October 19, 2023 • 63 mins
Shereen is joined by Israeli-American Deevee Kashi as he shares his perspective about the ongoing violence in Palestine and Israel, his experience as an anti-zionist, and why he believes that supporting Palestinian liberation is necessary.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello, everybody, Welcome to it could happen here. This is
Sharene and I am so happy to be joined by
my guest today. I've been so excited to speak to him.
I am joined by dB Kashi. He is a pro
palsy and activist from New York and Israel. And there's
just a lot of stuff I want to talk to
you about.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
So welcome, pleasure to be here. Great to meet you, Saren.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I want to start with just some background for the
audience to just like kind of get to know where
the perspective you're speaking from. Can you tell me a
little bit about your family history and where you grew
up and where your parents are from and all of that.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Sure, my parents were both born in Israel, and they,
like many Israelis, moved to New York City in the
eighties and had myself and my two siblings. And as
my grandparents were getting older, to whom we were very close,
(01:04):
my mom decided to move back to Tel Aviv when
I was in two thousand, so right before the Second Intifada,
And so when I was thirteen eighth grade, I moved
to Tel Aviv for the first time. And you know,
obviously I was very familiar with it. I visit every summer,
(01:26):
and you know, grew up in our grandparents' house, both
of whom were Iraqi Jews who immigrated to Israel in
the early fifties. And so yeah, so when I moved
there in eighth grade, I was completely pretty much a
shock in terms of what I was used to in
(01:49):
New York. Obviously, I had friends from many different walks
of life, many different backgrounds here. I was very used
to that, right, I think grew up in you know,
a very staunch Jewish community. I had Jewish friends, but
I didn't solely have Jewish friends, and so that that's
what I loved, That's what I embraced. But when I
(02:10):
moved to Israel, it was very jarring. You know, I'd
studied in Hebrew for the first time, and you know,
everything that we studied in school was pertaining to the
Jewish identity. So every kind of history class, you know,
you'd study the Roman Empire and the Jewish people, you'd
(02:31):
study about you know, ancient Greece and the Jewish people,
and that's okay to learn about Jewish identity, but intertwining
it with every aspect of the school curriculum and really
thinking about the persecure really kind of hammering home this
notion of persecution, really kind of understanding how you know,
(02:53):
and again I think it's important to understand your history
and history in general, but I think that kind of
introducing this notion of persecution as a tactic to retraumatize
people that aren't directly experiencing the trauma. Right. So, everyone
in the world learns about the Holocaust, but did you
(03:15):
know that in Israel, Holocaust Remembrance Day isn't on the
same day as the rest of the world's Holocaust Remembrance
Day because they want to own their own kind of
version of the Holocaust Remembrance Day, Right, And so you know,
when you think about the Holocaust, you think about other Holocausts,
other genocides that have happened, and Israel's failure to recognize
(03:37):
those genocides, like the Armenian genocide, right, and the fact
that you know, many people don't know, but you know,
throughout history Israel has armed genocidal forces with Israeli made
weapons to you know, support imperialist motives and colonialist powers
around the world. So you know, even even now with
(04:00):
what's happening in Armenia with the Iserabai Johnny's right, Israel
is on the wrong side of that equation, right, And
so it's never been about standing with the side of
the oppressed. For Israel, it's never been about, you know,
ensuring that what happens when they say never again, actually
(04:21):
never again, never happens again to anyone around the world. Right.
Think about their policies, the racist policies around refugees, right.
I think people don't understand, right, I have a very
unique perspective because I understand kind of the minds of
the colonizers. I can humanize the colonizers. I think there's
(04:45):
a dangerous kind of maybe thinking about things from a
bit of a different angle than kind of people are
used to, and also bringing it back to the events
of the last ten days or eleven days at this point,
I think, you know, I've always kind of looked at
and identified with the Palestinian struggle, right, And I've always
seen it as a human rights struggle, right, And you know,
(05:10):
as such, and as many well regarded activists and thinkers
and intellectuals have always talked about the unification of all
the struggles of the oppress. And that's always, always arrived
at the identification with this struggle for the Palestinian people.
I've also felt, you know, by virtue of this self,
(05:34):
this imposed identity of you know, Israeli, I've always felt
directly responsible for the oppression of the Palestinian people, even
though I've never done anything myself to champion or perpetuate
that oppression. I've always worked against it from a very
very young age. Now people always ask me, you know,
(05:55):
kind of annoying questions like, you know, why do you
care so much about the power Estinians when so many
people in the world are suffering? And the answer to
that question is I care about all suffering. But this
is something that the government that supposedly represents me, that
the entity that supposedly represents me is directly perpetrating. And frankly,
(06:17):
after going to many protests in New York and in
Israel itself, I've realized that this is the most important
human rights struggle of our generation, for sure, but of
modern times because it stands for all of it's essentially
the last beacon of direct colonialism. Right, we all know
(06:40):
how kind of neocolonialism works. I mean, maybe we do
what we don't, but neocolonialism through you know, different coupitist structures. Right,
America has been able to perpetrate neocolonialism without actually having
to occupy other people, you know, save for Iraq for
(07:01):
almost twenty years, but or fifteen years or whatever, it
was a very long time. But Israel is directly and
physically occupying on other people, and they have been for
the last seventy five years, right, officially for the last
seventy five years. And that's been a constant, Right. It's not, hey,
(07:22):
you know, here's a country and let's you know, fight,
Let's continue our kind of battle in that way it's
been It's always been. If you if you're a scholar
of Israeli history, of Zionist history, you always you start
understanding that the goal was to take over all of
Judaea and Samara, Right, And that's kind of how the
(07:44):
settler government that Netanyahu has in power has been speaking
for years. Right. I'm really upset and really kind of
frustrated by the way that the Western media has been
portraying what's happening over the last eleven days. Because even
Israeli media Halitz, which is an Israeli newspaper, which is
(08:06):
very prominent one right isn't portraying it the way that
the Western media is portraying it. Right, they're criticizing the Netanyahu.
There's so many people in Israel that are scared, right,
all the leftists are scared. They're being persecuted. They're signal
groups doxing friends of mine, people literally fighting for human rights,
they're doxing them. Islaelfrai, he's an Orthodox reporter that's that's
(08:32):
been staunchly pro Palestinian and he's a very prominent member
of the press. Angry mob of right winging extremists try
to knock down his door the other day and he
had to escape from the back door and run away,
so they don't, you know, potentially kill him, right, And
so these voices are being silenced in Israel. No one
is talking about that. Everyone in the West is beating
(08:54):
the drums of war. The media is supporting that. We've
seen on the kind of a microw but tragic level,
what happened to that six year old kid that was
stobbed to death by someone just because of the anti Islamic,
anti Palestinian rhetoric that's being perpetrated. And so everyone's kind
of losing their shit as all of a sudden, everyone's
(09:15):
saying the same thing because everyone is being pushed to
justify this war. But people are starting to wake up, right,
the UN's woken up in certain very very slowly. People
are starting to wake up because they're seeing that genocide
is actually being committed, and so you can't throw your
full weight behind genocide. But they're walking it back too slowly.
(09:36):
And the people that I'm disappointed by are people that
are supposedly smart, spewing complete nonsense rhetoric about two sides. Right.
I struggled, Right, this is important. I struggled. I know
people who were killed in the Hamas attack personally and
intimately know them. Right. You know my ex girlfriend's best
friend was killed, right, She's we've hung out many, many,
(09:58):
many times. She was a very sweet, very kind person.
We know an activist who was literally because people don't understand,
and this is for a lot of the kind of
pro Palestinians that have that. And I completely empathize, and
I understand why people believe what they believe. Believe me,
but this is for a lot of the pro Palestinians
(10:19):
that you know. Immediately called all of them settlers, right.
And I think it's important to distinguish because if there's
ever going to be a path forward in this mess,
we have to offer a new rhetoric that deconstructs the
nationalist ideologies. Okay, I don't put the Palestinian flag or
say free Palestine, which I do as a nationalist ideology.
(10:43):
I say that as a deconstruction of nationalism as as
as a call to freedom for all, right, though oppressed,
as well as the oppressor. Right. If you actually read
everyone's quoting, everyone's quoting Phenen, right, everyone's quoting all these revolutionaries,
if you actually read the material that they said. Chae
(11:05):
Gavari even said the true revolutionary is guided by deep
with deep feelings of love in their heart. And he
said this at the risk of sounding absurd. He said
that direct quote the people perpetuating in Israel. I can
say this from a first ten account. I know very
good people that are guided by nationalists and fascist ideologies. However,
(11:28):
they've been manipulated, they've been lied to, They're fed propaganda
twenty four to seven through the news and the sentiment
in Israel right now, and I can tell you this,
I'm getting messages from people they think everyone is trying
to kill Jews. That's what they believe, that's what they've
been told. They think this is armageddon for the Jewish people.
(11:49):
That's what the media narrative is in Israel. Okay, in
spite of the fact that there are many people that
are against what's happening, there are many people that directly
blame Netanyahu this, but they're being scared to believe that
they're being going to be attacked on all fronts, and
they have to do everything they can to neutralize the threats. Okay,
that is that is the survival kind of that. That
(12:12):
is a fact. Does that mean that every single person
in Israel is a terrible human being as evil as
some people say. No, that is not true at all. Right,
And my point is, and what a lot of the
revolutionaries said, right, Palo Freer in the Pedagogy of the
Oppressed said, in the process of dehumanization, the oppressor dehumanizes himself.
(12:32):
Putting that aside, though, I think that you know, for me,
I see I know people that died. It was very
difficult for me to post in the first two days.
I think there were some problematic justifications for the massacre
that didn't sit well with me because I'm a humanist.
But in the same token, right, I think that I
(12:54):
understand the context. I think it behooves us to understand
the context. Right. There's a really famous quote. I forget
who said it, but if you started the clock or
started looking at kind of the colonization in America from
when the Native Americans started shooting the arrows, you think
(13:15):
that the Native Americans were the aggressives. Right. If you
started looking at, you know, the colonization of Algeria when
the Alga, when the local population started rebelling, you think
that they were the aggressives. Right. And that's not to
say in the same breath that terrible things happened to
amazing people there. Right. What people don't know, and a
(13:37):
lot of the propolsting movement doesn't know, is that many
of the people living in the area on Gazas are
actually activists, like very anti Zionist activists. Right that many
of the testimonies of the families of the of those
activists are saying to stop the genocide, that it's not
(13:59):
going to bring back their friends, their family members. Those
are the people that were a lot of whom were
killed in the attacks because that's where they live, they
work with, you know, organizations at GAZA like acknowledge that, right,
understand the complexity saying hey, you guys are all settlers.
That's just dumb. It's not factually true. Their grandparents were,
(14:21):
their great grandparents were one hundred percent. But now their
generations and generations of people, right, just like in America,
their generations and generations of people that descended, Are they
to be held accountable for the actions of their ancestors?
Doesn't make any sense. They should be held accountable for
actions that they take now, for sure, right, holding your
(14:42):
government accountable, you know, thinking about an actual solution to
this terrible situation that one hundred percent people should be
held accountable for. But to call them settlers as a
justification for their deaths is something that I will never do, right,
and I don't think it helps the strugg Right, I
think it's important to say and then simultaneously also say,
(15:05):
did you guys know that Israel played a very major
role in establishing the Kammas, Like, don't be stupid, open
a history book, see what happened, right, understand, don't just
be quick to call and quick to say both sides.
It's not a both side situation. Even though the aggression
was terrible, those are those two things can be true.
