Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, this is Dana al Kurd for It could
Speaker 2: happen here. I'm a professor and analyst of Palestinian and
Speaker 2: air politics, and today we're joined by Ahmed Moore, who
Speaker 2: is the twenty twenty five Foundation for Middle East Peace Fellow.
Speaker 2: He's also an author, an activist, just very very involved
Speaker 2: in the Palestinian space and on the question of Palstini liberation.
Speaker 2: So I've invited Ahma today to discuss with us what
Speaker 2: we can understand about pro Palestine organizing in the past
Speaker 2: two years in comparison to prior to October seventh, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three, and think kind of analytically about where we
Speaker 2: can go from here. We're recording this on November fifth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. We had a very interesting night last
Speaker 2: night whereas Ahran Mandani was named the mayor of New
Speaker 2: York City and a lot of think pieces since about
Speaker 2: how this means nothing and actually it means everything and
Speaker 2: Lapro Palstine movement is winning, it's really not winning enough,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah, we're in an interesting
Speaker 2: moment in American politics. I think the Palestine question is
Speaker 2: obviously very very relevant.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I met.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Donna. It's pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: So maybe we can start with kind of an introduction
Speaker 2: to yourself. You can tell us about your experience as
Speaker 2: an activist, as an organizer.
Speaker 3: Sure, yes, as a researcher.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I was born in resident Palestine and Gaza and
Speaker 4: Ralphah and my family moved here when I was a
Speaker 4: kid and became naturalized so American citizen when I was
Speaker 4: ten years old.
Speaker 3: So that was in the mid nineties.
Speaker 4: And you know, went to college right after nine to eleven,
Speaker 4: and like lots of people, was galvanized around that experience.
Speaker 3: I think that was a pier.
Speaker 4: Was so a journalist both in Bede Lutin and Cairo,
Speaker 4: and often you'd meet American journalists roughly of my generation,
Speaker 4: and all of them would indicate that, you know, I
Speaker 4: became engaged around the Middle EA because of nine to eleven.
Speaker 4: I think nine to eleven was four our generation, a
Speaker 4: big learning opportunity for people. The global war on terror,
Speaker 4: the war in Iraq galvanized a lot of the left
Speaker 4: and I'm thinking now of.
Speaker 3: Move on dot org.
Speaker 4: And so this is really the environment that I grew
Speaker 4: up in today. I mostly work with The Guardian with
Speaker 4: the Nation mostly right about Palistige, Israel and American foreign policy.
Speaker 4: And as you mentioned, I'm a fellow at the Foundation
Speaker 4: for Middle East Peace, where I host a podcast, Occupied Thoughts,
Speaker 4: where we spend a lot of time thinking through policy
Speaker 4: matters related to Palisigan. I have ideas about things have changed,
Speaker 4: but that's just a quick introduction to me and my work.
Speaker 2: No, thank you, we're approximately the same age. I won't
Speaker 2: tell you exactly how often, but yeah, I just am
Speaker 2: reflecting so much these days on how much the War
Speaker 2: on Terror was a formative moment politically for our generation,
Speaker 2: and its interaction with the Palestinian issue. I think that's
Speaker 2: starting to really be understood more widely. I think maybe
Speaker 2: it was more fringe or like a very select kind
Speaker 2: of understanding of the left would have that kind of
Speaker 2: analysis for sure.
Speaker 4: Just to put a fine point on it, I mean
Speaker 4: that was the I would say generational awareness that we've
Speaker 4: been lied to. We've been lied to by Dick Cheney,
Speaker 4: George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, all of that cohort those people.
