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Speaker 1: Also media.

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Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 3: It's me James today and I'm joined by my friend

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Speaker 3: and yours, Charles McBride, documentary filmmaker, humanitarian activist, writer. And

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Speaker 3: you've just been in Palestine, is that right, Charles, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: just got back like a week and a half ago. Nice, welcome,

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Speaker 3: Welcome to America and the Free Damn, that's a rough transition. Actually,

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Speaker 3: thank you for thank you for joining us so soon

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Speaker 3: after you got back. So there's a lot to talk about, right,

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Speaker 3: Like I feel as if in like legacy media, when

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Speaker 3: there is less discussion of Palestine recently, maybe just because

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Speaker 3: I'm seeing so much domestic US coverage like twenty four

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Speaker 3: to seven, right, we're in another like Trump news cycle,

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Speaker 3: but especially with reference to the West Bank. Actually, like

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Speaker 3: can you look update people on the last maybe you know,

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Speaker 3: maybe in the time you were there, and then what's

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Speaker 3: especially what's happening in the West Bank, Cause I think

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Speaker 3: that's going to even less coverage.

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Speaker 4: Sure, So I've taken two trips for the West Bank

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Speaker 4: in the past year. Yeah, So August of last year

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Speaker 4: May of this year. I noticed a rapid deterioration just

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Speaker 4: between those two time periods. So, I mean, it was

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Speaker 4: bad last year when we went. That was right when

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Speaker 4: I was when my team went there to begin our documentary,

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Speaker 4: they had just launched this new operation in the West Bank,

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Speaker 4: which was pretty much the largest ground operation they'd launched

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Speaker 4: the Israelis had launched since the Second Antipada, and it

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Speaker 4: was targeted at the northern refugee camps of Tolkom, Nurse Shams,

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Speaker 4: and Jeanine. A lot of people know Janine, they've heard

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Speaker 4: that in the news. You know, it's relatively familiar. Not

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Speaker 4: a lot of people realize that the situation in Tolkoom

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Speaker 4: and in Norsham's is quite similar, and those three camps

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Speaker 4: in particular were targeted by the IDF operation. On the

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Speaker 4: second trip, we couldn't even we couldn't even get to

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Speaker 4: those places, not with the UNREP personnel that we were

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Speaker 4: supposed to go with our documentaries on unrout the United

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Speaker 4: Nation Relief Works Agency for Palestigne Refugees. And last time

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Speaker 4: we were there, they were able to bring us to

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Speaker 4: the camp. They showed us where the Israelis had you know,

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Speaker 4: bulldozed their facilities and done various air strikes in the camp.

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Speaker 4: This time they couldn't even take us there. So we

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Speaker 4: went to other camps and said camp, everyone's spirits were low.

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Speaker 4: Lots of people were talking about West Bank annexation as

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Speaker 4: if it seemed like an inevitability.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, And I actually spent some time inside forty eight

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Speaker 4: on this trip, and I went down to Yafa and

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Speaker 4: to Tel Aviv and interviewed some long time kind of

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Speaker 4: liberal journalists from Aritz, and they were just talking about

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Speaker 4: how the shift in Israeli society over the last year

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Speaker 4: has been quite marked as well, particularly around the question

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Speaker 4: of just generally ethnically cleansing Gaza, which was something that was,

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Speaker 4: according to his telling, like really only heard in very

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Speaker 4: right wing circles like Connie circles over the past a

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Speaker 4: couple of decades and is now just pretty routinely heard

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Speaker 4: across the spectrum Israeli society that the best solution to

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Speaker 4: this is to just deport everyone from Gaza.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's pretty bleak, Like, I mean, I guess the

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Speaker 3: process of manufacturing consent has been pretty pretty successful and

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Speaker 3: pretty complete in that sense, Like just the dehumanization of

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Speaker 3: Palestinian people has been pretty successful at least there. I

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Speaker 3: guess if people aren't familiar. We should just like explain

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Speaker 3: that Palestine is well. The areas which are now like

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Speaker 3: legally allotted to Palestinians, I guess, are not contiguous, right,

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Speaker 3: Gaza in the West Bank at different areas separated by Israel,

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Speaker 3: and like the bulk of what you have seen in

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Speaker 3: the last two years has been Israel's war on the

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Speaker 3: people of Gaza, but the West Bank is a different

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Speaker 3: and larger area which has also seen significant is really

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Speaker 3: like military aggression and violence from settlers, right, like a

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Speaker 3: paramilitary aggression, I guess you could call it. People I

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Speaker 3: think maybe have heard of ANRA or maybe will at

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Speaker 3: least be familiar with seeing it. Can you explain what

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Speaker 3: the agency does? It's a unique agency, right, Like it

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Speaker 3: doesn't work anywhere else in the world. It's quite a

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Speaker 3: unique thing to this Israel Palestine context.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So ANRO is probably the most controversial UN agency, and

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Speaker 4: that has everything to do with the context in which

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Speaker 4: it was founded. It was explicitly set up in coordination

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Speaker 4: between the United States, the newly founded State of Israel,

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Speaker 4: and the Arab League, coming to the United Nations and

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Speaker 4: presenting a plan to deal with the displacement of seven

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Speaker 4: hundred thousand Palestinians from their home as a result of

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Speaker 4: Nakba in nineteen forty eight. So out of that context,

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Speaker 4: it's designed as a temporary aid refugee organization. Yeah, it

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Speaker 4: actually it's it's set up before un HCR, so it's

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Speaker 4: mandated specifically for the Palestinians, and the Palestinians don't end

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Speaker 4: up falling under UNHDR when it's established. So a lot

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Speaker 4: of particularities about UNRA that make it different from other

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Speaker 4: UN agencies, which is also something that the Israelis like

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Speaker 4: to highlight because they're engaged in a multi decade credibility

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Speaker 4: campaign against UNRA.

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Speaker 2: But to the extent that it is.

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Speaker 4: Almost entirely staffed by Palestinians, it is quite different than

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Speaker 4: other UN agencies, which typically involve multinationals international personnel. Now,

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Speaker 4: a lot of the higher leadership at UNRA is still

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Speaker 4: kind of your same international diplomats, but in the words

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Speaker 4: of the Zionist academic that I interviewed for this documentary,

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Speaker 4: most of those have quote unquote gone native. So most

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Speaker 4: of the international diplomats do tend to, you know, obviously

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Speaker 4: be quite sympathetic to the conditions which the Palestinian staff

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Speaker 4: are working under. So my documentary is a it's an

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Speaker 4: investigative documentary to some extent, and it uses the frame

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Speaker 4: narrative the Israeli allegations that UNRA had been infiltrated by

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Speaker 4: Hamas and that unrepersonnel had taken place in the October

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Speaker 4: seventh massacres. Yeah, it uses that as a hook and

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Speaker 4: a frame narrative to talk about what is this organization?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: Why did it go from something that was set up

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Speaker 4: as a temporary relief organization to seventy seven years later

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Speaker 4: it is responsible for maintaining the livelihood and well being

