Latest / WGKM / The Erin Molan Show - She Went to EXPOSE “Zionist Propaganda”… Then She LOST Everything
Transcript
- 0:09Speaker 1: I lost pretty much all of my friends straight to
- 0:12Speaker 1: no contact. He stopped talking to me. I was like,
- 0:15Speaker 1: what is this Zionist propaganda doing in my inbox? Like
- 0:19Speaker 1: I was so confused and I was almost going to
- 0:21Speaker 1: delete it.
- 0:23Speaker 2: Every single young person, not just in the West, in
- 0:28Speaker 2: the world must watch this. Every parent must watch this.
- 0:38Speaker 2: And I don't say that lightly. This young woman, she
- 0:44Speaker 2: is changing the world. She will change the world in
- 0:47Speaker 2: an even more extraordinary way. This is a little bit
- 0:51Speaker 2: of what she said at Stanford College recently.
- 0:56Speaker 3: Go.
- 0:57Speaker 1: A year ago, I would have been on the other
- 0:59Speaker 1: side of campus participating in a counter protest armed with
- 1:04Speaker 1: megaphone and a conviction I thought was absolute. After October 7th, 2023,
- 1:10Speaker 1: social media flattened a century of history into two opposing hashtags.
- 1:14Speaker 1: Soon supporting the Palestinian cause became a litmus test for
- 1:18Speaker 1: activists like myself. I was told that the Palestinian struggle
- 1:22Speaker 1: paralleled my African-American ancestor struggle with colonial subjugation. But in
- 1:27Speaker 1: my progressive circles, my questions about the slaughtered civilians and
- 1:30Speaker 1: hostages were met with whataboutisms and slogans such as resistance
- 1:35Speaker 1: is justified when Palestine is occupied. And I found myself
- 1:38Speaker 1: in an echo chamber so loud, it was deafening. The
- 1:42Speaker 1: first crack in that echo chamber came in the form
- 1:44Speaker 1: of an email.
- 1:45Speaker 3: But something changed everything. And I need you to see
- 1:50Speaker 3: it too.
- 1:51Speaker 1: Go.
- 1:52Speaker 2: Taryn Thomas, it is so lovely to welcome you to
- 1:55Speaker 2: the Erin Moland Show. Thank you so much for joining me.
- 1:58Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to share
- 2:00Speaker 1: my story.
- 2:02Speaker 2: I'm so excited to hear it and I've seen little
- 2:05Speaker 2: bits and pieces, but I'd love to start by asking you,
- 2:09Speaker 2: who were you prior to going to that event to
- 2:13Speaker 2: commemorate the Nova victims prior to October 7? What did
- 2:18Speaker 2: you believe about the world and what were you passionate about?
- 2:21Speaker 2: I want to know the woman before or the girl even,
- 2:23Speaker 2: you're still so young.
- 2:26Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I come from a Christian family. I
- 2:29Speaker 1: grew up in a very conservative, Trump-supporting town in Southern California.
- 2:33Speaker 1: I think the racism that I had dealt with growing
- 2:39Speaker 1: up kind of pushed me too far to the left,
- 2:43Speaker 1: as I thought, like, you know, oh, Trump supporters are
- 2:46Speaker 1: the problem. And I thought I found a home in activism.
- 2:50Speaker 1: It's just, however... That obviously led me to becoming very
- 2:57Speaker 1: radicalized at a very young age. Before Stanford, before all
- 3:01Speaker 1: of this, I was pretty involved with the Black Lives
- 3:04Speaker 1: Matter movement. I first joined when I was 16 years old,
- 3:08Speaker 1: and that was where I saw my first Palestinian flag.
- 3:11Speaker 1: And I remember hearing chants like, no one is free
- 3:14Speaker 1: until Palestine is free, and how black liberation is bound
- 3:18Speaker 1: to Palestinian liberation. And so to me, at the time,
- 3:21Speaker 1: it made sense. I'm not Jewish. I don't have any
- 3:25Speaker 1: connection to Israel. But there's an oppressor and then there's
- 3:31Speaker 1: the oppressed. So it's like if you care about justice
- 3:33Speaker 1: at all, you know what side you're on.
