Join us today for a discussion on English voice actors from popular anime who participated in a charity fundraiser using character voices to raise funds for a group with documented ties to Hamas (a story we learned about via Leaflit). We examine repeated patterns of major Muslim charities diverting donations to terrorism, historical examples from the Bush era onward, and the challenges of integrating populations from regions with entrenched support for such groups. We also cover broader topics including refugee resettlement outcomes in multiple countries, comparisons to other global conflicts, the role of progressive organizations in overlooking these issues, and practical approaches to cultural coexistence. The episode closes with some updates from us on AI tools for education we’re building—plus what we built for dubbing. ;) Hat tip to Leaflit for this! Episode Transcript Malcolm Collins:Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be covering three stories. The first is Leaflet found out that a lot of, voice actors for doing, you know, English lines for anime Simone Collins:Oh. Malcolm Collins:Had begun, a charity event. And pretending... Like, using the IPs that, like, they didn’t own, like, the... As the voices. So we’ll get into, like, the weirdness of that. Simone Collins:Woah. But Like, okay. So, like, if, like, the the guy who played Zuko, like, his English And so one of the Malcolm Collins:people who did this is the person who plays Mao Mao, one of our favorite modern Simone Collins:characters. Yes. Malcolm Collins:Well, I mean, it’s a sort of bad thing that they got involved with, but... Yeah. so they would do it as Mao Mao. Simone Collins:Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, wait. That is... Don’t they sign things? Malcolm Collins:Yeah. No. They they were just incredibly stupid. I mean, the type of person who tries to change dubbing is incredibly stupid, but the group that they have donated to has been involved in they have been caught by the US state department funding Hamas. Oh, for And this isn’t the first time this has happened. What I think is the bigger story here is for decades in The United States, the single largest Muslim charity organization in The United States funded Hamas. And terrorization is that? Down under the Bush administration. And one of the questions we’re going to be focused on here is why does this keep happening? And we’re going to couch all this alongside another big leak that our friend Brian Chow, who we had on the show when he was launching his new news organization, and it has used AI to find all sorts of scoops. And one of the greatest and latest was brought to you by the McCarthy or t foundation or the... What what are they? T McArthur Foundation. You’re familiar with that from your NPR. Right? NPR would always be like, brought to you by the t McArthur Foundation. Simone Collins:Catherine t McArthur Foundation. Malcolm Collins:Yes. Simone Collins:The Catherine t Well, I wouldn’t recognize it if you don’t read it out the same way that they say it, but sure. Okay. The Catherine t MacArthur Foundation. Malcolm Collins:And and many other mainstream groups, such as the European AI and Society Fund, Civendes, Network of European Foundations, the Ford Foundation. Simone Collins:So this is what European AI does. It doesn’t actually help with AI development. It just gives money to Hamas? Malcolm Collins:No. They were giving money to groups... Well... Okay. So they were giving money to groups that then decided to stand in solidarity with a terrorist organization that was shut down for killing people in bombings, but they’re an antifa tied terrorist organization. and they’re like, well, you know, if it’s left wing, sometimes you just gotta kill them. You know? that’s that’s sort of, I guess, where they are at this point, in terms of ideological capture. So let’s go into this story. So break number one. Who are some of the voice actors who were caught up in this? And, I wouldn’t blame these voice actors much except for the fact that after it came out that this group is funding Hamas or had been caught doing that in the past. Like, we don’t know where their dollars went, but we know it had done this in the past. None of them have, like, recounted or been like, that was a mistake or this isn’t something that I would personally support, which concerns me. It shows in left wing circles, it’s more dangerous. And we’ll get into, like, why you might care about this organization of, like, institutionalized rape and torture that is, like, actively ongoing right now to the people in Gaza. It’s a bit like you think you’re giving money to help starving people in Mexico, and it’s going to the cartels. Like, there there is no way that this is like... The cartels are not pro Mexico. Okay? Like, Hamas is not pro the people of Gaza in any meaningful context. they are an exploitative organization that, did... It’s