Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

118: Gimme Shaiel-ter, with Shaiel Ben-Ephraim (Patreon)

Published:
2025-06-22 19:26:40
Imported:
2026-06

Downloads

Content

With Matt on vacation, Daniel hosts an erstwhile bête sioniste of the podcast, Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, to discuss his ideological evolution and acceptance of the reality of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, to examine the nomenclature of the various shades of zionism, and to talk over the incessant mopeds and police sirens endemic to Daniel’s travels in Transylvania.

Please donate to https://gazafunds.com/

Find Shaiel's podcast The History of the Land of Israel at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-history-of-the-land-of-israel-podcast/id1630517855

See Francesca Fiorentini and Matt Lieb August 28 in Houston, TX: https://bit.ly/mattfranhtx

Subscribe to the Patreon https://www.patreon.com/badhasbara

What’s The Spin playlist: https://spoti.fi/4kjO9tL

Subscribe/listen to Bad Hasbara wherever you get  your podcasts.

Spotify https://spoti.fi/3HgpxDm

Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/4kizajt

Files

Comments

Em

HUH

Saeed M

What?! 😮

Jason

Ok... This should be interesting.

Shab

Interesting

Shab

Changing things up 😂

Jonathan Kadmon

My gf is Romanian and I am of Romanian ancestry and we are proud of you even if your accent could use a bit of work 😂. Now we need to get you to try some Mititei while you're there

Junoby

NO WAY

Meredith83

NO WAY😱😱😱😱

Sarah A

The ultimate liberal Zionist himself 🫣

Avery Turner Witherden

What? You're saying that I grew up being teased for my pronunciation of bagel because I was saying it like a Yiddish speaker? I had to re-learn it by saying bay-gell

Eve

Not sure how I feel about this tbh

Meredith83

Gosh Daniel this is a looong introduction🫣We all know who Shaiel is😁😌

Aman

O

Iqra Javed

Hmmm, I was hoping for it to be interesting. Will wait for next episode

Aman

Really want to know what anyone who's listened to this whole episode thinks... I keep going to make a comment but I dont want to spam you all.

Corrine Turke

This convo was so interesting. Totally agree with Daniel that if anyone doesn’t want to listen to this - respect! But I love listening to people process and evolve, super good ep.

Maddie Ryskov

Honestly this was a 👎🏻 for me. I don’t care for the feelings and thoughts of a liberal zionist anymore than I care for the feelings of a Nazi. If you belong to a hateful cult, then I don’t care for your reasoning or your thought process, even if you’re leaving. Those are just excuses. The only thing I want to hear from you is sorry and then seeing you do better. Would Daniel have this kind of conversation with a Nazi that still hadn’t left the ideology completely? Would that person deserve the airtime? zionism has always been a disgusting ideology and if you are just putting the blame on the current regime and netanyahu, then you still sound like a zionist that just don’t like how the world sees your shitty ideology now. What Shaiel is calling for is doing the same thing that happened in South Africa. Yeah, apartheid officially ended but the country is still a racist country where white people are the problem. Sounds very much like he still wants his supremacy. Personally I think this shit is something Daniel should keep on his instagram and not on the podcast.

Maddie Ryskov

And if Daniel isn’t a good enough interviewer to actually push back correctly and just vaguely makes some comments that doesn’t do anything, then this just becomes a way for Shaiel to keep saying his shitty things and feel justified in his zionism. Platforming this shit was a wrong move.

Maddie Ryskov

Well I personally hated it. If this podcast is going to platform self-righteous people like this, that still consider themselves zionists, then I’m out.

Aman

Totally understand your feelings, I did appreciate Daniels very long disclaimer. We don't have to agree with evey guest they have on, and I don't think we should expect anyone who is Palestinian or Iranian to give this person the time of day. Was I cautious and intrigued? Yeah. Do I trust this dude? Nope, cos hes not fully there yet. Maybe if he does the full reverse we can revisit. A tough one.

