-
- Welcome to the last American Vagabond.
I'll be joined today again by Zachary Foster PhD,
who has a history or has a PhD in the history
of Palestine from Princeton
to discuss his perspectives on what's going on.
Obviously, this is very relevant to the current dynamic
between Palestine, Gaza, and Israel.
And dive a little deeper with him than our,
than our last conversation on some topics.
'cause we recently discussed a lot
of these different overlaps of the history
of Zionism with him.
And I'd like to talk about a few more points
that I think are very relevant.
Nobody better to talk to about this.
So, Zachary, how are you today?
It's good to have you back on the show.
- Thanks so much for having me back.
- My pleasure. My pleasure.
So I'd, I'd like to start
with the general perspective of yours.
I'd like to ask you your perspective right now with,
you know, since this has been something that you've studied
for a long time, obvi your life's work.
It would seem you've been studying this.
So in your perspective
with what's going on in the world right now,
what do you see changing the most?
And, and is, is it shocking to you to see
so much awareness around these topics?
And, and why do you think that is?
Post-OC October 7th around these kind
of historical lies about like whether Palestine existed and
and so on, and this kind of rapid awakening to so many lies
that have been spun by the Zionist entity?
- You're right. We are seeing a, a,
a sea change in public opinion, not just in the US
but almost everywhere around the world.
I think the reasons are pretty obvious.
You have a, a, a genocide taking place.
You have more journalists killed than in any, uh, uh, uh,
war ever wage in modern history.
You, you have more healthcare workers
killed than in any war wage.
In modern history. We're talking about over 400 healthcare
workers, medical professionals, doctors slaughtered, uh,
just trying to treat patients.
Uh, you're talking about aid workers.
You have more than, I believe, 200 aid workers killed.
Uh, um, you have people going to, uh, retrieve
that aid being slaughtered at the infamous flower massacre,
obviously, uh, uh, the, the, the attack on, um,
on the foreign aid organization
that led Biden to shift course.
Um, so we're really talking about it.
80% of houses and Gaza have been either
partially or completely destroyed.
You're talking about the complete annihilation of an entire,
- Did I lose you?
Still there? There you go. Apologies. Go ahead.
We, we lost, we lost you for a minute. Go ahead. Keep going.
- So I think when you're looking at that, that amount
of violence, that amount of brutality, um, and then,
and then at the same time,
when you're seeing the United States government, as well
as the uk as well as Germany, as well as most
of the G seven, as well as most of the major, uh,
global powers, basically just standing
by either in support outright, as in the case in the us, uk,
and Germany, or just completely silent doing nothing.
It's a total travesty.
And I think that's one
of the reasons why we're seeing such an awakening.
- Mm-Hmm, . Well, so, I mean, what we've seen,
and I completely agree with you,
but it's interesting to me to ask why now.
I mean, obviously it's never been this belligerent
this in your face.
This, the statement I make often is that really,
when you acknowledge the numbers, there's just no excuse
that makes that seem okay to the average person,
15,000 children.
There's nothing you can lay over that,
that makes it seem acceptable.
But there's been times in the past, human rights watch, ams,
international, you know, people calling out very serious
crimes that in some cases did get a lot of recognition.
So is there anything else that you see different today than,
than the many times in the past that this has been sort
of covered up by, by their allies
and different governments in the world?
- Oh, well, there is one key difference, which is
that in the previous wars, um, the 20, uh, 2008, 2009,
aggression known as cast lead in Israel,
in which Israel slaughtered about a thousand people, 700
to 900 of whom were, uh, were civilians.
Right? So in that aggression, um,
Israel killed more Palestinians in Gaza than Hamas killed on
October 7th in, in Israel.
Okay. But of course,
there wasn't the same degree of outrage.
There wasn't the same, uh, uh, uh, degree of solidarity
and support for, uh, uh, for the Palestinians
as we are now seeing in, in terms of support for Israel.
Why is that? And I think the answer is pretty simple, right?
It's because, um, for the first time,
I think in the entirety of this conflict, certainly, uh,
for, for many, many decades, for the first time,
the victims are also Jewish.
The victims are also Israelis.
And that's the key difference. I mean,
that's the only real difference between this aggression, um,
and the previous aggressions on Gaza, right?
2008, Israel killed a thousand Palestinians.
2014, Israel killed more than 2000 Palestinians,
1400 of whom were civilians.
So again, like why was there not the same outrage back then?
Um, right. Directed towards Israel, um,
as there is outrage directed towards Hamas.
Um, so again, it's, it's, I think it's pretty clear it's
because Palestinian lives according to, um, most
of the world, certainly the United States, uh, uh,
the Biden administration, certainly most of, uh, uh,
the eu the Palestinian lives just aren't worth as much.
- Yeah. And unfortunately, that's a, a shocking reality
to some, something we've been aware
of for most, for a long time.
But it's been, it's really kind of breaking
through even in the corporate media, which is interesting.
And actually, on that note,
since we're talking about these shifting perspectives,
why do you think the corporate media is suddenly
in some small cases and others, you know, moderate,
but never the full picture are suddenly telling
the truth in some cases?
What do you think about that?
- Well, even to this day,
the New York Times is publishing headlines that are just,
I mean, you know, they're, they're writing haikus in order
to, um, in, in order
to basically deflect blame away from Israel.
Right? Right. It's like with the Flower Massacre,
the headline of the New York Times, we could pull it up,
I'm sure, but it was basically like literally a string
of three phrases.
There wasn't even a complete sentence.
You had no idea who did the killing.
You had no idea who got killed. It was a chaotic event.
No, it wasn't chaos. It was Israel slaughtering
people gonna get aid.
That should have been the title. Israel Slaughters a hundred
people Trying to get Aid who are being Starved by Israel.
That's the headline. Right.
But there's, you'll never see a headline
like that in the New York Times.
Um, you are correct to point out that there, there,
there has been a shift,
but also there's been a shift in the
Biden administration, right?
Mm-Hmm. , we have seen, um, at least in,
even just in the past couple of days,
we've seen the administration come out
and say, explicitly, we're gonna put a pause on weapons
transfers right after seven months of genocide
after 35,000, probably more like 40
to 50,000 people slaughtered if you include the people under
the rubble after 15,000 kids slaughtered.
Oh, no. Finally, we're drawing the,
we're drawing a line at, at, at Rafa.
I mean, why didn't you draw the line when they committed a,
a mass murder inchi of hospital
and in the hospitals in Hanes
and in the hospitals in everywhere else in Gaza.
So, I mean, literally, I think of the 37 hospitals in Gaza,
every single one of them is partially damaged.
I believe all, uh, um, uh, um, all
but 12 are completely destroyed, including,
- Think we lost you again.
- Yeah. What, what, when you're destroying the entirety
of the healthcare system, when you're mass murdering
journalists, when you're destroying every single home in the
guise of strip, how are these not red lines when you're
killing aid workers in mass?
Uh, you know, when you're killing professors in mass,
when you're slaughtering
- What, - Of course going on
with my internet? I apologize for that.
- Yeah, it's okay.
We, of course, we lose you when we're getting into the
important stuff, you know, as always.
But, you know, go ahead, keep going.
The point you, the point you're making, in case we lost it
for the audience, is simply that
how can we not see the red lines being crossed with
how belligerent this is?
Whether it's healthcare facilities,
or any number of other things we're seeing?
- Yeah. So I think, um, what I would say is, I think the,
the shift in the Biden administration's rhetoric
and even policy now with the pause placed on weapons
transfers to Israel, I think that the shift is obviously in,
in, in public opinion in the us It's not in Biden's view.
Biden doesn't care about GA and children.
I mean, that's obvious. If he cared about the lives
of Palestinians and Gaza,
this would've ended a long time ago.
He doesn't give a flying fuck about the,
the Palestinians and Gaza.
What he cares about is winning an election in November,
and he sees the type stern, he's, he's not a total idiot.
He may be a genocidal maniac, but he's not stupid.
He sees public opinion changing. He
- Yeah, I completely agree.
- He, he sees that you have voters writing in saying,
I'm not gonna vote for this guy.
Um, and so I, I, I do think that, uh, you know, it was
that Michigan vote that played a key role.
And there was another vote, I believe, in Minnesota.
Uh, I can't remember the exact number of, of, uh, uh,
of people who opted, uh, of, who opted out, who opted not
to vote for Biden in the primary.
