Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Ryntrall and Anderson's squirrel Chasing Hour
Speaker 1: Hell Yeah, podcast in which the dogs Rintrall and Anderson
Speaker 1: chase squirrels, or at least make noises at squirrels in
Speaker 1: the background while we record a podcast called cool People
Speaker 1: Who did Cool Stuff. It's all very texture.
Speaker 2: It's called yea yeah, Sorry you introduce me yet.
Speaker 1: Well that's Scharene Sharen.
Speaker 3: Lanny Nis is here post him ethnically ambiguous host. It
Speaker 3: could happen here, poet, filmmaker, friend icon.
Speaker 2: I did it, but we're great. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you first and foremost a friend first and foremost
Speaker 3: a friend second, second, foremost. I forgot to mention it.
Speaker 3: Mother of Bunny the cat, Mother of Bunny the cat.
Speaker 1: I have a cat. Okay, so it's the how.
Speaker 3: Does Bunny you feel about squirrels?
Speaker 2: She loves to watch. Yeah, she'll she will be the
Speaker 2: observer to the squirrel chasing listeners.
Speaker 3: I want to brag about Margaret for a second listeners.
Speaker 3: Before we started recording part one, Bunny was Bunny was
Speaker 3: being bad, and so I called Bunny bad. Bunny and
Speaker 3: Margaret knew that reference. And I just want to give
Speaker 3: credit where credits due.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not only did she know, but she knew that
Speaker 2: Bad Bunny was Porto Rican.
Speaker 3: There was there was like.
Speaker 1: There, Yeah, it's because Bad Bunny is done work with
Speaker 1: Cardi B and Cardi B supports sex workers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's a great way to know who Bad Bunny.
Speaker 3: Is and and Bad Bunny is actual. So my parents
Speaker 3: have a bunny that like an actual bunny rabbit that
Speaker 3: this is so much information that the listeners don't need.
Speaker 3: But there's a bunny that lives in their yard and
Speaker 3: my parents leave out seeds and appropriate bunny and squirrel
Speaker 3: litle and deer food for they live in the woods.
Speaker 3: And I got them to name the bunny Benito, which
Speaker 3: has been bunny's actual name, and so they but but
Speaker 3: they've now changed it to bun Eto. And that's just
Speaker 3: a little bit about why I am the way I am.
Speaker 3: Honestly that.
Speaker 2: Benito is great on its own for it bunny, honestly,
Speaker 2: I know, and it ends in an osna. Bunnies are
Speaker 2: the best. I love bunnies.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that that has been unnecessary animal talk, but
Speaker 3: also necessary animal talk.
Speaker 2: Someone out there appreciates it. I know at least one person.
Speaker 1: And everyone else has been pressing for fifteen seconds.
Speaker 4: And that's fine, okay, Sorry, No, I'll just bring up
Speaker 4: animals every like minute or so, so they'll just keep skipping,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, Like they'll talk about stuff
Speaker 4: and then they're still talking about fucking cats.
Speaker 1: And then we can think, Yeah, like the things that
Speaker 1: we can form relationships with that aren't people that make
Speaker 1: our lives enriched. How boring is what people will say
Speaker 1: because they have no heart or soul or something. The
Speaker 1: other voice you've heard is Sophie.
Speaker 3: Oh Ship, it's me, mother of Anderson yea of podcasts,
Speaker 3: podcast podcast, friend of Benito, the Bunny.
Speaker 2: Friend of.
Speaker 1: Our audio engineering is done by Ian Hi.
Speaker 3: Ian I I the.
Speaker 2: Father of an animal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Ian, I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't think Ian has, but I feel free to
Speaker 3: put in a fun animal fact here if you're bored,
Speaker 3: and if you're not, and if you're not bored and
Speaker 3: you don't feel like putting in a fun animal fact,
Speaker 3: that's also okay.
Speaker 2: But you don't have anything, you know? We love? Ian
Speaker 2: is the point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, but you have to say hi, Ian before
Speaker 1: we can continue. We've made a rule. Everyone has all right,
Speaker 1: And our music is written for us by young woman.
Speaker 1: And this is part two of a two part series
Speaker 1: about hunger strikes, the last recourse of the desperate against
Speaker 1: their oppressors. Where we last left our heroes, the Irish
Speaker 1: Republican Army, who are a lot of people's not heroes,
Speaker 1: but are in a situation where they also feel like
Speaker 1: they have no recourse. They have just been told that
Speaker 1: they were not to be treated as prisoners of war
Speaker 1: anymore in Her Majesty's prison Maze, but instead as common
Speaker 1: criminals fed to the minotaur, even though many of them
Speaker 1: were getting picked up without charges, evidence or trial, which
Speaker 1: is a fun way to find yourself a prisoner is
Speaker 1: to not get accused of any crime.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The first inmate to protest this was a guy named
Speaker 1: Kieran Nugent. And what led him to a life of
Speaker 1: the IRA Well, maybe I'm not certain, but I think
Speaker 1: there's like one part of his past that I can
Speaker 1: think might have radicalized him. It's when he was fifteen
Speaker 1: years old standing on the street with a friend when
Speaker 1: a car stopped asked them for directions. When they started
Speaker 1: to answer, someone in the car pulled out a submachine
Speaker 1: gun and shot him eight times and killed his friend.
Speaker 1: He survived getting shot eight times as a fifteen year old,
Speaker 1: and I can't imagine why he went and joined the
Speaker 1: IRA after that.
Speaker 2: Was there not that there's ever a reason to do
Speaker 2: any of that, but was there any motive?
Speaker 1: Not that I'm aware of. I'm under the impression it
Speaker 1: was literally like, let's just go kill those Catholic kids. Wow.
Speaker 1: So when he was sixteen, he joined the IRA. He
Speaker 1: spent five months in jail without being convicted of anything,
Speaker 1: and then he was arrested again, I think when he
Speaker 1: was seventeen, and this time he got a conviction. He
Speaker 1: spent he served nine months. When he was eighteen, he
Speaker 1: got arrested for hijacking a bus. He was the first
Speaker 1: person sent to the Minotaur's maze after they decided to
Speaker 1: stop treating paramilitaries like prisoners of war. And so he
Speaker 1: showed up and they're like, all right, put on your
Speaker 1: prison clothes, and he's like, I'm not a fucking criminal.
Speaker 1: I'm a fucking freedom fighter. I'm not I'm not going
Speaker 1: to do that. Or more specifically, he said that if
Speaker 1: they wanted him to wear a uniform, they would have
Speaker 1: to nail it to his back. He wore a blanket instead.
Speaker 1: This gets called the blanket protest. Very direct namers at
Speaker 1: this particular juncture.
Speaker 2: Also too cute for my liking. The troubles was cute,
Speaker 2: you know, blanket protest. I understand what it's doing. It's
Speaker 2: very literal.
Speaker 1: But yeah, terrible.
Speaker 2: Things have cute names, and that makes me unsettled.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd be like if Bunny wasn't your cat but
Speaker 1: instead like a giant creature in the woods with red
Speaker 1: eyes that sings the British national anthem.
Speaker 2: I don't know, like that is terrify.
Speaker 1: I know, what if there's like a monster in your
Speaker 1: woods that just like say nationalist of Yeah, totally.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 1: The second prisoner to join the blanket protest was a woman,
Speaker 1: so of course she has left out of most of
Speaker 1: the narratives. I like had the whole script written where
Speaker 1: I was like, and then the second prisoner is and
Speaker 1: as this other guy, and then later I was like, no,
Speaker 1: this other person was the second person to join the protest.
Speaker 1: She was in a different prison for women, and she
Speaker 1: had a version of the best name ever. Her name
Speaker 1: was mari Ed, which is Irish from Margaret, and she
Speaker 1: was in prison for fourteen years for bombing a hotel
Speaker 1: that was being used by British soldiers, and at trial
Speaker 1: she refused to acknowledge the colonial court.
Speaker 2: Well about us cross the board, check check check.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she fucking she goes hard. The third prisoner to
Speaker 1: join the blanket protest was a man named Jackie McMullen.
Speaker 1: He is usually marked as the second because why would
Speaker 1: women matter, even though women have been active participants in
Speaker 1: Irish struggles since literally forever.
Speaker 2: But women are at people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, yeah, Jackie. This guy, Jackie had been arrested
Speaker 1: twenty times as a teenager. He has a quote about it.
Speaker 1: Every male aged thirteen to sixty five would have been arrested,
Speaker 1: the vast majority for screening. Like basically they would just
Speaker 1: arrest every Catholic they saw to see if they were
Speaker 1: like opt no good or whatever. Right, So he've been
Speaker 1: arrested twenty fucking times.
Speaker 2: So we still don't really know how they know they're Catholic. Really,
Speaker 2: maybe like.
Speaker 1: The neighborhoods they're in or again someone knows, yeah, but
Speaker 1: I don't know. The neighborhoods were increasingly I think since
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, the neighborhoods were increasingly segregated, were actually
Speaker 1: going to talk about some people who like actually had
Speaker 1: grown up in very like mixed neighborhoods and were perfectly
Speaker 1: fine and everything was happy until nineteen sixty six when
Speaker 1: Protestants started like self segregating away from the Catholics and stuff.
Speaker 1: So Jackie was a freedom fighter with the IRA. He
Speaker 1: had a nickname. His nickname was Teapot. Love it because
Speaker 1: one of his tops of one of his ears had
Speaker 1: been shot off. Well he was, I know, they don't
Speaker 1: fuck with the guy named Teapot who has a revolver
Speaker 1: and is a missing part of his ear. When you
Speaker 1: look up photos of all of these guys now, like
Speaker 1: the ones who survive all of this, they're just like
Speaker 1: they're just some old Irish guy. It's like real cute.
Speaker 1: There's just like, oh there's anyone's yeah yeah. And so
Speaker 1: Teapot had been caught with a revolver when he was twenty.
Speaker 1: His trial was only forty minutes long. He also refused
Speaker 1: to recognize the court. When he was in prison, his mother,
Speaker 1: alongside other Irish women, changed herself to the railings outside
Speaker 1: the Prime Minister's house in London. Wow, and by Christmas
Speaker 1: that year, So a few months later it started in September,
Speaker 1: there were forty prisoners wearing blankets, mostly IRA and the
Speaker 1: Irish National Liberation Army.