Speaker 4: You can see how that's rebounded today in Maine with
Speaker 4: Graham Plattner, somebody who fought two or three tours and
Speaker 4: then subsequently worked as a mercenary with Blackwater was radicalized,
Speaker 4: I would say through that experience when he was watching
Speaker 4: these happy, go lucky diplomats swimming in pools in a
Speaker 4: diplomatic compound, when just outside a savage war was being
Speaker 4: waged or an insurgency. So I would say that, you know,
Speaker 4: Palestine is so deeply into woven. Palestine is a long
Speaker 4: history of having been lied to for people here in
Speaker 4: the United States. Domestically that came to a head around
Speaker 4: the Iraq War. We werelied into that war. And I
Speaker 4: think you saw, you saw the way that the Biden
Speaker 4: administration particularly stuck with the playbook and alienated huge numbers
Speaker 4: of voters in twenty twenty four. So Palestine is kind
Speaker 4: of indispensaled understanding how our elites in the United States
Speaker 4: have been captured by special interests, by corporatist interests, and
Speaker 4: we're beginning to see that, I think rebound in meaningful ways.
Speaker 4: And of course, congratulations is Ron Mundani done a wonderful job.
Speaker 4: He ran an extraordinary campaign. I question, though, whether the
Speaker 4: campaign could have been successful without the awakening that occurred
Speaker 4: through two.
Speaker 3: Years of genocide.
Speaker 4: And what I mean by that specifically is so many
Speaker 4: of the taboos that had been enforced around identity, around
Speaker 4: good politics in America were dispensed with because those taboos
Speaker 4: were employed to suppress opposition to genocide.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I think you're right on the money on that.
Speaker 2: I mean, in some ways, the MAGA movement in Donald
Speaker 2: Trump also capitalized on the lies of the war on
Speaker 2: Terror too. I mean, despite the incoherence of the MAGA movement,
Speaker 2: like that was part of a rebuke of the neocons.
Speaker 2: But of course the left is, especially after two years
Speaker 2: of unspeakable genocide. I think it has led to just
Speaker 2: an articulation of how much the American foreign policy in
Speaker 2: the Middle East is. You mentioned boomerang. That's an imperial
Speaker 2: boomerang that is impacting American politics. It's also highlighted how
Speaker 2: much the elite and public opinion is bifurcated on this.
Speaker 2: Palatin has become an issue of democracy. I don't want
Speaker 2: to put words in your mouth, but that's what I
Speaker 2: would say.
Speaker 3: No, I think that's correct. I agree with that.
Speaker 4: I mean, so Palestine went from being specifically Palestine, from
Speaker 4: being a niche issue when I was in college post
Speaker 4: colonial studies. Majors knew about Palestine and could integrate Palestine
Speaker 4: into an understanding of life in America to being really
Speaker 4: part of the American story today, and I think it's
Speaker 4: apt to describe it that way. The experience of watching
Speaker 4: a genocide unfold for two years has been radicalizing for many,
Speaker 4: but it's also been enlightening in that the first question
Speaker 4: was why is this happening? The second question is why
Speaker 4: can't we stop it? Okay, Israel's an independent country, we
Speaker 4: can't control them.
Speaker 3: Fine, why are we still supporting this?
Speaker 4: And ultimately you end up going down that rabbit hole
Speaker 4: and arriving at what is this Israel lobby?
Speaker 3: What is this special interest?
