243: Breaking the Fear Barrier, with Shareef Safadi
00:26 Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha one moral podcast. I've got to count here. Hello everybody. Happy Indigenous People's Day. One, two, three state solution. Welcome to Bad Hasbara, ladies and gentlemen. The world's most moral podcast. When that's not here, I go off script.
00:51 Yeah. Yeah, no, but you're, but you've been co-hosting a lot. you co-hosted it with Matt on Friday I was gone Matt's gone today Matt's flying to Philadelphia I'm just trying to get as much exposure as possible for this missing tooth before it comes back in that gap tooth smile of yours is so charming we all love to see it but we're looking forward to
01:14 to you having a full complement of teeth also yeah welcome everybody it's the world's most moral podcast I'm Daniel Matei today's most moral co-host number one and I'm producer Adam Levin here filling in for Matt indeed thanks for joining Adam and shout out to editor Brent on the threes and fours and we got Matt leave out there in the field shout out to him always and yeah welcome to another episode
01:44 it's indigenous people's day uh here formerly known as Columbus day but fuck that guy yes um I don't have much to plug you should go see Matt in Philly and here in Brooklyn when he gets here with Francesca Fiorentini. The links will be a description below. You should listen to my middle school mysteries album. Sure. Anything going on with you, Adam? Well, I am working diligently on a little pizza pop-up out here in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. Hope to do it sometime after Thanksgiving, but keep your eyes peeled. Follow Hey Adam Levin on Instagram if you're curious. Also, of course, I would love to expose some people to the Skadskaska playlist.
02:30 So you just hit that anytime you need a little pep in your step. Anytime you need to pick it up, pick it up, pick it up. Today's episode is brought to you by Action Against Hunger. Action Against Hunger has been assisting the population in Gaza for more than 20 years. Their teams have mobilized to provide hot meals and fresh and dry food, distribute hygiene kits, connect people with shelters, and transport clean water into communities. Action Against Hunger launched nutrition programs aimed at addressing the alarming increase in malnutrition, particularly among children and pregnant women.
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03:46 reviews and all of these things will make you feel as good as donating to a charity and we like to see number go up. We like to see number go up. We like to see number get closer to 70,000. That's what we're approaching right now on a subscriber account. Now, Adam, I am ready for your incisive and I'm sure highly original question that I have no idea what you're going to say. They didn't know what's the spin. Well, the spin today concerns a little Belle Provence called Quebec. I don't know if you've seen this. Have you seen this? Have you heard of this? On Twitter the last few days, Quebec. Have you heard about this? Hey, Kevin. You heard about this? What a fantastic French province.
04:26 Quebec has been going viral thanks to some videos of Quebecwa folklore from like the 1980s and 70s. There were these programs, one called Soire Canadian, which is basically just Quebecwa people getting together and singing these call-and-response folk songs. And there's this one kid in particular
04:44 who sings a song called Dr. Gerritu. I'll play a little clip from it. Those who haven't seen it, look at it. Dr. Garat-you. Dr. Cural is what it means. Okay. So the old folks are loving it. I got to say a big shout out to my friend, director, actor, producer of the film.
05:31 I like me, a film about John Candy. Chris Candy, I had no idea you got started so early. But incredible voice on you at a young age. Wasn't he fantastic? I think South Park needs to take Cartman back to French Canada and have. him turn into one of these kids. But the kid's so charming and he's got such style. And he's singing a song called Dr. Gerritu,
05:57 meaning Dr. Curial, cure all. And the chorus means Dr. Cural, he has a remedy for everything. And then in the verses, it's like the patient arrived with, you know, a stuffy nose. And so the doctor cut off a bit of his nose. And then in the next verse, he had a, He had a pain in his elbow. So he cut off his elbow. So it's a doctor who just keeps amputating people.
06:22 Doctor has a cure for everything, and that cure is showbiz. Exactly. This kid's fabulous. So that inspired me to bring up some Quebecois folklore for the What's the Spin. This is an album that I don't think is available online, but it's a beautiful album called A Canadiens Erin by Lillian Labet and Don Hinkley.
06:40 Really great Capefouafelah folk music with some more modern folkie arrangements. This is an album from my parents' LP collection. We listened to this very record. I stole it from them when I was a kid. I stole it from them more recently. It's called, the band is called Le Reve de Diebel, the Devil's Dream, and the album's called Rivierre Joan,
07:01 the Yellow River. Look at these guys. Wow, they are sort of a woodsy gentleman. Yeah, and their names are literally like Jean-Marke, Gaston, and something, but they're terrific. They're very woodsy and it's very good. Felix Leclerc is a folk singer-ish, not like super traditional folk,
07:22 but the album is called Leritage, Heritage, so I thought I would include it. Gilles Vignot, famous separatist Quebecois singer. This is from later in his life. I think he's still alive, actually. But the album is called My Genes, My Youth, and he sings nostalgic songs
07:41 about growing up in Wintry, Quebec. We've got Kate and Anna McGarrickle, one of whom is Rufus Wainwright's mother. Okay, the McGarrigal Sisters. The McGarrigal Sisters. And this is their French record with a bunch of, yeah, Quebecwa and French songs on it. I've got, I had to include Ween's album, Quebec. Okay. Which has nothing to do with Quebec.
08:10 I'm more of a chocolate and cheese guy just for the album cover. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it is a very tasty album cover for sure. And then finally, the video of that Quebec kid set off a whole bunch of discourse on Twitter with someone in Toronto being like, we have to section off Quebec from the rest of Canada. We cannot let this spread.
08:34 To which I said, you're correct. We cannot trust the rest of culture skimmed Canada with this much nuclear grade RIS. Like, like it would just, like Anglo Canada cannot withstand that. Except I have to make this exception. The Maritimes, the East Coast, Stan Rogers with Between the Breaks Live. This is the guy who sings, oh, the year was 1778. Oh, I wish I was in Sherbrook now.
08:59 You know that song? I have, you are getting extremely Canadian on me. That I can't do. You want to talk the Planet Smashers? You want to talk King Apparatus? I can talk about Canadian scabands, but that's it. Did King Apparatus do detachable penis? No, that's King Missile.
09:15 Yes. Yeah. No, Stan Rogers, yeah, I mean, Barrett's privateers, the Mary Ellen Carter, really inspiring Canadian, you know, maritime bar music, real great sing-along stuff. And some Americans know him too. So that is, that's the spin today, Canadian folklore. Incredible. And Adam, thank you so much for joining me for the intro. You are going to return to the ones and twos backstage, keeping track of everything and making notes and doing.
09:45 the lower thirds and I'm going to continue on to introduce our wonderful guest. Always a pleasure, Daniel. Even more of a pleasure for me. And now I'm very excited to bring on our, my excellent, wonderful, extraordinary, spectacular guest today. If you're on Instagram and if you're following what's going on, on the land, in that place, whatever you call that place, Israel, Israel, is not real, Pissrael, the crumbling settler colony. or Am Yisrael or occupied Palestine. You are probably following this guy, and if you're not, you need to be. He does amazing videos, very intimate look at being a Palestinian in 48.
10:32 He is a self-described human cat lover, Palestinian advocate born in Nazareth, resident of Haifa, and a truly excellent creator of incisive and illuminating content on life in there. that place. Please welcome to Bad Hasbara, first time ever, Sharif Safadi. Daniel, thank you for that. Hello, how are you, Sharif? I'm good surviving. I just came back from London and back to the reality of the Holy Land. Yeah, back to the unreal reality. Well, welcome back. I'm glad you made it back safe. Just to refresh people's memories, we have featured you on the show before, and it was
11:15 the it was the clip that made me want to have you on. This is when you you happened upon just randomly a scene, a particular scene on the streets of, is it Haifa or Jaffa? It's Haifa. All right. And let's just play it and you can tell us sort of what the hell this was.
11:49 I'm just my dimma, she emos seemly gays. You know what they do to the gays? So this is this video of two women kissing on the street and another woman berating them about how they're siding with Nazis. Clearly, these are anti-Zionists or progressives. She's clocked them as, you know, anti-genocide, pro-Palestinian, or at least leftist enough to scream at on the street. And she screams at them,
12:17 What ride do you have to side with the Nazis and live here at our expense? Parasites, pathological Nazis. I have no idea what's happening here. And then she goes into the history of the neighborhood. She says, if you're anti-Zionist, go live in anti-Zionist neighborhoods. This neighborhood was, and then you cut in. This neighborhood was built in 1920. Someone tries to get her to shut up.
12:49 who is Zionist and quiet. This is the most Israeli scene somehow. Anyway, what was going on here? You just stumbled on this randomly? Listen, so I lived, this actually was one of my last week in that apartment, and I lived in the Hadar area. And usually it's a quiet area filled with, like, there's many Arabs there, there's many Russians,
13:15 and people who, you know, who have moved from, Russia not that long ago, so like not really born in occupied Palestine. So it's not that intensely Zionist area. It's come many hipsters, many, many youth who, many leftist youth and LGBT community come to that to that neighborhood. And it was the first time that I actually, in that neighborhood specifically, I experienced something like that. Right. So I was, I was coming back home, I don't know where I was even. I was going back home and I see this woman shouting her lungs out at these girls. I'm like, is this real? Are they filming something? Is it a sketch? Is it actually happening? Is this eret's ne' head there? Listen, you could see that I was not prepared. Like,
14:09 I had pimple patches everywhere and I'm like, what's happening here? Apparently she had seen that one of the girls, the one who was wearing a red shirt, she was. was wearing a MacVac Societalio, which is basically a political movement here called the socialist struggle, right? And from that, she clucked that their anti-designers or whatever or like Palestinian supporters from the fact that she's wearing just that shirt, right? And she just like started chatting at them and I'm like, I'm going to film this, right? And she goes, you see, she's, the thing is, I thought to myself, is she, is she, is she, is she, is she, right first and then she was quite articulate
14:50 right and she kind of knew her twisted history in a way right yes yes yes and for me in a way she represents unfortunately like a very big chunk if not the majority of the Israeli people yeah she's
15:06 she's more I guess brave with it to like just stop people in the street and like just you know harass them assault them and actually there was one part that like he didn't I didn't film. I wish I filmed because it wasn't very quick. She was shouting at one of the girls and the girl seemed very unbothered, looking at her and the eyes and saying,
15:29 free, free Palestine. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's funny. It's funny. So there are these pockets of neighborhoods where the Jews you're surrounded by are more woke to use a term that's not indigenous to your region or more aware. Does it make a, what difference does it make to, and how many of these pockets are there in the country? And what's the difference for a Palestinian citizen of Israel being surrounded by that versus being surrounded by just average, like normal Israelis like the woman screaming at them? Or is there much of a difference? Let's start with saying that, like the anti-Zionist Israeli scene is very limited, right? I come from Nazareth, a Palestinian city.
16:17 There were no Jewish residents of Nazareth, as of course of Upper Nazareth, which is a settlement that was built in the 50s as part of the juridizing the Galilee project. In Haifa, again, living in Hador, there's another, I was at one point during the Iran War, I went to the shelter, and one of the neighbors
16:41 had recognized me or a family, a relative, had recognized me and told my neighbor that they followed me and they like my content. And in the middle of the shelter, a shelter is full with people, right? He goes and he says, She if you didn't tell me that you're a big
16:59 anti-Zerian advocate, and he's happy about that, right? He's also, I mean, doesn't really, doesn't necessarily identify as Israeli, but he's a Jew, right? and I'm like, can you please be quiet? I don't know who's here. But mostly people in the shelter were like, you know. Hey, Sharif, I hear you're a big enemy of the state.
17:21 It's great to meet you. Why don't we talk about it really loud? No, but he is super lovely. Unfortunately, he and his family moved to the states, to the states now because you just couldn't take it anymore here. Actually, in this video, he joins. He's one of the people talking in the background, talking to her in the background,
17:40 not the one saying this is a Zionist neighborhood, another one. This neighborhood is Zionist and quiet. I really like, like, usually in the majority of neighborhoods
17:51 and the majority of cities in Israel, you see a lot of soldiers, you know, naturally, they all go to the army, right? So you see a lot of soldiers, a lot of Israeli flags,
18:00 a lot of, and you see these things, but, like, relatively speaking, like, to a very minimal extent. And you also see a lot of
18:13 Hebrew and Arabic and English, pro-Palestinian graffities and writings on the walls. There is one. I share sometimes on my stories. There is one quote that puts Israel in the same
18:32 or the government at the same level as the the Ayatollah regime in Iran, so it says, let's stop the Ayatollah regime of Israel, basically. So, so it's pointed. So there's some radical messaging. Well, zooming out a bit to the stuff that you put out there, you're quite prolific. What was the motivation to start making these videos?
