Slavoj Žižek, Radical from Berlin, Babylon Exile
Talk · Udi Aloni ·
2025-09-18 · 1:47:36 · 14,002 words
geopolitics-warrace-antisemitismideologycinema-art-culturehistoryfascism-populismcapitalismdemocracyrevolution-violence
Žižek analyzes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, arguing that Western liberal sympathy for Palestinians functions as a 'Libestod', a comforting illusion that allows Israel to proceed with destruction while remaining alone. He traces the historical link between Zionism and anti-Semitism, citing the Balfour Declaration and the 'Judeo-fascism' of current Israeli leadership, and presents clips of Israeli rabbis teaching biological racism and torture as evidence of the state's underlying ideological premises. Žižek argues that Western European governments are complicit in Israeli actions through arms sales and diplomatic silence, framing this as a form of 'soft fascism' or 'techno-feudalism' that prioritizes economic stability over human rights. He critiques the Left for its historical laziness regarding colonialism and its current failure to address the intersection of class, race, and anti-Semitism, while highlighting the moral bankruptcy of authoritarian regimes in the Global South that align with Putin and China. The excerpt concludes with a call for a renewed, radical political struggle that transcends identity politics and corporate co-optation.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 16
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
A staging of Wagner’s Tristan where Isolde’s song is revealed as a dying hallucination; used as a metaphor for the Western liberal 'hopeful dream' for Palestinians that masks their ultimate abandonment and destruction.
A reference to Tacitus’s 'they make a desolation and they call it peace,' describing a peace imposed through the total destruction of the enemy (Gaza) rather than mutual recognition.
as “Stain on the Zionist project”
The inherent contradiction where the supporters of Israel (anti-Semites) and the Zionists themselves share a logic of separation and racial hierarchy, from Balfour to current racism.
A term used by Einstein, Arendt, and Hook to describe the organizational and philosophical similarities between the Zionist Freedom Party (Likud) and Nazi/fascist parties, now embodied by current Israeli ministers.
The historical and ideological link where Zionist founders and supporters adopted anti-Semitic tropes (separation, racial hierarchy) to justify the creation of a Jewish state, viewing Jews as a 'wall against Asia'.
A derogatory Israeli term for the elite/purest Palestinians, used in the transcript to justify torture ('if he is Nukhba everything is legitimate'), illustrating the dehumanization central to the occupation.
as “ethnic cleansing works with clearly delimited borders”
The cynical, pragmatic justification offered by European officials for supporting Israel, accepting ethnic homogeneity as a 'sad fact' of geopolitical reality.
The ideological operation by German chancellors to silence progressive Jewish voices by labeling them as fascists, thereby killing the spirit of German Jewish philosophy.
A form of fascism characterized not by ultra-aggressive violence but by conservative modernization: maintaining economic dynamic development and free markets while enforcing strong state control and traditional social ideology.
The core operation of fascism: seeking economic dynamic development and capitalism without its social implications (liberalism/decay), controlled by a strong state and traditional ideology.
as “libertarian fascism”
The specific fascist tendency observed in the United States, contrasting with the 'soft fascism' of Europe and Asia, characterized by deregulation and corporate power.
The current economic system, attributed to Varoufakis, where mega-corporations exert feudal-like control, creating a paradox where populist figures like Trump align with high-tech corporate interests.
as “leftist Trumpians”
Ironically named figures like Steve Bannon who, despite appearing to oppose the establishment, serve the brutal dispossession and corporate interests that define the current regime.
The Putin-type alignment of regimes like Burkina Faso, Russia, and China, which are anti-Western but also authoritarian, criminalizing homosexuality and supporting the Taliban.
A maxim from Alain Badiou cited by Žižek, meaning revolution cannot be predicted by statistics or deterministic processes, but requires correct action and hope in miracles.
The co-optation of feminist movements by corporate interests, serving as the ultimate defense of the existing regime against true radical political movements.
Stories he reaches for 2
Žižek retells a story where a Native American rejects the term 'Native American' as colonial, preferring 'Indian' because it is a monument to the white man's stupidity for thinking they were in India.
“I much prefer to be called Indian because then at least my name is a monument to white man's stupidity”
Žižek discusses black Marxist poet Amiri Baraka, whose film was blocked in America under the guise of being 'anti-Semitic,' illustrating how anti-Semitism is used to silence progressive Jewish and leftist voices.
“they told us no he's anti-Semitic and the way they use anti-Semitism to silence everyone it's so scary”
Works invoked 8
Tristan und Isolde opera
Wagner’s opera, specifically the Ponnelle staging, used as a central metaphor for the 'Libestod', the illusion of love/support that masks abandonment.
No Other Land film
Film by Yuval Abraham (referred to as 'our friend Yuval') that won an Oscar; used to illustrate how Microsoft holds Palestinian data in the cloud.
Der Judenstaat book
Herzl’s founding text of Zionism, quoted to show the early anti-Semitic/racist logic of 'building a wall against Asia.'
Why Is We American film
Žižek's own film, featuring Lauryn Hill and discussing the family of Amiri Baraka; screened at the Babylon Exile event.
Babylon Exile other
A series of discussions starting in Berlin, using Babylon as a concept for exile and discussion.
Die Welt journal
German newspaper where Žižek wrote an article about Wang Huning and China.
The Freedom Theatre other
Theater in Jenin refugee camp where Žižek worked with Juliano Mer-Khamis.
The Gatekeepers film
Film showing retired Israeli security chiefs suddenly wanting peace; Žižek critiques it for ignoring the high-tech elites in Tel Aviv who fund the war machine.
People invoked 46
Bezalel Smotrich negative
Israeli minister cited as supporting the transfer of funds to Gaza to maintain separation and prevent a Palestinian state.
Daniel Barenboim positive
Mentioned in honor of; Žižek references a staging of Tristan directed by Ponnelle, implying a shared cultural/political space with Barenboim.
Giora Redler negative
Rabbi who argues Hitler’s logic was 'correct' and that the 'Holocaust' is the loss of belief in 'man' (humanism).
Juliano Mer-Khamis positive
Žižek's dearest friend, assassinated in Jenin refugee camp; worked with Žižek at The Freedom Theatre.
Mahmoud Mamdani positive
Scholar whose work Žižek references in the context of left politics in Europe.
Seyla Benhabib positive
Scholar quoted to point out that current Israeli government members are 'legataries of a long line of Judeo-fascism.'
Carlo Rovelli positive
Physicist with whom Žižek debated; mentioned in the context of a joke about temporal retroactivity.
Kurdish woman killed by Iranian authorities, whose death led to tensions that the regime allegedly used to mobilize people and stay in power.
Ibrahim Traoré negative
New boss of Burkina Faso, described as having a 'Putin type anti-Western orientation' that criminalizes homosexuality and aligns with authoritarian regimes.
Ayman Odeh positive
Leader of Palestinian citizens of Israel, described as moderate, pragmatic, courageous, and a leader of progressive Jews; invited to speak at the Babylon Exile event.
Itamar Ben-Gvir negative
Security minister who demanded 'hands off our reservists' despite their torture of prisoners.
Ephraim Halevy positive
Ex-chief of Mossad, quoted as saying Jews and Palestinians are 'doomed to live together' and cannot have one part with the upper hand.
Menachem Begin negative
Founder of the Likud party, described as part of the 'long line of Judeo-fascism.'
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle positive
Director of the Ponnelle staging of Tristan, which Žižek uses as a key example of narrative reversal.
Gideon Levy positive
Journalist quoted to argue that recognizing Palestine is a 'gift to Israel' that rewards its genocidal activity.
Richard Wagner positive
Žižek calls himself a 'Wagnerian fanatic' and uses Tristan und Isolde as a central theoretical model, despite acknowledging Wagner was a 'dirty racist person'.
Sara Ahmed positive
Writer of amazing books offering different perspectives on feminism and political correctness.
Steve Bannon negative
Described as a 'leftist Trumpian' who is 'brutal' and wants to dispossess corporations, representing the dark side of Trump's populism.
Arthur Balfour negative
Author of the Balfour Declaration; Žižek highlights the contradiction that the same man who supported a Jewish home in Palestine also presided over the Aliens Act limiting Jewish entry into Britain.
Eli Cohen negative
Israeli energy minister who justified the torture of Palestinian prisoners.
Mahmoud Darwish positive
Poet who introduced Žižek to Amiri Baraka.
Boss of the Wagner Group, a Nazi admirer of Hitler who named the group after Wagner because Wagner was Hitler's preferred composer.
Lauryn Hill positive
Featured in Žižek's film 'Why Is We American'; mentioned in the context of the film's screening.
Tacitus positive
Ancient Roman historian quoted ('they make a desolation and they call it peace') to describe the peace imposed by Trump and Netanyahu.
Eliezer Kashtiel negative
Rabbi teaching that Arabs have a 'genetic problem' and want to be slaves to Jews, representing the biological racism of the Eli Academy.
Rafi Peretz negative
Education minister candidate, allowed to speak to students of the racist yeshiva.
Charlie Kirk negative
A conservative figure whom Žižek opposes but quotes to support his argument that Netanyahu allowed the Hamas attack.
Alain Badiou positive
Philosopher who wrote to Žižek during his depression in Jenin, telling him 'the revolution is always a surprise never a result.'
Amiri Baraka positive
Black Marxist poet, described as 'maybe the best one'; his work was silenced in America under the guise of anti-Semitism, which Žižek uses to critique the weaponization of anti-Semitism.
Bernie Sanders positive
American left figure who wisely stated that the Democratic Party should target poor white people seduced by Trump, rather than the middle class.
Yanis Varoufakis positive
Economist who coined the term 'techno-feudalism,' which Žižek uses to describe the current economic paradox.
Benjamin Netanyahu negative
Described as potentially provoking war with Israel and the US to save himself from prison.
Theodor Herzl negative
Founder of Zionism, quoted as viewing Palestine as a 'wall against Asia' and 'ramparts against barbarism.'
Anders Behring Breivik negative
Norwegian mass murderer who was anti-Semitic but pro-Israel, seeing Israel as a defense against Muslim expansion.
Ami Ayalon positive
Former leader of Shin Bet, quoted as saying 'we Israelis will have security only when they Palestinians will have hope.'
Friedrich Merz negative
Cited as German Chancellor (or candidate) who stated Israel does the 'dirty work' for Europe, revealing the hypocrisy of European governments.
Hannah Arendt positive
Co-signer of the open letter denouncing the Zionist Freedom Party.
Reinhard Heydrich negative
Mastermind of the Shoah, quoted as supporting Zionism because it helped build a Jewish state, illustrating 'Zionist anti-Semitism.'
Olaf Scholz negative
German Chancellor, described as 'true anti-Semitic' for supporting the creation of the Jew as a fascist and silencing progressive Jewish voices.
Wang Huning positive
Member of China's Politburo, author of a book on how to achieve economic dynamic development with social decay (neo-conservative/fascist solution); recommended by Žižek for understanding China.
Eli Sadan negative
Head of Bnei David institutions, associated with the racist teachings of the yeshiva.
Claudia Roth negative
German politician who met with Žižek but clapped only for Jews and not Palestinians, symbolizing the moral bankruptcy of German political parties.
Vladimir Putin negative
Described as the first foreign country to recognize the Taliban, claiming their 'progressive anti-imperialist powers,' representing the 'Putin type' of authoritarianism.
John Locke negative
British Enlightenment figure who provided a 'Marxist sounding justification' for the annihilation of Native Americans by prioritizing the exploitation of natural resources.
Albert Einstein positive
Co-signer of an open letter denouncing the Zionist Freedom Party as akin to Nazi/fascist parties.
Sidney Hook positive
Co-signer of the open letter denouncing the Zionist Freedom Party.
