Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
Speaker 1: welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: ramses job. He is Ramsey's job. I am q Ward.
Speaker 1: You are listening to Civic Cipher and need you are.
Speaker 1: And today we're doing a bit of a follow up episode.
Speaker 1: It's a half the show follow up episode and the
Speaker 1: other half we are going to be discussing something that
Speaker 1: is very important. And today we are fortunate enough to
Speaker 1: be joined by Suzanne Oslom. She is the former Miss
Speaker 1: arab Usa. I just found that out and my mind
Speaker 1: has been blown. I you her as the author of
Speaker 1: the book post Pardon Me. But she's going to be
Speaker 1: helping us in terms of adding some perspective to the
Speaker 1: conversation we had last episode where we were discussing the
Speaker 1: conflict between Palestine and Israel and giving us some perspective
Speaker 1: and some insight into more of what it might mean
Speaker 1: to be on the Palestinian side of things, because that's
Speaker 1: something that we've lacked on the show. We've done our
Speaker 1: best to try to account for the various positions that
Speaker 1: people might take to be credible and fair and balanced journalists.
Speaker 1: But she's joining us today to help us answer some
Speaker 1: questions and provide some insight and hopefully help us with
Speaker 1: a space to create a little bit more empathy for
Speaker 1: all each other. So welcome to the show, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. In addition to that, the second part of
Speaker 1: the show, we're going to be talking about a police
Speaker 1: shooting that took place in Westminster, Colorado that really got
Speaker 1: Q and I to have a conversation that we seldom
Speaker 1: have around here, where we start to challenge our beliefs
Speaker 1: and question how deep they go. So you're definitely going
Speaker 1: to want to stick around for that and so much more.
Speaker 1: But first and foremost, we're going to do like we
Speaker 1: always do it this time, start to show off with
Speaker 1: some ebbing excellence, shall we we shall? This time it's
Speaker 1: some sports stuff? So cute? Do you want to take that?
Speaker 2: I love when he says some sports stuff because that's
Speaker 2: just beyond his level of comprehendon.
Speaker 1: You could just do it better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right. Today's ebony excellence brought to us by Actively Black.
Speaker 2: There is greatness in our DNA. Is it actively black
Speaker 2: dot com? This story comes from Lakers Nation dot com. Wow,
Speaker 2: I just read the first sentence and it gave me pause.
Speaker 2: Set to begin his twenty first NBA season, Lebron James
Speaker 2: will turn thirty nine years old in just a few months,
Speaker 2: but the Lakers superstar remains amongst the NBA's most elite players.
Speaker 2: Last season, Lebron was once again named to the NBA's
Speaker 2: All NBA Team, posting an average of twenty eight point
Speaker 2: nine points, eight point three rebounds, and six.
Speaker 1: Point eight assist.
Speaker 2: Upon recently getting the news that he is officially wow
Speaker 2: the oldest player, Lebron gave a hilarious response before showing
Speaker 2: off a level of athleticism that looks nothing like that
Speaker 2: of a person nearing age forty. I saw that I
Speaker 2: couldn't do it when I was twenty. Moves like that
Speaker 2: are what many Lakers fans are hoping to see more
Speaker 2: of from Lebron this year. His foot injury severely hampered
Speaker 2: him during the playoffs, but prior to that, the Lakers
Speaker 2: superstar had many moments resembling that ridiculous dunk. But he
Speaker 2: and the rest of the Lakers are focused solely on
Speaker 2: the ultimate goal of bringing the franchises eighteenth championship.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Lebron needs just one three hundred and forty eight points
Speaker 2: to become the NBA's first forty thousand point player. James
Speaker 2: also has a chance to surpass another record held by
Speaker 2: a Lakers legend, Kareem abdul Jabbar. Abdul Jabbar averaged twenty
Speaker 2: three point four points in the nineteen eighty five eighty
Speaker 2: six season, the highest ever by the NBA's oldest active
Speaker 2: player coincidentally thirty nine during that season, just as Lebron
Speaker 2: will do this year.
