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The Thin Veil is a show for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of Palestine—and what Palestine can reveal about the systems shaping our world. Hosted by musician/activist and anti-Zionist Jew Ezra Lipp, who was raised in a Zionist ecosystem and is now, as always, on a continuing journey of learning and unlearning.
Through long-form conversations with historians, journalists, artists, activists, and people with lived experience, the show explores Palestine not in isolation, but as a window into questions of power, history, identity, media, ideology, resistance, and the stories we inherit about the world around us.
[00:00:00] Coming up on The Thin Veil
[00:00:01] Alexi Murdoch: It won't be long before our kids are grown-ups, and it won't be long before this period is looked at the same way perhaps the Holocaust was looked at and other horrific moments of just barbarous inhumanity and this will be seen as a twenty-first century sin of epic proportions that will really lift the lid off this bullshit concept of Western civilization. And I think our kids, will know where [00:00:30] we stood. The shame that those children will feel, "What did you do when the genocide in Palestine was happening? What position did you take?" And obviously, people will have revisionist like, "Oh, I was always against it." But I think at the end of the day, we should not think of the cost of speaking up for Palestine. We should think of it as the honor of our lives that in this moment, we stood and spoke up for Palestine.
[00:01:00] Well, hello and welcome back to The Thin Veil. As always, I am your host, Ezra Lipp. Thank you so much for tuning in. The Thin Veil is a show lifting the veil on conversations around Palestine and Zionism and the, systems of supremacy and subjugation thatkeep us blinded to realizing our own collective liberation, which is [00:01:30] possible, my friends.
I know it is. Well, I don't know it is, but I hope it is. if you'd like to support the show, there's a Patreon page. You can sign up to become a monthly supporter. I have a Ko-fi page where you can give a one-time or recurring donation tip if you like what you're hearing here and you find value. I'd so appreciate it.
That is all listed in the show notes. Of course, leave a rating and review wherever you're listening to this, be it on YouTube or any of the [00:02:00] podcast platforms. I would like to give a special shout-out to the people that do watch on YouTube and leave comments. I just wanna say I really love some of the comments on YouTube.
They're some of the most, generous and thoughtful comments out of all the platforms that I post this. And, um, sometimes when I feel like, "Why am I even doing this? Is- does anyone care? Does it matter? Is it helping?" I read some comments from people all over the world that are tuning [00:02:30] in, and it really gives me some more strength and, perseverance to keep going on.
With that said, for the 28th episode of this show, this is actually going to be a rebroadcast of a much earlier interview. I'm just giving myself a micro break from the pressure of a new episode every week. I have ones, uh, still planned for soon, so, by next Wednesday, you will receive a brand-new interview like you have for the [00:03:00] past 27 weeks.
However, this conversation is, uh, a very great one that you might have missed 'cause it was just the fifth episode of the show, and the show has grown, fairly substantially since then. And e- even though it was recorded in March 2026 before I even had released the first episode of the show, it feels still pretty relevant today,of course, things in Palestine haven't changed much.
But it felt relevant because this is a artist [00:03:30] perspective, and as you know, there is this big cultural thing happening in the media right now, this drama playing out with Ed Sheeran and Macklemore. And, you know, we don't need to talk about that. I'm, I'm guessing you could guess where I would stand on that.
I am an artist and musician who has been speaking out in a very deliberate and direct way, um, on Palestine for a while, although not nearly as long as many other [00:04:00] brave souls. And, um, there's a variety of reasons for that, which I've shared on this show before, predominantly my own indoctrination and uncertainty around, uh, seeing the issue clearly.
However, in this conversation, we are about to speak with a award-winning musician, a beautiful musician, His music has been featured in many films, TV shows, commercials. He's been touring the world for, the last 20 years [00:04:30] plus. And of course, I'm talking about the UK-based musician Alexi Murdoch.
he has wonderful accolades. You can look him up. He has beautiful music. You should listen to it. But we're not here to talk about, his music or how many awards he's won But we are here to talk about what it means to be an artist who speaks up about Palestine, and Alexi Murdoch was somebody who's been doing this with, great cost to himself.
just as anyone who speaks up for Palestine has [00:05:00] some personal and professional cost. Although we do it because we know that whatever cost we have means nothing compared to the cost of silence and to the cost that the people in Palestine are actually experiencing living through this pathological genocide, ethnic cleansing in this insane apartheid state that we call Israel.
So anyway, [00:05:30] I'm gonna play this conversation. Alexi and I haven't checked in, totally recently, so I can't say that his thoughts and his feelings haven't evolved since we had this conversation again in March 2026. it is now September 2026. I've had evolving thoughts, evolving, clarity, but, uh, I still think this is a, a conversation that was important then and is important now, and I think you will, gain a lot of value [00:06:00] from it.
So without further ado, please enjoy this rebroadcast of my conversation with the one and only Alexi Murdoch
[00:06:10] Ezra Lipp:
[00:06:14] Alexi Murdoch: Yeah, it's weird, you know. Like, it's funny a lot of people say, "Oh, you know, you've been so act- so vocal, so active," and, you know, and I, and I... Well, we'll talk about it maybe hopefully, but, you know, I visited Palestine last year, and people just assume that [00:06:30] that's gonna somehow immediately inform some kind of new writing.
I think for me, I've never been the kind of writer to sit down and kind of, um, work at it, uh, with any kind of method or as a cr- I don't see it as a craft. I see writing more as a process of just allowing experience to sort of percolate or bubble up to the surface or how whichever way it, whichever way it moves.
I don't know. [00:07:00] Um, and so it's inevitable that these last two and a half, three years w- are informing whatever new writing is coming out. But certainly I've, I've been pretty paralyzed, I would say, t- and certainly in terms of picking up an instrument or sitting down, even just my usual practice of sitting down at an instrument and letting fragments come through.
I find myself sort of almost stopping myself [00:07:30] from doing that right now, and I don't... I'm not quite sure why. There's something... Maybe it's just the, the sense of urgency in terms of activism and in terms of s-speaking directly about this as opposed to thinking that I have the luxury to be able to wait for this experience to somehow transform into, into a creative voice.
You know, it's like that. I, I feel almost guilty about sitting down to, [00:08:00] to enjoy the process of creating. Um, but I think also it's just been so overwhelming that I think it's gonna take some time. I find myself more just writing, uh, maybe you might call it poetry. I mean, I've never really been a songwriter to sit down and write music and words together anyway, so, um, but yeah, that's a very long, long, long-winded answer to say I haven't really.
I found myself kind of [00:08:30] shying away from, from sitting down like I normally would with a guitar or at the piano or something.
[00:08:36] Ezra Lipp: I will say as, as a fellow artist and musician, I've, I have very similar inclinations at this point. I've, I've historically been in- incredibly disciplined and, and pretty active, like whether it be p- practicing drums, which is my primary instrument, or writing on the piano, writing s- songs. Uh, and the [00:09:00] last, definitely at least the last year, it's been very difficult.
My time doing that has been much more limited I, and I... It's felt almost like an indulgence when I have done it, uh, and, and not o- and not in a good way necessarily. Like, it feels like I'm obscuring some greater responsibility.
[00:09:19] Alexi Murdoch: yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's difficult, right? Because on the one hand, somewhere I know that my, you know, my skill set that [00:09:30] ultimately what I've been given to do, let's say, not to sound kinda heavy-handed, but like certainly my calling or the way that I, that I best communicate to people is through the art form so-- in some way, right?