Transcript 89 turns
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Usually I don't write what I'm speaking but I speak what I feel but I think we are in difficult times and I'm afraid I might not say things that has to be said here in Germany so I choose to write and to read I'm a bit dyslexic so I printed it very big so I hope that I'll be
Usually I don't write what I'm speaking but I speak what I feel but I think we are in difficult times and I'm afraid I might not say things that has to be said here in Germany so I choose to write and to read I'm a bit dyslexic so I printed it very big so I hope that I'll be
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able to deliver what I feel but it's not easy in these times to do events so I will start and thank you all for being here and thank you Slavoj when I thought about how to open an event in such a dark moment in humanity I asked myself what can I possibly say and here I am introducing a friend a comrade my teacher our trickster the philosopher Slavoj Žižek and there are so many question I would like to ask him about Lacan about Hegel even about the obscene jokes he tell us times and again but my heart didn't go there my heart is beating all the time and hear and shouting Gaza Gaza Gaza Gaza is burning Gaza is burning right now and the government of the West remain silent the Palestinian people are being slaughtered live on screen and life goes on as usual or almost usual that maybe it's a bit different but it is kind of the same so I didn't know how to open this discussion because I think it is important also to go to the base and to enjoy when we have people that I believe have wisdom and have something to share with
able to deliver what I feel but it's not easy in these times to do events so I will start and thank you all for being here and thank you Slavoj when I thought about how to open an event in such a dark moment in humanity I asked myself what can I possibly say and here I am introducing a friend a comrade my teacher our trickster the philosopher Slavoj Žižek and there are so many question I would like to ask him about Lacan about Hegel even about the obscene jokes he tell us times and again but my heart didn't go there my heart is beating all the time and hear and shouting Gaza Gaza Gaza Gaza is burning Gaza is burning right now and the government of the West remain silent the Palestinian people are being slaughtered live on screen and life goes on as usual or almost usual that maybe it's a bit different but it is kind of the same so I didn't know how to open this discussion because I think it is important also to go to the base and to enjoy when we have people that I believe have wisdom and have something to share with
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us so I chose to start with the first book of Plato's Republic I thought if Žižek is the last philosopher in a way and if Germany is maybe the last Republic of the West then perhaps it makes sense to start with the Republic or Benjamin taught us that if we go to the beginning we might do maybe not redemption but a Tikkun a repair so I went to the Republic and what did I find there Thrasymachus bursting into the dialogue with two simple brutal statements that still haunt us till this day first he said justice is whatever the strong
us so I chose to start with the first book of Plato's Republic I thought if Žižek is the last philosopher in a way and if Germany is maybe the last Republic of the West then perhaps it makes sense to start with the Republic or Benjamin taught us that if we go to the beginning we might do maybe not redemption but a Tikkun a repair so I went to the Republic and what did I find there Thrasymachus bursting into the dialogue with two simple brutal statements that still haunt us till this day first he said justice is whatever the strong
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say it justice justice is whatever power dares to call
say it justice justice is whatever power dares to call
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justice and second when Socrates tried to prove that justice is universal that it has no connection to power Thrasymachus replied but my dear Socrates how will you convince us if we refuse to listen how you can convince us if we insist to refuse to listen and here we are today with the same two statements that coming against us for years we thought to unmask the West we showed how liberal democracy is fake with only a mask to promote endless exploitation we showed how Zionism wore the mask of emancipation while in truth it was and mostly it is now settler colonialism but now the masks are gone we revealed the face of the monster we succeed and yet the people fall in love with the monster power no longer need justification we don't have to hide behind liberal democracy in order to do exploitation we don't need the mask of Zionism in order to create a genocide power is function for itself with its all might and if you speak truth to power you are cast outside the law silenced imprisoned maybe even killed and even worse they can shut down your TV program this is the world as it stands unapologetic merciless capricious and the more carefully we craft our arguments the more they refuse to hear us and here I'm standing in Berlin and I ask how can Germany justify being complicit in genocide when its
justice and second when Socrates tried to prove that justice is universal that it has no connection to power Thrasymachus replied but my dear Socrates how will you convince us if we refuse to listen how you can convince us if we insist to refuse to listen and here we are today with the same two statements that coming against us for years we thought to unmask the West we showed how liberal democracy is fake with only a mask to promote endless exploitation we showed how Zionism wore the mask of emancipation while in truth it was and mostly it is now settler colonialism but now the masks are gone we revealed the face of the monster we succeed and yet the people fall in love with the monster power no longer need justification we don't have to hide behind liberal democracy in order to do exploitation we don't need the mask of Zionism in order to create a genocide power is function for itself with its all might and if you speak truth to power you are cast outside the law silenced imprisoned maybe even killed and even worse they can shut down your TV program this is the world as it stands unapologetic merciless capricious and the more carefully we craft our arguments the more they refuse to hear us and here I'm standing in Berlin and I ask how can Germany justify being complicit in genocide when its
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entire new mythology was built on the word never again and when they said never again all I hear all the time is always again always again like the ribbons from Allan Poe that said nevermore I hear always more always more and nobody stop like Slavoj just showed me that the Chancellor was crying on the victims of the Holocaust with tears years ago don't cry on my grandparents that you murdered and be indifferent or support a murder that happened right now in front of our eyes so then I look back at the land I came from at the language I love so deeply and I see the language is giving orders of death orders of genocide are given in Hebrew and I miss the Yiddish I miss the Yiddish I never knew but why do I had to deal with my identity at all my Jewish identity now it's built from words like exile and anti-Semitism Zionism genocide once genocide in past tense in the past now genocide in active when Israeli Jewish soldier are committing it so why why not to flee like Jonah running away from the call of the father why why not sail in the ocean of universality let's be honest to resist genocide in Gaza one doesn't need to be Palestinian nor Jewish one only needs to be a human in order to resist the genocide in Gaza we have to be human to resist the genocide in Gaza we don't have to be radical or Marxist or anything else we can be just a petit-bourgeois in a suburb of Berlin to said no to genocide I thought on Saint Paul that said no man or woman no slave nor master no Jew nor Greek we all one in the voice against genocide I thought also on Shakespeare when he said a rose by any other names would smell as sweet to said why do I need my identity and yet a paragraph of Gertrude Stein hit me and I thought yet a Jew is a Jew is a Jew when I stand here on German soil seeing the names of Jews engraved in the stones behind my feet knowing that most of my family was murdered by the Germans on the altar of racial supremacy and here it was the Aryan supremacy and there it's white supremacy and back home it's Jewish supremacy and I choose to stand here as a Jew demanding of you to interfere to help save our Palestinian brothers and sisters because if once the name of the Jew was the name of universality now it is the name Palestine Palestine is stand for universality and this is why I'm wearing it because the only way I can perform my Jewishness is with full solidarity with Palestine I remember when I was living there I heard kind of Derrida voice whispering even when you in Jerusalem you long toward Jerusalem you know always the Messiah to come and now having chosen exile I am still longing for exile not exiled enough yet therefore I look back at what I used to call home and like Lot's wife you know the story of Lot's wife that she look back to Sodom and Gomorrah and became a pillar of of salt that's how I look back at my home and what I see is Sodom and Gomorrah built by Zionism between the river and the sea I see the Nakba of I see the genocide of and I know both of them are the Nakba of the Palestinian people both of them staring straight into my eyes and here I stand frozen turning like Lot's wife into a pillar
entire new mythology was built on the word never again and when they said never again all I hear all the time is always again always again like the ribbons from Allan Poe that said nevermore I hear always more always more and nobody stop like Slavoj just showed me that the Chancellor was crying on the victims of the Holocaust with tears years ago don't cry on my grandparents that you murdered and be indifferent or support a murder that happened right now in front of our eyes so then I look back at the land I came from at the language I love so deeply and I see the language is giving orders of death orders of genocide are given in Hebrew and I miss the Yiddish I miss the Yiddish I never knew but why do I had to deal with my identity at all my Jewish identity now it's built from words like exile and anti-Semitism Zionism genocide once genocide in past tense in the past now genocide in active when Israeli Jewish soldier are committing it so why why not to flee like Jonah running away from the call of the father why why not sail in the ocean of universality let's be honest to resist genocide in Gaza one doesn't need to be Palestinian nor Jewish one only needs to be a human in order to resist the genocide in Gaza we have to be human to resist the genocide in Gaza we don't have to be radical or Marxist or anything else we can be just a petit-bourgeois in a suburb of Berlin to said no to genocide I thought on Saint Paul that said no man or woman no slave nor master no Jew nor Greek we all one in the voice against genocide I thought also on Shakespeare when he said a rose by any other names would smell as sweet to said why do I need my identity and yet a paragraph of Gertrude Stein hit me and I thought yet a Jew is a Jew is a Jew when I stand here on German soil seeing the names of Jews engraved in the stones behind my feet knowing that most of my family was murdered by the Germans on the altar of racial supremacy and here it was the Aryan supremacy and there it's white supremacy and back home it's Jewish supremacy and I choose to stand here as a Jew demanding of you to interfere to help save our Palestinian brothers and sisters because if once the name of the Jew was the name of universality now it is the name Palestine Palestine is stand for universality and this is why I'm wearing it because the only way I can perform my Jewishness is with full solidarity with Palestine I remember when I was living there I heard kind of Derrida voice whispering even when you in Jerusalem you long toward Jerusalem you know always the Messiah to come and now having chosen exile I am still longing for exile not exiled enough yet therefore I look back at what I used to call home and like Lot's wife you know the story of Lot's wife that she look back to Sodom and Gomorrah and became a pillar of of salt that's how I look back at my home and what I see is Sodom and Gomorrah built by Zionism between the river and the sea I see the Nakba of I see the genocide of and I know both of them are the Nakba of the Palestinian people both of them staring straight into my eyes and here I stand frozen turning like Lot's wife into a pillar
unknown
of salt looking in despair to my friend here Žižek and I ask him Quo Vadimus where the hell are we going how do we stop this eruption of global evil for here Hannah Arendt's banality of evil is no longer enough because power now celebrates itself before before they used to said we didn't know now nobody in Tel Aviv or in Berlin or in New York cannot said or Washington said we didn't know we see it every day we know and we see people celebrating the evil we see how Israeli showing themselves the things that the Nazis tried to hide when they did it and it's hard because I came from there and it's hard because Hebrew is my only language and like that because power now celebrate itself in a carnivalesque way in jouissance of evil itself maybe I thought like the obscene spectacle that Pasolini expose in Salò if you remember it the perversion celebration of domination and we see it everywhere in all the Trump energy around the the increase of celebration of the right wing here and celebration of perversion so perhaps my question to the last philosopher is that can we still imagine a world beyond both the banality of evil and the obscene jouissance of power thank you and free Palestine my answer to his last question no we cannot imagine it and it's good that we cannot imagine it because today this imagining a different future is the ultimate trap I think I saw recently a movie about German resistance against Hitler where an English compromise guy said but we must negotiate we must keep the hope alive and a German very progressive German fighting against the fascist says no hope is for those who are hoping waiting for another guy to do their work lose hope and start doing it so let me begin with a wisdom of you may find this funny of Otto von Bismarck whom I appreciate very much he said stupidity is a gift from God but it should not be abused I totally agree I clearly remember how I abused it in a curious incident which happened to me a couple of decades ago I was sitting at a table with a friend of mine who boasted that he is really good at telling the future from inspecting the curves on a palm I laughed at his boasting and couldn't decide if he is just lying or if he sincerely believes in his supernatural ability he interrupted my laughter with an offer why don't you let me inspect your palm and tell you your future I vociferously objected to it absolutely no I don't believe in such nonsense but my friend instantly fired back with a quite logical reply if you know it's nonsense why then do you resist so forcefully to do it what are you afraid of I forgot or more probably repressed my reaction I just remember I didn't allow my friend to do it the underlying structure is of course that of disavowal Verleugnung I know very well that it is all nonsense but I still don't want to take the risk and test it however it is here used the structure of disavowal in a with a slightly different spin something like I believe it but I don't want it empirically tested and proven or disproven for example the true problem of the Turin Shroud with the alleged photographic imprint of Christ resides in the potentially catastrophic consequences for the church itself if the tests will indicate that the shroud is authentic from Christ's time and place why because if the shroud is authentic then there are traces of
of salt looking in despair to my friend here Žižek and I ask him Quo Vadimus where the hell are we going how do we stop this eruption of global evil for here Hannah Arendt's banality of evil is no longer enough because power now celebrates itself before before they used to said we didn't know now nobody in Tel Aviv or in Berlin or in New York cannot said or Washington said we didn't know we see it every day we know and we see people celebrating the evil we see how Israeli showing themselves the things that the Nazis tried to hide when they did it and it's hard because I came from there and it's hard because Hebrew is my only language and like that because power now celebrate itself in a carnivalesque way in jouissance of evil itself maybe I thought like the obscene spectacle that Pasolini expose in Salò if you remember it the perversion celebration of domination and we see it everywhere in all the Trump energy around the the increase of celebration of the right wing here and celebration of perversion so perhaps my question to the last philosopher is that can we still imagine a world beyond both the banality of evil and the obscene jouissance of power thank you and free Palestine my answer to his last question no we cannot imagine it and it's good that we cannot imagine it because today this imagining a different future is the ultimate trap I think I saw recently a movie about German resistance against Hitler where an English compromise guy said but we must negotiate we must keep the hope alive and a German very progressive German fighting against the fascist says no hope is for those who are hoping waiting for another guy to do their work lose hope and start doing it so let me begin with a wisdom of you may find this funny of Otto von Bismarck whom I appreciate very much he said stupidity is a gift from God but it should not be abused I totally agree I clearly remember how I abused it in a curious incident which happened to me a couple of decades ago I was sitting at a table with a friend of mine who boasted that he is really good at telling the future from inspecting the curves on a palm I laughed at his boasting and couldn't decide if he is just lying or if he sincerely believes in his supernatural ability he interrupted my laughter with an offer why don't you let me inspect your palm and tell you your future I vociferously objected to it absolutely no I don't believe in such nonsense but my friend instantly fired back with a quite logical reply if you know it's nonsense why then do you resist so forcefully to do it what are you afraid of I forgot or more probably repressed my reaction I just remember I didn't allow my friend to do it the underlying structure is of course that of disavowal Verleugnung I know very well that it is all nonsense but I still don't want to take the risk and test it however it is here used the structure of disavowal in a with a slightly different spin something like I believe it but I don't want it empirically tested and proven or disproven for example the true problem of the Turin Shroud with the alleged photographic imprint of Christ resides in the potentially catastrophic consequences for the church itself if the tests will indicate that the shroud is authentic from Christ's time and place why because if the shroud is authentic then there are traces of
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Christ's blood on it and some biochemists are already working on its DNA so what will this DNA say about Christ's father not to mention the prospect of cloning Christ Kierkegaard knew this very well when he emphasized that an authentic Christian believer does not try to demonstrate the factual truth of his her their its belief making a belief dependent on empirical proof is in itself a negation of belief in today's politics and the ideology that grounds it we find all too often a similar logic when Israel as they say the only democracy in the Middle East justifies its measures in religious fundamentalist terms God gave us full right over the entire Great Israel we are dealing here neither with an actual belief nor with a mere cynical manipulation their belief say that Palestinians are direct successors of the biblical Amaleks is quite literally beyond factual truth not even to mention Trump as well as his spiritual colleague Putin who are regularly doing the same as Bismarck would have put it they all serially abuse their stupidity especially when they think they are acting in a cunning way so what would a proper use of stupidity be to remain faithful to one's just cause even when a pragmatic realist view tells you that your situation is hopeless I think Palestinians in Gaza are stupid to insist to persist to stay there in this basic sense there is something stupid in every serious decision you ignore the complexity of a situation and reduce it to a simple choice yes or no so let me follow the stupidities of what goes on in
