Guerrilla History - Understanding the Conflict in Occupied Palestine - History & Geopolitics w/ Rabab Abdulhadi & Ariel Salzmann

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

In this important and wide-ranging episode of Guerrilla History, we bring on two esteemed guests, Professors Rabab Abdulhadi and Ariel Salzmann, to discuss the conflict in occupied Palestine, the bombardment in Gaza, attempts to legitimize the Zionist project that is the so-called State of Israel, and public activist movements.  This is another really crucial conversation that builds off of our previous episode with Max Ajl and Patrick Higgins on Palestinian Resistance vs. the Zionist Project.  If you find this conversation useful, please send it along to your comrades, friends, and family - we really need people to understand this! Our guests recommend you to check out the work done by Jadaliyya, the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Study Program/Teaching Palestine, the statement from the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, the statement from Birzeit University, and the work being done by Jewish Voice for Peace. Rabab Abdulhadi is the founding Director and Senior Scholar of Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Study Program at San Francisco State University, co-founding Editorial Board Member of the Islamophobia Studies Journal, and Director/Principal Investigator of Teaching Palestine, as well as author of numerous scholarly works. Ariel Salzmann is a professor of Islamic and world history at Queen's University, and her research addresses theories of state formation, histories of Mediterranean communities and Muslim societies, the transformation of market systems and the making of global capitalism.  Her forthcoming book, The Exclusionary West: Medieval Minorities and the Making of Modern Europe, will be out in May 2024. Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory                               

You remember den, Ben, boo? The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare, but they put some guerrilla action on. Hello, and welcome to guerrilla history, podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm one of your co-hosts, Henry Huckmacki, joined as

usual by my two co-hosts, Professor Adnan Hussein, historian director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing today? I'm really well, Henry. It's great to be with you. Of course, it's always nice to see you, regardless of where you're coming from. Today, it's Istanbul, but next time it'll probably be somewhere else. Also joined as usual by Brett O'Shea, who of course is host of Revolutionary Left Radio and co-host of the Red Menace podcast. Hello, Brett. How are you doing? I'm doing very well, excited for this conversation. Absolutely. We have a fascinating and very important conversation coming up with two excellent guests, but before I introduce the guests, I would like to remind

the listeners that you can help support the show. Keep us up and running and allow us to make more content like this by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history, gorilla being spelled G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history and in appreciation of you, contributing to the show, you will get some bonus content. I know Adnan and I are putting together a mini-series of episodes about the religious cultures of the medieval Mediterranean, and that's something that patrons will get access to for helping support the show. You can also keep up to date with all of the things that Brett Adnan and myself are doing

individually, as well as the show collectively by going to Twitter and looking up Gorilla underscore Pod, that's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A underscore Pod. So like I said, we have two excellent guests today. We have Rabab Abdul-Hadhi, who is founding director and senior scholar of Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora Study Program at San Francisco State University, as well as co-founding, editorial board member of the Islamophobia Studies Journal and author of numerous scholarly works. Hello, Rabab. It's nice to have you on the program.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Of course. We're also joined by Ariel Saltzman, who's a historian at Queen's University specializing in Islamic and world history, and whose research addresses theories of state formation, histories of Mediterranean communities and Muslim societies, the transformation of market systems and the making of global capitalism, as well as a former guest on this show. We had Professor Saltzman on for our episode World Systems. So go back and listen to that if you are interested in that topic. Hello, Ariel. It's nice to have you on the program. Thank you, Henry. Thank you, Brett, for having me too. It's a pleasure. So, Adnan, I'm going to turn it over to you to ask the first question today as you are friends with

both of our esteemed guests today. Well, yes, it's really wonderful to have both Rabab and Ariel on today, and I know that they are long-time activists and scholars dealing with the question of Palestine for many, many years, decades. And so they have a wealth of knowledge and experience and perspectives that I think will be really helpful and fruitful in our discussion for our listeners. Because you both have such a long, you know, observance of events taking place and have been engaged in struggles of activism for justice for Palestinians, You've seen many occasions where there have been Israeli assaults and bombardments in Lebanon,

but especially in the last decade and a half of Gaza. And so I'm wondering, given your knowledge and perspective on the struggle and previous assaults on Gaza, since it was blockaded in 2005, what do you think? listeners need to know about Israel's relationship and blockade and suppression of Gaza and what kind of resistance has been taking place over these years in Gaza and what, if anything, do you think makes this particular occasion and this particular situation unique or different given that long history of repeated assaults on Gaza? I guess I'll start.

I'm joining you from the unseeded alonial land in San Francisco. I'm at San Francisco State University. There are similarities and there are differences. One of the similarities is that this is a continuation of Israeli settler colonial project to eradicate and erase the Palestinians and to erase their existence and erase their connection with the land, their presence on the land. This is something ongoing that has been part and parcel even before the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948, 78, 75 years ago. So this is very much part of that.

This is including the calls by the Israeli military on people in Gaza to flee. And the initial time when the Egyptians said they will open the border. But now yesterday we heard from the Egyptian dictator ruler, Sisi. saying that, no, we're not going to do it. We're not, we should not allow Palestinians to come in to go to Sinai. Maybe they should be settled in Nakhob. And it's in Nakhob, which is in part of the 48 areas of Israel, before 1967, so called the Green Line. And it's, but the Palestinians in Gaza, they've been fleeing from one place to the other in order for them to be able to have safety, which also remunces of what happens in 1948, which debunks Israeli and Zionist claims that Palestinians just up and left their land. They were driven, and there is a lot of history about that, writing about the plan, the lead plan to push Palestinians into different areas,

which was also written many times by the Palestinians but also reinforced and became legitimized when Israeli new historians were had access to the Israeli. archives and they wrote about it. So then the old word believed them, believed the story of the Palestinians because somebody else from the colonizing society came and said that this is the case. So this is one of the things that's going on. It's continuous eradication. The second thing is that similar is that there is continuous of the massacres. So if we know the history of Zionist colonization of Palestine, there are so many massacers. Some are well known. Some are not well known. In 1948, the very well, the famous Dariusian massacre actually happened. happened less than a month before the fund, a little bit over a month before the foundation of the state of Israel.

It happened on April 9th, 1948. Israel was founded in May 15th, 1948. And the Israeli leaders of the Shen and Shea gang who were actually the ones who were slaughtering. People in the village of the Yassin said that they really, without their Yassian, Israel might not have been founded. And the Riyazin needed to be, quote, unquote, I don't like the word ethnic cleansing, because it implies that it was dirty and it needed cleansing, so it's this whole anthropological thing. But it was really it needed to be wiped out

to also assure militarily the route from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv for the Israeli military forces to advance. First, the hagana and underground and then the Israeli military afterwards. In the past, but this is the same stories. That we hear also in the Tallah Zsaatar, for example, in 1976, the Palestinian refugee came that was completely wiped out

and Jistin al-Bashah in 1970 during Lebanese and Sabra and Shatila in 1982 and so on and so forth. So this is very similar. Then there is also the specific attacks on Gaza itself and it has to do with Israel basically

not willing to accept any possibilities for Palestinians to be able to live on their own. I mean it's a very small territory but it's been under siege for over 16 years and so Gazans have been punished. Israel withdrew in 2005, took away its settlement and went, and it withdrew because there was also continuous resistance. So Gaza is very well known.

Historically, I mean, Ariel Sharon himself in the 70s used to say that Gaza is ruled by the day by Givara Gaza, who was one of the military leaders, and at night Israel or the way around. In the daytime, Israel rules it at night, it's ruled by, or sovereignty is there. So there is the historical resistance. Also, it is a question of kind of like, how dare the palace, the most recent one, how dare the Palestinians resist? I mean, this is a very big question. Maybe we want to talk about it later on. But these are, this is every single time there is any kind of like resistant sign of life erasure and basically complete genocide against the Palestinians to erase them.

Otherwise, the Israeli project will not be legitimized, justified. I mean, Israel, historically, it was a land without people for a people without a land. So you have to remove the people from the land to say the people, there is no land, a land without a people. I mean, it hasn't been realized. And Israel historically, even politically, in all its attempt to normalize with Arab countries and so on, it was looking for legitimization. It's always looking for people to kind of recognize Israel, and even if there is political agreements with the PLO and so on. It's still, it's not satisfying this insecurity.

that Israel feels, and I'm not talking about it as some kind of like only just psychological feeling here and there. This is very deep. This is part and parcel of settler colonial project and with colonists who are never, ever comfortable because they know what they are doing is wrong, but they do not care.

