What if Everyone is Wrong? with Nick Matau

Joining Naya Lekht on this episode of Don't Know Much About is longtime friend Ran Bar-Yoshafat, an Israeli attorney, author, lecturer, researcher, and public advocate. Naya and Ran have known each other for several years, and the conversation begins with Naya recalling the first time she heard Ran speak at UC Davis, where a crowd of antizionist students attempted to shut down his lecture. Although Ran frequently travels across the United States and around the world on speaking tours, he lives in Israel, where he also serves as a military reservist. In this wide-ranging and spirited conversation, Ran shares his firsthand experiences serving in Gaza after October 7, explains why Israeli public diplomacy (Hasbara) is in desperate need of a facelift, and offers his perspective on Israel's political landscape. Along the way, Naya challenges some of Ran's arguments (all in good spirit, of course!), as the two explore questions of Palestinian Arab identity, the history and politics of Judea and Samaria, the libels spread about Jews living there, and, of course, the upcoming Israeli elections. About Naya's guest: Ran Bar-Yoshafat is an Israeli attorney, author, lecturer, and researcher. A former deputy director of the Kohelet Policy Forum, he has authored two books and spoken to over 120,000 students worldwide about Israel. Subscribe to Don't Know Much About on YouTube | Spotify | Apple PodcastsClarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

On this episode of Don't Know Much About, Naya is joined by Nick Matau, one of the most compelling voices on social media challenging the prevailing narratives about Israel and the Middle East. “Nick, what don't people know much about when it comes to the Middle East?” Naya asks, opening a conversation that goes beyond the usual debates about Israel, antizionism, and disinformation. Why do crowds so often get things wrong? Why do falsehoods spread faster than facts? And what happens when the desire to belong becomes more powerful than the desire to know? Together, Naya and Nick confront a question that reaches far beyond Israel: In a world increasingly governed by consensus rather than truth, can truth still prevail? About Naya's guest: Nick Matau is a content creator, activist, and U.S. Navy veteran who served on fast-attack nuclear-powered submarines. He focuses on cutting through disinformation and media bias surrounding Israel, Zionism and the region's complex past, as well as actively discussing historical context and promoting balanced dialogue through live debates online and in-person, for the past six years. Subscribe to Don't Know Much About on YouTube | Spotify | Apple PodcastsClarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

Welcome back, listeners and viewers! After a summer of traveling in Israel and Australia, Naya Lekht returns with her first guest of the season, Dr. Einat Wilf, one of Israel’s leading public intellectuals and a prominent voice on Zionism, Israel, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. The episode begins with a simple question: If you could teach people only a handful of things about Israel and the Middle East, what would they absolutely need to understand? The answer may not satisfy those longing for slogans! Next, Naya and Einat take on one of the most fashionable claims circulating today: that antizionism represents a rich and venerable Jewish tradition. Einat challenges the romanticization of Jews who once placed their hopes in Bolshevism, Bundism, socialism, and diaspora nationalism. History, she argues, has already rendered a devastating verdict on these alternatives. These movements did not secure the Jewish future, and many of the Jews who entrusted their fate to them were ultimately swallowed by the catastrophes of Nazi and Soviet rule.So why resurrect their failed political choices as models for Jewish life today? The answer leads directly into the uncomfortable role Jews themselves can play in contemporary antizionism. As Einat explains, Jewish participation is uniquely valuable to the antizionist project: a Jew willing to demonize Israel can be deployed as evidence that the demonization cannot possibly be anti-Jewish.The episode closes with another provocative question: Do Israelis actually understand antizionism? Jews living securely within a sovereign Jewish state encounter antizionism very differently from Jews confronting it in the diaspora. That gap may explain why Israelis and diaspora Jews sometimes seem to be speaking entirely different languages about the threat.A provocative conversation about Jewish participation in antizionism, historical memory, and the danger of rewriting failed political experiments as roads not taken. Take the red pill--see the truth.About Naya's guest: Einat Wilf served as a member of the Israeli Knesset from 2010 to 2013, where she chaired the Education Committee and served on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. She is the author of several books, including We Should All Be Zionists and, with Adi Schwartz, The War of Return, an examination of the Palestinian refugee question and the role of the demand for a “right of return” in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Most recently, Einat founded and now chairs Israel’s Oz Party.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

