1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,059 Picture this. It's early spring, 2026. You're 2 00:00:04,059 --> 00:00:06,660 in New York City taking a walk through Riverside 3 00:00:06,660 --> 00:00:09,839 Park. OK, I can picture that. It's one of those 4 00:00:09,839 --> 00:00:12,279 beautiful, crisped days where the city just feels 5 00:00:12,279 --> 00:00:14,939 alive. You're strolling down the bike trail near 6 00:00:14,939 --> 00:00:18,100 109th Street, maybe holding a coffee, just taking 7 00:00:18,100 --> 00:00:20,640 in the day. Sounds perfect, honestly. Right. 8 00:00:20,760 --> 00:00:25,239 But then you glance over at this large rock outcropping 9 00:00:25,239 --> 00:00:28,870 by the path and painted there in stark thick 10 00:00:28,870 --> 00:00:33,189 black creosote. It's a message. Oh, boy. Yeah. 11 00:00:33,369 --> 00:00:35,170 And it doesn't use coded language. It doesn't 12 00:00:35,170 --> 00:00:38,229 hide behind academic jargon or political theory. 13 00:00:38,770 --> 00:00:42,049 It just says, very simply, kill a Jew, go to 14 00:00:42,049 --> 00:00:45,359 heaven. God. That just, it stops you dead in 15 00:00:45,359 --> 00:00:48,899 your tracks. Exactly. Just the visual of that, 16 00:00:49,640 --> 00:00:52,380 the sheer unvarnished violence of it interrupting 17 00:00:52,380 --> 00:00:55,600 a completely normal spring day. It's completely 18 00:00:55,600 --> 00:00:58,320 jarring. And the The text we're exploring today 19 00:00:58,320 --> 00:01:01,679 actually starts with that exact image. But what's 20 00:01:01,679 --> 00:01:03,640 truly unsettling is the observation our author 21 00:01:03,640 --> 00:01:06,879 makes about that graffiti. Right. As horrifying 22 00:01:06,879 --> 00:01:09,879 as it is, he points out that it possesses a kind 23 00:01:09,879 --> 00:01:14,500 of refreshing straightforwardness. Which is a 24 00:01:14,500 --> 00:01:16,760 terrifying phrase to use, I mean, when you really 25 00:01:16,760 --> 00:01:20,319 think about it. It is. But when you compare that 26 00:01:20,319 --> 00:01:22,260 blatant threat on the rock to the incredibly 27 00:01:22,260 --> 00:01:25,459 complex, heavily veiled modern rhetoric that 28 00:01:25,459 --> 00:01:28,150 we see today, you know, rhetoric that disguises 29 00:01:28,150 --> 00:01:30,969 ancient prejudice as mere political critique, 30 00:01:31,840 --> 00:01:34,180 you start to understand his point. Right, because 31 00:01:34,180 --> 00:01:36,280 the Riverside Park graffiti doesn't hide what 32 00:01:36,280 --> 00:01:40,180 it is. Exactly. And that mechanism, the way hate 33 00:01:40,180 --> 00:01:43,280 hides, mutates, and disguises itself in the modern 34 00:01:43,280 --> 00:01:46,079 era, is exactly what we're unpacking today. We 35 00:01:46,079 --> 00:01:48,659 are. We're looking at a truly monumental piece 36 00:01:48,659 --> 00:01:51,519 of historical and cultural analysis. It's an 37 00:01:51,519 --> 00:01:54,280 extensive, highly acclaimed essay by the renowned 38 00:01:54,280 --> 00:01:56,950 historian Sir Simon Schama. Yeah. Published in 39 00:01:56,950 --> 00:01:59,790 the October 2026 issue of the Jewish Quarterly. 40 00:02:00,030 --> 00:02:03,670 Right. It's titled Jew Hatred, The Latest Edition. 41 00:02:04,010 --> 00:02:06,750 And I have to say it is an incredibly dense, 42 00:02:07,209 --> 00:02:10,370 rigorous and frankly painful text to work through. 43 00:02:10,449 --> 00:02:13,610 It really is. So our mission for this deep dive 44 00:02:13,610 --> 00:02:16,949 is to methodically unpack Schama's historical 45 00:02:16,949 --> 00:02:19,590 cultural and psychological analysis of the recent 46 00:02:19,590 --> 00:02:22,310 global surge in antisemitism We want to go chapter 47 00:02:22,310 --> 00:02:25,150 by chapter Exactly concept by concept really 48 00:02:25,150 --> 00:02:27,689 getting into the mechanics of how ancient prejudices 49 00:02:27,689 --> 00:02:30,250 have adapted to survive in modern political movements 50 00:02:30,250 --> 00:02:32,550 We aren't just looking at the what we're gonna 51 00:02:32,550 --> 00:02:34,990 look really deeply at the how and the why but 52 00:02:34,990 --> 00:02:37,330 before we take one more step I want to speak 53 00:02:37,330 --> 00:02:40,479 directly to you the listener for a second because 54 00:02:40,479 --> 00:02:43,719 we are wading into incredibly deep, politically 55 00:02:43,719 --> 00:02:46,000 explosive waters here today. Oh, absolutely. 56 00:02:46,199 --> 00:02:48,280 The source material touches on the Gaza War, 57 00:02:48,819 --> 00:02:51,439 the Israeli -Palestinian conflict, and the rhetoric 58 00:02:51,439 --> 00:02:53,479 of both left -wing and right -wing political 59 00:02:53,479 --> 00:02:56,789 figures. And we need to be crystal clear about 60 00:02:56,789 --> 00:02:59,919 our role here. Yes. Our goal today is not to 61 00:02:59,919 --> 00:03:02,800 take a geopolitical stance. We are not here to 62 00:03:02,800 --> 00:03:05,919 validate a specific political side, nor are we 63 00:03:05,919 --> 00:03:08,419 endorsing the viewpoints of the author or the 64 00:03:08,419 --> 00:03:11,319 actions of any political groups mentioned. Right. 65 00:03:11,620 --> 00:03:14,479 We're essentially acting as historical detectives 66 00:03:14,479 --> 00:03:17,659 today. Exactly. Our sole mission is to neutrally 67 00:03:17,659 --> 00:03:20,580 report, deconstruct, and analyze the arguments 68 00:03:20,580 --> 00:03:22,860 exactly as they're presented in this original 69 00:03:22,860 --> 00:03:25,879 text. We want to give you the tools to understand 70 00:03:25,879 --> 00:03:29,199 the historical thesis being laid out so you can 71 00:03:29,199 --> 00:03:31,000 see the architecture of the argument yourself. 72 00:03:31,210 --> 00:03:33,550 Okay, so with that framework firmly in place, 73 00:03:33,590 --> 00:03:36,569 let's jump in. The analysis begins with a phenomenon 74 00:03:36,569 --> 00:03:39,330 that's really defining our current cultural moment. 75 00:03:40,069 --> 00:03:42,710 The modern litmus test. Right. Schama's argument 76 00:03:42,710 --> 00:03:46,069 is that in today's society, anti -Zionism has 77 00:03:46,069 --> 00:03:48,110 become virtually indistinguishable from anti 78 00:03:48,110 --> 00:03:51,650 -Semitism. But it's not just a theoretical overlap, 79 00:03:52,090 --> 00:03:55,189 right? It's actively functioning as a societal 80 00:03:55,189 --> 00:03:58,610 purity test. Yeah, and to understand the mechanics 81 00:03:58,610 --> 00:04:00,969 of this, Schama brings in the German philologist 82 00:04:00,969 --> 00:04:03,569 Hans Mayer. Oh right, going back a bit. Yeah, 83 00:04:03,569 --> 00:04:06,909 way back in 1984, Mayer wrote that anyone who 84 00:04:06,909 --> 00:04:09,409 attacks Zionism but claims they mean nothing 85 00:04:09,409 --> 00:04:11,689 against the Jews is just fooling themselves or 86 00:04:11,689 --> 00:04:15,530 others. Wow, 1984. Right. And Schama's thesis 87 00:04:15,530 --> 00:04:18,029 builds on that, suggesting that society is currently 88 00:04:18,029 --> 00:04:20,569 forcing Jewish people into a corner. They're 89 00:04:20,569 --> 00:04:23,439 being demanded to publicly denounce Israel. And 90 00:04:23,439 --> 00:04:25,959 specifically to denounce it as the unique singular 91 00:04:25,959 --> 00:04:29,680 source of world evil, just to be exempted from 92 00:04:29,680 --> 00:04:32,600 total social ostracism. It's like a reverse loyal 93 00:04:32,600 --> 00:04:35,680 to oath. I mean, you know how historically minority 94 00:04:35,680 --> 00:04:37,660 groups were forced to swear allegiance to their 95 00:04:37,660 --> 00:04:39,879 host country to prove they belonged. Right. Like 96 00:04:39,879 --> 00:04:42,639 during the McCarthy era or the Inquisition. Well, 97 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:45,959 here the dynamic is completely flipped. Jewish 98 00:04:45,959 --> 00:04:48,839 people are being asked to publicly renounce their 99 00:04:48,839 --> 00:04:52,120 ancestral homeland to actively disavow it. Just 100 00:04:52,120 --> 00:04:54,939 to participate in normal civic life. Just to 101 00:04:54,939 --> 00:04:57,699 exist, basically. Exactly. Just to buy groceries 102 00:04:57,699 --> 00:05:00,839 or go to class safely. The psychology of a purity 103 00:05:00,839 --> 00:05:03,779 test is fascinating and terrifying because it's 104 00:05:03,779 --> 00:05:07,120 not about debate. It's about social death. Yeah. 105 00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:09,100 If you don't pass the test, you are cast out 106 00:05:09,100 --> 00:05:11,600 of the tribe. And Schama brings receipts to show 107 00:05:11,600 --> 00:05:14,079 exactly how this reverse loyalty oath operates 108 00:05:14,079 --> 00:05:16,540 in practice. Like, look at the example he gives 109 00:05:16,540 --> 00:05:18,779 of California State Senator Scott Weiner. Oh, 110 00:05:18,879 --> 00:05:21,959 this is a crazy story. It is. Here is a distinctly 111 00:05:21,959 --> 00:05:24,620 progressive politician, right? Initially, he 112 00:05:24,620 --> 00:05:27,060 declined to classify Israeli military action 113 00:05:27,060 --> 00:05:31,000 in Gaza as a genocide. Right. Because of that 114 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:34,360 hesitation, he was completely demonized by the 115 00:05:34,360 --> 00:05:37,310 progressive left. But here's where the purity 116 00:05:37,310 --> 00:05:39,949 test becomes impossible to pass. Even after he 117 00:05:39,949 --> 00:05:41,610 changed his mind and aligned with their view, 118 00:05:42,050 --> 00:05:45,069 no gesture of penitence was enough. He was still 119 00:05:45,069 --> 00:05:47,870 ostracized. Wiener was literally banned from 120 00:05:47,870 --> 00:05:50,810 a pride parade in his own San Francisco constituency. 