- 3:36Speaker 2: And I think that's really interesting because I think I've
- 3:40Speaker 2: become more aware in recent times. I think I used
- 3:43Speaker 2: to think there was a bigger proportion of people who
- 3:46Speaker 2: who were malicious and maybe actually supported evil than there
- 3:50Speaker 2: were just, and useful idiots, I don't know if that's
- 3:52Speaker 2: the right term, but people who genuinely believed that they
- 3:55Speaker 2: were doing good. I think there's a much bigger portion
- 3:58Speaker 2: of people who genuinely believe they're doing good than maybe
- 4:02Speaker 2: we even realise. What was the moment that woke you
- 4:05Speaker 2: up to the fact that, yes, you can care deeply,
- 4:09Speaker 2: but if you're supporting the wrong people, side in this,
- 4:13Speaker 2: you are not helping any innocent child in Gaza, let
- 4:16Speaker 2: alone anywhere.
- 4:18Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 4:19Speaker 1: I mean, like first we would have to start with, uh,
- 4:22Speaker 1: at Stanford, I had joined our encampment. We had set
- 4:25Speaker 1: it up 13 days after October 7th. So you can
- 4:28Speaker 1: imagine the speed that it took, um, without any time
- 4:32Speaker 1: for grieving. we called it a sit-in to stop the genocide.
- 4:37Speaker 1: And this is like one week before Israel's ground invasion
- 4:40Speaker 1: had even began. And we were calling it a genocide.
- 4:43Speaker 1: So it's like seeing overnight Stanford University undergrad students become
- 4:48Speaker 1: genocide scholars and experts. It just, it's very interesting to watch,
- 4:55Speaker 1: especially like when we talk about like these stories Like
- 5:02Speaker 1: a lot of modern universities are right now afflicted with
- 5:05Speaker 1: this problem of activists kind of doing this moral grandstanding
- 5:10Speaker 1: and causing a lot of tribalism within the student body.
- 5:13Speaker 1: And so with tribalism, you're not able to hear the
- 5:17Speaker 1: other side or even engage in dialogue or debate with
- 5:20Speaker 1: the other side because you already assume everything, the worst
- 5:24Speaker 1: caricature about the other side. And so unfortunately, we've seen
- 5:27Speaker 1: that like full picture at Stanford and Uh, yeah, I got,
- 5:31Speaker 1: it got to a point where, where, you know, inside
- 5:34Speaker 1: the encampment, you weren't really supposed to talk with Zionists.
- 5:37Speaker 1: Like it was looked down upon that you might be like,
- 5:40Speaker 1: there was a lot of suspicion of like, who's a
- 5:42Speaker 1: Zionist and who's not. So I just think that, uh,
- 5:46Speaker 1: like when you determine like who's good and who's evil,
- 5:49Speaker 1: it's just, you want to make sure that you stay in,
- 5:52Speaker 1: stay in your consensus, good, gracious, you know?
- 5:56Speaker 2: Were there ever any moments during that period where you went, oh,
- 6:01Speaker 2: wait a minute, or you felt a little bit curious
- 6:03Speaker 2: and thought, this doesn't add up, or you saw something
- 6:06Speaker 2: and you went, this doesn't align with what you're telling
- 6:08Speaker 2: me this is meant to represent. That's not what I
- 6:11Speaker 2: thought we were about. And this is prior to you changing.
- 6:13Speaker 3: Did you have moments? And what did you do? Were
- 6:16Speaker 3: you shut down if you expressed those?
- 6:19Speaker 1: Yeah, so one of the moments was when I had
- 6:24Speaker 1: mentioned a two-state solution because I joined the pro-Palestine movement
- 6:29Speaker 1: because I wanted the war to end and I was
- 6:31Speaker 1: very human rights focused. But I didn't know that meant
- 6:36Speaker 1: taking a step further. That means Israel has to be destroyed.
- 6:39Speaker 1: And so I had brought up a two-state solution. And
- 6:43Speaker 1: I remember in the encampment, my friends looked you know,
- 6:47Speaker 1: down on me. And they were like, you know, that
- 6:49Speaker 1: makes you a Zionist, you know, because you're, you're validating
- 6:53Speaker 1: Israel's right to exist. And I was like, oh my God, no.
