There is so much out there to get mad about. Social injustices, class warfare, continued

colonization, the act of destruction of our planet by those focused on prophets and not

people. We can find it overwhelming at times. The good news is there are equally as many,

if not more, stories of people coming together and rising up against the forces at play. So

the creators of Blueprints of Disruption have added a new weekly segment, Ravel Rants, where

we will unpack the stories that have us most riled up, share calls to action, and most importantly,

celebrate resistance. Someone tweeted out today, has the Canadian media gone into some sort

of meltdown mode? And I totally was feeling that. This last week has just been particularly

enraging. Like I know we've talked in the last since October 7th. We have talked many, many

times before that. Well before that, our frustrations with mainstream media and forced narratives

and manufactured consent. But like this last week has been something else. So there's a

few cases that particularly demonstrate the absurdity, maybe the desperation. that's on

display in order to justify what we're seeing in Gaza. Because in the end, all of the arguments

that happen, I feel they're all part of that justification. And we're going to get into

that as we go through this week's rant. But yeah, there's a few figures within the Canadian

media and just the political scene in general that have particularly drawn my ire. I'm going

to start with the most ridiculous because it really pissed me off and even like my family

doesn't often hear about my Twitter interactions. But when Warren Consilla came out, this is

a former advisor to Jean Cratchani, a liberal advisor, he thinks he's something else, he

tweets out and writes a column to go along with it. that says anybody at the pro-Palestinian

rally that particular weekend should either be deported if they weren't citizens of Canada

or arrested. We're talking about tens of thousands of people in city centers and even smaller

towns, like across Canada, and that's the literal definition of fucking fascism. Because that

isn't even like common opinion. Right? We know three out of four Canadians actually don't

even agree with the Israeli apartheid. So this is strictly the opinion of the very, very top.

Right now it looks like Justin Trudeau and his closest friends, to be honest. But, and if

you don't agree with them, if you bother to stand out in the street and speak against them,

you have media pundits and political advisors calling for mass arrests. And this isn't to

be dis- This isn't to dismiss these folks, like when I make fun of who he really is and the

fact that Ben Mulrooney backed him up. It's happening. An organizer in Calgary has been

arrested by police and charged with disrupting the peace for leading a chant, the chant that

we talk about many, many times now, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. And

not just disrupting the peace, they've added a hate motivation charge. So like these kinds

of narratives that these folks are printing out there are happening. They're being realized.

And that is fucking fascism. But, you know, on the good side of that story, even after

Warren Consilla deleted his tweet, obviously he was feeling the heat on that one because

it was just unquestionably awful. So xenophobic as well to go back to the deport them, right?

They don't agree with Canadian values. Deport them. And it's some white man in an office

deciding what Canadian values are. But Ben Mulrooney, for folks that don't know, you know, this is

Brian Mulrooney's son, part of the Canadian empire of brown envelopes stuffed with cash

from capitalists. He doubles down on this shit over and over again, to the point where he's

lost his ambassadorship with the CNIB, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. So, you know,

cancel culture strikes again. But this stuff just reverberates. Like you have prominent,

I say that, e-news talk fame, but semi-prominent people openly calling for fascist solutions

to dissent. And yeah, it's that and what we're seeing from a lot of other groups is just creating

this atmosphere where it's impossible to talk about this constructively. without having to

deflect all of these ridiculous claims on top of it, right? And these sidetrack issues that

really, I think, just serve to remove Palestinian voices from the conversation, right? Look to

like center anything else but what's happening to the people in Gaza. Right. Here's the good

news is I think that is a sign that they've lost control of the narrative. fully, right?

They're going into these fascist tactics for a reason, because they can see, you know, like,

how many people showed up in Toronto this weekend? I don't even know what the number is. No one

can give us an accurate number ever. A shit ton of people is what it was. Yeah. You know,

I'm seeing, you know, I'm overhearing conversations as I walk through the streets, where I'm hiring

people. talk about how, oh, like they didn't know anything about this issue, and they've

gone and they've read and they're concerned about this and they're concerned. They're like,

oh, but like, Israel's clearly the one with all the power here. So they're like, you know,

this oppression of the Palestinians, that can't be right. What's going on? Literal conversations

I'm hearing on streetcars, you know, like I'm seeing Palestinian pins everywhere. I'm seeing,

like in my day to day walk, and I mean, that's my anecdotal experience. And I know that that's

what that like that. Anecdotal is what anecdotal is. But my point being like, you're seeing

on mass the narrative shift away from, from what it was in the first few weeks, from what

the major sources of information have been trying, the narrative that they've been trying to craft

and they've been left with nothing but to try these fascist tactics to try and regain it.

Oh, we're just not going to let you say this. We're gonna start arresting people. We're gonna

strike fear in you. Well, I wanna make you feel a little better. It's not just anecdotal. That

might be your anecdote from the week, what you've heard, but Toronto wasn't an isolated situation.

The Prime Minister of England told them, don't you dare use arms to stay, Remembrance Day,

to protest. Don't you dare come to our streets on Veterans Day. And surely almost a million

people did. So just like we're trying to figure out if that was the largest protest Toronto's

ever seen on November 12th, November 11th saw something unimaginable in London, again, we

said it on the show, this is repeated in many, many cities. Like I spent, I felt like all

day yesterday just retweeting people from different cities around Canada and their shots of how

big the crowd was. Even I was in Barrie and I'd say that there was about a hundred people

there and this started, the first time I went to Barrie for this, it was like 12th. And he...

there was more than 12 flags this time. And it's not just anecdotal. More people are learning

about the occupation and apartheid. More people are understanding what Zionism is and the actual

goals of Israel. These conversations are happening, but just not in the most prominent spaces.

