Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - [UNLOCKED] 185: In Conversation with Attorney Maha Ighbaria

Episode Date: March 1, 2026

With Matt on assignment, Daniel is joined by human rights attorney Maha Ighbaria to share her perspective as a Palestinian living inside the ‘48 border. They discuss Palestinian identity, the notion of coexistence within empire, and Maha’s own fight to have her law license reinstated, after being suspended over her posts on Gaza.Please donate to Pal Humanity: http://palhumanity.com/Maha Opinion in Haaretz: https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025-12-23/ty-article-opinion/.premium/why-can-a-jew-call-for-mass-killings-but-i-cant-say-good-morning-gaza/0000019b-458a-d4ce-a3df-5daa7e040000BAD HASBARA LIVE IN LOS ANGELES APRIL 12 AT SCRIBBLE: https://bit.ly/badhasbaralaNew Bad Hasbara Merch: https://estoymerchandise.com/collections/bad-hasbara-podcastSubscribe to the Patreon https://www.patreon.com/badhasbaraWhat’s The Spin playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/50JoIqCvlxL3QSNj2BsdURSkad Skasbarska playlist: http://bit.ly/skadskasbarskaSubscribe/listen to Bad Hasbara wherever you get your podcasts.Spotify https://spoti.fi/3HgpxDmApple Podcasts https://apple.co/4kizajtSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/bad-hasbara/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

I'm bitch, the Rocco Salvat, our sauce. Good morning, Viet Pah, and welcome to Bad Hasbara. The World's Most Moral Podcast. Yes, indeed. It's another episode of the World's Most Moral Podcast. I'm host number one today in a strange, unfamiliar position. My name is Daniel Mate. I will be your most moral host for this podcast.

And I'm the Most Moral Substitution. I'm producer Adam, standing. in for Matt while he's off on assignment. Playing hooky. That's the assignment, and he's fulfilling it admirably. Shout out right to his face to producer Adam Levin on the ones and twos and the fogged glasses. The fogg glasses and the close up. Subscribe on YouTube and at the podcast apps and give us stars. We are star piggies, and we want to be acknowledged as such. And you will get a star in our hearts if you give us.

good reviews or something. Merch, folks, we have new shirt designs from our New York live shows, which are available at badhusbara.com. Quantities are limited. It's not an infinite supply. Okay?

We're not gods. We can't just snap our fingers and say, let there be more shirts. If the shirts are gone, the shirts are gone. So get those shirts. Get them before they run out. Tickets for our live show, Sunday, April, 12th.

that Scribble in Los Angeles are going very quickly, just a handful of handfuls left. So do go to bit.ly slash bad hasbarra L.A. That is bit.l.w. slash bad hasbarra la. Just one bushel of tickets left. Let's get in there. One bushel, not even a peck. Today's sponsor of this episode, this episode is brought to you by PAL humanity. Pal humanity was founded by two Palestinian physicians who are sisters and is dedicated to serving their community amidst crisis. The charity organizes field medical visits and distributes essential items including diapers, menstrual and hygiene kits, and infant formula. Their work prioritizes perinatal care, children with special needs, and medication distribution. And they absolutely need and deserve your support way more than. we do here. So if you're already Patreoning, that's great, but please step up and go to palhumanity.com.

That is palpal, humanity.com. And if you're not Patreoning, then you got no excuse. Go over there and spend the money that you would be spending on an extra episode every week on them. And then if you got some leftover, fine, fine. If you're that famished, ravenous a piggy, come on back. Get yourself a free episode a week. extra bonus guests,

all that kind of stuff at patreon.com. But of course, this is a Patreon episode so you should already know that. Indeed. Now, this is a question that I usually hear asked. I rarely get to ask myself.

Daniel, what's the spin? Well, thanks for asking there, Adam. Charlemagne Palestine is literally the name of this artist. A New York electronic music pioneer like his and his real name, I've got it here. I've got his Wikipedia page just a second. His real name, Chaim Mosheed Sadiq Palestine.

That's literally his name. He was born in Brooklyn in 1947 and he's part of the same school of music as Philip Glass and Steve Reich. And I'd never heard of him. But when I saw his name, I had, here he is. Look at him. I had to get this. And then in light of that, other electronic music from my collection that I really like.

Kate Trannida with this album called 99.9%. Terrific electronic music with a little bit of hip-hop in it. Square pusher, feed me weird things. Okay. British electronic music genius. I don't have, what's the name of the album of his that I really like that they don't have on vinyl? Anyway.

round puller. Round puller. That album's called Feed Me Weird Things. We got Prodigy music for the Jilted Generation. Late 90s was a good time for electronic music, I feel. A lot of these records are from then. Asian Dub Foundation, British, South Asian group, Rafi's Revenge. Just rapping and singing on this, but a lot of drum and bass kind of beats.

Boards of Canada, music has the right to children. Okay. we got one I know. You know that one. Flying Lotus is a producer who's worked with Kendrick Lamar a lot and Thundercat. And this album's called Cosmogram.

Cosmogramma, I should say. Two more. Kraftwerk, of course, the foundation, one of the early pioneers. This is Computer World. Kraftwerk. And finally, probably my favorite electronic album in my collection, very rare.

Rony size. represent new forms, drum and bass, par excellence, Bahamadilla is on here, British crew with just some fantastic, frenetic drum and bass. So that's what's the spin today. Adam, I'm very hungry to know, what the fuck is the spoon, man. All right, well, Daniel, back when you wore a younger man's tuk, Did you ever go to the mall? Of course I'm into the team.

And now I'm trying to fill in the blanks on the Billy Joel. He says, son, Nikki, play me a melody. It always made me puke. But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete when I wore a younger man's toque. You know, perhaps you were going to Sam Goody to pick up a long box CD. I went to Sam the record man.

I went to A&B Sound in Vancouver, yeah. Okay, well, do you remember these, this kind of coin funnel bank thing that usually is for a charity, they would usually have them like at the entrance to the mall? No. Okay, well, we'll get back to it later, but I just want to cede that in your understanding of things today. Okay. So more on that later. But when everything feels uncontrollable and you're getting desensitized to chaos, I like to cook and bake things. that keep the household humming and well-provisioned.

In Yiddish, you'd call it Balbatishkait. So for today's spoon, I have a couple of things to prepare that I do to kind of make the household run smoother and easier, and that can be comforting in wild times. Nice. So first is this garlic confi. Ooh. I'll do a dozen or so bulbs at a time, and then you enclose the, the garlic paste in a parchment paper envelope like this.

And then you can take a bench scraper or the back of a knife and you kind of draw a grid on the paper envelope, pop it in the freezer, and then you get these squares of perfect garlic confi that you can throw in anything. And it makes everything savory better. They keep for three months in the freezer. And it's just like a nice sort of, like I said, sort of a household thing. to keep on hand that makes everything, you know, makes everything nice. That is really, really cool.

And is garlic confi basically just garlic roasted in the clove? Like in the... Yeah, you kind of chop the tops off the bulb of garlic. Pour some high heat oil. I use avocado oil, like a three count over each bulb of garlic. You ever used algae oil? You ever encountered this? I have seen it.

I have never used it. I've been cooking with it. It's great. Okay. Very high smoke point, very neutral flavor. I'll have to check it out. You can do steak with it really well. I know that's not really your thing, but.

Sure, no, but I do a lot of high heat stuff, so I'll have to check it out. Yeah. And then this morning, I made these three banana breads. Aw. For just for the little old ladies on the block that I make brown butter. in advance, and then just any time I'm baking, I've got brown butter in the fridge, so it makes everything taste better. It's got this great kind of nutty flavor to it. And Pilonceo, which is sometimes it's called Mexican brown sugar. It's evaporated sugar cane juice instead of the kind of heavily

processed brown sugar that you often get. Which gets dried out so quickly anyway. It's true. Yeah. And so that's why, remember that coin vortex I showed you earlier? Yeah, yeah, bring back all kinds of memories that I never had from them all. Sure, the took. Yeah, false memories in go. So this is what it looks like when things start to get hectic. You get going faster and faster, and you're spinning and spinning.

Now, that's the spin. That's the spin of life right there. Now, let's just see right. That's where we are right now. Things are getting faster and faster. We're parallel to the black hole. It's getting impossibly quickly. It's getting kind of hectic.

Staring into the void, no control. So control what you can. Bake some banana bread, keep some garlic confi in the freezer. You know, do the things that make you feel balbatish in your own home. And then a real quick spin of my own. Mm-hmm. This is Doom Garden by the Philadelphia band Catbite. Oh, for a second, I thought M.F. Doom did a collab with Soundgarden,

and I was going to cream my pants. No, they're a wonderful ska band, part of what they call the New Tone movement out of Philadelphia. And if you want to hear a bit of their music, you know, you weren't going to get away without this. You can find it on the Skad. That's the wrong link, yeah. You can find it on the Skad Skad Skaz. Bar-Ska playlist available in the description of this episode. And it's been wonderful to share this stuff with you.

Thank you for sharing it. I was listening to one of my Propaganda records, and I was dismayed on your behalf to find out that they have a song, a punk song that's making fun of Scott called Skaw Sucks. And I was like, man, you guys obviously haven't listened to the Skad Skaz-Barska playlist, you punk fucking purists from Winnipeg. Well said. Well said, Daniel.

Shall we get on to our guest? Let's pick it up. Pick it up. So I am really excited for our guest today, someone I've been wanting to have on the show for a while. And yeah, she is a Palestinian human rights lawyer, and she is a citizen of a certain fictional, crumbling settler colony entity,

allegedly known as Israel. and she was recently suspended by the Israeli Bar Association for the crime of being Palestinian with an opinion and with the voice to express that opinion and she'll be telling us all about that. So here now is my interview with the wonderful Palestinian human rights lawyer, Maha Iqbaria.

