Speaker 1: Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is deep background to show
Speaker 1: where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news.
Speaker 1: I'm Noah Feldman. This May, the Israel Palestine conflict erupted
Speaker 1: into the most serious violence that we've seen in some years.
Speaker 1: Over the course of several weeks, Hamas and the Israeli
Speaker 1: Army traded rocket fire and missile fire, while simultaneously, and
Speaker 1: for the first time in many years, riots broke out
Speaker 1: between Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinian Arabs within Israel itself.
Speaker 1: By the time a ceasefire was declared, more than three
Speaker 1: hundred people had died, most of them Palestinian. The issues
Speaker 1: behind this conflict are complex, and in particular, it's important
Speaker 1: to notice and to try to understand why this particular
Speaker 1: round of violence spilled over into conflict between Israelis and
Speaker 1: Palestinians within Israel, including within mixed cities within the country
Speaker 1: that have historically been very peaceful and have been treated
Speaker 1: by some observers as models of coexistence. These issues are
Speaker 1: complex and political, but they're also legal. Since one of
Speaker 1: the catalysts of this outbreak of violence was a property
Speaker 1: conflict in a neighborhood of Jerusalem called Czech Jarrah. Getting
Speaker 1: inside these complicated issues is never easy. But today, in
Speaker 1: order to take a first crack at some of them,
Speaker 1: I'm happy to introduce you to a special guest. You
Speaker 1: may not have heard his name before, but I am
Speaker 1: looking forward to introducing you to him. Rabbia Albaria is
Speaker 1: a Palestinian Israeli who's currently a doctoral student at the
Speaker 1: Harvard Law School. He is quite simply one of the
Speaker 1: most brilliant students I've ever taught in twenty years as
Speaker 1: a law professor. Before coming to Harvard, he was a
Speaker 1: civil rights attorney with Adalla, the Legal Center for our
Speaker 1: minority rights in Israel. In that capacity, he argued important
Speaker 1: cases before the Israeli Supreme Court, and he's also published
Speaker 1: fascinating and path breaking scholarship about the experience of Palestinians
Speaker 1: living in Israel as citizens. As you'll shortly hear, Robbia
Speaker 1: has a distinctive voice and a distinctive perspective, both personally
Speaker 1: and analytically on the conflict, and I'm very pleased that
Speaker 1: he was able to join us here on deep background. Rabia,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me before we dive
Speaker 1: into our substance. I just want to begin by asking
Speaker 1: you how your family back home in Haifa are doing.
Speaker 1: Is everybody okay? Thank you for having me. No, I
Speaker 1: am doing fine. I've been going through all the recent
Speaker 1: events watching from the US. But my families in Haifa
Speaker 1: and they are currently fine, but it has been really
Speaker 1: hard times. Did they see or directly experience any of
Speaker 1: the violence that took place. My sister actually lives a
Speaker 1: nearer neighborhood called the German Colony in Haifa, and there
Speaker 1: has been a lot of Jewish supremacist moths that were
Speaker 1: roaming the streets, and so they were hearing the moths
Speaker 1: from their house while they were basically locked in their
Speaker 1: house for about two days. And in your memory and
Speaker 1: your living memory, has anything like this happened in Haifa before.
Speaker 1: It's a city that's often held up as a model
Speaker 1: of mutual tolerance between Palestinian citizens of Israel and Jewish
Speaker 1: citizens of Israel. Well, not in my lifetime that I remember.
Speaker 1: I'm obviously I want to say that I'm critical of
Speaker 1: this term of coexistence that is used many times to
Speaker 1: portray Haifa, and we can delve into that, but this
Speaker 1: eruption of violence to this extent, both by private actors,
Speaker 1: by mobs and by state sanctions, violence is something unprecedented.
Speaker 1: Let's take a step back and define terms for listeners
Speaker 1: who engage the question of Israel and Palestine. Let's say episodically,
Speaker 1: you know, in the moments when the media engages it.
Speaker 1: So let's start with just definitions. There are Palestinians who
Speaker 1: identify as Palestinians, are ethnically Palestine or nationally Palestinians, but
Speaker 1: are simultaneously citizens of the State of Israel. And then
Speaker 1: there are Palestinians who live in the West Bank and
Speaker 1: in Gaza who are Palestinians but are not citizens of Israel.
Speaker 1: And then there are even more Palestinians who live outside
Speaker 1: of those places, who are legally identified as refugees, who
Speaker 1: are also not citizens of Israel. What are roughly ballpark
Speaker 1: the numbers order of magnitude of each these groups, to
Speaker 1: remind to remind people roughly how many citizens of Israel
Speaker 1: identify as Palestinian. Okay, So, actually this is a great question.