121 00:05:51,910 --> 00:05:54,790 He was even forced to chant free Palestine, just 122 00:05:54,790 --> 00:05:56,709 at the price of admission, to sit in a local 123 00:05:56,709 --> 00:05:59,470 pub and watch a World Cup match. Let's just pause 124 00:05:59,470 --> 00:06:02,290 on that pub example for a second because it perfectly 125 00:06:02,290 --> 00:06:05,279 illustrates the mechanism. A pub is a public 126 00:06:05,279 --> 00:06:07,759 accommodation. Right. Watching the World Cup 127 00:06:07,759 --> 00:06:12,129 is a universal communal human activity. By creating 128 00:06:12,129 --> 00:06:15,129 a literal password, a political slogan that a 129 00:06:15,129 --> 00:06:17,550 Jewish person has to say just to enter that space, 130 00:06:18,009 --> 00:06:20,930 you are completely conditionalizing their existence 131 00:06:20,930 --> 00:06:23,629 in society. It's a mechanism of collective incrimination. 132 00:06:24,129 --> 00:06:26,810 Exactly. And it doesn't even spare people who 133 00:06:26,810 --> 00:06:29,149 are from Israel but are fiercely critical of 134 00:06:29,149 --> 00:06:31,740 their own government. Schama brings up two prominent 135 00:06:31,740 --> 00:06:34,740 figures here, the filmmaker Nadav Lapid and the 136 00:06:34,740 --> 00:06:37,980 writer Edgar Caret. Both of whom we should definitely 137 00:06:37,980 --> 00:06:41,019 note have been incredibly harsh vocal critics 138 00:06:41,019 --> 00:06:43,860 of Benjamin Netanyahu and the right -wing policies 139 00:06:43,860 --> 00:06:46,180 of the Israeli government. They are the furthest 140 00:06:46,180 --> 00:06:49,060 thing from government mouthpieces. Right. Yet, 141 00:06:49,180 --> 00:06:51,180 Lapid faced demands to be removed as a judge 142 00:06:51,180 --> 00:06:53,560 at the Marseille Film Festival and Caret has 143 00:06:53,560 --> 00:06:56,040 been boycotted at international literary festivals. 144 00:06:56,300 --> 00:06:58,959 And why? Not because of their political stances 145 00:06:58,959 --> 00:07:02,709 but simply because they exist as Israelis. This 146 00:07:02,709 --> 00:07:05,649 is where we see geopolitical conflict being weaponized 147 00:07:05,649 --> 00:07:09,930 to hold diaspora Jews hostage. Schama quotes the 148 00:07:09,930 --> 00:07:12,029 influential leftist livestreamer Hassan Piker 149 00:07:12,029 --> 00:07:15,689 here. Oh, right. In August 2026, Piker issued 150 00:07:15,689 --> 00:07:18,290 this warning to American Jews. He essentially 151 00:07:18,290 --> 00:07:20,449 said that if American Jews keep putting out the 152 00:07:20,449 --> 00:07:23,069 idea that they're invested in Israel, eventually 153 00:07:23,069 --> 00:07:25,870 someone is going to take action, quote, not against 154 00:07:25,870 --> 00:07:29,550 Israel, but against American Jews. just literal 155 00:07:29,550 --> 00:07:33,350 mafia logic. It really is. It's like nice community 156 00:07:33,350 --> 00:07:35,170 you've got here. It would be a shame if something 157 00:07:35,170 --> 00:07:37,269 happened to it because of what a government 6 158 00:07:37,269 --> 00:07:39,730 ,000 miles away is doing. That's exactly that 159 00:07:39,730 --> 00:07:43,149 logic. It tells Jewish people drop your connection 160 00:07:43,149 --> 00:07:45,709 to your history and the state or whatever violence 161 00:07:45,709 --> 00:07:47,689 happens to you here in America or Europe is your 162 00:07:47,689 --> 00:07:50,430 own fault. It's blaming the victim entirely. 163 00:07:50,430 --> 00:07:53,089 It shifts the blame for antisemitic violence 164 00:07:53,089 --> 00:07:55,069 onto the victims themselves, making their safety 165 00:07:55,069 --> 00:07:57,850 entirely conditional and passing this modern 166 00:07:57,850 --> 00:08:01,110 politically cloaked litmus test. But, you know, 167 00:08:01,110 --> 00:08:03,310 if we pull back, this politically cloaked hostility 168 00:08:03,310 --> 00:08:05,610 didn't just spawn out of nowhere. No, absolutely 169 00:08:05,610 --> 00:08:08,370 not. It isn't a uniquely 21st century invention. 170 00:08:09,170 --> 00:08:11,290 Schama's historical analysis argues that this 171 00:08:11,290 --> 00:08:13,709 modern rhetoric is actually dragging incredibly 172 00:08:13,709 --> 00:08:17,600 old. dark medieval tropes right back into the 173 00:08:17,600 --> 00:08:19,379 daylight. This is where the historical mapping 174 00:08:19,379 --> 00:08:22,579 gets truly fascinating because hate doesn't usually 175 00:08:22,579 --> 00:08:24,680 invent new materials, you know, it just recycles 176 00:08:24,680 --> 00:08:27,600 the old ones. Right. Schama traces the genealogy 177 00:08:27,600 --> 00:08:30,220 of current rhetoric directly back to the 19th 178 00:08:30,220 --> 00:08:33,299 century in the Middle Ages. For instance, he 179 00:08:33,299 --> 00:08:35,820 notes the shocking return of the swastika. He 180 00:08:35,820 --> 00:08:38,460 mentions an incident where 57 swastikas were 181 00:08:38,460 --> 00:08:40,980 found drawn in a single children's playground 182 00:08:40,980 --> 00:08:44,299 in Brooklyn. Fifty seven. Right. In one playground. 183 00:08:44,360 --> 00:08:48,620 Right. Just completely casual hate. But it goes 184 00:08:48,620 --> 00:08:51,779 way deeper than Nazi imagery. He points to the 185 00:08:51,779 --> 00:08:54,860 revival of 19th century zoological framing. Like 186 00:08:54,860 --> 00:08:57,679 framing people as animals? Exactly. Think of 187 00:08:57,679 --> 00:08:59,940 people like the French socialist Alphonse Toussaint 188 00:08:59,940 --> 00:09:02,879 in the 1800s. During the Industrial Revolution, 189 00:09:03,299 --> 00:09:05,580 society was changing rapidly and there was massive 190 00:09:05,580 --> 00:09:09,559 anxiety about capitalism and modernism. To channel 191 00:09:09,559 --> 00:09:12,399 that anxiety, anti -Semitic thinkers began characterizing 192 00:09:12,399 --> 00:09:15,659 Jews not just as religious enemies, but as biological 193 00:09:15,659 --> 00:09:19,779 threats. Like pests. Yes. Insect. Parasites. 194 00:09:20,019 --> 00:09:23,039 Vermin. Plague -carrying rodents who were somehow 195 00:09:23,039 --> 00:09:25,340 clogging or corrupting the machine of society. 196 00:09:25,679 --> 00:09:29,080 Now that specific mechanism, dehumanizing a group 197 00:09:29,080 --> 00:09:32,220 into vermin, is so crucial to understand because 198 00:09:32,220 --> 00:09:35,419 it fundamentally changes the psychological threshold 199 00:09:35,419 --> 00:09:38,299 for violence. Right, because you fight an enemy, 200 00:09:38,460 --> 00:09:42,279 but you exterminate vermin. Exactly. And that 201 00:09:42,279 --> 00:09:45,779 exact zoological framing is back. Schama mentions 202 00:09:45,779 --> 00:09:49,139 this chilling scene in rural Ireland on roads 203 00:09:49,139 --> 00:09:52,970 in County Loth and County Meath. painted in giant 204 00:09:52,970 --> 00:09:55,269 white letters on the road, alongside a star of 205 00:09:55,269 --> 00:09:58,429 David and a swastika, were the words, Jew Rat. 206 00:09:58,809 --> 00:10:01,409 And Schama, drawing on his deep literary history, 207 00:10:01,629 --> 00:10:04,629 connects this immediately to James Joyce's masterpiece, 208 00:10:04,850 --> 00:10:07,870 Ulysses. Oh, the pub scene. Yes. He reminds us 209 00:10:07,870 --> 00:10:11,129 of the famous scene set in 1904, where the nationalist 210 00:10:11,129 --> 00:10:14,669 character known as The Citizen is in Barney Kiernan's 211 00:10:14,669 --> 00:10:17,230 pub. He attacks the Jewish protagonist, Leopold 212 00:10:17,230 --> 00:10:19,090 Bloom, using the exact same rhetoric, calling 213 00:10:19,090 --> 00:10:23,220 him quote, as a shithouse rat. So what we're 214 00:10:23,220 --> 00:10:26,960 seeing in 2026 is an echo of 1904, which itself 215 00:10:26,960 --> 00:10:30,080 was an echo of 19th century pseudoscience. But 216 00:10:30,080 --> 00:10:32,399 the timeline goes back much, much further than 217 00:10:32,399 --> 00:10:34,559 the 19th century. We need to spend some time 218 00:10:34,559 --> 00:10:36,659 with this because Schama dives deeply into the 219 00:10:36,659 --> 00:10:39,899 blood libel. Let's unpack the mechanics of this. 220 00:10:39,960 --> 00:10:42,820 Where does this actually start? Well, the formal 221 00:10:42,820 --> 00:10:44,740 blood libel, as we understand it, really takes 222 00:10:44,740 --> 00:10:47,779 root in 12th century England. Schama brings up 223 00:10:47,779 --> 00:10:50,840 two foundational cases, William of Norwich in 224 00:10:50,840 --> 00:10:54,480 1144 and Little Hugh of Lincoln about a century 225 00:10:54,480 --> 00:10:57,259 later. Okay. Let's look at William of Norwich. 226 00:10:57,320 --> 00:10:59,879 He was a young apprentice, right? And he was 227 00:10:59,879 --> 00:11:03,259 found dead in the woods? Yes. A tragic, unsolved 228 00:11:03,259 --> 00:11:06,000 local murder. But instead of an investigation, 229 00:11:06,320 --> 00:11:08,759 a local monk concocted a story that the Jewish 230 00:11:08,759 --> 00:11:11,379 community had kidnapped William and crucified 231 00:11:11,379 --> 00:11:14,299 him in a mockery of the death of Jesus. Just 232 00:11:14,299 --> 00:11:16,610 totally made up out of thin air. Completely. 233 00:11:17,009 --> 00:11:18,889 And this was the birth of the myth that Jews 234 00:11:18,889 --> 00:11:21,370 required the blood of Christian children for 235 00:11:21,370 --> 00:11:23,929 ritual purposes, often specifically tied to making 236 00:11:23,929 --> 00:11:25,909 Passover matzah. Which, if you know anything 237 00:11:25,909 --> 00:11:29,149 at all about Jewish dietary laws, is absurdly 238 00:11:29,149 --> 00:11:31,990 ironic, considering kosher law strictly forbids 239 00:11:31,990 --> 00:11:34,470 the consumption of any blood whatsoever. Exactly. 