Speaker 4: And so I think the degree of complicity, the way
Speaker 4: in which the Biden administration blew so much smoke, the
Speaker 4: way in which both sides of the Aisle engaged in
Speaker 4: genocide and cheered the genocide, really has caused the Palestine
Speaker 4: issue to become deeply interwoven with the experience of being
Speaker 4: American today. And I don't think that's an overstatement, and
Speaker 4: I think concretely it means that you need an answer
Speaker 4: to the question, Well, if you can't stand up to genocide,
Speaker 4: if you can't stand up for defenseless children in Palestine,
Speaker 4: and if you're going to lie to me about it,
Speaker 4: why would I expect you to stand up for anything
Speaker 4: meaningful as it relates to my standard of living, Say,
Speaker 4: I'm a working class person. And so it's become this
Speaker 4: litmus test at least on the left, and I think
Speaker 4: you're seeing a similar dynamic playout on the right, but
Speaker 4: for totally different reasons. Right, And it's been extraordinary to
Speaker 4: behold because I think so many of us who've been
Speaker 4: in this issue for so long, we've been marking our
Speaker 4: progress in incrementalist terms, and then suddenly things have broken
Speaker 4: wide open and the world has changed very very quickly.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: From my vantage point in American academia, I mean, they
Speaker 2: might have had personal feelings about Israel Palestine, they may
Speaker 2: have had sympathies, but so few people would ever talk
Speaker 2: about the erasure of Palestine in the academy, or the
Speaker 2: impact of censorship and attacks on academic freedom. But now
Speaker 2: because the Palaestinan issue is being used as this cudgel
Speaker 2: to attack higher education, like you're just a normal Joshmo
Speaker 2: like math professor you're gonna have to care, and you do.
Speaker 2: And we're seeing this very much with the mobilization of
Speaker 2: the American Association of University Professors, that is not a
Speaker 2: Middle East specific organization whatsoever, but they recognize the linkages
Speaker 2: between these issues, so in the ways that Palestine is
Speaker 2: interwoven with but also has impacted so many of our
Speaker 2: current realities and the policies that we're facing by the
Speaker 2: Trump administration and the Bye administration before them. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think it's very clear to a lot of people. So
Speaker 2: that actually brings me to one of the main questions
Speaker 2: that I wanted to ask you, is, aside from kind
Speaker 2: of the increased awareness and the taboos that have been
Speaker 2: broken around the discussion of Palestine and its integration in
Speaker 2: American foreign policy and American domestic policy, what are some
Speaker 2: other ways that you think since the genocide began that
Speaker 2: pro Palestine organizing has changed.
Speaker 4: So the biggest thing I've seen is that the analytical
Speaker 4: frame has changed. We used to talk about foreign policy
Speaker 4: adventurers and wars for oil, those kinds of things. Now
Speaker 4: I think the analysis is very correctly focused on empire,
Speaker 4: the way in which resources domestically the real working class
Speaker 4: effort to build a life in the United States is
Speaker 4: subsumed by wars of really imperial overreach.
Speaker 3: The whole idea of.
Speaker 4: Empire for me was an antiquated one I didn't think
Speaker 4: had a whole lot of relevance today. But I think
Speaker 4: I and many others who may have thought in that
Speaker 4: way missed the point the realities that empires intact. I
Speaker 4: think that awareness that our efforts domestically are deeply, deeply
Speaker 4: intertwined with what's happening what we're doing elsewhere, is important,
Speaker 4: and it's emergent, it's new. When I was in graduate school,
Speaker 4: you would hear people talk about how they're engaged with
Speaker 4: domestic policy, or people talk about their infests in foreign policy,
Speaker 4: and I was mostly interested in foreign policy. But today
Speaker 4: to try to draw that differentiation is really meaningless. And
Speaker 4: again you see that in the race in New York
Speaker 4: Mom Donnie did run on affordability. He ran on a
Speaker 4: domestic policy program, but equally thirty eight percent I think
Speaker 4: of voters were heavily motivated by his foreign policy interests.
Speaker 4: In his foreign policy perspectives, which again from a policy
Speaker 4: point of view, he can't really impact, but nonetheless are
Speaker 4: supported by this idea that our taxes, what we do
Speaker 4: domestically is having a huge impact everywhere else in the world,
Speaker 4: and that American empires sprawling at a challenge for people
Speaker 4: domestically as well. A pure activist point of view, you know,
Speaker 4: I used to have a real belief in electoral politics
Speaker 4: that was shaken deeply through the DNC, through the grassroots effort.
Speaker 3: To be heard uncommitted. Yeah, the uncommitted movement precisely. We'll
Speaker 3: see where things go.