Speaker 1: I usually when I try to explain, you know, what
Speaker 1: is the situation, I use the metaphor of a hand
Speaker 1: five parts, and there is five different groups of Palestinians. Basically,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, there's Palestinian citizens of Israel, which are
Speaker 1: amount to about twenty percent more or less of the
Speaker 1: Israeli population. Of the Israeli people who have citizenship. In numbers,
Speaker 1: we're talking about somewhere between one point eight million to
Speaker 1: two million, depends how you count. Because there is the
Speaker 1: second category of residents, which applies only to East Jerusalem Palestinians,
Speaker 1: and it's a different legal status, very similar to citizenship,
Speaker 1: but with a lot of reservations. For example, people with
Speaker 1: residency cannot vote, and the residency can be revoked and
Speaker 1: effectively people will be banned from living in East Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: There's palestins in the West Bank, and there is Palestinians
Speaker 1: in Gaza Strip, which is categories three and four, and
Speaker 1: the fifth and last categories, as you mentioned, is refugees. Now,
Speaker 1: as for numbers research, it's been consistently shown that since
Speaker 1: the nineties, there's been an increase actually of Palestinians that
Speaker 1: identifies Palestinians despite having Israeli citizenship, and we're talking about
Speaker 1: roughly sixty percent of the population that clearly uses the
Speaker 1: term Palestinian in their identity. Sixty percent of which population
Speaker 1: the Palestinians citizens of Israel. I say so by implication,
Speaker 1: that means there are say forty percent of people who
Speaker 1: are ethnically or nationally Palestinian are citizens of Israel, but
Speaker 1: don't use the term Palestinian to describe themselves, right, what
Speaker 1: terms would they use to describe themselves? So there is
Speaker 1: actually a variety of terms here that are at play.
Speaker 1: You know, many people are familiar with the term Arab Israelis,
Speaker 1: and I think it's it's important to discuss this and
Speaker 1: put it on the table. It's actually a term. There
Speaker 1: was an official term used by Israel to to describe
Speaker 1: the Palestinian or Arab Palestinian minority with citizenship inside Israel.
Speaker 1: But it's been a little bit deceiving because it's a
Speaker 1: official terminology that was imposed on many Palestinians after the
Speaker 1: establishment of Israel. Now people might use a variety of
Speaker 1: other terms. It doesn't necessarily have to be either Palestinian
Speaker 1: or Arab Israelis. Some people say, for example, they are
Speaker 1: forty eight Palestinians or forty eight Arabs, which is a
Speaker 1: term translated from Arabic. Actually to refer to people who
Speaker 1: stayed in the land of nineteen forty eight after the
Speaker 1: establishment of Israel after the Nakada, which is a term
Speaker 1: referring to the Palestinian catastrophe. Literally, it means catastrophe by
Speaker 1: the establishment of the state of Israel in nineteen forty eight. Now,
Speaker 1: other terms can be simply an Arab. Many people refer
Speaker 1: to themselves as Arabs. In the Israeli discourse. Arabs are
Speaker 1: distinguished somewhat from Estinians. This is an important distinction because
Speaker 1: I think the Arab is sometimes invoked to erase the
Speaker 1: Palestinian identity or or marginalize the Palestinian identity. So some
Speaker 1: people may refer to themselves as Arabs, which is the
Speaker 1: wider category. Others may emphasize the Arab Israeli. Some would
Speaker 1: say only Palestinians, some would say Palestinian citizens of Israel,
Speaker 1: so it varies. Now. The reason I'm asking about these
Speaker 1: terminological issues is that they have a deep significance, and
Speaker 1: that team significance is especially noteworthy now because they go
Speaker 1: to the question of the relationship in mind and in
Speaker 1: identity between Palestinian citizens of Israel and the rest of
Speaker 1: the Palestinian population and Palestinian citizens of Israel and the
Speaker 1: State of Israel. They raise the question of what are
Speaker 1: the political identifications, the national identifications, and the political loyalty
Speaker 1: of Palestinian citizens of Israel, which are necessarily complicated, and
Speaker 1: in Israel there is an ongoing discourse in which some
Speaker 1: Jewish Israelis insist that Palestinian Israeli citizens are full equal
Speaker 1: citizens of the State of Israel and should be treated
Speaker 1: as such, and other Jewish Israelis insist to the contrary,
Speaker 1: that Palestinian citizens of Israel are necessarily subject to dual
Speaker 1: loyalties are not fully therefore loyal citizens of the State
Speaker 1: of Israel, and that's used often as a justification for,
Speaker 1: for example, refusing to include Arab parties in Israel in
Speaker 1: the coalition that becomes the ruling coalition of government, or
Speaker 1: other even more formalized practices of treating Palestinian Israelis as
Speaker 1: though they're not full citizens of the state. This is
Speaker 1: incredibly complicated, obviously, but say a word about how you
Speaker 1: think of Palestinian Israeli identity and citizenship, maybe just speaking yourself,
Speaker 1: since as you say, it's hard to make statistical analysis
Speaker 1: of what most people think. Yeah, that's a great question,
Speaker 1: and obviously it's it's it's multifaceted, right, So I think
Speaker 1: that generally speaking, and I'm obviously speaking myself, I personally
Speaker 1: identify as a Palestinian or a Palestinian citizen of Israel,
Speaker 1: depending on context. I think that the status of Palestina
Speaker 1: Israel is really complex, but at the same time it
Speaker 1: can be summarized as very clearly as a subclass. So
Speaker 1: it's it's a second tier citizenship, and it manifests really
Speaker 1: in almost every aspect of life in Israel. It's important
Speaker 1: to understand that most Palestinian citizens of Israel live in
Speaker 1: separate localities. There are few what's called mixed cities in
Speaker 1: which Palestinians and Jewish communities live side by side, for
Speaker 1: example in Haifa, where I come from. But most Palestinative
Speaker 1: in segregated towns or in separate localities, and they suffer
Speaker 1: from There is a clear infrastructure problem, There's a clear
Speaker 1: discrimination in allocation of resources. There is a clear poverty problem.
