebody else.

00:10:05.380 So nobody is free of sin in this way of thinking.

00:10:10.740 So that's where you have to find ways of atoning.

00:10:13.760 Yeah, and do you think that there's also – I hadn't thought about this until just now – but do you think there's also sort of a view amongst Western liberals of the less educated type, we'll say, that view Jews as white or as synonymous with white people, despite what the demographic makeup of the area might actually reflect?

00:10:42.940 Yeah, I think when you're looking at even like university admissions or – I don't know how they start filtering down, but I know like the category of white or white adjacent or whiteness has been expanded.

00:11:04.000 So you can find Asians in Western universities are now being – 1.00

00:11:11.240 It's Harvard you're referring to, right?

00:11:12.540 They are – yeah, they are overperforming.

00:11:15.280 Therefore, they're being treated as white in the same kind of – when they're rebalancing admissions to try to increase numbers of underrepresented groups.

00:11:25.660 Was it Harvard or Yale that basically straight up said that they would not be following the recent Supreme Court judgment about that?

00:11:35.500 I'm not sure.

00:11:36.880 It was one of them.

00:11:37.980 We'll put it in the description.

00:11:39.900 But one of the major Ivy League said that.

00:11:42.720 At least they're – you got to give them credit for being consistent to their values.

00:11:45.780 They stick to their beliefs, yeah.

00:11:47.240 God bless them.

00:11:47.820 Okay, what's next?

00:11:52.160 James, let's have a quick segue into what has seemingly happened to media coverage of the Ukraine because ostensibly the war in Ukraine is still happening.

00:12:06.820 I wouldn't know.

00:12:07.400 I haven't heard anything about it for a month just about.

00:12:10.300 Yeah, basically, I had all hands on decks, all eyes.

00:12:15.020 That was dominating pretty much any sphere that you may own if you're in the Twitter X space.

00:12:22.200 Ukraine was still being pushed on a daily basis.

00:12:25.740 And then your mainstream media outlets very much hyper-focused on that.

00:12:31.840 And it seems to have pivoted.

00:12:34.960 And is that any less important?

00:12:38.720 You think that would be balanced out, but you almost have these cases where it almost just – en masse, you get just excitement, this buzz over a certain topic and –

00:12:53.580 Something new.

00:12:55.220 Yeah, something new.

00:12:56.500 It's the – like, look here.

00:12:59.160 It's almost like we have a squirrel situation where the attention is just thrown somewhere else all of a sudden.

00:13:06.620 And, like, I don't know if that – if anything's going to still – like, what amount of coverage will happen in Ukraine?

00:13:17.440 Like, I haven't been seeing very much or –

00:13:20.560 Yeah, I don't really know what the situation is currently.

00:13:22.620 I mean, it's – I get it to a certain extent where, you know, a massive terrorist attack happens.

00:13:28.740 And, of course, that's going to dominate the 24-hour cycles.

00:13:32.840 But it's been about a month now.

00:13:34.900 And it doesn't feel like – it feels to me – and I don't mean this to come off as conspiratorial, but it feels to me anyway that there was precious little goodwill left regarding the media coverage of Ukraine-Palestine.

00:13:52.360 Or, sorry, Jesus, Ukraine-Russia.

00:13:56.600 But now, with the Palestinian conflict, that is much more polarizing, and there's not a lot of consensus for or against it at this time, which maybe that drives more clicks.

00:14:09.700 I don't know.

00:14:10.080 Maybe that's a little bit more of a hot-button issue that they can capitalize on from a – purely from an engagement perspective.

00:14:18.440 Yeah, it's always worth kind of looking at some of these things.

00:14:24.120 Sometimes you have coverage that is – the amount of coverage is linked more directly to somebody's bottom end, let it be driving engagement, kind of tailoring to the viewers.

00:14:37.020 So you do get this case on both sides of the aisle.

00:14:41.700 You will get people speaking to their – feeding content to their echo chamber because their viewers either expect content on that or it resonates with their viewership, their pre-existing viewership.

00:14:53.820 But one thing I did notice is – so the last time we spoke, and we can link to this in the show notes, but we were talking about some of the parental rights protests here in Canada, the Million March for Kids,

00:15:10.460 which kind of had a strange demographic where normally on the Left, you think the Left is a bastion for all these underrepresented groups, these minorities, the people of color.

00:15:28.320 And the parental rights protests geared around gender ideology and what should be taught in school and how much it should be withheld from parents as well as can like a kid socially transition, change their name without the parents knowing about it, without the parents' consent.

00:15:50.660 And you saw firsthand, a lot of people there were from – they were Muslim, they were basically a wide cross-section of Canada representing these protests who were pushed back against the Left.

00:16:05.740 And it's strange now to see the Left almost – like these woke activists trying to tag along with people that they were at odds with before.

00:16:20.780 And now that it's a different issue.

00:16:23.480 It's almost like they just forgot about the fact that their beliefs don't align with the ideology that they're pushing, which makes kind of this whole gays for Gaza or queers for Palestine, these movements, very strange because they are advocating for something for people that do not support their views. 0.68

00:16:48.300 Yeah, they do come across as sort of strange bedfellows, don't they?

00:16:54.300 And it is – I don't know what to call it, if it's sweet in a way that they've put aside their differences from just a couple months ago and are now all uniting against Israel and the Zionists. 0.78

00:17:11.640 Or if it's more just an indication of the hypocrisy of the movement in general because, yeah, at the Million March for Kids, I would say that there was – it was highly representative demographically.

00:17:25.660 There were people of all shapes and sizes, colors and creeds.

00:17:29.040 But there was definitely a strong showing of Arab and what can only be assumed as Muslim support.

00:17:40.240 And understandably so because the Muslim faith is particularly – I don't know if I would say unique, but it's particularly strong still in the modern era on parental rights and family structure and nuclear families and all that sort of thing.

00:17:59.040 So it makes sense that they would be the ones particularly in support of such movement.

00:18:04.600 Whereas what you found on the counter-protester side, the more stereotypically leftist side, the rainbow flags side, is overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly young, college, university-aged.

00:18:22.760 Not a lot of what you would assume would be people who had young families who would be affected by these issues.

00:18:35.020 So that was an interesting thing to observe.

00:18:37.720 And then now when the Israel-Palestine conflict really popped off just a month ago, it is very strange and interesting to note that now all is forgotten.