- 6:55Speaker 1: And I, and I didn't even really understand. I didn't
- 6:58Speaker 1: really understand Zionist or, or anti-Zionist. I just knew that
- 7:02Speaker 1: Zionist was a slur. It was a Z slur. And
- 7:05Speaker 1: so I immediately was like, you know, started calling myself
- 7:07Speaker 1: an anti-Zionist from that point on. Because again, like when you,
- 7:11Speaker 1: when you Like when your belonging gets shaken like that,
- 7:15Speaker 1: like you want to like double down so you can
- 7:17Speaker 1: not lose your friends.
- 7:20Speaker 3: And I think that's a big part of it.
- 7:22Speaker 2: I mean, I look at the stance that I took
- 7:24Speaker 2: and I was a 40-year-old woman with 40 years of
- 7:28Speaker 2: life experience and it was still difficult for me to
- 7:31Speaker 2: stand up. I still did it, but it was really hard.
- 7:34Speaker 2: I don't know if I could have done it at
- 7:35Speaker 2: your age. In fact, I know I would not have
- 7:39Speaker 2: been able to do it. You want to belong. You
- 7:41Speaker 2: want to feel included. Life is hard enough. It's the
- 7:46Speaker 2: fact that you actually then had a moment and you
- 7:48Speaker 2: decided to follow through on that curiosity and see for yourself.
- 7:52Speaker 3: Tell me about the.
- 7:53Speaker 2: Email that landed in your inbox that basically changed the
- 7:57Speaker 2: trajectory of your life.
- 7:59Speaker 1: Yeah, I would back up a little bit. Before I
- 8:02Speaker 1: was ready to receive that email, there was a Stanford protest,
- 8:07Speaker 1: pro-Palestine protest in June of 2024 where Stanford students broken
- 8:11Speaker 1: into the president's office. They caused an estimated like $ 700, 000
- 8:16Speaker 1: in damages. 12 students received felonies. or sorry, were charged
- 8:20Speaker 1: with felonies. Those charges were later on dropped, but they
- 8:24Speaker 1: left graffiti like death to America, death to Israel, kill cops.
- 8:30Speaker 1: And I think that to see that written by students
- 8:35Speaker 1: at my own school, these are our biggest and brightest
- 8:39Speaker 1: minds saying death to America in the name of a
- 8:43Speaker 1: cause I've stood behind. I couldn't rationalize What does Death
- 8:49Speaker 1: to America have to do with saving gods and lives?
- 8:52Speaker 3: Like.
- 8:53Speaker 1: Um, and so I, I remember asking this question, I
- 8:58Speaker 1: was like, why do we have to cause property damage?
- 9:00Speaker 1: And then the response being, well, property damage isn't worth
- 9:03Speaker 1: more than a policy in life taken in Gaza. And
- 9:05Speaker 1: it's like, it's like these very scripted, like moral answers
- 9:11Speaker 1: that it's like, yeah, of course, but it's like thought terminating,
- 9:14Speaker 1: you know, you can't like, what, like, how.
- 9:16Speaker 3: Do you argue that?
- 9:17Speaker 2: How do you, well, of course it's not, but this
- 9:19Speaker 2: isn't going to save that life. You know, it's, I
- 9:22Speaker 2: get it. This is, they're so good at it too,
- 9:24Speaker 2: aren't they? It's sophisticated.
- 9:27Speaker 1: Genuinely, genuinely. And it's like, you can't push back. And
- 9:31Speaker 1: so when you feel, when you are trying to push back,
- 9:34Speaker 1: you're just met with a wall. That's why they boil
- 9:36Speaker 1: this down to whether, do you support genocide or do
- 9:39Speaker 1: you not? Like, there's not even the question of, is
- 9:41Speaker 1: this genocide? It's not even a question anymore. It's which,
- 9:44Speaker 1: which one, when are you on? What side are you on?
- 9:46Speaker 1: So it's just like, yeah. When you have it like
- 9:51Speaker 1: two sides and there's no nuance, no complexity, no room
- 9:55Speaker 1: for complication, it's just very easy to demonize people that...
- 10:00Speaker 1: don't have your opinions or view something differently. So after
- 10:03Speaker 1: that whole like protest, I took a step back from
- 10:06Speaker 1: the movement because again, I was so confused on like,
- 10:10Speaker 1: what exactly was I a part of at that point?
