Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-10-13 Monday

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

Democracy Now! Monday, October 13, 2025

From New York, this is Democracy Now. I went to my home and heard that there are aid trucks arriving, so I went to get some for my children, but this is not the way. I wish that it could come through official channels. It would be much better because some people, take the aid while others get nothing. The Gaza ceasefire deal is in effect. Phase one of a U.S. back 20-point plan is underway.

Hamas has released all 20 remaining living captives. Israel is releasing some 2,000 Palestinians. President Trump has addressed the Israeli Kness. Make the best weapons in the world, and we've got a lot of them, and we've given a lot to Israel, frankly. and Trump's next stop is Egypt. He heads to

Sharma al-Sheh to co-chair a summit with dozens of world leaders but without Netanyahu. We'll get response from Palestinian writer Ahmed Abu Artima. Israel killed his oldest son Abdullah and five other relatives two years ago and will speak to Israeli

historian Ilan Pappi. His new book, Israel on the brink and the eight revolutions that could lead to decolonization and coexistence, then today is Indigenous People's Day. And a TV radio exclusive will speak to award-winning journalist and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Julian Brave Noiscat, his debut memoir, We Survived the Night. So in August of 1959, my father was found in the trash incinerator at the Indian residential school that my family was sent to near Williams Lake, British Columbia, Canada. And in my first book, We Survived the Night.

I try to tell the story of him, myself, and our people across North America, a story of indigenous love and survival in the wake of genocide. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Hamas has released the remaining 20 living, Israeli hostages who've been held in Gaza for the past two years. Red Cross vehicles carried the captives from Gaza to Israel. Hamas is also in the process of handing over the bodies

of 28 Israeli captives who've been confirmed dead. In exchange, Israel is releasing nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom had been held without charge. This all comes as part of the first phase of the U.S. back 20-point plan. Earlier today, President Trump addressed the Israeli Knesset. Like the USA right now, it will be the golden age of Israel and the golden age of the Middle East. A group of leftist Israeli lawmakers briefly interrupted Trump's address by waving a sign, calling him to recognize Palestine. Trump heads next to Sharma al-Sheikh, where he and the U.S.

Egyptian president, Abdu Fatal Sisi, will co-host what's being described as a peace summit. Leaders and officials from 27 countries are scheduled to attend. Israeli Prime Minister of Benjamin Netanyahu was invited. First, it was believed he was going, but now it's believed he will not be attending. Celebrations have been held across Israel today as hostages held in Gaza reunite with their families. I waited for this day so much. Two years we've been waiting. For the hostages to come back home, for the war to stop, for the soldiers to come back home. This is a historic day. This is a happy day. They're coming home. Meanwhile, Israeli officials have threatened to arrest Palestinians in the occupied West Bank if they celebrate the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. Since the ceasefire began on Friday, tens of thousands of Palestinians have streamed back into northern Gaza to find their old neighborhoods reduced to ruin.

New drone footage shows vast areas of northern Gaza where every structure has been destroyed or heavily damaged. In recent days, Palestinians have retrieved more than 295 bodies that have been trapped under the rubble from Israeli attacks. Mahmoud Abu Amira is a Gaza city resident who returned to find his home destroyed. This was the most beautiful place this camp. But now you can see it's rubble, destruction. Life isn't life anymore. We can't find water. We can't find food.

We can't find anything to drink. It's like we've gone back to disaster. It's like a nightmare. Something you would have never imagined seeing. Tell me, could you ever have imagined this happening to you? I ask myself, no, we never imagine something like this could happen to us. a machine of destruction, a machine of war. In other news from Gaza, the prominent Palestinian journalist Salah al-Jafarawi was shot dead

Sunday by an Israeli-backed Palestinian militia in Gaza City. In other news from Gaza, drop site news reports Israeli forces in recent days set fire to civilian infrastructure, including the destruction of an essential sanitation plant in Gaza city. Israel's released the remaining international flotilla passengers who were abducted last week on the high seas while attempting to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza. In total, Israel had detained 145 people aboard the Freedom Flotilla Coalition Vessel the Conscience and a group of sailboats organized by the Thousand Madelines to Gaza campaign.

