#391 – Mohammed El-Kurd: Palestine
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The following is a conversation with ham occurred, a world renowned palestine, an poet, writer, journalist and an influential voice, speaking out and fighting for the palestinian cause. He provides a very different perspective on israel and palestine that my previous two episodes with Benjamin ahoo, and you've all know Harry, I hope his story, in his words, at your understanding of this part of the world, as I did to mine, I will continue to have difficult, long form conversations such as these, always with empathy and humility, but with backbone. And please allow me to briefly comment about criticisms I receive of who I am as an interviewer and human being.

I am not afraid to travel anywhere or chAllenge anyone face to face even if he puts my life in danger, but i'm also not afraid to be vulnerable to truly listen to, to walk out on the well, warm shoes of those. Very different from me is the slatter task, not the form of one that is truly the most chAllenging in conversations and in life. But to me, that is the only way.

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So I like when the packaging enforces moderation and is just a diversity of deliciousness. Also bringing to the podcast studio and share with guests so they can partake in the plaza of flavors that is the muslim ma dema snacks. I'm still not sure what my favorite is actually like with the element drink. I'm really sure that watermelon insult t is my favourite favour. But house marketing ias man is so much good stuff, both the hole nuts and the bars just really, really, really, really delicious.

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Tell me about shake you are the neighbor od in east .

jerusalem where you grew up in in a way a typical neighborhood spite despite the absurd reality that surrounds its a typical in terms of palestinian neighbors ods is one that is threatened with colonel ism, with settle expansion and with force expulsion. And IT has been that way since the early seventies.

My family, like all of the other family, and otha h were expelled from their homes in the neck by in one hundred and forty eight, and they were forced out by the haganah and other ozias paralo military that later formed this ready military um and they were driven to various cities and my grandmother moved from city to city and he ended up in sulzer had one thousand and fifty six shooter has established as a refugee housing unit uh by the united nations and by deserting inan government, which has which had control over that part of jeos lum at the at the time and then people live there. Hoy, monied, sly. They were all from different parts of palestine.

And you know, they managed ry built their lives after the first explosion and then in the seventies you had sell or organizations um many of whom were registered here in new york and in the united states claiming our houses and our lands as their own by divine decree and because obviously because the judges are israeli and the laws were written by israel sellers and the whole judiciary was established a top the the rubble of our homes and villages we had no you know we had no real pool in the courts these many courts would look at this is really documents which we argue are falsified and um and they would take them phase value without authentication and they refused to look at our documents. They refuse to look at the documents from the journey government, the documents from the U. N.

The documents from the archives. So you already have this kind of a cemetery, the court that for any person with common sense would lead you to believe that this is not in fact a legal battle um or a realist dispute as is really ministry of foreign irs likes to framing but rather a very, very political battle one that is about um social engineering, one is about demographics, one that is about for removing as many palestinians as possible from occupy the salem. Um so we did what all policy and famous in justo m do when they're faced with this kind of threats.

And we bought time. We we pleaded and pleaded and appealed the courts and appealed the cases. And we got over fifty expulsion orders in two thousand and nine rifle wielding sutlers accompanies by police and his military came over and shoved our neighbours out outside of their home.

Or on five I am. It's like he was the most brutal violence i've seen as a child at the time, and I didn't realized that my turn was coming. My turn was next. They throw, they throw them out in the middle of the night with sound bombs and rubber bullets, and they had to live intense on the street for many, many months and even lived in a front yard for a few months and lived in their cars.

That process two thousand nine at the exposure oris what, uh, what was happening between the .

seventies and two thousand and nine, there have been many dozens of exposing orders against us and against many other families and in neighbor od twenty eight other family twenty eight times in total actually um and in two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine the first wave of explosions finally happened IT actually began with uh uncapable called were not related but we live on the same street on the same neighbor d SHE was thrown out of her home and her husband and elderly man also named the humble court was pronounced dead on the spot.

He had a stroke and die. They this lady soldiers pulled him out of his home while he was urn acting and throw him into the streets, and he died a few months later. The value and honey on families um which you know kind of not a clan, but you know in poetry and you have sometimes a building that contains multiple brothers and their wives um you to have little apartment so that are in hunting families.

About thirty five people were thrown out in the middle of the street, right across from us. And then by the end of two thousand and nine I had come home from school to find all of my furniture, scatter across the link of the street, and I saw the settings, many of whom had american accents, living in our house. Um and they are justification for this.

The reasoning process is, you know, divine decree. This is, this is what god wants. This is the promised land. This is so and so as I forgot, is some kind of real state agent. Um so they took over half of our home and we continue to be in courts for the following decade.

This was I was still a child and I had broken english and I was talking to all of the diplomat of these journalists who would you know subject me um to their subject me to their you know race, design bias and and so on and so for and I had to prove my humanity time and time again and I had to, you know do all of this all with broken english um and we were lucky, even if we got a if we got a quote in the in the article writing about us by the times so on. And so fourth, move forward to twenty twenty. I was in new york city studying um a master disagree getting a mater disagree and my father calls me and he told me, you know, we haven't yet another expulsion order and we decided to launch a amp.

Ign IT was quite ambitious at the time, but the whole objective of the campaign was to diversify what is happening, right? Because it's reported on in the nose, it's reported on around the world as this realistic dispute, as these evictions, which was not really what's happening evictions, do not entail a foreign army in an occupied territory forcibly removing you out of your home. So I came home from new york, and we launched a campaign which turned into a global success. And I believe IT was a global success because finally, the the images on the screen matched the rhetoric. C, that was being said, IT wasn't so confusing or complicated anymore. All of this, a timely, was pronounced, articulated in a way that any view or be at in alabama, be at in new york, beat in egypt was able to understand the cemetery, the of the judicial system, and, you know, the agenda of colonize that was taking place here and due to immense international and diplomatic pressure um from all over the world even the united states the israel supreme court was forced to cancel all of the eviction an orders and such other until further notice this I consider was a small Victory because obviously we are still at risk of losing our homes once they decide to do the land registry, which we can get into a bit later if you'd like. Um but nonetheless was something that we haven't seen before and the fact that the supreme court cancelled all of these dozens and dozens of fast vict orders inside the president and IT also proved that this was a political battle.

not a legal one. So I just add a little more details to the people who are familiar with the story, with the region, with the evictions, with the courts. So first of all, check your eyes in east jersey.

M, maybe you can say, what is jerusalem? Where is IT located? What are we talking about in terms of regionally? And second, what kind of people that live there? So if you could talk about the past stonie people and um we should also make clear that these evictions is literally people living in homes and their homes are taken away from them. I suppose technically it's legal evictions, but you're saying that there is a accessory of power in the courts where the legal is, uh, not so much legal but is a politically and may be even religious ly based .

yeah I mean the biggest the most important context here is often times americans think that israel, palestine, some kind of two neighbor to neighbor countries um that live next to each other and they are at war but the fact of the matter is palestinian cities exist um all over the country and is just one country, just one infrastructure and israelis literally on top of palestine IT was established on top of our villages um in the late forties uh now according to international law the eastern part of genuine em is under occupation so is really presents and diction over the area is completely illuminate they say the evictions are legal because the sutlers write their laws.

Obviously they are going to allow settlements to expand but according to international law, according to even U S. policy. Israel occupies the eastern part of jeos em.

Its jurisdiction there is illegitimate. We shouldn't even be going to their courts in the first place, but we have no other option. Um we're talking we're talking about genera. We're talking about the son. We're talking about generations and generations and generations of people who have lived there for the longest time, who now, even though, you know, for example, me, I don't have a citizenship.

I'm a resident and me a resident, I have a blue I D card, even though my grandmother and my grandfather were born judicium, their grandparents were born judicial m um even though you've lived there for generations about palestinians in geno's. M we are not citizens. We are just mere residence.

Same thing with residents of the occupied syrian. Go on. They are not citizens. They are just resilience in their own hometowns. Um this is an important peace but all of this gets convoluted and lost in translation.

And I think I I would argue it's a lot more it's a lot of the time it's dube as it's it's malaise. The fact that these little pieces of context that frame the entire story get lost, you know, i'll talk to you about something else. Um just ten minutes ten minutes across from my neighbor.

Od, so they not their neighborhood. Sylvan and the people in silwan are also threatened with expulsion, but not through evictions, but through home demolition ons. And if you look at american state, american media, or is very state media, you would read the headlines, you know, palestinian s living and homes built illegally are gna face, you know, their homes is there are going to be torn apart. What these headlines don't tell you and even something most of time the substance doesn't tell you, that tinian seldom ever get building permit applications um in fact um recently a spokesperson for this really military confront that was ninety five percent of building permits applications submitted by palestinian euston andoas bank or ted by the israeli authorities and to make this even more absurd, the guy the council man who is responsible um for rejecting and accepting building building permit applications, his name is the only use of and he's a he's a an activist in the settle er movements and he's a jewish m council number and he last week following the explosions of A A suburban family and the old city of the sum he posted to his official his facebook account ban now um demanding a second neck bar provinces another neck but he has done so on many occasions he has changed with a microphone just a few months ago walking down the street and my neighbor od chanting we want but now this is a man who has vandalized miracles who who has a screamed asylum hob lurs this is literally a man in the government making these decisions right uh and this is similar to you know mr.

OTA in the southern health for those who don't know it's it's the place in the occupied west bank where bedroom and um cave dollar palestinians have lived for generations they have cultivated the land um and recently they were expelled from their homes over a thousand people expelled from their remote small villages again, if you're reading american media, they would say that they would say palestinians living in firing zones, we are removed because they are living in a military zone. What these media reports will not tell you that in the eighties, the israeli government purposefully classified many lands in the occupy the west bank as firing zones, as of limit military zones for the sole purpose of expelling the residence. And this is not some kind of conspiracy theory. This is the classified information that was ready to from as ready state archive that was later reported on by her audits. Also, these reports will not tell you that the judge who rules on whether these people continue to live under homes or not is himself a settling in the west bank and am not even talking about you know a loose definition of a settled but according to international law this is a settle er living illegally in an illegal settled in the occupied west bank this is a judicially we deal with which is hilarious considering how it's being reported on um in american media recently as some kind of beacon of progress and democracy that the new government is trying to undermine.

So there is no representation in the courts for the palace inie people.

