Speaker 1: All the media.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, and welcome to it could happen here. It's
Speaker 2: me James today and I'm joined by Sharene and also Almado,
Speaker 2: who was a volunteer, was father a non violent Protector's
Speaker 2: Presence volunteer in Palestine. How are you doing today?
Speaker 3: I'm good.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Yeah, thanks so much for being here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we appreciate it. So we met through a
Speaker 2: mutual friend who is also a volunteer with you. And
Speaker 2: the reason that that Frank contacted me was that unfortunately
Speaker 2: the IDF shot you. And that's obviously a pretty shitty situation.
Speaker 2: And would you be okay with just beginning by recounting
Speaker 2: the incident. I don't know if that's something you're okay
Speaker 2: going back to, just because I think the fucking wantonness
Speaker 2: of the violence, it is so stark that I think
Speaker 2: it might help people to hear it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So I volunteered with FAZA and we go to a
Speaker 5: demonstration in Beta every Friday. The aim is to go
Speaker 5: back to their land that was stolen from them. I
Speaker 5: think there's a settlement called Avatar Avtar on the Palestinian land,
Speaker 5: and their aim is just to go back to it
Speaker 5: and plant the Palasini your flag.
Speaker 3: So we get there and they're.
Speaker 5: Doing Juma prayer and then after Juama prayer is when
Speaker 5: they start chanting, so like not even it was like
Speaker 5: between five to ten minutes when they started shooting tear
Speaker 5: gas at us. You're in the prey after the prayer,
Speaker 5: after the prayer, yeah, So the prayer went without an incident,
Speaker 5: and then afterwards was when they shot tear gas at us,
Speaker 5: multiple tear gas canisters, and then once they started firing
Speaker 5: live rounds. We hid behind a concrete wall. Tear gas
Speaker 5: still being shot at us, and then live rounds as well.
Speaker 5: You could see the dust coming off of the concrete
Speaker 5: walls as they shot. And then once it seemed like
Speaker 5: they were coming down from the tower, I think Palestines
Speaker 5: were running because they thought they were coming. So we
Speaker 5: ran and we went over a concrete wall. We ran
Speaker 5: for I don't even know how long, but once we
Speaker 5: got to a clearing and they thought it was safe,
Speaker 5: we regrouped with everyone. So the road going up to
Speaker 5: where we were, there were Palestinians still running down. There's
Speaker 5: Palestinie is running to the right, and we just waited
Speaker 5: maybe thirty seconds, and then someone told us to go,
Speaker 5: so we ran with them and then we got to
Speaker 5: rest for like five minutes at a quick smoke coffee.
Speaker 5: Some people had teeth. But then some palestines were moving
Speaker 5: towards the street to our right, so we followed them
Speaker 5: a couple of us and some of them stayed. And
Speaker 5: as we were approaching there, this was the road that
Speaker 5: went straight up to the watchtower we saw them on before,
Speaker 5: so there was still some tear guys shot at us
Speaker 5: and some live rounds as well, but we saw them
Speaker 5: actually coming down from the tower this time, and before
Speaker 5: you know they even drove down, there was palestines to
Speaker 5: our left that were running. So whenever we see them running,
Speaker 5: we know that it's a threat they think may be fatal,
Speaker 5: so we're running. We actually could run to the Ali
Speaker 5: grows behind us. And as we were running, just making
Speaker 5: sure all my comrades were good, I hear a loud
Speaker 5: bang and then I feel a pain in my leg.
Speaker 5: I thought it was like a tear gas canister that
Speaker 5: hit my leg because it just felt like a blunt force.
Speaker 5: But I've never felt that pain before. And one of
Speaker 5: my comrades were helping me up while I was still
Speaker 5: running and limping, and then finally once we got to
Speaker 5: a clearing, that's when all the Palestins ran to me
Speaker 5: and carried me away to the pickup truck, which then
Speaker 5: went to the health clinic or the emergency clinic in Beta.