- 10:12Speaker 1: Because I didn't realize, I didn't know at what point
- 10:15Speaker 1: did this pro-Palestine movement became anti-American, anti-Israel. Right. And so
- 10:22Speaker 1: I took a step back. But in that space, I
- 10:25Speaker 1: received an email invite from my now best friend inviting
- 10:28Speaker 1: non-Jewish students to bear witness to the Nova Music Festival
- 10:32Speaker 1: exhibit in L.A. And I remember seeing this. I was like,
- 10:35Speaker 1: what is this Zionist propaganda doing in my inbox? Like
- 10:38Speaker 1: I was so confused and I was almost going to
- 10:42Speaker 1: delete it. But I did have a hint of curiosity.
- 10:46Speaker 1: And I was like, you know what? I want to
- 10:49Speaker 1: investigate this propaganda. And I think, like, although I went
- 10:54Speaker 1: in with, like, not the best intentions, because I wanted
- 10:57Speaker 1: to expose, like, the AIPAC, like, whatever conspiracy theory I
- 11:01Speaker 1: was thinking this would be, I still went. And I
- 11:05Speaker 1: still had curiosity. And I think that's, like, what a
- 11:07Speaker 1: lot of people, young people are missing right now is curiosity. Yes.
- 11:12Speaker 1: When I went to the exhibit, like that exhibit, it
- 11:17Speaker 1: rattled me in every way imaginable. Yeah.
- 11:23Speaker 2: Tell me about what you were exposed to. I mean,
- 11:26Speaker 2: it's ironic, isn't it? You went to try and expose them,
- 11:30Speaker 2: but in turn, what you were exposed to there was
- 11:34Speaker 2: changed everything. It was listening to calls that were made,
- 11:38Speaker 2: seeing burnt out cars. What was it that just, I guess,
- 11:43Speaker 2: maybe stopped your heart?
- 11:46Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean, truly, the exhibit was so
- 11:50Speaker 1: well done. It wasn't they brought the real things. And
- 11:55Speaker 1: the thing is like, it's one thing to look at
- 11:58Speaker 1: social media and like scroll through and watch videos, but
- 12:01Speaker 1: to see the real artifacts, like seeing the bullet riddled
- 12:04Speaker 1: holes in porta potties, the burnt wrecked cars, the shoes
- 12:10Speaker 1: that are left behind. It was very like visceral and
- 12:14Speaker 1: you can feel like you're there with them. And then
- 12:18Speaker 1: not just that, like I, just to see, like the
- 12:23Speaker 1: victim's faces, and they just look like normal people. They
- 12:28Speaker 1: don't look like colonizers or anything, like any of the
- 12:31Speaker 1: caricatures I thought a Zionist looked like.
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- 14:11Speaker 1: These were just kids my age going to a music
- 14:13Speaker 1: festival that I would have went. And it's really hard
- 14:16Speaker 1: to not put yourself in their shoes of like, living
- 14:19Speaker 1: your last moments after just coming to go dance, you know?
- 14:24Speaker 1: And so I remember like another recording that like struck
- 14:30Speaker 1: me was this audio recording by a Hamas terrorist who
- 14:35Speaker 1: had called his dad on the woman's phone that he
- 14:39Speaker 1: had just murdered, saying that he had killed 10 Jews
- 14:44Speaker 1: with his bare hands. And I thought that dad was
- 14:48Speaker 1: going to like scream in horror, but instead his dad
- 14:51Speaker 1: congratulated him and his mom said, I wish I was
- 14:54Speaker 1: there with you. And I was, these were our martyrs. These,
- 15:03Speaker 1: this was the resistance. And there was no like, no,
- 15:09Speaker 1: no vocabulary that I had learned over the years of like, whatever,
- 15:12Speaker 1: calling this like a decolonization and whatnot that could, That
- 15:16Speaker 1: can help me understand what I was hearing. And he
- 15:19Speaker 1: said Jews, that he killed Jews. He didn't say Zionists
- 15:23Speaker 1: or like freeing Palestine. It was Jews. And that was
- 15:25Speaker 1: like the first time I realized that this was about Jews.
