Quillette Cetera

France’s student protests have turned into the country’s worst unrest in years. Schools have been set alight, thousands of shops looted, and curfews imposed in several cities. With a presidential election six months away, Zoe Sankey talks to Louis Sarkozy in Paris about what’s driving it.

Louis explains why he thinks rioters in France rarely face consequences, and who is actually out on the streets, from black blocs to what’s left of the Gilets jaunes. He argues the chaos is handing Marine Le Pen the presidency. They also talk about France’s long history of revolution, Michel Houellebecq, the Palestinian “omnicause”, and the death threats Louis says he received after celebrating Israel’s strikes on Hezbollah.

Louis Sarkozy is the son of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy. He studied at Valley Forge Military Academy, NYU and American University, and is the author of Napoleon’s Library (2024). He is a regular contributor to The Spectator UK.

Napoleon’s Library: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1399055232?tag=quillette-20 Read Quillette: https://quillette.com Full transcript coming soon.

00:00 Introduction: France’s riots and Louis Sarkozy

02:40 What sparked the student protests?

05:40 How protests descended into chaos

07:30 Why rioters face few consequences

11:50 How the left justifies the destruction of businesses

15:50 Who is rioting in France?

17:00 The origins of the Yellow Vest movement

19:00 Why different groups are uniting against the system

20:20 Is foreign interference behind the unrest?

22:40 Why Marine Le Pen is gaining support

25:40 France and Australia’s populist political movements

27:40 The rise of anti-establishment politics

32:00 Why people have lost trust in institutions

33:30 France’s history of revolution and political upheaval

38:00 Can France reform without another revolution?

39:50 The dangers and excitement of revolutionary change

41:40 Michel Houellebecq and French intellectual life

43:40 Louis Sarkozy’s Jewish ancestry and support for Israel

45:30 The controversy surrounding “From the river to the sea”

47:00 Death threats over Hezbollah and Israel

49:30 The impact of the Israel–Palestine conflict on political debate

51:30 French colonial history and recognition of Palestine

54:00 Macron’s foreign policy and symbolic gestures

55:30 What has French recognition of Palestine achieved?

56:40 Conclusion

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Robert Lynch went from Wall Street to addiction to a PhD in anthropology, and then to substitute teaching, where an eighth grader defaced his prized fossil with a Sharpie. Zoe Sankey talks to him about status, humour and the apes we pretend not to be.

Robert Lynch is a bio-cultural anthropologist who studies how biology, environment and culture shape human behaviour and social mobility. He teaches at High Point University in North Carolina and writes the Substack The Laughing Ape.

Robert tells Zoe how recovery made him more resilient, and why being humbled by a room of fourth graders barely registers by comparison. They talk about the gap between knowing and doing, and what Andre Agassi’s father understood about it; why chimps and even mice laugh; why Robert argues comedy without risk isn’t really comedy; and why a sense of humour ranks so highly in what both men and women want in a partner. Robert also makes the case that America’s national religion is “You think you’re better than me,” and that not every difference is a rank.

Watch Robert’s narrated essay, What an Eighth Grader Taught Me About Status:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z7QFzDy-as

Read Robert Lynch on Quillette:

https://quillette.com/author/robert-lynch/

The Ape in the Basement:

https://quillette.com/2026/09/16/the-ape-in-the-basement-masturbation-jeffrey-toobin/

Naked in America:

https://quillette.com/2026/09/01/naked-in-america-nudism-usa-culture/

What Is the Point of Anthropology?:

https://quillette.com/2026/08/06/what-is-the-point-of-anthropology-robert-trivers-napoleon-chagnon-carolyn-rouse/

Why Is Funny? How America Lost Its Sense of Humor:

https://quillette.com/2020/09/25/why-is-funny-how-america-lost-its-sense-of-humor/

The Laughing Ape:

https://robertc12.substack.com/

Subscribe to Quillette:

https://quillette.com/

Chapters

00:00 Introducing Robert Lynch

00:47 Why biological differences matter

01:00 Evolutionary psychology and human nature

01:13 Sex drive differences, and taboo

01:23 Old ideas, modern culture

01:42 Cancel culture, shaming and where norms go next

02:00 From Wall Street to academia and recovery

03:53 The viral fossil essay

06:10 Status and social signalling

07:59 Classroom management and teaching culture

10:02 Adversity, addiction and resilience

11:57 Laughter across species

13:58 The cultural roots of humour

15:56 Why comedy needs risk

17:57 Humour as a fitness signal

19:58 Resilience and not taking yourself too seriously

21:57 How culture and adversity shape humour

24:07 Humour and suffering

26:01 Laughter in humans and animals

27:58 The evolutionary basis of humour

30:01 Humour, risk and social cohesion

32:02 Humour in human evolution

33:59 Why humour matters in life

35:59 Humour and relationships

38:02 Is a sense of humour inherited?