I mean, we have the lawyers, but no, there is no, there is no. In fact, there is for palestinians with israeli citizenships, for example, there is over sixty laws that specifically and explicitly discs against them.

So again, it's technically legal. The evictions and the demolitions.

yeah, so was jim crow was legal also, you know.

when something is legal can also still be wrong.

He history has shown as time and time again um that legality does not necessarily mean morality and the law you know is a the law is a bloodbath in many ways. Um IT has been used an abuse to facilitate the most horrendous atrocities in an in the case of the pastor, ian has served to facilitate and bureaucratic ze or ethnic.

You think there's people, judges and just people in power in the judiciary that have hate for the personal people.

I mean I am not really yeah the the easy simplistic c and is yes but I don't really care about the content of their hearts, what they care about, the policy they enact at the laws they write and enact. Or hateful demolishing a person's home um so you can have somebody from long island, new york who's fleeing, you know, fraud charges um this is the case in my house live in in there in there you know front yard that's hateful so I don't need a confirmation. This is something we see a lot actually know um palestinians and people who are propane stine people who want to make a difference in how this cause is represented.

But we often run for the first opportunity to sight and israeli being hateful you know the recent the last israeli prime minister said that he has killed many arabs and that he has no coins with IT um ntini ahoo has said a slew of racist, hateful things. Um joky the pioneer, zn ism heart to one of the pioneers s of sinister all have said horrible, hateful things. We also, like cannot wait to, you know, site A A confession from a former is really soldier who is guilty conscience is keeping them you know, up at night.

And we use all of these, you know, confessions or slip ups as evidence to prove that this is a racist country. That is, an acting is racist acts. But we don't need that because the material proof is on the ground.

You see IT in the policies that are enacted. You see IT um in how the country, how this regime has behaved for the past seventy five years. I don't need you know confessions from the likes of antonia how to understand that his heart is full of hate .

so if you could return to nineteen forty eight and describe something that you've mentioned, the knocked ba, which means catastrophe in arabic. What was this event? What was this displacement, dispossession of posture? Ans, in eighty forty eight?

Well, you know, like eighteen, nineteen forty eight um is commemorated every year, as you know, the anniversary of the navy but I would even argue anything this is like a very popular idea is that the everybody did not begin or end one thousand nine forty eight the forty eight was rather you know a Crystalized of designers enterprise in palestine um and what what happened was is out many zion's paramilitary again today emerged and made the israeli army which calls itself there is really defence forces, even though the little always aggressor um committed atrocities and massacres and you know they destroyed over five hundred villages, they killed over fifteen thousand people.

They forced uh a very large portion, a majority of the palestinian population uh, to flee their homes. And this was, you know the near total destruction of a senior society that continues on to this day. We we refer to IT as the ongoing duckbill, and you see IT in and still at all, you see IT and still one.

You see IT and have gone, and all of these people losing their homes. And in many case of time and time again, you know, I grow up. And my grandmother told me the stories about the neck.

He told me stories about her neighbors who were running away in a panicked, and they had mistake in a pillow for their offspring, and they just took IT with none, and they realize later that they forgot their child. And they came back for many, many people who were separated from their, my grandmother herself SHE lost her husband for a few months. For nine months he was imprisoned the israeli um you know SHE told me all of these stories and SHE wasn't just remaining about them.

He was letting me know that this is still happening and and I didn't need to grow up that old to see that happening in my own front yard to see that expulsion happen in the same fashion. She's talked about IT. But you know now they have replaced their artillery with the judiciary. Um they have replaced you know the the the slashing of the pregnant women's belies in the the scene massacre with with law as that say you know you you're not legally allowed to be her we're onna kick you out of your home and it's happening and IT has happened in in in broad daylight um one piece of context for the listener and who doesn't who is not familiar with the neck by is the belt declaration which was a promise coron quote promise made by the british to designers movement in one thousand hundred and seventeen committing to the establishment i'm calling, I think, worth forward committing to the establishment of a jew's state in palestine um as a false sign was you know the british to give away um and there was this whole movement the called for colonization of alliston and there were different there were different schools of thought and ziem you know people like xiang well said that this was a country without a people um and pasSonians who have existed there who have cultivated the lanes who have you know her diverse cultural and religious and political practices they were completely erased and other people like substance ski um were a lot more explicit and a lot more honest and said that we need to fight the palestinians because they love their land much like the red love their lands and he had a paper called the iron world colonization of palestine must go forward um and all of these all of these schools of thoughts were then shopping around for you know imperial support uh for their cause they try they tried to get supports from the autumn empire um they tried to get support from germany and this is in the eighteen hundreds and then they got support from the united. Kingdom of a great book to recommend is the hundred the hundred years war on palace in by the shitty um that the you know traces designers movement often times in designers own words um and so today what we're seeing is a continuation.

And you know, people like a votini who are like profoundly and explicitly racist, who have called for genocide, who have called the palestinians barry, who have said and done raised the things, you know, Justin's, he also was like the founder of the egon, one of the other millish later merged to become the I the is ready army, uh, which was responsible for the area in massacre, which was responsible for the booming of the king David hotel um this is a person who still celebrated in his own society. There are still streets named after him and nothing at all just two weeks ago, if a mistake and honor him in a public celebration. Um so this is sinister is not even through my own words .

would he said to people um that describe israel as having historical right to the land. So if you stretch have crossed decades but across centuries into the past .

this kind of thing is a red hearing um it's the destruction because you don't think of any state as having rights. But there is this exceptionalism to the israeli regime where IT is IT has the right to defend itself, and IT has the right to the land, and IT has the right to shoot fourteen year old boys, because I thought they had a knife in their pockets. You know, a lot of time people side the tour on site, religious books.

And you know, sometimes sinus will even say, like, read the good on in love blow. You know, regardless of whatever was written in these books that were written thousands and thousands of years ago, the fact of the matter is no one has a right to go on slaughtering people, removing them from their homes and then continuing to live in their homes, continuing to drink coffee on their balconies. Um decades and decades leader with no shame, with no introspection, uh with no reflection that no one has the right to do that, no one has the right to keep an entire population of people in a cage, uh which is what's happening to people in the west bank who have no freedom of uh of movement, which is what's happening in gaza which is blocked ed, the water iron land is deemed uninhabitable by human rites organizations like the U N. No one has right to do that .

do you have hate in your heart for israel?

Why why does that matter?

As one human being to another, you are describing my brilliantly that the contents of people's hard still matter as much as the policies in the contest of the courts, in the laws and what actually is going on on the streets in terms of actions. But this is also a human story yeah. and.

Feel like. At the core of the situation here is a hate is, or maybe inability for sung per humans to see the humanity in another group of humans. And so is important here to talk about the contents of hearts. If you think about the long term future of this.

yeah I mean, um I would be concerned actually, if I didn't feel some kind of way in my heart, I would be concerned for my own dignity because the people who revolt, the people who are angry, the people who refuse to live on their occupation, know that they deserve Better. People start revolutions, not because of some kind of cultural phenomenon, not because of some kind of desire, but because they cannot breathe.

Because they cannot, they cannot breathe, they cannot live. They are living under excitation circumstances. You know, palestinians, you know, I don't know I don't know how many postini ans interacted with, but we are some of the most wonderful people. I know not all of us see some of us you know and suffer. But most of us, you know most of us you know we are very, very hospitable.

Um we're very hospital even like in the early early correspondence between the mayor of judo salem and the hearts soul who wrote the jewish ate you know the generosity through which uh the palestinian may I was talking to hurt so he was plotting to take over his land is impressive and at the same time you know heart watching. But I I personally think there is there's a lot of dignity and innovating your oppressor and I think that would be ridiculous today today, if we like, look, package on go, for example. And we asked the person who lived under gm crow, um if they have hate in their heart for gym crew, as if that's not the absolutely logical and natural sentiment film .

in ria eo, my father told me, angers a luxe we cannot afford. Be composed, calm still, laugh when they ask you, smile when they talk, answer them, educate them. So let me let go on this is their anger in there in your heart. IT is a cloudy judgement.

Does IT cloud management? I don't think so. I think with I think our campaign to defend our homes was particularly successful because IT was honest to what was happening on the ground, because IT refused to follow the strategy that we have used in our advocacy before, where we shrink ourselves and we turn the other three, can we try to convince american lawmakers in american diplomats, journalists of our humanity? Because we wait for the approval you know I was fourteen years old when I first uh flow to congress to speak to congress people and to speak to a the european parliament and I at the time I thought, wow, I must be such a brilliant fourteen year old um for them to have me here and you know looking back, I didn't know what I was talking about. I had horrendously broken english.

Um I didn't have any any talking points and I came to realize that the the reason why we send our kids with their powers points to the hill is because of the racism and the hatred that lingers inside the hearts of american politicians who refused to sit on the table um with palestinian adults as equals um and so we we resort to sending our kids who will not threaten um and who will not you know trigger the bye they have against muslims and era people which palestinians, even though we're not all muslims, are racialized muslims um and this is why we emphasize uh the dust of women and children as though the desks of our men does not counter, does not matter all of these things I think the new generation of palestinians is rebelling against. Um I think words like you know I think it's loaded ah it's loaded language uh anger and angry and hate and so on and so forth because I miss ms characterises people and you kind of the legitimizes them a little bit. Um you know I think the real the real anger is the bulldozer um bulldoze through my house.

I think the real anger is the eighteen year old who refuses to see me as a human being and strip searches me every chance they get. That's where the real anger lies and quite honestly proud of you know are una bacheldor um and our refusal to like power heads robbery or heads in the sand. I think that's the only way .

forward to anger whatever IT is, is a feel for action absolutely.

And IT has been throughout throughout history, IT has been.

how much of this tension is religious .

in the .

practical aspects of the courts and the evictions and the demolitions, and you mention something divine decree. How much underneath that do you feel the division over religious text and religious belief?

You know it's convenient to market what's happening in poland as a religious conflict because IT allows um the listener the luxury of believing that this is an ancient, complicated of thing that stretches thousands thousands of years ago.

But the fact of the matter is the people who invented sign ism, who pioneer designers movement, who called for immigration and settling into palestine, a lot of them were atheists S A lot of them were not religious at all um and the leaders of the is ready state today, a lot of them are atheists and a lot of my secular and so on and so forth. It's easy to it's easy to say that this is you know about muslims and Andrews fighting over the land and so on and so forth. But it's not it's about the land itself and it's about people being for thought of their homes.