And they are trying to cover it up again and again. And also we see this today with the covering, silencing down social media accounts, shutting down things, producing propaganda lies saying that Palestinian militants cut off the heads of children and raped women

and even U.S. President Biden repeated that. So a lot of these things are similar to the past but also today we have a very, again, a very, very strong resistance which is also similar to the 790-70 Jordan Black September and

the 1982 Lebanon and so on, crushing any the Aksa Antifada, crushing any possibilities of people yearning to be free by the colonizers because if the people are allowed to continue their resistance they're going to win and the colonizers will use and now i'm sure i will stop at that because i'm sure my colleague arreal has tons more to add i have one quick interjection

before a professor uh just when rabab said that she doesn't like the term ethnic cleansing because it would imply that there's something unclean there you know the zionists don't they don't use that term because they like to dehumanize the Palestinians even more than that they use terms like mowing the grass or mowing the lawn in order to get rid of people that are present with on that land, which is even more dehumanizing than, you know, ethnic cleansing, which, you know, perhaps we don't like the term because of the implication of it, but it's a widely used term. Mowing the lawn, I mean, that's far more dehumanizing. And that is the term that the Zionist regime actually uses when they're talking about their efforts to displace and, you know, get rid of the

Palestinian population from these lands. Anyway, sorry for that. interjection for as a result. No, and they also said that they wanted to

turn Gaza into a parking lot. Some real estate israeli real estate company started talking about

building and then when they were asked where and they said once Gaza has cleaned up, we will

do it. By the way, ethnic cleansing is not, it's not, it's not the designers who are doing. Ethnic cleanse

is a term that Ilan Pa is a Israeli historian used in his book being inspired by what happened in Bosnia

and Sagovia because that's what the serfs were talking about ethnic cleansing. So I just have a, yes. I mean, the term. No, I have an allergy to it too. And I, I, I, I, precisely because of its use in Yugoslavia, I mean, what we're talking about is a form of genocide. So it sanitizes that to some degree, you know. I mean, so I, yeah, ethnic cleansing was, it was developed during that, that period and it was a form of genocide. So we just, and the, the, the UN definition of genocide fits what's going on right now in Gaza and a sort of slow genocide that's been going on since 47, since the war. But the thing I would like to add to what Rabab's

very encapsulated but complete history is the fact that Israel's mission, as all settler colonial projects, has been to break the will of the Palestinians. And it's done this in a variety of ways that are collective punishment, collective torture, suffocation of an entire generation in Gaza who were just walled in in a cage. And I think, you know, when I started the field, when I started studying, very few Israelis, Israelis wouldn't talk about Palestinians. They weren't called Palestinians. They wouldn't give them the right to call themselves Palestinians. You remember the earliest books, you know, Yohasua Porras book, you know, you were not allowed to use the word Palestinian. They were just generic Arabs who could be shuffled on a chessboard or a

checkerboard and moved this way and that way. So, you know, yes, the new historians. Of course, Palestinians knew they were Palestinians. They knew what was happening. And long before Benny Morris, you know, found these leftist archives, which confirmed everything that Palestinian oral history and written history had been saying all those years. But the occupation in the 60s and 70s, was to wipe out the will of the Palestinians to censor, you know, was to have a collective way of controlling Palestinian discourse, suffocating the universities, prohibiting books. Remember, Bob?

Whole lists of books were prohibited that Palestinians couldn't read in the West Bank and Gaza. And, you know, up to this point, I mean, the whole notion of peace is basically based on the premise that Palestinians renounce national aspirations and renounce any semblance of a state, you know? I mean, the best the Israelis could offer, even with Oslo, was an authority. It was not a state. There was never any belief

that there would ever be a two-state solution. So I think that's one myth that really has to be put aside. I mean, of course, Edward Said and many people said the Oslo Accords were fatally flawed, and they, you know, that was realized time and time again. But from the very beginning, there was no, absolutely no acceptance of a Palestinian state. And I don't think that can be underscored enough because the two state people are still talking two states, two states, two states, but they're never going to accept a state. And the United States won't accept a state.

A state means you have an army. A state means you have your own economy. You have your own international relations. When are they going to accept that for Palestinians? never you know at least the Israelis will never accept it and I believe the United States as their primary backer and Europe will not accept that but the other thing I want to say too is that I think the meaning of Israel for the United States and for even and for the world has changed over the past years and and so I think we have to see what's going on now and the impunity

of Israel within a new context in which, as Anthony Lowenstein's book has pointed out, the Palestinians have become the test population for a new world of gated communities, where resources are hoarded by the very few. So it's settler colonialism the next phase, right? The resources are hoarded by the very few. the rest of the world is cut off the wealthy and the prosperous and the middle classes

who are ethnically and racially defined can assume that they will be protected by high tech and secured in these enclaves and they can place the rest of the world behind bars across an ocean whether the EU pays Turkey and Tunisia to prevent

refugees and migrants from coming in and they will just surround themselves with this high-tech barricade against the rest of the world. So Israel has become, I think, a global model of what's happening. And one can take that Lowenstein book, you know, about the Palestine laboratory and say, this is operating on a world stage. And that's why the Indians, for example, under Modi, you know, look toward what the Israelis are doing and back them. the Chinese might be maneuvering, but they're doing the same thing, Uyghurs with the Uyghurs in the western part of China. And we can go on and on and on.

But I think, you know, Europe is also, you know, being fortified against the other. And so the failure of Israeli intelligence to protect, not to protect Israelis by their high-tech economy has something that is something that has resonated across that part of the world. And of course, the rest of the world knows what's going on. And I think finds that identity with the Palestinian struggle and the Palestinian suffering ever more keenly because of that. Yeah, there's a million directions we can go in this conversation. I just wanted to kind of linger on one thing that Ariel said about the two-state solution

because this is something that is constantly advanced as like, you know, the liberal ideal of what the solution long term could be here. And as, as you mentioned, Israel and the United States have no appetite for it whatsoever. And then from a broader perspective, we could argue that the two-state solution still maintains or takes for granted the British partition. It still maintains settler colonialism. And I tell people this all the time. Imagine it, and still, I want to preface this by saying that if the Palestinians got their own state, even in a two-state solution, it would be an improvement on the current conditions because at least they would have political power. But we know what would happen. Israel would immediately start interfering with their elections, would start funding media outlets

and political factions that are to their interest. They would use their economic and military strength to cower, box in, this new Palestinian state smother it, and would still be subject to annihilation because Israel is a nuclear power with the U.S. backing. So you still have so many problems on the table, but as Ariel said, even the two-state solution is really dead in the water and has been for quite some time. what does that leave us? What does that leave the Palestinian liberation movement, you know, except to fight all out, except to triple down on their attempt to decolonize and to resist by any means their annihilation? Where do you see this going if the U.S. and Israel will never, ever allow a two-state solution? What happens next going forward? I know that's a big question and you can take it in any direction you want, but I'm just really curious as to your thought. It's about that. there was a big problem from a conceptual viewpoint around the whole question of two states. Because two states implies that Palestinians and the word accepts that Zionism has a legitimacy to establish an exclusive Jewish state. That's in itself is a problematic notion and it's actually

it is not the response to anti-Semitism. This is not how there are. So there are many, many ways that there have been many discussions before after Zionism came about and until today that how do we address the question of anti-Semitism? There is one side at least one side that I would say consider myself part of it is

to say never again for anybody not only never again the Holocaust only for the Jews but never again for anybody for the Romans, for indigenous people for Africans, for all the people who have been massacred Armenians and so on and so forth. And there is the solution that the Zionists say that this is the only way that would do it, which also addressed the problem of anti-Semitism in Europe because the Europeans

wanted to get rid of the Jews because they were antisemitics, but actually the interests came together. And it also here also reinforces the point about the question of the economic capitalist interests that are come together hand in hand with imperialism and colonialism, because it was also an agreement around how do they blunder, the colonists blunder the resources of people. So in terms of even Herzl, the founder of Zionism, so-called founder of Zion, who organized the first Zionist conference, his communications with Rhodes in Britain, who ended up setting up Rhodesia, which now is Zimbabwe after his name, all the discussions were about how do we

get rid of, how do we blunder more, how do we get rid of all these people who are rising up, you know, the workers and the trouble makers. How do we get rid of it? This is works really, I mean, this is, this, all of it had to do with management of rising movements for freedom. So this is, I mean, Palestine, so it's really important to actually connect the history of Palestine with that and not to think of Palestine as an exceptional issue. So that's on one hand with the two states.

