Israeli Supreme Court judges serve netanyahu's government a bombshell decision where is this Coalition heading more troubling antisemitic incidents in the US and the results of the most expensive house Primary in history is heard well beyond New York's 16th District we will be talking about that with one of America's leading commentators van Jones it's Unholy I'm un Levy of Channel 12 in Tel and I'm Jonathan fredland of the guardian in London [Music] it's Unholy to Jews on the news um you and I are in the early stages of what is going to be a marathon day we're recording on Thursday afternoon London time and Tel Aviv time but this is morning us time morning us time but this is the very dawn of we are just at the foothills of what is going to be a marathon 24 hours because we've only just discovered that both of us completely separately and for our respective employers have plans to be up and working in the middle of the night because it is presidential debate time in America and I'm going to be doing it for politics weekly America the podcast I do for the guardian all about American politics an cage the other podcast capital O capital P and you are um anchoring channel 12's coverage of this massively important debate in the middle of the night which which is not my normal hour to Anchor the news one should say yes we are um totally two Jews on the news today all through the night as well I might drag you to a post uh debate conversation after this is all over but right now uh we are recording this on Thursday and our listeners who will listen to us on Friday are smarter than we are because they already know what happened so this is the reality we're in maybe they're smarter than we are all the time anyway it's not pres iect that's probably true no it's a funny thing the late night middle of the night recordings that uh I've been doing um for a while and in in since the co era doing them home because you now can and so it means there was one period in the 2020 election cycle when I was recording one and I had my you know teenage son sleeping next door and so it was the strangest kind of podcast because I was essent on one level doing a podcast on the other level Whispering so it was not to wake him up because I'd been watching Trump Biden round one as it turn out to me that was 2020 now we're into round two it's amazing how early it's come about June is very very early in the cycle for a presidential debate it's normally October um but yeah so we'll be doing that um meanwhile we thought we would talk a little bit about what we did on the podcast last week because you the audience have responded in a really big way to the interview um Y and I did with rivka ravits ultra Orthodox leader and luminary all about uh the hared exemption from military service and Yi a lot of people came back to us about it yes I mean first of all we really appreciate the response as we go through all of them and I think that the feeling after that conversation was that we should have been more confrontational and that um obviously this is the topic that tears apart the Israeli Society the fact that there are people who don't uh uh do military service and of course we in the middle of a war so not only are there a lot who do because most of the population is conscripted it's a mandatory service but there are a lot of people who are you know they die or they return home either you know injured or or in a mental different state this has become the one thing that this whole uh uh society and of course political sphere is is ring around so a lot of people uh thought we should uh argue more but I think for us and we should say that we these things we do plan A lot of it is spontaneous but this we do think of uh seriously before every uh interview that we do we thought that to try and listen to her and by the way in her world and within her community she said things that are extremely Brave uh that should be noticed right I mean the fact that she said kind of insinuated that under a different government probably the ultra Orthodox would have a better deal and would have it easier the fact that she talked about having a female member of knesset from United T Judaism these are all things that are very sort of you know a brave thing to say you only get you know you and I between between us we've been interviewing people since the age of 18 we have a few Decades of interviewing people uh the only way to get that kind of interesting stuff I think is if you you make sure that you're not closing off the person you're talking to yeah absolutely right not sort of blocking and closing down and fighting someone but instead listening to them what rankled a lot with you know good number of listeners was particularly Rifka rabbit's point that we can't risk our children coming back secular and people wrote back saying sorry we're risking our children coming back dead and they you know what which is the greater risk and a lot of people said look love Unholy listen to you every week but this really got them because they wanted us to say what they were thinking and to push back harder uh to to riar ravitz and you've explained on exactly why we weren't in that mode we were instead in in a mode where we wanted to hear that case met and as you say in in hor World quite brave for example to admit as she did that she feels bad when she talks to uh as it were secular or oned mothers in particular who are doing what she's not doing which is risking the lives of their children and that she recognized there was an issue there um and so it was to tease that out that was really our objective but very good to have heard from um you you know people listening to this uh how you felt about that and in this case very strongly a lot of you felt that we needed to go harder others meanwhile said very different reactions and we're glad glad we did it the way we did anyway you have said at the beginning um that on this very matter y there's been big big news out of Israel and it came right at the start of the week indeed um you know occasionally I would say that uh we in the journalism business tend to TV journalism we tend to throw around the word dramatic or historic a lot we do it the baritone right it's dramatic it's historic this one really fits the bill it was extremely dramatic and historic Israel Supreme Court judges ordering the state to draft Ultra Orthodox men and halt the funding for the yes that's the Torah studying semin uh who don't cooperate with that uh conscription so this is really uh dramatic this has never happened before the court and the Attorney General ordering thousands to be conscripted into uh the military by the way funding is a very crucial thing as well as part of uh this issue now why is this happening we've been talking about this a lot in the podcast the law that did temporarily exempt Ultra Orthodox from military service uh expired July 1st there was a desperate need to write a new law the president Minister did what he does best which is to delay and to Kick the Can down the road this was the court essentially saying enough is enough you have not managed to bring a law we need to do this uh now so normally I mean this is nothing normal it's a huge deal but one would immediately think well right that's that I mean he's got to prime minister netan has to do this immediately that's what the court have ordered and that will be any decision he takes surely breaks up his Coalition because you cannot keep those Orthodox parties in there and comply with the order of the Supreme Court to enlist young Orthodox men in particular into the military that's what you would think the reason why I say uh and hesitate is because Netanyahu is a kind of political Houdini who is in these jams in these fixes so many times over his career and somehow gets out of them and the way he usually does that is by delay um delay is you know favored technique of politicians throughout history and throughout the world but he's a real Maestro of delay of kicking the can down the road finding a mechanism finding some way um out of it and um something tells me he'll find a way but you know maybe this time really is uh impossible for him look um what is going to happen now is two things one Netanyahu is going to try to convince the ultra Orthodox this is just a blip don't