The Shared Mythological History of Israel and the US (w/ Joan Scott)
The Chris Hedges YouTube Channel
209,752 views May 29, 2025 The Chris Hedges Report
Chris Hedges talks to Professor Joan Scott about the late Amy Kaplan's cultural analysis of the US and Israel's mythological shared history, and how it has manufactured consent for Israel's atrocities over the years.
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(0:00) Intro
(3:35) Who was Amy Kaplan?
(7:55) Kaplan’s Zionist background
(9:36) Myths uniting Israel and the West
(13:13)The link between the Left and Israel
(17:22) Co-opting Jewish Victimization and triumph
(21:19) Bias leaking into media
(25:09) How ‘Exodus’ Masculinized and Victimized Jews
(30:35) The violence theme
(33:09) The Holocaust
(40:01) Christian Zionists
(45:29) False equivalence
(50:46) Outro
How this
Chapters
Transcript
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Chapter 1: Intro
0:033 seconds[Music]
0:1010 secondsAmy Kaplan's Our American Israel, the story of an entangled alliance, dissects Israel's symbiotic relationship with the
0:1717 secondsUnited States. She tells the story of how a Jewish settler colonial project captured the imagination of the American
0:2424 secondspublic, intertwining Israel's national myth with our own. American exceptionalism mirrors Israeli exceptionalism. The belief that America,
0:3434 secondsordained by God to lead the world,
0:3737 secondsreplicates Israel's messianic vision of itself. The two countries, because of their similar national myths, insist
0:4545 secondsthey are exempt from international humanitarian law. They share an open disdain for the quote unquote lesser
0:5252 secondsbreeds of the earth. Each tracing their roots to European colonialism. Israeli Jews, Kaplan writes, are at once eternal
1:001 minutevictims and lionized for their military prowess. Palestinians in the process have been at best rendered invisible and
1:081 minute, 8 secondsoften demonized as subhumans, representations of the barbarians the United States and Israel
1:151 minute, 15 secondsseek to suppress in their clash of civilizations. What makes Kaplan's book unique is that she is a cultural critic
1:231 minute, 23 secondsseen in the myths and stories disseminated by writers, filmmakers,
1:281 minute, 28 secondsartists, and journalists the enforcement of the peculiar beliefs that sustain the bond between the Zionist state and
1:351 minute, 35 secondsWashington. She opens the book with a dissection of Leon Urus's novel Exodus,
1:401 minute, 40 secondsas well as its film adaptation, which shaped a generation's understanding of Israel in the Middle East. She probes
1:471 minute, 47 secondsJoan Peter's 1984 book, From Time Imemorial, which was the template used by pro-Israeli historians to argue
1:561 minute, 56 secondsfalsely that the Palestinians never existed as a distinct people. Israel's myth, she notes, is protein, depending on the shifting historical realities.
2:062 minutes, 6 secondsthe 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon,
2:092 minutes, 9 secondsfor example, and the massacres in the Sabra and Chhatillaa Palestinian refugee camps, the Palestinian uprisings or
2:162 minutes, 16 secondsintoifadas required new narratives to buttress the Israeli-American ties.
2:212 minutes, 21 secondsSuddenly, the Holocaust, which was a footnote at the beginning in the popular narrative, assumed central importance.
2:282 minutes, 28 secondsIsrael, especially with the establishment of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, was intertwined with the Showa. The genocide became central to
2:372 minutes, 37 secondsJewish identity and playing the card that it could happen again, Israel was given a license to engage in savage
2:442 minutes, 44 secondsrepression of the Palestinians uh dismissed by Israeli leaders as the new Nazis. Kaplan ends the book by
2:522 minutes, 52 secondschronicling the rise of Christian Zionism which has emerged as a bull work of support for the apartheid state of Israel. Kaplan who died in 2020 was the
3:013 minutes, 1 secondEdward W. Kaine, professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Her book has recently been reissued by Harvard
3:093 minutes, 9 secondsUniversity Press. Joining me to discuss Kaplan's book is Professor Joan Scott,
3:143 minutes, 14 secondsProfessor Ammerida in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, an adjunct
3:223 minutes, 22 secondsprofessor of history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her many books include the classic
3:293 minutes, 29 secondsgender and the politics of history uh the politics of the veil and knowledge power and academic freedom. Let's begin
Chapter 2: Who was Amy Kaplan?
3:373 minutes, 37 secondswith Kaplan. I I I've read many many many books on the Middle East. I've spent seven years I did find this book unique in the way that it approached the
3:463 minutes, 46 secondssubject matter. Um, as I mentioned to you when we spoke, uh, it reminded me of Grahamsh's understanding of cultural
3:543 minutes, 54 secondshegemony, how culture, uh, is essentially creates a narrative that buttresses policy. Um, and just talk a
4:034 minutes, 3 secondslittle bit about her uh, and and then we'll go into the book. Well, I met her. Um, I just have to say,
4:104 minutes, 10 secondsChris, your your uh summary of the book was just terrific, enviable, because uh it it could be a kind of review that
4:194 minutes, 19 secondsshould be everywhere so that people would know what is in this book. Um, I thought you you you summarized it really really well. She was a, as you said, a
4:284 minutes, 28 secondsprofessor of English and American studies at Penn. Um, she was here at the institute. you know people come to the institute to do research and writing for
4:374 minutes, 37 secondsa year. She had a fellowship at the institute in 20112 when she started this book. Um and she was just digging around
4:454 minutes, 45 secondsto kind of as an American studies person she was interested in just what you put your finger on in the cultural um stuff
4:544 minutes, 54 secondsthat produced this special relationship uh the untouchable special relationship between the United States and and
5:015 minutes, 1 secondIsrael. and she worked away at it. She gave a seminar here which was that first chapter of the book on on um Exodus and
5:095 minutes, 9 secondsthose of us who grew up in the 50s and and early 60s I think the novel was 57 and the film was six 1960 with Paul
5:175 minutes, 17 secondsNewman blonde and blue-eyed is the blond and blue-eyed as the embodiment of of right the archetypal Jew that's no it
5:265 minutes, 26 secondswas really and she did she did it as a seminar here and her reading of it was just terrific I mean people were just astonished And those of us, as I said,
5:355 minutes, 35 secondswho had sort of grown up knowing how popular that film had been, um, were really taken aback at how astute she was
5:435 minutes, 43 secondsin in her readings of the ways in which a certain stereotypical image of the feeble, victimized Jew is replaced by
5:525 minutes, 52 secondsthe Paul Newman figure who was a heroic fighter for the future of Israel and and the future of of the Jewish people. Um,
6:006 minutesand she so she worked hard on that. And then um she it took her a while. So the book was published finally in 2018. I
6:076 minutes, 7 secondsremember reading many chapters of it um as she was producing them. Um and then she was tragically diagnosed with brain
6:166 minutes, 16 secondscancer and died um two years later in 2020. so that she never got to um
