WEBVTT - What’s Happened to the Israeli Left 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:07.360 Also media. Hello everyone. 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:08.880 My name is Dan al Kurd and this is it 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:09.600 could happen here. 0:00:09.960 --> 0:00:12.920 I'm an associate professor of political science and a researcher 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:16.560 of Arab and Palestinian politics. Today on the podcast we 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:20.040 have Danielle Kanter and she'll be talking to us about 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:23.800 mutual aid work in Israel, leftist politics at Israel, and 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:25.400 her personal journey. 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:28.320 Thank you so much for being on the show. Hi. 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.280 So, yeah, if you'd like to introduce us to yourself 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:35.120 and your organization, Culture of Solidarity, that would be fantastic. 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:40.959 Sure. Yeah, Hi, I'm Danielle. I run with a beautiful 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:45.400 community mutual aid called Culture of Solidarity. I don't know 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:48.480 if people here are familiar with mutual aid work or 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.440 if I should give a little explanation about that. I 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:54.600 mean you can give a shpiel, yeah, shpiel. Yeah. Just 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:58.520 basically kind of caring for your community through different like 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:04.039 aid programs while resisting the systems that kind of preserve 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:08.240 their poverty and their oppression. That's how I view what 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:12.560 mutual aid work is. And yeah, so we run a 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:16.320 mutual aid It runs in many forms, but mostly it's 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:20.280 we have a food security program that supports kind of 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.959 the people that fall in between the cracks of the 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:27.759 systems within Israeli and Palestine. Well, obviously the systems within 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.280 Israel and in Palestine. We work mainly in Area C 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:35.960 in the West Bank in Massapalieta. Yeah, so we do 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:39.959 food security, like food packs that are culturally appropriate for 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:43.360 each community, receiving them based off of what they are asking, 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:47.760 whether it's diapers, baby formula, you know, fit to each holiday. 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:49.880 Now we just finished or we're still in the midst 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:54.920 of a Romandan annual campaign where they're all going to 0:01:54.960 --> 0:02:00.200 be boxes fit for the holiday and we host well, well, 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.440 we had a community center for the past five years. 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:06.680 We've been a collective, I guess since March twenty twenty 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:10.600 when COVID hit. So basically when that started, it was 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:11.880 kind of like we saw that there was going to 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:15.160 be a lot of food waste, like an obscene amounts 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:20.280 of food waste because all the restaurants, offices, hotels, la 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:23.000 la la who would be closing, And we thought we'd 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:26.400 kind of rescue that food and redistribute it to communities 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:29.320 that were in need until the government kind of got 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:32.720 on their feet and understood what their virus was that 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:37.000 was kind of the beginning of our deep, deep political 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:41.240 awakening of this place, thinking that there would be a 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:45.760 system that would come and serve the vulnerable communities around us. 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.640 So that's when it started. I think only like a 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:51.639 few months into that when we thought we were kind 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.080 of just like, yeah, good citizens doing the work and 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:58.480 not understanding how politically charged it is to serve your 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:03.240 community when they're actively being oppressed by the systems that 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:05.400 are supposed to care for them. And I think in 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:08.600 that moment, we understood that we want to not only 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:12.280 serve our neighbors or community, we also need to learn 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:16.000 about these root causes of oppression and what brought them 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:19.160 to this position in the first place. You know, people 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.919 often say like, oh, you know, someone's poor. They don't 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:25.560 have food in their fridge, like in their ways of 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:30.440 trying to raise funds or whatever. And it's it's an 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.639 atrocity almost to kind of depict it that way, because 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:38.839 all of these communities are actively being abandoned, Yeah, being 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.280 abandoned in a nice way. You know, they didn't wake 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.000 up one morning and didn't have food in their fridge, right, 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:47.360 they don't have food in their fridge because of a 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:53.120 policy that preserves that status, and so that is they 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:55.880 mutual aid that we run. We had a community center 0:03:56.000 --> 0:04:00.360 for five years where we hosted weekly events or daily 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.720 events every evening. All the events would be under that 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:09.240 umbrella of learning as a community about these injustices. And 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:11.720 they could also be you know, shows, and they could 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:14.960 be debates, and they could be lecturers or workshops, and 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:18.520 all of the proceeds would go to our food security program. 