Speaker 2: Folks, we're not to acquire these blankets.
Speaker 1: It's like what they have in prison. It's like the
Speaker 1: it's the blanket that they're like, all.
Speaker 2: Right at or airplane blanket.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably whatever. The whatever your fucking scratchy wool blanket
Speaker 1: you have in prison.
Speaker 2: Is okay, So they all have like they access to
Speaker 2: get a blanket. I guess what I'm saying, Okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah. By nineteen seventy eight, they escalated from the blanket
Speaker 1: protest to the dirty protest, where prisoners refused to wash
Speaker 1: and then started smearing their shit and menstrual blood on
Speaker 1: the walls of their cells.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm not mad about it.
Speaker 1: No, I mean whatever, whatever fucking works, yeah.
Speaker 2: Or whatever. I mean, that's fucking disgusting. Yeah, if you're
Speaker 2: not going to get shamed into action, maybe you'll get
Speaker 2: disgusted into action.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, Like I don't want Yeah, it's probably just
Speaker 1: to get the guards to be like, man, I don't
Speaker 1: want to deal with this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I don't get paid enough for this shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They had five demands and their demands weren't freedom for Ireland,
Speaker 1: like that's what they were fighting for as their cause, right,
Speaker 1: But this sort of strike is usually about specific conditions,
Speaker 1: and specifically they had five demands related to essentially prisoner
Speaker 1: of war status. They demanded the right to not wear
Speaker 1: a prison uniform, the right to not do prison work,
Speaker 1: the right of free association with other prisoners and to
Speaker 1: organize educational and recreational pursuits. The right to one visit,
Speaker 1: one letter and one parcel per week, and full restoration
Speaker 1: of remission lost through the protest. Basically, it's like, while
Speaker 1: they were protesting, the state was like, well, this doesn't
Speaker 1: count as your life time served because you're like not
Speaker 1: being nice outside of prison. People start organizing for their support.
Speaker 1: The kind of at the beginning of this people are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that matters, but what really matters
Speaker 1: is like the struggle, you know, and then people were like, actually, no,
Speaker 1: those people in prison matter outside prison. By eighteenth not
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy nine nineteen seventy nine, the usage writing about
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century nineteenth fuck whatever. Nineteen seventy nine, the
Speaker 1: Northern Irish socialist politician Bernadette mccawsky is a working class
Speaker 1: Republican woman, because republican means socialist at this point in
Speaker 1: time in history, in this particular place, because political labels
Speaker 1: change what they mean depending on context. She started to
Speaker 1: fight for folks she'd been present at Bloody Sunday. Later
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one, people break into her house trying
Speaker 1: to assassinate her. She gets shot nine times in front
Speaker 1: of her children, and she lives.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: She was like, all right, kid, you got shot eight times.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get not shot nine times and live. So
Speaker 1: she's working to support the prisoners. This is before she
Speaker 1: gets shot. In nineteen eighty the Dirty Strike goes Hunger Strike.
Speaker 1: One hundred and forty eight prisoners in the men's prison volunteer,
Speaker 1: but they pick seven of themselves total as a symbolic
Speaker 1: thing about the number of folks who signed the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixteen Declaration of the Republic. When kind of the Easter
Speaker 1: Rising sort of kicks off what leads to the independence
Speaker 1: the semi independence of Ireland. At the nearby women's prison,
Speaker 1: three women join, including our girl Marriod, and later just
Speaker 1: to end her saga. Unfortunately, in nineteen eighty eight, she's
Speaker 1: killed during her arrest In Joe Bralter, she's trying with
Speaker 1: some IRA friends to car bombs some British soldiers when
Speaker 1: they get caught, and inquiries later show that she was
Speaker 1: actually illegally shot because she had been trying to comply
Speaker 1: with her arrest when they killed her. Wow, But for
Speaker 1: now she's hunger striking.
Speaker 2: Is it like something on top of like, it's not
Speaker 2: replacing the dirty strike.
Speaker 1: It's like in addition to they might have stopped smearing
Speaker 1: their shit on their walls. I'm not sure. They probably
Speaker 1: were pretty excited to take a shower.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's it's not great for the person
Speaker 2: doing the dirty strike either, I'm sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then the hunger strike is also it's just
Speaker 1: a it's an escalation, you know. And and they win
Speaker 1: this hunger strike in nineteen eighty. The strike lasts fifty
Speaker 1: three days, but in the end the government blinks. They're
Speaker 1: afraid of the backlash loget if they kill this prisoner.
Speaker 1: Which is another thing that nonviolence pairs really well with
Speaker 1: is violence m H. It was the threat of violence
Speaker 1: that caused the British government to concede to this non
Speaker 1: violent tactic. So the government say all right, fine, we'll
Speaker 1: meet you five demands. But then the government being a government.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you knew this. Sometimes governments don't
Speaker 1: hold their promises.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, are you serious?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know it. It changes the law, don't.
Speaker 2: Follow the law. People don't care about morals or or anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you'd think. I mean, obviously there's no system by
Speaker 1: which people would get elected if they weren't honest.
Speaker 2: And my god, I really thought, I really thought governments
Speaker 2: could help us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, this is probably the only time in place
Speaker 1: where a government has done this. Okay, great, So they
Speaker 1: start another hunger strike on March first, nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: and the IRA has a military command structure, right, the
Speaker 1: officer commanding of the imprisoned IRA members is a guy
Speaker 1: who's in prison and his name is Bobby Sands, and
Speaker 1: he's like, well, I'm in charge, and so I'm going
Speaker 1: to do the honorable thing, and I'm going to go first.
Speaker 1: So he stops eating, and you know, they're like, we
Speaker 1: are political prisoners. We will be treated as such. They
Speaker 1: have the five demands, the same five demands they've ostensibly
Speaker 1: already won, but have not. Bobby Sands, he grew up
Speaker 1: in a mixed neighborhood Protestant Catholic neighborhood. But when he
Speaker 1: was twelve in nineteen sixty six, all of his Protestant
Speaker 1: friends stopped talking to him. I think their families basically
Speaker 1: made them ice him out. As an adult, he tried
Speaker 1: to just go be a guy, right, and he went
Speaker 1: to get work as a coach builder, which is a
Speaker 1: busmaker in American English. I had a double check.
Speaker 2: He thought building coaches to like go to the NBA
Speaker 2: or anything.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, okay, okay. Whereas I was thinking
Speaker 1: it was like horse drawn carriages, they still had horse
Speaker 1: drawn carriage.
Speaker 2: You know, wait, what is it really say it against bus?
Speaker 2: A bus?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he made buses bus where he tried to make buses,
Speaker 1: but a bunch of guys wearing fucking like paramilitary Protestant
Speaker 1: armbands who he worked with. The word that gets used.
Speaker 1: The verb they used is harassed. They harassed him into quitting,
Speaker 1: And by harassed, I mean they stuck a gun in
Speaker 1: his face and told him to fuck off. And his
Speaker 1: family and almost all the other Catholics in the family
Speaker 1: were driven out of their homes at gunpoint. So he's
Speaker 1: like all right Ira time he bombs a furniture store.
Speaker 1: I have literally no idea why. I'm sure he had
Speaker 1: a reason. And then he gets in a shootout with
Speaker 1: the cops and he gets sentenced to the Minotaur's Maze.
Speaker 1: And then March first, nineteen eighty one, he begins to
Speaker 1: hunger strike. More prisoners join at staggered intervals. Basically the
Speaker 1: idea is that if we join at different times, there's
Speaker 1: always going to be different prisoners at different lengths of it,
Speaker 1: basically because they know that they're doing this until they die.
Speaker 2: Right, So so nothing really changed after the first one, right,
Speaker 2: so what did how did it end?
Speaker 4: Then?
Speaker 2: Per se? Like what did what?
Speaker 1: They were like, Oh, we're going to meet all your
Speaker 1: demands and then they were like, oh right we win. Yeah,
Speaker 1: then they just didn't okay.
Speaker 2: Got it?
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so by doing this as staggered intervals, they
Speaker 1: have different people at different stages of it. So instead
Speaker 1: of everyone dying all at once, people die at different intervals.
Speaker 1: And the reason that we know so this is like
Speaker 1: the famous hunger strike in Ireland. There's a bunch their
Speaker 1: hunger strikes have been work going on in Ireland. I
Speaker 1: didn't write them all down but since nineteen seventeen, Like
Speaker 1: it is, as long as there's been people fighting for
Speaker 1: an Ireland, it probably goes back way while, as we
Speaker 1: talked about, it goes way the fuck back. While he
Speaker 1: was two months into the hunger strike, Bobby Sands ran
Speaker 1: for the British House of Commons basically like ran for
Speaker 1: government in Northern Ireland and he won. He won, he
Speaker 1: was in the prison. How is he able to run? Well,
Speaker 1: they ended up passing the law after this that says
Speaker 1: that you can't run for British Yeah, and so he
Speaker 1: runs and he gets a seat in a House of Commons,
Speaker 1: he's not allowed to sit it. It doesn't get him
Speaker 1: out of prison, right, And he's also two months into
Speaker 1: a hunger strike. So it's a protest vote basically. It's
Speaker 1: like people are like, well, we're going to vote for
Speaker 1: this dying guy because we support his cause and that's
Speaker 1: how we will show it. Margaret Thatcher, who is trying
Speaker 1: to give Margaret's a bad name, said, crime is crime.
Speaker 1: There's no special concessions, like we're not gonna treat anyone
Speaker 1: like prisoner as a war and this guy can't sit
Speaker 1: even though he's been elected. Fuck democracy, you know, and
Speaker 1: winning an election will starving yourself is a really good
Speaker 1: way to get media attention for your hunger strike. It's
Speaker 1: also a good way to get the UK to pass
Speaker 1: a law specifically for make sure no one ever does
Speaker 1: what you do again. And this is actually the reason
Speaker 1: that they hadn't really thought about this before. I think
Speaker 1: is that this is when the IRA came around to
Speaker 1: electoralism as a strategy. Before that, they were absentationists, right,
Speaker 1: they refused to vote, and then eventually they're like, all right, fine,
Speaker 1: we'll just start fucking voting and nationalists because we actually
Speaker 1: are the majority of people here.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: On his sixty sixth day of hunger striking, Bobby Sands,
Speaker 1: who was twenty seven years old, died. No more than
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand people came to his funeral. France, the
Speaker 1: Margaret Thatcher was like fuck you, I don't care. She
Speaker 1: wrote a whole bunch of stuff basically being like, he's
Speaker 1: an evil terrorist trying to blackmail us with his life.