What happens when a scholar of religion turns his critical eye on the very ideas he once championed? On this episode of Don't Know Much About, Naya Lekht sits down with writer Kile B. Jones, a man who once embraced the ideologies that fuel modern antizionism, and who has since became one of the clearest voices writing and speaking against it.Kile holds two master's degrees in Religious Studies from Boston University. A longtime bridge-builder, he has created interfaith programs and projects including "Interview an Atheist at Church Day," and founded and edited the Claremont Journal of Religion at the Claremont Colleges. His work has appeared in publications spanning philosophy, religion, and society, including Philosophy Now, The Humanist, Free Inquiry, and The Routledge Guide. He currently writes at The Inverted World on Substack.The conversation opens with the story of Kile's encounter with his one-time hero, Noam Chomsky, then dives into the questions that forced him to re-examine postcolonialism and Marxism. In one of the episode's most striking moments, Kile reveals that many academics don't actually deny that Jews come from Israel; they simply draw a line between those ancient Jews and the Jews of today. Naya immediately connects the dots to a chilling historical parallel: the era of antijudaism, when church fathers and theologians distinguished between the "good Jews" of the Bible and the "traitorous" Jews living among them who rejected Christ.A dynamic, eye-opening conversation — not to be missed.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

In this episode of Don't Know Much About, Naya Lekht sits down with historian Dr. Olga Kirschbaum-Shirazki to dismantle one of the most pervasive arguments used against the Jewish state: that Zionism is a 19th-century European settler-colonial project with no historical legitimacy. Drawing on her new book, a collection of essays examining nationalism, empire, and the intellectual roots of antizionism, Dr. Kirschbaum-Shirazki offers a rigorous comparative framework — situating Zionism alongside other national movements that emerged from the collapse of empires in Europe and the Ottoman world. The result is a compelling case that antizionism is not a coherent political critique but an ideological dead end, and that genuine progress in the Middle East requires accepting Jewish national legitimacy rather than denying it.About the GuestDr. Olga Kirschbaum-Shirazki is a historian, writer, and public intellectual specializing in modern European history, nationalism, and Jewish thought. Raised in Toronto, she earned her Ph.D. in Modern European History from New York University. Her research explores nationalism, intercultural relations, Judaism and modernity, and the intellectual history of Europe and the Middle East. Her latest book, From Antizionism to a New Middle East, is a collection of nine essays reinterpreting the Israeli-Arab conflict through the lens of ideas, nationalism, and the intellectual roots of antizionism.What We CoverWhy the "settler colonial" analogy for Israel doesn't hold up under historical scrutinyHow Zionism compares to other national movements that emerged from the collapse of European and Ottoman empiresThe concept of "derivative imperial nations" — and what it reveals about Palestinian Arab nationalismWhy diaspora alone doesn't make the Jewish national movement fundamentally different from movements like Armenian or Kurdish nationalismThe idea of "loser empires" and why they're uniquely dangerous and prone to conspiratorial antisemitismThe weaponization of indigeneity discourse — and why it fails on its own terms when applied to the Palestinian Arab caseWhat "imperial rollback" means, and why the Abraham Accords represent an early step toward itWhy minority and cultural rights, not maximalist claims to sole sovereignty, offer a realistic path forwardHow Dr. Kirschbaum-Shirazki's thesis reframes antizionism as an ideological dead end blocking real reconciliationLinks & ResourcesFrom Antizionism to a New Middle East by Dr. Olga Kirschbaum-Shirazki (available on Amazon, paperback)Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

