Vegans for Palestine Podcast - Episode 27 - Reel Bad Palestinians

What's it like to be Arab in Hollywood? Lee Mosa-Peterkin is an award-winning first-generation Palestinian vegan filmmaker, writer, director, editor and cinematographer.  His work spans music videos, commercials, short films, and feature films, often blending raw drama, absurdity, and tragic comedy. His films have received international recognition, and his 2025 short film 'Mobius Loop' is available on Watermelon+ Streaming.

Mobius Loop follows scientist Senna and her husband Sam as they race to save their research institute by completing a groundbreaking project before it is shut down. When Senna discovers an old VHS tape filmed by her mother, she uncovers forgotten family research dating back to 1976 that holds the missing key to their work. Blending science fiction with family history, the film explores memory, intergenerational knowledge, and the enduring connections between past and present.

This episode is captioned for Deaf and Hard of Hearing viewers here.

Check out Lee's work here.

Watch Mobius Loop here. You can buy merch from here,

Reel Bad Arabs - Watch the trailer here.

Buy Keffiyeh Shoes and check out Lee's shop here.

The music in this episode is from the following rap group from Gaza: P.R. – Palestine, The Challenge Is Ours (Felsteen Wel Tahade – فلسطين والتحدي)

Palestinian Rapperz (PR) was the first hip-hop group to emerge from the Gaza Strip. Formed in 2003, the group identified its music as part of a "Palestinian Resistance" movement, using rap as a nonviolent means of expressing the experiences and aspirations of Palestinians. The founding members included Mohammed Al-Farra (D.R. the Dynamic Rapper), Mahmoud Fayyad (Kanaan), Moataz Al-Hewaihy (Mezo), and Ayman Meghames.

The Vegans for Palestine Podcast team would like to thank Lee for joining us. 

Za'atar is Za'atar. 

Free Palestine.

Transcript

PROF. JACK SHAHEEN: Arabs are the most maligned group in the history of Hollywood. They're portrayed basically as subhumans. Untermenschen—a term used by Nazis to vilify gypsies and Jews. These images have been with us for more than a century.

DALAL: Salam, it's Dalal, and this is the Vegans for Palestine podcast. This episode explores how Palestinian filmmaker Limiter challenges Hollywood's long history of anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian stereotypes. In conversation with Rayan, Lee reflects on identity, storytelling, and the barriers Palestinian creatives face in an industry where their stories are often treated as, quote, "too political." This episode also examines Lee's short film, Mobius Loop, a Palestinian science fiction story that centres Arab characters in a genre where they are rarely represented favourably. Alongside discussions of film, racism, and cultural erasure, this episode highlights vegan Palestinian food, creative resistance, and the importance of telling Palestinian stories on Palestinian terms. Enjoy this one.

LEE: So, my name, Lee, was derived from basically my parents not knowing what to name me for 3 months. My name was “Boy” Peterkin on my birth certificate after I was born. The nurse was like, "You can't leave the hospital with him until you name him." And my parents... my dad was like, "Uh, I'm not naming my child just to fill out your paperwork, okay, lady?" And she was like, "Well, then we'll put Boy on the birth certificate. You can come back and change it." And he's like, "Yeah, fine. We're doing that." So they brought me home, and then, 3 months later, my grandfather was like, "Uh, how does he not have a name? We need to name him." So they gathered the family together, and everyone wrote names down on pieces of paper, and they literally put them into a hat. And, uh, my mom was the one who actually came up with Lee because of Lee Iacocca, who, at the time, was running Ford Motor Company, and he's responsible for the Ford Mustang coming out and saving the company from going into bankruptcy. So my mom wanted to name me after a successful person. And so my aunt, who was, uh, helping take care of me at that time, she pulled the name out of the hat, and hence, um, Lee. Um, and I was going to say as well, just to tack on to that, that naming in my family is pretty interesting because, um, we all have such anglicized names. My oldest brother, Ryan, middle brother, Shawn, I'm Lee, our last name is Peterkin, but I'm half Palestinian. And nobody ever could understand that. My skin... I have fair skin from my dad's side. But my grandfather, who's from Haifa originally and was forced to leave Haifa in 1948, worked for British Petroleum. I presume he was present in December of 1947, where there was, um... uh... I don't know if you remember this, but the... yeah, the Zionist attack on the oil company, on BP. At that time, my grandfather had named half of his children English names because he wanted to get in good with the company. Then 1948 happened, and he was forced to leave Haifa, and he moved inland. He moved east to Rameh, which is a small farming village, and after that he named the rest of his children Arab names. So I always thought it was interesting growing up, you know, and having my Aunt Victoria and then my Uncle Khalil, you know, having these completely different names, but going, like, "Why do some have just straight-up English names and others don't?" But then hearing that story all made sense. And I'm Lee. And I recently actually tacked on my mother's maiden name to my last name just because I want people to... to signify, you know, who I am. When you read my name and see my face, it's important to me. I'm a filmmaker. I live in Los Angeles, literally on Hollywood Boulevard. Um, it's steps away from my building. And yeah, I've been writing and directing for close to 20 years, mostly small-scale stuff. I've mostly operated out of my production company. It's a micro-budget small production company called Treyo Pictures. Through that company, I've written, directed, produced, edited... I basically have a turnkey production company where I've done commercials, music videos, short films, um... uh... smaller... maybe we call it day-playing on features, where you're just there for a day or two doing certain things. Um, promotional videos, all kinds of stuff. Everything that could be shot, I've shot in some capacity.

