Speaker 1: Keep on riding with us as we continue to broadcast
Speaker 1: the balance and defend the discourse from these hip hop
Speaker 1: weekly studios. Welcome back to Civic e Scipher. I am
Speaker 1: your host, Rams's Jah.
Speaker 2: He is Rams's Jah. I am q Ward. You are
Speaker 2: either still listening to or just tuning in to Civic Cypher.
Speaker 1: Either way, we appreciate you. We are having a big
Speaker 1: old time. Today we have a good friend of the
Speaker 1: show back with us to clear up some things for
Speaker 1: those that missed it. Last week we had a conversation
Speaker 1: with a friend of the show, his name is Ami Horowitz,
Speaker 1: giving us an update on the Israeli perspective with respect
Speaker 1: to the Israel Hamas war. And today we have the
Speaker 1: two Punch the other shoe drops. We have Suzanne Oslin
Speaker 1: who is a human rights major, former Miss arab USA actress,
Speaker 1: and an activist turned writer. You can follow her on
Speaker 1: social media at the Activist and she is here to
Speaker 1: respond and to answer some other questions. Clear up a
Speaker 1: few things. So before we get back to that conversation.
Speaker 1: First up, it's time to be a b a discussed
Speaker 1: becoming a better ally Blaba. Today's Bobba sponsored by Friends
Speaker 1: of the movement. You can sign up for the free
Speaker 1: voter wallet from fotmglobal dot com. Support black businesses and
Speaker 1: allied businesses. Again, that's FOTM Global dot com. And today
Speaker 1: I'm going to share a bit from the Daily Bruin.
Speaker 1: You know, it's from college kids that are getting out
Speaker 1: there and getting busy. So shout out to these guys,
Speaker 1: all right, shout out to the youth. So a move
Speaker 1: by the Undergraduate Students Association Council to vote on a
Speaker 1: resolution endorsing the Boycott, divest and sanctions movement against Israel
Speaker 1: quickly turned into a tent standoff, reflecting rising campus tensions
Speaker 1: over the ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip. The ten
Speaker 1: to three vote to pass the resolution was conducted by
Speaker 1: secret ballot amid privacy and security concerns, given that hundreds
Speaker 1: of emails from non UCLA students had flooded council members emails,
Speaker 1: said Cultural Affairs Commissioner Alisha Verdugo, a resolution sponsor who
Speaker 1: is facing facing calls from teach due to allegations of
Speaker 1: anti Semitism from pro Israel groups and Jewish students. The
Speaker 1: resolution follows similar BDS resolutions proposed at other California institutions
Speaker 1: with UC Davis's student government in the UCLA Graduate Student
Speaker 1: Association voting to support BDS resolutions. Resolution requires USAC to
Speaker 1: maintain a list of corporations that reportedly fund violations of
Speaker 1: human rights and international laws that is accessible by student
Speaker 1: groups and departments. It will include companies targeted by the
Speaker 1: Palestinian BDS National Committee, such as Hewlett Packard, Chevron and Puma.
Speaker 1: And I do want to say that this isn't the
Speaker 1: only instance of this. This has actually happened at a
Speaker 1: few different schools. So shout out to all the students
Speaker 1: that are organizing, that are letting their voices be known
Speaker 1: on the campus, that are unafraid of the pushback, because
Speaker 1: I know that that is a real thing we have
Speaker 1: to live with. But right is right, and when everything
Speaker 1: is said and done, you will go down on the
Speaker 1: right side of history. You are the better ally that
Speaker 1: we all should become. All right, So, Suzanne, before we
Speaker 1: have some more conversations, I want to make sure that
Speaker 1: you have you came with some talking points. I want
Speaker 1: to make sure you get all those talking points off,
Speaker 1: so anything else that we need to hit before.
