Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Hello, you are about to listen to a rewind episode.
Speaker 2: And it's not that much of a rewind. It's pretty
Speaker 2: recent as far as history goes. But I just really
Speaker 2: love this episode. I'm really proud of it. I'm really
Speaker 2: grateful to have met our guest to Hob Kashi. He
Speaker 2: just has insight that I think a lot of people
Speaker 2: need to hear, especially as a Israeli American right now.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I just find his voice very valuable and
Speaker 2: it's worth a re listen. So here it is. Hello, everybody,
Speaker 2: welcome to it could happen here. This is Sharene and
Speaker 2: I am so happy to be joined by my guest today.
Speaker 2: I've been so excited to speak to him. I am
Speaker 2: joined by dB Kashi. He is a pro policy and
Speaker 2: activist from New York and Israel, and there's just a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff I want to talk to you about.
Speaker 1: So welcome, pleasure to be here. Great to meet you, Sharen.
Speaker 2: I want to start with just some background for the
Speaker 2: audience to just like kind of get to know where
Speaker 2: the perspective you're speaking from. Can you tell me a
Speaker 2: little bit about your family history and where you grew
Speaker 2: up and where your parents are from. And all of that.
Speaker 1: Sure, my parents were both born in Israel, and they,
Speaker 1: like many Israelis, moved to New York City in the
Speaker 1: eighties and had myself and my two siblings, And as
Speaker 1: my grandparents were getting older, to whom we were very close,
Speaker 1: my mom decided to move back to Tel Aviv when
Speaker 1: I was in two thousand, so right before the Second Intifada.
Speaker 1: And so when I was thirteen eighth grade, I moved
Speaker 1: to Tel Aviv for the first time. And you know,
Speaker 1: obviously I was very familiar with it, like visit every summer,
Speaker 1: and you know, grew up in our grandparents' house, both
Speaker 1: of whom were Iraqi Jews who immigrated to Israel in
Speaker 1: the early fifties. And so yeah, so when I moved
Speaker 1: there in eighth grade, I was completely pretty much a
Speaker 1: shock in terms of what I was used to in
Speaker 1: New York. Obviously, I had friends from many different walks
Speaker 1: of life, many different backgrounds here. I was very used
Speaker 1: to that, right, I didn't grew up in you know,
Speaker 1: a very staunch Jewish community. I had Jewish friends, but
Speaker 1: I didn't solely have Jewish friends. And so that's what
Speaker 1: I loved, That's what I embraced, but when I moved
Speaker 1: to Israel, it was very jarring. You know, I had
Speaker 1: studied in Hebrew for the first time, and you know,
Speaker 1: everything that we studied in school was pertaining to the
Speaker 1: Jewish identity. So every kind of history class, you know,
Speaker 1: you'd study about the Roman Empire and the Jewish people.
Speaker 1: You'd study about, you know, ancient Greece and the Jewish people.
Speaker 1: And that's okay to learn about Jewish identity, but intertwining
Speaker 1: it with every aspect of the school curriculum and really
Speaker 1: thinking about the persecure really kind of hammering home this
Speaker 1: notion of persecution, really kind of understanding how you know,
Speaker 1: And again, I think it's important to understand your history
Speaker 1: and history in general, but I think that kind of
Speaker 1: introducing this notion of persecution as a tactic to retraumatize
Speaker 1: people that aren't directly experiencing the trauma. Right, So everyone
Speaker 1: in the world learns about the Holocaust, but did you
Speaker 1: know that in Israel, Holocaust Remembrance Day isn't on the
Speaker 1: same day as the rest of the world's Holocaust Remembrance
Speaker 1: Day because they want to own their own kind of
Speaker 1: version of the Holocaust Remembrance Day. Right. And so you know,
Speaker 1: when you think about the Holocaust, you think about other holocausts,
Speaker 1: other genocides that have happened, and Israel's failure to recognize
Speaker 1: those genocides, like the Armenian genocide, right, and the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, many people don't know, but you know,
Speaker 1: throughout history Israel has armed genocidal forces with Israeli made
Speaker 1: weapons to you know, support imperialist motives and colonialist powers
Speaker 1: around the world. So you know, even even now with
Speaker 1: what's happening in Armenia with the Iserbaijani's right, Israel is
Speaker 1: on the wrong side of that equation, right, And so
Speaker 1: it's never been about standing with the side of the
Speaker 1: oppressed for Israel, It's never been about, you know, ensuring
Speaker 1: that what happens when they say never again, actually never again,
Speaker 1: never happens again to anyone around the world. Right. Think
Speaker 1: about their policy is the racist policies around refugees, right.
Speaker 1: I think people don't understand, right. I have a very
Speaker 1: unique perspective because I understand kind of the minds of
Speaker 1: the colonizers. I can humanize the colonizers. I think there's
Speaker 1: a dangerous kind of maybe thinking about things from a
Speaker 1: bit of a different angle than kind of people are
Speaker 1: used to, and also bringing it back to the events
Speaker 1: of the last ten days or eleven days at this point,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I've always kind of looked at
Speaker 1: and identified with the Palestinian struggle, right, And I've always
Speaker 1: seen it as human rights struggle, right, and you know,
Speaker 1: as such, and as many well regarded activists and thinkers
Speaker 1: and intellectuals have always talked about the unification of all
Speaker 1: the struggles of the oppress, and that's always always arrived
Speaker 1: at the identification with this struggle for the Palestinian people.
Speaker 1: I've also felt, you know, by virtue of this se
Speaker 1: this imposed identity of you know, Israeli, I've always felt
Speaker 1: directly responsible for the oppression of the Palestinian people, even
Speaker 1: though I've never done anything myself to champion or perpetuate
Speaker 1: that oppression. I've always worked against it from a very
Speaker 1: very young age. Now people always ask me, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of annoying questions like, you know, why do you
Speaker 1: care so much about the Palestinians when so many people
Speaker 1: in the world are suffering. And the answer to that
Speaker 1: question is I care about all suffering. But this is
Speaker 1: something that the government that supposedly represents me, that the
Speaker 1: entity that supposedly represents me is directly perpetrating and frankly,
Speaker 1: after going to many protests in New York and in
Speaker 1: Israel itself, I've realized that this is the most important
Speaker 1: human rights struggle of our generation for sure, but of
Speaker 1: modern times because it stands for all of it's essentially
Speaker 1: the last beacon of direct colonialism. Right. We all know
Speaker 1: how kind of neocolonialism works. I mean, maybe we do
Speaker 1: when we don't, but neo colonialism, through you know, different
Speaker 1: coupitalist structures, right, America has been able to perpetrate neocolonialism
Speaker 1: without actually having to occupy other people, you know, save
Speaker 1: for Iraq for almost twenty years, but or fifteen years
Speaker 1: or whatever, it was a very long time. But Israel
Speaker 1: is directly and physically occupying in other people, and they
Speaker 1: have been for the last seventy five years, right officially
Speaker 1: for the last seventy five years. And that's been a constant, Right,
Speaker 1: It's not, hey, you know, here's a country and let's
Speaker 1: you know fight, let's continue our kind of battle in
Speaker 1: that way. It's been it's always been. If you're a
Speaker 1: scholar of Israeli history of Zionist history, you always you
Speaker 1: start understanding that the goal was to take over all
Speaker 1: of Judaea and Samara, right, And that's kind of how
Speaker 1: the settler government that Netanyahu has in power has been
Speaker 1: speaking for years. Right. I'm really upset and really kind
Speaker 1: of frustrated by the way that the Western media has
Speaker 1: been portraying what's happening over the last eleven days, because
Speaker 1: even Israeli media Halitz, which is an Israeli newspaper, which
Speaker 1: is very prominent one right, isn't portraying it the way
Speaker 1: that the Western media is portraying it. Right, they're criticizing
Speaker 1: the Netanyahu. There's so many people in Israel that are scared, right,
Speaker 1: All the leftists are scared. They're being persecuted. They're signal
Speaker 1: groups doxing friends of mine, people literally fighting for human rights.