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Speaker 4: of five point nine million registered Palastinian refugees, not only

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Speaker 4: in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but also

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Speaker 4: in Syria, in Lebanon, and in Jordan. So the politics

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Speaker 4: of it get very hazy, very quickly. But it's kind

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Speaker 4: of an inconvenient thing for everyone because the organization was

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Speaker 4: explicitly designed to end after a few years, but the

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Speaker 4: assumption was after a few years there would have been

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Speaker 4: a political resolution to the Israeli Palacinian conflict. There has

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Speaker 4: not been, and here we are seventy six, seventy seven

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Speaker 4: years later, and we're still at that point, so UNRA

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Speaker 4: still exists. One of the ironic things we found when

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Speaker 4: filming documentary is that everyone involved in this process wants

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Speaker 4: this organization to go away. Yeah, Israel Is, the Palestinians,

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Speaker 4: the staff themselves. The only thing they disagree on is

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Speaker 4: when and under what conditions? Why?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's Yeah, it's very interesting, like as

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Speaker 3: refuge agencies go. Because like just I was recently reading

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Speaker 3: Sally Hayden's or rereading Sally Hayden's book about refugees in Libya. Right,

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Speaker 3: it's called My Fourth Time We Drowned. It's an excellent book.

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Speaker 3: If people haven't read it, that you read it, very

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Speaker 3: good audiobook as well that they incorporated some of the

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Speaker 3: voice notes you got from the refugees, which I think

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Speaker 3: is good. And as it's typical of United Nations refugee

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Speaker 3: workers in many areas, the bulk of them end up

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Speaker 3: living or spending a lot of time in Tunisia, right,

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Speaker 3: like not in Libya and coming in like in you know,

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Speaker 3: the typical image that you see of the United Nations

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Speaker 3: is like a bunch of people in white land cruisers, right,

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Speaker 3: and they pull up and they do their thing and

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Speaker 3: they leave they're not either part of the population or

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Speaker 3: even with the population, and they often criticize for this

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Speaker 3: around the world, right, And they're very susceptible to like

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Speaker 3: state narratives, right, Like in Libya there's there's all kinds

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Speaker 3: of evacuations of corruption or like sort of state capture.

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Speaker 3: I guess, so an agency that is supposed to be

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Speaker 3: international and supposed to be impartial, and they're supposed to,

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Speaker 3: above all things, advocate for refugees, right, And sometimes you

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Speaker 3: can see at tension between the IOM and the UNHCR

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Speaker 3: of this kind of shit. It's different with UNRA, right, Like,

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Speaker 3: like they are from what I've heard from Palestinian friends,

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Speaker 3: like more respected by Palestinian people because of the work

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Speaker 3: that they do and the value that they provide.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I would say like trust in UNRA

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Speaker 4: is probably higher than in the Palestinian authority. The PA

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Speaker 4: is largely seen as a contractor or subcontractor for Israel, right,

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Speaker 4: and UNRA is seen, you know, as flawed. I mean,

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Speaker 4: there are a lot of Palestinians who are deeply critical

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Speaker 4: of UNRA, particularly the constant efforts it takes to sort

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Speaker 4: of remain neutral on all of these political questions. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: and you know, inefficiencies that are going to come with

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Speaker 4: any multinational institution in Goo. Yeah, of course, but in

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Speaker 4: general they seem to I mean, at this point, we've

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Speaker 4: interviewed dozens of people who had various relationship whether they

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Speaker 4: had gone to unreschools or they had taken you know,

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Speaker 4: they had been to unrehealth clinics, and by and large

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Speaker 4: they preferred these and they saw the value in UNRA.

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Speaker 4: They liked the unreschools, they liked the unrahealth clinics. UNRA

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Speaker 4: is largely responsible for the fact that Palestinians are one

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Speaker 4: of the most literate populations in the Middle East, and

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Speaker 4: many of them speak English incredibly well. I mean, like, yeah,

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Speaker 4: it's wild talking to an eight or nine year old

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Speaker 4: girl who grew up in a refugee camp and she's

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Speaker 4: speaking to me in perfect English talking about how she

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Speaker 4: wants to move to Los Angeles and become an actress,

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Speaker 4: and it's just it's wild. And that's kind of a

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Speaker 4: testament to what UNDRA has done. And that's very inconvenient

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Speaker 4: for Israel because when you educate a lot of refugees

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Speaker 4: who can then learn English and turn around and speak

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Speaker 4: to the world very eloquent ways about the nature of

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Speaker 4: their oppression and their suffering. It becomes an ideological barrier

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Speaker 4: to your particular political project.

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Speaker 3: Right, And this is one of the things that has

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Speaker 3: distinguished the genocide in Gaza in terms of like how

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Speaker 3: it's been perceived in the US at least, right, is that, like,

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Speaker 3: you have a very literate population that is able to

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Speaker 3: articulate what is happening directly via social media and to

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Speaker 3: traditional media, right, like to people like yourself making documentaries

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Speaker 3: like this is distinct from populations like I think of

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Speaker 3: the Rahinga right, Like, you know, I speak to Rahinga

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Speaker 3: people pretty often, but I don't think most Americans see

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Speaker 3: Rahingah folks if they go on TikTok or or Instagram,

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Speaker 3: and you know, as a result, I think people would

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Speaker 3: have cared as deeply. You know, people would have been

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Speaker 3: in the streets for that, but that communication wasn't that

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Speaker 3: And yeah, it is extremely inconvenient if your project isn't

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Speaker 3: an ethno state, right, and you're willing to cleanse areas

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Speaker 3: of other ethnicities to build your ethno state in it,

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Speaker 3: which is what's happening, then it's very convenient if there's

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Speaker 3: people you're trying to cleanse can talk to the world,

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Speaker 3: you know, in a language of the world understands and

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Speaker 3: very eloquently and make their case for not being ethnically cleansed.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: No, it is tribute to the work that ANRA has done.

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Speaker 3: You know what, I guess we should do. I guess

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Speaker 3: we should take an advertising break right now. So let's

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Speaker 3: do that.

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Speaker 2: We'll come back.

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Speaker 3: All right, we are back. Let's talk about the alternative

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Speaker 3: to UNRA. Alternative is a wrong word. Let's talk about

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Speaker 3: the attempt to make an end run around unrous existence

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Speaker 3: by installing this fascical NGO.

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Speaker 2: I guess you could call it an d O or

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Speaker 2: like AID Provider.

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Speaker 3: This is a gaza humanitarian fund people who aren't familiars

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Speaker 3: synthetic GENRA alternatives. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's unstitute, like the

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Speaker 3: zine of UNRA. You know. Okay, so what what's going

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Speaker 3: on with the guy? Let's talk about what it is

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Speaker 3: and what it claims to do first, and then we'll

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Speaker 3: talk about how it's not doing it very well or

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Speaker 3: at all, Like people are fucking dying in droves.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Mile High View.

