[BONUS] Overton Windows Episode 1: Israel and Palestine

[00:00:33] Welcome to a new podcast miniseries The Overton window I'm Tamler Sommers and I'm here with a hero of mine But one of the reasons I got into philosophy in the first place Robert Wright. Oh, it's so nice of you to say that

[00:00:49] Well, I'm flattered honored and humbled but I think we should begin this with a dispute now You said the name of the series is the Overton window. I thought we were gonna call it Overton windows

[00:00:58] We are yes, that was my mistake. So so I won the first round This is good. I like the way this is heading. Crossfire kind of style. Yeah, so that's the first episode folks

[00:01:09] Thanks for tuning in. Overton windows. That's way better. Also, so you may be hearing this on the non-zero podcast feed You may be hearing it on Tamler's Very Bad Wizards feed Going forward you will be able to get these

[00:01:24] Yeah paid subscription to the non-zero newsletter will get this for you The first first edition is like totally totally free and public in it and it's on to two feeds Yeah

[00:01:34] And for us it'll be on our the very bad wizards patreon very bad wizards for the Robert Wright listeners is a podcast That I do with David Pizarro, but so this Overton window thing. What is it? What is it? it's

[00:01:48] broadly speaking I guess you could say kind of the range of acceptable opinions and Confederences in the mainstream but strictly speaking it's confined to the realm of policy, right? That's where the the concept originates in in describing policy discourse

[00:02:07] The term was invented by someone named Joseph Overton who worked for I don't have the name in front of me but some kind of center-right think tank and He came up with this idea that whatever your political

[00:02:24] Movement that you want to start its viability is going to depend on whether it falls within this range of acceptable at the time Acceptable opinions anything outside of that will be considered too extreme Whether it's on the left whether it's on the right and the idea here is

[00:02:42] To examine how Overton windows get established and in particular This was an idea that I pitched to you a few months ago how they change over time What accounts for the change? What accounts for where the boundaries are set at any particular juncture how it can be weaponized?

[00:03:03] Maybe manipulated we're gonna take one Specific topic and sometimes it'll be political. Sometimes it could be academic. Sometimes it could be like UFOs I mean the possibilities are endless and we're gonna examine the Overton window as it is

[00:03:18] Now and then how it has changed over some specific period of time what attracts you to this kind of discussion well, I guess Having run up against the bounds of acceptable discourse in various. I mean even recently with the with the Ukraine war

[00:03:36] Is that our next one Ukraine could be could be God knows and As we will see as we discuss our respective histories with Israel related issues I have Run afoul of some of the speech police occasionally in that realm and also mean right now

[00:03:57] This is a big a big issue is kind of free speech. What can you say? What can't you say now? That's not the same as the Overton window question again strictly speaking the Overton window question is about policy

[00:04:10] Advocacy but as you and I have talked about this I've come to realize that almost all speech policing That I'm aware of that we talk about is kind of related to policies even if it's not

[00:04:25] Explicitly about that and and I think we're gonna see that this is the case with Israel as well Much of the speech that's policed isn't about policy per se But there are correlations between the way you describe like Israel and and what's going on there

[00:04:41] And what kinds of policies you would you would prefer? Yes, and I guess the the way this can get weaponized is That if you are outside the Overton window at any given point you can either be attacked like for example

[00:04:57] If you're outside on Israel you can be attacked as Anti-semitic on on one end or and I think this also is part of the dynamic You can be more or less

[00:05:10] ignored in the mainstream press and sometimes it's policed the Overton window the boundaries and sometimes it's not it just kind of naturally is there but you know, whatever the implications of that are

[00:05:25] Policy-wise we'll certainly talk about that too. But I think we're coming at it in a broader sense than Joseph Overton Might have intended one of the things that I am interested about with this I think it's a great example of some of the extra rational aspects of ethical

[00:05:42] debate and political debate the way this works is that things outside the Overton window just get excluded from Consideration and it's you're not excluding it because you've deliberated. It just already comes. It's like an assumed premise It's a prior

[00:05:58] The boundaries as to what could possibly count as a plausible position on whatever the topic is I just think it's really interesting that that can shift so Radically over long period of time short period of time So, I mean the biggest example of this is same-sex marriage

[00:06:16] Which was in the as early as the early 2000s just considered something that was pretty much out of the Overton window search certainly policy-wise and then just In ten years became the law of the land How that shifted is it's pretty interesting. That's something that was

[00:06:38] Considered even if you were kind of in favor of it in theory, it was considered well, okay, but we're not doing that You know, maybe we have civil unions or something like that and then ten years later and certainly where we are now

[00:06:50] It's almost like if you're opposed to it That's outside the Overton window and a good example of how outside the Overton window used to be is I was at the New Republic When Andrew Sullivan wrote for the New Republic Andrew was also there a cover story

[00:07:02] That's not widely recognized as a real milestone in in awareness of the issue kind of this was around 1990 give or take and it was the case for gay marriage or something on the cover. There was a

[00:07:16] Wedding cake with two what we would have called I don't know grooms on the top of the cake Mike Kinsley was so proud of that. He loved that cover. He was the editor and I thought

[00:07:28] Whoa, I never thought about that and you know, look I'm not the most sophisticated cosmopolitan guy in the world Maybe but I wasn't I you know I wasn't completely out of touch with things and I honestly had never considered the issue. Yeah, and and then suddenly

[00:07:43] It's in ten years within ten years. It's really in play and then in another 15 years game over It's been a 180 so that that was a fascinating case and it doesn't usually work like that the Overton window just Completely shifting so that

[00:08:00] What used to be like squarely in the middle or even to the left of the Overton window is now? Already like outside of it if you want to go back to the idea of civil unions right now, you're French at this point

[00:08:14] And you don't even see that you don't even see conservatives saying that much anymore. No, they're focused on trans issues Yeah, exactly, which is another interesting example again something that goes from not considered

[00:08:27] And we're even known about at all to something that is at the center of at least Debates in certain circles any other things to say about this idea as a whole? This was your idea. I just want to in case this is a complete and ignominious failure

[00:08:44] I would just like to get out there. This was your idea Yeah, I will take the fall for this but I couldn't do this on my own Even to have guests or so, which you know

[00:08:54] I don't do and I couldn't do it with David Pizarro because he's completely disconnected from politics for the most part And you are the person because I think first of all, you know about history and political history in a way that I just absolutely don't and then

[00:09:10] also, you're kind of always at the edges of the Overton window and sometimes you are on the other side of it and I've always Admired that about your political work. I guess even some of your other work like the not, you know