Speaker 1: They're doxing them. Israelfrai, he's an Orthodox reporter that's been
Speaker 1: staunchly pro Palestinian and he's a very prominent member of
Speaker 1: the press. Angry mob of right wing extremists try to
Speaker 1: knock down his door the other day and he had
Speaker 1: to escape from the back door and run away. So
Speaker 1: they don't, you know, potentially kill him, right, and so
Speaker 1: these voices are being silenced in Israel. No one is
Speaker 1: talking about that. Everyone in the West is beating the
Speaker 1: drums of war. The media is supporting that. We've seen
Speaker 1: on the kind of a micro but tragic level, what
Speaker 1: happened to that six year old kid that was stobbed
Speaker 1: to death by someone just because of the anti Islamic,
Speaker 1: anti Palestinian rhetoric that's being perpetrated, And so everyone's kind
Speaker 1: of losing their shit as all of a sudden, everyone's
Speaker 1: saying the same thing because everyone is being pushed to
Speaker 1: justify this war. But people are starting to wake up, right,
Speaker 1: the UN's woken up and very very slowly start to
Speaker 1: wake up because they're seeing that genocide is actually being
Speaker 1: committed and so you can't throw your full weight behind genocide.
Speaker 1: But they're walking it back too slowly. And the people
Speaker 1: that I'm disappointed by are people that are supposedly smart,
Speaker 1: spewing complete nonsense rhetoric about two sides. Right. I struggled, Right,
Speaker 1: this is important. I struggled. I know people who were
Speaker 1: killed in the Hamas attack personally and intimately know them. Right.
Speaker 1: You know, my ex girlfriend's best friend was killed. Right,
Speaker 1: She's We've hung out many, many, many times. She was
Speaker 1: a very sweet, very kind person. We know an activist
Speaker 1: who was literally because people don't understand. And this is
Speaker 1: for a lot of the kind of pro Palestinians that
Speaker 1: that that And I completely empathize, and I understand why
Speaker 1: people believe what they believe. Believe me, but this is
Speaker 1: for a lot of the pro Palestinians that you know
Speaker 1: immediately called all of them settlers, right, And I think
Speaker 1: it's important to distinguish because if there's ever going to
Speaker 1: be a path forward this mess, we have to offer
Speaker 1: a new rhetoric that deconstructs the nationalist ideologies. Okay, I
Speaker 1: don't put the Palestinian flag or say free Palestine, which
Speaker 1: I do as a nationalist ideology. I say that as
Speaker 1: a deconstruction of nationalism, as as a call to freedom
Speaker 1: for all, right, though oppressed as well as the oppressor. Right.
Speaker 1: If you actually read everyone's quoting, everyone's quoting Phenonen, right,
Speaker 1: everyone's quoting all these revolutionaries, if you actually read the
Speaker 1: material that they said. Chae Gavari even said the true
Speaker 1: revolutionary is guided by deep with deep feelings of love
Speaker 1: in their heart, and he said this at the risk
Speaker 1: of sounding absurd. He said that direct quote the people
Speaker 1: perpetuating in Israel. I can say this from a first
Speaker 1: hand account. I know very good people that are guided
Speaker 1: by nationalist and fascist idea. However, they've been manipulated, They've
Speaker 1: been lied to, They've they're fed propaganda twenty four to
Speaker 1: seven through the news and the sentiment in Israel right now,
Speaker 1: and I can tell you this, I'm getting messages from people.
Speaker 1: They think everyone is trying to kill Jews. That's what
Speaker 1: they believe, That's what they've been told. They think this
Speaker 1: is armageddon for the Jewish people. That's what the media
Speaker 1: narrative is in Israel. Okay, in spite of the fact
Speaker 1: that there are many people that are against what's happening,
Speaker 1: there are many people that directly blame Netanyahu for this,
Speaker 1: but they're being scared to believe that they're being going
Speaker 1: to be attacked on all fronts, and they have to
Speaker 1: do everything they can to neutralize your threats. Okay, that
Speaker 1: is the survival kind of That is a fact. Does
Speaker 1: that mean that every single person in Israel is a
Speaker 1: terrible human being as evil as some people say, No,
Speaker 1: that is not true at all. Right. And my point is,
Speaker 1: and what a lot of the revolutionaries said, right. Palo
Speaker 1: Freer in the Pedagogy the Oppressed said, in the process
Speaker 1: of dehumanization, the oppressor dehumanizes himself. Putting that aside, though,
Speaker 1: I think that you know, for me, I see I
Speaker 1: know people that died, it was very difficult for me
Speaker 1: the post in the first two days. I think there
Speaker 1: were some problematic justifications for the massacre that didn't sit
Speaker 1: well with me because I'm a humanist. But in the
Speaker 1: same token, right, I think that I understand the context.
Speaker 1: I think it behooves us to understand the context. Right.
Speaker 1: There's a really famous quote. I forget who said it,
Speaker 1: but if you started the clock or started looking at
Speaker 1: kind of the colonization in America from when the Native
Speaker 1: Americans started shooting the arrows, you think that the Native
Speaker 1: Americans were the aggressives. Right. If you started looking at,
Speaker 1: you know, the colonization of Algeria, when the Alga when
Speaker 1: the local population started rebelling, you think that they were
Speaker 1: the aggressives. Right. And that's not to say in the
Speaker 1: same breath that terrible things happen to amazing people there. Right,
Speaker 1: What people don't know and a lot of the Propolst
Speaker 1: movement doesn't know is that many of the people living
Speaker 1: in the area on Gazas are actually activists, like very
Speaker 1: anti zionists, activists right that many of the testimonies of
Speaker 1: the families of the of those activists are saying to
Speaker 1: stop the genocide, that it's not going to bring back
Speaker 1: their friends, their family members. Those are the people that
Speaker 1: were a lot of whom were killed in the attacks,
Speaker 1: because that's where they live, they work with, you know,
Speaker 1: organizations at Gaza like acknowledge that, right, understand the complexity saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you guys are all settlers. That's just dumb. It's not
Speaker 1: factually true. Their grandparents were, their great grandparents were one
Speaker 1: hundred percent. But now their generations and generations of people, right,
Speaker 1: just like in America, their generations and generations of people
Speaker 1: that descended, Are they to be held accountable for the
Speaker 1: actions of their ancestors. Doesn't make any sense. They should
Speaker 1: be held accountable for actions that they take now for sure, right,
Speaker 1: holding your government accountable, you know, thinking about an actual
Speaker 1: solution to this terrible situation that one hundred percent people
Speaker 1: should be held accountable for. But to call them settlers
Speaker 1: as a justification for their deaths is something that I
Speaker 1: will never do, right, and I don't think it helps
Speaker 1: the struggle, right. I think it's important to say, and
Speaker 1: then simultaneously also say, did you guys know that Israel
Speaker 1: played a very major role in establishing the commas? Like
Speaker 1: don't be stupid, open a history books, see what happened, right, Understand,
Speaker 1: don't just be quick to call and quick to say
Speaker 1: both sides. It's not a both side situation. Even though
Speaker 1: the aggression was terrible, those are those two things can
Speaker 1: be true. It's a devastating, tragic event, right, and I
Speaker 1: know many great people that were killed in it, But
Speaker 1: in the same breath, we have to remember what caused it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Context is everything, right, Context is everything. Israel funded the Kamas.