But it doesn't matter. They're still taking foot. I'm going to center on a word there,

apartheid, because I had a recent realization, I guess, that people aren't as familiar with

the concept of apartheid as I believe they would be. It happened several times where, you know,

I've been discussing apartheid and someone's like, what's apartheid? Or, you know, like

people were asking, like, what does that mean? What is that word? And you know, when you explain

it to people, they're like, oh, that's bad. Because I think that like, based on like, you

know, like the things that we've been taught and the thing, you know, like, you know, you

know, slavery bad and all these things. And like, you know, people, people look at apartheid

and, you know, most people get it. Oh, that's not the world that we want to build. And it's

part of the reason why they've made such an effort to, to not have that be part of the

narrative. Oh yeah. Because I asked you when you told me this, do they not teach apartheid

in school? And I'm so old, it's been so long since I've been in school. And my family taught

me about South Africa and apartheid. And Santiago, we're like, no, like, of course not. We can't

be showing Canadian children the model, right? Like, because they're going to draw too many

parallels between our history and apartheid. And even when we had Chris Ramp's groups on

justice for migrant workers, I mean, he was able to make the very strong argument that

what those folks are experiencing is a form of apartheid. So. But I would love to see,

and actually we could look it up now, but I probably won't, the trends of terms. So how

often are people now looking up apartheid versus what they were doing 40 days ago? Israeli occupation,

like certain phrases that we needed in the narrative a long time ago are catching fire. now. And

there's no putting this back in the box. We can talk about people having short-term memory

loss when it comes to politics, but this is something else. This is another one of those

global collective traumas that we've experienced because we've watched what's happening firsthand

to the people of Palestine. And so there's no erasing those images from people's minds ever

again. You can then repackage it afterwards if that's possible. I just don't think you'll

have the political capital to do that anywhere. But... Even if you do try, this is something

else. This isn't something you could rewrite now thanks to the reach of social media and

whatnot. But I want to go back into that desperation that we're seeing, right? The stuff that really

kind of got me pissed off this week centered on what you see in social media. And that has

a huge impact. And in particular, CJA. That is the... Center for Israeli and Jewish Affairs,

they sent out two really awful tweets that had the fingerprints of actually being manipulated

and surely, blatantly, I can say with confidence, were completely misrepresented with purpose,

with malice. So the first one, I'm sure we've all seen protesters confronting one another

at Concordia University, fully showing everyone's face, tried to dox her, saying she said one

word. Other people say she said another word. I can't repeat either of the words on here,

but there's no attempt to verify. It's just immediately sent out with the most sensationalist

purposes, and we've seen that they've taken down that tweet after considerable heed and

pushback. But I think the worst one was just so obvious, so reeked of desperation and manipulation,

and completely designed to stoke fear into the Jewish community that they claim to represent.

They took a video of protesters outside of an Ontario high school. that were clearly chanting

a chant we've all heard at every rally in the last 30 days, Trudeau Trudeau, you can't hide,

we'll charge you with genocide. And they put it out there and said, and put the caption

as though the students were saying, Judah, you can't hide, we will charge you with genocide.

And I can't verify this, but to my ear, it sounded like it was even sped up the audio. And even

with that sped up or manipulated sound, it was still clear to me what they were saying. And

again, they take this tweet down, but only after all these sensationalist claims that we've

seen around war, which, you know, this war, or we can't call this war, around this conflict,

like all conflicts, it goes out there. There's no putting it back in the box again. Even the

retractions come so quietly, like in this case, they just deleted the tweet. There was no acknowledgement

that they completely manipulated the situation. And so you go from students actually targeting

a liberal prime minister, a valid target of a chant, a person you could actually charge

with war crimes, to making it look like a mob of students hunting down Jews. But that is

a huge difference. This framing of all of these rallies as being against Jewish people, that's

inciting so much fear in the Jewish community. So I do not deny when the Jesse Browns out

there say, you know, your Jewish neighbours are not doing well. Like they're, you know,

someone firebombed a fucking synagogue and you've got a Jewish school in Montreal that has been

shot at twice. So There is already fear within the Jewish community who has already experienced

hate crimes and antisemitism for generations. But then you have Sijah who's tasked with fighting

this antisemitism, making shit up. That's making it worse. And then it's de-validating all the

work that genuinely goes into fighting antisemitism. to pointing it out within our very own movement

because it exists. You know, it's not black or white. It's not like, oh, this movement

isn't anti-Semitic. It isn't at its core, but that's not to say there aren't anti-Semites

within it, but to then conflate these legitimate targets like a prime minister or a Zionist

business and say to the Jewish community that you have so much influence over, right? That

you get your newsletter, you're prominent in their eyes, and you tell them, that actually

all of this means they hate you, knowing that that's not actually what's happening. I can't

help but feel that that's inciting the most amount of fear around this. Because if you're

in those rallies, you don't experience, nobody brings the Jewish people into discussion unless

they are there asserting themselves as Jews against genocide, for example. I've not heard

one speech, I've not heard personally one chant ever. that has been directed at Jewish people

whatsoever. And in fact, if you showed up to a pro-Palestinian rally with your kippah on,

with obvious Jewishness, right? A sign that identifies you as, or whatever, you would be

so warmly welcomed, you know, if you weren't waving an Israeli flag in their face while

they're committing genocide. You know, like that is not an unwelcome space for Jewish people

and anybody from the Jewish organizations that have been part of these actions. Can you tell

you that? So I'm very upset with Sijah right now. I mean, these are the same people who

were absolutely relentless in their pursuit of Sarah Jemma. Right? Like they focused in

on her, but yet tweet out today that the harassment Canadian politicians who support Israel are

facing is unacceptable. That that is some sort of violence. They've lost all legitimacy. CJ

is one of those organizations that you look at and you're like, oh yeah, you were operating

in absolute bad faith. Like they know exactly what they're doing, you know. There's no, um,

oh, there's been misunderstandings or, you know, like, no, they, they're, they're a propaganda

machine. You know, their, their goal is to get people behind the Israeli... war crimes, occupation,

genocide, apartheid of the Palestinians. And, you know, this is something, you know, nothing

new under the sun, but this is something you see in wars. And I feel that we're as the public

were not really prepared enough for this kind of propaganda. You know, it's something, you

know, you see it constantly. You saw how. In 9-11, people, after 9-11, people were afraid.

