Speaker 1: All media, Welcome back to It could Happen Here. This
Speaker 1: is a daily news podcast about all of the things
Speaker 1: happening here, which is wherever you happen to be, and
Speaker 1: also the world in general. And today we are going
Speaker 1: back to talk about Gaza, particularly what has happened and
Speaker 1: changed in sort of US policy relating to Gaza, to
Speaker 1: what's going to happen as the actual combat operations wind down,
Speaker 1: to the Trump administration's so far promises to effectively ethnically
Speaker 1: cleanse the entire area and turn it into some sort
Speaker 1: of weird US satellite. And with me today is Donna
Speaker 1: el Kurd, An assistant professor of political science, guest on
Speaker 1: our episodes about Bibi n Yahoo over It, Behind the Bastards, Danna,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here with us. How
Speaker 1: are you doing today? I know that's a dumb question.
Speaker 1: I just asked you that at the start of this too.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for having me. I think every Palestinian
Speaker 2: in the world is not doing great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, again, like I said, a dumb question.
Speaker 3: The short story of what is happening is that Trump
Speaker 3: made an unprecedented announcement about a week ago on stage
Speaker 3: with Netan Yahoo that Gazo would be that, like the
Speaker 3: Palestinian population would be forced out and not allowed to return,
Speaker 3: and it would be turned into effectively American condos, right, Like,
Speaker 3: that's essentially I think that's essentially the gist of the
Speaker 3: initial meeting, which was met with a degree of chaos
Speaker 3: even from Israel, because I don't think anyone entirely knew
Speaker 3: exactly what Trump was going to say when he got
Speaker 3: up on that stage, which is pretty normal Trump fashion.
Speaker 3: But yeah, how would you characterize kind of the initial
Speaker 3: reaction to that announcement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a couple of different audiences for that announcement
Speaker 2: to begin with. For the Israeli side, I mean, what
Speaker 2: I'm hearing from analysts and people who follow Israeli politics
Speaker 2: is that this has really changed the permission structure for them.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think you're right that didn't expect something to this degree,
Speaker 2: But now that it's been said, it's like that is
Speaker 2: the full extent of what we can expect to do, right,
Speaker 2: And so I don't think a lot of people are thinking.
Speaker 4: Like, for real, there's going to be a Gaza riviera.
Speaker 2: But what this does is it just expands the scope
Speaker 2: of what they think is possible for Gaza, whether it's
Speaker 2: preventing reconstruction and you know, basically keeping them in this
Speaker 2: kind of stagnant condition and allowing people to start trickling
Speaker 2: out and leaving, and anybody left is considered combatant. That
Speaker 2: could be a possibility moving forward. It could cover up
Speaker 2: for more aggressive action ending the ceasefire. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: really upended the things in terms of the Israeli perspective. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and how much they've accepted it, I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I mean my interpretation would be that Trump's
Speaker 3: literal words leave the door open to everything from like
Speaker 3: you said, sort of slowly waiting for people to trickle
Speaker 3: out and not letting them back in kind of like
Speaker 3: what you saw in the Chagos Islands or outright mass killing,
Speaker 3: you know, like there's no closed doors and Trump's plan.
Speaker 3: Other than about three hours before we recorded this on
Speaker 3: Monday the tenth, a series of articles went out based
Speaker 3: on some of Trump's comments, confirming Palestinians wouldn't be allowed
Speaker 3: back into Gaza under his plan. Right, the plan is
Speaker 3: for ethnic cleansing, right, Like that's the only way to
Speaker 3: describe that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's very explicit, and I think that the
Speaker 2: way in which American allies, allied regimes in the region
Speaker 2: have reacted to this like shows a great deal of alarm. Obviously,
Speaker 2: Jordan and Egypt, already struggling as it is with a
Speaker 2: variety of issues, don't want a bunch of Palestinians who
Speaker 2: are very politically active to be absorbed into their population.
Speaker 2: The Saudi government, you know, put out I would say,
Speaker 2: like a pretty strong statement. I mean, I I was
Speaker 2: surprised how strong it was, about how much they do
Speaker 2: not endorse such a plan.