19:00 And what would you say is your, how do you frame your mission or your, you know, what you're trying to get people because I could you make it in English right so I assuming you're trying to reach people out here what is it you want people to take away mostly from from your content so I just share a Palestinian propaganda the PA pays me 10 million dollars a month sweet people actually believe that I get paid for doing what I do you get you get an extra million dollars if a Hasbarist has a stroke watching your stuff. Bro, like, I honestly, the thing I envy Yusuf Haddad and all these bullshiters of is the fact
19:46 that they actually get money and get something out of me. I just, I only damage my, my chances of getting any money anytime soon. But yeah, it all started like, before I started, before I turned my account public, I used to share my, you know, my, my ideas and what I thought on Instagram, on my stories before I started making videos just for friends and for you know international friends because I used to work in a hostel in the old city of Nazareth and had lots of international friends. I was even interviewed twice on the BBC once during the May events in the ethnic cleansing of Sheikh Jarach in 2021 and once during another war between I don't remember if I don't
20:36 remember there's so many things that I really don't remember the specifics but it was another bombing of Gaza one of the mowing the lawn operations yeah yeah they called me the BBC called me and they expected me to give them I don't know what they expected me but like she was disappointed with my answer because like she's like how does it feel living under the the rockets of Hamas or God knows who was shooting at the time I'm like and I give her of course you know the pro-palistinia I'm like you know this is to be expected right And that was after a ceasefire had been reached, she said, oh, do you believe that this is a lasting ceasefire?
21:13 Reached or breached? Reached. So it was after the whole thing, it's synonyms for Israel. Exactly, exactly. So I said, listen, this is going to be only, you know, temporarily. And we're going to have something worse coming soon. If you don't actually reach a better situation, reach a better agreement. and actually give people in Gaza
21:39 and people of Palestine the minimal of rights. But after the genocide started, I... Of course, my job in tourism was irrelevant because we had to close down the hostel. I felt frustrated. I felt that people in Gaza
22:00 are being slaughtered, being genocided, and there's nothing I can do. out of complete desperation, out of complete, you know, just pain. I wanted to at least share my voice, especially that from within the 48 territories, there's many people who speak about the Palestinian cause on social media. But in Arabic, at the time that I started, I didn't know anyone who spoke about us about our Palestinian identity in English, except, of course, the Hasbara people.
22:41 So Yusb Haddad and Nasdae Lee, who's like another clown, and such. Oh, he's so inspiring, though. His videos read such a beautiful picture of coexistence. Listen, I used to like the dude. When he started, I'm like, oh, my God, I mean, and he did have good videos when he started. He didn't say anything political. And until I met him, you know,
23:03 It was one of these moments, you know, don't meet your heroes. Until I met him, and when I met the guy, I'm like, this guy is weird. Like, he spoke to me with, he spoke to me in a broken Arabic.
23:19 And like, he had no reason to do so. He was born in Arrabi, a village up north. He, when he was 18, he went to the States to study. But like, in 18 years, you're old enough not to have a broken, in broken Arabic. And when I confronted him,
23:35 he had his Jewish, another Jewish girlfriend at that point. And when I confronted him, I was like, listen, why do you speak in broken Arabic with me? And he's like, ah,
23:43 he gave me such a bullshit, like argument about we all need one language. And then he said, and then he said, um, Kielu, um, um,
23:54 uh, he started. Even his Hebrew was really bad at that point. So he, because he didn't spend any time here. So he was in the state. So any whom, it tells me that we all need one universal language, and that language is English, of course. And I'm like, what?
24:10 And then, what did we do as Arabs? We did nothing. They built rockets. And we did. I'm like, what the actual fuck? Ever since, you know, I was like, okay, this dude is a red flag. Right? But I kept watching his videos until he went to the UAE before even the, before the codes.
24:32 or before the agreement was signed. So I knew the guy had connections up there, right? To be sent to the UAE even before the final agreement was officialized. And I'm like, okay, I'm stopping. And then everything happened.
24:49 And he actually... So at one point, he commented on one of my videos asking me seriously, how would you... How do you expect to have more rights? than those who give their lives to the country. So like, how do I dare to demand the same rights as Israeli soldiers? I'm like, what?
25:13 Right, because you are slacking by not, because they're really eager to welcome you into their army, right? To get more rights, I have to commit genocide. No, I texted his mom complaining. Not a friend of mine From that village has a number because she's like a I don't know what like a far relative of hers I'm like dude You called Nasdaily's mommy on him
25:40 No, we just texted I don't know if she replied to him or not But I said hello Mrs. Daly Yeah I hate to be the one to tell you this But your son's a little out of pocket I'm all worried about him you should check on Let's let's keep the family relationships as they are.
25:58 It's not damaged them. Fair enough. Naas daily or Nossair, Yassian, comes from a prominent Palestinian family that is it's not like a it's a good family. It's a Palestinian proud family.
26:15 It's not like a family of traitors got for bed. And Arrabi is also like during the land day in 1976, six, more than 20,000 domazzof lands were confiscated, were stolen from Arrabian, from his village and, you know, the surrounding villages, the Batuf Valley, basically. And one of his, must be one of his uncles or cousins, because this family has martyrs, you know, were killed by the Israeli police during the protests against that, the landing.
26:49 So, Nasdaily does not represent his family, and it doesn't represent anyone here. So what I see you trying to do in your videos is to represent something that I think doesn't get represented very much. And I think must be difficult to represent faithfully and accurately because it's such a complicated reality, which is to say being a Palestinian city of that country, a Palestinian citizen, I should say, of that country. I was at an event here in Brooklyn yesterday called Jewish Currents Live, the Jewish Currents magazine. and there I mean the best panel of the day was all Palestinian Mohammed Shahada and a few other writers and thinkers whose names I'm blanking on right now but it was really fascinating hearing them talk about Palestinian national liberation and the whole movement after October 7th after
27:41 the genocide but there was another panel with a Mizrahi woman a Ethiopian Jewish organizer An Ashkenazi woman is the head of Zohort, Maya. You're nodding, you know her. And Zohroth is an anti-Zionist organization in Israel advocating for the right of return for Palestinians and trying to educate people about the Nakhba. And then there was a Palestinian gentleman from Jaffa, who is an organizer there.
28:16 And when he spoke, it was just so clear that the position of Palestinian citizen inside 48 is such a tricky thing to even communicate about to other people because people want you to be one thing or the other. When I grew up going to Zionist summer camp, you were called Israeli Arabs. And what I see in your videos is an attempt to articulate this complicated, painful, unique identity while not playing into the Hasbara that tries to use you. as some kind of evidence that Israel is a democracy or that, you know, that we all get along. And I want to show a couple of, one video you made in a post that I thought really summed this up.
29:02 And maybe you can then, you can speak a bit to what I just said. So here it is. There's you graduating from Tel Aviv University with your cap and gown and your degree. What was your degree in? Yes. Jewish history. I'm just kidding. What was it?
29:23 So this is my master's degree in conflict resolution and management. Conflict resolution and management. I'm going to get there. Fantastic. We just need to get you to get a PhD in that and the whole thing will be solved. And this was this year, right? Yeah. If anyone wants to sponsor a PhD abroad, you guys, Intensity.
29:45 Hey, give us a go-fund me and we'll put the link in the description. This is all right. So this happened earlier this year, right? You graduated earlier this year this summer? It did. It did. Yeah. Congratulations.
29:57 Time passes very quickly. I don't even remember what I had for dinner last night. But yeah, it was this year. Yeah. And there you are, Mabrouk. And here's what you said about it. And I thought this was beautiful. I graduated from Tel Aviv University accompanied by a set of mixed emotions.
30:12 On the one hand, I felt the joy and satisfaction of completing another academic degree. On the other, I'm haunted by a persistent. uneasiness that trailed me throughout my time there, a discomfort rooted in the erased history of the land beneath our feet. At times, I'm consumed by guilt for having studied there. At other times, I recognize that this education is part of who I am and that my presence there is tied to my purpose, my resistance, and my survival in my homeland. During the graduation ceremony, the speeches revolved entirely around Israeli identity, asking what it means to be Israeli and emphasizing the need to unite a fractured society. Yet, they unapologetically failed to,
30:49 to mention the other by name, not Palestinians, not even Arabs. We were entirely absent from the speeches. Our language was erased from the venue and the songs. Yet there we were, standing in our gowns and caps graduating anyway. The last standing building from the Palestinian village where the University of Tel Aviv stands today. So yes, the entire University of Tel Aviv is built on the ruins of a Palestinian village. I thought it was only a small part of the campus, but not it's the whole The village of Sheikh Mwanis. The house we saw belongs to this man over here,
31:25 Brahim Abu Qahel. And we can see him in the photo with a Jewish friend of his in his restaurant in the village. One important fact about the village is that in January of 1948 they signed an all hostility agreement with the Jewish neighbors and they promised to stay neutral in case of a war. Yet despite that the Zionist forces did not spare the village the village and in March of the same year they occupied the village and they ethnically cleansed it.
31:52 It's suspectable to think that today I'm studying on the site of destroyed Palestinian houses. Today I'm very proud of my Jewish colleagues who were here who joined the tour and who want know the history of the Palestinian villages see a change in a horrific reality. These dorms and the parking lot are actually the site of the cemetery of the village. And one interesting fact about the dorms is that they don't have windows, as you see. And that's because right in front of the dorms, we have the Shabakh building. And here we have the Israeli intelligence forces ordering us to leave the area. Again, the ambivalence comes through in that video too.
32:34 So this tour was actually organized by Zachrot. Right. The tour guide, Omar, did an incredible job showing us around. before that, I knew when I went, like, when I was going to, because I did my, my bachelors in the University of Haifa, and that has a different history. But I knew that when I was going to the University of Tel Aviv, I knew that there was a Palestinian village on the site, right? But I didn't really know how big the village was. I've never seen any photos of it. And it was through Zokroats too that I'm like, I realized what the actual, it wasn't just like a few houses or like, you know, a small community.
33:13 it actually covers the whole campus and beyond, you know, beyond the campus itself. And if you go there as you can go and study and never know that history, never know that reality, right? If you go there as an international student, for example, you will go to the international house, the international students building the school,
33:36 I don't know, to the international school is called the greenhouse, they call it, because it's painted green. It is literally, literally a Palestinian house, one of the only houses, you know, the one featured in the beginning of the video, one of the only houses that survived demolition. And it's a Palestinian house, but it doesn't say it anywhere. Like there's no black saying we recognize that this house belong to a Palestinian man. You know, even just a recognition doesn't exist, right? You mean the wonderful North American custom of land acknowledgments hasn't reached your society? Oh boy, Sharif, when it does, everything's going to be fine.
34:11 Listen, I was literally about to say that because as part, as part, one of the courses I took is a course sponsored by Canadian organization. So we, we like travel to Canada, half, half Israelis, half Palestinians, Palestinians of Israel to be specific. Where in Canada? First at a Hashemara Saer camp near Ottawa. Yeah, yeah. You went to a Hashomeric camp? Oh, my God. I grew up going to Habonim, which is Hashemar's sister.
34:44 It was a free trip. I wasn't going to say no. No, but. It went on Canadian birthright. To be fair, the woman, she's also, she was Jewish and she's the one behind this program. She's an amazing person, politically speaking. Her husband is also, he's a rabbi from like the rabbi for human rights. So they're incredible people.
35:11 And I was a bit surprised to see that. But yeah, so when we, in the end, when we wanted to present everything that happened during that seminar, we went to Toronto to, like, talk to people there. And they start with the land acknowledgement thingy. We want to acknowledge that this land belonged to this native Aboriginal tribe. And I'm like, okay. when I started talking, I need to do also a land acknowledgement. So I recognize that I come from the University of Tel Aviv that was a Palestinian village
35:47 in the name of Sheikh in one-ness. Yet no one is talking about that. So I did the land acknowledgement on my own in Canada. Good job. But you've also done some, you've also, I mean, you're a man on the streets, but not just the streets of Tel Aviv and Haifa. There's some footage from you in Europe as well. You didn't stop just because you went to a different continent.
