# Lucy Aharish: The Muslim Woman Who Became Israel's First Arab News Anchor

An episode of [Build or Break](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6796376545), 6 Oct 2026, 1 h 24 min.

Audio: https://episode.flightcast.com/01M3M156D53PZM8ZJX0B8SVHAA.mp3

Lucy Aharish was the first Arab Muslim woman to anchor the news in Hebrew on mainstream Israeli TV. On October 7, while her husband — Fauda star Tsahi Halevi — headed south with his unit, she helped steer a rescue team to 12 people trapped in a Kfar Aza safe room. She's interviewed a Hamas official and a sitting president, and this year she faced a mob outside her own apartment. In this episode of Build or Break, Lucy sits down with Daniel Lubetzky to talk identity, extremism, and courage. She opens up about growing up the only Arab Muslim girl in a Jewish town, and catching her best friend writing "filthy Arab" on the school wall — then making her face her every day instead of having her expelled. She breaks down the difference between Islam and Islamism, why citizen journalism is costing us the ability to agree on basic facts, and what happened when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put her in his campaign ad. Plus: the Mexican Inquisition and the Hava Nagila audition that landed her in World War Z. 00:00 Intro 01:58 From Nazareth to Dimona 07:42 Being the Only Muslim in School 11:34 "I have a complex identity" 15:55 The '90s terror wave 19:09 The graffiti, the principal, and Grandpa Menachem 24:10 "She was my best friend" 31:33 Criticizing her government and Hamas 39:41 "Is Israel a racist country?" 47:13 What makes a great interviewer 51:08 October 7: "This is not a drill" 1:05:57 Lucy vs. Netanyahu, and the mob at her door 1:12:06 The Mexican Inquisition 1:19:47 Build or Break Twitter/X: https://x.com/lucyaharish https://www.threads.com/@lucyaharish https://www.instagram.com/DanielLubetzky https://www.tiktok.com/@daniellubetzky https://x.com/DanielLubetzky https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellubetzky https://daniellubetzky.com/ 🙋🏻Become a Builder: https://buildersmovement.org/ Music: Amos Cochran https://www.editscoremusic.com/ Post Production: Jennell Lewis & Scott Convery; Rob Naylor Social Media Production: https://www.edits-etc.com/ Build or Break Team: Executive Producer & Host: Daniel Lubetzky Executive Producer: Kristin Schneider Head of Programming & Production: Joel Rubin Marketing & Communications: Sarah Black Associate Producer & Social Media: Taylor Larned Booking & Scheduling: Kayla Rose Network Relations: Julianna Cohen

## Transcript

[0:00] When I was five and a half years old, I went through a terror attack in the Galvestre.
[0:04] I used to beg my parents not to go to school.
[0:06] There were graffitis on the wall.
[0:07] Lucy, filthy Arab, get out of here.
[0:09] We don't want Arabs in our school.
[0:11] And I silently sneaked into the bathroom, and I saw her.
[0:15] Who did it?
[0:16] She was my best friend.
[0:18] Wow.
[0:19] On October 7th, when the terrorists had breached through in the south.
[0:22] I hear booms, I hear booms, I hear missiles, there are missiles above my head.
[0:25] And I looked up and I saw Tsaki with his military uniform.
[0:28] And I told him, where the fuck do you think you're going?
[0:31] And he looked at me and he told me, Lucy, this is not a drill.
[0:34] This is the real thing.
[0:35] I started looking up for a place to hide Adam.
[0:38] Your baby.
[0:38] Yeah.
[0:39] And I remember literally opening the washing machine to see if I'm able to put Adam in it.
[0:49] Builder Breaking News, Builder Breaking News, we go now to the Anchor Desk where tonight's lead story is our guest.
[0:56] 19 years ago, she broke a barrier.
[0:58] The first Arab Muslim woman to read the news in Hebrew on mainstream Israeli television.
[1:04] She's interviewed a Hamas official, a sitting president, and this year a mob outside her own apartment.
[1:11] On October 7th, she helped direct rescuers to families trapped in their homes.
[1:15] But this year, she had security to protect her own family.
[1:19] Lucia Harish, live, right here, right now, on Build or Break.
[1:25] How did I do?
[1:25] Perfect.
[1:26] Perfect.
[1:28] Lucy, I am so happy to be with you.
[1:31] Let's start by clarifying to our audience because we have a global audience, a US audience.
[1:36] You guys are in for something very special and what you might not understand, this is like an iconic person in Israel and the Middle East.
[1:44] Like the, can you please just, please brag, don't be, just a very one second or two.
[1:49] I can brag.
[1:50] Tell us a little bit about yourself because the audience might not know who you are and then we're gonna go deep and
[1:57] Explore a little.
[1:58] Wow.
[1:59] I will try to, you know, summarize it in a few sentences.
[2:03] My parents are originally from Nazareth.
[2:06] Fifty three years ago, they decided to move to a lot.
[2:11] They decided to leave like the, you know, the tribal family in Nazareth.
[2:16] My father, he understood that he doesn't want to raise his family anymore.
[2:21] in the Arab community because he wants to break barriers and he wants to go out and maybe give other opportunities to his family.
[2:30] That is in the southernmost point of Israel.
[2:32] Yes, exactly.
[2:32] Very hot.
[2:33] Then after one year they understood that they're actually basically spending their money and they decided that they're going back to Nazareth.
[2:44] On the way back, they stopped in Dimona, which is a very small town in the south of Israel that according to foreign press, we have a certain facility there.
[2:56] We're not allowed to speak here.
[2:58] Potentially nuclear weapons.
[3:03] You said it.
[3:04] And they made a stop there because my uncles used to work in construction in Dimona.
[3:10] And there was a guy there asked my father, what are you doing?
[3:13] He told him, actually, I'm on my way back to go back to Nazareth.
[3:17] Oh, really?
[3:17] What do you do?
[3:18] Oh, I like, you know, do some stuff with that.
[3:21] Don't I have a job opportunity for you?
[3:23] What do you think?
[3:24] And he looked at my mom and my mom told him.
[3:27] I don't know.
[3:28] He said to my mom, you know, maybe for one year, two years.
[3:31] One year, two year became 53 years in Dimona.
[3:34] To understand to the audience, Nasser is the homeland of Jesus, but a very Arab town, a Muslim and small Christian community.
[3:44] And then further south in Dimona, it's the middle of nowhere.
[3:48] It's the desert.
[3:48] All you see
[3:50] is hot sand.
[3:54] And one Muslim family among a Jewish community.
[3:59] I always say that when I arrived to Channel 10, at the beginning of my career, one of the anchors on Channel 10 told me, Wow, Lucy, you're Arab, you're Muslim.
[4:11] You're a woman.
[4:12] You're coming from the periphery of Israel.
[4:15] It's like you are the all don't do in one person.
[4:20] It's like the only thing that is left that you will be a lesbian and that's it.
[4:25] So until certain time, I'm not gone.
[4:26] Are we going to break new news?
[4:28] She happens to be married to one of the hottest guys on earth.
[4:32] I love Sachi.
[4:33] We'll get to that in a minute.
[4:34] But at a certain point, my mom, when I didn't get married, when they didn't have any boyfriend or anything, she thought that maybe I'm a lesbian.
[4:41] But no, I'm not.
[4:43] And that's it.
[4:45] 53 years.
[4:46] I was born and raised in Dimona.
[4:47] I want to go back to two pieces about your dad.
[4:50] What made him have the courage to recognize, I want to get out of my community and explore and open the horizons for my kids?
[5:00] Yeah.
[5:00] Because my dad lost his father when he was in the eighth grade.
[5:08] His father died when he was just 38 years old because of asthma.
[5:13] He had to leave school.
[5:17] and help his mom, raising more, I think, seven more kids.
[5:23] Yeah.
[5:23] And he started working, and most of the places that he was working were in the kibbutzim next to Nazareth.
[5:36] He worked with the Jewish community.
[5:37] He worked with the Jewish population a lot when he grew up.
[5:43] Was he doing a Greek culture?
[5:44] What was his...
[5:45] No, he was like doing, you know, we say construction and, you know, helping because he didn't had any, he didn't go to school.
[5:53] He didn't go to academy, of course.
[5:56] It wasn't something that he even dreamt about.
[5:59] This is why for my father, it was very important that we will go to university, we will get education.
[6:04] So for my father, he worked throughout his life.
[6:09] So when he got married, he understood, he saw the opportunities.
[6:14] that were outside, that were in the Jewish community, that weren't in the Arab society, that weren't in the Arab community.
[6:23] He wanted to like break from the family seed
[6:31] And he wanted to actually try to build his own family.
[6:35] He married a Muslim woman.
[6:37] Yeah.
[6:38] You married an Israeli Jewish guy.
[6:41] Does he think, shit, I fucked up, I should have kept her in Nazareth?
[6:45] Or is he happy what you achieved?
[6:46] I think for a period of time, they said to themselves, my mom and dad, maybe we made a mistake.
[6:54] It was very difficult to raise three daughters in a Jewish community when all your friends are going out for their first date and they're experiencing their first kiss, and you are not.
[7:06] You are not because... You are keeping your tradition at that point.
[7:09] Yeah, because you cannot do anything before you're getting married.
[7:16] Anything.
[7:17] You cannot have a boyfriend.
[7:18] You cannot go out on a date.
[7:20] You cannot experience the basic... How old were you when you kissed that boy?
