Speaker 1: Also media. Hello everyone.
Speaker 2: My name is Dan al Kurd and this is it
Speaker 2: could happen here.
Speaker 1: I'm an associate professor of political science and a researcher
Speaker 1: of Arab and Palestinian politics. Today on the podcast we
Speaker 1: have Danielle Kanter and she'll be talking to us about
Speaker 1: mutual aid work in Israel, leftist politics at Israel, and
Speaker 1: her personal journey.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being on the show. Hi.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, if you'd like to introduce us to yourself
Speaker 1: and your organization, Culture of Solidarity, that would be fantastic.
Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah, Hi, I'm Danielle. I run with a beautiful
Speaker 2: community mutual aid called Culture of Solidarity. I don't know
Speaker 2: if people here are familiar with mutual aid work or
Speaker 2: if I should give a little explanation about that. I
Speaker 2: mean you can give a shpiel, yeah, shpiel. Yeah. Just
Speaker 2: basically kind of caring for your community through different like
Speaker 2: aid programs while resisting the systems that kind of preserve
Speaker 2: their poverty and their oppression. That's how I view what
Speaker 2: mutual aid work is. And yeah, so we run a
Speaker 2: mutual aid It runs in many forms, but mostly it's
Speaker 2: we have a food security program that supports kind of
Speaker 2: the people that fall in between the cracks of the
Speaker 2: systems within Israeli and Palestine. Well, obviously the systems within
Speaker 2: Israel and in Palestine. We work mainly in Area C
Speaker 2: in the West Bank in Massapalieta. Yeah, so we do
Speaker 2: food security, like food packs that are culturally appropriate for
Speaker 2: each community, receiving them based off of what they are asking,
Speaker 2: whether it's diapers, baby formula, you know, fit to each holiday.
Speaker 2: Now we just finished or we're still in the midst
Speaker 2: of a Romandan annual campaign where they're all going to
Speaker 2: be boxes fit for the holiday and we host well, well,
Speaker 2: we had a community center for the past five years.
Speaker 2: We've been a collective, I guess since March twenty twenty
Speaker 2: when COVID hit. So basically when that started, it was
Speaker 2: kind of like we saw that there was going to
Speaker 2: be a lot of food waste, like an obscene amounts
Speaker 2: of food waste because all the restaurants, offices, hotels, la
Speaker 2: la la who would be closing, And we thought we'd
Speaker 2: kind of rescue that food and redistribute it to communities
Speaker 2: that were in need until the government kind of got
Speaker 2: on their feet and understood what their virus was that
Speaker 2: was kind of the beginning of our deep, deep political
Speaker 2: awakening of this place, thinking that there would be a
Speaker 2: system that would come and serve the vulnerable communities around us.
Speaker 2: So that's when it started. I think only like a
Speaker 2: few months into that when we thought we were kind
Speaker 2: of just like, yeah, good citizens doing the work and
Speaker 2: not understanding how politically charged it is to serve your
Speaker 2: community when they're actively being oppressed by the systems that
Speaker 2: are supposed to care for them. And I think in
Speaker 2: that moment, we understood that we want to not only
Speaker 2: serve our neighbors or community, we also need to learn
Speaker 2: about these root causes of oppression and what brought them
Speaker 2: to this position in the first place. You know, people
Speaker 2: often say like, oh, you know, someone's poor. They don't
Speaker 2: have food in their fridge, like in their ways of
Speaker 2: trying to raise funds or whatever. And it's it's an
Speaker 2: atrocity almost to kind of depict it that way, because
Speaker 2: all of these communities are actively being abandoned, Yeah, being
Speaker 2: abandoned in a nice way. You know, they didn't wake
Speaker 2: up one morning and didn't have food in their fridge, right,
Speaker 2: they don't have food in their fridge because of a
Speaker 2: policy that preserves that status, and so that is they
Speaker 2: mutual aid that we run. We had a community center
Speaker 2: for five years where we hosted weekly events or daily
Speaker 2: events every evening. All the events would be under that
Speaker 2: umbrella of learning as a community about these injustices. And
Speaker 2: they could also be you know, shows, and they could
Speaker 2: be debates, and they could be lecturers or workshops, and
Speaker 2: all of the proceeds would go to our food security program.