Major protests in solidarity with Palestine were held over the weekend in many cities, including Sydney, Australia, Oslo, Norway, and in London, where attendees included former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Many, many question marks over the 20 points that Donald Trump and others are put forward, many of which are very disturbing. But if there's no bombs falling and nobody being killed, then that is, of course, a step forward. But a long-term peace requires the Palestinian people to be involved in deciding their future, not just the USA and Israel. The federal government shutdown has entered its 13th day, leaving hundreds of thousands of government workers furloughed or working without pay. Late on Friday, the Trump administration sent layoff notices to more than 1,000 workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

though a federal official later told the Washington Post some notices have been sent in error and would be reversed. Among those losing their jobs are scientists working on infectious disease, outbreaks, injury prevention, and global health. the Education Department fired nearly everyone in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services and in the federal trio programs, which helps students from disadvantaged backgrounds, access higher education. On Friday, President Trump said there'll be even more cuts to the federal workforce in coming days. How many layoffs have you authorized for this first round and from which agencies? And it will be Democrat-oriented because we figure, you know, they started this thing, so they should be Democrat-oriented. It'll be a lot. And we'll announce the numbers.

over the next couple of days, but it'll be a lot of people, all because of the Democrats. Meanwhile, President Trump's directed the Pentagon to issue salaries to military service members. They were due to missed paychecks Wednesday. Most other government workers are not being paid during the shutdown. A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying National Guard soldiers in Illinois. However, Saturday's ruling by the Seventh Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals allows the Trump administration to continue to federalize the National Guard, while the court considers a formal decision. For now, some 500 National Guard soldiers from Illinois and Texas remain stationed

to debase about an hour outside Chicago. The Trump administration says it's planning an appeal. On Sunday, Vice President J.D. Vance told Meet the Press, Kirsten Welker, that Trump has not ruled out invoking the Insurrection Act. Are you seriously considering invoking the Insurrection Act? Well, the president's looking at all his options. Right now, he hasn't felt he needed to, but we have to remember why are we talking about this, Kristen, because crime has gotten out of control in our cities. In response, Illinois Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker said President Trump cannot invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy the National Guard to Chicago unless there's an active rebellion under way.

The Insurrection Act is called the Insurrection Act for a reason. There has to be a rebellion. There has to be an insurrection in order for him to be allowed to invoke it. Again, he can say anything he wants. But if the Constitution means anything, and I guess we all are questioning that right now, but the courts will make the determination. If the Constitution means anything, the Insurrection Act cannot be invoked to send them in because they want to fight crime. Federal authorities have released a TV news producer without charge following her arrest by federal agents in Chicago's Lincoln Square Neighborhood Friday.

Video shows masked federal agents pinning WGN TV producer Debbie Brockman to the ground, binding her hands behind her back and forcing her into an unmarked vehicle, then sidest wiping a nearby car as they sped away. I later accused Brockman of throwing objects at a Border Patrol car but provided no evidence. The arrest appears to directly violate a federal judge's order one day earlier. banning federal agents from using riot control weapons and other force against protesters and journalists who are not posing a threat. On Saturday, the Chicago Teachers Union organized a protest dubbed funds, not feds, outside

the Chicago headquarters of Google. They're demanding an end to ICE raids and calling for federal funds to be redirected to schools, health care, food assistance, and violence prevention. This is Chicago alderperson, Anthony Joel Kitzata. We're also here because we know what we're up against. Donald Trump and his fascist authoritarian administration are advancing an agenda built on fear and division. They are stripping away health care, food access, and housing from those who already struggle the most, like our elders and our working families.

They are terrorizing our communities and kidnapping our neighbors. And while they take from the many, they reward the few. In Oregon, dozens of protesters Saturday rallied outside a federal immigration facility in Portland, demanding an end to Trump's mass deportations and his plans to deploy the National Guard to the city. Many of the protesters wore inflatable costumes mocking Trump's description of Portland as a full-blown war zone. Yes, we're in costumes to show just how ridiculous that is. It's not a war zone. The only time it's a war zone is when they come down and abuse us protest.

out here fighting for our community as you just witnessed they come down they shoot pepper balls they grab people i'm here tonight because this is literally actually bananas like that we have these guys in full military uniforms costumes basically coming out because the president of the united states the highest office that we used to all have respect for is saying that this is a war-torn blown-out buildings. In news from Sudan, at least 60 people were killed Saturday when drone and artillery strikes by the paramilitary rapid support forces hit a camp for displaced people in the besieged city of Elfasher and North Darfur.

The dead included at least 17 children, including a seven-day-old infant. Last week, the RSF showed a maternity ward of one of the last remaining hospitals in Elfasher killing 13 people. More than 12 million people have been displaced by Sufxon. of a war which has triggered widespread famine, making it one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century. President Trump is threatening to send long-range tomahawk missiles to Ukraine if Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn't agree to a settlement to end the war.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov responded to Trump's threat by expressing extreme concern. He said, quote, now is really a very dramatic moment in terms of the fact that tensions are escalating from all sides, unquote. This comes as the Financial Times has revealed the U.S. has been secretly sharing intelligence to help Ukraine target Russian energy facilities far beyond the front lines. Meanwhile, Russia continues to target Ukraine's energy grid as winter approaches. According to Ukrainian officials, Russia launched more than 3,100 drones, 92 missiles, and around 1,360 glide bombs over the past week. Madagascar's president says he's resisting an attempt by the army to seize power by force.

