INTERVIEW: Marc Lamont Hill Speaks On Israel-Hamas War, International Law, History + More

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wake that ass up in the morning. Breakfast Club.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Morning, everybody is tej n V. Charlamagne the guy. We
are the Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in
the building. Yes, indeed got the brother Mark Lamont Hill.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Morning morning, y'all. Now, last hour we had Jonathan Green
Black here, the head of the ad L, and you know,
of course he's he's I would say pro Israel, that's
safe to say.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Right, yeah, yes.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
And you know, Mark, I was thinking about all the
people that I know who've been to Israel, been to Pakistan,
who've been speaking about this issue.

Speaker 4 (00:31):
For a long time, for a long time.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Marcus Mark has not only just been one of them,
Marcus taking bullets, you know, for speaking out and being
pro Palestine. Yeah, so what did you think that too
broad a question?

Speaker 3 (00:43):
I'll say one thing. There's some points where.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Before we go that can we can you detail people
of what's going on there from your view because you
were there, Get to that let and then you can
talk about that so people can understand it first, because
you might not know this is a new hour, they
might not know what's going on.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
They connectcause John, I think, is replying to.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
The events that have taken place in Israel and in
Gaza over the last week or two. And I think
where he and I agree one hundred percent is that
this is an awful and unprecedented tragedy. There's no way
to even wrap your mind fully around what it means

(01:23):
for over a thousand people to be killed. Correct, the
attacks that happened in Israel were devastating. As someone who
believes in justice, and as someone who believes in human rights,
and as someone who believes that international law and rules
of war have to be followed, I would say, and
I'm speaking for me and lots of other people, I'm
almost representing my opinion right now that Hamas's attack was

(01:48):
a violation of international law. As an organization rooted in
Islamic principles, it's also violation of religious law to attack civilians,
to attack innocence, even in times of war. If I
took the law off the table, just basic decency, I
would say, this is awful.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
So we agree on that.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Where we disagree very quickly is how we make sense
of how we got here and what we do moving forward.
History didn't start on October seven, and oftentimes we see
this in the United States when a target gets blown
up or set on fire, or a police car gets
slipped over or whatever, whether we agree or disagree with

(02:31):
the action. At that moment, the media starts to say,
look at these animals, look at these savages. I can't
believe they did that. And if you were to come
up from another planet and watch this, you would think
that history started on ferguson the night that shit got
set on fire. You would think that the world just
started at these moments, when in fact, there's a long
history that gets you there. Israel has been in apartheid

(02:55):
state since nineteen forty eight years, yes, years. It has
been an occupying power since nineteen sixty seven, right, fifty
six years, yeah, and it has been. It has held
the guys in people in particular, under siege since two

(03:15):
thousand and six, seventeen years going on eighteen in January.
So these are the things that get you there. And
the people of Gaza are catching hell. This isn't ordinary, Hell,
this isn't normal. Just inequality. We're talking about not having
access to clean water, We're a potable water right, not
having access to schools, being constantly under siege, where you're

(03:39):
getting bombs, you're getting shot at, you're vulnerable to premature
death every single day. This is what they're dealing with
for the last seventeen years. And so when Hamaz emerges
and engages in this activince, which is not excusable because
I don't want everybody say he's trying to excuse me.
I'm not excusing me. I'm saying it's inexcusable, right, But
we have to understand where it starts. And when you
put people in an open air prison, which is what

(04:02):
Gaza is, it's an open air prison, you have to
expect people to respond at some point. So whose fault
is the condition, guys in? Is it Hamas? Because that
hasn't Hama's been in control since six Hamasa. Yeah, I
mean it's the right question, right, And what Jonathan would say,
what a lot of pro israel folk would say, is well,
you know, all the Jewish settlers left in two thousand

(04:22):
and five, and Hamas took over in two thousand and six,
and therefore, whatever happens, that's on y'all. Problem is Pilotitians
have not had one minute, not one minute of self
determination in those seventeen years. In other words, yeah, they left.
It would be like if you were in a prison,
and they say, Okay, all the guards left, but you're

(04:43):
still in prison. We're still on the border of the prison.
You still can't get out of the prison, right you
STI don't have any more food, and we control it,
right God. Israel controls Gaza by land, by air, and
by sea. It controls the population registry, It controls the
electromagnetic sphere. It controls everything that goes in and everything
that goes out. It is military. It is effectively controlling

(05:04):
or effectively occupying Gaza, just from the outside. And so, no,
they haven't had an opportunity for self determination. They haven't
had an opportunity to build. They are under occupation in
a different way, but the same as the people in
the West Bank. And so it is a very very
very different situation. That's not to say that Hamas is perfect.
There are lots of stuff about Hamas I disagree with.
I disagree with religious rule in general. And Hamass is

(05:26):
rooted again. They come from as As Jonathan accurately said.
Their roots are in the Islamic Brotherhood of Egypt, and
they do have a vision of freedom that is rooted
in Islamic principles. I happen to disagree with with religious governments.
I agree with that. There's other critics that have this
critice to have every government, but it's important to acknowledge
that Hamas is a government, and you can't have it

(05:46):
both ways. Sometimes they'll say, well, Hamas is a terrorist organization.
You can't talk to them, you can't deal with them,
you can't do this, you can't do this, and that
kind of language makes it impossible to have a diplomatic
or political solution. They make it seem as if the
only thing you can do is blow them up because
they're not a government.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
They're not a government.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
I wondered about that too when it comes to Hamas,
because you know, they say they're a government, but their
charter just says they want to destroy Israel and kill
Jewish people. So it's like, can you negotiate with somebody
if that's literally your charter. That's that's an interesting question.
A couple of things. Hamas starts in nineteen eighty seven.

(06:24):
As again, Jonathan said that accurately, they started in nineteen
eighty seven as a nationalist group. Their goal was the
liberation of the entire land of Palestine. At some point
they got to a space where they wanted to also
be involved in politics. So nineteen eighty seven is a

(06:44):
very different moment than two thousand and five, two thousand
and six when they ran in these elections, when they
ran apart in these elections against Fatah. At that moment,
their goal was still a free Palestine that for them
meant getting rid of what they call design escentity, didn't
mean a certain kind of vision of freedom that did
not include the state of Israel as a Jewish state. Right.

