Latest / Question Everything / The Case Against Jeremy Loffredo (Ambie Award-winner for Best Reporting of the Year)

Transcript

The Case Against Jeremy Loffredo (Ambie Award-winner for Best Reporting of the Year) · Question Everything

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, y'all.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: We're back today with part two of a special two-episode
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: series about reporter Jeremy Lafredo, who in October of 2024
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: became the first American journalist to be arrested by Israel.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: We first aired these episodes a little over a year ago,
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: back in January of last year. They were reported by
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: executive producer Robin Simeon, and they're really, I think, emblematic
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: of just what we're trying to do at Question Everything,
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: which is tell Powerful stories that draw you in, connect
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: you to people you haven't heard from, but also just
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: challenge your thinking and conventional thinking in general, which these
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: stories absolutely do. And they're also some of our best work.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: These episodes just won an Ambie Award for best reporting.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: That's like the Oscars of podcasts. By the way, while
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: I have you, if you like what we're doing here
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: at Question Everything, if you appreciate the type of reporting
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: you're hearing in these stories and others, one of the
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: easiest ways you can support us is just by rating
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: and reviewing our show.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: To recap.
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: Jeremy and a car full of people had been pulled
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: over by Israeli soldiers while in the West Bank. Israeli
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: police put four of them in custody, zip-tied and blindfolded
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: Jeremy and some of the others. The people he was
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: with were ultimately let go. But not Jeremy. And now
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: Jeremy was being held in a police station near Jerusalem.
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: He'd been in custody since early afternoon. It was now
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: around midnight, and Jeremy was brought out of his cell,
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: to speak with a lawyer for the first time.
• 1:56
  Speaker 5: So I went to this office, and I answered the phone,
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: and the lawyer says, Mr. Lafredo, I want you to
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: be very honest with me. I want you to be
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: very clear.
• 2:09
  Speaker 6: What have you done? I said, well, excuse me?
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: Jeremy thought he was in trouble over a video he
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: produced for the outlet he works for, The Gray Zone.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: The gray zone, you may recall, is controversial. It's known
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: for peddling conspiracy theories and gets accused of being aligned
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: with Iran and Russia. It denies that and positions itself
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: as a much-needed alternative to the mainstream news. Anti-empire, as
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: it says on its website. Highly critical of American foreign
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: policy and highly, highly critical of Israel. The story Jeremy
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: produced that he was now worrying about in detention was
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: about a recent Iranian missile attack and how one of
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: the missiles had landed within 200 yards or so of
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: the headquarters for the Israeli spy agency, the Mossad. Jeremy
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: had added a map to the video showing precise coordinates
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: of the strike, then he posted it without getting it
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: cleared by the Israeli military censor. But now, talking to
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: a lawyer, Jeremy learned that maybe this was not just
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: about that video, or about his being a journalist at all,
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: but about something way worse. Israeli authorities suspected Jeremy of
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: being a spy.
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: They skipped the military censorship and went straight to an
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: enemy of the state.
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: And that crime, under Israeli law, could come with very
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: steep penalties, like life in prison or even death. From
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: KCRW and Placement Theory, this is Question Everything. Jeremy Lefredo
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: is about to head to court. Why does the Israeli
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: government think he's a spy? What do they know about Jeremy?
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: Or think they know? And what did I not know?
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: Stick around to find out. It's maybe one in the morning.
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: Jeremy had no idea how to navigate this predicament. In jail,
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: about to be interrogated for the first time in his
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: life by Israeli police. Jeremy had jumped into reporting in
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: the conflict zone in Israel the year before. He didn't
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: have any real training. And this definitely wasn't anything journalism
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: school had prepared him for. The police did not respond
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: to my questions about what happened to Jeremy while he
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: was being held. So here, we're relying on Jeremy's account.
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: Jeremy was brought to a room and sat behind a desk.
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: And the interrogation was the least organized and fair interrogation
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: that you could possibly imagine. The interrogator, the police officer,
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: does not speak English. So we need a translator. But
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: it's late at night, so they can't get a translator
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: to the police right now. So he calls up some
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: Russian woman who barely speaks English. And so this cell
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: phone in between me and the interrogator with a Russian
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: woman on the phone.
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: On speakerphone.
• 5:07
  Speaker 6: Yes, on speakerphone.
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: She's the translator. She barely speaks English. The interrogator doesn't
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: understand her. I don't understand her. I don't understand the interrogator.
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: Tensions are running very high because we're trying to have
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: a serious interrogation, and no one understands each other.
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: But what Jeremy does understand, the officer interrogating him was
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: zeroed in on the video report he made about the
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: Iranian missile that landed near the Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv.
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: They say, why did you make that video? I say,
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: because I'm a journalist. Why did you put all that
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: information in the video? I say, because, you know, giving
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: the viewers as much context as possible and information as
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: possible is what any journalist would do.
• 5:47
  Speaker 6: They say, but did you know the information is secret?
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: This was confusing to Jeremy. He's a journalist, and since
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: when are journalists supposed to keep secrets for the government?
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: But also, this information wasn't secret, at least not from
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: his perspective. The only reason Jeremy knew where the missile
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: had hit was because of a PBS NewsHour report he'd seen,
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: which showed him the exact location of the crater in
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: Tel Aviv. So then, why was he being singled out?
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: But that question either doesn't register or doesn't matter to
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: his interrogator. And after some frustrating back and forth, they
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: end the interrogation.
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: I'm given new shackles, new handcuffs, and a soldier about
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: my age, him and his co-worker take me to an
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: unmarked police car in the slot of the military compound,
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: and we start driving.
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: When Jeremy asked where he was being taken, the soldier
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: told him, prison.
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: I'm thinking like, I thought the holding cell was prison.
• 6:50
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 6:51
  Speaker 6: They're taking me to a prison, like a real prison.
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: I immediately think to myself, like, that holding cell is
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: not so bad. It's just, you know, I'm alone in
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: a room. You know, people are, they're not being nice,
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: but they're like not, no one's crazy crazy. Prison sounds
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: like it's a different thing. In the car ride, on
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: the way to the prison, they're asking me all sorts
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: of questions. They're asking me why I hurt Israel.
• 7:14
  Speaker 6: Do I love Israel? I said I didn't hurt Israel.