Speaker 1: Listen, he is still excellent and he has been the
Speaker 1: whole time. So glad we had a chance to shout
Speaker 1: him out. So I have been doing my best to
Speaker 1: research this war. It's being dubbed the Hamas Palestine, or sorry,
Speaker 1: the Hamas Israel war, or the Israel Hamas. Warn't forget
Speaker 1: the order, but it's being dubbed that, and I believe
Speaker 1: that what that does is that paints a picture that
Speaker 1: isn't entirely accurate in terms of the result or the outcomes,
Speaker 1: because it kind of makes me think that it's between
Speaker 1: Hamas and Israel, which I believe in theory that's what
Speaker 1: it is, but the people bearing the brunt of that
Speaker 1: ends up being the Palestinians.
Speaker 2: I think it's very intentionally phrase that way, okay, to
Speaker 2: give those who are not who haven't done any research
Speaker 2: or who might lack information, the impression that that's what's happened.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So and it and it points the empathy toward a
Speaker 2: very specific group in that conflict. I think intentionally, sure,
Speaker 2: it's just my opinion.
Speaker 1: Though, no, no, no, that's that's what I was trying
Speaker 1: to say. So, Susanne, as I appreciate you being here,
Speaker 1: So before we get started, tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about yourself and sort of you're going to give us
Speaker 1: a little bit more perspective, Uh, give us an idea
Speaker 1: of your the walk of life that you come from
Speaker 1: that allows you credible perspective for the benefit of our listeners.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: My parents are a Palestinian Christians from a suburb of Bethlehem.
Speaker 3: So they came here with my mom was pregnant with me,
Speaker 3: born in Detroit, and we've been going back ever since,
Speaker 3: back and forth. I've worked with peacekeeping organizations there. My
Speaker 3: grandparents who were still alive and still living there. I
Speaker 3: was with them in Palestine last month. They are older
Speaker 3: than the State of Israel. They remember when it was
Speaker 3: just Palestine, and they remember the israelis coming in. So
Speaker 3: our history goes back before people even before and Israel
Speaker 3: even existed, and that was our land the entire time.
Speaker 3: So for people to think that this isn't this has
Speaker 3: been happening for thousands of years, because people think that
Speaker 3: because they've got the Bible and they hear that, oh,
Speaker 3: this has just always been happening. There's always been occupation
Speaker 3: on that land, but it's never been like this, and
Speaker 3: Israel is a new.
Speaker 1: State, Okay, Okay. So I feel compelled to let our
Speaker 1: listener know that the reason why today's conversation is important
Speaker 1: is because again, I've had some conversations with some people
Speaker 1: who are Jewish. These are Jewish journalists, these are people
Speaker 1: who are I believe to be good people, and they
Speaker 1: can only offer so much insight and perspective in terms
Speaker 1: of this conflict. And so, in sort of regurgitating what
Speaker 1: I had learned so far, it felt like I wasn't
Speaker 1: able to fully articulate the other side of things. And
Speaker 1: since then, a lot of the visuals, since since my
Speaker 1: initial conversation with my Jewish friends, a lot of the visuals,
Speaker 1: a lot of the videos coming out that are very,
Speaker 1: very sad, videos of death, and obviously we have to
Speaker 1: mention that we've seen the bodies of young children. We
Speaker 1: tried to talk about that last episode, and I just
Speaker 1: gave up because it's not it is beyond the scope
Speaker 1: of my abilities to articulate a mango child's body on
Speaker 1: the radio. I'm not just not that morbid of a person.