Speaker 2: Such a bad margaret.
Speaker 1: Yeah sorry, no, I mean.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry that you're Margaret. And yeah she has that name.
Speaker 2: That's not fair.
Speaker 1: I know, we got called a lot there. God give
Speaker 1: her a different name, just to take it back for
Speaker 1: the Margarets monster stature. Yeah, well, I'll think about it.
Speaker 1: Sorry that thatchue Kanye's baddy. Apparently I've learned on the
Speaker 1: show that baddye means good.
Speaker 2: So no, baddie means like like Cardi B's a baddy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 3: I Ian was was like I've said. Ian texted me
Speaker 3: after editing that episode, was like, I was like, I
Speaker 3: was so confused, and then you explained it to Margaret
Speaker 3: and then it mads it.
Speaker 1: In my mind. Baddy is like the are we the
Speaker 1: Baddy sketch where the Nazis have to admit that they're
Speaker 1: that might be on the wrong side. No, anyway, no, anyway.
Speaker 2: We've time has progressed since then. I suppose I am
Speaker 2: now aware.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you know what else you should be aware of?
Speaker 3: That it's a time for an ad break.
Speaker 1: Oh well, if you want to be a batty, you
Speaker 1: should wear clothing that is advertised. You know, actually, whether
Speaker 1: or not these companies advertise clothing, you should try to
Speaker 1: buy clothing from them. You should write them and say
Speaker 1: make it happen, please sell me, not T shirts, not
Speaker 1: branded stuff like I want them to make article full
Speaker 1: articles of clothing, like I want to see their textile capacity.
Speaker 2: Quilts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, blankets, blankets you could wear a you could start
Speaker 1: your own blanket protest by buying blankets from the gold
Speaker 1: vendors who are going to come on to sell you that.
Speaker 1: Here you go and we're back for lists enough. A
Speaker 1: bunch of people who died after Bobby Sands. Francis Hughes
Speaker 1: died next, then Raymond mccreash and Patsy O'Hara, who had
Speaker 1: once been shot at the age of fourteen by a
Speaker 1: British soldier. Joe McDonell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieren Doe,
Speaker 1: Thomas Mcgillwey and Michael Devine died. Ten people died. They
Speaker 1: were all in all in their twenties, and the strike
Speaker 1: ended in a sort of draw. Eventually, the other Hunger
Speaker 1: strikers withdrew because a lot of their families were like, look,
Speaker 1: even if you fall unconscious, if you fall unconscious, we're
Speaker 1: going to allow medical intervention. So they withdrew and England
Speaker 1: declared it a victory. But the strikers won four of
Speaker 1: their demands during this they won everything but the right
Speaker 1: to avoid work, and the other hunger strikers didn't want
Speaker 1: to withdraw because they were like, no, Bobby Sands has
Speaker 1: died for this. We can't turn our backs now.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: But it basically their hands were forced because you can't
Speaker 1: control what happens to you when you're unconscious. But they
Speaker 1: actually won their fifth demands soon enough. They won it
Speaker 1: through another means, the kind of sideways means. They went
Speaker 1: it through a means that's called the Great Escape.
Speaker 2: Who yes, tell me more.
Speaker 1: Another thing that people in prison sometimes choose to do
Speaker 1: is on the twenty twentieth, twenty fifth of September nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty three, thirty eight IRA prisoners broke out of jail.
Speaker 1: This is a maximum security prison. This is like considered like,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's Her Majesty's fucking maze, right.
Speaker 2: How do they do it?
Speaker 4: Do we know?
Speaker 1: How they do? We do?
Speaker 2: They didn't break original.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they wounded twenty guards in the process. Hell yeah,
Speaker 1: they inadvertently killed one who died of a heart attack.
Speaker 1: To be fair, they'd also stabbed the guy. No, I know,
Speaker 1: I know, to be fair, they'd also stabbed the guy.
Speaker 1: But later a coroner's report was like, actually the heart
Speaker 1: attack was unrelated to the stabbings, and so like someone
Speaker 1: who got caught during all of this actually had their
Speaker 1: charges lessened because they hadn't they had killed him, the
Speaker 1: heart attack did. Yeah, six handguns had been smuggled into
Speaker 1: the prison, and so like a cell block or whatever
Speaker 1: takes the guard's prisoner, some of them were shot and
Speaker 1: stabbed as necessary, like people who like tried to run
Speaker 1: to set the alarm and stuff and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: The escapies got out of the cell block and they
Speaker 1: hijacked a truck. They're still inside the prison guard right,
Speaker 1: And then they took the truck over to the gatehouse.
Speaker 1: They took over the gatehouse, taking over guards there, and
Speaker 1: then they tried to drive out, but the exit was
Speaker 1: blocked by cars, so they climbed over the fence and
Speaker 1: they made it free. And this was the largest prison
Speaker 1: break in British history. And I will say Britain if
Speaker 1: you don't want to take that, l just admit that
Speaker 1: it was Ireland and not Britain. And then it wasn't
Speaker 1: the large jail break in British history.
Speaker 2: Well that's an easy out, you really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I found the solution. About half of the men
Speaker 1: stayed free, some rejoined active duty, and others moved to
Speaker 1: Ireland or the US. Basically like they got back to
Speaker 1: IRA headquarters and the IRA is like, look, you can
Speaker 1: either come back to active duty or we will buy
Speaker 1: you like tickets and get you whatever you need to
Speaker 1: move to the US or Ireland, and about it was
Speaker 1: about half and half what people chose to do. A
Speaker 1: lot of the people who moved to Ireland or the
Speaker 1: US later got arrested, They got caught, and they had
Speaker 1: they were facing an extradition to but then a lot
Speaker 1: of them successfully fought that extradition, both in the US
Speaker 1: and Ireland. There was a lot of places where like,
Speaker 1: now we're not gonna extradite your political prisoners are so
Speaker 1: obviously political prisoners. And two of the escapees were never
Speaker 1: heard from again. But the heroes of this escape was
Speaker 1: that there was a rear guard. When they took all
Speaker 1: of the guard's hostage in the cell block, they needed
Speaker 1: someone to stay behind to keep the guards from putting
Speaker 1: up the calling the alarm to give everyone time to
Speaker 1: get out. So a couple people stayed there and kept
Speaker 1: the guards hostage, and then once everyone had had enough
Speaker 1: time to escape, they went back to their cells. Well,
Speaker 1: they basically fell on the proverbial grenade.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the thing that happened is after this escape, the
Speaker 1: work camps at Her Majesty's Prison Mays were shut down
Speaker 1: because like prisoners were no longer like trusted to work. Right,
Speaker 1: So the strikers won their fifth demand.
Speaker 2: That's great, that's great to hear. That's yeah.
Speaker 1: Don't give us all five of our demands. We're going
Speaker 1: to stab and shoot people, don't you do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's what happened when non violence turns.
Speaker 1: Violent, yeah, which is when you don't let it be nonviolent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And just to briefly wrap up the Irish situation with it,
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three, shin Fane, which is the socialist
Speaker 1: political party that grew out of the IRA They are
Speaker 1: now the largest political party in Northern Ireland. The UK
Speaker 1: slide into right wing politics and out of the EU
Speaker 1: helped that happen, right, because Northern Irish people like, wait,
Speaker 1: we don't want to leave the fucking EU. We'd rather
Speaker 1: join Ireland and stay with the EU, you know. And
Speaker 1: of course Star Trek has predicted an Irish unification of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. So it's just around the corner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: fingers crossed. Yeah, but now we're going to go twenty
Speaker 1: six hundred miles from Ireland to another country that has
Speaker 1: struggled for recognition and freedom because of some decision that
Speaker 1: England made.
Speaker 2: Fucking England.
Speaker 1: Yeah, God, the country of Palestine. To draw the connections,
Speaker 1: Ireland is trying to recognize Palestine as a state. Both
Speaker 1: of the lower houses have passed a motion to recognize Palestine,
Speaker 1: but the government, I think that means an executive branch
Speaker 1: or whoever makes the decisions after the lower houses. I
Speaker 1: don't actually know enough about English Irish politics. They won't
Speaker 1: go for it until it's formally acknowledged by the rest
Speaker 1: of Europe. So they're ignoring what the majority of Irish
Speaker 1: people want, which is to recognize Palestine. They are the
Speaker 1: first EU country to condemn Israel's de facto annexation of
Speaker 1: Palestinian land. And as we talked about, it's not because
Speaker 1: Irish people are like inherently cooler, it's because they have
Speaker 1: a lot in fucking common Yeah. Shin Faine, the IRA's
Speaker 1: political party essentially, or the political party came out of
Speaker 1: the IRA, wants to see the Israeli ambassador remove from
Speaker 1: the Republic of Ireland, and John Boyne, the Foreign Affairs
Speaker 1: speaker for the party, told Al Jazeero, once the time
Speaker 1: has gone for words of condemnation, now is the time
Speaker 1: to take decisive action against a lawbreaker that presides over
Speaker 1: an apartheid system.
Speaker 2: That's that's the most attractive thing I've ever heard an
Speaker 2: Irish person say. I love Ireland.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2: It's also just like I don't know, I think more.
Speaker 2: I don't think enough people know that, like know just
Speaker 2: how much Ireland like it's an advocate for Palestine. I
Speaker 2: think the majority of people don't realize like this very
Speaker 2: Caucasian place. Yeah, that's like known for other things, is
Speaker 2: also pretty fucking badass and like the biggest advocate advocate
Speaker 2: for like people that don't have a voice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: So if you're Irish out.