00:18:54.180 They're back on the side of the same Arab people that they were so vehemently opposed to not a month before.

00:19:02.440 I don't know if it's a nuance that they're maybe not aware that they're showing or if it's hypocrisy or what it is, but it's noteworthy.

00:19:18.120 How about that?

00:19:19.740 Yeah.

00:19:20.320 It's remarkable.

00:19:21.020 You can find the same parallel.

00:19:24.020 One way to look at this conflict is I'm always wary if a side says you cannot talk about this or any side start trying to shut down discussion or quickly labeling people.

00:19:39.460 So it doesn't matter where it's coming from.

00:19:42.100 If somebody says, if you don't believe this, then you are this label or vice versa.

00:19:47.300 I'm always wary of that.

00:19:50.000 And it seems like the Antifa crowd is very much the ones fighting Nazis at other rallies are very much very comfortable at rallies where some very anti-Semitic statements can be shouted out loud without distancing themselves from these statements.

00:20:16.420 Yeah.

00:20:17.300 Yeah, that's interesting how the people who are so quick to call others the big modern N-words are seemingly, they're sounding closer and closer to the people that are condemning it.

00:20:38.580 And it's, maybe we'll also leave a link to horseshoe theory in the show notes because that's what it feels like to me.

00:20:45.680 I think, James, you have a video queued up that demonstrates something like that.

00:20:50.260 Well, yeah, let's take a look at, so we've got a good channel.

00:21:00.120 Well, we're going to link to this below is Common Ground Conversations.

00:21:05.680 Fantastic individual, basically going in the streets and having conversations with people and trying to get a sense of what their thoughts are and really just a genuinely curious individual.

00:21:22.160 This video is the guy that Peter Boghossian interviewed in Melbourne, right?

00:21:26.880 I believe so, yeah.

00:21:28.540 Very much a similar, almost a similar curiosity to like what people believe and why.

00:21:33.960 So, in this video, he goes over his ideas and his take on the conflict, breaks down his ideas, and very much advocates for somebody to do their own thinking.

00:21:53.260 He has a conversation with a Jew, and then he also has conversations with the Palestinian, but the funny thing is he gets attacked by these professional protesters, or these people who seem to show up at any protest and have these same destructive tactics that we see. 0.75

00:22:17.620 Antifa, regardless if they call themselves, regardless if they call themselves Antifa, they have the same tactics of disruption, noise-making, physical disruptions, and or just general preventing discussions from happening.

00:22:30.920 And let's play just a little bit of the professional protest, professional protesters here.

00:22:47.620 Yeah, Common Ground Conversation.

00:22:49.180 Yeah, that's the one, yeah.

00:22:49.840 What's her name, bro?

00:22:50.660 My name's Yaz.

00:22:51.360 Yaz, read to me, bro.

00:22:52.260 And once you're here for long enough, this becomes home.

00:22:54.420 Yeah, well, that's what it is.

00:22:55.340 That person is considered a normal home.

00:22:59.200 And I've always watched this, um...

00:23:00.720 I don't know, he just wants to...

00:23:02.220 He's familiar with our YouTube channel.

00:23:06.040 I kind of like keep up with what they're doing.

00:23:09.000 He's just going to use it for fine writing today.

00:23:11.320 He's just going to use it for fine writing today.

00:23:13.060 No, no, I mean, look, I've sort of kept up with a lot of the things that he said.

00:23:16.060 I don't know if I would sort of position him as my right.

00:23:22.520 Are we just going to get followed, or...?

00:23:23.860 Yeah, maybe.

00:23:24.700 Is that like a typical kind of...

00:23:25.880 I sat down.

00:23:26.840 But I went up...

00:23:27.520 I think that you guys don't...

00:23:28.860 I went up to him, but I saw him having the mic, and I went up to him.

00:23:31.420 All right.

00:23:31.740 You're welcome.

00:23:32.380 You're welcome to do that.

00:23:33.260 We're just letting you know what's going on.

00:23:34.240 Is the colour for you?

00:23:35.600 Ah!

00:23:36.120 I just got one friend.

00:23:38.280 Sorry.

00:23:38.560 This guy...

00:23:39.060 This is the...

00:23:39.500 It's my blood.

00:23:42.560 It's my blood.

00:23:42.580 It's my blood.

00:23:42.800 It's my blood.

00:23:43.500 Yaz.

00:23:44.620 Body count.

00:23:45.000 Done.

00:23:46.060 People who aren't from...

00:23:47.380 Free, free Palestine!

00:23:49.940 Bro, we understand free, free Palestine.

00:23:52.580 Get out of here! 0.99

00:23:55.020 We're just going to jump on this side over here.

00:23:56.980 Take it over here. 0.75

00:23:57.800 Go over here.

00:23:58.780 Go right over here.

00:23:59.340 See that dome?

00:24:00.240 Go all the way over there.

00:24:02.220 Go to the dome.

00:24:02.860 No, no, bro.

00:24:03.320 Look, here's the thing, yeah?

00:24:04.240 This is where I'm starting to have an issue. 0.96

00:24:05.640 Because you're a white guy. 0.74

00:24:06.720 I'm here.

00:24:07.180 Free Palestine!

00:24:08.460 I came here as a refugee.

00:24:09.880 And now you guys are treating me...

00:24:11.160 Free Palestine!

00:24:11.820 So, very much the same kind of tactics we've seen in any protests in any Western country.

00:24:20.980 Yeah.

00:24:22.300 Um, so that led to his arrest, actually.

00:24:29.440 So, which...

00:24:31.700 Well, of course.

00:24:32.840 Yeah, like...

00:24:33.980 He should have known for asking questions where he shouldn't have been.

00:24:37.960 And so, that was actually...

00:24:42.960 I believe that was a clip after his arrest, as well.

00:24:46.540 But, as he went back...

00:24:48.340 I was curious about the part, though, James, in this video where he showed clips...

00:24:52.580 I don't know if you know where it is in this video, or we'll just have to link to it.

00:24:55.840 Where he showed clips of that rally where people were chanting, 0.98

00:24:59.980 gas the Jews, kill the Jews. 1.00

00:25:01.280 Why can't we make peace with... 1.00

00:25:05.340 Why can't the Israeli government make peace with Hamas?

