Speaker 1: Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello, everybody, Welcome to it could happen here. This is
Speaker 2: Sharene and I am so happy to be joined by
Speaker 2: my guest today. I've been so excited to speak to him.
Speaker 2: I am joined by dB Kashi. He is a pro
Speaker 2: palsy and activist from New York and Israel. And there's
Speaker 2: just a lot of stuff I want to talk to
Speaker 2: you about.
Speaker 1: So welcome, pleasure to be here. Great to meet you, Saren.
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. I 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 think 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 that's
Speaker 1: what I loved, That's what I embraced. But when I
Speaker 1: moved to Israel, it was very jarring. You know, I'd
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 the Roman Empire and the Jewish people, you'd
Speaker 1: 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 Iserabai Johnny's right, Israel
Speaker 1: is on the wrong side of that equation, right, And
Speaker 1: so it's never been about standing with the side of
Speaker 1: the oppressed. For Israel, it's never been about, you know,
Speaker 1: ensuring that what happens when they say never again, actually
Speaker 1: never again, never happens again to anyone around the world. Right.
Speaker 1: Think about their policies, 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 a 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 self,
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 power Estinians when so many
Speaker 1: people in the world are suffering? And the answer to
Speaker 1: that question is I care about all suffering. But this
Speaker 1: is something that the government that supposedly represents me, that
Speaker 1: the 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: what we don't, but neocolonialism through you know, different coupitist structures. Right,
Speaker 1: America has been able to perpetrate neocolonialism without actually having
Speaker 1: to occupy other people, you know, save for Iraq for
Speaker 1: almost twenty years, but or fifteen years or whatever, it
Speaker 1: was a very long time. But Israel is directly and
Speaker 1: physically occupying on other people, and they have been for
Speaker 1: the last seventy five years, right, officially for the last
Speaker 1: seventy five years. And that's been a constant, Right. It's not, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, here's a country and let's you know, fight,
Speaker 1: Let's continue our kind of battle in that way it's
Speaker 1: been It's always been. If you if you're a scholar
Speaker 1: of Israeli history, of Zionist history, you always you start
Speaker 1: understanding that the goal was to take over all of
Speaker 1: Judaea and Samara, Right, And that's kind of how the
Speaker 1: settler government that Netanyahu has in power has been speaking
Speaker 1: for years. Right. I'm really upset and really kind of
Speaker 1: frustrated by the way that the Western media has been
Speaker 1: portraying what's happening over the last eleven days. Because even
Speaker 1: Israeli media Halitz, which is an Israeli newspaper, which is
Speaker 1: very prominent one right isn't portraying it the way that
Speaker 1: the Western media is portraying it. Right, they're criticizing the Netanyahu.
Speaker 1: 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. Islaelfrai, he's an Orthodox reporter that's that's
Speaker 1: been staunchly pro Palestinian and he's a very prominent member
Speaker 1: of the press. Angry mob of right winging extremists try
Speaker 1: to knock down his door the other day and he
Speaker 1: had to escape from the back door and run away,
Speaker 1: so they don't, you know, potentially kill him, right, And
Speaker 1: so these voices are being silenced in Israel. No one
Speaker 1: is talking about that. Everyone in the West is beating
Speaker 1: the drums of war. The media is supporting that. We've
Speaker 1: seen on the kind of a microw but tragic level,
Speaker 1: what happened to that six year old kid that was
Speaker 1: stobbed 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 in certain very very slowly. People
Speaker 1: are starting to wake up because they're seeing that genocide
Speaker 1: is actually being committed, and so you can't throw your
Speaker 1: full weight behind genocide. But they're walking it back too slowly.
Speaker 1: And the people that I'm disappointed by are people that
Speaker 1: are supposedly smart, spewing complete nonsense rhetoric about two sides. Right.
Speaker 1: I struggled, Right, this is important. I struggled. I know
Speaker 1: people who were killed in the Hamas attack personally and
Speaker 1: intimately know them. Right. You know my ex girlfriend's best
Speaker 1: friend was killed, right, She's we've hung out many, many,
Speaker 1: many times. She was a very sweet, very kind person.
Speaker 1: We know an activist who was literally because people don't understand,
Speaker 1: and this is for a lot of the kind of
Speaker 1: pro Palestinians that have that. And I completely empathize, and
Speaker 1: I understand why people believe what they believe. Believe me,
Speaker 1: but this is for a lot of the pro Palestinians
Speaker 1: that you know. Immediately called all of them settlers, right.
Speaker 1: And I think it's important to distinguish because if there's
Speaker 1: ever going to be a path forward in this mess,
Speaker 1: we have to offer a new rhetoric that deconstructs the
Speaker 1: nationalist ideologies. Okay, I don't put the Palestinian flag or
Speaker 1: say free Palestine, which I do as a nationalist ideology.
Speaker 1: I say that as a deconstruction of nationalism as as
Speaker 1: as a call to freedom for all, right, though oppressed,
Speaker 1: as well as the oppressor. Right. If you actually read
Speaker 1: everyone's quoting, everyone's quoting Phenen, right, everyone's quoting all these revolutionaries,
Speaker 1: if you actually read the material that they said. Chae
Speaker 1: Gavari even said the true revolutionary is guided by deep
Speaker 1: with deep feelings of love in their heart. And he
Speaker 1: said this at the risk of sounding absurd. He said
Speaker 1: that direct quote the people perpetuating in Israel. I can
Speaker 1: say this from a first ten account. I know very
Speaker 1: good people that are guided by nationalists and fascist ideologies. However,
Speaker 1: they've been manipulated, they've been lied to, They're fed propaganda
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven through the news and the sentiment
Speaker 1: in Israel right now, and I can tell you this,
Speaker 1: I'm getting messages from people they think everyone is trying
Speaker 1: to kill Jews. That's what they believe, that's what they've
Speaker 1: been told. They think this is armageddon for the Jewish people.