- 15:29Speaker 1: And I know that sounds so ignorant, but when you're
- 15:32Speaker 1: inside the... this pro-Palestine movement, they make it so clear
- 15:36Speaker 1: to you that, no, we're anti-Zionist. We're not anti-Semitic. This
- 15:40Speaker 1: has nothing to do with Judaism. This has nothing to
- 15:42Speaker 1: do with Jews, but rather the Zionist entity.
- 15:48Speaker 2: That would have been really hard for you, I'd imagine,
- 15:51Speaker 2: not only the content and the subject matter, which is harrowing,
- 15:58Speaker 2: but maybe realising that what you were a part of
- 16:01Speaker 2: earlier or what you cared so deeply about wasn't what
- 16:05Speaker 2: you thought it was or that you in some way
- 16:07Speaker 2: may have contributed to supporting those who carry out this
- 16:11Speaker 2: kind of thing. How did you handle that personally and
- 16:15Speaker 2: what did you go through after that experience?
- 16:19Speaker 1: I know exiting that exhibit, I was so conflicted internally.
- 16:25Speaker 1: I thought I was going to go back to my
- 16:28Speaker 1: pro-Palestine friends and like chat about what I've seen. I
- 16:33Speaker 1: had no one to turn to with like all this
- 16:35Speaker 1: like new information because I knew if I went to
- 16:38Speaker 1: go talk to my friends that they would be like, well,
- 16:40Speaker 1: why were you even there in the first place? And
- 16:42Speaker 1: then they would start questioning me. And so I was
- 16:48Speaker 1: just kind of, I was like kind of, in between
- 16:52Speaker 1: like a rock and a hard place at that point,
- 16:54Speaker 1: because I, I, everything that I had believed about October 7th,
- 16:59Speaker 1: about the Nova music festival, um, there's so many different
- 17:02Speaker 1: like propaganda things that I had believed in, such as, uh,
- 17:07Speaker 1: that this, that it was mainly soldiers that were killed,
- 17:10Speaker 1: not civilians. Um, and that was just a lie just because,
- 17:15Speaker 1: you know, it mandatory services in Israel. So everyone's technically
- 17:19Speaker 1: a soldier, um, And so but it's like unraveling all
- 17:22Speaker 1: of those those lies by myself was just harrowing. And
- 17:26Speaker 1: I and I understand why people don't go down that path,
- 17:29Speaker 1: because it took so much energy to to question this,
- 17:35Speaker 1: the consensus, you know.
- 17:38Speaker 3: No, it does. And it's lonely.
- 17:40Speaker 2: It's so lonely when you don't feel like you can
- 17:43Speaker 2: confide in anyone. And again, I feel, I know I'm
- 17:47Speaker 2: not your mother, but I just feel so proud of
- 17:49Speaker 2: you for having curiosity, for going to see for yourself.
- 17:53Speaker 3: And then do you know what?
- 17:54Speaker 2: You could have walked away and thought more propaganda. In fact,
- 17:57Speaker 2: that's what I'm going to convince myself because that's easier.
- 18:00Speaker 2: It's easier for you to stick with what you believe
- 18:02Speaker 2: in because then you don't have to challenge yourself. And it's,
- 18:05Speaker 2: you could have done that and, and, I would have
- 18:08Speaker 2: gotten it because you're young and there's so much, but
- 18:11Speaker 2: you did the opposite. What happened when you decided you
- 18:16Speaker 2: weren't not only going to be part of that pro-Palestinian
- 18:20Speaker 2: movement that you were in before that all your best
- 18:22Speaker 2: friends were in, not only walk away from that, because
- 18:24Speaker 2: that's one thing, that's very brave, but to then actually
- 18:28Speaker 2: use your voice in the opposing way. And when I
- 18:32Speaker 2: say opposing, not opposing trying to save innocent lives in Gaza.
- 18:38Speaker 2: I'm pro-Israel, which I think is the greatest way to
- 18:41Speaker 2: support innocent lives in Gaza.
- 18:43Speaker 3: I'm anti-terror. But to actually try and.
- 18:46Speaker 2: Support in ways that will actually help. When did you
- 18:50Speaker 2: decide to use your voice and be public? And what
- 18:52Speaker 2: was the fallout from that? Did you lose friends? I'm
- 18:56Speaker 2: assuming yes.
