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These two anti-Zionist Jews think the Israeli government is so bad, it’s funny
When Matt Lieb started Bad Hasbara, his comedy podcast about so-called Israeli and US propaganda, he had a specific audience in mind: himself.
“A Jewish anti-Zionist podcast that made jokes at the expense of the Israeli government was not something that, as far as I knew, existed,” said Lieb, 41, who in addition to podcasting is a comedian, writer and actor. “I wanted to listen to something like that.”
Lieb also wanted an outlet for his anguish over Israel’s conduct in Gaza after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks — not least because he felt the comedy industry at large had failed to meet the moment. “By December 2023,” he told me, “I realized the mainstream comedic sphere was going to be completely silent about this, and was going to move on to other subjects, because it was too politically charged.”
So Bad Hasbara, which has just released its 176th episode, began as an experiment to see if there were others like Lieb: those who regarded the Israeli and American governments as deceitful and propagandistic, and who, no less importantly, saw Israeli ‘Hasbara’ — loosely defined as the Israeli government’s myriad efforts to advertise its country — as funny and sinister.
As it turned out, there were plenty of adherents to Lieb’s worldview. (The podcast, whose full title is Bad Hasbara: The World’s Most Moral Podcast, first aired in late 2023, and has just surpassed 50,ooo YouTube subscribers.)
“What shocked me was the amount of people who related to the podcast, and who wanted to laugh at the same things I was laughing at.” Lieb said. “And the number one comment that we get from people, other than saying that they like the jokes, is ‘Thank you for keeping us sane.’”
One admirer was 50-year-old Daniel Maté, a Canadian-born, Brooklyn-based lyricist, composer and playwright for musical theater, whose plays included a reimagining of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, entitled The Trouble With Doug, and a sequel to Hansel & Gretl set in modern-day Chicago. Maté also had a fairly sizable social media following, and a disdain for Zionism that rivaled Lieb’s.
After a brief Instagram courtship (more on that later), Maté appeared as a guest on one of Bad Hasbara’s first episodes. Lieb enjoyed the experience so much that he invited Maté to co-host permanently. “People loved our vibe,” Maté told me. “We’re a rare pair, with our combination of experience, sensibility, and our places of overlap. Not to be too self-fluffing,” he added.
And though Bad Hasbara has certainly broadened its focus since Maté came aboard, at its heart it’s about the ways people interact with Zionism — a show about the rhetoric that has accompanied the Israel-Hamas war, rather than an analysis of the war itself.
Early adopters
The podcast’s popularity partly reflects the demand for anti-Zionist perspectives in the media and elsewhere after Oct. 7. It’s hardly the only podcast geared towards Israel’s critics: Medhi Hasan’s left-leaning news outlet Zeteo, for example, recently launched Beyond Israelism, an anti-Israel podcast hosted by If Not Now founder Simone Zimmerman.
Still, neither Lieb nor Maté is a recent convert to the cause. Lieb grew up in a secular, Jewish home in Los Angeles that saw Israel as “an absolute moral good,” but he began to have doubts about Zionism in the mid-2000s, when he was an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz. “The Marxists and Islamists indoctrinated me into self-hatred,” he joked.
His embrace of anti-Zionism was sealed on his college Birthright trip, he told me, in part thanks to a guest appearance by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who spoke at an event for Lieb’s and several other Birthright groups.
“It was a very, very hard sell,” Lieb recalled. “And it felt unfair that as someone with, you know, Jewish ancestry, I was being told I had more of a right to this land than someone who was born there, and whose family was born there, who was ethnically cleansed.” (Lieb discussed his Birthright experience at length on Bad Hasbara’s inaugural episode.)
Maté’s opposition to Zionism, by contrast, was more of an inherited condition. His father, the well-known Canadian psychotherapist Dr. Gabor Maté, is a vocal critic of Israel, and in the mid-1980’s, when the younger Maté was coming of age, had become a “pariah in the Canadian Jewish community,” Maté said. He remembers his father being interviewed on Canadian radio, while on a medical trip to the West Bank, and hearing him say that he’d been crying every day since he had arrived because of what he’d seen in the hospitals.
The younger Maté took after his father, politically. Daniel went every summer to the left-leaning Habonim Dror Jewish summer camp, where he says he argued ferociously with his Israeli counselors, some of whom were just out of the army. “I never could get them to see the contradiction between liberalism and Zionism,” he said.