Speaker 1: More than fifty percent of Palestinus are considered below poverty line.
Speaker 1: There is a huge problem with crime that is now
Speaker 1: proliferating among Palestinian society in Israel. And on top of
Speaker 1: all that or could be as understood as a result
Speaker 1: of institutional policies that discriminate against Palestinians and that subjugate
Speaker 1: them to an inferior status enshrined also by law. I mean,
Speaker 1: the recent developments from research years we've been seeing is,
Speaker 1: for example, the enactment of a constitutional amendment the nation
Speaker 1: state law that quite simply or straightforwardly define the state
Speaker 1: of Israel or inshrine's claims and identity of constitutional status
Speaker 1: without even reaffirming it purported democratic character. And so there
Speaker 1: is a clear institutionalization that manifests in different aspects of life,
Speaker 1: from allocation of free sources to discrimination in housing that
Speaker 1: affects Palestinian lives in the every day. Tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit about how you've experienced that and seen that,
Speaker 1: because I mean, one of the fascinating things from the
Speaker 1: American standpoint about your education is that you have two
Speaker 1: degrees from top Israel University. Is a first degree of
Speaker 1: University of Haifa than a degree in law from the
Speaker 1: University of Tel Aviv, which is often said to be
Speaker 1: the fancist law faculty in Israel. Your professors loved you.
Speaker 1: I know that because I read their recommendations when you
Speaker 1: applied to be a student at Harvard Law School. You
Speaker 1: did your master's degree at Harvard Law School. Now you're
Speaker 1: a doctoral student there, and in between finishing law school
Speaker 1: in Israel and coming to the US to continue studying,
Speaker 1: you're a human rights lawyer for Adalla, one of the
Speaker 1: leading human rights organizations working on Palestinian rights. You argued
Speaker 1: cases in front of the Israeli Supreme Court. Obviously all
Speaker 1: this was in Hebrew. So you've been deeply in matched
Speaker 1: in a series of institutions within Israel, probably through a
Speaker 1: good part of your life. How has your identity been
Speaker 1: shaped and developed by that kind of interaction in pretty
Speaker 1: elite Israeli circles. Well, that's that's an interesting question because
Speaker 1: I think, and you know, I tried to reflect on
Speaker 1: these questions and some of my writings. I for example,
Speaker 1: wrote about legal education in Israeli law schools and being
Speaker 1: a Palestinian in that system. And it's a highly, highly
Speaker 1: complex situation because many Palestinians are coming to these Israeli
Speaker 1: elite circles or institutions and experienced a deep sense of
Speaker 1: alienation going through these experiences, we're using a language that
Speaker 1: is not ours. I was born and raised, you know,
Speaker 1: speaking Arabic, and I went to school in Arabic until
Speaker 1: I reach university, which is the trual path for any
Speaker 1: Palestinian defending Israel. Now, perhaps you know, I grew up
Speaker 1: in Haifa, which, as I said, is one of the
Speaker 1: mixed cities, so perhaps you're exposed a little bit more
Speaker 1: to Hebrew as a language, or and you acquire certain
Speaker 1: exposure that is limited otherwise in other localities. But yes,
Speaker 1: I think it's a highly contradictory situation where you go
Speaker 1: through institutions and you use a language that is not yours,
Speaker 1: and there is a language actually that many times you're
Speaker 1: experiencing it as as an oppressing language. And I'm emphasizing
Speaker 1: the idea of a language. But I think because I
Speaker 1: think it's really immedium through which you realize your subjectivity
Speaker 1: in the content of conversation and the terms in which
Speaker 1: the discourse is shaped. You know, when you go as
Speaker 1: a Palestinian student to an Israeli law school, one of
Speaker 1: the fancy and also sometimes described as a liberal law school,
Speaker 1: there is still a very clear limits to the discourse
Speaker 1: about how to talk about Palestinian experiences and how to
Speaker 1: understand how the law works, and then we give us
Speaker 1: aecond great example. Yes, absolutely so. For example, I love
Speaker 1: to give that very quickly about law school. For example,
Speaker 1: you know, property classes. When we talk about property classes,
Speaker 1: we analyze the doctrines and confiscations, but we never touch
Speaker 1: upon how crucial this doctrine has been to Palestinian lives.
Speaker 1: You know, Palestinians and israel have suffered mass expropriation of
Speaker 1: their property, of their land during the fifties, sixties and seventies.