after the war ended was executing people in the streets. I I love the joke of, oh my gosh. They’re executing Hamas... Gazit citizens in the streets. Can you believe it? They’re like, no. I can’t. This is Hamas this time. Oh. Oh, okay. Whatever. Or, you know, get him some slack. So one was Johnny Lovasco of Genshin Impact. The other... Another is Alex Rontgen of the amazing digital circus and had minor roles in Poppy Playtime. I quite liked the amazing digital circus. I haven’t watched the whole thing, though, so I guess I don’t like it that much. But... And then the last one is Emmy Lowe of Apostecary Diaries, Cyberpunk Edge Runners, Genshin Impact, and Hanukkah Star Rail. This is the one that gets to me the most because I really like the... Both the character of Maumau in apostecary diaries and, apostecary diaries more broadly. And you do. It’s one of the only animes we watch together. Yeah. It’s so sweet. It’s so cute. But, anyway, so the gist of what happened here is a recurring annual fundraiser, raised by voice actress, Kawara Creed, who’s done approximately 120 English voice things in in anime, made a donation to operation branch or OOB. Now the reason why I wanna focus on these larger Muslim organizations and the repeated pattern of this is, in this instance, they only raised $6,000, which to me shows the lack of seriousness about this. I mean, given what they were doing, I’m actually kinda surprised they only did raise $6,000. Simone Collins:It’s a little embarrassing, but also... Phew. Malcolm Collins:Yeah. They had they had top level voice actresses on board, and, like, what they would do is you would donate an amount of money and then ask them to say what you wanted to say, like, you know, from the river to the sea or something like that. Right? And then they’d say it in the character’s voice. And I want to... This this gets interesting to a meta point here because I think for a lot of these people, they probably had good intentions. They’re, like, broadly aware of... Now I don’t know why they’re helping the Palestinians and not the much larger genocides that are currently occurring in, like, Darfur, but I... It’s it’s Muslims killing black people there, so who cares. Right? You know? Two oppressed groups doesn’t matter. but with the the case of the Palestinians, the the, you know, you can be like, okay. They’re they’re suffering. The challenge is is so often and so frequently, we see large respectable or have a veneer of respectability groups like this then end up giving the money to terrorism. and I think the... A lot of people are just very confused by this. Like, why is this happening, and how do we prevent this? Because it makes it very hard to help these groups. If there’s a community and, I mean, this happened even in The United States where they, god. Where were they... The Somalian immigrant population was scamming our government, but not just scamming it, but then sending the money to terrorist organizations. like, you give a starving person a dollar, and they decide they’re gonna give 50¢ to a terrorist organization. Like, what do you do about that? Like, how do you deal? And it’s not just at the level of donations. There’s also been a problem with any country that has taken in large numbers of Palestinian refugees. as people are aware, countries that have done the virtuous thing and taken in these populations have paid for it in the blood of innocent civilians. Yeah. They they they... In every instance. Simone Collins:So it’s not a good look. It’s really not a good look that Malcolm Collins:you try to take someone Jordanian Jordanian government in a violent coup after they graciously allowed them into their country and were paying to support them. they... In Denmark, there was a study on, like, how three generations in, there’s incredibly high rates of criminality in these populations. I think it’s 70% are involved in violent crime or or criminal organizations. Very, very high. Right? Like, they they just... It... It’s it’s systemic in the culture of of this region, and it makes it very difficult to help. Speaker 3:So I decided to ask AI if any region had ever taken in a significant number of Gaza refugees without their own civilians suffering and dying for it. And it said, which I think is indicative, Jordan comes closest to it, and that they couldn’t find other good examples. Now to understand how crazy this is, Jordan had Black September 1970 to 1971, in which cases, Palestinians arrived. The PLO and the Firidian built a state within a state. It was in refugee camps, running checkpoints, collecting taxes, and defying Jordanian authority. They hijacked planes at Dawson’s Field, triggered king Hussein’s army to act, and they killed thousands of Palestinian civilians. they they killed more Palestinian civilians than we’ve killed Iranian civilians since the start of this war. Just just Speaker 4:So after that, the same