Right. But he realized,
and then obviously with the campus protests, um,
the largest campus protest movement since the Vietnam War
protest in the late sixties, we're talking about the,
the most dramatic upheaval in domestic American
politics in a half century.
And so he's woken up, um,
because he wants to win a reelection, not
because he cares about people in Gaza.
- Yeah. Well, and I completely agree.
But then in regard to the media,
you think that's the same reasoning?
Is that indication of the control of the media,
or do you think there's a different reason there?
- No, I, I, I do think that at some point, these pundits
who get on CNN and Fox News and M Ms M-S-N-B-C
and who write columns in the New York Times, at some point,
I think they're also realizing that a genocide
that is going on for this long,
where there's just no end in sight, where
everyone is starting to event, like,
I think the way I would describe the shift is, you know,
on October 7th and maybe October 8th,
you had basically unanimous support for Israel.
I mean, almost unanimous, really,
like everybody was waving Israeli flags, people
who never cared about Israel Palestine,
who didn't know anything about Israel,
Palestine are putting Israeli flags in
their social media bylaws.
And what has happened ever since that day is that, um, more
and more people both in the United States and in Israel
and everywhere else, are essentially realizing
that Israel's response is increasingly disproportionate
and is increasingly genocidal.
Because at a certain point, like
Hamas stopped killing is citizens in
Israel on October 8th, right?
Like there was no, the, the justification to counter attack,
okay, for a week or two or three made sense.
But now we're seven months in,
there's no plausible claim here that you're sort
of responding to what happened on seventh.
You are carrying out a genocide at this point. Right?
Um, so I think that is,
and then I think on top of that, what has become obvious
to certainly these Israeli military, um,
and also we have A-A-C-I-A and
and Pentagon officials saying the same thing is
that Hamas is, is un is cannot be defeated.
Mm-Hmm. . And the longer Hamas continues
to carry out attacks, the longer Hamas continues
to fire rockets into Israel, it, it becomes obvious to more
and more people that you just can't achieve these military
objectives you set out to achieve.
And if, if, if you accept that, that this objective
of eradicating Hamas is
unachievable, well then what are you doing?
You're just, it's just a genocide at that point.
- And I would even take it a step further
and say, then we need to ask whether
that is even their objective.
And I think that's the real, the real point there is
that it's, that's the, the narrative spun around
what is clearly a, at the very least, belligerent,
indiscriminate bombing of whoever's in the area,
which I, I think it's even more than that.
But I, I agree completely,
and I think this goes to the larger point
of why Hamas has been used.
You know, whether it's the funding
or different aspects of it in the past in that same way,
the division of the Palestinian
state, I think that's important.
You, you, you bring up the, the campus protest.
I think that's a really important aspect as well.
And you made a really interesting point right there.
And I, it's exactly what we're seeing in reverse,
which is usually how this goes.
Where you had right
after October 7th, people
who knew nothing about the history, which frankly,
most people don't really understand the history there,
but that most people didn't know anything about it.
Were suddenly waving Israeli flags.
Well jump forward seven months or even a few months,
and you've got people in protest who are protesting
what is an self-evident crime.
I clearly think genocide as well.
And yet you got these framings of them where they'd come out
and talk to one person in the corner of the protest
and be like, none of them know anything about the history
of all of Israel or anything about October 7th.
And the point that I make is, well, first of all,
you don't need to understand all of that to be able
to acknowledge crimes taking place
and feel, uh, a drive to stop that.
Right. But it's an interesting overlap there.
All this wild propaganda. You have comments on that?
Go ahead. But I'd like to ask you more about the protests
themselves and, you know,
what do you think it is the shift there from the different,
the, you know, I, the two party paradigm, I think is
so successful at keeping most people kind of trapped
inside these narratives, pound to one side
or the other, which makes them
usually miss the bigger picture.
But all of a sudden, and I, maybe it's the same reason,
maybe just the belligerence of this shook them free,
but we see this massive protest, which I personally see
as more than just one left or right side.
I think it's more than that, that has suddenly
changed the conversation.
Do what do you, why do you think that is?
And do you think there's any elements of this
that we should be concerned about?
- Well, I think what we should con be,
be concerned about is police violence.
Yeah. And, and, and Israeli protests violence, mm-hmm.
As far as I can tell, all the actual acts
of violence have been carried out
by pro-Israel protestors against people, uh, uh,
protesting against a genocide.
Um, say for the, that one, uh, you, you recall that was
that I think a one protester who literally was like faked
and getting poked in the eye by a Palestinian flag.
It was, it was laughable.
I mean, it was, you know, you have Matt leave
and other people literally doing whole,
like five minute sets on this, like fake eye injury.
But literally the, but,
but then if you look at the UCLA protest,
they're firing ro they're literally firing
fireworks into an encampment.
Mm-Hmm. . I mean, you can die.
That's, that could be lethal violence.
And then in New York City, you had a, a police officer
shoot a, a round like fire their weapon
into the air, I think.
And, and that was, I mean, in my opinion,
those were the two most violent events in the past month
or two on these college campuses.
And so the violence is being directed
and perpetrated against the protestors.
It's not being perpetrated by the protestors. So, Mm-Hmm.
, I think the narrative, I mean,
I think it was Maggie Husan who said, uh, uh, uh, something
to the effect of he's never seen the mainstream media.
Misre
- Lost you Guinea for a second.
Hopefully you're coming right back. There we go.
Misrepresent. Go ahead.
- So I, he, he said, I don't think I've,
in my entire history as a journalist, um,
- , they really don't
want us having this conversation.
Zachary, I think that keep cutting in and out. What
- Is going on? Yeah.
- It's mis so never seen something
so misrepresented, I think is where you were.
- That's exactly right. I mean, you literally have the,
the New York Times, the Washington Post
publishing kind of both sides.
Some stories as there were clashes on campus,
there weren't clashes.
There were peaceful protestors that were attacked
by people waving Israeli flags.
That is what happened. And to both sides,
this is just honestly so egregious.
Mm-Hmm. And, and then when you layer on top of that,
these statements coming out of, uh,
US congressional officials, uh, the president, uh, um,
all the mainstream media outlets,
it's anti-Semitism on ga on campuses.
I mean, it's honestly just fiction.
It's just absolute fiction.
All of the reporting I've seen from the actual campuses
themselves, you're looking at peaceful,
overwhelmingly pe peaceful people.
Se you know, serving food, having a health clinic set up,
having a library set up, you know, peaceful students, uh,
um, just protesting a genocide
that is like 99.9% of what you have.
- Yep. And I can't tell if you stopped
there or not 'cause it cut out again.
But I'll jump in really quickly and I'll just point out
that the important thing I think as well
as I'm sure you would agree with, is
that there were a huge representation in some cases,
the majority, 'cause they were put on
by Jewish organizations,
but a Jewish population within these protests, as well
as Holocaust survivors being a part of it,
which doesn't have to mean any one thing or the other.
It just simply means, you can't call it anti-Jewish
or whatever the ridiculous
narrative they throw over the top of this.
And to your point about the protesters that I,
I saw actually more than one example of a person
who pretended to like,
bump his head against a flag and act like he got hit.
And then a GA woman who claimed she was stabbed in the eye
and took that all the way to Congress.
Not, that wasn't why she was there,
but stood there in front of Congress
with not even a blemish saying she was stabbed in the eye,
which took place like two days before that.
You know, it's in the larger picture that we've proven it,
it's, and I I'll say first that I have no doubt
that there is some element out there who are on the side of,
of whatever you wanna call it, pro uh, anti genocide
or pro-Palestinian, who might say things that are taken
to be racist or might have opinions we don't agree with.
But it's by
and large been shown to be aggressively not just
misrepresented, but flat out lied about.
Which my point is always, if you have
to lie about all these things, it's at the very least not
to the level that they're claiming it is.
Right. And I've seen endless provable examples.
I think Stef and Congress just got called out
by the investigator in an open session where they,
she said they were marching
through the halls, screaming, kill all the Jews.
And he said, that's un unequivocally false.
We prove that wasn't true. And you just keep seeing these
narrative floated by people with that kind of power.
That's just, that's terrifying to me.
You know, if you, you wanna comment on that? Go ahead.
- Well, I would just say there are people making
genocidal statements all the time.
Mm-Hmm. , they're the people that are back,
that are backed and supported by the Biden administration.
Right. Okay. Those are the people
who are spewing genocidal rhetoric, not the protestors.
You had be Morich Israel's finance minister, just, uh,
say last week he made another Amalek comment.