Speaker 1: That's what the media narrative is in Israel. Okay, in
Speaker 1: spite of the fact that there are many people that
Speaker 1: are against what's happening, there are many people that directly
Speaker 1: blame Netanyahu this, but they're being scared to believe that
Speaker 1: they're being going to be attacked on all fronts, and
Speaker 1: they have to do everything they can to neutralize the threats. Okay,
Speaker 1: that is that is the survival kind of that. That
Speaker 1: is a fact. Does that mean that every single person
Speaker 1: in Israel is a terrible human being as evil as
Speaker 1: some people say. No, that is not true at all. Right,
Speaker 1: And my point is, and what a lot of the
Speaker 1: revolutionaries said, right, Palo Freer in the Pedagogy of the
Speaker 1: Oppressed said, in the process of dehumanization, the oppressor dehumanizes himself.
Speaker 1: Putting that aside, though, I think that you know, for me,
Speaker 1: I see I know people that died. It was very
Speaker 1: difficult for me to post in the first two days.
Speaker 1: I think there were some problematic justifications for the massacre
Speaker 1: that didn't sit well with me because I'm a humanist.
Speaker 1: But in the same token, right, I think that I
Speaker 1: understand the context. I think it behooves us to understand
Speaker 1: the context. Right. There's a really famous quote. I forget
Speaker 1: who said it, but if you started the clock or
Speaker 1: started looking at kind of the colonization in America from
Speaker 1: when the Native Americans started shooting the arrows, you think
Speaker 1: that the Native Americans were the aggressives. Right. If you
Speaker 1: started looking at, you know, the colonization of Algeria when
Speaker 1: the Alga, when the local population started rebelling, you think
Speaker 1: that they were the aggressives. Right. And that's not to
Speaker 1: say in the same breath that terrible things happened to
Speaker 1: amazing people there. Right. What people don't know, and a
Speaker 1: lot of the propolsting movement doesn't know, is that many
Speaker 1: of the people living in the area on Gazas are
Speaker 1: actually activists, like very anti Zionist activists. Right that many
Speaker 1: of the testimonies of the families of the of those
Speaker 1: activists are saying to stop the genocide, that it's not
Speaker 1: going to bring back their friends, their family members. Those
Speaker 1: are the people that were a lot of whom were
Speaker 1: killed in the attacks because that's where they live, they
Speaker 1: work with, you know, organizations at GAZA like acknowledge that, right,
Speaker 1: understand the complexity saying hey, you guys are all settlers.
Speaker 1: That's just dumb. It's not factually true. Their grandparents were,
Speaker 1: their great grandparents were one hundred percent. But now their
Speaker 1: generations and generations of people, right, just like in America,
Speaker 1: their generations and generations of people that descended, Are they
Speaker 1: to be held accountable for the actions of their ancestors?
Speaker 1: Doesn't make any sense. They should be held accountable for
Speaker 1: actions that they take now, for sure, right, holding your
Speaker 1: government accountable, you know, thinking about an actual solution to
Speaker 1: this terrible situation that one hundred percent people should be
Speaker 1: held accountable for. But to call them settlers as a
Speaker 1: justification for their deaths is something that I will never do, right,
Speaker 1: and I don't think it helps the strugg Right, I
Speaker 1: think it's important to say and then simultaneously also say,
Speaker 1: did you guys know that Israel played a very major
Speaker 1: role in establishing the Kammas, Like, don't be stupid, open
Speaker 1: a history book, see what happened, right, understand, don't just
Speaker 1: be quick to call and quick to say both sides.
Speaker 1: It's not a both side situation. Even though the aggression
Speaker 1: was terrible, those are those two things can be true.
Speaker 1: It's a devastating, tragic event, right, and I know many
Speaker 1: great people that were killed in it. But in the
Speaker 1: same breath, we have to remember what caused it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Context is everything.
Speaker 1: Right, context is everything. Israel funded the Kamas BB has
Speaker 1: direct quotes in Israeli newspapers saying we have to fund
Speaker 1: the Hamas in order for is Palestinians never to have
Speaker 1: a state. He directly said that how do you guys
Speaker 1: ignore these statements. They've been very bib has been very
Speaker 1: clear as to what is going to happen and what
Speaker 1: he's trying to accomplish. And then on top of that,
Speaker 1: to compound things, the settlers in his government right now,
Speaker 1: Isal Bengvill and Smooch are two settlers. They literally are settlers,
Speaker 1: like in accordance to the national law, they're considered settlers, okay,
Speaker 1: illegal settlers, and they're the second and third most powerful
Speaker 1: people in Israel. Okay. I don't think people understand or know,
Speaker 1: but those two guys, there's a there's a famous rabbi
Speaker 1: okay in Jerusalem. He's an extremist fundamentalist rabbi, Jewish fundamentalist rabbi.
Speaker 1: What he's been calling for for a long time, Ka
Speaker 1: sadaka is Kahana was right. He was a very fascist
Speaker 1: rabbi that was basically calling for the extermination of all Arabs.
Speaker 1: And and they're basically they're called kahanistem and that's it's
Speaker 1: basically what the left in Israel used to call this government.
Speaker 1: Man tash Khanistim means government of Kahanists. Okay, that is
Speaker 1: what that's who's running the country. And this rabbi has
Speaker 1: been calling for in a biblical sense. And we all
Speaker 1: know when people have an utmost you know, devotion to religion,
Speaker 1: that guides them right, not our world. Our world does
Speaker 1: not guide them. The religious texts and the religious leaders
Speaker 1: are the ones who tell them what is right and
Speaker 1: what is wrong right in religious fundamentalism. And so what
Speaker 1: this rabbi has been calling for for years has been
Speaker 1: a war to end all wars. Okay, that is what
Speaker 1: he's been telling them. That is what they've been operating under. Okay,
Speaker 1: their allegiances are to him, not to the Israeli people
Speaker 1: like literally to that ideology. And so they're in the
Speaker 1: government right now. Over the last year, they've been essentially
Speaker 1: adding illegal settlements at a rapid rate, emboldening and empowering
Speaker 1: settlers to commit violence that we haven't seen in many,
Speaker 1: many years. Levels of violence we haven't been seen in
Speaker 1: many many years, even before this latest aggression. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about over the last twelve months. And the biggest most
Speaker 1: annoying thing that I hear from Westerners that think they understand, right,
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, yeah, we really care about Palestinians. But
Speaker 1: Hamas has to go two things to that. One, the
Speaker 1: fact that there are Palestinians on the West Bank and
Speaker 1: the Palestinians in Gaza doesn't mean they're not the same people.
