All media, Welcome back to It could Happen Here. This is a daily news podcast about all of the things happening here, which is wherever you happen to be, and
also the world in general. And today we are going back to talk about Gaza, particularly what has happened and changed in sort of US policy relating to Gaza, to what's going to happen as the actual combat operations wind down, to the Trump administration's so far promises to effectively ethnically cleanse the entire area and turn it into some sort
of weird US satellite. And with me today is Donna el Kurd, An assistant professor of political science, guest on our episodes about Bibi n Yahoo over It, Behind the Bastards, Danna, thank you so much for being here with us. How are you doing today? I know that's a dumb question. I just asked you that at the start of this too.
Well, thank you for having me. I think every Palestinian in the world is not doing great.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, again, like I said, a dumb question.
The short story of what is happening is that Trump made an unprecedented announcement about a week ago on stage with Netan Yahoo that Gazo would be that, like the Palestinian population would be forced out and not allowed to return, and it would be turned into effectively American condos, right, Like, that's essentially I think that's essentially the gist of the initial meeting, which was met with a degree of chaos even from Israel, because I don't think anyone entirely knew
exactly what Trump was going to say when he got up on that stage, which is pretty normal Trump fashion. But yeah, how would you characterize kind of the initial reaction to that announcement.
Yeah, so a couple of different audiences for that announcement to begin with. For the Israeli side, I mean, what I'm hearing from analysts and people who follow Israeli politics is that this has really changed the permission structure for them.
Yeah.
I think you're right that didn't expect something to this degree, But now that it's been said, it's like that is the full extent of what we can expect to do, right, And so I don't think a lot of people are thinking.
Like, for real, there's going to be a Gaza riviera.
But what this does is it just expands the scope of what they think is possible for Gaza, whether it's preventing reconstruction and you know, basically keeping them in this kind of stagnant condition and allowing people to start trickling out and leaving, and anybody left is considered combatant. That could be a possibility moving forward. It could cover up for more aggressive action ending the ceasefire. I mean, it's
really upended the things in terms of the Israeli perspective. Yeah, and how much they've accepted it, I think.
Yeah, because I mean my interpretation would be that Trump's literal words leave the door open to everything from like you said, sort of slowly waiting for people to trickle out and not letting them back in kind of like what you saw in the Chagos Islands or outright mass killing, you know, like there's no closed doors and Trump's plan.
Other than about three hours before we recorded this on Monday the tenth, a series of articles went out based on some of Trump's comments, confirming Palestinians wouldn't be allowed back into Gaza under his plan. Right, the plan is for ethnic cleansing, right, Like that's the only way to describe that.
Yeah, No, it's very explicit, and I think that the way in which American allies, allied regimes in the region have reacted to this like shows a great deal of alarm. Obviously, Jordan and Egypt, already struggling as it is with a variety of issues, don't want a bunch of Palestinians who are very politically active to be absorbed into their population. The Saudi government, you know, put out I would say,
like a pretty strong statement. I mean, I I was surprised how strong it was, about how much they do not endorse such a plan.
So yeah, And it's interesting because Trump, in the way that he often just like says shit has I'm going to read the exact quote. I'm talking about starting to build and I think I could make a deal with Jordan. I think I can make a deal with Egypt. You know, we give them billions and billions of dollars a year, and so far Egypt and Jordan have both said, no,
this is not something we're interested you. And Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanize said Trump's proposal was nonsense but has to be taken very seriously, which I actually think is a reasonably good summary of how to handle everything that he says. It's nonsense that you have to take it very seriously.
I mean, the man has the nukes, as we've discussed, so yeah, I mean the way that people have reacted is obviously a great deal of alarm. And on the Palestinian side, it's like Palestinian different Palastinian political actors are bracing for, Yeah, the end of the ceasefire essentially.
Yeah, I mean, that's pretty stark term to put it. And I don't know, I guess because yeah, one thing that the door is open on Israel saying well, now that we've announced this plan and people have to get out, everyone's staying is effectively a combatant exactly.
Yeah, I think that that's.
Yeah, it's not you know, what we've seen over the past four hundred and seventy days up to cease fire is not that they have much respect for non combatants to begin with. Yeah, that really didn't stop them from targeting civilians, targeting children. So you can imagine now that even I mean it's hard to even talk about it in these terms. It's not like the Bide administration was
really holding them accountable either. But now again, because the permission structure has just been expanded to such a degree that we don't know what kinds of things we're going to see for people who remain in Gaza in the coming future. And obviously this derails any possibility for Palestinian and Israeli civil society actors who are trying.