The second thing is actually doesn't really work for the Palestinians because even a state, even assuming there was a state in the West Bank and Gaza, there is so many logistical issues. I don't want to get into it, both because we don't have the time, but also because I think it's really futile when people start quibbling over details. Where is the corridor going to be? How are people going to move from one place to other? Who has which ID and so on and so forth?

Because at the end of the day, Palestinians do not only live in the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians live inside the 48 areas, which are to Ariel's earlier point, is that Israel never, ever refers to Palestinians in the 48 areas of Palestinians, refers to them as the Arabs of Israel or Israeli Arabs in order to distinguish, to separate them from the Palestinians in other parts of the world, and also in order to consider them as a minority within Israel, that Israel can then give them, like the other settler colonies, U.S., Canada, whatever, we'll figure out, what do we do with quote-unquote minority rights,

which also doesn't even work in the U.S. and Canada because indigenous people, first nations, are rising up. But that's another discussion for comparison. But so, and then there are Palestinians, more Palestinians outside historic Palestine than those who live inside Palestine. When the refugee camps throughout, there are 14, at least 14 million Palestinians today. Only small number of them about maybe five or six who live under Israeli control between the West Bank, Gaza and, the 48 Israel, that's one thing. The other thing is that even when they went, the Oslo Accord, which was also used, you spoke about being the Palestinian state,

even if it became a Palestinian state, it will act as a client. But to Oslo, the Palestinian Authority, is a subcontractor, a subcontractor for legitimizing the occupation, making it, normalizing it, and basically taking care of all the tasks. that Israel was encumbered by when Israel was claiming that it was military occupied because now they say that they have civil administration to administer the territories. They don't even say occupied territories to administer the territories.

And the civil administration is the one that if you actually want to have a Palestinian passport, you cannot have it unless Israel legitimizes the idea. Israeli ID that you've had under occupation, says it's okay, and then the Palestinian Authority can issue a passport. You cannot go from one place to the other without that. Even the Palestinian president, Abu Mazen, who was in Jordan trying to meet with Israel, the U.S. and the King Hussein, he was supposed to come back to Ramallah, and was supposed to come back on a helicopter by the Jordanian king. The Israelis would not allow him. The Israelis did not even allow somebody who's actually going to meet with them when all the Palestinians were boycotting everything

Israeli and saying we're not going to normalize. There is no any size of sovereignty and it is not possible to have any sign of sovereignty even before. I mean, those of us who were against Oslo from the beginning and historically were again the two states. Historically, even though at one point Palestinian movement did think that we will set up a state in any land that gets liberated by any means necessary, and that was, according to the Palestine National Council meeting in the 10th, then when they had the 10-point plan and what led in the 1970 to the split of the PLO into those who were working with the US and the Petrodollars, the Gulf states, and those who were formed something called the rejectionist front. And they didn't come

together until 1970 after Egypt, the Egyptian president, who also was very much involved in neoliberal

capitalism and open-door policy and privatization of all state affairs that Nasser before has nationalized and made it available

to the Egyptian people didn't completely succeed. I mean, he died before and there is a lot of issues we can talk about the structure

of the Egyptian state. But when Sadat went to Jerusalem and made peace with Israel. the Palestinians came together, unified, and that's when the split of the PLO ended. But there was always this trend about a state on any land that gets liberated.

And I actually, conceptually, I have a problem even with that. Because if you think about any land, what does that mean? I mean, sovereignty is one thing. Actually, the Zabatistas tried it in Mexico. And they were crushed left and right. Everybody, I mean, Cuba is being strangled by the United States. okay, this is like killing people and so on. Is it possible to actually have this if you don't have extended pieces of land?

Because the only reason that the European Union now that Britain is out and so on is holding together is because they are feeding into each other economic interest, exploitation of people, crushing movements and having fortress Europe preventing the immigrants from coming in. So any possibilities, I mean, Oslo is the worst model with the autonomy. Palestinians can collect the garbage. Palestinians can't even turn on the electricity on and off because it's all controlled by the Israeli electric company you cannot come and go out of the land

they minimize some of the 64 pieces that they divided after the Uxas Intifada in 2001, 2002 but they're not gone I'm saying this I was born and grew up in the West Bank under Jordanian rule and Israeli occupation and I grew up there and many of us we go back and forth and remember Adnan we were on one delegation that we had to wait for like 10 hours

and it was an institute for graduate students before we were allowed in so there is control of everything that's going on so I don't really think that is even possible to do this but this is a dream the reason I think that the US and Israel continue talking about and they have no intention of making it possible at all and the Palestinians know that including the Palestinian authority that is part and parcel of this of this legitimizing the structure they talk about it is because this is the only way for them to think about salvaging the soul of the Zionist project,

i.e. creating an exclusivist Jewish state in Palestine, which is something that there is an increasing number of Jews who are rejecting it left and right and saying we're not going to be part of it. Of course, there is increasing number also of fascistic, more fascistic tendencies that we're seeing in Israel, but also more and more people. in Israel, around the world, Jews and other non-Jews, people who are seeing it for what it is, this is settler colonialism, this is upper side, this is colonialism, this is genocide, this is racial violence, this is genocide, trying to eliminate the whole people, and they are opposing it. Yeah, I just want to follow up on the thread about legitimizing the Israeli project and how, you know, as a Jewish person, I was so, you know, It's a horrible situation, but, you know, amazing to see the amount of Jews that turned out yesterday at the Capitol to protest.

And it means, as Rabab saying, this growing current among Jews, in fact, probably larger share of Jews who are either apathetic to the state or opposed to it and embraced BDS as a nonviolent means that has been put forward for years now, that is looked at as if it's some kind of quote-unquote terrorism to suggest that you do a boycott, you know, instead of raising arms or anything else, that's one thing. But the other thing is, I mean, that the Jews in the United States who serve, especially wealthy Jews, the organized groups, provide cover for a much larger group of people who now support the Israeli project, very ideologically motivated, very tied with the Republican Party, but especially with white Christian evangelicals. So they, every percentage point of Jews who abandoned this exclusionary nationalist project

is replaced twofold by white Christian nationalists who are locked into the Republican Party and form a very clear base that I believe, that's one of the groups that Biden is courting. He's trying, you know, he's a centrist, and he's going there and he's reading the electorate. He sees that shift.

He also wants to reestablish, you know, this 1980s, 1990s, perhaps, at least pre-2003 American hegemony in the region, which no longer exists, chatter, gone. But, you know, he's looking at the polls, too. And he's not necessarily

looking at the Jewish groups who are there in the Democratic Party and we're going to be locked in anyway. He's looking at white evangelicals, Christian evangelicals. He's hoping he can wean away from the MAGA side, from the Trump side, and bring over, at least in part, to his, you know, to the electorate that's going to support him. Brief interjection, yeah, it's not only Biden. There's a lot of Democrats, like Fetterman, for example, John Fetterman, is going out all of the time and talking about how Israel needs unconditional support. But the biggest example that I have is Richie Torres, Democrat from New York State, who he is on Twitter all of the time just tweeting about Israel and how anybody who talks

about Palestinian civilians is parroting Hamas talking points. This is like his big thing right now. He hasn't tweeted about his own. Yeah, Booker, exactly. But at least Booker has talked about other issues. Richie Torres hasn't mentioned his own congressional district in two weeks at this point. You know, he's only talking about how we need to uncritically support Israel. You'd think that he would be Democratic representative from the so-called state of Israel.

But no, apparently he's from New York. Anyway, go ahead, Adnan. But also, I mean, Adnan, just a minute, because also Hakeem Jeffries, another terrific example. And I think this is very interesting. that we're now we're seeing here in the U.S., which we haven't seen before, because before there was much more enforced Jim Crow and segregation in the U.S. Now that supposedly segregation has ended, which we know it hasn't,

but then there was also the first black president in the U.S., which led to the rise of white, naked expressions of white supremacy, which are very much to reinforce Aria's point, very much connected with the Zionism. is because Richard Spencer, who was one of the organizers of the United the right rally in Charlottesville, said, I'm a white Zionist, but onto Israeli TV. And Ja'Ir Netanyahu, Netanyahu's son said that actually the lefts and Antifa represented more threat to Israel than the people in Charlottesville who were calling for replacement theory. Jews were not replaced. I mean, it's ridiculous.