Speaker 3: So yeah, And it's interesting because Trump, in the way
Speaker 3: that he often just like says shit has I'm going
Speaker 3: to read the exact quote. I'm talking about starting to
Speaker 3: build and I think I could make a deal with Jordan.
Speaker 3: I think I can make a deal with Egypt. You know,
Speaker 3: we give them billions and billions of dollars a year,
Speaker 3: and so far Egypt and Jordan have both said, no,
Speaker 3: this is not something we're interested you. And Special Rapporteur
Speaker 3: Francesca Albanize said Trump's proposal was nonsense but has to
Speaker 3: be taken very seriously, which I actually think is a
Speaker 3: reasonably good summary of how to handle everything that he says.
Speaker 3: It's nonsense that you have to take it very seriously.
Speaker 2: I mean, the man has the nukes, as we've discussed,
Speaker 2: so yeah, I mean the way that people have reacted
Speaker 2: is obviously a great deal of alarm. And on the
Speaker 2: Palestinian side, it's like Palestinian different Palastinian political actors are
Speaker 2: bracing for, Yeah, the end of the ceasefire essentially.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that's pretty stark term to put it.
Speaker 3: And I don't know, I guess because yeah, one thing
Speaker 3: that the door is open on Israel saying well, now
Speaker 3: that we've announced this plan and people have to get out,
Speaker 3: everyone's staying is effectively a combatant exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that that's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not you know, what we've seen over the
Speaker 2: past four hundred and seventy days up to cease fire
Speaker 2: is not that they have much respect for non combatants
Speaker 2: to begin with. Yeah, that really didn't stop them from
Speaker 2: targeting civilians, targeting children. So you can imagine now that
Speaker 2: even I mean it's hard to even talk about it
Speaker 2: in these terms. It's not like the Bide administration was
Speaker 2: really holding them accountable either. But now again, because the
Speaker 2: permission structure has just been expanded to such a degree
Speaker 2: that we don't know what kinds of things we're going
Speaker 2: to see for people who remain in Gaza in the
Speaker 2: coming future. And obviously this derails any possibility for Palestinian
Speaker 2: and Israeli civil society actors who are trying.
Speaker 4: To move beyond this particular status quo.
Speaker 2: And there's no international actor that's really empowering those efforts,
Speaker 2: and so it's really bleak.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's bleak in so many comprehensive ways.
Speaker 3: Like one thing, and not to I don't mean to
Speaker 3: like kind of take the focus off of Gaza, but
Speaker 3: this is you use the term permission structure on an
Speaker 3: international level, the US saying we are backing a forced
Speaker 3: expulsion in genocide of an entire population does change the
Speaker 3: permission structure for every international actor in terms of like
Speaker 3: a massive variety of conflicts around the world, Like this
Speaker 3: is like a sea change in international norms that so
Speaker 3: many millions of people outside of Gaza will eventually and
Speaker 3: there probably immediately be effective.
Speaker 2: By I mean, I think that there has always been
Speaker 2: gaps in what is acceptable and what is permissible under
Speaker 2: international law. Obviously that has never been applied evenly. And
Speaker 2: then if you were a particular group that didn't have
Speaker 2: American backings. For example, the Armenians in Artsa, it didn't
Speaker 2: matter if you were ethnically cleansed. But like you said,
Speaker 2: this just expands it to such a scope like now
Speaker 2: this is an acceptable policy solution to remove wholesale, huge populations.
Speaker 2: And when the ceasefire happened, there was an argument, and
Speaker 2: I think that this is a valid one that Palestinians
Speaker 2: the fact that they were able to in the ceasefire
Speaker 2: agreement secure their right to return even to the rubble,
Speaker 2: that was a huge obstacle to this kind of precedent,
Speaker 2: and I think Trump is now try to upend that victory,
Speaker 2: even if it's you know, in terms of a precedent
Speaker 2: set or in symbolic terms, like you said, this is
Speaker 2: now going to become how states operate. I mean, the
Speaker 2: Syrian dictator during the Syrian Civil War I think pushed.
