Is there any truth to the anti-semitic conspiracy theories that Kanye and your weird uncle have been muttering for years? Probably not, but let's take a look at the seed that grew into such an ugly tree. Israel hasn't enjoyed its current form for very long, but there was a not-so-secret plan in place long before the Allied Forces established the nation of Israel after the Holocaust. Join us as we examine the accusation of fascism within one of the groups that suffered the most under its heel.
We take a look at Baron Walter Rothschild, the Russian emigration to the Ottoman Empire, the current conflict and the measures to preserve peace, and everything in between.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion has done an incredible amount of harm to the Jewish Community, and the Anti-Defamation League has done lots of work to counter the decades of trouble caused by the hoax and the countless loud voices who repeat that nonsense. Anti-Semitism has no place in a civilized society.
Zionism is a movement not isolated to Judaism--in fact, while many Jewish people are not Zionists, many Christians are.
In addition to a survey of the history of Eretz-Israel, we critically examine the claim of fascism, comparing reality to Umberto Eco's 1995 checklist of fascist red flags.
The conflict in Gaza and the West Bank are only recent developments, and Hamas is a powerful group causing troubles in already contentious situations. Israel is having a hard time looking like the good guy, too, so it's important to know the history here.
All this and more....
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[00:00:10] Katie Dooley: It's been a minute since we recorded.
[00:00:15] Preston Meyer: I suppose so. Yeah.
[00:00:17] Katie Dooley: It feels like it's been a long time.
[00:00:18] Preston Meyer: Not that our audience would ever know, because we very reliably post every two weeks.
[00:00:23] Katie Dooley: We're committed to you, and you're committed to us forever here on the...
[00:00:29] Both Speakers: Holy Watermelon Podcast!
[00:00:31] Katie Dooley: That soft opening. Really didn't allude to what we're talking about at all, but, uh, it feels good to be back from our little summer hiatus.
[00:00:40] Katie Dooley: Right? Even though it's December now. November?
[00:00:45] Preston Meyer: November.
[00:00:45] Katie Dooley: It's November, now.
[00:00:48] Preston Meyer: In case you haven't picked us up, we're recording way in advance of these releases.
[00:00:53] Katie Dooley: So that we could release consistently here on the...
[00:00:57] Both Speakers: Holy Watermelon Podcast.
[00:00:59] Katie Dooley: I don't know what we're even doing anymore. Um, today we're going to talk about a controversial topic.
[00:01:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah, kind of picking up on some themes that we'd laid out earlier this year. We've talked about fascism, nationalism, as well as socialism, communism. We talked a little bit about the religious conflict in Ireland. And so we're going to talk today, as promised previously, about some religious conflict in Israel and Palestine.
[00:01:33] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So today we're talking about Zionism. Uh, actually, one of the things I went down the Reddit rabbit hole for this episode.
[00:01:41] Preston Meyer: Dangerous.
[00:01:41] Katie Dooley: Little bit. And one of them said they didn't actually like the term conflict because there was an obvious oppressor. A conflict implies that there's two sides fighting, and they didn't like the term conflict because they're saying that Israel is oppressive to Palestine. Just thoughts. But Preston doesn't agree with that from his face but...
[00:02:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah, Israel's got a a pretty uncomfortable grip on things and people are being treated poorly. But the Palestinian Arabs have a long history of, hey, we don't like you here, let's blow you up. And so it's just kind of a, a constant elevating game of no, my stick is bigger.
[00:02:24] Katie Dooley: It's also interesting. This is basically where we're going to start is obviously the Jewish population has been through a lot historically. So for them to be possessive of a place that is their own, I don't want to say we can't fault them because they're not being very nice over in that part of the world. But there is a very long line of generational trauma that has led to what we have today over in the in that part of the world. So the Oxford Dictionary defines Zionism as a movement for originally the reestablishment and now the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. It was established as a political organization in 1897 under Theodor Herzl, and was later led by Haim Weizman. Thank you. Someone who's taken Hebrew. Yeah.
[00:03:16] Preston Meyer: It's not "chaim".
[00:03:18] Katie Dooley: That's literally what I wanted. Or like. Yeah. The term Zionism comes from the word Zion, a hill in Jerusalem which symbolizes the land of Israel.
[00:03:27] Preston Meyer: There's all kinds of important historical baggage behind this word, but ultimately it's, hey, Zion is our home, and we want it.
[00:03:38] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And it's important to know that there's no overarching governing body for Zionism or Zionists.
[00:03:45] Preston Meyer: There are Zionist groups, but to say that they're all tightly affiliated and mutually governed is simply not the case.
[00:03:53] Katie Dooley: Well, I think I mean, even arguably I don't know if their goal is the same. I know the debate on how the land of the Jews would be run is or governed is one thing that really hasn't been decided, but they all have different motives for sure. There's a whole bunch of different types of Zionism as well.
[00:04:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah, as we've said before, it's a spectrum. That not all Jews are Zionists. Not all Zionists are Jewish. It's a huge bag of marbles.
[00:04:23] Katie Dooley: Yeah, and there might be some Zionists that are surprising to you that I think we've talked about earlier, Christian Zionism. Um, we'll get to that later in the episode.
[00:04:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Judaism is a weird sort of thing that it's generally talked about as a religious organization or not organization, but a religious umbrella religious group. But there's cultural and ethnic divisions as well. Hitler wasn't trying to get rid of the Jewish people because of their religion. He wanted to get rid of them because of their race. That the Jewish people as a race were inferior and problematic. Not a great position to hold. But here we are.
[00:04:34] Katie Dooley: And it is a weird. We don't talk about the Christian race or the Muslim race. It is a...
[00:05:09] Preston Meyer: Right.
[00:05:10] Katie Dooley: But I have definitely met people that identify as secular or cultural Jews because of, you know, their grandparents were Jewish, and even though they have no religious practice, they still identify in some way as Jewish. So it's a that is also an interesting bag of marbles.
[00:05:28] Preston Meyer: It's it's weird in today's globalist culture, but go back 2000 years, it was like the Slavs or the Nords or the the...
[00:05:40] Katie Dooley: Totally. And there's there's still groups. I mean, I for audience members that might not know me personally, I grew up Irish dancing and there's like an Irish look, especially to like middle aged Irishmen. There's just. They just look Irish. And I can say that as a white Irish person, I'm not going to say that about any other culture, but they're, you know, even with globalism, there are still groups that have a look to them. So I get it, and I don't get it all at the same time. Um, so secular Zionism is a thing where people who identify as cultural Jewish people still want a Jewish homeland.
[00:06:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So because the people of this ethnic group have been abused so consistently for such a long time. Yeah. A nice, safe place to call home. Who wouldn't want that?
[00:06:36] Katie Dooley: And this is where I'm. It's such a difficult conflict because we're going to start talking about the history of anti-Semitism in 2.5 seconds here. And they've been through a ton, but now they're doing terrible things to other people. So, you know, hurt people, hurt people, preston.
[00:06:55] Preston Meyer: Exactly.
[00:06:55] Katie Dooley: And that's kind of how we're here. So the history of anti-Semitism is very long, like 2000 plus years.
[00:07:04] Preston Meyer: I mean, if you look back through their own reflection on their history, there is never a time where things are going well for them. They're always on somebody else's land and that somebody hates them.
[00:07:18] Katie Dooley: They're kind of the eeyores of religion, aren't they?
[00:07:20] Preston Meyer: A little bit.
[00:07:21] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:07:22] Preston Meyer: A little bit. The earliest point of Hebrew history. We have them in Egypt enslaved, and then they escape that, only to fight other people in the land that they claim as their own, because they won't be good neighbors. And it just gets worse. They get enslaved. Well, not enslaved, but they get conquered. Conquered a whole bunch of a long series of external nations. You got the Syrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, and things are bad.
[00:07:52] Katie Dooley: And this is all told in the Hebrew Bible.
[00:07:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:07:56] Katie Dooley: But we also know historically that Judaism was the first major monotheistic religion.
[00:08:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:08:03] Katie Dooley: When and maybe this. We live in the West. It's weird to think of anything other than monotheism when the majority of people are Jewish, Christian or Muslim, and they all believe in Yahweh. That at the time they would have been the outsiders and the weirdos, only believing in one God. How can one God handle both the rain and the sun and the plants and life and death?
[00:08:28] Preston Meyer: Mhm.
[00:08:29] Katie Dooley: You got to have different people for all those.
[00:08:31] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:08:31] Katie Dooley: How do you know who to pray to?
[00:08:32] Preston Meyer: That's how all their neighbours looked at it.
[00:08:32] Katie Dooley: Right. Uh, they were already othered by just the format of their religion.
[00:08:39] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Yeah. If you were traveling from one nation to another, it was polite to go to the local worship station and offer a sacrifice.
[00:08:49] Katie Dooley: Worship station.
[00:08:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:08:50] Katie Dooley: I like that. I mean like church or shrine or...
[00:08:53] Preston Meyer: Shrines, temples.
[00:08:55] Katie Dooley: Worship station like an eyewash station.
[00:08:57] Preston Meyer: And if you went to Jerusalem and you were gonna do the thing you do everywhere else, you'd get in huge trouble because you're not welcome in their temple as an outsider.