Speaker 4: I mean, the truth is that, you know, the person
Speaker 4: who is just selected in Jersey is a typical I
Speaker 4: believe APAC Democrat, Mike Cheryl. My perspective domestically is that
Speaker 4: we need to be aggressive, We need to be forceful
Speaker 4: in calling for a total reconstitution of Democratic Party, no
Speaker 4: half measures, and I think Zarn mndonie did a good
Speaker 4: job of illustrating what that could look like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's always a tension in this very
Speaker 2: money captured system that we have that at certain level
Speaker 2: it doesn't really matter liberal or Republican.
Speaker 3: They are captured.
Speaker 2: But I think what the New York City race has
Speaker 2: demonstrated is like that can only go so far. You
Speaker 2: still need some public support, which is why of course
Speaker 2: they're going after gerrymandering and all of that. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it's an uphill battle. But I think if this democracy
Speaker 2: is to exist, we are in a better footing than
Speaker 2: we were, you know, on this discussion, I also wondering
Speaker 2: what you think of this characterization, which is that I
Speaker 2: think before this genocide, and I don't mean to create
Speaker 2: this binary, but it has been a very transformative event.
Speaker 2: Before this genocide, I think a lot of Palestinian American
Speaker 2: organizing in spaces discussed the issue of Palestine in a
Speaker 2: right spaceed approach way, so about human rights, about ending auparthide,
Speaker 2: about extending rights, and I think the framing for that
Speaker 2: has also changed. It is really a critique of settler
Speaker 2: colonialism and the legitimacy of these nation states. First of all,
Speaker 2: what do you think of that characterization on my end?
Speaker 2: But also what do you think of the tension then
Speaker 2: that poses for the Palestinian national liberation movement that still
Speaker 2: wants the state.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right. The thing again, the analytic frame has shifted.
Speaker 3: We've gone from a contested conversation around nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 3: the June War, when Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan,
Speaker 3: Gosta from Egypt, Jerusalem as well from Jordan, the Goal
Speaker 3: on Heights, some Syria, and a small siliver of land
Speaker 3: from Lebanon to nineteen forty eight. That's what we talk
Speaker 3: about now, and that's correct, and.
Speaker 4: I think for many Palestinians or Palestinian Americans that has
Speaker 4: always been the starting point of the conversation. But now
Speaker 4: we have the political legitimacy to say, wait a second,
Speaker 4: this whole state was founded upon separate and unequal on
Speaker 4: Jewish supremacy, on a point of view that we reject
Speaker 4: as Americans and we should reject everywhere in the world.
Speaker 4: And so I think that's the first meaningful change that
Speaker 4: I've seen when we talk about Palestine. And then of
Speaker 4: course settled colonialism is built into that analysis. Things get
Speaker 4: a little bit different when you zoom out. Let me
Speaker 4: just talk about domestic I think that when you talk
Speaker 4: to people on the left, the universalist argument everybody's created
Speaker 4: equal is very, very powerful and resonant, and it's the
Speaker 4: one that I believe in. But what's happening on the
Speaker 4: right as well is an America first argument, and the
Speaker 4: word protectorate comes up repeatedly. Why are we investing so
Speaker 4: much in a protectorate Tucker Carlston powerfully, I think for
Speaker 4: his audience, and this is probably the most influential commentator
Speaker 4: in the United States to day, but powerfully, you know, said,
Speaker 4: this country has half the size, half the economy the
Speaker 4: state of Connecticut. Why have we invested so much political capital,
Speaker 4: so much money and something which is so immaterial, especially
Speaker 4: when it pays a big negative dividend in lots of
Speaker 4: different ways. So the nativist argument is meeting the universalist argument.
Speaker 4: But the core analysis around settled in colonialism, around the
Speaker 4: lack of legitimacy for a supremacist state, gives rise to
Speaker 4: both of those arguments.
Speaker 3: That access to the.