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Speaker 4: UNRA maintains most of the aid going in and out

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Speaker 4: of Gaza. Everyone I know in the humanitarian world has

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Speaker 4: had to interface at least to some degree with UNRA

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Speaker 4: during the aid process, and that's difficult because it has

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Speaker 4: been essentially been declared a terrorist entity by the Israeli

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Speaker 4: government and has been banned from operating inside what Israel

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Speaker 4: considers to be its territory, including occupied East Jerusalem and

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Speaker 4: increasingly in the West Bank. They're trying to limit its

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Speaker 4: operations and in Gaza they say they can't work with

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Speaker 4: them because they're Hamas. So it's the UNER people are

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Speaker 4: quite confused because they they've had to deconflict with the

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Speaker 4: Israelis for this entire time, and recently as a result

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Speaker 4: of this law, it's actually become illegal under Israeli law

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Speaker 4: for the Israelis to like coordinate with UNRA, and so

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Speaker 4: the UNRA of people don't have been Actually they don't

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Speaker 4: really understand what's going to happen. There's been some limited coordination,

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Speaker 4: but still we talk to people who are very high

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Speaker 4: up in the organization and they essentially had no idea

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Speaker 4: what the Israelis were planning to do to replace NRA

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Speaker 4: or to coordinate with them in Gaza, and so They

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Speaker 4: just kept kind of doing their thing until the Israelis

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Speaker 4: literally made them stop in certain instances. Right. Yeah. My

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Speaker 4: documentary is called the War on UNRA, and part of

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Speaker 4: this war has been the propaganda efforts and the Israelis

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Speaker 4: going after this organization and everyone in the humanitarian aid

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Speaker 4: world has sort of been asking the question, well, what

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Speaker 4: are you going to do to replace it? This is

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Speaker 4: an organization that deals with like two million people in

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Speaker 4: Gaza and like three million in the West Bank. Not

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Speaker 4: all of those are registered with UNRAP, but it's dealing

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Speaker 4: with all of the refugee camps there in Gaza itself

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Speaker 4: is a refugee camp, like it only exists as such

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Speaker 4: as a result of the AKA, because it's where they

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Speaker 4: put all of the displaced people who weren't in Jordan.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And so the Israelis basically.

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Speaker 4: Had their backskins wall and they're like, Okay, well we

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Speaker 4: have to come up with some alternative to this because

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Speaker 4: we can't come out and say, actually, our main goal

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Speaker 4: is to depopulate Gaza and settle it. Yeah. Yeah, and

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Speaker 4: so they cooked up this idea of the Gaza Humanitarian Fund,

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Speaker 4: which was kind of this public private partnership backed by

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Speaker 4: the Israelis and the Americans, and the intention was to

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Speaker 4: entirely subvert not only UNRU, but the entire UN infrastructure

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Speaker 4: that goes into the Gaza strip. For instance, every UN

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Speaker 4: agency in the world actually piggybacks off of the World

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Speaker 4: Food Program because they're always the first ones in. So

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Speaker 4: it's WFP infrastructure, trucks, you know, vehicles, everything like that

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Speaker 4: that goes in first, and then UNHCR, UNISEF all this

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Speaker 4: thing they're piggybacking, coordinating with WFP. In this instance, WFP

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Speaker 4: is coordinating with UNRA.

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Speaker 2: The Israelis.

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Speaker 4: One did not only buy RA, they wanted to just

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Speaker 4: put the entire UN system out of that. So to

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Speaker 4: do that, they formed this sort of collaborative partnership under

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Speaker 4: the management of the Israelis, which was supposed to be

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Speaker 4: kind of an amalgam of all of these different private NGOs.

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Speaker 4: And I don't want to get too much into the

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Speaker 4: specifics of like who sort of was involved in that,

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Speaker 4: but a lot of people kind of took them at

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Speaker 4: face value. They wanted this to be a real solution,

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Speaker 4: and so they offered to help and kind of set

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Speaker 4: up this system which was supposed to be overseen entirely

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Speaker 4: by the Israelis and the Americans from a security perspective.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: One of those was Jake woodho was the founder of

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Speaker 4: Team Rubicon, which is an organization that does a fair

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Speaker 4: amount of excellent work all around the world. He resigned

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Speaker 4: from the Gaza Humanitarian Fund a day before it launched

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Speaker 4: and went on record saying we cannot actually do this

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Speaker 4: while keeping to humanitarian principles of humanity and neutrality, which

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Speaker 4: was a signal to the world that this was a

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Speaker 4: highly politicized project, which is precisely what the World Food

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Speaker 4: Program under the leadership of radical leftist activist Cindy McCain

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Speaker 4: has been saying about this from the start. And you know, UNROE,

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Speaker 4: Felipe Lazarini, the head of UNRA, said this is this

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Speaker 4: is a clearly political sized event on the only the

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Speaker 4: un system is the only one capable of actually dealing

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Speaker 4: with this in a humanitarian way. All those concerns were

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Speaker 4: brushed aside. American contractors were brought in. Yeah, and the

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Speaker 4: results were relatively predictable. We've seen at this point two

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Speaker 4: pseudo massacres, I mean the first one with that four

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Speaker 4: Palestinians were killed in just this morning twenty seven Palestinians

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Speaker 4: were killed at a GHF distribution after gunfire was opened

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Speaker 4: up on them.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we're recording on the third gene, so that was

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Speaker 3: when this this second massacre occurred. And yeah, like, I

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Speaker 3: mean just today as we're recording this, I've seen that

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Speaker 3: Boston Consulting Group again, like not exactly, like a bastion

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Speaker 3: of wokeness has terminated this relationship with the Gods Humanitarian Foundation, right, Like,

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Speaker 3: the kind of see that this is a replacement for

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Speaker 3: UNRA to begin with was somewhat fascical, right, But people

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Speaker 3: who were prepared to go along with that, either because

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Speaker 3: they can make money doing it or because they thought

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Speaker 3: this was the only way to stop people starving, are

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Speaker 3: still deciding that, having seen the way that this is run,

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Speaker 3: it's not worth it, right, right, And.

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Speaker 4: There's also some political heavy handedness going on with this,

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Speaker 4: one of the most obvious features being specific aid distribution

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Speaker 4: points in the south of Gaza, which are designed to

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Speaker 4: bring you know, whereas UNRA and WFP were going to people,

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Speaker 4: they were trying to get food through as much of

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Speaker 4: the Gaza strip as possible, including people who wanted to

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Speaker 4: return to their homes in the North, the GHF is like, nope,

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Speaker 4: you starving population will need to make the journey to

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Speaker 4: this distribution point and this distribution point only, which you

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Speaker 4: know has the political effect of depopulating these areas that

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Speaker 4: you know, Israel is operating in. Yeah, which of course

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Speaker 4: is also met criticism. There are some videos going around

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Speaker 4: so impalston In celebrating yeah, you know, the relief efforts

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Speaker 4: of the of the JHEF. I think some of them

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Speaker 4: have been like verified by Reuters. You know, Israeli media

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Speaker 4: is making hay of that. You know, people praising Trump

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Speaker 4: in Gaza, right, which you know, these people are starving

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Speaker 4: and they're very happy to get aid.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: That doesn't mean that like everything is above board and cool, right.