Christ's blood on it and some biochemists are already working on its DNA so what will this DNA say about Christ's father not to mention the prospect of cloning Christ Kierkegaard knew this very well when he emphasized that an authentic Christian believer does not try to demonstrate the factual truth of his her their its belief making a belief dependent on empirical proof is in itself a negation of belief in today's politics and the ideology that grounds it we find all too often a similar logic when Israel as they say the only democracy in the Middle East justifies its measures in religious fundamentalist terms God gave us full right over the entire Great Israel we are dealing here neither with an actual belief nor with a mere cynical manipulation their belief say that Palestinians are direct successors of the biblical Amaleks is quite literally beyond factual truth not even to mention Trump as well as his spiritual colleague Putin who are regularly doing the same as Bismarck would have put it they all serially abuse their stupidity especially when they think they are acting in a cunning way so what would a proper use of stupidity be to remain faithful to one's just cause even when a pragmatic realist view tells you that your situation is hopeless I think Palestinians in Gaza are stupid to insist to persist to stay there in this basic sense there is something stupid in every serious decision you ignore the complexity of a situation and reduce it to a simple choice yes or no so let me follow the stupidities of what goes on in
Slavoj Žižek
the Middle East more in detail I will focus on the immanent antagonisms of the Israeli ideology and practice although I am well aware that this can also be read in a racist way as if Palestinians are just objects and the key process is taking place in the inner struggle of the Jews so let me begin by it came to me spontaneously a reaction to so-called Libestod on piano that we just heard from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde I am a Wagnerian fanatic yes Wagner was an incredibly dirty racist person but but you know that the first mystery and he was aware of it all almost all his heroes he says this are figures of a wandering Jew Fliegende Holländer is a wandering Jew Amfortas is a wandering Jew a person with a strange wound which prevents him to die so all their desire is to die in peace and the point I want to make here and this is now the proper part of my talk I am approaching is that again in the honor of Daniel Barenboim I want to mention a staging of Tristan in Bayreuth repeated directed staged by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle it's one of my shocking experiences you know what they did I hope you know the story in Act Three Isolde doesn't really come Tristan is dying desperate but he is not able to confront the void to die alone so he imagines as a vision we see her appearing behind him Isolde singing her Libestod all brightly brightly with underlight vividly presented and then when her singing ends the stage is for seconds in darkness when lights come again we see a totally different picture everything is darkness Tristan is there alone dead no Isolde she stayed happily with her husband it was just an adventure for her why am I mentioning this because I think maybe something similar I see a danger will happen is happening with the Palestinians in Gaza and on the West Bank they may be caught in the hopeful dream of there are Western liberals whoever who sympathize with them but at the end they will remain alone let's not allow this now a little bit of theory what Ponnelle did is he took a well-known story and turned it around the music is the same just the denouement at the end totally changes its meaning it's not really a Libestod it's a desperate vision that allows the hero to die in peace and this is what I like also in detective novels or movies when they end with multiple denouements you know first it's everything is explained you see who is a murderer and so on then we learn that the true murderer is another person who just painted planted some false evidence to cover his traces and put the blame on another suspect and so on I think that in today's politics we find numerous cases of a similar reversal let's let me again take now the case of Israel in the ongoing Middle East war the first story was that out of nowhere Hamas attacked an Israeli kibbutz near the Israeli border and a big raving event nearby killing hundreds and taking hostages and so on we know the story now we know that although the Hamas incursion is responsible for serious crimes the story is much more complex there are multiple indications that Israel not only knew about the attack in advance as we know it was informed by the Egyptian and American secret services as well as by its own spying apparatus what went on in Gaza was covered by all possible satellite and digital surveillance plus thousands of spies among the Israeli spies among the Palestinians on the top of it IDF moved a division protecting the area to the West Bank just two weeks before October 7th so Israel clearly wanted to use the attack as an excuse for a wider war before you accuse me here of paranoia let me quote a guy to whom I'm opposed but not Charlie Kirk you know the guy you know what he said he said on October 12th already in an interview he said that quote Mr. Netanyahu allowed Hamas to attack his own country as part of a desperate plan to remain in power plus it is proven that in the years before Israel was before Israel was amply financing Hamas through Qatar although it was aware of Hamas's military activity the idea was to keep the Palestinians in Gaza politically separated from the Palestinians on the West Bank and thus lessen the pressure on Israel to allow a two-states solution far right now minister Bezalel Smotrich said so himself back in and according to various reports Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state another clear point to me after the bombardment of Gaza began many critics of Israel missed the point when they claimed Israel is failing to achieve its goal to destroy Hamas they are just killing Palestinians and ruining Gaza now we hear the same rumor when Israel is making the final military offensive against Gaza but Hamas will find a way to escape I don't know how the at least the leading Hamas members it's only the Gazans that will be killed my interpretation here is very simple but that's what Israel wants objectively Hamas works for Israel in this sense it's used as an excuse for Israel and I know what will come after after Gaza they will say what they already said now Hamas is moving onto the West Bank to do the same and so on and so on the wave of recent announcements of some big Western European countries that they will soon recognize the Palestinian state is marked by a similar ambivalence I think it appears as a step in the right direction clearly limiting Israel's ambitions however at the same time there is a negation included in it it does what it does in order to avoid doing what really needs to be done in order to stop the genocidal activity of Israel as Gideon Levy put it succinctly the recognition of Palestine is a gift to Israel quote international recognition of a Palestinian state rewards Israel which should be thanking each and every country doing so since such recognition serves as a misleading alternative to what must actually be done imposing sanctions end of quote to put it brutally if we limit ourselves just to recognize Palestine there will soon be no Palestinian territory to be recognized as a state if there will be some kind of peace it will be the peace Trump and Netanyahu want to impose on Gaza by way of totally destroying it as Tacitus the ancient Roman poet put it years ago they make a desolation and they call it peace now I come to the crucial point the stain on the Zionist project the link between anti-Semites and Zionists was here from the very beginning problems with Israel didn't begin after the war in which Israel occupied the West Bank and not even in when the state of Israel was recognized by the United Nations the so-called Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in I think announcing its support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine but the same Balfour the protector of the Jews presided over the passage of the Aliens Act the main object of which was to limit the entry into Britain of Jews from Eastern Europe you know Russian Revolution and so on Jews from Russia were massively emigrating to I don't know how it's called not yet United Kingdom Great Britain okay and the worry was and this logic is present up to this day the logic was let's just keep the Jews out of here support them there move into Palestine just that we get rid of them here so it shouldn't surprise us that Germany the perpetrator of Shoah is the strongest supporter of Israel in Europe paradoxically the anti-Semitism of the supporters of Israel was supplemented by the fascist tendencies in Zionism itself in an oft-quoted passage Seyla Benhabib pointed out that the members of the present government of Israel are quote the legataries of a long line of Judeo-fascism which none other than Albert Einstein joined by Hannah Arendt and Sidney Hook denounced in their open letter to New York Times in they write among the most disturbing political phenomena of our time is the emergence in the newly created State of Israel of the Freedom Party a political party closely akin in its organization methods political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and fascist parties today the legataries of the party and movement Likud established by Menachem Begin are in power in Israel and they have brought upon Israel the worst disaster since Holocaust end of quote and the story goes on remember Anders Breivik the Norwegian anti-immigrant mass murderer he was anti-Semitic but pro-Israel since he saw in the State of Israel the first line of defense against the Muslim expansion he even wanted to see the Jerusalem temple rebuilt Theodor Herzl himself used a similar metaphor in his Der Judenstaat from the founding text of Zionism quote for Europe we will build there in Palestine a part of the wall against Asia we will provide ramparts against barbarism end of quote should we be really surprised to find the traces of this stance where in shock Reinhard Heydrich himself the mastermind of Shoah who wrote in quote Heydrich speaking we must separate the Jews into two categories the Zionists and the partisans of assimilation the Zionists profess a strictly racial concept and through emigration to Palestine they help to build their own Jewish state our good wishes and our official goodwill go with them end of quote Zionist anti-Semitism at its purest and clearest is this just a thing of the past and of European anti-Semites it's more complex please prepare first clip which really horrified me you will see a report from Israeli TV of what some rabbis rabbis teaching at the state-financed Eli Academy an elite school where many officers are educated what they are saying the first clip please because of the abolition of individual laws now vacancies have appeared because there is no there is no responsibility for this asset with God's help it will return and they will want the goy to be our slaves this is Rabbi Eliezer Kashtiel head of the Bnei David Yeshiva in Eli it's best to be a slave of a Jew they are happy to be slaves they want to be slaves this Yeshiva is intended for graduates of pre-military training the most recognized and prestigious in religious Zionism many of them arrive there after they finish military service instead of him just wandering the streets and doing stupidity and violence and harming one another now he is a slave his life starts to be organized according to Rabbi Kashtiel the masters are the Jews the slaves are the Arabs the division is not coincidental it is a biological matter genetic problems there are nations around us with genetic problems ask a simple Arab where do you want to be he wants to be under the occupation why because they have a genetic problem they don't know how to run a state they don't know how to do anything look at how they look and here is the entire Torah the theory of race of course there is racism what don't we know that there are different races in the world what is this secret and this what is not true it's true what to do in two days the people of Israel will mark Holocaust Day among other things the division of the Nazis into superior and inferior races and here in the Hebrew version yes we are racists we believe in racism right there are races in the world and there are genetic characteristics of nations and it requires from us to think how to help them there are differences between races and that's exactly the reason to offer help who is slave who is master I of the master I see that I reach achievements much more impressive than him the head of Bnei David institutions Rabbi Eli Sadan stands behind the attachment of Rabbi Rafi Peretz to the head of the Union of Right-Wing Parties currently the leading candidate for the position of education minister only Rabbi Peretz was allowed to say things in front of the students of the training before the elections Netanyahu and Bennett were refused the rabbis of Bnei David constitute the religious ethical and educational infrastructure of the person who is intended to lead our education system how do they see the Holocaust the Holocaust really it's not the killing of the Jew that's not the Holocaust all those excuses like it was ideological or systematic or how much it's nonsense it's because it stems from an ideology to a certain extent it's more moral than just people being murdered humanism all the all the secular culture it is we believe in man that's the Holocaust the Holocaust really is being pluralist as they say yes to believe in I believe in man that's called Holocaust this is Rabbi Giora Redler and this is his definition of the Holocaust for many years he already shouts that the exile is over but people don't listen to him and this is their disease that should be cured by the Holocaust pay attention to this amazing lesson under the title Relation to the Holocaust this is how he educates his students about the Nazis and about Hitler the logic of the Germans is correct relative to themselves Hitler says that a certain group in the population is the seed of calamity for all humanity because of it all humanity will go to perdition they are bad for humanity and therefore they should be destroyed this ideology doesn't sound illogical bad very much doesn't sound moral Moshe Rabbeinu was cruel and bad like Hitler no why not because there is one bad thing in the world and that's to be a hypocrite it matters to you if you are killed now with a knife or killed as they killed in the gas or you are killed in gas chambers sorry the students are shocked trying to contradict the rabbi and he continues with his own and let's start from the question if Hitler is right or not no no he is the most right person there is of course he is right in every word he says in his ideology he is right there is a manly world that fights which is concerned with respect which is concerned with the brotherhood of fighters and there is the womanish soft moral world that blah blah blah turning the other cheek and we think that the Jews they are the ones who carry this legacy trying in our words to corrupt all humanity and therefore they are the true enemy now he is right percent besides that the return to the side is correct these statements repeat themselves again and again in Bnei David lessons throughout the years not a slip of the tongue an organized agenda the heads of the Jewish Home Kahane Sadan and Peretz make use of the pre-military training to instill messianic values in the students the gravity in the matter stems from the fact that the Ministry of Education which is supposed to be responsible for the contents is in their hands it's possible that soon someone who identifies with the perceptions of the training and the yeshiva will be responsible for the education of the students of Israel so here we are now you will say such an extreme stance is explicitly advocated only by a tiny minority but you saw there Smotrich you saw there Netanyahu but I think it brings out the underlying premises that sustain what the State of Israel is now doing on the West Bank the implications of this stance were clearly visible in the late July of when a number of ministers and members of Knesset as well as journalists and TV commentators criticized a raid by the IDF military police on the Sde Teiman base in the south of Israel in which it arrested a number of reservists accused of abusing imprisoned Palestinians the second clip please this is really depressing I warn you something very sick and evil is happening in Israel's jails and almost nobody is talking about it Israel is running and let's be absolutely explicit a system of torture camps welcome to hell is not an exaggeration nine Israeli reservists sodomized by inserting metal objects up the anus of the prisoner and causing terrible internal injuries this is leaked CCTV video of what Israeli military police allege is a detainee being sodomized as he is hidden from the view of security cameras by riot shields they were arrested taken away to a detention center where there was an enormous outcry and there was actually an invasion of the detention center including politicians in support of the Israeli soldiers this madness that there is someone in the prosecutor's office who thinks that you can come and arrest soldiers for things that they do to Nukhba terrorists it hasn't ended we cannot continue as usual to insert a stick into a person's rectum is this legitimate shut up if he is Nukhba everything is legitimate to do to him okay everything in Israel the reaction is is it right to sodomize prisoners this conversation went on on breakfast television sort of their equivalent in Israel of GMTV they performed an offense and are suspected of an offense of rape of a double detainee that doesn't interest you basically again it interests me the anus of this Nukhba terrorist man I all the time remember first of all the only thing that from my point of view is a problem here is that this is not some sort of organized policy of the state to abuse the detainees because basically it's also coming to them and it's a great revenge that we want to give to them and second thing maybe it will also serve us a little bit as deterrence so you have Israeli TV pundits discussing the merits of allowing Palestinian prisoners to be raped many members of the cabinet are justifying it take the example of the Israeli energy minister Eli Cohen reservists who do holy work and guard the despicable Hamas Itamar Ben-Gvir who is the security minister went even further take your hands off our reservists like it is in the prison service so it is in the IDF our fighters deserve full support this tells you that something has gone wrong but it also tells you that something has gone wrong with us Udi meant when he said now it's in the open they proudly show this there is no moral embarrassment no denial and so on and so on can one even imagine what our reaction would have been if the same thing were to happen in Russia or in Gaza they were doing something like this to Jewish hostages the entire affair was downplayed almost ignored in our big Western media and this willful ignorance the very opposite of simply not knowing it rings more loudly than all cries and shouts the death knell of Western liberal democracy so hard are we to react to it ah now comes my favorite shocking detail one of the surprising voices of reason in Israel is Ephraim Halevy the ex-chief of Mossad who said days after September 11th attack quote we don't have the luxury to wait we have to have a viable policy which would deal with the presence in this area of the Jews and the Palestinians we are doomed to live together I don't want to say we are doomed to die together and if our approach is that we are doomed to live together we can't simply live together with one part of the equation having the upper hand and ignoring the aspirations of the other there has to be the beginning of a meeting of minds then Ami Ayalon a former leader of Shin Bet made this point even more succinctly quote we Israelis will have security only when they Palestinians will have hope this is the equation end of quote words for which you may lose your job in the free West what times do we live in when secret police tells truth public media don't dare to utter Israel as a whole is paying a heavy price for ignoring this lesson it competes with Trump on who will most brutally display raw and arbitrary power without any ethical