So I know that that's... And I also know that people are more receptive through that medium, you know, that ultimately it, it-- you, you're operating on a different frequency. But-- And, and I've always [00:10:00] kn-- kind of known that, that ultimately you have to sort of have a more oblique approach. Like I was talking to someone the other day, and they were saying, "Oh, you, you've become political."
And I would, I'd kind of push back and say, "Well, I've always been political." It's just there's overt, overt what would seem like an overtly political message, and then there's the deeper work, right? 'Cause ultimately you're-- what we're trying to do is, is sort of open people up to their own sense of, of, of conscience or, [00:10:30] or mor- or, you know, let's not call it morality, let's call it ethics, you know.
And that, that really you're trying to reawaken people's sense of agency and empathy and compassion, uh, without being didactic. But then you have this moment, uh, that we've been witnessing, you know, this, this, this explicit and urgent horror over the last two and a half years. And suddenly it, it seems, it seems like to, to take the, the approach, [00:11:00] the oblique approach just seems...
You know, I, I was thrown. I was like, "Well, I, who-- I don't have time to do that. I don't have time to sit and kind of like appeal to people's good nature. I need to tell them to wake the fuck up now and realize that they, you know, they're living in this kind of neoliberal propagandized nightmare culture, um, that has groomed an entire population to sort of to, to, to, to sleepwalk through a genocide," you know?
Um, and [00:11:30] I know that it's not as effective a way of communicating, and people have been shocked 'cause that's not my usual voice. You know, people have been shocked. They're just like, "Oh, you've become so angry and so political." You know, I'm sure you get the same thing, right? But y-you're like, "Well, what, what are you supposed to do?"
Like, I'm sorry. This is, this is urgent. This needs addressing now. We can get back to the, uh, you know, to the art and the kind of, uh, culture demolishing and rebuilding or whatever, but [00:12:00] ultimately this, this is an emergency.
[00:12:02] Ezra Lipp: I, I completely hear that and, and I think it, it raises an interesting question, which is-- And, and again, I, I, I feel like, um, I've, I've, I've maybe had a, a similar trajectory where I always had maybe a sense that I, I had some subtle political messaging, not overt political messaging, but more about, you know, the, the, the wanting of people to wake up and, and find more [00:12:30] humanity, find more empathy, find more compassion, be better in the world.
And but I think what was so shocking about this moment for me, and I imagine for you as well, was when I realized that a segment of the people I had been speaking to and collaborating with, whatever, like in the face of a genocide like that, that those-- that message maybe wasn't working. Like it-- 'Cause, 'cause what, what else do you need [00:13:00] to, to, to understand
[00:13:01] Alexi Murdoch: And you, when you say segment, you're being generous 'cause wh- when a segment sounds small, I mean, we might be talking about a majority. Let's be honest, right?
[00:13:10] Ezra Lipp: Yeah. No, I think we are. I, I mean, I think also what has f- made me go so hard once certain things clicked and, um, was I, I recognized at least some of that in myself at the start of the genocide. [00:13:30] Because, because I had a, I had a certain amount of indoctrination being raised in a Zionist Jewish ecosystem, and we've, we've talked about that a little bit previously.
I had absorbed a lot of the propaganda that erased the asymmetry of what, what has been happening, and it wasn't until I began to study over time and start to understand the nature of how I had been propagandized, uh, did I realize how, uh, [00:14:00] that sort of mentality really serves to, um, blunt any sort of real, uh, activism towards
[00:14:09] Alexi Murdoch: Of course
[00:14:10] Ezra Lipp: But maybe, maybe you had the benefit of not, not being, uh, quite indoctrinated in the same way. I'm not sure. When, when, when did you start to become aware of, uh... I know it was after, uh, after October 7th, but how did you first start to go deep [00:14:30] into this issue
[00:14:30] Alexi Murdoch: Yeah, I mean, it's really-- It's interesting you say that I was not as indoctrinated. I mean, I would give you that obviously because I'm not Jewish and I didn't, and I didn't grow up, you know, Zionist specifically. But, but ultimately, I think it's fair to say that we are-- we have all in sort of Western civilization been indoctrinated, um, pretty deeply.
You know, this is a culture that has been, um Uh, you know, I say this again and again, that has been groomed, [00:15:00] uh, and, and, and not necessarily overtly directly, but has been groomed to be Islamophobic, to be anti-Arab, to, to dehumanize Arabs, to see the Middle East as some place of in- in, you know, i- infernal endless conflict, to, to, to, to, to have a completely ahistorical sort of mythology of Palestine itself as some kind of, you know, place where there's always been this strife.
Uh, you know, n- I mean, now it seems so absurd, but, [00:15:30] you know, for many years, I think for a lot of people... I mean, I'm a, I'm a smart guy. I'm educated. I, I've studied, uh, you know, I, I mean, I studied English and philosophy, but I definitely took classes in, in, you know, I, I learned about colonialism in Africa.
Like, I'm very familiar with the, with the, uh, you know, with the mechanism, the colonial mechanism of Western colonialism, right? So what was, I think, incredible to me as [00:16:00] somebody who thinks of themselves as sort of, you know, like I have a basic understanding of sort of, you know, Western imperialism, colonial extraction, to realize that somehow this little piece of history was just-- almost like an invisibility cloak had been put over it, um, so effectively.
I mean, like genius level of sort of cover, cover-up. And I always recognized that obviously, yeah, well, clearly the state of Israel, th- [00:16:30] there's an in- there's a c- total power imbalance there. You can see it from a distance. You know, they've got all the, all the guns and the, and the, and the money, and the, and the Palestinians don't.
But the one little piece that was missing was that I guess I believed that, that there was this ancient conflict. And it wasn't until after October 7th that I sat down, and I was like, "Okay, let me, let... Just what, what exactly is going on here?" And what's crazy is that because it's only a hundred-year [00:17:00] colonial history, it doesn't take very long for the penny to drop.
And this is what's so deeply frustrating as I try to-- I've tried so hard to tell people, "Listen, it, it'll take you a day to learn about that at the end of 1917, the Ottoman Empire was collapsing," that, you know, the, the, the, the f- the end of the First World War, this, and that there was a scramble between the French and the British, the Sykes-Picot Agreement.
You know, they're like, like so just typical [00:17:30] Western, you know, European colonialism. I mean, it's the story. It's so familiar to anyone who understands basic, you know, the modus operandi of Western powers at the time And, and for some reason people are so resistant to, because I think they've done such a good job at like making people believe that somehow this is some ancient conflict and they keep talking about, "Oh, but you know, like look at all these old archeological finds."
Like no one's arguing about whether or not there were Jewish people living there. [00:18:00] Like they were the indigenous people at the time. What we're talking about here is like European colonization, right?
[00:18:06] Ezra Lipp: Yeah.
[00:18:07] Alexi Murdoch: And it's just so
[00:18:08] Ezra Lipp: I would, I would push back a, a little bit. Just I think, I think for someone like you, it would probably take a day, but I would think for somebody who grew up in a Jewish ecosystem that even if, if it might take a day to, to, you know, listen to Rashid Khalidi or Ilan Pappé and, and, you know, [00:18:30] really kinda absorb the, the historical narrative to unlearn the, the bias that is been propagated on us about, you know, human shields or,
[00:18:42] Alexi Murdoch: Oh, the, the mo- the modern, yeah.
[00:18:44] Ezra Lipp: gay people off roofs, which, which are both, you know, fabrications and, and the, the, and, and the way that trauma and perpetual victimhood and the memory of the Holocaust has been weaponized and exploited.