worry I'll get a law we'll get it passed this will be resolved but what happened this week was that his own member of knesset Julie edelin chair of the very powerful Foreign Affairs and defense Committee in the knesset basically spoke out against this and said I can't pass the law as it is written now we will need everyone to agree on these even the opposition everyone understands that is impossible and even if you don't have Yuli edisan who's basically just putting a mirror and and showing you reality there is no law that will be agreed upon by members of ludu thinks that that think that it needs to be a tougher law on conscription and theim that think they don't want to be conscripted so there's no way that this can be resolved uh I think that we've been talking about this for a long time there is a question of when does this uh blow up when is the moment when say to themselves the alar Orthodox say whatever is happening to us now in this Coalition is worse than rolling the dice taking the chance and going to elections when does that happen importantly we should say the spiritual leader of the ultra Orthodox party Shas Rabbi moshea said after the decision made by the Supreme Court we will not enlist so that's taking it up a notch everyone here is prepared for this battle now try and see it I know that we were talking about rifa Robinson talking to her last week try and see it Jonathan from the eyes of an ultra Orthodox person who when this Coalition uh uh was set up December 2022 thought two things right one there's going to be finally an official law that exempts them from military service and remember the the ultra Orthodox Logic for the judicial reform right that if the Supreme Court tries to intervene and says this law is is obviously not an equal law and it's problematic we will have a Judicial overhaul that will override the Supreme Court so everything's fine now we are a year and a half into this Coalition and the ultra Orthodox can't get anything done they went through the desert for 5 years with Nan they never broke the block from him and they got excuse my Jewish expression bub kiss for this right so that a moment will come I don't know if the moment is in two weeks I don't know if the moment is in two months but a moment will come when they will have to ask themselves what are we actually still doing in this schip yeah first of all not quite bubus I mean they've had big money channeled and funneled to their institution I just wanted hear you say bubus I said that for you to pick that up honestly bubus with with a London accent but you know they they've been getting that cash has been rolling into their coffers again at odds with and to the fury of plenty of Israelis when times are difficult uh that they see these yeshivot you know religious cies flush with cash so they've got not got nothing but absolutely right they haven't got the big things they wanted this notion of rolling the dice and remember RI gavit said to us that they as you mentioned that they feel they might well get a better deal with other parties who are not even though they traditional allies what would that a better deal look like now that you've had the Supreme Court saying there's no getting around this it's been Decades of this has gone back and forth but the law requires equality and everyone must serve what is the mechanism that enable that they what's the deal they think could be done with other parties that simultaneously doesn't cross the Supreme Court and their demand that the law be applied equally and simultaneously keeps them out of military service what's the fix they think they get now if the law is followed if the decision of the Supreme Court and the Attorney General is followed and there is no law to be put in place instead because the Supreme Court was saying if you have a law it's not a problem the problem is there is no law to organize this so what uh an ultra Orthodox will be going through is either an order to go to conscript go into the military there are going to be uh cuts of right budget cuts his the world of of subsidized uh child care which is also what they were receiving from the government and things like that all those benefits are cut that is very bad so if you're asking what can be better anything but this can be better I think there all kinds of of of compromises to be made remember the law that netan is trying to pass now but it can't be passed when there is a war when soldiers are dying and when this is the one issue everyone is talking about I think they might be hoping that in six months when this is all behind us if it is behind us it would be easier to cut a deal and maybe say okay we're not going to enlist 3,000 in more but we will talk about you know kicking the can down the road again for 5 years instead of 10 years instead of a you know things can be talked about when there is a government that is less criticized and is more popular that is I think a consideration that they are uh uh making or should be making uh in this in this regards now we should talk about politics in the polls because this is hitting netan very hard you see that in the polls there was this moment where he managed to you know maybe uh have a better result but you see it it is hurting him in his own base there are many many people in the liud who are serving their children are serving they really dislike what is going on and that is why you're seeing more and more in K in the leud I'm not saying a rebellion but definitely a defiant and standing in front of netan and saying we're not going to uh pass this bill the way it's written right now yeah and you can see a new constellation of forces and beginning to emerge you can just sort of glimpse how um there could be that kind of reshaping on the right because yes people who are absolutely signed up for the hawkish agenda of Netanyahu people who are prepared to overlook his own legal problems the corruption trials and so on but draw a line at the notion of giving a free pass and exemption to one group of Israelis when everyone else is In Harm's Way and has to put their you know themselves or their children In Harm's Way and so yeah to you know the the the outline of a of a kind of new right a non-bb right we've talked about it a while um and we've actually talked to one of the people who is thought to be Central in this reshaping namely the former head of the mosad Yosi Cohen he's one of the names people put together with former prime minister naftali Bennett longtime fixture on the Right leader of this Russian Jewish community of Igor liberman um gonar who was another sort of breakaway from the BB lud Camp if those people were put together together said one poll this week they would you know romp home as the largest single party one poll having them even at 35 seats which in 120 seat Parliament is a very big deal another poll I think your one put it at lower figure than that in the 20s yeah so the point is that um that again people outside the country I think make the mistake of thinking if Netanyahu is out that means the pendulum swings much as people expect it to for example in this country from right to left not like that the Pol the political fault line is between BB and non-bb in a way all the action is sort of on the right different flavors of the right and so what the if this Reformation happens reformulation happens realignment it will be a shift within the right from Camp BB to Camp unb with some with a couple of sort of star names in there I mean that's exactly right in Hebrew it's Rak BBI or Rak um which which means only BB camp or the only anything but BB Camp um but I want to talk about those three individuals just for a moment if I may particularly uh Bennett who was prime minister avigdor liberman who was foreign minister defense minister and Finance Minister both very close to netan in different times of his their lives and Yosi Ken as you said a head of the Mad Now what is going on seriously now is that there are discussions between Bennett and liberman of forming a party the main thing that is the obstacle at this point would be ego to be honest I mean who should go first one of them was prime minister the other is stronger in the polls you know that's a question I said to you and you looked at me like I was a little bit crazy before the elections