Benjamin at ahoo said. Anti seism is anti semitism.

of course.

Do you disagree?

Absolutely, I disagree.

What's the gap between and sign anti semitism, those who are against the policies of a israel versus those who are against the jewish people? I watch, well, the first.

like twenty minutes, and then I couldn't do IT anymore, you know but I was. And then what was interesting about anti ahoo is that he said, you know, being being on designers like saying i'm okay with the jews. I just don't believe the jews have a right to form their own state. That's like saying i'm okay with americans.

I'm just not okay with americans having their own state and there is so much wrong with the statement in the sense that jewish people are a religious group in americans and to be being an american is a nationalities that consists of a diversity um of religion and and so on and so first of all, in the second, the second thing that wrong with that statement is the whole idea that states somehow have a right to exist or or whatever it's it's such a destruction. You have you have people getting shot in the streets. You have like millions and millions of people be seat.

Do you have people losing their homes? You have people who are held in is ready prisons without trial um or shorge indefinitely. But the conversations that are being held in the on the hill, the conversation that are being held on CNN, or does israel has a right to exist? Or like why would you gate israel having a right to exist? That's one.

Now of course, I, I, I, I just find it's it's ridiculous again like that uh, opposing a secular political movement that was explicit, colonialist, expansionary, exclusive and racist through the words of its own authors is somehow and also again, opposing such uh, a political movement there is quite Young and quite recent is somehow equivalent equivalent to opposing, uh, a religion that is thousands and thousands of years old but IT is convenient again for israeli politicians to frame us who oppose sinister, a form of racism and bigotry as unto sites. But I can guarantee Benjamin america, who has no problem with antimatter. Sm, this is the same man who has no problem getting on stage and shaking hands with pastor john hagi doing, uh, we webinars with pastor on hag.

For those who don't know, pastor on hagi is the founder of Christians, united visual, who has said on multiple occasions that hell was a hunter who who was sent to hunt the jews, who said multiple occasions that jewish people are gonna parish in hell. You can all of this is like very valuable by, and this is one of the israeli regimes closest allies, right? Um so this really regime does not have a problem with antis.

When IT serves its interest, IT has a problem. I mean, like if you look at the ears, or like Christian's ayna at lords, antimissile lies at the heart of Christian sign ism. IT is the idea that we want to drive all of the jewels outside of the united states so that army getting could happen.

Whatever the fuck. This accusation has been a muscle IT has been used as a muscle to silence political opposition um and to stifle political advocacy for the liberation of palestine. And a lot of the time people get caught up in denouncing IT and in uh justifying themselves and disclaimers and so on and so forth, that you lose the point that you are destructed from the focal point, that is there is an ongoing colonies m happening where people every single day are killed.

I cannot keep count. This morning a kid was shot in palestine. We cannot. It's embarrass even for me that I don't even know the numbers here, but this muscle has been effective and I think the only rights as a option is to is to oppose um these labels, these smear campaigns that target us. Um I myself have been labeled um and anti I by the idea. And I mean, like if you want to talk about the uh surface level people, people say like what are the A D L until famam uh condemn you. But people do not look at the history of the anti information, do not look at the present of the until finished league the fact that they are um the largest non governmental police training a department in the country where they train police and uh racial profiling and militarism the fact that they have historically and continued to have engaged in surveilLance um on on the black liberation movements on antia partha's south african activists most recently and shorted bill when White tea premises were marching um and chanting on systematic show the al advised local police departments to spy on the black organizers opposing the y supreme ists this is again all verifiable .

on the internet go to the drop the old dog org so if the ideal does not alleviate the the hate in the world, as IT probably is designed to do.

no, it's it's a guys. I don't think that apart hy defense league is really our most progressive.

That's what is stands for yeah no no. You know if we can just linger on this idea of antisemitic M. That's quite a bit of anti muslim sentiment in stays, especially after nine eleven.

I spoken to people about that there is also uh anti jewish, anti semitism sentiment in the united states, but also throughout human history. What you make about this kind of fact of human nature that people seem to hate juice throughout history, especially the twenty eighth century, especially, would not see germany. What are you're in general thoughts about the hatred of the jewish people?

I mean, I think it's obviously wrong. I don't know. It's it's this it's this idea that even have to clarify what I think about that doesn't right well with me. I think it's completely unfortunate and wrong that um do with people have been .

prosecuted across so one of the criticisms I think i've read the ideal making this criticism of view is a maybe you ve tweed a comparison between israel and hitler and thereby diminishing the evil that is hitler ah what would you say to that?

Me they're talking about this a lot. Capitalization of hiller hellers are deplorable I don't know, condemn you know raw and racist horrible human being that belongs and the depths of hell. Obviously that's IT that goes without without saying but I am allowed um analysis and am allowed to say whatever want um now I don't consider to think that that such an analogy is a good strategy.

The ha um but at the time the context came in um twenty twenty one when is really soldiers and policemen and sadlers were literally burning down or neighbor od um again verifiable by google um and I tweed IT and I also I remember I treated something I hope every single one of them dies and to this day like this some kind of uh you know got up for me as if I should tweeted like, oh, here's an apple pie for every single soldier that's throwing tear guts in my house you know there's. There is such an exceptional ism where IT comes to palestinians were not allowed analogy or not allowed expression, were not allowed armed resistance. We're not allowed peaceful resistance.

We're not allowed to boycott because that's untethered tic. We're not allowed to do anything. Um so what are we all out, if I if I can, to boycott, and that's against american loan out to boycott if I pick up a rifle because that's against the law.

And if I can even tweet my frustration out, what am I allow to do? Maybe nothing. You can send me a man while he's happy.

Now see you spoken about the taking the homes, the I D F, killing civilians, killing children. What about the violence going in the direction israelis being killed um in by terrorist action?

Well depends on depends on how you define terrible m across history, one man's freedom fighters, another man's terrorist. I don't consider the subscribe to the definition of terrorism. If if a foreign army is in my neighborhood, which is not supposed to be in, and they are shooting life ammunition at my house, i'm allowed to do what i'm allowed to do. And again, this is another yet another case of posting an action on because when IT comes to, people have no problem seeing ukrainians defending their homes, seeing ukrainians 啊 dying for time， and seeing ukrainians, uh, making makeshift more lot of zone. Sky ws, you know sky news was running most of making cocktails.

The new york tents were an article interviewing ukrainian psychologists who said that hatred and parishes but he said hatred for all um russians is actually a healthy outlet the new york post train a headline um champion championing heroic ukrainean suicide bomber um these things we would not even dream of uh as as palestinians we are we are told to turn the other cheek time and time again. We are told that we we should continue living these inside these enclaves without access to clean water, without access to to the right to movement, without access to building permits, without our natural right to expansion, without, you know, without a guarantee that if we leave our house, we're not onna be shot, and we're supposed to not do anything about IT. That is absurd.

Any, any, any person watching this understands this completely. People understand, and you know, people understand that if somebody is attacking your home, you will fights back. If somebodies attacking your family, you fights back. That is, that is not.

But again, who gets to call? Who are terrorists? Who gets to to define tourism? This is all about who has power, who gets to write these laws, who gets to write these definitions ons.

You know, why is that um why is IT that american actions in idol is not called terrorism by american politicians? why? You know violence is is like this mutating, mutating concept.

You know, when he takes on many shapes and forms, and if it's in a uniform, it's if IT speaks in english, if IT has blond hair, it's somehow acceptable. It's okay. We make movies about IT.

You know, we sell out tickets about IT, we make games about IT. But if it's without a uniform, if IT has a thick accent, if IT has a beard, you know that's that's condemn, that's wrong. That's terrorism. You know.

the violence, active method, protest and resistance in general.

In general, I think IT has been, but I think, you know, I believe in fighting on all fronts. I don't think violence alone is going to uh, bring about change. I think there is so much to do, uh, in culture and shifting public opinion.

There is so much to do in media and fighting back against media a racial and and censorship. There is so much to do diplomatically and politically. Um um and I I think I would be naive. I don't take the power imbaLance into consideration. Um one side has make shift to weapons um and the other side is one of the most open istis ted armies in the worlds so I don't know I don't know how effective violence could be in this case.

but if you look at the flipped site, do you see the power of nonviolent resistance? So Martin king gandhi, the power of turning the other cheek, he spoke negatively about turning the other cheek. yeah. So I sense that are doing so not been effective for the palace inie people.

We've turned other each generation after generation. There is a science trope that that is used against us. They say postini an rejection ism. They say that we reject everything, but if you look at the history, like our leadership, the personal authority has given up in after its has compromised on acr, after has signed deal after deal, after deal, after deal, and still there is no peace. So turning the other cheek is not, you know, the most effective method in my book.

What are the top obstacles to peaceful co existence of israeli is in persons.

the the occupation comes to mind ah, the ticket policies come to mined, the seeds comes to mind, the is matter of the city comes mind. The whole, the whole system needs to be this mental. I will quote my dear friend Rebecca, who is who's a lawyer, who says, you know, the solution, just this comes about through recognition, return and redistribution.

There are millions of file senior refugees to are living in exercise circumstances and refugee camps around the world. There are thousands of palacio prisoners um who are held in prisons for defending their homes, hundreds of which are held without charge or trial. By the way, there are many of seniors who get killed in broad daylight with no recourse.

Journalists and medics and everyday people, not just the fire h, the freedom fighters. Um we need again, recognition, return and redistribution. And peace comes about when when when they stop killing us, when they stop keeping us in A K. I mean, that's that's quite simple.

Can you describe recognition, redistribution return, and redistribution return.

return, return, the right of return to all of the pale senior refugees to their homes? You know, when i'm driving around half and I see my grandmother is a home that's now turned into A A restaurant, you know, I could, I made a joke. And one of my essays recently had I had that I could have had at all, you know, the beach views, her smug attitude.

You know, he grew up by SHE, grew by the sea after SHE relocated the high phone, after, you know, the loom um we want to we want and you know they're lucky I don't want nothing home, but I my home, I swam my home. We want to return also there need you know, like, I believe in one hundred and sixties, the israeli government classified ninety percent of all of historic poston a state on land. This is all land that was owned by pastino farmers who have cultivated their length for decades.

You know, since the establishment of the israel state, there has been, uh, jewish only towns popping up every few years and not one town, not one palestinian town has emerged. We are even those of us who have is really, really students who live outside of the wall, are encircled and cannot have their natural community growth in their towns. That needs to change.