00:25:09.760 Good question. 0.94

00:25:11.260 Because Hamas are savages, and they have no interest in peace. 1.00

00:25:15.540 Their only interest is in destruction, rape, pillage, murder. 0.99

00:25:20.760 That is what their interest is. 0.99

00:25:22.240 In their charter, it calls for the destruction of Israel.

00:25:25.420 And if you notice, here in Melbourne, you had a lot of people that were supporting Hamas, 0.99

00:25:28.720 and they were chanting, gas the Jews, eff the Jews. 0.97

00:25:35.440 Not a good look, I suppose. 0.98

00:25:49.500 I haven't seen much of people, like, really making distinctions.

00:25:55.180 We'll just say, free Palestine. 0.84

00:25:56.320 I'm like, well, what does that mean?

00:25:57.220 And, like, do you subscribe to all the ideas?

00:26:01.860 Yeah, what does a free Palestine look like? 0.90

00:26:05.140 Yeah.

00:26:06.840 And how would they achieve a free Palestine?

00:26:09.680 That's right.

00:26:10.100 After they define what it looks like.

00:26:11.340 What does the process look?

00:26:12.640 Yeah.

00:26:13.180 Does that include violence?

00:26:15.780 So if you have...

00:26:16.340 Well, it's interesting here, too.

00:26:18.100 If we take it back to even a further protest,

00:26:20.200 we don't have anything here for this.

00:26:21.800 But just to reference, if you remember...

00:26:24.060 I know you remember.

00:26:25.720 If our audience remembers from the Freedom Convoy in February of 2020.

00:26:30.840 I think this was maybe from even late January.

00:26:33.560 The first or the second day.

00:26:35.520 And there was a...

00:26:37.180 What many people believe to be a plant of some type.

00:26:41.240 Because he wasn't seen...

00:26:43.180 He didn't show his face.

00:26:44.100 He wasn't there before and after.

00:26:45.020 But that one person who was holding the F. Trudeau flag along with the Nazi flag.

00:26:54.760 Was that the Nazi flag that showed up at the chateau that only had access if he went inside the building?

00:27:00.300 It was on some of the stairs.

00:27:02.680 Something like...

00:27:03.280 I believe that's correct.

00:27:03.940 It wasn't even in the mass...

00:27:04.660 It wasn't even in the mass of people.

00:27:06.740 Like...

00:27:07.060 Yeah.

00:27:07.440 Yeah.

00:27:07.720 It wasn't.

00:27:08.220 And there was a guy who I believe was trying to fly...

00:27:12.200 I don't know if he was trying to fly another one.

00:27:13.800 Or if it was like a confederate flag or something like that.

00:27:16.580 But he was very quickly shooed away from the rest of the protesters too.

00:27:21.480 No one wanted anything to do with him.

00:27:23.160 But regardless.

00:27:24.480 After that happened.

00:27:25.600 The narrative from every single media source after that became...

00:27:29.700 The Freedom Convoy is a home for Nazi sympathizers and supporters.

00:27:34.680 With no context surrounding it.

00:27:36.340 So in this situation where you have video evidence of Free Palestine rallies that are chanting, 1.00

00:27:45.560 gas the Jews and kill the Jews. 1.00

00:27:48.040 Like... 1.00

00:27:49.340 And you don't...

00:27:50.300 I don't...

00:27:50.760 I haven't heard a peep from it on any media source other than these people who you're about

00:27:55.580 to show are being arrested for asking questions at the rallies.

00:27:59.420 It seems...

00:28:00.420 It seems...

00:28:01.420 It seems silly to me.

00:28:03.900 Yeah.

00:28:04.200 You don't have the same...

00:28:05.420 You don't have the same rule set of...

00:28:08.560 Media's not using the same rule set when applied to different groups.

00:28:11.640 They're not curious at all about it.

00:28:14.020 Yeah.

00:28:14.480 You think they would be...

00:28:17.200 Talking more about like, well...

00:28:19.940 When is it okay to demonize an entire group?

00:28:24.020 Yeah.

00:28:24.500 Like, usually that's not a good idea to paint every member of a group the same and or call

00:28:31.380 for violence towards members.

00:28:34.920 I thought that was a pretty clear-cut rule, but apparently it's not talked about now, so...

00:28:39.760 No, it's subjective, apparently.

00:28:42.040 Well, let's see how this guy got arrested.

00:28:46.080 Just throw this back up.

00:28:47.380 And so, yeah, he shows a little bit of the harassment before that as well.

00:28:57.760 And then we'll just dive into it.

00:28:58.940 This is just a great video.

00:28:59.680 Everyone should watch this when we're done.

00:29:02.380 Ladies and gents, welcome to another episode of Common Ground Conversations, where we ask

00:29:05.520 the important questions.

00:29:07.380 Hey! 0.99

00:29:07.560 Hey, hey, Patface! 0.99

00:29:08.840 Hey, Wallin'o! 0.97

00:29:09.700 How are ya?

00:29:10.380 Hey! 0.99

00:29:11.420 One time, no sir!

00:29:12.700 Hey! 0.99

00:29:13.620 We got the whole voice, guys!

00:29:14.800 Next time.

00:29:15.800 We got the whole voice, guys!

00:29:16.800 We got the whole voice, guys!

00:29:17.800 We got the whole voice, guys!

00:29:18.800 We got the whole voice, guys!

00:29:19.800 We got the whole voice, guys!

00:29:20.800 What's going on?

00:29:21.800 Hey, guys!

00:29:22.800 What's this, guys?

00:29:23.800 You need to leave.

00:29:24.800 Thanks, mate.

00:29:25.800 Thanks, mate.

00:29:29.460 This way, mate.

00:29:30.460 The side mirrors, please.

00:29:31.460 Yeah, we're coming out to the side.

00:29:33.460 Yeah, what's going on?

00:29:34.460 Why are you taking me and not them?

00:29:37.460 Well, they just have reports you're agitating the crowd a bit, alright, so...

00:29:40.460 I always agitate a bit.

00:29:42.460 Are you serious?

00:29:43.460 Yeah, very serious, mate.