Speaker 1: Bibi has direct quotes in Israeli newspapers saying we have
Speaker 1: to fund the Kamas in order for is Palestinians never
Speaker 1: to have a state. He directly said that how do
Speaker 1: you guys ignore these statements? They've been very Bibi has
Speaker 1: been very clear as to what is going to happen
Speaker 1: and what he's trying to accomplish. And then on top
Speaker 1: of that, to compound things, the settlers in his government
Speaker 1: right now isamal Bengvil and Smotrich are two settlers. They
Speaker 1: literally are settlers, like in according to the national law,
Speaker 1: they're considered settlers, okay, illegal settlers. And there the second
Speaker 1: and third most powerful people in Israel. Okay, I don't
Speaker 1: think people understand or know, but those two guys. There's
Speaker 1: a there's a famous rabbi, okay, Andrew. He's an extremist,
Speaker 1: fundamentalist rabbi, Jewish fundamentalist rabbi. What he's been calling for
Speaker 1: for a long time, sadaka Is Kahana was right. He
Speaker 1: was a very fascist rabbi that was basically calling for
Speaker 1: the extermination of all Arabs. And they're basically they're called
Speaker 1: kahanistem and that's it's basically what the left in Israel
Speaker 1: used to call this government. Manchash Khanistem means government of Kahanists. Okay,
Speaker 1: that is what that's who's running the country. And this
Speaker 1: rabbi has been calling for in a biblical sense. And
Speaker 1: we all know when people have an utmost you know,
Speaker 1: devotion to religion, that guides them, right, not our world.
Speaker 1: Our world does not guide them. The religious texts and
Speaker 1: the religious leaders are the ones who tell them what
Speaker 1: is right and what is wrong right religious in religious fundamentalism,
Speaker 1: and so what this rabbi has been calling for for
Speaker 1: years has been a war to end all wars. Okay,
Speaker 1: that is what he's been telling them. That is what
Speaker 1: they've been operating under. Okay, their allegiances are to him,
Speaker 1: not to the Israeli people like literally to that ideology.
Speaker 1: And so they're in the government right now. Over the
Speaker 1: last year, they've been essentially adding illegal settlements at a
Speaker 1: rapid rate, emboldening and empowering settlers to commit violence that
Speaker 1: we haven't seen in many many years, levels of violence
Speaker 1: we haven't been seen in many many years, even before
Speaker 1: this latest aggression I'm talking about over the last twelve months.
Speaker 1: And the biggest most annoying thing that I hear from
Speaker 1: Westerners that think they understand right, they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we really care about Palestinians. But Hamas has to go
Speaker 1: two things to that. One, the fact that there are
Speaker 1: Palestinians on the West Bank and the Palestinians in Gaza
Speaker 1: doesn't mean they're not the same people. They're Palestinians in
Speaker 1: forty eight as well. They feel deep feelings of solidarity
Speaker 1: because they're all oppressed in different ways. Right, it's solidarity
Speaker 1: under this got under this Grand Zionist oppression that they experienced.
Speaker 1: And so I think that it's a fallacy that it
Speaker 1: was an unprovoked attack. It's a fallacy, right, It's not
Speaker 1: the case the fact that Aleksa kept getting bombarded by
Speaker 1: settlers on purpose, on purpose, I don't put it back
Speaker 1: like they did this to get a provocation. They've been
Speaker 1: provoking to get the retaliation for Hamas. They've been doing
Speaker 1: this for years. This is nothing new, Right. Every time
Speaker 1: Ramas shot rockets over the last five years is because
Speaker 1: Israel was attacking Elecxa right right after Ramadan if you remember,
Speaker 1: or during Ramadan. Sorry, And so every time a barage
Speaker 1: of rockets came in right after that barrage of rockets
Speaker 1: because Hamas wanted to show that someone is sticking up
Speaker 1: for them. But I'm just saying you have to understand
Speaker 1: the context when you're in a blockade, when you're living
Speaker 1: in a concentration camp, worse than a concentration camp, frankly, Right,
Speaker 1: every electricity is controlled, water is controlled, food is controlled.
Speaker 1: You're not able to leave, right, You're not able to
Speaker 1: freaking leave when you want. You're not able to come
Speaker 1: when you want, not able to. A sixty kilometer strip
Speaker 1: of land is the most densely populated strip of land
Speaker 1: in the entire world. Depression is the the highest rates
Speaker 1: of depression. I think the highest rates of child suicide
Speaker 1: are in Gaza, Okay, when you're living under those conditions,
Speaker 1: I have no idea how you don't. I have no
Speaker 1: idea what that would feel like. So how can I
Speaker 1: judge anyone any response to that? Right in the same breath,
Speaker 1: I can also say it's a tragic thing that innocent
Speaker 1: people died, and they're innocent people, and I think it's
Speaker 1: important to hold that complexity. Also for the Palestinian cause.
Speaker 1: I think it's important to not lose sight of our
Speaker 1: humanity in criticizing the grave injustices that Israel has committed
Speaker 1: and putting the blame squarely on Israel's shoulders. That Hamas exists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's something that I keep coming back
Speaker 2: to is whenever someone is just all about condemning Hamas,
Speaker 2: which is like, yes, as you mentioned, like innocent people
Speaker 2: shouldn't have died, but I blame all the violence that's
Speaker 2: happening in Israel on Israel, Like, it's not you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you can't just start like at a slave revolt as
Speaker 2: the beginning of history of slavery. It's like no, actually exactly,
Speaker 2: they did that for a reason and they had no
Speaker 2: other choice. And I mean for Palestinians, I think, like,
Speaker 2: what's the biggest context that's missing is like they've tried everything.
Speaker 2: It's not their first choice to kill people that didn't
Speaker 2: deserve it. It's I think I think that's what's been really
Speaker 2: annoying with the the people that have chosen to spoke
Speaker 2: to speak out that have never spoken out before. They
Speaker 2: are so narrow in their view of this that it's
Speaker 2: so damaging because they have so many follow werds, or
Speaker 2: they're talking about the wrong things, and all of those
Speaker 2: things like kind of perpetuate a really dangerous environment where
Speaker 2: like a six year old kid can get stabbed to death.
Speaker 2: Or I don't know. I agree with everything you said,
Speaker 2: and I really appreciate you saying all those things before
Speaker 2: I forget. We're going to take our first break, so
Speaker 2: don't go anywhere and we're back. Something you mentioned early
Speaker 2: on that I have been thinking about and getting really
Speaker 2: angry about is why people are surprised or like unexpecting
Speaker 2: you to speak out about Palestinians if you are not
Speaker 2: a Palestinian. I am not a Palestinian. I'm Syrian, and
Speaker 2: I am extremely vocal about the Palestinian cause and the
Speaker 2: Palestinian I've always been one hundred perc free Palestine till
Speaker 2: I die. And it's almost like surprising to people, like
Speaker 2: why are you so worked up? Like why aren't you
Speaker 2: so worked up like that? That's what really gets me
Speaker 2: is your humanity and care. It shouldn't be contingent on
Speaker 2: your identity if you actually give a shit. And I
Speaker 2: think that's what I really want to like relate to people,
Speaker 2: is this is not the Palestinian's struggle solely for themselves,
Speaker 2: Like this is a struggle for all. Like if this
Speaker 2: genocide obliterates the Palestinian people, that's on humanity shoulders. That's
Speaker 2: not like that that is so indicative of how depraved
Speaker 2: humans have become. It's just so upsetting. It's just a
Speaker 2: complete obliteration. There has been videos of settlers saying they
Speaker 2: want to flatten the whole thing, make it a parking lot.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't even have to tell you what
Speaker 2: like actual media and like politicians have been saying because
Speaker 2: it's like atrocious. But I think that's what I want
Speaker 2: to relate to people, is like, if you're not if
Speaker 2: you don't care, examine that because that is troubling to me,
Speaker 2: if you don't care about actual genocide. And maybe that
Speaker 2: word has been used too much to make people give
Speaker 2: a shit, but it really makes me question people's humanity
Speaker 2: when they are able to kind of just like shrug
Speaker 2: it off and continue about their day.