[7:26] When I kissed the boy, it was 19.
[7:27] 19?
[7:28] It was 19 the first time.
[7:31] Arab, Muslim, Jewish?
[7:33] Yeah.
[7:34] Not Tzahi.
[7:35] No, not Tzahi.
[7:36] Now Tzahi will ask me, who was it?
[7:38] Who was it?
[7:39] Were you in Dimona or somewhere else?
[7:40] I was in Dimona, yeah.
[7:41] Yeah.
[7:42] And so I read about you when you were a kid.
[7:46] Two things that I read that I found very fascinating.
[7:49] One of them is that when you were a kid in Purim, which is a Jewish tradition, it's kind of like the Jewish version of Purim.
[7:58] Halloween but with a deeper meaning connected to history.
[8:04] You would dress like Hester Amalka.
[8:06] Yeah, every single year.
[8:08] And then even when there was Independence Day you would wear blue and white.
[8:12] So they were making you be proudly Israeli and in spite of that one kid called you Filthy Arab.
[8:20] Lucy the Filthy Arab.
[8:24] There are a couple of very interesting things for me about that incident.
[8:27] One is how you reacted.
[8:30] Well, both of them, how you reacted.
[8:32] For my parents, you know, I see you getting emotional about that.
[8:38] Because me being Israeli, it was something that is obvious for me throughout my life.
[8:47] I was, I never questioned me being Israeli.
[8:53] I celebrated Jewish holidays in school.
[8:57] I remember fighting with my mom.
[8:59] Every single year I wanted to dress up like Esther or Queen Esther.
[9:03] At a certain point my mom came and said,
[9:05] okay, maybe we'll mix it up.
[9:08] Maybe you will dress up like a Japanese.
[9:11] Maybe, I don't know, a clown, something.
[9:15] And I remember telling him, no, I want to be Queen Esther.
[9:18] And I remember that in one of the interviews, the interviewer asked me, you know, it's Queen Esther.
[9:26] It's a symbol of the Jewish people, you know?
[9:29] And I told him, okay, where are you going with that?
[9:32] Tell me, you know, it's the Greeks fighting the Persians, fighting the, what the fuck it's like.
[9:39] And I told him, no.
[9:42] I was a kid.
[9:44] And I wanted to be a queen.
[9:46] Can I tell you a funny story that you remember?
[9:48] It has nothing to do with me, but I have to tell you this story.
[9:52] When we were living in New York City, our kids were at a school, Dalton, was like hyper-progressive.
[9:57] And one day they asked us to host the parents for, you know, you bring in all the commissions, like 60 parents in our apartment.
[10:03] And the kids say, we're going to do a little show.
[10:05] So we're like, okay.
[10:06] So they start doing this show.
[10:08] And out comes Jonah, one of our boys.
[10:11] And he starts saying in their show that he's wearing all white.
[10:15] And he says...
[10:17] I am the scourge of earth I am the anti-hero I'm the villain the greatest threat to humanity I have done the worst his brothers were the heroes he was the anti-hero he was like I am going to destroy and vanquish humanity I am white man laughing
[10:38] All the people, all the parents are like, yeah, you go.
[10:40] Because a lot of them were black people and progressive people.
[10:44] Yeah, you tell them that.
[10:45] And we asked him, Jonah, where did this conference?
[10:47] Like, what do you mean?
[10:47] I was drawing white.
[10:48] That was white.
[10:49] So for you, you know, Queen Esther was just like she was the pretty queen.
[10:53] Yeah, she was the pretty queen.
[10:54] Because, you know, like there was Vashti and there was Esther.
[10:58] And somebody told me that Vashti was ugly.
[11:00] So she just kept me with Esther.
[11:04] But for me, the Jewish tradition was always...
[11:08] part of my culture.
[11:12] Yes, I fasted also Ramadan.
[11:14] I also celebrated Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr.
[11:18] But I also went to look for the Afiqoman in Lala Sadaq with my neighbors.
[11:25] because there was the chair that was waiting for another granddaughter, which was me.
[11:31] And for me, that was like, you know, my life.
[11:34] Just to stay a couple more minutes on the issues of identity, you probably managed to piss off everybody, right?
[11:39] Because the Muslim community is like, what the hell is this girl celebrating some Jewish stuff and marrying a Jewish guy?
[11:45] And in the Jewish community, someone were like,
[11:47] Why is she intermarrying?
[11:49] So, like, you're just a rebel with a cause.
[11:52] Like, tell us a little bit more about how do you deal with every single day with your identity?
[11:56] You have one son now?
[11:58] One son.
[11:59] One son.
[11:59] How are you raising him?
[12:00] How do you think about these issues?
[12:02] What do you see about what's important in society to preserve some of your traditions?
[12:06] to build bridges, how do you think about that stuff?
[12:10] Or is it just like, again, I just wanted to be the pretty girl and I don't think about this stuff?
[12:13] No, I think that, you know, I remember that I had a conversation with a guy that I met a few years ago and he told me, aren't you tired?
[12:25] And I told him about what?
[12:27] And he told me about getting up in the morning and every single morning is a fight.
[12:31] And I told him, you see it as a fight.
[12:34] This is my life.
[12:36] I am not used to anything else.
[12:39] I'm getting up in the morning, and this is me.
[12:41] This is my identity.
[12:43] I have a complex identity.
[12:45] I am Israeli.
[12:46] I am Muslim.
[12:47] I am Arab.
[12:49] I'm a woman.
[12:50] I'm a Muslim Arab woman.
[12:53] It's Israeli.
[12:55] It's complex.
[12:57] And I think that the complexity of my identities brought me to a point where I'm able to actually look at the entire picture in a way that other people can't.
[13:09] For me as a kid, when I went through, when I was five and a half years old, I went through a terror attack in the Gaza Strip by a Hamas militant.
[13:16] So for me, the 7th of October was very obvious.
[13:20] When I heard people denying the 7th of October, I said to myself, I'm sorry for my language.
[13:26] Explain for me in case people don't know, because they might not know what you mean when you say 7th of October.
[13:31] 7th of October, the biggest massacre that happened to the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
[13:37] And to Israelis.
[13:37] And to Israelis.
[13:38] It's interesting.
[13:40] In your way you talk, you're always building bridges and acknowledging...
[13:43] The Jewish.
[13:44] ...to Jewish people.
[13:45] But for me, I think about October 7th thinking not just about the Jewish people, but the fact that Awad Daraushe, the cousin of my co-founder of the One Voice Movement, Mohammed Daraushe, was murdered as a nurse tending to the Jewish victims of the Nova Festival.
[14:00] And he thought...
[14:04] I'm going to stay here because I'm Muslim.
[14:06] They're not going to kill me.
[14:08] And they killed him.
[14:08] And they killed him.
[14:10] I acknowledge the fact that when Hamas militants entered Israel,
[14:16] The purpose was to kill Jews.
[14:18] They also wanted to kill Israelis.
[14:21] But the purpose was to kill Jews.
[14:24] When I saw this video, one of the videos that they stopped a guy from East Jerusalem.
[14:33] And he told them, I'm from Jerusalem.
[14:35] I'm an Arab.
[14:35] I'm Muslim.
[14:36] I'm Muslim.
[14:42] You're Amir, you're cooperating with Israel.
[14:45] And they shot him in the head.
[14:47] So when I saw a few days after October 7th, that people are denying what happened here, as a victim of terror that went through a terror attack and almost lost all my family, my entire family, when I was five and a half years old, seeing my cousin going into flames,
[15:10] The images on October 7th took me right back to being five and a half years old.
[15:18] So hearing people denying it on 2026 or 2023 back then, it drove me crazy.
[15:27] How did you become so strong?
[15:31] Like, you take it for granted, but you have an extraordinary strength to fight against extremism on all sides.
[15:37] Is it, what drives you?
[15:39] Is it that you see things that others don't see and you want people to learn that stuff?
[15:43] Is it building bridges?
[15:44] What makes you, or were you just born a strong motherfucker?
[15:47] Like, as a little kid, when you were a little kid, were you like the girl that stood up to your dad?
[15:53] Or what was inside you?
[15:55] I was the kid.
[15:57] that throughout her life there were people that reached out to me.
[16:04] I was the only Muslim kid in school.
[16:06] Throughout the 90s, it was a nightmare because the 90s was another period of time that Israel experienced with the worst terror attacks that Israel ever experienced until that point.
[16:23] Buses blowing up, terrorists with, you know, suicide terrorists blowing out themselves in the middle of Tel Aviv and Jewish towns and Israeli towns.
[16:37] And every single day that I went to school, the day after a terror attack, I used to get into school.
[16:44] And I remember that before I went out of my house, I remember that I used to beg my parents not to go to school that day.
[16:52] And my parents, I remember my dad every single day going to work at 6 o'clock in the morning.
[16:59] He used to, like, postpone his exit and take me to school.
[17:03] And just before I was leaving the car, he looked at me and he told me, you will go out and you will face reality because if you won't be able to face it now, you won't be able to face it in the future.
[17:13] And I used to go out and get in.
[17:16] And I saw my best friends screaming, you know, the day of a terror attack, you're angry.
[17:22] You want revenge because you cannot understand the evil in this act, in this terrorist act.
[17:31] And I used to see my best friends death to Arabs.
[17:34] We need to kill that.
[17:35] We need to murder them all.
[17:37] And they used to look at me.