Speaker 1: There, Yeah, And it's like particularly funny because like Irish
Speaker 1: American is like one of the primary white identities that
Speaker 1: Americans cling to, but the way that Irish Americans cling
Speaker 1: to it is in this weird right wing way. And
Speaker 1: I've talked about this before, but there's nothing more depressing
Speaker 1: than watching listening to Ira songs on YouTube and seeing
Speaker 1: all the comments from right wing US people being like,
Speaker 1: that's right, Republicans, you're our guys, and then like all
Speaker 1: the Irish people have going to be like, we're socialists.
Speaker 1: That's what Irish, That's what Irish Republican means.
Speaker 2: People who know the meaning of different words in different places.
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of words that have a lot of meanings
Speaker 1: that are complicated. We're gonna talk about Zionism now. Strap
Speaker 1: In Irish leftists used to have more sympathies for Zionism
Speaker 1: before nineteen thirty seven because they had sympathies for a
Speaker 1: stateless people. But they were not excited. When I say they,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about like large groups and governments and stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to say every individual Irish person is
Speaker 1: good or bad, right, but they were not excited about
Speaker 1: the partition and the creation of an ethno state. If
Speaker 1: folks want to learn more about what's going on in Palestine,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk a little bit more. But I
Speaker 1: really recommend there's this podcast sharene that you might have
Speaker 1: heard of that covers a lot about what's going on
Speaker 1: in Palestine. It's called it Could Happen Here. And if
Speaker 1: people look up any episodes that Sharine has done. It
Speaker 1: is one of the best sources that I will It's
Speaker 1: where I get a lot of information.
Speaker 2: Don't give you too much credit. There are a lot
Speaker 2: of people doing good stuff talking about Palestine, but I
Speaker 2: do try to give people the bare minimum of what
Speaker 2: they should know because no one else is talking about it,
Speaker 2: so I gotta do it. But thank you for that
Speaker 2: shout out. I wasn't sure where you were going with that,
Speaker 2: to be honest.
Speaker 1: No, No, it's I mean, well, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: feel like when I came up into politics, I feel
Speaker 1: like talking about what was going on Palestine was like everywhere,
Speaker 1: and I feel like that's not as much the case anymore.
Speaker 1: And I have complicated ideas about what the reasons for
Speaker 1: that might be. Yeah, but it's a shame.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I mean people, not people. But like
Speaker 2: the media, this big word like makes it so that
Speaker 2: it's too complicated to talk about for the majority of people. Right,
Speaker 2: like what you said about earlier, Like it's not about
Speaker 2: religion for the processing, Like, it's not just about religion
Speaker 2: for for the Irish and English. It's the same thing.
Speaker 2: It's not this like ancient religious conflict that it's like unsolvable.
Speaker 2: It's actually much more simple than that, and much more
Speaker 2: like violent and evil than this complicated. I don't know
Speaker 2: it just it's it's all a bunch of words tossed around,
Speaker 2: making making people confuse. But yeah, I think a power struck.
Speaker 2: Knowing more about Palestine is like, even if something doesn't
Speaker 2: affect you, I think it is shameful if you don't
Speaker 2: give a shit about people suffering in another part of
Speaker 2: the world. I don't think that's an excuse that I'm
Speaker 2: willing to accept.
Speaker 1: Though, and especially when our tax money is one of
Speaker 1: the primary things that fuels exactly. So, I know more
Speaker 1: about Jewish history than I know about Palestinian history, and
Speaker 1: so some of what I'm going to talk about is
Speaker 1: from this perspective, just literally to understand part of what
Speaker 1: creates that or part of what's going into that. So
Speaker 1: I want to talk about Zionism. I ran this past
Speaker 1: one last night. I'm like running all this past one
Speaker 1: of my anarchist Jewish friends about how to talk about
Speaker 1: this stuff. In the twentieth century, most Jews lived in
Speaker 1: the diaspora, which is the spread out community no longer
Speaker 1: where it culturally originated from and without a specific homeland.
Speaker 1: There's roughly three attitudes that were happening about how to
Speaker 1: handle this anti Zionism, leftist Zionism, and right wing Zionism.
Speaker 1: Anti Zionism, which was largely leftist, said basically, this culture
Speaker 1: that we have built in the diaspora is also beautiful
Speaker 1: and it is not to be abandoned, and we have
Speaker 1: to fight for our rights here where we are here
Speaker 1: being largely Eastern Europe in the east coast of the US,
Speaker 1: with Warsaw and New York City as I believe the
Speaker 1: two largest population centers for Jews. We talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about this relationship in the Warsaw Ghetto episode
Speaker 1: with Miriam Who's my friend who I was wow? I
Speaker 1: was trying to talk to about all of this. And
Speaker 1: this anti Zionism was largely internationalist and therefore opposed to
Speaker 1: anything like nationalism, and this tended to include the anarchists
Speaker 1: and many of the communist Jews, which was a huge
Speaker 1: percentage of the Jews in both Eastern Europe and New
Speaker 1: York City. There's also some right wing or i guess
Speaker 1: religiously conservative anti zionism from within Judaism. At this time,
Speaker 1: which is basically the idea that Judaism is a spiritual
Speaker 1: project and not a political one, and that for some people,
Speaker 1: Jewish immigration to Palestine was actually a sin that contradicted
Speaker 1: the will of God, having to do with more complicated
Speaker 1: stuff that is above my head about like prophecy and such.
Speaker 1: Then there's left wing Zionism, which is sometimes conflated with
Speaker 1: or is the same thing then diagrammed with labor Zionism,
Speaker 1: which is basically like, well, we should go back to
Speaker 1: Palestine in mass but not necessarily. For some people it was,
Speaker 1: and some people it wasn't. Let's set up a specific
Speaker 1: separate state. They were split on that. It was also
Speaker 1: very specifically, we don't want Western powers to give us
Speaker 1: a state. We want to organize a socialist society of
Speaker 1: kaboots communal farms and go from there. In the end,
Speaker 1: a lot of the labor Zionists did a lot of
Speaker 1: the really bad shit, a lot of the early Israel
Speaker 1: bad stuff, like the displacement of seven hundred thousand Palestinian
Speaker 1: Arabs during the nineteen forty eight war.
Speaker 2: The Nekva, the catastrophe is what.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, that was largely perpetrated by left wing Zionists,
Speaker 1: just to be upfront about that. Yeah, within labor Zionism
Speaker 1: you also have what's called cultural Zionism, which Albert Einstein
Speaker 1: considered himself a cultural Zionist, which supported the Jewish return
Speaker 1: to the homeland, but only in the context of Jewish
Speaker 1: Arab cooperation, and it was opposed to the creation of
Speaker 1: a Jewish state. Now I'm quoting Einstein with quote borders
Speaker 1: an army in a measure of temporal power. And a
Speaker 1: lot of the Jewish anarchists who weren't anti Zionists fell
Speaker 1: into this category where clearly anarchists don't usually advocate for
Speaker 1: the creation of a state. They tended to present what
Speaker 1: was called the bi national solution, which is a single
Speaker 1: state with Arab and Jewish equality. Today, Israeli's anarchist movement
Speaker 1: largely calls for the no state solution, which is just
Speaker 1: sort of the like, let's get rid of all the governments.
Speaker 1: We're anarchists. Also, a lot of these left of Zionists
Speaker 1: show up to lay the groundwork right all the Zionists
Speaker 1: talks and Jewish folks began moving to Palestine, only to realize, oh,
Speaker 1: this would be really bad. The Communist in particular recognized
Speaker 1: this in the nineteen twenties, several showed up ready to
Speaker 1: form like socialist parties, and we're like, oh, it's actually
Speaker 1: mostly Arabs living here. We like literally didn't know that
Speaker 1: because we live in a very strange media sphere. In
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, it would actually be really shitty and
Speaker 1: discriminatory if we set up a Jewish state, even a
Speaker 1: communist one. And so those folks became anti Zionists and
Speaker 1: worked alongside Arab workers to set up things like the
Speaker 1: Palestinian Communist Party. Of course, communism had this wonderful thing
Speaker 1: happened where Joseph Stalin came and killed all the people
Speaker 1: doing good things within it. My dog doesn't approve of
Speaker 1: Joseph Stalin. I'm shocked by this good boy.
Speaker 2: And uh yeah, you've raised him well.
Speaker 1: One of the guys behind this like conversion to anti
Speaker 1: Zionism within leftist Sionism, his name was jose Burger Barzali.
Speaker 1: He wound up caught in Stalin's purges and sent to Siberia. Right,
Speaker 1: that's your reward for being a morally consistent communist in
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties. Then there's right wing Zionism, right wing
Speaker 1: zionem Is Zionism is We're going to go back and
Speaker 1: get what's ours and fuck everyone else. During the Warsaw
Speaker 1: Ghetto Uprising, all three factions were present. Is where I
Speaker 1: know more about it from right the research I did
Speaker 1: for that episode. But until the very end, the leftists
Speaker 1: wouldn't throw down with the right wing Zionists because they
Speaker 1: fucking hated them, because they were fascists, and they were like,
Speaker 1: the only thing that's different between you and the Nazis
Speaker 1: is that the Nazis are currently in control. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: Jews weren't the only folks who were pondering the impact
Speaker 1: of large scale immigration to Palestine. The Arab people who
Speaker 1: lived there at the time Palestine was eighty three percent Arab,
Speaker 1: eleven percent Christian, and five percent Jewish around the turn
Speaker 1: of the century. They were like, this might not go great,
Speaker 1: and they were right by Arab, you mean most right.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 1: Actually, now i'm realizing that that I like, I actually,
Speaker 1: I'm actually curious. When I was doing this research, a
Speaker 1: lot of things would specifically be like Arab and Jewish
Speaker 1: as like the way to contrast things rather than Muslim
Speaker 1: and I don't like that at all. Okay, that's really
Speaker 1: good to know, and I'm.
Speaker 2: I mean, people have different opinions on it. I just
Speaker 2: think it furthers this. I mean, part of me does
Speaker 2: appreciate it because it kind of equates both being Arab
Speaker 2: and actually, no, that's all I want meant to say.
Speaker 2: You know how like the word Jewish can be in
Speaker 2: both cultural and religious. Yes, I think that's true for
Speaker 2: a lot of religions. I think that's true for Christianity
Speaker 2: and Islam, you know what I mean. Yeah, but I
Speaker 2: think it gets overlooked. But it would be different if
Speaker 2: they said Muslim and Jewish and they were equating it
Speaker 2: that way. But I think their version of that to
Speaker 2: say Arab. But that's assuming that the Christians weren't also Arab.