[00:09:22] Non zero at the time was at the edge of where you could be as a scientifically informed You know kind of secular public intellectual and so I thought you would be a perfect person to To try this with

[00:09:38] Yeah, you're somehow putting the pressure back on me so that I would so that if this is an ignominious failure Some of the blame will fall on me. That is that is the subtext of that right pretty much. Yeah

[00:09:50] Yeah, he's anti-semitic I'm not I can test some of your premises There are tons of people who know more about history and stuff than to me, but you have genuinely heterodox Opinions I have I do have genuinely heterodox opinions. That's true

[00:10:05] So let's talk about our I think the first topic That came to mind with this is Israel what we think of Israel Policy in general what we think of the funding that America gives to Israel what we think about

[00:10:22] Zionism as a whole what we think about the question of whether Israel is an apartheid state as amnesty International called them I think for the first time a couple years ago This seems like a really good example of a window that has shifted a lot since you know

[00:10:41] I was growing up but not without a struggle and not without a fight and This one has been a little bit of a push and pull Yeah, and it ain't over. You know what I discovered, you know, I discovered only today

[00:10:52] There's I don't know if you know about this is guy named James Cavallaro who had been nominated by the Biden administration to be a representative on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights And he was you know qualified he had been president of it before I think

[00:11:06] but they dug up some tweets where he described Israel as an apartheid state and Oh and also accused top Democrat in Congress of being quote bought By Israel lobby groups and that was it. They withdrew the nomination only a few months ago

[00:11:22] So it's still I think we agree. It's changed a lot And and it's a lot easier to For your career to survive you're calling Israel an apartheid state if you want to do that, but

[00:11:36] But it's you know, it's ongoing. I thought maybe it would be good to start off by just giving our kind of personal background with regard to this topic because they're

[00:11:47] Certainly both relevant to how we think about this issue now and how we think about it in relation to this concept Should I start? Sure. You've had a connection to Israel longer than I have or for more of your life

[00:11:58] That's true and in fact from the very beginning because That's where I was born although I moved here when I was six months old my dad was on sabbatical there and My mom was Israeli. I was an Israeli citizen for most of my life

[00:12:15] I'm 90% sure I gave it up about 10 to 15 years ago And not like the kind of thing you'd remember but I agree But it was for a boring reason it was like taxes and also they kind of hassled me when I would leave the country

[00:12:29] Either they wanted money or they wanted to know why I wasn't in the army in any case my wife Assures me that I have given it up, but I don't know for sure. I would say there's a 10% chance

[00:12:39] I'm still a citizen. Like I said, my mom was Israeli She was definitely on the left, but probably what you would call the Zionist left She died when I was 17

[00:12:50] So I honestly don't know like I would love to be have a talk with her about some of the more radical critiques but I don't remember anything more radical than just you know disliking the Likud party and You know being pro the Israeli Left my dad was American

[00:13:11] But very much an Israel hawk, especially as he got older and I'm glad he's not alive to hear what's to come I wasn't raised religiously in any sense in any like real sense But I have a slew of Orthodox Jewish relatives

[00:13:25] Many of whom have moved to Israel since none of them lived there when I was growing up but a lot of them have moved there and Hopefully if there's a God they won't hear this either I went to Hebrew school until I was like 14 or 15

[00:13:41] You know one of those conservative Hebrew schools got the normal Hebrew school Kool-Aid About Israel's founding and the subsequent wars and you know, like when I say Kool-Aid It's not to dismiss everything that I was taught but I got one side of it

[00:13:58] I got zero percent of what we learned presented the Palestinian perspective at all, right? I didn't know I learned what the word Nakba meant when I was in my 30s Which is what Palestinians called their displacement the 48 war was like David

[00:14:17] Versus five Goliaths. That's how I was taught who just couldn't abide the existence of an Israeli state The 67 war was heroic the Air Force and the Mossad were always given to me in like glowing terms and also in terms of like they changed how the world

[00:14:33] Saw Jews and I came across this quote from a Lyndon Johnson guy Who was like after 1967 said Israel at war Destroys the prototype of the pale scrawny Jew the soldiers I saw were tough muscular and sunburned and you know, like if you're a

[00:14:52] Scrawny Jew like I was 12 years old 14 years old and you're taught. Oh like you could be a badass Like that's how we learned it, you know And we didn't hear jack shit about like the occupation that followed the 67 war

[00:15:05] It was just look how awesome the Israeli Air Force is. I certainly You know, I didn't have an early connection to Israel. In fact, I would say Certainly through the age of like 11. I had almost no awareness of Israel or of the idea of Jewishness

[00:15:21] I mean my father was a an army officer. Both my parents were from rural, Texas We moved around a lot and and until sixth grade When I went to a public school in San Francisco, there's never a very sizable Jewish population

[00:15:36] I mean in retrospect, I knew some Jews. I just didn't know they were Jews when I went to college on the East Coast You know, I got I became just kind of more aware. I you know, I knew more Jews and then when I

[00:15:49] Went to the New Republic, which was let's see 80 1988 um You know, it became an issue that was really hard to miss because well first of all Ian weasel tear was there And he has a profound interest in these issues

[00:16:04] But also that the magazine was owned by Marty Parrots, you know, very committed and active Zionist and a lot of people would say of a conservative sort I think and when I Mike Kinsley who's the editor was gonna take a sabbatical for like seven or eight months and

[00:16:23] I was gonna be acting editor and this came quick. I had only been at the magazine a few months and Mike Chose me for that role and Marty I think felt that no one should ever be

[00:16:35] Even acting editor of the New Republic without having been to Israel, you know, so he sent me on this on this trip to Israel And he you know when Marty Parrots Sends you on a trip to Israel You will you will be plugged into some influential people. I

[00:16:54] Teddy collic who was the mayor of Jerusalem? Not only did I get facetime with him he came to the hotel to see me It's like the people the respect I got thereafter from the staff at the hotel was like unbelievable

[00:17:05] Once they saw that that Teddy collic was dropping by to have coffee with me I had a like an hour-long talk on a park bench with BB Netanyahu who at that point was just this up-and-coming member of the Knesset. I wasn't famous

[00:17:17] But anyway, notwithstanding how carefully Marty had set up my itinerary I think it didn't go entirely as you might have hoped in terms of The effect on my views and there are a couple of reasons for that

[00:17:30] One was that when my wife and I and Marty very generously Paid for her to accompany me When my wife and I were in a restaurant in Jerusalem, there was a Palestinian waiter who we started talking to and He started telling us about a situation

[00:17:48] He crossed every day from the West Bank to come here and work in Jerusalem and He said like one thing that would happen is that you know He'd get interrogated if the soldiers wanted to interrogate him they would and they were like about his age. He's like 18 19

[00:18:05] so were they that they had guns and he said they say things like Are you fucking Jewish girls and like they're holding guns while they say this, you know?

