Is partnership possible anymore?

We have globally built civilizations that are so marked by militarization, by armed violence. Why would it be so difficult to think of building a world in which there is reconciliation through allyship? I also don't see a way in which either Palestinians or Israelis don't live here. It's hard to imagine a world in which that would be the case. So of course it would be in the best interest of both parties here to make it

so that it would be possible for both parties to exist. But what kind of world? What kind of existence? So far, the coexistence has meant kind of the status quo, right? The Palestinians are relegated to lower income areas. The Palestinians, you know, that the West Bank is separated from East Jerusalem and from Gaza, that there is no two state solution, that there's not a one state solution, that it's kind of in some way politically leaves a very weak Palestinian state or Palestinian presence.

I'm not even sure we're talking about a Palestinian state anymore, right? We're just talking about a weakened Palestinian presence, financially weakened, which the Paris Protocol memorialized and continues to be in play, vis-à-vis a very strong Israeli state. And that's the coexistence model that exists today.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining me in another episode of 48, a podcast that tries to shed light on the issues that concern the Palestinian citizens in Israel. My name is Abed Abou Shahadeh and this podcast is brought to you by Arab48 News website. In this episode, I'm going to talk to Noura El Amr, a PhD candidate who is currently researching what does political allyship mean when it comes to Palestinians and Israelis.

Thank you so much for your time so as we talked about before starting this recording the goal of this podcast to talk about political and social alliances and everything in between whether it's coexistence shared society and so on between the palestinians and israelis both the palestinians in 1948 and palestinians in 1967 and this is your field of research in your phd now I want us to start on and before we start I want to thank Hilwa Market for allowing us to record at her place

at the coffee shop slash shop I want us to deconstruct the terms what does political alliance mean and all the terms in between from shared society to coexistence and so on so thanks Abed and thank you for having me and yes thank you very much to Hilwa Market and their amazing coffee and amazing location. Yes, so I work on political allyship and the way in which people come together to deal with, talk about, handle complex political and social issues as allies.

And allyship, you know, there's not that much written about allyship in general and what the concept means, but it is distinct from things like coexistence and shared society and peace partnerships and these sort of things. Allyship really entails, first of all, it It recognizes that there's a power differential, that groups don't come together as partners because there's too big of a power differential. And it acknowledges that difference in power. And by power, we don't mean individual power.

We mean social power. We mean cultural power, political power, access to power, access to governance, access to voting, access to financial resources, access to all kinds of resources, access to freedoms, access to basic rights on all levels. There is not an equality. There's not equanimity and equality between Palestinians and Israelis, whether we're talking about 48ers or 67ers vis-a-vis their Israeli counterparts.

And allyship then would ask and is defined as a group working on behalf of a marginalized community to reach some kind of an end goal. It doesn't require that there is sort of a two-way street in the equation. There's one side that acknowledges that it has power and privilege. The other side does not have and uses its voice. The higher power group uses its voice and its capacities and its privilege in support of the lower power group's position.

And that's the distinct factor in allyship, which is not when we're talking about shared society. We can be in shared society, but we're not allies. And we can be in the shared society in which you have far less power than me. And I benefit from all this difference in power. And you are continuously across generations subservient to me in some way. You are always on the lower end of the power scale because I'm not interested in equalizing that relationship.

But if I'm your ally, then I am interested in equalizing that relationship.

Growing up here, the term coexistence, shared society, and so on, has always been in the political sphere. I need you to explain what do these terms really mean. And this is my personal view, that the Israeli side is more interested in this term of coexistence, shared society, than the Palestinian side. First of all, tell me if it's true. And why would you think it is? In case you think it's true.

Yeah, I think it's true. I think Israelis, I think Israeli society in general, you know, Gideon Levy wrote an interesting article some time ago since the October 7th war, where he wrote that there was like three things that make Israeli society able to justify or legitimize any of Israel's actions. One of them was that Israeli society sees itself as not just a victim, but also the only victim in the story.

So in this case, you have an interesting combination of a really high power group living in a culture, in a society that has very great levels of access to financial wealth in the high tech sphere and so on, has garnered a great deal of international support, has the backing of the United States, is an established, accomplished military power in the region.