(15:25):
It's a devastating, tragic event, right, and I know many
great people that were killed in it. But in the
same breath, we have to remember what caused it.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah. Context is everything.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Right, context is everything. Israel funded the Kamas BB has
direct quotes in Israeli newspapers saying we have to fund
the Hamas in order for is Palestinians never to have
a state. He directly said that how do you guys
ignore these statements. They've been very bib has been very
clear as to what is going to happen and what
(15:56):
he's trying to accomplish. And then on top of that,
to compound things, the settlers in his government right now,
Isal Bengvill and Smooch are two settlers. They literally are settlers,
like in accordance to the national law, they're considered settlers, okay,
illegal settlers, and they're the second and third most powerful
(16:17):
people in Israel. Okay. I don't think people understand or know,
but those two guys, there's a there's a famous rabbi
okay in Jerusalem. He's an extremist fundamentalist rabbi, Jewish fundamentalist rabbi.
What he's been calling for for a long time, Ka
sadaka is Kahana was right. He was a very fascist
(16:39):
rabbi that was basically calling for the extermination of all Arabs.
And and they're basically they're called kahanistem and that's it's
basically what the left in Israel used to call this government.
Man tash Khanistim means government of Kahanists. Okay, that is
what that's who's running the country. And this rabbi has
(17:00):
been calling for in a biblical sense. And we all
know when people have an utmost you know, devotion to religion,
that guides them right, not our world. Our world does
not guide them. The religious texts and the religious leaders
are the ones who tell them what is right and
what is wrong right in religious fundamentalism. And so what
this rabbi has been calling for for years has been
(17:23):
a war to end all wars. Okay, that is what
he's been telling them. That is what they've been operating under. Okay,
their allegiances are to him, not to the Israeli people
like literally to that ideology. And so they're in the
government right now. Over the last year, they've been essentially
(17:46):
adding illegal settlements at a rapid rate, emboldening and empowering
settlers to commit violence that we haven't seen in many,
many years. Levels of violence we haven't been seen in
many many years, even before this latest aggression. I'm talking
about over the last twelve months. And the biggest most
annoying thing that I hear from Westerners that think they understand, right,
(18:10):
they're like, oh, yeah, we really care about Palestinians. But
Hamas has to go two things to that. One, the
fact that there are Palestinians on the West Bank and
the Palestinians in Gaza doesn't mean they're not the same people.
They're Palestinians in forty eight as well. They feel deep
feelings of solidarity because they're all oppressed in different ways. Right,
(18:34):
It's solidarity under this got under this Grand zionis oppression
that they experience. And so I think that it's a
fallacy that it was an unprovoked attack. It's a fallacy, right,
it's not the case. The fact that Aleksa kept getting
bombarded by settlers on purpose, on purpose, I don't put
(18:56):
it back like they did this to get a provocation.
They've been evoking to get the retaliation for Hamas. They've
been doing this for years. This is nothing new, Right,
every time Ramas shot rockets over the last five years
is because Israel was attacking Alexa right right after Ramadan
if you remember, or during Ramadan. Sorry, And so every
time a barage of rockets came in right after that
(19:17):
barrage of rockets because Hamas wanted to show that someone
is sticking up for them. But I'm just saying you
have to understand the context. When you're in a blockade,
when you're living in a concentration camp, worse than a
concentration camp, frankly, right, every electricity is controlled, water is controlled,
food is controlled. You're not able to leave, right, You're
(19:38):
not able to freaking leave when you want. You're not
able to come when you want, not able to A
sixty kilometer strip of land is the most densely populated
strip of land in the entire world. Depression is the highest,
the highest rates of depression. I think the highest rates
of child suicide are in Gaza. Okay, when you're living
(20:00):
under those conditions, I have no idea how you're spoil
I have no idea what that would feel like, So
how can I judge anyone any response to that? Right
in the same breath, I can also say it's a
tragic thing that innocent people died, and they're innocent people,
And I think it's important to hold that complexity. Also
for the Palestinian cause. I think it's important to not
(20:22):
lose sight of our humanity in criticizing the grave injustices
that Israel has committed and putting the blame squarely on
Israel's shoulders that Hamas exists.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, I think that's something I keep coming back to
is whenever someone is just all about condemning Hamas, which
is like, yes, as you mentioned, like innocent people shouldn't
have died, But I blame all the violence that's happening
in Israel on Israel. Like it's not, yeah, you can't
(20:52):
just start like at a slave revolt as the beginning
of history of slavery. It's like, no, actually exactly, they
did that for a reason and they had no other choice.
And I mean for Palestinians, I think, like, what's the
biggest context that's missing is like they've tried everything. It's
not their first choice to kill people that didn't deserve
(21:15):
it. It's I think I think that's what's been really annoying
with the the people that have chosen to spoke to
speak out, that have never spoken out before. They are
so narrow in their view of this that it's so
damaging because they have so many follow werds, or they're
talking about the wrong things, and all of those things
like kind of perpetuate a really dangerous environment where like
(21:40):
a six year old kid can get stabbed to death,
or I don't know. I agree with everything you said,
and I really appreciate you saying all those things before
I forget. We're gonna take our first break, so don't
go anywhere and we're back. Something you mentioned early on
(22:06):
that I have been thinking about and getting really getting
really angry about is why people are surprised or like
unexpecting you to speak out about Palestinians if you are
not a Palestinian. I am not a Palestinian. I'm Syrian,
and I am extremely vocal about the Palestinian cause and
the Palestine. I've always been one hundred percent free Palestine
(22:27):
till I die. And it's almost like surprising to people,
like why are you so worked up like why aren't
you so worked up like that? That's what really gets
me is your humanity and care. It shouldn't be contingent
on your identity if you actually give a shit. And
I think that's what I really want to like relate
(22:48):
to people, is this is not the Palestinian's struggle solely
for themselves, Like this is a struggle for all. Like
if this genocide obliterates the Palestinian people, that's on humanity shoulders.
That's not that is so indicative of how depraved humans
have become. It's just so upsetting. It's just a complete obliteration.
(23:09):
There has been videos of settlers saying they want to
flattened the whole thing, make it a parking lot. I mean,
I don't even have to tell you what like actual
media and like politicians have been saying because it's like atrocious.
But I think that's what I want to relate to
people is like if you're not if you don't care,
examine that, because that is troubling to me, if you
don't care about actual genocide. And maybe that word has
(23:33):
been used too much to like make people give a shit,
but it really makes me question people's humanity when they
are able to kind of just like shrug it off
and continue about their day.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I've been practicing being hopeful. I think it's really important,
especially in times like these, to be hopeful, because without hope,
and it sounds cheesy, but it's true, we're not empowered, right,
were not able to act. And I think what's exciting,
(24:06):
what's I guess heartening to me is actually the people's
response to what's happening. Yes, there are many influencers and
celebrities that posted the wrong thing, I'm also seeing many
that posted the right thing. I'm also seeing many people
that I'm surprised by. I'm seeing many people that I
(24:28):
wasn't surprised by posting the wrong thing, frankly. But I'm
also seeing many people white people, you know, black people, right, like,
people of all kinds that are disconnected, you know, from
an identity perspective to the posting people doing so much
(24:49):
showing up. I went to the I saw images from
the protest in the other day, and there are I'm
not talking about the Jewish protest, which was amazing, right,
what JVP did with if not now, in front of
Chuck Schumer's house was incredible, Right, That's that's solidarity. That's
(25:10):
that's that's real, right, That's that's that's that's humanity, right,
that's what humanity should be. That's real solidarity. I'm talking
about the protests though, that was Palestinian lad in the midtown,
and I saw tons of Jews there, m hm. And
I'm not talking about the Sutmar anti Zionist, you know
Hasidic Jews. Those are great, right, and they're they're helpful.
(25:31):
I'm talking about like regular regular ass Jews, right, like me, right,
people like not even wearing yamaicas, like people with you know,
small yamicas that aren't like you know, Hasidic or anything,
holding up signs to help liberate the Palestinian people. In
spite of the Hamas, in spite of everything that happened,
(25:53):
they showed up. They were not scared. A Pastinian flag
doesn't scare them, right, I shouldn't. It shouldn't. But again,
I want to be I want to I want to
maintain my my I guess I want to maintain the
view of objectivity. I think again, you know, Devil's advocate,
(26:16):
I think when when And again this is not not
me blaming, right, it's more so offering kind of a
perspective to question how to how to move forward when
people Israeli's Jews whoever right, are indoctrinated to believe that
(26:36):
Palestine means no place for me, okay, and then you
couple that with the anger anguish that the oppressed people
are feeling and saying, yeah, fu fuck that, like we
couldn't want you here, right, like you look what you're
doing to us. I think that they view the Palestinian
flag as a replacement of, you know, the flag of Israel,
(27:01):
which many people actually kind of not many people, some
people view it that way. And I think that the
way I see it and the way many people I
know see it, it's a flag that represents liberation from oppression,
liberation of the Palestinian people who are being actively oppressed
(27:24):
by Zionism, right and ideology, right, you know, perpetuated and
executed by people, but it's still an ideology.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
So just like because I think this always comes up,
but being anti Zionis has nothing to do with being
anti Semitic, and I think they always get complated and
that's on purpose to make people afraid to speak up
about Israel. I can only imagine how brainwashed Zionism becomes
to like the whole, like the education and everything. Like,
(27:55):
is that something you experience like firsthand, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
One hundred percent. I think what we've seen over the
last decade, right, the fact that Natanya has been in
power for over twenty years, that's that's like the dictatorship
level stuff. And people in America are like, oh yeah,
the West, you know, there is a semblance of you know,
(28:19):
power to the people in the West, as semblance of it. Right,
We're seeing how much the media is in cahoots with
you know, power against the people right now, which is very,
very scary and everyone should be up in arms, no
matter where your your feelings lie. But there is you know,
there's a new president. You know, every four years of
(28:41):
a president is termed. Right, you can't be you can't
be a president for more than two terms. Right. These
are real things, right, these are real protections. You have
three different branches of government, right, you have local level,
local government. You have so many different checks and balances
that are you know, corrupted and corupted in certain ways
you know through law obvious, uh and and you know,
(29:02):
corporate interests, et cetera. I'm aware, but at least you
have that system in Israel. That system doesn't exist, okay,
there's no constitution, uh, and a prime minister can't be termed.
And so now Bibing Ntanello has been in power and
figured out how to survive attempts on his throne many
(29:23):
times over through building coalitions with the right wing extremists,
which frankly are against his interests. Like he wanted to
kind of perpetuate status quo and just kind of be
in power Like this is kind of made it difficult
for him to just be the guy who kind of
you know, makes it makes everything okay for Israelis. Right now,
Israelis are scared shitless and so. But putting that aside
(29:47):
and going back to your point, the Knockaba was never
even discussed until recent history, Like it was not like
no one even knew what that word means. Right, We
celebrated it as Yomat's Mote independence Day. So the Israeli
independence Day is the Palestinian's Knockbat, which means the great
(30:11):
tragedy for those who don't know, and the catastrophe, yes
and so. But but what's interesting and very sad is
that in recent years, because of the world actually and
when Israelis tell you don't know what you're talking about.
Don't comment on things you don't talk about that you
(30:32):
don't know about. You most likely, if you've done any
any literally any if you read one book on Palestine,
if you read on Palestine by Noam Chomsky and Elan Pape, like,
you know more than Israelis know about their own situation.
And I say that wholeheartedly because I know what they study, right,
(30:55):
They omit the large swaths of information in order to
form the psyche through the narrative that they perpetuate and so.
But because of recent external and global pressure, because of
the fact that the world's the new generation of young
(31:15):
people have educated themselves on Palestine, you know, catalyze a
lot of them, catalyzed by the social justice movement. Right,
the Angela Davis is the Tromskis of the world who
always since the sixties, I've been talking about Black liberation
isntcomplete without the liberation of Palestinians unifying struggles. They know
more about history of Israel and Palestine than Israelis do. Okay.