Speaker 1: They're Palestinians in forty eight as well. They feel deep
Speaker 1: feelings of solidarity because they're all oppressed in different ways. Right,
Speaker 1: It's solidarity under this got under this Grand zionis oppression
Speaker 1: that they experience. And so I think that it's a
Speaker 1: fallacy that it was an unprovoked attack. It's a fallacy, right,
Speaker 1: it's not the case. The fact that Aleksa kept getting
Speaker 1: bombarded by settlers on purpose, on purpose, I don't put
Speaker 1: it back like they did this to get a provocation.
Speaker 1: They've been evoking to get the retaliation for Hamas. They've
Speaker 1: been doing this for years. This is nothing new, Right,
Speaker 1: every time Ramas shot rockets over the last five years
Speaker 1: is because Israel was attacking Alexa right right after Ramadan
Speaker 1: if you remember, or during Ramadan. Sorry, And so every
Speaker 1: time a barage of rockets came in right after that
Speaker 1: barrage of rockets because Hamas wanted to show that someone
Speaker 1: is sticking up for them. But I'm just saying you
Speaker 1: have to understand the context. When you're in a blockade,
Speaker 1: when you're living in a concentration camp, worse than a
Speaker 1: concentration camp, frankly, right, every electricity is controlled, water is controlled,
Speaker 1: food is controlled. You're not able to leave, right, You're
Speaker 1: not able to freaking leave when you want. You're not
Speaker 1: able to come when you want, not able to A
Speaker 1: sixty kilometer strip of land is the most densely populated
Speaker 1: strip of land in the entire world. Depression is the highest,
Speaker 1: the highest rates of depression. I think the highest rates
Speaker 1: of child suicide are in Gaza. Okay, when you're living
Speaker 1: under those conditions, I have no idea how you're spoil
Speaker 1: I have no idea what that would feel like, So
Speaker 1: how can I judge anyone any response to that? Right
Speaker 1: in the same breath, I can also say it's a
Speaker 1: tragic thing that innocent people died, and they're innocent people,
Speaker 1: And I think it's important to hold that complexity. Also
Speaker 1: for the Palestinian cause. I think it's important to not
Speaker 1: lose sight of our humanity in criticizing the grave injustices
Speaker 1: that Israel has committed and putting the blame squarely on
Speaker 1: Israel's shoulders that Hamas exists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's something I keep coming back to
Speaker 2: is whenever someone is just all about condemning Hamas, which
Speaker 2: is like, yes, as you mentioned, like innocent people shouldn't
Speaker 2: have died, But I blame all the violence that's happening
Speaker 2: in Israel on Israel. Like it's not, yeah, you can't
Speaker 2: just start like at a slave revolt as the beginning
Speaker 2: of history of slavery. It's like, no, actually exactly, they
Speaker 2: did that for a reason and they had no other choice.
Speaker 2: And I mean for Palestinians, I think, like, what's the
Speaker 2: biggest context that's missing is like they've tried everything. It's
Speaker 2: not their first choice to kill people that didn't deserve
Speaker 2: it. It's I think I think that's what's been really annoying
Speaker 2: with the the people that have chosen to spoke to
Speaker 2: speak out, that have never spoken out before. They are
Speaker 2: so narrow in their view of this that it's so
Speaker 2: damaging because they have so many follow werds, or they're
Speaker 2: talking about the wrong things, and all of those things
Speaker 2: like kind of perpetuate a really dangerous environment where like
Speaker 2: 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 gonna take our first break, so don't
Speaker 2: go anywhere and we're back. Something you mentioned early on
Speaker 2: that I have been thinking about and getting really getting
Speaker 2: really angry about is why people are surprised or like
Speaker 2: unexpecting you to speak out about Palestinians if you are
Speaker 2: not a Palestinian. I am not a Palestinian. I'm Syrian,
Speaker 2: and I am extremely vocal about the Palestinian cause and
Speaker 2: the Palestine. I've always been one hundred percent free Palestine
Speaker 2: till I die. And it's almost like surprising to people,
Speaker 2: like why are you so worked up like why aren't
Speaker 2: you so worked up like that? That's what really gets
Speaker 2: me is your humanity and care. It shouldn't be contingent
Speaker 2: on your identity if you actually give a shit. And
Speaker 2: I think that's what I really want to like relate
Speaker 2: to people, is this is not the Palestinian's struggle solely
Speaker 2: for themselves, Like this is a struggle for all. Like
Speaker 2: if this genocide obliterates the Palestinian people, that's on humanity shoulders.
Speaker 2: That's not that is so indicative of how depraved humans
Speaker 2: have become. It's just so upsetting. It's just a complete obliteration.
Speaker 2: There has been videos of settlers saying they want to
Speaker 2: flattened the whole thing, make it a parking lot. I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't even have to tell you what like actual
Speaker 2: media and like politicians have been saying because it's like atrocious.