And yet it feels like the victim that in itself needs an ally, right, and is asking Palestinians to be peace partners or coexistence partners because we are suffering, because the Israelis are suffering. So it's a bit of a it's a bit of an interesting and I think it's a bit of a jarring setup where you see a very high power group that's not quite sure it has as much power as it has, that sees itself continuously fearful, afraid, continuously scared.

And it itself needs the support of the Palestinians. You know, on October 7th in the peace camp. I think it was the first time in my experience here in the last 11 years where Israelis turned to the Palestinian partners and said, oh, they needed the hug. They needed the partnership from the Palestinian side on October 7th and after October 7th. But that's not how allyship works, right? In allyship, there has to be some recognition that my privilege and my power

supports you, whatever that lower power group is. centers your narrative, centers your story, highlights what's true for you. And when that anger, when that resistance becomes armed and becomes violent, then we have a problem.

Israeli society will have a problem. If I think it's a natural emergence from a very long-term, very difficult occupation that has continued without end, in which every peaceful solution, whether it's the Oslo Accords, whether it's the Great March of Return, whether it's the BDS movement, none of them has led way to a political solution and that this is a natural response.

Can I still remain an ally? Or is my allyship, there's a little disclaimer, as long as you're the right kind of victim, you're not too angry, you don't become violent. And Israeli society, in order to be a real ally, would have to ask itself, what am I willing to give up? I mean, in the past, it's mostly been, we're willing to say that the settlements are a problem over there. But Israelis who live in 48, I don't have to give up anything.

Okay, so you gave us a, like you analyzed the Israeli side. What about the Palestinians who are both the coexistence, like acknowledging the superiority of the Israeli side, and regardless to the superiority, they still want this coexistence to happen, and the political allyship? Yeah. What's the interest of the Palestinian side? Why do they take part in this? Yeah. I mean, I would put, I'm not Palestinian, but I would put myself in that camp.

I believe in allyship, right? I believe in a world in which when there is huge power differentials and somebody's suffering because of the society that I have, that you want to be able to be an ally. We have built, we have globally built civilizations that is so marked by militarization, by armed violence, why would it be so difficult to think of building a world in which there is reconciliation through allyship?

I also don't see a way in which either Palestinians or Israelis don't live here, right? I mean, it's hard to imagine a world in which that would be the case. So of course, it would be in the best interest of both parties here to make it so that it would be possible for both parties to exist. But what kind of world? What kind of existence? So far, the coexistence has meant kind of the status quo.

The Palestinians are relegated to lower income areas. The Palestinians, you know, are in that the West Bank is separated from East Jerusalem and from Gaza, that there is no two state solution, that there's not a one state solution, that it's kind of in some way politically leaves a very weak Palestinian state or Palestinian presence. I'm not even sure we're talking about Palestinian state anymore, right?

We're just talking about a weakened Palestinian presence, financially weakened, which the prayers protocol memorialize and continues to be in play, vis-a-vis a very strong Israeli state. And that's the coexistence model that exists today. I have worked for many years with Palestinian and Israeli organizations that are doing, whether it's anti-occupation work, coexistence work, different forms of this kind of work.

The Israeli organizations, first of all, tend to be, first of all, the competitors, right? The funding that they get from the international national community is finite. It's not endless amounts of money. They compete against the Palestinian organizations for work involving ending the occupation.

And they are better at winning those grants and those funds because of language, because of the way the granting mechanism is structured, because of the anti-terrorism clause, because of all these different structural reasons. The Israelis are better equipped at winning those grants or international organizations and not Palestinian organizations. So they are competitors in the coexistence anti-occupation space.

Crazy, yeah, crazy, right? And secondly, not only are they competitors for the financial resources, but also competitors for the narrative. Palestinians set a part-hide in 67 forever. Yes. Right? No one talked about it realistically until B'Tselem published a report. Today, it's more or less understood that we can talk about a part-hide in the West Bank. We don't talk about a part-hide in 48. We talk about a part-hide in 67 in the West Bank. And we can use the word.