240 00:11:35,210 --> 00:11:37,250 The lie is the diametric opposite of the truth, 241 00:11:37,389 --> 00:11:39,269 which is a really common feature of effective 242 00:11:39,269 --> 00:11:42,389 propaganda. Right. But this lie that Jews are 243 00:11:42,389 --> 00:11:44,950 a demonic predatory force harvesting children 244 00:11:44,950 --> 00:11:48,830 spread like wildfire across Europe. But Schama 245 00:11:48,830 --> 00:11:50,990 doesn't even stop in the Middle Ages. He traces 246 00:11:50,990 --> 00:11:53,649 this conspiratorial archetype all the way back 247 00:11:53,649 --> 00:11:56,450 to antiquity. To the Romans and Egyptians. Yes. 248 00:11:56,830 --> 00:11:59,809 He cites the Roman historian Tacitus, who claimed 249 00:11:59,809 --> 00:12:02,649 Jews confront the rest of the world with, quote, 250 00:12:02,889 --> 00:12:06,330 a hatred reserved for enemies. Wow. And going 251 00:12:06,330 --> 00:12:09,809 back even further to the third century BCE, the 252 00:12:09,809 --> 00:12:12,470 Egyptian priest Manetho claimed that the biblical 253 00:12:12,470 --> 00:12:14,950 Exodus wasn't a story of liberation from slavery, 254 00:12:15,389 --> 00:12:17,450 but rather that the Egyptians had rightfully 255 00:12:17,450 --> 00:12:20,929 expelled a diseased people, specifically lepers 256 00:12:20,929 --> 00:12:23,269 who were a public health threat. So the framing 257 00:12:23,269 --> 00:12:25,529 of the Jewish people as a biological contagion 258 00:12:25,529 --> 00:12:28,210 goes back literally thousands of years. Yes. 259 00:12:28,450 --> 00:12:31,929 And later, the Greek grammarian Appian popularized 260 00:12:31,929 --> 00:12:35,490 this diabolical archetype of Jews as a conspiratorial 261 00:12:35,490 --> 00:12:38,250 cabal. Appian claimed that Jews would kidnap 262 00:12:38,250 --> 00:12:40,950 Greeks, fatten them up in the Jerusalem temple, 263 00:12:41,549 --> 00:12:43,870 and sacrifice them. It's like a horror movie 264 00:12:43,870 --> 00:12:47,210 script. It is. These are the ancient Greco -Waroman 265 00:12:47,210 --> 00:12:50,409 roots of the idea that Jews are a predatory child 266 00:12:50,409 --> 00:12:52,870 -sacrificing cabal. Okay, but let me step in 267 00:12:52,870 --> 00:12:55,639 here as the skeptical listener. I understand 268 00:12:55,639 --> 00:12:58,399 the history, but Schama points out that these 269 00:12:58,399 --> 00:13:01,139 ancient tropes of child sacrifice and cannibalism 270 00:13:01,139 --> 00:13:04,419 are reappearing today. Yes. How exactly does 271 00:13:04,419 --> 00:13:06,840 an ancient Roman or Egyptian conspiracy connect 272 00:13:06,840 --> 00:13:10,159 to, say, a modern art gallery in 2026? I mean, 273 00:13:10,179 --> 00:13:12,580 how does that leap actually happen? That is the 274 00:13:12,580 --> 00:13:15,419 core of Schama's argument here. It happens through 275 00:13:15,419 --> 00:13:18,039 rebranding. He shows the seamless transition 276 00:13:18,039 --> 00:13:21,279 of the medieval blood libel into modern, supposedly 277 00:13:21,279 --> 00:13:25,580 anti -colonial art. specifically details an exhibit 278 00:13:25,580 --> 00:13:28,100 by the artist Matthew Collings at a gallery in 279 00:13:28,100 --> 00:13:31,399 Margate called Drawings Against Genocide. Tell 280 00:13:31,399 --> 00:13:34,179 me about this specific painting. So in this exhibit, 281 00:13:34,360 --> 00:13:36,980 there is a painting depicting a Jewish art dealer. 282 00:13:37,259 --> 00:13:39,639 And it's not ambiguous. It is specifically modeled 283 00:13:39,639 --> 00:13:42,120 after the French Israeli owner of Sotheby's, 284 00:13:42,279 --> 00:13:45,440 Patrick Drahi. In the painting, this Jewish figure 285 00:13:45,440 --> 00:13:48,799 has sharpened demonic fangs and he is eating 286 00:13:48,799 --> 00:13:51,620 a baby alive while blood cascades from his mouth. 287 00:13:51,860 --> 00:13:55,370 Oh my God. That is a literal visual recreation 288 00:13:55,370 --> 00:13:59,230 of the medieval blood libel. It's like Goya's 289 00:13:59,230 --> 00:14:02,009 Saturn devouring his son, but explicitly racialized. 290 00:14:02,269 --> 00:14:05,149 Exactly. But here is the mechanism of modern 291 00:14:05,149 --> 00:14:08,389 disguise. When the artist was confronted about 292 00:14:08,389 --> 00:14:11,490 this horrifying imagery, he insisted it wasn't 293 00:14:11,490 --> 00:14:14,009 anti -Semitic. How could he possibly claim that? 294 00:14:14,330 --> 00:14:17,970 Because he claimed it was about Zionists, not 295 00:14:17,970 --> 00:14:22,049 Jews. He used a geopolitical term to shield ancient 296 00:14:22,049 --> 00:14:24,830 racialized hate. And the local police actually 297 00:14:24,830 --> 00:14:27,330 investigated and judged that the show didn't 298 00:14:27,330 --> 00:14:30,769 insult Jewish people as a group. Wow. So the 299 00:14:30,769 --> 00:14:34,070 legal and cultural defenses of society just short 300 00:14:34,070 --> 00:14:37,330 circuit because the magic word Zionist was used. 301 00:14:38,429 --> 00:14:41,230 Precisely. Schama uses this to illustrate how 302 00:14:41,230 --> 00:14:44,269 perfectly the ancient demonic archetype of the 303 00:14:44,269 --> 00:14:47,029 blood drinking Jew has been preserved. It has 304 00:14:47,029 --> 00:14:49,470 just been placed in a modern frame. And these 305 00:14:49,470 --> 00:14:51,370 ancient libels aren't just staying on canvas, 306 00:14:51,730 --> 00:14:54,389 you know. They aren't just academic curiosities. 307 00:14:55,070 --> 00:14:56,850 Schama makes the forceful case that this rhetoric 308 00:14:56,850 --> 00:14:59,350 is leading to a terrifying contraction of physical 309 00:14:59,350 --> 00:15:01,970 safety for Jews in the present day. It's bleeding 310 00:15:01,970 --> 00:15:04,909 off the canvas and onto the streets. The phrase 311 00:15:04,909 --> 00:15:08,570 he uses is a drastic contraction of citizenship. 312 00:15:08,769 --> 00:15:11,620 That's a powerful phrase. It is. We are talking 313 00:15:11,620 --> 00:15:14,200 about the loss of basic civic freedoms that most 314 00:15:14,200 --> 00:15:16,659 people take completely for granted. The assumed 315 00:15:16,659 --> 00:15:19,039 right to wear ethnic clothing like a kippah or 316 00:15:19,039 --> 00:15:21,399 a star of David necklace without fear. Right. 317 00:15:21,799 --> 00:15:23,720 The right to gather for a wedding or a school 318 00:15:23,720 --> 00:15:26,580 play or bar mitzvah without needing a perimeter 319 00:15:26,580 --> 00:15:29,899 of armed guards and metal detectors. That baseline 320 00:15:29,899 --> 00:15:32,919 level of citizenship is disappearing. Schama grounds 321 00:15:32,919 --> 00:15:36,019 this in a very poignant personal reflection that 322 00:15:36,019 --> 00:15:38,360 I think really anchors the emotion of this text. 323 00:15:38,879 --> 00:15:40,940 He recalls a phone call with his mother. back 324 00:15:40,940 --> 00:15:44,100 in the summer of 1990. Yeah. She was deeply distressed. 325 00:15:44,220 --> 00:15:46,659 She was. It was about the desecration of Jewish 326 00:15:46,659 --> 00:15:49,460 cemeteries. There was one in Edmonton in the 327 00:15:49,460 --> 00:15:53,340 UK and another in Carpentras in France. And let's 328 00:15:53,340 --> 00:15:56,100 talk about Carpentras because it wasn't just 329 00:15:56,100 --> 00:15:59,179 knocking over headstones. No, it was much, much 330 00:15:59,179 --> 00:16:02,279 worse. A recently buried 81 year old man was 331 00:16:02,279 --> 00:16:05,039 exhumed from his grave and his body was brutally 332 00:16:05,039 --> 00:16:09,700 mutilated. I mean, why do that? What is the psychology 333 00:16:09,700 --> 00:16:13,480 of digging up an 81 -year -old man? It is the 334 00:16:13,480 --> 00:16:16,480 ultimate act of erasure and disrespect. It sends 335 00:16:16,480 --> 00:16:19,139 a message that you are not just unwanted in life. 336 00:16:19,159 --> 00:16:22,080 You are not even permitted peace and death. The 337 00:16:22,080 --> 00:16:25,539 earth of this country rejects you. It's psychological 338 00:16:25,539 --> 00:16:28,700 terrorism against the living community. And Schama's 339 00:16:28,700 --> 00:16:31,639 mother saw this in 1990, and she told him on 340 00:16:31,639 --> 00:16:34,500 the phone, quote, It's over. The good times, 341 00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:37,990 the safe times for Jews here. And at the time, 342 00:16:38,250 --> 00:16:40,710 Schama admits he brushed off his mother's fears. 343 00:16:41,269 --> 00:16:43,429 He believed that in places like England or America, 344 00:16:43,590 --> 00:16:46,210 the post -war consensus was solid. Jews were 345 00:16:46,210 --> 00:16:48,950 ultimately safe. Right. But looking at the landscape 346 00:16:48,950 --> 00:16:51,970 today, he realizes she was a prophet. Because 347 00:16:51,970 --> 00:16:54,789 the examples today are just relentless. Schama 348 00:16:54,789 --> 00:16:56,950 lists these heartbreaking everyday incidents. 