Speaker 2: And in that way we are one hundred percent community funded.
Speaker 2: No one has salaries. We made a conscious decision back
Speaker 2: in the beginning when we realized all the injustices around us,
Speaker 2: that we didn't want to institutionalize and become part of
Speaker 2: a system that is responsible for that. And that is
Speaker 2: not to say that NGOs aren't amazing. That is not
Speaker 2: to say that you know, there aren't ENGOs doing God's
Speaker 2: work here.
Speaker 1: But they are constrained. Yeah, there's there's different constraints.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this was our personal decision to act as
Speaker 2: a community. There's another reason we didn't want to institutionalize
Speaker 2: in this because we didn't want to make a business
Speaker 2: out of something that shouldn't be needed. You know, I mean,
Speaker 2: when you get salaries and tactica, like it perpetuates the
Speaker 2: need to continue in a way, and like there's all
Speaker 2: going to be need right, Like it's not We're gonna
Speaker 2: you know, oh and then they're not going to need anymore.
Speaker 2: But you know, I saw unhinge like a dating app.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, it said an app meant to be deleted,
Speaker 2: and I just thought about that, like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: that is the essence of it all, Like we're not
Speaker 2: supposed to be doing this, isn't like, I mean, we
Speaker 2: should be caring for our community and our neighbors. That
Speaker 2: should go without saying. But also our taxes should be
Speaker 2: directed to serving our neighbors that are in vulnerable states.
Speaker 1: So I will definitely link in the show notes to
Speaker 1: like the Instagram and things like that. And for people
Speaker 1: who are I mean, I'm sure for some people who
Speaker 1: have seen the documentary no other Land, this is the
Speaker 1: same community that you all work with in Masafrietta. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm interested in a couple of different kind of directions.
Speaker 2: But would you say that.
Speaker 1: A lot of the people who come to Culture of
Speaker 1: Solidarity and like volunteer and start to participate in your activities,
Speaker 1: do you think that that opens up the space to
Speaker 1: not only question injustices within the Israeli system, but how
Speaker 1: that's tied up with the occupation, Like is that kind
Speaker 1: of the path forward for people?
Speaker 2: I think that is the path or that we want
Speaker 2: for people. I think we are very forgiving in a
Speaker 2: sense in the way that like not forgiving, but just understanding,
Speaker 2: you know, the journey that it took us to unlearn
Speaker 2: what we know. Like that's a hard one and I'm
Speaker 2: going to go pre October seventh. You know, you're doing
Speaker 2: work to unlearn what you've been taught is in your
Speaker 2: entire identity. And you know, post October seventh, you just
Speaker 2: see everything, like everything has become so much more pornographic,
Speaker 2: Like you know, it's the amount of death murder, the genocide,
Speaker 2: the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. You know, just
Speaker 2: this week, six communities have been pushed out of their
Speaker 2: homes by the army, by settlers Paris, And it's become
Speaker 2: much more immediate. Whereas I think before October seventh, I mean,
Speaker 2: there didn't go a week in which we didn't have
Speaker 2: an event talking about the occupation and learning. But I
Speaker 2: think after October seventh it became this like huge divide
Speaker 2: of like this kind of like protection over one's identity.
Speaker 2: So we did a lot of work to kind of
Speaker 2: dismantle that notion that to empathize with another people comes
Speaker 2: on the expense of your own pain and trying to
Speaker 2: you know, mirror the power dynamic to people like, yes,
Speaker 2: we all had family and friends and people that we
Speaker 2: knew that were murdered. That we're taken, that we're like abducted.