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Speaker 3: It means that like the people who need a food

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Speaker 3: got food.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, and that's the political complexity. The situation

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Speaker 4: is that the people of Gaza have just been abandoned

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Speaker 4: by everyone, right, I mean, there's there's there's a lot

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Speaker 4: of criticism to be a haad of how Hamas has

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Speaker 4: handled this. There's a lot of criticism to be had

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Speaker 4: of obviously the way in which Israel has behaved and

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Speaker 4: the UN system and the international system. So I mean,

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Speaker 4: I'm glad that like some of them are getting food. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: that is that is an improvement of none of them

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Speaker 4: getting food. But everyone in the AID world is starting

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Speaker 4: to go on record saying the main problem is Israel

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Speaker 4: preventing AID from going into the Gaza strip. And actually

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Speaker 4: I want to harp on that a little bit because

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Speaker 4: the reason that has been given primarily for that is

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Speaker 4: that Hamas is stealing the AID. Every time they're asked

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Speaker 4: about this, they go back to, well, we want to

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Speaker 4: get into people gaza. Unfortunately Hamas keeps stealing the aid

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Speaker 4: and so we can't allow it. We need to allow

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Speaker 4: us to trickle in. Yeah, that's interesting for two reasons.

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Speaker 4: First of all, the yet to provide any evidence that

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Speaker 4: that's actually occurring, and second because all humanitarian experts agree

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Speaker 4: that even if that was the case, say everything is

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Speaker 4: real said about Hamas was true, and they were stealing

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Speaker 4: you know, ninety ninety five percent of the eight that's

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Speaker 4: coming in and selling it back, the humanitarian solution to

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Speaker 4: that would be to flood the strip with so much

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Speaker 4: AID that it would literally be impossible for them to

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Speaker 4: like to stop that, which we can't do, Like, yeah,

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Speaker 4: it would be possible for us to flood the Gaza

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Speaker 4: strip with so much aid that it would be like

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Speaker 4: an abundance of food. So the decision not to do

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Speaker 4: that is a political one.

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Speaker 3: Yes, definitely, Like I was going to say, on the

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Speaker 3: face of it, it doesn't matter. There are lots of situations,

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Speaker 3: to be clear, where people steal aid. It's undesirable, of

378
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Speaker 3: course it is. But yeah, the solution is more aid,

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Speaker 3: not like unfortunately the aid has been stolen, so now

380
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Speaker 3: they children must have. Yeah, that only works if you're

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Speaker 3: prepared to accept the outcome in which little children die

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Speaker 3: of starvasues.

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Speaker 4: Which the Israelis are. They're perfectly I mean this near

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Speaker 4: was a University of Pennsylvania poll. I'm not saying eighty

385
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Speaker 4: four percent of Israelis are in favor of the idea

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Speaker 4: of just simply either killing or displacing everyone in the

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Speaker 4: gardsa eighty four percent.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wild to see.

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Speaker 3: Like it's been such a strange couple of years in

390
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Speaker 3: that sense, right, because more people in this country are

391
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Speaker 3: aware of the plight of the people of Palestine than

392
00:20:31,800 --> 00:20:34,360
Speaker 3: ever have been, and more people are engaged with it.

393
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Speaker 3: That is mostly good. Some people have been gaged to

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Speaker 3: it in a way which is far from good. Right, Like,

395
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Speaker 3: I don't think there's really very much be gained. Fucking

396
00:20:44,720 --> 00:20:48,959
Speaker 3: throwing molotov cocktails people in Boulder is not making anything

397
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Speaker 3: better for anyone. It's just making everything danger more dangerous

398
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Speaker 3: for everyone. And it's fucking stupid.

399
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Speaker 4: And I would extend that to gunning down yes, so

400
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Speaker 4: would I. Yeah, Israeli a couples outside the Jewish music

401
00:21:00,119 --> 00:21:02,440
Speaker 4: in DC. I don't think that's necessarily the best way

402
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Speaker 4: to help people in Gaza.

403
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Speaker 3: No, Like, yeah, standing outside the ventf Jewish people in

404
00:21:06,680 --> 00:21:07,840
Speaker 3: fucking shooting random people.

405
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Speaker 2: It's not that.

406
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Speaker 3: Again, it doesn't make anyone safer. It makes all of

407
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Speaker 3: us left safe, And like it does nothing to stop

408
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Speaker 3: people dying and starving in Gaza, and like that's it's

409
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Speaker 3: not the crux of the problem, I guess, But like

410
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Speaker 3: that is a problem, right, that people are engaging with Gaza,

411
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Speaker 3: but nothing is helping people here. Know how bad it

412
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Speaker 3: is that children are starving in Gaza, but that hasn't

413
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Speaker 3: changed the fact that children are starving in Gaza. In fact,

414
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Speaker 3: like you know, I've said it's a lot of times

415
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Speaker 3: that I moved her in two thousand and eight, and

416
00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:39,800
Speaker 3: I had engaged with the movement before that in the

417
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Speaker 3: UK right and the situation passed time to be was

418
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Speaker 3: very different then, but like it wasn't something that people

419
00:21:45,800 --> 00:21:48,359
Speaker 3: had heard of here for the most part, unless you

420
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Speaker 3: were within like certain leftist or sort of people have

421
00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:55,280
Speaker 3: maybe they're like Middle East an extraction would know about it.

422
00:21:55,359 --> 00:21:57,560
Speaker 3: Of course, now people do know, and all over the

423
00:21:57,600 --> 00:22:00,399
Speaker 3: world people know, and we've seen huge marches. Right, Like,

424
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Speaker 3: the situation is worse than it's ever been, I mean,

425
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Speaker 3: not ever being the knuck boll is pretty fucked too.

426
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Speaker 3: But as the world looks on, right, like, the gender

427
00:22:08,240 --> 00:22:12,280
Speaker 3: side continues and people continue dying, and seemingly the acceptance

428
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Speaker 3: of the Guard of Humanitarian Foundation by states of the

429
00:22:16,840 --> 00:22:21,480
Speaker 3: world is really troubling, right, Like we're concentrating this starving

430
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Speaker 3: population in a small area. It's contrary to everything that

431
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Speaker 3: humanitarian principles stand for. And oh no, we don't see

432
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Speaker 3: I mean, there is a very ready alternative. It's whether

433
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Speaker 3: anyone is willing to step up and tell Araee to

434
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Speaker 3: stop stopping aid entering the Guard like this could end

435
00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:43,600
Speaker 3: in my estimation, like very quickly. Right, we have enough

436
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:45,919
Speaker 3: aid and even aid in the regent to feed all

437
00:22:45,960 --> 00:22:47,480
Speaker 3: those people right now if we needed to.

438
00:22:47,720 --> 00:22:51,080
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's there's tens of millions of pounds

439
00:22:51,080 --> 00:22:53,680
Speaker 4: of food rotting and warehouses and Jordan and Egypt right

440
00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:55,560
Speaker 4: now just waiting to go across the border.