Speaker 2: But I think that's what I want to relate to
Speaker 2: people is like if you're not if you don't care,
Speaker 2: examine that, because that is troubling to me, if you
Speaker 2: don't care about actual genocide. And maybe that word has
Speaker 2: been used too much to like make people give a shit,
Speaker 2: but it really makes me question people's humanity when they
Speaker 2: are able to kind of just like shrug it off
Speaker 2: 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 hope,
Speaker 1: and it sounds cheesy, but it's true, we're not empowered, right,
Speaker 1: were 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. I'm also seeing many people
Speaker 1: that I'm surprised by. I'm seeing many people that I
Speaker 1: wasn't surprised by posting the wrong thing, frankly. But I'm
Speaker 1: also seeing many people white people, you know, black people, right, like,
Speaker 1: people of all kinds that are disconnected, you know, from
Speaker 1: an identity perspective to the posting people doing so much
Speaker 1: showing up. I went to the I saw images from
Speaker 1: the protest in the other day, and there are I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about the Jewish protest, which was amazing, right,
Speaker 1: what JVP did with if not now, in front of
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer's house was incredible, Right, That's that's solidarity. That's
Speaker 1: that's that's real, right, That's that's that's that's humanity, right,
Speaker 1: that's what humanity should be. That's real solidarity. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the protests though, that was Palestinian lad in the midtown,
Speaker 1: and I saw tons of Jews there, m hm. And
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about the Sutmar anti Zionist, you know
Speaker 1: Hasidic Jews. Those are great, right, and they're they're helpful.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about like regular regular ass Jews, right, like me, right,
Speaker 1: people like not even wearing yamaicas, like people with you know,
Speaker 1: small yamicas that aren't like you know, Hasidic or anything,
Speaker 1: holding up signs to help liberate the Palestinian people. In
Speaker 1: spite of the Hamas, in spite of everything that happened,
Speaker 1: they showed up. They were not scared. A Pastinian flag
Speaker 1: doesn't scare them, right, I shouldn't. It shouldn't. But again,
Speaker 1: I want to be I want to I want to
Speaker 1: maintain my my I guess I want to maintain the
Speaker 1: view of objectivity. I think again, you know, Devil's advocate,
Speaker 1: I think when when And again this is not not
Speaker 1: me blaming, right, it's more so offering kind of a
Speaker 1: perspective to question how to how to move forward when
Speaker 1: people Israeli's Jews whoever right, are indoctrinated to believe that
Speaker 1: Palestine means no place for me, okay, and then you
Speaker 1: couple that with the anger anguish that the oppressed people
Speaker 1: are feeling and saying, yeah, fu fuck that, like we
Speaker 1: couldn't want you here, right, like you look what you're
Speaker 1: doing to us. I think that they view the Palestinian
Speaker 1: flag as a replacement of, you know, the flag of Israel,
Speaker 1: which many people actually kind of not many people, some
Speaker 1: people view it that way. And I think that the
Speaker 1: way I see it and the way many people I
Speaker 1: know see it, it's a flag that represents liberation from oppression,
Speaker 1: liberation of the Palestinian people who are being actively oppressed
Speaker 1: by Zionism, right and ideology, right, you know, perpetuated and
Speaker 1: executed by people, but it's still an ideology.
Speaker 2: So just like because I think this always comes up,
Speaker 2: but being anti Zionis has nothing to do with being
Speaker 2: anti Semitic, and I think they always get complated and
Speaker 2: that's on purpose to make people afraid to speak up
Speaker 2: about Israel. I can only imagine how brainwashed Zionism becomes
Speaker 2: to like the whole, like the education and everything. Like,
Speaker 2: is that something you experience like firsthand, yeah.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. I think what we've seen over the
Speaker 1: last decade, right, the fact that Natanya 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 law obvious, uh and and you know,
Speaker 1: corporate interests, et cetera. I'm aware, but at least you
Speaker 1: have that system in Israel. That system doesn't exist, okay,
Speaker 1: there's no constitution, uh, and a prime minister can't be termed.
Speaker 1: And so now Bibing Ntanello has been in power and
Speaker 1: figured out how to survive attempts on his throne many
Speaker 1: times over through building coalitions with the right wing extremists,
Speaker 1: which frankly are against his interests. Like he wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of perpetuate status quo and just kind of be
Speaker 1: in power Like this is kind of made it difficult
Speaker 1: for him to just be the guy who kind of
Speaker 1: you know, makes it makes everything okay for Israelis. Right now,
Speaker 1: Israelis are scared shitless and so. But putting that aside
Speaker 1: and going back to your point, the Knockaba was never
Speaker 1: even discussed until recent history, Like it was not like
Speaker 1: no one even knew what that word means. Right, We
Speaker 1: celebrated it as Yomat's Mote independence Day. So the Israeli
Speaker 1: independence Day is the Palestinian's Knockbat, which means the great
Speaker 1: tragedy for those who don't know, and the catastrophe, yes
Speaker 1: and so. But but what's interesting and very sad is
Speaker 1: that in recent years, because of the world actually and
Speaker 1: when Israelis tell you don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Don't comment on things you don't talk about that you
Speaker 1: don't know about. You most likely, if you've done any
Speaker 1: any literally any if you read one book on Palestine,
Speaker 1: if you read on Palestine by Noam Chomsky and Elan Pape, like,
Speaker 1: you know more than Israelis know about their own situation.
Speaker 1: And I say that wholeheartedly because I know what they study, right,
Speaker 1: They omit the large swaths of information in order to
Speaker 1: form the psyche through the narrative that they perpetuate and so.
Speaker 1: But because of recent external and global pressure, because of
Speaker 1: the fact that the world's the new generation of young
Speaker 1: people have educated themselves on Palestine, you know, catalyze a
Speaker 1: lot of them, catalyzed by the social justice movement. Right,
Speaker 1: the Angela Davis is the Tromskis of the world who
Speaker 1: always since the sixties, I've been talking about Black liberation
Speaker 1: isntcomplete without the liberation of Palestinians unifying struggles. They know
Speaker 1: more about history of Israel and Palestine than Israelis do. Okay.