On Sunday, a renegade army unit said it had taken command of all branches of the military, while an increasing number of soldiers are joining youth-led anti-government protests demanding the ouster of President André Rajoylina who came to power in a 2009 coup that toppled Madagascar's previous president. trade tensions are escalating again between the United States and China. On Friday, President Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on Chinese products starting November 1st and new export limits on, quote, any and all critical software. A day earlier, China had announced a plan to restrict access to rare earth minerals. The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting Friday at the request of Venezuela to discuss

escalating U.S. military activity in the Caribbean. In recent weeks, the U.S. blew up four boats claiming they were carrying drugs. Venezuela's U.N. ambassador, Samuel Mankata, warned the U.S. may be preparing to invade Venezuela. The belligerent action and rhetoric of the U.S. government objectively point to the fact that we are facing a situation in which it is rational to anticipate that in very short term, an armed attack is to be perpetrated against Venezuela. In other news on Venezuela, this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner announced Friday, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Karina Machado, has dedicated her prize to President Donald Trump for, quote, his decisive support of our cause, unquote. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has brought felony charges against eight people linked to a midwife accused of performing abortions in violation of Texas state law.

In a statement, Paxton called the eight, a quote, cabal of abortion, loving radicals and fake doctors, unquote. This comes after Houston midwife, Maria Rojas, became the first person criminally charged under Texas's new laws outlawing virtually all abortions. In response, Rojas's lawyer told CNN, quote, Paxton heartlessly shut down several clinics that provided lawful affordable services to families around Houston, most of whom were low-income, uninsured immigrants, with few options for health care, unquote. And in Tennessee, investigators say 16 people are confirmed dead following a massive explosion at a munitions plant Friday.

The blast left the rural factory in ruins and rattled homes more than 15 miles away. The cause of the disaster is under investigation. The accurate energetic systems plant was under federal contract to produce bulk explosives and landmines for the U.S. Army and Navy. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. The Gaza ceasefire deal is in effect.

Phase one of the U.S. back 20-point plan is underway. Hamas has released all 20 remaining living hostages who'd been held in Gaza for the past two years. Red Cross vehicles carried the captives from Gaza to Israel. Hamas is also in the process of handing over the bodies of 28 Israel. captives who have been confirmed dead. In exchange, Israel's releasing nearly 2,000 Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons, many of whom have been held without charge. Sources told Al Jazeera, Israeli forces have fired smoke bombs at journalists around

Ofer Prison, where Palestinians were freed. Israel's warned Palestinians in the occupied West Bank against celebrating their release. This all comes as part of the first phase of a U.S. back 20-point plan. Today, President Bush, President Trump, joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in addressing the Israeli Knesset. First, Prime Minister Netanyahu. Move the world so quickly, so decisively, so resolutely, as our friend President Donald J. Trump. With our military pressure and President Trump's global leadership, we achieved this historic moment.

It's a moment of indescribable joy. As President Trump addressed the Israeli Knesset, a group of leftist Israeli lawmakers briefly interrupted him by waving a sign calling him to recognize Palestine. Everybody loves Steve and they respect them and they somehow can relate to them. I've known them for many years and I've seen it over again. To release him out of Knesset Kassif, to out of the Ullam. To get him from out of the hutsa, the hutsa. To release, also the Khaber Knesset Kassif.

To out of Knesset Kassif from the Ulam. That was very efficient. At one point, President Trump claimed the Gaza ceasefire will mark the beginning of a golden age for Israel and the Middle East. I can tell you we have weapons that nobody's ever dreamt of. I only hope we never have to use them. I rebuilt the military. I was proud to do it, but some of the things I hated to do, I hated certain of the weapons because the level of power is so enormous,

it's so dangerous, so bad. But we have to do what we have to do. We make the best weapons in the world, and we've got a lot of them, and we've given a lot to Israel, frankly. And... Trump heads next to Egypt, where he's co-chairing a summit in Charmel Sheikh with Egyptian President Abdel Fattel-Sisi. Leaders from at least 27 countries are set to attend.

But Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said today he declined Trump's invitation, citing the Jewish holidays. Meanwhile, in Gaza, drop-site news reports after. After Trump's announcement of the Gaza deal Thursday, the Israeli military, quote, launched an arson spree, setting fire to civilian infrastructure, including the destruction of an essential sanitation plant in Gaza city, unquote. For more, we begin with Ahmed Abu Arteema, Palestinian writer and human rights activist. We had him on democracy now two years ago. Shortly after Israel killed his eldest son Abdullah and five other relatives in Gaza, Ahmed and several other family members were injured in that attack. He was one of the organizers of the nonviolent 2018 Great March of Return. He was recently able to leave Gaza and is joining us now from Amsterdam.