After B'Tselem decided that they would publish that report. And this is very common. Most Israeli and international organizations don't talk about ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem. They don't use the word ethnic cleansing. And I have worked with many legal aid providers on the Israeli side or the international side who point to international law that defines the way ethnic cleansing is defined.

Although they understand ethnic cleansing is poorly defined, but it's not what's happening here because it's not horrific enough. It's not at gunpoint. It's not buses moving people. It's not shooting people and getting them out. It is more a set of policies and legislature that is legal, but results in the Judaism of Jerusalem or just the removal of a Palestinian presence in Jerusalem and the bringing in of mostly settlers in East Jerusalem.

So they compete and win on the financial side. They compete and win on the narratives. You know, when you do a briefing, an advocacy briefing, diplomatic briefing, and you invite the international community with an organization that's international or Israeli, you'll get the top-notch diplomats who are well-versed, who've been in the region for many years and understand the dynamics.

If you do one with a local Palestinian organization, You will get the new young people who show up, who are still learning what is Area A, B, and C, what does that mean, what do we mean by apartheid, who are here to learn. But the people who can make change, it is the international and Israeli community that has their ear far more than the Palestinian community. So the coexistence world, the shared society space, okay, we can both exist here as long as you know your place and they know theirs.

And there is a clear power differential that they want to maintain. And the question I ask, and they would call themselves an ally. And I would say, it's okay to say you're not an ally, but allyship means you put your power and privilege to center the lower power group. You protect the voice of people who don't have the power and privilege that you have. And the question from the Israeli side is, what are you willing to give up?

This brings me to the next question. When you give me the definition of allyship, this is whether it's an academic definition, whether it's your personal definition, but it's coherent, it's obvious. You describe it this way, this is how you see it. But how do both sides see it? How does the Palestinian see it and what do they expect? And how do the Israelis see it and what do they expect? I think there's a big language barrier there between the two sides.

And this is what my work in this context investigates. Do we have agreement on what allyship means? And are we potentially not allies? Maybe. The reality is there is no allyship in this context. There is something that we're working together to maintain a democratic state, even if you have far less power than me, but at least it's somewhat, it's not a military occupation. It's not a siege.

It's something, maybe it's something different. But if we're going to use the word allyship, then I wanted to explore and try to investigate if those definitions are the same with the two groups or if there is some misunderstandings in the contractual or the friendship in the allyship agreements. In my experience is that Israeli organizations see their allyship. Look, and Israeli organizations and individuals will often talk about the price they've paid for their allyship.

Friendships lost, family members who get angry at them. I mean, who can they marry? Who can they date? If they refuse to do army service, which is not a lot of them, but those who do, they pay a price. If they at least don't do combat unit, they also can pay a price. And there is language around that they've given something up. But there's also language about wanting something back. Even if it's the recognition that I've gave up so much for your cause?

It could be. It could be that. I think it's more than that. I think it's recognition that I've given up so much for your cause. And so therefore, you have to fall in line behind me. I'm leading this. And that's what it is. I'm leading this, right? Since I have the power and privilege and I have the language and the money and all the other indicators that make up power and privilege, I will take, I will be in the spotlight, negative and positive, you get in line behind me.

And in that way, it mirrors and reinforces the power differential that exists out in the world, right? Same setup. If I was an ally, you would turn the spotlight and say, I'm going to send out the invitation, but you're doing the speaking. You're going to use the narrative, you're going to use the language, and I will back up what you say. Even if I disagree, I will ask you to point Point out to me why genocide in Gaza makes sense for you.

Explain to me how do you see the international definition is this? Why are you seeing what's happening in Gaza as a genocide? Why are you seeing what's happening in East Jerusalem as an ethnic cleansing? Why are you seeing what's happening in the West Bank as apartheid? And I would spotlight the Palestinian experience. And the lived reality of Palestinians that is enough to define for itself what it is and doesn't need to wait for an Israeli organization or international

organization to define it for it. What do the Palestinians expect? You gave us what do the Israelis expect, but I'm interested in two things. The first is, why do we even want this?