(31:41):
I've always been super impressed, not like not to say
that people are dumb, actually think people are very smart. Right,
if they're willing to look. But every Palestinian friend of mine,
every single one, knows so much about Zionism and Zionus history, right,
there's scholars of Zionist history, right, But Israelly, there's no
(32:02):
idea about Palestinians and Palestinian histry.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
It's just I think it's really unsettling because, I mean,
for those who don't know, the catastrophe was like like
the mass expulsion of like seven hundred and fifty thousand Palestinians,
ethnic cleansing, massacres extreme, like just a disgusting show of
forcing someone to leave their land and taking it over.
(32:25):
It was atrocious and her and I think the fact
that they can't even learn about power or like learn
deeply about Palestine or Palestinians, it's like another way of
ethnic cleansing and like forgetting they even exist. And I
think that's very unsettling because you can't just forget. I mean,
at the same time, they say, like history is written
(32:46):
by the people that are in power, right or the
people that I like win the war, quote unquote, and
they're very capable of convincing a big amount of people
that like like that they were never.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Here I think being hopeful is practice. And I've definitely
fallen into you know, bouts of depression and and helplessness
and hopelessness also, I think we all do. But I
think it behooves us to practice hopefulness, especially in times
(33:19):
like these, because without it, we don't have the power
to liberate the oppressed. Right, Yeah, and I think you know, yeah,
I mean, like like you said, it's it's I think
it's also important. I keep saying, the Palestinian struggle is
(33:42):
the people's movement all over the world, right, and we're
seeing that It's not me, I'm nobody, but but we're
seeing that people understand that. Right. Like I said, people
are smart. Right, you don't have to go to you know,
an Ivy League school to be intelligent. Right. Palafreer talked
about banking intelligence. Right, when you just consume information from
(34:03):
a teacher perpetuating the perpetuating the injustices and maintaining the
system of oppression. Right, you can be as educated as
you want in that form of education and not understand
the world and understand the inequalities around you. Right, But
if you feel those inequalities, if you have that empathy,
if you're able to expand your consciousness a little bit
(34:24):
to also include those that you may not identify with
or as or you know that that maybe are not
tangible their experience is not as tangible to you. Then
then you're able to understand situations pretty clearly and easily.
And I think the world is showing up because they
understand that, right, Sure, the air world is showing up.
(34:46):
And that's incredible, right because they understand. Right, this is
like what I always say is Palestine is the last
kind of, like I said earlier, the last direct colonialist
project that exists in the world direct, right, in terms
of direct and active about that colonials project that exists
(35:07):
in the world and their world. You know, if you
read Edwards said and orientalism, you understand how the West
basically created and othered kind of they are a world
in order to create that separation and division in order
to create you know, a world, uh that serves self
interest in visualism versus kind of communitarianism and and and
(35:32):
of of the kind of East. And so when when
you think about in that context, you start understanding that
you know, this is and this is a struggle against
kind of Western imperialism, right, this is a struggle to
free all oppress people, because that's what that's what Zionism
(35:52):
Israel currently stands for, and everyone who perpetuates it, and
and people that talk about intersectionality and anti racism and
all of that, and they still say and they still
don't understand that this is literally a real time manifestation
of the shit that they've been reading in history books, right,
and we're seeing it and it's jarring, and resistance is
(36:13):
fucking jarring, right, Like it was darring to me. I
could barely watch it. I had people crying, you know,
And this is I didn't say this earlier, but I
had you know, family members that didn't want to speak
to me, and like, you know, people cursing at me,
and like friends from you know, middle school sending me
hate messages. My mom is receiving death threats, right, Like
(36:33):
this is real shit, right, and so like this isn't
like an abstract like and and so you know, that's
what that's what people don't necessarily understand when they just
approach it academically. And I commend them, and I think
it's important to like understand the intellectual context of things.
Like I've done the work, I've read the books. But
(36:53):
I think it's also important to kind of take a
step back and contextualize things all around, right, And and
only through that contextualization can we rehumanize, you know, both
the the oppressed and the oppressor in order to actually
have a path forward that's inclusive of all that doesn't
(37:13):
that doesn't pit people against each other. Right, Jews lived
on that land for many years before Zionism, if your.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Scholar, I want to say, like that just fine, before
the introduction of Zionism, which is a very modern, very
fascist ideology.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Not only Zionism though, right, Like think about Syke's Picot, Right,
the British French treaty that was signed in nineteen twenty
that sliced up the air world, according to their whim
didn't take into account any demographic any ethnic geographic relations,
didn't take into account any any of that. And that
(37:54):
is what's set the tone for a lot of what
we're seeing in their world today, right, compounded by the
introduction of a European ideology into the region that served
European interests is what is what we're seeing to this
very day. And the Palestinians bear the biggest brunt of it.
I wouldn't say like I would say, like in recent years,
there's tragedies all around due to Western imperialism and Western intervention. Right,
(38:20):
I take that back, right, Like I don't want to
compare tragedies, but the tragedy of the Palestinian people that
there's no one really advocating on their behalf. Yeah, I
was going to add a wrinkle that probably ninety nine
point nine percent of the population doesn't know, including Pustinians
and Arabs, because it was actively erased. But up until
psychs Pico, up until Western imperialism, Arab Jews were an
(38:46):
integral part of Arabic culture. Okay, An my grandparents from Iraq, Right,
Iraq wasn't the Iraqi Jews were not Zionists. There were
hundreds of thousands of Jews in Iraq that lived there
since Babylonian times. Right. There are many, you know, many
empires that came through the air world. Right, So this
place replaced et cetera. But they were there for hundreds
(39:08):
of years at the minimum. Some would say some of
them were actually not there due to the Spanish Inquisition, right,
but actually were there before and never left basically, and
so you know, they were musicians. You know, they played
in Kusum, right like there were there were statesmen, they
were they were very integral part of the culture, right,
(39:30):
And and they are the many Arab friends that do
know this, and they they're like, yeah, like it's the biggest,
the biggest, one of the biggest tragedies is kind of
the betrayal of the Arab jew right, And they understand, right,
like when at this point in time, and this is
not only iraqis was Egypt and you know, Yemen and Morocco.
There's a huge community, right, like these these people live
(39:54):
there there there Nazism is not an Arabic concept. They're
trying to paint Arabs as Nazis.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Even growing up, I would go to Syria a lot,
and my grandfather would like he would only get bread
at Jewish bakery, Like he would take the walk and
go there, and it was normal. No one cares, like,
no one gives a shit really what your religion is
in those communities. And I think, I mean, this is
obvious for people that are reading about all of this,
(40:21):
but the media and Zionism in Israel, they're purposely conflating
what's happening with religion to make it more complicated for
people to make it this like ancient battle of all time,
when it's not about any kind of Muslim versus Jewish
versus Arab versus whatever. It's it's really so simple to
the point where it's kind of silly, and I think
(40:43):
they make it so complicated for people to be scared
to talk about it. They're not informed enough. They don't
know about religion, they don't know about the history. You
don't have to know about any of that to know
that oppression is wrong and genocide is wrong.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
And every every resistance movement in history. Tree was considered
a terrorist movement in modern times, right, even Israeli militias. Right,
you had the Lefi, the Excel, and the AGA. Okay,
they're considered terrorist organizations because they would attack civilian British
(41:17):
and they've attacked civilian targets during the British mandate. Sounds familiar,
but you know what, those those three militias became the idea,
the idea exactly. The three militias that formed that formed
the IDEAF once Israel was given statehood were considered terrorist organizations,
the IRA terrorist organization. Right, Nelson Mandela was on the
(41:41):
US terrorists watchless until two thousand and eight. These are
real things. These are all facts. But I'm saying even
if you're thinking about it from the perspective of attacking civilians, Okay,
wrong in my opinion, but when you don't have if
you look at actually here another another fact, right, look
at what the Chibella is doing. Okay, they were considered
(42:02):
terrorist organization, their armed to the teeth. Israel scared shitless
of the physa bullet threat. I'm hearing it from people
on the ground. Right, They're attacking military targets. They're showing
the world that they can't because they can. They used
to not be able to, Now they can. So they
are when a population is oppressed, suppressed to the level
(42:24):
that the Gosins are, what what military do they have?
Do they have F sixteen fighter jets that they can
go and bomb? I don't know the Kiriyah? Did you
guys know that the biggest military base in Israel is
in the middle of the Tel Aviv.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Yeah, in a residential area.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
In a residential area. So what if what if the
Gozzins had F sixteen fighter what if Kamas had F
sixteen fighters? They wouldn't want to bomb that yeah, like
people are people that dense like that they don't understand
how this thing works and what what oppression looks like. Right.
A lot of my Palestinian friends always say the world
wants us to be perfect victims and in a lot
(43:02):
of in a lot of senses, the burden is always
on the victim right in these oppressive scenarios. So I
always tell them, guys, like, we have to be smart.
We have to make sure that you know, again, I like,
it's it's trauma that I can't you know, I feel
in my bones, but but it's not it's not directly
(43:22):
happening to me, and and and so I can't. I'm
not It's not from a place of judgment. It's from
a pragmatic perspective. We have to understand that that's the
trap that they're setting for us. The Kamas enacted. The
Kamas did exactly what the right wing government wanted them
to do in order to justify the plan that they
had all along. I'm not going to go so far
(43:44):
as to start perpetuating conspiracy theories because it's not my place.
So I'm not going to say that they plan this
and it was, you know, an inside job, I'm not
going to say that, but what I will say is
it served the interests of the right wing government. And
the one thing I want I meant to say because
I keep going off on tangents, and I apologize. But
(44:05):
to your point about the Knakaba, I said, in the
last ten years, it's pretty crazy to see the narrative shift.
Israel has so been so emboldened. They feel so invincible
because of the international support that they have. Now they
acknowledge the Knokoba. Now they acknowledge the knock but we
know how they acknowledge it. They say, yeah, the knockba happened,
(44:27):
Let's do a second one, yep, right, And so now
they're now all of a sudden the knockber existed, right,
and they're basically saying, hey, let's do a second one.
All the like, all the right wing government of government
officials were saying, the second knock, but let's do it now,
let's let's that's what they try to do. Yeah, I
mean they're trying to do in Gauza.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
One never ended. It feels like the first one just
ever ended.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Right that I always I always say that I agree,
but I'm saying like I'm talking about mass expulsion right now,
they're trying to they're trying under international on everyone's noses
to utilize genocide and ethnic cleansing to displace millions of
palestadiums from Gaza. And God knows, I don't. They don't
have a they don't. This was like a biblical idea, right,
(45:10):
like the Judean Samaria. This is not like a there's
no like specific plans that people had, Like this is
a biblical, fervent, ideological idea. They don't freaking know what
they're doing. They don't want to go don't want to
go to war with Iran. They're scared of the Like
these are real things, these are real threats. Like Israel
hasn't fought a real opponent since the seventies in the
(45:33):
o Pepool War. That's what I'm trying to say. Like
this showed how vulnerable they are and they're scared. I'm
telling you, Like I know the sentiment on the ground,
Like people are scared out of their minds. They don't think.
They're not very confident in Israel's military, right, Like that's
why they're bombing the shit, and like that's why they
haven't invaded. They said they're going to invade babes talking
this big game they haven't done yet because they're scared.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Remember also, is that the IDs, that's all I say,
does not actually act in the best interests of the civilians.
Like there was like a report from an Israeli woman
who survived the massacre at the music festival that said
a lot of them were shot by like their own forces.
It was like indiscriminate shooting.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
The biggest casualties for Israeli soldiers up until this was
was friendly fire. Yeah. Really, that's that's.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
That's I mean, I just think that's so hard to
remember because it's a They're framed as this very like
ideal warrior bullshit and it's so far from the truth.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
And that's what I'm saying their eighteen year old kids. Yeah,
these aren't like US like Marines that are career assassins.