Speaker 2: And with that being said, Israel has been committing a
Speaker 2: genocide in Gaza for the past still it's ongoing two
Speaker 2: in something years. The other day, I got a message
Speaker 2: on our Instagram basically being like I love the work
Speaker 2: you do. You do really important things, and you know
Speaker 2: there is racism and there is poverty. But from there
Speaker 2: to say that there's ethnic cleansing, come on, like, I
Speaker 2: don't know if I can support your work anymore, and
Speaker 2: basically also meet that with love as well to be
Speaker 2: like I hear you. This is the policies that people
Speaker 2: in our government are advancing, this is who our army
Speaker 2: is protecting, this is what ethnic cleansing means. And in
Speaker 2: that situation, I can also turn to my community and
Speaker 2: my friends, like I have a friend that what he
Speaker 2: does for work is kind of gathering all this information
Speaker 2: of articles and everything that's coming out to educate. So
Speaker 2: all right, cool, I can use those articles to help
Speaker 2: teach this person that yes, there is in fact ethnic
Speaker 2: cleansing happening in the West Bank, like and you know
Speaker 2: it's not even like this like oh, how do I say?
Speaker 2: It's like no, actually, are like our government officials are
Speaker 2: saying this like smoothly said it the other day, right,
Speaker 2: so yeah, but yeah, it is this kind of like
Speaker 2: open door.
Speaker 1: Yeah for Israeli is that maybe not they're not there yet.
Speaker 2: Also, yeah, I think that it's like it's it's hard.
Speaker 2: It's like really hard because you're at this point where
Speaker 2: it's like very far from where those people are that
Speaker 2: are like beginning. And also you have sometimes resentment towards
Speaker 2: your society and most of sometimes a lot of the
Speaker 2: time you have resented. I'm always as nothing with like
Speaker 2: in general, when someone wants to is asking a question,
Speaker 2: I think that is just like amazing and important and cool,
Speaker 2: let's have a conversation about this. At least they're asking, yeah,
Speaker 2: and they're wanting to learn, they're questioning something. That's that's
Speaker 2: the way forward. And with that being said, you know,
Speaker 2: the past two enough years have also been excruciating living
Speaker 2: in this society, like you're living in a genocidal society
Speaker 2: and you're around people that could justify certain, you know, acts,
Speaker 2: certain war crimes. Yeah, you kind of find yourself not
Speaker 2: wanting to engage, not wanting to love, not wanting to teach,
Speaker 2: not wanting not that I'm the one teaching, like we're
Speaker 2: all learning together about this and hosting, but obviously not
Speaker 2: wanting to have conversations sometimes because you're just like, well,
Speaker 2: you see what's been happening online over the past two years,
Speaker 2: and you still can't comprehend what is going on, and God,
Speaker 2: I don't know what I can do to help that.
Speaker 2: But then I have to remind myself that if I
Speaker 2: am here, if I'm living here, I have a responsibility
Speaker 2: and that is to, yeah, facilitate more meetings conversations in
Speaker 2: which people will be exposed to the injustice is being
Speaker 2: committed in our name. And that's a problem with liberal
Speaker 2: Zionism as well, because liberal Zionists will be like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, yeah, it's terrible, what's happening in the West
Speaker 2: Bank settlers, blah blah, blah, but like they'll still send
Speaker 2: their you know, their boys to go be pilots in
Speaker 2: the army and you know, bob children. And it's kind
Speaker 2: of like finding the way to kind of be like no, no,
Speaker 2: you can't, like you can't be against that.
Speaker 1: And then before that, right kind of demonstrate the cognitive
Speaker 1: dissonance to them, like, yes, there's kind of a contradiction here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Sorry, I feel like it's just a
Speaker 2: little little no, no, not at all.
Speaker 1: This is extremely rich in thought provoking content. I want
Speaker 1: to ask what kind of organizations do Culture of Solidarity
Speaker 1: engage with, whether in Israel and in Palestine, and kind
Speaker 1: of relate it to that. What role do you see
Speaker 1: an organization such as this a mutual aid organization? What
Speaker 1: role do you envision for yourselves in Palestinian liberation? Like
Speaker 1: what role are you intending to pay? You kind of
Speaker 1: touched on it already in terms of like teaching and
Speaker 1: learning within your own society.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we work with a lot of different organizations because
Speaker 2: it is very important for us to you know, not
Speaker 2: reinvent the wheel and kind of learn with our other organizations,
Speaker 2: whether it's Gisha who talk about the actual words of
Speaker 2: Gisha's access and they talk about access in Gaza, the
Speaker 2: access to water, to electricity, the infrastructure and Gaza. And
Speaker 2: then we could host tours every time it's a different organization.