Chavala

I think voices like this guests are heard enough elsewhere. Couldn’t listen.

Simon Maraya

Different guy, that's Shai Davidai

Maddie Ryskov

I don’t in anyway have to like or agree with everyone they have on. I’ve even disliked quite a few. But I don’t want to financially support this podcast if it platforms zionists. That feels like the opposite of what this podcast is about.

Aman

Totally get that. I had a similar thought myself tbh.

Mthaytr

Ok i almost skipped this one but i'm actually glad i didn't. It gave me a better place from which to speak to a friend of mine who still calls herself a zionist even though she's against the genocide. It's become extremely contentious to the point that we just don't discuss it anymore. I appreciated the conversation and even though my skin crawls at the idea of a "federation" with "arab areas" and"jewish areas" (what about arab jews? Also sounds like some separate but equal shit) I understand a bit better where she might be coming from. Really an interesting episode.

Bel Reid

This one is hard to sit with. Someone who contacted young girls online knowing their age (17yrs old!) I'm really not keen to understand their views. Struggling to get through all of this.

Bel Reid

I struggled sitting through it. He's come out of some Zionist talking points and doubling down on many more. It's hard to listen to a sex pest so I was trying hard to separate my personal feelings from content but I yelled several times. Take from that what you will.

Mason Pew

Keep your lib zio sex pests and i will keep my patreon $, thank you

Nathan Danger

Love you guys, but I don’t think you should have done this. It benefits no one but Shaiel in his attempt to clean up his image. If Shaiel isn’t willing to own up to the fact that the IOF has never been an army that follows international law in regards to prioritizing the safety and security of civilians, then he is not nearly as far along on his “journey” as he thinks. Finkelstein’s ‘Gaza’ (along with many, many other books) gives an incredibly detailed and immaculately cited account of every single targeted attack on the Palestinians, including the second Intifada, and all international humanitarian organizations came to the same conclusion: that Israel intentionally targeted civilians, their homes, and important non-military infrastructure. I can understand that it may be difficult for him to come to terms with the idea that the work he was doing was used to commit evil, but he must accept that reality.

Cory

This was better than I expected.

Austin Winter

I’m left with a couple questions. 1) At what point do we say Sorry, but there is no degree of this that can be tolerated? And 2) if someone is truly on a spiritual and moral journey out of a harmful social system and ideology, then how much handholding by others should actually be required? As a Christian who has been on a similar journey out of white American evangelicalism/Christian Nationalism, the way Shaiel was talking about these things in the interview left me feeling uncomfortable and with a familiar feeling of suspicion. I know a lot of people who have left white evangelicalism. I also know a lot who have become critical, but won’t leave it outright. And it’s those people who I can’t trust, because until they leave and recognize “I cannot tolerate this at all,” they will ultimately always side with it. The people who get stuck in the middle also had to be dragged to that position by constant handholding and explanations and social pressure, and…honestly if they were actively examining their lives and what they were participating in, I don’t think it would take that much outside work. I’ve seen the Christian version of this guy before, and I’ve seen interviews like this with the Christian version before. Shaiel strikes me as the same kind of person. While I admire and respect what you were trying to do with this episode, I have to agree with other people here that he was the wrong choice. I will also just say that a real spiritual and moral reversal I would expect to involve some penance of working to undo (even if you know it’s technically impossible) the harm you participated in. I got no impression that Shaiel was making any such effort. I don’t expect self-flagellation, but I didn’t detect any guilt about having been in the fucking IDF or any sense that he recognized the Zionist project as inherently unjust. He should at least have the decency to recognize it’s something to feel guilty about.

ahhh_heyyyooorrr

All I'll say is I can't believe this guest is writing a book on the Nakba..

Lo

Well said

Aman

When he said about being a lecturer, I felt sick. They never cared about international law.

Aman

He casually dropped that he had been "Me Too'd" but I had no idea what the story was with that. Ew. What I wanted to know was why does Israeli society come across as so mean and nasty? Like not letting people into bomb shelters nasty. He could have answered for some of that.