Speaker 3: We uh Regarding Tommy, A couple other things that he said,
Speaker 3: Lord help me, he said, when you when you talk
Speaker 3: to him about the number of people who have been killed,
Speaker 3: he and you said it was twenty five thousand women
Speaker 3: and children. He combated that, and he was like, NATO
Speaker 3: roughly kills for one like bad guy they kill, there's
Speaker 3: three civilians who die for Israel. According to what Amy says,
Speaker 3: for one terrorist that they kill, it's one point five
Speaker 3: civilians who die, so good job.
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, one of the things that he
Speaker 4: said is that among that number of people, some of
Speaker 4: those terrorists are underage children. And he's saying that that's
Speaker 4: okay because they're terrorists. There's nothing okay about killing children.
Speaker 4: And you have no proof that those are that's twelve
Speaker 4: thousand people that he's saying are terrorists, twelve thousand people
Speaker 4: and a bunch of them are kids. Make that make sense.
Speaker 3: It was just so it was just so unconscionable because
Speaker 3: you would never say that about another group of people
Speaker 3: ever ever. And suddenly something just switches when you talk
Speaker 3: about Palestine, where you become comfortable with dehumanizing them, comfortable
Speaker 3: with just randomly killing kids and it being okay. You
Speaker 3: guys know what I'm talking about one of the things
Speaker 3: he said is he was like, there's you know, making
Speaker 3: mistakes is a.
Speaker 4: Part of war.
Speaker 3: So either they're incredibly savvy and we have to respect
Speaker 3: what they do the State of Israel because the United
Speaker 3: the State Department here in the US, they do anything
Speaker 3: that's like over the top that Israel does, it's over
Speaker 3: the top. The State Department goes, well, we've asked Israel
Speaker 3: to investigate the matter, and they've investigated and they haven't
Speaker 3: found anything that's really interesting.
Speaker 4: It's really really interesting too. At the same time, there.
Speaker 3: Was an allegation that Israel put out that you and
Speaker 3: Adawa the UN organization un RWA, that there might be
Speaker 3: hemas supporters or ms.
Speaker 4: At individuals in that organization.
Speaker 3: Five top countries that give so much funding to you
Speaker 3: and Ottawa completely cut it off without any any credibility,
Speaker 3: without any evidence that any of that was true. They
Speaker 3: immediately cut off funding to you and Ottawa. But when
Speaker 3: Israel does something really horrible, they're like, well, we've asked
Speaker 3: them to check themselves.
Speaker 4: You guys know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Q definitely knows you've got there. It's like a motif
Speaker 1: on the show. Tell them about the police, quipe.
Speaker 2: I don't have to make it about the police. There's
Speaker 2: a reason why so much rings familiar with what the
Speaker 2: people in Palestine are dealing with, and why there seem
Speaker 2: to be so many through lines and very very obvious
Speaker 2: synergies of mental, emotional, and historical presence between black people's
Speaker 2: struggle all over the world, but specifically in the United
Speaker 2: States and what they are dealing with currently. There is
Speaker 2: a strategy put forth by those who look to oppress
Speaker 2: since the beginning, and the most important and long lasting
Speaker 2: part of that strategy is to other and then sub
Speaker 2: humanize them. And once you do that successfully, treating them
Speaker 2: as such becomes acceptable, where even decent people just see
Speaker 2: that as the cost of life, and that's just how
Speaker 2: things go. So there's nothing for us to be offended about,
Speaker 2: because that's just how it is. Sweetie. And I use
Speaker 2: the word sweety intentionally because I'm picturing adults talking to children.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You guys brought up the TikTok legislation that's being put forth.
Speaker 2: The children are, for lack of a better term, awake,
Speaker 2: and that is terrifying to people in power because these
Speaker 2: awake children are speaking out and they're going outside and
Speaker 2: marching and protesting and organizing at rates that are alarming
Speaker 2: if the idea is to keep people underneath your thumb.
