It Could Happen Here - CZM Rewind: Discussing Palestine and Israel w/ Deevee Kashi

Episode Date: December 27, 2023

Shereen is joined by Israeli-American Deevee Kashi as he shares his perspective about the ongoing violence in Palestine and Israel, his experience as an anti-zionist, and why he believes that supporting Palestinian liberation is necessary. Follow Deevee: https://www.instagram.com/deeveekashi  Gaza Awareness Instagram post from @sbeih.jpg (includes list of places to donate to): https://www.instagram.com/p/CySCPAprJ9M/?igshid=NzZhOTFlYzFmZQ%3D%3D&img_index=1  Instagram post with accounts to follow: https://www.instagram.com/p/CygYxxsRl6O/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Cool Zone Media. Hello. You are about to listen to a Rewind episode. And it's not that much of a Rewind. It's pretty recent as far as history goes, but I just really love this episode. I'm really

proud of it. I'm really grateful to have met our guest, Dahab Kashi. He just has insight that I think a lot of people need to hear, especially as a Israeli American right now. And yeah, I just find his voice very valuable and it's worth a re-listen. So here it is. Hello, everybody. Welcome to It Could Happen Here. This is Shireen, and I am so happy to be joined by my guest today. I've been so excited to speak to him. I am joined by D.V. Kashi. He is a pro-Palestinian activist from New York and Israel, and there's just a lot of stuff I want to talk to you about. So welcome. Pleasure to be here. Great to meet you, Shireen. I want to start with just some background for the audience to just like kind of get to know

where the perspective you're speaking from. Can you tell me a little bit about your family history and where you grew up and where your parents are from and all of that? Sure. My parents were both born in Israel. And they, like many Israelis, moved to New York City in the 80s and had myself and my two siblings. And as my grandparents were getting older, to whom we were very close, my mom decided to move back to Tel Aviv in 2000, so right before the Second Intifada. So when I was 13, eighth grade, I moved to Tel Aviv for the first time. Obviously, I was very familiar with it. I'd visit every summer and grew up in our grandparents' house,

And, you know, grew up in our grandparents' house, both of whom were Iraqi Jews who immigrated to Israel in the early 50s. And so, yeah, so when I moved there in eighth grade, I was completely pretty much a shock in terms of what I was used to in New York. Obviously, I had friends from many different walks of life, many different backgrounds here. I was very used to that, right? I didn't grow up in, you know, a very staunch Jewish community. I had Jewish friends, but I didn't solely have Jewish friends. And so that's what I loved. That's what I embraced. But when I moved to Israel, it was very jarring. I'd studied in Hebrew for the first time. And everything that we studied in school was pertaining to the Jewish identity.

kind of history class, you know, you'd study about the Roman Empire and the Jewish people, you'd study about, you know, ancient Greece and the Jewish people, and it's okay to learn about Jewish identity, but intertwining it with every aspect of the school curriculum, and really thinking about the persecutor, really kind of hammering home this notion of persecution, really kind of understanding how, you know, and again, I think it's important to understand your history and history in general. But I think that kind of introducing this notion of persecution as a tactic to re-traumatize people that aren't directly experiencing the trauma, right? So everyone in the world learns about the Holocaust, but did you know that in Israel, Holocaust Remembrance

Day isn't on the same day as the rest of the world's Holocaust Remembrance Day, because they want to own their own kind of version of the Holocaust Remembrance Day, right? And so, you know, when you think about the Holocaust, you think about other Holocaust, other genocides that have happened, and Israel's failure to recognize those genocides, like the Armenian genocide, right? And the fact that, you know, many people don't know, but, you know, throughout history, Israel has armed genocidal forces with israeli-made weapons uh to you know support imperialist uh motives and colonialist uh powers around the world so you know even even now with uh what's happening uh in armenia with the azerbaijanis right israel is on the wrong side of that uh equation right and so it's never been about uh standing with the side of the oppressed for israel it's never been about standing with the side of the oppressed for Israel. It's never been about, you know, ensuring that what happens when they say never again, actually never again, never happens again to anyone around the world. Right. Think about their policies, their racist policies around refugees, right? I think people don't understand, right?

I've, I have a very unique perspective, because I understand kind of the, the minds of the colonizers, I can humanize the colonizers, I think there's a dangerous kind of maybe thinking about things from a bit of a different angle than kind of people are used to. And also bringing it back to the events of the last 10 days or 11 days at this point. I think, you know, I've always kind of looked at and identified with the Palestinian struggle, right? And I've always seen it as a human rights struggle, right? And, you know, as such, and as many well regarded activists and thinkers and intellectuals have always talked about the unification of all the struggles of the oppressed. And that's always always arrived at the identification with this struggle for the

Palestinian people. I've also felt, you know, by virtue of this self, this imposed identity of, you know, Israeli, I've always felt directly responsible for the oppression of the Palestinian people, even though I've never done anything myself to champion or perpetuate that oppression. I've always worked against it from a very, very young age. Now, people always ask me, you know, kind of annoying questions like, you know, why do you care so much about the Palestinians when so many people in the world are suffering? And the answer to that question is I care about all suffering. But this is something that the government that supposedly represents me, the entity that supposedly represents me, is directly perpetrating. And frankly, after going to many protests in New York and in Israel itself, I've realized that this is the most important human rights struggle of our generation, for sure, but of modern times, because it stands for all of, it's essentially the

last beacon of direct colonialism, right? We all know how kind of neocolonialism works. I mean, maybe we do, maybe we don't, but neocolonialism through, you know, different capitalist structures, different capitalist structures, right? America has been able to perpetrate neocolonialism without actually having to occupy other people, you know, save for Iraq for almost 20 years, but 15 years or whatever it was a very long time. But Israel is directly and physically occupying other people. and they have been for the last 75 years, right, officially for the last 75 years. And that's been a constant, right?