Welcome back to Democracy Now. Ahmed, it's great to have you here. As we broadcast, Reuters is showing Han Yunus live, buses arriving with prisoners. They already arrived in the West Bank. And, of course, just a few hours before this, Hamas released the 20 live hostages. Can you respond to everything that has taken place so far? Thank you, Amy, for having me. It's my honor to be with you.

Yes, this year, today is a, I'm a. An important day in Gaza and in Palestine in general, we finally saw the exchange of prisoners. And the people in Gaza hope this can lead to ending the horrible genocide, which continued for two years. Finally, about 2,000 of the Palestinian prisoners returned back to their home, to their families, and there are still in the Israeli prisons more than 9,000 Palestinian prisoners. This is important to mention as we see how Trump and the Israeli government, and the pro-Israel media focus on the 20 hostages, 20 Israeli hostages and their humanity and all the details,

but no one talked about the tragedy of the Palestinian prisoners. There are about 11,000 Palestinian prisoners, about 3,000 and half of them are in the Israeli, prisons with no trial, with no charge. They are subjugated to inhuman conditions, medical neglect, a very horrible situation, but no one talked about them. And this is the essence of the problem, the essence of the problem dehumanizing us, dehumanizing the Palestinians.

always talk about the issue of the Israeli hostages and they have to return to their home. But what about the Palestinians? What about two million of the people in Gaza live a catastrophic, complete catastrophic situation? The people in Gaza, including me, lost everything. We lost our beloved ones. We lost our houses. We lost everything. So it sounds like there are people deserve life Israelis and there are people don't deserve life in the perspective of Trump and the perspective of this colonial Israeli government. So yes, the people in Gaza, need any opportunity to stop the daily massacres, which continues for two years. In the same time, we cannot say we are happy, we are happy, because we lost everything.

The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. And Israel itself, until now, doesn't talk about ending the genocide. Just the Israeli war minister wrote a tweet that they will return to destroy the tunnels after the hostages return back to their homes. So the situation in Gaza, the people finally feel very little risk that they can sleep without. feeling that their tents, their places may be targeted any time, but in the same time, the catastrophe in Gaza is beyond words, indescribable. So we cannot say today, as Trump said, that the time of peace will start. This is completely wrong.

We cannot talk about peace. which peace they talk about when the injustice is still continuing, when the violations against the Palestinians, the dehumanization, the denial of their very basic rights are still. I think any talk about peace, when it's not to be based on the justice and on ending the injustice, it will not be lost and stable for a long time. I just wanted to point out, 20 Israeli hostages, all of them, have been released. And now Hamas over the next days, apparently, is going to release the remains of hostages who have died.

I'm just looking at the report back last year from the, from a Palestinian advocacy group that says a hundred ninety-eight Palestinians who were killed in 2024, Israel is continuing to hold their bodies. Was there any discussion of the release of the dead Palestinians, as there was of the dead Israelis? Exactly. This is the problem.

The problem no one talked about. about that. Actually, we have thousands and tens of thousands and maybe hundreds of thousands of tragic stories as Palestinians. No one talk about them. No one care about them because they only care about the 20 live Israel hostages or other dozens of the did Israelis have. So this is the double standards. This means that they They don't look to us as Palestinians that we have rights. We have our humanity. This is one story, the story of the dead Palestinians that Israel is keeping them.

What about also the thousands of the prisoners? About 400 children inside the Israeli prisons. Imagine that Israel made big propaganda around the world about the monsters of the Palestinian monsters who took the children. What about the 400 children are now in the Israeli prisons? What about the 2 million? What about the 20,000 Palestinian children were murdered in Gaza, including my son Abdullah? about the two million people in Gaza, they are deprived from everything. Their houses were completely

destroyed. No one in Gaza didn't affect severely in this Israeli genocide. So, Ahmed, we don't have much time, but I wanted to ask, do you hold out any hope for this summit? They're calling it a peace summit in Charmel Sheikh, which President Trump is going to co-chair with the Egyptian president with dozens of world leaders there. What do you want to see happen there? Yes. The first or the important sign already came that Netanyahu will go there. This means this person who is wanted to the International Criminal Court, they will bring them there to a white woman. his image after committing horrible, maybe the most horrible genocide in the last decades. So what hope we kind of expect of this summit which try to whitewash the image of the criminals?