Speaker 1: I've been practicing being hopeful. I think it's really important,
Speaker 1: especially in times like these, to be hopeful because without
Speaker 1: hope and it sounds cheesy, but it's true, we're not empowered, right,
Speaker 1: We're not able to act. And I think what's exciting,
Speaker 1: what's I guess heartening to me is actually the people's
Speaker 1: response to what's happening. Yes, there are many influencers and
Speaker 1: celebrities that posted the wrong thing, I'm also seeing many
Speaker 1: that posted the right thing. Yeah, I'm also seeing many
Speaker 1: people that I'm I'm seeing many people that I wasn't
Speaker 1: surprised by posting the wrong thing. Yeah, frankly, but I'm
Speaker 1: also seeing many people white people, you know, black people, right,
Speaker 1: like people of all kinds that are disconnected, you know,
Speaker 1: from an identity perspective, to the Postinian people doing so
Speaker 1: much showing up. I went to the I was I
Speaker 1: saw images from the protest in uh the other day
Speaker 1: and there, and I'm not talking about the Jewish protest,
Speaker 1: which was amazing, right. What JVP did with if not
Speaker 1: now in front of truck Schumer's house was incredible. Right.
Speaker 1: That's that's solidarity. That's that's that's real, right, That's that's
Speaker 1: that's that's humanity, right, that's what humanity should be. That's
Speaker 1: real solidarity. I'm talking about the protests though, that was
Speaker 1: Palestinian lad in the midtown, and I saw tons of
Speaker 1: Jews there m hm. And I'm not talking about the
Speaker 1: sut Mar anti Zionist, you know Hasidic Jews, those are great, right,
Speaker 1: and they're they're helpful. I'm talking about like regular regular
Speaker 1: ass Jews, right, like me, Like people like not even
Speaker 1: wearing amaicas, like people with you know, small yamicas that
Speaker 1: aren't like you know, Hasidic or anything, holding up signs
Speaker 1: to help liberate the Pestinian people in spite of the Hamas,
Speaker 1: in spite of everything that happened, they showed up, they
Speaker 1: were not scared. A Pastinian flag doesn't scare them, right,
Speaker 1: it shouldn't. It shouldn't. But again, I want to be
Speaker 1: I want to I want to maintain my my I
Speaker 1: guess I want to maintain the view of objectivity. I
Speaker 1: think again, you know, Devil's advocate, I think when when
Speaker 1: And again this is not not me blaming, right, it's
Speaker 1: more so offering kind of a perspective to question how
Speaker 1: to kind of move forward when people Israeli's Jews whoever, right,
Speaker 1: are indoctrinated to believe that Palestine means no place for me, okay,
Speaker 1: and then you couple that with the anger anguish that
Speaker 1: the oppressed people are feeling and saying, yeah, fu fuck that,
Speaker 1: like we couldn't want you here, right, like you look
Speaker 1: what you're doing to us. I think that they view
Speaker 1: the Palestinian flag as a replacement of, you know, the
Speaker 1: flag of Israel, which many people actually kind of not
Speaker 1: many people, some people view it that way. And I
Speaker 1: think that the way I see it and the way
Speaker 1: many people I know see it, it's a flag that
Speaker 1: represents liberation from oppression, liberation of the Palestinian people who
Speaker 1: are being actively oppressed by Zionism, right, an ideology, right,
Speaker 1: you know, perpetuated and executed by people, but it's still
Speaker 1: an ideology.
Speaker 2: So just like because I think this always comes up,
Speaker 2: but being anti zion Its has nothing to do with
Speaker 2: being anti Semitic, and I think they always get completed,
Speaker 2: and that's on purpose to make people afraid to speak
Speaker 2: up about Israel. I can only imagine how brainwashed Zionism
Speaker 2: becomes to like the whole, like the like education and everything, like,
Speaker 2: is that something you experienced like firsthand.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent? I think what we've seen over the
Speaker 1: last decade, right, the fact that Natania has been in
Speaker 1: power for over twenty years, that's that's like the dictatorship
Speaker 1: level stuff. And people in America are like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: the West, you know, there is a semblance of you know,
Speaker 1: power to the people in the West, as semblance of it. Right,
Speaker 1: we're seeing how much the media is in cahoots with
Speaker 1: you know, power against the people right now, which is very,
Speaker 1: very scary and everyone should be up in arms no
Speaker 1: matter where your your feelings lie. But there is you know,
Speaker 1: there's a new president. You know, every four years of
Speaker 1: a president is termed, right, you can't be you can't
Speaker 1: be a president for more than two terms. Right. These
Speaker 1: are real things, right, these are real protections. You have
Speaker 1: three different branches of government, right, you have local level,
Speaker 1: local government. You have so many different checks and balances
Speaker 1: that are you know, corrupted and corupted in certain ways,
Speaker 1: you know, through lobbyists and you know, corporate interests, et cetera.
Speaker 1: I'm aware, but at least you have that system. In Israel,
Speaker 1: that system doesn't exist, okay, there's no constitution and a
Speaker 1: prime minister can't be termed. And so now bib Nintanello
Speaker 1: has been in power and figured out how to survive
Speaker 1: attempts on his throne many times over through building coalitions
Speaker 1: with the right wing extremists, which frankly are against his interests.
Speaker 1: Like he wanted to kind of perpetuate status quo and
Speaker 1: just kind of be in power. Like this is kind
Speaker 1: of made it difficult for him to just be the
Speaker 1: guy who kind of, you know, makes it makes everything
Speaker 1: okay for Israelis. Right now, Israelis are scared shitless and so.
Speaker 1: But but putting that aside and going back to your point,
Speaker 1: the knock Aba was never even discussed until recent history.
Speaker 1: Like it was not like no one even knew what
Speaker 1: that word means. Right, We celebrated it as Jomat's Mote
Speaker 1: Independence Day. So the Israeli Independence Day is the Palestinian's knockbat,
Speaker 1: which means the great tragedy for those who don't know,
Speaker 1: and the catastrophe. Yes and so. But but what's interesting
Speaker 1: and very sad is that in recent years, because of
Speaker 1: the world actually and when Israelis tell you don't know
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, don't comment on things you don't
Speaker 1: talk about that you don't know about. You most likely
Speaker 1: if you've done any any literally any if you read
Speaker 1: one book on Palistine, if you read on Palestine by
Speaker 1: Noam Chomsky and Elan Pape, like, you know more than
Speaker 1: Israelis know about their own situation. And I say that
Speaker 1: wholeheartedly because I know what they study, right, They omit
Speaker 1: the large swaths of information in order to form the
Speaker 1: psyche through the narrative that they perpetuate. And so. But
Speaker 1: because of recent external and global pressure, because of the
Speaker 1: fact that the world's the new generation of young people
Speaker 1: have educated themselves on Palestine, you know, catalyze a lot
Speaker 1: of them, catalyzed by the social justice movement. Right, the
Speaker 1: Angela Davis is the Chomskis of the world who always,
Speaker 1: since the sixties, I've been talking about Black liberation is
Speaker 1: incomplete without the liberation of Palestinians unifying struggles. They know
Speaker 1: more about history of Israel and Palestine then Israeli's neue. Okay.
