November 12, 2025 • 26 mins
Dana El Kurd speaks with author, activist, and 2025 Foundation for Middle East Peace fellow Ahmed Moor on the pro-Palestine movement in the US, and what we can learn after two years of genocide.
Sources:
Ahmed Moor & Antony Loewenstein’s book - https://saqibooks.com/books/saqi/after-zionism/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hello everyone, this is Dana al Kurd for It could
happen here. I'm a professor and analyst of Palestinian and
air politics, and today we're joined by Ahmed Moore, who
is the twenty twenty five Foundation for Middle East Peace Fellow.
He's also an author, an activist, just very very involved
in the Palestinian space and on the question of Palstini liberation.
(00:28):
So I've invited Ahma today to discuss with us what
we can understand about pro Palestine organizing in the past
two years in comparison to prior to October seventh, twenty
twenty three, and think kind of analytically about where we
can go from here. We're recording this on November fifth,
twenty twenty five. We had a very interesting night last
(00:51):
night whereas Ahran Mandani was named the mayor of New
York City and a lot of think pieces since about
how this means nothing and actually it means everything and
Lapro Palstine movement is winning, it's really not winning enough,
et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah, we're in an interesting
moment in American politics. I think the Palestine question is
obviously very very relevant.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
So yeah, I met.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Thank you, Donna. It's pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
All right.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So maybe we can start with kind of an introduction
to yourself. You can tell us about your experience as
an activist, as an organizer.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Sure, yes, as a researcher.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
So I was born in resident Palestine and Gaza and
Ralphah and my family moved here when I was a
kid and became naturalized so American citizen when I was
ten years old.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
So that was in the mid nineties.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
And you know, went to college right after nine to eleven,
and like lots of people, was galvanized around that experience.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
I think that was a pier.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Was so a journalist both in Bede Lutin and Cairo,
and often you'd meet American journalists roughly of my generation,
and all of them would indicate that, you know, I
became engaged around the Middle EA because of nine to eleven.
I think nine to eleven was four our generation, a
big learning opportunity for people. The global war on terror,
(02:10):
the war in Iraq galvanized a lot of the left
and I'm thinking now of.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Move on dot org.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
And so this is really the environment that I grew
up in today. I mostly work with The Guardian with
the Nation mostly right about Palistige, Israel and American foreign policy.
And as you mentioned, I'm a fellow at the Foundation
for Middle East Peace, where I host a podcast, Occupied Thoughts,
where we spend a lot of time thinking through policy
(02:38):
matters related to Palisigan. I have ideas about things have changed,
but that's just a quick introduction to me and my work.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
No, thank you, we're approximately the same age. I won't
tell you exactly how often, but yeah, I just am
reflecting so much these days on how much the War
on Terror was a formative moment politically for our generation,
and its interaction with the Palestinian issue. I think that's
(03:07):
starting to really be understood more widely. I think maybe
it was more fringe or like a very select kind
of understanding of the left would have that kind of
analysis for sure.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Just to put a fine point on it, I mean
that was the I would say generational awareness that we've
been lied to. We've been lied to by Dick Cheney,
George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, all of that cohort those people.
You can see how that's rebounded today in Maine with
Graham Plattner, somebody who fought two or three tours and
then subsequently worked as a mercenary with Blackwater was radicalized,
(03:41):
I would say through that experience when he was watching
these happy, go lucky diplomats swimming in pools in a
diplomatic compound, when just outside a savage war was being
waged or an insurgency. So I would say that, you know,
Palestine is so deeply into woven. Palestine is a long
history of having been lied to for people here in
(04:04):
the United States. Domestically that came to a head around
the Iraq War. We werelied into that war. And I
think you saw, you saw the way that the Biden
administration particularly stuck with the playbook and alienated huge numbers
of voters in twenty twenty four. So Palestine is kind
of indispensaled understanding how our elites in the United States
(04:28):
have been captured by special interests, by corporatist interests, and
we're beginning to see that, I think rebound in meaningful ways.
And of course, congratulations is Ron Mundani done a wonderful job.
He ran an extraordinary campaign. I question, though, whether the
campaign could have been successful without the awakening that occurred
(04:49):
through two.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Years of genocide.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
And what I mean by that specifically is so many
of the taboos that had been enforced around identity, around
good politics in America were dispensed with because those taboos
were employed to suppress opposition to genocide.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah. No, I think you're right on the money on that.
I mean, in some ways, the MAGA movement in Donald
Trump also capitalized on the lies of the war on
Terror too. I mean, despite the incoherence of the MAGA movement,
like that was part of a rebuke of the neocons.
But of course the left is, especially after two years
(05:30):
of unspeakable genocide. I think it has led to just
an articulation of how much the American foreign policy in
the Middle East is. You mentioned boomerang. That's an imperial
boomerang that is impacting American politics. It's also highlighted how
much the elite and public opinion is bifurcated on this.