Speaker 2: This guy money in our group, he runs these tours
Speaker 2: and he will do with Breaking the Silence and Missus.
Speaker 2: They'll do one with the Zoo, which I'm sure, yeah,
Speaker 2: you can probably link all of these in the definitely will. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was Maia, which is the Charles Kloramuncia, which is
Speaker 2: literally down the street from where I'm at right now,
Speaker 2: and it's the beach of Yafa and the village that
Speaker 2: once existed there, or even with a woman named Hilaharel
Speaker 2: to go through a tour within the half abandoned Israeli
Speaker 2: new bus station, and they're all tied to injustices. They're
Speaker 2: all tied to something that was or was there and
Speaker 2: isn't anymore, or atrocities currently happening. Obviously also when in
Speaker 2: the negative to learn about the different Bedouin communities and
Speaker 2: the injustices that they're experiencing. And then so that's yeah,
Speaker 2: it's called touring and solidarity. And then we'll have I mean, honestly,
Speaker 2: probably any left radical left organization that you could probably
Speaker 2: think of. We collaborate with them in some way or another.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty tight knit community and this has been
Speaker 2: a beautiful thing of like trying to you know, always
Speaker 2: there's always a knits and grits of blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: but I mean uplifting each other and collaborating with each
Speaker 2: other is so important to not feel alone as Israelis
Speaker 2: against the occupation, Yeah, and for an actual true democracy
Speaker 2: in the land or liberation. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you work with Palestinian groups within Israel and in
Speaker 1: the occupied territories?
Speaker 2: Yes, we do. We worked with in organization in Gaza
Speaker 2: called Dignity for Palestine and we did a big flower
Speaker 2: fundraiser last year. And we've worked with organizations that are
Speaker 2: like you know, physicians for human rights that are both
Speaker 2: you know, Israelian Palestinian lead. And then we have our
Speaker 2: annual Ramandan campaign that I was telling you about now,
Speaker 2: and that's what rabbis for human rights who are not Palestinian.
Speaker 2: But we do work with different groups within Palestine. One
Speaker 2: of the people that was you know, the main receiver
Speaker 2: and distributor of these boxes was Adadarin, who was murdered
Speaker 2: in July by settler, you know, on Levy. So yeah,
Speaker 2: it's working directly with communities. Second question was what role
Speaker 2: do you left this Israelis have right now? Is that
Speaker 2: the question?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, what role do you envision either for yourself
Speaker 1: as you you personally or for Israeli left in Palestinian liberation?
Speaker 2: I know it's a big question. That is a big question.
Speaker 2: It's an important question, and I think as long as
Speaker 2: we are living on this land, it's our response. It's
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, I think it's everyone's responsibility to
Speaker 2: free Palestine and for the Palestinian people to have equal
Speaker 2: rights to have access to whatever they wish for under Yeah,
Speaker 2: a government that sees both counterparts equally and the obviously
Speaker 2: accountability and reparations that would need to happen in order
Speaker 2: to get there. I think that our responsibility as Israeli
Speaker 2: left is to keep fighting for that, is to keep
Speaker 2: fighting for that within Israel and within Palestine. So, whether
Speaker 2: it's protective presence in the West Bank, protective presence is
Speaker 2: a kind of program where you sleep at different Palestinian
Speaker 2: homes every night just in case settlers come in the
Speaker 2: middle of the night to attack, or the army comes
Speaker 2: in the middle of the night to attack, and you're
Speaker 2: there serving as protective presence. You obviously have a privilege.
Speaker 2: You have an Israeli passport, you're Jewish, that is a
Speaker 2: privilege on this land, and to be there, you know,
Speaker 2: obviously you don't decide what goes down. You ask each
Speaker 2: family how they want to deal with this, and you
Speaker 2: serve that. So I think protective presence is one of
Speaker 2: the most important things Israeli Israeli leftists can do, because yeah,
Speaker 2: like I said earlier, it's just getting worse and worse,
Speaker 2: and it's at a high. It's always been bad, but
Speaker 2: the past honestly, I think since no other land came out,
Speaker 2: I think it's gotten a lot of attention on them. Essentially. Well,
Speaker 2: there's always been attacked by settlers, of course, yeah, but
Speaker 2: I think that, Yeah, in the past year, it's gotten
Speaker 2: to an all time high.