(07:09):
But Hamas over time was willing to have a unity
government with the Palestinian authority, with the FACTA in particular.
They were willing to engage in diplomatic relations. And it's
dishonest to suggest that they haven't been engaged in Israel,
that we can't talk to them the guys. If Israel
want to blow up all of Hamas and all the guys,
that they could have already done that, right. But they've

(07:30):
always worked with They've always worked with Hamas, They've always
worked with them since two thousand and six to keep
the perimeters steady because they don't want instability. They don't
want five or six groups fighting, right, So they've always
negotiated with Jimas so it's sort of designed to say
that we just can't talk to them. I understand the
concern that Hamas's vision of a solution for the political
issue is different than israels solution for the political issues
was different than the other party solution for the political issues.

(07:52):
That's fine, But they are democratically elected government, and they
have a right as a democratically elected government to.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
To negotiate and to have a worldview. And Israels are
right to.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
Have theirs, but you can't undermine them as a government
even if we disagree with them. I might say that
thing that happened on October seventh was an act of
terrorism inexcusable. I would say that, I am saying that,
But that does not mean that it's impossible to have
a diplomatic or political solution to this problem. We cannot
pretend that the only way to solve this issue is
to just blow everything up and to just kill everybody.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
Let me ask you a question. Now, you did say
their attack was not.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
By the rules right of war in neither Israel's right.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
So now with Israel talking and I guess sending flies
and pamphlets out and says, you know, we're giving you
twenty four to forty eight hours to leave Gaza. We're
going to start bombing Gaza. And I heard this morning
on the news that said, you know, the hospitals are saying,
we can't get out. We can't get these people out
because by the time we try to get them out,
they will die.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
Right yep.

Speaker 4 (08:48):
So, if let's say.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Hamas is not following the rules, a lot of people say, well,
why shit Israel followed the rules.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Well, if we followed. The problem is if we follow
that logic down, Let's say I can see both of
those points. I don't, but let's say I did, right,
then I could say, well, hamaskus say, well, we didn't
have to play by the rules because Israel had u
under Leegal occupation for since nineteen sixty seven. They we've
been underseased since nineteen Since since nineteen we've been underseased.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
In two thousand and six seven.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
We've been we've been literally since nineteen forty kicked out
of our homes, all the violations of international law. A
right to return is international law. Palestinians can't go back
to their homes. They were ethnically cleansing in nineteen forty
eight in the neckba right and somebody in the in
the Israel Kannessed, which is basically the Congress, said we
would to have another nekba right now. So that's a
violation of international laws. The target and civilians, the refusal

(09:37):
to provide certain supplies as an occupying power as a
violation of international laws right now. Collectively punishing all Palestinians
for the act of Hamas is a gross violation of
international law and rules of war. Forced transfer of people
from one place to another, expulsion is a violation of
the rules of war. And even Jonathan is saying they
would have a humanitarian corridor in the Egypt side of

(10:00):
their country. That is another neck But that's exactly what happened,
and how you got refugees before the planners that can
put them out, it's not to bring them back. So yeah,
the ideas to say that, well, yeah, Israel shouldn't play
bout us because Hamas doesn't know if you play that game,
the original rule breaker is Israel by international law and
by all historical standards, so they don't they don't play
that game. But I don't think we should play that game.
I think at all moments we should do the most ethical,

(10:22):
the most just, the most fair, the most humane thing
that is possible, and that right now is a ceasefire.
That right now is a return of all hostages. I'm
talking to Hamas now right a return of all hostage
from Jimas. It's it's stopping all violence right and it's
coming up with a political solution that allows Palestinians to
stay in their home. It is not yelling out as
members of the Israeli government have said, We're going to

(10:45):
shrink the size of Gaza because you can't. You can't
start a war with Israel and leave with the same
mind of land that you started with. Taking land by
force is a violation of international law, occupying occupying land
since nineteen sixty seven, violation right, I mean everything here,
violation eighteen. Human rights organizations before all it started agreed,
including Israeli human rights organizations like Bett Sellem, agreed that

(11:07):
Israel isn't a Partheight state and it's been in Apartheight state.
So somehow the global community standing up and being outraged
at what happened in Israel, that makes sense to me.
But what doesn't make sense to me is how we
weren't outraged the day before when these things were happened
to Palestinian people, and for the last seventy five years

(11:29):
they've been happening to Palestinian people. And it doesn't make
sense to me why right now we're not equally disgusted
that over seven hundred at this point, I think it's
even eight hundred Palestinian children have been killed in the
last week. We changed the whole world for Ukraine and
Russia killed about four u and fifty of those children
over course of a whole year.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
What is your thoughts with the US, you know, bringing
the largest aircraft carrier a ship out to show support
of Israel.

Speaker 4 (11:54):
What are your thoughts on that which you're saying?

Speaker 2 (11:56):
But the all the thing is, nobody said anything beforehand,
but now it seems like they're getting support of the US.

Speaker 4 (12:01):
Whatich you're thought?

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Right? And part of the problem is a lot of
us were right. Three point six or three point eight
billion dollars a year agoes from the United States to Israel.
We fund the occupation and that's why mereause, if y'all
wonder why you should care, because you pay for it. Right,
this could not happen without anybody else's help, but the US,
the US has offered weapons. They've offered weapons to make
sure that israelways has the best weapons. They call a

(12:22):
qualitative edge. They've made sure that technologies come through. We
support this thing. What the US is doing right now
with the aircraft carrier is a very small drop in
the bucket compared to what the US has done, not
since nineteen forty eight, but certainly since the nineteen sixties
and nineteen really the nineteen seventies with regard to support
for Israel. And that's the thing we should.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Be outraged about.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
We should be outraged at Biden's response. We should be
outraged about many members of the US Congress's response. We
should be outraged by lots of people. Again, you should
have been outraged when those innocent Israeli children were killed.
Their lives are worth something. They're worth the same as
palasating because their lives are worth something. All of our
lives are worth something, right, But the outrage can't just
be for Israeli kids. They got to be for kids

(13:04):
in Palestine. They got to be for kids in Armenia,
they gotta be for kids in ch I mean everywhere,
But in this issue, it got to be for everybody
on the table. Do you think it's because people are
seeing it right now, but they're saying, Palastinian kids, do
you know what it is? It's the language that we use.
They use a language of Even when Jonathan was talking respectfully,
there's a way that we start to talk about this

(13:24):
is barbaric.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
Right.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
When you start using words like barbaric, when you start
to frame people as subhuman or inhuman, that is a
deep problem. Now, Jonathan gold Black, Green Black, excuse me.
Jonathan Green Black rightly pointed out that there's a long history.
He alluded to the long history of Jewish people being
constructed as subhuman and as animals. Right, it's a disgusting