That needs to change. You mention the wall. Can you describe the wall?

The wall is A I me to high stat wall, uh, that was finished in two thousand and three. And if you are american, you've probably heard the Whitewash sanoh zed version of the name, which is the security wall. But it's it's the wall that literally has stolen thousands of dollars, ms.

Of land, and has ripped apart families. My mother is a poets, or was a poet at some point. And SHE had this form SHE SHE published the paper cold love behind the wall.

And IT describes, you know, it's it's one, but IT describe the real situation of two families that who lived right across the street of each other but were then separated by the wall and they would fly balloons um you know to see each other from each side of the wall or something like that um this although that sounds absurd, but it's the reality for many postini families whose lives were turned apart, whose live hoods also were torn apart, uh, by the wall. Maybe this is a great opportunity. K about the the legal classifications for palatines.

Ans you know um israel, much like any other colonial entity, uh was has the has divided and fragmented the palestinian people. As I said earlier, I have a blue I D A, which means on my resident, a friend of mine who lives in hava, for example, two hours or IT from me one hundred and fifty kilometers. Not nothing too bad in this country as and his really citizenship he can you know travel.

He can enter the west bank. He can um do a lot more. He is citizen.

He can vote if he wants to not that we want to um you know I always see my friends or you can go to italy without without a VISA because you haven't israel but you know they battle national eraser or they battle um crime in their own communities because of police neglected they they battle land land conversation and have battled land conversations and fifties where as somebody with a Green idea, somebody from the west bank, uh, cannot leave the west bank, cannot go anywhere without a special permit and leaves behind these walls and even within the first bank there was the bank, I think, hilarious ously George bush. Uh, described as swiss cheese because of the holes every every few, every hundred meters. There's a new settings or there's a new military checkpoint.

So even if you live behind the wall in the west bank with your Green ID, even though you're you're rob of your right to movement, you still even can't move from town to town within the us. Bank without encountering sutler violence or military violence while you're crossing the checkpoints and the one in the forth. And then the last category we have is people who live, because we are talking about over two million people who live in an OpenAIr p rison.

Who have no right to movement but also have no access to clean water water and no access to a supplies, access is to good food nor access to good health care and so and so forth. We think they get bombarded every few years um as days like two hours away from my house IT feels like an absolute far away planet because it's so isolated from the rest of the country. So imagine all of these different legal status fragmenting um your everyday identity and creating different chAllenges and obstacles for you to deal with, for each group to deal with.

You know it's amazing and impressive that despite these colonial barriers, the real cement ones and uh you know the barriers in the mind, despite all of these barriers as the palestinian people have made, have maintained their national identity for seventy years, that is incredibly impressive. And IT also sends a message that as long as we have a boot on our neck, we are going to continue fighting, you know, violence. Cracking down on refugee camps, bomb boarding refugee amps is only gotta bring about more violence.

So west bank is a large region where a lot of housing people live in in their settlements sprinkled throughout. And all settlements have walls around them. Security cameras.

security, security is almost million sellers in the bank.

And so what are the different cities here? If you can mention in the west bank, in the west bank, our mowlem nee bathroom M A Brown jero, 那 不是， they have their own stories. They are their own histories.

Yeah, and it's fascinating also how inter connected they are. You like a friends of mine, one recently that A A A documentary report on the day that hiver fell during designers invasion, the haganah LED, the palestinian residents of hifa, down to the city center.

And as absurd as IT sounds, those of them who stood on the right side of the street were forced into cars that took them to multiple steps that would later become auto private camps, the last of which was genuine refugee camp and um those who stood on the right side of the street were forced to board, uh, boats that took them to lebanon to become refugee camps, uh, refugees there. Last month we saw the israeli army invasion anian and maybe the largest military invasion of genius since two thousand and two um and they killed many people. They attacked medics and journalists in broad daylight on camera.

They have destroy infrastructure and IT was all very painful. But I think the most compelling um aspect of the rate engineering was what followed uh is radio soldiers at night held their mega phones and um instructed hundreds of palestinians to flee their homes and they told them if you don't leave, if you don't have your hand up in the air, you will get shot and they were forced to leave their homes in the camp and walk to god knows where I can guarantee you, because the ncba is not that old. I can guarantee you that some people who are marching away from their camps, who were chased away from their homes in the camp, engineers were some of the same people who were chased away from the homes and hafer in the first place.

This perpetual excel that paste an people continue to live is is unbearable. I mean, in my kiss, my grandmother was removed from her home and and hava in forty eight and then he moved from city city. And then in two thousand and nine, SHE saw half of her home taken over by israel soldiers.

My grandmother died in twenty to nine. And two months later we ve got the next expulsion order from the is very court. I'm quite ashamed to admit that I was relieved that my grandmother had died because they did not want her one hundred and three years all at the time, to go through yet another knockabout. Y and this is the fact for so many postini. Ans, regardless of where they are on them up.

if I may read the description of the situation, genuine IT may be connected. So this is on july third, fourth and fifth, just reading washington post description. So this was in israeli military current to genuine the ready, including more than one thousand soldiers back by drones, strikes making IT.

Israel's largest such Operation was bank since the end of the second palinode uprising in two thousand and five. The israeli military said IT dismantle hundreds of explosive, cleared hundreds of weapons, destroyed underground hideouts and confiscated hundreds of thousands of dollars and, quote, terror funds. Many of the fifty palestine ans who have attacked israeli since I started the year have come from genuine camp in the surrounding area.

Palestinian attacks inside israel have killed twenty four people this year. U. N. Experts describe the genuine Operation as collective punishment and quotes for the palestinian people, amounting to egregious violations of international law.

Many of them, more than one hundred fifty pastorius killed by israeli this year, have also come from these communities. Paleo fighters say they need arms to defend themselves against israeli occupation and military curses into the camp during which palestinian civilians, including children, have been killed. So though the, I would say, different perspectives and many people on both sides who have been killed, many more palestinians, can you call me more about the situation?

I mean, I think the the washington post article is a little bit more uh h you know careful than other than other media that came out recently about Jenny. I think, you know he was the thing to a reuters radio show and they failed to ever mention the occupation. I I don't even think this paragraph mentioned that genuine is under occupation by the by the israeli forces, by the israel regime.

I think this is the most important piece of context gets um obscured in our media reporting is these cities, these refugee camps are under illegal occupation. That israeli army has no business being there in the first place. Um that is the most that is the departure point that is the most important piece of context that will answer to you why these people um are arming themselves.

Many of which whether IT lift through the two thousand and two um and bombardment of genuine and grew up in the um violence um the context that policy is under occupation, that these palestinian cities are under occupation, that they have to deal with land scissors at all times, that they cannot leave their towns um without a special permit. All of this will give context to the violence, and, you know, the thousands of israel soldiers that raided the camp that day, that trauma tize an entire generation, they think they will quill. That generation, they think that would such bloodshed in such barbari c violence, destroying infrastructure, attacking medics, killing people left and right.

They think with this kind of terror that they can, you know, quill people tell people that, you know, they can guarantee that these kids are not gone to grow up and resist. But that's the opposite of what happens. One thing about post and people, they will not compromise their dignity.

You know these people live in and live in dire executing circumstances and IT is so courageous in my opinion, that they even think um to defend themselves against one of the most lethal, one of the most sops ticad armies in the world against the nuclear state that can wipe them out in the matter of seconds. But it's not identity is not even about courage, it's about survival. They don't do this because you know of matches more or because of heroic tendency is because this is about survival.

So the degree there's violence is about survival.

Absolutely, absolutely. I think if there is no if there was no occupation, there would be no violence. It's quite obvious. And again, people understand that. I mean, like we saw on twitter in in the recent month, uh all of these israeli uh, propagandists who had twisted pictures of like little girls with guns in ukraine and like women making bombs in ukraine and and Young men Carrying their rifles in ukraine and praising them as heroes post very similar pictures of palestinians um and calling them terrorists it's glaring the double standard. I don't even need to linger on IT.

Well, the double standard is glaring, but I also think the glorification of violence is questionable. There's a baLance to be struck, of course. But yeah.

I mean, I don't I don't I think um I don't think we should be globally violence at all, but I don't think we should be Normal izzy violence either. Um I think that's that's what IT is now i'll tell you a story.

I was interviewing a person whose uh brother was killed by is really military during the israeli on their village and the person was so concerned about whether I was gonna a report that her brother allegedly had a more top cocktail in his hand and he found the absolutely insane, absolutely absurd, that we can just gLance over the fact that there is again a foreign in tanks with rifles and snipers invading the village at four I am in the morning, shooting live ammunition at people's houses, throwing tear cust, that we can just gLance over, its Normal, we can just report on IT, no problem. Nobody is gonna ban eyebrow. But the fact that potentially somebody might have picked up a models of cocktail to throw IT at this invading army is where we draw the line.

IT says a lot. IT says a lot about whose violence is Normal is is accepted as institutionalize. Ed is glorified even right?

Any walk around television, and you see all of the packs plus turned around the around the streets of the country uh h of the city um celebrating the battles that they had won, the massacres that they had enacted um against the palestinian people. But got for bed, got for bed. Palestinians have any kind of similar sentiment.

So on july forth during this intense period, a palestinian rammed the car into pedestrians at a bus, stopped in television, injuring eight people before being shot dead by bus. By also that night, her movie rocket is into israel. And an israel responded with strikes on what I said wasn't underground website to give some contacts to the intensive violence happening here. What do you think about homos firing rockets into israel?

Well, it's the framing makes the team as olic unprovoked. Tomas is like firing rockets until israel regards to what I think of as obvious, but unprovoked, but does not the case. The provocation is the fact that they are forced to live in a cage that they have no access to clean water, they have no access to be secretes, no access to uh imports, no access to anything um that they can leave.

They are living in a densely populated enclave that was deemed uninhabitable by the you and that was living in OpenAIr p rison. Um so the rockets, in any case, or retaliation for the seats, let's start there. But again, this is just to prove my point. Violence begets violence. Palestinian people are not violent people. We are not violent people at the core and I think you know what serves this narrative is islamophobia is like zeno phobia towards arabs which we don't have like I don't have the luxury know to like to write laws about um why though I am quite i'm quite you know frustrated by this uh I am I am preoccupied and the palestine people are preoccupied um with the material violence that we have to deal with on the day to day the demolition ans the bombings, the imprisonment that's what we are distracted with and busy with.