Speaker 1: I've always been super impressed, not like not to say
Speaker 1: that people are dumb. I actually think people are very smart,
Speaker 1: right if they're willing to look. But every Palestinian friend
Speaker 1: of mine, every single one, knows so much about Zionism
Speaker 1: and zion Is history, right, there's scholars of Zionist history, right,
Speaker 1: But Israeli there's no idea about Palestinians and Palestinian history.
Speaker 2: It's just I think it's really unsettling because, I mean,
Speaker 2: for those who don't know.
Speaker 1: The catastrophe was like massment, like the.
Speaker 2: Mass expulsion of like seven hundred and fifty thousand Palestinians,
Speaker 2: ethnic cleansing, massacres, extreme, like just a disgusting show of
Speaker 2: forcing someone to leave their land and taking it over.
Speaker 2: It was uh atrocious and hurt. And I think the
Speaker 2: fact that I can't even learn about power or like
Speaker 2: learn deeply about Palestine or Palestinians. It's like another way
Speaker 2: of ethnic cleansing and like forgetting to even exist. And
Speaker 2: I think that's very unsettling because you can't just forget.
Speaker 2: I mean, at the same time, they say, like history
Speaker 2: is written by the people that are in power, right
Speaker 2: or the people that like win the war, quote unquote,
Speaker 2: and they're very capable of convincing a big amount of
Speaker 2: people that like like that they were never here.
Speaker 1: I think being hopeful is a practice, and I've definitely
Speaker 1: fallen into, you know, bouts of depression and helplessness and
Speaker 1: hopelessness also I think we all do, but I think
Speaker 1: it behooves us to practice hopefulness, especially in times like
Speaker 1: because without it, we don't have the power to liberate
Speaker 1: the oppressed. Right, Yeah, and I think you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like like you said, it's it's I think
Speaker 1: it's also important. I keep saying, the Palestinian struggle is
Speaker 1: the people's movement all over the world, right, and we're
Speaker 1: seeing that it's not me, I'm nobody, but we're seeing
Speaker 1: that people understand that. Right. Like I said, people are smart, Right,
Speaker 1: you don't have to go to you know, an Ivy
Speaker 1: League school to be intelligent, right, Palafreier talked about banking
Speaker 1: and intelligence. Right, when you just consume information from a teacher,
Speaker 1: perpetuating the perpetuating the injustices, and maintaining the system of oppression, right,
Speaker 1: you can be as educated as you want in that
Speaker 1: form of education and not understand the world and understand
Speaker 1: the inequalities around you. Right, But if you feel those inequalities,
Speaker 1: if you have that empathy, if you're able to expand
Speaker 1: your consciousness a little bit to also include those that
Speaker 1: you may not identify with or as, or you know
Speaker 1: that that maybe are not tangible, their experience is not
Speaker 1: as tangible to you, then then you're able to understand
Speaker 1: situations pretty clearly and easily. And I think the world
Speaker 1: is showing up because they understand that. Right. Sure, the
Speaker 1: air world is showing up. And that's incredible, right because
Speaker 1: they understand. Right, this is like what I always say
Speaker 1: is Palestine is the last kind of like I said earlier,
Speaker 1: the last direct colonialist project that exists in the world direct, right,
Speaker 1: in terms of direct and active about that colonials project
Speaker 1: that exists in the world and the air world. You know,
Speaker 1: if you read Edwards Aid and Orientalism, you understand how
Speaker 1: the West basically created and othered kind of they are
Speaker 1: a world in order to create that separation and division,
Speaker 1: in order to create, you know, a world that serves
Speaker 1: interest in visualism versus kind of communitarianism and of the
Speaker 1: kind of East. And so when you when you think
Speaker 1: about in that context, you start understanding that you know,
Speaker 1: this is and this is a struggle against kind of
Speaker 1: Western imperialism, right, this is a struggle to free all
Speaker 1: oppressed people, because that's what that's what Zionism Israel currently
Speaker 1: stands for. And everyone who perpetuates it, and people that
Speaker 1: talk about intersectionality and anti racism and all of that,
Speaker 1: and they still say and they still don't understand that
Speaker 1: this is literally a real time manifestation of the ship
Speaker 1: that they've been reading in history book, right, and we're
Speaker 1: seeing it and it's jarring, and resistance is fucking jarring, right,
Speaker 1: Like it was darring to me. I could barely watch it.
Speaker 1: I had people crying, you know, and this is I
Speaker 1: didn't say this earlier, but I had you know, family
Speaker 1: members that didn't want to speak to me, and like,
Speaker 1: you know, people cursing at me, and like friends from
Speaker 1: you know, middle school sending me heate messages. My mom
Speaker 1: is receiving death threats, right, Like, this is real shit, right,
Speaker 1: and so like this isn't like an abstract like and
Speaker 1: and so you know that's what that's what people don't
Speaker 1: necessarily understand when they just approach it academically. And I
Speaker 1: commend them. And I think it's important to like understand
Speaker 1: the intellectual context of things, like I've done the work,
Speaker 1: I've read the books, but I think it's also important
Speaker 1: to kind of take a step back and contextualize things
Speaker 1: all around, right, and and only through that contextualization can
Speaker 1: we rehumanize, you know, both the the oppressed and the
Speaker 1: oppressor are in order to actually have a path forward
Speaker 1: that's inclusive of all that doesn't that doesn't pit people
Speaker 1: against each other. Right, Jews lived on that land for
Speaker 1: many years before Zionism, if.
Speaker 2: Your scholar, I want to say, that's just fine, before
Speaker 2: the introductions of Zionism, which is a very modern, very
Speaker 2: fascist ideology.
Speaker 1: Not only Zionism though, right, Like think about Syke's Picot, right,
Speaker 1: the British French treaty that was signed in nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: that sliced up the Arab world according to their whim
Speaker 1: didn't take into account any demog any, ethnic geographic relations,
Speaker 1: didn't take into account any of that, and that is
Speaker 1: what's set the tone for a lot of what we're
Speaker 1: seeing in their world today. Right, compounded by the introduction
Speaker 1: of a European ideology into the region that served European interests,
Speaker 1: is what is what we're seeing to this very day,
Speaker 1: and the Palestinians bear the biggest brunt of it. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say like I would say, like in recent years,
Speaker 1: there's tragedies all around due to Western imperialism and Western intervention, right,
Speaker 1: I take that back, right, Like I don't want to
Speaker 1: compare tragedies, but the tragedy of the Palestinian people that
Speaker 1: there's no one really advocating on their behalf. Yea. I
Speaker 1: was going to add a wrinkle that probably ninety nine
Speaker 1: point nine percent of the population doesn't know, including Pustinians
Speaker 1: and Arabs, because it was actively erased. But up until
Speaker 1: Psykes Pico, up until Western imperialism, Arab Jews were an
Speaker 1: integral part of Arabic culture. Okay, any my grandparents from Iraq, right,
Speaker 1: Iraq wasn't The Iraqi Jews were not Zionists. There were
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of Jews in Iraq that lived there
Speaker 1: since Babylonian times.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: There are many, you know, many empires that came through
Speaker 1: the air world. Right, so this place replaced et cetera.
Speaker 1: But they were there for hundreds of years at the minimum.
Speaker 1: Some would say some of them were actually not there
Speaker 1: due to the Spanish Inquisition, right, but actually were there
Speaker 1: before and never left basically, And so you know, they
Speaker 1: were musicians, you know, they played in Kusum, right, like
Speaker 1: they were statesmen. They were very integral part of the culture. Right.