(13:47):
anti Semitic trope that helped animate the forces of the Holocaust.
We don't want to ever go back there, but we
also don't want to transfer that to Palestinian people or
to Arabs. And when you start calling them barbarians, when
you start hear needs extraordinary and to some of them
unsubstantiated point claims about.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
Babies being beheaded.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
What it does is it creates a kind of outrage
at Arabs and at Palestinians and at brown people more broadly.
That then makes barbaric responses seem justified. But I want
to be clear. It's not just that I disagree with
disproportionate force. It is illegal to engage in disproportionate force.
There is a law of proportionality in international law, that

(14:28):
is to say that I can only use force to
the extent that it's that it engaged, that it that
it fulfills my military uh mission. In other words, if
if we're at war and you shoot at me, and
I should, I can't shoot that the whole block up.
I can't. That's just common hoods sense, like you can't
just shoot up the whole blo because you gotta be
for one person. You can't, right, and international law protects

(14:48):
that logic and asserts that logic. And so what Israel
has done is engaged in a disproportionate force. You kill us,
We're gonna kill all of y'all. We're gonna wipe them
off the map that they say, We're gonna knock them
three generations. We're gonna turn guys into tens. These are
all quotes that we're hearing. And the problem is if
you think that they're animals anyway, then it's a lot

(15:08):
easier to do. It's just like when you hear that
prisoners are starving. No one said people are going to prisoners.
They don't deserve you know, they're unsafe. Oh well, you know,
blah blah blah, because we've decided that they don't deserve
the same thing as everybody else. Right, we can't think
like that. Palisandi lives are worth just as much as
Israeli lives. And until we recognize that and own that
in policy, then we're going to continue to see the

(15:29):
kind of force that we're using. And that's why I
don't like this narrative of those animals, those barbarians, those
uncivilized people. No, there's civilized people who can be engaged
through diplomacy, through through politics, through legal solutions, just like
everybody else. What's the difference between Hamas and just citizens
of Palestine. Well, Hamas is a political party, you know,

(15:49):
and they also have a kind of armed wing that
is a little more extreme. But the Palacinian people haven't
had a chance to vote for Hamas. I don't know
what they want. They won the election, I believe for
forty four the vote in two thousand and six, forty
nine percent of the dozen population is under eighteen. So
imagine if seventeen imagine if Donald Trump won the election

(16:11):
in twenty twenty four, God forbid, and then he decided,
which is not completely unplausible, that he's not leaving office.
Oh he's going to do that, right, exactly, exactly right.
I agree. So there's seventeen at least of him winning
part then seventeen years later he's still in office. You
can't blame the people who never got a chance to
vote for him. You can't blame anybody for him being

(16:33):
office seventeen years later if it's a four year term.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
And so part of it is the everyday people, the guys.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
I don't speak for them. I don't want to say
whether they support himass or not. Right, What I know
is they want to be free and they know that
the other party of FETA has basically caved. They know
that Paliseni authority doesn't represent their interest. They don't have
a mandate either, and so it's very difficult to know
what Palisi people want.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
Let them have free and fair elections and then we
can find out what they want.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
But in terms of the Palestinian people in general, they
don't just live in Gaza, they live in the West Bank,
they live in cities like Ramaala and Bethlehem. They live
in these cities and they are under military occupation. What
they did, and Jonathan talked about wanting a two state solution,
and again there are lots of people who want the
two state solutions. I don't oppose a two state solution philosophically,

(17:23):
but what they've effectively done since those Oslo Accords of
nineteen ninety three is turned Gaza into a cage and
the West Bank into two hundred and twenty eight separate ghettos.
So the Palestinian people don't have unity. They don't they're
ruled by different parties. Area A, they're ruled by Palestinians,
Area B, there is coordinated with Israel. Area C is
all Israeli control. So even the part where they're supposed

(17:47):
to be free, they're not. And Oslo was supposed to
be an opportunity to work toward a two state solution.
But over the time as they're negotiating, the area is
getting smaller, Palestinian freedom is getting smaller.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
Settlements are growing. I think I used the example before.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
It's like if you and I are arguing over how
to divide the pizza and as we argued, whore going
to which way to split it? You keep eating slices,
right at some point there's nothing left to divide, and
we say, well, now now there's two slices level, let's
split it. Mark Well, I'd be like fuck you right,
like it's too laugh. And that's basically what is happening
right now in Palestine. And so Palestinian people are saying, look,
we've been waiting. We we negotiated with Oslo and it

(18:25):
was it was a farce with no Ada calls it
a sovereignty trap.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
We tried to march in protest.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
They had the Great March of Return in Guys up
to the undefined border of Israel, and from five hundred
meters away, Israeli snipers were shooting down people, picking them
off like birds. They marched. They said, tell your story
through medium. My colleague get Algaeta shooting a buokla. They
killed her with the press jacket on with no justice.

(18:53):
They not First they said Palastinian killed it. Then they said, okay,
we did it. Then they said as an accident, is
there any justice? No, So just like black folk, here
your march, they say it's wrong. Your protests, you say
is wrong. Your boycott the BDS movement they've tried to criminalize, right,
which is a boycott, dives, investment, and sanctioned movement called
by a civil society Palestinian people saying, look, we got

(19:14):
to do something different. So every possible strategy has been
met with resistance, has been met with criminalization, has been
met with violence. And so when I see these awful
events that again are inexcusable, they don't come from nowhere.
They don't come from from day one being October seventh,
They come from day one, not even being nineteen forty eight,
really day one being there late in nineteenth century, late

(19:36):
twentieth centuries, late nineteenth century, Excuse me, when we started
to see Palestinian land being settler colonized.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
Now, what is your thoughts on? You know, Jonathan was
also upset with some chapters of Black Lives Matter supporting
Black Lives Matter Chicago and Chicago. It was a couple
of chapters actually that was supporting Palestine and Hamas. What's
your thought on that? The reason we asking all these
questions because you know, I'm not verse. I don't know
if Charlamagne is versed, but I'm not verse think.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
I The one I saw in Chicago was the one
with the paraga, a paraglider, and I thought that was
impoor taste.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
Again, I don't because there.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Was a paragliders that came in and shot up the
right right.