In this episode of Don't Know Much About, Naya Lekht sits down with political commentator and writer Karys Rhea to examine one of the most alarming developments in contemporary American politics: the emergence of the "Woke Right." Long before it became a topic of mainstream conservative concern, Rhea was tracking the identitarian, conspiratorial, and antisemitic currents quietly taking root within parts of the America First movement — and sounding the alarm. This conversation is essential listening for anyone trying to understand where the conservative movement is headed, and what's at stake if it loses its way.About the GuestKarys Rhea is an American political commentator, writer, and former producer for The Epoch Times and Newsmax. A writing fellow with the Middle East Forum and a Rising Leader at the Global Liberty Institute, she has become a prominent voice on Israel, antisemitism, and the ideological currents reshaping American politics. She is completing a book on right-wing identitarianism and the emerging "Chrislam" alliance, forthcoming from Wicked Son Publishing in 2026.What We CoverWhat the "Woke Right" actually is — and why James Lindsay's term only scratches the surfaceHow the Kanye West fiasco of 2022 was an early warning sign that conservatives largely ignoredThe role of America's enemies in amplifying real fractures within the MAGA movementWhy a loud, vocal minority doesn't need to be a majority to shift culture and policyWhat "Chrislam" means — and why the growing Christian-Islamist alliance over shared hatred of Israel is one of the most disturbing developments on the rightThe danger of conspiratorialism as a gateway to antisemitism and anti-Western ideologyTucker Carlson's ideological evolution — and what it actually reveals about his political projectWhy censorship and deplatforming are the wrong tools for fighting this battleHow right-wing identitarianism mirrors the same grievance-based logic of the left it claims to opposeThe difference between the "October 8th Jew" and Jews who never substituted their Judaism for their politicsLinks & ResourcesFollow Karys Rhea on X: @rheakarysWoke Right (forthcoming, Wicked Son Publishing, 2026)Middle East Forum: meforum.orgGlobal Liberty Institute: globallibertyinstitute.orgClarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

In this episode of Don't Know Much About, Naya Lekht sits down with Eyal Yakoby: UPenn graduate, incoming MIT student, and one of the most prominent young voices documenting Jew hatred on campus and in the streets of America.Eyal was a senior at the University of Pennsylvania when, in the three weeks before October 7th, four antisemitic incidents struck his campus in rapid succession: a swastika drawn inside a campus building, a break-in at the Hillel, vandalism of the Chabad House sukkah, and a bomb threat that students didn't learn about until 13 hours after the fact. When October 7th happened, Eyal watched professors in his own department post celebrations of the massacre. He decided then and there to use every platform available to him to fight back.In this conversation, Naya and Eyal explore what it actually looked like on the ground — the encampment that took over UPenn's student center at Thanksgiving, the Middle East studies department chair who threatened to have Eyal reported to police for "harassing professors," the civil rights lawsuit he filed against Penn, and the broader ideological rot he sees not just on the left but across Western institutions. Eyal also shares his strikingly optimistic long view: why he thinks Israel is going to be fine, why the real danger is what's happening to London, Brussels, and New York, and why he believes Jewish people, and everyone who cares about civilization, need to be less victim-oriented and more winner-oriented.Eyal joined Naya at the first-ever World Symposium Against Antizionism in Toronto on May 17th.In this episode:The Palestine Writes Literature Festival and the four antisemitic incidents that preceded October 7th at UPennWhat Eyal saw on campus the morning of October 7th"I went out on a Friday night with my friends. They woke up dead in Gaza or running for their lives."The encampment that occupied UPenn's student center — and who was actually in it The bomb threat against Hillel that Penn sat on for 13 hours — and why that was the moment Eyal decided to sueWhy Eyal believes the issue at universities was never about speech — it was always about conductThe Middle East studies department chair who threatened him with police two months after October 7thWhy young people are getting sucked into antizionism — and Eyal's COVID-era community collapse theoryThe Haredi draft, Arab citizens, and national service: Eyal's take on Israel's biggest internal challengeThe difference between Jew hatred, antisemitism, and antizionism — and why it mattersWhy Eyal thinks the Jewish people are in a better position historically than most people realizeTucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and the rise of right-wing antisemitism: problem or losing mentality?Guest Bio: Eyal Yakoby is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (Political Science & Modern Middle East Studies) and an incoming student at MIT's Sloan School of Management. As a senior at UPenn, he became one of the leading student voices documenting antisemitism and antizionism on American college campuses. He spoke at a House Congressional leadership press conference in 2023 and testified before the House Judiciary Committee in 2024. He has appeared on CNN, ABC, and Fox News and contributed to The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The New York Post. He is currently a plaintiff in a civil rights lawsuit against the University of Pennsylvania.Resources & Links:World Symposium Against Antizionism (Toronto, May 17, 2026): stopaz.org/symposiumFollow Eyal on X: @eyakobyFollow Eyal on Instagram: @eyalyakobySubscribe to Don't Know Much About on YouTube | Spotify | Apple PodcastsClarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