[17:40] And they tell me, well, Lucy, we don't mean you.
[17:45] Well, you know, you and your family are okay, but the rest of the Muslims and the Arabs, we need to kill them.
[17:51] We need to murder them all.
[17:53] And back then, I used to say to myself, wow.
[17:58] You know, you like, when people used to tell me, oh, I wish that all the Arabs were like you.
[18:05] Or all the Muslims were like you.
[18:09] I used to say to myself, wow, you wish that all the Muslims were like me.
[18:15] Hmm.
[18:17] We have 2 million Arabs living in Israel.
[18:19] You wish that all of them were like me.
[18:21] We have 350 million Muslims living in the Middle East.
[18:27] You wish that all of them were like me.
[18:30] We have one and a half billion Muslims living in the world.
[18:33] You wish that all of them were like me.
[18:34] Wow, I am fucking amazing.
[18:39] But when you look at this small sentence...
[18:42] you realize how much racism there is in one small sentence.
[18:47] Because try to imagine that somebody is coming to a Jewish man or a Jewish woman and telling them in the United States, I wish that all the Jewish people were like you.
[18:55] You know, you're not trying to control the media.
[18:58] Yeah, we don't mean you.
[18:59] But you know, you Jewish people are controlling.
[19:01] Yeah, you're controlling the media.
[19:03] But something, you know, you and I... And I started telling you that I...
[19:09] In a lot of stations in my life, I had somebody that reached out to me.
[19:15] Because in school, it was the principal of the school.
[19:19] Because at a certain point, there were graffitis on the wall.
[19:22] Lucy, filthy Arab, get out of here.
[19:24] We don't want Arabs in our school.
[19:26] And my principal, which is Mayr Cohen, he used to be the minister of welfare in Israel.
[19:36] And Mayr used to gather the entire class and tell them, it won't happen.
[19:42] The day that I will understand who is the person who is writing these things on the wall, he will be expended.
[19:49] And on the other side, my neighbor, the one that I told you that I had a chair in,
[19:55] Every Pesach.
[19:57] His name was Grandpa Menachem.
[20:00] Grandpa Menachem.
[20:01] I never knew my grandfathers.
[20:04] I always tell this story.
[20:06] Because this story is basically the story that built me.
[20:09] that made me understand the narrative of the Jewish people and the narrative of Arabs, Muslims, Israelis living in Israel.
[20:17] I never knew my grandfathers.
[20:19] They died before I was born.
[20:21] But my grandpa Menachem was our neighbor.
[20:25] And he never missed a single birthday.
[20:28] He never missed a single event that I had in my life.
[20:35] And my grandpa Menachem had a number on his hand.
[20:39] And I remember asking my mom always, what is this number?
[20:45] And she told me, we don't ask.
[20:49] If he wants, he will tell us.
[20:52] And one day in the Gulf War, he came.
[20:56] And he told us his story, how he and his sister were the only survivors of tens of people that the Nazis sent to construction camps.
[21:08] And it was my grandpa Menachem that when we got death threats in Dimona from the Kahana Party, the extreme right Kahana Party, telling us to leave Dimona, my mom used to take these letters and take them to Menachem.
[21:26] And he told her, I remember him looking at her with his blue beautiful eyes, he was a beautiful man.
[21:34] And he looked at her and he told her, I didn't go through everything that I went through.
[21:42] I didn't raise up a family, I didn't get up from the dead.
[21:49] So somebody will ever do anything to you in this land.
[21:55] they will have to go through me to get to you.
[22:01] So when my life, when my grandfather, Menachem was protecting me and my family against extremists, against extreme ideas, I feel that this is my heritage.
[22:20] I want to encapsulate a little what you said.
[22:22] By the way, I don't know if you know that my father also was a Holocaust survivor and he had a very similar way to yours of building bridges and my role is to try to prevent what happened to him, like Menachem said, from happening again to any other human being, whether he's Jewish or Muslim or anybody else.
[22:42] You just told a story that summarizes exactly what's going on.
[22:45] Extremists that deny the humanity of the other, they're actually very smart.
[22:50] They're trying to divide us and tear us apart.
[22:52] And their goal of the terrorists, they're actually, why did they perpetrate so much atrocity in October 7th?
[22:59] Not just to kill, but to dismember and disembowel and engage in sexual violence, which I know you also marched against.
[23:06] because they wanted to divide and inspire iron divide, because if they divide, then they prevent us from building together.
[23:14] And you stood against it because of your father's example, because what he taught you, and because people reached out, and the power of people reaching out, particularly what others don't.
[23:26] It's just so incredible how to some degree forged you.
[23:29] I wanna go back for a second to when you're being called
[23:34] dirty, filthy Arab, or loses a filthy Arab, and you not only managed to become who you are, to not to transcend that, but I read that you didn't want that kid expelled, that they offered you, sorry, am I Mexican Jew?
[23:50] I get too emotional too easily.
[23:54] They offered you to expel that kid, and you said, no, I don't want them to expel that kid.
[24:01] And for me, that is a very interesting story.
[24:05] Maybe you can explain to us what you were thinking.
[24:07] I deduce my own thoughts.
[24:10] She was my best friend.
[24:12] Wow.
[24:15] And for your best friend, my best friend.
[24:19] So everybody's complex.
[24:21] Yeah.
[24:22] Even your best friend can make a mistake.
[24:24] Definitely.
[24:25] And I don't think that today, I don't think that it came from racism.
[24:29] I think that it came from maybe envy, maybe her way she had difficult life too.
[24:37] And I remember that I found, I saw her doing it.
[24:44] It was my mom always like throughout that period, my mom always told me, you know, it's very strange that your friend is the one who is discovering all these graffitis.
[24:54] And she's the one who's telling you, come and see this graffiti.
[24:56] Somebody wrote something on the wall.
[24:58] And I remember fighting with my mom and telling her, no way.
[25:02] She's my best friend.
[25:03] How dare you think this about my or think that about my best friend.
[25:09] But, you know, your mom said something.
[25:13] And it's here.
[25:15] And I remember a few days after, we had a test in class.
[25:21] And she finished the test.
[25:25] And she begged to go out to the bathroom.
[25:30] And when she was about to leave, I saw, because I was an investigative reporter back then, even then, I saw her going out with like a thick pen, a thick marker.
[25:45] And she went out, I finished the exam right after her, and I asked my teacher for permission to go out.
[25:53] He thought that we're going, like I'm going after her because we were best friends.
[25:58] And I remember going out of the class and walking down the hall.
[26:02] And there was one step, like at the end of the hall, going into the bathroom.
[26:07] And I, like, went in.
[26:13] And I just silently sneaked into the bathroom.
[26:18] And I saw her, like, riding.
[26:20] Loosey.
[26:21] You broke your heart.
[26:21] Filthy Arab.
[26:24] And I looked at her.
[26:25] She looked at me.
[26:27] I didn't say anything.
[26:28] I went back to class.
[26:31] And I didn't say anything for weeks.
[26:34] I just stopped talking to her.
[26:37] I stopped speaking with her.
[26:40] And nobody understood how come these two that were unceptual, they are like not friends anymore.
[26:48] And a few weeks after, the vice principal came and told me, Lucy, I have some good news and I have some bad news.
[26:55] And he told me, we discovered who is the person who's writing these things on the walls.
[27:02] And he told me this is the good news I told him and the bad news is that you you know that it's my best friend.
[27:08] And he took me to mayor's room and mayor told me what do you want me to do with her?
[27:13] Just say if you want me to kick her out if you want me to take her out of school just say it.
[27:19] And I told him no.
[27:21] I don't want you to kick her out of school.
[27:24] I want her every day to get into school and to see my face and to face what she did.
[27:33] For me, that story not only says a lot about you, but also about the way things need to be done.
[27:39] Because I was literally having a conversation yesterday with somebody, and we do a lot of work with builders for schools.
[27:45] And one of the things that I've learned is that we've removed agency from people.
[27:48] Trying to prevent bullying, we expel the kids, rather than make them face each other and solve problems together.
[27:54] And then they show up in college, and a lot of the college programs tell us, these young people do not know how to solve problems.
[28:00] Because they've been...
[28:02] helicopter parenting and helicoptering administrations that just take all these decisions away from us.
[28:08] And you had the agency and forced the agency on your friend to deal with that stuff.
[28:15] I also read once about how you described your journey as not being a victim, which is, I think, just so important, this framework of victim versus oppressor.
[28:26] It's just the stupidest framework in society, because then if you're a victim, you have no agency.
[28:31] You have no protagonists, and if you're
[28:34] an oppressor, no matter what you do, you're going to be... And for me, the framework that makes sense is builders versus destroyers because you have agency.
[28:41] You can choose to wake up in the morning and deny the humanity of others and divide, demolish, and diminish, or to wake up in the morning and try to build together, elevate society, and unite and work to make this a better world.
[28:54] And tell us a little bit about how that came to you.
[28:57] Was it natural or...?
[28:59] It was... You know, after I went through the terror attack,
[29:04] I hated Palestinians.
[29:07] As five and a half years old, I remember the screaming of my father right after the car exploded.
[29:15] I remember the screaming of my father telling people, looking at people around us and telling people, please help us, we're Arabs like you, and nobody reached out.
[29:25] And for a period of time, I asked myself, how come they're killing people who speak their life?
[29:32] What did we do to them?
[29:34] So I hated them.
[29:36] I hated them.
