0:00 On September 22nd, 1993, an Israeli soldier is guarding the entrance to Tufen training base, waiting for his shift to be over. Suddenly, a man approaches the entrance. The soldier notices that the newcomer is an IDF captain. The tag on his shoulder and pin on his chest give him away as a member of Israel's most elite and secretive naval commando unit, Shyep 13. This guy is a really big deal. But after about 1 minute of conversation, the soldier realizes that this man seems to be a foreigner. attempt to get access to the base by impersonating a senior soldier. Suddenly, the soldier recognizes the man. It's the legendary American singer Michael Jackson. So, why was Michael Jackson attempting to enter an Israeli military base while illegally disguised as an IDF soldier? Well, today we're going to be talking about Michael Jackson's extremely weird trip to Israel. Michael Jackson came to Israel
0:46 in 1993 as part of his dangerous world tour. He played two soldout concerts at Yokone Park in Tel Aviv, which according to some estimates were the biggest in Israeli history until that point. Michael Jackson was so ridiculously famous that the country literally molded itself to his wishes. I'll give one example. When Michael arrived, it was the very important Jewish holiday of Rashashana. As a sort of rule on Russashana, all stores closed for the entire duration of the holiday. But when Michael arrived in Israel, he said they wanted to go shopping at Israel's iconic shopping mall center. Immediately, orders were given to open up the shopping center, and the shop owners were brought in just so that Michael wouldn't need to wait 2 days to go on his shopping trip. Michael went on a legendary shopping spirit disenging thousands of dollars worth of discs, tapes, videos, and posters and spent a lot of time playing video games at the
1:32 arcades there. Honestly, it's crazy to me that Michael Jackson's first impression of Israel was disenfed aboriginal guy whose first exposure to the outside world was the detonation of a nuclear bomb. Honestly, I'm surprised that Michael didn't join Hamas or something after this. By the way, Tel Aviv's disengulv center is in all likelihood the strangest shopping center in the world. And the iceberg actually goes so ridiculously deep that you would not believe it. I could talk for hours about it starting from how the mall was started by a cross-dressing international fugitive on the run from the law, but this is a video about Michael Jackson. So, I'm going to get back on topic. Anyway, while Michael was at Disengolf, he noticed a poster that depicted a baby wearing tiny shoes that was hung up inside of a closed shoe store, and he demanded that he be able to buy it. The authorities attempted to contact the owner of the store so that he could come and open it special for Michael Jackson, but they were unable to
2:17 find him. At this point, Michael started crashing out a little bit and he angrily demanded that the store be opened. To calm him down, he was assured that the poster would be waiting in his hotel room by tomorrow. But Michael didn't just get disenged the Tel Aviv amusement park, the entire park was closed down. And Michael spent the whole day as the only guy in the entire park. After playing around a bit at the amusement park, Michael Jackson traveled to what is most likely the most dangerous place he ever went. Far more dangerous than his visit to the favllas of Brazil, the Israeli city of Petikva. Here he visited the Schneider Children's Hospital and met with both Jewish and Arab children who are suffering from serious diseases. It is also at this point in his trip that he starts wearing an Israeli military uniform. Okay, so to this day, nobody is 100% sure how or where Michael Jackson acquired an
3:02 official IDF uniform or why he decided to wear it for the rest of his trip. Presumably, he bought it as store meant for soldiers and the people there didn't want to say no to the King of Pop. As I mentioned before, the uniform was of a captain in the elite naval commando unit Shata 13. And Michael seems to have taken a real liking to it and did most of the rest of his trip in official IDF uniform. After traveling to the historical site of Msada, Michael decided he wanted to visit the Jewish holy site of the Western Wall and he set off for the wall, followed by a crowd of adoring Israeli fans. But not all were thrilled with the planned visit. Many ultraorththodox Jews were horrified by Michael's plan to enter one of the holiest sites in Judaism with crowds of wild fans, which would almost certainly lead to a desecration of the Jewish Sabbath. That's not even touching on Michael's alleged connections to the occult. Massive riots broke out in Jerusalem, and ultraorththodox riers
