WEBVTT - Producing Knowledge on Palestine feat. Dana El Kurd 0:00:01.639 --> 0:00:08.000 Cool Zone Media. Hello everyone. My name is Dana al 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:11.559 Kurd and this is it could happen here. I'm a 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:16.919 professor and researcher of Arab and Palestinian politics and a 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:20.760 senior non resident fellow at the Arab Center Washington. Today 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:23.720 we're joined by Shadin Sakudie, a professor of history at 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:27.440 the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her book Men of Capital, 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:33.720 Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine explores economy, territory, the home, 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:37.240 the body, and she's also editor in chief of the 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:40.760 Journal of Palestine Studies. Today I wanted to invite Shadin 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:45.319 on to discuss the importance of Palestinian knowledge production and 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:50.880 Palestinian spaces for writing, researching, analyzing, etc. So, yeah, Shdein, 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:52.280 thank you so much for coming on. 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:53.760 Thank you for having me. 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:57.760 So let's maybe start with a very basic question, what 0:00:57.920 --> 0:00:59.720 is the Journal of Palestine Studies? Could you give us 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:00.600 kind of overview? 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:01.480 Sure? 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:06.160 So, the Journal of Palestine Studies is the flagship journal 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:12.120 of Palestinian studies in the English language. It was established 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:16.319 in nineteen seventy one, so that makes it fifty four 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:17.000 years old. 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:19.040 First it was part. 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:22.440 Of the then be Rout based and still be Rout 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:28.240 based Institute for Palestine Studies and Kuwait University, which sponsored 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:32.760 what was understood at the time as an international forum 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:36.520 to discuss all aspects of the Palestine question and the 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:40.240 Arab Zientist conflict. And really the people who established it 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:45.600 were looking for shaping a space that could discuss these 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:49.240 matters freely. And the story of the founders is a 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:55.000 really interesting one because they were people like cham Chobi, 0:01:55.160 --> 0:02:02.720 Walid Relidi, Bandosheni Fuatzauf, and con Stantine Zurich, who actually 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:07.040 was the person who coined the way that we name 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:11.120 the Nekba in his book Man and Nekba that he 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:13.960 wrote in nineteen forty eight, in which he coined this 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:18.200 term the catastrophe to think about nineteen forty eight, which 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:22.600 would you know, be our ongoing condition. And I think 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:26.000 the way to think about these people in there, in 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:28.960 the way that they began the journal is to think 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:36.160 about them as really confronting a landscape of erasure, denial 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:40.960 and urgency and occupying this kind of steady, incessant pain 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:45.320 of the original inception of the Nekba, you know, think 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:49.640 about it in nineteen seventy one, it was not that 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.320 long before a decade and a half, yeah, right, And 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.679 I think what's important about you know, in the last 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:00.000 couple of years, people have been kind of making demands 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:04.120 about Palestinian studies as part of you know, some of 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:07.680 the student movements and the staff and faculty movements, and 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.320 I think it's really important for people to know that 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:15.880 this comes from a much longer tradition of the production 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:20.880 of knowledge as a real insistence on existence. 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:28.079 Absolutely, Palestinians have been producing knowledge about their state of affairs, 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:33.120 you know, just like today academics and gaza are producing knowledge, right, 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:38.640 And I'm always like struck by how just ahead of 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:40.920 its time, you know, the general Palistine studies is like 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:44.000 a lot of our understanding of the conflict that are 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:48.160 now finally starting to seep into the mainstream. We're first 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:49.480 discussed in these pages. 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:51.000 Some of the. 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:55.160 Research findings about the history were first articulated in these pages. 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:58.480 And so that kind of knowledge production is just it 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:00.920 is a form of resistance to. 