- 18:58Speaker 1: Absolutely. I lost pretty much all of my friends. I
- 19:01Speaker 1: had joined the encampment when I was 19 years old
- 19:04Speaker 1: in my sophomore year. And all my friends came from
- 19:08Speaker 1: the encampment. It felt like a family. So to step
- 19:14Speaker 1: away from that was not easy at all. Before I
- 19:17Speaker 1: went public, I had actually got to visit Israel and
- 19:20Speaker 1: see for myself. And that let me gain the confidence
- 19:25Speaker 1: of what I was going to speak. Because after the exhibit,
- 19:30Speaker 1: I was confused. But to see it for yourself is
- 19:34Speaker 1: completely different. I just know that I just have such
- 19:41Speaker 1: strong opinions about people I've never met in a place
- 19:44Speaker 1: I've never been. And to you know, be boots on
- 19:49Speaker 1: the ground, talking to Israelis, talking to Palestinians, seeing what
- 19:53Speaker 1: coexistence does look like in mixed cities, and eventually experiencing
- 19:57Speaker 1: a missile myself, I realized, like, you know, our American
- 20:02Speaker 1: privilege to be able to call for war during a
- 20:06Speaker 1: time of peace, you know?
- 20:07Speaker 3: And so.
- 20:10Speaker 1: After going through that experience of Israel, I realized I
- 20:16Speaker 1: need to start telling people about my experience. Because after
- 20:20Speaker 1: I left Israel and I shared on my story where
- 20:24Speaker 1: I've been and what I did, I immediately started losing friends,
- 20:28Speaker 1: losing people that I've known for years, like since high school,
- 20:32Speaker 1: elementary school, from college. Immediately on adding me, blocking me,
- 20:38Speaker 1: one of my best friends, like for years, I think
- 20:42Speaker 1: 10 years, she decided to ask me like, you know,
- 20:47Speaker 1: is this you on this like Israel trip? And then
- 20:49Speaker 1: immediately blocked me. And so I'm just like, you know,
- 20:54Speaker 1: what does this say about our culture nowadays that we're
- 20:57Speaker 1: not even able to argue? We're not even able to
- 20:59Speaker 1: like get upset with each other at least and argue
- 21:02Speaker 1: it out. they're going straight to no contact. And so
- 21:07Speaker 1: I don't know, it's, and it only fuels like to
- 21:09Speaker 1: what you said, like this loneliness epidemic, which I think
- 21:14Speaker 1: in turn makes people more radicalized. So it's, it's, it
- 21:21Speaker 1: was really hard to go through that, but I think it,
- 21:25Speaker 1: it pushed me to then start speaking up because there's
- 21:28Speaker 1: just so I'm seeing the left get steered off this
- 21:32Speaker 1: cliff and I'm trying to course correct before it's too late.
- 21:35Speaker 1: And we're seeing these good movements getting hijacked by bad
- 21:42Speaker 1: actors and the left, they don't know what's coming. And
- 21:45Speaker 1: like what you had said earlier, like being a useful idiot,
- 21:49Speaker 1: like I was one of the useful idiots. And so
- 21:51Speaker 1: I really want to ensure people know like, hey, it's
- 21:56Speaker 1: okay to realize that you made a mistake and admit
- 21:59Speaker 1: when you're wrong and to change your mind. There should
- 22:03Speaker 1: be no shame in that. And so, yeah, that's what
- 22:07Speaker 1: I try to do on my platform and my content creation.
- 22:11Speaker 3: You've hit the nail on the head.
- 22:13Speaker 2: And before I respond to that point, the point you
- 22:16Speaker 2: make about being blocked straight away and this unwillingness to engage,
- 22:20Speaker 2: that says so much about a movement. If they're terrified
- 22:23Speaker 2: that any challenge to them could destroy them or cause
- 22:27Speaker 2: bring people out of this, then it means that they're
- 22:30Speaker 2: not standing for anything that is strong. And I, for example,
- 22:34Speaker 2: I would love to not look at a million different
- 22:37Speaker 2: websites each day because sometimes they challenge me and my view,
- 22:41Speaker 2: but I have to, if I want to be honest
- 22:43Speaker 2: and I want to make sure that I am always
- 22:45Speaker 2: speaking truth, I need to look at everything. And I
- 22:47Speaker 2: do that every day and I still go to bed
- 22:49Speaker 2: every night. I am on the right side of this.