349 00:16:57,149 --> 00:16:59,669 A 13 -year -old boy in Paris, held at knife point, 350 00:17:00,190 --> 00:17:03,230 beaten, and called a dirty Jew, simply for walking 351 00:17:03,230 --> 00:17:06,289 down the street wearing a kippah. Horrific. A 352 00:17:06,289 --> 00:17:08,109 property inspector in Slough going about his 353 00:17:08,109 --> 00:17:10,309 daily job, accosted by a stranger and called 354 00:17:10,309 --> 00:17:13,130 a baby killer. And the incident with the Jewish 355 00:17:13,130 --> 00:17:16,589 Free School football team? That one is just so 356 00:17:16,589 --> 00:17:20,130 disturbing. These are kids. Under -15 boys playing 357 00:17:20,130 --> 00:17:23,170 a local football match near Norwich. Right. And 358 00:17:23,170 --> 00:17:26,009 they were met by crowds making gas chamber hissing 359 00:17:26,009 --> 00:17:29,029 noises, shouting Nazi slogans and using racial 360 00:17:29,029 --> 00:17:31,910 slurs. Try to imagine being a 14 -year -old kid 361 00:17:31,910 --> 00:17:34,369 just trying to play a game. An adult are making 362 00:17:34,369 --> 00:17:37,470 the sound of the gas chambers at you. It's completely 363 00:17:37,470 --> 00:17:40,609 depraved. It's a total loss of the freedom to 364 00:17:40,609 --> 00:17:44,130 just exist in public spaces. What is deeply troubling 365 00:17:44,130 --> 00:17:47,130 is how Schama ties this cultural shift to a generational 366 00:17:47,130 --> 00:17:49,609 divide. He specifically analyzes Generation Z 367 00:17:49,609 --> 00:17:52,430 here. Yeah, let's explore this generational amnesia. 368 00:17:53,140 --> 00:17:56,319 For many young people, Schama observes the actual 369 00:17:56,319 --> 00:17:59,339 historical genocide of six million Jews during 370 00:17:59,339 --> 00:18:02,460 the Holocaust is increasingly viewed as ancient 371 00:18:02,460 --> 00:18:04,720 history. Right. It's seen as a distant bore, 372 00:18:05,039 --> 00:18:07,920 or more maliciously, it's viewed as a gait trip 373 00:18:07,920 --> 00:18:10,400 that is cynically exploited to smother criticism 374 00:18:10,400 --> 00:18:13,160 of Israel. The historical weight of the Holocaust 375 00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:16,380 has just evaporated for a huge swath of the younger 376 00:18:16,380 --> 00:18:19,579 generation. He notes how Nazi salutes and Hitler 377 00:18:19,579 --> 00:18:22,440 -loving jibes have somehow become normalized. 378 00:18:23,019 --> 00:18:26,019 Edgy humor in schools. And we must state clearly 379 00:18:26,019 --> 00:18:29,019 here, again, that we are impartially reporting 380 00:18:29,019 --> 00:18:32,150 Schama's analysis. which takes aim at figures 381 00:18:32,150 --> 00:18:34,930 across the political spectrum who are influencing 382 00:18:34,930 --> 00:18:36,990 this younger generation. Right. He doesn't just 383 00:18:36,990 --> 00:18:40,579 blame one side. No. For instance, he points to 384 00:18:40,579 --> 00:18:42,960 the right wing. He mentions the podcaster Nick 385 00:18:42,960 --> 00:18:45,779 Puentes, who has a massive following among young 386 00:18:45,779 --> 00:18:49,359 men and who openly, gleefully mocks the Holocaust. 387 00:18:49,799 --> 00:18:52,220 Yeah. He also highlights Tucker Carlson's guest, 388 00:18:52,680 --> 00:18:55,700 the podcaster Darrell Cooper, who went on a massive 389 00:18:55,700 --> 00:18:58,339 platform and essentially... claimed that Winston 390 00:18:58,339 --> 00:19:01,180 Churchill was the real villain of World War II, 391 00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:03,680 completely downplaying the reality of the concentration 392 00:19:03,680 --> 00:19:07,380 camps. It's a phenomenon of Holocaust trivialization, 393 00:19:07,680 --> 00:19:11,019 inversion, and outright denial. But if we connect 394 00:19:11,019 --> 00:19:12,880 this to the bigger picture of the text, Schama 395 00:19:12,880 --> 00:19:15,059 isn't just pointing at the right wing. Right, 396 00:19:15,059 --> 00:19:17,220 because earlier we were talking about left -wing 397 00:19:17,220 --> 00:19:19,839 college students chanting for global intifada. 398 00:19:20,259 --> 00:19:22,359 And now we're looking at right -wing podcasters 399 00:19:22,359 --> 00:19:25,980 praising Hitler. How does Schama interrelate those 400 00:19:25,980 --> 00:19:28,490 two extremes? Because politically, they hate 401 00:19:28,490 --> 00:19:32,250 each other. They do. But they are united by what 402 00:19:32,250 --> 00:19:36,789 Schama calls a refusal of gravity. A refusal of 403 00:19:36,789 --> 00:19:40,490 gravity. I like that. Yeah, it's the horseshoe 404 00:19:40,490 --> 00:19:42,990 theory in perfect action. If you think of a horseshoe, 405 00:19:43,150 --> 00:19:45,210 the two furthest extremes bend back around to 406 00:19:45,210 --> 00:19:47,130 almost touch each other. Whether it's the far 407 00:19:47,130 --> 00:19:50,130 -left campus activists tearing down posters of 408 00:19:50,130 --> 00:19:53,470 kidnapped Jewish toddlers or the far -right podcaster 409 00:19:53,470 --> 00:19:56,849 mocking Auschwitz, both extremes share a fundamental 410 00:19:56,849 --> 00:20:00,230 psychological desire. Which is? They want to 411 00:20:00,230 --> 00:20:03,670 disqualify Jewish grief. Oh. Because acknowledging 412 00:20:03,670 --> 00:20:06,130 that grief, acknowledging the reality of Jewish 413 00:20:06,130 --> 00:20:09,430 vulnerability and historical suffering, it complicates 414 00:20:09,430 --> 00:20:11,890 their respective ideological narratives. Exactly. 415 00:20:12,130 --> 00:20:14,109 For the far right, acknowledging the Holocaust 416 00:20:14,109 --> 00:20:16,730 disrupts their fascist white nationalist nostalgia. 417 00:20:17,369 --> 00:20:19,930 And for the far left, acknowledging Jewish vulnerability 418 00:20:19,930 --> 00:20:22,509 disrupts their rigid oppressor versus oppressed 419 00:20:22,509 --> 00:20:25,410 binary, where Israel must be the ultimate colonial 420 00:20:25,410 --> 00:20:28,769 evil. Spot on. The gravity of Jewish history 421 00:20:28,769 --> 00:20:31,650 is inconvenient for both extremes, so they both 422 00:20:31,650 --> 00:20:34,630 just refuse it. And this shared refusal of gravity 423 00:20:34,630 --> 00:20:37,670 is hyper accelerated by the digital age, where 424 00:20:37,670 --> 00:20:39,849 reality and language are so easily distorted. 425 00:20:40,160 --> 00:20:42,900 Which brings us to what is undoubtedly the most 426 00:20:42,900 --> 00:20:45,660 controversial, heavy, and rigorous chapter of 427 00:20:45,660 --> 00:20:48,740 the steep dive. The digital disinformation age 428 00:20:48,740 --> 00:20:51,430 and the weaponization of the word genocide. And 429 00:20:51,430 --> 00:20:54,309 before we unpack this, it is crucial once again 430 00:20:54,309 --> 00:20:56,670 to reiterate to you, the listener, that we are 431 00:20:56,670 --> 00:20:59,250 neutrally unpacking Schama's arguments regarding 432 00:20:59,250 --> 00:21:01,609 the Gaza war, the legal definitions of genocide, 433 00:21:01,730 --> 00:21:03,509 and the International Court of Justice. Yes, 434 00:21:03,529 --> 00:21:05,509 absolutely. We are not validating these claims 435 00:21:05,509 --> 00:21:07,789 or taking a stance on the geopolitical conflict 436 00:21:07,789 --> 00:21:11,170 itself. We are simply examining how Schama constructs 437 00:21:11,170 --> 00:21:14,269 his historical and legal defense. Exactly. So 438 00:21:14,269 --> 00:21:16,250 Schama addresses head on the most consequential 439 00:21:16,500 --> 00:21:19,660 heavy accusation leveled at Israel today. The 440 00:21:19,660 --> 00:21:22,039 charge that the Israel Defense Forces set out 441 00:21:22,039 --> 00:21:24,660 to commit a deliberate planned genocide of the 442 00:21:24,660 --> 00:21:27,480 Palestinian people in Gaza. Right. And Schama 443 00:21:27,480 --> 00:21:30,160 mounts a deeply rigorous historical defense against 444 00:21:30,160 --> 00:21:32,240 this specific charge. That's his main argument. 445 00:21:32,460 --> 00:21:35,180 His argument is that while the civilian suffering 446 00:21:35,180 --> 00:21:38,480 in Gaza is horrific and while he readily concedes 447 00:21:38,480 --> 00:21:40,339 that war crimes may indeed have been committed 448 00:21:40,339 --> 00:21:43,359 by individuals or units, the structural intent 449 00:21:43,359 --> 00:21:45,839 of the war differs fundamentally from the legal 450 00:21:45,839 --> 00:21:48,000 and historical definition of genocide. He actually 451 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:50,180 demands that the reader hold multiple contradictory 452 00:21:50,180 --> 00:21:52,779 truths at the same time. He calls them the truths 453 00:21:52,779 --> 00:21:55,319 of Gaza. And it's a demanding list for anyone 454 00:21:55,319 --> 00:21:58,380 entrenched in dogma. It is. He says first we 455 00:21:58,380 --> 00:22:01,640 must grieve Palestinian suffering. We must acknowledge 456 00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:04,019 the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. 457 00:22:04,740 --> 00:22:06,920 The destruction of homes and lives is a profound 458 00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:10,319 tragedy. Yes. Second, we must acknowledge the 459 00:22:10,319 --> 00:22:12,960 tactical reality that Hamas purposefully embeds 460 00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:15,259 its military infrastructure within civilian areas, 461 00:22:16,200 --> 00:22:18,539 hospitals, schools, neighborhoods, specifically 462 00:22:18,539 --> 00:22:21,279 to maximize that civilian suffering for strategic 463 00:22:21,279 --> 00:22:24,609 gain. And third, notably, he insists we must 464 00:22:24,609 --> 00:22:26,869 recognize the existence of what he explicitly 465 00:22:26,869 --> 00:22:30,390 calls Jewish supremacist fascists serving within 466 00:22:30,390 --> 00:22:32,890 the Israeli government who are enabling murderous 467 00:22:32,890 --> 00:22:35,029 violence and land grabs in the West Bank. So 468 00:22:35,029 --> 00:22:38,009 he refuses to paint a simplistic one -sided picture 469 00:22:38,009 --> 00:22:40,109 where one side is pure good and the other is 470 00:22:40,109 --> 00:22:43,670 pure evil. Exactly. But his core argument regarding 471 00:22:43,670 --> 00:22:47,369 the word genocide rests on legal and historical 472 00:22:47,369 --> 00:22:50,200 rigor. Let's look at his dissection of the International 473 00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:54,230 Court of Justice. the ICJ. Right. This is a vital 474 00:22:54,230 --> 00:22:57,130 point of clarification in the text. Because a 475 00:22:57,130 --> 00:22:59,369 ubiquitous talking point on social media and 476 00:22:59,369 --> 00:23:02,069 in protests is that the ICJ definitively ruled 477 00:23:02,069 --> 00:23:04,710 that Israel committed genocide. Which Schama points 478 00:23:04,710 --> 00:23:07,490 out is legally and factually incorrect. Completely. 