Speaker 1: Well, there's also kind of like the general impunity that
Speaker 1: the Israeli government and the settler movement.
Speaker 2: Like exactly not yet, especially after.
Speaker 1: Biden left, like not that he was holding them accountable,
Speaker 1: but of course certainly gloves were off after that.
Speaker 2: For sure. No, no, exactly, that is very true, but
Speaker 2: basically in the last year two years, it's gotten much
Speaker 2: much worse. So I think Israeli leftists have a responsibility
Speaker 2: to be serve as protective presence for one number one.
Speaker 2: I think number two, they have a responsibility to educate
Speaker 2: their society, and to not only educate, but to constantly learn.
Speaker 2: I feel like so many people in Israel are in
Speaker 2: just like this constant victimhood of like the whole world
Speaker 2: is against us, like everyone's anti Semitic, blah blah blah
Speaker 2: blah blah, and like from that to what actually, I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously there's anti Semitism, Obviously there are people not saying
Speaker 2: that there isn't of course, but without any accountability for
Speaker 2: what we have turned our backs to over the past
Speaker 2: two and a half years. Like, there's so much work
Speaker 2: to be done, and I think, you know, the easy way,
Speaker 2: whether it's a Western or abroad telling you like, well,
Speaker 2: why do you live in Palestine? You should leave blah
Speaker 2: blah blah, or whether it's a Palestinian in the West
Speaker 2: Bank being like you can't leave, like you have, we
Speaker 2: need you here. Obviously, it's an unnatural ecosystem to have,
Speaker 2: you know, leftist activist running through villages and the West.
Speaker 2: I mean, but that's the reality of things. So as
Speaker 2: long as I am here, living on this land and
Speaker 2: where I'm from, I'm going to do everything in my
Speaker 2: power to resist what is happening and to learn together
Speaker 2: with other people. It's hard because we're not We're a
Speaker 2: really tiny community like that. You know, there's people that
Speaker 2: again are against you know, all the war blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: like but yeah, but not seeing how that is like
Speaker 2: interconnected with the entire premise of the state. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of work to be done, and it's hard because
Speaker 2: you're also bitter, like you know, and you want to
Speaker 2: have compassion with them.
Speaker 1: You're bitter, and I'm like, ah, you're like, you've made
Speaker 1: so much work for us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, also, I get it. I've been there.
Speaker 2: I wasn't raised in a left home. I know what
Speaker 2: it is to be raised up conservative, right wing, you know, Zionists,
Speaker 2: and I'm obviously very far from that. But I know
Speaker 2: what it's like to have to leave everything you've been
Speaker 2: raised on. I know what it's like to have family
Speaker 2: not want to talk to you. I know what it's
Speaker 2: like to have friends not want to be friends with you.
Speaker 2: Anymore to have so many people around you telling you
Speaker 2: that you're wrong, but you know that this is the
Speaker 2: right thing to do. And I get that, and I
Speaker 2: have compassion for that. But then there's also just like
Speaker 2: sometimes you're just like, yeah, no, I can't, I can't imagine.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a it's a very difficult journey to
Speaker 1: travel through. I understand the sentiment that you've expressed that
Speaker 1: like the last two years should have been enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but also it's like this whole identity is fragile and
Speaker 1: people are human beings and like it's difficult for them
Speaker 1: to like, yeah, I'm not saying anything new, just reiterating
Speaker 1: what you said about like unlearning, Like it's it's an
Speaker 1: extremely difficult thing to go through, I think, But.
Speaker 2: Do you understand, like you know, you're a Palestinian and
Speaker 2: like me complaining about this thing that we're doing, Like
Speaker 2: it just feels like people know what's been going on.