6:236 minutes, 23 secondspublicize the book the way one usually does, giving talks all over the place,
6:276 minutes, 27 secondsres having um discussion sessions of a kind where she would respond to critics and and so
6:356 minutes, 35 secondson. Uh and then um a year or so ago, her daughter, her adult daughter now, um in
6:426 minutes, 42 secondsthe in the wake of all of the u discussion going on about Gaza and the and the genocidal war in Gaza, thought
6:516 minutes, 51 secondsthat this would be a time when this book would weigh in in a way that no other book does on the question of Israel
6:586 minutes, 58 secondsPalestine. and she started a campaign with Harvard University Press and convinced them to publish it uh to issue
7:067 minutes, 6 secondsit in paperback. It it was already published. So they issued the paperback as of March 1st, I think. and many of us
7:137 minutes, 13 secondswho were committed to Amy's memory and to the book uh decided that we would go to our local bookstores and um u promote
7:227 minutes, 22 secondsit and talk about it which is how you and I first discussed the book um at the bookstore in in Labyrinth bookstore in Princeton. So that's that's the the
7:317 minutes, 31 secondsstory of it and I think rereading it um for our discussions. I was struck once again with how much insight it provides
7:397 minutes, 39 secondsinto this so-called special relationship. And we should say first of all Rashid Haley the great uh
7:477 minutes, 47 secondsPalestinian scholar gave it a glowing review uh in the nation when it came out. uh and uh uh she herself
Chapter 3: Kaplan’s Zionist background
7:577 minutes, 57 secondsuh you I know this only from you had come out of a Zionist background. Right.
8:028 minutes, 2 secondsRight. And and that was part of what this was about I think was was um exploring where she had come from and
8:108 minutes, 10 secondswhat this um indoctrination had been as she was growing up herself. In fact, if you in the acknowledgements, she mentions the
8:198 minutes, 19 secondsfact I think her father died before the book was published, but she says he would have disagreed with everything I was doing here, but um he would have u acknowledged my right to do it.
8:298 minutes, 29 secondsSomething like that. So, so there's you get even in that small acknowledgement a sense that she's coming from um a place
8:388 minutes, 38 secondswhich she had to interrogate critically in a very deep way. And she did. She would come in at lunch. We we we all
8:468 minutes, 46 secondshave lunch together at the at the people who are fellows at the institute and she'd come in and she'd say, "I can't believe it. I have stone and the nation
8:558 minutes, 55 secondswere great supporters of Israel in the 40s." This was very depressing.
8:598 minutes, 59 secondsWell, for those of us who who for whom I have stone was the hero uh the journalist hero during the Vietnam War,
9:069 minutes, 6 secondsthis was like how could this be? He he recanted. He he in fact changed his mind quite significantly on this question.
9:149 minutes, 14 secondsBut in the 40s he was absolutely on board for uh the land with the land with no people for a people with no land.
9:229 minutes, 22 secondsThat was Joan Joan Peters who she takes down. I mean one one has to admire her deep obvious what comes through from the book intellectual uh not just profoundity but integrity clearly. Yeah.
9:349 minutes, 34 secondsUm so uh she just broadly there are two templates that b are used to bond Israel
Chapter 4: Myths uniting Israel and the West
9:439 minutes, 43 secondsand the United States. The first is the mythic version of the settling of the west and the second is the Bible just broadly. Can you talk about that? Sure.
9:549 minutes, 54 secondsShe has a quote in the the title of the book, Our American Israel, comes from a 1799 sermon preached in a in a New
10:0310 minutes, 3 secondsEngland church which says something like um America is the realization of the biblical Israel. Uh we're we're here. I
10:1210 minutes, 12 secondsthink it's on on it's on page as I remember it's page five. Uh the phrase our American Israel comes from a Puritan
10:1910 minutes, 19 secondsexpression of colonial American exceptionalism. Um and his quote was this this sermon traits of the
10:2610 minutes, 26 secondsresemblance in the people of the United States of America to ancient Israel. It has often been remarked the guy says that the people of the United States
10:3410 minutes, 34 secondscome nearer to a parallel with ancient Israel than any other nation upon the globe. Hence our American Israel, a term frequently used and common consent
10:4310 minutes, 43 secondsallows it apt and proper. So the biblical Israel is is there from from
10:4910 minutes, 49 secondsthe the 18th century on and and gets uh recovered again in in new form in by the
10:5710 minutes, 57 secondsevangelicals. You mentioned the last couple of chapters or the the next to last chapter of the book deals with the way in which American evangelicals pick
11:0611 minutes, 6 secondsup this notion this time that the the second coming of Christ will come in Israel somehow and at that moment Jews
11:1511 minutes, 15 secondswill those Jews who convert will be raptured up along with the Christians and and everyone else will will be
11:2111 minutes, 21 secondsdestroyed um in in in another um apocalyptic moment of of uh
11:2911 minutes, 29 secondsbiblical transformation. So the biblical theme runs through from the beginning when it's America is the realization of
11:3611 minutes, 36 secondsthe dream of Israel to um the 20th 20th century or even the 21st century when
11:4411 minutes, 44 secondsIsrael is the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Bible and and the same biblical passages the
11:5111 minutes, 51 secondsPuritans were using the stories of the Amalachites uh you know which Netanyahu has repeated about you know decimating
11:5811 minutes, 58 secondsdestroying I think even their children and animals and everything else. They were using exactly the same biblical passage to justify the genocide against
12:0612 minutes, 6 secondsNative Americans. Yeah. Yeah. And that she de she develops that really nicely too. The the Native American parallel
12:1312 minutes, 13 secondsand the um and the Isra and the Palestinian parallels uh which in fact echo that theme of a land with no people
12:2212 minutes, 22 secondsfor a people with no land. It's the same argument made here. there's no one here when the Americans came and they wipe out or tried to wipe out the the the
12:3112 minutes, 31 secondsNative Americans. Similarly with with Palestinians um well and this was pushed by the 1984 book by John Peters which
12:4012 minutes, 40 secondswas taken down when he was a graduate student by Norman Finkelstein um which argued that they had no national identity. the Palestinians had no
12:4812 minutes, 48 secondsnational identity, that those Palestinians who were there had actually migrated because the Jewish uh colonists
12:5712 minutes, 57 secondsin were reinvigorating. I mean, all of which was false. Um, and she deals with
13:0513 minutes, 5 secondsthat, the importance of that Peter's book because it was used by pro-Israeli historians for a long time to justify
13:1213 minutes, 12 secondsthis very false uh narrative. I want to start with as she does. You mentioned if Stone uh his book underground to
Chapter 5: The link between the Left and Israel
13:1913 minutes, 19 secondsPalestine, but I found that that this on the one hand you had the the left if Stone being part of the counterculture.