Speaker 4: Substrate, I would say, Palestinians who want to see a
Speaker 4: Palestinian state, and how you're going back to Palestine. I
Speaker 4: don't know what that means today. I've heard perspectives that
Speaker 4: availing ourselves of statehood as a legal construct will mean
Speaker 4: that you can now access legal frameworks to pursue justice
Speaker 4: in the courts wherever they may exist.
Speaker 3: I hope that's true. Let's see what works out.
Speaker 4: I think there are people who are trying to take
Speaker 4: Israeli men dual nationals who participated in the genocide to
Speaker 4: court in France, I think by using some of the
Speaker 4: some of the laws that exist between recognized states and
Speaker 4: non states, or maybe the UK.
Speaker 3: Let's see if robber meets road there.
Speaker 4: I support those tactics, but practically, when you're talking about
Speaker 4: Palestinian liberation, I don't believe that a state which has
Speaker 4: been colonized out of existence. And you kind of have
Speaker 4: to look at a map to see what I mean here,
Speaker 4: but the West Bank is thoroughly colonized. Gaza is still
Speaker 4: occupied by these Raelies and will likely be slowly ethnically
Speaker 4: cleansed over time and not rebuilt. I fail to see
Speaker 4: how a state illegal construct is going to yield real
Speaker 4: benefits with the people on the ground now in Palestine.
Speaker 2: I agree, and I think that the continuation of this framework,
Speaker 2: the statehood framework that a lot of our kind of
Speaker 2: political elites in the Palestinian landscape continue to use, and
Speaker 2: a lot of these countries in the global North use,
Speaker 2: also to bypass with work that actually needs to be
Speaker 2: done after a genocide. It's certainly a distraction in my view,
Speaker 2: but it also speaks to the renewal that needs to
Speaker 2: happen within Palestinian politics and within the PLO, But that's
Speaker 2: a bigger matter. My next question was going to be
Speaker 2: on the Palestine American diaspora. In what ways do you
Speaker 2: think the passing American diaspora is alike with people in
Speaker 2: historic Palestine, with other diasporas, and in what ways do
Speaker 2: you think that they're unique.
Speaker 3: That's a hard question for me to answer.
Speaker 4: I think the diaspora, in the way that I've interacted
Speaker 4: with people, is diverse. What people have in common is
Speaker 4: a common reference point, the Neca. They have a common
Speaker 4: understanding around the illegitimacy of Israel as an ethno state
Speaker 4: which takes Jewish supremacy as its point of departure. But
Speaker 4: it's a very diverse diaspora. I mean, our first Palisian
Speaker 4: American in Congress is Justin Amash, who is on the right.
Speaker 2: That's right. I always forget about him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean he had relatives who were murdered in
Speaker 4: Visa at a church in northern Vesa, which dates back
Speaker 4: to I think the eleventh century. So we're diverse diaspora.
Speaker 4: I think the Palisinian diaspora in the United States is integrated,
Speaker 4: it's educated, that's the past for lots of Palestinians around
Speaker 4: the world. It's how you get out, it's how you
Speaker 4: build alive. We have a very high literacy rate in Palestine,
Speaker 4: exceeds ninety nine point five percent. But I think where
Speaker 4: the diaspora hasn't, at least in the United States, done
Speaker 4: as effective a job. And this is kind of the
Speaker 4: natural trajectory I think of diaspora communities generally. I don't
Speaker 4: know that we're as aggressive and organized as we could be.