Palatin has become an issue of democracy. I don't want
(05:52):
to put words in your mouth, but that's what I
would say.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
No, I think that's correct. I agree with that.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
I mean, so Palestine went from being specifically Palestine, from
being a niche issue when I was in college post
colonial studies. Majors knew about Palestine and could integrate Palestine
into an understanding of life in America to being really
part of the American story today, and I think it's
apt to describe it that way. The experience of watching
a genocide unfold for two years has been radicalizing for many,
(06:20):
but it's also been enlightening in that the first question
was why is this happening? The second question is why
can't we stop it? Okay, Israel's an independent country, we
can't control them.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Fine, why are we still supporting this?
Speaker 4 (06:36):
And ultimately you end up going down that rabbit hole
and arriving at what is this Israel lobby?
Speaker 3 (06:41):
What is this special interest?
Speaker 4 (06:43):
And so I think the degree of complicity, the way
in which the Biden administration blew so much smoke, the
way in which both sides of the Aisle engaged in
genocide and cheered the genocide, really has caused the Palestine
issue to become deeply interwoven with the experience of being
American today. And I don't think that's an overstatement, and
I think concretely it means that you need an answer
(07:06):
to the question, Well, if you can't stand up to genocide,
if you can't stand up for defenseless children in Palestine,
and if you're going to lie to me about it,
why would I expect you to stand up for anything
meaningful as it relates to my standard of living, Say,
I'm a working class person. And so it's become this
litmus test at least on the left, and I think
you're seeing a similar dynamic playout on the right, but
(07:27):
for totally different reasons. Right, And it's been extraordinary to
behold because I think so many of us who've been
in this issue for so long, we've been marking our
progress in incrementalist terms, and then suddenly things have broken
wide open and the world has changed very very quickly.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
From my vantage point in American academia, I mean, they
might have had personal feelings about Israel Palestine, they may
have had sympathies, but so few people would ever talk
about the erasure of Palestine in the academy, or the
impact of censorship and attacks on academic freedom. But now
(08:06):
because the Palaestinan issue is being used as this cudgel
to attack higher education, like you're just a normal Joshmo
like math professor you're gonna have to care, and you do.
And we're seeing this very much with the mobilization of
the American Association of University Professors, that is not a
Middle East specific organization whatsoever, but they recognize the linkages
(08:28):
between these issues, so in the ways that Palestine is
interwoven with but also has impacted so many of our
current realities and the policies that we're facing by the
Trump administration and the Bye administration before them. Yeah, I
think it's very clear to a lot of people. So
(08:55):
that actually brings me to one of the main questions
that I wanted to ask you, is, aside from kind
of the increased awareness and the taboos that have been
broken around the discussion of Palestine and its integration in
American foreign policy and American domestic policy, what are some
other ways that you think since the genocide began that
(09:16):
pro Palestine organizing has changed.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
So the biggest thing I've seen is that the analytical
frame has changed. We used to talk about foreign policy
adventurers and wars for oil, those kinds of things. Now
I think the analysis is very correctly focused on empire,
the way in which resources domestically the real working class
effort to build a life in the United States is
(09:41):
subsumed by wars of really imperial overreach.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
The whole idea of.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Empire for me was an antiquated one I didn't think
had a whole lot of relevance today. But I think
I and many others who may have thought in that
way missed the point the realities that empires intact. I
think that awareness that our efforts domestically are deeply, deeply
intertwined with what's happening what we're doing elsewhere, is important,
(10:09):
and it's emergent, it's new. When I was in graduate school,
you would hear people talk about how they're engaged with
domestic policy, or people talk about their infests in foreign policy,
and I was mostly interested in foreign policy. But today
to try to draw that differentiation is really meaningless. And
again you see that in the race in New York
Mom Donnie did run on affordability. He ran on a
(10:31):
domestic policy program, but equally thirty eight percent I think
of voters were heavily motivated by his foreign policy interests.
In his foreign policy perspectives, which again from a policy
point of view, he can't really impact, but nonetheless are
supported by this idea that our taxes, what we do
domestically is having a huge impact everywhere else in the world,
(10:54):
and that American empires sprawling at a challenge for people
domestically as well. A pure activist point of view, you know,
I used to have a real belief in electoral politics
that was shaken deeply through the DNC, through the grassroots effort.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
To be heard uncommitted. Yeah, the uncommitted movement precisely. We'll
see where things go.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
I mean, the truth is that, you know, the person
who is just selected in Jersey is a typical I
believe APAC Democrat, Mike Cheryl. My perspective domestically is that
we need to be aggressive, We need to be forceful
in calling for a total reconstitution of Democratic Party, no
half measures, and I think Zarn mndonie did a good
(11:41):
job of illustrating what that could look like.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah, I mean, there's always a tension in this very
money captured system that we have that at certain level
it doesn't really matter liberal or Republican.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
They are captured.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
But I think what the New York City race has
demonstrated is like that can only go so far. You
still need some public support, which is why of course
they're going after gerrymandering and all of that. But yeah,
it's an uphill battle. But I think if this democracy
is to exist, we are in a better footing than
we were, you know, on this discussion, I also wondering
(12:15):
what you think of this characterization, which is that I
think before this genocide, and I don't mean to create
this binary, but it has been a very transformative event.
Before this genocide, I think a lot of Palestinian American
organizing in spaces discussed the issue of Palestine in a
right spaceed approach way, so about human rights, about ending auparthide,
(12:40):
about extending rights, and I think the framing for that
has also changed. It is really a critique of settler
colonialism and the legitimacy of these nation states. First of all,
what do you think of that characterization on my end?