It's not, hey, you know, here's a country and let's, you know, fight, let's continue our kind of battle in that way. you know, fight, let's continue our kind of battle in that way. It's been, it's always been, if you're a scholar of Israeli history, of Zionist history, you always, you start understanding that the goal was to take over all of Judea and Samaria, right? And that's kind of how the government that Netanyahu has in power has been speaking for years, right? I'm really upset and really kind of frustrated by the way that the Western media has been portraying what's happening over the last 11 days. Because even Israeli media, Haaretz, which is an Israeli newspaper, which is a very prominent one, right, isn't portraying it the way that the Western media is portraying it, right? They're criticizing the Netanyahu. There's so many people in Israel that are scared, right?

All the leftists are scared. They're being persecuted. There's signal groups doxing friends of mine, people literally fighting for human rights. They're doxing them. Israel Frey, he's an orthodox reporter that's been staunchly pro-Palestinian, and he's a very prominent member of the press. An angry mob of right-wing extremists tried to knock down his door the other day, and he had to escape from the back door and run away so they don't, you know, potentially kill him, right? And so these voices are being silenced in Israel. No one is talking about that. Everyone in the West is beating the drums of war. The media is supporting that. We've seen on kind of a micro but tragic level what happened to that six-year-old kid that was stabbed to death by someone just because of the anti-Islamic, anti-Palestinian rhetoric

that's being perpetrated. And so everyone's kind of losing their shit as all of a sudden everyone's saying the same thing because everyone is being pushed to justify this war. But people are starting to wake up, right? The UN's woken up and very, very slowly people are starting to wake up because they're seeing that genocide is actually being committed. And so you can't throw your full weight behind genocide, but they're walking it back too slowly. And the people that I'm disappointed by are people that are supposedly smart, spewing complete nonsense rhetoric about two sides, right? I struggled, right? This is important.

I struggled. I know people who were killed in the Hamas attack, personally and intimately know them, right? You know, my ex-girlfriend's best friend was killed, right? We've hung out many, many, many times. She was a very sweet, very kind person. Because people don't understand. And this is for a lot of the kind of pro-Palestinians that have, and I completely empathize and I understand why people believe what they believe, believe me. But this is for a lot of the pro-Palestinians that, you know, immediately called all of them settlers, right? And I think it's important to distinguish because if there's ever going to be a path forward in this mess, we have to offer a new rhetoric that deconstructs the nationalist

ideologies, okay? I don't put the Palestinian flag or say free Palestine, which I do, as a nationalist ideology. I say that as a deconstruction of nationalism, as a call to freedom for all, right? The oppressed as well as the oppressor, right? If you actually read, everyone's quoting Fanon, right? Everyone's quoting all these revolutionaries. If you actually read the material that they said, Che Guevara even said, the true revolutionary is guided with deep feelings of love in their heart. And he said this at the risk of sounding uh sounding absurd he said that direct quote the people perpetuating

in israel i can say this from a first-hand account i know very good people that are guided by nationalist and fascist ideologies however they've been manipulated they've been manipulated. They've been lied to. They're fed propaganda 24-7 through the news. And the sentiment in Israel right now, and I can tell you this, I'm getting messages from people. They think everyone is trying to kill Jews. That's what they believe. That's what they've been told. They think this is Armageddon for the Jewish people. That's what the media narrative is in Israel. Okay. In spite of the fact that there are many people that are against what's happening. There are many people that directly blame Netanyahu for this, but they're being scared to believe that they're going to be attacked on all fronts and they have to do everything they can

to neutralize the threats. Okay? That is the survival, that is a fact. Does that mean that every single person in Israel is a terrible human being, is evil, as some people say? No, that is not true at all. Right? And my point is, and what a lot of the revolutionaries said,

right, Paulo Freire, in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, said, in the process of dehumanization, the oppressor dehumanizes himself. Putting that aside, though, I think that, you know, for me, I see, I know people that died. It was very difficult for me to post in the first two days. I think there were some problematic justifications for the massacre that didn't sit well with me, because I'm a humanist. But in the same token, I think that I understand the context. I think it behooves us to understand the context. There's a really

famous quote, I forget who said it, but if you started the clock or started looking at the colonization in America from when the Native Americans started shooting the arrows, you'd think that the Native Americans were the aggressors, right? If you started looking at, you know, the colonization of Algeria, when the local population started rebelling, you'd think that they were the aggressives right yeah and that's not to say in the same breath that terrible things happen to amazing people there right what people don't know and a lot of the pro-palestinian movement doesn't know is that many of the people living in the area around gaza are actually activists like very anti-zionist activists, right? Many of the testimonies of the families of those activists

are saying to stop the genocide. That's not going to bring back their friends, their family members. Those are the people that were, a lot of whom were killed in the attacks because that's where they live. They work with, you know, organizations in Gaza. Like, acknowledge that, right? Understand the complexity. Saying, hey, you guys are all settlers.

That's just dumb. It's not factually true. Their grandparents were, their great grandparents were 100%. But now they're generations and generations of people, right? Just like in America, they're generations and generations

of people that descended. Are they to be held accountable for the actions of their ancestors? It doesn't make any sense. They should be held accountable for actions that they take now, for sure, right? Holding your government accountable, you know, thinking about an actual solution to this terrible situation, that 100% people should be held accountable for but to call them settlers as a justification for their deaths is something that i will never do right and i don't think it helps the struggle right i think it's important to say and then simultaneously also say did you guys know that israel played a very major role in establishing the Hamas. Like, don't be stupid. Open a history book.