• 7:17
  Speaker 6: But also, I mean, it's a very tricky question to answer.
• 7:19
  Speaker 6: It's like, I didn't. But also, if I did, is
• 7:23
  Speaker 6: that why I'm shackled up? Like, is that how this
• 7:25
  Speaker 6: works here?
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: The car stopped in a neighborhood of Jerusalem known as
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: the Russian Compound, which is home to the Moscovia Detention Center,
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: one of Israel's most notorious prisons, known for holding Palestinians
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: and using torture during interrogations. Jeremy didn't know any of that.
• 7:44
  Speaker 6: It's a very old prison. It's a burial building. So
• 7:49
  Speaker 6: I walk into the prison.
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  Speaker 5: I don't know where they're taking me. They take a
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: photo of me. It ends up being like my mugshot.
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: My mugshot has the big Star of David behind me.
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: They take off my boots and they give me like
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: slip-on sandals instead of my boots.
• 8:03
  Speaker 6: They have a penguin on each sandal.
• 8:05
  Speaker 8: A penguin?
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: There's a penguin on each sandal that they give me.
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: They say whoopsie daisy. That's what it says on the
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: sandals that they give me. My body was searched. And
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: then also they went in my bag. They said, is
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: this yours?
• 8:20
  Speaker 6: Is this yours? Is this yours? With every single item
• 8:22
  Speaker 6: in every bag that I had. I had to strip
• 8:25
  Speaker 6: down entirely naked.
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: And then I put on my clothes again and put
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: on the samples.
• 8:29
  Speaker 6: That they gave me.
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: Jeremy was alone in a cell.
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: My cell was about 8 feet by 10 feet wide.
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: There was two concrete slabs, which are beds. One of
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: those concrete slabs... had a thin piece of cloth on
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: it that was meant to be either my blanket or
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: my mattress. And there was a sink and a toilet
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: right behind them. There were no windows in my cell.
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: There was one, you know, like fluorescent light that would
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: be turned on during the day that I could not control.
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: No toilet paper, no toothpaste. I was given a toothbrush
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: when I went in there.
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: That's all you had?
• 9:14
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and a thing of shampoo. But I honestly, I
• 9:17
  Speaker 6: did not shower in there. I didn't shower.
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: It felt so strange to take a shower in there.
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: There's like a shower head coming from the wall. And
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: if I was to turn it on, everything would get wet.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I see.
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: So it really dissuaded me from turning it on because
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: I would be in a wet solitary confinement cell for
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: who knows how long. There's cigarette butts everywhere. There's spray
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: paint everywhere. There's dirt everywhere. It was just a disgusting place.
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: And the fluorescent light just makes everything worse. I did
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: lots of pacing back and forth. I would wake up,
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: put on my sandals, and just walk. from one side
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: of the cell to the other. I was thinking, like,
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: I need to get my blood pumping. I've got to
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: be active the most I can. So I did a
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: lot of walking. Probably, like, miles of walking. Because I
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: would walk back and forth, but it would be for
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: three hours. So it's like I walked for three hours.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: What were you thinking about the most in there?
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: Truly, I was thinking about What to say to the judge,
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: to my lawyer, to the police. What information do we
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: need to get together for my lawyer? My goal and
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: my job is to figure out how best to defend
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: this video. How do I prove to them that this
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: video was legal?
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: That is, to prove that he's a journalist and not
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: a spy.
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: So part of it was really practical, like that kind
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: of stuff. The other stuff was, of course... I'm trying
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: to tell myself that 10 years is not that bad.
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: 30 years old, there's tons of people who are 30
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: years old who are happy and they consider themselves young.
• 11:03
  Speaker 6: And that'll be me.
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: I'm thinking about my father. It's doubtful he'll be alive
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: in 10 years.
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: How old's your dad?
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: 70.
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: I'm just thinking about what will happen in the outside world.
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: While I'm here in prison, I'm also thinking how stupid.
• 11:25
  Speaker 6: It is I'm here.
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: Your idea of the worst case scenario is like 10 years.
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: Come on, it can't be more than 10 years.
• 11:35
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: Do you ever let yourself go to the worst, worst
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: case scenario?
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: No.
• 11:47
  Speaker 6: I couldn't even think about it. if they put me
• 11:51
  Speaker 6: to death. I mean, it's so unbelievable.
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: For me, part of what is hard to grasp about
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: this is that you're in a country that is US
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: ally and we're helping them fight. Did you at any
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: point try to make any appeal to the police holding
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: you along those lines?
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: No, no.
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: I mean, I was in like the gate was closed,
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: my door was closed on my cell. There was one time,
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: I mean, there was actually maybe a couple of times
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: where guards would come open my thing and like there'd
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: be three of them or two of them. And they
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: would just like peek over and look at me as
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: if I was like a zoo animal because they were
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: so intrigued that a white American was in the cell
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: with a slip on the door that says enemy of
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: the state. And all the guards see that I'm being
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: charged with giving information to the enemy during wartime. That's
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: a terrorist charge. So they are all treating me like
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: a terrorist.
• 12:50
  Speaker 6: I'm no longer American. I'm no longer a journalist.
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: I am whatever this paper says I am, and this
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: paper says I am an enemy of the state.
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: Jeremy is not just alone. He is feeling lonely. And sometimes,
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: not knowing if anyone he loves is even aware he's
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: gone missing, feeling sorry for himself. He remembers all of
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: the fanfare and outrage that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: Gerskovich got when he was charged with being a Russian
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: spy and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. That
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: was all over the news. Evan Gerskovich was considered a hostage.
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: High-profile journalists like Jake Tapper came to his defense, which
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: was amplified by a very public campaign for his release
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: by the Biden administration. When, last summer, after spending almost
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: 500 days in prison, Gerskovich was released, All the major
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: networks filmed him as President Biden and Vice President Kamala
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: Harris shook his hand on the tarmac. Is that what
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: you were thinking then, even? It's like fantasizing, even. Maybe
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: out there, Biden is making a speech and saying, we
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: have to get Jeremy Lefredo home.
• 14:02
  Speaker 6: I wasn't that confident.
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: I didn't see the State Department or the U.S.
• 14:06
  Speaker 6: Government acting that way. I think this is Noam Chomsky.