RAYAN: And what's it like being Arab or Palestinian in the industry?

LEE: It's really special because, um, you carry a certain knowledge with you. Uh, and me in particular, I feel like I'm an undercover Arab. So I often hear other people's true thoughts on what they think of Arabs and/or Palestinians, uh, specifically. And so a lot of times I found myself in rooms where there were stories that involved some sort of Zionist element to them, and then I'd chime in and bring up the racist nature of it, and nobody realized it was racist until I said something. From that, to me wanting to actually pitch stories... those pitches were basically always rejected because no one ever really wanted to touch the subject of Palestine or Palestinians because that topic tends to be, uh, "too political." But yet any other political topic is not taboo and is totally touchable. And that's just the truth. It's something I've dealt with my whole life, and it's the reason why most of the stories that I've even written or directed, shot, or been a part of don't involve those stories. It's been something that I feel like I've been denied as a filmmaker. When you want to make a film, it's expensive. It doesn't matter what length—whether it's a short film or a feature film—it's very costly, and oftentimes you don't get your money back. So you're usually asking other people for money. And I'm not talking about Kickstarter or crowdfunding. I'm talking about going to investors and such too. So it's a really difficult ask in a culture that just doesn't see Palestinians as a viable commercial product or, you know, "the good guys." So it's been a long, windy, and interesting road while I am trying to educate people, debunk myths, and show people what a Palestinian really is, what they look like, and who they are as a person. And then, more recently, maybe in the last six or seven years, I've taken a different tack where I'm like, "You know what? I don't really care anymore. If it kills my career to make stories that involve the characters I want to involve in my stories, then let it kill my career. Like, [F__] it, if I may say. I'll just do it." And that was the impetus behind a couple of my films, but more recently Mobius Loop, which is a short film that I wrote and directed that came out last year through the festival circuit. It's a time travel story about Palestinian Americans inventing time travel. And it's a really unique form of time travel through sending your consciousness through time and space within a given window. So you can't go to medieval times. You can only go to yesterday or tomorrow within your life, within your body. So it's not like a machine that you jump into because I just wanted to try a different form of time travel. And, side note, kind of in parentheses, this type of time travel means you're trapped in the timeline. Some people I've talked to don't know how to handle that because they love time travel stories where the characters can change their future. I mean, that's usually the draw for a time travel story—you can go back in time and change the outcome of events. But coming from a culture where we never control our narrative, when you go back and read the history books or watch the documentaries of what has happened to the Palestinian people, it's a story that repeats itself time and time again, and we seemingly have no control over our destiny. That's a very trapped feeling to have. So I wanted to express that through this form of time travel where you can't change the outcome, but you can relive it. You can investigate it. You can bring things forward with you. Especially when it's a drug that you take, and when the drug wears off, you re-enter your timeline again, where all... what is it? Uh... all chances open up again, and anything can happen. And I'll mention this lastly: the short film was meant to be the precursor to the feature. So this film is really just about the invention of time travel. We get to see who invented it and how it came about.

RAYAN: So, let me get this straight. You work in an industry that is hostile to our existence, whereby we're asked to be palatable to them. And palatable means, to them, not to exist, not to show elements of our culture, not to show us in ways that do not villainize us. And you took that experience and you were like, "Okay, well, when I create a short film, it's going to be all about Palestinians in an industry that doesn't want any films about Palestinians in a positive way, whereby we tell our stories." And that's a really, really bold step, and it's something that I commend you for. Did these racist experiences in Hollywood shape your approach in this film? Is that what inspired you to make Palestinians front and centre?

LEE: What I feel like I've come to understand about making films, watching films, and growing up on Hollywood films, too, is that I have a particular sensitivity towards how Arabs are treated, right? And also how they're perceived and how people, um, want to see them. So, there's a delicate balance and a dance that I feel like I have to do with wanting people to... I want, you know, non-Arabs to be interested in Arabs. I want people to want to understand who Palestinians are. And so, with this film, the idea was to basically tell the story of characters who remind me of my family, who are American. They speak English and throw in those, like, uh, Arab words naturally in the middle of sentences and such, and include food, involve imagery, symbols. Like, you know, there are Palestinian symbols all throughout. They're kind of like Easter eggs. You have, like, you know, there's a watermelon in there. You can find it. You might not see it immediately, overtly, but it's there. The colour schemes... I use the lighting to represent the Palestinian flag. So you see just splashes of red and green, and there's black in the scene and white in the props. So, when it all comes together, it's all there right in front of your face. And people have seen it, especially people who are tuned in. They see it. But then other people who just aren't quite tuned in, they might not. But when you tell them, it's cool to see their reaction because we have such a rich culture, and you can imbue your stories and your films with such richness, and people will enjoy it as long as the story is interesting, as long as it's a fascinating idea, a unique subject. We can kind of Trojan horse it. And that's kind of the idea here, to kind of Trojan horse it. It's a film that pretty much anyone can watch and not feel like they're learning something about a culture they know nothing about. You know, the idea is supposed to be like, "See how they're just like us? See how they're just like you?" Because we're human, you know? That's kind of the idea. And I feel like once we get over that dumb little hurdle, then the rest can follow. I truly believe we need thousands upon thousands of films and stories to be told. Isn't that something, where we're living at a time where we have to remind non-Arabs that, hey, we're human too? And when that's the starting point of the discourse, what does that say about our predicament? Yeah. Well, the funny thing about it, too, is that you can't really call it out and say it for what it is. You have to insinuate it so that they can figure it out for themselves. And that's a difficult... that's the tricky thing to do because, especially when it comes to film, if the audience feels any sort of didactic expression from the story, they're out. They're checked out. They don't want to be told what to think or how to think. They don't want to be educated. They just want to experience something. They go through an emotional catharsis of some kind. And so that's, I think, the delicate balancing act of wanting to tell these stories with these people and get the audience to care, and to learn to care, and to realize that, you know, you can't tell them they've been dehumanizing Palestinians, but maybe you can help them just, you know, pluck out some of the wiring that's been created in their heads about it.

