My debate with comedian Dave Smith on historical revisionism, antisemitism, and Israel happens at 7 p.m. Eastern tonight
Rav Arora, an independent journalist who knows us both, hosts LIVE. We will be talking about Holocaust denialism, the Israeli invasion of Gaza, and lots of other fun stuff. Please watch!
(First the links: you can watch the debate live and free on Rav Arora’s Substack. ZeroHedge co-hosts.)
No background: Dave Smith is a libertarian comedian and a friend of Joe Rogan’s. We were aligned against Covid lockdowns, so he popped up in my Twitter feed from time to time, but to be honest I didn’t know much about him until recently.
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(Subscribe to me, get the debates for free.)
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That changed in April. Smith, who is strongly anti-Israel — he has called Israel the “enemy” of the United States — had a contentious debate on Joe Rogan with Douglas Murray, a pro-Israeli British writer.
During the debate, Smith strongly defended Darryl Cooper, whose revisionist histories of World War 2 are increasingly popular. Cooper largely blames Winston Churchill for the war and refuses to acknowledge the Nazi regime carried out the genocidal and intentional killing of Jews in an effort to exterminate them.1
Yet Smith, said on his debate with Murray that Cooper “did not downplay any of the Nazi atrocities at all." I found this attitude odd, to say the least.
So on Sunday night, in answer to an insipid post from Smith — of course war can be necessary to protect innocent life — I said that he “thinks Auschwitz was a spa.”
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Dave did NOT like that post.
Both publicly and privately, he accused me of calling him a Holocaust denier, and said he took such an allegation very seriously, especially because his family was “slaughtered by the Nazis.” He essentially threatened to fight me.
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So we agreed to this debate - with a focus on Holocaust denial and what it really means.
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Of course, we can’t talk about what I said or Dave’s response to it or Holocaust denialism for the entire debate. I expect we’ll have a lot to say about Israel and Gaza too, as well as what modern antisemitism really looks like.
Hope you tune in, it should be interesting.
(The links again: you can watch the debate live and free on Rav Arora’s Substack. ZeroHedge co-hosts.)
I know Cooper refuses to do this because I asked him last week to do so directly, and he refused. He acknowledges Nazi atrocities against Jews - and others - but those aren’t the Holocaust.
I’ve been a subscriber from day 1 and will always be grateful for your voice during covid.
But this spat with Dave Smith looks terrible. The silly insults, guilt by association, etc.
I don’t know what to make of Cooper, I’ve listened to a few hours
of his podcasts at this point and what I’ve heard there is almost excruciating in its descriptions of Jewish suffering and full of empathy. It’s hard to square with your insults.
My advice: prepare. All day. And up to the last minute. I love your writing, but my prediction is he’ll mop the floor with you. Do NOT take him lightly. And you’ve pissed him off, too, which means you’ll get the Chris Cuomo treatment, which was brutal to watch. Have your actual facts in-hand, and don’t just spout “anti-Semite”, because that shit doesn’t cut it. Good luck.