Was it ever successful? successful and is there any psychological background behind this expectation like the approval of the oppressor and when they go into these projects what do they what i understand there's a language barrier but deeply what do they expect out of this yeah in the palestinian communities that i've spoken to and the the work that i've done so far there's a few different, kind of there's a few different ideas and i'm

sure this will be much more developed as i as i continue the investigation but the first of all there's a couple of of examples that have been that i would call successful one that i really want what i think is super successful that's in the west bank these are israelis who who connect with bedouin shepherding agricultural cultural communities in the West Bank, in Area C.

They connect with them. They tell them, the Bedouins will tell them, we're going to go out shepherding at four in the morning, four thirty in the morning, five in the morning. They meet them. They put a camera on them. They are filming the whole time, and they go in 24-7, right? Whatever time, you know, at all hours, early, early morning for shepherding. When settlers or soldiers come to attack the shepherds, they are there to intervene. They take beatings. They get arrested.

They usually come with international volunteers. So they use a volunteer source from Europe, from all over the world to come and be at that forefront. They document what happens. They publish about what happens. They're very poorly funded. It's a couple of guys in cars. I mean, they're not making any money on this at all. And this to me, wow, that you are putting, yeah, go ahead. It feels like they're literally using their Jewish privilege for a good cause.

They are literally using their bodies, their physical presence, their language capacities, what they are innately, their whiteness in order to protect shepherds. And they make all sorts of agreements with the settlers. Sometimes it's not always that it's a big violent fight. Right. Sometimes it's they talk to the settlers who come up and approach him and they say, OK, can he he just needs to go until this area.

And they make these agreements on behalf of the Bedouins so that they can continue their life in a relatively peaceful manner. But they also get into altercations with soldiers and settlers and they they take beatings. It's that to me is a significant example of allyship. It's also significant because it's what the shepherds need. I don't know that I don't you know, of all the reports that are written on behalf of the occupation or on behalf of Palestinian rights in the occupation.

I'm not sure Palestinians ever asked for any of those. The shepherds themselves connect with these on the ground. Yes, I'm going to go out at 4.30. Are you coming? Okay, I'll meet you there. And they go off in their half Hebrew, half Arabic, and they make it work. To me, it's a great example. I also really appreciate people like Gideon Levy and Amir Ahas who demonstrate to the international world who can, I mean, I guess, you know, they have different stories.

But I remember so many of Gideon Levy's stories of his journalism where he writes about the, I remember one time he wrote about a farmer from El Guelagé who crossed over into an area that was now this protected, what was it called? Like a park. It was going to become a nature reserve. It was part of El Guelagé. It was his land. He still owns the land, but because it's a nature reserve now, he can't use it. There's no border. He crossed over into his land.

And somebody from the, some government official came and gave him a ticket for being on his land. And he narrates the confusion of this farmer who's showing up on his land to do his farming, but suddenly become a nature reserve with a Hebrew-speaking government official who now gives him a ticket. And it's these daily interactions, not huge violence, but structural violence for sure. And he documents it in a language you can read how absolutely absurd this is.

And it's an example that I would never, as an international, would never have accessed without this story. So it's, you know, we hear about the big explosions of violence, but we don't hear about the everyday impact of what the occupation does. Also people like Noam Schuster and people like my friend Sarah Benezra who go on, you know, 24-7 are at protests, are at demonstrations, are writing about it, who lose lots of friends and connections and money and everything for a particular cause.

And I'm not saying that they don't also, as Jews and as Israelis, they also have... You know, they have a problem, right? They have something that they have. It's difficult.

Noura, I want us to talk about language and the language barrier. I want to divide this question into two parts. From your investigation, usually, what language do they speak? And the second question is, do they acknowledge the differences in the language for itself? Like when you say a specific term in Arabic, like, for example, let's take the word haqq. So in Arabic, haq comes from divinity. It's one of the 99 names of God, Abdel Haq. So in the Arabic language, haq is something divine.

So when Palestinians say haq al-awdeh, right of return, it's something extremely powerful that doesn't have to do with this state or another approval of it. It's bigger than this. In Hebrew, haq means, it translates into sukhiyot, which is a bureaucratic term. It's considered to be a new term, new word.