RAYAN: Can you tell me about how the film was received?

LEE: After every screening, having conversations in the lobbies of these movie theatres, it's been amazing. It's been really cool to have these conversations with all types of people. I mean, I've had people... I wasn't expecting it, but people crying, you know, telling me how much it meant to them, even if they're not Arab. And I think that's one of the things as well about what I wanted to make: a film that... when you say "scientist" or "doctor," most people just think "white guy." But then when you put an Arab woman in that role, and they're inventing time travel, and it's a fun, cool, interesting thing, it becomes political, but in a good way. Not in a dirty, "too political" kind of way. All of a sudden, people see what is possible. And hearing people talk about that too—like, where else could this go? What else could be made? Hearing those things is really awesome. And hearing people excited for the stories I want to make beyond that has been really cool because of that.

RAYAN: Before we talk about the vegan element of the film, which I find really interesting, I just want to bring up something you and I talked about earlier on, and it was the *Real Bad Arabs* phenomenon, which has occurred all over Hollywood for a very long time. Did you want to talk a bit about that? Because you and I have both read the book by Jack Shaheen, which is called *Real Bad Arabs*, which is an analysis of Hollywood films and their depictions of Arabs and Palestinians. And from memory, I think the book has a whole chapter on Palestinians in terms of our dehumanization in Hollywood films. And I forgot the percentage. I don't know if you remember the percentage of films about Arabs. It was a high percentage of them. Was it something like 70 or 80% were derogatory? Were orientalist...

LEE: Like in the 90%, like over 90%.

RAYAN: Wow.

LEE: Yeah. Because I want to say, if I vaguely remember the number, it was around Jack Shaheen gathering around 960 films, like 966 or something like that, and over 930 of them showed Arabs, and Palestinians in particular, in a negative light. Like 930-something. And people can't point to one reason or another why they just know Palestinians are inherently violent or barbaric or, you know, this, that, and the other thing, or hostile. Yet, in my very intimate experience, they're the most hospitable people on the planet, which I think is just such a tragedy of all the tragedies. But yeah, since I'm just such a film guy, I love movies. And talking to friends and colleagues or new acquaintances, or what have you, when discussing Palestinians and who we are as people and getting down to the nitty-gritty of, like, "Where did you get your idea of Palestinians?" none of them can really point to one particular example. I bring up *Real Bad Arabs*. I'm like, "You should see this," because there's also the documentary that's 45 minutes long. It's a really easy watch and easy to find. I tell them to go watch that because you'll realize that your notion of Palestinians was developed through media and movies and television. And I always bring up *Back to the Future* because *Back to the Future* is such an iconic American classic film about time travel, and nobody remembers the inciting incident of the movie is Libyan terrorists chasing after Doc Brown for his plutonium with AK-47s and keffiyehs, and they're screaming in this gibberish-like "Arabic." So people never remember that, but that seed was planted.

DOC BROWN: Oh my God. They found me. I don't know how, but they found me. Run, Marty!

MARTY: Who? Who?

DOC BROWN: Who do you think? The Libyans.

MARTY: Holy [s__].

LEE: And most of these people I'm talking about, too, watched the movie when they were kids. So they're getting this idea in their head: those people are the bad guys. I see what they look like, what they sound like, and what they wear. And then they carry that into adulthood and don't even know where it came from.

RAYAN: I remember watching that film and naively saying to myself, "Wow, no wonder they hate us." And I think a part of me also thought, "Well, then it's up to me to sort of destroy this stereotype and show them that I can be a good person." Until I realized that, hey, it's their stereotype. It's their misconception. It's their racist, orientalist perception of me. That's a them problem, not a me problem, even though they are making it a me problem every single day. I remember there was a segment of the film that was analysing a Hollywood blockbuster by, I think his name is Samuel L. Jackson, whereby he's in Yemen or in Oman or somewhere, and the American soldiers—I'm going to get the storyline wrong, so forgive me for mis-paraphrasing what the plot is. So, a bunch of American soldiers commit a massacre of all these men, women, and children, who all happen to be Arab. And one of the children who survived the massacre, or one of the children who was involved, was this young girl who is on crutches, who has only one leg. And then a flashback to what led up to the massacre shows that, apparently, this young little Arab girl was armed with a gun and was attacking American soldiers and therefore was a terrorist.

