December 8, 2025 • 45 mins
Dana El Kurd speaks with Matan Kaminer and Ben Schuman-Stoler, hosts of the new podcast series Bad Cousins. They discuss the Abraham Accords, the new plan for Gaza, and what the Abrahamic framing allows for and obfuscates.
Sources:
Bad Cousins - https://badcousins.show/
GREAT Trust Plan - https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/f86dd56a-de7f-4943-af4a-84819111b727.pdf
A Plan to Rebuild Gaza Lists Nearly 30 Companies. Many Say They’re Not Involved - https://www.wired.com/story/a-plan-to-rebuild-gaza-lists-nearly-30-companies-many-say-theyre-not-involved/
Paradox of Peace - https://academic.oup.com/isagsq/article/3/3/ksad042/7280243
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Zone Media. Hello everyone, this is Dana al Kurd for
it could happen here. Today's episode will be focused on
AIRB Israelian normalization, Arab Israeli peace deals, and AIRB Israeli
relations more generally. The reason that this is an important
topic to discuss is because a few weeks ago, The
(00:23):
Washington Post published this PowerPoint presentation originating in the Trump
administration titled The Great Trust From a demolished Iranian proxy
to a prosperous Abrahamic Ally. And this presentation is about Gaza,
the US and Israeli vision for what Gaza's quote unquote
reconstruction will look like. And the word Great itself is
(00:47):
an acronym that stands for Gaza reconstitution, economic acceleration, and transformation. Now,
this presentation has so much in it that horrifies any
normal human being, but essentially it outlines this vision for
how Gaza is going to be reconstructed, and throughout the
(01:07):
entire document, it's very clear that whatever remains of Gaza's
population will not have any political rights. There is some
gesturing at some point about handing over some governance to
quote vetted Palestinians, but there's also a repeated discussion within
this presentation, within this document of how they want to
(01:28):
incentivize a significant segment of Gaza's population to leave Gaza
altogether and not return, and they want to financially incentivize
them to do that. I think the entire presentation is
worth looking at. I'll put it in the show notes
because it really outlines what they think Gaza is going
to look like and what they plan for the Palestinians
(01:48):
more generally. The reason why Arab is really a normalization
is important to discuss given this presentation, Given what's happening
in Gaza after ceasefire is present very much in this
dog It's very clear from the presentation that the US
and Israel envision a particular role for Arab governments in
this reconstruction and in this new Middle East that they
(02:10):
hope to achieve a Middle East where Gaza is this
economic zone, connecting it to Saudi Arabia, connecting it to
other parts of the Middle East, opening up investment opportunities
for different Middle Eastern governments and companies in the Global
North as well, and it really is just an astounding
vision to behold. Referring to Gaza as a demolished Iranian
(02:30):
proxy that they want to turn into an Abrahamic ally
is also interesting here because we've seen this kind of
language in the last couple of years, especially during the
first Trump administration with the Abraham Accords. Now the Abraham Accords,
as this episode will outline in detail, were agreements signed
between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and
(02:53):
eventually Morocco and a part of Sudan. And these agreements
were billed as this new era of peace between Arabs
and Israel under this kind of religious language and religious
framing of Abraham as the father of both Jews and Arabs,
Jews and Muslims. So to discuss this entire framework, what
(03:14):
it means, what it obfuscates today, I'm joined by Ben
Schumann Stohler and Matan Kammoner who have created a new
podcast series called Bad Cousins. This is published by Colomdia
in partnership with the Diasporust and they recently had an
event in Berlin debuting their first episode, which full disclosure
I'm on, but essentially they tackled this question of why
(03:37):
are the Abraham Accords named after Abraham? What was that
intended to denote and why is Arab Israelian normalization such
a big piece of the puzzle in understanding both Israeli
Palsiinian conflict right now as well as the vision for
the Israeli Pastinian conflict from the American and Israeli perspective.
So please enjoy this interview with Ben and Mattan want
(03:59):
to to give you guys a chance to introduce yourselves
to the audience.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
So the time would you like to start? Sure?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I'm an anthropologist. I work at Queen Mary University in London.
My main research is on migration from Thailand to Israel
for agricultural work. But this project is something of a
side project that's blossomed together with Ben, who have been
good friends with for I think we're we a decade now,
all right.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, I remember that first book on the Time migrants.
But you have also published extensively on the Arab is
really normalization questions, So yeah, we'll get into it.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Ben.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Yeah, I'm Benjamin Soler. I'm a founder and owner of
Colo Media here in Berlin, Germany.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
We're an audio publisher.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
We have audiobooks and shows and documentaries in English and German.
And yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
All right, So the listeners, I'm sure are going to
be a little bit aware, but let's kind of just
define terms at the top of this. When we say
arab is really normalization, well, what do we mean by that?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
So it's a long, long process, it's not new.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
One of the interesting things that I found out when
researching this, the article that this podcast came out of,
is that more than one hundred years ago, High White
Span who was head of the Zionist organization, and King
Faisal were in very very close communication about an agreement
that it seems a lot like the progenitor of the
Arab courts today.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
We had a very sort of.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Strong pro Western orientation on both sides, pro imperialist, if
you like use that language. We had a disdain for
the Palestinians as people who were not supposedly an important
factor in the politics of the area. And we had
a framing of Arabs and Jews as relatives as kin,
(05:41):
which is one that we trace back in the show
to the sort of Abrahamic concept that has really come
to the fore with the naming of the abraham Courts.
Of course, there's a long long history since then, with
the bigger landmarks being the Egyptian Israelian normalization in the
late in eighteen seventies seventy nine I think, and of
course Danian Israeli normalization in nineteen ninety four, which came
(06:02):
very very tightly knit with the Oslocords and the initiation
of so called peace talks between the Palestines and the Israelis.
So the Palestins war, of course, do play a central
role here, whether as present or as a present absentees
as Israelis like to call them sometimes today. Of course,
we fast forward to the twenty twenties. The Abraham Accords
(06:25):
were assigned between Israel, Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco and one
of the warring factions in Sudan back in twenty twenty,
and of course there's a kind of live project led
by the US under Trump as well as Biden to
extend normalization between Israel and not only Arab countries, but
(06:45):
other so called Islamic countries like Kazakhstan.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Kazakhstan, yes, which.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Has had diplomatic relations since nineteen ninety two, but we'll
get into that.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yeah, yeah, But those other ones, of course, that are
on the table. I think Indonesia has been spoken about.
Pakistan is always some harring in the background, the big
fish in Saudi Arabia, and we can talk about that as.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Well, right, Yeah, And when we say normalization, usually people
are referring to the formal normalization of diplomatic ties, because
a lot of these countries, a lot of the Arab
countries had a position reiterated in the Arab Peace Initiative
of two thousand and two that they would not have
normal ties with the State of Israel until a resolution
(07:25):
of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, and the Abraham Accords was
a step away from that kind of breaking of that precedent.
But if we think about kind of under the table normalization,
of course there are so many ways in which these
Arab countries have had under the table normalization to varying
degrees with the.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
State of Israel.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Ben, maybe you could tell us about what the Abraham
Accords were, how are they build and what did they include.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
You have to make sure the precision of my language
is on point. But there's two agreements, right, There's two
things that were actually signed. So one is the framework, right,
which which discusses like the Abraham Accords as this unit
the decoration of principles, the declaration of principles, and the
other one's a peace treaty, right, the peace treaty between
Israel and the UE and in other countries.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Right.
Speaker 5 (08:11):
So essentially that's what it is. It's these two signings.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
But I think when you when you talk about how
it was presented, it's supposed to mean, it's supposed to
be like a vehicle conduit for travel, for security, for economics,
for UH, for deals, for cultural interchange, for a new
way to be seen. It's like a massive pr exercise,
(08:38):
a ton jumping, and with the with the specifics, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
I mean what we're kind of honing in on here
is the sort of sort of cultural or ideological aspects,
if you want to be more stern about it, and
I think you know that that's that's that's the real
interest of the show is in how the sort of
mythical framework that I refer to already, and specifically the
figure of Abraham is really really central to this kind
of ideological framing of their course. Like Alamfacher has written
(09:02):
extensively about how toleration and tolerance have become sort of
ideological tools, and Abraham is kind of a figurehead for that.
He does this in two different ways that I think
are interesting for listeners to sort of follow on. The
first is as the progenitor or the kind of.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
A figure out of Monotheism.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
So Jews, Christians, and Muslims all all have a stake
in Abraham, and of course this concept of the Abrahamic
religions that's very central here. But another one, and we
already mentioned this as well, is this the sort of
language of kinship of Jews.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
And Arabs as being related to one another.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
As being specifically cousins or so it is called bad cousins.
Because we're kind of exploring the various modalities or the
various kind of shades of meaning and mood that this
this idea of cousins can have. It can be very positive,
of course, you know a lot of people say, oh Abraham,
that's so, he's a wonderful figure of peace, of hospitality,
et cetera.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
But they are also really dark sides to it.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Dark size that we really get into are this sort
of misogyny that's very very central in the Abraham myth,
the underpinnings of slavery versus freedom that are that are
really really present there and maybe most prominent and most
important to me, maybe as somebody who also studies migration
to the area, is xenophobia. So something that you and
I have written about, you know, the similarities between the UE,
for example, and Israel that aren't really considered, that aren't
(10:12):
thought about much. One that's always stood out to me
is the way that migrant workers are treated in both
these countries. The Golf States, including including Douee, are huge
obviously users of non citizen migrant labor. Israel is not
as big, So it's not as big as phenomenal in
Israel there, but it's growing a lot, especially since since
since October seventh when Pasteena workers have been shut out
(10:32):
of the Israeli market. And so I think Israel is
like the Golf States in a lot of these ways.
It's also getting more getting to be more like them.
And Abraham is kind of a prism or figuring through
which we start to explore all these issues.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
So in my mind, when the Abraham Accords were you know,
whispered about and then we saw them happen, and you know,
I've been writing about Araba's Relian normalization since since before
the Abraham Accords in smaller ways. But in my mind
when I kind of heard that terminology being used and
that framing being used, to me, it felt deceptive that
(11:10):
they were using this term of like the Abraham Accords
denoting and hearkening back to like the idea of the
Abrahamic tradition and that we're kin and all of these
things for listeners who are bad at religion as I am.
Abraham had two sons, presumed, you know, apparently, and one
of those sons is the ancestor of Jews and the
(11:31):
other one is the ancestor of Arabs, if you believe that.
So anyway, I'm not gonna have blespheme on this podcast,
but I.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Think the story is important. I mean, it is a deception.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
I totally agree with you on that, but it's important
to unpack how the deception.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Works, right right right.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
It's so effective because the story is so well known
to people in the region.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
No, absolutely, absolutely, But to me, like the deception lay
in the framing of Arab and Israeli animosity through a
religious perspective, as if the con was a religious one.