Speaker 1: I would you know?
Speaker 2: They were all Arab? In my there were just different
Speaker 2: religions that all actually got along great before the fucking
Speaker 2: British got involved.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But but yeah, I think that's where people get confused
Speaker 2: because before like the the mass like stealing of homes
Speaker 2: and the catastrophe and all that stuff, there weren't a
Speaker 2: lot of white European Jews in Palestine. You know, Like
Speaker 2: I think that's when the racial stuff started changing. In
Speaker 2: my opinion, I don't.
Speaker 1: Know, no, no, that that's incredibly useful context. As I
Speaker 1: was reading it, I was like I went back and
Speaker 1: forth about like how I was going to try and
Speaker 1: present the stuff, and I just didn't know, you know,
Speaker 1: And so I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2: No, of course. And I also think it's like some
Speaker 2: like a lot of Arabs are white passing, So I
Speaker 2: think it's kind of confusing to even like differentiate it sometimes.
Speaker 2: But there is a huge difference like in my opinion
Speaker 2: of Arab versus like a like a white European X,
Speaker 2: Y and Z.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but.
Speaker 2: But yeah, all the Arab states or countries rather like Syria, Lebanon, Palestine,
Speaker 2: all the religions co mingled so seamlessly and beautifully, like
Speaker 2: in Syria even when I was growing up there, like
Speaker 2: like when I was when I would visit as a
Speaker 2: teenager or like a young adult or like kid or
Speaker 2: whatever the shit, Like since I was like two, my
Speaker 2: grandpa would like go on a daily walks. He would
Speaker 2: go pray at the mestig, grab some bread from the
Speaker 2: Jewish baker, grab some what is so from the Christian guy.
Speaker 2: No one fucking gives a shit, you know, until it's
Speaker 2: become this land grab and like literal genocide. Like it
Speaker 2: didn't have to go that way, is what I'm trying
Speaker 2: to say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that that makes sense to me and attracts
Speaker 1: with the bit I've read about it, and I'm kind
Speaker 1: of curious. I'm under the impression that some of the
Speaker 1: left left Zionists were like, we just want to go
Speaker 1: participate in the existing like happy everyone gets along. Mm hmmm,
Speaker 1: Palestine thing, and obviously the larger portion of them created
Speaker 1: a state, and you know, I.
Speaker 2: Don't think it actually is a thing. I think the
Speaker 2: way it started, the fact that you've exiled and murdered
Speaker 2: and masacred people, if that's how you're gonna start, there
Speaker 2: is no peaceful cooperation after that, Like it's so totally
Speaker 2: you know, like I think, I think it's kind of
Speaker 2: like a pipe dream. Unfortunately, when people kind of go
Speaker 2: that route, because even though they have good intentions, it
Speaker 2: is really naive and low key stupid. Sorry, sorry, maybe
Speaker 2: that's too harsh, but I just don't think it's reasonable
Speaker 2: to be like, for example, oh, the Native Americans and
Speaker 2: indigenous people and in the Pilgrims they're friends now, Like, no,
Speaker 2: that's not how that works, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think it's just as ridiculous as that. But sorry,
Speaker 2: I can write about this forever and I apologize.
Speaker 1: No, I mean there's a reason that had you is
Speaker 1: that guessed on this episode? Yeah, you know, like I
Speaker 1: in this case, I was game specifically about the like
Speaker 1: before like the like like turn of the central that's
Speaker 1: what you mean.
Speaker 2: Yes, sorry, sorry, sorry, I got myself but angry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, whatever the intentions of the various wings of
Speaker 1: its Jewish founders, what Israel became is a settler apartheid
Speaker 1: state founded on this genocide and the Knakba.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, okay, sorry, just to go back to
Speaker 2: what you were saying, there is now that I know,
Speaker 2: the time period or like the pre Israel thing you're
Speaker 2: talking about. I don't think people realize that Christianity, Judaism,
Speaker 2: and Islam are basically the same religion, just at different
Speaker 2: time periods. Like Christianity is the continuation of Judaism, and
Speaker 2: Islam is the continuation of both Judaism and Christianity. Like
Speaker 2: it's just like extending the timeline. And that's why the
Speaker 2: Land of Palestine and the dough month of Rock and
Speaker 2: all of that. It's it's sacred. That space is sacred
Speaker 2: to all of them. There's a reason for that because
Speaker 2: they're all extremely similar and based on the same ideals
Speaker 2: of like a one God, religion and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: So I think there was a time when it was
Speaker 2: completely just cultural and vibrant, and I'm sure there were problems,
Speaker 2: like there are everywhere, but I think people don't realize
Speaker 2: that now, and they still see Islam as being this
Speaker 2: like different thing, and Judaism is different and Christianity is different,
Speaker 2: when really they're all the fucking same. Like Alma just
Speaker 2: means God, Like that's that's just an Arabic word for God.
Speaker 2: It's not a different God. It's the same fucking God.
Speaker 2: And Judas and not Judas. Jesus and Moses are both
Speaker 2: like really important prophets for Muslims, and I don't think
Speaker 2: people know that. I don't know, so I apologize.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, I only learned that Jesus was an
Speaker 1: important prophet to Islam as an adult, but I learned
Speaker 1: almost nothing about Islam as a kid. And then yeah, like.
Speaker 2: Mean, why should you, I don't I don't follow you.
Speaker 1: For that I mean, yeah, like, I'm glad I've taken
Speaker 1: the time to learn as an adult, and I would
Speaker 1: recommend that other people do too. Yeah, speaking of the
Speaker 1: continuation of it, Shinead O'Connor, who died yesterday as we
Speaker 1: record this, left the Catholic Church because it was a horrible,
Speaker 1: monstrous thing that attacked her, but then still sow it
Speaker 1: very hard to believe and wound up at the end
Speaker 1: of her life converting to Islam. All right, Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: just sad about it. So, yeah, if you haven't been
Speaker 1: keeping track what's going on and w actually before we
Speaker 1: talk about hunger strikes in Palestine, we should talk about
Speaker 1: stuff things. Here you go and we're back. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about some Palestinian hunger strikes and we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about it because in the context of apartheid, in displacement
Speaker 1: and just disproportionate retribution and just raw oppression, right, Palestinians
Speaker 1: are kept in open air prisons and treated worse than
Speaker 1: it is easy to imagine the troubles the Irish thing
Speaker 1: that was bad, that was a bad time to live
Speaker 1: in Ireland. My family in Ireland didn't like to talk
Speaker 1: about them, and wish that they could just not talk
Speaker 1: about politics. Civilians were killed, lots of civilians. Killing civilians
Speaker 1: is a moral. Car bombs and crowded places is a moral.
Speaker 1: It's bad. Many freedom fighters lose their legitimacy in my
Speaker 1: eyes when they do shit like that. But we can
Speaker 1: see why they did it, we can see like and
Speaker 1: we can support an overall cause and some of their
Speaker 1: actions without necessarily supporting all of the actions that all
Speaker 1: individuals take, and without drawing a false moral equivalence between
Speaker 1: the violence of a colonial authority state and the violence
Speaker 1: of the people resisting it. As my irant, I had
Speaker 1: the advantage I had to write my rent down.
Speaker 2: No, that was very eloquent. I liked it. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like a similar thing of like, what do you say,
Speaker 2: like a nail bomb versus like rocks, It's literally the
Speaker 2: same thing.
Speaker 1: It's like it's yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean Palestine is a little very clear or just because
Speaker 2: like they don't have any kind of army versus the
Speaker 2: most powerful army in the world. So that's like a
Speaker 2: little bit silly to even try. But yeah, don't I
Speaker 2: know what you mean?
Speaker 1: No, totally, So, yeah, there's an order of magnitude difference
Speaker 1: in the violence that is put upon a Palestinian people
Speaker 1: and that they put back. While I was writing this script,
Speaker 1: I saw footage of the occupation pouring cement into a
Speaker 1: spring like a to cement it up so that people
Speaker 1: couldn't grow food and have access to water, which is
Speaker 1: actually a war crime, which doesn't matter, because yeah, power
Speaker 1: is what matters to people.
Speaker 2: This is okay, Sorry, my last little tangent, Like I
Speaker 2: actually can't promise that I might do this again. What
Speaker 2: really confounds me, I guess about a certain brand of
Speaker 2: Zionism where it's about returning to the homeland and loving
Speaker 2: the homeland and that's where the the beauty will be
Speaker 2: and all everyone will be united. What I don't understand
Speaker 2: is like, if you gave a shit about the land youuron,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't actively destroy it. You wouldn't like, there's the
Speaker 2: whole thing I did an episode about, or yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: like I had an episode about olive trees and Palestine
Speaker 2: like a couple months ago, and literally there's a whole
Speaker 2: system of like uprooting olive trees and destroying farms and
Speaker 2: all of these things that really just make you realize
Speaker 2: it's not about this beautiful notion of X, Y and Z.
Speaker 2: It's literally about destroying something that's not yours and pretending
Speaker 2: that it is after that. And I think that is
Speaker 2: just like one of my biggest arguments in face of that,
Speaker 2: like retort of like this is our beautiful place to live, Like, no,
Speaker 2: you're cementing springs and rooting out olive trees where they're
Speaker 2: like meant to grow. That makes no sense to me.
Speaker 2: So that's always really just like really bewildered me, to
Speaker 2: be honest, I don't know what the defenses for that
Speaker 2: when it comes to the land of Palestine. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Power is a hell of a drug. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: there's a reason that the one ring must be cast
Speaker 1: into the fires of Mount doom.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 1: Wasn't sure I was going to get in a lot
Speaker 1: of the rings reference in this episode, but I did.
Speaker 2: It's impressive.
Speaker 1: It's impressive. So a lot of Palestinian folks hunger strike,
Speaker 1: specifically Palestinian prisoners, specifically Palestinian prisoners who are held Oh
Speaker 1: it's going to be the name of it's in my script,
Speaker 1: but I forget much like how the Irish were allowed
Speaker 1: to be held without any charges or trial, and Israel
Speaker 1: has decided that it is legal for them to hold
Speaker 1: people on secret evidence that no one ever sees, and
Speaker 1: hold people without charges and without trial just the same
Speaker 1: the there's no rule of law, you know, there's no
Speaker 1: due process of law.