of 2021 that naftali Bennett can be the next prime minister so I will say to you and this is a much less risky assessment a liberman can be the next prime minister of Israel if these polls are correct if they do actually form a party and if he's number one that could happen because that will channel the right-wing voters that dislike netan and there's a big group like that right if you think about the fact that the Coalition is now 64 and in the polls you see it as at 47 that is the pool that can take that that Bennett and liberman can take from and also it could be appealing I'm thinking to some of those right-wing voters who think naftali Bennett is a sort of damag goods by his time in office and not left not rightwing enough because he teamed up with yid he had mansur Abbas an Arab politician well Li sat in that Coalition as well right he did but he wasn't the face of it in quite the way that naali Bennett is and so there's you know he is relatively compared to na minute less tainted and so there will be you know a type of right-wing voter who thinks look we've tried the others let's try this new guy relatively completely yoson is a little bit of a different deal because he didn't sit in that change government that people would see oh they betrayed netan Yosi coin kind of didn't so he might run independently there are questions he's really the person that can pull away votes from the hardcore netan audience there are questions well if he does run and if does run independently will he not eventually uh uh you know join the block there's a lot of questions here it's a very open you know place that we are in we should say two things about Bennett first that he comes first in the compatibility questions who is most compatible to be prime minister remember a few weeks ago you were shocked that Netanyahu suddenly won Benny guns so he doesn't win him anymore Benny guns does go beyond him but the one who gets the most points percentage points is naali Bennett he also kind of insinuated a comeback this week he said you know I remind that it's 3 years since the we set up the a change Coalition and we can make that change again so that kind of sounded a little bit like the next sentence is my name is Nali Bennett and I approve this message so that is all Happening Now whatever happens look we talked a lot about the fact that knesset is out of session July 28th it will actually be a little bit before that because netan goes uh to the Congress July 22nd he doesn't think anyone will try and topple him in those critical days even if the government doesn't fall now it is still a very Risky Business still the problem exists of the alterate Orthodox in October October can already be a point in which e Mal bville starts thinking maybe he's not he should gain more outside the Coalition than inside this is unraveling I cannot say how fast it's unraveling but it's definitely the signs are there that is definite still the man in the chair while we talk about P's potential successes still there Israel's longest serving prime minister Benjamin netan he made some news because he broke a habit of the last year by giving an interview in the Hebrew language I mean yes pretty amazing isn't it after almost 9 months in which uh the prime minister of Israel or rather the citizens of Israel had to rely on translation from English to Hebrew to know where the Prime Minister stands on many of the important issues of the day uh netan indeed uh breaking with tradition and giving an interview in Hebrew uh to Channel 14 which has long been considered his mouthpiece this is a comfortable convenient sort of Home Zone for him um I think it is interesting to say that he did uh indeed say a few things that are important and uh as the war continues um he said uh that he supports a partial hostage deal uh and he said which will release some of the hostages but he is not going to stop the war now that created a bit of blowback because Netanyahu under the Biden framework of the hostage deal is supposed to at some point the second stage to be accurate say the war is over this is why this whole thing is still being laed n tried to fix that the day after and said he does support the Biden framework but you know that is something that is very important to note as we are in the you know day 264 of this war almost nine months yeah I mean one Israeli Source uh was was said afterwards this is the statement say that net had given in that interview was actual sabotage it's difficult to see how we can reach a deal in the near future it's game over for a deal he's giving up on releasing the abducted soldiers and on the chance to bring home the women female soldiers the elderly Fury at saying this because of course by saying oh yeah we're only interested in the partial deal he appears to vindicate exactly what Hamas have been apparently telling the mediators which is we're not going to do this deal whereby we give up the current you know the the bargaining chips we have these hostages only for then Netanyahu to go go back to the war that he wants to prosecute uh you know by saying we're obligated to continue the fighting after a pause so look fine to actually plan that but don't say it on television because if you do that you're not going to get those hostages out that was the argument that was made by people as it were on his own side people I think close to the negotiations feeling like they're tearing their hair out because he's constantly undermining what they're doing just to point on the uh platform chosen for the interview you know you rightly said it was on channel 14 which is his kind of happy place because it's um you know Channel BB uh all BB all the time Channel 14 has been a bit of an outlier some fears that it may not be such an outlier for so long because Channel 13 has now got an incoming new CEO in the form of Julia shamalov burkovich who is a very close Ally of you've guessed it Benjamin Netanyahu so some fears about the independence of Channel 13 but for now Channel 14 is the pro BB Channel and you know Netanyahu has refused to be interviewed by journalists Like You on other channels proper independent journalist and instead has just gone to what is B essentially the Fox News of Israel so that's where he chose to make these remarks which appear to have set back yet further any hopes there were of some kind of Hostage deal you mentioned Channel 13 and and their woes we should say uh colleagues and serious journalists and the uh question of uh Yulia shamalov belovich who by the way also there are many we we have to say that many women's advocacy groups in is are against this uh because of things that she uh said you know doubting sexual harassment attacking single mothers and calling feminist jihadists all kinds of things which are problematic in itself but the fact that there this is yet another uh person who is considered netanyahu's uh Ally and will be or supposed to be the backbone of uh this network which has such a very impressive uh uh news uh division a news company I think is a worrying thing and it is part of a trend to try to have uh more politicians involved in uh broadcast television in Israel and in other uh media Outlets uh which I think is even in the shadow of the war when we're concerned about many other things I think this is something that we should [Music] notice the one thing you can say about the war since October 7th is it has not been confined to Israel and Gaza it has reverberated all around the world and especially in this election year in the United States it came straight to New York City this week with a primary contest on the Democratic side for a congressional race the incumbent New York Congressman Jamal Bowman lost uh that primary to George Latimer and it became a kind of proxy for the whole argument o that has Riven the Democratic party over Gaza because APAC the American Israel public affairs Comm spent a colossal sum of money nearly $5 million uh essentially against Bowman who they regarded as being on the wrong side of the issue uh it's part of a wider picture APAC have been spending very big this election cycle and been seen as a very big blow to the progressive Camp uh in the Democratic party meanwhile um in Los Angeles of really ugly scenes outside the adustus synagog do uh in the very Jewish neighborhood