Speaker 4: The bounds of how states can operate. And this is
Speaker 4: another level.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, and I think that this is an I
Speaker 3: want to kind of zero back in on Gaza in
Speaker 3: a second, but I really do. I think that that
Speaker 3: broader point that you just make can't be made enough,
Speaker 3: not just the centrality of Syria, but the idea that
Speaker 3: when on the international stage, the leader of a country
Speaker 3: is allowed to do force displacements through massive aerial bombing.
Speaker 3: Like there's this idea that you can just be like, well,
Speaker 3: that's just Syria, Right, It's never just Syria, just like
Speaker 3: it's never just Gaza. You know, these things metastasize. You
Speaker 3: have to view that those kind of actions in the
Speaker 3: international stage like a cancer.
Speaker 5: Right. No.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: There was a Syrian activist and political writer, Yasinharsala, who
Speaker 2: said the Syrianization of the world. Yeah, and we're seeing
Speaker 2: the gasification of the world. We will see the gassification
Speaker 2: of the word. Yeah, and that's very, very dangerous for
Speaker 2: everybody involved.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that can't be overstated. A chill kind of goes
Speaker 3: down my spine thinking about that and thinking about that quote,
Speaker 3: which makes this a very bad time to throw to ads.
Speaker 3: But that's what I'm going to do. Then we're going
Speaker 3: to come back and we're going to talk about b mining.
Speaker 3: We're back so to zero Beckon on Gaza. Obviously, one
Speaker 3: thing that comes up when Trump talks about this plan
Speaker 3: that is an actual thing that would have to be
Speaker 3: dealt with one way or the other. Is that huge
Speaker 3: chunks of Gaza are uninhabitable right now and will be
Speaker 3: for the foreseeable future because of the sheer quantity of
Speaker 3: munitions dispensed. A number of munitions that have been used
Speaker 3: in Gaza are cluster munitions, but even munitions that are
Speaker 3: not cluster munitions, when you're dropping bombs on particularly dense
Speaker 3: urban targets, there's a wide variety of things that can
Speaker 3: happen to those munitions on their way to their target,
Speaker 3: including them getting deflected by debris, them getting deflected by
Speaker 3: pieces of metal and rebar and the like that damages
Speaker 3: the device and stops it from detonating, but leaves it
Speaker 3: still in an active state. And the estimate I'm seeing
Speaker 3: for munitions used in Gaza is about ten percent of
Speaker 3: the munitions, and there's no way of knowing how many
Speaker 3: have been dropped, but estimates are at least thirty thousand
Speaker 3: and the first seventy days I think, yeah, seven weeks, sorry,
Speaker 3: much less than seventy days. Nearly thirty thousand munitions in
Speaker 3: the first seven weeks of the war, so a huge number,
Speaker 3: about ten percent at least, are still active and live.
Speaker 3: And you know, for an idea of how long it
Speaker 3: takes to d mine and render an area safe for
Speaker 3: munitions like this. There are still people who die in
Speaker 3: France from World World War One munitions, you know, up
Speaker 3: to the present day in twenty twenty five. So this
Speaker 3: is a massive problem. In the best case scenario, something
Speaker 3: has to be done with these munitions. This is something
Speaker 3: that Trump has been bringing up and when talking about
Speaker 3: like his desire to clear people out of their d
Speaker 3: mine and then rebuild effectively what sounds almost like a
Speaker 3: vacation colony right for the United States. And one of
Speaker 3: the issues just with any sort of practical sort of
Speaker 3: effect with D mining is that USAID has been gutted
Speaker 3: as an agency, and that's the agency through which D
Speaker 3: mining was done. We've spent billions of dollars, put billions
Speaker 3: of dollars into d mining around the world through USAYED.
Speaker 3: The US military is actually not allowed by our laws
Speaker 3: to do d mining operations. There's a complicated history there.
Speaker 3: But like so, we both got this situation where the
Speaker 3: proposed justification for pushing the population out is well, it's
Speaker 3: not safe to be there, we have to determine it.