13:2713 minutes, 27 secondsUh but this identification of the counterculture with this settler colonial state um and as you said if
13:3613 minutes, 36 secondsStone recantss um I'm just going to read that little passage. This is his book Underground to
13:4413 minutes, 44 secondsPalestine. His first book uh Stone's book included the major tropes of the narrative that progressive
13:5113 minutes, 51 secondsAmericans told about Zionism in the years following World War II. His personal discovery of kinship with the Jews of Europe added poignency. He
14:0014 minutesrealized that if his parents had immigrated from Russia to America, he might have gone to the gas chambers or ended up a ragged quote unquote and
14:0814 minutes, 8 secondshomeless refugee. As he drew closer to his Jewish brothers, he recorded their plaintive Yiddish songs, which expressed
14:1514 minutes, 15 secondslonging for a world lost to catastrophic violence. At the same time, he narrated their journey in resolutely American
14:2314 minutes, 23 secondstones. That's a fundamental theme of the book. as a story of rebirth in the transformative voyage from the old world
14:3014 minutes, 30 secondsto the new. In contrast to the defeist spirit hovering over a shattered Europe,
14:3514 minutes, 35 secondshe was amazed by the tremendous vitality of the refugees and by their determination to build a new life in a new land. In his book, Stone focused on the journey, not the arrival,
14:4614 minutes, 46 secondschronicling the dream of a Jewish homeland uncluttered by Arab realities that disrupted these dreams, realities
14:5314 minutes, 53 secondsthat he had noted in his earlier reports from Palestine. Let's talk about that link between the left and Stone was
15:0215 minutes, 2 secondshimself persecuted, blacklisted. He couldn't even get a job at the nation.
15:0515 minutes, 5 secondsHe ends up printing if stones weekly in his basement as you said, not only about the uh Vietnam War, but about the Korean
15:1315 minutes, 13 secondsWar, exposing many atrocities in the Korean War. But there was this marriage.
15:1715 minutes, 17 secondsAnd then we'll go in and talk about Exodus, the book, and the movie. Um, and I find that coupling kind of fascinating.
15:2615 minutes, 26 secondsWell, one of the things I think was the attraction on the left to the socialist vision of of of Israel, the the kibuts.
15:3515 minutes, 35 secondsum which which how many books were written about that? This was this the future possibility not only for leftists
15:4215 minutes, 42 secondsbut for feminists. You know, you you you had collective child rearing, collective uh meal preparation, all of the kind of
15:4915 minutes, 49 secondsdomestic tasks uh that were thought to be oppressive for women u are are shared in in a in a in a different kind of
15:5715 minutes, 57 secondsarrangement. So I think that was one thing and and certainly that attracted him as well as um Freda Kershwe at the
16:0516 minutes, 5 secondsat the nation and and others. This was a kind of socialist experiment that that um was very attractive and very
16:1316 minutes, 13 secondspossible. The other was the the the notion and she uses this term a several times in in the in the course of the
16:2016 minutes, 20 secondsbook of of the invincible victims. That is on the one hand they Jews had been
16:2716 minutes, 27 secondsvictims of horrific uh treatment in in in Europe and and historically uh victims of
16:3516 minutes, 35 secondsanti-semitisms of all kinds. But here they were invincible. That is they were going to prevail. There was a kind of
16:4216 minutes, 42 secondsresilience that um could be admired rather than the the kind of awful notion of victimization. Uh the co the notion
16:5116 minutes, 51 secondsof resistance is is important to the left as well. The the Warsaw ghetto becomes a kind of proof that the
16:5816 minutes, 58 secondsuprising of the the Warsaw ghetto becomes a proof of the fact that Jews are resist. They're not just pathetic
17:0517 minutes, 5 secondsvictims. They're as she calls them again invincible victims. that is whatever happens there's a kind of resilience and
17:1217 minutes, 12 secondsresistance that prevails and that that Israel then becomes the embodiment for for many people on the left as a result
17:2017 minutes, 20 secondsof that I think well she talks later about the importance of the Holocaust but it's important to note that initially with the establishment of the
Chapter 6: Co-opting Jewish Victimization and triumph
17:2717 minutes, 27 secondsstate of Israel those refugees from Europe victims of the Holocaust were considered somewhat shameful for not
17:3517 minutes, 35 secondshaving resisted and it was only later uh that the Holocaust became part of Jewish identity and a trope and a part of but
17:4417 minutes, 44 secondsnot initially, not at first. And of course, as you well know, the irony of the Warsaw ghetto uprising is that the
17:5117 minutes, 51 secondsonly commander, deputy commander of the uprising, Marik Adelman, uh condemned the apartheid state, the settler
17:5917 minutes, 59 secondscolonial state, uh recognized Palestinians right to self-determination and resistance, even armed resistance,
18:0718 minutes, 7 secondsdrawing analogies between his resistance, the resistance he and the ghetto fighters carried out in Warsaw,
18:1418 minutes, 14 secondsand the resistance in Palestine. And so on the one hand yes they they use the Warsaw ghetto uprising but the uh the
18:2118 minutes, 21 secondsonly major historical figure was an anathema was a pariah in Israel uh itself. Well, one of the things just
18:2918 minutes, 29 secondsyou're mentioning that it one of the things she tracks really nicely is the way in which there is always a
18:3618 minutes, 36 secondsdissenting voice like his like others even when she talks about the found the history of the founding of the state of Israel there were many people Hannah
18:4418 minutes, 44 secondsArent Martin Buber who um refus who thought that the idea of a of a Jewish
18:5118 minutes, 51 secondshomeland a Jewish state was a dangerous ethnational um way of thinking about uh a place a
19:0119 minutes, 1 secondhomeland or or a place where where uh where Jews could could come. But it what
19:0819 minutes, 8 secondsshe shows so clearly is how carefully and ruthlessly those positions were eclipsed. Those voices were if not