But I think it's really important to think about why is this happening. Why do we have the Hakeem Jeffries? Why do we have the Richie Torres? Why do we have all of these folks and so on? And this is also, we notice it by our own universities, the diversity, equity and inclusion. This is the new phenomena that replace affirmative action. That's actually not affirmative, not materialist,

but sort of like bringing a few faces, kind of like multicultural, liberal multicultural, bringing people together to say, oh, see, we have all these faces and so on. But this is also a very historical tactic that has been used historically by colonial powers whether you're looking at Cachobotlesi in South Africa who just died or you're looking like read the history of Algeria

and what Phelon talks about and the whole question of black black face white masks I forget but anyway but also the ways in which the colonists always need to recruit members of colonized groups and marginalized groups in order to legitimize, and this is also why Israel needs the Palestinian authority. This is why the Democratic Party is also full of these folks and so on. So they come up and they speak. And Richard Torres, by the way, doesn't even address pink washing in Israel,

which Israel uses the queer question, even though all the evidence is there that this is not true, in order for to pinkwash Israel and say it's a gay heaven and so on. But it's for liberal, but I think this also takes us to the whole question of the problem with liberals, the problem with the Democratic Party, and the problem with when people, when kind of like, people think that it is the Democrats are actually much more advanced than the Republicans and so on, in some cases, but in some things, they are, they are very unified. It was Obama who gave the largest amount of aid to Israel and did a lot of legislation to police, to, to, the whole question of encountering violent extremism that

whole project, all of the stuff, the surveillance and so on. And the thing is is that the problem with the Republicans and Democrats, which is another discussion we can have with the United States, for example, but everywhere else is that all these liberal groups and all these liberal liberal structures, at the base of them, they are Islamophobic, they are orientalists, they are racist, they are colonists. So this is what their mindset is at. And so they treat the Palestinians the same way they look at any other people. who are fighting for their liberation as an obstacle to be removed.

And this is why immediately, immediately, immediately, immediately they jump to the support of Israel. Immediately. I mean, it's almost as if it's instinctive. It's not instinctive, like quote unquote, naturally, but it's instinctive because that's where interests there, what their interests are. So they always do that.

I'm just shocked by the extent of how much they are doing it. By Biden himself, who claims to be so much for, like, verifying everything. he is from Netanyahu that Palestinians are chopping up the head of the children and actually announced it the President of the United States with no shame. But again, they have no shame in lying and covering up and so on. And I know, Adnan, you wanted to ask another question. I'm sorry.

Oh, no, just to pick up, I'm actually picking up on the thread you were just talking about, about the reason why they are so quick to, in such unanimity, the political and financial and corporate class. you know, basically the liberals that you're talking about across the West rallied so quickly and so vociferously, I think part of it has to do with exactly the point that Ariel was making her second major point about Israel as a global model. And so that's also partly the answer to Brett's question of like, where does it go? Is like, well, you know, they want it to go into globalizing, you know, this model as the way to protect the particular interest and status

of certain enclaves of great privilege and wealth against, you know, the masses of mostly the global south, be able to exploit their resources, but, you know, so that seems to me the kind of issue. And it also seems that that is partly one of the things that was new about, you know, if I recall 2014, there were, you know, the assault on Gaza in 2014, there were, you know, even initially some qualms in that class about, you know, Israel going too far and, you know, there being too many, you know, casual, civilian casualties. And so they would say little things like, oh, we hope that, you know, there will be some restraint or let's restore calm, you know, all of the things that the U.S. State Department in that email that was apparently circulated to all kinds

of officials in the State Department, but clearly was the marching orders for all the government officials, you know, on both sides of Congress, is not to use certain phrases like restraint, you know, and to the bloodshed or restoring calm. They took out those kinds of even very weak kind of interest in limiting and that was all gone and partly it was because they were responding to the way in which this Hamas operation you know al-Axa flood just absolutely violated the model that they're you know kind of working with and this is something that sent that class into a panic globally it seems it seems to me and I cannot remember a time however where there's been such a gulf between that elite kind of portrayal and representation

and the interests that they're tied to and the broader popular kind of sentiment, which is why there's so much work in the media to frame the narrative a certain way and why there is so much criminalizing of dissent, of protest, and attempts to suppress it in the West, which we hadn't seen before. So I think those are maybe also some new dimensions of it. And it also just reminds me in terms of this being a kind of global model is that there been some recent talk where, you know, Ukraine was, you know, the model was it was supposed

to be a new Israel, right? Like a big Israel. Zelensky himself said that, by the way. Exactly. That's right. Exactly. Zolensky himself said that. And so, you know, one other direction that would be.

be great to have your thoughts as well, in addition to reacting to any of the threads I tried to bring together in these responses to you all, is also how the geopolitical situation for the U.S. and for this project of, you know, a big Israel, a little Israel, and in fact, in some ways, the whole global elite being in Israel, I'm protecting their interests through militarized surveillance and so on, you know, how's that going? I mean, so maybe it's picking up again with, how is this situation going to affect that? Now that, you know, those October 7th attacks really were a stunning blow to the idea that you could just use high-tech surveillance, militarized society, and pen a population into a completely subordinated position. as a kind of surplus population

that should be walled off and walled away. That was transgressed deeply. So now what? What's happening with this global model? Well, yeah, if you don't mind, I think they're in a bind with Netanyahu because he screwed up, basically, you know? And, you know, and, you know,

that's a whole other discussion about, you know, the manipulation of trying to keep the... Palestinians divided, you know, selectively arming some, disarming others. Again, you know, what Rababa was saying about using Palestinians to self-administer, you know, under the ages of the Israelis and then thinking they can turn their back and gobble up more land in the West Bank, expand settlements there after having, with Ariel Sharon, written off Gaza as a possible settlement point. And, of course, all these plans now are in flux, you know, because, you know, they're already talking about moving annexing further into Gaza, if not expelling Palestinians into Sinai. Of course, the Egyptians are not going to stand for that. But, you know, we've already seen there. Now refugee camps set up, you know, ten cities are being set up in the south where they're still bombing, you know, in Kloni unison, all these other places.

But I think this speaks to this changing American policy as its own power globally is diminishing. And what John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walsh used to say, you know, why the Israeli lobby, it's not rational, you know, it's not U.S. interests. But I think what Anna is pointing out is there is this last gas effort, you know, on the point of the European Union. Britain, even though it's now alienated from the EU, it's still part of this common project to wall off not just populations that are basically colonized, but let's say as another part of the world,

you know, to keep Russia in check, to keep China in check, and to create this new type of coalition that has its two pivots around American militarism and one foundation in Ukraine, where, of course, the U.S. had just been pushing NATO further and further east, and the other one in the Middle East. And the package, as most of you know, that Biden's proposing is $100 billion. So he's using the Israeli situation to reinforce this position with Ukraine.

I mean, because don't forget the Republicans were waning on that topic. it didn't have any sort of, you know, ideological or theological cachet for the evangelicals. Now we can use the evangelicals to push Republicans to fund Ukraine. So there's a whole new set of calculations going on and opportunities that are reaping without, of course, thinking what is going to happen tomorrow, what is happening today, how many thousands Palestinians are going to be killed and slaughtered. We don't know how many are lying unaided under the rubble in order to achieve this. And then what's going to happen the day after?