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:04.480 Erasure, absolutely, and just you know, some of those would 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.760 be for example, Plandalit, which was the you know, the 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:13.560 plan which would lead to the destruction of four hundred 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:17.359 and fifty to five hundred and thirty seven Palestinian villages, 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:23.560 and this plan would come to be recognized through the 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:28.680 work of Benny Morris as a Israeli historian who had 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:32.640 access to Israeli documents, but it's actually was Wulid Rearidi 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:38.719 who had been evidencing and showing the empirical foundations of 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:41.400 Plan Dalit, and it was in the Journal of Palestine 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:45.320 Studies that he published those findings. In that case, I 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:51.120 think that again, for people who are really engaging the 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:55.640 movement for free Palestine and free Palestinians, we really have 0:04:55.760 --> 0:05:01.080 to be approaching the political economy of who gets to 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:06.320 speak right and whose knowledge production is uplifted as legitimate 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:09.680 and worthy. And I think you see a lot of 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:14.960 this kind of centering of Israeli voices, and I think 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.320 we really have to in this moment it's urgent to 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:20.760 center Palestinian knowledge production. 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.400 Yeah, there's just so many ways that we witness this 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:28.400 all the time that it's not something worthy of discussion 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:31.680 unless an Israeli a voice says it. And there's an 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:35.680 inherent suspicion about the Palestinian scholar, the Palestinian analyst, the 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:40.560 Palestidian knowledge producer of some kind. Now, of course, the 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:45.520 last two years have been a true upheaval. The genocide 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:49.400 and Gaza, a tragedy that we, honestly we haven't really 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:54.640 absorbed and possibly can't. And we've seen in the last 0:05:54.640 --> 0:06:00.520 two years a concerted effort to erase Palestinians further from 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:04.479 the American Academy, but from also like scholarship generally speaking. 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:08.040 But before I get into that, I wondered if you 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.760 could kind of give your impression of what did doing 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:17.080 Pawstenian studies look like before October seventh? How was it easy? 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:21.000 Was it acceptable? I mean, I know the answers, but 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:23.080 I'd like you to say though, So. 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.720 I think one of the things that's been interesting to observe, 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:30.840 and I would date this as happening around COVID when 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:36.960 our colleagues and various disciplines started confronting the reality of 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:38.120 their archives closing. 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:40.760 So I'm a historian, so I speak from that place. 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.440 You know, people who study Europe, people who study the 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:49.320 United States kind of confronting that the reality that they 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:52.719 might not access archives that they are accustomed to accessing, 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:59.600 and in a similar way, facing the kind of targeting 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:07.000 and surveillance, the bipartisan targeting and surveillance of academic knowledge production, 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:11.840 and trying to explain to people this is what we've 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:13.120 existed under all along. 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:14.160 Now. 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:19.360 I think there are similarities across communities of knowledge production. 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:20.800 So I think people who. 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:24.440 Work in black studies, who work in Indigenous studies, who 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:28.320 work in queer studies, gender and sexuality have also been 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:32.520 under the dress of surveillance and targeting. I think for 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:36.160 those of us who have been doing Palestinian studies, what 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:39.680 does it mean, especially if you're a Palestinian doing it, 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.440 but whoever you are, It means you have to show 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:47.440 up ten times more ready than anybody else. It means 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:51.520 you have to conduct yourself as if you are always 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:52.320 being recorded. 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:52.640 Right. 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:55.280 It means that every single. 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:58.000 Word that you say you should be able to stand 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.040 up for in a court of law, and all of 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:06.400 those kinds of restrictions. Actually, you know, you give us lemons. 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:10.560 We're going to make lemonade because those restrictions have imposed 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:14.200 on us a kind of rigor. 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:16.160 That is the least that we can do. 