Adam, see you on the flippity flop. All right. Maha, welcome to the Bad Hasbara podcast. Hi, thank you, Daniel, and thank you for hosting me. Thanks so much for coming on. I'm so glad we could finally do this. It's been a while that we've been in conversation. And, you know, I first heard about you in the context of your battle with the Israeli Bar Association.

And we're going to get to that shortly. but just by way of introduction, can you tell us and our listeners a little bit about yourself, you know, where you're from, what you're up to in life, and yeah, what's the deal with Maha Iqbaria? What's the deal? What you are up in life is like a huge question for Palestinian right now, especially this who lives in Israel. It's just like seems to be crazy. So I'm Maha Akbaria. I'm from the city of Omlphahim,

and it's second biggest Palestinian-slash-Arab city in Israel. And not far from the West Bank, but inside of 48, yes? Inside of the 48, not far from Genin, in the West Bank, correct. Got him. And I'm a human rights lawyer. I live currently in Haifa City. I used to live for many years in Tel Aviv. I'm an activist, political, social feminist activist, if we can't call it so.

Yeah, and then we will get to the bottle with the Israeli Bar Association. Yeah. Well, I have to say, I was thinking about it. I was racking my brain. This is our 183rd episode, Adam, is that right? 184th, 185th. We have been at this for over two years now, which is, it's sad that we still. need to, but Israel keeps churning out reasons for us to make fun of shit.

To still bad hasbarah. To still do bad has bar. There's just an endless supply. It's like a bottomless well, you know? Yeah. There was an Eastern European folk tale about like a bottomless latka pan or something where like lotcas, you could like this family, this poor family finds a magical pan that fries unlimited latkas and it's like that except for genocide

apologetics. But in that entire time. I do not believe we've ever had on a Palestinian citizen of Israel who lives there. We've had Mohammed al-Kurd, who's from East Jerusalem, but he lives here now. You know, we've had Orly Noy, who's a Mizrahi activist and lives there, you know. But. She's a friend, actually. I'm glad she is. I mean, she was an instant fan favorite with our listeners and of ours, you know. But, yeah, but they...

What's that? Never a Palestinian citizen of Israel. Never a Palestinian citizen of Israel. And while that's not deliberate on our part, if I'm honest about it, it's probably also not a coincidence. And I want to talk to you a little bit about that as we get into this, because there's something about the Palestinian 48-E identity. Or is that mean, what term do you use? Yes.

Well, sometimes when the Israeli friends use a 48er, I'm like, we're not number, you know. We do have a website, a Palestinian local news website. It's called Arab 48. So it's funny that we also adapted this. But the politically correct term would be Palestinian citizen of Israel. Palestinian citizen of Israel.

Of course, in some circles, even acknowledging the existence of the term Israel would be seen as, you know, not radical enough. But now we're getting into the territory of, we don't. Yeah, but I talk about Israel all the time. It's a fact. It's a fact. If international law matters, this.

What do I feel towards Israel is something else? Yeah. As the right wingers in the United States like to say, facts don't care about your feelings. Totally. But the, you're, you know, you're just in an interesting position being a, Palestinian citizen of would you agree an apartheid state? Of course. A state that is completely unequal that's founded on the erasure of your people that was founded on the expulsion of a good percentage of them. Was it half at that time? Seventy-five percent? 80 percent? Yeah. Yeah. So

first of all, definitely it is an apartheid state. Yeah. And when we also say an apartheid sect, we don't only talk about the apartheid in the West Bank, we're including what's happening inside of Israel between the Palestinian citizen and the Israeli Association, let's call it this name. So it is an apartheid where there is literally lows that you feel discriminated by law. You feel that you don't belong to here. I don't feel that. I don't feel an equal citizen, as you mentioned.

So we're 20%, 21% of the total of the Israeli citizens, which is a lot, and we're the original. I don't know even if it's politically correct to use the original. But who is original? You know, what is original? But Palestinians from the land, those who didn't kick out. out during the Nakba in the 48th. And then that's why we get the number of the 48. That's why people call us the 48ers.

And we have also many other names. We have in Arabic something called Il Dachil, which is the internal. So we are internal because it's inside of Israel, you know. And then we have like the diaspora, we call it Il-Kharj because it's outside, like El-Harej. So mainly we use El Dachil when we speak in Arabic. Arabic in our community here, not like to the outside, you know, not to the international community because they won't really understand it.

So what is it internal? What is it like external? So, yes, we do have all of these descriptions, all of these many names. It is a very, I don't know, can I call it like a unique or a special status to be a Palestinian citizen in Israel. But it's something that I found out, sadly, people don't know us. People don't know about us. There is many people, even those who could be like a serious pro-Palestinian activist around the world.

They don't even know that there is Palestinians existed in Israel. And then, like, you know, the follow-up question. So how do you live? What password do you have? So how even you're traveling? How you're in Italy? And then, like, it's like a whole question. conversation, basically. And I really discovered, especially last year, I have been traveling

really many years, but especially last year, and maybe it also because of the influence of the genocide, that we didn't get enough, you know, like a spotlight. We didn't get enough attention. Not that I need all that attention should be eyes on Gaza, and I agree, but it's just like, in terms of, if we're talking about, like, intellectual, you know. So people don't know us, don't know about us. Yeah. Well, surely you're a part of the picture. You're an important part of the picture.

You know, you're an important part of the situation, of the story, of the past of the place, of the present of the place, and surely of the future of the place. And so those of us out here, and I'm, you know, I'm coming back to what I said, that we've never had someone who's a Palestinian citizen of Israel on the show. So that's a huge gap in the conversation because here we are talking about the future of your country from over here in North America or whether they're activists in Europe are listening to us or Australia or anywhere else in the world.

And we're all so interested and invested, apparently, in what happens to this land and what the political status will be and we're so conversant in, you know, I know more about your country than I know about any other country in the world, probably including my own, Canada. Like, I know more about Israeli law

than I do. about Canadian law. I know more about the plight of the Palestinians in the West Bank than I do about the indigenous people of Canada probably. You know, because I've just spent more time. Because I'm interested.

Because I'm interested because I was brainwashed from a young age into thinking that it had something to do with me and I went to a Zionist summer camp and I lived in Israel for 10 months on a kibbutz and I speak some Hebrew and it's wrapped up in my sense of who I am and I also see it as a core moral issue of our time

and my country and the United States where I live materially support the ongoing oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and the disenfranchisement and apartheid subjugation of people like you. So I'm implicated, but I don't know why the whole world is obsessed with it, but it is. And yet, for all that, the conversation

about Palestinians on the inside, in the belly of the beast, doesn't happen so often. And I wonder why that is. And I've wondered if it's because, and I'll just theorize something, and then I'll let you speak about it much more wisely, I'm sure, than I can.

It seems to me that, and I don't know how this will sound to you, but you have an inconvenient identity for everyone. That, in a sense, right, to the Zionists, for the hardcore Zionists who want a purely Jewish state, well, you're, you've always been a problem. You're the ones they couldn't get rid of.

Yeah. The way is true. That's right. For those of us who are anti-Zionist and who are keen to talk about Israeli apartheid, well, Zionists can point to you and be, look at our nice Arabs, look how happy they are, look how privileged they are,

look how much better they have it in the rest of the world, you know. And for Palestinians in the diaspora, I can empathize and understand why it would be an awkward thing to deal with the fact that there are some of their people who stayed, who weren't kicked out, due to luck or choice or whatever, and are living inside of this society and consider it their society and are trying to do something within it, whatever, like you said, whatever your feelings about it may be, whether or not you want to see the state of Israel continue to exist, that's where you live. That's where you're trying to make a life. That's where you're trying to make a difference.

And one of the successes of Zionism, it seems to me, is to fracture Palestinians into all these different interest groups with very different material situations, realities, prospects, and considerations. So what do you think of all the things? Such a terrible interview skill. I'm going to talk for five minutes and then ask you what you think about what I said. But what do you think about what I just said, Ma'am? Thank you, Daniel. First of all, thank you for the question.

It's an important one. And I'm happy we are starting from this question. Because as I said, like, it's really important to me. First of all, because it's part of my identity, and it's like a serious part of my identity and from everyone else that lives in Israel as Palestinian. And because I'm very interested, like, to bring my voice to the people who don't know what does it mean even to be a Palestinian in Israel

and that there is Palestinian in Israel. So I'm happy to talk about this. I'm happy to give, you know, and also I want to make like a little statement. When people ask me about my identity as Palestinian lives in Israel, I'm more than happy to answer if they're coming from out of curiosity. If they're coming out of judgment, which is most of the time

and a lot of it from my Arab friends or the Arab around the world where I meet them in all of what doesn't matter what I do and what I go

like sometimes it's coming from the Arabs themselves Sure So that's that's pre-judgment which is the definition of prejudice Exactly making up your mind in advance And that's what I mean by the inconvenient thing

Because there's things about your identity that may challenge certain assumptions people have. Go ahead. To the both sides, by the way. To the both sides. To also that sometimes to the Palestinians and to the Arab world in general and to the Israelis, obviously. So I will start with why is it inconvenient

and why a Palestinian or other Arabs would see it as like a challenge and would come without judge judgment. So I don't want to judge. judge them when they are coming to me asking me such a question. Sometimes I do feel that it could be insensitive and harsh question

on me especially if they don't want to hear me and they are like chalas. They're coming just like to give me what they think what they want and like they don't want to hear me. Okay but I do live there you know I mean if you want to hear me you have to accept even what I tell you because my experience

it is an experience of a major of the Palestinians who lives in Israel, right? So for Palestinians, I would say that it's a challenge for them, even when I go to the West Bank. They see us as Arab Hashamane. You know what is it shamanet? So shamanic, it's the Hebrew name of yogurt.