But also what do you think of the tension then
that poses for the Palestinian national liberation movement that still
wants the state.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, you're right. The thing again, the analytic frame has shifted.
We've gone from a contested conversation around nineteen sixty seven,
the June War, when Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan,
Gosta from Egypt, Jerusalem as well from Jordan, the Goal
on Heights, some Syria, and a small siliver of land
from Lebanon to nineteen forty eight. That's what we talk
(13:23):
about now, and that's correct, and.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
I think for many Palestinians or Palestinian Americans that has
always been the starting point of the conversation. But now
we have the political legitimacy to say, wait a second,
this whole state was founded upon separate and unequal on
Jewish supremacy, on a point of view that we reject
as Americans and we should reject everywhere in the world.
(13:47):
And so I think that's the first meaningful change that
I've seen when we talk about Palestine. And then of
course settled colonialism is built into that analysis. Things get
a little bit different when you zoom out. Let me
just talk about domestic I think that when you talk
to people on the left, the universalist argument everybody's created
(14:08):
equal is very, very powerful and resonant, and it's the
one that I believe in. But what's happening on the
right as well is an America first argument, and the
word protectorate comes up repeatedly. Why are we investing so
much in a protectorate Tucker Carlston powerfully, I think for
his audience, and this is probably the most influential commentator
in the United States to day, but powerfully, you know, said,
(14:30):
this country has half the size, half the economy the
state of Connecticut. Why have we invested so much political capital,
so much money and something which is so immaterial, especially
when it pays a big negative dividend in lots of
different ways. So the nativist argument is meeting the universalist argument.
(14:52):
But the core analysis around settled in colonialism, around the
lack of legitimacy for a supremacist state, gives rise to
both of those arguments.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
That access to the.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Substrate, I would say, Palestinians who want to see a
Palestinian state, and how you're going back to Palestine. I
don't know what that means today. I've heard perspectives that
availing ourselves of statehood as a legal construct will mean
that you can now access legal frameworks to pursue justice
in the courts wherever they may exist.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
I hope that's true. Let's see what works out.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
I think there are people who are trying to take
Israeli men dual nationals who participated in the genocide to
court in France, I think by using some of the
some of the laws that exist between recognized states and
non states, or maybe the UK.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Let's see if robber meets road there.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
I support those tactics, but practically, when you're talking about
Palestinian liberation, I don't believe that a state which has
been colonized out of existence. And you kind of have
to look at a map to see what I mean here,
but the West Bank is thoroughly colonized. Gaza is still
occupied by these Raelies and will likely be slowly ethnically
cleansed over time and not rebuilt. I fail to see
(16:05):
how a state illegal construct is going to yield real
benefits with the people on the ground now in Palestine.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
I agree, and I think that the continuation of this framework,
the statehood framework that a lot of our kind of
political elites in the Palestinian landscape continue to use, and
a lot of these countries in the global North use,
also to bypass with work that actually needs to be
done after a genocide. It's certainly a distraction in my view,
(16:37):
but it also speaks to the renewal that needs to
happen within Palestinian politics and within the PLO, But that's
a bigger matter. My next question was going to be
(16:59):
on the Palestine American diaspora. In what ways do you
think the passing American diaspora is alike with people in
historic Palestine, with other diasporas, and in what ways do
you think that they're unique.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
That's a hard question for me to answer.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
I think the diaspora, in the way that I've interacted
with people, is diverse. What people have in common is
a common reference point, the Neca. They have a common
understanding around the illegitimacy of Israel as an ethno state
which takes Jewish supremacy as its point of departure. But
it's a very diverse diaspora. I mean, our first Palisian
(17:37):
American in Congress is Justin Amash, who is on the right.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
That's right. I always forget about him.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Yeah, I mean he had relatives who were murdered in
Visa at a church in northern Vesa, which dates back
to I think the eleventh century. So we're diverse diaspora.
I think the Palisinian diaspora in the United States is integrated,
it's educated, that's the past for lots of Palestinians around
the world. It's how you get out, it's how you
(18:03):
build alive. We have a very high literacy rate in Palestine,
exceeds ninety nine point five percent. But I think where
the diaspora hasn't, at least in the United States, done
as effective a job. And this is kind of the
natural trajectory I think of diaspora communities generally. I don't
know that we're as aggressive and organized as we could be.