36:10 And you got to meet some interesting people, including a certain French prime minister, president? What is he? Macron. He's the president of France. And here's you talking to him. What is terrorism for me? This is the question. The terminology of terrorism, when it's used, I think it's weaponized.
36:30 It's always used with Palestinian violence. You never mentioned state terrorism. So what is terrorism? What is terrorism? for me. This is the question that I ask. I think this is not the best debate we should have at this very moment. Yes, no. It's clear that you had a terrorist group called Hamas.
36:46 Okay. And he made a lot of, honestly, a lot of pain. I do not think this is the debate we should be having in this moment. I'd prefer to talk about Brie versus Camembert or Serge Gainsbourg versus Jacques Brel. These are debates that I would be comfortable with. To the Palestinian people, they launch the terrorist attack of the 7th of October. I did, and I do recognize the right of Israel to defend itself. But you recognize also the right of Palestinians?
37:18 Exactly. And this is why since October 23, France has asked for this is fire. Oh, but he did not answer your question, because you're not asking him, because any Western politician or Western anybody will say, yeah, sure, I recognize the Palestinian rights. I recognize that Palestinians are sort of human and they have rights, but which rights? And so you pressed him, you said, the right to self-defense? Because he had just said, I believe, in Israel's right to self-defense.
37:45 You asked the proper follow-up question that no one ever asks. And he says, no, sure, that's why I want a ceasefire. But he's not answering your question about the right to self-defense. Yeah, we have sent a very strongly worded letter to your room. And this is why we do ask for a ceasefire. and we clearly don't share the objective today in this Highland army. The objective today for me is peace. Exactly. So we want this conflict to stop.
38:12 Peace has to have equal terminology as well. You cannot come from the... I will not parallelize, but I will never parallelize Hamas with this Highlian army. They killed more. Routely. I will... But what is... Babies, thousands of babies.
38:33 important as well. You are president. You know that. But my terminology, I totally endorse it. I don't think I will never. Breaking news, Emmanuel Macron totally endorses his own terminology. Share the fact that if you qualify. You don't believe in the existence of state terrorism. I'm not in that component.
38:54 I disagree with that. Yes. And I will never say that. But I totally disagree with what the Israeli army is doing in Gaza today and since months. I asked for a ceasefire because I consider they kill civilians. But I will never make the parallelism, and this is not my first objective. Thank you so much. How did that happen?
39:14 I regret not asking him about his opinions on Algeria, actually, within that conversation. Wow. Yeah. How did it happen? So this was actually, when was it? Like a couple of years ago, I was invited, or they, The French foreign ministry of foreign affairs decided to organize a peace summit bringing activists from Palestine and Israel, or Palestine, Israel, or Israel, Palestine, whatever they call it.
39:48 And I was literally invited through an organization that I do things with. And everyone, like, we literally flew there, and then the 12 days war with Iran started. so I was stuck in Paris for one month. Sorry, I mean yay. And he invites us to go to his palace, which is quite a nice opportunity. And we go. Everyone is trying to push themselves,
40:19 trying to go and take a selfie with him. And I'm like, I've got a good opportunity here to challenge macon. Most heads of state don't put themselves in this position. to be asked, even asked questions like that. I think, I mean, the credit you, credit as due, I think it's good that he talks and he engaged in that conversation. Even before that, when he was speaking, he said, we need to end the war and release the hostages. Which ones?
40:52 Exactly. So I'm in the crowd. And I say, Mr. President, when you say hostages, that's another video. When you say hostages, do you also include the Palestinian hostages? And he replies, yes, both hostages or all hostages. So he actually confirmed, you know, in a way that he views the Palestinian prisoners as hostages. Or maybe he was just too taken by surprise. And because of that, actually, at some point, I get a DM, Fonkel from a Jazeera journalist.
41:24 It's like, what do you feel that your video is going viral in Israel and that the Israel, Minister of Foreign Affairs Gedonsar is attacking Macroo because of you. I'm like, what? What are you talking about? And apparently, Gedon Saar took my video and he literally tweeted like a huge tweet
41:44 basically scolding McGraw and calling him whatever he called him at that time. But luckily for me, basically I'm outing myself here, luckily for me, he didn't take the video, this video that you saw. He took a video where you don't see me, You just hear my voice behind the camera.
42:01 Otherwise, because actually another thing that I have to give the French foreign ministered force, they actually contacted me after that, after Godun Saar situation, making sure that I was safe. So, yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, credit to them for sure. And speaking of safety, this, I mean, that was exactly what I was going to ask you next. You know, around, you know, all the discourse around Yuval Abraham and Rahel Shores film, Naza, one of the points that people including me have been making is you know you don't have to want to see a
42:35 documentary by Israelis about Israelis confessing with no remorse to genocidal act you don't have to want to see it but it's also counterproductive to pretend like anyone else could have made the movie they made that if a Palestinian tried to get access to the soldiers they wouldn't and they would probably be hunted down by shabakh you know the your neighbors on the Tel Aviv campus and, you know, face extreme consequences. You're not doing what they're doing, but you're doing what you're doing.
43:10 And it clearly gets noticed, including by Gidon Saar and, you know, and if a video like that goes viral, you're putting yourself in the crosshairs. How safe or unsafe do you feel doing it and what repercussions, if any, have you had to face? So, so far, Like, I still, I myself don't understand how I haven't been yet called for questioning,
43:37 because I've got friends that have been arrested, tortured in Israeli detention for way less than that. I've got a friend who posted a post on Facebook explaining why Iran and the Iranian regime isn't the existential threat the government wants you to believe in, which is not that crazy thing to say. And because of that, he was kidnapped, literally beaten. He was tortured. He had like a lung infection and he asked him, you guys, can you just please, like, spare my lungs, don't hit me there. And they continued to actually specifically target his lungs.
44:19 And he tells me that he had crazy noises, crazy screaming coming from, you know, the cells next to him were Palestinian prisoners from the West Bank and from Gaza were held. And of course, as a Palestinian citizen of Israel, you have, you know, you have more rights than the Palestinians in the West Bank in Gaza. So there is, you are protected by a layer of law that they don't have that protection. So after a few days, a few nights in detention, the court released him. But during the, you know, during the short period of detention, you absolutely get, they try to set an example
45:01 out of you and I have another friend just for simply writing Free Palestine on the walls of the old city of Nazareth again he was making his way to my place in Haifa and I call him he doesn't answer anymore
45:16 his family called him that the police are waiting for him there and he goes back they blindfold them they kidnap him they arrest him and they push him on the floor, they spit on him, they beat him up, and they threaten him with a heap, all the while he's blindfolded, they take a photo of him with the Israeli flag, of course.
45:39 This has been a tactic that they've used recently against many Palestinian citizens of Israel, teachers, anyone literally, they would like arrest to, if you believe we're equal citizens, right? And if you believe were Israeli Arabs, why would you use our own flag, yeah, to humiliate us against us. So when it comes to me... It must be nice being part of a protected minority in a Western democracy. And by protected minority,
46:07 I mean that there's a time limit on how long you can be tortured after you're detained for free speech. They can only do it for a few days. That's really... That's so wonderful. There are still people who have been arrested for longer, right?
46:25 and even the administrative detention was used against a few Palestinian citizen of Israel. There's this guy who forgot his name, but he spent almost two years. He's a young man, spent almost two years in Israeli jails because of his social media account. Well, then even my joke falls apart. But this brings me back to the original question,
46:52 and it actually makes it even more heightened. You're surprised you haven't been detained yet. What the fuck are you doing? And what are you doing on this podcast? This is. Cruising for a bruising. This is the, you know, the theories now. You have the consposed of theory.
47:09 It's, oh, maybe he's controlled opposition. You never know. No, the thing is, I have no idea. Like, every time I land back home, I'm like, this is going to be at the time. This is it. So until now, Like the official, you know, the Israeli state has not yet arrested me or called me in for an investigation. People, of course, I get like death threats, all kinds of threats you like.
47:42 I was once, say, confronted, I was once attacked on the train by this Israeli dude. It comes to me. And I had already made a random, befriended a random person and she was sitting with me. Palestinian Arab who studies or who lives in Germany, right? She was on her way to the airport. I was on my way to uni. And literally, I'm like, I just made a new friend. And he comes to me, he's like, are you Sharif Safadi?
48:06 Yes. And he's like, you're mess representing our soldiers? And he's shaking, as this is his whole body is like shaking, his adrenaline is flowing through his eyes. And shouting his lungs out again. And the people in the back of the train are applauding him for attacking me. They don't know me. They don't know him.
48:26 An Israeli attacking a Palestinian. He deserves to be applauded. And I'm like, hi. How are you? Breathe. Sit down. He was surprised by my reaction. He thought I would like snap at him.
48:41 Sit down. And that took him. Why aren't you acting like the stereotype I had of you? He sat and literally I missed my stop because I talked to him. And he was right wing. He was right wing to the extent that he, when I said, children in Gaza are being killed. They said, define what is a child.
48:59 What do you mean? Define what is a child. In the end, though, we managed, and this was me practicing my conflict resolution skills. In the end, me and this right-wing Israeli managed to agree that the Israeli people must learn Arabic as a first step
49:16 towards a resolution of the conflict. And he agreed to that. Well, that's something. I felt a bit, yeah, that's something. Now there are some people who don't live there, and maybe some people who do, but I usually hear it from people who don't live there. Whether the Palestinian or not, who would say to you, or who would say without having heard that story, you can't talk to these people and you shouldn't. You know, there's no negotiating with terrorists, with settlers, with colonists. These people are, they don't belong there.
49:47 There's no future with them, or at the very least, there's no point in talking to someone whose brain has been so infatislers. affected by a fascist, ethno-nationalist, racist ideology. You're just debasing yourself if you try. You know, what do you say to that? This is exactly why I don't do content in Hebrew. Because from my experience, talking to the Israeli people, the average Israeli, they always expect you to compromise and you end up going on this trail of compromising
50:18 and they'll never accept you. Example, Yusuf Haddad, compromise everything. I think that he's got. We're going to talk about him next, yeah. Yeah, and he didn't, he was not accepted. And this is, you know, basic colonial. Let me play your video about him. You had a little bit of fun at his expense here.
50:34 Even Yusuf Haddad has failed the Israeli loyalty test. Yusuf Haddad, for those who do not know him, as a Palestinian citizen of Israel, who completely sold out on his Palestinian identity, he became an Israeli-hasaura agent. And he's basically spreading Israeli propaganda, being proud Israeli Arab. So what's happening now? The Israeli right wing are attacking Yusuf Haddad because of an interview he had made five years ago in which he showed support to the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel. And because Yusuf Haddad when he sang the Israeli national anthem, he changed a part of the anthem,
51:09 a part that said Jewish soul into Israeli soul because he didn't feel represented by the anthem as it is saying Jewish soul and rather felt represented by Israeli soul. Now Yusuf Haddad, you guys, you need to understand, he is one of the most of the most. most violent, most hateful Israeli hospital agents. He's even more violent and more racist towards his own people than many Israelis. Many Israelis hold better, more humane takes and ideologies than Yusuf Haddad. So even a person like Yusuf Haddad who completely gave up on his Palestinian identity and tried his best to integrate within the Israeli society has been refused, has been rejected. Even Yusuf Haddad is considered the other for the colonial.