479 00:23:07,869 --> 00:23:10,369 The ICJ ruled that Palestinians have a quote 480 00:23:10,369 --> 00:23:13,269 plausible right to be protected from genocide. 481 00:23:13,450 --> 00:23:15,450 Okay, let's break down that legalese for a second. 482 00:23:15,950 --> 00:23:18,509 What is the difference between finding that a 483 00:23:18,509 --> 00:23:21,529 genocide occurred and finding a plausible right 484 00:23:21,529 --> 00:23:23,769 to be protected. It's the difference between 485 00:23:23,769 --> 00:23:26,069 a restraining order and a murder conviction. 486 00:23:26,789 --> 00:23:29,170 The ICJ was essentially saying the situation 487 00:23:29,170 --> 00:23:31,789 is so dire that the protected group has a right 488 00:23:31,789 --> 00:23:34,430 to demand the court ensure their safety. And 489 00:23:34,430 --> 00:23:36,670 Schama agrees with that. He fully agrees they 490 00:23:36,670 --> 00:23:39,309 have that right. But the court did not rule that 491 00:23:39,309 --> 00:23:42,240 the crime of genocide had materialized. Schama 492 00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:45,079 highlights the descent of Judge Julia Sabutinde, 493 00:23:45,339 --> 00:23:48,440 who pointedly stated that South Africa had not 494 00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:51,759 produced evidence of genocidal intent. And intent 495 00:23:51,759 --> 00:23:54,940 is the linchpin. The word genocide wasn't just 496 00:23:54,940 --> 00:23:58,119 invented casually. No, it was coined in 1944 497 00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:01,380 by a Polish -Jewish lawyer named Rafael Lemkin, 498 00:24:01,740 --> 00:24:04,579 specifically to describe the systematic, intentional, 499 00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:07,220 industrialized destruction of a people. Right. 500 00:24:07,349 --> 00:24:10,210 To drive this home, Schama compares the tragic 501 00:24:10,210 --> 00:24:12,950 casualties of urban warfare in Gaza with the 502 00:24:12,950 --> 00:24:15,269 systematic kill rates of the Holocaust. He brings 503 00:24:15,269 --> 00:24:18,750 up Operation Reinhardt in 1942. This was the 504 00:24:18,750 --> 00:24:21,170 deadliest phase of the Holocaust. Yeah. In just 505 00:24:21,170 --> 00:24:24,170 100 days, utilizing death camps like Treblinka 506 00:24:24,170 --> 00:24:27,789 and Sobibor, approximately 1 .5 million Jews 507 00:24:27,789 --> 00:24:31,329 were murdered. It was an industrialized extermination 508 00:24:31,329 --> 00:24:33,890 machine. But I have to stop you here because... 509 00:24:33,529 --> 00:24:35,589 I think a listener might hear this comparison 510 00:24:35,589 --> 00:24:38,809 and push back. OK, lay it on me. Shema literally 511 00:24:38,809 --> 00:24:42,349 writes that numbers numb, acknowledging that 512 00:24:42,349 --> 00:24:45,150 statistics can obscure humanity. But then he 513 00:24:45,150 --> 00:24:48,049 insists historians must quantify to find the 514 00:24:48,049 --> 00:24:51,329 truth. By comparing the death tolls of Gaza and 515 00:24:51,329 --> 00:24:55,210 Operation Reinhard, does any risk sounding incredibly 516 00:24:55,210 --> 00:24:57,450 callous. That's a very fair question. Isn't he 517 00:24:57,450 --> 00:24:59,910 falling into a trap of minimizing one tragedy 518 00:24:59,910 --> 00:25:02,069 by holding it up against another? Well, Schama 519 00:25:02,069 --> 00:25:04,609 actually anticipates that exact criticism. He 520 00:25:04,609 --> 00:25:07,750 makes a painful, explicit concession in the text. 521 00:25:08,369 --> 00:25:10,650 He writes that every single child's death in 522 00:25:10,650 --> 00:25:14,089 an urban theater of war is an irreparable catastrophe. 523 00:25:14,470 --> 00:25:17,049 Right. He is not minimizing the horror, the grief, 524 00:25:17,109 --> 00:25:19,789 or the devastation in Gaza. So why make the comparison 525 00:25:19,789 --> 00:25:22,950 at all? Because of language. He argues that for 526 00:25:22,950 --> 00:25:25,809 the sake of historical truth, the specific legal 527 00:25:25,809 --> 00:25:28,430 and historical definition of genocide, which 528 00:25:28,430 --> 00:25:31,690 implies a onesie -style organized systematic 529 00:25:31,690 --> 00:25:34,809 intent to exterminate an entire population, cannot 530 00:25:34,809 --> 00:25:37,670 be casually swapped for the tragic albeit horrific 531 00:25:37,670 --> 00:25:40,990 realities of high -casualty urban warfare. Right, 532 00:25:40,990 --> 00:25:43,829 because if every tragic war is a genocide, the 533 00:25:43,829 --> 00:25:46,599 word loses all meaning. Exactly. And he argues 534 00:25:46,599 --> 00:25:48,980 that this swapping of definitions is not an accident. 535 00:25:49,460 --> 00:25:51,940 It is an intentional distortion of language. 536 00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:54,480 And that leads directly to the next major concept 537 00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:57,119 in the essay. He argues that the reason the word 538 00:25:57,119 --> 00:26:00,019 genocide is used so aggressively and ubiquitously 539 00:26:00,019 --> 00:26:02,460 against Israel isn't just about criticizing the 540 00:26:02,460 --> 00:26:05,400 war. No. It is specifically designed to strip 541 00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:07,680 Jewish people of their own historical memory. 542 00:26:08,079 --> 00:26:10,299 It brings us to the erasure of memory and the 543 00:26:10,299 --> 00:26:12,799 disqualification of grief. He introduces a concept 544 00:26:12,799 --> 00:26:16,250 here called secondary death. Oh, this is profound. 545 00:26:16,849 --> 00:26:18,990 If the primary death is the physical murder of 546 00:26:18,990 --> 00:26:22,109 the victim, the secondary death is the energetic, 547 00:26:22,450 --> 00:26:25,589 deliberate urge to inflict pain on the survivors 548 00:26:25,589 --> 00:26:28,809 by erasing the memory of the victims from the 549 00:26:28,809 --> 00:26:31,049 public record. You kill the person and then you 550 00:26:31,049 --> 00:26:33,589 kill their ghost. Precisely. And the examples 551 00:26:33,589 --> 00:26:36,349 he provides of this secondary death are incredibly 552 00:26:36,349 --> 00:26:39,869 vivid and honestly upsetting. He describes the 553 00:26:39,869 --> 00:26:42,490 vandalism of the Stolper Steining. For listeners 554 00:26:42,490 --> 00:26:44,690 who might not have traveled to Europe or haven't 555 00:26:44,690 --> 00:26:46,970 seen these, let's explain what these Stolpersteine 556 00:26:46,970 --> 00:26:49,849 are because they carry immense emotional weight. 557 00:26:50,309 --> 00:26:52,710 Stolperstein translates to stumbling blocks. 558 00:26:53,109 --> 00:26:55,569 They are small brass cobblestone -sized plates 559 00:26:55,569 --> 00:26:57,730 set directly into the pavement across various 560 00:26:57,730 --> 00:27:00,930 European cities. Right. Each one marks the exact 561 00:27:00,930 --> 00:27:03,690 doorstep of a house where a victim of the Holocaust 562 00:27:03,690 --> 00:27:05,849 lived before they were dragged away and deported. 563 00:27:06,190 --> 00:27:08,690 They are brilliant in their design because they 564 00:27:08,690 --> 00:27:11,609 are integrated into the mundane, everyday street. 565 00:27:11,809 --> 00:27:14,470 You're just walking to get coffee, and suddenly 566 00:27:14,470 --> 00:27:16,750 you have to physically bow your head to look 567 00:27:16,750 --> 00:27:19,329 down and read the name, the birthdate, and the 568 00:27:19,329 --> 00:27:21,829 date of murder of the person who lived right 569 00:27:21,829 --> 00:27:25,269 there. It's a physical intervention. Yeah. It 570 00:27:25,269 --> 00:27:27,890 returns the victim from the anonymity of a mass 571 00:27:27,890 --> 00:27:30,430 grave back to the actuality of a lived life, 572 00:27:30,869 --> 00:27:34,049 a specific address. They are a profound act of 573 00:27:34,049 --> 00:27:37,359 memorialization. But Schama notes that these stones 574 00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:39,579 are currently being targeted. They are being 575 00:27:39,579 --> 00:27:42,180 dug out of the pavement, defaced with swastikas, 576 00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:45,299 or painted over with the word Gaza. Which is 577 00:27:45,299 --> 00:27:47,539 an act of attempt to overwrite the memory of 578 00:27:47,539 --> 00:27:50,180 a Holocaust victim. Exactly. And Schama connects 579 00:27:50,180 --> 00:27:53,279 this exact same impulse to the tearing down of 580 00:27:53,279 --> 00:27:55,920 hostage posters in cities worldwide after October 581 00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:58,980 7th. Right. Often these vandals were filmed tearing 582 00:27:58,980 --> 00:28:02,680 down faces of kidnapped civilians with unrepentant 583 00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:06,190 gleeful laughter. He highlights a specific incident 584 00:28:06,190 --> 00:28:08,829 at the University of Toronto. What happened there? 