[29:38] And I said to my, and I said it out loud as a kid, we need to kill the Palestinians, we need to murder them, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[29:46] And my extended family came at a certain point and said to my father, you know, your daughter hates herself, she hates who we are, she's developing some safe self-hatred.
[29:57] Who's that dude?
[29:58] The extended family.
[30:00] She's like developing some self-hatred, like, you know,
[30:05] And my father, my very smart father, said to them, when she will grow up, she will understand that life is a little bit more complicated than she thinks.
[30:14] And the day before I went to the first grade, my mom sat me down for a conversation.
[30:20] And she told me, you know, the day before you're going to the first grade, the only thing that you think is, okay, I'm going today, it's tomorrow for school.
[30:29] Okay.
[30:30] First time that I'm going to school.
[30:33] And my mom looked at me and she told me, Lucy, no matter what people tell you, no matter how much people will curse you, no matter how much you will be bullied or beaten up, you are Israeli.
[30:48] You're Muslim.
[30:49] And you are proud of it.
[30:52] Now this is a huge conversation for five and a half years old.
[30:58] It's like the only thing that you say to yourself, okay, okay, what am I going to wear tomorrow?
[31:03] It's like, what is this Israeli and Muslim and proud?
[31:08] And like I told you, when your mom said something,
[31:13] It stays with you.
[31:14] So the next day when I went to school, I stood up and the teacher asked everybody, what's your name, what's your name?
[31:23] Yes, I'm Lucy.
[31:25] I'm Arab.
[31:27] I'm Muslim.
[31:29] I'm Israeli.
[31:30] And I'm proud.
[31:33] And I remember the teacher looking at me with this, like, look.
[31:38] She's, oh, okay.
[31:41] I know who's going to make some trouble this year.
[31:46] But that sentence went with me for not apologizing of who I am.
[31:55] I'm Israeli.
[31:56] I'm Muslim.
[31:58] I'm Arab.
[32:00] And I'm proud of it.
[32:02] I'm not apologizing for any of my identities.
[32:07] Yes, it's complex.
[32:10] Yes, I have a lot of criticism about what is becoming from the Israeli society, what is happening in the Israeli society, about racism in the Israeli society.
[32:21] I have a lot of criticism about the Palestinian leadership.
[32:25] I have a lot of criticism about terror organization using their own people.
[32:31] basically to their own benefits.
[32:34] Because what Yahya Senwar did is basically using the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip for his own theological, you know, extreme jihadist ideas.
[32:50] Not even looking at the people of the Gaza Strip.
[32:53] Because when you commit such huge atrocities,
[33:00] When you come with this evil and you commit these crimes, you know that the reaction is going to be fatal.
[33:10] You know that the other side is not going to sit down and tell you, oh, let's have a coffee.
[33:18] You know, you just murdered 1,200 of our people.
[33:21] You burned them to death.
[33:22] You raped them.
[33:23] Let's have a conversation.
[33:25] He was evil, but he was very...
[33:27] He knew exactly what he was doing.
[33:28] He knew exactly what he was doing.
[33:30] And his goal was this absolutist...
[33:33] He didn't want to, to your point, peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
[33:37] He didn't want to build a Palestinian state in peace or not peace with Israel.
[33:41] He had this ideological belief of Wilma to deny Israel's right to cease.
[33:44] You know, Daniel...
[33:46] The thing that drove me crazy, it was, I think, one month after the massacre, after October 7th, I saw an interview of Musa Abu Marzouk, the spokesman of Hamas, sitting in RT in front of the interviewer.
[34:03] And the interviewer is asking him, why the tunnels are not a place that the people of Gaza can hide in?
[34:12] Why you're not hiding the people of Gaza from the Israeli airstrikes in the tunnels?
[34:17] And he sat there, so you know, full of himself, saying, the tunnels are not intended for the people of Gaza.
[34:30] They are for the fighters of Hamas.
[34:33] The people of Gaza are under the responsibility of the UN.
[34:38] Why?
[34:40] This is the spokesman of the Hamas organization that people right now in the United States march down the streets and say they are freedom fighters.
[34:50] They sacrifice their own people.
[34:54] Saying it out loud.
[34:56] They said it with their own words.
[34:59] We are sacrificing our people.
[35:02] And for what?
[35:03] So that you will be able to sit down.
[35:06] In fancy hotels.
[35:08] In Abu Dhabi.
[35:09] In Dubai.
[35:10] In Qatar.
[35:11] In whatever you are.
[35:12] Taking away your own families.
[35:14] Saving them.
[35:15] While the people of Gaza.
[35:17] Are actually paying.
[35:19] For the consequences of your own actions.
[35:22] That you brought on.
[35:24] the heads of the people of the Gaza Strip.
[35:26] Can I ask you to explain, because for our audience, they might be a little bit lost in understanding how
[35:32] I'm sorry to ask this very important question.
[35:35] You're very proud of your Israeli identity and of being a Muslim Arab woman, and you condemn Islamism.
[35:42] And not everybody might understand the difference between how you see your faith and how others on the extremists, just like that exists in all areas extremists, take into this absolutist vision of Islamism.
[35:54] Could you just explain that a little bit more for the audience?
[35:57] You know, I think that in every religion,
[36:02] you have seculars and you have religious people.
[36:08] I always give the example that my mom was always, like the extended family always came to my mom and had a criticism about her because she's not wearing a hijab.
[36:21] And my mom has a deep faith in God.
[36:27] but a deeper faith in good.
[36:29] And she used to see what people are doing in the name of religion.
[36:35] She used to see how people are praying five times a day and basically being disgusting to one another.
[36:44] Which happens in the Jewish tradition, too.
[36:46] In every religion.
[36:47] I'm sorry to interrupt you because this is so important, but this is really important.
[36:50] When I was mourning my father, and I couldn't really relate to prayer that much, my rabbi asked me to read Pirkei Avot, which is like the precepts of our fathers.
[37:00] And what was interesting, and I just read it because I did a podcast on Pirkei Avot that I was asked to comment, and I reread it, and...
[37:10] The rabbis themselves tell you, do not just pray.
[37:14] Do not do all about prayer because then you're not a human.
[37:17] You need to work and you need to meet people and what matters the most in religion is this.
[37:22] It's what your mom taught you about the good rather than about just the word of the Bible because a lot of people become very self-righteous and get lost in the ultimate essence of what it should be.
[37:34] You know, my mom used to say, I'm not hiding anything.
[37:41] God sees every single thing that I'm doing.
[37:44] What I see is that people sometimes when they are putting a hijab, they're trying to hide their bad actions.
[37:51] And they think that the hijab is, you know, a barrier between them and the eyes of God.
[37:59] I have a very good joke, but I'm going to tell it to you later.
[38:01] You know, I think that religion is a beautiful thing.
[38:10] I think that in Islam, in Judaism, in Christianity, there are beautiful human things.
[38:18] But what human beings are doing and giving some, you know, putting their ideas, their extreme ideas or the way that they think and taking it and giving it another perspective
[38:38] This is what brought that extreme Islam will rise.
[38:43] And not only it's rising, it's also, I think, it's flourishing the lack of education.
[38:52] This is why extremists don't want their people to be educated.
[38:58] Because when you are educated, you are asking questions.
[39:04] You are putting question marks.
[39:07] you are challenging yourself.
[39:09] You are not taking things for granted.
[39:13] And extremists, you know, I see this.
[39:17] Like throughout history, what extremists did was basically using the morals of democracy to destroy democracy.
[39:28] This is what extremists are doing.
[39:29] This is basically what is happening also in Israel.
[39:32] Extremist ideas are using the Israeli democracy to try and demolish it.
[39:40] You know, I am, like I told you, I'm a very, very, very proud Israeli.
[39:45] But it doesn't mean that I'm not criticizing my current government.
[39:48] The opposite.
[39:49] It means that you have the courage to say whatever you feel that you need to say.
[39:52] And it doesn't mean that I agree with what my government is doing.
[39:58] With the actions of this extreme government.
[40:01] And I say it out loud.
[40:03] This is, we have the most extreme government that Israel ever knew.
[40:10] and racist government that Israel ever knew.
[40:16] I'm saying it out loud.
[40:18] Is Israel a racist country?
[40:20] No.
[40:21] But I wanna actually have so many more questions I wanna ask you, but I wanna pivot a little bit to your journey and your career with that story because the way you and I met, if memory serves me right, because maybe we hadn't met before, but what I remember is that you were, I think on channel one or 11.
[40:37] Channel 11.
[40:38] And you had the courage to speak up, and within three days,
[40:42] I was fired.
[40:44] I didn't speak out.
[40:45] I went for a demonstration and I anchored a demonstration that was throughout the COVID when we weren't able to go out.
[40:56] And I actually anchored a demonstration that was filmed in a studio.
[41:02] It was the first online demonstration.
[41:05] And I spoke in this demonstration and because I...
[41:12] And the demonstration title was fighting for democracy, fighting for our home.
[41:17] I remember two minutes before I went to the demonstration, my agent called me.
[41:21] And she told me, Lucy, come on, until we found you a job, why are you going to like this demonstration?
[41:28] Why are you going to speak?
[41:29] And I thought, you know what?
[41:31] Just because you told me now this sentence, that you have like a question mark on the sentence because you're saying that if I will go right now to this demonstration, I might lose this job.
[41:42] You're basically kicking me out of my house to go to this demonstration.