Like have you ever seen in the US marine and
next to an Israeli soldier. I'm serious, Like, like I know, it's.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Become a trend to be a soldier of anything. It's
like very like you see these like young people like yeah, exactly,
it's like a very cool thing to.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
Do because there's never a threat though Israel. Israel has
been You've grown up in Israel believing that you're the
most powerful entity and you can do whatever you want,
whenever you want, right, and that notion has been shaken
to its core. And if you're part of the propaganda machine,
if you're caught in the propaganda machine that is kind
of Zionist Israeli ideology, you're basically now your whole world
(47:20):
is crumbled beneath you. Right, you're completely in survival mode.
Everyone's posting, everyone's like, you have to eradicate come us,
But they're not even eradicating comas. What are they doing?
They're just emboldening come us. Like this happens all the time.
It's just happening on a much bigger scale right now.
Any Hamas leader, that the thing I was basically looking for,
like a big, like a major Hamas leadership, you know,
(47:43):
attack and once they're able to neutralize, you know, in
their words numerous high ranking officials, I think they'll declare victory.
Even though they're not going to be victorious. They're not
going to bring back the fourteen hundred.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
People are also going to kill the hostages at this rate,
you know what I mean? Not like you've already killed
more than twenty two. That's how much do you actually
care about your civilians and the hostage like the foreign
hostages either like it's your but but I don't know,
there's clearly showing their ass.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
In my opinion, I want to I want to have
a clear message though to kind of people that are
on the fence in the West that are being fed
propaganda through Western media outlets. That is quite clear at
this point. And some of them recognize this, and that's
why they come to my page and they're like, oh,
you know, thank you. I didn't I didn't know. I
(48:32):
didn't know. In Israel, there are many people, not even
ideologically that want to bring the hostages back and don't
understand why Israel is doing what it's doing before and
not even talking to them about the hostages.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Yeah, that videos sleading being like please, it's just yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
I'm not talking about left wing activists. I'm talking about
like averages, reelis right, Natanas failed the Israeli people that
attack the fact that and again this I don't enough
people know this right, people who know no, but maybe
some don't. That attack was a complete military failure on
behalf of Israel. And that happened because over the last
(49:17):
six to nine months since the right wing government took place,
took power, they've been using the IDF to support, empower,
embolden and protect settlers in the West Bank. And that's
why settler attacks have increased. That's why settlements have increased,
(49:39):
that's why they're more settlers than ever before. And what
they were doing on that very day people don't already know.
I hope they do. But if they don't already know,
the IDF was in the West Bank on su Quote,
which is a Jewish holiday, and they were protecting settlers
in building a sukkah, that structure that people sit in
(50:00):
in the middle of Juara, Palestinian village, and they were
protecting them and chaper owning them so that they can
break into Palestinian village to build a suka in order
to antagonize Palestinians. That's say what you may about anything else,
the fact that that is the priority of the government.
You know, you're doing the oppression, You're already committing the oppression.
(50:23):
You're already subjugating the Tastanian people. You know that Hamas
is comas, you're going to remove security forces from the
border to embolden and empower settlers instead. It doesn't make
any sense.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
No, it's I mean, that's why the most un settling
things I've seen coming out of Israel are those right
wing protests where they're like death to Arabs and whatever,
or like they're attacking people and the idea f is
like either helping them or standing by. If you're on
(51:01):
the fence about this still, you are literally for genocide.
Those are the two differences. It's either your for genocide
or you're against genocide. And if you're considering the options,
examine yourself. That's not right. I was just set this
tweet apparently yesterday the twitter for Israeli Prime Minister at
(51:23):
Israel PM said this is a struggle between the children
of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and
the law of the jungle. Are you fucking kidding me?
That's like Nazi Hitler shit, are you There are so
many lives I've already been lost, and the ones that
have not been lost are never going to recover. They've
lost so much other than their life. There are so
(51:47):
many terrifying and horrific videos that I've seen that no
one should have to go through and not only are
they going through it, they're getting funded and encouraged by
most of the world. I cannot accept that. I sorry,
I don't want to cry, but I might.
Speaker 1 (52:08):
I mean, it's that's where we're at at this point.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
No, but I appreciate you being here to get through
to people who might still be considering what's happening as
a both sides thing or a justification for anything. When
they see tweets like that, or when they see justification
for killing all the people because they're all barbarians or
whatever it is. I urge you. I urge you to
(52:33):
seek out Palestinian sources of news. Actually see what's happening
in Gaza, listen to people who are not advertising anything
to you, and it's like pleading for their lives. I
just this can't be how we end up as a people.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
It's very, very sad.
Speaker 2 (52:56):
It's extremely unlike no word to describe how devastating. And
I think if you are listening and you are wondering
what to do, there are places you can donate to.
I can put some links in the description of sources
that I trust of people to follow and all that stuff,
so you can look at the description for that. I
(53:17):
think what's very important that people maybe aren't taking too
seriously is how important social media and like spreading awareness
has been, because the only reason the resistance has come
this far is because of that, because more people are
aware about what's going on. People aren't accepting that Israel
is doing this. So I think we just can't stop.
(53:39):
Like as much as they want the world to forget
that Palestinians were even there, we cannot forget Palestinians. And
I'm not gonna stop talking about it, and you shouldn't either.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
This is why I'm speaking on I just set a
message on Palestinian friends. You are our voice now. We're
not allowed to spit out a lip. They are seeing
anyone who speaks or shares the truth. Please, I beg
you don't give up on our people in Gaza. We
need your voice to stop the genocide. Thousands of lives
have already been taken. We can't stand this anymore.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
Please listen to that, everybody. Please.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
It's very hard to fathom and internalize what's happening.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
Yeah, it's a lot, and we're privileged enough to think
about it that deeply. The people in Gaza Palestinians. They
don't have the luxury of no of anything other than
their nightmare of a reality.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
No, I want to add sin just because I think
that the biggest kind of pushback that we keep hearing
is Homas yes, please yet And I think that again,
remembering what we kind of mentioned earlier in the call,
how liberation movements for occupied peoples have always been aimed
(55:01):
terrorist organizations and you know, even targeted civilians, right, so
not only like by the definition of terrorist organizations or
terrorist organizations. So even if that's what we believe, and
let's just say that that's you know, we accept and
agreed that that's what Ramas is, I think it's important
(55:21):
to understand that terrorist organizations have become political organizations time
and time again. And I think that it's also important
to understand historically the tamas As as an entity again
remind you was created and partially created and funded by
(55:42):
the State of Israel, emboldened by the State of Israel.
Because I want to be very clear, up until the nineties,
right also accord to the peace process, people say, oh,
the Palestinians didn't want peace. To your point earlier, the
Palestinians were willing to take almost anything. At that point,
Arafat was that are a terrorist before he became a statesman, right,
(56:03):
was on the table with Robin, had an agreement in place. Okay,
and then people don't know. If you're not a scholar
and you don't know, you should know. Oh Goldstein, an
Israeli terrorist came in to a mosque. I believe it
was in Hebron, I don't remember exactly, and he killed
(56:24):
more than thirty people during prayer, just indiscriminately shot innocent
people in a mosque. So the biggest, one of the
biggest tragedies. Right. And then he was not only did
they the response, you know, Verben's response to that was
it was locking down Hebron Palestinians in Hebron, so because
(56:47):
he was fearful of what the Palestinians would do in retaliation.
The immediate response by Rabine was locking down the people
of Hebron. Okay, instead of going and doing something about
the settlers that committed the crime or that emboldened the
person committing the crime. That's number one, Number two, that
(57:09):
sparked the retaliation, because when people don't have justice, they
take justice in their own hands. So that sparked this
series of attacks in Israel, right, devastating attacks in Israel.
But it was that that did that, and it was
his He could have he could have handled that differently,
but he didn't, right and and and that was what
(57:30):
sparked the response then in turn, Okay again who putting
that aside? Right? And and sorry, little tidbit. His grave
m HM. Cochtain's grave is guarded by the IDF as
(57:50):
some and many many many consider him a national hero.
Speaker 2 (57:54):
Yeah, I've seen photos of people like crying at his
grave like it's yes, save their faces or something. When
he's not. Just when you literally just like went in
to a mosque with a gun and shot thirty people
who were fucking praying.
Speaker 1 (58:06):
Yes, And that's wrong.
Speaker 2 (58:08):
When people are idolizing.
Speaker 1 (58:10):
Exactly, it's rotten to its core, is my point. This
is what you're supporting when you support the state of Israel. Okay,
this is part of part of this is part of
what you're supporting. Now, taking a second step, Robin was
assassinated by a Jewish Israeli, not by Palestinian. Even in
(58:30):
spite of everything, the peace process was still going on
because they did everything to foil it, right, and then
they assassinated the Israeli Prime minister. And ever since then,
right then you had Ariel's your own and whatever that
tried to continue a peace process and you know, some
capacity whatever. Since then, for the last twenty three years,
(58:53):
no one has been talking about a peace process. They blamed,
they blamed the Palestinians for every act of resistance. They
don't listen. They believe that they talk. The way that
politicians discuss the Palestinian kind of oppression is managing the occupation, Okay,
(59:13):
managing the opposition. No one's talking about peace, not left left,
pseudo left, whatever you want to call it, not liberal,
zionis left or center or right. No one is talking
about peace. No one is talking about any semblance of peace.
I find it very particular, right, and this is my
this is why I'm saying we live in the twilight zone.
(59:34):
That Donald Trump's four years in office, okay, he he
had Kushner that that say, what all the bad things
right about his about his behavior. He was trying to
through normalization deals with their world, trying to get a
deal for the Palestinian people, albeit the most absurd sort
(59:55):
of deal. If you ever read what the Abraham accord
is actually entailed right like, weird like ways and weird
right like, not a deal that anyone should have accepted.
But putting that aside, he was talking about it. There
was discussion, there was Palestinian like the word palestinian was
being said by the Office of the President. In the
(01:00:16):
last four years that Biden was in office, no one
said anything, no one did anything to advanced piece. No
one even brought a bogus deal like darreed Kushner to
the table. I don't make it make sense. I don't understand.
They basically bought into the Zionist idea that we can
just live, continue living while millions of people are being
(01:00:40):
oppressed and occupied. This is the Democratic Party, and that's
why we see the media now the way it is,
because they're controlling the media narrative too. Right, So open
your eyes, see it for what it is, right, don't
get cloud don't let your judgment get clouded by this
two side bs aspect. I hold space for the killing
(01:01:03):
of innocent civilians, including the killing of Israeli innocent civilians,
while simultaneously understanding that this is all because of the
aggression of colonialism and specifically a perpetuation of the Zionist
project as a colonialist, nationalist ethno state, and that is
(01:01:24):
what I ask of you guys to do, right, Yeah,
thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
That's I think a great place to end. Thank you
again for joining me. You are just as your Palestinian
friends said in that message, your voice is really critical
because people will more likely listen to you than to
a Palestinian. So very much, thank you for your activism.
(01:01:50):
And I don't know, it's we're not living in a
just world and so we just have to stick together.
I also want to mention the other reason why social
media is so important is like, one, there's a reason
they cut electricity to Gaza. They don't want anything coming
out of there. They want them to die in a blackout.
And two they are literally arresting people for following Palestinian accounts.
(01:02:15):
Now yeah, so I mean, if that's not sutalitarianism, like
what the fuck is? I don't But anyway, so, uh,
that's it for today. I can't I don't think it
can do anymore. But again, I'll put some sources in
the description to donate to to keep raising awareness. If
you have people in your circles that are still hesitant
(01:02:38):
about having a stance on this, like have conversations. It
shouldn't be complicated. It really shouldn't be, because it's not.