585 00:28:09,309 --> 00:28:11,569 The names of the Bebus family, which includes 586 00:28:11,569 --> 00:28:13,650 a mother and her two small children, one a baby, 587 00:28:14,029 --> 00:28:17,269 held hostage, were carved in chalk into the granite 588 00:28:17,269 --> 00:28:20,109 paving stones of the campus. And they were intentionally 589 00:28:20,109 --> 00:28:24,529 scrubbed out and defaced. It's the literal eradication 590 00:28:24,529 --> 00:28:27,950 of empathy. But this erasure isn't just physical, 591 00:28:28,230 --> 00:28:30,589 right? It's happening in the literary and intellectual 592 00:28:30,589 --> 00:28:33,740 spheres as well. Yes, Schama dedicates a significant 593 00:28:33,740 --> 00:28:36,880 portion of this chapter to a rigorous intellectual 594 00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:40,519 takedown of an essay by Pankaj Mishra titled 595 00:28:40,519 --> 00:28:43,640 The Shoah After Gaza. Let's get into the weeds 596 00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:46,660 of this because it's a real battle over historical 597 00:28:46,660 --> 00:28:49,920 narrative. Schama takes deep issue with how Mishra 598 00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:52,640 manipulates the writings of Jean Omari. Jean 599 00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:55,400 Omari was an Austrian -born essayist and a survivor 600 00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:58,500 of Auschwitz -Muchenwald. His writings on torture 601 00:28:58,500 --> 00:29:01,410 and survival are completely seminal. And Mishra 602 00:29:01,410 --> 00:29:04,970 uses Amri's legacy to essentially condemn modern 603 00:29:04,970 --> 00:29:08,750 Israel. The argument Mishra makes is that Zionists 604 00:29:08,750 --> 00:29:11,630 only care about the Holocaust to exploit ally 605 00:29:11,630 --> 00:29:14,170 guilt to justify their own actions. Correct. 606 00:29:14,390 --> 00:29:16,690 Mishra attempts to use the moral authority of 607 00:29:16,690 --> 00:29:19,750 a Holocaust survivor to validate anti -Zionism. 608 00:29:20,450 --> 00:29:22,329 To me, reading that, it feels like a profound 609 00:29:22,329 --> 00:29:24,349 violation. It's like someone breaking into your 610 00:29:24,349 --> 00:29:28,079 house, stealing your family's tragic diary. and 611 00:29:28,079 --> 00:29:30,259 then using the words in that diary to justify 612 00:29:30,259 --> 00:29:32,460 kicking you out onto the street. That analogy 613 00:29:32,460 --> 00:29:35,440 hits the nail on the head. And Schama methodically 614 00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:38,059 proves that Mishra cherry -picked and distorted 615 00:29:38,059 --> 00:29:40,579 Ahmari's work. He really brings the receipts. 616 00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:43,200 He does. While Ahmari was indeed critical of 617 00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:45,740 military occupation, he was actually a lifelong 618 00:29:45,740 --> 00:29:49,059 impassioned Zionist. Schama points out that way 619 00:29:49,059 --> 00:29:52,779 back in 1976, Jean Ahmari explicitly warned that 620 00:29:52,779 --> 00:29:55,720 anti -Zionism was simply the new respectable 621 00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:59,599 mask for anti -Semitism. Wow. Schama is deeply 622 00:29:59,599 --> 00:30:01,819 offended by the assertion that Zionists view 623 00:30:01,819 --> 00:30:04,380 the Shoah merely as a cynical political tool. 624 00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:07,619 So to counter this narrative of exploitation, 625 00:30:08,599 --> 00:30:11,579 this popular modern idea that Israel was just 626 00:30:11,579 --> 00:30:15,099 a cynical colonial project built on exploiting 627 00:30:15,099 --> 00:30:18,700 European guilt, Schama takes the reader back to 628 00:30:18,700 --> 00:30:21,640 the actual gritty historical conditions of the 629 00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,240 postwar era. He wants to show the mechanics of 630 00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:27,160 why the state of Israel was viewed not as a colonial 631 00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:30,940 land grab, but as an absolute desperate existential 632 00:30:30,940 --> 00:30:33,019 necessity for Jewish survival. And the history 633 00:30:33,019 --> 00:30:36,259 he presents here is stark and largely forgotten. 634 00:30:36,460 --> 00:30:40,279 It is. The core concept is that history has empirically 635 00:30:40,279 --> 00:30:42,920 proven that Jewish people simply cannot rely 636 00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:46,220 on the goodwill or the laws of host nations for 637 00:30:46,220 --> 00:30:48,619 their survival. When we look at the immediate 638 00:30:48,619 --> 00:30:51,339 post -World War II landscape, the common narrative 639 00:30:51,339 --> 00:30:53,829 is one of liberation. The camps were opened, 640 00:30:54,210 --> 00:30:56,390 the war was won, and the survivors were saved. 641 00:30:56,730 --> 00:30:59,029 But the reality was that the world did not open 642 00:30:59,029 --> 00:31:01,309 its arms. Not at all. The historical evidence 643 00:31:01,309 --> 00:31:04,309 Schama brings is shocking. Like when the Canadian 644 00:31:04,309 --> 00:31:06,670 government was asked how many Jewish refugees 645 00:31:06,670 --> 00:31:09,470 they would be willing to take in, a senior immigration 646 00:31:09,470 --> 00:31:12,309 official famously replied, none is too many. 647 00:31:12,970 --> 00:31:15,950 None is too many. That was the official stance 648 00:31:15,950 --> 00:31:18,910 of a liberal democracy after the Holocaust. Yes. 649 00:31:19,049 --> 00:31:21,589 Australia enforced strict quotas specifically 650 00:31:21,589 --> 00:31:24,549 to keep Jewish numbers down. And the U .K., under 651 00:31:24,549 --> 00:31:27,470 a labor government, maintained draconian blockades 652 00:31:27,470 --> 00:31:30,210 on Palestine and actually forced ships full of 653 00:31:30,210 --> 00:31:32,910 Jewish refugees to turn around and return to 654 00:31:32,910 --> 00:31:35,710 the blood -soaked soil of Europe. They put Holocaust 655 00:31:35,710 --> 00:31:38,369 survivors behind barbed wire in internment camps 656 00:31:38,369 --> 00:31:42,109 in Cyprus. It's unbelievable. And perhaps the 657 00:31:42,109 --> 00:31:44,450 most harrowing example of why returning to Europe 658 00:31:44,450 --> 00:31:47,529 was physically impossible is the Kielce program. 659 00:31:47,710 --> 00:31:50,269 Let's spend a moment on this because the timeline 660 00:31:50,269 --> 00:31:54,869 is crucial this happened in Poland in July 1946 661 00:31:54,869 --> 00:31:58,990 1946 a full year after Hitler is dead and the 662 00:31:58,990 --> 00:32:02,009 camps are liberated right a group of about 200 663 00:32:02,009 --> 00:32:04,230 Jewish survivors had managed to return to this 664 00:32:04,230 --> 00:32:06,710 town of Kielce They were living in a local building. 665 00:32:06,710 --> 00:32:09,029 Just trying to put the pieces of their shattered 666 00:32:09,029 --> 00:32:12,089 lives back together Okay, and then a nine -year 667 00:32:12,089 --> 00:32:13,809 -old non -jewish boy in the town went missing 668 00:32:13,809 --> 00:32:16,289 for two days To avoid getting in trouble with 669 00:32:16,289 --> 00:32:18,910 his parents, he made up a story. He claimed he 670 00:32:18,910 --> 00:32:21,150 had been kidnapped by Jews and hidden in the 671 00:32:21,150 --> 00:32:22,630 basement of the building where the survivors 672 00:32:22,630 --> 00:32:26,349 were living. It is a direct, immediate echo of 673 00:32:26,349 --> 00:32:28,349 the medieval blood libel we talked about earlier, 674 00:32:28,569 --> 00:32:32,210 the lie of William of Norwich mutating in 1946 675 00:32:32,210 --> 00:32:35,470 Poland. Exactly. And what happened? Did the town 676 00:32:35,470 --> 00:32:39,599 investigate? No. A violent f— frenzied crowd, 677 00:32:39,859 --> 00:32:41,960 which included local police and steel workers, 678 00:32:42,619 --> 00:32:44,599 besieged the building housing the survivors. 679 00:32:45,619 --> 00:32:48,440 42 Holocaust survivors were murdered, beaten 680 00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:52,140 to death, shot, bayoneted by their own neighbors 681 00:32:52,140 --> 00:32:56,450 based on a child's lie. It proved with devastating 682 00:32:56,450 --> 00:32:59,190 clarity that the ancient hatred had survived 683 00:32:59,190 --> 00:33:02,589 the Holocaust completely intact. The Nazi regime 684 00:33:02,589 --> 00:33:05,470 was destroyed, but the ideological rot remained. 685 00:33:06,019 --> 00:33:08,519 And Schama is careful to point out that this danger 686 00:33:08,519 --> 00:33:11,859 wasn't just isolated to a post -war Europe poisoned 687 00:33:11,859 --> 00:33:14,519 by Nazi propaganda. He addresses the Middle Eastern 688 00:33:14,519 --> 00:33:17,220 context, too, because the narrative often claims 689 00:33:17,220 --> 00:33:20,019 Jews were perfectly safe in the Arab world until 690 00:33:20,019 --> 00:33:23,759 Israel was created. Right. He cites the Farhad 691 00:33:23,759 --> 00:33:27,619 pogrom in Baghdad in 1941, where hundreds of 692 00:33:27,619 --> 00:33:30,039 Jews were murdered, raped, and their homes looted. 