19:1619 minutes, 16 secondssilenced were just so muted that they couldn't be heard. And this your your notion of Grochi I think is right. this
19:2319 minutes, 23 secondsthis hegemonic vision cultural sort of of appreciation of the importance of
19:3019 minutes, 30 secondsIsrael for America prevails every time you know you you there are chap there are places in chapters where you think
19:3619 minutes, 36 secondsoh good there's some um criti criticism being articulated here and she goes into it at some length and then you just
19:4419 minutes, 44 secondswatch it being slapped down by the the major forces of the media by politicians and by what becomes defined as the
19:5319 minutes, 53 secondsIsrael lobby or the the the lobbyists who are going to the um the Anti-Defamation League and and uh what
20:0120 minutes, 1 secondbecomes Apac those groups acquire a predominance that is that manages to silence um any kind of criticism. Well,
20:1220 minutes, 12 secondsYashi Ashu Liowitz we should mention another the great Israeli philosopher who saw it all coming you know where we
20:2020 minutes, 20 secondsare. Um, I also want to talk about journalists because she uh, boy, she got it. I mean, the way journalists uh,
20:2820 minutes, 28 secondsthere's two things having spent 20 years overseas I found with with people,
20:3220 minutes, 32 secondsespecially people who parachuted in because they really didn't understand the situation around them. They immediately deform the situation to make it palatable for an American audience,
20:4420 minutes, 44 secondsbut to Americanize it. M um and uh and and so there's a she talks immediately
20:5120 minutes, 51 secondsafter of course 750,000 Palestinians are dispossessed uh Jaffa was largely a Palestinian city
21:0021 minutescompletely emptied um in ethnic cleansing uh thousands were killed the Darius massacre and then you
21:0821 minutes, 8 secondshave the journalists who come from the United States and they report about it and uh they they can't even see what's
21:1521 minutes, 15 secondsin front of their eyes. There's this passage he's writing about U Freda Kir who visited the silent quote
Chapter 7: Bias leaking into media
21:2421 minutes, 24 secondsunquote silent and deserted city of Jaffa to address the question why did the Arabs run. She registered the
21:3221 minutes, 32 secondsmomentousness of more than 50,000 people fleeing from Palestine's largest Arab city and she briefly noted the attack
21:4121 minutes, 41 secondsand siege by the combined forces of the Argun. was underground terrorist group by lead led by Bean, right? And the
21:4821 minutes, 48 secondsHagana, which was the more established uh Israeli uh you know militia army at the end of April. Yet she did not
21:5721 minutes, 57 secondsmention the impact of this attack on the population. Instead, she claimed that the mass flight from Jaffa and from other Palestinian cities and villages
22:0522 minutes, 5 secondsseemed to have little to do with the fighting itself. At stake, this is going on the
22:1222 minutes, 12 secondsbottom of the paragraph. At stake for Kiru in the image of the humane soldier was her investment in the Jewish refugee
22:2022 minutes, 20 secondsas a universal symbol of noble suffering and the creation of the Jewish state as a moral triumph for civilization over
22:2822 minutes, 28 secondsfascism. I saw that every war, every place I ever covered, I fought it. But I had to fight not only the mythic
22:3722 minutes, 37 secondsnarrative that was being pedled to the American public but my own colleagues in the press. I because I was with the New York Times. I didn't come and go. I live
22:4622 minutes, 46 secondsthere. I mean I was six years in Latin America, seven years in the Middle East.
22:5022 minutes, 50 secondsBut these people who parachuted in who didn't have any linguistic facility uh and didn't have really any historical
22:5722 minutes, 57 secondsknowledge immediately fed the kind of tropes that Americans can understand and
23:0523 minutes, 5 secondsthat allowed them to make sense of what they didn't understand. And she gets that really really well in the book.
23:1123 minutes, 11 secondsYeah. Well, I also think that that it comes also from the notion that that some of these journalists think they have to feed what you said a minute ago.
23:2323 minutes, 23 secondsThey have to feed the information in terms that um their readers can already understand rather than understanding
23:3223 minutes, 32 secondstheir role as producing knowledge that people then have to deal with. Um and and and that you see that now
23:4123 minutes, 41 secondsdramatically in in um in in journalism covering the Gaza war. It it's it's um
23:4923 minutes, 49 secondsthe fear that they will offend readers u is is far greater than the notion that
23:5623 minutes, 56 secondstheir job is to communicate to readers information that might not be comfortable but that they need to really know. Um and I think you're right. She
24:0524 minutes, 5 secondsshe shows you very with very fine-tuned analysis. Yeah. Well, very very very clear examples. Yeah. Yeah. How and how
24:1424 minutes, 14 secondsthat oper but I think that's what we're we're living with now. Uh of course.
24:1724 minutes, 17 secondsDoesn't the New York Times have a list of words you're not allowed to use.
24:2124 minutes, 21 secondsYeah. Well, and it's when they talk about the student encampments, they're characterized them as they harass Jewish students. Jewish students may have been
24:2824 minutes, 28 secondsharassed, but the bulk of the repression was carried out against the protesters.
24:3224 minutes, 32 secondsa hundred of whom were arrested on the campus of Colombia. Uh people who've been deported uh people who've been
24:3924 minutes, 39 secondssuspended. Ruha Benjamin at Princeton is teaching under probation. That goes unmentioned. Uh and so yes, you do see
24:4724 minutes, 47 secondsit now. And and of course we should be also note the fact that and this is something I and other international journalists went to Egypt to protest is
24:5624 minutes, 56 secondsIsrael has locked out the there's no foreign press in Gaza uh for the obvious reasons and over 100 what over 120 I
25:0425 minutes, 4 secondsthink Palestinian journalists have been killed many of them targeted. I want let's talk about Exodus. Um, okay. We'll
Chapter 8: How ‘Exodus’ Masculinized and Victimized Jews
25:1225 minutes, 12 secondstalk about a trashy novel and a trashy writer, Leon.