441
00:22:55,960 --> 00:22:57,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, and people dying.

442
00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:00,520
Speaker 4: It's the lack of political will, mostly on behalf of

443
00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:03,399
Speaker 4: the United States, you know, but also I think the

444
00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:07,800
Speaker 4: members of the Abraham Accords and the EU. Yeah, it's

445
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 4: a devastating indictment. And I think the interesting thing about

446
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:13,600
Speaker 4: it is it truly pulls the mask off of the

447
00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:18,880
Speaker 4: quote unquote rules based world order. Yeah, the US led

448
00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:21,960
Speaker 4: rules based world order, because you just I mean, it's

449
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:25,000
Speaker 4: just so obvious that no matter how many people want

450
00:23:25,080 --> 00:23:28,080
Speaker 4: this terrible thing to end, that we're saying this very

451
00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:31,720
Speaker 4: obvious genocide is being livestream to our phones, the powers

452
00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:34,960
Speaker 4: that be are too invested to to let it stop.

453
00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:37,960
Speaker 4: You know, they're they're into the hill. We've already seen

454
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:42,320
Speaker 4: the degree to which the United States is compromised in

455
00:23:42,359 --> 00:23:48,320
Speaker 4: its in its media and and government storytelling in relation

456
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:52,440
Speaker 4: to Israel Palestine. Did the long unwillingness of people to

457
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:56,360
Speaker 4: speak up about this followed by the very rapid turnaround

458
00:23:56,800 --> 00:24:00,000
Speaker 4: of people who are now rats fleeing the ship. Yeah,

459
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:05,520
Speaker 4: seeing the unmistakable reality of this genocide. And you know

460
00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:08,560
Speaker 4: it's like everyone says, once this is done, everyone will

461
00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:10,800
Speaker 4: pretend they were against it from the start. And you're

462
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:13,000
Speaker 4: now starting to see that, right, you know with like

463
00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:15,239
Speaker 4: the former White House Press secretary.

464
00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah Miller, Right yeah, Miller.

465
00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:19,320
Speaker 4: Was like, yeah, they've been committing war crimes than they

466
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:20,680
Speaker 4: were doing it while I was there, But I didn't

467
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:22,480
Speaker 4: speak on my behalf. I was speaking on behalf of

468
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:23,480
Speaker 4: the United States.

469
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:27,000
Speaker 3: Government, right, yeah, the old the old Neumberg defense. M Yeah,

470
00:24:27,040 --> 00:24:28,960
Speaker 3: they like I was just doing my job thing, which

471
00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:33,359
Speaker 3: like is not actually don't actually excuse for participating in

472
00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:36,440
Speaker 3: war crimes, and like should have been an excuse for

473
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:38,720
Speaker 3: apologizing or excusing them, might there.

474
00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:42,600
Speaker 4: Right, It's I know that you guys have talked about

475
00:24:42,680 --> 00:24:44,720
Speaker 4: and that Wi'll have spoilers for this, but I know

476
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:47,520
Speaker 4: you guys have recently had a series Unpacking and Or,

477
00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:50,159
Speaker 4: which is my favorite TV show. Yeah, and I was

478
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 4: just so happy that they snuck that one line in

479
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:56,399
Speaker 4: about when Cyril asks what they're doing here and she

480
00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:57,720
Speaker 4: just says following orders.

481
00:24:58,119 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, how often we can I hear that in the

482
00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:01,680
Speaker 3: next few years, I guess.

483
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:04,080
Speaker 4: Yeah.

484
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:08,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so predictable, right like, every time this happens,

485
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:11,480
Speaker 3: right like, And this isn't the first time the United

486
00:25:11,560 --> 00:25:15,960
Speaker 3: Nations has basically allowed it. Genocide tappened right under its nose. No,

487
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:19,280
Speaker 3: and it probably won't be the last, because, as you said,

488
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:22,359
Speaker 3: right like, the idea that we have a rules based

489
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 3: world order, it's a lie. It's a myth that exists

490
00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:31,119
Speaker 3: to make people feel better and feel like this stuff

491
00:25:31,119 --> 00:25:34,480
Speaker 3: couldn't happen again. But like you know, we have ICC

492
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:37,199
Speaker 3: warrants for people who are traveling freely around the world.

493
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter that the ICC can't enforce its own warrants,

494
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 3: right like you can say something for war crime, it

495
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:48,000
Speaker 3: doesn't matter, Like, no one's the war police aren't going

496
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:49,640
Speaker 3: to go and arrest all the people doing it.

497
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:54,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's mostly just kind of a Yeah, it's kind

498
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:56,199
Speaker 4: of a placebo, and I'm not really sure what the

499
00:25:56,200 --> 00:26:00,959
Speaker 4: function it serves. I mean, I'm not a big international

500
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 4: institutions enjoyer. Like, I'm deeply skeptical of the United Nations

501
00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:06,919
Speaker 4: in almost every one of its aspects. My team and

502
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 4: I've taught several times about the point that this documentary

503
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:14,920
Speaker 4: has that weirdly, like it's improved our trust in international

504
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 4: and geos just because we're seeing like the degree to

505
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:21,040
Speaker 4: which UNRA is operating on increasingly less budget every year

506
00:26:21,359 --> 00:26:22,960
Speaker 4: and still managing to be effective.

507
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:23,280
Speaker 1: Yeah.

508
00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:25,040
Speaker 4: I think a huge part of that is again, it

509
00:26:25,080 --> 00:26:27,800
Speaker 4: is staffed by the local population who are from these areas,

510
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:30,280
Speaker 4: and they have a duty and a commitment to care

511
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:30,960
Speaker 4: to their people.

512
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:31,880
Speaker 2: Yeah.

513
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:33,679
Speaker 4: But in general, no, I mean, I don't understand what

514
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:35,560
Speaker 4: the point of the UN is if you don't give

515
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:39,160
Speaker 4: it the US military, Like I mean, if as an anarchist,

516
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 4: I don't believe that this is a great solution to things.

517
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:43,440
Speaker 4: But like, if you wanted to enforce the U in

518
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:46,560
Speaker 4: you would need the World Police, Like you would need

519
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 4: to just use the United States to like hunt down

520
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:52,040
Speaker 4: these people, Yeah, and utilize it's eight hundred military bases

521
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:54,760
Speaker 4: in every country to enforce these rules.

522
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:57,440
Speaker 3: And we don't really yet we allow these things to happen.