[00:19:00] Talking about Israel and Palestine to people that have absorbed those narratives, it's like literally like speaking to their trauma
[00:19:07] Alexi Murdoch: Yeah. I mean, it's fa-- I mean, I, I cannot even imagine, uh, what it must be like, you know, to grow up, like, Jewish Zionist, um, a-and, and, and live in that ecosystem. I mean, you know, hats off to you because, like, I can imagine that that process of... I mean, you're talking about deprogramming on such a deep level, right?
And yeah, when I [00:19:30] say it takes a day, I say that obviously as somebody who didn't have that kind of in- deep investment, you know? Like, I say as somebody who, who sort of has a-- who, who understand, who, you know, living in the UK has a complete understanding of the way that European colonialism works. So when I, when I pick up, you know, when I pick up a book and I read about Sykes and Picot meeting in a gentleman's club in London and just drawing a line across the Middle East, that's what I mean that I understand.
You go [00:20:00] from there, and then you pick up Ilan Pappé's ethnic cleansing of Palestine and y- and again, within, within the first chapter, you're just like, "M- my God." Like, my God
[00:20:12] Ezra Lipp: Yet people think you're crazy and I'm crazy. Like, people think you're, you're in- uh, brainwashed or uneducated or misinformed or propagandized
[00:20:23] Alexi Murdoch: Well, that's interesting you say, you say that. I mean, when you say people think that you're crazy or that I'm crazy, you [00:20:30] know, there are... I know people who have-- would, would take that view, say, "Oh, you've been propagandized," but who are not stupid people, right? So do they really believe, do they really believe that?
And this is, I think, this maybe touches on something about the-- of, of where we are as a society and what this culture, this kind of necrotic culture has, has, has succeeded in doing, is that it has completely erased people's ability to... [00:21:00] almost to think critically or to sort of have the, not, not, not even the courage, because to have the courage, first you have to have the impetus.
To even have the impetus to question something that is a comfortable narrative that is serving their worldview, right? So, so in the past, maybe, you know, I would say people would, would see me speak up like this, and we talked about this a little bit the other day. People who, let's say, [00:21:30] have listened to my music, who are very attached to, to the music I've put out, who talk about how it's, you know, helped them, has been formative or whatever, and then they'll hear me speak up on Palestine, and suddenly they're just like, "Uh, you're a terrorist, Elijah.
What's wrong with you? I didn't realize you were this anti-Semitic bigot." You know, just like bonkers, right? And you realize, like, wow, okay, so How was there not a moment where you stopped to resolve the cognitive [00:22:00] dissonance, right? How did you go from, "I love this guy," to, "This guy's a terrorist sympathizer"?
It was easier for you to do that than it was to stop and say, "Hmm, what is it that he's saying? Like, why is he saying that? Let me j- let me at least look into it. Let me, let me hear him out. Let me, let me actually... Let me take the three minutes that he's talking about this issue and see what is it he's read, and maybe I should read it too."
And this is what this culture has
done, you know, is it's sort of removed... [00:22:30] It's sort of almost like said like, "Nah, don't, don't, don't even bother anymore." Like if someone isn't, you know, if someone isn't aligned with you and it makes you uncomfortable, it's almost like this binary, like that's it. You, you move on and you kind of stick with your, with your sort of, uh, ideological tribe.
Um, and that's really, I think that's really what we need to address more than anything else, because trying to just convince each other... I mean, you and I sitting here know that [00:23:00] the moral, ethical, correct, historical, I mean, we know the truth of this issue, right? I mean, Palestine in, in... What's fascinating in some ways about this issue is that it is so black and white in terms of, in terms of, you know, w- the right side of history on this issue.
Um, and so I think if, if, if after two and a half years, all the talking in the world hasn't managed to convince, um, to convince, you know, maybe [00:23:30] otherwise decent people, uh, to at least listen, then, then there's something, there's something deeply wrong with, with the mechanism of our, of the way we communicate with each other, with our culture, and, and we need to really think about addressing that issue, right?
[00:23:45] Ezra Lipp: How do we address that? What, what, what could you point to? I'm, I'm genuinely
[00:23:50] Alexi Murdoch: Yeah. I mean, this is the thing. As someone disaffected with the culture, entertainment, you know, vapid consumer culture [00:24:00] since for, you know, my whole adult life, like I'm, I've, I've always known that this is a culture that is necrotic in many ways, that is, that is essentially eating away at us. And here's the proof.
The proof, these last two years are the proof that the culture has weakened us to such a point that it has sort of, uh, in- allowed us to literally sleepwalk through a genocide to, to s- to, you know, "Oh, well, yeah, it's horrible." The images, people talk about the images coming out of Gaza, right? Almost like they're images.
They're not [00:24:30] real,
[00:24:31] Ezra Lipp: Yeah
[00:24:31] Alexi Murdoch: know. So along and take the scraps off the table 'cause they're not bad scraps, you know. We need to become more serious. We need to become more serious people. We are not serious. We live in this culture that is absurdly stupid and getting more and more stupid by the day. The content, intelligent people, you know, like, it's like an addiction.
We're addicted to like low grade, low brow, sort of m- empty entertainment [00:25:00] that keeps us distracted and busy. It's like, it's like we're, we're all sugar, sugar fiends, you know? We gotta get off it, you know. I would say, you know, I think we are w- this, this culture, this society of ours, we are all heading into a long period, a dark period of sort of fascism
[00:25:19] Ezra Lipp: Do you have any hope? 'Cause I know y- you're not advocating for nihilism,
[00:25:23] Alexi Murdoch: No, no, not at all
[00:25:25] Ezra Lipp: But do, do you, do you, do you think we're doomed into a dark period of [00:25:30] fascism?
[00:25:30] Alexi Murdoch: I don't... Th- I'm not one who buys into this whole, like, the long arc of history bends towards justice. That's just more neoliberal bullshit. We have to struggle, right? If w- if w- if we, if we want justice, we want justice for our fellow human beings, we don't sit back and wait for the arc. But I don't think it's hopeless.
I don't have no hope. On the contrary, I feel like you can build hope by accepting that you're going to have t- that there's going to be hardship. Like, you understand that hardship is part of the journey. You [00:26:00] understand that we've been living in a bubble, right? In the West, you and me and, and, like, all our friends, we have been born into lives of, of immense privilege, and I call it privilege.
It's, it's material privilege. It's not spiritual privilege. We've-- we're actually, like, we've been born into a pretty spiritually bereft culture. Um, but we've been born, certainly in terms of our safety, in terms of what we're able to do, our material, we've been born into, uh, [00:26:30] uh, lives that have, that have been afforded to us at the expense, let's face it, of our fellow human beings, right?
And, and not just the ones alive today, but the future, because this oil bubble that we li- that we're living in, this cheap energy, this, this, this en- this money, this, this century of oil comes at the expense. We're burning the future. We're burning the past, and we're burning the future. That ultimately there needs to be a change, and with change, real change [00:27:00] requires, you know, rupture, like real rupture.
There's no... We c- we're not gonna sit and tinker with this rotten thing and, and somehow make it better. I know that's what liberals think we can do or would like to dream we can do, but we, we can't. The whole... It's, it's a rotten system. Ask the children going down the mines in the Congo, you know? So In some ways I welcome what's coming.
I have children. I don't-- It's not that I don't have anxiety. It's [00:27:30] not that I don't worry about what it means. It's not that there isn't massive uncertainty. It's not like I'm not some... Yeah, I'm not like the guy sitting on the bomb at the end of Apocalypse Now, you know, waving my cowboy hat. I'm not some end times, uh, you know?