Speaker 2: But on Palestinians that have family friends that are subjected
Speaker 2: to this violence and that are themselves subjected to that
Speaker 2: violence abroad because of being Palestinian, and then what is
Speaker 2: happening here, it's like two different worlds. Yeah, it's funny
Speaker 2: for me to even like be like, oh yeah, like
Speaker 2: to even try to explain that, because I'm sure people
Speaker 2: will be listening to this and be like, oh, like,
Speaker 2: you know, why are they complaining? Like, but then you
Speaker 2: know your society, and you know what they have or
Speaker 2: haven't been exposed to, and you know what they've chosen
Speaker 2: not to look at to not necessarily at this point
Speaker 2: what they have or haven't been exposed, because I think
Speaker 2: that's also a bit of a kind of forgiving card,
Speaker 2: because I think at this point you still call it ai.
Speaker 2: If you still call it like, there's some deep reckoning
Speaker 2: to do there. Yeah. But anyways, I just feel like
Speaker 2: it's such two different worlds and I think that I think,
Speaker 2: as Israeli leftists that live here, you know, paid taxes
Speaker 2: in this lan, we have a huge responsibility, if not
Speaker 2: the number one responsibility, to posts any in liberation. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I think that's the very long answer to your questions.
Speaker 1: No, No, I mean I think it's yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: fair answer. I just you know, think to myself that, like,
Speaker 1: it's not coincidence and it's not to take away from
Speaker 1: the agency of like individuals. Obviously, everybody has choices, to
Speaker 1: make Like Israelis have choices to make. They can choose
Speaker 1: to believe or not believe, or they can choose to
Speaker 1: turn their back. But at the same time, it's like
Speaker 1: systems have led them to a point where they dehumanize
Speaker 1: to this extent that they can see the videos and
Speaker 1: either make excuses or pretend they're not real, you know.
Speaker 1: And so it's like the work is to disrupt the systems,
Speaker 1: you know. I think in that way, I think about
Speaker 1: like structural constraints that is more worthwhile in my effort.
Speaker 1: If I was in Israel leftist, I'm not, But if
Speaker 1: I was in your shoes, like, that's more worthwhile and
Speaker 1: my effort then to be like kind of demoralized by individuals,
Speaker 1: if you know, if you understand what I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess that kind of leads me to my next question.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know that October seventh was such kind
Speaker 1: of like a breaking point. But obviously the Israeli left
Speaker 1: like was in the minority before as well. But what
Speaker 1: would you say, kind of like in the last two
Speaker 1: years and kind of to think about moving forward, what
Speaker 1: are the biggest challenges that the Israeli left faces to
Speaker 1: continue in its effort whether it's to educate or to
Speaker 1: be a type of protective presence, whether physically in the
Speaker 1: West Bank or in their presence in Israel.
Speaker 2: Well, obviously it's our you know, fascist government and fascist society,
Speaker 2: you know, anyone that is like actively oppressing every minority
Speaker 2: on this land and especially Palestinians. So I think our
Speaker 2: biggest threat is our government at the moment. But I
Speaker 2: think that our biggest my biggest threat if I could
Speaker 2: think of, like, what is the biggest threat is apathy.
Speaker 2: I think, like people not caring, people not getting up
Speaker 2: and leaving their houses and doing things and organizing and
Speaker 2: mobilizing just letting this happen. And I think on paper,
Speaker 2: the biggest obstacle would probably be our government that are
Speaker 2: you know, acting in such a fascist, fanatic, Nazi manner.
Speaker 2: And I think, yeah, as an individual being a part
Speaker 2: of grassroots communities and seeing, you know, at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, there are people that are going out
Speaker 2: there and actively like murdering Palestinians, that are you know,
Speaker 2: pushing for policies to deport children, Filipino children or children
Speaker 2: of migrant workers. There's so many injustices towards different people,
Speaker 2: and there are people that are like actively going out
Speaker 2: and like fighting for these like terrible, terrible fanatic ideologies.