[00:09:07] Katie Dooley: Then what happened?
[00:09:09] Preston Meyer: Then the temple was destroyed.
[00:09:10] Katie Dooley: No, you're skipping ahead. So next we all know about JC. Jesus Christ, the world's most famous Jew.
[00:09:18] Preston Meyer: Oh, no. my thing comes first.
[00:09:19] Katie Dooley: Oh, right. There were two destructions at the temple. Excuse me.
[00:09:23] Preston Meyer: And then there were.
[00:09:24] Katie Dooley: Because, my...
[00:09:25] Preston Meyer: Very often things were hard in Babylon and Persia. And then they got to go back home, rebuild the temple, and then Jesus.
[00:09:34] Katie Dooley: Then Jesus.
[00:09:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:09:36] Katie Dooley: So the JC world's most famous Jew.
[00:09:39] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:09:39] Katie Dooley: Maybe not next to Moses, I think more famous than Moses.
[00:09:43] Preston Meyer: I mean, I really hope...
[00:09:47] Katie Dooley: I was just gonna make...
[00:09:48] Preston Meyer: are aware of Moses.
[00:09:49] Katie Dooley: I was just going to make a really terrible joke. I'm gonna refrain.
[00:09:54] Preston Meyer: But, like, I want to say that Jesus might not be as popular as Moses because all Christians should be aware of Moses. But an awful lot of people outside of the monotheistic dome probably have heard of Jesus more than Moses, just because Christians are loud as hell.
[00:10:12] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, now we've debated who the most famous Jew is of all time, Jesus, was crucified by Roman governor Pontius Pilate. But the Gospels blame the Jews.
[00:10:26] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:10:26] Katie Dooley: And.
[00:10:27] Preston Meyer: Well. Okay. Preston and I have to be real. Pontius Pilate didn't want to crucify Jesus.
[00:10:33] Katie Dooley: We disagree on this.
[00:10:34] Preston Meyer: The authority that said, yes, let's do it.
[00:10:36] Katie Dooley: Preston, I disagree on this. Um. And I'll say why. I read a great book by Reza Aslan on Jesus. Historical Jesus and Pontius Pilate had complaints sent to Rome about him for crucifying too many people, so I don't think he cared too much about another another rebellious person.
[00:10:57] Preston Meyer: He had been warned. If you stop, if you don't stop messing around, you're going to lose your job.
[00:11:03] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:11:03] Preston Meyer: And...
[00:11:04] Katie Dooley: That's how many people he crucified when crucifixion was the way to do it.
[00:11:08] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:11:08] Katie Dooley: Like it's not like, you know, in we're in Canada where we don't have the death penalty and let's start killing people. It's like, no, we this is how we deal with people. And he was doing it too often.
[00:11:20] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:11:21] Katie Dooley: So that's really bad. Yeah. So.
[00:11:23] Preston Meyer: But the Jews demanded this time we're serious. We want this.
[00:11:27] Preston Meyer: So the gospels, as they get newer, the blame gets put more and more on the Jews because Christianity was now the religion of the Roman Empire, and it can't be looking like the Romans killed JC. So they blame. I mean, Preston, I disagree on this, but the books aren't so new that the the Christians were in charge of the Roman Empire when they were published. There's a couple hundred years between the publication of the fourth gospel and the rise to power of Christianity.
[00:12:00] Katie Dooley: Oh, interesting.
[00:12:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah
[00:12:02] Katie Dooley: We should get Doctor Glenn answering this question.
[00:12:05] Preston Meyer: Sure.
[00:12:05] Katie Dooley: We disagree. Anyway, so Christ killer is a slur for a Jewish person. Is the important point in this conversation.
[00:12:15] Preston Meyer: Which is ridiculous because giving anybody credit for a murder that happened centuries before their own birth fully ridiculous.
[00:12:26] Katie Dooley: I, I mean, again, yes and no, because if we're still having to, you know.
[00:12:33] Preston Meyer: Are you are you defending the use of Christ killer?
[00:12:36] Katie Dooley: No, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. But the way Christians treat their current people as still having to like, do things for Jesus because he sacrificed himself 2000 years ago. You know what I mean?
[00:12:49] Katie Dooley: I'm not sure that I do.
[00:12:51] Preston Meyer: Are we going to cut this out? Because I'm not making any sense? We'll see. Um, okay. Because I'm reading all these books on, like, evangelical Christianity, and it's all like, well, because Jesus died for your sins, you have to do x, y, and Z.
[00:13:04] Preston Meyer: Okay.
[00:13:05] Katie Dooley: So if we're still carrying that someone died for us 2000 years ago. Of course we should care who killed someone 2000 years. You know what I mean?
[00:13:12] Preston Meyer: Okay.
[00:13:14] Katie Dooley: Does that make sense?
[00:13:15] Preston Meyer: I follow you now.
[00:13:16] Katie Dooley: Okay? I mean, I say, I'm not saying it's a good thing, right? But if we care what someone did for me when I wasn't born and didn't ask him to do it 2000 years ago. Ergo, I should probably care who killed the man 2000 years ago. If I care about those two, well, the one thing I should care about the other.
[00:13:35] Preston Meyer: I still don't think there's a valid equivalence but I guess that's just me.
[00:13:43] Katie Dooley: I mean, I'm an atheist, so it doesn't matter to me either. But like I said, if I'm going to care that someone died for me, shouldn't I not care who killed him or no. Okay.
[00:13:53] Preston Meyer: I, I don't think it's fair to transfer the the burden of the murder across people and.
[00:14:03] Katie Dooley: No, absolutely.
[00:14:04] Preston Meyer: That's the thing.
[00:14:05] Katie Dooley: [00:14:05]But I can see why people do it. [00:14:06]
[00:14:07] Preston Meyer: Because people are simple.
[00:14:08] Katie Dooley: Because people are terrible. Yeah.
[00:14:10] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:14:11] Katie Dooley: Because we've been taught to care about this thing that happened 2000 years ago.
[00:14:15] Preston Meyer: Yes. Parents teach their children a lot of things they shouldn't.
[00:14:20] Katie Dooley: Yes. So then Preston and I got ahead of myself and talked about the second destruction of the temple.
[00:14:28] Preston Meyer: Mhm. And then around 70 CE, there was enough trouble in Jerusalem that it was time to destroy the temple again. And things have just been super hard ever since.
[00:14:44] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:14:45] Preston Meyer: People are scattered across all of Europe and treated poorly everywhere they go.
[00:14:51] Katie Dooley: Yep. So for many centuries, the Jews weren't allowed to hold land or public office or vote and were treated as aliens, predominantly across Europe, I imagine through the Middle East as well.
[00:15:03] Preston Meyer: A little bit, yeah.
[00:15:05] Katie Dooley: We just have great records of European history all the way back to the year 1000.
[00:15:10] Preston Meyer: Mhm.
[00:15:11] Katie Dooley: And they were also othered because the Jews take a line from Exodus 22:25 very specifically. I remember learning about this and I thought this was great when I learned about it. So the line from Exodus 22:25 says, if you lend money to any of my people with you, who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him. So this is God telling people don't charge interest on loans.
[00:15:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but if anyone's read The Good Old Merchant of Venice, the story is about a Jewish guy who charges interest.
[00:15:44] Preston Meyer: So the Jews took this line very literally of my people, meaning other Jews and Christians take this as my people being everyone.
[00:15:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:15:53] Katie Dooley: So historically, Jewish people have been bankers and become quite wealthy from it. Been charged with usury and a stereotype that still stands today as being either like money grubbing or really cheap. So no one likes paying back their loans.
[00:16:09] Preston Meyer: Of course, things have changed a little bit since then. Now Christians love.
[00:16:13] Katie Dooley: Now everyone loves charging interest. Usury is not even a thing anymore.
[00:16:16] Preston Meyer: I mean, it is. We just don't use that word anymore because it's a normal practice.
[00:16:21] Katie Dooley: Yeah. We don't. We're not going to send anyone. Well, we might send people to hell for it. We'll have to ask JC when the time comes. But, uh, it used to be like a really big sin, and now it's like, literally, I could get an extension on my credit card right now if I wanted to.
[00:16:37] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:16:39] Katie Dooley: You want a car loan, Preston? I could get you a car loan. Like, right now,
[00:16:43] Preston Meyer: I'm pretty comfortable with my situation. Okay.
[00:16:45] Katie Dooley: You want a car loan?
[00:16:47] Preston Meyer: No.
[00:16:48] Katie Dooley: 3% interest.
[00:16:50] Preston Meyer: We owe $0.78 on our car right now.
[00:16:52] Katie Dooley: Why haven't you paid it off yet? Amanda tried, and they wouldn't let her.
[00:16:55] Preston Meyer: Oh. I was like, I will give you $0.78. Um...
[00:17:00] Katie Dooley: They're like, no, you have to wait until next month when the interest on that $0.78 makes it most of it.
[00:17:06] Preston Meyer: Well, then give them $3.
[00:17:08] Katie Dooley: It won't be that much.