Speaker 5: And then after that the army trucks blocked our way
Speaker 5: while I was in the ambulance when I was transferred,
Speaker 5: and then there was two checkpoints afterwards, and the two
Speaker 5: checkpoints they demanded to see who was inside, which delayed
Speaker 5: my care further, and then finally getting to Rafidia Hospital,
Speaker 5: Jesus swept fucking hell.
Speaker 4: Classic of them to block the ambulance so many times.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'm rerealty glad that it
Speaker 2: wasn't like an archeriobled or something when that time would
Speaker 2: have been a life and death. Yeah, in those minutes, right.
Speaker 4: It's a really good point.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I was smiling because I was like, I don't know
Speaker 5: what just happened to me, but I'm hope, I hope,
Speaker 5: I'm okay, and also I know I'm here for Palestine,
Speaker 5: so you know, yeah, I kept smiling, but I didn't
Speaker 5: know what was happening. And thankfully it was no artery
Speaker 5: or bone, so I was very late.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and do you know what right for you shows
Speaker 2: clinic they sometimes use like smaller calibers for crowd control.
Speaker 3: Yeah. From what I heard was I'm sixteen American nail.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah, they're just really game for it. Un believable.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you're okay. I like, just we spoke about
Speaker 2: this before, but just so listeners, like, you're healing up,
Speaker 2: you feel like you're on the path to at least
Speaker 2: physical recovery.
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, Like, uh, So, I got shot and one
Speaker 5: week later I went from wheelchair, the crutches, the cane.
Speaker 5: I'm still on the cane, but I can move around
Speaker 5: pretty well like indoors. Like when I'm outside, I have
Speaker 5: to use the cane because of my leg buckles and
Speaker 5: the hole in the front baxit wound is still healing.
Speaker 5: It's not fully closed yet, but a lot better.
Speaker 4: Did the bullet go straight through?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I went straight through, no fragments. I believe they
Speaker 5: had to do surgery to stitch me up, but also
Speaker 5: to take the dead tissue out. And I think they
Speaker 5: had to put together some muscles as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jesus, Like, I want to talk about a couple
Speaker 2: of things regarding this. First of all, I think, like,
Speaker 2: are you a US citizen? Yeah, yeah, so like a
Speaker 2: foreign military shot a US citizen right as you're a
Speaker 2: no senator, representative, any of these people who are supposed
Speaker 2: to give a single fuck about this like reached out
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 3: New so it was just the embassy.
Speaker 5: The embassy didn't contact us, maybe the same day I
Speaker 5: was shot just a little bit later, but no representatives
Speaker 5: here in the United States have reached out to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty reprehensible. Yeah, do you want to give
Speaker 2: people a representive? Who those might be is I don't
Speaker 2: want to like dox you and where you live, but.
Speaker 3: I'm in Jersey City.
Speaker 5: There is a vacancy actually for one of the representatives,
Speaker 5: so that is one reason why. But the other ones, yeah,
Speaker 5: Jersey senators, local politicians, nobody has reached out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nobody's reached out. Yeah, And I think, like we
Speaker 2: said this again before, but it's not that your leg
Speaker 2: is more important than someone's child's life in Gaza, right,
Speaker 2: Like that's I don't want to imply that for a second,
Speaker 2: but like you know, the system of states as it
Speaker 2: is today works in a certain way, and in theory,
Speaker 2: those people should care about you, and like, I think
Speaker 2: it really gets us to something else I wanted to
Speaker 2: talk about, which is that like the existence of Palestine,
Speaker 2: like as as it is today and as it wishes
Speaker 2: to be in the future, much like you know other
Speaker 2: places I've worked in Kurdistan, in the liberated parts of Myanmar,
Speaker 2: is a threat to the system of states and governments
Speaker 2: as it exists today. And like at some point you
Speaker 2: decided that the government and right into your senator or
Speaker 2: whatever tweeting people do wasn't enough or wasn't going to work,
Speaker 2: and you decided that, like you wanted to put your
Speaker 2: body in between the people trying to kill the people
Speaker 2: and the people trying to survive. So can you talk
Speaker 2: us through that journey? Like have you always been invested
Speaker 2: in the Palacean Coles? Is it something that you became
Speaker 2: aware of at some point.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So I'm part of the Philippine Movement on a Baion,
Speaker 5: part of Bayon and the National Democratic Movement in the Philippines.
