The Progressive Case for Israel

With Brianna Wu

Well, it’s been a bad, bad week. It started with the murder of the hostages that left us all shattered, continued with a march of Hamas stans through the streets of New York City, and ended with us trying to convince the world that ACTUALLY, Hitler *was* the bad guy in WW2. And it’s only Thursday!

Anyway, here’s something good - we made a new friend! Brianna Wu is the Executive Director of Rebellion Pac, and proud queer, progressive friend of Israel.

Here’s what we cover:

• Growing up in Mississippi

• What progressives can learn from Hasidic Jews

• The Women’s March

• Jews don’t count

• Being an inspiration for a Law & Order episode

• Twitter and Gamergate

• Chaya Leah has Maori-envy

• Brianna’s October 7th story

• Why progressives side with the bad guys

• And of course, her ranking as a world champion Super Mario 2 runner:

Follow Brianna on X, she’s not afraid to speak her mind and we are grateful for that.

More notes:

• ICYMI, here’s the latest episode of our sister podcast,

  edJEWcation
  , in which Chaya Leah does some things.

• Our friend and former guest

  Andrew Fox
  posted his thoughts about the heartbreak many of us are experiencing, and is donating proceeds from his subscribers to the IDF. If you haven’t subscribed yet - now is the time!

• I posted a Twitter thread about the fight for the hostages in Israel. I have many, many thoughts about the protests - and I spared you most of them. But I did feel compelled to try and explain why Israelis feel the way they do, and why the last few days have been the hardest since October 7th for many of us. Here is the text:

  Many American friends have been asking me why Israel doesn’t just give up on the hostages. They say the price is too high, and puts us at greater risk in the long term. They’re not entirely wrong - but we’re not just fighting for them, we’re fighting for our identity. Yes, strategically a deal may not make sense. Many Israelis agree. But it's worth explainging why so many Israelis are walking around feeling like they’ve been punched in the gut. We’ve become more hardened over the last few days than we have in the last 11 months.

  For us, being a nation means knowing that despite our many differences, we can always count on one another when times are tough. This notion of unity has become fraught under this government (and this is not a problem unique to Israel), but there was always sense in the back of our minds that despite it all, we have each other. We’re not alone in the battle against our enemies.

  It’s the reason civilians in pajamas and flipflops grabbed their gun and went to battle on the morning of 10/7. Its why we got in our private cars to rescue strangers under fire. Its why soldiers go into battle with a full heart, leaving behind notes with words like “if anything happens to me don’t be sad – I died protecting my family”

  So now, we feel abandoned. Help is not on the way. And who we believe we are and aspire to be – those who save a soul to save the world – may not be true. It’s pretty traumatic when you consider that we are a very young country - we are writing our national story as we speak.

  I’m very much willing to consider that the protests and pressure on Netanyahu to close a deal are weakening Israel’s hand. From a purely strategic point of view, maybe we shouldn’t have posted photos of them, learned their stories and cried with their families. But we can’t not be who we are.

  I’ll leave the prognosis and security analysis to the experts, all I can say is that as a people, it’s a privilege to cry for a stranger as if they were family. It’s worth fighting for. Our enemies like to say they will destroy us bit by bit, even if it takes 100 years. So I choose to think that eventually our bonds will grow tighter and we will thrive, even if it takes longer than we’d like.

  And finally, lest you think my brain isn’t completely fried - here’s the Harvard Business Review graphic that made me gasp. Send help.