[00:18:14] and so first of all, I just thought this is not like a great situation when you've got two rival ethnicities and You give guns to one set of eight, you know, the 18 year old males on one side and you guys get to routinely interrogate

[00:18:28] And just kind of you know Have dominance over in a meaningful sense the ones on the other side I can imagine trouble arising but really what struck me more was how desperate he was to tell his story

[00:18:40] I mean, he didn't know I was a journalist or anything. He just knew we were Americans And it was like it was as if he so rarely had a chance to get his story out to the wider world

[00:18:51] And that kind of impressed me the most I think I wrote a piece for the New York Times like around 2010 or 11 that was called against pro-israel, but what I was complaining about was the way the term pro-israel Was just reserved for a certain kind of supporter of Israel

[00:19:11] Like if you're like at J Street these kind of relatively progressive people You were Israel. Yeah, and they supported two-state solution. It's not like they're you know, which is an affirmation of Zionism

[00:19:23] And that's that's the other thing I'll say so about myself and my own views as long as I thought a two-state solution was possible Which I no longer do I? supported a two-state solution and that's a kind of affirmation of Zionism because one of the states is

[00:19:35] Going to be a Zionist state now. I mean it is not my ideal form of government And neither is Islamism in my ideal world you would not have countries whose kinds of foundations are fundamentally informed

[00:19:49] by kind of the elevation of any given religion or I think whatever but it's it's a complicated world people have different governments and and that had never been a

[00:19:59] I'd never considered myself an anti-zionist meaning what exactly in your mind because I know this can be a contentious term Yeah, well, I mean I know that as a practical matter it involves certain kinds of preferences

[00:20:13] I mean from the beginning it has like you can't become a citizen of Israel If you're not Jewish unless you convert to Judaism and even there I think it has to be Orthodox Judaism, right? So that's an that's an example of the an implication

[00:20:27] Another one. I wasn't totally aware of I had Daniel Levy who was in the past Been a negotiator on the Israeli side on my podcast recently and he explained to me that within Israel proper you can be an Arab who is an Israeli citizen and

[00:20:42] Under certain circumstances, which I think are pretty narrow and I don't understand exactly what they are But you can go say I'm gonna live here. I want to buy this house and they can legally say sorry You're not Jewish. There are certain kinds of circumstances in which that

[00:20:58] still happens so Those are two things I'd say about The practical implications of Zionism in Israel proper now the whole West Bank issue is a whole nother thing. We can we can get to

[00:21:11] Right, and I would say I think most people who who in observing the situation start to think about apartheid Start off by thinking about the West Bank

[00:21:19] Even though some of the people now are saying the Israel state itself within the state. It's an apartheid state original borders. Yeah Though that's a good thing to separate I do think Zionism as a as an idea

[00:21:33] You know, this was definitely something that I always was taught was Obviously a good thing, you know in light of the Holocaust in light of you know centuries of persecutions of Jews

[00:21:44] You know to have this kind of Jewish state where Jews could go and they would be safe is a good idea And I think like you I question whether you know This idea of religion and the state should be connected at all

[00:21:58] I it's in the abstract certainly growing up and into my early adulthood never had any problems with it It does start to get pressure on it when you look at the details like when you look at people who can't buy houses or

[00:22:11] Somebody who marries a non-jewish citizen Arab citizen and they don't automatically become Citizens, you know in contrast to what would happen if the person was Jewish like it's these little details

[00:22:23] I think that kind of matter whether you call yourself pro or anti-zionist, but this is the thing like when I grew up Yeah You could question

[00:22:31] The settlements and the settlers and they seemed like violent freaks and Israel wasn't doing enough to reign them in but they didn't represent Israel as a whole, you know, so I didn't like Likud like my mom

[00:22:43] I didn't like Netanyahu, but there was no questioning on my part of like Israel's right to exist No comparison to apartheid that I thought wasn't just like

[00:22:54] Obviously anti-semitic and I traveled back to Israel a bunch in the 90s and 2000s. I still had family there for a while and And I think the only thing that raised

[00:23:05] My eyebrows at all is when like secular Israelis would say to me like you're Jewish. How come you don't live in Israel? and I'd be like well, cuz I live in

[00:23:16] The United States like I go to school there. What do you mean? And they're like you should live here You're a Jew and I'd be like, well I don't know if I have to live somewhere just because I'm Jewish and I was just puzzled by it

[00:23:28] Like I didn't connect it to any kind of nationalist impulse or anything like that, but that was a running thread the other thing that I remember Getting creeped out by I attended a fucking APEC

[00:23:43] Event in my late 20s and the final speaker was Netanyahu who was prime minister at the time And I was very turned off by the whole thing start to finish, you know, which is normal for me

[00:23:53] I'm not somebody who who likes to be in crowds of like-minded people But I really got the willies at this all the people who were there like doing like Jews raised the roof You know, and then I remember to this day his closing statement Netanyahu

[00:24:07] he said I have to go catch a plane mine and Just marched offstage and everyone's wildly cheering and I'm like, what the fuck does that even mean? You know, like what does that mean? Like yeah, you're prime minister

[00:24:20] Of course you have a plane but then everybody there is just in rapture But overall look my Overton window was basically the one I saw in the mainstream media publications You could be critical of Israel and the Israeli right but like to go into the deeper questions about

[00:24:36] What actually happened to Palestinians in 1948 or anything like the BDS boycott divestment sanctions or the apartheid comparison I just accepted what was out there that that was driven by Anti-semitic motives and it's an obvious double standard that wouldn't be applied to other countries, you know

[00:24:54] Which we could talk about just to conclude like I'd love to say I saw the light a little earlier than I did But I just didn't what finally did it for you? Like I think my

[00:25:03] Overton window shifted along the lines of the country like it took the shift in the Overton window for me to actually start Confronting issues that have been there my whole life But because I didn't have it in me

[00:25:19] I guess to really go exploring outside this range of what was being presented to me in publications that I otherwise trusted like it took that to change my views on this in a pretty radical way and

[00:25:35] Like that's really important. I think this is an issue where I have I wouldn't say done a 180 but I've Really shifted very far to the left over the last 10-15 years like well into my adulthood

[00:25:48] I didn't have the view that I have right now and it's purely because I would say of this shift and so it can be really important just in terms at the individual level and also at the more collective level of just Shaping opinions just by getting