So to me it felt kind of very shallow But
then as you start to unpack not only the impacts
of the Abraham Accords immediately, so immediately repression increases in
(12:11):
these countries that sign the agreement, But then you start
to unpack, like, what are these accords actually serving for
the Arab countries that are signing Why are they signing
with Israel. Well, they're re engineering. They're attempting to re
engineer society. A lot of that tolerance language has to
do with that. It's they don't want societies that are
politically active. They want them to be interested in consumerism,
(12:34):
they want them to be maybe slightly socially liberal, tolerate
the Israelis, tolerate war crimes and you know, kumbaya, and
never ever have the ability to question the political leadership
or the political status quo in any of these countries
or in the region as a whole.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Yeah, I think it's all that, But I think it's
also a global power move right. The Gulf countries, including Katar,
which has a different politics, are all really trying to
make for themselves to become really, really huge global players.
They're basically all trying to transform this gigantic oil wealth
that they have into soft power, into diplomatic power into
cultural power. You know this, This this brings us into
(13:12):
the comedy festival in Saudi Arabia as well, Right, And
I think I think part of the framework here is
we're part of this larger global story which is about freedom,
piece and friendship through religion.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Now, what's the deception here?
Speaker 3 (13:23):
The deception is this sort of and I think been
uh this is one of one of his favorite points,
so he can he can expand on this. There's a
sort of like a switcheroo game in which something else
is brought into view and the Palestinians are hidden.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Right.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
The crux of the conflict, the crux of what is
basically brought Israel to to go wild on the entire region,
attacking seven different countries simultaneously, is the Palestinians. And it's
always has been the Palestinians, always going to be the Palestinians.
There is and you've written about this as well. There
is a segment of verbe society, especially our believes, especially
in the Gulf, who want nothing to do with the
Palestinians and happy would be happy to.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Get rid of them. But this isn't the case with
the vast majority of air.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
It's also not the case for the vast majority of
global South, I think, and even the vast majority of
the global North right. We've seen very very clear majorities
against Israel's genocide in Gaza, even in the United States,
you know, in Israel's biggest stala Everroat. So there's in
order to not have to talk about this, it's always
good to be able to talk about something else. One
of the many ways, and I'm not saying this is
the only one, one of the many ways in which
(14:21):
the subject has changed is by talking about Abraham.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
So we're doing well.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
I mean, our show has a little bit of a
it's it's it's kind of a difficult to move to
make because we were trying to talk about an excuse
but also impact why that excuse is so powerful.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
You know, there's like a lot of violence in this
peace framing. And if you look at I think it's
point eighteen of the peace framework that Trump talks about,
the Trump presented on Gaza, I think it's I think
it's eighteen.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
I have the quote here, but that number.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
It's you know, an interfeit process will be established based
on the values of tolerance and peaceful coexistence to try
and change mindsets. I mean, this is like to try
and change mindsets and narratives of Palestinians and Israelis by
emphasizing the benefits that can be derived from peace.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
I mean, it's like.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Mafia talk, right, It's like you better do it exactly,
you better you're going to love this piece so much
or else kind of thing. I cut up some audio
from the episodes and from the interview with you, Donna
that at the live event that we had here in
Berlin a couple weeks ago. This topic is so feels
so urgent and relevant to so many people that like,
more than fifty people came out in the rain in
November in Berlin, and one of the things I played
(15:34):
was was exactly when you called it an obfluscation, like
there's this paradox where all these things that are under
the table are coming up and are now explicit, these
secret deals with gold states, this normalization that you know,
you two had known about, you know, in your research,
but people like me would know about if they're not following,
if they're not academics, if they're not following this closely.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
And yet the Abramcords brought this all.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Up, Okay, now everyone knows right now, we know that
like this is about Iran, this is about security, this
is about you know, these material issues, right. But at
the same time that it's playing on this kind of
clarity and this openness, right, and this moderation, it's also
creating a whole new obfiscation, a whole new myth. And
(16:13):
you know, people love love this quote. Like there was
a lot of like nodding heads in the audience when
I played what you said, Donald, which was like as if, right,
like as if this is about religion, it's about land,
and it's about sovereignty, and that's clear.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
But these aren't called the Land and Sovereignty Accords.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I mean, like you said, like you said, it's very violent.
I mean I've been describing normalization under these terms as
well as the Abraham Accords in particular, as authoritarian conflict management,
because it maintains structural violence. It's not attempting to solve
the underlying you know, motivations for that violence, which, as
you said, is the Israeli Pastinian conflict, which is the land,
which is the war crimes. And I think also I
(16:53):
want to just emphasize for listeners that the tolerance framing
in particular, there's like the flip side to it, which
is you better like this piece or else. And we're
calling it peace and it's Abrahamic, So like, if you
don't like it, what does that say about you? Are
you intolerant? Are you an anti Semite? Are you you know, like,
it's just how could you be against peace? The piece
(17:15):
is in the name, but it's a very particular type
of piece.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
It's a liberal I think, I think authoritarian conflict management
is a very good way of putting it. But also
it's also very helpful to help to explain why the
abraham myth is so useful in that regard. Can we
just go over the story real, real, real quick for
listeners who aren't that familiar. Yes, please, So Abraham who
is known as in all the so called Abrahamic religions
as the first one to explicitly reject idolatry. Right, so,
(17:42):
there are there are other righteous men in the Bible
before him, but he's the first one who becomes what
is in ISLAMI is known as the friend of God right,
so el Khalid, and he also, in addition to having
this very very intimate relationship with God. He also has
a family, right, and in this family he has a
wife and a maid servant. The wife is named Sarah,
and and the maid servant is named Hagar. Now we're
(18:03):
gonna do this quick, don't worry. Sarah is barren, she
can't have children, and she says to She says to Abraham,
I have an idea. Why don't you have a child
with a maid servant with Agar, and it'll be my child.
So already, already, I think we can see authoritarianism. We
can see we can see authoritarian conflict management already as
kind of the seed that's that's planted in the story,
(18:25):
Hagar has a child. That child is named Ishmael, and
Ishmael is beloved by his father. It's the Old Testament, says,
So it's very very clear, right. But then Sarah gets jealous.
She says, well, you know this, this son is going
to and his mother are going to be basically the
pushing me out of my of my status within the family. YadA, YadA, YadA.
There's a lot of other stuff that goes on, very
very interesting and very fascinating, and lots of it very
(18:46):
well known, like to called Sacrifice of Isaac she miraculously
has the child.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
That child's named Isaac.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Everyone agrees within these scriptural traditions that Isaac is the
father of the Jews and Ishmael is the father of
the Arabs. This is central to both Jewish theology, Islamic theology,
and the Christians, in so far as they're involved in
the story, they're also in on.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Now then the question becomes who which one of them
is the blessed son?
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Which one of the which is one of the one
is the one who's supposed to inherit the land that
is the holy land, wherever that's defined, And that's a
little bit vague as well. The Jews say it's Isaac
and the muslim to say it's Ishmael. So we have
a we have a story. What my dissertation advisor, Andrew
Tria are called a community of disagreement. There are people
who disagree on something, but they don't disagree on the frame, right,
the frame in which all that that the entire story
(19:27):
is inserted, is one in which there's no disagreement. Everybody
agrees that Abraham had two kids. Everybody agrees that the
women are basically you know that the women. This part
of the story is predicated on their sons, on.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Whether their sons succeed. Is is what makes the women
succeed or not?
Speaker 3 (19:41):
And then the question becomes which one is the favorite son,
which one is the one that the father loves, and
then the big father up ap of also loves. Right now,
this is in itself, I think, at least in the
way that it's framed in the Abra aperrahomical courts, a
form of what do you call it, authoritarian crisis management?
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Right, that's what it is.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Now, that doesn't mean and I think that this is
this is also important. This is also one of the
reasons that we made the podcast that there's no other
ways of reading the story.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
How else could we read the story?
Speaker 3 (20:04):
For example, we could point out we could note that
the person who has the most intimate contact with God
in this entire story is Hagar.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
She's the first and only person.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
In the Bible to give God a name. She calls
him Ellroy, the God who has seen me. She has
at least two miracles down to her. In Islam, of course,
her story in Ishmael story becomes the story of Mecca.
All the traditions of the Hajj are based around the
story of Hagar and Ishmael. So she's a central central figure,
and she is a slave woman. She's an Egyptian, she's
the one who's cast out into the desert. She's a migrant.
Her name Hagar or Hajar in Arabic means migrant or migration. Right,
(20:35):
there's all these powerful undercurrents in the story, as there
are in every powerful myth, that mean that they can
be read differently, and some people are reading it differently.
So I don't think the story itself is the problem.
The problem is that the story is used in a
very particular way, in a way which facilitates again what
you call conflictual sorry, conflict conflict management.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah, I mean it's a it's a mouthful.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Maybe that helps us to get to wh what the
podcast does, Like who do you speak to? I know
I'm on one of the episodes, but who else do
you speak to? And like what trends were surprising to you?
How did your kind of thinking shift over time?
Speaker 4 (21:12):
I mean, let me start at least because one thing
we talked a lot about at the live event, there
was a panel and there was a discussion with the audience,
and one thing that's become excessively clear, like we heard
my time to explain the story. I'm not from the
Middle East, right, And also in this Berlin audience, like
the relevance of the story as a Bible story. I know,
I've heard of the story, but it doesn't have that
(21:32):
much impact for me, like on my life or on
how I understand the world. It's a story, It's a
Bible story. And we felt this from the European audience, right.
We heard people say something like like, Okay, this is
a myth, but are these the myths that are worth
exploring right now? You know, maybe with like looking at
the at other myths of more like material issues, and
(21:52):
I think what we're trying to do with the show
is also explained well. But these do affect people's lives
in the Middle East, Like this is something in fact
episode two, which canout in a couple of weeks. We
have all these vox pop interviews from the Old City
of Jerusalem where we talk to people on the street
and just ask like why do you think Jews and
Arabs are cousins?
Speaker 5 (22:08):
And what does that mean?
Speaker 4 (22:09):
And what does that mean with the Abraham Accords, And
immediately everybody had different Israelis and the Arabs that you
talked to him, it's on a different understandings of the
Abraham Accords, good and bad. But if you said, why
is it called the Abraham Accords, every single one of
them are like, oh, yeah, because we're cousins.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
Yeah, so start there, right.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
So, so episode one was about the kind of geopolitics,
but that's why you were on Donna episode two explaining
this kind of what does that mean? Then that if
everybody can agree that the Jews in the Arabs are cousins,
but the Abraham Accords are seen with all of these
like we already started talking about, you know, all these
obfuscating kind of nasty, hidden, violent undertones but also.
Speaker 5 (22:45):
Kind of like sick. You know, we can fly there
or whatever, like all this tourism.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
And high fiving and entrepreneurship and you know the biggest
satyr of whatever UAE history or whatever that was, you know.