of La picco Robertson people who've been to La will know that neighborhood uh protesters scuffling some people call it protest some people call it a pogram really really ugly scenes um Jewish people saying this is an anti-semitic act to protest against Jews in a synagogue the pro Palestinian demonstrators saying they weren't there because it was a synagogue but rather because it was hosting a kind of real estate Fair selling properties in Israel and the West Bank those are the two arguments um but it it's meant that in a very intense way everything that's been raging in since October 7th was on the streets of America's two big biggest cities New York and La this week yeah I think there should be a question about why do you demonstrate in front of a synagogue but let let me put that aside for a minute to talk about the Jamal Bowman Story look um if you're going to be someone who goes after Israel so hard and denies rapes happened on October 7th in a constituency that is so heavily Jewish that is an issue I will just say generally speaking if you are a public official who says that about what happened on October 7th in general I think that is a problem I think what the the takeaway from this story the way I look at it two things I would I would mention one Jews are going to get blamed whatever they do right if they would not do anything against him then they were weak if they would try and you know organize themselves against this candidate then you have all of that those claims those tropes about Jewish money and you know colluding and all of that you know I kind of wish the the sequel to um David B's Brilliance Jews don't count would be Jews can't win so I just think that if we're going to be blamed anyway at least let's be organized and efficient that's one thing the other thing is that I think that we are look this has to be a movement the push back the war against anti-Semitism has to be a movement and any movement in the world needs the help of the outsider okay it was John Stewart Mill as an MP who needed to petition for women's suffrage they couldn't do it by themselves in that regard women needed men to help them with that movement and the African-American community and the Civil Rights Movement needed white Americans to help them out and Jews now need the non-jews to be their allies and to help them because otherwise I don't see how this this whole thing will succeed I think that um our guest this week fits into that [Music] category vanan Jones is a lawyer civil rights activist former official in the Obama Administration where he was the pointman on green jobs and a regular commentator on CNN where his contributions have a habit of going viral he is also a leading voice for Black America and a longtime Observer of and player in the Democratic party van Jones welcome to Unholy glad to be here thanks for having me so I mentioned how things of yours often do go viral the last one to do that was your take on what happened in Los Angeles this protest that turned degenerated into some pretty ugly scenes outside the uh adasa synagogue you said it was not a protest but a pogram and you said as if addressing protesters you're not trying to start a conversation you're trying to start a fight I'm interested to know what reaction on the left among your you know fellow Democrats fellow or others progressives what reaction you got for that view well um uh I don't really know uh I'm not on social media I I don't care um uh I got a lot of um positive feedback from uh Jewish folks all around the world uh the ones who could get my uh email or text messages and stuff like that so I know that it struck a cord and I got a couple of grumpy text messages from a few former friends uh but you know at a certain point you just have to call balls and Strikes here it's completely a red line to rush up into a house of worship of any kind uh even even a military campaign people are very reluctant to strike a mosque or to strike a church or to strike a synagogue because it's just it's just not done and so the fact there was something happening at the synagogue that the protesters didn't like uh is no excuse uh for the kind of behavior plus I'm I'm living in Los Angeles I'm raising my kids in Los Angeles and I don't want to normalize uh the idea you could do stuff like this you got two cities in United States where a lot of Jewish people live United uh Los Angeles and New York if it's open season on synagogues uh in those cities there's no safe place for Jews in America and I just I just thought it was ridiculous I was shocked that um people responded the way they did in terms of the the amount of of appreciation if there was some lack of appreciation on social media I don't know and I don't care well Ju Just on that quick point that you made that there was something else going on there and you don't care this is a reference to the fact that there was a sort of real estate Fair where people were marketing properties in Israel and it said in the West Bank and so the organizer said that's why we were there not because it was a house of worship but because that real estate fair was going on you're saying that makes no difference to you uh I'm sure there a lot of bad stuff happening in mosques there might be some bad thing happening in mosque I haven't seen anybody run up in a mosque um there maybe some bad stuff happening in some in some Christian churches you don't do that you don't block entrances you don't punch people in the head uh when the cops come and ask you to leave you don't then go wandering all through a Jewish neighborhood punching people and that's that's a program uh you can there's always going to be a pretext uh to attack a vulnerable minority group like the Jewish Community there's always a pretext but the question is how you conduct that gives some sense as to what your intentions are if you're really concerned about uh real estate transactions on the other side of the world which maybe you could be or should be that's then you show up and you make that point and then you go home you do not block human beings from entering a house of worship anywhere in the world without knowing you're going to draw tremendous response from that community that tremendous response can you imagine if somebody did that to a mosque the the the Muslim World worldwide would react and so at that point you're not really going after a policy you're going after a people and I there's no excuse there's no pretext that would allow maybe stand across the street but you don't go and block that entrance and then start punching people you just don't do it you just don't do it you spoke at the uh Marsh for Israel in DC very strong words you said there's been an explosion of violence against the Jewish people you said the Jewish Community stood with the Civil Rights uh movement walking arm in-arm I can't be silent when Jews are under attack how worried are you of this wave of anti-Semitism in the United States that we're seeing well I'm I'm worried about it but I'm worried about it for three reasons one is I'm obviously concerned about people who are Jewish uh not feeling safe you know it's spent 2,000 years getting chased out every country um having to sleep with your bags packed because you never knew when things were going to turn uh and it didn't matter if you had white skin it didn't matter if you were male it didn't matter if you had money those things are not protective of Jewish people I think on the left we have this idea that if you're white if you're male if you have money then you're privileged and therefore you're kind of almost in a second class position when it comes to moral concern uh that's a problem in of itself but none of those things have been protective of Jewish people and so you got to worry about that you got to speak out about that but I also worry that that um as as the left gets um minimally less sensitive to the concerns of anti-Semitism um it's hard to know you know people are actually becoming more and more anti-jewish they certainly are being less sensitive to the concerns about being anti-jewish that breaks alliances that are important in the United States it it threatens the black Jewish Alliance uh it threatens the alliance between the Jewish community and the Democratic party it puts at risk the