The Amalek being the people,
the Biblical Israelites were commanded by God
to annihilate every man, every woman, and every child.
And he is repeating this rhetoric in May
and seven months into a genocide,
the same Israeli government
that the United States has been supporting, uh, for decades
and continues to support and continues to ship arms too.
Um, you know, maybe there's been a single pause in weapons
shipments, but basically support has remained unabated.
Mm-Hmm. . And so that, those are the people
spewing genocide, um, not the students.
Um, and, and you know, to, to the extent there
that there is an, an occasional chant here
or there, I mean,
if you wanna talk about like inappropriate chance
or inappropriate symbols,
the Israeli flag is an apartheid flag,
- Right?
- Every major human rights organization, human rights watch,
amnesty International, the United Nations, Alem,
thank you for pulling that up.
They've all published, this is a 250 page report
documenting, there's, there's no debate.
The point being, there's no debate.
Israel's an apartheid state.
And so if you wave an Israeli flag,
you are waving an apartheid flag that is a symbol
of state supported violence.
And now also prob probable plausible genocide.
When you wave an Israeli flag, you're waving the flag
of a state that is plausibly carrying out a genocide
according to the I cj.
But somehow that is an okay symbol to be waving. Right,
- Right.
Well, and even to the, the point you made about Amalek,
this is the wild part, to me that's so, uh, so much hubris.
I mean, there's, I'm sure there's better words to call it,
but that, so you have the ICJ openly acknowledging that
as a central part of why the intent was there.
Right. The Netanyahu referencing Amalek,
and then they just casually more than once,
by the way, keep referencing it.
Like, that's just sticking your nose up
to the whole process, you know, they're watching, you know,
and it's, it's a, it's a level of on,
they know they're not gonna be held
accountable, or at least they believe that.
And I, I hopefully think that's changing. But you're right.
And I, and this is what's
so interesting about the labeling things like free Palestine
as wink, wink, they mean kill all the Jews.
It's simply not real.
Now, maybe that's there, maybe one of them thinks
that maybe all of it, the point is you guys don't know
that they're making these broad overlap assumptions,
and that's not what real journalism is.
And I think this is really about trying
to frame the entire thing.
And I wanted to bring this into one
of your, o you a few points.
You were highlighting you kind
of something you put in a while ago,
but I wanted to go through some of these historical points.
You highlighted discussion around the history
of peaceful resistance.
I think we touched on this before, but I wanted you
to go ahead and give me your background on that,
because I think it's really important one to understand
that, I mean, repeatedly, well, up into current times there,
the Palestinian resistance has tried
with like the PDS movement, for example, to go
through the channels they were driven into,
even though they have a legal right to arm resistance
through the, for Geneva Convention,
and yet it gets framed as violent every time.
And so go through that, that history in the beginning of,
uh, the original Naba, where it was predominantly, I think,
entirely peaceful until they got driven there.
And what that means all the way to this day,
- I, I wonder if we can actually start with the present,
move back, because I think the present
stuff is the most relevant.
But basically in the weeks prior to October 7th, there was
a, a, a nonviolent protest movement
that had been gaining steam in the Gaza Strip.
There were hundreds of Palestinian protestors.
And I don't even think I tweeted this in, in that thread.
I I wasn't even aware of this.
And I'm someone who was following stuff pretty closely.
This was not well reported on.
You had a, you know, a a, a few articles in 9 7 2
SI don't think publish anything about them.
I no mainstream media in the West had
published anything about these protests.
But you were talking about hundreds
of Palestinians unarmed Palestinians, unaffiliated
with any group marching to the wall, um, and,
and demanding the right, demanding the right of return,
demanding to the blockade in the weeks prior to, uh,
uh, to October 7th.
What was the response of the Israeli military
violent crackdown?
As always, I, I don't even o obviously you already know the
answer to that question because Israel responds to,
to every protest movement,
to every Palestinian protest movement, violent
or nonviolent, exactly the same way.
It's violence. That is the response.
- Lost you again. There we go. Go ahead. I
- Don't know what, so,
so they kill all these protestors in Gaza, um,
in the West Bank on October 5th.
Guess what happened on October 5th in the West Bank?
You had a, a a, um, you had basically a pogrom in Jura.
You have Israeli settlers violently attacking Palestinians
who are do, who are just living their lives.
Um, but, but kind of backing up a bit,
when you're talking about non-violent protest movements, you
of course have the 2018 to 19, uh,
uh, March of the Living protest.
Right. Um, which, which, which preceded these,
these September, uh, there you go.
Which preceded these September, uh, uh, 2023 protests.
But for a period of 21 months,
- I
- For those watching you, you all remember
how this happens when we're, you know, go ahead.
I was trying to fill the space ,
- I, I don't know what to say.
My internet is just spazzing out right now. .
- I mean, we're, we're very used
to this at this point, right.
I mean, you know, I, I deal with the same thing on my end
where there's no discernible reason.
There should be any disconnect.
And yet it continues to happen. So no worries.
My audience is well aware. Well, well familiar
with it. Go ahead, .
- So, for a period of about 21 months in 2018
and 19, you have Palestinians marching to the wall.
Oh my God. What is going on?
- I still, I still got you. Go ahead. Okay.
- You've got Palestinians marching to the wall every week,
every Friday for 21 months, demanding the rate
of return demanding an end to the blockade.
What it Israel to, in response, it slaughtered 221
of those protestors, 60
of them were murdered on a single day, on, uh,
on May 14th, 2018, the same day
that the United States was celebrating Israel's illegal,
illegal annexation of East Jerusalem, uh, uh,
by moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Okay. So on that same day,
you have Israel Max slaughtering Palestinians in the dozens.
Over the course of that entire 21 month period,
6,100 Palestinians experienced life-changing wounds.
And do you know how many Israeli soldiers
and Israeli civilians were killed in response?
Zero. Do you know how many Israeli soldiers
or Israeli civilians were injured in response?
Zero. It was a non-violent protest movement.
And what did Israel do in response?
It mass murdered everyone protesting medics,
journalists, kids.
It made no difference to Israel, any resistance
to Israeli rule, any resistance to Israeli occupation
and apartheid and siege is met
with the exact same lethal force.
And so, and, and that's 2018 to 2019.
Then you brought up the, the BDS movement founded by Omari,
a Palestinian from East Jerusalem,
who launched this movement in 2005.
Um, and has been gaining steam ever since.
And I think we're finally seeing the tipping point now,
where now you have colleges for the first time,
I believe a college and university declared its intent
to divest from companies profiting off Israel's
genocide, 2024.
So it took 19 years,
but it finally happened on a college campus at least.
But we've seen churches, uh, uh, we, we, we've seen mosques.
We've seen other institutions embrace this call to boycott
and, and, and, and divest, um, and sanction Israel.
But this is, I think the, the Israel that we've known
for the past 75 years is not the Israel that we are gonna,
uh, uh, uh, know for the next 75 years.
This is the beginning of the end of Israel as we know it.
Right, right. We're gonna see.
So anyways, you have the, and,
and what did, what did Israel do, uh, to Omar Bari,
they threatened to strip away his residency permit.
Basically, they threatened to deport him.
So if you say, listen, we, we, we, the,
if you look at the BDS website,
it's basically a website dedicated talking all.
- I'll just fill in while you're, while you're coming back
to nonviolent solutions
and responses to aggressive actions. Go ahead.
- Yeah. So it's, you know, you have the BDS movement
that has been embraced, nonviolence,
embraced international law for 20 years.
Um, and
- This is a fun little game, I guess we'll play
and continuing to be attacked for .
It's so incredible that we have
to deal with this, but we'll,
- We'll get, do you deal with this?
Do, is this my internet?
Because my, I thought my internet was fine. I, I, i is the,
- It probably is, uh, trust me, I, it's,
it's not something we're all used to the gremlins
and the machine, but, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting
to me that it's so consistent right now.
Uh, it could just be, you know, random occurrence,
but it seems to be certain times.
But you know, the Go ahead. BDS movement,
nonviolent, go ahead.
- Yeah, so, I mean, so that, that's the BDS movement.
I, and I think going back even further, I mean, I think the,
what triggered the, the conflict,
the way it has evolved over the past three,
four decades was the first ada, the first uprising,
which was, again, overwhelmingly non-violent.
The first year of the first ada, you had, um,
the Israeli army, uh, enter the Gaza Strip,
and they slaughtered 142 Palestinians.