See what happened, right? Understand. Don't just be quick to call and quick to say both sides. It's not a both-side situation, even though the aggression was terrible. Those two things can be true. It's a devastating, tragic event, right? And I know many great people that were killed in it.

But in the same breath, we have to remember what caused it. Yeah, context is everything, right? Context is everything. Israel funded the Hamas. Bibi has direct quotes in Israeli newspapers saying we have to fund the Hamas in order for Palestinians never to have a state. He directly said that. How do you guys ignore these statements? They've been very, Bibi has been very clear as to what is going to happen and what he's trying to accomplish.

And then on top of that, to compound things, the settlers in his government right now, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are two settlers. They literally are settlers. Like in accordance with the national law, they're considered settlers, okay? Illegal settlers. They literally are settlers. Like in accordance with the national law, they're considered settlers. Okay. Illegal settlers. And they're the second and third most powerful people in Israel. Okay. I don't think people understand or know, but those two guys, there's a, there's a famous rabbi. Okay. In Jerusalem, he's an extremist, fundamentalist rabbi, Jewish fundamentalist rabbi.

What he's been calling for, for a long time, Kahana Tzedak is, Kahana was right. He was a very fascist rabbi that was basically calling for the extermination of all Arabs. And they're basically, they're called kahanistim. And that's, it's basically what the left in Israel used to call this government, Memshalash al-Kahan government, means government of kahanists. Okay. That is what, that's who's running the country. And this rabbi has been calling for in a biblical sense.

And we all know when people have an utmost, you know, devotion to religion, that guides them, right? Not our world. Our world does not guide them. The religious texts and the religious leaders are the ones who tell them what is right and what is wrong, right? In religious fundamentalism. And so what this rabbi has been calling for, for years, has been a war to end all wars. Okay? That is what he's been telling them. That is what they've been operating under. Okay? Their allegiances are to him not to the israeli people like literally to that ideology and so they're in the government right now over the last year they've been essentially uh uh

adding uh illegal settlements at a rapid rate, emboldening and empowering settlers to commit violence that we haven't seen in many, many years. Levels of violence we haven't seen in many, many years, even before this latest aggression. I'm talking about over the last 12 months. And the biggest, most annoying thing

that I hear from Westerners that think they understand, right? They're like, oh yeah, we really care about Palestinians, but Hamas has to go. Two things to that. One, the fact that there are Palestinians on the West Bank and the Palestinians in Gaza doesn't mean they're not the same people. There are Palestinians in 48 as well. They feel deep feelings of solidarity because they're all oppressed in different ways. Solidarity under this grand Zionist oppression that they experience. And so I think that it's a fallacy that it was an unprovoked attack. Yeah. It's a fallacy, right?

It's not the case. The fact that Al-Aqsa kept getting bombarded by settlers on purpose, on purpose. I don't put it back. Like they did this to get a provocation. They've been provoking to get the retaliation for Hamas. They've been doing this for years. This is nothing new, right? Every time Hamas shot rockets over the last five years, it was because Israel was attacking Al-Aqsa, right? Right after Ramadan, if you remember, or during Ramadan, sorry.

And so every time a barrage of rockets came in right after that, barrage of rockets, because Hamas wanted to show that someone is sticking up for them. But I'm just saying, you have to understand the context. When you're in a blockade, when you're living in a concentration camp, worse than a concentration camp, frankly, right? Electricity is controlled. Water is controlled. Food is controlled. You're not able to leave, right? You're not able to freaking leave when you want. You're not able to come when you want. You're not able to, a 60 kilometer strip of land is the most densely populated strip of land in

the entire world. Depression is the highest, the the entire world depression is the highest the highest rates of depression i think the highest rates of child suicide are in gaza okay when you're living under those conditions i have no idea how you're like i don't i have no idea what that would feel like so how can i judge anyone any response to that right the same breath, I can also say it's a tragic thing that innocent people died, and they're innocent people. And I think it's important to hold that complexity. Also for the Palestinian cause, I think it's important to not lose sight of our humanity in criticizing the grave injustices that Israel has committed and putting the blame squarely on Israel's shoulders that Hamas exists. Yeah, I think that's something that I keep coming back to is whenever someone is just all about condemning Hamas, which is like, yes, as you mentioned, innocent people shouldn't have died.

But I blame all the violence that's happening in Israel on Israel. Like it's not you. Yeah. You can't just start like at a slave revolt as the beginning of history of slavery. It's like, no, actually they did that for a reason and they had no other choice. And I mean,

for Palestinians, I think like what's the biggest context that's missing is like, they've tried everything. It's not their first choice to to kill people that didn't deserve it it's i think i think that's what's been really annoying with the the people that have chosen to speak to speak out that have never spoken out before they are so narrow in their view of this that it's so damaging because they have so many followers or they're talking about the wrong things and all of those things like kind of perpetuate a really dangerous

environment where like a six-year-old kid can get stabbed to death or i don't know i agree with everything you said and i really appreciate you saying all those things. Before I forget, we're going to take our first break. So don't go anywhere. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires.

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as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Something you mentioned early on that I have been thinking about and getting really angry about is why people are surprised or like unexpecting you to speak out about Palestinians if you are not a Palestinian. I am not a Palestinian. I'm Syrian. And I am extremely vocal about the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian, I've always been.