693 00:33:30,349 --> 00:33:32,490 And he also details the collaboration between 694 00:33:32,490 --> 00:33:35,630 the Nazi regime and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, 695 00:33:36,130 --> 00:33:39,230 Amin al -Husseini, who actively discussed extending 696 00:33:39,230 --> 00:33:41,690 the Final Solutions extermination camps into 697 00:33:41,690 --> 00:33:44,789 Palestine. So the inescapable conclusion for 698 00:33:44,789 --> 00:33:46,730 the Jewish people at that historical juncture 699 00:33:46,730 --> 00:33:50,529 was that statelessness equaled death. A sovereign 700 00:33:50,529 --> 00:33:52,930 state with the ability to self -defend wasn't 701 00:33:52,930 --> 00:33:57,720 a luxury or a colonial ambition. It was the only 702 00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:00,920 guarantee of life. Exactly. So, Schama is essentially 703 00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:03,940 saying to the modern critics, you ask why we 704 00:34:03,940 --> 00:34:06,480 need a state. You think it's a cynical ploy. 705 00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:09,239 Look at what happened in Kielce the literal second 706 00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:11,619 the Holocaust ended. Right. But I want to ask 707 00:34:11,619 --> 00:34:14,559 how Schama addresses the modern left's primary 708 00:34:14,559 --> 00:34:17,500 argument today. You go to a college campus right 709 00:34:17,500 --> 00:34:20,920 now. The most common critique is not about 1946. 710 00:34:21,860 --> 00:34:24,559 The critique is that Israel is a European settler 711 00:34:24,559 --> 00:34:27,559 colonial project. How does Schama dismantle that 712 00:34:27,559 --> 00:34:30,309 specific label? This pushes us into one of the 713 00:34:30,309 --> 00:34:32,849 most intellectually rigorous sections of the 714 00:34:32,849 --> 00:34:36,269 essay, the deconstruction of the settler colonial 715 00:34:36,269 --> 00:34:39,050 narrative. He argues that applying this label 716 00:34:39,050 --> 00:34:41,889 to Israel doesn't just fail politically, it fails 717 00:34:41,889 --> 00:34:44,690 on historical, genetic, and linguistic grounds. 718 00:34:45,010 --> 00:34:47,690 Let's walk through his methodology. He starts 719 00:34:47,690 --> 00:34:50,989 by defining what true imperialism actually is. 720 00:34:51,309 --> 00:34:53,869 Right. Think of the British East India Company 721 00:34:53,869 --> 00:34:56,530 in India, or the French in North Africa, or the 722 00:34:56,530 --> 00:34:59,400 Belgians in the Congo. True settler colonialism 723 00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:01,920 has three main features. Okay, what's the first 724 00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:04,960 one? First, colonists have a metropolitan home 725 00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:07,420 to return to if things go wrong. If the British 726 00:35:07,420 --> 00:35:09,880 fail in India, they get on a boat and go back 727 00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:14,079 to London. Makes sense. Second? Second, the entire 728 00:35:14,079 --> 00:35:16,780 purpose of the colony is to extract resources 729 00:35:16,780 --> 00:35:19,000 and native labor from the colonized land and 730 00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:21,099 send the wealth back to that metropolis. Right. 731 00:35:21,380 --> 00:35:24,159 And third, the colonists have absolutely no linguistic, 732 00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:26,539 cultural, or historical ties to the land they're 733 00:35:26,539 --> 00:35:29,159 colonizing. Okay, so let's contrast that point 734 00:35:29,159 --> 00:35:32,920 by point with Zionism as Shema does. First, the 735 00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:36,219 metropolis. Jewish refugees had no metropolis 736 00:35:36,219 --> 00:35:38,599 to return to. They were fleeing pogroms in Russia 737 00:35:38,599 --> 00:35:41,239 or the ashes of Europe or later expulsion from 738 00:35:41,239 --> 00:35:43,679 Arab nations. There was no motherland funding 739 00:35:43,679 --> 00:35:46,719 them. Second, the extraction of wealth and labor. 740 00:35:47,210 --> 00:35:49,989 He looks at early labor Zionism in the late 19th 741 00:35:49,989 --> 00:35:52,110 and early 20th centuries. The movement was based 742 00:35:52,110 --> 00:35:54,730 on the kibbutz model, agricultural self -help, 743 00:35:54,869 --> 00:35:56,969 draining malaria -infested swamps, and Jewish 744 00:35:56,969 --> 00:35:59,409 physical labor. It wasn't about subjugating native 745 00:35:59,409 --> 00:36:01,510 labor to extract gold or rubber to send back 746 00:36:01,510 --> 00:36:03,590 to Europe. It was about working the land themselves 747 00:36:03,590 --> 00:36:06,269 to survive. But the most fascinating part of 748 00:36:06,269 --> 00:36:08,610 his deconstruction, where you can really feel 749 00:36:08,610 --> 00:36:11,550 his passion as a historian, is how he tackles 750 00:36:11,550 --> 00:36:15,150 the concept of indigeneity. Because the common 751 00:36:15,150 --> 00:36:18,010 refrain is that Ashkenazi Jews are simply white 752 00:36:18,010 --> 00:36:20,889 Europeans who colonized the Middle East. He dives 753 00:36:20,889 --> 00:36:23,809 into the actual science here. Yes, he cites genome 754 00:36:23,809 --> 00:36:26,650 -wide DNA research by prominent geneticists like 755 00:36:26,650 --> 00:36:29,889 Harry Ostrer and Carl Skarecki. This research 756 00:36:29,889 --> 00:36:32,429 conclusively shows that Ashkenazi Jews share 757 00:36:32,429 --> 00:36:34,989 much closer genetic ties with Middle Eastern 758 00:36:34,989 --> 00:36:38,210 populations, including Palestinians, Druze, and 759 00:36:38,210 --> 00:36:40,110 Bedouins than they do with their European host 760 00:36:40,110 --> 00:36:43,159 societies. Wow. Despite a thousand years of exile 761 00:36:43,159 --> 00:36:45,739 in Europe, their genetic markers remain deeply 762 00:36:45,739 --> 00:36:49,139 Levantine. So the genetics prove the Levantine 763 00:36:49,139 --> 00:36:52,340 origin. But Schama's real love shines through 764 00:36:52,340 --> 00:36:54,360 when he talks about the cultural continuity, 765 00:36:55,019 --> 00:36:57,480 specifically the Hebrew language, because another 766 00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:00,139 myth is that Hebrew was a dead language like 767 00:37:00,139 --> 00:37:03,420 Latin, that these European colonizers artificially 768 00:37:03,420 --> 00:37:06,099 resurrected in a lab to legitimize their land 769 00:37:06,099 --> 00:37:09,530 grab. He completely debunks that. Right. He traces 770 00:37:09,530 --> 00:37:12,050 the continuous unbroken use of Hebrew across 771 00:37:12,050 --> 00:37:14,369 millennia. It wasn't just confined to ancient 772 00:37:14,369 --> 00:37:17,309 biblical text. Right. He points to its continuous 773 00:37:17,309 --> 00:37:20,449 presence. It's in the Mishnah. It's in the mosaic 774 00:37:20,449 --> 00:37:22,550 floors of synagogues built hundreds of years 775 00:37:22,550 --> 00:37:24,670 after the Romans destroyed the temple. It was 776 00:37:24,670 --> 00:37:27,570 used by medieval poets in Islamic Spain. And 777 00:37:27,570 --> 00:37:29,750 he brings up the Cairo Geniza, which we have 778 00:37:29,750 --> 00:37:32,969 to talk about. Yes. Let's pause and marvel at 779 00:37:32,969 --> 00:37:35,429 the Cairo Geniza for a second, because it is 780 00:37:35,429 --> 00:37:37,449 one of the greatest historical treasure troves 781 00:37:37,449 --> 00:37:39,829 ever discovered. In the late 19th century, a 782 00:37:39,829 --> 00:37:42,030 scholar named Solomon Schechter went to the Ben 783 00:37:42,030 --> 00:37:44,789 Ezra Synagogue in Cairo. In Judaism, you cannot 784 00:37:44,789 --> 00:37:46,650 throw away a piece of paper that has the name 785 00:37:46,650 --> 00:37:48,570 of God written on it. You have to store it in 786 00:37:48,570 --> 00:37:51,590 a repository called a Geniza. Right. Well, this 787 00:37:51,590 --> 00:37:53,909 synagogue in Cairo have been storing documents 788 00:37:53,909 --> 00:37:57,250 in its attic for a thousand years. Schechter 789 00:37:57,250 --> 00:38:00,389 discovered nearly 300 ,000 fragments of Jewish 790 00:38:00,389 --> 00:38:02,579 life. And it wasn't just Torah scrolls, right? 791 00:38:02,639 --> 00:38:05,119 It was everyday life. Exactly. It was marriage 792 00:38:05,119 --> 00:38:07,579 contracts, business ledgers, letters between 793 00:38:07,579 --> 00:38:10,519 merchants, poetry, legal disputes. And it was 794 00:38:10,519 --> 00:38:12,960 all written in Hebrew or Judeo -Arabic using 795 00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:15,940 Hebrew script. It proves that Hebrew was the 796 00:38:15,940 --> 00:38:18,380 living, breathing, connective tissue of the global 797 00:38:18,380 --> 00:38:21,559 Jewish diaspora for millennia. It never died. 798 00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:25,000 So to synthesize all of this, Schama is effectively 799 00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:27,650 saying that calling Jewish people colonizers 800 00:38:27,650 --> 00:38:30,949 in the Levant is historically and scientifically 801 00:38:30,949 --> 00:38:33,730 illiterate. Completely. It forces Jewish history 802 00:38:33,730 --> 00:38:36,750 onto what he calls the Procrustian bed of settler 803 00:38:36,750 --> 00:38:39,690 colonial theory. It requires you to ignore the 804 00:38:39,690 --> 00:38:41,909 genetics, ignore the archaeology, ignore the 805 00:38:41,909 --> 00:38:44,389 continuous use of the language, and ignore the 806 00:38:44,389 --> 00:38:47,250 refugee status of the people. It requires an 807 00:38:47,250 --> 00:38:49,210 act of suppression of facts to make the theory 808 00:38:49,210 --> 00:38:52,809 work. So the obvious glaring question is why? 809 00:38:53,369 --> 00:38:56,510 If the history doesn't fit, If the label is historically 810 00:38:56,510 --> 00:38:59,550 illiterate, why does the world, especially the 811 00:38:59,550 --> 00:39:02,909 highly educated progressive Western world, cling 812 00:39:02,909 --> 00:39:06,670 to this colonizer label so tightly? Why the obsessive 813 00:39:06,670 --> 00:39:09,570 focus? This brings us to the culmination of the 814 00:39:09,570 --> 00:39:12,449 essay, which is Schama's psychological diagnosis 815 00:39:12,449 --> 00:39:15,650 of the modern world. He asks the ultimate question, 816 00:39:16,170 --> 00:39:20,429 why the Jews? Why this specific relentless obsession? 