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:22.200 And in that way we are one hundred percent community funded. 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:26.440 No one has salaries. We made a conscious decision back 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:30.000 in the beginning when we realized all the injustices around us, 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.800 that we didn't want to institutionalize and become part of 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:37.520 a system that is responsible for that. And that is 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.760 not to say that NGOs aren't amazing. That is not 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:44.240 to say that you know, there aren't ENGOs doing God's 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:45.120 work here. 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:48.000 But they are constrained. Yeah, there's there's different constraints. 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:51.440 Yeah, And this was our personal decision to act as 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.960 a community. There's another reason we didn't want to institutionalize 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.560 in this because we didn't want to make a business 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:00.360 out of something that shouldn't be needed. You know, I mean, 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:04.240 when you get salaries and tactica, like it perpetuates the 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:06.960 need to continue in a way, and like there's all 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:09.839 going to be need right, Like it's not We're gonna 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:12.120 you know, oh and then they're not going to need anymore. 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.480 But you know, I saw unhinge like a dating app. 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:19.760 Yeah yeah, it said an app meant to be deleted, 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:23.159 and I just thought about that, like, oh my god, 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:26.440 that is the essence of it all, Like we're not 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:28.560 supposed to be doing this, isn't like, I mean, we 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:31.440 should be caring for our community and our neighbors. That 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:35.120 should go without saying. But also our taxes should be 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:39.240 directed to serving our neighbors that are in vulnerable states. 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:43.040 So I will definitely link in the show notes to 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:46.039 like the Instagram and things like that. And for people 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:48.719 who are I mean, I'm sure for some people who 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.320 have seen the documentary no other Land, this is the 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:56.239 same community that you all work with in Masafrietta. But yeah, yeah, 0:05:56.279 --> 0:06:00.080 so I'm interested in a couple of different kind of directions. 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:01.600 But would you say that. 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:03.840 A lot of the people who come to Culture of 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:08.520 Solidarity and like volunteer and start to participate in your activities, 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:11.919 do you think that that opens up the space to 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.440 not only question injustices within the Israeli system, but how 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:17.760 that's tied up with the occupation, Like is that kind 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:19.480 of the path forward for people? 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:25.159 I think that is the path or that we want 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:30.159 for people. I think we are very forgiving in a 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:33.640 sense in the way that like not forgiving, but just understanding, 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:36.400 you know, the journey that it took us to unlearn 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:40.000 what we know. Like that's a hard one and I'm 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:43.000 going to go pre October seventh. You know, you're doing 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:46.920 work to unlearn what you've been taught is in your 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:51.760 entire identity. And you know, post October seventh, you just 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.839 see everything, like everything has become so much more pornographic, 0:06:55.040 --> 0:07:01.120 Like you know, it's the amount of death murder, the genocide, 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.680 the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. You know, just 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:08.640 this week, six communities have been pushed out of their 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:16.440 homes by the army, by settlers Paris, And it's become 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:20.520 much more immediate. Whereas I think before October seventh, I mean, 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:22.560 there didn't go a week in which we didn't have 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.640 an event talking about the occupation and learning. But I 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:31.240 think after October seventh it became this like huge divide 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:36.000 of like this kind of like protection over one's identity. 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:37.920 So we did a lot of work to kind of 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:43.520 dismantle that notion that to empathize with another people comes 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:47.680 on the expense of your own pain and trying to 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:54.160 you know, mirror the power dynamic to people like, yes, 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:56.800 we all had family and friends and people that we 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:02.720 knew that were murdered. That we're taken, that we're like abducted. 