And again, the problem that simply, it's very simple, the Palestinians have their rights, their simple rights, the rights of freedom, the right of ending this occupation, to live their life with dignity, but they try to go away from this issue, this real problem. And they talk, they try to portray the problem as there is armed, militias in Gaza, and we defeated them, then let us now make the peace. They are lying. Have you ever heard recently if Dr. Abu Safia, it doesn't look like the head of Kamaladwan, which is mainly a pediatric hospital who is taken by the Israelis, his son killed,

has been released. And we know that Marwan Barguti is also continuing to be held after decades. Israel rejected Hamas's request for him to be released. But do you know about the doctor? I read at morning, but I'm not sure. So I cannot say if he will be released or not. But in general, this is the Israeli policy. The Israeli policy always to reject and to try to kill the Palestinian any kind of

Palestinian happiness. Ahmed, we see that Aratz is reporting, Dr. Abusafia might be released. The, quote, the Israeli government approved five extra names overnight into Monday to be added to the list of Gaza prisoners who expected to be released. But as we have to go, I just want to ask you quickly, do you hold out hope with, for example, right now, apparently as President Trump was addressing the Knesset, in, Egypt, Prime Minister Stormer and Macron were meeting with Mahmoud Abbas in Sharmaul-Sheikh. And I wanted to wrap that together with, you're in Amsterdam now.

I mean, you've been in Gaza, but are now in Amsterdam. And, I mean, we have seen in Amsterdam in the largest anti-war pro-Palestine protest in Europe where some quarter of a million people gathered in the city before marching through the city center, the resistance that you're seeing around the world and the recognition of Palestine as a state? Yes, I think this is the real hope. The real hope not relating to what's happening in that summit, which should try to whitewash the image of Netanyahu and the Israeli war criminals. The real hope comes from this world

uprise against this genocide. So I think and I believe that the Palestinians, yes, now they are politically and in all the sides, they are weak. But when we see this world support and world solidarity as we saw here in Amsterdam, in Italy, in Spain, in the United States, in the United Kingdom, everywhere. This large movement that support the Palestinian rights and condemn the Israeli genocide, this gives us kind of hope. Ahmed, Abu Atima, I want to thank you so much for being with us. Palestinian writer, human rights activists just recently left Haqad.

lost his son there as well as other relatives, is now in Amsterdam. This is democracy now. We go to break, then come back to go to Haifa to speak with the Israeli historian Ilan Pape, his new book, Israel on the brink. Stay with us. Stand behind his drunken amp. Stand behind his light of love. hear him yowl his bloody tongue hear him yellow blood in war

do you believe in his sweet sensation do you believe in second chance do you believe in rapture bay Do you believe in rapture by Thurston Moore? This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. As we've reported, the Gaza ceasefire deals in effect, phase one of the U.S. back 20-point plan is underway. Hamas has released all 20 living captive.

hostages, Israel is releasing some 2,000 Palestinians in Ramallah and now in Khan Yunus in Gaza. Today, President Trump addressed the Israeli Knesset and then is on his way to co-chair a so-called peace summit in Sharm al-Shikh, Egypt, with President Odel Fattel Sisi. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will not be among the 27 or more world leaders who will attend. He was invited, but says he is not going. For more, we're joined by the the Israeli historian, author, and Professor Ilan Pape, Professor of History and Director of the European Center for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter, and the chair of the Nakba Memorial Foundation. Among his books, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine almost 20 years ago, and Gaza

in Crisis, which he co-wrote with Noam Chomsky, his new book, Israel on the Brink, and the eight revolutions that could lead to decolonization and coexistence. We thank you so much for being with us. Professor Pape, if you could start off by responding to what has happened, we're watching in Khan Yunus, prisoners being released, Palestinian prisoners, up to 2,000 and in the occupied West Bank. Though their families were told, if they dare celebrate the release of their loved ones, they might be arrested. And we saw the release of the 20 Israeli hostages as they return to Israel. The Hamas says they're returning the dead hostages, the remains over the next few days.

Israel has not said they will return the dead prisoners, of which it's believed there are nearly 200 in Israeli prisons. Your response overall, and now to the summit in Egypt. Yes. First of all, there is some joy in knowing. that the bombing of the people in Gaza has stopped for a while. And there is joy knowing that Palestinian political prisoners have been reunited with the families. And similarly, that Israeli hostages were reunited with their families. But except from that, I don't think we are in such

an historical moment as President Trump claimed in his speech in Knesset and beforehand. We are not at the end of the terrible chapter that we have been in it for the last two years. And that chapter is an Israeli attempt by a particularly fanatic extreme right-wing Israeli government to try and use ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and genocide in Gaza to downsize the number of Palestinians in Palestine and impose Israel's will in a way that their hope would be at least endorsed

by some Arab governments and the world and so far they have an alliance of Trump and some extreme right-wing parties in Europe. And now I hope that the world will not be misled that Israel is now ready to open a different kind of page in its relationship with the Palestinians and what you told us about the way that the celebration were dealt with in the West Bank

and the incineration of the Sanitation Center shows you that nothing has changed in the dehumanization and the attitude of this particular Israeli government in its belief that it has the power to wipe out Palestine as a nation as a people and as a country. And I hope the world will not stand by because up to now it did stand by when the genocide occurred in Palestine. We have just heard President Trump's address to the Israeli Knesset. He followed the Israeli