Speaker 1: But since learning all of this, and then, of course
Speaker 1: knowing what I've known, I have not been able to
Speaker 1: fully explain the other side of it. I feel like
Speaker 1: there's a gap there that is really important that people
Speaker 1: know about. So I appreciate you coming here. Before we
Speaker 1: get started, I want us to use the thought starter
Speaker 1: in terms of our conversation. So what we're going to
Speaker 1: do is play a video from a gentleman by the
Speaker 1: name of Ali Velshi. This is from twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: May have twenty twenty one on MSNBC, and just listen
Speaker 1: and we'll get your initial thoughts.
Speaker 4: One thing clear, Israel has a right to exist and
Speaker 4: to defend itself. That is an indisputable fact. But so
Speaker 4: do Palestinians, and that's a fact that's often ignored. Palestinians
Speaker 4: are at best third class citizens in the nation of
Speaker 4: their birth. The idea that it's even remotely controversial to
Speaker 4: call what Israel has imposed on Palestinians a form of
Speaker 4: apartheid is laughable. One look at a current map of Israel,
Speaker 4: Gaza and the occupied territories conjures up only one other example.
Speaker 1: Apartheid era South Africa.
Speaker 4: The Israeli government, on an ongoing basis declares parcels of
Speaker 4: land on which Palestinians live to be either of military
Speaker 4: or archaeological importance, causing residents to be evicted. Sometimes there's
Speaker 4: a court case, and almost always the Palestinians lose. Yet
Speaker 4: months or weeks later, that same important land suddenly becomes
Speaker 4: home to a brand new Israeli settlement. As more and
Speaker 4: more Jewish settlers take over land on which Arabs live,
Speaker 4: the occupied West Bank becomes de facto more Israeli and,
Speaker 4: in the explicit hopes of the Israeli government, more Jewish.
Speaker 4: This is a long standing attempt, and a deliberate attempt
Speaker 4: to force Arabs, who have lived in that land, sometimes
Speaker 4: for hundreds of years, out as attempt to dilute the
Speaker 4: their presence, because to have Arabs as full participants is
Speaker 4: in the opinion of the Israeli government and their courts,
Speaker 4: diluting Israel. Just prior to the pandemic, I toured many
Speaker 4: of the contested areas and homes from which Arabs are
Speaker 4: being pushed out, both in Israel proper and in the
Speaker 4: occupied territories. Palestinians don't control the important parts of their lives.
Speaker 4: Palestinian families are refused permits to build or renovate their homes.
Speaker 4: When they connect their homes to the municipal water supply.
Speaker 4: Israeli soldiers sometimes cut the pipes when they attempt to
Speaker 4: harness solar energy because their homes are not on the grid.
Speaker 4: Israeli soldiers literally come and remove solar panels from their homes.
Speaker 4: I spent an hour and a half traveling alongside an
Speaker 4: elderly Palestinian woman who is being transferred between three ambulances
Speaker 4: from Gaza to the no man's land in between and
Speaker 4: then into Israel to get cancer treatment.
Speaker 1: Three ambulances over the course.
Speaker 4: Of one mile more than an hour to cross the border.
Speaker 4: That's how Gazans live without medical treatment because Israel prevents it.
Speaker 4: Without electricity much of the time, because Israel prevents it.
Speaker 1: Without the ability to.
Speaker 4: Fish in the Mediterranean Ocean, because Israel prevents it without
Speaker 4: an airport or a seaport, because Israel prevents it. Like Israelis,
Speaker 4: Palestinians also have a right to exist and to defend themselves,
Speaker 4: but there is no one willing to help them do that,
Speaker 4: not the Israeli courts and not the US government. What
Speaker 4: the US also shares with Israel is the belief that Hamas,
Speaker 4: the political party that governs Gaza, is a terrorist organization
Speaker 4: that calls for the destruction of Israel.
Speaker 1: Hamas is supported.