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:29.600 It also means, I mean, I think for a lot 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:33.680 of us, yourself included, right, I was just somebody was 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:37.520 interviewing me yesterday about oh, have you have you faced 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:41.360 harassment or censorship or something? And I think, at least 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:46.720 in my case, I'm I'm constantly, you know, experiencing these 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.079 things and just kind of swallowing it, do you know 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:52.520 what I mean, just getting along with the business of 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:55.680 the every day. So, you know, there was this moment 0:08:55.960 --> 0:09:00.600 back in twenty fifteen twenty sixteen where for whatever reason, 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:05.160 every couple of months, one of the bots of one 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:10.640 of these surveillance websites would start highlighting me and insulting 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:17.360 me on Twitter, you know, liable calling me names, going 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:23.680 after how I look like really vulgar, misgendering me, that 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:24.280 kind of thing. 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:26.320 And I'd come out. 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:29.319 Of my lecture, you know, and you know, I teach 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:33.280 big classes, and I'd come out of a big you know, 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:37.000 two hundred and fifty percon lecture, which requires so much 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:41.240 focus and energy and being present and you know, that 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:43.800 adrenaline rush, and I'd look at my phone and I'd 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:47.520 have fifty notifications and it would just be one insult 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:48.240 after another. 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:49.920 And that's just. 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:51.440 Part of the job. 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:56.120 Yeah, And that's just how it's been, right, like you know, 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.360 from the beginning at least of my graduate career, and 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:03.160 I I started grad school. You know, September eleven happened 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:04.520 when I was in grad school, and I was in 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:10.200 New York when it happened. And you know, we've been 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:14.600 under surveillance, We've been named, we've been watched as part 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.600 of what we do, as you said, And in fact, 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:20.760 I got my masters at the Center for Contemporary Studies 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:25.360 and they wrote a book back in the eighties about 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:28.880 the surveillance and I think it's called they Dare to 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:33.439 Speak well, right, right, yeah, these early accounts of the 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:37.800 concerted attempt to silence us. And so what I like 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:40.920 to remind people is at this moment, you know, you said, oh, 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:44.720 they're trying to erase Palestinian scholars. I mean, at least 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:48.000 they're trying to erase the voices who are putting forward 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:54.200 a critical take on Israeli sellar colonialism and genocide. And 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:57.679 I think what I like to remind people is that 0:10:57.720 --> 0:10:59.920 there is way more of us now than there's a 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:04.480 been before. Yeah, good point, ten years ago, people like 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:07.240 you and me wouldn't have jobs in the academy. It 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:09.720 may be in a couple of years we won't have jobs, 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:13.280 but I don't know, Like I'm not I don't want 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:16.360 to sit on our laurels and think, oh, okay, we've arrived. 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:20.720 In any case, the whole concept of arrival and career 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:25.040 arrival at this moment has completely changed for me. I 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:27.240 don't know how it is for you, but the effect 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:31.160 of the genocide has made it so that the bankruptcy 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:37.080 of the institutions we work for, the rapid ways in 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:40.520 which they are engaging with obedience and authoritarianism. 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:40.880 Yep. 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:44.800 Yeah, it's like what we've worked for our whole careers. 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:48.080 It's like, I don't think this makes sense, actually, do 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:51.520 you know? So, I would say it's been like that 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:55.920 all along, people even saying to you things like, oh there, 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:58.120 what do you mean you study Palestine? 0:11:58.280 --> 0:11:59.559 You know, like, what is that? 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:04.520 Yeah? So yeah, yeah, I mean I'm in a different discipline, 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:08.840 but certainly it was I remember as a student hungry 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:11.960 for information. I mean, it was rare to find something 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.760 about the Middle East to be taught, let alone Palestine. 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:21.720 The level to which they delegitimized Arab and Palestinian sources 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:27.079 or questions of importance to Palestinians and Arabs normatously speaking, 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:31.240 politically speaking, also theoretically speaking, I mean the amount. I mean, 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:33.680 I can tell you so many stories, Like every person 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:35.920 who's ever wanted to study Palasad, especially as you said, 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.000 if you are Palestinian, is discouraged from it and is 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:42.559 told not to, is told this doesn't fit, is told 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.679 you know, I'm in political science. The theories don't account 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:49.280 for Palestine. It's just outside of space and time and theory, 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:52.280 and you can't account for it, you can't discuss it. 