Speaker 1: I've always been super impressed, not like not to say
Speaker 1: that people are dumb, actually think people are very smart. Right,
Speaker 1: if they're willing to look. But every Palestinian friend of mine,
Speaker 1: every single one, knows so much about Zionism and Zionus history, right,
Speaker 1: there's scholars of Zionist history, right, But Israelly, there's no
Speaker 1: idea about Palestinians and Palestinian histry.
Speaker 2: It's just I think it's really unsettling because, I mean,
Speaker 2: for those who don't know, the catastrophe was like like
Speaker 2: the 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 atrocious and her and I think the fact
Speaker 2: that they can't even learn about power or like learn
Speaker 2: deeply about Palestine or Palestinians, it's like another way of
Speaker 2: ethnic cleansing and like forgetting they even exist. And I
Speaker 2: think that's very unsettling because you can't just forget. I mean,
Speaker 2: at the same time, they say, like history is written
Speaker 2: by the people that are in power, right or the
Speaker 2: people that I like win the war, quote unquote, and
Speaker 2: they're very capable of convincing a big amount of people
Speaker 2: that like like that they were never.
Speaker 1: Here I think being hopeful is practice. And I've definitely
Speaker 1: fallen into you know, bouts of depression and and helplessness
Speaker 1: and hopelessness also, I think we all do. But I
Speaker 1: think it behooves us to practice hopefulness, especially in times
Speaker 1: like these, because without it, we don't have the power
Speaker 1: to liberate 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 but we're
Speaker 1: seeing that people understand that. Right. Like I said, people
Speaker 1: are smart. Right, you don't have to go to you know,
Speaker 1: an Ivy League school to be intelligent. Right. Palafreer talked
Speaker 1: about banking intelligence. Right, when you just consume information from
Speaker 1: a teacher perpetuating the perpetuating the injustices and maintaining the
Speaker 1: system of oppression. Right, you can be as educated as
Speaker 1: you want in that form of education and not understand
Speaker 1: the world and understand the inequalities around you. Right, But
Speaker 1: if you feel those inequalities, if you have that empathy,
Speaker 1: if you're able to expand your consciousness a little bit
Speaker 1: to also include those that you may not identify with
Speaker 1: or as or you know that that maybe are not
Speaker 1: tangible their experience is not as tangible to you. Then
Speaker 1: then you're able to understand situations pretty clearly and easily.
Speaker 1: And I think the world is showing up because they
Speaker 1: understand that, right, Sure, the air world is showing up.
Speaker 1: And that's incredible, right because they understand. Right, this is
Speaker 1: like what I always say is Palestine is the last
Speaker 1: kind of, like I said earlier, the last direct colonialist
Speaker 1: project that exists in the world direct, right, in terms
Speaker 1: of direct and active about that colonials project that exists
Speaker 1: in the world and their world. You know, if you
Speaker 1: read Edwards said and orientalism, you understand how the West
Speaker 1: basically created and othered kind of they are a world
Speaker 1: in order to create that separation and division in order
Speaker 1: to create you know, a world, uh that serves self
Speaker 1: interest in visualism versus kind of communitarianism and and and
Speaker 1: of of the kind of East. And so when when
Speaker 1: you think about in that context, you start understanding that
Speaker 1: you know, this is and this is a struggle against
Speaker 1: kind of Western imperialism, right, this is a struggle to
Speaker 1: free all oppress people, because that's what that's what Zionism
Speaker 1: Israel currently stands for, and everyone who perpetuates it, and
Speaker 1: and people that talk about intersectionality and anti racism and
Speaker 1: all of that, and they still say and they still
Speaker 1: don't understand that this is literally a real time manifestation
Speaker 1: of the shit that they've been reading in history books, right,
Speaker 1: and we're seeing it and it's jarring, and resistance is
Speaker 1: fucking jarring, right, Like it was darring to me. I
Speaker 1: could barely watch it. I had people crying, you know,
Speaker 1: And this is I didn't say this earlier, but I
Speaker 1: had you know, family members that didn't want to speak
Speaker 1: to me, and like, you know, people cursing at me,
Speaker 1: and like friends from you know, middle school sending me
Speaker 1: hate messages. My mom is receiving death threats, right, Like
Speaker 1: this is real shit, right, and so like this isn't
Speaker 1: like an abstract like and and so you know, that's
Speaker 1: what that's what people don't necessarily understand when they just
Speaker 1: approach it academically. And I commend them, and I think
Speaker 1: it's important to like understand the intellectual context of things.
Speaker 1: Like I've done the work, I've read the books. But
Speaker 1: I think it's also important to kind of take a
Speaker 1: step back and contextualize things all around, right, And and
Speaker 1: only through that contextualization can we rehumanize, you know, both
Speaker 1: the the oppressed and the oppressor in order to actually
Speaker 1: have a path forward that's inclusive of all that doesn't
Speaker 1: that doesn't pit people against each other. Right, Jews lived
Speaker 1: on that land for many years before Zionism, if your.
Speaker 2: Scholar, I want to say, like that just fine, before
Speaker 2: the introduction 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 air world, according to their whim
Speaker 1: didn't take into account any demographic any ethnic geographic relations,
Speaker 1: didn't take into account any any of that. And that
Speaker 1: is what's set the tone for a lot of what
Speaker 1: we're seeing in their world today, right, compounded by the
Speaker 1: introduction of a European ideology into the region that served
Speaker 1: European interests is what is what we're seeing to this
Speaker 1: very day. And the Palestinians bear the biggest brunt of it.
Speaker 1: I 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. Yeah, 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: psychs Pico, up until Western imperialism, Arab Jews were an
Speaker 1: integral part of Arabic culture. Okay, An 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. Right. There are many, you know, many
Speaker 1: empires that came through the air world. Right, So this
Speaker 1: place replaced et cetera. But they were there for hundreds
Speaker 1: of years at the minimum. Some would say some of
Speaker 1: them were actually not there due to the Spanish Inquisition, right,
Speaker 1: but actually were there before and never left basically, and
Speaker 1: so you know, they were musicians. You know, they played
Speaker 1: in Kusum, right like there were there were statesmen, they
Speaker 1: were they were very integral part of the culture, right,
Speaker 1: And and they are the many Arab friends that do
Speaker 1: know this, and they they're like, yeah, like it's the biggest,
Speaker 1: the biggest, one of the biggest tragedies is kind of
Speaker 1: the betrayal of the Arab jew right, And they understand, right,
Speaker 1: like when at this point in time, and this is
Speaker 1: not only iraqis was Egypt and you know, Yemen and Morocco.