• 14:10
  Speaker 6: Talk about.
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: worthy and unworthy victims, how you are a worthy victim
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: if your story can be used to further the aims
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: of your government, and you're an unworthy victim if your
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: story cannot be used to further the aims of your government.
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: So when someone gets taken by Russia, of course, that's
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: our biggest geopolitical enemy. Our government can use that story
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: to drive home that Russia is bad.
• 14:38
  Speaker 6: And evil and X and Y. But when Israel does it,
• 14:42
  Speaker 6: our ally. I mean, I can't think of a starker contrast.
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: This is what you were thinking about?
• 14:47
  Speaker 6: Immediately, yeah.
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: After clocking a few hours of sleep, his first night's
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: sleep in prison, Jeremy got dressed for court. He got
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: to put on his own clothes and shoes. He told
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: me he tried to make his shirt less wrinkly for
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: court by rubbing it with water from his tiny sink.
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: Guards escorted him from his cell.
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: They walked me down a hall, and they opened the door,
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: and there's this, like, 5'1, 80-year-old Israeli woman sitting in
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: a chair.
• 15:25
  Speaker 6: That's my lawyer.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: One of Jeremy's friends had contacted an NGO about Jeremy's arrest,
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: and they had called him a new lawyer, different from
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: the one he'd spoken to on the phone the night before.
• 15:36
  Speaker 6: So I know I have a lawyer, so, like, this
• 15:40
  Speaker 6: has to be the lawyer.
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: Okay, you like her.
• 15:44
  Speaker 6: I like this lady, but at.
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: The same time, I'm upset that my lawyer doesn't speak
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: great English and doesn't understand me that well. We agree
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: very quickly that we need to show the court that
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: I'm actually a journalist.
• 15:57
  Speaker 6: I'm not a spy.
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: So I'm telling her places where she can find my
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: writing or my videos.
• 16:01
  Speaker 6: Next year for a PBS NewsHour.
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: Those are the most important things if we're trying to
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: argue that I'm innocent.
• 16:08
  Speaker 6: Giving her everything.
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: I'm hoping some of it sticks. And that's the woman
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: that's going to represent me in court in a couple hours.
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: They've barely said much of anything before guards interrupt.
• 16:19
  Speaker 6: They say, you're done.
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: And they grab me by the wrist and they walk
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: me out. I was never able to communicate with this woman.
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: She doesn't even speak English as her first language. I'm
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: getting walked back to my cell thinking, that was horrible.
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: She doesn't know anything.
• 16:33
  Speaker 6: She doesn't even know the video exists.
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: What Jeremy's being accused of is violating something called Article 99.
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: which says that you cannot act in a way that
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: assists an enemy of Israel. And here's the provision. Assisting
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: means you cannot give the enemy any information that could
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: help them, or even intend to give the enemy information
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: that could help them. So even if Israel's enemies, Iran
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: or others, didn't see Jeremy's reporting, it doesn't matter. If
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: Jeremy intended for them to see it, that's enough. Only,
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: in Jeremy's case, the Israeli police are not saying who
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: the enemy is specifically. Just an enemy. Jeremy gets shuffled
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: to the courtroom. A woman from the U.S. Embassy is there.
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: It was nice to meet you. So how can you
• 17:23
  Speaker 6: get me out of here? What are you guys thinking?
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: Surely when American citizens are, come on, there's got to
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: be something that you're trying to do. And she said,
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: I'm sorry, that's not what we do. We can't get
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: anyone out of prison. We can't meddle in the court
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: affairs of a different country. But we're here to witness
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: everything and make sure that it's all fair, that the
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: court process is fair for you.
• 17:49
  Speaker 7: Jeremy, did you ask any other thing?
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: Like, can I call my dad? Did you make any
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: kind of human request?
• 17:55
  Speaker 6: No, I asked that one question, what are you doing?
• 17:57
  Speaker 6: She told me nothing.
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: And that's not what I wanted to hear. Like, I
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: looked away from her. I was done talking to her.
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: She went back and she sat where.
• 18:03
  Speaker 6: She was sitting.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: Jeremy's in the position of having to rely on two
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: governments that he's deeply skeptical of.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: U.S.
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: And Israel, to treat him fairly. It's uncomfortable for him. Okay,
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: so what does your lawyer say to do as you're
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: sitting there?
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: Well, actually, I'm not allowed to speak to my lawyer,
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: even in the court. So I'm sitting like a pew,
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: a row behind my lawyer, and my lawyer is, you know,
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: talking to the judge and the prosecutor is talking to
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: the judge.
• 18:32
  Speaker 6: But I can't speak in the court. She can't hand
• 18:35
  Speaker 6: me a paper in the court.
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: I'm just allowed to be there to witness everything. But
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: everything's in Hebrew. So, like, I'm sitting there. just watching
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: these people talk about me, but I don't know what
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: they're saying.
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: Oh, this is a nightmare.
• 18:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: I have the transcripts from Jeremy's hearings. From those, it
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: appears the court did provide an English translator once, but
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: that was it. Mostly, Jeremy's lawyer seemed to be playing
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: the role of translator and lawyer for Jeremy in court,
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: turning around between arguments to explain things to him, sitting
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: behind her. On one day, Jeremy told me some other woman,
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: who Jeremy doesn't know, just showed up, sat next to him,
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: and translated the proceedings to English. There are some bizarre
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: exchanges between Jeremy's lawyer and the prosecutor. First and foremost,
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: they are in a tug-of-war over the topic. Is it
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: journalism or spy business? Jeremy's lawyer, on day one, spars
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: with the prosecutor. Asks, maybe the main question, You say spy.
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: Spy for who? Who is the enemy?
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: She asks.
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: Prosecutor, other countries. In this exchange, she will ask again,
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: who is the enemy? Prosecutor, countries that are acting against Israel.