Aman

My side eye was firmly on the whole time he was speaking. 😬

Lada M M

He is so fake, how can you not see?!! You don't 'come out of IT' because there are 'advantages' in it, helloooo...zero empathy there and no i don't think he humanised palestinians. It's selfish 'spirituality ' for his own comfort. And realistically it's smearing his crimes. Oh, how could you give him air....

Bel Reid

This worries me the most.

Elspeth Brown

Fundamentally I found this episode interesting but not in a way that I really come to this podcast for. It bizarrely reminds me of a "mormon stories" podcast (a podcast that predominantly interviews ex-mormons). I think it may be of use to people who are in the process of trying to escape their zionism, but would have made more sense for Daniel to have as a conversation apart from this podcast.

Keilani

Credit where credit is due, he’s come a long way. It will be interesting to hear what he thinks in a year or five years. I think he will eventually be calling himself an anti Zionist Jew but it’s clear he’s not there yet.

Ray

i listen to a lot of scientology podcasts and it felt very similar to listening to something helmed by mike rinder (rip) ...

Emma

Can we make a rule, no sex pests on the pod pls. This was gross

Joel Instone

Felt quite a lot of slightly nauseous trepidation before listening to this (considered skipping it, but didn't in the end), buuuuuut all things considered, I think it was probably more valuable than not that you had this conversation. It really comes out right at the end of the conversation, the supremacism-chauvinism that must be present for *any* version of Zionism, but generally it seems like he is sincere, and on a ideological journey, and if talking to someone at that kind of juncture isn't the job of anti-Zionist Jews then what is?

Katie N

Never heard of him, was grateful for the intro, just googled him too after he said he was “Me too’d” 🤨

Chavala

Totally agree with you about the debating not coddling. Don’t let this guy have air time without challenging the fakakta bullshit he spouts.

Katie N

Well done Daniel 👏👏👏

Eve

Right, finally found the time to listen to it. Was going to skip it because I am genuinely repulsed by any form of Zionism, but was curious to hear what he had to say for himself. I agree with all the comments on here (pointing out the downsides and upsides of having him on) and am still ambivalent myself, but I am deeply fascinated/appalled by the evil of Israeli society and it was interesting at least to get some insight into their thinking at and that's all I took from it really. I know where Matt and Daniel stand on this issue as they've made it abundantly clear since I started listening back when it was single digits. Fully recovered anti- Zionists interest me far more as I really don't understand and can't stomach how anyone can be anti genocide, anti apartheid, anti oppression of Palestinians and still call themselves any shade of Zionist, but it what it is. Looking forward to Matt and Daniel back together again and look forward to the next episode.

Eve

Matt is one of the funniest feckers going imo and he's what sold me at the very beginning. Just had to say that as it's very much the combination of the two of them together that keeps me coming back (and Adam). That's neither here nor there, but just had to say that!!

Eve

Ah man, I love both the British accent and the dumb impression - tickles my funny bone every time. But then maybe it's the case as a 45-year-old Irish woman I'm just not very mature in reality. Or perhaps it's cultural as making light of almost everything is the done thing here, even funerals (see: Irish Wake). Making a fool of yourself and being silly is held in very high regard here, so I think that's why it appeals. But humour is entirely subjective and there's no way to convince someone that something is funny or not - it's just a involuntary reaction within us all.

Eve

No worries, man. Laughs so hard to come by in these dark times that I take them wherever I can get 'em! Good luck to you! Solidarity ✊️

Nicholas Storch

Matt is as serious and intellectually formidable as Matt, (as is Adam), no need to rank, please!?

Rachel Peters

Definitely was one of those who audibly gasped seeing this drop. I respect how many didn’t like the ep or the choice to host Shaiel or didn’t want to listen at all, but honestly it seems brave of him to have come on and I’m interested to see how his views evolve. His hasbara has been featured so often on the show that this worked for me in that way.