[41:47] That fire that you have inside you to always search, to have the courage and the backbone, it's easier said than done to have that.
[41:55] Where did that come from besides your parents and your journey?
[41:58] Like, why did you decide to become a journalist?
[42:00] Why did you decide to search for the truth?
[42:02] I wanted to be an actress.
[42:05] I really wanted to be an actress.
[42:07] Well, you were in one movie with Brad Pitt.
[42:08] We'll get to that in a minute.
[42:10] Palestinian girl with hijab number 100, if you will look in the... That was my title.
[42:18] I don't think that Brad Pitt even know that I was in his view.
[42:22] But I wanted to be an actress.
[42:25] And I graduated in a theater class.
[42:29] And my teacher wanted me to go to theater school, to acting school.
[42:36] And I came to my dad and I told him, dad, I want to go and study acting in acting school.
[42:44] And he told me, you go and you study something that you can earn money from.
[42:52] And then you do anything that you want with your hobbies or whatever and the stuff that you're doing.
[42:58] And I did.
[42:59] I went and studied political science.
[43:01] And at the beginning, I studied political science and studies of the theater, which is the history of theater.
[43:07] And when people ask me, wow, what a weird combination, I said, of course, in order to be a good politician, you need to be a good actor.
[43:14] This is what we're seeing right now.
[43:17] And then I studied two more years of journalism.
[43:21] I understood.
[43:22] When did you first feel that you might go in that journey as a journalist?
[43:27] When I watched a show on Israeli Channel 2, Hamagal Sheldan Shilon, the circle of Dhan Shilon, he used to interview a lot of people in one circle, like very interesting figures in Israeli society.
[43:42] It used to be politicians and, you know, people, actors, singers, whatever, and some people that have interesting story.
[43:50] And I said to myself, I said,
[43:53] I have an interesting story to tell him.
[43:56] I need to sit down in this circle.
[43:59] And one day I will.
[43:59] You want to be interviewed.
[44:00] Yeah.
[44:01] You want to be the subject.
[44:02] I wanted to be the subject because I knew You had an interview.
[44:05] That's an incredible story.
[44:06] that I have a story to tell.
[44:09] And this story needs to go out.
[44:12] But how did that pivot to your own perspective?
[44:14] I fell in love with it.
[44:16] I finished journalism.
[44:17] But you started as a journalist?
[44:18] Yeah, I studied journalism in journalism school in Tel Aviv.
[44:22] And then I did my six months internship in Germany.
[44:26] It was during the second Lebanon war.
[44:31] And I came back, studied German.
[44:33] I did my internship in the Deutsche Welle.
[44:36] radio and TV and for a few days also in ZDF and I came back and I started immediately working in Yedi Otakonot and after a few weeks there were some like screen tests of news presenters in channel 10 How old were you then?
[44:56] 27 and I remember entering the room and everybody were blonde there with you know blue eyes and I said no chance that they will take me
[45:03] And a few days after, I was called by the CEO and he asked me for a meeting.
[45:10] I remember getting there and I sat with the CEO and the owner of Channel 10 back then was Ron Lauder.
[45:18] And I was talking with the CEO and Ron came.
[45:24] And he asked me, I heard that you're like, I see your CV, you don't have any CV.
[45:30] But what's the story?
[45:32] I heard you're Arab.
[45:33] I heard that you're Arab, you're Muslim.
[45:35] And I told him.
[45:37] That's the story.
[45:38] It's like, you know.
[45:40] And Ron Lauder just came and he told him, oh Ron, meet, she's our new news presenter on Channel 10.
[45:50] She's the CEO to Ron Lauder.
[45:53] He had chosen that already.
[45:54] He just basically told me,
[45:58] that I got the job by saying it to Ron Lauder.
[46:02] Tell her, me, this is Lucia Harish, she is Arab, she is Muslim, and she's our new news presenter in Channel 10.
[46:08] And I was like, oh, so I got the job.
[46:12] But what I wanna understand is who had, was that, who had the guts to, because it was a historic moment with the, am I right, you were the first Muslim Arab woman to go presenting news in Hebrew on the biggest channels.
[46:28] Who had the vision that that would be, it was a risk for them?
[46:33] Who did it?
[46:34] I think the one that recommended me was Tvikei Cheskeli.
[46:38] He was the Arab affair analyst in Channel 10.
[46:41] He was my professor.
[46:45] He gave me like two classes in journalism school.
[46:48] And he said... And was it like you jump in and everybody's like, oh my God, you were very beautiful.
[46:54] What does it take to be a superstar in media?
[46:57] Was it...
[46:58] being able to listen?
[46:59] Was it being able to think concretely?
[47:02] Was it your ability to think complexly because of all of your multiple identities?
[47:06] Was it the physical beauty?
[47:07] Was it the ability to talk to the camera?
[47:10] What do you think are the secrets to becoming good at your job?
[47:13] I cannot say that I am, it was easy.
[47:18] My journey was easy in journalism.
[47:20] It's like my best friend here is behind the camera.
[47:23] She is the biggest witness.
[47:25] I never had the path where I can say that, wow, it was like on the rise all the time.
[47:32] You know, I was very...
[47:35] It's step forward, step back, step forward, step back.
[47:37] One step forward, 20 back.
[47:39] I think that only in the last three years, I can say that I'm settled.
[47:45] And I don't know.
[47:47] We'll see.
[47:48] In three years, we'll see.
[47:49] We will see.
[47:50] But what makes you good at your job?
[47:53] The ability to put myself in somebody else's shoes.
[47:58] So empathy and emotional intelligence.
[48:00] Yeah, and I think to listen.
[48:03] Which is, we were talking before we started, it's such a harder skill than I realized.
[48:08] When I started doing this, I've learned so much and I respect people like you because holy shit, it's a much more complex, it's easy to hear, it's not as easy to listen.
[48:16] Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, knowledge.
[48:19] I always learn, study, analyze, listen.
[48:27] So, being curious is important.
[48:30] Yes, being curious and being interested in the person that you're interviewing.
[48:36] Not to just come and actually just listen.
[48:39] And to say, you know, you have your questions and you know what you want to ask, but actually listen.
[48:45] This is something that usually Israeli anchors don't have the ability to listen.
[48:50] In one way, we...
[48:53] Unfortunately, we became the story when a journalist should not be the story.
[48:58] This is why, like, my friend here always... She's...
[49:02] I drive her crazy.
[49:04] Because I let people finish their sentence.
[49:10] But you have become the story.
[49:14] And usually, on Israeli TV, nobody finishes a sentence.
[49:18] They start with an idea that tells you, well, first...
[49:21] First things first, and it ends with the first, not the thing, not the first, not the nothing.
[49:28] It just, he doesn't even get to finish the first idea.
[49:32] And for me, if I'm sitting at home, I'm always thinking about the viewer.
[49:38] I always think about, just a second, he said first thing first.
[49:41] So what is the last thing that he, because the viewer just listened to what he said, not to what I said.
[49:48] Sometimes, yes, we become the story.
[49:50] We become the story because it's Israel.
[49:53] It's a little bit different.
[49:54] It's, you know.
[49:55] It's a little bit about what's going on because it's fascinating what's happened in the last few months.
[49:59] I mean, by the way, I want to actually, we'll get there in a second.
[50:02] I want to just say something really fun.
[50:05] When we met, were you already with Zahira or that came up?
[50:09] I was already with Zahi.
[50:11] And so Zahi is a very famous story.
[50:16] television star.
[50:16] He's on the series Fauda.
[50:20] And in the series Fauda, he plays...
[50:21] The first two seasons.
[50:22] Okay.
[50:23] Only the first two seasons.
[50:24] Which are the good ones, by the way.
[50:25] Honestly.
[50:26] But, I mean, it's all good, but the first two seasons are insane.
[50:29] But, Tzahi is in the Shabak and on TV and on TV.
[50:36] And I don't think Americans can appreciate how the hell this happened, that on October 7th, he was actually a real hero.
[50:44] Like it's crazy insane.
[50:47] For somebody living in Mexico, we do not relate or understand to how somebody that plays a movie star that is a- An undercover unit.
[50:58] An undercover thing.
[50:59] He ended up saving many lives.
[51:01] And you ended up helping also
[51:05] direct people to where they were.
[51:06] Can you please tell us that story?
[51:08] Wow, this is,
[51:12] You know, you never in your life think that you will be in this position.
[51:19] You never in your life think that the lives of people will be in your hand.
[51:24] That morning at two o'clock after we understood the magnitude, we understood we started getting the images.
[51:31] Two o'clock in the afternoon.
[51:34] It started at 6 a.m.
[51:35] It started at 6 a.m.
[51:36] And you haven't captured what's going on until eight hours later?
[51:41] I started capturing.
[51:42] Tzahi immediately, 40 minutes after, was on his uniform and went to the south.
[51:49] Explain what that means because most people might not understand what that means.
[51:52] It means that we woke up at 6.30 in the morning.
[51:56] Nobody understood what is happening.
[51:58] Nobody, not even on the news.
[52:01] Like we opened our WhatsApp group.
[52:05] I said to Tachi, there's an alarm.
[52:06] Like there is sirens.
[52:09] Do you hear sirens?
[52:10] No, no way.
[52:11] There are sirens.
[52:12] I opened my phone and everybody on the WhatsApp group of channel 13 were asking what is happening?
[52:17] What is happening?