the Middle East more in detail I will focus on the immanent antagonisms of the Israeli ideology and practice although I am well aware that this can also be read in a racist way as if Palestinians are just objects and the key process is taking place in the inner struggle of the Jews so let me begin by it came to me spontaneously a reaction to so-called Libestod on piano that we just heard from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde I am a Wagnerian fanatic yes Wagner was an incredibly dirty racist person but but you know that the first mystery and he was aware of it all almost all his heroes he says this are figures of a wandering Jew Fliegende Holländer is a wandering Jew Amfortas is a wandering Jew a person with a strange wound which prevents him to die so all their desire is to die in peace and the point I want to make here and this is now the proper part of my talk I am approaching is that again in the honor of Daniel Barenboim I want to mention a staging of Tristan in Bayreuth repeated directed staged by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle it's one of my shocking experiences you know what they did I hope you know the story in Act Three Isolde doesn't really come Tristan is dying desperate but he is not able to confront the void to die alone so he imagines as a vision we see her appearing behind him Isolde singing her Libestod all brightly brightly with underlight vividly presented and then when her singing ends the stage is for seconds in darkness when lights come again we see a totally different picture everything is darkness Tristan is there alone dead no Isolde she stayed happily with her husband it was just an adventure for her why am I mentioning this because I think maybe something similar I see a danger will happen is happening with the Palestinians in Gaza and on the West Bank they may be caught in the hopeful dream of there are Western liberals whoever who sympathize with them but at the end they will remain alone let's not allow this now a little bit of theory what Ponnelle did is he took a well-known story and turned it around the music is the same just the denouement at the end totally changes its meaning it's not really a Libestod it's a desperate vision that allows the hero to die in peace and this is what I like also in detective novels or movies when they end with multiple denouements you know first it's everything is explained you see who is a murderer and so on then we learn that the true murderer is another person who just painted planted some false evidence to cover his traces and put the blame on another suspect and so on I think that in today's politics we find numerous cases of a similar reversal let's let me again take now the case of Israel in the ongoing Middle East war the first story was that out of nowhere Hamas attacked an Israeli kibbutz near the Israeli border and a big raving event nearby killing hundreds and taking hostages and so on we know the story now we know that although the Hamas incursion is responsible for serious crimes the story is much more complex there are multiple indications that Israel not only knew about the attack in advance as we know it was informed by the Egyptian and American secret services as well as by its own spying apparatus what went on in Gaza was covered by all possible satellite and digital surveillance plus thousands of spies among the Israeli spies among the Palestinians on the top of it IDF moved a division protecting the area to the West Bank just two weeks before October 7th so Israel clearly wanted to use the attack as an excuse for a wider war before you accuse me here of paranoia let me quote a guy to whom I'm opposed but not Charlie Kirk you know the guy you know what he said he said on October 12th already in an interview he said that quote Mr. Netanyahu allowed Hamas to attack his own country as part of a desperate plan to remain in power plus it is proven that in the years before Israel was before Israel was amply financing Hamas through Qatar although it was aware of Hamas's military activity the idea was to keep the Palestinians in Gaza politically separated from the Palestinians on the West Bank and thus lessen the pressure on Israel to allow a two-states solution far right now minister Bezalel Smotrich said so himself back in and according to various reports Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state another clear point to me after the bombardment of Gaza began many critics of Israel missed the point when they claimed Israel is failing to achieve its goal to destroy Hamas they are just killing Palestinians and ruining Gaza now we hear the same rumor when Israel is making the final military offensive against Gaza but Hamas will find a way to escape I don't know how the at least the leading Hamas members it's only the Gazans that will be killed my interpretation here is very simple but that's what Israel wants objectively Hamas works for Israel in this sense it's used as an excuse for Israel and I know what will come after after Gaza they will say what they already said now Hamas is moving onto the West Bank to do the same and so on and so on the wave of recent announcements of some big Western European countries that they will soon recognize the Palestinian state is marked by a similar ambivalence I think it appears as a step in the right direction clearly limiting Israel's ambitions however at the same time there is a negation included in it it does what it does in order to avoid doing what really needs to be done in order to stop the genocidal activity of Israel as Gideon Levy put it succinctly the recognition of Palestine is a gift to Israel quote international recognition of a Palestinian state rewards Israel which should be thanking each and every country doing so since such recognition serves as a misleading alternative to what must actually be done imposing sanctions end of quote to put it brutally if we limit ourselves just to recognize Palestine there will soon be no Palestinian territory to be recognized as a state if there will be some kind of peace it will be the peace Trump and Netanyahu want to impose on Gaza by way of totally destroying it as Tacitus the ancient Roman poet put it years ago they make a desolation and they call it peace now I come to the crucial point the stain on the Zionist project the link between anti-Semites and Zionists was here from the very beginning problems with Israel didn't begin after the war in which Israel occupied the West Bank and not even in when the state of Israel was recognized by the United Nations the so-called Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in I think announcing its support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine but the same Balfour the protector of the Jews presided over the passage of the Aliens Act the main object of which was to limit the entry into Britain of Jews from Eastern Europe you know Russian Revolution and so on Jews from Russia were massively emigrating to I don't know how it's called not yet United Kingdom Great Britain okay and the worry was and this logic is present up to this day the logic was let's just keep the Jews out of here support them there move into Palestine just that we get rid of them here so it shouldn't surprise us that Germany the perpetrator of Shoah is the strongest supporter of Israel in Europe paradoxically the anti-Semitism of the supporters of Israel was supplemented by the fascist tendencies in Zionism itself in an oft-quoted passage Seyla Benhabib pointed out that the members of the present government of Israel are quote the legataries of a long line of Judeo-fascism which none other than Albert Einstein joined by Hannah Arendt and Sidney Hook denounced in their open letter to New York Times in they write among the most disturbing political phenomena of our time is the emergence in the newly created State of Israel of the Freedom Party a political party closely akin in its organization methods political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and fascist parties today the legataries of the party and movement Likud established by Menachem Begin are in power in Israel and they have brought upon Israel the worst disaster since Holocaust end of quote and the story goes on remember Anders Breivik the Norwegian anti-immigrant mass murderer he was anti-Semitic but pro-Israel since he saw in the State of Israel the first line of defense against the Muslim expansion he even wanted to see the Jerusalem temple rebuilt Theodor Herzl himself used a similar metaphor in his Der Judenstaat from the founding text of Zionism quote for Europe we will build there in Palestine a part of the wall against Asia we will provide ramparts against barbarism end of quote should we be really surprised to find the traces of this stance where in shock Reinhard Heydrich himself the mastermind of Shoah who wrote in quote Heydrich speaking we must separate the Jews into two categories the Zionists and the partisans of assimilation the Zionists profess a strictly racial concept and through emigration to Palestine they help to build their own Jewish state our good wishes and our official goodwill go with them end of quote Zionist anti-Semitism at its purest and clearest is this just a thing of the past and of European anti-Semites it's more complex please prepare first clip which really horrified me you will see a report from Israeli TV of what some rabbis rabbis teaching at the state-financed Eli Academy an elite school where many officers are educated what they are saying the first clip please because of the abolition of individual laws now vacancies have appeared because there is no there is no responsibility for this asset with God's help it will return and they will want the goy to be our slaves this is Rabbi Eliezer Kashtiel head of the Bnei David Yeshiva in Eli it's best to be a slave of a Jew they are happy to be slaves they want to be slaves this Yeshiva is intended for graduates of pre-military training the most recognized and prestigious in religious Zionism many of them arrive there after they finish military service instead of him just wandering the streets and doing stupidity and violence and harming one another now he is a slave his life starts to be organized according to Rabbi Kashtiel the masters are the Jews the slaves are the Arabs the division is not coincidental it is a biological matter genetic problems there are nations around us with genetic problems ask a simple Arab where do you want to be he wants to be under the occupation why because they have a genetic problem they don't know how to run a state they don't know how to do anything look at how they look and here is the entire Torah the theory of race of course there is racism what don't we know that there are different races in the world what is this secret and this what is not true it's true what to do in two days the people of Israel will mark Holocaust Day among other things the division of the Nazis into superior and inferior races and here in the Hebrew version yes we are racists we believe in racism right there are races in the world and there are genetic characteristics of nations and it requires from us to think how to help them there are differences between races and that's exactly the reason to offer help who is slave who is master I of the master I see that I reach achievements much more impressive than him the head of Bnei David institutions Rabbi Eli Sadan stands behind the attachment of Rabbi Rafi Peretz to the head of the Union of Right-Wing Parties currently the leading candidate for the position of education minister only Rabbi Peretz was allowed to say things in front of the students of the training before the elections Netanyahu and Bennett were refused the rabbis of Bnei David constitute the religious ethical and educational infrastructure of the person who is intended to lead our education system how do they see the Holocaust the Holocaust really it's not the killing of the Jew that's not the Holocaust all those excuses like it was ideological or systematic or how much it's nonsense it's because it stems from an ideology to a certain extent it's more moral than just people being murdered humanism all the all the secular culture it is we believe in man that's the Holocaust the Holocaust really is being pluralist as they say yes to believe in I believe in man that's called Holocaust this is Rabbi Giora Redler and this is his definition of the Holocaust for many years he already shouts that the exile is over but people don't listen to him and this is their disease that should be cured by the Holocaust pay attention to this amazing lesson under the title Relation to the Holocaust this is how he educates his students about the Nazis and about Hitler the logic of the Germans is correct relative to themselves Hitler says that a certain group in the population is the seed of calamity for all humanity because of it all humanity will go to perdition they are bad for humanity and therefore they should be destroyed this ideology doesn't sound illogical bad very much doesn't sound moral Moshe Rabbeinu was cruel and bad like Hitler no why not because there is one bad thing in the world and that's to be a hypocrite it matters to you if you are killed now with a knife or killed as they killed in the gas or you are killed in gas chambers sorry the students are shocked trying to contradict the rabbi and he continues with his own and let's start from the question if Hitler is right or not no no he is the most right person there is of course he is right in every word he says in his ideology he is right there is a manly world that fights which is concerned with respect which is concerned with the brotherhood of fighters and there is the womanish soft moral world that blah blah blah turning the other cheek and we think that the Jews they are the ones who carry this legacy trying in our words to corrupt all humanity and therefore they are the true enemy now he is right percent besides that the return to the side is correct these statements repeat themselves again and again in Bnei David lessons throughout the years not a slip of the tongue an organized agenda the heads of the Jewish Home Kahane Sadan and Peretz make use of the pre-military training to instill messianic values in the students the gravity in the matter stems from the fact that the Ministry of Education which is supposed to be responsible for the contents is in their hands it's possible that soon someone who identifies with the perceptions of the training and the yeshiva will be responsible for the education of the students of Israel so here we are now you will say such an extreme stance is explicitly advocated only by a tiny minority but you saw there Smotrich you saw there Netanyahu but I think it brings out the underlying premises that sustain what the State of Israel is now doing on the West Bank the implications of this stance were clearly visible in the late July of when a number of ministers and members of Knesset as well as journalists and TV commentators criticized a raid by the IDF military police on the Sde Teiman base in the south of Israel in which it arrested a number of reservists accused of abusing imprisoned Palestinians the second clip please this is really depressing I warn you something very sick and evil is happening in Israel's jails and almost nobody is talking about it Israel is running and let's be absolutely explicit a system of torture camps welcome to hell is not an exaggeration nine Israeli reservists sodomized by inserting metal objects up the anus of the prisoner and causing terrible internal injuries this is leaked CCTV video of what Israeli military police allege is a detainee being sodomized as he is hidden from the view of security cameras by riot shields they were arrested taken away to a detention center where there was an enormous outcry and there was actually an invasion of the detention center including politicians in support of the Israeli soldiers this madness that there is someone in the prosecutor's office who thinks that you can come and arrest soldiers for things that they do to Nukhba terrorists it hasn't ended we cannot continue as usual to insert a stick into a person's rectum is this legitimate shut up if he is Nukhba everything is legitimate to do to him okay everything in Israel the reaction is is it right to sodomize prisoners this conversation went on on breakfast television sort of their equivalent in Israel of GMTV they performed an offense and are suspected of an offense of rape of a double detainee that doesn't interest you basically again it interests me the anus of this Nukhba terrorist man I all the time remember first of all the only thing that from my point of view is a problem here is that this is not some sort of organized policy of the state to abuse the detainees because basically it's also coming to them and it's a great revenge that we want to give to them and second thing maybe it will also serve us a little bit as deterrence so you have Israeli TV pundits discussing the merits of allowing Palestinian prisoners to be raped many members of the cabinet are justifying it take the example of the Israeli energy minister Eli Cohen reservists who do holy work and guard the despicable Hamas Itamar Ben-Gvir who is the security minister went even further take your hands off our reservists like it is in the prison service so it is in the IDF our fighters deserve full support this tells you that something has gone wrong but it also tells you that something has gone wrong with us Udi meant when he said now it's in the open they proudly show this there is no moral embarrassment no denial and so on and so on can one even imagine what our reaction would have been if the same thing were to happen in Russia or in Gaza they were doing something like this to Jewish hostages the entire affair was downplayed almost ignored in our big Western media and this willful ignorance the very opposite of simply not knowing it rings more loudly than all cries and shouts the death knell of Western liberal democracy so hard are we to react to it ah now comes my favorite shocking detail one of the surprising voices of reason in Israel is Ephraim Halevy the ex-chief of Mossad who said days after September 11th attack quote we don't have the luxury to wait we have to have a viable policy which would deal with the presence in this area of the Jews and the Palestinians we are doomed to live together I don't want to say we are doomed to die together and if our approach is that we are doomed to live together we can't simply live together with one part of the equation having the upper hand and ignoring the aspirations of the other there has to be the beginning of a meeting of minds then Ami Ayalon a former leader of Shin Bet made this point even more succinctly quote we Israelis will have security only when they Palestinians will have hope this is the equation end of quote words for which you may lose your job in the free West what times do we live in when secret police tells truth public media don't dare to utter Israel as a whole is paying a heavy price for ignoring this lesson it competes with Trump on who will most brutally display raw and arbitrary power without any ethical
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concerns and again I made consciously this weird point secret police or whatever you call it is for me a very mixed entity they can be bad but in authoritarian countries they usually play I'm not
concerns and again I made consciously this weird point secret police or whatever you call it is for me a very mixed entity they can be bad but in authoritarian countries they usually play I'm not
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laughing a good role why because they tell the truth at least confidentially I read now some wonderful analysis where they say the only true opposition apart from a couple of intellectuals blah blah now to Netanyahu
laughing a good role why because they tell the truth at least confidentially I read now some wonderful analysis where they say the only true opposition apart from a couple of intellectuals blah blah now to Netanyahu
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government are secret members of secret police did you read in your media that of them signed a declaration against attacking Gaza for peace
government are secret members of secret police did you read in your media that of them signed a declaration against attacking Gaza for peace
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with Arabs and so on and so on we really live in a crazy times or I will quote now this unimportant small guy Udi Aloni quote
with Arabs and so on and so on we really live in a crazy times or I will quote now this unimportant small guy Udi Aloni quote
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we are witnessing a symbolic shift in the ethical superego between Israel and Hamas Hamas insists on portraying itself as humanitarian they present hostages in good condition deny atrocities
we are witnessing a symbolic shift in the ethical superego between Israel and Hamas Hamas insists on portraying itself as humanitarian they present hostages in good condition deny atrocities
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and avoid publicly glorifying acts of cruelty their superego the image they construct for themselves
and avoid publicly glorifying acts of cruelty their superego the image they construct for themselves
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and the world is one of universal humanism intuitively understanding that Palestine is becoming a global signifier
and the world is one of universal humanism intuitively understanding that Palestine is becoming a global signifier
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of universality Israel by contrast has undergone a radical transformation it has removed its ideological mask and presents pure power for its
of universality Israel by contrast has undergone a radical transformation it has removed its ideological mask and presents pure power for its
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own sake public figures soldiers and political leaders openly take pride in brutality celebrating the suffering of detainees justifying the
own sake public figures soldiers and political leaders openly take pride in brutality celebrating the suffering of detainees justifying the
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murder
murder
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of women and
of women and
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children and normalizing genocidal rhetoric Israel has killed its superego this is a reversal in the Israeli self-image that is almost impossible for Israelis to grasp yet obvious to any outside observer the only point of slight theoretical disagreement I have here with Udi is that I think if we use the term superego in the way it was elaborated by Lacan not as a proper ethical agency but as the ultimate obscene
children and normalizing genocidal rhetoric Israel has killed its superego this is a reversal in the Israeli self-image that is almost impossible for Israelis to grasp yet obvious to any outside observer the only point of slight theoretical disagreement I have here with Udi is that I think if we use the term superego in the way it was elaborated by Lacan not as a proper ethical agency but as the ultimate obscene