Speaker 2: So this masterful plan that has worked for centuries. The
Speaker 2: reason why you go back to the sixties, and you
Speaker 2: can go back further than that and you'll see through lines,
Speaker 2: is because the strategy hasn't changed. It's quite masterful and
Speaker 2: effective in its efficacy. It's working, it has worked, and
Speaker 2: it always will. So when I have these moments of
Speaker 2: frustration and seeming helplessness, is because I've seen the movie before.
Speaker 2: I see the outcry, I see the frustration, I see
Speaker 2: the marches in the protest, but I see the outcome
Speaker 2: remaining the same over and over again.
Speaker 1: So here's what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2: So not to cut you off there, but of course,
Speaker 2: let them police themselves and them and then find that
Speaker 2: they've done nothing wrong. Of course, my son will come
Speaker 2: back from his room and say it's already clean, and
Speaker 2: he already did his homework, And Dad, I don't understand
Speaker 2: why you're putting me my own punishment. If I left
Speaker 2: it to him to be his own father, to be
Speaker 2: his own protector, and to do his own investigation into
Speaker 2: his own homework, like, of course Dad, it was of
Speaker 2: course I did it already.
Speaker 1: And I did it right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course we've done nothing wrong here. There's nothing
Speaker 2: to see here.
Speaker 1: Here's what I want to do. I want to ask
Speaker 1: a bunch of questions rapid fire, just for the sake
Speaker 1: of time. You got something you need to get off,
Speaker 1: you get it off. But I want to make sure
Speaker 1: that we get the people just litle bit more insight. Okay,
Speaker 1: So first thing, it was a video of Aaron Bushnaw
Speaker 1: set himself on fire for those that'd seen the video,
Speaker 1: and he spent his last breath yelling brief Palestine. He
Speaker 1: felt like that was what he needed to do to
Speaker 1: bring attention to what was going on in the Middle East.
Speaker 1: How does that hit your people? How was your people's
Speaker 1: reaction to that? What you've seen online with your activism, etc.
Speaker 3: Not only did he do that, but he also gave
Speaker 3: all of his money and his will to the Palestinian
Speaker 3: Children's Relief Fund.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that, which.
Speaker 4: Is really.
Speaker 3: I wish he didn't do it because it would have
Speaker 3: been I mean, just his family alone. I just think
Speaker 3: I'm a mom, and I think of his parents, and
Speaker 3: I think like my God, can you imagine when it
Speaker 3: comes to Palestine. That's a soul we would have loved
Speaker 3: to have with. Yes, you know, that is a powerful
Speaker 3: human and we're all really devastated, and it's hit in Gaza.
Speaker 3: People know in Gaza, they are holding up pictures of
Speaker 3: him on their.
Speaker 1: Street named after him.
Speaker 3: There's a street in Jericho in the West Bank now
Speaker 3: named after Aaron Bushnell.
Speaker 4: So he is, he's become a martyr.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm glad to ask you that one. I would
Speaker 5: ask you about all the Super Bowl commercials and things
Speaker 5: like that, because that's happened since we've been up here before.
Speaker 5: But I feel like it's not nearly as important. Let's
Speaker 5: talk about the President's State of the Union address. Okay,
Speaker 5: he said, I'm.
Speaker 1: Gonna quote him to the leadership of Israel I say this
Speaker 1: humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or bargaining ship.
Speaker 1: Protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority.
Speaker 1: The only real is a two state solution. What do
Speaker 1: you make of that?
Speaker 4: How do you say that?
Speaker 3: Well, literally, at the exact same time that speech is
Speaker 3: being given, the money and weapons that you are also
Speaker 3: giving is thrown onto the people and it's creating the
Speaker 3: humanitarian catastrophe that you were saying is so important, and
Speaker 3: it's not a secondary thing to think about how does
Speaker 3: that work?
Speaker 1: That's it's since it's it's i'm gonna I'm gonna say this.