Speaker 3: And also we have created a situation in which the
Speaker 3: organizations that do d mining can't do it anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think those same organizations asked for like
Speaker 2: an exception to the stop work order and were denied
Speaker 2: by the State Department. And yep, no, you know, no
Speaker 2: explanations were given. And so I mean it's it's obviously
Speaker 2: a fig leaf. Yeah, it's obviously an excuse like this
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with bettering conditions in Gaza. And
Speaker 2: I the fact that he's gone back and clarified and
Speaker 2: has been asked the number of times, including last night
Speaker 2: after the Super Bowl or something, and he said no, no,
Speaker 2: they won't be allowed to return. Yeah, well, all right,
Speaker 2: what are you doing mining? You really think you're going
Speaker 2: to build hotels?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: My understanding is like people in the administration were also
Speaker 2: surprised by this tack of reasoning. So I wonder who's
Speaker 2: fed him this idea, Like, who's given him this idea
Speaker 2: that he's going to be able to build hotels?
Speaker 3: Here my understanding, based on reading, I don't have any
Speaker 3: inns in the Trump administration, but the reporting I've seen
Speaker 3: suggested came from Kushner that like a year or so ago.
Speaker 4: He was talking he's been talking about this like this.
Speaker 3: Is great, you know, a great place to build a condo.
Speaker 3: It's beautiful, you know, wonderful weather. I mean, we know
Speaker 3: just from the past. That is kind of how Trump
Speaker 3: works is somebody people tell him a lot of shit,
Speaker 3: but something sticks in his brain and that, like with
Speaker 3: the Greenland, shit can become US policy, and that appears
Speaker 3: to be I mean, as best as I can tell,
Speaker 3: that's the origin of this.
Speaker 2: It's just like the grift can really stick in his mind.
Speaker 2: He's really good at holding onto possibilities for grifting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the fact that you are doing a genocide in
Speaker 3: order to clear land for condos doesn't make it less
Speaker 3: of a genocide, but it is like a justification for genocide.
Speaker 3: I don't think i've heard a country's leader make before, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, parts of this are familiar and go back,
Speaker 3: you know, even to the Iraq War in terms of
Speaker 3: US Paul and further back right, like what is kind
Speaker 3: of the core of US support of Israel as our
Speaker 3: desire to have a stable territory within the Middle East
Speaker 3: from where we can project power, right, so to that extent,
Speaker 3: this is like a natural expression of US policy for
Speaker 3: decades in the area. Like, well, what if we just
Speaker 3: take this for ourselves, and then we have this stable
Speaker 3: platform from where we can airstrike whoever the hell we want.
Speaker 3: And also Jared Kushner can have his condos.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean the thing is they can, they can achieve
Speaker 2: and have already been able to maintain American hegemony with
Speaker 2: all sorts of bases across the Middle East some secrets,
Speaker 2: I'm not, Yeah, cultar like it's it's this is I
Speaker 2: think this is another level where it's like American and
Speaker 2: geminy is tangential to Jared Kushner making money. It's an
Speaker 2: interesting little I've never seen a hedgemon kind of shoot
Speaker 2: itself in the foot in this direction to this degree.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't want the focus to be on like
Speaker 3: the danger to Americans from this, but this is extremely
Speaker 3: dangerous for Americans too, right, Like having your country openly
Speaker 3: back a genocide to this extent, like not just even
Speaker 3: arming it, but saying like we are specifically going to build,
Speaker 3: like take this land and profit off of it. Is
Speaker 3: such as it's so comprehensively escalates everything on an international scale.
Speaker 3: Like I don't even I can't even I can't think
Speaker 3: of a single decision that's this reckless that's been made
Speaker 3: in my lifetime by American politicians other than the Iraq
Speaker 3: War right.
Speaker 2: And that was I think maybe the first nail in
Speaker 2: the confine, and we're reaching the last nails in the coffin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well the coffin's almost done.
Speaker 4: It's almost done.
Speaker 2: We're dismantling the whatever remnants of the international order used
Speaker 2: to exist, and it's really going to be a free fall.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know what more to say on that.