100% free Palestine till I die. And it's almost like surprising to people. Like, why are you so worked up? Like, why aren't you so worked up? That's what really gets me is your humanity and care. It shouldn't be contingent on your identity. If you actually give a shit. Um,

and I think that's what I really want to like relate to people is this is not the Palestinians struggle solely for themselves. Like this is a struggle for all. Like if this genocide obliterates the Palestinian people, that's on humanity's shoulders. That's not, that is so indicative of how depraved humans have become. It's just so upsetting. It's just a complete obliteration. There has been videos of settlers saying they want to flatten the whole thing, make it a parking lot uh i mean

i don't even have to tell you what like actual media and like politicians have been saying because it's like atrocious but i think that's what i want to relay to people is like if you're not if you don't care examine that because that is troubling to me if you don't care about actual genocide and maybe that word has been used too much to like make people give a shit. But it really makes me question people's humanity when they are able to kind of just like shrug it off and continue about their day. I've been practicing being hopeful. I think it's really important, especially in times like these, to be hopeful. Because without hope, and it sounds cheesy, but it's true, we're not empowered, right?

We're not able to act. And I think what's exciting, what's, I guess, heartening to me is actually the people's response to what's happening. is actually the people's response to what's happening. Yes, there are many influencers and celebrities that posted the wrong thing. I'm also seeing many that posted the right thing. I'm also seeing many people that I'm surprised by. I'm seeing many people that I wasn't surprised by posting the wrong thing. Yeah, that's true.

That's true. Frankly. posting the wrong thing. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Frankly. But I'm also seeing many people, white people, you know, black people, right? Like people of all kinds that are disconnected, you know, from an identity perspective to the Palestinian people doing so much, showing up.

I went to the, I was, I saw images from the protest the other day. And I'm not talking about the Jewish protest, which was amazing, right? What JVP did with If Not Now in front of Chuck Schumer's house was incredible. That's solidarity. That's real, right? That's humanity, right? That's what humanity should be. That's real, right? That's humanity, right? That's what humanity should be. That's real solidarity.

I'm talking about the protest, though, that was Palestinian-led in Midtown. And I saw tons of Jews there. And I'm not talking about the Satmar anti-Zionist, you know, Hasidic Jews. Those are great, right? And they're helpful. I'm talking about, like, regular-ass Jews, right? Like me. are great, right? And they're helpful.

I'm talking about regular-ass Jews, right? Like me. Not even wearing yarmulkes, people with small yarmulkes that aren't Hasidic or anything, holding up signs to help liberate the Palestinian people. In spite of the Hamas,

in spite of everything that happened, they showed up, they were not scared. A Palestinian flag doesn't scare them, right? It shouldn't scare anybody. It shouldn't, it shouldn't. But again, I want to be, I want to maintain my, I guess, I want to maintain the view of objectivity.

I think, again, you you know devil's advocate i think when when and again this is not not me blaming right it's more so offering kind of a perspective to to question um how to how to move forward um when people israelis jews whoever right Israelis, Jews, whoever, right, are indoctrinated to believe that Palestine means no place for me. Okay. And then you couple that with the anger, anguish that the oppressed people are feeling and saying, yeah, fuck, fuck that. Like, we don't want you here. Right. Like, you look what you're doing to us.

Look what you're doing to us. I think that they view the Palestinian flag as a replacement of, you know, the flag of Israel, which many people actually kind of, not many people, some people view it that way. And I think that the way I see it and the way many people I know see it, it's a flag that represents liberation from oppression. Liberation of the Palestinian people who are being actively oppressed by Zionism. Right? An ideology. Right? You know, perpetuated and executed by people, but it's still an ideology. Also, just like, because this always comes up, but being anti-Zionist has nothing to

do with being anti-Semitic. And I think they always get conflated. And that's on purpose to make people afraid to speak up about Israel. I can only imagine how brainwashed Zionism becomes to the whole education and everything? Is that something you experience firsthand? Yeah, 100%. I think what we've seen over the last decade,

the fact that Netanyahu has been in power for over 20 years, that's like dictatorship level stuff. And people in America are like, oh yeah the west you know there is a semblance of you know power to the people in the west a semblance of it right we're seeing how much the media is in cahoots with you know power against the people right now which is very

very scary and everyone should be up in arms no matter where your feelings lie. But there is, you know, there's a new president, you know, every four years a president is termed, right? You can't be a president for more than two terms, right? These are real things, right? These are real protections. You have three different branches of government, right? You have local level local government you have so many different checks and balances that are you know corrupted and co-opted in certain ways you know through lobbyists and you know corporate interests etc i'm aware but at least you have that system in israel that system doesn't exist okay there's no constitution uh and a prime minister can't be turned. kind of perpetuate status quo and just kind of be in power. Like this is kind of made it difficult for him to just be the guy who kind of,

you know, makes it, makes everything okay for Israelis, right? Now Israelis are scared shitless. And so, but putting that aside and going back to your point, the Nakba was never even discussed until recent history. Like it was not like no one even knew what that word means. Right. We celebrated it as Yom Ha'atzmaut Independence Day. So the Israeli Independence Day is the Palestinians Nakba, which means the great tragedy for those who don't know.