(18:25):
And I want to emphasize the word aggressive, the idea
that we can go out and compete at all levels
of government, that we can go out and assert our
understanding of history backed by facts. We should be doing
more of that, especially when you look kind of across
the board when it comes to people who are doing
well in medicine or in business, you know where there's
(18:47):
been a real career risk for speaking out and for
being assertive. We can do more now, and we should
use the leverage gain through two years of genocide, the
most expensive of access to leverage I can imagine, to
push much harder politically.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, that's a very good point. I'm also wondering how
well you think the Palestinian organizing groups and spaces. How
well integrated are they into other activist issue areas.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Yeah, I think this is where when I was in college,
I didn't know the word intersectionality. That wasn't a concept
that really was one that people thought about. You know,
you would host an event and you would invite your friends,
some of whom would be in the Black students group,
some of whom would be in the Queer students group,
and just regular left groups. But today I'd say that
activists have a much more complete sense of how you
(19:43):
almost have a social quilt, and a compression on one
part of it will impact everything else that's related to it,
and we're all interrelated in that way. I'd say that
the most potent discussions around palestign are coming from left
organizing groups, not exactly Palestinian organizing groups. I think if
I could offer gentle criticism of Palistine organizers, there's been
(20:05):
too much and you serviously with uncommitted, too much effort
to ingratiate yourselves to the existing power apparatus to ask
for a seat at the table. When it's somebody like
Zoron Mumdani again who demanded a seat at the table
through an unrelenting focus on the issues achieved access to
(20:26):
a platform, then nobody wanted to seed. And I don't
think that following the rules exactly or being friendly about
accessing platforms within the Democratic parties one yield a huge
benefit to Palestinian Americans or people here. I'd say the
most principled organizing is that organizing that's going to win
(20:46):
and today that comes from non Palestinian groups, and I'm
okay with that. I don't really think it matters if
the best argument is coming from somebody whose family comes
from South Asia through Uganda, or somebody whose family emerges
from you know, the Ballota refugee camp, that doesn't really
matter to me. I think just to focus on the
principles is the most important thing.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Yeah, right right.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I think we're definitely seeing more of an acceptance of that.
I agree with the limitations that you referenced. I also
sometimes do reflect on how matched the discussion is in
the United States with the discussion in historic Palestine and
what activists can do to kind of bridge some gaps
that might emerge. But of course, understanding that we do
(21:29):
exist in a different political reality and we obviously will
develop different views as a result of that.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
I agree, And look, I mean, nobody needs to be
apologetic about inhabiting a different reality. You know, we don't
need to defer to a leadership which is divided and
divided in Palestine and PLO that won't talk to itself.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
And there are structural reasons for that, right.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
I mean, the Israelis and the Americans have done a
very effective job in splintering Palaestinine leadership.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I think we need to think extremely locally.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
There are issues that matter to my community in West Philadelphia, big,
bigger issues across Pennsylvania that impact my life, that impact
my life as a father of three little girls. So
I think being a member of a community and focusing
again relentlessly on the principles and the facts that we've
known all along is critical to pushing the conversation on
(22:19):
Palsign forward and practically today, for me, that means an
arms embargo, it means sanctions, it means a cultural boycott,
and it means those things unapologetically. Again, those are principal
positions that I can take as an American citizen, a
citizen in a country which has underwritten genocide, has underwritten
apartheid for decades.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I think I agree with that analysis. As the author,
which we didn't mention at the beginning, as the author
one of the co authors of After Zionism with Anthony Lonstein,
I'm going to pose a difficult question for you now,
I'm just joking, not that you have to answer it fully,
but where do you think we go from here? Where
do you think the pro palsign movement goes from here?
(23:00):
And if you can reflect in your answer on where
we've stalled as well.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Yeah, So I used to believe in one state for
everybody with equal rights. Today I think the writing is
on the wall for the Palestinians in Palestine. The ethnic
cleansing of Palestine is proceeding the fact that has been
utterly destroyed, utterly destroyed. There are no universities, no schools,
no really functioning hospitals. The basic infrastructure required for the
(23:28):
maintenance of life doesn't exist there anymore. That's part of
why it's a genocide. We've got to take that reality
into account. The Palestinians and Liza, the Palestinians and Palestine
generally have the right to pursue life. They have a
right to an education, they have a right to self actualization,
and many of them, when they can, they're going to leave.
That's the ethnic cleansing program, that's the idea behind the
(23:51):
mass destruction of Palestine. The Israelis have succeeded in that regard.
I would say, we need to be mindful of that.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
We need to be aware of that.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
What I think will happen ultimately is that you'll end
up with some rump community of Palestinians in Palestine who
are eventually when in arms embargoes enacted. And I hope
it's within our lifetimes when the sanctions are enacted, when
Israel is forced to become a normal country with equal
rights for all, will continue to exist in that space.
(24:20):
I don't know, you know, I can't predict, nobody can
really predict what's certainty, what's going to happen. But the
kinds of pressure required to cause Israel to become a
de radicalized, normal society will take time to produce. And
in the interim, the writing is on the wall for
the Palatinians in Palestine, and I think that's the saddust
(24:41):
for me. Part of all this, the continuity of Palacinian
life and Palestine is not guaranteed. You know, the overwhelming
force of the state exists in one place, and that's
in Israel.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yeah, that's why I when a lot of people talk
positively about the developments of the past two years. Of course,
you want to feel hope. You want to highlight how
the discussion has changed here in America, how politics is
moving forward. You want to have some pathway. But we
never were able to prevent that genocide. Nothing we did
(25:18):
in any avenue. All of us have, you know, different
positionalities engaged with different actors, like, none of it actually
stopped that, and that is a very hard pill to swallow.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I hope.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
I've always been hoping that at least that will allow
us to get to the place of self reflection about
what radical solutions look like in the aftermath of this
kind of disaster. And yeah, I hope that's that's where
we go from here on my end. Yeah, thank you
so much, Ahmad. This has been a really enriching discussion,
(25:51):
and I think that the listeners will benefit from this
overarching view of propalacine activism and it's uh, it's intersections
with everything we're seeing unfold. So thank you so much again.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Thank you Donna, It's been a huge pleasure.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hello everyone, this is Dana al Kurd for It could
happen here. I'm a professor and analyst of Palestinian and
air politics, and today we're joined by Ahmed Moore, who
is the twenty twenty five Foundation for Middle East Peace Fellow.