3:48 even started to erect makeshift fortifications and roadblocks in order to prevent Michael from reaching the wall at all costs. Jerusalem has seen its fair share of historical sieges, but this incident probably holds its cake for weirdest reason that Jerusalem's residents have built fortifications. One can only imagine that the Israeli government must have been watching this all unfold with concern. The Western Wall was a flash point where small clashes have escalated into larger conflicts in the past. With the riots picking up, they must have wondered if this could possibly spark some sort of new conflict. But Michael, seeing the huge opposition to his visit, called off his trip to the Western Wall and turned around. This was probably the only time in history where people rioted in order not to meet Michael Jackson. Anyway, the final stop of Michael's trip was definitely the most insane and involved him nearly getting arrested by the IDF. But before I go over that, a quick word from my sponsor, myself. Do you want to
4:33 go beyond the same boring headlines and actually dive deep into extremely obscure Middle Eastern lore? Well, you're in luck because on this channel, I plan to go all the way down the iceberg and talk about some extremely obscure Middle Eastern history topics. But I need your help. Due to their content, most of my videos are demonetized. That's why I created a Patreon where you can help fund my videos. Patreon is basically the only way I can make money from YouTube. So, feel free to go ahead and join the merchants guild. Now, back to the video. Anyway, as I was saying, Michael's final stop on the trip was the IDF's Teen Base, which was the training base for female officers in the army. It was a bit of a weird choice for a visit, and it's unclear why he chose this base in particular. All right, Mr. Jackson, what do you have in mind for your final day in Israel? Would you like to see the negative desert, maybe the Carmel Mountains? I would like to see the IDF baddies please. >> What? Please. >> When Michael showed up at the base's
5:18 gate, he was still wearing his IDF captain uniform. After being given everything he wanted at every step during the trip, he probably thought that entering the base and IDF uniform would be super easy, barely an inconvenience. But when he tried to enter, a fight broke out between him and the Israeli guards, who informed him angrily that impersonating a senior officer was a serious crime that carried a significant jail sentence. Things could have escalated from there if Michael's team hadn't intervened and calmed things down. Mike got rid of his illegal uniform and finally entered the base. Inside the base, he was greeted by multiple Israeli generals. And the IDF military band played an allegedly terrible cover of his song, We Are the World. As it would turn out, the reason the band had performed so terribly was because there were not actually active members of the band, but rather reserveist soldiers who had been called up to perform by the IDF using a special mechanism called an order 8.
6:05 Essentially, an order 8 is an emergency protocol that the Israeli government can give to immediately call up large numbers of reser to the army. The mechanism is only meant to be used in serious emergencies as a sort of secret weapon that can quickly summon hundreds of thousands of additional soldiers in a single day. So, you can probably guess that it caused quite a scandal when people learned that Israel had used this emergency protocol to make a genuinely unlistable concert for Michael Jackson. Anyway, in part because of the fiasco that happened at the gate, Michael was very late to his visit and the soldiers were forced to wait for 2 hours in the grueling heat. But based on the videos I saw of the soldiers after they had met with Jackson, it seems that they didn't mind too much. [laughter]
6:50 >> Anyway, during his entire time at the base, Michael was hounded by paparazzi who constantly annoyed him and violated his personal space. Eventually, he exploded, cutting the trip short because of the intrusive paparazzi presence and abruptly leading the bass before he could record the plan song with the IDF band. That being said, my conspiracy theory is that he was just looking for an excuse to avoid recording a song with them after hearing their terrible performance before. Anyway, you'd assume that's the end of our story, and I thought so, too. But while researching this video, I came across a very interesting claim. I'll let the modernday philosophers of the Young Turks explain it to you. >> One of the last songs that Michael Jackson wrote was, uh, Palestine. >> Yeah. >> Uh, and >> and 6 months after that, >> uh, he mysteriously died. >> And six months after that, all of the allegations of the child mate. That was the first thing to happen.