And how many people used that fear to justify all kinds of horrible things that were really

just personal agendas, mainly for capital purposes, right? CJ is weaponizing fear. And there's

always people to weaponize fear. And it's really hard to... Like for the people who they're

trying to weaponize their fear, it's really hard to make yourself immune to that when you're

afraid, when you actively are afraid, when you're actively are concerned, when you're in these

emotionally vulnerable states, it's really hard to shield yourself from those effects. And

I find that just the lack of concern over this. It's quite telling of something, right? Because,

you know, CJA has no accountability. There's nobody holding them accountable. Just like

last few years, people have been screaming about Russian propaganda and Russian interference

in Canadian politics. Meanwhile, you have an organization that really, like legitimately

is a propaganda arm of the Israeli state operating with impunity in Canada. No accountability.

Let me just back that up a little bit. Sorry, let me just back that up a little bit because...

Dave Gray Donald posted an excellent thread on Twitter that gave the history of Sija and

how it was started by Heather Reisman. And we're going to go back to Heather because she's the

founder of Indigo. So when we talk about a Jewish-owned bookstore, Jesse Brown says Jewish-owned bookstore,

it makes you think like a mom and pop shop, right? Is vandalized. And in fact, he's talking

about indigo books. Heather Reisman basically founded CJA in a knee-jerk reaction response

to a protest where Netanyahu was unable to speak at an event because students made it so. And

they understood that they needed to do a little, a lot more Israeli propaganda here in Canada,

that there was a lot of work to do. And so they created CJA. A lot of folks have described

it as a hostile takeover of the Canadian Jewish Congress, which was a democratic body, had

elections, and was designed to represent the interests of Jewish people in Canada, right?

And whatever that means. Even in the name itself, the Center for Israeli and Jewish Affairs.

Canada isn't even in the name. And these, again, these are points that David Graydonnell brought

up in his thread.

So yeah, they don't even pretend to represent Canadian interests. They are secretive about

their budget, what it is and where a lot of it comes from. And we do know that they spend

like tens of millions of dollars alone just in reiterating Israeli propaganda, almost line

by line with the ruling party over there. And So, Santiago isn't just generalizing. There's

history there, where they have taken what should have been Jewish interests here in Canada and

centered it now on Israeli, and have intrinsically tied those two together as though they're one

in the same. And we've spent considerable time here on the show talking, especially with Jeremy

Appel, on how Judaism and Zionism are not one in the same. And that is the prominent voice

now here in Canada when the media or let's say the Toronto District School Board, for example,

are looking for prominent voices, authoritarian voices on what anti-Semitism is. These are

the people that they're going to. And that's a huge problem. Yeah. And one more thing about

like, you know, when I say they're operating bad faith. You know, and I say this as someone,

you know, like I'm learning all the journalistic ethics and everything, you know, seizure operates

in a way that's a very much like, with an awareness that the first lie is the one that sticks,

you know, they, they post knee jerk, you know, reactionary shit immediately, such as, you

know, the, the whole claim of Judah, you can't hide, you know, like they delete it. later.

But they know that doesn't really matter. You know, it doesn't really matter that they delete

it, you know, they're not somebody who has to respond to elections or accountability of any

kind, right? So people are still going to remember that and believe that, you know, and there's

people who trust this organization, who trust that this organization is looking out for their

interests. They're taking advantage of that. And they're taking advantage of like the human

psychology and the way even how social media works. Right. Like you can see how many people

would share that video, be like, look at this. But how many people are going to share a tweet

that mentions that someone deleted a tweet. Right. Like that's not as sensational. That

is not going to get the same algorithm. Because right now, you know. whenever there's times

of wars, people are faced and this happens on mass, like everyone's faced with like this

uncomfortableness because we, many of us hold like different levels of humanitarian values

and such. And then war calls into question all of our values, you know? And if, if you're

buying into, you know, one side or the other, whatever, you know, buying into the idea of

war in general, like, you're going to have this rationalization to make, right? And so you're,

prowl for any information to help you soothe that discomfort, right? So you see something

like this and it's like, oh, hey, oh, see, see that thing. See, my concerns are valid, you

know. And so, like, it's incredibly powerful. It's an incredibly effective and powerful thing.

See, that's why I avoid though, like I've come across plenty of videos. plenty of infographics

that show the most horrific actions by Israeli soldiers. I mean, I don't share graphic content

pretty much ever because I don't know who's in my feed that's going to be triggered by

it. If I consumed it, that's enough. It's for other people to decide whether they consume

that. But I purposely, purposely try not to share things that enraged me so much because...

You can never really even verify a lot of these videos when they were taken. I am not an expert

at identifying soldier uniforms or any of that, right? And so I don't know. And I know that

the hate and the rage that it actually generated in me in that moment need not be replicated.