He's also an author, an activist, just very very involved
in the Palestinian space and on the question of Palstini liberation.
(00:28):
So I've invited Ahma today to discuss with us what
we can understand about pro Palestine organizing in the past
two years in comparison to prior to October seventh, twenty
twenty three, and think kind of analytically about where we
can go from here. We're recording this on November fifth,
twenty twenty five. We had a very interesting night last
(00:51):
night whereas Ahran Mandani was named the mayor of New
York City and a lot of think pieces since about
how this means nothing and actually it means everything and
Lapro Palstine movement is winning, it's really not winning enough,
et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah, we're in an interesting
moment in American politics. I think the Palestine question is
obviously very very relevant.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
So yeah, I met.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Thank you, Donna. It's pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
All right.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So maybe we can start with kind of an introduction
to yourself. You can tell us about your experience as
an activist, as an organizer.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Sure, yes, as a researcher.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
So I was born in resident Palestine and Gaza and
Ralphah and my family moved here when I was a
kid and became naturalized so American citizen when I was
ten years old.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
So that was in the mid nineties.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
And you know, went to college right after nine to eleven,
and like lots of people, was galvanized around that experience.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
I think that was a pier.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Was so a journalist both in Bede Lutin and Cairo,
and often you'd meet American journalists roughly of my generation,
and all of them would indicate that, you know, I
became engaged around the Middle EA because of nine to eleven.
I think nine to eleven was four our generation, a
big learning opportunity for people. The global war on terror,
(02:10):
the war in Iraq galvanized a lot of the left
and I'm thinking now of.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Move on dot org.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
And so this is really the environment that I grew
up in today. I mostly work with The Guardian with
the Nation mostly right about Palistige, Israel and American foreign policy.
And as you mentioned, I'm a fellow at the Foundation
for Middle East Peace, where I host a podcast, Occupied Thoughts,
where we spend a lot of time thinking through policy
(02:38):
matters related to Palisigan. I have ideas about things have changed,
but that's just a quick introduction to me and my work.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
No, thank you, we're approximately the same age. I won't
tell you exactly how often, but yeah, I just am
reflecting so much these days on how much the War
on Terror was a formative moment politically for our generation,
and its interaction with the Palestinian issue. I think that's
(03:07):
starting to really be understood more widely. I think maybe
it was more fringe or like a very select kind
of understanding of the left would have that kind of
analysis for sure.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Just to put a fine point on it, I mean
that was the I would say generational awareness that we've
been lied to. We've been lied to by Dick Cheney,
George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, all of that cohort those people.
You can see how that's rebounded today in Maine with
Graham Plattner, somebody who fought two or three tours and
then subsequently worked as a mercenary with Blackwater was radicalized,
(03:41):
I would say through that experience when he was watching
these happy, go lucky diplomats swimming in pools in a
diplomatic compound, when just outside a savage war was being
waged or an insurgency. So I would say that, you know,
Palestine is so deeply into woven. Palestine is a long
history of having been lied to for people here in
(04:04):
the United States. Domestically that came to a head around
the Iraq War. We werelied into that war. And I
think you saw, you saw the way that the Biden
administration particularly stuck with the playbook and alienated huge numbers
of voters in twenty twenty four. So Palestine is kind
of indispensaled understanding how our elites in the United States
(04:28):
have been captured by special interests, by corporatist interests, and
we're beginning to see that, I think rebound in meaningful ways.
And of course, congratulations is Ron Mundani done a wonderful job.
He ran an extraordinary campaign. I question, though, whether the
campaign could have been successful without the awakening that occurred
(04:49):
through two.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Years of genocide.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
And what I mean by that specifically is so many
of the taboos that had been enforced around identity, around
good politics in America were dispensed with because those taboos
were employed to suppress opposition to genocide.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah. No, I think you're right on the money on that.
I mean, in some ways, the MAGA movement in Donald
Trump also capitalized on the lies of the war on
Terror too. I mean, despite the incoherence of the MAGA movement,
like that was part of a rebuke of the neocons.
But of course the left is, especially after two years
(05:30):
of unspeakable genocide. I think it has led to just
an articulation of how much the American foreign policy in
the Middle East is. You mentioned boomerang. That's an imperial
boomerang that is impacting American politics. It's also highlighted how
much the elite and public opinion is bifurcated on this.
Palatin has become an issue of democracy. I don't want
(05:52):
to put words in your mouth, but that's what I
would say.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
No, I think that's correct. I agree with that.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
I mean, so Palestine went from being specifically Palestine, from
being a niche issue when I was in college post
colonial studies. Majors knew about Palestine and could integrate Palestine
into an understanding of life in America to being really
part of the American story today, and I think it's
apt to describe it that way. The experience of watching
a genocide unfold for two years has been radicalizing for many,
(06:20):
but it's also been enlightening in that the first question
was why is this happening? The second question is why
can't we stop it? Okay, Israel's an independent country, we
can't control them.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Fine, why are we still supporting this?