Speaker 2: And I think whenever we people don't. I said this
Speaker 2: in a podcast recently, and someone told me, like, wait,
Speaker 2: you have to take out that part because it sounds
Speaker 2: like you're like voting, like you'rely grooting for the bashes
Speaker 2: to active and like, no, no, no. The fact is that
Speaker 2: there are people that are doing these really really bad things,
Speaker 2: and when we're not countering them, when we are just
Speaker 2: letting them happen and be like, oh yeah, it sucks,
Speaker 2: but not doing anything about it, not using our privilege
Speaker 2: or our voice or a microphone to resist that, then
Speaker 2: we're conforming with it. And I know that's not fun
Speaker 2: to think. That's not fun. It's not fun to like
Speaker 2: go or organize protests. It's not fun to do a lot,
Speaker 2: even though actually there's a lot of things that are
Speaker 2: really beautiful as well. Being in the West Bank, being
Speaker 2: with people, playing with children, like these are beautiful things.
Speaker 2: It's not like we're doing that. But I think when
Speaker 2: it's within Israeli society, when it's organizing protests, when it's
Speaker 2: joining a protest as a number, when it's you know,
Speaker 2: learning and doing unlearning. It's not always easy and it's
Speaker 2: not always someone's first yeah decision to make. But I
Speaker 2: think that when you don't do that, I think that
Speaker 2: is the biggest threat. You know, In the Holocaust and
Speaker 2: many different atrocities over the years, the thing that like
Speaker 2: stood out most was people that were silent and people
Speaker 2: that yeah, didn't resist in one way or another, Like
Speaker 2: that movie Zone of Interest, Like, oh my god, that movie.
Speaker 2: That movie just shaped these past two and a half years.
Speaker 2: Like I saw it a few months after October seventh,
Speaker 2: and I just every moment that life just existed in
Speaker 2: Israel and you saw warplanes flying above you, and you
Speaker 2: know what's going happen. You hear too, like you hear
Speaker 2: bombs falling, you hear and everyone it's just like gotten
Speaker 2: used to it, and you're just like, we're living in
Speaker 2: Zone of Interest. Yeah, that's wild. And yeah, I think
Speaker 2: it's like a constant question of do I want to
Speaker 2: be a part of the society? Do I want to fight?
Speaker 2: Life would be much easier if I moved away and
Speaker 2: I was just like fuck this place, which is not
Speaker 2: a bad thing to do. I have many friends that
Speaker 2: have done this, and I understand it. It's really hard.
Speaker 2: You know, life would be easier if I just left.
Speaker 2: It's not the I don't want to say, it's not
Speaker 2: the sexy narrative to be like like, look we can both,
Speaker 2: you know, Look, you know, let's learn. It's not fun
Speaker 2: to be talking and trying to reason with fascists like
Speaker 2: or people that are in deep denial of reality. You're
Speaker 2: really well intertwined with. But I think it's my moral
Speaker 2: responsibility as an Israeli to be here and as long
Speaker 2: as I can and help create platforms for our society
Speaker 2: to learn and resist. Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I think, like you said, there are different pathways,
Speaker 1: but I can definitely understand like the feeling you have
Speaker 1: that it's like an abdication of responsibility having been a
Speaker 1: part of the society to some degree to yeah, throw
Speaker 1: your hands essentially.
Speaker 2: One last question.
Speaker 1: I was watching the documentary Coexistence my ass, which is
Speaker 1: an incredible documentary. I really encourage people to watch it
Speaker 1: if they can. And it's filmed and it incorporates that
Speaker 1: moment of October seventh and shows to I mean, I
Speaker 1: think implies though of course I don't know how widely
Speaker 1: this applies, but it shows and implies how parts of
Speaker 1: the left fell off, you know, after October seventh. Do
Speaker 1: you feel like, now we're twenty twenty six for recording
Speaker 1: February twenty second, twenty twenty sixth do you feel like
Speaker 1: people are starting.
Speaker 2: To come back. I don't know, or did just the
Speaker 2: left get smaller. I think the radical left has become
Speaker 2: just much more tight knit. And yeah, whoever's a part
Speaker 2: of it is kind of a part of it. People
Speaker 2: are always welcome to join and be a part, but
Speaker 2: it's kind of you know, you kind of have your
Speaker 2: usual suspects at this point. And I think the broader,
Speaker 2: like I don't know, liberal Zionists that will call themselves left,
Speaker 2: and Israel just like isn't really left because they're talking
Speaker 2: about a democracy within an apartheid state. They are, like
Speaker 2: I said earlier, sending their sons to war. I'm not
Speaker 2: saying that's an easy thing, but at the same time
Speaker 2: opposing the war and not acknowledging Palestinian suffering. And I
Speaker 2: think there's become many people and this is from my
Speaker 2: personal experience that just are like, like I said, apathetic,
Speaker 2: kind of like looking forward with their hands on the
Speaker 2: side of each of their eyes. Trying not to see
Speaker 2: what's happening. You know there are people thousands, tens of
Speaker 2: thousands in the streets protesting. You know they'll be waving
Speaker 2: Israeli flags. That's hard for me. I don't feel like
Speaker 2: I'm in the group that would ever wave a flag.