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: She will ask again, who is the enemy? Prosecutor. For me,
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: the enemy could be Iran, Turkey, Jordan, Syria. This is
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: going nowhere. For her part, Jeremy's lawyer argues if Jeremy's
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: a spy, he's a bad one. because spies don't tell
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: all of their secrets in a video online. She has
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: a sense of humor. One of the reasons the prosecutor
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: doesn't buy that Jeremy is a journalist, Jeremy doesn't have
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: a government press office card, a GPO. Remember that? From
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: the transcript, the prosecutor says, quote, Remember, the government press
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: office card isn't mandatory. Jeremy's lawyer asks if he did
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: have documentation showing that he's a journalist, would it have
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: made a difference? The prosecutor responds, no. At one point,
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: the prosecutor mentions secret documents, privileged information in the case file,
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: that only the judge is privy to, that Jeremy doesn't
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: know about, and asks the judge to keep Jeremy in
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: prison so they can go through his phone. And Jeremy,
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: hearing this, panics. he turns to the woman translating for him,
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: the stranger sitting next to him.
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: And I said, can he just deport me? Have they
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: mentioned that? Have they talked about deportation?
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: She says, no.
• 21:23
  Speaker 6: I said, I don't mind if they kick me out
• 21:24
  Speaker 6: of the country. I want to go home. She said,
• 21:26
  Speaker 6: did you tell your lawyer that? I said, no.
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: And so this woman stands up and looks at the
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: judge and says, he doesn't mind just going home. He
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: doesn't mind just getting sent back to New York. He
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: wants to leave the country. And my lawyer stands up
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: and says he is not in his right mind. He
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: is so traumatized by this experience. He does not mean that.
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: And I looked at the lady next to me. I said,
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: what did she just say? And she said that you're
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: out of your mind. Why would my lawyer, who's supposed
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: to be representing me, look at the judge, the only
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: person with authority in the entire room, and say that
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: I'm out of my mind? I don't want this lawyer anymore.
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: I feel like she doesn't understand me. I feel like
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: she can't represent me. I did not think she was
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: doing a good job.
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: Like, I wanted a new lawyer, and I was thinking, like,
• 22:14
  Speaker 6: how do I even get a new lawyer?
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: What Jeremy would learn later, his lawyer, the 5'1, 79-year-old woman,
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: is one of the most famous human rights lawyers in Israel,
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: known for defending, specifically, Palestinians accused of terrorism, Leah Semel.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: There's an Emmy award-winning documentary made about her called Advocate.
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: I talked to Leah Samel. When I asked her about
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: that moment in court where she told the judge to
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: ignore Jeremy asking to be deported, she said asking for
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: that was a double-edged sword. Jeremy has this Jewish background,
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: she told me, and said, this is a direct quote,
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: the judges are quite racist, end quote. So being Jewish
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: and wanting to leave Israel would not make any kind
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: of sense to them. It would make Jeremy look even
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: more suspicious than he already did. Leah's main argument, the
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: drum she keeps beating, is that Jeremy is not a
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: spy in any kind of way. That the courts cannot
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: keep Jeremy imprisoned for doing the same kind of report
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: that others were. Jeremy does not get deported. The judge
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: agrees with the prosecution that there's a reasonable suspicion about Jeremy.
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: But he doesn't agree that they need a week to
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: search for more evidence. He grants them one day. The
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: hearings were open to the public. No one from Jeremy's outlet,
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: The Gray Zone, was there, but by day two, Leah
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: Sommel had contacted Jeremy's editor and founder of The Gray Zone,
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: Max Blumenthal.
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: Max had sent her, like, a short dossier of, you know,
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: other times that the Israeli mainstream media reported on, in
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: more detail and before me, exactly what my video had
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: in it. And just screenshots of things that I've done
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: for American mainstream media, um, that she could then give
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: that to the judge to prove that I'm not, you know,
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: a spy of some sort.
• 24:10
  Speaker 6: I actually am a journalist.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: That all was given to the court. Jeremy says there
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: was even a letter from his girlfriend speaking to his character.
• 24:18
  Speaker 6: The first line, it said, I love you, and I, like,
• 24:20
  Speaker 6: started crying a little bit.
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: Jeremy says two of his friends were in court, Mayor Gorodskoy,
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: who'd been in the car and gotten detained with Jeremy,
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: and another friend named Yasmin. Some new guy is there, too.
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: He's from Yannet, which is one of Israel's top news outlets.
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: It turns out that he too had reported on the
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: missile attack. Leah, his lawyer, explains to Jeremy.
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: He included pretty much all the same information that you did,
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: and then he reported on your arrest in Yannet. I
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: gave him a thumbs up from across the courtroom, and
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: she says, the military censor allowed him to reference your
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: arrest and also allowed him to.
• 24:57
  Speaker 6: Embed your video in his report.
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: They said there's nothing secret in this video, and he's
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: going to show the judge that the correspondence that he
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: had with the military censor of the military censor saying
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: there's nothing secret in this video and you can publish
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: this article with the video embedded in it.
• 25:12
  Speaker 6: I said, that's a golden ticket. That's a great idea.
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: I'm so happy he's here.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: The Yannette reporter. His name is Liran Tamari. His testimony
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: was really effective. He showed the judge the letter from
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: the censor in his phone.
• 25:24
  Speaker 6: The judge reads it.
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: He says, so if this Yannette journalist can report on
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: all these things that Mr.
• 25:31
  Speaker 6: Lefredo reported on, why... isn't Mr. Lafredo in prison?
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: Since the beginning of the trial, the prosecutors had been
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: pretty evasive when asked what evidence they had to charge
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: Jeremy with being an enemy of the state. So Jeremy
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: wanted an answer to that question. Why had he been arrested?
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: After all, he was just doing his job, being a reporter.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: And then Jeremy says, on the second day in court,
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: it came. He heard it from the prosecutor's own mouth.
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: He says to the judge, he says, well, The gray
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: zone doesn't like Israel. I mean, and that's like, you
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: can't make it up. Like, it's not, that is, he's
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: saying to the judge, Mr. Lafredo is wearing shackles and
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: he's in solitary confinement because he works for a publication
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: critical of Israel.
• 26:21
  Speaker 6: He said that in the court. It's in the transcripts.
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: For Jeremy, there it is. He's got his answer. The
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: gray zone doesn't like Israel. Finally, it makes sense to him.
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: That's why he's been arrested. and suspected of being a spy.
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: Israel has banned and censored newsrooms. They shuttered Al Jazeera's operations,
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: for instance. But a prosecutor admitting Israel had arrested an
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: American reporter and was threatening him with life in prison
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: or worse, because his outlet is critical of Israel, was outrageous.
