Goody, humans. Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas. And today's dangerous idea is Israel, very, very bad. Or is it good? Is it an apartheid state? Or is it a plucky little nation just trying to make do with a bad hand that it's been dealt.

Anthony Lowenstein is an independent journalist, like me of Jewish heritage, like me, a

descendant of Holocaust survivors, not like me, very, very, very well educated about all

that's wrong with the great state of Israel, or not so great

state of Israel. He lived there. He lived in East Jerusalem from 2016 to 2020. He's the co-founder

of Declassified Australia. He cares a lot about privacy rights, human rights, Palestinian rights. He's written for the

Guardian for the New York Times, the New York Review of books, many others, and he's written

many a book, of which his latest is the Palestine Laboratory, how Israel exports the technology

of occupation around the world. And this focuses mainly on the spy technology,

the military technology that Israel uses to export this kind of ideology of besiegment to the rest

of the world, capitalized upon by far right people and politicians and autocrats and theocrats the world over, to pull off some

not-so-nice things on innocent people. I wanted to talk to Anthony mainly to have an argument

with someone who's more anti-Israel than I am. And I usually find myself on the position of being

the more anti-Israel Jew when I'm talking

to other prominent Jews in the public sphere. You can go back and listen to my interview with Chloe

Valdry, who's a fabulous and articulate and brilliant woman, but is very pro-Israel. And in that exchange, I'm the anti-Israel peace, Nick. And in this

exchange, I'm the pro-Israel hawk. I hope that both conversations are useful. This is basically

me taking an opportunity that I've wanted to take for some time to have an argument or a

disagreement, a friendly debate with someone who is much more critical of Israel than I am.

Anthony is a brilliant guy. He and I disagree on much. Oh, by the way, I should add, if ever you have considered subscribing to the premium podcast and go on an uncomfortableconversations.

Substack.com slash listen to get your

own private personal feed that gives you the additional bonus content. Today's bonus is a dozy.

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