The video was taken at a protest in Manchester, in solidarity with Gaza, and a sharp, adorable 13-year-old named Josh, armed with a microphone, worked the crowd like a veteran journalist, while his father, Nick, filmed the exchanges on his phone.
The UK’s “Telegraph” wrote an article about Josh, the young yet masterful journalist who feels the BBC’s reporting is flawed and who is looking to conduct honest, fact-based, unbiased reporting.
At the protest, Josh, who is reportedly Jewish, approached a woman holding a sign with the words: “End the power of the Zionist lobby.” He simply forced the woman to admit the facts, and in doing so, deflated and crushed her false anti-Zionist claims.
VIDEO:
The interviewer is 12 (and a half) and far more knowledge than the interviewee (and note when she forgets to say ‘Zionist’ instead of ‘Jewish’) pic.twitter.com/8Z0DoWxHvW
— Daniel Berke (@DanielBerke1) January 28, 2024
The video shows Josh asking the woman why she is opposed to Zionism, and explaining that Zionism is defined as “the belief that Jews should have a homeland”. She tells him Israel is “trying to create a state where there are only Jewish people”.
He debunks that and points out “there are two million Israeli Arabs that have the same rights as Israeli Jews living in Israel”. She is stunned and speechless and merely repeats the point that Arabs have equal rights, completely refuting her lies.
She tells him Hamas was set up by Netanyahu; he says the Iranians financed Hamas.
“No,” she says. “That’s propaganda. Are you Jewish?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Josh replies.
“It does matter. Are you a Zionist?”
“Why does it matter?” he asks her politely and unwaveringly.
“Because I want to know what your agenda is.”
The video has gone viral, earning Josh praise from celebrities. “Brilliant interview by this young man,” wrote Andrew Neil on X. “Brilliant. Confident. Clear. Informed. Polite (note how he just walks away at the end). And he’s done his homework, which is increasingly rare these days.”
According to the Telegraph:
He doesn’t think much of the BBC’s efforts. “I felt like they were being too neutral. For example, they were comparing Israel and Hamas […] and saying ‘this one is making these allegations, this one is making these allegations, which one is true?’ and trying to portray them as equal sides when they weren’t. I felt that was a bit of a problem.”
He was also frustrated with his secular school in Manchester, where talk of what has unfolded in the weeks since the October 7 attacks hasn’t been encouraged. “I felt a little bit confined because we weren’t really allowed to talk about it in school.”
Josh, meanwhile, was learning as much as he could about the conflict in his spare time. “I felt like I had gained a lot of knowledge and I wanted to have a debate with someone.”
The article added that Josh and his family have been jolted by the fact that while they were always integrated with their neighbors in Britain, they have felt alienated since the Hamas attack.
“Since October 7 there’s just been this huge wave from most of the people that you thought were your allies,” says Josh. “I haven’t felt anything like that before.” It’s an articulate way of describing what so many British Jews have experienced since October.
[Josh’s father] Nick recalls the day Josh came home from school having seen a line of Palestinian flags hung up on his school bus route. “He said it made him sad to see all these Palestinian flags and he wanted to put a flag up, not that he did. You wouldn’t feel able to put up an Israeli flag because it would be a lightning rod for hate.”
Still, he was shocked by what he found at the march. “I think one of the chants was ‘Joe Biden you can’t hide, how many babies have you killed tonight?’” says Josh. “And they were also expressing support for Houthis. I just found it crazy in a Western democracy that has given most of them their lives and their livelihoods that they’re just expressing this anti-Western rhetoric.”
Our right to a homeland does not derive from the fact that yes, there are Muslims there and we treat them well. We have an inherent right to be a nation in the place where we, as a people, fundamentally became a people. There is no shortage of land for Arabs in the world. It is true that our critics are blitheringly ignorant and bigoted, but we need not cede our rights either and it bears reminding.
I am proud of this kid. He did well. Did not mean to criticize him when I noted something that I think should be added. I did not mean that he needed to add it but that we should in general recognize it: that our right to our homeland is inherent and logical. But the kid is eloquent and has guts, and good for him.
Eretz Yisroel is ours because Hashem decided it’s ours
E.g. first Rashi in the Torah, on Bereishis (Genesis) 1:1
No disagreement. There is an argument on the basis of Tanach, and also an argument in terms that non-Jewish people can understand. Eretz Yisrael is the land where our nation was created, and no other nation ever had an independent existence there.
That Hashem gave it to us is a good argument for us, who believe in Hashem and the Torah, but it’s completely useless when talking to people who don’t. The vast majority of people in the world, including the overwhelming majority of people in the UK (and in New York) do NOT believe in the Torah. They think we made the Torah up. So why would they be impressed at being told that in the book we made up we wrote that Eretz Yisroel belongs to us? Would you be impressed if someone wrote a book saying that your house… Read more »
Josh comes at her with facts. He got her when he told her that 2 million arabs live in Israel.
She gets her facts from social media and other ignoramuses. Not a clue about history. She has no idea what she’s talking about and he exposed her for the idiot she is. We need more Josh’s in this world. Unafraid to speak up for the truth.
Amazing! I wish I had the courage to do that.
He’s wrong when he claims the UN gave Israel the land. That is just not true. Israel exists only because when the British mandate was about to end the Jewish people there declared their own independence. That is the entire basis for the state; and it’s a good basis. But the UN never gave Israel anything and played no role in establishing it.