And in response, the people
of Gaza killed exactly zero Israelis, zero Israeli soldiers,
and zero Israeli civilians,
because it was a non-violent revolt.
Certainly initially it was, but then of course, at, because
- Right, because they continued to kill and maim and rape
and pillage, it drove them to respond in kind.
And I think that's important. Go ahead.
- So in response to Israel's brutality, guess what happened?
Well, violence breeds violence, right? Mm-Hmm.
Palestinians started to pick up arms.
And that, in my view at least, explains the transition, um,
at least Hamas' transition, uh,
from a charity organization to a militant group.
It was, and that has been the case, I think,
every time Hamas began to embrace violence
to an even greater extent, right?
First in the charter on paper,
and then in their first attack on Israeli soldiers in all.
- Yeah. The charter is
something I definitely wanna talk about.
And, and Hamas origin in general,
because I think that's an important, uh, overlap
to what's being used today. Go ahead.
- So, so, so, - By the way, just so you know, I'm trying
to fill in after it cuts out with things.
It's so don't, don't feel like I'm cutting you off.
If you hear me. Go ahead. This is very,
- This is very strange.
Honestly, I, I don't know what to say. I, I'm deeply ap.
I'm so, so sorry for this.
But, but basically you have, so, so Hamas, essentially,
it's a gradual transition to violence, you know?
Mm-Hmm. , uh, first it's a charity
organization, then they embrace violence on paper,
then they carry it to first attack on an
Israeli military target.
Then they attack civilians.
And then it's not until after 94 when they start carrying
out these suicide bombings
and killing lots of Israeli civilians, but,
but it's a very gradual transition.
And at every point in that transition, guess
what pushes them further
and further in the direction of violence.
Well, you already know the answer.
It's Israel's gruesome violence, usually against civilians,
almost always, and then usually against children.
And, and, and so, you know, I,
I just think when Israel does not really realize
what it's doing right now,
if it thinks it's making itself safe, let me,
let me explain, give you another example.
In the West Bank, uh, on the eve of October 7th.
- And Phil, in general, though, I, I would argue,
I don't think they think they're making themselves safe.
I argue it's about trying to create the justification to
explain its existence in the idea
of protecting the Jewish population.
Please continue.
- So, I, I'm kind of shifting gears a little bit,
moving away from non-violence,
but just to sort of round out the, the, the, the point here
that violence breeds violence.
Mm-Hmm. . And I think when you realize that,
you kind of understand the trajectory
of the Israel-Palestine question, which is, you know,
Zionism is of movement to create a Jewish land,
a Jewish state in a land that is non-Jewish.
- I'll let you finish. Interested where you're going
in a land that's non-Jewish, go ahead.
- There. There's one and only one way
to build a Jewish state in a land that is 90% non-Jewish.
Right. You have
to evict the non-Jewish inhabitants to create the Jewish state.
Right. And, and what we've seen over the past 75 years is
that, um, that has basically been Israel's kinda long-term
strategy of, of, of, of establishing a Jewish state.
That's what they did in 48.
And then when they, uh, uh,
conquered the West Bank Gaza in 67,
they expelled 200,000 Palestinians from the West Bank Gaza
in 67, 68.
They ex, they, they, they compelled another 60
to 90,000 Palestinians to leave in those first few years
after the occupied Gaza.
Um, and then they've stripped the residency permits
of 15,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
They, they've threatened the, uh, uh, residency status
of tens of thousands of Palestinian, uh,
Palestinians in the West Bank, who are basically,
either they're from Gaza originally, um, and, or,
or their spouses of, of West Bank Palestinians from abroad,
or older children, um, of, of, of parents, one
of whom is not, uh, uh, not a West Bank Palestinian.
Um, it's basically, they froze the
population registry in 2000.
So they have all these, and then
there's the home demolition policy.
Um, Mm-Hmm. , there's the ethnic cleansing
operations in Los Sa, fta and Hamsa, and, um, and,
and Han Hamad.
Um, and, and, and, and E one,
- Well, since you're cutting out again, I'll bring this up
that you were highlighting, uh,
the d the demolition in general.
I have that somewhere I was gonna show,
this is nothing screams only democracy in Middle East,
like demolishing an entire village
because the inhabitants have committed the crime
of being the native inhabitants of the region.
I don't know if you're back or not. Okay, go ahead, .
- Yeah. And then they do the same in Israel proper, too.
It doesn't even, and, and this is why people may chant
from the river to the sea, right?
Because it's, it's in Gaza, uh, it's in the West Bank,
and it's in Israel proper, where as you just pointed out,
they're demolishing, you know, uh, uh, entire villages.
So this is part of Israel's long-term plan, which is,
you know, we wanna, this state is for Jews,
it's all about Jewish prosperity and Jewish development,
and Jewish safety and Jewish security.
And in a world where you prioritize Jews
above everyone else, well eventually,
if you get enough resistance, then you just wind up
carrying out a genocide, which is what we've seen.
- Right? Right. And I did don't think I pulled it up.
I'll, I'll show this in a minute. This is
what I was highlighting that you posted before.
And to make your point that you highlighted what's
interestingly seems to get disputed by everybody
unless you show these articles, is that this is the reality
of the, of, and, and obvious
shalom is called this out as well.
The reality of the nation state law that I thought,
and I think this is an important, uh, overlap,
because what we were looking at here for the,
for those in the podcast is a TV star who stood up
to defend this saying, no, no, no, no,
A Arabs are equal citizens.
And Netanyahu bucked that he actually, he made a point
to say no and quote Israel's the nation state
of the Jews alone, to make your point very clear.
So you just can't ignore what
that ethnonationalist mindset is showing us.
You know, it's very, it's very, very clear. Yeah.
Now, I, I'd like to talk about the history
that you highlighted there of Hamas
and how that part has been used in all of this,
because it's, it's very interesting the time of all this.
And I'd like your thoughts on, you know, if ever you feel
that Hamas was not what it appeared to be like,
if it started as something that wasn't necessarily
what it looked like, or if there,
if there was a point at which it became compromised
and was controlled by Israel, somebody else, when that was,
you know, and kind of gimme your thoughts on that.
'cause we know for, as a fact
that there was funding going on at some
point coming from Israel.
And so explain that for the average viewer.
Like, what is Sammas in that context?
When did it start and, you know, how do you see it being
used by Israel in the timeframe?
- Yeah. So in the, in, in the 1980s, uh, Israel funded
and supported the organization that later became known
as Hamas at the time, it was known as,
- Since you cut out there.
That's interesting, because, you know, we're,
what we're talking about is the funding from like 2019.
Oh, sorry. I just think that's it.
What I was saying, it's interesting that 2 20, 19 80,
before it was that, like the idea that you could argue to
that point, and I wouldn't have cut you off if you didn't
cut out there, , is that, is
that it was created in a sense by Israel, was
that the idea that it became Hamas?
And was that part of the design? Go ahead.
- Well, if you look at the statements made
by the Israeli officials in charge of that policy
of supporting and funding Hamas,
they came out in interviews in the early two thousands
saying, Hamas is a creature of Israel.
Mm-Hmm. , those are their words, not mine.
Right. Um, so, because at the time,
Hamas was a relatively small,
relatively underfunded organization
that basically operated some, you know, they,
they were dedicated to Islamic preaching and charity work,
and they built health clinics
and they supported orphanages, right?
They, it was a charity organization.
Um, and, and so it just, and it was apolitical,
but basically because it got all this support
and funding from, from the Israeli government is able
to expand and build these networks all around Gaza,
all around the West Bank. Um,
- So, so right there, right there.
Do you think that that was a moment that then either by,
by like a byproduct or
by design turned them into something else in your mind?
- Well, look, the reason they were funded
and supported by the state of Israel was only
to Israel's longstanding policy of divide and conquer.
Right? Right. This is a classic colonial strategy.
We all know if our adversaries, in this case, the natives,
if the natives are divided, uh, rather than united,
they're easier to defeat.
And, and that was exactly Israel's strategy with Hamas.
The belief was p the PLO was our main adversary.
The PLO based in exile, right at the time was based,
you know, first in Jordan, then Lebanon, um,
then it got expelled to, to, to, uh, Tunisia.
But basically the, the, the plan was, Hey, let's, um, let,
let's, let's create a rival.
And this wasn't the first time Israel tried to do that.
Right? They tried to do that already in the 1970s
with the village leagues as that these are not well known.