817 00:39:21,139 --> 00:39:24,219 And what's his answer? His conclusion is profound. 818 00:39:24,380 --> 00:39:27,519 He argues that anti -Zionism and modern antisemitism 819 00:39:27,519 --> 00:39:29,920 are ultimately a psychological displacement of 820 00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:32,440 the West's own colonial guilt. Let's break that 821 00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:35,960 down. He's saying the global paroxysm of rage 822 00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:39,079 we see on college campuses and city streets isn't 823 00:39:39,079 --> 00:39:42,099 actually about Palestine or Israelis. It's about 824 00:39:42,099 --> 00:39:45,840 the haters themselves. Exactly. Schama observes 825 00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:49,420 a fascinating, undeniable geographical correlation. 826 00:39:50,059 --> 00:39:52,800 Where does the fiercest, most vitriolic anti 827 00:39:52,800 --> 00:39:55,710 -Zionism flourish? It flourishes in countries 828 00:39:55,710 --> 00:39:59,289 that have actual unrectified colonial pasts. 829 00:39:59,329 --> 00:40:02,429 He lists the U .S., Canada, Australia, France, 830 00:40:02,690 --> 00:40:05,289 the U .K. These are nations quite literally built 831 00:40:05,289 --> 00:40:07,929 on the actual dispossession and often genocide 832 00:40:07,929 --> 00:40:11,510 of indigenous peoples. Right. And rather than 833 00:40:11,510 --> 00:40:14,849 grapple with that immense, unassuagable historical 834 00:40:14,849 --> 00:40:17,269 guilt, which is terrifying and destabilizing 835 00:40:17,269 --> 00:40:19,769 to a nation's identity, these societies need 836 00:40:19,769 --> 00:40:23,269 a scapegoat. They need what Schama calls the paradigmatic 837 00:40:23,269 --> 00:40:27,849 opposite. The Jews are the available scapegoat. 838 00:40:28,300 --> 00:40:30,559 We talked about how they were scapegoated for 839 00:40:30,559 --> 00:40:33,019 the plague in the Middle Ages or for capitalism 840 00:40:33,019 --> 00:40:36,579 in the 19th century. Now they are the scapegoat 841 00:40:36,579 --> 00:40:39,820 for colonialism. Exactly. By casting Jews as 842 00:40:39,820 --> 00:40:43,460 the ultimate hyper -imperialist oppressors, white 843 00:40:43,460 --> 00:40:46,219 progressives and the descendants of actual colonizers 844 00:40:46,219 --> 00:40:48,480 can effectively displace their own historical 845 00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:51,880 guilt. It is a massive psychological defense 846 00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:55,039 mechanism. It's transference. It is so much easier 847 00:40:55,039 --> 00:40:57,619 to put the Jewish state in the dock, to point 848 00:40:57,619 --> 00:41:00,559 at Israel and scream colonizer, than it is to 849 00:41:00,559 --> 00:41:03,000 examine the bloody freebooting of one's own ancestors. 850 00:41:03,659 --> 00:41:05,920 If Israel is the worst colonizer in the world, 851 00:41:06,119 --> 00:41:08,960 then the American, or the Australian, is absolved. 852 00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:11,699 It's a tragic irony, and Chama points it out 853 00:41:11,699 --> 00:41:15,579 brilliantly. The world largely ignores massive, 854 00:41:15,820 --> 00:41:19,280 ongoing, undeniable atrocities. Think about the 855 00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:21,119 slaughter and starvation in Sudan right now. 856 00:41:21,349 --> 00:41:24,050 Think about the cultural annihilation and concentration 857 00:41:24,050 --> 00:41:26,949 camps for the Uyghurs in China. Think about the 858 00:41:26,949 --> 00:41:29,849 imperialist bombing of Ukraine. The world basically 859 00:41:29,849 --> 00:41:34,650 shrugs. But it fixates obsessively, singularly 860 00:41:34,650 --> 00:41:38,630 on Israel. And why? Because as Schama puts it 861 00:41:38,630 --> 00:41:42,250 so starkly, the Jews are not white enough for 862 00:41:42,250 --> 00:41:45,369 the right and not brown enough for the left. 863 00:41:45,530 --> 00:41:47,949 They are the perfect equal opportunity culprit 864 00:41:47,949 --> 00:41:52,139 for everyone's anxieties. It is a profound failure 865 00:41:52,139 --> 00:41:55,519 of self -recognition by the West. It's like Western 866 00:41:55,519 --> 00:41:58,980 society is looking in a mirror, seeing its own 867 00:41:58,980 --> 00:42:01,579 horrific colonial past and pointing the finger 868 00:42:01,579 --> 00:42:05,280 at the reflection. The hatred is a mirror reflecting 869 00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:08,760 the guilt of the accuser. We have been on an 870 00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:11,320 incredible heavy journey through this text today. 871 00:42:11,980 --> 00:42:14,179 We started with that terrifyingly straightforward 872 00:42:14,179 --> 00:42:17,000 graffiti in Riverside Park, kill a Jew, go to 873 00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:19,900 heaven. and we unpack the mechanics of how the 874 00:42:19,900 --> 00:42:22,139 modern world has veiled that exact same ancient 875 00:42:22,139 --> 00:42:24,880 hatred in the weaponization of the word genocide. 876 00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:28,119 We covered a lot of ground. We traced the blood 877 00:42:28,119 --> 00:42:30,860 libel from ancient Rome to a modern art gallery 878 00:42:30,860 --> 00:42:33,980 in Margate. We explored the deep legal and historical 879 00:42:33,980 --> 00:42:37,019 context of the ICJ rulings and the definition 880 00:42:37,019 --> 00:42:40,179 of genocide. We marveled at the Cairo Geniza 881 00:42:40,179 --> 00:42:42,559 and the unbroken history of the Hebrew language. 882 00:42:42,980 --> 00:42:45,719 And finally, we arrived at this profound psychological 883 00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:49,400 realization that the current obsession is a projection 884 00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:53,139 of Western guilt. And despite the darkness of 885 00:42:53,139 --> 00:42:56,679 this subject, Schama ends his essay not with anger, 886 00:42:57,300 --> 00:43:00,940 but with a plea. What's his plea? He makes a 887 00:43:00,940 --> 00:43:04,199 desperate plea that people simply take the trouble 888 00:43:04,199 --> 00:43:07,659 to read a little history. Read a book. Literally. 889 00:43:08,349 --> 00:43:11,989 He warns that relying on slogans, TikTok algorithms, 890 00:43:12,329 --> 00:43:15,010 and historical amnesia will doom everyone to 891 00:43:15,010 --> 00:43:18,010 a tournament of lethal aversion. His final thought 892 00:43:18,010 --> 00:43:20,949 is a warning. A failure to listen to our shared 893 00:43:20,949 --> 00:43:23,409 history will ultimately make victims of us all. 894 00:43:24,119 --> 00:43:26,780 The hatred never stops with the Jews. They are 895 00:43:26,780 --> 00:43:29,639 just the canary in the coal mine. What's a sobering 896 00:43:29,639 --> 00:43:32,519 warning. But as we wrap up this deep dive, I 897 00:43:32,519 --> 00:43:35,059 want to leave you, the listener, with a final 898 00:43:35,059 --> 00:43:37,340 thought to mull over. It's something that builds 899 00:43:37,340 --> 00:43:39,539 directly on the psychological thesis we just 900 00:43:39,539 --> 00:43:43,079 discussed. Listening? If this text is right, 901 00:43:43,739 --> 00:43:46,619 if it is true that society uses the Jewish people 902 00:43:46,619 --> 00:43:49,340 as a blank screen to project its deepest anxieties 903 00:43:49,340 --> 00:43:52,380 and guilts, whether that's medieval plagues, 904 00:43:52,860 --> 00:43:56,159 capitalist greed, or modern colonial guilt, what 905 00:43:56,159 --> 00:43:58,739 happens to a society when it successfully purges 906 00:43:58,739 --> 00:44:03,449 its scapegoat? That's a dark thought. History 907 00:44:03,449 --> 00:44:05,710 suggests that the hatred doesn't just disappear 908 00:44:05,710 --> 00:44:08,869 once the scapegoat is gone. It simply turns inward 909 00:44:08,869 --> 00:44:12,289 Devouring the very culture that fostered it as 910 00:44:12,289 --> 00:44:15,030 you look at the fracturing of our modern Institutions 911 00:44:15,030 --> 00:44:17,949 today the incredible rage tearing apart our politics 912 00:44:17,949 --> 00:44:20,429 in our universities. You have to ask yourself 913 00:44:20,429 --> 00:44:23,929 a terrifying question What's that is the current 914 00:44:23,929 --> 00:44:26,849 global obsession with the Jewish state? Actually 915 00:44:26,849 --> 00:44:29,889 a symptom of a much deeper terminal illness within 916 00:44:29,889 --> 00:44:32,900 Western democracy itself A question that demands 917 00:44:32,900 --> 00:44:35,260 our attention long after the shouting stops. 918 00:44:36,159 --> 00:44:38,260 Thank you for joining us on this deep dive. Keep 919 00:44:38,260 --> 00:44:41,099 questioning, keep reading, and keep diving deeper.