00:29:44.800 You're being told to breach the peace, you are not to go in that crowd anymore, you are

00:29:54.220 disrupting that crowd, so you're not going any further, we're getting your details, how

00:29:58.260 was I disrupting, yeah you can get my details, how was I disrupting that crowd, how was I

00:30:01.680 disrupting that crowd, give us your full name and details sir, how was I disrupting that

00:30:04.600 crowd, full name and details sir, how about your full name and details, my full name, 3459

00:30:09.680 How about your actual name, these people deserve to be able to share their perspective, I haven't

00:30:15.460 aggressed anyone, these gents were following me and you've taken me out of the crowd, 0.62

00:30:18.780 you've been taken out of the crowd, yes, why, because I was reaching the peace, why, because

00:30:23.260 you're inciting the crowd, because you're inciting the crowd, what do you mean, that doesn't

00:30:27.380 even make any sense, inciting, what am I inciting, so state your full name, sir, what are you

00:30:34.220 doing man, arrested for what, for finding a state of your full name and address, Richard

00:30:38.560 Jack, don't resist, don't resist, don't resist, don't resist, don't resist, don't resist,

00:30:44.560 what are you doing, he's committing a defence, just comply, what, don't resist, hey, get

00:30:50.900 it on camera, get it on camera, get it on camera, yeah, yeah, Richard Jackson, thanks

00:30:58.300 man, thanks, we're going to confirm your details, what am I being arrested for, what am I being

00:31:04.400 arrested for, what am I being arrested for, the direction to move on, that'll be it, you

00:31:09.160 boys should be ashamed, all of you should be ashamed, you guys too for going along with 0.99

00:31:13.320 it, I did nothing wrong, ask questions, you can't ask questions, you should be ashamed,

00:31:23.680 what's your date of birth, your, your enforcement of the law, what is inciting man, inciting

00:31:29.380 means that you're encouraging the crowd to be violent, I would, so you're telling me

00:31:33.200 I was encouraging, I'm telling you what I got told, okay, from who, from who, from my

00:31:36.660 commander, and was there any evidence whatsoever, I can find that evidence later, yeah, yeah,

00:31:40.940 good luck, good luck, good luck, that you have disrupted the crowd, 3, 4, 5, 4, 9, you should

00:31:45.180 be absolutely ashamed, okay, am I, am I free to go, yes, as long as you don't continue

00:31:49.140 to inside the crowd, am I allowed to ask questions, is that alright with you, you can ask questions,

00:31:54.700 I never incited the crowd, you have a look at your reports, why did you become a police

00:32:02.460 officer, it's part of your business man, so, yeah, can't ask questions, you can't, like,

00:32:13.780 I imagine what happened there is, somebody called it in, and they pointed to a person

00:32:19.520 with a camera, and they followed up on that complaint, but they didn't, like, assess the

00:32:27.600 veracity of the complaint, I don't know if you could hear me over it on your end, what

00:32:32.720 I was, I couldn't really hear the audio that well, but was that, was the cop going through

00:32:37.480 the YouTuber's phone, is that what he was doing?

00:32:41.080 They may have watched the footage, um, from, from his own phone, yeah, so I think, I think

00:32:48.880 there was a little bit of time lapse where, I imagine he said, like, well, I have proof

00:32:53.280 I was not harassing them, right, watch the proof, and he kind of skipped ahead in that

00:32:58.100 situation, right, and that's why he got set free, because, yeah, I suppose, they were wanting

00:33:04.280 to arrest him for that, and they're like, well, because I know in a lot of places in the

00:33:07.940 world, like, you just don't have phone privacy rights like you do in, in other countries,

00:33:12.680 so, yeah, that, I was just, like, I was gonna be righteously indignant on his behalf if that

00:33:17.040 was the case, but, uh, that would be a good use of it, actually, if you could prove, in

00:33:21.120 fact, that you were not inciting anyone, which, of course, he wasn't, but the, uh, yeah, the,

00:33:25.320 the notion that all it takes is a, is a hysterical, what I assume would be a hysterical call from

00:33:30.880 a protester saying, someone is, uh, is inciting us here by, by filming us asking hard questions.

00:33:38.340 Yeah, it's worth covering more of the video, because he does show, he knows some of these

00:33:44.300 protesters, he's seen them before, and they have also been disruptive.

00:33:48.420 It almost looks like they see him out.

00:33:49.200 Yeah, I, I am pretty sure they are taking it like a mission to protect this protest against

00:33:58.620 these hateful bigots who dare go there with a camera to ask questions.

00:34:03.220 Yeah, yeah, that's, uh, but it's from the playbook, but again, from, from, uh, the last

00:34:09.160 episode, we can reference the, um, the website, uh, Beautiful Trouble, yeah, right.

00:34:14.740 Um, okay, well, uh, great video, uh, infuriating, but, uh, but, but very good.

00:34:22.060 Uh, we'll, we'll sort of, uh, I suppose pivot at this point to, uh, the title of our, of

00:34:29.660 our podcast today of, about, uh, Queers for Palestine.

00:34:33.160 What, uh, what do you think, I know we've touched on it a little bit, but what do you

00:34:36.920 think is the, what do you think possesses a Western self-discipline?

00:34:44.740 Described queer person to support Palestine and not be the least bit curious about what 0.96

00:34:54.680 their own personal social standing might be in the country that they are supporting?

00:35:01.840 I imagine there's a little bit of kind of this just going along with the group.

00:35:08.960 So if you, if you have these kind of party lines of like left's supposed to support Palestine

00:35:15.260 and rights, the one supporting Israel, and they see it through this larger lens, then I think

00:35:21.620 they can't shake that those, those fundamental principles that we mentioned before of oppressed

00:35:26.580 versus oppressor, everything fits into that box.

00:35:31.300 So I, I think they're looking at it from a ground level and it's almost a tunnel vision based on those

00:35:39.860 principles.

00:35:40.240 And I imagine that they can't unsee that because they see that in everywhere.

00:35:46.200 And I think they're just stuck in that, that idea.

00:35:50.560 Yeah, fair enough.

00:35:54.820 I mean, I think that's, that's, that's probably it.

00:35:57.320 It's, I don't know that I've seen any good, um, really one-on-one interviewing with, uh,

00:36:04.060 a queers for Palestine, uh, protester, but yeah, I would be really curious to know if they,

00:36:10.360 if they know what the, the most of the Arab world does to, um, I think there was a, 1.00

00:36:21.640 might be a billboard, Chris, um, might only be on Twitter.

00:36:30.540 Maybe we linked to it after, but he did.

00:36:33.060 So he's, he's very much at the forefront of, uh, yeah, we'll, we'll add that in.