So like so we start there and then and the
idea is to really like then turn this whole thing
around and look at the myths and look at the
stories and try and understand from all these different sides.
(23:09):
We go into you know, medieval Islamic stories and texts
and the idea of hospitality and the idea of cousinage
and what does cousins mean? And I mean Matan, you
can you can go further here, but the idea of
the show really starts from there, right, And that's how
we're going to like start at the geopolitics and end
up hopefully and turning the whole Abraham idea thing in
(23:32):
such a such a somersault that it lands right on
its head or right on its butt or something. And
and not only can we kind of dismantle it or
understand it and take it apart, but then maybe like
reclaim it in a different way and maybe even use
it for some kind of positive progressive purposes, even radical
ones that I mean Matan and his activism and his research.
You've you know, you've Maton, you say you've already seen
(23:54):
and kind of he has to make the case to me,
you know, that's kind of the framing of the podcast.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Like I'm eternally making the case that's okay, I think
I think it's it's it's it's kind of a it's
kind of a difficult case to make. And and and
the fact that people keep challenging me on it, I
think is very is very productive. Well, one other thing
that came up in Berlin, and I think it was
really interesting, is that Ben sort of touched on this
at the beginning of what he was saying just now,
the way that framing this as the Abraham course, framing
it as the Abraham story tends to make it easier
(24:19):
for people from Europe or from the United States to
UH to North America to see themselves as the outside
of this story.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Right, So this done. You also alluded to this. There's
this idea that this is like an age old conflict,
you know.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Between these these these relatives who are always quarreling between
themselves and oh, it's so difficult to people over there.
Yeah yeah, Q like oriental music right in the background.
And and hence that we rational outsiders, we Westerners, we Christians,
et cetera, all these sort of vaguely linked identities that
so called outsiders have. We are sort of neutral and
(24:53):
rational outsiders who can play a mediating role and bring
this this, this uh, this whole ancient mess to an end.
But the funny thing about this is that it's also
a religious kind of there's also a religious undertone here.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
There is this idea.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
You know, a lot a lot of scholars have written
about how so called secularism, so called enlightenment, you know,
in the West, actually is a secularized form of Christianity
in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
And this is really actually very very.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Clear in this Abrahamic framing, because there is this idea
that Christianity is superior to these other two religions, right,
this is this is this is the actual universal religion.
This is the one that is able to encompass and
sort of transcend the other ones. And hence, I think
maybe this was controversial a few years ago, but nowadays
I think it's quite clear that the US sees itself
as a as a as a Christian state, right, even
sees itself as a crusader state.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
I mean, they stayed it pretty clearly.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
With the Secretary of Defense having deis volt tattoos on
his chest. Right, So this is this is no longer
they're saying the quiet part out loud in this in
this in this context as well, and they think that
they can come in, you know, and as these sort
of outsiders solve things, but they're actually deeply implicated in
the story themselves for much much earlier than the nineteenth century.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
We could but go back to the Crusades if we want.
Europe has always.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Been involved in the Middle East, right, and the Middle
East has been involved in Europe force. These are near foreigners, right,
So there's no innocence here, right, there's no there's nobody
who's outside the story and Abrahamic framework. One of the
I think sort of pernicious ways in which it's acting
in this in this current conjuncture, in this current day
and age, is as this sort of framing that neutralizes
the Western influence.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
It makes it seem objective and rational.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
And also I think allows the Golf states to claim that.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Right.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
There's like some interesting stuff in the Facult book that
I didn't quite put together about the you know, sort
of elite Amarati perspectives as liberal and anti democratic. But
if you're pro business in a certain way, then you
can claim this kind of you know, like Dona Matan,
you two have written about moderation a lot, but this
(26:47):
idea for me of like, if you can claim you
know the business forward thinking, then you're also modern. Then
you're also considered you know, more above like you have
a different elevation and it different sort of legitimacy according
to this worldview, than somebody that would care about such
things as the Jews in the Arabs. What an ancient,
(27:07):
old fashioned kind of passe, you know, the Palestinian issue,
you know, kind of thing. But you know what's cool,
like artificial intelligence and like shipping deals in the Indian
Ocean that's new, you know, Yeah, that's sick. Like yeah,
golf and like virtual reality watching people play golf.
Speaker 5 (27:24):
Like that would be awesome. Yeah, And it's sort of
data that's sort of invited.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Dubai Chocolate, I could go on.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
It's I still think the Sator, like the biggest ador
in Nemuradi history or whatever, is my favorite anecdote. But
the way that it invited this space so like it's
almost like a genius. Like maybe it was like Jared
Kushner's great genius was to see this, like, you know,
ability to let other people claim the same Christian elevation right,
the same like, uh, I'm on the shaky ground here now,
(27:54):
so I'll stop.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, I don't know. If I don't know genius, I
don't I might dispute, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
In a way, it's in a way it'skind of obvious, right,
Like they were they were always going to call these
Abraham McCords when they did them in a way, right,
Derek Chrishnew, I don't.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Know he was. He's the right guy. He's the right
guy in the right place at the right time, more
than anything else.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
But do you understand what I mean that like this
invitation into this perpector that you were saying, which is
kind of like Christian you know, in the in our
event to Berlin, someone said something like, even without the
Jewish Muslim context.
Speaker 5 (28:22):
We have this problem. We have this problem in this region.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
And the abramccords allows the conversation to happen on this
level of let's talk about chips, let's talk about fighter jets,
you know, let's talk about drones, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Drones, yeah, purveillance.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
One of the things that I think is really important
is it sort of normalis is this idea that there
is a place for everybody and the people shouldn't be mixed.
And there's really extreme right, the religious extreme right in Israel.
There is this notion of the distancing of Ishmael for
his correction, right, what's the idea here is that the Ishmaelites,
that is the Arabs, that is the muslim that is,
the Palestinians.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
They have their place in the world.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
It's just that that place isn't here, It's somewhere else,
in a place is called Arabia, right, And therefore that's
why we can be friends with them Airathis because their
Marthis or Arabs is in the right place in Arabia.
The Palestinians, however, they are a problem because they are
Arabs who don't realize what.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
The right place is.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
They can stay here if they accept total subjugation. Basically,
you know, the Smultrich's plan is sort of a secularization
decisive plan. Yeah, his decisiveness plan or whatever that's called
is is is a sort of secularization of things that
Kahana was saying, the so called Rabbi Mayor Kahana was
saying in the nineteen eighties, the sort of spiritual father
of Israeli extreme right. They can stay here if they
(29:32):
if they're willing to be our slaves. Basically, if not,
they can go to Arabia. And once they're in Arabia
they can be they can be our best friends. And
this is this is really I think very very closely
connected to the animosity towards migrants.
Speaker 5 (29:43):
Right.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
That brings me back to the figure of Hagar or Hajar.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Right, she is a migrant, and because she is a migrant,
because she's not in the right place, that's why she's denigrated,
that's why she's exploited, that's why she's she's cast out
into the desert. So it's not just about the Palestinians
in that regard. We can see how this sort of
myth also plays into the hyper exploitation of micro It's
in the Gulf. We can see how it plays into
the racist treatment that refugees from Sub Saharan Africa are
receiving in North Africa.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
Right.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
We literally saw people a couple of years ago in
Tunia being cast out into the desert the way that
Hagar and Ishmael was. And of course this is all
this is all closely related again to Europe, to global
imperial kind of processes, to capitalism. You know, Ben was
talking about heacial hierarchy, special hierarchy, right. So one of
the reasons that I think we need to keep our
eye on this ideology is that in some ways it's
different from what we're used to right.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
It's not for example, white supremacy.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Right were used to think about white supremacy as this
sort of globally dominant racial ideology, but this.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Is something different.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
This is not about people being better because they're white.
It's about people being better because they're in their right place.
And that's actually, i think, something that's really coming up
very very strong on the global far right, on the
far right globally, this idea that you know, oh you'll
see like in New York for example, it's not that
we have anything against black people or Arabs or Asians
or anything else. They just need to stay in their
own countries as so long as everybody stays in their
own countries, that's fine.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
And you know, with climate change, with.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
All these catastrophica ecological changes that are happening in the world,
people are going to be moving. And we already we
already see people in masses moving from place to place,
but that's going to be larger and larger movements as
in the coming decades. And you know, the basic test
of humanity is going to be the test of hospitality,
whether people are allowed to into new places that they
have to go to in order to survive and this
sort of ideology I think is already sort of primed.
(31:18):
It's primed to to deny that and to say no,
you've got to just stay in your own space, right.
So against that, Abraham I would like to place Huggar.
I think she's the She's she's the answer.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
So I mean, that's fascinating. I've never really kind of
thought about I've never really thought too hard about this
story because as a Muslim and Arab child, it upset me.
But I do want to say, like there is as
you as you mentioned, like there is a general trending
towards Ethno nationalism all over the world, but the Goal
(32:00):
States cannot manage Ethno nationalism. Saudi Arabia is kind of
a little bit of a different story. But the ones
that signed, they are minorities in their countries. On top
of that, to their own citizens, to Immorti citizens, to
Bahani citizens, they are illegitimate. They are only legitimate by
virtue of providing economic opportunities. You know, those cracks have
(32:22):
already been showing up. So the way in which these
countries can build legitimacy for themselves, offset possible public pressure,
offset any kind of accountability for their regional role. People
forget that the United Arab Emirates is deeply implicated in
the genocide in Sudan. The way that they connect with
what is I think inherently a white supremacist and things
like this, but of course they're not white. Is what
(32:45):
Yesino hash Salda Hassyrian theorist, calls the ideology of modernism.
He was writing about the promise and the discourse of
the Assaid regime when Bashada Assaid came the power. But
when I read it, I was like, this sounds a
lot like the ideology of these states. And so he
says it has three traits. It entirely neglects issues of
values such as freedom, equality, human dignity, mutual respect among people,
(33:10):
in favor of morally amorphous categories such as secularism, enlightenment,
and modernism itself. It neglects fundamental social issues related to poverty, unemployment, marginalization,
life conditions, gender relations, et cetera. And the advocates of
this modernism are politically conservative, I mean, just.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
To a t.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, that's the Abraham Accords and an unchill right there exactly.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah, And I you know, I wrote about this in
the context of the Abraham Accords in a paper I
published in twenty twenty three. But ya seen hashsala like
kind of nailed it back in twenty eleven that this
was the trend.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah. I think Syrians saw a lot of things earlier
than the rest of us.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah, definitely, And so this is their vision for the world,
and I think this is the vision of a lot
of essentially the right in the world, even in America.