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: It seemed like a whole new draconian step in Israel's
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: treatment of the press. Ultimately, the judge seems swayed by
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: the Yannet reporter showing up with that letter from the censor,
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: saying Jeremy's reporting was fine. Jeremy goes through a few
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: more rounds of do this, go here by the Israeli government.
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: His case goes to a higher court before he's provisionally
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: released from prison and gets to stay at a friend's
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: house so long as he doesn't leave the country. Meanwhile,
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: the police continue to search his electronics and call him
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: in for more questioning.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Finally.
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: 13 days after he was first detained, he was allowed
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: to fly home to New York. Once he was home,
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: Jeremy found himself walking around the East Village, having a
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: coffee and thinking, wait, the death penalty. As more days
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: went by, Jeremy started to feel a little disappointed that
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: he wouldn't be going back to Israel. There were more
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: stories he wanted to do there. But Jeremy also realized
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: he had a story to tell here. The story of
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: what happened to him. How he was treated. And why.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: As most of you know, Jeremy Lafredo was in Israel-Palestine
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: reporting for the Gray Zone.
• 28:21
  Speaker 6: And now Jeremy's back.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: Jeremy started with two back-to-back episodes on the Gray Zone podcast,
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: which is hosted by Jeremy's boss, Max Blumenthal.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: Let's bring in Our guest, Jeremy Lefredo, who is just
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: back in New York City, New York, New York City,
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: so nice they had to name it twice.
• 28:41
  Speaker 6: Are you glad to be back, Jeremy?
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: It feels spectacular to be back from Israel and be
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: out of prison.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: This video is from just after Jeremy got back. The
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: title is Jeremy Lefredo on being jailed by Israel for journalism.
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: Here's Max talking about the story he assigned Jeremy, the
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: one that got Jeremy into so much trouble.
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: Iran- retaliated finally with a massive ballistic missile volley that
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: was directed at military targets. And Jeremy reported on this
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: extremely newsworthy event as virtually every other international journalist there did.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: And then he was arrested for the crime of journalism.
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: It seems like they had absolutely nothing other than, you know,
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: a political axe to grind against myself in the gray zone.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, this is my speculation, and I'm going
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: to be backing up this speculation more and more in
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: the coming weeks and months, which is that when you
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: Google the gray zone or look at our first of all,
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: our Wikipedia page is just a collection of smears, distortions
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: of half truths and lies.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: Max does not, as of yet, anyway, back up any
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: speculation about the gray zone. And for the record, the
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: Wikipedia page is pretty well sourced.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: It appears that there are real world consequences that our
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: journalists that contribute to the gray zone are facing as
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: a result of this bogus smear.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: What began as the story of what happened to Jeremy
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: in the retelling becomes the story of what the Israeli
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: authorities tried to do to the gray zone. Jeremy goes
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: on a whole podcast media tour. Hammering home that he
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: was a pawn in the Israeli state's attack on the
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: gray zone. Here he is on Chris Hedges' podcast.
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: It's not even an opinion. It's like this was very political.
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: And this had very little to do with that actual video.
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: This had much more to do with my prior reporting
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: and maybe with the gray zone.
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: On the Jimmy Dore show.
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: They look at the gray zone website because I tell
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: them it's for the gray zone.
• 30:55
  Speaker 6: Their eyes are wide and they're rolling their eyes. They're
• 30:58
  Speaker 6: saying mean things.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Again.
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: Jimmy Dore.
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: It's about the politics of myself in gray zone, or
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: it's about the information, in which case it's not secret.
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: On Glenn Greenwald's podcast.
• 31:10
  Speaker 6: At this police compound late at night.
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: But they still only asked me about the gray zone
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: and this.
• 31:18
  Speaker 6: Video I had published.
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: Remember, Jeremy is basing this on something he told me
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: the prosecutor said in court.
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: He says to the judge, he says, well, the gray
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: zone doesn't like Israel. I mean, and that's like, you
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: can't make it up. Like, it's not, that is, he's
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: saying to the judge, Mr. Lofredo is wearing shackles and
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: he's in solitary confinement because he works for a publication
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: critical of Israel.
• 31:46
  Speaker 6: He said that in the court. It's in the transcripts.
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: But it's not in the transcripts. Jeremy gave them to
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: me and I had our translator scour them in Hebrew.
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: Once they were translated, I looked for anything. similar even
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: to what Jeremy said had happened in court, my producer
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: Zach looked too. I got a separate copy of the
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: transcripts from another reporter to make sure they were complete.
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: We did not find that moment in the court transcripts.
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: It bugged me. So I asked Jeremy about it. You know,
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: in the courthouse, you said one of the arguments that
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: made your arrest make sense to you was that the
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: prosecutor says he works for Grayzone. Do you remember this moment?
• 32:28
  Speaker 6: Yeah, no, of course.
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: I don't know if he said he works for Grayzone
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: or his publication doesn't like Israel.
• 32:34
  Speaker 6: Something along those lines was told to me by Leah.
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: And that was told to me the night at her
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: home after I was let out. When I went to
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: her house to truly sit down, we had coffee. We
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: discussed at length what I would say when I went
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: back to get interrogated. And this was the first time
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: I got to speak to her for a long time.
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: And she said, like, you know, they said blah, blah, blah, blah,
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: blah the second day. Did you hear that? And I
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: was like, no, of course I didn't hear that. What
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: did they say? And she told me that they said that.
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: Oh, after the fact.
• 33:07
  Speaker 6: I mean, I wasn't able to talk to anyone or
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: anything in the courthouse.
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: No, but there was someone there who was translating.
• 33:12
  Speaker 6: There was someone there who was translating. And that was
• 33:14
  Speaker 6: not Leia.
• 33:15
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 33:16
  Speaker 6: But Leia is the one who told me that they
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: said this about at my publication.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: I just want to check with her. I don't see
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: it in the transcripts.
• 33:23
  Speaker 6: I consider that like a key thing.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: You do?
• 33:27
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: You told me that the first time.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: I don't disagree with you. I think it is a
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: key thing.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Of course, yeah. Yeah.
• 33:33
  Speaker 6: I mean, it gives, like, motive. Like, it's a big detail.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: When I texted Leah, she responded quickly. No, she wrote back.