00:36:37.960 Um, and then there's also, uh, maybe we'll add this to the show notes as well.

00:36:43.480 There's a James clue video where he pretends to be doing a, a petition for, um, to support

00:36:54.480 Palestine.

00:36:55.980 And then he's like, Oh, by supporting this petition, you are also any lists of all the,

00:37:01.960 all the things that are agreeing to and like the mistreatment of women and, or gay people 0.99

00:37:07.320 and, or, so he has this list.

00:37:11.700 I'm like, Oh, this is why, or this, you have to also support these things to support

00:37:15.520 Palestine in that case.

00:37:17.260 And people all of a sudden were a little less enthusiastic to sign this petition.

00:37:22.040 Yeah.

00:37:22.480 Um, so maybe that was a, just a way of maybe him getting his foot in the door of thinking

00:37:28.820 about these.

00:37:29.480 Well, like how do you get people starting to think about things maybe they didn't actually

00:37:33.760 consider and that that's one of the thing is, um, is the, a group of people supporting

00:37:40.940 another group of people who don't support them.

00:37:43.700 It's good.

00:37:44.400 It's effective.

00:37:45.140 It's, uh, yeah, probably something that, uh, people are in a bit of a, we're in a bit

00:37:51.760 of a bubble here in the West where we sort of, I suppose, have a, an implicit, uh, assumption

00:37:58.000 that people are, uh, the same generally, you know, no matter where you go in the world

00:38:04.680 and everyone is, is treated the same and everyone believes similar things.

00:38:08.780 But I, I think that a lot of people would be surprised at the actual breadth of human,

00:38:14.560 um, uh, opinions when it comes to alternative lifestyles or other things that we sort of take

00:38:21.020 for granted in the West because we don't, if you, it sort of goes back to what we were

00:38:25.280 talking about earlier, if you raise a generation believing that their oppression is inherent

00:38:33.780 to their life and, uh, only they, only by, by assembling and organizing and overthrowing

00:38:40.840 can they ever be truly free.

00:38:43.340 I think they, you just have this assumption that everywhere else in the world is like that

00:38:48.300 as well and believes the same thing as being taught the same thing when really it's only

00:38:53.580 here that that happens and it's only here that we, uh, what I believe, uh, start everyone

00:39:01.920 behind an eight ball believing, uh, having such a negative, uh, uh, I'm sort of rambling

00:39:08.120 now, but having such a negative view of themselves, the rest of the world doesn't do that. They

00:39:11.200 aren't as introspective as we are about these issues and they take very different things for

00:39:16.260 granted there than we do here.

00:39:18.800 Yeah. And one thing worth noting is, um, some of the distinctions and like you've got

00:39:24.480 Palestine and then you have Hamas, which is the, the elected, um, the elected government 0.82

00:39:35.160 to the Gaza Strip, if I have that correct.

00:39:37.540 I believe who has a certain amount of support from the people there. So just because there

00:39:43.720 are some laws there does not mean the laws exist in a vacuum. They are somewhat representative

00:39:49.540 of the people who live there. That's right. Um, so maybe, I, I guess with the, the gays 1.00

00:40:01.720 for Gaza or the queers for Palestine, um, it's worth, it's worth noting a couple of things 1.00

00:40:12.360 of like, well, queer, queerness as a political identity, it's not a, it's a rejection of heteronormativity

00:40:24.640 and the default assumption that people are kind of designed by nature to be heterosexual. Uh,

00:40:32.300 regardless of the, if you look at any other mammalian species that fall predominantly into

00:40:40.760 heterosexual kind of mating patterns, mostly because that's the best strategy of reproducing 0.99

00:40:47.420 any other strategies, a little less effective. And if animals take up those strategies, they

00:40:53.220 don't, uh, last as long as a species. So queerness challenges this idea of that being the default,

00:41:01.360 um, which it's different than just homosexuality or gayness being just same sex attracted. Queerness

00:41:10.440 is a, it's a statement on the normative nature of the world. So in this case, I believe they

00:41:23.080 are protesting mostly to try to further that, um, further liberate people from the heteronormative

00:41:33.820 pressures in that area. The only problem is that area does not, they don't want, like they don't

00:41:43.780 have the same sentiment. They don't want, that is not something from which they desire to be liberated.

00:41:48.760 Yeah. So maybe let's, let me show you a great little resource. Uh, so we've got a LGBT equality index

00:42:01.460 and it ranks, why does this equality index specifically hate plus people? Yeah. We're

00:42:11.540 missing a lot of letters on this index and A's and some eyes that are missing. I guess that begs the

00:42:18.180 question of how, how often do you have to update your, your acronyms to be current with this? So, um,

00:42:26.000 um, on here, you've got legal rights and kind of public perception, which is the, how friendly

00:42:33.280 they are. They have the TQ plus down there. They don't have the TQ up there, but, uh, that's beside

00:42:39.520 the point. Uh, so let's, let's look at some of the top regions, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Canada's fifth

00:42:48.840 doing pretty good here. Um, all the countries is very high. Holy. Yeah. It's maybe that's worth

00:42:56.480 exploring further. Um, maybe they just American countries. Yeah. It's, uh, if they have certain

00:43:03.400 public support and enough laws protections, I guess these are the metrics. Um, have you seen

00:43:09.440 Palestine, Palestine, Palestine, Palestine, where's Israel is somewhere? Um, let's find

00:43:18.640 Israel. Let's do a quick little search. 45. Okay. Above Thailand and below, uh, Suriname. All 0.63

00:43:27.560 right. And we'll do a quick search for 190th is Palestine. Okay. So maybe some work to be

00:43:38.140 done just above Qatar. That's something that's the, you know, I don't know if you remember

00:43:43.140 Qatar from the previous, uh, world cup last year, the, the, uh, all the companies that were

00:43:50.600 friendly to LGBTQ community supported soccer in a place that isn't as supportive. So I guess

00:44:00.640 no screening for, for that. Uh, so yeah, basically, thank God there are no gay soccer players. 1.00

00:44:07.080 We know that for a fact, cause they wouldn't have been able to play.