Speaker 1: They were basically reproduced from an agricultural dependent class into
Speaker 1: a low skilled, unskilled labor in the Israeli market force
Speaker 1: during these years. And this has ramifications that are very
Speaker 1: clear until and striking until this day. And so everything
Speaker 1: in the class when as a Palestinian approaches law school
Speaker 1: is decontextualized many times. Other times, we never, for example,
Speaker 1: touch upon the fact it's a discourse that is very
Speaker 1: present in America, for example, massive carceration and the carceral state,
Speaker 1: and trying to understand the law enforcement apparatus, how it
Speaker 1: interacts with minority groups or with racial violence, and these
Speaker 1: kind of topics are never talked about, and these really
Speaker 1: law schools, and so this lens of looking at the
Speaker 1: law in context is very much absent many times from
Speaker 1: law schools. I would add, by the way, that I
Speaker 1: think a lot of students in American law schools would
Speaker 1: tell you that until the last decade, a lot of
Speaker 1: those topics were slighted in most of American legal education too,
Speaker 1: with respect to raise in the United States and particularly
Speaker 1: the history of white supremacy in the United States. But
Speaker 1: that that doesn't make it any better. I'm just noting
Speaker 1: that that that's the case. So with that very helpful context,
Speaker 1: I want to turn now to really the reason that
Speaker 1: I wanted to have you on the podcast, and that
Speaker 1: is to hear more about your view about why this
Speaker 1: particular iteration of violence between Israel and Gaza, which started
Speaker 1: in certain ways that were very familiar going back at
Speaker 1: least a couple of decades and in some ways longer so.
Speaker 1: Violence in and around Jerusalem, unrest at Alaxa, the Temple
Speaker 1: Mount site, rockets fired from Gaza Bahamas into Israel, retaliation
Speaker 1: from the Israeli side with air attacks in which lots
Speaker 1: of people die, including lots of civilians. This is a
Speaker 1: script that we've seen multiple times before. What seems most
Speaker 1: distinctive this time is the violence perpetrated in some instances
Speaker 1: by Jewish Israelis against Palasinian Israelis, in some instances by
Speaker 1: Palasinian Israelis against Jewish Israelis in a number of different
Speaker 1: cities and places around the country, including cities that you're
Speaker 1: describing as mixed cities. So the first question I want
Speaker 1: to ask is, and it's a really hard one, why
Speaker 1: this time? Why is this happening? In your view? Now,
Speaker 1: that's an important question. I think the for understanding it,
Speaker 1: we need to zoom out a little bit and understand
Speaker 1: what led to these escalations. And I think the immediate
Speaker 1: point of departure would be good. So let's let's talk
Speaker 1: about that. So that's Chechter has a neighborhood of Jerusalem
Speaker 1: in which there's been an ongoing controversy with lots of
Speaker 1: twists and turns, most recently involving a controversy that's headed
Speaker 1: for the Israeli Supreme Court. In fact, it's before the
Speaker 1: Israeli Supreme Court now, involving a number of houses. Do
Speaker 1: you want to give us the legal background? No, one,
Speaker 1: no one better for then you to explain the legal
Speaker 1: backgrounds since as as a human rights layer you've worked
Speaker 1: on these kinds of cases. Yeah, so I think I
Speaker 1: think the most important to put it simply, what's happening
Speaker 1: there is that there is families, Palestinian families living in
Speaker 1: this is Jerusalem neighborhood that are now being brought to
Speaker 1: court by Jewish settler organizations. And the idea is that
Speaker 1: these these families who were resettled, part of them were
Speaker 1: resettled there in the fifties before Israel even occupied, and
Speaker 1: they were resettled because they were refugees from internally displaced
Speaker 1: from Haifa, from other places. And now these settler groups
Speaker 1: or settler organizations are trying to claim this property by
Speaker 1: using a hook claiming that this property belonged to Jewish
Speaker 1: people before nineteen for eight, before the establishment of the
Speaker 1: state of Visions. So there is a complex actually legal situation.
Speaker 1: But what's important to understand is that this system works
Speaker 1: with two different rules applying to do different people. Palestinians
Speaker 1: cannot try to claim property that was Palestinians before nineteen
Speaker 1: forty eight. This path is only allowed for particularly in
Speaker 1: East Jerusalem. For Jewish that is usually even not the
Speaker 1: particular families of the Jewish people who lived in the houses,
Speaker 1: but Jewish settler and geo's or groups. And so what
Speaker 1: we're seeing here is illegal. To pause, Yeah, just to
Speaker 1: pause to clarify the legal battle for people who aren't
Speaker 1: you know, inside the inside the details of this as
Speaker 1: I understand it, the position of the settler groups is
Speaker 1: that these houses were lived in by Jews before nineteen
Speaker 1: forty eight, when there was neither an Israel nor a Palestine.
Speaker 1: There was a UN mandate administered by by Britain that
Speaker 1: that in nineteen forty eight this territory ended up after
Speaker 1: Israel declared independence and ended up in a war with
Speaker 1: a number of its neighbors, including Jordan, ended up under
Speaker 1: Jordanian control between nineteen forty eight and nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 1: Am I right? Am I just correct me if I
Speaker 1: go wrong. I mean, and that during that period of time,
Speaker 1: no Jews were permitted to or chose to stay within
Speaker 1: what had become Jordan. And at that moment Palestinians who
Speaker 1: were internally displaced from other places within what had become
Speaker 1: Israel were resettled in these homes. They've been there since,
Speaker 1: and in nineteen sixty seven Israel conquered this territory back.