Yogurt, okay. Which is vanilla in English. When we see, oh, they are vanilla. So they see us as Arab shamanet. So we are the vanilla of the Palestinians. This is how do they look at us. This is the perspective we got, unfortunately. Because we have the passport, because they can travel,

because they have the freedom of movement, because they have all of this privilege. And I do, we do. And probably because you speak fluent Hebrew and live among... All the package. So to speak, to an extent, among the Jewish society. All the package. We will get to the complexity, I think.

like in a bit, but let's call it now privilege. And it is a privilege sometimes. Yeah, I admit it and I know I act from my privilege. And I know what is it to be like a privileged, you know, comparing to my brother and sisters in Gaza who have experienced like a really serious genocide of like two and a half years and to my brothers and sisters. And my family, I do have like a first family in the West Bank. So I can understand them when they see us coming, mainly during the weekends, shopping because it's cheaper to the West Bank.

And yes, some of the Palestinians in Israel, mainly their relationship to the West Bank is shopping. It's fruits, vegetables, like you name it, everything. I mean, they go and they shop for everything they need in the house. and a lot of the Palestinian cities in the West Bank, their economical situation, based on the Palestinians from Israel, those who are coming to shop during the Saturdays, for example. So they can see us, like, in a very, I can understand why

there might be very judgment, and, ah, yeah, you are the shamanit, you are the vanilla. And then you have the Arabs. When I travel and I see the Arabs, some of them don't even know about us, like those from Tunis, from Morocco. I name now because I'm just like, it's not necessary to be correct. I'm just like, because they are like geographically, they are so far, so they don't really, sometimes they don't know. But my friends from Lebanon, they definitely know that there is Palestinian Haifa, for example.

Right. So is it, yes, I have experience, I did experience some of, like, weird questions of, not even weird. I don't know how to call it, but is it, like, I remember. Suspicious questions? I remember a Lebanese friend asked me once, how do you live with Israelis like in the same house? Because I told him that I shared a flat when I was a student in Tel Aviv with an Israeli woman. And he, I think he was in shock.

Now, also it's like I'm just only talking. And really, like, it's important to me that I want to tell you, Daniel, and to everyone who made hear us, that I'm only speaking and talking about my own experience. Like things that happen to me. I'm not even thinking that I'm representing any of the Palestinians. I don't have this, I don't dare, you know, because we are, we really, you have this spectrum,

and we are everywhere on the spectrum. You're not a loan levy. You haven't set up a citizen spokesperson office without anyone asking you in your base. Exactly. So I'm just speaking, I'm sharing with you my experience with my Arab friends who came like with curiosity to ask me, like, how does it look like for you to live in Tel Aviv for like 12 years as a Palestinian, especially as Palestinian activists, you're Palestinian, and you're proud of your identity and you are going around Tel Aviv and how can you manage?

How do you do it? I understand. For someone who have been born in Jordan, or in Cairo. I understand what, how does it look for them? Like when you say Israel, they are woo-woo, okay. And it is, you know, for everyone else. But for those who lives here, you adapt. As a human, you adapt. You know, I have been born here. So I adapted as my parents did. How does it be, and how it could even look like to be a Palestinian part of this situation, the whole situation in Israel? And then you, you know, how it could even look like to be a Palestinian part of this part of this situation, the whole situation in Israel. And then you have, on the other hand,

the Israeli. And when you have the Israelis coming to ask me about me being a Palestinian here in Israel, you have like many options or many parts of this Israelis. Some of them might come with

also judgment. Oh, you live here, you should say to da. Okay. To da. And then some of them, they may come, they would say but Maha, you live here, you're Israeli, I understand your Palestinian, and you're fully right to be Palestinian, thank you.

But you're also Israeli. I mean, you live here, you get the bit of al-Qa-u-Kle-Umi, that's national health care. Yes, you have an Israeli bank account. Okay, I have everything. My Hebrew is sometimes fluent more than Arabic, so what? Okay, so what?

So you have really, I, I call, with my identity every single day abroad in Israel, in my hometown, in Europe, with Palestinians in the West Bank, with everyone. And I know, like, maybe the answer would be like for your question, so I may to bring us back to the question that why you didn't host anyone until now, even though you have been doing this for like two years. almost or why the people in the international community don't know enough about us. I think we have never been that important to the international media, because what's happening on the ground in Gaza or in the West Bank, it is what's important first.

Yes. And the second thing is that we didn't. as a community here in Palestine, before all of this globalization, the social media, we couldn't really reach out to the whole world. So only recently, like the recent 20 years, let's say, we started like to go each of us on his individual platform to bring our voices out to the world. Then the world started really to hear about like, oh, a protest in Haifa, what does that mean with the Palestinian flag?

And, you know, and so on and so on. So I think it's just our situation wasn't really under the spot enough to be heard. And which is, I told you in the beginning, I really feel it's, I feel so sad to be in this position that I always need to explain. Not even to explain my identity, to explain that we live there and how we live there and why we wasn't kicked out. It's not because, you know, they loved us. It's just because I think back at the time they didn't want it to look like a genocide, for example. This is my own explanation.

And it happened, like, just like that we stayed as it was less than two millions back at the time. And today we're like almost two million. So this is the facts, basically. Based on my remembering of what I've seen from the writings of early Zionists, there was always a certain amount of math done. how many Arabs could we absorb into a Jewish state while it still be a Jewish state?

What kind of an underclass can we maintain a racialized underclass that'll in some ways serve our ethnic, our ethno-supremacy? Because one of the functions that Palestinians, whether in the occupied territories or in 48, have served, is to give, you know, the Jewish underclass. someone to feel superior to, you know? The Ashkenazi overlords can tell the Mizrahim, well, you're not an Arab anymore, if you ever were. Look at them.

You're not like them. Yeah. Bob Dylan has this great song from like the mid-1960s, early 1960s where he talks about the southern preachers saying to the poor white man, you got more than the blacks don't complain, you know, and he called only a pun in their game. And so it's like to be in an identity where no matter who's talking to you, you're kind of seen through their agenda.

I can't even imagine what that's like emotionally. Oh, well, it is fucked up emotionally. Yeah, I think here we start, you know. Yeah. When we're talking like you, you can talk until tomorrow about politics. You can talk about facts, whatever. And it's coming to the inside and what people can feel. Yes.

It's like a total different story. I don't know, like, even, I can't, I don't know what even to explain to the people. So they can maybe understand, you know, I think even you or all of my friends outside of Israel, as Jewish, as foreigners, can't, they can't survive here a day. Or you can, but maybe as a visitor. Try to imagine how it could be for Palestinian, for Palestinian, not Israel, you know. A Palestinian had to cope with Israel. every single day, just mentally, just like to think about it.

So mentally it's like, I think we have got the community, the sense of community. We really have it very, very, even with the crime scene that's happening right now, unfortunately in the 48th, but we're still a community. We're a minority. So we have a minority seat as like the indigenous in the United States or the African-Americans in the United States. Right. And the internal crime problems, the analogy holds underneath, you know, when it comes to the remnants of settler colonialism, the people who are left, there's going to be trauma. There's going to be hardship.

There's going to be all kinds of material conditions that can't not leave. lead to all kinds of internal strife, but that doesn't mean that it's not a strong, loving community that very much wants to unite. So we're going to be talking about this issue of so-called internal violence in a little bit. Was there anything else you wanted to say about the question of identity? I just wanted to say that, like, mentally, it's something. something that sometimes I, as someone who is living here as even an activist and someone who thinks that I'm really like, I think that I believe I'm strong, I still sometimes woke up in

the morning and ask myself, how the hell for God's sake I was born here? Like why? Why my God like connected me to this people and why this kind of occupation? What bad was the mandate? Like bring me back the mandate? Like for God's sake, really. Like, How? The British mandate? Yes. And like we have been like I have been for 10 days. When you're pining for the British Empire, things have to be pretty bad.

I know, but it's still, I know I'm joking. It's just like a joke because you have tried the Jewish. So, okay, give you something else. I want to try something else. It's interesting. Like, just interesting to be, I always say they could occupy us, but what, how could they lose if they made it like a, like a beautiful occupation. Like, please, okay, you occupied us.

We're going to, we're going to resist. But can you at least make it to the public? At least can you make it like, can you respect us? Can you stop killing us? Can you give me full rights? They don't. They make everything. Like, really, they make everything for you.

Like, they want to make you leave. This is what I think. Like, the last purpose is that the purpose is that they want to see us leaving the country. This will not happen, but it's just like a journey of coping in terms of the mental health for the Palestinian community. So you find your strengths within your people, within your community, within your therapist, within, I don't know, like you try to find it and you see, and you know, for me and for many,

many other Palestinians here inside of Israel, what made us since the 7th of October until today survive and it is a survival mode and we still inside of it. It's not only in Gaza. That is what I'm saying. The only reason that kept us like really surviving that we were watching what was happening in Gaza. And I was like, you know, everything is relative though. And then I was like watching everything coming from Gaza and I was like, oh my God, for God's sake, if they are still like surviving until today and they're like, they have so much faith, so much faith. If they do have, I don't have the privilege to let them down. I don't have the privilege to complain, as I said. I don't have the privilege. I do can't complain, of course, and I want to complain because there is a lot

to complain about. Like even saying, I'm sorry to be like so much harsh now. I'm no offense to the public, but seeing Israeli by itself sometimes could make you, like, you know, careful, I would say, not like inconvenient, like in a very soft word. But it's more than this. It's You see them in the train and you feel like, okay, oh my God, I'm going to have. I squeeze. How can you not? You're living amongst so-called countrymen and women who poll after poll after poll shows they think there hasn't been enough massacring of your brothers and sisters in Gaza. And they are determined to not feel anything about it except maybe tired or self-inflicted, you know, traumatized or whatever.