[00:17:10] Preston Meyer: I know, but just then they can't when they can't harass you about it. Um, anyway, so that's how we, you know, have Jewish stereotypes. And this is, like, literally happening. You're like 1000, like, this is like, we obviously know about anti-Semitism in the early 1900s, but this has been going on for literally centuries. So the Jewish community was never fully accepted. They were often just tolerated. Many countries enforced segregation in Jewish ghettos. And again, this is as early as the 1000. We hear about Jewish ghettos a lot during World War two. There have been Jewish ghettos for a thousand years.
[00:17:48] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Of course, one of the great titles you'll hear about in discussions of antisemitism is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
[00:17:57] Preston Meyer: No!
[00:17:57] Katie Dooley: This great book that was supposed to expose all of the terrible plots that the Jews were.
[00:18:03] Preston Meyer: It's the great Jewish conspiracy theory.
[00:18:06] Katie Dooley: It's...
[00:18:07] Preston Meyer: It's garbage.
[00:18:08] Katie Dooley: Yeah. It's terrible. The Jewish plan for global domination. Well, such a small group of people pulling that off.
[00:18:17] Preston Meyer: I mean, pre-World War One, their population were pre-World War Two. Their population was much bigger. I still don't know if it's enough for world domination...
[00:18:24] Katie Dooley: But compared to, like, the rest of the world, they're still a small group. So this book was published in 1903. It is a fake text that describes the plan for the Jewish Plan for Global Domination. It was read to school children as fact after the Nazis took over Germany in 1933.
[00:18:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah. People suck. I mean, if you want to make people hate any group, here's a good example of how to do it.
[00:18:52] Katie Dooley: This one, I will say, is quite interesting because again, it was published well over 100 years ago. And if you stay in a Facebook or Reddit argument long enough, this conspiracy theory of it's the Jews will come up. And that's terrible.
[00:19:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, there was a conspiracy. That was the Jews. Let me tell you what the conspiracy was.
[00:19:17] Katie Dooley: Oh, no. Now, now you're sounding like the sketchy one, Preston.
[00:19:22] Preston Meyer: Because a conspiracy is a shared vision with intent to act. A whole bunch of Jews got together and said, we want to go home.
[00:19:22] Katie Dooley: Fair.
[00:19:31] Preston Meyer: Technically a conspiracy.
[00:19:33] Katie Dooley: Not world domination, though. Just Katie after a night out drinking. I just want to go home.
[00:19:39] Preston Meyer: Right. That that's it. That's the conspiracy. We want a safe place to go to sleep at night.
[00:19:48] Katie Dooley: Hasn't worked yet, unfortunately.
[00:19:50] Preston Meyer: Uh, no. Even though they've had their own nation for most of a century now.
[00:19:56] Katie Dooley: 80 years.
[00:19:57] Preston Meyer: It's still kind of sucks.
[00:19:59] Katie Dooley: Yep. So modern Zionism, which led to the creation of the nation of Israel. Let's talk about that.
[00:20:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So let's start at the where things were about 150 years ago, maybe a little bit further back than that. Jewish religious thought had always talked about returning to Jerusalem. That was always a big thing, that there would be a new Jerusalem. The temple would eventually be rebuilt. There was never any specific plans to make it happen. It was just a thing that everyone looked forward to one day. Nobody knew what circumstances it would be. It was just a thing that was hoped for. For centuries, the Ottoman Empire controlled Jerusalem and the rest of the Land of Israel, and anti-Semitism was getting pretty rough in Europe, to the point that through the 1860s and 70s, people actually started talking about getting out of these unfriendly nations that maybe, hey, let's try going home. Makes perfect sense. So they could actually enjoy self-determination instead of being governed by people who hated them because they'd had enough after more than a thousand years of that in Europe. Just terrible.
[00:21:10] Katie Dooley: Yep.
[00:21:11] Preston Meyer: And so it didn't take long to decide that Jerusalem should be their refuge. A lot of people said, no, let's head off to New York. That'll work out really well for us. And for some people, it did work out. But there was still...
[00:21:23] Katie Dooley: They have a huge population.
[00:21:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah, yeah. Huge population in New York, but a lot of them said, hey, let's go back to Jerusalem. And they started growing. The individual people and some larger nationalist groups started buying up land so that Jewish immigrants would have a place to live in the Ottoman Empire, which was ruled, of course, by Muslims. That was the majority religion. It was kind of the the symbol that we have for Islam, recognized everywhere, is always that moon and star has nothing to do with the religion that was the symbol of the Ottoman Empire. So that's how the Ottomans connected to the rest of the world that way. And really, the modern Zionist movement began in about 1896. Well, that was the year that Theodor Herzl published his little pamphlet, The Jewish State.
[00:22:17] Katie Dooley: Der Jungen statt. No Juden judenstaat. Jungen in his child der Judenstaat.
[00:22:17] Preston Meyer: Yes. And so the argument was that an independent Jewish state would help escape anti-Semitism. We've we've seen this state finally erected. Turns out it didn't work. Anti-semitism is still a problem.
[00:22:41] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I don't think... It's such a weird thing and I'm in a place of privilege to not really talk about it, but it's one of those things where I feel like othering yourself further doesn't help anything... Yeah. I mean, again, I'm not in a place to say, but just thoughts.
[00:23:02] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It didn't solve the problem.
[00:23:04] Katie Dooley: Didn't solve. Yeah.
[00:23:04] Preston Meyer: Or at least not the whole problem. It did solve part of the problem that people were able to live in a space where anti-Semitism didn't actually ruin their lives.
[00:23:13] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:23:14] Preston Meyer: Not a perfect solution. There's still a lot of murders.
[00:23:19] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And I mean, again, just spend a little bit of time on the internet and you'll see that anti-Semitism is still a thing, you know, day to day in your home of Israel. Can you avoid that? Probably just don't go on the internet. But that doesn't mean people, unfortunately, think differently.
[00:23:37] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:23:39] Katie Dooley: Early Zionism discouraged assimilation, encouraged the revitalization, revitalization of the Hebrew language. Say something for us, Preston.
[00:23:48] Preston Meyer: My Hebrew studies were really quite light, and I'll admit that I did not attend every class when I was doing it, but I did pass in the end.
[00:23:55] Katie Dooley: That's good. I thought you were going to say Mazel tov.
[00:23:58] Preston Meyer: Sure. Uh, in my command of the Hebrew language is not enough to call it command.
[00:24:06] Katie Dooley: All right. As Jewish families and organizations bought up land and facilitated immigration into Palestine, conflict wasn't actually that frequent. Between 1882 and 1908, only 13 Jewish people. I shouldn't say only 13 Jewish people were killed by Arab people in Palestine, but only four of those were because of nationalistic circumstances.
[00:24:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I mean, over the course of more than 20 years, 13 murders, pretty light compared to a lot of conflicts that we see. But that's still people dying.
[00:24:44] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:24:44] Preston Meyer: So that sucks.
[00:24:45] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:24:46] Preston Meyer: Things started to heat up even more when Jewish landowners started evicting tenants to make room for more Jewish immigrants on their land, which was technically legal, but also really sucks if you're the one being evicted.
[00:25:00] Katie Dooley: Totally.
[00:25:01] Preston Meyer: And so the Ottoman Empire started worrying about the possibility that all these immigrants coming in from Russia and other parts of Europe might still be loyal to those countries. Publicly anti-Semitic countries.
[00:25:13] Katie Dooley: And they're leaving because they're anti-Semitic... Probably not.
[00:25:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:25:18] Katie Dooley: I mean, even when we talk about immigration now, I'm like, it takes a lot for someone to leave their home country.
[00:25:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:25:23] Katie Dooley: People don't just do that lightly so...
[00:25:27] Preston Meyer: Moving house is a big deal.
[00:25:28] Katie Dooley: Even moving houses is too much. Moving countries, I couldn't imagine.
[00:25:31] Preston Meyer: Exactly. You're abandoning everything, you know, for what is absolutely uncertainty.
[00:25:37] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:25:38] Preston Meyer: High risk. But people are doing it because they need to.
[00:25:42] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:25:43] Preston Meyer: But of course this displaces a lot of people. So back to that question of can these Jewish immigrants even possibly be loyal to the Ottoman Empire? The Turkish people actually did have problems with the same sort of thing um, of these nationalist groups breaking away from the empire. All of the Balkans used to be under Ottoman power for a while, and then lost it because nationalist power. In 1892, the Ottoman government banned the sale of land to foreigners. Which I mean makes sense when you realize a whole bunch of your property is being bought up. You're losing money. I mean, we see that today in North America. China is buying up all kinds of property. Probably not for the same reason. No, it's all about that money, which, you know...
[00:26:37] Katie Dooley: I mean, when the climate climate crisis meets its peak and everything goes into the ocean, property values inland will skyrocket.
[00:26:46] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:26:47] Katie Dooley: I mean, I guess it is for money.
[00:26:49] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:26:49] Katie Dooley: But you could live there, too, if your home is underwater elsewhere.
[00:26:53] Preston Meyer: Sure. So this didn't actually stop people who were living there buying land and renting it to Jewish immigrants. So we still see a growing influx of ethnic Jewish people because religion wasn't the issue, even though a lot of them were faithful, religious, practicing Jews.
[00:27:16] Katie Dooley: Yes. Again, because you can't look at someone and know what their religion is.