It's not something very ancient. so how does this language barrier also translate in the use of terms when each side it might even hear the same word but expect something totally different yeah it's really interesting i haven't done a lot of research myself on this issue but i can i can imagine i mean there's many ways in which language first i don't even think we have a word in arabic for allyship we have sharaka we We have these different, like, you know, collaborating,

working, you know, we don't have what allyship means. And Palestinians don't generally, you know, kind of ask for allyship, right? Usually it's not a demand that is made. And I don't think it's an expectation that exists in the Palestinian communities that I have, that I've worked with.

But there's a lot of ways in which language, this institutionalization of things like allyship or like the NGO world and how it's become an institution of bureaucracy, a for-profit endeavor in many, many ways, similar to what you're saying, it's no longer allyship because it's important for the world, because it's important for the soul, because it's why we're on the planet. It's why we exist, because we're all interdependent. It doesn't have this ethereal quality.

It's now become tied to a logical framework and a theory of change and bureaucratic documents and legislation and policies and mandates and rules of operating and these kinds of things and in the israeli and the international world one of the things i mean this is like a post-oslo world where all of this exploded and where we developed all of these ngos and all the civil society work that meant to institutionalize oslo's implementation

that took everything away from civil society doing their work because grassroots work in the communities because it's important and because, it's got a connection to the divine or because it's got a even if we don't like the word divine because it's got a connection to humanity and universality and the way that we live in the world but on the israeli and the international community side it is very much a bureaucratic issue so when you say for example there's

a genocide in raza they would say well let's no a genocide means this this and this it doesn't fit the and so it doesn't work vastly different understanding one One lived experience that is screaming, this is what's happening to us. And another sitting far away, able to look at it and say, no, sorry, you don't fit the criteria in a very bureaucratic way. Not everyone, of course, and this is a huge generalization, but there is this gap in the way that we handle what do these terms mean.

Concerning what language do they communicate with? Like, is it Hebrew, is it English, Arabic? So usually these allies should pray a project. How do they communicate? To create some... Something. Help the Palestinian people in some way within a system that's really very difficult to work in. But then you have the local communities who don't operate in English, and the two don't meet, right?

If you don't speak English, there's a whole world of stakeholders and decision makers that is very hard for you to connect to, that are very, very far away from you. But these are the people who have a very good pulse on what's happening on the ground. And like I said, with Ta'ay, there's no English involved. There's some half Arabic, half Hebrew. Hebrew, I don't, you know, I've heard them communicate. It's, they make it work together.

There is now an interest in learning each other's language, not because you took an Ulpan or something, but because you are an ally. And so you want to learn, you want to communicate, you want to coordinate, you want to understand. And so there is work to understand. And what about 48ers? And from my experience, 99% of any co-existent shared society allyship happening, whether whether it's on a party level, whether it's on a civil level, it's usually in Hebrew.

How do you think this affects the politics and the power structure when the language of the oppressor is being used to communicate? Yeah. I feel really bad for 48ers. I think in 67, look, I'm not going to tell you about yourself, 48ers define themselves and their identity in many different ways. In my experience, Palestinians, Palestinians in 67 and in Gaza also, it's very clear their Palestinian identity and their Arabness and their Arabic speak. It's very clear. It's at the forefront.

In 48, you have communities in which Arabic is, you know, it's very, it's almost not spoken or it's so mixed with Hebrew that an Arabic speaker who doesn't speak Hebrew doesn't understand. For people who are now working in the system, in the political parties, in the Knesset, who are political actors in the system who, it is a Hebrew system. It is an Israeli Hebrew system. So now you are working. Look, and I think also it has its own value.

I'm not saying one is better than the other, that allyship and, you know, I'm not saying that one is better than the other. But here you're working in not just the international community system that in and of itself is already very difficult to navigate in for Palestinian rights. But here, within 48, in political parties, in the Knesset, in Hebrew, you have to try to explain and identify the Palestinian cause in Hebrew to a not-so-friendly audience, to a pretty hostile audience.

God with them, the people who take on this role. I think it's important. I do think it's important. I think there is room for it, even if it's a losing battle. Even if it's, you know, even if it's a losing battle, I think there is something to it that is still important. There can't be no Palestinian voices in 48 at the level of governance. But I think it is a lot of work for very, very little return.