But certainly not. I mean, the level of psychopathy in that country has always been there, but it's completely, I can't imagine what it's like to be around it. You know, one of the uses of your identity for some people, the coexistence industrial complex as my friend, who I'm sure you know, no, I'm Schuster Eliassie. Yeah, of course. It talks about the, you know, the coexistence, the peace industrial complex. Yeah, coexistence or ass, right.

is that it's sort of this nice touchy-feely. You see Jews and Arabs can get along, and they always call you Israeli Arabs. I remember when I was living in Israel, I lived in Israel in 1993-94. So I don't need to tell you what the political significance of that period was. Of course, oh my God.

They signed Oslo while I was there, and I remember all the celebrations among us, and I remember I called my father from the Kibbutz Phaefone, and he said it's bullshit. it's a complete sellout. If that's a trader, it's going to fall apart. The Israelis don't mean to give them a state at all.

But anyway, that year we were living on a kibbutz in the north for about a month, picking kiewees. Keyboots called Tuval. I'm not sure how close it is to Umel Faham, but probably up in that generally. Yeah, yeah, it's like in between Tveria and...

Yes. Yeah, it's like, what, 40 minute, I would say? Yeah, okay, great. So that was up on the hill, and down at the bottom of the mountain, typically, was an Israeli Arab town, a Palestinian village. And we did an exchange program with them where we went and we spent a night with them.

And they made us pita bread over the fire, whatever the hell the typical thing is, and introduced us to their families. And they were lovely kids. They were like our age and we, you know, we had a very nice curated coexistence evening, like perfectly put together experience of shared humanity. And then they came up to the kibbutz one,

night and I remember, I still remember, standing there, holding hands, dancing, swaying, and singing along to heal the world by Michael Jackson, which had just come out the previous year, you know, and thinking that we were changing things. How ironic, yeah. Right. So this thing of, this thing of, this thing of, is a big example of this. You know, you have, like, maybe this will be the answer. You have the Carmel and you have Dania, which is like for the very rich people who live

in Dania, and then you have weddingness, like the, the, you have, you know, the, in the Snass Valley, which is like the downtown, and Hadar, where I do live now. And the more you go down, the more Arabs you find. Carmel and Dania, the rich people, who are the rich people? When is that, and they love to say about Haifa, the coexistence city, co-existence, my ass, as a noam, Habibti says, you only see them on Saturdays coming to the Wad and Esnash to eat hummus. That's all. It's almost like a topography thing with at different altitudes,

different kinds of plants can grow, you know? You go up into the mountains and that's where the rare wildflowers go. It's incredible how economic systems create different ecosystems for different groups. But what I want to ask you about is, okay, fine. So we know that coexistence can be a cynical, Hasbara job, really, a way of laundering Israel's image in the public. like, I, combating the notion of an apartheid state, talking about how great Arabs have it in Israel and so on and so forth.

And in the Jim Crow South, whites did exactly the same thing. They talked about how happy our blacks are, you know, compared to other states or whatever. And at the same time, you do find common cause with some Jewish-Israeli activists. You're speaking about Noam, you're calling her a Bipdi. You know, like that's an ally. That's a friend. that's somewhat, you know, so what is the bar for you? What is the standard? How do you know which Jewish Israelis are? I mean, and I imagine, I mean, as I ask you these questions, I sort of

cross-reference, you know, imagining someone asking Malcolm X or people from the Black Power movement, similar questions. And in some ways, the questions themselves are kind of absurd, if you're not inside of it. But I do wonder, how do you, you navigate that of needing to make common cause and probably wanting to make common cause, never mind socially being in relationship to people, but at the same time keeping your eyes open and understanding what you're dealing with. What's that like? Sometimes it's really almost impossible.

Sometimes it is challenging, but sometimes it is impossible. Also, like when people, again, like the Arab community and the Palestinians, not from the land asking me how can you also collaborate with Israelis. It is challenging and I have to give the answer and I understand why should I give the answer and the answer is it seems to be simple. It's not because it's a journey. It's a friendship, you know, and I do have, and I'm not apologizing about having a great, amazing sisters, Israeli friends and brothers. I do have friends and I love them, but I love them because they are comrades, because they are part of my struggle, because they see me as Maha, before they sees me as Palestinian, they sees me as dishuman, and they know that

I should be equal to them, and the fight along to my side for me to be equal. It's not that they are sitting with their privilege and not doing anything out of their privilege, you know? And I don't know if it's like if I'm allowed even to mention this or not, because maybe I don't know. Anyway, I'll mention it. So one of my best-a- -man- You're allowed to mention anything. No, it's also because for my friend, because I want also to mention her name as an example. So my best friend is Dana Olmert, and she's the daughter of Ehud al-Almer. And he's... Yes, the former prime minister. And I don't want to talk What do I think about,

Hewd-Albert as a prime minister, okay? I want to talk about my friend, and she's a friend, and she's a good friend. And I know her family, her daughters, her girlfriend, and she knows my dad, my mom, she have been a lot, my family, she knows my sisters as well, when I love her, and I see her as a family. And sometimes we have different things,

in our opinions, let's say, so far. In politics, I'm talking about politics. And sometimes I don't agree with her. Sometimes you don't agree with me, but I know that we say in Hebrew, her love shila, by the macomb ha'nachon. Your heart's in the right place.

Her heart's in the right place. Yes. And it's not, this is, this also might be very cliche, but Dana, she's an activist. Dana, she's queer. Dana is a lifteress, Dana is not Zionist, Dana is an anti-occupation doctor in the Tel Aviv University. And when there is in Tel Aviv University a protest

with the Palestinians, the students there, she would be the first one standing with them. You know, that's why. And this is how I do choose my friendship. Yes, so friendship, even with this who would say that, no, you should disconnect politics from your own life, bullshit, of course, because everything is political. And Mahmoud Darwish was in love with a Jewish woman named Tamar, who just died, I believe, last week.

Exactly. She just died there. Many of his, a lot of his love poetry was written about her. So it's just never been the case that. And this is, you know, I'm sorry, I just wanted to finish that this might be the challenge for the Palestinian citizen of Israel bringing their story to those who don't know it. Like, how can you be a friend with Israeli? We can understand you should go to because you don't have any alternative

to go to their universities to speak Hebrew because you have to survive. Okay, how can you be a friend with them? And I do have the answer, and I give you some of the answer, you know. But yes, first of all, I choose my friends as where they are on this political spectrum. Yeah, very good. Good. Before we break, you were talking about how Zionism basically wants the Palestinians to disappear.

Have you heard of a novel called The Book of Disappearance? The Book of the Disappearance. No. I don't know what the name of it would be in Arabic or Hebrew. I think it's written by a Palestinian writer. I believe they're Palestinian. Anyway, the premise is, and this accords with something I said a couple of years ago, I said, you know, if Palestinians really want to fuck, if really want to destroy Israel, they should just, all the Palestinians voluntarily leave and leave the Israelis to rip each other to pieces

because without an enemy, without an underclass, without the untermentioned, you know, they'd have no one to hate except themselves, and they despise themselves, and they're afraid of being alone with each other. And there actually is a novel. It's like a sort of magical realist novel where one day all the Israelis wake up

and then there's no Palestinians coming to work where the hell are they? Yeah, with who we are fighting now. That's right, that's right. I think if the Palestinians only leave the Israeli hospitals for one day, we will shut down the country. For one day.

Because there's so many doctors and nurses. And pharmacies and nurses, yes. Even, you know, I'm just even talking about the industry, not the land, not the country. I mean, as a strike. Well, it's a thought. But we need to take a break, and when we come back, we'll hear about your battle within and with the Israeli legal system,

which is fascinating. And then we'll look at some other things that are going on within the society, which we don't usually get to talk about in this podcast, because we're not in it. And we talk about the Hasbara that is usually faced outward towards the world, but then there's all the internal stuff that I find fascinating and I'm really excited to get to talk about it with you. So everyone, please stick around.

If you get an ad for the CIA, do not join up. You don't want that job. There are better things to do with your life, like jump off a bridge. But don't do that either. Do stick around, watch the ads, listen, and we will be right back. Hey, Ontario. Come on down to BenMGM Casino and check out our newest exclusive. The price is right, fortune pick.

Don't miss out. Play exciting casino games based on the icon. iconic game show only at bedmgm. Access to the price is right fortune pick is only available at betmgm casino. Betmgm and game sets remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866 531, 2,600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Bedmgium operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. And we're back. This is Bad Hasbara, the world's most moral podcast. I'm Daniel Matti here with our guest, Maha Igbariah.

How are you doing, Maha? Hi, how are you, Daniel? I'm doing good. During the break, I realized that I saw behind you, if you just lean over to the side. I saw something. Oh, my God. Here she is. Oh, my God.

The same one. We both have the same Ferruz album. Perfect. Where I've got it from? Oh, they sell it all over here. Yeah, yeah, this is a very popular release. Oh, really? Any record store with a Middle Eastern section is likely to have it.

Are you a record collector, too? Are you like listening to records? I'm just so obsessed with Fairoes, specifically Fyruz. I love her and I love her son, of course. Ziyadh, Rabani. RIP. Yeah. He actually, like Ziyadh deserves one more, like, whole episode to talk about him, you know.