After you flood in Gaza, after you turn 2.3 million people into refugees yet again without even the rudiments, water, fuel, you know, supplies and everything, you know, holding, I mean, I'm sorry, I'm just going crazy with holding mere 20 trucks at the Rafa game. 20 trucks, which are just a drop in the bucket of what's needed for this population. It is so obscene. And as we are all noting, you can't talk about it. And in fact, it's now being used. And I think this whole thing was carefully built up by the Israelis and their allies with the debate around anti-Semitism as a way to silence everything. And now the universities have been silenced.

the wealthiest universities. Whole countries, France has banned demonstrations, and of course Britain tried to, you know, with their right-wing government. But just to go back, I think this is becoming the pivot of a new sort of alliance that's

forming around us. And I'll leave it there. I just want to add a couple of points here. One which also speaks about the Israeli model that's being sent everywhere. It used to be there before, but it wasn't as big as it is now. For example, I mean, in 1967, the U.S. brought Moshidayan to Vietnam

to advise in how to pacify the population and so on. In 1982, the U.S. sent as Ariel Sharon to go to Guatemala to figure out how to palestinize the native population. And we see the whole question of Modi, the Hindutva party in India, and trying to export that model to Kashmir. I mean, we see a lot of the stuff. Actually, last week at the meeting of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, one of my colleagues, Humadar, gave a whole paper about the Israeli model in the Indian government military occupation,

basically repressing Kashmir. And all of the stuff, it's happening also in the U.S. in terms of what they call Cubs City, the project that they're putting in Atlanta where they, I mean, they've always been training with each other, exchanging information with each other, intelligence. We know that because if you go one place and another, people are being chased, are being interrogated and so on. The files are being exchanged. But now it's even much more a whole city in Georgia that's going to be Cubs City. And the young people, who are environmental activists, justice activists, support Palestine, support workers' rights, all sorts of, they're about justice. They protested that they are actually being tried in the U.S. through a RICO case. I mean, this is really serious. This is serious, and they're accusing them of, quote, unquote, domestic terrorism. So this is the extent of punishment, the extent of telling people, don't you dare, the rise, the escalation. of the cost

of being organized and so on it is just, we're not going to let it go. So that's one aspect of it. You mentioned the wealthy university. I mean, Harvard is a very big example of winners, writing specifically demanding, not only demanding that university, actually demanding the names

of the students organized that signed that statement, which is Canary Mission by our own. other means because Canary Mission has been discredited. So now we have a new Canary Mission. Also, the organization, I think sometimes we need a closer because they're not only advocating for Israel.

They are definitely going crazy because it's really important for them to cover up for Israeli crimes. I mean, the whole Hasbara machine is to see how they can spin things around in order for them to cover up for Israel. A lot of the discussion here in the U.S. has been framed around what is the national security of the United States. Campus Watch,

Middle East Forum, Daniel Pives, the folks who tried to establish an alternative Middle East Studies Association back in 2001, the Israeli claims that this is our 9-11, 2001 moment, and so on. All of these things, some of them are for agitational

propaganda purposes. But some of... The rise of the... We know from Plegasa, from the... O'HNES, all of them, that they are from the advanced... There is definitely coordination.

But the other thing that I... Somebody, and Adnan, you mentioned, is the ability... I mean, one of the things that I was astounded by, the fact that... And it wasn't by just Hamas, just to be clear that there is a community of all the factions that are

working together. Hamas is the biggest there is Islamic jihad, but there is all the groups. And none of the Palestinian groups outside of the Palestinian authority, including many, many people, very well-known prominent people in

Fethe, the ruling party, have condemned their existence and have actually stood up and said, this is the way, this is the weapons of the weak. as James Scott speaks about, this is the weapons of the week. This is, I mean, it's true that on October 7th, it was Palestinian initiative. But even the Palestinian initiative, if we think about historical perspective,

the colonized do not have the control over the timing, of race, over the geography, over the weapons, over everything that has happened. And so this is the first time they kind of like figure out there is an open, here we can go from really founded by the intent of the of the security among the resistance because every Israel has assassinating people left and a Arables engineer in hero and the opinion of but anyway so that there is the the extent of actually there are Israel's power. I mean, we talk about ways that these repressive took together,

but all its power, the Ahron bomb did it work, the missile, the U.S. didn't work, the intelligence gathering didn't work. Everything has not worked to crush. The only thing that they are doing is punishing the people for refusing to part ways with the resistance, because it was also in 2014 as well. 2012, in 2008, 2000, it's always the, one of the classic and colonial studies divide and rule. Let's figure out how we divide the movement, the resistance movement from the people and say, this is ordinary people. They are ordinary people caught up in it and so on, and then people again and again affirm that they're actually with movement because everybody wants to be free, everybody wants to be liberated, everybody wants to live in dignity.

I mean, this is something, it sounds like a stupid thing to say, but you unfortunately have to be reminded of that. They failed in 2012. They failed in 2014. They failed in 2021. And they now failed now. None of the speakers of the Palestinian, the Palestinian, India, intellectual, nobody refuses to come from the resistance. And there is a strong state's statements. And what's going on is that the Palestinian Authority is the one that's repressing.

Ingeny, there is a young girl who was killed. A Palestinian Authority tried to crush protest against it. In Ramallah, there was a huge, huge rally yesterday, and they were supporting Qassam, which is, it's heard of in Ramallah, because Ramallah is the seat of the Palestinian Authority. There is protests everywhere in Jordan, and then the whole thing about, even the whole thing that the Arabs have forgotten. And from Indonesia to Yemen, to Damas, to Morocco, to Egypt, to, of course, Lebanon, to, of course, Lebanon, to, of course, Lebanon, Jordan, everywhere, everywhere, Bahrain. There are huge protests that are going on in support.

It looks like, even with all their might and power, they are unable to accomplish their calls to crush the Palestinians. So what they are doing, they're taking a holistic, brutal, artistic power against people who are just right. And honestly, I mean, it's not been a cliche. So I want to hop in now and quickly mention one thing before I ask my question, which is, as we mentioned that even at these kind of major universities, we're seeing repression, that's Canary Mission by another name, as. you said, Professor Abdul Hadi. Another example, in addition to the example of Harvard that you gave,

is that at NYU and New York University Law School, they have a student bar association, and they put out a newsletter shortly after the current situation kind of started up. And this newsletter advocated for, and I'm quoting here, unwavering in absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression towards liberation and self-determination. What happened as a result of this newsletter going out with that specific phrase? The president of the NYU Law School Student Bar Association had their job offer

that they were being made by a law firm revoked as a result of having this statement come out from a newsletter of a student organization that they were the president of. I mean, this is the kind of repression that we're talking about, even at major universities, and we're talking about somebody who's the president of a student organization at a law school within a major university, somebody that's eminently going to be qualified to be employed. And this is the kind of oppression that they get for just signaling their solidarity and resistance against oppression by the Zionist regime. So I think that that's just another example of that phenomenon that you're talking about. All right. So moving forward with this

discussion. I have a couple questions here, and I could go in many different directions here. I wanted to ask Rabab in particular about West Bank settlers, but Ariel, I would love to hear your opinion on that, just to highlight what's happening, because I think a lot of people in America who are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, they hear the phrase occupied at West Bank, they hear the phrase settler, and they kind of get a picture of how things are. But I don't think they know the details of just how fascistic these settlers are, how, how, how, murderous, how violent they are, how they harass and intimidate Palestinians in the area. So I was wondering if you could touch on that. And I also wanted to ask a second question about

whether or not the tide is turning with regards to public opinion, particularly in the West, and how that might cash out politically because I do think with every, you know, global news event in this conflict, these flare-ups, I remember back in 2021, there seemed to be real movement on people's understanding, especially younger people. people in the West of the Palestinian cause. And I think in this latest round, we're seeing even more of that. And it's really making the Israeli and the U.S. media outlets and propagandists I think insecure. I think Israel has this sense that they're sort of losing this iron grip on the narrative in the West. And that could become a real problem as younger people in particular

rights to political power in the West. So I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that in particular is the tide turning with regards to public opinion? And if you could also say something about, again, the settlers and the occupied West Bank in exactly what role they serve? Well, first of all, you know, the media, you know, has been deflected from looking at the actual conditions on the ground through this whole distraction, so-called Abraham Accords. And again, as in 78 and subsequently in thinking about a quote-unquote solution to the Palestinian question that I completely avoids it and doesn't discuss it and just, you know, makes and allows, you know, rich Israelis to get access to Gulf resources and capital

or rich American Jews in some cases from getting that. And so, you know, so that, you know, that has been the way that this whole, you know, media machine has been deflected. Meanwhile, what's going on not only in Gaza, where the conditions are far worse, I think Rabab Haddi will agree with me, but in the West Bank where everybody's hemmed in to this honeycomb of settlements that are completely bypassed by roads that take Israelis directly to settlements. Most of the settlements or many of the settlements are populated by people on the ideological fringes, even of Israeli society. You know, they have, you know, religious inclinations, everything and the sense of all of biblical, what they think their rights go back 5,000 years, 4,000 years to the land. But the infrastructure of occupation is so extensive there, all water, all electricity, all fuel, just as in Gaza, but with different type, slightly different type of configuration.

and this steady annexation, either directly for settlements or indirectly for so-called security, and placing security apparatus, leveling, you know, houses and other things. So you've got now half a million Israelis who are, in many cases, the tail wagging the dog of the rest of the Israeli state, they're armed. And just recently after October 7th, of course, I think Ben Gavidah, one of the ministers, just went in there, distributed 10,000 rifles and is sort of encouraging them to commit pogroms against their Palestinian neighbors. They routinely vandalized property. They routinely cut down the source of livelihood for Palestinians, their trees, their farmland, they cut them off in the farmland. And we're not even talking about the wall, the wall which snakes in and out of Palestinian property,

which won't allow Palestinians to communicate between one village and one town to another. The checkpoints which force people, I think, Adan and Rabab were talking about being held up at one for 10 hours, won't let people go to school, won't let people go to university, and the list of impositions that make life on the West Bank practically intolerable. And the very fact that you survive in those kind of situations, as Robops said, is an act of resistance, just the mere survival under these conditions.