[52:18] What is happening?
[52:19] I hear booms, I hear booms, I hear missiles.
[52:21] There are missiles above my head, like all over Israel.
[52:24] On October 7th.
[52:24] On October 7th.
[52:25] When the terrorists had breached through in the south.
[52:27] Exactly.
[52:29] Slightly in the center north, you're trying to figure out what happened.
[52:31] And even when we, I opened the TV and there was like this special edition.
[52:37] And even the reporters, the military reporters were not able to analyze or to explain what is happening.
[52:48] Nobody understood what is happening.
[52:52] After, I think, the first images of the vehicles getting to Zderot, the Toyota vehicles getting to Zderot with Hamas militants, it was the minute that all of us understood that something big is happening.
[53:08] that they were freely driving in Sderot, looking to enter houses.
[53:13] So it is a town in the south, it's a significant town near Gaza.
[53:15] Yeah, significant near Gaza, near Be'er Shevani, near the next big town in the south of Israel.
[53:22] And that was the moment that we understood that something was wrong.
[53:24] I think it took Tzachih
[53:27] went to his WhatsApp group of his military friends, you know, and the military units.
[53:34] I, between one siren to another, because there were a lot of sirens that morning, I remember that I was sitting, Adam was two and a half years old.
[53:42] Your baby.
[53:43] Yeah, and I remember I was sitting in the balcony trying to understand, watching the horrible images pouring in, in the WhatsApp group, coming from the kibbutzim.
[53:53] And I looked up and I saw Tzahi with his military uniform.
[53:57] And I looked at him and I told him, what the fuck, where the fuck do you think you're going?
[54:03] And he looked at me and he told me, Lucy, this is not a drill.
[54:08] This is the real thing.
[54:10] So in Israel, he's a movie star, but he's also serving in the reserves.
[54:14] Yeah.
[54:15] And so people, because it's a small country and under threat from a lot of its enemies, he put on the uniform to try to go help the people in the South.
[54:25] And I never, ever asked Tzahi, when he went to the reserves, I never asked Tzahi where you're going, and I never was worried.
[54:32] Till now.
[54:34] When he went out, he told me, I love you.
[54:37] please close the door, don't open to anyone.
[54:42] And I told him, take care of yourself.
[54:47] And when I kissed him, I didn't know if he's going to come back.
[54:54] I knew that maybe it's the last time that I'm going to see him.
[55:00] Because we understood that this is not a drill.
[55:07] I remember I closed the door.
[55:11] And because I started understanding that they are starting to kidnap people and to enter people's houses, the terrorists, I started looking up for a place to hide Adam.
[55:22] And I remember literally opening the washing machine to see if I'm able to put Adam in it.
[55:34] I don't think that people realize what happened that day.
[55:40] You know, I don't think that people, when I, I'm so ashamed hearing women organizations, international organizations denying what happened on October 7th, denying what happened to women on October 7th.
[55:58] I cannot understand how so, such a,
[56:05] you know, the images were recorded by Hamas militants themselves.
[56:13] They recorded themselves killing people, murdering people.
[56:19] They recorded themselves doing the atrocities that they did.
[56:23] And yet you see people in Europe and in the United States and in Arab countries denying this.
[56:33] And you say to yourself,
[56:35] How fucked up you need to be to support a terrorist organization.
[56:42] How fucked up you need to be, I'm sorry for my language, but how fucked up you need to be to praise Osama bin Laden after October 7th.
[56:53] How fucked up you need to be to be so ignorant, to see entire families.
[56:59] And that you're helping the extremists hurt everybody, not just the Israelis, but the Palestinians who we've been for 30 years, as you know, trying to help build bridges and build opportunities.
[57:08] And as long as those terrorists are in power, you cannot bring investments into Gaza.
[57:11] You cannot build jobs.
[57:13] You need to defeat the extremists on all sides in order to elevate and...
[57:18] It's fascinating to me that a lot of people don't understand how they're actually hurting those people they pretend to be helping.
[57:23] You know how I got the message from the family in Faraza?
[57:30] I got a message from my friend in New York.
[57:34] She texted me.
[57:35] She told me, Lucy, a guy will send you a message...
[57:41] His family, there are 12 people in the safe room.
[57:45] When terrorists are outside their house, they're trying to reach out to police, to the IDF, nobody is coming, and there are tens of terrorists surrounding their house.
[57:56] Lucy, you need to help him.
[57:59] And what did you do?
[58:00] I look at the text and I, you never think that you
[58:07] that somebody will put you in this situation in your life.
[58:10] And I remember the guy texted me and I started sending like the direction to their house to Yair Golan because I heard in the morning that Yair Golan helped directing like some forces and he was able to reach to some people.
[58:28] So I sent a text.
[58:29] Yair Golan is the head of the court general who currently is running for the Democrat party.
[58:35] Yeah.
[58:36] And I sent him the location and he didn't answer me.
[58:41] And I sent one of my other friends and he told me, Lucy, I'm in this big event in another kibbutz.
[58:47] I cannot help you.
[58:48] And I sent it to another one.
[58:50] And only the fourth text message was to Tzahi.
[58:54] And I told him, Tzahi, look at this.
[58:59] Try to help them.
[59:01] And he told me my team is going to the south.
[59:03] I'm sending them the location.
[59:07] And I was texting the people in the safe room.
[59:09] You're asking him to risk his life even if you have your two and a half year old in your
[59:14] And I told him, and he told me, okay, we're on it.
[59:19] And he started directing his team towards the house.
[59:22] And the guy that was in the head of the team, one of Tzahi's best friends, that he is like my brother, texted me at five o'clock and he told me, Lucy, I cannot reach them.
[59:34] I'm not getting there.
[59:35] I'm not able to get to them.
[59:38] And I told him, OK, just do everything in your power to just take care of yourself, please.
[59:45] And I remember that at one point at 630, I think, I texted the guy that I got the number from New York, that I got his number from New York, and I told him, they're not answering me.
[59:57] And he told me they're not answering me either.
[59:59] I don't know what happened to them.
[1:00:03] And I was sure that we failed.
[1:00:08] At eight o'clock, I think 20 to eight.
[1:00:12] P.M.
[1:00:13] He started at 6 a.m. in the morning.
[1:00:15] Yeah.
[1:00:16] Tzachy texted me and he told me he is there.
[1:00:22] And I texted his friend, the head of the team, and I told him, are you there?
[1:00:28] And he wrote, positive.
[1:00:30] The kids are in my hand.
[1:00:33] The kids are with me.
[1:00:36] And I remember,
[1:00:39] I like threw the phone out of my hands and I just fell down and I started crying my heart out.
[1:00:53] I, and my kid came to me and he told me, mom, don't be sad, it's okay.
[1:01:00] You don't need to be sad.
[1:01:02] Everything will be okay.
[1:01:04] And my sister told him,
[1:01:08] Mommy's okay.
[1:01:09] Mommy just helped save some lives.
[1:01:14] You.
[1:01:15] And daddy also.
[1:01:18] Daddy.
[1:01:19] And you.
[1:01:21] And you know the guy, Tzahi's friend, when he entered the safe room.
[1:01:26] And the first thing that he told them was, how do you know Lucy Aarish?
[1:01:32] And they looked at him and he thought, what, what are you talking about?
[1:01:37] And nobody understood the connection.
[1:01:39] It's like nobody understood how this.
[1:01:41] You have to make a movie out of this shit.
[1:01:43] That's crazy.
[1:01:44] And Brad Pitt needs to act as Tzahi.
[1:01:47] Who would play you?
[1:01:48] It was, I always say that this is my, like,
[1:01:56] I always say that this is like my personal post-trauma.
[1:02:01] Because since that day, the only scenario that is going through my mind is what would have happened if he would have entered the room and they were dead.
[1:02:19] Or if they killed him.
[1:02:21] Many people were killed trying to rescue people, including friends of mine, including highly decorated Israeli Jewish and Muslim.
[1:02:29] By the way, he was injured 24 hours later.
[1:02:33] Tzahi?
[1:02:34] Tzahi's friend.
[1:02:35] Tzahi's friend.
[1:02:36] Is he okay?
[1:02:38] Okay.
[1:02:39] He's okay, yeah.
[1:02:40] You know, by the way, because of the location that he got, that he got for me, he was able to save 10 more families in Kfar Aza.
[1:02:54] He your friend or Tzahi or together?
[1:02:57] Tzahi's friend.
[1:02:59] I want to ask you one last question before we pivot to something else.
[1:03:03] At the beginning of our conversation, when I was growing up as a Mexican Jew, my father...
[1:03:12] made sure that I knew that it's manly to get emotional, that he didn't want me to run away from my emotions.
[1:03:19] And you can tell I do a very good job.
[1:03:22] At the beginning of our conversation, I saw a couple times you hold back when you were about to get emotional.
[1:03:27] At the end, you weren't able to.
[1:03:29] But did your dad in your culture, you as a woman, felt the need to be strong and not show your tears because then others might see?
[1:03:37] Oh, no.
[1:03:38] No, I always cry.
[1:03:39] You do?
[1:03:40] I always cry.
[1:03:40] Are you a Mexican Jew?
[1:03:41] I'm a Mexican Jew.
[1:03:42] I'm a total Mexican Jew.
[1:03:44] I'm always crying.
[1:03:46] Always, all the time.
[1:03:47] Really.
[1:03:48] It's like...
[1:03:49] In front of the public.