But again, you had basically municipal elections throughout
the, uh, occupied territories.
And in 1976, the overwhelming majority,
something like two thirds, uh, uh, of the mayors
and three quarters of the municipal council seats, uh, um,
went to candidates who were pro PLO.
And, and, and, and so Israel
was like, oh my God, what are we gonna do?
Like, right. Turns out,
the Palestinians in the occupied
territories also wanna be free.
Uh, they also wanna be able to vote for the government
that controls their lives.
They also wanna have freedom of movement. Wow.
What do you know? And so what, so what did Israel do?
We establish these village leagues to try to undermine the,
the, the, the, the democratically elected candidates, right?
Mm-Hmm. , these village leagues were
not democratically elected.
They were appointed by the Israeli military. Right.
And, and what happened. And so,
and so Israel took the same approach with Hamas.
It was, Hey, let's, um, you know,
let's fund this organization to try and undercut the PLO.
And we all know where that ended up.
Um, uh, uh, but, but yeah, go ahead. Well,
- Just to that point right there, then,
do you think in your, you know, either, well,
just in your opinion, do you think the election
that they always point to was a legitimate election?
Because I quite frankly, find it really hard to believe
that they would've allowed a group
that they were already framing as terrorists to just,
you know, roll the dice and see if they're allowed
to be elected, even though they then
took action afterward because of it. How do you read that?
- It's a very good question. I think I,
I don't necessarily think Israel wanted
to see those, those elections.
There was a lot of pressure from the
Bush administration at the time.
You'll recall, this is 2000, uh,
January, 2006, the elections were held.
And in the, in the, in the previous year
or two, the Bush administration, you know, had gone on this,
you know, democracy, rah rah, we're,
we're gonna spread democracy.
We're gonna, you know, overthrow the regime in Iraq we're,
and then they were planning on going to Iran next.
Right? There were all this, we're gonna overthrow the,
you know, um, the, the,
the regime in Afghanistan we're gonna bring
democracy to the Middle East, right?
That, that was basically the Bush doctrine.
Um, and so they tried to do that in Gaza
and in the West Bank as well, like democracy.
Mm-Hmm. . And so they were
the biggest advocates.
It was actually Bush and then Secretary of State,
Condoleezza Rice pressuring, uh, Israel,
and the Palestinian Authority pressuring them both,
that there needs to be elections held in
the Palestinian Territories.
And what do you know, guess what?
The, it, it was Hamas, the organization that, um, was known
to be an organization of the people they were known to be,
uh, um, you know, upstanding, uh, uh, uh, you know, they,
they were a charity organization.
They were basically thought to be basically, you know,
a morally upstanding people.
Whereas Fatah, um, the organization
that had been in power led by first Yes.
, and then mah Abba
after Fed's passing,
that organization was perceived to be corrupt.
Right. That it, there was an internal PA investigation in
the, in 1997 that that determined that the one third
of the budget was just embezzled.
It just disappeared. Right?
And, and that was an internal PA investigation, right?
Like, so, so that, that organization was deeply corrupt.
Mm-Hmm. , Yaser pha
and his cronies were deeply corrupt.
They were also just bad at governing. Right?
This was an organization that was essentially, you know, um,
a kind of a gorilla organization for its entire history.
And now it's trying to, uh, you know, operate a, a sort
of a pseudo government, you know, managing,
it's a completely different,
carrying out gorilla attacks is a different thing than
operating institutions of a government.
Right. Those are very different.
It turns out they weren't that good at the latter. Mm-Hmm.
, uh, you know, and, and, and,
and there was no attempt to share power,
air effect concentrated all the power in his hands.
So that, so, so the, so the PA voice, of course, I mean,
I think had there been any due diligence done on the part
of the United States, on the part of Israel,
they would've known that Hamas was obviously gonna win.
Now, let's be fair, there wasn't an,
it wasn't a sweeping victory.
They won 44% of the vote as compared to 41%
that fought won.
So it was a relative, I mean, it was, you know, that
that's still a clear win.
Mm-Hmm. , but it was a relatively close vote,
and they didn't win a majority of the votes.
They won a plurality. Right. Right.
Um, so, uh, you know, I would say that, you know,
Israel probably probably would not
have supported those elections, right.
Because Israel's policy towards Hamas has long been,
we don't recognize Hamas' Right.
To exist. Right. You know, they have,
- Go ahead.
- Yeah. Well, we don't recognize Hamas' Right. To exist.
That was the attitude in the early nineties when they
export, they, they deported 400 Hamas officials.
That was the attitude right.
In, in 2005,
in 2006 when they won the election, obviously in 2007.
And it is the same attitude to this day with the stated goal
of the operation in Gaza today being to eradicate Hamas.
Right. Well, we'll, we'll see how that goes.
But, um, that has long been Israel's policy.
- And, and, uh, this is the reason I ask this,
because the timing, and I'm sure you've seen this, we,
we bring this up constantly just
because it's still interestingly disputed,
but even arrest citing this,
or a clip that I play often showing B,
former Prime Minister Barak saying the same,
which is a quote from 2019,
just simply highlighting the fact
that they were refunding them in order to keep them divided.
Right. So, at that time, do you think that that was part of
that plan, seeing as how, you know, like even to this day,
Robert in Lke who writes for TA has highlighted
how the PA is simply just kind of like this bully arm
of the Israeli state that the, like,
even the most Palestinian people seem to regard it that way.
So do you think that this was a part of that at the time
that this was, as I think they highlight,
they just gave them suitcases full of cash in order
to make sure that they essentially kept divided.
You know, it's, you think that played role Good?
- It's a good question. When exactly this attitude came
to infiltrate and ultimately dominate.
Mm-Hmm, , the Likud part, the Likud party,
and most of the Israeli mainstream, I would say, um,
was it in 2006 already?
Was it not until 2009, was it not until 2016, 17.
It, it, it is my understanding
that the first public statements made to
that effect were made by be Morich.
He tweeted in 2017, um, anyone who, uh,
opposes the two state solution should support Hamas.
Right? Mm-Hmm. , um, uh, uh,
and then net, who said the same thing in that in 2019?
Um, the question is
how long were they already thinking that?
Right. And I think the answer is certainly, you know,
the early 2010s, I would say at least, uh,
because remember, like Hamas, I think in the 2008, 2009 war,
Israel had this belief that they could maybe
really like overthrow Hamas
or mi I think the woods' belief,
at least in the initial period,
'cause that was in 2008, in December, 2008,
Israel carried out a surprise attack on Gaza.
I think that's why such a great parallel to October 7th,
because in the preceding month,
Israel was basically pretending to wanna restart a, a,
a ceasefire with, uh, with, with Hamas, right?
Because recall, they signed a ceasefire agreement on
June 19th, uh, 2008, that ceasefire agreement.
And, and the agreement was Hamas would stop firing rockets,
um, and Israel would loosen the siege.
Uh, you saw a 90, oh, between June
and November, 2008,
you saw a 97% reduction in the number of rockets fired.
So you could say basically, Hamas lived up to its end
of the bargain, right?
But you saw essentially no movement,
um, on loosening the siege.
It, it, Israel just didn't do it.
And then what happened was, in,
in November, 2008, what did Israel do?
It broke the ceasefire.
It invaded ga the Gaza strip with its ground forces
and killed something like 10, uh,
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
And then there was talks from November to December
between Hamas
and Israel, where they were basically negotiations
to restart that ceasefire agreement.
But Israel was just, uh, uh, was just, it was a facade.
Mm-Hmm. Israel was just faking it.
It secretly, they were planning a ground invasion,
which is exactly what they did in late dec in,
in December of 2008.
Again, with the stated goal,
I think the plan, why was it a surprise?
Is that 'cause they really wanted to, um, you know,
they wanted to try and eliminate Hamas.
And there were statements made at the time by Ahu,
by then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, that we,
we will eradicate Hamas, we will destroy Hamas.
Um, and, and then I think what happened at some point
after that, I think especially once in Netanyahu came
to power in 2009, was that the attitude shifted was, okay,
um, we can't defeat Hamas.
That's, that's just not really possible. Mm-Hmm.
. Um, but there's, there's a side benefit of,
okay, so we can't defeat them,
but there's another benefit to having them in power,
which is that, well, we don't have
to even pretend to negotiate.
We just say, well, how can we negotiate with terrorists?
Right? How can we negotiate when the s
are themselves divided?
You know, we have no, there's no negotiating partner,
there's no partner for peace.
