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