[1:03:49] In front of the public.
[1:03:50] And does somebody see that as weak?
[1:03:52] Basically, they're calling me the crying baby of Israeli media.
[1:03:55] Because I...
[1:03:57] I cannot hold myself.
[1:03:59] I spent, I think that the last three years, there was not even one interview that I did with the families of the hostages that I didn't break down in tears in front of the camera.
[1:04:13] And today I think that all my tears are going through some kind of a transformation to, like I said,
[1:04:25] I'm, I'm, I'm to frustration.
[1:04:27] Yeah.
[1:04:28] I just want to tell you, as we wrap up this segment and go to another segment, I want to tell you that all of us that consider ourselves builders are frustrated with increasing polarization.
[1:04:39] Yeah.
[1:04:40] The tool I use, and I encourage everybody to use when you're facing that, is look at who our tribe is, our tribal builders, whether they're Jew, Muslim, Israeli, Palestinian.
[1:04:50] The builders, they're building Yeshalim, bridges, schools, technologies.
[1:04:55] We have an incredible group, and ultimately we will prevail.
[1:04:59] The danger along the way...
[1:05:01] is that people that have extremist passions, they wake up in the morning and think, how can I advance my cause?
[1:05:07] And most moderates wake up in the morning and think, what can I have for breakfast?
[1:05:11] Why do you think, Daniel, I was attacked in the last few months?
[1:05:15] Because they're threatened by you.
[1:05:17] Yes.
[1:05:17] They're threatened by what you...
[1:05:19] I absolutely noticed, like, the groups that are the extremists are threatened by your vision to build bridges, and that's where you need to be even stronger.
[1:05:26] To call me a traitor, a Nukhba terrorist,
[1:05:31] And this is you're talking about somebody from the far right on the Israeli Jewish lives.
[1:05:35] You get attacked by all Israelis are evil and by the Israeli right.
[1:05:40] The Israeli prime minister used...
[1:05:44] at his first video campaign, used the same video that the extreme right in Israel that came to attack me at my own, at my doorstep.
[1:05:55] How did that come about?
[1:05:57] Benjamin Netanyahu used this video in his first video campaign.
[1:06:02] And when I saw Benjamin Netanyahu using this video of the inshallah, the word that I said, if God will,
[1:06:12] They took out that piece.
[1:06:13] They took out like 20 seconds from a three-minute video that I was talking about the violence in the Arab society.
[1:06:21] And they took out, and I was talking about the fact that it is not being taken care of in the Israeli society.
[1:06:29] That basically the Arabs will change, inshallah, will go the next elections to change their future by going out on buses to vote.
[1:06:41] I took basically the sentence of Benjamin Netanyahu, saying it in the elections of 2015.
[1:06:45] So he used this.
[1:06:49] At his first, right now, a month ago, at his first video campaign to incite against maybe a combination that the Arabs will take part in the next government.
[1:07:02] He used me.
[1:07:03] When I saw Benjamin Netanyahu using this word, using this sentence, using this clip, I understood that he is afraid.
[1:07:10] That they are afraid of the ideas that I put on the table.
[1:07:16] They are afraid that I am saying to Israeli Arabs, go out and vote.
[1:07:22] But it's almost like when your colleague told you, don't do this, it gives you more power to go and build and to do and to have the strength.
[1:07:32] Tell us what happened as a result.
[1:07:37] Wow.
[1:07:38] I think that, first of all, it was an entire month, almost three weeks, that every single day I had demonstrations next to the building where I'm living.
[1:07:53] Every single day in my neighborhood, like people gathered and call me filthy Arab, terrorist, whore, sharmuta, whatever you want.
[1:08:07] Lucy, the terrorist, Lucy, the whore, Lucy, like.
[1:08:12] Going back to the Mona days.
[1:08:13] Yes, going back to the Mona days.
[1:08:16] Every single day.
[1:08:18] Until one day they took it one step further, and they came, 17 men, stood in front of my doorstep.
[1:08:28] They went up, I live in the 16th floor, they went up,
[1:08:33] And they stood in front of my doorstep.
[1:08:35] And they were asking me, screaming outside the door, get out.
[1:08:40] We want to speak with you in the name of Arafat.
[1:08:44] We want to speak with you in the name of Rabin.
[1:08:47] Two people have died or been killed.
[1:08:50] So the same story of incitement that got Rabin killed.
[1:08:54] Yeah.
[1:08:55] Itzhak Rabin was a prime minister in Israel, and there was a lot of incitement in the months ahead of him that led to him being murdered.
[1:09:02] And basically, I had to hold Tzahi.
[1:09:10] not to go out to them, not to open the door and basically face them.
[1:09:16] And, you know, it is hard.
[1:09:18] You should have unleashed them.
[1:09:22] He's the man.
[1:09:24] He's supposed to protect his family, and he felt that his family is under attack.
[1:09:31] Yeah, well, it was real.
[1:09:32] His baby was like my son...
[1:09:35] told me that night, mom, white people are screaming outside our apartment.
[1:09:41] What are they saying?
[1:09:42] That's trespass, right?
[1:09:43] That's illegal what they did.
[1:09:46] If you think that they are in jail, you're wrong.
[1:09:49] You're wrong.
[1:09:50] They are not.
[1:09:52] That's what you were talking about, like how currently in the Israeli government, forget about the dangers with the gun inside Israel.
[1:09:59] They are honored guests.
[1:10:01] The honored guests of our...
[1:10:05] National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
[1:10:09] They come to his office.
[1:10:11] They come to the judicial minister, to Yariv Levin's office.
[1:10:17] They welcome them with hugging them and accepting them to the Knesset, to the minister's offices.
[1:10:25] These, you know... And so you took, did you sue them?
[1:10:29] And I sue one of them for 2.5 million shekels.
[1:10:34] And right now I sue every single one that calls me terrorist online.
[1:10:41] He writes that I'm a terrorist, Lucy the terrorist.
[1:10:44] He gets a letter from my lawyer asking them to pay because it's a lie.
[1:10:53] If they're not paying, I'm taking them to court.
[1:10:56] Today I put two more lawsuits, one for 350,000 shekels and one for 250,000 shekels.
[1:11:01] How do you finance this?
[1:11:05] I finance it with Hamal Diba, which is, there is an organization that, it's an Israeli organization that the head of the organization is Hadass Klein.
[1:11:21] She was one of,
[1:11:24] She gave testimony against Benjamin Netanyahu and she was under attack by again these extremists.
[1:11:29] So she raised money to have an organization that will fight people that are basically bullying her and calling her names and dashing her on social media.
[1:11:47] So she's helping me and I'm paying like half and they're paying half and at the end of the process
[1:11:52] Hopefully you'll win.
[1:11:53] Yeah.
[1:11:54] Listen, I feel that I'm going to be very unjust to you because this has been, it's clear how much of a courageous soldier you've been, how much you're doing for humanity.
[1:12:02] But I need to pivot to make you suffer more.
[1:12:05] Okay.
[1:12:06] And you guys don't know what this is because it's the first time you see it.
[1:12:09] So we call this the Mexican Inquisition.
[1:12:12] Okay.
[1:12:14] The Mexican Inquisition is a game when I ask you very tough questions and you need to choose between them, but we're into this weird,
[1:12:23] Mexican game called toques, where I start at the bottom thing and I turn it on and you hold it like this, but I increase the dial depending on whether I like your answers or not.
[1:12:34] And you start feeling the shock and at some point you can't get rid of them.
[1:12:38] Okay, are you willing to try it?
[1:12:40] I'm going to ask you a few questions.
[1:12:42] First question is you have to choose
[1:12:45] an unsung hero who got you to this point.
[1:12:49] And you have to choose between your high school principal, Mayra Cohen, and your professor of journalism, Tzvija Hess Kelly, and tell us why.
[1:12:57] Otherwise, you're getting... Mayra Cohen.
[1:13:01] Mayra Cohen, of course.
[1:13:03] Until today.
[1:13:04] You know, he will always be my principal.
[1:13:07] And why?
[1:13:08] Why?
[1:13:09] Because he saw me as part of his school.
[1:13:16] This was a great answer.
[1:13:17] You don't merit Chucks, but I'm going to give it to you anyway so you can feel what it feels like.
[1:13:21] Do you feel it?
[1:13:22] You feel a little tingly?
[1:13:23] It'll get worse.
[1:13:25] Okay.
[1:13:27] If you could choose dinner with somebody that you find more interesting, would it be Christiana Mampour or Tony Duocopil?
[1:13:34] I know there's a lot of people who will be angry, but Christiane Amanpour.
[1:13:37] Really?
[1:13:37] Tell me more.
[1:13:40] Some people are saying that Christiane is very, very, very, you know, have a lot of criticism against Israel and against the actions of Israel.
[1:13:47] But I think that I was interviewed by Christiane Amanpour.
[1:13:51] And I think that because of our background, that is a little bit similar.
[1:13:59] I think that we can find... You're definitely getting shocked by me because I'm a big Tony Ducopil fan.
[1:14:04] I don't have...
[1:14:04] Okay, give me a shot.
[1:14:05] I have complications.
[1:14:05] Okay.
[1:14:07] Now you're at one and a half.
[1:14:08] You feel it?
[1:14:10] In Mexico, people pay to get this stuff.
[1:14:13] They pay a few pesos.
[1:14:15] You're going to pay with your suffering.
[1:14:18] Okay.