[00:26:03] Certain positions an open hearing. Yeah, so when this person said you what was it? Like if you're Jewish, why aren't you living in Israel or something? Yeah, like a lot of people would say that well, I think that's that's central to the whole thing. We're addressing today

[00:26:18] is like the relationship well like relationship between being Jewish and being a Zionist the relationship between Criticizing Israel and criticizing Jews and You know, you kind of get this on both sides You know, it's funny

[00:26:34] I was listening to the Katie Halper a podcast after you brought her experience to my attention and she said something like what was it? Other there there are two kinds of people who equate Zionist with Jews

[00:26:45] Zionists and I doubt she meant all Zionists, but she said Zionists and anti-semites and so say Barry Weiss She says this explicitly if you criticize Zionism you you are an anti-semite You are in effect criticize you're a critical of Jews broadly. You don't like Jews broadly

[00:27:04] You're driven by anti-semitic motives, but she is at the same time complaining when other people Do that right like on the other side the hypocrisy of Barry Weiss On It's almost too like obvious to talk about yeah, of course she's Jesus she's a free speech crusader

[00:27:24] she doesn't want people to be stigmatized for speech unless they Criticize Israel in which case they should be called anti-semites. So yeah, it's a It's a complicated issue what do you take the Overton window to be?

[00:27:39] Now and then we can maybe talk about how that's changed. Yeah since the 80s and 90s well, I would say the apartheid example is interesting because You know Jimmy Carter wrote a book called in 2006 called Palestine peace not apartheid and he was

[00:28:01] criticized as I mean either implicitly or explicitly by some very prominent people as Being anti-semitic within I think two or three years. He issued a kind of apology Now he emphasized he wasn't talking about Israel proper he was talking about

[00:28:17] The West Bank and even there I think he was kind of more saying you're headed in this direction I'm not sure but he certainly wasn't saying that Israel within You know within the recognized borders is an apartheid state

[00:28:28] But he got sufficient blowback that I think you can say that that was successful policing I didn't hear many people using the term apartheid Thereafter I hadn't heard that many before now

[00:28:43] On the one hand as I said, there's still people who pay a price for doing it this guy I mentioned Caballero But anyway on the other hand that aside the fact that you can still pay a price for using that term as you said

[00:28:55] I think you said amnesty international, but I also think human rights watch and I think what is it bet? There's an Israeli human rights group. I think all three are now saying that that that Israel itself Israel proper is an apartheid state as well as

[00:29:10] By Israel itself you mean former borders original borders Israel Yeah, I mean, I think that they say if you've got some kind of two-state solution But everything stayed the same within the Israel part that they would still consider that an apartheid state

[00:29:25] So, you know the borders have certainly moved. I mean and look you have Peter Beiner in the New York Times I don't know what his exact position on apartheid is, but he's certainly defending people who? Who characterize

[00:29:40] Israeli policy that way so that's been change. Yeah, I mean there's still smear campaigns like in the last month We've seen a bunch of Roger Waters attacks for just simply Supporting BDS. I mean, that's all it is and he's obviously been very pro-palestinian

[00:29:58] He is I will say he is not the most diplomatic in his language. I Mean other context he's just like he's just kind of asking for trouble, but I think you're right that I mean

[00:30:08] The latest uproar was about the fact that he allegedly was parading around in a Nazi uniform Well, first of all, it wasn't really not the uniform

[00:30:15] But the second thing is I gather for the wall doing it for four decades or when did when did the one the album? well, it is meant to Represent generic authoritarianism which the wall is manifestly opposed to that's what the wall, you know

[00:30:28] Yeah, so that's kind of it seems like people who were saying to do that in this You know in the same country of Anne Frank is an insult to her memory It's like he's doing the fucking wall. Like that is like have you like seen the video?

[00:30:42] Have you seen the movie? Have you seen like this is what that album is about? And yes, he is he can be insufferable just like being interviewed about anything being interviewed about Pink Floyd

[00:30:52] But he is definitely someone who has been targeted, you know, there was the big Steven Salata Salata is that how you pronounce it affair at University of Illinois? He got off he got tenure and then they withdrew it for his pro-palestinian

[00:31:10] stances and actually like really they you know, he settled out of court with them because it's illegal what they did but had to leave academia, but There were so many people in mainstream outlets

[00:31:23] Objecting to this even if it happens and even if it happens, you know with Ilhan Omar which it did I feel like she was unfairly attacked on every side same with to leave It would you know by with Ilhan Omar

[00:31:37] It was about like saying that the Israel lobby has somewhat outsized influence on Congress, which is just obviously true You know, she was accused of anti-semitism Anti-semitism and anti-semitic tropes the phrase was it's all about the Benjamins all about the Benjamin describing

[00:31:54] I guess why some congressperson voted in favor Israel and you know, I mean a pack is a lobby You know You are if you describe pretty much any other lobby in the world or in the United States as using Money to influence politics is no big deal

[00:32:08] You can even use extravagant language like the senators bought and paid for by the NRA and so on But but the thing is that in this case you can argue that there is this anti-semitic trope thing because there is this old

[00:32:21] Anti-semitic trope, you know, as you know, you know Jews behind the scenes controlling everything pulling all the strings Still it seems like you should be able to argue the lobby is doing lobbying, you know And this is that umbrella that they try to

[00:32:35] Use to shield against legitimate critiques of both Israel policy and how much money and how you know in our support for Israel the United States it just seems like Right now that's wearing a little bit thin you also find much more open critiques of

[00:32:55] Israel and the apartheid is a really good example of this where now they will say that and debate it in The Washington Post or the Times You'll still have your Bret Stephens saying, you know, no, it's obviously not apartheid

[00:33:09] For suggesting it but before you just didn't see it and if somebody did bring it up They were dismissed. I feel like that's the biggest like if you have to take a single example

[00:33:20] It's that that's in play now in a way that it wasn't before and that's really important And I think one thing people don't understand is like the ADL and AIPAC and things like the Simon Wiesenthal Center are You know There's a there's institutionalized policing

[00:33:38] Of the debate and they play an active role. Yeah, do you think Because I think you were critical of Israel more than most earlier than most Do you think you weren't maybe overtly?