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.520 And with that being said, Israel has been committing a 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:10.800 genocide in Gaza for the past still it's ongoing two 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:14.000 in something years. The other day, I got a message 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:17.240 on our Instagram basically being like I love the work 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:19.680 you do. You do really important things, and you know 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.040 there is racism and there is poverty. But from there 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:25.800 to say that there's ethnic cleansing, come on, like, I 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:28.560 don't know if I can support your work anymore, and 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.600 basically also meet that with love as well to be 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:35.360 like I hear you. This is the policies that people 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:40.720 in our government are advancing, this is who our army 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:44.520 is protecting, this is what ethnic cleansing means. And in 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:47.120 that situation, I can also turn to my community and 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:49.280 my friends, like I have a friend that what he 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:52.559 does for work is kind of gathering all this information 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:55.360 of articles and everything that's coming out to educate. So 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.079 all right, cool, I can use those articles to help 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:02.440 teach this person that yes, there is in fact ethnic 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.280 cleansing happening in the West Bank, like and you know 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:07.440 it's not even like this like oh, how do I say? 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:11.280 It's like no, actually, are like our government officials are 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:14.319 saying this like smoothly said it the other day, right, 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:17.800 so yeah, but yeah, it is this kind of like 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:19.040 open door. 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:23.720 Yeah for Israeli is that maybe not they're not there yet. 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:27.520 Also, yeah, I think that it's like it's it's hard. 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:31.040 It's like really hard because you're at this point where 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:34.640 it's like very far from where those people are that 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:39.959 are like beginning. And also you have sometimes resentment towards 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.160 your society and most of sometimes a lot of the 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:45.840 time you have resented. I'm always as nothing with like 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:49.439 in general, when someone wants to is asking a question, 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:53.200 I think that is just like amazing and important and cool, 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.880 let's have a conversation about this. At least they're asking, yeah, 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:01.000 and they're wanting to learn, they're questioning something. That's that's 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:04.320 the way forward. And with that being said, you know, 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:08.439 the past two enough years have also been excruciating living 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:12.520 in this society, like you're living in a genocidal society 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:18.160 and you're around people that could justify certain, you know, acts, 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:22.280 certain war crimes. Yeah, you kind of find yourself not 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:25.880 wanting to engage, not wanting to love, not wanting to teach, 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:28.160 not wanting not that I'm the one teaching, like we're 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.920 all learning together about this and hosting, but obviously not 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:35.680 wanting to have conversations sometimes because you're just like, well, 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:39.120 you see what's been happening online over the past two years, 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:43.360 and you still can't comprehend what is going on, and God, 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:45.040 I don't know what I can do to help that. 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:48.280 But then I have to remind myself that if I 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:52.360 am here, if I'm living here, I have a responsibility 0:10:52.679 --> 0:11:00.160 and that is to, yeah, facilitate more meetings conversations in 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:06.079 which people will be exposed to the injustice is being 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:09.000 committed in our name. And that's a problem with liberal 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:12.160 Zionism as well, because liberal Zionists will be like, oh 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:14.439 my god, yeah, it's terrible, what's happening in the West 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:18.160 Bank settlers, blah blah, blah, but like they'll still send 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:21.120 their you know, their boys to go be pilots in 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:25.559 the army and you know, bob children. And it's kind 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:29.880 of like finding the way to kind of be like no, no, 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:32.480 you can't, like you can't be against that. 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:36.200 And then before that, right kind of demonstrate the cognitive 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.960 dissonance to them, like, yes, there's kind of a contradiction here. 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:42.679 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Sorry, I feel like it's just a 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:44.719 little little no, no, not at all. 