Speaker 4: By the majority of Palestinians in Gaza. Hamas may not
Speaker 4: be in the best long term interests of the Gazans,
Speaker 4: but peace hasn't really worked out for them. Based with
Speaker 4: an Israeli government which pens them into what has been
Speaker 4: called the world's largest open air prison. They have chosen
Speaker 4: a government that most of US wouldn't prefer, one that
Speaker 4: is not given to negotiation and moderation and respect for
Speaker 4: its neighbor. Israel needs a new approach to the Palestinians,
Speaker 4: and America needs a new approach to Israel. After more
Speaker 4: than seven decades of not just being deprived of land
Speaker 4: from which they were evicted, Palestinian frustration runs deep it
Speaker 4: may be worth going deeper than what you may hear
Speaker 4: inside your bubble and understanding the depth to which the
Speaker 4: Palestinian people are subject to apartheid in their own land,
Speaker 4: deprived of basic necessities and subject to relentless civil rights violations.
Speaker 4: This is not a secret. It's out there for you
Speaker 4: to see. You just have to look for it. One
Speaker 4: thing clear, Israel has a right to exist.
Speaker 3: That was so well well done, so well spoken, and
Speaker 3: everything that he said conjured up images of things that
Speaker 3: I've seen. First of all, when they say they have
Speaker 3: the right to defend themselves, that line really frustrates me
Speaker 3: because that's a propaganda line. And it's also the question
Speaker 3: is from whom? From the people that they are occupying,
Speaker 3: from the victims of apartheid and ethnic cleansing. That's who
Speaker 3: they're defending themselves from. So that line is really really frustrating,
Speaker 3: and it's not it's in ellipses, and we need to
Speaker 3: finish that sentence that we need to really talk about
Speaker 3: who they're defending themselves from. They are third class citizens.
Speaker 3: My family doesn't have a right. So we're in Bethlehem
Speaker 3: in Jerusalem is next door, and they are not allowed
Speaker 3: to go into Jerusalem and visit their holy sites there
Speaker 3: unless they have a permit. These permits are very hard
Speaker 3: to get. And when they go through the checkpoint in Bethlehem,
Speaker 3: there's two checkpoints, one for foreigners and one for Palestinians.
Speaker 3: The lines are long. People are trying to get into
Speaker 3: work into Jerusalem if they if they do work in
Speaker 3: in Jerusalem or in Israel proper, they're subjected to. The
Speaker 3: indignity that they're subjected to at checkpoints is nobody should
Speaker 3: be subjected to it. They make you stand there such
Speaker 3: long lines. I've seen soldiers spit and throw water, like
Speaker 3: just a water bottle that they were drinking, and then
Speaker 3: just throw the rest of it in the faces of
Speaker 3: people at checkpoints who are actually in their own city
Speaker 3: trying to go to a mosque, but there's a checkpoint
Speaker 3: between the city and the mosque's It's just it's constant,
Speaker 3: constant military rule, military rule. This is a military ruled country.
Speaker 3: When I appreciate being on here because the equivalent that
Speaker 3: I would like to share is that talking about this
Speaker 3: and allowing for the Palestinian perspective is talking about South
Speaker 3: African apartheid and allowing for the black perspective, and we're
Speaker 3: not always doing that. We're Can you imagine only talking
Speaker 3: to white people in South Africa about South African apartheid.
Speaker 3: It doesn't make sense. They're not the ones experiencing the apartheid.
Speaker 3: So we're trying to get our voices out there for
Speaker 3: this reason, because we're the ones experiencing this. We in
Speaker 3: this case. I don't like to be a victim, but
Speaker 3: we are. We're the victim here the evictions that occur.
Speaker 3: I met a man whose house was demolished five times.
Speaker 3: He's trying to build on his own land, but they say,
Speaker 3: you're not allowed to build without a permit. You're going
Speaker 3: to ask for a permit from the Israeli government. They
Speaker 3: don't want to give you a permit, So you build anyway.