39:58 Talking openly about taboos

42:06 The future of humour in a changing world

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Danielle Haas spent almost 14 years as a senior editor at Human Rights Watch, overseeing the organisation’s thematic and geographic research. In November 2023, she left—and in an exit email to colleagues, she set out her concerns about the rigour of the organisation’s work on Israel. Since then, dozens of current and former staff from across the sector have come forward with similar accounts. Together they founded EiGHT, an insider-led initiative pushing for accountability in the human rights and humanitarian world, which this year published a report drawing on testimony from more than 70 people across nine major organisations.

Danielle joins Zoe Sankey to discuss how NGO reports actually get made, who reviews them before they go out, what happens to staff who don’t toe the ideological line, and why she believes the sector needs independent outside scrutiny. For more from Danielle, read her recent Quillette essay, “J.K. Rowling vs. Amnesty.”

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Zineb Riboua is a research fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East and founder of its China in MENA Project. She joins Zoe Sankey to discuss Iran, the Houthis, Israel, Turkey, Islamism, China’s influence in the Middle East, and the growing ideological divide between the West and its opponents.

Why is Iran escalating from a position of weakness? What do the Houthis actually want? And how does the ideology of third-worldism connect Islamists with parts of the Western left?

Riboua explains Iran’s strategy of “buying time”, the impact of sanctions and the naval blockade, China’s role as a source of support for Tehran, and the Houthis’ search for new patrons—including their growing interest in al-Shabaab. She also discusses Morocco-Israel normalisation, the changing balance of power in the Middle East, Turkey and Erdoğan’s ambitions, and the prospects for Syria-Israel normalisation.

The conversation then turns to Europe and the West: why some young North African men become radicalised after migrating to Europe, the spread of Islamist and anti-Western ideas, and the rise of third-worldism as a political framework.

Finally, Riboua discusses the rise of AI doomerism, China’s role in the debate, the politics of degrowth and environmentalism, declining fertility in the Middle East, and what demographic change means for the future of the region and the West.

Zineb Riboua: https://zinebriboua.com

Read Quillette: https://quillette.com

00:00 Introduction to Zineb Riboua and the geopolitical context
01:57 Iran’s strategy of buying time and recent escalation
03:50 Sanctions and economic pressure on Iran
05:50 Yemen, the Houthis and regional support
09:07 What do the Houthis actually want?
11:57 The Houthis’ religious and ideological motivations
15:00 Arab, Persian and Bedouin identities
17:56 Zineb Riboua on Morocco, Jewish heritage and Israel
22:02 Islamist radicalisation and antisemitism in Europe
26:11 Foreign influence and the rise of third-worldism
28:59 What is third-worldism?
34:08 Israel’s changing geopolitical role
36:06 AI doomerism, China and the “psyop” theory
39:10 AI panic, regulation and geopolitics
43:00 Degrowth, environmentalism and anti-human ideology
45:01 What young people in the Middle East want
47:04 Falling fertility and the region’s demographic problem
48:59 Turkey, Erdoğan and the struggle for influence
52:08 Syria-Israel normalisation and Turkey’s role
54:54 American politics and the future of US support for Israel
58:10 Why Israel matters to American technology and power
59:58 Closing remarks

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Richard Hanania is a political scientist and president of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology. He spent about a decade as one of the most influential voices on the online right — first writing pseudonymously in the alt-right, later as one of the intellectual influences on the Silicon Valley tech right. Then he watched his own ideas take power, and changed his mind.

His new book is Kakistocracy: Why Populism Ends in Disaster. Kakistocracy is Greek for rule by the worst. The argument inside it is one very few people are willing to make right now: that Western elites are not overrated but underrated, and that our institutions work far better than we give them credit for.