That there are enough facts that I know to be true, enough historical context to provide

to prove that. the Israeli Zionist government is illegitimate, that the occupation is illegal

and oppressive. Because by sharing shit like that, you're purposely stoking just pure anger

and you're not even directing it, right? It's not like you have a group of people, you're

making a speech, you have a call to action at the end and you're like, and see, I need you

to know how bad it is so you will act. You are literally just putting it out there and it's

like undirected rage that you don't even know if it's true, right? So when we get into Jesse

Brown, I know you kind of mentioned that sometimes people are just looking for that confirmation

bias, right? That it justifies what they're feeling or perhaps allows them to blanket over

some of the stuff that they don't want to look at. And often it serves to center themselves.

And, you know, I tweeted when I, I'm talking about Jesse Brown's tweet today too. He is

a Canadian media publisher, Canada land. fellow podcaster, I suppose. And he did the very same

things that we're talking about Ceeja. Like he's purposely sent out two tweets that got

a lot of traction and they were complete bullshit. And the first one I'm going to get into is

the boycott on Indigo that we hinted at. And he had framed that as an anti-Semitic targeting

of a Jewish business. And we've seen Olivia Chow repeat, and a lot of people repeat these

refrains when it comes to actually Zionist business. I mean, we talked about Aroma Cafe on a previous

episode, but Indigo is a different beast altogether. And Jesse Brown has been in the game long enough

to know that Indigo has been a valid boycott target since 2007, since it became apparent

that Heather Reisman, the founder... Not only was that the center of what we talked about

earlier in terms of CJA, but she founded HESEC Foundation. That's H-E-S-E-G, Foundation for

Lone IDF Soldiers. What it is, it's a recruitment program for foreigners to join the IDF that

operates on Canadian soil. I hate saying Canadian soil, that's such an awful term. You know what

I'm talking about. So That's illegal, really. It's done under the list like guise of a charitable

foundation. But you are recruiting for a foreign military service in another country. That is

illegal in Canada, but the IDF do it all the time. So it's not a Jewish-owned business.

Reisman is Jewish. But that's not what her identity is based on when you look at the work that

she's done. It's a Zionist. That is what her predominant work has been done. It's about

centering Israel and their needs, not as a Jewish-owned business. And so he knows this. Jesse Brown

knows this. Like when we're talking about bad faith actors and arguments, he became one when

he printed that. And then, you know, buried in the replies, he's acknowledged that he's

gone off base, but he doesn't remove the tweet. You know, like there's such importance placed

on, you know, people's own prominence and place and centering their feelings that were valid

in the moment or whatever his excuse is, but they remain. And for me, that is so problematic

because if this isn't a right-wing publication, this is considered a left-wing. media publication,

independent media, things that we have promoted on the show, not Canada Land specifically,

but the need for publications like this. And so he's coming out sounding like the rebel.

And I don't know, like that, I got particularly upset with this, especially, we always talk

about when it comes from within and he does it again. There's a CTV article that he republishes.

using their awful headline, and we've seen so many awful headlines these days, you know,

like CP24 called the last weekend a Hamas-Israeli rally in Toronto. Like, that was their headline.

But, you know, Jesse Brown, he repeats this stuff. If you read deep within the article,

the police say it was not hate related. There were no anti-Semitic messages left. And I'm

not one to side with the fucking police. But believe me, they would be loving to lay hate

crime charges. We've already given examples of them doing that. And if they were presented

with no evidence of the contract, you know what I mean? And Jesse doesn't even bother to mention

this within his description of it. Yeah, I don't even know. It's, it's, it's exactly what we

were just talking about. Right. And I think that, you know, I don't know that I feel like

this story in a way has a certain emotional connection for a lot of people in the sense

of like, well, maybe, maybe this is just like a me thing, but Indigo, Indigo chapters, bookstores

like that. Like. Something like as a kid, I really enjoyed spending time in, I was a bookworm,

being surrounded by all these books. And I used to go to mall, what was the first place I wanna

go to? Indigo chapters. Right, so there's a certain like, oh fuck, really? The learning

that like. You know the connection. Yeah, that's the face my family makes when they find out

there's yet another business we have to boycott, right? Yeah, just make me a list of who we

can shop at but what does that feeling feel like initially it feels like I Don't want this

to be true. So let me make it not true, you know like oh Let me find some way to justify

this is the first feeling. And it is a human thing that we all, you know, like you don't

want it to be true. How do I make this not true? How do I change this? You know, it's not that

you're narrating that in your head, but that's what the feeling is, right? But I feel like

for Jesse, it's not so much as like, Oh, we should be allowed to shop at Indigo, like trying

to give people permission to shop at Indigo. He's trying to frame. all the actions of pro-Palestinian

work as anti-Semitic. He says he's not. Yeah. But step by step he's doing that. Jesse's completely

lost it there. I'm more saying about the effectiveness that this has on the public reading it. reading

about this, this is something that people are going to be feeling. And there's a reason that

these, like, these are things that no one seems to think about, like, in terms of, like, whenever

we're like, spreading information, it's like, we have to like, think of, like, how will these

things be perceived? How will these things be received? You know? And that's kind of like

what I'm trying to think about here, because like, I know that, like, I didn't want it to

be true, you know? But then it's like, okay, that's exactly it. Like, Jesse, I mean, Clint

is supposedly a journalist, right? Like, you have Responsibility here than to like figure

out these points, you know, you have to it's like there is a responsibility to the public

You know because no there was an empty set there was not anti-semitism happening there so you

spreading this information means that you're spreading misinformation and like You know

like if you want to claim your left it like there are certain like responsibilities here

The figure thinking these things out and it goes for all of us, you know, it goes for us,

too, you know, like Just to create a bit of an example here, it's so frustrating that feeling

of like, oh, there's this horrible oppression happening and nobody seems to be paying attention.