Oh, no, he really does. He's the Quincy Jones of Arabic music. I mean, and it's so funky and jazzy and the way he incorporated. all these different styles, he's brilliant, yeah. And he wrote for his own mother. I can't imagine, like, writing songs for my mother to sing and arranging and all of that, like being the emperario behind her fame. And he literally died before her, and she's, like, she saw him dying, and he's brilliant.

He's just, like, really genius. He's brilliant as a human and as an artist. And, you know, because he's so political, and he stayed on his stance. Like he's not from this artist who run after the money when he got famous or something. He really stayed this person who is so connected to the people. Yeah. And I find interesting he also wrote music for plays.

He seemed to have an interest in musical theater in a sense. He was a storyteller. In any case, we are back. And I want to talk about in more, because we're talking about so many dynamics before the break about what it is to be a Palestinian. Indian citizen of Israel. And of course, you're not speaking for everyone. You're speaking for yourself, but you are naming some dynamics that are global or, or I should say, more general or universal.

Then we have the situation of your particular profession and what has happened in terms of the professional association to which you are, of which you are a member. Why don't you tell us a little about becoming a human rights lawyer in Israel as a Palestinian? And then I'm going to read your Ha'arets article, your op-ed, I want to read it to the listeners because it's, you know, in your words, describing what happened to you. But can you give us the background? Yeah. So, well, since I grew up, I didn't think, I didn't think, I didn't thought about any other option, like where to go and what to study but law. And I really was obsessed with justice and human rights. And I knew myself since I was little, like I grew up in a very political family and I really wanted to

find the correct combination between like my interest and my love to politics and my activism with work because you need some work. So, and I found like law would be the correct thing to do. And since I was really a little girl, I didn't hear anything from my family and around me but to be, you're going to be a lawyer. You're so chatsufa, you know, you know, Khatsufa. Hutzpah.

Oh, okay. Hutspa is chatsufa. You're so rude. You're so rude. To be a lawyer, you have to be a lawyer. You have to be a lawyer. Yes, exactly. No, but Hutzpah.

You know, Hutzpah is like the word in Hebrew. So that's why I want to learn law. And, you know, I mean, since I love here, So it should be in the Israeli universities. I graduate and right after this, I did my internship. Like I started just only to be in the human rights field. I worked with a very well-known Israeli human rights lawyer, those who I'm really so proud to be part of,

like, they are part of my career. And on the 7th October, what's the 7th October, what happened basically. I woke up in the morning and I saw what everyone saw and I read what everyone read. And yeah, I had

the courage to write on my own Facebook, not under my name as an advocate, Good Morning Gaza with like the white heart emoji and the Palestinian flag.

And I really remember that my feeling was at that time, it was also yearly in the morning, I was in celebrating. And I thought that it's... Gaza is gone. And they're going to destroy it. And they did, you know.

And it didn't take you really too much to understand that this is what will be happening. I knew from here that was when it was going to... Totally. It was on October 8th that I first picked up my phone and did an Instagram, live talking about what was going to happen and how they were going to justify it. Yeah.

Any anyone could see. So I wrote this out of really fear. And then I follow up. Like I started to get on my WhatsApp, my personal WhatsApp, some, you know, like messages from my Israeli friends like how, why they didn't say anything? How come you're so quiet? Like if anything would be happy, like, you know, from the Israeli side to the Palestinian side,

you would be the first one to say your opinion, like, how come you have been quiet? And, you know, everyone came to ask me, basically, privately. Not everyone, like some friends privately came to ask me to condemn. And I follow up this Facebook post, Good Morning, Gaza, that it was in Arabic, by the way. In another one in Hebrew saying that, I'm still Palestinian and I'm still part of this people.

And please don't put me in that position where I need to condemn what happened. And people thought like what basically I said that the mere of demand of like from me, from the Israeli side to me to condemn every single day what's happening around us. it's not fair. It's not even not fair. It's like very, it is the Jewish supremacy, basically.

Yes, yes. And we know this, we knew this as Palestinians, as activists, even our Palestinian Knesset member, every day while they are being interviewed, first question would be, from the Israeli channels, I say, I mean, would be like, would you condemn? They would interview them for something totally different, but they would start with condemning, you know? Well, you know what's amazing is that that protocol was learned very faithfully and very obediently by international press. Christian Amampur, Piers Morgan, Jake Tapper,

all of these Western journalists who live nowhere near there learned the lesson that you, when you're talking to an Arab, post-October 7th, you start with, are you a human being, a.k.a. Do you condemn Hamas? Exactly. Do you have the right for us to take you seriously? Yeah, yeah.

Can I keep on interviewing you? It depends on your answer now, you know? And if you challenge them, then you are justifying the 7th of October. And this is what made me really crazy. Like, it drove me crazy. Like, I didn't even meant to sound as violent or someone who is supporting the 7th of October. This would be the last thing I would ever even think about it, you know? So first thing was

Then, it's not like you said, Good Morning Kibbutz Be'eri With a little devil emoji or something like that For example, yeah And I was surprised A couple of days later While they were to stay, like the police And the whole Israeli government basically

Were still in the Otef And where is like Beirri And all of the area around it Yes. So days after, they didn't even collect all of the bodies or what was like all of the midst of the massacre that happened. And I'm saying massacre, hey, please, people listen to, I am condemning what happened on the 7th October. No, you're calling it an atrocity. You're calling it a massacre. It is, but don't ask me to do this. Like, this is what really hurt me at first. So a couple of days after I got an email from the Bar Association telling me, like, they attached the Good Morning Gaza post and they were like, answer to this, please.

And I didn't, I couldn't understand even to answer to what, because they didn't even attach any other attachment telling me what should I, like, what they want from me? What is the demand, basically? And of course you understand, like, you know, what's happening around. But they basically just said, explain yourself. Yes, and days after, they attached the second post in Hebrew, because they didn't did it in one time. It took them, seems like it took them time to see that I had two posts. So they opened a case against me.

They didn't collect all the evidence before submitting the exhibits to the court. Exactly. So basically they opened a disciplinary. case against me. Yeah. And it's in, like, the whole process happened in the bar situation itself. So it's not like the normal court that we know. And it was the first, my case was the first case as a lawyer, as Palestinian lawyer,

on the background of freedom of speech. And writing your opinion as, you know, just like a normal human, not as a lawyer, not as an advocate, and you are being, like, I would call it even, like, politically persecuted. Yes. Because you are Palestinian. I'm talking about myself as a lawyer. I can't even start to count to you how many students, Daniel, in their universities,

that should be an independent, okay? Not like, there should be a total different system from the whole government. They have been persecuted. They have been called for a disciplinary committee. They have been called for, like, give us an explanation, and some of them were fired. Many other teachers, even. Another kindergarten teacher from Nazareth,

she had been arrested, like many other cases. But my case as a lawyer was the first one. And what is the charge exactly? So the charge is, like, you know, it's not even a criminal law. So the charge is, like... Conduct, unbecoming of a... No, unappropriate behave as a lawyer.

There you go. There you go. According to what statute, according to what, never mind constitution, because I know you don't have one of those, but according to what written document that says thou shalt not this? What commandment did you break? Yeah, because after the Civil of October, we have the power to tell you what should you say.

as a lawyer and what you shouldn't say. And if you are a lawyer and you are part of the Israeli Bar Association, you should behave. And they wanted me to behave. Prior to October 7th, how long had you been a lawyer? Three years.

Three years. And during that time, how secure or insecure did your right to speak freely feel to you? Like, did you could you, was there any hints or foreshadowing of this level of kind of like watch yourself. We're giving you a leash, but it's a shorter leash than your Jewish counterparts? Or was this a completely out of the blue kind of sudden?

Yeah, yeah. We were still, you know, we were still careful before the 7th October. We didn't really like, you know, also if you are an activist and if you're a lawyer, obviously, and you know law and you know, what is it? like that you will be persecuted because of this. You know that what should you say and what you can say basically. But I do remember that through the horrible many wars against Gaza that happened since 2008, I think. I remember myself was like writing different things on Facebook, you know.

And there was no fear to be arrested only on Facebook. like, you know. But like a little bit before prayer the 7th of October, life here wasn't pinky and flowery and everything was fine. No, we still have been like, you know, there is a lot of different arrests that happened in Israel against Palestinians over the years from different, because of different reasons. Starting from, for example, like, 2021, I think May 2021, when it started in the 48, basically, when it's started in the mixed cities and then it followed by the Gaza war.

It's a huge what's happening around this case until today. Some of our sons who have been protesting, for example, being until today being charged, like the cases are not even close. So we literally accepted that after the 7th of October, we have to shut down our mouth. We can't really say anything. We knew that this will happen, by the way. The Palestinians in Israel knew that we will be under the radar right now. They will come to us.

And I remember that the first two weeks, and Israelis would say the same, by the way, the first weeks, Palestinian and Israel, succeeded to, we did, how could I say, we adapted the trauma of the Israelis. So we didn't say anything. You internalized it, yeah.

We internalized it, we understood it, we said like, okay, oh my God, something huge is happening. And this was also one of my explanation to give to the court, and to my why is Israel friends when they ask me why you're quiet, why you are not saying anything? And I was like, hey, guys, but if you think that you are the only people who were in shock on the September of photographer, no, you're wrong.