And that's all. That's all I have. So thanks everybody,
thank you for having me. It Could Happen here as
a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from
(01:02:58):
cool Zone Media, visit our website Coalzonemedia dot com or
check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at Coolzonmedia dot com
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Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello, everybody, Welcome to it could happen here. This is
Sharene and I am so happy to be joined by
my guest today. I've been so excited to speak to him.
I am joined by dB Kashi. He is a pro
palsy and activist from New York and Israel. And there's
just a lot of stuff I want to talk to
you about.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
So welcome, pleasure to be here. Great to meet you, Saren.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I want to start with just some background for the
audience to just like kind of get to know where
the perspective you're speaking from. Can you tell me a
little bit about your family history and where you grew
up and where your parents are from and all of that.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Sure, my parents were both born in Israel, and they,
like many Israelis, moved to New York City in the
eighties and had myself and my two siblings. And as
my grandparents were getting older, to whom we were very close,
(01:04):
my mom decided to move back to Tel Aviv when
I was in two thousand, so right before the Second Intifada,
And so when I was thirteen eighth grade, I moved
to Tel Aviv for the first time. And you know,
obviously I was very familiar with it. I visit every summer,
(01:26):
and you know, grew up in our grandparents' house, both
of whom were Iraqi Jews who immigrated to Israel in
the early fifties. And so yeah, so when I moved
there in eighth grade, I was completely pretty much a
shock in terms of what I was used to in
(01:49):
New York. Obviously, I had friends from many different walks
of life, many different backgrounds here. I was very used
to that, right, I think grew up in you know,
a very staunch Jewish community. I had Jewish friends, but
I didn't solely have Jewish friends, and so that that's
what I loved, That's what I embraced. But when I
(02:10):
moved to Israel, it was very jarring. You know, I'd
studied in Hebrew for the first time, and you know,
everything that we studied in school was pertaining to the
Jewish identity. So every kind of history class, you know,
you'd study the Roman Empire and the Jewish people, you'd
(02:31):
study about you know, ancient Greece and the Jewish people,
and that's okay to learn about Jewish identity, but intertwining
it with every aspect of the school curriculum and really
thinking about the persecure really kind of hammering home this
notion of persecution, really kind of understanding how you know,
(02:53):
and again I think it's important to understand your history
and history in general, but I think that kind of
introducing this notion of persecution as a tactic to retraumatize
people that aren't directly experiencing the trauma. Right. So, everyone
in the world learns about the Holocaust, but did you
(03:15):
know that in Israel, Holocaust Remembrance Day isn't on the
same day as the rest of the world's Holocaust Remembrance
Day because they want to own their own kind of
version of the Holocaust Remembrance Day, Right, And so you know,
when you think about the Holocaust, you think about other Holocausts,
other genocides that have happened, and Israel's failure to recognize
(03:37):
those genocides, like the Armenian genocide, right, and the fact
that you know, many people don't know, but you know,
throughout history Israel has armed genocidal forces with Israeli made
weapons to you know, support imperialist motives and colonialist powers
around the world. So you know, even even now with
(04:00):
what's happening in Armenia with the Iserabai Johnny's right, Israel
is on the wrong side of that equation, right, And
so it's never been about standing with the side of
the oppressed. For Israel, it's never been about, you know,
ensuring that what happens when they say never again, actually
(04:21):
never again, never happens again to anyone around the world. Right.
Think about their policies, the racist policies around refugees, right.
I think people don't understand, right, I have a very
unique perspective because I understand kind of the minds of
the colonizers. I can humanize the colonizers. I think there's
(04:45):
a dangerous kind of maybe thinking about things from a
bit of a different angle than kind of people are
used to, and also bringing it back to the events
of the last ten days or eleven days at this point,
I think, you know, I've always kind of looked at
and identified with the Palestinian struggle, right, And I've always
seen it as a human rights struggle, right, And you know,
(05:10):
as such, and as many well regarded activists and thinkers
and intellectuals have always talked about the unification of all
the struggles of the oppress. And that's always, always arrived
at the identification with this struggle for the Palestinian people.
I've also felt, you know, by virtue of this self,
(05:34):
this imposed identity of you know, Israeli, I've always felt
directly responsible for the oppression of the Palestinian people, even
though I've never done anything myself to champion or perpetuate
that oppression. I've always worked against it from a very
very young age. Now people always ask me, you know,
(05:55):
kind of annoying questions like, you know, why do you
care so much about the power Estinians when so many
people in the world are suffering? And the answer to
that question is I care about all suffering. But this
is something that the government that supposedly represents me, that
the entity that supposedly represents me is directly perpetrating. And frankly,
(06:17):
after going to many protests in New York and in
Israel itself, I've realized that this is the most important
human rights struggle of our generation, for sure, but of
modern times because it stands for all of it's essentially
the last beacon of direct colonialism. Right, we all know
(06:40):
how kind of neocolonialism works. I mean, maybe we do
what we don't, but neocolonialism through you know, different coupitist structures. Right,
America has been able to perpetrate neocolonialism without actually having
to occupy other people, you know, save for Iraq for
(07:01):
almost twenty years, but or fifteen years or whatever, it
was a very long time. But Israel is directly and
physically occupying on other people, and they have been for
the last seventy five years, right, officially for the last
seventy five years. And that's been a constant, Right. It's not, hey,
(07:22):
you know, here's a country and let's you know, fight,
Let's continue our kind of battle in that way it's
been It's always been. If you if you're a scholar
of Israeli history, of Zionist history, you always you start
understanding that the goal was to take over all of
Judaea and Samara, Right, And that's kind of how the
(07:44):
settler government that Netanyahu has in power has been speaking
for years. Right. I'm really upset and really kind of
frustrated by the way that the Western media has been
portraying what's happening over the last eleven days. Because even
Israeli media Halitz, which is an Israeli newspaper, which is
(08:06):
very prominent one right isn't portraying it the way that
the Western media is portraying it. Right, they're criticizing the Netanyahu.
There's so many people in Israel that are scared, right,
all the leftists are scared. They're being persecuted. They're signal
groups doxing friends of mine, people literally fighting for human rights,
they're doxing them. Islaelfrai, he's an Orthodox reporter that's that's
(08:32):
been staunchly pro Palestinian and he's a very prominent member
of the press. Angry mob of right winging extremists try
to knock down his door the other day and he
had to escape from the back door and run away,
so they don't, you know, potentially kill him, right, And
so these voices are being silenced in Israel. No one
is talking about that. Everyone in the West is beating
(08:54):
the drums of war. The media is supporting that. We've
seen on the kind of a microw but tragic level,
what happened to that six year old kid that was
stobbed to death by someone just because of the anti Islamic,
anti Palestinian rhetoric that's being perpetrated. And so everyone's kind
of losing their shit as all of a sudden, everyone's
(09:15):
saying the same thing because everyone is being pushed to
justify this war. But people are starting to wake up, right,
the UN's woken up in certain very very slowly. People
are starting to wake up because they're seeing that genocide
is actually being committed, and so you can't throw your
full weight behind genocide. But they're walking it back too slowly.
(09:36):
And the people that I'm disappointed by are people that
are supposedly smart, spewing complete nonsense rhetoric about two sides. Right.
I struggled, Right, this is important. I struggled. I know
people who were killed in the Hamas attack personally and
intimately know them. Right. You know my ex girlfriend's best
friend was killed, right, She's we've hung out many, many,
(09:58):
many times. She was a very sweet, very kind person.
We know an activist who was literally because people don't understand,
and this is for a lot of the kind of
pro Palestinians that have that. And I completely empathize, and
I understand why people believe what they believe. Believe me,
but this is for a lot of the pro Palestinians
(10:19):
that you know. Immediately called all of them settlers, right.
And I think it's important to distinguish because if there's
ever going to be a path forward in this mess,
we have to offer a new rhetoric that deconstructs the
nationalist ideologies. Okay, I don't put the Palestinian flag or
say free Palestine, which I do as a nationalist ideology.
(10:43):
I say that as a deconstruction of nationalism as as
as a call to freedom for all, right, though oppressed,
as well as the oppressor. Right. If you actually read
everyone's quoting, everyone's quoting Phenen, right, everyone's quoting all these revolutionaries,
if you actually read the material that they said. Chae
(11:05):
Gavari even said the true revolutionary is guided by deep
with deep feelings of love in their heart. And he
said this at the risk of sounding absurd. He said
that direct quote the people perpetuating in Israel. I can
say this from a first ten account. I know very
good people that are guided by nationalists and fascist ideologies. However,
(11:28):
they've been manipulated, they've been lied to, They're fed propaganda
twenty four to seven through the news and the sentiment
in Israel right now, and I can tell you this,
I'm getting messages from people they think everyone is trying
to kill Jews. That's what they believe, that's what they've
been told. They think this is armageddon for the Jewish people.
(11:49):
That's what the media narrative is in Israel. Okay, in
spite of the fact that there are many people that
are against what's happening, there are many people that directly
blame Netanyahu this, but they're being scared to believe that
they're being going to be attacked on all fronts, and
they have to do everything they can to neutralize the threats. Okay,
that is that is the survival kind of that. That
(12:12):
is a fact. Does that mean that every single person
in Israel is a terrible human being as evil as
some people say. No, that is not true at all. Right,
And my point is, and what a lot of the
revolutionaries said, right, Palo Freer in the Pedagogy of the
Oppressed said, in the process of dehumanization, the oppressor dehumanizes himself.
(12:32):
Putting that aside, though, I think that you know, for me,
I see I know people that died. It was very
difficult for me to post in the first two days.
I think there were some problematic justifications for the massacre
that didn't sit well with me because I'm a humanist.
But in the same token, right, I think that I
(12:54):
understand the context. I think it behooves us to understand
the context. Right. There's a really famous quote. I forget
who said it, but if you started the clock or
started looking at kind of the colonization in America from
when the Native Americans started shooting the arrows, you think
(13:15):
that the Native Americans were the aggressives. Right. If you
started looking at, you know, the colonization of Algeria when
the Alga, when the local population started rebelling, you think
that they were the aggressives. Right. And that's not to
say in the same breath that terrible things happened to
amazing people there. Right. What people don't know, and a
(13:37):
lot of the propolsting movement doesn't know, is that many
of the people living in the area on Gazas are
actually activists, like very anti Zionist activists. Right that many
of the testimonies of the families of the of those
activists are saying to stop the genocide, that it's not
(13:59):
going to bring back their friends, their family members. Those
are the people that were a lot of whom were
killed in the attacks because that's where they live, they
work with, you know, organizations at GAZA like acknowledge that, right,
understand the complexity saying hey, you guys are all settlers.
That's just dumb. It's not factually true. Their grandparents were,
(14:21):
their great grandparents were one hundred percent. But now their
generations and generations of people, right, just like in America,
their generations and generations of people that descended, Are they
to be held accountable for the actions of their ancestors?
Doesn't make any sense. They should be held accountable for
actions that they take now, for sure, right, holding your
(14:42):
government accountable, you know, thinking about an actual solution to
this terrible situation that one hundred percent people should be
held accountable for. But to call them settlers as a
justification for their deaths is something that I will never do, right,
and I don't think it helps the strugg Right, I
think it's important to say and then simultaneously also say,
(15:05):
did you guys know that Israel played a very major
role in establishing the Kammas, Like, don't be stupid, open
a history book, see what happened, right, understand, don't just
be quick to call and quick to say both sides.
It's not a both side situation. Even though the aggression
was terrible, those are those two things can be true.