And in this time, of course, actually the real, you know, 2023 up to this point even more people had been killed on the West Bank than in 2022 by the Israeli army and settlers and then of course you know the impunity and arrogance of the Israeli government

of sending people to storm into the Altaaksa Mosque and walk through just as Ariel Sharon had done which of course triggered the second Intifada you know so there's just this sense of impudence

that Palestinians are watching and this, you know, imposition of powerlessness to change what's going on. But I'll leave it there because, you know, Rabab has lived under these conditions. She goes back all the time. I haven't been there. But I'm an outside observer and just can sympathize. I can empathize. So, Rabab. Yeah.

So I will, I'm going to, I've just a couple of things. points about the bypass laws. And actually this is something that had none and I experience because we have the U.S. passports and we were with students that we were

going to go from Ramallah to Hebron. And we could have made it in about 15 minutes or so if we had been able to go through Jerusalem. But the students with us who are half Palestinian, half students were Palestinian and half were

from the US were not and Canada by the way and we're not where the Palestinians were not allowed to go because they had Palestinian ideas so we had to take a very roundabout they call it Wadi Naur which is the valley

of fire because though the the highways are 45 degrees it takes forever to get to one place to the other because they were not allowed to go to go through and one of our colleagues, who was a professor from Al-Quds University, who was collaborating with us, went to the Israeli civil administration to get permits for her and for the Palestinian students

to be able to cross. And by the way, this was the funding project by the U.S. government. So this came from the U.S. government. They did not allow us. They did not allow her. And she was born and raised in Jerusalem. So what we all decided to do, not to exercise our passport privilege, but to actually go in the same roundabout road. But it delayed everything we were trying to do. The other thing that the settlers are doing now, I mean, they've been doing it for a very long time, but now they're doing, as you're saying,

Ariel, with impunity, stealing the olive harvest, burning the olive trees, chasing farmers and shepherds from their lands and so on. It is an all-out war, and of course they are enabled and emboldened by the Israeli government,

half of which the ministers come actually from settlements anyway. So this is something that is going on more and more and more. But I wanted to maybe skier a little bit and talk about how the tide is turning and what we

and I don't know if you had discussed it while I was unable to. Yes? No? No. So I definitely think that the tide is turning all over the world. It's not turning on a official level in terms of governments and so on, at least

in terms of Western governments. Because Western governments are scrambling to be able to give more support to Israel to emboldened Israel, to crush the Palestinians. Because also they're being mindful of all other movements that they are dealing with that are challenging. All this unrest, unrest, greed, exploitation, militarization, securitized world, all the things that have happened that COVID crisis has exposed. So they're doing it, but they're now actually scrably to figure out,

How are they going to spin a position when there is a country that's actually pounding, one of the largest powers in the world, that's actually pounding every single day. People, every single day, a number of children killed rising, number of people rising, the hospitals being bombed and so on, how are they going to do it? But in terms of the world, not only on the Arab streets, we'll see that. And also, even the Arab governments had to cancel meetings that they had to have. had set up with Israel. Abelazen even himself said, I'm not going to be meeting.

There is insistence to shut down Israeli embassies and they kick them out. I know that these similar effects are happening, for example, in Colombia, in South Africa, in other countries. But I think if we want to talk about North America, which I think is really, really important, because this is where Israel believes that it has the biggest support. This is the Zionism feels that. The U.S. Arena is theirs. And those of us who are activists, scholars, academics, students, unions, wherever we are,

who are challenging this. We are encroaching our territory. And they are very troubled by it. And this is why they're also getting nasia and nascent and punishing. And part of the problem is that they have a serious problem with the BDS, boycott divestment and sanctions, which is, as you said, Ariel, is a nonviolent movement. vehicle to hold Israel accountable to international law. And many of us have critiques of what international law is.

When did it come about? How far does it go or it doesn't go and so on? But the basic international law, even the basic tenets of international law, including the First Geneva Convention, which was adopted being mindful of the deportation of Greek and French Jews to Nazi Germany, Israel is not abiding by it. It's not abiding by any basic laws and so on. So Israel, BDS is calling for Israel to be held accountable, for sanctions to be applied,

for actions just doing that violate international law like any other state, by the withdrawing of investment in companies that perpetuate and uphold the continued colonization, apartheid and racism of Israel. It is the boycott in terms of boycotting institutions, that subsidize the Israeli state. For example, as academics, we boycott Israeli academic institutions. Israeli academic institutions in 2014 gave a scholarship to every single soldier, Israeli soldier, who went to participate in the war on Gaza.

Israeli institutions are built up, Israeli universities, have punished Palestinian students in the universities for raising the Palestinian flag or for trying to commemorate the Nakba. So they are very much part and parcel of the Israeli state. We do not target individuals' scholars. We do not. It's not about individuals about holding Israel accountable. And this is a very serious problem for Israel, because more and more and more people are realizing that this is an apartheid,

not only through human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch, Bethelian, Amnesty International, United Nations, which is something that the Palestinians have said again and again and again, that there is a dual system for different kind of justice, different kind of benefits, different kind of state engagement and so on. Israeli ministers are calling for Palestinian students to be kicked out of the year. Israeli universities, they've actually protest the killing in Gaza. So this is something that is very much reminding people a lot of what's going on in South Africa, what has happened in South Africa, and the anti-aportite broad movement.

and this is something that really troubles Israel. The other thing that is really important in all public opinion polls, you will see that there is more and more people who are sympathizing with Palestine and less people who are sympathizing with Israel. Now, when we dig deeper and look at the age range, we find out that actually younger people are more in sympathy with Palestine than the older generations that are used to celebrating Israel and also tight in to the right wing supports Israel more than Palestine, white supremacist groups,

Republicans support more than Democrats in most cases. But also what I think is also very significant is the fact that there is increasing number of Jews that are also in public opinion polls saying that I don't want this to be done in my name. I mean, this has historically been in a real, you're one of the people who, started the Jews against Israeli massacre in Lebanon in 19th, age of two. Historically, there have been many, always there have been Jewish scholars. Starting even with Marx, who already theorized against the idea of Lerner and talked about how do you deal with the whole question.

They called it the Jewish question, but anti-Semitism. But today, younger people, and I think this is really significant. More and more and more younger Jewish kids are saying no. We don't want this to be done in our name. We are going to be in solidarity with the Palestinians. And actually, half of the membership of students for justice in Palestine in many campuses is Jewish. And I don't think this is accidental. It is not accidental because all these young kids, first of all, they don't want,

they don't want to be associated with fascism, with genocide, with apartheid. They don't. Secondly, these kids have grown up under a generation, which enabled the election of Obama to be first president of the United States. However, we think we have multiple criticisms of Obama. But for them, they weren't of the generation that could not contemplate that the White House could be occupied by a black person because they were the generation of Jim Crow, of segregation, of legalized.

I mean, we still see Jim Crow, we still see segregation, we see even new, gerrymandering, redistricting, and so on, inaction maneuvering in order to prevent, majority of people of color, the black people, indigenous, other folks to participate in voting and so on. But the young people today have not grown, and that that wasn't for them the normal. The quote-unquote new normal, if we can use this expression, is something very different. It's something in which you do not discriminate against people on any basis whatsoever, and you do not allow yourself and identify with repression.