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:55.880 And the harassment, the harassment campaigns all of us have 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:59.480 been facing, I mean, it's it takes such a mental 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:02.720 and emotion toll, and yet we produce, and yet we 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:06.000 get tenure, and yet we teach our classes and we're 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:09.520 excellent in our teaching, and our students love us and 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:12.440 want to learn. But you know, as you said, like 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:17.160 it really has exposed the degree to which these universities 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:20.760 because they have been well one like we are in America, 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:22.800 but also because they have been so divorced from their 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:27.720 actual missions. Like how meaningless the space this has now become. 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:30.360 But that's like on the harassment and like kind of 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.079 these kinds of obstacle side. I also think like people 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:38.120 don't recognize like the resources that are needed to teach 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:43.720 and study and research Palestine that other people in the academy, 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:48.040 other knowledge producers get very easily. And it's there is 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:52.200 so little for people who study Palestine, and of course 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:55.160 that impacts what kind of academics are able to do 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:59.480 this and how many people we even missing from this discussion. Right, 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:02.120 I agree with you that has been the condition before 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.439 October seventh. I think now after October seventh, that after 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:09.800 they have attempted to use Palestine as kind of a culgel, Yeah, 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:13.360 to attack the higher education generally, like not people are 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.760 recognizing it, maybe more, but that has always definitely been 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:20.840 the case. Oh. Also, I just wanted to remind listeners 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:25.760 and bring it up, Like I remember Barry Weiss who 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:29.080 is now the head of CBS. I mean she made 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:33.760 her claim to fame attacking Arab and Palestinian professors in 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:38.480 Colombia as an undergrad. Yeah, and that's seen us totally valid. Yeah. 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.720 No, I mean I think you know, Palestine is culturl 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.880 and also you know I've been saying this for a while, 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:50.000 Palestine is paradigm, right, you know, if you look at them, mdenuine, 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:55.360 I think it reveals also kind of what Palestine also 0:14:55.480 --> 0:15:00.760 stands for, which is the way that both the Democratic 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:05.160 and the Republican Party have really no link to the 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:10.160 popular realities on the ground, right, and that in effect, 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:14.760 you know, part of the Trump base was really responding 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:20.440 to this disparity, right, this lack of investment and in 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:24.400 the political system. And I think, you know, that for 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:29.080 me was the I don't have hope in electoral politics. 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.200 And you know, I don't want to be cynical or anything, 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.600 but I think what the Memdenni wind shows us is 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:41.000 that people are disgruntled and they're sick of the kind 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:46.880 of extractive billionaire class doing what they want to do 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:48.920 at the expense of the rest of us. And I 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:52.840 think the media is really complicit in all of this, 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:58.800 so absolutely complicit in the genocide. It's been absolutely complicit 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.480 since the you know, War on Iraq, since the Second 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:10.080 War on Iraq, in rendering news as entertainment, you know. 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:13.400 And and it's like you could see the freak out 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:18.960 that people had the media had about Memdnni across the board. 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:21.040 It wasn't just the Fox News. 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.040 No New York Times, everybody. 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:26.560 Yeah, and all of the you know television media too. 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.160 So it's just I think it's I think there's also 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:32.840 a link to higher education in that way because I 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:37.080 think there has been an investment in making people stupid. 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:40.680 Right, Yes, that's what I was gonna say. Yeah, absolutely, 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:42.840 I mean that's exactly what I was going to say. 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:48.320 Is the Palestinian issue and Palestine studies and research and 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:51.800 knowledge production, the fact that there exists the few Palestinians 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:56.000 in higher education has been used to attack higher education. 