7:36 >> Yeah. And uh and Sony never released it. >> Uh and it's not like companies are interested in money. >> The one Michael Jackson song that was never released was about Palestine. >> But I'm sure that that is a wild, wild coincidence. >> So that's quite an interesting claim. I mean, surely these respectable, intelligent gentlemen would never lie. So I decided to dig a bit deeper and I found this extremely popular video. >> [music] [music] >> Now, I'm sure all of you are asking one thing. What the is that woman doing? And honestly, I had no idea. So, I sat to check out what she's up to now. And here's her newest stock content.
8:23 [music] >> [music] >> Yeah, that's pretty much all she does. In case it wasn't obvious, all the facts are easily debunkable conspiracy slop. Now, you might laugh at this kind of stuff, but that first video I showed you, it has well over a million likes. It's a side pill to swallow, but this is genuinely the main way the majority of young people consume political content in the Big 26. Forget books or research, even source claims are a thing of the past. And if you want to send a message, just have some women do a TikTok dance to creepy music while you make up some slop history. I'm sorry, but you do not hate normies nearly enough. Anyway, I'm getting distracted. Let's actually check these claims about Michael Jackson and figure out what actually happened. Now, there's a lot to address here. For instance, the anti-ionist song lyrics that she's talking about are actually just the use of the word which in
9:09 case you don't know is a famous anti-ionist slur. Now, it's a bit difficult to respond to these claims because while they all agree on the big idea, they all give vastly different details. For instance, basically all these posts and videos claim that Michael Jackson wrote this Palestine song on the flight back from Tel Aviv in 1993. But Chang confidently claims it was actually the last song he ever made and he wrote only 6 months before his death in 2009. >> Last songs that Michael Jackson wrote was uh Palestine. >> Yeah. >> Uh and >> and 6 months after that >> uh he mysteriously died. >> That's not even mentioning how all these videos have all sorts of hadiths of alleged things that Michael did or said before he died with the stories usually being trust me bro. So I'm going to focus on one particular claim that is probably the most common one I saw. It goes like this. After visiting Israel in the Palestinian territories in 93, Michael became so disgusted by what he
9:55 saw and traumatized that he became a committed pro Palestine activist. And on the plane back, he wrote the song Palestine don't cry. He attempted to release the song, but the big record labels at Sony wouldn't let him, and his pro Palestine views were suppressed and hidden. Chunk adds that this was actually the only song that Michael wrote that was never released, which is actually a true claim when you ignore, you know, the 2,000 other ones. For example, take a look at this official video from Alazer News about Michael Jackson's Palestinian solidarity. Although to give them credit, they do admit that their source was, "I saw it on Instagram." >> What is Michael Jackson's connection to Palestine? >> So, I'm totally with you. I was just I found this by scrolling on Instagram and it was a song that Michael Jackson wrote for Palestine called Palestine Don't Cry
10:41 in 1993. and he wrote it after he was coming back from concerts in Tel Aviv. >> Okay, let's actually take these claims apart. Now, Michael really did have a positive relationship with the Arab and Muslim world. He briefly lived in Bahrain and he would say things like this before his concerts in Arab countries. >> I'm coming to see you inshallah the 7th of October. I cannot wait. >> That one didn't age quite so well. >> Also, was was was that video filmed in hell? But anyway, despite all that, Michael's statements and actions following his Israel concert don't really match with the person who would become anti-Israel. I mean, he would famously go on to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Chiron against the wishes of his PR team, and he would speak very positively about his time in Israel, saying things like this. >> I love Israel.