And you just want to find a way to get through to people and break through to people. So when

horrible things happen... When you hear about something horrible, you immediately want to

spread that everywhere because you want to believe like, look, this will be the thing, this will

be the thing and people will see how bad it is. And so we're prone to, if someone was to

attempt to use our frustration to spread misinformation, I'm sure many of us would be susceptible to

it, right? But that's why we have to be constantly vigilant. That's why we have to be making an

effort because that frustration, it lies in all of us, right? And so, but like, if you

call yourself a journalist, that goes fucking, not even double, that goes like five times

for you. You have a fucking responsibility to make sure that your information, you dot your

I's, cross your T's, you know what's going on. If there's antisemitism happening, report on

it. you need to verify these things right so it's just really frustrating because you know

a lot of people you know this one's hitting a lot of people you know a lot of people trusted

them a lot of people like really care about you know Canada land and it's like we've lost

enough things right like there's nothing sacred you know like We don't have many spaces or

places that we can turn to that we feel safe for information. And like, it's all like, it's

all leaves us feeling lost and confused and everything. And it's fucking frustrating, you

know? And I wanna be clear, cause I did send out something that could be perceived as a

bit callous. And it was about the way Jesse and others in the media, but also... politicians,

and even like your friends, are continuing to really want to center the feelings of the Jewish

community. And well-intentioned people will just say, you know, it is a time that you can

recognize the grief of all humans or the impacts to many communities. And that isn't wrong.

I do feel for Jewish comrades. And I can imagine that this is a very traumatic experience in

itself. But there's two things there. If you have been supportive of the state of Israel

in your time, you should be feeling some discomfort in this moment. You should not fear for your

life. You should not fear for your safety. You should not fear for your job. But if you have

been even quietly propping up Zionism and Israel, buying Israeli bonds, and then seeing what

this money has done and what this ideology is doing. there is a discomfort that should be

experienced. And I shouldn't center the needs of those people feeling that discomfort at

this moment, right? If you have supported the occupier and you are now feeling guilt in any

way, that is for you to work through. That is not for me to center while a genocide is being

happening, while I'm watching Palestinian voices being almost completely absent from the media.

And when they are there, they're cut horribly, like the edits are just horrendous. Like there's

just... In this moment, we're talking about over 11,000 dead Palestinians. A land invasion,

an annexation, ethnic cleansing. That is happening. It's not being implied in a chant, right? Because

of how you've been told to perceive from the river to the sea. It's not being implied in

a boycott that people don't like Jewish people. It's, it's actually happening right now. So

for me, it's important to be centering Palestinian people in this moment. This is a crisis. It

is urgent. There is no actual time and space for us to work through that other shit. I'm

sorry. And it comes off as really white supremacy to say that, yeah, but, yeah, but what about

how Jewish people are feeling right now? And, you know, I'm not completely rejecting what

about ism either, because I've played that. You know, when we were funding Ukraine, I did

say, what about Palestine? We were, and we were criticized for that. You know, Joe Roberts

went down in flames famously for saying that the left just absolutely cannot mention Palestine

in this moment because that is to legitimize it. But at the same time, like this what about-ism

and centering Jewish fear, it's a problem because Netanyahu is using that fear to justify what

he's doing right now. All of what you're seeing happening in Gaza and the West Bank is being

justified out of fear of what might happen. Because you can't take back what Hamas has

already done. That's not going to happen. Those people aren't coming back. You likely won't

get the hostages back either. If you've seen Gaza, this is sold on the premise that it's

defense on what might happen next. That fear. So don't take that fucking fear right now as

we're trying to stop that genocide and put it in my face because I don't want to see it right

now. Okay, because it's been used to just justify so much shit that you don't get to center it

right now. You deal with that on your own right now. And we deal with actual cases of antisemitism

and the absolute rise of Islamophobia. Toronto City Council, you know, they're working on

essentially

And folks, on face value, you can read Pasternak's motion, and it looks like a real genuine attempt

to address anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. However, pro-Israeli rallies, you know, at Christie

Pitts, are never labeled as pro-genocide rallies. You may see snide comments here and there on

the internet, but no media outlet, no politician is going to point at those rallies and say,

Right? They're not doing that. That's not labeled Islamophobia when they raised the Israeli flag.

But it is when you raise the Palestinian flag. Many times over, like the Maple has put together

a great piece on all the people who've lost their job, been arrested, criminalized, silenced,

kicked off boards because simply they are asking for an end to the Gaza bombing or asserting

Palestinian humanness. You know, that is actively being sold as Criminal intent terrorist intent.

So when you see motions like this before City Council and Olivia child looking like she's

ready to support it. I believe it passed first reading or I believe it passed I Would need

to link it. Um, yeah, I think I think it did so

It's not just an attempt to lessen hate. It is, and if you look at James Pasternak, the

person who, the counselor who brought this to motion, like he has warned kids to not go to

school, to not participate in these anti-Israeli rallies. Like he has really whipped people

up along the narratives that we've been talking about today. And so he is the author of that

motion. You can bet your bottom dollar it is not designed to address Islamophobia whatsoever.

that it's strictly there to do this. And so from the media pundits to the political personalities

that we thought we could fucking trust, they've almost all let us down. Absolutely, absolutely.

It's what we've just been talking about here, just weaponization. And like, it's history

repeating itself. That's the, I think that's one of the most frustrating parts about watching

everything unfold. It's just like... how much it's all just a cycle of history. How many

times we've seen such things play out again. People wanna paint the narrative that like,

there's something unique and special and complicated and different about this. No, there isn't.