Speaker 3: I guess kind of one thing we should get into
Speaker 3: is what we're seeing in terms of the Trump administration
Speaker 3: and pro Palestine protests in the United States. Obviously, last
Speaker 3: night at the Super Bowl, we had a moment where
Speaker 3: a member of Kendrick Lamar's the performance crew on the ground.
Speaker 3: I think it was one of his dancers. As far
Speaker 3: as I can tell them, I don't believe the individual
Speaker 3: has been named yet. Maybe I missed that.
Speaker 4: I think somebody has released his name. I took to intercept.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, I don't feel specifically a need to do that.
Speaker 3: But an individual who was a part of that was
Speaker 3: standing on like one of the cars that was on
Speaker 3: stage that Kendrick had been dancing on, unfurled a Palestine
Speaker 3: and Sudan flag. It is a fairly small, like a
Speaker 3: couple of feet wide, couple of feet deep, so like
Speaker 3: not like a mass, certainly not a destructive act, but like,
Speaker 3: not only did that person get like banned for life
Speaker 3: from all sort of NFL events and performing or attending them,
Speaker 3: which I suppose was not super shocking, but there were
Speaker 3: immediate announcements by New Orleans police that they are trying
Speaker 3: to figure out what to charge this person under, which, like,
Speaker 3: I tell me what kind of crime that is, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I mean, it's not like he even invaded the pitch, right,
Speaker 2: like he's it likes to be an actor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he did a thing, I thing that wasn't part
Speaker 3: of the script I assume, but like, I don't know
Speaker 3: how you even charged him. Yeah, I don't think charges
Speaker 3: are out yet, right, but they're going to find something
Speaker 3: to do, which is also going to set a precedent,
Speaker 3: right because this is nothing. This person was not in
Speaker 3: a place they weren't allowed to be. This person didn't
Speaker 3: damage any property they held a thing like that's the
Speaker 3: definition of protect and speech. You know, if you're their employer,
Speaker 3: you can fire them for that, but you can't charge
Speaker 3: them criminally for that.
Speaker 4: I mean, they wanted to make an example.
Speaker 2: They and we'll see what kind of example that they
Speaker 2: try to make out of this person. And it like,
Speaker 2: like you said, it's it's really in line with Trump,
Speaker 2: the Trump administration taking aggressive action against any forms of
Speaker 2: dissent around American foreign policy. That is obviously, as we've mentioned,
Speaker 2: like very tied up with the genocide that unfolded. And
Speaker 2: so it's these executive orders around deporting international students, it's
Speaker 2: executive orders around like expanded understandings of anti semitism and
Speaker 2: the ideas.
Speaker 4: Even if you don't go.
Speaker 2: After everybody, you're making an example enough that like you're
Speaker 2: chilling people's abilities to engage, whether it's on campuses or
Speaker 2: you know, off campuses, and so it's it's definitely I
Speaker 2: can tell you from like the academic perspective, like a
Speaker 2: number of disciplinary organizations and and and like Middle Ease
Speaker 2: Studies Association and things like this, like they're they're very concerned,
Speaker 2: Like this is a very concerning moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to kind of dig into that a
Speaker 3: little bit more, and we'll continue our conversation. I've got
Speaker 3: to throw to ads one last time and then we'll
Speaker 3: be back we're back, Dan, Yeah, we're just talking about
Speaker 3: kind of the chilling effects this has had as an academic.
Speaker 3: Do you want to talk a little bit about what
Speaker 3: you've experienced so far and what you think kind of
Speaker 3: needs to be the response to this attempt to chill
Speaker 3: any kind of protected speech in favor of Palestine or
Speaker 3: not even in favor that's the wrong way to put it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: discussing the reality of the genocide.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's the thing is, like they have
Speaker 2: not they've conflated. Yeah, any any attempt to give information
Speaker 2: with advocacy. Yes, so there's that conflation. But then of
Speaker 2: course advocacy in and of itself is protected. Yes, you're
Speaker 2: certainly allowed to advocate if you're a student or things,
Speaker 2: or you know, a citizen in the world world like,
Speaker 2: of course, So there is that conflation.