But I... No, I'm definitely not. Like, I'm scared. I'm scared about what's coming. I'm, I'm like, we're in for some really bad shit. But in some ways it's just like when you've seen the bad shit that is, that, that is being, [00:28:00] uh, that your fellow-- most of your fellow human beings in the Global South have, have been dealing with and are dealing with, to say, "Oh, well, I don't, I don't want our society to collapse."
I mean, it's just like, well, no, I'm sorry, but, like, we're all in this together, and if, if we're, if we're living like this at their expense, then, then it's, it's... We need to change it. I wish I could say that amazing, charismatic people would-- were gonna come along and say... And, and it would happen. There would be a [00:28:30] peaceful transfer of wealth and power and redistribution.
But when has that ever happened in history, you know?
[00:28:37] Ezra Lipp: Uh, you've been using your platform to speak more directly in the last couple years, predominantly about Palestine. I know you've gone through a lot of personal and professional costs. Uh, you've lost management, and I would, I would love to hear about that, but I'd also love to know, do you think it's worked at all?
Like, are there people that maybe you feel like you've helped open [00:29:00] up their minds, turn them on to new truths?
[00:29:03] Alexi Murdoch: I mean, thank-thankfully, thankfully I can, I can, I, I have the evidence. Okay, it's not many people, but you'd have to assume that, you know, of the people that send messages, there are others who haven't, but maybe have had the same experience. I've taken the last couple of years... I won't say this is all I've done, but ultimately it has seemed the most urgent thing, right?
Like it's kind of become a bit of a job to, to, to try and call people [00:29:30] to, to action. And there are times where you're just like, "Am I being effective? Is this just crazy? Is this what they want, to have me just sitting here screaming into a void?" But then you get these messages from people who say, "Listen, I, I, I wanna thank you because I've followed you for years."
And, you know, I had a message from someone the other day, and she, you know... I thought it was so brave. She's like, "I was..." She's like, "I have to admit, I, I unfollowed you in the beginning." She said, "I found your [00:30:00] rhetoric, like, it, it just, it shook me. I didn't know what was going on, and I unfollowed you." And I've had, I've had several people say this to me, you know, "In the beginning I just...
And, and it's taken me this long to realize that, you know, what you were saying was right, and, and I'm so sorry that my, that my journey to this took so much longer. And, you know, and I... And thank you for, for having been there to kind of plant the seed or instigate the process for me." So yeah, I think it works, and I would say to [00:30:30] people who are, who are thinking that it's not working, I think I would say to people, "Don't stop talking."
That's exactly what they want. They want us... They want people to burn out. They want people to think that it's not effective, that there's, you know, that ultimately no matter what you do, look, look what we're gonna do today to this, to this hospital or to this girls' school. Um, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna strike it twice.
We're gonna, we're gonna burn a hundred and sixty-five [00:31:00] girls between the age of seven and twelve. Two and a half years after you've been sitting and railing and ranting, just to let you know that you, nothing you do is gonna stop us. I mean, there is, there is an element. I don't think we should, I don't think we should, we should underestimate the, the strategic cruelty, uh, involved in, in deliberately showing us the carnage, right?
It's not... They're no longer trying to stop us from seeing the carnage. They're [00:31:30] trying to tell us, like, "You cannot stop this carnage." And they're trying to tell anyone else,
[00:31:35] Ezra Lipp: to get us to get used
to it
[00:31:36] Alexi Murdoch: that's exactly right. That's exactly right. Get used to it." And they're trying to tell everyone in the Global South, "If you're thinking of, of, of pushing against us, this is, this is what you're in for too.
Make no mistake." But of course, we have to keep, we have to keep on. We can't, we can't go quiet. I mean, you know that. I know that. And I think, I think if anything [00:32:00] We should think about how to become more effective in the way that we advocate. Obviously, these platforms that we're using, obviously they're shutting them down, like they're taking complete control.
And obviously they're doing that because they've realized that, "Ooh, hang on, these people actually are starting to wake up
[00:32:20] Ezra Lipp: So you traveled to Palestine. W- what, when did you go? What, what motivated you? Please tell us about your
[00:32:28] Alexi Murdoch: Yeah. So I, [00:32:30] um, you know, I had the opportunity to go back in September of last year, so '25. I went with a kind of delegation, uh, pa- led by some Palestinians, um, crossed through Jordan and spent, like, m- about two weeks based in East Jerusalem, occupied Jerusalem, sort of going into the West Bank. Obviously, there were places we just couldn't go because, you know, there was violence happening, and it was day-to-day.
We had to see where we could go. Obviously, we didn't get anywhere near [00:33:00] Gaza. Well, I say we didn't get anywhere near Gaza. You know, at one point, I was only 30 kilometers away. It's, like, not far. When I flew, when I was flying into Jordan, as we were hitting the coast, it was so ho-horrifying. Like, it was nighttime.
It was a night flight, and I looked out the port side window of the plane, and I could see jets, and I knew they were jets because the airspace is closed, and I could see, see [00:33:30] jets, like just the, the, the li- the, you know, the whatever you call it, the afterburners of jets going in and out. And at one point, I was, yeah, we were only 30 miles away from, from the, from the Gaza Strip.
It was all black, you know, dark, and then you could see the lights of sort of Tel Aviv up, and they're all partying and, like, there's this dark patch with jets flying over it just, you know, bombing these people. And I mean, immediately, the first thing you're struck by when you, when you cross from Jordan into [00:34:00] Palestine, they don't even control their own border.
Nowhere, anywhere. It's like, it's essentially like a, a colonial, the colonial regime controls the border, and you go through, and immediately the feeling is just so oppressive and so violent and so unnatural. Everything is militarized. The suspicion. We're told, I mean, every-- The cameras. They've got cameras and microphones everywhere, so you can't say anything because they're listening to everything.
I, I already kinda knew what to expect, [00:34:30] but it was so shocking to actually see for myself just the level of, um H-how such a thing can exist in the twenty-first century. I mean, even in Jerusalem, you know, you're in Jerusalem and, and, and you've got this, this absolutely beautiful ancient city with these stones.
You know, I would walk in the morning through, through the Palestinian quarter. The city itself just sort of exudes this [00:35:00] sort of peace in a way. Like, like there's, there's something so, so ancient and kind of... I understand why it has this kind of sacred, uh, feeling for so many people. And then, and then everywhere, everywhere, checkpoints, barbed wire, concrete structures, and these tacky flags, these Israeli flags just everywhere.
You know, you, you wander into the, into the Jewish Quarter and, and, and they're, and they're literally like... I have photos of, [00:35:30] of, of huge banners hanging off walls saying, "Make Gaza Jewish again." I mean, it's just like to go out, you know, and soldiers, and not just soldiers, like dudes walking around in Birkenstocks, right?
With AR-15s, with American accents who look like you and me. White dudes with like sunscreen on, you know what I mean? Everywhere, walking through the markets, and these Palestinians are sitting there trying to sell their, their, their, you know, they're, they're like, "Oh, look, we [00:36:00] live side by side." No, no, no, man.
They don't live side by side. The Palestinians are sitting there like literally selling... They, they're selling kippahs with like Star of David on them or, or, or sometimes like Donald Trump's face because, because that's what, that's essentially how they make money, 'cause that's what, that's what people are coming to Jerusalem to buy.
I mean, it's so bonkers. And then at night- At night I would hear like [00:36:30] so I'd wander out on my own, like, and, and I'd go into these squares, and there were these, like, crazy, like, people with guns, like... A-and the vibe was so... Oh, man, you just feel there's, there's this energy of sort of suspicion and aggression and hate and anger, and you realize, like, wow, these people are not free.