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: Gray zone was not the issue at all. I double-checked
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: with her, and she reiterated that she never heard the
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: prosecutor say this was about the gray zone. and said
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: if he'd said that, it would be in the transcript.
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: And had I checked the transcript? I did, I said.
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: It isn't there. So no, she said.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: It's not.
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: So if Israel didn't target Jeremy because he worked for
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: the gray zone, then why did they arrest him? Why
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: would Jeremy tell me something happened in court when it didn't?
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: That's next, after a quick break. Two Fridays ago, after
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: the first episode in this series about Jeremy came out,
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: I emailed Max Blumenthal, Jeremy's editor and the founder of
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: The Grey Zone. Again, for the seventh time in two months. Once,
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: in December, he said he'd do an interview with me.
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: I said, sure, how about Friday? Then he went quiet.
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: I've wanted Max to answer my questions about his role
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: in this ordeal that Jeremy has gone through. What advice
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: did he give Jeremy? How responsible did he feel for
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: what happened? And after I found out that what Jeremy
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: was telling me was said by the prosecutor in court,
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: that the gray zone doesn't like Israel, wasn't in the transcripts,
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: and wasn't what his lawyer said happened, I wanted to
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: better understand how much of this media tour Jeremy was on,
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: the points Jeremy and Max were repeating over and over,
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: How much of that was Jeremy? And how much of
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: that was Max? On the gray zone, Max has been
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: pushing extreme and unsubstantiated claims about the Israeli forces since
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: the beginning of the war. The trick of it is
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: that the gray zone mixes conspiracy and propaganda with their reporting.
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: So it's hard to tell where potentially trustworthy content stops
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: and something more nefarious comes in. In one deft article
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: from October 2023, Max pulls partial quotes from other news
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: sources to suggest that it was Israel, and not Hamas,
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: who committed the most violent acts against Israelis on October 7th.
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: He calls the well-documented testimonials, photos, and videos of Hamas'
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: attack that day lurid allegations. Peretz published an op-ed tearing
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: apart that article of Max's, headlined, A Masterclass in Manipulation,
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: Exposing Max Blumenthal's Lies About Israel and October 7th. When
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: I started this story, I'd known not to fully trust
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: the gray zone, but I'd also been drawn to them
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: for the lengths they seemed to go, sending Jeremy to
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: Gaza and the West Bank to get firsthand accounts from
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: sources on the ground in hard-to-access situations. I had interviewed
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: Jeremy initially because I wanted to know more about this
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: reporter who had been putting out provocative, hard-to-make stories and
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: gotten arrested doing it. I wanted to know how Jeremy
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: was treated in Israeli custody. Would he find himself in
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: a more privileged position with our ally Israel, especially in
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: light of all the condemnable treatment journalists covering this war
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: have faced by Israel's government and military? But as I
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: went about reporting and verifying Jeremy's story, I also got
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: a lesson in how the gray zone works, which is
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: basically Jeremy and Max are great at exaggerating and making
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: up facts. It's part of what they do. The problem
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: is I don't do that. So talking to Jeremy, what
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: I came to find out was that with the gray zone,
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: even the most basic facts can be undone in service
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: to making Israel or the U.S. look worse than they
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: already do. The claim Jeremy made that the prosecutor blamed
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: the gray zone in court was one big example. But
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: the little ones were even more revealing. Like Jeremy told
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: me initially that he had a government press office card
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: and got detained at the checkpoint in the West Bank anyway.
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: But Jeremy doesn't have a press card. And to take
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: it a step further, he told me an Israeli soldier
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: congratulated him on being an organized, legitimate reporter.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: He said, Mr.
• 38:00
  Speaker 6: Lofredo, I know who you are. You're the only one
• 38:03
  Speaker 6: who has all their paperwork.
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: Because I had a press card, I had my passport,
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: I'm allowed to be there, which made me feel good.
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: Jeremy knew he didn't have a press card when he
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: told me that. The soldier definitely did not say that.
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: So why would Jeremy tell that to me? Why say that?
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: I think it's because it makes Israel sound a little worse.
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: Detaining Jeremy, a legit journalist who has a press card,
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: is a little more terrible of Israel, a little more dramatic,
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: and also less true. I have a page full of
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: these kinds of examples. I'll only tell you one more
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: from our interviews, one that has haunted me. Again, small
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: on its face. Jeremy told me in no uncertain terms.
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: He was held in solitary.
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: I was formerly kept in solitary confinement and punished, you know,
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: so it's so unfair.
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: In more than nine hours of interviews, solitary confinement gets
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: mentioned 45 times between us.
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: We have a white guy from America in the solitary
• 39:06
  Speaker 5: confinement cell. So I get brought back to my solitary
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: confinement cell. The prisoner transport vehicle, it drives, you know,
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: one minute away, and I get put back in my
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: solitary confinement cell. And they walk me back into solitary
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: confinement without explaining anything.
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: Solitary confinement is quite obviously the worst possible kind of
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: detention anyone could get in prison. Two small concrete beds,
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: he told me. But then on another podcast, Jeremy was
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: way less certain of solitary and doubles the furniture. Here
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: he is on Kim Iverson's podcast.
• 39:39
  Speaker 6: My own cell had four concrete beds. I didn't have
• 39:42
  Speaker 6: any cellmates.
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: I don't know if they gave me my own cell
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: because I'm American or if they gave me my own
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: cell because my crime was so grave.
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: Whether Jeremy was formally held in solitary confinement is unclear.
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: He may have been held in what's known as isolation,
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: which is a level less severe than solitary. The Israeli
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: prison service told me he was kept in a regular cell,
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: not solitary confinement. And while I wouldn't take their word
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: for it, Jeremy's committed descriptive use of the word solitary
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: in our interviews, and then contradictions and uncertainty about it elsewhere,
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: leaves me thinking, I just can't say for certain what
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: the conditions were. Honestly, I can't even describe the room. Jeremy,
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: after I pressed him on this, months after our initial interviews,
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: acknowledged that he wasn't positive he was in solitary, and
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: that he meant solitary-like conditions. But the power of that phrase,
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: solitary confinement, can take on a life of its own
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: at the gray zone. Like here. Max takes it one
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: step further. and compares Jeremy's treatment to Palestinian prisoners.