25:1825 minutes, 18 secondsUm, you know, the other the other book that was like that was Oh, Jerusalem.
25:2225 minutes, 22 secondsThat was another one. The Israelis were you remember that history of the of the war? I think it was anyway of the
25:2925 minutes, 29 secondsfamily. I don't you know I was I was probably in in high school just beginning college and when when the the
25:3725 minutes, 37 secondsnovel came out and I just remember everybody was reading it. you ride the subway in New York. And people were sitting there reading. Well, they said,
25:4325 minutes, 43 secondsso it was I'll just read this. It had been compared in epic scope and massive sales to Gone with the Wind. Well,
25:5025 minutes, 50 secondsthere's another piece of uh propaganda on behalf of slaveholders,
25:5625 minutes, 56 secondswhich transformed the history of the Civil War into a shared national past.
26:0026 minutesBut Exodus is different in that it is not a story told by Israelis about their own country. That's very important, but
26:0626 minutes, 6 secondsone told by an American author for an for American readers. And then she writes later, one cannot overestimate
26:1426 minutes, 14 secondsthe influence of Exodus in Americanizing the Zionist uh narrative of Israel's origins. 20 million copies were sold in 20 years.
26:2726 minutes, 27 secondsNow, you and I need those kinds of sales. then we can all go to Bermuda forever. Um, but let's
26:3526 minutes, 35 secondsWell, let's So, I mean, it is just remarkable. I mean, she she rips it to pieces. I mean, just the main characters
26:4426 minutes, 44 secondsin the You talk about the film also was very the main characters in the film because of their whiteness are easily
26:5126 minutes, 51 secondsseen as Euroamericans. Meanwhile, when this film appeared in 1960, the majority of Jewish immigrants coming to Israel from Arab and North African countries,
27:0027 minutesalthough not well treated by the European, you know, Netanyahu Yasi and
27:0627 minutes, 6 secondsAi Schlom writes a very good book on this. I think it's called three worlds or it's very very good his memoir.
27:1427 minutes, 14 secondsUm, and then just one more pass and let you talk. So, so they, so they have, of course, they have the
27:2327 minutes, 23 secondsChristian protagonist, Kitty, who represents the American who discovers in Zionism the mystical qualities of the
27:3227 minutes, 32 secondsHoly Land that she heard about in Sunday school. Kitty speaks the language of the recently invented
27:4027 minutes, 40 secondsJudeo-Christian tradition, which embraces embraced Catholics,
27:4427 minutes, 44 secondsProtestants, and Jews in a shared American identity. and during the cold war united them in faith against godless communism in Exodus it also unites them against Arabs.
27:5627 minutes, 56 secondsYeah. I mean the interesting thing in in that and and she develops it in the book all along is the Europeanness of these
28:0428 minutes, 4 secondsJews who have been um ex um murdered in Europe who who are not admitted in large numbers into the United States. I mean,
28:1428 minutes, 14 secondseverybody's really happy about Israel because it can take the Jews. They don't want the European the Anglo-American European countries do not want Jews in
28:2328 minutes, 23 secondstheir and let me let me just interrupt Jo the 1952 McLaren Act which was authored by Senator McLaren a rabid
28:3028 minutes, 30 secondsanti-semite uh which is now being used against uh Palestinian activists who have green
28:3828 minutes, 38 secondscards and student visas and everything else was designed to keep out victims of the Holocaust and not let them into the United States. That's why he wrote it.
28:4628 minutes, 46 secondsYep. No. And so, so, but but what you have in that film, and she describes it really well, is the
28:5428 minutes, 54 secondsEuropeanization, the whitening of the Jew. no longer this sort of stereotypical dark pathetic feminized
29:0329 minutes, 3 secondsum masculinity, but but this Paul Newman character who fights to the death and who is bringing civilization to the
29:1229 minutes, 12 secondsMiddle East because that becomes another of this of the tropes that get associated with Israel that it is the only
29:2029 minutes, 20 secondsdemocratic only force for enlighten enlightenment and democracy and European values. news in the Middle East. So the
29:2829 minutes, 28 secondsthe film enables that kind of um represent new representation of who Jews
29:3529 minutes, 35 secondsare and and what they represent. She writes, "Exodus reenacted
29:4229 minutes, 42 secondsthe primal myth of the American frontier as a tale of regeneration through violence." She's quoting Richard
29:4929 minutes, 49 secondsSlotkin, of course, his great book. The hero in a western ventures across the border of the civilized world to the
29:5629 minutes, 56 secondswilderness in order to colonize dark chaotic regions and learn the way of the Indians thereby ridding himself and the
30:0330 minutes, 3 secondssociety he represents of darkness. It is the barbarism of the other whether Indian or Arab that forces the hero to
30:1130 minutes, 11 secondsbecome violent. He adopts their methods in order to defeat them and to establish a border between legitimate and illegitimate violence. So when she talks
30:1930 minutes, 19 secondsabout the Bible and the West, she the the the the story of Israel is tailored
30:2630 minutes, 26 secondsor created to parallel precisely our own mythology about the settling of the West by Europeans and Euroamericans.
Chapter 9: The violence theme
30:3630 minutes, 36 secondsSo um Chris, I I wondered what you thought about the um the violence theme as well. I mean, I thought that was it
30:4430 minutes, 44 secondswas really interesting the way she um maps the the justification of violence from the very beginning. But then when you get to the war on terror,
30:5430 minutes, 54 secondsthe Israel becomes the model for how to deal with terrorists in your midst, how
31:0131 minutes, 1 secondto deal with any kind of uprisings or or protests. They provide some of the technology and the advice not only to
31:0931 minutes, 9 secondsthe the um the national government but to local police forces about how to
31:1531 minutes, 15 secondscontain um um or or find track terrorism and and and contain it in their cities.