PROF. JACK SHAHEEN: Of all the Department of Défense films, the one that will stand the test of time as being the most racist is *Rules of Engagement*. The film was written by former Secretary of the Navy James Webb. The action takes place in Yemen, a real country in the Middle East. There are violent demonstrations at the American embassy, and the Marines, led by Samuel L. Jackson, are called in to evacuate the American employees. As they try to do so, the Marines open fire on the crowd and kill scores of Yemenis, including women and children. In the investigation that follows, Tommy Lee Jones, the lawyer who represents the Samuel L. Jackson character, goes to Yemen to investigate. The movie leads us to believe that the Marines committed this atrocity. Armed American Marines were shooting at his people. They were just trying to defend themselves. During his investigation, Jones's character sees a little girl with only one leg. He follows her and comes upon a hospital ward full of civilian victims. He finds an audio tape by the bed of one of the victims, and when the tape gets translated in court, we immediately begin changing our minds about who is responsible for this mass killing.

TRANSLATOR: To kill Americans and their allies, both civilian and military, is the duty of every Muslim who is able.

PROF. JACK SHAHEEN: We discover that the Yemeni civilians aren't so innocent after all. It turns out they fired on the Marines first. And in a moment that will live in Hollywood infamy, we suddenly learn that the little girl we've been sympathizing with—the very girl whose humanity and innocence may have broken down our stereotypes—well, she's no better than those other Yemeni terrorists. As a result, when Samuel L. Jackson delivers the key line, he says, "Waste the [F__ers]." We're now on his side.

RAYAN: And when you look at that representation of who we are, and then you look at the discourses that have surfaced in the genocide, of how we are all villainized, all the people, all the Palestinians in Gaza, we are villainized. The children are accused of being terrorists. The women are accused of being terrorists. Everyone wants to just... everyone is apparently, quote, "so anti-Semitic" that we're willing to sort of blow ourselves up for... you know, it's these horrendous tropes that sort of play out not only in Hollywood, but in public discourse, in news reportage, of who we are. And then I became the villain in terms of my own family because every time my cousins would talk about their favourite films, armed with Jack Shaheen's book and that documentary, I'd ruin it for them, you know? And this is the appalling part that I think, as Palestinians in the diaspora, we have to admit, is that some of us even grew up on films that were, in our view, iconic and our favourite films, and then we later discovered that they were horrible depictions of who we are. Did you go through any process like that yourself?

LEE: I feel like I'm still going through it, to be honest. Because I have, like, you know, as you were talking, I was thinking of a few films that I still love, like *The Big Lebowski*. It's, like, a 1996–97 Cohen Brothers film. There are just so many digs at Arabs in that film, and also just straight-up Zionist talking points. Or just speaking of Israel as, like, a beautiful invention. So, one of the main characters quotes Theodore Herzl, the father of Zionism, and he's quoting him as the character we love. He's one of the good guys who we all care about, and then he's quoting the father of Zionism as the good thing that's being said. Saddam Hussein is in the movie during a dream sequence as just, like, a goofball terrorist. And then, also, in the beginning, there's this reference to the war in the Middle East because the movie takes place in the early '90s, so it's the Gulf War. And one of the lines, when they reference that war, they say, "these camel [F__ers] in the East." And it's just this throwaway line that nobody bats an eye at. It's just how they talk, and that's just supposed to be, like, you know, how people perceive them. And this is actually a fun, good movie. I loved it when I was a teenager. The comedy still stands, but then there are these striking moments in there that you're just like... people don't see it. People just don't see that. And when I point that out and I say it to you, it sounds so glaringly obvious, but people don't see that. I've had to bring those examples up to other people, and then they realize that it's there, when these people have seen this movie repeatedly, like repeated watches. And that's, I think, the work that we're up against when having to deprogram people. I feel like what I'm doing, and what Jack Shaheen was doing with his film and his book, *Real Bad Arabs*, is: how can we equip people with antennas? That's the way I see it. How can I give you the antennas to pick up on what's happening, to see... to have the radar system on these messages, these racist messages that are straight in front of our faces that most people don't see as racist? I think that's part of the multi-pronged approach we need to have. It's like you have to be able to recognize it, and then you have to be able to undo it in several different ways. I don't know if I said this earlier already, but the moment "Palestinian" comes on screen, the story becomes political. And not just political, but *too* political, and no one wants to touch it. Because if a Palestinian is a good guy, that means that we “hate” Jews. And that is just an insane connection that people like to make.

RAYAN: What annoys the crap out of me about that perception is that you and I, our families have experienced dispossession, survived genocide. We aren't allowed to go back, our homes stolen, villainized in the media, villainized in Hollywood. If you and I were living over there, the likelihood of us being imprisoned without trial, tortured, abused, body parts cut off, members of our family tortured in front of us by the Israeli apartheid regime... To do all that to us, to deny our stories, that requires a lot of hate. But apparently, we're the ones who hate? That's what really is mind-boggling about this.