• 40:51
  Speaker 6: You're in solitary confinement.
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: They're basically starving you, depriving you of water, as they
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: do to Palestinians.
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: Here's Jeremy on the Kim Iverson podcast. You arbitrarily got
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: thrown in jail for a non-crime, just like, so you
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: got the Palestinian treatment in some ways.
• 41:07
  Speaker 6: I got the Palestinian treatment for a few days.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: Jeremy was held in Muscovia Detention Center. A human rights
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: and prisoner support organization called Admir calls it, quote, the
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: most severe interrogation facility in all of the occupied territory.
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: Admir interviewed 138 Palestinian prisoners held at Moscovia between 2015
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: and 2017. Admir found during this two-year period alone, the
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: Palestinian prisoners brought to Moscovia were often beaten during their arrest. 42.5%
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: of the prisoners had been. 28.8% were struck with soldiers' weapons.
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: in some cases, being knocked unconscious. 59.5% of those surveyed
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: reported being held in stress positions, and a third reported
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: being beaten during interrogations. A staggering 83.5% of those surveyed
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: were placed in solitary confinement. All are forms of torture.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: Israel wrongly detained Jeremy, held him on thin suspicions, and
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: treated him horribly. He was held for many hours at
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: a time, alone, in a cell. When we told the
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: prison service that Jeremy had also alleged that he was
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: not given adequate food or water, they did not deny it.
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: But the conditions Jeremy was subjected to are not equivalent
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: to the well-documented extensive accounts of torture and sometimes death
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: the Palestinians specifically experienced there. Loosely tossing around a term
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: like solitary confinement, any exaggeration on Jeremy's or Max's part,
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: it puts their cause, to condemn Israel and the U.S.
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: for that matter, above the documented abuse and torture of
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: Palestinian prisoners at Moskovia. Any exaggeration of Jeremy's treatment is
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: yet another tool people can use to discredit the Palestinians
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: who are being abused. I called Leah Semeligan, Jeremy's lawyer,
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: to get some context about Jeremy's treatment. And I should
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: remind you, Leah is very much not a fan of
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: the Israeli government. She spent her 50-plus year career defending
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: Palestinians against human rights abuses. And I call her, it
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: was 3 in the morning my time. We couldn't get
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: her Zoom link to work, so I turned on my
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: speakerphone and recorded it. That's why it sounds bad. There
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: were kids in the background of her office. At one point,
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: she started chewing. Loudly. Are you eating lunch? She said
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: she was not surprised that Jeremy was targeted. She said
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: it's not uncommon for Israeli authorities to harass foreigners who
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: they perceive as helping the Palestinians or reporting on the
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: attitudes of settlers toward the Palestinians. So maybe it wasn't
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: a specific targeting of the gray zone, but it was
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: about the work Jeremy was doing. How concerned were you
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: with Jeremy's case in particular?
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Concerned? Yeah. I thought it was stupid and unreasonable.
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: You thought it was stupid and unreasonable.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, unreasonable. I thought it's really stupid. So it was
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: important to get it finished with.
• 44:28
  Speaker 8: It was very clear that we cannot charge him.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: We cannot blame him. We cannot suspect him.
• 44:37
  Speaker 7: To hear you describe it, Lea, it sounds so simple,
• 44:40
  Speaker 7: like the simplest case.
• 44:42
  Speaker 8: That's how you felt?
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: Why did it take three hearings? Why did it take
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: so long for the.
• 44:55
  Speaker 8: My dear, my dear, I don't know where you live,
• 44:58
  Speaker 8: but where I live, three hearings is nothing whatsoever.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: This was a piece of cake for me.
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: You felt very confident that you were going to be
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: able to help him.
• 45:10
  Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, yes.
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: Leah told me another thing that gave her confidence was
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: that the U.S. Embassy was very active with Jeremy's case.
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: Jeremy had told me and hosts of various other podcasts
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: that the embassy hadn't helped him. But Leah says embassy
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: staff were watching the case closely, attending all the sessions
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: and talking to her every day. An embassy spokesperson told
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: us staff was also in touch with Jeremy's family. Leah
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: says all of this contributed to Jeremy being treated significantly
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: better than Palestinians who are arrested for similar reasons.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: If he was.
• 45:50
  Speaker 8: Really treated as a security prisoner, you know, a real one,
• 45:57
  Speaker 8: a Palestinian security prisoner, he.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: Would remain at least two weeks under interrogation.
• 46:08
  Speaker 8: I see.
• 46:15
  Speaker 7: So it was a privilege that Jeremy got to see
• 46:19
  Speaker 7: you before even seeing the judge? I asked Leah if
• 46:28
  Speaker 7: it wasn't the gray zone per se, what she thinks
• 46:30
  Speaker 7: is the real reason the police would not let it
• 46:32
  Speaker 7: go with Jeremy. interrogating him over and over, even after
• 46:36
  Speaker 7: he was let out of prison, and turning up nothing.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Listen, for them, I think it's quite a shame.
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: Embarrassing for them.
• 46:45
  Speaker 8: And they had to justify themselves.
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: I spoke to a journalist named Oren Persico. Oren works
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: for the Seventh Eye in Israel, which is an independent
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: news outlet devoted to journalism and free speech. And he
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: had an explanation for why Israeli authorities took this unprecedented
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: step of arresting Jeremy as an American reporter that I
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: found helpful. Oren wrote about Jeremy's case. He was interested
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: because he knows about the gray zone and Max Blumenthal.
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: Over a decade ago, Max was making similar videos to
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: the one Jeremy made last spring at the Gaza border.
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: where Israelis were blocking aid trucks from getting to Gaza.
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: Back then, Max was finding Israelis with extremely racist views,
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: hanging out with them, recording them.
• 47:39
  Speaker 9: You know, having a chat with them, and they were like,
• 47:44
  Speaker 9: kill all the Arabs or whatever, and he would put
• 47:46
  Speaker 9: that up and show how extremely racist the Israelis are.
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: Oren doesn't think Jeremy's arrest was an accident, nor does
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: he think it was because the police read Grayzone's Wikipedia page.
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: He thinks the reason all this happened to Jeremy was Jeremy.