The catastrophe is what they call it. The catastrophe, yes. And so, but what's interesting and very sad is that in recent years, because of the world, actually, and when Israelis tell you, you don't know what you're talking about, don't comment on things you don't talk about, that you don't know about. don't comment on things you don't talk about, that you don't know about, you most likely, if you've done any, any, literally any, if you read one book on Palestine, if you read On Palestine by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pape, like, you know more than Israelis know about their own situation. And I say that wholeheartedly, because I know what they study, right? They omit large swaths of information in order to form the psyche through the fact that the world's, the new generation of young people have educated themselves on Palestine, you know, catalyzed, a lot of them catalyzed by the social justice movement, right? The Angela Davises, the Chomskys of the world, who always, since the 60s, have been talking about black liberation isn't complete without

the liberation of Palestinians, unifying struggles. They know more about history of Israel and Palestine than Israelis do. Okay. I've always been super impressed, not like, not to say that people are dumb. I actually think people are very smart, right? If they're willing to look. But every Palestinian friend of mine, every single one knows so much about Zionism and Zionist history. They're scholars of Zionist history. But Israelis have no idea about Palestinians and Palestinian history. I think it's really unsettling because, for those who don't know, the catastrophe was the mass expulsion of like 750 000 palestinians ethnic cleansing massacres extreme like just a disgusting show of uh forcing someone to leave their land and

taking it over uh it was uh atrocious and her and i i think the fact that they can't even learn about power or like learn deeply about palestine or Palestine or Palestinians, it's like another way of ethnic cleansing and forgetting they even exist. And I think that's very unsettling because you can't just forget. I mean, at the same time, they say history is written by the people that are in power, right?

Or the people that win the war, quote unquote. And they're very capable of convincing a big amount of people that they were never here. I think being hopeful is a practice. And I've definitely fallen into bouts of depression and hopelessness also. I think we all do. But I think it behooves us to practice hopefulness, especially in times like these. Because without it, we don't have the power

to liberate the oppressed, right? And I think, you know, yeah, I mean, like you said, it's, I think it's also important. I keep saying the Palestinian struggle is the people's movement all over the world. Right. And we're seeing that. It's not me. I'm nobody. But we're seeing that people understand that. Right. Like I said, people are smart. right? You don't have to go to, you know, an Ivy League school to be intelligent, right? Paulo Freire talked about banking intelligence, right? When you just consume information from a teacher perpetuating the injustices and maintaining the system of oppression, right? You can be as educated as you want in that form of education and not understand the world and understand the inequalities around you, right? But if you feel those inequalities, if you have that empathy, if you're able to expand your consciousness a little bit to also include those that you may not identify with or as or, you know, that maybe are not tangible, their experience is not as tangible to you, then you're able to understand situations pretty clearly and easily.

And I think the world is showing up because they understand that, right? Sure, the Arab world is showing up and that's incredible, right? Because they understand, right? This is like what I always say is Palestine is the last kind of, like I said earlier, the last direct colonialist project that exists in the world. Direct, right? In terms of direct and active. How about that? Colonialist project that exists in the world. If you read Edward Said and Orientalism, you understand how the West basically created and othered the Arab world in order to create that separation and division, in order to create a world that serves self-interest, individualism versus kind of communitarianism of the kind of East.

and of the kind of East. And so when you think about it in that context, you start understanding that this is a struggle against kind of Western imperialism, right? This is a struggle to free all oppressed people because that's what Zionism in Israel currently stands for. And everyone who perpetuates it, and people that talk about intersectionality and anti-racism and all of that, and they still say and they still don't understand

that this is literally a real-time manifestation of the shit that they've been reading in history books. And we're seeing it, and it's jarring, and resistance is fucking jarring. It was jarring to me. I could barely watch it. I had people crying. I'd, you know, and this, I didn't say this earlier, but I had, you know, family members that didn't want to speak to me. And like, you know, people cursing at me and like friends from, you know, middle school sending me hate messages. My mom is receiving death threats. death threats. Right? Like, this is real shit, right? And so like, this isn't like an abstract, like, and so, you know, that's what that's what people don't necessarily understand when they just approach it academically. And I, I commend them. And I think it's important to like, understand the intellectual context of things like, I've done the work, I've read the books. But I think it's also important to kind of take a step back and contextualize things all around, right?

And only through that contextualization can we re-humanize, you know, both the oppressed and the oppressor in order to actually have a path forward that's inclusive of all, that doesn't pit people against each other, right? Yeah. Jews lived on that land for many years before Zionism. If you're a scholar- They all lived peacefully, I want to say. Like, everyone lived just fine before the introduction of Zionism, which is a very modern, very fascist ideology. Not only Zionism, though, right?

Think about Sykes-Picot, right? The British French treaty that was signed in 1920, that sliced up the Arab world, according to their whim, didn't take into account any demographic, any ethnic geographic relations, didn't take into account any of that. And that is what set the tone for a lot of what we're seeing in the air world today right compounded by the introduction of a european ideology into this into the region that served european interest is what is what we're seeing to this very day and the palestinians bear the biggest brunt of it right i wouldn't say like i would say like in recent, there's tragedies all around

due to Western imperialism and Western intervention. I take that back. I don't want to compare tragedies. But the tragedy of the Palestinian people, there's no one really advocating on their behalf. I was going to add a wrinkle that probably 99.9% of the population doesn't know, including Palestinians and Arabs, because it was actively erased. But up until Sykes-Picot, up until Western imperialism,

Arab Jews were an integral part of Arabic culture. Okay. My grandparents from Iraq, right? Iraq wasn't, the Iraqi Jews were not Zionists. There were hundreds of thousands of Jews in Iraq that lived there since Babylonian times, right? There are many, you know, many empires that came through the Arab world, right? So displaced, replaced, etc. But they were there for hundreds of years, at the minimum. minimum. Some would say some of them were actually not there due to the Spanish Inquisition, right? But actually were there before and never left, basically. And so, you know, they were musicians, you know, they played umkosum, right? Like they were statesmen, they were very integral part of the culture, right? And I have many Arab friends that do know this, and they're like, yeah, like, it's the biggest, it's the biggest, one of the biggest tragedies is kind of the betrayal right and and the there are many arab friends that do know this and they they're like yeah like it's the biggest it's the biggest one of the biggest tragedies is kind of the betrayal of the arab jew right and they understand right like when at this point in time and this is not

only iraq it was egypt and you know yemen and morocco there's a huge jewish community right like these these people live there their nazism is not an Arabic concept. They're trying to paint Arabs as Nazis. Even growing up, I would go to Syria a lot. And my grandfather would, like, he would only get bread at Jewish bakery. Like, he would take the walk and go there. And it was normal. No one cares.