LEE: It's absolutely insane. And that's why I think there's a particular type of humour that a lot of Palestinians carry because we know how absurd our situation is. We have to both... I don't know, I speak for myself. I've had to carry myself as a person amongst others who I know don't like my people, and yet know this secret in my head that we are all good people and that we want good things. We don't deserve what's happened to us and our families and our ancestors. Yeah. So, I don't know. I think we have to change the narrative. The only way to do that is through the mediums in which people consume their ideas. So, yeah, I think it's important for us to do it in many different ways. One is something like *Mobius Loop*, the short film, where it's seemingly casual. You just get to like these people because they're... or just get to know these people and the story that's transpiring in front of you. But then we also do need a movie like *Palestine 36* that tells you what happened because people don't know. They don't know the history. They don't know the truth. And it's such an iceberg situation where, beneath the surface, it goes deep. There are so many things to understand that it's going to take a lot of deep programming in so many different ways.

RAYAN: We've got our work cut out for us, unfortunately.

LEE: Yeah. And I mean, I'm just taking this kind of "[F__] it" approach now where I'm just like, "Look, let me tell some stories how I feel like they should be told and try to do something unique and different." And that's why the feature version is much different than the short film. The feature version is a little bit more blatantly political, but yet it's wrapped in a kind of murder mystery where it's set in the future, like 2048, where we're in an America that has Arab American internment camps because of something that had happened in the past, where America turns on its citizens and sees them as threats, especially all Arab Americans as threats, and anyone that is in solidarity with them. But the story really focuses in on the main character, who's a surgeon who conducts surgery on a senator who was the architect of these internment camps. He dies during the surgery, but the surgeon, who's Arab American, and the only reason she's able to operate on this guy is because she's been given special privileges because she's one of the very few who doesn't have to live in the internment camps. She goes from someone who's very apolitical to then being accused of murdering this senator, who died during the surgery because of complications. So she's on the run, and she's trying to prove her innocence, kind of like if you've seen the movie *The Fugitive*. So it's kind of like that. But in the process, she loses her memory of the day of the so-called crime because she's drugged during her investigation process. She gets drugged, and then she can't remember the day before. So she ends up taking this time travel drug that helps her go back in time to figure out what had happened on the day of the crime. And because she can go back, she can also go forward. So we have this kind of lily-pad hopping of time travel as she figures out and uncovers what had happened. With that story, it's very evident that Arab Americans were treated a certain way. It involves organ trafficking. It involves false flag terrorist attacks. And that's because I couldn't help but be more blatant about what has been going on, in a fiction as well, in a science fiction. Part of that was because, through the last three years of genocide, I realized something about film. Every year we see these Holocaust films come out, and the point of them coming out is supposed to be "never again," right? That's the lesson we're supposed to be maintaining: that we don't do this to people. Then this genocide occurs, and suddenly that rule just doesn't apply. Yet these Holocaust films are still coming out, these World War II stories. So it's just to remind you who the "real" victims are: the white European people who were the victims. So, when thinking about turning the short into the feature, I just couldn't help but go, "I think I need to be a little bit... just a little bit more on the nose," because it seems like people haven't learned the lesson, and it doesn't seem like they're going to learn the lesson. So, how can I now play a new type of balancing act where I'm trying to make a really unique, powerful story that is truly engaging and interesting, but then put this in there? Like, let's go. Let's make a revolutionary film—a real one. I love *The Matrix*. It's one of my favourite films, and it's a film about revolution, but there's no real revolution at the end of the day. The audience just gets their fill on this kind of quasi-revolutionary film that's not really going to change anyone's mind about anything. So maybe let's try to do that. Let's see what we can do there. And also, if we did another podcast on my thesis of why I think *The Matrix* is actually about the Palestinian struggle, we can do that another day.

TICKTOKER: A scholar named Jack Shaheen spent 30 years studying every Hollywood film with a Muslim or Arab in it. He ended up analysing a thousand of them, and the pattern he found explains a lot about how the world sees Muslims today. Jack Shaheen was an Arab-American professor of mass communications and a former CBS News consultant on Middle East affairs. Of the thousand films analysed in his work, 936 of them portrayed Arabs and Muslims negatively, and only about 5% of Arab roles in cinema were written as normal human beings. He called the recurring setting of these films "Arab Land," a mythical theme park of deserts, palaces, and villains with scimiters that Hollywood has been recycling for over a century. Disney's *Aladdin* opened in 1992 with the lyric, "Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face. It's barbaric, but hey, it's home." After protests from Arab American groups, Disney changed the "cut off your ear" part for the home video release. The "barbaric" part was left unchanged. Two months after 9/11, senior Bush adviser Karl Rove met with around 40 top Hollywood executives and producers at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills to discuss how the entertainment industry could help with the war on terrorism. Since then, researchers using Freedom of Information Act requests have documented that the Pentagon and the CIA have worked on more than 800 Hollywood films and over 1,000 television shows. They helped with script approvals, editing oversight, and the power to dictate how the military is portrayed. So, if you look at films like *Top Gun*, *Zero Dark Thirty*, *Iron Man*, and *Captain Marvel*, all received this treatment.