We've seen this kind of situation play out time and time again. I brought it up before when

I talk about trusty propaganda, but in justification of the Gulf Wars, there was that story of the...

the Iraqi soldiers were taking Kuwait babies out of their incubators and leaving them to

die, right? That ended up, turned out was fabricated by a think tank, right? But that got spread

everywhere and people were afraid and angry and all of these emotions and then how many

people died because of that fake story, you know? Like, the weaponization here, it's horrible

because like... Fuck, it's not like, this is not like a symmetrical situation. All this

time, like even if, like eventually, you know, Western powers get involved, stop the funding,

you know, like we get the things we're demanding, like every day that goes by is unimaginable

loss in Palestine, you know? And you can see that they're not, they don't fucking feel that,

they don't feel that. And I know, I know that like, at some point it does get difficult,

you know, like as these things draw on, it does get fucking difficult to remind yourself, hey,

that this is real, that what's happening here is real and devastating and you can't turn

away from it. Because you know, we only have like, humans have an incredible capacity to,

to adapt to horrible things. And like a new normal. Yeah. So it starts feeling like, oh,

this is normal, you know? No, it's not. Do not suppress your humanity. It's not. We need to

feel it. We need to feel it. And fucking fight for something better, you know? And you know,

actually, you know what? That brings us to the next thing, I guess, which is, you know, there's

been all kinds of calls, you know, for a ceasefire. Ceasefire this, ceasefire that. Not even because

Trudeau says, what does he call it? A humanitarian pause. You know, Bible almost ceasefire. Do

you have that clip? I feel like we should just throw it in here, but I could recreate it.

It was like cease. Uh, I mean, humanitarian pause. What I meant to say was cease escalation

of hostilities. Like he worked really hard to make sure he did not say the C word. Yeah.

They can barely say ceasefire, right? Humanitarian pause, all these things. But then again, you

get a ceasefire. Then what? You still have a genocide. You still have the apartheid. You

know, it doesn't change the realities. You know what we're not talking about? We're not talking

about actual solutions here. And I think that we need to talk about that because we are a

part of the problem. You know, Western nations created this problem. Like we've created so

many problems in the Middle East by going and drawing up borders for our own convenience

without any consideration and under the false belief in, in ethno states as something that

should be created in any kind of way. Like what a ridiculous concept, right? And so, you know,

this week I wrote an article, an op-ed for the Humber paper, where I was essentially arguing

in favor of the one state solution of a, but to be clear, when I say a one state solution,

I mean a democratic, secular state with equal rights for all. And I felt- I think socialist

would just be a bonus. Yeah, no, I mean, the hope is that would be socialist. But, but the

reason I did that was because I was like, you know, like, so frustrated because nobody can

tell me what happens next. Nobody can tell me what happens the day after the ceasefire. Nobody

can, nobody seems to have any long term solutions. Oh, like, there's a lot of people calling for

like the 1967 borders, right? But that just felt Oh, I've seen people just like draw a

line in the middle to a north end is Israel. We'll make the bottom Palestine. Everyone has

from the river to the sea. We're good. We're done. I can't help but feel like that is such

a Western colonialist solution. The idea that we draw lines on a map and that solves our

problems. What the fuck? It goes like it goes against like the idea of humanity that like

we're. that there's more that brings us in common and together with each other than is a part,

you know? You see like Palestinians and Jewish people, anti-Zionist Jews, hand in hand at

these protests and you're telling me, oh wait, we need to keep everyone separate? I just cannot

believe such a thing. It does not make sense and part of it is informed by the fact You

know, I'm Lebanese and my dad, I've been having a lot of conversations with him that I found

really interesting because, you know, as somebody who actually fucking lived through horrible

war,

I get perspectives from him that I'm just not getting elsewhere, right? Like he seen horrible

things and he... is fighting so like he is arguing so much in favor of like Palestinian liberation

here even though his family fought against the Palestinians right and you know I was talking

to him and he was telling me about how in his work there's a there's a Jewish man who looks

more like him than anybody who he's ever worked with. Right. And because, you know, he doesn't

see a lot of people who look like, I don't see a lot of people who look like me in my day

to day, you know, and how he was thinking and like how people always compare how they look

alike and stuff. And he was like, yeah, because we're the same people, you know, there's, we're

not different Palestinians and, and Israelis are not different. You know, They were not

different. And at the end of the day, the Holy Land, like it's sacred to all the Abrahamic

religions, not just Judaism and Islam, not just Christianity, but also many smaller, lesser

known religions like the Druze or the Samaritans. You know, like there, this is a land that is

important to many people and it should be accessible to all people. And if you create some two state

dividing things, then. You're just furthering this idea of separation. You're furthering

this idea that people are different and that they're enemies of each other and that they're

separate because they can't live together because they're so fundamentally different. We can't

gather. That's such a racist trope. Yeah. Because they don't mean Israelis can't live peacefully,

right? It's always that it's the Muslim population that is framed as inherently violent or Palestinians

in particular. And it ignores history. Horrible things happen. That's history. But people find

a way to build again afterwards. Lebanon went through decades of civil war. And today in

Lebanon, the conflicts are not on sectarian lines. They're based on the corruption of the

government in general. But people live together. You know, and I'm not going to paint Lebanon

as a fucking success story because it's anything but and honestly, and one of my big criticisms

is a lot is the idea of putting like, oh, the president has to be Maronite Christian and

the Prime Minister is Sunni and Speaker of Shia or whatever the fuck it is, right? I think

that's such a horrible system. I think whenever you try it, like some people are, because there's

arguments of creating a bi-national state, right? Where you split the power. Horrible idea. Why?