[00:33:54] Censored in that you had a piece like Katie Halper that was ready to go and then they just cancel it and fire her It's not like that But rather there are certain opportunities that you didn't get because

[00:34:07] Of your views on Israel and maybe against the kind of American military Adventurism more broadly. Are you bitter? Do you feel like you've been ignored or excluded because of this in any way I Wouldn't say that. I mean, you just never know it's it right? I mean

[00:34:26] You know one could speculate about certain things but you just you just never know I mean, I don't really know how the III suspect the Atlantic wasn't in all respects delighted with my Contributions because for that one year I had it was a blog

[00:34:41] I didn't even run these things by you know bloggers just posted and came up with their own headlines Yeah, and I generated a few things that generated controversy about Israel But

[00:34:55] You never know. I was happy to see in the Atlantic which I associate with a very pro Israel Very pro Zionist perspective, but I was happy to see that James Fallows one of their writers wrote a piece defending

[00:35:10] Having Max Blumenthal at some event that he was hosting and you know Having him air his views after the Goliath book was published So that was that was nice and I thought maybe a little bit against type but even in the Atlantic these days

[00:35:26] You find some really harsh critiques I think you're I mean Jim Fallows kind of has tenure in a certain sense He can say who was Jeff Goldberg is very I was a pretty far-right pro Israel He's the editor in chief

[00:35:39] But it maybe it's a sign of things how things have changed that he's got to admit a certain amount of stuff that's critical of Israel into the you know, because as you say, it's it's

[00:35:49] It's moving so far, right? I mean this week there was I just glanced but it seems like there was The second of what you might call a pogrom in the West Bank with settlers

[00:36:01] Rampaging through a Palestinian village and and of course the settlers would point to the fact that there was Violence from you know, there's more and more an organized Armed Palestinian resistance

[00:36:16] For the first time this week in a law and years and years years Israel had to use helicopters to suppress Armed resistance in a Palestinian village So it's getting you know, it's getting worse and worse. But yeah, God knows it's moving to the right

[00:36:32] This government is just it's unbelievable and you know There were all these protests in Tel Aviv and what Israel as a whole about this Supreme Court You know that they were going to Strip away their independence, but

[00:36:47] You know, there's certainly of the perspective that these protests were in favor of keeping a status quo That these people who are now in charge are dangerously unhinged and we just want to go back to Doing like you know

[00:37:01] The normal oppression that that we've been doing for the last 30 or 40 years both in the West Bank and Gaza But then also Within Israel and like kicking people out of homes or making them mount some huge legal defense to keep them and when people say

[00:37:17] Israel is like apartheid. They just mean that you know, it's a very different experience being Jew who's an Israeli citizen and and a non Jew as an Israeli citizen and if you and that's if you live within the And that's if you live within the

[00:37:36] Borders if you live in the West Bank or Gaza then, you know Just going from one place to another is something that is actively policed. You're subjected to Humiliation daily humiliation, but like the story of you going to Israel when was that? That's

[00:37:55] That was actually during the first intifada, which was not violent the second and not really I mean stone-throwing But the but the second intifada was very nice. So this was in late 88 I think and and I went back and visited the West Bank in

[00:38:13] 2010 I think on a thing that was actually led by Matt Duss Michelle Goldberg was along on that trip and She's written about some of her experiences there in her New York Times column, but but it's in the West Bank

[00:38:25] We spent fair amount of time in the West Bank there. You really see like Whether or not you want to say that this is in some technical sense apartheid It's crazy to say that anybody who calls what's happening in the West Bank apartheid must be motivated by anti-semitism

[00:38:41] I mean, you know, it's like there's there's roads. You can't drive on unless you're Jewish. There's like in in Hebron You know, you're you're there and like there's a nice Right through the middle of the town to the tomb of the patriarchs from old Hebron where Palestinians live

[00:38:57] Nice paved road Jews can walk on and you're like how do the Palestinians move from place to place and they point up this hill It's like no, it's like you almost need mountain climbing gear not to mention the fact that you know

[00:39:08] Of course, the Palestinians can't vote but are ultimately governed by the Israeli government. These are the West Bank Palestinians Yeah, they don't have due process of law. Whereas, you know Settlers living 50 yards from or whatever get get all these things and this stuff though has been going on

[00:39:25] It's not just with this recent rightward tilt of Israeli politics This has been going on to some degree. It's probably almost certainly gotten worse but going on Long before we were worried about a guy who has Baruch Goldstein's photo on those office wall

[00:39:47] He's in the cabinet Ben Gavir and Baruch Goldstein, of course is the the The settler who massacred 20-something Palestinians at the tomb at the aforementioned tomb of the patriarchs Yeah where Abraham is said to be buried it's divided into two and on one side there's like a little

[00:40:03] where the Palestinians go there's like a mosque and he went into that mosque with a submachine gun and Yeah, no his by the way his grave always has fresh flowers on it I saw that when I went to Hebron but And and this guy you're right

[00:40:17] There's a there's a guy in a cabinet now till a couple years ago when he entered decided enter politics He had a portrait of Baruch Goldstein up in his living room on the wall Yeah, so the reason to say this is that yes, this is kind of in-your-face

[00:40:32] Obviously horrible somebody who would celebrate a person who massacred people praying in a mosque But then it's a separate question whether you're critical of what happened when Shimon Peres or you know Rabin or somebody in office

[00:40:49] Because that stuff is still going on during those periods too it's just it's more under the radar and You know certainly there's one perspective and I I'm not informed enough to really weigh in on this that all these

[00:41:04] Right-wing crazies are doing is lifting the mask which ironically then allows people to kind of see what was already going on there I don't know. What are your thoughts about that? That's certainly a perspective. I've come across I

[00:41:16] Think first of all, there's been more and more settlements. And so I do think 30 years ago there was more in the way of genuine hope on the part of People they call liberals Ionis in Israel that they could work out like a two-state solution

[00:41:34] There was more hope it just it just becomes less and less plausible That that can happen and like so what does that leave as as the options? You know, there's some kind of ideal

[00:41:50] one state solution that involves a some kind of federation with Palestinian autonomy, but I think I Don't think that's in the cards. I would mean giving the West Bank Palestinians about and aside from that. What is it? It's like

[00:42:04] Something that increasingly you just concede is apartheid at least as it applies in the West Bank or ethnic cleansing or what? So Yeah, right someone could say well why not just make everybody a citizen of this

[00:42:17] Big place called Israel and give them the right to vote give them the same rights that any current Israeli has But that's not on the table either It's not Israelis aren't gonna let it happen. Israeli Jews aren't gonna let it happen and you know, I will say

[00:42:35] Like I don't think they react to their situation any more irrationally than say Americans reacted to 9-11 I mean, right, you know The the second intifada was this horrible thing where pizza parlors were blowing up even if you kind of Don't consider armed resistance surprising in

[00:42:55] Given the circumstances in the West Bank the fact remains that if you're an Israeli and pizza parlors are blowing up You're gonna completely freak out and and say I'm never gonna trust these people. There's somebody I know in Israel as a fellow