I mean, I live here. I literally live here. And I walk up in Tel Aviv. And it's totally my right also to be in shock, you know. And shock is even understatement. So why do they have the right to come and ask me to condemn? what's happening on the southern photographer so I can be a loyal friend or a loyal Palestinian. And they want you to be silent when they want you to be silent and they want you to speak

when they want you to speak. Arabi Mahmad. This is what we call it in Hebrew. What is Mahmah? Arabi Mahmad, Zakilu, it's like the model, the model Arab. No, the Arab who is tokenized. tokenized, okay. Yes. So we were like, they want us to be like this. They want us to behave. And it's really weird to see that you're friends, and I was talking about my Israeli friends, you know,

even before the break. And I'm still on my stand relating, related to the Israeli friends and friendship in general. But still, they can ask you. And you might be in this position of, like, you have to prove your loyalty to it. Israel. And we call it also in Hebrew, Mfhanana noamunut, like loyal taste, like the loyalty taste. Yes. Yes, got it.

Yes. So, and then when I really felt that people are coming to ask me and they want me to say something. So I follow up the first post with another one in Hebrew. And you know, Daniel, it was in Hebrew. It was

even in Arabic. They didn't need it to translate it. And I was so assured by myself that I'm writing something fine. It's fine. Like this is what I thought. If I would even think for one second that this will bring me to where I am right now, obviously I won't do it. So what happened basically is that I just ask the people not to ask me to condemn. It's not because I don't want to condemn I'm not condemning what happened on the 7th. It's just because it's not fair. And I don't want to be in that position. I'm not like, I don't owe you my loyalty.

I'm a citizen here. Either you look at me as an equal or not. And if not, please say it and say it loudly. And don't pretend. I want you not to pretend. Here we are. Now we are here and you are here. And this is what happened on the 7th October until today.

The Israeli society here, the Palestinian society is here, and we are not getting along anymore. There is something very bad happened, which is, of course, we know what happened, but no, I mean, in the dynamics, in the relations, and how we can get along again together. Something really, there is, like, yeah, we're broken. People are broken here. And we are not, we don't trust each other anymore, by the way. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, relating to the Bar Association, I have been going through this since the maybe 10th of October until today.

So I have had a decision last December and I found guilty. And then after December, we had the appeal two weeks ago. We still need to send our last decision as well to. the appeal court, and then they will look at what was happening. But on the decision, I have got one year suspension from law, basically, from practicing. One year suspension, my goodness. Yeah. My mind goes to the, I don't know if you know the American show, better call Saul.

But, you know, the lawyer gets suspended for a year. Over, over like two Facebook posts, yeah. No, no. Over something quite a lot worse than that. some truly bad behavior, whereas you're just exercising your right to speak. I actually don't think we need to look at the hard posts, but I think we will link to it for people who want to read it. We have a PDF of it that we'll put in a Dropbox and let people see because it's, yeah,

it's your explaining your position and take a look at just the title of it. I love the headline. Why can a Jew call for mass killings, but I can't say good morning Gaza? and I can't imagine how crazy making that is living in a country where, you know, masked rapists can go on television and laugh about the crimes they committed at Sté Teman and be national heroes. And you, a citizen of the country, can't exercise your right. You can't, you don't even have the right to remain silent.

You don't even have the right to say, You can't ask me to, you can't tell me what to say. That itself is too much. Yeah, you have the right to say whatever you want. And then you have, we are demanding you to speak, but what we want you to speak, what we want to hear, you know. And you don't even have the right sometimes to be Palestinian, to say that you are Palestinian, to talk about your identity. And even this, sometimes they put it in doubt. Like, how can you be Palestinians?

It's like basically, it's like a constantly, like a real struggle that it's constantly in your life. It's in your body. It's in everywhere. You see it. I go to the prisons as a lawyer. I see how the, I hate even to call them clients, but like, you know, the Palestinian prisoners. No, I just like, I don't see them this way. They're brothers to me.

I go to the prison. I see the Palestinian, the. female prisoners when I go and it's just, it's crazy to stay calm and to be appropriate. And when you hear what you hear, after the 7th of October, especially from the prisoners, from what you see everywhere, when you go to the court and you see like, you know, even I'm talking about myself, I don't want even to talk about courts as a lawyer. I'm talking about those who is literally being under charge right now. I see the judges looking at me as someone who literally killed someone.

I killed a Jew to say the least. Yeah. Like when they are like talking to me, you know? And I'm explaining myself. Well, our feelings are very easily hurt, Maha. We have very sensitive. Yes, yes. I don't know if you know this about Jews, you know.

Yeah, and I said yes. Have you heard of the Holocaust? The Holocaust. Yeah, yeah. And I said, yes, yes, Your Honor. I did. I did, you know, and I told him at one point, like two weeks ago, my dad was in the court's room, and I said, you look to this room? No one.

Even my dad worked against violence in general, more than me. I'm assured to the judges, all of them, even my dad, like, I worked more than everyone here. I'm activist against this matter. I cannot be supportive to any violent act, even if it's for Israelis, that. They are occupying me and they are occupying me, but my resistance is not, it's not a, like, a violent resistance. It's not, and it couldn't be. And I tried to say this to the jury, but at one point, at one point, he just looked at me

and he said, you know, Maha, it's not that me don't want to believe you. It's just like, I don't believe you. And that killed me. Wow. That killed me, you know, his eyes when he was looking at me. I thought like, okay, for the minimum, I killed someone. He thinks that I killed someone. I don't know.

It's almost like he's saying. It's almost like he's admitting that he's split inside, which all oppressors have to be. It's like it's not that as a human being, I don't want to believe you, but I'm not allowed to believe you. Yeah, I don't, yeah. My identity as an upper, as an overload. of this system, as an enforcer of this system,

does not allow me to take the the deep human logic and compassion and truth of what you're saying. Seriously, I must persist in not understanding what you're saying. I have to play stupid. Yeah, and I'm sorry, because I don't believe you. And this stage, like, I can't.

Sorry, lo sorry, as we once said on this podcast. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, no, sorry. Exactly. So it was, you know, like, when they gave me the one year suspension, I was like, wow, okay, I had like a long breeze and I was like, okay, thanks God. You can live with that. You can live with it one year's special.

I can live with that one year. And I remember my sisters wrote me on WhatsApp group, thanks God, you don't do anything. Like, no appeal and nothing. And I remember my dad looked at me and he was like, obviously you're going to appeal. No, of course. And I loved him so much because he was the one who pushed me to there. And I was like, I have nothing to lose, you know.

this is the struggle and you have the price, you pay the price and if I took this responsibility over myself as an activist, as a human being as a lawyer to be in this system and to fight this system

in the tools that I have and the tools sometimes the Israeli tools by the way like you know you are inside of their system so when I say this I was like I have nothing to lose.

Like, someone has to take it. Like, someone has to go through this. And I took it on myself. And I'm fully, like, I'm trying to be really calm and fully reconciled with that decision that I made to go to the end with this. But it was, for me, when I just read the decision, it was for, it was like, oh, two years and a half being on the court every here and there, this was the real punishment for me. Not the one year suspension. Like, seriously, I'm appealing right now for the one year suspension. But when I was in the appeal hearing, I told them, like, the two years and a half waiting for you to say bad things about me was the real suspension, basically.

Wow. Yeah. And I think it was like, it was, it's horrible, Daniel. It's horrible. It didn't finish it, unfortunately, but it is horrible. Yeah. And I had, like, many other colleagues behind me, they're still on. the sales of the first hearings.

That's why I told you my case is like the first one, but there is many others, yeah. And it's part of why we delayed having you on the podcast. We wanted to let the appeal process go a little further down the line so we could, you know, and it's still not complete. Yeah, I mean, I find it really compelling this paradox that you're naming on the one hand, acknowledging your privilege.

And, you know, in social justice circles in the West, a lot of people like to wave their privilege around as an example of how woke they are or like, you know, I'm going to check my privilege. I'm going to give up your privilege. Don't give up your privilege. Use your privilege. Exactly.

Do something. You can't even. So on the one hand, you're acknowledging it. And like the price, the price, Yanni, that you have to pay is not the price that someone in Gaza would have to pay. I mean, Rafade Al-A-Rare paid a very different price for using words, you know. And yet, like you said, someone's got to take the weight. someone in your position

and so here you are with no shame and no self-deprecation just saying okay, it's me. It's me and I think this is what made it also a challenge for the jury and the court itself

because suddenly there is a... When you said jury, I thought you meant like J-E-W-R-Y like world jury and I was like, yeah, it's challenging for jury. but the jury yes the jury yeah so when

when I stand when I was standing there I think that it also was a challenge for them because it wasn't easy like I think I was a challenge for them because if I was

a lawyer called Muhammad from Hummel Fahim and he is like very conservative or whatever or like any other a conservative Palestinian woman maybe with the hijab it would be very easy to them

to stick for her the charge that she is definitely a terror supportive and I was standing there and I brought many many friends to the room on one of the hearings

and most of them were Israelis obviously Israeli left and Dana Olmert was one of my friends who gave a testimony in my case and it was like for them it was like kind of like, okay, there is a woman that she is having, she's speaking with us in a very

fluent Hebrew, she have been in, living in Tel Aviv for like 12 years, she's confusing us. And when I realized that I can also be a challenge for them, I was like, okay, this is my last chance. I will be affected. I will be someone who is paying the price, but I will take this price. I will take this way. I have the privilege to fight. Exactly, as you mentioned, and I mentioned this everywhere I go, that I really have the privilege to fight the Israeli system. I will not change it, obviously, and I'm not changing anything.

I'm just like saying that if this is the price right now and standing in dignity. Yeah, you're not freeing Palestine, but you're exemplifying being a free Palestinian inside of a system that makes that illegal. Yeah, there is 80,000, 90,000 people were killed in Gaza. Like, this is a huge price, you know. There are brothers, and they are part of my heritage, my culture. They're part of the, they will be part of the memory. I will never forget this, and I will never forgive even.