Vero

FYI Shaiel just tweeted that he is leaving Zionism. So… I guess we do need more of these conversations!

Eric

I understand your intentions with this ep but something about this dude is off. I listened to about half. He gives off very strong grifter vibes. Unsettling

SkatePal

Can't decide if I'm amazed or suspicious or both. Maybe Daniel does have magical powers after all...?

KK

This was an odd choice for a guest, ngl :/ I think there are a lot of voices that are under-represented on the Podcast that could have been platformed instead, for example Jewish voices from the non-Ashkenazim world that suffer discrimination at the hands of Israeli's Ashkenazi privileged demographic inside Israel, and as a direct result of the white supremacy that Zionism entails. I guess we're asking a lot though for these Black and Arab voices to be given a voice when , in essence , this is a comedy venture designed by two white men to highlight the 'comedy' of 630+ days of bad PR that's done in the service of genocide. Are we running out of ideas, reaching the limits of the format, or is genocide and its Hasbara - good or bad - just no longer funny even when we wish it were? It's time to get some female black co-hosts me thinks; build upon what's done well up until now, take the fight to the Zionists and at least try to make a difference before Iran does the job that white American Jews should have done a long time ago and finish Israel off, once and for all.

KK

That's something that Owen Jone won't even attempt to do. Either way, I smell a rat: they're both fishy and very media savvy men who know where their future careers in media lie...

Mason Pew

I just feel like I've seen Shaiel '"'leave"" Zionism like ten times before now, so i don't trust it, am i crazy

Emma

Generally speaking, if you find yourself having to utter the words “Palestinians might not want to listen to this” Maybe just stop???

Maddie Ryskov

You can’t just “announce” you’re leaving a cult mentality that makes you see yourself as superior to others. That shit is work you have to do over months and years. It never stops and it’s only proven by genuine actions. Announcing it like that, smells way more of a stunt than actually changing your stance on anything.

Maddie Ryskov

Let’s be honest, these two white men keep bringing on other white men as guests, and every time it’s not a white man, the guest can barely get a word in most of the time. I would love more diversity in the voices this podcast puts on, but I feel the two white men have made it clear they don’t care for our criticism and probably won’t listen 🤷🏻‍♀️

KK

Ah, so I’m not alone in this observation then? That’s unfortunate.

Rose S

This is a great interview and I’d love to share it with people I think this should be uploaded to YouTube! Getting the perspective of someone who has been involved in the IDF and has previously been more of a supporter of Israel is so valuable.

Rose S

Yes I agree

Rose S

However, I do understand where people are coming from in terms of reservations on platforming someone whilst they’re still in their process and who has some questionable behaviours. Perhaps you could’ve done this interview on a separate channel, Daniel, as it’s true that this tone doesn’t entirely fit the brief of your pod which is taking the piss irreverently out of hasbara… but nevertheless I personally think these conversations are valuable and important to have even if Shaiel still has a long way to go. I think there are a lot of moral angles to take into consideration, both in the context of whether or not to have Shaiel on the show and in the context of the situation in general — but I am Jewish and have been very exposed to Zionist ideology, so I find hearing these kind of conversations interesting as it gives a voice to a part of myself that is still trying to understand the different perspectives at play and forge a moral position that holds water and has integrity whilst not getting pulled into biases or swept up in popular opinion.

Maddie Ryskov

I feel like it’s getting progressively worse over time too. I started listening in the beginning and it was much more diverse and interesting back then than it is now.

Jo

To be fair there are normally 3 of them all thinking on tangents so this 1 on 1 is a different dynamic and its easier to hold thoughts until the next chance to speak. But yeah they tend to butt in and I know people struggle to engage with the show because of that. Ive noticed it is less apparent with older or more revered guests too. Can be so frustrating at times when someone has a really interesting viewpoint they're sharing and it gets cut short for a joke or anecdote. Let's hope they take this on board cos it would really benefit the discussions, perhaps at the expense of some humour but ultimately the guests opinions need to be respected, the jokes are funny but not everyone is on that same comedy wavelength and it can be grating.