Likely they don't care about democracy.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
They want this.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
They want you to be prosperous and in your place,
and yeah, everybody stays separate.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Yeah, there's a.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Sort of like callousness around all of it, which I
think is it's actually a draw for some people, because
you know, cynicism is a big thing in the world,
and people are I think one of the reasons that
people attracted to Trump, for example, is because it's clear
that he's a completely cynical actor, you know, who's only
out for his own sake, and people are sort of,
you know, for better or worse, sick of the of
liberal hypocrisy, so.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
They gravitate towards that.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
And it's funny, I mean, you would think that that
wouldn't go hand in hand with religion or these mythical stories,
but it actually does, you know, speaking of prosperity, for example,
there's in evangelicalism there's a very strong strand of what's
called like the prosperity gospel, this idea and this has
you know, very very old roots in Calvinism as well.
If you make it in the world, if you're rich,
if you make if you make a lot of money,
that means that God loves you.
Speaker 5 (34:47):
That's like a proof.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Right, And so there again we shouldn't think about religion
too narrowly. Religion is really infused and all these sorts
of social ideologies, among which are this and I think
this is very very prominent day perhaps story in the
Abrahamicks story.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Is that well, you know, if they have oil, if
they have riches.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
If they've managed to sort of manipulate the global economy
to their own advantage, then more power to them. Right,
And that's attractive. That's that's something that you want to
that's a train that you want to get on. Maybe
they'll give you a plane too, right. That was the Kataris,
That wasn't ue, So we shouldn't get them mixed up.
But I think it's kind of the same story.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, no, I completely agree. So, I mean I started
this discussion by talking about the plants for reconstruction in
Gaza m HM. And you've already mentioned that, like the
big whale for the Trump administration is Saudi Arabia. They
watch Saudi Arabia to normalize with Israel. What are some
things we should watch for in the near future. What
(35:42):
do you where do you think this Arab is reel
A normalization is going to go.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
I'm always hesitant to make predictions. I think it's a
It's it's an extremely volatile moment. This ceasefiring guys that
God knows if it's going to hold or if there
residre is going to go back in and start genociding again.
I think we're also seeing these really really rapid movements
throughout the region with I mean, we keep, we've keep,
We've kept alluding to cut our cutter and Turkey are
really playing a really much bigger role now than they
(36:07):
and they were until recently. And that's with with American blessing,
so that's also going to change. I think the sort
of calculus that that that Saudi makes, But broadly speaking,
I think one thing that we really need to keep
an eye on. Is this Imat Corridor, this idea of
that basically Biden administration was was was starting up, but
but Trump is really sort of put into into hyperdrive,
which is this idea of connecting India, the Gulf, Israel,
(36:29):
and Europe through a sort of alternative to China's Belton
Road initiative. It revolves around oil and gas, but it
also revolves around data centers and AI so sort of
geopolitically and and and and geoeconomically, I think that's that's
that's the big plan that the Americans have hatched for
for the region, and that basically means turning Gaza into
some sort of concentration camp slash as easy especially Economic zone.
(36:51):
Right there are really really really frightening plans to ethnically
clans about half of the guns in population and to
uh and to sort of turn the rest of them
into into well basically slaves, you know, basically uh, unfree
workers in these in this so called the especially Economic
zone that the that they're that they're trying to set up. Now,
whether any of this is going to actually happen, I
(37:12):
think it's anybody's it's anybody's guess.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
At this point, but it's it's it's very clear.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
And I just saw a physiata speaking about this at
the Historical Materialism conference in London.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
It's very clear that it's their plan, right, that's the
planet's out there.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
It's it's I don't know if it's even been leaked
or it's just publicly released, that this is what the Americans, Israelis,
Saudis and Immoralties are are planning for the region. It's
a it's a really kind of nightmarish vision that they're
not even they're they're broadcasting out loud, they're not they're
not even pretending to disown it or anything. So you know,
we should take them out their word and we should
be very very clear that this.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Is something totally unacceptable.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
And I mean that's as as as you started out saying,
and I think we've always agreed on this. The question
for the region is the Palestinian question. If the Palestinians
don't have sovereignty, if they don't have freedom, if they
don't have equality, if they don't have the right of return,
then things are not going to uh are not going
to calm down in the region. It's just going to
be more and more, more and more violence, more and
(38:05):
more of this help for everybody, and you know, these
have been hellish years for all of us. I'm not,
of course making any sort of comparison. I think it's
clear that the things that have been happening in Gaza
are beyond any sort of any sort of description in
terms of how hard the genocide has been. But you know,
as in ISRAELI who's currently not living in Israel, and
I would like to return at some point, I really
(38:27):
hope that that that everybody in the region can come
to this very very clear conclusion. You know, whether you
phrase it in religious terms or not. And I don't
think there's a problem with framing it in religious terms.
There are ways of framing it in religious terms, and
we can talk a little bit about that more if
you want. Just the fact that that this that the
indigenous people of Palestine and the Palestinians need to need
to have the rights to respect it and fulfilled, and
that's the only the only way that we can that
(38:48):
we can bring peace that we can bring. You know,
these these really beautiful biblical prophecies about the wolf and
the and the sheep lying down and the cutting down
of swords into the plowershares to make those reality. So
some people might call that missianic, but I think there's
some good, good forms of missionism.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Then do you have any thing to add pop that?
Speaker 4 (39:07):
My hope the past year or two years has been
that if the Abraham Accords elevated, you know, countries like
the AE to a certain like volume, like gave them
a certain audience that maybe they didn't have before internationally,
that then what Israel has done could be criticized more
(39:29):
obviously and that they would actually have some leverage. So
my hope still is that as like normal partners, they
can normal threaten and normal criticize and normal check the
power of their you know quote whatever partners Israel. And
so I'm keeping an eye on hopefully that that that
(39:50):
will start happening more. What we do see is that
like trade continues to go up, and that doesn't seem
to have an impact, and I find that very disappointing.
And also at the same time, I see the polling,
and Donnie, you know more about this than I do,
but the polling shows increasing.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
Criticism of normalization with Israel.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
So you know, the idealist to me thinks that like
civil society will win out eventually, that this is just untenable,
and that what October seventh showed was that and the
and the wars since then, that without dealing with the
central cause in the region, which is the Palacinian cause,
like there will be no possible safe you know, entrepreneurial
(40:35):
dreamland of a rich future that they're claiming is going
to happen.
Speaker 5 (40:40):
So that's my ope. But and I keep an eye
out for that.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
I hope that they use China and Russia as good
countermeasures and counter threats to the American agenda.
Speaker 5 (40:48):
And I keep my eye out for that.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Yeah, I think, uh, I think really that's the that's
the open question moving forward is like will the political
elites went out, will they be able to sidestep the
Palastinian question, sidestep their own publics, who, as you mentioned,
are extremely critical of normalization, extremely supportive of the Palestinian cause.
(41:12):
I think the Americans think that they can. I keep
mentioning this on this podcast, but I was on a
panel with Stanley McCrystal, General and commander of the Joint
what is it, the Joint Armed Forces or whatever in
I Rock and Afghanistan, and he was like, oh, you know,
the Arabs really want to move past the Palestinians, like
it's a thing of the past. If October seventh hadn't happened,
(41:33):
like you know, we would have just moved past the Palestinians.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
And I was like, what the hell are you're talking about.
That's you only say that.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Because you think that you can continue to crush air publics,
like you are predicating your entire strategy on authoritarianism. And
it's it's not an Middle East problem, it's a civil
society all over the world has to fight back against
authoritarianism or this is our reality.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Yeah, this is I think this is the moment now,
and this is one of the ways in which the
rest of the world is becoming more likely our world
in some ways. As we mentioned, we have large majorities
almost everywhere in the world. I think maybe every country
in the world except for Israel. We have a majority
of people who are now supporting Past ten more than
support Israel, who are against the genocide, who say, you know,
who answer the polls in a way that that makes
it clear that they're that they're against what's going on
(42:17):
right and they're against their government supporting it, But most
governments in the world, most governments in the world, including
ones that aren't considered very pro pro us, are are
are basically letting this happen.
Speaker 6 (42:26):
Right.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
That means that there's no effective democracy anywhere in the
world really, except maybe in a few places where you
can say, okay, I don't know, Spain, some countries.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Are island, Yeah, yeah, where even even.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Those countries, I don't think they're they're doing it as
much as as their populations would like them to do.
Speaker 5 (42:41):
Right.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
Right, So, again, this idea that the that the that
the West is somehow essentially different from these other countries,
it's also kind of a lot and it's also something
it's it's also it's also bogus, and we need to
we need we need to call bullshit on that as well. Yeah,
many people have already have already made various arguments, and
there's various ways of making this argument that the Palestinian question,
the question of God's or the question of the genocide
(43:04):
is kind of the global question of our time. I
don't think just because there's a ceasefire that that's.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Going to go away in any way.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
Everything that caused the explosion in the first place is
still there, right, And I think we're going to keep
seeing mobilizations around this issue. I'm sure we are. The
crucial question for me is how we connect this to
other issues, How we connect this to the question of democracy.
Can we connect this to the question of rights for migrants,
how we connect us to the questions of of of
of climate change.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Right, and and and various people are already doing that.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
So I'm not saying this is something that that people
aren't working on, but this is, this is this is
kind of the challenge for for our time and this podcast,
this project is is you know, just just you know,
one small part of that mosaic, which is looking into
the ideology that framed the Chords after Abraham and again
thinking about how we can not just debunk that ideology
and say, oh this is it's not about this, it's
(43:49):
about that, but also about how we can read those
stories in a different way and sort of yeah, exactly,
to subvert it intimate and to read those stories in
a way that that makes progressive sense.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Now, that's I'm really looking forward to listening to the
other episodes, not just my own.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
So, yeah, you sound a little more convinced now than
you did. It after we interviewed you, I'm being really nice. No,
I'm just you're being hospitable like Abraham exactly. It's in
my blood.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
When we played it live, someone came up to me
afterwards and was like, you know, I agree with Donna, right,
And I was like, no.
Speaker 5 (44:20):
I think we all agree, Like that's kind of the point.
I think we all agree on the basics here. The
other part is just sitting in the cringe, as Madan says, oh.
Speaker 6 (44:28):
Nice, yeah, basing basting in the cringe, yeah, basting in
the cringe here, and trying to find our way out
of like a bad mushroom trip hallucination where you can
do things like pretend that the Palestinians don't exist.
Speaker 4 (44:40):
Yeah, you know, that's that's We're trying to be the
orange juice that's supposed to get you out.
Speaker 5 (44:44):
Of the you know, of a bad much person.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
How do they hangover whatever? And yeah, the trip.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
Yeah, sorry, I don't do drugs. I don't understand anyway.
Thank you all so much. This has been a very
interesting episode. And yeah, I'll link in the show notes
for for listeners all of the things mentioned.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
But yeah, more soon.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yeah, episode episode one is already out by the time
your listeners hear this, I think episode two might already
be out as well. Okay, in episode two, we kind
of go into the into the into the backstory. Episode
one was was with you and we talked about the
chords themselves. Episode two we start.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Digging into those into those warm holes of the Abraham.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
The story interesting and we when we talked to people
in Jerusalem again, Ben mentioned this, both Palestinians and Israelis.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
We went and we went out and asked.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
Them what they thought about Abraham Accords and why they
thought it was named after Abraham.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yeah, I'm really excited to listen to that. Thank you
all right, thanks guys, thanks for having us on.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5 (45:41):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed
directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 5 (45:57):
Thanks for listening.