[1:14:18] Cristiana Manpura, see what you did.
[1:14:21] If you could invite a historical figure for lunch, choose between Muhammad Ali and Nelson Mandela.
[1:14:29] Wow, Muhammad Ali.
[1:14:31] Wow.
[1:14:31] You know he was on my board.
[1:14:33] Really?
[1:14:33] And he's with Olonia, Leona, and I are super close allies.
[1:14:37] We work really, really close in the builders movement.
[1:14:40] So I'll spare you on this one.
[1:14:45] Tell us about an event that broke you but made you then stronger and built you into who you are.
[1:14:51] Either when you were fired after you spoke up on Channel 11 or when you lit the torch and there was a backlash on Independence Day.
[1:15:02] when I was fired, you know, I met you afterwards.
[1:15:07] We didn't get to talk about Democrat TV.
[1:15:10] Yeah, I met you because of that.
[1:15:12] Yeah, and Lucy built with Yaya, I think, an incredible thing called Democrat TV.
[1:15:18] And I wanted to talk about the future of media, but we ran out of time.
[1:15:23] Do you want just for fun?
[1:15:24] Tell us quickly about Democrat TV.
[1:15:26] Putting it here.
[1:15:27] I'll turn it off.
[1:15:29] Democrat TV is, first of all, the reason that we met.
[1:15:32] And it was the biggest crowdfunded independent media.
[1:15:36] Very innovative, you and Yaya came up with a bunch of really interesting things.
[1:15:40] You spoke to broad group,
[1:15:43] The community chose who you would come by guest, chose questions.
[1:15:47] It was very innovative.
[1:15:48] It chose questions.
[1:15:49] It chose the subjects that we would discuss in every show.
[1:15:55] They were a lot of critiques also from the viewers because I was too rightist to the viewers.
[1:16:03] The audience was more to the left.
[1:16:05] Yeah, the audience was more center left.
[1:16:08] And a lot of the criticism was about me sometimes that I'm...
[1:16:13] I'm losing my center and I'm a little bit rightist.
[1:16:18] But I was challenging.
[1:16:19] Again, it was to challenge the discourse because the thing was to be able to come to work and to broadcast and to speak without the fear that you will be fired the next day.
[1:16:36] Let me ask you a question.
[1:16:37] If today you want to have the maximum impact, or tomorrow, the next five, ten years, is it still going to be you can't compete with Channel 12s and 13s because they have the reach?
[1:16:45] Or eventually is an online engaging interactive platform going to break that?
[1:16:51] I think that it's the combination of both.
[1:16:54] I don't think that TV is going to die anytime soon.
[1:16:58] And more than that, I will tell you, if...
[1:17:03] You know, I always say it as a critique to the center-left politicians in Israel.
[1:17:10] Although Benjamin Netanyahu is attacking the traditional media nonstop, he never gave up on it because he understands how important and how efficient and how
[1:17:31] relevant it will always be and how effective it is on trying to pass the ideas that you want to pass.
[1:17:41] This is why he has like some medias.
[1:17:45] I won't say his, but, you know, supporting him in Israeli media.
[1:17:53] He never gave up on traditional media.
[1:17:55] Yes, of course, today you have the social media, you have TikTok, you have Instagram, you have Facebook, whatever.
[1:18:03] But the traditional media needs to, you know, it will go through transformation, it will change, but it will never disappear.
[1:18:16] Because I don't think that you can change actors with AI actors.
[1:18:21] You can't change Brad Pitt.
[1:18:23] And you can't change, you know, Robert De Niro.
[1:18:29] You need the feelings and the talent of Robert De Niro.
[1:18:32] Okay, I know you romanticized the Mocqua TV thinking you might be spared from Mexican Inquisition, but put those back on.
[1:18:42] To put it back on?
[1:18:43] And we're going to shock you again.
[1:18:45] Shock.
[1:18:46] And bring you back from zero to one and a half.
[1:18:49] You feel it?
[1:18:50] Yeah.
[1:18:50] All right, three last questions.
[1:18:53] What shaped you more into who you are?
[1:18:56] Growing up as the only Arab Muslim girl in a school in Dimona or raising an interfaith family?
[1:19:04] Wow.
[1:19:07] I think growing up as the only... We'll keep it.
[1:19:11] We'll accept it.
[1:19:12] What job shaped you the most?
[1:19:14] Your internship in Germany, which was the first job you had, or your Channel 10 experience?
[1:19:20] My Channel 10 experience.
[1:19:21] One last question.
[1:19:22] This is one that really fascinates me.
[1:19:25] What drives you the most?
[1:19:27] A sense of justice, our search for truth, or a search for excellence?
[1:19:33] Sense of justice and my son, Adam.
[1:19:37] Yeah, Faye, I'm turning that off.
[1:19:39] That was a great answer.
[1:19:42] Did you feel it?
[1:19:42] I only got you to one and a half.
[1:19:44] It's fine.
[1:19:45] It actually awakes you.
[1:19:47] It awakes you.
[1:19:47] Okay, one last segment.
[1:19:49] Rapid fire, build or break.
[1:19:50] If you think it's something that should happen, build, otherwise break.
[1:19:54] Ready?
[1:19:55] Yeah.
[1:19:56] Losing on the masked singer.
[1:20:00] Because you lost to your husband, right?
[1:20:04] The Masked Singer is the show.
[1:20:06] Yeah.
[1:20:08] We were in masks.
[1:20:09] And you sang?
[1:20:10] I sang.
[1:20:11] And you're a good singer?
[1:20:11] I'm a good singer.
[1:20:12] You never want me singing.
[1:20:15] That sounds fun.
[1:20:15] I have to watch the episode.
[1:20:18] Build or break, angering both extremes.
[1:20:24] Tells you you're doing something interesting.
[1:20:26] Of course.
[1:20:26] Build or break, an interfaith marriage.
[1:20:29] Build.
[1:20:30] Build or break, choosing a career that involves personal risks.
[1:20:34] built of course not for everybody though you have to have a lot of strong back for everybody not for everybody also interfaith marriage is not for everybody you know i'm not the poster girl of interfaith marriage builder breaks citizen journalism explain it to me a little bit citizen journalism when people are posting stuff and not going to professional break break definitely break
[1:20:58] It's interesting because there's something so liberating about everybody being able to open you, but there's no curation.
[1:21:04] It gets really tricky.
[1:21:05] It's great because I think, I know that we can lose because we're losing the truth.
[1:21:14] We have the ability with this, like to even have a discussion or to have an argument or to argue about the fact that this is black.
[1:21:24] This is black.
[1:21:25] This is a fact.
[1:21:26] It's black.
[1:21:28] And with everything that is happening, people are actually, no, no, no, this is not black.
[1:21:33] This is faded black.
[1:21:33] The complex point about it is that in some media, people have like drank the Kool-Aid and a lot of people are frustrated that they don't trust media.
[1:21:42] And that's why it's complex.
[1:21:43] Because you can't trust anything nowadays.
[1:21:46] Except Lucia Harish.
[1:21:48] Build or break, becoming the subject of a news story.
[1:21:52] Becoming me, the subject, ah, break.
[1:21:54] I will give it up.
[1:21:55] You didn't choose that.
[1:21:56] I will give it up.
[1:21:57] Build or break, starring in a movie with Brad Pitt?
[1:22:02] If I was only, like, if I had a frame in the movie, so it was definitely built.
[1:22:08] How did that come about?
[1:22:09] No, but it was.
[1:22:09] You were in, what, World War Z or something?
[1:22:11] I was in World War Z.
[1:22:13] Like I told you, the credit is Lucy Harish, Palestinian girl with hijab number 100.
[1:22:20] It was like, you know, it's an amazing thing to be in a Hollywood production because you are coming as, you know, not an actress.
[1:22:29] How did it come about?
[1:22:31] It's, I don't know, it was filmed in Malta.
[1:22:37] How did it come about?
[1:22:38] Tell us a fucking secret.
[1:22:40] How did I get that?
[1:22:41] Yeah.
[1:22:42] Oh, nothing.
[1:22:42] I did an audition.
[1:22:44] I went and sang in the audition.
[1:22:47] Hava Nagila, I think it was.
[1:22:49] Yeah, yeah, I swear to God.
[1:22:51] Here?
[1:22:52] Yeah, in Israel.
[1:22:53] Why were they getting the junk?
[1:22:55] Oh, because they needed it.
[1:22:56] Because there was this scene that actually happened in Jerusalem and the Israeli military was able to fight the zombies or whatever.
[1:23:07] I don't know.
[1:23:08] And I went to the audition and actually sang Havan Agila.
[1:23:13] And Shalom Aleinu Ve'al Kol HaOlam.
[1:23:16] These are like very Jewish songs.
[1:23:17] Very Jewish songs.
[1:23:19] And I ended up.
[1:23:20] Muslim Arab girl.
[1:23:21] Drop the mic.
[1:23:22] You're amazing.
[1:23:23] Lucy, this was incredible.
[1:23:25] Thank you so much for being with us.
[1:23:26] Thank you.
[1:23:26] Thank you, Daniel.
[1:23:28] We want you to become a builder with us.
[1:23:30] So subscribe to Builder Break now and leave us a comment or a review.
[1:23:35] We're trying to build a movement and you can be part of it by hitting the notification bell and telling us what you think about this episode and by telling all your friends to watch too.
[1:23:46] Thank you.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.