Speaker 1: And they are many Arab friends that do know this,
Speaker 1: and they they're like, yeah, like it's the biggest, the biggest,
Speaker 1: one of the biggest tragedies is kind of the betrayal
Speaker 1: of the Arab jew right, And they understand, right, like
Speaker 1: when at this point in time, and this is not
Speaker 1: only iraqis was Egypt and you know Yemen and Morocco.
Speaker 1: There's a huge community, right, like these these people live there.
Speaker 1: The Nazism is not an Arabic concept. They're trying to
Speaker 1: paint Arabs as Nazis.
Speaker 2: Even growing up, I would go to Syria a lot,
Speaker 2: and my grandfather would like he would only get bread
Speaker 2: at the Jewish bakery, like he would take the walk
Speaker 2: and go there and it was normal. No one cares,
Speaker 2: like no one gives a shit really what your religion
Speaker 2: is in those communities. And I think, I mean, this
Speaker 2: is obvious for people that are reading about all of this,
Speaker 2: but the media and Zionism in Israel, they're purposely conflating
Speaker 2: what's happening with religion to make it more complicated for people,
Speaker 2: to make it this like ancient battle of all time,
Speaker 2: when it's not about any kind of Muslim versus Jewish
Speaker 2: versus Arab versus whatever. It's it's really so simple, to
Speaker 2: the point where it's kind of silly. And I think
Speaker 2: they make it so complicated for people to be scared
Speaker 2: to talk about it. They're they're not informed enough. They
Speaker 2: don't know about religion, they don't know about the history.
Speaker 2: You don't have to know about any of that to
Speaker 2: know that oppression is wrong and genocide is wrong.
Speaker 1: And every every every resistance movement in history was considered
Speaker 1: a terrorist, yes, movement in modern times, right, even Israeli militias. Right,
Speaker 1: you had the Lech, the Excel and the Aganah. Okay,
Speaker 1: they're considered terrorist organizations. Because they would attack civilian British
Speaker 1: and they've attacked civilian targets during the British mandate. Yep,
Speaker 1: sounds familiar. But you know what, those those three militias
Speaker 1: became the idea, the idea exactly. The three militias that
Speaker 1: that formed the idea if once Israel was given statehood
Speaker 1: were considered terrorist organizations, the IRA terrorist organization. Right, Melson
Speaker 1: Mandela was on the US Terrorists Watchless until two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight. These are real things. These are all facts.
Speaker 1: But I'm saying even if you're thinking about it from
Speaker 1: the perspective of attacking civilians, Okay, wrong my opinion, But
Speaker 1: when you don't have if you look at actually ere
Speaker 1: another another fact. Right, look at what the Chbella is doing. Okay,
Speaker 1: they were considered terrorist organization. Their armed to the teeth.
Speaker 1: Israel scared shitless of the Isabella threat. I'm hearing it
Speaker 1: from people on the ground, right, they're attacking military targets.
Speaker 1: They're showing the world that they can't because they can.
Speaker 1: They used to not be able to, Now they can.
Speaker 1: So they are When a population is oppressed, suppressed to
Speaker 1: the level that the Gossins are, what military do they
Speaker 1: have Do they have F sixteen fighter jets that they
Speaker 1: can go and bomb? I don't know the Kiriyah? Did
Speaker 1: you guys know that the biggest military base in Israel
Speaker 1: is in the middle of the Tel Aviv.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in a residential area.
Speaker 1: In a residential area. So what if? What if? What
Speaker 1: if the Gosins had F sixteen fighter what if Kamas
Speaker 1: had F sixteen fighters? They wouldn't want to bomb that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Like people are people that dense like that, they don't
Speaker 1: understand how this thing works and what what oppression looks like. Right.
Speaker 1: A lot of my Pastinian friends always say the world
Speaker 1: wants us to be the perfect victims. Yeah, and in
Speaker 1: a lot of in a lot of senses, the burden
Speaker 1: is always on the victim, right in these oppressive scenarios.
Speaker 1: So I always tell them, guys, like, we have to
Speaker 1: be smart. We have to make sure that you know, again,
Speaker 1: I like, it's it's trauma that I can't you know,
Speaker 1: I feel in my bones, But but it's not, it's
Speaker 1: not directly happening to me, and and and so I can't.
Speaker 1: I'm not It's not from a place of judgment, It's
Speaker 1: from a pragmatic perspective. We have to understand that that's
Speaker 1: the trap that they're setting for us. The Kamas enacted.
Speaker 1: The Kamas did exactly what the right wing government wanted
Speaker 1: them to do in order to justify the plan that
Speaker 1: they had all along. I'm not going to go so
Speaker 1: far as to start perpetuating conspiracy theories because it's not
Speaker 1: my place. So I'm not going to say that they
Speaker 1: planned this and it was, you know, an inside job.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say that. But what I will
Speaker 1: say is it served the interests of the right wing government.
Speaker 1: And the one thing I wanted to say, because I
Speaker 1: keep going off on tangents and I apologize, But to
Speaker 1: your point about the Knakaba, I said, in the last
Speaker 1: ten years, it's pretty crazy to see the narrative shift.
Speaker 1: Israel has so been so emboldened. They feel so invincible
Speaker 1: because of the international support that they have. Now they
Speaker 1: acknowledge the Knokaba. Now they acknowledge a enough, but we
Speaker 1: know how they acknowledge it. They say, yeah, the knuck happened,
Speaker 1: Let's do a second one, yep, right, And so now
Speaker 1: they're now all of a sudden the knock by existed, right,
Speaker 1: and they're basically saying, hey, let's do a second one.
Speaker 1: All the like, all the right wing govern of government
Speaker 1: officials were saying, second knock, But let's do it now,
Speaker 1: let's let's that's what they're trying to do. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean they're trying to do in Gaza. The humanitarian it.
Speaker 2: Feels like the first one just ended right.
Speaker 1: That I always I always say that I agree, but
Speaker 1: I'm saying, like I'm talking about mass expulsion right now.
Speaker 1: They're trying to They're trying, under international on everyone's noses
Speaker 1: to utilize genocide and ethnic cleansing to displace millions of
Speaker 1: Palestindiums from Gaza. And God knows, I don't. They don't
Speaker 1: have a they don't. This was like a biblical idea, right,
Speaker 1: like the Judean Samaria. This is not like a there's
Speaker 1: no like specific plans that people had, Like this is
Speaker 1: a biblical, fervent, ideological idea. They don't freaking know what
Speaker 1: they're doing. They don't want to go to the don't
Speaker 1: want to go to war with Iran. They're scared of
Speaker 1: the like these are real things, these are real threats,
Speaker 1: Like Israel hasn't fought a real opponent since the seventies
Speaker 1: and the pool war. That's what I'm trying to say,
Speaker 1: Like this showed how vulnerable they are and they're scared.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, Like I know the sentiment on the ground,
Speaker 1: like people are scared out of their minds. They don't think.
Speaker 1: They're not very confident in Israel's military, right, Like that's
Speaker 1: why they're bombing the shit, and like that's why they
Speaker 1: haven't invaded. They said they're going to invade, babes talking
Speaker 1: this big game. They haven't done yet because they're scared.
Speaker 2: Remember also, is that the IDF that's all. It does
Speaker 2: not actually act in the best interests of the civilians,
Speaker 2: if anything. Like there was like a report from an
Speaker 2: Israeli woman who survived the massacre at the music festival
Speaker 2: that said a lot of them were shot by like
Speaker 2: their own forces. It was like indiscriminate shooting.
Speaker 1: The biggest casualties for Israeli soldiers up until this was
Speaker 1: friendly fire. Yeah really, that's.