31:2331 minutes, 23 secondsI mean, I thought that the way in which the story becomes, you know, the idyllic socialist utopia in the in the 1940s and
31:3231 minutes, 32 seconds50s becomes this um arms supplier or or or tech that provides the technology of
31:4031 minutes, 40 secondsof of war for the war on terror in the United States and becomes the model for how to resist it. I thought was another
31:4731 minutes, 47 secondsfascinating aspect of Yeah. But so she talks about how particular mythologies like this one don't hold up, especially
31:5631 minutes, 56 secondsafter the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. I think 17,000 Lebanese were killed. They bombed West Beirut, saturated bombing of southern
32:0432 minutes, 4 secondsLebanon. The war was a disaster for Israel. Um, you had, as she notes, you had foreign correspondents, that was
32:1232 minutes, 12 secondsalso a very important and good part of the book. You had foreign correspondents based in Beirut who were watching it,
32:1932 minutes, 19 secondsJohn Chancellor for instance, and were appalled at the savagery. So suddenly there had to be a new narrative and
32:2532 minutes, 25 secondsthat's when the Holocaust took off. uh and uh maybe we should talk about that.
32:3132 minutes, 31 secondsUh I just before we go she just in terms of the way uh Exodus and the narratives portrayed Arabs uh they were accused
32:4132 minutes, 41 secondslike blacks in uh Annie Bellum South or even during Jim Crow as sexual predators. They were she exaggerated
32:5032 minutes, 50 secondsuh Arab cowardice. Um, so you know there was a characterization of Arabs that very
33:0033 minutesclosely paralleled the own our own defaming of the character in particular of of uh African-Americans in the United
Chapter 10: The Holocaust
33:0933 minutes, 9 secondsStates. But let's talk about the Holocaust and Finkelstein wrote his book the Holocaust Industry. So the Holocaust is not as we mentioned earlier a huge
33:1733 minutes, 17 secondspart of the narrative. Uh and then uh after Lebanon things change. So there's a savagery and the Holocaust takes
33:2733 minutes, 27 secondspreeminence in the narrative. There was a miniseries. I've never watched it.
33:3133 minutes, 31 secondsMaybe you watched it, but she writes about it in the book called The Holocaust. Uh you have the Holocaust Museum, which she writes about raising
33:3933 minutes, 39 secondsthe question of why is there a Holocaust Museum on American soil? It's a pretty good question. Um, but let's talk about
33:4633 minutes, 46 secondsthe use of the Holocaust because that's very much part and after 911 this is all turbocharged as you said but
33:5333 minutes, 53 secondsideologically it's justified by the near annihilation of the Jews and just as a
33:5933 minutes, 59 secondscaveat in defense of Jewish refugees the ones who survived World War II uh they were locked out of everywhere number one
34:0734 minutes, 7 secondsand when they did try to go home to places like Poland uh there were pilgrims I mean we're talking about after World War II So they really I mean
34:1534 minutes, 15 secondsthat's the part of the tragedy. They had nowhere to go. There was that book Neighbors uh which very good on people trying to Jewish families
34:2434 minutes, 24 secondsafter surviving the death camps trying to go back to their farms or their homes and being killed. Uh so I mean that is
34:3234 minutes, 32 secondsthe I think the tragedy for all of us who have covered Israel extensively. But let's talk about the Holocaust because the
34:3934 minutes, 39 secondsHolocaust becomes weaponized and boy she takes down uh Ellie Viselle of course uh
34:4734 minutes, 47 secondswho becomes uh you know Mr. Holocaust uh who I knew actually. Um but let's let's talk about the Holocaust and and its uses and what she writes about it. Well,
34:5934 minutes, 59 secondsit it's Peter Novik also who writes about the hol the Holocaust industry and and I think he dates it to even to 1967
35:0635 minutes, 6 secondsafter the Six-Day War. It becomes more and more of a justification for the kinds of things that Israel is doing.
35:1335 minutes, 13 secondsAnd then in the 80s it it comes into its own as an attempt to justify what can't be justified in terms of the uh the war
35:2235 minutes, 22 secondsin Lebanon. But I think um the the point she makes about it is that it becomes
35:2935 minutes, 29 secondsagain it's tied to that invincible victim thing. There's always the the threat the Holocaust happened but it's never um it's never going to go away.
35:4135 minutes, 41 secondsThat is it happened but it always exists as a possibility for happening again.
35:4635 minutes, 46 secondsAnd so part of the invincible victim story is that Jews have to always be alert about defending themselves against
35:5535 minutes, 55 secondsany sign that the Holocaust is about to reappear and then u attributed to uh Palestinians
36:0336 minutes, 3 secondsuh the the the the possibility that they will bring another holocaust. So the whole defense industry of Israel, the
36:1036 minutes, 10 secondswhole um occupation of of Gaza and the West Bank become a way of arguing
36:1736 minutes, 17 secondsagainst the possibility of another Holocaust. What does she call that chapter? The the Holocaust anticipated or the apocalypse soon, she calls it.
36:2636 minutes, 26 secondsYeah.
36:2736 minutes, 27 secondsthe two chapters, the future Holocaust and apocalypse soon are are the arguments about um we can never rest
36:3536 minutes, 35 secondsbecause once it's happened, it always will happen again. And and the existence of Jews by definition somehow suggests the possibility always of a holocaust.
36:4636 minutes, 46 secondsAnd that makes them um un you can't criticize anything that's being done in the name of not only uh not only sort of
36:5636 minutes, 56 secondsrepairing the damage of the first holocaust but of preventing the next one.
37:0137 minutes, 1 secondAnd this is this is Aba Iban who I also knew very charming. Um, another factor that worked against the image of
37:0837 minutes, 8 secondsPalestinians in America was the overt effort by Israeli spokesmen and sympathetic journalists to undermine the revolutionary appeal of Palestinian
37:1737 minutes, 17 secondsresistance. Aba Iban protested that the guerillas were not quote fighting for freedom but were in fact fighters
37:2437 minutes, 24 secondsagainst freedom. He explained that quote the image that world opinion should have of them is not the image of the marquee
37:3137 minutes, 31 secondsor resistance fighters but the image of the SS the image of the guards at Avitz
37:3837 minutes, 38 secondsand Bergen Bellson. We've seen that during the genocide where now you know was it Bean who equated Yeah. Bean who
37:4737 minutes, 47 secondstold Reagan that when he was bombing West Beirut he was he was attacking Hitler. I mean he's attacking horafod
37:5437 minutes, 54 secondsbut that it was he drew that analogy that that has not gone away that now becomes the raison detra for the
38:0338 minutes, 3 secondssubjugation of uh the Palestinians and the decimation of Gaza and and Hamas is
38:1038 minutes, 10 secondsthe is the new um Nazi for she has a thing where where it it's interesting where she talks about this further. She says, "Terrorist violence by non-state
38:1938 minutes, 19 secondsactors, no matter how heinous, lacks the powerful state organization behind the systematic industrialized violence that
38:2738 minutes, 27 secondscharacterized the Nazi slaughter of millions. Nonetheless, the repeated analogy between terrorism and the Holocaust had the powerful effect of
38:3638 minutes, 36 secondstaring the entire Palestinian cause as a hateful reincarnation of the Nazi project to exterminate the Jews." At a
38:4438 minutes, 44 secondstime when the Carter and Reagan administrations continued Kissinger's pledge to Israel not to speak directly to the PLO, the conflation of
38:5238 minutes, 52 secondsPalestinians with terrorism and Nazism contributed to the public perception of the illegitimacy of the PLO and the cause it represented. And that goes on
39:0039 minutesnow. I mean, I don't know how many um people I've had u fortunately they're not friends.