[00:27:21] Preston Meyer: No, it doesn't work that way.
[00:27:25] Katie Dooley: Because the number of people that clutch their pearls at me when they find out, Preston.
[00:27:30] Preston Meyer: Right. Because they look at you and assume, oh, she's white. She's probably Christian.
[00:27:33] Katie Dooley: Nice white Christian girl. Wrong!
[00:27:35] Preston Meyer: She's an Atheist.
[00:27:36] Katie Dooley: Satan! Kidding. Not even Satan. I wish I knew that episode number to quote that right now. Episode 37 Not Even Satan.
[00:27:47] Preston Meyer: I don't think it was that one. Anyway...
[00:27:52] Katie Dooley: Then what happened?
[00:27:53] Preston Meyer: The First World War broke out.
[00:27:55] Katie Dooley: Oh...
[00:27:56] Preston Meyer: Yeah, and the Ottoman Empire joined Germany. Because why not?
[00:28:02] Katie Dooley: Losing side. Losing side.
[00:28:05] Preston Meyer: I don't want to say one side is better than the other in this specific detail, that the Ottomans joined the side of Franz Ferdinand, the assassinated fellow. But also they saw great power in Germany and Austria, saw allies there. And Germany already hates Jewish people... Not as much as they will 20 years from now, but at this point in history, it's a problem already.
[00:28:34] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:28:35] Preston Meyer: And I actually think it's worth noting that an awful lot of Muslim Arabs actually don't like the Ottoman Empire. They don't like the Ottoman power. It's causing problems for them. There's lots of different factions within Islam, lots of different denominations, and some of them were treated very poorly by their government. Yay, theocracy! So things were kind of rough for a lot of people, not just the Jewish people in the Ottoman Empire and even some of them... Some of the Arabs agreed with the Jews that it would be better to ally with Russia and France and their allies.
[00:29:16] Katie Dooley: Interesting.
[00:29:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's a spectrum. Many sides, many subgroups.
[00:29:21] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:29:23] Preston Meyer: Uh, of course, France and their allies were really excited to split up the Ottoman Empire as soon as they could, because...
[00:29:31] Katie Dooley: It was huge.
[00:29:32] Preston Meyer: It was huge territory. There was a lot of power there, but not enough to win a war.
[00:29:38] Katie Dooley: Like Canada. Big, but spread out.
[00:29:40] Preston Meyer: Right.
[00:29:41] Katie Dooley: We're not winning any wars here either.
[00:29:43] Preston Meyer: Well, also, we don't dump a full half of our funds generated every year into the armed forces like America does. So there's a serious military advantage on one side of that.
[00:29:55] Katie Dooley: I looked it up once because I have a friend. Our friend Sarah and I told her what Canada budgets for military versus what the States budgets for military. And it's gross the difference.
[00:30:07] Preston Meyer: Absolutely it is.
[00:30:08] Katie Dooley: I think we budget in the billions and they budget like I think we budget in like the two digit billions and they budget in the three digit trillions.
[00:30:16] Preston Meyer: That's insane.
[00:30:17] Katie Dooley: It's like an and that's the huge that's a huge difference. The difference between 1 billion and 1 trillion is a lot.
[00:30:23] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:30:24] Katie Dooley: Like a lot.
[00:30:26] Preston Meyer: Well anyway, so in 1915, the British government agreed to recognize the independence of individual states after the war if they agreed to rebel against the Ottoman Empire.
[00:30:38] Katie Dooley: Hmm. Interesting.
[00:30:39] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So let's let's poke at this hot bed of coals and see what fires pop up. And they got their fires. Uh, the next year, 1916, France and Great Britain got support from Russia and Italy to divide the parts of the Ottoman Empire between the two powers in what is called the Sykes-Picot agreement. And England got the southern half and France got the north half, basically at least of the Levant region. Other things were divided a little differently too. In 1917, the British government pronounced their intent to make a home for Jewish people in Palestine. They were pretty overt about it, and it was a little bit weird. The British government in the Balfour Declaration, named for the British Foreign Secretary, Balfour. There's actually a lot of argument around Balfour's motives. Some are like, is he trying to get people in trouble? Is he secretly a Zionist himself?
[00:31:40] Katie Dooley: No one knows.
[00:31:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we just don't know. Kind of frustrating. But the Balfour Declaration was sent from the Foreign secretary to Baron Walter Rothschild, a Jewish lord of the British Parliament. A lot of times when people are talking about these Protocols of Zion, the Rothschilds running the world. No. But the Rothschilds are part of the conspiracy to find a home.
[00:32:06] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:32:08] Preston Meyer: So we have that. Anyway, he sent it to Rothschild to take to the Zionist Federation, who then forwarded it to the press. And it's actually not terribly long. I included it in our notes. The full text of the letter.
[00:32:24] Katie Dooley: Read it.
[00:32:25] Preston Meyer: And so it's dated November 2nd, 1917, so pretty close to the end of the war. Dear Lord Rothschild, I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations, which has been submitted to and approved by the cabinet. His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
[00:33:16] Katie Dooley: There you go.
[00:33:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah, like he didn't get in trouble for it. And the guy who took over for him supported it all the way through. But it's it's still like a lot of people investigating why this was written and all that. But before the end of the year, and this was in November, a British forces seized Palestine and they ultimately held it until they acknowledged Israeli independence a few decades later.
[00:33:43] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:33:45] Preston Meyer: There's not much of a conspiracy. It's just a concerted will and plan to find a home.
[00:33:53] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So, as Preston mentioned, the English held what is now known as Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Kuwait and part of Iraq and France held Lebanon, Syria and another part of Iraq.
[00:34:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And other little parts of land here and there. But those are the big bits.
[00:34:09] Katie Dooley: Those are the big bits. And it's interesting. I mean, is it colonialism? Kind of. It's just like how much conflict has been in that part of the world since. It's like a weird kind of colonialism.
[00:34:20] Preston Meyer: I guess.
[00:34:21] Katie Dooley: Because it was spoils of war...
[00:34:22] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:34:23] Katie Dooley: But it's still not yours.
[00:34:25] Preston Meyer: Well, so the thing is that the English and the French didn't actually didn't actually colonize the lands. They just took it, controlled it, and facilitated other people immigrating.
[00:34:39] Katie Dooley: Yeah, but that's having a government that isn't a government you wanted, right?
[00:34:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah, they certainly weren't an elected government by the locals in this part.
[00:34:47] Katie Dooley: So I guess not. Yeah, it's different than colonization, but it is some sort of weird.
[00:34:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, still very English.
[00:34:56] Katie Dooley: I wanna say, sticking your dick in places it doesn't belong. That's the best way I can describe it.
[00:35:03] Preston Meyer: Sure. I mean, a better example of exactly that would be what the English did in India, where the more coastal you are in India, the more likely you are to have pale skin because of sticking things where they don't belong. But here we are.
[00:35:22] Katie Dooley: Here we are. So immigration accelerated after the First World War. So Jewish immigration, funded mostly by English speaking Christians, displaced more Arabs even though they said it wouldn't.
[00:35:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah...
[00:35:36] Katie Dooley: But it did.
[00:35:37] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:35:38] Katie Dooley: This, of course, made a lot of Palestinians uncomfortable because they wanted self-determination, just like Jewish immigrants did. While I'm all for immigration, I don't want it to be the cost of me, or I don't want to be ousted from my own home.
[00:35:51] Preston Meyer: Right.
[00:35:51] Katie Dooley: I'm happy to find resources for people who are immigrating here.
[00:35:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, we see people complaining about this all the time here in the West, where people are complaining about immigrants all the time and immigrants are taking our jobs while simultaneously saying immigrants are lazy and just a drain on things. You cannot be both ways.
[00:36:16] Katie Dooley: Canada. That's like I was talking to some friends about this that are also business owners, and they were just we're talking about the States versus Canada, where the States has this massive population and actually makes it really hard to do business in Canada because there's just not there's not enough people.
[00:36:30] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Yeah. A lot of people don't think it's worth doing business outside of the United States.
[00:36:34] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:36:34] Preston Meyer: No matter where in the world they're at.
[00:36:36] Katie Dooley: There's just not enough people.
[00:36:38] Preston Meyer: It's ridiculous.
[00:36:39] Katie Dooley: So I'm fine with more immigrants.
[00:36:40] Preston Meyer: Where there are people. There is money to be made.
[00:36:42] Katie Dooley: And money to be spent. And people are buying things more. And, yeah, it's just, uh. I don't think we have to worry about that in Canada yet when our entire population is like the population of New York State.
[00:36:55] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:36:58] Katie Dooley: Anyway...
[00:37:00] Preston Meyer: so here we see nationalism starting to build up within this new set of almost nations. And of course, you have the immigrating Jewish people and the now...
[00:37:16] Katie Dooley: Existing, but...
[00:37:17] Preston Meyer: Fairly not fully oppressed, but they're not really being helped much, Palestinian Arab population. They both really lean into nationalism and because their ideals conflict with one another. Neither groups can be satisfied with either of them in power.
[00:37:36] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:37:36] Preston Meyer: Things just get worse. Nationalism is always bad. Always. I cannot think of any exception.