00:44:12.340 So if you look at the rights in Palestine, um, gay marriage is unrecognized, unrecognized, 0.99

00:44:19.080 um, really don't have any legal protections for housing or discrimination. Um, donated blood

00:44:29.080 still banned, you, it's, uh, uh, conversion therapy, not banned. Yeah. So these are all

00:44:38.180 things that like these kinds of issues, other countries have had these for many, many years

00:44:43.380 and they're maybe a little bit behind. Uh, I believe some of the public opinions, some

00:44:48.280 of these polls come from a wider area, but it may still reflect some of the sentiment and

00:44:53.620 the people there. Um, but perceptions of it being a good place for gay, lesbian people,

00:44:59.600 like, I wonder how much that has changed over the years, but I imagine if that was 2013,

00:45:05.320 uh, that's only 10 years ago. So that's not even a one generation. So no, I don't imagine

00:45:12.980 that's, that's changed a whole lot. Um, and then, yeah, like not a lot of protections and

00:45:23.160 legally, it's not a place you want to be. If you're a queer person, we'll, we'll, we'll say 1.00

00:45:28.720 that, you know? Okay. So, well, why are people supporting a place that isn't supporting them?

00:45:36.340 Are they advocating for the increase of rights or is the discussion not about that? Like,

00:45:40.780 have we heard any, any mentions about that? Like, why aren't they kind of, uh, holding

00:45:47.160 up Israel as a example of better treatment of gay people? Or what about, there's no applauding 0.89

00:45:57.900 the fact that many Palestinians go to Israel for abortions, right? These things that these

00:46:04.700 are huge issues on the left and they're suddenly there's no spotlight on this as

00:46:10.700 people go to their, to their sides. That's right. Well, I'll, uh, I'll contribute something

00:46:17.400 James to this podcast. And I have a, uh, I have a video queued up of, uh, perhaps, uh,

00:46:23.260 I don't know. Can we say maybe the, uh, most, uh, I don't want to say notorious, maybe the

00:46:30.220 most outspoken, maybe the most, uh, well-known of the modern day gay conservatives in Mr. Douglas

00:46:39.300 Murray. Yeah. And, uh, let's, uh, let's take this quick clip here. I'm not going to play

00:46:44.440 all of it, but we'll just start from the top for, uh, Douglas Murray on the modern wisdom

00:46:49.600 podcast.

00:46:51.400 There's something, there's something haunting about this. I find because it's, uh, especially

00:46:56.460 haunting because it sort of demonstrates that your slogans and your attitudes only go so far

00:47:04.240 and they can't keep out some of the things that are lurking at the edges.

00:47:10.380 And I think that when I hear people whining about minor things, if you have any idea of the world out

00:47:18.300 there, if you had any idea of the things that was lurking, you couldn't possibly be complaining

00:47:24.240 about this. Well, how do you think gays for Gaza will get on long-term?

00:47:28.460 Um, well, the joke at the moment is that there aren't enough tall buildings in Gaza to throw

00:47:33.120 gays for Gaza off, but these, I mean, these people are, you know, I've said very often they're, 1.00

00:47:41.380 they're part of the same phenomenon as turkeys for Christmas and chickens for KFC. I mean, 0.71

00:47:46.800 I just, I'm fed up with these fringe idiot cases. I mean, they're so mentally defective, 1.00

00:47:53.360 these people, uh, and, and incredibly narcissistic, you know, I can be queer and also celebrate 1.00

00:48:01.380 Palestine. No, you fucking can't fuck off. Just, you know, I can both argue for two state solution 1.00

00:48:09.560 and also celebrate queerness and also not let myself down. No, you can't. No, you can't. You

00:48:15.380 can't do all those things. At some point you've got to choose.

00:48:17.120 At this point, Douglas is pretty frustrated, especially the fact that he's kind of been

00:48:22.420 excommunicated by the like community. Despite being gay, he's also a white male, which kind

00:48:31.300 of offsets any privilege he gains being a gay man. I think it cancels itself out, I believe. 0.74

00:48:36.220 Yeah. Yeah. And the fact, actually, well, the fact that he's a white conservative gay, actually

00:48:42.580 he's now, he has no oppression protection at all. I don't, I don't believe I, and we're

00:48:47.960 joking about this, but I think it's actually true. Like, I don't think that unless you're

00:48:52.960 a, um, I mean, there's, I probably can only think of like Dave Rubin off the top of my head

00:48:58.700 in other prominent, like gay conservatives. Um, I feel silly for not knowing more. Cause

00:49:05.800 Oh, um, uh, he's not a conservative, but Glenn Greenwald is often lumped in with conservatives.

00:49:11.680 Uh, another person who spent most of his career, a political, like not being not apolitical,

00:49:19.940 but not being associated one way or another with any given wing, uh, just reporting on

00:49:26.000 news, whoever happens to do it, being known as a, as an anti-war reporter more than anything

00:49:31.700 else. But if you criticize the wrong side for the same things, you get lumped in with the

00:49:37.500 opposite side. So, I mean, it's, uh, it's sort of a, uh, we're going beyond our show notes

00:49:44.240 here, James, but this is a, this is an interesting, um, phenomenon that we're seeing where you, it

00:49:50.540 sort of relates to for being a queer for Palestine, where it doesn't particularly matter what the

00:49:56.120 nuance of your views or the nuance of your, uh, uh, demographic is. If you believe the wrong

00:50:02.880 thing in the moment, you're done. Yeah. And what, what ends up happening is you've got

00:50:10.320 certain shows that are a little bit left-leaning or media that is left-leaning. And when you have

00:50:16.800 an opinion that does not fit with kind of their idea of acceptable discourse, what they do is they

00:50:24.560 stop inviting certain commenters to things. And these may be left-leaning commenters. And then

00:50:33.280 when you have other media outlets on the right, or you have podcasts, or you have people wanting to

00:50:38.960 have conversations and we'll have conversations with anybody, it doesn't matter what side of this

00:50:44.320 political discourse you're on. What ends up happening is these alt-right, uh, podcasts,

00:50:50.720 these alt-right media will invite these people to have conversations and just cause they're curious.

00:50:56.400 And now the left wing media will look at that and say, well, I, we can't invite this person back

00:51:03.760 because they are now on these right wing shows and therefore they are a right winger. And that's how

00:51:12.720 they do this. They just push people out like, and just by not, and you can see, you'd be curious,

00:51:20.720 maybe we do an episode and we show the cases of people who have been slowly excommunicated from,

00:51:27.200 who like appeared a lot on mainstream media and were not allowed on after a certain point or not invited

00:51:33.440 back. Well, I can think of two examples right now, uh, uh, Matt Taibbi and Michael Schellenberger.