Speaker 4: And I will say that we're.
Speaker 2: Seeing attacks on academic freedom, and we're seeing attacks on
Speaker 2: freedom of speech and freedom of assembly on academic campuses,
Speaker 2: both in public institutions that have to uphold public laws
Speaker 2: and also on private institutions that have paid lip service
Speaker 2: to things like free speech and are now ignoring that
Speaker 2: commitment in the past. And so we've seen even tenured professors,
Speaker 2: like what happened in Nihlenberg College, like tenured professors being
Speaker 2: targeted losing their jobs.
Speaker 4: And I can say that.
Speaker 2: This has really activated organizations like the American Association of
Speaker 2: University Professors, the AAUP, the Middle East Studies Association as well.
Speaker 4: Their Committee on Academic Freedom has been.
Speaker 2: Working to collect data on how this has impacted people's
Speaker 2: abilities to engage on the issue of Israel Palstad even
Speaker 2: in their research or teaching. And then there was a
Speaker 2: study by two professors Mark Lynch and Shivy Tadhemi George
Speaker 2: Washington and the University of Maryland, respectively that found something
Speaker 2: like over ninety percent of professors who teach on the
Speaker 2: Middle East.
Speaker 4: Are self censoring Jesus.
Speaker 2: And it's not because they're out in front of the
Speaker 2: classroom giving a crap about giving their opinion. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: can tell you none of us want to change anybody's
Speaker 2: minds about this.
Speaker 4: It's like they're literally just self censoring the content.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like we're just afraid to even address what happened,
Speaker 2: what's happening in a historical context, or you know, teaching
Speaker 2: a course on Israel Palestine or any of those kinds
Speaker 2: of things is now completely under the microscope.
Speaker 3: And this is all part of the whole kind of
Speaker 3: authoritarian chilling effect of any ability to express anything outside
Speaker 3: of like what the regimes can that you live under
Speaker 3: considers acceptable, you know, And it always starts with these well,
Speaker 3: you know, if we talk about Palestine and what's happening there,
Speaker 3: then maybe this department will get, you know, its funding cut,
Speaker 3: and we won't be able to talk about anything. So really,
Speaker 3: this is the same decision a lot of hospitals are
Speaker 3: making around like the treatment for transcripts as well, or
Speaker 3: we'll lose our funding if we do this, and we
Speaker 3: do all these other good things. But they never stop, right, like,
Speaker 3: you never actually are safe. There's no point at which
Speaker 3: these people say it's enough. They take your ability to
Speaker 3: talk about or to act in one way away, and
Speaker 3: then they take it in a way in another, and
Speaker 3: they keep taking, you know, until you make a stand,
Speaker 3: and you might as well make a stand the first
Speaker 3: time they start trying to take shit from you, otherwise
Speaker 3: you're going to get backed even further into a fucking corner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there has to be institutions and leadership at these
Speaker 2: institutions holding a line because this kind of preemptive obedience
Speaker 2: hasn't served them and it's not going to change fundamentally,
Speaker 2: the fact that this administration sees academic knowledge production as
Speaker 2: a political landscape they need to control. And see, I
Speaker 2: mean Jadvan says it like professors.
Speaker 4: Are the enemy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what are you doing trying to placate you know,
Speaker 2: it's like you're just giving them an easier time.
Speaker 3: No, And yeah, through the use of funding and their
Speaker 3: ability to kind of gin up outrage in media, groups
Speaker 3: like APEC have effectively blasted a salient in free speech
Speaker 3: in this country where you really you almost can't talk
Speaker 3: about Palestine and you certainly can't acknowledge what Israel is doing, right,
Speaker 3: you can't say it stayent plane terms like we are
Speaker 3: watching a genocide be at least attempted here, right, And
Speaker 3: if you do that, there are huge consequences to most
Speaker 3: people in traditional organizations, particularly professors, which is always where
Speaker 3: it starts. And yeah, that salient is just going to
Speaker 3: get whiter and whiter and whiter, right like that that's
Speaker 3: the way this stuff works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, this is not a new argument,
Speaker 2: but it's like the ways in which the United States
Speaker 2: has engaged abroad, it's very much boomeranging home, you know.