And I really think one thing with Israeli society, you know, it's important to understand what you're doing to the weaker side, to the institutionally weaker side. If you are vested in ensuring that the institutionally weaker side remains institutionally weaker forever indefinitely, it is not going to be a good situation for either side.

So it's a bit astonishing to me that at the Knesset level, there isn't more on the Israeli side, more effort to ensure that there is power parity for Palestinians within 48. I think it's low-hanging fruit. I think there's a lot of possibility in 48. It is still an ethno-nationalist state. It is still invested in ensuring Jewish supremacy. It has all those structures.

But I really believe that it is so important to ensure that what you're doing to the lower power groups institutionally has direct consequences to yourself. And it would be so irresponsible to think otherwise. I want us to talk more about 48 and I want to ask you about allyship in 48. Now, most of our talk focused on grass root level activism.

Now in 48, with the absence of a state of all its citizens, where there is an ethno-Jewish state. Is it even possible to talk about allyship the way you describe allyship is without the political framework of a democratic institution, a democratic state that sees all of its citizens as equal? So is it possible? And have you encountered any positive or successful examples of it happening from the highest levels to the lower? Yeah, I don't think it's possible.

I don't think there's anything. But allyship exists on a spectrum. And allyship can happen at the grassroots level, and it can inform what happens on the political level. If we wait for democracy in this country, if we wait for equality in this country before there's any attempt to work on allyship, nothing will ever get started. Allyship can happen at the community level. It can happen at the individual level.

It can happen at much, much smaller, much more manageable levels, which then over time can inform the political reality. I can already hear myself say, well, as a Palestinian, like how much time should Palestinians wait and, you know, how much time should they put into allyship, working with Israelis in this allyship structure, in order to hope for one day for a political solution that would work for their favor? And it's a good question, right? Allyship takes time. It's slow moving.

It's incredibly painful. It is like a relationship, right? Right. It's an incredibly painful situation where there is a clear oppressor and oppressed and the two are trying to make sense of what's happening and using each other in some way so that the end partnership can be strong, can be viable. There isn't in this country, there's no political framework that that acknowledges that or makes that possible.

In this country, the best case scenario is this coexistence scenario where, you know, Jewish Israelis shop in Palestinian markets. They use them, Palestinians, as, you know, cheap labor in the settlements and whatever. And the roles are, you know, and the roles are well defined. And there is one leading the other.

And even those economic interdependence things like using is only when israel wants right is all you're thinking about how we can import people from india and people from thailand to take up some of the work so they don't have to rely on arab labor or palestinian labor so in a proper interdependence in a proper allyship model those relationships are important to maintain regardless of what happens at the political level or in order to inform a political level even if that's not the case now.

And I think within N48, you know, first access to each other is so much easier than in N67. Language, the language barrier isn't there, right? Because people here speak Hebrew and some Israelis speak Arabic. Very few. Very few. But Palestinians here speak Hebrew. So there is at least a closer connection in. But there's also, also for Israelis here, there's less impetus, right?

In Tel Aviv, in the high-tech world, it's possible to live in Tel Aviv and entirely ignore the fact that there's an occupation. Or that there is different, you know, you can go into a hospital in Tel Aviv and say, look, there's Palestinians and Israelis living. What apartheid? What's the problem? So it's, look, I have no easy answer for you. But you brought up the divinity. You brought up the kind of ethereal, abstract nature of this work. And there is the question, is this naive?

Is it naive to think that allyship is useful, it can be done? Is it human nature simply to compete? I was listening to my mentor, Peter Coleman from Columbia University. He did a video, a YouTube clip today where he said that, and he's a social psychologist and he talks and a conflict researcher and says that human beings are not innately meant to compete. We understand we are far more interdependent and we need each other far more than we like to think we do in the modern world.

And it is far more naive, in my view, to think that we can continue to build systems of militarization and occupation for generations to come than to think at some point we have to try to build a culture of allyship. And then the question is, how do we do that? And it's incredibly difficult and incredibly painful and slow work. But what is the alternative? You know, Noura, one of my problems with this...