RAYAN: There were two series that came out that showed Arab American life, or maybe misrepresented it. It was *Ramy* on Hulu and *Mo* on Netflix. And even when Arabs are telling our own stories through a TV series, which is a rare opportunity that we have, I noticed that there were still Zionist elements here and there. So, as an example, in the first series of *Mo*, there has to be a Jewish friend because, apparently, we have to reassure the audience that, yes, Palestinians have Jewish friends. Never mind that in our movements for Palestinian liberation there is always an anti-Zionist Jewish caucus. We know the diversity that exists within Jewish communities in terms of Zionism and anti-Zionism and even, quote, "not Zionism," where there's just an apathy to it. But in these TV series, you had Mo, who had the Jewish friend, and Mo says something really interesting. And you know that he was tasked, he was instructed, to include this by some sort of Zionist producer or somebody else to sort of make the series more palatable, where he says to his Jewish friend something like, "We want you to go back to the 1967 borders." A lot of Palestinians watching that scene—this was in series 1—were like, "No, no, no. When we talk about land back, when we talk about the right of return, we're talking about returning to all of Palestine, not just the 1967 borders." It was just such a ludicrous thing to say. And then in *Ramy*, I think it was season 2, whereby he has an uncle who is excessively anti-Semitic, hates everyone, hates all minorities, is really misogynistic—this sort of typical Arab misogynistic male who is just illiterate, barbaric in terms of his thoughts. Anyway, Ramy actually travels to, quote, "the State of Israel" for business purposes. And even when we tell our own stories as Arabs, as Palestinians, we are often in predicaments where we have to reassure Zionists that their Zionism is present within our stories. And that is what is so unsettling.

LEE: Yeah, I've seen them. Not all of *Ramy*. I just kind of fell off. I don't know. I kind of grew disinterested at some point. But I have definitely gone through *Mo*. But I would say this: American culture is Zionist by default. It's part of the wiring of our culture. And to deprogram that is a very nuanced game to play that we know we have to do, but they don't know that they're part of it. It almost also feels like the Dunning-Kruger effect. You know the Dunning-Kruger phenomenon, where the less you know, the more confident you are about something? That's what I feel like we're dealing with. The way I've analogized it to a friend of mine was: imagine you're on the witness stand. We have to not only tell our story but also prove to people that we mean well. And that's a double task that no one else has to do. Usually, people just get to tell their story. We're interrogated when we're just trying to tell you what our truth is. Which is wild, again, because, as you've noted earlier, the insanity they conduct and their persecutions are so blatant and visible, exposed. It's right there for anyone to see. But yet, somehow, our people don't see it. Our cultures don't see it in America and, obviously, elsewhere. So, when it comes to shows like *Mo* and *Ramy*, when you're writing these scenarios in, we have to do a task that no one else has to do, which is prove that we actually mean well while telling you who we are. And that is just another one of the endless tragedies. We have to kind of un-caricature ourselves. These fantasies of us have been developed, so we have to play these psychological games to go, "Look, we're good. I have a Jewish friend, and we can be friends and do all these things with each other because we're people, right?" So, yeah, I think with those shows, we're at the very beginning. We're at the precipice of just trying to get Americans, and the Western world especially, and many others, to even be interested, to even show a little interest, to go, "Who are we actually? Who are we really? I've got a cool story to tell, so sit down and listen." Because we're at the very beginning, we're at the infancy of actual equality. Someday it may be there, but right now we're at the very beginning of it, where we have to play these ridiculous games. It's literally like educating toddlers. I mean, not to be condescending or belittling of anybody, but how you speak to a toddler is not how you speak to an adult. When you speak to an adult, there's a lot of context that the two of you share and understand. But when you're speaking to a toddler, they don't understand a lot of context. I heard that you don't understand sarcasm until you're seven. So, it's like you're talking to people who don't understand sarcasm. Imagine that. And that's kind of how we have to... if we're going to make these stories that we really want to tell, and make these shows and these movies, to people who, in their minds, the given fact is that these Arabs are... there's something aggressive about them, and they probably, most likely, hate Jews. So we're forced to have to bring it into the conversation. It's just like what you were saying with *Mo* and *Ramy*: you have to not only tell your story, but you have to tell theirs as well because it proves that we mean well. And they don't have to do that.

RAYAN: They never do.

LEE: It's the opposite. They just trample on top of you, and everyone goes like, "Yeah, you deserved it."

RAYAN: Let's go back to *Mobius Loop*, which I'm really excited to see, and I'm pretty sure that our listeners are going to be excited to see it as well. There is a vegan element to the film, which I'd like you to tell me about.

LEE: Yeah. So, I've been vegan since 2013. And it's funny how people don't know how being Palestinian and vegan can work. I love making food for people because I get to show them how amazing Palestinian food can be that's also vegan. When making this film, I did two things. One, I employed my cousin, who's an incredible chef. And two, I wanted to make sure that we had a vegan set because, to me, when you see that little credit at the end that says, "No animal was harmed during the making of this film," I truly wanted to embody that in our film and not even have the food be from animals. So, truly, no animal was harmed during the making of our movie. I obviously let everybody know well ahead of time that this was going to be a completely vegan set. And the coolest thing about it was that, on set, nearly all of the crew expressed how good the food was. I mean, pretty much everybody expressed how good the food was. We're talking about professionals who do this for a living in Hollywood. Many of them said, "This is the best food we've ever had on a set, period." And I'm like, "That just made the whole production. That's amazing to hear," because not only do I want to cause less suffering, I also want good food, and I want people to experience good food. That's yet another myth that people buy into: this idea that we just eat lettuce leaves or something. So, yeah, it was so cool to have a completely vegan set.