Actually, in some crazy way, the [00:37:00] Palestinians are more free than the settlers. The settlers are like prisoners of this security. And then the West Bank, uh, you know, it's just horrific. Checkpoints, gates. They, they, th-there are now over 1,000 gates. They keep putting these new gates in. They have this gate system where basically, like...
Where basically they color-code the gates, and you've got, like, uh, red gates for the military and orange gates. The orange gates can be operated by any settler, [00:37:30] and if a Palestinian touches the gate, they get shot. I mean, I, I actually went past a gate, and our gu-guide said, "Oh, three Palestinian boys were shot dead for, for trying to open that gate."
And, like, the people there are farmers. They, they've worked the land. They're so rooted to the land. These are just people who can't access their olive. They steal their water, and they give them only so much to make sure that they can't grow stuff. I did not meet one Palestinian who hadn't either been shot, been in prison, had family members killed. [00:38:00] This is something that's, like, just standard. It's standard. Like, there's nobody who's not touched by the, by the regime's violence. I was just shocked. I went to Hebron. It's so much worse than it was last year, you know. Like, the settlers are just... And when I say settlers, we have to distinguish. We-- You know, we have to rather not distinguish because this propaganda that, like, somehow the settlers, the hilltop settlers are, are ex- the, an extreme element that the Israeli government can't [00:38:30] control.
People don't know. I'm shocked that people don't know, but people don't know. The settlers are paid by the government to be settlers. They don't have jobs. That is their job. They are paid and funded. They are given RVs and, and guns. You know, you see Ben-Gvir coming out, like, on the Israeli news. They'll be like, "Oh, look, we just got a new shipment of these RVs for the, for the settlers."
And then they give them guns and, like, train them to, like, [00:39:00] in... And they send them out
[00:39:02] Ezra Lipp: To, to like make n-make new
outposts kind of
[00:39:04] Alexi Murdoch: exactly. Exactly. And then they make new outposts. They go and harass a village. You know, we went to Masafer Yatta and met Basel Adra, who won the Oscar for No Other Land. And, and there he was on his own. I could see through the-- As we were talking to him, I could see the settlers and their guns just across the hi- across the hilltop.
It wasn't safe for us. He's like, "Don't go walk up there 'cause they've been attacking." Uh, you know, they [00:39:30] killed his friend. And meanwhile, supposedly the world is, like, becoming aware. How is the... Like, the world is becoming aware, and yet here's a guy who's, like, just won an Oscar, and he's still in exactly the same position.
Um, and it's so much worse today
[00:39:45] Ezra Lipp: What were you-- Did you have a purpose there? Were you doing like i- international solidarity or
[00:39:52] Alexi Murdoch: was, it was, it was sort of a, an-- I suppose more than anything it was, it was an educational trip. 'Cause obviously a lot of the, [00:40:00] a lot of the pushback you get from the kinda like Zionist sort of propaganda folks is like, "What do you know about the Middle-- You've never been there." Well, now you can say, "Well, actually, I have."
Or they're like, "Come to Israel, you'll see how amazing it is." Well, I g- I did, and it's, it's an abomination. Like, and I say that, okay, I didn't go to Tel Aviv, but I did go to Jaffa, what they call Jaffa, um, and I saw, uh, you know, I saw how they've taken Palestine and kind of tried to turn it into [00:40:30] Miami, you know, to appeal to, to Americans, 'cause that's obviously the, the, the where they get most of their funding. Um, and no, I'm not impressed, 'cause I guess I'm not going as a tourist. And yet, you know, the amount of hotels and boutique, b-boutique sort of like hotels springing up and Airbnb, it was shocking to me that people actually go there as tourists. And thirty miles from north of Gaza, you know, they're like, they're going and enjoying, you know, a Mediterranean [00:41:00] holiday, uh, with like imported kind of trees.
It literally looked like Florida. Like all the vegetation was imported. It wasn't indigenous vegetation. And to know that that's the plan for the whole of Palestine, and that they're, they're more than halfway there, like, you know, that they will succeed. They've been at it for a long, long time. You know, there, there's demolition everywhere.
I s- you know, I would see everywhere we went, there were like demolition orders. They go in and they just flatten homes just 'cause they [00:41:30] can. They're just like, "Yeah, we're taking this home. This is now a security zone. We're gonna flatten it." And then, you know, settlers move in, they set up their whatever and, and you realize like, wow, this has been allowed to happen because the West has a vested interest in it happening.
I mean, it's really just as simple as that. But the fact that it's still going on in the twenty-first century, and that most people in the West are so sort of confused about what it is and [00:42:00] have been so effectively propagandized, I gotta hand it to them, they've done an amazing, amazing job at managing to keep this thing going for as long as they have.
I just hope that, you know, we've come to the end of the road sooner or later, 'cause yeah. Yeah, I mean, you see-
[00:42:19] Ezra Lipp: Do you think there's hope for a free Palestine?
[00:42:22] Alexi Murdoch: I do. I have to. It's not for us to ever doubt that, you know? There was this amazing woman who, who we sat with who, who said-- [00:42:30] You know, I mean, she spoke so beautifully, but one of the things she said, she's like, "Don't think of Palestinians as superhuman." And, and, and we do have this tendency to talk about Palestinians like they're superhuman.
And in fact, there is a reverence, obviously, because we see, we see this resilience and this faith, and that absolutely is something to, to kind of, um, to revere. But there is a, the-there is a line that we mustn't cross in sort of as- in sort of attributing some kind of, like, superhuman [00:43:00] strength to these people as though they can take more than anyone else.
Because, because there is a danger that we then sort of assume that they can kind of-- they can take it. No. No. It, it-- They're losing family. They are in pain. They just-- They're resilient because human beings are resilient, and that's what gives me hope. So 100% there's hope. I, I mean, there's more joy among the occupied and oppressed [00:43:30] population than there is among the occupiers.
The occupiers are not joyful people. There is no joy in that culture, literally. I know they talk about light and love, and we love life. I mean, it's just, it's, it's a complete lie. It's like-- And in fact, what I realized, and I'm not, not to get too kind of psychological, but what I realized is one of the reasons that they hate Palestinians so profoundly is that the Palestinians [00:44:00] are so rooted to the land, and they ha- and they, and they have a joy and a freedom, a spiritual freedom that the, that the oppressors know they can't have
[00:44:10] Ezra Lipp: You know, I've thought about the people that torture Palestinians in IOF prisons. Like, what, what is, what sort of person do you have to be to torture a human being? Like, how does that-- How do, how do you live with yourself? How do you go home to your family at night? It's[00:44:30]
[00:44:30] Alexi Murdoch: Well, that's-- Yeah. I mean, that's exactly right. Like, what kind of internal work do you have to do to make that normal in your life? And obviously, it's a level of dehumanization
[00:44:42] Ezra Lipp: And just to, just to provide a, a alternative narrative, there's also what we would c- some have called the industrial peace complex in Israel. Like, do you know, uh, do you know the movie, um, "Coexistence My Ass"?
[00:44:57] Alexi Murdoch: I've heard of that, so I kind of already [00:45:00] get a sense of what you're talking about
[00:45:02] Ezra Lipp: so Noam Schuster, Ali Asi is a, is a anti-Zionist Israeli and she, she's the subject of this movie, and she, you know, she, she grew up in this, uh, what I think might maybe the only, um, deliberate Palestinian and Jewish community in Israel that was this leftist community that was all about, "Oh, we're, you know, coexistence.
We're gonna learn to live together." And, and her and her best friend, who was [00:45:30] Palestinian, were, you know, like they were... spoke at the UN, and Hillary Clinton came and visited the village, and, "We're gonna take kids from the West Bank and teenagers from our village, and we're gonna go, and we're gonna go to the woods for a week and camp, and we're gonna sing songs together."