51:52 society. And this shows you to what extent a colonial society, a colonial system, will try to strip you off of your identity and will never let you be part of the superior identity, of the Israeli identity, of the white colonial identity. Well done. In a nutshell. In a nutshell, yeah. Speaking of Yosef Haddad, I have to say, I've got a video of him here in London. I think it's in London. And I think it's new. And, you know, I'm pissed off at Yosef Haddad because we go to great lengths on this podcast to try to debunk the notion that Palestinians are anti-Semitic, you know. But here we have Yosef Haddad doing Haspara, but I have to play this. I have to play this content warning. It's an actual anti-Semitism alert. There's no anti-Semitism in the United States. There's no anti-Semitism in the
52:48 United States, says Norman. But look at this on the streets of London. You have a Hasbara agent berating and screaming at a bunch of Orthodox Jews who happened to be anti-Zionists. Oh, look at the self-hating Jew. I'm an Arab and you self-hating Jew support Palestine. Huh? Huh? I'm an Arab telling to the Jew you support Palestine. And Arab, Arab, telling you, you support Palestine. Huh? Shame on you, auto-antishamim. Shame on you, self-hating Jews. auto anti-shimim in Hebrew he says it in Hebrew means like auto anti-Semites
53:22 self-antysemites self-haters that's what you are one by one look at it move on move on self-hating Jew move on unbelievable it's unbelievable literally you can see them going on and supporting the Palestinians unbelievable but you know what
53:38 yes I'm the Arab and I'm going to tell them the truth and what is that what is that caption there Yosef Hadad something something is he running for all office? He has to be, it says Yosef Haddad must be the Sir Hasbara, like the minister of Hasbara. Oh, Chayavliot, Sara Asbarah.
53:57 Make him the anti-semitism Tsar. He's trying to run for the Knesset parliament, basically, through an Israeli party. So this is an Israeli party being like, look at our boy, look at the good work he does. But isn't that amazing? You take a Palestinian, you might. make him into a traitor and a hasbarist. And now he's on the streets of a European city
54:21 screaming at Orthodox Jews telling them to move along. Listen, he's a deranged person. It's like, why would you go attack anyone on the street like that? He's, honestly, he's a very bad Hasparat agent, if you ask me, my personal opinion. He's not convincing anyone. He's doing the opposite. He's doing actually a Hasparat damage to Israel. look at this.
54:46 Well, you see the name of our podcast. What do you think it means? The reason we started this podcast is because Hasbaraa took has taken such a bad, like they're so bad at it. But it's true. Like the derangement in his eyes is like if Alon Levy was doing that or Rabbi Shmuli was doing that, it wouldn't be as deranged as the look on Yosef Haddad's face. He's, he's only convincing, already convinced Israelis are not all.
55:15 of them even if you're if you're a bit educated if you're an tiny bit educated you will not you will dislike this dude because he's it's just a I don't know what to describe him as but yeah like one day funny story well one day I was like flying during during the genocide and there was not a lot of people in the airport and I I overhear the security guards female security guards talking about how there is no good Arabs and one of them says well there is of course not true that there's no good Arabs. There's Yusuf Haddad. And I'm like, seriously, you found the,
55:51 the one bad example of a good Arab. But yeah, this is, this is what is it, what it means to be good Arab and not good enough, though, to be treated equally and to be considered a full equal Jewish citizen. Right. And you mentioned that as a dynamic of colonial societies. The other dynamic is that the people who, the colonized subjects who turn on their own people are even more fervently rabid than, you know, it's like what Malcolm X said about the house slave, you know, totally identifying with the master. And, you know, it's well known in inner cities in the United States that black cops can be more dangerous than white cops.
56:36 Yeah, my, actually, same. Same here. You know, Arabs and the police, they tend to be, you know, worse than Jews. Because like, if you're a Jewish citizen and you go to the police, you think it's a good thing to do. You know, and some of them might be, I don't want to say, like, some of them might be, you know, regular people, right? Whereas if you're an Arab who's going to the police or who's going to the army, you know that you're doing something wrong. Yes. It's a minority of like already broken people,
57:10 already disgusting people who go there. I mean. And then you have to prove, you have to work harder to prove your loyalty. Yeah. So it's the same with the Yemeni occupation soldiers, the Somalis, the Ethiopians, the Mizrahim. You know, you're lower on the totem pole,
57:27 so you have to work harder to prove. 100%. I want to just play one more video of yours before I move on to something else. This is you, is it in London? You're speaking in English to a gentleman who accuses you of taking Iranian money? Oh my Allah. Yes, it's in London.
57:45 It's in Travago Square. And what's funny to me is that many people don't know that the square that they're using is named after an area in southern Spain. So after a battle. But the area was named by the Arab. So it's an Arab name. So Travago Square is like Tarafilghar, the side of the Bailey. So they're sitting in an Arab. for me. They're sitting in an Arab square hating on Arabs.
58:09 There's a lot of words and ideas that Europeans like to forget come from Arabic, like Algebra, for instance. Algebra was he Arab, was he Farsi? It might have been Farsi. I don't remember, maybe Arab, Jabber. I don't know if it was a guy's name or if it was another word. Don't test my golden days of Islamic history. That's fine. I won't. Here's the video. from that's a good question so what's it i'm palestinian palestinian yeah Palestinian believe on Iranian money for four years and years and years and yes you think i have Iranian money I can't see you yourself I can't see you yourself have Iranian money on those tunnels on where
58:54 which is being so don't make up under your he says you go into the tunnels that has been made up under your houses in Palestine he has no idea where you live he has no idea anything about the place houses in palates. We have seen the pictures of them. Right? We've seen the pictures of the tunnels under my house. Sharif, the trapdoor is in your bedroom.
59:20 It's under the Moroccan rug. We've seen you go in. Honestly, if I had palettes and pallets and pallets of dollars, I wouldn't be like talking to them. I would be enjoying my life, Submar on a remote island. Yeah, exactly. With Nasdaily.
59:42 We have this palace of gold. You told you got to tell me. Once I recognize I have Iranian friends. I have Bahra'i. You tell me. I have Bahá'i people. I know the struggle within Iran. I just hate when I see people
01:00:01 because of your hate to the regime, You're dismissing the plight and the suffering of the Palestinian people, Palestinian people who are dying in thousands. There's a genocide. There's a genocide. And just because you hate a certain regime, you come and you support you. Why my people hate your people? Your people don't...
01:00:23 No, no. Hold on. Your people don't hate my people. I love your people. We love your people. I love your people. And you can't speak in the name of Iranians when you say we hate Palestinians. we hate Palestinian.
01:00:35 No, no, no. So you're pretty much willing to talk to anybody and you're not hostile. You're forceful. But, you know, I loved in that moment, my favorite moment when he started to talk about the Iranians and the palates of gold, you say, I'm Sharif, by the way.
01:00:53 You sort of reintroduce the concept of a human conversation. Do you find it difficult when you encounter that level of pure ignorance? Like, you're not even talking to an Israeli who's like involved. in the situation and their particular fucked up positionality. You're talking to a couple of, I don't know what
01:01:09 these guys were, but they're just old white dudes in Europe who think they know something about what's under your house. The Iranians, they're from the Iranian diaspora. Oh, these were Iranian diaspora. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The supporters of the monarch, you know. I didn't catch that. Okay, got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:01:27 And this is when he says, like, my people, hate your people, and this is where I found that I had to be more upset of and stuff. him and actually this is proven by the comments I've got so much love after this video from from Iranians from all over the world you know showing that they disagree with the you know these people from the Iranian diaspora and at some point because they believe another video that I did with them is that they say
01:01:56 Islam is the devil's religion and they try to make it as if you know Islam was posed on them and then they failed to understand history in a very concerning way because me as a Muslim Arab, right, as an Arab Muslim, as whatever I am, most
01:02:18 of Muslims in the world, Sunnah Muslims, they follow the Hadith, basically everything that Prophet Muhammad Bespinau Bish, and said, they follow the interpretations the books written by mainly Farsi imams
01:02:35 talking about Sahih Muslim and Sahih Bukhari Bukhari is from the Stokeh, basically, so like, the religion that you call an Arab religion as it exists in its modern shape was highly influenced
01:02:48 by the interpretation and the thinking of Persian scholars. So it is as much Persian in daily practice as it is Arab, you know, if you want to like nationalize a religion, a religion is religion and I don't believe it should be nationalized anyways. but yeah
01:03:04 to be like usually I would I don't really I don't like to argue with people and I don't even when I post my videos most of the time I don't answer like I don't engage in
01:03:17 because there's no point there's like if someone's brainwashed they're not going to be nothing I can say will convince them I do get just by sharing my my videos and my you know my experience
01:03:32 I do get people, I do get Jewish, you know, Israelis, I do get people DMing me, telling me Sharif, you appreciate it. And, you know, I was in the beginning of a process and your videos helped me understand things. So like, there's nothing I can get from an argument that I can't get by just simply sharing. Just asserting who you are. Just, yeah, sharing yourself. And to be completely honest now with you, like, when I saw these, these people I would also like avoid, usually but I was feeling down a bit. I had like some personal issues. I'm like, I need to distract myself with something.
01:04:07 So I'm like, oh, there you go. Monarchist. Run in Monarchus, let's see. I'm going to try that. Next time I'm feeling shitty. I'm going to go to the Upper East Side and walk around and try to argue with somebody. Now, credit views where credit is, I can't even say it in a credit view where credit is due. Yeah, yeah, either way.
01:04:26 They did give me, they did give me a nice juice. that tasted good and they were hospitable if we disregard all the racist chat that they said. Fair enough. You know, I always believe that there is the good, the bad, the good and the bad and the bad and the good. Oh, and you have to take it all into account.
01:04:47 And speaking of counting, producer Adam has given me the following factoid. The word algebra comes from the Arabic word algebra, meaning restoration, completion, or the reunion of broken parts. Yes, but there was supposed to be like a scholar in the name of Al Jaber, right? I'm not sure. The one who basically started Al Jaber, right? The one who founded it was Muhammad bin Mousa al-Khawarizmi, so algorithms.
01:05:18 And he is, is he Persian? I think he is Persian. So I have a Persian to thank for the algorithm tracking my every movement and telling me that it's time for me to buy underwear. Yes, he comes from Persian origins. And what was his name? His name is Muhammad bin Musa al-Qaerazmi. And he comes actually from province in Persia called Chawarism. So Choirism is off of the Choirism.
01:05:52 That's for algorithms. comes from. Now it is. So it was part of the larger or great Iran. Now it's in the Uzbekistan Republic. It's in the Uzbekistan. Okay, cool. Well, we learn something new every day on this podcast. Sometimes we don't learn anything, but sometimes we do. Before we take a break, I want to play just a couple of AI videos that say something about the state of things. And to do so, I guess Matt's not here, but I know a lot of people love this very long bumper, and I guess I do too. Picture of a lion with an Israeli flag. And a picture of Hamas as an octopus or a bomb.
01:06:47 I am Israel fight. I'm Israel. I'm Israeli. AI, Israel AI. Yes, it's our segment, Amistrial AI. And we've got two examples of it coming from two very different sources. First of all, Idemar Ben-Givir, who loves his little AI videos and is, you know, we're in election season, and Israeli politicians are trying to outdo each other by how callous and inhumane they can be to
01:07:21 Palestinian suffering. But in this one, Ben-Givir paints himself as a. humanitarian as a friend to Palestine. I don't know if you've seen this, but let's just take a quick look. All right, so we start on a beach in Gaza with a Palestinian family writing a letter and a little girl putting it in a bottle. And what it says is, let me see if I can read this, Le Kavad Shere Abitahon, Ben-Givir, to the minister to the Ministry of Security, Ben-Givir, to the Minister of Security, Ben-Givir,
01:07:57 We want to leave Gaza. We want to leave Gaza. Life here is hard. We want a future in a different place. She puts it in the bottle, and they let the bottles into the ocean, and the mother and father look at each other and they smile. And then the bottles, they go straight towards Tel Aviv. They just go off the coast.
01:08:30 They know exactly where to go. and they reach the beach. And here's Ben Gavir walking through the surf and he picks it up and he reads it. And he puts it on his bulletin board full of children's drawings from Gaza. And he goes over to his desk and he sits down. And he writes an order.
01:08:55 What does that say there? What is the phrase there on the document? Savvhagiramiratson. So basically. Voluntary. Yeah, exactly, voluntarily immigration order. He's granting them their wish. He's like the genie in the bottle.
01:09:13 Can you imagine Aladdin? But instead of the Robin Williams genie, it's Idemar Ben-Givir. You ain't never had a Nazi like me. And there they are running excitedly towards a big cruise ship with the Israeli flag on it to run up and get their wish. to leave. So, I mean, to us over here, that's just freakish, that something like that is. Although I guess under Trump, someone like Hegsef has the same kind of sensibility and loves AI in the same way.