In this special segment of Don't Know Much About, Naya Lekht is joined by Ben Shapiro, co-founder of The Daily Wire, and Natasha Pein, Naya's partner and co-founder of Stop Antizionism, just one week before the inaugural World Symposium Against Antizionism, taking place in Toronto on May 17, 2026. Ben will deliver the keynote address. Tickets are still available at stopaz.org/symposium.The conversation covers the fundamental failure of the Jewish establishment to name today's Jew-hatred accurately, and what it costs to keep fighting the last war.What you'll learn:Why the term "antisemitism" has been stretched to the point of meaninglessness, and why arguing "antizionism = antisemitism" is a losing strategyHow Soviet antizionist propaganda, launched in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, seeded Western universities and never leftThe two distinct brands of antizionism emerging on the American right, and why they require different responsesWhy the Thomas Sowell framing holds: the surest path to antisemitism is Jewish successHow Jewish kids are losing their Zionist identity, and Ben's unsparing diagnosis of where that failure actually beginsThe "strange new respect" dynamic: why being a Jewish critic of Israel is such a "sexy pitch"The Yevsektsiya parallel: a history of Jews used to advance anti-Jewish agendas, from the Soviet Communist Party to today's campusesBen's three specific pieces of advice, for Jewish schools, Jewish organizations, and Jewish parentsGuest Bios:Ben Shapiro is the co-founder and editor emeritus of The Daily Wire, a #1 New York Times bestselling author, and one of the most listened-to political commentators in America. He is the author of The Right Side of History, How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps, and numerous other books. He will deliver the keynote address at the World Symposium Against Antizionism on May 17, 2026, in Toronto.Natasha Pein co-founded Stop Antizionism with Naya Lekht. It is a US-based educational initiative that frames antizionism as the third era of Jew-hatred. Born in the Soviet Union, she draws on firsthand experience of Soviet antizionist campaigns to illuminate the roots of today's ideological landscape. She is also a co-organizer of the World Symposium Against Antizionism.Resources & Links: World Symposium Against Antizionism (Toronto, May 17, 2026): stopaz.org/symposium Stop Antizionism: stopaz.org The Right Side of History by Ben ShapiroThe Daily Wire: dailywire.comClarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

