Why America Can't See Gaza

Diabolical Lies

Katie Gatti Tassin & Caro Claire Burke

Society & Culture, News

4.8 • 607 Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2025

⏱️ 125 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this conversation…

Who could’ve foreseen when we started this podcast nearly one year ago to discuss the Times of London Ballerina Farm profile that today we’d be publishing a two-hour episode about the most stereotypically “controversial” geopolitical “dispute” in modern history?

There’s one thing you’ll hear repeatedly in conversations about what’s happening in Gaza: It’s complicated.

Or, you might hear that “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East,” or that it’s the only country in the region that “shares our values.” (No objection there; Israel certainly shares American values, though probably not the values you think.)

Unfortunately, the story of Israel and Palestine is a deeply American story—and it’s only through confronting it that we’ll be able to understand not just the past of American right-wing extremism, but its present and future.

Even though we want this episode to be free for all to access, we want to extend a heartfelt “thank you” to the paid subscribers who make conversations like this one possible. $35,000 of the $66,000 in subscription payments we’ve donated so far this year have gone to food aid in Gaza. As Caro said, this episode is for—and exists because of—you, Dirty Little Liars: Thank you, and let’s fucking go.

To become a paid supporter or access a full list of references and citations for this episode, head to diabolicalliespod.com.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.diabolicalliespod.com/subscribe

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today's episode of Diabolical Lies was brought to you by our episode last year called Luigi Mangione and the Making of an American Terrorist, for which this will be a spiritual sequel, My War in Iraq poem, The Long Hard Dick of American Imperialism, our treasured economic partner, Saudi Arabia, Christy Nome's fucked up face, and women's menstruation
0:22.7	enthusiast, Peter Thiel, again somehow.
0:26.5	Oh my God, I was not expecting Peter Thiel. Yeah, that's pretty upsetting.
0:32.1	Oh, expect him, baby. So, Caro, when we started this podcast a year ago to have silly little conversations
0:41.0	about Taylor Swift, injectables, rumors, and ballerina farm, I don't think either one of us
0:48.5	anticipated that we would be here a year later doing deep dives into Israel, Palestine, and the militarized surveillance state.
0:57.1	But feminist podcasting comes as you fast.
1:00.6	Ultimately, this is a show about culture and politics, but also in a larger sense, it's a show about deconstructing fundamental American mythologies.
1:13.1	It is about our country's most powerful and entrenched fictions, how they show up in culture and politics today, and hopefully how we
1:19.3	can learn to see ourselves a little more clearly and accurately. And this topic represents
1:25.3	one of the most third rail American mythologies.
1:28.9	So what could go wrong?
1:31.1	I do think you and I both see this show as documenting our own journeys of deconstruction as we dig into topics that interest us.
1:39.4	So, for example, you are the one who told me in our episode about the TikTok ban and red note
1:44.5	earlier this year that the American perspective on Israel was very different from that in the
1:49.1	rest of the world.
1:50.0	I did not know that at the time, that our state-sanctioned inability to critique Israel is
1:55.6	uniquely American.
1:57.0	And that really stuck with me, and it made me think that it was eventually going to be
2:00.8	something worth digging into in more depth. And that really stuck with me, and it made me think that it was eventually going to be something
2:01.1	worth digging into in more depth. And that day has come. God bless. I'm thrilled. So this one's
2:09.0	going to be a heavy one today, as you could probably guess. We're going to do our best to filter
	...

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