Speaker 1: It's subsequently annexed the territory, although it's annexation is not
Speaker 1: recognized by the international community, but it is recognized by
Speaker 1: the Israeli courts. And so in principle, under Israeli law,
Speaker 1: these homes are supposed to revert to whom Are they
Speaker 1: supposed to revert to the original owners? Are they're supposed
Speaker 1: to revert to the government. Somehow they were supposed to
Speaker 1: revert to somebody, which has led to a claim on
Speaker 1: them being made by these Jewish organizations. Yes, but these
Speaker 1: legal baties have been actually happening since the seventies in
Speaker 1: Sarah and elsewhere in Jerusalem, and we're seeing that there
Speaker 1: is on one hand, while the court allows bringing these
Speaker 1: cases when and these claims by Jewish groups, it does
Speaker 1: not allow any claims by Palestinians to reclaim their property
Speaker 1: before nineteen forty eight. And this is hugely problematic because
Speaker 1: these people, part of the Czech families, were resettled there
Speaker 1: by the un by the UNWA in conduction with the
Speaker 1: Jordanian government that was back then in the fifties. That
Speaker 1: neighbor and UNROWA is the United Nations especially designated institution
Speaker 1: that essentially only deals with Palestinian refugees. I mean that's
Speaker 1: basically its job. And it has existed since forty eight
Speaker 1: and still exists, yes, and so I really think that
Speaker 1: the words of the families themselves are put this very strongly,
Speaker 1: you know, they say you settled us even here. This
Speaker 1: has become a Palestinian neighborhood for generations now, I mean
Speaker 1: it was Palestinian in part as well before ninety four eight.
Speaker 1: There is no dispute that some Jews lived there, right,
Speaker 1: but the dispute becomes also more problematic when these not
Speaker 1: the exact people are claiming their their property. But under
Speaker 1: some legal constructions, it's enabled for settler, you know, organizations
Speaker 1: to advance a political agenda. And many people have seen
Speaker 1: the viral video of Jacob from the US, the settler
Speaker 1: who is now living in Czech saying, you know to
Speaker 1: the family, well, I'm not stealing your home. If I
Speaker 1: don't steal it, somebody else will. And this is part
Speaker 1: of the problem. There is people who are coming, you know,
Speaker 1: Jewish settlers coming from the US part of them and
Speaker 1: settling in this neighborhood with no ties whatsoever to the
Speaker 1: particular people who are living them, and they're destroying communities
Speaker 1: and forcing evictions and etc. Et cetera un Palestinian communities.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment. So the chech Jar
Speaker 1: conflict was the catalyst here to drive this latest cycle
Speaker 1: of escalation. That seems clear. How does it relate in
Speaker 1: your view to the Again this underlying question of why
Speaker 1: this violence in both directions in mixed cities, because as
Speaker 1: you point out, there's been struggle in zech Jarrah for
Speaker 1: a while, and also there have been other instances in
Speaker 1: which there was you know, rockets fired from God Israeli
Speaker 1: aircraft firing missiles, as well as in in the more
Speaker 1: distant past, Israeli troops in Gaza. So we've seen this
Speaker 1: kind of military escalation before, but without the corresponding violence
Speaker 1: within Israeli mixed cities. So I think momentum is a
Speaker 1: huge part of it, and also timing. We should understand
Speaker 1: this came against the background of Ramadan, one of the
Speaker 1: holiest months in Islam for many people who are practicing
Speaker 1: their fasting and end with aid fu so and this
Speaker 1: evictions or forced evictions from Ze came against this background
Speaker 1: and as well as that escalated to raids into Al
Speaker 1: Aksamosk to one of the holiest sites in Islam, and
Speaker 1: this sparked a lot of tensions, a lot of protests,
Speaker 1: and the protests that spread across many different Palestinian communities
Speaker 1: in Israel. First before Gaza came into the the picture
Speaker 1: where started what started as actually peaceful protests where brutally
Speaker 1: suppressed by the police. I know many of my friends
Speaker 1: who protested actually in Haifa were arrested, detained, eventually some
Speaker 1: of them released. But what started as peaceful protests soon
Speaker 1: became the police crackdown on these protests, escalating the situation
Speaker 1: even more when Jewish vigilante groups started joining this picture
Speaker 1: and killed in led. The first incidents that led really
Speaker 1: to the further escalation in violence was a settler killed
Speaker 1: in art settler Jewish settler killed and led a Palestinian
Speaker 1: citizen and was later released by the court. He was
Speaker 1: suspected in killing but then later released by the court
Speaker 1: after a lot of political pressure as well. In the background,
Speaker 1: and so this is the released on the released on
Speaker 1: the theory that he had acted in self defense. Right,
Speaker 1: And there's are, if I'm not mistaken, that's the episode
Speaker 1: of which there's a video which also has been widely
Speaker 1: widely shared on the internet, Yes, which showed actually that
Speaker 1: he's shooting from far away. But I think that this
Speaker 1: situation where Musa Hassuni, the person the Palestine from let
Speaker 1: who was killed by the subtler. The next day, we
Speaker 1: see the eruption of violence even more. We see that
Speaker 1: police is cracking down on the funeral of this person,
Speaker 1: leading to even more tensions and etcetera, etcetera, and then
Speaker 1: it spread to many different localities. Obviously there has been
Speaker 1: also Palestinian violence, but I think we should understand here
Speaker 1: the forces at play. While Jewish vigilante groups we're roaming
Speaker 1: the streets, coming organizing on WhatsApp, telegram, etc. And going
Speaker 1: to Palestinian neighborhoods, there were actually no similar instances where
Speaker 1: groups were organizing Palestinian groups organizing to go to Jewish
Speaker 1: neighborhoods to attack them. Yes, there has been obviously Palestinian
Speaker 1: violence that as I understand, it's reacted to the attacks
Speaker 1: by mobs and as well as by the police. There
Speaker 1: has been I think the police has been doning these
Speaker 1: attacks while doing absolutely almost effectively nothing to prevent these attacts.