KK

I mean, the context of all this humour is based firmly in the gallows category - it’s marmite. But the lack of diversity is a more fundamental issue that I think needs reflecting on. I hope they address it

Toni

I have no personal religious, ideological or familial contexts in which to place this but found it very illuminating too. (A bit annoying sometimes but illuminating)

Suekainah Suliman

I'm worried that this is now the new good Hasbara.

EdLam

Im squirming in my seat, i’m some days late but I was open to an awkward evening. 😅 He’s like an evil genocidal worm in the cocooning stage of becoming a sensible human with remorse. 🦋 but still ugly.

bouteilles de vin et polystyrène

I'm glad I missed listening to this when it dropped, and i got to see the fallout before listening. Fuck off with all the hater ass attitudes on here. I, for one, would NEVER hear the underpinnings of why and how this zionist mentality truly runs people's thinking. Not this coherent, and subdued at least. Daniel, amazing dialogue and flow of this conversation.

Fruzsi Bognar

Towards the end, probably because he is getting mentally worn down, the mask falls off and he keeps calling Palestinians just the Arabs.

Kudos To You

ewwww I don't like this guy. I don't buy his "humility" shtick, I don't like him trying to argue for a "watered down version" of zionism, I don't like how he "feels good about himself" ever since he decided to stop defending Israel, I don't like how he still wants people to listen to him. I don't think he really appreciates or understands the depth of evil he defended and wants to handwave it all as "personal growth" and pat himself on the back for it and still say that we "can't go too far" by telling Israeli jews to shut the fuck up in conversations about Palestinian liberation.

Ben

I've seen Shaiel interviewed by Owen Jones and he seems to have moved further along his journey but he's still not far enough along for me to support his views but i support his journey towards anti-Zionism

Nicholas DiMaggio

Politics aside, this guy’s whole vibe is atrocious

Ariel Chilton

Right?! Was The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine not enough for him or does he not know it exists?