Zoe and Richard get into Australia's populist surge, what actually makes someone an elite, the backlash against skilled immigration and the H-1B fight in the States, whether Sydney's housing crisis is really about immigration, and what frightens him most — which turns out to have a lot to do with fertility.

Also: is Zoe an elite? Are you? There's a test.

00:00 Who is Richard Hanania

02:27 The case that elites are underrated

04:50 What actually makes someone an elite

07:04 Do people care about the truth?

08:45 When federal bureaucrats became shitposters

09:38 Populism as rule by the id

11:33 Australia's populist surge

15:57 The awkward part: immigration

18:45 Australian vs American assimilation

21:46 Is Pauline Hanson a serious person?

23:33 Getting elites to take immigration seriously

26:06 Cofnas, Arday and academic gatekeeping

30:03 The H-1B backlash explained

32:58 Zero immigration and the fertility problem

34:05 Anti-Indian sentiment in Australia

35:40 Is Sydney's housing crisis about immigration?

38:30 The chapter Zoe couldn't finish

39:12 Are you an elite? Take the test

41:28 The Manosphere, and what a "chud" is

44:14 Nine-fifty in the morning in Sydney

46:32 The thinkers behind the book

48:15 AI, fertility, and what frightens him most

50:50 Why nobody's pairing up

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Author David Maywald joins Zoe Sankey to discuss the female wage premium among young Australians, the collapse of male rites of passage, and why boys are told from primary school that masculinity is a problem to be managed.

His essay for Quillette: https://quillette.com/2026/05/05/the-emerging-female-wage-premium/ The Relentless War on Masculinity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1764339703?tag=quillette-20

00:00 Young women are out-earning young men

04:48 Why boys never got the same lift

11:14 The post-war family was the anomaly

15:12 Childlessness and a stake in the next generation

22:03 The rites of passage boys no longer have

28:49 Why it's rites, plural

36:58 100 of the Best Books for Men

45:21 Where the bias against boys begins

48:20 Why only 17% of primary teachers are men

55:19 What young men actually think

1:00:01 Abbie Chatfield and the podcast that started this one

1:10:12 Male psychology: the next frontier

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Zoe Sankey sits down with Crémieux (the pen name of researcher Jordan Lasker), the formerly anonymous X writer-researcher whose data threads on genetics, demographics and metabolic drugs have drawn a following of more than 260,000 — including some very prominent readers. It's a wide-ranging conversation. They cover collapsing fertility rates and the Victorian obscenity trial he argues helped set them falling; his case that dog breeds — pit bulls especially — behave the way they were bred to, and why he thinks people resist that; what he makes of the evidence on GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and retatrutide, microplastics, and the wellness industry; El Salvador's transformation under Nayib Bukele; IQ testing, genetics and embryo selection; populism, personality and politics; free will; and being Jewish and atheist at once. ⏱️ Chapters: 00:00 Intro — who Crémieux is and how he built his following 02:24 Fertility collapse and the Bradlaugh–Besant trial 05:00 Silphium, abortion and the long human history of family planning 06:00 Strong convictions, and why he wants to live forever 07:49 Brian Johnson, longevity and the wellness-hype problem 10:56 Microplastics: what the evidence actually shows 13:24 Zinc, Accutane and the biology of acne 18:08 Ivermectin, Demodex mites and skin 20:22 Pet rats, lab rats, and which animals we call "cute" 22:56 UFOs and the Trump-era document releases 25:11 Pit bulls: breeding, behaviour and public denial 30:06 Ira Glass, greyhounds and virtue-signal dog ownership 34:11 GLP-1 drugs: Ozempic, retatrutide and the medical turnaround 36:00 His own weight loss, muscle and travel-for-work 37:57 Próspera, El Salvador and Bukele's gang crackdown 42:49 Duterte, Hanania's Kakistocracy and populism 45:42 IQ, classical liberalism and organising society 47:12 China, dumping, open-source AI and pharmaceutical free-riding 50:36 Tariffs and the destination-based cash flow tax 51:49 Hope, ageing, and the generational wealth question 55:14 Truth-seeking, reform, and why people don't change their minds 56:46 Jewishness, identity and defining who counts as a Jew 59:11 Antisemitism, zero-sum thinking and its long tradition 1:01:05 The future of Israel and the Hilonim birth rate 1:04:04 IQ tests, Mensa and gaming the matrices 1:05:27 Embryo selection and raising smart kids 1:08:36 Nature, nurture and what mothers influence 1:09:20 Politics shaping personality — and the La Piere study 1:14:30 The Big Five, intelligence and conscientiousness 1:18:14 Free will: Pinker vs. Harris 1:20:38 The name "Crémieux" and Adolphe Crémieux 1:21:59 Wrap-up — 📩 Subscribe to Quillette: https://quillette.com 🎧 Listen on Apple & Spotify 🐦 Follow Quillette: https://twitter.com/Quillette — Guest: Crémieux — https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil | Substack: https://cremieux.xyz — Referenced in this episode: • Rob Brooks, "The Tragedy of the Unwanted Child" (Quillette) — https://quillette.com/2022/06/24/the-tragedy-of-the-unwanted-child-what-ancient-cultures-did-before-abortion/ • The Bradlaugh–Besant trial (1877) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradlaugh%E2%80%93Besant_trial • Richard Hanania, Kakistocracy — https://link.amazon/B0g92Tesm • Herasight (embryo screening) — https://www.herasight.com • Orchid (embryo screening) — https://www.orchidhealth.com