Allyship coexistence church society and so on is that we like as palestinians but i'm sure also as israelis like both sides see the other as the absolute other and the best way to to test this when it comes to marriage i keep telling people marriage is the most important metric to understand relationship between two groups because for example if i want to marry someone from jordan the west bank egypt turkey for my parents for my society it's accepted right

there are some criterias that the the same religion or nationality and so on but it's accepted like if i if i marry want to marry someone from turkey like even though she's not arab but she's muslim so it's okay and when it comes between like pastinians and israeli even citizens of the state and who who sometimes live next to each other in the same building apartment. For both sides, it's like absolute nightmare.

So in this framework, when both sides see the other side as the absolute other, like I define myself by not being, is it even possible to imagine the shared future. Allyship and to talk about what you are advocating for, like some sort of a better future for both sides? Look, it doesn't have to be imagined, right? I mean, we don't have to imagine. It is. There is no other way. Maybe we don't like it. Maybe we wish it was possible that we don't.

But there is no other way. It is a shared society, whether it's going to be two state, one state, whatever it's going to be. There is no outcome in which there isn't Israelis and Palestinians there. So you don't have to think very far to imagine it. And I'm not talking about friendship. I'm not saying that allyship doesn't necessitate that we're friends or that we love each other, that we hug your enemy and your enemy becomes your friend. This is not the model of allyship.

It doesn't require that at all. So allyship means acknowledging the power differential, first and foremost. And also part of it is, yes, is saying that whatever the outcome becomes, we're both here at the same time working towards that outcome. And whatever happens to you is also going to be reflected on me.

Israeli society in general doesn't see it that way yet Israeli society doesn't say mainstream Israeli society thinks that to control Palestinians and this is sort of iron wall stuff that it's possible to control Palestinians and keep Palestinians locked in place violently, until they break and the old will die and the young will forget and all these cliches which haven't happened which is not the case. And I don't know if sort of the Israeli left is a growing or shrinking population.

I'm sure October 7th also jarred those numbers, but it exists. And even I can't imagine a mainstream Israeli that doesn't acknowledge that there are Arabs living all around, there are Palestinians living all around. The shared society doesn't have to be imagined.

It is. Because it's just a matter of how long does Israeli society wish to be concerned with air raid sirens every once in a while, with attacks every once in a while, with the general, with the normal outcomes of a group that's being occupied militarily, made a second class, third class, fourth class citizen in its home country indefinitely. And how long, until what point does a new future have to be imagined? So, Noura, you've managed to push back on my questions and give good answers.

I hear a but. Yes. No, no. But it's going to get a bit more challenging.

Allyship after the 7th of October, especially how Season 48, how the Israeli society turned against the Palestinian communities. They turned themselves into another arm of the security system. Everybody started snitching and telling about co-workers, friends, and so on, posted anything that they didn't like, even if it's years before 1948. We've seen what happened to Nadira Shalhoub Kavarkian, artists, and the list goes on. So how does your theory hold after the 7th of October? Yeah.

After the 7th of October, it really made me want to investigate this allyship component, because this is when I saw Israelis in the peace camp. Turn to their Palestinian partners, quote unquote, and say, it's your turn to be my ally, right? This is where I thought, oh, okay, wait, we don't share language, right? There's a problem here. Because there's a genocide happening.

Yes, you should pick sides and it should be my side. You should acknowledge October 7th and also this continuous condemn Hamas issue in where it has become very easy. You really don't have to give any facts about anything that's happening in Gaza. It's very easy. Anything that's the death toll numbers, the numbers of people under rubble, the numbers of amputees, it's all Ministry of Health, that's Gazan, that's Hamas, and so therefore it's not believed.

All of these things, which were always the case, but just has become really very much at the forefront in a very big way post-October 7th. But what October 7th did in terms of my allyship idea, First of all, allyship is a principle. It's an ideal. It's something that we're working towards, regardless of whatever the circumstances are. It's not like the stars have to be aligned in order for us to work.

We work on military equipment and atomic bombs and military systems all the time in preparation for. Why don't we work on the core components of allyship all the time in preparation for? So it doesn't matter, October 7th or not. But what October 7th did do was the first time where I really saw Israelis turn to Palestinians and say, OK, ally, be my ally, be my ally. Right. Twelve hundred of ours died. Kibbutz's were destroyed. Children, all this, all the things that we heard about on October 7th.