[00:43:06] Academic, you know when I met him around 2000 mid-2000s. He was very much a liberal Zionist But liberal, you know very anti settlement all the settlements very worried about that both from the Palestinian perspective and from

[00:43:22] You know what? It was gonna be for Israel's future and I ran into him at a conference a couple few years ago And talked to him about this issue and it was you know, it was right around the time of I don't know some Gaza attack

[00:43:33] some really bad Event that actually got a lot of negative press in the States and I was saying so what are you thinking about all of this? He said I mean look we've tried to give them a country. We tried to give you know, and they keep

[00:43:48] Doing this intifada. They keep blowing things up. I was like, okay Well, I understand that but surely you're against the settlement expansion Yeah, no, and I'm like no wait what and he was he had become just hard-line and I get the sense that this is

[00:44:03] Happening in Israel and has you know exact opposite direction than what we've been talking about Where they have become much more hardened and much more willing to consider things that are so flatly Almost openly just in favor of anti-democratic and and maybe apartheid ish

[00:44:20] Kinds of means like you said like at a certain point Just like with 9-11 people are not gonna be worried about Human rights abuses that much anymore. Yeah, I mean, I I actually think the extent to which just to pick up on a tiny point of yours a

[00:44:37] True state has been offered to the Palestinians is exaggerated. Yes agreed But I would say that you know on both sides You know in a certain sense people are acting The way that's not shocking given what we know about human nature and how people act under circumstances

[00:44:50] I mean, I don't I don't buy into the view that Israelis are just You know monsters or or whatever even though I think it's I Think this I think the speech bounds have been bad for Israel Honestly, because I think if they had been subjected to

[00:45:07] More critical scrutiny, but I think if 30 40 years ago The bounds on speech hadn't been so effective Maybe there's a chance that we have seen more More heartfelt attempt to solve the problem. I don't know but

[00:45:26] Yeah, that's hard to know. What else do you think led to the shift? I mean, I think the the the the The The The The The removed from the Holocaust. They don't have the memory, and so Israel is not as emotional

[00:46:07] an issue for them. And it isn't just memory of the Holocaust. It's like increasingly they don't have a relative that they know well who had a direct connection to the Holocaust. That's possible. I think, as you alluded to smartphones, it's made it easier for Palestinians

[00:46:25] to get their story out. Now, the story may not go over all the channels they like, but it will circulate within certain social media channels. For example, when the Al Jazeera correspondent was killed, and I think initially Israel was saying, probably wasn't us. And

[00:46:44] eventually that became clear that she had been killed, intentionally or not, by a... Social media just, yeah. Like in a lot of topics, I think, where the Overton window changed. I think police violence and attitudes about police more broadly, that's another potential topic, by the

[00:47:00] way. Social media. I think, and this could be more me, but I think Bernie, the rise of Bernie in 2016, if you were as I was kind of attracted to other elements of Bernie's campaign, that side,

[00:47:17] now all of a sudden there were these other opinions that he had, and then the other people in the squad or whatever, are putting voice to. That now, and I'm already primed for this by 2016 or 2015

[00:47:30] or whenever I start becoming more excited about Bernie, but now I'm going to take some of this other stuff seriously as well in a way that I probably hadn't quite. And so I do think there's

[00:47:43] probably a lot of other people like me in that way. It's like you come to it just because there's a new kind of politics that's shifting Overton windows and all these other domains that you're

[00:47:53] already in favor of, and now it starts to... You start to take other views associated with those more seriously than you did before. Yeah. Yeah. I can see that. And his foreign policy

[00:48:05] advisor was Matt Duss, who I've mentioned a couple of times in this context. Not that I think Bernie needed guidance on the subject of Israel. And the BDS issue, we talked about the connection

[00:48:16] between speech and the kind of action. That's still a fight. There's a case that I think is ultimately headed for the Supreme Court about these state laws against... That say that if you...

[00:48:30] I live in one of these states. In one of the states. Well, yeah, there's a famous case. She was a, I think a speech therapist or something, who in order to do work for the University of Texas,

[00:48:41] they asked her to sign a thing saying she would never advocate a boycott of Israel. And this is... Lots of states have passed this kind of law that if you're going to be eligible

[00:48:51] for a government contract, you have to sign away your right to support a boycott. And that's working its way through the courts. And that's an example of how much firepower is going into the policing.

[00:49:04] Yeah. No. I mean, if you think about it, it's kind of mind boggling that that would be a law that we have to sign something saying we're not pro BDS, which has nothing to do with our country.

[00:49:17] It has only to do with Israel. Whatever you think about BDS, and we maybe could talk about that, that seems crazy. And it's such a good example of this kind of policing that happens. We've been

[00:49:31] more talking about it in terms of being ignored or censured or censored, excluded from the conversation, being deemed an anti-Semite or whatever. But then there's just these other ways that it can happen and that the window tries to get policed. But now, again, I would say

[00:49:50] that seems shakier right now. And BDS and whether or not to be pro BDS is more acceptable to at least talk about. I used to think, you know, not that everybody who supported BDS was an anti-Semite,

[00:50:04] but it is kind of funny that they're not calling for boycotting all these other countries where the human rights abuses are just as bad or way worse. And they focus on Israel. Like, why would you do

[00:50:16] that? You know, that's true. But I think there were a plot. I mean, there are all kinds of people who are focused on one issue. Right. Yeah. And you can say, but isn't this kind of like this other

[00:50:26] thing in somewhere else in the world? And you might say, yeah, but for whatever reason, you wound up focused on this. You and normally you don't get accused of being a bigot because you're focused

[00:50:40] on human rights in in India and not in China, if that's just your thing. Right. It's not that you're they don't say, are you anti-Indian? You know, that's your issue now. I don't doubt that

[00:50:52] there are some people who are focused on this because they're anti-Semitic. But I don't think the logic behind some kind of universal allegation like that holds up. And again, it was like you

[00:51:05] didn't even wait for that reply if you were making this kind of accusation that was meant to bring the debate to a close. But that's a perfectly plausible reply. Also, you could say, well,

[00:51:15] Israel is actually a country that we have influence on in a way that we don't have influence on India. And so this could actually be effective. You know, there's a couple of different replies that are in

[00:51:26] favor of it. But I was looking at like this definition of anti-Semitism that was adopted. It may have been changed, but in like 2016 or 17 and one of the aspects was criticizing Israeli policy in a way that you wouldn't criticize another country who was adopting the same kinds

[00:51:48] of policies you're critical of or objecting to. And, you know, I have to say, like, first of all, I don't even know exactly where I stand on BDS, but I definitely was probably guilty of at least

[00:51:59] suspecting people of singling out Israel in part out of in a way that just I really shouldn't have. But it did seem weird to me, like why Israel and why are we punishing other people who might just

[00:52:13] be equally critical of Israel? You know, like that held a lot more resonance with me then than it did now. But I don't know. Where do you stand on BDS? It's not like I've signed anything saying I'm boycotting Israel.