Zone Media. Hello everyone, this is Dana al Kurd for
it could happen here. Today's episode will be focused on
AIRB Israelian normalization, Arab Israeli peace deals, and AIRB Israeli
relations more generally. The reason that this is an important
topic to discuss is because a few weeks ago, The
(00:23):
Washington Post published this PowerPoint presentation originating in the Trump
administration titled The Great Trust From a demolished Iranian proxy
to a prosperous Abrahamic Ally. And this presentation is about Gaza,
the US and Israeli vision for what Gaza's quote unquote
reconstruction will look like. And the word Great itself is
(00:47):
an acronym that stands for Gaza reconstitution, economic acceleration, and transformation. Now,
this presentation has so much in it that horrifies any
normal human being, but essentially it outlines this vision for
how Gaza is going to be reconstructed, and throughout the
(01:07):
entire document, it's very clear that whatever remains of Gaza's
population will not have any political rights. There is some
gesturing at some point about handing over some governance to
quote vetted Palestinians, but there's also a repeated discussion within
this presentation, within this document of how they want to
(01:28):
incentivize a significant segment of Gaza's population to leave Gaza
altogether and not return, and they want to financially incentivize
them to do that. I think the entire presentation is
worth looking at. I'll put it in the show notes
because it really outlines what they think Gaza is going
to look like and what they plan for the Palestinians
(01:48):
more generally. The reason why Arab is really a normalization
is important to discuss given this presentation, Given what's happening
in Gaza after ceasefire is present very much in this
dog It's very clear from the presentation that the US
and Israel envision a particular role for Arab governments in
this reconstruction and in this new Middle East that they
(02:10):
hope to achieve a Middle East where Gaza is this
economic zone, connecting it to Saudi Arabia, connecting it to
other parts of the Middle East, opening up investment opportunities
for different Middle Eastern governments and companies in the Global
North as well, and it really is just an astounding
vision to behold. Referring to Gaza as a demolished Iranian
(02:30):
proxy that they want to turn into an Abrahamic ally
is also interesting here because we've seen this kind of
language in the last couple of years, especially during the
first Trump administration with the Abraham Accords. Now the Abraham Accords,
as this episode will outline in detail, were agreements signed
between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and
(02:53):
eventually Morocco and a part of Sudan. And these agreements
were billed as this new era of peace between Arabs
and Israel under this kind of religious language and religious
framing of Abraham as the father of both Jews and Arabs,
Jews and Muslims. So to discuss this entire framework, what
(03:14):
it means, what it obfuscates today, I'm joined by Ben
Schumann Stohler and Matan Kammoner who have created a new
podcast series called Bad Cousins. This is published by Colomdia
in partnership with the Diasporust and they recently had an
event in Berlin debuting their first episode, which full disclosure
I'm on, but essentially they tackled this question of why
(03:37):
are the Abraham Accords named after Abraham? What was that
intended to denote and why is Arab Israelian normalization such
a big piece of the puzzle in understanding both Israeli
Palsiinian conflict right now as well as the vision for
the Israeli Pastinian conflict from the American and Israeli perspective.
So please enjoy this interview with Ben and Mattan want
(03:59):
to to give you guys a chance to introduce yourselves
to the audience.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
So the time would you like to start? Sure?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I'm an anthropologist. I work at Queen Mary University in London.
My main research is on migration from Thailand to Israel
for agricultural work. But this project is something of a
side project that's blossomed together with Ben, who have been
good friends with for I think we're we a decade now,
all right.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, I remember that first book on the Time migrants.
But you have also published extensively on the Arab is
really normalization questions, So yeah, we'll get into it.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Ben.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Yeah, I'm Benjamin Soler. I'm a founder and owner of
Colo Media here in Berlin, Germany.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
We're an audio publisher.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
We have audiobooks and shows and documentaries in English and German.
And yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
All right, So the listeners, I'm sure are going to
be a little bit aware, but let's kind of just
define terms at the top of this. When we say
arab is really normalization, well, what do we mean by that?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
So it's a long, long process, it's not new.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
One of the interesting things that I found out when
researching this, the article that this podcast came out of,
is that more than one hundred years ago, High White
Span who was head of the Zionist organization, and King
Faisal were in very very close communication about an agreement
that it seems a lot like the progenitor of the
Arab courts today.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
We had a very sort of.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Strong pro Western orientation on both sides, pro imperialist, if
you like use that language. We had a disdain for
the Palestinians as people who were not supposedly an important
factor in the politics of the area. And we had
a framing of Arabs and Jews as relatives as kin,
(05:41):
which is one that we trace back in the show
to the sort of Abrahamic concept that has really come
to the fore with the naming of the abraham Courts.
Of course, there's a long long history since then, with
the bigger landmarks being the Egyptian Israelian normalization in the
late in eighteen seventies seventy nine I think, and of
course Danian Israeli normalization in nineteen ninety four, which came
(06:02):
very very tightly knit with the Oslocords and the initiation
of so called peace talks between the Palestines and the Israelis.
So the Palestins war, of course, do play a central
role here, whether as present or as a present absentees
as Israelis like to call them sometimes today. Of course,
we fast forward to the twenty twenties. The Abraham Accords
(06:25):
were assigned between Israel, Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco and one
of the warring factions in Sudan back in twenty twenty,
and of course there's a kind of live project led
by the US under Trump as well as Biden to
extend normalization between Israel and not only Arab countries, but
(06:45):
other so called Islamic countries like Kazakhstan.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Kazakhstan, yes, which.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Has had diplomatic relations since nineteen ninety two, but we'll
get into that.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yeah, yeah, But those other ones, of course, that are
on the table. I think Indonesia has been spoken about.
Pakistan is always some harring in the background, the big
fish in Saudi Arabia, and we can talk about that as.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Well, right, Yeah, And when we say normalization, usually people
are referring to the formal normalization of diplomatic ties, because
a lot of these countries, a lot of the Arab
countries had a position reiterated in the Arab Peace Initiative
of two thousand and two that they would not have
normal ties with the State of Israel until a resolution
(07:25):
of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, and the Abraham Accords was
a step away from that kind of breaking of that precedent.
But if we think about kind of under the table normalization,
of course there are so many ways in which these
Arab countries have had under the table normalization to varying
degrees with the.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
State of Israel.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Ben, maybe you could tell us about what the Abraham
Accords were, how are they build and what did they include.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
You have to make sure the precision of my language
is on point. But there's two agreements, right, There's two
things that were actually signed. So one is the framework, right,
which which discusses like the Abraham Accords as this unit
the decoration of principles, the declaration of principles, and the
other one's a peace treaty, right, the peace treaty between
Israel and the UE and in other countries.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Right.
Speaker 5 (08:11):
So essentially that's what it is. It's these two signings.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
But I think when you when you talk about how
it was presented, it's supposed to mean, it's supposed to
be like a vehicle conduit for travel, for security, for economics,
for UH, for deals, for cultural interchange, for a new
way to be seen. It's like a massive pr exercise,
(08:38):
a ton jumping, and with the with the specifics, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
I mean what we're kind of honing in on here
is the sort of sort of cultural or ideological aspects,
if you want to be more stern about it, and
I think you know that that's that's that's the real
interest of the show is in how the sort of
mythical framework that I refer to already, and specifically the
figure of Abraham is really really central to this kind
of ideological framing of their course. Like Alamfacher has written
(09:02):
extensively about how toleration and tolerance have become sort of
ideological tools, and Abraham is kind of a figurehead for that.
He does this in two different ways that I think
are interesting for listeners to sort of follow on. The
first is as the progenitor or the kind of.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
A figure out of Monotheism.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
So Jews, Christians, and Muslims all all have a stake
in Abraham, and of course this concept of the Abrahamic
religions that's very central here. But another one, and we
already mentioned this as well, is this the sort of
language of kinship of Jews.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
And Arabs as being related to one another.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
As being specifically cousins or so it is called bad cousins.
Because we're kind of exploring the various modalities or the
various kind of shades of meaning and mood that this
this idea of cousins can have. It can be very positive,
of course, you know a lot of people say, oh Abraham,
that's so, he's a wonderful figure of peace, of hospitality,
et cetera.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
But they are also really dark sides to it.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Dark size that we really get into are this sort
of misogyny that's very very central in the Abraham myth,
the underpinnings of slavery versus freedom that are that are
really really present there and maybe most prominent and most
important to me, maybe as somebody who also studies migration
to the area, is xenophobia. So something that you and
I have written about, you know, the similarities between the UE,
for example, and Israel that aren't really considered, that aren't
(10:12):
thought about much. One that's always stood out to me
is the way that migrant workers are treated in both
these countries. The Golf States, including including Douee, are huge
obviously users of non citizen migrant labor. Israel is not
as big, So it's not as big as phenomenal in
Israel there, but it's growing a lot, especially since since
since October seventh when Pasteena workers have been shut out
(10:32):
of the Israeli market. And so I think Israel is
like the Golf States in a lot of these ways.
It's also getting more getting to be more like them.
And Abraham is kind of a prism or figuring through
which we start to explore all these issues.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
So in my mind, when the Abraham Accords were you know,
whispered about and then we saw them happen, and you know,
I've been writing about Araba's Relian normalization since since before
the Abraham Accords in smaller ways. But in my mind
when I kind of heard that terminology being used and
that framing being used, to me, it felt deceptive that
(11:10):
they were using this term of like the Abraham Accords
denoting and hearkening back to like the idea of the
Abrahamic tradition and that we're kin and all of these
things for listeners who are bad at religion as I am.
Abraham had two sons, presumed, you know, apparently, and one
of those sons is the ancestor of Jews and the
(11:31):
other one is the ancestor of Arabs, if you believe that.
So anyway, I'm not gonna have blespheme on this podcast,
but I.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Think the story is important. I mean, it is a deception.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
I totally agree with you on that, but it's important
to unpack how the deception.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Works, right right right.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
It's so effective because the story is so well known
to people in the region.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
No, absolutely, absolutely, But to me, like the deception lay
in the framing of Arab and Israeli animosity through a
religious perspective, as if the con was a religious one.