Speaker 3 (20:15):
And I don't sell.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
I don't want to celebrate or romanticize the killing of civilians,
and so I didn't like that. Standing in solidarity with
the Palestinian people as they resist is nothing wrong with that.
And as a nascent sovereign, as a young emerging sovereign state,
a mass has the right to resist military occupation. And

(20:36):
let's be very clear, Palestinians have the legal right, not
just the natural right, but the legal right to resist.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
They can use violence to resist. They're under military occupation.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
It is not illegal to resist, but you have limits
on how you can resist. Again, if you punch me
in the face, I have a right, even by this law,
to punch you back and to defend myself. I don't
have a right to pull out a knife for Bazuoka
in Blae your way with the gun whither you have
though you're in Florida, you can do facts. That's very true.
That that's very true right, But even in there it's limits.

(21:09):
Like I think, if Florida, you can't be black and
do it right. Book Palastadians is right, International law says
you can. I wrote a book called Except for Palestine,
And part of the point is all these rules work
except for Palestine. Every other sovereign state has a right
to defend itself. And when you're under a legal military
or when you're in a military occupation, when you're a

(21:30):
legal occupation, when you're it's a daily form of violence
that legally you can defend yourself with.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
What you can't do is kill civilians.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
And so when I see people, if I see somebody
where it's BLM or anybody else romanticizing the killing of civilians,
I say no, I say that's wrong. I say that
doesn't help our cause. But I don't want to pretend
that the only strategy that black folk have, or the
only strategy that Palestinians have, or the only strategy that
any people have is nonviolence. This idea that Palastinians is
supposed to just sit there as they get beaten and
shot and killed is ridiculous.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
Why do you think you don't hear that much of
that story?

Speaker 1 (22:03):
Of which part of the of the because I mean.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
You hear more about hamas you hear more about what
you know Israel, but you never hear that part of
the story.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
Because it again, they do the same thing here with us,
right like there's stories when violence happens. No disrepect to
the New Black Panther Party, But there's about twelve people
in the New Black Panther Party. If you would have
watched watch Fox News, you would think that all the people,
all the people in Fergus in march, and all the
people in Minnesota marchan that it was these twelve people
that said the craziest, wildest stuff were the representaters of

(22:34):
all black people. They always take a one slice of
a people and tell that and make that the whole story.
That they pick it the they pull up the threads
that are easiest to pull at. So that becomes part
of the reason. The other part of the reason is
we've never represented the Middle East or Africa in ways

(22:54):
that show their humanity. We've always shown them as as uncivilized,
as violent, as as unprepared for democracy, and that's how
you end up here in the first place.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
But we need to tell those stories. That's our job.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
That's our job to tell the story of the occupation,
tell the story of suffering, to tell the story of misery.

Speaker 3 (23:13):
Because if we don't do that, then we're complicit.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
That's why when those eighteen human rights organizations stood up
and said, Israel is in apartheid state, that there are
different rights given to some folks versus other folks based
on who they are. That is the definition of apartheid.
It doesn't have to look just like South Africa. It
has to be based on a system of racialized hierarchy
or other forms of hierarchy. And it is so when
those nations came out and said that, people started paying attention.

(23:39):
It's in many ways frustrating for me because I feel
like we were just starting to turn a corner when
people were noticing the injustices in Palestine. People were starting
to speak out against what was happening. People were starting
to say, wait a minute, Israel also has to do something.
Political candidates were running it, like Bernie Sanders are saying, look,
we can't give unconditional eight to anybody, but even Israel.
Israel has to not have human rights violations for us
to keep giving them our money. This is where the

(24:02):
conversation was turning, and this moment creates an, unfortunately for me,
an opportunity to say, look, we don't have to hold
Israel accountable for anything. We can only focus on Palestinians.
And I think everybody, everybody needs to be held accountable.
I guess I keep getting slightly confused because we talk
about Hamas and Palestinian citizens, and I wonder if that
if that's fair. And the reason I say that because
it feels like Hamas is willing to sacrifice the Palestinian

(24:25):
people because they have to know you're not gonna win
a war with Israel. They had to know when they
committed that act of terror what the response was going
to be, and they had to know that so many
innocent Palestinians were going to be killed because of it.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
You know, it's an interesting question.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
I asked that very question to Osama him Dan, who's
one of the who's senior spoken for for Hamas. I asked.
I had him on my Algazeri show last week as
well as an Israeli official, and I asked him that
very question. I said, if you know your response is
going to be this, why would you do that? Yeah,
there's an interesting set of questions responses that he didn't
he didn't say this, he avoided the question. But my

(25:03):
response would be one, I'm not sure they knew that
they'd be this successful.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
I don't.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
I think they they thought the Israeli intelligence and Israeli
military would be better prepared.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
For this UH, for this uh for this.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
Attack than they than they than they were, and I
think Israel is and I think Jonathan's basically said that,
like everybody was a little surprised by this. They may
have underestimated Hamas's capability, and Hamas may have overestimated Israel's capability,
at least in that moment. So I think part of
it was they weren't planning, They weren't prepared for this to
be They didn't think they'd get this many hostages. They
didn't think they'd be able to breathe it, you know,

(25:38):
to kind of get past the barrier and kill that
many people. So I think some of this might have
been this is me speculating now. I think some of
this might have been oh shit, we end oh shit,
like we hear, let's figure this out. The second thing is,
I think what they would say to you is we're
dying now slowly, and yes, this may cause an act
of extraordinary, disproportionate retaliation by Israel, but at least we

(26:03):
have an opportunity to change the conditions on the ground.
At least the world is watching. At least we have
an opportunity to do something else. Do I think that's
the right decision? Though I don't. I think that's a
terrible political calculation. And I don't think that you can
sacrifice civilians any interest of this. I just don't think
you can do that. But I also understand that if
we do nothing at all, if we do nothing at

(26:24):
all under occupation, if we do nothing at all under slavery,
if we do nothing at all under any gross community
system of injustice, our presses don't just free us. And
Palactians were dying anyway, They're being ethnically cleansed anyway, They're
being taken off their land anyway, And so there's no
reason to believe that if Hamas had just sat on
their hands then things would have gotten better. So we

(26:46):
can have a critique of Hamas and say, hey, that
was wrong, but we also have to recognize that it's
not like things were getting fixed and Hamas went and
messed them up. They were dying anyway. Palatines are dying
every single day. Those hospitals already don't have enough power.
People die.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
Those hospitals are death camps anyway.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
And right now, and just think about this again, Israel
is turning off all the electricity, all the fuel the hospital.
The international representative from the Red Cross, the International Red Cross,
said that this hospital will be a graveyard if Israel
doesn't give them energy. And when I spoke to Israel
officials about this directly, they said, well, talk to Hamas
about that. Can you explain Hamasa's relationship to the Palestinian government.