[00:37:44] Katie Dooley: In the 1920s, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a muslim, incited conflict by telling the Arabs that the Jews were going to destroy the Dome on the Rock so that they could rebuild their own temple. And this is actually a big part of the conflict, is that the Dome on the Rock is a very religious Muslim place, but it is where the temple is.
[00:38:04] Preston Meyer: Right. But I couldn't find anything saying that any Jew had said that they were planning to blow up the Dome on the Rock.
[00:38:13] Katie Dooley: Oh, interesting. I thought that was a big part of the conflict, is that that is the most holy place in the world.
[00:38:18] Preston Meyer: I mean, yeah, but the Grand Mufti.
[00:38:22] Katie Dooley: Is the was the guy who...
[00:38:23] Preston Meyer: Who he just accused the Jewish people at large in general of wanting to blow up the Dome on the Rock so they could rebuild the.
[00:38:31] Katie Dooley: Where would they build the temple?
[00:38:32] Preston Meyer: No, that is the location.
[00:38:35] Katie Dooley: But nobody ever...
[00:38:37] Preston Meyer: No, no group of Jewish people in power have ever made any plans to do that.
[00:38:45] Katie Dooley: It doesn't help that Christians also,
[00:38:47] Preston Meyer: Christians, talk about blowing up the Dome on the Rock all the time. All the time. I heard it so often in the last 20 years. It's insane.
[00:38:57] Katie Dooley: That's probably where I'm getting this idea from.
[00:39:00] Preston Meyer: Probably because it seems like a natural. Effective way of rebuilding the temple. Get rid of what's there. It's not like there's a whole lot of love between most Christian groups and all of Islam. So it's it's an easy thing for a lot of people who are completely separate from this scenario to talk about. And since most of the world has a violent history, what's another bombing? Apart from, you know, actual murder.
[00:39:31] Katie Dooley: You know what I like? Nihilism.
[00:39:34] Preston Meyer: Sure.
[00:39:36] Katie Dooley: In 1937, after the conflict had gotten really rough with lots of deaths on both sides, the Peel Commission recommended a two state solution. The Zionist Congress approved the plan, but the Arabs didn't want to share the land. The English weren't too keen on the idea either, because it would essentially force countless families to relocate. I was actually in one of my rabbit holes I went down. They actually are saying that the two state solution is not the most popular one right now, and for a lot of years it was like, if you would ask me and I mean, I didn't try not to go down this rabbit hole too far. But, you know, for the longest time I was like, yeah, separate them. So it's interesting to me that it's no longer the most popular idea.
[00:40:15] Preston Meyer: Well, it's kind of interesting that, uh, in popular media, in the last, I'm going to say 4 or 5 years, there's been a lot more people telling their stories about the partition of Pakistan and India, and that it was just...
[00:40:33] Katie Dooley: Devastating. Devastating. Yeah.
[00:40:36] Preston Meyer: And that was the exact same plan and the exact same year in Israel. And things didn't go well there.
[00:40:48] Katie Dooley: Interesting. And that's a good comparison to make. Yeah. Because that really was not good.
[00:40:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Partition of a forced partition of nations, where you have a winning group and a losing group who's still within your borders, who now desperately want to escape for their lives. That sucks.
[00:41:09] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:41:11] Preston Meyer: But we'll get into the governmental bits of that a little bit later on.
[00:41:16] Katie Dooley: We haven't even got to World War Two yet.
[00:41:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:41:19] Katie Dooley: In 1939, the British government implemented their one state plan and banned Jews from buying land from Arabs. The intent was to stop the conflict by helping the Palestinian Arabs feel more secure. Jews then started immigrating illegally, making things worse. And the Jewish rebellion stirred up because of these British policies.
[00:41:40] Preston Meyer: Yeah, things didn't get better with these new laws. And then World War Two broke out. And again, the Arabs allied with Germany because, hey, Germany's got this great doctrine of Jews are awful, and we also feel exactly this way. It's not a great reason to join a war, and it's not a great reason to pick such a terrible ally. But it was what they did.
[00:42:07] Katie Dooley: They also overlooked something pretty important.
[00:42:10] Preston Meyer: Yeah, the Jews were super anti-Semitic in general. Arabs are part of the Semitic family.
[00:42:17] Katie Dooley: Yeah...
[00:42:18] Preston Meyer: But Germany went along with it well enough.
[00:42:23] Katie Dooley: The enemy of my enemy is my friend?
[00:42:25] Preston Meyer: I guess? The Grand Mufti, the same one who incited public panic about the destruction of the Dome on the Rock, called for a holy war against the United Kingdom. Because, you know, United Kingdom's cause of all our problems recently. And so Hitler promised him that he would wipe out the Jews in Palestine after he had won the war in Europe. So he tried real hard in Europe, but he didn't win.
[00:42:49] Katie Dooley: That's good.
[00:42:50] Preston Meyer: Agreed.
[00:42:51] Katie Dooley: That's a different world I don't want to live in. And even that, I mean, do I want to live in this world? So, and this is something that, you know, I remember learning about Israel being created in 1948? 47? But we talked 48, 1948. But, you know, the Bible talks about the nation of Israel. And I was like, what do you mean? Israel wasn't a country until 1948? But it wasn't.
[00:43:17] Preston Meyer: Not technically.
[00:43:18] Katie Dooley: No. So because of the Holocaust, an event that killed 6 million Jews, many Jewish people sought refuge in Palestine and really started to embrace the idea of Zionism. Um, if they hadn't already, losing all your loved ones sure brought that home.
[00:43:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:43:35] Katie Dooley: Forgive the pun, but there was a huge exodus of Jews. I'm so sorry. From Europe to Israel. So 57% of Jews lived in Europe. Of the world's population, Jews lived in Europe before World War two. Afterwards, only 35% resided in Europe. And that's also obviously removing the deaths.
[00:43:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:43:59] Katie Dooley: So huge population drop.
[00:44:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, a lot of that wasn't emigration. A lot of that was extermination. But there was also an emigration.
[00:44:11] Katie Dooley: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
[00:44:13] Preston Meyer: So in 1947, the United Nations recommended a partition of the state. And this time Britain agreed. And it was the same year that they did the whole Pakistan-India partition. So I guess just different people in the Foreign Secretary's office, I guess. Palestine was only one third Jewish in 1947, but the Jewish people were awarded most of the land, and then Jerusalem was a separate state as well as its own city state.
[00:44:45] Katie Dooley: Kind of like the Vatican.
[00:44:46] Preston Meyer: Kind of, yeah. Under the control of the United Nations.
[00:44:49] Katie Dooley: I'd also like to just remind everyone that the UN is literally a baby right now.
[00:44:54] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's a very new organization.
[00:44:57] Katie Dooley: After the League of Nations failed and we had another world war.
[00:45:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So this partition, it went not half as well as it did in Pakistan. War broke out immediately. No hesitation. Not like weeks later. Immediately.
[00:45:15] Katie Dooley: The 1947 to 49 Palestine war was the first conflict of what we have today.
[00:45:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, first feels a little bit weird, but the way we define the warfare that's going on there...
[00:45:29] Katie Dooley: And I mean, it was the first conflict of the nation of Israel, and it has not stopped since. I guess it's my... What I'm trying to say.
[00:45:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I get you. And so it was called the War of Independence by those in Israel. And it finished with the Independence Day, May 14th, 1948. Thanks to Great Britain and their help in keeping some control over the situation, that honestly, they didn't have any real right to get involved in.
[00:46:03] Katie Dooley: And this is where it gets complicated, because a group of people that we can be really sympathetic to after thousands of years of oppression, now the tables are turning. So this war displaced more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs.
[00:46:20] Preston Meyer: Not counting the ones who died.
[00:46:21] Katie Dooley: Not counting the ones who died, just all of a sudden, people who had nowhere to go.
[00:46:24] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Let's head off to other nations.
[00:46:27] Katie Dooley: So again, the the Jewish population has just had however many years of World War two. My husband would know that answer. I don't know that answer. And been displaced and atrocities. And now, I mean, obviously they weren't put into concentration camps, but displacing creating 700,000 refugees is a huge problem.
[00:46:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah and then Palestinian Arab rebels continue to illegally claim Dominion over pretty much the same area that was legitimately granted to them in 47, despite having lost the war. And then in 2012, the UN granted observer status to Palestine, officially recognized them as a state of their own.
[00:47:06] Katie Dooley: But it is not a country.
[00:47:07] Preston Meyer: Not technically speaking. It's it's funky. It's like...
[00:47:12] Katie Dooley: It is Wales.
[00:47:14] Preston Meyer: Well, it's it's an interesting, separate example. I want to say it's more like North and South Korea.
[00:47:22] Katie Dooley: Fair. Yeah, that's a good one.
[00:47:23] Preston Meyer: There's no reason for anybody on the planet to recognize two separate Koreas. There is one Korea with one capital city and a rebel state that controls the other half of the nation. To be honest, in your politics means to be friendly with one and just not recognize the other. Trump decided to make friends with the fascist half.
[00:47:23] Katie Dooley: Oh, boy.
[00:47:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:47:49] Katie Dooley: No, again. This one's harder than north South Korea, though. It's harder. You know, like I said, with the long history of Jewish oppression. Like, who's the air quotes bad guy in this one, whereas we know North Korea is. Not the people just later.