And this is very dangerous for the Zionist establishment because the Zionist establishing claims to own Jewishness that you have to be, if you're Jewish, you have to be Zionist and if you're anti-Zionist, you're either self-hating Jew or not real Jew, fake Jew, or you are anti-Semitic if you are not Jewish. But this is failing, this whole equation is failing, and this is why they are pushing so much to have various universes adopt the IHRA, which is the definition of anti-Semitism that includes equation of anti-Zionism with

anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. But that's also failing. I mean, this is really they have a very serious problem. So the might of the Israeli state is also giving them more problems. What are they going to do about it? What Ariel gave the example of the Congress led by Jewish Voice for People, if not now, another Jewish group said, stormed Congress. They had

big signs saying C's now. They said, stop the genocide. And this is an initiative that was initiated by Jewish organizations that are saying again and again and again, not in my name. And I think this is so important because it also

shows the alliances, the comradeship, the unity of the struggle with all people who support justice in for Palestine. So they are The project is about justice. It's not about identifying with some xenophobic or chauvinistic national identities or ethnicities, but actually it's about justice. Today it is about justice in Fort Pannistern.

It's a other and it's part and personal of the indivisibility of justice. And that's a serious problem for the Zionist movement that is unable to hold on to what it thinks is its own reserve. And so young and more and more people, I think, will part with Zionism, more and more people were going to stand with Palestine and what Israel is doing every single time because all of this, people say, I don't want to have anything to do with it. And even people who are now deciding to choose on which side are you going to be. Are you going to be on the side of justice or are you going to be on the side of genocide? So I have a question here and I'll try to keep it brief and I hope that we can keep the answer.

It's a huge question, but I'm hoping that we can keep it brief because we are running a bit short on time, which is, as Professor Abdul Hadi mentioned, the tide is changing. The perception of Israel is changing, particularly with young people, but also with regards to, if we look at how perceptions of Israel regarding the current bombardment and assault on Gaza, we are seeing some changes in perception of governments that were kind of wishy-washy, or we're moving towards normalization. And the question that I have specifically, and again, it's a huge question. Honestly, we could have an entire episode on it, is the normalization process between Arab countries and Israel, why that is happening and then how the current situation is, as the Saudis have said, put that on ice. So we know that Egypt and Jordan were the first two Arab countries to kind of normalize relations and recognize Israel as a state.

And just a few years ago, 2020, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan also normalized relations with Israel. And we know that Saudi Arabia was in the process of normalizing relations at the time of October 7th. But as I said, their statements that have come out since then as a result of the bombardment on Gaza is that they were putting those efforts on ice. So my question, and again, if we can be slightly brief with it, but perhaps we can pick this topic. up again sometime in the future, is what is the purpose of these Arab states normalizing relations? What's the impetus for them to normalize relations with the settler colony state of Israel? And what does the current situation mean with regards to those relations with the states that are either have normalized relations or are in the process of normalizing relations?

You know, the thing is that these are not Democratic states. They want it to bypass the Palestinian issue. It's a burden. It's a very popular issue with their public. And as long as Israel can keep it quiet, they're willing to move on. And I think it speaks to the fact that Israel is both a model, is a model is a brand of state making and state maintaining. and power maintaining and is an integral part

of the new economy of IT and everything else. So, you know, to get access, I mean, Turkey buys their security stuff. Canada does. You know, the countries that ring their hands, especially a place like Turkey, there's a lot of economic interests

in what's going on. They all have their own side wars that are going on. So when the Israelis are bombing Gaza, what's happening, what's happening is the Turks are bombing the Kurds in the north of Syria. They use that opportunity. The Houthis in Yemen.

So there are all sorts of regional wars that are going on. And I think there's this new sort of broadsped consensus, you know, whether it's from Morocco and the Saharawaya to Yemen and the Saudis, that there's a new multilateral. competition going on in the region and with their own regional stakes. And the alliances are forming at the level of this other economy, which is not the bricks and mortar economy. It's the IT economy. It's the surveillance economy. And they want to share these tools of repression that Israel has to offer. And that is the new Israeli model. And that is the Israeli brand, which is now,

of course, to some degree in shambles by, you know, what's happening. And going back to what Rabab was saying about the disillusionment of young American Jews or young North American Jews, many of whom have been funded to go to Israel by organizations like birthright and come back and say, oh my God, it's an apartheid state.

You know, why would I want to be part of this? it's the reality that the war does not protect them. Peace is the only thing and justice that will protect both sides, Israelis and Palestinians. And if anything could be a more glaring example, it's what's happened since October 7th, that the state of Israel, that's a sort of defense of the state of Israel,

which is a ridiculous thing to begin with, because Waza and the West Bank are under Israeli occupation. They are not separate states. So you can't necessarily, you don't have a war with them. They don't have an army, per se. You know, they're not separate entities. It's a war with yourselves, in effect. Because there is, you know, so this notion of defense of Israel,

it's not a defense of Israelis, clearly, because they couldn't defend Israelis who died in such large numbers and it's a terrific situation on October 7th. So the Israeli defense has not mounted to a real defense at all. It's benefited a select group. So I think these things are tied in, and now these states are stepping back, whether, you know, how long that's going to be, I don't know, you know.

And it depends on what is the outcome of what's going on in Gaza. And that's something else we could talk about. Sorry. No, I just want to mention one quick thing since you mentioned Morocco. That's a very interesting example. That was an example of pure geopolitics. Morocco largely was willing to normalize relations with Israel because they wanted, in return, exactly. In return, they wanted Western nations to recognize their control over Western Sahara,

you know, their colony. And so that's a really interesting example of just pure geopolitical. that play. And yeah, one of the things that I was happy that we brought up. But yeah, Professor Abdul-Hadi, I know you want to add something here. Yeah, I just wanted to add a couple of things. By the way, this is the same thing for Sudan. Sudan were pressured, was bright by the US with the money. But I wanted to mention two things. One is that the Arab revolutions of 2011 shook the Arab regimes too. And the Arab regimes are very worried about their stability, what they call their stability and so on. So they're a

with Israel, enables them to also have access to doorway to the West and to the weapons of the West. Secondly, there was a third agreement between Israel and another Arab country that was abrogated, and that was the one with Lebanon. And it was abrogated because the people of Lebanon waged heroic resistance and picked out Israel of the south of Lebanon and liberated it. This means that this can happen. So it is not a done deal. When people say normalization, meaning making it normal right normalize oppression basically make it normal it doesn't stay normal when there is repression going on people are going to continue rising people are going to continue resisting and people are going to continue to challenge and and they're not going to stop so i'm going

to stop here and give ad man i think he has a last question to ask yes well i just want to thank you first of all both of you so much for sharing all of these this rich analysis and from your long and deep knowledge of, you know, the history of resistance, a Palestinian resistance to Israeli settler colonialism, you've both been alluding to protests, activism that people have been engaged with. We could say perhaps it's been fairly effective that there has been something of a shift here in the second week in terms of some of the rhetoric and cover that Western governments, you know, are maybe having some qualms about providing. And, you know, we know that, you know, it's not clear, actually,

whether Israel is really prepared for a ground invasion, you know, of Gaza or not. So I think really the question for us now, and since you both have a lot of experience as activists as well as scholars, is what directions should act, you know, do you expect activism to take? What do you recommend? What would you urge people who are interested? We have a, you know, pretty active, left-oriented audience. And what would you recommend to them to be engaged in right now? What kinds of demands should, they'd be making? What's the direction to take activism now at this stage? You know, I think, you know, since the day it happened, I think most of us who've been activists know where this was heading, you know, since October 7th, the horror we felt of loss of life and, you know, the kidnapping of Israeli civilians was always coupled with the knowledge. One, that there was a context to this, that it could have been foreseen, and two, that the response to it was going to be so disproportionate and such a violation

of human rights, the likes of which we hadn't seen even up to this point. The horrors we've seen up to this point, we're going to go even further. And so that sense of foreboding that I had, you know, immediately after, and I think everyone who, you know, had some knowledge of the way that Israel deals with the Palestinians, deals with the Palestinians, and represses them, was clear that this was going to happen, that the U.S. was going to give them cover. The U.S. in this regard, has given them more cover than ever before, sending an aircraft carrier to the region. Apparently, they've already shot down several, so they've already intervened in Hussi activity in Yemen, Of course, no one is even mentioning that, and I haven't heard any place,