We can't even talk about the racism um the casual racism against entrepreneurs, racism be in the media and social media and diplomatic circles and but all of this all of this racism that has gone unchecked has not been regulated um for decades allows for these troops to continue in which palestinians are promoted as is like Barbara terrorists. And the only way we could remedy uh that situation is to is by um marketing them as these like defenseless victims. But the fact of the matter is is is not this simplistic.

Palestinian people are human beings who should enjoy a full spectrum of humanity which in in includes uh rates which includes uh the stain which includes happiness, enjoy in laughter, which includes celebration, which includes um all of these things. But we are not allowed this, but we are doing exactly what any people throughout history who have been oppressed, who have been colonize, who have been occupied, have done and continue to do as we see in ukraine, which is celebrated by mainstream media. I'm sorry to uh, keep predating this point, but you know at at this point I am quite. Exhausted by how exceptional palestine and estonian resistance is when the world tells me time and time again that he doesn't have a problem with violence. IT just has a problem with, who does that .

violence do you in your mind, in in the way you see this region, a draw distinction between the people in power versus the regular people? See, you mention the palestinian people. Is there something you can come on on on?

Haas and the pillow do see them as fundamental, different from the people. What does? How much do? Well, what they fall short.

I think governments however globally on are different from people. No government is a two reflection of its people. I think a you know this is even true in the case of like erp countries that Normalize with israel. In many of the cases there um unelected governments, I think the postal authority continues to fail. I think there are subcontractors of the israeli regime through their security coordination.

And also i'd like to use this as an opportunity to comment a little bit on the on the analogy thing, not to like stray away from the question but you know um the posting in authority two years ago killed an opposition activist named izba at IT was a horrendous crime and I was a Normal law with the people protesting against the personal an authority and um at some point they had their butts, the position authority police and they beat us with the and many of the people on the crowd we're liking the palestinian authority to sign ism I think people, this is what people do. We are when they are confronted by a great evil. They like in IT to some other great evil and this is where the hitler analogy came from. Um again, I don't think it's like the best strategy moving forward. But I refused you know to be you know criminalized for little sentence but .

sure to linger on those in power for one of the criticisms towards hamson palo, towards the israeli government, at least the current coalition government, is that there's a lot of incentive to perpetuate violence, to maintain power. There's a hunger for power and maintaining that power among gs, the powerful as the way power works.

So is there a worry you have about those in power not having the best interest of its people? So those in power, the pylon homos not. Not being incentivised towards peace, towards justice.

You know looking at the P S. Action today, IT tolls you a great deal about what they're interested in and what they're not interested in and maybe the occupation is in their best interest. Um and you can infer similar things looking at a tomas but the two the two these two entities virtually have no power, even hamas um you know there is you know the the context that hamas is permitted to by international law uh to use on resistance.

But does that mean how much is like equip to government? Has they? I don't think so.

Does that mean that, uh, people around palestine is clearly want want to live under a hamas role? In two thousand and six, hamas was democratically elected. I don't know if that's still the case today. Um there's there's a lot to be said but neither of these entities have any real power um in in perception they don't they the only the only body that has access that can flip the switch and all of this equation is israelis, you know they are the ones who are keeping people in the case they are the ones who are um wrapping the west bank with the with the wall um everything else to me is just secondary, regardless of what I think personally of any of those people.

I'm not personally for me I I the world they in vision, not just posting the world, they in vision is a world that goes beyond states um that goes beyond this a uh framing of power, this this hierarchy in which some people over other people, this whole idea of nation states be at israel or any other nation states. It's it's, it's futile. It's not good. It's exclusive. If I think that we can achieve a Better world than that.

well, did you know what? How do you do a Better worldnet? We just linger on that. Like what the politically speaking, geopolitically you have to have representation of the people. You have to have laws and have have leaders and governing bodies that enact those laws and all those kinds of things. You probably need to have military to protect the people.

Can you not imagine a world without military?

I can imagine that. But we're not in that world.

Yeah no, I think, you know I have all the answers or powerpoint in my pocket, you know with the instructions. But i'm saying the world i'd like to live in is one that transnational border is this one that you know does not necessary its militaries. That doesn't necessary. All of these um presents of these walls, all of these laws.

You don't think violence is a fundamental part of human nature that emerges. And I combined with a hunger for power.

I do think I do think that both of these things are like truly intrinsic to to human beings. They also do think there is a way to move beyond them. I'm not saying I have the answers tempted this way.

But you have a hope that there doesn't .

have to be war yeah in the world.

Well, if you look a little bit more short term, people speak about a one state solution in a two state solution. What is your hope here for for this part of the world? Do you do you see a possible future, the tuesday solution with the alston israel? You see a one state solution, whether is a diversity of different peoples, like in the united states, and they have equal rights in the courts than anywhere else.

you know I don't think there is a geography in which I was this solution is as possible um as we said earlier, swift ery a settlements all over the west bank um and I don't think it's fair um a to the solution is fair to all of the people whose homes um are still have um in another in yea and so far and I don't think it's fair that like i'm going to have to travel to another country to visit my cousin who's married in another th for example um and beyond this is not possible I do believe that what what everyone to call IT one state to stay for the eight states twenty nine states what everyone call IT refugees need to return land needs to be given back, wealth needs to be redistributed um and a recognition of the knocking bar needs to happen that is the all the way we could move forward um and you know regarding whether this is like a possible situation for two people to live side by side, let's ask two questions.

Let's say you you live in a house with the person, you're roomy. You just have the roman who constantly beat the shit out of you. I wonder if you want to continue to live them.

That's one. And let's try another scenario. Let's say you live in a house with the room.

May twist absolutely hate, absolutely oppose their existence as a people. Um you don't even give him you know, a key to your to your apartment. Let's say now you're like equal partners in the apartment.

Would you, anna, give would you want to live with him? I don't know. We'll see IT. We'll see time. I'll tell about you know I don't think I don't think they wanted live with us is really I good you know especially really diplomats. They are quite good at um using a flowers language about peace and call existence and so on.

And so far and they're good about they're good with making a seam and saying or raa color like a full of hate and so on. And so what but but but the policies speak for for themselves. The actions on the ground speak for themselves in A I truly, I mean, every time there's an uptake, many of them leave. And I wonder, I would like to see I wonder what would happen and on the solution.

well, okay, you've spoken equery about the injustice of the evictions of demolition ans the settlements. But is there can you comment about the difficulty of the security from the israel perspective when there is a large number of people that want to destroy IT? How does israel exist peacefully? This one stayed solution.

I don't know, but not shooting journalist, doing job camp, but not killing fourteen year old, sending in his front. You this will talk about, you know, security and security fence and the whole like propaganda of is really defenced forces and this whole iron wall ideology in which somehow they are always defending themselves, even though there, you know, anyone that really government continue to talk about an existential threat about iran being an existential threat, even though the israel government is the only body that holds nuclear weapons in the reason they are the most open istis ted army in the region.

And yet they continue hiding behind their fingers and talking about an existential threats and talking about how like they're insecure and so on and so forth. I came here on the bus. You know, I, I, I live A, I live in a, in a house where everybody in the world can easily google and get its address, and anybody can just walk into my house.

And this is just unlucky and privilege. As a palestinian journalist, there are many falcon journalists who lose their lives. This is like, that's real insecurity. But we don't even have time to wind about IT because there is real shit going on on the ground that we are preoccupied with than reporting on all the time that we don't even have the time to talk about how limited is our institutional backing, how limited is our you know uh cyber uh security, how limited is our you know even health care. You know like all of these things we don't even have time to complain about, but there the real life things that formulate and insecure population um that is that israel certainly does not suffer from there's attention here.

It's it's true that the ideas of existential threats to the nation have been used to expand the military industrial complex to limit the rights of its people. So in the united states, after nine eleven, iraq and afghanistan were invaded under some justification of their being terror in the world. These big ideas in in the same way, yes, israel, with the existence al threat of iran, is used to expand military might over the region and control over the region, but is also has some truth to IT in terms of the the threat that israel is facing, including from iran, the herran or to get a nuclear weapon, do you think there's a threat from that?

But who has the notes .

right now?

Yeah but like we're talking about this like far away monster that's like where we're scared of you know it's like fear monger. What do you mean any who has the looks?

Some of his fear mongering. But um some of this is true.

I don't think I don't think is true. I think israelis are obsessed with genocide because they have enacted genocide against us, even when we talk about like a future elaboration of palestine, what we're talking about a anything, they constantly jump to the to saying things like all, they want to throw us into the sea. They wants to kill all juice.

What kind of hyperbolic bullshit is that to say that if I am chanting and marching for my home not to be taken away from me by some kind of sutler court, I am somehow demanding the the murder of all jews across the world that is hyperbolic and the fact that we call court IT is insane to me so no, I don't think as things stands right now um as the power baLance stands right now, I don't think there's an existence al threat to israel and also it's redefine what existential thread do we think israel um the israeli regime design est regime should continue to exist in its forms, subjecting people, enacting the crime of apartheid according to a brazillian uh, human rights organizations. Do we think that I should continue keeping people in a cage? If that's what people are fighting to save, then that says a lot about the people who are feeling this existential threat, not me.

Do you believe represent the passing in people, meaning how many people are there that want israel to be gone?

But what does that mean for israel to be gone?

What he means is for people who think of israel and occupier, we still land that needs to go away, that this should be all .

palestine yeah but is that about thing for these borders to be like for for the occupation to end for this, uh, for the land to be given back.

Is that a bad thing? And of occupation? There's these people in their homes now, right?

But is that their homes? I'm not talking about i'm not talking about like some random some random home um but there are many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many israelis who drink their coffee every morning from living rooms that .

are not theirs, that are not theirs. They were taken just a few decades ago.

You where, like the owners are for owners of these homes, are still lingering, and refugee camps are still dreaming of return.

There are homes on the land of israel that you wouldn't assif Y A stone.

I mean, there is like if if he wasn't stolen, was built, but is the land stolen, right? Is the but all of this, again, I I try not to like following to this because it's just like IT feels so abstract and far away and and this is not how liberation is gone to look like whatsoever. And i'm not like i'm not fixed on ethnic ending that is not i'm not obsess with ethnically sing.