[00:52:23] I wouldn't do that. I haven't really taken any kind of big position except to say that I don't think you can infer anti-Semitism from support of BDS and it shouldn't be like illegal or prerequisite for getting a contract with the state government. I completely agree with that.

[00:52:39] I think if you ask, I mean, one thing people might say is, yeah, there are a lot of other human rights cases that are super bad in the world, some that are worse. But how many of those

[00:52:55] are in countries where A, the U.S. gives them a whole lot of money for their military and some of the weapons are used to enforce the policy you're opposed to? And B, how many of those

[00:53:07] countries are constantly lauded by our politicians as beacons of democracy in their region when a couple million people aren't allowed to vote even though the government rules over them? And again, I understand how this happened historically and I understand why Israeli Jews don't want to

[00:53:26] extend the vote to them. But still, if you ask, well, why aren't you complaining about this? In some ways, it's not that hard to draw some distinctions in reply. This is why I get really

[00:53:37] angry over this, that there are answers. Yeah. The other tack you could take is to say, well, look, if you want to talk about a colonialist empire, why are you not just focused on your

[00:53:50] own country rather than Israel? But of course, a lot of these people are fiercely critical also of the United States and United States foreign policy. But that is another question. If I wanted

[00:54:02] to put on the hat of a staunch opponent of BDS, I would say, look, yes, a country, especially a country that feels itself threatened, as you said earlier, they're going to have objectionable policies considered in the abstract. But you're no better to single out Israel and focus your

[00:54:24] energies there rather than even on what's going on in your own country, never mind what's going on in Saudi Arabia or something like that. I guess I don't buy it, but I see the idea that all countries with power and threats are horrible. It's not wrong, right?

[00:54:42] There's a kind of reply you might get there conceivably even from me, which is, yeah, I think a lot about my country's foreign policy and what I don't like about it.

[00:54:52] And I believe that in some cases what I don't like about it is a result of the uncritical relationship with Israel. When the ambassador to Israel says, as he said a few months ago,

[00:55:01] if Israel wants to attack Iran, we got their back. I don't like that. We don't say that about many countries. And then if you say what I just said, well, maybe that's in some sense a result of

[00:55:12] Israel's influence on our policy. Well, that's an anti-Semitic trope. If you attribute any significant influence to anything that could be called an Israel lobby... So you think we're all illuminati? Is that what you think, Bob, about us?

[00:55:26] I was about to pull that out and see how you react. Yes, I have a diagram. Have I shown you my diagram? No, I see on your wall a bunch of things. I am a spider and it's encompassing the world.

[00:55:36] I'm not invited. That's my big objection to the Jewish illuminati. The protocols meetings don't include you? Yeah, I don't even get BCC'd on the emails. Yeah. By the way, there's a documentary on the BDS by Julia Baca

[00:55:53] about these laws, about the state laws. And there's an interesting thing relevant to what we said, which is that in Little Rock, it's like the people spearheading this in Arkansas are evangelicals. And the head of the largest synagogue in Little Rock is opposed to these laws. He's not

[00:56:09] in favor of BDS. He's just opposed to the anti-BDS laws. And also, he for a long time hadn't even heard this was going on. It's like that's how focused the Israeli lobbying effort is on the evangelicals. It's almost like, why bother with the Jewish channels?

[00:56:25] And definitely surveys of American Jews show that trend of being less likely to support Israel than in the past. And yeah, I think you're right. This isn't a way to make up for that,

[00:56:37] the evangelicals. And what the evangelical motives for this are, I guess maybe it's just money. Maybe it's some feeling of a connection with Israel and the Jews. Oh, I don't think it's just money. I mean, yeah, I think they're sold. I think 9-11

[00:56:55] helped in that regard probably. So it's like it's us and the Jews against the Muslims, right? So you're saying Israel was behind 9-11? Oh, did I forget to mention that? That's only one tentacle of the octopus, by the way. No Jews were in the towers. That's

[00:57:10] been documented. Maybe as a transition, then we could talk about two final things in closing. One, why this is such an illustrative example of the Overton window. It's very different from a lot of them, but what are some of the differences?

[00:57:27] There's a very specific way to police it in a way that there often isn't in other topics. The broad brush, call them anti-Semitic strategy is so tried and true with this that people rarely

[00:57:44] appeal to anything else. Even these BDS laws are pitched as some way of combating anti-Semitism. So that's one way I think it's a little different. Same-sex marriage, for example, didn't have a specific way of policing the boundaries.

[00:58:04] No, I personally think that the way gay rights have moved so fast has to do with other things. We probably should do a whole episode on that. I feel some of the same kind of heat I feel about

[00:58:16] the Ukraine war with Israel, I guess. One of which is just that if you try to explain the perspective of Russians or Putin or pro-war Russians or Putin, like how they came to be the way they are.

[00:58:32] It's like pro-Putin. Yeah. It's like if you try to explain that in the West Bank, well, wouldn't you expect an armed resistance? It's like you're justifying it. Actually, no, I'm just saying. Yeah. Putinist is the new

[00:58:44] anti-Semitism accusation. In fact, I saw Eric Alterman, if that's his first name, but the guy who wrote the review of the Blumenthal book still was at it in 2023 and just back in

[00:58:58] March and called him, in addition to all the other things, a Putinist. So it really is the kind of new way of attacking people. Just trying to do, like in your case, explain it from their

[00:59:12] perspective, the idea, the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO, how you would feel about that if you were, you know, like that's like what people would get mad when you tried to humanize Hitler or something like that. Yeah. You're reciting Putin talking points. Yes. Right. Yeah.

[00:59:30] No, I would say, I mean, this is I mean, we haven't even talked about some of the policy implications, like, you know, the U.S. military support for Israel. You know, that's one of the

[00:59:41] things that's in the hanging in the fire kind of. And yet I don't personally think Israel is all that dependent on that at this point. It's very prosperous society, very technically advanced.