11:28 I love Israel. It was a It was a It was a fun concert. You guys were very nice. And that's not to mention that it's kind of unclear what Michael even saw on this trip that was allegedly so traumatizing that it caused him to fight a covert war against Israel. Most of these posts site his visits to the Palestinian territories in the West Bank. But the problem is that Michael never even set foot in the West Bank and his trip was mainly confined to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. As far as I'm aware, the only traumatizing atrocity he saw that could turn someone into an anti-Israel activist was Disengolf Center. Although I somehow doubt that that's what these guys are referring to. Anyway, now that we've covered those inconsistencies, let's take a look at the song itself. Although I think it's more accurate to call it a poem. Now, the unfinished poem itself appears to be real, even if the details don't match up with the claims that I mentioned. The handwritten text went up for auction in
12:14 2010, and it is from there that we get all of our information about it. And there are only two things known about the poem. It was written in 1993, and Michael wrote it while he was on a British Airways Concord plane. Now, as a former plane nerd, there's a lot of stuff I could say about the Concord. When I was little, it was my second favorite plane, only second to the SR71 Blackbird. And I can tell you everything there is to know about it. But right now, there's only one thing you didn't know. It did not fly to Israel. In fact, it being written on a British Airways Concord explicitly rules out the poem being written on Michael's flight back from Tel Aviv. Meaning that all these stories of Michael writing it there are complete fiction. After a bit of research into Michael's flight history, I can even say with relative confidence that the only date that seems possible to me is on a transatlantic flight on May 16th, 1993. very importantly before Michael would ever set foot in Israel,
12:59 although there's no way to definitively tell for sure. So, what do I think was the deal with the poem? Well, I think it's worth looking at the period in which it was written. In May 1993, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, known as the first inifat, was still raging. The first inifat marked a real turning point in the way the suffering of Palestinians was portrayed in American media. And for the first time, the image of the suffering Palestinian child became known in the general American consciousness. Suddenly, the Middle East was dominating international headlines and news broadcasts were filled with images of military conflict and the suffering caused by the inif. Now, at this point, Michael was at the peak of what I call a social activism era. And he wrote multiple humanitarian anthems such as Heal the World and Earth Song. Now, I might get some flack for saying this, but I don't think these songs are particularly deep, nor do I think they need to be. In fact, in my opinion, that's why they get their message
13:45 through so well. When Michael talks about kids starving in Africa, he doesn't go into the political situation in the Congo or anything, but rather keeps a focus on the general suffering of populations. So, in my opinion, it's completely natural that he would jot down a poem reacting to what he saw on TV about war and conflict in Palestine. But that isn't at all the same as the story that these channels are attempting to make up. And there's another critical historical detail that supports an early 1993 date, the media shift that would occur later that year. In stark contrast to the image of the suffering refugee with which the Palestinians were portrayed by international media in early 1993, in later parts of that year, there was a drastic change in the narrative after Israel and the Palestinian Authority signed the Oslo Accords. And there was this really bizarre and brief period where for a few months the situation in Palestine was portrayed in the media as hopeful, sometimes even as a solved conflict. In
14:31 my opinion, this further reinforces that this poem was most likely actually written before Michael's visit to Israel and not after it. And I want to make one more thing clear. Anyone who comes out of this video thinking that Michael Jackson was pro-Israel completely missed my point. I don't think that Michael rocking an IDF uniform means that he politically supported Israel any more than I think his earlier poem means that he politically supported Palestine. What I do think is that he cared deeply about all the residents of this region. And I think that philosophy is visible during his trip where he made sure to meet with both Jewish and Arab children in the hospital. I don't think his trip was done because of any sort of political agenda, but rather out of love for all the people who are suffering in the region. Anyway, Michael's connections to Israel and Judaism actually go way deeper than just his 1993 trip. For instance, his former concert organizer, Shabai Kalmanovich, was a Soviet spy who infiltrated Israel and is considered
15:16 among the most dangerous spies in Israeli history. And I also didn't touch on Michael's really weird relationship with Jewish mysticism. But honestly, this video was supposed to be really short and only cover Michael's visit to Israel. But when I read that people had spam the comments with comments about his Palestine song, I realized that I would have to address it here. Maybe someday I'll make a video that goes all the way down the Michael Jackson rabbit hole, but actually I'm probably never going to do that. But I do hope you enjoy and learn something new. If you're interested, you can support me at patreon.com/hasmonian_historian. And you can reach me at hasmonianistori.com. Thank you for watching and I hope you all have a wonderful day. Anyway, as always, thank you so much to all my top level patrons. 23 Tovar, Mask Von Ditch, How Coward Wetszman, Daniel Yonatan, a race hakdorf, Clayton, and Yonatanadar, as well as all my other patrons. Arsen captain Natalie Bates L scorel the
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