Speaker 2: And now it's on video everywhere, Like they just arrest
Speaker 2: people on the street, like boys usually, yeah, like not
Speaker 2: even a teenage boy. Just get sent to jail and
Speaker 2: are there for years.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So in twenty seventeen, on Palestinian Prisoner's Day, which is
Speaker 1: April seventeenth, fifteen hundred Palestinian political prisoners started a hunger
Speaker 1: strike to improve prison conditions, and they taking only salt water.
Speaker 1: And you know what their demands were. It wasn't free Palestine,
Speaker 1: although that is a valid and desirable thing, but it's
Speaker 1: not the kind of thing you win with hunger strikes.
Speaker 1: They didn't even have the five demands of our ira folks.
Speaker 1: They wanted a public telephone so they could talk to
Speaker 1: their families. They wanted bi monthly family visits. They wanted
Speaker 1: to be able to take photos with their families. They
Speaker 1: wanted air conditioning, not a famously cold placed Palestine. They
Speaker 1: also wanted the end of imprisonment without trial. It was
Speaker 1: called administrative detention, where people can be held on secret
Speaker 1: evidence for years. It's still exists in Israel. Currently there's
Speaker 1: more than a thousand Palestinians being held without charges or evidence.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows Guantanamo Bay is bad right because it had
Speaker 1: no due process of law. Guantanamo Bay currently holds thirty
Speaker 1: one prisoners. Hunger strikes in Palestine have been going on
Speaker 1: for decades. Here's some of them. In nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: prisoners struck for enough food and a repeal on the
Speaker 1: ban of writing letters and no more being forced to
Speaker 1: call the guards sir. Those were their demands. It was
Speaker 1: broken by the strikers being thrown in solitary confinement, which
Speaker 1: is of course very normal to an American audience, but
Speaker 1: it shouldn't because it is absolutely classified as torture under
Speaker 1: that above mentioned useless international law. Nearby the same year,
Speaker 1: some strikers won stationary like that is the level of
Speaker 1: rights that they're fighting for. In nineteen seventy, some women
Speaker 1: prisoners fought for let us have sanitary products that the
Speaker 1: Red Cross is trying to give us. They had to
Speaker 1: starve themselves in order to say, please, let the red
Speaker 1: fucking Cross, give us some goddamn sanitary products.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of ang sorry, I'm just kidding angry.
Speaker 1: No, I'm getting angrier too. In nineteen seventy a political
Speaker 1: prisoner named Abdul Kader abu Altham was murdered by guards.
Speaker 1: He was hunger striking for stationary and for prisoners to
Speaker 1: be able to get closed from their family. When guards
Speaker 1: force fed him, they put a tube into his lungs
Speaker 1: instead of his stomach. He will not be the last
Speaker 1: person killed by this negligence and or malice. And since
Speaker 1: this is the only place I've ever read about this happening,
Speaker 1: I think it's fucking malice. But I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know how I feel.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Nineteen seventy six, they were striking for stationary and
Speaker 1: to replace plastic mattresses with actual mattresses. The prison said, yes,
Speaker 1: they stopped striking the prisoner. The prison was like, no,
Speaker 1: just kidding, fuck you. In nineteen eighty yeah. In nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two, more prisoners, Rasim Halloway and Ali Jafari, were
Speaker 1: murdered by force feeding, once again just into the lungs.
Speaker 1: Their strike wins and the conditions are improved in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four, a thirteen day strike by eight hundred prisoners
Speaker 1: won ventilation, they won better food, radio, TV, and clothes
Speaker 1: is one of the more successful ones. And nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: three thousand prisoners go on strike for twenty days. They
Speaker 1: don't win. And if you're a christ like.
Speaker 2: Three three thousand prisoners, what one exists to you in
Speaker 2: these persons? Two is not all of them, you know,
Speaker 2: and three go on a hunger strike like that is
Speaker 2: just you know.
Speaker 1: That's actually the next part. The next thing I wrote
Speaker 1: in my spae no no no, I wrote, Look, I'm
Speaker 1: just going to say it. If your country of ten
Speaker 1: million people has three thousand political prisoners, that's too many
Speaker 1: and you're doing something bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah that yes, thank you, margaret. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Or seven thousand prisoners went on strike in nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: and which is I don't know if this is to
Speaker 1: be fair or not. This is more than there are
Speaker 1: currently Palestinian political prisoners. But seven thousand prisoners went on
Speaker 1: strike in nineteen ninety two, and they want a decent amount.
Speaker 1: They shut down an isolation unit, they stopped strip searches.
Speaker 1: Prisoners were allowed to cook their own meals, and they
Speaker 1: got more family visitation, but four years later in two thousand,
Speaker 1: they're striking again for some of the same shit, like
Speaker 1: let us have access to phones, stop putting people in solitary.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and four, four thousand prisoners strike for
Speaker 1: phones and shit like that again, not like cell phones
Speaker 1: to hang out on the internet all day, but like, literally,
Speaker 1: can we have a fucking payphone so we can talk
Speaker 1: to our families the prisons. Instead of giving the four
Speaker 1: thousand prisoners anything, they deny them books and newspapers and
Speaker 1: cigarettes and salt and family visits. No salt in the desert.
Speaker 1: There's more than that. There's more hunger strikes than that,
Speaker 1: because they get colonial promises which are nothing. It's true
Speaker 1: the US promises shit to indigenous people. It's true when
Speaker 1: England promises shit to the Irish people, and it's true
Speaker 1: when Israel promises shit to the Palestinian people. Have you
Speaker 1: ever heard of Tristan Anderson. He's an American activist.
Speaker 2: Sounds familiar, but please tell me more.
Speaker 1: I knew him. I'm using the past tense only because
Speaker 1: I haven't talked to him in a long time, not
Speaker 1: because he's dead. He's an American activist, I haven't seen
Speaker 1: him in years. I haven't seen him since before what
Speaker 1: happens here. In two thousand and nine, he was working
Speaker 1: with the International Solidarity Movement in the West Bank and
Speaker 1: he was standing next to his Jewish partner when an
Speaker 1: Israeli soldier shot a baton round at his face, even
Speaker 1: though he was observing the protests at a distance. And
Speaker 1: this was a round intended to be fired from around
Speaker 1: four hundred meters at an arc and not very specifically,
Speaker 1: not designed to be shot at close range or directly
Speaker 1: at people. It was shot at sixty meters directly, and
Speaker 1: it shattered his skull. Part of his brain had to
Speaker 1: be removed, and he's been paralyzed and mentally disabled and
Speaker 1: in need of round the clock care ever since. The
Speaker 1: Israeli government didn't file any charges against the soldiers who
Speaker 1: shot him. His family sued the State of Israel. His partner,
Speaker 1: Gabby Silverman, came to support him and cared for him
Speaker 1: during the trial. From an article on this trial the
Speaker 1: civil Trial published by the IMMC quote. As soon as
Speaker 1: the court hearing ended, Silverman, who is Jewish, received a
Speaker 1: formal order that she must leave the State of Israel
Speaker 1: within this next seven days. The reasons stated on the
Speaker 1: paperwork included insufficient proof that there was a lawsuit going
Speaker 1: on and insufficient proof that she was a Jew. Well,
Speaker 1: this isn't The Times of Israel had actually erased Silverman's
Speaker 1: jewishness before they had a headline quote pro Palestinian activists
Speaker 1: assault Jewish woman in Oakland because Gabby Silverman and other
Speaker 1: people through a rally for Tristan Right, and a Zionist
Speaker 1: came to the rally for Silverman's maimed partner and wrote
Speaker 1: Zionist slogans on the ground in chalk. So Silverman and
Speaker 1: others ran the Zionist out. So, according to the Times
Speaker 1: of Israel, the Zionist gets to be called a Jewish woman.
Speaker 1: But Silverman is just a pro Palestinian activist because Israel
Speaker 1: is a home for homeland for all Jews except for
Speaker 1: the ones who support Palestine.
Speaker 2: Also, just the just a harp on this like not
Speaker 2: enough proof thing. Literally, like nine people that are like, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm Jewish can go on birthright, Yeah you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. Like it's so fucking easy for a lot
Speaker 2: of like Jewish people in no matter if it's cultural
Speaker 2: or whatever, to go on fucking birthright. It's not even anyway.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is just clearly just yeah backwards and
Speaker 2: not what they say it is.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, no, totally like yeah, if she had
Speaker 1: shown it wanted to be like, hey, I anyway, whatever, Okay.
Speaker 1: A month after Tristan was shot, a thirty year old
Speaker 1: Palestinian man named Bessim Abu Rame was killed by a
Speaker 1: soldier who shot a tear gas canister into his chest
Speaker 1: at a short range. In just the first half of
Speaker 1: this year, Israel has killed one hundred and twelve Palestinians.
Speaker 1: Palestine only has five million people total. This is like
Speaker 1: if some foreign country killed seven four hundred Americans in
Speaker 1: the first half of this year.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you making that comparison, because year after year
Speaker 2: they kill hundreds of people and I don't know, the
Speaker 2: world just goes on obviously, Yeah, but I don't know.
Speaker 2: And the things you're mentioning, it's it's not like an
Speaker 2: isolated occurrence to like fire someone at close range or
Speaker 2: like yeah literally shoot like a sniper shooting a reporter
Speaker 2: in the head. Yeah, that has press tracket on or whatever.