(15:25):
It's a devastating, tragic event, right, and I know many
great people that were killed in it. But in the
same breath, we have to remember what caused it.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah. Context is everything.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Right, context is everything. Israel funded the Kamas BB has
direct quotes in Israeli newspapers saying we have to fund
the Hamas in order for is Palestinians never to have
a state. He directly said that how do you guys
ignore these statements. They've been very bib has been very
clear as to what is going to happen and what
(15:56):
he's trying to accomplish. And then on top of that,
to compound things, the settlers in his government right now,
Isal Bengvill and Smooch are two settlers. They literally are settlers,
like in accordance to the national law, they're considered settlers, okay,
illegal settlers, and they're the second and third most powerful
(16:17):
people in Israel. Okay. I don't think people understand or know,
but those two guys, there's a there's a famous rabbi
okay in Jerusalem. He's an extremist fundamentalist rabbi, Jewish fundamentalist rabbi.
What he's been calling for for a long time, Ka
sadaka is Kahana was right. He was a very fascist
(16:39):
rabbi that was basically calling for the extermination of all Arabs.
And and they're basically they're called kahanistem and that's it's
basically what the left in Israel used to call this government.
Man tash Khanistim means government of Kahanists. Okay, that is
what that's who's running the country. And this rabbi has
(17:00):
been calling for in a biblical sense. And we all
know when people have an utmost you know, devotion to religion,
that guides them right, not our world. Our world does
not guide them. The religious texts and the religious leaders
are the ones who tell them what is right and
what is wrong right in religious fundamentalism. And so what
this rabbi has been calling for for years has been
(17:23):
a war to end all wars. Okay, that is what
he's been telling them. That is what they've been operating under. Okay,
their allegiances are to him, not to the Israeli people
like literally to that ideology. And so they're in the
government right now. Over the last year, they've been essentially
(17:46):
adding illegal settlements at a rapid rate, emboldening and empowering
settlers to commit violence that we haven't seen in many,
many years. Levels of violence we haven't been seen in
many many years, even before this latest aggression. I'm talking
about over the last twelve months. And the biggest most
annoying thing that I hear from Westerners that think they understand, right,
(18:10):
they're like, oh, yeah, we really care about Palestinians. But
Hamas has to go two things to that. One, the
fact that there are Palestinians on the West Bank and
the Palestinians in Gaza doesn't mean they're not the same people.
They're Palestinians in forty eight as well. They feel deep
feelings of solidarity because they're all oppressed in different ways. Right,
(18:34):
It's solidarity under this got under this Grand zionis oppression
that they experience. And so I think that it's a
fallacy that it was an unprovoked attack. It's a fallacy, right,
it's not the case. The fact that Aleksa kept getting
bombarded by settlers on purpose, on purpose, I don't put
(18:56):
it back like they did this to get a provocation.
They've been evoking to get the retaliation for Hamas. They've
been doing this for years. This is nothing new, Right,
every time Ramas shot rockets over the last five years
is because Israel was attacking Alexa right right after Ramadan
if you remember, or during Ramadan. Sorry, And so every
time a barage of rockets came in right after that
(19:17):
barrage of rockets because Hamas wanted to show that someone
is sticking up for them. But I'm just saying you
have to understand the context. When you're in a blockade,
when you're living in a concentration camp, worse than a
concentration camp, frankly, right, every electricity is controlled, water is controlled,
food is controlled. You're not able to leave, right, You're
(19:38):
not able to freaking leave when you want. You're not
able to come when you want, not able to A
sixty kilometer strip of land is the most densely populated
strip of land in the entire world. Depression is the highest,
the highest rates of depression. I think the highest rates
of child suicide are in Gaza. Okay, when you're living
(20:00):
under those conditions, I have no idea how you're spoil
I have no idea what that would feel like, So
how can I judge anyone any response to that? Right
in the same breath, I can also say it's a
tragic thing that innocent people died, and they're innocent people,
And I think it's important to hold that complexity. Also
for the Palestinian cause. I think it's important to not
(20:22):
lose sight of our humanity in criticizing the grave injustices
that Israel has committed and putting the blame squarely on
Israel's shoulders that Hamas exists.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, I think that's something I keep coming back to
is whenever someone is just all about condemning Hamas, which
is like, yes, as you mentioned, like innocent people shouldn't
have died, But I blame all the violence that's happening
in Israel on Israel. Like it's not, yeah, you can't
(20:52):
just start like at a slave revolt as the beginning
of history of slavery. It's like, no, actually exactly, they
did that for a reason and they had no other choice.
And I mean for Palestinians, I think, like, what's the
biggest context that's missing is like they've tried everything. It's
not their first choice to kill people that didn't deserve
(21:15):
it. It's I think I think that's what's been really annoying
with the the people that have chosen to spoke to
speak out, that have never spoken out before. They are
so narrow in their view of this that it's so
damaging because they have so many follow werds, or they're
talking about the wrong things, and all of those things
like kind of perpetuate a really dangerous environment where like
(21:40):
a six year old kid can get stabbed to death,
or I don't know. I agree with everything you said,
and I really appreciate you saying all those things before
I forget. We're gonna take our first break, so don't
go anywhere and we're back. Something you mentioned early on
(22:06):
that I have been thinking about and getting really getting
really angry about is why people are surprised or like
unexpecting you to speak out about Palestinians if you are
not a Palestinian. I am not a Palestinian. I'm Syrian,
and I am extremely vocal about the Palestinian cause and
the Palestine. I've always been one hundred percent free Palestine
(22:27):
till I die. And it's almost like surprising to people,
like why are you so worked up like why aren't
you so worked up like that? That's what really gets
me is your humanity and care. It shouldn't be contingent
on your identity if you actually give a shit. And
I think that's what I really want to like relate
(22:48):
to people, is this is not the Palestinian's struggle solely
for themselves, Like this is a struggle for all. Like
if this genocide obliterates the Palestinian people, that's on humanity shoulders.
That's not that is so indicative of how depraved humans
have become. It's just so upsetting. It's just a complete obliteration.
(23:09):
There has been videos of settlers saying they want to
flattened the whole thing, make it a parking lot. I mean,
I don't even have to tell you what like actual
media and like politicians have been saying because it's like atrocious.
But I think that's what I want to relate to
people is like if you're not if you don't care,
examine that, because that is troubling to me, if you
don't care about actual genocide. And maybe that word has
(23:33):
been used too much to like make people give a shit,
but it really makes me question people's humanity when they
are able to kind of just like shrug it off
and continue about their day.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I've been practicing being hopeful. I think it's really important,
especially in times like these, to be hopeful, because without hope,
and it sounds cheesy, but it's true, we're not empowered, right,
were not able to act. And I think what's exciting,
(24:06):
what's I guess heartening to me is actually the people's
response to what's happening. Yes, there are many influencers and
celebrities that posted the wrong thing, I'm also seeing many
that posted the right thing. I'm also seeing many people
that I'm surprised by. I'm seeing many people that I
(24:28):
wasn't surprised by posting the wrong thing, frankly. But I'm
also seeing many people white people, you know, black people, right, like,
people of all kinds that are disconnected, you know, from
an identity perspective to the posting people doing so much
(24:49):
showing up. I went to the I saw images from
the protest in the other day, and there are I'm
not talking about the Jewish protest, which was amazing, right,
what JVP did with if not now, in front of
Chuck Schumer's house was incredible, Right, That's that's solidarity. That's
(25:10):
that's that's real, right, That's that's that's that's humanity, right,
that's what humanity should be. That's real solidarity. I'm talking
about the protests though, that was Palestinian lad in the midtown,
and I saw tons of Jews there, m hm. And
I'm not talking about the Sutmar anti Zionist, you know
Hasidic Jews. Those are great, right, and they're they're helpful.
(25:31):
I'm talking about like regular regular ass Jews, right, like me, right,
people like not even wearing yamaicas, like people with you know,
small yamicas that aren't like you know, Hasidic or anything,
holding up signs to help liberate the Palestinian people. In
spite of the Hamas, in spite of everything that happened,
(25:53):
they showed up. They were not scared. A Pastinian flag
doesn't scare them, right, I shouldn't. It shouldn't. But again,
I want to be I want to I want to
maintain my my I guess I want to maintain the
view of objectivity. I think again, you know, Devil's advocate,
(26:16):
I think when when And again this is not not
me blaming, right, it's more so offering kind of a
perspective to question how to how to move forward when
people Israeli's Jews whoever right, are indoctrinated to believe that
(26:36):
Palestine means no place for me, okay, and then you
couple that with the anger anguish that the oppressed people
are feeling and saying, yeah, fu fuck that, like we
couldn't want you here, right, like you look what you're
doing to us. I think that they view the Palestinian
flag as a replacement of, you know, the flag of Israel,
(27:01):
which many people actually kind of not many people, some
people view it that way. And I think that the
way I see it and the way many people I
know see it, it's a flag that represents liberation from oppression,
liberation of the Palestinian people who are being actively oppressed
(27:24):
by Zionism, right and ideology, right, you know, perpetuated and
executed by people, but it's still an ideology.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
So just like because I think this always comes up,
but being anti Zionis has nothing to do with being
anti Semitic, and I think they always get complated and
that's on purpose to make people afraid to speak up
about Israel. I can only imagine how brainwashed Zionism becomes
to like the whole, like the education and everything. Like,
(27:55):
is that something you experience like firsthand, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
One hundred percent. I think what we've seen over the
last decade, right, the fact that Natanya has been in
power for over twenty years, that's that's like the dictatorship
level stuff. And people in America are like, oh yeah,
the West, you know, there is a semblance of you know,
(28:19):
power to the people in the West, as semblance of it. Right,
We're seeing how much the media is in cahoots with
you know, power against the people right now, which is very,
very scary and everyone should be up in arms, no
matter where your your feelings lie. But there is you know,
there's a new president. You know, every four years of
(28:41):
a president is termed. Right, you can't be you can't
be a president for more than two terms. Right. These
are real things, right, these are real protections. You have
three different branches of government, right, you have local level,
local government. You have so many different checks and balances
that are you know, corrupted and corupted in certain ways
you know through law obvious, uh and and you know,
(29:02):
corporate interests, et cetera. I'm aware, but at least you
have that system in Israel. That system doesn't exist, okay,
there's no constitution, uh, and a prime minister can't be termed.
And so now Bibing Ntanello has been in power and
figured out how to survive attempts on his throne many
(29:23):
times over through building coalitions with the right wing extremists,
which frankly are against his interests. Like he wanted to
kind of perpetuate status quo and just kind of be
in power Like this is kind of made it difficult
for him to just be the guy who kind of
you know, makes it makes everything okay for Israelis. Right now,
Israelis are scared shitless and so. But putting that aside
(29:47):
and going back to your point, the Knockaba was never
even discussed until recent history, Like it was not like
no one even knew what that word means. Right, We
celebrated it as Yomat's Mote independence Day. So the Israeli
independence Day is the Palestinian's Knockbat, which means the great
(30:11):
tragedy for those who don't know, and the catastrophe, yes
and so. But but what's interesting and very sad is
that in recent years, because of the world actually and
when Israelis tell you don't know what you're talking about.
Don't comment on things you don't talk about that you
(30:32):
don't know about. You most likely, if you've done any
any literally any if you read one book on Palestine,
if you read on Palestine by Noam Chomsky and Elan Pape, like,
you know more than Israelis know about their own situation.
And I say that wholeheartedly because I know what they study, right,
(30:55):
They omit the large swaths of information in order to
form the psyche through the narrative that they perpetuate and so.
But because of recent external and global pressure, because of
the fact that the world's the new generation of young
(31:15):
people have educated themselves on Palestine, you know, catalyze a
lot of them, catalyzed by the social justice movement. Right,
the Angela Davis is the Tromskis of the world who
always since the sixties, I've been talking about Black liberation
isntcomplete without the liberation of Palestinians unifying struggles. They know
more about history of Israel and Palestine than Israelis do. Okay.