- 22:52Speaker 2: but I will be challenged and I will look at
- 22:54Speaker 2: everything and I will constantly investigate because you've got to.
- 22:58Speaker 2: The other point I'd make is this is such a
- 23:01Speaker 2: crucial point that is not made often enough.
- 23:04Speaker 3: There is no shame.
- 23:06Speaker 2: There is no shame, particularly if you are a young
- 23:09Speaker 2: person who was caught up in this.
- 23:11Speaker 3: It is so easy to get caught up in this.
- 23:13Speaker 3: And you're right. People are lonely. The world is a
- 23:15Speaker 3: hard place. You're looking to belong.
- 23:17Speaker 2: You want to feel valued. You want to feel like
- 23:18Speaker 2: you're making a difference and, And it's not just these
- 23:21Speaker 2: other students here. This movement is sophisticated. There is money
- 23:25Speaker 2: coming in from nefarious actors who are very good at manipulation.
- 23:30Speaker 3: It's what they do. It's like how you get into
- 23:32Speaker 3: bad relationships. They manipulate. So there's no shame.
- 23:36Speaker 2: You should have the courage to speak out and you
- 23:38Speaker 2: should be respected for that. No one should say, well,
- 23:40Speaker 2: you were there so we don't accept. No, that's BS
- 23:43Speaker 2: and that should never exist. We can't live in a
- 23:45Speaker 2: world like that. So you are such an example of that.
- 23:48Speaker 3: Final question to you.
- 23:50Speaker 2: No, it's actually incredible because I know how difficult it is. Again,
- 23:55Speaker 2: as a woman who's much older than you, as a
- 23:57Speaker 2: young person, you are so inspirational.
- 24:00Speaker 3: What is your advice?
- 24:01Speaker 2: I am hoping so many young people see this, people
- 24:04Speaker 2: who maybe are where you were at a few years
- 24:07Speaker 2: ago and are starting to question themselves. Or maybe they
- 24:11Speaker 2: weren't until they watched you right now and now they're going, okay,
- 24:14Speaker 2: this feels uncomfortable.
- 24:16Speaker 3: What do I do next? What do they do next?
- 24:21Speaker 1: I mean, I would first say, to slow down and
- 24:29Speaker 1: understand that there's bigger forces that are going on outside
- 24:32Speaker 1: of yourself that are manipulating what you're able to see
- 24:36Speaker 1: on your social media, your algorithm and things like that.
- 24:40Speaker 1: And I would prioritize mainly learning the stories of the
- 24:44Speaker 1: people who actually lived there. Because it's one thing to like,
- 24:47Speaker 1: you know, rattle off the history of like, you know, 1948,
- 24:51Speaker 1: but it's another thing to actually listen to people's stories,
- 24:54Speaker 1: listen to Holocaust survivors, listen to why that they went
- 24:57Speaker 1: and moved into Israel, listen to Palestinians who have a
- 25:01Speaker 1: different vision of liberation that doesn't require the destruction of Israel.
- 25:08Speaker 1: Like listen to all sorts of different perspectives and just
- 25:13Speaker 1: have intellectual humility because, again, we are coming from such
- 25:17Speaker 1: a privileged place to not have to live through those consequences.
- 25:22Speaker 1: So when we're seeing these protesters, they get to go
- 25:25Speaker 1: home after. They're untouched by the consequences of what they're
- 25:29Speaker 1: calling for. If they're calling for death to Israel, they
- 25:32Speaker 1: won't have to attend a single funeral. So I would
- 25:35Speaker 1: just say just to have that humbleness of, when you're
- 25:40Speaker 1: approaching this type of conversation and just try your best
- 25:43Speaker 1: to hold multiple truths at once, because, you know, if
- 25:47Speaker 1: you're only insulated by one side, it's really hard to
- 25:52Speaker 1: see the other side as human. And at the end
- 25:54Speaker 1: of the day, like we are all wanting peace and stability.