[00:48:04] Preston Meyer: Right. Well, and we don't have such an easy border between the two like we have in Korea. We have people all over the place like, yeah, there's borders drawn up, but that's not actually a fair outline of where these people really are.
[00:48:20] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:48:21] Preston Meyer: It's actually really a big problem. So in '47, I think it was we had one third of the population were Jewish.
[00:48:32] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:48:33] Preston Meyer: Today, 75% of all the people in Israel are Jewish. Out of the whole global population, more than 40% live in Israel.
[00:48:42] Katie Dooley: Wow.
[00:48:43] Preston Meyer: That's shows a lot of population movement in those 80 years.
[00:48:48] Katie Dooley: And we've just I know we talked about this in previous episodes, but I'll just reiterate, we've now hit the number of Jews in the world that is pre-World War Two losses.
[00:48:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:48:59] Katie Dooley: So the population is finally recovered.
[00:49:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Which to say, recovered. It doesn't mean where they could have fairly expected to have.
[00:49:09] Katie Dooley: Right. If you.
[00:49:10] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:49:10] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:49:11] Preston Meyer: Reminds me of the Thanos snap. You know, solve all the world's problems by cutting the population in half. Our population has fully doubled. The human population on this planet has fully doubled since my parents were born.
[00:49:26] Katie Dooley: I don't I don't like that.
[00:49:28] Preston Meyer: So if we were to snap half of the world's population away...
[00:49:32] Katie Dooley: In 40 years, we'd be back.
[00:49:34] Preston Meyer: I mean, my parents aren't young.
[00:49:36] Katie Dooley: 50?
[00:49:38] Preston Meyer: My parents are in their 50s.
[00:49:39] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:49:40] Preston Meyer: So that's not even setting us back a whole hundred years. That means the problem comes back very quickly.
[00:49:46] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I know people are talking about that... With Biden wanting to get rid of student debt, that if he wiped out the debt, then the rate would in like four years would be back to what it was.
[00:49:57] Preston Meyer: Probably.
[00:49:58] Katie Dooley: So anyway. Numbers, man.
[00:50:04] Preston Meyer: It's also interesting that nearly half of the Jewish population in Israel not religious at all, but they did their census. Turns out 49% had no real religious inclination. They just...
[00:50:19] Katie Dooley: These ethnic cultural Jews that we talk about.
[00:50:23] Preston Meyer: They specifically 49, responded on the survey as secular Jews.
[00:50:27] Katie Dooley: Wow.
[00:50:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:50:28] Katie Dooley: One of the things that benefited the growth of the Jewish population in Israel is the law of return, which I find super interesting. Every Jew in the world has an unrestricted right to immigrate to Israel and become a citizen. If you can prove you're Jewish, you can move to Israel.
[00:50:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Through any family ties, which of course, come through the mother's side, legally speaking. But if you convert to Judaism, you can actually go ahead and get your Israeli passport.
[00:50:57] Katie Dooley: Yeah. You need your rabbi to, I presume, to vouch for you because they don't just give passports out. But.
[00:51:03] Preston Meyer: And converting to Judaism is not nearly as easy as converting to Christianity.
[00:51:08] Katie Dooley: No. It's interesting. Of the of the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism is the only one that's not evangelical.
[00:51:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah. There's.
[00:51:16] Katie Dooley: And obviously there's...
[00:51:17] Preston Meyer: They're pretty suspicious of converts.
[00:51:19] Katie Dooley: Yes. I mean, obviously there's a spectrum of everyone who will knock on your door and try to convert you, or people who just, like, want to tell you the good word or whatever, but they actively do not want you to join them because they believe they're God's people and you're chosen.
[00:51:32] Preston Meyer: Yeah, of course there's a spectrum. I definitely got tracts from Jews for Jesus when I was in New York one time.
[00:51:39] Katie Dooley: Oh, wow.
[00:51:39] Preston Meyer: So, spectrum.
[00:51:41] Katie Dooley: Spectrum. Bu our shirt! And then what I find even more interesting and moderately terrifying is Christian Zionism.
[00:51:51] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So Jews don't generally talk out loud in front of strangers about, oh, yeah, let's blow up the Dome on the Rock so we can rebuild the temple. I have no idea. I've lost track of how many Christians I've come across who think that this should be a plan that we need to act on soon.
[00:52:09] Katie Dooley: You should hang out with different Christians.
[00:52:11] Preston Meyer: I mean, I'm trying. Uh, it's it's been a little while since I've heard anybody say it, but that means it can't be far around the corner.
[00:52:22] Katie Dooley: That's true. I just want to, like, put a random Christian in front of you and see where the conversation goes.
[00:52:28] Preston Meyer: Some people really like war.
[00:52:32] Katie Dooley: War. What is it good for?
[00:52:35] Preston Meyer: The economy?
[00:52:36] Katie Dooley: No. You ugh!
[00:52:39] Preston Meyer: Absolutely nothing.
[00:52:41] Katie Dooley: Say it again.
[00:52:42] Preston Meyer: Absolutely nothing. If the economy is just rich dudes yachts, that's fine. Get that away from me. So yeah, in the 1830s, even before the Jewish people were even making any serious plans about returning to Jerusalem, because remember, we talked about that was like 1850s, 1860s when they really started thinking about it 20 years before that. Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, would talk about the gathering of Jews in Palestine. And he even sent church leaders there to bless the land for such a gathering.
[00:53:15] Katie Dooley: Wow.
[00:53:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Of course, for the Latter Day Saints, the New Jerusalem isn't on the land of Old Jerusalem. It is here in North America. So a little different than the standard Christian idea of, hey, we need to pave and just get rid of everybody in the way so that things can be what they are in the Bible because yeah, that's the thing people think about.
[00:53:40] Katie Dooley: That is the thing people think about. This is where this gets really scary. So American evangelicals in particular are huge supporters of Israel in this ongoing conflict. Evangelical groups have raised millions of dollars for settlements on the West Bank. And the West Bank is a strategically critical area of the conflict surrounding Jerusalem. So yeah,
[00:53:59] Preston Meyer: If you were to put...
[00:54:00] Katie Dooley: Palestinians will put up a tent and Israelis will put up and they just try to out wiggle each other out of there much more violently than that, but wiggle each other out of there.
[00:54:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's terrible. Um, Jerusalem, if you were to put it in the center of a clock, less than half of that arc of the circle would be actual Israel, and the majority would be West Bank. Like, they're they're really serious about making sure that the people they want can control the land, which, I mean, that's most groups, I guess, but Christian outsiders can keep their hands off of it. Thank you very much.
[00:54:41] Katie Dooley: But but, Preston, why do Christians want the Jews to have the West Bank?
[00:54:46] Preston Meyer: Ugh. Christian Zionists, and to be fair, a fair bit of Jewish people believe in biblical prophecy that there will be a gathering of the Jews in Israel as a prerequisite for the coming of the Messiah, or the second coming of Jesus. Pre-millennialists believe that the Jews have a right to the land of Israel. It sounds fair without context, with context super complicated because people live there.
[00:55:19] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:55:19] Katie Dooley: And people deserve to live there.
[00:55:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:55:22] Katie Dooley: Okay.
[00:55:23] Preston Meyer: But if it's ever going to happen that Jesus is going to have his thousand year reign on earth and have that as his capital city, then they need to control that land. We need the Jews and we need the... Do we need the temple rebuilt before Jesus comes? Or will Jesus rebuild the temple? The temple has to be rebuilt before Jesus.
[00:55:42] Katie Dooley: So they need... That's why they need to... Okay.
[00:55:44] Preston Meyer: Which, of course, means wiping out what's there. Not great.
[00:55:48] Katie Dooley: Nope. Seems like a really dumb reason to kill people to me, but I could be wrong.
[00:55:54] Preston Meyer: I mean, there's there's better reasons to kill people.
[00:55:58] Katie Dooley: Wow, Preston.
[00:56:00] Preston Meyer: There are better reasons to kill people than over ideas that are based in a tradition that can't actually be validated empirically.
[00:56:09] Katie Dooley: Wow, that's interesting to hear from a Christian. Well...
[00:56:13] Preston Meyer: And that's why I don't kill people over religion also, because that's morally bankrupt.
[00:56:19] Katie Dooley: Fair. And it's contradictory to the religion. Most often. I've not seen a religion yet that says kill people is good. Killing people is good. Kill peopleing.
[00:56:32] Preston Meyer: Thanks for that.
[00:56:33] Katie Dooley: Thanks.
[00:56:34] Preston Meyer: So a lot of this comes from the prophecy of Ezekiel, which gets basically repeated in the Revelation of John. It talks about a city state called New Jerusalem that I mentioned before that apart from the Latter Day Saints, most people are just like, yes, a renewed city of Jerusalem. And the temple will be there on Mount Zion. So, I mean, the whole apocalyptic literature genre is all about things are going to be good for us again, and we'll have a home, and God's going to wipe out the people who are being so mean to us for so long. So it makes sense that this becomes part of the national tradition, the religious tradition. But to say there's no flaws in this act playing out in real life, that that's problematic.
[00:57:24] Katie Dooley: But it is terrifying how much money and arms get sent.