[00:59:53] But, you know, it is a case where to an unusual extent. I guess, you know, as we said, sometimes policies are just it's like there's an Overton window, you know, it's like if you favor no

[01:00:09] income tax, you're outside of it. But but there's not a lot of stigmatization. I would just say Israel is an area of what seems to me like pretty, pretty intense stigmatization efforts on the part

[01:00:22] of some people, not not all Israel supporters by any means. No. And those have loomed pretty large. It's illustrative in that fact, a, that there's you will you can be demonized or tarred and also

[01:00:36] in a very specific way, whereas if you're trying to get universal health care in the window, you might be called a socialist or you might be caught or you might just be dismissed in other

[01:00:48] ways. But like it's not nobody is going to demonize you in quite the same way. Now, that might not have been true twenty five years ago either. But I think that's absolutely true. Yeah. And there's a very big generational difference. And I don't think just among Jews.

[01:01:06] No. You know, there's pretty widespread support for BDS among younger generations. I mean, I don't know if it's a majority, but yeah, it just seems like it's all coming too late. I mean.

[01:01:21] And having no effect on our funding of Israel either. Zero. Like none of this shift has had that quite. But maybe it wouldn't yet. It's too entrenched for and the shift is too recent for

[01:01:33] that to have an effect. Yeah, I don't or really almost anything else. I mean, you know, it's like Biden pointedly said, no, I don't really welcome a visit from Bibi at some point. But that was after

[01:01:50] the assembly of this extreme coalition. Yeah. And and so it's not even clear that that's some kind of shift relative to the reality in Israel. I think Biden personally doesn't like Netanyahu from what I've read, but a lot of people don't who have been countered in person.

[01:02:09] All right. Last question, then, where would you like to see the Overton window set on this? Like how far we haven't talked about the other end of this. What do you think would be acceptable

[01:02:21] on the you know, if you could be philosopher King and just set what were the issues that are being discussed? And yes, you can say every position should be viable. But just in terms of the

[01:02:33] limited space for having reasonable debate, like where would you put it on both sides? Where would you put the boundaries? You know, it's a good question. I don't have a very interesting answer. I mean, you should be able to criticize the policies of any nation. You should

[01:02:49] be able to criticize the things that Palestinians are doing in response to some of those policies. I think, well, this is just a completely generic thing, I would say, is that I wish you could offer explanations for why people do things without being accused of justifying whatever

[01:03:12] they've done. Right. It's it's you know, that's too generic to be interesting. I mean, do you have on this issue, do you have bounds you would propose? Yeah, like it seems like a good question.

[01:03:26] But then when you actually try to answer it, like I do think like BDS should be on the table, even if I don't know precisely where I land on it. I think, you know, there's real examination

[01:03:38] of whether Israel is an apartheid state and what that means and what are like that should be on the table. And people shouldn't be called anti-Semitic for thinking that. On the other side, you know,

[01:03:50] I don't even really see like kind of openly fascist. I'm sure this exists, but not in the kind of mainstream arena do I see kind of openly fascist advocacy for a kind of ethnic cleansing.

[01:04:03] But I think that's good. You know, I don't know like what the most right wing view that I think is, you know, a candidate for reason debate. I'm not sure what that is exactly that. So, you know,

[01:04:17] I always err on the side of let everybody say whatever they want without suspecting their motives. But I'm sure it's there. Yeah. I don't know. What do you think? The most right wing

[01:04:29] defense of Israel that you think, even if you disagree with it, is a candidate for reasoned debate. Wow. I mean, I guess this is where you have to think between understanding why it is held

[01:04:46] and applauding it. I will. I mean, this is not an answer to your question. It's an evasion of it. But on the point you made about there hasn't been just openly fascist advocacy of ethnic

[01:04:59] cleansing, there's some evidence that there is still some blowback you get from that. One of those two extreme ministers, members of the cabinet we mentioned, I forget which one, said something approving about the last thing that could be called a pogrom a couple of months ago

[01:05:19] in the West Bank when settlers rampaged through some village. And he did walk it back. So we got enough blowback. So we had to walk it back. And so that's good, I guess. It worries me that

[01:05:32] these things can still accelerate even if no one is openly advocating it. You know? Yeah. And that's been one of the tricks is being critical of these groups, but while at the same time kind of looking the other way in terms of actual consequences for

[01:05:48] the more extreme wing of the settlers groups. Yeah. I understand why Israelis feel threatened by Iran. I understand why Iran feels threatened by Israel and by other actors in the region. And that's an example where there's this stigma on kind of trying to explain perspectives that

[01:06:08] I think gets in the way. Yeah, right. And Israel does have a lot of connections to other political issues that are affected by our connection to Israel. And I will say, look, there is there are amazing degrees of anti-Semitism in the Arab world.

[01:06:31] For sure. I was in Saudi Arabia and this is like 14 years ago by now, maybe a little more. And I was on a bus next to this guy who's like a professor, a Saudi professor. And he started

[01:06:42] doing that. I mean, like, you know, I think he probably even said the Jews were behind 9-11, but it was that kind of thing just right off the bat. And he was he was very well educated Saudi.

[01:06:53] And, you know, one thing you get if you if you're kind of on the left on Israel is the Israelis say to you or at least some of them, you know, you don't know the neighborhood, man. And I agree. I don't. And that's going to shape your attitude.

[01:07:07] Yeah, 100 percent. You're right. Like we haven't been emphasizing this at all, but there are a lot of Muslims and Arabs that are anti-Semitic and wish a lot of harm on Israel and Jews. And sometimes that's explained by Israel's treatment of Palestinians. And sometimes

[01:07:27] it's not. That is definitely true. And a big part of this, too. And like that's a good example of the kind of thing that should be recognized. That was always the thing when I was growing up,

[01:07:39] is people would say we can't how can we give them a state when they don't recognize our right to exist? It's an existential threat. That's a term you hear a lot in trying to police the Overton

[01:07:52] window, the term existential threat. And it's not that that doesn't that that question makes no sense. It's just the way it was used to shut down arguments like legitimate arguments. Right. Yes, I'm I'm from pretty wide Overton windows. So speaking of which,

[01:08:11] so that's the name of the show over to windows. If you've made it this far, God bless you. Really? And we don't really know which one we're going to tackle next. Again, it'll be available

[01:08:23] both at Very Bad Wizards Patreon and for paid subscribers of the non-zero newsletter. And there will be, again, a kind of a preview on the regular public non-zero podcast feed. And so check that

[01:08:37] out. And I think we agree that we deserve financial support, right? We do. Anyone who's opposes financial support for us should be stigmatized. I think that I think most of them are anti-Semitic. They are. Yeah. All right. Thanks. And join us next time on Overton windows.

[01:08:55] That is the correct title.