Because whenever you're trying to divide things on sectarian lines, it leads to the rise of

authoritarians like Benjamin Netanyahu, the fucking fascist that he is. People like him,

they don't just happen. It's the consequences. How is it that Israel got to this point? It's

a consequence of trying to create a nation state because it's inherently built on the idea of

supremacy, which is an authoritarian idea that lends itself to other authoritarian ideas that

lends itself to the rise of fascism. We cannot have that. This is not the kind of world that

we should be building. So the idea, yeah, just point of it being that like, and, and just

another example, of course, being Bosnia and Herzegovina where, you know, um, just a bi-national

nation, I still don't believe in the concept of bi-national nations either, but you know,

they separate, they have like three presidents of like Croatia, Serbia, and then the Bosnian

president. But you know. It's one country. Like. Anyways, my point being more along the lines

of. We like when I'm looking at this situation, I'm looking at my values. I wanted to something

to reflect it. And I think the idea of having a state where all peoples have equal rights

and freedom to practice their religions, where they live together, where, you know, we're

not furthering these fucking. supremacist ideas because that's what it is these colonialist

ideas you're not going to fix colonialism with more colonialism You know, oh there's some

people that say you can't call what's happening colonialism or imperialism Like you know, they

want to remove that literally created by the west You know, this was the brainchild of the

uk and Like this was literally colonialism just like the creation of all of the fucking borders

in the middle east were colonialism Like it's not just Israel-Palestine, it's every fucking

border there. It's most of the fucking Africa, you know? I think the more you point that out,

the more easier it becomes to understand why Canada has taken this hyper-Israeli defensive

position, almost to the isolating on the world stage. Right? We are really out of step and

a lot of people scratch their head and we've talked about the colonial imagination. But-

you know, defending this model and not calling it into question, or framing it as colonial,

you know, is super important to the Canadian state for itself to remain legitimate because

Bob Ray, a lot of folks, you know, you got the former UN ambassadors, Canadian ambassadors

to the UN, just aghast. at our recent voting record in the UN, especially when you put it

into context of what's happening right now, that we've actually reversed our position.

So much gains had been made in terms of the Palestinian diaspora and political maneuvering

and whatnot that's happened to get Canada to come around a little bit on its position within

the UN and on the state of the illegal occupation. But even before this fall's escalation in hostilities...

Canada started to really change its tact again. And I watched a really great six minute video

by Breach Media, as always I'll link that. They do a really good job of explaining the relationship

between Canada and Israel, and they talk on the colonial aspect as well. But really what

it boils down to is US interests. and aligning with US interests and wanting to appear as

like major players on the stage. But just to give folks how out of step of the rest of the

globe that we are, many states now have recalled US ambassadors or have recalled their Israeli

ambassadors. They have cut political ties. There's motions going to the UN very rapidly now to

deal with the situation and Canada has... either abstained or voted no. And on the most recent

one, it was so basic too. We got into a discussion about the UN and its lack of teeth, that a

lot of it essentially are just really statements that don't have any tangible repercussions

tied to them or anything. But this one here on November 12th, it was really just for Israel,

force Israel to fall under... the fourth Geneva Convention, right? It's Israel to accept the

fact that they need to apply to those standards, which means if you occupy somewhere, you need

to make sure that you don't bomb their fucking hospitals. So you need to make sure that they

have medical care. You also, there's, you know, there's all sorts of criteria that are set

in the Geneva Convention on how you're supposed to act if you do occupy somewhere, even though

you're not supposed to occupy anywhere. So just to speak to the meaning list of this shit.

But even Canada... Oh, before. Another one of the criteria is important to mention there

for this convention is that you're not supposed to be transferring your population into the

occupied territory. Meaning you're not supposed to be ethnically cleansing this occupied territory.

Right? If it's just to secure your own borders or whatever justification you've given it,

you're not actually supposed to take it. that's annexing it, that is then, yeah, that's ethnic

cleansing, then you're falling into what we're seeing genocide. Because not only have they

been systemically eating away at the West Bank illegally, right? This is all established illegal

by international law, ruled like 2004, something ridiculous. And they just incrementally taking,

taking. But now we've actually seen them annex Gaza, right? The complete north of Gaza is

like essentially under the control of the Israeli army. They say they were not going to cede

security of the area to it. I can't see them doing so. And so even Canada, when asked to

just have them at least take on the role of an occupier, the legal framework, Canada's

like, no, no. And we voted only with the US, Israel, Hungary, and like these three micro

Asia, micro Asia, these three small island nations. Pacific Island nations, which for the record,

the colonialism there, no one fucking talks about, but half of the Pacific Islands is still

owned by the France, the US or England. Not only that, but they rely on Western nations

to on a lot of aid and they are completely, these are islands that will soon be underwater.

And so they're completely beholden to Western nation support because of climate disaster.

So it gets even more awful as you look at it, right? So obviously their votes are being leveraged,

but these are the actors that Canada is standing with. Santiago, fucking Russia and Ukraine

voted together on this, okay? They voted that yes, as an occupier, you need to at least follow

these rules. Israel, will you at least agree to that? You know, like they won't, they could

come together on this, but Canada still stands apart? Like that is... fucking horrible. So

Bob Ray's really drawn the ire of this, right? He is the focal point. Obviously, he's not

making all of the decisions. Like this is a man whose job, like if you looked at his feed,

you would not know that there's a genocide happening. And he is our ambassador to the UN. He has

a role to play here. And someone pointed out, Michael Bookhart made a great point that if

you look at his feed and the last time he spoke of El Chifa was to repeat those Israeli claims

that there is a Hamas headquarter underneath it. And now we know 15 days after that tweet,

that hospital is completely surrounded by Israeli tanks, after being bombarded, after being blockaded

of water, medicine, and anything possible. This is the hospital that has the 39 babies in incubators

to have already passed away. I haven't gotten any updates as to their situation because the

World Health Organization can no longer really communicate with them there. Side note, what's

up with Hungary? Because I noticed that they're frequently a descending voice here. One of

those is like, you'll see a vote like this, like Canada, US, Hungary. What's up with Hungary?