The King of Tiny Accidents

“But what about my rights as a racial supremacist to be racially supreme” my brother in Christ, the rights of the abuser to abuse, more than they should not exist, should NOT BE DESIRED. The right to abuse does not exist. Frame it through something else if this framing is too keyed into the propaganda you were raised in. EVERY situation where the colonizer gives up nothing is not a solution, the colonizer is holding onto their self concept as the ubermensch, and we, humanity, are. Not. Fucking. Interested. Reframe it however you need to to understand that people outside of zionism do not give a single fuck that the white supremacy has a Star of David sticker on it this time around, it’s frankly primarily hasbara that posits the flavor of religion on the imperialism matters this time in some sort of way that makes anything different. Also, no, making words meaningless is not going to happen. We are already very familiar with the fascist AND the liberal purpose of making words become meaningless. It will circle in my head whenever I see the whole spectrum of liberalism that comment he made about “the label of Nazi being thrown around,” that liberalism which is aware of itself and continues as itself is very aware of what constitutes as Nazi behavior, and should be taken at its actions that it does not and has never seen fascism as a threat with remotely the same bite as it sees any meaningful global dismantling of fascism, the lesser evil needs the greater evil to keep change punishable. He clicks from beginning to explore cracks in the breaking of his shelf as a death cultist, to propaganda scripts that any shred of humanity just vanishes into, and has to be coaxed back out with careful application of the words he’s still saying have no meaning when they are what got him to crack, though more so what still keep him in. “I am scared the victims of my brutality will fight back if I stop killing them” okay. I don’t care. He said he’s gotten more positivity than feels narratively plausible from Palestinians. He needs to get it into his head how far the average person has to be pushed before they start thinking like a death cultist, which by the way, armed resistance to zionism hasn’t reached during any point of this. If you stop being an abuser you will have to face the abuses you committed or you will not be allowed to integrate back into human society out of the completely understandable concern that without any acknowledgment of what you have done you’ll just keep fucking doing it. The rights granted by racial supremacy. You do not have the right to dehumanize another person, another group of people; you do not have the right to exist more than other humans, you do not have the right to eugenics, you do not have the right to hierarchical control over other human beings. NOBODY DOES. you did not figure out a secret magical hack to be the actual master race because there isn’t one. Part of the whole fucking point is that human beings are one god damn species. And attacking based on the fear that if you don’t do everything the condition of being human makes you fear is waiting in others’ minds for you makes you the only person in that entire situation creating the material reality of that attack, the only source of it, the only cause of it, the only means through which it becomes real at all. “Well if I don’t put my boot on their neck, what if they think terrible things about me?” If they don’t do anything with whatever weird nasty shit they may or may not think of you, and just keep it to themselves, and don’t develop a god complex around it, WHO THE FUCK CARES. Oh you need to reign supreme as the chosen people of god because what if other people think badly of you as far as you suppose? GROSS. CRIMINAL. FUCKING BIZARRE. Also the thing of being able to recognize that the situation is that of an abusive patriarchal household but not being willing or necessarily able to accept that as an atrocity that cannot stand for the sake of everyone involved, that surviving daddy is not actually a condition met by gleefully inheriting his cruelty, they’re called abuse CYCLES for a reason bud, is popular across abrahamic and reactionary secular (and the other ones tbf) death cults ET AL, BAR NONE. You only think daddy has sacred rights if you consider his filial cannibalism a sacred right that some part of you wants the ability to keep. The rights of the genocider are what you’re so afraid of your victims getting? What will it take to make you understand your victims DO NOT WANT them and do not consider them rights at all? Good podcast episode he has a long fucking way to go and he would do well to decenter how his victims will react to him. It wasn’t any Palestinian resistance who proved to Israelis that the lives of citizens meant nothing to the occupation, as they never have (y’all are going to want to look at the Haavara Agreement again and think about what that really, actually means.) Like I have absolutely zero worries about what will happen to me in a Land Back “America” because I’m fuckin on board with it, it will also only ever improve my quality of life even outside of my moral agreement with it. And also that doesn’t mean that I’m going around to every Native person I can find and begging them to absolve me of the sins of whiteness. Whiteness itself being absolved is something. I. Want. If I feel myself in the line of fire i fucking listen to the people who have no incentive to take me in good faith but who often do anyway because idk champ that’s just how being a person works. You know you can just talk to other people, right? That humans can just fucking ask each other shit and have conversations? That persecution is not based in jealousy of genetic evolutionary superiority but jealousy of the ease of human connection they don’t or can’t feel? That hierarchy and eugenics is incapable of recreating end of story.

The King of Tiny Accidents

Imagine not presuming consent for mass atrocities couldn’t be him apparently. Refusing to be human because your victims are angry at being blamed for everything you do and every reason you can invent to never stop. Because they are being identified as your victims by third parties and the citizens of allied countries, hell a sliver of the citizens of your own “country.” Christian hatred of Jews is not because they’re claiming to be the master race but aha this whole time secretly it was jews who are the master race, and that’s why Christians are trying to kill us! And to take that and go to “well if we’re the real master race surely we have all the rights of our genociders to kill our shared enemy,” any particular reason you have a shared enemy with your killers, any particular reason they’re willing to give you genocidal power over ceding any of theirs. Hmm. HMM

Abbie Gilfilen

I understand the idea that no longer defending a terrible ideology can give one a feeling of relief. I think plenty of ex-conservatives feel that way as well, though for me I was a whole child when I experienced that shift. I find it an interesting insight. All of that being said, this guy sucks. He seems very phony.

Abbie Gilfilen

Also the sexual assault allegations, oof. Is it not clear enough what kind of person this is?

Jonah

what the fuuuuuck 💀 e: this is like having a strasserite on your show as a left national socialist