RAYAN: I'm really looking forward to watching the film, and I'll be doing that as soon as I finish recording this podcast episode. That's for sure. Before you go, what's your favourite Palestinian vegan dish?

LEE: Honestly... all right. So, obviously, falafel. I love falafel. But I've been making this... Oh, real quick, super short story. While navigating through almost a depression during the genocide, I needed something to ground me. I found this cookbook called *The Palestinian Table* by Reem Kassis. When I opened the book and read the introduction, it said her father's from Rameh, which is where my family is from, where my mum grew up, where my aunts and uncles grew up. The food they make is the food they grew up with. So, the same food in this cookbook was the same food that my family was making in Rameh. I thought, "Oh my God, I have to make all of these dishes." I know this is a really long way of getting to the answer to the question, but while veganising a lot of the dishes, I realised, "This is the food I grew up with." My childhood was instantly accessible through this food. It was the spice—the nine-spice mix in that cookbook. I love that spice mix because you don't really realise how good a spice mix is until you make it from scratch. You toast everything, grind it, mix it together, and suddenly you're like, "Oh my God, this is it. This is my childhood. This is my family." Because of that mix, I make the best kafta. So good. With Beyond Meat, onion, parsley, and that spice mix. And it's easy. It's so easy. Then, of course, you make all the accompaniments that go with it, and I make my own tahini dressing and sauce. And then, of course, I have to bring up zaatar because I don't know why I have such a close relationship with zaatar. It was always on the counter in my kitchen growing up. It's a flavour that is so unique, and it's definitely not thyme. It's not thyme. If you ever read that on an ingredients list, it's not true because it's on almost every ingredients list where I see it here. It's quoted as thyme. I actually did a bit of digging, and I think I know why it's called thyme.

RAYAN: Why?

LEE: Because it's not even necessarily in the thyme family. It's actually in the mint family, and its closest cousin is oregano because the botanical name is *Origanum syriacum*. It's not thyme. I think the reason people call it thyme—or why it's written as thyme and now promoted as thyme—is because, particularly here in America, when it comes to importing, you have to use what they call common names. Especially if you don't want customs charging you extra taxes, products have to fall under certain categories. If you name a spice mix using a common name that Americans and the FDA recognise—and this goes back to the 1930s and was rewritten in the 1980s—thyme happens to fall under a tax-saving category. So my theory—and I don't know this for sure—is that when it was imported, it was labelled as thyme because it was simply a business decision and a way to save money. Now everyone calls zaatar "thyme" when translating it into English. Long story short, I'm importing zaatar from Palestine, from Nablus and Jenin, and I'm going to be selling it on a website where I also sell shoes that I designed from photographs I took of my grandfather's keffiyeh. If you go to shopyalili.com—you'll see Yalili spelled Y-A-L-I-L-I—you'll find the shoes. The quality is really good. I literally photographed my grandfather's keffiyehs, a red one and a black one, and had them printed onto shoes that are like Vans. Now I can wear my grandfather's keffiyeh every day. People are always commenting on them. They're always like, "Those are awesome. Those are dope." And I'm like, "Yeah, you can go to shopyalili.com and buy them." Soon, I'm also going to have zaatar on the site because I love zaatar.

RAYAN: So, what I'm going to do in the episode description is include a link to *Mobius Loop*, a link to *Real Bad Arabs*, and a link to your shop because I need to get me a pair of those shoes. But, like you said before, whether it's telling our stories through film, we're not making them palatable anymore for a non-Arab or white audience. And it's the same with zaatar. Let's now reclaim zaatar. You're right. It is no longer thyme. It is zaatar.

LEE: Exactly. Zaatar. And that's what's going to be on the back of my bag: "Zaatar is not thyme. Zaatar is zaatar."

RAYAN: Precisely. And on that note, thank you so much, Lee, for joining me. I'm going to take you up on your offer again. We're going to have a whole episode on the Palestinian link to *The Matrix*, which I'm really excited to unpack. Thank you so much for joining me, and I will see you again.

LEE: Yeah. Thank you so much.

MUSIC

فلسطين والتحدي PR singing ‘Palestine – The Challenge is ours’

♪ تتحدي ما تتحدي راح اضلني طول المدي
♪ Challenge me all you want—I'll remain steadfast forever.

♪ ماسك مايكي يرد العدى راح يضل صوتي صدى
♪ Holding my microphone to answer the enemy; my voice will keep echoing.

♪ ينادي وين الردى راح يضله زي الهدى
♪ It calls out through destruction, remaining a guiding light.

♪ يهدي الناس يعبر بضله دايما يهدر
♪ Guiding the people, its voice forever resounding.

♪ بضله طول الليل ينادي أورجيك الويل
♪ Calling throughout the night—I’ll show you hardship.