(31:41):
I've always been super impressed, not like not to say
that people are dumb, actually think people are very smart. Right,
if they're willing to look. But every Palestinian friend of mine,
every single one, knows so much about Zionism and Zionus history, right,
there's scholars of Zionist history, right, But Israelly, there's no
(32:02):
idea about Palestinians and Palestinian histry.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
It's just I think it's really unsettling because, I mean,
for those who don't know, the catastrophe was like like
the mass expulsion of like seven hundred and fifty thousand Palestinians,
ethnic cleansing, massacres extreme, like just a disgusting show of
forcing someone to leave their land and taking it over.
(32:25):
It was atrocious and her and I think the fact
that they can't even learn about power or like learn
deeply about Palestine or Palestinians, it's like another way of
ethnic cleansing and like forgetting they even exist. And I
think that's very unsettling because you can't just forget. I mean,
at the same time, they say, like history is written
(32:46):
by the people that are in power, right or the
people that I like win the war, quote unquote, and
they're very capable of convincing a big amount of people
that like like that they were never.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Here I think being hopeful is practice. And I've definitely
fallen into you know, bouts of depression and and helplessness
and hopelessness also, I think we all do. But I
think it behooves us to practice hopefulness, especially in times
(33:19):
like these, because without it, we don't have the power
to liberate the oppressed. Right, Yeah, and I think you know, yeah,
I mean, like like you said, it's it's I think
it's also important. I keep saying, the Palestinian struggle is
(33:42):
the people's movement all over the world, right, and we're
seeing that It's not me, I'm nobody, but but we're
seeing that people understand that. Right. Like I said, people
are smart. Right, you don't have to go to you know,
an Ivy League school to be intelligent. Right. Palafreer talked
about banking intelligence. Right, when you just consume information from
(34:03):
a teacher perpetuating the perpetuating the injustices and maintaining the
system of oppression. Right, you can be as educated as
you want in that form of education and not understand
the world and understand the inequalities around you. Right, But
if you feel those inequalities, if you have that empathy,
if you're able to expand your consciousness a little bit
(34:24):
to also include those that you may not identify with
or as or you know that that maybe are not
tangible their experience is not as tangible to you. Then
then you're able to understand situations pretty clearly and easily.
And I think the world is showing up because they
understand that, right, Sure, the air world is showing up.
(34:46):
And that's incredible, right because they understand. Right, this is
like what I always say is Palestine is the last
kind of, like I said earlier, the last direct colonialist
project that exists in the world direct, right, in terms
of direct and active about that colonials project that exists
(35:07):
in the world and their world. You know, if you
read Edwards said and orientalism, you understand how the West
basically created and othered kind of they are a world
in order to create that separation and division in order
to create you know, a world, uh that serves self
interest in visualism versus kind of communitarianism and and and
(35:32):
of of the kind of East. And so when when
you think about in that context, you start understanding that
you know, this is and this is a struggle against
kind of Western imperialism, right, this is a struggle to
free all oppress people, because that's what that's what Zionism
(35:52):
Israel currently stands for, and everyone who perpetuates it, and
and people that talk about intersectionality and anti racism and
all of that, and they still say and they still
don't understand that this is literally a real time manifestation
of the shit that they've been reading in history books, right,
and we're seeing it and it's jarring, and resistance is
(36:13):
fucking jarring, right, Like it was darring to me. I
could barely watch it. I had people crying, you know,
And this is I didn't say this earlier, but I
had you know, family members that didn't want to speak
to me, and like, you know, people cursing at me,
and like friends from you know, middle school sending me
hate messages. My mom is receiving death threats, right, Like
(36:33):
this is real shit, right, and so like this isn't
like an abstract like and and so you know, that's
what that's what people don't necessarily understand when they just
approach it academically. And I commend them, and I think
it's important to like understand the intellectual context of things.
Like I've done the work, I've read the books. But
(36:53):
I think it's also important to kind of take a
step back and contextualize things all around, right, And and
only through that contextualization can we rehumanize, you know, both
the the oppressed and the oppressor in order to actually
have a path forward that's inclusive of all that doesn't
(37:13):
that doesn't pit people against each other. Right, Jews lived
on that land for many years before Zionism, if your.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Scholar, I want to say, like that just fine, before
the introduction of Zionism, which is a very modern, very
fascist ideology.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Not only Zionism though, right, Like think about Syke's Picot, Right,
the British French treaty that was signed in nineteen twenty
that sliced up the air world, according to their whim
didn't take into account any demographic any ethnic geographic relations,
didn't take into account any any of that. And that
(37:54):
is what's set the tone for a lot of what
we're seeing in their world today, right, compounded by the
introduction of a European ideology into the region that served
European interests is what is what we're seeing to this
very day. And the Palestinians bear the biggest brunt of it.
I wouldn't say like I would say, like in recent years,
there's tragedies all around due to Western imperialism and Western intervention. Right,
(38:20):
I take that back, right, Like I don't want to
compare tragedies, but the tragedy of the Palestinian people that
there's no one really advocating on their behalf. Yeah, I
was going to add a wrinkle that probably ninety nine
point nine percent of the population doesn't know, including Pustinians
and Arabs, because it was actively erased. But up until
psychs Pico, up until Western imperialism, Arab Jews were an
(38:46):
integral part of Arabic culture. Okay, An my grandparents from Iraq, Right,
Iraq wasn't the Iraqi Jews were not Zionists. There were
hundreds of thousands of Jews in Iraq that lived there
since Babylonian times. Right. There are many, you know, many
empires that came through the air world. Right, So this
place replaced et cetera. But they were there for hundreds
(39:08):
of years at the minimum. Some would say some of
them were actually not there due to the Spanish Inquisition, right,
but actually were there before and never left basically, and
so you know, they were musicians. You know, they played
in Kusum, right like there were there were statesmen, they
were they were very integral part of the culture, right,
(39:30):
And and they are the many Arab friends that do
know this, and they they're like, yeah, like it's the biggest,
the biggest, one of the biggest tragedies is kind of
the betrayal of the Arab jew right, And they understand, right,
like when at this point in time, and this is
not only iraqis was Egypt and you know, Yemen and Morocco.
There's a huge community, right, like these these people live
(39:54):
there there there Nazism is not an Arabic concept. They're
trying to paint Arabs as Nazis.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Even growing up, I would go to Syria a lot,
and my grandfather would like he would only get bread
at Jewish bakery, Like he would take the walk and
go there, and it was normal. No one cares, like,
no one gives a shit really what your religion is
in those communities. And I think, I mean, this is
obvious for people that are reading about all of this,
(40:21):
but the media and Zionism in Israel, they're purposely conflating
what's happening with religion to make it more complicated for
people to make it this like ancient battle of all time,
when it's not about any kind of Muslim versus Jewish
versus Arab versus whatever. It's it's really so simple to
the point where it's kind of silly, and I think
(40:43):
they make it so complicated for people to be scared
to talk about it. They're not informed enough. They don't
know about religion, they don't know about the history. You
don't have to know about any of that to know
that oppression is wrong and genocide is wrong.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
And every every resistance movement in history. Tree was considered
a terrorist movement in modern times, right, even Israeli militias. Right,
you had the Lefi, the Excel, and the AGA. Okay,
they're considered terrorist organizations because they would attack civilian British
(41:17):
and they've attacked civilian targets during the British mandate. Sounds familiar,
but you know what, those those three militias became the idea,
the idea exactly. The three militias that formed that formed
the IDEAF once Israel was given statehood were considered terrorist organizations,
the IRA terrorist organization. Right, Nelson Mandela was on the
(41:41):
US terrorists watchless until two thousand and eight. These are
real things. These are all facts. But I'm saying even
if you're thinking about it from the perspective of attacking civilians, Okay,
wrong in my opinion, but when you don't have if
you look at actually here another another fact, right, look
at what the Chibella is doing. Okay, they were considered
(42:02):
terrorist organization, their armed to the teeth. Israel scared shitless
of the physa bullet threat. I'm hearing it from people
on the ground. Right, They're attacking military targets. They're showing
the world that they can't because they can. They used
to not be able to, Now they can. So they
are when a population is oppressed, suppressed to the level
(42:24):
that the Gosins are, what what military do they have?
Do they have F sixteen fighter jets that they can
go and bomb? I don't know the Kiriyah? Did you
guys know that the biggest military base in Israel is
in the middle of the Tel Aviv.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Yeah, in a residential area.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
In a residential area. So what if what if the
Gozzins had F sixteen fighter what if Kamas had F
sixteen fighters? They wouldn't want to bomb that yeah, like
people are people that dense like that they don't understand
how this thing works and what what oppression looks like. Right.
A lot of my Palestinian friends always say the world
wants us to be perfect victims and in a lot
(43:02):
of in a lot of senses, the burden is always
on the victim right in these oppressive scenarios. So I
always tell them, guys, like, we have to be smart.
We have to make sure that you know, again, I like,
it's it's trauma that I can't you know, I feel
in my bones, but but it's not it's not directly
(43:22):
happening to me, and and and so I can't. I'm
not It's not from a place of judgment. It's from
a pragmatic perspective. We have to understand that that's the
trap that they're setting for us. The Kamas enacted. The
Kamas did exactly what the right wing government wanted them
to do in order to justify the plan that they
had all along. I'm not going to go so far
(43:44):
as to start perpetuating conspiracy theories because it's not my place.
So I'm not going to say that they plan this
and it was, you know, an inside job, I'm not
going to say that, but what I will say is
it served the interests of the right wing government. And
the one thing I want I meant to say because
I keep going off on tangents, and I apologize. But
(44:05):
to your point about the Knakaba, I said, in the
last ten years, it's pretty crazy to see the narrative shift.
Israel has so been so emboldened. They feel so invincible
because of the international support that they have. Now they
acknowledge the Knokoba. Now they acknowledge the knock but we
know how they acknowledge it. They say, yeah, the knockba happened,
(44:27):
Let's do a second one, yep, right, And so now
they're now all of a sudden the knockber existed, right,
and they're basically saying, hey, let's do a second one.
All the like, all the right wing government of government
officials were saying, the second knock, but let's do it now,
let's let's that's what they try to do. Yeah, I
mean they're trying to do in Gauza.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
One never ended. It feels like the first one just
ever ended.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Right that I always I always say that I agree,
but I'm saying like I'm talking about mass expulsion right now,
they're trying to they're trying under international on everyone's noses
to utilize genocide and ethnic cleansing to displace millions of
palestadiums from Gaza. And God knows, I don't. They don't
have a they don't. This was like a biblical idea, right,
(45:10):
like the Judean Samaria. This is not like a there's
no like specific plans that people had, Like this is
a biblical, fervent, ideological idea. They don't freaking know what
they're doing. They don't want to go don't want to
go to war with Iran. They're scared of the Like
these are real things, these are real threats. Like Israel
hasn't fought a real opponent since the seventies in the
(45:33):
o Pepool War. That's what I'm trying to say. Like
this showed how vulnerable they are and they're scared. I'm
telling you, Like I know the sentiment on the ground,
Like people are scared out of their minds. They don't think.
They're not very confident in Israel's military, right, Like that's
why they're bombing the shit, and like that's why they
haven't invaded. They said they're going to invade babes talking
this big game they haven't done yet because they're scared.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Remember also, is that the IDs, that's all I say,
does not actually act in the best interests of the civilians.
Like there was like a report from an Israeli woman
who survived the massacre at the music festival that said
a lot of them were shot by like their own forces.
It was like indiscriminate shooting.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
The biggest casualties for Israeli soldiers up until this was
was friendly fire. Yeah. Really, that's that's.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
That's I mean, I just think that's so hard to
remember because it's a They're framed as this very like
ideal warrior bullshit and it's so far from the truth.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
And that's what I'm saying their eighteen year old kids. Yeah,
these aren't like US like Marines that are career assassins.
