Latest / Question Everything / A reporter? A spy? Or something else? Israel arrests its first American journalist.

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A reporter? A spy? Or something else? Israel arrests its first American journalist. · Question Everything

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