Speaker 2: I think it's completely it's just vile. Yeah, it's vile
Speaker 2: and normalized And I always plug this movie, and even
Speaker 2: though it's been a while since it's come out, I
Speaker 2: think it's a good example of just like how just
Speaker 2: what's the word I'm looking for? Like vile is not
Speaker 2: the the like evil enough to describe it. But Gaza
Speaker 2: Fights for Freedom is a film by activist Abby Martin
Speaker 2: and it's shot by cinematographers in Gaza or just like
Speaker 2: people that have cameras in Gaza, and like they put
Speaker 2: the footas together and you see IDF soldiers do heinous
Speaker 2: things like like it's like they're playing a video game,
Speaker 2: Like they shoot at someone and they're like, oh, I
Speaker 2: got them, Like yeah, they're like cheering and their whatever,
Speaker 2: and they're they're children, Like it's a lot of them
Speaker 2: are like the majority Palestinians at least in Gaza are children. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like it's they're like below the age of like eighteen
Speaker 2: or something. So as we're talking talking about the stuff
Speaker 2: and you're hearing like they fired at your dad at
Speaker 2: close range or whatever. These are not icoate ad incident
Speaker 2: of anything. They're just like so normalized and unpunished that
Speaker 2: they just continue to happen totally, and it it just
Speaker 2: makes me so furious because I don't know, I'm someone
Speaker 2: I have a really hard time reading about Middle Eastern
Speaker 2: news personally like it used to, like I just especially
Speaker 2: after like the Syrian civil I didn't want to call
Speaker 2: it a civil war. It's like a fucking massacre. But
Speaker 2: it's like seeing photos of like children like that look
Speaker 2: like my cousins are like me. Not that they have
Speaker 2: to look like me, but it just like really fucked
Speaker 2: me up. Yeah, and it should fuck everyone up, is
Speaker 2: my thing. I would be fucked up just point blank
Speaker 2: with any kind like you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 2: it's not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you weren't like, oh whatever. I don't care about
Speaker 1: the Irish people when I was telling the Irish part
Speaker 1: of the story, yeah, like yeah, it's humans.
Speaker 2: But I think similar to like I think the vast
Speaker 2: majority of the world is accustomed to seeing certain types
Speaker 2: of people be killed on camera or have violence done
Speaker 2: against them, or the ways bring them on their dead
Speaker 2: bodies on shore, whatever it is. There, there's just like
Speaker 2: people of color, like specifically I'm talking about like black
Speaker 2: Americans and like Arabs and like anyone else that's like
Speaker 2: marginalized and like darker skinned. We're just so used to
Speaker 2: seeing them suffer, and it makes me so mad because
Speaker 2: it's the way it's normalized is just so evil. I
Speaker 2: don't know, there's there's no I don't have the vocabulary
Speaker 2: to actually explain just how angry I am. But I
Speaker 2: don't know, I don't know. I'm also say I'm gonna cry.
Speaker 1: No, I'm I agree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just makes me mad. Everything makes me mad. And
Speaker 2: Israel is the fucking just the stupidest excuse for or
Speaker 2: I don't know, any kind of quote unquote democracy like
Speaker 2: or whatever they want to call it. It's just like this,
Speaker 2: just like our police, like they're all held accountable for anything,
Speaker 2: and they're not gonna stop until someone does something, and
Speaker 2: they probably won't. And so it's just like you have
Speaker 2: these Palestinians that like literally are like you don't have
Speaker 2: PTSD is something that like, oh, it can happen to
Speaker 2: you sometimes if like you are taken out of the
Speaker 2: context that you gave you that PTSD. They did a
Speaker 2: study and I'm misquoting it probably, but like the vast
Speaker 2: majority of Palestinian children are stuck in the state of
Speaker 2: PTSD because they're just used to the terror and yeah
Speaker 2: and violence that they have always known. And will only
Speaker 2: probably ever know and in their lifetime. And that makes
Speaker 2: me really fucking upset, because yeah, because it just should
Speaker 2: and whatever. Okay, I'm done. I'm really sorry.
Speaker 1: No, I literally why. I'm glad you're the guest.
Speaker 2: I'm not sweaty now me and I'm also sweaty because
Speaker 2: it's hot, that's the only reason. But I'm just angry
Speaker 2: and sweaty, and it's really easy for me to feel helpless.
Speaker 2: I think it's probably the same for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, what can we do? And I think
Speaker 2: like you talking about it is making a difference, Like
Speaker 2: me having episodes that I could happen here is helping
Speaker 2: people be aware just how not okay it is or
Speaker 2: just how the media has presented it to be in
Speaker 2: a different way. I think that is a great starting point.
Speaker 2: And with time, over these like decades, I guess, or
Speaker 2: even just like the past like ten years, it has
Speaker 2: become more acceptable to vocally support Palestine. It hasn't become
Speaker 2: like great, but it's become more acceptable to even like
Speaker 2: broach that subject when it comes to like celebrities and stuff.
Speaker 2: And I think that's a little baby step that makes
Speaker 2: me hopeful and we're so off topic now, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: I'm just mad. I mean, I think about, Okay, I
Speaker 1: think about how it was eight hundred or nine hundred
Speaker 1: years after the first time that England colonized Ireland, before
Speaker 1: Ireland won something like independence, and Ireland is still fighting
Speaker 1: for independence, right, coming on a thousand years into colonization.
Speaker 1: And it gives me hope for the indigenous communities of
Speaker 1: North America who are also living in a settler state.
Speaker 1: The United States is a settler state. It gives me
Speaker 1: hope that decolonization is possible. And I think thinking about
Speaker 1: it's like they want to normalize stuff, and denormalizing it,
Speaker 1: I think is so important. And I think that what happens, yeah,
Speaker 1: what happens to the Palestinian people is normalized, and we
Speaker 1: need to stop that, you know, and like not to
Speaker 1: be like, oh, don't worry another eight hundred years. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I know what you're saying, but like, but it is
Speaker 1: a it isn't.
Speaker 2: A sliver of hope. No, you're right, it's it's yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the last thing I'll say before you continue,
Speaker 2: and I will let you continue, I swear, but we
Speaker 2: talk about shame, right and how hunger strikes are supposed
Speaker 2: to will the captors or the the oppressors into feeling
Speaker 2: so shameful that they change what they're doing. I think,
Speaker 2: especially now with all the videos and cameras and iPhone
Speaker 2: footage and everything else that's accessible that like actually portray
Speaker 2: the IDF doing disgusting things, they don't have any shame.
Speaker 2: They're past that. I really think there are some are,
Speaker 2: So go ahead, sorry.
Speaker 1: I feel shame. No, sorry, I'm sorry, I'm totally interrupting you.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, I was kind of just sorry to ramble.
Speaker 2: I think there's there're an example of a body that
Speaker 2: has held so has been not held accountable at all
Speaker 2: to the point where like shame is not even even
Speaker 2: crosses their mind. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: No, totally, But and I think that it's like it's
Speaker 1: less that the person will feel shame and more that
Speaker 1: they will be shamed, right, yes, yeah. And actually, to
Speaker 1: bring it back to the last example, the last hunger
Speaker 1: striker I'm gona talk about is actually the reason I
Speaker 1: did this whole fucking Okay, yeah, week's episode, and it's
Speaker 1: going to come back to this. I apologize, No, no,
Speaker 1: I don't. There's a man named a Kadira Non and
Speaker 1: he was a militant Palestinian activist. He was born in
Speaker 1: the West Bank, where he owned a bakery and a
Speaker 1: produce store. In the early two thousands, he served as
Speaker 1: the spokesperson for a group called the Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Speaker 1: the PIJ. This is one of the most militant Palestinian
Speaker 1: liberal liberation organizations, and so he's conflated with them for
Speaker 1: some good reason and some other reasons we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about that are not good. So I'll talk about
Speaker 1: them really quickly, and if you have more context on them,
Speaker 1: please inform me. But Palestinian Islamic Jahad is fighting not
Speaker 1: for a two state solution, but for the return of
Speaker 1: Palestine and the end of the State of Israel to
Speaker 1: how it was before nineteen forty eight. Quote one of
Speaker 1: their founders quote, I will never under any conditions except
Speaker 1: the existence of the State of Israel. I have no
Speaker 1: problem living with Jewish people. We have lived together in
Speaker 1: peace for centuries. However, the PIJ uses suicide bombs against
Speaker 1: civilians as part of their tactics to achieve that if
Speaker 1: there's an organization in Palestine that might earn the label terrorist.
Speaker 1: It is likely the PIJ. That is my impression from
Speaker 1: my reading of this. Kadir Adnan left the PIJ, at
Speaker 1: least according to his wife, and this is not contradicted
Speaker 1: successfully anywhere that I've seen. He left in two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven, so sixteen years ago. He was arrested again
Speaker 1: and again without charges or trial for his affiliation with
Speaker 1: the PIJ. One thing about arresting people without charges or evidence.
Speaker 1: It sure makes it hard to prove to the world
Speaker 1: that your arrests are justified, since your whole thing is
Speaker 1: that you don't bother justifying it. So Israel's like, oh,
Speaker 1: he arrest him because with the PIJ, they do not
Speaker 1: present evidence that he was part of the PIJ, post
Speaker 1: his choosing to leave it around two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: He was never charged with any attacks by Israel, and
Speaker 1: he was a member of the Palestinian Reconciliation Committee. Israel
Speaker 1: never bothered trying to find out if he'd done anything illegal.
Speaker 1: They would just arrest him again and again. At the
Speaker 1: start of twenty twenty three, he was on his twelfth
Speaker 1: arrest by Israel and his fifth hunger strike. His longest
Speaker 1: had been in twenty fifteen, when he was protesting his
Speaker 1: evidence less arrest, and that time his strike won him
Speaker 1: his freedom and an incredible amount of international attention from
Speaker 1: human rights groups. And so this is that kind of
Speaker 1: like Israel didn't feel any shame about this. They just
Speaker 1: wanted a fucking jail, right, But enough people were able
Speaker 1: to be like, what are you doing? And actually a
Speaker 1: lot of it. One of the articles I read basically
Speaker 1: was like Israel was afraid he'd become a Gandhi. Right,
Speaker 1: Israel was afraid he would become like the center of
Speaker 1: a I mean, the center of a non violence resistant
Speaker 1: movement that gains power and infendance. Like that's what they
Speaker 1: were afraid of. And so he won his freedom, but
Speaker 1: he continued to get arrested and continued to hunger strike
Speaker 1: over and over again because they just like see him
Speaker 1: and they'd be like, aha, they're come here, and you're
Speaker 1: fucking under arrest, you know. In February of this year,
Speaker 1: he was picked up again. He al most immediately started
Speaker 1: a hunger strike. He went without food for eighty seven days,
Speaker 1: and on May second, twenty twenty three, he died. He
Speaker 1: was forty five years old and he was a father
Speaker 1: of nine. His wife Ronda agh Non, I pronounced that wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Ronda Non begged military not to launch any
Speaker 1: attacks in his name that would go against his spirit
Speaker 1: of non violent struggle. His death was met with a
Speaker 1: general strike in Palestine, again nice reminiscent of what happened
Speaker 1: during Bloody Sunday in Ireland as well. It was also
Speaker 1: met by munitions fired towards Israel. I believe it was
Speaker 1: like two rocket strikes and a mortar strike. This wounded
Speaker 1: three construction workers. Those rocket attacks, which were not nice,
Speaker 1: killed no one, and they were met with fighter jets
Speaker 1: bombing Gaza, killing thirteen people. And I think three wounded
Speaker 1: for thirteen dead is about the ratio. To understand the
Speaker 1: scale of violence between these two organizations. Right, most Western media,
Speaker 1: like literally, until I got deeper into it, every single
Speaker 1: article I read just referred to him as affiliated with
Speaker 1: the PIJ because he was the spokesperson for them sixteen
Speaker 1: years ago. And yeah, a reporter named Muhammad al Kik
Speaker 1: was held in twenty fifteen without trial or charges, and
Speaker 1: he hunger strike for ninety four days to gain his release.