00:51:40.240 I mean, two guys who both left to center. Oh, for sure. I mean, Schellenberger made his entire

00:51:48.080 career reporting on, uh, as a, as an environmentalist reporting on and writing about renewable energy

00:51:54.240 and the homelessness crisis in California, like a very self-described progressive liberal man who now

00:52:03.840 he made the mistake of being associated with Elon Musk, another noted, former self-described

00:52:12.000 Democrat, like he used to be a shining star of the left. Like Musk was, uh, held up and he was

00:52:20.800 mentioned, he was interviewed a lot. And now he's described as white right wing, regardless of they

00:52:28.000 actually, uh, this label gets thrown around regardless of any like due diligence of actually

00:52:34.400 checking if people, if their views have shifted. That's right. It's just a slur that's used.

00:52:40.880 How big of a shift, sorry to interrupt, how, how big of a shift, uh, speaking of podcasts did,

00:52:45.520 has Joe Rogan taken in the last two, three years? Joe Rogan, the, has always been a self-described

00:52:52.720 liberal person, uh, supportive of the welfare state of, uh, uh, a Bernie bro. He was one of

00:53:00.080 the original Bernie bros, right? Uh, this is a guy who talks regularly about being, uh, growing up on

00:53:06.800 food stamps and the importance of social programs and how, uh, Obama is his favorite president. The

00:53:13.280 most he views is the most presidential president we've ever had. Like literally nothing about this guy

00:53:19.680 is conservative in his, in his life. Other than, I don't know, people associate. Now I was, I was

00:53:26.160 watching a, an X Twitter X video the other day about how people associate, uh, uh, health and

00:53:33.760 fitness with the right wing now. So I don't know, I guess if you're really interested in working out

00:53:38.800 and, and weights, then you're following some conspiracy theories as well. So conspiracy theories about,

00:53:45.280 uh, about, uh, body mass index. Yeah. So I don't know, man, it's, it's kind of sad to see the,

00:53:54.640 this, the Overton window, the acceptable discourse be narrowed and narrowed. And this is where like,

00:54:03.200 I guess that's been the most interesting and also kind of frustrating and kind of draining this last

00:54:08.800 month is seeing we we've lost nuance along the way. And the Palestine Israel conflict has,

00:54:22.160 it has people divided again. And what I'm worried every time people are divided, I'm worried about

00:54:27.520 some of these bigger issues. It's like people are so focused on these things and we're not seeing

00:54:33.200 kind of creeping authoritarian and policies. We're not seeing digital IDs or these health passes or

00:54:40.880 these things that erode away at the individual sovereignty of countries and the sovereignty of

00:54:47.280 citizens within those countries. And people are so focused on these other things and like, well,

00:54:52.320 that's, this is important, but there's still some of these bigger issues out on there. And we're so

00:54:58.080 distracted at the moment. Yeah, it's a very, uh, it's a very old, uh, authoritarian technique,

00:55:06.400 uh, political technique where, um, a divided population is much easier to control. That's,

00:55:14.480 that's just history teaches us that over and over again. So yeah, like when to kind of refer to what

00:55:21.200 we were talking about earlier, uh, there was a, there was a brief moment a couple months ago where you saw,

00:55:26.960 um, people of all faiths uniting behind a cause, uh, uh, regarding children. And it was very nice.

00:55:34.960 It was lovely to see that where you could have, uh, two people, uh, protesting against the same thing,

00:55:43.360 uh, who you would, if you, if you were a person who subscribed to certain stereotypes,

00:55:48.400 you'd point them out individually and say that person probably hates that person, but they didn't.

00:55:53.360 And they were actually very much in agreement with, with each other on a very important issue

00:55:57.920 regarding a very important, uh, subset of the population and then a very vulnerable population.

00:56:07.520 And now that's all gone. Uh, any, any of that goodwill that was built up over those few weeks

00:56:14.080 seems to have completely gone away from what I can see.

00:56:16.640 Yeah. It's, uh, people have kind of forgot about that, that the momentum that you had there,

00:56:23.360 that unification that kind of got sussed out. Um, it's also kind of a situation right now that

00:56:31.840 both Israel and Palestine can justify violence against each other internally. That's all they need is 0.98

00:56:41.520 internal support from their citizens and their reasons. They have to believe in their reasons,

00:56:46.400 but they can both justify violence. And it's hard to say, like, you may have an outcome where

00:56:58.000 every atrocity done on either side fuels further advancements. And then, well, like it's going to

00:57:05.200 entrench the hatred over time and each side will point to an atrocity. And then I guess if the belief

00:57:17.200 structure is, well, we, we cannot compromise and, or if over time, like if people say, no,

00:57:26.640 we cannot have a two state solution. There's no way for peace. Then both sides are going to go

00:57:33.040 balls to the wall. And then if one side has more might, then you're going to see, uh, some civilians

00:57:39.760 being caught in the crossfire and that's going to fuel more hatred from the groups affected by that.

00:57:46.400 So it's not a deal that we've seen. No. And, and it's what, it's what they've have been doing

00:57:52.960 since the forties and the fifties. Uh, it, and also 2000 years before that. So you have a, uh,

00:58:03.840 you mentioned it earlier. I mean, you have two groups of people, both with legitimate claims to a piece

00:58:11.040 of land, but, but, but it's more than that. It's like, it's a divine claim to the, excuse me,

00:58:18.320 to the, to the land. So it's not, it's not as if it's a, um, it's not as if you can point to a period

00:58:24.080 of time and say, well, no, you see on this date and this period of history, this sale was completed,

00:58:30.240 which transferred this piece of like, you can't do that because both sides believe that their

00:58:35.760 individual God ordained them to live on that land. What do you do with that? What do you do with that

00:58:42.400 in a, in an era where, uh, things are negotiated with contracts and money? Like you, there, there is no

00:58:50.240 way to settle this in there. There is no way to settle a divine score, uh, with it. Well, as we can see

00:59:00.080 with any sort of politics or negotiations or even treaties, which have been signed and rejected and,

00:59:06.640 and re-signed and rewritten and, and no one can seem to agree on it because you do have a situation

00:59:14.560 where, um, listen, I'll, I'll give a, just a very quick backstory here just to, to take us home here.