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:59.440 This is extremely rich in thought provoking content. I want 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:02.520 to ask what kind of organizations do Culture of Solidarity 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:06.079 engage with, whether in Israel and in Palestine, and kind 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:08.720 of relate it to that. What role do you see 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:12.680 an organization such as this a mutual aid organization? What 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:17.960 role do you envision for yourselves in Palestinian liberation? Like 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:20.360 what role are you intending to pay? You kind of 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:22.040 touched on it already in terms of like teaching and 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:23.480 learning within your own society. 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:28.240 Yeah, we work with a lot of different organizations because 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:31.800 it is very important for us to you know, not 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:37.840 reinvent the wheel and kind of learn with our other organizations, 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:41.120 whether it's Gisha who talk about the actual words of 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:45.280 Gisha's access and they talk about access in Gaza, the 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:49.920 access to water, to electricity, the infrastructure and Gaza. And 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:54.439 then we could host tours every time it's a different organization. 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:57.600 This guy money in our group, he runs these tours 0:12:57.600 --> 0:12:59.840 and he will do with Breaking the Silence and Missus. 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:04.160 They'll do one with the Zoo, which I'm sure, yeah, 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:07.040 you can probably link all of these in the definitely will. Yeah, 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:11.520 it was Maia, which is the Charles Kloramuncia, which is 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:14.240 literally down the street from where I'm at right now, 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:17.160 and it's the beach of Yafa and the village that 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:21.280 once existed there, or even with a woman named Hilaharel 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:25.600 to go through a tour within the half abandoned Israeli 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.319 new bus station, and they're all tied to injustices. They're 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:33.040 all tied to something that was or was there and 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:38.240 isn't anymore, or atrocities currently happening. Obviously also when in 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:41.920 the negative to learn about the different Bedouin communities and 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:46.480 the injustices that they're experiencing. And then so that's yeah, 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:50.720 it's called touring and solidarity. And then we'll have I mean, honestly, 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:56.520 probably any left radical left organization that you could probably 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:59.880 think of. We collaborate with them in some way or another. 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:04.760 It's a pretty tight knit community and this has been 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:07.480 a beautiful thing of like trying to you know, always 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:09.920 there's always a knits and grits of blah blah blah, 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:12.719 but I mean uplifting each other and collaborating with each 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:18.479 other is so important to not feel alone as Israelis 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:22.640 against the occupation, Yeah, and for an actual true democracy 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:26.000 in the land or liberation. Yeah. 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:29.160 Do you work with Palestinian groups within Israel and in 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:30.360 the occupied territories? 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:34.760 Yes, we do. We worked with in organization in Gaza 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:39.680 called Dignity for Palestine and we did a big flower 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:46.040 fundraiser last year. And we've worked with organizations that are 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:49.040 like you know, physicians for human rights that are both 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:53.360 you know, Israelian Palestinian lead. And then we have our 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:56.440 annual Ramandan campaign that I was telling you about now, 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.840 and that's what rabbis for human rights who are not Palestinian. 0:14:59.880 --> 0:15:03.920 But we do work with different groups within Palestine. One 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:07.400 of the people that was you know, the main receiver 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:12.600 and distributor of these boxes was Adadarin, who was murdered 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:16.760 in July by settler, you know, on Levy. So yeah, 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:22.840 it's working directly with communities. Second question was what role 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:26.680 do you left this Israelis have right now? Is that 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:27.160 the question? 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:30.160 Yeah, like, what role do you envision either for yourself 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:34.840 as you you personally or for Israeli left in Palestinian liberation? 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:38.080 I know it's a big question. That is a big question. 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:42.640 It's an important question, and I think as long as 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.320 we are living on this land, it's our response. It's 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:50.320 I mean, I mean, I think it's everyone's responsibility to 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.440 free Palestine and for the Palestinian people to have equal 0:15:54.520 --> 0:16:00.280 rights to have access to whatever they wish for under Yeah, 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:04.040 a government that sees both counterparts equally and the obviously 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:07.280 accountability and reparations that would need to happen in order 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:12.720 to get there. I think that our responsibility as Israeli 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:15.880 left is to keep fighting for that, is to keep 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:22.520 fighting for that within Israel and within Palestine. So, whether 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:26.120 it's protective presence in the West Bank, protective presence is 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.360 a kind of program where you sleep at different Palestinian 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:33.000 homes every night just in case settlers come in the 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:35.640 middle of the night to attack, or the army comes 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:37.240 in the middle of the night to attack, and you're 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:40.680 there serving as protective presence. You obviously have a privilege. 