(27:24):
Is Hamas the Palestinian government. Hamas is the Palestinian government
effectively in Gaza. So basically, so they're in a leadership
in Gaza, in Gaza God, but so there's a Palasinian
Authority Palsin national Authority. In nineteen ninety three, they effect
the Palsonian National Authority became the ruling government or the

(27:47):
ruling authority and representative of the Palestinian people. This is
part of the Oslo Accords, which was an attempt to
create a two state solution. And so they said, okay,
the PLO is working the Palsenian Liberation Organization, who they
used to call terrorists. Right, they said, you know what,
we'll rec ugnized them as the AS, the U as
the AS the representative of the Palatine people. And then
we're going to have elections and parties can run. FATTA

(28:11):
is one of the parties, right, and they're the party
that rules in the West Bank. That's that's everything, that's
the west bank of the Jordan River, that's all the
land that was occupied in the after the nineteen sixty
seven war, that's that's them. And then Gaza had elections
and Fata Haran then there too. They did not win.
They lost by a fairly slim margin. The elections were
contested and at some point but Hamas won and so

(28:34):
then what you saw is what you wanted to see,
was a unity government that didn't happen. Part of why
the unity government didn't happen was the US and Israel
undermined it. But at the end of the day, you know,
have uh Hamas running this part of the of of
Palestine and you have another party running FATA, running the
other part of Palestine, and that is.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
Why you have some challenges.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
But what's interesting is when we're fighting over Jerusalem as
a global community Muslims, Christians, when we're fighting for Jews,
we're talking about Jus, We're talk about stats judism that
doesn't have anything to do with Hamath, that has due
with with Mahamurabads, that has due with this party in
the West Bank, when we're talking about in a part
type wall being built throughout the West Bank, when we're

(29:16):
talking about the treatment of people and mother, when we're
talking about a program committed in the West Bank, in
the Palestinian village by Israeli military general standards, all that I.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
Ain't got nothing to do in Hamas.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Hamas is like they become almost like a boogeyman that
we can talk about when we should be talking about
all these other issues. There are legitimate Palestinian representatives who
they also have refused to meet with. There are legitimate
negotiations that could happen that they've also refused to have.
So Hamas in some ways is saying, look, the rest
of our leadership is sold out. We're going to hold
the line here. Again, it doesn't mean I grew with

(29:48):
their tactics, but again it didn't start from nowhere part
of what Jamas has some of the admiration of the people,
it's because they're the only people who haven't capitulated and
so and they can't vote for anybody else.

Speaker 3 (29:59):
So this is this is the challenge of it.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
So the Palestinian leadership is even divided based on where
they are. And the reason why that happens is because
again Israel and the Alslo courts divided the Palisenian territories
up in a way that Palisanians don't have one cohesive,
continuous piece of land with access to water, all the
things you would need for a country. They put them
broken up in these little ghetto so that they could
never have a full body representing them, both geographically or politically.

(30:23):
So in Israel waging war, is it just contained to
Gaza at one area? It is right now, although as
of the last report I saw seven people were killed
in the West Bank too, but by Israeli forces. But
but yeah, right now, it's only happening in Gaza. And
we've also seen things happen when you hear clashes in
ox of Moss, that's happening in the West Bank, that's

(30:43):
happening and occupied East Jerusalem, when you hear.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
About you know.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
Br Goldstein, a settler from Brooklyn who came and engaged
in a massacre at the Iberheim Mosque in Khalil and
Hebron and the nineties that was in the West Bank
and the military clashes that came after that were there.
So there's It really just depends on where you're talking
about at a given moment. But right now we're talking
about just the guys A strip, which is a very
specific strip of land uh with within the region. Most

(31:14):
people are up north right Gadsa City, and right now
they're being told go to the southern part of the country.
That's another important thing because part of what people say
is Israel has the most restraint. They have the most
restraint driven military in the world. They give people warnings
before they bomb them. They tell people.

Speaker 3 (31:34):
So they do have what's called a roof knocking strategy,
where they say, well, you know, we'll knock on the
roof and in three minutes later with we'll drop a
non explosive on your roof and then you have like
three minutes to.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
Leave before we blow it up.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
That's not a lot of time.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
Second, they've they've gotten rid of that strategy they say, well,
if to the point you made earlier, I say knocking,
we ain't knocking, We're just blowing shit up now.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
Also, well, let's say you know my question to that too,
because if you knock on and as Hamas, Hamas knows
now you're gonna bomb me.

Speaker 4 (32:02):
So they know how to get the hellouse.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
I don't.

Speaker 4 (32:04):
That doesn't make much sense at all.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
Evil.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
The argument was a lot because they say a.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
Lot of people that that Hamas is what even what
Jonathan green Blast said was they they are setting up
in churches, they're setting up in hospitals, they're sitting up
in schools, they're setting up in bacad.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
I haven't. I have yet to see intelligence reports that
say that. The problem is they say Hamasis everywhere. They
say Hamasis everywhere, and they have tunnels everywhere. So then
when you blow up a school, that school is filled
with children, and they say, well, yeah, but Hamas was
in there. The narrative is constructed as if Palestinian people
stand in front of their babies with guns and so
and force you to kill both of them. Right, that's

(32:40):
the narrative, right, history intelligent reports don't necessarily suggest that that.
Oftentimes what is seen as a military target often is
just a civilian target. I mean when the classic example
historically is the bombing of the King David Hotel, they say, oh,
it was a British military target.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
That is that is rarely terrorists blew up.

Speaker 1 (33:01):
Right, turns out it wasn't and it's stories it wasn't
a military talk there were civilians in there, right, These
are the things that happened. Schools are getting bombed, hospitals
are getting bombed, homes are getting leveled. I spoke to
a woman whose entire family eleven people in the house
were killed when the apartment was leveled last week, and
none of them were military.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
None of them were members of Jimaz.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
But this idea of saying what we had to blow
it up because Hamas is basically saying Jimaz stands in
civilian areas and forces us to kill everybody. But there's
no evidence of that. But again, international law doesn't say
you can just do that. You can't just arbitrarily do that.
And you can't move one point one million people to
the south in twenty four hours and at the same
time that you shoot down the corridor to get them there,

(33:43):
and you're shooting at transport vehicles, they transferred people from
the north to the south. If all that is happening,
you can't in good faith say that we gave everybody
a warning, as if all the civilians were going to
leave to the south and Homasa is gonna be standing
up in the Northay, hey here we are come get
us right, Like that's not realistic, honest, and we have
to be honest about that.