01:09:52 But where you are, like, that's normal political advertising, isn't it? Listen, I agree with Benfair. And I think we should relocate Gazans. Back to where they came from. Yes. Like, like, Like, Jazeera and refugees from, from, from, you know, Israel proper, yeah, from Palestine. So, yes, let's, let's re-degrad them, actually.
01:10:18 Let's bring them back, right? Exactly. Many things that are normal here and normalized here can, like, shock. Sometimes I talk to my, you know, Palestinian friends here, and I'm like, you know, this is not normal. You know that this is not normal. Yeah, well, we, like, normalize it even to like, oh, this is. is this is reality. This is what we have, right? One of the things is
01:10:40 the whole he talks about at once there was, at one point there was an actual debate, an actual public conversation within the Israel society. Should we, should we not hire Palestinian Israeli Arab teachers
01:10:57 in our schools? And that is, imagine it in the United States, someone saying and discussing, should be or should we not hire black teachers. This is normal racism is very, it's an everyday normal thingy
01:11:13 here and no one even no one questions it. And again, it doesn't matter what you do. It stays. Yusuf Haddad is still an Arab. You can go and you can that happens to athletes all the time, especially those who at some
01:11:29 point of their lives represent Israel and international games and football. Always in the end, will get racism and they will get like one one guy who plays they play for Haifa. I don't remember exactly. His wife posts on her social media account solidarity with the children of Gaza. Literally nothing about like resistance, nothing about violence, nothing about just humane
01:12:01 call for helping Palestinian children. and because of that, they attack the player himself and they raise a banner in one of the games saying a Palestinian, a Jewish child's life is bigger, more important, than a Palestinian children life, basically. And then because of that, he was sent on a loan to think a club in the UAE. You don't remember the specifics.
01:12:39 But this is what we have here. Racism is part of the game. You can't really... I don't know where to start to like... Right. And in an election season, of course, the racism takes up because they're using it.
01:12:54 And when it comes to... You're going to say something? Yeah, you know what I love? Netanyahu now has these banners all over the country. that says, Yamin, a photo of him. Yamin is like right, right thing. The right way.
01:13:10 Yeah, right way. Yeah, the right. And or, and then a photo of the opposition. And in the midst of it, you have Mansoor Abbas and like the Arab Knesset members, the Palestinian Knesset members. Yamin or Palestine. And I'm like, oh, finally, he recognizes Palestine is a thing. Right. So if you don't elect us, your name.
01:13:34 going to get a free Palestine up in here. So it's either us or Palestine. I'm like, sure. Where do I vote? But I wish it was real. I wasn't. It's us or worse? Or I don't know.
01:13:48 It's the same, two sides of the same coin. Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of elections and, you know, Palestinian parties, I want to play a video by Ahmed Tibi, who tried his hand at the AI thing. I thought did a pretty good job. But before that, I want to ask you, there was someone mentioned yesterday
01:14:08 on one of the panels I attended. I forget his name, but he was a Palestinian candidate or politician who recently had to apologize for some posts, or he decided to... Samhababashadi? Yes, Sami Abashahadi. What happened with him,
01:14:23 and how did you feel about his decision to apologize? Because the person who was speaking said, I love Sammy, he's a cousin, and he broke my heart. The whole thing that happened with Samabesh Hadi, for me was heartbreaking because he's if I were to vote, I would vote for him
01:14:42 and I had already in the past, I voted for him and for the National Assembly his tajama, his party. He's been attacked because of an article that he wrote on the 8th of October, 2023.
01:15:01 They claim that he supported terrorism, supported Hamas, so what's not? And it was actually Bingvia that went to the elections committee and asked for him to be bored.
01:15:18 Asked for everyone to be bored and everyone was bored. All the Arab parties were bad, but when it went to the Supreme Court, you know, the all the Arab parties were, you know, the barring was was cancelled. Except for Samabashadhi, they told them, listen, we are going to bar you.
01:15:38 You are going, that's going to be official. So we suggest that you withdraw your, you know, you're running for the parliament. And what had he actually said? I just, I, I, I care about Palestinian children in Gaza. He had, I don't remember exactly, but he had written something that this is like a historical pivotal point or like the fact that Gaza was able to do such a thing something something that was interpreted by them as problematic
01:16:16 and what I regret that Sammy did is that he tried to appeal in front of the Supreme Court and he did it in such a in such a way that made me made me actually suffer, seeing him trying to apologize his way back in the Knesset, and failing, right? And it is, I explain in one of the videos that I made, it explained, like, this,
01:16:43 it's literally the embodiment of the Palestinian situation in Israel, the Palestinian citizens of Israel. We, there is no way we can, we can be accepted. It doesn't matter how much we apologize, you know. They, if, if they want you out, you're out. And even after, he takes the advice and he withdraws rather than actually just waiting, going till the end and making them. Yeah, pursuing the judicial process and making Israel reveal itself or do right by them. This is what I wanted to do to see.
01:17:23 The thing is, I mean, if everything Israel has done already didn't change anything, right? all the genocide and all the mass murdering of children in Gaza this is very minimal but yeah I would have followed it and actually this is what he wanted I just watched a podcast with him he explains that he wanted
01:17:43 to do that you know he said that had he done that he would have faced actual legal consequences but then he would still want it to do that but the only thing that stopped him is that it's not only him that would be be hurt, be affected by it, but also the whole party, right?
01:18:04 And the young activists on the ground everywhere. So he explains because of that, he actually took the advice of the Supreme Court and not because of his, you know, the personal fears on his, on him, basically. So, I mean, tough position. This is what you said. It is 100% a tough decision. But in the end, like, I was saying. thinking about it. I'm still thinking about it. But in the end, we are in a tough reality
01:18:33 and we will have to face consequences. There's consequences that we are going to have to face collective. We are facing collective consequences. There is no way to avoid it. If we try to like, if we keep trying to compromise and to give Israel free passes just not to face the collective, you know, punishment, the collective. consequences, we will end up, it's a lose-lose situation. We will end up facing these collective consequences and not getting what we want. Well, but I imagine, I mean, this was one of the things the panel spoke to yesterday. It's hard to face collective consequences when there isn't a collective consciousness,
01:19:19 when there isn't a coherent, when there's no leadership to a movement that's saying, okay, here's the approach now, here's the strategy that we add. when people haven't gotten together and sort of agreed when things are so fractured, which is one of the successes of Zionism. I'm sure that, you know, within the... Because I know how they think. I know the people at the National Assembly, Tajammu.
01:19:45 I know the youth. The youth are brave youth. They're one of the bravest, you know, groups of the Palestinians of Israel. there are unapologetically Palestinian and most of the people that I've seen that belong to the tajamo are brave young men and women
01:20:06 who would have 100% agreed to face whatever consequence they were to face just to reveal the true face of the Israeli judicial system. So I'm not sure about that decision. It made me feel it made me feel very little
01:20:22 to see Samu Bishadhi being belittled the way he was. just and and actually after the after the whole thing with Sammy I'm like because I was always like I was voting to like check the box right now I think it would be the first time ever
01:20:42 that I don't vote in the Israeli kineset because what's the point like now even even the joint list and this is a mistake that the Palestinian leadership within the 48 territories are are doing is that the four to eight territories are doing is that the four focusing the whole efforts on participation and the kinesit.
01:21:01 You agree that Israel is not a democracy. You agree that it's a crooked flawed system, right? Why do you put all of your efforts into trying to make some changes within the very system that you disagree with? You can never do that. So for me, I think it's our responsibility as an individual and as a collective to actually build an alternative that can get us our rights with dignity
01:21:30 and not with what happened with Sami and what's happening with Mansoor Abbas and yeah, even the joint list today or yesterday they've been hunting at the fact that they will support any government against Netanyahu I'm like, what's the point then?
01:21:48 There's no, we are not going to like... Lapid, Golan, Eisencott, any of these guys They're just out to prove that they're... They're all genocidal, including Eirgoulan. He asked for a famine and, you know, starving gas and cutting off electricity. Even Neirguan is never going to be like a prime minister, right? But we've got Bennett and Eisencutt and like, who are we replacing Nithneral? Who recently called a 96-year-old Lithuanian rabbi, an anti-Semite, who lives in.
01:22:24 in, I don't know, Meashireem or somewhere in Jerusalem, for saying we were better off under the Arabs than this Zionist regime. We were much safer. Yeah. They're all in favor of expanding settlements. No one clearly says that they support Palestinian state, whatever that means.
01:22:40 So, listen, for me at some point, and when Mansoor Abbas and the Islamic, I don't know what Islamic in that, they joined the government, they still bombed Gaza. I would rather, I would actually rather set on and not have Gazan's blood on my hands
01:22:58 because like what if we support if we support the opposition's government that's gonna that's gonna like bomb Gaza like 100, 1 trillion percent. We will be the Palestinian citizens of Israel sponsor the next genocide in Gaza. That is just irrational.
01:23:14 And yeah, for me we have and of course the Palestinian society within Israel within the 48 territories is fragmented by design. We are, you know, one of the most pressing issues is the organized crime.
01:23:32 I don't know if I've heard about that. Yeah, absolutely. If we were to be our own country would have the second highest rate, rate of murders in the world, in the entire world, in the entire world. And this is the promise, yeah, we will try to solve that.
01:23:50 But it is all interconnected for the national, we are being, crime is thriving because we're Palestinians. Crime is thriving because of the land day, because the breaking of the Palestinian economy, the breaking of the villages that were
01:24:06 urbanized without being, without having some sort of industrialization, right? And from what I hear, because of police corruption and arming the, the mafia and, you know, turning out of things against each other.
01:24:20 being involved in it. The police, the police actually said, those officials in the police who said that we can't do anything with the mafia because the Shabak deals with them, they're protected by the Shepak. And the majority of the weapons come from Israeli stockpiles.
01:24:44 The Palestinian rapper Tamer Nafar says that they can get like a nuclear scientist in the midst of the Haran and they can't find the weapons where the weapons are hidden. And one more extra, extra like a piece of information that people don't necessarily know is that many traitors, let's call them traitors, let's call them as they are. From the West Bank, collaborators, their traitors, and their collaborators.
01:25:10 But from the West Bank, yeah, were resettled in Palestinian villages in the 48 after the second Intifada. And these people had already the connections needed to smuggle or to bring weapons from the Israeli army. And these helped and basically start funding the organized crime. So it's all connected. It's not the Israeli propaganda. The Arabs are killing each other because they're more violent and they have a violent culture. No, no.
01:25:43 If it's true, why aren't they killing each other in the West Bank? they don't have that in the West Bank and they have a weaker police force and they have an occupation and they have everything and they don't kill each other the same way we do they don't even kill each other in Gaza the crime in Gaza amongst Gazans themselves
01:26:01 is not even after the three years of genocide it's not as bad as in Nazareth for example like I feel more safe in Ramallah than I feel in Nazareth and that's just a fact when I see a Palestinian appeal a police officer, I feel safe. I feel, oh, he's there, he's doing his job to protect me.
01:26:23 When I see an Israeli police officer, I feel threatened. Because all I got from them is violence. All I got from them is chasing after me in 2014, after a protest against the war in Gaza, them bullying me when I was 13 years old, a kid literally pointing rifles at me. So all I've got from the Israeli police is not protection. It's not someone who I can go and like, listen, I need help. One last question, well, two more things. And then I should probably let you go because I think you are,
01:26:54 you're fighting jet lag. You've been very generous with your time. Before we go to break, I want to ask you a couple of things. I do want to play you this Ahmed TB football video. So is Ahmed TB playing football, doing some fancy footwork, and two Bezellelow Smotritches at once come at him,
01:27:17 and he deeks them out beautifully, you know. There's been sliding for a tackle, but he misses. He's running and he scores. And there's been Netanyahu in the crowd in like a Macabee, whatever, one of the, you know, some Israeli football journey. He's weeping. So I thought that was pretty funny. Who is Ahmed TB?
01:27:43 Ahmed Tebow, he has got one of the parties in the Knesset. He's been there for a long, long time, actually. I think the party is like one person's party. They don't have like a clear, strict ideology such as the Islamic or the communist or the National Assembly. It's the Ahmad Thiby party, basically, the Arabi for change. He's known for his, you know, I would say. a bit performative actions in the kinesis.