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:44.960 You have an Israeli passport, you're Jewish, that is a 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:48.800 privilege on this land, and to be there, you know, 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.240 obviously you don't decide what goes down. You ask each 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:54.840 family how they want to deal with this, and you 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:58.280 serve that. So I think protective presence is one of 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:03.560 the most important things Israeli Israeli leftists can do, because yeah, 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:06.320 like I said earlier, it's just getting worse and worse, 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:09.320 and it's at a high. It's always been bad, but 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:14.800 the past honestly, I think since no other land came out, 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:19.919 I think it's gotten a lot of attention on them. Essentially. Well, 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:23.240 there's always been attacked by settlers, of course, yeah, but 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:26.040 I think that, Yeah, in the past year, it's gotten 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:27.080 to an all time high. 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:30.760 Well, there's also kind of like the general impunity that 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:32.880 the Israeli government and the settler movement. 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:35.240 Like exactly not yet, especially after. 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:37.879 Biden left, like not that he was holding them accountable, 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:40.280 but of course certainly gloves were off after that. 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:43.600 For sure. No, no, exactly, that is very true, but 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:47.680 basically in the last year two years, it's gotten much 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:50.720 much worse. So I think Israeli leftists have a responsibility 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:54.840 to be serve as protective presence for one number one. 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:59.240 I think number two, they have a responsibility to educate 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:04.000 their society, and to not only educate, but to constantly learn. 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:06.760 I feel like so many people in Israel are in 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:09.840 just like this constant victimhood of like the whole world 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:13.320 is against us, like everyone's anti Semitic, blah blah blah 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:16.240 blah blah, and like from that to what actually, I mean, 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.520 obviously there's anti Semitism, Obviously there are people not saying 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:24.240 that there isn't of course, but without any accountability for 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.600 what we have turned our backs to over the past 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.920 two and a half years. Like, there's so much work 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:34.280 to be done, and I think, you know, the easy way, 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.359 whether it's a Western or abroad telling you like, well, 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:39.440 why do you live in Palestine? You should leave blah 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:43.240 blah blah, or whether it's a Palestinian in the West 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:45.560 Bank being like you can't leave, like you have, we 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:49.120 need you here. Obviously, it's an unnatural ecosystem to have, 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:52.640 you know, leftist activist running through villages and the West. 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:56.480 I mean, but that's the reality of things. So as 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:59.199 long as I am here, living on this land and 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:02.159 where I'm from, I'm going to do everything in my 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:07.080 power to resist what is happening and to learn together 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.560 with other people. It's hard because we're not We're a 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.840 really tiny community like that. You know, there's people that 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:18.000 again are against you know, all the war blah blah blah, 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:23.760 like but yeah, but not seeing how that is like 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:28.240 interconnected with the entire premise of the state. There's a 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:30.240 lot of work to be done, and it's hard because 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:33.280 you're also bitter, like you know, and you want to 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:34.320 have compassion with them. 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:37.200 You're bitter, and I'm like, ah, you're like, you've made 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:38.320 so much work for us. 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:42.520 Yeah, I mean, also, I get it. I've been there. 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:45.439 I wasn't raised in a left home. I know what 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:49.919 it is to be raised up conservative, right wing, you know, Zionists, 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.840 and I'm obviously very far from that. But I know 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:57.320 what it's like to have to leave everything you've been 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:01.600 raised on. I know what it's like to have family 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:03.560 not want to talk to you. I know what it's 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.679 like to have friends not want to be friends with you. 