Speaker 5: So through them I was in contact and collaboration with
Speaker 5: Palestinians and that's when I started to understand Palestinian struggle.
Speaker 3: And actually I was at the protest.
Speaker 5: In New York recently, and it came full circle because
Speaker 5: Nerdane within our lifetime stated that she actually started it
Speaker 5: because of the National Democratic Movement and our work together
Speaker 5: and our studies. So because I also saw Palestinian standing
Speaker 5: for the liberation of the Philippines, we always had that
Speaker 5: connection or I had that connection with Palestinians, and it
Speaker 5: grew over time, and the escalation of October seventh really
Speaker 5: had me just disregulated because I'm a teacher in Jersey
Speaker 5: and for the first few months it was so hard
Speaker 5: for me to teach. It was like I was just
Speaker 5: going on autopilot because how could we, you know, just
Speaker 5: go on with our daily lives seeing this these atrocities
Speaker 5: happening every day. And once it was the end of
Speaker 5: the year, it was hot smoking cigarette, I put my
Speaker 5: CAFA on the gate outside of our school and then
Speaker 5: I came out because I had to bring the snacks
Speaker 5: in for my students for the last week of school
Speaker 5: and it was gone, so I had to buy another one.
Speaker 5: And when I did, it came with a really beautiful
Speaker 5: handwritten postcard from Palestine and it was just talking about
Speaker 5: thank you for supporting us through these difficult times. And
Speaker 5: then it's had invitation to visit, So that was what
Speaker 5: prompted me to like research and ask other friends in
Speaker 5: the movement, and then they told me about FASA, and
Speaker 5: then I took the orientation and training and I went
Speaker 5: over during my summer break.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's real. To ease your summer, we'll just stop
Speaker 2: for some advertisements here and then come back. We are back. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: you've had toism some advert so hopefully you've skipped them.
Speaker 2: So I wanted to ask about like that journey, the
Speaker 2: journey to Palestine. Now, I imagine it's very difficult, and like,
Speaker 2: how did it feel. I guess like this is a
Speaker 2: cause you've been invested in for some time, right, and
Speaker 2: then you've seen these horrific things, and then suddenly you're
Speaker 2: on the ground, like was to be in solidarity with people,
Speaker 2: like I know my experience at the border has been that, Like,
Speaker 2: I would much rather be like in it, even if
Speaker 2: it's terrible, than at home seeing pictures of it. I
Speaker 2: wonder how it was for you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, for me, I've always just wanted to visit Palestine
Speaker 5: and I want to be insolidated with the Palestinean people
Speaker 5: as a Filipino American I've seen Palestine. Is there the
Speaker 5: support of Filipinos. I've been there in the streets with them,
Speaker 5: you know, when they supported Americans, the black Americans, you know,
Speaker 5: against police brutality. So it just felt like a duty
Speaker 5: as an organizer, as a revolutionary to you know, show
Speaker 5: the same solidarity back as well as knowing that I'll
Speaker 5: be in a beautiful place with beautiful people under horrible circumstances.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wish more people. And it's not just Palestine, right,
Speaker 2: we have these revolutions that we talk about in these
Speaker 2: causes that we talk about, like, and I understand it's
Speaker 2: not always easy. People have commitments financial and interpersonal, and
Speaker 2: but like, if you can go, you should go. Do
Speaker 2: you feel like your solidarity grew because you experienced solidarity
Speaker 2: in return? Right, like somebody ran towards gunfire to pick
Speaker 2: you up at some point? Do you feel like a
Speaker 2: more profound sense of solidarity after that experience, having also
Speaker 2: experienced like setle colonial violence.
Speaker 3: I guess absolutely.