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Rachel Moiselle is a PhD candidate at Trinity College Dublin and one of Ireland's most visible activists against antisemitism. In this episode of Quillette Cetera, she joins Zoe Sankey to discuss what it's like to defend a community of roughly 3,000 Jews in a country that largely denies it has an antisemitism problem at all. Rachel talks candidly about the ignorance surrounding Jewish culture in Ireland, how left-wing ideology has shaped anti-Israel sentiment and political discourse, and why Irish national identity has become entangled with the Palestinian cause. She also shares a very different side of her work: her research into Irish Sign Language, deaf culture, and the role AI translation technology plays for a minority language community, and how that experience shaped her thinking on identity and belonging more broadly. The conversation moves through her own path toward converting to Judaism, the friendships she's gained and lost since October 7th, the online abuse that followed her Sunday Independent article, and why she still believes speaking up is worth the cost. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction and guest background 02:30 Antisemitism in Ireland: perceptions and realities 08:02 The Irish Jewish community: size, ignorance, and challenges 11:57 Denial of antisemitism and its consequences 13:57 The influence of left-wing ideology and anti-Israel sentiment 17:00 Irish national identity, flags, and cultural symbolism 20:57 Ireland's history, independence, and reunification debates 24:12 The role of the EU and language education in Ireland 30:09 Language revival, Irish Sign Language, and cultural identity 37:03 Deaf community, minority identity, and activism 41:08 Technology, sign language translation, and deaf culture 46:02 Jewish identity, conversion, and community engagement 1:03:51 Friendship, loss, and personal resilience 1:14:00 Social media, online abuse, and activism 1:24:05 Future outlook, hope, and community support Guest: Rachel Moiselle on X: https://twitter.com/RachelMoiselle More from Quillette: Read Quillette: https://quillette.com Follow us on X: https://x.com/Quillette Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quillette Subscribe to Quillette Cetera for more conversations on free speech, identity, and the ideas shaping public life. #Antisemitism #Ireland #JewishCommunity #Quillette #IrishPolitics