October 7 and beyond
On the evening of Oct. 8, 2023, Maté — who had not yet joined the podcast — went for a walk around his Brooklyn neighborhood. For about an hour, he went live on Instagram with a kind of stream-of-consciousness of despair and frustration, in which he urged his then-20,000 or so followers to properly contextualize the Hamas-led attacks of the previous day; to sympathize no less with Palestinian suffering than Israeli.
“I’d never done an Instagram Live before,” Maté said. “But I had a sense that I needed to un-crazy myself. And I was in a position to help people orient themselves, because I knew what was coming, right? A lot of lies. So I wanted to provide antioxidants.”
Lieb, for his part, had begun uploading sketch videos to Instagram after Oct. 7, in which he played what he saw as a representative liberal Zionist character: that is, someone increasingly unwilling to accept criticism of Israel post Oct. 7. Maté found the character amusing, and told Lieb as much over Instagram. “The videos would always start off with about 45 seconds of decent-sounding politics,” Maté said, “and then would devolve.” Eventually, they set a date for Maté to appear on Lieb’s new podcast. So were the seeds of Bad Hasbara planted.
Both Maté and Lieb agree that the podcast has been buoyed by the procession of news and people coming out of the Middle East. For its first six months, Maté was amazed they never ran out of characters to lampoon. “Hen Mazzig, Eylon Levy, Rabbi Shmuley: It was like the Wu-Tang Clan of propaganda,” he said.
But its blend of levity, righteous indignation and social media fluency has helped Bad Hasbara stand out in an increasingly crowded left-wing media ecosystem. Episodes can be blunt, funny and sarcastic, often quite crude and sometimes willfully provocative. They’re called things like ‘The Greatest Shoahman’ — an episode about Nick Fuentes’ Holocaust denial, naturally — or, on Nov. 8 last year, after Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City, ‘The Zionist Freakout over Zohran’s win.’ Either host is liable to, in the same breath, give eloquent expression to some important, overlooked morsel of Palestinian history, and then refer to Birthright as an “11-day handjob.”
“I think the combination of moral earnestness and complete lack of decorum is compelling,” said Maté.
And despite its mostly easygoing vibe, they’ve thought carefully about the podcast’s message. “We’ve worked really hard to diversify our guests,” said Maté. “Not for the sake of diversity, but for the sake of completion and for the sake of insight.” The only through line, then, between the academics and musicians and actors and politicians and comics who’ve been guests on the show — Rashid Khalidi, Debra Winger, Peter Beinart, Miko Peled, to name just a few — is that “they all see what’s happening as an unjustifiable moral abomination, and they’re willing, with us, to take apart all of the various ways that it gets justified,” said Maté.
This specific entry requirement means the podcast has hosted some not-uncontroversial guests. Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters, who has frequently compared Israel to Nazi Germany, and in Nov. 2023 suggested the Oct. 7 attacks could have been a “false flag operation”, talked to Lieb and Maté in Feb. 2025. Three months later, so did Mohammed El-Kurd, a Palestinian poet, writer and activist whom several mainstream Jewish groups have accused of demonizing Zionism and Jewish Israelis. (El-Kurd is a regular on the college campus circuit; in March 2025, more than 200 Harvard College affiliates and alumni published an open letter arguing that El-Kurd’s appearance at Harvard violated the university’s policies against antisemitism.)
Yet Maté doubts the podcast has reached those who might find such conversations troubling: more passionate defenders of Israel, say, or anyone especially worried that the line between antisemitism and anti-Zionism can sometimes be blurry. “I don’t know how many Zionists listen to our show long enough to stay pissed off,” he said. “It tends to have a certain kind of repellent to it.” It’s also not entirely clear who Maté means by “Zionists.” When asked, he defined Zionism, a little enigmatically, as “the refusal to heal Jewish trauma.”
Much clearer is the podcast’s particular irritation with the idea that Zionism is compatible with liberal values. After all, it’s the doctrine each was raised on, Lieb at home and Maté in his Jewish community more broadly. So if Bad Hasbara has an overarching aim, beyond ridiculing government officials, it’s probably to emphasize what they see as the impossibility of left-wing Zionism. “You can’t be a liberal and Zionist forever,” Maté told me. “You’re fighting yourself.”
The post These two anti-Zionist Jews think the Israeli government is so bad, it’s funny appeared first on The Forward.