That's why I think whatever it is, God or the spiritual things behind the case it is, I'll take it and I'm 100% sure that this is what I have to go through right now. And I'm going through this very proud. Sometimes I'm frustrated. Sometimes I'm really like, you know, I can start to cry and not even like the whole week. I can be so much into, I'm nervous. It's not easy. The fact itself that you have to stand in front of them and to convince them that you are not a terrorist

and you are not supporting terrorism, it's hard by itself. It's almost impossible. It's like, please, can you believe me? And they don't want to believe you. By itself, it's a big frustration, but this is what it is. Yeah, I have to do it.

Yeah, well, the fact that you have backup, that you have people standing by your side must make it so much less lonely. Because it is dehumanizing. Your dignity is, you're trying to prove your worth, your right to have dignity and your right to speak. Well, yeah, I'm proud of you too, and I admire very much what you're doing. Before we go, I want to ask you about a couple of news stories happening inside of Israeli society.

And like, neither of these stories are about freeing Palestine exactly. Like, these are very much inside Israeli baseball. Like, and they're... Internal. Internal affairs, you know. But they're illuminating. And what we try to do on this podcast is to understand this Fakta,

that's a Yiddish word, society of yours. Dafuch, I think, is the Hebrew word. Dafuk. Dafuk. Dafuk, yeah, yeah. Backwards, upside down. Yeah.

So one is the more serious topic of the protests in Sakhine around organized crime and things like that. And then I want to ask you about, you were talking about Arabi Mehmad, is that the word? Right, I want to ask you about Lucy Aharish, who strikes me as the case example of that. But why don't we start with the Sakhneen situation? I've got a video here that I'll play of a Jewish-Israeli speaking about his allieship with that.

And I don't know if it's dubbed. If it's not, we'll just have you give us a rough translation after it's played. But there were protests in a village called Sakhnin, is that right? Yeah, it's a city. A city, okay. Where is it located? It's in the north. In the north.

It's near Musgav, yeah, in the north. And these were protests in support and solidarity with, and largely organized by Palestinian citizens of Israel, right? It's an outcry trying to get the attention of the authorities to do something about the rampant violence, organized crime that's taking over many Palestinian Arab towns, yes? Yeah. So here's an Israeli speaking about it. A video not to gizanin'et Two Mepre

Yesterday, young were Fordhury Because because they're Arabian. It's a I'm not I'm not going to

Wattrott'an To be here Kizanut, I'll go and bade to-bocker and toforkan And I'll get The men

Themone of our Missimaean and religious and Chimony and live here here. No one noone from here. Every man israeli to give them inetim. So, the yaadut

and that's the state that I'm going to be in the chame of them. So this is a Jewish-Israeli standing outside what looks like a hospital with a bouquet of flowers. And he's speaking, my rudimentary Hebrew tells me he's speaking about some children who were sent to the hospital only because they're Arab, basically. What are these protests? And what's the political significance of it?

And to what extent? Because I've seen Zionist accounts, Hasbara accounts, seizing upon this being like, isn't this great? We support these protests. There needs to be a crackdown on Arab on Arab violence. And it reminds me so much of black and black crime, this talking point of law enforcement, you know, pro-law and order conservatives and racist liberals in the United States looking at South Central Los Angeles or the south side of Chicago or wherever. ever and being like, we need to clean up these neighborhoods. But what is, can you just give us, you know, in a couple of minutes, sort of the overview of these protests?

I'm sorry that I don't have a clip from the protests themselves, which were led by Palestinians. There were hundreds of thousands of people in Tel Aviv. Most of the speakers were speaking in Arabic. Yeah. Yeah, I was one of the organizers in Tel Aviv protest. It was really great one, and I'll talk about it like in a bit. I would just want to give you the background of the crime, basically, in the Palestinian society in Israel.

So when we talk about this as, like, if you want to give the analyze to how it happened, how it started, so we go back to the 2000, exactly after the second Intifada, where the Israeli, like Israel, just decided to abandon. the Palestinian community in Israel and all of the aspects that you can't even imagine. Starting from, you know, starting from education, from rights, from accesses, from, like, really many, many other things, even like, like, racism based on giving the customers, services. So it's, they decided just like to open a police station in many of the big Palestinian towns and cities, you know, under the name of security and just like to give you some safety. And it was a bullshit. The only thing the police station did back at the time until

today is to shut down our protest in a very violent way. So it's only for like to keep an eye on the Palestinian citizens who want to express themselves, and they have done nothing related to the crime situation in Palestine, like Palestinian society. So from there, I think Israel just started to understand that Palestinian in Israel, oh, there are Palestinians, they have some relation with the Palestinian in the West Bank, and they have got Al-Aqsa and Jerusalem, and they are part of it. So how can we basically divide them? How can we let them be busy and like internal things and not to talk about occupation, not to like, don't bother us. And this is what they did basically. They really played that role very, very well on like, you know, ignoring

intentionally how the crime, the organization. crime started to develop and to get the weapons and everything. So I even would start with saying that 70% of the weapons, at least of the last time I have heard this, and I'm not an expert, right? I'm just like saying what I know as someone who lives here, 70% of the weapons that are being used in the organized crime coming from Sahel, from the IDF. how this is happening, right? Like how?

They always say that they don't want us to be soldiers in the IDF because they don't trust Arabs. How suddenly this... Never give an Arab a gun. Exactly. How this came to their hands? Except when you want them to kill other Arabs. And why you don't collect it as a police, as a state?

Why? Why if there is a terror attack, what they call Piguwa? Okay. Yeah. You find the people immediately. You don't even, I remember, like, one night in Tel Aviv, they didn't let us sleeping at that time until they found the attacker in Yaffa.

If it was something that's related to politics and against Jewish, they would find it right now. But if it's Palestinian... That logic has led some people to question, how much of a surprise was October 7th? I mean, it's the most surveilled... So starting from there, until the Sakhineanian, amazing, huge protest

that was really very popular. It was like a popular movement. It was led by Ali's by that. He is just like a normal citizen in Sakhine. He's an amazing old man. And he has his own bakery, I think. And one day they came to ask him for protection, and he refused.

On that day that he refused to give him to pay the protection. Basically, he closed, he shut down the bakery. And he just wrote outside. that he is shutting now because he was asked for protection and he refused. And from there, he announced by himself for a strike in Sakhine. And from there, it's started, everyone started to join, all of the other municipalities started to join. Then all of the Arab community in Israel joined the big strike in Sakhine.

And then he even, like, it was amazing to see how the high follow-up committee adapted this movement. So they announced like an official strike in Sakhinean and the Sakhinean protest happened. And it was mainly that, it was mainly by Arabs. There was a lot of Israelis who came to support, but it was mainly led by Arabs and the Palestinians who lead it basically were not even people like me, not even an activist, not an elite, not, you know, they were like the people who really the first affected, like those who are in the front line. And right now, all of us in the front line. Like, all of us are in risk.

This is what I would even, I want to add this because it's important when we talk about this, like not to give, like, this gap between me as an activist talking about this and the other people. No, we are all in the same boat. We are all in the same circle. And it is a circle of violence. and no one is out of this risk. So starting from there, asking the police and the Israeli government,

really like time after time to find a solution because it's a policy. We cannot find a solution by ourselves. And hearing them bringing to the media, to the Israeli media, the very great propaganda saying, as you said, about Chicago and Los Angeles, This is their culture, it's their culture, it's their problem, why they are killing, you know? It's just like incredible to understand how they look at us. Like your life as Palestinian, way less worthy than the Israeli life.

And we're talking about citizens, Daniel. It's not even, I don't want to say Gaza, it's not even the West Bank. We're talking about people here inside of Israel. Yeah, the shining examples of Israeli democracy. Yeah, and then like there are like, like, oh, yeah, but we opened many stations in the Palestinian towns. Why you want to collaborate with the police? And I'm like, why should we?

Is it my job? Is it my, like, I can't understand. It's not my thing to do it. First of all, I don't want to risk myself either my family and to come to the police and to give names, right? And then second thing, it's like, excuse me, you do your job. It's why, as I said before, why if it was something political, against Jewish, you would find it, you would do any action right now.

And why if it's against Palestinian, you're just like, reckless. You don't really care about anything. Well, it's like whatever happens, they find a way to turn it on you and say, this is your fault. If we're not finding it, it's your fault. If it's happening, it's your fault. If the guns are ending up in your hands, it's your fault. And it's all proof that we can use to then further justify why we can't really give, you know, we can't really give you your full rights.

I mean, we'll give you as much rights as you can handle. Yeah, as you can handle. Because it will be too much to you if you can handle, like, a democratic rights, Khalila, you know? It's like, it would be too much for you because your culture, as Palestinian, it doesn't allow you, like, to be in that position because you're used to this? And I'm like, okay, so do you think we were born, violent people?

I can't understand it. Sometimes I don't even, I can't believe how they adapted this for them. themselves and then they brought it to the media, they brought it to their TV, to their own speech, to their own, so the Israelis would be like, ah, okay, this is their own, I think. It's an internal thing, you know, it's for them. But we succeeded to bring the people to Tel Aviv. And the protest in Tel Aviv was a continuation for the Sechnine one, and we wanted the Israelis to see that it's a matter of time, the crime will come to the Israelis.

society as well. And you are part of us and we are one, we are really stuck in one place. This is a fact, right? So like, okay, what should we do now? And we tried as Palestinian, as an activist, as a community, as a parties as well, to affect the Israelis and to invite them to come over to Tel Aviv. And it was great actually to see that we rolled everything. And I was one of the organizers and we were welcoming the Israelis in Tel Aviv coming to our protest because we really wanted them to be there. We wanted to tell them that it's, I mean, we're one right now and we want you to take it because otherwise that Israeli government won't even look over us. Well, this is, I mean, this reminds me of when I did a live event here in,

in Brooklyn with Alon Lee and, and Sally from, from Mdimbi'iachad. Yeah, it was, it was, I think Rula's here now, but it was Sally on that trip. And, you know, without getting into the whole thing about standing together as an organization, tactically and strategically, they made some very strong points about organizing and what it means to organize for material improvements in a society. Okay, you want to have a dream of destroying that society someday and replacing it with a completely other society? Cool. In the meantime, how do you get people on your side and you have to appeal to their interests? And I can understand why people, when people hear something like what you just said, like your safety is bound up with our safety.