Like have you ever seen in the US marine and
next to an Israeli soldier. I'm serious, Like, like I know, it's.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Become a trend to be a soldier of anything. It's
like very like you see these like young people like yeah, exactly,
it's like a very cool thing to.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
Do because there's never a threat though Israel. Israel has
been You've grown up in Israel believing that you're the
most powerful entity and you can do whatever you want,
whenever you want, right, and that notion has been shaken
to its core. And if you're part of the propaganda machine,
if you're caught in the propaganda machine that is kind
of Zionist Israeli ideology, you're basically now your whole world
(47:20):
is crumbled beneath you. Right, you're completely in survival mode.
Everyone's posting, everyone's like, you have to eradicate come us,
But they're not even eradicating comas. What are they doing?
They're just emboldening come us. Like this happens all the time.
It's just happening on a much bigger scale right now.
Any Hamas leader, that the thing I was basically looking for,
like a big, like a major Hamas leadership, you know,
(47:43):
attack and once they're able to neutralize, you know, in
their words numerous high ranking officials, I think they'll declare victory.
Even though they're not going to be victorious. They're not
going to bring back the fourteen hundred.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
People are also going to kill the hostages at this rate,
you know what I mean? Not like you've already killed
more than twenty two. That's how much do you actually
care about your civilians and the hostage like the foreign
hostages either like it's your but but I don't know,
there's clearly showing their ass.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
In my opinion, I want to I want to have
a clear message though to kind of people that are
on the fence in the West that are being fed
propaganda through Western media outlets. That is quite clear at
this point. And some of them recognize this, and that's
why they come to my page and they're like, oh,
you know, thank you. I didn't I didn't know. I
(48:32):
didn't know. In Israel, there are many people, not even
ideologically that want to bring the hostages back and don't
understand why Israel is doing what it's doing before and
not even talking to them about the hostages.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Yeah, that videos sleading being like please, it's just yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
I'm not talking about left wing activists. I'm talking about
like averages, reelis right, Natanas failed the Israeli people that
attack the fact that and again this I don't enough
people know this right, people who know no, but maybe
some don't. That attack was a complete military failure on
behalf of Israel. And that happened because over the last
(49:17):
six to nine months since the right wing government took place,
took power, they've been using the IDF to support, empower,
embolden and protect settlers in the West Bank. And that's
why settler attacks have increased. That's why settlements have increased,
(49:39):
that's why they're more settlers than ever before. And what
they were doing on that very day people don't already know.
I hope they do. But if they don't already know,
the IDF was in the West Bank on su Quote,
which is a Jewish holiday, and they were protecting settlers
in building a sukkah, that structure that people sit in
(50:00):
in the middle of Juara, Palestinian village, and they were
protecting them and chaper owning them so that they can
break into Palestinian village to build a suka in order
to antagonize Palestinians. That's say what you may about anything else,
the fact that that is the priority of the government.
You know, you're doing the oppression, You're already committing the oppression.
(50:23):
You're already subjugating the Tastanian people. You know that Hamas
is comas, you're going to remove security forces from the
border to embolden and empower settlers instead. It doesn't make
any sense.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
No, it's I mean, that's why the most un settling
things I've seen coming out of Israel are those right
wing protests where they're like death to Arabs and whatever,
or like they're attacking people and the idea f is
like either helping them or standing by. If you're on
(51:01):
the fence about this still, you are literally for genocide.
Those are the two differences. It's either your for genocide
or you're against genocide. And if you're considering the options,
examine yourself. That's not right. I was just set this
tweet apparently yesterday the twitter for Israeli Prime Minister at
(51:23):
Israel PM said this is a struggle between the children
of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and
the law of the jungle. Are you fucking kidding me?
That's like Nazi Hitler shit, are you There are so
many lives I've already been lost, and the ones that
have not been lost are never going to recover. They've
lost so much other than their life. There are so
(51:47):
many terrifying and horrific videos that I've seen that no
one should have to go through and not only are
they going through it, they're getting funded and encouraged by
most of the world. I cannot accept that. I sorry,
I don't want to cry, but I might.
Speaker 1 (52:08):
I mean, it's that's where we're at at this point.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
No, but I appreciate you being here to get through
to people who might still be considering what's happening as
a both sides thing or a justification for anything. When
they see tweets like that, or when they see justification
for killing all the people because they're all barbarians or
whatever it is. I urge you. I urge you to
(52:33):
seek out Palestinian sources of news. Actually see what's happening
in Gaza, listen to people who are not advertising anything
to you, and it's like pleading for their lives. I
just this can't be how we end up as a people.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
It's very, very sad.
Speaker 2 (52:56):
It's extremely unlike no word to describe how devastating. And
I think if you are listening and you are wondering
what to do, there are places you can donate to.
I can put some links in the description of sources
that I trust of people to follow and all that stuff,
so you can look at the description for that. I
(53:17):
think what's very important that people maybe aren't taking too
seriously is how important social media and like spreading awareness
has been, because the only reason the resistance has come
this far is because of that, because more people are
aware about what's going on. People aren't accepting that Israel
is doing this. So I think we just can't stop.
(53:39):
Like as much as they want the world to forget
that Palestinians were even there, we cannot forget Palestinians. And
I'm not gonna stop talking about it, and you shouldn't either.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
This is why I'm speaking on I just set a
message on Palestinian friends. You are our voice now. We're
not allowed to spit out a lip. They are seeing
anyone who speaks or shares the truth. Please, I beg
you don't give up on our people in Gaza. We
need your voice to stop the genocide. Thousands of lives
have already been taken. We can't stand this anymore.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
Please listen to that, everybody. Please.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
It's very hard to fathom and internalize what's happening.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
Yeah, it's a lot, and we're privileged enough to think
about it that deeply. The people in Gaza Palestinians. They
don't have the luxury of no of anything other than
their nightmare of a reality.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
No, I want to add sin just because I think
that the biggest kind of pushback that we keep hearing
is Homas yes, please yet And I think that again,
remembering what we kind of mentioned earlier in the call,
how liberation movements for occupied peoples have always been aimed
(55:01):
terrorist organizations and you know, even targeted civilians, right, so
not only like by the definition of terrorist organizations or
terrorist organizations. So even if that's what we believe, and
let's just say that that's you know, we accept and
agreed that that's what Ramas is, I think it's important
(55:21):
to understand that terrorist organizations have become political organizations time
and time again. And I think that it's also important
to understand historically the tamas As as an entity again
remind you was created and partially created and funded by
(55:42):
the State of Israel, emboldened by the State of Israel.
Because I want to be very clear, up until the nineties,
right also accord to the peace process, people say, oh,
the Palestinians didn't want peace. To your point earlier, the
Palestinians were willing to take almost anything. At that point,
Arafat was that are a terrorist before he became a statesman, right,
(56:03):
was on the table with Robin, had an agreement in place. Okay,
and then people don't know. If you're not a scholar
and you don't know, you should know. Oh Goldstein, an
Israeli terrorist came in to a mosque. I believe it
was in Hebron, I don't remember exactly, and he killed
(56:24):
more than thirty people during prayer, just indiscriminately shot innocent
people in a mosque. So the biggest, one of the
biggest tragedies. Right. And then he was not only did
they the response, you know, Verben's response to that was
it was locking down Hebron Palestinians in Hebron, so because
(56:47):
he was fearful of what the Palestinians would do in retaliation.
The immediate response by Rabine was locking down the people
of Hebron. Okay, instead of going and doing something about
the settlers that committed the crime or that emboldened the
person committing the crime. That's number one, Number two, that
(57:09):
sparked the retaliation, because when people don't have justice, they
take justice in their own hands. So that sparked this
series of attacks in Israel, right, devastating attacks in Israel.
But it was that that did that, and it was
his He could have he could have handled that differently,
but he didn't, right and and and that was what
(57:30):
sparked the response then in turn, Okay again who putting
that aside? Right? And and sorry, little tidbit. His grave
m HM. Cochtain's grave is guarded by the IDF as
(57:50):
some and many many many consider him a national hero.
Speaker 2 (57:54):
Yeah, I've seen photos of people like crying at his
grave like it's yes, save their faces or something. When
he's not. Just when you literally just like went in
to a mosque with a gun and shot thirty people
who were fucking praying.
Speaker 1 (58:06):
Yes, And that's wrong.
Speaker 2 (58:08):
When people are idolizing.
Speaker 1 (58:10):
Exactly, it's rotten to its core, is my point. This
is what you're supporting when you support the state of Israel. Okay,
this is part of part of this is part of
what you're supporting. Now, taking a second step, Robin was
assassinated by a Jewish Israeli, not by Palestinian. Even in
(58:30):
spite of everything, the peace process was still going on
because they did everything to foil it, right, and then
they assassinated the Israeli Prime minister. And ever since then,
right then you had Ariel's your own and whatever that
tried to continue a peace process and you know, some
capacity whatever. Since then, for the last twenty three years,
(58:53):
no one has been talking about a peace process. They blamed,
they blamed the Palestinians for every act of resistance. They
don't listen. They believe that they talk. The way that
politicians discuss the Palestinian kind of oppression is managing the occupation, Okay,
(59:13):
managing the opposition. No one's talking about peace, not left left,
pseudo left, whatever you want to call it, not liberal,
zionis left or center or right. No one is talking
about peace. No one is talking about any semblance of peace.
I find it very particular, right, and this is my
this is why I'm saying we live in the twilight zone.
(59:34):
That Donald Trump's four years in office, okay, he he
had Kushner that that say, what all the bad things
right about his about his behavior. He was trying to
through normalization deals with their world, trying to get a
deal for the Palestinian people, albeit the most absurd sort
(59:55):
of deal. If you ever read what the Abraham accord
is actually entailed right like, weird like ways and weird
right like, not a deal that anyone should have accepted.
But putting that aside, he was talking about it. There
was discussion, there was Palestinian like the word palestinian was
being said by the Office of the President. In the
(01:00:16):
last four years that Biden was in office, no one
said anything, no one did anything to advanced piece. No
one even brought a bogus deal like darreed Kushner to
the table. I don't make it make sense. I don't understand.
They basically bought into the Zionist idea that we can
just live, continue living while millions of people are being
(01:00:40):
oppressed and occupied. This is the Democratic Party, and that's
why we see the media now the way it is,
because they're controlling the media narrative too. Right, So open
your eyes, see it for what it is, right, don't
get cloud don't let your judgment get clouded by this
two side bs aspect. I hold space for the killing
(01:01:03):
of innocent civilians, including the killing of Israeli innocent civilians,
while simultaneously understanding that this is all because of the
aggression of colonialism and specifically a perpetuation of the Zionist
project as a colonialist, nationalist ethno state, and that is
(01:01:24):
what I ask of you guys to do, right, Yeah,
thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
That's I think a great place to end. Thank you
again for joining me. You are just as your Palestinian
friends said in that message, your voice is really critical
because people will more likely listen to you than to
a Palestinian. So very much, thank you for your activism.
(01:01:50):
And I don't know, it's we're not living in a
just world and so we just have to stick together.
I also want to mention the other reason why social
media is so important is like, one, there's a reason
they cut electricity to Gaza. They don't want anything coming
out of there. They want them to die in a blackout.
And two they are literally arresting people for following Palestinian accounts.
(01:02:15):
Now yeah, so I mean, if that's not sutalitarianism, like
what the fuck is? I don't But anyway, so, uh,
that's it for today. I can't I don't think it
can do anymore. But again, I'll put some sources in
the description to donate to to keep raising awareness. If
you have people in your circles that are still hesitant
(01:02:38):
about having a stance on this, like have conversations. It
shouldn't be complicated. It really shouldn't be, because it's not.
And that's all. That's all I have. So thanks everybody,
thank you for having me. It Could Happen here as
a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from
(01:02:58):
cool Zone Media, visit our website Coalzonemedia dot com or
check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for
It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at Coolzonmedia dot com
slash sources. Thanks for listening,
It Could Happen Here News
Host
Robert Evans
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