- 25:57Speaker 1: And so it's just best to remember that.
- 26:00Speaker 2: Do you have a beautiful family who supports you and
- 26:03Speaker 2: loves you and is proud of you?
- 26:06Speaker 1: My family is very beautiful. Uh, As for support, it's
- 26:12Speaker 1: kind of difficult just because my mom is just a mom.
- 26:17Speaker 1: She's concerned. I get it. I went into college, like Stanford,
- 26:23Speaker 1: for pre-med. And now this whole thing kind of changed
- 26:27Speaker 1: my plans. And she's just like, why don't you just
- 26:30Speaker 1: focus on school? Why are you worried about any of this?
- 26:34Speaker 1: It's not your burden to shoulder. And I try to
- 26:37Speaker 1: explain to her, like, why it's important, like, for me
- 26:40Speaker 1: to do this because, like, I feel like I'm the
- 26:42Speaker 1: only one doing it, at least with my own perspective.
- 26:46Speaker 1: And so trying to explain that to her, like, we
- 26:49Speaker 1: just got death threats and someone had, like, doxxed my address.
- 26:54Speaker 1: And my mom, bless her heart, she just, like, she
- 26:57Speaker 1: just is so confused on why any of this is
- 27:01Speaker 1: going on. And then another aspect of my family, it
- 27:05Speaker 1: just really strained my relationship with my brother. After I
- 27:11Speaker 1: went to Israel, he stopped talking to me. And I
- 27:15Speaker 1: think that I'm definitely not the only person in the
- 27:18Speaker 1: world that's dealt with this. These conversations are happening at
- 27:22Speaker 1: our dinner tables. These are affecting families and tearing people apart.
- 27:26Speaker 1: And so we have to understand what type of movement
- 27:29Speaker 1: and cause is supposed to be doing this. And so
- 27:33Speaker 1: I don't know. It's just it's it's opened my eyes
- 27:35Speaker 1: to a lot. And I and I and I really
- 27:38Speaker 1: want people to come together and hopefully bridge the divide.
- 27:45Speaker 3: Yeah, do you know what? That is so relatable.
- 27:48Speaker 2: And what I would say to you is you are
- 27:50Speaker 2: not just here fighting for Israel.
- 27:53Speaker 3: You are fighting for America.
- 27:55Speaker 2: The people that you are now speaking against want to
- 27:58Speaker 2: destroy your country, that your brother lives in, that your
- 28:01Speaker 2: mum lives in. And it's hard to see that now
- 28:04Speaker 2: for some people, but they will. And from your mother's perspective,
- 28:07Speaker 2: I get it. My mum was, you know, Do you
- 28:11Speaker 2: need to? This is, you know, this is so hard.
- 28:13Speaker 2: Your life is already hard. I don't want your life
- 28:15Speaker 2: to be any harder. You know, now she is, watches
- 28:19Speaker 2: everything I do, sends me messages after each one. She
- 28:23Speaker 2: went to her first, she's not Jewish as well, obviously,
- 28:25Speaker 2: her first Jewish event in Canberra in Australia.
- 28:28Speaker 3: Maybe six months ago.
- 28:29Speaker 2: And eventually people come around and understand and she's super smart.
- 28:35Speaker 3: What it's about. Would I be the same with my child? Probably.
- 28:38Speaker 2: I'd be like, Eliza, no, just go to school, play
- 28:41Speaker 2: with your friends and don't do anything dangerous ever because
- 28:44Speaker 2: it terrifies me. But I tell you what, they will
- 28:47Speaker 2: understand one day and you will be their hero as
- 28:50Speaker 2: I'm sure you already are.
- 28:51Speaker 1: You're amazing.
- 28:51Speaker 3: I thank you for your voice and your courage. And
- 28:54Speaker 3: I'm here anytime.
- 28:55Speaker 2: Anytime you want to reach out, I come to the
- 28:57Speaker 2: US a lot for work If it's ever hard and
- 28:59Speaker 2: you need someone who looks very young but is much
- 29:02Speaker 2: older to speak to, you reach out to me anytime.
- 29:04Speaker 2: I'm so proud of you and I thank you for
- 29:06Speaker 2: sharing your story.
- 29:07Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me.
- 29:37Speaker 3: Thank you.