Speaker 1: Don't let me state your brief. But there's a saying
Speaker 1: that we use here. Sometimes we even have to do
Speaker 1: it ourselves. But it's kind of like talking out of
Speaker 1: both sides of your mouth. Is that does that kind
Speaker 1: of encapsulate what you feel like he's doing that it's.
Speaker 3: Just there, he's he's mad, that he's he's actually mad.
Speaker 3: He actually this has come out in the last week
Speaker 3: that he's really off. That he doesn't understand why his
Speaker 3: his ratings have gone down in Georgia and Michigan.
Speaker 1: Well over Gaza you know why.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but he doesn't get it. He's his numbers are dropping.
Speaker 1: So he's got let's talk about that. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: that though, So that organized organizing of you know, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a huge community in Michigan.
Speaker 2: The metro Detroit Detroit area has probably in this part
Speaker 2: of the world, the largest concentration of Muslim and.
Speaker 4: Arab people outside of the Middle East.
Speaker 2: So yeah, of course Michigan will show up, and thankfully,
Speaker 2: thankfully Michigan has shown up in the way that it has.
Speaker 2: And of course people are very very upset right because
Speaker 2: there's a stunning and startling similarity between the left and
Speaker 2: the right and this country when it comes to their
Speaker 2: foundation of Christianity and white Christianity more specifically right. So
Speaker 2: they don't expect this type of pushback. Neither side would
Speaker 2: expect this type of pushback in support of something that's
Speaker 2: not American. You know, you're not being a patriot and
Speaker 2: you're not being a good, God loving American Christian person
Speaker 2: if you stand up in a time like this to
Speaker 2: support something like this. Of course, that's going to be
Speaker 2: very confusing for a president who's kind of not had
Speaker 2: his finger on the pulse of any of the things
Speaker 2: that matter to us since we got him elected.
Speaker 1: Can I say something else while we're here and me
Speaker 1: and u Q we have this conversation quite a bit
Speaker 1: about why do black people always vote Democrat? Why the
Speaker 1: black people always vote Democrat? They don't do they don't do. This.
Speaker 1: One of the things that has inspired me by our
Speaker 1: Arab American brothers and sisters with this, what was the vote,
Speaker 1: the name of the vote, whereas you're not voting for anybody,
Speaker 1: but you're showing up to undecided or uncommitted, uncommitted. That
Speaker 1: was it. One of the things that I'm hoping will
Speaker 1: resonate with the democratic establishment is that they will feel
Speaker 1: the presence of our absence, right, And it is our
Speaker 1: Arab American brothers and sisters who have kind of spearheaded
Speaker 1: that movement, because just that little bit is enough to
Speaker 1: suggest like, oh wait, if they get organized and they
Speaker 1: withhold their vote, then we lose power. And if they
Speaker 1: want power, then they have to be accountable to the
Speaker 1: people on the ground, which is there is no silver
Speaker 1: lining about I'm forever a changed man seeing what happened
Speaker 1: to those children. I'm a father. We're all parents here, yes,
Speaker 1: and we're parents of young children, so we can see
Speaker 1: that very easily. I mean, you guys, see my kid
Speaker 1: running around in his undwear all the time, right, unconsciable,
Speaker 1: inconceivable to think of me picking my own baby out
Speaker 1: of a pile of rubble. He has such a bright future, right.
Speaker 1: If there is a silver lining though, and I don't
Speaker 1: mean to be polished, it's that the organization that came
Speaker 1: from this to show that, and this is why we
Speaker 1: done our best to really stand in solidarity with the
Speaker 1: people that we feel needed, you know which, Again, admittedly
Speaker 1: I've admitted I know I'm a journalist, but I've admitted
Speaker 1: that Palestinian people, like history will look back on this
Speaker 1: and say, Yo, the Palestinian people needed us to do
Speaker 1: even more we talk on the radio. So just what
Speaker 1: we do but shoot, give us a ticket and whatever
Speaker 1: else we need, we'll go get busy whatever. Anyway, that
Speaker 1: part is something that I've really been able to appreciate.