523
00:26:57,640 --> 00:27:00,639
Speaker 3: But yeah, I'm the biggest national institutions enjoy either, Like

524
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 3: I've seen the UN be fugging useless in most continents

525
00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:05,960
Speaker 3: that people live on. I would really like it though,

526
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 3: if they would do something to stop the suffering of

527
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:11,439
Speaker 3: the people of Palestine. Like, it doesn't mean I wouldn't

528
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 3: be happy. It doesn't mean I'm not happy when I

529
00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:15,679
Speaker 3: speak to guys from PK, guys that we've had on

530
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 3: our show several times, right, Like when they talk to

531
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:21,800
Speaker 3: us about like where should we send money, They'll be like, oh,

532
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 3: Unerawa able to get my family some food this week

533
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:27,600
Speaker 3: or whatever. Like I'm happy to hear that, and I'm

534
00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 3: glad that they're there, Glad that they were there at

535
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:44,399
Speaker 3: that time. I guess. So, like, what does the future

536
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 3: hold for the guys of Humanitarian Foundation? Seems to be

537
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:50,959
Speaker 3: falling apart within a very short period of this whole

538
00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 3: thing being stood up, which is unsurprising, Right, can you explain,

539
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:58,199
Speaker 3: like what does it take for a that lives up

540
00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 3: to basic humanitarians to get in there?

541
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 4: I think that's a really difficult question to answer because

542
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:08,600
Speaker 4: we have bribed so many options. Yeah, I mean truly,

543
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:11,080
Speaker 4: I mean the last time I think I was on

544
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 4: this podcast, it was to talk about my colleagues at

545
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:17,880
Speaker 4: the World Central Kitchen who got killed in Gaza. That

546
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 4: was an attempt to try and alleviate the suffering of the

547
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 4: Palace sitting people and it had predictable results. You know.

548
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:26,040
Speaker 4: There's all these groups have been operating in there to

549
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 4: the extent that they can and the result has been

550
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:33,040
Speaker 4: too little, too late. And everyone is saying, from Sydney

551
00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 4: McCain at the World Through Program, to Philippe Lazarreni, to

552
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:40,479
Speaker 4: you know, Lese andres like from the private sector, everyone

553
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 4: is saying, the reason this is a problem has nothing

554
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 4: to do with the moths. It has everything to do

555
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:46,280
Speaker 4: with about that Israel is restricting the amount of aid

556
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 4: going to the Gaza Strip. And now everyone's waking up

557
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:51,719
Speaker 4: and asking the obvious question of like, well, why are

558
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 4: they actually doing that? And in the answer corresponds to

559
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 4: those polls we see that indicate that, you know, yeah,

560
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 4: fifty percent of Israeli society is open to killing everyone

561
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 4: in the Gaza Strip. Any four percent are open to

562
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 4: displacing them all. This is just what Israel wants. And

563
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 4: I think the humanitarian world is slowly swallowing that very

564
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:14,000
Speaker 4: difficult pill. And I don't I can't really tell you

565
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:16,840
Speaker 4: what comes next outside of a political resolution.

566
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, which seems higher and how to come by in

567
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 3: the current international climate, Like certainly it's not coming from

568
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 3: the US, right, Like.

569
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean like something to watch would be that

570
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 4: Senator Welch from Vermont introduced a bill to immediately refund UNRA. Okay, yeah,

571
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 4: and it has it has a house a correl it

572
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 4: with I think, yeah, Congresswoman Jayapaul and a few others

573
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:42,600
Speaker 4: who are trying to kind of push that through. I mean,

574
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 4: the United States funds three hundred million dollars, which is

575
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 4: about over a third of un annual budget, and we've

576
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 4: restricted that funding for the past year and a half. Yeah,

577
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 4: so if we restore that, I think that would be

578
00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:57,720
Speaker 4: a big signal to Israel that like, we're not playing

579
00:29:57,760 --> 00:29:58,680
Speaker 4: ball anymore.

580
00:29:59,240 --> 00:29:59,480
Speaker 2: Yeah.

581
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:02,760
Speaker 4: I just think when you have a rubber stamp Congress

582
00:30:02,800 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 4: and a fascist president that's probably unlikely to pass.

583
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 2: That's a big reach. Yeah.

584
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:10,880
Speaker 3: I actually think this is an area where elected officials

585
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 3: are to the right of Trump supporters on this one.

586
00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 2: I think, like, you.

587
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 3: Know, I spend a lot of time in rural East

588
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:18,040
Speaker 3: County San Diego, right, Like, I talk to people who

589
00:30:18,040 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 3: have very different politics to my own. Yeah, it's a

590
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 3: nice way of saying that, but like I've had people

591
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 3: who straight up I'm sure voted for Trump. Be like, man,

592
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:29,240
Speaker 3: they're letting little children staff, Like what the fuck is

593
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 3: wrong with you know? Like like I think it's an

594
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 3: area where a more sensible politics would be able to

595
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 3: build consensus.

596
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:38,680
Speaker 4: But here we are, right, yeah, I mean, and there

597
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:41,800
Speaker 4: is no opposition, Like the Democrats are not an opposition party.

598
00:30:41,840 --> 00:30:44,680
Speaker 4: They're just happy being like the junior partners in fascism.

599
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 1: Now.

600
00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:48,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're having a little party today where they're giving

601
00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 3: out tacos because they're trying to somehow encourage Trump to

602
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:56,959
Speaker 3: go ahead with more sanctions and tariffs and more genocides.

603
00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:58,960
Speaker 3: I guess, like I don't quite know what the Trump

604
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 3: always chickens out, like, well, I'm glad you stick it

605
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:04,520
Speaker 3: out with the tariffs, isn't isn't that a good thing?

606
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 4: Yeah?

607
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 3: Like yeah, like what are you trying to what are

608
00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:09,880
Speaker 3: you trying to say here? I think maybe I don't

609
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 3: want to confront what they're trying to say. But this

610
00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 3: is a thing that like at the current time, like

611
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 3: it needs state action to stop it. Yeah, we do

612
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:20,360
Speaker 3: not have an organization which which is able to mobilize

613
00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 3: people in such a way that they can stop it.

614
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:24,600
Speaker 2: Like and that is it's really desperate.

615
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:27,640
Speaker 3: If you care right, because the states of the world

616
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:30,600
Speaker 3: very clearly for decades and decades and decades have been

617
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:34,480
Speaker 3: unconcerned with Palestinian people and their wellbeing, and they're not

618
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:38,280
Speaker 3: doing shit about it now. I think there are still

619
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 3: people who are able to make a meaningful benefit to

620
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:42,800
Speaker 3: the lives of people in the West Bank. Right. I

621
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:45,360
Speaker 3: understand why people are hopeless when they when they look

622
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:46,959
Speaker 3: at what's happening to you guys, and I understand why

623
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 3: it seems bleak and it seems like there's nothing you

624
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:56,000
Speaker 3: can do. Are there things that like concrete actions, organizations,

625
00:31:56,080 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 3: groups that you think people can engage with and we've

626
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 3: heard from some them on the show before, right to

627
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 3: be in a sort of dearity way or to help people.

628
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:05,400
Speaker 2: In the West Bank.

629
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I think, like I honestly, I think

630
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:11,520
Speaker 4: there are people who could probably better answer this question

631
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 4: for me who've actually gone and done protected presence operations

632
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:16,960
Speaker 4: in the West Bank. I know that they're like the

633
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 4: people in Massafayatta are often asking for foreigners to come

634
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 4: and do that, and a lot of people will go

635
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:25,640
Speaker 4: through like Jordan Valley Solidarity or ism or something like that.