Prime Minister Netanyahu. I'm not sure. But in listening to Netanyahu, I don't think he used the word Palestinian. President Trump, has just called on the Israeli president to pardon Netanyahu. Your thoughts on this and also the possibility of why Netanyahu has not joined this summit that President Trump will be co-chairing. Many are speculating for different reasons, didn't want to anger the right that's further right than him. Others are saying the possibility of his arrest, not on corruption charges, but on crimes against humanity, the whole case before the international criminal court.

It could be a mixture of all of it, but I think at the center of it is the nature of the Israeli government that was elected in November 2022. This alliance between a very opportunistic politician who is only interested in surviving and keeping his position as a prime minister, alongside messianic, neo-Zionist politicians who really believe that God has given them the opposition. opportunity to create the greater Israel and maybe even beyond the borders of Palestine and in the process that eliminate Palestinians. I think that his consideration should all are always about his chances of survival. So whatever went in his mind, he came to the conclusion that going to Cairo is not going to help his chances of being reelected. My great worry is not that he didn't go to Cairo.

My greatest worry is that he does believe that his only chance of being reelected is still to have a war going on, either in Gaza or in the West Bank, or against Iran, or in the north with Lebanon. We are dealing here with a reckless, irresponsible politician who is even willing to drown his own state in the process of saving his skin and his neck. And the victims will always be from this adventurous policy, the Palestinians. I hope the world understand that really the urgent need of, and I'm talking about world leaders rather than societies,

you already discuss with Ahmad how what is the level of solidarity among civil societies. But I do hope that political elites would understand, especially in the West, their role now is not to mediate between Israelis and Palestinians. Their role now is to protect the Palestinians from destruction, elimination, genocide and ethnic cleansing. And nothing of that duty, especially of Europe that is complicit with what happened and the United States, that are complicit with what happened in the last two years. Nothing that we heard in the speeches so far in reparation for the summit in Egypt. and I have a feeling that we won't hear anything about it also later on.

There is a different way in which our civil societies refer to Palestine as a place that has to be saved and protected and still this irrelevant conversation about our political elites, about a peace deal, a two-state solution, all of that that has nothing to do with what we are experiencing in the way that the Israeli government thinks it has. as an historical moment to totally de-Arabis Palestine and eliminate and expunge the Palestinians from history and the area.

Ilan Pape, I want to thank you for being with us. Israeli historian, professor of history, director of the European Center for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter, chair of the Nakpa Memorial Foundation, his new book, Israel on the brink and the eight revolutions that could lead to decolonization and coexistence. Next up, today is Indigenous People's Day. In a TV radio exclusive, we'll speak to the award-winning journalist Oscar-nominated filmmaker Julian Brave Noiscat. His debut memoir, We Survive the Night. If you've been a cheating, you better quit your cheating.

If you're been a cheating, you better quit you're cheating. If you've been to cheating, you better quit your cheating. You're going to reap just what you sow. So I'm on the mountain. Reap them in the above. So I'm on the mountain. Reap the mountain. So I'm on the mountain.

Reap them in the mountain. You're going to reap just what you sow. Soam on the mountains, renditioned by Natalie Coleman and Nora Brown in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. As over a dozen states, more than 200 cities nationwide, commemorate Indigenous People's Day today, we spend the rest of the hour with award-winning writer, journalist, Oscar-nominated filmmaker, Julian Brave Noiscat. His debut book, We Survive the Night, Out Tuesday,

weaves together his family's stories of survival with personal memories, indigenous oral histories, legends on the ground reporting that lay bare the resilience of indigenous peoples across the continent in the face of centuries of colonial genocide. We Survive the Night opens with the moment in which Ed Archie Noiscat, Julian's father, is found as a newborn baby and a garbage incinerator at the Catholic-run Indian boarding school at St. Joseph's Mission in British Columbia in Canada. It was August 16, 1959. The story is at the heart of Julian Brave Noise Cat's Academy Award-nominated documentary Sugarcane,

co-directed alongside investigative journalist Emily Cassie. Sugarcane looks at the abuse in cases of missing indigenous children at St. Joseph, where Julian Brave Noyeskatz's grandmother and other relatives were sent to near Williams Lake, British Columbia. This year, he made history as the first indigenous filmmaker from North America to be nominated for an Academy Award in the best documentary feature category. He's now joining us in our New York City studio. Thank you so much for being with us, Julian. We've talked to you before, but not in the studio. And what an amazing time to do it with the debut of your book, We Survive the Night. Why the title?