Speaker 1: There's a huge community, right, like these these people live
Speaker 1: there there there Nazism is not an Arabic concept. They're
Speaker 1: trying to 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 Jewish bakery, Like he would take the walk and
Speaker 2: go there, and it was normal. No one cares, like,
Speaker 2: no one gives a shit really what your religion is
Speaker 2: in those communities. And I think, I mean, this is
Speaker 2: 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
Speaker 2: people 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 not informed enough. They don't
Speaker 2: know about religion, they don't know about the history. You
Speaker 2: don't have to know about any of that to know
Speaker 2: that oppression is wrong and genocide is wrong.
Speaker 1: And every every resistance movement in history. Tree was considered
Speaker 1: a terrorist movement in modern times, right, even Israeli militias. Right,
Speaker 1: you had the Lefi, the Excel, and the AGA. 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. Sounds familiar,
Speaker 1: but you know what, those those three militias became the idea,
Speaker 1: the idea exactly. The three militias that formed that formed
Speaker 1: the IDEAF once Israel was given statehood were considered terrorist organizations,
Speaker 1: the IRA terrorist organization. Right, Nelson Mandela was on the
Speaker 1: US terrorists watchless until two thousand and eight. These are
Speaker 1: real things. These are all facts. But I'm saying even
Speaker 1: if you're thinking about it from the perspective of attacking civilians, Okay,
Speaker 1: wrong in my opinion, but when you don't have if
Speaker 1: you look at actually here another another fact, right, look
Speaker 1: at what the Chibella is doing. Okay, they were considered
Speaker 1: terrorist organization, their armed to the teeth. Israel scared shitless
Speaker 1: of the physa bullet threat. I'm hearing it from people
Speaker 1: on the ground. Right, They're attacking military targets. They're showing
Speaker 1: the world that they can't because they can. They used
Speaker 1: to not be able to, Now they can. So they
Speaker 1: are when a population is oppressed, suppressed to the level
Speaker 1: that the Gosins are, what what military do they have?
Speaker 1: Do they have F sixteen fighter jets that they can
Speaker 1: go and bomb? I don't know the Kiriyah? Did you
Speaker 1: guys know that the biggest military base in Israel is
Speaker 1: 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 the
Speaker 1: Gozzins had F sixteen fighter what if Kamas had F
Speaker 1: sixteen fighters? They wouldn't want to bomb that yeah, like
Speaker 1: people are people that dense like that they don't understand
Speaker 1: how this thing works and what what oppression looks like. Right.
Speaker 1: A lot of my Palestinian friends always say the world
Speaker 1: wants us to be perfect victims and in a lot
Speaker 1: of in a lot of senses, the burden is always
Speaker 1: on the victim right in these oppressive scenarios. So I
Speaker 1: always tell them, guys, like, we have to be smart.
Speaker 1: We have to make sure that you know, again, I like,
Speaker 1: it's it's trauma that I can't you know, I feel
Speaker 1: in my bones, but but it's not it's not directly
Speaker 1: happening to me, and and and so I can't. I'm
Speaker 1: not It's not from a place of judgment. It's from
Speaker 1: a pragmatic perspective. We have to understand that that's the
Speaker 1: trap that they're setting for us. The Kamas enacted. The
Speaker 1: Kamas did exactly what the right wing government wanted them
Speaker 1: to do in order to justify the plan that they
Speaker 1: had all along. I'm not going to go so far
Speaker 1: as to start perpetuating conspiracy theories because it's not my place.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to say that they plan this
Speaker 1: and it was, you know, an inside job, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say that, but what I will say is
Speaker 1: it served the interests of the right wing government. And
Speaker 1: the one thing I want I meant to say because
Speaker 1: I keep going off on tangents, and I apologize. But
Speaker 1: to your point about the Knakaba, I said, in the
Speaker 1: last 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 Knokoba. Now they acknowledge the knock but we
Speaker 1: know how they acknowledge it. They say, yeah, the knockba happened,
Speaker 1: Let's do a second one, yep, right, And so now
Speaker 1: they're now all of a sudden the knockber 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 government of government
Speaker 1: officials were saying, the second knock, but let's do it now,
Speaker 1: let's let's that's what they try to do. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean they're trying to do in Gauza.
Speaker 2: One never ended. It feels like the first one just
Speaker 2: ever ended.
Speaker 1: Right that I always I always say that I agree,
Speaker 1: but 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: palestadiums 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 don't want to
Speaker 1: go to war with Iran. They're scared of the Like
Speaker 1: these are real things, these are real threats. Like Israel
Speaker 1: hasn't fought a real opponent since the seventies in the
Speaker 1: o Pepool War. That's what I'm trying to say. Like
Speaker 1: this showed how vulnerable they are and they're scared. I'm
Speaker 1: 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 IDs, that's all I say,
Speaker 2: does not actually act in the best interests of the civilians.
Speaker 2: Like there was like a report from an Israeli woman
Speaker 2: who survived the massacre at the music festival that said
Speaker 2: a lot of them were shot by like their own forces.
Speaker 2: It was like indiscriminate shooting.
Speaker 1: The biggest casualties for Israeli soldiers up until this was
Speaker 1: was friendly fire. Yeah. Really, that's that's.
Speaker 2: That's I mean, I just think that's so hard to
Speaker 2: remember because it's a They're framed as this very like
Speaker 2: ideal warrior bullshit and it's so far from the truth.