Like, no one gives a shit, shit really what your religion is in those communities and i think i mean this is obvious for people that are reading about all of this but the media and zionism and israel they're purposely conflating what's happening with religion to make it more complicated for people to make it this like ancient battle of all time when it's not about any kind of Muslim versus Jewish versus Arab versus whatever. It's really so simple to the point where it's kind of silly. And I think they make it so complicated for people to be scared to talk about it. They're not informed enough. They don't know about religion. They don't know about the history. You don't have to know about any of that to know that oppression is wrong and genocide is wrong.

You don't have to know about any of that to know that oppression is wrong and genocide is wrong. 100%. And every resistance movement in history was considered a terrorist movement in modern times, right? Even Israeli militias, right? You had the Lehi, the Etzel, and the Agana. Okay? The Etzel and the Agana, okay? They were considered terrorist organizations because they would attack civilian targets during the British mandate. Yep. Sound familiar? No, I mean, that's very important to bring up.

No, but you know what those three militias became? The IDF. The IDF, exactly. The three militias that formed the IDF once Israel was given statehood were considered terrorist organizations. The IRA, terrorist organization, right? Nelson Mandela was on the U.S. terrorist watch list until 2008. These are real things. These are all facts. But I'm saying even if you're thinking about it from the perspective of attacking civilians, okay, wrong, in my opinion. attacking civilians.

Okay? Wrong, in my opinion. But when you don't have, if you look at, actually, here, another fact, right? Look at what the Hezbollah is doing. Okay?

They were considered a terrorist organization. They're armed to the teeth. Israel's scared shitless of the Hezbollah threat. I'm hearing it from people on the ground, right? They're attacking military targets. They're showing the world

that they can, because they can. They used to They're showing the world that they can, because they can. They used to not be able to. Now they can, so they are. When a population is oppressed, suppressed to the level that the Gazans are, what military, do they have F-16 fighter jets that they can go and bomb, I don't know, the Kirya. Did you guys know that the biggest military base in Israel is in the middle of Tel Aviv? Yeah, in a residential area. In a residential area? Yeah.

So what if the Gazans had F-16 fighter, what if Hamas had F-16 fighters? They wouldn't want to bomb that? Yeah. Like, are people that dense, like that they don't understand how this thing works and what oppression looks like? Right. A lot of my Palestinian friends always say the world wants us to be the perfect victims.

Yeah. And a lot in a lot of senses, the burden is always on the victim. Right. In these oppressive scenarios. So I always tell them, guys, like we have to be smart. We have to make sure that, you know, again i i like it's it's trauma that i can't you know i i feel in my bones but but it's not it's not directly happening to me and and and so i can't i'm not it's not from a place of judgment it's from a pragmatic perspective we have to understand that that's the trap that they're setting for us. The Hamas enacted, the Hamas did exactly what the right wing government wanted them to do in order to justify the plan that they had all along.

I'm not going to go so far as to start perpetuating conspiracy theories because it's not my place. So I'm not going to say that they planned this and it was, you know, an inside job. I'm not going to say that. But what i will say is it served the interests of the right-wing government yeah and and the one thing i wanted to say because i keep going off on tangents and i apologize no you're fine but to your point about the nakba i said in the last 10 years it's pretty crazy to see the narrative shift. Israel has been so emboldened. They feel so invincible because of the international support that they have. Now they acknowledge the Nakba.

Now they acknowledge the Nakba. But you know how they acknowledge it? They say, yeah, the Nakba happened. Let's do a second one. Yep. Right? And so now all of a sudden the Nakba existed, right? And they're basically saying, hey, let's do a all the like all the right-wing government uh uh government officials

are saying the second nakba let's do it now let's let's that's what they're trying to do yeah i mean they're trying to do in gaza it feels like the first one never ended it feels like the first one just never ended right that i always i always say that i agree yeah but i'm saying like i'm talking about mass expulsion right now. They're trying to, they're trying under international, under everyone's noses to utilize genocide and ethnic cleansing to displace millions of Palestinians from Gaza. And God knows, I don't,

they don't have a, they don't, this was like a biblical idea, right? Like the Judean Samaria. This is not like a, there was no like specific plans that people had. Like this is a biblical, fervent, ideological idea.

They don't freaking know what they're doing. They don't want to go to war with Iran. They're scared of the Hezbollah. Like these are real things. These are real threats. Like Israel hasn't fought a real opponent since the 70s in the Yom Kippur War. That's what I'm trying to say. This showed how vulnerable they are.

And they're scared. I'm telling you, I know the sentiment on the ground. People are scared out of their minds. They don't think, they're not very confident in Israel's military, right? That's why they're bombing the shit. That's why they haven't invaded. They said they're going to invade. Bibi's talking this big game they haven't done yet.