636
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 4: I'm usually one to discourage foreigners from jumping feet first

637
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 4: into a HoriZone with great intentions and no knowledge of

638
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 4: the language or everything that's going on. Yeah, but there

639
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 4: does seem to be a genuine call from amongst the

640
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 4: Palestinian community in the West Bank to have people who

641
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:44,560
Speaker 4: are willing to physically get in between you know, Alistinian

642
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:49,320
Speaker 4: villages and settlers and the IDF. Yeah, so that is

643
00:32:49,320 --> 00:32:52,040
Speaker 4: a concrete thing you can do. That's a dangerous thing

644
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:53,479
Speaker 4: to ask somebody to do.

645
00:32:54,080 --> 00:32:56,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think it's something people should rush into, right,

646
00:32:56,960 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 3: Like we've interviewed people who have been shot.

647
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:03,360
Speaker 4: Doing Yeah, exactly. A young woman was killed doing that, Yeah,

648
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 4: a shunar Agi. She was shot feet away from my

649
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:10,200
Speaker 4: friend who was just in the West Bank and he

650
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 4: just got banned from the entire territory for ninety nine years.

651
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 4: And I was talking to him about that because I

652
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:18,000
Speaker 4: wonder about, like, you know, my work, and sometimes I

653
00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 4: feel like I'm not going far enough of my solidarity

654
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:22,960
Speaker 4: because I'm doing this investigative documentary and I'm not physically

655
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 4: putting my body on the line. Yeah. Sure, but I

656
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 4: can still go to the country, Like my support for

657
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:30,600
Speaker 4: the Palestinians is still ongoing. So I think people need

658
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 4: to ask themselves, do I want to take one drastic

659
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 4: measure to like show this is my solidarity with Ausiginn

660
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 4: in an instant. Yeah, whether it's joining like a flotilla

661
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 4: that might get airstrikes, or you know, setting yourself on

662
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:47,760
Speaker 4: fire outside the Israeli embassy, or do I want to

663
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 4: like contribute in the ways that I can as best

664
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 4: I can. I mean, I'm a storyteller, right, so I said,

665
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 4: I need to find a story that I can tell

666
00:33:56,520 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 4: about the Palestinian that will humanize them. Yeah, in the

667
00:33:59,760 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 4: eyes of people who are not naturally sympathetic. And I

668
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:04,200
Speaker 4: think a lot of people think that they need to

669
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:06,480
Speaker 4: be putting their body on the line. Or it's like

670
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:08,439
Speaker 4: I talk about this with disaster relief all the time,

671
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:10,839
Speaker 4: Like disaster happens and people see you on the TV,

672
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:12,520
Speaker 4: They're like, I need to be wearing a high viz

673
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:15,120
Speaker 4: best and distributing a box of aid to someone. Yeah,

674
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:18,719
Speaker 4: It's like, no, you probably don't. Actually, Like the thing

675
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 4: that you can best do to help people is probably

676
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:23,280
Speaker 4: the skill that you've been perfecting in your own career

677
00:34:23,719 --> 00:34:25,919
Speaker 4: as well as like, yeah, in your own life, right,

678
00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:28,640
Speaker 4: if you're good at spreadsheets, you can help people get

679
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 4: access to housing.

680
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:31,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent. You know, if you're good, if

681
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:32,399
Speaker 2: you're good at.

682
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:34,640
Speaker 4: Lifting things, then maybe you should be lifting boxes. But like,

683
00:34:34,680 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 4: I have a friend who's the Emmy Award winning director

684
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:39,120
Speaker 4: of photography, and he's like, I have a truck and

685
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 4: I can lift everything's and like show me where to go.

686
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:44,279
Speaker 4: And he was hitting me up the entire like first

687
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:46,800
Speaker 4: two weeks of the LA fires, being like where should

688
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:49,120
Speaker 4: I go? And I was like me, you're an Emmy

689
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:53,200
Speaker 4: Award winning videography. Tell the story of the fires, find

690
00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:57,359
Speaker 4: the survivors, like bring their stories to life and let

691
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 4: the world see what our community looks like. And he

692
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:03,160
Speaker 4: did that and it went amazing. Yeah, So, like I

693
00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 4: think people should think about when they want to help.

694
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:08,080
Speaker 4: You know, if you are a seramicist or you sew,

695
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 4: or you're a musician write a song about gods. Like,

696
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 4: there's so many ways to help that don't involve physically

697
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:16,960
Speaker 4: putting yourself in between a settler and they're in for

698
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:19,880
Speaker 4: and a Palestinian family whose language you can't speak.

699
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:21,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree.

700
00:35:21,040 --> 00:35:23,440
Speaker 3: Like there's and we see that with border stuff, right,

701
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:26,120
Speaker 3: Like everyone wants to do hike out to the border

702
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:29,799
Speaker 3: and drug water, or you know, everyone wanted to in

703
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 3: Cumber right, Like a lot of people wanted to help us,

704
00:35:32,120 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 3: and people did help us, and it was amazing, it

705
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 3: was really beautiful. But like people were also able to

706
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 3: help the skills they had, like making jewelry and selling

707
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:41,400
Speaker 3: it or baby doing a benefit gig. Right, there's a

708
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:44,440
Speaker 3: long tradition of anna kiss benefit gigs, like it's a

709
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:46,640
Speaker 3: thing that we do do a zine, yeah, like you

710
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:50,479
Speaker 3: a punk concert, you know, yeah, yeah, many many such

711
00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 3: cases like within doing that, there's the intangible benefit of

712
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 3: showing people that people care about them, like all around

713
00:35:59,000 --> 00:35:59,360
Speaker 3: the world.

714
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:01,279
Speaker 2: I remember, you know.

715
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:05,600
Speaker 3: Just recently, I saw people from the Karini Nationalities Defense Force, right,

716
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:08,880
Speaker 3: so one of the revolutionary organizations in Miamma making a

717
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:12,120
Speaker 3: statement about solidarity to people of Palestine and to their children.

718
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:15,400
Speaker 3: And you know that they too have experienced their children

719
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:18,320
Speaker 3: being killed, they too have experienced these bombing runs and

720
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 3: state oppression, and that like they see them and they

721
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:23,239
Speaker 3: care about them, and even in their own time of war,

722
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:25,959
Speaker 3: like the front in Karini state is hot right now,

723
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 3: that they are still thinking of the people of Palestine.

724
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 3: I saw Palestinian people were very touched by this, right,

725
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:35,360
Speaker 3: Like it does Obviously you can't eat someone's good thoughts,

726
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 3: but like there are things you can do, like because yeah,

727
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:40,200
Speaker 3: you can't be down there right now giving people a

728
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:42,759
Speaker 3: sandwich as much as you'd like to, and for some

729
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:45,279
Speaker 3: people that's either not possible or maybe just not the

730
00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 3: best use of their time. And like, I think it's

731
00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:50,840
Speaker 3: a really good message. Everyone's good as something do, like,

732
00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 3: find the thing that you're good at and use that

733
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 3: to help people. I think is really valuable. Is there

734
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:57,360
Speaker 3: anything else you'd like to share with people before you

735
00:36:57,400 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 3: finish up here?