I'm obsessed with ending the ethnic lancing campaign that has been that has been visited upon me and my family and my community for seven plus decades. That's what obsessed with, uh, all of this other stuff about what happens to the settings and like and you know, we wanna kill all jews and all of this, I think it's bulcher and I think it's ridiculous. And I think you know fix IT on on IT is like distracting from the focal point.

Um there needs to be an end all of the injustices to all of the atrocities. You know a little boy from judo, salem should be able to go jog around the city without fearing getting shot. That's like the simplest thing we're asking for here. And we want to a land back. And those things do not mean actually at all, the ethnic thing of other people what.

but that we should be precise here. So a little boy, being able to run around muslims, that's a great vision, not just safely, but without racism, without hate. That's a beautiful vision.

yes. But people in western salm, people in television, their homes due. Should they stay there? Do you have the right to stay there?

That's like maybe number ninety nine of my priorities. Last, i'm concerned with the refugees. I'm concerned with the teenagers in the in the presence.

I am concerned with my house. I'm concerned with my family's house in haf. I am concerned and there is a lot for me to do before I can even tend to the needs of my occupier. Yeah, that is the list of my concerns.

Do you want to low hanging fit to obvious and justice to end?

yeah.

But still, the long term vision of existential survival of a of israel, which is the concern of its government, is concern with people. You see a future where israelis have a home in the region.

just not in my front yard.

which wears the funny heart.

are literally jewish sutlers. Yes, what if IT from long island, in my literal, from your years, and this is the case in hundreds, if not thousands, of a senior homes? You know, no one is saying, uh, jewish people shouldn't exist or they shouldn't have a, uh, a state of their own of them.

I mean, I think all of all, like all all religious based states are like about idea, all nation states, or about idea, but whatever, if that's what they wanted do, that's what they wanted do. But that doesn't mean that they are allowed or have a right to create an, implement a system of jewish 的 supremacy at my expense。 That's not a crazy thing to say.

That is not a controversial thing to say. You can have your state, just don't kill anyone. Thank you. Have a good day. You know, like that's that's not a crazy thought.

half. And he can establish a symmetry of power in the courts, which is the current source of injustice.

I mean, that's when IT comes to like force expulsions in our home. But there is other there is a meeting myriad of other .

the ways the military.

the military, I mean the police. Um if you look at like how many times I should have brought the data with me, but if you look at how little times the israeli military police has like investigated its own people are invited its own people I mean just recently um the killer um who has been hailed a hero by some some of israeli society who killed a add hook, a palestinian man who is autistics who lives inside the occupied old city where again israeli military has no business being or jurisdiction whatsoever he was shot and killed by israeli soldier who was trigger happy because again again they had this like seized mentality like any moving objects is gonna kill them and he was shot and killed and despite IT being in broad daylight, despite being well documented, despite the victim being disabled, despite all of this, he was acquitted by the is really court the military, the courts, the government.

They all work together which is White so ironic to me that there are hundreds of thousands of people marching on the streets of television um you know trying to save the progressive weekend that is is really supreme court when you find its fingerprint all over the injustices perpetuated against palestinians beat, you know uh legalizing and upholding the withholding of slain palestinian bodies um who were killed by the israel military to be used as bargaining chips by the israel military be at the making the to dispossess entire villages like amid hate on be IT um never once uh you know granting release to any palestinian who was held in administrative detention without charge or trial be IT um upholding the legality of the family reunification law does not allow palestinian couples who hold different legal statuses of reuniting and living together as families. I mean, those are just some of the few things I can think of uh about the is really supreme court. So they are like the real the real tension that exists is the lack of diversity on the israeli political spectrum that makes um the vision for a future so limited because those on what seems to be like the the far left um are defending a are defending an extremely conservative um institution that is a supreme court that they regard as progressive when in fact IT is the opposite uh of such so what what do we do?

How can we, how can we talk? How can we have peace with with people who who are chanting to save, you know, the everybody that is displacing us? Know it's it's ridiculous.

What's your vision? I just take IT as a microcosm of jerusha. What's your vision for jerusalem looks like? With a peaceful co existence .

of people you know as IT looked like before before the israel state emerged. I mean we should be reading our history here um when you read like european and and White um history and delhi like policy was bear and many of them would say like IT was even without the people there were nobody nobody was there or like some of them will say we were uncivilized but the flesh of the matter is palestine is particularly had a diversity of religion um the jewish people you know my grandmother continues to talk about while he continued until he dies.

He continue to talk about her neighbors when he grew up in the old city or like when he was born in the old city and then heroism neighbors um in high um we even had one jewish member of our family and Sammy actually um who was also recently passed away the like jews were a part of palma and and they spoke he brew a different kind of he brother they spoke he brew and they were people really need to read the hundred years war in palestine. It's it's really unexcelled ent syntheses of the history. But this whole idea that this is like some kind of war between two religions is so misleading because what's happening is a bunch of, Frankly, european settings with a certain political secular ideology came and relocated here and turn them into a religious conflict between people who have lived harmoniously together for decades before that.

And you know, the whole idea be at, like, you know, Christian ian ism, or you know, john hagee, or like the calls for juice to leave the united states and relocate and in israel or like you know recently we've heard about a long time ago um but recently an israeli historian confirmed uh uh the fact that uh israeli organizations were bombing but and bombing senaar xin but that in ioc to get ioc juice to leave and come relocated israel right all of this is manufactured and again, none of this is a conspiracy theory. I don't some subsidy. And you know, any time I like look at my my life from a birds, I view, I think what a circus but it's but it's real and it's it's very viably only call the fact checkers.

You mention the land registry. New library was .

happening there. Yeah absolutely. So um our small Victory in the is really courts um was that they would keep us in our homes until a land registry is completed.

Basically this means that they have to check who owned the land prior um and then they could decide or if the land is ours or the land belongs to the israeli settle er organizations that are has quoted in in the united states and enjoy a tax exempt status here um and that sounds great on the surface but then you look at is really law, you look at is ready courts, you look at ownership and you see that oh israelis refuse to uh authenticated or taking to consideration any land ownership documents from the prior of the establishment of the state. So all of us in judo salem who have their um tabo paper is their ownership papers from the autumn era. That's not only in the eyes of is ready court because that existed before like your ownership needs existed long before israel even existed.

So we're not going to take this into consideration. So not to be cynical here, but unfortunately, the the likely result of the land registry is that they are going to say, oh, all of this land belongs to these jew's organizations because they're not onna. Take any of our documents into consideration, but that means that there's going to be another campaign and there's going to be a long when that fight um and we'll see what happens.

But that's the fear. And there is there is a huge, dreadful fear of a massive loss in property and judicial following the land's registry for the reasons I just told you. It's the me of that, that they just refuse to look at land .

ownership documents. What is the process of the fighting this in the course look like, if you can maybe just comment on this. So there I always .

make a joke about being in his radio quarters, like playing a game of broken, broken telephone because, you know, everybody is speaking in hebrew and like, your lawyer said something to your dad, and your dad is something to your mom and your mom whisper in your ear and you're like, you say that your cousin, your cousin has like a completely different idea of the verdict, then what the verdict is, but that's really the reality.

So a lot of the fight happened in family, by family.

No, it's like groups. So like if in artist it's like forests ses every four houses. Um but again, that happens in a language we do not speak. And a lot of the time our strategy is buying time and you know building a global campaign like we know that there is nor recourse in and that is really court. I mean, my grandmother used to say and this is like a popular proverb, if your if your enemy is the judge to whom do you complain?

So to the whom you complain is maybe the international community. Yeah, I an in our case.

in our case that was an international community, but in our case also IT wasn't just the international community IT was the hundreds of thousands of people in palace in and abroad who are marching on the streets getting beaten and brutalized in jerusalem and I don't know, sometimes arrested in place like germany and so in the forth um who who forced themselves inside the media cycle this was what was unique about those are we were able to penetrate industry that usually ignores us and usually refuses to uses any of our framing, any of our quotations.

And these people the march, these people that spread the rorie um spread the facts route articles, these people that made videos online and and god arrested and many of them are still in, is ready presents being higher Prices than I have ever paid. These people are the ones that truly removed the international community into action IT wouldn't tough. You know, the united states, I don't think, would have said anything had IT not been for the immense media pressure that was created. From the immense popular pressure, there are a lot of moving parts to a global camie. N, I think it's so impressive, you know, that we were able to do this, uh, without any media backing, without any institutional backing, without any training, without, without any budget.

Nothing mentioned. United states, what's the role of in the united states in the struggle that you ve been describing? What's the posit? What's the negative?

The role is perpetuating what's happening hanny. It's all the negative role, to be honest.

with the money, with power.

Yeah it's like the three point eight billion and military eight every year. It's the standing ovation.

Israel, the largest recipient of U. S. Foreign ids since world war two to date, united states has provided israel a hundred and fifty billion dollars, as you said, is providing currently three point eight billion every year. There a lot people raised the question of what's the interest of tax paying american citizens in this kind of, yeah.

they are interests for aid. They are interests. I don't think americans, I think americans, a lot of americans are constant with health care. A lot of americans are constant with clean water and plant. I don't think they are constant with funding apartheid in another country and I think it's the disturbing phenomenon that although public opinion in the united states is shifting, I would argue drastically about palestine. Um people in washington are yet to to catch shop IT was only I think nine congress people who boycotted heart heart talk speech um in congress yesterday and he received standing of vision after standing vision after standing of vision after standing vision and I wonder um if everyday american is concerned that many of their politicians are israel first politicians are politics who care more about maintaining a relationship with the israeli regime that they then they care about their own districts.

You've tweet that forty nine years ago I guess some kind of funny what you can may be correct me and the pronunciation was assassinated uo quote his revolutionary articulations of the palestinian plight for liberation shook the colonial regime. Yet he's not dead. His ideas remain very timely and teaching. And you also tweet an, except from his writing, between nineteen thirty six, in one thousand thirty nine, the postini, an revolutionary movement, suffered a severe setback. The hands of three separate enemies that were to constitute together the principle threat to the nationalist movement in palace in in all subsequent stages of its struggle one, the local reactionary leadership to the regimes in the arab states surrounding palsy, and three, the imperialist zinnie enemy can you analyzed what he means by those three things, the local reactionary leadership, the regimes in the arab states surrounding palestine in the imperial assign enemy. And also, could you comment on him as a person.

do you I mean, the is a illiana ant illian writer and uh he was prolific, his author so much books in the window. He was assiniboin seventies but now he was thirty seven, if i'm not mistaken, thirty five when he was assassinated you know he wasn't inspiration to me in in school um and I remember like even even my teachers had called about him because he was a prosecute person. But I I love infinity beloved the figure and the posting community and I hope the one day be able to like achieve a fraction um of what he's achievements in the terms of like shaping a political consciousness for palestinians and four people in the reason .

did he classify self as a as a politician, as a philosophers and activists ah do you know he was a writer.

but he was also part of the pain, uh, part liberation from pfp.