To move beyond this particular status quo.
And there's no international actor that's really empowering those efforts, and so it's really bleak.
Yeah, I mean, it's bleak in so many comprehensive ways.
Like one thing, and not to I don't mean to like kind of take the focus off of Gaza, but this is you use the term permission structure on an international level, the US saying we are backing a forced expulsion in genocide of an entire population does change the permission structure for every international actor in terms of like a massive variety of conflicts around the world, Like this is like a sea change in international norms that so many millions of people outside of Gaza will eventually and
there probably immediately be effective.
By I mean, I think that there has always been gaps in what is acceptable and what is permissible under international law. Obviously that has never been applied evenly. And then if you were a particular group that didn't have American backings. For example, the Armenians in Artsa, it didn't matter if you were ethnically cleansed. But like you said, this just expands it to such a scope like now this is an acceptable policy solution to remove wholesale, huge populations.
And when the ceasefire happened, there was an argument, and I think that this is a valid one that Palestinians the fact that they were able to in the ceasefire agreement secure their right to return even to the rubble, that was a huge obstacle to this kind of precedent, and I think Trump is now try to upend that victory, even if it's you know, in terms of a precedent set or in symbolic terms, like you said, this is
now going to become how states operate. I mean, the Syrian dictator during the Syrian Civil War I think pushed.
The bounds of how states can operate. And this is another level.
Yeah. Well, and I think that this is an I want to kind of zero back in on Gaza in a second, but I really do. I think that that broader point that you just make can't be made enough, not just the centrality of Syria, but the idea that when on the international stage, the leader of a country is allowed to do force displacements through massive aerial bombing. Like there's this idea that you can just be like, well, that's just Syria, Right, It's never just Syria, just like
it's never just Gaza. You know, these things metastasize. You have to view that those kind of actions in the international stage like a cancer.
Right. No.
Absolutely.
There was a Syrian activist and political writer, Yasinharsala, who said the Syrianization of the world. Yeah, and we're seeing the gasification of the world. We will see the gassification of the word. Yeah, and that's very, very dangerous for everybody involved.
Yeah, that can't be overstated. A chill kind of goes down my spine thinking about that and thinking about that quote, which makes this a very bad time to throw to ads. But that's what I'm going to do. Then we're going to come back and we're going to talk about b mining. We're back so to zero Beckon on Gaza. Obviously, one thing that comes up when Trump talks about this plan that is an actual thing that would have to be
dealt with one way or the other. Is that huge chunks of Gaza are uninhabitable right now and will be for the foreseeable future because of the sheer quantity of
munitions dispensed. A number of munitions that have been used in Gaza are cluster munitions, but even munitions that are not cluster munitions, when you're dropping bombs on particularly dense urban targets, there's a wide variety of things that can happen to those munitions on their way to their target, including them getting deflected by debris, them getting deflected by pieces of metal and rebar and the like that damages the device and stops it from detonating, but leaves it
still in an active state. And the estimate I'm seeing for munitions used in Gaza is about ten percent of the munitions, and there's no way of knowing how many have been dropped, but estimates are at least thirty thousand and the first seventy days I think, yeah, seven weeks, sorry, much less than seventy days. Nearly thirty thousand munitions in the first seven weeks of the war, so a huge number, about ten percent at least, are still active and live.
And you know, for an idea of how long it takes to d mine and render an area safe for munitions like this. There are still people who die in France from World World War One munitions, you know, up to the present day in twenty twenty five. So this is a massive problem. In the best case scenario, something
has to be done with these munitions. This is something that Trump has been bringing up and when talking about like his desire to clear people out of their d mine and then rebuild effectively what sounds almost like a vacation colony right for the United States. And one of the issues just with any sort of practical sort of effect with D mining is that USAID has been gutted as an agency, and that's the agency through which D
mining was done. We've spent billions of dollars, put billions of dollars into d mining around the world through USAYED. The US military is actually not allowed by our laws to do d mining operations. There's a complicated history there. But like so, we both got this situation where the proposed justification for pushing the population out is well, it's not safe to be there, we have to determine it.
And also we have created a situation in which the organizations that do d mining can't do it anymore.
Yeah, And I think those same organizations asked for like an exception to the stop work order and were denied by the State Department. And yep, no, you know, no explanations were given. And so I mean it's it's obviously a fig leaf. Yeah, it's obviously an excuse like this has nothing to do with bettering conditions in Gaza. And I the fact that he's gone back and clarified and has been asked the number of times, including last night after the Super Bowl or something, and he said no, no,
they won't be allowed to return. Yeah, well, all right, what are you doing mining? You really think you're going to build hotels?