736
00:36:58,440 --> 00:36:59,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just think I would.

737
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:03,439
Speaker 4: This was a dark conversation because I don't really see

738
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 4: a way out of this humanitarian situation. But I think

739
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 4: there's a degree to which that's been the case from

740
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:13,560
Speaker 4: the start. Right. The real trick of the imperial thought

741
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:16,320
Speaker 4: machine is that the pace of oppression outstrips our ability

742
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:20,839
Speaker 4: to understand it. Yeah, to quote theory Twink charisenemic. But

743
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 4: don't lose hope, right, because the world does care about

744
00:37:26,120 --> 00:37:29,880
Speaker 4: Palestine more than it ever has. Yeah, they feel that

745
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:33,640
Speaker 4: the people there feel our love, they feel our solidarity,

746
00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:38,320
Speaker 4: and that is not valueless right, Like, ye, no human

747
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:42,319
Speaker 4: is useless. Who lightens the burden of another. I was

748
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 4: depressed as hell coming back from this recent drip to

749
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 4: Palaestigne and I went to the mountains and mets. We

750
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 4: met with a bunch of people who were just really

751
00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 4: energetic about like Kalesidian solidarity and really cared about it,

752
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 4: and it was like, yeah, it was so nice to

753
00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:56,279
Speaker 4: go from that and just be able to tell my

754
00:37:56,320 --> 00:37:58,120
Speaker 4: Palestinian fans like, hey, by the way, we just spent

755
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 4: an entire week talk about what we can do to

756
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 4: alleviate to some small degree the suffering that your people

757
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:08,360
Speaker 4: are going through. That matters. Yeah, Like every small act,

758
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:12,080
Speaker 4: every little thing, right, the small deeds of ordinary folk.

759
00:38:12,120 --> 00:38:13,520
Speaker 4: That's what keeps the darkness is bay.

760
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:17,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's really deprescient. Often, like refugees will say

761
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:20,280
Speaker 3: to me, scientias will say to me, in the last

762
00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:23,359
Speaker 3: six months, now, I guess that I think Americans don't

763
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:26,200
Speaker 3: care about them anymore, and that really fucking breaks my heart,

764
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:29,319
Speaker 3: like more than I can express with words, because I

765
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:30,760
Speaker 3: care about those people so much.

766
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:33,360
Speaker 2: And like it does.

767
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 3: Make a difference when they see people doing things, and

768
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:39,239
Speaker 3: they can be small things, but like I know how

769
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:42,879
Speaker 3: much set lifts up somebody in dark times, Like, yeah,

770
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:46,279
Speaker 3: because I've been with them in pretty dark times. So yeah,

771
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:48,799
Speaker 3: it does make a difference. And like if that's what

772
00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 3: you can do, then then people shouldn't think is valueless.

773
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, and also UNI pressure people, you know, continue to

774
00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:57,840
Speaker 4: make people embarrassed for the Yeah, for believing in genocide.

775
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 4: Call your congressmen and remind them that they are their

776
00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:03,000
Speaker 4: shills and cowards. I think a lot about you know,

777
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 4: you mentioned like nineteen you mentioned World War two earlier.

778
00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:09,280
Speaker 4: I mean, if we had had TikTok in the age

779
00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:14,200
Speaker 4: of Dacau and Treblinka and Oschwitz, I think about like

780
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:18,839
Speaker 4: the American government knew about the final solution, We knew

781
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 4: that the box cars were going to these extermination camps,

782
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 4: and we refuse to bomb them. Yeah, we focused on

783
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:28,600
Speaker 4: military targets. If we've been able to live stream, you know,

784
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 4: some from inside Auschwitz, and we were also able, because

785
00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:34,840
Speaker 4: of pro public or whatever, to find out that FDR

786
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:39,279
Speaker 4: was choosing not to bomb the concentration camps, there would

787
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 4: have been outrage. There would have been a huge amount

788
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 4: of outrage I think in the American population as there

789
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:46,839
Speaker 4: is in Gaza and that's an important thing. It's something

790
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 4: we have access to. Now we can put that external

791
00:39:49,640 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 4: pressure onto people and make them uncomfortable. That's what brought

792
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:59,360
Speaker 4: down South African apartheid. The like it's the BCGS pulling

793
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:02,880
Speaker 4: out of the Gaza Humanitarian Fund. Yeah, basically British companies

794
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:06,080
Speaker 4: just got so embarrassed to work with South Africa that

795
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 4: they just eventually stopped. And that's what brought down.

796
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:12,160
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, because people wouldn't shut the fuck up about it, right,

797
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:14,880
Speaker 3: and they wouldn't let them do other stuff and be like,

798
00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:18,680
Speaker 3: we're not talking about that today, And like people in

799
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 3: the case of South Africa wouldn't play sports with South

800
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 3: Africa until it fucking stopped doing its apartheid. Right. Like

801
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:27,280
Speaker 3: I was gonna say it was global and a boycott,

802
00:40:27,280 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 3: It wasn't quite global. It's Rael was not boycotting apartheid

803
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:34,719
Speaker 3: South Africa. But yeah, that stuff does make a different Charles,

804
00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:35,920
Speaker 3: when's your documentary coming out?

805
00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:38,120
Speaker 2: Where could people find it? What can they view it on?

806
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 4: I'm still in the editing space, so I think give

807
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:44,080
Speaker 4: me two months and I'll have a better idea when

808
00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:47,480
Speaker 4: it's coming out. I'm hoping like before autumn. Damn twenty

809
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:50,840
Speaker 4: twenty five. It is a time only piece, right, it

810
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:54,759
Speaker 4: has some relevance that's time sensitive, but you can follow

811
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:57,680
Speaker 4: it on Instagram. It's just at the war on enra

812
00:40:58,120 --> 00:41:02,200
Speaker 4: you n rwa. Yeah, and my personal account also posts

813
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 4: a lot about it. That's Charles McBride with a y.

814
00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:05,239
Speaker 3: Yeah.

815
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:08,840
Speaker 4: And it's the same on substack TikTok YouTube.

816
00:41:08,920 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 2: Yeah.

817
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 3: Like child said, you don't have to be there getting

818
00:41:10,960 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 3: an in full pointed at you to make a difference,

819
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:15,120
Speaker 3: and so like, yeah, I would encourage people to do

820
00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:17,880
Speaker 3: the little things too. They're not that's small legedly, but

821
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:22,359
Speaker 3: just yeah, the things that aren't going to Palestine necessarily.

822
00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:25,600
Speaker 4: Absolutely, Yeah, and like take heart, you know, don't despair.

823
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:29,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, find some joy.

824
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:33,240
Speaker 1: It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.

825
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:36,520
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

826
00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:39,120
Speaker 1: cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the

827
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

828
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:45,480
Speaker 1: You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here.

829
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:48,480
Speaker 1: Listened directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.