01:28:17 He would shout all the time. And as a teenager, I was very fond of him. I was like, oh, my God, he's like, he goes to the kinesad and he shouts at them and you grow up and you mature up. At some point, I'm like, what does that give me? Right. It's a bit of a clown show.
01:28:33 Here's an example of him doing that. I mean, just, I get a hit of dopamine from it. I'm not saying it makes any difference. But here's him screaming, or, you know, He's confronted in the hallway by a member of Knesset, Tali Gottliev, who's one of these crazy supremacists. And she says to him, do you recognize Israel as a Jewish state?
01:28:53 And he shouts at her in Hebrew, what I recognize is your desperate need for psychiatric help. A Jewish psychiatrist, I don't care. An Arab one would you just fine too. Now go fly away. It's very witty. Yeah. It's funny as well.
01:29:07 Yeah. I mean, the way I see it, we don't need someone to share. shout at them in the Knesset, we need proper societal grassroot action, someone who would leadership that would unify us rather than, you know, again, I don't gain anything from shouting at, they might gain from it, you know, we let the Arabs come to the Knesset and shout at us. Ah, yes, right, controlled opposition.
01:29:37 But speaking of grassroots action and speaking of unity, I wanted to ask you about, standing together. Om Dimbi'e'e'a'ad. And if you don't want to answer this question, you don't have to. But there they are, I mean, putting aside the fact that they're running an electrical electoral campaign now, like we don't need to talk about that because we've already talked about the electoral stuff. But in terms of the on the ground grassroots unifying action, there has been, you know,
01:30:07 a fair amount, it's not just talk, it's not just, you know, kumbaya meetings. They do get out there in the streets with their purple shirts. They do bring Palestinian Arabs, you know, citizens of Israel together to do action with well-meaning Jewish activists. They do put their bodies on the line and protect Palestinians from marauding Zionist pogromists on Jerusalem Day. Do you, do you, like, how do you assess the value of that within, you know, in terms of trying to make Israeli society a more livable, humane place within its very narrow limits. Do you have a feeling about them or a take? Because they're very polarizing out here.
01:30:52 The first time I actually felt confident, and this is sad, to say the word Palestine in front of Israelis was within a standing together event. I was a freshman in uni. and I was having a sociology lecture and in the nearby classroom a couple of activists from standing together had a Zoom call with a Palestinian journalist from Gaza and you know you had like a bunch of Israelis,
01:31:26 mostly leftists, joining the call. And I'm like, what is happening here? Journalists from Gaza talking to Israelis? That was, you know, something that I've never heard of before. Who are these people? So I went in and for the fact, I remember the feeling I felt very stress as I was about to like say the word Palestine, say that I'm Palestinian and I expected like a harsh reaction. And in the end, we had we had like leftist Israelis who wouldn't necessarily mind if I used the word Palestine. And this is how I actually joined standing together and started the chapter in the University of the University of Haifa.
01:32:09 Okay. Now, early on, I felt that we disagree on some stuff, but we agree on other stuff, especially the both sides suffering narrative and my very clear definition of the situation as a colonial struggle. And I stayed with them. I gained friendships. One crucial thing, I think, that we can say in favor of standing together. They give platform to many Israelis who start with standing together and end up even more progressive, as I would like to describe it, not radical.
01:32:56 Right. Or human. Yeah. And so that is needed. When it comes to Palestinian citizens of Israel, and I'll talk about myself as well, it's not because standing together is the best option, but it is the lack of other options within the Palestinian society. There is barely any grassroots, and people are fed up with the old, tired. Like the Communist Party was once a thing that people joined and had grassroots, you know, had clubs and youths. activities and everything, but now it's like, there's almost nothing.
01:33:41 So one of the reasons I, like, joined and felt comfortable in the beginning, joining standing together is that it promised it's not a political party and it doesn't have an ideology, rather it's just, you know, a collective of a movement, a collective of Palestinians and Israelis want to see a better future, peace, and what's not. So I was, I agreed. I agreed on the essence of it, right? did a degree on the narrative. I actually,
01:34:11 you know, time went on, I was an intent for them, and then after that, when the genocide started and out of this desperation that I wanted to do something, I decided to take a job, a part-time job, standing together as a student chapter organizer, and
01:34:29 very quickly I was quite disappointed with the work that I was asked to do, for example, as children were being bombed in Gaza, they would ask me to, like, organize a protest or, like, a stand, a standing stance, protest? What do you call? People just stand. Like, people just standing around or people sitting in?
01:34:57 What was it? People standing with banners. Okay, yeah. A demonstration, yeah. A demonstration, a demonstration. So I was asked to organize a demonstration. to bring back the hostages and end the war. That's the title.
01:35:08 That's the slogans we're using. And on top of that, make sure that there are Palestinian students joining. How do you want me to do that? You know, like people, Palestinian students are seeing children in Gaza being killed. They're not, they honestly, with all due respect, why would they care about the hostages when thousands of children are being like slaughtered in Gaza and you want us to go and like ask, demand the return of a couple of hundred, a couple of tens, I don't know,
01:35:38 a couple of hundred of, of hostages. Well, in a way, it strikes me that they're asking you to do a version of what they asked Abbas Shahada to do, which is to apologize in a sense, without apologizing, but you have to put on this palatable cloak like in the name of, well, we have to speak Israeli's language. in order to speak Israeli's language,
01:36:03 you have to stand there and use your identity to lie. The argument is that if we bring back the hostages and end the war, we would have like a prisoner's exchange or whatever. So we will get the same result. I'm like, yeah, but still, you're calling for something that it cannot be aligned with the values.
01:36:26 They wouldn't have liked it if you'd held up a sign that said, accept Hamas's offer of returning the hostages already, negotiate with Hamas. And the whole thing is the theory of change, basically. So they try to like bring back, bring Israelis to like adopt different approaches. And, you know, they also like to say, where are the majority, where are the people, where are the, you know. And the fact is, you're not.
01:36:55 I'm sorry. Even, even you, you don't represent a very small minority of people. And this was evident by the fact that when they tried to go to enter the Knesset, the majority of the campaign was in Arab cities. So the ones who would vote to them, not Israelis, but Palestinians of Israel. The few votes that they would have gotten were mostly from, and that's why they focused on it and they tried to push themselves on the joint list. So even near Erdogan doesn't.
01:37:30 It's hard to build equality. It's hard to have an equality movement when in order to build the equality movement, you have to treat people unequally. So what I do want to say about standing together, I don't doubt the good intentions of the activists, of Alone Green even, and of Rula the Wood. I interviewed the two of them here in Brooklyn, by the way,
01:37:55 Rula and Alon Lian on their tour. And I was very impressed with their sincerity and with the way they'd thought through their strategy, and especially Rula, who said to me, look, you can sit here in the West and call us normalizers or say whatever you want, but you're watching from the cheap seats. I live there.
01:38:10 I have to organize my community. I have to deal with right-wing Israelis. Who is anyone to tell me that I shouldn't? As I said, they're respectful, genuine, sincere people, right? But the whole role of the organization is not it. It's not going to bring forth a change in the Israeli society anytime in the foreseeable future. And also, this is not how you decolonize. You do not, never.
01:38:41 They don't speak about decolonization. They don't speak about that. They don't use that language. In my understanding of history, there was never like a decolonization or a liberation movement that was a joint, you know, oppressor oppressed dynamic. You know, you have people from the oppressed, people from the other, you know, from the colonial society joining the struggle led by the oppressed, right? Right, right. That's how it's done.
01:39:08 White South Africans and Jewish South Africans who lent their struggle understood they were part of the ANC, a black-led movement. Now, while standing together, claim to be Palestinian-Israeli, what drives them rather as the Israeli narrative and affecting the Israeli, society. Until recently, I don't know if they changed it or not, but they said they never claimed to represent Palestinians from the West Bank in Gaza, but rather, you know, we're a Palestinian movement within Israel. So within the 48 territories, the 80% Jews, the 20% Palestinian Arabs. I don't know now how they identify themselves, but they're not the solution. They're not the solution, and they definitely don't have enough power. rough influence of the Israel society.
01:39:58 That being said, I still value the grassroots work that they do, the protective presence that they do, and I trust 100% the sincerity of the
01:40:13 many of them are my friends, the sincerity of the activists. So both things can exist at the same time. One could also argue that for, it can be used as, you know, whitewashing the Israeli society. Like, oh, there are the good Israelis.
01:40:30 I mean, anyone who digs a tiny bit understands that there's just, you know, a minority of people. Okay. Well, I mean, I love that answer. And by the way, when I asked you about it, I had no idea that you'd been involved. I had no idea that you'd volunteered or been on staff.
01:40:45 And credit, I forgot how to say this. Credit where credit is due. Credit where credit is due. I got things from them. And, you know, I've got a bigger understanding of the Israel society. I've met many friends, many connections through the seminars, the events. So they're doing good things.
01:41:13 And any space that gives you the chance to say I'm Palestinian in front of Jews for the first time, that's... But that's, that, it's not... It is, you know, a good thing for them. It's a compliment for them, but it's more, more, it's like I see it as how, it's an indicator of how horrible things are that I need, I need a Jew. I need an Israeli to validate my identity in order to be able to freely say I'm Palestinian. And actually, one of my proudest moments, you know, ever is that one of the participants on the trip on the seminar to Canada, she's Palestinian citizen of Israel. She comes to me after all the discussions, she tells me, Shereef, I want to thank you. Because of you, I felt the strength and I felt, you know, safe and secure to say out loud.
01:42:16 here in the circle that I'm Palestinian. So to see that instead of her identity being validated by the oppressors, by the oppressors, by the society of the oppressors, I was the one to do that for her. It's just, you know, filled my heart with warmth. That's a beautiful acknowledgement. And, you know, standing together is a nice sounding vision. But you also need, or primarily need, the Palestinians to stand for themselves. and in and of themselves and as themselves.
01:42:49 So I love that you got that acknowledgement from Earth. Because that's the sense I get from your videos is that you're really just granting permission to people to say how it is. And you're describing the complications and you're not shying away from them. And you're not presenting some cheap solution. One of the latest videos that I made is, you know,
01:43:08 an incident that happened. Let's look. On the plane back from London, I meet a couple of Bahá'i, visitors coming to do a polygram pilgrimage in Haifa and we start chatting and we start chatting to an Israeli guy in front of us and it turns political and we argue.
01:43:28 Doesn't matter the argument itself but one of the passengers on the other side is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and the Bahra'i friends ask him where are you from? He says, I'm from Israel and at first I was a bit suspicious. Why does he identify as from Israel, right? And then after everything happens, he comes to me. And I'm literally, I'm like, I'm shouting, you know, I'm arguing. The plane is filled with Israelis and filled with, you know, Jews from London. And I'm like, Palestine, Palestine. And then he comes, he comes to me and he says, you're lucky we didn't have another fly Dubai incident. Yeah, we made so much jokes me and the Bahia, the Bahai guys about that. You know, he's like, you know, Captain Tony speaking to you.
01:44:14 I'm the captain of today's flight. And I'm like, yeah, but he didn't say the name of the co-pilot, Captain Abdul-Hemid, Mahmoud, Abdu, Aasad. We're just experiencing some mild ideological turbulence here. We're just flying through a patch of pro-Palestine discourse. We should be clear in about five minutes, but for now, please do remain seated with your seatel-fassad. That was one of the funniest flights ever because, like, people wouldn't sit down. And the, you know, over the speaker, the staff were like, please sit down, please don't. Because, you know, they were gathering for prayers in the middle of the plane.