But then she says, you know, "We... And, and we did and, and it was great. But then in two years, we go, all my friends go, that were in the group with me went and go to the IDF, and the Palestinian kids are, [00:46:00] you know, subject to that oppression in, in Ramallah." So it's
[00:46:04] Alexi Murdoch: Yeah. I mean, that's the thing, right? Like, you realize again, what's so brilliant about the colonial sort of-- the, the methodology that this project has, has kind of put in place is obviously, in order to survive this long, it couldn't just take a, take a single position, right? And try and maintain and defend that position.[00:46:30]
They had to be smart about how to make sure that they occupy every single possible position, from the most extreme to the most liberal, right? And the liberal position must also be funded and like-- and, and because it, it caters to some people, it caters to liberals. In fact, if anything, that's the most, probably the biggest net of all, right?
So liberal Zionism is probably, like, the most insidious of all. This [00:47:00] idea, you know-- And, and g- and generally, actually, in our, in our culture, you know, I, I was having a conversation yesterday with somebody about this, like, the idea of a peace activist, right? We all think like, "Oh, well, there's nothing better than a peace activist."
But what i- what does that even mean? In, in a, in an environment where there is injustice Don't talk about peace. about justice. Peace is the natural, is the natural result of [00:47:30] justice. But if you're telling me that you're here to talk about peace while there is inequity, while there is oppression, while there is colonial violence, you're not talking about peace.
What you're really doing is it's the peace and quiet, the, you know, the peace and quiet crowd. Like, let's just get back to peace and quiet. Let's, let's, let's coexist in harmony, which I'm sure this coexistence my ass, I'm sure that's probably what it eventually concludes, right? Like,
[00:47:54] Ezra Lipp: Yes.
[00:47:55] Alexi Murdoch: there be coexistence?
And here's the thing. What [00:48:00] complicates the issue is obviously there will be Palestinians who have lived their entire lives under oppression and occupation who might be willing to say, "Hey, listen, I'll take this 'cause my life will be better." And the thing is, is you cannot criticize that. But as, as Westerners, as people who are here funding the continued project, the continued existence of this, of this occupation, we cannot sit back and say, "Well, look..."
[00:48:30] And this is an argument that's used a lot, by the way, by liberal Zionists. They're like, "But even Palestinians say that they would be happy to co--" Well, well, yeah. If you're living in a, if you're living in a ghetto, right, and suddenly your oppressors come to you and say, "You know what? If you agree to stop resisting, and you agree to stay just inside here, um, we'll give you-- we'll actually let more food in, and we'll turn on your electricity for longer, and we'll give you more water," right?
And they say yes. And even-- let's say even [00:49:00] they, they come up with a conference inside the ghetto, and they say, like, "We're gonna vote. Do we accept these terms?" And everyone says, "Yes, we're gonna accept these terms." You don't criticize that. But from the outside, you don't say, "Well, hey, look, listen to them.
They accepted the terms, so nothing wrong with the occupation." You still agitate for the end exactly. That's not peace. That is subjugation. That is, that is a coerced peace, right? Yeah.
[00:49:27] Ezra Lipp: Yeah
[00:49:27] Alexi Murdoch: so I mean, that's the thing, is [00:49:30] that we have to be really, really wary, and I, and I see it everywhere. I see it in every corner, you know.
Like, I see it a lot now with sort of, um, supposed allies of the Palestinian cause, who might even call themselves anti-Zionists, sort of falling victim to, to sort of maybe finding, you know, some Palestinian voices too extreme. It's like, dude, what do you, what do you mean? Like, it's not for you to tell someone who [00:50:00] has, like, had family members, like, like watched their, them, them have their heads, their brains blown out or, or like endless, endless violence and oppression.
I mean, what's amazing to me is how many Palestinians I met who still are so gentle. I don't understand it. I would be so hateful and so hardened. I met people, I met people who'd been in prison for twenty years, who'd been raped repeatedly, who'd been [00:50:30] beaten, who still-- I'm not saying they were gentle, like, "Oh, I love my oppressors," but they were still-- they still had gentle hearts, like to sit and have dinner with them.
They still had joy in them. They still talked about... What was so profound to me was hearing this woman talk about how The one thing that she knew that they wanted to take, to, to, to, to break her was to make her hateful, to make her bitter, to [00:51:00] poison her the way they poison the earth with their pine trees and their, and they poison the wells and they, you know, to poison the people themselves.
Because the oppressors are hateful, they wanna make the oppressed hateful too, so they can say, "Yes, you see, you hate too." That blew me away. I mean, I know we shouldn't say Palestinians are superhuman, but, like, to see human beings hold onto that humanity in the face of so much hatred against them and violence against them is an amazing thing.
But I think that's where the [00:51:30] danger lies, you know? That's, that's where liberal Zionists can kind of latch onto that and say, "Oh, but look, you see? You see, Palestinians aren't hateful, so we shouldn't be hateful either." I'm sorry, no. If they've managed to hold onto some kind of sense, and they're not out, and they're not every day talking about how they want to dismantle because they have to exist, that's one thing.
But we as, as funders of this project, as beneficiaries of a society that has relied upon these systems, that has [00:52:00] maintained the existence of this project, we should be absolutely, like, unequivocal about, about our position of demanding that this be dismantled in its entirety and these people, you know, finally be given their own land and their self-determination
[00:52:18] Ezra Lipp: Yeah. Wow. Uh I know I have prob-- I, I, I'm not even able to stay L- like [00:52:30] unangry
[00:52:30] Alexi Murdoch: know, I know. And I mean, you know, this is, this is a kind of like almost like a meta question, you know, in terms of I'm not a violent person. I'm not, you know, like my whole life has been about trying to kind of communicate to people that, that they should find more depth and more humanity and more empathy.
And I recognize even in this moment That the true path for me as an individual and the true path for all of us lies in [00:53:00] essentially understanding and empathizing even with the worst, even with the monsters, right? I mean, there's a James Baldwin clip where he, where he... It's so, it's just so heartbreaking, and he talks about walking down the street and seeing the cop, and he says, "You are that cop.
You are that monster. You must never forget that you are..." You know, that it's just, it's just arbitrary that we are, we are who we are and, and the oppressors who they are. We are all made of the [00:53:30] same fabric, right? Now, the problem is, is that while I recognize the spiritual truth of that, and I know that the true path for me is one where I have to kind of embrace that kind of more holistic.
In this moment in time, I feel that I-- it's almost like I don't, I don't know how to do that because there is also the very real problem of trying to stop these people committing atrocities [00:54:00] against our fellow human beings. And there is this spiritual kind of space. There's so much of it. I forget what they call it, the sort of, uh... Or maybe you'd call it the spiritual industrial complex. But basically, you know, I've heard from so many, like yogis and spiritual teachers and this and that and the other, who like come at me like, "Hey, you know, I've noticed you've become so, you know, you've become so angry, and you know, you've got to... You mustn't generalize," you know?
It's like... And [00:54:30] then, and what's so crazy in these i-interactions is the moment I start to be like push back and be like, "You know, that, that's a really very privileged posi-position to take, that somehow, you know, you're gonna sit in your, in your retreat in Bali, you know, fly to Bali and sit in your retreat and get massages for, you know, ten bucks an hour, um, and tell me that like, 'Oh, man, we can't, we can't weigh in on the earthly plane, uh, in this con, in this conflict.