Speaker 3 (34:02):
And honestly, Antonio is the head of the UN.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
Other nations are beginning to say that they're saying, Look,
this is disproportionate for us, this is too much. You
can't blow up all the hospitals. You have to give
people food, you have to give people electricity. And the
fact that we're sitting here right now having a fight
over whether or not Palestinians can get food, clothing, shelter, electricity,
fuel is absurd. Thousands of Palastinians have been killed and

(34:27):
we're pretending like it's just okay, and it's not. Yeah,
I wonder about that too, Like why do people have
to be pro Israel or pro Palestine? Like, I'm pro
I don't want to see kids get killed. I'm pro
I don't want to see anything. I'm anti war, Like,
why do people have to pick this side? Like I
don't understand. I'll tell you why. At this moment, we

(34:52):
can all say we don't want violence. I agree, you
don't have to know about the issue. And look, I
just don't want to see anybody die. That's why I'm
at this moment. I want to see another Israeli child dead.
I don't want see another Palestinian child dead. I don't
want to see anybody die, not just children, adult. I
don't want nobody to die. But the problem is if
you say that you are pro Israel as it is
currently constituted, then you are saying that you are in

(35:16):
support of a government that is systematically colonizing people, that
is systematically displacing people, that is systematically stealing people's land,
that is systematically ethnically cleansing people, as we see in
Gaza right now. Those people leave gods and can't come back.
They've been ethnically cleansed. Right When you say you pro Palestine,
then they'll say you pro Hamas. Here's the difference. If

(35:40):
I say I'm pro Hamas, I'm saying I'm pro Hamas, right,
I can be pro Palestinian and support Pilistlian self determination
and still disagree with Hamas. The problem is Israel as
it is constructed. Israel as it is defined. Israel, by
its own definition, is not a state of all of
its citizens, by virtue of being a Jewish state, and
by virtue of giving people different rights based on whether

(36:03):
or not they are Jewish, by virtue of the fact
that Palestinians have different rights and privileges, even those who
are citizens of Israel. Arab sisms of Israel have different
rights rules, and they'll say that's a lie. There are
Palastinians and are kinnessed. They're Palestinian members in a supreme court.
Palastinians at the exact same rights. There are about sixty
laws on the books that show a difference, either facially

(36:27):
or in practice in terms of how people get treated
based on whether or not they are an Arab or not.
Even for Arab sisterms of Israel. Right now, people in
the West Bank don't have rights and freedoms. So the
way Israel is constructed, it is by definition operating against
the interests of Palestinian people. That's the difference. It would
be like saying I'm not anti Indian, I'm just pro

(36:49):
United States. That'd be a hell of a thing to
tell a Native American right, because the United States, by definition,
by its construction, is created in a way that stomps
on the rights Ofative Americans here. So I can't say
to something. I can't look at Native American in the
eye and say, well, I'm not I don't pick a side.
I'm neutral on this right. I like Native Americans and
I and I and I love what America created, like

(37:09):
nah bruh, Like you gotta pick one on that right.
And so it doesn't mean, though that I have to
hate Israeli's or that I have to hate Jewish people.
I don't hate either. I want everyone to live in peace, safety, dignity,
self determination, and justice, and that's important to be said.
I guess that's why I don't like conflating to Hamas
in Palestinians, because Hamas charter literally does say they want

(37:31):
to destroy Israel and kill Jewish people.

Speaker 3 (37:33):
That was that was that that was their that was
their charter.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
And I think that we can have an opposition to
Hamas's charter. I think we can have an opposition to
Jumas all the way and still support the Palestinian people. Again,
Haimas is a government and an organization. They're not the
Palestinian people, right. I think that's what a confusion is.
And I think we can have a disagreement with the
Israeli government, right and I could say, hey, they're they're

(37:57):
they're Israelis. There's Ionists. There are Jewish people here who say, look,
I don't agree with the Israeli government, but I disagree
with the government, but I support the government's right to exist.
I hear you. What I'm saying is is that the
Jewish state as is constructed right now, as is constructed
right now, and as it was designed since nineteen forty eight,
was constructed in a way that depended upon the ethnic

(38:20):
cleansing of Palestinian people, the settler colonizing of Palestinian people,
and the continued a dispossession of Palestinian people.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
And so that's the difference. This isn't about what I
agree with the government.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
And now everybody has governments issue shouldn't be held to
a higher standard or a lower standard. Issua should be
held to the same standards all governments. You can critique them,
you can agree with them, you can support them, you
can resist them, you can do all that stuff. I'm
not against that, but I'm saying right now, Palestinian people
have been dispossessed, they have been made stateless, they have
been made refugees in their own home, and they've been
made refugees around the world, and it's only getting worse.

(38:53):
And so what we have to do right now is
not just ask how can we stop this violence, which
we should. I hope the violence stops tomorrow, but if
we go back to the way we were two weeks ago,
that also is an act of gross of irresponsibility and
really violence on our part. Because Palestinians are getting treated
like animals every single day.

Speaker 4 (39:11):
Somebody might say, well, well, why are you so passionate
about this? What you know? Because you you've been passionate
about this for a long time.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
So if somebody asked, well, why is Mark Lamont Hill
is so passionate, what would you tell.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
Them A couple of reasons. As an American citizen, my
tax dollars go to it. I don't make as much
money as y'all, but I pay a significant amount of taxes,
so I feel like even more, I'm even more culpable
my money goes to funding this occupation, I'm responsible for
it as an American citizen, as a black person.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
I believe in justice everywhere.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
The week before I was grilling the Israeli minister in
the Hamas Minster, I was grilling the Minister of a
Zetba Jean because I'm worried about what's happening to people there. Right,
So it's not just as real. It'sue shouldn't be shouldn't
be isolated. We should be focused on it. In justice everywhere.
But the reason in particular why this issue comes to
me is one as somebody who study in the Middle East,
it's a fascinating issue to me. But also, we don't
give everybody four billion dollars a year, you know what

(40:05):
I mean. I might be pissed off of what's going
on in Uzbekahstan, but we don't put that much money.
And it was Becky Wallace, right, So I don't even
think that's how you said. So that's part of it
as well. Also, there's a long history of solidarity of
Palestinian people with black folks. Some people that they don't
care about us, that's not true. Now there's some stuff
we got to work out but Malcolm X cared about

(40:27):
this issue. Malcolm X is my hero. So when Malcolm
X cared about this issue, when he wrote an issue
a piece on this in the Egyptian Gazette called Zionist Logic,
I cared. In a fall of sixty four, I cared
because Malcolm cared.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
Malcolm.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
And when everybody here go back and listen to message
to the grassroots, Malcolm is talking about what a revolution
looks like, and he was talking about us being connected globally, right,
That's why I care about this issue. The Black Panthers
cared about this issue. Snick cared about this issue in
the summer sixty seven. There's a lot of people black
freedom fighters who we admire. People say, be like Malcolm,
be like a side of people want to march him