progressive Coalition that's a concern there's a bigger concern that um you know going after Jewish people uh is always a pre precursor to a bunch of other stuff you know first they came for the Jews and then you know everything else and I am concerned that there are some geopolitical adversaries for the United States and for the West uh that are using deliberately whipping up concern in ways that are they're taking legitimate concern turns the Palestinian cause is a righteous cause for more human rights more dignity more sovereignty for Palestinian people that's a righteous cause Nelson Mandela embraced that cause but Nelson Mandela didn't Embrace groups like Hamas and that's where things get off the rails and I'm concerned that there are some geopolitical uh actors and adversaries that want to whip this up so they can do bad things to democracy and bad things to the West in general and so it's a very very concerning thing and none of this is takes away from the need to defend uh Palestinian dignity and sovereignty and human rights but you have to do those things in a way that you don't give Aid and comfort to the enemies of democracy and to actual uh haters and bigots and that you know that is a fine line to walk and it's a line that I think it's incumbent upon progressiv to walk and when you go completely over the line and you jump the shark and you're now running up into synagogues somebody's got to blow the whistle and just to clarify when you mentioned geopolitical actors you might be behind this I'm I'm thinking Iran do you have somebody else in mind well look I think I think Iran uh Russia China and North Korea are are the big four I think geopolitical adversaries against the West against Western democracy um which not to say that Western democracies are perfect far from it flawed uh troubled uh often dis functional uh democracies that we have often home to all kinds of bigotries and biases and historical uh tragedies and atrocities but democracies nonetheless and I think you have a block of democracies that are improvable we're trying to improve them over the past couple hundred years against these kind of imperfect democracies against four perfect totalitarian States for perfect authoritarian regimes China Russia North Korea and Iran so the the thing I wanted to follow up on when you talked about the risk what you're seeing now could pose to the you mentioned the black Jewish relationship we'll hopefully will come on to that but just in terms of the uh Democratic capital D Alliance of different groups How concerned are you about the impact the war in Gaza is having on those elements of that Coalition and meaning Jewish support for the Democrats Arab American support for Democrats young people a lot there seems to be a lot of fra in that's being CAU into the of the democratic Coalition that's being caused by this war just talk us through how you see that playing out cu there you know there's been some new evidence that's come polling evidence that suggests it's sort of cracking in all kinds of places well it it is I mean because there are two fundamental values that are uh at odds now within our Coalition uh on the one hand you know human rights for all uh certainly for uh groups that are are vulnerable uh that's that's that's key for this party uh and yet that cuts in different ways on this question so you know what's happening to Palestinians especially unarmed Palestinians Palestinians who are not a part of any uh Terror organization who are just literally trying to find food and water uh that it's a heartbreak for the for the whole world and Democrats don't want to see that type of suffering and so that brings forward a certain amount of passion as it should uh from the Democratic party and from our from the base in particular in the young people even more so because they're they're seeing these images on their cell phones and ways that they've never seen before and so that's important that has to be protected and respected that humanitarian outcry from the party at the same time there's another set of values which is to protect uh uh the state of Israel to protect the Jewish Community uh from hateful uh terrorist attacks and you don't want to leave the state of Israel you don't want to leave Jewish people open to being attacked raped butchered slaughtered all the things that Hamas inflicted upon Israel and all the rockets that were being flown uh out of Gaza into Israel the whole time and so that's a challenge and so these are two uh good protective values uh that both live in our party that are now being stimulated uh in ways that become oppositional and so it takes sober leadership to respect both sides to protect both sides and to try to find a way forward and um when you have Tick Tock and and China you know trying to make sure that they can't have a Nuance conversation uh that that poses a real threat to the Coalition and also unfortunately it leaves Israelis and Jewish people still vulnerable and it leaves Palestinians still vulnerable and so I think that's a part of their frustration we we've been hearing especially here in Israel a lot of talk of the the vote in Michigan uh and the Democratic party being very worried about that is there a such a thing as a Jewish vote because we have been hearing these voices of you know the Jewish Community saying they're concerned that there isn't enough engagement there isn't enough you know tough stance against anti-Semitism Visa everything we've just been talking about is there a concern within the Democratic party about Jews actually not voting Democrat which is the overall majority do vote Democrat but is there a kind of concern that this time it might go differently well I think it it will go differently uh I do think that there are you know the African-American Community votes 80 to 90% for Democrats and then the Jewish Community votes about 70 to 80% so blacks and Jews are the two big pillars for the party now of course the black community is you know I think we're 40 45 million I think the Jewish Community is a lot smaller than that um but the Jewish Community plays an outside role in terms of the activist leadership in terms of uh people who are engaged people who are donors and so the Jewish Community is an important part of the democratic party Coalition and I think that um there are uh Jewish people who feel that they're now being forced to to pick between uh anti-jewish bigotry in the Republican party uh which is showing up as white nationalism which is showing up as you know Jews will not replace us um and then what they're concerned about is some anti-jewish bigotry in the Democratic party which is showing up in some of these protests um you know from The River To The Sea so you have these these these two alarming slogans uh representing two different elements in in these different parties and so uh there is real danger and there is real I think uh disaffection and disappointment um and dismay uh from Progressive Jews who feel that they've been there for everybody else in our fights and struggles and don't feel as supported and so that's going to be a problem um you could you could wind up with uh both uh Jews and Muslims abandoning abandoning the Democratic party at the same time uh which would uh only help uh our political opponents the problem of of this issue and how it's bearing down on the Democratic party became very clear this week with this primary result in uh in a congressional district in New York the defeat of Jamal Bowman um who had been you know trenchant on the subject of Gaza APAC put a whole big effort into unseating him and it succeeded and he was replaced by a you know more moderate George Latimer how do you read that and what the impact it will have will be well um you know it's it's mixed because on the one hand uh you have to represent your District um but more before you talk about APAC or anything else Jamal was representing a very big Jewish community that did not feel represented by his position and that's just that doesn't work it just doesn't work so um before you get into APAC and everything else um he probably wasn't going to be able to be reelected because he was taking such a strong position in opposition to Israel uh and he had a Jewish community that that did not feel that represented them so that's