So he is the words to fight for freedom. Yeah, I don't .

think he would have thought his words were divorce from other forms of struggle, but I think he recognized the importance of culture uh and shaping culture and shaping public opinion both in achieving you know uh a shift in global stance and also in achieving you know an awakening in the posture generation as well. You know this a very famous, a famous interview of his, where he's talking to A, I believe, a british journalist and the british journalist asking him, why don't you why don't you have talks with israeli is and he means, what do you mean talks? You mean capitulation, you mean talking that you can have a conversation between the sort in the neck um and they think that the really summer, as is the kind of, you know, values, used this for now to talk about the three things.

local, reactionary leadership regimes in the air ab state, surrounding palace in in the paralysed .

enemy in in today's terms of the local reactionary leadership is a peat posting an authority the regional regimes were talking about. You actually, you know, the Normalization deals that have emerged in recent years of hamal courts have been talked about as though they're like ground breaking new um phenomenon but many arab countries have Normal as relations with israeli regime um since the birth of the state is not a new thing um but yes any words I think he was talking about egypt and Jordan at the time today we can include a united of emirates we could include by and we could include moroccan um and you know these again, these are having accounts they are promoted and marketed and talk to about that some kind of like religious reconciliation which I think is the most disgusting thing ever because they're not about religious reconciliation.

There are about arms deals and economic deals and they're about you know consolidating power in the reason they're about mutual strategic interests that all of these nations have together and some people argue that um you know palestine is no longer in arab cause because arb arab countries are Normalized ing. But most of these government, if not all actually all these governments that have Normalized, most of them are monarchies um are not elected governments and they do not um represent the will of the people or the desires or the opinions of their people's and the proof of this is like places like Jordan and egypt, even though they've Normalized and had peace agreements with this little for many, many, many, many years. Palestine and the palace inie cause was still a talking point in the political campaigning of politicians of judaan an egpc an politicians and continues to be um for them to gain popularity because the dots were the hearts of the people are um and then you know design est regime is quite explanatory ory the imperial as signal regime. I mean, what else do you call the regime that sought help from imperial powers to the populated entire country and building a one on top of IT?

So most see you say the thing that a record achieved is a it's a negative thing for palestine. So these kinds of agreements among gs, the power about between the leadership is not, uh, is not positive for for the region.

No, no, obviously they are gonna be marked as as as positive. And obviously in other 这个 have this flurried language surrounding them in in。 The idiots in the room might like, not in smile, but anybody with critical thinking skills can know that if people continue to be under occupation, you know that there is nothing positive there and it's also there is no.

Let's link a little bit on the mutual interests. The only way oracle could Normalize relations with the israeli regime is so that this really regime could recognize murroch sovereign tea over in the western sahara, which just happened actually last week, now mache. Uh, and before that macaco recognize h sovereign is really sovereign over the west bank. Snot like oracle itself just has no interest in this kind of deal.

You mention that you you d you hope of accomplishing a some of the things that have some I find he was able to accomplish. Let me ask you a silly question, perhaps silly question. Do you have interested running for political office or into leadership? I hear laughter, ed, in the room to lead in a leadership position in polls in not.

not, not currently. no.

I see if this age as well.

I don't think I don't think there's there's a body through which I can run for anything. It's like the completely diffunce tional and also you know anyone who are suit all the time that's.

Who would want to do that? So from which kind of passage, from which kind of stage do you think is be most effective .

if I speak? I was born in reason to, also I speak perfect abc. I think my my abc writing is much superior to my industry, but I choose to um write in english because I think there is not there is a spirity and there is a cassine between what is um said in arabic on the on the street in policy and what is said here about palestinians um both by oner postini an races and people who are propelled in and advocate tes for pollstar and I believe I in a few others from my generations or many others actually from my generation are working to fill that cosm and he also believe the literature, culture, the public sphere, changing the public opinion, changing the native is important to affecting policy, to affecting change, affecting material change.

You know, i'm not gonna i'm not gonna read a problem in front of a in front of a checkpoint and watch a couch in flames. That's not i'm not i'm not that delusional about the power of words, but I do think that I have a responsibility and I have a privilege event to have a voice, to have some platform. And if i'm not, you know, defining myself, if I am not talking and representing myself, then other people define me and their their definitions of the palestine.

An people across the few past decades have not been kind or generous to the post union people. That's one thing. The other thing is I believe in the united states as a as a front for change.

Um I believe we have a lot more leverages here than we do back home. Um again, I believe in in someone said that they can can remember the name, but someone said notes to on turn. I believe in in fighting all on all fronts.

But here really I can go I can go protest in front of the israel embassy without getting shot. Um there's a lot there's a lot of work to be to be done here. There is a lot of people um waking up.

I would even argue that a reckoning is coming um in the american public and more and more american people are concerned where their tax money is going, are concerned what their politicians are invested in a more and more american people are saying not on our dime, are saying not uh you know not not not today, not not here and also there is many power seniors in the day aspera uh here in the united states in europe who um benefit and could benefit from political education in in in the english language because of the aspar across history, the position of aspar has been effective in the seventies and eighties. And you know, I am hoping ever since to twenty twenty one, there has been a resurgence of the power and influence and of the past. Ian the aspera.

to ask another early question, since you mentioned the united states, I don't if you follow the politics in the united states, but do you have a preference of, uh, presidential candidates in twenty twenty four election? Or is that do you follow? I where each candidate stands on the different policies?

I think everybody in the world should be able to vote for american elections. Actually, I do follow because .

of the influences.

Yes yes yeah um I do feel I don't have a preference whatsoever. I don't you know I suck your vest on C N N. I don't think you know I don't know he's going to go far with this campaign or less is running with the Green party, and I don't think he's going to achieve much success but I know him CNN um bearing and Cooper and I enjoyed that very much. Couldn't mind think that .

on my screen .

guard regularly but you don't really have an opinion about you .

know euro rivka a book of poetry. How did that come about? maybe? Tell the story of that book coming to be now I .

signed the book when he had a lot a lot less visibility um in the world so when I didn't think thousands and thousands and thousands before be reading IT, I decided to include many poems which where when I was Young because they tell it's a long it's a long it's a long journey this book it's starts in ends in new york and if the name of my grandmother and it's it's an eric name, her name and IT means to accompany someone and I wanted to write about displacement in a way that was beyond what worried about in english poetry as a medium I don't know if I have much faith in anymore to be honest maybe I can turned off um and I revisited again in few years but at the time of writing this book, poetry as a medium IT really was a source of open inspiration for me so my mother was was a poet and he would you know hurt my dad would play this game in the morning.

He would read his her posts to him, and he would guess which lines would be red cancelled by the israeli military censor, because he would submit her poems to the local newspaper, newspaper. And, you know, the military sensor has to go over that. And, you know, he would get her bones back with a bunch of words array, and they would laugh about IT support.

You was very much part of my my upbringing. And you know, as a palti, ian, when you included from mainstream spaces, including media journalism, poetry tends to be a place where you can say what you want to say without repercussions. And I say that I realize that argus writer was thinking of ten.

He literally had his car bomb exploded because of his writings. And you know, recently, the interior, a poet with pasSonians to the is really citizenship, was imprison for a few months for publishing apple on facebook. And note that resists my people resist. So even that is not a silly true, but anyway, it's just felt like I could it's a place where could talk and express, uh, large ideas in a simplistic way. And you know, the best example I could give you is one of my favorite ports also stand uh when when the israel authorities decided to do the land, the landlady uh which classified um I believe ninety three percent of historic post sign is is really owned, state owned, forgive me uh and then um when when they also did the absent property law which allows the government stick over homes that were uh the populated from the postini owners he wrote a pull um called god is a refugee is kind of a sarcastic don ic moment which he goes, you know, god has become a refugee or so confiscate even the carpet of the moss can sell the church because it's this property and seller orphans because their father is absent and do what every you want is like it's a sarcastic poem that was in reaction to these laws that translate to the everyday palti, ian, to the farmers, to the land owners, what this bureaucratic, complicated laws meant to them, what they meant to their land. What I meant, how, what, what affect are these laws going to have on these people's lens and that, I think is all of poetry try um that I tried to to achieve.

So poetry ultimately Prices the power of words. And so the medium, the power, the medium of potry transfers nicely to the any medium in the celebrates words. So even I mean just writing novels, tweet. You're also working on a new book, my mom, what's the title working, say.

about IT? No is bizarre because, you know, i'm so Young, it's not really my member, but rather than me a member of the neighborhood which I grew up, the title detention of titles is a million states and one, and is so not to how many different realities and universes exist in the final one country.

Um and it's you know it's it's kind of it's kind of a documentation of the two waves of expression of explosion in two thousand and nine and twenty twenty and twenty twenty one and the kind of behind the scenes of the campaign that took place, the diplomatic and media campaign and grass with campaign that took place to save our homes. And it's also an exploration of other uh, communities that are threatened with with the expulsion and other communities who are resisting in their own way. Beat in beta in nab las or selon hills and in the theater or in sideward or um in the knockdown of these communities that are dealing with different forms of expulsion.

And you know the emphasis that i'm trying to achieve what the spook is, dignity. Um I want to write a book about you know my here my experiences that is like super that is super dignified that kind of kick sits feed up on the table and says what he wants unabashedly because, you know, we are told not only are we going to be victimized, but we are going to be polite in our suffering. And I went to reject that completely. And I want to lean into the humor of the past few years of my life because I think that's really what the world needs and what I need to be.

Writing a few questions here, but one of them is about humor. In riga, ero, my mother has always said the most tragic of disasters of those that caused laughter. We think he meant by that.

Yeah, it's I don't it's my my mom that's my mom saying, but I don't know. It's like a proverb that I first first for my mom, but it's a shutter by at email attack like. The most evil of a rosy is what makes you laugh and IT can be in its open for interpretation. Um you should be, you should be ware of one one school thought would say you should be a wary of the things that make you laughed but another school thought IT would say this is a commentary.