Speaker 2: And I think they see themselves as left. Yeah again,
Speaker 2: like I said, like, you can't be fighting for human rights,
Speaker 2: liberal ideologies within an apartheid state. You can't fight for
Speaker 2: democracy in an apartheid state. Like we have to touch
Speaker 2: the root of this, all every injustice happening on this
Speaker 2: land or in Israel in forty eight, Like, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: the root of it is the occupation. We've planted roots
Speaker 2: on rotten soil. We've pushed people out of their homes
Speaker 2: and took them as our own, and we're not really
Speaker 2: willing to reconcile what we've become, what we've done. And
Speaker 2: I think only when that starts to happen, there could
Speaker 2: be some sort of future here on this land for
Speaker 2: both people. But as long as we're not acknowledging the
Speaker 2: atrocities we are committing, and the atrocities are silence is
Speaker 2: allowing to perpetuate, then the left here is very very tiny.
Speaker 2: And I say that not to toot our own horn.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not in a way of like we're
Speaker 2: not on a moral high ground, Like maybe there was
Speaker 2: a moment where I did feel that way in a
Speaker 2: sense of like I know and you don't know, it's like,
Speaker 2: but then you know very quickly in order to turn
Speaker 2: your activism into something sustainable, you have to remind yourself
Speaker 2: this is what I believe in. This is love, and
Speaker 2: it's not from bitterness, and it's not from being on
Speaker 2: a moral high ground, like I'm doing this because I
Speaker 2: believe in it as me as d D. And I
Speaker 2: really hope other people join and other people also open
Speaker 2: their hearts to these injustices, and really in order for
Speaker 2: everyone to have a just reality of just future, then
Speaker 2: you have to fight for everyone to have those rights
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much for that. I always say, like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think this is applicable lots of places.
Speaker 1: I say it here in the United States, like when
Speaker 1: there was a crackdown on pro Palestine protesters and just
Speaker 1: the complete reversal of freedom of speech and everything like
Speaker 1: that because they happened to be pro Palestine. I said,
Speaker 1: you know, this is eroding the tenuous democracy you have.
Speaker 2: It's democracy for all of us or none of us.
Speaker 1: And in Israel, it's like, you can be liberal, or
Speaker 1: you can call yourself the left and advocate in this way.
Speaker 1: But unless, like you said, you realize what the construction
Speaker 1: of the state and its continuation kind of like this
Speaker 1: endless ethnic cleansing project that's happening in the territories, it's like,
Speaker 1: unless you address that, it will bleed into you. So
Speaker 1: it's you know, for a variety of reasons, moral reasons,
Speaker 1: of course, but also self interest. Dahlia Schenlin has an
Speaker 1: interesting article about this and an interesting argument about this
Speaker 1: that I'll link in the show notes. And I would
Speaker 1: say she's a believer in maybe a confederation or something
Speaker 1: like that, but her analysis is the occupation ruined the
Speaker 1: potential of Israeli democracy. Like I said, she comes at
Speaker 1: it from a very kind of different angle I think
Speaker 1: than you do, but still is a reasonable argument at
Speaker 1: the end of it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, thank you so much, Danielle.
Speaker 1: This has been a really rich conversation and I think
Speaker 1: that the listeners will benefit a lot from having this
Speaker 1: laid out. And of course I'll include everything in the
Speaker 1: show notes about the groups that we mentioned.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for inviting me, and yeah, I
Speaker 2: hope I didn't tug your head off. Oh not at all.
Speaker 2: This is very thank you so much.
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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.