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Hezbollah Pays Steep Price in Battle to Reverse Its Fortunes
Workers remove a coffin with a body from temporary graves and prepare for transport for a funeral ceremony of four Hezbollah fighters and two civilians, amid a temporary ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, in Tyre, southern Lebanon, April 26, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Marko Djurica/File Photo
Hezbollah has paid a heavy price for going to war with Israel on March 2: Israel has occupied a chunk of southern Lebanon, displaced hundreds of thousands of its Shi’ite Muslim constituents and killed as many as several thousand of its fighters, according to previously unreported casualty estimates from within the group.
The move has brought severe political consequences, too. In Beirut, opposition has hardened to its status as an armed group, which domestic rivals see as exposing Lebanon to repeated wars with Israel.
In April, Lebanon’s government held face-to-face talks with Israel for the first time in decades, a decision Hezbollah firmly opposed.
However, more than a dozen Hezbollah officials told Reuters they see a chance to reverse deteriorating fortunes by aligning with Tehran in its war with Israel and the United States. The group, founded by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in 1982, opened fire two days into the conflict, which began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28.
The group’s calculations are based on the assessment that its participation would force Lebanon onto the agenda of U.S.-Iranian negotiations, and that Iranian pressure can secure a more robust ceasefire than one that took effect in November 2024 following a conflict sparked by the war in Gaza, the officials said.
Hezbollah was mauled in the last war, which killed its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, along with some 5,000 fighters, and weakened its long-dominant hold over the Lebanese state.
Rearmed with Iranian help, it has used new tactics and drones, surprising many with its capabilities after a fragile 15-month truce during which Hezbollah held fire, even as Israel continued to kill its members.
Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim al-Moussawi denied the group was acting on Iran’s behalf when it resumed hostilities, as alleged by opponents. He told Reuters Hezbollah saw a window to “break this vicious cycle … where the Israelis can target, assassinate, bombard, kill, without any revenge.”
He acknowledged losses and damage in southern Lebanon but said “you don’t go into making calculations of how many are going to be killed” when “pride and sovereignty and independence” are at stake.
Hezbollah’s media office said the figure of several thousand fighters killed in the present war was false.
While a US-mediated ceasefire that took effect on April 16 has led to a significant reduction in hostilities, Israel and Hezbollah have continued to trade blows in the south, where Israel maintains troops in a self-declared “buffer zone.”
Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said Hezbollah had “shown more resilience than many thought possible, but that was not a strategic gain in itself.”
“The only thing that will contain Israel is a comprehensive US-Iran deal,” he said. “Without a deal, there’s going to be a lot of pain for everyone. At best, a hurting stalemate.”
GRAVES FRESHLY DUG, AND QUICKLY FILLED
More than 2,600 people have been killed since March 2, around a fifth of them women, children and medics, Lebanon’s health ministry has reported. Its toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Three sources, two of them Hezbollah officials, said the ministry’s figures do not include many of the group’s casualties. They said several thousand Hezbollah fighters have been killed, though the group does not have the full picture yet.
In a statement to Reuters, Hezbollah’s media office denied the figures cited by the sources, and that the numbers published by Lebanon’s health ministry included its members killed in Israeli strikes.
One source, a Hezbollah commander, said scores of fighters had gone to the frontline towns of Bint Jbeil and Khiyam intending to fight to the death. Their bodies have yet to be recovered.
In the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, more than two dozen freshly dug graves were quickly filled with fighters’ bodies in the days after the ceasefire took hold. Simple marble tombstones identify some as commanders, others as fighters.
In one southern village alone, Yater, the council recorded the deaths of 34 Hezbollah fighters.
Lebanon’s Shi’ite Muslim community has borne the brunt of Israel’s attacks, forced to flee into Christian, Druze and other areas, where many blame Hezbollah for starting the war.
Israel has been entrenching its hold over a security zone stretching as far as 10 km (6 miles) into Lebanon and demolishing villages, saying it aims to shield northern Israel from attacks by Hezbollah militants embedded in civilian areas.
An Israeli government official said Hezbollah had abrogated the November 2024 ceasefire by firing on Israeli citizens on March 2. The threat to northern Israel would be eradicated, the official said, adding thousands of Hezbollah militants had been killed, and Israel was steadily destroying the group’s infrastructure.
The Israeli military says Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel since March 2. Israel has announced 17 soldiers killed in southern Lebanon, along with two civilians in northern Israel.
Citing ongoing Israeli strikes, Hezbollah has called the April ceasefire meaningless and continued to attack.
IRAN ‘WILL NOT SELL’ THEIR FRIENDS
A diplomat who has contact with Hezbollah described its decision to enter the war as a big gamble and a survival strategy, saying it felt it needed to be part of the problem so it could be part of an eventual regional solution.