Yeah?
My understanding is like people in the administration were also surprised by this tack of reasoning. So I wonder who's fed him this idea, Like, who's given him this idea that he's going to be able to build hotels?
Here my understanding, based on reading, I don't have any inns in the Trump administration, but the reporting I've seen suggested came from Kushner that like a year or so ago.
He was talking he's been talking about this like this.
Is great, you know, a great place to build a condo. It's beautiful, you know, wonderful weather. I mean, we know just from the past. That is kind of how Trump works is somebody people tell him a lot of shit, but something sticks in his brain and that, like with the Greenland, shit can become US policy, and that appears to be I mean, as best as I can tell, that's the origin of this.
It's just like the grift can really stick in his mind. He's really good at holding onto possibilities for grifting.
Yeah, the fact that you are doing a genocide in order to clear land for condos doesn't make it less of a genocide, but it is like a justification for genocide.
I don't think i've heard a country's leader make before, right, I mean, parts of this are familiar and go back, you know, even to the Iraq War in terms of US Paul and further back right, like what is kind of the core of US support of Israel as our desire to have a stable territory within the Middle East from where we can project power, right, so to that extent, this is like a natural expression of US policy for
decades in the area. Like, well, what if we just take this for ourselves, and then we have this stable platform from where we can airstrike whoever the hell we want. And also Jared Kushner can have his condos.
Yeah.
I mean the thing is they can, they can achieve and have already been able to maintain American hegemony with all sorts of bases across the Middle East some secrets, I'm not, Yeah, cultar like it's it's this is I think this is another level where it's like American and geminy is tangential to Jared Kushner making money. It's an interesting little I've never seen a hedgemon kind of shoot itself in the foot in this direction to this degree.
Yeah, I don't want the focus to be on like the danger to Americans from this, but this is extremely dangerous for Americans too, right, Like having your country openly back a genocide to this extent, like not just even arming it, but saying like we are specifically going to build, like take this land and profit off of it. Is such as it's so comprehensively escalates everything on an international scale.
Like I don't even I can't even I can't think of a single decision that's this reckless that's been made in my lifetime by American politicians other than the Iraq War right.
And that was I think maybe the first nail in the confine, and we're reaching the last nails in the coffin.
Yeah, yeah, well the coffin's almost done.
It's almost done.
We're dismantling the whatever remnants of the international order used to exist, and it's really going to be a free fall.
Yeah. I don't know what more to say on that. I guess kind of one thing we should get into is what we're seeing in terms of the Trump administration and pro Palestine protests in the United States. Obviously, last night at the Super Bowl, we had a moment where a member of Kendrick Lamar's the performance crew on the ground. I think it was one of his dancers. As far as I can tell them, I don't believe the individual has been named yet. Maybe I missed that.
I think somebody has released his name. I took to intercept.
Okay, well, I don't feel specifically a need to do that. But an individual who was a part of that was standing on like one of the cars that was on stage that Kendrick had been dancing on, unfurled a Palestine
and Sudan flag. It is a fairly small, like a couple of feet wide, couple of feet deep, so like not like a mass, certainly not a destructive act, but like, not only did that person get like banned for life from all sort of NFL events and performing or attending them, which I suppose was not super shocking, but there were immediate announcements by New Orleans police that they are trying to figure out what to charge this person under, which, like, I tell me what kind of crime that is, you.
Know, I mean, it's not like he even invaded the pitch, right, like he's it likes to be an actor.
Yeah, he did a thing, I thing that wasn't part of the script I assume, but like, I don't know how you even charged him. Yeah, I don't think charges are out yet, right, but they're going to find something to do, which is also going to set a precedent, right because this is nothing. This person was not in a place they weren't allowed to be. This person didn't damage any property they held a thing like that's the
definition of protect and speech. You know, if you're their employer, you can fire them for that, but you can't charge them criminally for that.
I mean, they wanted to make an example.
They and we'll see what kind of example that they try to make out of this person. And it like, like you said, it's it's really in line with Trump, the Trump administration taking aggressive action against any forms of dissent around American foreign policy. That is obviously, as we've mentioned,
like very tied up with the genocide that unfolded. And so it's these executive orders around deporting international students, it's executive orders around like expanded understandings of anti semitism and the ideas.
Even if you don't go.
After everybody, you're making an example enough that like you're chilling people's abilities to engage, whether it's on campuses or you know, off campuses, and so it's it's definitely I can tell you from like the academic perspective, like a number of disciplinary organizations and and and like Middle Ease Studies Association and things like this, like they're they're very concerned, Like this is a very concerning moment.
