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