Well, I should say Chukh, Amy, which means not good morning in my language. It actually translates to You Survived the Night. And the title of We Survived the Night is actually derived from that traditional morning greeting in Sequip Makhine, my people's indigenous language. You know, I often think about what it must have meant for my ancestors to greet one another and the day by saying something as simple and profound as, you know, that they had survived the night. What did that mean in the winter of 1863, for example, when over two-thirds of our nation died of smallpox? What did it mean in the days after the children were taken away to Indian residential schools? And then I also, you know, chuckle at the way that my own, my grandmother,

who taught me this language, one of our only two remaining fluent speakers on the Canem Lake Indian Reserve because of the history of colonization in St. Joseph's mission, you know, I think about how she uses it as a kind of a tongue-and-cheek response. You know, I'll say, walk into her house and I'll say, Chahua'i no, and she said, oh, don't remind me, you know. So I think that there's just so much in the poetry of our language, a language that is nearly gone from the face of the earth, that gets at, you know, not just a social commentary on colonization and survival, but also, you know, has a little bit of a dark humor and a rye sensibility to it that I really love. So tell us about your father at Archie Noiscat, renowned traditional carver artist whose work is featured in the Smithsonian, which is now closed, because of the government shutdown.

But if you can talk about what happened at St. Joseph's, what happened in Canada? It is one place, but it is emblematic across Canada and across the United States. So in Canada for about 150 years, there was a system of church-run, state-funded boarding schools that were segregated, that all native children in the country were required to attend by an amendment to the Indian Act, which is a federal law that's still in place in Canada that governs who does and does not get to be native and our lives in certain ways. And my father's generation, the generation above my father's generation, were taken away to these schools and separated from their families, forbidden from speaking their languages. And subsequently, there has been a lot of discoveries of abuse, of violence, of rape, of some instances of children dying who are taken away to these schools. And it's important to point out that the way that this story was often covered in the mainstream media was as a Canadian story, that there's a Canadian story.

This was a story specific to the 139 federally funded Indian residential schools in Canada. But in fact, there were three times as many of these schools, 417, right here in the United States. So this is truly a story that is foundational to North American history. This is how the land was taken. This is what happened to native children. And in Canada, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission describes it as a cultural genocide, a system that was designed to wipe the native way of life off the face of the world. earth. So talk about how your father was found. So in August of 1959, my father was discovered in the

trash incinerator at St. Joseph's mission by the Knight Watchman, a guy named Tony Stoop. He was a Dutchman from the old country. He spoke broken English only. And he pulled up to the school after going to a meeting of the Knights of Columbus, which is a Catholic adjacent sort of organization in the city of Williams Lake. And when he pulled up to the school, to the residential school, he heard what he described in later to the Williams Lake Tribune as the cry of a cat. It sounded like a cat, is what he said, which is, of course, kind of crazy because, you know, my last name is noise cat. My father's last name is noise cat. And he went with his flashlight to the trash incinerator, and he discovered an ice cream carton, my father,

a baby who they described in the papers and in investigations as baby X. It's a story that my own family has never really told, and it's one that I only learned through the making of sugar cane and the writing of this first book, We Survived the Night. And it's astounding when you asked your grandmother about why she was there, why the baby, your dad, um, was found in the garbage. What did she say? She couldn't answer the question. You know, it's it, the truth of the matter is, is that, you know, in the broader history of genocide of indigenous peoples, there's one side of the story that I think perhaps your viewers might be a little bit more familiar with, which is the way that governments and churches, you know, purposefully erased or forgot what they

did. I think that part of the other side of the equation is what happened to the people who survived these institutions and the way that we sometimes internalized the violence and the oppression of colonization. And part of the way that we survived, you know, that incredibly trying experience over 100 years of forced assimilation through violence. and the separation of children from parents who were never allowed to raise their own kids was by forgetting. And that is definitely true for my and many others of her generation who survived by not talking about the incredibly difficult things that they went through. And then sometimes by not talking about the incredibly difficult things that that caused them to do in their own lives. What were your thoughts on the Pope apologizing?