And so we can continue to expand our settlements,
we can continue to expand occupation infrastructure,
we can build more apartheid roads,
we can take away more Palestinian water.
Um, and that was the plan now that,
that has basically been Israel's approach
for the PA since 2009.
- Hmm. That's fascinating.
You know, and there's so many
overlaps there we could dive into.
I I, I'd like to ask you two more things about Hamas
before we move forward, and,
and one's about the charter in general,
but going back to the point you made about 94 in the suicide
bombings, I mean, even just, I hope people don't miss your,
your very quick but important point about the history
of nonviolence before this came about.
But interestingly enough, I've brought this up many times
and I, I, I have your research on this, probably on,
you know, compared to others, is gonna be far more than I,
than than I or anybody else has done.
And I'm curious about the timing of this,
and whether you think the idea
of suicide bombings in general,
and I'm not gonna dispute that there were suicide bombings
carried out by, you know, any number of other elements
or specifically Hamas.
But do you think there's an interesting overlap of,
of false flag element there that this could have been done
to frame, to use,
to make it look like we're talking about some belligerent,
you know, Muslim Arab, you know, Palestinian, uh,
terrorist bombing concept, because I've drawn parallels to
what you've seen Mossad elements do, or other actions,
and interestingly that we don't see that
as common today despite the fact
that they claim it's worse than ever.
I'm just curious what you think about that.
- Yeah, I mean, it's a good question.
I would say that when thinking about what gave rise to the,
um, acts of, uh, uh, uh, to, to these, to this violence
by Hamas, like, we're really talking about a tiny number
of individuals, right?
Mm-Hmm. , there was something like,
I believe 12 suicide attacks between 94 and 2000.
Right? And even during those, those six years,
the Israeli military slaughtered three times
as many Palestinians as the Palestinians killed Israeli.
So even during this period of time when basically
for the first time in Palestinian history,
they're really attacking civilians.
I mean, we, we didn't go back to the deep origins
of this conflict, which was basically Palestinians embracing
non violence almost, you know, uh, uh,
for, for many, many decades.
Mm-hmm, . Um, but,
but yeah, for the first time in, in Palestinian history,
you see these attacks against these Israeli civilians,
I would say, um, at least, uh, you know, you know, and, and,
and the Israeli army just responds with, again,
gruesome violence in return killing three times
as many Palestinians, um,
as the Palestinians killed Israelis.
But in addition to that, the Palestinian, the Israeli army,
also, what I would say is they, they did more than that.
They carried out acts
of collective punishment against all Palestinians.
Right? Right. Um, and, and, and,
and those acts were abso they basically imposed lockdowns
beginning in the mid nineties,
these Israeli army goes into the West Bank and Gaza
and ECTs checkpoints at the entrance
and exit points, 600 checkpoints at the entrance
and exit point of every single
village in Gaza in the West Bank.
And, and so you have already, in 95, 96, you have,
you have 10,000 families in the Gaza
Strip that are going hungry.
The World Food Program, the w the WFP spins up an emergency
food operation to deliver food to 10,000 families starving
to death in Gaza Strip in 1996.
Wow. You know, so, so Israel impose these lockdowns
as collective punishment.
Um, they, again, this is at a time
during the Oslo process when they're supposed
to be making, building trust.
Right. You know, making concessions, transferring over land,
transferring over authority to the Palestinians.
Instead they're doing the exact opposite.
They're eroding trust, uh, uh, they're,
they're punishing Palestinians who, who carry, who, who,
who had no nothing to do with any of the violence.
Um, so I'm not actually sure that's,
that was the question you asked, but
- No, no, that it's, it all, all
of this is fascinating and relevant.
Like I just, it's so interesting.
You're just obviously such a wealth of knowledge
and I hope people will look to your work
to flesh more, you know?
'cause it will take now, I mean, days of content
to get all that, you know, out .
So it's important to do that. But,
so really quick point aside before we go forward.
You said 600 checkpoint, I've talked about this before.
C first of all, that people just like dispute that, like,
it, it's because it does seem like an obscene number.
Can you tell me how many of the,
that you're talking about 600 in what span of space?
I'm be able to understand how ridiculous this number
is? It's, it's just outrageous.
- Yeah. , that's a great question.
So we're talking about, it's actually more,
it was 600 Preoc October 7th.
I think they've added about another a hundred.
That's a Beel bet.
Sell reporting, I think we're close to 700 by now.
Um, but the 600 checkpoints we're talking about,
essentially almost all of them in the West Bank.
Um, wow. So the West Bank, the Israel, you know, um,
the West Bank is 22% of the size.
Uh, uh, uh, 22% of, let's say all of historic Palestine.
Mm-Hmm. , historic Palestine is
roughly the size of New Jersey.
Wow. So you take 22% of the size of New Jersey,
you put 600 checkpoints, now 700 checkpoints in, in, in
that size of territory.
- That's just, I mean, that's overwhelming.
And to think about people to understand, I mean, this is,
you know, it turn like, like consider like the,
the food aid process .
Like right now, when God's said that you're going
through this long, drawn out process, uh, Robert Insh,
again, has done great work on highlighting the disregard
to rights in general, or,
or, you know, just that people can be waiting
there for indefinite periods of time.
They can be arrested for no reason.
Imagine going through 600 of those in a process.
I thank you for highlighting that.
I just find that to be just egregious. It's overwhelming.
I mean, like all of this truly is,
but to the charter now, this is an important point
that we've highlighted before, but the idea that
historically, the charter originally,
or maybe you can correct me on that if it's originally
or not, but the one that people point to,
the older one highlights, uh,
an aim at at killing Jewish people.
Now the, the the other one they,
they put out makes it explicit about Zionism, about the,
you know, the, the nuance that I think is important.
Yeah. So was that the original that they started with and,
and was that their original mindset?
Was that a misrepresentation? Go and explain that for me.
- Yeah, it's a great question.
You're, you're, you're exactly correct.
The 2000, um, excuse me, the, the 1988 charter,
the August, 1988 charter has language in there
that talks about the, the enemy as the Jews.
Um, look, Hamas is an Islamist organization, right?
And so there is language in the Quran, you know,
talking about the Jews of the enemies, you know, uh,
kill them when, uh, if they come from a a, you know, the,
the court, you can find anything you want in the Koran
and the Haddi and the Sunna.
You can find very peaceful statements.
You can find very non peaceful statements.
Um, and, and some of these, uh,
- Real quick on that one point though, it could you,
is there a translation possibility there?
That's something I've heard argued as well, that that can,
that the term Jew being translated it, it can mean more
of a broad thing coming from
the other language. Is that true?
- That's a good question. I don't know.
I, I, I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to speak to that.
Okay. But I, I would definitely say that, um, look,
Hamas was an Islamic, I mean, is an Islamist organization.
And so they're borrowing language, um,
I would say from the Koran and from the Sunna
and from the Hadith literature, so that, you know,
and so there is plenty of,
let's call it anti-Semitic rhetoric in, in, in these texts.
Mm-Hmm. , by the way, there's also plenty
of peaceful rhetoric in these texts.
So it's the same with any, uh, uh, texts.
Like the Jewish tradition is the same, right?
You have statements where the Jews are ordered
to carry out a genocide.
The God of Israel is a genocidal God,
just so everyone knows.
But God is also a peaceful God.
So you can find whatever you want in
these religious texts, right?
Same, same with the Bible. Same with many, right?
Same thing. Go ahead. Exactly. Exactly.
Now you're, and then you're absolutely correct.
In 2017, Hamas amended that, uh, uh, that charter, um, to,
to say the enemies of of,
of the Palestinian people are not the Jews of the Zionists.
Mm-Hmm. . Um, which I would agree with.
Um, of course, the people
who are hell bent on taking over your country and, and,
and making you second class citizens in it.
And if you don't accept your Sta status
as a second class citizen, well, you can be deported,
but those are your, basically, or you can be killed.
Um, but those are basically your options.
So obviously, you know,
Palestinians should be against Zionism.
Um, but, but, but I would say, look, they, they, long
before 2017, it was pretty obvious that Hamas,
there were many, many instances over the previous two
decades where you have senior level Hamas officials making
very, like, like overtures that I would describe
as essentially peace offers extensions of, you know,
extending an olive branch, but they were all rejected.
Again, 'cause Israel doesn't
recognize Hamas' right to exist.
So obviously they're not gonna recognize any kind
of overture, a peaceful overture.