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Rachel Moiselle is a PhD candidate at Trinity College Dublin and one of Ireland's most visible activists against antisemitism. In this episode of Quillette Cetera, she joins Zoe Sankey to discuss what it's like to defend a community of roughly 3,000 Jews in a country that largely denies it has an antisemitism problem at all. Rachel talks candidly about the ignorance surrounding Jewish culture in Ireland, how left-wing ideology has shaped anti-Israel sentiment and political discourse, and why Irish national identity has become entangled with the Palestinian cause. She also shares a very different side of her work: her research into Irish Sign Language, deaf culture, and the role AI translation technology plays for a minority language community, and how that experience shaped her thinking on identity and belonging more broadly. The conversation moves through her own path toward converting to Judaism, the friendships she's gained and lost since October 7th, the online abuse that followed her Sunday Independent article, and why she still believes speaking up is worth the cost. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction and guest background 02:30 Antisemitism in Ireland: perceptions and realities 08:02 The Irish Jewish community: size, ignorance, and challenges 11:57 Denial of antisemitism and its consequences 13:57 The influence of left-wing ideology and anti-Israel sentiment 17:00 Irish national identity, flags, and cultural symbolism 20:57 Ireland's history, independence, and reunification debates 24:12 The role of the EU and language education in Ireland 30:09 Language revival, Irish Sign Language, and cultural identity 37:03 Deaf community, minority identity, and activism 41:08 Technology, sign language translation, and deaf culture 46:02 Jewish identity, conversion, and community engagement 1:03:51 Friendship, loss, and personal resilience 1:14:00 Social media, online abuse, and activism 1:24:05 Future outlook, hope, and community support Guest: Rachel Moiselle on X: https://twitter.com/RachelMoiselle More from Quillette: Read Quillette: https://quillette.com Follow us on X: https://x.com/Quillette Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quillette Subscribe to Quillette Cetera for more conversations on free speech, identity, and the ideas shaping public life. #Antisemitism #Ireland #JewishCommunity #Quillette #IrishPolitics

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NGOs have a great deal of influence over our lives. This episode uncovers the hidden power structures behind the world's most powerful non-governmental organisations — and why they deserve far more scrutiny than they get.

Zoe Sankey sits down with Gerald Steinberg — founder of NGO Monitor and professor emeritus of political science at Bar-Ilan University — to discuss the evolution of NGOs from altruistic civil society groups into political powerhouses, the funding sources and transparency issues within organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and how they've come to shape the UN and international policy on Israel.

"Ken Roth is hugely powerful as an individual." "Their reports often lack substantive verification." Gerald pulls back the curtain on how civil society was hijacked by political and ideological agendas, case studies of NGOs with alleged ties to governments and terrorist organisations, the UN accreditation process and what it really takes to get a seat at the table, and the power dynamics inside these organisations' leadership.

00:00 Introduction to Gerald Steinberg and His Work

02:56 Understanding NGOs: Definitions and Historical Context

06:07 The Evolution and Influence of NGOs

09:06 The Political Landscape of NGOs

12:05 NGO Monitor: Purpose and Function

15:00 The Power Dynamics within NGOs

18:06 Whistleblowers and Internal Critiques

20:52 The Future of NGOs and Their Impact

31:46 The Influence of NGOs on Global Politics

35:14 The Halo Effect: Media and NGO Relationships

40:27 The Writing and Impact of NGO Reports

50:12 The Future of NGOs and the UN

57:49 Zionism: Misunderstood and Maligned

Read Gerald Steinberg's full body of work at Quillette:

👉 https://quillette.com/author/gerald-steinberg/

Resources:

— NGO Monitor: https://www.ngo-monitor.org

— UN Watch: https://www.unwatch.org

— The War of Return by Einat Wilf: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594039624?tag=quillette-20

Follow NGO Monitor:

— Twitter/X: https://x.com/NGOMonitor

— Website: https://www.ngo-monitor.org

Subscribe to Quillette Cetera for more fearless conversations wherever you get your podcasts, and head to Quillette.com for the stories mainstream media won't touch.

#NGO #HumanRights #Amnesty #UnitedNations #Israel #Quillette

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What does it mean for a civilisation to turn against itself? In this episode, Quillette's Zoe Sankey speaks with philosopher and author Benedict Beckeld — whose 2019 Quillette essay on oikophobia remains one of our site's most popular pieces — about the recurring historical phenomenon he has spent his career documenting: the tendency of successful Western societies to denigrate their own culture, institutions, and inheritance.

Drawing on his book Oikophobia: Our Western Self-Hatred, published by Cornell University Press, Beckeld traces the pattern from ancient Athens and Imperial Rome to contemporary Europe and the Anglosphere, arguing that cultural self-repudiation is not a modern aberration but a predictable feature of prosperous, secure civilisations. The conversation ranges widely: the assimilability of Islam, the distinction between monoethnicity and monoculturalism, the demographic significance of Israel, the theological differences between the three Abrahamic religions, and the question of whether the West can recover its civilisational confidence before external pressures force the issue.