Yeah, I want to kind of dig into that a little bit more, and we'll continue our conversation. I've got to throw to ads one last time and then we'll be back we're back, Dan, Yeah, we're just talking about kind of the chilling effects this has had as an academic. Do you want to talk a little bit about what you've experienced so far and what you think kind of needs to be the response to this attempt to chill any kind of protected speech in favor of Palestine or
not even in favor that's the wrong way to put it. Yeah, discussing the reality of the genocide.
Yeah, I mean that's the thing is, like they have not they've conflated. Yeah, any any attempt to give information with advocacy. Yes, so there's that conflation. But then of course advocacy in and of itself is protected. Yes, you're certainly allowed to advocate if you're a student or things, or you know, a citizen in the world world like, of course, So there is that conflation.
And I will say that we're.
Seeing attacks on academic freedom, and we're seeing attacks on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly on academic campuses, both in public institutions that have to uphold public laws and also on private institutions that have paid lip service to things like free speech and are now ignoring that commitment in the past. And so we've seen even tenured professors, like what happened in Nihlenberg College, like tenured professors being targeted losing their jobs.
And I can say that.
This has really activated organizations like the American Association of University Professors, the AAUP, the Middle East Studies Association as well.
Their Committee on Academic Freedom has been.
Working to collect data on how this has impacted people's abilities to engage on the issue of Israel Palstad even in their research or teaching. And then there was a study by two professors Mark Lynch and Shivy Tadhemi George Washington and the University of Maryland, respectively that found something like over ninety percent of professors who teach on the Middle East.
Are self censoring Jesus.
And it's not because they're out in front of the classroom giving a crap about giving their opinion. Yeah, I can tell you none of us want to change anybody's minds about this.
It's like they're literally just self censoring the content.
Yeah, like we're just afraid to even address what happened, what's happening in a historical context, or you know, teaching a course on Israel Palestine or any of those kinds of things is now completely under the microscope.
And this is all part of the whole kind of authoritarian chilling effect of any ability to express anything outside of like what the regimes can that you live under considers acceptable, you know, And it always starts with these well, you know, if we talk about Palestine and what's happening there, then maybe this department will get, you know, its funding cut,
and we won't be able to talk about anything. So really, this is the same decision a lot of hospitals are making around like the treatment for transcripts as well, or we'll lose our funding if we do this, and we do all these other good things. But they never stop, right, like, you never actually are safe. There's no point at which
these people say it's enough. They take your ability to talk about or to act in one way away, and then they take it in a way in another, and they keep taking, you know, until you make a stand, and you might as well make a stand the first time they start trying to take shit from you, otherwise you're going to get backed even further into a fucking corner.
Yeah, there has to be institutions and leadership at these institutions holding a line because this kind of preemptive obedience hasn't served them and it's not going to change fundamentally, the fact that this administration sees academic knowledge production as a political landscape they need to control. And see, I mean Jadvan says it like professors.
Are the enemy.
Yeah, what are you doing trying to placate you know, it's like you're just giving them an easier time.
No, And yeah, through the use of funding and their ability to kind of gin up outrage in media, groups like APEC have effectively blasted a salient in free speech in this country where you really you almost can't talk about Palestine and you certainly can't acknowledge what Israel is doing, right, you can't say it stayent plane terms like we are watching a genocide be at least attempted here, right, And if you do that, there are huge consequences to most
people in traditional organizations, particularly professors, which is always where it starts. And yeah, that salient is just going to get whiter and whiter and whiter, right like that that's the way this stuff works.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, this is not a new argument, but it's like the ways in which the United States has engaged abroad, it's very much boomeranging home, you know. And so it's not about, like you said, it's not just about Palestine. It's not about people who studied Palestine or teach about Israel Palestine.
It's so much broader than that.
The precedent that is being set, and what is like kind of a silver lining is that the last year of the Biden administration, the last year plus of the Biden administration, and then even now, I think at least it has helped people connect the dots a little bit, like this is not an issue in isolation, and just because you don't happen to work on it doesn't mean that you're safe from people meddling in your syllabi or chilling your speech on other issues, whether it's trans rights,
whether it's you know, reproductive rights, whatever issue. If you don't toe the line, they're going to come for you to right. And so I think that at least I've seen folks who are not who have never been, you know, activated on the issue of Israel Palestine, whether in their advocacy or in their research, they're making that connection at least, and maybe that's a sole role learning that I'm trying to be less bleak here.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's helpful. You know, when I think about the hypocrisy of this moment, I think about how much of the clamping down on speech, particularly the attempt to punish like student protesters in the United States, is predicated on accusing them of backing Hamas, right, And it's so interesting to me because, like, you know, obviously I don't think CAMAS is a good organization, but neither is the IRA, and the former President of the United States,
Joe Biden, made pro IRA statements, right, Like one thing is okay and the other is not. I don't know's I find it incredibly frustrating that like there's this pretended act that like, because you've got some people on one side who have made statements in favor of this group, that sucks that that is a reason for cracking down on the ability of people to talk about a genocide.