We have to rise above it.'" So there is this very real danger of, [00:55:00] while I know that fundamentally, spiritually, like there is a truth that ultimately we have to find in ourselves the gentleness and the empathy to not just try and resolve our own trauma, and I'm not speaking just about Palestine, but to resolve the trauma of the people who are traumatizing us, right?
But I'm torn because, because there's only so much time, and here we are now, and this is happening now. They are murdering, [00:55:30] mass murdering these people now today. You know, I don't know that I can afford to sit and say, "Well, yes, I, I have to have empathy for them." I think in private, maybe I can But certainly we can't, we can't be talking about peace.
We can't be talking about forgiveness. It is not for us to do that. There is an emergency. There is a, there is a, a deeply dehumanized, uh, population, and I don't just mean in occupied Palestine, I [00:56:00] mean across the West, right? Who are willing to watch or participate or fund or look the other way, um, while their fellow human beings are decimated because it benefits them, and peace has been waved as this sort of, uh, pacifying kind of, sort of, uh, tool to, to keep people kind of thinking like, "Oh, yeah, well, you know, maybe some peace activists out there will, will kind of sort it all out, and like I can get back to, [00:56:30] you know, watching whatever on Netflix and buying my next iPhone
[00:56:33] Ezra Lipp: How do you deal-- how are you doing as a father and as a partner? Like, how do you bring this... Are you able to compartmentalize and, and be with your family and... I, I have a difficult time, you know. I, I do it somehow. I, I struggle, but, um, you know, but it's hard to go from, you know, livestream genocide to dad [00:57:00] or dishes.
[00:57:02] Alexi Murdoch: Obviously, it was just-- I mean, even my wife in the beginning was just like, "You're spending way too much time." And she was just like, "You've..." Y-you know, she was-- She didn't know, and she was like, "I think you gotta be careful what you're saying." And, you know, now we're all on board. I think it's important that as difficult as it is or... Yeah, I worry sometimes that like, oh, you know, this is, this is taking a toll on, you know, me going-- even taking the time [00:57:30] to go down to London like several times a year and go and, like, speak at protests or be involved in various things, going to Pa-- Like, it's, it's been a significant, like, of time, um, that has taken me away from other things. But I think at the end of the day, we should not think of the cost of speaking up for Palestine. We should think of it as the honor of our lives [00:58:00] that in this moment, we stood and spoke up for Palestine. Not to say that, oh, well, we, we get something out of it. But I think there should be a sense of like, even if it seems like right now these people are unbeatable, unstoppable, they, they, they literally, they have all the guns, they have all, all the media, they have all the, you know, they're shutting us down left, right, and center.
I think, you know, when I think of it won't be long before our kids are grown-ups, [00:58:30] and it won't be long before this period is looked at the same way perhaps the Holocaust was looked at and other horrific, horrific moments of just barbarous inhumanity of humans against humans. Uh, and, and this will be seen as, as like, you know, a twenty-first century sin of epic proportions that will really lift the lid off sort of th-this, this bullshit concept of Western civilization. [00:59:00] And I think our kids, you know, will know where we stood, you know. The shame, the shame that those children will feel, and there are gonna be so many of those kind of situations, you know. What did, you know, what did you do when the genocide in Palestine was happening? What position did you take? And obviously, people will have revisionist like, "Oh, I was always against it."
Funnily enough, this book sitting on my-- This book, do you-- Uh, it's, it'll [00:59:30] be backwards, but do you know this book? One Day Everyone Will, One Day Everyone
[00:59:34] Ezra Lipp: yeah, I
[00:59:34] Alexi Murdoch: Isn't it amazing, the Omar El Akkad?
[00:59:36] Ezra Lipp: Yeah. It's, it's devastating and
[00:59:38] Alexi Murdoch: Yeah, I would, I would recommend that to everyone. That's "One Day Everyone Will Have Been Against This" by Omar El Akkad.
Um, but yeah, a lot of people will say, "Oh yeah, of course my parents were against it," or, "My grandparents were against it." But you know, the ma- it, it can't add up. It can't-- If everyone were against it, it wouldn't be happening, right?[01:00:00]
[01:00:01] Ezra Lipp: Yeah. And I'll, and I'll just say it's, it's not too late.
[01:00:06] Alexi Murdoch: no, that's the thing
[01:00:07] Ezra Lipp: I mean, it's, you know, and, and that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. That's why you're doing what you're doing. I think we're trying to be like, "Hey, let's normalize this. We need-- We all need to be doing this." And, and I heard you say on another interview that, you know, you, uh, you know, because I'm sure you've had people that have been like, "Well, maybe [01:00:30] you'd be more effective if you just put it in your music, if you, you know, maybe write..."
You know, but like what y- what you said, uh, and I think this speaks to that, is, "Well, if, if everyone was talking about
this and making a huge fuss, maybe I could work on an album. Maybe I could have that privilege." But like, no, like nobody is, or very few people are, so I need to take up all the oxygen, and that's kinda how I feel in my
[01:00:55] Alexi Murdoch: Yeah, no, y- and, and you're right, and it's, it's alienating in our own communities, I [01:01:00] realize. Like, but it is the work that we have to do, and I, I totally agree, and I, and I do push back against people who say... Because you, you obviously and understandably a lot of people are like, "Man, if after two and a half years they haven't changed their mind, they're lost causes.
Don't, don't waste your time." And I think that's, that's not correct. I think if you take that position, that defeatist position, I understand you can be angry, you can be ashamed of people [01:01:30] who've, who've, who should know better. At the end of the day, the result is all that matters, right? So however we bring these people along and however long it takes to do it, it's not for us to say, "Oh, you're too late," or, "You haven't done enough." You know, it's sort of, um, yeah, I think I totally agree. You don't stop, and you don't assume that, you know, because somebody still hasn't woken up or had the right thing click for them. You know, it takes [01:02:00] some very specific combination to unlock somebody's mind
[01:02:07] Ezra Lipp: But there needs to be that willingness and that openness to examine your own belief system, question what you've thought, w- willingness, w-willing, willingness to learn, to be open, to admit you maybe have r- been wrong about something. And I think unfortunately that is [01:02:30] less common in people than it should be
[01:02:33] Alexi Murdoch: That is very deliberately this, this culture, again, has worked very hard to make people... You know, the whole idea of like, go with your gut, trust your instincts.
[01:02:47] Ezra Lipp: Hmm.
[01:02:47] Alexi Murdoch: What you believe is just as valid as what that expert says. I mean, this is by design. The reason we're where we're at is because, you know, it, it's a, it's a grooming process.
[01:03:00] Like, all of this is by design, you know? So we've ended up in a situation, yeah, you're very... You're, you're correct, where it's sort of like everyone has become almost like a mini narcissist. The algorithm will reinforce their cognitive bias. They don't have to go beyond that. There's nothing that, that...
There's no incentive to go beyond that because we're not taught critical thinking in school. Uh, we're not taught about complex systems, right? So everything has become more and more [01:03:30] binary. I mean, it's part of the capitalist system. You either like this or you like that. You want, you want this or you want that.
There's no, you know, something is good or something is evil, you know? There's no understanding of complexity anymore
[01:03:43] Ezra Lipp: What, what do you say to people in good f- who ask in good faith that are like, "Oh, you're, you're a, an anti-Zionist." Do, there's, I don't know if it's seven or nine, there's nine million Jews, I think, or seven million, I'm not sure, uh, live... Are you saying they should all just [01:04:00] leave? Like, what, what do you... Yeah.
What do you-- H- how do you respond to that? And I know it's not our place
[01:04:06] Alexi Murdoch: exactly.