Speaker 2: And so it's not about, like you said, it's not
Speaker 2: just about Palestine. It's not about people who studied Palestine
Speaker 2: or teach about Israel Palestine.
Speaker 4: It's so much broader than that.
Speaker 2: The precedent that is being set, and what is like
Speaker 2: kind of a silver lining is that the last year
Speaker 2: of the Biden administration, the last year plus of the
Speaker 2: Biden administration, and then even now, I think at least
Speaker 2: it has helped people connect the dots a little bit,
Speaker 2: like this is not an issue in isolation, and just
Speaker 2: because you don't happen to work on it doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that you're safe from people meddling in your syllabi or
Speaker 2: chilling your speech on other issues, whether it's trans rights,
Speaker 2: whether it's you know, reproductive rights, whatever issue. If you
Speaker 2: don't toe the line, they're going to come for you
Speaker 2: to right. And so I think that at least I've
Speaker 2: seen folks who are not who have never been, you know,
Speaker 2: activated on the issue of Israel Palestine, whether in their
Speaker 2: advocacy or in their research, they're making that connection at least,
Speaker 2: and maybe that's a sole role learning that I'm trying
Speaker 2: to be less bleak here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think that's helpful. You know, when I
Speaker 3: think about the hypocrisy of this moment, I think about
Speaker 3: how much of the clamping down on speech, particularly the
Speaker 3: attempt to punish like student protesters in the United States,
Speaker 3: is predicated on accusing them of backing Hamas, right, And
Speaker 3: it's so interesting to me because, like, you know, obviously
Speaker 3: I don't think CAMAS is a good organization, but neither
Speaker 3: is the IRA, and the former President of the United States,
Speaker 3: Joe Biden, made pro IRA statements, right, Like one thing
Speaker 3: is okay and the other is not. I don't know's
Speaker 3: I find it incredibly frustrating that like there's this pretended
Speaker 3: act that like, because you've got some people on one
Speaker 3: side who have made statements in favor of this group,
Speaker 3: that sucks that that is a reason for cracking down
Speaker 3: on the ability of people to talk about a genocide.
Speaker 3: Like it's it's just this hideous hypocrisy that I don't
Speaker 3: even understand how like people can keep that consistent in
Speaker 3: their own heads, but they don't need to write that's
Speaker 3: always the thing with fascist No, there's no need for consistency.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's the thing is like, first
Speaker 2: of all, the conflation that like the entire movement made
Speaker 2: such a statement or you know, I mean obviously that
Speaker 2: that in and of itself is dishonest. And like you said,
Speaker 2: it's not that they care about consistency and they don't
Speaker 2: have to maintain an honest approach to this. They're just
Speaker 2: using these isolated incidents of particular you know, particular students
Speaker 2: or particular groups to shut down.
Speaker 4: Any speech around it.
Speaker 2: And I was featured in this like vox video and
Speaker 2: it was just like an explainer, and I received some
Speaker 2: harassment and like accusations that because I was providing context
Speaker 2: in a Vox video, which is what I was asked
Speaker 2: to do based on my expertise, that I was making
Speaker 2: excuses for, you know, what had happened on October seventh.
Speaker 4: I was like, is the red line.
Speaker 2: Now just even discussing anything like with any kind of
Speaker 2: expertise or information like it's it's uh, yeah, it's mind boggling.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess I think that is what they
Speaker 3: want to make the red line. Yeah, yeah, what you
Speaker 3: went through there too makes me so angry when I
Speaker 3: read shit like and this is not on Gillibrand, but
Speaker 3: Kristin Gillibrand was on someone's podcast recently talking about why
Speaker 3: some of her Republican colleagues who had expressed opposition to
Speaker 3: some of Trump's picks ultimately voted for them. And she's like,
Speaker 3: they're scared of getting murdered, and like, isn't everyone who
Speaker 3: says anything? And like you got death threats for a
Speaker 3: Vox video, Like why are these Congress people who have
Speaker 3: so many more resources to protect themselves, why do they
Speaker 3: get to be scared?