(41:03):
and be like Huey. People want to be like Angela.
They all cared about Palestine. So I'm following that tradition,
but I'm not doing it blindly. They understood that our freedom,
our liberation as a people, had to require it demanded
us to be connected to people in other places who
are pressed. I can't get free if Palestine ain't free.
I can't get free if South Africa ain't free, and unfortunately,

(41:27):
that fight toward freedom will always alienate you.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
It'll always make you look marginal, It'll always make you
look like.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
The bad guy. Nelson Mandela spent thirty years in prison.
He was in prison from nineteen sixty four until nineteen ninety.
He became the president of South Africa, and he still
was on the United States terror watch list until twenty eighteen.
Until two thousand, we had a black president here and
he was still on the terror list. He had been
the president of a state, he'd been hailed around the world,

(41:55):
he'd been at the Olympics, everybody loved him, everybody pretended
that they didn't criminalize it, and he was still on
our country is terror list. So we got to be
real careful about who we call a terrorist. We got
to be real mindful of how we use that language
of terror, because one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.
And that's not going to be taken out of context
that I'm saying that I support what Hamas did. Again,
I oppose what Hamas did. I oppose the killing of civilians.

(42:18):
But what we're not going to do is pretend that
oppressed people getting liberated by resisting violence in self defense
is an act of terrorism.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
As such, we can't do that either.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
Can you explain your relationship between America and Israel? Because
you said, you know, America gives them four billion dollars
a year. Why are they such strong outa It's a
great question, you know, and it's a question that lots
of people ask. You know, it's a relatively so Initially
the strongest support of Israel was.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
We're the British right. But then.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
By this nineteen seventies, nineteen eighties, and I talked about
this in my book except for Palestine a lot, and
there's other people who write is much better than me.
Rassi Kality is a book called The One Hundred Years War.
Nord Attakat has a book called Injustice for Justice for some,
excuse me, justice for some, And there's many others Elin
Pepe and others. I'd say, read the Palestinians before you
read me, and these Raelies before you read me. But

(43:19):
there's a way that the United States, I'll get to
the heart of it. The US doesn't have feelings, it
has interests. We watch violent atrocities happen in certain places.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
We don't say anything.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
We watch a small atrocity, and all atrocities are awful,
happen in other places. I'm not talking about this though
right now, and we're outraged, our outrage meter.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
Doesn't link to.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
It isn't doesn't directly correspond to what people did. It
corresponds to what we need. Right there's certain places where
we all we gotta go to and liberate the women, right,
but that right now, we're best friends with Saudi Arabia,
which has a gross human rights record, particularly against when
you talk about beheadings. Look at Saudi Arabia, right They
killed a journalist, Jamal Khoji five years ago.

Speaker 3 (44:06):
We're in the anniversary of that. So we don't have
we're selective.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
Israel operates as the United States' strategic outposts, so there's
a friendly relationship between US and Israel, but it also
serves the US's military interests because the US wants a
stake in the Midlis, just like everybody want to stake
in the Middle East. And now you have the opportunity
to have a nation that's not brown. Let me be clear, Israel,
it still has a majority of miserdahij Jusey. I'm not

(44:31):
suggesting the Israel's not a brown country, and the Israel
doesn't have brown Jews the majority of Missadahim at this point.
But my point is that Israel at its founding isn't
an Arab country, and so being able to have to
be an Arab territory and to have an Arab a
non Arab country, there's your strategic outpost makes a lot
of military sense.

Speaker 3 (44:52):
It it makes a lot of economic sense for the.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
United States, and of course for Israel, the United States
serves a great purpose the military backing.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
It gives them money.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
Now, you know, there's a long history of the United
States and the UK not wanting Jewish people here. So
part of it was also animated by anti Semitism is
that it was almost as if they said, look, we'll
allow Israel to exist because we don't want Jewish people here.
So the same so if you look at US immigration
law through the twentieth century, they didn't want Jews here,

(45:22):
they didn't want Irish people here, they didn't want Russians here.
The lots of we were already here anal choice, but
like they didn't want any of us here. And so
part of why it was easy for the UK to
get for the British to give Israel to to to
the Zionist movement was because they didn't want Jews in

(45:43):
Britain because of anti Semitism, and Americans didn't want them either,
So part of the at the beginning was like, we
don't want them here anyway. Now they've they've served strategic interests. Again,
that's anti Semitic, it's deeply problematic, but that's part of
the origin story of why we got into these political
relationships that we got into. It's a two state solution.
The solution I don't believe so, but I think it's

(46:05):
up to Palestinians and Israelis to decide that. I want
them to come up with a final analysis and a
final plan that works for them. And I think the
best plan that we could have is a one state solution.
One country. Everybody gets one vote. It's secular. It's not

(46:26):
a religious state. It's not a Jewish state, so it's
not in Islamic state. It's just a secular democracy where
everybody gets a vote. To me, that's fair, that's easy. Again,
two state doesn't work because settlements. Two state doesn't work
because Palestinians won't get their rights protected. So for me,
it's a secular, democratic, one state solution. But you know what,

(46:47):
it ain't up to me as an American taxpayer. All
I want to do is not funded anymore. And I
want the final plan to come from Israelis and Palestinians
who can work together to figure out a plan. But
that plan has to be one that has one thing
that's not negotiable. The one not negotiable that it has
to be is that it has to produce dignity, safety, justice, security,

(47:09):
and self determination for every body. I don't want anybody
to leave. I don't think anybody needs to leave. I
think everybody needs to stay and get those rights, the justice,
and that self determination. That's my that's my analysis. All right, Well,
I hope we get there no more war.

Speaker 4 (47:29):
We appreciate you coming in and breaking it down.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
Yeah, I appreciate everything about this show. I appreciate what
y'all doing.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
Man.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
The only thing I say real quick is Charlottmagne is
trolling with that hat.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
I'm not. It's just repping my squad's all. Yeah, And
this is what I mean, Like you got to pick
a side, man, Like you know you're not from Dallas,
like you literally signed with the enemy. But no, when
I grew up in South Carolina, we didn't have a team.
So like my dad and my granddad, they were all
Cowboys fans. They're America's team.

Speaker 3 (47:55):
Do you see do you hear the propaganda?