So to me it felt kind of very shallow But
then as you start to unpack not only the impacts
of the Abraham Accords immediately, so immediately repression increases in
(12:11):
these countries that sign the agreement, But then you start
to unpack, like, what are these accords actually serving for
the Arab countries that are signing Why are they signing
with Israel. Well, they're re engineering. They're attempting to re
engineer society. A lot of that tolerance language has to
do with that. It's they don't want societies that are
politically active. They want them to be interested in consumerism,
(12:34):
they want them to be maybe slightly socially liberal, tolerate
the Israelis, tolerate war crimes and you know, kumbaya, and
never ever have the ability to question the political leadership
or the political status quo in any of these countries
or in the region as a whole.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Yeah, I think it's all that, But I think it's
also a global power move right. The Gulf countries, including Katar,
which has a different politics, are all really trying to
make for themselves to become really, really huge global players.
They're basically all trying to transform this gigantic oil wealth
that they have into soft power, into diplomatic power into
cultural power. You know this, This this brings us into
(13:12):
the comedy festival in Saudi Arabia as well, Right, And
I think I think part of the framework here is
we're part of this larger global story which is about freedom,
piece and friendship through religion.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Now, what's the deception here?
Speaker 3 (13:23):
The deception is this sort of and I think been
uh this is one of one of his favorite points,
so he can he can expand on this. There's a
sort of like a switcheroo game in which something else
is brought into view and the Palestinians are hidden.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Right.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
The crux of the conflict, the crux of what is
basically brought Israel to to go wild on the entire region,
attacking seven different countries simultaneously, is the Palestinians. And it's
always has been the Palestinians, always going to be the Palestinians.
There is and you've written about this as well. There
is a segment of verbe society, especially our believes, especially
in the Gulf, who want nothing to do with the
Palestinians and happy would be happy to.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Get rid of them. But this isn't the case with
the vast majority of air.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
It's also not the case for the vast majority of
global South, I think, and even the vast majority of
the global North right. We've seen very very clear majorities
against Israel's genocide in Gaza, even in the United States,
you know, in Israel's biggest stala Everroat. So there's in
order to not have to talk about this, it's always
good to be able to talk about something else. One
of the many ways, and I'm not saying this is
the only one, one of the many ways in which
(14:21):
the subject has changed is by talking about Abraham.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
So we're doing well.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
I mean, our show has a little bit of a
it's it's it's kind of a difficult to move to
make because we were trying to talk about an excuse
but also impact why that excuse is so powerful.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
You know, there's like a lot of violence in this
peace framing. And if you look at I think it's
point eighteen of the peace framework that Trump talks about,
the Trump presented on Gaza, I think it's I think
it's eighteen.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
I have the quote here, but that number.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
It's you know, an interfeit process will be established based
on the values of tolerance and peaceful coexistence to try
and change mindsets. I mean, this is like to try
and change mindsets and narratives of Palestinians and Israelis by
emphasizing the benefits that can be derived from peace.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
I mean, it's like.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Mafia talk, right, It's like you better do it exactly,
you better you're going to love this piece so much
or else kind of thing. I cut up some audio
from the episodes and from the interview with you, Donna
that at the live event that we had here in
Berlin a couple weeks ago. This topic is so feels
so urgent and relevant to so many people that like,
more than fifty people came out in the rain in
November in Berlin, and one of the things I played
(15:34):
was was exactly when you called it an obfluscation, like
there's this paradox where all these things that are under
the table are coming up and are now explicit, these
secret deals with gold states, this normalization that you know,
you two had known about, you know, in your research,
but people like me would know about if they're not following,
if they're not academics, if they're not following this closely.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
And yet the Abramcords brought this all.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Up, Okay, now everyone knows right now, we know that
like this is about Iran, this is about security, this
is about you know, these material issues, right. But at
the same time that it's playing on this kind of
clarity and this openness, right, and this moderation, it's also
creating a whole new obfiscation, a whole new myth. And
(16:13):
you know, people love love this quote. Like there was
a lot of like nodding heads in the audience when
I played what you said, Donald, which was like as if, right,
like as if this is about religion, it's about land,
and it's about sovereignty, and that's clear.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
But these aren't called the Land and Sovereignty Accords.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I mean, like you said, like you said, it's very violent.
I mean I've been describing normalization under these terms as
well as the Abraham Accords in particular, as authoritarian conflict management,
because it maintains structural violence. It's not attempting to solve
the underlying you know, motivations for that violence, which, as
you said, is the Israeli Pastinian conflict, which is the land,
which is the war crimes. And I think also I
(16:53):
want to just emphasize for listeners that the tolerance framing
in particular, there's like the flip side to it, which
is you better like this piece or else. And we're
calling it peace and it's Abrahamic, So like, if you
don't like it, what does that say about you? Are
you intolerant? Are you an anti Semite? Are you you know, like,
it's just how could you be against peace? The piece
(17:15):
is in the name, but it's a very particular type
of piece.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
It's a liberal I think, I think authoritarian conflict management
is a very good way of putting it. But also
it's also very helpful to help to explain why the
abraham myth is so useful in that regard. Can we
just go over the story real, real, real quick for
listeners who aren't that familiar. Yes, please, So Abraham who
is known as in all the so called Abrahamic religions
as the first one to explicitly reject idolatry. Right, so,
(17:42):
there are there are other righteous men in the Bible
before him, but he's the first one who becomes what
is in ISLAMI is known as the friend of God right,
so el Khalid, and he also, in addition to having
this very very intimate relationship with God. He also has
a family, right, and in this family he has a
wife and a maid servant. The wife is named Sarah,
and and the maid servant is named Hagar. Now we're
(18:03):
gonna do this quick, don't worry. Sarah is barren, she
can't have children, and she says to She says to Abraham,
I have an idea. Why don't you have a child
with a maid servant with Agar, and it'll be my child.
So already, already, I think we can see authoritarianism. We
can see we can see authoritarian conflict management already as
kind of the seed that's that's planted in the story,
(18:25):
Hagar has a child. That child is named Ishmael, and
Ishmael is beloved by his father. It's the Old Testament, says,
So it's very very clear, right. But then Sarah gets jealous.
She says, well, you know this, this son is going
to and his mother are going to be basically the
pushing me out of my of my status within the family. YadA, YadA, YadA.
There's a lot of other stuff that goes on, very
very interesting and very fascinating, and lots of it very
(18:46):
well known, like to called Sacrifice of Isaac she miraculously
has the child.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
That child's named Isaac.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Everyone agrees within these scriptural traditions that Isaac is the
father of the Jews and Ishmael is the father of
the Arabs. This is central to both Jewish theology, Islamic theology,
and the Christians, in so far as they're involved in
the story, they're also in on.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Now then the question becomes who which one of them
is the blessed son?
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Which one of the which is one of the one
is the one who's supposed to inherit the land that
is the holy land, wherever that's defined, And that's a
little bit vague as well. The Jews say it's Isaac
and the muslim to say it's Ishmael. So we have
a we have a story. What my dissertation advisor, Andrew
Tria are called a community of disagreement. There are people
who disagree on something, but they don't disagree on the frame, right,
the frame in which all that that the entire story
(19:27):
is inserted, is one in which there's no disagreement. Everybody
agrees that Abraham had two kids. Everybody agrees that the
women are basically you know that the women. This part
of the story is predicated on their sons, on.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Whether their sons succeed. Is is what makes the women
succeed or not?
Speaker 3 (19:41):
And then the question becomes which one is the favorite son,
which one is the one that the father loves, and
then the big father up ap of also loves. Right now,
this is in itself, I think, at least in the
way that it's framed in the Abra aperrahomical courts, a
form of what do you call it, authoritarian crisis management?
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Right, that's what it is.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Now, that doesn't mean and I think that this is
this is also important. This is also one of the
reasons that we made the podcast that there's no other
ways of reading the story.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
How else could we read the story?
Speaker 3 (20:04):
For example, we could point out we could note that
the person who has the most intimate contact with God
in this entire story is Hagar.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
She's the first and only person.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
In the Bible to give God a name. She calls
him Ellroy, the God who has seen me. She has
at least two miracles down to her. In Islam, of course,
her story in Ishmael story becomes the story of Mecca.
All the traditions of the Hajj are based around the
story of Hagar and Ishmael. So she's a central central figure,
and she is a slave woman. She's an Egyptian, she's
the one who's cast out into the desert. She's a migrant.
Her name Hagar or Hajar in Arabic means migrant or migration. Right,
(20:35):
there's all these powerful undercurrents in the story, as there
are in every powerful myth, that mean that they can
be read differently, and some people are reading it differently.
So I don't think the story itself is the problem.
The problem is that the story is used in a
very particular way, in a way which facilitates again what
you call conflictual sorry, conflict conflict management.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah, I mean it's a it's a mouthful.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Maybe that helps us to get to wh what the
podcast does, Like who do you speak to? I know
I'm on one of the episodes, but who else do
you speak to? And like what trends were surprising to you?
How did your kind of thinking shift over time?
Speaker 4 (21:12):
I mean, let me start at least because one thing
we talked a lot about at the live event, there
was a panel and there was a discussion with the audience,
and one thing that's become excessively clear, like we heard
my time to explain the story. I'm not from the
Middle East, right, And also in this Berlin audience, like
the relevance of the story as a Bible story. I know,
I've heard of the story, but it doesn't have that
(21:32):
much impact for me, like on my life or on
how I understand the world. It's a story, It's a
Bible story. And we felt this from the European audience, right.
We heard people say something like like, Okay, this is
a myth, but are these the myths that are worth
exploring right now? You know, maybe with like looking at
the at other myths of more like material issues, and
(21:52):
I think what we're trying to do with the show
is also explained well. But these do affect people's lives
in the Middle East, Like this is something in fact
episode two, which canout in a couple of weeks. We
have all these vox pop interviews from the Old City
of Jerusalem where we talk to people on the street
and just ask like why do you think Jews and
Arabs are cousins?
Speaker 5 (22:08):
And what does that mean?
Speaker 4 (22:09):
And what does that mean with the Abraham Accords, And
immediately everybody had different Israelis and the Arabs that you
talked to him, it's on a different understandings of the
Abraham Accords, good and bad. But if you said, why
is it called the Abraham Accords, every single one of
them are like, oh, yeah, because we're cousins.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
Yeah, so start there, right.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
So, so episode one was about the kind of geopolitics,
but that's why you were on Donna episode two explaining
this kind of what does that mean? Then that if
everybody can agree that the Jews in the Arabs are cousins,
but the Abraham Accords are seen with all of these
like we already started talking about, you know, all these
obfuscating kind of nasty, hidden, violent undertones but also.
Speaker 5 (22:45):
Kind of like sick. You know, we can fly there
or whatever, like all this tourism.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
And high fiving and entrepreneurship and you know the biggest
satyr of whatever UAE history or whatever that was, you know.
So like so we start there and then and the
idea is to really like then turn this whole thing
around and look at the myths and look at the
stories and try and understand from all these different sides.