Speaker 3: What are you going to do. You've got more kids,
Speaker 3: you've got families, you're growing. And then they go, oh,
Speaker 3: you built without a permit, so we're going to demolish
Speaker 3: your home. So they demolish the home. Sometimes they're actually
Speaker 3: able to get them completely off of the land. When
Speaker 3: they do that, they'll try as hard as they can
Speaker 3: to get back on that land. But if they can't
Speaker 3: get back on that land, for three years. The government says, oh,
Speaker 3: you haven't tended to that land for three years, so
Speaker 3: now it's ours. And so there's this tactic between the
Speaker 3: military and the government where the military sweeps you off
Speaker 3: your land as much as they possibly can, and then
Speaker 3: you can't get back there for three years, and then
Speaker 3: next thing, you know, the government's like, well, you didn't
Speaker 3: use it, so it's ours.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: This is systemic. They are doing this. They know exactly
Speaker 3: what they're doing. I mean, they're they're not They're brilliant.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the conflict, because to be fair,
Speaker 1: that video that we saw was from twenty twenty one, right,
Speaker 1: so let's talk about the recent conflict that started on
Speaker 1: October seventh, seventh, right, So, I guess dude, because he
Speaker 1: mentioned that the Hamas has a lot of support from
Speaker 1: the Palestinians, which makes sense according to what it is
Speaker 1: that you know, you're saying that they're living under and
Speaker 1: what he was saying too, it's just kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: peace doesn't work, so this is probably the only way
Speaker 1: that we can change our day to day reality. Before
Speaker 1: the day of the attack, how did the people of
Speaker 1: Palestine regard Hamas?
Speaker 3: Okay, so I need to explain that Hamas only governs Gaza.
Speaker 3: They don't govern the West Bank or my family lives.
Speaker 3: Their political organization, they were elected. Why were they elected?
Speaker 3: They were elected because these are people who are under
Speaker 3: so much suffering and they are desperate, and Hamas who don't.
Speaker 3: I don't support them. I don't like their ideology, but
Speaker 3: they were actually doing something and palsing and people were like,
Speaker 3: you know what, somebody's fighting for us, so fine, go ahead.
Speaker 3: The things that Hamas did that was so awful on
Speaker 3: the seventh and the eighth. What frustrated me about that
Speaker 3: is Israel's been doing that for seventy five years. So
Speaker 3: if you're going to be all up in flames about
Speaker 3: what Hemas did, fine good. What they did was not okay,
Speaker 3: But then you have to also not be okay with
Speaker 3: what Israel's been doing because it's the exact same thing
Speaker 3: and worse for seventy five years. So they are there
Speaker 3: ruling in Gaza. They're a political organization. Fun fact, they're
Speaker 3: a political organization that only came about in I think
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty seven if I remember correctly, and the State
Speaker 3: of Israel's been around since nineteen forty eight. So they've
Speaker 3: been doing this since before Hamas existed, and they helped
Speaker 3: support the founding of Hemas because in other places, especially
Speaker 3: in the West Bank, we were looking for more secular,
Speaker 3: liberal organizations, political organizations to rule, and that doesn't bode
Speaker 3: well for the State of Israel. They need extremism because
Speaker 3: now we have a we have an enemy, Now we
Speaker 3: can fight a Look, they're so there's so violence.
Speaker 1: That's what I was going to say. Is it the
Speaker 1: case that it certainly seems this way, But would you
Speaker 1: say that Hamas gives Israel an excuse to affect the people,
Speaker 1: the Palestinian people. Does it give them license to now say, okay,
Speaker 1: well let's bomb all this stuff? Because how about this?
Speaker 1: So what I was told is that Hamas is a
Speaker 1: terrorist organization. I was told that Hamas uses hospitals and
Speaker 1: schools and so forth as basis of operation, and that
Speaker 1: Israel has no choice but to attack these places strategically
Speaker 1: to root out the Hamas threat. And you know, what
Speaker 1: we're talking about is seeing all these images of these
Speaker 1: body parts of children. Yeah, you know, and and they've
Speaker 1: they've admitted like, hey, you know, we can't get everybody.