00:59:21.600 But, um, coming from an, uh, an Arab family, a Lebanese family, I was just raised with the,

00:59:29.040 we didn't talk about it too much, but when the topic did come up, it was just presumed that,

00:59:34.080 well, of course, you know, the, the Palestinians, that's their land. They're being occupied by Israel

00:59:39.020 and the Zionists are, uh, bulldozing their homes and stealing their land. We were, my family at least 0.99

00:59:47.380 did not go as far as to, you know, just blame Jews in general, but more of the Zionist movement.

00:59:54.900 Uh, so that's sort of what I grew up just assuming to be the case, but the more I've thought about it,

01:00:03.000 uh, the more, while I still recognize that, of course, you, it would be horrible to live in a 0.97

01:00:08.640 world where you are not sure if the land that you're living on is, is going to be settled by

01:00:14.080 somebody who you view as a mortal enemy at any given time. Of course. Uh, I didn't know prior to

01:00:20.400 this conflict that Gaza actually hadn't been occupied since 2005. I didn't know that I hadn't

01:00:28.440 considered, uh, the, I mean, everyone knows the, that Israel is very heavily supported militarily by

01:00:35.860 the U S and by other Western nations. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe they are a

01:00:40.640 nuclear power. So yeah, there's, there's a mismatch between the military strength of

01:00:45.620 Gaza and the IDF right now. That's right. And so, you know, when you talk about somebody bringing

01:00:52.400 a gun to a knife fight or a knife to a gun fight, uh, well, in this case, it's, it's bringing like

01:00:58.780 homemade pipe bombs to a nuke fight. So there's, you have a situation where we have people in Canada

01:01:06.540 who vaguely associated, however they are with, uh, the, the protests saying that we need to stop

01:01:14.800 the Palestinian genocide. Well, how does that work though? When one country for at least 0.94

01:01:21.560 the last 40 years, 30 years, maybe has, if they wanted to at any given moment, they could actually

01:01:30.360 genocide all Palestinians. They could overnight, they could, but they don't. And then you have 1.00

01:01:38.100 the, the military government of Gaza in their written constitution, their stated goal. One of

01:01:50.340 their stated goals is to literally hunt down and kill every Jew on the planet. I don't know how you 1.00

01:01:58.220 square those like who, who would perpetuate the genocide if they could and who has the ability

01:02:04.220 to, and isn't to me that, that pretty much settles who, if you had to pick a side, if you had to pick

01:02:11.380 a good guy and a bad guy, that seems pretty cut and dry to me. Yeah. It's you, you look at their

01:02:19.260 tax, you look at their laws, you look at what they explicitly state. And there is a, there is a

01:02:25.760 difference there. Um, my worry with this, my prediction is that further conflict happens,

01:02:33.060 the Gaza gets kind of swallowed up by Israel and they will like conflict happens and you got to

01:02:41.340 bring peace. The world stage says like, well, you got to bring peace to this somehow, but they're

01:02:47.280 like, well, Israel, maybe we, we let them occupy that. And maybe you get more resentment and you

01:02:55.960 get further conflicts down the road as you get other countries been like, well, we didn't like

01:02:59.920 how you treated like, it's just a cycle that goes on. So whatever small win or loss like may happen

01:03:06.880 right now, people's lives are at stake, but at the same time you've got a greater, these greater

01:03:13.660 feuds being fueled, being fueled. Yeah. And, and with, with no real winner and with, uh, uh, at every

01:03:21.680 step of the situation that you describe more and more innocent lives get lost. Yeah. Just by, by

01:03:29.160 necessity. The, the, none of that can happen without that as a by-product. Yeah. And you still run

01:03:39.920 of the issue of, uh, conversations on like, well, there's colonization happening right now,

01:03:45.060 but that, that language is used in these cases. But when there is hordes of migration happening to

01:03:51.840 countries, well, look at Sweden, who's had, you look at the average Swede and tell me their demographic

01:03:58.920 and they've had an open borders policy, almost like a huge open border policy, uh, fairly unrestricted.

01:04:08.240 And those are still considered migrants in that way. And are all those people adopting their,

01:04:15.120 um, are they adopting all the ideals and the values in Sweden or are they like, uh, what rate

01:04:24.760 of, what rate of migration using that term is sustainable? How much, um, anytime you've

01:04:32.680 got like, we, we, we, we had this idea of this rosy multicolored multicultural kind of utopian

01:04:41.800 idea of the world, but you still run into issues where you have, you have people and there's either

01:04:48.720 language barrier, culture barrier, and value like differences of values and beliefs and values and

01:04:54.220 beliefs will inform actions. You will get at odds with people as well. So my bigger worry around this

01:05:02.300 is that conflicts like this ignite local conflicts. And I'm really hoping that conversations can have,

01:05:13.140 can be having, like we, we can at home in our Western countries, people can still have open dialogues.

01:05:21.420 Cause when you start to tribalize and Canada is a mixing pot and what happens when you get 0.87

01:05:27.540 different tribes of people with different divine ideas going at each other's throats for perceived

01:05:33.660 harm in other places, a, your perfect utopian society, your melting pot could turn into a mess.

01:05:43.100 If not, if we lose these ideas of open dialogue, trying to empathize and understand each other's

01:05:49.720 positions, like that's, that's our saving grace is how do we communicate with each other?

01:05:56.220 So, uh, we, we need that. We're gonna, yeah.

01:06:00.120 The melting pot, if you will, could boil over.

01:06:04.580 Literally boil over.

01:06:05.980 Yes.

01:06:07.180 That's a great analogy. Yeah.

01:06:09.080 And I think that's a good place to end. What do you think?

01:06:11.860 I think, I think that's a, a good place to end as well. We've covered a few things.

01:06:15.940 We'll link these in the show notes and I'm excited to dive in again, uh, for another episode.

01:06:23.820 Oh yeah. And I'm sure lots of topics that we touched on here will come up again. So

01:06:28.640 thank you very much, sir. Uh, great chat and, uh, and thanks for listening, everyone. We will, uh,

01:06:34.320 we'll have links and, uh, and videos for you to watch, to further your, uh, to further guide you as

01:06:41.300 we do on the critical compass to primary and secondary sources outside of just two bums in

01:06:47.860 their home recording studio. So thanks so much. And we'll see you again. Take care.

01:06:53.340 Bye.

The Critical Compass Podcast - December 07, 2023

Gaza in the Western Political Landscape ｜ A Critical Compass Discussion

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