(23:09):
We go into you know, medieval Islamic stories and texts
and the idea of hospitality and the idea of cousinage
and what does cousins mean? And I mean Matan, you
can you can go further here, but the idea of
the show really starts from there, right, And that's how
we're going to like start at the geopolitics and end
up hopefully and turning the whole Abraham idea thing in
(23:32):
such a such a somersault that it lands right on
its head or right on its butt or something. And
and not only can we kind of dismantle it or
understand it and take it apart, but then maybe like
reclaim it in a different way and maybe even use
it for some kind of positive progressive purposes, even radical
ones that I mean Matan and his activism and his research.
You've you know, you've Maton, you say you've already seen
(23:54):
and kind of he has to make the case to me,
you know, that's kind of the framing of the podcast.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Like I'm eternally making the case that's okay, I think
I think it's it's it's it's kind of a it's
kind of a difficult case to make. And and and
the fact that people keep challenging me on it, I
think is very is very productive. Well, one other thing
that came up in Berlin, and I think it was
really interesting, is that Ben sort of touched on this
at the beginning of what he was saying just now,
the way that framing this as the Abraham course, framing
it as the Abraham story tends to make it easier
(24:19):
for people from Europe or from the United States to
UH to North America to see themselves as the outside
of this story.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Right, So this done. You also alluded to this. There's
this idea that this is like an age old conflict,
you know.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Between these these these relatives who are always quarreling between
themselves and oh, it's so difficult to people over there.
Yeah yeah, Q like oriental music right in the background.
And and hence that we rational outsiders, we Westerners, we Christians,
et cetera, all these sort of vaguely linked identities that
so called outsiders have. We are sort of neutral and
(24:53):
rational outsiders who can play a mediating role and bring
this this, this uh, this whole ancient mess to an end.
But the funny thing about this is that it's also
a religious kind of there's also a religious undertone here.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
There is this idea.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
You know, a lot a lot of scholars have written
about how so called secularism, so called enlightenment, you know,
in the West, actually is a secularized form of Christianity
in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
And this is really actually very very.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Clear in this Abrahamic framing, because there is this idea
that Christianity is superior to these other two religions, right,
this is this is this is the actual universal religion.
This is the one that is able to encompass and
sort of transcend the other ones. And hence, I think
maybe this was controversial a few years ago, but nowadays
I think it's quite clear that the US sees itself
as a as a as a Christian state, right, even
sees itself as a crusader state.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
I mean, they stayed it pretty clearly.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
With the Secretary of Defense having deis volt tattoos on
his chest. Right, So this is this is no longer
they're saying the quiet part out loud in this in
this in this context as well, and they think that
they can come in, you know, and as these sort
of outsiders solve things, but they're actually deeply implicated in
the story themselves for much much earlier than the nineteenth century.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
We could but go back to the Crusades if we want.
Europe has always.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Been involved in the Middle East, right, and the Middle
East has been involved in Europe force. These are near foreigners, right,
So there's no innocence here, right, there's no there's nobody
who's outside the story and Abrahamic framework. One of the
I think sort of pernicious ways in which it's acting
in this in this current conjuncture, in this current day
and age, is as this sort of framing that neutralizes
the Western influence.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
It makes it seem objective and rational.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
And also I think allows the Golf states to claim that.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Right.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
There's like some interesting stuff in the Facult book that
I didn't quite put together about the you know, sort
of elite Amarati perspectives as liberal and anti democratic. But
if you're pro business in a certain way, then you
can claim this kind of you know, like Dona Matan,
you two have written about moderation a lot, but this
(26:47):
idea for me of like, if you can claim you
know the business forward thinking, then you're also modern. Then
you're also considered you know, more above like you have
a different elevation and it different sort of legitimacy according
to this worldview, than somebody that would care about such
things as the Jews in the Arabs. What an ancient,
(27:07):
old fashioned kind of passe, you know, the Palestinian issue,
you know, kind of thing. But you know what's cool,
like artificial intelligence and like shipping deals in the Indian
Ocean that's new, you know, Yeah, that's sick. Like yeah,
golf and like virtual reality watching people play golf.
Speaker 5 (27:24):
Like that would be awesome. Yeah, And it's sort of
data that's sort of invited.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Dubai Chocolate, I could go on.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
It's I still think the Sator, like the biggest ador
in Nemuradi history or whatever, is my favorite anecdote. But
the way that it invited this space so like it's
almost like a genius. Like maybe it was like Jared
Kushner's great genius was to see this, like, you know,
ability to let other people claim the same Christian elevation right,
the same like, uh, I'm on the shaky ground here now,
(27:54):
so I'll stop.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, I don't know. If I don't know genius, I
don't I might dispute, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
In a way, it's in a way it'skind of obvious, right,
Like they were they were always going to call these
Abraham McCords when they did them in a way, right,
Derek Chrishnew, I don't.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Know he was. He's the right guy. He's the right
guy in the right place at the right time, more
than anything else.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
But do you understand what I mean that like this
invitation into this perpector that you were saying, which is
kind of like Christian you know, in the in our
event to Berlin, someone said something like, even without the
Jewish Muslim context.
Speaker 5 (28:22):
We have this problem. We have this problem in this region.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
And the abramccords allows the conversation to happen on this
level of let's talk about chips, let's talk about fighter jets,
you know, let's talk about drones, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Drones, yeah, purveillance.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
One of the things that I think is really important
is it sort of normalis is this idea that there
is a place for everybody and the people shouldn't be mixed.
And there's really extreme right, the religious extreme right in Israel.
There is this notion of the distancing of Ishmael for
his correction, right, what's the idea here is that the Ishmaelites,
that is the Arabs, that is the muslim that is,
the Palestinians.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
They have their place in the world.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
It's just that that place isn't here, It's somewhere else,
in a place is called Arabia, right, And therefore that's
why we can be friends with them Airathis because their
Marthis or Arabs is in the right place in Arabia.
The Palestinians, however, they are a problem because they are
Arabs who don't realize what.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
The right place is.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
They can stay here if they accept total subjugation. Basically,
you know, the Smultrich's plan is sort of a secularization
decisive plan. Yeah, his decisiveness plan or whatever that's called
is is is a sort of secularization of things that
Kahana was saying, the so called Rabbi Mayor Kahana was
saying in the nineteen eighties, the sort of spiritual father
of Israeli extreme right. They can stay here if they
(29:32):
if they're willing to be our slaves. Basically, if not,
they can go to Arabia. And once they're in Arabia
they can be they can be our best friends. And
this is this is really I think very very closely
connected to the animosity towards migrants.
Speaker 5 (29:43):
Right.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
That brings me back to the figure of Hagar or Hajar.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Right, she is a migrant, and because she is a migrant,
because she's not in the right place, that's why she's denigrated,
that's why she's exploited, that's why she's she's cast out
into the desert. So it's not just about the Palestinians
in that regard. We can see how this sort of
myth also plays into the hyper exploitation of micro It's
in the Gulf. We can see how it plays into
the racist treatment that refugees from Sub Saharan Africa are
receiving in North Africa.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
Right.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
We literally saw people a couple of years ago in
Tunia being cast out into the desert the way that
Hagar and Ishmael was. And of course this is all
this is all closely related again to Europe, to global
imperial kind of processes, to capitalism. You know, Ben was
talking about heacial hierarchy, special hierarchy, right. So one of
the reasons that I think we need to keep our
eye on this ideology is that in some ways it's
different from what we're used to right.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
It's not for example, white supremacy.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Right were used to think about white supremacy as this
sort of globally dominant racial ideology, but this.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Is something different.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
This is not about people being better because they're white.
It's about people being better because they're in their right place.
And that's actually, i think, something that's really coming up
very very strong on the global far right, on the
far right globally, this idea that you know, oh you'll
see like in New York for example, it's not that
we have anything against black people or Arabs or Asians
or anything else. They just need to stay in their
own countries as so long as everybody stays in their
own countries, that's fine.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
And you know, with climate change, with.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
All these catastrophica ecological changes that are happening in the world,
people are going to be moving. And we already we
already see people in masses moving from place to place,
but that's going to be larger and larger movements as
in the coming decades. And you know, the basic test
of humanity is going to be the test of hospitality,
whether people are allowed to into new places that they
have to go to in order to survive and this
sort of ideology I think is already sort of primed.
(31:18):
It's primed to to deny that and to say no,
you've got to just stay in your own space, right.
So against that, Abraham I would like to place Huggar.
I think she's the She's she's the answer.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
So I mean, that's fascinating. I've never really kind of
thought about I've never really thought too hard about this
story because as a Muslim and Arab child, it upset me.
But I do want to say, like there is as
you as you mentioned, like there is a general trending
towards Ethno nationalism all over the world, but the Goal
(32:00):
States cannot manage Ethno nationalism. Saudi Arabia is kind of
a little bit of a different story. But the ones
that signed, they are minorities in their countries. On top
of that, to their own citizens, to Immorti citizens, to
Bahani citizens, they are illegitimate. They are only legitimate by
virtue of providing economic opportunities. You know, those cracks have
(32:22):
already been showing up. So the way in which these
countries can build legitimacy for themselves, offset possible public pressure,
offset any kind of accountability for their regional role. People
forget that the United Arab Emirates is deeply implicated in
the genocide in Sudan. The way that they connect with
what is I think inherently a white supremacist and things
like this, but of course they're not white. Is what
(32:45):
Yesino hash Salda Hassyrian theorist, calls the ideology of modernism.
He was writing about the promise and the discourse of
the Assaid regime when Bashada Assaid came the power. But
when I read it, I was like, this sounds a
lot like the ideology of these states. And so he
says it has three traits. It entirely neglects issues of
values such as freedom, equality, human dignity, mutual respect among people,
(33:10):
in favor of morally amorphous categories such as secularism, enlightenment,
and modernism itself. It neglects fundamental social issues related to poverty, unemployment, marginalization,
life conditions, gender relations, et cetera. And the advocates of
this modernism are politically conservative, I mean, just.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
To a t.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, that's the Abraham Accords and an unchill right there exactly.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah, And I you know, I wrote about this in
the context of the Abraham Accords in a paper I
published in twenty twenty three. But ya seen hashsala like
kind of nailed it back in twenty eleven that this
was the trend.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah. I think Syrians saw a lot of things earlier
than the rest of us.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah, definitely, And so this is their vision for the world,
and I think this is the vision of a lot
of essentially the right in the world, even in America.
Likely they don't care about democracy.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
They want this.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
They want you to be prosperous and in your place,
and yeah, everybody stays separate.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Yeah, there's a.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Sort of like callousness around all of it, which I
think is it's actually a draw for some people, because
you know, cynicism is a big thing in the world,
and people are I think one of the reasons that
people attracted to Trump, for example, is because it's clear
that he's a completely cynical actor, you know, who's only
out for his own sake, and people are sort of,
you know, for better or worse, sick of the of
liberal hypocrisy, so.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
They gravitate towards that.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
And it's funny, I mean, you would think that that
wouldn't go hand in hand with religion or these mythical stories,
but it actually does, you know, speaking of prosperity, for example,
there's in evangelicalism there's a very strong strand of what's
called like the prosperity gospel, this idea and this has
you know, very very old roots in Calvinism as well.