Speaker 5: It's like you know, before I'm talking about it, we
Speaker 5: talk about in circles, and I did have the privilege
Speaker 5: to be able to go, you know, not a lot
Speaker 5: of people have the financial ability mental ability, physical capabilities.
Speaker 5: So I'm looking on that end as well. But if
Speaker 5: one is willing and able in all those different aspects,
Speaker 5: they should go if they can, especially during all of
Speaker 5: the harvest right now, which is an escalation of settler
Speaker 5: violence that we've seen recently and even the Israeli army.
Speaker 3: So I get updates.
Speaker 5: From Kuspa right now and I just see everything that's
Speaker 5: happening still, and I know all of harvest is a
Speaker 5: huge economic thing for the Palestinians. So yeah, it would
Speaker 5: be great for anyone that's able to go.
Speaker 6: Yeah, leading up to you getting shot and maybe after,
Speaker 6: can you describe maybe what the environment was like like
Speaker 6: on the ground, how people were living your experiences with
Speaker 6: the idea of me before that, Like, can you just
Speaker 6: walk through what that was like on the ground.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So my first day there, I was in Kustra and
Speaker 5: we were just getting the money that we need. We
Speaker 5: got some groceries I believe I had. I only had
Speaker 5: like two pairs of clothes I packed leg and then
Speaker 5: we had dinner with the Palestinia family, very beautiful collective dinner.
Speaker 5: And when you have lunch or dinner there, you know,
Speaker 5: it's not like a quick thirty minutes and you're gone.
Speaker 3: You're there for like three hours.
Speaker 5: Even if we have different language barriers, it's just very
Speaker 5: beautiful culture and people.
Speaker 3: And then I get shot the second day.
Speaker 7: The second day, god, I know, yeah, yeah, so, uh
Speaker 7: second full day, and so I think I was the
Speaker 7: first person shot at a demonstration there.
Speaker 5: So people were ready for I guess the usual tear
Speaker 5: gas and live rounds, but I don't think anyone is
Speaker 5: expecting anyone to get shot there, including me. But yeah,
Speaker 5: so I was healing in the hospital, I heard the
Speaker 5: Israeli army came into Kusra, and you know, we had
Speaker 5: the amount of people we had on the ground, and
Speaker 5: one person had to kind of stay around me. So
Speaker 5: I was scared and feared for my people over there.
Speaker 5: And then another day goes by, the next day after that,
Speaker 5: I'm back in town, and then there was reports of
Speaker 5: a settler that was killed. And then we heard that
Speaker 5: all the settlements there was a call to attack Cusra.
Speaker 5: So right when I get back, we're already on Hylert.
Speaker 5: We're watching making sure nothing was happening. Thankfully, nothing did
Speaker 5: happen that day. But then, yeah, it happens like every
Speaker 5: other day where either the Israeli army comes in or
Speaker 5: settler's attack. In Kusra, we also tried to open the
Speaker 5: gate between the town because the Israeli Army put a
Speaker 5: gate between the tw so people can't travel with you know,
Speaker 5: within the town, and we tried opening it, but they
Speaker 5: have the key, and a peaceful demonstration turned into the
Speaker 5: IDF or the IOF coming with like twelve soldiers intimidating folks,
Speaker 5: loading up some kind of automatic weapon, pointing tear gas
Speaker 5: at us. A few days after that, they came into
Speaker 5: town at night shot up the town. A few days
Speaker 5: after that, Israeli army was guarding settlers really close to town,
Speaker 5: were actually in town.
Speaker 3: And then a.
Speaker 5: Couple of days after that too, I think one of
Speaker 5: the last days I was there, they raided the town.