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agency which allows you under the cloak of some morality to do horrible things then we may say with some irony that Israeli politics today and the Trumpian populism in general although they are not the same in their inner structure precisely reassert superego superego the pseudo-ethical agency bombarding individuals with the injunction to enjoy is
agency which allows you under the cloak of some morality to do horrible things then we may say with some irony that Israeli politics today and the Trumpian populism in general although they are not the same in their inner structure precisely reassert superego superego the pseudo-ethical agency bombarding individuals with the injunction to enjoy is
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externalized in the public space
externalized in the public space
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dominated by digital media the most disturbing fact is that
dominated by digital media the most disturbing fact is that
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Israel and the US don't just ignore humanitarian concerns they evoke them to justify their ethnic
Israel and the US don't just ignore humanitarian concerns they evoke them to justify their ethnic
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cleansing you remember from Eli Academy that rabbi who said and then when they were attacked they repeated this but what did we say wrong when we said Arabs should be enslaved this is our way of helping them of allowing them to get some stability Gilles Deleuze wrote decades ago si vous êtes pris dans le rêve de l'autre vous êtes foutu if you are caught into another's dream you are fucked this is now happening
cleansing you remember from Eli Academy that rabbi who said and then when they were attacked they repeated this but what did we say wrong when we said Arabs should be enslaved this is our way of helping them of allowing them to get some stability Gilles Deleuze wrote decades ago si vous êtes pris dans le rêve de l'autre vous êtes foutu if you are caught into another's dream you are fucked this is now happening
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to Palestinians ensnared in Trump's dream of a new happy peaceful
to Palestinians ensnared in Trump's dream of a new happy peaceful
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existence when they will be resettled into far safer and more beautiful communities fitted with new and modern homes according to Trump such a forced evacuation would give Palestinians a chance to be happy safe and free but we know from Stalinism what enforced happiness means it is certainly not what Palestinians desire so back to Halevy what happens if one of
existence when they will be resettled into far safer and more beautiful communities fitted with new and modern homes according to Trump such a forced evacuation would give Palestinians a chance to be happy safe and free but we know from Stalinism what enforced happiness means it is certainly not what Palestinians desire so back to Halevy what happens if one of
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or both sides exclude such a meeting of minds what happens is what is happening now the stronger side engages
or both sides exclude such a meeting of minds what happens is what is happening now the stronger side engages
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in ethnic cleansing even genocide of its opponent in such a situation do we external observers have any right to condemn Palestinians
in ethnic cleansing even genocide of its opponent in such a situation do we external observers have any right to condemn Palestinians
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for fighting back in the same way in the same way as Israel is attacking them with arms
for fighting back in the same way in the same way as Israel is attacking them with arms
Slavoj Žižek
with terror but are we Western Europeans in this case really just external observers I think the predominant stance of our governments is even worse than that of Israel the main European countries again and again declare how they worry about the suffering in Gaza and on the West Bank but this doesn't prevent them to continue to supply Israel with arms and to prevent any serious diplomatic action against it why because as your Chancellor Merz said recently Israel is doing the dirty work for us I recently spoke with a couple of high European functionaries from different countries and parties and in deep privacy of course I got the same message of course it is horrible what Israel is doing it can even be called genocide but we should realistically accept the sad fact that ethnic cleansing works with clearly delimited borders and ethnic homogeneity a great
with terror but are we Western Europeans in this case really just external observers I think the predominant stance of our governments is even worse than that of Israel the main European countries again and again declare how they worry about the suffering in Gaza and on the West Bank but this doesn't prevent them to continue to supply Israel with arms and to prevent any serious diplomatic action against it why because as your Chancellor Merz said recently Israel is doing the dirty work for us I recently spoke with a couple of high European functionaries from different countries and parties and in deep privacy of course I got the same message of course it is horrible what Israel is doing it can even be called genocide but we should realistically accept the sad fact that ethnic cleansing works with clearly delimited borders and ethnic homogeneity a great
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Israel may bring peace to the area so let's let it happen and then accept it as a fact so what should the Israeli Jews do some of my Palestinian colleagues like Zahi Zalloua think that since the Jews are the colonizers there the only solution is that they should commit a symbolic suicide they should radically transform their symbolic identity the problem I see with this idea is that by what they are doing now caught in the genocidal mania they already are becoming worse fundamentalists than the Muslim Arabs
Israel may bring peace to the area so let's let it happen and then accept it as a fact so what should the Israeli Jews do some of my Palestinian colleagues like Zahi Zalloua think that since the Jews are the colonizers there the only solution is that they should commit a symbolic suicide they should radically transform their symbolic identity the problem I see with this idea is that by what they are doing now caught in the genocidal mania they already are becoming worse fundamentalists than the Muslim Arabs
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they the Zionist Jews are already doing this committing a symbolic suicide abandoning the most precious parts of their symbolic legacy or as Yuval Noah Harari with whom I definitely not don't always agree put it it's a nice
they the Zionist Jews are already doing this committing a symbolic suicide abandoning the most precious parts of their symbolic legacy or as Yuval Noah Harari with whom I definitely not don't always agree put it it's a nice
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quote Judaism has survived it has become the world champion in surviving catastrophes but it has never faced a catastrophe like we are dealing with right now which is a spiritual catastrophe for Judaism itself the worst-case scenario that we are facing right
quote Judaism has survived it has become the world champion in surviving catastrophes but it has never faced a catastrophe like we are dealing with right now which is a spiritual catastrophe for Judaism itself the worst-case scenario that we are facing right
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now we can still prevent it is the potential of an ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza and the West Bank resulting in the
now we can still prevent it is the potential of an ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza and the West Bank resulting in the
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expulsion of million maybe more Palestinians from there the establishment of
expulsion of million maybe more Palestinians from there the establishment of
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Greater Israel the disintegration of Israeli democracy and the creation of a new Israel based on an ideology of Jewish supremacy the worship of what were completely anti-Jewish laws for the last two millennia end of
Greater Israel the disintegration of Israeli democracy and the creation of a new Israel based on an ideology of Jewish supremacy the worship of what were completely anti-Jewish laws for the last two millennia end of
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quote one should
quote one should
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only supplement these lines with the sad conclusion the spiritual catastrophe of which Harari speaks is not a sudden event which disturbed authentic Jewishness its potential was there from the very beginning but and this is my conclusion does this mean that there is something especially destructive in Jewish identity itself no we are all part of this
only supplement these lines with the sad conclusion the spiritual catastrophe of which Harari speaks is not a sudden event which disturbed authentic Jewishness its potential was there from the very beginning but and this is my conclusion does this mean that there is something especially destructive in Jewish identity itself no we are all part of this
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story racism was potentially inscribed into the Enlightenment project Jews were for thousands of years victims of anti-Semitism Arabs that surround Israel focus on it in order to avoid openly confronting their own antagonisms in all justified criticism of what Israel is doing now it is absolutely essential to include ourselves into the story racism begins the moment we pretend to adopt the
story racism was potentially inscribed into the Enlightenment project Jews were for thousands of years victims of anti-Semitism Arabs that surround Israel focus on it in order to avoid openly confronting their own antagonisms in all justified criticism of what Israel is doing now it is absolutely essential to include ourselves into the story racism begins the moment we pretend to adopt the
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role of an innocent observer thank you very much thank you so much Slavoj um first before we start our conversation and some Q&A I want
role of an innocent observer thank you very much thank you so much Slavoj um first before we start our conversation and some Q&A I want
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to tell can we put some light also on the people because it's going to be yeah much
to tell can we put some light also on the people because it's going to be yeah much
Slavoj Žižek
better um we are not in a show here um thank you so first of all this is the first event in a series that we are starting here that called Babylon Exile and Berlin for a while was a good place for exile for many people the way the police is acting now it's becoming less of a place of safety but as a concept we thought to use Babylon as a place that we can do discussion so in October we are bringing here Ayman Odeh that is the leader of the Palestinian citizens of Israel I don't think we heard a lot from this there are two million Palestinian citizens of Israel that are acting in a very different place in a way the role because first of all they all speak Hebrew or most of them they are Israel doesn't allow them to be really fully Palestinian it's enough they said one joke or if a Palestinian citizen of Israel will sit here with me and say things that I say tomorrow somebody will knock on the door of the family and once I said something that sounds to many people very terrible I said it's like Theresienstadt of Israel that that's where they act like they acting nice to the Palestinian but those people that you saw here they already target them also for ethnic cleansing and I think that the voice is more moderate is more pragmatic is more understanding the situation of both of them and I think Ayman Odeh that is the leader of the party and also a leader of many progressive Jews and an amazing courageous person that for me it's beautiful because in one end he is much more moderate than me in the other hand much more courageous than me and he will be here in October and I would love all of you and tell other people to join to listen this amazing voice also another thing tomorrow and on Sunday I'm screening here a film my film that called Why Is We American we show it in New York that is with Ms. Lauryn Hill and the interesting part of it that connect to this conversation also it's about the family of Amiri Baraka an amazing black Marxist poet maybe the best one that I was teaching him in Jenin refugee camp because Mahmoud Darwish told me about him and when we have to open the film in America they told us no he's anti-Semitic and the way they use anti-Semitism to silence everyone it's so scary I really love you to come to see this film here Why Is We American and to see the fight of black Marxist in America and the connection but it rise again the anti-Semitism and I want to say I really feel very strongly that your Chancellor and also the previous Chancellor Scholz they are true anti-Semitic not only they support to create the Jew as a fascist the way they silence progressive voices of Jew for me they killing us second time they killed my family years ago they kill now my spirit when we cannot teach what the German Jewish philosopher taught us that was definitely not Zionism and I don't mind that they allow everything but they are silencing the voice that really came from here and could give a lot of redemption to the place back there and I don't know exactly and that's also I like to hear from people not now what is the role that we can do people that Jewishness is very important for them that said exactly what Slavoj spoke about that really the best friends of Israel are the anti-Semitic that people who try to stop this genocide are people who don't see because when your Chancellor is crying is because the Jew is just an object for him to clean his conscience he's not a subject that try to become a better person they are using us first to sell to and buy weapons and that's we all the time we forget to speak about the money I think sometimes it's so manipulative the way they use the Shoah the Holocaust to support Israel right now there is a huge investigation about submarine that Israel bought from Germany for billions of dollars and it's clear that it's corrupted it's clear from Israel that there is corruption nobody did a real investigation here about this corruption and I ask people in Germany it's not enough just to be to speak ideology we have to fight on to to reveal to reveal the structure of how Germany support Israel again it's all odd and more they support Israel now in the middle of the genocide for me is a pure anti-Semitic act so this is something I wanted to speak before we open the conversation to other thing and I love to see you in the film and of course in Ayman Odeh that you can come and I hope that we'll be able to continue this meetings here with people that can think with us together can I just add very briefly I don't what is happening today is very complex no not really complex but complex in the sense that I see so much weakness in the left in the sense that they are not ready to rethink their hundreds year old presuppositions for example you know who is very interesting figure for me John Locke the great British Enlightenment you know that he supported the killing of Indians whatever you call them Native Americans I hate the term Native Americans you must have heard this old story by me at a debate a white guy an Indian so-called referred to himself as an Indian in America a white guy told no no this is not correct you are using the colonial term you are Native American and the Indian answered him perfectly he says he says first what is the opposite of nature culture so I'm Native American you're Culture American but the second thing that I loved is he said sorry I much prefer to be called Indian because then at least my name is a monument to white man's stupidity who thought they were in India but another thing you know where I see laziness of the left ah yes Locke why Locke Locke provided a very Marxist sounding justification of the annihilation of Native Americans Indians whatever you want which again sounds very almost Marxist he said that the progress of humanity resides in how well do you exploit natural resources and Indians with just their running after buffaloes or whatever and so on they don't properly exploit the land that they own so they should be displaced and why people who are much more economic and and now you will say who cares about Locke even in Marx you find this stance often second thing the laziness the problem of fascism is very complex I think if history is let allowed to go its own way if there is a tendency today it's towards something that I would call soft fascism not in the sense that it's good no but in the sense that it's not necessarily ultra-aggressive by fascism I still think maybe we can use the term fascism by fascism I mean a fundamental operation of you want fascism means as we all know a conservative modernization you want an economic dynamic development of capitalism and so on but you don't want its social implications liberalism decay and so on so you want free market and so on but controlled by a strong state traditional ideology and although I'm very ambiguous about China not opposed to it I was sad to discover that they are explicitly following this way please remember this name I wrote an article I think for Die Welt about it if you want to understand China today read you can find his book on some pirate version Wang Huning he is one of the seven standing members of the Politburo who really run the country and he visited America more than years ago and what fascinated by on the one hand its economic dynamic and on the other hand social decay so his idea was how can we get the good side without the bad side and his solution is basically fascist he defines himself as neo-conservative he said not forget about Mao he said yes economic dynamic but return to Confucianism conservative social values and so on now as for I cannot do Udi without a dirty joke but it's not dirty joke it's a fact I recently maybe we can learn something from ancient people my God I read a book about the development of sexuality in Tibet you know what I discovered that in ancient Tibet till Communists take over for a woman young woman to get married it was presupposed that she should sleep at least with men to get proper experience because only in this way you can properly serve as a wife and so on and so on but more generally not to get lost what I think is that this is what happening today in China in Turkey in India in a different way in Russia this is what I call soft fascism while what we get in the United States it's a libertarian fascism so we should be careful here the leftist trap is you see something really bad emerging now and you say oh what was really bad in 20th century fascism so let's call it fascism no it's much more complex if we ignore this complexity the consequences will be terrifying for example what really scared me in the last week is you remember the big demonstrations in the United Kingdom hundreds of thousands of people and it's all too simple to play this arrogant upper middle class political way they are all victims of neo-fascist propaganda and so on on the other hand I see continuity with Nazism where you wouldn't expect it since I talked only about Israel Gaza and so on let me move to Russia and to our prelude Wagner do you still remember Wagner Group you know why it was called Wagner Group because Prigozhin the boss was a Nazi admirer of Hitler and he learned that Hitler's preferred composer was Wagner that's why Wagner Group now after and I must in this depressive times only jokes can save us I think I used this in a debate with Carlo Rovelli to give him my reading of temporal retroactivity and so on you know there is the ultimate joke on Putin it was even in our media maybe you remember it