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Hava Mendelle defies easy categorisation. Openly gay and proudly Jewish, she is a fifteen-year Australian Army veteran, emergency department nurse, published author, and co-founder of Minority Impact — a coalition of Australian minorities united in their opposition to Islamic radicalism and far-left extremism. She writes for The Spectator Australia, The Times of Israel, and The Jewish Independent, and has been making waves on social media for her unflinching commentary on antisemitism, the activist left, and the slow erosion of Australian national identity.In this conversation with Quillette's Zoe Sankey, Hava traces a remarkable personal journey — from an orthodox Jewish childhood and boarding school in Israel, to climate activism and Marxist study groups at university, to her current role as one of Australia's most clear-eyed critics of the movements she once moved in. They discuss the red-green alliance, the activists behind the Gaza flotilla, the radicalisation of the Australian Greens, why the United Nations deserves far more scepticism than it receives, and what October 7th changed — for Hava personally, and for Jewish Australians more broadly

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Zoe Sankey speaks with Andrew Bushnell — policy researcher, criminal justice expert, and fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs — about crime, justice, and some of the most urgent and uncomfortable questions in Australian public life.

They start with the alleged murder of Kumunjayi, a five-year-old Aboriginal girl killed in the Northern Territory despite six child protection notifications in the two months before her death. What follows is a frank conversation about Indigenous offending rates, a justice system that too often fails its victims, and whether Australia has the political courage to apply its laws equally to everyone.

Along the way: the Voice to Parliament, the Bao Phuc Cao voyeurism case, Melbourne's graffiti-covered streets, and the gang warfare driving a billion-dollar black market in cigarettes.

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Does Western civilisation actually exist — or is it just a modern political myth?

In this episode of the Quillette Cetera podcast, Zoe Booth speaks with classicist James Kierstead about the origins of the West, the “Greek miracle,” Christianity, monogamy, democracy, and the cultural foundations of modern civilisation.

They discuss:

• Whether the West is real or an invented concept
• Ancient Greece and the origins of egalitarianism
• Why monogamy shaped Western civilisation
• Protestant guilt and modern culture
• Honour cultures vs dignity cultures
• Christianity, Judaism, and Greco-Roman civilisation
• Why the Industrial Revolution happened in the West
• Whether Western civilisation can survive without Christianity

James Kierstead holds a BA in Classics from Oxford and a PhD in Political Science from Stanford University.

#WesternCivilization #AncientGreece #Christianity #History #Civilization #Quillette #Philosophy #Politics #JamesKierstead

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In this conversation, Zoe Booth and Shany Mor discuss the complex interplay between Australia's reputation in relation to Israel, the impact of anti-Israel activism, and the cultural and intellectual anxieties that contribute to anti-Semitism. They explore the role of guilt in Western society, the challenges of identity and belonging in multicultural contexts, and the evolution of political discourse. The discussion also touches on the dynamics of radicalization, the nature of prejudice, and the future of democracy, particularly in the context of Israeli society and global fertility rates.

Chapters

00:00 Australia's Protests and Israel's Perception

05:47 Understanding Anti-Israel Sentiment

07:58 The Role of Intellectualism in Anti-Semitism

10:27 Cultural Anxiety and Scapegoating

12:53 Oikophobia and Western Guilt

15:35 Moral Accounting and Identity Politics

18:04 The Impact of 9/11 on Western Discourse

20:27 Feminism and Cultural Symbols

23:01 The Transformation of Western Society

25:39 Radicalization and Immigrant Perspectives

28:14 The Role of Western Elites in Anti-Semitism

30:46 Media Narratives and Perceptions of Violence

30:54 Understanding Jewish Identity and Community Challenges

33:14 The Impact of Anti-Zionism on Academia

35:22 Cultural Myths and Their Influence on Society

36:59 Exploring Fertility Rates and Societal Values

42:08 Democracy in Crisis: The Referendum on Truth

47:56 The Legacy of the Post-War Order and Its Challenges

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Shay Khatiri is one of the most clear-eyed analysts of Iran’s regime and its role in global geopolitics. Raised in the Islamic Republic before escaping to the U.S., he now serves as Vice President and Senior Fellow at the Yorktown Institute and writes The Russia–Iran File, a Substack dissecting the domestic and foreign policy strategies of both regimes. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, National Review, The Bulwark, Providence, and Quillette.