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:58.600 But it's not really about Palestine. I mean, it is 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:00.920 a little bit about palistinde of course, these peop Antipastinian, 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:05.359 but it's about preventing social mobility. So you're saying, like, 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:08.719 there's all this disgruntlement in the public space. Our students 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:12.680 are disgruntled, they want to learn, they've been promised something 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:16.000 with this college education. And you know, even the slight 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:18.560 bit of social mobility that has existed as a result 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:21.800 of higher education is too much for the Trump administration. Yeah, 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:24.480 it's too much for this right wing so house. That 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:28.719 is a class issue. Absolutely, No, it absolutely is. You know, 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:32.760 are as are all of the kind of struggles we 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:36.080 stand on solidarity with. You know, it's like, really it 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:40.960 is intersectional and We didn't need Trump to teach us that. 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:45.160 But that's the lesson that keeps being delivered time and again. 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:47.800 And one of the things that's really struck me, and 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:51.120 this has been the case for the last ten years, 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:53.600 eleven years, long before Trump, and I think one of 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:57.679 the challenges we faced today is not to over determine 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:02.119 the Trump administration as the site of all of the 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:04.359 catastrophes that we're in today. And one of the things 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.680 I've noted for the last fourteen years is I don't 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:11.480 have to teach students that history isn't about things always 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:12.119 getting better. 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:14.119 That's not a lesson. They need to know. 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:21.639 They understand that teleology and the fallacy of advancement is 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:24.840 a lie. They understand that because they live it, as 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.439 you say. You know, they're in debt, especially those of 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.520 us who teach at public universities. You know, most of 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:33.239 our students are indebted. A lot of them have two 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:38.120 or three jobs. They're housing insecure, their food insecure. They 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:40.040 don't have a clear vision of the future. 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:44.560 And if they protest genocide, they're labeled antisemitic. Yeah, their 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:47.400 university's cracked down on them. They're docsed. I mean, it's 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:51.040 so outrageous. Obviously, I don't need to tell. 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:55.360 You their identification with Palestine is also about their own 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:57.560 experiences with Gregrescient of course. 0:18:57.880 --> 0:18:59.360 So I think that's. 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:04.240 The that really is the momentum, you know that we're witnessing. 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:06.119 Is is that kind of identification? 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:20.640 Yeah? Absolutely. I think it's important for listeners to know 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:24.480 some of the contours of what has happened after October seventh, 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:26.359 And like you said, it's not a Trump thing. It 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:29.919 started under Biden. About how Palestine has been used in 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:32.159 the academy. I mean, as I said earlier, I have 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:34.919 done an episode on this, so I will link that. 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:38.600 But also you know, there is now evidence and data 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:42.760 around how this issue has been weaponized. So the AAUP, 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:46.640 the American Association of University Professors, alongside the MIDDLEA Studies Association, 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:49.440 just put out a report on this exact question about 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:55.159 how titles six investigations, so investigations of alleged discrimination specifically 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:57.720 about anti Semitism and nothing else. First of all, there's 0:19:57.720 --> 0:19:59.840 been a huge uptick in them and have been used 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.520 to target these universities. The vast majority of these cases 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:07.359 has to do with faculty extra mural speech. So like 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:12.280 these faculty members having an opinion about genocide outside the classroom. 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:15.040 I mean, honestly, I always remember I think Edward Side said, 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.320 like being a Palestinian academy is like being an outlaw. 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:21.560 That's like how it feels. That's how it feels. 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:25.800 Yeah, it's fugitive labor for sure. Yeah, definitely. 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:29.159 And I think one of the findings has been also 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:32.080 I don't know if it's ninety five percent of the 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:35.600 cases have been shown to be be fraudulent. Yeah, it'd 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:39.680 be totally fraudulent. So yeah, it's a real policing of speech. 