Speaker 5: They shot like twelve tear gas canisters like two to
Speaker 5: three like flash bangs, and then like three live rounds,
Speaker 5: and they shot a boy in the back. Thankfully he's
Speaker 5: also okay. And then after I left, sellers attacked international
Speaker 5: volunteers US citizens as well with rocks, and DIOEFT shot
Speaker 5: like five other Palestinians as well. So it's just continual violence,
Speaker 5: you know what. I faced that one day is what
Speaker 5: they face every day?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and like they go and get to
Speaker 2: go home like it it's at home. Can you explain
Speaker 2: for people who aren't familiar, right, I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people have come into solidarity with Palestine in the
Speaker 2: last eleven months, which is fine. You don't have to
Speaker 2: know like textbooks of history to be like genocide is bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, like you're in the West Bank, right, can you
Speaker 2: explain where that lies in relation to Gaza and what
Speaker 2: is happening in the West Bank, especially right now in
Speaker 2: the last few days and weeks. That is extremely concerning
Speaker 2: and I don't know how to fred it, like terrible.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So the decimation of Gaza on Israel's end is a
Speaker 5: response to October seventh escalation, even though October seventh was
Speaker 5: a response to, however, many decades of oppression that they've faced.
Speaker 3: So Gaza is being decimated.
Speaker 5: But Israel wants more land, the greater Israel that they've
Speaker 5: been advertising. Settlers want to move into Gaza. Settlers want
Speaker 5: to continue to move into West Bank, the West Bank.
Speaker 5: Also from reports, Israel gave authority or something of being
Speaker 5: able to get more land, which is Palestinian land, So
Speaker 5: what kind of authority do they have over that all
Speaker 5: the legal settlements, But they're trying to just take all
Speaker 5: the land that they can get, whether it's in Gaza,
Speaker 5: whether it's in West Bank. So they're obviously connected because
Speaker 5: it is Palestine. But now they're just going into the
Speaker 5: West Bank because there's further resistance now as well. And
Speaker 5: there has always been just a lot more quiet than
Speaker 5: a Gaza at the moment because I guess of the
Speaker 5: government that's over them, Palestinian authority. But yeah, it's all
Speaker 5: connected and they want to just squash any kind of
Speaker 5: resistance there is, whether it's in the West Bank and Gaza,
Speaker 5: as well as just trying to take as much land
Speaker 5: as possible before international intervention happens, which we haven't seen
Speaker 5: because the US continues to supply weapons and arms to Israel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently what happened to you even going to stop that?
Speaker 2: Like nothing else is i'd know what is just for
Speaker 2: people who aren't familiar the West Banks so much larger
Speaker 2: geographical area. Bank refers to the Jordan River, right set.
Speaker 2: Colonialism is a term that people are familiar with, right like,
Speaker 2: and it happens, it's not I'm not saying it doesn't
Speaker 2: happen in America because it still happens every day. Like there,
Speaker 2: It's a process that we continue to create. It's not
Speaker 2: one that stops in nineteenth century, right, and by that,
Speaker 2: but like where you were is the bleeding age of
Speaker 2: settle colonialism. Right. It's a family being kicked out of
Speaker 2: their house, it's people not being allowed to go back
Speaker 2: to their homes. Do you have a sense of like
Speaker 2: what does that look like? Because it's incredibly violent, right,
Speaker 2: and incredibly inhumane. No reasonable person would think that like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: this seems normal and cool. Can you explain, like perhaps
Speaker 2: how that would appear for one family or for the
Speaker 2: farm or the village.
Speaker 5: So in Kusra, there has been a good amount of
Speaker 5: resistance even before October seventh, from the leaders there and
Speaker 5: the community. But even with that, three months before it
Speaker 5: looked like settlers coming into town, a whole wave of
Speaker 5: them burning eleven houses.
Speaker 3: I believe it was cars.
Speaker 5: Attacking people, with Israeli army there not stopping anything. I
Speaker 5: believe it was Msvaryata where other activists are, where they
Speaker 5: literally come to the land say this is ours, try
Speaker 5: to destroy infrastructure like water wells. They come in and
Speaker 5: literally say God told me this is my land, and
Speaker 5: I'm here, and try to settle there. There's I guess
Speaker 5: I saw a place where the Israeli occupation forces would
Speaker 5: guard around a mosque, not for the Muslims there, but
Speaker 5: for settlers to come in and pretty much making a
Speaker 5: synagogue for however long. It looks like someone coming in
Speaker 5: and claiming that your home is theirs and destroying any
Speaker 5: infrastructure so you don't come back, whether it's the home,
Speaker 5: the streets, water, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I keep thinking about, like one, how much it didn't
Speaker 6: matter that you were American. But I keep thinking about
Speaker 6: Rachel Corey and how maybe that was the most like
Speaker 6: egregious recent example I can think of of an American citizen.