Speaker 1: And this is I think, what what is distinctive about
Speaker 1: this moment as well. We are seeing both private and
Speaker 1: state actors working on violence that is manifesting against Palestinian
Speaker 1: communities in Israel in an unprecedented way. Two thoughts on
Speaker 1: that analysis. The first is, you know, no doubt lots
Speaker 1: of Jewish Israelis would say that, you know, would say effectively,
Speaker 1: while the violence started on the Palestinian side, and no doubt,
Speaker 1: you know, most Palestinian Israelis and other Palestinians would have
Speaker 1: the view that the violence started on the Israeli side.
Speaker 1: This is characteristic to outsiders trying to watch the conflict.
Speaker 1: Right each side says, well, you have to understand the context,
Speaker 1: and each side says the other side started it, either
Speaker 1: globally or locally in a particular circumstance. And so one
Speaker 1: the challenges to outsiders is to try to understand the
Speaker 1: deep structures that are driving the cycle of violence, quite
Speaker 1: apart from the particularized incidents. A second point which you make,
Speaker 1: which I think is very it is significant to keep
Speaker 1: in mind, is that Israel has the state on its side, right,
Speaker 1: I mean certainly within Israel, it has the government digital
Speaker 1: on its side, and then with respect to Gaza, it
Speaker 1: has a full blown powerful military, whereas a Hamas does
Speaker 1: not have anything of the kind. It has a handful
Speaker 1: of rockets available at its disposal. So that I think
Speaker 1: is important context. Without a doubt, what I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get a hold on, and you know, because I don't
Speaker 1: know the answer to it, is whether over the longer run, say,
Speaker 1: over the last couple of decades, Israeli Palestinians have started
Speaker 1: to feel differently about their relationship to the state, about
Speaker 1: their relationship to other Palestinians, about the treatment that they're
Speaker 1: encountering than they have in the past, So that there's
Speaker 1: some structural cause, as it were, of the protests, for example,
Speaker 1: that you describe, which started peacefully and then you and
Speaker 1: then met resistance and so forth, or whether it really
Speaker 1: is a product of, in a more in coate way,
Speaker 1: of just building tensions and in the story that you've
Speaker 1: been describing, it is more a story of this happened,
Speaker 1: and then this happened, and this happened. I agree with
Speaker 1: that analysis. I get that that's what happened, But I'm
Speaker 1: trying to figure out. I'm puzzling over whether there is
Speaker 1: in fact a structural change in the self consciousness of
Speaker 1: Palestinian Israelis either they're identifying more with other Palestinians or
Speaker 1: less with the State of Israel, or that their identification
Speaker 1: hasn't changed but they felt more desperate, or alternatively, that
Speaker 1: they feel more secure within the State of Israel and
Speaker 1: therefore felt safer initiating protests and then were then surprised
Speaker 1: by the vigilante violence in the other direction, as well
Speaker 1: as the police response. I mean, these are all possible hypotheses.
Speaker 1: I don't have a view as to which of them
Speaker 1: is correct, if any, but I wonder if any of
Speaker 1: those ideas or similar ideas makes sense to you. That
Speaker 1: an interesting question, and I think it's a little bit
Speaker 1: too early, perhaps to judge on recent events how they
Speaker 1: will affect the deep structure. I think that Palestinians have
Speaker 1: over the since the establishment of Israel actually in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty eight, each generation of Palestinians has had at least
Speaker 1: one major protests that are very similar to what has
Speaker 1: happened recently in some sense, where they reaffirmed their Palestinian identity.
Speaker 1: It happened with the second generation after the Nakba in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, where Palestinians protested what is often known
Speaker 1: as the Land Day against the confiscation of land. It
Speaker 1: happened again almost twenty five years later in the second Default,
Speaker 1: and it's happening now with a new generation. And I
Speaker 1: think it's important to understand this because each generation is
Speaker 1: reaffirming its commitment to Palestinian identity. So looking from a
Speaker 1: bird's view, you know, like each generation has had this
Speaker 1: defining moment in which Palestinian citizens erupted against structural violence
Speaker 1: of the state. And you're absolutely right for a person
Speaker 1: who's an outside that it's hard to follow these events
Speaker 1: from this. But what is important to understand that there
Speaker 1: is a subclass of Palestinians that is struggling with a
Speaker 1: state with its practices. And what has the recent events shown.
Speaker 1: It unleashed a militaristic structure that is still governing Palestinians.
Speaker 1: It's important to say, you know, Palestinus in Israel have
Speaker 1: always lived under the idea of a second class citizens,
Speaker 1: the idea of being heavily surveiled, heavily controlled, and heavily dominated.
Speaker 1: Let's turn to what this is going to mean going
Speaker 1: forward with this very sensible caveat that we don't know
Speaker 1: for sure, and it's soon to tell. One trend that
Speaker 1: has been going on in the series of elections that
Speaker 1: Israel has been holding over the last few years. Because
Speaker 1: there have been round after round after round after round
Speaker 1: of elections, because it's been impossible for any of the
Speaker 1: factions to produce a functioning coalition, Palestinian voter turnout has
Speaker 1: been going up, and the potential impact of what are
Speaker 1: called colloquially and Israel Arab parties or Palestinian parties has risen.