1,500 Hamas fighters were killed as well, whether they were, you know, they were held as prisoners of war, whether they were shot on the spot. So an equal number of combatants were also killed that, again, on October 7th or 8th. You don't know what happened, and there's no more mention of them. But what's going on now should be the cause. for a sort of general mobilization. And the question is how to get people to understand not only the stakes for the Palestinian people,

for the Israelis and Israelis who want peace and Israelis who want a future of peace and justice, but for the entire region and potentially the entire world. I mean, this is a fuse that has been lit that we have to address as a global issue. It's happening in Palestine, and Israel, but it is a global issue. It has global repercussions. And it will have very, very long-term consequences in terms of global alignment. So there has to be, you know, old awareness that while we're

addressing things now, and there should be vigils, and there should be mobilization of different sorts in the States. Of course, civil disobedience in the heart of where, you know, funding is coming from and even more funding is coming from, but there should be teach-ins. One of the things I really sort of disillusioned me with Middle East Studies Association is that they don't. When these things happen, they don't, they have a huge membership list of people who are very well educated, who teach all the time, and they should be called up immediately to participate in forums, to go to the local library, just even if they want to put a soapbox. We didn't do that in 2003.

I mean, 2003 changed the world, 2001 changed the world, and we had this cadre of educated people who could have been out there talking, writing, educating. And this is a state of emergency. And that has to be said like that. In 2003, as we were gearing up for the war in Iraq, was a state of emergency. And the academic organizations had obligations

as public intellectuals. Their education was funded, by people, in the case in the United States are funded by the world, but also by the people of the United States, they have an obligation to educate beyond the universe and to provide and share these resources. So I think there are ways in which there are networks that have yet to be tapped into. And I'll rest there and see who I defer to Rabab, who's much more full-time activists than I am. Thank you. I know. We are. We both are. So I think I agree with what everything Ariel said.

I'm going to add that the immediate demand now should be ceasefire. Right. And enabling the humanitarian supplies, medicine, fuel, water to enter because you know the Israeli Minister of War. They call it defense, but Minister of War said we're going to cut off, and they did. The water, they said the supplies, the food, everything. So that needs to come in, ASAP, into Gaza. immediate ceasefire. So that's the first thing that needs to happen.

Secondly, the second thing is to demand ending the blockade immediately, lift the blockade immediately of Gaza, enough of this open-air prison, enough of killing, of suffocating people, and strangulating them on every single aspect. Thirdly, of course, supporting in general Palestinian liberation and the right of Palestinian to justice in Fort Palestine. I think this is the time also to hold Israel accountable, participating in more BDS, Boycott Divisement and Sanctions,

engaging everybody. This is what people outside can do. Aside from maybe donating a little bit to World Health Organization or Medical Aid for Palestine, or this is what people can do. It's actually bringing pressure who have all this real estate accountable. They will always have World War criminals accountable. Everywhere, the Nuremberg trials,

everything, every time. you hold people accountable. I do want to say, and with the U.S. also, this is something that, you know, Ariel, you pointed out to the U.S. carriers. This is the, that happened also in 1970, when the Jordanian regime rule was going to fall apart due to the reasons by the Jordanian movement and the Palestinians, the U.S. moved the Sixth Fleet, and there was a command room by Nixon and Kissinger being held at that time, the same way that Biden went to the command room of the Israelis, and then,

Bill Lincoln and Netanyahu had to go in a bunker while they were meeting because of the missiles that coming in. So I think it's really, really important to do BDS. Definitely very important to do teaching Palestine, support the classrooms that are going, support the people who are being punished for speaking up, we're organizing, have their backs, so we can actually also deter the new wave of new McCarthyism and not enable ourselves to, be silenced or our colleagues to be silenced and I definitely concur with Ariel that all academic associations that have all resources that have so many members at their at their fingertips and so on they really need to mobilize because this is our job is producing knowledge this is our job

we need to be doing that more and more and more we need to be we need to be there enlisted to actually provide educate the public educate our communities educate our students our colleagues in order for us to be able to lift this wall of fear, this feeling environment, where people are getting punished for speaking up, for educating, for teaching about Palestine. I think these are the things that we can all do. And it's not, it's very easy to do. It doesn't take too much to do. I think this is, and this is the time. We're called upon. There is an emergency. There is a genocide. It's going on. People need to stand up and be counted. If you are not with justice, there is no neutral bystander.

then you are complicit in injustice and advancing war against the Palestinians. And I believe most people are going to stand with justice because we already said that the tide is turning. And so this is what we really need to do to escalate what we are doing. So we can prevent more deaths, more lives getting lost, and we can bring justice and peace sooner to Palestinians and to all people of the region and everywhere. Great note to end on. Again, our guest's listeners were Professor Rabab,

Abdul Hadi, founding director and senior scholar of Arab and Muslim ethnicities and diaspora studies program at San Francisco State University and Professor Ariel Sultzman, historian at Queen's University, specializing in Islamic and world history. Thank you very much, professors. As we close out, I'll ask each of you if there's any resources that you would like to direct the listeners to check out for more information, either on your work or where you would recommend them to look if they want more information on the ongoing situation. in Gaza. So why not Professor Salzman first? Is there anywhere that you want to direct the listeners?

Yeah, I would direct everybody to look at Jeddalia, which is a easing. And they have, they're having, or it was today, I think it started at 1 o'clock, ET Eastern Standard Time, they were having a teaching with a lot of people involved, and they will have resources on their website. That's what I would direct people to look at. will be going into greater detail than we've been able to do. I will direct people to, first of all, our own website, Ahmed Studies. We have it at the, we have a Facebook page, we have Instagram, and we have Twitter account, and we actually produce multiple. So now we are in the process of producing videos of events that we had people from Gaza speak,

students, faculty, organizers, so on. We would direct people also to teaching Palestine, pedagogical practice. and then the visibility of justice, which is a project that we are involved in. Also, we are on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter X. But also, I would just say there are multiple other efforts that are going on. So the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism came out with a very strong statement. There is statements of, it's all based on the court by Palestinian professors and the staff at Berset University. They came out with a very strong statement because they are speaking up,

Because the Gaza's universities cannot. They're under bombardment. The students and the faculty and the staff are under bombardment. So Birzet is rising and actually doing this, calling on people to respond. So there are statements by multiple people that has come on California scholars for academic freedom. Jewish Voice for Peace has been doing an amazing, amazing job. Every single big organization has done that. And there are already people who would like to sign statements.

in support of unions, in support of ethnic studies. There is in New York, New York, Uni for Palestine. In the West Coast, we have California scholars for academic freedom. There are many, many ways that people can, and we can give you all the links in order to share them with your listeners. So many people can participate, contribute, and also give links for donations as well in order to bring humanitarian supplies together. Terrific.

Adnan, how can the listeners find you, and your other podcasts. You can find me on Twitter at Adnan-A-Husain, H-U-S-A-I-N, and eventually we will put out another episode of the Mudge list. This would be a perfect one to be putting, you know, maybe we should be putting this one out also on the M-G-L-L-L-L-S. I don't know, something we can talk about, but eventually we will have new episodes. So check out the M-A-J-L-S, which is a podcast of the Muslim's. Society's Global Perspectives Project at Queen's University. Excellent. Of course, highly recommend that. And sure, I'd not. Why not? Put this out there as well.

Brett, how can the listeners find you in your two other excellent podcasts? First, thank you both so much for coming on. I really, really deeply appreciate your wisdom, your knowledge, your compassion, your analysis. It's wonderful. It's indispensable. Thank you. As for me, you can find everything I do at Revolutionary Left Radio.com. And, of course, I highly recommend the listeners do that. As for me, listeners, you can find me on Twitter at Huck 1995, H-U-C-K-1-995. You can pick up Stalin History and Critique of a Black Legend, which was co-translated by myself and Salvatore Angledi Morrow from Iskraubuks.org.

You can get a paperback hardcover or the PDF is freely available, so just download it for free if you want the digital copy. As for the show, you can help support us, keep us on the air, so to speak, and allow us to create more content like this by going, to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. And you can keep up to date with the three hosts individually as well as what the show is up to collectively on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod.

That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A underscore pod. And until next time, listeners, Solidarity. I'm going to be able to be. Thank you.