01:44:50 So basically, like, disturbing the weight balance, balance. I don't know, I don't know anything about aviation. But they were asking them so many times to, like, just sit down. And they also had to use, I've never heard that before, but they literally went on and said, like, we are now entering Israeli Earth space and according to Israeli law you must be seated. They had to use Israeli law
01:45:10 or a threat of Israeli law to actually get the people to sit which they didn't manage to. When I flew to Amman, it was the same thing. The minute we got off the Mediterranean and passed over the coastline, it was like everyone needs to sit down now
01:45:29 by law. You can't be walking around. I've never heard that before. I've never had that before actually Annoom, so this guy comes to me and he says something that breaks my heart actually and it snaps me back to the reality of fear that
01:45:44 Palestinian is invisible experience and not everyone as crazy as me and I'm just shouting Palestine on a plane which is something I advise against. He comes to me and he says, listen first and foremost it's very nice to meet you
01:46:01 but I wanted to ask you, it's safe to say that we're Palestinians. And I'm like, oh, my dude, we got to break the fear barrier at some point. Yeah. But like, literally like, because, you know, I had pre assumptions. I assumed that, you know, he identifies as Israeli or something, but he was just afraid, you know, to say on a plane, rightfully so, you know, that is Palestinian. It's an amazing story.
01:46:26 And again, it speaks to the work you're doing, which is helping to break the fear barrier. I think that's a really brave thing to do. And yeah, I'm excited to see you continue, but I'm also praying and rooting for your safety as you do because I know you're taking risks in doing so. I'm honestly, I'm in a very confused period of my life. I'm not sure where I want to live because, like, I felt so good. I spent two months in London and I felt so good there.
01:46:58 and I came back here and I'm quite struggling so yeah you might you might see me in London for good in the few coming months come come check out New York before you do it no no I didn't like it I did not like it well actually after being in Canada I went there for like eight days uh-huh sorry with all due respect to New York is maybe under maybe on the What's his name? Mombani. It has improved, but I went there slightly before he was elected. So, yeah.
01:47:38 Fair enough. And London's got a great Arab community. We need to take a break, but there's so much more to talk about with Sharif Safari. Thanks for sticking around. I know it's later where you are, then where I am. Really appreciate your time. We will be going to break. So everybody, please stick around, listen to these advertisements.
01:47:55 If it's for the CIA or ICE or Shabak, do not join. But if it's for a mattress or a pillow or, you know, fresh salmon, frozen box subscription, give it a thought. I don't know what the hell they're advertising. I'm going to show. But enjoy these ads and stick around. We will be right back. And we are back.
01:48:22 It's Bad Hasbara. My name is Daniel Matte. I'm your most moral host today. And I am so much enjoying this conversation with Sharif. Safari. How you doing, Sharif? Brilliant. Amazing. It's been lovely. And yeah. Thank you for having me. Thanks for working through the jet lag and being here with me for so long. You had a couple of things you wanted
01:48:42 to touch on before we move on. What was on your mind? I was just wanted to talk a bit more about the academic experience for the Palestinians of Israel. Yes, please. Since October the 7th, many Palestinian students were kicked out, were expelled from studies because of social media posts. So you have a very unfair treatment towards Palestinian citizens, whereas to Palestinian students, whereas an Israeli Jewish student and an Israeli university can say
01:49:15 in New Gaza can say the worst things, and he will face zero consequences. A Palestinian citizen says of Israel studying at an Israeli university, if he does post something social media, he can get expelled at least, you know, the minimum is like a disciplinary hearing, right? And like, I can't imagine, like, I remember, because in the University of Tel Aviv, I did my master's degree,
01:49:43 and it was in conflict, management and resolution, so, and I only, like, went, like, once a week, but I can't really, because I remember, I can remember crazy things from my academic experience in Haifa before October the 7th, and when it was not as mad as it is right now. And one of the things one of the professors told me is studied English literature.
01:50:07 And to be fair, to give credit where credit is true, this is going to be the title of the episode. The English department in the University of Haifa, where credit is Jew. Yeah, here you go. Was a good department. The head of the department, at the time was pro-Palestinians, no doubt.
01:50:33 But some of the professors who had tenure, one of them actually, an American, goes, always the Americans. He, I post something, I think it wasn't during the May events, 2021, I post like something on my Facebook. I say, Nazareth will always be Arab and will always be free. And then he starts arguing in the comments with me. And in the end, he tells me, he's got to be. stop acting like those Palestinian bitches and I'm like I am not
01:51:05 acting like those Palestinian bitches I am a Palestinian bitch so this happened and again during my teaching diploma I was teaching in a Jewish school I was doing my training in a Jewish school
01:51:21 in Haifa and a soldier comes in two soldiers come in the graduates of that school and they ask they ask the children, they invite them to serve in the different teams. And one of them, a female soldier, she says that she was bullied at that school we were in, and that she felt weak in school, and now she feels strong at the checkpoint. And I'm like, I asked her, I said, do you take out the trauma, you know,
01:51:48 trauma that you've experienced here on people at the checkpoint? And she said, I'm not going to lie to you when I wake up on the wrong side of bed, I do. That's it. I go home, I get a call. You harassed a soldier You are called to a disciplinary hearing With the principal I advise you They brought a soldier in
01:52:05 To talk to you guys To talk to the children Not to me To talk to the children To indoctinate the children To get them prepared You know And this is how Israelis
01:52:18 Don't teach their children to hate Right unlike the Palestinians in Gaza This is something I want Yeah Who read Mind Kampf To their babies in utero. This is one of the craziest Israeli
01:52:31 talking point is that Palestinians, the Palestinian curriculum teaches the Palestinian curriculum is like is a UN issue, the UN supervised curriculum, whereas no one supervises the Israeli curriculum. The Israeli schools, honestly, Israel high schools are just like preparation
01:52:49 for the army, which is a very sad reality for kids because like in the end they're like 17, 16, 17, 18, they have to like go on. seven they all mean well they've been waiting for it they're all that we have a crazy story we don't have time to get to today maybe we'll cover it on friday but there's just speaking of your Palestinian curriculum there's some initiative some some company that's running classes or education in gaza is instituting basically AI surveillance to make sure none of the kids in these gaza classrooms
01:53:18 which is to say tents with cardboard walls are saying anything too radical they're analyzing the speech of what goes on in the classroom. But anyway, yeah, we don't have time to get into the details of that. But so you're, yeah, so here you are, and you ask a soldier, I think, a really interesting human question, which is to say, yeah, you were bullied as a kid.
01:53:41 Now do you take that out on Palestinians at checkpoints? And she says yes, and then you get accused of harassment. Yeah, and actually the Israeli teacher that was with me in the classroom, she says under her breath, he says, this is not good. It's not the way it should be.
01:53:55 Right. And I get called in to the principal's office, having been told beforehand by the advisor of the program. Because I was still like a university student paying them, actually, to get my teaching certificate. And I got scolded for 10 minutes. And this is how I made, one of the latest videos that I made was about how the whole thing with Samabeshadhi,
01:54:22 with Samo Bishadhi reminded me, of that incident that I had. I sat quiet for like 10 minutes not to get fired from that school and I wish I didn't because in the end she tells me you're lucky that we're not going to forward what happened here to
01:54:38 other schools and I won't hurt your career. It won't be on your permanent record. One year later, after I finish another year of like training in an Arab school, I tried to apply for a job in Elat, so south of the country.
01:54:57 The first thing they asked me in the interview, and this is way before I started talking, started my like Instagram and way before anything, right? The first question they asked me is that they say, we've heard that you speak a lot of politics in school. Just one question, yeah? Just one human question, right? And they say, would you promise if you come to our school
01:55:23 not to speak politics. And I'm like, yeah, sure. And they never called me back. Over one question, Daniel. And you don't like to. The person said they weren't going to stitch on you, and they did. They did. So it didn't help me that I stayed, that I stayed silent and, you know,
01:55:39 acted like a good boy. Didn't help. In the end, they did what they want to do. In the end, they fired, they expelled, they barred Samma, which had it was. It's just, again, this is why I feel it's the embodiment of the Palestinian. experience in Israel. We are not tolerated. Yeah, so
01:56:00 this is one thing. Another thing is that during my activism with standing together, we did a protest against the war in Gaza because they called it war. I don't know if they say genocide now, do they? Don't think, maybe they do.
01:56:17 Maybe. I've heard individuals among them use the term, but it's not official. I don't think. Anywho, one of the guys from the student body in the invest in Haifa, he's armed, of course, because you need to be armed as a student. If you have a bad exam, you shoot it. Bro, they're so crazy.
01:56:41 All of them are armed for one day. If you read a bad argument, you have to shoot holes in the argument. Listen, one day an elevator, dude who, fix his elevators. What do you call it? An elevator repairman. Yeah, yeah. He had a gun. And I'm like, I went to the elevator to the left and I said,
01:57:04 listen, why do you need a gun? Why do you need a gun? It's like, oh, we all need a gun with security, you know. Like, you're in the University of Tel Aviv. There's already people with guns at the gate, you know, not letting anyone in. That's a very, very sex society.
01:57:20 I know, back to the, back to the student. A student who is not really a student. It's just, so these are a corrupt bunch of students who've been in control and preventing democracy in the student body in the investive Haifa. He's like old now. And he tells me, comes to me knowing that I'm bad. So they just keep failing him so we can stick around and fuck up?
01:57:45 No, he just keeps, keeps registering for like different, more and more courses, different. So he can stay and like, they stole a lot of money from the, you know, from the student bodies. Hello fellow undergrads and he walks out with his cane. Literally. Anuam, he tells me, listen, looks me in the eyes and tells me, listen, I have four Xs in Gaza. And I'm proud of each and every one of them. Basically, I've got four kills in Gaza. And I'm looking at this dude.
01:58:14 And I'm like, I can punch the fuck out of you. Like, I can knock you out easily, right? But then what? Then, like, you feel like a crazy sense of hopelessness because you're not able to do anything. You'll get shot at or you'll get killed or imprisoned. And then you have to tolerate these people, right? So how do you keep from going crazy?
01:58:40 The gem. Even in Tel Aviv during, because like the conflict resolution program in Tel Aviv does two tracks, the English tract that focused. is more on politics and international affairs. And there's the Hebrew one that focus more on like on family relations and like corporate conflicts. And unfortunately, because the Hebrew one was much cheaper than it was like $10,000 instead
01:59:07 of $30,000 for the international program, I had to do the Hebrew one. And then I took as much as many courses as I could from the international one. But one of the courses of conflict resolution was taught by. a settler from the West Main and you know me I can't shut up right so I go to and I'm like dude how come you
01:59:31 how come you teach conflict resolution when you are the conflict and this is where my internal like mental conflict is he was to me you know a nice a nice person right
01:59:47 he he knew his like family relations and family conflicts and all of that, very well. And he was an easy to speak with man, religious man. In a way, it reminded me of, like, religious Muslim men who are very calm and very easy to talk with. Yes.
02:00:05 And then we talk. And then I go out and I tell him, listen, I look at you and I see, you know, resemblance with my dad, with the way you speak, with the easiness you speak with, with the maturity that you have. how come you live where you live
02:00:23 how come you do what you do he's like in the end he's like what's the solution for what's happening it's like I believe that
02:00:30 we should give the Palestinians some sort of like control over the area A and area B and we should annex area C and you realize that's not
02:00:40 just and that's not equal and that's not a just resolution to this conflict so to say he says yes but For me, the security of my people is more important than equality or the marchion.
02:00:55 And this is, on one hand, you have a very nice grandpa, yeah, who is very sweet to talk with, but even a person like that does not believe in equality or... So here's a guy who doesn't speak to you in a racist way, saying things that are inherently racist. And you have someone who specializes in conflict resolution showing clearly that conflict resolution in itself has no justice in it, it has no equality in it. It's just about making the conflict go away. One of the courses that we did in the international school
02:01:31 was Palestinian politics by a Palestinian professor from the West Bank from Ramallah. The brother, his name is Khalil Shkaki, and he's the brother of Fethhy Shkaki, the founder of the Islamic Jihad. Okay. So, yeah, very interesting. It was through Zoom.
02:01:52 And, yeah, it's just, you know, you had a settler, and then you had, of course, his politics differ from, I believe, from what his brother was. And I don't think he liked my last analysis, essay that I wrote for him, because it differed from his. Ramallah political viewpoints.