Speaker 1: They've even gotten some votes from Jewish Israelis. Maybe those
Speaker 1: are token protest votes, but there are a handful of them,
Speaker 1: and that too. Many observers who were more hopeful, myself included,
Speaker 1: suggested a kind of willingness on the part of Palstinian
Speaker 1: Israelis to try to use the levers of political power
Speaker 1: that are available to them as citizens of a democracy,
Speaker 1: to try to demand equal justice and equal rights for
Speaker 1: themselves and for their communities. How do you see these
Speaker 1: events playing out that way? Are they likely to cause
Speaker 1: Palsini Israelis to be less inclined to turn out to
Speaker 1: vote or more, are they likely to cause Jewish Israeli
Speaker 1: political parties to be open to entering into coalition with
Speaker 1: Palestinians or less open even than they have been in
Speaker 1: the past, which is what my instinct would would tell me.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out, you know, where this is
Speaker 1: all leading. I have two things that I'm reflecting about
Speaker 1: this question. One is it's important to understand that the
Speaker 1: protests erupted mainly by young people. I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: there will be a major change in the election patterns
Speaker 1: because many Palestinian citizens of Israel also vote on different considerations,
Speaker 1: and so I'm not actually optimistic that we're going to
Speaker 1: see a deep change here. Perhaps yes, perhaps no, it's
Speaker 1: it's too early to judge. But I think that what
Speaker 1: we've seen is that it quote all the political readership
Speaker 1: of Palestinians in Israel by surprise. I think that we've
Speaker 1: seen in the last two years an inclination of Palestinians
Speaker 1: to cooperate or to consider joining a government. You know.
Speaker 1: The counterpart of legitimating Palestinians as a political allies is
Speaker 1: that Palestines for the first time are actually considering joining
Speaker 1: the government. And I think this the recent event have
Speaker 1: been blown in the face for many of these politicians
Speaker 1: that thought that, you know, we can gain some material
Speaker 1: benefits by joining the governments without discussing quote unquote politics,
Speaker 1: you know, or without discussing the Palestinian question or for
Speaker 1: the Palestinian problem. I think it's too early to to
Speaker 1: to see how this will implicate on future patterns of
Speaker 1: a voting What about on the broader sense of sort
Speaker 1: of social participation of Palestinians in Israeli life. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you appear in front of the Israeli Supreme Court
Speaker 1: as you have to argue a case. Part of your
Speaker 1: winning your case is the legal argument. Part of it
Speaker 1: is how you were perceived as a Palestinians citizen in
Speaker 1: Israel who's a graduate of a law school where a
Speaker 1: bunch of the justices or professors, you know, and where
Speaker 1: a lot of them went to law school. You're in
Speaker 1: some sense the same In the US Supreme Court, the
Speaker 1: people arguing in front of the court are part of
Speaker 1: almost by definition, a legal elite. When you think about
Speaker 1: how this is going to affect your career as a
Speaker 1: human rights lawyer or maybe as a scholar and an academic,
Speaker 1: how does it what's the sort of personal takeaway for
Speaker 1: you in how this shifts things, if it shifts them
Speaker 1: at all. I think that the recent events have really
Speaker 1: been a breaking point for many philistine is living in Israel.
Speaker 1: The experience, you know, of knowing that you can sit
Speaker 1: in your house and just hear mops chanting under their house.
Speaker 1: Death to adapts, it's really something else. It's not something normal.
Speaker 1: It's not something that we've ever experienced. And still I
Speaker 1: think that it surfaced a lot of the structural problems,
Speaker 1: and its surfaced discourse that has not been very present.
Speaker 1: And here I want to connect it maybe to the
Speaker 1: question of political readership. I think Palistina's in Israel are
Speaker 1: in need of a new discourse and new leadership and
Speaker 1: new imaginations. Not only Palestinians actually, but in order to
Speaker 1: break through this you know, impasse of violence and of
Speaker 1: this vicious circle of violence, we need new imagination and
Speaker 1: in new discourses, and we need to eradicate shift because
Speaker 1: otherwise this will just be you know, oppressed and put
Speaker 1: under the surface. And I think this invites us to
Speaker 1: really deeply reflect and try to reimagine what is the
Speaker 1: deep problems here at stake and how we can solve them.