Or unlike our natural reactions to tragedies right in like two thousand twelve, two thousand eleven and something like this, we had like a protest and um after the protest all of the women of the neighbor d were sitting down under the the Victory of our neighborhood, which they always do, and you know a bunch of soldiers, maybe the soldiers started marching down the street and everybody displaced and head in their homes. But my aunt was now passed away. My aunt refused to go home.

He wanted to gather her teacups because you really care about about hey um so I was beating her to go inside and he refused. He was getting her thick up so a soldier, a soldier, you know uh grab me and squeeze me between his bail and an electricity pole. And IT was very cruciate ly painful and traumatizing for me as a child. But he was it's also like a funny memory in in a way, despite the pain, despite the the trauma that came with IT IT was there is still something funny about IT yeah and it's like it's dignifying to find humor and these kinds of things that makes you realized you are not so weak, you are not so powerless. Another thing as you know my same on tools like super obsessed with kindness, would um you know insist on not going ah to sleep before washing delicious and I would always see her and say what you're just going to you're going to give them the house clean like you can leave at dirty so they clean up and these little things also like incredibly you know absurd and um telling of a hero and reality that our family and many and the neighbor d were living are also the coping um mechanisms that we were using to to deal with our everyday uh reality and so much in the public framing of palestinians beat in media and novels and diplomacy and so on and so fourth is that of the powerless victim is that of the person who only weeks you know like a is really propaganda for example um well like show pictures on twitter of like a house in host day and they'll like look this house has windows like they're talking about their bcs but they have a nice they have a balcony on their house why are you are talking about like you know or like they'll show of a video of supermarket and is but how come they are talking about a blockade and they have a supermarket and the blow as though you know the ceiling has been so lowered that we can't even afford joy anymore or you know a little supermarket in the neighbor.

So as a poor, as a writer, written a book, a power trip, not working a new book, what can you say about your process of crafting words? I think people listening to this can hear that there's approached the way you speak in english. So somebody that cares about the craft ship of words in both english and airbag, what working say about your process?

Uh, it's a lot more meat than like this conversation is like I am obsessed with with sentences and takes me a long time to look, finish a piece of writing. I am perfectionist. You edit a lot.

I added all the time I need. I can't move on from one sentence until it's perfect. But I will say, my other write friends here you do not face is how easily disrupted my writing guys by other news and all, all pitch stories of my editor about something, for example. And then as i'm writing at twenty minutes, and some kid was taught and killed by the israeli military, so we have to say something about IT.

And then thirty minutes later, as a writing, there is news about a home demolition incident and there is this real link list um on slot of news that prevents us and the privations of the ability to analyze the frame, to think, to conceptualize you, to write beyond the current affairs were stuck in this in the relentlessness of the occupation that a lot of the time I worry that the the things i'm writing are always in reaction to a crime that took place to a uh a bombing that took place and so on and so forth. And I think that's unfortunately true for so many palti ian writers. So you know I would say isolation and like stepping away from the news is very important um to do, but I don't do IT.

So okay so the the struggle to find the time, the the timeless message in IT IT is a an ongoing struggle. Fy, I mean.

there is the timeless you know it's not even timeless lessons. It's time I think what the right is always timely because occupation is ongoing but the struggle is you know moving beyond the news and tackling more nuances um because in eric I can in arabic I can philosophy as I can talk about violence, that I can talk about my complicated relationship with violence or like my complicated I can complicate and no ones and give things no ones.

But in english, people still do not believe we are under occupation, even though IT is an internationally recognized fact that is broadcasting twenty for seven to the world's most watch screams. So we're stuck in like a practice of providing facts and figure as an, actually, this happened and and this person did this, and according to international long blob, a blaw. So we're stuck in this because the basic troops about our own existence are denied that we don't even have the luxury of, you know, evolving our writing beyond, or at least evolving my writing beyond. And this is what i'm trying to do .

with the snowball IT that's fascine that in english, your a your brain is more inclined to be to go towards activism. M was an arabic of the luxury to be more of philosopher.

I want to say actium, i'll say journalism. I would like a just making sure, you know, like disrupting the flow of the sentence to insert a statistics or insert A A historical fact that should be employed ah and should be a household name but it's not um you know I can't to say the ocbc I have to say the ocbc one thousand and forty eight total near total destruction of fast sixty at the hands of sinus military that later from any military that now terrifies us today and there is like and there is like three to legal system boba about you.

I can stay not but you have to give all of these explanations and that's that's heartbreaking. And people are ought to do Better. People ought to, you know, do Better.

This is not. It's not, it's not what my h literature should be limited to. It's not what anybody's literature should be limited to.

It's the job of, it's the job of fund news reporters to report the news. But a lot of the time, they use looted language, they use positive voice, they office cape facts. And it's on the shoulder of us, the heavy Carrying.

Would you say that depressing in in the united states that's a good or poor job .

of covering isn't what? what? What's what are the biggest feeling not mentioning that a town is occupied and when you're reporting about an occupied town, not mentioning that uh a settled is is illegal or seller is illegally present in a positive invalid when you're reporting on them, only quoting um israeli a officials and only quoting is really positions in police officers in framing your entire analysis with israel officials and only interviewing palestinians when they have um been brutalizing victimize physically.

Yeah those are some of the issues. There is plenty. And then like saying things you know like is israel um israel will bomb a hospital in gaza and the the press will say like ham run hospital and this negative association with him as will remove any from the reader towards the victims of this hospital bombing um a lot of things and a lot a lot of them are sinister. Um I have many friends, many journalists friends, and i've seen many journalists online speak about their experiences when talking about policy um the censorship that goes on into IT um and he help many journalist friends some at the new york times some um they used to be A A washington post who tell me the kinds of battles they had to do they had to go through with their auditors to of them even other the world policy and not even on in like new pieces it's like pieces about, let's say a poeta ian or is or a postini an chef for whatever you know there's lots of there is there is a lot that happens behind the scene that is not reported on um because when IT comes to palestine the the rules and the laws of journalism are venable you know passive voice is king. A meeting fact is acceptable anything got so .

you personally, just psychologically what what have been the lowest points in your life, the darkest points?

A recent study came out and said that fifty two percent of our seniors have depression. I would argue that the number is much, much, much higher. I think that would be absurd um for someone to live under the conditions we live under and not contemplate many things, many things, not just suicide, but many, many, many things and if and if people were to put themselves in our shoes for just one day, they would understand um where all of the region of the resistance is coming from. Um it's not an easy life so what .

do you find the .

strength i'm i'm surrounded by good people and I I am surround with good people. And I don't even think of IT as a strength. I think of this is my obligation and just feels like the thing I have to do.

It's not I don't need inspiration, I don't need strength, I don't need it's just my obligation. It's just there is a great travesty taking place in the world. Um and I and few others have been put in a place where were able to talk about IT to a few more people and is just my obligation I have to do IT.

What gives you hope about the future of palestine?

What gives me about the future of first thing is taking a look at history and understanding that across history there has not been an injustice that lingered um endlessly. You know everything comes to one to an end. It's not a study. There's not a study like A A perfect resolution for everything. But nothing nothing um continues in its in its in the form that is started in in the occupation and colonial m and policy enzymes m all of these things are not at all sustainable whatsoever. Um so taking a look at history, you know a lot of a lot of what i'm saying um today and what I have said in your podcast, many people would have would be you pro clutching hearing me say what I say but I always try to remind myself that during jm crow, during slavery, during the whole cost um during the occupation of algeria um during any point of colonel ism in the african continent um people did not posit the moral clarity they possessed today when they talk about these things and all of these things were contested and controversial and in many, many, many cases legal and today they are deplorable, condemn and people say never again and they don't remember them so that's what gives me hope, is believing in the, you know, believing in the inevitability of justice.

What you love most about pasta, what are like maybe little things that you remember from your childhood, from your life there, any rusalem elsewhere that you just brings a smaller of face?

I think this is unabashed ness um a palestinians um where where are people who are told and at some point were told by the large majority of the world that we should train ourselves, that we should be ashamed of what we are, that we are monster s that we are there, us that we are and palestinian don't really give give a you know they're continuing to live as they do. They continue to resist. They continue to write.

They continue to to do to do all that they do. And and I love them on the most, and I love our ability to laugh more than anything else. Uh one thing is that I misunderstood in american american culture about palestinian culture or just western culture is like martel and culture.

A lot of the time people um well well you know broadcast images of palestinian women cheering when their sons have been killed by as ready forces and y'll say, you know, these people glorified death and these people are eager to like half sex with seventy versions in heaven and so on and so fourth, but that's not the case. The whole idea of the occupation when they are killing our children, the whole idea is that they are trying to break our spirits. So these mothers whose hearts are broken, who are englished, who are, you know, so so in so much pain when they are cheering, they are not.

They are not celebrating. They're not cheering. They are.

They're letting the occupier know that you have not broken my spirit. I have not yet been defeated. And I think that is beautiful. It's the same thing with our prison culture. You know, palestinians are fascinating in the sense that pakistan ans go to prison and they study and they come out with degrees.

They can part, they can find ways to participate in civil society um they can even smuggle you know sperm from prison to give a life outside of IT um because they understand in their philosophy of prisons, they understand that these structures, these buildings, we're built to break your spirits. So what do you do? You allow you don't allow you to break your spirits.

You resisted you. You continue to to hold on to life. You continue to hold on to your love of life. You continue to hold on, do you will love of freedom, and you come out of present, and you are celebrated by your community. And the prison has not broken your spirit.

So all of these structures and system, that is, the design est movement, has put into place beat the chaotically policies, or the prisons, or the demonstrating our homes that were meant to killer spirits. They don't you, you demotion home. And in the usman, the people say, donor will build another and you the most and will build another. That's what I admire most about the policy, ian, people, is this resilience. And you know people love to see resilience, but I think it's stuff and I think there are such a stubbing people anything .

that that's great well um how I thank you for being a man who exemplifies and brick of spirit thank you for the words you've written, the words you've spoken and thank you for talking a day this is an honour or in the thank you for educating .

me thank .

you so much thanks for listening to this conversation with mohamed occurred the support this post please check out our sponsors in the description and now let me leave you or some words from nesmond a IT always seems impossible until it's done thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.