If you make it in the world, if you're rich,
if you make if you make a lot of money,
that means that God loves you.
Speaker 5 (34:47):
That's like a proof.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Right, And so there again we shouldn't think about religion
too narrowly. Religion is really infused and all these sorts
of social ideologies, among which are this and I think
this is very very prominent day perhaps story in the
Abrahamicks story.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Is that well, you know, if they have oil, if
they have riches.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
If they've managed to sort of manipulate the global economy
to their own advantage, then more power to them. Right,
And that's attractive. That's that's something that you want to
that's a train that you want to get on. Maybe
they'll give you a plane too, right. That was the Kataris,
That wasn't ue, So we shouldn't get them mixed up.
But I think it's kind of the same story.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, no, I completely agree. So, I mean I started
this discussion by talking about the plants for reconstruction in
Gaza m HM. And you've already mentioned that, like the
big whale for the Trump administration is Saudi Arabia. They
watch Saudi Arabia to normalize with Israel. What are some
things we should watch for in the near future. What
(35:42):
do you where do you think this Arab is reel
A normalization is going to go.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
I'm always hesitant to make predictions. I think it's a
It's it's an extremely volatile moment. This ceasefiring guys that
God knows if it's going to hold or if there
residre is going to go back in and start genociding again.
I think we're also seeing these really really rapid movements
throughout the region with I mean, we keep, we've keep,
We've kept alluding to cut our cutter and Turkey are
really playing a really much bigger role now than they
(36:07):
and they were until recently. And that's with with American blessing,
so that's also going to change. I think the sort
of calculus that that that Saudi makes, But broadly speaking,
I think one thing that we really need to keep
an eye on. Is this Imat Corridor, this idea of
that basically Biden administration was was was starting up, but
but Trump is really sort of put into into hyperdrive,
which is this idea of connecting India, the Gulf, Israel,
(36:29):
and Europe through a sort of alternative to China's Belton
Road initiative. It revolves around oil and gas, but it
also revolves around data centers and AI so sort of
geopolitically and and and and geoeconomically, I think that's that's
that's the big plan that the Americans have hatched for
for the region, and that basically means turning Gaza into
some sort of concentration camp slash as easy especially Economic zone.
(36:51):
Right there are really really really frightening plans to ethnically
clans about half of the guns in population and to
uh and to sort of turn the rest of them
into into well basically slaves, you know, basically uh, unfree
workers in these in this so called the especially Economic
zone that the that they're that they're trying to set up. Now,
whether any of this is going to actually happen, I
(37:12):
think it's anybody's it's anybody's guess.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
At this point, but it's it's it's very clear.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
And I just saw a physiata speaking about this at
the Historical Materialism conference in London.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
It's very clear that it's their plan, right, that's the
planet's out there.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
It's it's I don't know if it's even been leaked
or it's just publicly released, that this is what the Americans, Israelis,
Saudis and Immoralties are are planning for the region. It's
a it's a really kind of nightmarish vision that they're
not even they're they're broadcasting out loud, they're not they're
not even pretending to disown it or anything. So you know,
we should take them out their word and we should
be very very clear that this.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Is something totally unacceptable.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
And I mean that's as as as you started out saying,
and I think we've always agreed on this. The question
for the region is the Palestinian question. If the Palestinians
don't have sovereignty, if they don't have freedom, if they
don't have equality, if they don't have the right of return,
then things are not going to uh are not going
to calm down in the region. It's just going to
be more and more, more and more violence, more and
(38:05):
more of this help for everybody, and you know, these
have been hellish years for all of us. I'm not,
of course making any sort of comparison. I think it's
clear that the things that have been happening in Gaza
are beyond any sort of any sort of description in
terms of how hard the genocide has been. But you know,
as in ISRAELI who's currently not living in Israel, and
I would like to return at some point, I really
(38:27):
hope that that that everybody in the region can come
to this very very clear conclusion. You know, whether you
phrase it in religious terms or not. And I don't
think there's a problem with framing it in religious terms.
There are ways of framing it in religious terms, and
we can talk a little bit about that more if
you want. Just the fact that that this that the
indigenous people of Palestine and the Palestinians need to need
to have the rights to respect it and fulfilled, and
that's the only the only way that we can that
(38:48):
we can bring peace that we can bring. You know,
these these really beautiful biblical prophecies about the wolf and
the and the sheep lying down and the cutting down
of swords into the plowershares to make those reality. So
some people might call that missianic, but I think there's
some good, good forms of missionism.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Then do you have any thing to add pop that?
Speaker 4 (39:07):
My hope the past year or two years has been
that if the Abraham Accords elevated, you know, countries like
the AE to a certain like volume, like gave them
a certain audience that maybe they didn't have before internationally,
that then what Israel has done could be criticized more
(39:29):
obviously and that they would actually have some leverage. So
my hope still is that as like normal partners, they
can normal threaten and normal criticize and normal check the
power of their you know quote whatever partners Israel. And
so I'm keeping an eye on hopefully that that that
(39:50):
will start happening more. What we do see is that
like trade continues to go up, and that doesn't seem
to have an impact, and I find that very disappointing.
And also at the same time, I see the polling,
and Donnie, you know more about this than I do,
but the polling shows increasing.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
Criticism of normalization with Israel.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
So you know, the idealist to me thinks that like
civil society will win out eventually, that this is just untenable,
and that what October seventh showed was that and the
and the wars since then, that without dealing with the
central cause in the region, which is the Palacinian cause,
like there will be no possible safe you know, entrepreneurial
(40:35):
dreamland of a rich future that they're claiming is going
to happen.
Speaker 5 (40:40):
So that's my ope. But and I keep an eye
out for that.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
I hope that they use China and Russia as good
countermeasures and counter threats to the American agenda.
Speaker 5 (40:48):
And I keep my eye out for that.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Yeah, I think, uh, I think really that's the that's
the open question moving forward is like will the political
elites went out, will they be able to sidestep the
Palastinian question, sidestep their own publics, who, as you mentioned,
are extremely critical of normalization, extremely supportive of the Palestinian cause.
(41:12):
I think the Americans think that they can. I keep
mentioning this on this podcast, but I was on a
panel with Stanley McCrystal, General and commander of the Joint
what is it, the Joint Armed Forces or whatever in
I Rock and Afghanistan, and he was like, oh, you know,
the Arabs really want to move past the Palestinians, like
it's a thing of the past. If October seventh hadn't happened,
(41:33):
like you know, we would have just moved past the Palestinians.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
And I was like, what the hell are you're talking about.
That's you only say that.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Because you think that you can continue to crush air publics,
like you are predicating your entire strategy on authoritarianism. And
it's it's not an Middle East problem, it's a civil
society all over the world has to fight back against
authoritarianism or this is our reality.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Yeah, this is I think this is the moment now,
and this is one of the ways in which the
rest of the world is becoming more likely our world
in some ways. As we mentioned, we have large majorities
almost everywhere in the world. I think maybe every country
in the world except for Israel. We have a majority
of people who are now supporting Past ten more than
support Israel, who are against the genocide, who say, you know,
who answer the polls in a way that that makes
it clear that they're that they're against what's going on
(42:17):
right and they're against their government supporting it, But most
governments in the world, most governments in the world, including
ones that aren't considered very pro pro us, are are
are basically letting this happen.
Speaker 6 (42:26):
Right.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
That means that there's no effective democracy anywhere in the
world really, except maybe in a few places where you
can say, okay, I don't know, Spain, some countries.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Are island, Yeah, yeah, where even even.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Those countries, I don't think they're they're doing it as
much as as their populations would like them to do.
Speaker 5 (42:41):
Right.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
Right, So, again, this idea that the that the that
the West is somehow essentially different from these other countries,
it's also kind of a lot and it's also something
it's it's also it's also bogus, and we need to
we need we need to call bullshit on that as well. Yeah,
many people have already have already made various arguments, and
there's various ways of making this argument that the Palestinian question,
the question of God's or the question of the genocide
(43:04):
is kind of the global question of our time. I
don't think just because there's a ceasefire that that's.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Going to go away in any way.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
Everything that caused the explosion in the first place is
still there, right, And I think we're going to keep
seeing mobilizations around this issue. I'm sure we are. The
crucial question for me is how we connect this to
other issues, How we connect this to the question of democracy.
Can we connect this to the question of rights for migrants,
how we connect us to the questions of of of
of climate change.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Right, and and and various people are already doing that.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
So I'm not saying this is something that that people
aren't working on, but this is, this is this is
kind of the challenge for for our time and this podcast,
this project is is you know, just just you know,
one small part of that mosaic, which is looking into
the ideology that framed the Chords after Abraham and again
thinking about how we can not just debunk that ideology
and say, oh this is it's not about this, it's
(43:49):
about that, but also about how we can read those
stories in a different way and sort of yeah, exactly,
to subvert it intimate and to read those stories in
a way that that makes progressive sense.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Now, that's I'm really looking forward to listening to the
other episodes, not just my own.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
So, yeah, you sound a little more convinced now than
you did. It after we interviewed you, I'm being really nice. No,
I'm just you're being hospitable like Abraham exactly. It's in
my blood.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
When we played it live, someone came up to me
afterwards and was like, you know, I agree with Donna, right,
And I was like, no.
Speaker 5 (44:20):
I think we all agree, Like that's kind of the point.
I think we all agree on the basics here. The
other part is just sitting in the cringe, as Madan says, oh.
Speaker 6 (44:28):
Nice, yeah, basing basting in the cringe, yeah, basting in
the cringe here, and trying to find our way out
of like a bad mushroom trip hallucination where you can
do things like pretend that the Palestinians don't exist.
Speaker 4 (44:40):
Yeah, you know, that's that's We're trying to be the
orange juice that's supposed to get you out.
Speaker 5 (44:44):
Of the you know, of a bad much person.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
How do they hangover whatever? And yeah, the trip.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
Yeah, sorry, I don't do drugs. I don't understand anyway.
Thank you all so much. This has been a very
interesting episode. And yeah, I'll link in the show notes
for for listeners all of the things mentioned.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
But yeah, more soon.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yeah, episode episode one is already out by the time
your listeners hear this, I think episode two might already
be out as well. Okay, in episode two, we kind
of go into the into the into the backstory. Episode
one was was with you and we talked about the
chords themselves. Episode two we start.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Digging into those into those warm holes of the Abraham.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
The story interesting and we when we talked to people
in Jerusalem again, Ben mentioned this, both Palestinians and Israelis.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
We went and we went out and asked.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
Them what they thought about Abraham Accords and why they
thought it was named after Abraham.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yeah, I'm really excited to listen to that. Thank you
all right, thanks guys, thanks for having us on.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5 (45:41):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed
directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 5 (45:57):
Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
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Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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