Speaker 4: And I want to emphasize the word aggressive, the idea
Speaker 4: that we can go out and compete at all levels
Speaker 4: of government, that we can go out and assert our
Speaker 4: understanding of history backed by facts. We should be doing
Speaker 4: more of that, especially when you look kind of across
Speaker 4: the board when it comes to people who are doing
Speaker 4: well in medicine or in business, you know where there's
Speaker 4: been a real career risk for speaking out and for
Speaker 4: being assertive. We can do more now, and we should
Speaker 4: use the leverage gain through two years of genocide, the
Speaker 4: most expensive of access to leverage I can imagine, to
Speaker 4: push much harder politically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a very good point. I'm also wondering how
Speaker 2: well you think the Palestinian organizing groups and spaces. How
Speaker 2: well integrated are they into other activist issue areas.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think this is where when I was in college,
Speaker 4: I didn't know the word intersectionality. That wasn't a concept
Speaker 4: that really was one that people thought about. You know,
Speaker 4: you would host an event and you would invite your friends,
Speaker 4: some of whom would be in the Black students group,
Speaker 4: some of whom would be in the Queer students group,
Speaker 4: and just regular left groups. But today I'd say that
Speaker 4: activists have a much more complete sense of how you
Speaker 4: almost have a social quilt, and a compression on one
Speaker 4: part of it will impact everything else that's related to it,
Speaker 4: and we're all interrelated in that way. I'd say that
Speaker 4: the most potent discussions around palestign are coming from left
Speaker 4: organizing groups, not exactly Palestinian organizing groups. I think if
Speaker 4: I could offer gentle criticism of Palistine organizers, there's been
Speaker 4: too much and you serviously with uncommitted, too much effort
Speaker 4: to ingratiate yourselves to the existing power apparatus to ask
Speaker 4: for a seat at the table. When it's somebody like
Speaker 4: Zoron Mumdani again who demanded a seat at the table
Speaker 4: through an unrelenting focus on the issues achieved access to
Speaker 4: a platform, then nobody wanted to seed. And I don't
Speaker 4: think that following the rules exactly or being friendly about
Speaker 4: accessing platforms within the Democratic parties one yield a huge
Speaker 4: benefit to Palestinian Americans or people here. I'd say the
Speaker 4: most principled organizing is that organizing that's going to win
Speaker 4: and today that comes from non Palestinian groups, and I'm
Speaker 4: okay with that. I don't really think it matters if
Speaker 4: the best argument is coming from somebody whose family comes
Speaker 4: from South Asia through Uganda, or somebody whose family emerges
Speaker 4: from you know, the Ballota refugee camp, that doesn't really
Speaker 4: matter to me. I think just to focus on the
Speaker 4: principles is the most important thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right right.
Speaker 2: I think we're definitely seeing more of an acceptance of that.
Speaker 2: I agree with the limitations that you referenced. I also
Speaker 2: sometimes do reflect on how matched the discussion is in
Speaker 2: the United States with the discussion in historic Palestine and
Speaker 2: what activists can do to kind of bridge some gaps
Speaker 2: that might emerge. But of course, understanding that we do
Speaker 2: exist in a different political reality and we obviously will
Speaker 2: develop different views as a result of that.
Speaker 4: I agree, And look, I mean, nobody needs to be
Speaker 4: apologetic about inhabiting a different reality. You know, we don't
Speaker 4: need to defer to a leadership which is divided and
Speaker 4: divided in Palestine and PLO that won't talk to itself.
Speaker 3: And there are structural reasons for that, right.
Speaker 4: I mean, the Israelis and the Americans have done a
Speaker 4: very effective job in splintering Palaestinine leadership.
Speaker 3: I think we need to think extremely locally.
Speaker 4: There are issues that matter to my community in West Philadelphia, big,
Speaker 4: bigger issues across Pennsylvania that impact my life, that impact
Speaker 4: my life as a father of three little girls. So
Speaker 4: I think being a member of a community and focusing
Speaker 4: again relentlessly on the principles and the facts that we've
Speaker 4: known all along is critical to pushing the conversation on
Speaker 4: Palsign forward and practically today, for me, that means an
Speaker 4: arms embargo, it means sanctions, it means a cultural boycott,
Speaker 4: and it means those things unapologetically. Again, those are principal
Speaker 4: positions that I can take as an American citizen, a
Speaker 4: citizen in a country which has underwritten genocide, has underwritten
Speaker 4: apartheid for decades.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: I think I agree with that analysis. As the author,
Speaker 2: which we didn't mention at the beginning, as the author
Speaker 2: one of the co authors of After Zionism with Anthony Lonstein,
Speaker 2: I'm going to pose a difficult question for you now,
Speaker 2: I'm just joking, not that you have to answer it fully,
Speaker 2: but where do you think we go from here? Where
Speaker 2: do you think the pro palsign movement goes from here?