just democracy and you you probably don't get to keep that seat APAC coming in the way that it did um with the most money ever spent is a good thing and that it sent the message that there's a a price to be paid uh for being as indelicate and as as lacking in at least at least Nuance uh as all um was coming across but there's also a danger of a kind of a backlash there because you can win a battle and lose the war if you start making Martyrs out of people who probably were going to lose anyway and so then it becomes an opportunity to say well you know look at APAC meaning look at the Jews you know they're they're they're being so heavy-handed um they're using their power and some of that plays into some very negative stereotypes and stuff like that so I think that uh uh the real problem here is not a a Jamal the real problem here is that you have a whole section of American uh society that is just kind of broken off from the iceberg in terms of uh not having warm feelings toward Israel um being very concerned about BB Netanyahu being very concerned about the longstanding treatment and mistreatment of Palestinians in the West Bank in Gaza and they are no longer deterred from expressing that and that's a a long-term problem because the young the young people really feel that way and in 20 years those young people are going to be helping to run this country if they feel that the only reason uh to support Israel is just out of fear uh that's not going to be a stable basis going forward as the Muslim Community in United States gets bigger um as people of color in general become more pop become a bigger part of America and so there's a bigger problem here uh and if it's all sticks and no carrots and it's all accusation and no information and education and engagement uh I think it's I think it's a long-term danger so um Jamal probably was going to lose that seat anyway certainly should have if he doesn't is represented people's representating don't feel represented but this this is this is careful you got to you don't want to create uh Martyrs unnecessarily uh and there's always that danger I'm I'm um picking up on what you said because for as an Israeli it's very uh worrying for us because we see Joe Biden right he always says I don't need to be Jewish to be Zionist but he might be I'm not saying the last living Zionist in the Democratic party of course not but as you say the next generation is different what do what do Israelis need to figure out to to do to change that to change that trajectory well look I I think that um I mean you know frankly you know hem Jeff uh probably going to be speaker of the house uh next year Democrat African-American from New York very strong suppor of the Jewish Community very strong suppor of Israel also very strong suppor of the Muslim Community also someone who's concerned about what's happening Palestinians you know there is a a big chunk of people in the middle of our party uh that recognize that when we when we are a d diverse party we have to have you know broad shoulders big hearts and and and open hands uh I think AEM Jeff is a great example he's a young young guy as well of a potential future for this party but I just think that um Israel has been so consumed in its own internal stuff um you know tough neighborhood tough politics startup Nation doing all its own thing and I think hasn't really been that engaged um in some of the um diplomacy the kind of peop to people diplomacy that um might have served it but it's not to say that you know there aren't elected officials that go to Israel I mean that you have all that and you know there is an effort but I think the imagination the global imagination about what Israel is and what it can be hasn't been well attended to um you know Tel Aviv is probably one of the coolest cities in the world agreed uh Tel Aviv should I mean you know if you're if you're gay if you're entrepreneurial if you're weird I mean you'd be more at home in Tel Aviv than probably 95% of places in the world world I don't think people know that um I think you know if you're a woman in the region uh the the respect for women's rights that exist in Israel um are singular I don't think a lot of people I don't think a lot of women of color particularly United States are made aware uh that Israel is a Bastion for women's rights in that region um if you care about people of color um I don't think most people know that half well that 20% of people in Israel are um Arab and of the remaining half the remaining 80% half of those are would be called people of color in the United States from places like Tunisia you know the Jewish people there half of them are people of color from Tunisia and Ethiopia and Egypt and all around the region running for their lives out of very hostile places finding a home in an oasis um in Israel singular in the world for them I don't think a lot of people know that there's a billion Chinese people God bless them there's a billion Indians God bless them there's a billion Africans God bless us and only 15 million Jewish people left in the whole world half of whom live in Israel half of whom are people of color I people know that and so then when you start you know trying to have the story and talk about what's going on um it seems like Israel is as biggest China uh it seems as strong and powerful as a military as the United States it's like it's just running over a bunch of poor brown people and why should anyone support that it's a very good question um and so there has to be I think a better the other side of the story um listen this was three or four years ago I'd be trying to explain the Palestinian side of the story because that story wasn't being told um now it's being told and being told I think in ways that that are are are are unbalanced and in some ways unfair so but this conversation about um the need for dignity and sovereignty for both people uh the need for um Palestinians um is and others to be respected and understood and embraced I think is is important um and I think I just don't think it's been handled very well and I'm going to tell you right now there's a lot of stuff that's happening in United States um where I don't think that the response yet I I don't I think I don't think that the Jewish Community United States has gotten out of its trauma response and so right now it's still really traumatized and you know um sometimes when you're traumatized you don't make your best arguments and so there's going to be a process here and all this is happening while and by the way and all this is happening while really truly horrific things were happening to Palestinian people um and there's there's real real concern and I I don't think it's a bad thing that people are looking at what's happening to the Palestinian people with alarm and with compassion I don't think that's a bad thing at all um just everything just has to be held in some kind of a balance I'm just wondering if what separates you from other Democrats are the progressives and maybe even actually you know there's a difference here between you and a lot of uh Black Americans is the way you see Jews and it sounds like in everything you've said to us you see Jews as another minority another invulnerable minority just like you yes whereas the sense I get from a lot of progressives is they don't see Jews on that side of the line they see Jews if the world is divided into oppressed and oppressor they think Jews are in the oppressor camp and they think they're in the white camp first of all do you tell me if you think that's right but if it is how do you change that so that more people see this you know dynamic and this relationship which goes back decades you know the way you do well you know um I do think that the Jewish Community had this kind of 50-year holiday from history um after 2,000 years of being I mean mistreated in ways that are hard to describe um you know the African-American uh experience the black experience the afan experiences a horror um of world historic proportions and I think people know that we talk about slavery you talk about the the you know Colonial I mean you talk about you know Belgian The belgians Killing what six million people in Congo uh the French killing a million algerians I mean that Horror in terms of like what happened for to to