It has yet to be seen if the gamble will pay off.
Tehran has demanded that Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah be included in any deal on the wider war. But US President Donald Trump said last month that any deal Washington reaches with Tehran “is in no way subject to Lebanon.”
A spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, Tahir Andrabi, referred Reuters to an April 16 statement in which he said peace in Lebanon was essential to the talks it is mediating between the U.S. and Iran.
A Western official said they saw a possibility the US and Iran might eventually reach a settlement that does not address the war in Lebanon.
Asked about this, the US State Department, Iran’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva and Lebanon’s government did not immediately comment.
Hezbollah’s Moussawi said a ceasefire in Lebanon continues to be a top priority for Iran, adding Tehran shares Lebanon’s objectives, including that Israel halt attacks and withdraw from Lebanon. Hezbollah has “full trust in Iran – that the Iranians will not sell their own friends”, he said.
The State Department referred Reuters to an April 27 interview Secretary of State Marco Rubio did with Fox News, in which he said Israel had a right to defend itself against Hezbollah’s attacks, and that he didn’t think Israel wanted to maintain its buffer zone in Lebanon indefinitely.
The United States has urged Israel “to make sure their responses are proportional and targeted,” he said.
When the April 16 ceasefire was announced, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hezbollah’s disarmament would be a fundamental demand in peace talks with Lebanon.
Hezbollah has ruled out disarmament, saying the matter of its weapons is a topic for a national dialogue. Any move by Lebanon to disarm the group by force would risk igniting conflict in a country shattered by civil war from 1975 to 1990.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have sought Hezbollah’s peaceful disarmament since last year. On March 2, the government banned the group’s military activities.
Hezbollah has demanded the government cancel that decision and end its direct talks with Israel.
Lebanese officials have told Reuters they believe direct talks with Israel under the auspices of the US are the best way to secure a lasting ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops, as only Washington has enough leverage with Israel to achieve those aims.
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US President Trump Tells Israeli Media: ‘I Studied Iran’s New Proposal, It Is Not Acceptable to Me’
US President Donald Trump arrives to award the medal of honor to Master Sgt. Roderick ‘Roddie’ W. Edmonds, Staff Sgt. Michael H. Ollis, and retired Command Sgt. Maj. Terry P. Richardson during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 02 March 2026.
US President Donald Trump said he has reviewed Iran’s latest proposal and described it as “unacceptable” in an interview with Israeli broadcaster Kan News on Sunday. Trump added that ongoing efforts related to the conflict are “progressing very well,” without providing further details. He also renewed his call for clemency for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arguing that Israel needs a leader focused on wartime priorities rather than legal matters.
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Israel Court Extends Detention of Gaza Flotilla Activists
Activist Saif Abu Keshek, a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla detained by Israel, sits at a magistrate’s court for a detention extension hearing in Ashkelon, southern Israel, May 3, 2026. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
An Israeli court has extended by two days the detention of two activists arrested aboard a Gaza-bound flotilla that was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters near Greece, their lawyer said on Sunday.
Saif Abu Keshek, a Spanish national, and Brazilian Thiago Avila were detained by Israeli authorities late on Wednesday and brought to Israel, while more than 100 other pro-Palestinian activists aboard the boats were taken to the Greek island of Crete.
A court spokesperson confirmed that their remand had been extended until May 5.
The governments of Spain and Brazil issued a joint statement on Friday calling their detention illegal.
The activists were part of a second Global Sumud flotilla, launched in an attempt to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza by delivering humanitarian assistance. The ships had set sail from Barcelona on April 12.
Israeli authorities requested a four-day extension of their arrest on suspicion of offenses that include assisting the enemy during wartime, contact with a foreign agent, membership in and providing services to a terrorist organization, and the transfer of property for a terrorist organization, said rights group Adalah, which is assisting in the activists’ defense.
Hadeel Abu Salih, the men’s attorney, said that the two deny the allegations. Their arrest was unlawful due to a lack of jurisdiction, she told Reuters at the Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court after the hearing, adding that the mission was meant to provide aid to civilians in Gaza, not to any militant group.
Abu Salih said that Abu Keshek and Avila were subjected to violence en route to Israel and kept handcuffed and blindfolded until Thursday morning.
Asked for comment, the Israeli military referred Reuters to the Israeli foreign ministry, which said that staff were compelled to act to stop what it described as violent physical obstruction by Abu Keshek and Avila. All measures taken were lawful, it said.