02:02:18 Right. You know, the Ramallah elites. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, Ehud Barak talked about how Israel is a villa in the jungle. Ramallah is a villa inside the villa in the jungle. I mean, it's, you know, yeah, heard all about that. We were, you were just talking about the settler who came and taught you. I want to close the show with some clips from a recent 60 Minutes feature that aired, maybe
02:02:46 last night. Leslie Stahl, who's one of CBS 60 Minutes's most veteran investigative reporters and journalists. And this is on Barry Weiss's CBS, which is a hyper Zionist. But they did a special on the Hilltop Youth, which as we know Sharif, the Hilltop Youth are the cause of everything. You know, they, in 1890, they're the ones who told Theodore Herzl that it would be a good idea to colonize Palestine. They're the ones who arranged the Balfour Declaration. They're the ones who carried out the Nakhba. I know they weren't born then, but secretly they are to blame for everything. This is what I've heard at least from liberal Zionists, that BB and the rogue hilltop youth are the only problem in the West Bank. And that's basically the framing that 60 Minutes did. Even as they
02:03:40 showed some of the settlers' crimes, they took great pains to... frame it and Hasbair it in a way that makes Zionism and the Israeli state project look rather innocent. Okay, so let's take a look at how this 60 Minutes report on settler violence is framed. Oh, they're really hurting people now. This is a biblical story. You have two populations, Jewish and Arab, fighting. over ancestral lands. The weapons they're using here are sticks and stones
02:04:23 and sheep. All right, pause. Oh, they're hurting people now. Oh, they're hurting people now. Oh, look at them, they're hurting people. And then this is a biblical story. This is a biblical story. You have two groups of people,
02:04:40 Jews and Arabs. And once upon a time, they lived in a valley. And the Jews lived on the hilltop and the Palestinians, the Arabs, they lived in the valley for no reason. There was nothing that it ever happened that had put those two there. And the weapons they're using
02:04:55 are sticks and stones and sheep. Well, we all know that only one side is using sheep as a weapon. They're stealing sheep. They're poisoning sheep. They're torturing sheep. They're kidnapping sheep. And they're using their own sheep
02:05:09 as one guy admits. His name is Mordecai Minster, who's also interviewed in this. But here's something he said about his use of his sheep. Driving sheep herds into Palestinian communities. Mordecai Minster, who co-founded a sheep farm in the West Bank. Isn't that nice, Sharif, he co-founded a sheep farm,
02:05:33 is a new type of Israeli settler. His herd is driven deeper and deeper into surrounding Palestinian communities, driven by whom? When you have sheep, he said, everyone understands. Arabs tend to fight over grazing lions. Mordecai minstrel, very good. Arabs tend to fight over grazing lands among themselves. It's a language that we understand, and they understand, Minster said, and it's a way to delineate
02:05:57 the border. This is where I graze my sheep. You don't take your sheep here. You don't plant here. You don't build here. So this guy co-founded a sheep farm, and now he uses sheep as a weapon. I wonder if that farm was planted with that in mind. It's rather incredible.
02:06:17 And then she goes on and interviews him about these kids. They've torched cars and destroyed property. There's a hard core of up to 500 of them, up to a thousand more drift in and out. How did they get here? Who are they? Those are kids that are ranging age between, I don't know, 15 and 25. They don't do great in school.
02:06:43 They don't get into the Army that easily because maybe behavioral problems. So some of them end up in places like this, taking care of sheep, doing construction. Some of these kids may have drug problems. They smoke pot. They grow pot. The American ambassador to Israel has said that the violence against these Palestinian farmers is terrorism. He's called it thuggish and disgusting. I wouldn't classify it as terrorism.
02:07:10 But are there... I love how now Mike Huckabee can be used as like a strong. strong anti-violence, anti-occupation voice. Like that was the whole purpose of him saying that. Yeah, if Pot made you a genocide or Snoop Dog would be Paul Pot. Adam. That's very good. That's a nine out of ten at least.
02:07:33 There are some children who overreact and act in thuggish ways. They need to be controlled and held in. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, there are some thuggish, ruggish bones. Died. Yes. None of this is great. And none of this change.
02:07:47 changes the fact that our right to be here is legal and it's ancient ancient yeah so hold on it's legal according to what law is it illegal according to any modern law i don't think so it's a leading legal according to some ancient law so what are you what are you seeing so far about the framing of this 60 minutes piece this is zionism trying to reconcile with itself especially within you know liberal zionists and americans they want to see israel that appears on the surface as democratic, you know? They'd rather, you know, it's the same, like two approaches. An iron first or an iron fist with a velvet glove, right?
02:08:27 For me, I find it more refreshing to deal with Bingvir and, you know, crazy settlers rather than Ja'Ir Goulan and the liberal democratic Zionists. It's break their, basically, break their bones. Or it's break their bones and then draw, like, little hearts on their cast, little rainbows. They're not trying to hide it. You know, Moshe Dayan
02:08:53 is a great example of that. He wrote once an eology in 1956 for a fallen soldier near the Gaza borders. And he tells them, of course, they're looking at us with anger. Of course, they're waiting for the day. They're going to, like, revenge.
02:09:10 They are looking at us, you know, working the land that their fathers and the grandparents worked before us. We should not blame them. We should blame ourselves for thinking that a project isn't a violent one for laying down our weapons. And he recognized and understands that the project is violent and should be up kept and preserved with the same violence it started with. So at least I've got honesty, you know, sanity. Respect the Palestinians enough to expect that they're going to resist you because you're the colonizing.
02:09:45 me enough to tell me the truth and not to like fool me and fool yourself along the way, you know? Yeah. And again, as you said before, it's, it's not the right wing that, you know, it was Hashemannat Sa'ir. It was the socialist. It was those who started the colonization and the occupation and the Nekba, right? Did you hear about the, uh, the Israeli youth group, Mahanot, how Olim, who wants to create a left wing settlement in the Jordan Valley?
02:10:13 See, that's trying the best. To reconcile with the fact that this is who you are, you know, these thuggish boys, this is your own making. This is symptoms of the sick society that you've created. Something outrageous happened the other day and the way things were covered. A group of settlers from the West Bank, from the Heltop youth, came to the lands of a Palestinian city. in the 48. So Palestinians of Israel and tried to start an outpost
02:10:50 there, right? Basically stealing land and creating and everyone, including standing together. This is like a standing together thingy. Everyone was like, oh my God, they're trying to copy the horrible things, the horrible occupation they're doing in the West Bank. They're trying to copy it inside of,
02:11:12 you know, democratic, inside of Israel, inside of they're trying to copy the same injustices that happen in the West Bank inside of Israel I'm like hold on a second and this whole narrative we need to change Netanyahu and we need to stop these people and I'm like hold on a second
02:11:28 and some of them said they're trying to jeopardize the Galilee these settlers these you know extremist settlers I'm like guys the actual people who started the project and called it jeopardizing the Galilee
02:11:43 were the it was the labor government it was very early on in the 50s and you know I would argue not even argue
02:11:53 this is the truth is what's happening in the West Bank was modeled on the things that happened to Palestinian citizens of Israel think of the apartheid
02:12:03 amazing like we Palestinian citizens of Israel are the first Palestinians that encountered the injustices of the Israeli
02:12:12 system we are the ones who were put into a martial law, military rule from 1948 to 1965 for 20 years. So a couple of months, some eight months before Israel occupied the West Bank. Israel has a problem and had a problem still has it
02:12:31 till today with the Galilee. The fact that most Arab Palestinians, citizens of Israel, live in the Galilee. And Jews don't want to live in the Galilee. So they go, they live in the center in Tel Aviv. and because of that they launched the project to erudize the Galilee in one of these cities is the city of Upper Nazareth and if you go to any Palestinian city any Palestinian town in the Galilee you will see that there are little Jewish settlements Kputsym or settlements or towns that are built around it to stop the continuing to stop the expansion of the Palestinian communities and for the Palestinian cities to connect to each other.
02:13:16 So there is buckets. Exactly how you see it in the West Bank. So what's happening in the West Bank has been modeled on that. Yeah, no, I stayed on a quibbutz called Tuval up in the north with a Palestinian village down at the bottom of the hill called Daryl Assad. And we did like an exchange program with them, you know, and it was very tough. And we stood in a circle and sang Michael Jackson's heal the world, you know, with the Israeli Arabs.
02:13:39 And it, you know, this is 1993, Oslo year. But it was exactly that setup where we were literally the hilltop settlement picking Kiwis at the top of the mountain and at the bottom yeah So all these liberal Zionists that were like blaming the hilltop
02:13:57 the no ones for the jeopardizing of Galilee I was like guys this is like a crazy insult to my brain And it's an insult to Israeli heritage because Israeli heritage has been doing this for a long time We're going to need to wrap up pretty quickly here, but I did want to play you one more clip.
02:14:14 This is from Israeli television. Speaking of the hilltop youth, the thing I noticed in this clip, there's actually a hilltop kid on an Israeli news program being interviewed. And he says the wrong thing at a certain point and the guy grabs the microphone from him. But what I, so there's that, right?
02:14:33 Oh, we don't want to let them go too far and act too crazy. But meanwhile, look at the body language of everyone else until that point. and just how this kid is treated. So, channel 14. So he's asked by the host where he lives, and he says, I live on a hill near Ma'alemmass.
02:14:59 Lots of applause. Everyone looks happy. There was an instant on an outpost. A terrorist came, burned a car, and drew a knife. That guy says, yeah, that happened near my place. it was close, not so close. And they asked him what his message is. And he says, first, I want to thank the people of Israel for.
02:15:18 Oh, no, no, face the camera. So he's trying to encourage the settler kid to not be so shy. Face the camera. Talk to the nation. And the kid says, first, thank you to the people of Israel for all the love and the support. We are receiving so much love and support. Thank you so very much.
02:15:34 And now he's talking about the election. Make an informed choice. I cannot vote, but I wish I could. Go out and vote. So he's not old enough to vote, but he's old enough to, you know, burn Palestinian olive groves and carry a, you know, carry a giant knife. And then the guy thinks he'll ask him a clever question, a clever Hezbarah question. What do you think about lawbreaking by young people in Judean, Samaria?
02:16:02 And the kid says, breaking the law is wrong, but if people do, the law must be enforced equally. it makes no sense that if a hilltop youth burns a house they would kill him and make him but is it okay to burn a house the guy says and then the then the kid really goes off he's like but a Kaplan protester what is a Kaplanist? I'm saying like a liberal Zionist anti-Natiyahu protests before October 7th were the Kaplan protests yeah he said he can burn cars he can protest and they will pray him and then watch what the host does enough come on so the kid is allowed to get up there and thank the nation for their support and talk about proudly about the hilltop he lives on in the in judean
02:17:00 samaria but the minute he starts talking about hey we should be allowed to burn down homes and whatever and equate himself to the liberal zionist protesters and say they get off got free now all of a sudden he gets the microphone taken from him. I think we need to call it there. We have so much more we could talk about. I've got more clips from the 60 Minutes thing, but you have been so generous with your time, and I think our audience will be very satisfied
02:17:25 with this amount of content in one episode. So thank you so much, Sharif Safati, for coming on the show. How can people find out more about you? Where can they find you online? And is there anything you want to plug or ask people to support? You can actually just follow me on Instagram. I have a YouTube channel. I made just one YouTube video.
02:17:46 It was like a long content about a Palestinian village, displaced, ethnically clansed Palestinian village. And you can go watch that. I don't have many views on it. So I can support my YouTube channel as well. And if it has enough views, I will make another video. Okay, great. Let's get that view count up, everybody. Let's get it up.
02:18:07 You know where to find me. If you guys are in London, I want to shout out my friends, a running crew. It's like a social running crew called Chasing Light. You are more than welcome to head them up on Instagram and go for a run and meet the lovely people. Amazing. Nice plug for your friends. And yeah, we will link to all of those things in the description.
02:18:33 Thanks again, Sharia. I hope you'll come back sometime. I know Matt would love to meet you. and yeah, such a great insightful conversation. Thanks so much for everything you do. Thank you so much for having me. Cheers. My pleasure, absolutely.
02:18:44 And ladies and gentlemen, that is our episode. We are Bad Hasbara. We are at badhasbara.com. Baddhasbara at gmail.com for all your questions, comments, and concerns. Patreon.com slash Bad Hasbara for a bonus episode every single week. Okay, folks, that has been our episode. Thank you for tuning in. And until next time, from the river to the sea,
02:19:06 go subscribe to Sharif Safadi. It's a good one. I'm going to adopt that. Jumping jacks was us. Push-ups was us. Godmaga us. All karate us.
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