Like it's it's just this hideous hypocrisy that I don't even understand how like people can keep that consistent in their own heads, but they don't need to write that's always the thing with fascist No, there's no need for consistency.
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's the thing is like, first of all, the conflation that like the entire movement made such a statement or you know, I mean obviously that that in and of itself is dishonest. And like you said, it's not that they care about consistency and they don't have to maintain an honest approach to this. They're just using these isolated incidents of particular you know, particular students or particular groups to shut down.
Any speech around it.
And I was featured in this like vox video and it was just like an explainer, and I received some harassment and like accusations that because I was providing context in a Vox video, which is what I was asked to do based on my expertise, that I was making excuses for, you know, what had happened on October seventh.
I was like, is the red line.
Now just even discussing anything like with any kind of expertise or information like it's it's uh, yeah, it's mind boggling.
I mean, I guess I think that is what they want to make the red line. Yeah, yeah, what you went through there too makes me so angry when I read shit like and this is not on Gillibrand, but Kristin Gillibrand was on someone's podcast recently talking about why some of her Republican colleagues who had expressed opposition to some of Trump's picks ultimately voted for them. And she's like, they're scared of getting murdered, and like, isn't everyone who
says anything? And like you got death threats for a Vox video, Like why are these Congress people who have so many more resources to protect themselves, why do they get to be scared?
Oh? Well that's that's yeah, Congress, And it's and it's inability to do anything, Like yeah, that's that's a whole other level of demoralization.
Yeah, is there anything else you wanted to make sure we hit on during this conversation before we sort of close things out.
I'm not sure if maybe this is two in the weeds, but I think there's been a lot discussed around Trump and the statements around Gaza and his supposed plans for Gaza, and some analysts have claimed that this has to do with like taking an extreme position so that then Arab Israeli normalization deals could make the claim that like we talked him down from this brink, and like Saudi is going to make peace with Israel and claim that we
convinced Trump not to do this kind of thing. And so that's been something I've read in some analysis, and I don't think it's actually correct. I don't think that Trump is making these kinds of statements or possibly these kinds of plans, just as kind of like I don't know, multi level chess with Saudi Arabia to get them to sign a peace deal with Israel, and the conditions in
the region I think have really shifted. And I don't think Saudi Arabia, as I mentioned at the beginning, because they put out statements to this effect, I don't think they're at all interested in this kind of move right at this point. So I just maybe I would only add that Trump is not playing this long game that we think he is.
Maybe we can take him at his word.
Yeah, no, I know, because like Biden was playing a long game, a dumb long game, but a long game trying to brokers a deal with like Saudi Arabia and Israel that I might again I think deranged. If there's clear evidence that the fact that he was not compassmentous, it's that right, But it was a long game and I don't think that Trump is I don't think Trump cares about that.
Yeah, And the region has changed so much, you know, for whether we like it or not, Like Iran is not the threat it used to be, closer ties with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, I mean, has a huge influence on the new Syrian government, Like they don't need this, they don't need this, and like this is not this kind of long game, multi level chess, you know, mastermind over here that Trump is now doing.
So yeah, I just wanted to add that.
People are just doing shit and trying to grab onto whatever they.
Can, right and like let's see what sticks, essentially.
Exactly, I mean that, and that is so much of that is the entirety of the current plan of the new regime in the United States is throw everything you can out there and see what sticks.
You know.
Yeah, they're doing that in Gaza, just like they're doing it everywhere else. Well, Donna, thank you so much. Do you want to plug anything at the end of this, your own stuff or something else?
Check out I Guess the Fire These Times podcast. I sometimes do episode for.
Them, Yes, yes, yes, yes.
And if you're looking for organizations to help support gosins right now. Heal Palestine or Anara A n e R are both doing.
Really crucial work.
Excellent, excellent, we'll check that out. Definitely check out the fire these times and that's a great place to send some aid. Donna, thank you so much for being on the show again. And yeah, I hope you uh, I don't know, I hope, I hope.
I hope that's what I hope.
Yeah, Yeah, thanks for having.
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone met visit our website Polsonmedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.