Speaker 4 (06:36):
And ultimately you end up going down that rabbit hole
and arriving at what is this Israel lobby?
Speaker 3 (06:41):
What is this special interest?
Speaker 4 (06:43):
And so I think the degree of complicity, the way
in which the Biden administration blew so much smoke, the
way in which both sides of the Aisle engaged in
genocide and cheered the genocide, really has caused the Palestine
issue to become deeply interwoven with the experience of being
American today. And I don't think that's an overstatement, and
I think concretely it means that you need an answer
(07:06):
to the question, Well, if you can't stand up to genocide,
if you can't stand up for defenseless children in Palestine,
and if you're going to lie to me about it,
why would I expect you to stand up for anything
meaningful as it relates to my standard of living, Say,
I'm a working class person. And so it's become this
litmus test at least on the left, and I think
you're seeing a similar dynamic playout on the right, but
(07:27):
for totally different reasons. Right, And it's been extraordinary to
behold because I think so many of us who've been
in this issue for so long, we've been marking our
progress in incrementalist terms, and then suddenly things have broken
wide open and the world has changed very very quickly.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
From my vantage point in American academia, I mean, they
might have had personal feelings about Israel Palestine, they may
have had sympathies, but so few people would ever talk
about the erasure of Palestine in the academy, or the
impact of censorship and attacks on academic freedom. But now
(08:06):
because the Palaestinan issue is being used as this cudgel
to attack higher education, like you're just a normal Joshmo
like math professor you're gonna have to care, and you do.
And we're seeing this very much with the mobilization of
the American Association of University Professors, that is not a
Middle East specific organization whatsoever, but they recognize the linkages
(08:28):
between these issues, so in the ways that Palestine is
interwoven with but also has impacted so many of our
current realities and the policies that we're facing by the
Trump administration and the Bye administration before them. Yeah, I
think it's very clear to a lot of people. So
(08:55):
that actually brings me to one of the main questions
that I wanted to ask you, is, aside from kind
of the increased awareness and the taboos that have been
broken around the discussion of Palestine and its integration in
American foreign policy and American domestic policy, what are some
other ways that you think since the genocide began that
(09:16):
pro Palestine organizing has changed.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
So the biggest thing I've seen is that the analytical
frame has changed. We used to talk about foreign policy
adventurers and wars for oil, those kinds of things. Now
I think the analysis is very correctly focused on empire,
the way in which resources domestically the real working class
effort to build a life in the United States is
(09:41):
subsumed by wars of really imperial overreach.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
The whole idea of.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Empire for me was an antiquated one I didn't think
had a whole lot of relevance today. But I think
I and many others who may have thought in that
way missed the point the realities that empires intact. I
think that awareness that our efforts domestically are deeply, deeply
intertwined with what's happening what we're doing elsewhere, is important,
(10:09):
and it's emergent, it's new. When I was in graduate school,
you would hear people talk about how they're engaged with
domestic policy, or people talk about their infests in foreign policy,
and I was mostly interested in foreign policy. But today
to try to draw that differentiation is really meaningless. And
again you see that in the race in New York
Mom Donnie did run on affordability. He ran on a
(10:31):
domestic policy program, but equally thirty eight percent I think
of voters were heavily motivated by his foreign policy interests.
In his foreign policy perspectives, which again from a policy
point of view, he can't really impact, but nonetheless are
supported by this idea that our taxes, what we do
domestically is having a huge impact everywhere else in the world,
(10:54):
and that American empires sprawling at a challenge for people
domestically as well. A pure activist point of view, you know,
I used to have a real belief in electoral politics
that was shaken deeply through the DNC, through the grassroots effort.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
To be heard uncommitted. Yeah, the uncommitted movement precisely. We'll
see where things go.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
I mean, the truth is that, you know, the person
who is just selected in Jersey is a typical I
believe APAC Democrat, Mike Cheryl. My perspective domestically is that
we need to be aggressive, We need to be forceful
in calling for a total reconstitution of Democratic Party, no
half measures, and I think Zarn mndonie did a good
(11:41):
job of illustrating what that could look like.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah, I mean, there's always a tension in this very
money captured system that we have that at certain level
it doesn't really matter liberal or Republican.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
They are captured.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
But I think what the New York City race has
demonstrated is like that can only go so far. You
still need some public support, which is why of course
they're going after gerrymandering and all of that. But yeah,
it's an uphill battle. But I think if this democracy
is to exist, we are in a better footing than
we were, you know, on this discussion, I also wondering
(12:15):
what you think of this characterization, which is that I
think before this genocide, and I don't mean to create
this binary, but it has been a very transformative event.
Before this genocide, I think a lot of Palestinian American
organizing in spaces discussed the issue of Palestine in a
right spaceed approach way, so about human rights, about ending auparthide,
(12:40):
about extending rights, and I think the framing for that
has also changed. It is really a critique of settler
colonialism and the legitimacy of these nation states. First of all,
what do you think of that characterization on my end?
But also what do you think of the tension then
that poses for the Palestinian national liberation movement that still
wants the state.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, you're right. The thing again, the analytic frame has shifted.