Like it'll come to you eventually. A lot of people rightly will say, why the fuck do you have to even say that? You should just be able to say, hey, we're fucking being killed here and your government has a policy of making sure it happens. Stop it. But if that's not effective, then political organizing has always been. I don't care how radical you are. Fred Hampton in Chicago was organizing with white.

unions and sometimes even clan members along economic class lines, right? So appealing to people's shared common interests, it's very easy for us on the outside to sit out and judge and be purists ideologically without thinking about the reality that people are living inside of and the tools they have to work with, you know? And this gets into a whole bigger conversation, which I think we won't have time for, which is probably for the best, although I would love to talk to you about it sometime, maybe if you come back on about BDS versus standing together versus whatever, like all these different factions and all of these different kind of...

One whole topic. Yeah, it's a whole topic. Do you want to say anything about that from your position of where you're at as an activist? Well, I'll say shortly, you know, we really need like a big podcast about like talking about BDS and from that perspective of Palestinian citizen of Israel. Well, like, we see it differently. Sometimes I can be able to boycott, and if I have an alternative, I would love to do it. But many other times I see things differently.

Like I'm part of this system. So as I said, as I mentioned before, we pay the taxes. We go to the universities. We speak Hebrew. And some Palestinian, like from outside of the land with all of the, my respect would tell me to boycott X, Y, and Z and like, you know, and not to have an Israeli friend and not to, you know, like, the BDS is like a really also a big, big, different spectrums, but it's like.

Of course, it's hard to tell. Just like, it's different for us. I cannot, like, why can I, like, why should I not go and hear a, um, an artist who would love to come to Ramallah, for example, only because of the BDS. Right. What about people who can't leave the country or travel, even to Jordan, to hear the Lebanese and the Syrian singers, for example? Why we can't go to Ramallah?

Because Ramallah will be considered as against the BDS, you know? And it's like a... Go so on and so on of this conversation. It's totally different. I don't agree with the BDS in every single thing that they say. I don't see it as one correct thing. And you don't disagree. You don't disagree with them in every single thing either.

You're just living inside of us. Yeah, yeah, I just say it's just like sometimes it's gray. Like I have a gray opinion because I'm not sure like where I, okay, I agree on this. I prefer not to be associated to Israelis in different things. But sometimes I have no other option. Yeah. And coming to the Israelis, is in a way of to mobilize the Israeli society

and to connect it to the Palestinian when we're talking about the crime, it's one of the main priorities to us right now. Yes, well, I'm really glad that more and more voices from inside of Israel, inside of 48 Palestine, whatever you want to call it, like yourself, are finding an audience outside of it. Because it just, it's like,

like, it's not about pro-ante, this, that. It's like, are you going to include... Like, we like to say things like Palestine for Palestinians. Okay, well, which Palestinians? If it doesn't include you, then shut the fuck up. What are we talking about? Like, if we're not going to learn from... Like you said, even the Arabic term is being on the inside.

Well, when people are in the inside, you listen to them. Yeah, also practical things, you know? What's that? Practical things, like when we're talking about practical things. I mean, when they want, when their argument is not practical to me. So, okay, what's the benefit? Why? How can I do this?

Like, okay, we can talk until tomorrow in the intellectual terms from the intellectual states, Sababa. Okay. And then, like, practically, what can I do as Palestinian citizen of Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank? I think people from the outside of the land, the Palestinian diaspora, the Arabs around the world, don't really see what happens on the land,

and they don't understand how can we still use the privilege to mobilize the Israelis and still to stand in our identity. And I can see it goes together, by the way, like it doesn't say that I'm not a Palestinian anymore, maybe in their opinion, you know, but I couldn't care less, actually. Right, well, by waking up in the morning and being yourself, or somehow normalizing Israel. I mean, what are you supposed to do with that?

Exactly. Yeah, I should agree. And at the same time, you don't sound unsympathetic to the feelings of people whose families were expelled, and it sounds like you want all voices to be heard. Anyway, listen, we've run out of time. I wanted to talk about this, the Shduyot with Lucy Arish. But, you know, it's just an example of like a Palestinian-Israeli,

who all the Israelis love, except the right-wing thugs. And now... The Arabim Ahmad. And, you know, I support her and her, like, this fashion attack against her, totally. I don't agree with her at all.

Sometimes I hate her opinions. I don't hate her. I support, like, what's happened with her right now. But, yeah, she is. She's got thugs outside her... You know, she's got a chivalrous Jewish husband who stands up for her. But let me play you just one thing that I saw,

because one of the controversies about her is so-called... She's a journalist for those listening who don't know. You know, TV personality, who in the past has upset other Palestinians for condemning, you know, basically blaming the victim, blaming Palestinians. But she doesn't represent us at all. She's a true.

No, she's a token. This is a different matter of supporting her against, like, this attack. And why is she being attacked? Because she said... Inshallah. She said, inshalla, the Arab voters will turn out in droves to drive it. Well, here's...

I think this is her responding to that with their own words. And by the way, we don't have a translation of it. You don't need it. Just listen for the key word, the secret word of the day.

It's not a gusat. She's not a gala. Tisholot, you'll ask you, see it. In help ushah, inshalla, I'm going to answer.

Thank you. We're going to be in the Sheldah, Inshallah. How are you, you know, you're at all right, inshalla? We're doing it, we're doing it, in the world. So how are you saying, inshraulta? The Ministry is aphold to insume of medinium in a guvance, and to amevent or to alim, inshalla,

the nzakingskhala. I'm bettukes that's the Kratz, and there will be Krathehaka, and there are DEMC, 200 million, to Rassuosos, All right, it keeps going on. It's not great. So this is just showing Israeli fucking right-wing politicians, Zionists,

using the word, inshally. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if, like, five years from now, Allah, al-Aqabar becomes, like, slang in Tel Aviv, you know. It's great. The cultural appropriation, everything, including, you know, that swearing in Arabic. And, inshallah, and then they would attack Lucy Ahresh, because she just say this.

And here she is. This maybe this could be AI for all I know. It kind of looks AI, but it's Lucy Irish with an Israeli flag in front of an Israeli flag with a T-shirt saying in Hebrew transliteration, inshallah. Well, that's the country you're living in. We're not going to have time to get into that. But that just gives people a peek inside the insanity of it. Maha, I so appreciate you coming on today.

It's been so great talking to you, learned so much. And I hope we can do this again. Yeah, I will be happy so much to be hosted again. I'm so much thankful to this opportunity, actually, to bring my voice. As I said, it was so important to me, just like to say, to talk about where we live and who we are, basically. So, yeah, thank you so much for hosting me. That's great. People would be enjoying the podcast.

Well, that's what they're here to do. And I know they will because this conversation was really fascinating. And we will continue to follow your case and give people updates. Yeah, I really hope listeners will maybe take this opportunity to think about, you know, who haven't they been listening to in this. And that's partly on us. Who haven't we been exposing you to? But it's not, we should not be your only source.

So get out that, like, this is not a monocrop and you got to have a nice balanced diet. So anyway, Mahagbaria, thank you so much again for coming on that as Barra. Thank you so much, Daniel. Thank you, my dear. Well, there you have it, folks. That's my interview with Mahagbaria. Welcome back, producer Adam. What did you think of that?

I mean, a perspective we don't get to hear a lot about someone who's living within that system. Yeah. And really just kind of a lot to think over. I mean, I just, I wish I knew more from her perspective. So it'll be a lot to kind of think through. Yeah. Well, I'm glad that we got to introduce ourselves and our listeners to her. and, you know, we'll keep our eyes out for other people who can fill in that perspective,

that particular positionality and this whole Hasbara play. I mean, we talk about Palestinian 48ers all the time in terms of the way they're used rhetorically, and yet if we're not including them in the conversation, then we're kind of doing the same thing. You know, that's what occurred to me. So, and just the articulateness and the, what really struck me is just how hyper aware she is of her position, like she has to be. Just like you listen to, you know, people like James Baldwin or people who, who articulated the particular nuanced fuckery of being black and privileged and awake in a country like America,

you know, voices like that are a really important part of the conversation. And, you know, here in the peanut gallery, sometimes we lose the curiosity that I think is incumbent upon us to be like, well, what is happening on the ground? What is it like for people? So yeah, and she's also just a lot of fun. So it was great. That's our show, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. As we said at the beginning, there are still some tickets left for the LA show. So definitely go to, is it bit.l.l.i slash bad. Hasbara, L.A. That is it. And go to patreon.com slash bad hasbara for an extra episode every week, including this one. Badhusbara at gmail.com for all your questions, comments, and concerns, not to say complaints, because we don't care. And that's all we got. Next time Matt will be back in my place saying all this shit.

But for now, until next time, from the river to the sea. What an important perspective from this attorney. Very good. Jumping jacks was us. Push-ups was us. Godmaga us. All karate us. Taking Molly us.

Michael Jackson makes us.