♪ بسمعك كلماتي ما في متلها مثيل
♪ Listen to my words—there are none like them.

♪ بس جرب وتحداني ويلا وقف قدامي
♪ Go ahead, challenge me—come and stand before me.

♪ راح أكون معك أناني بالمرة ما تنساني
♪ I’ll show you no mercy—you’ll never forget me.

♪ Chorus

♪ أتذكر أو ما تتذكر، جيشك علينا تجبر
♪ Whether you remember or not, your army oppressed us.

♪ لما كنا ندافع، لنحيي الله أكبر
♪ When we stood defending our land, proclaiming "God is Greatest."

♪ أتذكر أو ما تتذكر، جيشك علينا تجبر
♪ Whether you remember or not, your army oppressed us.

♪ لما كنا ندافع، لنحيي الله أكبر
♪ When we stood defending our land, proclaiming "God is Greatest."

♪ فلسطين التحدي إلنا راح نضلنا مدافعين
♪ Palestine is our challenge—we will remain its defenders.

♪ عن دفاعك ما بنلين لا ورب العالمين
♪ We will never waver in defending you, by the Lord of all worlds.

♪ لو قالوا إرهابيين راح أبين بكلماتي
♪ If they call us terrorists, my words will reveal the truth.

♪ إنه أحنا مظلومين من أرضنا مشردين
♪ We are an oppressed people, driven from our homeland.

♪ واحد + واحد = الكل بيقول تنين
♪ One plus one—everyone says it's two.

♪ وتنين مع تنين بكملوا الملايين
♪ And two with two become the millions.

♪ اللي حيدافعوا عن فلسطين
♪ The millions who will defend Palestine.

♪ راح نكوّن جيش جرار
♪ We will form a mighty army.

♪ لنرجع الانتصار ونكمل المسار
♪ To reclaim victory and continue the journey.

♪ أنا نولدت من رحم معناه
♪ I was born from the very heart of this struggle.

♪ عشاني فلسطيني بقولوا شو معناه
♪ Because I'm Palestinian, they ask what that means.

♪ راح عرفك شو المعنى من الفلسطيني اللي ما برضى
♪ I'll show you what it means to be a Palestinian who refuses...

♪ بالذل والإهانة
♪ ...to accept humiliation or disgrace.

♪ بس أنت الحكم القاضي
♪ Yet you act as judge and jury,

♪ اللي بسلب بالأراضي وأنت كمان الجاني
♪ Stealing our land while being the perpetrator.

♪ اللي بياخد أرواحنا بثواني ما بعرف من وين أجاني
♪ Taking our lives in seconds—an enemy that came from nowhere.

♪ هالعدو الغير إنساني بالك ومش بالك
♪ This inhuman enemy—whether you realise it or not.

♪ بس فلسطيني وخود بالك، خود بالك
♪ But I'm Palestinian—so take heed, take heed.

♪ بس الأرواح صارت أشباح بتطاردك لترتاح
♪ The souls have become ghosts, haunting you until they find peace.

♪ في كل مسا وصباح بفكروا يطيرونا
♪ Every evening and morning, they try to drive us away.

♪ متلنا متل العصافير من عشوشها لما تطير
♪ Like birds forced to leave their nests.

♪ مهما يكون مهما يصير إحنا هون دايماً عسير
♪ No matter what happens, we remain here—unyielding.

♪ عم بصد في كل تدميرك
♪ I stand against all your destruction.

♪ كلماتي عم بكتبها
♪ I'm writing these words.

♪ ضد هالصهيوني الخطير
♪ Against this dangerous Zionism.

♪ عم غني راب جبار
♪ I'm delivering powerful rap.

♪ على وتر من النار كلماتي باختصار
♪ My words strike like strings of fire.

♪ نازلة زي المنشار عم تقطع كل حصار
♪ They cut through every siege like a saw.

♪ على شعبي في هالدار لأنا عم بندوق
♪ For my people in this homeland, as we endure...

♪ طعم ولون المرار من عدو حاقد جرار
♪ ...the bitter taste of a relentless, hateful enemy.

♪ للموت والحصار بس حضلني بالمرصاد
♪ Despite death and siege, I will remain on guard.

♪ صوتي طالع زي المضاد واصل السما زي المنطاد
♪ My voice rises like an interceptor, reaching the sky like a balloon.

♪ برسالة ضد الأوغاد بتحيي روح الاستشهاد
♪ Carrying a message against the oppressors, reviving the spirit of sacrifice.

♪ مقابل هالبلاد، مقابل هالبلاد
♪ For the sake of this land—for the sake of this land.

TIKTOKER: My video yesterday really upset some people, and I think perhaps that's my fault for not being clear enough about my belief system. So, here it is. Free Palestine. Free Sudan. Free Congo. Black Lives Matter. Trans rights are human rights. I love my constitutional rights, with an abortion. I love the girls, gays, and theys. If your feminism isn't intersectional, it's white supremacy in a wig. [F__] the patriarchy. Tax the rich. Billionaires should not exist. If the conversation around land expropriation makes you uncomfortable, you have some emotional unpacking to do. Modern-day beauty standards were very likely set by paedophiles. Silent men are complicit men. And I don't think white women should be getting BBLs.