Speaker 1: I don't want to take up too much of your time,
Speaker 1: so let me get back here. I'm going to read
Speaker 1: a few things, just get one reaction from you before
Speaker 1: time runs out. So there was a lot of lies
Speaker 1: that I pressed last week. I pressed Amion just to
Speaker 1: get his reaction. I'd like to do the same with you,
Speaker 1: just to get your reaction. A lot about lives that
Speaker 1: have since been debunked. First, there was already a cease
Speaker 1: fire on October sixth, and the pushback was that Israel
Speaker 1: had been firing on Palaestinian people prior to October seventh,
Speaker 1: and so that narrative has been proven that there's footage,
Speaker 1: there's incidents documented, that sort of thing. The next one
Speaker 1: is that the priority was freeing the hostages, and the
Speaker 1: IDF is in fact killed some of the hospital hostages
Speaker 1: that they've been trying to save. Right, of course, we
Speaker 1: talked about the forty babies that were beheaded that ended
Speaker 1: up being one hundred percent not true. I think there
Speaker 1: was only one baby that was like under the age
Speaker 1: of two that actually died, and one is too many,
Speaker 1: but that baby was not beheaded, and I don't think
Speaker 1: that that was even a let me not speak on it,
Speaker 1: but I don't think that baby was like a target. Specifically,
Speaker 1: the Hamas main base under the Alchifa hospital helped me
Speaker 1: Al Shifa Hospital, and the AP ultimately found out that
Speaker 1: that base, that sophisticated base, ended up being just kind
Speaker 1: of one room with two metal cots that looked like
Speaker 1: it wasn't even being used. So that's another debunked lie
Speaker 1: that was surrounding this narrative about Israel's justification for attacking
Speaker 1: Al Gaza. Next one Washington, Oh sorry, yeah, the Washington
Speaker 1: Post also found that there was no military base under
Speaker 1: that hospital. The Israeli ministry uses the Gaza Ministry of
Speaker 1: Health's numbers, and they found those numbers to be a
Speaker 1: reliable source of info. And we talked about some other
Speaker 1: sources that also confirmed that the numbers coming out of
Speaker 1: Gaza were in fact reliable, and the people pushing back
Speaker 1: against that, all of them have no credibility journalistically or scientists.
Speaker 4: Don't want to be true because it makes it look back.
Speaker 1: But scientifically speaking and journalistically speaking, they're not credible or
Speaker 1: else are we. You mentioned the US Secretary of Defense
Speaker 1: Lloyd Austin discussing twenty five thousand women and children being
Speaker 1: killed by Israel. At present, four out of five of
Speaker 1: the Hungary's people in the world are in Gaza right now.
Speaker 1: That is a fact. And the other lie that has
Speaker 1: been associated with this conflict is that the Gazans elected
Speaker 1: Hamas as a way of justifying and making every one
Speaker 1: culpable for the attack on January second. So everyone has
Speaker 1: to pay and if there are, if there's collateral damage,
Speaker 1: then so be it. It's the cost of doing business.
Speaker 1: And that was for those that listened to last week's episode,
Speaker 1: which if you haven't, please go back and listen because
Speaker 1: this will make a lot more sense. But the one
Speaker 1: time in that conversation when we really had a tense moment,
Speaker 1: me an amy was because of that very thing, you know,
Speaker 1: that that justification which feels so unfair that in and
Speaker 1: of itself is a war crime. Collective punishment is a warfime.
Speaker 1: But as we've discussed, the numbers do not support the fact.
Speaker 1: First off, the Hamas did not win a majority of
Speaker 1: the votes in the election. And second, while the election
Speaker 1: was in two thousand and six, and the vast majority
Speaker 1: of the people that have suffering, the people on the ground, yeah,
Speaker 1: they weren't even old enough to vote in that election
Speaker 1: in the first place.
Speaker 4: And that was asked fifty percent of the population. I mean,
Speaker 4: that's a big number.