[00:57:28] Preston Meyer: Absolutely.
[00:57:28] Katie Dooley: Because of this Prophecy.
[00:57:30] Preston Meyer: Yes. Yeah.
[00:57:33] Katie Dooley: I have a question.
[00:57:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:57:35] Katie Dooley: LDS believe that New Jerusalem will be in North America. Is that why we have Zion National Park in Utah? Is that what we... Mount Zion? Is that where we think Jesus will be?
[00:57:46] Preston Meyer: No, that's just.
[00:57:47] Katie Dooley: Or The temple just we call it Zion because it's pretty.
[00:57:50] Preston Meyer: It's so for latter. For latter day Saints, Zion is wherever the people are. And so, ideally in Latter Day Saint thought the whole world should be Zion. The it is the pure in heart. It is the people of God, which in... Ideally would be the whole world.
[00:58:14] Katie Dooley: Jesus ain't gonna be picky. Maybe that's what he's waiting for. For all to just love each other and build him a new temple anywhere.
[00:58:21] Preston Meyer: Well...
[00:58:22] Katie Dooley: He's got a long way.
[00:58:23] Preston Meyer: People suck, so it'll be a while.
[00:58:25] Katie Dooley: Wow. That's probably the secret?
[00:58:28] Preston Meyer: Probably.
[00:58:29] Preston Meyer: I think I gotta figure it out, guys. I should start my own church. The San Lanatus Fellowship?
[00:58:36] Katie Dooley: Yes.
[00:58:37] Preston Meyer: The Church of the Holy Watermelon.
[00:58:39] Katie Dooley: Church of the Holy Watermelon. Cool. Thank you for that answer.
[00:58:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:58:42] Katie Dooley: 'Cause I was curious.
[00:58:44] Preston Meyer: So we talked about nationalism before, and we can't really do this whole thing without getting back into it. Israel is very proud of what they've accomplished, most of it with a lot of outside help, and they see the return to Jerusalem as their own manifest destiny, which is, of course, a really troubling slogan of American nationalism. The Israeli Declaration of Independence identifies the state as a Jewish state, but not as a theocracy, but specifically as a home for all Jews. All Jews are welcome, and this is home. The Israeli government isn't theocratic, though there was an attempt in 1984 to make it a theocratic nation. In the absence of a constitution, they thought they could get away with it. That didn't work out so well for them. There is not any state religion, though, you know. There's always that hope for the Messiah in the future. But in 1984, some new laws were put in place that no person or list of people can participate in the election if they can be connected to any of the following actions or goals. Number one negation of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. If you want to make Israel not Jewish, you're going to have a hard time. You don't get to run for office. If you want to hurt democracy, Not cool. Not going to happen.
[01:00:11] Katie Dooley: That's fine.
[01:00:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[01:00:12] Katie Dooley: First one.
[01:00:13] Preston Meyer: It's it's a good step against fascism. Yeah. Because there's always that dictatorial nature of fascism that steps in. Number two is incitement to racism. If you want to say I don't like Arabs? Bam! No public office for you.
[01:00:29] Katie Dooley: Okay, well that's good, I like that.
[01:00:32] Preston Meyer: And number three, support for armed struggle by a hostile state or terrorist organization against the state of Israel.
[01:00:39] Katie Dooley: This feels like one step back.
[01:00:41] Preston Meyer: No, no,
[01:00:42] Katie Dooley: I mean, like, I get it.
[01:00:43] Preston Meyer: If you support armed struggle against the state of Israel, you don't get to hold public office in Israel. That makes perfect sense to me. I can't argue against that.
[01:00:53] Katie Dooley: Okay.
[01:00:55] Preston Meyer: I don't know. I don't see any holes in that. Anyway, this whole thing is intended to keep Israel's obviously nationalist tendencies from sliding into overt fascism.
[01:01:07] Katie Dooley: Good. Because they know how bad fascism can be.
[01:01:10] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, nationalism is just baby fascism and...
[01:01:15] Katie Dooley: Got its little training wheels on.
[01:01:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah, and they're still riding that bike, but they've got things in place to keep them from getting super fascist or even ultra nationalist, which is a good thing. And then, of course, there's the Palestine Liberation Organization, who have caused their share of problems. Their charter states that it is a national duty to purge the Zionist presence from Palestine. But because nationalism is taught in Israeli schools, this does extend to literally every Jewish person. So let's wipe out the Jews. This is a really bad policy.
[01:01:54] Katie Dooley: Yeah. But hurt people, hurt people, right?
[01:02:00] Preston Meyer: Exactly.
[01:02:00] Katie Dooley: If you've been oppressed for 80 years.
[01:02:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, Palestinian Arabs are not satisfied that they are guaranteed religious, political or economic liberty under Jewish rule, even though they're written into law. It... They just don't feel secure there.
[01:02:16] Katie Dooley: Well, when you're only one quarter of the population.
[01:02:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[01:02:20] Katie Dooley: What are the chances you get in?
[01:02:22] Preston Meyer: Right? Things are tough.
[01:02:25] Katie Dooley: Yep.
[01:02:26] Preston Meyer: But is it fascist? Is it even too close to that line?
[01:02:32] Katie Dooley: I don't know, Preston. You tell me.
[01:02:35] Preston Meyer: Uh, so back when we were talking about fascism, Umberto Eco gave us a really good list in 1995. I'll just get through the bullet points of what we had talked about in a previous episode. Umberto talked about the cult of tradition. Kind of? Maybe? It depends on who you talk to. Sometimes, yes. Sometimes not so much.
[01:02:57] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Let's keep going because there's like a solidarity that might not be tradition, but there's a solidarity. Yeah, I can see people saying it's true.
[01:03:06] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah. Remember, if...
[01:03:09] Katie Dooley: It's like when we, you know, stick with our families, even sometimes when our families are garbage people, you know what I mean? There's less solidarity because of tradition. Does that make sense?
[01:03:18] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[01:03:18] Katie Dooley: Okay.
[01:03:19] Preston Meyer: Of course. A couple of red flags on this list may or may not mean they're fascist. It depends on the point.
[01:03:26] Katie Dooley: Just like the BITE model.
[01:03:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[01:03:28] Katie Dooley: Everything checks off. Our podcast checks off the BITE model. A couple of things. We're not a cult, but you get free watermelon if you join.
[01:03:37] Preston Meyer: It's a good deal.
[01:03:38] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[01:03:39] Preston Meyer: But if we see too many of these checked off, then we can say yes, the State of Israel is fascist. We'll see how it goes. Okay. All right. Cultural tradition. Maybe next. Yeah. The rejection of modernism. Not so much.
[01:03:52] Katie Dooley: Okay.
[01:03:52] Preston Meyer: Like there's still a part of their legal system. That is the biblical law. But I wouldn't call that a rejection of modernism. There's still plenty of good modernism in Israel. Next, we have the cult of action for action's sake. I've never heard that accusation against them. I don't think that's a problem. Unless I'm missing out on something. You know of anything?
[01:04:19] Katie Dooley: I would say in some of the more violent factions that are on the West Bank....
[01:04:25] Preston Meyer: Right.
[01:04:25] Katie Dooley: Like right in the heart of it, probably. But your average everyday Jew in Jerusalem probably not.
[01:04:29] Preston Meyer: Right? And not in the government either.
[01:04:31] Katie Dooley: Okay. We're talking about government.
[01:04:33] Preston Meyer: I mean, mostly.
[01:04:33] Katie Dooley: Okay,
[01:04:34] Preston Meyer: But the people as a whole too.
[01:04:36] Katie Dooley: Okay.
[01:04:38] Preston Meyer: Disagreement is treason. I don't think so. Democracy is still really important to the people in Israel and even the people in charge, not just the people who vote and like written into their laws fairly recently, even next on our list. Fear of difference. I mean, for some people, yes, but by and large I don't I've not seen.
[01:05:04] Katie Dooley: I... Again, I wouldn't know in the government, but I think the I think there's some othering of the Arabs versus the Jews.
[01:05:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah for sure. But that's, that's a little different than just outright fear of what is different. I think. There's appeal to a frustrated middle class. Yeah. Sometimes. Maybe. I mean, an awful lot of politicians lean into that when they're running for office. Hey, I'm going to help the middle class. I'll accept that as a thing that can be terrible, but is not in itself strictly a big problem. And I can only say probably, sometimes, maybe. As far as the Israeli situation goes. Uh, next on our list, we have the obsession with the plot and the hyping up, hyping up of an enemy threat here, the othering of the Palestinian Arabs. Absolutely a problem. And they are painted as a constant, dangerous enemy, a problem. Definitely a big red flag on this list. Our, in fact, our first for sure big red flag. Uh, next on our list, we have fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies at the same time too strong and too weak. Maybe? I mean, it depends on who you talk to.
[01:06:23] Katie Dooley: I feel like I'd say probably, especially if you're talking about, like, indoctrination of younger people on both sides.
[01:06:30] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[01:06:31] Katie Dooley: I'd say probably.
[01:06:32] Preston Meyer: Next is pacifism is trafficking with the enemy because life is permanent warfare. There must always be an enemy to fight. I mean, there's always going to be Arabs in the area. So.