We've gone from a contested conversation around nineteen sixty seven,
the June War, when Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan,
Gosta from Egypt, Jerusalem as well from Jordan, the Goal
on Heights, some Syria, and a small siliver of land
from Lebanon to nineteen forty eight. That's what we talk
(13:23):
about now, and that's correct, and.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
I think for many Palestinians or Palestinian Americans that has
always been the starting point of the conversation. But now
we have the political legitimacy to say, wait a second,
this whole state was founded upon separate and unequal on
Jewish supremacy, on a point of view that we reject
as Americans and we should reject everywhere in the world.
(13:47):
And so I think that's the first meaningful change that
I've seen when we talk about Palestine. And then of
course settled colonialism is built into that analysis. Things get
a little bit different when you zoom out. Let me
just talk about domestic I think that when you talk
to people on the left, the universalist argument everybody's created
(14:08):
equal is very, very powerful and resonant, and it's the
one that I believe in. But what's happening on the
right as well is an America first argument, and the
word protectorate comes up repeatedly. Why are we investing so
much in a protectorate Tucker Carlston powerfully, I think for
his audience, and this is probably the most influential commentator
in the United States to day, but powerfully, you know, said,
(14:30):
this country has half the size, half the economy the
state of Connecticut. Why have we invested so much political capital,
so much money and something which is so immaterial, especially
when it pays a big negative dividend in lots of
different ways. So the nativist argument is meeting the universalist argument.
(14:52):
But the core analysis around settled in colonialism, around the
lack of legitimacy for a supremacist state, gives rise to
both of those arguments.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
That access to the.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Substrate, I would say, Palestinians who want to see a
Palestinian state, and how you're going back to Palestine. I
don't know what that means today. I've heard perspectives that
availing ourselves of statehood as a legal construct will mean
that you can now access legal frameworks to pursue justice
in the courts wherever they may exist.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
I hope that's true. Let's see what works out.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
I think there are people who are trying to take
Israeli men dual nationals who participated in the genocide to
court in France, I think by using some of the
some of the laws that exist between recognized states and
non states, or maybe the UK.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Let's see if robber meets road there.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
I support those tactics, but practically, when you're talking about
Palestinian liberation, I don't believe that a state which has
been colonized out of existence. And you kind of have
to look at a map to see what I mean here,
but the West Bank is thoroughly colonized. Gaza is still
occupied by these Raelies and will likely be slowly ethnically
cleansed over time and not rebuilt. I fail to see
(16:05):
how a state illegal construct is going to yield real
benefits with the people on the ground now in Palestine.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
I agree, and I think that the continuation of this framework,
the statehood framework that a lot of our kind of
political elites in the Palestinian landscape continue to use, and
a lot of these countries in the global North use,
also to bypass with work that actually needs to be
done after a genocide. It's certainly a distraction in my view,
(16:37):
but it also speaks to the renewal that needs to
happen within Palestinian politics and within the PLO, But that's
a bigger matter. My next question was going to be
(16:59):
on the Palestine American diaspora. In what ways do you
think the passing American diaspora is alike with people in
historic Palestine, with other diasporas, and in what ways do
you think that they're unique.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
That's a hard question for me to answer.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
I think the diaspora, in the way that I've interacted
with people, is diverse. What people have in common is
a common reference point, the Neca. They have a common
understanding around the illegitimacy of Israel as an ethno state
which takes Jewish supremacy as its point of departure. But
it's a very diverse diaspora. I mean, our first Palisian
(17:37):
American in Congress is Justin Amash, who is on the right.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
That's right. I always forget about him.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Yeah, I mean he had relatives who were murdered in
Visa at a church in northern Vesa, which dates back
to I think the eleventh century. So we're diverse diaspora.
I think the Palisinian diaspora in the United States is integrated,
it's educated, that's the past for lots of Palestinians around
the world. It's how you get out, it's how you
(18:03):
build alive. We have a very high literacy rate in Palestine,
exceeds ninety nine point five percent. But I think where
the diaspora hasn't, at least in the United States, done
as effective a job. And this is kind of the
natural trajectory I think of diaspora communities generally. I don't
know that we're as aggressive and organized as we could be.