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:09.240 Anymore to have so many people around you telling you 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:11.960 that you're wrong, but you know that this is the 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:14.679 right thing to do. And I get that, and I 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:17.199 have compassion for that. But then there's also just like 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:22.919 sometimes you're just like, yeah, no, I can't, I can't imagine. 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:26.760 I mean, it's a it's a very difficult journey to 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.239 travel through. I understand the sentiment that you've expressed that 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:33.000 like the last two years should have been enough. Yeah, 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.720 but also it's like this whole identity is fragile and 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:41.760 people are human beings and like it's difficult for them 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:45.840 to like, yeah, I'm not saying anything new, just reiterating 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:47.760 what you said about like unlearning, Like it's it's an 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:50.960 extremely difficult thing to go through, I think, But. 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:53.600 Do you understand, like you know, you're a Palestinian and 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:57.399 like me complaining about this thing that we're doing, Like 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:01.000 it just feels like people know what's been going on. 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:06.240 But on Palestinians that have family friends that are subjected 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:08.600 to this violence and that are themselves subjected to that 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:12.480 violence abroad because of being Palestinian, and then what is 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:17.200 happening here, it's like two different worlds. Yeah, it's funny 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:19.000 for me to even like be like, oh yeah, like 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:21.760 to even try to explain that, because I'm sure people 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:23.639 will be listening to this and be like, oh, like, 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:26.199 you know, why are they complaining? Like, but then you 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:28.240 know your society, and you know what they have or 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:31.800 haven't been exposed to, and you know what they've chosen 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:34.640 not to look at to not necessarily at this point 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:36.520 what they have or haven't been exposed, because I think 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:40.240 that's also a bit of a kind of forgiving card, 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:44.560 because I think at this point you still call it ai. 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:47.560 If you still call it like, there's some deep reckoning 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:51.560 to do there. Yeah. But anyways, I just feel like 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:56.600 it's such two different worlds and I think that I think, 0:21:56.640 --> 0:22:01.520 as Israeli leftists that live here, you know, paid taxes 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:05.479 in this lan, we have a huge responsibility, if not 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:11.120 the number one responsibility, to posts any in liberation. And yeah, 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:15.560 I think that's the very long answer to your questions. 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:18.240 No, No, I mean I think it's yeah, it's a 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:21.800 fair answer. I just you know, think to myself that, like, 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.200 it's not coincidence and it's not to take away from 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:29.199 the agency of like individuals. Obviously, everybody has choices, to 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:32.440 make Like Israelis have choices to make. They can choose 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:34.720 to believe or not believe, or they can choose to 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:36.480 turn their back. But at the same time, it's like 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:39.240 systems have led them to a point where they dehumanize 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:42.679 to this extent that they can see the videos and 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:45.040 either make excuses or pretend they're not real, you know. 0:22:45.440 --> 0:22:49.000 And so it's like the work is to disrupt the systems, 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:51.240 you know. I think in that way, I think about 0:22:51.280 --> 0:22:55.199 like structural constraints that is more worthwhile in my effort. 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:58.360 If I was in Israel leftist, I'm not, But if 0:22:58.359 --> 0:23:00.159 I was in your shoes, like, that's more worthwhile and 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:04.720 my effort then to be like kind of demoralized by individuals, 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:17.280 if you know, if you understand what I mean, I 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:19.600 guess that kind of leads me to my next question. 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:22.080 I mean, I know that October seventh was such kind 0:23:22.080 --> 0:23:26.160 of like a breaking point. But obviously the Israeli left 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:29.399 like was in the minority before as well. But what 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:31.040 would you say, kind of like in the last two 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:34.359 years and kind of to think about moving forward, what 0:23:34.480 --> 0:23:37.920 are the biggest challenges that the Israeli left faces to 0:23:38.800 --> 0:23:41.800 continue in its effort whether it's to educate or to 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:45.520 be a type of protective presence, whether physically in the 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:48.119 West Bank or in their presence in Israel. 0:23:48.560 --> 0:23:53.679 Well, obviously it's our you know, fascist government and fascist society, 0:23:54.040 --> 0:23:58.640 you know, anyone that is like actively oppressing every minority 0:23:58.680 --> 0:24:01.919 on this land and especially Palestinians. So I think our 0:24:01.960 --> 0:24:05.080 biggest threat is our government at the moment. But I 0:24:05.080 --> 0:24:08.359