Speaker 2: Oh? Well that's that's yeah, Congress, And it's and it's
Speaker 2: inability to do anything, Like yeah, that's that's a whole
Speaker 2: other level of demoralization.
Speaker 3: Yeah, is there anything else you wanted to make sure
Speaker 3: we hit on during this conversation before we sort of
Speaker 3: close things out.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if maybe this is two in the weeds,
Speaker 2: but I think there's been a lot discussed around Trump
Speaker 2: and the statements around Gaza and his supposed plans for Gaza,
Speaker 2: and some analysts have claimed that this has to do
Speaker 2: with like taking an extreme position so that then Arab
Speaker 2: Israeli normalization deals could make the claim that like we
Speaker 2: talked him down from this brink, and like Saudi is
Speaker 2: going to make peace with Israel and claim that we
Speaker 2: convinced Trump not to do this kind of thing. And
Speaker 2: so that's been something I've read in some analysis, and
Speaker 2: I don't think it's actually correct. I don't think that
Speaker 2: Trump is making these kinds of statements or possibly these
Speaker 2: kinds of plans, just as kind of like I don't know,
Speaker 2: multi level chess with Saudi Arabia to get them to
Speaker 2: sign a peace deal with Israel, and the conditions in
Speaker 2: the region I think have really shifted. And I don't
Speaker 2: think Saudi Arabia, as I mentioned at the beginning, because
Speaker 2: they put out statements to this effect, I don't think
Speaker 2: they're at all interested in this kind of move right
Speaker 2: at this point. So I just maybe I would only
Speaker 2: add that Trump is not playing this long game that
Speaker 2: we think he is.
Speaker 4: Maybe we can take him at his word.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I know, because like Biden was playing a
Speaker 3: long game, a dumb long game, but a long game
Speaker 3: trying to brokers a deal with like Saudi Arabia and
Speaker 3: Israel that I might again I think deranged. If there's
Speaker 3: clear evidence that the fact that he was not compassmentous,
Speaker 3: it's that right, But it was a long game and
Speaker 3: I don't think that Trump is I don't think Trump
Speaker 3: cares about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the region has changed so much, you know,
Speaker 2: for whether we like it or not, Like Iran is
Speaker 2: not the threat it used to be, closer ties with
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, I mean, has a huge influence
Speaker 2: on the new Syrian government, Like they don't need this,
Speaker 2: they don't need this, and like this is not this
Speaker 2: kind of long game, multi level chess, you know, mastermind
Speaker 2: over here that Trump is now doing.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I just wanted to add that.
Speaker 3: People are just doing shit and trying to grab onto
Speaker 3: whatever they.
Speaker 4: Can, right and like let's see what sticks, essentially.
Speaker 3: Exactly, I mean that, and that is so much of
Speaker 3: that is the entirety of the current plan of the
Speaker 3: new regime in the United States is throw everything you
Speaker 3: can out there and see what sticks.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're doing that in Gaza, just like they're doing
Speaker 3: it everywhere else. Well, Donna, thank you so much. Do
Speaker 3: you want to plug anything at the end of this,
Speaker 3: your own stuff or something else?
Speaker 4: Check out I Guess the Fire These Times podcast. I
Speaker 4: sometimes do episode for.
Speaker 3: Them, Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2: And if you're looking for organizations to help support gosins
Speaker 2: right now. Heal Palestine or Anara A n e R
Speaker 2: are both doing.
Speaker 4: Really crucial work.
Speaker 3: Excellent, excellent, we'll check that out. Definitely check out the
Speaker 3: fire these times and that's a great place to send
Speaker 3: some aid. Donna, thank you so much for being on
Speaker 3: the show again. And yeah, I hope you uh, I
Speaker 3: don't know, I hope, I hope.
Speaker 4: I hope that's what I hope.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, thanks for having.
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