I don't know. One of our viewers has to tweet at us and see if they can explain that to us.

I guess my geopolitics isn't on point here. I've noticed this with a few votes. But anyways,

yeah, no, it's like... We even abstained from asking for humanitarian truths. So like, you

know, Trudeau won't say ceasefire, but, and he says over and over again to our face that

yes, he supports humanitarian pause. Like that's as far as we've been able to come along. But

when it's time to vote on humanitarian pauses, we abstain. So those two-faced assholes, they

don't even, aren't even doing what they're talking about in the media. Those small concessions

that we get them to make in the media still don't. don't fall into any fruition. And this

is why what we're doing here is so important. When we talk about the West being an active

participant, that's what we mean. They're actively not just funding and endorsing. They're funding

it. They're endorsing it. They're fighting for it on a global stage. We're actively complacent

in this. Not more than complacent. We're participants. Which is why we need to stand up, which is

why we need to keep putting pressure because what a fucking contrast to what Toronto looks

like, you know? Like the thousands and thousands of people in the marching industries of Toronto.

What a fucking contrast to that. It is. And I think that's a huge miscalculation.

Between like what their political careers will look like down the road, I believe they're

all going to suffer from this. But Also, the imperialist intent behind this has suffered.

The masks are off and there has never been this kind of support for Palestinian resistance

ever. And it wasn't created by the conditions Hamas created. Israel is to be credited for

really waking the world up. And our guest last week... talked about this when they talk about

delegitimizing Israel. by sometimes forcing state actors to demonstrate the level of cruelty

that they will go to is an unnecessary, sorry, is a necessary step in demonstrating the whole

illegitimacy of the occupation. And as horrible as that might imagine, like, and just like

the Israeli citizens that can't be brought back. despite the incredible violence that's been

vised upon Gaza. We won't get those 11,000 people back plus. Like, they won't come back, but

they are martyrs because I believe their deaths. must have purpose now. They have to if that's

all we can do. is give their deaths, because we try to stop it, right? Like every day we

try to stop it. We can't... It's not stopping. It's getting worse. So they have to have meaning.

They have to. And it's why like we need to, we can't stop imagining, you know, that better

world. And that's why, you know, one thing I talked about in my article was the West owes

some serious fucking reparations, you know.

We need to, like, the way I see it, we need to, like, that same money that we're fucking

pouring into, like, these endless wars and infinite arms as much as they want. Put that money and

go build some fucking infrastructure and build a home, you know? Build, well, you know, fund.

I know, I gave you that look because, you know, we don't want to rebuild it in the way that

Iraq was rebuilt. No, not in the way. Obviously, like, yeah. But like we need to go and like

people say, oh, the one say it's impossible. No, it's not. Not like you're telling me if

we were to go and actually facilitate this shit with some financing, it's impossible. No. And

that's what we need to do because we, it's our fault. Like it is our fault. And we're so far

away from that conversation right now. Like what we're seeing here is we're so fucking

far away. No one's even like the discourse is not even close to being that. But this is why

like we need to be bold in these times. We need to... Like in the face of darkness, we need

to imagine like what we need to remind us of what it is we're fighting for. What is that

better world? And I sound so fucking cheesy when I say shit like that, but you know, you

do, but it's important because how do you fight for something if you can't envision it, right?

Free Palestine is just a slogan. If when asked, what does that look like? You don't have an

answer, right? Then you can fight for people and for justness. and all of that and understand

that it's still a valid fight, but it takes a different meaning and a different level when

you can have that vision. And in the end, you know, that vision has to be determined by the

Palestinian people, right? What that rebuilding looks like, what that nation looks like, needs

to center the voices of Palestinian people because they've been completely erased for so long.

Right. And. Although there's clearly so much work to do in terms of bringing politicians

around or whatever that work is going to end up looking like, I am absolutely buoyed by

the fact that especially youth, are not going to let this go. And I think as awful as everything

has been, I believe we are closer to realizing a free Palestine than we ever have been. and

nobody wants to have gotten here this way. but all other efforts to bring people out in the

way that they've come out, right? And holding the line the way that the diaspora has been

begging us to do before this happened, before it escalated to this point, but it didn't,

right? We didn't do enough before it was too late. And like, we don't have to hold onto

that. That's not like to like sit with guilt, but it is certainly to like double our efforts

at this point. and not have. Like that discussion we had earlier Santiago about not making compromises

in those visions. because socialists are always accused of fighting for utopia, right? Like

framed as an unachievable utopic vision. But folks can't allow that to happen in this case,

right? Because there's been so much compromise and concessions made. And as we go through

this, there'll be so many people that want to water down that vision or colonize it. And

to maintain the Palestinian vision of what a free Palestine looks like is so important.

That's why I really get upset when people try to shut down from the river to the sea, because

it's not about what they think it means. Maybe some people have been told that's what it means,

and so that it scares them, but that's not what it fucking means. But it's been weaponized

because of the borders it suggests. An undoing of what has been done. And that is unacceptable.

to imperialists to go back to a full and recognized Palestinian freedom from the Jordan River to

the Mediterranean Sea like they were. Full restitution. Right? That is why that is being criminalized,

because that can't be normalized. That can't be the vision. That would be unacceptable to

U.S. interests in controlling oil in the region. And that's the bottom line. That is a wrap

on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. Also, a very big

thank you to the producer of our show, Santiago Halu-Quintero. Blueprints of Disruption is

an independent production operated cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter at BPofDisruption.

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