Speaker 2 (47:58):
Well, at least earlier in the year, he was buying
Super Bowl tickets and he was getting his hotels.

Speaker 3 (48:02):
But that's wh who do you want to see there?

Speaker 1 (48:06):
You would the halftime show? How Boys going to the
Super Bowl? I did well? Probably up and up the
stairs more question after question question. That's why you want
me to ask nobody?

Speaker 4 (48:20):
But I asked them.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
I don't care he neither. I am interested in what
go ahead. Jesus Christ. I didn't want that reaction, all right,
Well he was bad, all right. Look I know what
he said. I watch the sho every day. It was
about I know what he said.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
I know what he said.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
It's the one time agree I actually hated to agree
with him. You agree that they should say something? Yeah,
hell yeah, they should say something. Really, if you are,
it's yes, more Cali than Drake? Really, yeah, more Cali
than Drake. Why because they never talk about social issues ever?

Speaker 3 (48:54):
I know, and I have an issue with that I
have an issue with anybody.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
I don't think every famous person has to say something
about everything, but if your people are being exterminated, if
your people are being executed, if your people are being
whatever its circumstances, I think you got to say something.
He's like the most damn near the most famous Palestinian
in the world. If I were the most famous black person,
if any of us were the most famous black person
in the world, the most famous Black person in the world,

(49:19):
and black people were being killed in our country and
nobody said anything, I would be deeply disturbed. I don't
know what and the reason I'm not letting Drake off
the hook, you know what I mean. There's plenty of
reasons to have issues with driva Issus Drake the last month,
but none of them about none of them political. It's
all about the you know, his framing of gender and
on his album and his treatment of everybody from Holly
Buried you know, we going down list. That's another conversation.

(49:42):
But for me, I don't know how Drake identifies in
terms of his politics. I don't know how he identifies
as a Jewish person. I don't know how he identifies.
I know identifies racial as a black person, and so
I don't know how connected he is ethnically, culturally, or
politically to that issue.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
If he is, and he should speak up too, I
just don't know.

Speaker 2 (49:56):
Drinks said he had a ball mince field when he
was of age, and you know, yes, he talk about a.

Speaker 4 (50:00):
Lot of it.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
But but the problem is that argument presumes it because
I'm Jewish that have to be pro Israel, and there
are numerous Jewish people around the world are who are
Jewish and not pro Israel.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
I don't think Drake has a responsibility pro to be
pro Israel.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
I think I'd love for him to say something about
it whatever wherever he stands on this issue.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
But Kyla, yeah, man, and yeah, it was none.

Speaker 1 (50:19):
Of those things either. Though Kyla is not connected culturally.
I've seen him wear the coffee, I've seen him do stuff, yea,
I've seen him be outside Palestinian. He don't lead with
it because it's not great for business to walk around
saying you're Palestinian.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
Someone argued that's that's a problem. I'm not here to
judge that.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
All I'm going to say is I would have liked
to hear him say something and The fact that the
leading hip hop cop journalist Vlad and I on the
same page on this issue should suggest to you how
morally egregious it is that even that he and I
are on the same page on this thing. When they do, though,
what then what like? If they do then what like?
What is that? I mean? I think that's always the question, right,

(50:55):
I mean, like what happens when the NBA speaks out
against such and such? Right? I do think that there's
power in that. Part of it is awareness. There are
people who will never watch this video. There are people
and everybody watching the Breakfast Club, but just people who
won't watch the Breakfast Club but will.

Speaker 3 (51:09):
Listen to DJ Kaled's Instagram story.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
That's why it matters. The same reason why when the
NBA players wore hands up, don't shoot or Black Lives Matter,
it mattered because they reached the sector of the world
they wouldn't otherwise know that story. When Lebron and d
Wade and Chris Paul said stuff, that shit mattered because
people cared, you know what I mean? When Beyonce was
talking about you know, you know, and again I didn't
need her to give a press conference, but Beyonce did

(51:32):
was extraordinary given her platform, and so and the difference is,
there's a lot of.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
Black people that can speak.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
There are a lot of people who are Jewish who
can speak. There's lots of people who are Indian who
can speak. But how many people in the United States
right now who are Palestinian have the platform in the calendars?
Maybe Gigi Hadi maybe who spoke out right, there's one
or two people, but in general, there's not really a
space for that. So it's not just Calim for me,
any any any of them who are Palestinian, any of

(52:02):
them who are who have platform should speak up. And
and I'm not putting that just on Pealastins. I'm saying
that for black folks too. But I'm saying the stakes
are even higher because it ain't but a Palestinians in Hollywood,
you know, there's a million black folk.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
So I just feel like that you gotta do it.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
I guess if they want to, my thing would be
past the microphone to somebody who know what they're talking about.
I be okay with that. I be okay with that.
If cal said, look, I don't know about this issue,
but I want to bring these people together and make
it happen, but he's he's moving as if it didn't happen,
and it's weird to at least on social media, we
don't know what he's doing behind the scenes. That's fair enough.
I'm pretty connected to the Palestinian movement. I heard one

(52:37):
person yet say that he's doing something. I ain't heard one.
That's not to say he's not.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
I ain't heard one yet. But again, I'm not Palestinian.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
It's not my job to tell him what to do
with his people or for his people. I'm just saying
I share of lads disappointment that that I haven't heard
anything from Calent and social media is reality for a
lot of people. Call it gives us a narrative of
his life, what's going on, what's going on world? And
if you're selling a product while two thousand year people

(53:03):
have been killed, fifteen hundred people have been killed, that
feels that feels gross to me. It feels little gross
to me, Like even if you didn't want to speak up,
if if an all black neighborhood got bombed today and you said,
I don't I Charlott Mayne, or if you don't feel
like talking about it, I bet you wouldn't go in
your story and be like yo, che check out my
check out the trailer for my new documentary today on
such and such, and check out my new book. You

(53:25):
just you would have the decency to do nothing. And
I'm saying part of what happens is when you move
is if nothing is happening while the world is blowing up,
I think it's it's it communicates even more so that
this isn't worth caring about. We already have a media
that does that. We already have an intellectual infrastructure that
does that. We have a legal apparatus that does that.
We don't need people who look like us doing it.

(53:45):
That's all I'm saying. But that's again, Kyla might disagree,
and I respect I would just respectfully disagree.

Speaker 4 (53:50):
All right, Well, Mark Lamont Hell, yes, it's the breakfast clubs.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
Sure you'll get them books too, man, except for Palestine.
Wake that ass up in the morning. The breakfast club