Speaker 1: I think he lasted ninet four days because I think
Speaker 1: he was saying glucose water. I had this moment where
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, what, I've never read any anyway,
Speaker 1: only to be arrested once more in twenty seventeen. He
Speaker 1: is alive right now, he's survived. He was accused of
Speaker 1: working for Hamas, which not trying to specifically go to
Speaker 1: bat for Hamas. They're just a political party. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: were the majority. They were in charge for a long time.
Speaker 1: I think they're not currently in charge. I think Fatah's
Speaker 1: in charge right now. But so they accused him of
Speaker 1: being affiliated with the majority party of Palestinian politics. They
Speaker 1: didn't bother bringing any evidence against him that he was
Speaker 1: related to them. But Israel doesn't bother with legal proceedings,
Speaker 1: and the world is silent on Palestine. Western progressive are
Speaker 1: afraid it's too messy. Freedom fighters aren't always like cool
Speaker 1: socialists in Palestine. Although if you want, there's an Israeli
Speaker 1: group Anarchists against the Wall, that takes direct actions support
Speaker 1: a Palestinian struggle. So you just listen to the anarchists
Speaker 1: in that area, listen to what they have to say.
Speaker 1: Just support Palestine being opposed to Israeli's apartheid state is
Speaker 1: not anti Semitism. The people who claim that it is
Speaker 1: are trying to cover crimes against humanity. You don't have
Speaker 1: to support the actions of every rebel in order to
Speaker 1: support the underlying cause. And although plenty of people use
Speaker 1: their support, plenty of people do use their support of
Speaker 1: Palestine to mask anti Semitism. That is an actual thing,
Speaker 1: that is an actual problem, and those people's anti semitism
Speaker 1: should be opposed. They are distinct things. You can be
Speaker 1: against the IRA's love for car bombs and desire United Ireland.
Speaker 1: You can be against suicide bombings and support Palestinian independence.
Speaker 1: It's not that hard to be ethically consistent. Oppression is bad.
Speaker 1: Settler states are generally bad. Targeting civilians bad. There you go, right,
Speaker 1: People whose backs are against the wall will look for
Speaker 1: whatever weapons are available. Sometimes those weapons are hunger strikes.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people starve to death on the king's threshold, not
Speaker 1: to change the king's mind, but to curse his memory.
Speaker 1: And please don't go watering down this tactic by like
Speaker 1: deciding your hunger striking for the end of capitalism or something.
Speaker 1: Hunger strikes are specific tools used by people in specific situations. Thanks,
Speaker 1: that's my end rant.
Speaker 2: That was worded really well. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Thanks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think I was thinking about, well, you
Speaker 2: don't need anything for a hunger strike, I think is
Speaker 2: what is important to remember. Like when a prisoner has
Speaker 2: no other recourse and literally nothing else to protest with
Speaker 2: but their body, that's when that comes in. I think,
Speaker 2: because like this is my last attempt to I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think it's actually a really scary, sad thing to
Speaker 2: have to come to that point, and that just shows
Speaker 2: you how how much that cause is important and necessary.
Speaker 3: You know what.
Speaker 2: I mean that I could push someone to that place,
Speaker 2: and I think it's it's it's what you said was
Speaker 2: really important about you don't have to support every rebel
Speaker 2: to support the underlying cause. I think it's really important
Speaker 2: to remember. I think remembering that anti Zionism is not
Speaker 2: anti Semitism. It's really important to remember. And yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't know, this was a I hope this was ago.
Speaker 2: He's an episode minus my my tangents. But I think
Speaker 2: all of my tangents are just me trying to to
Speaker 2: relay that what's happening in Palestine is not okay. I
Speaker 2: personally don't even like to call it Israel. Maybe that
Speaker 2: is like a hot take. I don't know if I care.
Speaker 2: It's Palestine, wilwas be Palestine, and I think no one
Speaker 2: is not okay and making sure everyone else knows it's
Speaker 2: not okay. I think it's the bare minimum that anyone
Speaker 2: should do, and regardless of what you think, there should
Speaker 2: be no excuse or justification for I know this doesn't
Speaker 2: mean anything, but like all the crimes against humanity and
Speaker 2: like literal ethnic cleansing and genocide and massacres that have
Speaker 2: and I don't think there's anything that can justify that,
Speaker 2: and there shouldn't be in anyone's mind if there is,
Speaker 2: that sounds like a you problem, examply yourself. I don't know,
Speaker 2: go to therapy, but you know what I mean. I
Speaker 2: appreciate you doing this episode and having me on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks, thanks for being on. I've wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about some of these issues for a long time, and
Speaker 1: I haven't. I mean, honestly, I've been nervous to it
Speaker 1: right because I'm like, because one, I want to do
Speaker 1: it right, and also because it's a thing that like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember when I was first getting into politics,
Speaker 1: you know, as nineteen or something, and I believed what
Speaker 1: I had been told which was, oh, it's messy, You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: both sides, I don't know, you know, was like what
Speaker 1: I had grown up with, and meeting people who were
Speaker 1: able to like sit me down and be like, it's
Speaker 1: not a samey, samey. You know, there are things that
Speaker 1: both sides are doing are bad and they don't compare,
Speaker 1: and comparing them serves a specific narrative, and I really
Speaker 1: appreciate the people who took the time to talk to
Speaker 1: me about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a depressor and the oppressed. At the end
Speaker 2: of the day, there's nothing but those can never.
Speaker 1: Be equated in my opinion. So yeah, but yeah, I think.
Speaker 2: Hopefully this was educational for people, and I appreciate that
Speaker 2: you want to talk about it. I mean, I understand
Speaker 2: that it's nerve wracking because it's it is for me
Speaker 2: too every time I talk about it. Not every time,
Speaker 2: but there's always backlash when I criticize I and as
Speaker 2: something particular or the state of Israel. Already think I
Speaker 2: do have this bit I used to do, not recently
Speaker 2: on Twitter, but I used to just like make fun
Speaker 2: of the IDF because I would quote tweet them and
Speaker 2: just like make fun of them. And that was really
Speaker 2: fun for me. But I got that. I got yeah,
Speaker 2: just like they have the dumbest, most like lying tweets
Speaker 2: of like this person and this Palestinian kid is shaking
Speaker 2: the hands of an IDF soldier and I'm like, that's no.
Speaker 2: Uh so every once in a while I would do that.
Speaker 2: But I actually don't have an end to the sentence.
Speaker 2: I don't even know how it started. But I appreciate you,
Speaker 2: and I will stop talking now.
Speaker 1: All right, well, but now I'm about to ask you
Speaker 1: a question.
Speaker 2: Oh no, okay, where.
Speaker 1: Can people find you? Oh hear more of your hot
Speaker 1: takes or podcast stuff?
Speaker 2: Maybe this will motivate me to go drag the IDF
Speaker 2: Twitter again. But my Twitter is a Shiro Hero sixty
Speaker 2: sixty six and my Instagram is shiro Hero. Yeah, fuck
Speaker 2: the IDF and fuck Israel and all the good stuff.
Speaker 2: I think there are plenty of resources and videos in
Speaker 2: particular that you can watch if you do want to
Speaker 2: learn more about what the IDEF is doing, or like
Speaker 2: how exactly like like western like American and European settlers
Speaker 2: literally just like take a Palestinian families home and that
Speaker 2: they're just like from fucking New York or some shit
Speaker 2: and they have the ability to do that versus like
Speaker 2: I have palaestin your friends that their families literally cannot
Speaker 2: go back there. And I think as you learn more
Speaker 2: about Palestine, if you choose to which I encourage you
Speaker 2: to do, you'll realize just how deep and it's insidious
Speaker 2: it is. And maybe that'll make you angry enough like
Speaker 2: it does to me, to just like not shut up
Speaker 2: about it. Uh. So that's where you can find me,
Speaker 2: and I will be motivated now to go drag the IDF.
Speaker 2: So stay tuned for that excellent.
Speaker 1: Uh. If you want to argue with me about my day,
Speaker 1: I'll be at the Anarchist Book Fair in Asheville, North Carolina,
Speaker 1: and I won't engage because I don't want to argue
Speaker 1: about it. I actually really dislike arguing about politics with
Speaker 1: people because usually we don't change each other's minds. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense, but it is From August eleventh, thirteenth,
Speaker 1: I want to say, you'd think i'd know. In Asheville,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, I will be presenting a lecture called a
Speaker 1: Halfway Concise History of Anarchism. I will be playing as
Speaker 1: Nomadic war machine. If you want to hear my band
Speaker 1: Nomadic war Machine. It's Nomadicwarmachine dot bandcamp dot com. And
Speaker 1: if you want to hear these episodes where instead of
Speaker 1: cutting to ads, it's just weird, awkward ad transitions and
Speaker 1: then us immediately coming back, it's like the best of
Speaker 1: both worlds. It's Cooler Zone Media and you can subscribe
Speaker 1: to it on Apple Podcasts and eventually you'll be able
Speaker 1: to subscribe to it on Android. See you next week.
Speaker 3: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
Speaker 3: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 3: visit our website Coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out
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