black folks to African folks I think is well understood I think that with the Jewish Community it just seems like for most people well the Holocaust happened it was really bad it was kind of a oneoff and then ever since then everything's been fine the Jewish people been making a lot of money they got their own country and what's a problem and I think that um not understanding that you have a 2,000 year history where the Jews got blamed for everything all the time and um to the point that you could put 6 million Jewish people in ovens and the world kind of shrugs and that's in the living memory of folks grandparents today um that's just not something that most people walk around with in their you know foremost in their minds and I think that most people don't know I think most Jewish people know that their black friends are black most black people don't know if their Jewish friends or Jewish uh we just think we have a bunch of cool white friends and we don't realize you look if your cool right friend's name is Rachel if your cool right friend's name is j your cool white friend is probably Jewish we don't even we don't even track for that so when we think about the Jewish Community uh sending their kids to Great Schools and then those kids going to be public defenders in Black Communities going to be teachers or Teach for America uh becoming dentists and stuff helping to run not for profits being a part of the philanthropic world and really big ways supporting black colleges philanthropically black scholarships that's not something that is seen as the Jewish Community is doing that in the black community that's seen as there are some cool white liberals that are doing that but it's not a signed to the Jewish community and so both the pain of the Jewish Community seems kind of distant and maybe far away and then the um promise and the partnership of the Jewish Community it just just just doesn't register and so that's why I think Jewish people have been just bewildered and we've been bewildered black people like what are you guys talking about time we hear about Jewish people is when they have a lot of money they have their own country they're doing well we don't hear Jewish people have any problems because our algorithms don't show us um synagogues with swastikas our algorithms don't show us Jewish you know kids getting beat up our algorithms show us Gaza babies Gaza babies Gaza babies that's all we're shown and those scenes are horrible and they need to come to an end as quickly as possible and what we what we see and what we've seen since at least 911 is the Muslim Community being mistreated the Muslim community living in fear the Muslim Community being blamed and so it's a big switch that's required to be more inclusive but uh you know my Godmother's Jewish um daddy zelner who was one of the Freedom Writers in the 60s one one of the more famous One that's my godmother um we actually don't see the conflict overseas the same way ironically um and um I I do see it differently but um from my point of view um 2,000 years of getting kicked around a 50-year holiday from history um you've never been uh money has never protected Jewish people white skin has never protected Jewish people being a male is never protected Jewish people none of these factors that are so important to us as as people of color struggling with poverty they're so important to us they have not been protected for Jewish people and uh it looks like we're history has returned eared and we have to take that seriously because it is a tragedy I mean I go back to what you said right that the Jewish Community stood with the Civil Rights Movement which is of course true those communities walk together the African-American Community the Jewish community and it seems like such a tragedy that it isn't at all like that these days it doesn't seem to be like that well and and also these things can be overstated in that you know there there's some hard truths um even in those Glory Days those those those tough days of civil rights the vast majority of Jewish people did not participate in Civil Rights Movement that's just a fact also the vast majority of black people didn't participate either because participating in Civil Rights Movement would get you killed it would get you beat up it would get you put in jail so it was a very the black Jewish Alliance was always a lot smaller than we remember there was never a time all the blacks and all the Jews no you always had some black people didn't like Jewish people I always had some Jewish people didn't like black people we all got some terrible uncles and some crazy cousins but but but what you had though was that the best of the black community and the best of the Jewish Community stood together the black people who most believed in our cultural DNA of justice for all and the Jewish people who most believed in the cultural DNA of repairing the world the people who believed in that the most for small numbers got together and changed the world and then we all get a chance to bask in the glory of that but the reality is most of most people didn't it was too scary and too dangerous most people didn't take part but we hold on to that memory of the best of us holding on to each other and the danger we have now is that the best of us may not hold on to each other the best of us may not trust each other the best of us may not know each other and that's not just bad for black people it's not just bad for Jewish people that's bad for everybody because everybody reaped the benefit of that partnership that black Jewish partnership small though it was changed the world uh those marches those lawsuits that courage uh basically we we co-authored uh what we now call American democracy it didn't exist 1909 when a black Jewish Alliance was created that black Jewish Alliance was called the NAACP people understand Jewish people were not considered white they were considered colored so the nacp was a black Jewish Alliance uh the next year 1910 you had another black Jewish Alliance which we now call the Urban League so the two longest strongest proudest civil rights groups in the world were actually start off as black Jewish alliances nobody knows that and so you have this long history but what I don't think is good is for Jewish people who in their own personal life have done very little or nothing um except for maybe they marched for 10 10 minutes for black lives matter and put up something on their instam to then tell that you should do this we've done all this for you well if you haven't personally done much you might want to back off of that because you might be talking to somebody who's having a much worse decade than you you might be having a bad year but you're talking to a black person who's had a bad couple of decades and so I I caution that whole we were for you we were for you we were for you first of all not that many of you were for us and you probably aren't and that's not a good way to start a conversation so we gota we got to keep this stuff in Balance you went viral in 2016 you talked after Trump was elected you know you said I teach my son to my my children to prepare and not to be bullies and you talked about how this was a white lash we're talking just before the debate we don't how the debate ends but this might very well happen again Trump might be president again it looked like it I that's that's what the the polling data would suggest that right now so yeah listen uh this is not a leftwing period it's not a right-wing period it is a turbulent and volatile period that's what we're living through um people that we might have a change election every four years for the next 20 years but where does the Hope come from uh the Hope comes from there are cultural and spiritual resources uh in the black community and there are cultural and spiritual resources in the Jewish community that have overcome way worse than even this way worse than even this and when you put those resources together and then you reach out and you include the cultural and spiritual resources in the Muslim Community and in the Buddhist Community there are cultural and spiritual resources there are wisdom traditions in all of our peoples and that's where we have to turn and is a it's time to turn to each other and not on each other the big