Speaker 1: And that's what I'm saying their 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 the US marine and
Speaker 1: next to an Israeli soldier. I'm serious, Like, like I know, it's.
Speaker 2: Become a trend to be a soldier of anything. It's
Speaker 2: like very like you see these like young people like yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: it's like a very cool thing to.
Speaker 1: Do because there's never a threat though Israel. Israel has
Speaker 1: been You've grown up in Israel believing that you're the
Speaker 1: most powerful entity and you can do whatever you want,
Speaker 1: whenever you want, right, and that notion has been shaken
Speaker 1: to its core. And if you're part of the propaganda machine,
Speaker 1: if you're caught in the propaganda machine that is kind
Speaker 1: of Zionist Israeli ideology, you're basically now your whole world
Speaker 1: is crumbled beneath you. Right, you're completely in survival mode.
Speaker 1: Everyone's posting, everyone's like, you have to eradicate come us,
Speaker 1: But they're not even eradicating comas. What are they doing?
Speaker 1: They're just emboldening come us. Like this happens all the time.
Speaker 1: It's just happening on a much bigger scale right now.
Speaker 1: Any Hamas leader, that the thing I was basically looking for,
Speaker 1: like a big, like a major Hamas leadership, you know,
Speaker 1: attack and once they're able to neutralize, you know, in
Speaker 1: their words numerous high ranking officials, I think they'll declare victory.
Speaker 1: Even though they're not going to be victorious. They're not
Speaker 1: going to bring back the fourteen hundred.
Speaker 2: People are also going to kill the hostages at this rate,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Not like you've already killed
Speaker 2: more than twenty two. That's how much do you actually
Speaker 2: care about your civilians and the hostage like the foreign
Speaker 2: hostages either like it's your but but I don't know,
Speaker 2: there's clearly showing their ass.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, I want to I want to have
Speaker 1: a clear message though to kind of people that are
Speaker 1: on the fence in the West that are being fed
Speaker 1: propaganda through Western media outlets. That is quite clear at
Speaker 1: this point. And some of them recognize this, and that's
Speaker 1: why they come to my page and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, thank you. I didn't I didn't know. I
Speaker 1: didn't know. In Israel, there are many people, not even
Speaker 1: ideologically that want to bring the hostages back and don't
Speaker 1: understand why Israel is doing what it's doing before and
Speaker 1: not even talking to them about the hostages.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that videos sleading being like please, it's just yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about left wing activists. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: like averages, reelis right, Natanas failed the Israeli people that
Speaker 1: attack the fact that and again this I don't enough
Speaker 1: people know this right, people who know no, but maybe
Speaker 1: some don't. That attack was a complete military failure on
Speaker 1: behalf of Israel. And that happened because over the last
Speaker 1: six to nine months since the right wing government took place,
Speaker 1: took power, they've been using the IDF to support, empower,
Speaker 1: embolden and protect settlers in the West Bank. And that's
Speaker 1: why settler attacks have increased. That's why settlements have increased,
Speaker 1: that's why they're more settlers than ever before. And what
Speaker 1: they were doing on that very day people don't already know.
Speaker 1: I hope they do. But if they don't already know,
Speaker 1: the IDF was in the West Bank on su Quote,
Speaker 1: which is a Jewish holiday, and they were protecting settlers
Speaker 1: in building a sukkah, that structure that people sit in
Speaker 1: in the middle of Juara, Palestinian village, and they were
Speaker 1: protecting them and chaper owning them so that they can
Speaker 1: break into Palestinian village to build a suka in order
Speaker 1: to antagonize Palestinians. That's say what you may about anything else,
Speaker 1: the fact that that is the priority of the government.
Speaker 1: You know, you're doing the oppression, You're already committing the oppression.
Speaker 1: You're already subjugating the Tastanian people. You know that Hamas
Speaker 1: is comas, you're going to remove security forces from the
Speaker 1: border to embolden and empower settlers instead. It doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense.
Speaker 2: No, it's I mean, that's why the most un settling
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 idea f is
Speaker 2: like either helping them or standing by. If you're on
Speaker 2: the fence about this still, you are literally for genocide.
Speaker 2: Those are the two differences. It's either your for genocide
Speaker 2: or you're against genocide. And if you're considering the options,
Speaker 2: examine yourself. That's not right. I was just set this
Speaker 2: tweet apparently yesterday the twitter for Israeli Prime Minister at
Speaker 2: Israel PM said this is a struggle between the children
Speaker 2: of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and
Speaker 2: the law of the jungle. Are you fucking kidding me?
Speaker 2: That's like Nazi Hitler shit, are you There are so
Speaker 2: many lives I've already been lost, and the ones that
Speaker 2: have not been lost are never going to recover. They've
Speaker 2: lost so much other than their life. There are so
Speaker 2: many terrifying and horrific videos that I've seen that no
Speaker 2: one should have to go through and not only are
Speaker 2: they going through it, they're getting funded and encouraged by
Speaker 2: most of the world. I cannot accept that. I sorry,
Speaker 2: I don't want to cry, 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: It's very, very sad.
Speaker 2: It's extremely unlike no word 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 the resistance has come
Speaker 2: this far is because of that, because more people are
Speaker 2: aware about what's going on. People aren't accepting that Israel
Speaker 2: 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 Palestinians were even there, we cannot forget Palestinians. And
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna stop talking about it, and you 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 seeing
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. Please.
Speaker 1: 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 that deeply. The people in Gaza 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 sin just because I think
Speaker 1: that the biggest kind of pushback that we keep hearing
Speaker 1: is Homas yes, please yet And I think that again,
Speaker 1: remembering what we kind of mentioned earlier in the call,
Speaker 1: how liberation movements for occupied peoples have always been aimed
Speaker 1: terrorist organizations and you know, even targeted civilians, right, so
Speaker 1: not only like by the definition of terrorist organizations or
Speaker 1: terrorist organizations. So even if that's what we believe, and
Speaker 1: let's just say that that's you know, we accept and
Speaker 1: agreed that that's what Ramas is, I think it's important
Speaker 1: to understand that terrorist organizations have become political organizations time
Speaker 1: and time again. And I think that it's also important
Speaker 1: to understand historically the tamas As as an entity again
Speaker 1: remind you was created and partially created and funded by
Speaker 1: the State of Israel, emboldened by the State of Israel.