Because they're scared. I think something to remember also is that the IDF does not actually act in the best interest of the civilians. If anything, there was a report from an Israeli woman who survived the massacre at the music festival that said

a lot of them were shot by their own forces. It was indiscriminate shooting. The biggest casualties for Israeli soldiers up until this was friendly fire. Yeah. I mean, I just think that's so important to remember because they're framed as this very ideal warrior bullshit. And it's so far from the truth. That's what I'm saying.

They're 18 year old kids yeah these aren't like u.s like marines that are career assassins like have you ever seen a u.s marine next to an israeli soldier no i'm serious like like i know it's become a trend to be a soldier if anything it's like very like you see these like young people almost like yeah exactly it's like a very um cool thing to do uh because there was never a threat though israel israel has been you've grown up in israel believing that you're the most powerful entity and you can do whatever you want whenever you want right and and that notion has been shaken to its core and if you're part of the propaganda machine, if you're caught in the propaganda machine,

that is kind of Zionist Israeli ideology. You're basically now your whole world is crumbled beneath you, right? You're completely in survival mode. Everyone's posting. Everyone's like, you have to eradicate Hamas. They're not even eradicating Hamas.

What are they doing? They're just emboldening Hamas. Like this happens all the time. It's just happening on a much bigger scale right now. Every, like any Hamas leader that they, I was basically looking for like a big, like a major Hamas leadership, you know, attack. And, and once they're able to neutralize, you know, in their words, numerous high ranking officials, I think they'll declare victory, even though they, they, they're not going to be victorious. They're not going to bring back the 1400 people. I mean, they're also going to kill victorious. They're not going to bring back the 1,400 people that were killed.

I mean, they're also going to kill the hostages at this rate. You know what I mean? They've already killed more than 22. How much do you actually care about your civilians and the foreign hostages either? I don't know. They're just clearly showing their ass, in my opinion. I want to have a clear message, though, to people that are on the fence in the West that are being fed propaganda through Western media outlets that is quite clear at this point. And some of them recognize this, and that's why they come to my page and they're like, oh, thank you, I didn't know, I didn't know.

Like, oh, you know, thank you. I didn't know. I didn't know. In Israel, there are many people, not even ideologically, that want to bring the hostages back and don't understand why Israel is doing what it's doing before and not even talking to them about the hostages. Yeah, I've seen videos of them pleading, being like, please, just, yeah. I'm not talking about left-wing activists. I talking about like average israelis right netanyahu has failed the israeli people that attack the fact that and again this i don't know if people know this right people who know know but maybe some some don't that attack was a complete military failure on behalf of Israel. And that happened because over the last six to nine months,

since the right-wing government took place, took power, they've been using the IDF to support, empower, embolden, and protect settlers in the West Bank. And that's why settler attacks have increased. That's why settlements have increased. That's why there are more settlers than ever before. And what they were doing on that very day, people don't already know, I hope they do,

but if they don't already know, the IDF was in the West Bank on Sukkot, which is a Jewish holiday, and they were protecting settlers in building a sukkah, that structure that people sit in, in the middle of Hawara, a Palestinian

village, and they were protecting them and chaperoning them so that they can break into a Palestinian village to build a sukkah in order to antagonize Palestinians. Say what you may about anything else, the fact that that is the priority of the government. You know, you're doing the oppression, you're already committing the oppression,

you're already subjugating the Palestinian people. You know that Hamas is Hamas. You're going to remove security forces from the border to embolden and empower settlers instead. Yeah, it's shameful. It doesn't make any sense. No, it's, I mean, that's why the most unsettling things I've seen coming out of Israel are those right-wing protests where they're like, death to Arabs and whatever, or like they're attacking people and the IDF is like either helping them or standing by.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. Bye. search, better offline as your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com.

Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian.

Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom.

At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Parenti. And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden.

We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Toot, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year, you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%.

I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're on the fence about this still, you are literally for genocide. Those are the two differences. It's either you're for genocide or you're against genocide. And if you're considering the options, examine yourself. that's not right

i was just sent this tweet apparently yesterday uh the twitter for israeli prime minister at israel pm said this is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness between humanity and the law of the jungle. Are you fucking kidding me? That's like Nazi Hitler shit. Are you? There are so many lives that have already been lost. And the ones that have not been lost are never going to recover. They've lost so much other than their life.

There are so many terrifying and horrific videos that I've seen. That no one should have to go through. And not only are they going through it, they're getting funded and encouraged by most of the world. I cannot accept that. Sorry, I don't want to cry, but I might. I mean, that's where we're at at this point. No, but I appreciate you being here

to get through to people who might still be considering what's happening as a both sides thing or a justification for anything. barbarians or whatever it is, I urge you, I urge you to seek out Palestinian sources of news, actually see what's happening in Gaza. Listen to people who are not advertising anything to you and it's like pleading for their lives. I just, this can't be

how we end up as a people. It's very, very sad. It's extremely I just, this can't be how we end up as a people. It's very, very sad. It's extremely, like, no words to describe how devastating. And I think if you are listening and you are wondering what to do, there are places you can donate to. I can put some links in the description of sources that I trust, of people to follow and all that stuff. So you can look at the description for that um i think what's very important that people maybe aren't taking too seriously is how important social media and like spreading awareness has been because the only reason

the resistance has come this far is because of that because more people are aware about what's going on and people aren't accepting accepting that Israel is doing this. So I think we just can't stop. As much as they want the world to forget that Palestinians were even there, we cannot forget Palestinians. And I'm not going to stop talking about it. And you shouldn't either. This is why I'm speaking out.