Explain what that was about. you have said that, for example, in New Mexico, someone told a person that you spoke to that the Native American population of New Mexico is the most religious, the most observant as Catholics. So in Sugarcana, we followed the late chief of the Williams Lake First Nation, Rick Gilbert, all the way to the Vatican, where he attended the papal apology to survivors of the Indian residential schools. I think it's worth pointing out that that apology was worded not as a collective or institutional apology on behalf of the Catholic Church, but that it was worded in such a way that the Catholic Church was essentially saying there were just a bunch of bad apples

all over their barrel, and that, you know, all of these patterns of priests being moved around, of babies being found in incinerators, you know, something that is not necessarily particular to St. Joseph's mission, and I think calls to attention patterns across. the Catholic world in places like Ireland with the Magdalene laundries, that these are just happenstance coincidence patterns, which I think defies logic, and I think maybe they think that we're all a little bit stupid. But, you know, essentially the Catholic Church did a very minimal apology for the actions of very particular priests and staff. The late Chief Rick Gilbert and many other survivors of those institutions who remain faithful Catholics, it's worth pointing

out. Rick Gilbert actually had two funerals and he waited three weeks for his second funeral to be had so that the bishop in British Columbia could attend. This was a man who was deeply Catholic until the end. You know, he felt very let down by the way that his own church chose to apologize to him and others' children who were taken away to these schools. And I think it's worth asking, you know, what does the Catholic Church not just owe to people who it wronged, but to people who it wronged who remain faithful Catholics? Tell us about your mother who, you you dedicate the book to you write for my mother who showed me how well you know the truth of the matter is is that even though i came out looking the way i look and i have about as indian a name as

you can possibly imagine i mean julian bright noise cat is a very native name um my mother's actually an irish jewish new yorker and when i was about six years old my dad left our family so i was primarily raised by my non-native parent and the reason the book is dedicated to her is there many reasons. I mean, I love my mother very much, but, you know, she made it possible for me to have a relationship to my father's family on the Canem Lake Indian Reserve, which is an over a 24-hour drive from the city where I grew up, Oakland, California, a whole country away. She beated my powwow regalia so that I could dance at powwows. She brought me down to the intertribal friendship house in Oakland, California, one of the oldest urban Indian community centers in the entire country.

And she, to this day, is actually my first reader and editor. So I love the my mom a lot, and I'm really grateful that, you know, she helped keep me connected to my people and my culture. And talk about your father, how you kind of rediscovered him well over a decade after he had left you. Yeah, so my dad, I saw him very sparingly from the age of six onwards, you know, maybe about a couple dozen times at most. And then I made a very unusual decision at the age of 28. I was a bachelor living on the East Coast, and I was about to embark on making sugar can in writing, We Survived the Night, and I decided that I needed to be all in on those stories, and so I decided to move in with my father, who still owed me money that I loaned him to come

to my own high school graduation, probably a bit of an unusual decision. And suddenly, we were living across the hallway from one another, cooking each other breakfast. During the day, he'd go out to the carving studio and do his artwork. I would be at my computer working on the documentary in my first book. And I'd also be doing research. You know, I'd be reading the these old oral histories that were collected in 100-plus-year-old ethnographic texts about my indigenous traditions, about the trickster coyote, for example. And then at night, I'd come back together with my dad, and we'd hang out, eat some dinner, I'd turn on the recorder, and he'd tell me all these stories about his life that I never really knew.

And as I was reflecting on these stories about my father, who was himself an amazing creator and sometimes a destroyer and absolutely a survivor and reflecting on these stories about the trickster coyote who is also an amazing creator and also sometimes a destroyer and also absolutely a survivor. I saw so many parallels between my old man and our first old man, I guess. Julian, you're wearing a headband of the American flag.

Why? To make a little bit of a statement, you know, I think it's an interesting time to be an indigenous person in the United States, I also think that there's a phase in every native man's life that they go through, wherein they become what I describe as a headband Indian. I know this because I've asked many Native men about whether they've had a period of life where they wore a headband, and virtually all of them say that they have, and it has to do, I think, if you look at pictures of the American Indian movement in the 1970s, of things like the occupation of Alcatraz,

with a moment in our political reawakening and sense of pride. And also I think I want to to subvert one of the most significant symbols of this land and put it on my head upside down as a way of signifying, you know, my own cultural pride in whose land this really is. Julian Brave Noisket is a writer, a journalist, an Oscar-nominated filmmaker. His debut memoir is titled, We Survive the Night. It's being released tomorrow, Tuesday, on October 14th. He's also co-director of the documentary Sugarcane. That does it for our show, but we're going to do part two,

and we're going to put it online at DemocracyNow.org. I'll be speaking in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on October 15th, on October 18th, 17th at the Lensick Theater Friday night after the showing of the film, steal this story, please, along with the Oscar-nominated filmmaker Tia Lesson. So check our website at, Democracy Now.org. Julian will be speaking at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn. I'm Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.