[01:06:44] Katie Dooley: So, yes?
[01:06:45] Preston Meyer: So yeah, this one's a of decently solid red flag at least has the perpetual potential and probably is might even be worse than I think it is. Is there a contempt for the weak? Sometimes. I don't know if it's ever as bad as we saw it in Germany, but I don't know. It's not a complaint I've specifically heard of either, but maybe. All right, we're getting close to the end of this list that Umberto Eco gave us. It says everybody is educated to become a hero. This one's kind of a tricky one. That military service is mandatory for all Jewish adults, male or female. Whereas for Druze and Circassian men, they're also conscripted, but not their women. And Christians and Muslims are also never conscripted, so...
[01:07:41] Katie Dooley: Interesting. So there is a weird Jewish army thing. I shouldn't say that. Oh, weird that was sounded more anti-Semitic than I meant it to be. There's a Jewish army being built.
[01:07:55] Preston Meyer: I mean, yeah, for a long time, it's been a conscripted army.
[01:08:00] Katie Dooley: Interesting.
[01:08:00] Preston Meyer: Machismo, where everything that's not the straight man is...
[01:08:07] Katie Dooley: Gay!
[01:08:08] Preston Meyer: Is a problem for the nation. I mean, Homophobia is definitely still a problem there.
[01:08:14] Katie Dooley: I mean, it's I guess we said it's not super religious, but I think it has the feel of being ultra religious, even if you're not religious.
[01:08:22] Preston Meyer: A little bit.
[01:08:23] Katie Dooley: So there's I mean, between the Muslims and the Jews and the Christians. Yeah. It's probably.
[01:08:28] Preston Meyer: But thanks to this, whole women are conscripted into the army. If they're Jewish, Israeli women kick ass.
[01:08:36] Katie Dooley: Fair.
[01:08:37] Preston Meyer: And that does help kind of negate machismo a little bit, at least sometimes it's got to. Of course, my perspective is definitely maybe not the perfect perspective on this particular...
[01:08:49] Katie Dooley: Because you're a...
[01:08:51] Preston Meyer: Because I'm a straight man attracted to women.
[01:08:53] Katie Dooley: Fair, white Christian man in Canada.
[01:08:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[01:08:59] Katie Dooley: You Don't get any say in this.
[01:09:01] Preston Meyer: Fair.
[01:09:02] Katie Dooley: I don't get much more say.
[01:09:04] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The next thing on Umberto's list is selective populism. I mean, the way he describes what that means is that a dictator gets to interpret the will of a diverse people. And there have been some presidents and prime ministers who have been not great guys. But I don't think that it's gotten to this point really bad yet, to the point that it creeps up on fascism, I think. And the whole Newspeak thing is the last thing on Umberto's list where people are forced into a dumber language to prevent independent thought. Not an issue.
[01:09:46] Katie Dooley: No.
[01:09:47] Preston Meyer: Even religiously, the Jewish people are quite diverse and are allowed to speak out, which is really helpful.
[01:09:55] Katie Dooley: I mean, Jewish people are known for debating.
[01:09:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's that's the entire rabbinical principle is let's argue about the law. So I don't think we had suggested before, is it fascist, is it not? I think the answer is no, but it's pretty nationalist,
[01:10:12] Katie Dooley: I was gonna say doesn't mean there isn't a conflict.
[01:10:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah. No, there's there's still a problem.
[01:10:17] Katie Dooley: A huge problem that I don't know how it's gonna be solved.
[01:10:20] Preston Meyer: I mean, we've talked about all the history and why there's a variety of what you might call the aggressors. It's complicated and it sucks. And there is no easy solution.
[01:10:32] Katie Dooley: Everyone should just put down their weapons and go home and eat a meal with their family.
[01:10:38] Preston Meyer: Where is home?
[01:10:41] Katie Dooley: I don't know, Preston.
[01:10:42] Preston Meyer: That's the problem. Like we talked about in Ireland. I don't feel like this is a religious conflict. It's super easy to say it's religious.
[01:10:53] Katie Dooley: I was gonna say it started as religious, but it did and it didn't. Well, no, because Hitler didn't care if you were a religious Jew or not.
[01:11:01] Preston Meyer: Right. Well, and...
[01:11:02] Katie Dooley: Historically, again, yeah.
[01:11:04] Preston Meyer: People that were suffering under anti-Semitic Governors, they just wanted to get out because they were being tortured for their heritage. Not just their religious heritage, but their ethnic heritage.
[01:11:16] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[01:11:17] Preston Meyer: So as easy as it is to say, yeah, religion is at fault here, I really don't think it is.
[01:11:24] Katie Dooley: No, but I think that it adds fuel to a flame.
[01:11:28] Preston Meyer: Sure.
[01:11:28] Katie Dooley: Right. We look at the evangelical Christians sending money and arms over.
[01:11:31] Preston Meyer: Yeah. That does make things work.
[01:11:32] Katie Dooley: That's religion making it worse.
[01:11:35] Preston Meyer: Anytime you have any person or group of people saying God is on my side, that makes things worse every time.
[01:11:44] Katie Dooley: Yes. It's also so funny to me that they all believe in the same God and...
[01:11:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but they interpret their God differently and believe different things about their gods that it's pretty hard to say they really are the same god.
[01:12:00] Katie Dooley: Fair. But we said this. I don't even remember what episode it was, but it might have been our Ireland episode that today God is Jewish or today God is Muslim, depending on what happens in the conflict that day.
[01:12:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah, yeah, that was definitely our Irish episode today God was Protestant.
[01:12:18] Katie Dooley: Right? Yeah. So beyond that. It's tough.
[01:12:25] Preston Meyer: The world is a messed up place, and it doesn't get better when people want to make it worse for other people.
[01:12:32] Katie Dooley: Yeah. But I think even after the political, socioeconomic gets solved, I'm going to speak about this optimistically. At the end, there will be left a religious debate.
[01:12:49] Preston Meyer: Sure.
[01:12:49] Katie Dooley: It might not be violent, but there's still the Dome on the Rock to deal with.
[01:12:54] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[01:12:54] Katie Dooley: Like for all of the Abrahamic religions, they have some they all have some stake in that game.
[01:13:00] Preston Meyer: Absolutely.
[01:13:01] Katie Dooley: So I'd say It is symmetrical in that it thought it was religious. It is not religious now and will become religious at its end.
[01:13:12] Preston Meyer: Sure.
[01:13:13] Katie Dooley: Because that'll...
[01:13:15] Preston Meyer: Okay.
[01:13:16] Katie Dooley: Again, optimistically thinking that we can solve these, uh, sociopolitical, economic land rights, racism and get it down to where we have people having a civil conversation about what to do with the Dome on the Rock.
[01:13:34] Preston Meyer: Well, the the giant space that is on the top of Mount Zion, which is bigger than it was originally, thanks to the the landscaping of King Herod, there is space to build what is effectively actually quite a small temple, if it's the same size as Solomon's original temple on that mount, without displacing...
[01:13:56] Katie Dooley: The Dome on the Rock, interesting.
[01:13:58] Preston Meyer: But that doesn't mean that everyone wants that to happen.
[01:14:01] Katie Dooley: Right. Again, once we... we have bigger problems to solve before we get to that.
[01:14:07] Preston Meyer: Yes, much bigger problem.
[01:14:08] Katie Dooley: Unless someone solves that for them, which would be terrible.
[01:14:13] Preston Meyer: Christian Americans very likely will one day solve that problem for them, which is an alarming idea, and I'm very uncomfortable with it. But here we are.
[01:14:25] Katie Dooley: Well, that was a depressing end to our episode. Can we pick this back up?
[01:14:30] Preston Meyer: I kind of want to celebrate that some people have found a home, but also that still makes bags too.
[01:14:40] Katie Dooley: Yeah, because at what cost, Preston?
[01:14:42] Preston Meyer: Exactly.
[01:14:42] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[01:14:44] Preston Meyer: At the beginning, it was legit aboveboard. Let's move in. Let's buy up some land.
[01:14:49] Katie Dooley: Again. Yeah. They needed to.
[01:14:50] Preston Meyer: Then it got gross.
[01:14:51] Katie Dooley: Yeah, well, you know what always makes me feel better, Preston?
[01:14:56] Preston Meyer: Hanging out with friends?
[01:14:57] Katie Dooley: I was actually gonna say shopping, but that too. Shopping makes me feel better. So if you're depressed after this episode. Wow, this is a great sales pitch.
[01:15:07] Preston Meyer: Check out our SpreadShop, buy some merch!
[01:15:09] Katie Dooley: Buy some merch and if, uh, you don't want some merch, join our Patreon. We have a bunch of bonus episodes on there, early releases of all our regular episodes. Um, and hopefully we have some more treats and goodies for you coming down the pipe as well on Patreon.
[01:15:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, follow us on Facebook. Instagram, join us on discord. Uh, follow us on YouTube. All kinds of fun places to get some more social content. Join the discussions that we have. Check out the great memes.
[01:15:41] Katie Dooley: I come, come and stay for the memes.
[01:15:43] Preston Meyer: Right? So so much fun! Anyway, thanks for joining us.
[01:15:47]
Both Speakers:
Peace be with you!