39:0639 minutes, 6 secondsThey're just people I know who I've had conversations with who say, "Well, but Hamas is just like the Nazis. They want to exterminate
39:1339 minutes, 13 secondsuh Jews. They want to destroy the state of Israel. And you say to them, well,
39:1739 minutes, 17 secondsit's not the same thing. And there's no the Nazi image attached now to the
39:2339 minutes, 23 secondsPalestinian cause is really hard to um argue against.
39:2939 minutes, 29 secondsThat's a very important point. CLR James makes the same point that she made in Black Jacobins where he acknowledges that
39:3739 minutes, 37 secondsthere were atrocities carried out during the only successful slave revolt in human history, but that it it wasn't it
39:4639 minutes, 46 secondsdidn't have the state apparatus behind it. It didn't have the imperial power.
39:4939 minutes, 49 secondsIt's a very very very important point. I don't want to sugarcoat Hamas. I spent a lot of time with them. Um but uh that
39:5739 minutes, 57 secondspoint is key. Um and uh she she writes about the Christian
Chapter 11: Christian Zionists
40:0540 minutes, 5 secondsZionism at the end of the book. Uh the uh Israel becomes more and more
40:1340 minutes, 13 secondsunpalatable to a younger generation of Jews. Of course, a significant percentage of those protesting the
40:1940 minutes, 19 secondsgenocide were Jewish. We have Jewish Voice for Peace. Uh we had students at Colombia just chain themselves to
40:2640 minutes, 26 secondsoffense. uh in protest at the uh deportation order against Makman Halil
40:3440 minutes, 34 secondsheld in a Louisiana detention center. Um and so they have turned more more and more to and she writes about this these
40:4240 minutes, 42 secondsChristian Zionists Hegy these figures uh and it's fascinating because they
40:4940 minutes, 49 secondsthey themselves have expressed very open anti-semitic uh tropes um and but they become key and
40:5940 minutes, 59 secondsthen there there's or organizing all these course of tours of the biblical holy land uh but and I I would argue as
41:0641 minutes, 6 secondswell that uh as Israel has become more and more despotic uh that's has also built these relations
41:1541 minutes, 15 secondswith figures like Victor Orban because it's the model of how figures like Netanyahu seek to run the Israeli state.
41:2241 minutes, 22 secondsThey're all heirs of Vladimir Jabatinsky who Mussolini called a good fascist.
41:2741 minutes, 27 secondsMayor Kahana. I covered Khana. I knew him. Uh and uh uh but let's let's talk about that which he does at the end of the book about Christian Zionism.
41:4041 minutes, 40 secondsWell, it's it's I think we talked about it a little at the beginning. It's the notion that that somehow or another the
41:4641 minutes, 46 secondsthe biblical pro prophecy uh has the end times happen in Israel. um when when the
41:5441 minutes, 54 secondssecond coming of Christ will um will bring about um a new world order
42:0342 minutes, 3 secondsuh and in which converted Jews uh will will be raptured up with the with the Christians and the rest of us will burn
42:1142 minutes, 11 secondsin hell um or just burn. Um, so, so but the power of that and and you're right
42:1942 minutes, 19 secondsof these anti-semites who are endorsing the Israeli cause and and sometimes even she has moments where Netanyahu and
42:2842 minutes, 28 secondsothers realize that that they're dealing with anti anti-semites, but it doesn't matter because they're bringing um a large sector of the American population,
42:3842 minutes, 38 secondsa powerfully politically influential sector of the American population,
42:4242 minutes, 42 secondscertainly now with Trump um to to u support the activities that Israel is
42:5042 minutes, 50 secondsengaging in. I mean, when Trump moved the um the American um embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, it was a fulfillment
42:5942 minutes, 59 secondsof the demand that these Christian Zionists had been making um to prepare
43:0543 minutes, 5 secondsus for uh the the the eventual second coming. I mean, it it's it's tied really tightly
43:1343 minutes, 13 secondsum to their notion of u end time, their notion of history, if we want to call it
43:2043 minutes, 20 secondshistory, but it's also tied to their mythic version of America, of a white patriarchal America
43:3043 minutes, 30 secondsuh of uh battling against the subhuman elements
43:3743 minutes, 37 secondsuh and of course the Ashkanazi European in elite like Netanyahu. His family comes from Poland.
43:4543 minutes, 45 secondsNetanyahu was raised in Philadelphia and went to MIT that uh that also correlates with the very demented vision of Christian Zionism. Well, in fact,
43:5543 minutes, 55 secondsthere's a a a part as you're saying it and it's it's it's um identification with Israel did not mean identification
44:0244 minutes, 2 secondswith actual Jews. However, either in America or Israel,
44:0744 minutes, 7 secondswarned that Jews as a group have often yielded to secularistic, even atheistic spirit. Brilliant minds have all too frequently been dedicated to
44:1544 minutes, 15 secondsphilosophies harmful. Once Jews have been restored to Zion, they would have a second chance to redeem themselves from the sin of choosing Jesus. But then she
44:2444 minutes, 24 secondssays, and this is the part that I think you're pointing at, just as Israel enabled God to fulfill his promise to the Jews, so could America become the
44:3344 minutes, 33 secondspromised land for Christians. And this is a quote from Jimmy Swagger. America is tied by a spiritual umbilical cord to
44:4044 minutes, 40 secondsIsrael. He writes, "The Judeo-Christian concept goes all the way back to Abraham and God's promise to Abraham. The Jewish
44:4744 minutes, 47 secondspeople represent Judaism. The American people represent Christianity." Swagger viewed the American people as white
44:5444 minutes, 54 secondsevangelical Christians while Israel alone represented Jews and Judaism. I mean there's there's the the link that you're that you're talking about just
45:0245 minutes, 2 secondsbecause because as she points out America is not in the Bible. I mean there is no direct uh right uh biblical
45:1045 minutes, 10 secondspassage that can be used to call Americans the chosen people. Uh and so that identification
45:2045 minutes, 20 secondswith Israel becomes a way to essentially uh bridge that gap. Yeah. Uh I I just
Chapter 12: False equivalence
45:2945 minutes, 29 secondswant to end with she does she does a masterful job of taking down Thomas Freriedman. I find great joy in this.