better um we are not in a show here um thank you so first of all this is the first event in a series that we are starting here that called Babylon Exile and Berlin for a while was a good place for exile for many people the way the police is acting now it's becoming less of a place of safety but as a concept we thought to use Babylon as a place that we can do discussion so in October we are bringing here Ayman Odeh that is the leader of the Palestinian citizens of Israel I don't think we heard a lot from this there are two million Palestinian citizens of Israel that are acting in a very different place in a way the role because first of all they all speak Hebrew or most of them they are Israel doesn't allow them to be really fully Palestinian it's enough they said one joke or if a Palestinian citizen of Israel will sit here with me and say things that I say tomorrow somebody will knock on the door of the family and once I said something that sounds to many people very terrible I said it's like Theresienstadt of Israel that that's where they act like they acting nice to the Palestinian but those people that you saw here they already target them also for ethnic cleansing and I think that the voice is more moderate is more pragmatic is more understanding the situation of both of them and I think Ayman Odeh that is the leader of the party and also a leader of many progressive Jews and an amazing courageous person that for me it's beautiful because in one end he is much more moderate than me in the other hand much more courageous than me and he will be here in October and I would love all of you and tell other people to join to listen this amazing voice also another thing tomorrow and on Sunday I'm screening here a film my film that called Why Is We American we show it in New York that is with Ms. Lauryn Hill and the interesting part of it that connect to this conversation also it's about the family of Amiri Baraka an amazing black Marxist poet maybe the best one that I was teaching him in Jenin refugee camp because Mahmoud Darwish told me about him and when we have to open the film in America they told us no he's anti-Semitic and the way they use anti-Semitism to silence everyone it's so scary I really love you to come to see this film here Why Is We American and to see the fight of black Marxist in America and the connection but it rise again the anti-Semitism and I want to say I really feel very strongly that your Chancellor and also the previous Chancellor Scholz they are true anti-Semitic not only they support to create the Jew as a fascist the way they silence progressive voices of Jew for me they killing us second time they killed my family years ago they kill now my spirit when we cannot teach what the German Jewish philosopher taught us that was definitely not Zionism and I don't mind that they allow everything but they are silencing the voice that really came from here and could give a lot of redemption to the place back there and I don't know exactly and that's also I like to hear from people not now what is the role that we can do people that Jewishness is very important for them that said exactly what Slavoj spoke about that really the best friends of Israel are the anti-Semitic that people who try to stop this genocide are people who don't see because when your Chancellor is crying is because the Jew is just an object for him to clean his conscience he's not a subject that try to become a better person they are using us first to sell to and buy weapons and that's we all the time we forget to speak about the money I think sometimes it's so manipulative the way they use the Shoah the Holocaust to support Israel right now there is a huge investigation about submarine that Israel bought from Germany for billions of dollars and it's clear that it's corrupted it's clear from Israel that there is corruption nobody did a real investigation here about this corruption and I ask people in Germany it's not enough just to be to speak ideology we have to fight on to to reveal to reveal the structure of how Germany support Israel again it's all odd and more they support Israel now in the middle of the genocide for me is a pure anti-Semitic act so this is something I wanted to speak before we open the conversation to other thing and I love to see you in the film and of course in Ayman Odeh that you can come and I hope that we'll be able to continue this meetings here with people that can think with us together can I just add very briefly I don't what is happening today is very complex no not really complex but complex in the sense that I see so much weakness in the left in the sense that they are not ready to rethink their hundreds year old presuppositions for example you know who is very interesting figure for me John Locke the great British Enlightenment you know that he supported the killing of Indians whatever you call them Native Americans I hate the term Native Americans you must have heard this old story by me at a debate a white guy an Indian so-called referred to himself as an Indian in America a white guy told no no this is not correct you are using the colonial term you are Native American and the Indian answered him perfectly he says he says first what is the opposite of nature culture so I'm Native American you're Culture American but the second thing that I loved is he said sorry I much prefer to be called Indian because then at least my name is a monument to white man's stupidity who thought they were in India but another thing you know where I see laziness of the left ah yes Locke why Locke Locke provided a very Marxist sounding justification of the annihilation of Native Americans Indians whatever you want which again sounds very almost Marxist he said that the progress of humanity resides in how well do you exploit natural resources and Indians with just their running after buffaloes or whatever and so on they don't properly exploit the land that they own so they should be displaced and why people who are much more economic and and now you will say who cares about Locke even in Marx you find this stance often second thing the laziness the problem of fascism is very complex I think if history is let allowed to go its own way if there is a tendency today it's towards something that I would call soft fascism not in the sense that it's good no but in the sense that it's not necessarily ultra-aggressive by fascism I still think maybe we can use the term fascism by fascism I mean a fundamental operation of you want fascism means as we all know a conservative modernization you want an economic dynamic development of capitalism and so on but you don't want its social implications liberalism decay and so on so you want free market and so on but controlled by a strong state traditional ideology and although I'm very ambiguous about China not opposed to it I was sad to discover that they are explicitly following this way please remember this name I wrote an article I think for Die Welt about it if you want to understand China today read you can find his book on some pirate version Wang Huning he is one of the seven standing members of the Politburo who really run the country and he visited America more than years ago and what fascinated by on the one hand its economic dynamic and on the other hand social decay so his idea was how can we get the good side without the bad side and his solution is basically fascist he defines himself as neo-conservative he said not forget about Mao he said yes economic dynamic but return to Confucianism conservative social values and so on now as for I cannot do Udi without a dirty joke but it's not dirty joke it's a fact I recently maybe we can learn something from ancient people my God I read a book about the development of sexuality in Tibet you know what I discovered that in ancient Tibet till Communists take over for a woman young woman to get married it was presupposed that she should sleep at least with men to get proper experience because only in this way you can properly serve as a wife and so on and so on but more generally not to get lost what I think is that this is what happening today in China in Turkey in India in a different way in Russia this is what I call soft fascism while what we get in the United States it's a libertarian fascism so we should be careful here the leftist trap is you see something really bad emerging now and you say oh what was really bad in 20th century fascism so let's call it fascism no it's much more complex if we ignore this complexity the consequences will be terrifying for example what really scared me in the last week is you remember the big demonstrations in the United Kingdom hundreds of thousands of people and it's all too simple to play this arrogant upper middle class political way they are all victims of neo-fascist propaganda and so on on the other hand I see continuity with Nazism where you wouldn't expect it since I talked only about Israel Gaza and so on let me move to Russia and to our prelude Wagner do you still remember Wagner Group you know why it was called Wagner Group because Prigozhin the boss was a Nazi admirer of Hitler and he learned that Hitler's preferred composer was Wagner that's why Wagner Group now after and I must in this depressive times only jokes can save us I think I used this in a debate with Carlo Rovelli to give him my reading of temporal retroactivity and so on you know there is the ultimate joke on Putin it was even in our media maybe you remember it
unknown
the idea is that a minister approaches Putin and says we have to stop this you know different time zones so when here it's noon in Russia it's already PM and so on we need universal time because otherwise strange things are happening like this minister says I called Chinese foreign minister to congratulate him his birthday and he said oh sorry different time zone it happened with us a day before no and you know in this joke but it's the truth what Putin answers yes I agree with you because of the difference in time zone I learn that I phoned Prigozhin's widow to express to her my sorrow for her husband's death one hour before his plane even took off no that's how politics is but more seriously Wagner Group now embarrassed they changed Wagner as pro-Nazi the repressed always returns you know how officially not in rumor how this big Russian groups which now dominate in this central
the idea is that a minister approaches Putin and says we have to stop this you know different time zones so when here it's noon in Russia it's already PM and so on we need universal time because otherwise strange things are happening like this minister says I called Chinese foreign minister to congratulate him his birthday and he said oh sorry different time zone it happened with us a day before no and you know in this joke but it's the truth what Putin answers yes I agree with you because of the difference in time zone I learn that I phoned Prigozhin's widow to express to her my sorrow for her husband's death one hour before his plane even took off no that's how politics is but more seriously Wagner Group now embarrassed they changed Wagner as pro-Nazi the repressed always returns you know how officially not in rumor how this big Russian groups which now dominate in this central
unknown
Sahel countries Burkina Faso and so on you know what is their official name Africa Corps and they claim oh it has nothing to do with Nazism yes but why did they then select you know Rommel and so on exactly this name so I think what is happening today is that we are entering a new era but okay I speak too much you can ask me later about this you know why I'm nonetheless not a total pessimist because admit this Israel you told me this and I know from my American friends why if they are so invincible do those in power act in such a panicky way you know arresting firing people and so on no our words still matter I was for a long time advocating this cynical view you know whatever we say it goes on no no no they those in power act in a panic look what Trump is doing now look in what a panic you and other Jewish friends told me Israel is doing many of my Jewish friends progressive for them Israel is now a nightmare want to emigrate to United States when they apply for a job they usually don't get a job and they discovered why because there is a direct link between Israeli whatever informal secret service foreign ministry and American campuses whenever there is a Jew from Israel applying for a job they ask Tel Aviv Jerusalem whatever who is this guy if he is in any way too critical he will not get the job this if you ask me you know I argue against the term hope Slavoj now I will be the pessimist because we have to reverse things um because I try to be optimistic so the way I am optimistic I think about Mamdani so when everything fall apart there is something happening in New York now that I'm hold myself but I want to start first with Wagner Group you understand that what really the Chancellor when he said Israel do the dirty job they really said Israel is Wagner Group of America that's what Israel is doing they doing the dirty job and therefore it's not only Israel responsible for this genocide the whole West now what my fear that Israeli build on something that prove a bit to be right they they build that the right wing in Europe and in America will be faster before the international law so if they'll be hold enough to do their crimes you will already will not go after them it's prove itself in America and now if you heard what Bibi speak he said look how the Muslim taking over Europe and stuff they joining totally and this demonstration you spoke about in England there was Israeli flags with all this huge fascist anti-immigration thing and you saw Israeli immigrant to England going with anti-immigration demonstration because for them it's the Muslim are the one that has to be kicked out that's why New York is so symbolic that not only Mamdani is so amazing but he came from a Muslim family
Sahel countries Burkina Faso and so on you know what is their official name Africa Corps and they claim oh it has nothing to do with Nazism yes but why did they then select you know Rommel and so on exactly this name so I think what is happening today is that we are entering a new era but okay I speak too much you can ask me later about this you know why I'm nonetheless not a total pessimist because admit this Israel you told me this and I know from my American friends why if they are so invincible do those in power act in such a panicky way you know arresting firing people and so on no our words still matter I was for a long time advocating this cynical view you know whatever we say it goes on no no no they those in power act in a panic look what Trump is doing now look in what a panic you and other Jewish friends told me Israel is doing many of my Jewish friends progressive for them Israel is now a nightmare want to emigrate to United States when they apply for a job they usually don't get a job and they discovered why because there is a direct link between Israeli whatever informal secret service foreign ministry and American campuses whenever there is a Jew from Israel applying for a job they ask Tel Aviv Jerusalem whatever who is this guy if he is in any way too critical he will not get the job this if you ask me you know I argue against the term hope Slavoj now I will be the pessimist because we have to reverse things um because I try to be optimistic so the way I am optimistic I think about Mamdani so when everything fall apart there is something happening in New York now that I'm hold myself but I want to start first with Wagner Group you understand that what really the Chancellor when he said Israel do the dirty job they really said Israel is Wagner Group of America that's what Israel is doing they doing the dirty job and therefore it's not only Israel responsible for this genocide the whole West now what my fear that Israeli build on something that prove a bit to be right they they build that the right wing in Europe and in America will be faster before the international law so if they'll be hold enough to do their crimes you will already will not go after them it's prove itself in America and now if you heard what Bibi speak he said look how the Muslim taking over Europe and stuff they joining totally and this demonstration you spoke about in England there was Israeli flags with all this huge fascist anti-immigration thing and you saw Israeli immigrant to England going with anti-immigration demonstration because for them it's the Muslim are the one that has to be kicked out that's why New York is so symbolic that not only Mamdani is so amazing but he came from a Muslim family
unknown
and I think not that we care so much about it but in this case is very symbolic and it's very symbolic that the people who support him a lot is Jewish Voice for Peace it's all the young generation of Jews that go against their parents that used to send money to the Zionist entity so when I'm in New York I'm sometimes proud again to be Jew now and that's a very important things for somebody who lost his identity and now I want I want said about those general that you like so much the secret service people who speak against the right wing there is a phenomenon in Israel that everyone when one criminal leaving the army after he did a lot of war crimes he become retired
and I think not that we care so much about it but in this case is very symbolic and it's very symbolic that the people who support him a lot is Jewish Voice for Peace it's all the young generation of Jews that go against their parents that used to send money to the Zionist entity so when I'm in New York I'm sometimes proud again to be Jew now and that's a very important things for somebody who lost his identity and now I want I want said about those general that you like so much the secret service people who speak against the right wing there is a phenomenon in Israel that everyone when one criminal leaving the army after he did a lot of war crimes he become retired
Slavoj Žižek
and then he start to think and he become moderate and you saw it in this famous film The Gatekeepers all of them suddenly they want peace with Palestinian all of them are people who sent people to to kill Palestinian in their home arresting Palestinian then when they retired suddenly they start to clean they create a new history but the fact is that it's not those crazy people that you show us that really they take over then it's terrified but the people who give the money to this war machine are the high-tech people of Tel Aviv are the cool people that creating those billions of dollar when I so much supporting BDS and I tell I tell Germany how dare you tell me not to use a non-violence way and they German people on the name of the Nazi grandfather doesn't allow me to call to a non-violence act against Israel and now what I see Microsoft are building now in Israel a high computer for billion dollar they going to invest in Israel our friend Yuval that I love so much that got the Oscar for No Other Land he just show how Microsoft holding in their clouds the entire names of Palestinian that going to be executed so there is something we so much we are in the street and we so much happy with the grassroot and we feel that our modern what I called superego in a simple way like our believe in humanity it's happening and what's happening really with the money now they they continue to give Israel a lot of money and the pilots that killing babies every day they all going to vote for the Zionist Left party so there is something a split within the one in Israel there is a split that some look very humanistic and they'll speak and when they retired they said very good things but they're so much part of the war machine and and I don't that's why I gave up on if I if there was a true opposition in Israel I would stay maybe still Israeli maybe I wouldn't even support BDS if there was people against genocide but really all the demonstration you see it's because of the hostages if people really how many people go to the street in Israel against genocide maybe people and it's scary and it's sad and it's break my heart and I don't know what to do about it and I'm calling for help and I think that my voice in Germany maybe have a merit because I'm so much involved with German Jewish philosophy so I think maybe people will listen to me here and then we met before with the other government we went to meet Claudia Roth that she act like she listen to us and we show her as an international law and we show her and then she is the one who clap the hands only to the Jew and not to the Palestinian on the same movie and it's break your heart because you realize that Die Linke the Anti-Deutsche came from there and the Green don't dare to criticize Israel and everything that is human here when it's get to Israel they support pure fascism and I don't know what to do about it so that's why I'm pessimist but again you know what's the problem for me not a problem maybe a good thing that nonetheless the miracle is that at least if one is to believe statistics in all big Western party states Western European even in Germany more than of people are on the side of Palestine and how nonetheless the system the system works no what you said here is another problem and here I would start the attack on this new whatever we call it techno or as Varoufakis would have put it techno-feudalism or what that's for me the basic paradox of Trump on the one hand you have what I call in with all irony leftist Trumpians who are even more horrible Steve Bannon and so on who wants to dispossess Microsoft all of them they're the most brutal but then you have these mega corporations and so on so that's the problem with Trump he tries to be populist but at the same time again high tech and here we didn't yet find the way how to the struggle is the struggle for so-called normal people that's why I agree with you I was once in contact it didn't work he was afraid I appreciate Bernie Sanders because he said a very wise thing already more years ago he said the Democratic Party if it wants to have a chance should stop this obsession with if we move too much to the left we will lose the center Trump was successful here Trump how did he win not by moving to the center by radicalizing and know what he said Bernie Sanders the great figure of American left he said our target should be those poor white people who are now seduced by Trump don't worry about the middle class and so on so I am generally a pessimist but I believe in miracles not divine miracles but you know things can happen who knows the for the time being I think the situation is horrible even some of my leftist friends celebrate how is he called Traoré Traoré the new boss of Burkina Faso yeah anti-Western yeah yeah but this is the Putin type anti-Western orientation you know that the parliament of Burkina Faso a couple of weeks ago unanimously voted to criminalize homosexuality you get to years I think if you are caught in a homosexual act you know that for Putin Putin was the first foreign country to fully recognize Taliban in Afghanistan claiming their progressive anti-imperialist powers and so on so what I fear is that the result of this West standing with Israel and general confused politics is that this new block is forming now Putin China Modi even India now and so on and in the long term what Trump is doing is really it will sound pathetically destroying what still is worthwhile in European emancipatory Enlightenment tradition but I want I want to say about what you said the miracle I remember I lived there I don't know if you know I lived for one year in Jenin refugee camp I work in Masrah al-Hurriya in The Freedom Theatre and my dearest friend Juliano Mer-Khamis was assassinated there and I got very depressed and we move with the student to Ramallah and I wrote to our friend Alain Badiou like fuck the revolution I just want to help some people run away from here I got very depressed and he wrote me a line that sound very like kind of Badiou very naïveté but also was beautiful he said just Udi remember the revolution is always a surprise never a result and it's mean like we have to continue to act correctly and do the stuff and the problem is in the left because I gave up in a way the fight on Israel and I still respect people within the place that try to change from inside but if we try to change in the left in Europe something go wrong and I think we should look what Mamdani do you know many time I agree with you why I'm against political correct unless when I hear you immediately I support political correct as well because it's like he's crossing the lines but in general we forgot sometimes that the fight and this is what you spoke about Bernie Amiri Baraka the person that my film Why Is We American about that he is considered the most radical black poet he all the time said the lower class white people are my brothers it was very important for him not to go only on the race fight to feel that race fight in in America people ready to fight against oppression but will never fight against exploitation and this is a very important part there and we in many time the political correct that in part of it I support it especially when I hear Slavoj telling dirty jokes but in the other hand we move the war so much to the language in