Speaker 1: There's some people can't evacuate. You know, that's just this
Speaker 1: kind of part and parcel to the war. But we're
Speaker 1: specifically targeting Hamas. Do you feel like perhaps Israel is
Speaker 1: using Hamas as an excuse to.
Speaker 3: So? I figured so, first of all, they've been doing
Speaker 3: this for a long time, Like they didn't start bombing yesterday.
Speaker 3: This They've been bombing Gaza for the last seventeen years.
Speaker 3: They love this, they love that. Now Hamas is such
Speaker 3: a great excuse. I'm telling you, this is a terrorist organization.
Speaker 3: They're coward to hide behind civilians. We have to go
Speaker 3: and we have to bomb everything. They completely like just
Speaker 3: if you think about it, just from a perspective of geography,
Speaker 3: they've completely decimated all of northern Gaza, that's the closest
Speaker 3: part to them, and they're slowly just going to move
Speaker 3: further and further south and just ethnically cleanse via genocide
Speaker 3: that entire region because they want that land, they want
Speaker 3: that entire region, and this is the easiest way for
Speaker 3: them to do it. In Gaza, it's an open air prison.
Speaker 3: The UN deemed it uninhabitable. They don't have clean water,
Speaker 3: they haven't had clean water in years. Then they try
Speaker 3: they don't have electricity without the permission of Israel. They
Speaker 3: can cut it off whenever they want. They use collective
Speaker 3: punishment to do that. This is just a land grab,
Speaker 3: the most violent land grab.
Speaker 1: So we have about two minutes left. I want to
Speaker 1: get your thoughts on Joe Biden's stance supporting Israels and
Speaker 1: effectively distancing himself from the people of Palestine. How did
Speaker 1: that hit you or is there been a reaction from
Speaker 1: you know, family friends.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my family's appalled, but not shocked that. No American
Speaker 3: I mean, Jimmy Carter is probably the only one that's
Speaker 3: ever really been supportive. But no, they don't they He's
Speaker 3: a puppet. He's an absolute puppet. And the president before
Speaker 3: him was a puppet, and the president before him was
Speaker 3: a puppet. Their puppets for the state of Israel. And
Speaker 3: how can they sit there and ask for peace and
Speaker 3: then give Israel thirty eight billion dollars which they Obama
Speaker 3: actually said, We're going to give you thirty eight billion
Speaker 3: dollars over the next ten years. How in what world
Speaker 3: are the Americans actually trying to negotiate peace between the
Speaker 3: two groups.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was.
Speaker 2: Actually going to say the US government, I don't think
Speaker 2: that's unique to Joe Biden. No, our politicians in mass
Speaker 2: have stood in support and solidarity with Israel blindly, Republicans
Speaker 2: and Democrats. Yeah, and this attack, as you said, license
Speaker 2: to morally support in that way, right, we all have
Speaker 2: to support, you know, a response, an aggressive response to
Speaker 2: this terrorist act. So let's kill everybody.
Speaker 1: Well, obviously this is a much longer conversation. I feel
Speaker 1: like you haven't even begun to scratch the service of
Speaker 1: everything that needs to be articulated. Are you on social media?
Speaker 1: I know you have your book. I'm going to make
Speaker 1: sure that you plug your book, But are on social
Speaker 1: media anything like that you're following to so please share
Speaker 1: with you.
Speaker 3: I am. I'm pretty active on Instagram. I've been sharing
Speaker 3: a lot, and I have had the opportunity to educate
Speaker 3: so many people who are saying, oh my god, I
Speaker 3: had no idea. Thank you and it's susy team awesome,
Speaker 3: s u z y A t I m A s
Speaker 3: l A M.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, well complicated. Hopefully you'll stick around for
Speaker 1: the next part of the show. I appreciate you giving
Speaker 1: us this insight because this is something that we definitely needed.
Speaker 1: We needed an original, fresh voice and you provided that.
Speaker 3: So thank you for thank you for the opportun tunity
Speaker 3: I