Speaker 1: Because I want to be very clear, up until the nineties,
Speaker 1: right also accord to the peace process, people say, oh,
Speaker 1: the Palestinians didn't want peace. To your point earlier, the
Speaker 1: Palestinians were willing to take almost anything. At that point,
Speaker 1: Arafat was that are a terrorist before he became a statesman, right,
Speaker 1: was 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, just indiscriminately shot innocent
Speaker 1: people in a mosque. So the biggest, one of the
Speaker 1: biggest tragedies. Right. And then he was not only did
Speaker 1: they the response, you know, Verben's response to that was
Speaker 1: it was locking down Hebron Palestinians in Hebron, so because
Speaker 1: he was fearful of what the Palestinians would do in retaliation.
Speaker 1: The immediate response by Rabine was locking down the people
Speaker 1: of Hebron. Okay, instead of going and doing something about
Speaker 1: the settlers that committed the crime or that emboldened the
Speaker 1: person committing the crime. That's number one, Number two, that
Speaker 1: sparked the retaliation, because when people don't have justice, they
Speaker 1: take justice in their own hands. So that sparked this
Speaker 1: series of attacks in Israel, right, devastating attacks in Israel.
Speaker 1: But it was that that did that, and it was
Speaker 1: his He could have he could have handled that differently,
Speaker 1: but he didn't, right and and and that was what
Speaker 1: sparked the response then in turn, Okay again who putting
Speaker 1: that aside? Right? And and sorry, little tidbit. His grave
Speaker 1: m HM. Cochtain's grave is guarded by the IDF as
Speaker 1: some and many many many consider him a national hero.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen photos of people like crying at his
Speaker 2: grave like it's yes, save their faces or something. When
Speaker 2: he's not. Just when you literally just like went in
Speaker 2: to a mosque with a gun and shot thirty people
Speaker 2: who were fucking praying.
Speaker 1: Yes, And that's wrong.
Speaker 2: When people are idolizing.
Speaker 1: Exactly, it's rotten to its core, is my point. This
Speaker 1: is 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
Speaker 1: capacity whatever. 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 discuss the Palestinian kind of oppression is managing the occupation, Okay,
Speaker 1: managing the opposition. 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 peace.
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 he
Speaker 1: had Kushner that that say, what all the bad things
Speaker 1: right about his about his behavior. He was trying to
Speaker 1: through normalization deals with their world, trying to get a
Speaker 1: deal for the Palestinian people, albeit the most absurd sort
Speaker 1: of deal. If you ever read what the Abraham accord
Speaker 1: is actually entailed right like, weird like ways and weird
Speaker 1: right like, not a deal that anyone should have accepted.
Speaker 1: But putting that aside, he was talking about it. There
Speaker 1: was discussion, there was Palestinian like the word palestinian was
Speaker 1: being said by the Office of the President. In the
Speaker 1: last four years that Biden was in office, no one
Speaker 1: said anything, no one did anything to advanced piece. No
Speaker 1: one even brought a bogus deal like darreed Kushner to
Speaker 1: the table. I don't make it make sense. I don't understand.
Speaker 1: They basically bought into the Zionist idea that we can
Speaker 1: just live, continue living while millions of people are being
Speaker 1: oppressed and occupied. This is the Democratic Party, and that's
Speaker 1: why we see the media now the way it is,
Speaker 1: because they're controlling the media narrative too. Right, So open
Speaker 1: your eyes, see it for what it is, right, don't
Speaker 1: get cloud don't let your judgment get clouded by this
Speaker 1: two side bs aspect. I hold space for the killing
Speaker 1: of innocent civilians, including the killing of Israeli innocent civilians,
Speaker 1: while simultaneously understanding that this is all because of the
Speaker 1: aggression of colonialism and specifically a perpetuation of the Zionist
Speaker 1: project as a colonialist, nationalist ethno state, and that is
Speaker 1: what I ask of you guys to do, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you for that.
Speaker 2: That's I think a great place to end. Thank you
Speaker 2: again for joining me. You are just as your Palestinian
Speaker 2: friends said in that message, your voice is really critical
Speaker 2: because people will more likely listen to you than to
Speaker 2: a Palestinian. So very much, thank you for your activism.
Speaker 2: And I don't know, it's we're not living in a
Speaker 2: just world and so we just have to stick together.
Speaker 2: I also want to mention the other reason why social
Speaker 2: media is so important is like, one, there's a reason
Speaker 2: they cut electricity to Gaza. They don't want anything coming
Speaker 2: out of there. They want them to die in a blackout.
Speaker 2: And two they are literally arresting people for following Palestinian accounts.
Speaker 2: Now yeah, so I mean, if that's not sutalitarianism, like
Speaker 2: what the fuck is? I don't But anyway, so, uh,
Speaker 2: that's it for today. I can't I don't think it
Speaker 2: can do anymore. But again, I'll put some sources in
Speaker 2: the description to donate to to keep raising awareness. If
Speaker 2: you have people in your circles that are still hesitant
Speaker 2: about having a stance on this, like have conversations. It
Speaker 2: shouldn't be complicated. It really shouldn't be, because it's not.
Speaker 2: And that's all. That's all I have. So thanks everybody,
Speaker 2: thank you for having me. It Could Happen here as
Speaker 2: a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from
Speaker 2: cool Zone Media, visit our website Coalzonemedia dot com or
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Speaker 2: It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at Coolzonmedia dot com
Speaker 2: slash sources. Thanks for listening,