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:45.199 It's a real kind of weaponization of the charge of 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:50.040 anti Semitism, And honestly, sort of one of the things 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:53.040 I think that really happens too, is that students don't 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:58.160 get the tools to actually recognize and understand actually existing 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:02.639 anti semitism right as it is being rehearsed in like 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:06.720 these show trials that we saw in Congress, and these 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:10.800 in the rhetoric of many of the you know, people 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:16.360 affiliated with the administration, in the kinds of alliances that 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:21.440 even the Israeli state right has made with various right 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:26.640 wing anti Semitic states. So it's like, I think one 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:30.280 of the things that it's kind of like watching a 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:35.159 train wreck, just hitting one train after another and just 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:39.480 being like, what is this absurdity? You know, I myself 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:44.160 was accused of being anti Semitic, for having a history 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:49.320 of anti Semitism. So what surprises me is the way 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:54.639 that people are allowing and facilitating this to happen, you know, 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:59.160 and the way that they're not able to recognize how 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:01.679 high the stakes are what it means to be a 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:06.400 Palestinian in this moment. You know, when you've been sitting 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:09.840 watching for two years your people being shredded, and you're 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:13.359 facing the reality of what the stakes are in this moment, 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:18.240 which is the annihilation of Palestine and the annihilation of Palestinians, 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:25.639 your threshold for a shock becomes very high. 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:29.200 And so I mean, I'm sure it's the same for you. 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:32.760 I don't know if like what it's like a constant 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:38.560 trauma response. You know, absolutely, my emotional reactions are shut down, 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:43.840 and I'm in a state of being in the present. Okay, 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:47.000 we got through today, Hopefully we'll get through tomorrow. I 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:51.199 don't I kind of am prepared for the worst at 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:56.000 all times, and you know, it's a condition of vigilance 0:22:56.160 --> 0:23:01.000 that I think people when they continue to feed this 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:05.600 kind of right wing agenda of making people stupid and 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:09.840 eroding even the possibility of higher education, it's the kind 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:13.600 of condition that will be much more general. 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:13.639 You know. 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:17.160 Yeah, and all these ice rays at the same time. 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:19.960 You know, it's I just saw. I haven't been able 0:23:20.000 --> 0:23:20.719 to listen to it. 0:23:20.760 --> 0:23:25.639 But a scholar who powerfully is talking about the Mexico. 0:23:25.320 --> 0:23:26.640 Palestine border. 0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:31.199 And the and the links between ice and the idea 0:23:31.400 --> 0:23:33.680 and the and the ways to think about these two 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:34.920 things together, and. 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:39.560 Please share that with me. I haven't seen it. I mean, yeah, 0:23:39.600 --> 0:23:44.080 as you said, when we take away Palestine from the academy, 0:23:44.160 --> 0:23:47.200 when we use Palestine to attack the academy, as imperfect 0:23:47.200 --> 0:23:51.879 as the Academy is, it is this larger attempt to 0:23:52.880 --> 0:23:57.840 take away people's analogical tools and frameworks to understanding their reality, 0:23:58.480 --> 0:24:01.200 to understanding how the reality and sex with these other things, 0:24:02.000 --> 0:24:04.840 because they don't want you to be able to solve it. 0:24:05.119 --> 0:24:07.719 They don't want you to be able to mobilize. And then, 0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:10.080 of course there's this, as I said, this class dimension 0:24:10.119 --> 0:24:12.760 of wanting to keep people in their place. There are 0:24:12.760 --> 0:24:14.840 too many black and brown people in the academy. Now 0:24:15.040 --> 0:24:17.560 we can't have that kind of social mobility. I just 0:24:17.600 --> 0:24:21.080 want to emphasize for the listeners why it's so important 0:24:21.480 --> 0:24:24.560 for Palestine to be researched and studied and things like 0:24:24.600 --> 0:24:26.199 that is self evident. I don't need to explain it. 0:24:26.200 --> 0:24:29.159 But why is it so important that Palestinians are the 0:24:29.160 --> 0:24:32.639 ones who do that? I mean, again, it feels self evident, 0:24:32.640 --> 0:24:37.080 but I'll say it like, Palestinians have agency, and they 0:24:37.160 --> 0:24:41.520 are full human beings, and they know best what questions 0:24:41.560 --> 0:24:45.040 are relevant, and they have a unique perspective on the 0:24:45.080 --> 0:24:47.960 issue of Palestine as well as other issues. And so 0:24:48.800 --> 0:24:52.200 not only are you engaging in the rature of Palestinians 0:24:52.200 --> 0:24:55.240 when you don't amplify that kind of knowledge production, but 0:24:55.840 --> 0:25:00.479 you are making scholarship poorer. You are limit saying what 0:25:00.520 --> 0:25:04.879 you know about this issue? Yeah, so what do you 0:25:04.920 --> 0:25:10.400 think you know? Kind of broadly speaking, students, scholars, sympathizers, 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:12.159 what do you think they should do in this moment. 0:25:13.280 --> 0:25:15.399 I want to just go back to the point about 0:25:15.400 --> 0:25:19.000 why is it important to have to sure Palestinian voices? 0:25:19.080 --> 0:25:21.840 Because when we say that, we're not doing it in 0:25:21.920 --> 0:25:26.200 an identitarian way, right of course, Yeah, anybody who wants 0:25:26.240 --> 0:25:28.560 to study Palestine should study Palestine. 0:25:28.600 --> 0:25:31.640 In doing so, you should be. 0:25:31.440 --> 0:25:35.040