Speaker 2: And if you can reflect in your answer on where
Speaker 2: we've stalled as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I used to believe in one state for
Speaker 4: everybody with equal rights. Today I think the writing is
Speaker 4: on the wall for the Palestinians in Palestine. The ethnic
Speaker 4: cleansing of Palestine is proceeding the fact that has been
Speaker 4: utterly destroyed, utterly destroyed. There are no universities, no schools,
Speaker 4: no really functioning hospitals. The basic infrastructure required for the
Speaker 4: maintenance of life doesn't exist there anymore. That's part of
Speaker 4: why it's a genocide. We've got to take that reality
Speaker 4: into account. The Palestinians and Liza, the Palestinians and Palestine
Speaker 4: generally have the right to pursue life. They have a
Speaker 4: right to an education, they have a right to self actualization,
Speaker 4: and many of them, when they can, they're going to leave.
Speaker 4: That's the ethnic cleansing program, that's the idea behind the
Speaker 4: mass destruction of Palestine. The Israelis have succeeded in that regard.
Speaker 4: I would say, we need to be mindful of that.
Speaker 3: We need to be aware of that.
Speaker 4: What I think will happen ultimately is that you'll end
Speaker 4: up with some rump community of Palestinians in Palestine who
Speaker 4: are eventually when in arms embargoes enacted. And I hope
Speaker 4: it's within our lifetimes when the sanctions are enacted, when
Speaker 4: Israel is forced to become a normal country with equal
Speaker 4: rights for all, will continue to exist in that space.
Speaker 4: I don't know, you know, I can't predict, nobody can
Speaker 4: really predict what's certainty, what's going to happen. But the
Speaker 4: kinds of pressure required to cause Israel to become a
Speaker 4: de radicalized, normal society will take time to produce. And
Speaker 4: in the interim, the writing is on the wall for
Speaker 4: the Palatinians in Palestine, and I think that's the saddust
Speaker 4: for me. Part of all this, the continuity of Palacinian
Speaker 4: life and Palestine is not guaranteed. You know, the overwhelming
Speaker 4: force of the state exists in one place, and that's
Speaker 4: in Israel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why I when a lot of people talk
Speaker 2: positively about the developments of the past two years. Of course,
Speaker 2: you want to feel hope. You want to highlight how
Speaker 2: the discussion has changed here in America, how politics is
Speaker 2: moving forward. You want to have some pathway. But we
Speaker 2: never were able to prevent that genocide. Nothing we did
Speaker 2: in any avenue. All of us have, you know, different
Speaker 2: positionalities engaged with different actors, like, none of it actually
Speaker 2: stopped that, and that is a very hard pill to swallow.
Speaker 3: I hope.
Speaker 2: I've always been hoping that at least that will allow
Speaker 2: us to get to the place of self reflection about
Speaker 2: what radical solutions look like in the aftermath of this
Speaker 2: kind of disaster. And yeah, I hope that's that's where
Speaker 2: we go from here on my end. Yeah, thank you
Speaker 2: so much, Ahmad. This has been a really enriching discussion,
Speaker 2: and I think that the listeners will benefit from this
Speaker 2: overarching view of propalacine activism and it's uh, it's intersections
Speaker 2: with everything we're seeing unfold. So thank you so much again.
Speaker 3: Thank you Donna, It's been a huge pleasure.
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