problem that we have right now is that all the incentives and the algorithms and and how you get attention are for are for division um getting dumber and meaner and Dumber and meaner and then blaming somebody else we have an awful lot of data now very little wisdom that's that's that's the modern dilemma so much data so so little wisdom and that's why I refuse to let go the hands of my Jewish sisters and brothers I know what they've been through I know what they're going through and I know the strength and the wisdom of those Traditions is a resource for Humanity I can say the same thing about the best of the Muslim faith and my own Christian faith and um that's where the Hope comes from uh you may not like the outcome of the next couple of Elections or you might like it one year not like it the next year that's going to be turbulent in IR rocki uh there's a deeper well that we have to draw from and we have to driw from that together van Jones much wisdom from you thanks so much for talking to us for Unholy well thank you for the opportunity thank you so [Music] much well van Jones said that the world has too much data and non life wisdom I think the opposite was true in that conversation just a lot of wisdom from him and just from a perspective that you know I we we don't often enough I mean we've talked so often over the last year or two about the growing Rift between you know Progressive America Black America and the Jewish community and here was somebody saying not nostalgically by the way but quite hard-headed and realistically that you know don't romanticize what it was but equally don't lose sight of what it is and what it can be and as for that you know little riff he did about speaking to fellow black Americans saying if you've got a cool friend called Rachel or a cool white friend called chances are they're Jewish I mean you just got a feeling that somebody who knows the community he's you know rooted in and knows that there is in some places some blind spots just as there is in the Jewish community and he was speaking to that so I found that very heartening and uh and quite sort of encouraging incredibly and and and deep and moving and you know it's like he sees Jews the way Jews want to be seen I think and when he talks about even the civil rights movement and how Jews were involved with and as you say he doesn't romanticize it he says it's it's the best part of the Jewish community and the best part of the African-American community that walk together he said that part could still do that that best part that now maybe aren't holding on to each other can still do that I mean he was basically making or creating this bridge between the two communities um today and I'm I'm so glad that we heard uh his voice uh on Unholy to our Awards then and a bumper crop at least in the hser category um I think a very worthy winner would be code pink the activist group who decided Ed they would be doing their bit for the people of Gaza if they were to protest outside the home of a journalist a an American journalist thousands of miles away from the conflict namely CNN's Jake Tapper who has been a guest of ours on Unholy unfortunately for code pink Jake Tapper was not it seems at home when they decided to protest there and instead his children were there and so code pink undeterred decided to that the children were fair game and Ed your dad's a war criminal to these kids and uh I think that is worthy at the very least of a HSA award yeah I mean kids are off limits period whatever uh you think and whatever your views are and I think uh what was really nice was that uh his children not only waved to the protesters they also played The Star Spangled Banner for them so that was I think uh their way and a pretty nice way to deal with what was happening in front of their house house yeah and the video went around cool kids cool kids I think the video went around and I'm not sure it did code pink and their cause any favors meanwhile I did say it was a crowded field in the hser category competition comes for Jake Tapper from Nigel farage and his Reform Party lot of attention on them they are a nationalist populist party uh of the right some poll saying that they could even one day probably not right away displac the conservatives in Britain as the main party of the right they they've sort of stalled a bit in the polls but they have a candidate in a very Jewish constituency area in Britain Bournemouth West man called Ben Aston who decided that uh he wanted to uh Avail himself of the opinion that the people who are behind waves of Muslim immigration into Britain who had in his words imported third world Muslims into Britain were can you guess the Jews um he said Jews have been agitating to import third world Muslims into Britain channeling sort of great replacement Theory saying that they are deliberately qu injecting Britain with African men most parties would think well that guy's a racist we better kick him out but reform had a very different take on this they said that they would not apologize because they their candidates were not party political zombies and instead the party was proud that their candidates think and speak like the ordinary people they are so reform Ben ason Nigel farage appear to think that the normal opinion of regular Britains is that uh the Jews are secretly plotting to transform the makeup of this country um I think that merits a HSPA award alongside code pink at the very mildest you had me at HSPA award for Nigel farage honestly that you could have stop there um so uh mench I will give it to the teenagers of the school in kir Mona very northern city in Israel and of course they have not been home for uh n almost nine months just think about that for a moment their school is called old daniger and this week they had to have their sort of you know end of school ceremony kind of the Israeli version of the prom but they are dispersed between a hundred different places in Israel we should say again tens of thousands of Israelis have been evacuated from their house in the north by the way t of thousands in the South as well they have not returned for the most part and they all came together not in kirima that's too dangerous uh but far from there to celebrate the end of their uh high school I'm sure that that is not the way that they wanted to celebrate but the fact of you know I think that we should give that men award to anyone all the kids and the teenagers that have been under this war almost 9 months either living in hotels or living in other apartments not knowing when they will be back home and managing somehow to uh you know have a normal life or something close to that um I think they should deserve the award this week I agree with that uh very much and we've been paying attention to the fate of those displaced people in the north even though they have been often overlooked uh in a lot of the international coverage at least now we mentioned at the top that we've had a lot of reaction to last week's episode particularly to our interview but we did have a fleeting reference to the Jewish goodbye and that to brought some some a welcome response indeed we talked at the end of our episode about how you know there's this thing about the Jewish goodby is being a little bit long at the end of dinner you're standing at the door and somehow it would continue for a while before everyone goes home uh and we got this lovely response on Twitter from uh Iram ramzan I hope I'm saying his name correctly he wrote to us a Jewish goodbye sounds a lot like a Pakistan goodbye I've lost count of the times I've been to someone's house with my mom and we just stood at the door for what felt like an hour wishing we could leave already so if we have done a little bit of you know connecting the Pakistani community and the Jewish Community I think we did something rather nice yeah I would agree and probably more in common than than either might realize certainly when it comes to saying goodbye look we're doing it right now we're drawing it out we're drawing it out stop saying goodbye stop saying goodbye H if you've enjoyed it rate review you know all the rest and we will say sah thank yous to G Glazer om primat and om Barak and we shall meet next week see not long goodbye not even reply see you next week see you [Music]