Speaker 6: I think she was twenty three when she died, got
Speaker 6: run over by a fucking bulldozer from the iof nothing happened.
Speaker 6: Her parents are still trying to remind the world what happened,
Speaker 6: like year after year. Yeah, and so it's not surprising
Speaker 6: to me that no one reached out to you and
Speaker 6: that there is no outrage. But it's just really frustrating
Speaker 6: that it really doesn't matter, like it you could have
Speaker 6: like you could have lost your life and no one
Speaker 6: would have bad an eye in the government. Like it
Speaker 6: really really just makes my blood boil because it's I
Speaker 6: don't know, that's what I've been thinking about for a
Speaker 6: tiny bit. It just reminded me of that and how
Speaker 6: there's no protection being American when you're on the ground
Speaker 6: in Palestine at all.
Speaker 5: Yeah, when we're there, our power comes from having a
Speaker 5: passport somewhere else and our phone. Right, that's why we
Speaker 5: go there to volunteer to create a buffer between the
Speaker 5: Israeli Army, settlers and the Palestinians. And it shows their
Speaker 5: complete disregard the caveat there is that they said it
Speaker 5: was a mistake, which they went straight through my leg,
Speaker 5: So I don't know what kind of mistake goes straight
Speaker 5: through my leg. But also someone was arrested and heard
Speaker 5: that they thought I was Palestinian, So it just shows
Speaker 5: even more so the complete disregard for Palestinian life, whether
Speaker 5: they thought I was or not, that they would just
Speaker 5: shoot me. And yes, there was two US citizens that
Speaker 5: were recently attacked by settlers and the IOF did not
Speaker 5: do anything, you know, only a little bit after they said,
Speaker 5: you know, stop throwing rocks, but the damage is done. Yeah,
Speaker 5: our government has complete disregard for Palestinian lives because there
Speaker 5: was also a lot of Palestinian Americans that have been
Speaker 5: bad and our lives are my life or others that
Speaker 5: are just American with another nationality have you know, I
Speaker 5: guess a little bit more value in their eyes. But
Speaker 5: because they don't want outrage, international outrage. But yeah, our
Speaker 5: government haven't reached out to me, which showcases that they
Speaker 5: don't care about US citizens that support Palestine. Even Biden
Speaker 5: said that, you know, if a US citizen got hurt,
Speaker 5: he would do something, and nothing has happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I think it's kind of illustrative, right, Like
Speaker 2: we're supposed to live in a democracy, and like here
Speaker 2: they are like choosing the interests of a state to
Speaker 2: do what is extremely clearly and like it's very widely
Speaker 2: agreed upon illegal, and to do so in a genocidal manner,
Speaker 2: and they're going to back that over your right to
Speaker 2: not be shot in the leg. Yeah.
Speaker 6: I do think it's it's funny, maybe that's not the
Speaker 6: right word, but the fact that they thought you were
Speaker 6: a Palestinian, as if that was a good enough excuse
Speaker 6: to shoot.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, oh oh oh.
Speaker 6: That explains it of course, Like okay, sure that makes
Speaker 6: me so so mad?
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, God we mistook that person for a
Speaker 2: person whose life doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: Like yeah, it's shameful.
Speaker 2: You know what, you're really giving it away? Yeah, And
Speaker 2: I think, like, I know, it seemed to me that
Speaker 2: our government is not going to solve this right, like
Speaker 2: it realistically in the election, you know, there are third
Speaker 2: parties and stuff. I'm going to vote for someone who
Speaker 2: said nice things about a sad but like, you don't
Speaker 2: have a box you can take that will make this
Speaker 2: stop in November? Right, And the only way we can
Speaker 2: do anything is with solidarity. So like what do people do?