Those came in 2004, 2005.
You have Hamas talking about a, a 10 year truce hudna, um,
uh, if Israel agrees to withdraw from the,
uh, occupied territories.
Um, and then obviously in 2006
and seven, you have the statements published, uh,
articles published in The Guardian, you know, by Inman,
Hanah by Al basically saying the same thing, 10 truce, um,
I if you withdraw from the territories.
So, you know, Hamas had long been open to, to,
to a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
Mm-Hmm. , it was Israel
that had no interest in negotiating with Hamas.
Why is that? I mean, and, and I think it's worth stating
there, 'cause I think, uh, someone listening might say,
well, wait, I thought Israel's all, you know, Israel is,
you know, is always, you know,
it's the Palestinians that reject peace.
Now it's the Israelis who reject peace,
certainly with Hamas, because why?
Mm-Hmm. , because Hamas ha you have
to make real concessions to Hamas.
You have to actually withdraw. Right?
You can't, you can't bully Hamas
around the same way you can bully
around Fatah and Muhammad Abba.
And that is what Israel got so accustomed to, is basically,
um, not an actual partner at the table,
but someone who was subservient to you.
Right? Someone who would take orders from you, someone
who would do your bidding and your dirty work.
That's what Israel wanted. Israel didn't want a partner.
Israel certainly didn't want an equal partner, right? Right.
Because an equal partner, someone you have to like, treat
with respect and make concessions to.
And, but that's not what Israel wanted.
And so Israel had no intention of ever, ever, um, agreeing
to any of Hamas' demands.
By the way, Hamas made peace offers in nine June, 1988, even
before the August, 1988 charter.
Right? You have Zahar number three in Hamas command, go
to Tel Aviv in June, 1988.
He presents a document
to then Israeli defense minister, it's Rabin.
He says, if you withdraw from the,
you don't even have to withdraw.
You just have to declare your intent
to withdraw from the territories.
Wow. And then you have to, um, you have to allow us
to hold elections, um, you know,
with no Israeli interference.
Then we'll have our representatives
that we can then negotiate with you.
Hmm. And again, but, but Israel, no interest.
But again, Israel was, had no intent
and interest in withdrawing from the territories.
On the contrary, from 1982 to 1988, in the six years prior
to this peace offer by Ma Bahamas, um,
Israel tripled its settlement pop,
its its settler population,
- Right? All of which are illegal.
- All of which are illegal. It wasn't
gonna withdraw from these territories.
It wanted to keep up hold of them.
In fact, it was Dr, it dramatic,
it was the most rapid expansion in the settlement enterprise
in the extension of Israeli control over the occupied
territories since 67.
So, look, that, that's what I would say here, is
that actually there have been many,
many opportunities for peace.
Um, it's just Israel has no interest in making the
concessions it would need to make, um,
right. In order to have peace.
- Right, right. Well, there's two points I wanna add to this
and about, I want,
I want your thoughts on the current ceasefire illusion,
which I, I think I framed as the Israel ceasefire long con.
But first I'll, I'll hol highlight one of your tweets
that it, oh, it kind of, uh, dovetails with
what we were just discussing about the,
the charter and the difference.
And, you know, we could all kind of theorize about why
that might have shifted if it could have been a, you know,
a ploy to make you think that they weren't what they are.
You know, it's all different ways you could look at it.
But here's an interesting point.
You write, uh, Hamas did not attack Jews on October 7th,
nor did Hamas commit an anti-Semitic attack on October 7th.
On the contrary, Hamas didn't seem
to care at all about the nationality
or religion of their victims.
Hamas Militants Massacre,
21 Bedouins, none of whom were Jewish.
They killed Majeed, uh, Ibrahim, A a Palestinian in Israel,
and five other Palestinians in Israel.
And you go on to make more examples.
So can you just flush that up for us and,
and highlight the contradiction there to the, the claim And,
and, and I guess, I guess a answer why
then you think that they're trying to do that?
Which I think is an obvious answer, but go ahead.
- Yeah. Well, I, I was triggered by that statement made by,
it was Biden who said something
to the effect of ancient hatreds.
I, I get it. I'm not really, Hamas was founded in 1988.
If you wanna say the predecessor
to Hamas was founded in 1973, the mu islami.
But like either 1973
or 1988, I don't think anyone referred to either
of those dates as ancient.
Right? Right. So what do you mean by ancient?
You're trying to, I don't know, like , you,
you, you're trying to basically like imply
that there's this like, you know,
centuries if not millennia long hatred
of Palestinians towards Jews.
It's, it's disgusting.
It's, it's anti Palestinian is what it is.
- It's, well, I think it's more so anti-Muslim and Arab.
Like, you're trying to really just kind of clump in all
of this as the same concept, which is what seems to happen.
- And, and so I, I just think it's worth pointing out that,
look, I'm not here defending what happened on October 7th,
what I hear, what I am here saying.
In fact, I even described it as a massacre in that tweet.
Right. What I am saying is that,
let's not be fooled for a second.
I if you wanna say this was an attack on Jews.
Well, you are desecrating the memory of all the non Jews
that were also slaughtered on that day.
Exactly. We're talk, we're not like talking two people,
we're talking 80 people.
It's just like, wait, they were,
this was an attack on Israel.
This was an attack on a sovereign nation state. Right.
A sovereign nation state, um, that is an apartheid state
that is continually taking over more Palestinian land
and slaughtering more Palestinians on a day-to-day basis.
That, that it was an attack on a state.
It was not an attack on the Jews. Right.
If you wanna attack Jews, well,
you could attack a synagogue.
I would say if you, if you attack a synagogue
and maybe a non-Jew gets killed in the synagogue, maybe the,
I don't know, the janitor was non-Jewish.
Well, okay, I'm not gonna claim that that's a non,
you were clearly attacking a synagogue
that is clearly an attack on Jews.
Right. But you attacked a, a nation state that 20%
of the people who live in it are non-Jewish.
- I, I, I make this point all the time where it's just,
it's such an insulting, whether it's from the US entities
or the Israeli entities, I make the point every time.
So when they say it was in attack
or, you know, any number
of ways they frame that, I make the point.
I'm like, so you don't care about the non-Jewish people
that were present, that were killed or,
or vice versa, who are held over here.
It just, it's, it's overt bigotry
and racism that you can see on the surface of
what they do on a regular basis.
And that's the most infuriating thing to most of us, is
that then you get called racist for highlighting
what is some of the most obvious racism of our time.
You know, it's this interesting, you know, it's Orwellian
what better time to use that phrase.
Right. But I, I wanna ask you about the,
the ceasefire in general,
because we just mentioned that before.
You know, that that kind of game that's played,
even going back to the other discussion you made even
further back, you know, so
what do you think about what's currently happening
with the play on the ceasefire that just happened and,
and the ongoing Rafa, you know, they've been bombing
and the continuation of
that post this point, you know, how do you read that?
How do you see it happening with the ceasefire? Go ahead.
- Yeah, look, I think one thing we know to be true is
that obviously Hamas wants a ceasefire.
And obviously Netanyahu doesn't want a ceasefire.
, obviously, I don't have privy
to the negotiation, so I don't know what was said.
I don't know what did, I don't.
It's all rumor and speculation and hearsay.
We don't know what exactly was offered.
We don't know what exactly was rejected.
But what we do know is that Netanyahu cannot agree
to a ceasefire because he, if he agrees to cease fire, he,
his coalition will collapse.
He will, uh, be voted out of office.
'cause 80% of Israelis, uh, believe he should resign.
And then he will be per, he will be tried in court
for the three crimes that he is being currently on trial
for, which are a bribery breach
of public trust and corruption.
So, so what what we,
what the only we can be 100% certain enough is Netanya,
who has no desire for a ceasefire
thing we can be very certain about is Hamas
is desperately obviously wanting the people
of Gaza are suffering to such an extent, Hamas is
military capacity has obviously been significantly reduced.
Um, clearly it's in Hamas' interest, uh, uh,
to get a ceasefire, right?
Yeah. So, I mean, that's what we know.
That, that, beyond that, I can't really say much.
- Fair enough. Fair enough. And I think what the most,
the most insulting part that you said there is the idea
that, for the fact even that Netanyahu, uh,
I believe is has maybe just recently was
about to speak in front of Congress.
Again, I haven't seen it, so I don't think it's happened,
but they're about to invite him back, a person
who is currently despised by almost all
of these early population that he's being charged
or investigated for, uh, exact phrasing
with breaking public trust or dishonesty in general,
but then the US entity, the media, they frame him
as some kind of, you know, major leader of today.