Speaker 1: So most of the human beings on the ground paying
Speaker 1: the price for this did not vote.
Speaker 4: So here's what I'll.
Speaker 3: Say this is there's two wars happening. There's the war
Speaker 3: that's happening on the ground, and there's the narrative war.
Speaker 3: And for the first time in seventy five years, Israel
Speaker 3: is losing their narrative war and they are terrified. And
Speaker 3: one thing one way to decipher is that everything that
Speaker 3: they every accusation is a confession. Every everyone so every
Speaker 3: time they say they're using people's human shields, they use
Speaker 3: people as human shields. This they're doing collective punishment. He
Speaker 3: mass is the one that's taking food away from people.
Speaker 3: They're the ones taking food away from people. Every time
Speaker 3: they accuse Hamas or the Palstine authority or the Palsinen
Speaker 3: people of something, it is actually a confession of things
Speaker 3: that they do.
Speaker 4: It's how they come up with it.
Speaker 1: You know. Another said thing I'm just saying real quick.
Speaker 1: There was another video that broke my heart. There was
Speaker 1: a black and white video on CNN. You had some
Speaker 1: food out there and you see the people. They look
Speaker 1: like little dots. They were coming to get the food. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they started shooting the flower massacre. Yeah, and then one
Speaker 1: hundreds some people died.
Speaker 4: It was the flower massacre.
Speaker 3: They didn't die, they were murdered by snipers when they
Speaker 3: went to go get food, flower off of an AID truck.
Speaker 3: So people left their homes, dads left their kids to
Speaker 3: go get food and never came back. And they somehow
Speaker 3: managed to blame how Masks for it.
Speaker 1: Q And you had some.
Speaker 2: I really start to lose hope on the idea that
Speaker 2: we could get to a place where we figure out
Speaker 2: a way to see each other collectively as human beings.
Speaker 2: Those who look to oppress have done the most incredible
Speaker 2: job at teaching us to focus on the things that
Speaker 2: make us different, because if they can keep us separated,
Speaker 2: they can keep us colonized and disorganized and fighting amongst
Speaker 2: each other and oppressed. Because they are by far the minority.
Speaker 2: By far, there are seven and a half billion people
Speaker 2: on this planet. Seven point four billion of them are poor.
Speaker 2: We have far more in common than the things that
Speaker 2: separate us. But they have done the most masterful divide
Speaker 2: and conquer. They have implemented this strategy. It has taken root,
Speaker 2: and it has the fruit that it bears. Seems to
Speaker 2: be undefeated. There seems to be no solution, no formula
Speaker 2: that can get us to look at each other as
Speaker 2: brothers and sisters of the human race. We rather be
Speaker 2: black and Irish and Jamaican and Haitian and Chinese and
Speaker 2: Japanese and you know whatever that makes us different, and
Speaker 2: Christian and Buddhist and Catholic and gay and Muslim and
Speaker 2: gay and straight, and we can go on and on,
Speaker 2: but even that list is short. You know, if I
Speaker 2: say all of those things together there are still far
Speaker 2: more that makes us the same, and we got to
Speaker 2: find a way back to that.
Speaker 1: Well. As always the short This show is way too short,
Speaker 1: So just a couple of closing thoughts here. We always,
Speaker 1: in forever will stand with Jewish people. Can't say the
Speaker 1: same about any country, can't say the same about any logo.
Speaker 1: There's a lot more conversation that needs to be had.
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you to do us one more favor,
Speaker 1: one more bab ba. Please follow at the actorist on
Speaker 1: social media and follow another friend of the show. Resistance
Speaker 1: is beautiful, Resistance underscore is underscore beautiful. To get some
Speaker 1: more insight into these and to keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: Of course, you have a standing invitation to come back,
Speaker 1: and you know, please keep fighting the good fight out there,
Speaker 1: do your research and keep rocking with us until next week, y'all.
Speaker 2: Peace,