Speaker 2: Like how you've been there, you've seen it, Like, how
Speaker 2: do people most effectively being solularity?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I think the biggest thing is international pressure that we've
Speaker 5: seen all across the globe, which has showcased some results
Speaker 5: in other countries, not here, where arms exports are actually
Speaker 5: at least some are being banned or restricted altogether. But here,
Speaker 5: I think it's continuing to build up anti imperless organizations
Speaker 5: like ony and like many pro Palestinian organizations, like many
Speaker 5: revolutionary Black organizations and then uniting and come in together
Speaker 5: to create a power that is beyond the two party
Speaker 5: system and uniting with everyone that is pro Palestinian that
Speaker 5: does want to see true democracy in the United States
Speaker 5: and all across the globe. Because I was one person
Speaker 5: and people call me a hero, but for me, the
Speaker 5: Palestines face this every day, the hero and we should
Speaker 5: be uniting to support them in their liberation. And sometimes
Speaker 5: it looks like building those organizations. Sometimes it also looks
Speaker 5: like going to Palestine and joining things like FAZA, like
Speaker 5: International Solidarity Mission to you know, be a buffer as
Speaker 5: much as we can, even though it's showcased that they
Speaker 5: don't care. And I think when we unify, we would
Speaker 5: be able to pressure, especially when we have good organizations,
Speaker 5: to pressure elected officials to really divest from the two
Speaker 5: party system and people that support genocide and have that
Speaker 5: pressure amount to more than the lobby for Israel or
Speaker 5: you know, people lobbying for arms for Israel to have
Speaker 5: that outweigh the pressure financially that they have politicians.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's very informative and I really appreciate sharing your experience.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you for all the work you do.
Speaker 2: People might want to support your healing. They might want
Speaker 2: to support father, they might want to support International Sudary
Speaker 2: To mission. They might want to find out more about
Speaker 2: how they can be that buffer. Do you have any
Speaker 2: suggestions on where people could do any of those or
Speaker 2: all of those things.
Speaker 5: Oh, I don't have a personal fund right now, which
Speaker 5: is fine going back to work teaching, but there are
Speaker 5: people that need funds to be able to participate, especially
Speaker 5: during the all of the harvest. So following a Faza
Speaker 5: faz three A underscore pa L is somewhere to follow,
Speaker 5: as well as Defend Palestine dot org. They're both connected,
Speaker 5: so you can follow the news on what's happening on
Speaker 5: the ground as well as I believe contact them. There's
Speaker 5: a general fund for folks that want to travel to
Speaker 5: Palestine but are not able to, so there's a general
Speaker 5: fund for that in the future. My friend was going
Speaker 5: to make a T shirt to help fund the Palestinian
Speaker 5: Ambulance Center over there that I got a first aid
Speaker 5: training with Amado Sison on there. So I don't know
Speaker 5: if it'll work here, but over there definitely. So there's
Speaker 5: a lot of different things. I know, there's the different
Speaker 5: camps that are being raided right now. I think there's
Speaker 5: some fundraisers for them as well. In Gaza there's plenty too.
Speaker 5: But in any way that people can contribute to any
Speaker 5: of those things, you know, it always goes a long
Speaker 5: way for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty great. Thank you, Tarantia. You wanted to
Speaker 2: say to people a mother before we finish up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I hope that one day, folks persons listening right now,
Speaker 5: if you're capable and able to join up to see
Speaker 5: the beauty of Palestine landscape. It's gourgeous outside of the settlement.
Speaker 5: The people are so loving and caring and the culture
Speaker 5: is just amazing, and I just hope that you will
Speaker 5: be able to see Palestine one day, whether it is
Speaker 5: to be in solidarity with them as a protective presence
Speaker 5: or just to see it. And hopefully one day in
Speaker 5: Shallah it's free and we are all able to visit.
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