I just got a message from Palestinian friends. You are our voice now. We're not allowed to spit out a lip. They are arresting anyone who speaks or shares the truth. Please, I beg you, don't give up on our people in Gaza. We need your voice to stop the genocide. Thousands of lives have already been taken. We can't stand this anymore. Please listen to that, everybody. Please. It's very hard to fathom and internalize

what's happening. Yeah, it's a lot. And we're privileged enough to think about it that deeply. People in Gaza, Palestinians, they don't have the luxury of anything other than their nightmare of a reality. No.

I want to add, Shireen, just because I think that the biggest kind of pushback that we keep hearing is Hamas this, Hamas that. Yes, please. Again, remembering what we kind of mentioned earlier in the call, how liberation movements for occupied peoples have always been deemed terrorist organizations and, you know, even targeted civilians, right? So not only like by the definition of terrorist organizations are terrorist organizations. So even if that's what we believe, and let's just say that that's, you know, we accept and agree that that's what Hamas is. I think it's important to understand that terrorist organizations have become political organizations time and time again. And I think that it's also important to understand, historically, the Hamas as an entity, again, I remind you, was created and partially created and funded by the State of Israel. Emboldened by the State of Israel because, I want to be very clear, up until the 90s, right, Oslo Accords, the peace process, people say, oh, the Palestinians didn't want peace. To your point earlier, the Palestinians were willing to take almost anything at that point.

Arafat, who was considered a terrorist before he became a statesman, right, was on the table with Rabin, had an agreement in place, okay? And then people don't know. If you're not a scholar and you don't know, you should know, Baal Goldstein, an Israeli terrorist, came in to a mosque. I believe it was in Hebron. I don't remember exactly. And he killed more than 30 people during prayer, just indiscriminately shot innocent people in a mosque.

So one of the biggest tragedies, right? And then he was, he was, um, not only did they, the response, you know, uh, Rabin's response to that was,

it was locking down Hebron, the Palestinians in Hebron. So, cause he was fearful of what the Palestinians would do in retaliation. The immediate response by Rabin was locking down the people of Hebron, okay, instead of going and doing something about the settlers that committed the crime, or that emboldened the person committing the crime. That's number one. Number two, that sparked the retaliation, because when people don't have justice, they take justice in their own hand.

So that sparked this series of attacks in Israel, right? Devastating attacks in Israel. But it was that that did that. And it was his, he could have, he could have handled that differently, but he didn't. Right. And, and, and that was what sparked the response. Then in turn, okay, again, who, putting that aside, right? And,

and sorry, little tidbit, his grave, Baal Goldstein's grave is guarded by the IDF as some, and many, many, many consider him a national hero. Yeah, I've seen photos of people like crying at his grave, like it's, he's saved their family or something.

When he's not just, when he literally just like went into a mosque with a gun and shot 30 people who were fucking praying. Yes. And that's what people are idolizing. Exactly. It's rotten to its core is my point. This is what you're supporting when you support the state of Israel. Okay. This is part of what you're supporting. Now, taking a second step, Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish Israeli, not by a Palestinian. Even in spite of everything, the peace process was still going on because they did everything to foil it, right? And then they assassinated the Israeli prime minister. And ever since then, right?

Then you had Ariel Sharon and whatever that tried to continue a peace process in some capacity. But ever since then, for the last 23 years, no one has been talking about a peace process. They blame the Palestinians for every act of resistance. They don't listen. They believe that they talk the way that politicians discuss the Palestinian kind of oppression is managing the occupation.

Okay. Managing the occupation. No one's talking about peace. Not left, left, pseudo left, whatever you want to call it. Not liberal Zionist left or center or right. No one is talking about peace. No one is talking about any semblance of peace. I find it very particular, right?

And this is my, this is why I'm saying we live in the twilight zone. That Donald Trump's four years in office, okay? He had Kushner that, you know, say what all the bad things, right? About his behavior. He was trying to, through normalization deals with the Arab world, trying to get a deal for the Palestinian people, albeit the most absurd sort of deal, if you ever read what the Abraham Accords actually entailed, right? Like weird, like highways and weird, right? Like not a deal that anyone should have accepted.

But putting that aside, he was talking about it. There was discussion. There was Palestinian, like the word Palestinian was being said by the office of the president. In the last four years that Biden was in office, no one said anything. No one did anything to advance peace. No one even brought a bogus deal like Jared Kushner to the table. I don't make it make sense. I don't understand. They basically bought into theionist idea that we can just live continue living while millions of people are being oppressed and occupied this is the democratic party and that's

why we see the media now the way it is because they're they're controlling the media narrative too right so open your eyes see it for what it is, don't let your judgment get clouded by this two-side BS aspect. understanding that this is all because of the aggression of colonialism and specifically the perpetuation of the zionist project as a colonialist nationalist uh ethno state and and that is what i ask of you guys to do right um yeah thank you for that that That's, I think, a great place to end. Thank you again for joining me. You are just, as your Palestinian friends said in that message, your voice is really critical because people will more likely listen to you than to a Palestinian. So I very much thank you for your activism. And I don't know. It's we're not living in a just world.

And so we just have to stick together. I also want to mention the other reason why social media is so important is like one, there's a reason they cut electricity to Gaza. They don't want anything coming out of there. They want them to die in a blackout. And two, they are literally arresting people for following Palestinian accounts now yeah so i mean if that's not totalitarianism like what the fuck is i don't anyway so uh

that's it for today i can't i don't think i can do anymore but again i'll put some sources in the description to donate to to to keep raising awareness. If you have people in your circles that are still hesitant about having a stance on this, like have conversations. It shouldn't be complicated. It really shouldn't be because it's not. And that's all I have. So thanks, everybody.

Thank you for having me. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series,

Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting. Check it out for yourself

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Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture We'll see you next time.