Speaker 2: I mean, I just think that's so hard to remember
Speaker 2: because it's a they're framed as this very like ideal
Speaker 2: warrior bullshit, and it's so far from the truth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. They're eighteen year old kids, yeah,
Speaker 1: these aren't like US like marines that are career assassins.
Speaker 1: Like have you ever seen in a US marine and
Speaker 1: next to an Israeli soldiers? I'm serious, like like I know.
Speaker 2: It's become a trend to be a soldier of anything.
Speaker 2: It's like very like you see these like young people
Speaker 2: like yeah, exactly, it's like a very cool thing to.
Speaker 1: Do because there was never a threat though Israel. Israel
Speaker 1: has been You've grown up in Israel believing that you're
Speaker 1: the most powerful entity and you can do whatever you
Speaker 1: want whenever you want, right, and that notion has been
Speaker 1: shaken to its core. And if you're part of the
Speaker 1: propaganda machine, if you're caught in the propaganda machine that
Speaker 1: is kind of Zionist Israeli ideology, you're basically now your
Speaker 1: whole world is crumbled beneath you. Right, you're completely in
Speaker 1: survival mode. Everyone's posting everyone, it's like you have to
Speaker 1: eradicate come us. They're not even eradicating comas what are
Speaker 1: they doing, They're just emboldening come us. Like this happens
Speaker 1: all the time. It's just happening on a much bigger scale.
Speaker 1: Right now, any hamas leader that the thing I was
Speaker 1: basically looking for like a big like a major hamas leadership,
Speaker 1: you know, attack and once they're able to neutralize, you know,
Speaker 1: in their words numerous high ranking officials, I think they'll
Speaker 1: declare victory, even though they're not going to be victorious.
Speaker 1: They're not going to bring back the fourteen hundred people.
Speaker 2: They're also going to kill the hostages at this rate,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like they're not like.
Speaker 1: They've already killed more than twenty two.
Speaker 2: That's how much do you actually care about your civilians
Speaker 2: and the hostage like the foreign hostages either like it's
Speaker 2: your but but I don't know those clearly showing their ass.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, I want to have a clear message
Speaker 1: though to kind of people that are on the fence
Speaker 1: in the West that are being fed propaganda through Western
Speaker 1: media outlets. That is quite clear at this point, and
Speaker 1: some of them recognize this, and that's why they come
Speaker 1: to my page and they're like, oh, you know, thank you,
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't know. I didn't know. In Israel,
Speaker 1: there are many people, not even ideologically that want to
Speaker 1: bring the hostages back and don't understand why Israel is
Speaker 1: doing what it's doing before and not even talking to
Speaker 1: them about the hostages.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is complete being like plead, it's just yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about left wing activists. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: like average israelis right. Natanya has failed the Israeli people
Speaker 1: that attack the fact that and again this I don't
Speaker 1: know if people know this right people who know, no,
Speaker 1: but maybe some some don't, that attack was a complete
Speaker 1: military failure on behalf of Israel. And that happened because
Speaker 1: over the last six to nine months since the right
Speaker 1: wing government took place, took power, they've been using the
Speaker 1: IDF to support, empower, embolden and protect settlers in the
Speaker 1: West Bank. And that's why settler attacks have increased. That's
Speaker 1: why settlements have increased, that's why they're more settlers than
Speaker 1: ever before. And what they were doing on that very
Speaker 1: day people don't already know. I hope they do. But
Speaker 1: if they don't already know, the IDF was in the
Speaker 1: West Bank on Suquot, which is a Jewish holiday, and
Speaker 1: they were protecting settlers in building a sukkah structure that
Speaker 1: people sit in in the middle of Juara, a Palestinian village,
Speaker 1: and they were protecting them and chaper owning them. So
Speaker 1: that they can break into Palestinian village to build a
Speaker 1: suka in order to antagonize Testinians. That's say what you
Speaker 1: may about anything else, the fact that that is the
Speaker 1: priority of the government. You know you're doing the oppression.
Speaker 1: You're already committing the oppression. You're already subjugating the Tastinian people.
Speaker 1: You know that Haman is Cobabs. You're going to remove
Speaker 1: the security forces from the border to embolden and empower
Speaker 1: settlers instead.
Speaker 2: That's shame.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2: No, it's it's I mean, that's why the most unsettling
Speaker 2: things I've seen coming out of Israel are those right
Speaker 2: wing protests where they're like death to Arabs and whatever,
Speaker 2: or like they're attacking people and the ideaf is like
Speaker 2: either helping them or standing by. If you're on the
Speaker 2: fence about this, still, you are literally for genocide. Those
Speaker 2: are the two differences. It's either your for genocide or
Speaker 2: you're against genocide. And if you're considering the options, examine yourself.
Speaker 2: That's not right. I was just sent this tweet apparently yesterday,
Speaker 2: the twitter for Israeli Prime Minister at Israel PM said
Speaker 2: this is a struggle between the children of light and
Speaker 2: the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of
Speaker 2: the jungle. Are you fucking kidding me? That's like Nazi
Speaker 2: Hitler shit, are you? There are so many lives I've
Speaker 2: already been lost, and the ones that have not been
Speaker 2: lost are never going to recover. They've lost so much
Speaker 2: other than their life. There are so many terrifying and
Speaker 2: horrific videos that I've seen that no one should have
Speaker 2: to go through. And not only are they going through it,
Speaker 2: they're getting funded and encouraged by most of the world.
Speaker 2: I cannot accept that. I sorry, I don't want to cry,
Speaker 2: but I might.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's that's where we're at at this point.
Speaker 2: No, but I appreciate you being here to get through
Speaker 2: to people who might still be considering what's happening as
Speaker 2: a both sides thing or a justification for anything when
Speaker 2: they see tweets like that, or when they see justification
Speaker 2: for killing all the people because they're all barbarians or
Speaker 2: whatever it is. I urge you. I urge you to
Speaker 2: seek out Palestinian sources of news, actually see what's happening
Speaker 2: in Gaza, listen to people who are not advertising anything
Speaker 2: to you, and it's like pleading for their lives. I
Speaker 2: just this can't be how we end up as a people.
Speaker 1: I'm very sad.
Speaker 2: It's extremely unlike no words to describe how devastating. And
Speaker 2: I think if you are listening and you are wondering
Speaker 2: what to do, there are places you can donate to.
Speaker 2: I can put some links in the description of sources
Speaker 2: that I trust of people to follow and all that stuff,
Speaker 2: so you can look at the description for that. I
Speaker 2: think what's very important that people maybe aren't taking too
Speaker 2: seriously is how important social media and like spreading awareness
Speaker 2: has been, because the only reason and the resistance has
Speaker 2: come this far is because of that. Because more people
Speaker 2: are aware about what's going on, people aren't accepting that
Speaker 2: Israel is doing this. So I think we just can't stop.
Speaker 2: Like as much as they want the world to forget
Speaker 2: that Palestines were even there, we cannot forget Palestinians. And
Speaker 2: I'm not going to stop talking about it, and you
Speaker 2: shouldn't either.
Speaker 1: This is why I'm speaking on I just set a
Speaker 1: message on Palestinian friends. You are our voice. Now We're
Speaker 1: not allowed to spit out a lip. They are arresting
Speaker 1: anyone who speaks or shares the truth. Please, I beg
Speaker 1: you don't give up on our people in Gaza. We
Speaker 1: need your voice to stop the genocide. Thousands of lives
Speaker 1: have already been taken. We can't stand this anymore.
Speaker 2: Please listen to that, everybody.
Speaker 1: Please, it's very hard to fathom and internalize what's happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a lot, and we're privileged enough to think
Speaker 2: about it deeply. The people in Gods of Palestinians, they
Speaker 2: don't have the luxury of no of anything other than
Speaker 2: their nightmare of a reality.