and then he start to think and he become moderate and you saw it in this famous film The Gatekeepers all of them suddenly they want peace with Palestinian all of them are people who sent people to to kill Palestinian in their home arresting Palestinian then when they retired suddenly they start to clean they create a new history but the fact is that it's not those crazy people that you show us that really they take over then it's terrified but the people who give the money to this war machine are the high-tech people of Tel Aviv are the cool people that creating those billions of dollar when I so much supporting BDS and I tell I tell Germany how dare you tell me not to use a non-violence way and they German people on the name of the Nazi grandfather doesn't allow me to call to a non-violence act against Israel and now what I see Microsoft are building now in Israel a high computer for billion dollar they going to invest in Israel our friend Yuval that I love so much that got the Oscar for No Other Land he just show how Microsoft holding in their clouds the entire names of Palestinian that going to be executed so there is something we so much we are in the street and we so much happy with the grassroot and we feel that our modern what I called superego in a simple way like our believe in humanity it's happening and what's happening really with the money now they they continue to give Israel a lot of money and the pilots that killing babies every day they all going to vote for the Zionist Left party so there is something a split within the one in Israel there is a split that some look very humanistic and they'll speak and when they retired they said very good things but they're so much part of the war machine and and I don't that's why I gave up on if I if there was a true opposition in Israel I would stay maybe still Israeli maybe I wouldn't even support BDS if there was people against genocide but really all the demonstration you see it's because of the hostages if people really how many people go to the street in Israel against genocide maybe people and it's scary and it's sad and it's break my heart and I don't know what to do about it and I'm calling for help and I think that my voice in Germany maybe have a merit because I'm so much involved with German Jewish philosophy so I think maybe people will listen to me here and then we met before with the other government we went to meet Claudia Roth that she act like she listen to us and we show her as an international law and we show her and then she is the one who clap the hands only to the Jew and not to the Palestinian on the same movie and it's break your heart because you realize that Die Linke the Anti-Deutsche came from there and the Green don't dare to criticize Israel and everything that is human here when it's get to Israel they support pure fascism and I don't know what to do about it so that's why I'm pessimist but again you know what's the problem for me not a problem maybe a good thing that nonetheless the miracle is that at least if one is to believe statistics in all big Western party states Western European even in Germany more than of people are on the side of Palestine and how nonetheless the system the system works no what you said here is another problem and here I would start the attack on this new whatever we call it techno or as Varoufakis would have put it techno-feudalism or what that's for me the basic paradox of Trump on the one hand you have what I call in with all irony leftist Trumpians who are even more horrible Steve Bannon and so on who wants to dispossess Microsoft all of them they're the most brutal but then you have these mega corporations and so on so that's the problem with Trump he tries to be populist but at the same time again high tech and here we didn't yet find the way how to the struggle is the struggle for so-called normal people that's why I agree with you I was once in contact it didn't work he was afraid I appreciate Bernie Sanders because he said a very wise thing already more years ago he said the Democratic Party if it wants to have a chance should stop this obsession with if we move too much to the left we will lose the center Trump was successful here Trump how did he win not by moving to the center by radicalizing and know what he said Bernie Sanders the great figure of American left he said our target should be those poor white people who are now seduced by Trump don't worry about the middle class and so on so I am generally a pessimist but I believe in miracles not divine miracles but you know things can happen who knows the for the time being I think the situation is horrible even some of my leftist friends celebrate how is he called Traoré Traoré the new boss of Burkina Faso yeah anti-Western yeah yeah but this is the Putin type anti-Western orientation you know that the parliament of Burkina Faso a couple of weeks ago unanimously voted to criminalize homosexuality you get to years I think if you are caught in a homosexual act you know that for Putin Putin was the first foreign country to fully recognize Taliban in Afghanistan claiming their progressive anti-imperialist powers and so on so what I fear is that the result of this West standing with Israel and general confused politics is that this new block is forming now Putin China Modi even India now and so on and in the long term what Trump is doing is really it will sound pathetically destroying what still is worthwhile in European emancipatory Enlightenment tradition but I want I want to say about what you said the miracle I remember I lived there I don't know if you know I lived for one year in Jenin refugee camp I work in Masrah al-Hurriya in The Freedom Theatre and my dearest friend Juliano Mer-Khamis was assassinated there and I got very depressed and we move with the student to Ramallah and I wrote to our friend Alain Badiou like fuck the revolution I just want to help some people run away from here I got very depressed and he wrote me a line that sound very like kind of Badiou very naïveté but also was beautiful he said just Udi remember the revolution is always a surprise never a result and it's mean like we have to continue to act correctly and do the stuff and the problem is in the left because I gave up in a way the fight on Israel and I still respect people within the place that try to change from inside but if we try to change in the left in Europe something go wrong and I think we should look what Mamdani do you know many time I agree with you why I'm against political correct unless when I hear you immediately I support political correct as well because it's like he's crossing the lines but in general we forgot sometimes that the fight and this is what you spoke about Bernie Amiri Baraka the person that my film Why Is We American about that he is considered the most radical black poet he all the time said the lower class white people are my brothers it was very important for him not to go only on the race fight to feel that race fight in in America people ready to fight against oppression but will never fight against exploitation and this is a very important part there and we in many time the political correct that in part of it I support it especially when I hear Slavoj telling dirty jokes but in the other hand we move the war so much to the language in
unknown
academia because we tired to go to favelas to work with the with really the the the lower class and create a movement from there and I think that what we could learn from Lula and this miracle that happened in in New York we should try to move it to other cities to Berlin to other because suddenly Mamdani came and he doesn't compromise on anything he speak truth to power but he put around him very pragmatic people but he doesn't change the language okay maybe we should allow because just my problem with Mamdani is not what you think it's that it's my problem with him is that remember nonetheless that he is within the Democratic Party he tried to remain within in some sense within the system and here I don't think we should get into this trap of let's be principled inside or outside I'm for total pragmatism here in certain situation you try to move within the established parties in other situation you you go outside you know as for political correctness of course I support all of its goals and so on I just think that if you know the situation in United States how it works it's so clearly upper middle class movement which deals with problems which are simply of no concern to ordinary people what do I mean by this no I don't wait a minute I thanks I okay if I were to pay you more like Udi you would applaud more no what I mean is that is that just go south of United States to Mexico I was there I met feminists there who are totally different you know their attitude is not this sexist penetration is male domination you know their attitude is yes I want to fuck yes I want to have a good sex it's so refreshing to hear this and at the same time they are so aware this is so important that screw old traditions you know which is a wonderful detail maybe already you know it I use it a couple of times in some mid-level smaller Mexican town they said oh this modern bourgeois law is too formal doesn't work no and so they for minor crimes not murders but like for them minor crimes rapes and so on they established a committee of old wise men who following their ancient traditions will make a judgment and then a thing happened two older guys were friends one of them raped the other guy's daughter okay since he was considered a minor offense it went to that committee of wise traditional people and the judgment was yes it was not nice so the rapist guy should give not to the woman his friend two how do you call it baskets if you have beer in yeah kaskets whatever you know I don't like those
academia because we tired to go to favelas to work with the with really the the the lower class and create a movement from there and I think that what we could learn from Lula and this miracle that happened in in New York we should try to move it to other cities to Berlin to other because suddenly Mamdani came and he doesn't compromise on anything he speak truth to power but he put around him very pragmatic people but he doesn't change the language okay maybe we should allow because just my problem with Mamdani is not what you think it's that it's my problem with him is that remember nonetheless that he is within the Democratic Party he tried to remain within in some sense within the system and here I don't think we should get into this trap of let's be principled inside or outside I'm for total pragmatism here in certain situation you try to move within the established parties in other situation you you go outside you know as for political correctness of course I support all of its goals and so on I just think that if you know the situation in United States how it works it's so clearly upper middle class movement which deals with problems which are simply of no concern to ordinary people what do I mean by this no I don't wait a minute I thanks I okay if I were to pay you more like Udi you would applaud more no what I mean is that is that just go south of United States to Mexico I was there I met feminists there who are totally different you know their attitude is not this sexist penetration is male domination you know their attitude is yes I want to fuck yes I want to have a good sex it's so refreshing to hear this and at the same time they are so aware this is so important that screw old traditions you know which is a wonderful detail maybe already you know it I use it a couple of times in some mid-level smaller Mexican town they said oh this modern bourgeois law is too formal doesn't work no and so they for minor crimes not murders but like for them minor crimes rapes and so on they established a committee of old wise men who following their ancient traditions will make a judgment and then a thing happened two older guys were friends one of them raped the other guy's daughter okay since he was considered a minor offense it went to that committee of wise traditional people and the judgment was yes it was not nice so the rapist guy should give not to the woman his friend two how do you call it baskets if you have beer in yeah kaskets whatever you know I don't like those
unknown
stories so I'm not participate in them okay no again but you know from from whom I hear the same story from my good friend now the revolution is screwed up there Bolivia Álvaro García Linera it's the same he told me yeah yeah old tradition blah blah but don't trust it too much I still believe in this sense in modernization okay guys I think we should give question to the audience now I just want to say that for me Slavoj sometimes really drive me crazy on those things and yet I owe him so much because always even also when he drive me crazy when I go home he force me to think and and it's amazing thing because sometimes he just said stupid jokes but something there is something there that really make me think I I agree in the concept that there was something wrong in American of political correctness but yet to bring those weird stories you know that that create other stories there is something also so powerful how America create the woman in the world as a subject how Europe after have to protect women that were abused so yeah in different countries there is stories like that and this but as a movement if there was one problem with the MeToo movement it's only that it didn't go also to the lower class but what it's offering to the world is was so important so part of of changing attitude to who is a subject that we have to embrace it and then correct it if we can and not said it's only
stories so I'm not participate in them okay no again but you know from from whom I hear the same story from my good friend now the revolution is screwed up there Bolivia Álvaro García Linera it's the same he told me yeah yeah old tradition blah blah but don't trust it too much I still believe in this sense in modernization okay guys I think we should give question to the audience now I just want to say that for me Slavoj sometimes really drive me crazy on those things and yet I owe him so much because always even also when he drive me crazy when I go home he force me to think and and it's amazing thing because sometimes he just said stupid jokes but something there is something there that really make me think I I agree in the concept that there was something wrong in American of political correctness but yet to bring those weird stories you know that that create other stories there is something also so powerful how America create the woman in the world as a subject how Europe after have to protect women that were abused so yeah in different countries there is stories like that and this but as a movement if there was one problem with the MeToo movement it's only that it didn't go also to the lower class but what it's offering to the world is was so important so part of of changing attitude to who is a subject that we have to embrace it and then correct it if we can and not said it's only
Slavoj Žižek
a women fight we all also part of universality but we can let them lead the fight and understand when things might go wrong but we cannot if we cannot include like all those fights to one fight we'll make a mistake and to bring different stories you know like like kind of weird stories that show how ridiculous it is of course there are some ridiculous things but as a movement those things create a lot of things that offering a new discourse for new generation no clearly I I know we are we are not agreeing and you know who disagrees I will tell you and I like that we don't agree on that it's yeah you know who invented the name MeToo an old black lady and she instantly years after when it was now a couple of weeks ago denounced it says it's totally abused they should it's so I am not speaking it's an important issue there is a movement and if white feminism took over we can fix it you know it's not that everything needs to be why didn't then we fix it because but we some of them did fix it and there are people like Sara Ahmed and other women that like wrote amazing books that offering different things and and they criticize you but you also offering amazing stuff and our job as people who move and try to create the movement is listening and take the things and try to see what is working right for us to bring us to the next level and sometimes go beyond you know where I disagree because you said it just went wrong no it wasn't it didn't just went wrong something was wrong I think in the very approach in the sense that political correctness wokeness and so on and so on is for me now I will say something very problematic the ultimate defense of the existing regime against true radical movement because you know that in America you already have what they called Corporate MeToo corporate and so on you said they made a mistake that they didn't go to the lower classes this was not a mistake this was written in their concept it's not true okay okay we you have here a support and my God when we the people took power you know when people clap the hands to you I'm getting worried no when we take power I
a women fight we all also part of universality but we can let them lead the fight and understand when things might go wrong but we cannot if we cannot include like all those fights to one fight we'll make a mistake and to bring different stories you know like like kind of weird stories that show how ridiculous it is of course there are some ridiculous things but as a movement those things create a lot of things that offering a new discourse for new generation no clearly I I know we are we are not agreeing and you know who disagrees I will tell you and I like that we don't agree on that it's yeah you know who invented the name MeToo an old black lady and she instantly years after when it was now a couple of weeks ago denounced it says it's totally abused they should it's so I am not speaking it's an important issue there is a movement and if white feminism took over we can fix it you know it's not that everything needs to be why didn't then we fix it because but we some of them did fix it and there are people like Sara Ahmed and other women that like wrote amazing books that offering different things and and they criticize you but you also offering amazing stuff and our job as people who move and try to create the movement is listening and take the things and try to see what is working right for us to bring us to the next level and sometimes go beyond you know where I disagree because you said it just went wrong no it wasn't it didn't just went wrong something was wrong I think in the very approach in the sense that political correctness wokeness and so on and so on is for me now I will say something very problematic the ultimate defense of the existing regime against true radical movement because you know that in America you already have what they called Corporate MeToo corporate and so on you said they made a mistake that they didn't go to the lower classes this was not a mistake this was written in their concept it's not true okay okay we you have here a support and my God when we the people took power you know when people clap the hands to you I'm getting worried no when we take power I