45:3945 minutes, 39 secondsYes. I I actually loved that part. and Shipler's books, uh, Shipller's book,
45:4645 minutes, 46 secondsArab Jew, uh, Freriedman's book, uh,
45:4945 minutes, 49 secondsfrom Beirut to Jerusalem, and she she calls them out for the false narrative
45:5745 minutes, 57 secondsof equivalence. Um, I'm just going to read this paragraph. This narrative of equivalence relies on potent analogies
46:0446 minutes, 4 secondswith America that kept Palestinians from capturing the moral high ground in the battle for representation. At the beginning of the uprising, when the
46:1246 minutes, 12 secondsIsraeli army, this is the inifat, when the Israeli army faced criticism for firing live ammunition at protesters, I
46:2046 minutes, 20 secondswas there. Freriedman instructed television viewers on how to view the violence. They were not watching the equivalent of Birmingham in 1960 or
46:2846 minutes, 28 secondsBerkeley in 1968, he wrote, but the equivalent of Bull Run in 1861.
46:3746 minutes, 37 secondsUm uh yeah, it would no more occur to them, quote, to use rubber bullets against the Palestinians than it would
46:4546 minutes, 45 secondshave occurred to the North to use rubber bullets against the South in the Civil War. The civil rights analogy compares
46:5246 minutes, 52 secondsPalestinians to black Americans fighting for equal rights against violent police powers.
46:5846 minutes, 58 secondsThe civil war analogy in contrast conveys the impression of two matched military forces capable of doing equal
47:0647 minutes, 6 secondsharm to each other. That's really really important. Uh and Shipler does it,
47:1147 minutes, 11 secondsFreriedman does it. Just about even our most of our liber quote unquote liberal commentators on Israel Palestine.
47:1847 minutes, 18 secondsFreriedman's no friend of Netanyahu of course do it. Um and and she just um she's not buying it. And let let's just
47:2647 minutes, 26 secondsclose by talking about that false equivalency. Well, and she says in in that section that you were reading, she ends by saying the civil war analogy
47:3547 minutes, 35 secondsconveys the impression of two matched military forces capable of doing equal harm to each other, which is still how
47:4247 minutes, 42 secondsthe u the the well which is now how the Gaza war is presented. It's as if Hamas
47:4847 minutes, 48 secondsand Israel were uh the same or or the the the Palestinian resistance to
47:5447 minutes, 54 secondsIsraeli u occupation and domination were um it was is the north versus the south
48:0248 minutes, 2 secondsthat you know on the one hand you have a a nuclear armed military giant against a
48:0948 minutes, 9 secondsa Palestinian resistance that is um nowhere near uh has nowhere near the force or the well they're just they're
48:1648 minutes, 16 secondsjust insert They're just uh an asymmetrical insurgents with small arms.
48:2148 minutes, 21 secondsExactly. The other thing she points out is how they the the use the way these writers like Freriedman will justify
48:3048 minutes, 30 secondsIsraeli atrocities is they will always search out David Hartman. Rabbi David Hartman used to be the figure they'd all he was quoted every week in the New York
48:3848 minutes, 38 secondsTimes about their angst about we you know we wish we didn't have to shoot them kind of thing. Yeah. Well, he says
48:4648 minutes, 46 secondsagain in that he recognizes, this is Freriedman, the brutal ra the brutal record of Israeli rage in the x-rays,
48:5348 minutes, 53 secondshundreds of Palestinians who had their arms or legs or ribs broken by Israeli soldiers. Yet he wants his readers to understand, quote, the real fear behind
49:0149 minutes, 1 secondthe Israeli clubs, the fear of never feeling truly at a home at home in a land claimed by others, the land that they have taken from. Yeah. The others.
49:1149 minutes, 11 secondsSo just she also writes by seeking symmetry in the human equivalence of two sides unstructured by political power relations. That's key. Yes. Absolutely.
49:2249 minutes, 22 secondsLiberals like Shipler and Freriedman implicitly rejected the perspective Edward say called Zionism from the standpoint of its
49:3049 minutes, 30 secondsvictims. Instead they expanded the Zionist standpoint to incorporate Palestinian perspective perspectives.
49:3849 minutes, 38 secondsBut these perspectives were dependent on Israeli identified narratives and that is never unfortunately changed. Yeah.
49:4549 minutes, 45 secondsYeah. So it's a book for for now. It's it's just No, it's a very smart book and as I said it's well written. I didn't
49:5449 minutes, 54 secondsmean to dump on all academics when we were together. I know some academics make an effort. I wish more did but uh
50:0050 minutesbut it is it's it's really smart, really lucid. I really enjoyed it. I've read so many books on the Middle East and this I
50:0850 minutes, 8 secondsfound it refreshing uh because there was just a lot in here that made me think. Uh and I I'm not
50:1550 minutes, 15 secondssure I'd ever read I don't think I've ever read a book that approached the conflict as a part of cultural studies which was really really smart. Yeah.
50:2550 minutes, 25 secondsYeah. Well, you know, the nice thing about that is that you could say that our books live on after we after we don't we we we don't. and and this is a
50:3450 minutes, 34 secondscase it's a real tribute to to Amy Kaplan that she has given us something that we can still use even though she's not here anymore to to talk about this.
50:4250 minutes, 42 secondsNo, it's it's a really a really good book. Um thank you Joan. We're talking about our American
Chapter 13: Outro
50:5050 minutes, 50 secondsIsrael by Amy Kaplan. I want to thank Diego Thomas, Sophia, and Max who produce the show. You can find me at chrisedges.substack.com.
51:0151 minutes, 1 second[Music]
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