• 48:03
  Speaker 10: I think he was brash, is that how you say,
• 48:09
  Speaker 10: during his report. What we're showing here is not allowed
• 48:14
  Speaker 10: to be seen in Israel because of the military censorship, etc.
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: This information is missing from all Israeli media reports due
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: to the fact it's been officially censored. Right here are
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: the censored coordinates.
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: So the issue as Oren sees it isn't that Jeremy
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: tried to go around the military censor. It's that he
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: was purposefully calling attention to himself, giving the military censor
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: the finger, basically, and making his willingness to do that
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: as much a part of the story as the story itself.
• 48:45
  Speaker 10: If you decide not to follow exactly the rules of
• 48:48
  Speaker 10: the Israeli military censorship, at least don't wave it as
• 48:53
  Speaker 10: a flag in front of the eyes of the censors.
• 48:57
  Speaker 10: and make a spectacle. I mean, you know, you can
• 49:01
  Speaker 10: push the limits without making it like the essence of
• 49:07
  Speaker 10: your report. If you do that, and you tell the censor, hey, look,
• 49:13
  Speaker 10: I'm doing this, and you put on a map, you
• 49:17
  Speaker 10: almost forced the security forces of Israel or the police
• 49:22
  Speaker 10: or the censor to react. I think that had a
• 49:26
  Speaker 10: lot to do with it. I think it's more like
• 49:29
  Speaker 10: juvenile mischief and not really understanding the consequences of your actions.
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: At 29 years old, I can't chalk Jeremy's actions up
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: to juvenile mischief. I don't think he would want me to.
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: And I can't recommend his journalism. Remember the video about
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: the Israelis at the Gaza border blocking aid trucks to
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: Palestine that my friend Rob sent me? The whole story
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: that introduced me to Jeremy in the gray zone and
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: got me interested in them. The video from the very
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: beginning of the previous episode. That video is called Kill
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: Them All, and the title is in quotes. In that video,
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: the very first person on screen to appear to say,
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: in subtitles, kill all of them, does not say that.
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: The subtitles do not reflect what he is actually saying
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: in Hebrew. The guy in the white baseball hat, with
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: a creepy smile.
• 50:28
  Speaker 8: I think that we need, I don't know, I think
• 50:32
  Speaker 8: we need all the special orders and.
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: What he says is, quote, I think we need to
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: go back to Gaza and take over so it'll be
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: our state. But on the Gray Zone video, kill all
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: of them is just inserted there in the subtitles. Additionally,
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: literally words attributed to him that he did not say.
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: Looking at the video, one of our translators said, no,
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: it's not correct. At no point does the man say
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: kill them all. Another said it's crazy that they subtitled
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: we need to kill all of them. That's nowhere in there.
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: We asked a third person to translate to be sure.
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: Which means whatever the views are of that Hebrew-speaking man
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: who looks about Jeremy's age, however hateful his thinking or actions,
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: blocking aid to Palestinians, that quote is made up and
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: put across his face. It's the only part of the
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: video where the Hebrew and the subtitles don't match. When
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: I told Jeremy, he blamed a translator he used, whose
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: information he said he'd send me. He didn't. He said
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: he didn't know how it happened, and that he thought
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: I was accusing him of doing something wrong. He said
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: he needed to think about how to address this, and
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: he sounded serious about it. I also emailed Max, who
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: runs the Gray Zone, wondering if they would correct the
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: video or take it down. They haven't.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: Why do this?
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: Why make things up? Why stretch the facts? When Israeli
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: forces have killed more than 46,000 people in Gaza since
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: October 7th. When Israel has, in the last year and
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: a half, become the number two jailer of journalists in
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: the world after China. When, as of today, at least
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: 167 journalists have died in the conflict, the vast majority Palestinian.
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: When just this week, the New York Times accused the
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: IDF of physically abusing its reporter, hitting him in the
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: ribcage with a rifle while he was covering an IDF raid,
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: when experts and human rights groups like Amnesty International have
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: found that Israel is committing a genocide. Jeremy's video documented
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: something real. People actually expressing murderous views and keeping aid
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: from people desperate for it. The facts are enough. And
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: if you mess with them, that's not journalism. So Jeremy...
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: who told me he regrets talking to me, sees it differently.
• 53:07
  Speaker 6: I consider being.
• 53:10
  Speaker 5: Thrown in prison by the IDF like one of the
• 53:14
  Speaker 5: highest journalism awards, truly. Like that is like there is
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: a country that in my opinion is an apartheid state
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: and in my opinion is carrying out a genocide right now.
• 53:25
  Speaker 5: And they spent, you know, two plus weeks and resources
• 53:31
  Speaker 5: trying to make sure that I never come back. And
• 53:34
  Speaker 5: that makes me feel like I was doing my job properly.
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: In an email to Max Blumenthal this Monday, I asked
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: him about the gray zone. Is what you are doing journalism?
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: Or is it something different?
• 53:53
  Speaker 6: Better?
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: More?
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: He didn't write me back. I'm Robin Simeon. Thanks for listening.
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: Sign up for our Substack at questioneverything.substack.com. One small update.
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: Jeremy has continued to try to return to Israel. And
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: in February of this year, Israel did approve his visa application. However,
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: within weeks, they denied it without explanation. As of now,
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: a little over a year since we first ran these episodes,
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: Jeremy's aid blocking video is still up on the Gray
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: Zones YouTube. The subtitles remain uncorrected. This episode was produced
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: by Zach St. Louis and was edited by Joel Lovell
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: and our executive producer, Brian Reed. Additional editing by Jonathan Goldstein.
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: Our show is made by producer Sophie Casis and associate
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: producer Emily Moltaire. Neil Drumming and Jen Kinney are contributing editors.
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: Fact-checking by Annika Robbins and Maggie Duffy. Sound design and
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: mixing by Brendan Baker. Music by Matt McGinley. Brian and
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: I are the executive producers of Question Everything. Today, our
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: team includes managing editor Kevin Sullivan, associate producer Kevin Shepard,
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: and fact-checker Marisa Robertson-Texter. Our partners at KCRW include Arnie Seipel,
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: Gina Delvac, Tejal Ajmera, and Jennifer Farrow. Special thanks to
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: Eviatar Rubin, Yael Evan-Orr, Dan Efron, and Damian Grave. Thanks
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: for listening.