unknown
promise you that in Gulag where you be you will get a nice cell a nicer one I think I think that I will hold my answer for later because I want to give few question to the audience yes here there is but will it will it be how to say here they bring the mic yeah yeah hello um we just ended with talking about feminism about MeToo I want to maybe ask you about what's going on in Syria especially Syria Syria yeah Syria yeah exactly uh so in after Assad's fall the news are still really really upsetting and the situation did not get better and speaking of feminism there are like hundreds of women from the minorities of like Alawites and Druze that has been kidnapped by al-Jolani militias by Islamist militias that are now de facto the rulers of Syria and what I find very amazing and very sad that there is no support or no mention of that in the Western media at all yes I saw I totally sorry to interrupt you then you can go on I you cannot even imagine how much I support you here but you know why here I go a little bit you will again disagree with me because you know okay now anti-Zionism everybody knows but the moment
promise you that in Gulag where you be you will get a nice cell a nicer one I think I think that I will hold my answer for later because I want to give few question to the audience yes here there is but will it will it be how to say here they bring the mic yeah yeah hello um we just ended with talking about feminism about MeToo I want to maybe ask you about what's going on in Syria especially Syria Syria yeah Syria yeah exactly uh so in after Assad's fall the news are still really really upsetting and the situation did not get better and speaking of feminism there are like hundreds of women from the minorities of like Alawites and Druze that has been kidnapped by al-Jolani militias by Islamist militias that are now de facto the rulers of Syria and what I find very amazing and very sad that there is no support or no mention of that in the Western media at all yes I saw I totally sorry to interrupt you then you can go on I you cannot even imagine how much I support you here but you know why here I go a little bit you will again disagree with me because you know okay now anti-Zionism everybody knows but the moment
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you say something too critical about Islam oh Islamophobia Islamophobia no they also should be criticized absolutely crucial um my question so my question is like for me as a I'm a Syrian woman and I find I have to walk a very very like thin line because from which are you Alawite for which group Alawite sadly I don't belong I am a but when they compromised by Assad or Yes they were I mean partly complicit and um I am an atheist I'm secular I I call for a democratic secular Syria this was this is my hope and my question is I find myself without allies or I have to walk a very very like thin line because when I
you say something too critical about Islam oh Islamophobia Islamophobia no they also should be criticized absolutely crucial um my question so my question is like for me as a I'm a Syrian woman and I find I have to walk a very very like thin line because from which are you Alawite for which group Alawite sadly I don't belong I am a but when they compromised by Assad or Yes they were I mean partly complicit and um I am an atheist I'm secular I I call for a democratic secular Syria this was this is my hope and my question is I find myself without allies or I have to walk a very very like thin line because when I
Slavoj Žižek
see people maybe on my side they're usually right-wing or like maybe very pro-Israel in a way that I do not respect of course I respect Jewish life I don't have to um I hope I don't have to say this um but I find that we don't have allies like the left in Europe and the US is not really an ally for anyone who's suffering from Islamic extremism so how do you have any advice but you see this is what I was talking about these hidden prohibitions of did you notice how even Iran you remember somebody told me that in a way similar to how Netanyahu maybe provoked this war to save himself from prison it was I have friends in Iran who are in this medium state half arrested half not you know and they told me that you it's crucial to remember that before these tensions bombing with Israel and United States in Iran you know there was that woman Kurdish woman killed Mahsa Amini and so on and the regime was almost on the edge and that the general theory there is that they consciously went into this tension with Israel and so on to to mobilize the people to keep themselves in power and so on and so on so we have precisely in sympathy with with full sympathy to many Muslims I love their philosophy
see people maybe on my side they're usually right-wing or like maybe very pro-Israel in a way that I do not respect of course I respect Jewish life I don't have to um I hope I don't have to say this um but I find that we don't have allies like the left in Europe and the US is not really an ally for anyone who's suffering from Islamic extremism so how do you have any advice but you see this is what I was talking about these hidden prohibitions of did you notice how even Iran you remember somebody told me that in a way similar to how Netanyahu maybe provoked this war to save himself from prison it was I have friends in Iran who are in this medium state half arrested half not you know and they told me that you it's crucial to remember that before these tensions bombing with Israel and United States in Iran you know there was that woman Kurdish woman killed Mahsa Amini and so on and the regime was almost on the edge and that the general theory there is that they consciously went into this tension with Israel and so on to to mobilize the people to keep themselves in power and so on and so on so we have precisely in sympathy with with full sympathy to many Muslims I love their philosophy
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for example Sufism
for example Sufism
Slavoj Žižek
okay but every snobbish intellectual likes Sufism mystics I it is crucial because for me you are really solidary with somebody only if you also speak to him honestly and criticize him beware of friends who don't criticize you okay um let's give if you can give in more question not so much remark more question and maybe we take few of them I just want to say that the way
okay but every snobbish intellectual likes Sufism mystics I it is crucial because for me you are really solidary with somebody only if you also speak to him honestly and criticize him beware of friends who don't criticize you okay um let's give if you can give in more question not so much remark more question and maybe we take few of them I just want to say that the way
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nobody try to romanticize
nobody try to romanticize
Slavoj Žižek
Islam or something like that you remember Slavoj when you were younger you said it very nice about anti-Semitism you said that even everything they said about the Jew is right it's still anti-Semitism and
Islam or something like that you remember Slavoj when you were younger you said it very nice about anti-Semitism you said that even everything they said about the Jew is right it's still anti-Semitism and
unknown
it's very important the issue is not if Islam is better or not we are not in any theological conversation it's about how Europe treat the Muslims this is the question not of course they're bad Muslims good Muslims Jews whatever and and in Syria it was very hard because you know I'm really feel my responsibility is to fight for Palestine and I know really there better and the genocide is really happen there but it was very sad for me to see the Palestinian community in the war split to two you know there were the more the Communist thought that they are more for Assad and the Tajammu' Balad was more for the other and then said no we are for human rights and somebody wrote I think it was from from the Intifada that you wrote you know maybe we are too weak to take a part there when we have our people refugees in Syria that each time somebody else come to our camp and kill us and and sometimes you know how the West is handling it it's totally how it's function for their good how the people in Palestine acting to it is a weak people that try to
it's very important the issue is not if Islam is better or not we are not in any theological conversation it's about how Europe treat the Muslims this is the question not of course they're bad Muslims good Muslims Jews whatever and and in Syria it was very hard because you know I'm really feel my responsibility is to fight for Palestine and I know really there better and the genocide is really happen there but it was very sad for me to see the Palestinian community in the war split to two you know there were the more the Communist thought that they are more for Assad and the Tajammu' Balad was more for the other and then said no we are for human rights and somebody wrote I think it was from from the Intifada that you wrote you know maybe we are too weak to take a part there when we have our people refugees in Syria that each time somebody else come to our camp and kill us and and sometimes you know how the West is handling it it's totally how it's function for their good how the people in Palestine acting to it is a weak people that try to
Slavoj Žižek
survive they're not always on the right side and there were people there that was on the right side also and
survive they're not always on the right side and there were people there that was on the right side also and
unknown
the fight within within the movement of the Palestinian movement but I'm as and I felt that I don't know enough and it's clear on specific thing
the fight within within the movement of the Palestinian movement but I'm as and I felt that I don't know enough and it's clear on specific thing
Slavoj Žižek
that
that
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we had to fight Assad and it was clear that we have to fight the other and it's clear that the Kurds it's easier to support but those are thing that we all know but it's very I don't like that Slavoj like to bring some bad stories about Muslims of
we had to fight Assad and it was clear that we have to fight the other and it's clear that the Kurds it's easier to support but those are thing that we all know but it's very I don't like that Slavoj like to bring some bad stories about Muslims of
Slavoj Žižek
course there are many bad stories about Muslims and yes in Paki in England some Muslims did rapes yes Slavoj I know all your stories the question is how the West treat it and the West treat the Muslim now the way you anti-Semitic Europe used to treat Jews in the 30s like everything that happened for Muslim it's become all over again against Muslims and that's what I'm fighting I'm not try to idolize any group the
course there are many bad stories about Muslims and yes in Paki in England some Muslims did rapes yes Slavoj I know all your stories the question is how the West treat it and the West treat the Muslim now the way you anti-Semitic Europe used to treat Jews in the 30s like everything that happened for Muslim it's become all over again against Muslims and that's what I'm fighting I'm not try to idolize any group the
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other that you chose now
other that you chose now
Slavoj Žižek
in Europe is the
in Europe is the
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Muslim the demonstration
Muslim the demonstration
Slavoj Žižek
is against the Muslims the language Islam take over Europe this is the language now
is against the Muslims the language Islam take over Europe this is the language now
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and that's the language we fight not specific stories that this one did this
and that's the language we fight not specific stories that this one did this
Slavoj Žižek
or
or
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this one did that no I don't speak about what happened there I speak about Europe about what happened there it's terrible no don't misunderstand yeah but nonetheless now I'll be accused of being as I'm regularly no but let's other people bit let's let she's white with the mic yes I've I've been holding the mic for a while now so thank you um so actually what I want to ask is related to again another Syrian woman living in exile and I would
this one did that no I don't speak about what happened there I speak about Europe about what happened there it's terrible no don't misunderstand yeah but nonetheless now I'll be accused of being as I'm regularly no but let's other people bit let's let she's white with the mic yes I've I've been holding the mic for a while now so thank you um so actually what I want to ask is related to again another Syrian woman living in exile and I would
Slavoj Žižek
like to ask a question beyond identities and beyond being a Muslim or a Jew and beyond only the specificities of what's happening in the Middle East I would like to ask about this universality and how it actually translates because you both have talked about class issues but not in a very explicit way you've
like to ask a question beyond identities and beyond being a Muslim or a Jew and beyond only the specificities of what's happening in the Middle East I would like to ask about this universality and how it actually translates because you both have talked about class issues but not in a very explicit way you've
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talked about the movements and how
talked about the movements and how
Slavoj Žižek
it basically adopts a political
it basically adopts a political
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correctness or woke language
correctness or woke language
Slavoj Žižek
and that does not necessarily
and that does not necessarily
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take into consideration the actual class struggle that is happening all over the world I would just like to ask the question how the situation in Palestine and in many places in many other places in the world how this translates or how this makes the capital disaster complex that basically started in the 80s within the rise of neoliberal corporatism and basically making capital out of war
take into consideration the actual class struggle that is happening all over the world I would just like to ask the question how the situation in Palestine and in many places in many other places in the world how this translates or how this makes the capital disaster complex that basically started in the 80s within the rise of neoliberal corporatism and basically making capital out of war
Slavoj Žižek
you can answer her no longer I will be very short you know what is absolutely crucial in this case don't play the game Israel is the instrument of big corporations against poor Palestinians what about Qatar Saudi Arabia and so on how many Palestinians do they accept I often think that this formal condemnation of Israel you know all Arab states now talk it's where is the act you remember the last group that tried to enter Gaza through Sinai Egypt arrested people and threw them out and so on so if you talk with class struggle don't focus just on bad Israel go also to Arab countries how divided they are the saddest paradox for me is that you know what Saudi Arabia is doing because many desperate Muslims from East Africa try to
you can answer her no longer I will be very short you know what is absolutely crucial in this case don't play the game Israel is the instrument of big corporations against poor Palestinians what about Qatar Saudi Arabia and so on how many Palestinians do they accept I often think that this formal condemnation of Israel you know all Arab states now talk it's where is the act you remember the last group that tried to enter Gaza through Sinai Egypt arrested people and threw them out and so on so if you talk with class struggle don't focus just on bad Israel go also to Arab countries how divided they are the saddest paradox for me is that you know what Saudi Arabia is doing because many desperate Muslims from East Africa try to
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cross that Red Sea whatever go to Yemen and then up and I read a report on what is Saudi Arabia doing this it fortified the border drones planes guns bombing them and so on why don't we read more about this well Slavoj I don't she raised she raised a good question how we as as people that are Marxist or read it how we see how we see the situation from a class struggle she doesn't try to said that class struggle is immediately to analyze to this but there is there is I spoke a lot about identity and I didn't speak about class struggle and I think it's a good it's a good remark and maybe to clarify so when I was asking about exactly what also you were saying is that my enemy is not necessarily Israel as a Jewish Zionist state for example or it's not it's not about identity as much it's about the economic model that is running and Saudi Arabia for me is as bad as the US and Israel as any other and I'm ready to say as Israel even for me I want to to answer I mean for me because one of them person that influenced me most is Walter Benjamin and I really think that he deal very strongly in the relationship of class struggle and theology and for me like who is really running what also when I think about America and Israel I never know who is playing what is America is just playing Israel as their biggest base in the Middle
cross that Red Sea whatever go to Yemen and then up and I read a report on what is Saudi Arabia doing this it fortified the border drones planes guns bombing them and so on why don't we read more about this well Slavoj I don't she raised she raised a good question how we as as people that are Marxist or read it how we see how we see the situation from a class struggle she doesn't try to said that class struggle is immediately to analyze to this but there is there is I spoke a lot about identity and I didn't speak about class struggle and I think it's a good it's a good remark and maybe to clarify so when I was asking about exactly what also you were saying is that my enemy is not necessarily Israel as a Jewish Zionist state for example or it's not it's not about identity as much it's about the economic model that is running and Saudi Arabia for me is as bad as the US and Israel as any other and I'm ready to say as Israel even for me I want to to answer I mean for me because one of them person that influenced me most is Walter Benjamin and I really think that he deal very strongly in the relationship of class struggle and theology and for me like who is really running what also when I think about America and Israel I never know who is playing what is America is just playing Israel as their biggest base in the Middle
Slavoj Žižek
East to
East to
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protect their interest
protect their interest
Slavoj Žižek
in oil
in oil
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and
and
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all that or Israel is really such a manipulative group that control America and before it was clear to me that it's America controlling Israel now I got already confused but I think it's very important the reason I choose in Germany more the identity discourse and not the class discourse when I speak here in Germany because I'm coming as a warrior and right now there is a genocide and I
all that or Israel is really such a manipulative group that control America and before it was clear to me that it's America controlling Israel now I got already confused but I think it's very important the reason I choose in Germany more the identity discourse and not the class discourse when I speak here in Germany because I'm coming as a warrior and right now there is a genocide and I
Slavoj Žižek
think that what I can add to the German discourse is deconstruct all this bullshit about we doing it for the Jew and therefore I said before I don't need the Jew it's enough to be a Marxist or a human to fight against genocide it's clear and that's why I spoke about Microsoft how they put billion dollar there and the control but I feel that my role in Germany right now because many Palestinian comrades are getting beaten on the street and everyone who just open the mouth call them
think that what I can add to the German discourse is deconstruct all this bullshit about we doing it for the Jew and therefore I said before I don't need the Jew it's enough to be a Marxist or a human to fight against genocide it's clear and that's why I spoke about Microsoft how they put billion dollar there and the control but I feel that my role in Germany right now because many Palestinian comrades are getting beaten on the street and everyone who just open the mouth call them
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anti-Semitic with me that all my life it's about was researching my Jewishness nobody can use it against me and I feel that that's the way I can be
anti-Semitic with me that all my life it's about was researching my Jewishness nobody can use it against me and I feel that that's the way I can be
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instrumental
instrumental
Slavoj Žižek
best here that's why I'm putting more the
best here that's why I'm putting more the
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energy on that here
energy on that here