And the peace camp, you know, really fell apart for a long time. I mean, I don't think it's recovered yet. And that, to me, is where I said, OK, there's a definition problem, because Israelis believe those, the small minority who's in the peace camp, in the coexistence, they believe they have a peace partner, meaning there's two sides of equal power, more or less, working towards a shared goal.

They don't think they're the ally in which they understand that they are, in terms of institutional power, at a far bigger advantage than their Palestinian counterparts. And they're the ally at all times. And the question is, I mean, then it could be a very interesting exploration. If this was a shared definition, then the question is, okay, but I as an Israeli am terrified of armed resistance. I mean, is armed resistance allowed? Should it be happening?

Happening if non-violent resistance hasn't given way to a peaceful solution, then what? I mean, at what point does my commitment to non-violent resistance mean that the lower power group stays low power, stays occupied? And then am I willing to risk my own destruction? Of course not. No one is. Allyship isn't a death sentence. But this is the conversation then. If in terms of an allyship structure, this is a difficult conversation that is to be had.

Not the, why aren't you my peace partner? Because we were never peace partners. We were never partners. We can't be partners. We don't have the same, the difference between us and power is vast. There's no partnership here. And this is where I think that the definitions are very different. And so maybe the conclusion is that allyship is actually a very small part of what happens here.

Maybe there's coexistence and shared society, and maybe those tactics to manage to do life in a coexistence framework is very different from an allyship framework. And maybe to get from one to the other requires a very different set of capacities and conversations and what's happening now. And this is what I'm trying to explore and to understand.

But, you know, I wanted to do this work because I wanted to sort of question if the Israeli and international community allies in the Palestinian context were actual allies. And so October 7th highlighted that for me tremendously. In this particular moment when Israelis turned around and suddenly said, you know, I have one Israeli friend who's a big lefty and was incredibly angry that there were no Palestinian human rights organizations that came out against what happened on October 7th.

And expected some kind of, I don't know, expected what? And... I understand that expectation. But then who are you in this equation? Are you an ally? Or are you somebody who's also injured and now you need a partner? And if you need a partner, then what are the circumstances that you need to work towards to ensure that you have a peace partner? When they say there is no peace partner, it's actually true. There is no peace partner.

Look at, in terms of power, how can I be your peace partner when you've got a boot on my neck? What kind of partnership can I enter into? You know, as a mediator, when I do a mediation with two people, we have to ensure that both people are able to advocate on their own behalf. Both parties feel safe, both parties have the ability. If there's a vast difference in capacity for whatever reason, we don't do a mediation. There's no, there is, you know, we don't expect 100%, you know,

power symmetry. But if the asymmetry is far too great, you don't do a mediation. Nula, first of all, thank you. Last final question. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of this conflict? And I think you bring a very important perspective being a third party. And from what you've seen during your investigation, during your writing of your PhD, what do you foresee for the future? Yeah.

I am depressed and heartbroken. And I think maybe in shock over the state of humanity in 2024, how, you know, this is a genocide that's happening on social media, fully broadcast. Anybody can see it. It's fully available for all of us to see. I am shocked that this is possible. And it feels really awful to imagine that this is the state of humanity. And maybe this is naive. Maybe this is naive to be looking at it in this way.

But I just didn't imagine that there's a way to legitimize and to conduct this kind of a genocide at this level. But, and also, I have an ideal, I have faith, I have an ideal. This is my divine, you know, definition of it. I have an ideal that allyship is possible and is a necessity. That we are, we are forced to create a world in which we build reconciliation by doing allyship. There is no other possibility.

I don't believe fascist regimes last forever. Colonialism can have very, very long-term repercussions, and it will have very long-term repercussions. I'm not optimistic that one day when this conflict is over that there'll be full equality between Palestinians and Israelis and the damage that's been done to Palestinian society remains. But that's a very different problem.

But I am hopeful and I believe that reconciliation has to happen and allyships have to be formed because this is a shared world and this is a shared country and there is, I don't see any way in which it's not a shared country. Noura Omar, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Music.