(18:25):
And I want to emphasize the word aggressive, the idea
that we can go out and compete at all levels
of government, that we can go out and assert our
understanding of history backed by facts. We should be doing
more of that, especially when you look kind of across
the board when it comes to people who are doing
well in medicine or in business, you know where there's
(18:47):
been a real career risk for speaking out and for
being assertive. We can do more now, and we should
use the leverage gain through two years of genocide, the
most expensive of access to leverage I can imagine, to
push much harder politically.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, that's a very good point. I'm also wondering how
well you think the Palestinian organizing groups and spaces. How
well integrated are they into other activist issue areas.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Yeah, I think this is where when I was in college,
I didn't know the word intersectionality. That wasn't a concept
that really was one that people thought about. You know,
you would host an event and you would invite your friends,
some of whom would be in the Black students group,
some of whom would be in the Queer students group,
and just regular left groups. But today I'd say that
activists have a much more complete sense of how you
(19:43):
almost have a social quilt, and a compression on one
part of it will impact everything else that's related to it,
and we're all interrelated in that way. I'd say that
the most potent discussions around palestign are coming from left
organizing groups, not exactly Palestinian organizing groups. I think if
I could offer gentle criticism of Palistine organizers, there's been
(20:05):
too much and you serviously with uncommitted, too much effort
to ingratiate yourselves to the existing power apparatus to ask
for a seat at the table. When it's somebody like
Zoron Mumdani again who demanded a seat at the table
through an unrelenting focus on the issues achieved access to
(20:26):
a platform, then nobody wanted to seed. And I don't
think that following the rules exactly or being friendly about
accessing platforms within the Democratic parties one yield a huge
benefit to Palestinian Americans or people here. I'd say the
most principled organizing is that organizing that's going to win
(20:46):
and today that comes from non Palestinian groups, and I'm
okay with that. I don't really think it matters if
the best argument is coming from somebody whose family comes
from South Asia through Uganda, or somebody whose family emerges
from you know, the Ballota refugee camp, that doesn't really
matter to me. I think just to focus on the
principles is the most important thing.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Yeah, right right.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I think we're definitely seeing more of an acceptance of that.
I agree with the limitations that you referenced. I also
sometimes do reflect on how matched the discussion is in
the United States with the discussion in historic Palestine and
what activists can do to kind of bridge some gaps
that might emerge. But of course, understanding that we do
(21:29):
exist in a different political reality and we obviously will
develop different views as a result of that.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
I agree, And look, I mean, nobody needs to be
apologetic about inhabiting a different reality. You know, we don't
need to defer to a leadership which is divided and
divided in Palestine and PLO that won't talk to itself.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
And there are structural reasons for that, right.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
I mean, the Israelis and the Americans have done a
very effective job in splintering Palaestinine leadership.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I think we need to think extremely locally.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
There are issues that matter to my community in West Philadelphia, big,
bigger issues across Pennsylvania that impact my life, that impact
my life as a father of three little girls. So
I think being a member of a community and focusing
again relentlessly on the principles and the facts that we've
known all along is critical to pushing the conversation on
(22:19):
Palsign forward and practically today, for me, that means an
arms embargo, it means sanctions, it means a cultural boycott,
and it means those things unapologetically. Again, those are principal
positions that I can take as an American citizen, a
citizen in a country which has underwritten genocide, has underwritten
apartheid for decades.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I think I agree with that analysis. As the author,
which we didn't mention at the beginning, as the author
one of the co authors of After Zionism with Anthony Lonstein,
I'm going to pose a difficult question for you now,
I'm just joking, not that you have to answer it fully,
but where do you think we go from here? Where
do you think the pro palsign movement goes from here?
(23:00):
And if you can reflect in your answer on where
we've stalled as well.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Yeah, So I used to believe in one state for
everybody with equal rights. Today I think the writing is
on the wall for the Palestinians in Palestine. The ethnic
cleansing of Palestine is proceeding the fact that has been
utterly destroyed, utterly destroyed. There are no universities, no schools,
no really functioning hospitals. The basic infrastructure required for the
(23:28):
maintenance of life doesn't exist there anymore. That's part of
why it's a genocide. We've got to take that reality
into account. The Palestinians and Liza, the Palestinians and Palestine
generally have the right to pursue life. They have a
right to an education, they have a right to self actualization,
and many of them, when they can, they're going to leave.
That's the ethnic cleansing program, that's the idea behind the
(23:51):
mass destruction of Palestine. The Israelis have succeeded in that regard.
I would say, we need to be mindful of that.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
We need to be aware of that.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
What I think will happen ultimately is that you'll end
up with some rump community of Palestinians in Palestine who
are eventually when in arms embargoes enacted. And I hope
it's within our lifetimes when the sanctions are enacted, when
Israel is forced to become a normal country with equal
rights for all, will continue to exist in that space.
(24:20):
I don't know, you know, I can't predict, nobody can
really predict what's certainty, what's going to happen. But the
kinds of pressure required to cause Israel to become a
de radicalized, normal society will take time to produce. And
in the interim, the writing is on the wall for
the Palatinians in Palestine, and I think that's the saddust
(24:41):
for me. Part of all this, the continuity of Palacinian
life and Palestine is not guaranteed. You know, the overwhelming
force of the state exists in one place, and that's
in Israel.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yeah, that's why I when a lot of people talk
positively about the developments of the past two years. Of course,
you want to feel hope. You want to highlight how
the discussion has changed here in America, how politics is
moving forward. You want to have some pathway. But we
never were able to prevent that genocide. Nothing we did
(25:18):
in any avenue. All of us have, you know, different
positionalities engaged with different actors, like, none of it actually
stopped that, and that is a very hard pill to swallow.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I hope.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
I've always been hoping that at least that will allow
us to get to the place of self reflection about
what radical solutions look like in the aftermath of this
kind of disaster. And yeah, I hope that's that's where
we go from here on my end. Yeah, thank you
so much, Ahmad. This has been a really enriching discussion,
(25:51):
and I think that the listeners will benefit from this
overarching view of propalacine activism and it's uh, it's intersections
with everything we're seeing unfold. So thank you so much again.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Thank you Donna, It's been a huge pleasure.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
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