Speaker 1: No, I want to add san just because I think
Speaker 1: that the biggest kind of pushback that we keep hearing
Speaker 1: is Hamas. And I think that again remembering what we
Speaker 1: kind of mentioned earlier in the call, how liberation movements
Speaker 1: for occupied peoples have always been deemed terrorist organizations and
Speaker 1: you know, even targeted civilians, right, So not only like
Speaker 1: by the definition of terroist organizations are terrorist organizations. So
Speaker 1: even if that's what we believe, and let's just say
Speaker 1: that that's you know, we accept and agreed that that's
Speaker 1: what Hamas is. I think it's important to understand that
Speaker 1: terrorist organizations have become political organisations time and time again,
Speaker 1: and I think that it's also important to understand historically,
Speaker 1: the Hamas as an entity. Again, I remind you was
Speaker 1: created and partially created and funded by the State of Israel,
Speaker 1: emboldened by the State of Israel. Because I want to
Speaker 1: be very clear, up until the nineties, right Alslo accord
Speaker 1: to the peace process. People say, oh, the Palestinians didn't
Speaker 1: want peace. To your point earlier, the Palestinians were willing
Speaker 1: to take almost anything. At that point, Arafat, who was
Speaker 1: considered a terrorist before he became a statesman, right, was
Speaker 1: on the table with Robin had an agreement in place. Okay,
Speaker 1: and then people don't know. If you're not a scholar
Speaker 1: and you don't know, you should know. Oh Goldstein, an
Speaker 1: Israeli terrorist, came in to a mosque. I believe it
Speaker 1: was in Hebron, I don't remember exactly, and he killed
Speaker 1: more than thirty people during prayer in discriminately shot innocent
Speaker 1: people in a monsque. So the biggest, one of the
Speaker 1: biggest tragedies. Right, and then he was he was not
Speaker 1: only did they the response, you know, Raben's response to
Speaker 1: that was it was locking down Hebron Palestinians in Hebron,
Speaker 1: so because he was fearful of what the Palestinians would
Speaker 1: do in retaliation. The immediate response by Rabine was locking
Speaker 1: down the people of Hebron, okay, instead of going and
Speaker 1: doing something about the settlers that committed the crime or
Speaker 1: that emboldened the person committing the crime. That's number one.
Speaker 1: Number two, that sparked the retaliation because when people don't
Speaker 1: have justice, they take justice in their own hands. So
Speaker 1: that sparked this series of attacks in Israel, right, devastating
Speaker 1: attacks in Israel. But it was that that did that,
Speaker 1: And it was his He could have he could have
Speaker 1: handled that differently, but he and right and and and
Speaker 1: that was what sparked the response. Then in turn, okay
Speaker 1: again who putting that aside? Right? And and sorry, little tidbit.
Speaker 1: His grave m HM Cochtain's grave is guarded by the
Speaker 1: IDF as some and many many many consider him a
Speaker 1: national hero. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I've seen photos of people like crying at his grave
Speaker 2: like it's yes, save their family or something. When he's
Speaker 2: not just when you literally just like went to a
Speaker 2: mosque with a gun and shot thirty people who were
Speaker 2: fucking praying.
Speaker 1: Yes, and that's right.
Speaker 2: When people are idolizing exactly.
Speaker 1: It's rotten to its core, is my point. This is
Speaker 1: what you're supporting when you support the state of Israel. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is part of part of this is part of
Speaker 1: what you're supporting. Now, taking a second step, Robin was
Speaker 1: assassinated by a Jewish Israeli, not by Palestinian. Even in
Speaker 1: spite of everything, the peace process was still going on
Speaker 1: because they did everything to foil it, right, and then
Speaker 1: they assassinated the Israeli Prime minister. And ever since then,
Speaker 1: Right then you had Ariel's your own and whatever that
Speaker 1: tried to continue a peace process and you know, some capacity.
Speaker 1: But ever since then, for the last twenty three years,
Speaker 1: no one has been talking about a peace process. They blamed,
Speaker 1: they blamed the Palestinians for every act of resistance. They
Speaker 1: don't listen. They believe that they talk the way that
Speaker 1: politicians discussed the Palestinian kind of oppression is managing the occupation, okay,
Speaker 1: managing oppomission. No one's talking about peace, not left left,
Speaker 1: pseudo left, whatever you want to call it, not liberal
Speaker 1: Zionis left or center or right. No one is talking
Speaker 1: about peace. No one is talking about any semblance of Pea.
Speaker 1: I find it very particular, right, and this is my
Speaker 1: this is why I'm saying we live in the twilight zone.
Speaker 1: That Donald Trump's four years in office, Okay, he had
Speaker 1: Kushner that say, what all the bad things right about
Speaker 1: his about his behavior. He was trying to through normalization
Speaker 1: deals with their world, trying to get a deal for
Speaker 1: the Palestinian people, albeit the most absurd sort of deal
Speaker 1: if you ever read what the Abraham Accords actually entailed,
Speaker 1: right like weird like highways and weird, right like not
Speaker 1: a deal that anyone should have accepted. But putting that aside,
Speaker 1: he was talking about it. There was discussion, there was
Speaker 1: Palestinian like the word Palestinian was being said by the
Speaker 1: Office of the President. In the last four years that
Speaker 1: Biden was in office. No one said anything, no one
Speaker 1: did anything to advanced piece. No one even brought a
Speaker 1: bogus deal like darreed Kushner to the table. Don't make
Speaker 1: it make sense. I don't understand. They basically bought into
Speaker 1: the Zionist idea that we can just live, continue living
Speaker 1: while millions of people are being oppressed and occupied. This
Speaker 1: is the Democratic Party, and that's why we see the
Speaker 1: media now the way it is because they're controlling the
Speaker 1: media narrative too, right, So open your eyes, see it
Speaker 1: for what it is, right, don't get cloud don't let
Speaker 1: your judgment get clouded by this. Two side bs aspect
Speaker 1: hold space for the killing of innocent civilians, including the
Speaker 1: killing of Israeli innocent civilians, while simultaneously understanding that this
Speaker 1: is all because of the aggression of colonialism and specifically
Speaker 1: the perpetuation of the Zionist project as a colonialist, nationalist
Speaker 1: ethno state. And that is what I ask of you
Speaker 1: guys to do, right, Yeah, thank.
Speaker 2: You for that. That's I think a great place to end.
Speaker 2: Thank you again for joining me. You are just as
Speaker 2: your Palestinian friends said in that message. Your voice is
Speaker 2: really critical because people will more likely listen to you
Speaker 2: than to a Palestinian. So I very much thank you
Speaker 2: for your activism. And I don't know, it's we're not
Speaker 2: living in a just world and so we just have
Speaker 2: to stick together. I also want to mention the other
Speaker 2: reason why social media is so important. It's like one
Speaker 2: there's a reason they cut electricity to Gaza. They don't
Speaker 2: want anything coming out of there. They want them to
Speaker 2: die in a blackout and two they are literally arresting
Speaker 2: people for following Palestinian accounts. Now yeah, so I mean,
Speaker 2: if that's not totalitarianism, like what the fuck is? I
Speaker 2: don't But anyway, so that's it for today. I can't.
Speaker 2: I don't think it can do anymore. But again, I'll
Speaker 2: put some sources in the description to donate to to
Speaker 2: keep raising awareness. If you have people in your circles
Speaker 2: that are still hesitant about having a stance on this, like,
Speaker 2: have conversations. It shouldn't be complicated. It really shouldn't, because
Speaker 2: it's not. And that's all. That's all I have.
Speaker 1: So thanks everybody, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: It Could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 2: You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
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