What Is Real? Eli Lake on Disinformation, Despair and Dead Ends in the Israel-Hamas War

The Unspeakable Podcast

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.8 • 784 Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2023

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, I had a discussion with Eli Lake regarding the recent tragic attack in Israel and its repercussions. I haven't closely followed this topic over the years, so Eli's insights were invaluable and he politely tolerated some of my more goyishly clueless questions. He has worked as a national security correspondent and possesses extensive knowledge on the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict.

We talked about the present surge of activism and the near-illiterate responses to Israel's attack on Gaza. We also touched on the irony of campus activists demanding safe spaces while condoning violence against Jews. In addition, we dissected the "decolonization framework" that is currently dominating the narrative and discussed how the social justice left is losing credibility due to anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Guest Bio

Eli Lake is the former senior national security correspondent for The Daily Beast and Newsweek. Currently, he is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and a columnist for The Free Press columnist and host of The Re-Education podcast.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I think it's important for those people, these people who think that, you know, they're summoning kind of a righteous anger to lose.
0:10.6	And it's like, it's not just that they should lose politically at home and like Israel's going to do it anyway.
0:15.2	And the U.S. government is going to, it's going to give them, you know, supplies and weapons and money.
0:21.4	They should be shamed.
0:23.3	I mean, I'm sorry, but, like, they are so used to having this kind of moral high ground
0:28.0	and judging everybody.
0:30.1	Like, I stand in judgment of them.
0:35.6	Welcome to the unspeakable podcast.
0:57.3	I'm your host, Megan Dom. Before I introduce this week's guest, Eli Lake, a couple of announcements. The 2024 retreats for the unspeakeasy have been announced at least four of them. So here we go. Get your pencil out. March 2nd and third, we will do a weekend retreat in Austin, Texas. April 9th through 12th, we will do a three-night retreat in Louisville,
1:04.8	Kentucky. April 20th and 21st, a weekend retreat in Los Angeles. And then in the fall, October 21st through 24th,
1:14.4	we will be in Woodstock, New York. That is what we have for now. It's possible I will slip a few
1:20.8	more in, but that's what we're doing. People are already signing up. So go to the unspeakeasy.com and find out more.
1:29.5	The Louisville retreat will feature guest speakers Karina Cohn and Nina Paley of the Heterodorks podcast.
1:35.9	Not sure of the guest speakers for the other retreats.
1:38.8	I will announce those as soon as I have them, but Karina and Nina will join us in Louisville. And yeah, get in on it.
1:47.3	Space is limited. We cap this at about 18 people. So don't delay. What else? I think that's enough for now.
1:55.4	I'll introduce my guest. Okay. Eli Lake, as I mentioned in the last few episodes, I am following the situation in Israel.
2:02.9	I guess we could now call it war in Israel as closely as I can and trying to fill in the many
2:08.4	gaps in my knowledge. A few weeks ago, I had a conversation about the response on college campuses
2:14.4	to the October 7th attacks. I talked with writer Ben Appel about how the
2:19.0	concept of decolonization had infiltrated virtually every corner of the liberal arts.
2:25.0	For this week, I spoke with Eli Lake. Eli is a columnist for the free press and the host of the
	...

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