[01:04:07] Ezra Lipp: dis- yeah
[01:04:08] Alexi Murdoch: This is what I would say to somebody, basically. I would say when you know that a thing is m- is morally and ethically repugnant, you, you basically advocate for the end of that thing, regardless of what the logistics of how to implement the end of that thing. We are not, we are not the [01:04:30] architects.
For a start, we're not-- We don't even... We're not Palestinians. I'm not gonna go and tell a Palestinian, "Well, I think, I think you should do this, and I think you should do that." And this is where Israelis would be like, "Well, we live here." Yeah, but you live there as, as settlers. Like, I'm sorry, like, maybe you were born there, but, like, at the end of the day, you've inherited a colonial structure that is a c- a structure of supremacy, subjugation, occupation.
J- It's a genocidal structure. So I may, I may say, "Yeah, it's a, [01:05:00] it's a hard situation," but it's not my job to resolve that. It's not my job to even think about how to resolve that. That you start with what m- what must be done, and people who argue like, "Well, are you saying that everyone should leave?" I, I don't-- I haven't even got there.
No. In an ideal world, I would take the position that, like I've heard a lot of, like, amazing Palestinians say that, that basically, like, it goes back to being Palestine because that's what it is. It's a single state, [01:05:30] and everyone has equal rights. But of course, within that, you can't leave. It's not like...
Look at South Africa, right? When South Africa was dismantled, there is still massive inequality because obviously the inhe- the colonial inheritance and the wealth and the inequality didn't disappear overnight. So obviously, that would have to be redressed. There would have to be reparations. You know, there has to be the right of return for all the Palestinians who wanna come home.
But it-- at the end of the day, it's a red herring. That question is a [01:06:00] red herring. There is a very well-documented sort of, uh... I forget. I don't know what it's called, but it's basically like the, the, the occupier's anxiety that the thought, the thought of, of changing the system feels like some kind of, like, genocidal attack on them.
You know what I
[01:06:18] Ezra Lipp: Y- re- reverse
colonization, reverse
[01:06:21] Alexi Murdoch: Or whatever you wanna call it, you know. And it's just like
[01:06:23] Ezra Lipp: Yeah.
[01:06:23] Alexi Murdoch: you're saying, "So what do you-- where do you suggest all these people go?" It's not my problem to resolve. It's [01:06:30] not even like it's not resolvable. I'm certainly not s-
[01:06:32] Ezra Lipp: are you crazy? If we free these people, they'll kill us.
[01:06:35] Alexi Murdoch: Exactly. They'll kill us. Oh, why? Do you feel, do you feel under threat from people that you've been murdering for generations?
Yeah, obviously you feel that. So I would say, listen, you do what it-- You advocate for what is morally and, and ethically blatantly correct. No oppressor ever just gave up, you know, or occupier ever just gave up their land, uh, [01:07:00] without, without, you know, real pressure. When it comes to colonial state and Palestine, that could in theory be brought down through economic pressure and san-sanctions, which gets us back, back to the BDS.
But the larger monster, the larger monster of the sort of the Western axis of imperial power, I mean, that, that's a much harder thing to, to kind of overthrow. I j- I just don't... Yeah, I don't know. I don't-- I couldn't even begin to imagine
[01:07:29] Ezra Lipp: Our [01:07:30] literal lives and planet are dependent on us succeeding
[01:07:35] Alexi Murdoch: The, which gets us back to really like, you know, what do we do? How do we... You gotta have, A, hope in people, right? You, you, yeah, you can be frustrated. You can say, you know, you guys are like, "How are you, how are you sleepwalking through this?" But, but at the end of the day, you still have to have faith. I have to believe that fundamentally, the waking up process, even for people who seem so out of reach, [01:08:00] is not something that is impossible for anyone.
You know, if the algorithm can work so nefariously to, to identify people's, you know, what to cater to people, then in theory, we could do the same thing. If people's experience demand a certain, you know, some kind of a certain form of communication in order to wake them up from their slumber, um, then we just need to, we need to, to find that.
And that's where I [01:08:30] feel like, you know, a lot of people, um, you see these far-right people, right? Who are MAGA, MAGA people. I actually think in some ways those people, a lot of those people are disenfranchised people who haven't had education, who've just had a bad diet, and I don't just mean food, I mean a, just a bad diet coming at them.
But ultimately, like they're not, these aren't stupid people. These aren't people, like, who don't have the, the, the innate [01:09:00] capacity to actually empathize. And if, and, and if we make the mistake of thinking that we're g- we gotta cut these people out and just cut them off as like, you know, dead weight, that's a huge mistake.
I think on the contrary, I think, I think actually a lot of these people are gettable. I think of like, man, y- you know, if people saw what I saw in, in Palestine, if they sat with Palestinians and had dinner and heard just one of these stories of, you know, of, of what this person has [01:09:30] been through, that's it.
They'd be done. You know? That's what people need. They need to reconnect with a, with a, with their own sense of humanity as opposed to just immediately just assuming that like, I don't ca- like people have been convinced that they don't care about each other. But I don't think people actually really don't care.
I think it's just all become so unreal that people aren't real to people anymore. [01:10:00] Obviously, the people in their own lives, it's, I don't think people who are like, "I don't care what happens to those Palestinians, they deserved it." I don't think those people are like really sociopaths. If they were really sociopaths, they wouldn't care about their own children and their own community, and I'm sure they do.
So somewhere there's a disconnect. They just don't see the other people as human beings. That's the problem, you know? S- and that's the work, I suppose, you know, at the end of the day that we have to just knuckle down and do[01:10:30]
[01:10:30] Ezra Lipp: Alexi, thank you so much.
[01:10:32] Alexi Murdoch: Man, Ezra, I'm so, I'm so glad. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm really glad. It's like, it, it is heartening to, you know, have a conversation like this, you know, across the, uh, ocean, across a cultural ocean in many ways, you know.
Like, I know we're both musicians, but we both come from such, such backgrounds, and I just wanna say, man, I'm like, I know you must be going through a hard time with, with having taken the position you are in your community and, like, you know. I was th- I, I think a lot about this because [01:11:00] I think about people who I've lost or, or, you know, people who, who, who break with family or, like, friends, and I, I have as well, and, and for other reasons.
And I realize that, like, there are-- must be moments where, you know, it's really isolating, and you kinda wonder if you've taken too hard a position or how to, to navigate that. And, and, and you, you should really be proud. You should be proud of, of the position, and you should be sh-sure of what you're doing, and you should know that ultimately, [01:11:30] while it might be alienating, um, and while you may feel that somehow, you know, you've lost people, at the end of the day, you're doing them a service as well, you know.
Like, this is, this is the thing, is that ultimately by, by standing up and speaking truth and, and not sort of acquiescing or capitulating or equivocating or compromising, [01:12:00] you know, um, you're actually leading the way for them, and you are, and you are holding a space that is available always to them to come to
All right. Well, there you have it. Thank you so much, Alexi. Thank you for those kind words. and thank you for coming on the show before it was really even a show. I know you're continuing to do wonderful things and using your voice and platform in wonderful [01:12:30] ways. so keep it up. If you'd like to support the show, you can do that through Patreon, Ko-fi, leave a rating and review.
Please keep speaking out, but also organize. Join some activist groups. Find, local groups that are organizing in solidarity with Palestine. We are more powerful together than apart. The purpose of the show is to provide education and do public advocacy, start to change people's framework around these issues, glitch [01:13:00] the software and propaganda that we've all been exposed to.
But that is only part of the process. We also need to come together and organize if we actually wanna make a difference. So I encourage you to do so. Again, thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. I will see you next week. I wish you a very free Palestine, and I hope you are well
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