Why The Media Is Wrong About Israel - A Conversation with Journalist and Best-Selling Author Matti Friedman

Very excited to have Matti Friedman on The Lonely Podcast.

Matti Friedman is an Israeli-Canadian journalist and a best-selling author of several books, including The Aleppo Codex, Pumpkinflowers, Spies of No Country, and Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai.

In 2014 Matti published two essays in Tablet Magazine and The Atlantic where he recounted his experience as a reporter for the Associated Press working in Jerusalem covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from 2006 to 2011.

Matti’s essays shed a concerning light on the way international media is framing and covering the story, how through their “journalistic work” they launder biased reporting that portrays Israel as the villain, and why this one tiny country that constitutes less than 0.5% of the entire Islamic world, became the most covered story in journalism.

We recorded this conversation two days after the unprecedented attack against Israel launched by Iran and its proxies, which illustrates again why framing this conflict as an Israeli-Palestinian one is so wrong and misleading.

Our conversation was focused mainly on Israel, but we also touched on Matti’s books. We discussed, Matti’s experience at the AP, why Israel gets so much bad press, the role of Qatar and Al-Jazeera in amplifying the propaganda against Israel, the role of Israeli journalists in covering the conflict, whether Benjamin Netanyahu is to blame for the deteriorating US-Israel relations, the almost inevitable future war against Hezbollah, the First Lebanon War and its impact on the way Israel is pursuing wars ever since, Leonard Cohen’s visit to Israel during the Yum Kippur war of 1973, what is the Aleppo Codex and why Matti started investigating the story about the most ancient Hebrew bible in the world, and much more.

Matti is one of the more honest journalists out there, and if you read his articles, books, or essays, it is hard not to conclude that he is doing something that has almost vanished from this world - true investigative journalism.

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YOU CAN LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE ON:

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@LonelyPodcast-uh1rp

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/4ktRM7SIzVWcAhE9jqGIq3

Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lonely-podcast/id1510273071

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TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) - Introduction

(05:10) - Working for the Associated Press (AP) covering the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

(08:20) - Why Israel is getting so much (bad) press?

(13:23) - How does the Media launder Palestinian Propaganda?

(19:15) - Why framing the story as an Israeli-Palestinian conflict is misleading?

(24:48) - How Israel should be covered?

(26:40) - Journalism vs. Activism

(31:15) - Do Israelis understand how the Media captures them?

(39:30) - How is Benjamin Netanyahu prosecuting this war?

(44:00) - Is a war with Hezbollah inevitable?

(49:50) - Has Israel forgotten how to win wars?

(55:10) - Why a change in Israeli leadership is necessary

(59:00) - Who By Fire

(65:00) - The Aleppo Codex

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MATTI’S BOOKS:

The Aleppo Codex: In Pursuit of One of the World’s Most Coveted, Sacred, and Mysterious Books: https://a.co/d/8mpMXVX

Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier's Story of a Forgotten War: https://a.co/d/hLwegmh

Spies of No Country: Israel's Secret Agents at the Birth of the Mossad: https://a.co/d/h2nl0HY

Who By Fire: War, Atonement, and the Resurrection of Leonard Cohen: https://a.co/d/3tyCi3Q