Speaker 1: And I think the solution will only come from a
Speaker 1: radical reimagination of the situation, from recognizing the experience of
Speaker 1: Palestinian citizens of Israel, recognizing the injustice that Palestinians have
Speaker 1: been living through for the last seventy three years, and
Speaker 1: trying to correct it from there. Otherwise, these tensions will
Speaker 1: always accompany you know, Palestinians wherever they go, including me
Speaker 1: when I go to the Supreme Court. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a highly problematic institution that is many times complicit and
Speaker 1: legitimates the ways in which Palestinians are expelled and are
Speaker 1: dispossessed between you know, the river and the sea, not
Speaker 1: only in Ghaza and not only in the West Bank,
Speaker 1: but also is Jerusalem and inside Israel. I think even
Speaker 1: more crucially inside Israel, because Palestina's inside are really suffering
Speaker 1: from a huge problem of permits, lack of permits to
Speaker 1: build and lack of accessibility to land. Rabbi, I couldn't
Speaker 1: agree with you more. And I think no matter where
Speaker 1: anybody is on the political spectrum, and even if they
Speaker 1: may not agree with exactly division that you have, I
Speaker 1: think we can all agree that we're in desperate need
Speaker 1: of new imagination, new leadership, and new conceptualizations in order
Speaker 1: to make progress in the ongoing Israel Pastine struggle, because
Speaker 1: without those things, I think we're pretty clearly doomed to
Speaker 1: a series of repetitions of the kind we've been seeing recently,
Speaker 1: and each repetition, in certain ways has the capacity to
Speaker 1: be a little more destabilizing and a little worse than
Speaker 1: the one that came before. I want to thank you
Speaker 1: for talking to me here. It capture I think some
Speaker 1: of the flavor of a lot of the conversations that
Speaker 1: we have one on one in the office. I was
Speaker 1: really glad to have an opportunity to share that with
Speaker 1: our listeners. And I hope your family stays well and
Speaker 1: that you have a good summer at home, and I
Speaker 1: look forward to seeing you in the fall when you
Speaker 1: come back. Thank you, Thank you so much enough for
Speaker 1: having me talking to Rabia. I was struck by two
Speaker 1: different impulses. One impulse is to look backwards into the
Speaker 1: history and context of the Israel Palestine conflict to try
Speaker 1: to understand the deeper roots of what's going on. Seen
Speaker 1: in those terms, every event has an antecedent. Everything has
Speaker 1: a before, and both Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Israelis, as
Speaker 1: well as other Palestinians, point to what has happened in
Speaker 1: the past as the real generative cause of what they
Speaker 1: experience is injustice and is unfairness seen from each of
Speaker 1: their perspectives, that history is determinative and needs to be
Speaker 1: understood and ought to be understood, ideally from the perspective
Speaker 1: that they take. When we look at the problem in
Speaker 1: that direction as outsiders, we can sometimes think that there
Speaker 1: cannot possibly be a solution because each time we look
Speaker 1: to what has happened in the past, we have widely
Speaker 1: divergent opinions of who is at fault. Meanwhile, the cycles
Speaker 1: of violence continue, and each time they get just a
Speaker 1: little bit worse. This way of thinking inevitably causes me
Speaker 1: to feel sad and depressed. And yet there's another theme
Speaker 1: that subtly emerged in our conversation and which Rabi'a particularly
Speaker 1: emphasized at the end of our conversation, and that theme
Speaker 1: is the idea that each generation of young people, whether
Speaker 1: it's Palestinian Israeli's, Jewish Israelis or others involved in the conflict,
Speaker 1: has the opportunity to make its own mark and impact,
Speaker 1: and to think in new and original ways about what's
Speaker 1: going on. That possibility of reimagining and looking at issues
Speaker 1: from a different perspective than merely the perspective of the
Speaker 1: past is the only credible chance that Israeli's, Palestinians and
Speaker 1: the rest of the world have at gradually making progress
Speaker 1: towards a solution that can be experienced by all involved,
Speaker 1: not as perfect, indeed probably not even as just, but
Speaker 1: as adequate to enable them to get on with their
Speaker 1: lives under circumstances and conditions of peace. To get there,
Speaker 1: we will need new voices and new perspectives. A final
Speaker 1: note in a long career of thinking about, writing about,
Speaker 1: and studying the Middle East, including Israel Palestine, if there's
Speaker 1: one thing I've learned, it's that no particular article, book, program,
Speaker 1: and certainly not one episode of a podcast can cover
Speaker 1: all perspectives, and none can be quote perfectly balanced. The
Speaker 1: reason for that, of course, is space and time, coupled
Speaker 1: with the reality that there is almost no statement or proposition,
Speaker 1: whether descriptive, historical, or moral, that anyone on any side
Speaker 1: of this conflict can make that cannot be actively disputed
Speaker 1: by someone on the other side. I therefore think it's
Speaker 1: always a mistake to imagine that one isolated conversation will
Speaker 1: be quote unquote balanced or quote unquote complete. That's why
Speaker 1: it's important to hear different voices from different perspectives, and
Speaker 1: I assure you you will hear different voices and different
Speaker 1: perspectives when we discuss this subject going forward further on
Speaker 1: Deep Background in the meantime, from the team here at
Speaker 1: Deep Background, be careful, be safe, and be well. Deep
Speaker 1: Background is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. Our producer
Speaker 1: is Mola Board, our engineer is Ben Tolliday, and our
Speaker 1: showrunner is Sophie Crane mckibbon. Editorial support from noahm Osband.
Speaker 1: Theme music by Luis Gara at Pushkin. Thanks to Mia Lobell,
Speaker 1: Julia Barton, Lydia Jeancott, Heather Faine, Carlie Migliori, Maggie Taylor,
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, and Jacob Weissberg. You can find me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Noah R. Feldman. I also write a column
Speaker 1: for Bloomberg Opinion, which you can find at Bloomberg dot
Speaker 1: com Slash Feldman. To discover Bloomberg's original slate of podcasts.
Speaker 1: Go to Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts, and if you
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