In this episode, he joins Zoe to unpack the roots of Iran’s latest deadly protests, including the regime’s use of pellet guns and hospital raids to suppress dissent. He explains why so many Iranians are calling for foreign military intervention, what a post-regime Iran might look like, and why he believes a constitutional monarchy—led by Reza Pahlavi—offers the best hope for stability. They also discuss the role of the diaspora, the rise of underground Christianity, and why the West’s inaction may extinguish Iran’s last chance at revolution.

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In this conversation, Zoe Booth and Adam Louis-Klein delve into the complexities of antizionism, exploring its ideological roots, the language used to propagate it, and its normalisation in contemporary society. They discuss the formation of the Movement Against Antizionism (MAAZ) and the importance of recognising antizionism as a distinct form of bigotry. The dialogue also addresses the historical context of antizionism, its evolution in academia, and the psychological warfare embedded in its rhetoric. Throughout, practical strategies are offered for countering antizionist claims—emphasising the need for clarity, courage, and a comprehensive understanding of the issue.

Adam Louis-Klein is an anthropologist and PhD candidate at McGill University. His research focuses on Indigenous cosmologies in the Colombian Amazon and comparative forms of peoplehood. He is the founder of the Movement Against Antizionism (MAAZ), which challenges antizionist ideology as a distinct form of anti-Jewish hatred. His writing and advocacy explore the intersection of academic discourse, identity, and political propaganda.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction to Adam Louis-Klein and MAAZ

04:00 Interview begins: The Birth of MAAZ and Antizionism

09:10 Language and the Inversion of Reality

11:28 The Evolution of Antizionism

14:08 The Role of Academia in Antizionism

16:55 The Historical Context of Antizionism

19:21 Modern Antizionism and Its Global Impact

21:43 Government Responses to Antizionism

24:33 Understanding Antizionism vs. Antisemitism

27:18 The Psychological Mechanisms Behind Antizionism

29:50 The Australian Context of Antizionism

31:56 Personal Reflections on Antizionism and Academia

38:37 Indigeneity and Cultural Identity

42:22 The Complexity of Genocide Narratives

48:13 Understanding Whiteness and Cultural Concerns

52:47 Historical Atrocities and Political Violence

55:45 The Organisation of Antizionist Movements

01:04:58 The Movement Against Antizionism

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From algorithmic incentives to progressive posturing, this episode explores how anti-Semitism has become a feature—not a bug—of influencer culture. Zoe Booth speaks with Corey Walker, a Washington, D.C.-based reporter focusing on the Middle East and global terror groups, about audience capture, the anti-Western project of the modern Left, and why Israel represents values worth conserving.

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Chama Mechtaly is a Moroccan-American artist, activist, and policy advisor whose work sits at the intersection of cultural preservation, deradicalisation, and Middle Eastern diplomacy.

Born in Casablanca in 1992 to a Muslim mother and a Jewish father of Amazigh heritage, she draws on her complex identity to promote dialogue and coexistence between Muslim and Jewish communities throughout North Africa and the Gulf.

She recently organised the first-ever Abraham Accords Deradicalisation Summit, where she contributed to shaping cultural frameworks for regional integration in the wake of normalisation agreements.

In today’s conversation, we discuss her recent Quillette essay examining Qatar’s ideological reach into Western institutions, the suppression of critical voices, and the broader ambitions of Islamist movements on the global stage.

Drawing from her lived experience across Morocco, the Gulf, and the United States, Chama reflects on how Islamist actors have appropriated the language of democracy to undermine liberal values from within. What emerges is a sobering analysis of the soft power networks quietly reshaping our political and cultural institutions—and the steep cost of looking the other way.

We also explore how culture is weaponised, how the West has failed to confront these forces, and what a path toward genuine peace and pluralism in the Middle East might look like.

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Zoe Booth speaks with Gerard Holland, CEO of the Page Research Centre and a founding member of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. Together they explore how foreign funding is shaping Australia’s energy policy, what’s driving the rising cost of living, and why ideological commitments to renewables may be undermining the country’s economic and strategic resilience.

Holland argues that Australia’s transition to green energy has been distorted by international interests, bad economics, and an aversion to politically unpopular technologies like nuclear power. Drawing on original research submitted to a federal Senate inquiry, he makes the case for a return to energy realism—and warns that unless we regain control of our policy decisions, Australia’s prosperity and security may be at risk.

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