In this episode, Naya Lekht is joined by Ben Cohen, Director of Rapid Response at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), journalist, and one of the foremost researchers on global antisemitism and antizionism. Ben's work spans the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, Tablet, the Jewish News Syndicate, and his book Some of My Best Friends: A Journey Through 21st Century Antisemitism.Together, Naya and Ben trace the deep roots of the United Nations' institutionalized hostility toward Israel, from the passage of Resolution 3379 ("Zionism is Racism") in 1975, to the simultaneous creation of CEIRPP (the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People), and how that Soviet-engineered infrastructure has outlasted the USSR itself.They discuss:The origins and mechanics of CEIRPP: What it does, what it costs taxpayers, and why it's still operating 50 years laterHow UNRWA's unique definition of refugee status, inheritable across generations, differs fundamentally from every other refugee agency in the world, and why that distinction is politically explosiveThe 1991 rescission of "Zionism is Racism" and why, despite being formally repealed, it functionally never went awayThe Durban conference of 2001 as a turning point that revived and radicalized UN antizionismCountries that have resigned from the committee - Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Ecuador — and the political dynamics that drive those decisionsWhether the UN is irredeemable on the question of IsraelThe intellectual history of antizionism: from the Soviet antizionist campaign, to Edward Said, to today's TikTok-era influencers, and how the discourse has shifted from "bistro antisemitism" to open, unashamed hatredBen's concept of "Bierkeller vs. bistro antisemitism," crude versus sophisticated Jew-hatred, and whether the distinction still holdsThe upcoming Stop Antizionism symposium in Toronto, the first conference ever dedicated explicitly to confronting antizionism as a distinct and lethal form of Jew hatredBen Cohen can be found at fdd.org and writes a weekly column for the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS).Don't Know Much About is hosted by Naya Lekht. It always starts with a question. Like, subscribe, and share on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom. 

Dr. Judea Pearl is a Turing Award-winning computer scientist, UCLA professor, and father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. He joins Naya for a sweeping conversation that moves from his 1936 childhood in B'nei Brak to the word he coined to fight back against the moral inversion on today's college campuses.Pearl was raised to be what early Zionists called "the New Jew", a child born free in the land of Israel, shielded from the weight of diaspora persecution. He remembers playing with Arab children from the neighboring village, screaming slogans against the British White Paper on the school bus, dancing in the streets the night the UN partition vote passed, and a moment of reckoning with his father when he realized, at eleven years old, that he had grown up without ever understanding what antisemitism actually meant.Decades later, as a professor at UCLA, he watched that same word, Zionism, become contaminated on the very campuses that had been built, in part, by the sacrifices of his generation. So he coined a new one: "Zionophobia". In this conversation, he explains why the old vocabulary failed, why administrators kept reaching for "antisemitism" as a way to avoid dealing with the real problem, and why he believes the only effective response is to put antizionists in the accusatory chair.The conversation closes with something unexpected: a reflection from one of the founding fathers of artificial intelligence on whether AI will take us over ("Yes, we will be taken over"), and why the very traits that make AI useful, curiosity and autonomy, are the traits that make it dangerous.This episode is a rare portrait of a man who has spent his life in the pursuit of inquiry, across computer science, Jewish identity, and what it means to be a free people in our own land.Guest Bio**Dr. Judea Pearl** is Chancellor's Professor of Computer Science and Statistics at UCLA and Director of the UCLA Cognitive Systems Laboratory. He is internationally recognized for his foundational contributions to artificial intelligence, human reasoning, and the philosophy of science. He is the recipient of the **Turing Award** — widely regarded as the Nobel Prize of Computing — for work that transformed how machines handle probability and causal inference.He is also the father of **Daniel Pearl**, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. In Daniel's memory, he and his wife Ruth co-founded the **Daniel Pearl Foundation**, which works to promote cross-cultural understanding through journalism, music, and dialogue.Pearl has written and lectured prolifically on Jewish identity, Zionism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and campus antisemitism. Forty-five of his essays on these subjects are collected in his recent book, ***Coexistence and Other Fighting Words: Selected Writings of Judea Pearl, 2002–2023***.Resources & Further Reading- **Book:** *Coexistence and Other Fighting Words: Selected Writings of Judea Pearl* — available on Amazon- **The Daniel Pearl Foundation** — danielpearl.org- **Pearl's original essay on Zionophobia** — Ha'Am (UCLA's Jewish Newsmagazine)- **Martha Pollack's 2019 BDS statement** — Cornell University (March 1, 2019)- **Azzam Pasha's 1947 interview** — *Akhbar al-Yom*, October 11, 1947 (the "war of extermination" quote referenced in the episode)Clarifying the complex. Step into my classroom.