You know, it's just such an interesting, again,
I think the large point is this is why average people have
been just like shaken free from their comfortable position
before they can, where they can just pretend it's not
happening, not look at what's going on over there in Gaza.
It's changing. And I'm very happy to see that.
I, I guess let's, let's finish in general
with the conversation about both the, the settlements
and, and the future.
You know, any kind of, a lot
of directions you could take it, which way you want,
the idea of what's gonna happen.
I just have an image I pulled up here,
or a post about the settlers are already
renaming towns in Gaza.
We've seen them begin to build things.
They're having entire conferences about
what the settlements will be,
even though it gets denied in general
by the US administration, you know,
and seeing where this goes
and talking about, you know, Rafa and the end game here.
Like, how do you see this all going?
You know, just where you think the future will go and,
and whoop, sorry, I ly moved you there and,
and you know, what you think the outcome will be in regard
to those settlements with the conversation as it is now?
It's, it's, it's, they're contradictory.
- It, it is hard to imagine Israel being able to,
I'm not saying there isn't a desire to, but,
but being able to rebuild a,
an Israeli civilian settlement in the Casa strip,
I mean, my goodness.
Like, I, I'm, I also,
I'd be curious to know who wants to live there.
I mean, you're literally talking about a place
that has been completely leveled to the ground.
There's no infrastructure, um, that, you know,
that the contamination, the diseases spreading.
I mean, it's, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's a,
it's a not, it's not just a war zone.
It's a bloodbath. It's a slaughterhouse, right?
So, and then you're gonna live there and under the lock
and key of the Israeli army, you're gonna need, you know,
gu towers and guards 24 7,
because you're obviously gonna face attacks all the
time. Um, so I, I,
- I just real quick, I think that's exactly the point.
I think that it's about justifying the reasoning
behind Zionism and I
and arguing that see, they're being attacked
and like, this is even the
settlements and that conversation as well.
I genuinely think that
- That's an interesting perspective.
Look, I mean, you make an interesting point
because how, what sane human being there has
to be some other reason, right?
Because you're just, you're,
you're going on a suicide mission, honestly, is
what you're doing, right?
So I I, yeah, I, I I can't explain that.
- Yeah. Well, so what do you see being the future in
regard to what's about to happen?
Because we're so right now to end in general,
we're at a very dangerous point in all of this, right?
Where it's very obvious that every element seems to be aware
that they've lost control of the narrative,
and it's just drowning in their own lies.
And every moment is one more thing that the ICJ
and the ICC are making notes of, if
that goes the way it should.
And so we're at a point now where, as you said,
they can't really end this Netanyahu in particular,
because no matter how it ends, once it ends,
that's gonna be the ending for him.
And so the, and then you've got the other elements
of their government sort of like chomping at the
bit to have their control.
And, and these are some of the most extreme elements
that I've ever seen this conversation.
And we have Rafa kind of stuck in the middle of all this,
the entire Palestinian conversation, you know,
so just where do you see this going?
And it's all theoretical, right?
But how do you see this playing out?
- I, I see things continuing more
or less on a similar trajectory that they have been going,
uh, for the past few months.
Hmm. I think that it, there will continue to be these sort
of low level, um, you know, at least lower level operations,
military operations in the Gaza Strip than there were,
at least in the first few months.
You know, the number of dead Palestinians on a daily basis
is somewhere between, let's say, you know,
uh, 30 and a hundred.
Whereas in the first three, four months, it was somewhere
between, you know, 200 and 500.
In some days there were six, 700 people killed, right? Yeah.
But literally, so it's,
they've scale back the military operation,
they're slaughtering less Palestinians per day,
but nevertheless, continuing, right?
Um, the, the, the, the famine will get worse.
Famines don't get better. People don't realize this.
There's only one direction to go in, right?
We're, we're beyond this, uh, uh, the,
unless you have, even if you turn thi even if overnight
you allow all the humanitarian trucks in,
you allow all the aid in
and let it get uninhibited to the places where you need to.
People are dying already. Mm-Hmm.
according to the un, just, uh, uh, just the,
the statements were made just a day
or two ago, full-blown famine in North Casa.
Right? 600 people literally starving to death.
And so there will, and so, and,
and unfortunately, those people who are in the worst cases,
they can't leave their homes.
They're, they're, they're too frail and weak to move, right?
So they, so we don't even know it's happening.
There isn't reporting.
'cause the only reporting we have are people
who wind up in the hospitals, the 32 or 35, or
however many, uh, starved s who have starved to death
by the official counts.
Um, those are just people who have made it to a hospital.
Hmm. So we're gonna see more starvation.
Um, we're gonna see more diseases spreading.
There's a million people who have a
disease right now in Gaza.
Hmm. Half of the population has hepatitis a skin disease,
you know, a flu pneumonia, a cold.
They have all kinds of diarrhea.
So all kinds of awful diseases.
Half of the people in Gaza are sick right now.
That will get worse. Um, so I just, I, again, I, I I,
it is painful to say these things, things,
but I just, I don't see the Biden administration actually
shifting gears and without a, a, a,
a hard stop without real, uh, um, you know,
action from the Biden administration.
Um, I don't see things changing in the Gaza Strip.
So I think it'll get worse.
The humanitarian crisis will worsen Israel continue
to raise a low level, uh,
genocidal war on all 2 million people in Gaza.
Um, and, uh,
and Netanyahu will hope, uh, uh, Trump wins in November.
Yeah. Because that's his best hope
for then continuing beyond November. Right.
- Well, I get last two things then.
I mean, do what, what part does West Bank plan in this?
Because obviously that's starting to, and then
and truly to, to end on the point of,
you know, what do you think then?
'cause I sadly agree with you,
and I mean, it's just this inevitable slow motion genocide
that is, it is just, it's very difficult for anybody,
especially per people that have barely paid attention
to this before to watch.
So what do you recommend they do if they're out there
watching, you know, in, and what actions can they take?
- I think that we all need to, um,
leverage our own strengths when thinking about
what we can all do, right?
So it could be that if I'm a politician, okay, well then,
uh, you know, I can vote, uh, I have a,
I have a vote in the US Congress.
Well, that's, that's about like, you know, um, so,
so you can, but if you're not a, a politician,
you can lobby your politician Mm-Hmm.
, um, you can go to a protest.
You can, you can share, uh, uh, content online.
Um, you know, you can, uh, if you work at a company
or a business, you can advocate that your company, uh,
you know, cease it's, uh, projects and,
and partnerships with the Israeli military, right?
Um, right. If you're, if you're a university student,
you can demand that you,
that your university divest from companies
profiting off Israel's genocide.
So we're, you know, I'm not a college student,
so I don't have any leverage over my university, right?
Right. I don't work at a business, let's say,
that's invested in Israeli apartheid or in Israeli genocide.
So maybe I can't do that,
but maybe, maybe I have some other le maybe I have a circle
of friends that don't know anything about Gaza,
and maybe I can educate them, right?
So you have to find
where you have leverage in the system and use that leverage.
- I agree. I agree. And I think that's important right now,
that as I, as I framed this recently
and I reached show people verse the Empire
Worldwide revolution against tyranny, oppression,
and Zionism framed as antisemitism.
The first part being the important part is that I agree
that I think right now, regardless of the politics
or the mis, you know, what you think people may be have
wrong or what color their hair is, I think it's obvious
that right now this is a growing movement to people
that see what's happening.
And I appreciate you taking the time today
to talk about this, because this is
so monumentally important.
I hope people will just get out there to try
to raise awareness about this show solidarity,
talk about what's happening,
do a show like we're doing Hand
Out Flyers for Crying Out Loud.
I really believe we're making a difference on this.
The sad reality is that what we're,
I think most people are becoming uncomfortably aware of is
that they don't care what we think or say.
And, and really that because of that, we've had less
and less ability to have immediate action to change
what they're doing in real time.
But we are doing it. And I think the more people
that stand up, we're watching that change slowly.
And I believe that that could
and can make a bigger difference on, you know, right now,
people's lives in Gaza.
So thank you for, for taking the time.
Anything else you wanna share with us before we leave today?
Thanks so much for having me. I, it was a pleasure.
Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. And hope we talk soon.
Okay. Fantastic. And as always,
everybody out there question everything,
come to your own conclusions.
Stay vigilant.